This is an archive of past discussions about COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
reason 1. I saw that people are only editing the total number of recovered patients, they are not adding in which day they got recovered - already we have empty cell on 31 March,
reason 2. from our google docs source we have only total number of recovered not per day,
Please state Support, Oppose, and/or Comment thx, Natanieluz (talk) 15:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment Google docs is even worse than twitter as an unreliable source. I shifted the google docs URL to External Links since this clearly violates Wikipedia sourcing policy, such as WP:RS. My guess is that people prefer to type in URLs in a pastebin independently of Wikipedia, and they are familiar with google docs as an authoritarian, centralised, privacy-violating server that provides pastebins as one of the ways to collect users' data (IP number, date/time of connecting, social habits, friend network, and so on) and sell that data: the complete opposite of Wikipedia. Boud (talk) 17:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment@Boud: Iam not saying that we should remove the WHOLE column, but if Iam not wrong that will exacly happend when you (someone) remove the possibility to add recovered people on "whatever" day. In short: I think that we should stay only with total number of recovered people rather than day by day adding (new) numbers to certain day- only on bottom should be "Total recovered" with source/sources - like we have on the main page (Recovered: 52 [source][source2] )Natanieluz (talk) 17:36, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Proposal B. I'm not sure if this is exactly what is intended in the original version, so let's have version B be: B.1allow tolerate references in the "td" element (,,pozycja") in the "Total" row/"Recovered" column ; and B.2 allow per-day recovered values to remain with just a {{cn}}{{citation needed in table}} tag and not be deleted quickly; and B.3 add a note that the total recovered value may differ from the sum of the per-day recovered values due to missing data.Boud (talk) 19:32, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Support B.1 and B.2 and B.3. Reason for B.1: Hopefully we may often find some references for the total number of recovered. So often there will be a properly sourced total number. Reasons for B.2+B.3: Some people may wish to add per-day recovery values later on; and some may search for sources later on. Independently, if we do not have per-day recovery values in this table, then we would have to remove them from the horizontal bar chart. This would not only be discouraging (which strictly speaking is not an encyclopedic argument), but also there would be constant edit wars with people who wish to restore the total-per-day recovered values. It would be better to have unsourced values with {{cn}} tags, that hopefully will be fixed in the future, rather than no values at all. Boud (talk) 19:32, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Support B.3 agree 100% with B.3, and slightly Support B.2-only if I understand that correctly - add [citation needed] to every empty day? (day which not given number of recovered patients in that specific day, for e.g. we have no information on 31 March and 1 April so there gone be {{cn}} tags?) Natanieluz (talk) 20:14, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Clarification: B.2 is only meant if someone puts a number at the position in the table. If it's empty, then the proposal is not to put a {{cn}} tag. Also, as long as nobody objects to/deletes the new template I just made, we should use {{Citation needed in table}}, so that the small-font superscript[cn] is narrow rather than wide. And in B.1, I changed "allow" to "tolerate". The connotation in English is that this means we do not encourage numbers without references, but we accept them as the "least bad" thing (like voting for politicians in elections...). Boud (talk) 20:39, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Support: Great idea. We should also remove the whole row "Total", because it is obvious that the values of the last day will be the sum / current value. Kendokoluszki (talk) 14:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment removing the "Total" cell isn't a good idea, when someone visits our page that person will propably look for total number not day by day (per day) numbers. The total number should be clearly visible to everyone. Natanieluz (talk) 16:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kendokoluszki: Are you supporting B.1 or B.2 or B.3 or several of these? At the moment the only point I see that has active consensus (rather than passive consensus; which means "no objections") is B.3: add a note that the total recovered value may differ from the sum of the per-day recovered values due to missing data.Boud (talk) 19:31, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
UPDATE: @Boud:, @Kendokoluszki:, @Andreiii3213: and to everyone interested: as of today MOHPL provide recovered patients in there daily stats 116 recovered, so now we have option to remove daily recovered and stay only with total (like I oryginally propose) (coz now we have "confirmed" recovered from MOHPL) or stay with unofficial and official ones with same table, but according to "our" sources we have 117, according to MOHPL latest tweet we have - 116 Natanieluz (talk) 11:19, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@Natanieluz: You seem to say that one option (your original one?) is to blank out all of the column except for the row with the total: but people would then say that the whole column should be deleted, because a column with no data except for a total is inefficient use of space, and typical readers will wonder why the column is empty. I think it's safest to stick with B.3, but B.1 would help too. Boud (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
With B.1, we would have the total directly referenced to the MOH count, and with B.3, we have a warning to the reader that the numbers may not add up properly. Boud (talk) 13:28, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@Natanieluz: I support both B.1 and B.3. (I already did B.3, since it seems to be uncontroversial.) I think the two would go best together, because when there's a difference between the sum of the daily values and the official sum, it's best to have the reference for the official sum in that position (cell) in the table. Boud (talk) 14:48, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Oppose: Please note that due to government restriction on publishing data per powiats this map will be soon traversing around artistic/own-source/non-source zone. Megaemce (talk) 05:48, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment: @Megaemce"government restriction on publishing data per powiats"? I've never heard of such a restriction. Besides, the map exists in the Polish version of the article, and you are a co-author of the map (good for you, by the way). If there is any restriction, it should be valid in Polish Wikipedia as well. You wrote "traversing around artistic/own-source/non-source zone". I can only guess what you meant. Did you use Google Translator? You can "traverse a zone", but not "around a zone". However, "traversing [an] artistic zone" still sounds weird. 85.193.250.200 (talk) 09:29, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
The fact that you didn't heard about it does not means that it's not happening (another link). I raised this complaint in Polish Wikipedia as well. PS. Thanks a lot for personal attack. Much appreciate. I took the word from climbing terminology so that's why you probably didn't get it. Megaemce (talk) 09:54, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@Megaemce If you point out my language mistakes, I will not call it a personal attack. Just the opposite - I will be very, very grateful to you, and will thank you because you improve my language skills. But you don't appreciate my efforts and time. Instead, you accuse me of making a personal attack. My biggest problem with English is that my native English readers try to be nice and never correct my language mistakes, even if I ask them to do it. Please, try to look at it from my perspective. I am not your enemy. Besides, I praised you for the map - the phrase "good for you" is very common and was used by me without any sarcasm. In Polish it means "Chwała ci za to". I also praised you in the Polish article talk. Your map is very good, and I really appreciate your contribution. 85.193.250.200 (talk) 11:14, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes. For now we are keeping the data accurate as much as possible (and sourced) but I can't guarantee it forever. Keeping the powiats checks was (is) a pretty easy job, but keeping the number up to date is just over my personal capacity. Megaemce (talk) 17:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the clarification. It was already a herculean enough task to do the binary map (yes/no). We could add the non-binary graph as a link (with no image shown) in External links. Boud (talk) 15:02, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment - independently, thanks for the links and info on the (unwritten?) order forbidding local authorities from distributing info on infections per powiat. The claim is that this is for privacy reasons such as RODO. With about 100,000 inhabitants per powiat, and about (order of magnitude) 1400 people per age-in-years, and about 700 people of a given-gender-per-age-in-years, it still wouldn't be so easy to identify the person. WP:BLP issues would come up on en.Wikipedia if the person were clearly identified, but one in a group of 700 or so - with no public database listing details of that group of 700 people - doesn't sound to me like a BLP identification issue. Boud (talk) 13:10, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Table "New confirmed cases[n 1][156] of SARS-CoV-2 in Poland by voivodeship"
Don't you think that assigning 2 or more sources for number of cases per voivodship inside the table is too generous and causes problem with its legibiity and size? PLease have look int that and cnsider reducig it to max 1 source link per number, or link sources for the totals only which are provided by the authorities?
