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Solovki prison camp

The Solovki special camp (later the Solovki special prison), was set up in 1923 on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea as a remote and inaccessible place of detention, primarily intended for socialist opponents of Soviet Russia's new Bolshevik regime.

At first, the Anarchists, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries enjoyed a special status there and were not made to work. Gradually, prisoners from the old regime (priests, gentry, and White Army officers) joined them and the guards and the ordinary criminals worked together to keep the "politicals" in order.

This was the nucleus from which the entire Gulag grew, thanks to its proximity to the first great construction project of the Five-Year Plans, the White Sea–Baltic Canal.

In one way, Solovki and the White Sea Canal broke a basic rule of the Gulag: they were both far too close to the border. This facilitated a number of daring escapes in the 1920s; as war loomed in the late 1930s it led to the closure of the Solovki special prison. Its several thousand inmates were transferred elsewhere, or shot on the mainland and on Solovki.

The "mother of the Gulag"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called Solovki the "mother of the GULAG".

From monastery to concentration camp
Historically, the Solovetsky Islands were the location of the famous Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex. It was a centre of economic activity with over three hundred monks, and also a forepost of Russian naval power in the North, repelling foreign attacks during the Time of Troubles, the Crimean War, and the Russian Civil War. In the autumn of 1922 the process of transitioning from a monastery to concentration camp began. All wooden buildings were burned, and many of the monks were murdered, including the Igumen. The remaining monks were sent to forced labour camps in central Russia.

The unpublished decree of 3 November 1923 led to the conversion of the monastery buildings into the Solovki "special" camp: the Solovetsky Lager Osobogo Naznachenia or SLON in Russian (the acronym is a play on the Russian word for elephant). One of the first "forced labor camps", Solovki served as a prototype for the Gulag as a whole. In early 1924, it was sometimes given a double name, Severnye (Solovetskiye) Lagerya OGPU (Northern (Solovki) camps of OGPU). Its remote situation made escape almost impossible and in Tsarist times the monastery had been used, on occasion, as a political prison by the Russian imperial administration. The treatment of the prisoners in the Soviet-era camp attracted much criticism in Western Europe and the United States after a book came out in England, An Island Hell, by S. A. Malsagoff. After a thorough clean-up and careful staging, the Soviet government sent the proletarian writer Maxim Gorky there in an attempt to counter this negative publicity. He wrote a very favourable essay, which praised the beauty of nature on the islands, but some authors believe he understood the real conditions he was witnessing.

The Baltic-White Sea Canal
The exact number of prisoners sent to Solovki from 1923 to the closure of its penitentiary facilities in 1939 is unknown. Estimates range between tens and hundreds of thousands.

In 1923, Soloviki contained "no more than 3,000" prisoners; by 1930, the number had jumped to "about 50,000", with another 30,000 held on the mainland at the nearest railhead of Kem. In the early 1930s, many of the prisoners from the camp worked on the notorious White Sea – Baltic Canal, one of a succession of grandiose schemes devised by Stalin.

A Special Prison, 1936–1939
In 1936, the Solovki camp was renamed a "special" prison (STON, an acronym that reads "Groan" in Russian) and from then until its closure in 1939 it served as a holding area for many prisoners subsequently executed, there or on the mainland, during the Great Terror of 1937–1938.

Until documents confirming their execution were found in 1996, it was long thought that a transport of over one thousand prisoners, a quota for "1st category arrests" (executions), died from drowning after the barges on which they were travelling were deliberately sunk in the White Sea. It is now known that they were shot on the mainland in late October and early November 1937; subsequent quotas for execution came too late in the year to sail across the White Sea and were shot on the islands, near Sekirnaya Hill.

All but five of the 1,116 prisoners sent from Solovki across the White Sea on 27 October 1937 were executed by NKVD Captain and senior executioner Mikhail Matveyev at Sandarmokh between that date and 10 November 1937, when he reported his task complete. Among those killed were 289 members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, the Executed Renaissance.

A further transport was prepared to sail to the mainland for execution, but it was too late in the year to cross the frozen sea. Instead, between 200 and 300 prisoners were shot on Solovki itself, near the Sekirnaya Hill. One of the many victims was Yelizaveta Katz, an engineer, who was 8 months pregnant. She was due to be shot with the others on 17 February 1938, but was allowed to give birth, then shot three months later on 16 May, aged 28.

In 1939, the prison was closed. It was situated too close to the border with Finland, and the Second World War was imminent. The buildings were transformed into a naval base and a cadet corps was deployed there. (One of its students was the future author Valentin Pikul.)

