Talk:Schieder commission

Neutrality and factual accuracy disputed

This article was created by the WP:EEML with the stated aim of misrepresenting facts (see EEML-archives available to Arbcom), and was at least in substantial parts, if not as a whole, written by banned users and proxied by Radeksz whose topic ban is already agreed on and whose site ban is discussed (see oversighted diff 22:26, 3 December 2009 and EEML arbcom/pd). It needs to be revised thoroughly. Skäpperöd (talk) 08:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The article was not written by the WP:EEML, it was written by me and Molobo. It was created by me. It was not written with "the stated aim of misrepresenting facts" and there is nothing in the any archive which states that. This is completely false and Skapperod is simply lying here (I'm saying this per [1]).

According to Wikipedia policy it is fine to post on behalf of banned user as long as one takes full responsibility for the edits which I of course do. [See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Editing_on_behalf_of_banned_users]. Specifically: Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying", unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them.. I verified the changes and I've been thinking about writing this article myself for a long time. Molobo wrote portions of it and suggested sources.

In fact here is an example of an administrator doing exactly that for a banned user: [2] on Embassy of Russia in Copenhagen and even giving that user DYK credit.

Finally, the article is neutral, a lot of hard work was put into it, it is extremely well sourced and all sources are available online and are in English so the information is easily [verifiable]. Please note that Skapperod is discussing editors rather than content and in so doing he is engaging in a personal attack, while trying to get rid of an article that doesn't fit his POV.radek (talk) 08:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Re "lying": Remember your traffic is online, what I said above can easily be verified and in fact has been by an admin already. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so other than IDONTLIKETHEEDITORSWHOWROTETHISARTICLE do you have any other arguments justifying tagging this article and claiming its neutrality and factual accuracy is disputed? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I probably agree that Skapperöds true motivation to slap the article with several tags was similar to what Piotrus suspects. But at least it motivated me to read the original source by Robert Moeller, and I am dismayed to see that the article is far from being neutral.

The article says very little about the commission and the report itself. Instead it concentrates on two members and the controversial aspects of their life before the commission in the Nazi era. That of course is an effective way to discredit the commission and their results.

It should be noted that the source mentions some of these controversial aspects, but also makes it clear that the commission was an accomplished and distinguished group (page 58) and that they followed scholarly standards (see for example page 60). Whereas the source positively emphasizes that the German occupation was described in two volumes (page 59), this article emphasizes the same fact in a negative way („however, only the volumes….“).

I could go on, but you get the general idea of why this article is highly problematic and worrying. I am particularly concerned about the section Goals and work of the commission because according to the source these are rather the conclusions and not the goals of the commission. Pantherskin (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the constructive response. I am not sure if I agree with all of your conclusions; for example the comment about "following scholarly standards" is clarified on p.61 that it is based on how... Schieder described his own work (sic!). Regarding "Goals and work of the commission", pages 62-63 describe how this "scholarly work" was intended from the very beginning as a propaganda tool. That said, you are probably right that the current article is biased towards criticism of the commission. How about you try to rewrite the article to address those issues? PS. My suggestion to all editors: try to use individual page numbers in refs, instead of ranges. A 30 page range is not very helpful. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Pantherskin, thanks for constructive, specific criticism. Starting from the end of your comment:

• Changing "goals" to "conclusions" might be fine. The thing is those were the goals of the commission. The volume they produced was the "conclusions". I guess you could say that these are "Conclusions" of Moeller "in regard to the commission".
• page 59 - sure you can rewrite that. How about getting rid of the "however" and rewording the previous? Would that address the issue?
• page 58 - the source says, as is clear from the source, that at the time they were doing their work Conze, Schieder and others were regarded as a "distinguished group". This was before their Nazi past came to light. This can of course be included in the article.
• page 60 - the source says they tried to follow what they regarded as "scholarly standards". It also notes that these standards were quite different from standards in historical research at the time. This can be reworded also for clarity. Any suggestions?
• the article follows the sources - the sources focus on the composition of the commission quite extensively, it also links up their Nazi-era activity (like proposals for "dejewification" of Poland and Belarus, or their scholarly activity at Kroningsberg) with their participation in the commission. The sources are pretty explicit about the fact that Schieder tried to choose fellow-ex Nazis who shared his "goals".

Pantherskin, please make appropriate edits or further suggestions. Believe it or not, these are very welcome.radek (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I've split up the Moeller reference so that the cites are to individual pages. Hopefully this will make raising specific criticisms and issues easier.radek (talk) 23:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Radel, could you update us on what issues raised above have been addressed? I am wondering if a WP:RFC for that article may be useful, to attract some truly neutral editors who could comment on whether the NPOV is observed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's what I wrote at Pantherskin's talk:

I split up the Moeller ref into page citations to make it easier to find the relevant info. I also added info on the commission's conclusions (including from other sources). I also expended the methodology section to incorporate some of the issues you raised at talk.

