Talk:Josip Pečarić

Mediocre

Which way a reader could benefit from reading biography of a mediocre? Professor of mathematics? Where? Which college? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.168.239.87 (talk) 18:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

This problem has been corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiq ur Rehman (talk • contribs) 09:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah ...

1. I found here the claim that Josip Pečarić is "aktivni je član The New York Academy of Science."!!!. The New York Academy of Science knows nothing about this mediocre. See [1]. The New York Academy of Science membership is subscription based, i.e. anyone who want to be a member of this Academy has to pay a membership fee!!
2. This finding makes me laugh:
   

Mathematical Inequalities and Applications 2014

ONE THOUSAND PAPERS CONFERENCE, June 22-26, 2014, Trogir, Croatia

Conference in honour of Academician Josip Pečarić on the occasion of publishing more than 1000 scientific mathematical papers

1. and this one, too

Mathematical Inequalities and Applications, June 8-14 2008 Trogir-Split Croatia

International conference organized on the occasion of 60th birthday of academician Josip Pečarić, June 8-14, 2008, Trogir - Split, Croatia

1. and this one: He is considered "...a great name in the theory of inequality", which comes from Pecaric himself!!!

--96.255.26.152 (talk) 15:42, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• I remember his doctoral dissertation was regarded as a student's work without any depth and originality. He was not able to get a teaching position at Belgrade University just for the reason mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.205.56.244 (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Please remember that this is a biography of a living person and that any such claims need to be backed up with reliable sources. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:52, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I have removed the last comment in this talk page because it violated WP:BLPTALK. Criticism of living people is fine - especially if backed with sourced facts - but personal attacks are not. GregorB (talk) 10:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

--- Here is a boastful, pretending Pecaric's interview http://kamenjar.com/ekskluzivno-akademik-pecaric-moj-zivot-u-beogradu/. It's all about his "greatness" from his own mouth!--178.222.129.66 (talk) 09:15, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

POV, not notable

A lot of information about the 'greatness' of this Pecaric came from himself - from his interview given to one of his students. The number of articles written by himself proves nothing. Many of them are actually written by others with Pecaric's name added to the authors list.

Makes no sense to ever list his 'history works' for these 'works' are apparently not history.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 12:03, 17 February 2016 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Vujkovica brdo, by "greatness" you mean the "great name in the theory of inequality" quote? Surely you don't suggest these are his words?

The number of articles (1000) is unsourced and is now tagged as such.

"History and non-fiction books" - feel free to change the section title to e.g. "Non-fiction books" - that's still true, and is NPOV. I suspect many of these books were not released by reputable publishers, and are not notable. GregorB (talk) 14:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, at the One Thousand Papers Conference dr. Elezović gave a very straightforward explanation of Pečarić's output:[2]

I think that his median time for obtaining a paper is about 20 or 30 seconds. I can imagine how it works. This is a paper of some, let us say, Chinese guy. It is interesting and good one -says Pečarić. It should be accepted, let us send it to the referee first. But, let me see closely. Yes, this theorem can be improved, generalized, strengthened, and reverse inequality holds too. Also, he did not mention exponential convexity at all! There are enough materials for a whole new paper. I can do that. Well, not exactly me, but, let me see. Who desperately needs a paper at this moment? So this is the algorithm, and you may try to repeat it few hundred times. Eventually, you will finish with exactly 200 coauthors, more than 30 children, many grandchildren. A one million question for you: try to find the last paper written by professor Pečarić as sole author! Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

