Talk:Night Without End (history book)

January 2022 edits

Preserving here by providing this link; my rationale was: "undue weight given to state-affiliated IPN publications and state employees; the refutations of them are unneeded." --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:35, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman You realize that with this edit [1] you ultimately removed all remaining scholarly criticism of the book, leaving behind the flattering reviews only. Right? - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:01, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman I added a POV tag [2] following your removal [3] of referenced scholarly reviews. I don’t agree with a total removal of all criticism performed by you. - GizzyCatBella🍁 23:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

It would be great if said criticism came from sources that are not state-affiliated publications and not government employees. These are not WP:INDEPENDENT sources. The removal of such sources actually improves the neutrality of the article, since gov positions are not given WP:UNDUE weight. So the tag is not appropriate.

In contrast, here's a review by Stephan Lehnstaedt which has a nuanced discussion: [4]. You are welcome to add it to the article. --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

What's wrong with state-affiliated publications? Which Wikipedia policy discourages using them? Thanks - GizzyCatBella🍁 23:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOTADVOCACY comes to mind, and I already linked WP:INDEPENDENT. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:53, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me K.e.coffman but WP:ADVOCACY (which is about article content, not sources), nor WP:INDEPENDENT say anything about state-affiliated sources. Yad Vashem, The Smithsonian, BBC are all state-affiliated. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Independent from what? You removed at least three reliable, scholarly reviews. Polish-Jewish Studies, pl:Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u and pl:Glaukopis are all peer-reviewed publications (I checked their websites, they all clearly state they use double-blind peer review or like). The authors of reviews you removed are professional historians: pl:Tomasz Domański (historyk), Karolina Panz [5], pl:Dawid Golik, Piotr Gontarczyk... I fully support attributing all information, so if this wasn't clear, we should state, in text, that such and such opinion/review comes from Author A publishing in Journal B. And yes, I fully support adding the review you found (by pl:Wikipedysta:Xx236/Tomasz Frydel in pl:Acta Poloniae Historica). Perhaps some of the content here could benefit from rewriting, but removal of reliable, scholarly criticism is very much not a best practice. I support restoring the previous version of the article that has been stable for a long time (with no objection to rewriting anything, as long as we don't remove mentions of the book's reception in said reliable sources). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I will mostly agree with Piotrus here. We certainly should mention that they are publishing in state-affiliated sources/are supporting the current government policy, but even then, in the previous version, we put much less weight on govt historians than independent ones. I think it's undisputable the IPN's publications and Glaukopis are not exactly the top-notch peer-reviewed journals we are looking for - they are acceptable, but they do have that institutional/author bias problem as no one from the outside tends to publish there. However, regardless of whether IPN's officials are biased (they vast majority of them very certainly is), they are still historians and have the relevant credentials and expertise. Polish pro-govt scholarship on the Holocaust, though its quality is not high, is not nearly as bad as most Turkish scholarship on the Armenian genocide after all. The section should include statements of some scholars who describe IPN-affiliated historians' reviews as an example of a smear campaign against the book (see e.g. Persak's comment included in pl:Tomasz Domański (historyk) and the Polish version of the article with the Polish Academy of Sciences intervening), but should not exclude IPN's historians altogether. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

BBC is known for its editorial independence; it's publicly financed but it's not part of the government, unlike the IPN. As to the IPN:

...the 2018 law officially changed the mission statement of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state research body created in 1988 to investigate Nazi- and Soviet-era crimes, to include “protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation.” The rebranding immediately led many scholars to dub the Institute “the Ministry of Memory,” the Orwellian accent clear.

Source: "The Political Battle Over Poland’s Holocaust History: A libel verdict against two historians marks a new stage in the Polish government’s campaign to control the narrative of the country’s wartime past.", by Lawrence Douglas in the Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2021: [6].

As far as scholars describing IPN-affiliated historians' reviews as an example of a smear campaign against the book, why enable the smear campaign further by including it, sourced to said historians directly, on this page? WP:BLP applies to the article on the book as well. If the controversy over the IPN statements is sufficiently impactful, then it would be covered in third-party sources. They can then be used to discuss the controversy, rather than including the unfiltered opinions as if they were dispassionate contributions to a scholarly debate. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I think we aren't enabling the smear it if we provide adequate warnings to the readers. We would do so if we were to provide the information at equal footing with the independent researchers, or, even worse, skewing the interpretation towards the govt narrative. Simply excluding the information would mean that there was no fuss at all about the topic among scholars, even though there surely was. You may argue that IPN is compromised (and, to a large extent, it is), but it still hosts historians who publish, well, valid research, even if from a right-wing and nationalist perspective. We aren't the people who are making the judgment call to exclude historians based on their competences - it should be other historians (and other historians address the points raised by IPN's historians). Besides, it would be a disservice for a reader not to know about the reactions of these scholars if they exist. It's better to write more while framing in the proper context than not to write anything and make people wonder about the reason there was scholarly controversy about the book.

That they are, in a way, proxying for the government, would be relevant only if the government pressured them to publish these articles (directly or by threat of criminal prosecution) - as far as I am aware IPN is more of an echo chamber of nationalist historians who sincerely believe they are doing the right thing. If there were pressure on the historians or if they were spoonfed ideas from "above" or if the historians operated in a country with limited or non-existent freedom of speech, I would say that indeed you were right when deleting the fragments, as effectively the opinions weren't theirs. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:28, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I will also repeat that historians and publications are not required to be unbiased, in fact, very few are. Just like NPOV states that neutrality is next to impossible, it's just an idea to start. Per Weberian ideal type. Grabowski has a bias, his critics have their biases, so do we all here. The point is that if sources are reliable, and peer reviewed sources are, that's enough. We attribute them and let the reader draw their own conclusions. Btw, it is also incorrect to frame this discussion on the grounds of IPN - only one of the cited journals, Polish-Jewish Studies, is IPN-backed, the others seem run by some theoretically independent NGOs (although it is possible they are somehow connected to IPN through funds, ideology, or both). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:31, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

The other two journals are rather niche and almost all people who publish there are nationalist historians. I didn't find any financial/institutional ties to IPN, but when comparing the historians publishing there and in IPN post-2015, you will see a lot of the same people. I would argue that the best journals don't simply attract one side of the political/historical debate, but I can't dismiss any of the two non-IPN journals as predatory, as I have no evidence for deep flaws within them. It might be, however, that IPN's reviews themselves are deeply flawed, but then we should show that by citations from 3rd-party historians.

Dreamcatcher25, well, I think no one has doubts about IPN's reliability back in 2004, when it in general was a respected institution and when people of all sorts of ideologies were publishing there. The question most probably arose due to the changes happening since about 2016. I don't think that blanket deprecation of IPN post-2015 is going to garner enough support, though. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:22, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Side comment: few can deny the increasing ideological bias of IPN under "new" management in the last few years. But ideological bias is not related to reliability, just to neutrality of a source. Attribution is solution enough in such cases. Anyway, I think we have a consensus here to restore the removed content (sources), since the original criticism was that they are UNDUE but that assertion has not been met with support? I'll add that if the reviews are given undue weight due to length etc. the solution would be to expand the article with coverage from other reviews. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:43, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Firstly, Yad Vashem example seems legit since it is "state/nationial memory institution" with similar mission like IPN. If en.wiki has no problem with YV, why not with IPN? Secondly, citing one press article to smear this institution is ridiculous. While I may agree that IPN's public image has been damaged in the last few years, is there any proof that there is consensus among the scholars to boycott IPN, not to cite its publications, not to participate in the science conferences organized by IPN, not to invite IPN's historians to participate in such conferences? Does the en.wiki community agreed not to use IPN publications? Last example, there is a book published by the IPN with contributing authors like Shmuel Krakowski or Dieter Pohl. Also, not credible source?Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 10:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

This is damning with faint praise:

• to a large extent IPN is compromised;
• from a right-wing and nationalist perspective;
• IPN is more of an echo chamber of nationalist historians

Is this the best we can do in a BLP-related article? I generally agree that the controversy around IPN statements should be covered, but the proper context is achieved through the use third-party sources that would discuss such controversy. If other historians do it, then it can definitely be included, without raising BLP concerns. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:24, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I would ask you not to quote me out of context, particularly with the first two bullet points. My opinion, for the record, was that the institution (IPN) was to a large extent compromised; the historians themselves - not necessarily ("it still hosts historians who publish, well, valid research"), but they are clearly biased and we have to take this into account. I don't think bias is negatively impacting reliability in every of these cases, but I would label the historians pretty suspect (yellow in RSP terms). Hell, even quite respected scholars as Norman Davies commit stupid blunders. Given that all the reviews of that particular book but one was favourable, and that one proved to be actually correct in one of its aspects (factual errors), I'm extra careful after that to remove minoritarian viewpoints. True, the IPN's historians might be disinforming - all the more reason to find sources stating this.

The Polish version IMHO covers it sort of OK in their last section, but maybe a sentence or two about the substance of rebuttal and some expansion of the IPN historians' complaints are in order. As the other reviews have been almost unanimously positive (at least basing on those presented), we can frame it as "controversial in Poland - Polish govt-affiliated/right-wing historians were critical, but otherwise it received positive reviews, both from other Polish historians and from non-Polish ones".

