Talk:Orlando Figes

Lead summary

Insertion of a new paragraph into the lead summary with a respect of information in the section on the Amazon controversy (as long ago as 2010) seems inappropriate and probably motivated by malice. There are many more important things that are not in the Introduction. I think this should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London67943 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC) — London67943 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

"The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." Verbatim from WP:LEDE. I think a scandal involving attempting to discredit rivals where damages were paid for libel, is pretty important. I see no bad faith in including it in the lede and certainly no reason to whitewash it. Toddst1 (talk) 00:13, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

No libel damages were paid. It was a media "scandal". If this stays in the introduction there should also be a summary of all the other sections to avoid suspicion of bad faith. Care to provide this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.255.235.214 (talk • contribs) 00:21, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I assume you accidentally logged out when you left that comment. WP:SOFIXIT applies. Toddst1 (talk) 00:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Libel damages, plus costs, were indeed awarded, according to the BBC. Straw Cat (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

As cited in the article. Toddst1 (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes my mistake. So what do you say to a summary of all the sections in the article to make the lede more balanced and remove suspicion of bad faith? You haven't answered that

Sure, add what you want, but your repeated blanking of that material and accusations of collusion is considered WP:TENDENTIOUS. Toddst1 (talk) 17:54, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

What is tendentious is adding a repeat of something with its own section to the introduction when there are other more important things - e.g about his books - that have not been added at the same time. The "scandal" is a bit of media tit-tat that is adequately covered by its own section. Surely Wikipedia needs to be more balanced in BLP. I suggest we put this to dispute resolution — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ London67943 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I think consensus is pretty clear that it belongs there. @Straw Cat: has demonstrated their support for inclusion. I've stated it. All we have is a WP:SPA that wishes to whitewash the lede, has assumed bad-faith from the start and has edit warred to remove it and is now rejecting the consensus, asking for dispute resolution. The dispute is your own. Respect consensus. Toddst1 (talk) 14:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not a rival Oxbridge historian, so even Inspector Morse would find it hard to prove malice here. I've no animus against Figes, and consider that it is his very eminence as an historian that makes the inclusion of a summary of this matter - in the lead - essential. Straw Cat (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think this whole page (and the lead) are simply blown out of proportion. Someone with an obvious COI inserted a lot of meaningless laudatory phrasing. An opposite "side", possibly also with a COI, tried to shame the subject. I will fix at least the lead. My very best wishes (talk) 13:03, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Other Scandals

The Amazon controversy is mentioned here, but how is it that the section on Natasha's dance does not include the accusations of plagiarism, and the section on the Whisperers lacks the accusations by other scholars and the Russian victims advocate organization "Memorial" that the book did not receive a Russian edition due to falsification of quotes and other inaccuracies, rather than, as he claimed, due to pressure from the Putin regime?

[1]https://www.mhpbooks.com/figes-career-implodes-amidst-legal-threats-and-charges-of-long-standing-plagiarism/

[2]https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/orlando-figes-and-stalins-victims/tnamp/

[3]https://www.mhpbooks.com/orlando-figes-in-trouble-again-for-gross-inaccuracies-and-misrepresentations/ Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 04:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chilltherevolutionist Just come across this page for the first time but it seems off in exactly the way you describe. The controversy over Polonsky's review of Natasha's dance (which all but accused him of plagiarism), the Pipes plagiarism accusation (which I think Figes won the lawsuit over, something which we should obviously include as well), the Whisperers Russian-issue problems, all these don't appear. I haven't done a deep or wide check of the published sources but I'd be pretty shocked if Figes' portrayal in this entry matches that of the balance of the published reliable sources. Looks like some things have been excised over time, and that doesn't seem to match the discussion above. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Whisperers criticism

@London67943 - the inclusion of the Stephen Cohen line strikes me as very wrong. Unless we are going to do a detailed report on the worst political affiliation of anyone who publicises any accusation on Wikipedia, including it here just sounds like a way of discrediting the accusation. Clearly, the Memorial Society is not pro-Putin. It's also WP: SYNTHESIS to take the politics of someone from sources elsewhere, and combine it with the fact that they engaged in criticism here. It reads as if we are trying to tar the criticism as being politically motivated, when this is not what the sources say. If there are reliable sources that say directly that all, most, or even some significant minority of the criticism of Figes over Whisperers was motivated by or connected to pro-Putin politics, I will of course accede that we should include that fact - not a random allusion to the pro-Putin politics of an individual critic. I'm removing it for now on that basis, but would welcome a discussion if you think there is something that must be included along these lines. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Cohen's pro-Putin line is exactly the point. It is a point of fact that Cohen publicised the Kremlin point of view. It is relevant here because it was Cohen, not Memorial, that tried to discredit Figes by publicising what should have been a private correspondence between Figes and his Russian publisher. I have restored the previous edit and added a reliable source on Cohen's support for the Putin regime. London67943 (talk) 05:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@London67943 There are two problems with specifying Cohen and his pro-Putin politics. One is that the sources indicate that the story was exposed by both Peter Reddaway and Stephen Cohen. Is Peter Reddaway pro-Putin as well? Are we going to provide an account of the ulterior political motives of every person involved in the chain of transmission of the story?

The second problem is that the sources that mention Cohen in the context of this story do not mention pro-Putin politics. Including it in this context is Wikipedia:SYNTHESIS. Please read the Synthesis policy - the first line should do the trick "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." You've stated here explicitly the conclusion you are implying with your text - that Cohen unearthed the story as part of a pro-Putin political attack on Figes and/or Memorial. If that is an argument made by the sources, leave it in. Otherwise it needs to be removed.

Separately, material needs consensus to be added. There clearly wasn't consensus here, and I opened a discussion about it as I removed it so we could try and reach one. Re-adding the material, especially as you clearly saw the discussion, seems a lot like Wikipedia:Edit warring to me, and I'd respectfully ask you to refrain. Samuelshraga (talk) 11:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@samuelshraga Hello - I suggest you read the archive of Stephen Cohen which shows clearly that no further evidence of alleged inaccuracies was provided by Memorial or Corpus for publication by Figes' critics publicising the story to the world press - Stephen Cohen, Peter Reddaway and their hidden co-conspirator, Rachel Polonsky. The Polonsky connection ought to be developed here as her involvement is relevant. But this section is long enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London67943 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@London67943 I skimmed through the archive - can you say which document makes the claim and I'll take a closer look? Samuelshraga (talk) 07:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@London67943, in an entirely foolish and self-inflicted blow to my own time, I have actually read the archive of Stephen F. Cohen's correspondence relating to the publication (or non-publication in this case) of an op-ed in the Guardian. Both the Russian and the English. I draw three conclusions relevant to this discussion, and one that just jumps out from the archive itself:

• The archive does not include the claim that Corpus "did not provide evidence of any other alleged inaccuracies". No figure in the archive made that claim. I am removing the text and the citation on this basis.
• For most of the documents in the archive, if the claim had been made, it would be irrelevant as it would have been found in private correspondence, and Reliable Source or | Original Research concerns would prevent our using it. The exceptions would be the press cuttings, which could more effectively be referenced directly, rather than in their annotated form in Stephen Cohen's files. The press cuttings do not seem to make this claim.
• I agree with you that the involvement of Rachel Polonsky in the publication of this story is amply demonstrated by this archive. I disagree that it ought to be developed here, again see Wikipedia:Reliable sources or Wikipedia:No original research. Or, and I suspect that this is the most appropriate to you, Wikipedia:SOAP.

I want to ask at this juncture if you have a conflict of interest to declare, whether you are editing as Orlando Figes or he is your family, friend, employer, or you have any financial or personal connection to Orlando Figes? This bearing in mind the guideline around Wikipedia:Conflict of interest editing. Samuelshraga (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

No conflict of interest to declare. How about you? Who are You? Look at the second file in the archive. It shows that Polonsky and Cohen knew that they could not get Memorial to come forward with any further evidence. It also shows that Polonsky lied to the Guardian about her involvement in the hit-and-run on Figes, which in her case was motivated by her long-running spat with him, and in Cohen's case by his serving the Kremlin. 2001:8003:B01E:8000:40B4:A7DA:FCDB:D679 (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Assuming that this is @London67943, please retroactively edit your signature when you comment logged out. I can see this isn't the first time you've been asked to do this.

Firstly to do with the supposed source for the claim:

The second document in the archive as I see it is page 00000005.tif. It does not contain an the admission that Memorial couldn't come forward with further evidence. If I'm not looking at the right document, please give the page reference and ideally an indication of where on the page this information is - I read Russian but it takes me a while.

Secondly, as regards any conflict of interest:

I take the "Who are You?" to be something of a deflection. I don't think there's any reason to believe that I have a conflict of interest, I edit wikipedia on a variety of topics I find to be of interest. You on the other hand are a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account dedicated to the Orlando Figes page, from an extremely specific, well-informed, and I think fringe point of view. If you are Orlando Figes, for example, you should know that Conflict of Interest editing is allowed, but there are rules about it - firstly that your conflict of interest is declared. If not, I would appreciate an explanation of your singular focus on this article and your very specific point of view. Otherwise I fear we must move this to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard Samuelshraga (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• I would say this paragraph must be re-written to include more sources, such as [4], [5]. I did check a link provided above, i.e. [6]. That's a lot of stuff, mostly primary sources. An exchange between Stephen F. Cohen and Dmitry Muratov is interesting. Some other stuff has been reliably published and already used on the page, i.e. this exchange and "Dishonoring Stalin's Victims and Russian History". I do not see anything "dishonoring" though. Some of the stories, as described by Figes, can well be true [7], and a lot of errors and distortions are almost inevitable in the "oral history" books such as that one. I assume that the number of errors and distortions in The Gulag Archipelago is significantly greater, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn admitted this up front. The point of such books is not to be precise in every detail, but document the overall picture. My very best wishes (talk) 01:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  I am Orlando Figes and I am responding to Vampa and My Very best wishes on the cancellation of the Russian edition of The Whisperers because your edits have been brought to my attention this morning. This is a complicated issue with a lot of spin in the newspaper sources, which sadly count for reputable sources in Wikipedia. I suggest you base any account on the main primary source, the thing itself, which is the Stephen Cohen Archive. From this you will learn that: (a) the Memorial report was written by one person, Irina Ostrovskaya, who hated me; (b) it was based on a very poor translation of the book into Russian (Ostrovskaya does not read English) by Maxim Trudoliubov - and obviously errors creep into a translation of Russian sources from English back into Russian; (c) Memorial's director Roginsky would not add to the 3 examples of mistakes printed in the press because, quite rightly, he took the view that Memorial is an archive and does not comment on the interpretation of its sources by historians - and most of the alleged errors involved differences over interpretation (the researchers at Memorial disagreed with Ostrovskaya's interpretation); (d) the hidden instigator of this attack on my work in the press was none other than Rachel Polonsky, who carefully concealed her role and lied about the nature and motives of her involevement to the Guardian Newspaper's editor Kathy Viner after accidentally cc'g her in an email with her co-conspirators. Now, make sense of all this as you will, but if you want the truth, Vampa, as you say you do, then I suggest you base any rewrite on the archive, not on partial press reports instigated by my detractors. As it stands, the short version of just two sentences (by My Very best wishes) which I have reverted to seems to me a fair representation of what happened with both sides represented and without the over-long and confusing attempt by Vampa to piece together a narrative from inaccurate press reports. Orlandofiges (talk) 07:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

