User talk:Lysy

River question

Hi there, can you help me figuring out the Polish name for a river Lithuanians call Juodoji Ančia (Juodoji means black)? If you see at the bottom of this map, it flows into Neman on the border with Belarus and flows for a little while on the Polish-Lithuanian border. Any ideas? Renata 13:12, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Czarna Hańcza. --Lysy^talk 13:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Merkinė

I changed the pictures back, because I think that they look much better on the right. However, I have started a discussion on the talk page, so maybe we can discuss, if you still feel they are wrong. Athletes Foot 13:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Jan Dzierzon, the Ethnic Pole

I think ethnic pole needs to be added, because if one says he was a german citizen, but considered himself a pole, does that mean he thought he was a polish citizen? makes no sense, that's about as wikipedia worthy as the nonsense coming from the dillusional man running around downtown with placards sayin the world is going to end.

--Jadger 01:03, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be my poor grasp of English, but for me "ethnic Germans" has a post-Nazi flavour of racial theories to it. I've also never heard the term "ethnic Pole" before. I thought there were "Poles" or "Polish" (people who identified themselves with Polish nation) and "Polish citizens" (those formally having Polish citizenship). The latter of course would not make sense in 19th century. Anyway, just asked. --Lysy^talk 07:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

for the most part, "ethnic" usually means someone that identifies as belonging to that group. seeing as there was no Poland at the time, one could not be a Polish citizen, but it is confusing to say, He was German, but also Polish. perhaps we could use the term Polish-German, as that is more common these days, as I am German-Canadian, and English-Canadian, etc. etc. The citizenship/nationality coming second. We could even start a category of Polish-Germans to stop some of the racial arguing over people like Copernicus

--Jadger 11:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting (and tempting) idea, but I'm sure there would be many, who'd immediately oppose that. Hmm, I don't know.--Lysy^talk 12:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi guys! Unless someone was academically "challenged", it would almost be absurd to deny that Dzierżon, was ethnically Polish. Although I have seen many instances of certain editors and groups of editors try to deny the ethnicity of various persons on WP. Calling some one an ethnic German has nothing to do with nazism, any more than calling someone an ethnic Pole has to do with Sarmatism. It is very appropriate to acknowledge a person's ethnicity especially in areas (like Empires), which were usually multi-ethnic. My two cents. Dr. Dan 15:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

why would Polish-German to be so unnacceptable to you Lysy? I havent heard any reasons why it would be unacceptable, but I would like to hear them as I can't think of any.

--Jadger 02:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

No, actually I would not mind it. Ideally, however, I would leave the article as it is: Polish by ethnicity, German by citizenship. --Lysy^talk 06:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongowiusz

Please stop removing speedy deletion notices from articles that you have created yourself. If you do not believe the article deserves to be deleted, then please do the following:

1. Place {{hangon}} on the page. Please do not remove any existing speedy deletion notice(s)
2. Make your case on the article's talk page.

Administrators will look at your reasoning before deciding what to do with the article. Thank you. John Reaves 10:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I only "throw vandalism accusations around" to vandals, such as yourself. Your not allowed to remove speedy deletion tags. The content removal was accidental, I just reverted without looking. John Reaves 10:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Question

Can you help out with the answer. If a student was studying medicine at the University of Warsaw, in let's say 1880, was the instruction in Polish or Russian? Dr. Dan 16:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Warsaw University, in 1880 = Russian. I don't know if medicine was still taught there in 1880 but I'm almost sure it was. --Lysy^talk 17:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

See Warsaw_University#1857-1869 and following section. I still need to read how the situation looked after the January Uprising - i.e. if the universities were closed for some time, or not. For example, what happed with WU from 1865 (end of uprising) till 1870 ('Imperial University of Warsaw' begins)? I am 99% sure that it was closed from 1831 to 1862, though. On a related note, women were banned from universities (which is why Maria Curie-Skłodowska had to leave the Russian partition...) for most of that period, I am not sure if it they were allowed to universities before 1917.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  03:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it continued until 1869, when (1870) it was replaced by Russian University, which had Russian faculty and was boycotted by Polish students. So if Dr. Dan asked about 1880, it would definitely be in Russian. --Lysy^talk 08:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The pl article has better dates, although it's still somewhat confusing: zamknięcie Szkoły po Powstaniu styczniowym w 1869; the date is also confirmed at pl:Szkoła Główna Warszawska But... the Uprising ended in 1865, didn't it? So the logic is somewhat strange... repressions 4 years after the end of fighting? And yes, there is no doubt that in 1880 the language would be Russian.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Might be, the policy of the post-uprising repressions lasted for a number of years. --Lysy^talk 17:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you look...

...at my question at Talk:Vilnius University? Perhaps you've some materials to answer it. PS. A jak rozszerzysz Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongovius, to mozna by zDYKowac :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

axis article

which ones of my edits are factually incorrect? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 162.84.237.99 (talk) 06:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Actually all of them. I've explained it in the edit summary of the article. --Lysy^talk 08:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for welcoming me on wikipedia and posting the "help /orientation site" on my talk page --Sushi Leone 13:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Memories of Universal Victimhood

on the Talk Page of the Expulsion of Germans after World War II article, I provided a link to [[an article]characterizing the Expulsions meme as a framing of the German experience as a "shared victimhood". Nobody has responded. Would you take a look at the article and give me your opinion?

Thanks.

Richard —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 19:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

"commonly quoted" estimates of deaths in Expulsion of Germans after World War II

Hi,

I understand why you deleted the sentence regarding "commonly quoted". Here's what I was trying to communicate to the reader.

The range of estimates runs from 500,000 (Haar?) to 3 million (U.S. Congressman Reece - 1957). However, the range of estimates that seem to be given widest credence are 1.1 million (Overmans?) to 2.2 million (Center against Expulsions). I was trying to point the reader towards the 1.1 million to 2.2 million. Perhaps this is not appropriate.

I was responding to objections that Reece's 3 million number was ludicrously high (perhaps it was). I also have the sense the Haar's estimate of 500,000 may be too low. Do we have a way of evaluating these various estimates? I don't mean that we should do the evaluation (that would be OR) but can we somehow communicate that the mainstream opinion runs between 1.1 million and 2.2 million with 500,000 and 3 million being extremes at both ends of the range?

--Richard 20:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Adalbert von Winkler

Likely will interest you :) PS. ...belong to us, but the ref goes over me? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On January 12, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Christoph Mrongovius, 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.

