Talk:Richard C. Lukas

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstness

White Eagle 70 (talk · contribs) has repeatedly added the claim that Lukas's book is "the first systematic English language study by an American historian of the wartime experiences of the Poles and their relations with the Jews." This is a boastful claim offered without any sourcing, much less a reliable one. It should not be readded until and unless a reliable source is found. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:09, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

References

A recent series of IP edits did some very odd scrambling of the references. I tried to descramble, but some of the claims added were not in the specific references provided, so some claim deletion was done as well. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:33, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

At this point, the scrambled references have been reinserted enough times that it looks like intentional vandalism. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I concur. Icewhiz (talk) 08:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The references were in the process of being fixed by an editor, but an old version keeps being replaced on the page. The page is not being vandalized. There is an effort to provide more specifically sourced material, as was requested. White Eagle 70 (talk) 12:50, 8 December 2018 (UTC)White Eagle 70

Please read WP:OWN, and try to achieve consensus on the talk page. Also, if you have a COI, please WP:DISCLOSE.Icewhiz (talk) 18:21, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Nat Gertler is repeatedly trying to obstruct and block our efforts to fix any of the sources and referencing errors on this page. In fact, he's gone so far as to add content that shows an obvious bias and deletes anything that tries to offer a balanced view. My response to him as follows: You sir claim to be interested in neutrality and objectivity, yet you've been going in and adding potentially slanderous one-sided content, citing people who are not historians and you think you have the right to libel this author. Other editors, along with myself, are trying to present a balanced view, including the criticisms as well as the positive aspects of this author's career. It is my understanding that Wikipedia seeks to present an objective view with properly referenced materials, which is what we've been trying to do in spite of your deliberate blocking and obstructing our efforts. White Eagle 70 (talk) 18:57, 8 December 2018 (UTC)White Eagle 70 We'll go through whatever channels we can to correct this situation. White Eagle 70 (talk) 19:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC) White Eagle 70

This is an example of the deliberate obstruction of this page: Other work Lukas' continuing interest in the Polish tragedy during World War II resulted in several additional books such as Forgotten Survivors. Lukas has also published fiction.[6][better source needed] In fact, this section under "Other Work" was being edited and completed with a reference, all of which was taken out. There is no reason for this. White Eagle 70 (talk) 19:15, 8 December 2018 (UTC)White Eagle 70

@White Eagle 70: - Are you editing this page as part of the group? I'm referring to your stmts of "other editors" and "we" above. Icewhiz (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, those are some vague accusations! I do not recall being the person to add any material from non-historians (at most, I've undone deletions); the only person who I recall adding content from was a quote from Lukas himself. The claim that you and your "we" are trying to fix references is false on the front of it; the reference citing David Engel has been repeatedly moved to material that has nothing to do with David Engel, the claim that your "we" was using to support the statement "He later wrote a military-diplomatic study, Eagles East: The Army Air Forces and the Soviet Union, 1939-1945, for which he received an award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics" was this, a source that mentions neither that book nor that award. Now, I see that that same reference has been slid down to cover quotes from Davies - the source quotes Davies not at all, it merely mentions that he wrote a foreword. When folks try to fix things like that, or erroneously marked-up italics (we don't use html EM tags on Wikipedia), or incorrect capitalization, or improper POV terminology, you just undo that as well. To those who are doing that, please stop before you get blocked. --Nat Gertler (talk) 11:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing vague about it. The quote you allegedly added "from Lukas" was a distortion of the original quote. And I was trying to fix those reference mistakes you're talking about,the footnotes that didn't match up right (David Engel, etc.) but the page seemed to be reverted back to an earlier version before I could fix it. Also, I didn't know about an html tag rule. And "improper capitalization"? Now threats of blocking. Really? You say the goal here is neutrality and accuracy, but your obvious bias and blockade tactics make that impossible. White Eagle 70 (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2018 (UTC)White Eagle 70

Wait a minute - if the quote I am adding "from Lucas" is the edit you were complaining about, and your complaint was specifically that I was "citing people who are not historians" - are you claiming Lukas is not an historian? My "distortion of the original quote" was copied and pasted directly from the source. The supposed attempts to "fix" the breaking of the references was to restore the broken version repeatedly, even after the problem with the breaking of references had been brought up on this Talk page; if it isn't right or at least better than what came before, you should not be saving your changes, much less should the IP user have been labeling it as "referencing sources" when the edit was actually breaking existing references. And yes, improper capitalization, like when you undid this edit which explained that it was fixing capitalization. The edit summaries are there for a reason; please more accurately summarize your own edits when you make them, and as been told to you before, please stop marking non-minor edits as "minor". --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:16, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Award controversy - BLP/UNDUE?