One relevant policy here is WP:COI. Meaning you should not edit articles about yourself. However, you can make suggestions on article talk pages. For example, you may suggest here a specific text "..." to be included in specific section. This text should be consistent with other policies, such as WP:V and WP:NPOV. Then, some other participants who have no COI would look at your text and decide if something, possibly in a modified form, could be included to the page. Other relevant policies are WP:PRIMARY and WP:BLP. Meaning that one must rely mostly on secondary RS here, although nothing precludes from using primary sources as outlined in WP:PRIMARY. I will refrain from more specific comments right now, but the shorter version of the paragraph I made was not intended as final. Every version is wrong version. My very best wishes (talk) 13:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking at two alternative versions here [8], I would definitely prefer the shorter one and do not see it problematic in any aspects. As an alternative, a longer version could be possible, but I would place it to another section, to be in context of the overall work of Figes in Russia. I started doing this [9], but user VampaVampa reverted. My very best wishes (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I made a few quick changes and believe the page is now consistent with our WP:BLP policy. My very best wishes (talk) 16:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Mr Figes, I understand from your message above that the edit you reverted contained neither defamation nor serious error, nor that you found any inaccuracies in the paragraph which reconstructed the sequence of events and attributed statements or actions to their authors, but that you claim the secondary sources on which the passage was based to be seriously biased against you (a matter which is not easy to verify without additional secondary sources). Therefore, strictly speaking, as pointed out by Myverybestwishes above, your edit reversal contravened Wikipedia policy on the conflict of interest.

You are of course entitled to make suggestions and it may well be useful for Wikipedia editors to review the Stephen Cohen Archive for any information that can be used under primary source guidelines, i.e. for plainly stated facts that do not require additional insight to be recognised as evident. Under the guidelines, one is not allowed to privilege any information derived from the archive over secondary sources except to correct summaries of the same information in secondary sources. Where the archive contradicts secondary sources, this can and should be included, but again with no interpretation or suggestion that this is the only acceptable account.

Please correct me if I am wrong in believing that the main point of contention is Memorial's claim that the book contained more than a handful of mistakes. This is something that cannot be disproven based on a primary source, unless the very source material on which the secondary source relied in its claim is present in the archive and directly refutes the claim in secondary sources beyond any reasonable doubt (evident to non-specialist). Would that be the case here? Further, it would go against the guidelines on primary sources to allege that Polonsky, not Cohen and Reddaway, instigated the public discussion of the errors unless there is a direct statement to that effect in the archive. It could be reported what the archive shows, but one must not interpret or give priority to mere hints in primary sources in the absence of secondary material.

I will not contest the majority of the changes introduced by Myverybestwishes by a thousand cuts since, except where they consist of removing sourced information, and I think the new section on sanctions resolves the problems with the structuring of Russia-related content rather well.

However, (1) I object to the proposal by Myverybestwishes to move the dispute over the scholarly accuracy of The Whisperers into the political section on Russia, which would be to accept your 2009 allegations, Mr Figes, at face value, and that would be all the more strange seeing that you appeared to distance yourself from them in 2012. And (2) the matter of the Russian refusal to publish certainly deserves more than two sentences in the article, since it bears on the very activity you are notable for. In the interest of accuracy and verifiability, I keep insisting that the current two-sentence version contains two claims which are not in the sources: 2012 as the date of the Russian translation and, more importantly, that the political explanation was related to the second refusal to publish (the only one currently mentioned). It would misrepresent the available sources to claim that anyone, including yourself, Mr Figes, sought to attribute the second refusal to publish to political pressure. Reddaway and Cohen argued that you had not retracted your 2009 comments by 2012 but that is a weak claim (taking things out of their context) and I would be baffled if you were to try to agree with them now.

With regard to Memorial, the sources do say that one of the comments I included was made by a single researcher. I do not know whether that was the person you allege had an animus against you, perhaps the archive bears it out (incidentally, it would make things easier if you could include links to passages from the archive that support your statements). That might be an argument against including the quotation - though not against quoting the head of Corpus or the executive director of Dynasty. However, the secondary sources I have seen so far do not suggest in any way a disagreement between Memorial staff on this matter, or any undue influence of a single person over the organisation's stance. That may (with the provisos above) be refuted by the archive, but generally I would advise against trying to refute your secondary source critics on Wikipedia, when the most credible way to do that would have been through seeking rectification of their alleged distortions in the press, which you were naturally entitled to (and which you may have obtained to a very small degree, as the note at the bottom of The Guardian article suggests). The press are obliged to withdraw any errors of fact to prevent defamation and I am not aware of you having pursued a lawsuit against either The Guardian or The Nation. Short of that, or of a new publication on the matter, I expect it will be difficult to argue from the archive against all the claims made in the press. I think no one here is under any obligation to study the archive extensively, but to ensure fairness it would only be fair to oblige your request to do so in the near future. For now, I do not see any grounds to remove information in the way you and Myverybestwishes did. VampaVampa (talk) 23:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

"I object to the proposal by Myverybestwishes to move the dispute". OK, no problem. I realized that you objected and therefore did not do it. But I think these controversies should be described very briefly, so we are taking into account the concerns by Dr. Figes as much as possible. Which should not be a problem (the current version mentions all controversies and totally consistent with WP:BLP), except that Dr. Figes must respect WP:COI and only make suggestions for edits on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 02:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

But I would oppose to this edit [10]. Here is why, informally speaking. The book was published by Henry Holt and Company and received The New York Times Book Review award. That is a very high mark in terms of WP:RS. Now, some guys are saying it was not good enough to be published in Putin's Russia. Come on. This is either a bias or political interference, softly speaking. There is really a lot of stories about other books that have not been published in Russia for political reasons, and especially if the author criticized Putin. Sure, we can say that the book was not published for such and such alleged reasons and we can cite reviews about the book (as we did), but your version creates wrong impression that the book was indeed absolutely terrible and therefore could not published. In fact, it was published by much better publishers than they would be in Russia.My very best wishes (talk) 02:41, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I should remind you that to maintain a neutral point of view is to represent fairly not only Dr Figes but everyone else involved in the matter, such as the Russian researchers and publishers, or rival academics, and even alleged war criminals.

As to what the impression my version "creates", I think you will find that readers are wont to form very different impressions - as long as they have any information to start with, rather than the sort of speculation or manipulation (with regard to the object of WP:RS) you are engaging in.

What you can do is propose a concrete improvement to my version, based on sources including the Stephen Cohen Archive, because so far it offers the only account of the matter that agrees with the available material. VampaVampa (talk) 05:03, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

"to maintain a neutral point of view is to represent fairly..." Yes, sure. That is what we did. This paragraph is about the translation of the book to Russian and publication in Russia. They found several errors in the book and therefore decided not to publish it. We said this, along with the rebuttal/explanation by Figes. My very best wishes (talk) 15:56, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The political explanation does not pertain to the decision by Corpus/Dynasty, that's an original interpretation not in the source. By contrast, the rebuttal I included does. Whether they found several or multiple errors is the subject of the dispute between the author and his critics (including Memorial), hence the need for neutrality. VampaVampa (talk) 17:50, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, he said this in connection to another publishing company here, hence the phrasing looks misleading. OK, I restored a shorter version of your text. My very best wishes (talk) 18:09, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that is fair, although I would lean towards including in some form a statement from the head of Corpus, who explained the reason for refusal to publish. It is true that her statement was prompted by Cohen and Reddaway publicising the matter, but it seems fair to include Memorial's explanation of why they had left the offer of revisions unanswered, as they eventually gave one. I would just mention their opinion that it would have had to be a different book. VampaVampa (talk) 18:40, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

It was great that Memorial researchers decided to check the book for inaccuracies. Of course they found some. But I am surprised they did not complete the process by checking the entire book, fixing the found issues together with author, and publishing. This is normal process and something that Memorial is well equipped to do. My very best wishes (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I am sure they are entitled to drop a project if they find it does not meet their standards. Nobody raised concerns about their due diligence or professional conduct. VampaVampa (talk) 20:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

yes, and especially because it was not their project, but a project by Figes. They appear more like a peer reviewer of a publication who provided a mixed or a negative review, and it was up to the publisher. So that "Varvara Gornostaeva, head of the ru:Corpus, explained to The Guardian that it would have taken "up to a year" to correct all the inaccuracies and resulted in a different text." Was that a fair estimate or another reason? Knowing what other books they published without any such review (and that the book has been already published in English, received a prize and was sold in significant numbers), they could just publish it as it is, with few corrections. Knowing how this works in Russia for authors who criticize Putin, I have no doubts that it was almost certainly "political", but this is not a policy-based argument. My very best wishes (talk) 22:10, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I already said above in the spirit of compromise that I would exclude the "up to a year" bit and only say Gornostaeva claimed it would have resulted in a different book. So we do not disagree here any more. I am less persuaded about the exclusion of the outspoken assessment of Orlando Figes's profile by Memorial as a businessman more than a scholar, a view which they apparently felt justified in taking with regard to the combined scholarship/business venture they had entered with him, although I would be open to the argument that it ought to be balanced by the positive comment of Alena Kozlova in The Guardian about the artistic merit of Figes's work. I would also want to mention "anachronisms" in the sentence on the errors found by Memorial in 2010, because they are a very specific category of errors pertaining to the historical discipline.

I also note that you have replaced the passage about legal threats which we have discussed before. I do not accept this change, because the duty of fairness extends to Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky. On a different note, Mr Figes's suggestion that Polonsky inspired the actions of Cohen and Reddaway remains to be investigated. If and when I have time I will look into the Stephen Cohen Archive. VampaVampa (talk) 22:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

My version of the passage on legal threats re the Amazon affair also specified who the threats were directed against, so I would be grateful if you could restore that for reasons of accurate reporting. I think that would bring us close to a consensus. VampaVampa (talk) 22:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

There are some discrepancies in sources about the alleged threats of lawsuit from Figes or his lawyer. I realize that it was an actual lawsuit by Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, not a threat. My very best wishes (talk) 22:37, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't have access to the article in The Times but yes, it is clear that they sued him in their turn after having been threatened with lawsuit. It would be good to report this in the correct chronological order. VampaVampa (talk) 23:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

You have pieced together a narrative that is wholly inaccurate. I don't know where to start, there are so many factual inaccuracies, but there were not two translation projects, only one. The chronology you have tried to piece together is absurd. The resulting paragraph is far too long, and completely out of proportion. I suggest you revert to the two-sentence version Myverybestwishes left two days ago which represents both sides. You have also garbled the amazon affair, tampering with a text which was acceptable (if not wholly accurate) and introducing new inaccuracies. I do not have time to police this page but I will write to senior figures at Wikipedia if you do not correct the mistakes you have introduced. Orlandofiges (talk) 05:48, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

@Orlandofiges with all due respect, while the Orlando Figes page is about you, it is not your page to police per Wikipedia:Ownership of content.

