Talk:Orlando Figes

Lead summary

Insertion of a new paragraph into the lead summary with a respect of information in the section on the Amazon controversy (as long ago as 2010) seems inappropriate and probably motivated by malice. There are many more important things that are not in the Introduction. I think this should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London67943 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC) — London67943 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

"The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." Verbatim from WP:LEDE. I think a scandal involving attempting to discredit rivals where damages were paid for libel, is pretty important. I see no bad faith in including it in the lede and certainly no reason to whitewash it. Toddst1 (talk) 00:13, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

No libel damages were paid. It was a media "scandal". If this stays in the introduction there should also be a summary of all the other sections to avoid suspicion of bad faith. Care to provide this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.255.235.214 (talk • contribs) 00:21, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I assume you accidentally logged out when you left that comment. WP:SOFIXIT applies. Toddst1 (talk) 00:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Libel damages, plus costs, were indeed awarded, according to the BBC. Straw Cat (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

As cited in the article. Toddst1 (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes my mistake. So what do you say to a summary of all the sections in the article to make the lede more balanced and remove suspicion of bad faith? You haven't answered that

Sure, add what you want, but your repeated blanking of that material and accusations of collusion is considered WP:TENDENTIOUS. Toddst1 (talk) 17:54, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

What is tendentious is adding a repeat of something with its own section to the introduction when there are other more important things - e.g about his books - that have not been added at the same time. The "scandal" is a bit of media tit-tat that is adequately covered by its own section. Surely Wikipedia needs to be more balanced in BLP. I suggest we put this to dispute resolution — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ London67943 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I think consensus is pretty clear that it belongs there. @Straw Cat: has demonstrated their support for inclusion. I've stated it. All we have is a WP:SPA that wishes to whitewash the lede, has assumed bad-faith from the start and has edit warred to remove it and is now rejecting the consensus, asking for dispute resolution. The dispute is your own. Respect consensus. Toddst1 (talk) 14:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not a rival Oxbridge historian, so even Inspector Morse would find it hard to prove malice here. I've no animus against Figes, and consider that it is his very eminence as an historian that makes the inclusion of a summary of this matter - in the lead - essential. Straw Cat (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think this whole page (and the lead) are simply blown out of proportion. Someone with an obvious COI inserted a lot of meaningless laudatory phrasing. An opposite "side", possibly also with a COI, tried to shame the subject. I will fix at least the lead. My very best wishes (talk) 13:03, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Other Scandals

The Amazon controversy is mentioned here, but how is it that the section on Natasha's dance does not include the accusations of plagiarism, and the section on the Whisperers lacks the accusations by other scholars and the Russian victims advocate organization "Memorial" that the book did not receive a Russian edition due to falsification of quotes and other inaccuracies, rather than, as he claimed, due to pressure from the Putin regime?

[1]https://www.mhpbooks.com/figes-career-implodes-amidst-legal-threats-and-charges-of-long-standing-plagiarism/

[2]https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/orlando-figes-and-stalins-victims/tnamp/

[3]https://www.mhpbooks.com/orlando-figes-in-trouble-again-for-gross-inaccuracies-and-misrepresentations/ Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 04:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chilltherevolutionist Just come across this page for the first time but it seems off in exactly the way you describe. The controversy over Polonsky's review of Natasha's dance (which all but accused him of plagiarism), the Pipes plagiarism accusation (which I think Figes won the lawsuit over, something which we should obviously include as well), the Whisperers Russian-issue problems, all these don't appear. I haven't done a deep or wide check of the published sources but I'd be pretty shocked if Figes' portrayal in this entry matches that of the balance of the published reliable sources. Looks like some things have been excised over time, and that doesn't seem to match the discussion above. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Whisperers criticism

@London67943 - the inclusion of the Stephen Cohen line strikes me as very wrong. Unless we are going to do a detailed report on the worst political affiliation of anyone who publicises any accusation on Wikipedia, including it here just sounds like a way of discrediting the accusation. Clearly, the Memorial Society is not pro-Putin. It's also WP: SYNTHESIS to take the politics of someone from sources elsewhere, and combine it with the fact that they engaged in criticism here. It reads as if we are trying to tar the criticism as being politically motivated, when this is not what the sources say. If there are reliable sources that say directly that all, most, or even some significant minority of the criticism of Figes over Whisperers was motivated by or connected to pro-Putin politics, I will of course accede that we should include that fact - not a random allusion to the pro-Putin politics of an individual critic. I'm removing it for now on that basis, but would welcome a discussion if you think there is something that must be included along these lines. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Cohen's pro-Putin line is exactly the point. It is a point of fact that Cohen publicised the Kremlin point of view. It is relevant here because it was Cohen, not Memorial, that tried to discredit Figes by publicising what should have been a private correspondence between Figes and his Russian publisher. I have restored the previous edit and added a reliable source on Cohen's support for the Putin regime. London67943 (talk) 05:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@London67943 There are two problems with specifying Cohen and his pro-Putin politics. One is that the sources indicate that the story was exposed by both Peter Reddaway and Stephen Cohen. Is Peter Reddaway pro-Putin as well? Are we going to provide an account of the ulterior political motives of every person involved in the chain of transmission of the story?

