![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | Archive 23 | → | Archive 25 |
Maybe now they will start actually discussing, and following discussion comments, and explaining, instead of just editing away on a completely biased source, such as the ISDP. HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 22:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Also, sniping doesn't show clear intent for murder, especially since no one saw the crime taking place. A Car Bomb does show intent for murder. Way to prove yourself wrong Xeeron. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I am truly wondering if pro-Georgian editors have mastered the art of reading my posts. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Elysander, it appears that you are unable to understand basic military tactics. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Dear Grey Fox, once again I shall repeat: reading comprehension is a wonderful thing, HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 16:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Is your guys' plan to sipmly be superbly annoying until we tire of it and get the name changed? Because you seem to be absolutely inept at proving that "2008 South Ossetia War" is POV. And Xeeron, South Ossetia War in terms of searching IS equal to South + Ossetia + War, it's basic search engine principles. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 14:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Narking still has trouble either reading or dating HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Congratulation on the stellar job you did at nitpicking Xeeron, you must really be #1 in that area. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 13:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Again Xeeron - you excel at missing the intent, but successfully nitpick! Good job! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:35, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I am just amazed at how desperate the pro-Georgian editors are at nitpicking to find those non-existant victories. "But they didn't sink the boat in combat, they sank it in the harbor - those Russians, clearly defeated!" Hahaha, cute. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
If you fail at reading comprehension, you shouldn't be here Grey Fox. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
And I didn't say anything about you in the previous quote - reading comprehension is your best friends sometimes, you should try it once in a while. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Ok, who here fails at reading comprehension? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
So then putting up a neutrality dispute, and then making seven edits, without discussing most of them here, in a span of two hours, would be quite unprofessional, right? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC) Directed at Kober.
Thing is, pro-Georgian editors are used to getting their way on Wikipedia. Thus it is frustrating for them to find an article where Russia is placed in a positive light, even though Russia's actions in this case deserve award, not blame. (…) The challenge before pro-Georgian editors now, is to spin the undisputed truth into propaganda. It's easy when it's disputed, but with undisputed truth, it's impossible, hence the frustration, despite this article lacking Russian POV. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I have said that the users, like Kober all of whose edits (commenting on edits here, not editor) just happen to lean Georgian, due to a miracle, crave that this article needs to have a pro-Georgian POV, but the article lacked that until Kober's edits were made. Furthermore, unlike Xeeron who actually discusses his edits, to an extent, Kober doesn't feel the need to do so and then acts surprised when his edits are reverted. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Xeeron, you cannot edit, just because the majority of Google's hits say so. If you want to undo an edit, argue it here. We've been over this so many damn times, with the title, with the casualty box, that quite frankly most editors have gotten it by now. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Obviously you all have failed to read my comments and suggestions below about being civil. There are issues among all of you with edit summaries that either are plain misleading or don't state the full story. You guys are dragging out old issues. You all seem to mistrust everyone else.
With that noted, I'm going to try to poke you all to discussing the actual issues on the content of the article. Could you all please list parts of the article that you object to. Keep each bullet point to less then 100 (preferably less then 50) words and sign the bullet point with your name. Try to avoid duplicate issues and limit yourselves to 2 or 3 each. I'll place a demo:
Finally this is a blanket warning to all editors on this talk page, any further attacks or talking about the editors and not content may result in blocks for both disruption and violation of our norms of civility. I know this is an extreme measure, but as this is a touchy subject, I expect all of you to be extremely careful with your dealings with other editors from this point on. This goes for all of you. If you have not attacked or discussed other editors, great job, please don't start. —— nix eagle email me 18:25, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
"Some ethnic Georgians did choose to stay despite the conflict. Those in Tskhinvali are mostly elderly people who have been living here for years. Misha, 69 years old, used to teach science at South Ossetia's only university. A former boxer, he runs five miles a day and puts many youngsters to shame. During the war in the early nineties, his wife and kids left for Georgia proper and never came back. But Misha could not even imagine moving - Tskhinvali was his home. Until this August, Misha has been visiting his family in Tbilisi several times a year. Now, he has no idea if he will ever get to do this again." It's a very nice entry.
