Talk:Grigori Rasputin

Discursive, overgrown

As observed elsewhere on this talk page, the article contains way too much not directly related to the subject. EEng 07:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

The article is quite informative, but you don't seem to appreciate that. It became a story, perhaps unusual for Wikipedia. When I add from D. Smith in the next few days, it will grow more. (He has a lot of new details!) The murder was a political act. Perhaps politics are not your interest? I think every detail explains the next incident, but maybe I should check again. The information in the article is undergoing changes, and most of all it is not an easy subject. (talk) 09:30, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Anyone starting with this post by you [2], and following forward through your next N posts, will readily see how the article got into the rambling state it's in. Large parts of it are essentially unreadable. EEng 15:30, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I am not going to discuss taste; it is a waste of time. You have to come up with facts, and mention the details that are not true, unreadable or unnecessary. Taksen (talk) 10:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Taste has nothing to do with it; you have no idea how to write an article that (a) anyone can read or (b) that comes even close to adhering to policy. Everywhere you look there's unsourced stuff like "It was an appalling and libelous account" and statements and characterizations (cited or not) in WP's voice such as "Purishkevich, a buffoon character", "The 'peace offensive' was bound to fail", "The theatrical details of the murder given by Felix have never stood up to scrutiny", and "Alexei Khvostov, a cunning, ambitious young man" -- not to mention unintelligible stuff like "which made it practically impossible to hiss at the new prime minister" and "For the Tsarina: 'Nobody needs their opinion – they rather will address the question of sewage'. According to Kiryanov the Duma had a party and journalistic character" (with sewage linked, as if what the reader needs to navigate this meandering maze of verbiage is information on what sewage is). The article's a mess. EEng 13:58, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

These issues have been noted for years.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:25, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

The shame of it is that it gets 8k views per day. I'm on the verge of proposing that we work together to bring it into line. The first step would be axing the long discursions about the war and political situation, which should be described only to the extent they assist the reader in understanding Rasputin's role. The problem is that it's so impenetrable I'm not sure I can even begin to wrap my head around it. EEng 23:39, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

First of all: It is not a shame. Your wording is not very helpful. It would be a shame if the text was full with mistakes or scandals. Secondly RASPUTIN was killed during a war for political reasons. So the information on war and politics is necessary to understand what happened. Upland is right. I have been working here for years not only on Rasputin but also on some ministers and have not met anyone who knows the subject too. Wikipedia needs experts, there are too many lay man. (It will take you months/years to understand Rasputin, and it is a lot of reading. The subject seems endless.) Last, tell me your favorite article with historical interest or show me something you worked on, than I will decide. If you delete the context, something most Wikipedians would love to do, even if they have no special knowledge of Russian history, the article will become middle of the road. Taksen (talk) 02:19, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Did someone say WP:OWN? Jack Upland, are you up for this? EEng 02:32, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I added maybe more than 400 references, you cannot say I am stupid or unexperienced. Thousands/milions of people read this article, not very many complained. When you check the books and articles about this topic you will understand Purishkevich was a buffoon character, the Tsarina, like the Tsar autocratic. As you may have never heard of this you might think these labels were invented by me. Should I add a reference after each sentence? Not everything can be written out and the author has to prove or to be trusted he is honest and not making up stories. (I think I had a similar problem four years ago. How do I know this politician is left, right, pro or against Rasputin. It takes time.) It is clear to the whole world Americans have a bad or almost no sense of history. Their education is bad, maybe not if you own a lot of money, but it is quite possible that does not help either. Upland's profile is not convincing, too short.Taksen (talk) 04:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean about "not everything can be written out", but everything needs to be cited, and contentious opinions such as those I quoted above need to be explicitly attributed. You need to review WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR, because assuming J.U. is willing to participate, we'll be applying them to this article soon. I notice that on your Rasputin website [3] you say, "I would like to see my view on Rasputin more popular this year", and in that regard you'd do well to review WP:FORUM.