Thank you! #77.253.105.52 (talk) 18:15, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The Ministry does not provide counts of new cases per day per voivodeship. It typically provides up to 3-4 updates per day, and each of these lists the numbers of new cases per voivodeship. If you have a look at the reference names, you'll see that they have the number of new cases per voivodeship coded in the name for that particular announcement. This helps make it easier to sort out any errors or inconsistencies.
Having proper sourcing is not a question of generosity, it's one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia: information has to be verifiable. The sources are not there to impress readers and pretend that we know what we're doing. If you check them yourself, you'll understand why they are there. You can look around at other COVID-19 pandemic pages, and you'll see quite a few other wide tables with detailed sources. Boud (talk) 19:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
77.253.*.*/Netia user: you are welcome to get excited about the table if you wish, but this talk page is for concrete discussion, including arguments for/against particular edits or editing strategies; "madness" is not an argument, it only expresses your level of excitement. Boud (talk) 12:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Man, it is helpless. Is the table meant to be your tool for source registering or for communicating the data to readers? Especally that the data is the same as published on the government page. What is the improvement of data if you add 20 more tweet sources to each cell? Think a little. You have in absolute most of the cells the same sources linked. It is really mad. #77.255.53.14 (talk) 11:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Answering your questions/sentences in order: It's for both. Without the sources, we would present beliefs instead of encyclopedic knowledge. If you make the effort to look at the references, then you will see that almost none of the data we have are from "government pages". Unfortunately, the Ministry of Health does not publish this full data on its web pages (as far as we know). Instead, the data come from Ministry of Health tweets, published on a server in California, which is not in Poland, and not even in the European Union. Next, if you check the table carefully, you will see that the Ministry totals disagree with the individual tweets. Wikipedia does not decide what the truth is, but we have to say what sources we use and how we use them. When the Ministry says that 19+6+8=14, the reader has to decide for him/herself how to interpret the Ministry data, whether the true total is 33 or 14. Without the sources, it would be impossible to give the reader the choice. We do not have any cells with 20 tweet sources, so the following question is invalid. Using a single source for multiple pieces of information, and showing which pieces of information they justify, is called inline sourcing; we need to associate a given bit of material in an article with the specific reliable source(s) that support it. Again, "madness" is an expression of your emotions; it is not an argument. Boud (talk) 23:19, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
thx to our incompetent gov we have ~100-150 missing cases yesterday (4 April 2020), they didn't tweet the evening update so today we have cases from yesterday + from today... Natanieluz (talk) 10:17, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think there's much point trying to "force" the Masovian cases that are obviously from 4 April, but officially counted on the morning of 5 April, to make them "Wikipedia-officially" 4 April. If the MOH decides to "catch up" tonight and include Masovia 5 April counts this evening (UTC+2), then the average of 4+5 April will be visible by eye and our brains will smooth over - and people doing quantitative analyses will be able to average this out too. If the MOH decides on a permanent shift - each Masovia count for day X appears on the morning of day X+1, then that would be statistically disruptive, but in the long run will only cause a small bias. Boud (talk) 14:59, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Unless there is any credible evidence or report about tampering or compromising of the verified account of the Ministry of Health of Poland on Twitter, I think it can be assumed that the information is valid. The same claim about tampering can be done about official platforms used by many Governments with proprietary software, third party hosting, etc. I don't think this is a valid concern, just speculation. --MarioGom (talk) 16:15, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
We can't assume that the information is valid. What we can assume is that this is the best information we have and that hidden editing of individual tweets is unlikely (I've never heard claims of Twitter doing that). The term verified account is a statement by a private company outside of the European Union with no legal meaning to the statement: it means that "Twitter believes". My guess is that it's true, but that's my private guess; we can't use the term "verified" in a literal sense. This is not crucial: in terms of Wikipedia sourcing, we don't have any sources with absolute truth; we just use the best sources we can. That's not quite the same as "valid".
The fact that the Ministry is almost certainly violating the GDPR (pl: RODO) (EU privacy laws) - because it forces EU citizens who want critical information on the Polish health situation to provide their IP data to an entity outside of the EU - is a de facto privacy violation of EU (including Polish) law by the MOH that is not directly a problem for Wikipedia. And to some degree Wikipedians help to weaken this GDPR violation by providing archived versions of the tweets: users clicking on the archived versions provide their data to the archivers, but archivers are more likely to allow access over Tor (anonymity network) or other privacy protecting methods than Twitter (I haven't checked). On the other hand, the massive shift to online existence during this pandemic is putting a lot of pressure on children and adults around the world to massively violate their privacy by providing privacy-violating organisations with huge amounts of private data to store in their databases - including detailed psychological and intellectual profiles of children from around the world. We don't want to encourage that in the WMF wikis. Boud (talk) 10:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
MarioGom I don't see what's stuck in the discussion. There's no dispute about using the MOH data. There's only a problem with saying that we "assume" that the MOH data is correct. We only have to assume that it's the best data that we have, and for simplicity, corrections are adding in notes or other columns, so that anyone wishing to use the data seriously can make the corrections that s/he considers most reasonable. Boud (talk) 14:39, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
New map?
Why do we have a new map on Infobox? It's another time when Ythlev changed one of the maps and this time the change was not removed. Do we really need "Confirmed cases per million inhabitants by province" instead of "Map of voivodeships with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases"? Kendokoluszki (talk) 15:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ythlev: Given that the voivodeships of Poland have within a factor of about two of 2 million inhabitants each, and the pandemic is by nature exponential, not much additional information is provided by per capita maps. In other words, showing a scale that would have been useless during the beginning phases, and might become useless in the later phases, makes it harder for regular readers of the page to judge the evolution of the pandemic in Poland. Ythlev's map would also require editor(s) of the dynamic map (mostly just Nadzik) to completely redo the individual per-day pages, and having a colour-scale that evolves with time would make the dynamic map extremely difficult to understand (it might look pretty, but it would not be informative).
In any case, Ythlev should propose this first on the talk page if s/he really wants to propose it here. It's clear that Ythlev has had a bit of difficulty in understanding the collaborative nature of Wikipedia pages. Boud (talk) 16:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
has had a bit of difficulty in understanding the collaborative nature of Wikipedia pages. What? I make these maps for 18 countries/places, and for the US (2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States), someone removed all the other maps except mine. So I think you don't understand it. a scale that would have been useless during the beginning phases, and might become useless in the later phases. have within a factor of about two of 2 million inhabitants each. You can still compare it with other countries. the dynamic map (mostly just Nadzik) to completely redo the individual per-day pages. Are you editing an article based on whether something can potentially be made? Really? Ythlev (talk) 16:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I would actually remove the "Map of voivodeships with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases (as of 25 March)", because it have less information then Ythlev's one. Ythlev's map shows likeliness of getting infected. I would also replace the old map with "An animated map of the confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases", which informs nicely about the spread of virus. BartłomiejN (talk) 18:15, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
If there are three maps in the article, it's no problem for me. I just have a request, and I think many will support me in this, Ythlev could you change the colors in the map to match the colors of the other maps in the article and remove the legend from the map itself and add it to the description?
Ythlev - you do not have consensus on this page to replace any of the existing maps by your map. Some discussion has started. You are welcome to propose that your map be used here, and then we will look at arguments for and against as specific proposal. Please keep in mind the discretionary sanctions that are enabled for all COVID-19 related pages.