This article kindly nominated by Piotrus. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Zadymy

Good for you then. AAMoF I did not return yet, I merely had a day or two off and wanted to take a look at how's the business going. I filled two or three translation requests from the Lithuanian noticeboard (no wonder the Lithuanian ultras didn't like them, I bet they wanted some hagiographic articles), added a word here and there. However, I'm definitely not in a right mood to correct all the idiotic things done by you-know-whom in all the articles. Sure, this would mean that instead of NPOV in Polish-Lithuanian articles we'd end up with extreme nationalist Lithuanian POV instead (Vilnija anyone?), but what the heck. They want it - let them have it (at least for a while). We too had our Space Cadet period in Polish-German relations, didn't we. //Halibutt 22:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

An article which you started, or significantly expanded, Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920, was selected for DYK!

On January 15, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920, 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 23:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

FYI

the anon user 216.171.96.18 is the same user as the 131/Serafin fellow. he uses the 216 address when at a different location. he has used it a couple of times now. He has now started removing other user's comments [[1]]. Just thought you should know that you are still dealing with the same troublemaker here.

--Jadger 00:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with you, as I have said before, his being Polish or German did not have any effect on the reason he is notable. It is indeed frustrating to think we could better spend our time expanding articles and improving Wikipedia, but instead we are stuck in this muddy trench warfare kind of thing where we have to repeat the same thing over and over to no end. I think Wikipedia needs stronger rules admin that are willing to use it to its full authorization.

--Jadger 01:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head there with your concise statements. I agree totally with everything you have said. 131 has not learned from his multiple blocks and so a longer one is needed I feel, not a Molobo-esque block, but one that will atleast teach him that what he is doing is unnacceptable. This is worse than the common vandal, as this person is tenacious and has an agenda, whereas the common vandal is just pulling a prank once or twice, not nearly as disruptive as this user has been. There has been one benefit to his edits though, I now have more respect for the users I have previously opposed, and my opinion of them is much better than it was previously.

--Jadger 03:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Geographic names

Did you look at Khoikhoi's last edit before you reverted to it?

It's a different issue altogether. He is now questioning the position, consensus at Talk:Istanbul and elsewhere, that we should use Istanbul, not İstanbul, when English spells without the diacritic. There may be disagreement on how far that extends; but there has been repeated agreement on the principle. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

User:LUCPOL

I just want to ask you if you would be willing to help me stop User:LUCPOLs wikipedia propagandist and compulsive lieing spree, ive made a report but im not yet finished....here it is User:R9tgokunks\User:LUCPOL-- Hrödberäht 06:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Message 22Jan07

You have a message from me @: [2]--131.104.218.46 20:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My revised perspective on the expulsion of Germans after World War II

When I started getting involved with this page last year, I assumed that the central debate was related to whether or not the expulsions were justified. It seemed more or less accepted fact that the estimates of deaths were somewhere between 1.1 million and 2.2 million.

Recently, however, comments by a number of editors have led me to believe that the number could be much lower (400,000-500,000 per Haar and Overmans). Moreover, it seems there is no easy way to estimate what the "excess number of deaths" might have been over the death rate that would have occurred if the expulsions never happened.

The above is a brief summary of a discussion that is taking place on Talk:Expulsion of Germans after World War II under the section heading "Uncertainty of estimates of deaths".

Would you please read the discussion and then give me your opinion either on the article talk page, my talk page or via e-mail?

Thanx.

Richard —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 00:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

RE:Jadger/Expulsion

I do not think it is a personal attack, I pointed out his fallacious argument, and made a comment on it. It may have been uncivil, but my patients is growing thin with him. I am also at the current moment combatting a very disruptive mad-at-the-world-so-the-USA-is-to-blame teenager so some of my exasperation has spilled over onto here. I am sorry if any of my comments come off sounding aggressive, but right now my personal life is kind of in a crisis stage, so I am more flustered and it will probably show in my edits. bear with me please.

--Jadger 05:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lysy, I would like to direct you to user:jadger/draft expulsions where I made a exact copy of the Expulsions article as the first edit in the history, then I edited and added some things from there. I did this so you can see all of the changes that have been made from the actual article by comparing the oldest and newest version. It is still a work in progress, your own additions and comments are asked for.

--Jadger 15:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

On your continues removal of referenced information

Stop removing referenced information like you doing on Vilnius University. Thank you. M.K. 16:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

First of all this is not the "single POV". Didn't you tried at least google books, (which are preferred by many Polish "researchers") to check this "single POV"? Btw, I see nice timing [3]; [4]. And such "acidental" timing occurs for while now in different disputed articles. Coincidence? And yes, you can drop me a biographical index of English books there your POV concurred on occupation. M.K. 17:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you meant by your "nice timing" comment, but Piotrus is not a sockpuppet of mine if this is what you're suggesting. --Lysy^talk 08:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I do not accuse you for suckpuppetism; if I do your name and suspected sock would be on display in check-user dir. But lets me explain that I have in mind. You see, for some time you and user:Piotrus started rotating campaign of reverts, just look - [5][6] [7] [8] and so on. So my question - what tools you both using to coordinate your reverting campaign on articles - msn, google? M.K. 11:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Neither I have asked Piotrus for help nor brought the article to his attention. If I needed help with this particular article, I would be rather asking Lithuanian editors for it. --Lysy^talk 11:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, Lysy, lets leave it as you say. M.K. 11:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Stop your personal attacks

Stop your personal attacks, such as this [9]. Thank you. M.K. 09:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, where do you see personal attack in this ? --Lysy^talk 10:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Replayed on VU talk. M.K. 10:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

M.K, please stop harassing other editors.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Stop this baseless accusations, right now! M.K. 13:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. I should have known better... -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggested many times that we should all concentrate on the content disputes themselves and avoid using civility issues as a weapon against the content opponents. Unless something that is said is horrifically offensive, one should just ignore it and move on. I think even the Piotrus' "DFTT" entry above should be ignored rather than blown up and all editors should concentrate on the content disagreements.

Deflecting the content discussions into the discussion of the civility issues is even less productive for what we are doing here (writing content) than the occasional outbursts caused by one's frustration. Whether WP:CIV is used as a weapon to intimidate Ghirla, Dr Dan, Lysy or Hali, I say this is all equally unproductive. Save WP:CIV warnings for dealing with real full-time trolls. The list above certainly does not include any. --Irpen 02:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

mikka

This user is blanking pages. I suspect from my interactions with him he has a political agenda. Since he is an editor, I am not sure how to handle the situation. I am not active in Wikipedia precisely because my contributions have been vandalized under the pretext of editing. Regards.

72.181.191.166

P.S. any ideas on how to stop him?

Anon blocked. This is sock of indefinitely blocked LevKamensky (talk · contribs) who cannot abandon the idea of glorifying his father without proper references. `'mikka 16:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Centre Against Expulsions

Who are the "analysts", you are writing about? Xx236 14:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Move

I think you'll be interested in this:Talk:Historical_Eastern_Germany#Requested_move. -- Hrödberäht (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't really know what would be the perfect title of this particular article. --Lysy^talk 21:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Photographs on Wikimedia Commons

Cześć Lysy!

