Talk:World War II

At this late stage...

Recently, Comunicat has been lamenting that attempts to change this article "at this late stage" are futile. Checking the history, I found an old copy of the article from late 2001. That was only the oldest copy still available. So, the article is probably MORE than 10 years old. Communicat, my friend, we're not at any more of a "late stage" than we were in January when you started editing. This article will continue to be edited as long as Wikipedia exists. We don't have to worry about a deadline after which no more edits can be made. The article should be continually edited and improved. We won't have a final version unless they pull the plug on Wikipedia. So, the removal of dubious sources and the addition of other POV sources (or, preferably, NPOV sources) can and should continue, with vigorous attention to detail for many years to come. Once more into the breach my friends! --Habap (talk) 14:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're gonna quote me, please do so in proper context and with relevance. My "lament" pertains to topic entirely separate and different from commendable revision of lead as currently underway. Said revision has my full support. In fact, and modesty aside, I believe it was I who instigated the currently ongoing revision in the first place (see topic sections Flawed Lead etc originated few weeks ago, somewhere above). So I'm certainly not complaining about any "late stage" in that particular context. Get over it.

As for your stated intention to add "other POV sources etc", good luck to you. My own experience has been that when any sources are submitted that deviate from the conservative / Western / mainstream paradigm, they are rejected, obstructed, or dismissed arbitrarily by certain self-styled "senior editors" using an unconvincing variety of pretexts / excuses / "justifications" etc,. The numerous marxist, Western revisionist, and other non-mainstream sources that I have submitted are all contained in foregoing sections where you can find them at your own convenience if you're really interested and want to put your bibliographic talents to good use. Communicat (talk) 20:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC) PS: The "late stage" I was referring to, and in relation to which you have quoted me completely out of context, was in fact the late stage of your entry into discussion, without your being properly aware of the facts and matters at issue. Why have you started this particular topic section here, with its curious heading, immediately below the ongoing lead discussion (to which you've evidently not contributed in any way), instead of commenting at the appropriate section in which my quote applies? Are you still busily trying to discredit me? I think so. Communicat (talk) 23:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Geez. I was trying to reassure you that there is plenty of time for changes, not trying to discredit you. You have sounded as though you lament any chance of making the article NPOV and I had hoped to reassure you that it is possible.

I did not include this in any of the other threads because it was intended to be a separate point and a reminder to all parties that continuing change in the article is certain and that no one should walk away out of frustration. The lamentations and despair are seen in many of the threads above. I have confidence in the editors here.

I have not contributed to discussion of the lead because I did not feel I had anything to add. As much as I like to hear myself speak, I did not feel cluttering the discussion was useful when others were handling it ably. --Habap (talk) 14:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Very well then. How 'bout putting your money where your mouth is? Just try coming up with some non-Western majority position sources and/or Western revisionist significant-minority position sources and/or any other sources that deviate from the dominant conservative mainstream position, and you'll see how the Old Guard reacts. Communicat (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Looking at what you've previously posted, it appears that much of it was rejected only because of the link-spamming of Winer's book.I will begin looking to see if I can find any of the works you cited in that 8 August entry. --Habap (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there's quite a lot that you've misinterpreted, and which it seems you're slowly coming around to understanding. While you're at it, have a look at the article reference to No, Kum-Sok; Osterholm, J. Roger, relating to "brutal North Korea." As the title states clearly, it's a memoir; memoirs are not allowed. Yes, I know, it was co-authored by an American journalist, but that was simply to overcome English language writing difficulties on the part of the Korean. Three down, 24 to go.

Or, if you're desperate to keep the "brutal North Korea" part, how about some balance by mentioning the brutal American-sponsored covert assassination programme that killed thousands of South Vietnamese civilians, viz., "Operation Phoenix". Or the American-inspired brutal massacre of around one million civilian communist suspects in Indonesia? All very well documented. No sourcing problem. Communicat (talk) 23:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Topic still active. Don't archive for the moment. Tks. Communicat (talk) 17:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Himeta's quote

One of the sources mentioned by Communicat as dubious was the quote on casualties from Mitsuyoshi Himeta that came from Sharon Linzey's speech to the Kurdish National Congress of North America with a citation directly to the study by Himeta. One down, 26 to go? --Habap (talk) 21:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Source so-called "dubious" in so far as it does not conform to alleged requirements demanded by some wiki editors in respect of "self publishing" without peer review mechanism. You will note that Kurdish National Congress is self publisher and apparently without academic peer reviewers. Meantime, before jumping the gun (again), how about waiting for committee to decide whether or not mediation request is admissable? Communicat (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Restoring Habap's full talk entry, with "Kurdish National Congress" as posted. Communicat, do not refactor others' talk posts, not to correct facts or spelling or anything. Per WP:TPO, only very specific changes can be made to others' comments. Binksternet (talk) 22:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Refactoring was not intentional. I'd meant to copy and paste words, but in late-night haze I copied and cut by mistake. Thanks for fixing & pointing it out to me. Communicat (talk) 22:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

A better reason than self-publishing for removing it was that it was not a direct quote of Mitsuyoshi Himeta. If you search for Mitsuyoshi Himeta on the internet (I happen to use dogpile for my searches, since I prefer it to google), you'll find more than a dozen speeches and papers that all use the same quote from him. From a historian's perspective, it's better to quote directly from the source (i.e use a primary source) than to use a secondary source for what he said.

I'm trying to fix the article. You've stated that one of the problems is that there is a double-standard for evaluation of sources. I think that there isn't and it's just sloppiness. I think you said there were 27 self-published works quoted. Since they are likely dubious sources, I am trying to find them and replace them with sources that are not dubious.

Do you want the article improved or do you want to "win" at mediation? I think our goal should solely be the improvement of the article. --Habap (talk) 14:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Note the subtle difference for the use of a primary source for a direct quote (as is the case here) but a secondary source to use for interpretation of these statements; as interpreting a statement is original research (but a direct quote is not). Arnoutf (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Winning" some stupid argument doesn't come into it. The whole point of going to mediation is, among other things, with a view to improvement of this and related wiki articles, as also to prevent any future fractious and time-wasting NPOV and similar disputes of this nature.

As for questionable sources, I don't have time to go into all that right now. It's a major undertaking which might or might not be handled in the fullness of time. You don't need me for that right now, if you want to make a start on your own. Maybe commence with checking out the several "Illustrated Histories", which use visuals to back up unverified and unsourced text, which text in turn is then quoted in WW2 article as supposedly reliable secondary source. I've mentioned this before; seems you missed it. (WW2 article, IMO, has vaguely similar problem: i.e. strong on visuals, fotos, graphics etc, but text is grammatically and stylisticaly a bit of a mess, even if highly sourced. All those irritating ellipses, for example).

Re Arnouft comment above: Can't make much sense of it. Rules are fairly clear in banning the use of primary sources. Communicat (talk) 19:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No they are not banning primary source, the rules state you should use utmost care and caution to use primary sources and only use them for non-controversial facts and not analyse their content. A verbatim quote (without analysis) is clearly non-controversial as a fact (because easily verified by looking at source, whether you agree with quote or not is of no relevance). Quotes are however often misinterpreted and therefore in the specific case of quotes (without analysis) the primary source in that specific circumstance is often more reliable. For example, if I were to quote the line "to be or not to be" (without further analysis) should I source that with Shakespeare play Hamlet (primary source) or any of the hundreds of analyses of the text (secondary source). I hope you agree the sourcing to Hamlet is far superior to "my high school textbook on English literature". Arnoutf (talk) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have already done the hard work of identifying 27 dubious sources, listing them will be trivial, so that they can be checked, and the article improved. Thank you in advance. (Hohum ^@) 20:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies for introducing the terms on sourcing. It has obviously confused the issue. The speech stated that Himeta said there a certain number of casualties. Rather than providing a citation to the speech, it is much more correct to point the citation to the article that Himeta wrote, so people can read what he actually said instead of a partial quote and interpretation of what he said. --Habap (talk) 21:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

To all the above: Okay, I'll read the primary source rules again. Must have misunderstood them in relation to what user arnoutf is now telling me. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re "hard work" of identifying 27 questionable sources, no it wasn't hard work. Most were self-evident from just a quick scan. By the way, I actually said "at least 27" questionable sources. There are possibly more, if one makes the effort and takes the time to analyse in depth each and every one of the source notations. The alleged dubious sources in question didn't make their appearance overnight, but accumulated gradually and fragmentarily over a period of 10 years, and they have become so ingrained in the fabric of the article that it's gonna take a lot of time and effort to clear them up. I'm not over-enthusiastic to become more involved in such a clearing up operation at this particular moment in time because, as you can see, dissecting even just one questionable source has already accounted for the expenditure by Habap of considerable time and number of words. Imagine what it's going to be like with 27 or more such questionable sources. In fact, I'm starting to regret I even raised the matter in the first place, but I guess someone had to do it. Communicat (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

So, there is no list? --Habap (talk) 22:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

It would seem not. I ran through the sources yesterday (my time) and could only see one which appeared unreliable - I replaced it with a reference to the Oxford Companion to World War II (and tweaked the text as I couldn't verify in the several sources I checked that Hitler ordered an end to the bombing of England on 11 May 1941; the sources I consulted said instead that the bombing campaign largely ended in this month as bomber units were transferred to support the invasion of the USSR but that limited bombing of England continued). 23:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Re habap's, "So, there is no list". Read my posting properly and/or stop wasting my time. Where are all those NPOV alternative sources YOU were bragging about earlier? Communicat (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I stated that there must be some Soviet sources written by authors who perused the Smolensk archive. I do not read Russian, so have no way of reading them. I only own Western sources, so have to get to the library to find "other POV" sources. While you have stated that it should be obvious which are the dubious sources, it would be easier for everyone involved if someone created a list and we could all go through it, removing the dubious ones and replacing them with valid sources. I recently read someone posting that NPOV was "not a lack of viewpoint, but is rather a specific, editorially neutral, point of view." --Habap (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I posted that, about POV, which conforms in all major particulars with my own understanding of the rule.

Re Smolensk, not only Russians have perused the archive. Among others, a professor of defence studies at Edinburgh university also perused them, and if my memory serves me correctly, his findings are quoted on the basis of a personal interview in Winer's now apparently banned online book. So unfortunately that quote can't be used. But I digress. Yes, I agree, it would be easier if "someone" created a list for the purpose stated. But that someone is not going to be me at this time, because the list and the arguments for and against each case on its own individual merits would take up more time and trouble than I can presently afford to volunteer. Not to mention all the further discussion and debate necessary if/when any discovered reliable Soviet sources are ready to be appropriately reworked into article text. I'm snowed under with other, equally challenging projects in my other life.

What I can do, however, is feed you with bits and pieces of existing questionable sources, as I've done with a few already, (including the various "illustrated histories" already mentioned in talk). How about this one (ref 32): Chaney, Otto Preston (1996). Zhukov. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 76. ISBN 0806128070. It is a biography. Biographies are disallowed. As for the incorrect spelling of Georgy (Zhukov) in the aftermath pic caption, and also in the infobox, it should in fact be Georgi (source Georgi Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, (2 vols), Moscow: Progress 1985), and no I'm not citing in the text a biographical source, just trying to prove spelling, because I'm fairly confident the author knows how to spell his own name. The text sentence to which said ref 32 refers is also incorrect in so far as part of it is contextually digressive and irrelevant (viz., "avoiding sacking"), and the rest is incorrect in so far as Zhukov was not only involved in defence of Moscow, but played a central role along the entire Russian-German front (or "Eastern" front as it is generally and confusingly referred to in the West), and other fronts too (e.g. Russo-Japanese front).

I correcteed the spelling of Zhukov's first name a few days ago, which you then reverted. If I remember correctly, you said it first had to be corrected in another article somewhere, before being corrected in the main article. So, I'll leave it for you to do the honours with correcting it wherever it appears, which will save me the time of having to look for it in other articles which you're already familiar with. (I still can't get my head around the concept that an inaccuracy in one article needs to be repeated in another for the sake of consistency. But that's just me.) Communicat (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PS I also use dogpile. I've seen they list several items near the top about Soviet historians relative to recent stuff about role of USSR in the Pacific, which I don't have time to follow up. Might be worth pursuing if you have the time and interest. Communicat (talk) 23:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PPS I will await your response to above, and also your response to Korean memoir source referred to at 23:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC) in section "Late stage" above, before proceeding to provide further instances of questionable sources on a case-to-case basis.