I would really appreciate it if you could comment on these issues further (and edit the article accordingly) - I think it's a good article and even if it has some issues these can be fixed with a bit of work.radek (talk) 00:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

scholarship

I'm going to split this off into a separate section. I think that going by Moeller, this is the portion where there's room for interpretation and personal biases might creep in when writing the article. Basically Moeller says that the commission tried to set certain high scholarly standards. But he also says that these standards were unusual for historical research and they were regarded as "high" by the commission itself. He also uses A LOT of scare quotes on the relevant pages to indicate - this is where a subjective reading part comes in - that he is presenting how the commission viewed itself and how it viewed its own work.

I've tried my best to present this in a NPOV way, without pushing the fact that Moeller is just presenting how the commission viewed itself (after all the title of the book is "The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany") to much but still including it. Others' comments are welcome.

BTW, I only have access to the Google Books version of Moeller and there's a lot of pages, particularly later in the book which are unavailable for preview. Some searches though give snippets which are very revealing (and which I could've used here but didn't in the interest of full verifiability). For example, it appears that another goal of the commission was to compare the expulsions to Auschwitz (pg. 181).

Otherwise, the missing parts appear to go into a lot more details about the brouhaha that exploded in German historical research in the 80's and 90's when Schieder and Conze's Nazi past emerged to light - and the amount of criticism that was applied to them by other German historians, including their former students like Broszat and Wehler. I can't see it well enough in GB so I'm not including it - though it's probably a notable enough episode in German historiography to merit its own article ("Conze and Schieder controversy"? or something like that). Anyway, I'm not going to be around to write that one.radek (talk) 00:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I can access p.181. Here's the relevant quote: "Although by the late 1950s most West German politicians paid only lip service to claims that Germany's borders should be shifted eastward, they continued to appear at the annual meetings of expelle groups, acknowledging tthe importance of these votes and the symbolic significance of the loss of the "German east". Political opposition from expelle groups to any moves toward better relations with eastern European countries in the 1970s emphasized that "Germans had suffered too" by pointing to the authoritative documentation that Schieder and his co-workers had assembled in the 1950s and asserting that "Auschwitz is only half of the truth, according to the findongs of the documentation of the crimes committeed during the expulsion." As such, based on this page, it is not possible to say that the goal of the commission was to draw comparisons with Auschwitz; it was the expellee groups which interpreted it that way. Let me know if there is something on specific other pages you'd like me to check (I cannot see pages 182-184, for the record). PS. An article on German historiography is badly needed... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Again...

The article says very little about the commission and the report itself. Instead it concentrates on two members and the controversial aspects of their life before the commission in the Nazi era. That of course is an effective way to discredit the commission and their results.

It should be noted that the source mentions some of these controversial aspects, but also makes it clear that the commission was an accomplished and distinguished group (page 58) and that they followed scholarly standards (see for example page 60). Whereas the source positively emphasizes that the German occupation was described in two volumes (page 59), this article emphasizes the same fact in a negative way („however, only the volumes….“).

I could go on, but you get the general idea of why this article is highly problematic and worrying. I am particularly concerned about the section Goals and work of the commission because according to the source these are rather the conclusions and not the goals of the commission. Pantherskin (talk) 08:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to include the fact that the commission was a "accomplished and distinguish group". I think you're misreading the source here. Please see the overview here [3]

Moeller goes into some length on the background of the two commission members for a reason. In that aspect, the article as it is, just follows the sources. If the sources didn't spend so much time on the background of Shieder and Conze then yes, I would agree with you. But they do. This was actually a big dig deal among German historians (please note that there's no Polish historians cited here, even though they could be) in the 1980's and early 1990's. Likewise the fact that they did try to follow what they though were "scholarly standards" is also in the article. What else do you want me to say? Like in, what else that's in the sources? I though I put all the "positive" (I'm trying to be NPOV here but now you got me going over to the other side here) aspects of the commissions work into the article. You're gonna hafta be more specific - and edit the article yourself, otherwise I'm not sure how this can be helped.radek (talk) 08:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, this article still has a completely different slant than the publication. The article still overwhelmingly slanders the commission, their report and their conclusions by emphasizing the Nazi past of some commission members. It presents the conclusions of the commission as if they were the predetermined goals of the inquiry. And so on. What is clear is that an uninolved editor is needed who has the expertise to clean-up this article and bring it to acceptable encyclopaedic standards. Pantherskin (talk) 10:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I understand your criticisms but can you please be specific about it? Like point out specific passages that are wrong? Or, if you think it's a question of balance can you please add the relevant material or at least indicate what kind of text from the source is needed here? I'm just having a bit of trouble seeing it myself but I'm perfectly willing to accommodate - these various objections. Please be specific.radek (talk) 10:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, part of your tendentious slant can be seen already in the way you summarise things here on talk: you talk of 'what they thought were "scholarly standards"' (your scare quotes). Well, this was not just what "they thought": this in fact was a highly sophisticated, very advanced methodology, and, to the best of my knowledge, is still widely recognised as such in present research. You said somewhere else the methodology was "uncommon". From what I can gather, yes, it was: in the sense of being highly innovative. It was pioneering. The whole tradition of social history writing in German historiography goes back to these guys. This is connected to people like Hans-Ulrich Wehler, who came to be a highly influential liberal/leftist historian, with highly important work studying the Nazi past, but was also a student of Schieder's and a collaborator in the commission. You claim in your article hat he "later broke with the tradition" of Schieder and Conze. Well, no, he didn't - at least not in the sense of breaking with this research methodology. He continued on just this basis, apparently. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Oy, please stop using phrases and words like "tendentious". I actually really care about this article and yes that means I want it to be NPOV. Throwing words like that around is not helpful. As to the scare quotes - I can only repeat what I said previously; the only reason I used them is because they're there in the sources. Please look at the Moeller reference again. I went to some trouble to split it up and make it easy for anyone to access the source. But he uses them (scare quotes - they do exist you know, for a reason) quite extensively. So it's not me, it's Moeller (the source cited). He tells a story and in doing so he adopts the POV of the commission at times. But then he is very clear about clarifying that that is what he is doing.

