Talk:Rajka Baković

Article cleanup and expansion for C-class

I am in the process of cleaning up this article as well as expanding it so if anyone happens to see anything that needs adding please feel free to jump in and either make edits or let me know. Otr500 (talk) 04:42, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Preventing article bias

So-called

I understand that in the scheme of life the Ustasha was bad, perpetrating horrible atrocities on humanity. From a humanitarian point of view it is hard to make edits that are not biased when this is historically evident. I read where Ante Pavelic stated: “A good Ustase is one who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother.”. A future prevention of genocide as an ethnic cleansing, or for any reason, should be a world goal.

However, on Wikipedia we have certain "rules", if you will, and one being that we strive for neutrality. I made some edits that were "reverted" through natural "copy" edits by @United Union:. I am a 100% unbiased editor, having no "agenda" other than article expansion, and follow Wikipedia: policies and guidelines to the best of my ability. I live in the US so some of my edits may not reflect or follow certain European practices, such as denoting addresses. I made address changes that were re-edited likely to correctly follow this and it is an accepted "English" style.

I also made edits, simply striving for some article neutrality, that was edit reverted at the same time. The "Independent State of Croatia" was, without question or bias, a Nazi-puppet state so I support using this. However, adding the weasel words so-called, is not called for. This is unreferenced and subjective, depending on the point of view, and does not belong. If there is some agenda to keep this wording, then policy mandates the burden of proof be on the editor wishing inclusion.

The government very like was so-called but there is evidence that several countries, either by de facto or de jure (depending on the accepted definition), recognized this government while it was in existence. The Vatican officially recognized the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (that was non-existent) but had a representative in Croatia. This was a form of de facto recognition. Unofficially and secretly the Vatican had diplomatic relations with Nicola Rusinovic and Erwin Lobkowicz, representatives of the NDH.

Other countries that either officially, unofficially, de facto, or by de jure recognition: Finland (July 2, 1941); Hungary (April 10, 1941); Germany, Italy and Slovakia (April 15, 1941); Bulgaria (April 21, 1941); Romania (May 6, 1941); Japan (June 7, 1941); Spain (June 27, 1941); Japanese-occupied China (July 5, 1941); Denmark (July 10, 1941); Japanese-occupied Manchuria in China, Manchukuo (August 2, 1941); Japanese-occupied Burma, Japanese-occupied Philippines, the “Free Indian” government, and, Thailand (April 27, 1943). Switzerland had an embassy in Croatia. Sweden, Costa Rica and Ecuador did not recognize Croatia but Argentina did. Vichy France had a trade representative there so this was a de facto recognition. That is enough de jure or de facto recognition to justify leaving out the wording "so-called".

Please note: This is not any form of derogatory comments but just stating clear justifiable reasoning for exclusion of the wording "so-called". Otr500 (talk) 14:17, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

There has been no comments concerning the above use of "so-called" and I was going to replace the content but I ran across something else.

• Croatian Liberation Movement uses the same unreferenced wording as does,
• Orders, decorations, and medals of the Independent State of Croatia,
• Zagreb in World War II

Other articles using the term "so-called":

• Croatia–Spain relations, Otr500 (talk) 05:02, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
• Matica hrvatska,
• World War II reparations towards Yugoslavia Otr500 (talk) 00:07, 5 July 2016 (UTC),
• Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović,
• Croatia–Serbia relations.
• Croatia–Holy See relations,
• Croatia–Israel relations,
• Roman Catholicism in Croatia,
• Serbian Air Force and Air Defence
• Zadar,
• Eugen Pusić,
• Province of Zara and,
• History of the Serbian Air Force.

