Talk:Yugoslavia in World War II

WP:CONTENTFORK

The subject of this article is entirely covered by the Yugoslav Front and Invasion of Yugoslavia articles. Personally, I'd redirect it to Yugoslav Front... -- Director (talk) 21:43, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there is overlap and forking all round; but would suggest that the "Front" article and its current content would be better retitled/merged under this descriptive name. It is not clear that the varied conflicts within the Yugoslav theatre are commonly referred to as the "Yugoslav Front" or that the name fits, in the sense of there being two armies broadly facing each other along a demarcated, if shifting and complex, line, which is how the formal term is surely usually applied in a military context (eg the Eastern Front). N-HH talk/edits 22:41, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes well, you won't be surprised to find out that's another complicated Balkans issue. The actual commonname term for the conflict is "National Liberation War" or "People's Liberation War", which is a translation from the Yugoslav term "Narodnooslobodilacka borba". The two English terms really refer to the same name, as the adjective "narodno" can be translated with equal accuracy as "national" or "people's" (and "national" seems to be the more common variant in this context). The problem is that the name undoubtedly carries distinct communist overtones. While I support such a rename, others oppose it on the grounds that it gives prominence to the Partisans. Claims that the term refers to the "Partisan part" of the struggle and somehow excludes what (little) fighting the Serbian Chetnik movement did against occupying powers - are entirely unsubstantiated in sources, but do hit a mark with users who believe Serbia would be "wronged" if the commoname was used, hence - opposition. If one could speak in such general terms, one would have to note Serbian people do seem to have a collective complex of being "wronged by the world" (mostly because its a bit true [1]), and that such issues provoke a strong xenophobic response. Esp with my being a Croat, etc..

Personally, I've come to terms with "Yugoslav Front" at this point, and don't actively seek to move the article. I think I would oppose most descriptive titles suggested in loo of the commonname. Maybe there are some that I myself might view as a move in the right direction. Specifically, "Yugoslavia in World War II" is a title that, if imposed on the article, would necessitate a change of scope. Or, in other words, such a title would be inappropriate for the current scope of the article - which is ofc a specific conflict. I'd certainly oppose it strongly. -- Director (talk) 00:05, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Well I'm not going to get bogged down in another name change debate and I don't think "Yugoslav Front" is as egregious a problem as the other. That said, I think it suffers from the same problem of overformal capitalisation and lack of clarity – were I to push the point, I would indeed tend towards the more descriptive and explanatory, say "Yugoslav front in World War 2". The problem is that we are already in fact using descriptive titles; but ones that actually don't describe, which we slightly misleadingly elevate into supposedly being formal official ones. Actually using a clearer descriptive title and being open about doing that seems a far better option all round (nor do I think we need to worry about the four or five words of a title supposedly delineating with 100% precision one way or another the exact scope of the article such that minor words changes can suddenly flip a whole article).

More generally, all conflicts have different names of course, depending who you ask. I'm sure the Germans called this the "Balkan pacification operation" or somesuch. As ever, the question has to be how it is normally or most often referred to, whether that's a formal title or broader description, and we can normally ignore euphemisms and propagandisms like "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and stick with "Iraq War". We British are lucky in that regard, as we've managed to get the English-speaking world to broadly follow our habit of calling our wars things like "The Troubles", the "Suez Crisis" or the "Malayan Emergency". N-HH talk/edits 10:55, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely second the notion that all this meandering is largely meaningless to the readers of the encyclopedia. The simple fact that someone (User:Brigade Piron) came in and created this article apparently in good faith - in 2013, seven years after the other article had been in existence, is proof enough that the other name is too intricate for its own good. Or that the topic implied by that name is insufficiently general. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:49, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I didn't review the history in full and hence didn't realise that this once did redirect to the "front" article. Given that, I'd definitely support a redirect/merge. As noted, I'd probably support a tweak to or slight expansion of the name of the main page, but as also noted I am not going to get stuck into that one. N-HH talk/edits 12:58, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

