Talk:Josip Pečarić/Archive 1
This is an archive of past discussions about Josip Pečarić. 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 1 |
Mediocre
Which way a reader could benefit from reading biography of a mediocre? Professor of mathematics? Where? Which college? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.168.239.87 (talk) 18:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
This problem has been corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiq ur Rehman (talk • contribs) 09:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah ...
- I found here the claim that Josip Pečarić is "aktivni je član The New York Academy of Science."!!!. The New York Academy of Science knows nothing about this mediocre. See [1]. The New York Academy of Science membership is subscription based, i.e. anyone who want to be a member of this Academy has to pay a membership fee!!
- This finding makes me laugh:
- Mathematical Inequalities and Applications 2014
- ONE THOUSAND PAPERS CONFERENCE, June 22-26, 2014, Trogir, Croatia
- Conference in honour of Academician Josip Pečarić on the occasion of publishing more than 1000 scientific mathematical papers
- Mathematical Inequalities and Applications 2014
- and this one, too
- Mathematical Inequalities and Applications, June 8-14 2008 Trogir-Split Croatia
- International conference organized on the occasion of 60th birthday of academician Josip Pečarić, June 8-14, 2008, Trogir - Split, Croatia
- and this one: He is considered "...a great name in the theory of inequality", which comes from Pecaric himself!!!
--96.255.26.152 (talk) 15:42, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
- I remember his doctoral dissertation was regarded as a student's work without any depth and originality. He was not able to get a teaching position at Belgrade University just for the reason mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.205.56.244 (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
- Please remember that this is a biography of a living person and that any such claims need to be backed up with reliable sources. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:52, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
- I have removed the last comment in this talk page because it violated WP:BLPTALK. Criticism of living people is fine - especially if backed with sourced facts - but personal attacks are not. GregorB (talk) 10:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
--- Here is a boastful, pretending Pecaric's interview http://kamenjar.com/ekskluzivno-akademik-pecaric-moj-zivot-u-beogradu/. It's all about his "greatness" from his own mouth!--178.222.129.66 (talk) 09:15, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
POV, not notable
A lot of information about the 'greatness' of this Pecaric came from himself - from his interview given to one of his students. The number of articles written by himself proves nothing. Many of them are actually written by others with Pecaric's name added to the authors list.
Makes no sense to ever list his 'history works' for these 'works' are apparently not history.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 12:03, 17 February 2016 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Vujkovica brdo, by "greatness" you mean the "great name in the theory of inequality" quote? Surely you don't suggest these are his words?
- The number of articles (1000) is unsourced and is now tagged as such.
- "History and non-fiction books" - feel free to change the section title to e.g. "Non-fiction books" - that's still true, and is NPOV. I suspect many of these books were not released by reputable publishers, and are not notable. GregorB (talk) 14:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
OK, at the One Thousand Papers Conference dr. Elezović gave a very straightforward explanation of Pečarić's output:[2]I think that his median time for obtaining a paper is about 20 or 30 seconds. I can imagine how it works. This is a paper of some, let us say, Chinese guy. It is interesting and good one -says Pečarić. It should be accepted, let us send it to the referee first. But, let me see closely. Yes, this theorem can be improved, generalized, strengthened, and reverse inequality holds too. Also, he did not mention exponential convexity at all! There are enough materials for a whole new paper. I can do that. Well, not exactly me, but, let me see. Who desperately needs a paper at this moment? So this is the algorithm, and you may try to repeat it few hundred times. Eventually, you will finish with exactly 200 coauthors, more than 30 children, many grandchildren. A one million question for you: try to find the last paper written by professor Pečarić as sole author!Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- So that's it. Maybe the article should put it in some sort of context. GregorB (talk) 13:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Repetitive comments from blocked sock and explanations from GregorB of WP:RS guidelines collapsed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC) |
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--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 20:44, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
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History and non-fiction?
I do not think that Pecaric wrote anything that should be classified as history. His books are self-published (see Nakladnik: Vlastita naklada (Josip Pečarić) i.e. without any academic background validation of the books content. He personally has no academic credentials to write about history subjects of any kind.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 13:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Taken care of.[3] GregorB (talk) 14:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
No, it's not. The books are not notable. In addition, the sentence "Pečarić has authored numerous newspaper articles and books dealing with journalistic and historical topics.[4][5]" still talks about history and reference [5] does not verify the sentence.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 06:07, 9 March 2016 (UTC)Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- I'd have no objections against deleting the "Non-fiction books" section. GregorB (talk) 08:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Accuracy disputed
Blocked sock disputes accuracy; responses from GregorB. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC) |
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I've added the {{disputed}} tag to this article for not seeing reliable sources which could verify his notability. Going through many monographies dedicated to mathematical inequalities, cannot see him being "a great name" in this field of Mathematics as he saw himself.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 09:41, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
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"In addition to his scientific work, he is known as a journalist."
Since when? His journalism is no more than self published opinions reduced to rabid nationalism.
Read here Zašto se HAZU nikad ne odriče članova koji je sramote: Ne bi bilo najgore za Akademiju da ustanovi da joj neki članovi čine štetu i sramote je, kao Pečarić i njemu slični. Tada bi uistinu bila ona institucija u čije se mišljenje ne sumnja.
http://www.matica.hr/vijenac/378/matematicke-nejednakosti-josipa-pecarica-4297/ :)
Tako je na spomenutoj konferenciji, po uzoru na tzv. Erdösev broj, profesor Páles uveo Pečarićev broj, koji se može pridružiti svakom matematičaru, a označava koliko mu je bliska suradnja s Pečarićem. Tako osoba koja ima zajednički rad s Pečarićem ima broj 1, osoba koja ima zajednički rad s tom osobom ima broj 2 itd.