Kendokoluszki, BartłomiejN: I think we need some more specific proposals. The pandemic is exponential in nature. That's why until now we've had a scale 1, 2-9, 10-99, 100-999, with colours (presently commented) ready for 1000-9999 and, just in case, 10000-99999. A factor of two smaller or greater does not mean much. Haven't you noticed the "sudden" changes in political decision-making in Poland and elsewhere? 10 is a lot bigger than 1, but both can psychologically be seen as small numbers. 100 seems a lot bigger than 10, and 1000 is a lot bigger than 100. Each time the factor of ten is the same. But 10000 people infected, or 100 deaths (in Italy, France, ...) suddenly starts becoming frightening. Focussing on small variations of a factor of two or three is epidemiologically a lot less meaningful than the powers of ten. And that applies for the likelihood of being infected, which depends on many factors; the average number of people infected per voivodeship per inhabitant is important, but the concentration of inhabitants in big cities versus villages, the usage of public transport, access and understanding of information and advice, degree of carrying out social distancing, also count. We could in principle have many maps weighted for one or many of these factors.
@Nadzik: You should comment here too. We might need to make this discussion more structured if it gets too confused about what is being proposed and what the arguments are. Boud (talk) 20:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
The problem with the new map is that it does not follow the established colour pattern. It doesn't also provide the data that people are looking for in the infobox. The type of data your map presents would be most useful in a table form at the end of the pandemic. Thanks @Boud: for pinging me here! Cheers! Nadzik (talk) 23:16, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
The pandemic is exponential in nature. A map with only two colours directly contradicts that buddy. The growth is exponential. The difference from place to place is not. It only spans multiple orders of magnitude for case counts when the areas have vastly different populations (which is not the case), and not for cases per capita. A place where you are twice as likely to be infected than another is a huge difference. I don't know where you obsession with 10s come from but it is clearly irrational. Ythlev (talk) 02:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Support@Boud: As Ythlev said, the grow is exponential but it is hard to compare anything if you have only two (we will have only one in no time) colours. Maybe we can just change the colour pattern of this map (I like Ythlev pattern better but yea) as Nadzik said. I also like that this new map have legend inside, which at least for me is better, because you can quickly reference colours. We can also hide maps as Ythlev did. It will declutter this article a little bit. BartłomiejN (talk) 10:24, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Ythlev: Firstly, stop violating WP:CIVIL. Stating that I have an "obsession" is a personal attack and irrelevant to editing. It distracts from the discussion. Stating that it is "irrational" to talk about factors of 10s is also getting close to a personal attack. I propose that you apologise.
Secondly, It only spans multiple orders of magnitude for case counts when the areas have vastly different populations, and not for cases per capita. Let's look at data per capita:
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million DE on 30 March: 689
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million CZ on 30 March: 279
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million SK on 29 March: 62
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million LT on 30 March: 176
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million RU on 30 March: 13
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million BY on 30 March: 16
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million UA on 30 March: 11
SARS-CoV-2 infections/million PL on 30 March: 54
Your two claims in the quote are incorrect: DE and RU differ in population by only half an order of magnitude (not "vastly" different), but DE has a 1.5 orders of magnitude (factor of 31) greater number of infections, and a 1.7 orders of magnitude (factor of 70) greater per-capita infection rate. CZ and BY have almost identical populations, but CZ has a 1.3 orders of magnitude (factor of 20) greater number of infections, and a 1.2 orders of magnitude (factor of 17) greater per capita infection rates.
A factor of two is small in this context. The fact that the spread across Poland is close to homogeneous within an order of magnitude at a given time is epidemiologically useful information; growth from 1 to 10 to 100 cases per voivodeship is more significant than factor of two differences. Boud (talk) 10:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for this data, it clearly shows that Germany is in worse situation then Czech, and Poland in little bit better then Slovakia. The same can be tell if we will have this per capita, per Voivodeships map. If you will take only numbers of infected then you actually have little knowledge on situation of particular place. From per capita map you can estimate likelihood of seeing infected person (of course they are in quarantine but that is not the point of this data).BartłomiejN (talk) 11:15, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Using a map to show that the infection is "close to homogeneous" is like using File:United Nations Members (green–grey scheme).svg, a map removed for being completely useless. Not to mention 87 and 23 are not "close" at all. Different countries have different measures, so infection rate would differ a bit more, but even then, the figures you provide span two orders. Two. Ythlev (talk) 11:29, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ythlev: I'm still waiting for the apology. See above. This is not so much for me, it's rather for other people who would like to participate in this or other Wikipedia discussion and decision-making. Again, please read WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. Boud (talk) 19:49, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Regarding support or oppose statements. These don't make sense when we don't have a clear, concrete proposal or list of proposals. Boud (talk) 10:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Could we list problems, which we have with map per capita and address the issues? I am starting to wonder what it actually is. I am sorry I do not know what procedure should we use for that. I am quite new on Wikipedia discussions. BartłomiejN (talk) 11:15, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Several of the problems are listed above, but it'll be easier to start fresh with a concrete proposal. (For Wikipedia procedures, explore talk pages, and you'll see a variety of procedures, some more informal, some more structured.) Boud (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Proposal: normalised voivodeship map
Proposal A.both Add a map, which will be hidden by default with a "show" button, below the three existing maps (powiaty, counts per voivodeship, dynamic counts per voivodeship), that keeps the colour scale
10000–99999 confirmed cases (not yet used)
1000–9999 confirmed cases (not yet used)
100–999 confirmed cases
10–99 confirmed cases
2–9 confirmed cases
1 confirmed case
but is normalised by population and area. Normalise by round numbers reasonable for Poland, so that these scales only differ a little from the other maps: this means "the count per 2 million inhabitants per 20,000 square km". Reason for normalising by 2 million people and 20,000 sq km: there are 16 voivodeships; the population is about 38 million; the area is about 313,000 sq km; 38.386/16 = 2.399, 312696/16 = 19543. Motivation: this map will not show the real probability of being infected, but for the hypothetical case of someone dropping with a parachute at a random position in Poland, this would give a major part of the probability of the parachutist becoming infected if s/he starts walking around randomly after landing and approaches as many people as s/he can.
Proposal A.pop Same as A.both, but only normalise by 2 million inhabitants (not area).
Proposal A.area Same as A.both, but only normalise by 20,000 square km (not population).
Proposal A.ones Same A.both, but normalise by 1 million people (half the population of a typical voivodeship) and 10,000 square km (half the area of a typical voivodeship). Disavantage: difficult to mentally reconvert to Polish situation. Advantage: easier to compare to other parts of the world.
Please state Support A.both or Oppose A.both, and so on, for one or more options, giving epidemiological or other reasons, or Comment. Please try to propose alternatives or variations unambiguously (e.g. for proposing a different colour scale, show the RGB hexadecimal colours as above). Boud (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Support A.pop and Support A.ones like other Polish neighbors maps on Wikipedia, I think that map per 1 or 2 million inhabitants will be the best, for e.g. [1](map by Ythlev) - here you have per million and that (in my opinion) looks the best. Natanieluz (talk) 15:42, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Clarification?: Are you proposing to modify the colour scale proposed above - the one used in our other voivodeship maps? If yes, then are you proposing a colour scale that changes every few days or week or so? If yes, then why? Presently we have an epidemiological colour scale, because the topic is a pandemic. Boud (talk) 14:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@Boud: stay with the colors theme that we have right now, but with that map from@Ythlev: -we see this map below -(only change colors theme to the same as we have on other maps) Natanieluz (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Support A.pop and Support A.ones same as Natanieluz. Map per 1 million seams to be "normal"/standard. I do not see why we should use "by 2 millions". Also, we should not have this "per 20,000 square km" (Maybe it is ok we want to compare ex. RU with PL), because every voivodeship have area represented by the map. In this case you will be able to compare voivodeship as they are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BartłomiejN (talk • contribs) 16:21, 31 March 2020 (UTC) BartłomiejN (talk) 11:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Clarification?: The reason for using "by 2 millions" is that this is a map for Poland, and the average population per voivodeship is roughly 2 million. Could you please clarify "I kind of the promises of that ex. RU"? The chance of getting infected from SARS-CoV-2 for someone travelling randomly around Russia (e.g. by car or foot) is tiny, because the chance of meeting a human is tiny compared to say, randomly travelling in the Netherlands; trying to estimate a factor for infection probability from a per-capita map assumes that you meet the same number of people in either a big area or a small area. Boud (talk) 14:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
About this "I kind of the promises of that ex. RU", it should mean that I know why you want this and you have wrote about it above. Sorry for my bad English. About "by 2 millions", if you will count per million, you will actually get percentage of infecter/not infected. My reasoning is that if we will take population of 2 millions with 500 cases then we will get 250 cases per milion (ppm). If this is not right I would like to remove my support and propose that we can go with counting per capita, which will show us in what degree each voivodeship is infected.BartłomiejN (talk) 11:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
How many maps? I say one or two. Maybe three with two hidden by default.
