Talk:Sparta Battalion

Unilateral blanking of sourced text

Let's all be on the lookout for this type of editing: namely, the unilateral "edit war"-style blanking of sourced text without the prior use of "Discussion." It's surely not proper or even collegial. Let's do better. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 15:50, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

There are these sources that speak of association with neo-Nazism, but they do not provide any explanation. Is the battalion the armed wing of some neo-Nazi organization? It would be interesting to know more, it is a very important claim and must be supported by solid evidence.--Mhorg (talk) 16:07, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Alleged neo-Nazism

Removed text:

The Sparta Battalion has been described as being associated with neo-Nazism in regard to ideology.

References

Justification for removal: "there are no scholar sources that support this thing". We don't need "scholar sources", we need reliable sources. Plus the text says "has been described", which is NPOV; it doesn't say Sparta "is neo-Nazi" in wikivoice. So on the face of it the deleted text seems OK, although I haven't reviewed all the sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:54, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

On reflection, these are week sources: tabloids, one citing the Daily Mail, so would need stronger sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:57, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I believe this is an RS though: [1] BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Please remember that "Wikipedia:Verifiability#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_sources". This battalion has existed for years and has never been called a "neo-Nazi". Now there are few articles coming out on really weak sources that are saying it... and they don't even explain why. Furthermore, this faintly sourced part is even in the incipit. Until strong sources are found, in my opinion, a claim of this magnitude cannot be in the article. Mhorg (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Mhorg: actually that Battalion has been called neo-nazi for years. It simply did not gain as much attention as the Ukrainian Nazi Battalion (Azov).-Karma1998 (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely not, from 2014 to the first days of February 2022 no one ever described this military formation "neo-Nazi". As soon as the war began, there was a general copy\paste of this definition without even explaining why: is it a battalion that attracts neo-Nazis? Neo-nazis from Donbass or Russia or both? Are they part of a neo-Nazi political project? Are they part of an international network of neo-Nazis? If you have sources explaining this (preferably scholarly sources), please bring them here in the discussion, I'd love to read them. Mhorg (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mhorg: wait a sec, I know you. You're that Russia-supporting guy on the Italian Wikipedia that was obsessed with changing the page about the Odessa Trade Unions House Fire. I see that now you're active here as well hahahah.-Karma1998 (talk) 23:29, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

"Russian-supporting guy"? I changed the article's name only once and months ago, and made a few comments on the discussion page. Rather, on the Italian Wikipedia you have already been blocked indefinitely, these personal attacks here only confirm that you have not understood how to behave on the encyclopedia. Mhorg (talk) 23:38, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mhorg: I have been blocked indefinitely because of the arrogance of the Italian Wikipedia's administrators. Luckily, here I am met with much more respect and I have in fact received two barnstars because of my work on the Ukrainian crisis.-Karma1998 (talk) 06:24, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Now it is also written in wikivoice which would be neo-Nazi,[2] I think this is unacceptable. Could you please give your opinion? I also ask the other colleagues, could you explain to me why from 1 january 2014 to 24 february 2022 (the beginning of the war) Google found 0 articles about the "neo-Nazi" ideology of this battalion? Doesn't it seem to you that there is something strange too? Is it possible that there isn't a scholarly source that has investigated this neo-Nazi organization? For example, on the Azov battalion we have tons video documentaries, journalistic inquiries on its ties on neo-Nazi organizations... here we have nothing. Why?--Mhorg (talk) 09:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

This subject has attracted scholarly coverage[3] as such I agree that the sourcing is very poor as it fails to describe the label it is only providing in passing. This is a greatly covered topic as such we need to satisfy WP:LABEL properly and the sources should be describing the label than just making a passing mention. Jhy.rjwk (talk) 12:32, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Similarly, the "Ideology" section should be removed as well, because no sources focus on "ideology" per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. We need more than just passing mentions in recent sources. Jhy.rjwk (talk) 12:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, I agree with you completely. I have been following the conflict in Donbass since 2014, I have seen hundreds of videos and read hundreds of articles on rebel formations, I have never seen a single piece of content that spoke of the Sparta Battalion as a "neo-Nazi". This military formation is known for having a nostalgic political stance towards the Russian Empire, and is known for committing war crimes. Never read anything else. I find it really curious that these journalists from one day to the next, because the war has broken out, want to report this aspect without even providing any evidence, no journalistic investigation, nothing. It seems unprofessional to me, but maybe there are colleagues here who will be able to provide interesting material. Mhorg (talk) 12:49, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella: because these are two different situations. Please, read here. Mhorg (talk) 09:50, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mhorg I’ll. (You might want go back to Azov and fix sources that got corrupted with your recent edits) - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

The coverage in the western media regarding that battalion is small but some indeed describe them as neo-Nazi military unit backed by the Kremlin[4], and there is almost no scholarly coverage. One found is this one [5] but they do not describe Sparta Battalion as Neo-Nazis. How about RfC it? - GizzyCatBella🍁 11:14, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I know that some sources describe them as "neo-Nazi", but I think it is a copy\paste from journalists, mainly to counter-balance the issue of the Azov Battalion in the propaganda warfare from the West and Russia, and the fact that the only scholarly sources about this battalion do not describe them as "neo-Nazi" is a point in favor of this theory. I would prefer to wait for academic studies on this thing, before putting such a thing in the lede. However, if we want to do an RFC, that's okay for me. Mhorg (talk) 11:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella and Mhorg: RfC is not needed. Yes Sparta Battalion has got coverage in scholarly sources,[6][7] but no sources used this label for them because it is outright misleading.

Walesonline.co.uk published the article on 12 March, about 6 days after this fake information emerged from 6 March Daily Mail article just like WalesOnline too says confirms that it got its information from "the Daily Mail reports". We all know WP:DAILYMAIL is the worst source, thus we can safely ignore this.

I note that a better case can be made for American Republican Party because enough reliable sources call them and their politicians a white supremacist[8][9] but our article on them does not say it because of WP:LABEL and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Same conditions should apply here and any information emerging from Daily Mail should be rejected. Jhy.rjwk (talk) 16:18, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Jhy.rjwk for your research, I knew there was something weird underneath. If the first source that talked about it in these terms is the DailyMail, everything connected must be removed. Mhorg (talk) 16:35, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

There are multiple editors disagreeing (see article history) so I think RfC is the way to go, but I’ll not start one myself. - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, per WP:RFCBEFORE, they are free to explain how Daily Mail became reliable overnight for this subject but until then the recent edits are better off as removed. Jhy.rjwk (talk) 03:20, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

None of these sources are “daily mail”. Your argument appears to be “these sources said x, and Daily Mail also said X, so since Daily Mail is unreliable, we can’t include this”. That is an absurd argument. Volunteer Marek 03:49, 12 May 2022 (UTC)