User talk:Mike Winowicz

Your recent edits
Why do you remove all mentions of the expulsions of Germans from places in East Prussia after WWII? What makes the inclusion of this information on a a Wikipedia article wrong? I believe it's an important part of the history of these places, and fail to see how it can be an unimportant event. Or are you claiming it didn't happen? Yakikaki (talk) 05:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It certainly did happen and there are multiple articles that discuss it in depth. However, the same exact text was added to literally hundreds of articles about every Polish village and town in those formerly German territories. It's my understanding that statements like these need to be cited, and the citation must point to a reliable source. Certainly if you have a source that says "15 Germans were expelled from such-and-such village in 1945" that would be worth including in that town's article. I would add that myself! But adding that paragraph indiscriminately is not okay, and I'm going to continue removing it. Mike Winowicz (talk) 13:45, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * In those edits that I reverted I did provide sources. You claim in your reversal of my edit "That source may mention the region but it certainly does not mention this town specifically". That is wrong, I have the book right here in front of me. In the other case you simply reverted it, claiming that the wording is not neutral. What in it is not neutral? And you can't just change hundreds of articles claiming it's "German nationalist stuff". Working in good faith is, as we both surely know, a pillar of Wikipedia. Related to this, considering all Germans (not counting exceptional cases) were expelled after the war from these regions, I find it strange that you are so keen on removing these parts of the text that most probably in most cases are true. A more mistrustful person than me could suspect that you're acting on some kind of agenda other than the love of truth. Yakikaki (talk) 14:02, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * An addendum: I do agree on closer consideration that it's really weird that the exact same phrase has been added to hundreds of articles. But I'm not fully convinced the one-sided removal of all of them without prior discussion with the original editor is the way forward. In the two cases where I edited, I again underline that I have written nothing that I didn't have support for. If it helps to cool tempers down I can also truthfully say that I'm neither German nor Polish, I'm just interested in getting the facts right here. Yakikaki (talk) 14:09, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I took a look at the "View History" links of several of those articles. It appears that that text was added by IP addresses. And not the same IP address every time. So I don't know how I would have contacted that original editor. I would very much like to do so, as I would like to ask what their rationale was for adding that text to hundreds of article. Mike Winowicz (talk) 14:52, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, well, I don't really know what to make of this. The bottom line is the question whether than information should be there or not, I suppose. I consider it an important part of the history of those places, not more and not less important than many other events, but important. I fail to see why it's such a pressing issue to remove them. I also notice that it's almost the only contribution you've made to Wikipedia? Maybe for example Piotrus or Woogie10w have some experience and good ideas of how this subject should be approached? I'm sort of sorry I got dragged into this because I really don't have the time anymore for Wikipedia but I think it's important this issue is resolved in a good, NPW way. Yakikaki (talk) 15:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not have the time or patience to get involved in this dispute. I am reading the works of Francis Parkman--Woogie10w (talk) 15:20, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I consider the forced resettlements of Poles and Germans an important part of the histories of Poland and Germany. It's obviously important enough to include in the histories of East Prussia, Silesia, etc, as well, and also the major cities in the regions. But should the same copied paragraph be pasted into every single town and village in those regions?
 * Consider an alternate scenario. I grew up in Louisiana. The area was first controlled by Native Americans, then the French, then the Spanish, then the French again, and then the United States. And this is well documented in the Louisiana article, and even the New Orleans article. But if I went to the articles of every single Louisiana municipality (all 304 of them) and added "the area was first controlled by Native Americans, then the French, then the Spanish, then the French again, and then the United States" would that make any sense? It would be technically true, but I don't think it's a good idea. Mike Winowicz (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Since I was pinged, without seeing the diffs, I'd point to WP:UNDUE. I do think that the mention of expulsion should exist in the history section of each settlement that suffered from it, but the length of the mention should be appropriate. I think this is a bit different from Native Americans - most settlements in the USA were founded by the Western colonists, not the natives, so mentioning that 'the natives lived around here' would be undue, just like mentioning that Germanic, Slavic, Vandal, whatever tribes lived in the area that a certain village is in. But if the population of the village was mostly expelled in the aftermath of WWII, this is a major historical event in the village history. Of course, we need a source for that. Some villages had no-one expelled because they were not German but Polish. It varied from case to case. Please ping me if there's a reply here, and I'd suggest discussing edits with diffs, not generalities. The last general note I'll make is that we have to remember about NPOV and WP:V. There are some, for lack of better term, nationalists, from both Poland and Germany, who try either unduly stressing some facts, or censoring/deleting them. Neither approach is advisable, and such individuals, unable to compromise, end up banned from the project. (Not that I see a red flag here, such individuals also often refuse to even talk, so the fact that we are talking is a good sign!). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you Piotrus for taking the time to reply, and your constructive answer. I'm sorry I don't have the time to continue contributing to the discussion very much more, I'm too busy outside Wikipedia these days, but I think a consensus and some kind of solution is needed on this issue. I notice that the same question is being discussed in a slightly different way over on the talk page of Volunteer Marek, with input also from DGG. I must also say that I find it odd that Mike Winowicz would continue doing this kind of edits - and only this kind of edits - while the issue is being discussed on your own userpage. Very probably the discussion should continue somewhere else, but why not wait and see how it plays out before steamrolling across Wikipedia? Yakikaki (talk) 18:26, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, and Mike Winowicz I should add - I was wrong about the source we talked about, regarding Barczewko. I double checked and as you wrote, it actually doesn't say anything about Barczewko in particular but about West and East Prussia generally. So sorry about that, my mistake. Should've been more careful there. Yakikaki (talk) 18:37, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There is good documentary evidence about the fate of the Jews in every village in Poland, often down to the level of the individual names; this is found in the Memorial books compiled after the war and summarized into more analytical works. I do not think there is equally good evidence for the non-Jewish Polish or German population, but I have no competence there.  But I agree with Pietrus' view above:    "I do think that the mention of expulsion should exist in the history section of each settlement that suffered from it, but the length of the mention should be appropriate."  DGG ( talk ) 19:09, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Reviewing a random recent diff I'll note that the removed text was unreferenced. I'd nonetheless restore the part about border and ownership change, it's uncontroversial and clearly correct. But any mention about expelling of Germans should be referenced because, as I said, some villages had no Germans to expel (but I don't know if that would be a minority or not, and certainly when we look at towns and such, there were almost certainly some Germans there). Oh, and of course some Germans just fled, so there's also the NPOV issues of incorrectly piping the "Flight and expulsion" article as just "expelled". --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  07:30, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