I am concerned whether a single news article [1] is enough to warrant discussing a controversy about this award in light of WP:UNDUE/WP:BLP. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

This award was cancelled in everything but name. The organization bestowing the award, the ADL, mailed a 1,000$ check as a nuisance award to avoid legal fees. The ADL stated that is why they sent the check in the mail. The ADL denounced the work publicly and cancelled the ceremony. Whenever this episode is mentioned by anyone other than Lukas himself, this is stated. Press coverage here is significant in relation to coverage of Lukas in general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peachout (talk • contribs) 13:39, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

False claims (BLP) issue

I just noticed in http://www.richardclukas.com/ (section controversy) this: "More recently, untrue statements have been listed on Lukas’s page by a contributor to Wikipedia. The Wikipedia content reads “John T. Pawlikowski writes that the The Forgotten Holocaustis the most comprehensive work covering ethnic Poles under the Nazis and that the Polish-American community effectively canonized it. However Pawlikowski notes that just as historian Thaddeus Gromada was forced to make changes to Lukas’ speech (for the United Stats Holocaust Memorial Museum) due to antisemitic content, he too has reservations with Lukas’ work treating ethnic Poles and Jews as co-equal victims of the Holocaust: a basic error common among Polish-Americans that is rejected by other scholars.” The reference to the speech is entirely false. Proof of this exists within a newly obtained document from Dr. Gromada himself, seen here: [2]" --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:31, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Where is that text in the article (now or in the past)? SarahSV ^(talk) 02:55, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems to have been added by WP:SPA Peachout (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and was removed by Tadgromada29 (Thaddeus Gromada?). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:05, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Peachout added it on 3 February 2020. The allegation about the speech was removed by Tadgromada29, another SPA, on 19 February. So it was there for 16 days. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Right, about as long as a different problem in the Grabowski article which IIRC you fixed. Just thought this should be mentioned on talk in case another SPA tries to restore this. Btw, do you think Peachout should be blocked? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:05, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

What does this issue have to do with Grabowski? Also, the problems with his article remain. My version didn't last. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:12, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Which version in which article? If there is a problem with Grabowski's bio, I suggest you can describe it there on his talk page. I hope there are no further BLP issues with it. I offered to help him with fixing any errors in my chat with him a while back, but I think he is too busy; last I heard from him he was trying to go back to Poland, which is not easy with the COVID crisis. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:24, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

PS. Some related comments are also at Talk:The_Forgotten_Holocaust:_The_Poles_Under_German_Occupation,_1939-1944#Cooper_is_WP:UNDUE. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Citations

Piotrus, some of the citations are written oddly. For example, "Vol. 69, No. 2, Apr., 1991 of The Slavonic and East European Review on JSTOR". www.jstor.org. Retrieved 2020-04-06.

If you use the RefToolbar, that makes it easy to fill in the various fields. Or it can be done manually. Templates aren't required. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:20, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I will check it out. I generally rely on the formatting tool in the Visual Editor. I am not sure why some get malformatted. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:22, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I think you'll find it if you go to "Preferences --> Editing --> Editor, and tick "Enable the editing toolbar". That should give you the citation templates drop-down menu. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:54, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I guess I am confused why you remove the citation templates? I actually thought this was the error you mentioned (that you complained they were not used here) and so I reintroduced them. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:47, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, the issue is the manner of writing citations, with or without templates. There are problems in several articles. Are you checking what the script produces before you save? For example, it sometimes produces first name, last name; sometimes the other way round. And NA NA (5 March 2016). Writers Directory. Springer. p. 771. ISBN 978-1-349-03650-9.", which added "NA NA" as the author (NA probably means not available) and changed the year and publisher. And "yptadmin. "Richard C. Lukas: World War II Historian". Richard C. Lukas: World War II Historian, Author | OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Retrieved 2020-04-06." And adding number of pages, price, etc to book-review citations. And adding the editor's name as author, while omitting author and chapter title.

