Talk:Strasbourg massacre

This article needs to be fixed
Way too much bias and unsubstantiated claims. Not enough sources.

New comment (different editor):

The language in this article is informal and not in a scholarly style. This, in combination with the lack of source references, makes the article read like an oral history of the massacre or an opinion paper, rather than like a historiography. All this contributes to the sense of bias. Even a well-sourced statement can give the appearance of bias if it is not relevant and/or does not support argument presented by the Wiki author.

Consider the following sentence from the first section [Anti-Semitism in the Population]: "The chroniclers report that the Jews were criticised for their business practices: they were said to be so arrogant that they were unwilling to grant anyone else precedence, and those who dealt with them, could hardly come to an agreement with them."

–Who is accusing the Jews of arrogance? And what is the accusation evidence of, exactly? How widely credited was this accusation? Does it represent anything more than a single person's opinion?

Only one source is listed in the References section and that source is not referenced anywhere in the text. Moreover, that source is another online document in French, which is itself not sourced. Any article that involves historical controversy or a clash between opposing forces should be sourced from a minimum of two scholarly articles that are readily available to the average reader. The controversy or differing positions should be clearly presented using specific source references (and quotations as necessary) so it will be clear that the article is merely summarizing and contrasts the existing research rather than presenting the author's personal point of view.

DavidPreston (talk) 06:13, 17 December 2015 (UTC)


 * While I don't think "bias" is the right word, I agree that the article is of quite low quality. By the look of it, it is a direct translation of the French wikipedia article, which would explain the strange language style that you have noted. The French article DOES have multiple sources, but these were not copied over by whomever copied the article. The French article does also, however, seem quite idiosyncratic in its style, so fixing it will be a lot of work. 212.64.67.52 (talk) 00:30, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The article is biased:
Americanplus (talk) 18:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * causes of the increased anti-semitism are easy to make out: The article points to envy as one of the causes but it doesn't disclose the rise in nationalist sentiment amongst the German population. Nor does it disclose how German depositors were affected when Jewish bankers refused to pay back their deposits during the medieval banking crisis which lasted from 1341 to 1346.
 * ruthlessness of the Jews did not, however, derive from any particular hard-heartedness: This appears to be a justification for a behaviour or activity which the German population didn't agree with, i.e., moneylending. At the time, moneylending, also known as usury, was considered immoral by the German population, who were Catholics at the time.
 * situation in which they themselves increasingly came under attack, this was a matter of self-preservation and holding on to power: The reason for the tradesmen's decision to follow a judicial procedure might as well be a matter of integrity and respect for the rule of law, and not a matter of "self-preservation."
 * the city had collected the money, and had given in return a guarantee for their security: Money lending was a state-sanctioned activity by the Strasbourg council. The Strasbourg council collected taxes in exchange for allowing such moneylending activity, not in exchange for physical protection.
 * their supra-regional role as bankers ensured a positive balance of trade: At the time, Florentian families had the supra-regional role as bankers, not Jewish families based in Strasbourg. Besides, there is no relationship between credit and a positive balance of trade. Credit by itself doesn't cause a "positive" balance of trade. As of today, the United States is the largest debtor country in the world and has a negative balance of trade.

▶The assertions made by Amerincanplus are unsubstantiated and unsourced, and therefore no more reliable than the original text.

- The text we just uploaded is a translation of the corresponding article in German Wikipedia--Batman9292 (talk) 12:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)