User talk:Volunteer Marek

wiki-research-l

You may be interested in https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:22, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

What if it gets leaked?Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

It's public to start with :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lokyz

Hello. I've posted a request for additional information on the SPI case page. Thanks. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 23:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Re: Józef Tusk

Perhaps the affair was notable, not the man. I'll be busy till Sunday, you may want to AfD this at pl wiki and see what happens. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't really have a good idea of how pl wiki operates, what the rules are, or how to navigate it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:40, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

r&i

please note the discussion on the r&i-page ("roma study").-- mustihussain (talk) 21:06, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll have to get caught up on the discussion as I haven't been following that particular one.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:53, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

how should i proceed with regards to the "chop but keep"-solution ? should i nominate the article for deletion first? -- mustihussain (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing and verifying: the "sources equal facts" ideal and the reality

I heartily agree that when people insist that every single statement in an article - explicit statements or the ones that are there as underpinnings and preconditions of what gets said somewhere in the text - has to be attributed to their source up in the text, it makes for unreadable junk prose. Many of the statements you have to make in an expository text on history, biography, a humanities or social sciences subject and so on are aggregate statements, they have never just been fished up as raw discrete observations, they are built on several steps of reasoning, syllogisms, checks of "if (p) is true then (q) would have to be visible here but it's not, so (p) can't be true", lack of overlap in time between two agents etc. Take a look at my comments on Talk: Arthur Cravan for a typical example - the guy disappeared in (probably) the Mexican Gulf in 1918, he was not very notable in the literary world of his own time, became a legend after his death (so his disappearance didn't make news). He was most likely drowned but there's no proof of exactly what happened and 'sourcing' the statements you need to make ("most researchers think he drowned", "he was never seen again") would be really hard if you had to source every step involved in the claims. Which is what some really stubborn editor could challenge you to do with any article that involves similar turns of phrase, even if those claims are well established and completely uncontroversial to 99% of us, and to scientists in that field.

I finally opted to source the Cravan thing from an eminently notable French literary encyclopaedia, but if you'd demand that every single statement and substatement must be explicitly sourced and traced to some notable source, then that path would have been a bit of a decoy. The French text didn't get into the fine print of exactly how he had disappeared or how it had been reported at the time. And there are no "collected works" editions I have access to where you might look for this stuff in a preface or in notes.

In my experience, people here on WP often just make any damn claim they want and "back-source" it with an interview with some scientist or pundit or a link to Google Books, and then say "you can't oust this claim unless you find some indisputably notable person who has made precisely the arguments you are directing at that claim, and who makes clear he is aiming at exactly the version of this train of thought that's in my source". Of course that's often near impossible, or if it can be done it leads to lengthy edit fighting. Fine, isn't it?Strausszek (talk) 11:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I agree. One would like to think that a dose of common sense would solve these kinds of problem, but the problem with that is of course that everyone thinks that whatever they think is "common sense". I dunno, I've been on Wikipedia for 7 years and one thing I realized is that raising standards - both in terms of writing but primarily in terms of sourcing - is a very good thing, even if in some cases it makes life a pain in the ass for some (especially for those of us who write about topics which aren't often covered in English language lit). This is particularly true of controversial claims - it's better to err on the side of caution.

Anyway, thanks for the comment, and that's a pretty interest article on Craven there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and people here also tend to assume a model of science that's taken from the supposed (idealized) modus operandi of classical physics, via Karl Popper - that all statements are ultimately traceable back to some scientist making a series of raw observations and drawing deductive conclusions, and that everything a scholar or a politician (or whatever) would think about X is made explicit, asserted in their writings, so it can be cited here. Then they imagine WP would become reliable by simply repeating whatever is "known" by the community of scientists, so we don't have to make any actual input ourselves. Hmm, no! -And to actually explain things in most sciences to a non-expert, and to create an overview, you need to make some steps of synthetic thinking and rephrasing, at many stages in the reasoning and the writing: every encyclopaedia and almost every textbook does it. It's just untenable to think mere parroting and cut-and-pasting of quoted statements would do, it might work for some natural science matters but not for much else. And in reality, that model gets sidestepped all the time by some of the very people here who profess to be true to it.Strausszek (talk) 10:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Great Northern War

Hello again, I made some edits to the section about Charles XII, Poland and Russia in the first half of the war, where I can see you'd done some useful editing too. Some grammar fixes, but I also wanted to make the Polish war a bit more intelligible and bring out that Charles incurred a serious loss of initiative and time by not pursuing Peter and invading Russia after Narva. Most scholars who have studied the war would agree that it was a serious error of judgment, and that Charles' long war in Poland bogged him down and allowed Peter the comeback he badly needed. I'll add citations soon. I am aware of some overlap between the sections concentrating on various theatres of war but the long war only becomes understandable if the reader can see the interplay between various frontiers.

Charles is reputed to have compared Poland at the time to an octopus - if you hack one arm off there's still many more, and there is no single heart you can take out. The military man speaking. ;) Strausszek (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, Charles dilly-dalling in Poland/Saxony IS seen as his major mistake of the war (almost up there with Mazepa switching sides at the perfectly wrong time - which is also completely missing from the article). Certainly, AFAIR, Charles' advisers tried to pressure him to make peace with Poland/Saxony and concentrate on Russia but he decided that a two-front war would bring him greater military glory. I can expand that section (sometime tomorrow maybe) based on Jasiennica's History of Poland and cite it, but I'll wait and see what you got first. Thanks!Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Give me a few days, I don't have the best books on this at home, need to get them at the public and university libraries and that will take a day or two; in particular I want Ragnhild Hatton's bio of Charles in its original English. It's forty years old but has a solid rep as the best modern biography of this controversial warrior prince. Geoffrey Treasure's The Making of Modern Europe, 1640-1780 has wonderful contrasting accounts of the Northern War from the Swedish and Russian perspectives (also a briefer Polish one?) and the impact of the war on the society of the respective countries. My mother has that book, I'll borrow it for a while. Get it if you can, it's top rate on the entire period.

There are some good Swedish sources I want too of course (Peter Englund's book on Poltava, also out in English though I'll cite the Swedish ed. here, and others) but not exclusively our own stuff.Strausszek (talk) 14:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I have a couple things on my Wiki-plate at the moment, but I'm hoping to get around to doing some edits along the lines you suggest sometime later this week.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:40, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw

Fascinating. Any reason you have not DYKed it yet? It could use more inline cites, but I think it is fine for a DYK as it is now. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:02, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. It will get DYKed. I got to finish it up a bit more and maybe get some more images.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Meet the Talibans

Jeez, that discussion (the one that started from a medical citation) really is exposing a few deep clefts within the WP editor community. Not unique, but all too characteristic. I knew the moment I read your first notes about why "GDP" used as a parameter had to be bollocks, knew what you were after: of course it can't be taken at face value, that would mean Pakistan and India would have ultra low fertility rates compared to let's say Uzbekistan or Nepal. ;D

The sane thing would be to rephrase the "verifiability, not truth" punchline of course - but that's not gonna happen in the near future. Something along the lines of "the standard of inclusion at Wikipedia is that what is reported as fact here must be verifiably true" would be much better. It'd make the points that

• 'verifiable' in the sense that somebody wrote X is not enough; we should not relay lies or what are very likely lies or overstatements.
• 'reported as fact' - it's not the case that every single word within an article boils down to a fact statement. Some parts of articles are heuristic explanations or expansions to prevent common or likely misunderstandings, or background matter that might naturally change over time (we do not read an author, a political crisis or a certain kind of music exactly the same way now as we did fifty years ago) and those should not be held to the standard that they have to be pinched from some established source, word by word, to be allowed. That would mean routine plagiarism, among other things.
• A statement may be sourced from several reliable statements collectively, between them, not simply from *one* source where it is stated just as we want it in the article. This is a common nitpicking point from people who think we should "check in our brains at log-in" as you so eloquently put it.