Do we actually have a reliable source saying that "reviews published by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance have criticized Dalej jest noc for ...", or is that us editorializing by SYNTH the primary sources themselves (e.g. reviews published by the IPN) to say this? They are in the Polish article + those that got deleted. It's not editorialising, it's a summary of their ideas. If articles published in IPN-affiliated outlets or among the conservative historians simply repeat the same thing, we don't need a source to say that this indeed is a case, other than the reviews themselves + wikilinks to respective historians where their political/historical orientation is stated. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:53, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Do we actually have a reliable source saying that "reviews published by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance have criticized Dalej jest noc for ...", or is that us editorializing by SYNTH the primary sources themselves (e.g. reviews published by the IPN) to say this? Besides, if this (e.g. reviews published by the IPN) is the only remaining scholarly criticism of the book (e.g. it was mainly criticized by IPN's publications), which otherwise received positive reviews, it may be telling in light of BLP and the controversy. It is not unusual some sources are generally reliable but there is a period where they are not, or where other considerations apply, which may well be the case of IPN since 2018. Davide King (talk) 06:59, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki: I apologize -- I did not mean to suggest that all of the research published by these historians is unreliable. However, in this case we are not talking about research but about polemical statements of government employees, from the organization whose stated mission is to "protect the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation." Your assessment, instead of allaying BLP concerns, make them more prominent. --K.e.coffman (talk) 16:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Calling scholars and historians "government employees" is not ideal. Some of them work at the Institute of National Remembrance, so what? Others work elsewhere, many teach or taught at universities. Penz for example works in the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Sure, she is also salaried by the gov't. It's hard to find any scholar working in Poland who is not, as there are very few reputable private research institutions in Poland. Btw, Jewish Historical Institute is also sponsored by the Polish gov't. Is it also tainted by accepting their funding? C'mon. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The full quote was: ... polemical statements of government employees, from the organization whose stated mission is to "protect the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation". I'm talking about pl:Tomasz Domański (historyk), pl:Dawid Golik, Piotr Gontarczyk who are IPN employees. Karolina Panz of the Polish Academy of Sciences was not cited in our article, and consequently not removed by me as a source. Instead, she is a subject of an article by Golik because she's one of the contributors to Dalej jest noc. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:22, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

So what I'm seeing here are 3 users clearly in favour of the restoration of the removed criticism, and 2 users are against it. The consensus appears to be to restore the text eliminated by K.e.Coffman. I'm going to act based on that. Thank you for participating in this consensus-building process. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Two against? I counted one (K.e.coffman). Who's the other one? PS. Also, I thought there were four users in favour. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion moved to user talk page.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Piotrus: Are you the same Piotr Konieczny mentioned in Domański's review (p. 715, n. 141)? And don't you have a COI here because of having written this article about Grabowski? Levivich 03:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC) Are you the same Piotr Konieczny mentioned in Domański's review (p. 715, n. 141)? Ummmmm… nevermind. Volunteer Marek 19:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC) No, and, per COI thread, no. But don't take my word for it. Ping User:Nableezy who closed said COIN thread and who I believe explicitly wrote that I don't have any COI w/ regards to Grabowski (and if I am wrong, I am sure he will correct me). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC) The article you wrote about Grabowski wasn't in the COIN OP and only two editors mentioned it during the discussion, one saying you had a COI and the other saying they weren't sure because they hadn't looked into it, so that coin wasn't about this COI (although related). I note that you didn't think you had a COI from the Haaretz article before that COIN thread, but consensus was you did. I think you should reconsider the relationship between you and Grabowski and WP:BLPCOI. How can one professor criticize the work of another professor "in the real world" and then come to Wikipedia and edit articles about the other professor's work? How is that possibly not a COI? (I said this about Haaretz and I was right. Can we avoid another COIN here? Will you stop editing about Grabowski and his work? You can't publish criticisms of people's work and then edit the Wikipedia articles about them and their work. It's basic COI. Levivich 14:47, 16 January 2022 (UTC) There was no consensus for a COI with Grabowski in the COIN thread because, as you note, only two editors even saw fit to mention it, and the arguments about a slippery slope applied to editing here in that it would allow for some person to disqualify editors on Wikipedia by writing harshly about them off-site, so I felt that argument was addressed and rebutted, but on the topic I dont know if publishing a column criticizing a column written by the subject here qualifies as a significant controversy or dispute with another individual—whether on- or off-wiki—or who is an avowed rival of that individual but that is a question for COIN and not one that one editor can assert and request that another editor follow his dictats to not edit. Not keeping this page on my watchlist, just responding to the ping. nableezy - 15:12, 16 January 2022 (UTC) I request that you follow my dictat not to characterize requests as dictats. Otherwise thanks for chiming in. If Piotrus agrees he has a COI and will avoid the topic area, there is no need for a COIN. If he disagrees, then COIN can resolve the disagreement. That's why I ask the editor first instead of just running to COIN, and I think my approach is a better one than just going straight to COIN, even if you think that's "request[ing] that another editor follow his dictats to not edit" (which is a pretty funny contradiction in terms, like "asking someone to agree to demands"). So it's up to Piotrus. Levivich 15:20, 16 January 2022 (UTC) Per Nableezy, I do not have any COI regarding Grabowski, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop trying to imply otherwise. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 18:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC) Nableezy didn't say you don't have a COI (did you not read what he just wrote? "No consensus" and "that is a question for COIN"), and I'm not implying you have a COI, I'm stating it explicitly. The last time I said you had a COI and you dismissed me, COIN found you had a COI. So I'm asking you: don't just wave me away, is there anything you want to consider or discuss, because if you just keep on editing about Grabowski, I might start a thread at COIN again (or maybe ARCA since COIN was such a mess last time). I don't think you can argue with people in the real world and also add negative information about them on Wikipedia at the same time: you have pick one, and you picked "real world" when you published that article. Levivich 18:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC) (edit conflict) For the record, I have very little interest in editing his biography. And the article here is not about him, he was just one of the two co-editors of the book, and I don't see what is the relevance that we had a polemic IRL to me copyediting this page. I am not particularly interested in working on this page further at the moment, but I will edit whatever articles I want, whenever I want, and if you don't like it, then go ahead and report me to whatever noticeboards you want. Also, what "negative information"? Improving reference format? Or do you have an issue with the addition of the review by Lehnstaedt (as suggested by K.e.coffman, whose suggestion I agree with and acted upon as nobody else bothered to do in the week+ since it was made)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 18:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC) I responded at User talk:Piotrus#COI so as not to derail this thread further (my apologies, I should have gone there in the first place). Levivich 04:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I removed the content as the BLP concerns have not been addressed, given that the criticism is coming from one org, whose stated mission is to "protect the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation". Additionally, I don't see the consensus for restoration. Szmenderowiecki mentions the need for context and some scholars who describe IPN-affiliated historians' reviews as an example of a smear campaign. Arguments by Piotrus are based in part on the mistaken assumption that a citation to Karolina Panz of Polish Academy of Sciences were also removed. Panz is actually one of the contributors to the book. Etc. This is BLP related material and Wikipedia should not serve as a publishing platform for such a campaign. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I have said repeatedly that WP:PRESERVE often is a neglected policy element in such discussions, and this is just another example of this policy being forgotten.

It is also a shame that no one actually tried to do anything with the fragment and instead sat on the talk page waiting for some wonder to come (and in a way, that's in part my blame too because I haven't done anything myself). I will try to tackle the fragment as soon as I am able to, but before I or anyone else does that, I would advise against making unilateral moves here. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I will only say at this moment that the current text is in a rather poor condition, because it doesn't reflect the TEH DRAMAH that appeared following the publication of the monograph. There are actually a lot of sources that aren't in the article and I will have to process before writing a coherent text, which should take several hours' worth of work. I don't expect to finish it until tomorrow evening at the earliest. At the first glance, though, I will say that the IPN-promoted sources will be there but neither their handling before K.e.coffman deleted them nor the current one-sentence mention is optimal, on the basis of the sources that I have so far analysed (about 15 or so). I would suggest in th.e meantime to expand the Content section, because right now it's certainly not good enough. See these articles for the examples of how to do that. It should be something that is the least controversial thing to do. I will try to take care of the rest and we'll see if that works. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Junes, Tom (2021-09-06). "Whither Poland's 'Ministry of Historical Truth'". Balkan Insight. Retrieved 2021-12-31.:

With its international activity below par, the IPN resonates almost completely in a national framework of memory politics. But as a state political (and politicised) institution, it functions rather as a propaganda outlet and a ‘Ministry of Historical Truth’ operating under the false presumption that there is one objective truth about the past.

• Blobaum, Robert (2021). "Whose Holocaust? Whose Poland?". The Polish Review. 66 (4): 22–29. doi:10.5406/polishreview.66.4.0022. ISSN 0032-2970. Retrieved 2022-01-18.:

Nonetheless, PiS had managed to gain a great deal of influence over the Institute of National Remembrance... Under the leadership of Janusz Kurtyka from 2005 until his death in 2010, the Institute became a lead sponsor of a historiography of rebuttal, obfuscation (with its emphasis on Polish rescuers) and denial, not of the Holocaust per se, but of growing evidence of Polish participation in it in studies published by the Center for Holocaust Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences... Of course, nothing threatened the Polish nationalist grip on the wartime narrative than scholarship on Poles who aided and abetted Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, particularly that of Jan Grabowski in his 2011 Judenjagd. Grabowski and his collaborator Barbara Engelking then took this model to organize a collaborative research project embracing nine counties and published as Dalej jest noc [Night without end] in 2018. Both scholars were soon subjected to a private defamation lawsuit whose claimant appeared to serve as a proxy for the government.

More at Institute of National Remembrance#Criticism. François Robere (talk) 17:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman - When you initially removed [7] all negative reviews you claimed undue weight as your rationale:

• ..my rationale was: "undue weight..[8]

Then you continued and added WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:INDEPENDENT:

• WP:NOTADVOCACY comes to mind, and I already linked WP:INDEPENDENT.[9]

Then you removed the content again [10] this time claiming WP:BLP concerns:

• I removed the content as the BLP concerns have not been addressed..[11]

What is it K.e.coffman?

PS - I studied through our WP:BLP policy - Negative reviews of a work are not WP:BLP violations - calling them such appear to be an abuse of our BLP policy. - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:37, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

January 2022 additions

I expanded the "Reactions" section with material from the source already cited, plus a source from pl.wiki: diff. My edit summary was: "expand per source provided + source from pl:Tomasz Domański (historyk)".

Quote from Kończal, Kornelia (2020). "Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife". European Review: 1–13:

...the Institute of National Remembrance, meanwhile transformed into an agency implementing the state-sponsored politics of memory, commissioned a number of extended critical 'reviews' of Night without an End in Polish and other languages (Lyon-Caen 2019; Domański 2019).

Quote from Ninna Mörner (2020). "Constructions and instrumentalization of the past: a comparative study on memory management in the region". Stockholm. p. 129:

In order to oppose these devastating fundings, the IPN extensively promoted a 72-page critical review of Dalej jest noc, produced in 2019 by a young in-house historian called Tomasz Domański. In September 2020, the IPN launched and promoted Domański’s 110-page report, Korekty ciąg dalszy – a second response to the response of the editors-in-chief and individual authors of Dalej jest noc towards Domański’s first report of 2019.

--K.e.coffman (talk) 01:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

K.e.coffman. Apparently you think that including scholarly reviews of a person's work which are less than fawning constitutes "BLP violation" but at the same time you have no issue in including text in the article which attacks a young historian (Domanski). Likewise your off topic comments about IPN's "task" (it's task is research and education) are NPOV as they appear to be an attempt to poison the well and prejudice the reader. I'm going to revert your edit and I remind you that challenged text should not be restored unless you get consensus for it. Furthermore since you've now removed anything even remotely critical of the work from article but left in all the fawning, positive review, this article now not only violates WP:BALANCE but pretty much WP:PROMO as well. Given your insistence that reliably sourced scholarly work cannot be included here if it's critical of the book because it's a "BLP vio" (sic - that's not our policy at all) the only way to resolve it is to restore balance. I've included a POV tag for now. Volunteer Marek 01:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Amen. Removing criticisms of the book expressed by knowledgeable scholars in the field, and leaving only laudatory – especially when unsubstantiated – comments, creates an effect of simple puffery for Dalej jest noc. Nihil novi (talk) 23:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Szmenderowiecki - while some of your recent additions to the article are good, there’s also a lot of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR-stretching of what sources actually say. I appreciate the effort but it’s also inappropriate to remove pertinent tags until the objections raised have been adequately addressed. I’ll begin making some changes to your version but I doubt I can immediately address all of it. There’s no deadline here and the tag needs to stay until we get to consensus that everyone is happy with.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the article potentially falls under the ArbCom sourcing restriction - the one Jehochman recently added a notification about. Any kind of controversial or factual claims need to be sourced to extra strong sources. This is particularly true in light of BLP policy especially given the recent attempt to use the article as an attack vehicle against “young historians” who are critical of the authors’ work. Volunteer Marek 22:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I will address some of what you have asserted to be OR/SYNTH stretching. Short and to the point.