Here Pecaric nominates Croatian general Slobodan Praljak for Nobel Peace Prize!--178.222.129.66 (talk) 09:31, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Question about Pecaric's "Non-fiction books"
Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC) |
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All his books listed under the "Non-fiction books" subtitle are self-published and promoted by the author. The "non-fictionality" is actually a collection of his nationalistic views about life in today's Croatia then unqualified and amateuric interpretation of the Croatian history. He already published this way more than 40 books. I do not see any reason for this long list of such insignificant books here. Also I restored this addition
for not seeing a reason for its removal. The number of citations is one of the measures of his notability--Taribuk (talk) 16:31, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
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Rms125a@hotmail.com, you are being very difficult to work with
Attemptted discussion with blocked sock collapsed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 02:14, 16 May 2020 (UTC) |
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I hope you can appreciate that I lose time when I try to explain stuff to you and fix your bad edits, and you just bring them back without fixing them ... :( Have you read Talk:Serbian genocide? Notrium (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
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alleged contentious material
@Joel B. Lewis: Could you please give more arguments and description about your last edit? ty, Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 15:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- The stuff about not getting a job is obviously not encyclopedic or appropriate. As for the rest of the attacks, maybe they are encyclopedic and maybe not, maybe they are adequately sourced and maybe not; they are obviously contentious has present issues with WP:BLP, and each addition of such material should be discussed, in advance, to establish consensus. --JBL (talk) 16:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- See also the discussion here. --JBL (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- I can agree about the job part. I am native speaker of the language used in references. Please tell me which part is incorrect or not sourced. Why did you remove the part about his statements about Josip Broz Tito, or the fact that JP called Jasenovac camp "a myth"? Those statement came from Josip himself. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 17:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- When I look at this article, what I see is that it has clearly been edited as an attack page, and that casts all the content on the page under a cloud of suspicion. Possibly some of the material added to attack him is encyclopedic and can be justified, but it seems to me that it is important to actually go through that process of providing justification for including it, with discussion of the quality of the sources and how much weight to give them. Statements like
Those statement came from Josip himself
are really not helpful; we're talking about a person with something like 1200 published mathematics papers, so "The Jensen’s inequality plays a crucial role to obtain inequalities for divergences between probability distributions" is also a statement that came from Josip himself (in a recent paper with an online review and at least 3 citations) but I doubt very much that anyone feels that it should be added to the article. --JBL (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- When I look at this article, what I see is that it has clearly been edited as an attack page, and that casts all the content on the page under a cloud of suspicion. Possibly some of the material added to attack him is encyclopedic and can be justified, but it seems to me that it is important to actually go through that process of providing justification for including it, with discussion of the quality of the sources and how much weight to give them. Statements like
- I can agree about the job part. I am native speaker of the language used in references. Please tell me which part is incorrect or not sourced. Why did you remove the part about his statements about Josip Broz Tito, or the fact that JP called Jasenovac camp "a myth"? Those statement came from Josip himself. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 17:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
I think there is something to the holocaust-denial claims — see [4] — but that appears to be an editorial rather than a neutral news story, so not really usable as a source in our article. Are better sources available? Preferably, sources in a language that can be read by non-partisans, and from publishers that can be trusted to take a neutral rather than partisan stance on Croatian-Serbian relations? If so, we should use them to add back something about this to the article. But the unrelated demonization (e.g. focusing on failure to obtain certain faculty positions) has to stay out. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- He may be a great mathematician, but if we have quite enough sources (and titles of his books as well) which are proving that JP is in fact a genocide denier, why should we keep it out of the article? NPOV should be the way to go. I suggest that you go through the removed content and restore the material which you find to be worthy and I shall search for more refs. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 19:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
if we have quite enough sources
The question that needs to be answered is "how true is it that we have enough and good enough sources?" Everyone agrees that once the process of reaching consensus on that point (that the sources used are appropriate, and are being used correctly to support the statements they're attached to) is complete, such material can be added. --JBL (talk) 20:07, 29 January 2020 (UTC)- In addition to [5], there's [6]; also another editorial type work [7]. These are all in respectable-appearing Croatian news sources, though I understand Jutarnji list to be a little bit left-leaning. There's also this PhD thesis [8], which seems to have been later published as a book, and which gives a secondary source discussing Pečarić's book. I'd suggest that there's plenty for a short Controversies section. And, given the prior state of the article, let me emphasize again: short. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- That is more on a philosophical note (what we have and have not), but I can see your concern. You simply can not expect to have a lot of academic works dealing with the fact that JP is a genocide denier. Since you said that some of the (deleted) sources might be good, I would kindly ask you to point them out. Interviews are legit and I do not see a problem with such sources, when placed under a section like Views. I understand that this article was targeted several times by IPs and other editors, but, please, we should not going in circles while keeping the disturbing information from his bio. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- That is the opposite of the correct approach. WP:BLP is very clear. If we do not have adequate sourcing for his holocaust denial (or any other controversial material) it cannot be included in our article. Sources that are directly from the subject, such as interviews, can only be used for non-controversial factual claims, like his education or employment. Everything else requires reliably published secondary sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- That is more on a philosophical note (what we have and have not), but I can see your concern. You simply can not expect to have a lot of academic works dealing with the fact that JP is a genocide denier. Since you said that some of the (deleted) sources might be good, I would kindly ask you to point them out. Interviews are legit and I do not see a problem with such sources, when placed under a section like Views. I understand that this article was targeted several times by IPs and other editors, but, please, we should not going in circles while keeping the disturbing information from his bio. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- Hi, David. There are plenty of English-language sources documenting Pečarić's rather unfortunate claims about the Holocaust and some of his other unsavory remarks. Not too sure why they weren't included in the article. Here are some of them:
- Pečarić has "dismissed the systematic and mass atrocities at ... Jasenovac as a "Serbian myth"." [9]
- During a 2013 FIFA World Cup qualifier, Croatian defender Josip Šimunić chanted the wartime fascist salute Za dom spremni, roughly equivalent to the German Sieg Heil (it was used religiously by the fascist Ustashe movement during WW2). Pečarić compared the backlash to Šimunić's actions to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. [10]
- Pečarić has advocated that the Croatian Army adopt Za dom spremni as its official salute. [11] Note, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that Za dom spremni is indeed a fascist chant/salute.