I also think I have a pretty good grasp of what "social history" is and the associated debates among historians (Molobo's probably more knowledgeable about this subject so maybe you should ask him - seriously, an honest question will get you an honest answer, and it's also why I asked him about this topic in the first place. He's a full time historian. I'm part time).

I would like nothing more than to expand the section on Wehler. And Broszat too for that matter. I admire these guys. But the fact that they were research assistants to the ex-Nazi guys and it's how they had to do earn their bones at the time is pretty obvious. Good for them that they broke away from it. May we have more Broszat's and Wehler's and Haar's - in real world and on wikipedia too.

Anyway. Fp. Make changes. Edit the article. All the sources are cited and online. There is nothing to stop you from including text based on them. I've actually got some more sources that are relevant but they're "Polish" and so on and but ... stupid me... I was trying to make this article super legit in "only English online sources used" kind of way.

This goes to both you and Pantherskin too. The article is not "owned" by anyone.I'm not Offliner or Skapperod. Feel free to run amock. It's yours. Please edit it and change shit around as much as you'd like. Please use reliable sources along the way. So far you're just making a lot of sleezy accusations and not willing to back it up with any kinds of edits. At the end of the day the article is here - so if you have problem please help, don't hinder. Edit. Edit. Edit. Unless you're just blowing smoke.

Well, I'm afraid it's a simple fact that recognising tendentiousness when I see it requires much less time than developing an alternative article, and I happen not to have much time for this. Perhaps later. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No, Radek. It is your responsiblity to conform to NPOV, and not ours. In particular given the circumstances under which this article was created by you (or rather by Molobo). In it is current this article is biased and tries to force a certain opinion about the Schieder commission on the reader. You say that this is how the source presents it, but that is blatantly not true as everyone can easily verify by reading the relevant chapter. Pantherskin (talk) 12:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If you're going to make objections to the article, then yes it is your responsibility to point out any (potentially non-existent) problems with it. And now you're going back to IDON'TLIKEEIT by invoking the spectre of "Molobo".

Of course it is my responsibility to conform to NPOV. I have done so.

You keep saying "it is biased" but where? how? be specific YOUDON'TLIKEIT???? That's not the same thing. This article is neutral, well researched and unbiased - I have expanded it plenty to incorporate both the positive and negative aspects of the commission. If you don't think I did a good job, then ... hey, mister, edit the article yourself.

"It is blatantly true" as in "verifiable" - I made sure to provide as many sources as were available. I did a whole lot of research - but hey, congratulations for being able to destroy it with a single lie - Anyone can click on the sources and verify. The fact that you are able to spell "blatantly not ture" in English does not mean that you're actually speaking English. Welllll... you're just plain ol' lying again.

Read the fucking source.radek (talk) 12:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It is possible Radek or I are biased in reading the source. This is true for eveyone, due to NPOV. If you think the article is still not neutral, then please do edit it, per WP:SOFIXIT. I am not seeing any specific points above, other then subjective opinions about the article being biased (and mind you, you should remember that you are not neutral, too - everybody is biased). As it appears we have primarily Polish and German editors arguing here, let's hope this discussion will be joined by neutral editors; for that reason I will start an RfC. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Radek for your constructive reply. I appreciate your openness and polite choice of words. I guess it would be the best if uninvolved editors will check this article, the underlying sources and rewrite if necessary. Pantherskin (talk) 17:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the article neutral?

Comments above focus on the neutrality of the article. Neutral editors are welcome to review the article (majority of sources are directly linked to Google Books) and comment on whether the article is cherry picking negative content from the sources and makes the article bias, or is it properly NPOV. Please feel free to edit the article as well. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)