There is another discussion about this at VolunteerMarek's talk page, here. Marek explains this better than I can. Mike Winowicz (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

facts on recovered lands
As regards to the whole of the Polish 'recovered lands', it just has to be mentioned that the cities before 1945 and after do not have much in common besides their (also ruined) building, and this is what I focus on. Talk of the nice multicultural cities should be left to PR agencies. The region was destroyed first by Nazis, by Nazis' crimes, by the war, to finished by Polish outrage to remove everything German and -- sometimes -- forge an imagined Polish past. Yes, Germans lost everything in the region and Wikipedia should spell out that clearly and follow the Polish Communists' propaganda of regained lands or any seeming continuity.

I noted that the articles on the cities in the "regained lands" in their opening paragraph follow Polish story of initial Slavic founding then Prussian annexation then Polish in 1945. No reference to the fact that the cities became German-speaking in majority. This must be added to understand the history. I added facts found later in the Articles. --Stan Tincon (talk) 09:45, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello, Stan Tincon - are you German, by any chance? Because your English in the above paragraphs is not very good. As you do not appear to have a firm command of the English language, perhaps you are not ready yet to edit the English Wikipedia. Also, I detect some sarcasm in your sentence "Wikipedia should spell out that clearly and follow the Polish Communists' propaganda of regained lands or any seeming continuity." That sentence makes me think you have a particular point of view you wish to push on readers of Wikipedia. Is that true? Mike Winowicz (talk) 02:10, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Your recent edits
Hello Mike Winowicz. Please stop removing useful information from articles on Polish/Czech/Estonian etc. towns and regions. If you are concerned that some of the information in the articles are unsourced, as you claim in your edit summaries, kindly refer to Wikipedia policies and tag the articles with appropriate templates like template:fact, template:unref or template:more sources. I noticed in your edits that you are consistenly removing everything related to the German past of those towns, including centuries-old German names of the municipalities. If you will not refrain from doing that again, I will be forced to report this to Administrators Noticeboard. Regards, --Darwinek (talk) 20:19, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Well actually, I am undoing very recent unsourced edits from one user - Stan Tincon. And if you look at his contributions, he has consistently been adding unsourced information that seems very pro-German-nationalism. If those edits had sources, that would be one thing, but they do not, and so they seem like they're just being inserted to promote his pro-German view of every single topic. SO, if you are truly concerned about someone consistently doing things that are against Wikipedia policy, it appears that you should be talking to Stan Tincon, not me. Thank you! Mike Winowicz (talk) 21:08, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand some of his edits may be problematic, and I will notify him as well to source his additions. That does not however warrant removing historical German names of Polish towns, or removing information that a native German population (often a majority population) was expelled after 1945.--Darwinek (talk) 22:56, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
 * See this explanation of why that phrase isn't appropriate on every single town and village page in western Poland. If you have a source that says "16 German families were expelled from such-and-such village in 1945" then of course you could add it to that village's article; heck I would add it myself. But absent that, there's no reason to have it there. Mike Winowicz (talk) 01:33, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * User:Stan Tincon was already warned by administrators. Darwinek you should support us in suspending Stan Tincon from Wikipedia for a period of time as no response was provided to any of our concerns on his talk page, nor did he stop editing articles in an unneutral manner. I already explained in the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents how the account was created purposefully to do such edits and not for the benefit of Wikipedia. Mike Winowicz is doing the right thing by deleting all of this rubbish. Oliszydlowski (talk) 03:01, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