What type? I say cases per million as the main or second map, as do most users.
What colours to use? There are conventions for this but the world map and ones on this page use this weird black–red–yellow scheme which I have no idea where it came from but it sure is ugly.
What thresholds to use? The current figures (cases per million) are all between 10 and 99, so unless a single-coloured map is somehow useful, I say the thresholds have no reason to be powers of 10. Ythlev (talk) 18:58, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
per million as the main, the second can be whatever you think will be good(open for discussion)
I agree - its ugly, but I think that every map should have same colors theme, if we want to change the colors theme we need to change that for every map here (on Poland coronavirus pandemic page ofc)
right now we have 2420 (ehh MOHPL better late than never) 2554 cases in Poland, so I think that something like "1-59, 60-119, 120-249, 250-499, 500-999, >1000 will be good, or if that "scale" is too early we can go with that map on the right -->Natanieluz (talk) 19:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
You are mixing two things together. There are 2554 cases. The cases per million ranges from 24 to 102, so such a scale would result in only two colours. Ythlev (talk) 20:09, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@Ythlev:right now we have 2554, but in couple weeks there will be propably thousands, so you are going to update that ranges in every few days? Natanieluz (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Four, on the assumption that the proposal above is accepted. The powiats map is justified because it shows detail. The voivodeships counts map is justified because it shows the counts in a scale appropriate for a pandemic. The dynamic voivodeships counts map is justified because it shows the growth as a function of time. The normalised-per-million map is acceptable because the populations of Polish voivodeships are slightly different from one another.
All three that we have now, and the per-million-people map, depending on the outcome of the proposal above.
We should stick to the convention in the proposal above, that we have been using up to now. Kraków can not do any more SARS-CoV-2 testing until Friday (lack of microbiological materials); about 10-20 hospitals in Poland have been in whole or in part infected by SARS-CoV-2; many doctors and nurses for the moment still work in multiple hospitals. So further exponential growth in cases cannot be excluded once (if) a bigger scale of SARS-CoV-2 testing is implemented. There is also no reason to think that the pandemic will completely finish in anything less than 12-18 months. On this time scale, any uncontrolled outbreaks or single-spreaders could snowball like the Italy Lombardy situation or the South Korean Shincheonji situation. We've seen this several times before in this pandemic. In other words, 1000 per voivodeship or 10000 per voivodeship cannot be excluded. If they don't happen, then the absence of the darker colours will give the info to the reader that the numbers of infections have not risen that high.
The topic of the page is a pandemic, so we should stick to the 1, 2-9, 10-99, 100-999, 1000-9999, 10000-99999. Boud (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Good point. The separation is not completely arbitrary. The motivation was that values that are in a statistical sense below 1 only occur in the counts of a single realisation as either 0 or 1. @Nadzik, Natanieluz, and BartłomiejN: What do you think of replacing the 1 and 2-9 ranges by a single range 1-9, using the #fe6764 colour from the present 2-9 range for the full 1-9 range? Boud (talk) 23:01, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
On the topic of consistency with other worldwide pandemic pages, the place to propose a convention that is valid not only for Poland, but also elsewhere, would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19. Here, we are discussing the Poland COVID-19 page. In that case, covering many orders of magnitude would be a quite likely result. Boud (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
There does not seem to be support for a map normalised by both population and area (except from me).
There does not seem to be support for a map normalised by area alone (except from me).
There does not seem to be support for a map normalised by the typical population of a voivodeship (2 million). (For anyone interested to see how it would look, see File:COVID-19 pandemic cases in Poland per 2Mcapita.svg; this looks only a little different to our standard voivodeship map)
There is an argument of keeping consistency of the colour scale between maps and across time (days, weeks).
There is an epidemiological argument for keeping an order of magnitude of scale similar to what we have been using, except that 100 is replaced by "100 per 1 million inhabitants" and so on.
There appears to be consensus for the dynamic map to eliminate the "1" range and use the 2–9 colour for the full 1–9 range.
An alternative suggestion is to have a colour scale whose epidemiological meaning keeps changing every day.
The closest to consensus, for consistency and epidemiological reasons, appears to be:
Proposal C: Add File:COVID-19 outbreak Poland per capita cases map.svg map by @Ythlev:, maybe we really should consider adding that map, it really looks better, and as of colors theme Proposal C.1: add that map with different color pattern, and update the other maps colors theme, to be clear: Proposal C means adding that map by Ythlev (without changing others map theme), Proposal C.1: add that map and also change other maps theme to be consistent with that, Natanieluz (talk) 10:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
COVID-19 outbreak Poland per capita cases map
@Natanieluz, BartłomiejN, Ythlev, and Nadzik: Please state support/oppose/comment for Proposal B or Proposal C/C.1 and give reasons. And remember that the aim is to converge, based on reasons related to the topic of the article and the aims of the encyclopedia. :) No apologies are needed for language problems, sam jestem raczej daleko od perfekcji po polsku, szczególnie z odmianami przypadków, but please of course try to double-check your English if you notice that it's not clear. Boud (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2020 (UTC) and added Proposal C/C1, Natanieluz (talk) 10:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment: The reason for having a standard colour scheme, which we have reduced from six to five colours (not two!) following Ythlev's suggestion, has already been stated: this is an epidemiological phenomenon. Having only two colours right at this moment happens to be the reality of the situation. The situation in Poland is close to homogeneous. That is the reality according to the sources. The aim of an encyclopedia is to be informative, not to look pretty. Wikipedia is not a marketing company. Boud (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Stop reiterating the same thing over and over. That idea has been rejected already. It is unrelated to being pretty. The aim of a map is to distinguish areas, not to show homogeneity. Ythlev (talk) 13:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
It's not a question of reiterating, it's a question of clarifying what the arguments are. Your statement about "that idea" is ambiguous and will not help us to converge. The aim is to present encyclopedic information about a pandemic which has exponential growth. That reality happens to be that the situation in Poland is close to homogeneous. Secondly: Now there is confusion about what the arguments are a few lines above: Ythlev: Colour scheme ugly; Natanieluz: really looks bad; and now it is unrelated to being pretty. Either a five-colour scheme "is ugly" and "looks bad", or it doesn't matter ("is unrelated to being pretty"). Boud (talk) 19:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Oppose C.1, because that would remove most of the important epidemiological information from the other maps. To help allow a convergence, I won't oppose C, even though it's misleading. (@Ythlev: - you presumably oppose B and support either C or C.1, but probably you should say that.) Boud (talk) 13:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Using the same colour scheme for two different sets of thresholds (Polish: progi), the order-of-magnitude one and the sub-order-of-magnitude-change-each-day set of thresholds, would lead to confusion - readers would think that the colour schemes have the same meaning. So C.1 would lead to confusion. Boud (talk) 13:37, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
You can sort that out with other users; I don't have an opinion on that. There is consensus to use my map so I will be adding it. Ythlev (talk) 18:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
No, you wait until there is clear consensus, and you do not violate what is in the proposal that is being discussed. The proposal clearly states that the new map would be below the other three maps. Independently, we are still waiting for your apology to me for saying that I was "obsessed" with orders of magnitude. As I said, this is not especially for me, this is rather to make sure that other people wishing to edit are not discouraged out of fear of personal attacks. Please read WP:CIVIL. Thanks. Boud (talk) 19:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
@Boud:, I do not have any objections. As long as I do not have to change the colour scale on my animation, I am supporting this proposal. Changing the scale at this point (30+ graphics) would probably mean that I would have to abandon updating my map. Cheers! Nadzik (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Natanieluz's comments have been inconsistent so it is hard to judge their opinion.
per million as the main, the second can be whatever you think will be good. This would mean that Ythlev's map goes in the fourth position. We should go with that!
stay with the colors theme that we have right now, but with that map from@Ythlev. covering many orders of magnitude would be a quite likely result. good to me.@Ythlev:, maybe we really should consider adding that map.yea, map with only two colours really looks bad.
