Jump to content

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/02 October 2011/Holodomor: Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Line 255: Line 255:
*''What do you hope to achieve through mediation''. Truth. Sorry, I think I went over 250 words, but it's a vast subject. My position on the chart is 2A with the understanding that if crops were redistributed differently, it'd be the army, for example, who'd suffer the famine, leaving the country completely defenseless, or another region would suffer the famine.
*''What do you hope to achieve through mediation''. Truth. Sorry, I think I went over 250 words, but it's a vast subject. My position on the chart is 2A with the understanding that if crops were redistributed differently, it'd be the army, for example, who'd suffer the famine, leaving the country completely defenseless, or another region would suffer the famine.
[[User:BesterRus|BesterRus]] ([[User talk:BesterRus|talk]]) 13:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
[[User:BesterRus|BesterRus]] ([[User talk:BesterRus|talk]]) 13:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

::This user seems focused on ideological/nationalistic matters involving "this famine was used most irresponsibly in anti-soviet propaganda, in attempts to separate Ukraine from USSR, in attempts to smear communism, in attempts to seed hatred between two brother nations, and so much more." Focus should be exclusively on facts as reported by relaible sources, not on fighting communist-smearing or other perceived battles.[[User:Faustian|Faustian]] ([[User talk:Faustian|talk]]) 03:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


====Statement by Volunteer Marek====
====Statement by Volunteer Marek====

Revision as of 03:38, 17 October 2011

Wikipedia Mediation Cabal
ArticleHolodomor
StatusActive
Request date02:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Requesting partyQwyrxian (talk)
Parties involvedPaul Siebert, Lothar von Richthofen, Igny, Volunteer Marek, Vecrumba, Greyhood, The Last Angry Man, Galassi, Lvivske, BesterRus
Mediator(s)User:Steven Zhang, User:Mr. Stradivarius, User:TransporterMan
CommentAgreement gained on ground rules. Requesting opening statements.
Status of mediation:
5%

Current status of the mediation: Re-establish party stances in the dispute and obtain opening statements to ascertain what they want to get out of mediation, and the issues they feel need addressing.

Request details

Where is the dispute?

As far as I know, the dispute is strictly at Holodomor and its talk page.

Who is involved?

The list of the users involved. For example:

Note: I (User: Qwyrxian, the editor opening this dispute) am not a party to this dispute. I am involved in this article strictly in an administrative capacity, having fully protected the article on 26 September following an edit war that began on 19 September. Also, I may have missed one or two users, so if there is someone else who believes themselves involved in this present dispute, they can list themselves here. All of the people listed above were involved in either the edit war or the related discussion on the talk page, though if anyone feels they are only peripherally involved, they could be removed from the list. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is the dispute?

The current dispute relates to the article's lead. Specifically, there is a dispute as to whether or not the lead should describe the famine as "man-made", whether or not it should be described as a part of the larger Soviet famine occurring at the same time, and whether or not the "relief" parameter of the infobox should be filled in. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What steps have you already taken to try and resolve the dispute?

The cause for this coming to the cabal is that the disputants were "trying" to "resolve" the issue through edit warring. Some discussion has occurred on the talk page both before and after the protection; see Talk:Holodomor#No need in this phrase, Talk:Holodomor#Man-made character and Soviet famine context, Talk: Holodomor#Some changes to the lede., Talk:Holodomor#Graziosi, and Talk:Holodomor#Full protection. In addition, some aspects of this dispute have been discussed at least as far back as last year; see Talk:Holodomor/Archive 15#First sentences and Talk:Holodomor/Archive 14#that occurred during the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 / a part of the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.

What issues needs to be addressed to help resolve the dispute

The debate is quite intricate, and involves a large number of sources. Some editors have accused some of cherry-picking sources, and of creating the appearance of a consensus in sources when one does not exist. There appear to be concerns that some sources, particularly older ones, may themselves not be reliable (that they may be biased, single-POV representations of the event). Much of the dispute seems to be a focus on WP:DUE, rather than a concern with basic facts. If there are other issues, I invite the involved participants to list them as well; however, I do not believe that it will be helpful to turn this into a free-for-all covering every single dispute that has occurred on this article (the talk page archives show quite a number of different concerns have arisen in the article's history). Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What can we do to help resolve this issue?