A general statement applying to all points: WP:PRESERVE is a policy. If something is wrong, fix it instead of deleting it unless really absolutely necessary because there's no other way. See any problem - fix it yourself, don't ping me and ask me to answer. That reduces talk page demagoguery and does not make others mad at your deleting n KB of their work just because you find a defect you yourself don't bother to fix.

Addressing general statements here:

• there’s also a lot of WP:SYNTH As to SYNTH: WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY applies. We don't need to cite other sources to summarise the main points the authors raised. We are indeed a tertiary source, which means by definition we will have to do some sort of summary. Specific examples of SYNTH requested, and ways to address them (either presented on talk or with posted diff). Look up the difference between synthesis and summary and tell me how the general conclusion may not be made based on the sources presented.
• and WP:OR-stretching of what sources actually say There has been no assertion that a source/sources have been in any way misrepresented before you wrote it, either here on talk or in edit summaries. As this remark alone is too vague, it is not actionable and therefore nothing will be done about it if it stays that way.
• I appreciate the effort but it’s also inappropriate to remove pertinent tags until the objections raised have been adequately addressed The tags applied to the version which had 10K of text, it (had) 40K, so it's not as if these tags must stay until you give your permission to delete them. The expansion IMHO dealt with NPOV well, therefore, the tags were removed. For me to act on any of your proposals, point to exact text and source, say why it's wrong, propose an alternative. I accept no other way of talking here. Because, as my later analysis showed, you've provided no convincing
• I’ll begin making some changes to your version but I doubt I can immediately address all of it. The immediate thing you did was deleting a third of the article in a space of 13 minutes, and it is not really possible to make firm conclusions about the quality of the article in that short timespan. If that's the way you have addressed it, well, thank you, but do try to find some less invasive way of doing so. Remember, WP:PRESERVE is policy.
• Another thing to keep in mind is that the article potentially falls under the ArbCom sourcing restriction - the one Jehochman recently added a notification about. That's where we agree upon, but it will be imposed by an admin and not you. There is no reason for now to do just that, because the sources that have been previously added are reliable.
• This is particularly true in light of BLP policy especially given the recent attempt to use the article as an attack vehicle against “young historians” who are critical of the authors’ work. Quoting from you *Apparently you think that including scholarly reviews of a person's work which are less than fawning constitutes "BLP violation" but at the same time you have no issue in including text in the article which attacks a young historian (Domanski). This works both ways. Grabowski is not immune from criticism, but neither is Domański. The text added initially was supported by two sources, and the statement of "heavy promotion of Domański's work by IPN" as sourced to two RSs is hardly a BLP violation. (And in fact, most of the criticism is not directed to Domański specifically but to IPN and the govt for their campaign against the book, which details you've removed for whatever reason. Domański is only mentioned in Persak).

Addressing edit summaries:

• [12] In fact, the summary as you propose omits the fact that the only historians who protested about the book were those tied to the IPN. There was little controversy about it abroad - it got exported (in February 2019). This is important to note. Plus, you've simply removed the summary of most of the positive reviews; put an irrelevant OR tag for information covered in the text (four sources isn't enough? I'll add more) and a clarify tag that wasn't needed there (what's not clear about a court overturning the ruling and clearing the authors of libel charges?). If your point was to specify who was suing whom, you could've just as well written it (I will do that).
• [13] The sourcing restriction is not automatical - admin will impose it, then we'll talk. Answering your question: I don't know if you are referring to the deleted quote (which refers to the whole book) or the methodology - the latter is described in reviews. I can't say if all settlements were described (rather not), but both cities and villages around them certainly were.
• [14] Answering first sentence - the article as of the date of access contained the text that got cited here, which means The New Yorker stands by it as of the version published as of that date, which hasn't changed since (the earliest archived version on WebArchive, 26 Mar 2021, states just the same). That's all what matters. Corrections are normal in RSs, the magazine is considered RS. Answering second sentence - ethnicity in fact does not matter really much, but I had to split a long paragraph. Grouping by ethnicity here is not harmful. The division that matters here is IPN/rest of scholars, because it's IPN's reviews that sparked the DRAMAH. Same for [15]
• [16] It was long-standing text, but I will consider some replacement for it. Fair point.
• [17] Responding in your style: No, it's not obvious at all. It's not even SYNTH to begin with. Read up the policy you cite, and propose some other way to cite the three opinions of scholars if you believe this one is faulty.
• [18] Hell no. It is precisely on topic and is connected to the IPN, to Domański's review, and to the disruption incited by nationalists' reactions to the book. If that article is a POV fork, it's that article's problem, not the one here. (FYI, the article did not get deleted, the result was "no consensus" back in 2021)
• [19] If you have sources that state precisely the contrary, propose them here. I will at most add the qualifier "most". Otherwise, I see no reasons for the text to be deleted. If four sources is not enough, what is? How are all the sources cited not valid?
• [20] The same could be argued about Domański (I have introduced RSs for that, you know), but whatever - we are not judges of who is more guilty or making worse attacks. All rebuttals here are relevant, as each address their respective fragment (just like Domański goes through all chapters); btw funny that you decide to delete all nine rebuttals from nine authors of Dalej jest noc but leave Domański alone - if anything, that's what I'd say is POV editing. As for this [21], if it is too general, expand. Being not sufficiently detailed is not implying something the sources don't say (the proper meaning of SYNTH), it's just being not detailed enough.
• [22] Therefore, present a summary of that report that doesn't already cover the points made earlier (no, YOU PRESENT IT). WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY

Given that most of the reverted sections are based on plain misunderstanding on the policies or are not policy-based, and the fact that the editor showed no effort whatsoever to remedy the problems they outlined themselves (most of which not clearly enough), which they should have, the edits are reverted.

Responding to Piotrus:

• [23] Singling out IPN's reviews is precisely the whole point. It's not because they are automatically wrong, but because it's the IPN's activity around the book that made most of the controversy about the book, including what was seen by many scholars and observers as a state-coordinated campaign. Therefore, it's not POV, it's precisely what it was: controversy around IPN's activity, as expressed in reviews of IPN-affiliated scholars and behaviour of state and pro-govt actors. You may propose another title for that, but that section is important for the reader. Dalej jest noc would have been a book discussed mostly in academic circles were it not for the controversy.

Nihil novi's edits were largely incorporated in the revert, but some post-copyedit copyediting has been done. I have tried to preserve most of their edits, though. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki quick note regarding my minor concern: section heading should be neutral. IMHO the controversy concerns the book, not the reviews (or maybe, on second thought, both, equally). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:16, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

If we simply title it "controversy", we'd have to include the litigation in there. If we title it "IPN reviews", then we miss the context about the EHESS conference and the whole media fuss that surrounded the book (both the conference and other aspects) + strictly speaking there were only two IPN reviews, both published by Domański; others were from IPN-affiliated scholars but otherwise only two of four of them were published in an IPN journal. Besides, the problem seen by the commentators wasn't the mere fact that the reviews appeared but who (seemed to, or did stand) behind them. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:19, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Then I'd suggest titling the section controversies and discussing them there. I'd also suggest splitting reviews from the controversy about them. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

The whole problem is, again, that the reviews themselves are in part controversial because of the strong involvement of IPN in the process. If we merge the IPN reviews with all others, then it will be hard to explain how the cited researchers saw it as a campaign to intimidate scholars; moreover, I don't really imagine how the replies to Domański could be incorporated, as well as his counerreply. There was no scholarly debate about the non-IPN reviews; there was a lot about Domański and some about Gontarczyk. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Note:

• Szmenderowiecki removed tags [24] despite ongoing activity and discussion related to the template issue. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:22, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

The tag was introduced by VM on 19 Jan 2022 somewhere around 2:00 am, which applied to the version of the text with the addition of K.e.coffman, saying that the text removed any critical material related to the book and therefore it violated NPOV. I in fact was the one who introduced it back (including IPN's reviews, Tokarska-Bakir and a rewriting of Lehnstaedt review, which, unlike Piotrus, I found to be not as positive of the work as was previously described). Moreover. I was not commenting IPN's "task". Therefore, the concerns seem to have been addressed, and therefore I removed them the first time.

The later addition of a tag has not explained the reasons why the article still failed NPOV in any way, neither on talk nor here, VM simply said it’s also inappropriate to remove pertinent tags until the objections raised have been adequately addressed, without explaining how they were pertinent to the new version. Most of the concerns have been OR and SYNTH, but, as I hope I've explained above, they had no merit. There were no NPOV concerns voiced as far as VM's edit summaries went. Therefore, I found that there was no active discussion happening about NPOV at all, at least not the one where the merits were discussed. Moreover, as you might have noticed on my user page, any statements that cite a policy violation without providing specific examples where the problem exists, according to the editor who reverts content, will be not acted upon as too vague, and any deletions of content based on non-specified allegations of problems within the fragment will get reverted back, with the instruction to provide evidence that the fragment breaks the policy.