Nevertheless it is only one user. The consensus is clear. I do not think that the map with two colors well reflects the dynamics of this phenomenon Megaemce (haven't commented since). As Ythlev said, the grow is exponential but it is hard to compare anything if you have only two (we will have only one in no time) colours. BartłomiejNYthlev (talk) 21:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment: @Ythlev:, you see that our proposals have changed couple times? (and ofc with that my opinion), my pov is based on recent proposal Natanieluz (talk) 21:37, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I think that we are just waiting for @BartłomiejN and Megaemce: to confirm that they are OK with proposal C (since it seems likely). If neither object to proposal C, then the person who makes the main edit would probably best be someone who is neither Ythlev nor me. Boud (talk) 23:22, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Thx for dragging me in @Boud: (why no one else did that?). Anyway, I don't know what are you trying to achive here, but currently we are working with @Kamilhrub: on new version of the powiats map. However, as the situation is developing as well as the government attempts at censorshiping the data per powiats we are approaching now a land of an artistic-not-so-wikipedian-style data thus I'm more into clear 2-colour version, but I know that in few days it will useless (as the map will get fully coloured).
why no one else did that? ... trying to achive: This is part of consensus decision-making procedures. Better have a consensus decision than an edit war. This proposal is independent from the one below for the powiats. Whoever made the comment, the comment sounds like it is not an objection.
If someone (someone independent from Ythlev and me) feels that we've waited long enough for final objections (people who might object have had a fair amount of time to comment), then I suggest that s/he makes the main edit to carry out Proposal C. Boud (talk) 11:08, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I think that if someone, who is not me and is not Ythlev, adds, just below the line, [[File:COVID-19-pandemic-Poland-timeline.gif|thumb|260x260px|An animated map of the confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases]], the line [[File:COVID-19 outbreak Poland per capita cases map.svg|thumb|260x260px|Per capita map of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Poland]] then that would be consistent with Proposal C, and would nicely close this discussion. (An apology from Ythlev to Natanieluz is a separate issue: saying that someone's arguments should be ignored because it is only one user requires an apology; again, Ythlev should read WP:CIVIL.) Boud (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I didn't say they should be ignored because it is only one user. I said the user has been inconsistent and their opinions have not been clearly expressed, so I take the user as neutral. However it is only one user. There are other users that commented which you don't seem to notice. Ythlev (talk) 18:55, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
By the way, since you are so familiar with Wikipedia guidelines, you should know that consensus is based on arguments, not votes. Natanieluz has not given reasons as to why one is better than the other, but those two users have, and you still ping them over and over to comment on a bunch of confusing proposals. I can't even keep it straight what A, B, and C are. Ythlev (talk) 19:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I didn't say they should be ignored because it is only one user...I said the user has been inconsistent and their opinions have not been clearly expressed,so I take the user as neutral.However it is only one user.@Ythlev: you deny yourself... ,Natanieluz (talk) 19:36, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Oxford English Dictionary: ignore: Refuse to take notice of or acknowledge. If saying your opinion is not clear is "ignoring", then yes, I ignored you, but I owe you no apology. Consensus cannot be based on arguments which are not clearly expressed. Ythlev (talk) 19:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I was only quoting yours words and I say that they deny themselves, and you were the first one who attack- by saying that "I am only one user..." and that "I can be ignored".
In relation to I don't know where you learned English.. This is the English-language Wikipedia about the world. Any particular choice of language leads to biases, which are well known systematic demographic-based biases in the en.Wikipedia case. It's unsurprising that on a topic on a country where English is not the main language, several active editors may not be as fluent in English as others. Extra patience and respect for other editors, and techniques of clarifying if statements have been correctly understood or not, and accepting that statements are reworded to remove ambiguities, are especially needed in this case. (I know that this happens on the pl.Wikipedia, where Wikipedystas generally make a big effort to try to understand what I'm trying to say over there, and I know from experience that native Polish speakers can sometimes have a lot of difficulty trying to guess what I'm trying to say.)
@Natanieluz: There is a subtle but important difference between you deny yourself... and, for example, "there is a self-contradiction in that argument". It's the difference between focussing on the person, versus the arguments. To quote from the lead of Wikipedia:No personal attacks: Comment on content, not on the contributor. I think that everyone following this conversation might want to read through Wikipedia:No personal attacks if you haven't yet.
There are some good practical suggestions at Wikipedia:Civility#Removing uncivil comments for anyone who feels that s/he has made some "uncivil" comments - the main three options are (1) explain better, (2) use <s>html strikeout tags</s>, and/or (4) apologise [option (3) only applies if nobody has had time to react to your uncivil comment]. For anyone who feels that s/he should apologise, there's a nice essay at Wikipedia:Apology. (I see that at least one of these pages seems to be missing the pl equivalent - so pl speakers (writers) should feel free to create Wikipedia:Przeprosiny [pl] from Wikipedia:Apology, possibly with changes based on the Polish cultural context, and integrate it with the related guidelines there.) Boud (talk) 13:49, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@Boud: I agree with most of what you just wrote, specially with There is a subtle but important difference between you deny yourself... and, for example, "there is a self-contradiction in that argument". It's the difference between focussing on the person, versus the arguments. I wrote only about his comments all the time. And I also want to say that for me "you deny yourself and there is a self-contradiction in that argument" means literally this same. So now I see your point. And @Ythlev: I see that you misunderstanding what I meant, and vice versa :). Natanieluz (talk) 14:03, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
better go and update your map, coz its outdated. What's the point of updating a map that is not used? Ythlev (talk) 18:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@Boud: Three users (including myself) have stated that separating areas with a dynamic scale is more important than using a fixed logarithmic scale whereas you are the only one who supports the fixed scale. The users you pinged don't seem to want to respond to something they've already responded to, so I don't really see a point in continuing this discussion. Ythlev (talk) 19:07, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@Ythlev: Please do not try to re-open the discussion on the map. There was consensus on a quite specific Proposal C and it was implemented by someone who is neither you nor me. It is Done. Other users did not object to Proposal C, so given a reasonable waiting time with a chance to object, they chose not to say anything. As @Natanieluz: says, the map of Proposal C is "your" map (which anyone can recreate by running the git code which is available on at least one git repository so far). Boud (talk) 20:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
SARS-CoV-2 spread in Poland and its neighbours: propose to shift PL to 8th position
The Poland (red) curves/dots on the two SARS-CoV-2 spread in Poland and its neighbours graphs get covered by the RU curves in recent days, because the values are very similar, and PL is y1, y1Title and the first colour. Unless someone updates the graph module to allow drawing the curves in a different order to which they are numbered (requiring a bit of coding work), putting the PL curves "in front" of the RU (and all other) curves would require reordering the countries y1, y2, ... y1Title, y2Title, ... and the colour list. The disadvantage is that PL would be listed at the bottom of the list of countries. The advantage is that it would be seen "in front" of the RU data. So the proposal is to put PL as the last in the list of countries, so that it's first in terms of the view plane layers. Please add Support or Oppose or Comment. Boud (talk) 23:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Weak support (proposer) The curves/dots tend to be more important than the order of labels on the right-hand side, so I tend to support the proposal. Boud (talk) 23:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Support article is about Poland (pandemic in Poland), so Poland should be on the top in that graph, first in terms of the view plane layers - agree Natanieluz (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Done. At least in terms of the official counts, staying below a total of 10000 cases/100-200 U07.1 deaths in PL looks realistic to me for the first phase (1-2 months). Boud (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Proposal: remove the dots in the neighbours plots
Guys, don't you think that changing lines in the graph SARS-CoV-2 spread in Poland and its neighbours: cumulative by omitting dots and leaving plain line would be more legible? It would be easier to see where the line croses reference lines and also where they pass each other. Thanks!
