User talk:Dahn/Archive 26

Lost reference

Fixing.

--

Leandro GFC Dutra 14:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Featured article

		The Original Barnstar
		I'd just like to personally congratulate you for your hard work on Regulamentul Organic. The turnover time was amazing and it wasn't even a self-nomination. Great job. Axem Titanium 20:38, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Congrats. Impressive. `'mikka 23:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'm addressing this to you especially, Mikka, since I could not use your talk page. Dahn 00:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Warning against vandalism

In the article Vladimir Tismăneanu you made several edits, removing links, sourced information and manipulating a citation. If you did this by inadvertence, please reconsider the way you are editing in order to avoid such incidents in the future. If you did this intentionally, please understand that deleting referenced information or manipulating quotation is considered wp:vandalism. I am forced to warn that in case of continuing this behaviour you may be blocked from editing wikipedia.--Vintila Barbu 12:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's absurd. Please read wikipedia guidelines regarding sources (what you do not use should not be cited), consider moving information linked to Gallagher to an article on Gallagher, and ponder th fact that using language that validates Gallagher's opinions is weasel-worded POV. Dahn 12:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me add: you have just now erased two sourced paragraphs in one go, so perhaps you should not lecture me on this. Dahn 13:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Please intervene

Hi, sorry for my late reply; I've been sort of busy lately. Basically, I don't think people need to get consensus to add dispute tags. If they personally dispute the article, and there's a dispute about that on the talk page, then they can add the tags. If he has not answered your comments on the talk page, wait a bit longer. I guess you could ask another admin for advice as well. BTW, there appears to be an edit war on that page. Do you want me to protect it? Khoikhoi 15:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Rugăminte

Un user proaspăt a "inventat" o nouă limbă (Moeso-Romanian language). Eu stau cam prost cu engleza, altfel m-aş fi ocupat eu de articol (eu sunt mai activ în wikipedia germana). Acest articol descrie graiurile româneşti ca pe o limba distinctă, fără să aducă vreun argument. De fapt, despre româna timoceană există deja un articol (vezi aici:Vlach language (Serbia)). Autorul (care nu are la activ decât 2 articole a avut grija sa menţioneze această limbă (cică diferită de cea română) şi în acest articol ca fiind una separată de cea română). Populatia romanică din fostul spatiu iugoslav menţionată de Pavle Ivić este cea a morlacilor (vezi şi harta, dar şi menţiunea lui Pavle Ivić de aici) şi nu trebuie confundată cu vlahii daco-români din estul Serbiei sau cu romanii bănăţeni. Singurii urmaşi a populaţiei de morlaci sunt istroromânii, a căror limbă trădează intr-adevăr origini bănătene, timocene sau cel mai probabil ardelene. Poţi, te rog, să vezi ce e de făcut? Mersi anticipat. --Olahus 12:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

==List of unusual deaths==

May be coming up for a VfD again - check the Talk page. You commented last time, so I thought I'd mention it. - DavidWBrooks 21:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Dumitru Prunariu

Hello! I've written you in the past, I'm just hoping you remember me... I'm sorry to bother you, but I would have liked to add this info: http://ro.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dumitru_Prunariu&diff=804849&oldid=739058 in the corresponding English article. Unfortunately, I don't quite know how to say that in English (trecere in rezerva). Maybe you can help me out here? Thanks a lot! --Vlad|-> 13:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Now that I've seen your message and your edit, I think I remember a term like "honorary discharge". P.S. Welcome back after your 2 week break! --Vlad|-> 21:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of leaving, I was thinking about that too... If you've taken a lok at my user page I guess you've seen this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3APv7721&diff=108069374&oldid=104562575 Also, on ro.wiki I'm about to resign from sysop. I'm not sure what were the issues that were about to make you leave and I'm not sure what are your pet project, but I'm glad you've decided not to completely abandon wiki! So see you around! :) --Vlad|-> 21:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm at loss for words before such a lengthy response! And it's always a pleasure to read you! I'm not endorsing that essay, I find it more like a sign that something's rotten in Denmark (you might have also heard the new wikimedia chairman statement made a couple of weeks ago, about the state of the finances; she had warned about wiki projects running out of money in a 3 or 4 months, despite the 1 million dollars achieved through the latest fundraising...) About that user, I haven't checked but I bet it's the same that left me a message here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APv7721&diff=28657590&oldid=27858975 He seems to have left ro.wiki too: http://ro.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Utilizator:Dacodava&diff=prev&oldid=733814 Speaking of ro.wiki, you might have been actually right: if you're interested, you might want to take a look here: http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sfatul_B%C4%83tr%C3%A2nilor There have been discussions about the fact that albeit the 50.000 articles mark has been recently passed, there are plenty of stubs about all the villages in Romania or Sydney suburbs... And the most recent discussions touch the actual writing level of the articles... And to finish with ro.wiki, the worst vandal we had to deal with was a pretty determined one, that had a list of open proxies... and kept vandalizing peoples' talk pages... with his personal vendetta against me... :) Honestly, I think it's a pity that most of your time is spent on en.wiki. Come visit from time to time ro.wiki and please make use of your knowledge there, too. However, depending on the subject you touch, and the modification you make, you risk to be labeled the same! :D Have a nice day and week and keep up the good work! :) --Vlad|-> 10:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Back in action