No, no, it didn't redirect there, it was the title of that article, and it was one of the options in at least one of the move discussions over there. Again, if we learn nothing from history, it's going to repeat itself in another few years... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:44, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes it did, this title existed as a redirect for three years immediately prior to the substantive (re)creation a few months ago, unless I'm missing something. N-HH talk/edits 12:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

No, I mean the earlier stuff, at the bottom of the article history you can see 4 July 2007‎ De Administrando Imperio [...] moved Yugoslavia in World War II [...]. If you follow the link in all those other redirect histories, you can arrive at the history of the Yugoslav Front article and see where it all went. The talk page archives should also be over there. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Fine, but I didn't say anything about that. I just said it was a redirect at one point, which it was, immediately prior to being recreated, and got "No" twice over. It may well have been something else too before that .. N-HH talk/edits 10:27, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I am the article's creator, so let me briefly explain my reasoning behind the creation of the page.:

1. The current article doesn't consider the whole Yugoslav experience of WWII. The Government in exile, "experience" of the war, post-war effects and similar aspects are not mentioned.
2. As has been identified, the content of this article is effectively covered by various other more specific titles, but which need a summary article to point out what they actually are, and how they fit together.

The point of this article is to provide an overview of what is an extremely complex aspect of WWII. Since pretty much every country has an "in WWII" article, I really don't see why Yugoslavia should be somehow different. If anything, the current Yugoslav Front article could be retitled "Military history of Yugoslavia in World War II" but this would not cover the same territory as "Yugoslavia in World War II" either. Brigade Piron (talk) 17:29, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Not another naming dispute... I think this article is quite legitimate, and that there is a need for a summary or foundational article for the whole topic, and Yugoslav Front isn't it. There is all the pre-invasion stuff, the drift towards Germany, intelligence operations by the Allies, etc etc, as well as population information, etc etc. BTW, am strongly opposed to retitling Yugoslav Front to National Liberation War, as that would fail the NPOV test. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 01:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

But currently it's set up simply with an overview of the invasion, an overview of the division/occupation and an overview of the subsequent fighting. We already have broad pages on each of those, or at least the first and third, as well as myriad sub-pages. Unless it is actually going to contain additional sections and details, including those suggested above, it contains nothing and covers no topic that isn't already covered. And its value as a pure summary/round-up page is limited if we simply have it rounding up only three, already broad, aspects. I'm not sure, as a side-point, that anyone's proposing retitling the front article to National Liberation War. N-HH talk/edits 12:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The fact that the article is currently not good is immaterial. Be bold and add to it. Brigade Piron (talk) 12:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't disagree, and no article of course comes fully formed (indeed I did add some detail to it). The only problem is that it was initially set up and formatted as a summary simply of two existing overview articles, with no indication or notification that it was ever intended to go any wider. N-HH talk/edits 10:27, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Bah.. the article is inarguably a textbook WP:CONTENTFORK and ought to be merged/redirected. 99.9% of the content can be (or already is) covered in currently-existing articles, 90% of the content corresponds with the scope of the Yugoslav Front article, which actually did previously have this title, and the remaining 9% goes to Invasion of Yugoslavia. The 1% being stuff that hasn't yet been, but hypothetically could be included in those two.

I question the value of a summary article the vast majority of which would summarize just one or two other articles. The Yugoslav government-in-exile has its own article and, either way, I question how its "experience" might even be included in this one, seeing as how it wasn't in "Yugoslavia" (and its representation of the country is at best questionable). We have "Aftermath" and "Casualties" sections in the Yugoslav Front article dealing with the "post-war effects", etc.