- Before the Bosnian Croat military commander Slobodan Praljak publicly committed suicide after being convicted of war crimes at the Hague in 2017, Pečarić co-authored a book praising him, saying "he did no wrong" and calling for him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. [12]
- In 2019, Pečarić held an "academic" conference called The Jasenovac Lie Revealed alongside a far-right priest/activist named Stjepan Razum (who claims there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz). The two men claimed that Croats, not Serbs and Jews, were the primary victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp, and that the name-by-name list of 83,000 victims compiled by the Jasenovac Memorial Site was a "lie". [13]
- The conference was held in the same church that organizes an annual mass for the late fascist dictator Ante Pavelić. [14]
- In addition to [5], there's [6]; also another editorial type work [7]. These are all in respectable-appearing Croatian news sources, though I understand Jutarnji list to be a little bit left-leaning. There's also this PhD thesis [8], which seems to have been later published as a book, and which gives a secondary source discussing Pečarić's book. I'd suggest that there's plenty for a short Controversies section. And, given the prior state of the article, let me emphasize again: short. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- Pečarić has had a whole slew of similar "outbursts" but these are, in my opinion, the most notable. I hope the aforementioned references are sufficient to convince you (and any other skeptical editor) that Pečarić 's propagation of extreme far-right talking points is frankly beyond dispute. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- Please explain to me why these sources should be taken as neutral non-partisan, reliable, and factual, taking into account WP:RS, rather than being partisan hit-pieces. It is unclear to me as an outsider how to distinguish one from the other among Serbian-based sources. That is why I was asking for sources that are not from Serbians and cannot be interpreted as partisan. Your response does not appear to address that request. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- Pečarić has had a whole slew of similar "outbursts" but these are, in my opinion, the most notable. I hope the aforementioned references are sufficient to convince you (and any other skeptical editor) that Pečarić 's propagation of extreme far-right talking points is frankly beyond dispute. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- I understand that, as an outsider, you wouldn't be able to appreciate all the nuances at play here, but would you mind telling me which one of the sources I've listed is "Serbian-based" other than CEAS Serbia (which is a pro-Western NGO partly funded by the Open Society Foundation)? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- David Eppstein's request is clear and straightforward. I have the same request. Rather than responding to a question with a question, would you please address the request? --JBL (talk) 00:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- What exactly was the request, Joel? If either of you feel that Balkan Insight or N1 are not reliable sources, feel free to take it to WP:RSN and explain why you think that's the case. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Please explain to me why these sources should be taken as neutral non-partisan, reliable, and factual, taking into account WP:RS, rather than being partisan hit-pieces.
It is a clear and easy-to-understand request for discussion of the sources and their quality. You can see Russ Woodroofe giving a good example of how to do this above. --JBL (talk) 00:47, 30 January 2020 (UTC)If either of you feel that Balkan Insight or N1 are not reliable sources, feel free to take it to WP:RSN and explain why you think that's the case.
I don't know how more clear or easy-to-understand I could be, Joel. If you do decide to go ahead with a WP:RSN, I look forward to hearing why the two aforementioned publications aren't reliable. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:55, 30 January 2020 (UTC)- Well, incidentally, I spot-checked one of your links (the penultimate one); it is published in Balkan Insight, but it's an opinion piece, and your one-paragraph summary of it contains a number of errors (which is a bit remarkable, since there is only one paragraph about Pecaric in that article). This did not inspire me to check the rest of them, but it did reassure me about the importance of being careful about sourcing here. Perhaps you should be a bit less flip. Also, you are not invited to use my first name to address me, as we have no basis of familiarity with each other; you are welcome to use my full user name or the abbreviated form that I use. --JBL (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- While I would still encourage you to go ahead with that WP:RSN if you feel the need, I would like to point out that in the meantime I have indeed found an academic source which discusses Pečarić's revisionism at some length. Ivo and Slavko Goldstein's The Holocaust in Croatia, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016, 978-0-8229-4451-5. I'll be adding content from the book to the article. If you don't like what you see or wish to challenge this source's reliability, you are invited to take it to the talk page and discuss. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 01:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- I have no objection to people using good sources to add appropriate content, in accordance with our policies. Given your poor performance on this talk page I have significant concerns about your ability to do so, but hopefully you will prove my worries unfounded. (Someone who was primarily interested in making Wikipedia better would have no objection to discussing contentious material that might violate WP:BLP before thrusting it into an article; but such is life.) --JBL (talk) 01:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- I am discussing the contentious material, hence why we're interacting on this talk page and not edit warring. Notice I haven't edited the article once since this dispute began. I can't speak for other users, but I for one am not "thrusting" anything.
