Talk:Joint Council of Municipalities

B-class criteria

According to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Croatia/Assessment the article fails at least B3 criterion.--Tomobe03 (talk) 00:30, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

File:Joint Council of Municipalities Collage.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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File:Folklorna manifestacija ZVO-a.png Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Folklorna manifestacija ZVO-a.png, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests December 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Article structure

Could anyone explain please how can an article covering an organisation (JCM in this case) justify (sub)sections such as: demographics, geography, economy, Serbs in the rest of the two counties, notable natives and residents and others like that? No organisation has "geography" or "demographics" issues related let alone "natives and residents". This is an organisation and the article itself says so in the lead, not a geographic region. Even the talk page suffers from huge wikiproject overkill, including ones which clearly do not encompass this type of articles.--Tomobe03 (talk) 21:05, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

From what I can tell the JCM is a loose inter-municipal organisation which mostly deals with issues related to culture and education of ethnic Serbs. However the article suffers from POV issues as the author clearly treats it as some kind of an autonomous unit within Croatia, hence all the talk of demographics, geography, etc. It seems that the main contributor seems to have a hard time understanding the subject matter, evidenced by his insistence some 6 months ago to include JCM in the List of active separatist movements in Europe. Timbouctou (talk) 22:29, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Author of this article still dreams of Greater Serbia. Because we must pay attention to his work.--Sokac121 (talk) 11:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

It is absolutely clear that I treat JCM as some kind of an autonomous unit within Croatia when in introductory section I write "Joint Council of Municipalities is not autonomous region within Croatia, but joint body of municipalities with Serbian population which have limited independent authority that does not necessarily result from decisions of municipalities." As you well know, in the article that you mention JCM was not listed as separatist movement but I put it there because then was relevant request for legal regulation of JCM status. Malicious comments of Sokac121 I ignore for long time but now he far exceeded the limits of good taste. His comment that I still dream about something suppose that I have to dream about that at least once what is disgusting idea. He have full right to not like me or topics I write about but he should keep within the limits of civility. I will inquire what steps I can take to stop his bullying.--MirkoS18 (talk) 16:45, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

A brief review

Here is my review of the article... I'm concentrating on scope and layout. The following should be taken as suggestions or advice, nothing more.

Intro

Should be expanded a bit per WP:LEAD. Ideally the intro should summarize all major sections of the article. I think it's best done after the article body has been taken care of.

History

JCM is a consequence of the Erdut Agreement, which is in turn a consequence of the Croatian War of Independence. The war background is a bit lacking so an extra paragraph would be useful there.

2010 Croatian Parliamentary debate

I had the impression that the section was slightly too long. It is useful, though, because it illustrates the controversy. If there was controversy outside the 2010 parliamentary debate, it might be covered too.

Internal structure

Okay.

Member municipalities

I like the table, but I'm not sure about the prose. Most, if not all of it, belongs in the respective municipality articles. (And it's already there, as far as I can tell.) Ethnic composition should be added to the table (both pre-war and post-war figures, preferably).

Politics

Merge with the "Internal structure" section? Seems to overlap, essentially, because the structure is a political one.

Economy/Agriculture/Tourism

No direct relevance to the JCM's raison d'etre, so I'd cut these sections out.

Education/Culture/Media and communications/Sport

I'd say Culture is the level 2 section, while Education, Media and communications and Sport are level 3 sections. Should be expanded. Sport = Veterans League plus possibly something else if it's there.

Serbs in the rest of the two counties

Off-topic, unless it describes the relation between the JCM and these counties (which it actually does, at least partially). Some (most?) of it might go to the Culture section.

