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I can't believe I've had to protect this article again. Posting a statement on a talk page is not the same as discussion. Discussion goes back and forth, and should not be punctuated by a revert of the article after each editor says something. Most (if not all) of the parties involved here are very experienced editors who should know that.
To give you all a chance to try to reach consensus before editing the article or removing any tags, I have locked the article for 2 days. I hope everyone will use that time to either come up with a compromise, seek mediation, or at least cool off a bit. Kafziel Talk 17:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Piotrus, in my edit summary I said that the reasons for tagging is your revert warring to undo this edit without explanation. I also said that one only needs to click on the diff above to see that it is self-explanatory. However, forcing your opponents into lengthy discussion with no substance in order to filibuster the change you object is not new on your part, and raised at your ongoing ArbCom. I will not allow this to happen here again. So, only briefly as per this diff
If you handle the good faith objections with immediate resorting to revert warring and go asking otherw for help when you use up "your revert quota", don't play the outrage that the articles are tagged and end up protected. -- Irpen 18:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I will not reply to your personal attacks and ArbCom allegations best describing yours, not mine, behaviour. Now that finally you decide to explain the reasons for your edits on talk with some detail, I will however address the isssues you raise.
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej — Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu; IPN) is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with prosecution perogatives founded by special legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and in particular the recent history of Poland. [1] IPN investigates both Nazi and Communist crimes committed in Poland, documents its findings and disseminates the results of its investigations to the public. [1]
Since March 15, 2007, IPN is mandated to carry out lustration procedures prescribed by Polish law. [2]
-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 19:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
If pl:Zbrodnia komunistyczna is a definable term within the framework of Polish legal science, it does not make its translation a valid term, not a subject of the article whose name would imply the term is universal. You are welcome to translate the article, but if its scope is going to be a Polish-based definition, the title should clearly say so. If you find any PA's in my entry, take it elsewhere. Try to convince the ArbCom or anyone that this is a PA indeed. So far, because of misuse of the term and the policy, two boards were thankfully deleted by this community.
If some sources prefer to not mention the institution's non-research functions, it does not mean that we should follow the suit. These functions are included in the article and properly referenced.
If the complicity of Poles in Holocaust is not known to you, take a look at Gross and Piotrowski I cited elsewhere.
If you dislike "by the mob" as inelegant, you should have changed it to something more elegant. You simply deleted the description, thus leaving only the perpetrators of massacres of Poles in and keeping the perpetrators of the massacres by Poles out. -- Irpen 20:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
One more time, Piotrus, wikilawyering and filibustering. It is too obvious to be convincing to anyone. -- Irpen 19:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
References
I've undone this addition, as it looks cherry-picked to me [6]:
The full context from Stola is this:
-- K.e.coffman ( talk) 03:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Re: " revisionism" - Stola doesn't use the term - I chose it to convey the essence of statements like these: "...the dominant institution shows a tendency for a questionable vision of interpretations of the past"; "A particular figure of militant historian has emerged out of my profession... Producing dissensus around memory [as] a cheap means of attracting media attention, sharpening ones ideological profile and strengthening position on the partisan scene" (emphasis in source); "IPN has a tendency to polarize the Communist past of Poland... [the] Soviet-imposed totalitarian regime... [vs] “the society,” the people or the nation... these are the opposite Poles so to speak, that give an orientation to the authors and the readers, probably a moral orientation they desire." François Robere ( talk) 05:35, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Individual incidents may or may not be WP:UNDUE, but the central criticism of the IPN is that it is not a scholarly research institute engaged in a dispassionate search for the truth, but exists to build national memory. This is not really a "criticism", as it relates to the central purpose of the institution, but is absolutely essential to mention for precisely that reason. Any type of researcher may be searching for the objective truth, or promoting a particular cause or ideology, but can't do both at once. If you are looking for the institution that does scholarly historical research into Polish history, that is the Polish Academy of Sciences. Similar criticism and controversy exists around many other national memory instutitons, such as those in Lithuania and Ukraine, which are much less known internationally. For example, academic journals published by the Slovak Academy of Science will be more DUE and better regarded internationally than the journal of the National Memory Institute ( t · c) buidhe 08:26, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Many research institutions have various missions, goals and biases, which do not make them less reliableexcept that it usually does. Institutions with "various missions, goals and biases" (other than an impartial search for truth), such as think tanks, are generally dispreferred to scholarly sources, because they exist to promote an agenda (and will end up twisting the truth to that end).
