Talk:Ivana Bacik

TCD incident

I think it should be left in with a NPOV as well as Blacks take on it (Seeing as previous editor said it was wrong). This was a serious part of Blacks history.

Some links on the subject.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=273662&page=1&pp=20 http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=458076&postcount=8

Past

Is Ivana Jewish or Part - Jewish? Her father was a refugee from europe during ww2

My understanding, based on a book (Maestro of Crystal) by the son of Miroslav Havel, first chief designer of Waterford Crystal, is that Karel Bacik, Ivana's grandfather, was a successful glass manufacturer before the war, that he continued to run his factory under Nazi occupation, and that he was pushed out in around 1947-48, when the Communists began to take over private businesses. There was no mention in that book either about Jewishness or involvement with anti-Nazi resistance, not that there should have been, since Bacik wasn't the direct subject of the book. However, he wasn't hiding out in the hills, he was behind a desk, and his factory was putting out war-related products like gunsight lenses, so if he was either Jewish or in the resistance he did a good job of keeping the Nazis from finding out.

So according to the book, Karel was a medium-to-large scale entrepreneur who was trying to build a business for himself, and when he couldn't do that in his native country, he abandoned his life there and emigrated west. The article omits this central fact and presents a composite picture suggestive of Karel as some sort of exiled political activist: (i) an unsourced assertion of involvement in anti-Nazi resistance, (ii) an unsourced mention of an arrest by the Nazis, no cause given, but with the suggestion by juxtaposition that it was because of resistance involvement, (iii) the soft-pedalling of the fact that he founded Waterford Glass as a profit-making enterprise - ...involved in the establishment of Waterford Crystal a time when industrial employment in Waterford was in short supply makes it sound like a charity or a community project.

Whether Karel Bacik was a bourgeois capitalist or an exiled freedom fighter, or both, there's no doubt at all about his vision, street smarts, and courage, or about his ability to have an impact and get interesting things done. I think viewing him through the lens of his granddaughter's politics does neither Karel nor Ivana justice. I hope someone can find a better source about his life and maybe put up a Wikipedia article about him.

Unbalanced

This article is turning into a well-referenced hatchet-job.

It is right and proper that criticism of a politician should be included in an article, but WP:NPOV requires that articles do not give "undue weight" to criticism. Instead, nearly every section in this article includes some disparaging or derogatory comment, referenced in nearly every case the Irish Independent (which is main commercial rival of the paper Bacik writes for, The Irish Times). This even extends to quoting two letters to the Independent, neither of which is balanced by any supportive comments.

This article reads as if someone has trawled the archives of the Irish Independent in search of critical commentary to add here.

For example,

1. there is a quite from the person who described her views on data retention as "uninformed waffle", but no reference to the support she got elsewhere nor even of the substance of her complaint (such as this article). That's not balance
2. I have just removed a paragraph which quoted only an abusive term used against Bacik in a parliamentary debate, without making any attempt to explain the substantive issues under debate, or the context in which Bacik used the term.
3. The only commentary on her book is a lengthy quite from a hostile review in The Irish Independent. That's not balance
4. The sentence beginning "Her criticism of Fathers Rights" offers no explanation of what her criticism was, but quotes fifty words from a letter to a newspaper by a fathers rights spokesperson. There isn't even any neutral commentary on the issue; it is raised solelky to allow the length criticial quote. This is not balanced.

There's more like this, but I don't have time to dissect it all here. So until this is cleared up, I am going to tag the articles as {{POV}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Brown Haired Girl,

The references that I used are from a number of different sources. You should note that Ivana Bacik has written numerous articles for the Irish Independent (see her website)and thus to dismiss them as biased as coming from that particular source is unfair to the largest newspaper group in Ireland. I would guess that most media references are from the Independent Group on Wikipedia as it is free to upload unlike the Irish Times The article that you chose to delete was actually sourced from the Irish Times and Senator Bacik used that offensive term to a political opponent, which merited political and media comment at the time, and you should note that it was used by her and not against her(your analysis of the facts as outlined above is inaccurate) , which while generally out of character, should be disclosed, I believe, to Wikipedia users so that they get the full picture of her temperament.With regard to her book, the fact that it merited critcial comment in the main body of the largest sellling newspaper in Ireland (as opposed to the obsure literary review section)is newsworthy and it would be excessive censorship to have it airbrushed out. For the record I would like it known that I support, as does Ivana Bacik, a womans unconditional right to have an abortion in all cases without restriction.

Regards, Skreen -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skreen (talk • contribs) 15:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Skreen

The issue here is not whether either of us supports or opposes Bacik's views on any subject. That should be irrelevant, per WP:NPOV.

What matters is whether the article presents a balanced picture, explaining criticism of her without giving it undue weight. This article does not do that. On point after point, it mentions an area where she took a stand, without at all explaining what her stand was, and then hands provides lengthy quotes from her opponents. That's not balance, it's just handing a platform to her opponents.