I would of course have been happy to prepare a fully itemised list with explanatory notes for mediation committee, had my mediation request not been blocked by Nick-D and others opposed to open mediation in this matter. Your voluntary initiative to go into the breach alone is appreciated by me, for one. I'll do my best to help on a case by case basis until such time, if any, that it becomes essential to provide a full, detailed and itemised list. Communicat (talk) 16:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

aftermath

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I've made new 2nd para, no changes otherwise. RE clarification requested, will do when edit conflicts subside, and will also fix ISBNs if/when ref numbers revert to sequence, for some reason current sequence gone all over the place. Can anyone tell me consistent ISBN policy, i.e. 10-digit, 13-digit, spaces and/or dashes between numbers? Communicat (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

For complete coverage it would be interesting to add how the denazification / war crimes programs of the USSR developed after the war. Is there any source information about whether the USSR similarly used high end former nazis in relevant postings and thus diluted their denazification programs in the same way UK and US did? (I know they were interested in Werner von Braun, but the Americans got him) Arnoutf (talk) 19:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't have sources for USSR. Why don't YOU look for them, seeing as its your idea? (You might want to add that USSR wanted British bombing of German civilians to be included in war crimes trials). Communicat (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

A minor clarification, and some page numbers are needed. I have fixed the ISBN syntax. 10 or 13 digit ISBN work, 13 is preferred, WP:ISBN is the relevant wiki page for ISBN presentation. (Hohum ^@) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I did have a look and found a few interesting publications. Russian denazification lasted from 1945-1948. Older sources accuse the Russians of political cleansing of anticommunist sentiments, but modern sources (Vogt) does not agree and sais that denazification was relatively fair albeit slow. March 1948 denazification was halted/ called complete. All 'remaining' nazis were no longer pursued. So apparently no conscious Soviet intention to employ high level nazis in the new governmental structures, but acceptance that the task to continue finding "small" nazis could take forever and would disrupt the new situation, hence a stop on active persecution. In other words, the Soviets applied a similar kind of realpolitik as the US/UK except for those few case where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals. [www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/Vol4Denazification.doc] [1] [2] Arnoutf (talk) 20:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. So, why don't you work it into topic with ref?

Re your "...few cases where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals": No, there were not a few cases, especially in relation to US. Try reading the readily available works I've cited. Entire US-sponsored Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty network, operating from US, was run by numerous former Nazis including war crimes suspects. Plenty of sources, but the three sentences I've provided are sufficient to the task at hand, without needing to make a fullblown article out of it -- (but of course you're free to do so yourself if you're that way inclined). Communicat (talk) 21:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Collapse previous reflist

I've just removed the para. The lack of page numbers is highly unsatisfactory, and I'm not convinced that it's either neutral (as other sources emphasise the harsh treatment of Germany in the post-war years and Germany's rehabilitation as a democracy) or about topics notable enough to be covered in this high-level article on the war (and not its aftermarth). As per the convention, it should also have been discussed here first. I've posted the para below to aid further disussions of it.

When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik. Germans who were classified as ardent Nazis were chosen by the American secret services to become "respectable" American citizens. Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.

In addition to the clarification request, and page numbers. Links to Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim would seem relevant. Were Nazi Scientists gathered by the USSR too? - I believe Bower's The Paperclip Conspiracy covers this as well. The text starting "Secret arrangements were..." to the end of the paragraph goes into too much detail for an overview article IMO. (Hohum ^@) 23:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D you could see that at the very time of your deleting my contribution, I was in the actual process of working on the paragraph you were busily deleting. If it wasn't for all the edit conflicts I was experiencing as a result of your interference, the required page number and "clarity" query would have been completed.

I have read and understand the rules and therefore see no need to first discuss with you what I propose to edit, except in the case of significant changes. I have not performed any significan change to existing text. I have inserted three sentences of new content, which editors can examine at their leisure and respond accordingly, as Hohum and others were in the process of doing before you butted in and acted arbitrarily without discussion. You're being extrememly objectionable and obstructive, and this latest instance will also be brought to the attention of arbitrator, in addition to other matters already filed today, of which you are no doubt aware, and of which you will no doubt be hearing further. In the meantime, please stop being retaliatory; you're only damaging your own case. Communicat (talk) 00:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. That is not a lot of edit conflicts. The WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is normal practice. Please stop making threats, knuckle down, and discuss edits constructively, like anyone else manages to do. (Hohum ^@) 00:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

re Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. Exactly. Isn't it quite odd then that he should remove my edit just a few minutes after I'd filed items containing edit summaries that made it obvious I was in the very process of methodically fixing the section at issue (page numbers, clarity query)? Coincidence is all very well when it happens, but this, given the circumstances, was IMO no coincidence.

Besides which, his remark about "aftermath" in relation to the article is quite incoherent. I've read it several times and still can't figure out what the blazes he's talking about. Perhaps he knows what he's talking about? Never mind.

By the way, I'm not making threats. I'm making promises. Arbitration request has already been filed. In the meantime, the aftermath item is easily fixed on basis of your observations, and I was in fact doing so before disruption ocurred. Doesn't seem much point in proceeding further with that edit under present conditions. I'll just let arbitration run its course before attempting any more wasted effort here. You can do what you like with Tom Bower et al. If the boss lets you. Communicat (talk) 00:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I wish you spent your time on improving edits instead of non-constructive argument and tilting at windmills. (Hohum ^@) 01:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, if you genuinely wish to discuss changes to articles it would be helpful if you'd stop your personal attacks on other editors - I'm not going to engage with them. Nick-D (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

If we want to go further with this para I would add a line immediately after the first: "Followed by an end to denazification by the Soviets in early 1948 " In any case, if we discuss the denazification we should fairly discuss US, UK AND USSR efforts otherwise we give an incomplete image which necessarily leads to a POV by omission.
I would also be perfectly happy to drop it, as I think the aftermath section is already very long for a high level overview article like this. So my preference would be to shorten rather than expand it. Arnoutf (talk) 07:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Dropping it is my preference. If Germany is covered, all the other Axis countries need to be covered and this topic isn't particularly relevant to the subject of the article (the war). Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, in case you didn't check that RfA, please read Wikipedia:TINC. I found it amusing and quite relevant. --Habap (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Read WP:OWN. As for Rfa decision, read Response to assertion in statement by Nick-D regarding "... proposed changes to and complaints (by Communicat) about the World War II article ... are generally not supported by the balance of mainstream sources ..."

The article relies exclusively on mainstream sources, to the total exclusion of other available non-mainsteam sources / positions, and this is the specific reason why NPOV dispute arose in the first place. See Observation by mediator in this specific regard, which is as follows: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ... it saddens me to know that there are articles with regular contributors who are either so devoid of a collegial outlook or who have not yet reported such a disruptive user for administrative attention." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010)

As Moxy has recognised, there are some wide and advanced issues involved here, and I'm definitely not gonna let it go. Sorry to disappoint you all. Communicat (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

It's an overview article. It should rely on reliable mainstream sources. Further exploration should be on the hundreds of linked articles. (Hohum ^@) 19:46, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Lame excuse. Tendentious reasoning. Read the rules that require alternative positions to be stated in interests of NPOV, which rules I've already cited several times. I'm not going to repeat them endlessly for the benefit of a few editors apparently exhibiting "I can't hear you". It's clear the issue cannot be resolved via discussion with editors of that ilk, otherwise it would have been resolved a long time ago. I see not point in trying to discuss it further, and will pursue my options, of which there are still one or two. Communicat (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Currently, every other editor who has expressed an opinion disagrees with you on your novel interpretation of wikipedia policies and guidelines. You are flogging several dead horses simultaneously with your current behaviour. (Hohum ^@) 20:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You have evidently missed my posting, (two postings above), re Observation by mediator, now repeated again for your edification: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ...." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010) In short, if as alleged no other editors agree with me, the quoted mediator for one does in fact agree with me. If you don't like it, take it up with the mediation committee.

As for your tendentious "It's an overview article." Firstly, wherever did you people get the idea that it's an 'overview'? Nowhere is it said in the article itself that it's an "overview". The article is a main article, with various separate sub-articles. As a main article it should contain the main points about WW2, regardless of whether or not the sub-articles elabortate further, and if they don't, it's the sub-articles' problem, not the main article's problem. And a main point, among others, that should be mentioned in the main article, is that significant alternative positions exist as to the causes and courses of the war. The article itself need not go into a fullwinded saga about the alternative positions. That's a separate story. For the main article, just mention that fundamental difference exist between Western mainstream, Western revisionist, and non-Western i.e. Soviet positions. That's all that's needed. No more than two or three sentences with reliable sources, as I've already provided and which were rejected out of hand.

Secondly: your "(the article) should rely on reliable mainstream sources." You're defeating your own argument. "Reliable mainstream sources" to the exclusion of reliable alternative and/or revisionist position sources is vcompletely out of line with NPOV, and even Habap has recognised this by now. And so has the mediator as quoted above.

So how come you're still having so much difficulty in grasping this very basic historiographic concept? I would suggest it's because of ideological conservatism on your part and on the part of some other editors; conservatism by its very nature is highly resistant to change; and that includes editorial changes to the article by any editor with a fresh perspective, in this case me.

You conservatives, having achieved "good article" status, now apparently want to rest on your laurels and protect "your" territory against perceived intruders like me, i.e. anyone who proposes any meaningful and progressive change to "your" article. Well, I'm not intimidated by your sort. Communicat (talk) 23:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

AGK was clearly talking about the process of collaboration and not the content, of the article. And I would perfer to work together, but I think we should first agree on some basic issues about this article.

1. This article covers the whole of WWII. WWII was an extremely complicated conflict. To cover all of it and keep it at a readable size each issue should be treated extremely briefly.
   
2. If there are conflicting interpretations/theories, the most dominant should get more attention more or less in proportion to how dominant these are in todays literature. This is overall an encyclopedia where an overview of the body of current knowledge is presented and not a scientific journal where new opinions are advanced.
   
3. Since the issues are treated extremely briefly (point 1) there is limited scope to present minority views unless these are very broadly supported. The more detailed articles can be used to present these theories in more detail.
   

Can you agree to these arguments? To be honest, if you cannot I do not see how we can cooperate. Arnoutf (talk) 17:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

All I wanted to know re my posting above, was whether or not it was appropriate for me to submit the page numbers earlier requested by Hohum as supported by Moxy.

I don't agree with your interpretation of the mediator's observation re "the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article". Communicat (talk) 22:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

ATG clarified on his talk page that he was saying that the "approach to editing is partisan", and wasn't commenting on content. (Hohum ^@) 23:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

@Communicat and others, with my 3 points above I am trying to come to agreements within which I think we should be able collaborate. Can you please respond whether you agree to these 3 points. (Looking back to the past and what AGK said (or intended) is not helpful to the future in any case so I would prefer to leave that be.) Arnoutf (talk) 07:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Arnoutf's three points. I agree. To keep this already long article as brief and readable as possible, we can't go into much detail, this means leaving most alternative viewpoints to their main articles (and linking to them), yet keeping the wording open enough to encompass them here without being over specific, if possible.

Re page numbers. Even if a whole book is about a point being made, there will doubtless be an identifiable reference on a particular page, or a few pages, which should be used as a reference. (Hohum ^@) 12:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you, or do you not want the page numbers? That's all I want to know. At this stage I do not want to be further involved in the aftermath topic nor any other WW2 topic until such time, if any, that certain ongoing policy matters are finally resolved.

As regards AGK clarification of "partisan editing", I have posted the following at AGKs talkpage:

Thanks AGK for clarifying what you meant by "partisan editing". The primary matter at issue as stated in my mediation request concerned partisan editing, so I surmised on that basis your comment was in direct reference to the issue of partisan editing, and not the now clarified "approach to partisan editing".

I agree with your disappointment that mediation was not allowed to take its natural course, viz., was blocked by those who did not want impartial mediation to occur. If mediation had indeed proceeded as intended by me, you would also have become better acquainted with the different points of view that exist on the article in question. You might further have understood how and why there is no discernable desire on the part of those who are opposed to mediation to consider alternatives or compromise, relative to partisan editing as complained of by me. Communicat (talk) 17:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

In answer to my direct question to you I interprrt this as that you do not explicitly agree with the 3 points above (and choose not to edit WWII anymore.) Arnoutf (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Read my posting properly. Communicat (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I asked a direct question, and in none of your posts do you explicitly respond. So clearly you do not explicitly agree. Your tendency to confuse your own posts by lengthy texts with little relevance to the issue does not hide that. But I can ask you again. Do you agree to the 3 points I raised above, a simple Yes or No will do. Arnoutf (talk) 15:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised to see that the para has been restored to the article before there's agreement on whether it should be included, how it should be worded or even page numbers for some of the references. I still regard it as a POV mess - in essence it argues that the west quickly papered over its opposition to the Nazis in order to gain access to German technology and intelligence networks. The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany is ignored, as is the continuing western military-led occupation of the country. Moreover, it leaves out the substantial transfers of technology to France and Britain. The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted and war crimes trials of individuals continue to this very day (including many conducted by Germany during the 1950s and 1960s). The statement that "large numbers of former Nazis" moved to Britain and the US is also very dubious - what's a 'large number'? All up, this para is attempting to push a fringe interpretation of post-war events and I still think it has no place in the article. Nick-D (talk) 00:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it needs a fair bit of work. It is possible that the editor reintroducing it is having trouble finding the right thread on this cluttered and rambling talk page. (Hohum ^@) 03:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Just in case there's any confusion about the unnamed editor and/or further discrediting of myself: I was not the mysterious editor who reintroduced the evidently disputed material. The editor responsible, more than likely, was the esteemed Hohum, who rightly observes that the talk page has become practically unmanageable.