• The "truth" criterion, implicitly, has a bearing on the source writings used also, not just being an ultimate "goal in the clouds" for what gets written here.

Honestly, I don't think Obsidian and others realize that many people here - and many of the good editors - feel insulted by their tacit assumption that the editors do not and should not ever use their brains beyond copying out what the "real scientists" or the journalists reporting on them have written.Strausszek (talk) 14:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Byrnes

Not sure how a verbatim quote might "misrepresent" what Byrnes actually said. However, West Germany had no territorial claims towards Gdansk as it wasn't part of pre-war Germany. It's redundant to mention the post-war treaties. HerkusMonte (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to that edit - about territorial claims - that was fine. It was the edit on the recognition of the border that was problematic. And yes, a verbatim quote - cut off "just right" - can indeed misrepresent (see my comment over at Restatement of Policy on Germany). Of course you weren't the one who put it in like that, it was User:Stor stark7, AFAICT, but I think you got misled by it (same thing was done in other articles, including Oder-Neisse line).Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	For a brilliant practical solution to a problem complicated by many factors. Very well done on such a Gordian knot! Sharktopus talk 14:08, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Monitor

Co do Monitora, to w zasadzie czeka az sie komus bedzie chcialo cos do niego napisac. Jak pisalem #1 to prosilem zainteresowanych o pomoc, pies z kulawa noga sie nie zglosil. Moge poprosic o pomoc do #2, ale wiesz, jak ci sie spodobal, to moze ty sprobujesz zorganizowac do niego ludzi? Ja pomoge, ale obecnie nie mam pomyslu co by tam napisac, nic nowego w zasadzie sie nie dzieje...

A co do popularnosci, jasne. Przeciez wiekszosc naszych wikiwojen dotyczyla artykolow, ktore praktycznie nikogo poza nami nie obchodza :) A i podobnie, wiekszosc naszych kulturalno-naukowych tematow to przeciez nisze, "masy" takie tematy przeciez nie obchodza... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 07:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Trzeba ludzi sila zaciagac i prosic az do znuzenia. Pierwszy numer byl w kwietniu wiec jesli to mial by byc biannual newsletter - co jest w ramach mozliwosci - to nastepny by trzeba przygotowac na mniej wiecej Pazdziernik. Dobra, porobie troche szumu i zobaczymy...Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Aha, a ten Monitor ma swoja wlasna page do ktorej by mozna latwo linkowac? Moze by nawet mozna zrobic "mu" wlasne account?Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Ano, trzeba :> Teoretycznie mozna by co miesiac wysylac, tylko co w nim pisac? Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland/Newsletter, wlasny account mozna tylko po co? Nie kojarze newslettera ktory ma wlasny account. My piszemy, jakis bot rozwozi... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 14:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Chełmno Land‎

I have reverted the cut and paste move of this that you made as that removes the attribution for the article this should be done using a move. Keith D (talk) 11:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

See also: WP:HISTORYMERGE. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw

Gatoclass (talk) 00:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry dude!

Hello, Volunteer Marek. You have new messages at Thompson.matthew's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Volunteer Marek. You have new messages at Cerejota's talk page.
Message added 00:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Cerejota (talk) 00:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

For stepping in at this article - I award you a kitten and my undying gratitude.

Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 09:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, though I'm not sure how much I can help, given the two users attitudes and the ANI proposal.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Message

I have left a message for you here --Misconceptions2 (talk) 13:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

March of the Volunteers award

	March of the Volunteers award
	for your work dealing with copyright problems on People's Republic of China and elsewhere. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

GARs

Okay, I commented on yours. Can you now have a look at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Unnale Unnale/1 and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Anand (2004 film)/1. No one has yet said anything about them. BollyJeff || talk 19:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Ay, I've had a long day and I'm mentally worn out right now, but I will try to look over these tomorrow. Did you notify the main creators/editors who brought it up to GA about the review?Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I have, and they have not responded in one week. How long should I give it? BollyJeff || talk 19:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I haven't done GAR before, I came to this via copyright concerns. I've looked over the Anand article and there's some loose use of sources - the source given doesn't support the claims directly made.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:37, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh and btw, I don't see the copy vio on that article (and others) being dealt. I think I'll have to just blank the stuff myself.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:44, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing advice

Hi, I've been watching the thread on Sandy's page, and I have MRG's page watched, so thought I'd drop you a note. What I do, is try to clean it up by rewriting. Honestly it's a bloody pain - but I've realized it's really the only way to get rid of it. Sometimes the writing isn't as good; sometimes some information has to be trimmed - I've left an example for you on the Arkansas article. When it comes to telling people they've close paraphrased, I rank right up there as one of the most unpopular on wikipedia. It's not fun. Don't hesitate to ask questions - I've scrubbed a few GAs - it's very time consuming. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

This works for cases where the extent of the cv/cp is fairly minor (for example, as listed here, in the Abyssal plain article) but for some of them, the whole article basically needs to be rewritten from scratch. I have in fact done this in the past, particularly on articles I have a personal interest in. Here, I started looking around just to get a sense of how widespread the problem was in GAs. Additionally - I think this has to be said - usually a person who does it on one article, will have done it on several others (I'm looking at Capitol View/Stifft's Station, which is not a GA, right now and that also appears to have same problems). So basically at this point I'm just compiling instances of it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:32, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Just to make sure - you realize that in the Gazette article, it's the whole thing pretty much, not just the lede, right?Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I only read the first sentence. Our choices are to leave it, scrub, or tag and blank. I scrubbed a number of pages written by one of the ItsLassieTime socks - literally took me months. The CCI for that user is enormous, hundreds of articles I think. Do what you can when you can, and then back off if you get a little burned out. I've been working on it on and off since last fall, and after a recent run-in, decided I had to take a break from dealing with it. In my view the Arkansas page isn't that notable, so I might consider tagging it. The ones I worked on were articles about fairly notable books and worth saving. I also had help - Ruhrfisch pitched in as well. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:43, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Just to note, in this case, as well as the Ein Avdat one, I don't think there's anything malicious going on. Rather, most people just don't know that they're not supposed to do this. With the Arkansas one, it seems the author does have a close connection with the LR historical society so perhaps s/he is somehow involved with the original sources? (In which case this should've been noted).Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

