Talk:Croatia

history

The article is basically inundated with historical data to the level of being annoying. All this history spam needs to be made significantly more concise. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:43, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It looks almost as if someone copy-pasted History of Croatia into the article. I don't think the section is actually bad - it is just overly detailed. It should be summarized and trimmed down, and excessive detail should be moved to History of Croatia. Not an easy task though. GregorB (talk) 11:22, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Gregor, that would be in line with WP:SUMMARY and it would add significantly to readability of the article as a whole, while retaining all the information in wikilinked articles. Let's try and define what need be done and I'll pitch in too, esp. with referencing.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:30, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I found it - it was Rjecina (talk · contribs) who started balooning up the history section in February 2009: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. Completely misplaced effort. Soon afterwards, things continue to spiral out of control with more edits like [11] [12] [13] etc.

Will anyone actually mind if I simply revert the History section to the last concise version? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Hm, maybe that's too much. But a reduction to <50% of the current size is necessary. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. I'll try trimming it down a bit myself and see where it gets me. Btw how about outlining some to do list do get this article in shape for a GAN? This is WP:Croatia's most important article after all. Timbouctou (talk) 02:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. I support that and would contribute! I suppose a simple section of this talk page would be sufficient - otherwise a PR is possible. Switzerland or Bulgaria (both GA) could be used as model articles to speed things up...--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

It is astonishing that the history section, albeit being that large in comparison with the size of the article, does not report anything about the place that had the Venetian Empire had in the actual territories of the Croatian Republic. Indeed someone could believe the intent of the contributors is to to make the history of Croatia the most Slavic is possible. Perhaps it should be remembered that Wikipedia is not a tool of nationalism propaganda. --Silvio1973 (talk) 08:05, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you should also... read the article? Republic of Venice in Dalmatia between 1400s and 1800s is clearly mentioned. We can argue about the nuances, but you first have to assume good faith. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. I assume good faith for most of users, not for all the users. I read the article and I did read the articles "Croatia" and "History of Croatia", and the issue is the same. Things are actually written, but putting them in the "due" light, reporting them with the "due" length and enhancing the "due" facts. For example, the two articles report the Venetian presence in Dalmatia as a kind of invasion that took place on already established Croat civilization. The two articles also do not mention any Venetian presence in Dalmatia before 1400's and do not mention any ethnic cleansing to the damage of the italian minority in 1945's-1955's. I could modify the article with sourced facts but I will not try. My modifications would not resist (if the article is what it is, I am sure that other similar contributions have been already removed in the past) and I have no time and will to start an edit war. --Silvio1973 (talk) 10:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I hope no one minds, but I moved the 7th century paragraph down into the history section, and put it in chronologically where the 7th century part seemed to fit. But that paragraph jumps ahead past the Middle Ages, which is the next paragraph, so more work needs to be done on that paragraph. I stopped here, though, with this one edit, since I know you all are working on it, and I wanted to keep my contribution really simple. Entwhiz (talk) 07:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

That paragraph is a part of the lead (per WP:LEAD and is a summary of the main text (or a portion thereof). Therefore all its contents are already present in the main text and there is no need to move it - on the contrary.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Entwhiz your were very right in making this modification. There is a clear reason why some contributors (all of them Croats or of Croatian origins) insist in putting such paragraph in the lead section. The intention is to push as much as possible the concept that since the early Middle Age the Croats have populated the territories that lie within the borders of modern Croatia. Croatian historiography had been trying very hard for the last 100 years push this nationalistic concept, but with limited results. Now with en:wiki (that can be easily controlled with a dozen of well motivated contributors) they have achieved this result. This is regrettable, but I cannot blame them too much because the rest of the community had not the will (and the ability) to correct this project. Things might change (I hope) in the future. However, thank you to have tried.

--Silvio1973 (talk) 13:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Silvio1973 please refrain from trolling and keep in mind that this is not a forum. Timbouctou (talk) 13:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

References

Tomobo03, you are walking on a slippery surface. I can add the link to the website of CPI. No problem. The idea was not to make the page too heavy. Indeed I think you should justify with a source that Croatia contributed with "scientific contributions to the world". And when I mean Croatian as you speak of "nation prides itself" there are two possibilities

• 1. Either we use the name the people born with and we include people like Grisogno or Veranzio (that born in Venetian possessions and on top of that studied in today's Italy).
• 2. You include only all pure Croatian blood people (and this would be not a great idea, honestly).