World Heritage and a disputed legacy
In 1989, a permanent exhibition, "The Solovki special camp", was added to the museum on the islands, the first anywhere in the USSR to be devoted to the Gulag. In June of that year, the first Days of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression were held on the islands; in subsequent years this event would take place in August.

The Orthodox Church reestablished the monastery in 1992, and that year the ensemble was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.

In 2015, human rights activists expressed disquiet that the authorities were "gradually removing all traces of the labor camp". In January 2016 the Gulag section in the Solovki Museum was closed by its new director, Vladimir Shutov who, as Archimandrite Porfiry, was head of the monastery.

In August 2017, the local authorities asked police to investigate the 29th annual Days of Remembrance as an "unauthorised" gathering. Early in 2018, a court in the Arkhangelsk Region heard an unsuccessful plea by Archimandrite Porfiry to annul a contract concluded in 2011 with the head of the now disbanded Gulag section of the museum and evict its former head, Olga Bochkaryova, and her daughter from their two-room apartment.

The author of several books about Solovki, Yury Brodsky, was accused by an Orthodox website of displaying "religious hatred" in his latest publication.

Notable prisoners

Members of the intelligentsia, representing both Tsarist Russia and the post-revolutionary USSR, were prominent among the prisoners on Solovki.

The 1920s
In the 1920s many of those sent to Solovki were released, but often arrested and imprisoned (or exiled) a second time.

 * Frantsishak Alyakhnovich, Belarusian writer, a citizen of interwar Poland, who wrote the first book-length witness-account about Gulag, titled, In the Claws of the GPU; imprisoned 1927–1933, in 1933 exchanged with Poland for Branislaw Tarashkyevich.
 * Vladimir Artemyev, inventor: imprisoned 1923–1925
 * Osip Braz, Russian-Jewish realist painter: imprisoned 1924–1926
 * Boris Shiriaev writer, author of La veilleuse de Solovki - 1889 - 1959 imprisoned in 1923
 * Leonid Feodorov, Bishop and Exarch of the Russian Greek Catholic Church: imprisoned 1923–1929
 * Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer: imprisoned mid-1920s
 * G.J.Gordon, historian
 * Yuri Bezsonov, cavalry commander, one of the very few people who succeeded in escaping the camp
 * Alexander K. Gorsky, poet: sent to Solovki (?) in 1929
 * Jamo bey Hajinski, State Controller and Minister of Transportation, Postal Service and Telegraph of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic: imprisoned 1925–1928
 * Archimandrite Illarion (Troitsky), Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy: imprisoned 1924–1929
 * Ivan V. Popov, Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy: imprisoned 1925-1927
 * Nikolay N. Vinogradov, historian and ethnographer: imprisoned 1925–1928, shot at Sandarmokh on 8 January 1938, aged 61

The First Five-Year Plan, 1928–1932
Naftaly Frenkel was a prisoner on Solovki who became a leading cadre in the security services during the First Five-Year Plan.

Arrested by the OGPU in 1923, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and sent to Solovki. There his sentence was reduced and in 1927, he was released and appointed head of production at SLON before being sent as representative of the camp to Moscow in 1929. Soon he was in charge of production throughout the Gulag and oversaw work on the White Sea Canal. His activities in the Gulag paralleled the forced industrialisation and collectivisation of agriculture throughout the Soviet Union.

The mass shooting on Solovki in 1929 described by Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachov (it forms a key episode in Marina Goldovskaya's 1987 film, Solovki Power) was a sign of the harshening regime.

 * Nikolai Antsiferov, historian: imprisoned 1929–1933
 * Academician Dmitry Likhachov, philologist: imprisoned 1928–1931, then worked on White Sea Canal until 1932
 * Vladimir V. Tchernavin, ichthyologist: imprisoned 1931, then transferred to Kem. From Kem he escaped to the West and wrote about his experiences in his book, I Speak for the Silent Prisoners of the Soviets.
 * Vladimir N. Beneshevich, historian, paleographer: imprisoned 1928–1933
 * Oleg V. Volkov, writer: imprisoned 1928–1929, 1931–1936
 * Mirjaqip Dulatuli, Kazakh writer: imprisoned 1928–1935 (died in Solovki)
 * Klym Polishchuk, Ukrainian journalist, poet and writer sentenced for 10 years in 1929, executed in 1937
 * Vera Baltz, Russian soil scientist, sentenced for 5 years in 1930, released early in 1933 on account of age
 * Evgenia Iaroslavskaia-Markon, Russian journalist and anarchist, sentenced for 3 years in 1930, executed in 1931.