So that's it. Maybe the article should put it in some sort of context. GregorB (talk) 13:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Repetitive comments from blocked sock and explanations from GregorB of WP:RS guidelines collapsed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Don't understand why it's a straightforward explanation of the Pecaric's output? I do not see any output. Here is, for example, Stevo Todorcevic output. Todorcevic earned his PhD in 1979 at the same time when Pecaric should. Pecaric was forced to work three years to fix his dissertation, for which he blamed Slobodan Milosevic who came to the political prominence in 1984. Somehow the time runs backward for Mr Pecaric. Here is more about Pecaric the historian. My opinion is to delete this article. --Vujkovica brdo (talk) 20:44, 4 March 2016 (UTC) Not sure why would like to delete the article. Because you don't fancy the subject? That's not how it goes. One could argue he's not notable, but he is a full member of the Academy, and thus meets the WP:PROF criterion #3. Given the guidelines, I see no way of deleting the article. GregorB (talk) 10:46, 5 March 2016 (UTC) Yeah, he is notable, for sure. After earning his PhD, for five years he was not able to get an assistant professor position at Belgrade University. At Zagreb University he got an associate professor position at the Faculty of textile technology, immediately after moving to Zagreb from Belgrade. Mr Pecaric earned his PhD at the age of 34, first teaching position got at 39. "Professor Pečarić is not on this pole. He belongs to the opposite one. He will not spend three years of Sundays to produce one paper. Instead, he will spend one Sunday to produce three papers." Being educated in mathematics, it's difficult for me to understand this production of papers technique prominence. About notability - Stevo Todorcevic got his PhD at the age of 24 and was a Miller Research Fellow in Berkeley from 1983 to 1985. at the age of 28. Here is how his achievements in mathematics are described by his fellows-mathematicians. His work is recognized for its striking originality and technical brilliance. He was an invited speaker at the 1998 ICM in Berlin for his work on rho-functions. He made major contributions to the study of S- and L- spaces in topology, proved a remarkable classification theorem for transitive relations on the first uncountable ordinal, made a deep study of compact subsets of the Baire class 1 functions thus continuing work of Bourgain, Fremlin, Talagrand, and others in Banach space theory. Together with P. Larson he completed the solution of Katetov's old compact spaces metrization problem. Among the most striking recent accomplishments of Todorcevic (and co-authors) are major contributions to the von Neumann and Maharam problems on Boolean algebras, the theory of non-separable Banach spaces, including the solution of an old problem of Davis and Johnson, the solution of a long standing problem of Laver, and the development of a duality theory relating finite Ramsey theory and topological dynamics After reading all above about Todorcevic I know why he is notable. About Pecaric, you think he is notable for being "a full member of the Academy"? For producing three papers in one Sunday?--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 19:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC) Todorcevic is off topic here. Also, it is irrelevant what I think of Pečarić or his real-life notability: what matters are Wikipedia guidelines, and they are reasonably clear in this respect. You're, of course, free to nominate this article for deletion, but the chances of succeeding are close to zero IMO. Your assessment of Pečarić's work is AFAIK not supported by reliable sources as such; the Elezović quote comes closest. GregorB (talk) 20:08, 5 March 2016 (UTC) I did not give any assessment of Pecaric's work. I am asking for a serious one. I used pieces of Todorcevic's biography just to illustrate the (Wikipedia) idea of notability: clearly explained achievements of a world-renown mathematician written in a professional way by some mathematician vs. Pecaric's self-appreciations coming from the interview given to one of his students.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 12:50, 6 March 2016 (UTC) Again, since it is inconceivable that a sane person would refer to himself in an interview as a "great name in the theory of inequality", just as it is inconceivable that a publication would print such a self-description, it is reasonable to assume these are not his words but rather how he was described in the interview's introduction. GregorB (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2016 (UTC) "Again" what? An encyclopaedic article cannot be based and written on assumptions. If Pecaric says, So we have often been described in reference journals as “two great names in the theory of inequality”, then there must be, at least, one reference journal saying exactly the same. If he says, I finished the work on my thesis by 1979, but I managed to win my degree only in 1982 after a series of attacks on my work. You know that in that time a nationalistic process was beginning to form in Serbia, which later brought to power Slobodan Miloˇsevi´c, who was directly responsible for the war in our region, and I was a Croat in Serbia., would anyone with sane mind accept the face value of such statement? Or, maybe, learn independently the true nature of the "a series of attacks on my work"? Do we have to see what the "attackers" were exactly talking about? About politics or about mathematics? At the end, what a sane person should say about Pecaric's "(some scientists wrote to me that they consider me their advisor because they started working with the theory of inequality after reading some of my books)"?--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 06:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC) OK, when you say: If Pecaric says, So we have often been described in reference journals as “two great names in the theory of inequality” ...what do you mean by that? Do you: a) have access to the source (I don't) and you are quoting the interview, or b) you are conjecturing about what he said in it? If a) is true then the "great name" claim should be removed from the article, because interviews in general must be taken with caution (see WP:INTERVIEW), and self-serving statements in particular do not count as reliable. GregorB (talk) 09:38, 7 March 2016 (UTC) An interview with Josip E. Pečarić http://www.emis.de/journals/BJMA/tex_v2_n2_a17.pdf --Vujkovica brdo (talk) 18:54, 7 March 2016 (UTC) Thanks - I thought the source was offline. (URL is now added to the article.) A full quote from the source, then: He is one of the leading world experts in the theory of inequality, so in world reference journals (in USA and Germany) he is called “a great name in the theory of inequality”. That's clear enough. These are not his words. Referring to some journals without naming them is also fine, that's what secondary sources do. Banach Journal of Mathematical Analysis appears to be a reasonably reliable source (I'm not a mathematician). The article does not omit anything of relevance with respect to balance, such as published views critical of Pečarić's work (with the possible exception of Elezović); at any rate, there are no claims to the contrary. All in all, I see no avenue to dispute the NPOV, as defined by the policy. WP:NPOV is itself summarized as follows: Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it. That's all there is to it. Wikipedia is not, and has never been, about the truth - it is about the sources. GregorB (talk) 19:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC) You are wrong: firstly, what you've quoted is a summary of the interview, something that comes from the interviewer. If there are "so in world reference journals", then, at least, one must be referenced saying exactly the same. There must be primary source verifying such statement. About the truth - you are wrong again: read carefully Jimmy Wales interview: Wikipedia is focusing on accuracy.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 13:08, 8 March 2016 (UTC) "One must be referenced saying exactly the same". No, the Banach Journal is a secondary source, which is free to make analytic or evaluative claims about other sources (see WP:ANALYSIS). So, if the journal in question (itself presumably a reliable source) makes a claim about what other sources say, it's good enough and does not require additional sourcing. The only way to focus on accuracy is by using sources. Without sources, there is nothing. It seems as if you'd like to make the article more accurate, but you apparently don't accept valid claims from existing sources. You would also apparently like the article to say Pečarić is an ignoramus or whatnot, but you don't submit any sources that would support it. It cannot work that way. GregorB (talk) 14:52, 8 March 2016 (UTC) First of all, the Banach Journal is not a reference journal ("so in world reference journals"). Second, the Banach Journal is a primary source for this interview, the "ANALYSIS" is a summary (written by the interviewer, not by the Banach Journal) of the interview.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 06:14, 9 March 2016 (UTC) Banach may not be a reference journal, but it doesn't matter as long as it's generally considered reliable and its claims pertain to its scope of reliability (which is math and mathematicians). Oh yes: and as long as there are no conflicting claims by other sources. Interviews may be considered primary sources, but WP:INTERVIEW (an essay, not a guideline, but with valid reasoning) applies only to the primary content in it (i.e. the subject's words). The summary is written by the interviewer - but since he is a mathematician and apparently an expert, and it was accepted by the journal, this effectively means that it was written by the journal. (I.e. it is more or less equally reliable; it makes no sense to say "this article was published in the NYT, however it's not written by them, but rather by a journalist who works for them, so it doesn't count"). Also, the mere fact that he conducted an interview with Pečarić does not affect the reliability of the introduction - which would, in the absence of an interview, be equally reliable. GregorB (talk) 08:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC) You are not seriously discussing this issue. Reliability of a source is based on the facts it provides, not on the name or someone's experises. If someone claims an existence of accolades in a reference journal then the journal must be specified. If calling upon the Wikipedia guidances, then read more about primary, secondary and tertiary sources and their uses. In my career I used English and Russian language reference journals, which are nothing more than a list of article and book titles, authors and publishers published world wide, for a particular year, with no place for any word about an author or authors greatness. Of course, exceptions are always possible. Please, provide the reference journal name and year verifying So we have often been described in reference journals as “two great names in the theory of inequality” - a Pecaric's, I'd say, boastful statement. Mitrinovic died in 1995.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 08:40, 10 March 2016 (UTC) When you say I'm not "seriously discussing the issue", you're actually quite right, in a way. One cannot seriously discuss the issue without an analysis of the content, i.e. of what the source says. However, WP:RS says that the reliability of the source is affected by the work, its creator and its publisher, while the content is not mentioned. Wikipedia editors should not engage in WP:OR about the sources. (That's what secondary sources are supposed to do.) You suspect that what the source says is not true, based on your analysis? If the source is reliable and there are no sources that contradict the claim in question, it cannot be refuted within the bounds of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. GregorB (talk) 11:14, 10 March 2016 (UTC) Also, this is not a good edit. You can't challenge sourced facts, except AFAIK with or , and I don't think any of these two applies. GregorB (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

History and non-fiction?

I do not think that Pecaric wrote anything that should be classified as history. His books are self-published (see Nakladnik: Vlastita naklada (Josip Pečarić) i.e. without any academic background validation of the books content. He personally has no academic credentials to write about history subjects of any kind.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 13:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Taken care of.[3] GregorB (talk) 14:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• No, it's not. The books are not notable. In addition, the sentence "Pečarić has authored numerous newspaper articles and books dealing with journalistic and historical topics.[4][5]" still talks about history and reference [5] does not verify the sentence.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 06:07, 9 March 2016 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd have no objections against deleting the "Non-fiction books" section. GregorB (talk) 08:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Accuracy disputed

Blocked sock disputes accuracy; responses from GregorB. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I've added the {{disputed}} tag to this article for not seeing reliable sources which could verify his notability. Going through many monographies dedicated to mathematical inequalities, cannot see him being "a great name" in this field of Mathematics as he saw himself.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 09:41, 4 May 2016 (UTC) We've been through all that, and I can't add anything new to what I've written above. We could ask for input from more editors - namely a RFC. Is there a concrete question about the content of this article that you'd like to hear about from other editors? Perhaps something like this: Should the "great name" quote stay in the article or be removed? I'd volunteer to open an RFC, so that the issue of notable/non-notable and factually correct/incorrect is finally settled. GregorB (talk) 12:55, 4 May 2016 (UTC) The article is in bad shape for years. It's not about a single phrase. It's not possible to improve it. I'm ready to propose the deletion.--Vujkovica brdo (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2016 (UTC) The "bad shape" assessment is itself debatable, although this would not make a suitable RfC question. Let's go to AfD first then, why not? GregorB (talk) 16:08, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

"In addition to his scientific work, he is known as a journalist."

Since when? His journalism is no more than self published opinions reduced to rabid nationalism.

Read here Zašto se HAZU nikad ne odriče članova koji je sramote: Ne bi bilo najgore za Akademiju da ustanovi da joj neki članovi čine štetu i sramote je, kao Pečarić i njemu slični. Tada bi uistinu bila ona institucija u čije se mišljenje ne sumnja.

http://www.matica.hr/vijenac/378/matematicke-nejednakosti-josipa-pecarica-4297/ :)

Tako je na spomenutoj konferenciji, po uzoru na tzv. Erdösev broj, profesor Páles uveo Pečarićev broj, koji se može pridružiti svakom matematičaru, a označava koliko mu je bliska suradnja s Pečarićem. Tako osoba koja ima zajednički rad s Pečarićem ima broj 1, osoba koja ima zajednički rad s tom osobom ima broj 2 itd.