Thank you for your kind words; it's great to have you back. I hope you've steeled yourself for more abuse, as it seems to come with the territory. I've said in the past that no one is indispensible, but you come very close indeed. Getae is suffering, by the way.

I know this won't actually get implemented, but, as a theoretical matter, what do you think of my suggestions here?:

1. Ban the IP editors. Yes, some of these contribute worthy material, and I have some sympathy for them, having been an IP editor myself for two and a half years, but registration takes five seconds, so there’s no excuse not to do it. Taking this step would eliminate a lot of vandalism.

2. Require a four-day waiting period for new users to create articles. Again, most nonsense/spam pages are created by freshly-registered users. Having someone wait four days is not a great burden and again this would eliminate much vandalism.

These two steps combined would eliminate a great deal of pure vandalism. It would not get rid of POV pushers or trolls, against whom vigilance would still be needed, but our work would be greatly simplified.

I know that there’s something nice about an encyclopedia that “anyone can edit”, but one, “anyone with an account” is still, for all intents and purposes, “anyone”, and two, the Internet’s early, anarchic days were fun, but they’re long over. We’re getting bombarded with vandalism and spam from all sides; we need to pull up the drawbridge and batten up the hatches, not extend an open invitation to the sacking marauders.

Did you happen to see my article on the UTC? In case you have more material on it, these are the areas I'd like to see expanded:

• more on 1922-1944/9, and also First Secretaries from 1922-49 (were they called First Secretaries or just secretaries? What was the UTC structure at the time? They joined the government in 1949, right?)
• more on UASR & UAER
• maybe more specifics on the later years, especially ’89 (if the UTC had any role then)
• role of ethnic & religious minorities, and women
• relationship with foreign counterparts
• more on Pioneer programmes (I mentioned the summer camps).

I'd say the first point is the most important and most in need of more details. Biruitorul 03:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, FA by March - I highly doubt it, but a new series on the 1907 revolt will prove very handy - Istrati, Roller, Rebreanu, Kogălniceanu fils and more are all in there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Biruitorul (talk • contribs) 05:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

Re: Thank you

Hey Dahn. If you would like to tell me who these people were, feel free to send me an email. Was it Daos? Perhaps "our friend"? If that was who it was, check out this and this. Feel better now? Thanks for your kind words, I don't think I've ever heard someone describe my actions as "majestic" before. :-) There's no need to apologize about Tismăneanu—if I had minded I would've let you know. The only thing I couldn't have done was revert to your version, then protect the page. That would be considered inappropriate. Anyways, I'm glad you're back. Feel free to leave note on my talk page for any future requests. Boogie Dahn, Khoikhoi 10:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

No, because neither 83.137.240.214 (talk · contribs) or 193.226.4.133 (talk · contribs) appear to be open proxies. Khoikhoi 05:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ideological articles...

Hi Dahn! Please take a second to see what's going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Macrohistorical battles tied to the existence of European civilisation, I think it's quite important. Thanks! Tazmaniacs 17:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

An article which you started, or significantly expanded, Emil Calmanovici, was selected for DYK!

