Template:Did you know nominations/Marian Lutosławski

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Marian Lutosławski

edit

Marian Lutosławski

  • ... that the Polish inventor and bridge designer Marian Lutosławski (pictured) was executed by the Bolsheviks several days before his show trial on drummed up charges was supposed to take place?

Created by Poeticbent (talk). Self nominated at 22:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC).

  • The article is new and long enough. QPQ done. The nationality of this person is described in the infobox and in the first sentence of the article as Polish. In the first sentence Polish is wikilinked to Poland. If Poland did not exist until the end of 1918 this person could not have Polish nationality. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 12:46, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
You brought up an interesting point, because denying anyone their nationality due to foreign occupation of their homeland is against almost everything we do here in Wikipedia probably. For example, a Greek born under the Nazi occupation of Greece could also be categorized as German-born even if he never spoke German. Ultimately, nationality of notable people is defined not by the politics, but by the language and culture they identify themselves with. Poeticbent talk 15:29, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was not occupied but partitioned. You obviously refer to nationality as an alternate word for ethnicity. If that is so, it would be good to clarify it in the text of the article. With the current text of the article readers could be mislead to believe that this man was Polish citizen who lived in Poland which did not exist during his lifetime. Also, per WP:OPENPARAGRAPH, "Ethnicity or sexuality should not generally be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.".--Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:50, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
How about a simple WP:Duck test. If Lutosławski along with his entire family spoke Polish, wrote in Polish, and helped in the struggle for the return of Poland's sovereignty, who was he? Poeticbent talk 16:07, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
How about a simple Post Office test. A post office building was built in Sarajevo in 1913 in Bosnia and Herzegovina annexed by Austria Hungary. At the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars somebody wrote "This is Serbia!" on the wall of the post office. Very soon this inscription was strike trough and somebody wrote, "This is Bosnia!". After some time somebody wrote: "This is post office!" To answer to your Duck test question: Marian Lutosławski was a mechanical engineer.
Here is a summary of issues with this nomination:
  1. Misleading and inaccurate links to Poland (which did not exist during his lifetime) and Partitions of Poland:
    1. Link to Poland in the first sentence: If it refers to his citizenship, it is wrong and can mislead readers to believe that Poland existed, although Poland did not exist during his lifetime. If it refers to his ethnicity, it should be wikilinked to Poles, but not in the first sentence because it would violate WP:OPENPARAGRAPH. He was notable for being mechanical engineer, not because of his ethnicity.
    2. Link to Poland in the infobox: it is wikilinked within Nationality parameter. Template:Infobox person says for Nationality parameter: "Should only be used with citizenship when they somehow differ."
    3. Partitions of Poland assertion in the first sentence: It is inacurate. Lutosławski was born after Poland was already partitioned, not during Partitions of Poland.
  2. Hook issues:
    1. The hook says that Bolsheviks executed Lutosławski. The text of the article says that Lutosławski was arrested by the Bolsheviks (which is not supported by cited source), without specifying who executed him.
    2. The hook describes his planned trial as show trial which is unsupported by the source used to support this assertion (link).
  3. Source interpretation issues:
    1. The sources used to support Bolshevik arresting assertion do not mention Bolsheviks (link 1 and link 2).
    2. The article describes charges against Lutosławski as drummed up. The cited source does not support this assertion (link).
It is necessary to resolve above identified issues (or at least most serious ones) before this nomination is approved. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
I believe I was able to solve points Antidiskriminator raises above in point 1 (ethnicity, nationality and country where he was born) with my edits. Antidiskriminator is right on the account that his ethnicity should be emphasized, not nationality.
Nr. 2 and Nr. 3 (hook and source interpretation): Nothing to solve here: Hook and source interpretations are fine and supported (Sutsky: who clearly says how the Bolsheviks arrested and executed prior to trial, see p3). Antidiskriminator, please don't harass the other editors without reading sources well. --Ustallaretevjeter (talk) 16:16, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Ustallaretevjeter was created today only, possibly to comment on this template. — Maile (talk) 19:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Ustallaretevjeter misinterpreted my position. I did not say "that his ethnicity should be emphasized". On the contrary. I explained that referring to his ethnicity in the first sentence "would violate WP:OPENPARAGRAPH. He was notable for being mechanical engineer, not because of his ethnicity". I did not object presenting his nationality. I just explained that it was not Poland because it did not exist during his lifetime.
  • Maybe Lutosławski was indeed both arrested and executed by the Bolsheviks, but I think that presented sources do not directly support those assertions. If they do, it should be easy to present the quote that support this assertion. If they don't but that is what has really happened, it should be easy to present additional sources which support it and fulfill one of the criteria which request that "hook fact is accurate and cited with an inline citation in the article". --Antidiskriminator (talk) 21:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
Ping User:Poeticbent, User:Antidiskriminator: I hope my recent edits [1] help. I added sources for missing claims, with the exception of the "drummed up" charges. Lutoslawski's brothers were engaged in what could be indeed described as counter-revolutionary activities (as in, supporting the idea of independent Poland rather than a communist one). I cannot find any refs supporting the link to show trial; that said, I think WP:DUCK is clear that he was Polish through I have no issue with MoS arguments about linking/delinking the word Polish. Please note that the term partitions is often used to refer not only to the 18th century events but the entire period of History of Poland (1795-1918). I propose the ALT1 below. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


Thanks Piotrus.
WP:DUCK was not necessary here because it does not apply to article content and because the issue was not his ethnicity (I don't insist on strict following WP:OPENPARAGRAPH here) but the claim that he was from country that did not exist during his lifetime. Thanks for clarifying this. The Alt1 hook is not too long (182 characters). The most serious issues are resolved. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
@Antidiskriminator: Can you clarify what remains? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
  • What remained was violation of WP:OPENPARAGRAPH which says "Ethnicity or sexuality should not generally be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability." I did not want to insist on it and approved this nomination.
  • Now after I approved this nomination I noticed that Poeticbent again edit warred (diff) to add foreign Partitions of Poland into the first sentence. I think that article now does not fulfill dyk criteria because it does not meet core policies and guidelines (after recent edit war I think it now seriously violate WP:OPENPARAGRAPH). If I am not wrong, this position was more or less supported by three different editors with only Poeticbent against it. Therefore I will withdraw my approval until requests of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies (WP:OPENPARAGRAPH) are met. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 08:17, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

QPQ review needed. Hostile commentaries from above, with no relation to QPQ requirements, include errors in the understanding of the history of Poland under partitions which erased the country from the map of Europe and ended with the restoration of Poland's full independence in 1918 after 123 years,[2] [3] [4] the year Lutosławski died. Other hostile commentaries unrelated to QPQ guidelines include false reading of WP:OPENPARA. Lutosławski was a member of the patriotic Polish szlachta family relevant to the subject's notability through extrajudicial killing by the Bolsheviks mentioned in the hook. Poeticbent talk 12:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

(Poeticbent asked me to take a look at this nom) This is much ado about nothing. If the sources describe him as Polish then he was Polish for our purposes, regardless of the geopolitical situation in his lifetime or nitpicking about post office addresses. His ethnicity is obviously important as it was part of the reason he was executed, so there's no problem with WP:OPENPARA here. In fact at least of the three examples given under WP:OPENPARA doe mention nationality or ethnicity ("last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty", "was an Italian scholar, poet, and humanist", "was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist" - in at least two of these examples the nationality/ethnicity is much more relevant than here). There's also nothing wrong in saying he was born in one of the partitions of Poland.

The article's fine, the nom is fine and both proposed hooks are fine. Jeez, we have sloppy, boring, messed up articles appear at DYK all the time and someone's making a big deal out of this? Seriously?  Volunteer Marek  12:25, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

The issue here is not that Lutosławski belonged to Poles, as ethnic group. I approved this nomination with first sentence stating that he belong to Poles (diff). I think that replacing his actual citizenship (based on the incorrect argument) to link Poland which did not exist during whole of his lifetime (diff) is what contradicts WP:OPENPARA. Poland is now linked both in the infobox and in the first sentence although it did not even exist during whole of his lifetime. That is what is incorrect, misleading and contrary to WP:OPENPARA.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
  • "Killed by the Bolsheviks" reads a bit Red Scare-ish. What Bolsheviks exactly? The Bolsheviks were a political party. What organization within the party? The article needs copyediting. It also has some POV issues. For example, the sentence "Notably, a week before the massacre, on August 29, 1918, the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars formally recognized the right of the Polish nation to independence and irrevocably annulled all Russian agreements and acts referring to the partitions of Poland" is pure editorializing. The source cited doesn't refer to Lutoslawski at all. The connection between that declaration and Lutoslawski is completely unclear.--Carabinieri (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
I trust your judgement, Carabinieri. Would you be interested in making the revisions in order to finally allow this submission to go through? The Bolshevik agency responsible for all politically-motivated executions changed names several times. Originally, it was known as GPU before the creation of the USSR in December 1922. Later, it was known by its most popular acronym NKVD. I would gladly help with any of your own work Carabinieri if you choose to do some copyediting here. Thanks in advance, Poeticbent talk 16:02, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned this article is ready. ALT1 should be used, since the charges weren't that clearly drummed up. However, I did quite a bit of editing on this article. Therefore, I think someone else should look over this.--Carabinieri (talk) 08:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • After Carabinieri's extensive editing, the article reads very well and is ready for the main page. New enough, long enough, well referenced, no close paraphrasing seen in English-language sources. Foreign-language sources AGF. ALT1 hook ref verified and cited inline. QPQ done. Image is public domain, but rather grainy. ALT1 good to go. Yoninah (talk) 19:35, 18 October 2014 (UTC)