Here Pecaric nominates Croatian general Slobodan Praljak for Nobel Peace Prize!--178.222.129.66 (talk) 09:31, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Question about Pecaric's "Non-fiction books"

Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
All his books listed under the "Non-fiction books" subtitle are self-published and promoted by the author. The "non-fictionality" is actually a collection of his nationalistic views about life in today's Croatia then unqualified and amateuric interpretation of the Croatian history. He already published this way more than 40 books. I do not see any reason for this long list of such insignificant books here. Also I restored this addition Up to date he authored or coauthored 1143 books and articles out of which 597 are only once or not cited at all. According to this interview[6] Pečarić attempted to get an assistant professor position in mathematics three times unsuccessfully: twice at Belgrade University and once at Rijeka University, Rijeka Croatia - all in 1980-ies. for not seeing a reason for its removal. The number of citations is one of the measures of his notability--Taribuk (talk) 16:31, 22 November 2017 (UTC) The Pecaric's google citation link is dead. He personally created the link and then deleted it? Could it be replaced by this one? Using the link I proposed I was able to count 146 of his articles cited 10 and more times. Shall we put this fact instead 597 cited never or just once? --Taribuk (talk) 16:39, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Rms125a@hotmail.com, you are being very difficult to work with

Attemptted discussion with blocked sock collapsed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 02:14, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I hope you can appreciate that I lose time when I try to explain stuff to you and fix your bad edits, and you just bring them back without fixing them ... :( Have you read Talk:Serbian genocide? Notrium (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Just make sure you do NOT violate 3RR or you will face a block on your editing privileges. Seek assistance at dispute resolution at ANI. Yours, Rms125a@hotmail.com 17:04, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Rms125a@hotmail.com Please fix your edits. As I said in my edit description you are misusing grammar and the term "Serbian genocide" ("Serb genocide" would be better). BTW I am still on my second revert, reverting yourself does not count for 3RR; but I do not want to edit war. Notrium (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Go to dispute resolution at ANI. Rms125a@hotmail.com 17:14, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

alleged contentious material

@Joel B. Lewis: Could you please give more arguments and description about your last edit? ty, Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 15:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

The stuff about not getting a job is obviously not encyclopedic or appropriate. As for the rest of the attacks, maybe they are encyclopedic and maybe not, maybe they are adequately sourced and maybe not; they are obviously contentious has present issues with WP:BLP, and each addition of such material should be discussed, in advance, to establish consensus. --JBL (talk) 16:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

See also the discussion here. --JBL (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I can agree about the job part. I am native speaker of the language used in references. Please tell me which part is incorrect or not sourced. Why did you remove the part about his statements about Josip Broz Tito, or the fact that JP called Jasenovac camp "a myth"? Those statement came from Josip himself. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 17:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

When I look at this article, what I see is that it has clearly been edited as an attack page, and that casts all the content on the page under a cloud of suspicion. Possibly some of the material added to attack him is encyclopedic and can be justified, but it seems to me that it is important to actually go through that process of providing justification for including it, with discussion of the quality of the sources and how much weight to give them. Statements like Those statement came from Josip himself are really not helpful; we're talking about a person with something like 1200 published mathematics papers, so "The Jensen’s inequality plays a crucial role to obtain inequalities for divergences between probability distributions" is also a statement that came from Josip himself (in a recent paper with an online review and at least 3 citations) but I doubt very much that anyone feels that it should be added to the article. --JBL (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I think there is something to the holocaust-denial claims — see [4] — but that appears to be an editorial rather than a neutral news story, so not really usable as a source in our article. Are better sources available? Preferably, sources in a language that can be read by non-partisans, and from publishers that can be trusted to take a neutral rather than partisan stance on Croatian-Serbian relations? If so, we should use them to add back something about this to the article. But the unrelated demonization (e.g. focusing on failure to obtain certain faculty positions) has to stay out. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

He may be a great mathematician, but if we have quite enough sources (and titles of his books as well) which are proving that JP is in fact a genocide denier, why should we keep it out of the article? NPOV should be the way to go. I suggest that you go through the removed content and restore the material which you find to be worthy and I shall search for more refs. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 19:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

if we have quite enough sources The question that needs to be answered is "how true is it that we have enough and good enough sources?" Everyone agrees that once the process of reaching consensus on that point (that the sources used are appropriate, and are being used correctly to support the statements they're attached to) is complete, such material can be added. --JBL (talk) 20:07, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

In addition to [5], there's [6]; also another editorial type work [7]. These are all in respectable-appearing Croatian news sources, though I understand Jutarnji list to be a little bit left-leaning. There's also this PhD thesis [8], which seems to have been later published as a book, and which gives a secondary source discussing Pečarić's book. I'd suggest that there's plenty for a short Controversies section. And, given the prior state of the article, let me emphasize again: short. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

That is more on a philosophical note (what we have and have not), but I can see your concern. You simply can not expect to have a lot of academic works dealing with the fact that JP is a genocide denier. Since you said that some of the (deleted) sources might be good, I would kindly ask you to point them out. Interviews are legit and I do not see a problem with such sources, when placed under a section like Views. I understand that this article was targeted several times by IPs and other editors, but, please, we should not going in circles while keeping the disturbing information from his bio. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

That is the opposite of the correct approach. WP:BLP is very clear. If we do not have adequate sourcing for his holocaust denial (or any other controversial material) it cannot be included in our article. Sources that are directly from the subject, such as interviews, can only be used for non-controversial factual claims, like his education or employment. Everything else requires reliably published secondary sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, David. There are plenty of English-language sources documenting Pečarić's rather unfortunate claims about the Holocaust and some of his other unsavory remarks. Not too sure why they weren't included in the article. Here are some of them:

• Pečarić has "dismissed the systematic and mass atrocities at ... Jasenovac as a "Serbian myth"." [9]
• During a 2013 FIFA World Cup qualifier, Croatian defender Josip Šimunić chanted the wartime fascist salute Za dom spremni, roughly equivalent to the German Sieg Heil (it was used religiously by the fascist Ustashe movement during WW2). Pečarić compared the backlash to Šimunić's actions to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. [10]
• Pečarić has advocated that the Croatian Army adopt Za dom spremni as its official salute. [11] Note, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that Za dom spremni is indeed a fascist chant/salute.
• Before the Bosnian Croat military commander Slobodan Praljak publicly committed suicide after being convicted of war crimes at the Hague in 2017, Pečarić co-authored a book praising him, saying "he did no wrong" and calling for him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. [12]
• In 2019, Pečarić held an "academic" conference called The Jasenovac Lie Revealed alongside a far-right priest/activist named Stjepan Razum (who claims there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz). The two men claimed that Croats, not Serbs and Jews, were the primary victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp, and that the name-by-name list of 83,000 victims compiled by the Jasenovac Memorial Site was a "lie". [13]
• The conference was held in the same church that organizes an annual mass for the late fascist dictator Ante Pavelić. [14]

Pečarić has had a whole slew of similar "outbursts" but these are, in my opinion, the most notable. I hope the aforementioned references are sufficient to convince you (and any other skeptical editor) that Pečarić 's propagation of extreme far-right talking points is frankly beyond dispute. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Please explain to me why these sources should be taken as neutral non-partisan, reliable, and factual, taking into account WP:RS, rather than being partisan hit-pieces. It is unclear to me as an outsider how to distinguish one from the other among Serbian-based sources. That is why I was asking for sources that are not from Serbians and cannot be interpreted as partisan. Your response does not appear to address that request. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I understand that, as an outsider, you wouldn't be able to appreciate all the nuances at play here, but would you mind telling me which one of the sources I've listed is "Serbian-based" other than CEAS Serbia (which is a pro-Western NGO partly funded by the Open Society Foundation)? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