The involved editors need to find a way to sort through all of the information and various POV to agree on a consensus version of the lead. This may require changes to the body of the article as well. It's possible that the editors may benefit by first laying out all of their sources; alternatively, they may want to try to point out those that they feel are the most authoritative. It may be that neither the prior consensus version nor the modified versions of the lead are optimal, and perhaps mediation can help them see alternative wordings that would be acceptable to everyone. Part of the problem is that there are so many editors involved, and many of them appear to be extremely knowledgeable about both the subject matter and Wikipedia policies; of course, this is a good thing, but it can sometimes make discussions explode into a dozen different directions with citation not only to real world sources but also a whole variety of Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and essays. I hope that a mediator can help organize and focus discussions. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mediator notes

Notes by Steve Zhang

Opening case. It will take me some time to review the dispute. This is quite a large dispute, so it may be one that I will co-mediate with colleagues of mine. Let's start of with an agreement to ground rules, then we will proceed from there. I would ask for no discussion on the dispute to occur here until we gather an agreement on the ground rules by all parties. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 07:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, as a relatively complex case this will be co-mediated by Mr Stradivarius, TransporterMan and myself. Once the case is started, I want to get a breakdown of the current issues that needs to be addressed and we will work on it step by step. We will use a proposals format for discussing the lede section, where we can together discuss potential changes to the lede and compromise until we come to an agreement. So, agreement to ground rules, list of issues to be addressed, and then we will begin. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 22:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Great. Everyone is on board. I want you to all add this to your watchlist, as I will not be providing updates on talk pages anymore. After that, in the discussion section, I want you to each write a brief statement of no more than 250 words. I would like you to answer the following 4 questions.
  1. What are your interests in regards to the Holodomor articles? How did you discover and start editing the article? Do you have any potential conflicts of interest?
  2. What problems you think have caused this dispute to require mediation?
  3. What is your view of the dispute at present, and what issues need to be addressed in this mediation, that would help resolve this dispute amicably? Give a list of issues, if possible.
  4. What do you hope to achieve through mediation?

Remember, keep it focused on content. After that, we will start working on the lede section together through the proposals page. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 20:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notes by Mr Stradivarius

Greetings everyone. Per Steve's request, I am editing in Japan (UTC+9). — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 11:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see that an arbitration enforcement thread about The Last Angry Man has been opened by Igny, for remarks on a different page. We should probably keep an eye on this to see how it turns out. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 04:35, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notes by TransporterMan

I've left another note on the page of Galassi asking that he at least let us know if he is going to participate. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC) Done. TransporterMan (TALK) 15:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@All parties: I am concerned that looseness in the meanings of terms is partly responsible for this dispute and that there might be a higher degree of agreement if all parties were using the same frame of reference. I have created a chart on a subpage here which I hope categorizes all of the possible causes, Soviet involvements, and purposes of harm at issue in this dispute. I would appreciate it if each party would identify, using the index numbers in the chart which position or positions represent their own beliefs as to what can be proven through reliable sources (the sources should not be identified at this stage). For example, this could be a response:

(Example 1:) @TransporterMan: I believe that position 4E can be supported by reliable sources.

Another example (a variation on the last one):

(Example 2:) @TransporterMan: I believe that position 4E is the right one, but that 4E, 2D, and 1B can all be supported by reliable sources and ought to be included in the lede.

Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@All parties and mediators: Please take a look at the "What is the dispute?" section at the top of this page. At this point in time, this mediation is limited to the lede of the article, and particularly:

  • whether or not the lede should describe the famine as "man-made",
  • whether or not it should be described as a part of the larger Soviet famine occurring at the same time, and
  • whether or not the "relief" parameter of the infobox should be filled in.

Some of the positions, below, seem to presume that the content of the entire article is subject to mediation here. I, at least, feel that would be inadvisable and that the mediation should be limited to those issues initially presented. If the scope of the mediation is to be expanded then all parties and all mediators must agree to the expansion, and even then the issues to be mediated need to be clearly and sharply defined not just "this whole article needs work." Do we limit it to the initial issues or expand it? If so, to what? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ground rules

  • Please keep all comments focused on the mediation. Proper editing decorum must be maintained, and as such, incivility and personal attacks must not occur, and I reserve the ability to archive, refactor or remove comments of such nature.
  • Try to keep an open mind in the case, and realise that sometimes, you need to give a little to get a little. Mediation is not possible without compromise as well as keeping an open mind.
  • When there are multiple issues that need to be addressed in a dispute (such as this one) only one particular issue or dispute is to be discussed at a time. Discussion that veers off course of the current topic may be archived at my discretion.
  • MedCab is not a formal part of the dispute resolution process, and cannot provide binding sanctions. Nevertheless, I ask that everyone involved agree to abide by the outcome of this case.

Please sign just your username below, as well as Agree or Disagree, with four tildes (~~~~) to indicate your agreement or disagreement with the ground rules and your participation in the case. These shouldn't be taken lightly. If you agree to these it is expected you will abide by them.