As WP:TAGGING#Disputes_over_tags says, POV tag indicates that a user has concern about NPOV, but this concern being not formulated to the new version other than simply an assertion this is the case, I felt it was appropriate to remove it until the user speaks up about his take on how this violates NPOV in any way. I do believe that the current (as of this edit) version follows NPOV pretty well, but my removal was connected only with the failure to explain. When the discussion on merits actually starts about the current version, and you introduce the tag, and I will not remove it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Szmenderwiecki - you're violating several of our policies both with respect to content and behavior. Let's get to the behavior first:

• You plopped down 23k+ worth of text into the article without discussing any of the proposed changes with anyone in any substantial form. By itself that's fine, but then you should expect that people will edit what you added. I did you the courtesy of going through the text bit by bit and only editing the parts that I found problematic. You on the other hand, reverted wholesale back to your own version [25]. This is WP:OWN behavior.
• You removed any tags, both inline and article level that have indicated where the problems were. I explained sufficiently in the edit summaries what the issues where, for example here. IF you were going to restore this text then you should've restored it with an appropriate tag (in this case the inline SYNTH tag). This is WP:OWN again. Tags should stay in the article until the problems are fixed.
• You restored several instances of text that is badly sourced. Normally that would be a content policy violation, but in this case we have an ArbCom ruling which says that you CANNOT restore text which has been challenged: when a source that is not a high quality source (an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journals, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution) is added and subsequently challenged by reversion, no editor may reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page. This applies to for example JTA. If you want to put that sentence in you need a scholarly source. I will remove it again and you can either find a better source or get consensus to include, but in meantime, you are NOT allowed to restore. I'm happy to give you a pass this time (in the past this is something that people would immediately report to WP:AE) in interest of not propagating WP:BATTLEGROUND in this topic area but I ask you to please adhere to the ArbCom restriction.
• You are misquoting and misrepresenting our Wikipedia policies here on the talk page. You invoke WP:PRESERVE as an excuse to edit war, basically arguing that once you add text it may not be removed because it has to be "preserved". This is of course absurd and not what the policy actually says. And I didn't see you bringing up WP:PRESERVE when other editors removed scholarly sourced text from the article. Thing is, if there's WP:OR in the article, the way to "FIX IT" is to remove it. If there's WP:SYNTH in the article, the way to FIX IT is to remove it. If there's WP:BLP vios in the article, the way to FIX IT is to remove it. If there's text which is misrepresenting the source, then we either reword, or depending on how badly it misrepresents the source, we remove it. Same goes for stuff which is simply off topic and UNDUE or worse, a WP:COATRACK (like the stuff about the conference [26]). Removing problematic text and cutting down wording is precisely what editors (at publishing houses, journals) do. In fact it's the biggest part of the job (mostly because a lot of authors have a tendency to write for themselves rather than for the intended audience). Making the author cut down a manuscript from 13000 words to 8000 words is basically what your job as an editor at a journal is. It's the same thing here. We remove stuff that doesn't belong. Edit warring to keep it in is WP:OWN and WP:BATTLEGROUND.

That's the behavioral problems here. Now on to the content... Volunteer Marek 20:27, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

There's really much to deconstruct among the stuff you've written, but I will note one thing. WP:PRESERVE has never been about edit warring, and the edit war in fact is not there, at least not yet. We are only speaking of one revert I've done - you've already done two (one of which partial). The reversion has been done because, as has been shown above, you haven't adequately explained it. Had you been an IP, this would have been promptly reverted as unexplained removal of content - it's not enough to simply cite whatever policy you want to type on your keyboard, it must also be relevant to be seriously considered. Which is what I essentially said in the 10K edit just above the Note subsection. The other thing PRESERVE and other policies requiring that you explain the rationale behind the removals is not to create time sinks like this one, or at least, if it's inevitable, to make it less severe. You know, maybe you don't have better stuff to do than to quarrel with random editors on Wikipedia - who knows? - but I, on the other hand, do. Please respect it.

1. The first point has been explained.
2. The second point is essentially about the same: if you can't explain the problem and indicate the possible resolution, then I'm not obliged to second-guess your intentions guiding you when you were putting a "bare" problem tag.
3. The third point, as has been said earlier, refers to two points: first, the content restrictions, which is not applied automatically but upon admin intervention; second, the challenge should also rely on some reasoning. It's not as if you can revert any source addition and says "I want to because." You assert this four times: twice as regards the New Yorker piece ([27], [28]) and twice time for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ([29], [30]). For the New Yorker piece, the only piece of information that is cited to that article is attributed and is about the sales and the general scholarly reception, which, as I showed, has not been changed since publication; then if you assert that the article was subject of widespread criticism for basic factual historical errors, you can just as well post links to that effect. Well, I've found one, but with no further corrections, or a retraction, issued, despite pressure from the Polish embassy in Washington (hardly a reliable source, I would say - applying your criteria of sourcing restrictions, none of the organisations noted there pass them), I have to assume that the New Yorker stands by the reporting, and it is in fact not out of order for an outlet to issue a correction, which is what WP:NEWSORGs do. Reading through the AP report you link, I've seen (justified) criticism of the initial byline but it was quickly corrected and the director of Auschwitz was satisfied, except for the irreversible damage done by the initially faulty byline. It would be much worse if the New Yorker did not correct it - I would doubt the usage myself. In any case, we have no choice but to consider it an RS. (If you want to see the scope of correction, there you go). Anyway, this is irrelevant, because the fragment we cite has not been changed. If you want to challenge the source, you don't need me to start an RfC - post one yourself. Good luck. As for JTA, you haven't explained at all what's wrong with the source. The template above doesn't say that WP:NEWSORGs are banned (I haven't seen you challenge the other JTA article, the Rzeczpospolita and the Newsweek PL article, so there's some sort of inconsistency there). That said, since no one actually cared to expand the content section and I don't think anyone will (you've just dissuaded me from doing so), in fact you can forget the JTA source you link. You won't need it anyway.
4. Regards the last point, most of it has been addressed above. WP:PRESERVE essentially says not to throw the baby with the bathwater, which you've did on several occasions. You explain that if there's WP:OR in the article, the way to "FIX IT" is to remove it. If there's WP:SYNTH in the article, the way to FIX IT is to remove it. If there's WP:BLP vios in the article, the way to FIX IT is to remove it. If there's text which is misrepresenting the source, then we either reword, or depending on how badly it misrepresents the source, we remove it. Same goes for stuff which is simply off topic and UNDUE or worse, a WP:COATRACK (like the stuff about the conference [26]). It would have been true if it wasn't a case of WP:TAGBOMBING - excessive, mostly without merits, and with very liberal interpretations (if not to say misunderstandings) of policy, as well as stretched, to say the least, accusations of misinterpretation of underlying policies. They are going to be addressed, again, below. And even then when you say something "needs better representation", that's what you have editorial tools for. Then you say that Removing problematic text and cutting down wording is precisely what editors (at publishing houses, journals) do. In fact it's the biggest part of the job (mostly because a lot of authors have a tendency to write for themselves rather than for the intended audience). Making the author cut down a manuscript from 13000 words to 8000 words is basically what your job as an editor at a journal is. First, we are not publishing a book, we are editing articles here. Secondly, we aim to write a comprehensive account, without airbrushing or abridging events and behaviours. The journals/book publishers often have word restrictions, we don't. Finally, journals/book publishers need not represent all perspectives - we strive to do just that. The comparison is simply not apt. If that's your excuse to excessive deletions, you'll have to find a better one. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:39, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Ok here are the content issues with the text Szmenderowiecki added (23k+ worth of text) here. I thought my edit summaries were sufficiently descriptive but given the blind revert of my edits by Szmender I'm happy to articulate here on talk:

• [31] There is NO source which says "The book has been generally positively assessed by most non-Polish researchers of the Holocaust". This is Szmenderowiecki's OWN, subjective, assessment of the reviews that they found themselves on the internet. EVEN IF there was a source which stated this, you still couldn't say it in Wikipedia voice. You'd have to attribute it. But we don't even have that. So this is textbook, classic, WP:SYNTH. The thing is Szmenderowiecki, is that you're NOT "summarizing" text, you're inserting your own opinion into the text. This same problem reappears at several other points in the text you added.
• Same edit as above - separating out sources by their ethnicity, as Szmenderowiecki does above is VERY problematic. Ethnicity of the author is NOT a criteria for RS, and is NOT relevant to the subject. This is original research which tries to portray the controversy as "Polish authors vs. the world" which is just false and is not supported by any source. As such it is SYNTH and OR and, like I said, kind of disturbing. It needs to go.
• This text violates the ArbCom sourcing restriction. It cannot be restored if challenged (which I have done) without getting consensus or better sources.
• Same applies to this text. The Gessen article in the New Yorker does not satisfy the sourcing restriction to begin with and worse, that particular article had to be corrected several times because it made some preposterous false claims. It was heavily criticized across the board, even by the Auschwitz Museum [32] [33] [34]. In the original Gessen actually blamed the "Polish state" for the Holocaust (in case we're not on the same page in terms of historical accuracy here, the "Polish state" during WW2 was the Polish Government in Exile in UK which fought against the Nazis on the Allied side and was the first to bring the Holocaust to the attention of the west). There is absolutely no way we're using this as a source.
• More synth. The claim "Most of the Polish scholars have also spoken in favour of the book in their reviews." does not appear in any source. This is again Szmenderowiecki's own personal opinion (WP:SYNTH, WP:OR) and what's more, it actually contradicts their earlier WP:OR claim that the reviews can be split in Polish vs. Non-Polish.
• This is also SYNTH, although I think here it's more out of laziness than anything else.

That's it for now. There's more coming. Volunteer Marek 20:49, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

As for the points raised below:

1. [35] The response you posted here suggests WP:BALANCE problems, but I haven't seen any sources you'd like me to consider to actually address it in any way. Moreover, the summary as presented is perfectly appropriate, as can be evidenced in FA-class articles about books and magazines, such as The Thrill Book, A Handful of Dust and A Voyage Round the World. Go ahead and challenge the FA statuses based on that interpretation - and I’m looking forward to the reaction. Besides, the fragment reflected the New Yorker source which you want to challenge, but neither did I know of the embassy's intervention nor, even if I knew of it, would I have changed my mind, given the correction and the generally high reliability The New Yorker has. If there's any other way for you to describe the general reception with 5 favourable reviews, one somewhat favourable and one rather negative one, let me know. (The IPN reviews is a whole different story, but that's described separately, and for good reason).
2. As of ethnicity, the conflict is in fact not "Polish authors vs. the world" but IPN-affiliated authors vs others (including Poles), and I haven't pretended otherwise. This is in fact supported by the four sources that you decided to delete (together with the two paragraph about the conference and the criticism of IPN's activities) - find them here, numbers 8, 17, 20, 44. Pretending these sources don't exist because you've decided to delete the fragment which they reference, together with the references, cannot be described otherwise than disingenious. Other than that, ethnicity isn't probably the best separator but deleting it would create paragraphs that are difficult to navigate, so if you have any better ideas, find them (well, you haven't yet, so now you have an artificial split which makes me wonder of how it is in any way separate from the previous one).
3. [36] It was supposed to be "non-affiliated with the IPN", but I did not add it, mea culpa. So at least here, that's a fair point. Again, however, this shows perfectly how you could've fixed it but for some reason didn't. Substitute "Most" with "Some" and you're done.
4. Referring to "One more specific issue", you have the later source in French, which you pretend not to notice, which said that an IPN representative demanded to speak. First, you quote out of context about efforts of the (Polish) government, while the original text talked of government institutions (IPN is a government institution, TVP is not strictly a government institution but is state-run and heavily slanted towards the current govt it in its coverage; the interventions of the embassy of Poland in Paris has not been even mentioned as it really belongs to the main article). Second, the source is [37] and says at the bottom of the sentence avec victimisation de l'IPN qui conteste le caractère scientifique de l'événement puisqu'elle n'a pas été invité (with the victimisation of IPN that contests the scientific nature of the event as it was not invited). Kichelewski, earlier in the article, describes that the researchers indeed requested to speak, which he didn't object (Judith Lyon-Caen speaks more of "demanding" (or "requesting") to do that: Maciej Korkuć a demandé à prendre la parole, estimant que le « point de vue » de l’IPN n’était pas représenté. - Maciej Korkuć requested/demanded to talk, opining that the "point of view" of IPN was not represented). "Demanded" is probably not the best translation of French demander, but given the context, it is not really off the mark, either. The JTA cite refers strictly to the "controversial among the Polish diaspora" part; had I actually finished the whole piece of thought, I'd have placed a full stop, not a semi-colon. So cite 37 in the old version refers to the whole sentence, on both sides of the semi-colon, JTA refers to the parentheses only. Cite 38 could also be cited there.