The second problem is that the sources that mention Cohen in the context of this story do not mention pro-Putin politics. Including it in this context is Wikipedia:SYNTHESIS. Please read the Synthesis policy - the first line should do the trick "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." You've stated here explicitly the conclusion you are implying with your text - that Cohen unearthed the story as part of a pro-Putin political attack on Figes and/or Memorial. If that is an argument made by the sources, leave it in. Otherwise it needs to be removed.

Separately, material needs consensus to be added. There clearly wasn't consensus here, and I opened a discussion about it as I removed it so we could try and reach one. Re-adding the material, especially as you clearly saw the discussion, seems a lot like Wikipedia:Edit warring to me, and I'd respectfully ask you to refrain. Samuelshraga (talk) 11:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@samuelshraga Hello - I suggest you read the archive of Stephen Cohen which shows clearly that no further evidence of alleged inaccuracies was provided by Memorial or Corpus for publication by Figes' critics publicising the story to the world press - Stephen Cohen, Peter Reddaway and their hidden co-conspirator, Rachel Polonsky. The Polonsky connection ought to be developed here as her involvement is relevant. But this section is long enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London67943 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@London67943 I skimmed through the archive - can you say which document makes the claim and I'll take a closer look? Samuelshraga (talk) 07:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@London67943, in an entirely foolish and self-inflicted blow to my own time, I have actually read the archive of Stephen F. Cohen's correspondence relating to the publication (or non-publication in this case) of an op-ed in the Guardian. Both the Russian and the English. I draw three conclusions relevant to this discussion, and one that just jumps out from the archive itself:

• The archive does not include the claim that Corpus "did not provide evidence of any other alleged inaccuracies". No figure in the archive made that claim. I am removing the text and the citation on this basis.
• For most of the documents in the archive, if the claim had been made, it would be irrelevant as it would have been found in private correspondence, and Reliable Source or | Original Research concerns would prevent our using it. The exceptions would be the press cuttings, which could more effectively be referenced directly, rather than in their annotated form in Stephen Cohen's files. The press cuttings do not seem to make this claim.
• I agree with you that the involvement of Rachel Polonsky in the publication of this story is amply demonstrated by this archive. I disagree that it ought to be developed here, again see Wikipedia:Reliable sources or Wikipedia:No original research. Or, and I suspect that this is the most appropriate to you, Wikipedia:SOAP.

I want to ask at this juncture if you have a conflict of interest to declare, whether you are editing as Orlando Figes or he is your family, friend, employer, or you have any financial or personal connection to Orlando Figes? This bearing in mind the guideline around Wikipedia:Conflict of interest editing. Samuelshraga (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

No conflict of interest to declare. How about you? Who are You? Look at the second file in the archive. It shows that Polonsky and Cohen knew that they could not get Memorial to come forward with any further evidence. It also shows that Polonsky lied to the Guardian about her involvement in the hit-and-run on Figes, which in her case was motivated by her long-running spat with him, and in Cohen's case by his serving the Kremlin. 2001:8003:B01E:8000:40B4:A7DA:FCDB:D679 (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Assuming that this is @London67943, please retroactively edit your signature when you comment logged out. I can see this isn't the first time you've been asked to do this.

Firstly to do with the supposed source for the claim:

The second document in the archive as I see it is page 00000005.tif. It does not contain an the admission that Memorial couldn't come forward with further evidence. If I'm not looking at the right document, please give the page reference and ideally an indication of where on the page this information is - I read Russian but it takes me a while.

Secondly, as regards any conflict of interest:

I take the "Who are You?" to be something of a deflection. I don't think there's any reason to believe that I have a conflict of interest, I edit wikipedia on a variety of topics I find to be of interest. You on the other hand are a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account dedicated to the Orlando Figes page, from an extremely specific, well-informed, and I think fringe point of view. If you are Orlando Figes, for example, you should know that Conflict of Interest editing is allowed, but there are rules about it - firstly that your conflict of interest is declared. If not, I would appreciate an explanation of your singular focus on this article and your very specific point of view. Otherwise I fear we must move this to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard Samuelshraga (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)