- I have no objection to people using good sources to add appropriate content, in accordance with our policies. Given your poor performance on this talk page I have significant concerns about your ability to do so, but hopefully you will prove my worries unfounded. (Someone who was primarily interested in making Wikipedia better would have no objection to discussing contentious material that might violate WP:BLP before thrusting it into an article; but such is life.) --JBL (talk) 01:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- While I would still encourage you to go ahead with that WP:RSN if you feel the need, I would like to point out that in the meantime I have indeed found an academic source which discusses Pečarić's revisionism at some length. Ivo and Slavko Goldstein's The Holocaust in Croatia, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016, 978-0-8229-4451-5. I'll be adding content from the book to the article. If you don't like what you see or wish to challenge this source's reliability, you are invited to take it to the talk page and discuss. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 01:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- Well, incidentally, I spot-checked one of your links (the penultimate one); it is published in Balkan Insight, but it's an opinion piece, and your one-paragraph summary of it contains a number of errors (which is a bit remarkable, since there is only one paragraph about Pecaric in that article). This did not inspire me to check the rest of them, but it did reassure me about the importance of being careful about sourcing here. Perhaps you should be a bit less flip. Also, you are not invited to use my first name to address me, as we have no basis of familiarity with each other; you are welcome to use my full user name or the abbreviated form that I use. --JBL (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- If you think that the inclusion of a few paragraphs covering an academic's well-documented far-right and Holocaust revisionist views isn't "appropriate", then I truly fear for the future of this project. And for the record, the content of the penultimate article that I linked was not mischaracterized in the slightest. I have no idea why you would claim otherwise. It's written in English so I can't imagine that language would be an issue. Or is it a question of "performance"? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- Here is what the source (which, again, is an opinion piece, and so definitely not usable for this purpose -- have you acknowledged that yet?) says about Pecaric:
It was even a greater hypocrisy when another church, this time in Zagreb, allowed the holding of a publicity event for a book called ‘The Jasenovac Lie Revealed’ on January 17. At the event, the authors, Josip Pecaric and priest Stjepan Razum – who claims there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz – said that Croats were the biggest victims of Jasenovac and that the official figure of 83,145 deaths is a lie.
In particular, whatever your summary is, it is obviously not a summary of the source, which does not mention any academic conference nor any list of names. Note that I do not claim that your summary is false -- but the source is not usable and does not support what you wrote. If you want to call someone a Holocaust denier then you must be more careful with the use and quality of sources! --JBL (talk) 15:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- Here is what the source (which, again, is an opinion piece, and so definitely not usable for this purpose -- have you acknowledged that yet?) says about Pecaric:
- If you think that the inclusion of a few paragraphs covering an academic's well-documented far-right and Holocaust revisionist views isn't "appropriate", then I truly fear for the future of this project. And for the record, the content of the penultimate article that I linked was not mischaracterized in the slightest. I have no idea why you would claim otherwise. It's written in English so I can't imagine that language would be an issue. Or is it a question of "performance"? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
A few remarks
According to Pecaric's own words, he is an expert in the theory of inequalities. So, no need for an academic appraisal of his scientific work? In addition, I wasn't able to find any. Using Google Scholar I learned that 40 percent out 1150+ articles co-authored by Pecaric were never cited, other 10 percent cited by himself and his co-authors, around 200 are not about mathematics.
About the "international" journal he founded, the truth is it's a Croatian journal funded by Croatian ministry of education.
In an earlier version of this biography a Pecaric's interview given to an Internet portal (Kamenjar) was referenced. There Pecaric informed us about his PhD thesis and his life in Belgrade. So, his first version of the thesis was reviewed and rejected what made him to wait three years on the thesis defense. After finally earning the PhD degree he was not able to get an assistant professor position for over next five years. His attempts to get that position failed three times: twice at Belgrade university once at Rijeka university. Finally, at his age of 38 he got a teaching position at a two year college in Zagreb. The same college became a four year technical college four years later. Why this information is removed from his biography?
In the span of last 30 years of his life he wrote 40 books about wwii history of Yugoslavia and about contemporary politics in Croatia. All his books were self published, not cited by anyone as valid academic references, rejected by living Croatian historians (J. Goldstein, T. Jakovina, D. Pilsel). What use of having a list of these books in this biography? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.243.245 (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- This is exactly the sort of off-topic demonization that we should be avoiding here and that has led me to be suspicious even of the less obviously-partisan sources offered up here. Lots of articles go uncited; that's part of the process of publishing academic papers, and not any kind of special weakness to be pointed out. The fact that he wrote many non-mathematics papers also does not shed any negative light on his mathematical contributions. We should rely on neutrally written sources that accurately describe his life and works, not cast about ourselves for the most negative way to interpret minor aspects of his career. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- And which sources are those? Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:19, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- That is being discussed above. But your wording suggests that maybe you think they don't exist. When information or interpretations cannot be found in reliable and neutral sources, it should not be mentioned in our biographies, regardless of its truth. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- I expected a comment down this line of "no sources available". My personal impression is that several mathematicians have no wish to include the information about their colleague's serious outbursts. As to why - I do not know. If you feel that a section about his views would bring imbalance to the article, since there is little material about his academic work, by all means - add some material. Also, a fundamental change was made to the source by Byford and I do not agree with that edit. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- If you concentrate on the subject at hand — what can we say neutrally and objectively based on reliably published secondary sources, rather than making it up ourselves by interpreting the primary sources — rather than on the motivations of other editors, it would be much likelier to make a constructive contribution to the discussion. As for "Byford" I do not have any idea who you mean. No one by that name has made any changes to the article recently. If you are attempting to refer to the real-world identity of an editor, you are in gross violation of WP:OUTING and likely to get blocked for it. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- I expected a comment down this line of "no sources available". My personal impression is that several mathematicians have no wish to include the information about their colleague's serious outbursts. As to why - I do not know. If you feel that a section about his views would bring imbalance to the article, since there is little material about his academic work, by all means - add some material. Also, a fundamental change was made to the source by Byford and I do not agree with that edit. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- That is being discussed above. But your wording suggests that maybe you think they don't exist. When information or interpretations cannot be found in reliable and neutral sources, it should not be mentioned in our biographies, regardless of its truth. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- And which sources are those? Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:19, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
- I have removed some racist ranting from the IP editor. --JBL (talk) 23:33, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
- If I was not concentrating on the subject at hand - I would not be answering on the TP. A part of references which I added were legit. I was talking about a source... It's used for In addition to his scientific work, he has written on journalistic and historic topics, taking the Croatian side in their disputes with Serbia. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 15:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
- Sadko informed me of this on my tp. Some thoughts:
- . I don't think most readers really care about details like many the IP stated, such as him waiting five years etc etc. It matters if most people are here to judge his "worth" as a scholar... most are not.