I have stated all this before, multiple times. And yet no counter-arguments resulted but the edits, contrary to this were made anyways. HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 03:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I have locked this page for 3 days, the article is currently the subject of a long and drawn out editwar. Let me state now that the behavior on all sides has been very
disruptive. I'm not going to attempt to pin blame on any one side. Lets all remember first off that this topic in itself is controversial.
Noting that the current debate seems to be over if a source is or is not reliable. Please discuss that here before the page goes unprotected. I am asking that this discussion happen civiliy without reference to who is on what side, or Ad hominem attacks. I will be monitoring the discussion, checking in at least daily. Therefor I am asking you guys nicely to adhere to our civility rules.
You guys may request the page be unprotected either by posting to my talk page, or here, however early unprotection should not be done until there is agreement on the status of this source and other active issues. Please take this break from editing the page as a chance for a breather and a chance to discuss future changes.
When the page becomes unprotected, multiple reverts to the same section of the page (over the same content, even if the edits are slightly different), regardless if the person doing the reverts is different will result in my considering those edits disruptive. —— nix eagle email me 22:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Human Rights Watch’s observations on the ground and dozens of interviews conducted led
us to conclude that the South Ossetian forces sought to ethnically cleanse this set of Georgian villages: that is, the destruction of the homes in these villages was deliberate, systematic, and carried out on the basis of the ethnic and imputed political affiliations of the residents of these villages, with the express purpose of forcing those who remained to leave
and ensuring that no former residents would return.
South Ossetian forces over a period of weeks deliberately and systematically destroyed ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia that had been administered by the Georgian government. They looted, beat, threatened, and unlawfully detained numerous ethnic Georgian civilians, and killed several, on the basis of the ethnicity and imputed political affiliations of the residents of these villages, with the express purpose of forcing those who remained to leave and ensuring that no former residents would return. From this, Human Rights Watch has concluded that South Ossetian forces attempted to ethnically cleanse these villages. Approximately 22,000 villagers, the majority of whom had fled South Ossetia before the conflict started, remain displaced... To the extent that a number of these prohibited acts were committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population, they may be prosecuted as crimes against humanity.
-- Kober Talk 04:58, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I think we need to make clear that it was the Ossetians who conducted the alleged expulsion of Georgians, and also that not all Georgians were expulsed (or whatever the verb is.) I suggest changing the sentence in the infobox to: "Expulsion of most ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia and from the Kodori Gorge by South Ossetian militias." Offliner ( talk) 08:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
(reindent) How about "escape followed by expulsion of most ethnic Georgians..."? ( Igny ( talk) 18:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC))
One of the predominate issues I'm seeing on this article is what exact troop count to put on the page. A suggestion for you guys may be to express the counts as a range, using multiple sources to say X says count for country A is B and Y says the count for country A is C. I have a feeling that you guys are not going to find a "definite" troop count so soon after the event. I'm not saying you guys must do this or anything, but this is a valid option and one that I do not see mentioned in the talk as far as I can see. Other solutions may exist, but you guys need to agree to something you all can live with.