My impression is that the IPN is seldom cited in general in an academic context... that is mine as well. A google scholar search finds that IPN publications sometimes achieve respectable citation counts (50–100) [9] but compare that to basically any academic publisher. [10] ( t · c) buidhe 10:16, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
@ Piotrus and Volunteer Marek: Between 03:09 and 07:38 you made 39 edits removing the following from the article:
François Robere ( talk) 19:57, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
My 2 cents:
-- JBchrch ( talk) 16:28, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
controversies in this areaaren't that complex. Also I would expect a Master Editor III to be familiar with WP:AGF.-- JBchrch ( talk) 17:56, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Let's take the second one as an example. The text in the wikipedia article that I removed was:
"Concerns have been raised with the institution's approach to historical research, which tends towards historical positivism and a claim of objectivity."
First, this makes it sound as if the problem with the Institute's historical research is that it's not objective. However, what the source is actually complaining about - or to be more precise, what the source says SOME people are complaining about - is that the institute strives to be objective and generally follows a positivist rather than historicist approach. Basically, some argue that there's no "objective truth" only competing "narratives". Whatever. Regardless, it's not our place to rehash this argument in the article on the institute and in addition to giving a false impression of the source, the info is just simply WP:UNDUE
(what really happened is that one editor went through and trawled the internet for anything that could be used to put the Institute in a negative light and dumped it all into this article in one massive violation of NPOV, DUE WEIGHT and RIGHTGREATWRONGS. That editor has been indefinetly banned and this is simply long overdue clean up) Volunteer Marek 18:23, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Piotrus and Volunteer Marek: Just noting I haven't abandoned this discussion, I'm just preoccupied. I'll probably be back to it at some point next week, then we can wrap up points #1-6 and move on. Thanks for the patience. François Robere ( talk) 16:32, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Opened subsection and copied relevant comments from above. If there's anything relevant at RSN, please copy here. François Robere ( talk) 19:23, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
François Robere ( talk) 19:57, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
At the center of research trends in Poland today, there remains a solid, workshop-oriented, traditional, and positivist historiography (mainly event history), which defends itself by the integrity of its analysis and its diversified source base; the latter virtue allows the research instrumentarium to modernize and to avoid the trap of narrating only “how it was in fact.” The work of “IPN historians,” promoted so widely by the media, fits nicely into this traditional vein, broadly defined.
Can you clarify what you mean by " You actually removed the statement yourself a couple years ago."? Volunteer Marek 19:43, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
6 Should be easy. There's absolutely nothing in Stola's article which says "rather than objective historical institute". Someone made that last part up. Volunteer Marek 19:49, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
This edit summary says "see talk". There's nothing on talk about either oko press or Notes from Poland. First one isn't even RS. Notes from Poland may be RS for some things but at the end of the day it's a blog. Neither of these sources meets APLRS and no, this isn't just about current events.
The account which introduced this material - and which Francois Robere restored - has once again been one that is barely past the 500/30 threshold, which hasn't showed much interest in the topic until recently, and which, after passing that 500 threshold recently has immediately began going after editors that Icewhiz has had conflicts with (MVBW, GCB etc) (and I'm sorry but there's no freaking way that someone brand new to this topic area would know about a source like oko press given it's obscurity). Can we please NOT repeat this pattern? Volunteer Marek 15:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
"was discussed" doesn't mean anything.
François Robere ( talk) 16:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
mid-level managersfor
minormisconduct. Surely, it's larger than that.-- JBchrch ( talk) 09:21, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
he was a mid-level manager who resigned after some criticismFrom the Israeli embassy and several politicians. That's pretty rare.
reliable, academic sourcesthat have criticized the IPN's employee choices, including "tying it all together", and including (in specific instances) Panfil, [77] Wingert, [78] and Szarek. We're not inventing the story here.
the connection between his actions and IPN are mostly irrelevantThe connection is he's still employed there. Out of all minor publishers in Poland, Szarek - by the IPN's admission - personally picked the one who published Irving, Degrelle, and several Nazies, and 3.5 years later the guy is still in his employ. Maybe he's an excellent publisher, and maybe he's naive rather than ideological, but it's again the sort of insensitivity (in the best case) that one would not expect to repeatedly occur in a memory institution.