I'll ignore your ignorant nationalistic comments for now, but if you keep them up you won't be editing this article, or likely any article, much longer. EEng 05:05, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

It is clear you are a bureaucrat, who shows his knowledge of all the rules, and did not delete (any) items on his talk page. I have not seen any topic on Russia, a reasonable question is not it? I found this: "I am blocking you for your continued disruptive levity toward a serious and important educational enterprise. "" in making inappropriate puns and convoluted lame jokes on other editor's Talk Pages. He deserves a permanent topic ban from Gage for relentless WP:OWN issues."

You are trying to take over the article, but, I can predict, you will sink in the enormous amount of details as it is one of the most complicated and never solved subjects from 20th century. Taksen (talk) 05:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC) Again there 450 references, which seems a lot. If I don't understand something I would check internet or a library, that helps. You only checked my website to find more reasons to attack me. Taksen (talk) 05:36, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

You link your website from your user page. Your quotes from my talk page are people (Martinevans123, 3family6) making jokes; that you don't see that adds to the evidence that your limited English impairs your ability to be an effective editor. If one or two others are willing to join me in cleaning up this article then I'll start doing that; if not you'll have free reign for at least a while longer. EEng 06:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm willing to help because this has gone on too long.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I might be willing to help, as I have access to an excellent source. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:52, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Nothing new, many Wikipedians are interested in deleting, not in adding, as you do not need any specific knowledge, usually they cut what they do not understand. That is a serious problem on Wikipedia. What looks unimportant to you, could be interesting for others. I showed this article to quite a few people, even historians; many articles on Russian history are worse and less reliable.Taksen (talk) 11:49, 10 February 2017 (UTC) Some of the information I copied to different articles on Russian ministers and prime ministers, the Imperial Duma, the February Revolution, Alexei, Vyrubova, Yusupov, Purishkevich and others, that is why the article is full with information and references, and I will copy more details, when I gathered enough information. I also used books without an index, so I had to make references my self, to remember who wrote what, when and where and adjust the chronology.Taksen (talk) 11:56, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I've cut "Kalmykov, Nelipa and Moe" from that picture caption as I don't think they belong there, being non-notable and being wholly unexplained. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:54, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: You removed attribution; These sources are cited throughout the article and removing attribution is not ok. You might not "think" that the attribution belongs there, but unless it is necessarily common sense, and everyone in the whole world agrees that that is a picture of where Rasputin was burned, it is necessary to include attribution. --IPEditor (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

The debate over what was done with Rasputin's dead body is an intriguing and important one which should be discussed more openly in the article text, with the required sources and an explanation of who the main commentators are and what their respective credentials are. The image caption should not make any claims, It should stick to simple fact merely as an illustration e.g. "The boiler room of the Petrograd Peter the Great Polytechnic Institute." Martinevans123 (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

What Is To Be Done?

After looking over the article and its history with an eye toward making it something like readable, I've come to the surprising conclusion that the best way forward is to start by reverting to a much earlier version, and then asking the article's most prolific contributor to selectively build back and modify from there, subject to consensus. Take a look at this version [4] and compare it (mentally) to the current one; I suspect that the appropriate version to select is somewhere on this slice from the article's history [5]. EEng 03:18, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I explain this proposal as trying to go back to the long-time existing and vague and common ideas about Rasputin. But there is a recent book by D. Smith on Rasputin that is more up-to-date and more reliable than most other books. After you read it you will see your proposal is non sense, based on a retarded view of Rasputin and Russian history.Taksen (talk) 08:43, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

So that's this one, that's reviewed here, although Smith himself doesn't yet have an article. It looks like it would be another good source here, but it would be novel to use it just as a means to evaluate past content? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:03, 11 February 2017 (UTC) p.s. there may be a case for creating Douglas Smith (historical author): [6].

The article should certainly makes use of the best up-to-date sources. Unfortunately, the edits making use of Smith have been part of a transformation of the article into a completely unreadable state. It's so incomprehensible that I see no way to salvage the current version, Once we agree on which version to revert to, Smith and other recent sources can be reintroduced to replace and correct outmoded material. But this process has to start with returning the article to a readable state. It's completely useless now.