http://www.isdp.eu/files/publications/pp/08/0808Georgia-PP2.pdf
That's the link: quick summary is that big bad Russia invaded poor little Georgia, for no real reason, other then Georgia wanting to enter NATO, and that Europeans should all be terrified of big bad Russia, which is much worse then the economic crisis. Here's what the article considers a fact: "Russia gradually increases its number of ground troops in South Ossetia, outnumbering the 9,000 Georgian troops by nearly two to one". So 6,000 = 9,000 * 2? Wow. And the entire article is exactly like that. I'm going to remove it from our encyclopedia, there's no place for Yellow Journalism here. HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 00:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
The ISDP report is amazingly biased. It basically just describes the Georgian version of events without questioning it at all. Another reason why we shouldn't use that report as a source too much, is that it was written pretty early, in August, before certain facts about the conflict came public. Offliner ( talk) 01:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
This is amazing. The isdp report is a scientific paper, compared to the mere news reports we have as the majority of other sources. Its three authors are (check their CVs [4], [5], [6]) authors working in the field. They work at in sweden, have been educated there and from their names might also be swedish nationals. Regarding credibility, this is wastely superior to short news reports (often even without given author). You remove it simply because you don't like their message, with a rediculous justification. They say it was about 2*9000 Russian soldiers there. Some guy here on the talk page (you) claims it is 6000, without giving any sources at all. Guess what, go to sweden, get a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies, write about that topic from some years, publish a douzen acadamic papers and I might consider taking your word over theirs. Till then, stop removing sourced material from the article. -- Xeeron ( talk) 16:25, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
I really cannot see how the ISDP paper would be "scientific" in any way, other than that it was written by people with PhDs. I have three complaints about using the paper as a source.
Still, I'm not against using this paper as a source in the article. But if at all possible, we should be using something something other than this. I'm sure that no one will disagree with me that the paper isn't very balanced, or that it was published very early. So if possible, why not use something more balanced instead? Personally, I would also prefer material published by more reputable sources than the many US-funded, "value promoting" political research organizations, which I've personally often found quite biased in matters such as these. Offliner ( talk) 02:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
My three complaints were directed against Xeeron's claim, that the ISDP report is somehow better than other sources, since it's "scientific" and "more neutral." I've tried to argue, that it is actually neither. Yes, I do support using Moscow Defense Brief, and object to using ISDP. Here's the reasoning: the MDB article talks about military action, which is mostly a neutral thing, not about the blame game. There is not much in the MDB article that would be disputed by other sources. The only problematic claims could be
1) that Georgia started the war (but this is indeed now the most widespread point of view in the international media. It is only disputed by Georgia itself, and early international opinions, which almost all seemed to endorse the Georgian position, but the opinions changed later as we know), 2) the claim that Georgia had concentrated up to 16,000 troops in the South Ossetian border before war. This claim is partly supported: Spiegel says that 3 Georgian brigades began the ground assault on Tskhinvali. All sources confirm that a major Georgian artillery onslaught was launced on August 7, which probably implies the presence of an artillery brigade near the border. The list of killed Georgian servicemen confirms, that all the units mentioned in the MDB article took casualties. Since we know, that outside South Ossetia the Georgians only withdrew without putting up a fight, it is reasonable to assume, that most of the deaths in the list occured in South Ossetia. Other than those two, it's difficult to find any claim in the MDB article that would be in danger of being disputed by other reliable sources.