On February 22, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Emil Calmanovici, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! Nishkid64 23:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

DAN!

Suna-ma imediat pe mobil, sau suna la Irina acasa, nu raspunzi la telefon, nu stiu cum altfel sa dau de tine. Petru | 24 feb, 22.25

Talk:Alexandru Nicolschi

I have given AdrianTM an official warning, on the other hand browsing through Talk:Alexandru Nicolschi I could not help but notice that the talk became personal before the AdrianTM's profanity. Please next time avoid discussing personal traits of editors on the articles talkpages. Rather discuss the articles and ignore mild personal attacks. Thanks Alex Bakharev 00:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Chronology

Hi, Dahn. There's a certain chronology that I'd like you to help me sort out, as it's currently a bit of a mess. As I understand it,
September 4, 1940: King Carol invites Antonescu to form a government; the latter becomes Prime Minister.
September 5: The King suspends the Constitution, dissolves parliament, and gives Antonescu full powers (making him Conducător), at the latter's request.
September 5, evening: Antonescu asks the King to abdicate and leave the country.
September 6: The King abdicates.
September 7: The Cadrilater is ceded.
September 14: After fruitless talks with the PNŢ & PNL, Antonescu forms a technocratic & Iron Guard government. That day, the National Legionary State is proclaimed.
January 14, 1941: By decree, Romania is no longer a National Legionary State.
January 21-23: Rebellion.
January 27: New government.

This is mostly from the ro.wiki biography of Antonescu, and I made an edit to his en.wiki biography to try and clear up some of the confusion. Still, if you look at Ion Antonescu, National Legionary State, and Iron Guard, there are some important discrepancies. (For instance, we say the National Legionary State began on September 6; I don't think this was the case.) If you could, when you have time, look over this chronology so I can try to smooth over the differences, I would appreciate that.

On a somewhat related theme, would it be worth having an article called "Iron Guard death squads"? I know of three: the Nicadori (Duca), Decemviri (Stelescu), and Răzbunători (Călinescu). Were there more? If not, this might be worth doing. Also a full article on the November 26/7, 1940 massacre at Jilava. Biruitorul 22:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Resistants

Salam alekum! Dis-moi, tu voudras peut-être jeter un coup d'œil sur Olga Bancic quand tu auras une seconde, et éventuellement ajouter des infos depuis ro:Olga Bancic. L'Affiche rouge et l'exécution du groupe Manouchian au Mont Valérien fait parler d'elle-même en ce moment, après que Stéphane Courtois ait accusé le PCF de les avoir trahi. Deux points de vue différents: [1], [2]... A propos de la dite "civilisation européenne" et de ses "batailles macrohistoriques", je crains bien qu'il va falloir s'intéresser à l'article de plus près. J'avais pas idée non plus de l' "importance" qu'avait pris la Category:Race and intelligence controversy, avec des articles tels que "Ashkenazi intelligence" et des images telles que [3]... D'ailleurs, tu seras peut-être intéressé par History of far-right movements in France, c'est une bonne série à commencer... Tazmaniacs 19:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice adds! I've read the second source concerning the Affiche rouge, it really is propaganda (in two words, it makes fun of the PCF's patriotism in contrast with the number of immigrant resistants - while that is most certainly true, it does not say a word about the alleged treason of the PCF concerning the Manouchian Group). I'll try to get more on that, but it seems that Courtois later dismissed his theory. Else... merde! désolé, je continue en français :) sinon, quelqu'un est passé sur l'article des batailles dites macro-historiques (un born-again...:) et a décidé de le garder. Je lâche pas l'affaire, comme on dit, et je vais essayer de le faire renommer en "grandes batailles de l'histoire européenne", ça me semble un peu plus correct. Et puis, au niveau des "races", j'ai essayé d'améliorer scientific racism et craniometry, je sais pas si t'as des exemples de théoriciens racistes à ajouter... tu verras, des gars comme Georges Vacher de Lapouge avaient des théories pour le moins "intéressantes"... Salut à toi! Tazmaniacs 17:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Salut! Je me perds dans l'histoire, mais toutes ces considérations raciales, etc., rejoignent en toile de fond ce que je suis censé bosser... A propos du gars que tu m'as montré, en tant que fondateur d'une Liga contra alcoolismului, y a aucun doute, il est raciste ! :) Sérieusement, c'est bien typique des théories de la "dégénérescence," reprises par Zola et d'autres. C'est dommage, c'est à cause d'eux qu'on a plus d'absinthe ici! Heureusement que le foie gras reste protégé comme tradition locale avant que l'OMC ne nous l'interdise pour "cruauté animale"... A propos d'Olga, non seulement je pense que tu devrais ajouter cette information (avec éventuellement un p'tit article de journal), mais tu devrais aussi l'inclure dans la version fr (ou laisser un message sur la page discussion), ca les intéressera sans doute. Entre Vichy (regarde Des immeubles niçois à l'heure de Vichy: des règlements anti-sémites de Vichy toujours en vigueur en 2007 - sic), la torture pendant la guerre d'Algérie, la conquête de l'Algérie, Front populaire et quelques efforts sur Racism, etc. - des articles qu'il faut vraiment qu'on arrive à mettre au point et à conserver tel quel, comme ils font "si bien" sur Communism (regarde au 383...) Note aussi la création récente d'Ethnic nationalism, et Nationalism s'est beaucoup amélioré depuis la dernière fois que je l'avais vu... A propos de Manouchian, j'ai pas eu l'occasion de regarder de plus près, et j'ai des lectures plus urgentes que S. Courtois en ce moment (en même temps, faut bien lire les deux côtés pour faire l'article)... A +, comme tu dis, aux croisement par sirendepenty (? - ca fait travailler l'anglais en tout cas Wiki !=) Tazmaniacs