Again, I think that people like Grisogno or Veranzio are part of the Italian and Croatian history, because the history of Croatia encompasses the history of Venetian possessions in Dalmatia and because the Republic of Venice is one of the pillars of today's Italian history and culture. So there is no reason to change the name of people that now rest in peace (also because trust me the issue of modern nationalism was very very fare from them). In really common sense on this does not prevail, the only solution would be going to uniformity i.e. putting the name used in the relevant en:wiki pages (if they exist). --Silvio1973 (talk) 08:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry Godemir, but the source you report is not eligible. This source includes Nikola Tesla as Croatian, this is undoubtedly POV. He was American of Serbian ethnicity.   

Still there is no doubt that some Croatian contributes to the science, but to put in such enphasis in the incipit of the article I expect something more than just a mere contribution. I am open to discussion about this. --Silvio1973 (talk) 17:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

In that case, if there's no doubt that the claim is non-controversial, no reference is required in the lead per WP:LEADCITE.--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:13, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I start to like this. Tomobe03 there is a distance between "contributing to the science" and "The nation prides itself in its cultural, artistic and scientific contributions to the world". Perhaps the text should be more neutral, then a reference would be not required. --Silvio1973 (talk) 19:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you disputing the "nation prides itself" bit or that the contributions are global? In case of the latter, the claim is backed up by sources in the main body text (see nobel prize winners and Meštrović and the necktie - those are most definitely global contributions and are all sourced). The lead is neutral enough.--Tomobe03 (talk) 19:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You can't be serious in considering the necktie a global contribution to world science. This is not the invetion on Printing or the Radio. I do not consider the invention of Pizza a global contribution to world science and may be it has changed the world more than the necktie. I contest the tone of the sentence, that is by the way the general tone of the entire article. In the article "Italy" it's written: "Through the centuries, Italy has given birth to some notable scientific minds."; In the article "Germany" it's written: "Germany's achievements in sciences have been significant."; In the article "France" it's written: "France has been a center of cultural creation for centuries.". In the three cases IMHO we are face to countries that literally modelled with their contributions what is science today, but the tone used in the relevant articles is by fare milder than "The nation prides itself in its cultural, artistic and scientific contributions to the world.". I know that Croats are proud of their country, but this is just en encyclopedia and it is paramount to have - as much as possible - a material and aseptic approach to facts. Please leave the nationalism for the 8th of October. --Silvio1973 (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The sentence in the article says "The nation prides itself in its cultural, artistic and scientific contributions to the world, as well as in its cuisine, wines and sporting achievements." Necktie is a cultural thing, Meštrović is an artist and nobel prize winners include two in a scientific field (chemistry). French, Italian and German articles are irrelevant to this one. I regret that you are quick to resort to accusations of nationalism, but all of this is sourced.--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, if the Italy article indeed says "notable scientific minds" that ought to be changed per WP:PEACOCK because that's puffery.--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I genuinely don't see where is the puffery is affirming that Leonardo Da Vinci, Enrico Fermi, Galileo Ferraris and Alessandro Volta were notable scintific minds. If you think they were not, but instead the invention of th enecktie is a gobal cultural thing, I start to think I should value less your remarks. Or may be you make confusion between the use of "notably" and "notable". WP:PEACOCK refers to the 1st, not the 2nd. Perhaps you should question the fact that in your country there are people affirming that Nikola Tesla was Croat and that on en:wiki a user tried to use a source claiming this. Don't have any doubt, I always check the references. --Silvio1973 (talk) 22:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

And how exactly does this remark have anything to do with the article at hand? The WP:PEACOCK says what it says.--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