- . In both this case and in general, I think when someone being a center of controversy is a major aspect of their notability, that deserves coverage. In this case, yeah his views are out there. But...
- . ... at the same time there needs to be proportionate representation of this to other aspects of his notability. As G-Scholar can show you, this is a rather accomplished researcher (regardless of his exact career path in the past), mostly in math, not historical revisionism: [[15]]. [this has over 2000 citations]. [this has 1574 cites]. His erm interpretations of history do matter, but so does his career, and there needs to be more coverage of that.
- I am fairly confident that such sources can be found. Sure, what amounts to the criticism section has issues. But it can be improved and the trimmed and better sourced version of it can ultimately become a valuable part of a proportionate page, as we have for many of the ubiquitous academics with erm, interesting viewpoints. Like Noam Chomsky, which covers his impressive accomplishments... but also that Cambodian genocide denial episode, and nods to some of the ongoing academic controversy as well (see Noam_Chomsky#Universal_grammar). --Calthinus (talk) 20:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with all of this. --JBL (talk) 23:35, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, me too. I think there are plenty of examples like this of people notable separately for academic accomplishments and unrelated fringe political views; David Gelernter is another that comes to mind. We need to keep both aspects balanced in the article and not let our opinions of their politics color our description of their non-political work. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with all of this. --JBL (talk) 23:35, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
- Sadko informed me of this on my tp. Some thoughts:
- If I was not concentrating on the subject at hand - I would not be answering on the TP. A part of references which I added were legit. I was talking about a source... It's used for In addition to his scientific work, he has written on journalistic and historic topics, taking the Croatian side in their disputes with Serbia. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 15:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
@Calthinus Calling upon number of citations of the books of which Pecaric is just one of three co-authors makes no sense. In these books Pecaric work is not separated, therefore not cited. The books are cited.--Mujo France (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- ... that's not how it works. For any author. If he is an author, he is a contributing author. Period. --Calthinus (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Views on the Holocaust
I removed this section because it seemed obvious that it violates WP:DUE. For one thing, it constituted the clear majority of text in the article. Is Pecaric notable primarily for his views on the Holocaust? If not, then that subject should not make up the majority of the article. Even if he is, this section is flawed and violates policy. It relied far too heavily on (effectively) a single source. I've never heard of Ivo and Slavko Goldstein, so I don't have an opinion on their expertise or the reliability on the books and articles they wrote, but such a large criticism section should not be sourced to just a single critic. The section primarily consisted of quotations and attributed comments. It looks like several paragraphs were simply lifted straight from the sources and added to this article. Articles should summarize the views reported in reliable sources, not just directly copy them. Additionally, it was far too specific. Instead of being an overview of Pecaric's views on the subject as reported in reliable sources, it was essentially just criticism of three specific comments he made. If this article is to include a section about the controversy over Pecaric historical denialism, it has to be better than this. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 04:30, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
- That is not an argument. You are free to add material about his academic work. They are notable, mostly in the Balkan region. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 07:30, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
- I definitely agree that what was there violated WP:DUE. But there seems to be significant coverage of his political writings and views in the Croatian press. It would be good to include something about his most recent book, which garnered pushback from the Wiesenthal center. I propose that a due amount would be about 30-40% of the article. What do other editors think? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
- Agree that the section was too long, but I also agree that it must exist on the page as this is a major part of his notability. Agree totally with Russ Woodroofe.--Calthinus (talk) 17:33, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
- I don't think that percentage of the article as it exists right now is a great measure of WP:DUE. What matters more is the level of detail and quality of the sources. If the mathematics part of the article were expanded 10x it wouldn't change the notability or relevance of his historical negationism, which should stay the same. buidhe 01:11, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
- If the mathematics section were expanded 10x, it would likely be because significant new sources came to light! I agree that would change what weight was due to the historical negationism. My suggestion was based on current state of sources as we've found here. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 05:58, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Balkan Insight & N1
Given that virtually everyone involved in the recent WP:RSN agreed that Balkan Insight and N1 can be considered WP:RS, would anyone oppose adding info from the following sources in Wikipedia's voice?
- State of Denial: The Books Rewriting the Bosnian War (Balkan Insight)
- Book Event Questioning WWII Crimes Planned for Zagreb Church (Balkan Insight)
- European Court Rejects Croatian Footballer's Fascist Chant Suit (Balkan Insight)
- Simon Wiesenthal Centre urges Croatia to ban Jasenovac revisionist works (N1)
Would anyone be opposed to adding Nielsen's commentary and attributing it to Nielsen?
- Defending Hooliganism Does Croatia No Favors , by the academic Christian Axeboe Nielsen (Balkan Insight)
Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
- It's all good. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 17:38, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
- I will reserve judgement until I see what the actual text you want to add is. As before, I picked a random subset of the sources you mention. The first source mentions Pecaric in exactly one sentence:
General Praljak, written by Miroslav Medjimorec and Josip Pecaric and published last year, contains a list of signatories calling for him to be given the Nobel Peace Prize, ‘evidence’ that he did no wrong as well as photographs, poems and essays extolling his war record.