Mhorg, but really, stop throwing around words, "politicization" is not the same as "hiring right-wing extremists". As for politicization, well that's a loaded topic as well. I just found an article saying "...Biden ‘purge’ of Homeland Security Advisory Council" which accuses the Biden administration of playing politics (so the other side always accuses the one in power of "politicization", nothing new and to be taken with a grain of salt). It's the same old story... Poland, right-wing extremist, nazi collaborators, trying to destroy the EU, PiS-totalitarian government, etc. -- E-960 ( talk) 10:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
J. Grabowski, Rewriting the History of Polish-Jewish Relations from a Nationalist Perspective, 2008:
Some of the recent appointees to positions of influence at the institute were roundly criticized both for their lack of academic standards and for their militant nationalism (Grabowski gives the appointment of Piotr Gontarczyk as an example, quoting criticisms by Karol Modzelewski, Henryk Samsonowicz and Michał Głowinski. -FR)... [While] some historians, especially those specializing in minority issues, decided to part company with the new IPN (here he mentions Dariusz Libionka and Grzegorz Motyka. -FR)... The right-wing nationalist vision of Polish history promoted by Dr. Kurtyka’s new appointees made it increasingly difficult for historians with different viewpoints to continue working in the IPN.
V. Behr, Historical policy-making in post-1989 Poland, 2016:
Besides, some might feel very comfortable with the totalitarian paradigm and the schematic opposition between state and society, as their political views are closer to the right-wing camp. The so-called ‘militant historians’ identified by Georges Mink (such as Janusz Kurtyka, Jan Żaryn, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, and Piotr Gontarczyk) do not hide their sympathies for conservative or nationalist interpretations of the past (Mink, 2013)... It appears that since its creation, the IPN has mainly taken in historians from the fringes of the academic field. Due to their ideology and/or their failure to achieve a prominent academic career, they were disposed to look for alternative pathways towards legitimization as historians – at the IPN but also in the media and political fields.
T. Stryjek, The Hypertrophy of Polish Remembrance Policy after 2015, 2018:
The Act of 29 April 2016 abolished the participation of the scientific community of historians in the appointment of the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, giving politicians an unrestrained control over this process.
I. Goddeeris, History Riding on the Waves of Government Coalitions, 2018:
In June 2016, the new conservative and nationalist government issued a new IPN law... [It] changed the rules of the IPN administration council, abolishing the influence of academia and the judiciary. A week later, the Polish parliament elected four PiS candidates for the new kolegium, and in July, it voted Jarosław Szarek as the new IPN director. Szarek was affiliated with PiS... One of his first measures was to discharge Krzysztof Persak, the coauthor of the authoritative and two volume 2002 IPN study of Jedwabne.
B. T. Jones & M. Gudonis, History in a Post-Truth World: Theory and Praxis, 2020:
The IPN, a once-respected research institution, has undergone a radical change in personnel, incorporating many nationalist historians with a governing body composed exclusively of PiS nominees.
P. Witkowski, Dr Bechta z IPN: gratulacje dla Walusia, nazistowskie zespoły i wybielanie żołnierzy „wyklętych”, 2020 (translated from Polish; I mentioned this as "popular media" earlier, but turns out the author is an academic):
The group of nationalist historians [at the IPN] grows from year to year. Today this trend includes, among others... Rafał Dobrowolski, Tomasz Greniuch, Ryszard Mozgol, Wojciech Muszyński, Norbert Wójtowicz... Tomasz Panfil, Rafał Sierchuła [and] Arkadiusz Wingert.
J. Michlic, History Wars and the Battle for Truth and National Memory, 2021:
Because of intellectual and ethical disagreements with the top-down implementation of the PiS’s historical policy, many other first-class historians have also left the IPN at different times since 2006. The process of purifying the guardians of national memory in the institution is well captured by historian Marta Kurkowska-Budzan, who argues that the IPN replaces historians who represent “a critical historiography” with “young missionaries who undertake their tasks with a passion and fully identify themselves with historical policy.
Michlic also states, Re: my discussion with Volunteer Marek above, that:
...since late 2015, we can talk about the IPN as being an institution that is on the path to becoming a “Ministry of Memory” in the original Orwellian sense.