Thank you for welcoming me to Wikipedia last month. Please may I take up your offer to advise me on how to make contributions?

Last month I uploaded two photo's to Wikimedia Commons. I had taken the photo's myself and I clearly said so in my descriptions of them. I chose a copyright status that allowed free use, and created a hyperlink from Wikipedia to use my photo's in an article that I was expanding.

Someone has now marked one of my two photo's saying that it does not have enough information on its copyright status. The person did not tell me that they were doing this, and they did not do this to the other photo that I uploaded with the same status and used in the same article.

Have I made a mistake, or is the other person just being officious? Either way, how do I put it right?

The article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_Firecrest My photo's are at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Regulus_madeirensis

By the way, I expanded the english version of the article by translating some text from the German version of the same article: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeiragoldh%C3%A4hnchen Madeira is a Portuguese island but there is no Portuguese version of this article. I have therefore sent the text of the article to a Portuguese-speaking friend of mine and asked him if he would like to translate it. Rozumiem troche po-polsku. I think that the firecrest is called "zniczek" in Polish. Czy mówi po-polsku "Madeira Firecrest"?

Pozdrawiamy serdecznie, Motacilla 12:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Editing Polish articles

Pomocy! Nie mówię zbyt dobrze po-polsku!

The Polish Wikipedia article about the Red Admiral (Rusałka admirał) butterfly contains a mis-spelling of the scientific name. It should be "Vanessa atalanta" but the Polish article mis-spells the trivial name "atlanta". The mis-spelling appears at least twice in the article. This may seem unimportant but it makes it more difficult to find the article when searching for it.

Here is the article: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusa%C5%82ka_admira%C5%82

I have tried making a minor amendment to the page to correct the spelling. When I tried to save my amendment a webpage appeared telling me something about an anti-spam filter. I know too little Polish to understand what the page said. Has my editing been blocked, or just delayed while someone checks it?

By the way, do you know anyone who likes writing about butterflies in Polish? There are no Polish articles about some quite common butterflies:

• meadow brown - Przestrojnik jurtina
• large skipper - Karłątek kniejnik
• speckled wood - Osadnik egeria
• chalkhill blue - Modraszek korydon
• small skipper - Karłątek leśny

I know that at least some of these butterflies live in Poland because I have photographed them there!

Dziękuję bardzo, Motacilla 13:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandal

I have been accused of being a vandal on User:LUCPOL/Vandal:R9tgokunks due to past editing disputes with yourself, or other being involved in ways with yourself. Since you have been mentioned, i'd like to ask if you could please comment on the mentioned report, Thanks much. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 15:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well actually he was the one to start stalking me. On my talk page and Jadgers[10] is how i began to notice he was stalking me, after telling Jadger about LUCPOLs suspicious edits, but after the whole ordeal and the reports opened he seemed to stop. And as you can see [11] just now he added a sockpuppeteer tag to my user page. In the report he has alleged random persons (anon IPs) of being my sockpuppets, without my actual IP included, which i rarely use.-- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 22:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Ponary massacre

Do you think a WP:RFC would be in order? The disruption of that page is reaching very high levels... -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I've not been following it too closely. Let me take a look. --Lysy^talk 20:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Tygodniks

I do not believe, that any newspaper (be it Polish or Lithuanian) is decent source of information, especially talking about our nations each other history. You know exactly there was/is tension on some subjects, and emotional writings by journalists does not help to find the middle way. In cas you didn't notice, i do (almost) never use any webpages or newspapers as references. As for Šaulių sajunga nationalism - I'd doubt that voluntarily organization consisting of about 60 thousand, and that Lithuanian Jews did join at their own will can be counted as nationalistic. And you most probably know that in every big organization there are idiots, who throw shadow on the whole organization, so this thing is a quite POV'ed.--Lokyz 11:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that where available, the research publications are much, much better and preferred over non-scientific publications, and that if somebody uses non-scientific publications, this should be done with extreme care and clearly denoted. This said, there are magazines and newspapers of various quality and this should also be taken into account. The problem is, where available choice of research publications is limited. --Lysy^talk 15:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Appreciation

Just wanted to say thanks for your recent corrections my typos and the like at the articles and on the talk pages. Dr. Dan 18:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I only hope that you will continue to correct mine as well. --Lysy^talk 18:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Nitschke

This is the link to review: [12]--Serafin 23:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Talking to Irpen and his group

Hi. I dropped in to tell you that talking to Irpen and his Group is certainly nice, but naive and fruitless. If you REALLY don't need the penianze you're spending on such attempts through your Internet connection fees, donate it to WP instead :)). Why don't you grow up after all those years spent on WP? Best wishes, Ukrained 21:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Merging the "expulsions" article with the "exodus" article

I can't remember if we discussed merging the "expulsions" article and the "exodus" article. I think you suggested it to me a few months ago and I think I convinced you not to do it.

I am beginning to revisit this question and I'm wondering whether you think these should continue to be two separate articles or one long article.

--Richard 23:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Question about your edit to Demographic estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe

Rich, how did you add the "date=February 2007" attribute to the requests for citation in the Demographic estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe ? I thought the article was protected from editing. --Lysy^talk 18:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is, but WP:admins can still edit it (but will not of course make any material change while it is under protection without discussing on the talk page first). Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 19:03 25 February 2007 (GMT).

Possibly, but articles should not really remain protected for long. And if sources are found, and agreed on the talk page, they can be added using {{tl:editprotected}}. Also the tags should get dated as close to when they are added as possible, generally protected items will be left alone, at the moment I'm trying to make a clean sweep of this particular category to ensure that all the weird errors are picked up. Rich Farmbrough, 19:12 25 February 2007 (GMT).

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia

This arbitration case has closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The parties identified in the decision as having acted poorly in the dispute regarding Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 are admonished to avoid such behavior in the future. That article is placed on probation, and any editor may be banned from it, or from other reasonably related pages, by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, inciviilty, and original research. The Arbitration Committee reserves the right to appoint one or more mentors at any time, and the right to review the situation in one year, if appropriate. The parties are strongly encouraged to enter into a mediation arrangement regarding any article-content issues that may still be outstanding. If the article is not substantially improved by continued editing, the Arbitration Committee may impose editing restrictions on users whose editing is counterproductive or disruptive. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 23:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lysy, would you explain to me why you were notified of the results of this case? You do not seem to have been involved in the case. --Richard 07:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It surprised me as well. I was not informed of the RfArb being open, and was only notified upon its closure. Probably because I took part in the discussion there or in the revert war, even if my involvement was rather lightweight. Anyway, it's been a while since I touched it. --Lysy^talk 21:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Expulsion of Germans after World War II