David Eppstein's request is clear and straightforward. I have the same request. Rather than responding to a question with a question, would you please address the request? --JBL (talk) 00:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

What exactly was the request, Joel? If either of you feel that Balkan Insight or N1 are not reliable sources, feel free to take it to WP:RSN and explain why you think that's the case. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Please explain to me why these sources should be taken as neutral non-partisan, reliable, and factual, taking into account WP:RS, rather than being partisan hit-pieces. It is a clear and easy-to-understand request for discussion of the sources and their quality. You can see Russ Woodroofe giving a good example of how to do this above. --JBL (talk) 00:47, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

If either of you feel that Balkan Insight or N1 are not reliable sources, feel free to take it to WP:RSN and explain why you think that's the case. I don't know how more clear or easy-to-understand I could be, Joel. If you do decide to go ahead with a WP:RSN, I look forward to hearing why the two aforementioned publications aren't reliable. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 00:55, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, incidentally, I spot-checked one of your links (the penultimate one); it is published in Balkan Insight, but it's an opinion piece, and your one-paragraph summary of it contains a number of errors (which is a bit remarkable, since there is only one paragraph about Pecaric in that article). This did not inspire me to check the rest of them, but it did reassure me about the importance of being careful about sourcing here. Perhaps you should be a bit less flip. Also, you are not invited to use my first name to address me, as we have no basis of familiarity with each other; you are welcome to use my full user name or the abbreviated form that I use. --JBL (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

While I would still encourage you to go ahead with that WP:RSN if you feel the need, I would like to point out that in the meantime I have indeed found an academic source which discusses Pečarić's revisionism at some length. Ivo and Slavko Goldstein's The Holocaust in Croatia, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016, 978-0-8229-4451-5. I'll be adding content from the book to the article. If you don't like what you see or wish to challenge this source's reliability, you are invited to take it to the talk page and discuss. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 01:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I have no objection to people using good sources to add appropriate content, in accordance with our policies. Given your poor performance on this talk page I have significant concerns about your ability to do so, but hopefully you will prove my worries unfounded. (Someone who was primarily interested in making Wikipedia better would have no objection to discussing contentious material that might violate WP:BLP before thrusting it into an article; but such is life.) --JBL (talk) 01:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I am discussing the contentious material, hence why we're interacting on this talk page and not edit warring. Notice I haven't edited the article once since this dispute began. I can't speak for other users, but I for one am not "thrusting" anything.

If you think that the inclusion of a few paragraphs covering an academic's well-documented far-right and Holocaust revisionist views isn't "appropriate", then I truly fear for the future of this project. And for the record, the content of the penultimate article that I linked was not mischaracterized in the slightest. I have no idea why you would claim otherwise. It's written in English so I can't imagine that language would be an issue. Or is it a question of "performance"? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Here is what the source (which, again, is an opinion piece, and so definitely not usable for this purpose -- have you acknowledged that yet?) says about Pecaric: It was even a greater hypocrisy when another church, this time in Zagreb, allowed the holding of a publicity event for a book called ‘The Jasenovac Lie Revealed’ on January 17. At the event, the authors, Josip Pecaric and priest Stjepan Razum – who claims there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz – said that Croats were the biggest victims of Jasenovac and that the official figure of 83,145 deaths is a lie. In particular, whatever your summary is, it is obviously not a summary of the source, which does not mention any academic conference nor any list of names. Note that I do not claim that your summary is false -- but the source is not usable and does not support what you wrote. If you want to call someone a Holocaust denier then you must be more careful with the use and quality of sources! --JBL (talk) 15:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

A few remarks

According to Pecaric's own words, he is an expert in the theory of inequalities. So, no need for an academic appraisal of his scientific work? In addition, I wasn't able to find any. Using Google Scholar I learned that 40 percent out 1150+ articles co-authored by Pecaric were never cited, other 10 percent cited by himself and his co-authors, around 200 are not about mathematics.

About the "international" journal he founded, the truth is it's a Croatian journal funded by Croatian ministry of education.

In an earlier version of this biography a Pecaric's interview given to an Internet portal (Kamenjar) was referenced. There Pecaric informed us about his PhD thesis and his life in Belgrade. So, his first version of the thesis was reviewed and rejected what made him to wait three years on the thesis defense. After finally earning the PhD degree he was not able to get an assistant professor position for over next five years. His attempts to get that position failed three times: twice at Belgrade university once at Rijeka university. Finally, at his age of 38 he got a teaching position at a two year college in Zagreb. The same college became a four year technical college four years later. Why this information is removed from his biography?

In the span of last 30 years of his life he wrote 40 books about wwii history of Yugoslavia and about contemporary politics in Croatia. All his books were self published, not cited by anyone as valid academic references, rejected by living Croatian historians (J. Goldstein, T. Jakovina, D. Pilsel). What use of having a list of these books in this biography? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.243.245 (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

This is exactly the sort of off-topic demonization that we should be avoiding here and that has led me to be suspicious even of the less obviously-partisan sources offered up here. Lots of articles go uncited; that's part of the process of publishing academic papers, and not any kind of special weakness to be pointed out. The fact that he wrote many non-mathematics papers also does not shed any negative light on his mathematical contributions. We should rely on neutrally written sources that accurately describe his life and works, not cast about ourselves for the most negative way to interpret minor aspects of his career. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

And which sources are those? Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:19, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

That is being discussed above. But your wording suggests that maybe you think they don't exist. When information or interpretations cannot be found in reliable and neutral sources, it should not be mentioned in our biographies, regardless of its truth. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I expected a comment down this line of "no sources available". My personal impression is that several mathematicians have no wish to include the information about their colleague's serious outbursts. As to why - I do not know. If you feel that a section about his views would bring imbalance to the article, since there is little material about his academic work, by all means - add some material. Also, a fundamental change was made to the source by Byford and I do not agree with that edit. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 21:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

If you concentrate on the subject at hand — what can we say neutrally and objectively based on reliably published secondary sources, rather than making it up ourselves by interpreting the primary sources — rather than on the motivations of other editors, it would be much likelier to make a constructive contribution to the discussion. As for "Byford" I do not have any idea who you mean. No one by that name has made any changes to the article recently. If you are attempting to refer to the real-world identity of an editor, you are in gross violation of WP:OUTING and likely to get blocked for it. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I have removed some racist ranting from the IP editor. --JBL (talk) 23:33, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

If I was not concentrating on the subject at hand - I would not be answering on the TP. A part of references which I added were legit. I was talking about a source... It's used for In addition to his scientific work, he has written on journalistic and historic topics, taking the Croatian side in their disputes with Serbia. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 15:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Sadko informed me of this on my tp. Some thoughts:

1. . I don't think most readers really care about details like many the IP stated, such as him waiting five years etc etc. It matters if most people are here to judge his "worth" as a scholar... most are not.
2. . In both this case and in general, I think when someone being a center of controversy is a major aspect of their notability, that deserves coverage. In this case, yeah his views are out there. But...
3. . ... at the same time there needs to be proportionate representation of this to other aspects of his notability. As G-Scholar can show you, this is a rather accomplished researcher (regardless of his exact career path in the past), mostly in math, not historical revisionism: [[15]]. [this has over 2000 citations]. [this has 1574 cites]. His erm interpretations of history do matter, but so does his career, and there needs to be more coverage of that.