Editors here have to put across information from multiple sources - mainly secondary sources - while minimising the amount of editorial judgement they make to choose between those sources, which is different from the practice of writing history. If you see an inaccuracy, please point it out on the talk page. Ideally, point us to the accurate information, as it appears in a published reliable source (as per Wikipedia:Reliable sources). If you think a perspective or viewpoint is missing, please point us to it in one of these sources. We will help you include it.

I think if you do this, your participation on this talk page will be a welcome and constructive contribution to this page. Otherwise I think we'll just end up talking past each other, as we try to apply Wikipedia policies that you doubtless find petty and trivial compared to your understandable wish to represent your views on episodes from your personal history. You are presumably better informed about these topics than anyone here, but you also have to realise that you aren't going to get your way by telling off editors who include content that you disagree with. Especially not if Wikipedia policy favours the inclusion of that content! Hopefully this collaboration can go well. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:12, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok let me point out some of the errors in this para below:

Figes saw his first Russian translation contract for The Whisperers cancelled in March 2009 by publisher Attikus [ru], who cited commercial reasons. Figes suggested that the book was "inconvenient" to Vladimir Putin's government and that the real explanation for the refusal to publish lay in "political pressure". A second translation project was abandoned by the publisher Corpus [ru] and the rights owner Dynasty Foundation after fact-checking by Memorial, whose researchers reported anachronisms, incorrect interpretations and factual errors in the book by the summer of 2010. Figes was notified of the decision in April 2011 in a letter which suggested that his book presented an "artistic interpretation" of its nonfiction material and that its publication would cause offence in Russia. His offer of revisions to the book was left unanswered. The dispute was publicised in May 2012 by Figes's critics, Peter Reddaway and Stephen F. Cohen. Varvara Gornostaeva [ru], head of Corpus, explained to The Guardian that corrections would have resulted in a different book. Figes rejected Reddaway and Cohen's accusation of inventing facts for "dramatic purposes", and asserted that most of the supposed mistakes were in fact acceptable interpretations.

1. There was one translation project, not two, just a change of publisher, but not relevant or worthy of this extended chronology.

2. Memorial was not involved in the decision to abandon publication. Roginsky makes this clear in his letter to Cohen in the archive, where he gives the reason that Memorial is an archive and archives do not control how researchers interpret their materials. This means the statement about "incorrect interpretations" was not, as suggested in the entry as it stands, the view of Memorial. It appeared in the report by Irina Ostrovskaya, but was challenged by Kozlova and other Memorial researchers, who disagreed with Ostrovskaya's report.

3. Not only was my offer of revisions ignored by Corpus, but the 115-page memorandum which I had put together to help with the translation (where most of the errors were introduced) was not acknowledged, and obviously not used by the incompetent translators. This should be pointed out in all fairness to my due diligence as a scholar.

4. The dispute was more than "publicised" by Cohen and Reddaway (with the backstage help of Polonsky). The archive clearly shows that they were trying to stoke up the dispute and create a 'scandal' in the international press to damage me. There are many more points that could be added here (why the Guardian backed out of the story, for example), but, as I have said, I think brevity is required, because in the end this story had no traction: there were a few mistakes, I offered to correct them, they cancelled the contract. End of story. Whether it was political (and I am sure it was, not least because of Cohen's close ties to the Kremlin) is impossible to say with any certainty, so why labour it?

The Amazon Affair:

My comments on this as it stands:

In 2010, Figes posted several pseudonymous reviews under the moniker "orlando-birkbeck" on the UK site of the online bookseller Amazon. The reviews criticised works by two other British historians of Russia, Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, and praised his own book The Whisperers. After Polonsky (in the Times Literary Supplement) and Service suggested he had written the reviews, he denied responsibility for a week and threatened to sue Service and the TLS for libel. Polonsky and Service then launched their own proceedings against Figes, who apologised and agreed to pay them legal costs and damages.

1. I praised several other books, not just The Whisperers (in fact I did not post this anyway, it was cut and paste from a review on the US site by a researcher, but I took the wrap for it).

2. The TLS, not Polonsky/Service, suggested I had written the reviews.

3. I did not threaten Service with libel proceedings. He claimed this - like a football player rolling around on the pitch trying to get his opponent red-carded - and it damaged me. But at no point was he threatened with legal proceedings. My lawyer briefly made such a threat to the TLS but I stopped that by taking full responsibility for the reviews.

4. Polonsky employed Carter Ruck and threatened with me libel and criminal fraud for the reviews, which should be added to the entry for a proper perspective. Orlandofiges (talk) 07:54, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

ps. and this is for Vampa, I believe.

There are problems with the opening para on The Whisperers below:

His book The Whisperers benefitted from the oral history approach. Having secured funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Counciland Leverhulme Trust, Figes hired three teams of researchers from Memorial, a human rights non-profit organisation, to retrieve several hundred family archives across Russia and to conduct interviews with surviving witnesses of Stalinist repression between 2003 and 2006

This suggests that it was a Memorial project which I contracted - emphasising the absurd charge that I am some sort of "businessman". In fact, as I made clear in the Afterword of the book, in which I gave a history of the project, I had been collecting family archives and interviews for several years before Memorial became involved, and of the hundreds of interviewees listed in the book, only perhaps half were interviewed by researchers of Memorial. Orlandofiges (talk) 08:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

So, just to comment on these specific points:

First para

1. Do I understand correctly that the translation was done by the Dynasty Foundation, and it was completed already in 2009 [11]?
2. Yes, Memorial had not authority to make such decision, and the decision was made by the publisher, as this is normally done for any publications. However, the Memorial or perhaps a single researcher from the Memorial was "involved", essentially as a reviewer. Yes, this researcher was mentioned by name in a number of sources, but which sources say it was only her?
3. Yes, sources say that the publisher flatly rejected the book, instead of trying to make changes suggested by Figes. Saying that, can you provide any link with pages to the "115-page memorandum"?
4. Yes, this is one of possible summaries of the events, but we need some RS saying this. If there are no such RS, I agree that one could describe this only very briefly or omit the whole thing.

Second para

1. Yes, this is consistent with secondary RS I read.
2. Is any specific RS to support this claim?
3. What exactly secondary or even primary source support it (a link)?
4. Yes, this is consistent with secondary RS I read. My very best wishes (talk) 16:14, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

   Thank you for your work on this. In answer to your points as above,

   Para 1

   1. No, the translation was never finished - far from it. When they wrote to me with they concerns in 2011 they had only translated 1 chapter, or maybe not even that. My agent asked for the translation but the publisher ignored his multiple requests. This can be proved and put up on my website as a link but it's all consistent with the reports in the Guardian.

   2. Correct. Publishing practise certainly applied to houses like Corpus. And yes, it would be far more accurate to describe Irina Ostrovskaya - the author of the "Memorial" report - as a (hostile) reviewer. The Guardian report here

   https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/23/orlando-figes-translation-russia#:~:text=Now%20Figes%20has%20become%20embroiled,contained%20inaccuracies%20and%20factual%20errors.

   makes it clear there was just ONE historian involved. I quote: "But the Moscow-based publisher, and a historian who conducted some of the interviews, claim some of the material was misrepresented."

   The Cohen archive refers to it exclusively as the Irina Ostrovskaya memo...Roginsky does the same.

   3. The 115-page memo is mentioned here in my response to The Nation Article:

   https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/orlando-figes-and-stalins-victims/

   4. Well, as I have said throughout this discussion, I would favour brevity, not because it works to my advantage, it does not, but because the whole story had no traction, as Cohen and Polonsky and Katrina van Heuvel are all forced to admit at the end of the story - read the archive: it makes for a good script!

   Second Paragraph

   1. Good.

   2. Yes the TLS itself broke the "scandal" with a piece in their gossip column. April 2010.

   3. No proof I am willing to reveal I'm afraid.

   4. Good

   Thanks Orlandofiges (talk) 16:49, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! So, if I understand correctly, two publishers refused to publish the book after looking at the English version? And the Dynasty Foundation refused to translate after getting the negative review from that researcher from the Memorial? I guess the sticking point was translation. If it were already translated (which is a significant amount of work), then it would not be a huge problem publishing it somewhere, back then in 2012. Not right now in Russia of course, when even the Memorial was disbanded. My very best wishes (talk) 18:09, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I rephrased a couple of paragraphs to reflect the discussion above and believe this is now OK. Personally, I think it is a shame this book was not translated and published in Russia (after it was published by a more reputable organization in the US), but such is Russia.My very best wishes (talk) 02:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I suggest you cut the last two sentences of the Whisperers issue ("The dispute was publicised...acceptable interpretations.") because they add nothing but confusion. Also, as per talk, the Amazon controversy still retains the following inaccuracy: "but praised his own books" - this should be "one of his own books, among others" or "but praised other books, including one of his own". This is covered in my interview with Appleyard in The Sunday Times. In the next sentence there is a problem with "Figes had admitted that he was the author" - this should be "Figes admitted that he posted them" or "took full responsibility for them" because I did not write the positive review of my own book, it was, as I said, cut and pasted from the US amazon site by a young researcher. You can still find the US review - it is by "LuelCanyon" and was posted on the Amazon US site on Dec.6, 2007. Orlandofiges (talk) 07:09, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

OK. Most fixes are obvious. I also do not mind removing two last phrases because: (a) this is an opinion piece, (b) it does reads as an attack page, (c) it adds very little of substance, and (d) the author is known for his peculiar political views, such as supporting the aggression by Putin in Ukraine [12]. My very best wishes (talk) 14:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Orlandofiges (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes, I am confused by some of your edits. Here you accept @Orlandofiges claim that only one researcher conducted the fact-check and individually reported errors, which not what appears in the cited source, which says that Memorial the organisation conducted the fact check (and doesn't specify how many researchers were involved). Your summary says "the publisher had right to reject publishing the book for whatever reason; no need in such details" - except that the publisher said they rejected publishing the book for this reason, and then this was reported in reliable sources.

This edit specifically contradicts what the author himself says in The Nation, which is that his dossier of corrections/revisions was left unanswered, not rejected.

I will address edits to do with the Amazon reviews in the relevant section of the talk page. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:09, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

There are minor disagreements, imprecise statements and omissions in individual sources. My edits were based on reading and summarizing multiple sources, instead of paraphrasing any single source. For example, yes, the book was finally rejected (not left without any response) by the publisher because Varvara Gornostaeva, head of Corpus, said that corrections would have resulted in a different book [13]. But should we include to the page her explanation? I would say no; any major revision results in a different book or an article, this is nothing special. Further, none of the sources explicitly named several researchers responsible for the review; all named only a single person, Irina Ostrovskaya. Please correct if they named anyone else, who that was? Do we have anywhere an official conclusion/document signed or published officially by the Memorial as an organization. I understand there was no such document. My very best wishes (talk) 21:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The archive contains an email by Gornostaeva stating in unambiguous terms that the decision not to publish was taken jointly by Dynasty, Corpus and Memorial. I am going through your recent changes and most seem unjustified to me, swinging the pendulum back to accommodate Mr Figes's wishes, which is not the purpose of this page. I will address his supposed corrections in a separate thread below. VampaVampa (talk) 21:40, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

No, this is not an official statement by the Memorial, but a private email that should not appear during such discussions. My very best wishes (talk) 13:21, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

It is now part of a publicly available archive and therefore a source in public domain. It was a private email initially, but due to its publication no longer is - you are confusing the past with the present. VampaVampa (talk) 21:15, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree. We can not be even certain that the email was authentic. It can not qualify even as WP:SPS because it was not intended for an online publication by anyone. This is basically an internet garbage. The fact that someone like Cohen placed it to his personal archive does not make it any better. If he used it somewhere in his official blog, that could be WP:SPS. My very best wishes (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

As part of a collection hosted by Princeton University, the document is a primary source (a historical record) - and not any kind of self-published work, i.e. an unreliable secondary source. Your insinuation that Cohen fabricated the email is yet another conspiratorial speculation (as with the Russian interference above). It is not for Wikipedia editors to do primary source criticism. As the guidelines say, "a primary source is generally the best source for its own contents, even over a summary of the primary source elsewhere". That summary is present in The Nation: "In summer 2010, representatives of three Russian organizations involved—the publisher Corpus, Memorial and a foundation, Dynastia ...—met to consider what Memorial’s researchers had uncovered. ... A decision was made against proceeding with the Russian edition." The primary source merely confirms what the secondary source has stated.