François Robere ( talk) 20:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
scholars make money on the side form selling books? Ironically enough, you summed up the issue perfectly:
these are just points of view from one side of the debate. In other words, they should be presented with an equal amount of weight. -- JBchrch ( talk) 17:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Well, as soon as the full protection lapses, that is. Please see Template:Editnotices/Page/Institute of National Remembrance for the documentation. El_C 15:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
FR I don't see consensus for these additions and in fact I see multiple users against them (granted, they're slightly "dressed up" versions of text was was removed previously). In general I don't think it's Wikipedia's place to serve as a forum for the airing of idiosyncratic individual grievances or get into spats between scholars (If we put what Grabowski says about Gontarczyk then we should probably add the fact that Gontarczyk has published multiple papers which shred Grabowski's work - but that would of course be UNDUE. Just like this is). Volunteer Marek 17:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, some of these sources you tried to include violate ALPRS. Volunteer Marek 17:44, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I see multiple users against them (granted, they're slightly "dressed up" versions of text was was removed previously)Not really. Three of the seven sources are new, and I've expanded the quotes from the other ones significantly. All of the content has been presented some two weeks ago in #Note on current affairs, giving enough time for discussion - in which you did not participate. The only source which we've already touched is Grabowski, but you ignored my questions about him twice (specifically on why you removed him on account of an alleged "personal dispute" [92] [93]). The only editor who objected to this content is E-960's, but he's T-banned; [94] two other editors supported the additions.
I don't think it's Wikipedia's place to serve as a forum for the airing of idiosyncratic individual grievancesDo you have a source justifying the claim that these are "idiosyncratic individual grievances" rather than the established view of mainstream historians?
If we put what Grabowski says about GontarczykYou mean his quoting three other historians who say the same?
Gontarczyk has published multiple papers which shred Grabowski's workI can only find one article by Gontarczyk that mentions Grabowski on GS. Also, with all due respect to Gontarczyk, the sum total of his citations (disregarding his Fronda.pl articles) is probably in the ballpark of 1.5 books by Grabowski, and if you take away that one article on Lech Wałęsa then it's significantly less. That's why it's WP:UNDUE, not because some imaginary spite. François Robere ( talk) 12:05, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
You're trying to use sources which don't meet RS nevermind APLRS (oko press for example)All of them are academics, and all but one are scholarly publications. How does that not meet RS?
You're putting in grievences of SOME historians againstg SOME OTHER historiansYou haven't answered my question:
Do you have a source justifying the claim that these are... "grievances" rather than the established view of mainstream historians?? Without sources backing your claim it's meaningless, and a potential BLP vio (casting aspersions on established scholars) which you have now repeated several times.
potentially a BLP violation, at least if the context is left outFeel free to add context if you have the sources to back it up. Other than that I don't see how it violated BLP in any way.
and you seem to engage in this kind of BLP vio yourselfHave I said anything not backed by multiple RS? Please diff or strike.
The stuff from Michilic, Grabowski and Bohr either already is adequately represented in the article or has been discussed and rejectedNot really. You removed all the "stuff" from Grabowski, narrowed Michlic from 84 to three words, and kept only those segments of Behr "pre-approved" by Piotrus (which as you know invited me to redo Behr's references in a previous thread). I'm not sure how these additions could've already been discussed, since I've included content from all three of these that wasn't added to the article earlier (at least AFAIK), as well as three brand new sources. Also, recall that in the previous thread there were several editors objecting to your and Piotrus's removals. François Robere ( talk) 19:16, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, that's not true, for example your own vote count and the names of the editors whose votes you contest. François Robere ( talk) 21:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Scathing criticism by Tom Junes, an Assistant Professor of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences, which mentions a lot of the things editors argued endlessly against on this, and other talk pages:
François Robere ( talk) 16:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
One thing that is for certain is that Mazowiecki, he was a supporter of a Christian democratic, German-style social market economy- see per say Kowalik's account ('Solidarity to Sellout'). Wałęsa didn't have a particular view or support. The political leadership overall didn't have an initial ideological push tot he most radical form of neolbieralism, ie what was enacted, even to the exten otf support for neoliberlaism. Balcerowicz was, as was the IMF and in general much of the world even among traditionally social-democratic or left-wing parties, in great part partly carrying on the previous government's policies
Many activists in Solidarity to the extent they were able to also made 'anti-communist' statements, the issue isn't the change to anticommunism, perhaps more openness and possibility- the issue is that the language became right-wing. In my opinion, in order to be more scathing, David Ost delegitimises the true left-wing credentials (implying Michnik's support for John Stuart Mill as their hero made them not truly, in a non-pre modern sense, which is insuling to insinusate, left-wing, when he had sympathy for redistrbution, socialism and worker self-management). There is no contradiction between openly anticommunist statements and positions, referring to communism as an actual existing ruling system and its correlates, which Karol Modzelewski in the sense at the time he did refer to 'communist society' and you can look up his view or statements. I dislike this implication. 2A02:A310:E23F:400:4C6A:BCFC:365A:EC0E ( talk) 11:55, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
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I can't believe I've had to protect this article again. Posting a statement on a talk page is not the same as discussion. Discussion goes back and forth, and should not be punctuated by a revert of the article after each editor says something. Most (if not all) of the parties involved here are very experienced editors who should know that.