By the way, check out Imam Rapito affair and Italian Mitrokhin Commission. There is also a disastrous article which needs loads of clean-up at active measures, where the main source is... Macepa! See the talk page - I'm not an expert on Romania, but I really doubt Macepa qualifies as RS ! Tazmaniacs

"Pătrăşcanu la putere"

Here's another tidbit from p. 135 of Levy (whose book, available on Google Books, is quite valuable and should eventually be used to expand our article on Pauker, currently a little thin):

The party’s main contact with King Michael and other political figures before the August 23 coup, and a minister in the Sanatescu government immediately after, Patrascanu was widely considered the RCP’s real leader at the time. It was Patrascanu’s name that was called out at the party’s first public rally after the coup, and “Patrascanu to power” was the slogan chanted at Communist rallies and meetings throughout September and October. But he quickly became the odd man out of the RCP leadership. Both the Dej and Pauker factions snubbed him equally, excluding him from the provisional secretariat that replaced the Foris leadership in April 1944 as well as from the five-person Central Committee set up soon after Pauker’s arrival in the country.

Our article on him does give the sense that he was popular, but I think this drives home the point. I also did a search for the slogan, and the result, which mentions it under October 8, 1944, seems quite interesting, but is in Hungarian (I'm sure we could ask for a translation, though). Biruitorul 20:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked, eh? That's a real disgrace. Anyway, thank you for your reply - and don't worry about the delay. Some quick replies: I will let you know if I try to start a Reign of Terror, but you know such things are hard to get off the ground (and indeed Mr Wales has made it clear that IP editors are here to stay as long as he has a say in things). Yes, I agree, 1907≠2007, and any comparisons are bound to look silly. They should just stick to the history, as they write pretty good history at JN. I'll go ahead and make those changes to the Guard-related articles when I have a chance, and if further issues come up, we can always make corrections. I'll also try to start something on the squads (and if the size gets out of hand, we can split it into three). Right now I don't have much on the massacre, but as long as we're agreed it should be kept in mind - and indeed it should, as it's not every night that dozens of leading Romanians are slaughtered - that's good. I actually have access to Levy in hard copy. So theoretically, eventually (note the qualifiers), I could use it to spruce up the Pauker biography. I'd forgotten about the BOR project, but yes, it's still somewhere on the ever-more-crowded back burner, and I thank you for the link - maybe it will prove inspiring. You're right, I can read some Italian, but I just didn't want to clutter my page with declarations that I have a low level of comprehension in Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Sardinian, Romansh, Galician, Walloon...