Let us remember that the only reason anyone looked into the archive was that the information derived from secondary sources was contested by Figes. No one needed the archive in the first place. But since the archive bears out what the secondary sources say and contradicts Figes, then there is all the more reason to reference the archive to put an end to the dispute. VampaVampa (talk) 04:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the archive should trump secondary sources - especially the Nation (owned by Cohen's wife) - but Gornostaeva's email is contradicted by Roginsky, the head of Memorial, who makes it absolutely clear that Memorial played no part in the decision to cancel. End of story. Orlandofiges (talk) 06:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @My very best wishes that the archive is a primary source, and therefore should only be used in a limited way, and never to contradict claims in secondary sources. I note that @Orlandofiges was already told this by an uninvolved editor at the noticeboard discussion they opened: "Best course of action is to find a better secondary source and persuade other editors the old source is outdated" but is practising Wikipedia:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

On the substantive issue, the fact that our secondary sources didn't name any other researchers doesn't mean we can categorically ascribe the work as being of one researcher. This is classic Wikipedia:SYNTH - "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." Samuelshraga (talk) 18:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's the thing. For example, Stephen F. Cohen is an elephant in the room who supported all policies by Putin, including his aggression in Ukraine, and did everything to discredit OF, but we can not include it on the page unless there is a secondary RS that said it. My very best wishes (talk) 17:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Make's one think. The bit that makes me laugh is Roginsky writing to Cohen saying how comical it is that I might think of Kremlin involvement - and he didn't realise that he was writing to a "Kremlin man" - honoured by the Russian Foreign Ministry, all those paid-for interviews on RT defending Putin, etc., etc. . Orlandofiges (talk) 18:43, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I once met a young Russian academic at a conference in Paris, a real Putinite, who said Cohen had lectured to their university in Moscow on my work as an example of Russophobic Western historical falsification of the type that Stalin's cronies used to write about as Kremlin prostitutes. Orlandofiges (talk) 19:16, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh no, the book is actually written with a great respect to Russian people and culture, perhaps more respect than they actually deserved. Some other writers are a lot more critical [14],[15]. My very best wishes (talk) 00:20, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Way forward

I am sure there many things to improve. If so, please post your suggested version of specific paragraphs or a larger portion of the page here. Just be sure that the content is sourced and consistent with WP:V and WP:NPOV. for example,

Suggested text

.

Then it will be much easier to fix. I can not speak for others, but I am not really familiar with this subject and have no idea how exactly to fix the page. Thank you. My very best wishes (talk) 19:46, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

1. Whisperers' dispute:

I suggest you delete the long paragraph and revert to the previous two-sentence summary but make it clear that the Memorial report was by one researcher (i.e. removing Memorial as officially involved in the cancellation):

A planned 2012 Russian translation of The Whisperers was abandoned after fact-checking by one researcher at Memorial, Irina Ostrovskaya, who alleged that it contained "inaccuracies and factual errors" in Figes' presentation of their original Russian-language interviews. Figes claimed that the real explanation for non-publication in Russia was "political pressure" because the book was "inconvenient to the current regime of Vladimir Putin" and that his offer to correct the "small number of errors" that he recognised had not been answered by the publisher.

2. I suggest you remove the paragraph on the Amazon dispute from this section. If you want to restore it to a separate section as you had before, I suggest the following text is more accurate than the previous:

In 2010, Figes posted several reviews on the UK site of the online bookseller Amazon where he criticised books by two other British historians of Russia, Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky. Initially denying responsibility for the reviews, he threatened legal action against those who suggested he was their author, but a week later admitted "full responsibility", agreeing to pay legal costs and damages to Polonsky and Service, who sued him for libel over the reviews.

3. The opening paragraph of the Whisperers section - I suggest this, based on an earlier version:

His book The Whisperers helped to develop the field of oral history in Russia. In partnership with the Memorial Society, a human rights non-profit organisation, Figes gathered several hundred private family archives from homes across Russia and carried out more than a thousand interviews with survivors as well as perpetrators of the Stalinist repressions. Originally housed in the Memorial Society in Moscow, St Petersburg and Perm, all since closed down by the Russian government, a selection of these valuable research materials is available on Figes's personal website. 146.241.16.55 (talk) 08:41, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

1. Whisperers' dispute:

I suggest you delete the long paragraph and revert to the previous two-sentence summary but make it clear that the Memorial report was by one researcher (i.e. removing Memorial as officially involved in the cancellation):

A planned 2012 Russian translation of The Whisperers was abandoned after fact-checking by one researcher at Memorial, Irina Ostrovskaya, who alleged that it contained "inaccuracies and factual errors" in Figes' presentation of their original Russian-language interviews. Figes claimed that the real explanation for non-publication in Russia was "political pressure" because the book was "inconvenient to the current regime of Vladimir Putin" and that his offer to correct the "small number of errors" that he recognised had not been answered by the publisher.

2. I suggest you remove the paragraph on the Amazon dispute from this section. If you want to restore it to a separate section as you had before, I suggest the following text is more accurate than the previous:

In 2010, Figes posted several reviews on the UK site of the online bookseller Amazon where he criticised books by two other British historians of Russia, Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky. Initially denying responsibility for the reviews, he threatened legal action against those who suggested he was their author, but a week later admitted "full responsibility", agreeing to pay legal costs and damages to Polonsky and Service, who sued him for libel over the reviews.

3. The opening paragraph of the Whisperers section - I suggest this, based on an earlier version:

His book The Whisperers helped to develop the field of oral history in Russia. In partnership with the Memorial Society, a human rights non-profit organisation, Figes gathered several hundred private family archives from homes across Russia and carried out more than a thousand interviews with survivors as well as perpetrators of the Stalinist repressions. Originally housed in the Memorial Society in Moscow, St Petersburg and Perm, all since closed down by the Russian government, a selection of these valuable research materials is available on Figes's personal website. 146.241.16.55 (talk) 08:41, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply] Orlandofiges (talk) 08:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I see. Unfortunately, given my previous very negative experience in a more or less similar situation, I would rather refrain from further editing this page, at least for the time being. Sorry. Perhaps others could assist with this. My very best wishes (talk) 12:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

You asked me to make suggestions, so I did. Would you at least take this up with your fellow editors? Thanks Orlandofiges (talk) 12:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

If no one else volunteer, I can try. You have also provided explanations above [16] that clarify certain things. Thanks! I can think about it, look at sources and your comments and make some changes, which will not be exactly the same as you suggested. That will take some time. My very best wishes (talk) 17:04, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Now I have another problem. These suggested changes clearly contradict explanations given just above [17] (which sound plausible but difficult to verify). Therefore, given the persistent sockpuppetry on this page, I am no longer sure who is who and suspect that someone else is pretending to be the subject of this page. So I am out of here. I resist temptation to submit an WP:SPI report. My very best wishes (talk) 17:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

For the Whisperer's change:

The Guardian piece says: "Varvara Gornostaeva, head of the Corpus publishing house, told the Guardian problems came to light after her firm sent the Russian translation of Figes' book for a pre-publication check to Memorial, the human rights organisation that conducted the interviews with families of gulag victims." So to amend it, as you say, to reflect that Memorial had no official role in the cancellation, would need to be well attested in reliable sources.

For the Amazon paragraph I think something like what you wrote is perfectly reasonable, I'll make the edit soon.

For the change to the opening paragraph of the Whisperers section, I'd do it but would need sources. I think sources for the second and third sentence already exist in that paragraph as it exists now, maybe for the first too but it would help if you could identify a source that specifically says that the book helped develop the field of oral history in Russia.

@Orlandofiges, in general, for any of your proposed changes, please link to sources (ideally secondary sources that meet Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Reliability guidelines). Most specifically with the first change here, as what you want to portray contradicts what is written in a generally reliable source. Samuelshraga (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC314_c14489-35167?onlineToggle=false this file on pages 82-3 has the letter from Roginsky to Cohen explaining that Memorial took no part in the publishing decision to cancel the contract and, in his view, should not have done because it is an archive. He also makes it clear that the "Memorial" report was by Irina Ostrovskaya. The file was available on line (I requested it) but has recently - and somewhat mysteriously - gone off-line. If it helps, I can post the letter as a PDF.

On the opening paragraph of Whisperers, the point was made by several reviewers and by Alena Kozlova (senior researcher at Memorial, Moscow) in a generous tribute to the contribution our project made to the development of new areas for oral history in Russia in a two-part BBC Radio 4 series, Stalin's Silent People, which is available on my website under Sounds. I think the point is not necessarily to credit me but to make it clear that I was collecting interviews and archives for several years before Memorial became involved. This is important because the material reviewed by Ostrovskaya (based on the work done by Memorial's researchers in Moscow) was only part of the material based on oral history in the book - at least half the interviews in The Whisperers were carried out by myself and others not connected to Memorial at all - so it is misleading to create the impression (as the opening para does) that the entire book was based on Memorial's material.

On your last point - this is precisely the problem with Wikipedia, which prioritises secondary sources (newspaper reports and blogs) over primary sources (the archive of the thing itself). What makes you think the Guardian or any newspaper is a "reliable source"? In this case, as the Stephen Cohen Archive amply shows, the Guardian and other newspapers were fed a line by Cohen and Polonsky with the clear intention of presenting me in the worst possible light - and the Guardian printed their own version of it without checking the sources. Orlandofiges (talk) 06:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

@Orlandofiges, firstly, I will listen to the Radio 4 source that you mention - I would be grateful if you could give me a timestamp, at least an approximate range, for the claim mentioned, this will allow me to do this more quickly. If the content and source is as you say, I see no problem with including it.

The other parts are a bit more difficult. Inasmuch as your case is that the Guardian was fed a line by Cohen and Polonsky, I think you have a point. This because I read the Stephen Cohen archive when directed to it by @London67943 above. (I will write a separate comment on your talk page about this user and yourself, which I urge you to pay attention to).

Unfortunately, two Wikipedia policies come into play here. One is Wikipedia:No original research, which I think would pretty explicitly prohibit an editor going to the raw archive of a deceased academic, and bringing their conclusions from that archive to a page here. Your question of whether the Guardian or another newspaper a reliable source is addressed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and specifically with regard to the Guardian at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#The Guardian.