I found plenty of material on Back on the Irish Times website which did not require a subscription, plus 270 hits on the Sunday Tribune website, 3 hits on Examiner.ie, 36 hits on the RTÉ News website, and 254 hits on tcm.ie (which archives the Examiner, the Sunday Business Post and some local papers. So there are plenty of sources available from which to construct a more balanced picture.

On the point about the quote from the Dail debate which I removed, the problem was that it only cited the complaint that she had been offensive, without trying to explain what she had actually said that triggered the response. It accused her of trying to "demonise" her opponents, while mentioning only one word that she had used, without saying how it was used. The Irish Times report you cite is in fact a paragraph near the end of a roundup of the days proceedings in the Seanad: one Seanad reporter briefly mentions one senator replying to her. That's not the "merited political and media comment" you suggest, it's one line of a speech mentioned briefly in one report.

I'm glad that you want the article to give a full account of Bacik, and I am not advocating the wholesale removal of anything critical. However, the criticism should be balanced both by a neutral account of what she actually said or did, and by supportive comments if they exist.

On the book, for example, sure it's fine to mention that the book generated a hostile article in a newspaper. What isn't fine is to mention only' that hostile article without explaining what the book was actually about. By only quoting attack, you make it appear that the book was universally conmdemned. Where's the evidence for that?

One paragraph of this article now reads "For drawing attention to the plight of women in Iran, Bacik was commended but it was said to compare the rights of women in Ireland with those of women in Iran was both sensationalist and irresponsible and belittles the latter's struggle for basic human rights". That's very bad writing.

1. The central flaw is that it doesn't say what comparison she made. Did she "Iraninan women have a terrible time", or "Irish women are as badly treated as Iranians", or "Iranian women are seriously repressed compared with Irish women"? Those 3 possibilities are very different, but none of that is explained, just that she was criticised. So it's not even clear what she was being criticised for.
2. The second major flaw of that paragraph is that it doesn't say who made the criticism? The criticism has a very different meaning depending on whether it comes from (for example) an Iranian Ayatollah, an Irish bishop, or an Irish radical feminist.

All these issues are addressed in WP:NPOV, which was why I quoted it above, and from your reply I wonder how familiar you are with that policy. Are you sure that you have read it?

These issues need to be discussed further, but as it stands the article is terribly unbalanced. So after posting this, I am going to remove all the unbalanced materials. Many of the issues I will remove mention of should be covered, but not in this way, and since Bacik is a living person, WP:BLP applies.

We can discuss further how to cover these points in a balanced way. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I have done 3 edits in which I removed all the unbalance sections. As above, let's try to apply NPOV to the coverage of these issues before reinstating any of this material, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Brown Haired Girl,

I do appreciate your obvious professional input into this matter and I stand corrected to your superior experience in these matters. I have taken a cursory look at the pages that you referenced and they would appear to be, in the main, recycled press releases or repeating what is known already. Nonetheless the subject has an extraordinary ability to generate media publicity to the extent that a neutral unfamilar observer would have to made aware of this, to get a full understanding of the facts and also what friend and foe alike think of her.Media outlets, by their very nature will not give glowing or wholesome praise to a politician but will not hold back in negative discourse.It therefore will not be possible to balance what you have seen with directly comparable favourable quotes, but the fact that she receives such attention at all is to her political benefit.As a first step I have put a small reference to this in her main introduction but promise to revisit this issue in the immediate future to give a more comprehensive input.

Skreen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.152.202.31 (talk) 21:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Skreen, the note you inserted about her high media profile seems like a good idea, though it should really be referenced, so I have marked it with a {{fact}} tag. (It's not enough for you to conclude that she has a high profile; you need a reference to a reliable source for someone else making that judgement.)

Bacik is a controversial politician, so of course her media coverage won't consist of solely of glowing praise. But that's not what I was seeking, because a hagiography would be just as unbalanced as a hatchet job. My concern here was that not only was there no supportive comment on the issues, raised but that there was not even any neutral explanation of what she had said or done to generate a negative reaction: the issues were raised only as criticism.

By all means revisit the issue, but please consider discussing changes before making them.

Finally, if you are User:Skreen, then please log in before editing. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Independent vs Labour

It needs to be explained how she is an "Independent" senator and a member of the Labour party. jnestorius^(talk) 20:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's a good one. Her own website states "Ivana is an Independent Senator, and has support from many different political perspectives. She is a Labour Party member but does not take any political party whip, in keeping with the traditional independence of Trinity Senators.". She stood as an Independent candidate at the 1997, 2002, and 2007 Seanad elections, and as a Labour Party candidate at the 2004 European election and the 2009 Dublin Central by-election. Talk about having your cake and eating it! Flags of convenience and all that. Snappy (talk) 04:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

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Edit request: pronunciation of Bacik

It would be useful to mention the accepted pronunciation of her surname. --Ekaterina Colclough (talk) 21:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)