@Silvio: AFAIK Tesla himself said he was proud of his "Croatian homeland", and there's a preserved telegram housed in the Zagreb Technical Museum in which he said so. He was born in Smiljan and if he was alive today he'd be a Croatian citizen. Which part of this is disputed? Timbouctou (talk) 22:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Besides if there is a reliable and published source for any claim - it may be used whatever country one comes from.--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

As a further side note on this Tesla-issue which keeps popping up once in a while: It's of course true that Tesla's birthplace was, at the time of his birth, a part of the Croatian Military Frontier and Austria-Hungary and he was a Serb, but it still does not disqualify him from being a part of Croatian heritage simply because he was born where he was born. If one thinks this odd, consider that three out of four notable Italian scientists (including the great artist/scientist) named above were not born Italy - Leonardo was born in the Republic of Florence, Galileo Ferraris in the Piedmont-Sardinia and Alessandro Volta in the Duchy of Milan, itself a part of the Habsburg Monarchy. At least in Leonardo's era there was no concept of nations to speak of. Still, I'm confident none of this makes either of them any less part of Italian heritage. Right?--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, Italy was founded in 1861. Of course all people born before 1861 were not technically born in Italy. Technically the same could be said for people born in Croatia before 1991. But this of course would be very stupid. Indeed, Tomobe03, I agree with the most of the content of your last post. Then can I understand why there is so much pressure from Croatian users to convince that people like Niccolo' Fiorentino are Croatian artists? He born in Tuscany, studied in what is today Italy, he spoke dialect from Florence and we worked in Zadar, when Zadar was under Venetian administration? Is it possible that I have been qualified of imperialist, fascist and irredentist because I am of the idea that the native name and culture of a person (in a nutshell what is called ethnicity) define the "country" of origin and not today's borders? --Silvio1973 (talk) 07:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

That means that if you or I have a reliable published source claiming that this person or that is a part of Croatian or Italian or whichever other culture/heritage/whatnot, the claim is fine. If, on the other hand, any one of us claim something that is not backed by reliable published sources that's not... birthplace in this country or that makes little difference. (Consider a hypothetical well known scientist was born in a European country but his parents emigrated to the US when he was five or so or an Irish-born writer writing novels and plays in French only.) It all boils down to reliable published sources.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

And I also agree on this. So, can I understand why I had to insist to have the name of Nikola Firentinac changed to Niccolo' Fiorentino? Under which sources (exception the Croatian ones) was grounded the Croatian version of the name? Tomobe03, I deviate from the scope of this talk. Believe it or not, but there is a part (I precise, only a part) of the Croatian storiography that has the clear objective to eradicate anything of Italian from the history of Croatia. But the Republic of Venice was not Italy! Was just the Republic of Venice and it ended about 80 years before the foundation of Italy! --Silvio1973 (talk) 19:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

When I introduced the material (Firentinac/Fiorentino) the source I had said the former - and per WP:BURDEN that was all I need. When you changed it (along with Juraj Dalmatinac) I checked English language sources published in English speaking countries (UK and US to be precise) for frequency of use of either variant and found that the latter was more frequent and left it alone (but reverted the other one to Juraj Dalmatinac as more frequent in the same sources. That's how this is supposed to work.

Happy new year Tomobe03. Are you sure about Juraj Dalmatinac? Only know I had time to check on google and yes there are more reference to him that to Giorgio da Sebenico but in the references found there are a Cruise Boat, a sport club in... and who knows what else. Try to make something like "Juraj Dalmatinac sculptor" and "Giorgio da Sebenico sculptor" and you will find respectively 3,990 vs 12,200. This looks quite sound. What do you think? --Silvio1973 (talk) 22:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't venture an opinion on Croatian or Italian historiography - nor do I care to do so. This project (wiki) is not meant to prove or disprove any one of them. --Tomobe03 (talk) 22:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow!

Since the fall of communism and the end of the war of independence, Croatia has achieved a very high human development and income equality, and ranks high among Central European nations in terms of education, health, quality of life and economic dynamism.

— I'm impressed! However, I suggest a slight elaboration, to wit: Since the fall of communism and the end of the war of independence, Croatia, the world's most beautiful country, has achieved ... et cetera.