As for Nick-d's observations: apart from selectively quoting out of context etc, his level of insight seems to be reflected by his own words: "The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany ..." Post-war Germany consisted of Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and German Democratic Republic (East Germany), each of which disputed the legitimacy of "democracy" in the other. Neither of them turned out to be truly democratic. (Sources available) Nick-d himself does not source or define his own meaning of "democratisation".

Semantics aside; regarding Nick-d's assertion The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted ... Those prosecutions were essentially token prosecutions and they were conducted on a very selective basis. (Copious Sources available). Consider for instance the celebrated case of Kurt Waldheim, who went on to become secretary-general of the United Nations. Another celebrated case is that of the war criminal (can't remember his name right now) who went on to become head of Interpol, and other very well documented cases for which numerous sources are also available. And speaking of sources, I have repeatedly offered to submit reliable sources and clarifications as requested by Hohum before Nick-d objected to the topic and reverted my edits while I was in the process of providing clarification and page numbers. I then repeatedly asked whether or not it was worthwhile providing the said clarity and page numbers, to which no response was forthcoming.

Re Arnoutf posting above: I seem to recall you're the same feller who earlier told me to "SHUT UP" (sic) and "find another forum". Now you are laying down itemised preconditions for my continued participation. I am unaware, (unless I've missed something), that you Arnoutf have any authority whatsoever to dictate to me or anyone else any conditions or preconditions for participation. I have already made it clear, and I repeat: I want nothing further to do with editing the aftermath or any other WW2 topic until such time as certain key policy issues are conclusively resolved. The rest of you, including especially you Arnoutf, are free to fight it out among yourselves. There is an unfortunate tendency, when descended upon by the equivalent of a pack of editorial wild dogs, to reduce oneself to the same level. You don't emerge intact from such attacks by being Mr Nice Guy; and I for one am thoroughly fed up with having to reduce myself to that level. It's all yours (for the time being, at any rate), and good luck to you. I trust I've made myself clear. Communicat (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

So, I have accepted the reprimand from the uninvolved admins and tried to involve you into a reasonable discussion by trying to suggest some boundaries within which I am confident we can collaborate. If you read back on this talk page and its archives you can easily find that it is indeed I who lowered myself to your level after a frenzy of unjustified personal attacks and extremely incivil comments on anyone daring to disagree with you (even if facts were presented). In spite of that I have made the effort to find common ground and being called a "wild dog" in response is utterly unwarranted and yet another example of the personal attacks that appear in a significant part of your comments. Arnoutf (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

PS I should not have said "shut up" and should have kept a cool head after after your extremely polite and constructive remark "Arnoutf, you are irritating and disruptive. Please stop your personal attacks on me, assume good faith". Arnoutf (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nazis in Western and Soviet service

I have archived the presiding discussion, as it has turned into personal matters and is no longer useful in improving the article.

In the article itself I have added a paragraph with links to the main articles Operation Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim, Reinhard Gehlen and Gehlen Organization. Feel free to improve the wording or provide better references.

On the question posed by Nick-D, it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War. A Soviet decision to stop prosecution of Nazis played no such role – on the contrary, Soviet prosecution of collaborators was a major irritant in the West. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so I've come out of hiding (for the moment). Only to point out that wiki rule doesn't allow use of links to other articles to serve as references. I note that Petri (nor anyone else for that matter), does not give any ref sources.

However, If anyone does want to pursue some of the numerous documented sources available on this topic, I'd suggest Stan Winer's Between the Lies (2nd edn) London: 2007, which provides a detailed, very well researched and sourced chapter (re the Cold War recruitment of nazis) that is of direct relevance to this topic. Milhist censors have of course banned the book from use as a reference source on wiki. But, as Paul Siebert has pointed out in earlier discussion, (now archived): "... the facts and sources he (Winer) cites are correct and reliable." --Paul Siebert (talk) 18 Aug 2010. Since Paul states on his user page that he has a Phd in History, he probably knows what he's talking about.

For my part, I'll not be engaging with any resultant talk arising from mention here of the book's disputed merits. It's a deadhorse for wiki discussion. The book is nonetheless out there for whoever wants to consult the correct and reliable references contained in it. I am not the author or the publisher of the book. Communicat (talk) 21:41, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Petri, if that's the case (which, to be frank, I very much doubt, and particularly the 'key role' part) it should be stated plainly and be supported by appropriate reliable sources. The current text and references do not support the position. Nick-D (talk) 00:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "...it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War". I would say, the casual linkage is inverted here. Western countries abandoned denazification because the Cold War started.

"In the following pages denazification in the American zone of occupation only will be analyzed. As to the Soviet zone, it might be claimed that denazification has been a success, in the sense of the second group referred to above, since it was used to eliminate social groups like big land owners and industrialists, i.e., groups which to a large extent had been responsible for the access of Nazism to power, and whose continued power might conceivably facilitate seizure of power by a neo-Nazism in the future. However the wholesale political use to which denazification in that zone has been perverted precludes it from being considered genuine denazification in the sense originally understood by at least the Western partners of the anti-Hitler alliance."

"It seems significant that not only in Germany but everywhere in Europe such policies as purges of fascists and prosecution of Axis collaborators have by now been "coordinated" under the impact of the bipolarization of power in the world. They have thus been perverted into tools of the power politics of the two major blocs.

Thus, in the Soviet sphere, purge of Nazis and Fascists soon became the tool for indicting any opponent of Communist totalitarian rule and for eliminating him as a " fascist collaborator", whether or not he had been one under the Axis rule. Was it necessary, then, for the Western countries to welcome as " allies" in their anti-Communist stand not only those democratic non-Communists, on whom Communists undeservedly place the stigma of " collaborators" , but also the real former collaborators and Fascists? This may, indeed, have its advantages from the standpoint of power politics. As a German put it the other day: "After all, we are experienced Russenkampfer." If so, the moral superiority of the nontotalitarian West is " expendable ". Even from the standpoint of an apparently realistic power politics, however, this policy, in the specific instance of Germany, seems not to be without risk."(John H. Herz. The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1948), pp. 569-594)

However, in any event, there was a deep linkage between CW and abandonment of the denazification policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

By "the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations" I mean not the lack of "denazification", but the role collaborators like Ain-Ervin Mere played in operations like Operation Jungle. None of this was public knowledge in the West in 1948; the Soviets however knew all about it. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If I understand correct, Operation Jungle and similar events were a part of already ongoing Cold War. They just further deteriorated Soviet-Western relations, that had already become bad. In other words, these events hardly triggered the Cold War, although they could significantly contribute into the growth of tensions between the USSR and the Western Allies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

As it appears that there's no consensus to include the para, I've just re-removed it and posted it below to aid discussions/further work on it. I continue to regard it as being both unnecessary and inaccurate. Please do not re-add it to the article until there's a consensus to do so. Nick-D (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

German technology was transferred to the U.S. and Soviet Union in operations Paperclip, and Osoaviakhim. Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes and policies of denazification in favour of realpolitik, leading to large numbers of former Nazis being allowed to emigrate to these nations and their dependencies. Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.

Re " both unnecessary and inaccurate" Please, explain, what concretely is inaccurate here. With regard to "unnecessary", please, keep in mind that the whole American Moon program became possible due to Werner von Braun, so the mention of Paperclip is definitely needed (cannot tell anything about Osoaviakhim, because the contribution of German scientists into similar Soviet programs seems to be much more moderate). Abandonment of denazification is also important, as well as the mention of ex-Nazi collaboration with the West. The para is probably too wordy for such a summary style article, so let's think how to make it more laconic.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I've done so above Paul (in this edit). Nick-D (talk) 05:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Protection of Nazi mass murderers and criminals by West Germany like Heinz Reinefarth definetely served as major source of animosity with Poland. Also see amnesty law issued by Adenauer:

[3] "As of January 31, 1951, the amnesty legislation had benefited 792,176 people. They included people with six-month sentences, but also about 35,000 people with sentences of up to one year who were released on parole. Frei specifies that these figures include a bit more than 3,000 functionaries of the SA, the SS, and the Nazi Party who participated in dragging victims to jails and camps; 20,000 other Nazi perpetrators sentenced for "deeds against life" (presumably murder); 30,000 sentenced for causing bodily injury, and about 5,200 charged with "crimes and misdemeanors in office"". --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 12:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "I still regard it as a POV mess - in essence it argues that the west quickly papered over its opposition to the Nazis in order to gain access to German technology and intelligence networks." Not completely correct. The para states:

"German technology was transferred to the U.S. and Soviet Union in operations Paperclip, and Osoaviakhim."

which by no means implies that cessation of denazification was connected to transfer of technologies. According to the para, the technologies had just been transferred (btw, both to the West and East. I see no POV here.). With regard to realpolitik, this statement seems to be supported by reliable sources.

Re: "The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany is ignored, as is the continuing western military-led occupation of the country." The fact that something has been left beyond the scope is not an argument. The missing facts can be added; let's discuss that.

Re: "Moreover, it leaves out the substantial transfers of technology to France and Britain." If you think it was important, let's discuss how should this material be presented in the article.

Re: "The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted and war crimes trials of individuals continue to this very day (including many conducted by Germany during the 1950s and 1960s)." I see no nonsense here. The fact that key Nazis were prosecuted after the war does not contradict to the fact that the denazification program had been partially abandoned later. This para's statement has been supported by the reliable source, I also presented the source confirming that, and I can present more. If you believe it is not a mainstream POV, please, provide a source confirming your point.

Re: "The statement that "large numbers of former Nazis" moved to Britain and the US is also very dubious - what's a 'large number'?" This piece of the text seems to be too detailed for this article, and I agree it should be made shorter.

Re: "All up, this para is attempting to push a fringe interpretation of post-war events and I still think it has no place in the article." I am still unable to understand what part of this para is fringe. The fact that German technologies were massively transferred to the West? Disagree. The fact that denazification was abandoned? Yes, it would be more correct to say that it was abandoned partially, so the para needs to be modified. The fact that ex-Nazi provided very significant help to into British and American intelligence during the Cold War? That fact is well known, although, maybe, we don't need to go into these details is this concrete article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Restructuring Aftermath section

With 170Kb this is already a very long article. So let's be extremely careful not to add more detail than absolutely needed.

If we consider the whole aftermath section if is built from the following paragraphs (extremely abbreviated)

• Foundation of UN
• Descent into Cold War
• Soviet power over Eastern and Central European countries
• Denazification / move of nazis to the west (the discussed para)
• US influence over Japan & foundation of NATO (the latter is a bit weird first better with cold war para I guess)
• Peoples republic of China founded (communist take over)
• Korea war (*)
• Decolonization
• Economic restoration programs
• Quick economic recovery in France, USSR and Japan (*)
• Lagging recovery in China, big leap forward (*)

To be honest, reviewing all this I think there are several paragraphs that are in this section that are less imporant than a brief one about denazification. I doubt especially whether the Korean war requires much attention. Also, while the economic restoration programs are clearly relevant, the follow up in the two paras after that seem to hold too much detail. (I marked these para with a (*) above).

Of course we need to decide what we want with this section. If we want the immediate aftermath we need to include something about denazification (e.g. including reference to Nuremberg trials), if we are more interested in the long term consequences we should say more about the other issues. My preference would be to keep it to immediate aftermatch rather than a broad series of consequences, as that could fill many articles in itself. Arnoutf (talk) 10:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the 'Aftermath' section is over-long (particularly as it's longer than any of the sections on the phases of the war, which is the actual topic of the article). The section is also European-centric, and devotes little space to events in Asia. I'd suggest that (at a high level) the coverage of Europe be trimmed as part of an effort to reduce this section to four or five paragraphs. As a start, the Korean War para could be either removed or reduced to a single sentence (the war started 5 years after the Japanese surrender) and the coverage of the on the post-war economic situation should be written at the global level and be reduced to a paragraph (rather than the current three or so paras covering events in different countries). Nick-D (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

How about building the aftermath in the following four paragraphs

• Global recovery of economy (Soviet Industry, Marshall Plan, Japan)
• New geopolitical organisation (foundation of UN, NATO, Warsaw pact and similar)
• Political changes in Europe (occupation and denazification of Germany (Nuremberg trial?), Soviet dominance over Central and Eastern Europe, decolonisation of European powers)
• Political change in Asia (American occupation of Japan (demotian of divinity of emperor), communist state of China emerges)

I think that would put a more global view on it, with one paragraph for each of the main theatres (Europe and Asia) and the other 2 truly global. What do you think? Arnoutf (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. It would be good if you proposed your version of this section based on this plan.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I concur on this four paragraph concept. --Habap (talk) 23:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

New aftermath section

Below my suggestion for a first draft for a new, shorter, aftermath section

I have restructured and summarised the current content of the aftermath section into the suggested four paragraph structure. Can you comment whether I missed essential stuff, whether even more can be removed, the use of English and the general flow of it (i.e. everything). I may still have emphasised the European situation over Asia, that is because I am from Europe and much more familiar with the aftermath there, so if I missed something in Asia, feel free to add. Arnoutf (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Main article: Aftermath of World War II

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-14059-0018, Berlin, Oberbefehlshaber der vier Verbündeten.jpg

The Supreme Commanders on 5 June 1945 in Berlin: Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives the "Victory" sign to crowds in London on Victory in Europe Day.

