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RFC on Belarus Section of Coat of Arms of Lithuania

There is currently Request for Comments in the Coat of arms of Lithuania article, regarding the content of the Belarusian section. It seems to me that participants in this Wikiproject may be interested. Link Marcelus (talk) 19:12, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:48, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Living torpedoes

This page mentioned has been slated for merging into Human torpedo. While the merge seems to have had overwhelming support, the source article is currently littered with citation needed tags, and since I cannot speak Polish to evaluate the given sources myself, I would defer to those who do speak the language for implementing the merger. It would therefore be much appreciated if those who speak the language could assist with implementing the merger. Any discussion would be welcome here. Felix QW (talk) 11:17, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Kupala

The draf Draft:Kupala seems in a good spot, but it requires content talking about the potential medieval or modern invention of the deity. Polish wikipedia has that part, so is anyone interested in translating that for the draft? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 19:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Content assessment

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Content assessment#Proposal: Reclassification of Current & Future-Classes as time parameter, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. This WikiProject received this message because it currently uses "Current" and/or "Future" class(es). There is a proposal to split these two article "classes" into a new parameter "time", in order to standardise article-rating across Wikipedia (per RfC), while also allowing simultaneous usage of quality criteria and time for interest projects. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 06:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Siege of Mantua (1799)

Siege of Mantua (1799) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 02:57, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 18:00, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Mazovia#Requested move 30 July 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Mazovia#Requested move 30 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:06, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Categorisation of Category:Polish people of the partition period

Hi everyone. I had a good discussion with @Piotrus on my talk. The core of our concern is whether we can or cannot categorise people as having "Polish nationality", and thus include them in the nationality-based Category:Polish people tree (a child of Category:People by nationality), at times when there was arguably no "Polish" state, particularly during History of Poland (1795–1918) a.k.a. "partitioned Poland". Nationality is the legal connection between a state and its nationals (subjects or citizens), which cannot exist without a state. However, if we do not categorise Poles as having had a nationality during this period, we may be erasing them from history just because their state was destroyed by the Partitions, which I as a historian really don't want to do, and I think we here will all agree that this shouldn't happen. The history of the Poles during the partition should definitely documented; we just need to decide which way we can best approach their categorisation in the face of this nationality question. I suggested we could instead categorise people as "ethnic Poles" during this time, and thus put them in the Category:People by ethnicity tree, because ethnicity is about self-identification and does not require a state. Piotrus wasn't sure whether that was a better idea, and recommended I take the discussion here, so here I am.

I'll summarise both approaches here, but I'd encourage everyone to read our good discussion if they like to understand our reasoning in more detail:

The nationality-based approach

According to the nationality-based approach, we could interpret various political entities as (partial) "successor states" to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which afforded their subjects a "Polish nationality", and include their "People from" categories in the nationality-based Category:Polish people tree. This is already the case for Category:People from Congress Poland and Category:People from the Duchy of Warsaw, but not yet for Category:People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Posen (and perhaps others). This would solve many categorisation issues. With some minor adjustments, the category trees can continue to function as they have.

  • But it does risk Wikipedia:Original research. As Piotrus pointed out, Serhiy Bilenky (2012) p. 204 wrote that Thaddeus Bulgarin asserted in the early 19th century that the Congress of Vienna had recognised the existence of a Polish nationality. However, Bilenky goes on to say several other people disagreed with Bulgarin's conclusions about nationalities. They were at odds with the idea that there could only be a real "Polish nationality" if the Poles had "national sovereignty", i.e. if there was a sovereign Polish state.
  • Evidently, Russian-dominated Congress Poland (C-Poland), the French-dominated Duchy of Warsaw (D-Warsaw), the Austrian-dominated Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (KoGaL) and the Prussian-dominated Grand Duchy of Posen (GD-Posen) were not. So we can't take Bulgarin's claims that there was a "Polish nationality" during the Partition period as fact. Perhaps, we cannot claim without evidence that these non-sovereign entities (C-Poland, D-Warsaw, KoGaL and GD-Posen; let's just use these abbreviations as shorthand) were "Polish" and afforded their subjects a "Polish nationality". But if there is evidence, which we'd have to gather, we perhaps could.
The ethnicity-based approach

According to the ethnicity-based approach, we could interpret individuals living within the Russian, Prussian and Austrian Partitions as "ethnic Poles" on a case-by-case basis if they self-identified as such, and include them in ethnicity-based categories such as Category:Polish Austro-Hungarians and Category:People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent. This would also solve many categorisation issues. The great advantage is that we avoid the whole issue of a lack of a sovereign Polish state which affords its subjects a Polish nationality.

  • But Piotrus said it was not just ethnicity, also pointing to Polish-Lithuanian identity - was this a nationality or ethnicity?
  • It would also compel is to check whether every person in the whole Category:Polish people of the partition period tree was an "ethnic Pole" or not, which could lead to a whole lot of endless disputes *cough* Marie Curie *cough* which I would prefer to avoid (and I think many will agree). Our current category trees simply work better on the assumption that there was a Polish nationality during the partition, even if there wasn't. But as said, that could amount to Wikipedia:Original research if we cannot demonstrate it with evidence.

Finally, Piotrus appears to contradict himself about how things were, and therefore what we should do, leaving me a little confused:

Both simultaneously?
I don't know...

We would both really appreciate your input! Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw While the above argument is logical, my primary concern is that it would create a surprising (for most readers) gap in categories. I.e. a reader looking at Category:Polish people by period should be able to find Category:Polish people of the partition period since there is no reason to group the "period" category solely under nationality tree (and as such, I do not, at present, support removal of that category from its parent). Further, I'd point out that nation =/= nation state. During the Partitions, there was arguably no Polish nation state for some times (particularly in the "Vistula Land" period of the Congress Poland) but the Polish nation (a term that redirects to Polish people) did not disappear. While there may be some category massaging that needs to be done, I'd caution against any large changes that could create what seems to be gaps in our coverage of topics. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:48, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree with most of that. "Nation" in the sense of "people" may however be seen as a synonym for "ethnicity". I have indeed acknowledged that the ethnicity-based approach may lead to significant changes in our category structures and we must be wary of gaps. But it may be the best way to prevent Wikipedia:Original research, i.e. pretending a state to exist where there was none. And you agree that During the Partitions, there was arguably no Polish nation state. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:26, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
No state (with caveats) but yes for nation. Caveats I already noted - Duchy of Warsaw, Congress Poland, others. They were just not independent, but then, neither was People's Republic of Poland in the 20th century. Ethnicity is also problematic given stuff like Polish-Lithuanian identity and stuff like krajowcy or tutejszy, in the midsts of Germanization, Russification, Polonization, Lithuanization, etc. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
@Nederlandse Leeuw The whole problem that you have created and which does not exist for anyone else, and on which you have based most of your activity on Wikipedia, comes precisely from the false belief that nationality "is the legal connection between a state and its nationals (subjects or citizens), which cannot exist without a state." This is solely your own definition, which has no support whatsoever in the scientific literature. Just reaching for the Britannica dictionary ([1]) shows how wrong you are: "1. a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and language, and who usually live together in a particular country. The country is home to five nationalities and seven languages." This definition alone shows that one country can be home to several nationalities. Similarly, Cambridge dictionary ([2]): "a group of people of the same race, religion, traditions, etc. He has dual British and American nationality. As you can see according to Cambrdige someone can have two nationalities, which does not fit in your definition. If I have to choose between you and Cambridge, I'm sorry to say but your opinion has no meaning then. Will you say that dictionaries are not enough? Then let's reach for a scholarly text, such as Citizenship and Nationality by Nelli Piattoeva ([3]): The proximity between citizenship and nationality has always been context-bound. Some nations have historically been more “political” and less “cultural” than others. When citizenship is strongly linked to nationality, it can turn out exclusive and conceive of the nation-state as a people with common roots, traditions, history and language. A looser link between the two terms would mean adherence to common political values. There also exists an alternative understanding of nationality and its link, or absence thereof, to citizenship that can be traced to a different variant of a modern state – the empire-state of the late Soviet Union. This exemplified a markedly different perception of integration of its constituent society into a political community, despite the fact that it operated with concepts borrowed from the vocabulary of the nation-state, i.e. autonomy, sovereignty and nationality. The Soviet regime codified nationality as an ethnocultural cognitive and social category that was neither elevated to the state-wide level nor attached to the notion of (Soviet) citizenship etc.
This virtually ends the discussion, which is based on the false premise that nationality equals belonging to a particular state. Marcelus (talk) 04:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Britannica dictionary ([4]): "1. a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and language, and who usually live together in a particular country." Yes, and Britannica definition 2. says: 2. formal : the fact or status of being a member or citizen of a particular nation. That is the formal, legal definition.
Similarly, Cambridge dictionary ([5]): "a group of people of the same race, religion, traditions, etc." Yes, that is the second definition; the first and third Cambridge definitions say: [first] the official right to belong to a particular country and [third] the state of belonging to a particular country or being a citizen of a particular nation. Those are legal definitions.
I acknowledge it is possible to have multiple nationalities/citizenships (passports etc.).
If I have to choose between you and Cambridge, I'm sorry to say but your opinion has no meaning then. Well I think my reasoning above is supported by Britannica definition 2., and the first and third Cambridge definitions, which are legal definitions. If you like the second Cambridge definition more (which can be read as "national identity"), okay, but that is just 1 out of the 5 definitions provided by the two dictionaries you cited. Similarly, I think that the way Piattoeva uses the word "nationality" is synonymous with "national identity" (and explaining ethnic nationalism versus state/civic nationalism). That is not what the Category:People by nationality tree is forl it says very clearly: This category is for articles on people according to their civic nationality (legal affiliation with a state). That is Britannica definition 2. ("being a member or citizen of a particular nation") and the first and third Cambridge definitions ("the official right to belong to a particular country" and "being a citizen of a particular nation").
the false premise that nationality equals belonging to a particular state. Well it's only false if we assume the word "nationality" to always take on the legal meaning, because, as you rightly pointed out, sometimes it takes on the meaning of "national identity" (or "ethnicity"). I acknowledge it does not always mean that. But in the Category:People by nationality, and in the main article nationality, it does mean that. My question is about categorisation of people by their legal nationality, and whether that can be done at the time of Partitioned Poland or not? Good day. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 04:52, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
PS: Of course I acknowledge that the Poles existed during the Partition period. My only question is whether categorising them by legal nationality is a good idea, or whether by ethnicity is a better idea. Britannica definition 1. and the second Cambridge definition are much closer to the Category:People by ethnicity tree. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 05:03, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
No; nationality has a broader meaning than just the legal definition you are focusing on, my examples were intended to show this. Both the category and the article should reflect this, if the nationality article only focuses on the legal definition then it is just badly written. The fact remains that even legally some countries (in this case the Soviet Union) define nationality differently I think that the way Piattoeva uses the word "nationality" is synonymous with "national identity"}, you have the right to make that assumption, but it is again your WP:OR, the fact remains that even legally some countries (in this case the Soviet Union) define nationality differently. If you want you can build a category tree: Category:People by civic nationality, which will be limited to this narrow understanding of nationality. But the existing tree must reflect the full meaning of the concept.
This closes the topic in its essential part.
Moving on to pure factuality, you make further mistakes. For example, your statement that there was no Polish state in the 19th century is false. Since there was a Kingdom of Poland united by a personal union with the Russian Empire from 1815, this state did not cease to exist until 1918. Before that, there was also the Duchy of Warsaw, considered a Polish state. Likewise with the Grand Duchy of Posen or the Free City of Cracow, etc. Marcelus (talk) 05:13, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
If you want you can build a category tree: Category:People by civic nationality, which will be limited to this narrow understanding of nationality. But the existing tree must reflect the full meaning of the concept. Not really; the current definition of Category:People by nationality is legal affiliation with a state. So if you think this should be changed, it is up to you to nominate that category for renaming, not up to me. Right now, the category follows the same definitions I have been using.
your statement that there was no Polish state in the 19th century is false. I never said that in those words; I've said that it depends on how you define "Polish state". Russian-dominated Congress Poland (C-Poland), the French-dominated Duchy of Warsaw (D-Warsaw), the Austrian-dominated Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (KoGaL) and the Prussian-dominated Grand Duchy of Posen (GD-Posen) were were all non-sovereign entities inhabited mostly by Poles, but did that make them "Polish states" or not? You seem to be arguing that they were, which is an argument I am willing to accept (as I described in "The nationality-based approach"), but that has certain implications. It could be WP:OR if we cannot find literature supporting this idea of Polish nationality based on non-sovereign Polish states under foreign domination. I'm open to this, but let's find that literature first. As said Serhiy Bilenky (2012) p. 204 pointed out it's not that easy to think of legal nationality in the early 19th century, as there were disagreements about what that concept meant, and whether it could only apply to Poles if they had their own sovereign state, or did not have to. Good day. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
So if you think this should be changed, it is up to you to nominate that category for renaming, not up to me. Right now, the category follows the same definitions I have been using, false; the category is properly named, you just trying to impose on others very narrow understanding of the notion, that goes contrary to the reliable sources. QED Marcelus (talk) 19:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
"The whole problem that you have created and which does not exist for anyone else". Don't break what's broken. The 'by nationality' tree contains not only Category:19th-century Polish people, but also Category:19th-century Ukrainian people, Category:19th-century Lithuanian people or Category:19th-century Czech people. Same logical applies to them as to the Category:Polish people of the partition period. And what about Category:15th-century American people (USA did not exist back then) or Category:17th-century German people (era of the Holy Roman Empire and other German states, but there was no "Germany" back then...). ategorize them under ethnicity or civic nationality or whatever for extra detail, but don't remove them from parent categories. There is no consensus for the bold recategorization that NL has done, and I think it should be reverted (again, I don't oppose creation or addition of any new categories, but I oppose edits like this. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:29, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
@Nederlandse Leeuw My view is that the nationality-based approach would simplify matters (while an ethnic approach would most likely complicate things), considering that it is a very simple question that one has to answer when it comes to nationality: was this person born in this entity (C-Poland, D-Warsaw, KoGaL and GD-Posen) and/or very associated with it? If yes, then they're part of the category, if not, then no. The question of ethnicity, unless very explicitly stated by the author himself or visible from his activities, is unanswerable for numerous people - Piotrus already mentioned the case of Tutejszy, which frequently just equated their Catholic religion with being Polish due to being told so by someone despite frequently being of ethnic Lithuanian descent and not speaking proper Polish.
Although this goes beyond the matter of the partitions, this logic of nationalities should be applied to people from before the partitions as well - people from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania should not be lumped in with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. After all, the PLC is well-known for its ethnic diversity and grouping every single more notable person from its territories under 'Polish' as is far too frequently done contradicts all the complexities of gente Lituanus, natione Polonus and other varieties such as Ruthenians and most likely many others. I think that in complicated articles where the answer is objectively unclear, maybe the best option is to avoid even calling the person e.g. "Polish military person" and instead resort to just naming their positions and to what organisations they belonged to. That way we would minimize the possibility of WP:OR such as finding tombstones and guessing their ethnicity based on the language of the tombstone or anything else that involves personal interpretations, instead focusing on facts.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 18:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Well said, you understand a lot of things I've been trying to say. Marcelus also seems to favour the nationality-based approach by identifying C-Poland, D-Warsaw, KoGaL and GD-Posen as non-sovereign "Polish states", which is indeed probably the simplest answer to the question. There just seems to be a bit of confusion about what the term "nationality" means. I'm trying to be fair and accurate, as well as doing justice to the Poles and Polish history, and I don't want to upset anyone, so I'm trying to be careful. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:50, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
It is very good that you are bringing this topic up in a careful way to ensure fairness and accuracy. Indeed, as you say, nationality brings up confusion in this situation, but I think its only part of larger problem which is the lack of a system.
This is unsurprising considering that many uncoordinated people contribute bit by bit, which leads to categories like Category:People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent vs Category:Polish Austro-Hungarians instead of Category:People from Austria-Hungary of Polish descent or even Category:People from the Habsburg Empire of Polish descent (Austro-Hungarian Empire only began in 1867, while the Austrian Empire lasted from 1804 to 1867 - while Habsburg Empire encompasses all of it). My view is that the best categories are the ones you can logically guess instead of having to specifically find each one individually.
The lack of standardization disorganizes things and I am extremely glad that someone is taking up the humongous task of cleaning up/making sense out of the categories. Best wishes, Cukrakalnis (talk) 19:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Marcelus also seems to favour the nationality-based approach by identifying C-Poland, D-Warsaw, KoGaL and GD-Posen as non-sovereign "Polish states", which is indeed probably the simplest answer to the question. There just seems to be a bit of confusion about what the term "nationality" means, false and mirepresentation of my words. The question if mentioned countries were "Polish" or not is irrelevent; because the notion of nationality is much broader than the narrow definition you are trying to impose on others. There is no confusion, reliable sources are conclusive in the matter: nationality is both "belonging to certain state" and "belonging to certain group of people who are united by a common culture, history, traditions etc." Marcelus (talk) 19:30, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Merge to People of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Further to the 2022 merge/rename of C18 Polish people by occupation to people of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 August 20#18th-century Lithuanian people by occupation. – Fayenatic London 08:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on CfD regarding the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