The mid- to late 1930s
Many of those on Solovki later in the 1930s fell victim to Stalin's Great Purge and were shot, either in autumn 1937 at Sandarmokh or on Solovki in February 1938.

 * A.V.Bobrishchev-Pushkin, lawyer and acrivist of the Smenovekhovtsy, a descendant of Decembrist Pavel Sergeyevich Bobrishchev-Pushkin: imprisoned 1934–1937, shot at Sandarmokh on 27 October 1937, aged 61
 * Pavel Florensky, priest, scientist, encyclopaedist: imprisoned 1934–1937, shot at unknown location
 * Nariman bey Narimanbeyov, State Controller of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920): died on Solovki in 1937, aged 48 (shot?)
 * Karlo Štajner, a Yugoslavian communist: imprisoned 1937–1939
 * Mark Voronoi, Ukrainian poet: imprisoned 1937, shot at Sandarmokh on 3 November 1937, aged 33
 * Hamid bey Shahtakhtinski, Minister of Education and Religious Affairs of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918–1920): imprisoned 1941–1944 when he died.

Camp commanders

 * October 13, 1923 to November 13, 1925 – Alexander Nogtev
 * November 13, 1925  to May 20, 1929 – Fedor Eichmans
 * May 20, 1929 to May 19, 1930 – Alexander Nogtev
 * May 19, 1930 to September 25, 1931 – Andrei Ivanchenko
 * September 25, 1931 to November 6, 1931 – K. Y. Dukis (acting)
 * November 6-16, 1931 – E. I. Senkevich
 * November 16, 1931 to January 1, 1932 the camp was closed due to the organization of the Belbaltlag on its base
 * January 1932 to March 1933 – E. I. Senkevich
 * August 27, 1932 – P. A. Boyar (mentioned as temporarily acting chief)
 * January 28, 1933 to no later than August 13, 1933 (mentioned) – Yakov Bukhband
 * October 8, 1933 – Levlev (mentioned as temporary acting chief)
 * December 4, 1933 – the camp as an independent unit is closed

Émigré and samizdat literature, 1926-1974

 * Sozerko Malsagov: The first memoir about Solovki was by S.A. Malsagoff, a North Caucasian prisoner, who escaped after a year on the islands.
 * Yury Bezsonov:
 * Tchernavin was a prisoner in the camp in the early 1930s. He described his experiences there in his book, published after his escape abroad.
 * The fictional town of Solovets in the Strugatsky brothers' popular Monday Begins on Saturday (1965) is an allusion to the Solovetsky Monastery.
 * Solzhenitsyn spends an entire chapter of Volume 2 discussing the development of Solovki and conditions there during the early years of the Soviet regime.
 * Boris Shirayev, author of La veilleuse de Solovki described the birth of the first gulag in 1923, the date when he was imprisoned. He described the daily routine and the socio-cultural multitude of the prisoners.

Perestroika and Glasnost, 1985-1991

 * Marina Goldovskaya's 1988 documentary film The Solovki Regime («Власть Соловецкая») tells the story of the first, permanent camp in Soviet Russia, from its founding in 1923 to the closure of the prison in 1939. It includes interviews with former prisoners, among them mediaevalist Dmitry Likhachyov, writer Oleg Volkov and long-term Gulag inmate Olga Adamova-Sliozberg (one of the four named sources in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, the rest were anonymous until 1994).
 * Abridged version of the 1989 Soviet original («Доднесь тяготеет. т. 1. Записки Вашей современницы»). Includes two key memoirs describing the early and final stages of the camp's existence (see Memoirs, below).
 * Yugoslav communist Karlo Štajner served a part of his sentence on Solovki. He recounts his experiences there in 7,000 days in Siberia (English edn. 1989).

Memoirs

 * Francišak Aljachnovič (1934) In the Claws of the GPU
 * Tchernavin, Vladimir V. (1935), I Speak for the Silent: Prisoners of the Soviets. Boston: Hale, Cushman, and Flint.
 * Excerpt from memoir written in 1970s by a Left Social-Revolutionary (tr. John Crowfoot)
 * Excerpt from memoir written in 1940s and 1950s by a repentant non-Party communist (translated by Sally Laird)
 * Sliozberg, Olga Adamova (2011), My Journey: How one woman survived Stalin's Gulag, Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Ill. (The full unabridged memoir, translated by Katharine Gratwick Baker.)
 * Sliozberg, Olga Adamova (2011), My Journey: How one woman survived Stalin's Gulag, Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Ill. (The full unabridged memoir, translated by Katharine Gratwick Baker.)