It makes reading the list of citations difficult, but fixing them is very time consuming. If you add that often citations are in Polish, the language + structural problems can make them impossible to decipher. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:58, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Errors should be fixed, but I still don't understand why you removed the citation templates? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:03, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I restored my edit, because you added errors to it. Your addition of citation templates wasn't the problem. If you look at this diff, can you see where you changed the publication details of one (including author=NA NA), and changed another to first name/last name? SarahSV ^(talk) 04:12, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Right. Well, the obvious solution is to restore the citation template sans the errors you pointed out :) I will get right on it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, that's better. The only thing left to do is restore the en-dashes, which were changed to hyphens. year ranges take en-dashes, e.g. 2019–2020. Also, you changed title case to sentence case: Who's Who to Who's who. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:01, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 February 2023

"add a conflict of interest/ NPOV template warning to the page. Club On a Sub 20 (talk) 16:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

@Club On a Sub 20COI is on the talk page. NPOV added. Lemonaka (talk) 11:26, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@Club On a Sub 20 :@Lemonaka Hi, why the NPOV was added to this article? Seems like pretty standard biogram with basic facts of life, academic career and list of published books, with a short summary. I honestly don't see here a room for non-neutral POV. What are the issues in your opinion? Marcelus (talk) 20:03, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@MarcelusUndone, after carefully checking the booklist. There's nothing for promotion Lemonaka (talk) 20:05, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 March 2023

Recommended Changes in current biography of Richard C. Lukas on Wikipedia

Last sentence in first paragraph should read: “Some of his books have received criticism mostly from Jewish historians for downplaying anti-Semitism in wartime Poland and overstating the heroism of Poles in rescuing Jews during the war.” (This is a far more accurate assessment than the last sentence currently in the biography.)

The editors of Wikipedia have done a fine job covering Lukas’s award -winning book, Eagles East.

But why doesn’t coverage of The Strange Allies and Bitter Legacy have any reviews? These were pioneer books in diplomatic history involving Poland and the reviews were positive. Neither book was controversial.

The major problem with the Lukas biography is coverage of The Forgotten Holocaust. I am at a loss to understand why the review by Edward Wynot is completely ignored, especially since it appeared in the top historical journal, The American Historical Review, the premier journal of historians.  In the interests of fairness and balance, which Wikipedia prides itself, the lead review should be by Norman Davies, the dean of historians of Poland, who wrote the Foreword to The Forgotten Holocaust. There are many statements in the Foreword from which the editors could choose. The Davies’ comments should be followed with the existing reviews by Marrus and Sanford. As this section currently stands, the coverage is grossly unfair and unbalanced.

The next paragraph covering Out of Inferno is strange, referring to some German who reviewed the book. But there is no review. Remove reference to Pohl.

Regarding the section covering Did the Children Cry?, I know that the ADL panel who awarded the Korczak Prize to Lukas was composed of Jewish and non-Jewish judges. Consult Lukas’ homepage and he documents the Jewish leaders who endorsed the book and the prize. In the interests of truth, it should be clearly stated that the political leadership under Abraham Foxman decided to take the prize away from Lukas. It wasn’t just Lukas’s threat of a lawsuit but the support for Lukas from both Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals that forced Foxman to reverse his decision.

Forgotten Survivors was not Lukas’s final volume as stated in the Lukas bio on Wikipedia. He wrote , The Torpedo Season: Growing Up during World War II, published by Amazon in December, 2021. (ISBN 9798721020223). One review appeared in The Polish American Journal and another is scheduled for release in Polish American Studies.

Finally, I think you should consider adding another review of Forgotten Survivors by Alexander Rossino that appeared in the April 2006 issue of World War II. I noticed this review was reprinted on line in 2019. Rossino is a fine fair-minded historian and former fellow of the United States Holocaust Museum.

Regarding the bibliography, why haven’t the Polish translations of Lukas’s books for Polish readers been included? Of course, now that you know about Lukas’s new book, The Torpedo Season, I expect that you will ad that. Boulder2929 (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not editing articles at the moment, so I won't be making any of these changes... but let me knock away a few suggestions that no editor should be making.

• The statement that criticisms of his work comes "mostly from Jewish historians" should not be stated without at least a reliable source stating such. Even if we can cite a number of Jewish historians who have criticized, it should not be assumed that non-Jewish historians are not, if perhaps getting less attention for it. As it is, it comes across like a possible attempt to discount criticism because it comes from Jews, which is a problematic angle.

• The idea that the foreword should be the "lead review" of the work. The writer of a foreword is not an independent third-party source, one will generally select the writer of a foreword to support rather than undermine a work, and foreword writers are frequently paid for their contributions.