To give you all a chance to try to reach consensus before editing the article or removing any tags, I have locked the article for 2 days. I hope everyone will use that time to either come up with a compromise, seek mediation, or at least cool off a bit. Kafziel Talk 17:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Piotrus, in my edit summary I said that the reasons for tagging is your revert warring to undo this edit without explanation. I also said that one only needs to click on the diff above to see that it is self-explanatory. However, forcing your opponents into lengthy discussion with no substance in order to filibuster the change you object is not new on your part, and raised at your ongoing ArbCom. I will not allow this to happen here again. So, only briefly as per this diff
If you handle the good faith objections with immediate resorting to revert warring and go asking otherw for help when you use up "your revert quota", don't play the outrage that the articles are tagged and end up protected. -- Irpen 18:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I will not reply to your personal attacks and ArbCom allegations best describing yours, not mine, behaviour. Now that finally you decide to explain the reasons for your edits on talk with some detail, I will however address the isssues you raise.
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej — Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu; IPN) is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with prosecution perogatives founded by special legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and in particular the recent history of Poland. [1] IPN investigates both Nazi and Communist crimes committed in Poland, documents its findings and disseminates the results of its investigations to the public. [1]
Since March 15, 2007, IPN is mandated to carry out lustration procedures prescribed by Polish law. [2]
-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 19:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
If pl:Zbrodnia komunistyczna is a definable term within the framework of Polish legal science, it does not make its translation a valid term, not a subject of the article whose name would imply the term is universal. You are welcome to translate the article, but if its scope is going to be a Polish-based definition, the title should clearly say so. If you find any PA's in my entry, take it elsewhere. Try to convince the ArbCom or anyone that this is a PA indeed. So far, because of misuse of the term and the policy, two boards were thankfully deleted by this community.
If some sources prefer to not mention the institution's non-research functions, it does not mean that we should follow the suit. These functions are included in the article and properly referenced.
If the complicity of Poles in Holocaust is not known to you, take a look at Gross and Piotrowski I cited elsewhere.
If you dislike "by the mob" as inelegant, you should have changed it to something more elegant. You simply deleted the description, thus leaving only the perpetrators of massacres of Poles in and keeping the perpetrators of the massacres by Poles out. -- Irpen 20:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
One more time, Piotrus, wikilawyering and filibustering. It is too obvious to be convincing to anyone. -- Irpen 19:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
References
I've undone this addition, as it looks cherry-picked to me [6]:
The full context from Stola is this:
-- K.e.coffman ( talk) 03:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Re: " revisionism" - Stola doesn't use the term - I chose it to convey the essence of statements like these: "...the dominant institution shows a tendency for a questionable vision of interpretations of the past"; "A particular figure of militant historian has emerged out of my profession... Producing dissensus around memory [as] a cheap means of attracting media attention, sharpening ones ideological profile and strengthening position on the partisan scene" (emphasis in source); "IPN has a tendency to polarize the Communist past of Poland... [the] Soviet-imposed totalitarian regime... [vs] “the society,” the people or the nation... these are the opposite Poles so to speak, that give an orientation to the authors and the readers, probably a moral orientation they desire." François Robere ( talk) 05:35, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Individual incidents may or may not be WP:UNDUE, but the central criticism of the IPN is that it is not a scholarly research institute engaged in a dispassionate search for the truth, but exists to build national memory. This is not really a "criticism", as it relates to the central purpose of the institution, but is absolutely essential to mention for precisely that reason. Any type of researcher may be searching for the objective truth, or promoting a particular cause or ideology, but can't do both at once. If you are looking for the institution that does scholarly historical research into Polish history, that is the Polish Academy of Sciences. Similar criticism and controversy exists around many other national memory instutitons, such as those in Lithuania and Ukraine, which are much less known internationally. For example, academic journals published by the Slovak Academy of Science will be more DUE and better regarded internationally than the journal of the National Memory Institute ( t · c) buidhe 08:26, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Many research institutions have various missions, goals and biases, which do not make them less reliableexcept that it usually does. Institutions with "various missions, goals and biases" (other than an impartial search for truth), such as think tanks, are generally dispreferred to scholarly sources, because they exist to promote an agenda (and will end up twisting the truth to that end).