Oh, and this is a nice map - the legend also lists the Regat's counties, which will be useful in the future as we make articles for those.

Let me just throw a couple more things at you to think about while you serve time for left-wing deviationism :). First, in our article on the PCR, we make no mention (at least by that term) of the "verification" campaign - I think that word should be in there. We also make no overt mention of the purge of Spanish Civil War veterans; Levy has a whole section on this. He also informs us that Luca died insane, and goes into relative depth about the Pătrăşcanu trial, transcribing some of his outbursts (Asasinilor!). He says he was shot in the head with his back to his cell door, through the spy-hole, and that Pintilie ordered this without the knowledge of Drăghici or Dej (who allegedly planned to spare him), or of the Soviets who, after Stalin's death, were pressing for an open trial. If you want pages and direct quotes, I can provide them.

Also, two quick points. 1: if you happen to have more numbers for the 1937 election, do put them in. 2: a more serious problem: we lack solid numbers on Bărăgan and ethnic German deportees. Right now, the former says "over 70,000" ethnic Germans were deported; the latter, "over 30,000". So much for ro.wiki. One author (Gh. Boldur-Lăţescu) gives figures of 150,000 Germans sent to the USSR and 200,000 individuals to the Bărăgan. At some point we should seek to resolve these discrepancies. Biruitorul 01:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:3RR

You have been temporarily blocked for violation of the three-revert rule. Please feel free to return after the block expires, but also please make an effort to discuss your changes further in the future.

≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Regulamentul Organic

Greetings. You appear to be engaged in an edit war on this page with another user, who has asked several times that you provide alternate or more accurate sources for information you have added to the article. While I understand that you believe your information to be accurate, repeatedly adding the same controversial material to a page can be considered vandalism. Furthermore, you have at least once removed an Original Research tag from the article which was added as a result of the questionable sources. Since you have already been blocked for a 3RR violation, this will likely be the only warning I post before I add the incident to WP:AIV. If you believe I am misinterpreting your actions, please feel free to contact me on my talk page.

Thanks for your understanding, --Moralis 01:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

You have only altered one sentence and added one page number to the article between the edit which alerted me to the situation and the most recent edit you made. This is clearly a revert war. You have, however, claimed to be dropping the issue- if you follow through, of course I will do the same. --Moralis 01:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies. From an RC patrol perspective, the massive quantity of changes and the subtle differences between versions looked an awful lot like an edit war. --Moralis 01:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Tee-hee

Your ears getting warm yet? :-) --Illythr 03:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Valter Roman

We win. :) That's the whole point. Dpotop 11:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Oprea

Check out the new article: Marius Oprea. Khoikhoi 04:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Goma

Thank you! I will give it a look soon. Meanwhile, a few quick points:

Have you ever been a bit frustrated by WP:V? It happened to me recently when I learned the "true" story of the church in Scorniceşti. The variant we give, based on a published source, is that Ceauşescu ordered its construction. The "true" story is as follows: at the time, Scorniceşti was being refurbished: new houses, school, equipment, etc. The local priest took advantage of this, claiming that Ceauşescu had asked him to build a church, and thus obtained wood, paint, and whatever else he needed. When the works were done, the local First Secretary called Ceauşescu and said, "We've finished the houses, the school, the church, the..." At which point Ceauşescu interrupted: "What church??" He didn't demolish it, but didn't order its construction either. Alas, we'll have to wait for this to be published.

I also learned that Petre Roman - oddly enough, given his background, is Orthodox, something which is at least somewhat verifiable, so we could add a category.

Not to open up the whole citizenship/nationality debate again, but in the Rakovsky article, you refer to Koestler as being British. The later Koestler, yes, but does it matter that, at the time Darkness at Noon was published in 1940, he wasn't especially British? To use an analogy, would we refer to the young Einstein as an "American physicist"? Probably not, as he wasn't a US citizen until later in life.