As a default I suggest we use the version I linked above, but (again) there are other candidates on the history slice I also linked above. I don't think we can use anything later than that slice, because after that slice the article goes very seriously downhill. EEng 20:47, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Go ahead and revert. Sorry to say I've lost my patience for some reason. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@EEng:, the guy has been dead for over 100 years, so "up-to-date sources" are, technically, any sources that are less than 100 years old. Granted, some western sources might only recently have learned of secret, old, Russian facts, but reliable original sources from 100 years ago are indubitably better than some recent fringe conspiracy publication.

Reverting to an old version of the article isn't "The way forward". The prolific editors that want there opinion in the article are definitely not gone. Please, please, never assume that "prolific" editors are "good" editors. This article is semi-protected so I think I'm fair when I assume that there is some contention as to the facts. If you really want a brand new version of the article so bad but don't want to do the edit's yourself, you can always hire (or solicit pro bono) a competent encyclopedia editor to do a rewrite of the current version (obviously still having access to all previous versions).

I spent the better part of today trying to explain to one of this article's "prolific contributor"s that they should not remove actual attribution in favor of attributing to an anonymous source.

If you revert to an old version and just leave it to the hyenas to improve it, don't be surprised if you get a good piece of carrion as result.

People with a "special interest" in the topic don't usually have "special access to the truth". Too often they just want the article to read what they already believe.

The only solution is to solicit smart, competent editors that aren't invested in the topic to do an impartial review/rewrite. If that isn't currently possible then it's ok to wait. Wikipedia doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. --IPEditor (talk) 22:04, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

You're suggesting we "always hire (or solicit pro bono) a competent encyclopedia editor" to rewrite this article? Why am I now described as "one of this article's "prolific contributor"s"?? The outcome of our little "discussion" is now simply that the existing sources have been moved out of the text and into an adjacent image caption. How is that an improvment? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:11, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I said the article should use "the best up-to-date sources", not just any ol' recent sources, and no, not any source under 100 years old is up to date. I have no idea what you mean with your talk of hyenas and special interest and soliciting editors.

It's not OK to wait. As the article is now it would almost be better to have no article at all. Far better, if imperfect, versions are available to revert to. Improvements can be made from there as editors feel inspired to make them. EEng 22:42, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

• Softlavender, since I've seen you editing the article just now I'd like to draw your attention to this thread. This won't be an easy decision. EEng 22:57, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Eng, I actually only came here via noticing the odd thread title on Martin's talkpage, and in checking to see that the nonsense was taken care of (by searching for the word "supposed"), I made one edit. I noticed quibbling about captions (Martin's TP?) and in glancing I noticed captions full of unattributed quotations. I don't have any expertise or real interest in Rasputin, nor do I know the history behind the two versions you refer to (why do they differ, how widely do they differ, and in what general respects?). I don't think I have the time to put in to this right now; you might want to post your query on a Project board or other board. Softlavender (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Softlavender: Too late! You've come within our orbit! Just to provide a fresh eye, could you just give us your opinion on the readability of the current version of the article (esp. from the Controversy section forward), and whether reverting to [this version would not be a radical improvement. Don't think it would take long for you to evaluate that. EEng 23:33, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The article is 222,000 bytes long. I'm not willing to make that determination, especially without an explanation of why that version is being selected. I'm sure however that any number of other editors who have time and interest would be. Softlavender (talk) 23:37, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Coward! EEng 23:43, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

But that is quite a drastic move. You might want to consider opening an RfC to embark on such a course of action? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:29, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

It might come to that but first I wanted to see how far we could get with whoever the regulars are here. EEng 13:56, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

While I agree there are problems with the article in its current form, I think that a massive revert would be too drastic. I think the best approach would be to work through the article section by section editing as needed.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:37, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

• Softlavender, given your comments elsewhere I wonder if you'd take a moment to revisit the idea of reverting to a version before Taksen began editing, as suggested at the very top of this thread. Jack Upland has weighed in against the idea so more discussion will be needed before we're all on the same page, but I thought I'd start with you to see how much more open to the idea you are than you were before. That doesn't mean there's nothing worth keeping in the current version (though, frankly, that wouldn't surprise me) but it seems to me that selectively adding back the good will be much easier than trying to remove the huge amounts of bad. EEng 20:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