{{unblock reviewed | 1=This is my request to be unblocked. I read page about blocking me and I understand that it was determined by someone that I am making the same edits as an editor named Rockypedia, and so I am blocked for "Mass-reinstating edits that Rockypedia previously made, in many cases on articles that have received no other attention since." I already noticed that there were edits by Rockypedia on the same articles I was editing (mostly Polish villages} BUT if you look at those articles, I was actually removing the text that Rockypedia had added. So I am not "reinstating edits that Rockypedia previously made" - I am doing the opposite. Please see the following articles: Grądy Kruklaneckie Kot, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship Rusek Wielki Dybowo, Szczytno County Targowska Wola Dąbrowa, Gmina Dźwierzuty Lemany, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship There are many, many more besides these, but that is a quick sampling that I have looked up just now of the paragraphs Rockypedia added that I think were inappropriate (partly because they were unsourced, partly because they did not address the specific town in question). I am also removing other similar problematic edits that many other users, not just Rockypedia, made to the same type of subjects (Polish villages and towns). If my removals are a problem, then I would be willing to discuss why I am making them, but I am not the same editor as Rockypedia, which should be obvious to anyone who looks at what I am trying to remove. Mike Winowicz (talk) 06:25, 28 June 2019 (UTC) | decline = (1) Contrary to what you said above, there is a very large number of articles on which you repeated exactly edits by the other named account. (2) You have cherry-picked a small number of articles where you say that you were "removing the text that Rockypedia had added". In fact, an examination of a sample of the articles you cite shows that the "Rockypedia" account toned down what had previously been there, and that this account then completely removed it. While that means that it is technically true that some of the words of the text you removed were due to the "Rockypedia" account, it is very different indeed from the impression your wording above implied, and by no stretch were you "doing the opposite" of repeating that account's editing. (3) The degree of relationship between the editing of the two accounts was far too much to be chance coincidence: either the two accounts were the same person or else you were systematically following the editing history of the "Rockypedia" account. On the face of it, it could have been either of those, and I certainly did not think that it would be acceptable to make a decision on the basis of that one fact alone, so I spent a considerable amount of time checking the history not only of those two accounts, but also of other accounts known to have been used by the same person as the "Rockypedia" account. I found numerous points of similarity, many of them individually so small as to mean little on their own, but added together they constituted just too many coincidences to be plausible. The blindingly obvious similarities in the editing by the two accounts are accompanied by so many other, much less obvious, but unmistakable, similarities that the hypothesis of "systematically following the editing history" of the other account does not stand up. JamesBWatson (talk) 22:45, 29 June 2019 (UTC) }}

my edit to Rozvadov
No, ethnic cleansing affecting the German population in Eastern Europe took indeed place *after* end of WWII, see any article on Expulsion of German population after WWII. Source for the German majority in Rozvadov can be found in any linguistic map of Eastern Europe of say 1930. On, man names for Central European towns, blatantly false to claim that the German names gradually fell into disuse in German -- the German population was expelled and the place names were renamed by political wish, this just has be be mentioned. Sources for this are abound, I will provide them Stan Tincon (talk) 08:32, 8 July 2019 (UTC)