I am fairly confident that such sources can be found. Sure, what amounts to the criticism section has issues. But it can be improved and the trimmed and better sourced version of it can ultimately become a valuable part of a proportionate page, as we have for many of the ubiquitous academics with erm, interesting viewpoints. Like Noam Chomsky, which covers his impressive accomplishments... but also that Cambodian genocide denial episode, and nods to some of the ongoing academic controversy as well (see Noam_Chomsky#Universal_grammar). --Calthinus (talk) 20:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with all of this. --JBL (talk) 23:35, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, me too. I think there are plenty of examples like this of people notable separately for academic accomplishments and unrelated fringe political views; David Gelernter is another that comes to mind. We need to keep both aspects balanced in the article and not let our opinions of their politics color our description of their non-political work. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus Calling upon number of citations of the books of which Pecaric is just one of three co-authors makes no sense. In these books Pecaric work is not separated, therefore not cited. The books are cited.--Mujo France (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

... that's not how it works. For any author. If he is an author, he is a contributing author. Period. --Calthinus (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Views on the Holocaust

I removed this section because it seemed obvious that it violates WP:DUE. For one thing, it constituted the clear majority of text in the article. Is Pecaric notable primarily for his views on the Holocaust? If not, then that subject should not make up the majority of the article. Even if he is, this section is flawed and violates policy. It relied far too heavily on (effectively) a single source. I've never heard of Ivo and Slavko Goldstein, so I don't have an opinion on their expertise or the reliability on the books and articles they wrote, but such a large criticism section should not be sourced to just a single critic. The section primarily consisted of quotations and attributed comments. It looks like several paragraphs were simply lifted straight from the sources and added to this article. Articles should summarize the views reported in reliable sources, not just directly copy them. Additionally, it was far too specific. Instead of being an overview of Pecaric's views on the subject as reported in reliable sources, it was essentially just criticism of three specific comments he made. If this article is to include a section about the controversy over Pecaric historical denialism, it has to be better than this. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 04:30, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

That is not an argument. You are free to add material about his academic work. They are notable, mostly in the Balkan region. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 07:30, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

I definitely agree that what was there violated WP:DUE. But there seems to be significant coverage of his political writings and views in the Croatian press. It would be good to include something about his most recent book, which garnered pushback from the Wiesenthal center. I propose that a due amount would be about 30-40% of the article. What do other editors think? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree that the section was too long, but I also agree that it must exist on the page as this is a major part of his notability. Agree totally with Russ Woodroofe.--Calthinus (talk) 17:33, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• • I don't think that percentage of the article as it exists right now is a great measure of WP:DUE. What matters more is the level of detail and quality of the sources. If the mathematics part of the article were expanded 10x it wouldn't change the notability or relevance of his historical negationism, which should stay the same. buidhe 01:11, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

  If the mathematics section were expanded 10x, it would likely be because significant new sources came to light! I agree that would change what weight was due to the historical negationism. My suggestion was based on current state of sources as we've found here. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 05:58, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Balkan Insight & N1

Given that virtually everyone involved in the recent WP:RSN agreed that Balkan Insight and N1 can be considered WP:RS, would anyone oppose adding info from the following sources in Wikipedia's voice?

1. State of Denial: The Books Rewriting the Bosnian War (Balkan Insight)
2. Book Event Questioning WWII Crimes Planned for Zagreb Church (Balkan Insight)
3. European Court Rejects Croatian Footballer's Fascist Chant Suit (Balkan Insight)
4. Simon Wiesenthal Centre urges Croatia to ban Jasenovac revisionist works (N1)

Would anyone be opposed to adding Nielsen's commentary and attributing it to Nielsen?

1. Defending Hooliganism Does Croatia No Favors , by the academic Christian Axeboe Nielsen (Balkan Insight)

Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

It's all good. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 17:38, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I will reserve judgement until I see what the actual text you want to add is. As before, I picked a random subset of the sources you mention. The first source mentions Pecaric in exactly one sentence: General Praljak, written by Miroslav Medjimorec and Josip Pecaric and published last year, contains a list of signatories calling for him to be given the Nobel Peace Prize, ‘evidence’ that he did no wrong as well as photographs, poems and essays extolling his war record. I have tried several times to understand what this means, and I have failed. The third source does not appear to mention Pecaric at all. So I have trouble seeing how either of these could be used to say much of anything (in Wikipedia's voice or otherwise). --JBL (talk) 18:02, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Since this has been so contentious, I suggest that we work on a draft version in a talk subpage. I went ahead and created a framework for such at Talk:Josip_Pečarić/draft2020. I took the liberty of reworking the current article, as there were a number of things seem strange to me. Since a talk subpage doesn't come up in Google, etc, we can work more freely on the text there without the write-revert cycle that we've been in on in mainspace. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - I think the question here is not whether these sources are notable, but whether this is WP:UNDUE coverage. Is Pečarić so notable as a far-right pundit and is his notability as a mathematician so marginal that commentary on his politics should take up more than half the page? I am leaning towards no.

On the text being reinserted -- Some of the matters presented in the section are either incorrect: e.g. "Way of the Cross" refers to the death march to which not just Ustashe prisoners, but also (Serb) Chetnik prisoners, and a large number of Croatian and Slovenian civilians unsympathetic to the new Communist leadership were subjected to -- or could use some context: e.g. Milan Bulajić, who is only presented as "one of the founders of the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade", long advocated an untenable position about the number of Serbs murdered in Jasenovac, which differs by a similar order of magnitude from internationally accepted estimates as the diminutions of Croatia's far-right. This section needs a lot of work to be NPOV.

Re: criticism of his aptitude as a mathematician -- I'd first make sure there is real BLP-level evidence. It seems that these complaints were first brought by IPs and socks. Daß Wölf 21:33, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

What was in the political views section of the draft page was getting very long in an WP:UNDUE way. Rather than mess with it, I created some alternative text, labelled Alt 2. @Joel B. Lewis, David Eppstein, and Red Rock Canyon: you shared some of my concerns about undue coverage, but perhaps you'd be happy with something close to this? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Russ Woodroofe, your text is really good, thank you for doing this. I have edited it slightly. I removed the years and the coauthor from the books not because I don't think they're worth mentioning, but because the sentence structure was awkward with them. The one advantage of "Alt 1" is that, in the first sentence of the second paragraph of Alt 2, it is not clear what "the return of" the salute means -- both sources (and Alt 1) mention specifically that he advocates for its use in the Croatian military. I would be happy to see the draft version (including Alt 2) migrated to mainspace. --JBL (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Alt2 looks good to me. The length doesn't overwhelm the article, and actually I think it's also more damning — the big picture is clearer when it doesn't get lost in minutiae. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

JBL, I think removing the years on the books is fine. Adding back the coauthor on the recent book in some form seems useful to me, as both are mentioned pretty prominently in the news coverage. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

It was easier to work the coauthor in without the years; I've done it. --JBL (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

@Notrium, Sadko, Amanuensis Balkanicus, Calthinus, and GregorB: let me check in with y'all as well. Is Alt2 acceptable? Is the usage of Croatian sources appropriate? (I have a little bit of a related language, but am mostly working by Google translate.) Assuming no one objects in the next few days, I will take the work page including Alt2, and integrate it into the article. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Two days ago I left a comment on the TP of this bio on the Croatian WP. As to me, the first version is better. However, some fixes are needed.