What to do with this protected article? Just give up and see if anybody else gives a pfennig about it? I've offered compromises, asked for commitment to collaborate, suggested mediation, even made threats about requesting arbitration. The article needs a lot of work but nobody seems to care. Any ideas on what we could do? --Richard 19:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd just wait. Well, in fact I have to, anyway, as I would not have the time required to deal with it seriously, now. I've not followed the talk there recently. I believe only a massive rewrite would do it good, but this would be a very demanding and time consuming task, as for every line of the text, you'd have a hundred of discussion. Even if I had the time, I still could not do it myself, because my English is too limited. But I truly appreciate all your effort and patience and beg you not to give it up for good, as you are the only hope for the article. You are probably also the only of the involved editors who can afford to be neutral to the topic, which is a pre-requirement. --Lysy^talk 20:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"Recovered Territories" no longer in use today

Hi Lysy,

I don't mean to focus too much on this but could you add a citation to this assertion in the Recovered Territories article? I'm not challenging the truth of the assertion. It's just that assertions about the use or non-use of a term cannot be determined by a single person oar group of people and so a citation to a reliable source is a really good idea to deflect charges of original research. I assume that this is easy for you to do since your edit summary suggested that there is a source. Thanks.

--Richard 19:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes and no. If the term is used toady it's either in historical context or humorous. Nobody would say "I live in the recovered territories" today. It would simply sound funny. The term belongs to the propaganda parlance of the 1940s and 1950s. But finding a proper citation could be difficult. First it would probably be in Polish. Would you accept the Polish wikipedia as a source ? or another Polish online encyclopedia "WIEM" says: "Później częściej ze względów politycznych używano terminu: Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne."[13], which means: later, mostly for political reasons the term Western and Northern Lands was used instead. Would you say that the "Wild West" is in English usage today ? Probably much more than "Recovered Territories". --Lysy^talk 20:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I would say a Polish source is better than no source but an English translation of the relevant passages would be ideal. --Richard 04:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm also interested in knowing when the term fell out of usage. The current article text suggests that it was only used in the first few years after World War II. This suggests that, by the time the Berlin Wall fell, the term had not been used for many decades.

Similarly, I wonder if the term was used in the 60s. Since the Treaty of Warsaw was not signed until 1970, I wonder what Poles thought about these territories in the 1960s.

--Richard 19:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I found two versions of when the tern was "officially" dropped by Polish Communist propaganda. One is that after Treaty of Zgorzelec in 1950 and the other that in 1956 it was replaced by the Western and Northern Lands. I don't know which is true, both seem reasonable. Certainly it was not in the official use in the 1960s, but it might have been used by the population for some time still. What Poles thought about the territories is a complex matter. A very good text about this is the one that I mentioned in the article's talk [14]. Unfortunately it is in Polish and I'm not able to translate it but it shows all the complexity of the Polish perception of the issue in the post-war years. Anyway, there is no short and simple answer to the question. Anyway, can you imagine how confused the Poles must had been after the end of WW2 ? On one hand they were liberated from the Nazis, on the other they felt betrayed by the allies and left at the mercy of Stalin. Some would think that one occupation was replaced with another one. I'm only mentioning this to hint how complex the Polish perspective was then. --Lysy^talk 20:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I have put a cleaned-up version of the first two sentences above in the Recovered Territories article. Please provide citations as you see fit. --Richard 04:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

D-PL

You may be interested in: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,471777,00.html

Sca 03:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Expulsions article

In the "Expulsions" article, there is a section titled "Chronology of the expulsions" which is not chronological i.e. it goes country-by-country rather than in chronological order. How should we fix this? We could just change the title or we could rewrite the whole section in chronological order (but it could get messy as we would have to jump from one country to another and back again). What are your thoughts? --Richard 04:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Ideally it would be a multi-dimensional table but of course we cannot do it. I believe that chronology is more important that "country" classification, because it helps to understand the sequence of the events and what happened, while dividing by country mostly focuses on assigning the blame, which should not be our objective here. Of course chronology is more difficult as it requires a better structurization and we will not avoid looking at individual geographic locations and what happened there separately (e.g Eastern Prussia). So I would suggest a mixed approach with chronology being the first ordering key. --Lysy^talk 07:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Framework for articles related to the history of ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe

I have revived a discussion thread on the above topic that we had back in October 2006. I placed an excerpt of that discussion on Talk:History of Germany. Please re-read what you and I discussed and share any additional thoughts or comments that you might like to add.

--Richard 07:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Shahbag

I have just put the article to peer review. Would you care to take a look? Aditya Kabir 20:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Expulsions articles

Hi again. I see you're on wikibreak. No matter. I'll leave this message here and hope that you will come back to join us soon.

As you may be aware, I created two new articles a couple of weeks ago Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II and Expulsion of Germans from Poland after World War II. I had my doubts about doing this since there is a lot of overlap between these and the primary article on Expulsion of Germans after World War II. Still, there is also a lot of material that is unique to each country from the details of the evacuation, flight and expulsion to the re-assessment in the last two decades. I still think there is value in having separate articles on these two countries as it allows us to get into a lot more detail without turning the primary article into a monster article.

Here's my question... would you review these three articles and give me your advice on how to distribute material across them? I have copied over the "controversy over reasons" section to each of the subsidiary articles and then specialized the section to that country (i.e. dropping all references to Poland from the section in the Czechoslovakia article and vice versa).

How does this look? Am I on the right track?

--Richard 16:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. My available time is alas still limited and I'm trying to stay off the topics that would require more involvement. I appreciate you letting me know and all your efforts to make some sense out of this. --Lysy^talk 18:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I could not resist it and took a brief glimpse at the first paragraphs of Expulsion of Germans from Poland after World War II. You are doing great job. The only remark I'd like to make is that again, the title explicitly states "after World War II" but the definition of "the expulsion" within the article is broader and covers earlier phases as well. We know this definition discrepancy problem already and I still don't know how to address it. --Lysy^talk 20:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Internet brigades

Sorry for deleting some of your contributions in article Internet brigades. We can correct this if the article survives AfD. Thank you very much for your participation.Biophys 17:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem and no hurry. Can wait. --Lysy^talk 18:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom/Piotrus

Case has been started, probably you will be interested: [15] M.K. 10:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll give it a look. --Lysy^talk 20:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (Talk) 20:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:NCGN

