Talk:Vesna Pešić

Nominees

• In 1997 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is an honor, but it is not official or even prestigious. Any national legislator or about a third of the university professors in the world can make a nomination, and there have been as many as 140 some years. Nominators are requested to keep their nominations secret, so it's only those wishing publicity who make announcements, and more often it is impossible to verify. I see no reason to keep it. No offense to the subject, this is a general Nobel Peace Prize "nominees" issue. -Will Beback · † · 09:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

POV

'Pešić engaged in the struggle for democracy, peace, and human rights' part is heavily biased.

Most of people in Serbia think opposite about her, so, as you have not provided any other sources except her political organization website, this part should be removed. I will edit this page in a week or so if you do not supply proof that democracy/peace/human rights are the things which she fights for. Petkowsky (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

As I promised, article edited, POV removed. Do NOT revert unless you have valid sources Petkowsky (talk) 13:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

• To user Marko.vujacic (aka. Mvujacic): Do not delete sourced parts just because you disagree.

Petkowsky (talk) 13:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Marko.vujacic reverted again... I warned him on his talk page. This article is good candidate for administrators supervision.

Petkowsky (talk) 16:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Petkowski was asking for the clarifications on 'democracy, peace and human rights' record of Vesna Pesic on 5 October 2008, at 20:45. When I provided this, by quoting sources and institutions that have given her awards for her engagement in the struggle for democracy, peace and human rights, Petkowsky started the search for her statements in the media from a nationalistic newspaper Vecernje novosti, where her statement has been simply taken out of the context and put on her Wikipedia page. Also, some irrelevant data about financing the organizations 'founded by her' appeared on her page. This is of course not in order to provide facts or sources that will contribute to the quality of the article, but to imply or suggest that her work in Serbia has nothing to do with human rights and democracy, but that she is just another person paid by the foreign government, in this case, the US government. Furthermore, I would dare to state that these sources are not here to provide the mere facts, but rather to diminish Vesna Pesic's contribution to the overall development in human rights and democracy in Serbia. Her work and achievements are obviously unbearable for the biased Petkowsky, who is leading personal war on Wikipedia, in this case, against Vesna Pesic. Which is sad, truly. So I deleted these irrelevant parts, mostly because they harm the neutrality and quality of the article. By deleting these parts, I have been simply following the instructions from the Biographies of living persons, which state: "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion". The only thing I do agree with Petkowsky is that the article should be administered by the supervisors, so he will not be able to judge on the relevance of data related to Vesna Pesic. Marko.vujacic 17:02 (GMT +01:00), 14 October 2008 —Preceding undated comment was added at 17:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC).

• Well, if you judging about her 'democracy, peace and human rights' alignment by statements on her political party website, then you probably can find similar statements about Adolph Hitler in fascist propaganda...
• My point is: Personal/political party websites are heavily biased (for obvious reasons) and should be used mostly for biographical data
• Another thing; Vecernje Novosti are high-circulation daily and most people did not perceive it as 'nationalistic newspaper' [then what would you say about 'Gazeta' or Glas Javnosti'] so as I am concerned citations from there are the valid sources.
• Ad-hominem attacks will not improve this article in any way.

• I suggest you to take a look on Vesna Pesic's Serbian page. After long discussion they made pretty good article (maybe we can just translate this?) [1]

Petkowsky (talk) 18:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• I have created this article about Vesna Pesic almost three years ago. At that point, I have simply merged her biographies found on her party website (it was not LDP then, but Civic Alliance), and some resources from institutions that have granted her some awards. Mostly, it was only biographical data, without any judgments and assessments on her life and work. Today, this article contains a lot of things, including some from her personal life which I do not find relevant, or decent. However, I did not want to intervene in order to avoid these situations, when I am spending time discussing if the milk was white. However, when we are at awards she got, those awards were for DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS and for her PEACE activism. Therefore, I can not see anything biased in the statement that she was known for fighting for these values. When you asked for a reference for this, I provided it. And I thought it was OK. But you simply did not want to leave it at that, and even tried to prove that she was against elections, by quoting some of her statements, completely taken out of the context. And after all she, as a public figure, represented for an opposition movement in Serbia that did fight for democracy, you presented her statement from Vecernje Novosti (yes, I was wrong, these are not simply nationalistic, these newspapers are nationalistic tabloid). Therefore, this is simply not acceptable. And since when Wikipedia standards are - "the majority of population thinks opposite of this", as you were justifying the removal of these three values she fought for? And who are we to claim what the majority of population thinks? I mean, come on, on the page of other Serbian politicians, e.g. Tomislav Nikolic, there is not even a statement: "If anyone of you, in the following month or two, sees Zoran Djindjic, tell him that Tito also had a problem with a leg before his death", made only 20 days before Djindjic's assassination (on 23rd February 2003). My point is, politicians say a lot of things, but to add this to the page of Vesna Pesic, among all other things she did, is simply intentional to cause her damage. Meaning, it is politically biased.
• Regarding the version in Serbian, although more complete than this one, it also has references on institutions that have financed organizations Vesna Pesic founded. This thing is IRRELEVANT, or at least, I do not understand the relevance of it, apart from that one I already stated: nationalists use this to prove that those who fight for democracy and human rights are on the payrolls of the West, that they are acting in the interest of the West, meaning, that they are domestic traitors. I know it, and you know it.
• To sum up, I would be in favor of translating this article from the Serbian version, if this irrelevance about financing is removed, and if her record as a leader of Serbian opposition fighting for democracy is included. Marko.vujacic 00:26 (GMT +01:00), 15 October 2008 —Preceding undated comment was added at 22:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC).