The ISDP report is different. It makes extremely heavy accusations, many of which are now disputed by other sources. Just take a look at the "conclusions" section of the paper. It is clear that the nature of this paper is completely different than that of the MDB article. Offliner ( talk) 09:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Looking at this edit, I was left wondering where the name Caucasus conflict comes from, why you might think that it is deserves a prominent place than all the others (especially the one it replaced) and when you were going to share those insights with us. -- Xeeron ( talk) 16:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone object to removing the "also known as..." line from the lead completely? As it has been said, the line is redundant since we have a whole "naming" section which lists the different names for the conflict. Removing the line would be an easy way to solve this dispute. Offliner ( talk) 02:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you have read these already, but here's something I recently found that could be used in the article: Offliner ( talk) 12:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The only casualty information I used from it was that the 4th Brigade suffered the heaviest casualties. The casualty list confirms this:
Maybe we should include this list to the article? Offliner ( talk) 15:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the articles by Kotlyarov and Ovchinsky: They are both part of one volume of "Russia in Global affairs". We should use the pdf of the full journal, which is online at http://www.globalaffairs.ru/docs/2008_english4.pdf when quoting them. Note that there are also several other interesting articles in that issue. A slight concern is the fact that the Russian minister of Foreign affairs sits on the editorial board. However several other distinguished European politicians are listed as well, so one can assume that his influence on editorial decisions is small. -- Xeeron ( talk) 16:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any need for such complexity. Another article by Charles King contains much more neutral and comprehensive text which can be used as a good summary for the 2004 events:
"Emboldened by the success in Adjaria, Saakashvili next moved against South Ossetia, the region in north-central Georgia which has effectively existed as an independent state for more than a decade. Saakashvili ordered Georgian police and interior ministry forces to close down one of the region's chief sources of revenue, a vast black market complex which sold foodstuffs and fuel smuggled from Russia. In response, South Ossetia's leadership upped the ante by announcing preparations to defend their unrecognized republic against a supposed Georgian invasion. In late July, Georgian troops and peacekeepers, who are allowed to be in the region under the cease-fire agreement, clashed with South Ossetian militiamen and freelance fighters from Russia. By mid-August, a dozen Georgian soldiers and an unknown number of civilians, both Georgian and South Ossetian, had been killed." [7] -- Kober Talk 12:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
As part of the anti-smuggling campaign, in May 2004 several Georgian Ministry of Interior units landed by helicopter in the three Gori district villages adjacent to the South Ossetian administrative border, and one Tbilisi-administered village inside South Ossetia. The units proceeded to set up roadblocks that restricted traffic from South Ossetia. This move led to renewed hostilities in the following months that resulted in dozens of casualties, but stopped short of warfare.[15] The parties of the JCC agreed on a new ceasefire in August 2004. Following the August 2004 crisis, the security situation in South Ossetia remained tense, with frequent exchanges of fire between the sides that occasionally resulted in deaths, and increased the rate of crime."
This pat of the report is fully corroborated by the State Department and OSCE. -- Kober Talk 14:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This is what Sergei Markedonov said about the 2004 conflict in [11], pp.161-176:
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | Archive 23 | → | Archive 25 |
Maybe now they will start actually discussing, and following discussion comments, and explaining, instead of just editing away on a completely biased source, such as the ISDP. HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 22:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Also, sniping doesn't show clear intent for murder, especially since no one saw the crime taking place. A Car Bomb does show intent for murder. Way to prove yourself wrong Xeeron. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I am truly wondering if pro-Georgian editors have mastered the art of reading my posts. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Elysander, it appears that you are unable to understand basic military tactics. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Dear Grey Fox, once again I shall repeat: reading comprehension is a wonderful thing, HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 16:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Is your guys' plan to sipmly be superbly annoying until we tire of it and get the name changed? Because you seem to be absolutely inept at proving that "2008 South Ossetia War" is POV. And Xeeron, South Ossetia War in terms of searching IS equal to South + Ossetia + War, it's basic search engine principles. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 14:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Narking still has trouble either reading or dating HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Congratulation on the stellar job you did at nitpicking Xeeron, you must really be #1 in that area. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 13:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Again Xeeron - you excel at missing the intent, but successfully nitpick! Good job! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:35, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I am just amazed at how desperate the pro-Georgian editors are at nitpicking to find those non-existant victories. "But they didn't sink the boat in combat, they sank it in the harbor - those Russians, clearly defeated!" Hahaha, cute. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
If you fail at reading comprehension, you shouldn't be here Grey Fox. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
And I didn't say anything about you in the previous quote - reading comprehension is your best friends sometimes, you should try it once in a while. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Ok, who here fails at reading comprehension? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
So then putting up a neutrality dispute, and then making seven edits, without discussing most of them here, in a span of two hours, would be quite unprofessional, right? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC) Directed at Kober.