My impression is that the IPN is seldom cited in general in an academic context... that is mine as well. A google scholar search finds that IPN publications sometimes achieve respectable citation counts (50–100) [9] but compare that to basically any academic publisher. [10] ( t · c) buidhe 10:16, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
@ Piotrus and Volunteer Marek: Between 03:09 and 07:38 you made 39 edits removing the following from the article:
François Robere ( talk) 19:57, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
My 2 cents:
-- JBchrch ( talk) 16:28, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
controversies in this areaaren't that complex. Also I would expect a Master Editor III to be familiar with WP:AGF.-- JBchrch ( talk) 17:56, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Let's take the second one as an example. The text in the wikipedia article that I removed was:
"Concerns have been raised with the institution's approach to historical research, which tends towards historical positivism and a claim of objectivity."
First, this makes it sound as if the problem with the Institute's historical research is that it's not objective. However, what the source is actually complaining about - or to be more precise, what the source says SOME people are complaining about - is that the institute strives to be objective and generally follows a positivist rather than historicist approach. Basically, some argue that there's no "objective truth" only competing "narratives". Whatever. Regardless, it's not our place to rehash this argument in the article on the institute and in addition to giving a false impression of the source, the info is just simply WP:UNDUE
(what really happened is that one editor went through and trawled the internet for anything that could be used to put the Institute in a negative light and dumped it all into this article in one massive violation of NPOV, DUE WEIGHT and RIGHTGREATWRONGS. That editor has been indefinetly banned and this is simply long overdue clean up) Volunteer Marek 18:23, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Piotrus and Volunteer Marek: Just noting I haven't abandoned this discussion, I'm just preoccupied. I'll probably be back to it at some point next week, then we can wrap up points #1-6 and move on. Thanks for the patience. François Robere ( talk) 16:32, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Opened subsection and copied relevant comments from above. If there's anything relevant at RSN, please copy here. François Robere ( talk) 19:23, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
François Robere ( talk) 19:57, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
At the center of research trends in Poland today, there remains a solid, workshop-oriented, traditional, and positivist historiography (mainly event history), which defends itself by the integrity of its analysis and its diversified source base; the latter virtue allows the research instrumentarium to modernize and to avoid the trap of narrating only “how it was in fact.” The work of “IPN historians,” promoted so widely by the media, fits nicely into this traditional vein, broadly defined.
Can you clarify what you mean by " You actually removed the statement yourself a couple years ago."? Volunteer Marek 19:43, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
6 Should be easy. There's absolutely nothing in Stola's article which says "rather than objective historical institute". Someone made that last part up. Volunteer Marek 19:49, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
This edit summary says "see talk". There's nothing on talk about either oko press or Notes from Poland. First one isn't even RS. Notes from Poland may be RS for some things but at the end of the day it's a blog. Neither of these sources meets APLRS and no, this isn't just about current events.
The account which introduced this material - and which Francois Robere restored - has once again been one that is barely past the 500/30 threshold, which hasn't showed much interest in the topic until recently, and which, after passing that 500 threshold recently has immediately began going after editors that Icewhiz has had conflicts with (MVBW, GCB etc) (and I'm sorry but there's no freaking way that someone brand new to this topic area would know about a source like oko press given it's obscurity). Can we please NOT repeat this pattern? Volunteer Marek 15:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
"was discussed" doesn't mean anything.
François Robere ( talk) 16:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
mid-level managersfor
minormisconduct. Surely, it's larger than that.-- JBchrch ( talk) 09:21, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
he was a mid-level manager who resigned after some criticismFrom the Israeli embassy and several politicians. That's pretty rare.
reliable, academic sourcesthat have criticized the IPN's employee choices, including "tying it all together", and including (in specific instances) Panfil, [77] Wingert, [78] and Szarek. We're not inventing the story here.
the connection between his actions and IPN are mostly irrelevantThe connection is he's still employed there. Out of all minor publishers in Poland, Szarek - by the IPN's admission - personally picked the one who published Irving, Degrelle, and several Nazies, and 3.5 years later the guy is still in his employ. Maybe he's an excellent publisher, and maybe he's naive rather than ideological, but it's again the sort of insensitivity (in the best case) that one would not expect to repeatedly occur in a memory institution.
