Template:Did you know nominations/1981 General strike in Bielsko-Biała

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PFHLai (talk) 00:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

1981 General strike in Bielsko-Biała

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• ... that the 1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała was the first purely political industrial action in the history of modern Communist-ruled Poland?

• Reviewed: Uglich Hydroelectric Station

Created/expanded by Tymek (talk). Self nom at 05:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Just reworded to put due caveat as not POV and that th claim could be dubious over the long course of history.Lihaas (talk) 06:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help Lihaas, but now one may think that there was, say, modern and ancient Communist Poland. There was only one Communist Poland, and I do not think any more adjectives are needed here. Tymek (talk) 04:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why "modern" and "Communist-ruled Poland" (vs "Communist Poland") reduce POV and dubiousness over "the long course of history". "Communist-ruled Poland" sounds like a euphemistic way of saying "Poland as a USSR client state with a puppet government". But i agree that the hook needs improving. I'm first having a go at the article itself. It generally looks good, but needs a little work, especially in verifiability. Back soon... Boud (talk) 21:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

A general problem with focussing on the "first political strike" aspect is that there needs to be an explanation of what is meant by "political" or "purely political" - "political" does not just mean the choice of individual people in positions of political power. I think it's now OK in the article, but putting all that subtlety into a short hook without risking POV is difficult (i think that this is something like what Lihaas meant). There's also a problem in what the sources say literally - both say that that was the first political strike or action "in Poland" - which IMHO is extremely dubious. Strike_action#History dates back to 1152 BCE in ancient Egypt (see the article) and guilds existed in mediaeval Europe. This forces the reader to make some common sense guess as to what is the intended meaning. And this leads to some ambiguity. i've done my best to improve this in the article, but verifiability is one of the main criteria for DYK nominations, so IMHO it would be safer to focus on what is meant by "political" here - it means "having an effect on individuals who are in positions of power" - and say it directly. Boud (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

ALT1:... that the 1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała in Communist Poland forced several officials to lose their jobs?

This article is new, long enough, within policy (in particular, satisfies Wikipedia:NONENG#Non-English_sources), and generally inline-sourced and well-written. There are clearly several minor improvements that could be made (including in the English), but that's not an argument for delaying a DYK. The info "several officials lost their jobs" in hook ALT1 is the unanimous claim made in all four of the sources i've checked - the sources vary in how many of the people are listed, whether these were dismissals or forced resignations or "removals" - but "several officials lost their jobs" seems to be widely claimed and undisputed. Ready to go! Boud (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Boud for your involvement, I truly appreciate it. The term politicial has a clear meaning here. In all previous strikes that took place after 1945, Polish workers demanded higher salaries or reduction of food prices (1971 Łódź strikes, Polish 1970 protests, June 1976 protests, Lublin 1980 strikes). Sometimes, as in Poznan 1956, or Gdansk 1980, the protests were both political and social (it's just enough to read the famous list: 21 demands of MKS). In Bielsko-Biala, in 1981, the protest was not about money, sausage and bread. Nobody even mentioned that. People demanded removal of corrupt officials, nothing else. Tymek (talk) 02:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)