At present I have found one reference where a "Claims Commission" used the words "so-called". A book State Succession to International Responsibility, by Patrick Dumberry (Leiden- Boston 2007), uses the wording "The Claims Commission concluded that this so-called "independent" State of Croatia was actually a "puppet" State created by Italy and Germany which at no time had complete control over its territory and population and which disappeared upon the retreat of these foreign troops". In light of this, and no discussion, I will seek a more broad community opinion. Otr500 (talk) 15:14, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Request for comments

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Because quality sources indicate the name "Independent State of Croatia" should not be taken at face value, it would be WP:UNDUE to use the name without qualification. Consensus seems to be that it is sufficient to describe it as a Nazi puppet state, and that is superior to using the WP:W2W "so-called". Using both qualifiers is redundant. Rhoark (talk) 03:08, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

---

This request will be listed at the following projects and each article listed in the above section:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Yugoslavia
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Croatia

• WikiProject Women's History

I am requesting help concerning the above talk section comments "Preventing article bias" (subsection So-called) that is a somewhat one-sided discussion concerning the use of the wording "so-called". This is used on several articles and I have even found one reference that does use such wording. My questioning would be:

Is there fair justification for using this wording in instances that would result in the "Nazi-puppet state, so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH)", in this article as well as the others? Otr500 (talk) 15:55, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

• I think it's just people responding naturally to the WP:POVTITLE. WP:W2W#Expressions of doubt doesn't seem to say that "so-called" absolutely has to be removed in each instance, and in this case the detailed explanation is provided by linking to the term's article. The addition of "so-called" doesn't seem to be particularly harmful since this pattern also commonly happens in book references to the it, cf. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22so-called+independent+state+of+croatia%22# --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:04, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@ Joy, check this out! I have been VERY transparent. There has been no edit war. I ran across an article among many that was prematurely promoted to C-class. It was interesting and needed work. Look at my edit history. I started working on it while looking at others that were related to see about tying them together. So see I did de-orphan this one. I could have went about this a lot different but didn't. My question would be-- is Assume good faith just some token crap that sounds good but do just the opposite? Is it that EVERYBODY has to have a hidden agenda? I don't have any idea about THOUSANDS of articles. I found some just sitting around, in bad shape, with bad translations, and started working on them. In my world sometimes people would say - hey thanks instead of-- so what is your agenda? In THIS case I ran across what seemed to be OR -- and a little too much bias. These articles actually need to be promenent on Wikipedia the attrocities of what happened--the genocide-- the hero's-- need recording but should be accurate. Otr500 (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe I accused you of having an agenda, I'm sorry if I gave that kind of an impression, it was definitely not my intention. If anything, I'd say your effort to avoid impropriety and avoid promoting an agenda is excessive :) Really, it would have been just fine if you had just removed the word and further fine-tuned the description in all cases where it seemed to you that the text wasn't right. WP:Be bold! --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:11, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies. After your reply it is evident I did take the part about edit warring wrong. Two weeks of 10 hour days in 104 to 110 heat index apparently made me testy. It was just like --"Why would I have to be involved in some edit war.". I didn't just make the changes for more than one reason that I may delve into when I am not 4 minutes from leaving for work. I sincerely hope you have a great day. Otr500 (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

• No the use is unnecessary, particularly attached to 'puppet state'. I think most readers are adult enough to know that the DDR wasn't always very democratic, PRC doesn't belong to the people and the UK isn't always that united, without attaching 'so called'. The use may not be forbidden, but it is a very heavy-handed way of needlessly repeating that a 'puppet-state' is not independent! Pincrete (talk) 21:42, 4 July 2016 (UTC) … … ps most of the other examples above also seem unnec. many are also grammatically wrong THE so-called Independent State etc would be correct in each case. Pincrete (talk) 21:53, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

• Comments: In my edit that was reverted (here) I was attempting the correcting of some apparent bias, and in my desire to tone down bias I made a mistake because I replaced "puppet state" with, "the Nazi "occupied"...", and left out so-called. I was going to add "the" but one reference I looked at is different than the rest of the ones presented in the google search. Some of them are subjective, leading again to thoughts of bias like "Croats proclaimed the "so-called" “Independent State of Croatia,” a puppet regime of Hitler divided into German and Italian zones.", and others seemed to be over killing. I felt "how much "bad" do we need to add to get the point across. "The so-called Independent State of Croatia, a puppet regime of the horribly atrocious and murderous human exterminating Hitler, divided into Nazi German and Italian zones", would likely be accurate to some but not necessary and certainly it would seem overly-biased. I am not trying to white-wash anything but present material as neutrally and accurate as possible.

As far as "people" responding to POV titles, I have found that the editor that reverted my edit was also responsible for some of the other same wordings (I didn't look at the edits on all of them but I can) and although responding to POV titles is a plausible reason on some, this is an article named after a woman, about a woman, her sister, and her plight. I read down the list five times so (@Joy) would you be so kind to enlighten me as to exactly which titles are POV? Since you made [this] edit I assume this is one right? Your version was better than the previous one though that swung too far the other way. However, both were unsourced. My concern with all the same language in several articles: Does it not seem there is a push to have "so-called", used as part of the title of the "puppet state"? I added an inline link to "puppet state" so "anyone" can follow the link. Otr500 (talk) 00:36, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Essentially what I'm saying is that there appears to be a lot of commotion over a minor words-to-watch issue. We have a dozen instances of the so-called prefix for an article that has thousands of incoming links. If that is a push, it's an exceedingly weak one. If you removed them all or if you added just as many, it would hardly make a dent in the overall picture. (Note: I haven't examined the details of any edit wars that might have triggered this, I'm just reading what's on the Talk page here.) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:33, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with Joy. Storm in a teacup. If it is "so-called" it is not POV, it is to reflect the decided lack of independence, which was entirely lacking. The NDH was divided between the Italians and Germans, and they provided the only real military force that was deployed there. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:52, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Otr500, this isn't so much a question of whether 'Independent' was a misnomer, it plainly was, rather how many verbal-shovels does the reader need to be hit with before s/he understands that a Nazi-occupied puppet state, doesn't have much autonomy or legality. Pincrete (talk) 10:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

• No, I don't think this is a good wording. I'd definitely leave "so-called" out. "Nazi-puppet state" is fair game - still, I dislike the term "puppet state" because it tends to be used in an uneven and POV way (it's always their allies that are puppet states, never ours). In the articles I wrote, IIRC I tended to say "Axis-aligned Independent State of Croatia". I could have said just "Independent State of Croatia" and be done with it, but I feel that in encyclopedias (and otherwise) it is important to write for context wherever appropriate. In this particular article (Rajka Baković - haven't actually read it but assuming the context), saying that ISoC was a "puppet state" or had dependent status or something of the sort does not really help the average reader's understanding over merely saying it was "Axis-aligned" or something similar. GregorB (talk) 13:18, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
• Describe per sources It is not up to Wikipedia editors to use the terms "so-called," or "allegedly," etc, without the terms being used by a a third-party, reliable source that, of course, should be quoted in the article. It may very well be obvious, for example, that the Quisling regime in Norway was not "independent" but rather a traitorous and Nazi- puppet regime but we would not be allowed to describe it as such if it weren't for the numerous historical works that do so. In sum, whenever we use those terms, we must provide and cite sources that explicitly use them. -The Gnome (talk) 08:33, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

We already know that there are many reliable sources out there that use this phrasing, just like there are many that don't. It's not really a verifiability or a neutrality issue, rather whether a tiny deviation from MoS is appropriate in context. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:59, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

It's not the question about the correctness of that term. The question is whether that needs to be stated when we can put a link to ISC's article. In my opinion it doesn't need to be stated. I agree that the term is not a neutrality issue. 192.176.1.82 (talk) 14:44, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• I would definitely leave out the term "so-called". Wikipedia can do much more to describe what exactly ISC is. A link can be put so anyone unsure can go and read a whole article about it. Generally speaking the term "so-called" is in my opinion justifiable when speaking of ISC because there is a big distinction between today's Croatia and ISC. Those were two different "countries" on opposing sides in ww2. The term "so-called" is used from today's perspective to note the fact that although Independent state of Croatia has 'Croatia' in its name, it is not related to Republic of Croatia which had also existed in the same time as ISC and which had fought against ISC.192.176.1.82 (talk) 14:41, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.