I have tried several times to understand what this means, and I have failed. The third source does not appear to mention Pecaric at all. So I have trouble seeing how either of these could be used to say much of anything (in Wikipedia's voice or otherwise). --JBL (talk) 18:02, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
- I will reserve judgement until I see what the actual text you want to add is. As before, I picked a random subset of the sources you mention. The first source mentions Pecaric in exactly one sentence:
- Since this has been so contentious, I suggest that we work on a draft version in a talk subpage. I went ahead and created a framework for such at Talk:Josip_Pečarić/draft2020. I took the liberty of reworking the current article, as there were a number of things seem strange to me. Since a talk subpage doesn't come up in Google, etc, we can work more freely on the text there without the write-revert cycle that we've been in on in mainspace. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
- Comment - I think the question here is not whether these sources are notable, but whether this is WP:UNDUE coverage. Is Pečarić so notable as a far-right pundit and is his notability as a mathematician so marginal that commentary on his politics should take up more than half the page? I am leaning towards no.
- On the text being reinserted -- Some of the matters presented in the section are either incorrect: e.g. "Way of the Cross" refers to the death march to which not just Ustashe prisoners, but also (Serb) Chetnik prisoners, and a large number of Croatian and Slovenian civilians unsympathetic to the new Communist leadership were subjected to -- or could use some context: e.g. Milan Bulajić, who is only presented as "one of the founders of the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade", long advocated an untenable position about the number of Serbs murdered in Jasenovac, which differs by a similar order of magnitude from internationally accepted estimates as the diminutions of Croatia's far-right. This section needs a lot of work to be NPOV.
- Re: criticism of his aptitude as a mathematician -- I'd first make sure there is real BLP-level evidence. It seems that these complaints were first brought by IPs and socks. Daß Wölf 21:33, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
- What was in the political views section of the draft page was getting very long in an WP:UNDUE way. Rather than mess with it, I created some alternative text, labelled Alt 2. @Joel B. Lewis, David Eppstein, and Red Rock Canyon: you shared some of my concerns about undue coverage, but perhaps you'd be happy with something close to this? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
- Russ Woodroofe, your text is really good, thank you for doing this. I have edited it slightly. I removed the years and the coauthor from the books not because I don't think they're worth mentioning, but because the sentence structure was awkward with them. The one advantage of "Alt 1" is that, in the first sentence of the second paragraph of Alt 2, it is not clear what "the return of" the salute means -- both sources (and Alt 1) mention specifically that he advocates for its use in the Croatian military. I would be happy to see the draft version (including Alt 2) migrated to mainspace. --JBL (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, Alt2 looks good to me. The length doesn't overwhelm the article, and actually I think it's also more damning — the big picture is clearer when it doesn't get lost in minutiae. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
- JBL, I think removing the years on the books is fine. Adding back the coauthor on the recent book in some form seems useful to me, as both are mentioned pretty prominently in the news coverage. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
- It was easier to work the coauthor in without the years; I've done it. --JBL (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
- Russ Woodroofe, your text is really good, thank you for doing this. I have edited it slightly. I removed the years and the coauthor from the books not because I don't think they're worth mentioning, but because the sentence structure was awkward with them. The one advantage of "Alt 1" is that, in the first sentence of the second paragraph of Alt 2, it is not clear what "the return of" the salute means -- both sources (and Alt 1) mention specifically that he advocates for its use in the Croatian military. I would be happy to see the draft version (including Alt 2) migrated to mainspace. --JBL (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
- @Notrium, Sadko, Amanuensis Balkanicus, Calthinus, and GregorB: let me check in with y'all as well. Is Alt2 acceptable? Is the usage of Croatian sources appropriate? (I have a little bit of a related language, but am mostly working by Google translate.) Assuming no one objects in the next few days, I will take the work page including Alt2, and integrate it into the article. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Two days ago I left a comment on the TP of this bio on the Croatian WP. As to me, the first version is better. However, some fixes are needed.- Pecaric wrote 45 books,(full list given on the Croatian bio) not on history and politics - rather pseudo history and politics within the span of last thirty years.
- His birth date is September 2nd, 1948.
- Two of his books and two interviews are about his life and work in Belgrade, Serbia where he was not able to start his academic career for 12 years.
- In addition, he is a member of self-nominated Croatian ethical national court whose role is to judge political correctness and patriotism of Croatian citizens. For more details, see here for example.
- Pecaric spends far more time on pseudo history and politics than on mathematics. His history and politics are regarded no more than a bad public entertainment and a show. See "Većina akademika na njega nažalost gleda kao na „estradnog zabavljača“, pa bi ga možebitno najradije i „najurili“ iz svojih redova, samo da mogu." Translation: Most academics, unfortunately, view him as a "public entertainer", wanting to "kick" him out of their ranks, if only they could.
"He is a professor of mathematics in the Faculty of Textile Technology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia" - false statement. He retired and the University of Zagreb refused to give him the title of emeritus. --Mujo France (talk) 08:37, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- Of your bullet points, almost all are obviously unusable as written; the one or two that might be usable (the date of birth, the claim that he's retired) would require a reliable source. To understand why, you can read Wikipedia's policies about biographies and reliable sourcing. --JBL (talk) 18:54, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
- Agree with JBL on reliable sources. Comment that reliable sources conflict on his birthdate: some say 2 September, others 3 September. I'm fairly certain that Alt1 is a non-starter for mainspace, as violating WP:DUE, per consensus of editors here and on the BLP noticeboard. (There has already been quite lengthy discussion over the past several weeks on this.) I'm hoping that everyone can agree that Alt2 is better than the single sentence (!!) that is in the current mainspace article. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:20, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
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- Your lack of interest in the basic rules under which Wikipedia works means that you are unlikely to have any impact here. You might begin by dropping all the personal remarks and indignant huffing and instead reading WP:RS. --JBL (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- It appears that vol. 2 issue 2 of the Banach Journal of Mathematical Analysis was dedicated to him.[16] That might count towards notability. GregorB (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Of course he's notable -- the article has already gone to AfD and was a clear keep. What is more interesting is, what do you (GregorB) think of Russ's proposal? --JBL (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- [edit conflict] On prose alone (without checking the sources in any detail), I'd favor Alt 1 over Alt 2. Perhaps paradoxically, I find that the exposé of Alt 2, by virtue of being condensed, slightly veers towards driving one's point home, so to speak. Also, I don't think there is a WP:WEIGHT problem with Alt 1, since it is grounded on a number of distinct sources, and coverage of Pečarić's non-mathematical activities indeed outweighs the coverage of his mathematical work. A compromise solution (Alt 1 slightly trimmed) might be OK too.