• Pecaric wrote 45 books,(full list given on the Croatian bio) not on history and politics - rather pseudo history and politics within the span of last thirty years.
• His birth date is September 2nd, 1948.
• Two of his books and two interviews are about his life and work in Belgrade, Serbia where he was not able to start his academic career for 12 years.
• In addition, he is a member of self-nominated Croatian ethical national court whose role is to judge political correctness and patriotism of Croatian citizens. For more details, see here for example.
• Pecaric spends far more time on pseudo history and politics than on mathematics. His history and politics are regarded no more than a bad public entertainment and a show. See "Većina akademika na njega nažalost gleda kao na „estradnog zabavljača“, pa bi ga možebitno najradije i „najurili“ iz svojih redova, samo da mogu." Translation: Most academics, unfortunately, view him as a "public entertainer", wanting to "kick" him out of their ranks, if only they could.
• "He is a professor of mathematics in the Faculty of Textile Technology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia" - false statement. He retired and the University of Zagreb refused to give him the title of emeritus. --Mujo France (talk) 08:37, 16 February 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Of your bullet points, almost all are obviously unusable as written; the one or two that might be usable (the date of birth, the claim that he's retired) would require a reliable source. To understand why, you can read Wikipedia's policies about biographies and reliable sourcing. --JBL (talk) 18:54, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree with JBL on reliable sources. Comment that reliable sources conflict on his birthdate: some say 2 September, others 3 September. I'm fairly certain that Alt1 is a non-starter for mainspace, as violating WP:DUE, per consensus of editors here and on the BLP noticeboard. (There has already been quite lengthy discussion over the past several weeks on this.) I'm hoping that everyone can agree that Alt2 is better than the single sentence (!!) that is in the current mainspace article. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 19:20, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Long comments from blocked sock collapsed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Russ Woodroofe, JBL You two do not speak Croatian, do you? Then what makes you to talk about reliable sources if most of sources about Pecaric's life and work are written in Croatian? Woodroofe blindly entered, from Pecaric's personal home page, this: He began working at the University of Zagreb in 1987. How come if the Faculty of textile technology of the University of Zagreb entered into its existence in 1991? In addition, Pecaric claimed, at the same personal page, he was an Associate and then a Full professor in 1987 and 1990 at the Faculty established in 1991!!. Further, Woodroofe wrote: In addition to his mathematical work, Pečarić has published more than 20 books and 40 articles on history and politics.. In the Croatian version of his biography there is a list of 45 books on pseudo history and politics (actually Pubicistika i pseudo-povijest in Croatian) only in the span of 13 years (1999-2012). What about the Selected books on history and politics section? You Woodroofe are not historian, don't read Croatian, still selecting some books? On history or pseudo history? What makes you qualified to write Alt 2 then? He spent 20 years of his academic life in Belgrade, Serbia, from 1967 till 1987. About that life he wrote in his self published book Priznajem, Hrvat sam!, Zagreb, 2005 ("I admit, Im'm Croat"). The same story about his life in Belgrade he recycled in M. Pavković's Razgovori s Josipom Pečarićem, Koprivnica, 2006. (Interviews with Josip Pecaric) then again in this interview. From these three sources, reliable or not, we learned he worked on his PhD thesis from 1975 till 1982. First appraisal of his thesis was negative in 1979. The second one in 1982 was positive. There he stated he had in 1987 500 books and articles published and written, but his application for an Assistant Professor position at Belgrade University was turned down. Reason: negative appraisal of his books and papers, PhD thesis included. Why this span of 20 years of his life is not visible in his biography? Mathematics career and Honors and awards sections are written like an advertisement. No one is a notable mathematician for writing 1000 articles nor for reaching the age of 60. Both the conferences, celebrating 1000th article and 60th year of life, were financed by Croatian ministry of culture at Pecaric's request and held in Croatia. Out of 1048 his articles and books, CROSBI search, only 3 are not co-authored. I walked through two dozens he co-authored in order to find and it was not possible to separathe his work and the work of co-authors. Also, I was not able to find any appraisal of his personal contributions to the inequalities. Without such appraisal of his scietific work it's not possible to talk about his notability. Since you two, Lewis and Woodroofe are mathematicians, please, spend some time trying to find Pecaric's work reviews and appraisals.--Mujo France (talk) 19:26, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Your lack of interest in the basic rules under which Wikipedia works means that you are unlikely to have any impact here. You might begin by dropping all the personal remarks and indignant huffing and instead reading WP:RS. --JBL (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

It appears that vol. 2 issue 2 of the Banach Journal of Mathematical Analysis was dedicated to him.[16] That might count towards notability. GregorB (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Of course he's notable -- the article has already gone to AfD and was a clear keep. What is more interesting is, what do you (GregorB) think of Russ's proposal? --JBL (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

[edit conflict] On prose alone (without checking the sources in any detail), I'd favor Alt 1 over Alt 2. Perhaps paradoxically, I find that the exposé of Alt 2, by virtue of being condensed, slightly veers towards driving one's point home, so to speak. Also, I don't think there is a WP:WEIGHT problem with Alt 1, since it is grounded on a number of distinct sources, and coverage of Pečarić's non-mathematical activities indeed outweighs the coverage of his mathematical work. A compromise solution (Alt 1 slightly trimmed) might be OK too.

A propos his scholarly work, there is very little criticism of it in the way of WP:RS - the closest I've seen is Elezović's quote from the One Thousand Papers Conference (see talk above) - it's damning, but I see no (easy) way of working it into the article. GregorB (talk) 20:28, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Don't you find it a bit odd that the organizer of a conference in someone's honor would spend the opening of the conference criticizing the honoree? A more plausible reading is that it is some kind of attempt at humor. In any case, it is obviously not usable as a source. --JBL (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's fairly odd, but then again I'd say it's too close to home to be humor, even if it's presented as conjecture ("I can imagine how it works."). Since it's ambiguous, WP:BLP concerns rule against using it, if nothing else. GregorB (talk) 12:05, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

GregorB, JBL, another source that discusses his mathematical work is this article in J. Math. Inequalities. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, it's interesting and I haven't seen it before. Might be somewhat debatable in light of WP:IS, since Pečarić is the editor-in-chief of that journal. GregorB (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Mujo France, I'm assuming good faith and will try to respond to some of your comments. 1) The draft says he started working at UZ in 1987, not at the Faculty of Textile Technology. After your comment, I checked his articles from that time period, some have him listed at UZ, others listed at U Belgrade. The ones listing U Belgrade could easily result from delays in the publishing process. Btw, the FTT does seem to have existed in a different form before 1991. I don't see any great cause for concern here. 2) I created a "Selected books on history and politics section", but left it empty. Nolanfranyeri filled in some books. I would suggest that we list here close to exactly the books that we discuss in the section, but am open to other selection rubrics. 3) As you can see from the citation in the draft, I took the 20 number from the Moslehian interview. If you have a more recent reliable source for a higher number, that would be great. As many of them are self-published, it is tricky to count them. 4) I was unable to find a well-sourced account of what he was doing between 1982 and 1987. (Before 1982 is adequately covered by the article, as he was finishing degrees.) 5) The section on his mathematical work covers notable items in an appropriate manner, similar to other mathematical biographies here. 1200 publications in MathSciNet-indexed journals is certainly impressive. Birthday conferences and similar are an honor that not every mathematician receives, and are also notable. His notability as a mathematician is clear, as membership in the Croatian Academy is an unambiguous pass of WP:NPROF Criterion 3; supported by his publication rate. I agree that he's a bit oversold. It's not a problem that he writes papers with coauthors. But I'm struck by the low citation counts of his papers, and I'm also struck by the amount that he publishes in journals that he is chief editor of. (For a non-random sample, I counted 18 papers of him in the 2015 volume of JMI!!) If we could find coverage of this in reliable sources, then we could include it in the article. I was not able to find such sources, despite some looking. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Incidentally, MathSciNet lists 23 of his books, 13 with signed reviews. (I didn't check the list carefully but it is likely that these are only mathematics books, not the political/historical/whatever ones.) Probably many/most of these also have signed reviews on zbMATH, and maybe elsewhere. We should probably list some or all of these books, with the reviews as sources, and such of his other books as can be sourced to reliably published reviews, rather than just having the unsourced list of books that we have now with unclear selection criteria. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Just commenting to say that I think the Alt 2 text as proposed is a major improvement and should be included. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 20:15, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I am for Alt 1. I am also in favour of restoring this version, or something like it [17] ( The sociologist Jovan Byford emphasized that...) part Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 20:34, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Russ, I think you should just go ahead and do it whenever you feel up to it; the objections are either vacuous or ridiculous. (Or start an RfC to get input from a broader group of editors.) --JBL (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Lewis, it's not going to happen (yet). Your slurs are irrelevant. Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy but it's neither admin. autocracy. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 22:21, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Um, whatever you say. Separately, as I explained to your colleague, you are welcome to use my full username or my chosen abbreviation of it; you are not welcome to use fragments of my name, as that's impolite. --JBL (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Sadko, I am listening to your thoughts on the matter. Do you object to Alt2, or do you just prefer Alt1? It is my opinion (and I believe that of other editors) that Alt1 isn't acceptable for mainspace in its current form: most importantly, its length tends to violate WP:DUE; secondarily, it tends a bit much towards being a list. One way to improve Alt1 would be to integrate the discussion Pečarić's two books denying Jasenovac. Integrating and streamlining the discussion was indeed one of the main things I was looking to do in Alt2. I also like keeping this on the short side, because a lengthy treatment tends to give a platform for his (fringe, odious) views.