---

• 1) About awards; I am for strict formulation like "she got award X for peace, democracy etc" and not biased one like "she is a noted advocate for peace and democracy in the Balkans and she got awards X,Y,Z". There is a huge difference because reader can judge about person's allegations according to prize background

Ill try to explain; "Martti Ahtisaari got a Nobel Peace Prize this year for his peace activism" VS "Martti Ahtisaari is noted advocate for peace and he got a Nobel Prize for this"; In 1st case reader can read it in 2 ways - "he got this Nobel prize :)" or "yey, how remarkable man" while in 2nd case there is pre-judged biased oppinion.

• 2) About anti elections part; The question here is - did she stated "Veliki su pritisci da se ne formira proevropska vlada. Ako se to i dogodi, onda treba poništiti izbore u Srbiji. U stvari, ukinuti ih, pa da narod i ne mora da glasa." or not?

This have nothing to do with newspapers credibility or, in fact, your point of view on this credibility. If we dispute credibility of certain newspaper then we will have situations that there will be no newspaper in Serbia which will be valid sources for wiki because with the same rights you have while saying "these newspapers are nationalistic tabloid" I can say eg. "Blic and Press are no more than bulletin of USA embassy in Belgrade", I hope you see my point.

• 3) About financing; This is maybe the most important part of the article because if we have sources of financing for certain organization then we have much better view on this organization background.
• 4) I am for translating Serbian version only in its current state, so we can agree that we disagree on this. I hope we will get some 3O feedback soon.

Petkowsky (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

POV&3O

I left Marko.vujacic's version until dispute is solved. POV should stay meanwhile. Petkowsky (talk) 19:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinion

Greetings, I am coming from your posting at the Third Opinion page. I am presently reading the talk page and articles; I will give my opinion shortly. Lazulilasher (talk) 15:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

First, I applaud the editors for requesting a third opinion.

The dispute concerns wording construed by an editor as violating NPOV. Wording should be neutral and factually oriented. Example: "Lazulilasher got a barnstar for his work in mediation" is preferable to: "Lazulilasher, outstanding editor of Wikipedia, frequently provides excellent third opinions; hence, he was awarded many barnstars". My opinion is that the awards be listed, with no numerical modifiers like "many".

Wording should strive to remain neutral; allow the reader to come to his own conclusion. That is, there is no need to say she is a "noted peace advocate"; if facts back this up, then the astute reader will arrive at this thought himself. I hope this helps. Kindest regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello Lazulilasher, thank you for your time and for your opinion.

• As you said above we should stick to exact phrasing to avoid any misinterpretation. Hence, part "a noted advocate for peace and democracy in the Balkans" should be removed. What do you think?
• Then, about my edits; I added two paragraphs, one about financing of her organizations (I think this is matter of major importance, and this data persists in Serbian version of the article along with sources) and one about her anti-elections statement (also sourced). Version with previously mentioned additions you can find here (in my opinion, this version should be restored). What is your opinion about my version of the article?

Regards, Petkowsky (talk) 17:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Greetings. I do not want to become too involved in the dispute, and will not endorse one version of the article. So, I will render short opinions: 1.) removal of noted advocate: Yes, POV and impossible to define. 2.) Financing: your version says: "many organizations": define precisely which organizations; one sentence is fine. The anti-election statement does not warrant a seperate section. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 17:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for quick answer. Tomorrow Ill try to edit article following your guidelines; I think you are right about anti election part, it should be presented just as paragraph in main text.

Petkowsky (talk) 21:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

---

As promised, I edited article according to discussion above. Please provide feedback on this version. Petkowsky (talk) 15:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

---

Sorry for unsigned edit, i forgot to login;

• Anyway, edits made by Rogerlesterc were mainly misinterpretation of reference about Pesic's post elections statement, so I basically reverted this edit. (exact sentence was 'Veliki su pritisci da se ne formira proevropska vlada. Ako se to i dogodi, onda treba poništiti izbore u Srbiji. U stvari, ukinuti ih, pa da narod i ne mora da glasa.', so do not try to spin her message)
• About other additions:
  • If she was nominated for Nobel prize in '98, you should add some references 1st
  • Same goes for her marriage (I tried Google, but with no success)

As soon as references will be provided we should add it to article

Regards Petkowsky (talk) 11:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

---

I edited last change made by 93.86.190.101;

• 'after parliamentary elections in which pro-EU parties won the majority of votes' - this pro-EU definition is to vague so i reverted it to just 'after parliamentary elections in Serbia'
• 'Pešić sarcastically stated' - there is no mention of any sarcasm in provided source, I just double checked (so, or you provide another source for this or this part should stay as it is)
• 'and any future elections are unnecessary.' also, this is not what she said according to source

Regards Petkowsky (talk) 13:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

---

Reverted deletion made by 79.175.98.40;

• Source for deleted part is still here, so related parts should not be deleted

Petkowsky (talk) 12:00, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

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