One option might be to check whatever other encyclopedia or biographical dictionary articles on the subject can be readily found, and, maybe, if any are PD, you the PD ones as the "first draft," adding further data and information as it appears in others. Finding more "secondary" sources later would probably be comparatively easy, particularly if one also looked to see which sources are referred to in the bibliographies of those articles. John Carter (talk) 21:45, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I suppose that's possible, but I suspect anything PD would be hopelessly out of date. I don't even know where to start to look, but if someone comes up with something along those lines of course we should consider it. In the meantime, can you take a look at the version linked in my OP? I think the situation is desperate and (IMHO) reverting to that, or some other version from around that time, would be an immense improvement (at least it's readable) and we can work from there. Notice that your proposal and the revert-to-way-back proposal both agree on one thing: the current version is unsalvageable. EEng 21:54, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Support reversion to some earlier version, and the one suggested is probably at least as good as any others. this page might contain a decent recent bio. John Carter (talk) 22:22, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Doesn't look like the article you linked is PD or CC-licensed, but it does look like a good model to follow to make sure we're not leaving out any important aspects of the subject. EEng 22:29, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

There is an old PD Encyclopedia Britannica article over at wikisource:1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rasputin, Gregory Efimovitch, but, like you said, it might well be dated. John Carter (talk) 22:34, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I think it's beyond debate that for this topic, nothing (in any language) before the Krushchev era (at the earliest) can possibly be taken as a reliable source other than for its own content. (One of the problems with the current article is its frequent reliance on stuff from the 1920s and 30s.) It's interesting, though. EEng 22:49, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Taksen's contributions are here: [7]. His first edit to the article was this: [8]. The previous version is this: [9]; I don't think that early version is adequate however. I am indeed concerned about Taksens's competence level on this article (the fact that he has created quotation captions which are not even exact quotations but apparently composites of two different sources is to me indicative of the sort of problem we're dealing with), but I don't know precisely where the article entered a problematic zone. Perhaps an intermediary version can be selected that has good material but which has not yet crossed over into problematic territory. Or perhaps sections of early versions can be substituted for current sections which are problematical. Softlavender (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

nfortunately that's not all of Taksen's edits, because the tool gives a max of 500 edits -- and that takes us back only to mid-2016. The history "slice" I linked in my post opening this thread includes Taksen's earliest edits (Feb 2013). The real trouble begins with an edit in Oct 2013 adding 14K; the result is nothing like as bad as what we see in the article now, but the signs are there, hidden notes and all. That's why I've focused on the Feb-Oct 2013 period as containing the probable best target for reversion. EEng 01:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

It is all of his edits; to view the earlier ones click "Next 500 results". Softlavender (talk) 02:09, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Oops, I never noticed that. Anyway, my other points stand. I forgot to add (responding to your last points) that I think all the sections are problematic, so we might as well do a complete revert to a versions that's acceptable (I'm not married to any particular one, but I'm pretty sure it's in 2013 somewhere). Anything useful from the current version can be cannibalized and inserted into the reverted version. EEng 02:47, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

!votes on reversion

• Support reversion to this or similar version of the article. I am also willing to help trim/clean up the article from its current state, but that is going to be one heck of a time sink for multiple people. Happy to help either way, but reluctant to spend too much time on cleanup until a decision is reached one way or the other. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:07, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support reversion to version linked by Fyddlestix == which happens to be the one I pointed to in my OP, though if someone finds a better version to use please speak up. I'm sure there would be no problem adjusting consensus any version that seems better. (Pinging others who have expressed an opinion on this elsewhere on this page, or otherwise participated, so maybe we can get to a conclusion on this: Martinevans123, Jack Upland, I JethroBT, Taksen, Shearonink, John Carter, Antonioatrylia. Sorry, Softlavender, for all the pings recently.) EEng 04:32, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support I am happy to help with the article either way, but it maybe easier to use the previous version. I will hold off on filling the references that are incomplete until a decision is made. Someone please give me a ping when a decision is made. Thanks. Antonioatrylia (talk) 10:41, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Shearonink (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I was asked to comment here by EEng (not an issue for canvassing as I have disagreed with EEng before and he had no reason to expect any particular opinion from me). And I know little about Rasputin except from the Boiled in Lead song. But too much of the present version reads like a fictionalized biography for children, with all the more adult controversies glossed over and with made-up-sounding details of unwitnessed events added in their place, leading me not to have much confidence in it. The Fyddlestix version has some issues, too, but at least looks like an encyclopedic base for a new start. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:32, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
• Undecided — I can see arguments on both sides.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
• Noting that Martinevans123 supported reversion elsewhere on this page, we've got six editors supporting reversion and one on the fence. Therefore I'll wait a day or two more, then revert as proposed. EEng 22:29, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Reverted