The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the largely undamaged US industry produced roughly half of the world's industrial output.Economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive. In Europe, West Germany recovered quickly and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s. In the 1950s, the Italian economy was rapidly growing France rebounded quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernisation. The Soviet Union also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era. The United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war, and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow. Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s. China had reached pre war production by 1953.

In an effort to maintain international peace, the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, and adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard of achievement for all member nations. The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over, and the powers each quickly established their own spheres of influence., leading to two international military pacts, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact military alliances and the start of the Cold War between them.

In Europe, Germany and Austria were controlled by the allies; and a program of denazification was started. The Soviet Union, expanded its territory by directly annexing several countries it occupied as Soviet Socialist Republics such as Eastern Poland, the three Baltic countries, part of eastern Finland and northeastern Romania. The eastern and central European countries states that the Soviets occupied at the end of the war became Soviet Satellite states, such as the People's Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Hungary, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the People's Republic of Romania, the People's Republic of Albania,. Later East Germany would be created from the Soviet zone of German occupation. While the European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to rapid decolonisation.

In Asia, the United States occupied Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, which was the precursor of theKorean War. In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were eventually victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces ended up retreating to Taiwan in late 1949.

The new version is generally good. In my opinion, a greater emphasis on Europe/Atlantic is correct, because the WWII's focus was there. The first para draws somewhat idyllic picture. I think, it is needed to describe the situation in major European countries, including the degree of devastations, loss/gain of political influence, possibly border changes (others than expansion of the Soviet Union). The words: "The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the largely undamaged US industry produced roughly half of the world's industrial output." sound ambiguously, because the reader can interpret that as this "roughly half of the world's industrial output" was a result of WWII. However, off the top of my head, in 30s the USA produced even more than 50% of the world's industrial output.

"...and a program of denazification was started." Not only it started, but had been stopped soon after CW started.

" The European powers started a rapid decolonization after the war" I am not sure the initiative belonged to them. They were forced to start decolonisation because their influence and power were undermined by the war.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Something went awry with edit conflict. Here it is again: Arnoutf You've got it wrong re sequence of events Korea: Here is what happened immediately after end of WW2: As World War II ended, the United States began its involvement in Korea with a three-year occupation from 1945 to 1948, in which the Americans operated a full military government. Feel free to use verbatim. Communicat (talk) 18:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

That looks excellent to me Paul - I endorse using that text to replace the current aftermath section. Nick-D (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Oppose until more sources are added to keep this article a GA. I see several unreferenced sentences.--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 23:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I've added a reference for the Chinese Civil War (along with some dates) but could you please mark the other text which needs to be cited with fact tags? Nick-D (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

General support "The global economy suffered heavily during the war", may help to reduce the ambiguity at the start. It may be worth lengthening the sentence to describe what it was about the war that damaged the global economy if it can be briefly summarized (presumably mostly the interruption in sea & other trade), with a reference. (Hohum ^@) 00:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)References and grammar are just a technical issues. The Arnoutf's text contains obvious and easily verifiable facts, so it is quite simple to find needed refs. Let's come to consensus about the text first.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

re: "The global economy suffered heavily during the war" is unneeded oversimplification, because it suffered very non-uniformly. American economy didn't suffer at all, French economy was destroyed only moderately, whereas German, Japanese, Chinese and Soviet economies were devastated. IMO, each major WWII participant deserves few words.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree to an attempt for each major participant being briefly itemized. "European powers underwent..." would seem to restore the balance to the decolonization sentence. (Hohum ^@) 01:37, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The economy section is given too much emphasis, move it from the beginning, or at least trim it down. It would be useful to link to the Marshall Plan as well as to the Morgenthau Plan and Industrial plans for Germany. The text still retains the "Soviets occupied" while "Americans liberated" territory POV. Also note that the Soviet "enlargement" happened before the Soviet Union joined the war in 1941. The same inaccuracy seems to be repeated here Marshall Plan#Creation of the Eastern Bloc (Ooops, it was there, but now it is gone!). -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC), expanded 02:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I am missing something, I don't see liberated anywhere in the proposal, and see occupied used for US and Soviet actions. (Hohum ^@) 02:01, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with this... could we get this in to replace the new additions to the section... that keeps making the section longer and longer and longer ... I like this short form Moxy (talk) 02:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I like it. --Habap (talk) 02:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Returning to the occupation issue: The text now says: The Soviet Union, expanded its territory by directly annexing several countries it occupied as Soviet Socialist Republics such as Eastern Poland,[23] the three Baltic countries,[24][25] part of eastern Finland[26] and northeastern Romania.[27][28]. This is totally untrue: In 1944 these territories were "liberated" by the Red Army. They were annexed in 1940. So even if the statements were factually correct, they have nothing to do with the aftermath of the war. What could be said however, is that "the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states became a contentious issue in Soviet–U.S. relations." As to the other "eastern and central European countries that the Soviets occupied at the end of the war" you could as well say "countries liberated by the Red Army" – that is unless you want to push a DIGWUREN pov of Soviet occupations everywhere. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Words nuclear arms race conspicuously absent from new (and old?) aftermath. Nuclear arms race is/was a central feature of WW2 aftermath. Communicat (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

So, would ending that paragraph and the start of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between them make sense? --Habap (talk) 17:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not concerned as to where the words nuclear arms race should be placed, I only know they should appear at least somewhere in section.

What conerns me more is this: "The European powers started a rapid decolonisation after the war". That particular issue was debated at great length in preceding rework of lead paragraph. Consensus then led to changes re decolonisation issue, and said consensus is not what is now again mis-stated, having gone full circle.

Re Petri reference to Baltic states: I think the Poland issue overshadows the (mucho complex) Baltic question. As one writer, quoting declassified official documents, puts it: "(The Cold War) began with a heated exchange of correspondence in 1945 (between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill) over whether the Polish Government in Exile, backed by Roosevelt and Churchill, or the Provisional Government, backed by Stalin, should be recognised. Stalin won." Ref: Stewart Richardson, Secret History of World War II, New York: Richardson & Steirman, 1986, p.vi. ISBN 0931933056 .

The main breakdown in East-West relations came shortly after, when Roosevelt died in 1945 and arch-Cold Warrior Harry Truman became US president. (The record shows a very cordial wartime relationship between Roosevelt and Stalin. But more of this later, at the appropriate time). Communicat (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC).

@ Nick-D "leading to the end of British, French and Dutch colonial empires." needs a source. (I know it's a wate of time since it is true and all but you know how things work here!) Once that is fixed, I'll happily support :)--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 20:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

As earlier pointed out two postings above, the proposed wording of the new aftermath re "rapid decolonisation etc" is not consistent with the relevant wording in the lead. The appropriate wording in the lead was arrived at after much discussion as first initiated in now archived thread Lead: problemsand continued to consensus at now archived thread Flawed overview, among others. Why then, after all that discussion, has the "decolonisation" issue now resufaced in its originally contested wording and meaning? Is this a subtle form of subversive editing or edit warring? (Possibly not: just incipient paranoia, hey?).

Separately and at the same time, I'd be much obliged if text and refs that are under discussion are not refactored by anybody (without edit summary or identification) while the discussion is still in progress, thus causing confusion between the discussants, (as happened recently re Brutal Korea). Communicat (talk) 22:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I think there is too much link piping (WP:EASTEREGG) in the draft, though that's a minor quibble. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 02:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

In my humble opinion this draft is a pathetically watered-down rendition of what's been discussed and usually agreed upon by everyone except you-know-who. Denazification reduced to half a sentence? Gimme a break. Communicat (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

This uncivil behaviour is getting out of hand Communicat....Stop insulting people Communicat-- Communicat --read Wikipedia:Civility...At this point i think its best Communicat that you simply leave this talk page altogether. Moxy (talk) 04:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Should the Marshall plan be mentioned in the economy section? What about the Berlin blockade in the cold war part? I realize there's a lot of stuff to get through but there was quite a bit of tension around these things, at least in my limited understanding. Generally I prefer an approach of threading a narrative through some especially sharp events, rather than rattling off a bunch of stuff as a big blur. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 08:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I've provided refs for the sentence on decolonisation. I've also tweaked the sentence in these edits; all the sources I consulted stated that the European powers initially tried to restore/retain their empires, but gave up after being either unable to put down revolts (eg, the Dutch in Indonesia and French in Indochina and Algeria) or realised that they couldn't compete against popular nationalism (eg, the British and French in Africa). The reason consistently given for this was the impact the war had on the prestige of the colonial authorities and their resources. Nick-D (talk) 08:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Reply to "uninvolved" intervening party

Georgewilliamherbert, in response to your postings above of 23:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC) & 00:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC), I am unable to accept your intervention is that of a neutral and impartial party.

Your stated intervention, at the very outset, alleges "fringe-POV pushing" by me, thus supporting unequivocally the claims of other involved parties, as though those claims are a settled and unquestioned premise, which they are not. In so doing, you have prejudged the issues at hand, and you obviously support the views of those opposed to me, which views I contest. Nor, before jumping to your own wrong conclusions, have you invited my point of view in relation to the partisan editing of the article as complained of by me.

Moreover, you have not familiarised yourself with the full recorded background to this dispute, which runs into many thousands of words. Nor have you exhibited any discernable desire to establish why the editors opposed to me are not prepared to compromise their unyielding positions or to consider alternative historiographic positions, which positions are at the heart of the dispute.

In addition to prejudging the matter and exhibiting bias and prejudice even before acqainting yourself with my side of the story, you have come into this dispute with all guns blazing, in an intimidating fashion and issuing loud threats to ban me. For these and other reasons, you have made it very difficult for me to assume good faith on your part, or to engage with you in reasoned discussion. Communicat (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I spent about four hours reading and looking at diffs; I'm not sure how much more familiar you want or expect. Most admins would have waded in with far less due diligence.

If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here. I intervened due to behavioral issues, and in the process concluded that you're not providing adequate evidence to establish that you aren't working from a fringe viewpoint.

You are welcome to ask additional uninvolved administrators to intervene here. However, I am what you have now. Administrators aren't disqualified by dint of having established an opinion on the incident or behavior they are responding to. They're only disqualified if they have been personally involved beforehand either with the articles or with the persons involved in a significant manner. In this case, I have not been previously involved in any significant way in either manner.

Your statement that you find it difficult to engage in reasoned discussion is somewhat at odds to our perfectly reasonable exchange where you asked additional questions of me. You asked entirely appropriate context setting questions and I think I answered entirely reasonably. I am perfectly happy to keep discussing reasonably; your response above is somewhat discouraging but doesn't rule out ongoing constructive engagement.

If you would like to continue arguing the underlying issue of whether you represent a reasonably mainstream or sufficiently well supported minority viewpoint on the underlying history issues, please feel free to do so. That discussion should ideally be on article talk and not article edits per se, until you are able to find some consensus on the points you are supporting. I would especially like to see more survey evidence and a widening of your presented references and resources, rather than continued arguing over single sources. Good information usually is multiply reliably referenced, with multiple reinforcing sources in areas of both factual data and critical commentary regarding the conclusions. There has been a lack of healthy breadth to the source discussions here so far. If you'd like to open it up that would be an entirely reasonable way to discuss things going forwards.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Your effort is very much appreciated, and from your balanced, nuanced comments (with fair criticism on all parties involved) the first time around it became clear you spent a lot of time looking through this murky issue. Thanks for all the effort. Arnoutf (talk) 15:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I stand by my statement above. But I shall endeavour to try just one more time. If there's no constructive and conclusive outcome within 48 hours, I'll refer the matter to arbitration.