OK, now I'm going back to bed. Zzzzz. Sca (talk) 11:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the term "very high human development" looks like a peacock term - it comes from the phrasing of the HDI. It could probably be rephrased. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I used the explicit phrasing from the description of the Human Development Index. Do you like it now? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It's getting better, though it still sounds a bit flag-wavish for an encyclopedia. Sca (talk) 20:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Apparently I am not the only one surprised by the language used in this article. --Silvio1973 (talk) 14:02, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Biokovo

No, it's not highest moutain range in Dalmatia. Dinara would be correct. Also, i would prefer better pictures in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.3.116.204 (talk) 00:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Croatian invention

How fare do the contributors of this page want to go? The last edit (I am referring about this knife to kill people...) demonstrates that some of the contributors of this page need serious medical specialist help. I think amongst Croatian administrators there is a student of medicine. Ivan, may be you can suggest which kind of treatment those users should follow? --Silvio1973 (talk) 11:09, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The offensive edits have been removed and I've warned the user, let's not pontificate too much over it. People do stupid things all the time. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:44, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps some administrators should be concerned about the language (please refer to WP:PEACOCK) used in this page. Despite some added corrections, the language used in this article is still inappropriate. --Silvio1973 (talk) 18:12, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

While you should be quite a bit more careful with your opinions about various nations, you do have a point. However, if you're here trying to combat Balkans nationalism, you have a tough fight ahead of you :).

Croatia is a new state just out of a nationalism-infused war. Its to be expected that there will be quite a bit of over-embellishment. That, however, should be countered to an extent. -- Director (talk) 18:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Editing style is not an administrative issue here - all autoconfirmed users can edit this article to make such changes, as can you. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Clearly I will never give a judgement about Balkan nationalism. A few years ago I was in a bar in Zagreb and in the middle of a discussion I said something like "Certainly the Socialism in Yougoslavia was somehow a sad period, but it was also a period of stability amongst different cultures and religions...". Five muntes later, I found myself out of the bar laying on the pavement. So, clearly I do not want to get involved in any issue around Balkan nationalism. All my apologies if I gave this impression. --Silvio1973 (talk) 14:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

People in Zagreb would never kick you out because of that, people in Osijek, probably. Maybe they just didn't liked you. Shit happens. --Wustenfuchs 17:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

@Slivio1973, I have to be frank, I don't believe someone actually kicked you out of a bar and to the ground because you said that. :)

@Wustenfuchs, I would refrain from such generalizations. Are you saying Zagreb is somehow excessively right-wing? :P Certainly not. Split.. maybe, but in general people from the countryside and the hinterland are more right-wing, whereas people from the city are more.. shall we say liberal? I believe our beloved ;) mayor called the latter "Urban Yugoslavs" [14]. (Silvio1973, I'm talking about Željko Kerum, the current Mayor of Split, who hails from the hinterland and is not from Split.) -- Director (talk) 18:22, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Gents, it was not my intention to trigger any discussion about such items. And however I will continue to visit the Balkans. @Direktor, I am telling the truth. Perhaps I was also quite drunk, but not more than every saturday in the years 1994-2007. --Silvio1973 (talk) 21:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

No DIREKTOR, you haven't understand. My point was, people of Zagreb wouldn't kick him for that reason, because majority of them are liberal or just don't give a damn about it, while in Osijek, for example, he would be treated very bad. Their ideologies arent good or bad, but the temper of the people is different, no matter wich ideology the have. This is a bit of topic, but, whatever. And Kerum was epic there on stage singing "Srijem, Banat i Bačka, tri srca junačka" :D He was partly right abt calling them urban Yugoslavs, some people in Split realy are. --Wustenfuchs 22:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Silvio, and others, much as it's hard not to sympathize with anyone who was denied freedom of speech, Wikipedia articles and talk pages don't function by way of anecdotal evidence, so please move along. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep --Silvio1973 (talk) 09:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

So what is this thread about anyway? Slivio1973, I did request in the past that you be more specific with your propositions. -- Director (talk) 13:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

IT means Yes. I agree with Joy's comment to move along. --Silvio1973 (talk) 14:03, 20 February 2012 (UTC)