I see that this must be frustrating, but you are not alone in this predicament. The late Philip Roth went to the trouble of having his views on errors in his Wikipedia page (which had been sourced to reliable sources) printed in the New York Times, just so that his view would appear in another reliable source and be given at least opposing weight. Samuelshraga (talk) 09:35, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

The archive contains the letter from Roginsky (the head of Memorial and speaking for it) to Cohen - it is incontrovertible evidence. It is not a question, as you say, of "an editor going to the raw archive of a deceased academic, and bringing their conclusions from that archive to a page here." Cohen's conclusions are irrelevant. The only evidence of relevance is Roginsky's letter. Given the mysterious disappearance of this document from the on-line archive resources, I shall upload the entire file (where you need to look at pages 88-91), if you think that is allowable. Orlandofiges (talk) 10:03, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to the academic's (Cohen's) conclusions, but the editor's. I think the use of the primary correspondence to contradict published material in reliable secondary sources is just going to be a complete non-starter with the Wikipedia:No original research policy. To be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong. Original research is exactly how you would contradict or correct or erroneous or incomplete information found in a published source such as the Guardian. It's just the policy of Wikipedia that this site will not be a forum for that original research. Sorry.

I would agree with you that a published statement from Roginsky speaking for Memorial and saying that Memorial had no role in the cancellation, and that the fact-check report was the work of a single researcher, would merit inclusion in this section of the page. Cohen's archive is not a reliable, published source (and to be candid, a copy of the the archive file provided by you isn't either). Samuelshraga (talk) 12:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, there you are, that's why Wikipedia is so fundamentally absurd - the archive document that IS the truth is in your view an "unreliable source" whereas a newspaper report is considered reliable. Since Wikipedia is a publisher and is disseminating incorrect information about me, I shall take this matter up with my lawyer. Orlandofiges (talk) 13:05, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I said from the beginning that you would doubtless find Wikipedia's guidelines trivial, but if you don't want to engage within the guidelines of Wikipedia, then I can't help you. I will still listen to the radio 4 source if you provide a time range for the claims mentioned (and a link ideally), and make the other edits we discussed. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I have posted a new topic here:Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard Orlandofiges (talk) 14:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

References

Amazon reviews

• This is an excellent book, I enjoyed reading it. It may have a few minor errors, but of course it was not published in Russia for political reasons. That paragraph could be improved. But I am more concerned about the "Amazon review controversy". My personal inclination would be to remove it, but it was objected by others in the past. My very best wishes (talk) 01:51, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  You were initially inclined to remove but then you became bold and went ahead, citing WP:PUBLICFIGURE. But a best-selling author who is regularly consulted by media meets the criteria of a public figure, therefore I am going to revert your change. Of course, wording or citations in the passage might be improved - I would encourage you to use your editorial powers for that. By the way, your personal opinion about the book is not relevant, as is your unsourced opinion about the Russian refusal to publish, and there is little point in seeking to sway anyone with it. VampaVampa (talk) 23:51, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, he claimed it was not published for political reasons [18] and his claim is plausible based on content in section Orlando_Figes#On_Putin's_Russia. The official explanation was of course different. That can be easily reflected on the page. You are saying he is a public figure because he was seeking media attention per Wikipedia:Who_is_a_low-profile_individual#Media_attention. Well, I am not convinced. He seems to be just an academic/professor who published books, was helping as a history consultant and gave a few interviews because he was asked by journalists to give them (e.g. as mentioned here [19]). Same as Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky who have been involved in the same story. They also do not look good because they sued Figes. But we do not include this story on their pages, and for same very good reason. Therefore, I would remove it also here. But this is not an outright BLP violation. So whatever. My very best wishes (talk) 01:18, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Then perhaps it should feature on their pages as well, if you are keen to add it - I have zero problems with that. More information is rarely a bad thing, except when it is unsourced, libellous, irrelevant etc. Concluded legal proceedings are perfectly encyclopedic.

He is a public figure because he is keen to do public engagement - see the "Film and television work" section. Even if he had been sought out for creating TV content, it still counts as being a public commentator.

His views on the Labour Party are relevant because he has claimed in the interview you have cited under "[5]" that he was a supporter of the Labour Party. If Niall Ferguson has a paragraph on his political leanings and positions, then I do not see why we should not provide a representative sample of Figes's political opinion intended for public consumption here.

I agree with your other changes with one exception - threatening legal action is not a plain denial of responsibility and ought to be mentioned. VampaVampa (talk) 02:07, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Which source says that he threatened legal action and where? Yes, sure, he said he supports Labor Party. Who cares? Why this is so important? And no, I am not placing this stuff on any BLP pages. If you placed it here and insist this should be included, this is your responsibility. My very best wishes (talk) 02:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I did not place it but it is well-sourced as it is. Political comments and stances of public figures are a core part of their activity - they are quite like the doctrinal positions of church leaders. VampaVampa (talk) 02:32, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

OK, I found a source that say it. No wish to dig any deeper. Good luck! My very best wishes (talk) 17:17, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I would have no problem including the dispute over the Amazon reviews on Rachel Polonsky and Robert Service pages, in fact I think it would be good practice to do so. I am mainly on a wiki-break right now, but if this hasn't been done when I'm back to actively editing then I will do so myself. Samuelshraga (talk) 17:11, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

But it is already included as section Orlando_Figes#Amazon_reviews_controversy. I would be inclined to remove, but the consensus seems to be "keep". Hence, let's have it. My very best wishes (talk) 17:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @Samuelshraga - an accurate and matter-of-fact representation of the dispute belongs in the articles of all concerned authors. VampaVampa (talk) 17:58, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

That was a scandal with lawsuits, not a scientific dispute. "belongs to the articles of all concerned authors". This sounds logical, but I think may contradict WP:PUBLICFIGURE for two other historians and even Figes. Just saying. You may disagree. My very best wishes (talk) 18:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

"If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out." What do you take the situation here to be? It is not scientific, obviously, but still a noteworthy incident. VampaVampa (talk) 18:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the scandal is sourced, but two other historians are not public figures. If Figes is a public figure can be disputed, see above. My very best wishes (talk) 18:51, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I think with regard to Robert Service it is plain that he fulfils the criteria under Eminence as a globally renowned leading scholar in his field and author of major books. I don't think it is correct to exaggerate the criteria for a public figure, because the opposite of that is a low-profile figure. Rachel Polonsky, however, does not seem to be high-profile as reflected by the article concerning her. But I would agree that the note on this scandal in Robert Service's article should be kept brief, if sufficiently informative, due to the overall brevity of the article. VampaVampa (talk) 19:11, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, [20]. Unfortunately, following this policy is very much a subject of personal judgement. My very best wishes (talk) 19:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes I'm impressed that you've been beating this drum for a decade! Also that the edit before you on that diff was reverting @Rachel Polonsky, seems like @Orlando Figes is not the only protagonist of this drama here inclined to relitigate it on wikipedia.

I don't think we're in any danger with that policy. This material is clearly not defamatory, as it is accurate - the sources agree on the salient facts (as do seemingly all the involved parties, amusingly we can actually ask most as they've commented on this talk page). It is notable - it was widely covered in national newspapers. You can make an argument that Polonsky is not notable - I don't have a position, we can just judge by Wikipedia:Notability (academics). However, inasmuch as Figes, Service and Polonsky are notable enough to have a page, and there is coverage of them in national newspapers, I don't see any justification for omitting the material. Samuelshraga (talk) 19:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I am simply placing myself to the shoes of another person while editing their BLP page. And I think there are two litmus tests here. First, was a particular non-scientific controversy important in the context of his/her biography? The answer can be yes or no. If someone's academic career has not been affected (as in this case), I would say "no". In such cases I would hate to place such info on someone's BLP page. Sure, there are many other examples, where the answer was "yes", such as [21]. Second, looking at the guideline, it says: Low-profile: Does not use occupational or other position(s) for public projection of self-worth (above the level normally expected within the field in question – academia, like business and politics, can be quite competitive). Such a person may be notable anyway yet still low-profile e.g., if generally acknowledged to be a preeminent authority in a particular field, or a CEO of a notable but not market-dominant company, etc., but not particularly self-promotional). Hence, this is not about Wikipedia:Notability (academics). In all such cases I would rather err on the side of caution. This is my justification. Sorry to disagree. My very best wishes (talk) 21:20, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

"was a particular non-scientific controversy important in the context of his/her biography?" - I don't agree that the inclusion of an incident in a biography should hinge on the answer to this question. This is an unnecessarily high threshold, which you seem to justify by implying that mentioning an incident has an inherently negative impact on the person involved. But there is nothing to suggest that the pseudonymous Amazon reviews affair shows Robert Service or Rachel Polonsky in a negative light, and Robert Service spoke openly about the affair. He regarded himself as affected negatively by the affair, not by the mention of it - which is an important distinction. Claiming that the controversy does not merit inclusion on Robert Service's page is a view that you decided to enforce in 2014 and this view unduly favours the interests of Orlando Figes, who in this case was the instigator of the affair. As above with the Memorial affair, I would dispute the neutrality of the view you have taken with regard to all parties involved.

Returning to Rachel Polonsky, I have belatedly noticed she is currently the vice-president of a Cambridge college, which is a position of public engagement and raises her profile. But I think the question of her profile being high or low is a moot question, because the Amazon reviews affair is a separate reason for her notability as per the basic criteria, so it should be included in her already existing biography. VampaVampa (talk) 22:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes I agree with @VampaVampa on the basic point that the material merits inclusion.

On your litmus tests, if the question really is: "was a particular non-scientific controversy important in the context of his/her biography?", then my answer is yes. The fact that the controversy is non-scientific is immaterial. It was notable enough to garner significant and repeated coverage in a range of gold-standard Reliable Sources. That's something wikipedia editors can and should judge. Its affect on Figes' career is not something we can judge, and no policy calls for us to judge it. Therefore I maintain that ultimately, omitting the material is not NPOV because of Wikipedia:DUE.

On your second litmus test, the guideline you cite concerns whether we should have a page on Orlando Figes at all, not what content should be included on it. I think it is self-evident that Figes is notable enough for an article, so I think this litmus test is inapplicable.

And please don't be sorry to disagree - I think this discussion is all in good faith and fine. Samuelshraga (talk) 06:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Someone can be notable, but not a public figure - per guideline I cited. Yes, I can see that you two support keeping it. Otherwise, I would remove it. My very best wishes (talk) 19:41, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Your arguments that all participants qualify as public figures are not unreasonable. However, I simply do not see how including such info on such pages will improve them. My very best wishes (talk) 14:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I take your point that you do not see the Amazon reviews coverage as an improvement to the wikipedia. While I respect that it's your opinion, I do not share it.

On edits recently made, this needs a source beyond a claim in a talk page. Sources describe him "praising his own work and rubbishing that of his rivals."

I also don't know why we omit the pertinent information appearing in at least the BBC and the Guardian that Figes first threatened legal action against historians, newspapers and journals that identified him as the poster of the reviews, this was a significant part of the escalation of the dispute. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I am going to try and refocus here on the Amazon reviews issue because I don't think our current text is satisfactory.