OK, I done it, and followed up in two ways. First, I imported such of the images that were in the prior version that I thought would be useful (thought that makes the article way overloaded with images for now -- layout or size changes might help). Second, I substituted the trimmed "Attempted assassination" section, as discussed elsewhere on this page. EEng 07:08, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Then let us begin...

An easy section to start with is Assassination Attempt, which currently reads thus:

On 27/28 June, Rasputin arrived from the capital in Pokrovskoe. Around 3:00 pm on Sunday 12 July [O.S. 29 June] 1914, Rasputin went out from the house in reply to a telegram he had received from the Tsarina on the threat of war. At that moment, he was suddenly approached by what looked like a beggar. When Rasputin was checking his pockets for money, this woman, the 33-years old Khionia Guseva who had her face concealed with a black kerchief, pulled out a dagger. She stabbed Rasputin in the stomach, just above the navel. Rasputin asserted that he ran down the street with his hands on his belly. Guseva claimed that she chased him, but Rasputin grabbed a stick from the ground and hit her. Covered with blood, Rasputin was brought into his house. A doctor from a neighboring village gave first aid. The next day, Alexandr Vladimirov arrived from Tyumen and assessed the mesentery was scraped.

On Thursday, Rasputin was transported by steamboat to Tyumen, accompanied by his wife and daughter. The Tsarina sent her own physician, Roman Vreden and after a laparotomy and more than six weeks in the hospital, where he had to walk around in a gown, unable to wear ordinary clothes, Rasputin recovered. On 17 August, he left the hospital; by mid-September he was back in Petrograd. According to his daughter Maria Rasputin was never the same man afterwards and started to drink dessert wines. (N.B. Since the beginning of the war, the manufacture, and sale of vodka was forbidden. It is likely Rasputin drank sweet or semi-sweet Crimean or Georgian wine.) Rasputin believed that Iliodor and Vladimir Dzhunkovsky had organized the attack.

A few days later Iliodor, dressed as a woman, fled all the way around the Gulf of Bothnia to Christiania. Guseva, a fanatically religious woman who had been his adherent in earlier years, "denied Iliodor's participation, declaring that she attempted to kill Rasputin because he was spreading temptation among the innocent." On 12 October 1914, the investigator declared that Iliodor was guilty of inciting the murder, but the local procurator decided to suspend any action against him for undisclosed reasons. Guseva was locked in a madhouse in Tomsk and a trial was avoided. The Tsar ordered more measures to protect Rasputin's life.

References

References

That text is almost completely tangential detail, some of it absurd (such as what the attacker was wearing, the name of the steamboat, and what Rasputin wore in the hospital), much of it is cited to completely unusable sources, and has that bizarre footnote. I propose rewriting it thus:

On 12 July [O.S. 29 June] 1914 Rasputin was stabbed in the stomach by 33-years old Khionia Guseva. The Tsarina's own physician was sent to attend him and he recovered after more than a month six weeks in the hospital. According to his daughter Maria, Rasputin was very much changed by the experience and began to drink alcohol.

Rasputin believed that Iliodor and Vladimir Dzhunkovsky had organized the attack. Iliodor fled to Christiania and though the investigator declared that Iliodor had incited the murder the local procurator suspended action against him for undisclosed reasons. Guseva was committed as insane and never tried. The Tsar ordered more measures to protect Rasputin's life.