People think it's okay to copy/paste and then add a cite, which isn't okay. But you're right, most of the time it's not done maliciously - that's why I like to point users to the WP:Close paraphrasing page, and I like to try to scrub as much as I can myself. I've been busy on other pages recently and as I said burned out (the reason I basically have a blank user page at the moment is because of harassement from of all of this). Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

An interesting initative

Perhaps you'd be interested in this? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I'd want to do that to my students ;) Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh c'mon, it's fun. Check this out. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:32, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Nibiru collision

Hi Volunteer Marek. Since I'm currently reviewing this at /GA3 (not a particularly good sign): if I were to do a 10-minute copyvio check, say with Duplication detector, as part of the GAN what would you suggest I check the article against? I'm interested to explore what 10-minute gives. Pyrotec (talk) 20:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Volunteer Marek, I'm sorry we got off to a "bad start" on the topic of Copyvio and thanks very much for the prompt practical demonstration of running DD on this nomination. I very much appreaciate your efforts. As I've stated elsewhere I was told at university about copyright and plagiarismy, taught paraphrasing and to put direct quotes inside "quotation marks", but nothing on how look for it. Some copying and pasting, particularly from web sites, is easy (but I did badly on those two 2009 reviews) but I don't always check against Googlebooks, Amazon or pdf-formated papers. Pyrotec (talk) 11:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

It's ok, misunderstandings happen. I hope you find the DD and the procedure helpful.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:02, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

r&i

please note the recent constructive debate on the subject.-- mustihussain (talk) 15:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Assessment of Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw

Assessed as B-class for WP:POLAND, but please, make such requests at WT:POLAND in the future. Each post there makes the page more alive, and we badly need that. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:06, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Wykop.pl

Thanks for letting me know! I found a source for Wykop.pl, removed the PROD, and then linked it and the Polish article together WhisperToMe (talk) 05:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Persondata

Why did you remove it here? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

By mistake. Sorry about that.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:46, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

DYKs

Granted, when I check DYKs, I check if they are inline cites for the hook, overall structure, date and size, but I rarely even read most of them. Checking for copyvios on them would take too much of my time. Don't we have bots to spot copyvios in new articles? Btw, what do you think of this? To me, this is more meta:copyright paranoia... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Well there's User:CorenSearchBot which is supposed to check all newly created pages, but 1) it's down pretty often, 2) it doesn't check the x5 expansions (that's actually a good question - are most of the cvs in newly created or the expanded nominations), 3) it misses a lot.

I don't think it's too much to ask for reviewers to run the Duplication detector [1] on the most often used online source (if they're all offline then AGF) in a nominated article. Honestly, at the end of the day there's no other way to do it except to ask reviewers to check - unless they figure out a way to run DD automatically on all noms or something.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Re: Jan Mazurkiewicz

How about: ...that Polish resistance organizer and Warsaw Uprising fighter Jan Mazurkiewicz was brutally tortured by the communist authorites in post-war People's Republic of Poland? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:55, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Revert

[2] Why did you revert this edit? No names were listed, so I have no idea who made those threats. I thought the list was very helpful. Cla68 (talk) 10:31, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Discussion related to DYK nomination

I recently reviewed an article you nominated for DYK. See Template talk:Did you know/Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski. I had meant to ping you about this at the time I did it, but I failed to do so before it got promoted. Anyway, I raised some questions (about the reviewing process and the hook, more than the article), at two user talk pages, and wanted to notify you of that. If you want to comment, please see the comments I left on Crisco 1492's talk page (here) and Tony1's talk page (here). Carcharoth (talk) 04:23, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, I was actually wondering something similar. I responded over on Crisco's talk page just to keep the discussion in a single place. Btw, I looked for your nom to review it but someone must've gotten to it first.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

It was Template talk:Did you know/Ramsay Heatley Traquair (as you would have seen when reading the initial comment I left at Tony1's talk page). When I get round to another article, I'll ping you as I want someone to review my next nomination using that checklist, as failing that the articles won't get that level of scrutiny until I get round to asking them to be assessed at some future point, which may be months of years later. BTW, I added here to what I said at Tony1's talk page (that is a diff over both edits I made there). Carcharoth (talk) 04:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski

The DYK project (nominate) 08:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Ummm

Could you explain this on article's talk? I looked through the discussions; name was discussed but as usual it focused on Vilnius, not Pact/Union... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The whole talk is already about how "Union" doesn't make sense since it implies that Vilnius and Radom united. So it was between "Pact" and "Accords". Although Lysy on talk proposes "Accords", "Pact" is what the article was under previously, before it was moved without discussion [3]. And of course I'd prefer "Vilna" myself but I didn't want to conflate two different dimensions of the name - one which everyone seems to agree on ("Union" is confusing) and one which they probably don't. Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks for your latest contribution to Rzeczpospolita. Amendments, such as the division into sections and skillful linguistic and stylistic fixes, significantly increase the overall level of this article. Greetings. --Robsuper (talk) 11:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks back.Volunteer Marek (talk) 11:15, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Jan Mazurkiewicz

Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration request regarding user:Smith2006

There is an Arbitration request regarding user:Smith2006. As one of the editors that has reverted his recent changes, you may wish to comment. Thank you. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 14:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Reducing ref clutter in the main body of an article

Check my edits here. I think that this is quite useful, and easy to use. You can get the tools by using this script and enabling the citations expander gadget in preferences. I also recommend HotCat and "Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article" gadgets. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:37, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

That is very useful especially since it gets rid of one of my pet peeves which is unnecessary non-article text in the editing box. I'll try to utilize it. I have a generally negative attitude towards the Wikipedia gadgets and automated editing though - probably not fully justified. Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:44, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, I can get it to clean up the gbook links but I'm not sure how to make it slap all the refs at the end.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:10, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The preference gadget cleans stuff up. The script by beta/delta is the one that moves things to the bottom of the article. Those are two different tools. I am experimenting with WP:WikiEd. I like the highlighting, which makes the readability of text in edit mode much better, but it makes editing itself less easy (or perhaps just different), so I am of to minds about it. PS. Please copy your replies to my talk page. For obvious reasons, I am not notified if you reply here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:03, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Holodomor

Did we have a edit conflict at Holodomor? (I'm not sure it ended up the way you wanted it.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 00:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Not sure. It didn't alert me to an edit conflict. But something weird was going on over there when a user blanked the whole talk page or something: [4].Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Odd. I'd removed the entire youtube "reference", which you somehow replaced. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 04:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I restored your edit.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:07, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Since you were involved in discussion of this in the past

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Request_for_clarification:_WP:DIGWUREN. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK nom for Hugo Steinhaus

Hi Marek, I have reviewed your nomination for Hugo Steinhaus at Template:Did you know nominations/Hugo Steinhaus and there are some somewhat minor issues with referencing. Could you see my comments at the talk page and reply there? Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. Fixed and replied.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Hugo Steinhaus

Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I was reviewing Hugo Steinhaus and I think that in order to have the article make it to GA, you should lengthen the lede per Wikipedia:Lead_section#Introductory_text. After that, the remainder should be easy. I also made a couple of light edits, please review them. Thx!Divide et Impera (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm a fan of short and concise ledes, but you're right, this one is too short. Will expand it soon.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Is there any source covering his activities for the 1918-1920 period? There's a hole in there, and not necessarily it will be filled for a GA, but just in case you find something. In addition, I would prefer to put a chronological order for all his life, rather than delegating into "Legacy" his work, because in my opinion it's just better read, but it will eventually be your call. Divide et Impera (talk) 18:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes. He got his habilitation during this period, I will add that in. I will think about the Legacy section - the idea was to separate out the narrative of his life, from his influence, from his strictly mathematical contributions.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Those two notes are beautifully placed there, but can you reference them down? It would raise less issues at the GAN.Divide et Impera (talk) 19:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm not sure how to put an inline citation in a footnote since then it's like a ref within a ref, which Wikipedia doesn't like. I guess I can just write it out.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Why don't we do a Harvard style referencing? Divide et Impera (talk) 20:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I improved the notes, but for the Harvard style referencing I meant something like this. Probably it's not worth spending the time though, it'll be a fun project when this article will be brought to FA status.Divide et Impera (talk) 20:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll see if I can work on the Harvard style but I'm going to be a bit busy for the next few days.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd say don't waste your time for now: Content over form. The Harvard style referencing is quite complicated and it's just for beauty in my opinion. Better leave it for when you'll bring it to A-class. Since I am the reviewer now, I will pass it if you just find a solution to sourcing his main works. I'll give you a week (or two if you are busy). See also Talk:Hugo_Steinhaus/GA1. Divide et Impera (talk) 17:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Another useful tool

User:Dispenser/Reflinks should fix bare urls into proper cite webs. I hope :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Trying to lift one of the EEML interaction bans

Hello VM. Since you are one of the named parties of EEML, perhaps you can give an opinion. I have seen continued trouble at AE involving Russavia and others. The interaction bans are not working very well. One response would be to try out limited topic bans to keep the people apart, which I think is something you have suggested at AE. Another idea is to lift at least one of the interaction bans and expect a higher standard of diplomacy between the two parties. I am suggesting that the interaction ban between Russavia and Tammsalu be lifted. If this fails, we could fall back on some other restriction, probably a tailored topic ban. I'm going to suggest that Russavia file a Request for Amendment with Arbcom and ask Tammsalu to join in support. If lifting the interaction ban between these parties works out and causes less trouble, others could be lifted in the future. Do you have any comment on this plan? Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 14:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If you feel that responding to this would violate any interaction ban, you can send me some email. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 16:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I've replied by email.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Calel Perechodnik

Hi Marek, i need your help and am wondering if you would be willing to help me out with this. I'm not sure about how the name is pronounced. Since you are a Pole yourself, i would appreciate it if you would insert an IPA pronunciation on the article. Thanks. Joyson Noel ^{Holla at me!} 14:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Added it in.

Btw, "Calek" would be the diminutive form of his name (in Polish male diminutives are often formed by taking the first syllable of the name and adding -ek to the end, like Władek for Władysław. Same for female ones but with -ka at the end). And diminutive forms are used more frequently in Polish, even in formal settings (there's another form for informal settings, with -ius, or -iusia at the end) than they are in English, I think. So a lot of Polish language publications do in fact refer to him as "Calek", for example [5] and also the Engelking/Libionka book I put in the article as a source.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for adding it, and the clarification. Cheers! Joyson Noel ^{Holla at me!} 19:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

AE

FYI. [[6]] Vlad fedorov (talk) 11:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

RE

Ochotniku Marku, przeczytaj opinię o Poliszczuku napisaną przez Bogumiła Grotta historyka znacznie wyżej położonego w hierarchii naukowej niż Wnuk zanim zaczniesz kwestionować jego rzetelność. Ponieważ Poliszczuk pisał niewygodną prawdę, był wściekle atakowany przez nacjonalistów, stąd wychodzi jego krytyka. Skrytykował on też Wnuka i Motykę za ich książki, stąd odpowiedź Wnuka. Co do 4 pułku to nie był on znikąd usuwany, on powstał jako pułk policyjny zanim jeszcze powstało Galizien. Składał się ochotników do Galizien, którzy nie dostali się do 3 pierwszych pułków. Pozdrawiam--Paweł5586 (talk) 13:48, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, nie znam Grotta, sprawdze. Ale cos mi sie wydaje ze to nie duzo pomoze.

I to powinno byc "Jednoroczny Ochotnik Marek". Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's what I found: [7] and [8]. A guy dabbling in Polish nationalist extremism.Faustian (talk) 03:54, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Editor's Barnstar
	My congratulations for a very nice article, Hugo Steinhaus. I promoted it to Good Article, and I strongly recommend that in a couple of months, the article be brought to A-status, so that there is a nice avenue ahead of it, the name of which is FA. My appreciation. Divide et Impera (talk) 15:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Ay, thank you, and thank you very much for the help with the article. Also, aside from the ref formatting, which I'll keep working on, do you have any other suggestions as to what it would take to bring this article up to A or FA level? I think the sources and the info have been pretty much exhausted (I think that whole "aphorism" thing could be expanded a bit, or technical details about some of the math could be added) so I take it most of the remaining improvements would be gnomish/aesthetic.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to your work, Hugo is only one out of only five good articles that we have in Wikipedia for mathematicians right now. While there have been huge biographies on painters, writers, and their wives (I was reading Ewelin Hanska for instance, which Piotr just brought to GA, a character that I wanted to do a review on), and so many people have written on her! On the other hand, we can't deny that she was sexier than Hugo, what can you do about it: her biography will sell easily, but how many people will buy (and read) a biography of a mathematician? The majority of people just hate math in school and they never want to go back. Ewelin on the other hand is another thing, she inspires writers! Bottom line, if the sources are really exhausted, then there isn't much to be done, so it's good that the path to FA will be shorter. I strongly recommend that you go through A-status review before you go to FA though: A rejection in FA is almost guaranteed, I feel, if the article is not fat enough and has not been vetted by A-status editors.

This was my first review, so I presume that there will be good suggestions forthcoming there: Many people have a different look at the article and they will improve significantly the wording. Although I claim to know well English, I have been proven wrong over and over, that's why a wide set of eyes will enhance the article significantly.

Anyway, for now I have three suggestions:

1. Improve references I suggest you change Mark Kac references from stating "pages 572–581" to stating Kac 1974, p. 574 in a Harvard style, and then provide a quote. Same with John O'Connor. Each one of them is being referenced 11 times, and it's a pity to not know exactly the page. Only doing this, will bring the number of references from 20 to around 40, which will make the article look more researched.
2. Provide a quote in the citation, if possible. Over time you will forget about the article, that's why you want to document the exact words that suggested the content of the article from the sources.
3. Be more technical (on this I'm not sure though). Let's see Blaise_Pascal, a FA. It includes the Pascal's Triangle. Hugo's article may include an image on the Axiom of determinacy, for instance. However, I would just wait until someone proposes it at the peer review, before making any moves.