Thing is, pro-Georgian editors are used to getting their way on Wikipedia. Thus it is frustrating for them to find an article where Russia is placed in a positive light, even though Russia's actions in this case deserve award, not blame. (…) The challenge before pro-Georgian editors now, is to spin the undisputed truth into propaganda. It's easy when it's disputed, but with undisputed truth, it's impossible, hence the frustration, despite this article lacking Russian POV. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I have said that the users, like Kober all of whose edits (commenting on edits here, not editor) just happen to lean Georgian, due to a miracle, crave that this article needs to have a pro-Georgian POV, but the article lacked that until Kober's edits were made. Furthermore, unlike Xeeron who actually discusses his edits, to an extent, Kober doesn't feel the need to do so and then acts surprised when his edits are reverted. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Xeeron, you cannot edit, just because the majority of Google's hits say so. If you want to undo an edit, argue it here. We've been over this so many damn times, with the title, with the casualty box, that quite frankly most editors have gotten it by now. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Obviously you all have failed to read my comments and suggestions below about being civil. There are issues among all of you with edit summaries that either are plain misleading or don't state the full story. You guys are dragging out old issues. You all seem to mistrust everyone else.
With that noted, I'm going to try to poke you all to discussing the actual issues on the content of the article. Could you all please list parts of the article that you object to. Keep each bullet point to less then 100 (preferably less then 50) words and sign the bullet point with your name. Try to avoid duplicate issues and limit yourselves to 2 or 3 each. I'll place a demo:
Finally this is a blanket warning to all editors on this talk page, any further attacks or talking about the editors and not content may result in blocks for both disruption and violation of our norms of civility. I know this is an extreme measure, but as this is a touchy subject, I expect all of you to be extremely careful with your dealings with other editors from this point on. This goes for all of you. If you have not attacked or discussed other editors, great job, please don't start. —— nix eagle email me 18:25, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
"Some ethnic Georgians did choose to stay despite the conflict. Those in Tskhinvali are mostly elderly people who have been living here for years. Misha, 69 years old, used to teach science at South Ossetia's only university. A former boxer, he runs five miles a day and puts many youngsters to shame. During the war in the early nineties, his wife and kids left for Georgia proper and never came back. But Misha could not even imagine moving - Tskhinvali was his home. Until this August, Misha has been visiting his family in Tbilisi several times a year. Now, he has no idea if he will ever get to do this again." It's a very nice entry.
I have stated all this before, multiple times. And yet no counter-arguments resulted but the edits, contrary to this were made anyways. HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 03:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I have locked this page for 3 days, the article is currently the subject of a long and drawn out editwar. Let me state now that the behavior on all sides has been very
disruptive. I'm not going to attempt to pin blame on any one side. Lets all remember first off that this topic in itself is controversial.
Noting that the current debate seems to be over if a source is or is not reliable. Please discuss that here before the page goes unprotected. I am asking that this discussion happen civiliy without reference to who is on what side, or Ad hominem attacks. I will be monitoring the discussion, checking in at least daily. Therefor I am asking you guys nicely to adhere to our civility rules.
You guys may request the page be unprotected either by posting to my talk page, or here, however early unprotection should not be done until there is agreement on the status of this source and other active issues. Please take this break from editing the page as a chance for a breather and a chance to discuss future changes.
When the page becomes unprotected, multiple reverts to the same section of the page (over the same content, even if the edits are slightly different), regardless if the person doing the reverts is different will result in my considering those edits disruptive. —— nix eagle email me 22:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Human Rights Watch’s observations on the ground and dozens of interviews conducted led
us to conclude that the South Ossetian forces sought to ethnically cleanse this set of Georgian villages: that is, the destruction of the homes in these villages was deliberate, systematic, and carried out on the basis of the ethnic and imputed political affiliations of the residents of these villages, with the express purpose of forcing those who remained to leave
and ensuring that no former residents would return.