References

Thoughts, please. EEng 05:20, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's good to trim away the inessential details.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:29, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Your version is much easier to read, but I think you may have trimmed too much. I found the narrative in that first paragraph quite gripping, so I think the details of stabbing should remain, if written in a slightly more flowing way. It all seems well-sourced. I'd also keep a bit about his time to recover and the dessert wines (possibly with the vodka as an actual useful hidden note), which surely is crucial to our understanding of Rasputin (- that he became effectively an alcoholic?) I'd also keep the mesentery, but then I do like the gory details. Tempted also to keep the transvestite disguise. But the rest, especially all the hidden notes, could certainly go. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:09, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that colorful stuff like the beggar costume and black kerchief are sourced to the daughter's 1929 book, which isn't an RS for obvious reasons. (That's why the bit about taking up alcohol is explicitly attributed to her -- and I'm not even sure that should be kept without a secondary source.) Please add back details you think are valuable, but please consider in each case whether it's sourced reliably; any detail that's no so sourced we're going to have to leave by the wayside. EEng 17:06, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's perfectly fair. Your version would be a sound place from which to re-start. Even your version has three "cn" tags? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:12, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Surely we should at least say where the attack took place? (The earlier version implies that it was on the street near his residence, and Khioniya Guseva states that it was in Pokrovskoye.) "33-years-old" comes off as unidiomatic and misplaced, and doesn't describe her background nor another salient feature that wouldn't be obvious to non-Russians from the name: that the attacker was a woman. And I don't see a good reason to vary from the transliteration of her name in our article about her. So I would replace that part by "...stabbed in the stomach by Khioniya Guseva, a 33-year-old peasant woman who had previously been a follower of Iliodor." (assuming we can source the Iliodor part properly). —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Proceed! EEng 00:44, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Article overhaul

Per the discussions above, EEng reverted to an older version of the article here. I've been working on fixing up the lede and early life sections today, and... there is still a lot of work to do. This version of the article is much better but it's still in poor shape: bad sources, contradicts itself, basic factual errors (like wrong birth dates), undue weight on fringe theories. Lots of stuff wholly un-referenced.

I begin to understand how the article got as bloated as it was: sources on Rasputin vary widely in terms of quality, and there is a crapton of legend and misinformation out there. Even the types of sources that we'd normally think of as quite reliable seem to conflict on certain points, and it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff (and fact from legend).

I think it's worth having a conversation early on about which sources we can trust. What are some of the best sources available? Today I've been working off some academic encyclopedias, Rasputin: The Untold Story and Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs. So far, I can tell that Furhmann gives some of the third- and fourth-hand info about Rasputin a lot more credence than Smith (he reports things as facts that Smith rejects as legends). Anyone have issue with either of these? What other sources might we try to use as a foundation/baseline? It seems like newer work (by writers who had post-Soviet-era access to Russian archives) is way more useful than older stuff (like Massie). Fyddlestix (talk) 06:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

First of all, your hard work so far is much appreciated. The conflict-of-sources problem is a very hard one for this topic, for the reason you indicate: in addition to the usual phenomenon of sources simply having different interpretations of facts, we have the additional dimension that some sources are working from a vastly widened base of primary material, and it's hard to know (for any given conflicting conclusion) which cause is more at work. Certainly anything before the 1960s is completely unusable except as a primary source, and see the excellent Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history). Unfortunately AFAIK (but maybe I just don't know) no one source is universally recognized as authoritative, so I fear that there will be no getting away from the "There is controversy about..."/"Sources disagree on..." style for many subtopics esp. his personal life, his role in bringing on the revolution, and his death. (And that's just about everything!)

I wish I could say that I stand ready to help with all that, but try as I might I just can't get myself excited enough about this topic that I want to go get all the sources and plow through them. I'll be happy to copyedit if someone pings me. EEng 10:30, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Drive-by source evaluations

I spent a few minutes with most of the English-language sources that happened to be on the shelf at (ahem) a modest local library last night, and here's my very superficial evaluation of them, for what's it's worth:

Well-researched, clear sources and citations:

• Cook, To kill Rasputin : the life and death of Gregori Rasputin (2005)
• Fuhrmann, Rasputin : the untold story (2013)
• (I was unable to look at Smith, but from what I know it should fall in this group.)