• While Amazon is a publisher of books, they are not the publisher of Torpedo Season. The Amazon page for that book lists it as being "independently published", which generally means that someone used the tools that Amazon makes available for publishing. In most (not all) cases, those tools are used for self-publishing... and given that no publisher is listed on the book jacket or indicia and that the editors and cover designer all have "Lukas" in their name and that the book has some amateur layout mistakes (sorry, publisher here), it's rather clear that this is a self-published memoir. HAving said that, I'm dubious that the book need be included at all. Bibliographies need not be complete, and this book seems unlikely to get much attention as it is outside his primary oeuvre; it's not a history book per se, its a memoir targeted at a small audience ("a love letter to a close-knit New England family", per the back cover.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:27, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Boulder2929 Some of this is being discussed extensively and recently at Talk:The_Forgotten_Holocaust. In either case, your arguments would be much better if you included sources (links) for your claims and the sources you mention (like, where is that review by Rossino? Or Wynot?). PS. I thought we had a mention of Davies' view, I see it was removed here. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:47, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

To your point, the sources for Rossino and Wynot would need to be provided. But there are a couple of things I don't understand. Up above, there's a mention of conflict of interest (one of Lukas's sons). Firstly, Richard Lukas doesn't have any sons. Secondly, the coverage of the Korczak award section does sound very unbalanced. In the interest of presenting the facts surrounding the controversy, I'd like to suggest this, after the first sentence (with sources named below): The award, recommended by a panel of judges, was cancelled by the ADL, then headed by Abraham Foxman, for political reasons, over the objections of Danuta Mostwin, Jewish founder of the award and a longtime member of the jury panel. She said, "I don't think it was legitimate criticism (by Foxman). Dr. Lukas portrayed children as children: not Jewish or Christian, just children." (f.n.) Foxman reversed his position because of a threat of a law suit, by Lukas and support from Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals. Lukas eventually received the award.(f.n.)

f.n. 1, Letter, Mostwin to Edelman, April 16, 1996, in ADL Archives and also in Lukas Archives.

f.n.2, Eric Ernst, "Comment", Sarasota Tribune, March 22, 1996. Joseph Kutrzeba, a Jewish film maker, thought Lukas' book "a work of thorough and credible scholarship." Also see comments of support from the Catholic League, headed by William Donovan during this period. Alpine L (talk) 17:18, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

The "son" descriptor above has been changed to better match the conflicted editor's statement (yes, people who are not male also have fathers.) Thank you for catching that. As for saying that the cancellation was "for political reasons" is a bit of POV that should not be done in Wikipedia's source. And if we were to include the Mostwin quote, we'd rather get it from a reliable third-party source that indicates that the use of the quote is of appropriate weight. (We would have trouble quoting directly from the letter while Lukas is alive due to WP:BLPSPS.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:54, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Alpine L Apologies for a late reply; if you reply here please WP:ECHO me to make sure I notice your comment (I'l subscribe to this thread just in case). The context you provide (about the disagreement between Danuta Mostwin and Abraham Foxman) is very interesting, but sourcing content to a WP:PRIMARY source is not ideal (and it is very difficult to WP:Verify it). Is there any chance you could arrange for that letter to be published online, or reprined in a WP:RS? As for footnote two, I'll @Cunard with regards to whether this newspaper can be accessed online, and if so, how (I'd like to verify myself if it confirms the facts mentioned). Based on the comment above, "support from Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals" right now would read as support from a single individual (Joseph Kutrzeba)? Who else would represent the group of " Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals" who supported him? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 23:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Piotrus (talk · contribs). Here is a copy of the article:

• Ernst, Eric (1996-03-22). "Quarrel Over Book Ends With Award". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Archived from the original on 2023-11-19. Retrieved 2023-11-19.

Cunard (talk) 10:24, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. It does not appear there is consensus for these changes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:48, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Concerns by BLP subject

I want to draw editors' attention to these comments by the BLP subject: [3]. I don't know for sure, but it might be worth examining this page with that in mind. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

His biggest direct complaint is that we are no longer including quotes from the foreword as reviews of the book. That absence is appropriate; its writer quite possibly got paid for it (not necessarily, sez the publisher who has scammed a free forward or two in its day), and even if not, it can not in any reasonable way be judged as an independent third-party source, as it's part of the book. We should no more take that as a viable source for review quotes than we should accept movie poster ad copy as reviews. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:57, 20 May 2023 (UTC)