Thanks for the direction Lysy, but I was thinking less in terms of general guidelines than in terms of resolving the handful of specific cases that keep coming up. For instance, firmly decide when, if ever, Vilnius is Wilno or Vilna. I think there has to be some give and take here. The Polish editors need to recognize that yes there is a legitimate nation called Lithuania that underwent a national revival in the 1800s, much like Poland did, that was just as legitimate (or phony whatever your view) as Poland's was. I think the Lithuanian and Ukrainian editors have perfect reason to accuse the Polish editors of double standards. On the other hand, the Lithuanian editors are making wikipedia less accessable by keeping out some of the alternative Polish toponyms, refusing to compromise on Jogaila, etc. I think if the Lithuanian editors would be more willing to accept that you can't leave Poland out of Lithuania's history if the Polish editors would admit that Lithuania does indeed have a separate history from Poland's that wasn't invented out of the air in 1919 or 1991. There has to be some give and take--my two cents. Leo1410 22:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well said. If only this mutual understanding could happen... As for toponyms, there are many more than just Vilnius, and I believe some general rules are the only reasonable solution. This is not only the problem of Lithuanian towns, but most of the places in this part of Europe, which changed their names many times throughout the history. --Lysy^talk 20:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments

I just want to say that I appreciate and respect your comments on my RfA (for which I've responded about the Commons incident, not a pretty move by me for sure). As for the nationalism comment, that was indeed poorly phrased, and I'm sorry for that. But I am still concerned that tensions between the Eastern European countries get mirrored on Wikipedia. It is something that I look upon with the utmost regret.

Let me conclude by saying that I've always considered you to be a very reasonable editor, and if you have any problems with other Eastern European editors, I'll always be available to look at the issue objectively or for informal mediation. Errabee 23:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for this comment. As you can see, I'm having a hard time alternatively supporting and opposing your nom. Changed back to support now :-) I'm too frustrated with the Eastern European "arena" but as you are aware, the history made it is sooo complex there. I wish we could develop a core of mature want-to-be neutral editors there one day. This is difficult and I certainly appreciate your willingness to help. --Lysy^talk 07:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Expulsion of Germans

Good to see you back. On a higher level of discussion, Xx236 has moved the main article from Expulsion of Germans after World War II to Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII which addresses the concerns that many editors have raised. Do you agree with this move? Do you think the subsidiary articles should also be moved? These articles include:

Expulsion of Germans from Poland after World War II

Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II

Expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II

What are your thoughts?

--Richard 19:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy if the titles reflected the contents, but to be true, I have not read any of these articles in their entirety yet, so it's too early for me to have an opinion. We have tried in the past to disjoin the flight from the expulsion, and as far as I remember this was not practical for many reasons. An alternative approach would be to rename the articles to signify that they cover both things. I certainly always wanted to differentiate between the two, as there is blame associated with both, and there is a disturbing pattern to assign the blame for the disorganised German evacuation to Poles, Czechs etc. --Lysy^talk 19:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Xx236 changed the title to fit the contents. We could have tried to pull the "flight and evacuation" out of the article but that becomes difficult because the estimated number of deaths must cover not only "flight, evacuation and expulsion" but other causes of death such as Allied bombing. In the past couple of months, I have learned there were a few hundred thousand German refugees from Eastern Europe in Dresden at the time of the firebombing. No one knows for sure how many were there or how many died during that terrible incident. However, there is a vociferous group of editors who insist that these deaths are part of the "population balance". Unless we can see exactly how the Statistisches Bundesamt and other historians computed their population balance, we can never be sure what the numbers really represent. I suspect that the downward revisions of Ruediger Overmans and Bernadette Nitschke are based partly on these kinds of issues. However, without further detail, we cannot know for sure.

--Richard 20:11, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Dresden is just an example, but the situation was similar in many places, the refugees flocked in the cities, which then were bombed, attacked by the Red Army etc. I think I have read about other examples, I think it was Stettin and Danzig, and some smaller towns, but cannot remember exactly at the moment. Anyway, I see all these victims counting issue controversies as the major problem which so far prevented us from having consistent articles about the expulsions. I wish these could be somehow isolated, but we have tried this already as well. Anyway, I think that the renaming/splitting effort is an improvement and we may be on the right track. --Lysy^talk 06:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Image on

Lysy, what was the problem with the image on Polish Armed Forces in the East‎ that Betacommand wanted to hide? --Britlawyer 18:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I think he believes the image has a copyright problem. --Lysy^talk 19:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

o.k., thanks and I'm glad you fixed it. I have the page watchlisted and I was going to correct it but you did it first.--Britlawyer 00:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

FYI [16] [17] User talk:BetacommandBot#Disruptive behaviour --Philip Baird Shearer 09:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

User:AlexNewArtBot

Hi Lysy, as a WikiProject Scotland participant, please check out this this thread and consider adding the bot results page to your watchlist so we can manually update the New Articles page. There are some false results for the first batch, but I'm sure we can collectively tune the rules to improve the output.

If we get enough people watching the results page, we'll be cooking with gas as they say :)   This looks like a great helper in finding new Scotland related material. Cheers. --Cactus.man ✍ 01:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It is remarkable that you have not noticed Poland :) It was I believed the third feed I have implemented (after Russia and Ukraine). I thought about doing something like this for awhile but the last straw that forced me to read a Perl book and code the bot was the request by Piotrus Alex Bakharev 07:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you. Good luck! LT-BALT 16:54, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Evidence phase

Hello Lysy. If you intend to present evidence on the Piotrus RFAR, could you please do so soon? Thank you. Picaroon (Talk) 17:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. At the moment I'm still reluctant to add evidence of the conduct of the parties, as I would prefer not to aggravate the conflict. I still believe this RfArb is a side effect of a content dispute but I'll try to keep an eye on the evidence provided by others. Is there a deadline for providing evidence ? --Lysy^talk 23:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Rusnė

Thank you for correcting me, I've been there last three days and it's amazing plce to the extent of WOW. In my life I haven't seen so many fishing people as I've seen there in about 2 hrs. I have some pictures of it, maybe I should add them?--Lokyz 19:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Pictures of the anglers ? ;-) Rusnė Island is a very special place, I think it deserves an article of its own. --Lysy^talk 19:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Pictures done, the Island article in my mind, I'll do a stub soon:) --Lokyz 21:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Russians in Ukraine

I take from your edits in that article that you are familiar with Ukrainian history and was wondering if you could leave your thoughts on some of the issues raised on the discussion page. In particular, regarding the use of Little Russian, Krivoy Rog and Odessa republics and other topics that you might find interesting there. Your input is very much appreciated as we are trying to write a neutral article and we need to reflect opinions of as many interested users as possible. Thanks in advance.--Hillock65 00:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm not an expert and at the moment I found it difficult to follow the multithreaded dispute there. --Lysy^talk 20:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

tags

Piotrus is trying to do some complicated mathematics based on various maps, and areas on the maps, in order to prove his thesis that the Jewish population in the areas devastaed by Chmielnitski was fairly low. That, by definition, is original research. Jayjg ^(talk) 13:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Alternative