On WP:CfD there is an important discussion concerning the categorization of people living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as the shape of the category tree concerning people of Polish nationality. Because of the subject matter, it seemed to me that this discussion might be of interest to participants in this Wikiproject.

Link: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023 August_21#Category:18th-century people from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by occupation Marcelus (talk) 22:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 in Polish television

Hello, WikiProject,

It looks like deletion sorting wasn't used on this bundled nomination so I wanted to alert any interested editors in this AFD that was nominated today. Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 21:12, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:List of bishops of the Polish National Catholic Church in America#Requested move 1 September 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:List of bishops of the Polish National Catholic Church in America#Requested move 1 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 03:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Women in Green's 5th Edit-a-thon

Hello WikiProject Poland:

WikiProject Women in Green is holding a month-long Good Article Edit-a-thon event in October 2023!

Running from October 1 to 31, 2023, WikiProject Women in Green (WiG) is hosting a Good Article (GA) edit-a-thon event with the theme Around the World in 31 Days! All experience levels welcome. Never worked on a GA project before? We'll teach you how to get started. Or maybe you're an old hand at GAs – we'd love to have you involved! Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and women's works (e.g., books, films) during the event period. We hope to collectively cover article subjects from at least 31 countries (or broader international articles) by month's end. GA resources and one-on-one support will be provided by experienced GA editors, and participants will have the opportunity to earn a special WiG barnstar for their efforts.

We hope to see you there!

Grnrchst (talk) 13:36, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Józef Abelewicz § Requested move 3 October 2023

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Józef Abelewicz § Requested move 3 October 2023. Cukrakalnis (talk) 12:41, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard

This is the only way to resolve the issue and get more people to comment on this, as this issue is also relevant to other countries and not just Poland. --E-960 (talk) 13:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I am fine with moving the discussion there (earlier I suggest that WP:UKRAINE should be involved too). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:22, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you help to disambiguate links to Chmielnik? There are 62 articles linking to Chmielnik and it is often not clear which Voivodeship is correct. A list of the relevent articles is at Disambig fix list for Chmielnik. If it helps you can go to your preferences (drop down list top right), choose the "Gadgets" tab & scroll down to Appearance & put a tick next to "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" & this will highlight relevant links.— Rod talk 11:03, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

@Rodw - thanks for the tip about displaying these links in orange. Kiwipete (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
It always looks yellow to me - but helpful all the same.— Rod talk 07:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
I've had a go at fixing 6 of them, hopefully they are correct. Kiwipete (talk) 07:59, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
@Kiwipete And don't forget to make redirects look green too, also helpful :) Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:22, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

B-checklist in project template

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council § Determining the future of B-class checklists. This project is being notified since it is one of the 82 WikiProjects that opted-in to support B-checklists (B1-B6) in your project banner. DFlhb (talk) 11:51, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Removal of former German names of places in Poland by Materialscientist using AWB

A recently indeffed user posted at Wikipediocracy about a series of edits performed by Materialscientist using the semi-automated tool AutoWikiBrowser (edits are tagged "AWB"). Materialscientist has been removing the German names of settlements in Poland that were previously in Germany (particularly in East Prussia). The example that I looked at at random was Końcewo, a village formerly in East Prussia, which appears to be fairly typical: the edit summary is "unsourced/poorly sourced/unnecessary, removed: {{lang-de|, has a population" and they also removed the population from the article text, leaving it in the infobox. I discussed these removals with them at their user talk: User talk:Materialscientist#In the spirit of the first user box on your user page ..., but although they grant that I make good points, they have declined to self-revert as recommended by the rules for use of the tool when edits prove controversial. They did subsequently update the population at Końcewo and add a reference, and their only additional similar edit after I started the discussion (also with AWB) appears to me to be Osiniak-Piotrowo, also formerly in East Prussia, where at the same time as they removed the former German name, they updated the population figure, adding a reference. But in that article, the former German name had a reference, albeit to a genealogy.net website. Previously at Nowy Probark, another village formerly in East Prussia, Materialscientist removed a former German name sourced to this book. Is this not a reliable source?

I was initially unsympathetic to the complainant, who is indeffed as a sock of a user banned for POV. But I cannot see how removing all mention of the historical context from places that were in Germany prior to World War I, in some cases for centuries, is beneficial to the encyclopedia. I disagree that the former names are WP:UNDUE, and I believe this is minimal information that a reader should be able to search by. I imagine there are settlements in Silesia that were Polish- or Lusatian-speaking prior to the Nazi era (we do not appear to have ever had the former German name at Ogrodzona, Silesian Voivodeship, where Materialscientist only removed the in-text population; compare Rakowice Małe, in Upper Silesia, where they removed only the former German name although the edit summary also refers to removing a redundant population that was not present), and I'm not sure about Pomerania. But checking Polish Wikipedia reveals that (in addition to having images of all these places, which we really should add to our articles), they usually do have the former German names. For example, pl:Końcewo, pl:Nowy Probark, pl:Rakowice Małe, also pl:Ogrodzona (województwo śląskie) (Polish Wikipedia has the former German name, English didn't) and pl:Budzieszewice (Pomerania), but not pl:Osiniak-Piotrowo. So I am wondering what the view is here—and at WikiProject Germany, where I will also be posting.

Yakikaki posted at Materialscientist's talk page saying that they had added historical information to some articles that had been removed to their surprise. JBW expressed general agreement with my points, and Lourdes supported my argument that Materialscientist should self-revert under the policy governing semi-automated edits (currently the last post in the talk-page section). However, there have been earlier edits also removing information on the past from the mostly very short articles on these settlements. And in April 2022, the bot operated by Qwerfjkl was approved for the task of removing sentences of the format Before 1945 the area was part of Germany (East Prussia) that had been present when the articles were bot-created. I would argue that it would have been preferable to reference that statement as context for the former German names. The argument for removing it appears to have been UNDUE, and in February 2022 E-960 was removing referenced former German names with that rationale, for example at Budzieszewice (which as I noted above, has the former German name in the Polish Wikipedia article; someone else has since restored it here, but without the reference). HerkusMonte added some of these names, and references for them, and apparently restored the sentences after a previous removal; discussion at their talk page started by E-960 and hatted after it became a debate between E-960 and someone else over POV. So I am bringing the issue to the two relevant WikiProjects to gauge consensus on the removals of the former names, especially the automated removals performed by Materialscientist. (I won't further repeat my position or my responses to Materialscientist's arguments.) My other reason is that since Materialscientist has declined to self-revert, and used a semi-automated tool, reverting the removals will be a big task, especially if references are restored or added at the same time and/or if something other than simple restoration is done about the unsourced and outdated population figures, and would be best done as a coordinated effort. (I have not tried to establish when Materialscientist began doing this; the person posting at Wikipediocracy referred to a couple of months, but that may not be correct. Nor have I tried to establish what categories they were working from. So I don't know how many articles are affected, and haven't looked at how many removals E-960 did.)

In addition, I will mention only here, that a regular poster on Wikipediocracy added that Materialscientist has also used AWB to remove former Ukrainian names of places in Poland: Lalin, Poland; Srogów Dolny; Niebieszczany; Pakoszówka. I am not sure how controversial these edits are, since these are borderland places or former pockets of Ukrainian speakers within Polish territory, rather than places with a long history as part of Germany and its predecessor states. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:02, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir Quick note: double check your diffs, first one is wrong for example. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:12, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Second. Frankly, I do not support such removals. Over the years I've came to conclude that such historical names are useful to the reader. For another side of the coin, I also think Polish names should be present for many places in the Baltic States, Ukraine and Belarus that have been historically associated with Poland. In this case, more information is better, and too often, removal of such information is related to nationalistic narrow-mindness/POV-pushing (although I'll stress I am sure this is not the reason for Materialscientist's actions - on that note, I would like to hear their rationale). As for actionable content, right now I'ld support restoring all removed names. We should be adding such names, not removing them, IMHO. PS. To be prefectly clear, and since this is not an A-board - no sanction or warning of any kind seem necessary, perhaps just a friendly WP:TROUT? Well, that and asking MS to restore the names they removed. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, Piotrus; I had a stray letter at the end of the diff. Correct, I'm not asking for sanctions. But I asked Materialscientist repeatedly at their user talk to self-revert, and we seemed to go in circles on their rationale for not doing so. They presumably recall what categories or other list(s) they worked from and thus can identify the articles relatively quickly, but it's a challenge for anyone else since Materialscientist edits a lot and the edits are mixed up with other kinds of edits. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:30, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Yngvadottir, I think you are mixing two different things (when referencing me in this discussion). One is including old place names in an article (and I don't really have an issue with that, and agree with Piotrus). The other is having a stub article saying "Before 1945 the area was part of Germany" (now this is blatant POV), for one these lands were now part of Poland (after 1945) for a longer period of time than under Germany (from 1871 to 1945), and many of those lands even before that were also part of Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Austria, etc. So, it's not very neutral when you only have two sentences in a stub article and the second sentence says "Before 1945 the area was part of Germany". This is not a be all end all fact for those locations, and you don't see similar statements in municipality stub articles for France, Denmark, Belgium, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, etc. (in instances when those municipalities were part of another country in the past, and for some countries like Ukraine or Belarus you could really have it for every single place, "Before 1918 the area was part of Russia", however that's not the case). --E-960 (talk) 07:28, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for responding, E-960. I'm very glad to see we're in agreement about including the former names. I had the impression you regarded all mention of the history as undue weight; at Budzieszewice, as I noted above, your revert of HerkusMonte also included the former name, which HerkusMonte had added with a book reference. An IP had previously added both the name and an added sentence on the expulsion and flight of Germans from the East; HerkusMonte's edit restored that version with a reference for the former name, but we now have just the name. I would personally prefer to have the history paragraph as well, at least the single sentence "Before 1945 the area was part of Germany (Pomerania); it became part of Poland in 1945."—with a reference, possibly the same one as for the former name. I think readers should be able to find the place by searching on its former name, and I also think the name of the historical larger government unit is important information. (Kotbot originally created the article with the clunky "Before 1945 the area was part of Germany. For the history of the region, see History of Pomerania.") I agree that adding the flight and expulsion to these articles is undue, but the reader shouild also be informed of when it became part of Poland. However, while I disagree with the removal of the "formerly in Germany" sentence and regret the bot run, I can accept it; Pomerania, East Prussia, and Silesia can be found by following the links to the Polish regions. But I believe the former name is essential to restore. It's context that the reader can't find anywhere else on English Wikipedia, and it's needed for those looking up these places by their former names. And it's particularly regrettable to have lost them where someone had provided a reference.
"Germany" as a country came into being in 1871, but these regions became part of Prussia much earlier: the Prussian Province of Pomerania was formed in 1815; both Prussian Silesia and the Province of East Prussia date back to the 18th century. Unless a source gives a good reason for inclusion, I don't think we should be listing Nazi-era names, either for places incorporated into the Third Reich and not previously German-speaking or putative renames like Warnold at Końcewo (in that case I suspect confusion with Warnowo, "Gut Warnold" in German). But we should include the names by which the places were officially known for well over a century. (And I agree, we should do likewise for other places where the borders have shifted; such as the formerly eastern Polish places now part of Ukraine.) Since we appear to be in broad agreement regarding the names, can I ask you to look back at your 2022 edits like that at Budzieszewice and partially self-revert to reinstate the former names, especially where there was a reference? Yngvadottir (talk) 09:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Like I said, I don't really have an issue with including historical place names, and that means all historical place names not just German. So, for example if towns in Pomerania also has a Swedish name it should also be listed, etc. not cherry pick languages. Also, when you say "but these regions became part of Prussia much earlier" you are just singling out only a portion of the entire history, because these regions were part of Poland even before that. Pomorenia and Sląsk were part of Piast dynasty Poland before German colonization and inclusion in the Holy Roman Empire. So, if full history is not included in the article just saying "Before 1945 the area was part of Germany." is blatant POV. Btw, there is more to a municipality than history, if this is a stub article I would be more inclined to include information on road and rail link, hospitals, etc. not just history (and partial history for that matter). --E-960 (talk) 09:23, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Hmmm, that's taking it a bit too far I think. I can't imagine any town in Pomerania that would need a Swedish name - did they even name them during The Deluge, which is like the only time they had presence in that region? Is there some rare village with Swedish minority meriting such treatment? (Like Kruszyniany, which has a Tatar community, and has an Arabic name in the lead...). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:49, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
Piotrus, I'm not talking about the Deluge, for example Pomorze was the Duchy of Pomerania and for a time it was part of the Kingdom of Demark and later Sweden, some of the bigger settlements had Swedish names (which were close to German, but still different is a some ways), Szczecin is one example and there are others as well. --E-960 (talk) 06:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Interesting. I've never heard of Swedish language being used in this region, however? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:12, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
PS. Given the Ukrainian placename removals, I recomment mentioning this discussion at WT:UKRAINE. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:53, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
I would agree, except I would feel very odd raising the issue there myself since I can't even really read either Polish or Ukrainian. Could you or someone else here please note those articles at that WikiProject? Yngvadottir (talk) 09:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Also, Yngvadottir, for Budzieszewice I have an issue with how this is written (formerly German: Luttmannshagen), why not just "German: Luttmannshagen", municipality articles for other countries (where territories changed hands) do not say "formerly". The city of Strasbourg does not say "formerly German: Straßburg". --E-960 (talk) 09:53, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
I just reverted for Radziejów this text "German 1943-1945: Rädichau", occupation place names should not be included. --E-960 (talk) 10:11, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
E-960, I'm afraid I hadn't looked closely at that last reinstatement of the former name at Budzieszewice; not only did it have "formerly", it misspelled the German name (which is similarly misspelled on Polish Wikipedia). I've now done what I was requesting you to do, and reinstated HerkusMonte's version of the paragraph, including the reference; I was unable to see the book on Google Books to add the page reference, but I was able to corroborate the spelling (I decided not to substitute an 1870 book ref). While I was at it, I added a pic; Polish Wikipedia has added pictures of all these villages in recent years, kudos to them and we should take advantage. ... Alsace isn't comparable in any case; it was part of France until 1871. I basically agree about places where the German names were only applied after they were annexed by Nazi Germany, I mentioned that above and on Materialscientist's talk. But after edit conflict, I'll say a bit more on that below. Yngvadottir (talk) 11:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
This is not a problem restricted to Polish articles; I have come across the systematic removal of historical German names; indeed any reference to historical German influence from Czech-related articles; sometimes this extends to the deletion of German names or words from German-related articles. The history of places is important and historical names and accounts must be included, however unpalatable to certain editors, not least so that readers who come across them in histories or historical documents can find the relevant article and even correct or improve it. We should not be erasing history or creating a biased anti-German perspective; we should be factual and even-handed. Bermicourt (talk) 10:49, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Bermicourt, but please remember this is not a one language issue, you either include all historical place names (in a neutral format, none of that "formerly" nonsense) or just leave the current one and that's it. So, if a town in Pomorze was Swedish for an extended period of time this name should be included. Also, if a town in Sląsk has a Czech name this should also be included. Saturating an article with historical information only about the German period is just as bad and damaging to the accuracy of the article as an anti-German perspective. --E-960 (talk) 11:01, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
@E-960:
  • There is a difference between adding other language names that have no historical or geographical bearing on a place - of course we can't include them. But that is not what we're talking about here.
  • Radziejów is a good example. You've removed the German name for Radziejów used by its German occupiers during the Second World War, so there is a clear historical connexion. The result now is that a reader studying the history of that war who comes across a place called Rädichau will fail to find it here. Occupation place names are not banned from Wikipedia - that would amount to censorship as well as the removal of large numbers of articles such as those on the departments of the First French Empire created on foreign soil e.g. Bouches-de-l'Elbe as well as all mention of them in related articles. At the very least the name Rädichau should be mentioned in the text about the Second World War events and there should be a Rädichau redirect to that section. I'm with Piotrus here. Bermicourt (talk) 11:07, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for weighing in, Bermicourt. So far it seems everyone agrees with me about longstanding names of places that were ceded to Poland in 1945. I hope Materialscientist will now help us out by self-reverting their automated edits, or at least reinstating the former names. If they don't, how should we proceed? I've just worked on one article, Budzieszewice, see above; I can't do them all.
On occupation names, I think we need to be more nuanced, to preserve the distinction between long-term legal names of places and names that are foreign-language terms except that they were imposed during the Nazi occupation. I think those should be only in a history section of the article, or alternatively in a "List of German place names in occupied Poland" or something. (Or redirects?) Yngvadottir (talk) 11:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
That's where we disagree and I do not support the inclusion of Nazi German place names used during the occupation or changed during Nazi rule in Germany as here 1938 changing of place names in East Prussia. To be honest, I'm actually taken aback by the fact that I have to argue against the inclusion of revisionist Nazi German place names in Poland, as I though this would be obvious that including such names in the very first sentences of an article would be highly questionable. Also, like I said before, I don't have an issue with including German place names, but this has to has to be done correctly in full historical context, and such updates need to include all relevant historical place names, such in this example: "Legnica (Polish: [lɛɡˈɲit͡sa]; German: Liegnitz, pronounced [ˈliːɡnɪts]; Silesian: Ligńica; Czech: Lehnice; Latin: Lignitium)". So, just having Materialscientist revert will not resolve the issue of neutrality and the placing of undue emphasis on just one historical period over the others. --E-960 (talk) 12:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
My position is that long-standing historical names should appear in the lead (German names in Silesia, East Prussia and Transylvania, Polish names in Galicia and some in Lithuania, a few Hungarian names like Poszony), but short-term or invented occupation era Nazi names should generally only occur in a "Names" or "History" section. For example Łódź doesn't have a historical German name (in German it is just called "Lodz" or "Lodsch"), but there is a Nazi era invented name of "Litzmannstadt" that is mentioned only in the History section and certainly has no reason to be mentioned more prominently. (I am surprised that the Polish and German names of Lviv are not mentioned more prominently, by the way). Sometimes when names overload the lead section, a special Names section is best. All of this is a nationalist minefield though, and mass edits are not an acceptable way of dealing with these issues, which need to be carefully done on a by-article or at leats by-region level, and with as wide consensus as possible. —Kusma (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Read my response more carefully: I didn't propose putting the name Rädichau back into the lede, but to include it as historical information in the relevant section of the text. Nor am I proposing an undue emphasis on one period. So I'm not sure we actually disagree much at all, except that I don't support the complete erasure of German occupation names from relevant historical sections; that is blanking history and preventing effective research. We don't do it for Napoleon's renaming of places during French occupation - in fact sometimes we write articles on them covering that period of history. Looking at other editors' contributions, I think my perspective is pretty much that of Kusma, Yngvadottir and Piotrus, to name but three. Bermicourt (talk) 14:45, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Bermicourt, why do we need to include those revisionist names at all? I would like to highlight WP:ONUS — verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. I don't support turning every history section of a Poland municipality article into a WWII-centric text. Instead of saturating these articles with Nazi trivia facts (every excruciating detail), there should be more focus on things like local attractions, road and rail links, etc. In other words, current and relevant things people might want to look up. Also, again adding historic German names is fine, but only if you include all historic names as with the Legnica example, again as highlighted here: "Legnica (Polish: [lɛɡˈɲit͡sa]; German: Liegnitz, pronounced [ˈliːɡnɪts]; Silesian: Ligńica; Czech: Lehnice; Latin: Lignitium)" Saturating an average stub municipality article with history from the German period is just as bad and damaging to the accuracy of the article as an anti-German perspective in my opinion. --E-960 (talk) 17:09, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
All historical names should only be in a Names section to not overwhelm the lead, where more than two or three should only appear in exceptional cases. Your example over-emphasises the names (why the Latin name?). —Kusma (talk) 18:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Kusma is right. E-960 you keep setting up Aunt Sally arguments that no one is proposing. No one is suggesting we turn "every history section of a Poland municipality article into a WWII-centric text... saturating these articles with Nazi trivia facts... [including] every excruciating detail..." That's nonsense of course. But occupation names are an important aspect of history not least for research purposes. What is 'revisionist' is to whitewash articles by removing any trace of a historical name as if it never existed. And certainly where places were known by e.g. a German name for many years because it was a part of Prussian Silesia or Saxon Bohemia etc. then the names should be an integral part of the historical sections and also contained within the lede. Bermicourt (talk) 19:10, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
I can see some advantage in having a German occupation name in the body of the text, if there are RS sources for it. It does highlight the Germanization process and could be useful for some scholars studying German WWII documents I guess. No need to include such short-lived names in the lead. Do note that this is something that affects much of Europe, since Germans occupied much of it... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:53, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
The only place I see where a Nazi German occupation name of a municipality would be appropriate is a separate history article. Example with Łódź, which also has a History of Łódź companion article. To put this in perspective, you have centuries of history for some of these places and you focus on some Nazi name that lasted for about 5 years or so, and was not recognized as legitimate. Yet, you want to give it legitimacy by including it in the lead?? Here also, I disagree with Piotrus when he says "could be useful for some scholars studying German WWII" because this can apply to any scholar studying a particular historical period, not just WWII. I keep seeing the same pattern across Poland municipality articles, where the WWII section, which covers 5 years, is longer then other sections covering the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early-Modern (where are all the historical details for those periods that can be access by scholars?). Quite frankly, you don't see such focus on WWII in other European contry articles (affected by the war) and we need to stop with that here. I suspect that the reason for this is because you have all these WWII history buffs cramming every detail about the war and occupation, while completely ignoring the fact that there are centuries of other history, and that these are also living places and have current thing going on as well. See: Due and undue weight[6] - "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to the depth of detail". --E-960 (talk) 20:37, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
I agree that for big cities that have their own "History of..." this detail can be moved there and does not need to be mentioned in the main article. For other places, however, we don't have anywhere to "hide it". Many articles have undue sections focusing on stuff like some event (massacre) or history of a particular ethnicity (Jewish history etc.) that need to be balanced by expanding the main article (not by blanking the currently overly long/undue but arguably encyclopedic information). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:48, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Piotrus, but if you have a stub or a very short article about a town or a village, is it due weight to include a Nazi German occupation name (out of all the other facts out there that are not included)? This is not even secondary information we are talking about and there is a ton of other facts that are more important or relevant, and as I said before this sort of information really amounts to Nazi trivia. Btw, I don't suggest trimming sections which are describing events during the occupation, but out of all the facts out there having such a minute detail is just undue. Really, think of all the historical facts out there for any given location (probably it was part of different kingdoms, duchies, administrative districts, all that information is often missing, but we got a Nazi German occupation name already there. --E-960 (talk) 06:05, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
WP:NPOVHOW recommends rewriting rather then removing. Rather then having a German occupation name in the lead, having a sentence in the body saying 'During WWII the town was occupied by Germans, who renamed it such-and-such', would seem like a good solution to me. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Piotrus, pls note WP:ONUS — verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. If the article does not even have a history section because it is a stub, this is undue weight, Btw, good example of this WWII obsession is Pinsk Marshes article, though related to nature, the article has very little in terms of actual information on the nature or geography of the region, and strangely enough the biggest section in the article is the History section with... you guessed it, WWI and WWII as the longest text. Seriously, can we stop with the WWII saturation?? Wikipedia is clear on guidelines how structure and content impacts an article. You need to understand most people do not turn to Wikipedia to get every detail about WWII and the occupation, when they run a search about a municipality. This is one of those biases that Wikipedia gets criticized about for, random WWII history buffs add endless amounts of war trivia to every imaginable topic on Wikipedia. --E-960 (talk) 11:49, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
While Pinks Marshes article is currently unbalanced in its coverage, the solution is to expand it. I don't understand what other way is there to fix such articles. Surely you would not suggest we shorten the history section there? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 00:52, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Bermicourt and Kusma, I was just looking over many other municipality articles for various cities and towns around the world and it made me look at the issue in a different light, and here is my question to you: why do you need to include old municipality names in the lead of a stub article for small locations in the first place?? Why do I ask that... because for example Budzieszewice has only one official name "Budzieszewice" not two, as with "Lütmannshagen". Also, I will go back to your question "why the Latin name?" because Latin was one of the official languages of the Poland in the Middle Ages, and virtually all towns and villages during the Piast and Jagiellonian dynasties had Latin names (all records in Poland were kept in Latin, so such names were widely used). If you want to be neutral and really want to make the article balanced and informative for the reader, you need to include those in the lead section as well, and not just focus on the German period, especially given the fact that Pomorze and Śląsk were not German since their foundation (these were not the Stem Duchies), but were Polish, Bohemian, Danish, Swedish, Hungarian, Austrian, Prussian, German and again Polish (not to forget the Silesian and Kashubian names, and even Yiddish in some cases). So, if you are going to take that route, I think it's only academically honest to include all historical names, not just a select few that highlight one historical period or language over the others. --E-960 (talk) 21:03, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Having the name in the article (for a stub, the article is often the same as the lead) explains things like why Nassenhuben is a redirect to Mokry Dwór, Pomeranian Voivodeship (most well known as place of birth of Georg Forster, although he might have actually been born in Hochzeit on the other side of the Motława river; both places were Polish at the time of his birth, but that changed not long after in the First Partition of Poland). For such people where lots of pre-1945 scholarship exists, there is a lot of use of the German name in sources (not just in German, also in English and French), and so it needs to be possible to find the village using the historical German name. I am not aware of a Kashubian name or scholarship using a Kashubian name for these villages. I have undone Materialscientist's edit on the Mokry Dwór page.
Cities in Silesia probably need several names (thr vast majority of them are originally Slavic, with slightly different forms in different Slavic languages and either translated or slightly adapted into German), although it is worth asking which of these generally occur in scholarly sources. I don't know when/which of the names should be in the lead, I just want to caution against too many. —Kusma (talk) 21:40, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

How to proceed?

I've been watching this discussion and see no disagreement that the removal of former long-term names should be reverted. Disagreement appears to be mostly over whether other names (including early Latin) should be also used. I also note the point made by Materialscientist themself among others that names should be sourced and more sourced information on history should be included to provide context. I consider my first reason for bringing this here (and to WikiProject Germany) to have been satisfied: finding out whether editors active in the field agree with me that the name removals were deleterious. The second was to figure out how best to fix it if there was such agreement.

In the meantime I've been working on individual articles, developing sources with the assistance of the pl.wikipedia and dt.wikipedia articles and adding referenced population figures as well as the former names where I can. But I'm hampered by not only lack of time and the enormous volume of Materialscientist's edits, and by the need to check everything carefully (this is partly due to the POV editing Materialscientist and E-960 have in the past reacted to: on both English and German Wikipedia, the former names of Probark and Nowy Probark had been (re)added reversed by editor(s) with more zeal than care for accuracy / linguistic knowledge, and it's still all mucked up on de.) ... but also by my inability to read Polish, so that I can only use Google translate to tease out what Polish Wikipedia states and to look at and cite sources that it cites, and can't do an adequate search. So I am unable to verify or include the sometimes quite complex administrative history of these places since 1945, or in most cases information about medieval and 18th-century overlords that I might be able to tease out of Google if I could read Polish. I've been working on villages, partly because larger settlements provide a lot more source material to determine whether there was a local mixed linguistic tradition / coexistence of names, partly because the nature of the Ostsiedlung led to a number of villages originating as German-speaking settlements, partly because those tiny stubs are most in need of expansion and most likely to have gone unnoticed when they were damaged in a mistaken semi-automated editing run—or badly restored, with the reference not being reinstated and possibly even the name being wrong. But the nature of the available sources—further restricted by my inability in Polish—means my work can only be a start. In some cases the corresponding article is also a stub on pl. and/or de.; in others, they have a well developed article. I've been able to put in registered historic buildings, because I can see and understand the entry on an official list. I've been able to evaluate and add images. I've looked at lists of notable residents, but haven't yet found one where there's an article on English Wikipedia. And all of this takes me quite a bit of time (including peering at Prussian official gazeteers/administrative lists in pdf and via Google Books and searching in vain for what looks like an excellent Polish regional newspaper source that Polish Wikipedia cites via an offline archive).

I've been reverted today at Końcewo by E-960, with an accusation of POV pushing. My edits there were based on what I was able to reference. Please, you editors who can read Polish, come in on this effort and either supplement my work with what history and other information on these little places you judge to be worth mentioning and can cite sources for (thereby fixing the POV that results from my uneven ability and the need for sources), or assist with a broad revert of Materialscientist's edits and work out a system for expanding these articles as a collective effort. As I stated early on to Materialscientist, simply removing what information we have—especially when it includes removing references—is the perfect as the enemy of the good. I won't say it's throwing the baby out with the bath water, since E-960 left the unreferenced German name Konzewen so a reader can at least find out what place that is by searching. But I can't do this all by myself, especially since I can't do the Polish part at all adequately! Yngvadottir (talk) 22:18, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I've restored your edits at Końcewo per my comments here - the solution is to add more information, not to censor parts that someone doesn't like.
Re: "searching in vain for what looks like an excellent Polish regional newspaper source that Polish Wikipedia cites via an offline archive" - perhaps I could help, if you give me more details on what is it that you could not find.
I'll also ping @FOARP who is somewhat interested in Polish geography topics, and invite all editors here to look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Poland where we are recently discussing some Polish geography-related issues. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
Can't now find it, sorry, after looking through the Polish Wikipedia references on Włóczno and Mieszkowice, Opole Voivodeship. I don't think I was misidentifying the book by Ryszard Kasza, ISBN 978-83-954314-5-6, but it's possible. One thing I would love to be able to ref is the collective farm at Probark; can anybody turn up a ref for that?
I have tried to add more at Końcewo to offset the undue weight issue (we edit conflicted). But there isn't much information I can reference; it's a small place, and Polish Wikipedia doesn't have a developed article in this instance. I would be amenable to not having its 1938 rename in the intro. But I found there was a large number of these Nazi Germanicising renames done simultaneously in 1938; we even have an article for context, 1938 changing of place names in East Prussia. That wider context led me to include the information in the intro as well as the History section, and to add the See also to the place that presumably was the source of the 1938 name. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:48, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
Re Końcewo. I've added a bit more. There is some stuff in copyright protected books I see on Google Books, and more at [7] (I can't load the live page), but that seems like a wiki so may not be reliable enough to cite (although according to its description it is (was?) a scientific project with scholarly supervisors, at least). The entry has no footnotes, but an extensive bibliography, if anyone cares to dig into this and verify:
von Hippel Rudolf, Przegląd statystycznych i innych uwarunkowań powiatu Johannisburg na podstawie przeprowadzonego spisu powszechnego w dniu 3 grudnia 1867 r. wg zestawienia starosty von Hippela w roku 1868, Znad Pisy, nr 19–20, 2010–2011, ss. 83–157.
Mazury. Słownik stronniczy, ilustrowany, red. Waldemar Mierzwa, Dąbrówno 2008.
Pawlicki Ryszard Wojciech, Sikorski Piotr, Wierzba Marek, Ziemia Orzyska. Przewodnik po ścieżkach rowerowych, Orzysz 2004.
Pisz. Z dziejów miasta i powiatu, red. Wanda Korycka, Olsztyn 1970.
Statistisch-Topographisches Adreß-Handbuch von Ostpreussen, Commission bei Wilhelm Koch, Königsberg 1857.
Śliwiński Józef, Z dziejów Rucianego-Nidy i okolic, Olsztyn 1993.
Żurkowska Tekla, Mazurskie cmentarze. Symbole w krajobrazie, Olsztyn 2008.
Strona Gminy Ruciane Nida [30.08.2013]
Bank Danych Lokalnych GUS [10.09.2013]
Deutsche Verwaltungsgeschichte [10.09.2013]
Strona Urzędu Gminy Ruciane Nida [10.09.2013]
Wojewódzka Ewidencja Zabytków [10.09.2013] Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
I hadn't noticed that E-960 also reverted me with accusations of POV editing at Gorczyce, Ełk County. I'm very grateful to HerkusMonte for reinserting the 1928 former name, pointing out it preceded the Third Reich. Since I am now a bit more familiar with sources, I've now expanded the article a little, including a History section, but I'm afraid the history I am able to reference is almost all Prussian. There isn't even an image I could add. Yngvadottir (talk) 09:53, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
Yngvadottir and Piotrus, pls respect the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Also, I'm starting to be concerned that this issue is a POV-push, for example user Yngvadottir just added a new History section to the Końcewo article and it goes from pre-history to "before 1945 it was Germany" in two sentences. In fact, it appears that user Yngvadottir is not really interested in capturing the full in-depth history of any of those places, just (with a narrow focus) adding "before 1945 it was Germany" over and over again, into article after article, not to mention adding and re-adding Nazi German place names in the lead of municipality articles. As I said before, I really can't believe someone is actually advocating giving legitimacy to short-lived revisionist placenames given to municipalities by a totalitarian regime by including them in the lead (I'm not sure any editor that advocates this really though through the possible implications) - I strongly oppose this and this trend should not be tolerated, even if here or there ad hoc such names were previously added. Pls consider that this in effect gives legitimacy to Nazi ideas because especially in East Prussia parts of Pomerania and Silesia, there were large Polish or Slavic minorities, and these names were being changes to deny their culture and identity (as many of the old German placenames were simply a Germanized version of the Slavic or Polish placenames, and the Nazis did not want that cultural link to exist). --E-960 (talk) 17:13, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
Many place names in eastern Germany were changed in the 1920s, prior to the National Socialist era. These name changes were not top-down fascist dictates from Berlin, they were decisions on the part of individual towns and cities who considered themselves patriotic East Prussians. Whatever issues there may have been in the East Prussian plebiscite, it is clear that a majority, if not an overwhelming majority, of Protestant Masurians were pro-German and quite nationalistic considering the popularity of the NSDAP among them. Of course we are also aware that many Masurians fled or were expelled to the west after WW2 as a result of these pro-German feelings. So these name changes in the interwar period, prior to Nazi seizure of control in Germany, are historically relevant and certainly warrant the few extra letters they contribute to their respective articles. And while we may condemn the Nazi-era renamings (e.g. those of 1938) that does not itself make them any less historically relevant. Again, based on the election results in 1933, perhaps most of the Masurians supported these new, entirely Germanized names? I would be interested in reading contemporary sources on this subject.
I notice that the vast removals by Materialscientist are still in effect, which has been disappointing to me as I engage in my own related historical study project. I believe that all the historical German names of these towns and villages should be reinstated, the sweeping removal of them all reeks of POV-pushing and rewriting history apparently out of spite towards the Nazis. As we know the vast majority of the removed place-names predate the Nazis by many years, and these villages were known by those names for centuries. I wonder if this map from 1893 would be eligible as a reference for these historical names? https://www.davidrumsey.com/blog/2011/4/10/karte-des-deutschen-reiches-1893 Ascended Dreamer (talk) 19:59, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Ascended Dreamer makes valid points, but more fundamentally, is correct with respect to Gorczyce, Ełk County: its name was changed in 1928, pre-Third Reich, as noted by HerkusMonte in their revert of E-960. I note that Ascended Dreamer has now appropriately reverted E-960, who is also edit warring at Końcewo against Piotrus, who made the initial reversion to my expansion and subsequently contributed the prehistory. E-960 appears confused between the two articles: it was at the Gorczyce article that I "just" added a History section, in response to their argument that I was giving undue prominence to East Prussia and German names. Please note my edit summary there and elsewhere detailing the basis of my decisions in what I was able to glean from the Polish and German Wikipedias in terms of sources and terms to search on (for Gorczyce there is unreferenced material in both, and the Polish happens to be an undeveloped article) and my point made just above that I am very limited by my inability to read Polish; I have been using government sources linked at both Wikipedias—at Gorczyce, only at de.wiki—to add things like registered monuments and a place being a sołectwo. If someone who can actually read Polish wants to add more information, as Piotrus did at Końcewo, please do! There is, as I have noted, often a series of post-1945 (and pre-1945) changes to the local governing authority; personally, I class that as administrative minutiae, but other editors are more than welcome to differ, and for some of these places one or both Wikipedias also talk about the founding of churches and changes of landowner. Go ahead, find the sources I can't and add what you feel is important to mention. (One might also note that my latest expansion was Sławniowice, where I chased down a book reference for the early attested name Slawnewiz but none of the early history appears to be Polish—Bohemian, and the Duchy of Nysa, at the time the Duchy of Neisse, in the Holy Roman Empire—and I can't read Czech either). E-960 may also not realise that for some villages, the early history is German-speaking, part of the Ostsiedlung. And for Końcewo, pl.wiki has a stub and de.wiki asserts without an appended reference that it was founded in 1758—after the area fell under Prussia. I go by what I find and can reference.
    Also, HerkusMonte has begun to revert MaterialScientist's mass removals of German names. I see general agreement here that those removals should be reverted. I take the point that has been made that they should be reinstated with some context, or at least a reference, which is why I've been expanding articles. Sometimes, that's going to mean adding a lot of German-speaking history. Sometimes, I'm omitting something a Polish (or Czech) speaker could add. Sometimes, that's what the history turns out to have mostly been.
    The discussion is happening here. I referred to it in my edit summary at Końcewo, with a link.
    I have considered removing Nazi-era (1938) names from the lead paragraph while leaving the long-term German names. In fact my re-expansion at Końcewo where I edit conflicted with Piotrus omitted Warnold in response to E-960's point. I reinstated it before saving because Piotrus had restored it. I do think that while the reader should be provided with those short-term and obviously contentious former names, it's important to provide the context and all the more important to reference them. So for all these reasons, I'm going to re-revert E-960 at Końcewo, but this time I'm going to omit Warnold from the lead. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:46, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
Sigh. And the reason you reverted me removing information about archeological findings near the village (among other facts) is because those archeological digs are also Nazi POV pushing? Per BRD, we are discussing things and the consensus is clearly against you. We are here to build an encyclopedia, add content, not censor it. (That said, I am fine with not including short lived names in the lead, I think we have a consensus for that too). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Piotrus, if you are going to create a History section, you need to have an interest in documenting the full historical scope of that particular place. If we have a situation that an editor within the last several days creates a History section and literally adds only one thing to it: "Until 1945, Końcewo was in Germany (East Prussia) and was named Konzewen, in 1938 renamed to Warnold." (that's it, that's the History section), and is reverted for POV, and then re-adds that very section but this time adds a sentence about pre-history just to sidestep the POV argument, it's obvious that the real focus is not about covering the village's full historical context, but just to plant a flag and say "this was Germany". Really... great History section, first the stone age and than before 1945 it was Germany, I guess there was an immediate transition between cavemen and the nation of Germany (with nothing in between). So, if a user added a sentence about pre-history, then a sentence about the Baltic tribes and the Prussian Crusade, and later a sentence about German and Polish settlements in the Mazury region, finally adding information about history in the 19th and 20th centuries including most recent history; I could see an neutral effort to document the history of that place. --E-960 (talk) 06:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Please work on adding the content you would like to see in the article then, do not dismantle other people's efforts to build the articles. —Kusma (talk) 06:30, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Was the historical population of the village Polish, German or mixed? None of this information was included just that this was Germany before 1945. Wikipedia is clear about what a POV-push looks like, either you make an effort to document full history when making the bold step of creating a History section, or the text needs to be reverted for undu-weight. --E-960 (talk) 06:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Kusma, if an editor actually created a History section and name section (in the into) like the one in this article for Włóczno, it would have been reasonable. Instead, we have user Yngvadottir just traying to add blurbs "before 1945 it was Germany" up until the last Ice Age (I guess). --E-960 (talk) 07:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't think we need to write in detail about the flight and expulsion of Germans in every single stub about a village in Poland that has a name in German. —Kusma (talk) 08:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress. (Which amusingly mentions the Polish Biographical Dictionary as an example.) And Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built. If you think some content is undue, add more to balance things out. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:20, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Poles in German Empire, 1910 census
Kusma, but here is the kicker, a lot of municipalities in southern East Prussia, a.k.a. Mazury and Silesia or Pomerania were populated by Poles. So, when you say "before 1945 it was Germany" and conveniently skip over the full history, you are really pushing a POV here. You're only highlighting the point that this was Germany, while omitting the fact that before that almost all those places were Poland and some even retained a Polish population. --E-960 (talk) 08:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Piotrus, pleeease, I've see this already, someone adds "before 1945 it was Germany" and that's the end of that "work in progress" for that stub article for years, so as with the Włóczno example can we at least get a short summary of the full historical scope, before calling it "work in progress". Saying, "before 1945 it was Germany" and then after objections adding a bit about when dinosaurs roamed the earth, in order to placate the critics, is not what I would call valid example of a work in progress... ugh. --E-960 (talk) 08:35, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Looking at the map, I am surprised how German-populated Silesia was, but I agree that "before 1945 it was German" cries out for a mention of the Partitions of Poland. Mentioning a German name and claiming that a place was German are two different things though. —Kusma (talk) 08:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Polish names of Silesian cities, from a 1750 Prussian official document published in Berlin during the Silesian Wars[1]
That's no secret, after German colonization and later Germanization western parts of Pomerania and Silesia were almost fully German by year 1900s, though even in the late 1700s you still had pockets of Poles in those western portions, as this was a gradual process. Also, everyone needs to remember that East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania, were not the Stem Duchies, so you can't say it was Germany (in one shape or form) before 1945 because this is grossly misleading. --E-960 (talk) 08:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
I think it is a fairly common belief that the German Empire was Germany (in one shape or form). "Germany" has taken many shapes and forms over the last 1000 years, and I don't see a huge reason to care about the form from 1000 years ago when a lot of other things were also very different. Sending greetings from the Roman Empire, —Kusma (talk) 09:28, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) E-960, you are edit warring quite grotesquely at Gorczyce, Ełk County and at Końcewo based on an assumption of bad faith and apparently on an assumption that these places have a pre-Prussian Polish history. The latter may or may not be valid. At the Gorczyce article, de.wikipedia has a poorly sourced assertion it was founded in 1484; pl.wikipedia has no history except an unsourced paragraph about a nearby medieval fortification. I have no idea who lived there before the area became Prussian (but am I nuts, isn't that northern East Prussia), and you have indiscriminately removed information added by Piotrus as well as by me (even the context of when the place was renamed, leaving just 2 puzzlingly different former names). At Końcewo you have again removed information added by Piotrus as well as me, and left only unreferenced road access information. Again, de.wikipedia has a date of foundation based on a source I don't fully trust, but in this case it's 1758! (That date, if correct, would put it even later than the 13th-century forest settlements by Germans, of which there were many in southern Silesia, and make it a Prussian-era foundation.) Their history section is almost all administrative changes under Prussia, then Germany, plus how the place voted in the 1920 plebiscite (which I do judge to be undue weight). The Polish article is pretty much useless for expanding ours: a previous voivodeship, then 2 possible etymologies, neither of which makes any sense to me because I can't read Polish to see the connections or what Google has scrambled, and all unsourced. For Końcewo, we had an article better than either of these. For Gorczyce, Ełk County, we had the best article I could come up with, with Piotrus helping. Now we have 2 miserable recentist stubs. I'm going by the sources I trust and can access. My editorial judgement is in play in not grinding through what every local governmental division these places have ever been in, sourced or unsourced, civil and ecclesiastical, and not breaking down the 1885 population figures by Catholic vs. Lutheran. I'd love to include earlier Polish population figures to round out the Prussian and Nazi ones: where are they? (The Polish articles have at most one population figure.) You've cited Włóczno as a good example; are you not aware I wrote most of that article? I am adding what I can find and reference (including the sołectwo at Końcewo). This edit warring is on an invalid basis with what amount to aspersions, it's against consensus, it has the effect of privileging current information with the sop of unreferenced former names, and IMO you need to stop it and better yet instead start adding information yourself as Piotrus has done.
@Piotrus:I just noticed that the source used at de.wiki states that the spelling was fixed at Konzewen without t in 1938; and the local newspaper article I referred to above is this cited at pl:Włóczno: "Włóczno (Achthuben) – nie tylko zapomniana nazwa", Tygodnik Prudnicki, Andrzej Dereń, 48 (575), Prudnik: Spółka Wydawnicza ANEKS, 6 grudnia 2001, s. 19, ISSN 1231-904X. Yngvadottir (talk) 09:39, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
There are more population figures at the link I provied earlier, but they'd need verification. E-960 is welcome to try to verify them and expand the article, rathert than gut it. I think we have a clear consensus that expansion is good, removing content is bad. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Yngvadottir and Piotrus, pls do not edit war and then accuse others of wrong doing, pls see Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle guidelines where it's clear that questionable edits can be reverted and a disscussion should take place. Also, it is worth familiarizing yourself with Wikipedia:What is consensus? - "Consensus is not a majority vote." --E-960 (talk) 10:44, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Nobody here supports your version (removal of all history and other information). But let's double check. We know what me, Yngvadottir and you think. Ping other editors who commented in this discussion so far: @Ascended Dreamer @Kusma @Bermicourt: which version is better? Case 1 (Gorczyce), Case 2 (Końcewo). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:06, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Yngvadottir and Piotrus, you want to create a new History section for those two articles go ahead, but take a bit of time and do some research (your actions give the impression you did not bother to do any in-depth scholarly work), instead you just pasted-in the simplistic and now famous phrase "before 1945 it was Germany". Looking at the map it appears that those areas were primarily inhabited by Poles (that's a fact worth mentioning), so do a bit of research because the burden per Wikipedia guidelines is on you to write a balanced text. Otherwise, we will have a situation where someone adds blatantly unbalanced text to multiple articles and then as user Piotrus wrongly suggests the burden falls on everyone else to try to research meaningful information in order to expand the text to make it balanced. No, you want to take the bold step of setting up a history section in a stub article, you need to write a balanced history. Here for Końcewo in the Encyklopedia Warmii i Mazur[8] it says that according to legend the name derives form the Polish word "koniec" (end) because the settlers came to an end of their journey (this implying these were Polish settlers who came for Mazowsze to Prussia as was the case. --E-960 (talk) 11:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
It is certainly very possible that the village was founded by ethnic Poles, in an area controlled by ethnic Germans. It was certainly in Germany before 1945, and it was not in Poland in any shape or form between its foundation and 1945. By all means improve the article, but please stop edit warring about it with the edit summary of "pls do not edit war". —Kusma (talk) 11:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
This is a repeating situation on articles related to municipalities in Poland (and other contries for that matter), some users just keep focusing on one thing and one thing only: Germany, Germany... it was all Germany I tell you, this was Germany and that was Germany, everything was Germany. But hmmm... in all this there is no mention that those areas were also Polish before that, and also some regions were Swedish, Czech, Austrian, Hungarian or Danish, and often times these regions had mixed population and that Poles lived there (or other Slavic minorities), all that is strangely missing. But, the phrase "before 1945 it was Germany" is pasted into article after article. I ask that you approach history with a bit more objectivity. --E-960 (talk) 11:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Hint: in a Sandbox, write a draft do proper research about a location and then past in the new History section that actually is informative and balanced, and I will support. See Włóczno as an example. --E-960 (talk) 11:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Hint: we don't need your support. We just need you to stop edit warring, removing referenced content. Feel free to expand the articles with "more balanced" content yourself. Constructively speaking, if we can use content from Encyklopedia Warmii i Mazur, that will be pretty easy (for that region, at least). If. See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Encyklopedia_Warmii_i_Mazur. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:52, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:What is consensus? - "Consensus is not a majority vote.", so now that you don't like my opinion on the new edits, you just want to commandeer the articles? Yup... my recommendations were so unreasonable, and they included such crazy suggestions like do your research about a place in order to include a brief but full scope of history for that location, and be objective and neutral because those regions have complicated histories, so don't just add "before 1945 it was Germany" and that's your newly added History section to a stub article. --E-960 (talk) 13:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I would support a mass revert of Materialscientist's edits. Here at Frysztak they also removed the Yiddish name, of a town that had a 3/4 Jewish population before the Holocaust. —Kusma (talk) 11:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Kusma, everyone will get sanctioned because clearly the discussion is still pending and the rules are clear on what consensus should be. Consensus is not a vote, and I provided a clear solution to how a new History section can be included, if those recommendations and considered, that we have a solution and the issue is solved. --E-960 (talk) 14:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Now at WP:ANEW. You did not "provide a clear solution", you made an unreasonable demand. —Kusma (talk) 14:35, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Update: E-960 has been blocked for a week. —Kusma (talk) 15:22, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Piotrus, you earlier suggestion is down right cynical, you propose a solution where someone carelessly adds blatantly unbalanced text to multiple articles, and then you suggest that the burden of making the text more balanced falls on everyone else who will now need to research additional information for each of those articles in order to expand the text, all the while the unbalanced and undue weight content remains in plance. So, if some one creates a History section and just writes in "before 1945 it was Germany" across a dozen articles, then other editors need do actual research so they can add meaningful historical content to correct the imbalance. That's not going to fly and I think most other editors who will look at this suggestion will not agree with you. --E-960 (talk) 14:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