Frankly, with the article having been moved from here to Yugoslav Front - this thing can by rights just be redirected outright, and further consensus building should proceed from that status quo. Re-starting an article with this title can arguably be viewed as "recreating of a deleted article" (WP:G4). -- Director (talk) 11:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Merge/redirect discussion

Hello, I have reverted Director's move to redirect this article to Yugoslav Front, made in December, despite the fact that from the discussion above, there is clearly a divergence of opinion. (S)he believes that this is a "clear WP:CONTENTFORK", but I would argue that, as a "summary style" article, which is even "encouraged" by the policy itself, there is at least grounds for debate.

I believe, due process being considered, we ought to have a proper discussion and anticipate that Director will open a merge discussion below, if (s)he still feels it necessary...Brigade Piron (talk) 23:16, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I support that course of action, per my comments above that the Yugoslav Front is a post-invasion concept (ie post-April 1941), but WWII started in September 1939, plenty happened in Yugoslavia between Sep 39 and Apr 41. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:43, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Um.. yees, but Yugoslavia wasn't "in World War II" before April 1941. If you're proposing to change the scope, I feel the title needs to be changed too.. somehow. As it is it doesn't indicate pre-1941 Yugoslavia is its scope. Imo, this whole thing is just an unnecessary complication. The emphasis being on "unnecessary".. -- Director (talk) 12:50, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, I still think Peacemaker67 has a point; I think Yugoslav neutrality is still a part of WWII, and thus deserves inclusion in an article which unifies military, political etc. history of the region during the conflict. Ditto the involvement of the government in exile.Brigade Piron (talk) 18:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

As always, the onus of proof is on the one who wants to add content, in this case new article, with a huge overlap of scope. We need less, not more redundant articles. Like Direktor, I feel that we needed slight rescoping/renaming of Yugoslav Front article, not adding another one with three stub sections, in order to work around its shortcomings. If we were really missing such a huge encyclopedic topic, someone would have created it during the last 10 years of Wikipedia, wouldn't they? We avoid content forks for a reason. So, per WP:BRD, I plan to revert this to the previous, merged state. No such user (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

And, btw, Peacemaker67, I'm still waiting for you to fulfill your promise from a year ago and expand the sorry state of The Holocaust in Serbia, created as fork of History of the Jews in Serbia. Maybe there is no deadline, but there's no point in keeping content forks in draft state in the mainspace either. Just like this one. No such user (talk)

I'm not dead-set against a merge, I just believe that WWII started in 1939 and things that happened in Yugoslavia before the uprising are relevant and should be covered on WP. There is no deadline, and the Holocaust in Serbia just isn't a priority for me at the moment. Propose its deletion or merge it back. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 01:27, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, the pre-April-1941 era, including the neutrality etc - that's part of the scope of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia article. That too is overlap. WWII certainly started in 1939, but Yugoslavia wasn't "in" it, was it? Though it certainly was "in for it", one might say :) -- Director (talk) 08:09, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Peacemaker67 - Yugoslavia in World War II should talk about the entire 1939-45 period and involve everything that was going on related to the war, including the neutrality, government in exile, and a broad overview of military operations, etc. More detailed content on military operations belongs to Yugoslav Front as it indeed is a post-invasion concept. It does not really matter that Yugoslavia was "not in it" before April 1941 - the country certainly did not exist in a vacuum unaffected by what had been going on elsewhere in Europe. Timbouctou (talk) 13:59, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

It didn't? How so? What changed in Yugoslavia between 1938 and 1939? -- Director (talk) 17:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Direktor and No such user. Nobody should waste there time creating an article that is inevitably going to be entirely redundant to other articles. If somebody wants to write an article on Yugoslavia's joining the Tripartite Pact, or on the declaration of neutrality of 5 September 1939, that would be fine. Srnec (talk) 03:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone considered the content of the various Jugo pages? If there's sufficient quantity and diversity for a summary article to tie the theme together (like The Dude's rug) all well and good. Page titles would then flow from the material rather than vice versa.Keith-264 (talk) 10:13, 19 March 2014 (UTC)