Mhorg, but really, stop throwing around words, "politicization" is not the same as "hiring right-wing extremists". As for politicization, well that's a loaded topic as well. I just found an article saying "...Biden ‘purge’ of Homeland Security Advisory Council" which accuses the Biden administration of playing politics (so the other side always accuses the one in power of "politicization", nothing new and to be taken with a grain of salt). It's the same old story... Poland, right-wing extremist, nazi collaborators, trying to destroy the EU, PiS-totalitarian government, etc. -- E-960 ( talk) 10:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
J. Grabowski, Rewriting the History of Polish-Jewish Relations from a Nationalist Perspective, 2008:
Some of the recent appointees to positions of influence at the institute were roundly criticized both for their lack of academic standards and for their militant nationalism (Grabowski gives the appointment of Piotr Gontarczyk as an example, quoting criticisms by Karol Modzelewski, Henryk Samsonowicz and Michał Głowinski. -FR)... [While] some historians, especially those specializing in minority issues, decided to part company with the new IPN (here he mentions Dariusz Libionka and Grzegorz Motyka. -FR)... The right-wing nationalist vision of Polish history promoted by Dr. Kurtyka’s new appointees made it increasingly difficult for historians with different viewpoints to continue working in the IPN.
V. Behr, Historical policy-making in post-1989 Poland, 2016:
Besides, some might feel very comfortable with the totalitarian paradigm and the schematic opposition between state and society, as their political views are closer to the right-wing camp. The so-called ‘militant historians’ identified by Georges Mink (such as Janusz Kurtyka, Jan Żaryn, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, and Piotr Gontarczyk) do not hide their sympathies for conservative or nationalist interpretations of the past (Mink, 2013)... It appears that since its creation, the IPN has mainly taken in historians from the fringes of the academic field. Due to their ideology and/or their failure to achieve a prominent academic career, they were disposed to look for alternative pathways towards legitimization as historians – at the IPN but also in the media and political fields.
T. Stryjek, The Hypertrophy of Polish Remembrance Policy after 2015, 2018:
The Act of 29 April 2016 abolished the participation of the scientific community of historians in the appointment of the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, giving politicians an unrestrained control over this process.
I. Goddeeris, History Riding on the Waves of Government Coalitions, 2018:
In June 2016, the new conservative and nationalist government issued a new IPN law... [It] changed the rules of the IPN administration council, abolishing the influence of academia and the judiciary. A week later, the Polish parliament elected four PiS candidates for the new kolegium, and in July, it voted Jarosław Szarek as the new IPN director. Szarek was affiliated with PiS... One of his first measures was to discharge Krzysztof Persak, the coauthor of the authoritative and two volume 2002 IPN study of Jedwabne.
B. T. Jones & M. Gudonis, History in a Post-Truth World: Theory and Praxis, 2020:
The IPN, a once-respected research institution, has undergone a radical change in personnel, incorporating many nationalist historians with a governing body composed exclusively of PiS nominees.
P. Witkowski, Dr Bechta z IPN: gratulacje dla Walusia, nazistowskie zespoły i wybielanie żołnierzy „wyklętych”, 2020 (translated from Polish; I mentioned this as "popular media" earlier, but turns out the author is an academic):
The group of nationalist historians [at the IPN] grows from year to year. Today this trend includes, among others... Rafał Dobrowolski, Tomasz Greniuch, Ryszard Mozgol, Wojciech Muszyński, Norbert Wójtowicz... Tomasz Panfil, Rafał Sierchuła [and] Arkadiusz Wingert.
J. Michlic, History Wars and the Battle for Truth and National Memory, 2021:
Because of intellectual and ethical disagreements with the top-down implementation of the PiS’s historical policy, many other first-class historians have also left the IPN at different times since 2006. The process of purifying the guardians of national memory in the institution is well captured by historian Marta Kurkowska-Budzan, who argues that the IPN replaces historians who represent “a critical historiography” with “young missionaries who undertake their tasks with a passion and fully identify themselves with historical policy.
Michlic also states, Re: my discussion with Volunteer Marek above, that:
...since late 2015, we can talk about the IPN as being an institution that is on the path to becoming a “Ministry of Memory” in the original Orwellian sense.