South Ossetian forces over a period of weeks deliberately and systematically destroyed ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia that had been administered by the Georgian government. They looted, beat, threatened, and unlawfully detained numerous ethnic Georgian civilians, and killed several, on the basis of the ethnicity and imputed political affiliations of the residents of these villages, with the express purpose of forcing those who remained to leave and ensuring that no former residents would return. From this, Human Rights Watch has concluded that South Ossetian forces attempted to ethnically cleanse these villages. Approximately 22,000 villagers, the majority of whom had fled South Ossetia before the conflict started, remain displaced... To the extent that a number of these prohibited acts were committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population, they may be prosecuted as crimes against humanity.
-- Kober Talk 04:58, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I think we need to make clear that it was the Ossetians who conducted the alleged expulsion of Georgians, and also that not all Georgians were expulsed (or whatever the verb is.) I suggest changing the sentence in the infobox to: "Expulsion of most ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia and from the Kodori Gorge by South Ossetian militias." Offliner ( talk) 08:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
(reindent) How about "escape followed by expulsion of most ethnic Georgians..."? ( Igny ( talk) 18:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC))
One of the predominate issues I'm seeing on this article is what exact troop count to put on the page. A suggestion for you guys may be to express the counts as a range, using multiple sources to say X says count for country A is B and Y says the count for country A is C. I have a feeling that you guys are not going to find a "definite" troop count so soon after the event. I'm not saying you guys must do this or anything, but this is a valid option and one that I do not see mentioned in the talk as far as I can see. Other solutions may exist, but you guys need to agree to something you all can live with.
http://www.isdp.eu/files/publications/pp/08/0808Georgia-PP2.pdf
That's the link: quick summary is that big bad Russia invaded poor little Georgia, for no real reason, other then Georgia wanting to enter NATO, and that Europeans should all be terrified of big bad Russia, which is much worse then the economic crisis. Here's what the article considers a fact: "Russia gradually increases its number of ground troops in South Ossetia, outnumbering the 9,000 Georgian troops by nearly two to one". So 6,000 = 9,000 * 2? Wow. And the entire article is exactly like that. I'm going to remove it from our encyclopedia, there's no place for Yellow Journalism here. HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 00:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
The ISDP report is amazingly biased. It basically just describes the Georgian version of events without questioning it at all. Another reason why we shouldn't use that report as a source too much, is that it was written pretty early, in August, before certain facts about the conflict came public. Offliner ( talk) 01:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
This is amazing. The isdp report is a scientific paper, compared to the mere news reports we have as the majority of other sources. Its three authors are (check their CVs [4], [5], [6]) authors working in the field. They work at in sweden, have been educated there and from their names might also be swedish nationals. Regarding credibility, this is wastely superior to short news reports (often even without given author). You remove it simply because you don't like their message, with a rediculous justification. They say it was about 2*9000 Russian soldiers there. Some guy here on the talk page (you) claims it is 6000, without giving any sources at all. Guess what, go to sweden, get a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies, write about that topic from some years, publish a douzen acadamic papers and I might consider taking your word over theirs. Till then, stop removing sourced material from the article. -- Xeeron ( talk) 16:25, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
I really cannot see how the ISDP paper would be "scientific" in any way, other than that it was written by people with PhDs. I have three complaints about using the paper as a source.
Still, I'm not against using this paper as a source in the article. But if at all possible, we should be using something something other than this. I'm sure that no one will disagree with me that the paper isn't very balanced, or that it was published very early. So if possible, why not use something more balanced instead? Personally, I would also prefer material published by more reputable sources than the many US-funded, "value promoting" political research organizations, which I've personally often found quite biased in matters such as these. Offliner ( talk) 02:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
My three complaints were directed against Xeeron's claim, that the ISDP report is somehow better than other sources, since it's "scientific" and "more neutral." I've tried to argue, that it is actually neither. Yes, I do support using Moscow Defense Brief, and object to using ISDP. Here's the reasoning: the MDB article talks about military action, which is mostly a neutral thing, not about the blame game. There is not much in the MDB article that would be disputed by other sources. The only problematic claims could be
1) that Georgia started the war (but this is indeed now the most widespread point of view in the international media. It is only disputed by Georgia itself, and early international opinions, which almost all seemed to endorse the Georgian position, but the opinions changed later as we know), 2) the claim that Georgia had concentrated up to 16,000 troops in the South Ossetian border before war. This claim is partly supported: Spiegel says that 3 Georgian brigades began the ground assault on Tskhinvali. All sources confirm that a major Georgian artillery onslaught was launced on August 7, which probably implies the presence of an artillery brigade near the border. The list of killed Georgian servicemen confirms, that all the units mentioned in the MDB article took casualties. Since we know, that outside South Ossetia the Georgians only withdrew without putting up a fight, it is reasonable to assume, that most of the deaths in the list occured in South Ossetia. Other than those two, it's difficult to find any claim in the MDB article that would be in danger of being disputed by other reliable sources.