One point about Cetatea Albă: from 1940-41, and from 1944 on, it was in the UkSSR. As it was never in the MSSR, I don't quite see the need for a "Moldovan alphabet" equivalent. Was this in fact ever used to describe the city? Biruitorul 18:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Re:Some interesting stuff about Piłsudski

Thank you for the info. For now, may I suggest crossposting this to article's talk page? I am not sure if this belongs in the main article, but eventually we will get more detailed subarticles about his biography and it will belong to them surely.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi

Hello and thank you for expressing your point of view (about the Khoikhoi controversy). I was intrigued about one of your posts in particular: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARomanian_Wikipedians%27_notice_board&diff=113298853&oldid=113298217 You say: ":If you want questionable stuff on rowiki, here's some tidbits for you: my IP on rowiki was vandalized by Bonaparte with full knowledge from an admin there, who simply told him not to be so obvious about what he is doing (!) - it remained so until I called on another admin to intervene; a user who was banned over here was allowed to post racist material until he left the project out of his own will (he had been banned for months on enwiki); I remember a user complaining that he had been banned on rowiki by some admin who decided that he was "vandalizing" when he deleted references to Horthy as "a fascist", simply because he did not find them backed by scholarly sources (and they are not). Seeing this, I question the credibility of rowiki over that of its individual users." I remember reverting some of the Bonaparte doings (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dahn&diff=prev&oldid=79024347) but I don't remember you asking me (or did you ask somebody else?) And unfortunately Irismeister has come back to ro.wiki with his antisemit propaganda. One last thing, do you remember who complained about being banned at ro.wiki (as AFAIK there is no one banned over there?) Thank you! --Vlad|-> 13:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, no problem, thanks a lot for the clarification! I remember that user and indeed he was a rather bizarre character. But I haven't interacted with him since. And anyway after my having blocked him he got an even longer block for nationalistic propaganda... The difference between blocking & banning is quite easy to remember: banning is an indefinite blocking. For instance, anyone can be blocked for breaking certain rules (for instance, it happened to me too: I wasn't careful enough and broke the 3RR on an article and got blocked by a fellow admin. Banning is something far more serious, it means that the person has managed to do something bad enough so that it is no longer desired for the well-being of the project that he / she be allowed to edit it... --Vlad|-> 15:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello again. I've taken a look at what you pointed me to, but in that particular edit I couldn't find anything that could qualify as a personal attack (of course, I'm not saying that there might be other edits that could qualify as such). But like I've just said: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARomanian_Wikipedians%27_notice_board&diff=113333812&oldid=113333755 I'm sorry that this thing blew completely out of proportions and set so many against you... It is true that it's not constructive saying ro.wiki is bad (I know it is) as long as you keep away of it as it's something sick... AFAIK the others have all touched it more or less... --Vlad|-> 15:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Zesm it is true, you have & I'm sorry... I also know how involved you are over here... But you seem to point it with your finger every now and then, what people seem to "reprosheze" (sorry, I don't know the English equivalent) to you... --Vlad|-> 16:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A couple issues

Old stuff

Addition, to set the record straight about the "anti-Moldavian" issue: I still consider what you did at the time insulting. Insulting because you took statements out of context when there was no possibility for misinterpretation, insulting because you cropped and split my sentences to make it look like I was saying what I was not saying, and insulting because that action had widespread effects (a user whose name I will not mention here picked up your accusations and your manipulated citations to repeat the accusation). I do not expect you to apologize for that, but neither will I apologize for calling that "trolling", in the strictest definition trolling has. I can and will move on, especially since you indicate you will not promote that idea any longer. Dahn 00:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It is your right and privelege to consider them as you wish. I consider what you did insulting, but not towards me (I do not take things personally in a dispute by issue, apparently unlike you), towards Molovans as community. I don't think that words that normal people do not use to describe groups of people, when taken in some context, can have different meaning. I split your sentences because that was the practice I learned from conversations with Irpen. At that time I was actively editting on wikipedia for just a couple weeks. I think I expressed very clearly at the time that there was nothing intentional in it. I think the fact that I am not splitting them now shows that I took note of your itchiness in this regard. I can not be held responsible for the oppinions of another user about you. Just like a company can not demand business reparations from a citizen for critisizing, motivating that the critics have led to decrese in the company's business. I did not attack you persnally (I would have been blocked on the spot), I questioned your stand on an issue that I considered of importance, because that stand in my oppinion came with unacceptable language. I do not completely understand the word trolling, and I think there is a wikipedia recomendation to use less this word, as diff people understand diff things. If you think that I have in the dispute on the issue attacked you personally (i am not aware of that but I am not God, so I do not exclude anything a priori), I appologize for that. But my demands for explanation of the appropriateness of the particular characterisations stand, as they refered to your description of a community, not me. Whether you consider with sense or senseless to give such explanations remains your prerogative and consienceness. The best "satisfaction" that I can receive is if you turn to a wall and repeat those words, and then answer for yourself (in your mind) whether they are appropriate or not.