My sense is that the existing guidelines at WP:PLACE cover most of this ground anyway. A summary of the relevant points is that:

  • Relevant foreign language names (ones used by at least 10% of English sources or by a group of people who used to inhabit the place) are permitted in the lede
  • Alternatively, if there are several, they can go into a "Names" section
  • The title name should be used consistently throughout the article, unless there is a widely accepted historical English name for a specific historical context. I assume that means if a town was part of the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps for several centuries; the history section for that period should use the historical name, which will often be the German name used in English sources to refer to that place at that time. This is no different from the example given in the guidelines of Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul, which has changed its name over time.

The guidance does not distinguish names used by an occupying power during a time of war. My sense is that such names need not be in the lede, but should be mentioned as part of the relevant historical account.

Cheers. Bermicourt (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. We probably wouldn't be here if Materialscientist was moving, not removing, such names. On an aside, WP:LEAD states that the lead should summarize key content, not introduce new items. Of course, many village articles are to short to meaningfully dinstinguish between lead and non-lead content, but once we add a history section, and short lived names can be mentioned there. (Or in the names section). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 23:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
It seems to me that someone will have to go through Materialscientist's removals and revert them one by one, probably someone who has rollback privileges given the number of his edits. Looks like he did a bunch on & around September 11, 23, and October 5, perhaps on more dates than that... I have a book on its way in the mail that has the old names of settlements east of the Oder-Neiße line. It is this book - Ortsnamenverzeichnis der Ortschaften jenseits von Oder u. Neiße, which is used by HerkusMonte in his limited reverts with this citation: [2].
I am completely unfamiliar with AWB, I do not know if it would be possible to revert all of his removals while programming it to include the reference after the German name? Or perhaps revert the changes and then use AWB to automatically add the reference in all articles that have "German: NAME" in them which are tagged as places in Poland or Russia. I don't know the capabilities of that bot. But then there is still the issue of places in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia which also had their former names removed. If the inclusion of these names requires a reference (which is a standard with which I am not at all sure if I agree), it will have to come from another book. Ascended Dreamer (talk) 12:09, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I have read most of the discussion and it seems to me that most participants agree that the removal of German place names that were part of Germany before 1945 is unjustified. It seems that hardly anyone opposes the use of the template "lang-de", introducing the name, without any addition of words like "formelly".
Personally, I favor leaving only one, the most popular, German name in the lede, even if historically there have been several. For example, in the case of Gorczyce, historically there are several: Gorczytzen, Gortzitzen, Gorczitzen, Deumenrode. After all, we usually give only one Polish one (e.g., in the lead of the Chorzów article, there is no name of the Królewska Huta, or the Gorzów Wielkopolski lede does not mention the name Kobylagóra etc.). In addition, I think we should avoid Nazi names, as well as names that were in use for a short time, such as Deumenrode. Marcelus (talk) 14:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
@Marcelus Right, but you'd be fine with all the other names mentioned in the article body? In sections on history and/or names? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:15, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, of course, if they are notable, normal guidelines should apply. Marcelus (talk) 07:30, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Endorse a mass reversal of Materialscientist's AWB edits removing former names, as a bare minimum to restore the encyclopedia. Where theirs is no longer the last edit, the article should be examined to see whether a reference went missing in a restoration. I note that HerkusMonte hasn't edited since the 22nd; there are undoubtedly still a large number of these articles needing reverts. Ideally, the articles would also be expanded, which would provide a better place for that reference and for short-term names (but for Gorczyce, Ełk County, most of the variants mentioned by Marcelus are purely spelling variations). I don't think a separate "Name" section is a good idea in general; that would give more undue prominence to 1920s and 1930s renamings, in my opinion. But if etymologies such as the two unsourced ones at pl:Gorczyce (powiat ełcki) can be sourced, then such a section might be justified. However, it would be a massive job to expand all these little articles. I did a few (and to a certain extent it was interesting!) but even though E-960 has been blocked for edit warring and everyone else who's posted here appears to agree that the expansions were useful (and of course Piotrus stepped in to help offset my lack of knowledge of Polish), I'm inclined to not do any more, leaving it to others to expand them now that there's wide awareness that the articles need improvement and that in many cases there's material on German or Polish Wikipedia or both that can be used (starting with updated populations and whether the place is a sołectwo). I'll mention that I think 1920s renames (i.e., pre-Nazi) have a better case for being in the intro than 1938 renames, but that my original change of heart toward including the latter in the intro was the context of a mass change of over 1500 placenames, which I'd been unaware of when I initially spoke to Materialscientist about these articles. I believe making readers aware of that as yet another thing that was done by the Nazis is encyclopedically important, so in my view that justified putting such names also in the intro. And it should probably also be noted that Materialscientist is again making AWB edits to articles within the purview of this WikiProject with more than one change made, but an inadequate edit summary that does not note the other (more substantive) change: the latest change to Frysztak is now this, where they deleted all red-linked notable people while mentioning only the change of "Warszawa" to "Warsaw". But now I think I'm bowing out. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:37, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
Sigh, I don't see how removing this list is helpful. Sure, WP:V, but really, it's make work - ideally this should've been referenced, not removed. Doesn't seem dubious or spammy. @Materialscientist Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:23, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Automated Restoration of Content

At this point it looks like a broad consensus has been reached here that the former German names of these towns which are now in Poland and Russia should be present in the articles. As far as verifiability is concerned, this book - [3] - has the information needed for towns east of the Oder-Neiße Line. As I have said, I am not very familiar with Wikipedia editing tools, but I would propose that all of Materialscientist's removals of these names be reverted, and then the aforementioned reference being automatically included after the former German name for all articles that have lang-de which are located in modern Poland and Kaliningrad Oblast, RU. It would be extremely tedious to sort through Materialscientist's extensive edit history to revert his edits, particularly for a user without rollback privileges. And I am only guessing it would be possible to automatically add the citation in all the appropriate articles; perhaps it is a harder task than that.

It is certainly possible that some of the formerly listed German names are incorrect, erroneous transcriptions or otherwise mistaken. However the vast majority can be assumed to be correct, and incorrect names can be dealt with on a case by case basis as those errors are noticed. The removal of these names, >99% of which are accurate, on the basis of the <1% that may be incorrect, is not justified. There is no agenda to assign false German names instead of the true ones to towns formerly located in Germany which all formerly had German names. Ascended Dreamer (talk) 17:37, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure we have consensus for automatic restoration. In some cases I think the consensus was to discuss the name not in the lead but only in the history or name section. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:16, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
That's right, in the cases of towns whose names were changed/Germanized in the 1930s and which were only known by those names for less than a decade. However in the vast majority of cases in which the names were removed, there was only one German name listed, that by which it had been known around the start of the 20th century. In most cases all the preceding German names for centuries were spelling variants. Over the course of my study, I have found that the spelling of some towns' names was changed between the 1870s and 1890s, during the early years of the Second Reich.
As far as name changes of towns, mostly in East Prussia, it looks like there is usually only one other name aside from the traditional, pre-WW1 name with standardized spelling. This other name is the Germanized name adopted in some towns in the 1920s and early 1930s, or alternatively a Germanized name assigned to the town by Berlin in 1938. I have not found any case where the towns were subjected to renaming on both occasions. I support the inclusion of two former German names in the lead in both of these cases, some example formats:
Krasnoznamensk (German: Lasdehnen (before 1938), Haselberg (1938-1946))
Nesterov (German: Stallupönen; from 1938: Ebenrode)
Olecko (German: Marggrabowa, renamed Treuburg in 1928)
Ozyorsk (German: Darkehmen, renamed in 1938 to Angerapp)
In all of these cases, as these are relatively large towns both former German place names (pre-WW1 and pre-WW2) are still listed in the article leads. This doesn't seem to be an issue here and it is a reasonable standard for all towns which were part of Germany prior to WW2, or which historically have had a majority of German-speakers. One area of controversy may be places in former Posen Province, etc, which were administered by Germans for over a century but in which German speakers were never the majority. But in the course of my study, I remember that most places like this did not have the German name listed even before Materialscientist's removals. Ascended Dreamer (talk) 13:09, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
I second what Marcelus proposed earlier, and that is to leave only one, the most popular, German name in the lead. As pointed out by Marcelus: "in the case of Gorczyce, historically there are several: Gorczytzen, Gortzitzen, Gorczitzen, Deumenrode. After all, we usually give only one Polish one (e.g., in the lead of the Chorzów article, there is no name of the Królewska Huta, or the Gorzów Wielkopolski lede does not mention the name Kobylagóra etc.). In addition, I think we should avoid Nazi names, as well as names that were in use for a short time, such as Deumenrode." Also, as I mentioned earlier. I don't think we should be adding words such as "formerly" or dates next to old names, the intro name text should focus on language (Polish, German, Kashubian, Silesian, Czech, etc.) and the names themselves, instead of going off on a tangent and suggesting affiliations or chronologies (that's separate matter). --E-960 (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Per WP:PLACE:
  • Relevant foreign language names, least 10% of English sources or by a group of people who used to inhabit the place (pls not that per example in WP:PLACE the focus is on people/language not dates or national affiliations)
  • Alternatively, if there are several, they can go into a "Names" section
--E-960 (talk) 18:08, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Right, name variations (spelling variations) can be discussed in dedicated sections (preferably on names, but history will do as well). They do not need to clutter the lead. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:26, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa – biblioteka cyfrowa regionu śląskiego – Wznowione powszechne taxae-stolae sporządzenie, Dla samowładnego Xięstwa Sląska, Podług ktorego tak Auszpurskiey Konfessyi iak Katoliccy Fararze, Kaznodzieie i Kuratusowie Zachowywać się powinni. Sub Dato z Berlina, d. 8. Augusti 1750". Sbc.org.pl. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
  2. ^ Kaemmerer, Margarete (2004). Ortsnamenverzeichnis der Ortschaften jenseits von Oder u. Neiße (in German). ISBN 3-7921-0368-0.
  3. ^ Kaemmerer, Margarete (2004). Ortsnamenverzeichnis der Ortschaften jenseits von Oder u. Neiße (in German). ISBN 3-7921-0368-0.

Disambiguation of placenames on List of cities and towns in Poland

A large number of places have been to added to List of cities and towns in Poland in recent edits which need disambiguation because there are places with this name in more than one Vivodeship and it often unclear which is the intended link. You can identify these by going to your Preferences (drop down list top right), going to the "gadets" tab, scrolling down to "Appearance" and putting a tick next to "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange". Any help appreciated.— Rod talk 16:04, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Notice of RFC

An RFC is in progress on whether the Free City of Danzig should be listed as a belligerent in the Invasion of Poland. Participation is welcome at: Talk:Invasion_of_Poland#RFC:_Free_City_of_Danzig. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:07, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Polish constituencies naming policy

Dear editors! Cause of recent events in Polish politics English Wikipedia has seen increased number of edits on related topics, including Polish constituencies of Sejm and Senate. Some issues resolved as of lack consensus on the matter of naming those articles. For clarity of navigating through articles and correctness of these names I propose creating following naming policy:

Sources

Most recent official sources avalible in English refer to Polish: okręg wyborczy as 'constituency', despite its literal translation being 'electoral district'. See: here, here, here (PKW) and here (Senate).

Constituencies in Poland are numbered from 1 to 41 (Sejm), and 1 to 100 (Senate). They do not have proper names like it is in most English speaking countries. Their official list can be found in Annexe no. 1 (Sejm) and Annexe no. 2 (Senate) of the Election Code of 2011 (ISAP).

Naming

As of the above I propose following naming policy:

  • Sejm Constituency no. X

for the constituencies of the Sejm, where an X is a number.

  • Senate Constituency X (Poland)

for the constituency of the Senate, where an X is a number.

Argumentation

Sejm constituencies in my opinion do not need specifing their Polishness ;) in the title because of the Sejm unique name. That is the opposite in case of the Senate constituencies (as noticed by Moondragon21 (talk · contribs) in Old revision of Poland's 1st Senate district).

The c in Constituency in the title should be in my opinion capitalised as it refers to one specific entity and therefore becomes its name. However when mentioning Senate constituencies or general entity of Senate constituency it should be lowercased.