Best,Divide et Impera (talk) 12:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Ha, I see I was mentioned. Just stalking VM page, and wondering - what A-class review? We at WP:POLAND are barely managing B-class reviews; at I don't see anything at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment about them doing A-class? Frankly, I don't recall any project but MILHIST doing them, although I think there are a few more. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 03:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

With regard to the last one, this image could be used [9], although I haven't included it yet because 1) I'm not convinced it's one of the best known contributions, and 2) it's actually not that good at illustrating the principle involved (if you look around on the web, there are better images of the same thing out there). I might try to redraw it myself better and then put it in.

With regard to the A-class review, perhaps this could be done through WP:Mathematics [10]?Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I would just follow directions here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/A-class_rating, and... follow your instict on the triange. Piotr, with your experience, you can give your own articles a B assessment, when needed, no need to have other people asses it as B: The question of an independent assessment raises itself from GA and above.Divide et Impera (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Fascinating Stuff

Very interesting. Parts of this book are on-line: [11].

Resisting Occupation: Mass Schooling and the Creation of Durable National Loyalties My second book, Resisting Occupation: Mass Schooling and the Creation of Durable National Loyalties, to be published in 2011 by Cambridge, provides an explanation for the origins, durability, and effects of national loyalty. Drawing on a nested research design and a broad range of primary sources, the book argues that the national loyalties instilled in a population during the introduction of mass schooling—when a community shifts from an oral to a literate mass culture—produce a powerful and durable national tie. Once initially established through the schools, national identities are preserved and reproduced over time within families and reinforced by local communities in a way that makes these constructed identities virtually highly resistant to significant change or substitution over time. Even as material or political incentives change, or as states attempt to assimilate these populations for the purpose of securing their allegiance, schooled populations show a remarkable tenacity in sustaining this initial national identity; and they will vote, conceal, kill, or die if need be, to insure that they and those like them are ruled by those they perceive to be their own kind. As a result, if one knows the national content of the initial schooling in a community, one knows the most basic political loyalties of that community. This gives one remarkable power to predict how that community will align even more than a century hence.

Empirically, the book traces political development across Eurasia to show that the national content that a population was originally taught can predict which regions of a country will try to secede, which will engage in insurgencies or resist foreign occupation when others acquiesce, and why some areas vote for nationalist parties when in other districts appeals to nationalism fail to mobilize popular support.

---Came across this, thought of you and that you'd be interested. best regardsFaustian (talk) 16:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting, I'll check it out. But wouldn't the situation of the Ukrainians in interwar Poland be a counter-example ("Polish" (bilingual) schools but no durable "Polish consciousness"). I don't know... it would seem like Stalin + 80 years of Soviet rule would trump whatever effect initial schooling had. But thanks for the recommendation?Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:01, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Literacy was already 59% in 1910, thus meeting the threshold of 50% whch produces longlasting attitudes, imune to subsequent reeducation.Faustian (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, well, literacy is not the same as mass schooling. But I'll have to read the actual book to get the sense of the argument and the evidence. But yes, it does seem like there's something to it. Certainly, the Commission of National Education has been widely credited with being responsible with the fact that the Polish ethnic identity (in some form) managed to persevere through the partitions, despite (or even because of) the latter attempts at Germanization and Russification, also carried out through mass-schooling. It does seem like - and this is inline with what you're saying - that once a particular national identity is established above some threshold, subsequent attempts to change it - even if they're carried out through things like mass schooling or through industrial-grade mass propaganda - are counter-productive from the point of view of the "occupying power". There are probably some interesting similarities between how Poles resisted assimilation in late 19th century Prussia and Congress Kingdom/Russia and how Ukrainians did the same thing in interwar Poland.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly it. And this model predicts, for example, propensity for national resistence. The book includes info on Polish, Baltic and Ukrainian behavior during World War II and how events there can be predicted based on the time, circumstances and nature of when mass literacy in the various regions was achieved (there are impliations here for how to deal with the middle east, etc. - the author uses easten Europe as a sort of case study).Faustian (talk) 14:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, now are really am going to have to get it and read. One more book on the ever growing pile of stuff to read.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Your Restoration of a deleted article version

I have commented on your restoration of an 2007 article written by Molobo that was AfD as non neutral at the talk page of German collective guilt.--Stor stark7 ^Speak 06:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. Articles don't get deleted because "they're non-neutral" (the fact that a bunch of people who voted at the AfD are ignorant of Wikipedia policy is no excuse). They get deleted because they're non-notable, which is an altogether different thing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

AE

I requested arbitration enforcement against you for reproducing Molobo's article after it was AfD'ed as an OR based POV rant. Diff, link to board.Skäpperöd (talk) 14:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Jan Mazurkiewicz

Marek, I was reviewing Jan Mazurkiewicz: another good and interesting read of your great work with Polish articles. Probably you are not aware of this tool. Basically, the lede is short: can you expand that please?Divide et Impera (talk) 14:12, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey, yeah, that's a good tool, thanks. And yes, it has been pointed out to me before that the ledes in my articles tend to be short. I sort of like it that way but I also realize the convention/standard goes the other way. I'll explain it in a little while.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

re Holodomor pics

Yes, I understand about that pic now, and the other editor was right to revert me. I think! Eej, it is confusing. BTW I'm involved in a somewhat-related dispute over at Soviet Union over a Holodomor pic. I'm not sure I'm right, or if the other editor(s) are opposing me because of ideology or because they have (or think they have) a better argument. If you know anything about this and want to take a peek, it's the most recent thread on the talk page. Herostratus (talk) 06:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

On the Soviet Union article I'm not entirely convinced that that image is necessary ... maybe ... I haven't thought about it. It's less relevant there, and in the interest of avoiding unnecessary controversy I'm going to stay away from that discussion.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:01, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: One of your comments.

I saw your comment "I'm not even going to bitch about the fact that the article doesn't even bother explaining what a Rude Boy is (I'm guessing the author, like many of these people writing the music reviews, has no idea)." on the Good Article Nominations talk page and thought I would let you know that I do in fact know what the definition of a "Rude Boy" is in it's context and that Rihanna spoke about the song in two different interviews, however both of which are on Youtube, and as you most probably know, we do not use Youtube as a source here on Wikipedia, thus, it cannot be included in the Rude Boy article. And because you are saying that the article does not include it, and that I am the GAN nominator of the article, one cannot help but assume this was directed at me. Calvin • ^NaNaNaC'mon! 12:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, the point is that this is something that I would expect to be in an article like this, but it wasn't. BTW, not that I have that much of an interest in the topic, but if these interviews were done by "reliable" people then these are reliable sources, regardless of where they hosted. Youtube is just a website, not a source itself. For example PBS or BBC documentaries, or specific news reports are all/can be reliable sources, even if they are hosted on Youtube (and a link to youtube might even be acceptable per WP:V. What you can't use Youtube for is primary sources, or stuff that some random person uploaded. One criteria would be - did this appear somewhere else first?Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

A reviewer does actually give a description of what a Rude Boy is in Caribbean context in the Critical reception section. The reason I say about Youtube is that she spoke about songs from Rated R in an interview with 4Music. Also, she discussed the songs background whilst being interview on Alan Carr Chatty Man, but I can't find a website which posted the video or reported on it. The song was originally going to be used as a hook and as an introduction to the album, but she decided that she wanted to make a full song out of it instead. Calvin • ^NaNaNaC'mon! 23:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The dangers of...