Lysy please look up ther definition of alternative. Paryź and Rzym are not alternative names for Paris and Rome. They are a foreign language rendition of the cities' names. Dr. Dan 14:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Foreign forms of the name meet the definition of alternate names as understood in WP:NCGN. If this wording bothers you, maybe you should suggest to have it adjusted there ? --Lysy^talk 16:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I intend to. Dr. Dan 22:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Pawłokoma

(You wrote)

Let's discuss. --Lysy^talk 18:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation. I was just going to ask for the same on article Talk page. In the spirit of historical accuracy, the number of dead victims suggested by Eugeniusz Misiło should not automatically override the number of victims suggested by another researcher and author Zdzisław Konieczny, but since you insist on reverting my edits, I assume that you must have a good reason for doing so. I read only what’s available online, not the books, therefore I cannot confirm nor discredit the information you provided. The only thing I ask is that we both make sure that the Wikipedia guidelines are followed and the balance is kept. I have no personal interest in the content of this article. --Poeticbent  talk  18:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not only Misiło. When I started the article I've checked several sources, and some claimed 366, others 368, therefore I phrased it as "about 366". I wish I had made note on the individual sources, but I will try to dig them again. Then I came across a press article mentioning 150 (also see Polish wikipedia). I think I've read the article in Dziennik Polski, which at that time struck me as very single-sided. I have not read Konieczny. Can we compile a list of the available online sources, maybe in the article's talk and then discuss how reliable they are ? Check this out. According to IPN's prosecutor, there are no reasons to doubt the results of the 1952 exhumation, which yielded the 365 figure. --Lysy^talk 19:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I can see why you wanted to keep the 365 dead victims in the opening statement. However, I don’t agree with the way you used Notes for making comments, which are contradicting the text from above, i.e.:

• ^ 150 according to some Polish sources
• ^ Including women and children, according to some sources
• ^ According to a Polish-Ukrainian historian Eugeniusz Misiło, the Poles were kidnapped by Soviet NKVD

Such use of Notes is un-encyclopedic. We are not supposed to just put there things without evidence. Besides, there's no such thing as "some" sources in an encyclopedia. The names ought to be revealed. On top of that, there are no links and no sources in those Notes. It looks like we are trying to hide something by moving data away from the article. I don't believe that that was your intention. --Poeticbent  talk  19:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I just thought the notes in parentheses were not elegant and difficult to read, so I moved the statements downwards to the notes sections. If you object this, let's move them back to the parentheses for start. And let me move this thread to the article's talk page. --Lysy^talk 19:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Re:revert war at Vilna offensive

Indeed, but at least I am talking on the discussion page(s)... Perhaps somebody should protect the article until consensus is reached at talk.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Re:Translation

I quite puzzled, because in this diff I just replaying to clerk, you probably confused diffs. As here I asked that you provided some translation to Piotrus presented these [18][19][20]. As I understand he thinks that these sources are met my request and are academic findings to my presented source. So it would be very good if you could translate some of these academic findings into English. For instance interested in this source [21] as it have many dates and familiar names. Could you translate parts of this source like:

"Zacząć należy od zwrócenia uwagi,że działania Kazimierasa Garšvy są konsekwentną realizacją polityki uprawianej przez nacjonalistów litewskich od szeregu lat /np.: Armija Krajova Lietuvoje/. A polityka ta podobna jest właśnie do zachowania złodzieja, który spłoszony ujawnieniem się jego czynu ucieka i - aby odwrócić od siebie uwagęścigających - krzyczy:łapać złodzieja!!!" as well as:

"Litwa przejęła w październiku 1939 r. Wilno wcześniej zrabowane przez ZSRR. A przypomnijmy,że kupowanie lub przyjmowanie w darze rzeczy zrabowanych, kradzionych, wyłudzonych jest nazywane paserstwem i na całym cywilizowanymświecie karane jako przestępstwo. Równocześnie owo paserstwo jest kolejnym - po wojskowym współdziałaniu z Armią Czerwoną podczas jej agresji w latach 1919 - 1920 - dowodem kolaboracji Litwy z najeźdźcą."

"A kiedy kończyła się okupacja niemiecko - litewska, kto w czerwcu i lipcu 1944 r. uciekał z Wilna: czy Polacy rzekomo kolaborujący z Niemcami, czy tłumy Litwinów, z których spora część bała się nawet wrócić na Litwę Kowieńską i wraz ze swoimi dotychczasowymi patronami ruszyła na zachód. A w dramatycznym lipcu 1944 r. czy walczył o wyzwolenie Wilna chociaż jeden oddział litewski, czy wyłącznieżołnierze AK, którzy wprawdzie nie zdołali zdobyć miasta, ale przygotowali teren nadchodzącej Armii Czerwonej?"

" Potrzebne jest jeszcze dokształcenie w zakresie historii zarówno p. p. Garšvy, Jankusa, Leki, jak i p. Teichmann oraz im podobnych lub zdecydowane potępienie ich szkodliwej działalności przez ogół społeczeństwa litewskiego." and other text parts if you think is relevant (translation of articles name would be good too)

I'm sorry but my English is not good enough or I am too lazy to translate it or probably both. However, I have read the article and it certainly is not an academic publication. It is a comment to another newspaper article. The direct translation of its title would be "Catch the thief !", but this is an idiomatic expression in Polish. My opinion of the article is that it is similarly tendentious to the publications of Garšva himself, but the other way round. And similarly to Garšva, I don't think that this article is a quality source for wikipedia. In my opinion the only reasonable purpose that it could be used for would be to show that some people in Poland consider Garšva and Jankus to be Lithuanian nationalists, and the "Armija Krajova Lietuvoje" publication to be a proof of Garšva's nationalistic attitude. I agree with the conclusion, but I don't agree with all the arguments presented in the article. --Lysy^talk 13:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Eh, this means that I should do it on my own. Of topic question - how can it be, then you disagree with arguments but agree with conclusions? Is it not contradiction? M.K. 09:17, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I simply think some of the arguments in the article are not valid or naive. --Lysy^talk 15:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

from this, as this source to me looks that it talks more about Adamkus and Kwasniewski, that first headline suggests?:

"Wiele wskazuje na to, że owocna współpraca służb specjalnych wschodniego sąsiada z litewskimi skrajnymi nacjonalistami z okresu międzywojennego (wówczas za sianie antypolskiej histerii na Litwie byli sowicie wynagradzani z Moskwy) nie całkiem wygasła również dzisiaj."

"Antypolską histerię na Litwie w ostatnią niedzielę (13 marca) miał wywołać wyświetlony w TV3 film dokumentalny "AK na Litwie - ślepy zaułek historii". W filmie tendencyjnie, w duchu sowieckiej propagandy, powołując się na jedynie "słuszne" źródło - książkę Kazimierasa Garšvy "Armija Krajova Lietuvoje" (jak wiadomo, Garšva i prawda - to są dwie wzajemnie wykluczające się sprawy) próbowano wbić do głowy litewskiemu telewidzowi, że głównym zajęciem Wileńskiej AK w czasie ostatniej wojny było ludobójstwo litewskich cywilów."