Firstly, although "Guys" can sometimes be used for mixed gender, it does risk being discouraging to women editing these pages. Most editors involved here - including yourself, known only as 77.255.58.231 - have not chosen to state their gender, so you should assume that we are a mixed group. Please have a read through gender bias on Wikipedia. So please be careful not to use words that could sound as though we are a "boys' club".
Secondly, the proposal: @BartłomiejN, Nyx86, and Natanieluz: (Ping in case you missed this.) I support this proposal, since I think that 77.255 is right: the different lines of the graphs would be easier to see separately. To do this technically, remove the line |showSymbols = from each of the two graphs. Boud (talk) 21:32, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Refs for pandemic preparations/anti-preparations during the 2000s and 2010s?
I started a brief background section about the predictions and preparations/anti-preparations for the COVID-19 pandemic.
So far we have references for the US, France and UK (1) building up stocks and then (2) mostly getting rid of them; effectively, the authorities set the stage for thousands of deaths by negligence in those countries from Disease X. The present lack of masks and protective gear in Poland suggests that during the 2000s and 2010s Polish health authorities either:
did both (1) and (2) like other countries, or
did neither, they never even started stocking up protective gear after the SARS outbreak and the H1N1/09 (swine flu) pandemic despite the warnings.
In either case, we need references to add the Poland aspect of the predictions (most likely Poland-based epidemiologists made predictions about Disease X) and preparations for the pandemic. Boud (talk) 00:37, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Too much politics
Political aspects are strewn through out the entire article and aren't balanced by any means. The political aspects should all be put maybe in a seperate section, where it would also be much easier to balance and make the article more neutral. Also there are tons of reports from social media (which is a potential hive of disinformation) and singular instances of things which can be blown out of proportion. The fact that we have an entire paragraph dedicated to the minister's remark:
"On 26 March, the Minister of Health Łukasz Szumowski claimed that European solidarity in the provision of medical equipment to Poland had failed. OKO.press qualified the claim as "false" and accused the minister of deliberately misleading public opinion.[18] OKO.press referred to the European Union (EU) tender process for masks and other protective equipment as a "success" that Poland applied for very late, and commented as context that the EU does not have the legal powers to impose health management policy, such as quarantine measures or closing schools, on member states. The EU tender process was announced on 28 February 2020, to which 20 member states, without Poland, responded. Poland joined the mechanism on 6 March, qualifying for a procedure opened on 17 March for the purchase of gloves, goggles, face protectors, surgical masks and clothing. The European Commission claimed that all the purchases were satisfied by offers, and should arrive within two weeks. Commissioner Thierry Breton described the procedure as illustrating the power of EU coordination.[18] On 19 March, the EU announced the creation of the rescEU strategic stockpile of medical equipment, to be financed at the level of 90% by the Commission, to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.[64]"
I think illustrates this problem very nicely. Undue weight is a plague in this article. There is also a heavy overreliance on OKO.press. I think we should trim this, place it in a seperate section and balance it. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 09:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
To me it looks the article is edited mostly by someone, or group of peple related to oko press whatever it is, but apparently bolitically biased. #77.255.58.231 (talk) 19:08, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Vague claims like the most recent comment are hard to use for improving the article. See WP:NPOV and WP:RS.
The earlier comment is more or less a repetition of a discussion already finished in the archived discussions. For convenience, here's a key line: This is an article about a medical event in a society. That society has been preparing for and is reacting to try to handle the event. So yes, "political" aspects in the sense of "the Ministry claimed that such a number of people were SARS-CoV-2 positive or that nobody was SARS-CoV-2 positive as of date dd.mm.2020" and "the Ministry did that" and "the Ministry claimed this" as well as other points of view are going to be present throughout the article. That is politics: decision-making that affects millions of people. Remove the politics - decision-making, sociopolitical actions - and we won't have an article at all. Maybe what is being complained about is "party politics", rather than "politics"? I only see one place in the article in which the ruling party PiS (or any political party at all) is mentioned, and the claim there is attributed and rather uncontroversial. The Minister of Health is a member of PiS, so this article gives him - a politician - a lot of free publicity and the impression that he, a prominent politician, is running things mostly rather well. We cannot avoid this political bias and "political advertising" in favour of Szumowski, because (right now, anyway) that's more or less what the sources say.
Regarding OKO.press: In a country in which a newly created court was suspended today by the Court of Justice of the European Union because, in the words of the New York Times, the new court has a politically selected membership and extraordinary powers to prosecute judges who oppose the government, a neutral point of view will be difficult to reach without the use of prominent media that are independent of the governing political party and the un-elected de facto head of the country(archive). OKO.press is an internationally recognised journalistic source that is opposed to the government of that country and is in favour of freedom of speech and other political freedoms. In the archived discussion, there was a claim that OKO.press was not internationally recognised, but the sources disagreed with that. OKO.press is shortlisted for an Index on Censorship journalism award for 2020 (along with three other organisations/people) - so it should probably be used a lot more in other Wikipedia articles on the topic of Poland.
Feel free to add sourced information from other reliable sources, especially from other internationally recognised media (or at least well-reputed national or regional media) that analyse or add relevant facts to the authorities' actions in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. We still don't have clarity on the U07.2 situation for COVID-19 deaths that are untested - in particular, for the COVID-19 deaths of untested quarantined people that should be listed as U07.2 COVID-19 deaths but according to the sources, including GIS quotes, apparently are still excluded from the body counts. We need more sources for that, not less. You can propose specific sections and specific edits to add missing POVs here on the talk page if help is needed.
In the earlier comment: tons of reports from social media - Yes, the Ministry publishes its reports on social media based in California, not in Poland, not even in the European Union. Can you point to any uses of social media in this article apart from the Ministry's use of Californian social media for publishing its data? Boud (talk) 21:09, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Why can't we put the political things in one place and trim it? Not even the article on the US or UK outbreak have nearly as much politics as this one, here it's like 1/5,1/4 of the article.
The twitter of a government agency is something entirely different than someone writing something on facebook. I really don't think it's a good idea to add these things in as during crisis it is extremely easy to blow things out of proportion and do misinformation.
If it is really necassary to have these things in than, as I said, mention a few things, make it brief and in a separate section. This reads like a propaganda piece now. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 10:20, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Why can't we put the political things in one place and trim it? The problem is your notion of the word "political" and the claim that politics and sociological events can be separated. This is an article about a sociological event. The events involve millions of people. So politics is involved by definition: there is decision-making that affects millions of people. That is a fundamental part of the article. That is politics! Remove the politics - decision-making, sociopolitical actions - and we won't have an article at all. Again: "politics" does not mean "party politics". If you want to discuss a political-party aspect to this article, then please say that in an unambiguous way.
You seem to propose separating out what government authorities did from what citizens' groups, media and so on have stated. That would introduce a sharp political-party focus: executive+legislative+judiciary+public-media powers (one political party is trying to control all four, and to some degree has attained that) versus everyone else in Poland. I don't see the point. Keeping the article to focus on natural subtopics of the main topic would be more standard.