Addressing WP:COATRACK concerns, the sources cited in the two paragraphs, i.e. Lyon-Caen, Political.fr piece, Neue Zuercher Zeitung and Kończal (referring to reviews critical of Dalej jest noc without naming it explicitly), and the proceedings of the conference published in 2019, explicitly note the connection of the book with the conference, so it's not me connecting dots, it's the authors of the sources. It actually merits one paragraph only, which is how I originally wrote it.

Now to your edit summaries:

• [38] First, if someone files a defamation suit by proxy, it is assumed that the plaintiff considers the claim libellous. Second, expand the description yourself, why wait for me?
• [39] The first sentence says Wieloletnie prace naukowe prowadzone w Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów PAN sfinalizowano w 2018 roku imponującą dwutomową publikacją (w sumie ponad 1600 stron) pod redakcją naukową Barbary Engelking i Jana Grabowskiego pt. Dalej jest noc. Losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski. I know of no dictionary that translates "imponujący" as "extensive". Same here: that they state it in a footnote is actually irrelevant - the fact is, the author considers it to be such, so so long he's not quoted out of context, it's alright to make an en passant mention just like they do in the review. If you need the quote, there you go: Les résultats ont été publiés en polonais dans un imposant ouvrage en deux volumes : Engelking Barbara, Grabowski Jan (dir.), Dalej jest noc. Losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski" For Papier's review, see quote Ponadto nieocenione na tym polu są badania prowadzone przez Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, bez których – jak się wydaje – nie sposób pisać o lokalnych historiach Zagłady. Mam tu na myśli przede wszystkim dwutomowe wydawnictwo Dalej jest noc. Losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski.
• [40] Concurred with the notion of being attacked by an organised campaign by IPN, not with the Holocaust deflection notion. Admittedly an unfortunate wording, though opining on the reviews themselves, as you did in the edit summary, does not belong to us.

If you need any more of these walls of text, let me know. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

if someone files a defamation suit by proxy - what's a "defamation suit by proxy"? Is that a legal term? Or is it... your own WP:OR? And yes, I do plan on expanding that part.

I know of no dictionary that translates "imponujący" as "extensive" .... .... .... you know that that sentence is translated into English right in the abstract, right? And it's translated as "extensive". This is how the authors themselves translated it!

Same here - Yes, if it's in footnote that's relevant as it suggests WP:UNDUE and the fact that someone is dredging the depths of the internet to support a particular POV. Same goes for Papier (though there at least it seems it's quoted accurately).

Concurred with the notion of being attacked by an organised campaign by IPN, not with the Holocaust deflection notion. This is simply false. So yes, first thanks for acknowledging that the wording you initially inserted was, ahem, "unfortunate" (someone else may say "false"). But, it is also false that "Libionka concurs with the notion of being attacked by an organised campaign by IPN". He says nothing like this. To his credit, unlike other authors, Libionka actually addresses the merits of the specific criticisms levied by Domanski. One can agree with Libionka here, or one can agree with Domanski, but Libionka is definitely doing what we here on Wikipedia call "discussing content, not editors" (same thing is not true for other responses to Domanski which seek to attack him personally). So, no, he isn't concurring with this either. You are once again falsely misrepresenting the contents of a source. Please stop it. Volunteer Marek 00:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

BTW, here is the Libionka source. Please quote the part in which Libionka supposedly "concurs" with being "attacked by an organised campaign by IPN". Volunteer Marek 00:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Domański nawet nie stara się ukryć poczucia wyższości wobec przedmiotu swoich analiz, raz po raz popada w ton mentorski. Cały czas konsekwentnie prowadzi czytelnika za rękę i uczy, jak należy naszą książkę czytać. Nie tylko punktuje błędy, lecz przede wszystkim obnaża, ocenia i stygmatyzuje. Od trzech tygodni broszura żyje własnym życiem i osiąga swój cel. Na razie w kraju, choć wkrótce ma zostać przełożona na język angielski, być może też na inne języki kongresowe, mimo że tomy Dalej jest noc dostępne są wyłącznie w języku polskim. Samo to pokazuje, że nie jest to sytuacja zwyczajna i mamy do czynienia z szeroko zakrojoną i sterowaną kampanią propagandową, or, in English: Domański does not even try to hide his feeling of superiority over the object of his analysis, and systematically adopts a condescending tone. Throughout his review, he guides the reader by the hand, and teaches them how our book should be read. Not only does he tally errors, but primarily tries to expose, pass judgments, and stigmatize. For several weeks, his text has lived a life of its own, and achieves its purpose. For the time being, his text achieves its purpose in Poland, but soon it is to be translated into English and other languages, even though our book is available only in Polish. All this alone shows that we are not dealing with standard practice, but with an extensive and orchestrated propaganda campaign. (underlined fragments indicate the fragment I was referring to). Anything else I can do for you? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Want some - get some!

1. The qualification as a "proxy lawsuit" is present here and here, as regards RDI's involvement in the lawsuit, RDI being described as a proxy institution for the govt. This source says the same, just doesn't use the word "proxy". We also have the New Yorker, read the parentheses starting from This defamation-by-proxy approach has odd parallels in Russia. In this case, the New Yorker uses it to denote that the plaintiff is not the person against whom allegedly defamatory remarks were made, but rather a relative (and not even the closest one). Again, not my words. Also, I've got two stupid questions to you: you were the second editor to actually edit this article, first time on 13 March 2019, and you've since made three appearances. Why haven't you done it then, and secondly, given that the majority of your edits is deletion or reverts of deletion of additoon of content (as can bee seen here), how is anyone supposed to believe you are going to add something substantial?
2. We are both right here. She says both "imponujący" (impressive) and "extensive". Note, however, that the abstract is not a translation of the first paragraph (notably the first sentence from the EN abstract is missing in the first paragraph). Therefore, we can't simply refer to the abstract and ignore the rest of the text; it's not as if the English abstract is more reliable than the Polish main text.
3. Yes, if it's in footnote that's relevant as it suggests WP:UNDUE and the fact that someone is dredging the depths of the internet to support a particular POV. Which is a WP:BALANCE accusation (further confirmed by the template you've put on the top), which necessitates that you present sources that say otherwise. You've provided none. I have, on the other hand, introduced (or re-introduced) them, including critical voices. Remember that UNDUE is about not fairly represent[ing] all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources., and I see no reasons by which the inclusion of these sources is not doing just that. In fact, you are sort of right about putting the BALANCE template - it is giving undue weight to the IPN's researchers. Gontarczyk specialises in Communist Poland history, with only one book about a pogrom that occurred before WWII (1936), but apparently that makes him entitled to regularly speak about the Holocaust. Dawid Golik specialises in the anti-Communist military movements in the first post-war years, which is hardly a qualification to speak about the Holocaust, either. (In all honesty, Janina Hajduk-Nijakowska isn't a specialist of the era, while Vychytil-Baudoux describes makes research into the Polish diaspora; but both, unlike Gontarczyk or Golik, are mentioned in one or two words only).
4. Now to the points below (please don't disperse the discussion on multiple threads, I will answer here because I'm not going to spread myself over three or four threads at the same time). WP:OTHERSTUFF explicitly refers to AfD and notability issues, it's not about the article quality. If we allow what you say is SYNTH/OR in FA articles (the cases, in fact, are identical - you have a description in the lead, not referenced to anything, then you have the body which may or may not (The Thrill Book) have a reference), then there are two options: either these articles shouldn't be FAs, or this is not SYNTH/OR. The secondary source you pretend does not exist is the New Yorker article. Other than that, I return you to this question: If there's any other way for you to summarise the general reception with 5 favourable reviews, one somewhat favourable and one rather negative one, let me know.
5. I can't help but ignore the other two points, as the first seems to rely on deliberately not seeing what the sources write and the other on ignoring point 4 of the previous reply.

You finished yet? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:37, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

POV and balance tags should probably stay until issues are resolved, although overall I think we are moving in the right-ish direction. I do think that UNDUE weight is given to context and side issues like the Paris conference - paragraph instead of a sentence, it's too much. We should discuss the book, not the background politics (in depth, that is). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Given that the book has been described as "intentionally political" and as carrying a "clear scholarly goal and a political message", I'm afraid the discussion of politics around the book is inevitable. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Sigh.

