Talk:Revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin

American Historical Review article and historian Robert Service
At Robert Service (historian), Wikipedia reports that questions have been raised by a number of academics as to "factual errors" in Service's writings on Leon Trotsky. See section Work and critical reception. http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/116/3/900

Under normal circumstances, the footnotes for Early revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin are more than adequate. I would recommend - and I personally do this as a matter of course in all my recent articles - is to provide the direct quotation of the passage from which the editor has summarized and paraphrased the material in the article. It takes a few minutes to include a citation of this kind, and it seems prudent, and considerate, to provide Service's material, as it pertains to the article, "on demand", as it were. Would that be too much trouble? 36hourblock (talk) 00:19, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that that is an interesting idea, 36hourblock, however in this case it has the major disadvantage of exponentially increasing the length of the article in question, which is something that we should fundamentally avoid, as per Wikipedia policy. It would also take many, many hours to do, which I personally think would be much better spent improving other articles on Wikipedia, including those on Lenin. I think also that we should distinguish between Service's historical studies of Trotsky (which have been heavily criticised for factual innacuracy) and Lenin (which have not; see Lenin: A Biography). Service has of course devoted a significantly larger part of his life to the study of Lenin, only devoting his attentions to Stalin and Trotsky at a later date in his career. Thus, his work on Lenin (although certainly politically slanted in a very anti-socialist direction) is a lot more factually trustworthy than his work on Trotsky. For these reasons I personally would advise against the reforms to the referencing that you suggest. All the best, Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You appear to have misapprehended my request. No change to the body of the article is necessary. Merely provide the passage from each Service citation (perhaps a few sentences or so), that support a dozen of so footnotes. This would hardly entail a large investment of time: you possess the source material, do you not?

To your second point, I would only repeat that Service has been charged, by reputable sources, with misrepresenting historical events regarding Leon Trotsky, a revolutionary associate of Lenin. If you deem Service worthy as a source, so be it. But I strongly urge you to provide extended quotations that support your material in the article. As I pointed out, my footnotes in recent articles provide this courtesy, and my sources have not, to my knowledge, come under scrutiny by mainstream historians for engaging in misrepresentations and omissions. 36hourblock (talk) 00:12, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear Stfg - If you want to call in the "experts", be my guest.

I'll give you an example of what I'm requesting. It's easy, "clutters" nothing, and no "trip to the library" - Midnightblueowl owes it to the editor who requests it, especially under these unusual circumstances.


 * that was rude, and you seem to have misunderstood the purpose of WP:3O. WP:3O is a general service, not one where you can expect people knowledgeable in your topic area to be present, and it's not one where you can call upon other editors to come along and get deeply involved. I'm not going to call in the experts, or otherwise to dig in deep here; this is your discussion, not mine, and it's up to you how you proceed from here. A condition of giving a 3O is that we haven't been involved with the article or the participants before. I am well aware of what these quotations look like, and the example below doesn't change my view. Copy-pasting from sources is an unusual special measure, which would be copyright violation if we were to overdo it. Moreover, copy-pasting selected passages isn't a sound way to assess the utility of a source. I don't consider that it's called for here. Please remember to sign your posts. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 00:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It may be helpful to add that the reason I think you need "experts" to look at this is that evaluating the utility of a given source really requires familiarity with the broader literature on the subject. That isn't something you'll get from WP:3O request, but is something you'll probably get from the talk pages I mentioned. Also, you didn't ask for just or or two quotations, which might be justified for source verification, but a dozen, which I feel is well over the top. --Stfg (talk) 01:08, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * These evasions are quite useless to addressing my simple request, a request that is in no way "unusual" or "over the top".
 * Shall we move to a dispute resolution phase? 36hourblock (talk) 18:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I think that is a sensible thing to do. Sorry my 3O offering didn't meet your requirement. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 19:07, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you would choose to assert that I "owe it to the editor who requests it [i.e. yourself]" to make the changes which you believe are necessary; that is simply not the case. I don't owe you anything. I agree with Stfg's statement that your comments toward them has been rude, and I personally also feel that your attitude to myself has been equally discourteous. Simply because we have not agreed with your proposed changes to the article (which you insist that I implement in my own time) does not give you permission to behave in this manner. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution
Early revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin has been selected for DR at Dispute resolution noticeboard

You are invited to post your comments. 36hourblock (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2014 (UTC)