- A propos his scholarly work, there is very little criticism of it in the way of WP:RS - the closest I've seen is Elezović's quote from the One Thousand Papers Conference (see talk above) - it's damning, but I see no (easy) way of working it into the article. GregorB (talk) 20:28, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Don't you find it a bit odd that the organizer of a conference in someone's honor would spend the opening of the conference criticizing the honoree? A more plausible reading is that it is some kind of attempt at humor. In any case, it is obviously not usable as a source. --JBL (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, it's fairly odd, but then again I'd say it's too close to home to be humor, even if it's presented as conjecture ("I can imagine how it works."). Since it's ambiguous, WP:BLP concerns rule against using it, if nothing else. GregorB (talk) 12:05, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- GregorB, JBL, another source that discusses his mathematical work is this article in J. Math. Inequalities. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, it's interesting and I haven't seen it before. Might be somewhat debatable in light of WP:IS, since Pečarić is the editor-in-chief of that journal. GregorB (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- GregorB, JBL, another source that discusses his mathematical work is this article in J. Math. Inequalities. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, it's fairly odd, but then again I'd say it's too close to home to be humor, even if it's presented as conjecture ("I can imagine how it works."). Since it's ambiguous, WP:BLP concerns rule against using it, if nothing else. GregorB (talk) 12:05, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- Don't you find it a bit odd that the organizer of a conference in someone's honor would spend the opening of the conference criticizing the honoree? A more plausible reading is that it is some kind of attempt at humor. In any case, it is obviously not usable as a source. --JBL (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Of course he's notable -- the article has already gone to AfD and was a clear keep. What is more interesting is, what do you (GregorB) think of Russ's proposal? --JBL (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Mujo France, I'm assuming good faith and will try to respond to some of your comments. 1) The draft says he started working at UZ in 1987, not at the Faculty of Textile Technology. After your comment, I checked his articles from that time period, some have him listed at UZ, others listed at U Belgrade. The ones listing U Belgrade could easily result from delays in the publishing process. Btw, the FTT does seem to have existed in a different form before 1991. I don't see any great cause for concern here. 2) I created a "Selected books on history and politics section", but left it empty. Nolanfranyeri filled in some books. I would suggest that we list here close to exactly the books that we discuss in the section, but am open to other selection rubrics. 3) As you can see from the citation in the draft, I took the 20 number from the Moslehian interview. If you have a more recent reliable source for a higher number, that would be great. As many of them are self-published, it is tricky to count them. 4) I was unable to find a well-sourced account of what he was doing between 1982 and 1987. (Before 1982 is adequately covered by the article, as he was finishing degrees.) 5) The section on his mathematical work covers notable items in an appropriate manner, similar to other mathematical biographies here. 1200 publications in MathSciNet-indexed journals is certainly impressive. Birthday conferences and similar are an honor that not every mathematician receives, and are also notable. His notability as a mathematician is clear, as membership in the Croatian Academy is an unambiguous pass of WP:NPROF Criterion 3; supported by his publication rate. I agree that he's a bit oversold. It's not a problem that he writes papers with coauthors. But I'm struck by the low citation counts of his papers, and I'm also struck by the amount that he publishes in journals that he is chief editor of. (For a non-random sample, I counted 18 papers of him in the 2015 volume of JMI!!) If we could find coverage of this in reliable sources, then we could include it in the article. I was not able to find such sources, despite some looking. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- Incidentally, MathSciNet lists 23 of his books, 13 with signed reviews. (I didn't check the list carefully but it is likely that these are only mathematics books, not the political/historical/whatever ones.) Probably many/most of these also have signed reviews on zbMATH, and maybe elsewhere. We should probably list some or all of these books, with the reviews as sources, and such of his other books as can be sourced to reliably published reviews, rather than just having the unsourced list of books that we have now with unclear selection criteria. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Just commenting to say that I think the Alt 2 text as proposed is a major improvement and should be included. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 20:15, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- I am for Alt 1. I am also in favour of restoring this version, or something like it [17] (
The sociologist Jovan Byford emphasized that...) part
Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 20:34, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- I am for Alt 1. I am also in favour of restoring this version, or something like it [17] (
- Russ, I think you should just go ahead and do it whenever you feel up to it; the objections are either vacuous or ridiculous. (Or start an RfC to get input from a broader group of editors.) --JBL (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Lewis, it's not going to happen (yet). Your slurs are irrelevant. Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy but it's neither admin. autocracy. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 22:21, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Um, whatever you say. Separately, as I explained to your colleague, you are welcome to use my full username or my chosen abbreviation of it; you are not welcome to use fragments of my name, as that's impolite. --JBL (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
- Sadko, I am listening to your thoughts on the matter. Do you object to Alt2, or do you just prefer Alt1? It is my opinion (and I believe that of other editors) that Alt1 isn't acceptable for mainspace in its current form: most importantly, its length tends to violate WP:DUE; secondarily, it tends a bit much towards being a list. One way to improve Alt1 would be to integrate the discussion Pečarić's two books denying Jasenovac. Integrating and streamlining the discussion was indeed one of the main things I was looking to do in Alt2. I also like keeping this on the short side, because a lengthy treatment tends to give a platform for his (fringe, odious) views.