• The response you posted here suggests WP:BALANCE problems. No. As I've explained about as clearly as can be explained, it's a WP:SYNTH problem. You are inserting your own personal opinion, not a claim which can actually be found in sources. (Yes, there's balance problems in the article too, but that is not what my point here was about). the summary as presented is perfectly appropriate, as can be evidenced in FA-class articles about books and magazines. No. First of all this is a WP:OTHERSTUFF argument. It doesn't matter what other articles do, what matters what policy is. All the same I see no similarity between the FA articles you invoke and the situation here. There's nothing comparable there. Yes, A Handful of Dust, for example, says "The book's initial critical reception was modest", BUT crucially this is actually sourced to a secondary source. That is NOT the case here where there is no source to support your claim. Just your own WP:SYNTH.
• I seriously doubt - and haven't seen - any source that say this is "IPN vs. the world". Yes, sources say IPN has been critical. Yes, there are some people out there who praised it. You CANNOT WP:SYNTHesize into this "IPN vs. the world" POV wording. This is elementary Wikipedia editing 101. This also applies to your next point ("It was supposed to be "non-affiliated with the IPN""). That too is your own WP:OR.
• You included a sentence with a source at the end of that sentence. NONE of the claims in that sentence were in the least bit supported by the source! This is on you. If you don't want me to say that you are falsely representing sources, then... don't falsely represent the sources. I still want to know how in the world you wound up doing this - this was a pretty serious violation which does not appear to be a simple mistake. Please answer in the dedicated section below. Volunteer Marek 00:12, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Related discussion below: #Talk:Dalej_jest_noc#IPN_Reviews. -- K.e.coffman (talk) 03:52, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Glaukopis and Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u

I have removed reviews from Glaukopis and Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u, for not meeting WP:RS. Pursuant to the arbitration remedy governing this page, editors must not reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Noting that Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Glaukopis is an ongoing discussion. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:52, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• Why Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u aren't RS? Marcelus (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• Why would the in-house journal of an association of veteran soldiers be a reliable source at the first place? TrangaBellam (talk) 17:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't really understand your question. Do you have any RS claiming that Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u aren't reliable? If you have start WP:RSN. It's a peer reviewed journal. Marcelus (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  So you are just decided to ignore my comments and you will not restore Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u review? Marcelus (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It would need to be established that the journal meets the RS requirements, see especially Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Definition_of_a_source: "Any of the three can affect reliability. ... These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people." From the web site http://zhwin.pl/, I don't see such evidence. What else is known about this publication? --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It is a scientific, peer reviewed journal, there is no reason to question its credibility. If TB thinks otherwise, they should prove it. Sources cannot be removed just like that because someone doesn't like the content to which they are referenced. Marcelus (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Glaukopis is also peer reviewed and claims to be scientific; does not make it any more reliable. To paraphrase above: Do you have any RS claiming that Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u is reliable?. An evidence-free assertion from an editor (there is no reason to question its credibility) is not sufficient. "These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people", as per WP:RS. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:31, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Reliablity Glaukopis is being evaluated at this point, if TB believes that the Zeszyty is also not reliable it should submit it for evaluation, with sources that says about it's unreliablity.

Contrary to what TB said, Zeszyty is not an "in-house journal," so this objection is baseless. Contrary to what TB said, it is not published by the "association of veteran soldiers," so this objection is also baseless. The publisher is the Historical Commission of the "Freedom and Independence" Association (and Freedom and Independence Association was not an army by the way, but that's a detail). Zeszyty are a scientific, peer-reviewed source, which makes it safe to assume that they are reliable. It's not assertion, it's a fact. Marcelus (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It is your claim that WiN did not have any "soldier"? WHAT. Indeed, the journal is published by a WiN veterans' association, popularrly called Zrzeszenie WiN. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

WiN was formed as a secret, civilian, political organization after the dissolution of the Delegation of Armed Forces at Home and the cessation of armed struggle against the communists in the hope of organizing free elections after the return to the country of Prime Minister-in-exile Mikolajczyk. The task was to secretly support his PSL party. Only later, in the face of the election fiasco, and the continuation of the struggle by many units, did the WiN try to coordinate their efforts (without much success). To the end, however, it remained a strictly civilian organization (hence the name Zrzeszenie - Association, led by a president, not a military leader, etc.).

WiN veterans' association is Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość Stowarzyszenie Społeczno-Kombatanckie, here we are talking about Historical Commission of the "Freedom and Independence" Association, two different things. Marcelus (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The obscure (?) Historical Commission of the "Freedom and Independence" Association likewise does not inspire confidence. -- K.e.coffman (talk) 22:13, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Marcelus, you wish to state that the Historical Commission of the "Freedom and Independence" Association has no involvement with the "Freedom and Independence" Association? TrangaBellam (talk) 22:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I am saying that it is not an association of veterans, but the Historical Commission, which refers to the tradition of WiN. It was established by former members and supporters of this organization, who wanted to research its history in 1990. After 40 years, when the tradition of WiN was doomed to oblivion. Marcelus (talk) 22:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I understand that this is not a typical situation, the Historical Commission was also established in not a typical situation, mainly to help in the rehabilitation processes of partisan soldiers and WiN activists. Marcelus (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

My question was:

Does the Historical Commission of the "Freedom and Independence" Association has no involvement with the "Freedom and Independence" Association?

This is simple enough to have an one-word answer - yes/no? TrangaBellam (talk) 22:50, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I believe I answered that question Marcelus (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I found your replies evasive and confusing. Do you wish to draw parallels with the distinction between Oxford University and Oxford University Press — that is, they have links but are editorially independent entities? I am afraid that there is no evidence to support such a reading.

The journal was started in the 90s by the veterans assoc. to boost their own history in a rather ahistorical way; the first few years have little apart from various aspects of WiN, written by former members, undergraduate students, and amateur scholars. C. mid-2000, the assoc. recruited a few historians who took over a part of the responsibilities of publishing the journal. As of now, the editorial board is staffed by IPN historians. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:10, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The WiN was a secret organization that ceased to exist at the end of 1947. Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość Stowarzyszenie Społeczno-Kombatanckie, Komisja Historyczna Zrzeszenia „Wolność i Niezawisłość”, and Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u were established ca 1990, 53 years after.

to boost their own history in a rather ahistorical way, how?

as of now, the editorial board is staffed by IPN historians, what's that supposed to mean? The Institute of National Remembrance is an educational and research institution that has employed hundreds of historians and published thousands of publications. Marcelus (talk) 12:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I do not think that this to-and-fro is productive; please have the last word. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:39, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I would prefer to know the answer to these questions. Besides, the purpose of this discussion should be for you to present convincing arguments that the Zeszyty as a source is unreliable. If you are unable to do so you should restore them in the article. Marcelus (talk) 13:58, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Marcelus -- The key point being missed in this discussion is that, on Wikipedia, sources are not presumed to be reliable by default. For myself, the journal being published by the the Historical Commission of the Freedom and Independence Association does not inspire me to think: it's safe to assume that they are reliable. I've not seen sufficient evidence; you may wish to make a case at RSN. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:56, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

An evidence-free assertion from an editor is not sufficient, it's a peer reviewed scientific journals that is indexed in citation indexes, what do you really need more? The journal is ok, I don't know about the author, but my guess is that he is also ok. And WiN was a democratic, even left-leaning organization, there is no indication that the Historical Commission referring to this tradition was different. Marcelus (talk) 22:19, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

As far I didn't find any hard, evidence-based arguments justifying removal of this source. "Zeszyty Historyczne WIN" cannot be compared with "Glaukopis".

1. It is peer-reviewed journal (http://zhwin.pl/dla-autorow-zhw/procedura-recenziona/)
2. According to this: "Initially, the editorial team was dominated by veterans of WiN, but over time, the names of young historians appeared among the editors and collaborators" (http://zhwin.pl/historical-notebooks/about-notebooks-2/)
3. As for the authors, the source is quite "ecumenical". Among the authors were right-wing historians (Marek Chodakiewicz, Kazimierz Krajewski), historians who were later emploeed by the Institute for National Remembrance (Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, Mateusz Szpytma), but also historians like Andrzej Kunert, Grzegorz Motyka, Rafał Wnuk who are rather identified with liberal-centre orientation (http://zhwin.pl/zeszyty-historiczne/archival-numbers/zh-win-u-23/)
4. "WiN" as the organization had no nationalistic orientation, as Marcelus already pointed out.
5. I do not recall any controversies associated with this journal (which cannot be said about "Glaukopis").Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 11:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Also Szwagrzyk is RS, basically he is the main expert on postwar Stalinist terror, he made tremendous job on that field. Marcelus (talk) 11:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

• All that said about the reliability of Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u, the core issue is that both Roman Gieroń and Dawid Golik are staff of IPN; the scholars, whom I cite below, collectively train their guns on IPN's response to the book. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
• I don't this can be compared to Glaukopis which appears fundamentally biased and lacks sufficient editorial oversight, thus not passing WP:RS (I said more in the relevant thread). In the case of Zeszyty, however, there seems to be a track record of editorial growth, for the lack of a better word, from what was originally a partisan publication toward a more academic journal in line with other respected historical publications, at least as far as the peer-review process goes. When you read the mission statement of the publication, it is quite transparent about their original intentions: "the goal of our editorial staff was to rectify the distorted history of modern Poland and to reconstruct the heroic struggle of the post-war anti-communist underground" (translation from pl my own and with my own emphasis: "celem który stawiała sobie redakcja było odkłamanie najnowszej historii Polski oraz odtworzenie heroicznej walki antykomunistycznego podziemia z lat powojennych"). This is a very clear declaration of bias, although when you read on, they are transparent about (allegedly) evolving from this kind of mindset into one predicated on honest historical analysis. More importantly, their double-blind review process--as outlined on the website--is similar to those in other respected academic journals, with at least two independent researchers evaluating methodology, merit, relative historical importance of the topic, argumentation, sources, etc.; here is the review form in Polish. The only thing different in my experience is that some journals associated with big universities in Poland give you a point scale for each question, which allows for more precision, but unless I am missing something major, the form looks pretty standard. Similarly, when you look at the list of past and present reviewers, you see that, despite a significant amount of IPN-associated people, there is still a fair amount of diversity and the list includes scholars from across Poland, including private researchers and those from educational and historical institutions. And while I am generally wary of journals published by private organizations and not associated with a major university or a research center, that in and of itself is not enough to discredit the publication. If one were to ask me whether I personally consider Zeszyty as a valuable source of historical research, I'd most likely say no, because 1) it was founded with a clear ideological agenda, 2) there are plenty alternatives, and 3) I also think that the list of present and past reviewers is IPN-heavy and has too many private "scholars" which bothers me. However, based on the official profile of the publication and trying to remain as objective as I can as a researcher, the journal appears to fulfill the basic criteria of a peer-reviewed source and I don't see enough to unilaterally dismiss it as unreliable and biased. If it contains material deemed valuable for article editing--and which can't be found elsewhere--I would use it with caution, given the organization's legacy of ideological bent. My 2 grosze. Ppt91^talk 20:12, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Ppt91 Very valuable perspective. In this case, we are using it to source negative criticism of our subject from someone, associated with IPN. Now, in light of the section just below, what do you feel? TrangaBellam (talk) 20:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  @TrangaBellam I think there is no doubt regarding the politicization of IPN in recent years--which the quote @K.e.coffman provided in the thread below aptly illustrates--and I agree with and appreciate your suggestion that the ideological bias should be reflected in the article. In the case of a Zeszyty article authored by a person associated with IPN, I actually think that citing it in the sub-section on reception dedicated to the Institute benefits NPOV, because it would help illustrate the extent to which right-wing historical revisionism has permeated research even in publications not officially associated with the government; of course, as long as it is contextualized properly and in a relatively muted tone (eg. without words like "severely"). Their inflamed rhetoric certainly speaks for itself. I hope it makes sense? I don't mean to make it seem like I am popping in just to say my bit, so am obviously happy to talk more/clarify/find the most appropriate way to do this. Ppt91^talk 20:52, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  This is a nice take. As long as it goes in the IPN section, I have no major issues. But let's say that we cite it. How do we summarize the content? These reviews span pages; what is important and what is not? TrangaBellam (talk) 23:08, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  This is what I wanted to say, you can have reservations about the Zeszyty, and approach more carefully the reliability of the articles posted there, but you can not a priori consider that the journal as such is unreliable. One cannot remove reviews just because they were published in Zeszyty Marcelus (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry about my delay. Here is a rough draft: "Multiple Polish historians affiliated with the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) heavily criticized the book upon its release, citing methodological flaws and alleged factual inaccuracies. Tomasz Domański, a researcher at IPN Kielce, and Piotr Gontarczyk, deputy director of IPN's Lustration department, both particularly vocal in their criticism of Dalej jest noc, directly questioned the academic qualifications of Barbara Engelking. Following responses from the book's contributing authors, Domański published an additional 110-page rebuttal."

