Talk:Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Article neutrality and original research

The article has issues with neutrality, with the amount and type of quotes/sources indicating a major bias towards the Russian state/propaganda perspective. This is especially clear looking at the revision history since its creation, as well as the contributions of blocked users.

Fundamentally this article should be a collection of quotes, but what it actually looks like is an essay using sources that are deprecated on Wikipedia itself.

Some of the more obvious issues:

• cherrypicked routine reporting (not notable quotes)

• tertiary commentary as promotional links/blogspam (e.g. quoting somebody like Jen Psaki through a conspiracy site rather than a reliable source with the same quote)

• pro-Kremlin stances that are so duplicated and given such weight that it is contrary to reliable sources, etc., and no longer informative to see what the Russian state position is when it's such a large portion of the article.

• Previously, quotes from Iran state media and far-right commentators, which are in the process of being removed.

Quotes from fringe sources need a third party contextualization/some level of being repeated and discussed in the media in reliable sources to be included, unless they are stated by someone so notable as to be obvious. On one hand, the overtness of the associations (such as Ron Paul Institute) and self-debunking/self-contradicting nature of many of the quotes, can be 'enlightening' simply because of who holds those opinions and by what year. However such notability is usually discussed elsewhere in some form of secondary source, to show that the quote is notable (an example being the press's reporting of Tucker Carlson's views on Putin and the commentary on that), this however is just one example.

There should also be more quotes from important figures in the European Union, United Kingdom, and Ukraine. -- Rauisuchian (talk) 03:29, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Rauisuchian I agree. This has been crafted to read like a Wikipedia article, using a very POV-selected group of quotes. One simple solution is to prune it to about 1/10 of its length by leaving in place only the relevant QUOTES with their sources, and removing the POV-pushing OR "context" provided by anonymous Wikipedians. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

This is greatly improved now: thank you. (The tag can probably come off, but leaving it for the moment.) A bigger issue is what seems (to me, anyway) like a recent and concerted attempt to push fringe POV and Russian propaganda on Wikiquote, mostly from new accounts and IPs. Characteristic of this push are "quotes" that are not quotable at all, but rather are slabs of text from marginal sources, many deprecated by Wikipedia (Unz, Daily Mail, NY Post, etc.). Antandrus (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Antandrus: I agree. Could we take some accounts from the history of this page to ANI for help? I took a look at the recent and very prolific contributions of one of them. The longer they keep larding up their POV into multiple pages, the more there is for others to undo. It is a real misuse of Wikiquote. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:33, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I just noticed that one of them has already been blocked and reverted, and for exactly this behavior (thank you Aphaia). A bunch of the IPs trace to the Melbourne, Australia area, and might be one person, or one of the sockpuppets. One of the bloggers quoted (I forget which one; had looked at this a few days ago) was from there. Coincidence, I'm sure. And have you noticed how editors who go on and on about "spreading truth" are invariably spreading an altogether different substance?

A little worried that this problem may be more widespread than appears here, and as you suggest might be troublesome to fix. Any WQ admins watching this page? Would an AN post be the best way to proceed, or is there another mechanism for tackling these kinds of problems, and coordinating cleanup? Antandrus (talk) 23:29, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Antandrus: One tell-tale to look for is quotes from Russia-proxy sites like w:Strategic Culture Foundation or fringe sites such as antisemitic rag w:unz.com. Just tried that, and discovered another pile of mess over in the IMF. It is a big job, but I hope there are just a few accounts creating most of this. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Unz is one of the worst, and someone has been busy adding "quotes" from that site for the last month or more. Uggggh. Antandrus (talk) 01:34, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Dear Co-workers: Even though some of you clearly don't like it, there are many who believe that The Unz Review is a good source for thoughtful views, and many believe their authors are more honest than most at the New York Times, a firm who Noam Chomsky once called the 'according to un-named sources' news firm, due to their tendency in international affairs to serve as a parrot for the state department. About the Unz, the Wikipedia article says: "In November 2013, Unz launched the website The Unz Review for which he serves as editor-in-chief and publisher. Intended as an outlet for non-mainstream opinion formers, by 2016 Paul Craig Roberts and Norman Finkelstein had contributed to the site. The Unz Review describes itself as presenting "controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media." They also publish article by the distinguished/honorable former retired CIA analyst Philip Giraldi and others whose views & insights should be available to those who want to go down the rabbit hole. So, with all due respect, IMO you deleting everything published in the Unz Review, that was also posted on wikiquotes seems like dreadful censorship that should be forbidden. So please don't do that! Instead of deleting quotations because you personally don't like them, please try to be democratic about it, by using the discussion option on the article you want to remove quotes from.
• Furthermore, of the nine (9) articles on this page for March 2022, eight (8) of them are pro-Zelenskyy/pro-Biden and only one (1) is neutral, which is definitely a way to push a POV. Too few know, that there are many other views that conflict with the official narrative (which can be likened to kool-aid). Thank you & best wishes. Alphabravo2022 (talk) 16:01, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

@Alphabravo2022: On March 29/30 you added a legal opinion from former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and a whole lotta nuclear-war-is-scary by Theodore Postol, (much of the latter barely relevant to Russia v Ukraine.) Interestingly, the legal opinion of Scott Ritter, whose highest degree was a BA from Franklin and Marshall back around 1980, was the only legal opinion mentioned concerning Russia's invasion. But rather than balancing Ritter with wider legal opinions, for example from a UN Official or a law professor, what's with today doubling the Ritter quote by adding it with an official UN graphic [1]?

Wikiquote is not a "narrative" like Wikipedia, it is "a free online compendium of sourced quotations from notable people and creative works." We want intelligent points of view that aren't all the same, for example, quoting Russian officials and US officials, and quoting reputable sources across the political spectrum rather than piling up anti-Western fringe "thinkers" paid by the word. The article still needs work, and if you have quality pro-Russia sources to add to March, please do add them in. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Request for input from others on article title

This article is not ABOUT the prelude to the crisis, and the fact Wikipedia has an article with that title is only minorly relevant to what this article's title should be. What do others think? HouseOfChange (talk) 03:33, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I see this article was just recently moved so I hope @KevinNov3 may be able to shed light on this. Ottawahitech (talk) 03:52, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

@KevinNov3: I call your attention to the topic sentence on the page you just moved: "The 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis includes quotes both from the Prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and from the February 24, 2022 invasion by Russian troops with its aftermath." Unless you get consensus for your page move to the name of just one of the two Wikipedia articles mentioned, the article should be restored to its original title, "2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis." HouseOfChange (talk) 14:58, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

This article had begun as quite a mess, which a few others had been addressing in recent months — but I just moved out a large portion of it's previous content for this year into the more topically correct page for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had been misappropriated as simply a redirect to this page. ~ ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 04:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)