First of all the heading "Pseudonymous Amazon reviews" is better than "Amazon reviews controversy" ("controversy" is a leading label, a Wikipedia:WTW).

Secondly the text. I propose the following:

In 2010, Figes posted several pseudonymous reviews under the moniker "orlando-birkbeck" on the site of the online bookseller Amazon.[22] The reviews were critical of others' books, including those of rival historians of Russia Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, but effusively praised his own.[23] After Rachel Polonsky uncovered evidence tying the reviews to Figes, he initially denied all involvement, and threatened historians, journals and newspapers with libel lawsuits for alleging his involvement.[24][25] Figes later admitted that he had posted the reviews, apologized and agreed to pay for legal costs and damages to Polonsky and Service, who had in turn taken legal action against Figes.[26] After admitting posting the reviews in April 2010, Figes went on sick leave, though by October of that year he had returned to supervising PhD students.[27] After a confidential investigation, Birkbeck later returned Figes to a full-time role.[28]

Advantages of this version against the current version:

I don't see a source for Figes praising other books than his own, most sources that mention it say that he praised his own work. We don't mention the legal threats against TLS, Service and others, which for some of the sources are the most significant part of the whole story. The aftermath is relevant and it's not clear why it's omitted. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:45, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

The change of the title and slight rephrase is fine, but I am against including the claim about legal threat, especially as a fact. That was just a claim by a lawyer [29] that well could be a lie (see discussions on this page). This claim might be included with an explicit attribution to the lawyer, but I this is nothing significant. There was no actual lawsuit by OF. This is clearly undue on the page. Same about sick leave. Who cares? My very best wishes (talk) 20:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes this isn't a claim by a lawyer. It is reported as fact in the Guardian that "Price [Figes' lawyer] contacted the newspaper, denying that Figes had any involvement in the reviews, demanding a "corrective publication", and suggesting that his client would be entitled to damages."

In the BBC it says "Initially, when confronted by the allegations of his involvement, Prof Figes' instructed his lawyer to threaten legal action."

There are more sources with more detail, but there is no question that lawsuits were threatened, against Service, against TLS and I've seen sources suggesting other targets too, I'll search for them if needed.

The point about the sick leave is that Figes was not in post for some time (6months to a year) as a result of the scandal. Perhaps this should be made more clear in my version. Samuelshraga (talk) 21:40, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

here the legal threats are reported as fact and here the editor of the Times Literary supplement reports that he, along with journalists across Fleet Street and Robert Service received legal threats. That this happened is not in the realm of the contested, and I'd say this was a central and high-profile part of the story. I don't object to Service and Polonsky's subsequent legal action being included, but it's much more peripheral here. Samuelshraga (talk) 21:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

So, the threat needs to be attributed to the lawyer of OF. Ok. And yes, the claim was reliably published. But is it due on the page? The entire controversy is arguably "due". But such a minor and possibly an incorrect detail? I believe that mentioning the actual lawsuit (as we did) is a lot more important than mentioning the alleged threat of lawsuit. Hence, I do not think it worth including on the page, unless we want to present the subject in as a negative light as possible, but this is not our goal per WP:BLP. Same with his sick leave. To be frank, I am sick of looking at BLP pages that not only emphasize every scandal and controversy, but describe each scandal in every minor detail. Sorry to disagree. My very best wishes (talk) 18:17, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

We have already discussed that above: the fair treatment applies to all the people involved. If you only mention the lawsuit by Polonsky and Service, then Figes is presented exclusively as the target of a lawsuit. What is due is some balance (based on all reliable and acceptable sources), and I would insist that no efforts are made to upend this by introducing unsourced speculation about what might have taken place behind the scenes. The place for claims about Stephen Cohen's connection to Putin is in the Cohen article. As for controversies, it is surely better to cover them in a neutral verifiable manner on Wikipedia than to abandon them to the tabloids and gossip columns? But perhaps we disagree here. VampaVampa (talk) 22:53, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

"As for controversies, it is surely better to cover them in a neutral verifiable manner on Wikipedia than to abandon them to the tabloids and gossip columns?" - I agree with this but the problem is that you have drawn all your information from the tabloids and gossip columns (including the column in the TLS) which are neither neutral or verifiable - especially when they are fed with a biased narrative by the protagonists in the controversy (Polonsky, Service, Cohen). When you are at the receiving end of a beating in the press, as I was in the Amazon affair, there is nothing you can do to counteract the press version - that I made legal threats etc....As I have said already, my lawyer may have made a legal threat to the TLS, but I put a stop to this. No legal threats were made to Service, despite his claims in the press, motivated (as with so much else that was fed to the press) by the opportunity to discredit me when I could not answer back. Likewise, in the Whispers controversy, the Cohen archive shows that Cohen and Polonsky knowingly fed the press with inaccurate information (that Memorial had been instrumental in cancelling the contract) to discredit me. This should be added to any further coverage of the controversies you seem so determined to detail here (in far more detail than you seem able or inclined to add about my work). Orlandofiges (talk) 07:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I would be fine attributing the claims of legal threats to other journalists and newspapers to the editor of the TLS. If you didn't make legal threats to Robert Service, we can't just take your word for it here over what was printed in news sections of sources we consider reliable, and I'm sorry. If you were to get your denial of these claims into a reliable source, we would include your denial on this page. I'm sure you have the wherewithal to do so if you wish. Samuelshraga (talk) 09:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I have no desire to reopen this in the press, and no newspaper would be interested. It happened more than 14 years ago! If you go to the Sunday Times (https://www.thetimes.com/article/o-the-wild-charges-he-made-nk9vcqhdlb5) you will find it reported that I wrote several good reviews of other books (you questioned this elsewhere), that my reviews of Polonsky and Service were my sincere opinions of their work, and that in the three-month ordeal of legal threats to which I was subjected by Carter Ruck Polonsky tried to open up a whole host of new legal threats, including to report me to the police for criminal fraud (sic) over the reviews (despite the fact they were genuine). I can prove the police threat by publishing the document - as Vampa did with my email apology (written by Polonsky and Service, as you will see from the Sunday Times). All this would need to be added to any further details on the Amazon affair but the police threat would probably be challenged by Polonsky - claiming on her own "authority" that it is not true (though we now know from the Cohen archive that she is known to lie to newspapers). So what would you do then? Remove the police threat because you take Polonsky's "word" for it or let it stay? I make this point to argue that you cannot take a newspaper source as reliable in matters such as this. Orlandofiges (talk) 10:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I will address the police threat issue, because you brought a source. I'm not per se against including it - attributed to you, because in the Times article you're the one saying it. I don't think it's massively relevant. Polonsky and Service took/threatened to take legal action against you, and you ended up making a further apology, admission of responsibility and paying costs and damages. Adding, "According to Figes, he was threatened with being reported to the police", doesn't tell us very much.

1. It didn't happen (you were not, in fact, reported to the police).

2. It doesn't tell us what the crime would have been.

3. It's not like we can actually attribute the threat to Polonsky, so what we'd be writing is that you say that an unnamed Carter Ruck lawyer threatened you with unspecified criminal liability. Samuelshraga (talk) 17:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

And with reference to your point about the alleged legal threats to Service, as you will see from the Sunday Times report I was forced to sign an apology written by Polonsky and Service in which I admitted to making legal threats (this is the email on the Carter Ruck site which Vampa published). Their draft was whittled down by my lawyer because it contained several admissions that were not true at all but which would have opened me up to new lawsuits from Carter Ruck (including criminal fraud). Admitting to the "legal threats" was the easiest and by the far cheapest of the options left to me to stop the expensive litigation which was also very damaging in other ways. Orlandofiges (talk) 11:12, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes, I think the idea that the legal threat was made independently by the lawyer unconnected to Figes is not credible.

Separately, I don't think the aim is to present the subject in as negative a light as possible, but equally it is not our job to censor content that shows the subject in a negative light. Figes did post these reviews. He did make legal threats. The facts, not the presentation, are what reflects negatively here.

What first made me look at this page is that there's a significant amount of material here that has clearly been excised because it makes Figes look bad. Including by sockpuppets by the way, and you can note that Figes wiki account has a history of sockpuppetry.

The Amazon reviews, the whisperers criticism, Polonsky's review of Natasha's Dance, and the Pipes plagiarism accusation and subsequent lawsuit. Not all of these necessarily make Figes look bad - he won the lawsuit over the Pipes accusation! But from what I've seen a lot of this material already existed on the page and was excised not for wiki policy reasons but in order to present Figes' public image in a certain way on wikipedia. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:03, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

• As someone completely uninvolved, I think this is just a minor controversy that had happen 14 years ago. Placing myself to shoes of an occasional reader of books by any author (Figes, Service, Polonsky or whoever, and I am actually such reader), I would not be interested to learn about their squabbles. A scholarly dispute? Yes, sure, but not squabbles. This is not because I like OF [30]. Yes, it was covered in press and can be included on the page (as it was included) if we consider the subject as a public figure, although I am not sure he is qualified as such per WP guidelines. However, we should not try to present it in the most damaging/negative light for the subject. Doing so would be against WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. My very best wishes (talk) 16:52, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

  I too am completely uninvolved, and I disagree that it's a minor controversy. It received sustained coverage both at the time and subsequently, over a period of years, and is still referenced in the press periodically (see for example). I agree that it need not and should not be presented in the most negative light - it should be presented in the same light in which it appears in Wikipedia:RS. Samuelshraga (talk) 17:37, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

  @My very best wishes@VampaVampa, I think we're going around in circles and repeating points here to a large extent. My proposed draft for the Amazon section is:

  In 2010, Figes posted several pseudonymous reviews under the moniker "orlando-birkbeck" on the site of the online bookseller Amazon.[31] The reviews were critical of others' books, including those of rival historians of Russia Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, but effusively praised his own.[32] After Rachel Polonsky uncovered evidence tying the reviews to Figes, he initially denied all involvement, and threatened historians, journals and newspapers with libel lawsuits for alleging his involvement.[33][34] Figes later admitted that he had posted the reviews, apologized and agreed to pay for legal costs and damages to Polonsky and Service, who had in turn taken legal action against Figes.[35] After admitting posting the reviews in April 2010, Figes went on sick leave from Birkbeck University for a number of months, and some in academia thought that he may not be able to return.[36][37] However, by October of that year he had returned to supervising PhD students[38] and after a confidential investigation, Birkbeck later returned Figes to a full-time role.[39]

  I think all the claims in this draft are adequately sourced. I am open to the idea that there are other aspects of this that need to be included but can I get consensus behind using this as a starting point? And if we stay tightly focussed on a text, and talk about individual claims that should be included/excluded for whatever reason, I think this discussion can be more productive.Samuelshraga (talk) 17:54, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