You wrote it is extremely easy to blow things out of proportion and do misinformation. In Wikipedia that is extremely difficult. The politics of editing here are fully transparent, structured and versioned. In online social media, sure that happens, but that's irrelevant for this article on en.Wikipedia. By focussing on subtopics of the main topic and using reliable sources we try to avoid this. There are some points where misinformation cannot be avoided, because the information provided by governmental authorities - such as the issue of U07.2 - is confusing, and could be termed "misinformation". For several days we had a statement in the article saying that U07.2 deaths were included officially, but the latest information we have is that quarantined COVID-19 deaths seem to be excluded.
It is natural to expect government authorities' announcements to be biased in favour of the government, and independent media statements to be critical of the government in a country in which the media are sufficiently free, and in which there are democratic constitutional protections. The sources overwhelmingly state that Poland is under considerable threat to its constitutional order and judicial independence from thirteen laws implemented by the present party in government.
This reads like a propaganda piece now This comment is too vague to work on concretely. It's also ambiguous: the article could easily be interpreted by someone who is unfamiliar with Wikipedia sourcing policies as a propaganda piece for Szumowski, with just a few minor flaw listed to make it seem neutral. As stated above, the sources happen to say that he has more or less done what mostly seems to be a good job.
You might be interested in this recent series of edits by a new user, which was written very much in the style of a governmental press release. This has been copyedited, but the content is more or less unchanged.
Proposal: How about you choose a section that you think is "political", try making some changes to add missing points of view on what happened, or where, or why, or who, keeping in mind Wikipedia policies, and then we (everyone interested) can try successive edits to see if we can reach consensus, based on the information in the sources, and if edit summaries are insufficient for explaining our edits, we start a section on the talk page to the specific section that is being edited? Boud (talk) 14:46, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
The political aspects that I think should be moved and trimmed are as follows: definetly the paragraph with Bodnar that takes up half the lead, all of "Medical Supplies" and "Censorship of Medical Personnel" and yes, these things are mainly political. Then I would put these in a section called "controversy" or something along those lines, trim everything to say 2 or 3 paragraphs and add 1 more pro government/anti opposition (they've been doing controversial things too like here: https://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7,114884,25740157,opozycja-uderza-w-rzad-narracja-o-ukrywaniu-koronawirusa-kidawa-blonska.html) paragraph as counterbalance. Isn't this fair? And no, I didn't add that section if that's what the accusation is... It's written quite poorly. Also, justice reforms aren't at all important in this topic.
To reiterate, my biggest gripe is that these things take up so much of the article and as a result are extremely distracting to anyone who's "sitting in" Polish politics, it's why I want them moved into a seperate section. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 15:26, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Oppose: We shouldn't trim or moved Censorship of "Medical Supplies" and "Censorship of Medical Personnel", this things could be important/interesting to someone who also isn't from Poland. The world needs to know whats going on in Poland, such as the lack of medical supplies or gov censorship of medical personnel. Natanieluz (talk) 17:22, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
There is no way to have a chance at convergence with so many parallel proposals for changes, where it is difficult to work out precisely is being proposed. Nevertheless, here are some arguments in relation to what seems to be proposed.
Oppose removal of the third lead paragraph: Lockdown-type control measures started on 10–12 March, ... from 12 April, allowing religious and other gatherings to be held for up to a maximum of 50 people.[28] - This is the WP:LEAD, so the aim is to summarise the content. There are about one or two sentences summarising each of the main sections. A summary of the way that Polish society handled the pandemic makes sense in the lead. So removal of the third lead paragraph would be against WP:LEAD - Wikipedia policy. (Yes, this is politics: Wikipedia has politics firmly built into its foundations: Wikipedia is biased in favour of encyclopedicity, NPOV, free-licensing, civility, and rule evolution.)
Oppose deleting the Medical supplies section because in a pandemic, medical supplies are one of the key issues critical to how many people survive or die. Information on this is vital for the article. Calling this "political" does not change its relevance.
Oppose deleting Censorship of Medical Personnel. As Bodnar stated, access by the public to information is a human right that does not disappear during a pandemic. Calling this "political" does not change its relevance. Please read what an ombudsman is. This has nothing to do with party politics; the Ombudsman deals with human rights. (People interested in this point might be interested in the Streisand effect.)
(No, I wasn't suggesting that you (Tomasz) wrote that.)
This is an encyclopedia for the whole world, including this article, it is not especially for people living in Poland. Whoever is interested in the topic may read it. It's not quite clear what you mean by people '"sitting in" Polish politics', but my guess is "people who live in Poland". If some people living in Poland are distracted by NPOVed information relevant to the pandemic in Poland, that's not a reason remove the information. The use of sections enables the reader to read those parts that s/he finds most useful/interesting. Boud (talk) 19:05, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the fact that you think that "Medical Supplies" talks about medical supplies is the root of the problem. The section on medical supplies is not about medical supplies but about the European Union. And did I suggest deleting everything? No I suggested trimming it and moving it somewhere to one place in the article yet both of you argue as if I am arguing to delete everything and you miss the point entirely... Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 19:46, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Oppose The section on medical supplies can be trimmed a little, but should definitely be kept as a topic. It has major relevance and has received widespread coverage making it notable. If you're looking to trim the article down, I would look at the removing daily total breakdowns in that unnecessarily over-sized timeline tables. Since this will be on ongoing pandemic for months if not longer, were you planning to have a few hundred rows and make the table take up the entire article? MartinezMD (talk) 19:58, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the other issue is that the data on this page differes with the one in pl. The other page does not mention any of the censorship. Is it because more people outside of country are editing the page? Or would the data like that be more doubtful and discouraged there? For me, it is misleading, confusive even. Maybe that's why people are discouraging this content and defining it as 'political'. I think the page in pl should also have the content like this to keep consistency.
Also I think mentioning media agencies straight up in the article looks a bit like advertising, but I understand that the source of any information has to be added. KavinskyM (talk) 16:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@KavinskyM: first of all if you want changes on that .pl page go and write there..., secondly I am from Poland (hey). I don't know why there isn't any info about censorhip e.t.c. (I think that I will go there some day and write something about that- but my text will be waiting for review, we will see if this changes will be accepted. But as of that "misleading, confusive" stuff, well... I don't think that someone who speak English will go and read that Polish site :D. This (eng) site is more global, more "universal", more people will go here. Natanieluz (talk) 17:57, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Also I think mentioning media agencies straight up in the article looks a bit like advertising, but I understand that the source of any information has to be added. Explicitly attributing the source makes it easier to reach WP:NPOV if alternative claims about facts exist, and shifts the meaning from X is true to A claims that X is true. This is at the heart of NPOV. There's a matter of judgment of when it's needed or not needed to attribute the source. Attribution is less risky for Wikipedia in terms of NPOV. The attribution is not necessarily positive ("advertising") for the source: readers who think the information is wrong/misleading/biased will tend to gain or reinforce a negative view of the source.
Regarding the pl.Wikipedia page - editorial decisions in the different language wikipedias are in principle independent. There's nothing wrong with multilingual editors trying to edit and participate in discussions to try to match content between the different language wikipedias, but there's no obligation to do so. On the particular issue that you raise: there are plenty of countries in the world where locals are more afraid of the consequences of discussing censorship than people who live outside of the country. The consequences are not necessarily execution or imprisonment: job losses or demotions or students being given low grades or legal cases or online psychological harassment (called ,,hejt" in Polish, from "hate") are easier for people in positions of power to carry out locally than internationally; and the question here is people's fear of that happening. That's not necessarily the reason for the differences, but it's an obvious hypothesis to think about when the topic is censorship. Boud (talk) 01:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Or alternatively instead of making up conspiracy theories about government manipulation you can compare this article to the one on the pandemic in say Spain (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Spain) or Italy (which got hit extremely hard and there are political controversies there too), on the Spain one I counted 10 sentences which I'd consider "politically controvesial". By comparison, in this much shorter article I counted at least 20! And look how in the Spanish one political controversy is in just 2 sections- "criticism" and "politics" and how condensed it all is while here it's everywhere (including the lead) and written in the longest form possible! Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 14:31, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I would not use the term like conspiracy theory. In the end, the press agency talks with some medical presonel/local government representatives and it's some source of information. Whether it is reliable or not - it is not for the editors to decide, right?