Agreement by participants to abide by ground rules

Mediation Agenda

The following is a timeline of how we are to progress through mediation. Our progress will be documented through the status bar (at the top) and as we progress, so will it. I'll tick things off the list as we proceed, but once opening statements are complete we will discuss the smallest issue and proceed through resolving the issues at hand one at a time. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 00:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[1%] Garner party agreement to ground rules.  Done
[5%] Discuss and document current issues that need to be addressed, discussed, and resolved, over the course of the mediation.  Done
[10%] Re-establish the party stances in the dispute, obtaining opening statements to ascertain what each party wishes to get out of the mediation, and the issues they feel need addressing.
[15%] Initiate discussion on the first issue, discussing issues, changes that may need to be made, and compromises that need to be formulated, in order for the issue to come to an amicable solution. Discuss the potential use of outside opinions, such as RFC's, to help determine community consensus. Mediators to implement solution when one is achieved.
[30%] Initiate discussion on the second issue, discussing issues, changes that may need to be made, and compromises that need to be formulated, in order for the issue to come to an amicable solution. Discuss the potential use of outside opinions, such as RFC's, to help determine community consensus. Mediators to implement solution when one is achieved.
[45%] Initiate discussion on the third issue (if one exists), discussing issues, changes that may need to be made, and compromises that need to be formulated, in order for the issue to come to an amicable solution. Discuss the potential use of outside opinions, such as RFC's, to help determine community consensus. Mediators to implement solution when one is achieved.
[60%] Initiate discussion on the fourth issue (if one exists), discussing issues, changes that may need to be made, and compromises that need to be formulated, in order for the issue to come to an amicable solution. Discuss the potential use of outside opinions, such as RFC's, to help determine community consensus. Mediators to implement solution when one is achieved.
[70%] Assess the status of the mediation, as to how the solutions that have been implemented have helped with the status of the article, discuss views with parties as to how the mediation, and status of the articles is progressing.
[75%] Re-visit previous issues, discussing alternative solutions, if required.
[85%] Discuss the articles with parties, offering advice as to how to better manage disputes in future
[95%] Discuss long term options to help keep the article stable, for example agreement to abide by certain rules when editing these articles.
[100%] Seek resolution of dispute through party agreement, then close mediation.

Administrative notes

On 26 September, I fully protected the article indefinitely, until such time as the editors can come to a consensus that will stop the edit warring on the lead. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Statement by Paul Siebert

In my opinion, the dispute is focused mostly on the following main points:

  1. (i) Holodomor was a part ("an epicenter", according to some authors) of the Great Soviet famine, or (ii) it was a separate phenomenon unrelated to the concurrent famine in other parts of the USSR.
  2. (i) Holodomor affected primarily major grain producing areas, or (ii) it was a genocide directed against ethnic Ukrainians.
  3. (i) Holodomor was an unexpected result of the Soviet policy of collectivisation, or (ii) it was a deliberately designed and consciously organised famine directed against (Ukrainian) peasantry.
  4. (i) Holodomor was a "man made" famine similar to most other great famines in recent human history, so, instead of describing it as "man made" (which implies some uniqueness), one should explain concrete causes (industrialisation, collectivisation, food requisition, poor weather conditions, infestation of grain), or (ii) it is necessary to specify that it was a "man made" famine, which is its distinctive feature.

In my opinion, the article should make stress on "i"s, although the reservations should be made that significant amount of sources share the "ii"s viewpoints, and some sources advocate a point of view that is a synthesis of both points.
If my description of the subject of the dispute is incorrect, especially, if I described "ii"s incorrectly, please, let me know, and I'll try to fix my description of the subject of the dispute accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would be helpful if you could provide cites for the points expressed in the "i's" and "ii's", so that this discussion can be rooted in what has been published in reliable sources. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 22:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At this time, citations aren't required. This is an opening statement asking for opinions of the editors. Additionally, I'd appreciate it if we can not comment in each others sections. There will be time for discussion and debate later. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 22:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. My interests in regards to the Holodomor article is to remove political and nationalist bias from this article. In my opinion, that can be achieved by making an emphasis on the peer-reviewed English publications authored by leading historians. I declare that I have no conflicts of interest.
  2. In my opinion, the major problem that have caused this dispute is the desire of some users to represent Hololdomor as a deliberately engineered genocide of ethnic Ukrainians.
  3. The list of the issues is presented above.
  4. During this mediation, I hope to achieve a consensus between all major contributors that, whereas different viewpoints exist on Holodomor, all of them should be represented in the article fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, and the priority should be given to the viewpoints presented in the recent peer-reviewed English sources.
    The need to focus on the recent sources is dictated by the fact that many good books and articles written before so called "archival revolution" (massive release of formerly classified Soviet archival documents) are somewhat outdated now, and many authors re-considered their views of Holodomor during last two decades. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On TransporterMan's table. I am not sure the table summarises all possible viewpoints. The obvious omissions as as follows:

  1. The discussed event is seen as static. In actuality, serious authors discuss several phases of the famine. Depending on the phase, the situation could be described by 2B, then by 4A, then, probably, 4B, and sometimes even 4C, and, by the end of the famine, 2A.
  2. Similarly, it is hard to give a simple answer about the anti-Ukrainian nature of the famine. The opposition to collectivisation was common for all Soviet peasantry, however, since most grain producing areas in the USSR were populated by either ethnic Russians or ethnic Ukrainians, the peasant resistance in Ukrainian populated areas had assumed national forms, and the government actions, accordingly, became simultaneously anti-peasant and anti-Ukrainian. (Obviously, that specifically anti-Russian actions and nationalist Russian resistance were impossible for an obvious reason: the authorities by no means could the Russian peasantry as some minority, and the peasants didn't see the central authorities as some alien force). Accordingly, the famine in Ukraine, by the moment of its apex was directed against the Ukrainian, both because the major part of Ukrainian peasantry was ethnic Ukrainians, and because the resistance to collectivisation adopted national/nationalist forms.

In summary, it is hard for me to formulate my position based on the table prepared by TransporterMan, because it does not take into account some important nuances.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Vecrumba

I was writing my own assessment, which I can still complete and provide. However, for the purpose of framing the debate, I’ve responded in a manner which I hope will facilitate comparison and dialog.

At issue are intent, means, and consequence.
(a) Holodomor was a part ("an epicenter", according to some authors) of the Great Soviet famine, and (b) it became a separate phenomenon in the focusing of famine consequences on the Ukrainian people.
(a) Holodomor affected primarily major grain producing areas—Ukraine being the “breadbasket of Europe”, and (b) in being focused on the Ukrainians, in particular, the resultant scale of death became a genocide against the Ukrainian nation.
Elimination of Ukrainian resistance to collectivization started at the top, commencing shortly after its announcement with show trials in 1930 and 1931 followed by the destruction of nationalist-leaning Ukrainian communist leadership in 1932-1933.
(a) The Holodomor was neither an “unexpected result of collectivization” nor was it (b) “deliberately designed and consciously organised famine directed against (Ukrainian) peasantry.” (a) understates and misdirects so-called “expectations” regarding inevitable results of confiscating both grain and food (unrelated to collectivization) while (b) overstates pre-planning versus taking advantage of an opportunity once elimination of Ukrainian nationalism as a prerequisite to achieving collectivization was already (i) a priority and (ii) underway since 1930.
(a) The concrete factors contributing to famine conditions (similar to the prior famine in which the USSR did request—and receive—international aid) were similar to other great famines in recent history, and (b) the focusing and “man-made” amplification of famine upon the Ukrainians (e.g., confiscation of family food stores, not permitting Ukrainians to flee their territory once there was neither grain nor food) made it uniquely “man-made.”
Regarding the chart mentioned below, "5C". Once a deliberate course was taken which included forcibly emptying Ukrainian households of even personal food stores even while grain was exported, other scenarios (focusing on stages or nuances) are side shows. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for not answering the questions, briefly:
  • Interest: I discovered Holodomor as one of the many articles editor Jacob Peters was rampaging through back in early 2007. My interest is the historical portrayal of the Soviet legacy. I have no conflict of interest.
  • Locus: The "dispute" is whether or not Stalin facilitated the deaths on a genocidal scale of Ukrainians (in particular, as they were the most resisting of collectivization), or if it was just all a terribly unfortunate confluence of circumstances, after all, there is one documented case in particular where Stalin responded to a personal request for aid. And if there is not incontrovertible archival evidence Stalin planned this all in advance, it logically cannot be intentional, etc. Lastly, the contention by some that this ultimately boils down to just politicized attempts to drive apart the Ukrainian-Russian family and to smear Russia's image in the post-Soviet era.
  • Issues: Per mine above in apposition to Paul Siebert's which, in my view, could not be more clear in having proposed a false set of choices. Stages, nuances, and claims of biased politicization are informative but not material once international aid was refused and the food cupboards of Ukrainian families were being forcibly emptied. Post-archival sources make for interesting reading but do not change the applicability of older sources which deal with circumstances on the ground, which archival sources do not change.
  • Hopes: An article that reputably represents historical circumstances. The evidence of willful action focused upon the Ukrainians, with catastrophic results on a scale accurately described as genocidal, is voluminous and incontrovertible. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 23:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If this might move along definition/resolution of positions (although how I became an apparent spokesperson is still unclear), to Paul Siebert's: "Accordingly, the famine in Ukraine, by the moment of its apex was directed against the Ukrainian, both because the major part of Ukrainian peasantry was ethnic Ukrainians, and because the resistance to collectivisation adopted national/nationalist forms." The meme presented is that "direction" was a confluence of circumstance outside intent with just the ever slightest whiff of victim blaming (Ukrainian nationalist resistance to collectivization). Since we appear to now at least have agreement that circumstances alone concentrated (as opposed to a willful direction) famine suffering upon the Ukrainians, the next step is, from my viewpoint, to establish the use and role of policy targeting Ukrainians (failure to request international aid in stark contrast to prior famine, confiscation of grain, confiscation of family food stores, restriction of movement, shooting children for stealing a handful of grain, etc.) to actively focus and amplify the famine beyond circumstances into a man-made catastrophe inflicted upon the Ukrainian nation—the elimination of whose nationalism had commenced in tandem with the launch of collectivization.