And other parts if you think it is necessary. M.K. 08:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This second article "Uknuli prowokację", is a commentary about a TV programme "AK in Lithuania - the dead end of history" produced by Spaudos televizija, that was aired in 2005, few days after meeting of Adamkus and Kwaśniewski. The programme, called a propagandist film in the commentary, is being criticized for featuring people like Garšva, for glorifying Ribbentrop-Molotov pack and for being based on "Armija Krajova Lietuvoje" book. The article also mentions that Garšva and truth are mutually exclusive. --Lysy^talk 13:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On June 4, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Pinsk massacre, 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 again Lysy, and hopefully more fruitful multinational collaborations are on the way? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Proper Names in Rospuda River article

Hi! Why do you use Polish alphabet while transfering Polish proper names into English? I think that they should be transliterated according to the norms of the target language alphabet...--Halina.s.fautSWPS 10:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

re: proper names

Many thanks, Lysy! :-) it looks to me that i'm too concerned about translation theory :-P which unfortunately not always applies to real life. practice is much more important. Thanks again!! --Halina.s.fautSWPS 21:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Richardshusr's RFA

I removed your vote on Richardshusr's RFA because it's not yet live (and the candidate was worrying about it at WT:RFA). When it goes live, please place it again.--Chaser - T 04:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I know Richardusr for his many edits and I always thought he'd make a good admin, so I jumped at it. --Lysy^talk 06:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your vote for support even if it was premature. The problem is that "jump the gun" votes are explicitly forbidden according to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate. I guess the concern is that some candidates might "pack the ballot box" by lining up support before going live with an RFA. For this reason, I removed your vote along with a couple of other "premature" votes.

The RFA is now live so you are welcome to express your opinion now.

--Richard 08:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I meant no harm. Knowing you from a number of edits, I felt I did not need to wait to read your Q&As, but now, when it's live I can support you formally. Good luck (and I'm sure you will not need it). --Lysy^talk 08:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Wolyn1943.jpg

There was an interesting article in a prominent Polish newspaper recently stating that the photograph was taken in 1924 and was of 4 children who had been murdered by their deranged mother who was of Roma ethnicity.

Four killed Roma children tied to tree by their mentally ill mother after her husband was arrested and her Roma group dissolved. The murder took place in night of 11/12 December 1923

The alleged barbed wire are just folds in the photograph. http://www.rzeczpospolita.pl/news.rol?newsId=1680 --Bandurist 01:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please take a look at the description at Image:Wolyn1943.jpg. --Lysy^talk 06:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationales

Lysy, sorry that I missed your last note on my talk page. A separate fair use rationale is required for each use of the image because using non-free content is not necessarily fair use in all cases. We must assert why it is fair use. There has been some debate about the necessity of fair use rationales, in particular on the talk pages of Wikipedia:Non-free content and Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline, but they are required, despite disputes on those talk pages. Beyond, they are required by policy, as you can see under the section "Policy" on Wikipedia:Non-free_content.

If you want an outside opinion on a fair use rationale, I recommend going to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions; the editors who regularly post there are good at explaining image-copyright and image-use issues. You may wish to ask about Image:Polska Flaga Berlin.jpg, as its rationale is lacking, and could be strengthened significantly. Cheers, Iamunknown 14:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Germanophobia

I'm confused by your removal of this category from articles related to the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe. I think it is clear that many actions at the end of the war were intended to keep Germany from re-militarizing and starting another Third World War. Expelling the Germans from Eastern Europe was an attempt to squelch the irredentist claims of Groβdeutschland. Why does this not qualify as Germanophobia?

--Richard 17:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

A number of reasons: Firstly, as you know very well, it is disputed what were the real reasons for the expulsion. One of the alleged reasons is that it was for fear of Germans, but there are many others. Germanophobia, Polonophobia, Russophobia etc. are not well defined political neologisms, usually understood as irrational fear or dislike of certain country, nation or its people. If there was a post-WW2 fear or dislike of Germans, it's hard to claim it was irrational. Finally, having past experience with the Germanophobia, Polonophobia or Russophobia articles, I believe now, that their primary role on wikipedia so far was to antagonize editors along ethnic lines and in fact they are more harmful than useful in their current shape. You might want to take a look at the ongoing discussion at Talk:Russophobia to read more about it. I'm only glad we don't have Hispanophobia, Hungarophobia, Czechophobia and Lithuanophobia yet. Finally, I don't see any reason to have a category like Category:Germanophobia. What's its use other than to feed frustrated xenophobes ? Shall we create Category:Russophobia or Category:Polonophobia and others next ? --Lysy^talk 18:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... sounds like you should put up the categories for deletion. I'm going to mull this over for a while. I am not totally convinced by your argument but I see your point and, since I have a lot of respect for your opinion, I will defer to it for the time being.

--Richard 18:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Richard, my opinion on this changed (initially I thought these were valid and useful articles) but is not very strong either. I just think hat all these "phobias" are a menace to wikipedia and probably something will have to be done about it. I know that some other editors share the opinion, too. On the other hand, have you noticed, that we don't have other categories similar to Germanophobia ? I think I would nominate it for deletion, just would need some time to babysit it, which I don't expect to have soon. --Lysy^talk 19:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Russia vs Soviet Union

Yes, I do believe that Stalin's oppression of the Soviet people is a dark page of history. What makes you believe that I think that modern Russian and Stalin's Soviet Union is basically the same country? I don't understand what you mean by this statement. Stalin's crimes were acknowledged by the Soviet government after his death in 1953, let alone modern Russia. The "occupation" of the baltics is a relatively new phenomenon that has emerged with their independence. Certainly if it was obvious that the Soviet illegally "occupied" the Baltics in 1940, Russia today wouldn't deny it in the post-Soviet era. Since this is still a debatable issue with valid arguments on both sides, this issue should still be deemed controversial rather than proven, as several Estonian/Baltic editors are trying to make it seem like it is. Of course the West backs up the Baltic States because the Soviet Union was their enemy and they want to denounce it, and because the Baltics are now their allies in the form of NATO and the EU.--Ilya1166 10:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see the extra information I wrote above.--Ilya1166 10:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes I wrote Russia because Russia is the country that the Baltic States target with trying to get it to apologise (not Kazakhstan, Belarus or any of the other republics) and even seeking monetary compensation in the form of "war reparations" from Russia for the "occupation" during Soviet times, (Russians are disgusted at this and see it as ungrateful for liberating the Baltic states from the Nazi menace, at a cost of many thousands of Soviet lives) and because even the West referred to the Soviets as "Russians". Yes there are neo-fascists in Germany, but this is a very, very small group of people. The German government condemning its Nazi past is not just a facade. Most Germans who grew up after the war are disgusted with the Nazi past, and grew up with a feeling of shame and guilt for their countries crimes.