Ah, the dangers of watchlisting WP:AE but rarely reading it properly.

All I saw on my watchlist was "Volunteer Marek: Indeffed. Closing." The shock!

I waited until the second one had also closed before posting this, just to avoid any possible confusion and undue shock to anyone else :-) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I jumped a little too when I saw it ;).  Volunteer Marek  00:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Ortwin

Hello Volunteer Marek, I noticed you undid my edit and saw your remark. Can you tell me if there is a consensus on adding red wikilinks in the see also section? Lotje ツ (talk) 04:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, these weren't in a see also section but in article text. Yes, in a See Also section one shouldn't put unexisting (red linked) articles, but in the text of the article this is fine, and can be helpful in fact as it alerts editors to what articles need to be created.

I haven't seen anything about replacing in-text redlinks with links to images of the topic. Anyway, if I get a bit of time I can stub both these individuals making it moot. Volunteer Marek  04:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Hm,... I thought if administrators on commons welcome interwikilinks in the file description, this might also be the case for wikipedia articles in whatever language,but maybe maybe someone comes along and confirms my thoughts. Lotje ツ (talk) 06:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Volunteer Marek. You have new messages at Pgallert's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Sig

Could you add a link to your talkpage to it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 15:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sounds complicated. Does it matter? Anyway, blame Sandstein for that one. Volunteer Marek  16:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Treaty of Kępno

Please see Template:Did you know nominations/Treaty of Kępno — everything is great, except for the hook, which is too long. I've suggested a shorter hook; whether you accept my suggestion or go with a different solution, I'll pass the nomination once there's a hook that passes our requirements. I'm not likely to check back on this nomination, so please leave me a note at my talk page when you've proposed a shorter hook. Nyttend (talk) 03:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Prussian Homage (painting)

I'd really like to thank you personally for reasoning about that prime hook on the DYK. Wise words ! I thank you also for bettering the article. Great ! Krenakarore ^TK 11:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Let me know if you're working on other articles and I'll be happy to help. Volunteer Marek  11:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Treaty of Kępno

Thanks from me and the wiki Victuallers (talk) 00:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Katyn massacre

No problem. If you want me to fix any other referencing issues that come up feel free to let me know and I'll try to sort them.  Kitchen Roll  (Exchange words) 17:07, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipolish

After our discussion about Joseph Serchuk, someone upload a photo of the information you requested. I'd like your help to translate the article to Polish Wikipedia. Thank you, Yottam (talk) 23:51, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

re Marcin Kasprzak

That's fine, thanks for correcting the title. I can't claim credit for the article except as translator -- it's from the Russian Wikipedia. The Russian original didn't have any sources which is why my version didn't either. Herostratus (talk) 18:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Shapley–Folkman lemma at FAC

Hi V. Marek!

I nominated for FA status the Shapley-Folkman lemma, which has benefited from your past comments.

Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:53, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

It looks really good. I will have to wait until this weekend to take a closer look (I'm busy with RL so aside from goofing around and simple clean up on weekdays I don't have much time till Friday afternoon comes around) but it seems like it's well on its way. Volunteer Marek  00:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Marek. You made a lot of good comments before, and you have special expertise in economics. Criticism and suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 01:22, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

It's been great knowing you. I shall treasure the memories of our interaction as I enjoy the sunset years in my retirement from Wikipedia. Contributions to my retirement fund and rocking chair may be made via a PayPal account, whose details shall soon appear on my user page....  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:46, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

I appreciate your supporting the statements warming my heart.

I should have observed the retirements of MF, of Carrite, and the discussions here before announcing my "remove the Nazi allegation or I quit" retirement.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Murzyn NPOV

Could you explain the reasons for the tag on talk? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 17:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I just saw the article. Give me a minute. Or a bit of faith that I am going to say something on the talk. No need to come running to my talk page few minutes after. Volunteer Marek  17:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I notice your article Muttawmp lacks sources for the intro. Why is that ok, but my work on Murzyn has to be absolutely perfect? Perhaps you could lower the standards you expect of me to your own lax standards? Malick78 (talk) 17:38, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Because that's just the first sentence of the article - essentially the lede - which summarizes the rest of the article, which is properly sourced. If you look at the sources used they're reliable academic sources. Unlike the sources you're trying to push. It's not that your work on Murzyn has to be "absolutely perfect". It just has to be in accordance with some basic Wikipedia guidelines on sourcing. My standars with regard to sourcing are not lax - the fact that you can't tell the difference between high quality academic sources and random shit pulled from the web is part of the problem here.

Additionally, if you see anything "controversial" in the Muttawmp article that you'd like to challenge - be my guest.  Volunteer Marek  18:11, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Maria Rutkiewicz

I just made my best attempt to write this article, but not speaking Polish, was severely hampered. I learned about her while working on some other articles and since she was the only woman not already with an article of the four in this documentary about courageous women during WWII, I went ahead with it, since I had a reasonable bit of information in English about her life. Unfortunately, it's pretty heavily weighted to the Nazi era, so if you'd like to dive into this one and flesh it out, please do! She has an article on the Polish WP, though it's pretty much w/o references (one reference in a bibliography). Thanks in advance! Marrante (talk) 22:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, the only additional thing I know about her off the top of my head is that she was somehow involved in Nowotko's death, in the sense that she probably knew something about it which got hushed up. At least I remember reading some article some years back about that. The IPN source gives you her maiden name but nothing about her early life. I'll look around. Volunteer Marek  02:32, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know about Nowotko's death until I read his article, after I'd done all the rest. The memoir that contained all the info about her made it sound like he was shot by the Nazis, but after reading his article, it sounded more like the Nazis' success in snuffing out the entire group could have been related to Nowotko's death. I know nothing about it, am just surmising. Terrible times lead to worse. Thanks for your help on this. Marrante (talk) 08:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It was most likely a power struggle within the communist underground of the time, though much of it is unexplained. Some blame Gomulka, some blame the AK, others accuse either Molojec or Nowotko of having been collaborating with Gestapo - or some combination of these. Rutkiewicz was close to all the participants on both sides of the time so the thought was always that "she knew the truth" but wouldn't tell. Volunteer Marek  15:27, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

To be fair

Re: [12]. DFTT, and be civil. Even if the other party is not being reasonable or civil, the correct way to deal with that is either to ignore them or report them, not retaliate in kind. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal: Request for participation

Dear Volunteer Marek: Hello. This is just to let you know that you've been mentioned in the following request at the Mediation Cabal, which is a Wikipedia dispute resolution initiative that resolves disputes by informal mediation.

The request can be found at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/02 October 2011/Holodomor.

Just so you know, it is entirely your choice whether or not you participate. If you wish to do so, and we'll see what we can do about getting this sorted out. At MedCab we aim to help all involved parties reach a solution and hope you will join in this effort.