A note on Conquest. As long as I have been involved in the article, there has been an activist movement to not just suppress but eliminate Conquest as obsolete and irrelevant, and more recently, to represent him as having changed his views, all of which are incorrect. In particular, Davies and Wheatcroft have been cited in the past as debunking Conquest, yet D&W in their seminal work on the famine explicitly state their recognition and acknowledgement of the value of Conquest's work and contributions—meaning Conquest continues to be pertinent(!). (I should mention I shelled out the $150 or so for whatever it was at the time for The Years of Hunger when I could tell just by editors' contentions it was being grossly misrepresented.) So, Conquest = good enough for D&W = good enough for the article.

While I don't suggest editors respond to each editor per se, I think that if editors refine/expand their statements as more viewpoints come on board, that will present a more complete picture as we move to next steps. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Last Angry Man

  1. What are your interests in regards to the Holodomor articles? How did you discover and start editing the article? Do you have any potential conflicts of interest?
  • My interest lies more in the legacy communism left behind of which Holodomor is a part. The denial of the man made aspects of this genocide has irked me to quite some extent. There are no conflict of interest.
  1. What problems you think have caused this dispute to require mediation?
  • Russian nationalist views and communist apologists who deny the facts of Holodomor, id est, Stalin used it to crush the people.
  1. What is your view of the dispute at present, and what issues need to be addressed in this mediation, that would help resolve this dispute amicably? Give a list of issues, if possible.
  • The dispute is obvious, the removal of the man made aspects of Holodomor, be it the theft of seed grain, the theft of most anything edible in fact, the turning of people back at the borders, the shooting of people trying to leave the area, the denial of the famine to the world at large, and the point blank refusal of Stalin to render aid to the stricken people all point to a deliberate attack on the people of Ukraine, and this view is backed by the majority of reliable sources.
  1. What do you hope to achieve through mediation?
  • An accurate article would be nice.

Regarding the chart [1] I am of the opinion that 5C is the only possible response based on the sources. The harvest was not so bad that the populace would have been unable to feed themselves, the excessive requisitions of grain and specifically taking seed grain was the cause of the famine, the fact that the Soviet Union were exporting grain at the height of Holodomor is proof of this. The Last Angry Man (talk) 20:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Greyhood

Here are my answers for the questions.