Anyway, I won't change this aspect of mainspace yet. However, I made some other changes and fixes to the article in the Talk:Josip_Pečarić/draft2020 workpage, and I believe that it is non-controversial to apply those. I'll try to do that in the next day or two. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note 1. The summary about the books written about Praljak, section Alt 1, was inaccurate and sourced to a weak article. See the fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mujo France (talk • contribs) 21:26, 18 February 2020 (UTC) Consensus at the reliable source noticeboard was that Balkan Insight is a reliable source. Major Croatian newspapers and news stations like Jutarnji list, Večernji list, N1 are also presumably reliable sources. Can you comment on why you think Kamenjar is a reliable source? It wasn't immediately clear to me either way. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 22:22, 18 February 2020 (UTC) Consensus of a few is not a rubber stamp. Reliability of a source must be based on its content truthfulness. Kamenjar repeats what Pecaric wrote elsewhere several times and what was echoed several times elsewhere; therefore Kamenjar is in this particular case reliable source. Balkan Insight falsely reports just one book written about Praljak.--Mujo France (talk) 06:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Lengthy comment from blocked sock collapsed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note 2. I agree to the GregorB's statement: "coverage of Pečarić's non-mathematical activities indeed outweighs the coverage of his mathematical work." So, as to the Pecaric's non-mathematical activities description, Russ Woodroofe's "tends to violate WP:DUE" makes no sense to me. Here is some information about such activities: In the span of last 20 years Pecaric wrote staggering 51 books on "politics" and "history", most of them self-published. The up-to-date list of these books is here. To read online some of them go to Borasa za akademika and Za ponosnu Hrvatsku. All these books are written far below academic norms to be seen as scholastic. After publishing a book, Pecaric regularly stages two or three public the book promotion shows. It happened some of these shows were forbidden by local authorities. See, for example, here. Pecaric views about Croatia's life, politics and history are confronted by many in Croatia (historians, politicians, academics, journalists). These views generated numerous statements, public letters, proposals written by Pecaric, sometimes ignored sometimes rejected in Croatia. His "Za dom spremni" salute as official Croatian army salute was rejected by Croatian president as not serious, nonsensic, and near provocative. Then, there is M. Pavkovic's article about Peraric's image at the Croatian Academy of Science and Art :"Most academics, unfortunately, view him as a "public entertainer", wanting to "kick" him out of their ranks, if only they could", These are just tw examples. There are many more. Pecaric is a memeber/judge of so-called Croatian national ethical court whose main activity is to locate and expose "traitors" of Croatia. For details abot the true nature of this court, its judges, the "traitors" they exposed, see here As to his mathematics, there is another advertisement of his mathematic activities : MIA Conference 2018 Dedicated to his 70th birthday. He asked Croatian ministry of culture for money, got it, organized the conference and dedicatied it to himself. Voila! He is editor-in-chief and founder of Mathematical Inequalities and Applications. Shall we add that this journal articles are cited 0.6 times in average, and two third of them not cited at all? Shall we add something about his life in Belgrade since gave two intervies about it? Look for his contributions to mathematics described in terms of longstanding problems he solved, methods, objects he introduced, etc?--Mujo France (talk) 14:15, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I'm not sure what you're getting at with these bullet points: are you criticizing the current article, the draft, or proposing something else altogether? At any rate, the article is not supposed to build a case against (or for) Pečarić - whether it's his scholarly works or his political views - unless such case is explicitly built by secondary sources (WP:SYNTH: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.). GregorB (talk) 15:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

If you are unsure about what I am "getting at", then you should wait on clarification, not to rush into making bad intentions attributed to me. The bullets are about a list of his activities and public reactions to the activities which should be visible in the draft.--Mujo France (talk) 09:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

It just looked to me like a laundry list of bad stuff to pile on in his bio. To your question "Shall we add that this journal articles are cited 0.6 times in average, and two third of them not cited at all?", my answer would be "no", that's why I mentioned WP:SYNTH. GregorB (talk) 20:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the "attack" and "defense" (of Pećarić?) that happened here somewhat recently

@Joel B. Lewis and David Eppstein: at one point a few years ago I came to wonder why does this article (it might have been this revision, for example) about a controversial member of HAZU, known in the public for his ridiculous views that almost seem to be outrageous on purpose and that he likes to publicize/pamphletize on very much, have an article that praises him (in non-neutral terms and with no independent reliable sources) and describes him only as a mathematician, "conveniently" omitting the things he is actually notable for. Indeed, when I actually started looking for RS with the goal of improving the article, a completely different picture of him arose, and it seemed as though the article actually may have been written exclusively by a couple of his friends/sympathizers who (even apart from the willingness to ignore the secondary sources) had little knowledge about how Wikipedia is supposed to work.

And I successfully improved the article, including reliably sourced points on his controversies, wikilinks (including cross-wiki-links and wikilinks that serve as partial translations for those who don't speak Serbo-Croat), much more info (with exact years) about him and many sources and removing some of the obvious nonsense about him.

I don't claim "my" version of the article was perfect (a lot of the wording was awkward and, in particular, it was inappropriate to say that Pečarić "calls himself a great name in the theory of inequality"), but wholesale reverting (multiple times) to the obviously worse revision was horribly disrespectful towards the half a dozen editors that volunteered their time in the mean time (mainly me); but also towards Wikipedia itself as an encyclopedia, as it went against important policies like verifiability, neutral point of view, notability and WP:BLP; and I have to confess that I am specifically quite disturbed by the (edit summary) characterization of "attack", as that has been an attack on my integrity.

That said, I am glad that the article has now converged on a much better version, probably better than the last version I was heavily involved with (although the current one still misses a lot of important stuff compared to "my" version). Notrium (talk) 04:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok. --JBL (talk) 11:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the phrase "Theory of inequalities"

The phrase mentioned above is used quite persistently in this article, but appears neither here, nor here. Does such a theory exist in mathematics? EDIT: also see List of mathematical theories and Mathematical theory.