As it was not an idea that I promotted, but the way I understood things from talking at the time you, there is nothing to promote. :Dc76 03:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

New stuff

To Dc76: wikipedia simply does not work like that. Fringe opinions, especially one expressing ideas such as anti-semitism, are not material for sources or citations. If used at all, they will not be masked as "sources", they will be simply be mentioned as what the author thinks, and only where it is important what the author thinks (in an article on him, or an article on his book). Furthermore, discerning "fact" from "opinion" is an invitation to original research, and, when the book itself is doubted, everything in it lacks reliability as a rule. Wikipedia specifically says: if you can only trace facts to a dubious source, they are not facts (better than tracing Mengele's biography to a book of Holocaust denial is not to trace it at all). Even if that were not the case, the discussion about Goma's claims involves Goma's real or alleged manipulation of facts (that is implied in the countless opinions expressed, according to which he is a negationist and a revisionist). One of the "facts" that he talks about is a plan of the Allies of World War I to create a "Jewish state" in Bessarabia... Such fantasies do not belong on wikipedia, and the person using them discredits himself as a source (just as Rosenberg is not a source on Judaism or the history of Germany, though he is one on anti-semitism).

I'm not sure what you mean in your comparison with Nazi Germany, but, if it means to say what I think it does, it is both inaccurate and out of place.

I was not referring to you in that particular statement about hiding facts, Dc76, so you needn't take offense.

In short, Goma is not a source - or, at least, not a source for anything other than Goma himself (and even there with a grain of salt, as he made a habit of theorizing various things about various people). His is neither a reliable testimony nor a scientific verdict. It is simply a large pamphlet of no scientific value. Dahn 00:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

By The people who were bringing to light the horrors of Nazi Germany were also characterized by "a large number of authoritative historians and political scientists have considered ... to be ... spurious". I mean that when people bring to light nowadays the horrors of Communism and communists, and are dismissed as being non-autoritive, negationist, spurious, anti-semitic, etc, I think that is wrong. I am sufficiently intelligent (I bieleve) to discern anti-communism from anti-semitism. Goma is not the only one blamed for fascist sympathies because some (even if many, doesn't matter) communists happened to be Jews.

And my main argument is that, while around 300,000 Jews were in Bessarabia in the wake of 28 June 1940, there were only 2,000 to 4,000 members of communist organizations, plus perhaps a number not exceeding 10,000 who participated in the crownd in violences during those days. Even if the majority of the rest (290,000) would have some sympathies, as they did not express them in any violent way, the blames on them for actions of some which happen to be of their ethnic group, are simply wrong and malicious. 10,000, including 2,000 fanatics can do a lot of dammage. In Chsinau there were around 500, inlc perhaps 100 organizers, and what damage was done!

Sorry if you think I took offence, I did not. I actually totally forgot what was that about.

I do not agree with Goma on many issues, but I will only metion two. 1) I do not think that the "reply" to "Romanians have to pay for killing that many Jews" should be "Jews have to pay for killing that many Romanians". In the instances referred, it was communists who killed Romanians, and fascists who killed Jews. 2) When he mentiones more recent events, e.g. War in Lebanon, I barely abstained to find his email and write him.