As for the differences between pages - sometimes I think that I could be 'repressed' if I would try to stand up for the government point of view - trying to keep people safe from panic spread by unifying the source of knowledge on pandemic. I know that the denial of freedom of speech is very very wrong - we can discuss this article because we have it. But I think that it is also harmful when there are multiple sources of information, especially in situations when it's necessary to unify the effort between people, to keep them focused on one thing like in this case, to stop the pandemic spread. It leads to more questions - can I trust this or that? That's where the conspiracy theories are also born. When I had a look at this page, it's not the data on the pandemic that struck me. It was the talk on the censorship, the controversies behind it ("hot" stuff). Not sure if it is good that the header like this is used. Maybe it would be better when it's in section named 'Controversies'. KavinskyM (talk) 17:10, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
My use of the term "conspiracy theory" was leveled at the accusation that the Polish wiki doesn't have these things because of government intervention. My whole argument is not the remove the controversies entirely, but to make it so they don't take up so much of the article, because as of right now it's around a quarter of it. Plus the fact that it's put everywhere possible- like prof. Zajadło's political opinion which has nothing to do with the pandemic. This is really the only covid-19 related wiki page that has this much political controversy and it really looks to me like if some people want to just vent frustration at the Polish government here. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 12:36, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Don't abbreviate "Wikipedia" as "Wiki"! There are other wikis out there – Wikipedia is just one of them. There is no hypothesis that the pl.Wikipedia, which is not "the Polish wiki" (it's a Wikipedia written in the Polish language; there are two differences there), lacks information because of government intervention in pl.Wikipedia. There was a question of why information is missing there, so I proposed a hypothesis about one of the factors. The hypothesis does not constitute a conspiracy theory. There is also no harm in looking at similar articles on en.Wikipedia and comparing them, but there is also no problem with this article being of higher quality - with more NPOVed content - than the others. If you want to propose a policy for all the COVID-19 country pages to focus on raw data and government POVs alone, then you could propose it on the WikiProject COVID-19 talk page. However, keep in mind that editors there are quite likely to know that Poland is subject to European Union disciplinary procedures because of the weakening of the state of law in Poland, while Spain is not subject to any worries about the fundamental elements of democracy being dismantled. The pandemic has not miraculously changed that situation.
when it's necessary to unify the effort between people Unifying people by giving a non-NPOV overview of sourced information is going to be worse in terms of working against a pandemic than if we have NPOV information. This is more or less what the Ombudsman said, not just Wikipedia policy. it's not the data on the pandemic that struck me. It was the talk on the censorship - The info about censorship is sourced information. It's better that people know that information is being hidden than if they think that it's just an anti-government rumour. Whether that leads to better circulation of information or not is not Wikipedia's task; it's up to readers to use that information and if they wish to act on it, they may, after checking the sources and judging which sources they feel are more credible and reliable. Zajadło's opinion is related to the pandemic. How can readers unfamiliar with the situation in Poland understand the ways in which parliamentary decisions related to the pandemic are being made if context is excluded?
some people want to just vent frustration at the Polish government here I wouldn't quite call this statement a conspiracy theory; it's rather just a hypothesis with no evidence to motivate it. Providing sourced information and NPOVed prose text is not "venting frustration". Please read WP:NPOV.
As for the prominence of the censorship section, we now have two new sections more or less presenting Polish ministry/government POVs, with no NPOVing (so far), both placed ahead of the censorship section. So, getting back to concrete editing work, people following this discussion might wish to try learning about WP:NPOV by adding some complementary, sourced information in those sections that helps to NPOV them; by definition, NPOVing the original information will only be wikt:complementary, and is unlikely to be wikt:complimentary to decision-makers; that's reality. Claims of unity can often tend to be misinformation. Boud (talk) 23:01, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
It leads to more questions - can I trust this or that? Questions and sourcing are what Wikipedia is all about. You should not believe, in the absolute yes/no sense, what you read in Wikipedia! You should not believe, in that sense, what you read in any source. You need to understand where information comes from, and make your own judgment of how reliable you believe certain procedures and methods are and how much, at a given time, you judge a given source of information to follow those procedures. You cannot check everything all the time yourself. So you make a qualitative judgment in a finite time based on the information you have available. You assign a subjective Bayesian probability to the information you read, about how likely the information is to be true. That's not the same as yes/no believing or trusting an information source. See Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth for more on this. I would be very surprised if any conspiracy theories were born in Wikipedia, apart from a very few mediatised exceptions some years ago. Today, at least in en.Wikipedia and fr.Wikipedia (and I think also pl.Wikipedia), it would be difficult to get a conspiracy theory to survive for long. Boud (talk) 23:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Suspected cases => hospital cases
Infobox is just wrong. You translate MOHPL tweets saying "12345 hospitalizowanych pacjentow" as "12345 suspected cases". "Hospitalizowanych" means "staying in hospital", most of them probably 100% confirmed cases.
--5.173.104.136 (talk) 22:25, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
This is not a question of literal translation. Please read the note [a] at the top of the column in the data table, which says [a] Hospitalised for suspected COVID-19. We could say that this is a problem of the MOHPL providing information in tweets on a server in California rather than on regular web pages with clear definitions of what information is being provided (if the MOHPL ran a Mastodon (software) server and posted toots on the decentralised Fediverse, then on a default install it would have 500 characters per toot instead of 280 characters per tweet, and the wording could have been clearer). In any case, we have plenty of regular sources that provide definitions.
Here is the definition of "hospitalizowanych" according to Polish media in late February, early March, and early April:
27 Feb 2020Szef resortu poinformował, że obecnie w polskich szpitalach przebywa 47 osób z podejrzeniem koronawirusa. ... Łukasz Szumowski poinformował także, że obecnie w polskich szpitalach przebywa z podejrzeniem zakażenia koronawirusem 47 osób. 55 osób jest objętych kwarantanną domową, a ponad 1570 - monitoringiem służb sanitarnych.
4 March 2020W związku z podejrzeniem koronawirusa w Polsce 68 osób jest hospitalizowanych ... Minister poinformował także, że 68 osób w tej chwili jest hospitalizowanych w związku z podejrzeniem koronawirusa,
8 April 2020W związku z koronawirusem hospitalizowanych 8 kwietnia były 2473 osoby ... Hospitalizacja oznacza, że osoba przebywa w szpitalu, ale niekoniecznie jest zakażona koronawirusem. Niektórzy mają objawy chorobowe charakterystyczne dla covid-19, ale może to być np. grypa. Przeprowadzenie badania diagnostycznego pozwala ustalić, czy hospitalizowany jest zakażony wirusem SARS-CoV-2.
So according to the interpretation by Polish media, "hospitalised" means people hospitalised because they are suspected of having the disease, but their infection is not confirmed.
The tweets abbreviate this datum as "Hospitalizowanych", but the name of a parameter is not the definition of a parameter. I'll add the same note to the infobox to clarify this.
Done. Other users did not object to Proposal C, so given a reasonable waiting time with a chance to object, they chose not to say anything. As @Natanieluz: says, the map of Proposal C is "your" map (which anyone can recreate by running the git code which is available on at least one git repository so far). Boud (talk) 20:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
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![[1]](https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_Czech_Republic#/media/File:COVID-19_outbreak_Czechia_per_capita_cases_map.svg){kind=link}