Firstly, it would he helpful if you could acquaint yourself with the fundamental precepts of historiography. (There's a useful summary of the subject near bottom of Cold War page. This might obviate future allegations of "fringe POV-pushing" directed at me. But to save you the trouble in the meantime, suffice it to say that historiography basically concerns METHOD. The method of revisionism (or "fringe POV-pushing" as it is falsely described by some editors and by yourself) is basically the revision of pre-existing historical accounts. This method in military history relies frequently on declassified official documents that were previously classified secret and withheld from the public domain. Now, these are my main points:

(1) WP:FRINGE, (and probably other wiki rules as well), states that: "In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical prominence (and) ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." Please note that the rule does NOT state: Wikipedia should always give prominence to established WESTERN lines of research found in reliable WESTERN sources." Yet this is exactly what the existing WW2 article does do. Not even one non-Western source is cited among the 340 odd sources cited. This reflects clear POV bias through omission, which may or may not be due to personal political preferences, which have no room in accurate and objective editing.

(2) Moreover, not even highly authoritative Western revisionist works such as Professor FH Hinsley's, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its influence on Strategy and Operations, (4 Vols), London: HMSO, 1977-1988 are to be found in the article's source citations. Perhaps this is because Hinsley's work contains some uncomfortable truths, which ultra conservative individuals may find difficult to accept. The same applies to other reliable Western revisionist accounts, a number of which were submitted by me as sources, which were then summarily rejected as "commie propaganda", or "there's not enough space for them", or even more outrageously, the submission of the sources was simply subverted and/or reverted, as was the case recently by Nick-D (see Aftermath section above) while I was in the very process of uploading them.

(3) Your assertion is false that I have not provided "adequate high quality references and resources" and/or that this is not "purely about historical disputes." The record shows exactly the opposite. Whatever the true reason or reasons for the rejection and/or subversion of the sources provided, and the deeply conservative and partisan nature of the editing of the article, it is clear to me that something needs to be done about this situation, which impacts negatively on the editorial quality of the article. That is why we are here. Communicat (talk) 02:59, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

You already referred this for arbitration - they said "no". My investigation and response to you were as the initial "no" answers were coming in, and was noted over there. They're aware of what's going on.

Again:

The problem here isn't (just) viewpoint, it's how you're trying to argue it. It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved.

Note that the way you're trying to argue it would be problematic even if the viewpoint was unambiguously mainstream.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply continued

(1) To return to your assertion: If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here.

Below is list of NPOV and highly reliable reference sources from a wide spectrum, submitted either as supporting text references in various contexts and/or in support of various relevant discussion topics with a view to suggested textual changes, improvements etc. All of these below were rejected out of hand, and sometimes with insults. (To save time and possibly more wasted effort, alphabetical order, ISBNs, italics, page nrs etc are not shown here but are available if ever necessary at some stage):

• Stewart Richardson (ed.),The Secret History of World War II: Wartime Letters and Cables of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, New York: Richardson and Steirman, 1986,
• Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the puging of Nazi Germany, London: Andre Deutsch 1981
• Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988,
• Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972,
• EH Cookridge, Gehlen, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971
• Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation, Yale University Press: 2003.
• Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
• Association of Asian Studies, "Anti-Japanese Movements in Southeast Asia during World War II". Abstract (1996) http://www.aasianst.org;
• Yoji Akashi, "MPAJA/Force 136 Resistance Against the Japanese in Malaya, 1941-1945".
• Association of Asian Studies. Abstract (1996) http://www.aasianst.org.
• Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping, London: Faber, 1971.
• Spenser Chapman, The Jungle is Neutral, London: Chatto and Windus, 1948;
• Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
• Bradley F Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender. New York, 1979.
• R Harris Smith, OSS, Berkely: University of California Press, 1972, pp.114-121
• Vladimir Petrov (ed.), Soviet Historians and the German Invasion, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1968
• Y Larionov, N Yeronin, B Solovyov, V. Timokhovich, World War II Decisive Battles of the Soviet Army, Moscow: Progress 1984,
• Gar Alperovitz, "How Did the Cold War Begin?" in Walter LaFeber (ed.) The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947, New York: John Wiley 1971;
• Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945, New York: Avon 1965:
• Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945, London: Macmillan 2005;
• DF Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917-1960, New York: Random 1961
• Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare (online link to US Military Corps archive of previously banned books).
• Bruce R Kuniholm, Origins of the Cold War in the Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980
• LS Stavrianos, "The Greek National Liberation Front (EAM): A Study in Resistance, Organisation and Administration", Journal of Modern History, March 1952.

(2) Regarding your latest posting above: You already referred this for arbitration - they said "no". The arbitration request you refer to was in fact exclusively in relation to a matter of process viz., procedural infringement by one Nick-D, which is a completely separate and different matter to this current matter that we are attempting to discuss. I am free to lodge a new request in relation this separate and different matter, should it become necessary. I repeat, if a constructive and conclusive outcome is not forthcoming within 48 hours (of this posting), the matter will be referred to arbitration, since mediation and subsequent attempts at discussion will by then have visibly failed and/or become unmanageable.

(2) Your The problem here isn't (just) viewpoint: Agreed. It's a problem of content and what I suspect is politically biased resistance to certain content and to the free flow of information, viz., it is also a matter of discipline, integrity and ethics.

(3) Your It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, I understand them perfectly, and also the manner in which they are sometimes arbitrarily conducted in violation of wiki standards. In particular I understand that consensus may not involve just the editors concerned, but includes also the wider wiki community, such as arbitrators if necessary as a last resort. And beyond the wiki community there is a wide international community of professional historians, researchers, writers and history institutions, such as George Mason University which recently published the widely quoted article by historian Edwin Black titled Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of Knowledge.

(4) It is noted that you have not yet addressed the key issues raised in my long, earlier reply above, in particular the absence of parity in reference notation list. It is not necessary for me to repeat them here again. On the face of it thus far, however, it seems you are unable to come up with any convincing response to that specific and central issue.

(5) There is also the small matter of numerous questionable and/or disallowed sources that exist in the present reference list, which one disagreeing party to my mediation request cited as a subject that I'd failed to discuss properly with other editors before going to mediation request. I have since attempted to discuss the duious nature of those sources by providing a number of specific examples. The record shows that my attempt at discussion on that particular issue has so far been met with editorial silence, which I interpret as concurrence. Communicat (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, I guarantee you that arbcom will reject a new filing from you (with the present set of facts) just like they rejected the last one. I've been around a lot of arb cases and I know what it takes to get one started, and you're not even 10% of the way there. The next step if things don't work out here is wp:Requests for comment (RFC). You can start one of those, but I don't think it would go in your favor. You're just completely wrong when you say you understand Wikipedia standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus "perfectly". You've read a bunch of policy documents as if they were statutes, a common newbie error. They're more like grammar manuals, descriptive rather than prescriptive, often in conflict with each other, and not always accurate. Learning Wikipedia practices is like learning to speak a language. You can't do it by reading grammar manuals. You instead have to open your mind and spend a lot of time actually speaking the language and participating in the surrounding culture. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 01:31, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Refactored addition: Behaviour / Collegiality

(1) Re intervening party's claim: "It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved."

The editing rules I've followed are contained in WP:CONS which I quote verbatim: "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages ... (the editing process) begins with an editor boldly changing an article ..."

That is precisely the understood procedure, which I have followed and obeyed in spirit and to the very letter. A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes before allowing other editors to agree or disagree to the change, or to voice any opinion whatever. This is a clear violation of the consensus building process as clearly stated and understood. The editor / administrator then obstructed and disrupted my further attempt to clarify and improve the changes submitted. The content and meaning of the changes originally made by me were only revived after I was compelled to complain loudly and repeatedly.

Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption. There is also evidence in the archives of apprehension by other individual editors who fear they will be blocked or intimidated if they contradict or cross swords with the alleged clique. And there is further evidence in the archives of at least one other (non-Western) newcomer whose contributions based on (non-Western) reliable sources were dismissed out of hand as "communist propaganda".

I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs. If anyone can come up with a suitably polite alternative metaphor for describing the phenomenon of being singled out as a newcomer, and then being attacked from every angle by people intent on tearing him apart, then I'd like to hear that polite metaphor.

I am not intimated by the repeated threats of banning, blocking or whatever that I've received. Banned editors can still have recourse to the arbitration committee, and of course there's always the open line to Jimbo Wales.

This refactored addition to the discourse between myself and intervening party does not in any way alter the spirit or the meaning of the preceding exchanges between that party and myself. And in any event the intervening party has not yet responded in full and on a point-by-point basis to my preceding submissions. So refactoring should be permissable. If not, I'm posting a duplicate of this addition under a separate section head. Hohum (or whoever) is free to delete only one of whichever posting is deemed inappropriate or unnecessary. Communicat (talk) 19:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear Communicat, in my opinion, it would be better if you, instead of blaming other persons in various sins, simply presented your version of the text here on the talk page. Try to do the following:

1. Explain what concrete article's paragraphs need modification;
2. Propose your versions of these para.

Although you probably have done that somewhere on this talk page, your posts are too wordy, so it is somewhat problematic for me to follow your main idea. Please, for the beginning try to choose a single piece of text which does not satisfy you, propose your own version (with full references and, if necessary, with quotes, just to demonstrate that you transmitted the source's main idea correctly), wait for the response from others and, when all criticism is addressed, implement proposed changes. After that we can pass to other parts of the article. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

To Petri who cleaned up refs layout: You meant well, but it was hardly worth the effort. Refs were posted solely for the record, and to counter interventionist's assertion that I'd not provided "adequate high quality references." Anyway, looks nice now. Many Thanks.

To Paul: Yeah, I know my above posts are too wordy, but it had to be done that way, seeing as discussion had and was still becoming increasingly unmanageable and not helpful to the record. All the intertwined threads were being archived out of sequence relative to the order in which they were originally posted and subsequently evolved etc., and some kind of coherent record is necessary for my purposes.

I need to clear up some macro policy issues before considering any further involvement with that article and some of its editors. In any event, I think I've already achieved my objective with what I'd set out to do initially, which was to precipitate extensive reworking and improvement of the lead (decolonisation etc etc), which was previously in a parlous state and long overdue for a facelift. You did well in reworking all that stuff. And maybe I've managed also to precipitate some improvements to Aftermath section, but we'll just have to wait and see exactly what is to be the outcome there (re denazification etc). Those preliminary few sections are probably the ones most likely to be read before the readers' eyes glaze over. Only the most dedicated soul would be sufficiently motivated to read the rest of that excessively overlong article. Thanks for your comments / suggestions, anyway. Communicat (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, ISBN's are not important if you give the title and author of a book, since we can easily find the ISBN and other publication info ourselves from a book site or search engine. The most vital thing, and the thing which you leave out in every case, is the page number of a citation in the book that supports the argument you are making, preferably along with a quote of up to a sentence of two showing the exact words with which the book backs you up. Can you supply those please? Saying "the whole book supports my argument" is simply not persuasive here, and will get you nowhere. You have to give the exact chapter and verse or else it's WP:OR. If you've already supplied page numbers and are saying they weren't received appropriately, please supply diffs of your edits with the citations, and of the responses that you're taking issue with.

You also misunderstand how arbitration works. Your requesting arbitration on an issue like this is like a newcomer to the city of London getting in an argument with his neighbor about a spilled drink, and then on not getting satisfaction, marching straight off to Buckingham Palace and asking Queen Elizabeth sort it out. Her Majesty is simply (almost) never going to look at any disputes between subjects unless every possible attempt (negotiations, police, courts, and ballot referenda) have been made to solve them some other way, a lot of people have looked into it and given their own conclusions, and there is still widespread disagreement about what to do. (Note that when one person A says "X" and everyone else says "Y", as seems to be happening here, that's not widespread disagreement, that's general agreement on Y even if person A doesn't like it.) If you refer a matter to arbitration, the first question the arbs will ask is "what else has been tried to solve this problem?" and unless they see a long list of prior failed attempts, they won't take the case.

GWH is doing a good job administratively (you can think of admins as the equivalent of the local police) and has also offered to get into a content discussion with you (he is more than qualified for this, as he knows a ton about military stuff). Have you read our guidelines on reliable sources and citations and our No original research policy? You should be familiar with those before getting in an argument like this.

I think your easiest solution is to switch to editing some other topic for a while, til you have more experience. GWH and others are right in observing that the editing atmosphere for this particular article is not very good. You are potentially a good editor but this place takes a while to get used to. You could also look for help from more experienced editors, perhaps from wp:Adopt-a-user. Finally, if you really want to pursue dispute resolution, the next step is probably to file a Request for comment. That asks for editors from other areas of wikipedia to look in on the issue and say what they think. In this case it's a safe bet that they will say roughly the same things that Arbcom, GWH, and others have already been telling you. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 22:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Additional comment I just noticed that Communicat says s/he had an edit or proposal rejected that cited something by Harry Hinsley, a respected WW2 historian. I don't think anything by Hinsley should be rejected as "fringe", though there may have been other reasons to think the edit was misplaced in the article. Communicat, the way to make a claim like that is to include a diff of the edit. The debating style around here basically requires including diffs of anything that you attribute to another editor that you're taking issue with. If your statement doesn't have diffs, it looks like you're presenting opinions without evidence. With the diffs, it's much easier for others to tell whether your complaints have merit. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 07:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

A search of this page and the archives shows that Hinsley has not been rejected, and no concrete edit supported by Hinsley has ever been suggested on the talk page by any editor. Using the article revision history search feature, I couldn't find a reference to Hinsley all the way back to 2003, so it seems unlikely one has ever been included then reverted.