That's about it. More comments are welcome, of course. The article will remain on my watchlist for a couple of weeks at least. GregorB (talk) 14:13, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I did not noticed your review until tonight. Basically I have rearranged article based on your ideas. Serbs in the rest of the two counties section should actually describe relation between the JCM and these counties, activities outside member municipalities (since JCM is some kind of regional coordination just as Serb National Council and some other Councils are at national level). This article is a bit complicated for me since that is sui generis body so I dont have another examples for consultation. There is an article of some Francophone Association of Municipalities of Ontario but in the initial phase (I even had to edit that article (: ). It's probably revenge for looping in "most important national and local patriotic" questions. Maybe in next days I look little bit more on this article.--MirkoS18 (talk) 00:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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Request for community comments related to the last changes

I do not agree with previous edits made by user Beaneater00 as it seems to me that they are strong example of non-neutral POV. Still, in order to avoid edit conflict or misunderstanding I want to ask for some feedback before reverting it. While I do appreciate grammatical interventions and I do not think that the previous version was ideal (in my perception it was itself result of earlier POV from anther now blocked user) there is not much more agreeable content in last two edits by Beaneater00.

1) While I can partially understand earlier edit on 6 December from the point of view of protection of minority languages I do not think it is appropriate in this case. There is discussion in literature how bilingualism (in which majority language is even just physically prioritized) is potentially "dangerous" for sustainability of less dominant minority language (yet I am skeptical how much it was motivation behind this edit). In practice in extreme example it can lead to "minority" monolingualism such as the case in monolingual Quebec as contrasted to bilingual Canada. Still this does not correspond to (Central) European and Croatian reality in which the same Constitutional Act which provide for co-official equal use of minority language (to the point of requesting equal font size) clearly state that minority language text follows (and does not precede) Croatian language text. As ZVO is minority body in Croatia I think this should be adopted here.

2) I have much more problem with the second edit (7 December at 19:30) and I think it should be removed (except for grammatical improvements). It is non-neutral POV, it uses hyperbolas, factually incorrect data (e.g. 30%) and does not use common terms in English (while I would say War in Croatia, many of my Croat colleagues Homeland War, I do think that quite common term in English is Croatian War of Independence which every informed reader will know is part of Yugoslav Wars). I think this kind of edits is not useful for anyone (including the ZVO). I am trying to stay neutral in my editing (while acknowledging my personal commitment to minority rights topics) and to measure equally the Croatian Government positions, minority institutions and international context. Your feedback will help to resolve this situation.--MirkoS18 (talk) 22:35, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that the content is somewhat okay. RS have been provided. We should work more on NPOV and not just delete everything. @Beaneater00: Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 23:07, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

@Sadko: @MirkoS18: @Beaneater00:

1) Croatian law does not apply to Wikipedia. The population of the municipalities in question is majority Serbian. The article is about a Serbian organisation. So long as Croatian translations are provided, I see no issue with putting Serbian first.