  I think in this context, simply providing references to their reviews in Zeszyty and other publications will need no further clarification, since we won't rely on content for historical facts. I would not include citations to Glaukopis reviews by Gontarczyk unless we can come up with a good way of contextualizing its inaccuracies and lack of reliability (i.e. "Some reviews were also published in Glaukopis, a journal associated with the Polish far-right.." but that is challenging and virtually guaranteed to cause another heated debate somewhere on en-wiki.) Ppt91^talk 23:01, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  Is Glaukopis tabu now on Wiki? What's wrong with simply adding ref to the review? Marcelus (talk) 23:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  It's not taboo. I simply think that including it without any explanation would be detrimental to the article's encyclopedic quality for the reasons I summarized above and described, at length, in the RSN thread. Ppt91^talk 23:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  Passing note. I, for one, would be fine with the compromise suggested above. Marcelus, could you propose your text, if it would differ? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:34, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

IPN Reviews

It appears that academic scholars are unanimous that the IPN reviews were politically motivated and meritless:

• In any case, the leaders and supporters of PiS launched a campaign defaming scholars from the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research – especially Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski – before their book was published and accompanied the debate about it with a combination of discursive and disciplining practices [..] Historians and journalists supporting the government publicly libelled Night without an End as ‘scientific humbug’ (naukowa mistyfikacja) accusing its authors of what they call ‘racism of sources’ (rasizm źródłowy), i.e. the privileging of Jewish over Polish testimonies. Right-wing activists did the same during public events, and the Institute of National Remembrance, meanwhile transformed into an agency implementing the state-sponsored politics of memory, commissioned a number of extended critical ‘reviews’ of Night without an End in Polish and other languages.
  — Kończal, K. (2021). Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife. European Review, 29(4), 457-469.

• [H]undreds of millions of dollars have been invested in an academic-bureaucratic infrastructure, the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, IPN), whose mission is to uphold the state-sponsored narratives of the past and to combat any scholarship critical of them.

  Although the IPN has been controversial since its founding in 1999, it has fluctuated between periods of lesser and greater politicization for most of its history [..] [B]y 2016, foreshadowing the controversy in 2018, the IPN’s duties were expanded by the PiS government to include “popularizing .. the recent history of Poland as an element of patriotic education” and “counteracting the spread at home and abroad of information and publications with false historical content detrimental to or slanderous of the Polish Republic or Polish Nation.” The IPN is correspondingly led by historians committed to the exculpatory myth of the war [..]

  Dalej jest noc (trans. Night without End) is a massive two-volume microhistory of the Holocaust in rural Poland published in 2018 and authored by the leading scholars grouped around the Center for Holocaust Research, including Barbara Engelking, Jan Grabowski, Dariusz Libionka, and Alina Skibińska [..] The rebuttal [by Domański of IPN] takes hairsplitting issue with everything from the definition of the word “strategy” to the number of pages in each chapter, all the while inveighing against “paraliterary” writing, “unscientific practices,” and “publicistic deviations.” But its main purpose is to repeat the key element of the myth of the war—that insofar as crimes against Jews are concerned, Poles had no agency whatsoever. The author describes the Polish countryside as being under “total German occupation” and the representatives of the village administration—the headmen, watchmen, firemen, and others—as being utterly captive to German orders. The Blue Police, too, were either helpless pawns or treated Poles as badly as they did Jews. The Jews themselves engaged in crimes ranging from theft to denunciation. German policemen and informers lurked everywhere, enforcing total compliance with Nazi regulations.

  Demonstrating the profound and enduring contradiction of postwar justice in Poland—that the process is written off as “political” justice even as the results are used to underpin the myth of the past—the IPN author alternates between casting suspicion on the trials and citing their acquittals as proof of the innocence of the accused. On the one hand, according to the author, they were “communist trials” produced under the so-called “‘justice system’ of a totalitarian regime.” [..] On the other hand, he accepts acquittals issued by the courts without question and takes to task the contributors to Dalej jest noc for not doing the same.
  — Kornbluth, Andrew. "Conclusion: The Conspiracy of Memory". The August Trials: The Holocaust and Postwar Justice in Poland, Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2021, pp. 269-282.

• [T]he IPN [has] initiated a skillful new strategy of marginalizing critical history writing about Polish-Jewish relations before, during and after the Holocaust. This strategy is characterized by three main elements: The first is to present and promote a central “counter-memory” to counterbalance the “dark history”; the second is to systematically underscore the “feel-good soothing history” of which Poles can be proud of concerning their relations with the Jewish community. The latter has particularly been achieved through the political manipulation of the history and memory of Polish rescuers of Jews, a subject that deserves a comprehensive study and that could be essential in educating civil society. However, at present, the history of rescuers has been almost entirely hijacked by the right-wing conservative political elites [..]

  The third element of the IPN’s strategy to eradicate critical history of Polish-Jewish relations is the orchestration of a wide “against campaign” in the mass and social media and in institutes of higher education in both Poland and abroad [..] One of its best recent examples is the official IPN reaction to the collective two volumes edited by Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, Dalej jest noc: losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski, (trans. Night without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland) and published in early 2018. The 1700 page study reveals that 60% of the Jewish fugitives were denounced or killed by their Christian neighbors during the last phase of the Holocaust from 1943 to 1945. In order to oppose these devastating findings, the IPN extensively promoted a 72-page critical review of Dalej jest noc, produced in 2019 by a young in-house historian called Tomasz Domański. In September 2020, the IPN launched and promoted Domański’s 110-page report, Korekty ciąg dalszy – a second response to the response of the editors-in-chief and individual authors of Dalej jest noc towards Domański’s first report of 2019. Simultaneously, to counteract the scope of the dark past exposed in Dalej jest noc, the IPN orchestrated a variety of conferences, seminars and exhibitions in Poland and abroad devoted to the history of Polish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust [..]

  The academic community of historians and other scholars and artists have been watching with concern, if not tribulation, various past and present attempts and future plans on the part of the PiS to reshape the humanities and the production of historical knowledge in higher education and the history curriculum at schools, national cultural institutions and various NGOs – agents of civil society.
  — Michlic, Joanna B. "History "Wars" and the Battle for Truth and National Memory" in Ninna Mörner, ed., State of the Region Report Constructions and Instrumentalizations of the Past. A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region. Stockholm: CBEES/Elanders. January 2021

• Polish historians stood on both sides of the dispute, for and against the government's memory law and more general 'history policy'. Those employed by the IPN were obliged to support the government's policy. Liberal historians who had previously worked for the IPN under the more liberal regime and academics in general became the targets of this policy, especially those who had been investigating Polish complicity in crimes against Jews. Even before the memory law, the Polish government had attacked as enemies of the nation prominent Holocaust historians such as Jan Tomasz Gross, Jan Grabowski, Barbara Engelking, and Jacek Leociak, who had conducted research on Poles' complicity in actions against Jews. Right-wing groups also protested against the international support for these historians and the institutions with which they were affiliated, and called for the cancellation of international conferences they wanted to attend because of their 'anti-Polish character'.

  The IPN took part in these efforts through official statements calling for the dissemination Of the history policy in universities and educational institutes. The IPN also produced historical material that supported the official view for state- sponsored institutions, like the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, and attempted to undermine the work Of the self-critical historians, for example through the dissemination of scholarly reviews that criticized their work. [Endnote: For such reviews of Dalej jest noc, see ...]
  — Gutman, Yifat, and Elazar Barkan. “Israel and Poland Confront Holocaust Memory.” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 35: Promised Lands: Jews, Poland, and the Land of Israel, edited by Israel Bartal et al., Liverpool University Press, 2023, pp. 410–34.

• This criticism [of Dalej jest noc], especially from researchers at the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamiqci Narodowej, IPN), has been as extensive as is detailed. And indeed some errors can be found in this collaborative work of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research. At the same time, despite the efforts to take care and be thorough, such errors can hardly be avoided in a work totalling 1,700 pages. Even if highly specialised scholars examine every footnote and every single statement, there will still probably be things to complain about in any given research publication on any topic — here only he or she who is without guilt should be allowed to throw the first stone. The main question seems to be what these — in the end rather marginal — corrections fundamentally mean. Research thrives on discussion, and of course, it is as legitimate as it is reasonable to correct mistakes and errors. However, the thrust here is political, because it is more about discrediting some overall statements and conclusions through criticism of details. This is a popular defamatory discourse strategy along the lines of: 'If footnote 1376 is incorrect, everything else must be wrong as well'. This procedure lends itself to being used to avoid an actual discussion of the overall findings and analysis, and usually is not even aimed at one.
  — Lehnstaedt, Stephan. "Review of Dalej jest noc" Acta Poloniae Historica. CXXI. June 2020

• Tymczasem w ostatnim okresie aktywność Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, jeśli chodzi o problematykę Zagłady, w znacznej mierze skupiała się – ze szkodą dla badań podstawowych – raczej na polemice z innymi badaczami, prezentującymi odmienny od oϐicjalnie pożądanego obraz postaw Polaków wobec Żydów. [Footnote: Mam na myśli udział niektórych historyków z IPN w nagonce przeciwko autorom pracy Dalej jest noc. Zob. Tomasz Domański ...]

Wikipedia needs to reflect that. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Removed the section, pending rewrite. I am doubting the reliability of the IPN reviews and hence, the arbitration remedy governing this page applies — editors must not reinstate the source [and the content] without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:35, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• Why did you remove the section that described the "controversiality" of reviews written by historians associated with the IPN? Marcelus (talk) 13:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• Because, the content was cited to the (unreliable) sources — affecting compliance with DUE — and there was no discussion about the (apparent) unanimity among academic historians of them being a political hitjob. Did you read the sources, I provided? Do you object to their reliability? Or, have you got any equally reliable source admiring the IPN reviews? TrangaBellam (talk) 13:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  So why don't you just add to the article that some scientists are questioning their credibility, if you think that wasn't articulated clearly enough? That's better than removing information about reviews almost completely.