Anyone is free to suggest a concrete edit, with references, but complaining that particular sources aren't used without suggesting an actual edit is pointless IMO. There are, no doubt, hundreds of reliable WWII sources that aren't used in this article. (Hohum ^@) 13:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Both of you miss the point completely. Please read my posting properly, which concerned editors' oft-stated aversion / prejudice towards "revisionist" sources. Same editors evidently don't understand the historiographic meaning of "revisionist", which they derisively misinterpret as "commie propaganda", and Hinsley was referred to by me as an example of revisionist work (since Hinsley is certainly not a commie propagandist). The absence of highly relevant and authoritative Hinsley from article's source notations is also a good exmaple of the poor standard of sourcing / bias through omission, or whatever is the cause of said omission. Whereas, by contrast, we have a plethora of dubious questionable sources citing e.g. Kurdish Association of North America, and so forth. See relevant thread —Preceding unsigned comment added by Communicat (talk • contribs) 17:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The word "revisionism" (in a context of history) has two meanings: the reinterpretation of orthodox views, or Denialism. Whereas denialism is hardly appropriate to this article, reinterpretation of old orthodox views must be included into this article, because majority of existing mainstream historical concepts were revisionist in the past. However, before making any edits it is necessary to demonstrate that these revisionist concepts have already become at least significant minority views.

One way or the another, the way you want to achieve your goal is hardly satisfactory. You are trying to convince everyone that you are right and only after that you are going to propose something concrete. Although this way seems to be shorter and easier, you can see by yourself that it leads just to endless discussions, which are more relevant to someone's talk page, not to this page. Please, try to propose some concrete text. I am sure that that will be a way out of an impasse.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Full circle: Thanks for now conceding that revisionist accounts "must be included in this article", whereas before you were saying "there's no room in this article for revisionist accounts." But never mind. There's also the small intellectual challenge of accepting that what might be perceived in the West as minority position can and is at the same time perceived elsewhere as significant majority position.

Re your Please, try to propose some concrete text. That's exactly what I been doing repeatedly the past, together with sources from established lines of research, and it was either blown up in my face or derisively strangled at birth as "fringe POV-pushing." A lot of thought and labour went into my proposed changes, sourcing etc etc. So, rather than having to go through all that again, (and to have it yet again mauled to death by those who fiercely resist change), it seems to me that the only practical way out of this impasses is via rapid and impartial arbitration, from which we all might learn a thing or two. Communicat (talk) 19:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, I have in fact tried the user-talk page route a few times. It was met with stony silence. Communicat (talk) 19:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Communicat, responding to some of your points above:

1. You wrote: "A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes ...". As mentioned before, in Wikipedia dispute resolution, allegations like that are worthless without diffs. If you want anyone to look into it, you have to give the diffs of the actual edits you are referring to. I already pointed to the help page about making diffs, but here it is again: WP:DIFF.
2. Your other allegations of people being intimidated, disrupted, dismissed, etc. are also worthless without diffs. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is. Even people sympathetic to you and willing to give you a hearing are not going to read through 40+ volumes of talkpage archives to find the incidents you are complaining about. You have to give the diffs so observers can examine the statements firsthand without having to search for them.
3. You also wrote "Re your Please, try to propose some concrete text. That's exactly what I been doing repeatedly the past, together with sources from established lines of research". I'd like to see a diff for that which includes a citation with a page number. I can discuss it with you starting from there. If it has something to do with Stan Winer's "Between the Lies", you either have to establish notability for that book or (probably easier) find a better-known author with a similar viewpoint. I'm no WW2 expert but I think you'll do a lot better trying to insert something cited to Hinsley than cited to Winer.
4. I'm sorry I misinterpreted your statement about Hinsley. I thought you meant that you had submitted an edit cited to Hinsley and had it rejected, a complaint worth investigating. You were actually complaining that other people hadn't put anything into the article citing Hinsley, even though you had made no attempt to do it yourself. I overlooked that interpretation because it didn't occur to me that anyone might make such a ludicrous complaint. The way it works is if user X (that would be you) wants the article to include material citing Hinsley, user X is the one expected to find and add that material. Paul Siebert's advice is very well taken and you should try to absorb it as well as you can. If you can write a concrete proposed addition based on Hinsley, that's great, or at least worthy of discussion. Otherwise, you're completely on the wrong track complaining about Hinsley's absence from the article.
5. Georgewilliamherbert (GWH) is an experienced and respected admin who does a lot of on-wiki DR (dispute resolution) work. He is doing a good job offering to engage with you about content and help you make good contributions. He is not going to ban or block you improperly. Admins in general don't do improper blocks very often, because they have to know what they're doing in order to become admins at all, and improper blocks get the blocking admin slapped around a fair bit. Most blocks are proper even though the blocked person often thinks otherwise. Actual improper blocks (they do happen sometimes) usually get sorted out at a level far below Arbcom. For that reason, appeals to Arbcom or Jimbo that say "I was blocked improperly" rarely succeed. Successful appeals involve the blocked person agreeing to modify their conduct to not repeat whatever got them blocked. And you might as well forget about Jimbo. If Arbcom turns down your appeal, Jimbo will too.
6. Anyway though, the disagreements here aren't yet anywhere near the level of having to talk about blocks in other than a theoretical sense. Right now it's just a tedious but basically civil conversation trying to get misunderstandings straightened out.
7. You asked GWH if he'd had formal training as a historian. If you don't mind I'd like to ask you the same question. Wikipedia does have a number of trained historians and they are in general very skilled at evaluating sources and writing arguments based on source citations. It would be helpful if you'd also write in that style.
8. More generally I'd really like to suggest that you (temporarily!!!) find a less conflicted area of the encyclopedia to work in. Don't you have any interests besides WW2? The problems you're having in this talkpage are mostly because you're not a very experienced editor yet, and things don't work the way you expect them to, and that gets frustrating because you see others as acting badly, but they in turn see you as a newbie with unrealistic expectations. I think if you'll find it easier to get things done in this article, if you first improve your understanding of wiki collaboration by editing other articles. Thinking you can get that understanding by reading policy documents is a classic newbie error. That's like trying to learn English by reading grammar manuals, and even telling fluent speakers that they're speaking incorrectly, by citing manuals. The result is they laugh at you. The manuals can help clarify some issues, but you really have to learn by actual practice, and it takes a while. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 00:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC) Regards,

67.119.3.248 (talk) 00:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. As for my failure to provide diffs for mediation / arbitration purposes regarding offensive reverts without offending party allowing discussion, don't worry; I have all the relevant diffs. Where I come from, my understanding is that complainant first states grievance, responding party then replies and indicates whether h/she agrees or disagrees, if the latter, then complainant files evidence, (i.e. would be diffs in case of wiki). But it seems wiki process has other rules. And even if there are rules, the rules are worthless, as you've apparently stated above.

Re your: If you've already supplied page numbers and are saying they weren't received appropriately, please supply diffs of your edits with the citations, and of the responses that you're taking issue with. Okay, the archives are full of examples, but here's a recent example submitted 23 August 2010 relative to denazification and improvement WW2 Aftermath section and still on the current talk page above, so diff isn't necessary:

TEXT AS SUBMITTED: Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe. REFS: Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988, pp.42, 44 ISBN 1555841066; Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972, p.240 ISBN 0440567351 OUTCOME: Quietly dropped from New Aftermath section. Finished. Kaput. Even though there was no consensual agreement to do so. In fact, consensus seemed to support inclusion of this topic. Discussion still on this current page at Restructuring aftermath section.

Thanks for your interest.

OK, I found that section. The first thing I noticed was that your proposed paragraph had five citations, but only two of the five citations had page numbers. So anyone examining the paragraph critically will immediately be on edge. You really have to include the page number in each and every citation. Second, I see that an awful lot of your remarks are written rather angrily and are about the actions of other users, rather than trying to discuss the proposed edit directly. That is called BATTLEGROUND editing and it's considered misconduct if it goes on for too long (we all engage in it occasionally so we are pretty forgiving if it's unintentional and doesn't persist). Please try to stay WP:COOL at all times. Third, there were some reasonable doubts raised about the paragraph's neutrality. Neutrality doesn't only mean that the paragraph is cited to mainstream sources, since mainstream sources don't always agree with each other, and your presentation of the source's facts may not match the source's overall viewpoint (that's why we want page numbers, to be able to check the source's viewpoint against yours). Rather, it means you've neutrally summarized the perspective you would get if you took every mainstream source on that subject (plus some minority sources), threw them all in a blender, and sampled the mix, while at the same time citing the individual sentences in your paragraph to specific sources. For a sentence like "When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik." you really have to make a case that this is a wide consensus of many sources, not just one. Otherwise, you have to describe it as being the source's opinion, which is fine in a detailed article, but in an overview article requires justifying the amount of space.

Writing neutrally per the above is of course 1) quite hard to do, maybe even an unattainable ideal, and even harder in a high-level overview article like this, because you have to distill so much material into each sentence (plus you have to make the case that the topic is important enough to include at all); and 2) hard for others to recognize once you've done it, since what constitutes a neutral summary is of course a matter of opinion and can't be determined by a computer. So it's done by a consensus discussion, which means you have to develop much better diplomacy and negotiation skills than you're currently showing. Even after you've written what you think is neutral, you have to convince other people, which usually means accepting some changes that they propose. Regarding #1, you may have an easier time getting a paragraph like that into one of the subsidiary articles, instead of the main WW2 article which may not want to go into such low level details. Regarding #2, just try to relax, be less confrontational, don't threaten people with dispute resolution processes (which you will lose in anyway), that sort of thing. One way to help a paragraph's neutrality is to make it rely primarily on extremely prominent (not merely mainstream) sources, since the most prominent perspectives get the most representation under WP:WEIGHT. You can check prominence of a source by (among other methods) seeing how often it's cited by other works, e.g. through scholar.google.com. Of course that only scratches the surface--you probably know better than I do that historical research training puts a huge amount of emphasis on source evaluation. And you are still required to include some minority perspectives (not necessarily in every paragraph). This is all determined by consensus. There is not any computer formula to weigh sources neutrality, and shouldn't be, since Wikipedia is not "Botpedia". It's all about human collaboration, careful research, and sound editorial judgment, not policies or formulas. The parts of the encyclopedia that revolve around policies and disputes (e.g. partisan politics articles) are IMO basically crap and not worth reading, but this WW2 article isn't nearly that bad. So be nice. Anyway, I hope this helps. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 03:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Revisionism Consensus?

If there is broad consensus re Paul's assertion above that "reinterpretation of old orthodox views must be included into this article", then a major breakthrough will have been achieved, with possible progress on the horizon. I'd much appreciate if active / involved editors would now indicate either "Yes" or "No". If there's consensus on "Yes", I will be happy to submit a concrete proposal, text and reliable sources for editorial consideration concerning changes. "No", will imply revisionism is still regarded as "fringe-POV pushing", which is at the heart of this dispute, and discussion will be terminated accordingly. Communicat (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

in principle yes, but you have to work by suggesting or making concrete sourced changed. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The article should reflect the weight of modern scholarship on the war, and I think that this has been largely achieved (though there will always be room for improvement). I'd be happy to consider and comment on any concrete proposals to revise the article's text (which should be posted on this talk page first), but this is always going to have to be a very high level article, and there isn't much room to discuss different interpretations of events - hence the reason the article is simply a description of events and doesn't discuss the causes or results of events in any detail (as there isn't room to do so here and there are multiple sub-articles for just about every sentence in the article where this is - or should be - covered). Nick-D (talk) 23:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It isn't important whether you label them revisionist or not. What matters is their reliability. We don't have a quota on revisionist sources. We do have a quota of unreliable sources of zero, and for reliable of 100%. You are asking for a rubber stamp for an unknown variable, and you are unlikely to get it. I suggest that you make a concrete edit suggestion, with the sources you want, and take part in the same wikipedia processes as everyone else. (Hohum ^@) 00:49, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm perfectly willing to see a variety of non-Western or revisionist sources, provided the article stays at a high level and that the sources are reliable. However, if you bring up Winer again, I will laugh out loud and know you're not serious. I promise to keep an open mind about any other source and review any concrete proposal. --Habap (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Provisional yes. Following Pauls qualifiers that (1) revisionism should not be denialism (which in the context of war crimes of the allies is less far fetched than Paul seems to suggest), and (2) the included revisionist concepts are at least significant minority views (preferably attributed to more than 1 reliable source). Arnoutf (talk) 11:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed. But for purpose of this poll I'll take it as four times "yes", regardless of qualifications and preconditions attached. Two or three abstentions from other active editors noted. Loud silence from "uninvolved" intervening party, so I'll take that as an abstention as well. I'll wait another 24 hrs for any late response, then I'll take it from there. Communicat (talk) 23:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Um. Wikipedia is not about Black and White. If you can't follow the policy's greyness here (Arnoutf's conditions seem reasonable) then you're going to get yourself in trouble rapidly.