2) How is the second edit non-neutral?
The removed text about Milošević has no relevance to the article. He led the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and wasn't involved in the war. It's not true that RSK was ethnically cleansed. No source was provided for that.
Can you give examples of any hyperbola?
I apologize for the 30% figure I provided. This was actually the amount of majority Serbian lands in Croatia prior to the war, not the Serbian population of Croatia.
The term 'Croatian War of Independence' is misleading in this case, as it implies that the war was fought exclusively for the independence of the Croatia, and that the sole purpose of the Serbian parties in the war was to obstruct the independence of Croatia which is not true. (Please do not start a flame war.) This edit was especially necessary given that the article is about a Serbian minority organisation in Croatia. Beaneater00 (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. While you are right that Croatian law does not apply to Wikipedia, reality does. Here is COMMONS CATEGORY of bilingual images from the region most of which I took for the purposes of among others THIS ARTICLE. There is clear pattern for the post-war inscriptions therefore I think it is better to put Croatian first. In addition ZVO's official website uses Croatian version first (common practice among minority, including Serb organizations in Croatia). As for the second part Milošević was certainly involved in War in Croatia and especially in Eastern Slavonia (please see the part on Eastern Slavonia from page 333 in this PHD Thesis defended at the Goldsmith College and subsequently used in books written by other authors including for example by Dejan Jović). Also, ethnic cleansing did occur, especially in Eastern Slavonia. According to official numbers (you may take it with a grasp of salt) there were 190,816 individuals who were expelled from the areas under Serb control in 1994 (ONLINE SOURCE). Usage of the term genocide was misleading hyperbola (see: Croatia–Serbia genocide case) and one may talk about expulsion. Terminology related to the War in Croatia would better correspond to that article. There are also factually incorrect statements. 30% of population is one of them. The second is that the war was inconclusive (in Eastern Slavonia it was quite conclusive as leading forces among 35% of local population in Eastern Slavonia (Serbs) and Yugoslav army established full control over the region). Statement on 20,000 Bosniaks have nothing to do with events in Eastern Slavonia. While I do not want to claim any ownership here, as someone who wrote quite extensively on Serb minority organizations in Croatia I don't see this edit as necessary or to be completely honest even really beneficial. Previous version of this part of the text was certainly less than adequate (there is still a lot of work here yet I do not mind as I like this "marginal" topic of multi-ethnic and diverse region of Eastern Slavonia), but I do not see improvement with this. Readers are intelligent and we can't just give them biased information and expect them to believe us.--MirkoS18 (talk) 00:46, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I concede on the language issue. However you have only provided one source for the ethnic cleansing in Srpska Krajina number, and it's a Croatian source. Please provide international, Bosniak, or Serbian sources as well. What I meant by 'the war was inconclusive' was that the war was stagnant after Serbs had established control (their control over the area had already been established before that was said in the article.) The 20000 Bosniaks fled from Eastern Slavonia during Oluja. This is relevant. The previous version of the article skipped entirely over the events of the war, including Oluja, which should have been mentioned to give preface to the Serb presence in Croatia, and instead mentioned a foreign leader being convicted of war crimes. My edits were not perfect, that is true, but they were certainly an improvement. Beaneater00 (talk) 01:56, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for not answering earlier as I am quite busy now as the end of the year approaches. I am glad that "language" is no longer an issue of disagreement. As for the source, it was just illustrative one. Not comprehensive and certainly not exemplary one. There are certainly numerous sources produced in different locations stating the fact that there was ethnic cleansing of Croats in Eastern Slavonia. I didn't expect this fact to be questioned but to be quite self-evident but of course I am willing to provide reliable sources. However, while certain risk of bias may exist, sources originating from Croatia cannot be excluded on the basis of their origin but on their own merit. I am not sure what do you mean with 20,000 Bosniaks in Eastern Slavonia? I guess this is an honest mistake as there was never 20,000 Bosniaks in the region. Oluja also never took place in Eastern Slavonia and is relevant for this topic only as mush as it represented a shift of gravity for Serb political and cultural life in Croatia from (Knin) Krajina to Podunavlje/Eastern Slavonia. Before Oluja Eastern Slavonia was not central in this respect, was not included in any proposal for autonomy (Z4 for example) and even in the early days (from 1990 until the beginning of war) was very slow in developing ethnic politics. SDS did not exist in the region for the first multi-pary elections and once it was established it was less radical (take a look in PhD dissertation previously provided). In that respect Oluja is relevant only as much as certain number of Serbs settled in the region and it become a new center in post-war Croatia. Genocide claim is unjustified. I was thinking about it and the furthest I can see it being legitimate to mention it is that human rights violations of Croats in Eastern Slavonia and Serbs in Krajina led to opposing claims of Genocide which were both refused by the International Court of Justice (I notice that it was not exclusively Croats in Eastern Slavonia, or Serbs in Krajina, it was just a quite broad generalization on core of both genocide claims). I was thinking about proposing a new version here (during the weekend) which will take into account everything said and if everyone will be happy article can be then changed in that manner?--MirkoS18 (talk) 10:29, 12 December 2019 (UTC)