François Robere ( talk) 20:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
scholars make money on the side form selling books? Ironically enough, you summed up the issue perfectly:
these are just points of view from one side of the debate. In other words, they should be presented with an equal amount of weight. -- JBchrch ( talk) 17:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Well, as soon as the full protection lapses, that is. Please see Template:Editnotices/Page/Institute of National Remembrance for the documentation. El_C 15:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
FR I don't see consensus for these additions and in fact I see multiple users against them (granted, they're slightly "dressed up" versions of text was was removed previously). In general I don't think it's Wikipedia's place to serve as a forum for the airing of idiosyncratic individual grievances or get into spats between scholars (If we put what Grabowski says about Gontarczyk then we should probably add the fact that Gontarczyk has published multiple papers which shred Grabowski's work - but that would of course be UNDUE. Just like this is). Volunteer Marek 17:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, some of these sources you tried to include violate ALPRS. Volunteer Marek 17:44, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I see multiple users against them (granted, they're slightly "dressed up" versions of text was was removed previously)Not really. Three of the seven sources are new, and I've expanded the quotes from the other ones significantly. All of the content has been presented some two weeks ago in #Note on current affairs, giving enough time for discussion - in which you did not participate. The only source which we've already touched is Grabowski, but you ignored my questions about him twice (specifically on why you removed him on account of an alleged "personal dispute" [92] [93]). The only editor who objected to this content is E-960's, but he's T-banned; [94] two other editors supported the additions.
I don't think it's Wikipedia's place to serve as a forum for the airing of idiosyncratic individual grievancesDo you have a source justifying the claim that these are "idiosyncratic individual grievances" rather than the established view of mainstream historians?
If we put what Grabowski says about GontarczykYou mean his quoting three other historians who say the same?
Gontarczyk has published multiple papers which shred Grabowski's workI can only find one article by Gontarczyk that mentions Grabowski on GS. Also, with all due respect to Gontarczyk, the sum total of his citations (disregarding his Fronda.pl articles) is probably in the ballpark of 1.5 books by Grabowski, and if you take away that one article on Lech Wałęsa then it's significantly less. That's why it's WP:UNDUE, not because some imaginary spite. François Robere ( talk) 12:05, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
You're trying to use sources which don't meet RS nevermind APLRS (oko press for example)All of them are academics, and all but one are scholarly publications. How does that not meet RS?
You're putting in grievences of SOME historians againstg SOME OTHER historiansYou haven't answered my question:
Do you have a source justifying the claim that these are... "grievances" rather than the established view of mainstream historians?? Without sources backing your claim it's meaningless, and a potential BLP vio (casting aspersions on established scholars) which you have now repeated several times.
potentially a BLP violation, at least if the context is left outFeel free to add context if you have the sources to back it up. Other than that I don't see how it violated BLP in any way.
and you seem to engage in this kind of BLP vio yourselfHave I said anything not backed by multiple RS? Please diff or strike.
The stuff from Michilic, Grabowski and Bohr either already is adequately represented in the article or has been discussed and rejectedNot really. You removed all the "stuff" from Grabowski, narrowed Michlic from 84 to three words, and kept only those segments of Behr "pre-approved" by Piotrus (which as you know invited me to redo Behr's references in a previous thread). I'm not sure how these additions could've already been discussed, since I've included content from all three of these that wasn't added to the article earlier (at least AFAIK), as well as three brand new sources. Also, recall that in the previous thread there were several editors objecting to your and Piotrus's removals. François Robere ( talk) 19:16, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, that's not true, for example your own vote count and the names of the editors whose votes you contest. François Robere ( talk) 21:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Scathing criticism by Tom Junes, an Assistant Professor of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences, which mentions a lot of the things editors argued endlessly against on this, and other talk pages:
François Robere ( talk) 16:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
One thing that is for certain is that Mazowiecki, he was a supporter of a Christian democratic, German-style social market economy- see per say Kowalik's account ('Solidarity to Sellout'). Wałęsa didn't have a particular view or support. The political leadership overall didn't have an initial ideological push tot he most radical form of neolbieralism, ie what was enacted, even to the exten otf support for neoliberlaism. Balcerowicz was, as was the IMF and in general much of the world even among traditionally social-democratic or left-wing parties, in great part partly carrying on the previous government's policies
Many activists in Solidarity to the extent they were able to also made 'anti-communist' statements, the issue isn't the change to anticommunism, perhaps more openness and possibility- the issue is that the language became right-wing. In my opinion, in order to be more scathing, David Ost delegitimises the true left-wing credentials (implying Michnik's support for John Stuart Mill as their hero made them not truly, in a non-pre modern sense, which is insuling to insinusate, left-wing, when he had sympathy for redistrbution, socialism and worker self-management). There is no contradiction between openly anticommunist statements and positions, referring to communism as an actual existing ruling system and its correlates, which Karol Modzelewski in the sense at the time he did refer to 'communist society' and you can look up his view or statements. I dislike this implication. 2A02:A310:E23F:400:4C6A:BCFC:365A:EC0E ( talk) 11:55, 27 July 2022 (UTC)