I propose using just "Inequalities" instead of "Theory of inequalities". Notrium (talk) 04:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

You can put "theory of" in from of just about anything in mathematics, and I think the usage is fine. It's a little bit clunky, but I only see it used twice in the article (once in the infobox). Perhaps remove the line from the infobox (where it doesn't seem so helpful anyway), but keep the phrase in the article? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 05:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Russ Woodroofe: I am dissatisfied by the fact that the phrase is wikilinked to just Inequality (mathematics) in the article, which to me seems confusing, but also kind of feels like one's been deceived after clicking on the link, on accord of no such theory being mentioned in the article on inequalities. What do you think about that, is the fault in the wikilink in this article, or in the article on Inequalities? Notrium (talk) 06:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it's generally ok for "theory of foo" or "foo theory" to link to an article on foo. But perhaps you would like it better if it read "theory of inequalities" in the article? That seems like a perfectly reasonable adjustment. We could also rephrase as "Pečarić is known for his work on inequalities", though I like that less well. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 07:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

The Banach Journal of Mathematical Analysis Pečarić interview

The article currently relies exclusively on the above mentioned source for a couple of statements.

WP:BLP says: "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source."

How is it then acceptable to rely on the source so heavily considering that it is a primary source and an interview, so all or almost all the information comes from Pečarić himself, and that Moslehian is very plausibly biased, considering he writes that the interview was written over the span of three conferences all over the world, and the fact that the journal is not well known. Actually, in any other circumstance if somebody were the only one to publish such praise on somebody else, suspicions of bias would be heavy. One particular point of contention has been the "a great name in the theory of inequality" quote that Moslehian does not attribute to anyone.

Please discuss to what extent is the source usable. Notrium (talk) 05:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:PRIMARY and WP:BLPPRIMARY, it's ok to use a primary source like the interview or his faculty profile page for routine biographical details or easily verifiable factual statements. See especially WP:PRIMARYCARE. I think that the thing you're concerned about in the current article is "Pečarić is known for his work in the theory of inequalities." As Moslehian says that about Pečarić, for that purpose the interview is secondary; anyway, the statement is backed by his publication and citation record. I don't see any problem here. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 05:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

TODO: some integration of sourced content is needed from Stjepan Razum

About their joint Holocaust revisionism work. Notrium (talk) 05:41, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikilinks in book titles

Notrium, you've been adding wikilinks in the title of books to the subject of the book. I'm a little concerned that it might violate the "principle of least astonishment": someone clicking on the link might expect to be taken to an online copy of the book, rather than a wikipedia article. (We also should not link to online copies of the book, per WP:FRINGE and WP:LINKSTOAVOID.) What do others think? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:14, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Those aren't links to the books' subject, but rather links from a word or phrase in the title of the book to the English Wikipedia article on that term. It's meant as an aid to persons who are not speakers of the language or are not accustomed to some terms from culture. I'd say there is no astonishment (at least in my case) because the links are just in titles, rather than covering the entire title.

Suppose I or somebody else tried to translate entire titles to English, do you think the links would then be appropriate in the translated titles? Notrium (talk) 08:25, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking#What_generally_should_be_linked agrees with me that those links are useful, but I guess the "intuitiveness" section is under dispute. My links are not really intuitive, in the sense that the reader may not know where they will take her, but that's kind of the point, to redirect to English if the reader does not speak Serbo-Croat. I think this quote in particular communicates permissibility of my usage: "If a link takes readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would, it should at least take them somewhere that makes sense." Notrium (talk) 08:34, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I would not link words in book or article titles for the same reason I would not link words in direct quotations (MOS:LWQ). I am also puzzled by the link [[Marko Perković|Thompson]] since we do have Thompson (band). --JBL (talk) 11:19, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Notrium, I see your concern. What do you and JBL think about the following suggestion: Right now the article has a list of 29 political publications of Pečarić, of uneven notability. I think we discuss about 4 of them in "Political views and historical negationism" section of the article. Why don't we trim the list down to those 4 or so, and improve their presentation? One aspect of improved presentation might be to include translated titles. And then presumably key words would be already be linked in the article section, making links in titles unnecessary. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 14:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea. --JBL (talk) 14:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Notability - new and old unanswered questions

Boring sockpuppetry. --JBL (talk) 17:59, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Pecaric hailed as a great Croatian mathematician. Field - inequalities. The ICM does not list inequalities as a field of mathematics, no one was ever invited to represent their research results at any of the ICM, the most prestigious research institutions (Fields Institute, Princeton IAS, etc) never ever had a research positions about inequalities. In short - inequalities are a marginal field where number of works grows twofold every ten years. Now, back to Pecaric. He co-authored 1200+ articles and books and authored only five articles. His contributions to that field cannot be judged from any of the articles and books since it is not possible to separate it from the works of the other co-authors. Also, there is no detailed appraisal of his academic achievements in the named field. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. In addition, many of his articles are published in a journal he is editor in chief of. Most recently, I noticed that his co-athor of some articles is his daughter Djilda, a person not educated in mathematics at a four year college level. So, which way Pecaric is a notable mathematician? Moreover, he wrote cca 100 books covering Croatian contemporary politics, history and life. Four of these books are about convicted war criminals (Praljak, Kordic, etc) where those criminals were hailed as highly human,honest, patriotic people - perfect candidates for the Nobel peace prize. Another several books are about the Ustashe and Independent State of Croatia. All books mentioned above are flatly rejected by the leading Croatian historians (Klasic, Jakovina, Jareb, Goldstajn son and father). Then there are three books titled "Pisem pisma, odgovora nema" where he formulated his dissatisfactions with Croatian government, Croatian parliament, Academy of science and art, Zagreba university. Bottom line - all his great ideas how to fix the burning problems of the Croatian society were ignored by the above mentioned bodies and institutions - he complains. Then a number of other books of autobiographical content where he portrays himself as a politically persecuted person: his daughter not promoted into assistant professor at Zagreb university, his research project in inequalities ranked 19 out of 25 financed by the Government, his access to the national level media blocked, etc. All his non-math books are self published or published by the Element Publishing Company financed by the Government, previously dedicated to inequalities only. The bottom line is marginality which is in some way notable. 2A0D:3344:15D1:AA00:70A5:E85B:8FA2:58E5 (talk) 18:56, 14 September 2023 (UTC) Between full membership in the Croatian Academy, a solid citation record, the conferences and festschrift in his honor, and some reasonably solid looking awards, I am confident that the subject here passes WP:NPROF. (You can feel free to register an account and nominate for deletion if you disagree.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:27, 14 September 2023 (UTC) Well, if they're the repeatedly-blocked sockpuppeteer who initiated the previous AfD, they are not actually welcome to register another account. But otherwise, yes. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:37, 14 September 2023 (UTC) A solid citation record of what? What is the list of Pecaric's research achievements in mathematics? Solved a long time standing math problem? Proved a math hypothesis validity? Introduced a new math object? Or anything else? I am not aware of any detailed appraisal of his research leading to the Academy membership. Some reasonably looking awards? There is only one given to him for his math teaching achievements (?) for over a 6 year period. The award was given to him by Croatian government what for? Wrote a textbook widely used at many universities? Established an effective math teaching approach? Or something else? I was able to find only a few negative appraisals of his mathematics. A detailed review of his initial version of his PhD thesis what led to the thesis rejection. In an article review S. Dragomir accused Pecaric and co-authors for plagiarism. His first attempt to get an assistant professor position at Belgrade university was failure. Then, what about his daughter Djilda co-authorship of his math articles? Could you, please, use the list of the selected books and articles given in this biography to point at Pecaric's academic breakthroughs (research, educational) in mathematics? If any. Or tell us about the list selection criteria. 2A0D:3344:15D1:AA00:F597:1F00:560B:E35D (talk) 13:21, 16 September 2023 (UTC)