We've always had policy on minority viewpoints. We certainly encourage discussion of them. We also have WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV.

If the sources are notable, meet Reliable Sources policy, and you can keep proportional balance in coverage and not singlemindedly promote fringe viewpoints (revisionist or not) then go ahead.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:48, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll take that as a "yes". WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV are precisely the rules that I propose be enforced. Communicat (talk) 01:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Zhukov source

As mentioned, I will be going through sources to attempt to remove any judged dubious (or potentially dubious) and posting my thoughts and ideas for changing them here. Above, Communicat mentioned the biography of Zhukov, the relevant comments collapsed here for easier reading:

Communicat on the Zhukov biography

How about this one (ref 32): Chaney, Otto Preston (1996). Zhukov. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 76. ISBN 0806128070. It is a biography. Biographies are disallowed. As for the incorrect spelling of Georgy (Zhukov) in the aftermath pic caption, and also in the infobox, it should in fact be Georgi (source Georgi Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, (2 vols), Moscow: Progress 1985), and no I'm not citing in the text a biographical source, just trying to prove spelling, because I'm fairly confident the author knows how to spell his own name. The text sentence to which said ref 32 refers is also incorrect in so far as part of it is contextually digressive and irrelevant (viz., "avoiding sacking"), and the rest is incorrect in so far as Zhukov was not only involved in defence of Moscow, but played a central role along the entire Russian-German front (or "Eastern" front as it is generally and confusingly referred to in the West), and other fronts too (e.g. Russo-Japanese front).

I correcteed the spelling of Zhukov's first name a few days ago, which you then reverted. If I remember correctly, you said it first had to be corrected in another article somewhere, before being corrected in the main article. So, I'll leave it for you to do the honours with correcting it wherever it appears, which will save me the time of having to look for it in other articles which you're already familiar with. (I still can't get my head around the concept that an inaccuracy in one article needs to be repeated in another for the sake of consistency. But that's just me.) Communicat (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I have not been able to find anything in either Wikipedia:Sources or Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons that disallows biographies as sources. However, I'm not sure that the sentence belongs anyway.

They also prevented the sacking of experienced Soviet military leaders such as Zhukov, who would later play a vital role in the defence of Moscow.

As to the spelling of Zhukov's personal name as Georgi, citing his autobiography is not particularly helpful as he'd already been dead for 11 years by the time it was printed and likely never saw that printing. Since his name is spelled Гео́ргий in Russian, it might be transliterated as "Georgi", "Georgii", "Georgy" or "Georgiy", depending on who does the transliteration and in what era (for example, I prefer Mao Tse Tung, but modern transliteration usually spells it Mao Zedong). You are correct that the reason to not change it here is for consistency. If Georgi is, in fact, incorrect in commonly accepted transliteration, then I would urge that it first be done on his own article, where people who understand the issue much better than most of us will be more likely to be involved. Otherwise, we end up with people changing the spelling in a variety of articles in ways they think are correct without establishing consensus among editors who are focussed on the issue.

So, I don't think there's anything wrong with the source (since I can't find anything that says biographies are disallowed), but I'd like comments from others on whether that sentence should remain or not. --Habap (talk) 16:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks your thougthful comment. It might have been useful to stick to the relevant thread so that cohesion (what there is of it) is retained without topic becoming disjointed and things falling apart, (as seems to the unfortunate and perhaps unavoidable custom, but never mind). I should have said autobiography, and not biography. I recall having seen something in one of the many rules re primary sources, about autobiographies per se not being allowed. If I misinterpreted rule, my mistake. Communicat (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

My reason to break it out was the hope that it could be discussed separately, since it had nothing to do with the section header (Himeta's quote) and we could open this discussion, concentrate on ONLY Zhukov, complete the discussion of ONLY Zhukov and close it when it was complete. Discussing 15 different things in the same thread confuses many people, including me. I await comments from others about the value of the quote in the article....

Autobiographies are not disallowed either. Wikipedia:Autobiography states that you shouldn't write an autobiography on Wikipedia. --Habap (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The WP biography is Georgy Zhukov so this article should use that spelling. Stuff from autobiographies has to be used carefully. Zhukov was a major figure in the war, so anything he had to say about it is significant, but anything in any autobiography tends to be self-serving. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, many Russian names have no unique spelling in English. For instance, the name of present Russian president is spelled as Dmitry [4] (10,100,000 results) and Dmitrii [5] 8,930,000 results. Therefore, I don't think we have to stick to some single transliteration here. More importantly, I am not sure that the idea that Stalin planned to sack Zhukov before the war is supported by mainstream sources, because the Great Purge essentially had ended by this time. In my opinion, it would be more correct to say that in Mongolia Zhukov obtained reputation and experience which appeared to be extremely useful in December 1941.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You're more knowledgeable about the historical stuff than I am. About the spelling, I think it's best to use the same spelling that the biography article uses, among other things to wikilink it easily. If you think the biography uses a non-best spelling, the right approach is to try to get the biography renamed, by explaining your reasons and proposing a page-move on the biography's talk page. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 08:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Brutal North Korea

In the 'late stage' discussion above, Communicat brought up the use of "brutal" to describe the North Korean regime and the sources used. In the article, it reads:

Soon after these conflicts ended, North Korea invaded South Korea,[238] which was backed by the United Nations,[239] while North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union and China. The war resulted in essentially a stalemate and ceasefire, after which North Korean leader Kim Il Sung created a highly centralised and brutal dictatorship, according himself unlimited power and generating a formidable cult of personality.[240][241]

The two sources in question are:

[240] Oberdorfer, Don (2001). The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Basic Books. pp. 10–11. ISBN 0465051626.

[241] No, Kum-Sok; Osterholm, J. Roger (1996). A MiG-15 to Freedom: Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector who First Delivered the Secret Fighter Jet to the Americans in 1953. McFarland. ISBN 0786402105.

In Oberdorfer's book as seen on Google books, he does NOT identify North Korea as a brutal dictatorship in the pages cited. In fact, he talks more about the corruption in the south. While I agree with the assessment of the North Korean regime, it's not what Oberdorfer says. I wouldn't be at all surprised in the memoir (which, as noted in the discussion on Zhukov, would be allowed) identified the regime as brutal. If we wish to use that characterization of the regime in this article, it might be prudent to find a more neutral source than a defector's memoir. --Habap (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

have np with the removal of term "brutal".. as the term regime on its own generally implies harsh rule anywas to most readers.Moxy (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Remove it since it isn't supported. (Hohum ^@) 19:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

More radical solution. Remove whole Korea war section, as the aftermath section is way too long as is (see aftermath discussion), and this was 5 yrs after the end of the war. Arnoutf (talk) 19:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. In my opinion, we have to agree about the duration of the period covered in the Aftermath section, e.g. 5 years. If events fall into this period they should be included, if not, they should be omitted. In connection to that, the para about the Korean war can be removed and the 4th para can be modified as follows:

"In Asia, the United States occupied Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the two powers, which eventually lead to Korean War and de facto division of the country onto two independent states. The Republic of China reclaimed Taiwan."

The latter correction is needed because Taiwan was a part of Qing Empire, so this territory was not occupied and annexed, put re-occupied and re-annexed.

Regarding "Mounting tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union soon evolved into the formation of the American-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact military alliances and the start of the Cold War between them." it is unclear for me why this sentence is placed into the para starting with "In Asia...", because neither NATO nor Warsaw Pact are situated there. I propose to move it into a separate section and expand.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Also see my suggestion for restructuring aftermath section at Talk:World_War_II#Restructuring_Aftermath_section Arnoutf (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Habap: you've misquoted me at beginning of this section. The "brutal Korea" issue that I raised in the original thread was with reference only to Oberdorfer, and not Osterholm as wrongly attributed to me in your miquotation. Please read my postings properly. Saves having to repeat myself later. Many thanks. Communicat (talk) 22:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

To quote you directly, While you're at it, have a look at the article reference to No, Kum-Sok; Osterholm, J. Roger, relating to "brutal North Korea." That was what that link was pointed at. You need to re-read what you've written, because you did NOT point to Oberdorfer, but to Osterholm. The pedantic tone of your post is not helpful, especially since you are incorrect about what you wrote.

That said, because both citations appear for the same sentence, I felt they both deserved attention. --Habap (talk) 23:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, yes. So in my haste I confused the two names in my otherwise correct (and not pedantic) observation that you'd misquoted me at the beginning of this thread. Nobody's perfect. Please don't misquote me again, and I'll try likewise. Communicat (talk) 00:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't misquote you and there is no other content in your observation that could be "otherwise correct". You are being pedantic when you say Please read my postings properly. Saves having to repeat myself later. The way you chide the rest of us for 'failing to read your posts properly' implies that we are silly 12-year-olds who didn't bother to read your posting. I did read it. In your haste, you did not. --Habap (talk) 11:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Quick fix: How about just getting on with the removal of "brutal Korea" as already agreed by everyone above including yourself? Communicat (talk) 16:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, I've done if for you and substituted something relevant. Communicat (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks like good changes so far. --Habap (talk) 01:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The "brutal North Korea" and the source MiG-15 to Freedom is a prime example of the crappy POV that is constantly pushed to Wikipedia. I am not saying it is not true, it just has no place in this article. What should be given emphasis is the "division and occupation" of Korea and Europe. The Korean War is not a result of WW II but of the unsolved division and occupation.

I do not think we need to put any time limit on the aftermath, the Allied occupation of Berlin only ended in 1990. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Expanding on my previous comment on the lack of referencing; The brutality or otherwise of NK, referenced or not, doesn't seem relevant to the subject of this article. (Hohum ^@) 01:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: "the Allied occupation of Berlin only ended in 1990" So what? There is still no peace treaty between Japan and Russia, the Roman occupation of Cartage lasted for centuries, etc. Every global event has long lasting consequences, however, if we will list all major consequences of WWII, the section will be megabytes long.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Date of Start of war

Incredible that Wiki still has the wrong date for the start of the war and even blocked the page from updates. Germany invaded Poland on September 1st. This was not a world war, it was simply a German invasion of Poland. Had the UK remained neutral this state of affairs could have continued for many months. In actual face what happened was - after some considerable polictical discussion on September 2nd a British ultimatum was issued to German. War began at 11.00 and the following speech to the nation was made at 11.15. "I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11.00 a.m. that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. No other possible date can be considered as start of the war. So please change this, the war began on September 3rd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.251.207.11 (talk) 22:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The War began at dawn on September 1 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. The UK only entered the war a few days later. It was still the same war but with the UK intervening on the side of the Polish.--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 22:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources generally say the date is, not what opinion of a particular editors is. The article already notes that there is disagreement, and gives the generally used dates in historical publications. This has been argued ad nauseam, read the archives. (Hohum ^@) 00:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

SIGINT

Collapse old unclosed reflists, pls ignore

Article says "SIGINT (signals intelligence) was the countering process of decryption". SIGINT refers to all forms of signals intelligence, such as traffic analysis, interception of non-encrypted traffic, and processing of info acquired by intercepts. Sentence should say "Cryptanalysis was the countering process of decryption". Next sentence about deception, how about mentioning Englandspiel (aka Operation Nordpol) on the Axis side. The overall section covers good stuff but IMO it should be expanded, since it had longer reaching consequences than a lot of battles and operations that (while consequential for the participants) are important taken as an aggregate but individually start sounding all the same. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 03:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Support..I like this proposal...can only help readers understand better if we link this up.Moxy (talk) 04:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Neither the current text or the proposed replacement reads well. I'd suggest that it be reworded as something like "The Allies and Axis attempted to break their opponents' codes, with the most successful examples of this being the Allied cryptanalysis of the Enigma and breaking of the Japanese naval codes." I'm not very familiar with Axis codebreaking successes, but they weren't comparable in their scope to those of the Allies so any comparison would need to be carefully worded. Nick-D (talk) 04:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Per Hinsley[6],

They [Allied cryptanalysts] were hardly ever rivalled by Axis success in reading our ciphers. There were two major exceptions to the lack of success by the Axis against Allied ciphers. One was that they did have some success in reading a British naval cipher which was for a longish time also shared with the American navy in relation to convoy escorting.

They were successful in reading that for a long period from 1940 to the end of '42. And the other was that they didn't exactly capture but they managed to extract of copy of the cipher that was being used by the American Military Attache in Cairo for a period when Rommel was at his most dangerous. And from that too the Germans obtained some great advantage.

But generally speaking, except possibly in relation to the convoy cipher, there was never any great cryptanalytical rivalry. The Germans were completely outclassed in terms of Ultra. The Italians also made very little progress against any important allied cipher.