  • Interests. I was long aware of the disputes in this area, both on-wiki and off-wiki, but until recently I've avoided participation in such discussions, being just a watcher. Once I've actually read the current Holodomor article more closely, I was bemused by a fact that certain statements there not only are POVish when it comes to history representation, but also are problematic from a purely logical point of view. This spurred my participation in the dispute. My interest is to fix those logical problems, to make the article less-biased and to represent all points of view accurately, fairly and neutrally. I have no conflict of interest here.
  • Basis of dispute. Paul has already named an immediate reason of the dispute. Speaking on a larger scale: unfortunately, there is a political demand and campaigning in Ukraine, supported by some other countries, seeking to present Holodomor as a kind of Holocaust against Ukrainians. This leads to the fact, that much of what was written about Holodomor has a political nature, not a scientific on. What real scientific discussion could be there when Ukraine almost legally prohibited the Holodomor denial (what a joke of an article, by the way, judging by the image captions alone)? So, the topic should be dealt with very carefully.
  • Issues. Again, Paul named the primary issues, and I share his approach to fixing them. "Man-made" should not be used as a black box label, it should be properly clarified; it should be explained what is meant under that characteristic. Among other typical issues related to the subject are the following:
    • 1) The question of controversial victim figures - often the numbers are inflated by including migration, mortality from other causes and estimates of unborn children due to the much lower birth rate. Could be solved by presenting any figures only alongside with the explanation of counting methods.
    • 2) The question whether relief was provided or prohibited by the state. Could be solved by unbiased presentation of available sources.
    • 3) The question of dubious photographs illustrating Holodomor. There are very few, if any, real photographs of the 1932-33 hunger with 100% provenance. There were multiple scandals when Holodomor researchers or activists used the photographs of the Russian famine of 1921 presenting them as Holodomor photographs. Those of the supposed Holodomor photographs, which were not proven to be from 1921 (like the current lead image), were published originally in the books alongside hoax photos. The problem could be solved by making very accurate and extensive captions to such photographs, explaining the problems with provenance, or by not using dubious pictures at all.
  • Hopes. I hope to fix at least the primary issues which led to this dispute, and, if possible, other issues named by me above. I hope also that we will find a good mechanism to collaboratively work on this article (and related ones) in future. GreyHood Talk 12:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for the chart, I'm not sure that it fully summarizes all aspects and all options, but 2B is the closest hit in my opinion. GreyHood Talk 12:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that the entire article should better be checked and rewritten. BesterRus named many issues that could and should be addressed - in fact I was going to talk about some of these as well, but feared it would make the scope of the discussion too large. But perhaps it is indeed the only solution, since the lead should summarize the body of the article. GreyHood Talk 20:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources. Some editors here, e.g. Biophys, suggest discussing sources and complain that other participants of discussion often discard supposedly good sources "only based on various technicalities". I'd like to discuss sources in more detail later, when mediators would find it appropriate. Now I'll just state that in the late 1980s and in the 1990s there was so called "archival revolution" in the USSR and later in Russia, when much of previously inaccessible archival data was opened to researchers. This rendered many (in fact most) of the previous works on the controversial Soviet subjects obsolete, even though the tendency to disregard the new data continued well into 1990s and sometimes even up to this day (because of inertia in the field of study and also because of the political conditions).
However, by now even some of the top scholars who have written highly critical works on the Soviet history have partially reconsidered their views, including Robert Conquest himself. And Biophys is well aware of this fact (several editors in a number of discussions have informed him and presented the sources), and I really wonder why he calls suggestions not to use obsolete sources or to use them only with reservations a technicality. We'd still believe in geocentric system if we always would stick to obsolete things, disregarding new data and fresh arguments. The Harvest of Sorrow, published in 1986 by Conquest seems not to fall in the category of up-to-date sources and should be dealt with very carefully if used at all.
As for the preference to non-Russian and non-Ukrainian sources, this is not a solution. Russian and Ukrainian researchers have the better access to the archival data, and much as I doubt in fairness and neutrality of sources from those countries, they should not be disregarded, also because there are no strong reasons to believe that the post-Cold War historiography, say, American or British, would be less biased or better provided with data. GreyHood Talk 22:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Biophys

  • Interests. This is one of the most important and highly publicized events in Soviet history. We need good article about this. No conflict of interest. Actually, I do not even have strong interest in this specific subject, as I already said to Mr. Stradivarius [2]. What concerns me most is the general tendency of removing well sourced texts and discrediting good sources in this subject area (e.g. here), and Holodomor is only one example. I talked already with three participants of this mediation about it [3][4] [5] [6].
  • The problems. I never could edit this article because one of the "sides" always refused to accept academic sources on the subject, and in particular the book "The Harvest of Sorrow" by the most prominent western historian of Russia Robert Conquest (a publication by Oxford University Press). This is not a partisan source. The whole book was written specifically on the subject of this article. Of course this "side" did not discard this source completely and directly, but only based on various technicalities. A few years ago it looked like that (see edit summaries)[7] [8]. Now it looks like that: [9][10].
  • Current dispute. Looking at the discussion (for example here), it's apparent that instead of using statements made by Conquest himself in his books, this "side" claims that he changed his scientific conclusions. However, Conquest never officially retracted his Holodomor research. To the contrary, he reiterated his position in his more recent books, such as "Reflections on a Ravaged Century".
  • What do you hope to achieve through mediation. Admit that book "The Harvest of Sorrow" by Robert Conquest published by Oxford University Press (and later books by the same historian) can be used as one of major sources for this article. Admit that book itself qualifies as a reliable secondary RS and can be quoted as such. If Conquest changed his position, this must be referenced to a later RS by the same author. Same should be the rule for academic books published by other authors. I hope we can all agree about this. That is realistic. I encourage all sides to use this book.