The ISDP report is different. It makes extremely heavy accusations, many of which are now disputed by other sources. Just take a look at the "conclusions" section of the paper. It is clear that the nature of this paper is completely different than that of the MDB article. Offliner ( talk) 09:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Looking at this edit, I was left wondering where the name Caucasus conflict comes from, why you might think that it is deserves a prominent place than all the others (especially the one it replaced) and when you were going to share those insights with us. -- Xeeron ( talk) 16:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone object to removing the "also known as..." line from the lead completely? As it has been said, the line is redundant since we have a whole "naming" section which lists the different names for the conflict. Removing the line would be an easy way to solve this dispute. Offliner ( talk) 02:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you have read these already, but here's something I recently found that could be used in the article: Offliner ( talk) 12:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The only casualty information I used from it was that the 4th Brigade suffered the heaviest casualties. The casualty list confirms this:
Maybe we should include this list to the article? Offliner ( talk) 15:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the articles by Kotlyarov and Ovchinsky: They are both part of one volume of "Russia in Global affairs". We should use the pdf of the full journal, which is online at http://www.globalaffairs.ru/docs/2008_english4.pdf when quoting them. Note that there are also several other interesting articles in that issue. A slight concern is the fact that the Russian minister of Foreign affairs sits on the editorial board. However several other distinguished European politicians are listed as well, so one can assume that his influence on editorial decisions is small. -- Xeeron ( talk) 16:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any need for such complexity. Another article by Charles King contains much more neutral and comprehensive text which can be used as a good summary for the 2004 events:
"Emboldened by the success in Adjaria, Saakashvili next moved against South Ossetia, the region in north-central Georgia which has effectively existed as an independent state for more than a decade. Saakashvili ordered Georgian police and interior ministry forces to close down one of the region's chief sources of revenue, a vast black market complex which sold foodstuffs and fuel smuggled from Russia. In response, South Ossetia's leadership upped the ante by announcing preparations to defend their unrecognized republic against a supposed Georgian invasion. In late July, Georgian troops and peacekeepers, who are allowed to be in the region under the cease-fire agreement, clashed with South Ossetian militiamen and freelance fighters from Russia. By mid-August, a dozen Georgian soldiers and an unknown number of civilians, both Georgian and South Ossetian, had been killed." [7] -- Kober Talk 12:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
As part of the anti-smuggling campaign, in May 2004 several Georgian Ministry of Interior units landed by helicopter in the three Gori district villages adjacent to the South Ossetian administrative border, and one Tbilisi-administered village inside South Ossetia. The units proceeded to set up roadblocks that restricted traffic from South Ossetia. This move led to renewed hostilities in the following months that resulted in dozens of casualties, but stopped short of warfare.[15] The parties of the JCC agreed on a new ceasefire in August 2004. Following the August 2004 crisis, the security situation in South Ossetia remained tense, with frequent exchanges of fire between the sides that occasionally resulted in deaths, and increased the rate of crime."
This pat of the report is fully corroborated by the State Department and OSCE. -- Kober Talk 14:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This is what Sergei Markedonov said about the 2004 conflict in [11], pp.161-176: