Talk:Anna Politkovskaya/Archive 3

Let's examine some sources

 * Who is Arutuynan?

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Анна, кто были ваши источники? Вы пишите о том, что данные, о которых писала Анна Политковская, не подтверждались. Кто был вашими источниками?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Я могу сказать сразу честно – у меня не было прямых источников, это были вторичные источники. То есть…

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Что значит – вторичные источники?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Из других сообщений СМИ.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Секундочку. Вы же писали, что «глядя на это американскими глазами, вопиющая лень…»

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Да, совершенно верно. Я это пишу как бы… смею сказать, что как бы я тоже в этом задействована, и я себя не считаю как бы… ну, скажем так, чистой. Я занимаюсь тем же самым.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Скажите, пожалуйста, вы были знакомы с Анной Политковской?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Нет.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: А когда вы писали эту статью, обращались ли вы к кому-то из коллег Ани?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Нет.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: К Вячеславу Измайлову, Сергею Соколову, которые были в Чечне?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Нет.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: То есть, вы писали о том, и писали это после смерти Ани, когда она вам возразить не могла – вы это писали, не обращаясь ни к каким другим источникам? В вашей статье упоминаются два имени - сетевой журналист Кашин, который, насколько я знаю, никогда в Чечне не бывал и не писал об этом…

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Совершенно верно.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: И кремлевский политтехнолог Глеб Павловский.

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Да.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Это все ваши источники?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Нет, это не все мои источники. Я перебирала много источников СМИ.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Только СМИ. То есть, вы не звонили в «Новую газету»?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Нет. Это был аналитический материал. Можно я объясню, почему… я не хочу оправдываться. - Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Вы ни дня не занимались репортерской журналистикой, ни дня не занимались журналистскими расследованиями - я прочитала все, что вы написали – все. Во всех – не так много, к сожалению, на это нужно было меньше часа времени. Кстати, вы написали одну заметку этим летом в газете «Ве Нейшн» - есть такая известная левая газета в США - вы бы посмотрели, там главный редактор, Катрина Ван ден Хиден написала статью об Анне Политковской совсем недавно. Так вот я хотела вас спросить – убитого журналиста вы отхлестали по щекам. Пожалуй, никто себе не позволил так, ссылаясь на вторичные источники, написать после смерти Ани. Скажите, все-таки, что вами двигало?

А.АРУТЮНЯН: Я не могу сказать, что я отхлестала по щекам, я совершенно не намерена была этого делать, и мне не показалось, что материал вышел таким уж критичным, что можно назвать…

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Вы написали, что Аня не занималась журналистикой, вы написали, что ее задача была обвинять, а не искать правду – это цитата, я могу вам показать вашу статью, вот она, вся здесь, это прямой перевод. Вы видите, что это ваша статья, и это прямой перевод. И я хорошо читаю по английски – легко, свободно. Вы написали, что она не искала правду – цитирую вас – она не пыталась найти правду, она пыталась только обвинять официальных лиц.

Е.АЛЬБАЦ: Еще один вопрос. А.Арутюнян также обвиняет Политковскую, что она, «ссылаясь на отставного офицера КГБ, писала, что М.Ходорковскому готовят побег, в результате которого его должны убить, и хотя, - цитирую –эти обвинения прозвучали на страницах «Новой газеты» весной этого года, они так и не нашли своего подтверждения» - то есть, Ходорковский не пытался бежать, и не был убит. С.Соколов?

С.СОКОЛОВ: Ходорковский действительно не пытался бежать. Но уголовное дело по этому случаю возбуждено, человек находится за решеткой, в данный момент времени идет суд, на котором Аня 11 числа должна была выступать свидетелем. Но не успела. Biophys 18:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

What to do about POV in this article?
Article looks horribly one-sided. Although in Russia there is a proverb "about dead people you either say only good things or nothing", this certainly doesn't follow Wikipedia's policy, where both points of view should be presented. In current situation it is obvious that one point of view is anti-Russian and the other one is pro-Russian. They both should be there when backed up by sources - right now I see everything pro-Russian removed, including quoted sources. A lot of material about accusations Politkovskaya has made and the hardships she encountered is sourced to her own words only! Furthermore on a number of occasions her quotes are not labeled as quotes - not only is this disrespectful of her copyright, but is also misleading. I suggest the article be split into pro and anti Russian sections which opponents would not edit, else this article is so POV that its information value is negligible.Lost Angel 23:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What are you talking about? Politkovskaya was not "anti-Russian", she was very much "pro-Russian"! There is nothing "anti-Russian" in this article. Biophys 00:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am talking about very one-sided coverage of the issue. In criticising elected by the people government with elected by the people president she is not pro-russian - since it were Russians, who were and are in support of government. Not all of them, but over half. In this article point of view, which considers Politkovskaya to be merely anti-government puppet, who was associated with and in support of terrorism is not present, while it is factually there as well. I am not going to argue, which perspective is the right one, but both perspectives need to be voiced.Lost Angel 00:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * "In criticising elected by the people government with elected by the people president she is not pro-russian - since it were Russians, who were and are in support of government." This is a fundamentally incorrect argument: in a (nominally) democratic system, criticizing the government is not the same thing as criticizing the nation, irrespective of how many people may or may not have voted for the current president/government. Additionally, arguing that "both points of view" must be in the article misunderstands both Wikipedia and the nature of topics such as this one. Firstly, there are more than two sides to any story. Secondly, the mere existence of a particular opinion does not mean that it must be incorporated into the article. If a point of view is a) notable, b) widely held, and above all c) documented in a reliable source, then it absolutely deserves to be there. However, if it does not meet all three of these criteria then including it reduces the quality of the article. At best, such information merely makes it messy and sub-standard, at worst it makes it severely biased.
 * There are certainly POV and quality problems with this article when it comes to the choice of sources and the way in which that information is presented. The way to approach that is to assess the available information, assess the quality of the sources, use only those that are reputable and present the whole in as neutral a way as possible. Starting from the position of, "[argument A] is not in this article, therefore it's biased", inherently misunderstands the way Wikipedia is meant to work. -- Hux 06:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me put it simpler for you - in Chechnya Russian population has been slaughtered, all of it, before the military got involved. This is quite anti-Russian. Politkovskaya supported what the majority of Russians call "terrorism". This is also anti-Russian. Your point regarding quality of sources would render Politkovskaya's articles obsolete. If you don't like articles by other journalists, who don't praise Politkovskaya and find then "bad sources" - it is your problem, you should work on, but not a way wikipedia should treat material. Politkovskaya is not a national hero FYI in the country she was a journalist at explaining why deserves to be in the article.Lost Angel 10:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much Lost Angel. At last someone helped me to deal with these extreme POV reverters. I could tell you only one thing: regardless of political views, both Government and opposition use pretty much the same methods. Both Government and opposition suppress freedom of speech. And Politkovskaya wasn't a journalist, she was an opposition press warrior. And supporters of Politkovskaya here, support not the democracy, but support repressions and censorship. Please also see the best friend of Politkovskaya article Yevgeniya Alabts and read what happened with one journalist when he criticized Politkovskaya. Alabats is the a classmate of Politkovskaya. Supporters of Politkovskaya are trying to delete what really happened. They also delete from the article information on support by Alabats of fascists "Russian march" in Moscow. Albats supported it, although a year ago she was blaming the authorities that they were not that good at preventing that march. Vlad fedorov 11:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Vlad Fedorov, no need for thanks, I'm not even sure getting involved is a reasonable thing to do - I have doubts that sound reason will prevail, rendering the effort meaningless in many ways. The way this article is now is simply rubbish writing of fanboys, unfortunately, which makes information value of the article extremely low. I'm appalled at how some wiki articles are informative, while others are under occupation by a bunch of fanatics.
 * To others: no neutral perspective is possible, therefore effort should be made in the following directions: 1 internal logic of texts, 2 no self-sourcing of the person in question, 3 quoting actual passages from the sources when claims are made, 4 attributing sources, 5 not deleting or changing parts basing on your personal disagreement - improve, not delete/change, 6 Allowing for diverse perspective on the issue.Lost Angel 14:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Lost Angel: Without wishing to cause offense, you are no less a part of the problem you describe as the people you label as biased. Asserting that it's not even possible to have a neutral perspective on this subject is both ridiculous and, frankly, presumptuous to the point of being insulting. It is clear from your previous post that you've decided I'm some kind of Politkovskaya supporter even though you have no evidence on which to base such a claim. It appears that the only reason you've made this assumption is because I'm disagreeing with you. This kind of knee-jerk labeling is logically fallacious, obviously, but more importantly it has no place on this site. Belief that objectivity is possible is a prerequisite for Wikipedia editing. If you can't put yourself in that position and you don't believe that anyone else can either then I don't really understand why you're here.
 * The bottom line is that Wikipedia's NPOV policy must be respected. This article is a great example of why biased editors need to check their personal opinions at the door. We've had a mountain of POV edits from pro-Polikovskaya and anti-Politkovskaya editors alike. What this article needs is more input from people who have no strong attachment to the topic, who are able to step back and sift the facts from the opinions and the blatantly biased sources from those worthy of inclusion. If you can help with that then great. -- Hux 18:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits
Of course, there is nothing wrong to be a US citizen. But see what you have written in the first phrase: She "was a U.S.-born American citizen Russian journalist". This is terrible. Besides, no reliable Western sources claim her to be a US citizen (she had right to be such, but I did not see any sources she actually had a US passport/citizenship).

Other reinserted pieces are also terrible. For example: "Another telling example was Politkovskaya's recent allegations that special forces were preparing an "escape" for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in the course of which he was to be killed." and so on. That is not how neutral WP articles should be written. And so on. Our goal is to improve the article, not to make it worse.Biophys 00:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * What's terrible? Sentence structure is bad this way, - why not correct it if you noticed?


 * Other reinstated pieces present the perspective different from yours - there is nothing wrong with it - an intelligent reader will be able to make his own mind. If such sources are removed - we have a biased 1-sided article and this is unacceptable.


 * POV policy applies to editors. POV of sources can't be avoided and as such sources are to be labled, so that people could decide for themselves, which words to trust. Silencing controversial debate about Politkovskaya is an unacceptable POVLost Angel 00:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Biophys: In case you don't know, anyone born in the United States is automatically a US citizen (and there's a citation there from a reliable source to back it up; it may not have been there when you wrote he above, however). Otherwise, I agree with you about the POV issue. -- Hux 06:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Lost Angel: I think you're missing the point. The quality and reputable nature of a source is extremely important, especially in contentious articles such as this one. Clearly biased citations from clearly POV sources should always be avoided in favor of more neutral citations. If an editor chooses to incorporate such sources then that in itself can be regarded as an attempt to insert a POV into the article, as can the way in which that source is referred to. The example Biophys gives *is* an example of POV writing, irrespective of whether or not you, he or I support or do not support what it is saying. As he says, Wikipedia articles must remain neutral at all times and all editors need to respect that, whatever their personal opinion on the topic. -- Hux 06:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If the quality of sources is as important - you'd have to remove Politkovskaya's articles, due to their bias. "More neutral" sources do not exist in case of a political journalism like this. If the subject in the article is of a debatable character with controversial sourced points of view - such points must be present - silencing them is unacceptable! POV is there is either case: either anti-Russia POV or pro-Russia POV. Both perspectives deserve attention! Lost Angel 10:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There are no neutral sources on anything. It's a myth. Therefore we have to provide a place for every POV in that article and let the reader to decide. Sourced content shouldn't be censored. Vlad fedorov 11:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 1.In all seriousness, both of you are way off-base here. Please check out the Wikipedia NPOV policy page as well as the NPOV tutorial. Wikipedia absolutely does not operate under the principle of "provide a place for every POV in that article and let the reader to decide [sic]". If the subject of the article is, as Lost Angel argues, "of a debatable character with controversial[ly] sourced points of view", then the correct thing to do, according to Wikipedia policy, is to describe that character and their debatable sourcing by referencing reputable sources, otherwise all we're doing is injecting our own bias.
 * 2.Our personal opinions about the character of the person concerned are entirely irrelevant. We are contributing to an encyclopedia here, not defending against attacks upon the truth according to our personal definitions of "truth". -- Hux 18:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * 1. In all seriousness I have a feeling you did not read the article in question, else instead of discussing us - you would have noticed violations of sourcing and copyright guidelines and would have undoubtedly spent your time in constructive fashion of correcting them. Besides in cases of political scandalous figures there is no neutral point of view, therefore limiting coverage to 1 perspective is unacceptable. Every source not in favour of Politkovskaya is referenced. If you feel it isn't - mark it with Fact, so that others or yourself may improve the article. Do I need to explain this to you really?
 * 2. I'm glad you understand this. However, instead of producing empty rhetoric you could have spent your time wiser to better the article by at least confirming the links and unmarked quotes. This involves no point of view actually. If and when you find problems with my edits rather than my personal point of view - I suggest you cooperate in improving them.Lost Angel 21:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Lost Angel: Why are you making the assumption that when I talk about NPOV issues I am only referring to your opinion? I'm talking about NPOV in general, whatever the bias. Further, if you look at the history page you can see that I've been involved in editing this article since last October, right after the murder, so I find it more than a little bizarre that you make the additional assumption that I haven't even read it! And still further, I never asserted that the article should only contain one perspective. I am clearly arguing that multiple points of view should be represented, but only those that are a) notable, and b) reliably sourced. Perhaps I am wrong, but you don't appear to recognize the difference between reputable and non-reputable sources, content instead to assert that as long as a source is referenced then that's enough. Well it's not. The appearance of information somewhere on the Internet doesn't automatically mean that it is suitable for Wikipedia. If a source is poor (e.g. some random blog) then that source should be deleted and replaced with a reputable one (e.g. a major national newspaper or news wire report). Lastly, like I said, I've been working on this article on and off for more than half a year. It would behoove you to do your homework before throwing out claims of "empty rhetoric" and alleging that all I'm doing here is complaining without helping to improve things. -- Hux 11:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I am making assumption that you're addressing my opinion since you've indicated so on a number of occasions. I find this irrelevant, therefore - "empty rhetoric", which I find to be a waste of time. I've just randomly stumbled across this article and found a bunch of copyright and sourcing violations upon a quick look, which I believe you could've spotted too => comment regarding whether you've read it at all.
 * POV is after all "point of view" which is also a perspective in current context, therefore my argument for diverse sourced perspectives. I furthermore do not see me arguing in favour of bad sources, like it seems to you: "Perhaps I am wrong, but you don't appear to recognize the difference between reputable and non-reputable sources, content instead to assert that as long as a source is referenced then that's enough."
 * I suggest we end this argument regarding our personalities and personal opinions and focus on improving the article instead.Lost Angel 13:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine by me. It's clear that you're misunderstanding significant parts of what I'm saying anyway (I'm guessing English is maybe not your first language?) so there's not much point continuing down this road. -- Hux 19:28, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I left comment in your talk section.Lost Angel 22:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

My edits
I'd like to explain why I thought my edits were necessary.


 * 1) The article on Lapin's case seemed to be not "The disappearing people" (no reference was provided to the exact article).  I found the following article:
 * 2) Cadet's case: A Seasoned Executioner, by Anna Politkovskaya, 4 April 2005.Computer translation.
 * 3) Moved the criticism of Politkovskaya into a separate section,  Shortened and rephrased Arutunyan's accusations (see the earlier discussions on this talk page).  Besides, I could not confirm that Arutunyan said anything on Politkovskaya's "unwillingness to check the facts".  Perhaps, this accusation comees from another source that is not mentioned.
 * 4) Removed a recent addition of the phrase "according to her own article, they did talk to her".  This phrase contradicts the Washington Post article saying that a Chechnya task force leader feared talking with Polutkovskaya in the open.  "I met Buvadi secretly. He would face difficulties if we were caught conferring".
 * 5) I removed the sections duplicating ones in the assassination article.  The "other information" deleted are 2 sentences on her killing in the top of the article.  I don't think it was her murder that Politkovskaya is remembered for.  Contrary to the remark "the previous edited simply erased *all* references to her assassination (as well as other information), which is not the way to do it!", I did leave the section on the assassination.

Cheers.ilgiz 13:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 1 fair enough.
 * 2 firstly there is no need to shorten any factual material - wikipedia doesn't say "articles be short", secondly you changed it to a POV version.
 * 3 Which article are you talking about? If you have a better source - quote it directly where it applies. The source given in the wiki article indicates only her own words, which are not documented evidence. Furthermore, her meeting someone secretly doesn't mean this someone really would have faced difficulties otherwise - it is merely her assumption.
 * 4 her assassination info is very relevant since it is precisely the reason she became known more than "yet another prowest, proterrorist, anti government journalist" in the country where she was a journalist.

Editing out info you don't like is not the way - if you can improve it with sourced material - by all means, but deleting isn't going to work. Notice that pro-Politkovskaya texts and sources are not deleted, despite huge amounts of POV and phrases like "she tirelessly defended human rights" which are far less relevant than her death and are duplicating first paragraph of the article anyway. Let us be reasonable in editing.Lost Angel 14:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course, her life and work were much more important than her death. This article must make this very clear. Now this is not clear. Hence this comment by Lost Angel. Biophys 14:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If her life and work were more important (for someone besides her of course) - she would've been (more) known to the people of the country she worked in, which was not the case until the murder took place. Sadly the greatest contribution to the public sphere is the end of her.Lost Angel 16:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Said who? Where did you get such information?Biophys 16:30, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Putin for example - read the text about her influence on political life. But I'm sure he is a bad source for you. Say what - enlighten me on her achievements. So I'd be able to evaluate them if I heard of any besides vague "fought for human rights"...Lost Angel 17:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * ilgiz: Regarding point #4 above, in the English-speaking world (to which this version of Wikipedia caters) Politkovskaya is known for being a murdered journalist first and an activist/journalist focusing on Chechnya second. Since Wikipedia is concerned with notability, her murder needs to be mentioned in the lead section. That section as seen in the most recent edit (23:39, May 18) fulfills that notability requirement so it should be left as-is. -- Hux 19:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Lost Angel: You said, "there is no need to shorten any factual material - wikipedia doesn't say "articles be short"". This is incorrect. Wikipedia does have a policy that articles should not become too long, for several reasons. Please see the Article size policy document. -- Hux 19:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * "Though article size is no longer a binding rule, there remain stylistic reasons why the main body of an article should not be unreasonably long, including readability issues. It is instead treated as a guideline, and considered on a case by case basis, depending on the nature of the article." Lost Angel 19:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I said, articles should not become too long, for several reasons, which is the same thing the quote you posted from the policy page says. That the policy is a guideline and not a binding rule doesn't change the fact that the whole point of the policy is to discourage long articles. If you'll notice, there is a message at the top of the edit page of every long article saying that it should be made shorter.
 * I really don't understand why you're disputing this. It could hardly be more clear. -- Hux 20:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * We've drifted from my initial point - which was that cutting material not in favour of Politkovskaya is not justifiable by the need to simply reduce its size. There are many more other things that can be cut, since they're duplicating. I do, however, agree that the length of the article should not exceed recommended one without good reasons, which we here have.Lost Angel 21:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Biophys: You said, "Of course, her life and work were much more important than her death. This article must make this very clear." No, this article should not make that clear. Like all Wikipedia articles, this one should make clear only what is notable. Politkovskaya is notable (in the English-speaking world, at least) because she was a journalist/activist who was murdered, in all likelihood as a result of her work. From a notability perspective, the minutiae of the work itself is of secondary importance to the article, except where it relates to her murder. -- Hux 19:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * How can you justify your opinion? Of course, her death is notable. Of course, a lot of publications in press came out only after her death. But she was also a recipient of numerous International awards before her death, she published many notable articles and books, and she was a well known journalist in her own country. All of that should be reflected. Biophys 19:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Don't make me repeat myself - she was yet another anti-government journalist, a scandalous one. Popular with anti-government intelligentsia which loves anything anti government, Chechen terrorists, since she wrote in their interest. Imagine for a second a siege on an American school by muslim terrorists - them trusting a specific reporter might make you think... What made her special is her murder and its massive coverage. How many of her articles or books have you read before she died? I frankly didn't even know her name. Phoney awards don't really cut it.Lost Angel 19:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I read almost all her books and a lot of articles before her death. What you are talking about is your personal opinion, which is difficult to justify.Biophys 20:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I quoted Putin for you regarding her importance. Hux here also considers death to be her main "event". So there are 3 of us, including 1 president, who disagree with you,- I suggest you revise your position in this regard in the face of reality.Lost Angel 21:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 1.Phoney awards? Amnesty International is the most globally significant organization of its type, while the PEN and Lettre Ulysses awards are extremely well-respected internationally (the latter being probably the most significant award anyone can win in the field of reportage). These are not "phoney" by any stretch.
 * 2.This comment by you, as well as the comment, "Sadly the greatest contribution to the public sphere is the end of her", indicates a clear, unambiguous level of bias that is entirely inappropriate for Wikipedia. -- Hux 20:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * 1.I believe these organizations to be strongly politically biased. I disagree with their agenda - their awarding Politkovskaya is a sure sign of this for me. A point of view I am entitled to hold - are you suggesting policing my mind too?
 * 2.This comment by me indicates my point of view on the issue at stake - however, what matters for wikipedia is the level of bias of my edits, rather than my pesonal opinion. If you truly fail to see the difference, I suggest you revise your personal bias in my regard.Lost Angel 21:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You're entitled to your personal opinion, of course. I didn't mean to imply that you should not be here because of those opinions, only that personal bias must not find its way into Wikipedia articles and that your clearly expressed bias is something that concerns me. After all, how can a person even attempt to make NPOV edits when they themselves have argued that it is impossible to hold an NPOV on this topic? This is just my opinion though. As you correctly point out, our edits should be judged on their own merits. -- Hux 11:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe you misunderstand me here - I am claiming that even reputable sources on this case are strongly biased and provide controversial image: terrorist supporter VS human rights activist. It isn't up to us to decide, which of them is POV and which is NPOV, but we should present both of them with reliable sources, nothing besides that. For any personal matters I suggest accessing my talk page.Lost Angel 13:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If indeed there are reputable sources that portray her in one way and equally reputable sources that portray her in a significantly different way then that would be newsworthy in and of itself, and I agree that it would be worth noting those differing portrayals and quoting examples. However, I question whether or not there really are such drastically different portrayals among such sources, because what you're describing is unprecedented as far as I'm aware. To make an exaggerated analogy, it would be like Newsweek categorizing Ségolène Royal as a communist and Der Spiegel describing her as a fascist at the same time.
 * Anyway, my point remains unchanged: as long as we strive for objectivity and utilize only good-quality source material the article will be fine. Any editor that can't do that should not be making any edits, as I hope you'll agree. -- Hux 19:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Biophys: Perhaps you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that only her murder should be mentioned, I'm just saying that in the English-speaking world her murder is the most notable thing about her. This can be easily proven by a cursory search of major, English language news sources (BBC, New York Times, etc.), where you will find little mention of her work outside of the context of her murder. Therefore, her murder should be highlighted as the thing she is most known for. Discussion of her work obviously must be included as well, as must the perception of her and her work in Russia, but it should be of secondary significance in this article. (See also my reply to you in the "Quotes" section below.)
 * Without wishing to draw any qualitative comparison between the two people in terms of their importance, consider the Martin Luther King article: that article rightly spends significant time talking about his work, whilst his murder is afforded comparatively little article space. That's as it should be since King's work had a massive effect on American society and was much more notable than his death which, while still obviously deserving of mention, is not the overall focus of that article. With Politkovskaya it's the other way, so the article should be weighted accordingly, with the greater emphasis placed on her death.
 * Does that make more sense? -- Hux 19:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, sure. I will simply try to add more material about her work sometimes in the future, and if you will have any objections, I think we can find a compromise. Biophys 20:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Quotes
I think what follows from some comments by Lost Angel is this: we should make a separate "Quotes" section in this article, or perhaps describe her writings and ideas in more detail. What she wrote, for example, about (a) Putin and FSB; (b) Kadyrov; (c) situation in Russian Army; (d) Chechya, etc. After all, this article was not rated even as "B". So, let's improve it. Biophys 14:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You sure this belongs to the article about her? I'm not, really. I think it would be more useful to put up her achievements section. Like what did she achieve with her actions and publications. Considering your proposed a, b,c,d - I think it is more than sufficiently present in the article already and could be summed up in a paragraph thus becoming concise and clear.Lost Angel 16:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Not only this belongs here, but this will be main content of this article, which did not even qualify as "B" (I am going to extend it at least two times, as time allows). We have already "assassination article" about her death. This article should be about her life. Why she is well known? That is because of her work and publications, not because of her death. This should be crystal clear from the provided material. But this should not be simply "quotes", but rather a real story of her life. Biophys 16:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I am obviously not as politicized as yourself, since I don't know of her achievements. I do however know that there are a lot of journalists writing against Russian government, which in itself is not an achievement.Lost Angel 17:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Following on from what I said to Biophys in the "My edits" section above, I don't think the fine details of her work are particularly notable to the English Wikipedia. The most notable thing is her murder, which is accurately highlighted in the lead section and has its own article that goes into detail (although my personal opinion is that the two articles should be merged). Other than that and her basic biographical information, I think it would be appropriate to note things like:
 * What she wrote about in general and the necessary background information to put it into context (e.g. conflicts in Chechnya)
 * Concise discussion of any specific, notable incidents related to what she wrote about
 * Concise mention of notable criticism of her work, as long as such criticism is from reputable sources (random websites casting her as hero or villain don't count, obviously), people who are themselves notable (e.g Putin, Kadyrov), etc.
 * A mention of the awards she received from well-known organizations
 * etc.
 * Overall we need to remember that this article is a biography, not a full account of everything she did in her public life. (Again, I urge everyone to check out WP:SIZE.) Other than that, I applaud Biophys for taking the stance of simply wanting to improve the standard of the article so that it can be rated more highly. We should all agree, shouldn't we, that this is the most important thing? -- Hux 19:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, there is a problematic bit here - how do you distinguish notable incidents of a scandalous reporter? I mean they're all about the same. From current article I see two notable cases of her pre mortem activities: 1 - when her article led to arrest of a war criminal, though quotes are not present in a way so that I could confirm it (possibly he was convicted before her input), 2 - her lying about being witness to filtration camp. The rest is random bogus about heroism etc from poor sources. I suggest we try to find the key !facts! about her, post them here in talk and agree on them and then remove the bulk (like undocumented and unconfirmed poisoning or threats letters claims, random heroism) from the article itself. P.S. thanks for constructive input.Lost Angel 19:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's not always easy to sift the wheat from the chaff when it comes to a controversial figure like Politkovskaya, and I too think that some of the information needs to be removed from the article, not just because it isn't well-sourced, or because it creates a non-neutral POV, but also because it's not all that notable and it makes the article unnecessarily long. However, since she was a well-known figure a lot of this difficulty can be mitigated because we have plenty of professionally written biographies from decent, English-language news outlets from which we can cull the notable information. In order for this to work well, however, editors have to avoid what appears to be a common tendency to dismiss a source purely because it says something with which they personally disagree. I would argue that if this article is in line with the tone and content of similar articles from outlets like the BBC, The Times, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. etc. then we're doing fine. -- Hux 11:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * PS I agree with your idea of listing the main points here first. Let me think about that. -- Hux 11:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Critics accused her of being a partisan for concentrating on the activities of Russian federal forces, but her supporters claim that she also strongly criticised the brutal tactics of the terrorists
This passage would benefit immensely from sourcing her articles or quoting her "strong criticism of brutal tactics of the terrorists". Current source is unreliable to support the claim it is making, which is why I marked it with Fact initially.


 * Sure.


 * Politkovskaya: I usually don’t like talking about what should have been done... The answer is obvious: Basayev’s and Khattab’s gang should have been eliminated in the mountains of Dagestan.


 * I guess "should have been eliminated" is pretty strong criticism. You can't even write this ("gang") on Wikipedia, can you? When the Russian officers wrote she "should be eliminated" (in their public letter), I think they rather strongly criticised her too.


 * She was Putin's critic for sure - but did she ever said or wrote he "should have been eliminated"? Appearently, she was actually greater critic of Basayev. --HanzoHattori 11:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you have a source for Russian officers saying "she should be eliminated"? I think it would make a good edition instead of "claimed to have received threat emails", which is what we have now repeatedly. As to Basayev and Khatab - you realize she is not critical of terrorists in Chechnya as such, but rather of two specific commanders specific action in that quote, particularly so considering the part of the paragraph you excluded: "It would have been an adequate response given the circumstances; I am absolutely certain of that... " Which renders earlier quote much more neutral. I suggest you find a better source, maybe an article by her. Provide a better argument. Her "apparently" being a greater critic of Basayev is apparent to you and doesn't follow from the source. Lost Angel 12:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the tag on this because the citation corroborated the information that the tag queried. As for the quality of the source, The Observer is one of the four weekly newspapers in the UK that are considered "respectable" (the other three being The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and The Independent on Sunday. It's a perfectly decent source. -- Hux 12:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not question reputability of the source itself, I am simply saying that the source makes a claim, which it doesn't back up with evidence one could trace. Therefore a better source is needed, since what is important are facts about Politkovskaya, rather than opinion of an Observer's editor about her actions. I hope we agree on this.Lost Angel 13:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry but this argument simply doesn't make sense; you're holding sources to an absurdly high standard. If we accept a particular source as reputable then we are implictly saying that its allegations, assertions, etc., are worthy of inclusion in our article without further question, i.e. they don't need to provide evidence to support their own claims. If every source required such a high standard of proof then we'd have to throw out almost every reference on Wikipedia that isn't from a science journal!
 * Now, if you would like to add a source that expands on her apparent criticism of "the brutal tactics of the terrorists" then by all means do so, since it will improve the article. But it doesn't make sense to question whether she ever engaged in such criticism just because the source used doesn't provide proof of that itself. The whole point in the reputability of a source is that we can assume that the journalist did their homework and that what they are saying is accurate. The kind of questioning you're suggesting is only necessary for sources that are inherently untrustworthy. -- Hux 20:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with the point you are making and I did remove the fact mark there, if you noticed. Mainly for the reason that the sentence identifies the claim as a claim and not as a fact.Lost Angel 22:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I just noticed your edit of the Echo of Moscow account of the demonstrations. You use the same logic there as you describe above and it doesn't make sense for the same reason I just described: by accepting that the source in question is okay for inclusion, we are also accepting that its claims do not require further corroboration, therefore there is no need to add tags to the claim of "between a few hundred and three thousand". The source is already there to back up that claim - that's the whole point of such references on Wikipedia in the first place. -- Hux 20:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Here I do not agree with you - I do not believe Echo of Moscow to be a reliable source. I therefore think that in this case it is necessary to present a source claiming 3000 attendees, which I am not sure exists (partially because I've spoken to witnesses online, who did not confirm the numbers of a thousand). Furthermore, we have IHT, a reliable source giving exact figure, contradicting claim of 3000 people. I shall return the fact mark there for this reason. I also believe that it might be a good idea to remove Echo of Moscow quote, due to such inconsistency, which I am however leaving at your disposal, to avoid my bias.Lost Angel 22:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd be interested to know why you don't think EoM is reliable enough, particularly on such a non-contentious claim as this one. I don't listen to the radio broadcasts but the website functions simply as a basic newswire - it doesn't really make contentious claims on any subject. Also, I think it's worth noting that its majority owner is Gazprom, which is itself mostly state-owned. In other words, if there is significant bias one would expect it to be slanted in favor of the Russian government.
 * However, biased or not, this is all secondary to the main issue: if you have good reason to think the information given is poor then by all means change it and reference to a superior source (the IHT is not bad, in my opinion, but there are much better sources out there). Perhaps this is just my opinion but I really don't like it when editors add tags to anything which they, personally, don't like the sound of. It makes articles look messy and less authoritative. It's much better to simply edit the article. -- Hux 07:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I consider EoM to be unreliable due to its strong political bias, it would however be irrelevant, have we not a (better) source, giving much more precise figures. It is in either case better to have that rather that "from various sources claims exist" etc statements. I obviously think that 3000 is a figure strongly exaggerated, which is often the case with media coverage of Russian events by anti-government channels and pretty much any Western media. I made a respective edit - will see now if it is still there as I put it with sourced evidence (the article is in flux all the time).Lost Angel 11:51, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

First, the public letter: no, not the Kadet's e-mails. It was a bunch of military officers who wrote a letter to a Russian paper. Don't remember details right now, someone else maybe does.

You should maybe write this review (for example): "Indeed, there are many more passages which point to this contradictory stance: for example, condemnation of Putin’s use of force, paired with blanket categorization of Chechnya’s democratically elected leaders as ‘bandits’. (If they’re simply bandits, why not use force?)" Yeah, totally pro-separatist stance.

AP quote (wrote before the current war): These women speak with a decisiveness and clarity that we have long forgotten: ‘Basayev is a bloodthirsty bandit and traitor and he has no place among normal people.’ (...) Yet again they’ll do nothing about Basayev and swallow this disgrace. Then they’ll shield themselves behind clever words: discussion of the status of Chechnya has been ‘postponed’, we must not increase tension by arresting Basayev. Madness. The women are right.

Quite hawkish even, eh?

During the war (when she goes to negotiate with the terrorists in Moscow):

While his “brother” goes back and forth, Bakar explains how noble the Chechens holding hostages are. There are so many beautiful young girls here in their power (Masha is really a striking beauty), but they just do not have any desire, since they have committed all their energy to the cause of freeing their land. As I understand him, I should be grateful because he did not rape Masha. (...) All of a sudden, the bandits get very nervous. They raise their voices and pace the theater. A hostage cries from upstairs, “Please bring some first aid kits and disinfectants. We need them badly. Please!” He is chased away. I ask for permission to bring them, but get a resolute “no” in response. 

Do you even have any idea on Politkovskaya, or are you one of these who only try to discredit her as "anti-Russian American" (or what not)? You people should understand, that she was just against all kind of injustice. This turned into a one-woman's personal crusade against what she called "Putin's Russia" (current regime) only later. She explained this too.

Oh, and she was threatened by the rebels too. --HanzoHattori 14:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If you do not have source for the "public letter" of Russian officers - your claims in its regards are meaningless.

What "my claims"? I only mentioned it out of hand. I didn't even try to find it. --HanzoHattori 19:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You only bring quotes against Basayev and his subordinates, which is only one of the fractions of Chechen terrorists she happens to not favour.

No, they WERE the Chechen terrorists. As opposed to non-terorists. Easy enough? And I don't think said "blanket categorization of Chechnya’s democratically elected leaders as ‘bandits’" applies to Basayev - he lost his elections. --HanzoHattori 19:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You yourself quote a case, when she favourably describes a bunch of terrorists holding hostages using epitets like "noble", "free their land",

People she keeps calling "bandits"? You wouldn't notice angry sarcasm even if it hit you in the face. --HanzoHattori 19:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * cynically remarking that one "should be grateful because he did not rape" one of them (mind you, she is not quoting him, but her thoughts). I find it very cynical, inhuman and hypocritical. I furthermore do not trust her quoting someone since she has been caught on lies on a number of cases (alleged poisoning, alleged filtration camp...)
 * "Oh, and she was threatened by the rebels too" - by anonymous emails again?..

Ah, I see you know some sarcasm after all. The answer is: no (and the "lies" are no lies - she fell victim of poisoning, as you can read in dozens of sources, and even more of the so-called "filtration camps", which was an official, sanitarized term by the way). She was even accused to be the FSB spy. Which is quite lethal in this part of the world, as several Russian and foreign journalists and humanitarian workers got killed because of this. --HanzoHattori 21:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Furthermore, discussing me and my opinion is irrelevant for the subject at hand - you're welcome to do it in my profile's talk section.Lost Angel 15:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If it was "very favourable", she was as "favourable" as she could be on Putin too when she wrote something darkly sarcastic. I find your comments very cynical, inhuman and hypocritical. I furthermore do not care on your obvious attempts on character assassination ("caught on lies" - hey, you were caught on lies just now) of the person who was assassinated for real. Discussing you and your opinion is irrelevant, that's true, so good bye. --HanzoHattori 19:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not going to respond to your comments unless they start makeing sense and you learn basic politeness. Respectful treatment of the person you're a having a dialogue with is a basic prerequisite of a civilized man.Lost Angel 22:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hanzo, please, comment about the content, not about the contributor.Biophys 20:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * O, and again Hanzo Hattori behaves uncivil and makes edit warring? I have made separate section dedictaed to the criticism of Politkovskaya and added memoirs of General Gennady Troshev. Vlad fedorov 04:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hanzo amuses me by his double standarts. In the US, sergeant John Rambo exterminated almost the whole city with his sheriff, just because he was threatened and mistreated, and was jailed - and still it is the best movie. Here we have Politkovskaya who was threatened by anonymous e-mail and wrote Putin's Russia. Even further, Hanzo tell me what usually happens with people in the US when they criticize their military? Or criticise their military in Iraq? Please tell me why the Democrats in the US are not so quick to remove their army from Iraq? And this is called patriotism in the US? Should we describe it as repressions of freedom of speech in the US? Vlad fedorov 04:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, what a idiotic posting. First of all, Rambo (in the fully fictional action movie) killed maybe a dozen policemen and national guardsmen - hardly "exterminating whole city". And what happens to the American critics of the US governent? Nothing happens. They don't lose their jobs, they are not jailed, they are not killed, they don't disappear. Unless they try to overthrow/attack the government by force, and this only if they ACTUALLY plan on this - a person can, for example, without any consequences at all, tell the people publicly how to best kill the federal agents, "take 'em right out" ("Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head." ). Just like some of the most popular music artists sing about killing policemen (and create image they actually are the gun-toting gangsters), etc. Yes, you can even legally promote the violence against the government and/or public, and this is called freedom of speech. Also, the word is "standards". Politkovskaya was not "threatened by anonymous e-mail". She was murdered by the anonymous hitman. --HanzoHattori 08:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