When mentioning Sejm constituency its number should be used primarely, as it is strictly defined and widely used. Proper name of the coresponding constituency electoral commission (okręgowa komisja wyborcza, OKW) is not, e.g. Sejm website using city names without roman numeral here. Therefore OKW proper name should be used secondary, as an adjunctive way of locating the constituency, e.g. in brackets, like it is in Template:Parliamentary constituencies in Poland or here on official website by PKW (using square brackets).

Connected

As of the above, names of following should be revised in my opinion:

Also, what do you think of merging pages List of constituencies for the Senate of the Republic of Poland and Electoral districts of Poland? Or maybe extracting from the recent list of Sejm constituencies? (It should be symetrical in my opinion). — Antoni12345 (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

P.S. I opose changing the name of Electoral districts of Poland, because I know it is unified way of describing specifics of constituencies in different countries (e,g. Electoral districts of Estonia, Electoral districts of Iran). Therefore maybe Category:Electoral districts of Poland name also shouldn't be change, but then subcategory Category:Electoral districts of Poland (Senate) i think should be deleted (symetry!). — Antoni12345 (talk) 08:54, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Searches on TERYT

All town and city articles have a reference to the TERYT website - http://www.stat.gov.pl/broker/access/prefile/listPreFiles.jspa which then gets redirected to https://eteryt.stat.gov.pl/eTeryt/rejestr_teryt/aktualnosci/aktualnosci.aspx. But this seems to only be a home page. For the benefit of those of us who are not fluent in Polish, can someone please give details of how to search for a particular place name? Thanks, Kiwipete (talk) 21:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@Kiwipete I think the old links have rotten. Worse, the database has changed (they have pruned some errors which means some prior searchers which generated results give nothing as the removed entries are, well, removed...). That aside, the search is now here: https://eteryt.stat.gov.pl/eTeryt/rejestr_teryt/udostepnianie_danych/baza_teryt/uzytkownicy_indywidualni/wyszukiwanie/wyszukiwanie.aspx?contrast=default There are no links to results, so you have to query the database from the search url I fear. I am not aware of a better way to link to TERYT at this point. @Stok Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Idea: Competition Wikipedia:Polish Month inspired by Wikipedia:Asian Month

Wikipedia:Asian Month already has a long tradition and regularly produces a good number of solid articles. Wikimania 2024 will take place in Kraków. In the German Wikipedia, we came up with the idea of organizing a Polish Month competition modelled on the Asian Month competition. The aim of the competition would be to increase the number of articles with Polish topics in as many Wikipedias as possible. The rules and tools of the Asian Month competition could be adopted. What do you think? Who would take part? Who else could be involved? (The Wikimania organisers? Wikimedia Poland?) Kind regards, --~~ Sebastian Wallroth (talk) 15:36, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Sebastian Wallroth This sounds fun. For getting people from pl wiki interested and hopefully active, post at pl:Wikipedia:Kawiarenka/Wikipedyści (if there is a better place, I can't recall it). See also pl:Wikipedia:Ambasada. WikiProject Poland is happy to be involved but it is not very active. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:45, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Third Cabinet of Mateusz Morawiecki

At Third Cabinet of Mateusz Morawiecki, is it WP:DUE to include 'Morawiecki's third government was dubbed "two-week" or "zombie government" by various media, due to its anticipated short-livedness.'? I saw the matter mentioned here at ANI and am hoping others with knowledge of the topic will monitor the article. Johnuniq (talk) 09:29, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't sound like a problem to me, but this discussion should be held on article's talk page, not here. (Here we should just link that discussion). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Robots of Stanisław Lem#Requested move 6 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Robots of Stanisław Lem#Requested move 6 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Which English?

@Max19582: Apologies for the late reply. As Poland is a European country, I thought the articles related to Poland should be written in British English (rather than American English). What do you think? JSH-alive/talk/cont/mail 10:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@JSH-alive: In this case the Wikipedia policies address the issue pretty clearly:
An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation. (from MOS:TIES)
English is neither an official nor administrative language in Poland. It's viewed as a foreign language there, and hence Poland can't be described as an "English-speaking nation."
The following policies apply here instead:
When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary. With few exceptions (e.g., when a topic has strong national ties or the change reduces ambiguity), there is no valid reason for changing from one acceptable option to another.
When no English variety has been established and discussion does not resolve the issue, use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety. The established variety in a given article can be documented by placing the appropriate variety of English template on its talk page. (from MOS:RETAIN) Max19582 (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:WuWa, Wrocław#Requested move 15 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:WuWa, Wrocław#Requested move 15 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Updating Polish constitutional crisis article

I've now added a "Removal of PiS government" section to the Polish constitutional crisis article that contains information about the recent developments, including the recent arrests. It needs much, much more from someone who actually understands Polish politics. — The Anome (talk) 15:43, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Kraków

Kraków has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

World Kociewie Day

As World Kociewie Day on the 10 February is approaching I thought I might post here to see if anyone would be interested in helping to improve the Wikipedia entry for Kociewie?

I've also had a go at creating a Kociewian userbox here. Wikociewie (talk) 12:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

@Wikociewie My first thought was that we need to split the article about the people (Kociewiacy) from the region. The issue is, I cannot locate any RS using the term Kociewians in English; the few English sources mentioning that group use the Polish term Kociewians. In either case, I think creating such an article (about the ethnic group) should be a priority. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:11, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes I think this is a very good idea! Wikociewie (talk) 09:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Stara Kosianka#Requested move 2 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Stara Kosianka#Requested move 2 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 16:32, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Issues with Polish village names

I left a discussion at the village pump about the mass errors of Polish village names on English Wikipedia. Ilawa-Kataka (talk) 17:23, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Hatnotes on articles that are disambiguated

Hi all, I have had a request from @Shhhnotsoloud to remove the hatnote I added to this article. I neither completely agree nor completely disagree with their sentiments, but it seems that the use of hatnotes, in particular Other places and See also is widespread in articles that are disambiguated. I can find no mention of hatnotes in WP:MOSPOL. Could project members please add their thoughts? Thanks, Kiwipete (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I think they are helpful and woudl support keeping them. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
The relevant guideline applicable to all articles is Wikipedia:Hatnote: "The purpose of a hatnote is to help readers locate a different article if the one they are at is not the one they're looking for", and specifically WP:NAMB: "It is usually preferable not to have a hatnote when the name of the article is not ambiguous." A hatnote being "helpful" is not enough: helpful material that does not meet the purpose of a hatnote should go in the body of the article or at the See also section. Hatnotes, especially long ones or multiple ones, are intrusive, and separate the reader from the material they are really looking for. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 12:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this discussion, but I'd like to point out that hatnotes on disambiguated pages make little sense as long as you do your search entirely inside Wikipedia. However, if you search in Google, the first result is likely to be an already disambiguated Wikipedia article, but it may not be what your are looking for. In that case, a hatnote may actually be helpful. — Kpalion(talk) 11:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 6#Roza Potocka (1780-1862)

In the above discussion, a couple editors think the above subject may be notable but have provided no evidence of notability. I would like to avoid pushing this to AfD unnecessarily, so can someone who is familiar with Polish sources be able to weigh in on the notability question? -- Tavix (talk) 14:27, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Krajków, Łódź Voivodeship

Notice

The article Krajków, Łódź Voivodeship has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

This article states that it belongs to Gmina Wieluń, but its related article on the Polish wikipedia states that it is in Gmina Mokrsko. What's more, the Polish article states that it is part of the town of Krzyworzeka, Łódź Voivodeship, i.e. not a separate town in its own right. There is no content here that could be merged into Krzyworzeka.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Kiwipete (talk) 08:38, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

IPA transcriptions; need help

Please see these contribs from a new account: [9]. I have almost no knowledge of IPA and have no idea if this is correct or not. Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:26, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@Hammersoft Neither do I. Maybe @I-hate-informal-Polish-IPA-transcription will explain. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:10, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
All of their edits have been reverted by @Nardog - maybe they can also comment? I also thought that the correct template to use is {{IPAc-pl}}. Kiwipete (talk) 07:43, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for review

Dear editors, if someone would be willing to or had some free time to review my recent rewrite of the list of Ministers of the Interior of Poland, I would be greatful. As I'm a beginer in editing with proper references :-) I would be thankful for both editorial and meritoric feedback on my edits.

While reviewing please note I deliberately used title "Minister of Internal Affairs" with regard to the interwar and communist period, and "Minister of the Interior" to the modern era – in the first case there were no official English translations of the title so I used the direct translation of it, whereas in the second case there was an English translation used by the MSW which is the one mentioned. Also please give your opinion on using coloured background of the party name cell in the last one of the tables (in other two it wouldn't serve any pupose in my opinion) – I was using here and in other aspects the pattern established by the British lists of ministers, for e.g. here.

I also proposed merging the article Ministry of the Interior (Poland) into this article. I have steated my reasons here and they stand unchanged. (I haven't kept my promise on the date stated, but I was distracted lately :-). — Antoni12345 (talk) 13:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk

I've created an article for Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk. Unfortunately, I cannot read Polish, so I have to rely on machine translation from sources, so I may have made errors. Could some native Polish speaker review the article, and check it against the native-language sources?

She is also mentioned in this book, to which I don't have access. — The Anome (talk) 18:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Lists of councilors at Warsaw City Council

Hi, the article Warsaw City Council currently contains six lists of the council members, which I wonder if provide a reader with any meaningful information. Also overall majority of listed persons do not have individual articles, and in my opinion would fail to meet notability guidelines for creating them. I would be graetful for any opinion from more experienced editors. Chears!

P.S. Alternatively, maybe creating separete article-list titled "List of Warsaw City Council members", where councilors of all terms could be listed is an option.-- Antoni12345 (talk) 19:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Stadion im. Kazimierza Górskiego (Płock)#Requested move 7 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Stadion im. Kazimierza Górskiego (Płock)#Requested move 7 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 18:39, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Upper Silesian metropolitan area#Requested move 6 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Upper Silesian metropolitan area#Requested move 6 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Developing Countries WikiContest

Starting this July, we will see a new contest on the scene - the Developing Countries WikiContest (WP:DCWC)! Think of it as a WikiCup but only for articles and media on developing countries.

Competitors may submit GAs, GTs, FAs, FTs, FLs, FPs, and DYK and ITN entries from/on developing countries to gain points and climb the leaderboard. Points are also awarded to those who review GAs, FAs and FLs.

Poland is listed as a developing country for the purposes of this contest and articles related to it are eligible to be submitted for points, so I encourage everyone here to sign up and compete with editors from around the world to create high-quality content!

Append your name to the DCWC signup page today!

Best wishes, Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 07:08, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Eryk Pomorski

The discussion at Talk:Eric of Pomerania#Eryk Pomorski would benefit from input from a Polish-speaking editor. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 11:23, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Juozapas Albinas Herbačiauskas#Requested move 24 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Juozapas Albinas Herbačiauskas#Requested move 24 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 11:41, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Polish minority in the Czech Republic

Polish minority in the Czech Republic has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 20:13, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Second Northern War#Requested move 23 June 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Second Northern War#Requested move 23 June 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Polyamorph (talk) 08:00, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Sněžka", Śnieżka or an English exonym, if there is one ?

A discussion at Talk:Sněžka#Requested move 17 July 2024, regarding a mountain on the Polish—Czech border, may be of interest. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

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