  Your actions in the subject of Holocaust-related books are disturbing, because you remove mention of negative reviews of books you consider good and positive reviews of books you consider bad. Marcelus (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  Your actions in the subject of Holocaust-related books are disturbing, because you remove mention of negative reviews of books you consider good and positive reviews of books you consider bad. - Please take such concerns to AE or ArbCom. This t/p is not about my behaviour.

  The issue is not that "some scientists are questioning their credibility"; the issue is that about half-a-dozen historians appear to agree that the reviews were a political hitjob and I do not see anyone against such an interpretation. So, prima facie, the reviews are unreliable. Now, that we have reached such a state, we cannot depend on the (primary) sources to write our content; rather, we need to source the entire controversy from the above sources, which are secondary to the dispute. Indeed, I plan to do that. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:10, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  But it is not up to you to decide what has the right to be on Wikipedia and what doesn't; these are reviews published by people with academic degrees in scientific periodicals, as such you have no rights to censor them. You can contextualize them, explaining the circumstances of their creation, but you can't censor them. Marcelus (talk) 15:20, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  We indeed have such rights; see WP:VNOTSUFF. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:23, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• @TrangaBellam I believe the wording of the remedy Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland#Article sourcing expectations says - if the source is added and subsequently challenged by reversion, no editor may reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.

You didn’t add anything, you removed an entire long-standing section along with all its sources. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I do not believe that when the arbitrators used "is", they intended to insulate existing sources from the provision. That would be self-defeating but you can request for a clarification? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

You are the one who is removing long standing sections and sources, I pointed out to you that you missed few words in your quote and that the full sentence of the remedy starts with: is added and subsequently challenged by reversion I’m sure what the remedy says but you can ask if you are not sure.

Could you please also stop moving my comments around? Thank you. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• All that said, what was the credibility of Tomasz Domański to take on the who's who of Polish-Jewish history? Arguably, his only claim to fame — till now — lies in publishing "reviews" of Dalej jest noc. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:54, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  He was an expert on the local aspect of the German occupation, particularly in the Kielce region Marcelus (talk) 15:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe, but I spot less than five (sic) citations of Domański by other scholars till the time of the publication of the review. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• All that we need to know unless we have high quality sources that find IPN's criticism as legitimate. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:16, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  You removed the critic of said reviews, please restore it, you are breaking rules mentioned by @GizzyCatBella Marcelus (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  No rule asks of me to abstain from deleting sources, published by a state-sponsored institution with an illustrious record of engaging in historical negationism, that have been subject to scathing commentary from over half-a-dozen historians. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  Well you are wrong here, but that's your call Marcelus (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  Then, I suppose that the community will overrule me :-) The more eyes, the better article. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:55, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: these issues are not new; I raised similar concerns in #Talk:Dalej_jest_noc#January_2022_edits about these reviews emanating from the IPN, dubbed by scholars as "Ministry of Memory":

  ...the 2018 law officially changed the mission statement of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state research body created in 1988 to investigate Nazi- and Soviet-era crimes, to include “protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation.” The rebranding immediately led many scholars to dub the Institute “the Ministry of Memory,” the Orwellian accent clear.

Source: "The Political Battle Over Poland’s Holocaust History: A libel verdict against two historians marks a new stage in the Polish government’s campaign to control the narrative of the country’s wartime past.", by Lawrence Douglas in the Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2021: [41].

--K.e.coffman (talk) 20:59, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

This I do not deny, but it does not justify their complete removal, including the names of the authors. Marcelus (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Removal of CN tags

Why the tags were removed? It's not clear who is making what claims, that's badly written section. Especially since it replaced much better sourced version, that was removed without any justification (WP:OWNBEHAVIOR by @TrangaBellam) Marcelus (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It is your point that my writeup misrepresented the cited sources? You cannot really claim that a line with six sources need a cn tag; however, you can make your case that WP:INTEGRITY is violated. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:09, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not clear who is making what accusations, to whom and about what. People making claims should be named, "scholar X made claim Y about a review written by Z" etc.

Also please don't use words like "chutzpah" in reference to me or my actions. Marcelus (talk) 18:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

No, when half-a-dozen scholars make the same arguments, we do not need individual attribution. It is disingenous to argue that the scholars cited by me have any difference of opinion about the IPN's reviews even if they (obviously) not use the same language. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I disagree; now your proposed text reads as if all IPN-affiliated historians criticized the book (which is not true), and all "academic historians" criticized their criticism. This is also not true. Besides, the two groups overlap, and not all the people you quote are historians. Marcelus (talk) 18:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

as if all IPN-affiliated historians criticized the book (which is not true) - Fixed.

not all the people you quote are historians - Huh? For your aid:

K. Kończal - Assistant Professor of Public History at Bielefeld University

Andrew Kornbluth - Research Associate in ICEES, UCB. Had his PhD in history.

Joanna Michlic - Social and cultural historian.

Elazar Barkan - Ex-Faculty of History at Claremont, and historian by training. Now teaches IPA at Columbia.

Stephan Lehnstaedt - Professor for Holocaust Studies at Touro Univ.

Krzysztof Persak - Senior Historian at POLIN; now Professor of recent pol. history.

Piotr Wawrzeniuk - Military Historian. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Yifat Gutman - sociologist and culture researcher

Andrew Kornbluth - PhD Candidate in History Marcelus (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Gutman is the co-author of Barkan. You are citing a source from 2012 from Kornbluth... TrangaBellam (talk) 20:23, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Gutman is also author you are citing; where is information about Kornbluth PhD? Marcelus (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Andrew Kornbluth holds a PhD in Eastern European history from the University of California, Berkeley. The book based on his dissertation research, The August Trials: The Holocaust and Postwar Justice in Poland , won the 2020 Ernst Fraenkel Prize from the Wiener Holocaust Library, the 2022 Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize from the American Academy for Jewish Research, and the 2022 Reginald Zelnik Book Prize from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies.
— https://www.american.edu/cas/events/calendar/?id=3274817

TrangaBellam (talk) 20:37, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

So, in essence, you objected to my usage of the word "historians" because one of the co-authors (!) in one of seven sources was not a historian? Nice. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

No, this is a secondary detail (although the fact is that they aren't all historians), my main objection is not mentioning them by name, but using a term that includes the authors of the review, making the whole argument illogical. And also: MOS:WEASEL Marcelus (talk) 21:31, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

No, the IPN guys are not "academic historians". TrangaBellam (talk) 21:36, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

IPN is a research and educational institution, also some of them (for example Dawid Golik) works at universities. Marcelus (talk) 21:51, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Consult Behr, Valentin (2017-01-02). "Historical policy-making in post-1989 Poland: a sociological approach to the narratives of communism". European Politics and Society. 18 (1): 81–95. doi:10.1080/23745118.2016.1269447. ISSN 2374-5118. on how IPN staff != academic historians.

Btw, this is no fringe source; most sources support such a difference. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:53, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't have access to this article, you need to elaborate, why IPN isn't part of academy. What's more, even the authors of Dalej jest noc quote many publications of IPN Marcelus (talk) 13:03, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Citations for key words

• politically motivated:

• [T]he Institute of National Remembrance, meanwhile transformed into an agency implementing the state-sponsored politics of memory, commissioned a number of extended critical ‘reviews’ of Night without an End in Polish and other languages [..]
  — Konczal

• However, the thrust [of the review] is political, because it is more about discrediting some overall statements and conclusions through criticism of details.
  — Lehnstaedt

• Although the IPN has been controversial since its founding in 1999, it has fluctuated between periods of lesser and greater politicization for most of its history [..] [B]y 2016, foreshadowing the controversy in 2018, the IPN’s duties were expanded by the PiS government to [..] The IPN is correspondingly led by historians committed to the exculpatory myth of the war [..]

  [The review's] main purpose is to repeat the key element of the myth of the war [..]
  — Kornbluth

• Those employed by the IPN were obliged to support the government's policy [..] The IPN also produced historical material that supported the official view for state-sponsored institutions, like the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, and attempted to undermine the work of the self-critical historians, for example through the dissemination of scholarly reviews that criticized their work.
  — Gutman

• Michlic.

• unscholarly:

• Kornbluth
• Lehnstaedt

• insignificant

• The main question seems to be what these — in the end rather marginal — corrections fundamentally mean [..] This is a popular defamatory discourse strategy along the lines of: 'If footnote 1376 is incorrect, everything else must be wrong as well'.
  — Lehnstaedt

• adopted a "hairsplitting" approach:

• The rebuttal [by Domański of IPN] takes hairsplitting issue with everything from the definition of the word “strategy” to the number of pages in each chapter, all the while inveighing against “paraliterary” writing, “unscientific practices,” and “publicistic deviations.”
  — Kornbluth

• combing through every footnote and statement:

• Even if highly specialised scholars examine every footnote and every single statement, there will still probably be things to complain about in any given research publication on any topic [...]
  — Lehnstaedt

• polemics

• Tymczasem w ostatnim okresie aktywność Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, jeśli chodzi o problematykę Zagłady, w znacznej mierze skupiała się – ze szkodą dla badań podstawowych – raczej na polemice z innymi badaczami, prezentującymi odmienny od oϐicjalnie pożądanego obraz postaw Polaków wobec Żydów.
  — Persak

• mainstream the right-wing conception of Polish history:

• Konczal
• Kornbluth
• Michlic

• push back against all critical narratives:

• [T]he IPN [has] initiated a skillful new strategy of marginalizing critical history writing about Polish-Jewish relations before, during and after the Holocaust [..] The third element of the IPN’s strategy to eradicate critical history of Polish-Jewish relations is the orchestration of a wide “against campaign” in the mass and social media and in institutes of higher education in both Poland and abroad [..] One of its best recent examples is the official IPN reaction to the collective two volumes [...]
  — Michlic

• The IPN also produced historical material that supported the official view for state-sponsored institutions, like the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, and attempted to undermine the work of the self-critical historians, for example through the dissemination of scholarly reviews that criticized their work. [Endnote: For such reviews of Dalej jest noc, see ...]
  — Gutman

Ok, now move it the main body of the article. Talk page isn't part of the article, it's not visible for readers Marcelus (talk) 18:30, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I am not certain what do you ask of me. All these citations were appended at the end of what is a single sentence; if you believe that re-ordering and/or re-positioning the citations will help, be my guest. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:33, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

You made TNT of perfectly good section, I expect you to properly source the text you replaced it with Marcelus (talk) 18:38, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, once you explain what is improper in my sourcing. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I already said everything, if you don't want to cooperate that's your call. Marcelus (talk) 20:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I see this para as a summary of sources cited at the end of sentences; the individual citations do not appear to be needed unless this paragraph is significantly expanded: [42]. If someone decides to do so, they have a handy guide above. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:32, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! That is precisely what I wanted to convey. Editors are free to expand the section from the sources and/or re-order citations. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:19, 17 March 2023 (UTC)