My preferred version would be that one [40]. I think current version of this section works well as a compromise. My very best wishes (talk) 02:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Is this about whether Figes is a Wikipedia:PUBLICFIGURE or Wikipedia:LOWPROFILE? To me and to Vampa seems like the answer is obviously yes, to you it seems that it's obviously no, and I don't think we'll get far if that's the case. If that's the disagreement, I'm happy to hold off, start a discussion on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard on this topic and see what the outcome might be and then come back to this topic. Is that acceptable to you? Samuelshraga (talk) 04:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The majority of people who talked about it on the page (2:1, excluding one with COI) believe that such section should be included, and it is included. This is not the issue. But you suggested a different version of this section (just above) that includes a number of additional details. Yes, you need WP:Consensus for this. Yes, of course, you can make an RfC or a post somewhere asking: should we prefer such [current] or such [your suggested] version. This is the disagreement. Personally though, I think that does not worth an effort. My very best wishes (talk) 13:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Speaking on your suggested version, I think that a lot of new details are unnecessary/excessive (sick leave, supervising PhD students), while others ("threatened historians, journals and newspapers with libel lawsuits [plural] for alleging his involvement") are debatable, should be phrased differently and better just be omitted per WP:BLP, based on the discussions above on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 14:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

What would be your reasoning for those claims being unnecessary or excessive, please? The first series of claims provides a natural conclusion to the affair, and the threat of legal action was already amply discussed, it needs to be included for fairness to other parties and for an accurate representation of what happened. VampaVampa (talk) 15:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I understand that we were 2:1 on inclusion and I appreciate you giving way to form a consensus on that issue - genuinely I do, it demonstrates a lot of good faith. That's why I'm trying to get consensus for a change, but it seems like neither of us is going to persuade the other on whether these details are necessary or not. I see that Vampa and I agree again, but I'm more than happy to hold off pending a discussion on BLP noticeboard, or to ask for input from any WikiProject you think important, maybe the ones on history, academia or Russia. Samuelshraga (talk) 15:49, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I will just say three things:

1. If you seek the opinion of history, Russia and academic commentators you need to ensure that they read all my comments on this page - and samuelsharga and Vampavampa could also do the courtesy of reading them and responding.

2. Any further comments on the amazon affair in the article must include a paragraph on Polonsky's hidden role in the Cohen-Reddaway-Polonsky conspiracy on the lines I have set out and citing the Princeton Cohen archive.

3. The draft paragraph of Samuelsharga is longer than the entires on my books. 146.241.13.149 (talk) 16:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I do not see any issues with the claims included in this version and it has my support. The additions concerning sick leave and supervision represent the impact on Figes's main professional activity and therefore belong to an informative account of it. Whether such additional details reflect positively or negatively on his conduct in the affair is a matter of personal opinion (some will sympathise, others will not) and, more importantly, not our remit. Our job is to establish the key facts and there is no question of poor sourcing in this case. VampaVampa (talk) 15:45, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh no, all of this (including the sick leave) is obviously a very negative information about the person. That's why the subject himself objected to including it as doubtful and arguably undue. I found their arguments convincing, but would have the same opinion even without such arguments. I believe that the version suggested by Samuelshraga is to some degree is a scandal mongering. But whatever. I only stated my opinion here, and the understanding of the BLP can differ. My very best wishes (talk) 15:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I will just say three things:

1. If you seek the opinion of history, Russia and academic commentators you need to ensure that they read all my comments on this page - and samuelsharga and Vampavampa could also do the courtesy of reading them and responding.

2. Any further comments on the amazon affair in the article must include a paragraph on Polonsky's hidden role in the Cohen-Reddaway-Polonsky conspiracy on the lines I have set out and citing the Princeton Cohen archive.

3. The draft paragraph of Samuelsharga is longer than the entriees on my books Orlandofiges (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Orlandofiges, you might want to edit out your IP address in the identical comment above, both so that your comments on the talk page are clearly attributed to you, and for privacy reasons. As to your points:

1. Rude.

2. Lol no.

3. No it's not.

Samuelshraga (talk) 20:30, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Orlandofiges, I would encourage you to respond to this note I left on your talk page. I bring it up here in case you didn't see it. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Summary of discussion for incoming editors

I'll try to keep this brief for anyone who wants to jump in and help resolve an emerging content dispute. The dispute surrounds coverage of the Orlando Figes Amazon reviews story of 2010 (the word "story" used here so as not to say anything more prejudicial and start a fight).

This discussion rehashes debates that has been had on this talk page basically since the story came out in 2010[41][42], but certain information has been repeatedly removed and re-added to the article over the years. I want us to form an explicit consensus to stop this glacial-pace edit-warring.

Currently, the versions under discussion are the current one found in the article namespace:

In 2010, Figes posted several pseudonymous reviews under the moniker "orlando-birkbeck" on the UK site of the online bookseller Amazon. The reviews criticised works by two other British historians of Russia, Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, but praised other books, including one of his own. After initially denying that he wrote these reviews, Figes took full responsibility for them, apologized and agreed to pay for legal costs and damages to Polonsky and Service who launched a lawsuit against Figes.[43][44][45][46]

and this one:

In 2010, Figes posted several pseudonymous reviews under the moniker "orlando-birkbeck" on the site of the online bookseller Amazon.[47] The reviews were critical of others' books, including those of rival historians of Russia Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, but effusively praised his own.[48] After Rachel Polonsky uncovered evidence tying the reviews to Figes, he initially denied all involvement, and threatened historians, journals and newspapers with libel lawsuits for alleging his involvement.[49][50] Figes later admitted that he had posted the reviews, apologized and agreed to pay for legal costs and damages to Polonsky and Service, who had in turn taken legal action against Figes.[51] After admitting posting the reviews in April 2010, Figes went on sick leave from Birkbeck University for a number of months, and some in academia thought that he may not be able to return.[52][53] However, by October of that year he had returned to supervising PhD students[54] and after a confidential investigation, Birkbeck later returned Figes to a full-time role.[55]

It has also been suggested that no coverage at all is necessary. I won't try to fully represent the discussion, but I'll start out by saying that as an advocate of the second option, I think the content is notable, encyclopedic, found in a variety of gold-standard RS over a sustained period, and presents the material in a neutral way. The argument for the first option includes that option B is "scandal-mongering", that Figes is a WP:LOWPROFILE individual who does not merit this focused attention, that it presents Figes in the most negative light possible, that this section is receiving undue weight - but that side is more than capable of representing itself. Samuelshraga (talk) 16:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

This is not an objective summary because the second variant is a very recent introduction by Samuelshraga with a maximally negative motive - far more negative than any other previous variant - and he is the only editor "discussing" it. Editors may want to compare my case with that of Salman Rushdie, whose negative reviews of other authors' books on the Goodreads site in 2015 (reported here https://theprint.in/opinion/when-salman-rushdie-rated-other-authors-on-goodreads/1080453/ and in many other newspapers) are NOT included on his wikipedia page, although he, far more than me, is a public figure. Orlandofiges (talk) 06:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I'll keep my response as brief as possible.

1. Attacking my motives without basis is against the Wikipedia behavioural guideline to Wikipedia:Assume good faith.

2. I'm not the only editor discussing it. There are four active discussants above, two explicitly accept my version, and two don't (one of whom, you, is conflicted).

3. If something is wrong with Salman Rushdie's article, you can fix it. (From the link you sent, I think Rushdie's reviews were in his own name). I can equally and easily bring up counter-examples like Johann Hari who has much more written about his pseudonymous online attacks than you. The truth is that neither are relevant, and each case should be evaluated independently. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:56, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

There are no disagreements on including the current (shorter) version. However, I think the suggested new (longer) version suffers from a number of minor issues which amplify negative aspects of the controversy that had happen 14 years ago. For example,

1. "rival historians of Russia". Why are they rivals? They are actually colleagues.
2. "Rachel Polonsky uncovered". Actually, it is not clear if it was her or someone else who had "uncovered".
3. "threatened historians, journals and newspapers with libel lawsuits" - What journals and newspapers? Was it he or his lawyer? Some sources are making contradictory claims about it.
4. "went on sick leave" and returned back to teaching. This is so petty. I think this is clearly "undue".
5. "after a confidential investigation". Which found what? This needs either be explained or removed. My very best wishes (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

   1. This is the word used in the sources, there's nothing wrong with it.

   2. The BBC source makes clear that Polonsky discovered it. How is it unclear?

   3. Per the cited Guardian source " Orlando Figes, one of the stars of contemporary history, had issued a string of legal threats to academic colleagues, literary journals and newspapers that suggested he might have written the reviews posted on Amazon.co.uk." You've also raised this above and been answered, and I don't know what is gained by repeating the previously answered point.

   4. The relevance is how the affair impacted on his career. Plenty of sources discuss it.

   5. The investigation was confidential, so we don't know it's findings. People can get more info from the source. Samuelshraga (talk) 14:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Speaking on #4 and #5, I understand that this story did NOT impact his or anyone else career, and it did not impact anything. Why include? As about other points, no, there are discrepancies in sources about all these minor details (see discussions on this page), which is not surprising. I think we simply need to omit all such minor and not entirely clear details. Who cares? I am a lot more interested in reading books by the author. My very best wishes (talk) 17:40, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

You've made these points and been answered above already. I don't know why it needs to be rehashed in detail, in a section that is marked "Summary for incoming editors". Samuelshraga (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes and @VampaVampa, doesn't look like I've succeeded in bringing any attention here. I'd love to hear your views on a way forward. Do either of you want to take a try at getting some eyes on this discussion? If not, perhaps a mediated discussion of the content dispute? Samuelshraga (talk) 11:22, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes @VampaVampa input please? Samuelshraga (talk) 05:41, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

This is fully explained on the page already. I think that the shorter version of the section is OK as a compromise (we are keeping it because you want to keep it), but the longer version has a number of issues listed above. As of note, I double checked WP:COI as applies to editing by OF on this page. It says [56] "You should generally refrain from creating articles about yourself". Important words here are "generally" and " creation". Looking at discussions elsewhere [57], it appears that "an editor with a COI on a topic is allowed to edit articles in which they have a COI with, as long as they have disclosed any contributions covered under WP:PAID and they adhere to Wikipedia's policies and procedures, including having a neutral point of view in their contributions.". That means OF could edit this page if he "adhered" (I do not think he did by playing loose with multiple accounts, but this is something for admins to decide) My very best wishes (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the lack of interest from others (as you noted) is an indication this is the case of WP:DEADHORSE. My very best wishes (talk) 17:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

My failure to reply has been due to unavailability and not lack of interest. It is advisable to avoid assumptions about things one does not know.

as long as they ... adhere to Wikipedia's policies and procedures, including having a neutral point of view in their contributions is a condition repeatedly violated by Orlandofiges, who in addition to extending his exemplary sockpuppetry to this page has been warned against issuing veiled legal threats over the other question discussed on this page. OF's sockpuppetry being discussed in the Wikipedia article on this subject more than justifies giving the incident a complete and trustworthy coverage here.

I think that the shorter version of the section is OK as a compromise (we are keeping it because you want to keep it) - since you were brought by policy and argument to accept back in 2011, however reluctantly, that the section belongs in the article, you are not conceding anything now in agreeing to the shorter version. As Wareh put it to you at the time, "saying more than the sources or not attributing it" "are the only real BLP crimes". VampaVampa (talk) 06:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the lack of interest was compounded by you writing long nitpicky threads, repeating arguments you've made repeatedly for over a decade, on what was meant to be a short accessible summary of the alternatives under discussion. I don't want to waste time re-hashing a debate with you that I agree, has fully played out. I assess that there is a rough consensus (2 out of 3 non-conflicted editors) for the longer version. I've only held off from making the edits in the hope of avoiding an edit war and out of respect for you.