I do not think the book can be dismissed as such. First, it does not claim neither to be a history treat, not a witness account, he calls it eseu, so we shouldn't demand from it standards it does not claim. Second, it is more than obvious to see that what the book contains is extensive citations and his oppinions. I would like to exeplify the way I see fit to use his book as a sourse:

I took from there the names of the members of Carol II's council, and their votes. Then I searched to confirm them, and I found some "inexactedness". He says "only 6 out of 26 [or 27, don't remember] votted against", which I interpretted as 21 voted for. But in other sourses I found that 1 abstained, and that 1 (min of health) seems to have been against, but expressed it so unclear that some thought it was yes, some thout it was no. Hence some sourses say 7/19/1. Also Carol II brought in Vaida during the night, swore him as minister, and put him sigh the recommendation as well, despite the fact that he did not take part in deliberations (at least it seems to me from what I read). None of the sourses except Goma has the complete list of the members, all I found (I am not in Romania or Moldova at the moment) was partial lists that helped me verify. The second reading of Goma's "only 6 out of 26 [or 27] votted against" is accurate, but that's a different type of acurrate than 6/21.

And I intend to use the book for such things in the future. In all cases, he actually says what book/sourses are the exerpts from, and in many of them it is possible to find those books and sourses on intenet, in libraries, in bookstores. If I copy 2 sentences from a witness account which is reproduced in Goma's book, I don't think that's objectionable, since I have to give as sourse the witness account, not Goma. I will, of course verify it later (as soon as I find the sourse). In case I ever find an inexact copying by Goma, be sure I am going to say that very loud. Goma has, however, a name of a honest person. Very oppinionated, but honest. So, until proven with facts, I can not dismiss the authority of the biggest dissident Romania had.:Dc76 03:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

As for the Jewish state, I don't know why these things are not known in Romania, there were very well known in USSR. Or at least, I knew them. Jews have always persuaded Stalin to create a republic for them somewhere. That is not an a priori bad thing. During 1930s and 1940s, up until 2 events occured in 1948:

1) creation of Israel

2) assasination by NKVD-MGB of several Jewish lidears in USSR, incl (I don;t remember for the moment his name) the community leader, who was the director of the Jewish theatre in Minsk. He knew very much, including details of negociatins between Beria's agents and Oppenheimer, Fermi, Einstein, Hans Bethe etc. (only Oppenheimer agreed to "help" in the sense Beria wanted) One of the key arguments was the possible creation of a Jewish state (republic, not independent) somewhere in USSR (preferably Crimeea). He became more insistent after WWII (apparently Stalin has actually promissed), and paid with his life.

The antisemits in USSR were saying the Jews were demanding very much: (this was before 1940) Podolia, Transnistria, including Odessa, Tauridia, Crimea, and even possibly some parts of Belorussia. Galicia and Bessarabia came as an additon only later. The Jews actually represented between 30 and 50% of urban population of all these areas, so the demands of some statehood were not groundless. In reality noone ever hoped for all these areas, they only wanted some area, and then by gradual migration to create a majority there. Stalin used this desire for some statehood to the maximum, and never gave anything in return. Moreover, in denigration, around 1950 he created the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Far East, where only ever since the first secretary of the party was Jew, all the rest were Russians. The biggest chances for a Jewsish Soviet Sovialist Republic had Crimea. There was lots of talk about that in 1945-1948. But then Stalin theought that he was being demanded too much retaliated by killing jewish leaders. Creation of a Jewish republic somewhere in USSR, for example on some territoty in Crimea would not have been necessarily perceived as bad by the vast majority of population. After all there were millions or Jews in USSR, they did not have any national territory, and Russians were in Crimea only somewhat recent arrivals. As the Tatars have been deported, Jews in Crimea would not have had less legitimacy than Russians. Especially considering the roots to Khasars, which of course do not speak of numbers, but at least speak of precedence. The refusal was based on strategic reasons. Stalin realised that a Jewish republic would be more open to the west and democracy, and also Crimeea became very strategic after WWII. The process of Jewish doctors in early 1953, etc. for example were part of Stalin's efforts to close once and for all the desire of Jews to demand something. Whether the particular people in those processes had any blame or everything was invented, only God knows. But that they were political means for Stalin - everyone knows.:Dc76 03:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Panait Istrati

Hi and sorry for this. I did not notice that you had reverted before I did.

In any case, that IP belongs to a notorious vandal User:Bonaparte, and the insults he introduces and has introduced in edit summaries and talk pages probably make the fact that he also vandalizes less relevant. I will contact an admin to get him blocked. Thanks for your vigilance, btw. Dahn 12:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I already reported the user to AIV – Qxz 13:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)