- Anyway, I won't change this aspect of mainspace yet. However, I made some other changes and fixes to the article in the Talk:Josip_Pečarić/draft2020 workpage, and I believe that it is non-controversial to apply those. I'll try to do that in the next day or two. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
- Lewis, it's not going to happen (yet). Your slurs are irrelevant. Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy but it's neither admin. autocracy. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 22:21, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC) |
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Note 1. The summary about the books written about Praljak, section Alt 1, was inaccurate and sourced to a weak article. See the fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mujo France (talk • contribs) 21:26, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
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Note 2. I agree to the GregorB's statement: "coverage of Pečarić's non-mathematical activities indeed outweighs the coverage of his mathematical work." So, as to the Pecaric's non-mathematical activities description, Russ Woodroofe's "tends to violate WP:DUE" makes no sense to me. Here is some information about such activities:
As to his mathematics, there is another advertisement of his mathematic activities : MIA Conference 2018 Dedicated to his 70th birthday. He asked Croatian ministry of culture for money, got it, organized the conference and dedicatied it to himself. Voila! He is editor-in-chief and founder of Mathematical Inequalities and Applications. Shall we add that this journal articles are cited 0.6 times in average, and two third of them not cited at all? Shall we add something about his life in Belgrade since gave two intervies about it? Look for his contributions to mathematics described in terms of longstanding problems he solved, methods, objects he introduced, etc?--Mujo France (talk) 14:15, 21 February 2020 (UTC) |
- Fair enough, but I'm not sure what you're getting at with these bullet points: are you criticizing the current article, the draft, or proposing something else altogether? At any rate, the article is not supposed to build a case against (or for) Pečarić - whether it's his scholarly works or his political views - unless such case is explicitly built by secondary sources (WP:SYNTH: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.). GregorB (talk) 15:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
If you are unsure about what I am "getting at", then you should wait on clarification, not to rush into making bad intentions attributed to me. The bullets are about a list of his activities and public reactions to the activities which should be visible in the draft.--Mujo France (talk) 09:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)- It just looked to me like a laundry list of bad stuff to pile on in his bio. To your question "Shall we add that this journal articles are cited 0.6 times in average, and two third of them not cited at all?", my answer would be "no", that's why I mentioned WP:SYNTH. GregorB (talk) 20:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Regarding the "attack" and "defense" (of Pećarić?) that happened here somewhat recently
@Joel B. Lewis and David Eppstein: at one point a few years ago I came to wonder why does this article (it might have been this revision, for example) about a controversial member of HAZU, known in the public for his ridiculous views that almost seem to be outrageous on purpose and that he likes to publicize/pamphletize on very much, have an article that praises him (in non-neutral terms and with no independent reliable sources) and describes him only as a mathematician, "conveniently" omitting the things he is actually notable for. Indeed, when I actually started looking for RS with the goal of improving the article, a completely different picture of him arose, and it seemed as though the article actually may have been written exclusively by a couple of his friends/sympathizers who (even apart from the willingness to ignore the secondary sources) had little knowledge about how Wikipedia is supposed to work.
And I successfully improved the article, including reliably sourced points on his controversies, wikilinks (including cross-wiki-links and wikilinks that serve as partial translations for those who don't speak Serbo-Croat), much more info (with exact years) about him and many sources and removing some of the obvious nonsense about him.
I don't claim "my" version of the article was perfect (a lot of the wording was awkward and, in particular, it was inappropriate to say that Pečarić "calls himself a great name in the theory of inequality"), but wholesale reverting (multiple times) to the obviously worse revision was horribly disrespectful towards the half a dozen editors that volunteered their time in the mean time (mainly me); but also towards Wikipedia itself as an encyclopedia, as it went against important policies like verifiability, neutral point of view, notability and WP:BLP; and I have to confess that I am specifically quite disturbed by the (edit summary) characterization of "attack", as that has been an attack on my integrity.
That said, I am glad that the article has now converged on a much better version, probably better than the last version I was heavily involved with (although the current one still misses a lot of important stuff compared to "my" version). Notrium (talk) 04:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
- Ok. --JBL (talk) 11:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Regarding the phrase "Theory of inequalities"
The phrase mentioned above is used quite persistently in this article, but appears neither here, nor here. Does such a theory exist in mathematics? EDIT: also see List of mathematical theories and Mathematical theory.
I propose using just "Inequalities" instead of "Theory of inequalities". Notrium (talk) 04:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
- You can put "theory of" in from of just about anything in mathematics, and I think the usage is fine. It's a little bit clunky, but I only see it used twice in the article (once in the infobox). Perhaps remove the line from the infobox (where it doesn't seem so helpful anyway), but keep the phrase in the article? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 05:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Russ Woodroofe: I am dissatisfied by the fact that the phrase is wikilinked to just Inequality (mathematics) in the article, which to me seems confusing, but also kind of feels like one's been deceived after clicking on the link, on accord of no such theory being mentioned in the article on inequalities. What do you think about that, is the fault in the wikilink in this article, or in the article on Inequalities? Notrium (talk) 06:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
- I think it's generally ok for "theory of foo" or "foo theory" to link to an article on foo. But perhaps you would like it better if it read "theory of inequalities" in the article? That seems like a perfectly reasonable adjustment. We could also rephrase as "Pečarić is known for his work on inequalities", though I like that less well. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 07:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)