If you say at which forum, or in which manner, you would agree to see a consensus formed that you would respect - dispute resolution noticeboard, rfc at NPOV/N, a Wikiproject, whatever you say, we can move forward there. Otherwise I don't know why we should delay making the edits any further. Samuelshraga (talk) 06:22, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

How do we know that you and Vampa are not conflicted? Who are you? Your only interest here is in this petty "scandal" of 14 years ago. Neither of you has made a single edit showing any knowledge of my work. As for the longer version you seem so intent to force through, it can surely not be BLP policy to speculate on the living subject's mental health. Do I not have any right of privacy, for heaven's sake? The Evening Standard article on which you have based your proposed edit was published before the Leveson enquiry (it would not be passed for publication now) and is not a reliable source. Apart from the fact that the Standard is a tabloid, I can tell you now (and prove it in emails) that its speculation on my health and employment status was based on talking to students at Birkbeck and that nobody in Birkbeck's HR or External Relations Department talked to the "journalist" (muck-raker) who wrote the article. Orlandofiges (talk) 07:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:RS/P#Evening Standard says that "There is no consensus on the reliability of the Evening Standard. Despite being a free newspaper, it is generally considered more reliable than most British tabloids and middle-market newspapers." I take this to mean that we should use this source cautiously, not rely on it for contentious material, and prefer other sources where there is disagreement. What material sourced to this paper do you believe to be contentious? What other sources disagreeing with any statement sourced to this paper are there?

There is no speculation on your mental health in the proposed paragraph, only that you were on sick leave. That you were on sick leave is reported twice in the Guardian, once on the BBC, and sundry other places as can be discerned from a simple google search. There are multiple sources that question contemporaneously whether the scandal is career-ending, and others that remark on the fact that it wasn't when you returned.

In general, at Wikipedia we are enjoined to Wikipedia:Assume good faith, but if you want to report my, Vampa's, or any other editor's behaviour for any violations of Wikipedia's guidelines, you are free to raise them at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you think anyone has a conflict of interest, you are free to raise it at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. Speaking of violations of WP policy, just a reminder that your obvious abuse of multiple accounts on this site has already been noticed by myself, and @My very best wishes, and I did you the courtesy of suggesting on your talk page that you come clean about this there before an administrator takes action on it. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:55, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

At MVBW's suggestion (here) I guess we'll move to RfC. I've never started one before, so if it's me it will take me a while to get it going, but feel free to preempt me if you know what you're doing. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@VampaVampa/@My very best wishes I obviously haven't got around to this. I'm not likely to soon either, real life intervenes and I can't put in the time. My views on the content have not changed, and I suggest that either we declare a rough consensus for the change, or one of you starts an RfC on the topic or finds another way to bring fresh eyes in. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:39, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

"Whisperers" and Memorial Society

The unsourced rewrite of the initial section on The Whisperers is bizarre, because having checked the Afterword of the book on Figes's own suggestion I found that my reconstructed version corresponds very closely to his own account. After recounting his own initial search in the state archives, some first visits to families (a dozen were recruited), and the building of a network of contacts, Figes explains that the expansion was only possible through funding and assembling of the research teams: "Supported by these grants, I employed the Memorial Society in St Petersburg, Moscow and Perm to interview survivors of the Stalin years and collect their family archives for transcription and scanning." As the project leader, he "made the selection of the families to be included in the project from a database assembled by the research teams through telephone interviews with more than a thousand people in total". Obviously, it was Memorial who did the interviews, nothing strange in that. But now Figes wants to inflate his role pointlessly.

I have not read the book and it would help to check reviews, but there is also no mention of "perpetrators" in the Afterword - since the interviewees all agreed to reveal names, it would have been unlikely for such people to volunteer. Figes did add "interpretations" casting people in negative roles though, about which the Russian fact-checking team later complained. VampaVampa (talk) 22:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The included text does not say that Figes conducted interviews. It says that he gathered archives. Yes, the book includes materials about specific people who willingly reported on their innocent neighbors to the NKVD, for example. Apparently, you did not read the book. These are not "interpretations". These people told about themselves in their own words, that's the point. Long after Stalinism was gone, they continued to believe that they did right thing by willingly bringing their neighbors and colleagues to Gulag merely because they expressed a dissatisfaction with their life. I think all recent changes are correct and sourced right now. Yes, one could add a lot more defamatory claims and insignificant details, but I believe they are not due on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 13:52, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@vampavampa - you have published a private email addressed to a limited number of academics. I assume this contravenes Wikipedia policies so am asking you to remove it. If not I shall make a formal complaint. I would also like to know where you sourced this document? I ask because your possession of it raises suspicions.

As to the contents of the document, I would not read too much into them. If you are under the kosh of Carter Ruck - the notoriously aggressive legal firm employed by Polonsky - you will admit to anything that does not add to the eye-watering fees they charge you for sending you threatening letters on a Friday evening (including threats of reporting me to the police for criminal fraud for the reviews)!

As to Gornostaeva's statement in the archive, it is incorrect, and clearly contradicted by the statement of Roginsky (the head of Memorial) in the Cohen archive.

As to your claim that I am trying to "inflate" my role in the oral history project for The Whisperers - a claim that raises more suspicions about your neutrality - I reiterate that I was simply trying to establish that I had been working on the project for several years before Memorial became involved - which, as I have said already, means that your rewrite of the first paragraph is misleading and inaccurate, Orlandofiges (talk) 05:50, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I see that you have taken my private email from the Carter Ruck website - that they should post it there is just a small example of the tactics they employ. If you want to go down the road of publishing the legal correspondence pertaining to this dispute, this will get very ugly indeed, because I was subjected to 3 months of legal threats from CR on the instigation of Polonsky, who tried to use my culpability for the reviews to open up a whole series of old disputes (including one where she had already sued the Guardian and received substantial damages). I have all this correspondence and can also upload it to my websites, as CR did with theirs. Orlandofiges (talk) 10:34, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I am using the information that is in the public domain, to which you have pointed me yourself, so please spare me your suspicion. The email comes from the Stephen Cohen Archives, the 'primary sources' box, p. 92 - as you should have been able to deduce from the URL. The Roginsky email is not there, as you yourself admitted above, so cannot be used. No evidence therefore contradicts the statement by the head of Corpus this far. You are free to submit new evidence.

As Carter Ruck are a legal firm still in business they can be assumed to have stayed within the law in sharing the information and with regard to the accuracy of its contents. I will not enter disputes about that on no evidence presented. As a rule, if you want to introduce any corrections, and I think the above record shows that you are willing to push for changes that have no foundation in available evidence, then please indicate that evidence in an unambiguous manner and it will be used as per Wikipedia guidelines (on primary/secondary sources).

As to your preliminary work in gathering archives, which I referenced quite clearly above, it could be mentioned at the expense of brevity, but clearly the bulk of the gathering and interviewing as per your own Afterword was done by Memorial once you hired them. Therefore my passage, echoing your own phrasing from 2007, was entirely correct in its emphasis and you showed a partisan agenda in questioning it. I am not your employee to carry out your wishes, although you appear to think otherwise. VampaVampa (talk) 21:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I have noted above where the Roginsky email is located. It is in Russian. I am done arguing with you otherwise. Most unpleasant. Orlandofiges (talk) 05:07, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, a letter from Arseny Roginsky to Stephen F. Cohen could be of interest for this page if reliably published. The archive by Cohen in Princeton is apparently an WP:SPS, but I am having a difficulty accessing it right now. Having a PDF of the letter from that archive would be probably helpful. My very best wishes (talk) 14:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC314_c14489-35167

Orlando Figes controversy: SFC correspondence & 'primary sources', 2012

pages 82-3 and 90-91 of this file contain the letters from Roginsky to Cohen: on 82-3 he refuses to enter the dispute on any side because he says Memorial is an archive and should not determine how researchers interpret its documents; on 90-91 he says Memorial took no part in the decision to cancel. In both documents he refers to Irina Ostrovskaya as the sole author of the report. Orlandofiges (talk) 15:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Those are the page numbers as they appear on the downloaded PDF file Orlandofiges (talk) 15:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, he is saying that Memorial took no part in the publishing decision, that it was the single named researcher who looked at the book and compiled a list of issues, and that the researcher did not actually compare the English version to the original Russian texts of the documents. My very best wishes (talk) 15:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Exactly - and no could she because Irina Ostrovskaya does not have a word of English (I know because I let he stay for free in my London flat for two weeks in 2005). Orlandofiges (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

So, Arseny Roginsky responds in his letter to Cohen: "you complain that Memorial does not participate in the polemics about Orlando Figes. But the Memorial in this case is merely an archive that must work with researchers and provide them all necessary materials. Just as any other archive." But I do have a question. Roginsky mentioned "a review of our archivists [plural]" that they sent to the publisher. What review he is talking about? Based on his letter, it seems there might be two reviews. However, I am not sure because there is another letter from Roginsky to Cohen (pages 97-99), which is even more instructive, but it does not mention any reviewers except Ostrovskaya. My very best wishes (talk) 16:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I do not see where Roginsky refers to "a review of our archivists [plural]" - please be more specific. There was only one review. It was sent to me in 2011 and was written by Ostrovskaya. Orlandofiges (talk) 06:22, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Page 88. "...возможно что отзыв наших архивистов сыграл роль в том что книга не появилась в том издательстве...". Based on context, it seems he is not talking about the review by Ostrovskaya. Perhaps they did not send it you, but to the publisher? But I am not so sure after reading his another letter. It is precisely why wikipedians should not interpret themselves primary sources per WP:PRIMARY. My very best wishes (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I have not looked again at the document for context but that immediately strikes me as the way they refer to themselves at Memorial - as a collective, it'e the language of the dissidents, it should not be read so literally! Art the very most, it is possible, indeed likely, that Ostrovskaya asked the opinion of other archivists (e.g. Kozlova) who know the background of the family member interviewed better. But I repeat, there was one report and it was written by Ostrovskaya. I know how she writes, I know how she speaks, I worked with her for several years. Orlandofiges (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, probably. I have no further questions. My very best wishes (talk) 18:33, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, Roginsky, the head of the Memorial, wrote in his letter (page 98 in the archive, in bold letters!) "We [Memorial] never were against publishing the Russian translation." He also clarified on the same page the agreement with OF. It did not include any role of the Memorial in evaluating the quality of the work by OF. They were not supposed to make any reviews. But in fact, a review was written by Ostrovskaya, and apparently was used by the publisher as an argument not to publish. This is nothing extraordinary (publishers can ask anyone they want), but the reviewer appears here just as an individual researcher trusted by the publisher; she could work anywhere. It was not an official view or review by Memorial as an organization. The letter by Roginsky makes it clear. My very best wishes (talk) 20:30, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Figes" is incorrect

In a video titled "Five Books That Changed History - Orlando Figes", Orlando Figes introduces himself, and he pronounces his surname /ˈfaɪjɪs/, not /ˈfaɪjiːz/. 68.193.141.193 (talk) 00:25, 11 November 2024 (UTC)corpho