HanzoHattori & Vlad federov: Your postings here have nothing to do with any attempt to improve this article. If you want to have an argument about relative freedoms in different countries, or about the minute details of Politkovskaya's work then please do so elsewhere. And please also attempt to remain civil. -- Hux 06:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

POV/weirdness I edited out
Another example was Politkovskaya's recent allegations that special forces were preparing an "escape" for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in the course of which he was to be killed. Her source was a retired KGB officer who had served time in the camps. While the article was published in Novaya Gazeta this spring, these allegations went nowhere. .

This is truly idiotic writing - are we supposed to think they would carry on with this alleged plan even after it was made public? "Example" of what - that the "special forces" are not completely braindead? Please.

General Troshev further described a situation where Anna Politkovskaya put into danger the whole military column by which Anna Politkovskaya was transported to Grozny. When military commander of that column rebuked her for putting them in danger, she wrote a newspaper article in which she asserted that all the militaries are the cowards and idlers.

And stop quoting this ONE ARTICLE by Arutiunian - who is SHE, anyway? I'm seriously asking. She doesn't have a wikipedia article (only wikilink), and I never heard about her in my life.

Even more importantly, General Troshev and his "diary of trench general", as the other source. Here's something on Troshev, whose forces appearently illegally detained her in Chechnya: (p. 265-266) (This is by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, if you ask.) Was this treatment the mentioned "rebuking"? Or was she already detained (and "transported to Grozny"), because usually she wasn't travelling in a military columns - she was usually travelling alone, and even dressed as a Chechen woman. At one time, she was actually (literally) fleeing from the Russian secret services in Chechnya. 

Also, "but a delegation of official human rights envoys"? Supposedly, Russian government failed to find evidence of the crimes commited by the Russian government, and this proves what exactly? And on a sidenote, this: --HanzoHattori 15:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * As it was agreed earlier, the direct inclusion of the paragraphs from the Arutunyan's (as anyone else's) article is inappropriate. However, this consensus did not result in re-phrasing or putting quotation marks around the paragraphs.  Besides, this transforms a POV into the Wikipedia editorial.  I suggest that just following the letter of Wikipedia policies would greatly reduce the tension between editors.


 * Questioning Arutunyan's article's reliability is another issue. For example, Arutunyan states that Politkovskaya admitted she never saw the pits.  Politkovskaya never made such an admission.  But this kind of issues is secondary to what we have right now, where Arutunan's paragraphs are presented as Wikipedia's editorial.  It's the violation of Arutunyan's copyright and the lack of attributing her POV to her article that seems an important issue to me.


 * This Arutunyan - if there was no such statement at all at the "conference in Moscow" as you say, this should be either deleted altogether or clearly marked as false rumour (to put it mildly). Also, Lost Angel's still trying (too) hard - one would wonder how the Russian article looks like (I guess I can imagine). Oh, and a possible confusion because she first heard from the witness, and then went to see to the local Russian base. --HanzoHattori 23:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for finding the exact reference to the mentioning of the earlier Politkovskaya's article on Cadet. I found the article as well (needs the Windows-1251 encoding), The Disappearing People, September 10, 2001.  computer translation.  — ilgiz 19:54, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * To specify which of the Arutunyan's paragraphs became a part of the editorial against Wikipedia policies, here are the quotes.

Hence, Politkovskaya was primarily viewed as an activist rather than reporter. When terrorists held an auditorium hostage during the Nov. 2002 production of Nord-Ost, she spoke to the hostage takers and made their demands public. In Sept. 2004, terrorist in the Beslan school siege had also demanded her presence.

Against this backdrop, it would seem that despite a brave and sincere commitment to unraveling corruption and atrocities wherever possible, Politkovskaya's priorities as a journalist focused more on accusing and less on reporting. But this can be said of many Russian journalists working today. "Politkovskaya's role in national journalism was rather strange," writes political observer Oleg Kashin in a Vzglyad magazine column. "She was not a representative of Russia's journalistic community.... She was a newsmaker, not a journalist."


 * Besides, the phrase on Politkovskaya's "unwillingness to check the facts" with the reference to Arutunyan's article is misleading. Arutunyan did not make such a statement.  Either the statement was conveyed incorrectly, or it came from another source.  — ilgiz 20:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)