If you have any questions relating to this or any other issue needing mediation, you can ask on the case talk page, the MedCab talk page, or you can ask the mediator, Steven Zhang, at their talk page.

For the record, there, WMC said something obnoxious about myself and others

I'm distressed to hear it, particularly as you've been so generous in return. Could you point me at the offending comment? I am happy to r-read and perhaps re-consider it William M. Connolley (talk) 08:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

If it's super important I can go and dig out the diff. As I remember it it wasn't at the actual case itself (though IIRC, you did try to get yourself invited to that party) but in one of the discussions that spilled over onto people's talk pages. Anyway, long time ago, water under the bridge, it's good to focus on the shinning bright future. Volunteer Marek  13:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, if its hard to find, it is probably best forgotten. If you happen to run across it, let me know William M. Connolley (talk) 14:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

@Marek,

I suppose that "shining bright future" was written in the sense that Yawning Heights or The Radiant Future were written by Aleksandr Zinovyev ....

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:11, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, though I wasn't thinking of Zinovyev specifically, it was a fairly generic phrase. Volunteer Marek  15:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

After Jon Elster's praise, I thought I was in for a treat. However, they were unreadably dull; a Russian friend concurred ....  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Your comments at User talk:Lvivske

No matter how much you disagree with Cailil, can I remind you to be civil and to avoid making personal attacks. I have been asked to give an independent assessment of the discussion, and have posted the results of my deliberation there. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Inflation template etc.

Dear Marek,

I've been trying to work on series for non CPI inflations, following our discussions in March on Template talk:Inflation. I'm having some problems with Template:Inflation when trying to use Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC and Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC/dataset. The dataset and UKNGDPPC work, but when I feed these into inflation it doesn't. If you have any capacity in this area, it would be great, as then we/I could pump in the full set of Measuring Worth yearly data _and_ update the existing US data sets. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I get that "Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC/dataset" is experiencing technical difficulties though the template itself seems to be working. So it might be a problem there. What exactly are you trying to do? ... wait, I just reclicked it and it worked. Ok, so you're trying to update the MW data set and it's not letting you do it?

Also, I think I need a bit of a refresher on how that template works. When I use Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC and put in 1990 and 1991 it gives Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC, which is the the increase of Nominal Gdp Per capita (http://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukgdp/result.php) - but why is this called "inflation" again? Maybe there should be a separate template for nominal and real GDP to avoid confusion.?

Inflation was set up as a CPI inflator by country, using the country code as a selector. Someone built an "Australian" dataset recently, so I corrected some of the guff (the footnotes, etc.), and this let me see how the datasets were operating. I wanted to add a test case, so we can actually add _all_ the datasets from MW, and keep them up to date, allowing inflation of past values by gdp etc where appropriate. It is called Inflation for historical reasons... due to the first author of the template; The Inflation template probably ought to be called CPI anyway :). Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC/dataset seems to work, as demonstrated by calling Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC ie: Template:Inflation/UKNGDPPC. But when calling Inflation|UKNGDPPC|1000|1970|2010 it doesn't. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

• Inflation is one of the worst developer documented templates I've come across... but, success:
• Considering the per person productivity of a society as a key indicator of the economic stress required to produce mega projects, the 1970 British megaproject of repairing London after the attack of giant atomic monster cats which cost £1000 billion would put a stress on 2010 British society similar to £ billion. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:42, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I can see the inflation template having sub-templates for either CPI or GDP deflator (or even things like government consumption price index, which is what we talked about before). But using it for nominal or real GDP doesn't make sense - though all the data for all these series comes from the same website/source. So I would rename the GDP templates (whether per capita, real or nominal) to distinguish that - of course it would be the same code and all but we don't wanna confuse people.

I think you're jumping ahead of yourself with the mega projects thing. That's a particular question which requires particular units of measurement whereas here we're just talking about how to measure things generally. General --> specific. Let's get the "general" right first.

Also, I think that your idea of extending the dataset embodied in the template is a good one though it would take some work. For most countries there's pretty good price and income data going back to roughly 1950's so there's no reason not to have templates for that. If you're willing to take historical data with a grain of salt for a lot of countries you can extend that stuff back into the 19th century. Farther than that the grains of salt get a little bigger (actually technically that's not the real problem - there is some good price and income data before 19th century it's just very sporadic so hard to generalize from). Volunteer Marek  03:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for thinking over this. I did nominal GDP per capita as a test because my largest frustration with time comparisons of cost have been where people use money as a proxy for the social level opportunity cost in large scale decisions—like the Vietnam war, or the Great Society, or the state taking over British Rail etc. The current Inflation Templates are a bit of a mess, they're a CPI based kludge, and someone naughty has put in CPI figures for the UK prior to capitalism. I'll start talking about the problems of the Inflation templates over on Template talk:Inflation and start pondering long term development. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh ok, I see it's still in experimental stages. Though once the clinks are worked out it should probably be renamed. I think we've talked before about whether using "CPI baskets" to measure opportunity costs of such things works or not (it depends).

As far as the capitalism thing goes ... as long as you've got prices of consumption goods you can construct CPIs. Even if the prices are not determined by markets they still capture cost of living. People've constructed CPIs for ancient Sumeria and the like. Of course the real problem is comparing pre- and post- Industrial Revolution price levels. Since we all got rich, we don't consume the same basket of goods anymore, and there are a lot of goods which did not exist back in the day and even some of the ones that were around are now of much higher quality (like say, shoes). Back in the day a typical person spend something like 70% of their income on food, 20% on beer (I'm not kidding) (or wine if they were Greek, Spanish, Italian or French ... ok, this is a little Euro centric), and 10% on other stuff including rent. Today we spend 40% of our income on food, and good chunks on transportation, medical services and education and a fairly negligible fraction on beer (except in our college days). And of course cell phones, computers etc.

So it's sort of sketchy to compare price levels from, say 1980 and, I dunno, 1800. But it's actually not that sketchy to compare price levels from 1700 AD and 300 BC (since it's always been mostly about food and beer). I'm actually playing around with some CPIs for late medieval/early modern Europe right now (cheapest beer in medieval and early modern Europe was in Krakow and Lwow! London was pretty cheap until 1700 or so too. Just in case you ever get sucked into a time-warp wormhole and need to know this). Anyway, some people would actually argue that capitalism - in the sense that resources were allocated to a significant extent by markets - in UK (also Netherlands, Belgium, maybe France, western German micro states) dates back to the 13th or 14th century (of course in terms of capitalism as in "capitalists own factories and other means of production" that's post industrial). Volunteer Marek  14:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

This conversation is more exciting than wikipedia to me at the moment. While you can create consumption bundles, there's an assumption that fully marketised subsistence is general implied in a consumption bundle reflected as cash. Even in monestaries where yearly wage labour was common, the "wage" included far too much substitution to be recognisable in modern terms: the beer was a working condition more than a wage, and the labourer didn't return to a commodity market to purchase their subsistence in beer. This is, of course, ignoring the entirely non-market relations for much of the subsistence of the population… this is probably better to talk in person over beer. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Marek Edelman

Please look at the discussion page for my rationale. Pawelmichal (talk) 10:07, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your B-reviews

Few notes based on [13]. I wouldn't pass it as a B-class due to bare linked refs. I fixed most of them with WP:REFLINKS, but still, two are dead, so practically unreferenced and should be replaced by cite requested templates - and articles with outstanding tags should not really be B-class... Also, you may want to leave a brief review note on the talk page, something indicating who has promoted the article to B-class. This allows others to comment on the review, and also, increases the visibility of the reviews and our project. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 19:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, yeah I wasn't sure about that one (and I noted that a bit in the edit summary). I checked the refs by clicking them and it looked like they were going to the right places - I was planning on going back and putting in full cites but got interrupted with other work.