P.S. This article has two problems common for many battleground articles. (1) It discusses questions like "who was guilty?", or "was it a genocide or not?", but it does not provide a fair narrative description of what had happened. (2) When debating historical controversies, it simply makes a list of claims by different people ("A said that...", "B said this..."), but it does not explain the arguments by historians in favor of different positions, as I noted here. Biophys (talk) 01:21, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Steven Zhang how mediation should be conducted [11], but I think we need one additional, "zero" step: we must first agree about acceptable secondary sources (preferably not Russian or Ukrainian and written by recognized academics). They will be used for sourcing the revised version of the article. Would everyone agree on using "The harvest of sorrow" (see above) as one of our basic RS? Biophys (talk) 21:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is first response. No one objects to using newer sources or later publications by the same historian if he retracted his previous scientific findings. But an attempt to dismiss the entire most detailed academic book on the subject as an "obsolete source" is precisely the problem I am talking about. But WP:RS is our core policy. This is non-negotiable.. As about Russian and Ukrainian partisan sources, I do not mind using them, except this is a typical problem in all nationalistic disputes (The absolute rejection of all scholarship not coming from authors of the same nationality that our nationalist is whitewashing, according to Moreschi). Soviet archives were never opened (even the official Lev Ponomarev commission was disbanded when Gleb Yakunin published their first findings), but this is unrelated question. Biophys (talk) 00:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek. If the dispute was about calling this famine "man-made" and "genocide", it would be easy to resolve. "Man-made" means simply "made by man" (confiscation of grain, preventing movement of people from the area of disaster, etc.), as opposed to "made by nature" (e.g. poor weather conditions). Some famines in history were obviously "made by nature". Others did not. All books I read about this tell that all famines in the USSR during this time (including Kazahstan and other areas) were mostly "made by man". The only difference of Holodomor is obvious: it has been recognized as a genocide by some historians and Ukrainian government. So what? Just tell it was recognized as genocide by such and such parties, but not other parties (and provide arguments by the parties). End of story. No need in definitive answer.Biophys (talk) 23:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the dispute was about calling this famine "man-made" and "genocide", it would be easy to resolve. - you would think!!! But things which it seems like "would be easy to resolve" are not, on Wikipedia. The dispute over this was a genocide or not is down the road - even getting folks to admit that it was "man-made" is a struggle. It's an old tactic in diplomacy; start an argument about something trivial, nonconsequential and even obvious, so that you don't have to discuss the real issue which you might loose. Volunteer Marek  02:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BesterRus

  • Interests. My only interest is historical integrity. I want people to know what really happened. I have no conflicts of interest.
  • The problems. What caused the dispute to require mediation is that there is no formal consensus on the subject even between historians. The reason for this is because this famine was used most irresponsibly in anti-soviet propaganda, in attempts to separate Ukraine from USSR, in attempts to smear communism, in attempts to seed hatred between two brother nations, and so much more. Numerous lies have been proven to be just that. The overwhelming amount of distorted information combined with blatant lies led honest people like some participants of this discussion to believe something that simply isn't true. What made the situation even worse is that some writers blatantly abused of their status to spread their opinions, based on no factual evidence, but rather on hearsay or simply on their own intuition (Robert Conquest comes to mind). Hopefully, this discussion will help clear things up.
  • Current dispute. Everything needs to be addressed from A to Z. The article has to be heavily rewritten. Truth be told, I wouldn't know where to start. What I think is underrepresented in this article is this:
  1. the climate conditions - the heavy rains that drenched the crops and caused too much weed, the drought, the locust infestation. (even if there's another article for this)
  2. the numbers of grain production by years that show tendencies (production went drastically down).
  3. the numbers of livestock in Ukraine by years.
  4. the context of collectivization - for example: policy forced people to give up their horses and oxes to the Kolkhoz, so they slaughtered and ate them instead.
  5. the industrialization context - some amount of crops had to be sold, it was the only source of revenue to buy heavy machinery, and the industrialization couldn't be stopped once it had started. The West wasn't accepting Soviet gold since 1925 till after 1933.
  6. the help that was provided - how many people were relocated from the drought area, how much bread was sent to relieve the famine. In numbers.
  7. the lack of any factual evidence in the unsealed archives that'd prove that the famine was intentional or wasn't to be relieved, while the term genocide requires proven intent.
  8. the victims - how many % were actually Ukranians, and how many % were other nations. Sheer numbers.
  9. the precedence - famines ravaged Russia from the Peasant Reform of 1861 till the famine of 1932-33 (if we don't take into account the post-war famine of 1946-47). And they weren't called man-made, only this one.
  10. the myths - the article is full of them, they have to be debunked and removed. Some of them are revolting, but impossible to disprove, even though they're not proven either. Let's just agree that it's an issue that has seen so much propaganda that in order to bring in new information, such as "youth brigades that ran around Ukraine raping women", we need to have heavy proof. No frivolities should be accepted. Baseless accusations should retire into a small section instead of being the article.
  • What do you hope to achieve through mediation. Truth. Sorry, I think I went over 250 words, but it's a vast subject. My position on the chart is 2A with the understanding that if crops were redistributed differently, it'd be the army, for example, who'd suffer the famine, leaving the country completely defenseless, or another region would suffer the famine.