Unclear in its sourcing and the basis for its opinions:

• Moynahan, Rasputin : the saint who sinned
• Radzinskiĭ, The Rasputin file

Primary:

• Rasputina (daughter), Rasputin, the man behind the myth, a personal memoir
• Purishkevich, The murder of Rasputin

Couldn't decide, for some reason that escapes me now:

• De Jonge, The life and times of Grigorii Rasputin (1982)

EEng 22:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

A yes, "modest!"

This is helpful, thanks! I am planning a library trip myself this week to get my hands on some of these (Radzinksii, Cook, and some others) but so far still only have Smith and Fuhrmann's 2012 book on hand. Fyddlestix (talk) 22:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not only my favorite place in the world, I'm proud to say it's one of my 7-yo nephew's favorite places too. He loves books. If you need something special that's cataloged here [10] I can take a look for you. I can also get you almost any published paper. EEng 23:15, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Great work, everyone! EEng 23:34, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Image placement violates MOS:SANDWICH and WP:IMGLOC

Per MOS:SANDWICH and WP:IMGLOC: "Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, or between an image and an infobox or similar." Could someone fix this issue by moving or deleting the images that sandwich text? Softlavender (talk) 13:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The images seemed like one of the few things worth salvaging from the article prior to the revert, so I retrieved them and stuffed them wherever I could. My experience is that it's a waste to try to remedy img placement/sizing problems while article text is under active development, because as text is added, deleted, and moved around it usually becomes apparent what to do with the images. In this case, probably a lot of them should be deleted (how many portraits of R do we need?) but I don't know which just now. So my recommendation is to just put up with it until the text settles down. EEng 16:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I did an initial trim and put everything on the right for now, largely because I find it awkward to edit/re-write the page with images all over the place. Feel free to restore anything I removed if you think it's useful - they can always be put back later. In general I agree that final decisions on what images to use (and where to put them) can wait until the page re-vamp is complete and it's relatively stable. Fyddlestix (talk) 22:40, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• 
  Rasputin's piercing eyes were often commented upon.
• 
  Rasputin, 1908
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  Note from Rasputin to minister Khvos­tov. According to Shelley the Tsarina taught Rasputin to write.< ref>Shelley, p. 54</ref>
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  Rasputin, Hermogen and Iliodor in 1906
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  The Moika Palace, along the Moika River, where Rasputin was supposedly lured and murdered
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  Rasputin's corpse
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  Rasputin with prince M. Putyatin, since 1911 Head of the Palace Board and colonel D. Loman on the rightside, photo by Karl Bulla, 1907 or 1908?

Reference style

Does anyone object to me implementing a single reference style throughout the article? I have been using the {{rp}} template to incorporate page numbers but I now realize that was probably a mistake, since the page numbers are getting a bit unwieldily/distracting in the article text and we now have mis-matched ref styles. It would be nice to make it consistent, my suggestion would be a conversion to author-date references using the {{harvnb}} template, as described here, as this would cut down on the clutter considerably. I'm happy to do the work of reformatting the refs (though it might take a little time), but I know it's important to get consensus first. Fyddlestix (talk) 05:39, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't like {{rp}}. Other than getting that off my chest (even though you said your plan is to move away from it), no objection. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:42, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, I hate so-called Harvard refs (at Harvard they're called Princeton refs; at Princeton they're called Yale refs; at Yale they don't know what a ref even is) and have no love for {rp} either, but I love its grown-up cousin {r}, which tremendously reduces visual clutter in the wikitext and in the rendered endmatter. The little superscript page numbers seem odd at first, but quickly fade from consciousness. Take a look at Widener Library -- see how clean the wikitext is, and without millions of teensy footnotes at the end giving just author and page number. But it's up to you since you're doing all the work (and good work it is!). EEng 10:07, 5 March 2017 (UTC)