In regard to the dead link cites - it's not really like unreferenced, because you know the source exists, it's just ceased to be available online. Also in both cases, those two cites were not necessary as there were two other citations to the same text (honestly, could just throw out the dead links).

I'm going through and bringing in the articles listed under MILTHIST/Polish task force into our project, for reasons which I explained earlier. I do look at how MH rated these articles and for the most part they seem to have gotten it right (there were couple instances where I disagreed, but in all these I thought they were being too generous). Note that there are 108 B-class articles in MH/Pt but only 47 or B-class in WPPoland, which means there's about 60 B-articles to go through. I'm not sure if I really can leave a note each time I go through it, particularly since, as I said, the MHPt rating is already there. Volunteer Marek  21:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Granted, I know all about the added workload. Perhaps we should only leave reviews in the borderline cases (as it - barely B, or almost GA). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:00, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense and I've been trying to do that in edit summaries (indicate when I think an article is "barely B" or "almost GA" or "not quite up to X" etc.). I should probably start being more explicit about that on the talk pages. I think there are a good number of articles that really don't need that much more work to get upgraded. Volunteer Marek  23:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Karl Freudenthal

Do you have a source, preferrably in English, which states that Karl Freudenthal was a Nazi? The same question applies for any other articles of Nazis that you have created. We would like to add these articles to the List of Nazis.Hoops gza (talk) 04:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Holodomor mediation

Hi there Volunteer Marek, this is just a reminder to submit your initial statement at the MedCab Holodomor mediation. We can't get the mediation under way until we have statements from each of the participating editors, so it will be very helpful if you could post it on the mediation page when you next have a chance. As a refresher, the statement must be no more than 250 words, and should answer the following four questions:

1. What are your interests in regards to the Holodomor articles? How did you discover and start editing the article? Do you have any potential conflicts of interest?
2. What problems you think have caused this dispute to require mediation?
3. What is your view of the dispute at present, and what issues need to be addressed in this mediation, that would help resolve this dispute amicably? Give a list of issues, if possible.
4. What do you hope to achieve through mediation?

Thank you very much for your participation. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 06:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Rererereretiring

I couldn't help notice the edit history of your user page, like [14]. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I found interesting the GDP [per capita] RS/N discussion from July, although you probably found it quite tiresome. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:41, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Prisoner's Dilemma minor correction?

In Prisoner's Dilemma note 4, should "Darinian" be "Darwinian"? AlanM1 (talk) 19:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Retirement

Sorry for my ignorance. I now got your point, including Siberian punk [15] (which I think is a great artistic representation of problems in modern day Russia; one can compare with recent movie "Kochegar" by Balabanov about the same). Just in case if you indeed retire, I consider retirement from this place to be a very good thing. Life is more important, and we are wasting our lives here. This is meaning of the song I just posted on my user page [16]. As Kozma Prutkov said, "If you want to be a happy man, just be the one". Biophys (talk) 13:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

So, if I do something [17], this is not to send a message or bring anyone's attention, but because this is something I want or should do. Biophys (talk) 13:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The Boy Who Cried Wolf comes to mind. No, I will never believe it, Bio. (Please note that I do not want you to retire, and I respect you a lot, but you should really stop making those declarations... they are, as VM pointed out, not helping your reputation at all). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 15:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Jan Mazurkiewicz

The article Jan Mazurkiewicz you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Jan Mazurkiewicz for comments about the article. Well done! There is a backlog of articles waiting for review, why not help out and review a nominated article yourself? Harrison49 (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Wait, what?

I just saw the name dropping of me at the AE RFC SUPPORTING tactical voting? No.. I just admit it exists, and I hate it. I saw it from several guide writers, back in 2009.. and this is what I said at the time. [18]

If you come to tactically oppose me, well, I don't like it, but, not really much I can do, is there? However, I'd like to ask something of the folks who are inclined to tactically vote for me. Please don't. If you think that some of the other well-qualified candidates would be fine as arbitrators, support them fully, and without hesitation.

It doesn't make that much of a deal when it comes to the ORDER (because enough people do it that it generally balances out), but it can have an effect where people who would normally pass a barrier (50-60% is the barrier this year, fail to pass that and it doesn't matter where you finish in the order, you're not being elected), but a few opposes can knock that down close to or the other side of the barrier. SirFozzie (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

You're right. What you said was

I normally would prefer a higher percentage, but have to go with majority for the simple reason that there are too many "tactical oppose" votes being cast. (For those who are unaware, there are those who try to maximize the impact of their votes on getting their top candidates elected by only voting a number of supports for the number of seats open, and then voting oppose on the rest, even if they think they'd make a good arbitrator).

which is a statement to the effect that a lot of folks vote "tactically" not that you do that yourself. I think yourself and OhConfucius, who commented slightly above you, somehow fused in my brain into a single persona for a few seconds there.

My apologies. Volunteer Marek  21:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Prices in Vilna

Sorry, nothing comes to my mind. As much as I doubt in our Lithuanian colleagues' knowledge of their own history, perhaps they might be able to help. //Halibutt 09:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Holodomor statement deadline

Hello again Volunteer Marek, this is another reminder to submit your initial statement at the MedCab Holodomor mediation. The other mediators and I have decided to impose a deadline for initial statements of 00:00, 23 October 2011 UTC. If you have not submitted your initial statement by this time, then you will be excluded from the mediation. Thank you for your understanding. As another refresher, the statement must be no more than 250 words, and should answer the following four questions:

1. What are your interests in regards to the Holodomor articles? How did you discover and start editing the article? Do you have any potential conflicts of interest?
2. What problems you think have caused this dispute to require mediation?
3. What is your view of the dispute at present, and what issues need to be addressed in this mediation, that would help resolve this dispute amicably? Give a list of issues, if possible.
4. What do you hope to achieve through mediation?

Thanks again — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 16:01, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Typo, mid to late 1932 not 1942, but figured you should correct yourself. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 03:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ay, you're right. Volunteer Marek  03:51, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw

Hello, I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know I am glad to be reviewing the article Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Sp33dyphil © • © 02:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

License tagging for File:Jerzy bielecki prisoner.jpg

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New Page Patrol survey

New page patrol – Survey Invitation Hello Volunteer Marek! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you  have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to  know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you. If this invitation  also appears on other accounts you  may  have, please complete the  survey  once only.  If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it. Please click HERE to take part. Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback. You are receiving this invitation because you  have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey. Global message delivery 13:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)