BesterRus (talk) 13:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This user seems focused on ideological/nationalistic matters involving "this famine was used most irresponsibly in anti-soviet propaganda, in attempts to separate Ukraine from USSR, in attempts to smear communism, in attempts to seed hatred between two brother nations, and so much more." Focus should be exclusively on facts as reported by relaible sources, not on fighting communist-smearing or other perceived battles.Faustian (talk) 03:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Volunteer Marek

  1. What are your interests in regards to the Holodomor articles? How did you discover and start editing the article? Do you have any potential conflicts of interest? - the article falls in the scope of a topic area which I edit regularly. I "discovered" it by typing in "Holodmor" into Wikipedia's search feature. I have no conflict of interest, potential or otherwise here.
  2. What problems you think have caused this dispute to require mediation? - there's actually two problems here. One is a perennial one which is that this article is a prime target for editors who wish to engage in Stalinist apologetics. This is basically constant here and has been ever since the article has existed. These editors introduce unreliably sourced material, remove reliably sourced material etc. the usual stuff. Most of these kinds of editors end up getting themselves banned in one way or another pretty quickly and none of the parties, AFAICT, of this mediation falls under that scope. Still, the frequent arrival of such editors tends to constantly re-inflame issues which should have already been settled. The second problem, which is more directly relevant for this mediation is related but different. As Paul Siebert above says we should use only high quality academic sources on a potentially controversial article like this one. The thing is, high quality academic sources are pretty explicit here but these same editors are just refusing to acknowledge in what these sources say or try to interpret them "creatively". The dispute has arisen because, honestly there's only so many times you can say on the talk page "high quality academic source says Holodomor was a distinct phenomenon from the general Soviet famine" only to have other editors keep repeating "please provide high quality academic sources for this contention" as if you didn't just waste reading a number of scholarly articles on the subject. So um, the problems is stubbornness and unwillingness to admit something, even while paying lip service to use of high quality sources.
  3. What is your view of the dispute at present, and what issues need to be addressed in this mediation, that would help resolve this dispute amicably? Give a list of issues, if possible. - at this point there's two main issues. 1 - was Holodomor a distinct phenomenon from the Soviet famine. Nobody's denying that a famine in other parts of Soviet Union happened at around this time, but most high quality academic sources do treat the Holodomor as a separate subject because there were many unique features associated with it, which were not present in regard to the Soviet famine. 2 - was Holodmor "man-made". The question lurking in the background here is "was Holodomor a genocide". However, "man-made" does not imply "genocide". Roughly speaking the famine in the Ukraine started out as a famine similar to ones which were taking place in other parts of SU. All of these were "man-made" in the sense that they were mostly the result of man-made policy (harvests, weather all that crap, had little if anything to do with it). But 'additionally in mid to late 1942 Stalin and others realized that they could use this famine in the Ukraine to suppress Ukrainian peasants who had some notions of independence. Sources are pretty clear about this. The question is whether this is enough to make it a genocide. But that is not the problem here - the problem is over whether the famine can be described as "man-made". Which it obviously was, one way or another, genocide or not.
  4. What do you hope to achieve through mediation? Hope? Well... let me "hope" for a second. I hope to have the present disputes resolved as they pertain to the problems described above. Even that is extremely optimistic. However even if by some miracle this mediation is successful, I am 98.675% sure that one of two things will happen anyway: a year from now or so, some new editors will show up and restart exactly the same arguments, and if somebody points to this successful (let's "hope") mediation they will say that that was different, "consensus can change" blah blah blah, it's gonna be the same thing all over again, just new faces. If that doesn't happen, then I'm pretty sure (see % above) that one of the editors involved in the present dispute will fancy to restart the debate once the "mediators and admins have lost interest" and try, once again, to get their way (that's basically the history of this article so far). Maybe it won't be one of the parties involved in this mediation but rather one of the editors who were involved in these disputes shortly before but who decided, for one reason or another, to lay low during this mediation. I don't know. But I do know that this is exactly what will happen. I'd love to be proved wrong and hence my honest and good faithed participation in this mediation.

 Volunteer Marek  22:25, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/02_October_2011/Holodomor&oldid=455952361"