German cryptanalysis of British naval ciphers is also discussed a bit in Stephen Budiansky, "Battle of Wits" chapter 8, "Paranoia is our profession". The Germans also broke the US M-209 machine cipher but that was only used for lower level traffic AFAIK. There is some info in the M-209 article. A book came out a few years ago about German cryptanalysis based on recently declassified info. I've been wanting to read it but I don't remember the title. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 05:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Might be worth mentioning the Western Allies never shared the Ultra secret with their Soviet ally, which left the USSR at distinct strategic disadvantage in fight against Hitler. See Winterbotham et al. Communicat (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Hinsley discusses that a little in the talk that I cited just above. It's been a while since I read Budiansky's book but I think it's also mentioned in there. Basically they were sure that the Soviets wouldn't have been able to keep it secret. Winterbotham's book created a sensation when it came out, because it brought info about Ultra to a public that knew nothing about it before, but Winterbotham himself wasn't that aware of the big picture, and the book is full of errors. It's better to go by newer sources that have the benefit of info that came out after Winterbotham's book. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 16:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Winterbotham's book has some errors because he was forced to write it completely from memory, Brit govt having denied him access to official docs of the time. His assertion that at no time did MI consider sharing Ultra intel with the Russians has never been contested, not even by MI. His book is notable because it opened the floodgates for other works about Ulta, most notably Bennett's authoritative work with which you're no doubt familiar. Importance of Ultra in Western Allied strategy is either absent from or completely downplayed in wiki milhist articles. When I did submit a reliable Bennett reference (journal article "Ultra and some command decisions") with sourced page numbers etc to one milhist article Western Betrayal some time ago, it was promptly thrown out by consensus as "commie propaganda". That kind of censorship by a reactionary clique has got to change. An uphill task. Communicat (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a diff about your Bennett reference being rejected? I haven't read Bennett's books but AFAIK they should be usable as Wikipedia sourcing, though I think they are from the 1980's. A lot of formerly secret US and UK Ultra-related docs were released in the late 1990's, and so books published in 2000 or later that used this material should be considered the most reliable. According to Hinsley, the UK did give Ultra intel to the Soviets, though they didn't tell the Soviets about the actual Ultra program (they said the info was coming from spies rather than from codebreaking). Budiansky may also say something about this. Anyway, please try to relax a bit. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 01:38, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I can provide releant diff at opportune and appropriate time. Meanwhile, I don't agree with your assessment as to which books are "most reliable". if you're not acquainted with Ralph Bennett, then we're not on the same page. I'd recommmend his work Ultra and Mediterraen Strategy, and also his article "Ultra and some command decisions", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 16, 1981.

As for intel provided to Soviets: I'm fairly certain Churchill's selective provision of Ulta intel to the Soviets was strategically self-serving. Also, it's one thing to provide someone with intel that YOU surmise he needs, and another thing entirely to provide intel that he knows he needs. Far as article is concerned, the point is that 10 years after the article's first appearance, reliable Hinsley and Bennett remain conspicuously absent from references, (as is conspicuously absent from the article content the crucial matter of strategy per se); whereas there's a preponderence of minutae about mostly side-show issues, and what one editor has aptly described as "crappy POV pushing references." In other words, sloppy and partisan editing, whatever the reason or reasons for it. Communicat (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, please consider this to be an opportune and appropriate time to provide the diffs. I'm interested in looking at them. There is absolutely no reason to keep them in your pocket. I can't evaluate your claim of having had a Bennett citation rejected unless I see a diff. You can keep repeating the claim until you are blue in the face, but it won't be taken seriously until a diff appears. I'm just not interested in hearing any more about that claim unless you provide a diff. That's part of the culture here: no diff = no credibility.

I'm aware of Bennett's books, I just haven't ever gotten around to reading them. If you want me to check out your claim that they say something about Churchill withholding Ultra intel from the Soviets, you have to give page numbers. If you do that, I will go to the library and see if I can check them. I'm not going to read through 1000's of pages (IIRC there are 4 volumes) looking for mentions of intel withheld from Soviets. I did manage to download and skim the "command decisions" article (from 1981) and it basically said a lot was unknown because relevant docs weren't released. The docs came out later so I'd expect a lot of the then-unknown stuff is now known, thus the notion that newer sources are better. I also didn't notice anything in it about intel sharing with the Soviets but again, if you give a page number I will check it.

More cogently, Ultra right now occupies about half a sentence in the article. I'm in favor of expanding it considerably, like maybe to two or three sentences, e.g. about its use in the North Africa campaign. Anything about the details of intel transfer to the Soviets would IMO be way too deep in the weeds to mention in this article unless you can show multiple sources giving that issue quite a lot of prominence. Again, it would be fine in one of the subsidiary articles if you've got cites to Hinsley or Bennett with page numbers. The overview article has to present a stupendously complex subject in a limited space, so has to give a very selective, high-altitude view. If you're interested in writing about fine-grained details about intel transfer, that's great, you're just in the wrong article for that. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 21:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I found the diffs myself. You added material cited to Hinsley and Bennett to Western betrayal on 23 February 2010[7] and removed it yourself on 16 March.[8] In the edit, the relevant paragraph with cites says:

At no time during this period and throughout World War II did the Western Allies consider sharing with the Soviet Union their decisive strategic advantage over the enemy, namely the copious and vitally important military intelligence obtained from the ultra-secret interception and decoding of German mility signals at every level of command. This operation, one of the most closely guarded secrets of World War II and code-named Ultra, provided the Western Allies with constant and reliable information about the strength, disposition and intentions of the enemy at any given time. Armed with this vital intelligence, Western military commanders at pivotal moments of the war in Europe made a series of seemingly inexplicable command decisions, the end results of which served to prolong the fighting in Europe while depriving the Red Army of relief on the Russian-German front where the Soviet Union continued to carry the brunt of the war against Hitler.

The cites include a book by Winterbotham, 4 volumes by Hinsley, and 2 volumes by Bennett, all without page numbers and therefore unverifiable, plus Bennett's "Ultra and Some Command decisions" article which (yay!!!) finally includes page numbers (pp. 145-6). I downloaded the article through my library's subscription (JSTOR 260620) and skimmed through the whole thing (not too bad since it's just 21 pages) and I read pp.145-6 carefully. I didn't see anything in the whole article supporting the thesis that the Allies kept Ultra intel away from the Soviets, and nothing on pp.145-6 had anything to do with the Soviets or the Russian-German front (the pages were about operations inside Europe). The only thing I found about Russia at all was on p. 141, which mentioned Hitler pulled back troops from Russia into France to fight back the Allies after D-day. The claim in your paragraph's first sentence (that the Allies didn't share intel with Russia) contradicts other sources including Hinsley himself (see [[9] Q&A at end). With no slight intended to Winterbotham, I don't think his book is much of an authority on high-level strategic stuff like that. He was an RAF Group Captain whose role in Ultra was basically to take processed intel from Bletchley and route it out to field units in the European theatre. Our article F. W. Winterbotham is pretty consistent with other materials I remember reading and explains further. He doesn't sound likely to have been involved in UK-Russian diplomacy and his book is acknowledged to have many flaws. Budiansky (ISBN 0743217349) p. 268-9 does discuss the issue a little bit but his take is much more nuanced than yours. Basically the UK did give stuff to the Russians but had to be careful because they knew that the Germans had broken the Russian codes, and the Russians refused to fix their procedures, and the Russians were a pain in the neck to deal with in regard to intel cooperation in general.

So overall, your addition above really does come across as propaganda and its sourcing is nowhere near acceptable by Wikipedia's standards for disputed content. It's good that you used some more respectable sources than Stan Winer in that edit, but you really have to change your whole approach to editing. Every contentious statement has to be cited to a specific source with a page number. You have to be able to source not only facts, but also any interpretations of the facts. If a fact or interpretation is disputed or doubtful in any significant way, you can't present it without in-text attribution no matter how good a source you use. You can't write "X happened [cite]"; you have to write "So-and-so says X happened [cite]". The one verifiable source you gave (the Command Decisions article) could support a claim that European theatre commanders didn't always use Ultra intel as well as they might have (the errors sounded to me like standard military snafus), but your connecting that with the Soviets looks like pure WP:SYNTH. So I can't really defend you from much of the criticism you've received at this point. I dug up your edit so I could give you some independent corroboration if the edit was any good, but I'm afraid it totally failed. Probably anything else you've written that's still in WP articles has to be checked against its citations as I did above, or else removed if the cites don't have page numbers. Regards, 67.122.211.178 (talk) 05:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This is not the only article where Communicat is making claims (that whether true or not) are not supported by the sources. I discuss some of this briefly in the last section of Talk:History of South Africa. The evidence provided here by 67.122.211.178 convinced me it was better to scrap Communicat's edits there rather than pick through and attempt to find the bits actually supported by the sources. Edward321 (talk) 13:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Eward, If you have a problem with my edits at South Africa history page, please raise queries and discuss them there before reverting without any discussion. Your attention is drawn to WP:CON. Communicat (talk) 22:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Pls see Wikipedia:Burden of proof and Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle.Moxy (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Unsigned editor above: WP:TLDR By the way, Cavendish sugests Philby told Russians about existence of Ultra, so Churhill hiding it from them was probably a waste of time anyway. Thanks for your interest. Try to relax a bit. Communicat (talk) 22:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Hinsley says the same thing in that talk I linked. I wonder if anything has come out of the former USSR archives about it. Anyway, look, your editing has a bad problem and I went to some trouble to lay it out for you (or for other users if it comes to that). You write like a historian, combining data from multiple sources to create your own thesis and present it. That's great for history journals, but unacceptable for Wikipedia. I hope you can change your pattern. If not, there is IMO enough evidence already for a fairly solid RFC against you. Please change. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 23:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Moxy, I get rudely rapped over the knuckles when I refactor. But you get away with it. Never mind, because in any event there seems to be a WP rule for everything, and a WP rule against everything. The real intellectual challenge seems to be to find a balance between the two, which nobody inluding myself seems able to do.

Re unsigned editor above: Thanks. You have been the very first editor to provide helpful criticism and guidance, which I believe is supposed to be the function of administrator. Usually my work is simply undone and reverted by admin and others without discussion; a kind of slap in the face. Talk about civility. Hmmm. Nice people.

Suggestion: instead of administrators and others engaging in endless displacement activity, why isn't anyone prepared to address the real issue around here, namely the primary issue I raised (again) at Reply to uninvolved intervening party which bears repeating:

WP:FRINGE, (and probably other wiki rules as well), states that: "In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical prominence (and) ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." Please note that the rule does NOT state: Wikipedia should always give prominence to established WESTERN lines of research found in reliable WESTERN sources." Yet this is exactly what the existing WW2 article does do. Not even one non-Western source is cited among the 340 odd sources cited ....

On my bookshelf right here beside me are no less that seven English language non-Western histories of WW2, some of them by Soviet historians. So there's no question about the existence of English language non-Western histories. These are considered reliable and established lines of research in their respective non-Western countries of origin, just as the Western sources cited in the article are considered to be reliable and from established lines of research in the West. Therefore both Western and non-Western positions should be reflected in the article, if it is to claim that it's NPOV, which it is not. Forget about all the efforts to discredit me, some of which are perfectly valid. Just address the issue at hand, namely POV bias through omission as repeatedly alleged by me, and which has resulted in a lot of displacement activity that seeks to evade the central issue of NPOV. Even or especially the intervening administrator has managed to evade the issue. The unsigned editor in this section admits that he has reliable access to history library resources so, if he has the time and inclination, maybe HE can come up with some reliable non-Western sources in the interests of NPOV, which everyone claims I'm contravening (among other things). Communicat (talk) 23:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry that was misinterpreted.... I was not trying to bite you i was just trying to show you a few more pages...before someone else goes into a rant quoting the 2 pages.(juts trying to prevent long talks about nothing.)Moxy (talk) 00:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Unsigned editor Re page numbers issue: allow me to confess my modus operandi. When I've been submitting material, my primary objective was /is to introduce an IDEA, with some supporting material to show the direction the idea might take. The material as submitted either has page numbers, or no page numbers, or page numbers that are not entirely accurate. This is because I don't want the refs to be plagiarised to the benefit only of college students who trawl these pages in search of reliable refs for their "own" essays. If, in the unlikely event, the IDEA is accepted and contribution retained, then I can and do correct the page numbers. It can then still be plagiarised of course, but having been accepted by wiki, the refs are of benefit not only to college kids but also and especially to wiki. I emphasise, my submissions have NOT been rejected solely because of page number references. It is the very IDEA that has been rejected outright and usually without discussion, and so the question does not even arise as to the accuracy or otherwise of the page numbers. You may not like it, but that's the way it was. And there's no point complaining or referring to comment or whatever, because I'm more or less done with that article and its editors, in any event. Communicat (talk) 00:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)