Certainly there are groups that praise the Soviet regime. What is wrong with praising the Soviet regime? Besides Stalin's rule, the Soviet Union did nothing that bad. Russians are not ashamed of their Soviet past. They did not commit the widespread atrocities to the world as the Nazis did, the damage was done mostly to its own people by Stalin. There are many in Russia and the former Soviet republics that are proud of the achievements of the Soviet Union. In the USSR there was none of the widespread corruption, crime and alcoholism that there is in Russia today. I don't know about the other republics, but most people in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine regret the collapse of the USSR.[22] The Communist party in Russia is the second largest party in the whole country. In the 2004 Russian Presidential election, 9,440,860 people voted for the Communist Party. In the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential election there was 1,388,045 that voted for the Communist party.--Ilya1166 11:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

reqphoto

Thanks, I wish I'd figured that out earlier! I've been adding reqphoto to lots of Polish villages, and places in other countries as well. Also, I think I may've made a request when there were already pictures on Wikicommons sometimes - I didn't see the pictures right off. Bless.Zigzig20s 09:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I know. It needs to be redone. It will take a while and I don't feel like going through it again now - it's long and tedious. Most towns/villages need a picture anyway - so if you want to go take some, that'd be great.Zigzig20s 17:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: Jedwabne

Sorry, the first external link was broken. and I just kinda brain-farted and deleted the wrong #1, thanks for noticing my mistake.

--Jadger 06:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Ostsiedlung

You better respect consensus, see Talk:Ostsiedlung#Move_to_Ostsiedlung. Also, refrain from changing redirects and from deleting the link to the image that is frequently vandalized on commons by User:Rex Germanus. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       21:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Freedom House report

Hello Lysy. Nice to see you. You've moved criticism of the report into references. Your logic is understandable: cat can't criticize an elephant, and a hopper can't criticize a cat. But logic of a normal discussion is defined not by the power of authority, but by the power of arguments. Hopefully we have internet and most of the facts may be checked from your working place. Andrey Kuznetsov is not an elephant of Russian journalism, but he is a regular writer for Lenta.Ru on various political topics (google search returns 1000 links on "Андрей Кузнецов" at the site Lenta.Ru). Do you have certain doubts about his professionalism? I don't. Andrey Kuznetsov didn't investigate mysteries of Kremlin or anything like so. He just did a good thorough job to check facts used in the report. Freedom House used poor and weak arguments. It doesn't mean that all's ok with media freedom in russia or that all's bad. It only means that report of Freedom House was weak. We shouldn't cover Freedom House, we are independent. Well, perhaps next time they would write a better qualified report. ellol 11:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course, I don't offer you to believe me on word. Read report of Freedom House, it's short, and computer translation of Andrey Kuznetsov's article (there's a link in references.) I'm sorry I can't offer anything better, but I bet you can understand at least 70% of Kuznetsov's article. ellol 11:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi again, Lysy. The first my point is, that words of Freedom House come not from some supernatural sensation (like tuning their brains in resonanse with the Space and getting all answers out of there), but they are summarization of series of facts. Right?

Imagine (of course it's not so, but let's play a mind experiment) that all facts described in FH report are wrong. This would authomatically mean that all further words are -- not wrong or right -- but invalid.

Second, please, don't mistake my personal attitude (what do you know of it, btw?) towards the problem and the text I put in the Wikipedia.

I agree that text about Kuznetsov should be shortened, but putting it into footnotes is not right. ellol 11:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

German evacuation during World War II

Can we get a better title for the article German evacuation during World War II? We need one that is either more descriptive or one that is in common usage. --Bejnar 19:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem with the current one. Is it not descriptive enough ? Let's better discuss this in the article's talk page. --Lysy^talk 19:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Please don't remove referenced inf.

Please stop. If you continue to blank out (or delete portions of) page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did to Cyberattacks on Estonia 2007, you will be blocked from editing. Please, notice, that removing referenced information is considered vandalism (see "Blanking" section there). For edits in such a style a user can be blocked.RJ CG 18:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Resolved. Most likely a misunderstanding. RJ CG 18:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:NCGN

You reverted me before I had a chance to discuss; you will find a place for discussion at the end of the talk page. We should also say something, I think, about WP:NCGN being a choice among proper names; usually, but not always, distinguished by capitalization.

Thank you; the business about governments was a summary of Talk:Iwo Jima, where there was consensus against "the Japanese government calls it Ioto, so it must be Ioto." But it was overly grandiloquent; "find the patch you like best, and cut it out". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Please note also, that I did mention these changes on the talk page before I made them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:24, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I made two tweaks, and added a comma. I don't think either changes the meaning. If you think they worsen things, feel free to take them out. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

German cultural heritage in Poland

The preservation of German cultural heritage in Poland today is an issue that requires specific examples as I find very few of these during my personal trips to Poland. For decades after the expulsions, the communist polish governents actively encouraged the destruction of all traces of German heritage. All street signs were removed, cities renamed, buildings with German writing on them were covered and rewritten in polish. Although a ratified German-Polish agreement on the double usage of names of cities exists, this can only be found in train stations on the German side of the border. Even today in museums in Poland the 400 to 800 year German history is refered to as a peroid of occupation. The communist polish governents even went as far as to finance the destruction of German cemeteries across the country destroying thousands of graves in Wroclaw, Torun, Leszno, Gdansk and so forth.

The motivations for these actions can be understood if one considers what the polish people suffered at the hand of the Nazi German government, however the attempt today to preserve German cultural heritage in Poland is minimal simply if one considers how few fragments are still left today and the hostility that partially still exists on both sides.

I think specific examples are required to asses how local, or alternatively how widespread ,this may be today. A few plaques on buildings and some small monumets for fallen soldiers are not great preservations of German cultural heritage. Amorfati00 09:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you 100%. In fact I think it's an interesting and neglected topic that might be covered in a separate article on its own. However, I'd prefer such an article to be based on facts, not opinions of individual Polish or German editors only, so it might be quite difficult to create, and prone to all the POV pushing attempts. --Lysy^talk 09:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Russophobia

An article that you have been involved in editing, Russophobia, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russophobia. Thank you. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 01:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Claims

Per WP:FRINGE, this claim shouldn't be placed here. If somebody claims that a moon is made of green cheese, we don't add it to the selenology article, do we? And even Flat Earth society is not quoted often :) I would suggest moving his quote, if you really feel it is important, to Robert Biedroń (although really, all quotes should go to Wikiquote.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)