Studies

 * Michael Jakobson (1993), Origins of the GULAG: The Soviet Prison Camp System, 1917–1934. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
 * Galina Mikhaĭlovna Ivanova, Carol Apollonio Flath, and Donald J. Raleigh (2000), Labor Camp Socialism: The Gulag in the Soviet Totalitarian System. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
 * Roy P. Robson (2004), Solovki: The Story of Russia Told Through its Most Remarkable Islands. Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press.
 * Shubin, Daniel H. Monastery Prisons, ISBN 978-1365413582
 * Roy P. Robson (2004), Solovki: The Story of Russia Told Through its Most Remarkable Islands. Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press.
 * Shubin, Daniel H. Monastery Prisons, ISBN 978-1365413582

title: Solovki prison camp


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User talk:Jfactotum67

Hi, I've un-redirected the list of saints starting with A as you are working on it. I didn't realise anyone was, and assumed it had been like that for a while. If you want to work on it whilst leaving the redirect in place, you could do that, but in this case it isn't really necessary. If you did want to, you could either use the talk page, or create a subpage of your user page for it. For example, User:Jfactotum67/List of saints starting with A. Good luck with it, and welcome to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Angela. 19:55, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

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George Creel

George Edward Creel (December 1, 1876 – October 2, 1953) was an American investigative journalist and writer, a politician and government official. He served as the head of the United States Committee on Public Information, a propaganda organization created by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I.

Early life and education
Creel was born on December 1, 1876, in Blackburn, Missouri, to Henry Clay Creel and Virginia Fackler Creel, who had three sons, Wylie, George, and Richard Henry (Hal). His father came to Missouri from Parkersburg, Virginia, and bought land in Osage County, Missouri; he was college educated, and served in Virginia legislature. A captain of the Confederate States Army during the Civil War, he did not succeed in the Missouri post-war economy as a farmer and rancher and became an alcoholic. Virginia provided for the family by keeping a boarding house in Kansas City and by sewing and keeping a large garden in Odessa, Missouri. All her children became productive members of society: Wylie Creel, a businessman; George, a journalist and writer; and Richard, a doctor, who served as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service.

His alcoholic father did not leave as deep an impression on Creel as did his mother, who inspired his passion for women's suffrage. The family moved frequently around west-central Missouri in Creel's early years, living for a time in Wheatland, Hickory County, Missouri, then Kansas City before finally settling in Odessa, Missouri, in 1888. He often said that, "I knew my mother had more character, brains, and competence than any man that ever lived." His mother also encouraged his love for literature. Although Creel did not receive much formal education, as his mother pulled him out of school system, and was mainly home-schooled, he credited his mother for his fair knowledge of history and literature including classics, such as the Iliad. In 1891, the then fifteen-year-old Creel ran away from home for a year, supporting himself by working at a succession of county fairs across Missouri and at odd jobs when available. Despite his resistance and rebellion, Creel did manage to receive some formal schooling, while attending Kansas City Central High School, Odessa High School, and Odessa College for one year in Odessa, Missouri. He said of himself that "an open mind is not part of my inheritance. I took in prejudices with mother's milk and was weaned on partisanship."

Early career
In 1896, he began his first formal job at the Kansas City World. He was hired for $4 a week, starting as a reporter, but eventually moved up to write feature articles. He also wrote a book review column and covered social happenings. He was eventually fired because he felt it was wrong to discuss a wealthy man's daughter eloping with her coachman in the paper and apparently his editors didn't agree.

After his termination, he was given a free train pass to Chicago by a well-wisher, and then hopped a cattle train to New York earning his fare by tending stock. He found an opportunity to work as a free-lance joke writer for William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer's comic supplements. As a 1913 Collier's profile put it, he was "shutting himself in his cheap room in a mechanics' hotel; he ground out jokes by the dozens, by the hundreds, jokes in bales and jokes in bundles." But he didn't sell any his first month and survived by shoveling snow. Soon, he sold four jokes to Hearst's Evening Journal and became a regular with many periodicals.

On March 11, 1899, he went back to Kansas City with his friend, Arthur Grissom, a poet, who married into rich Kansas family, to start a newspaper, The Independent. After only ten months, however, Grissom withdrew from the partnership. At age 23, Creel became the sole owner, editor, and publisher of The Independent. In the paper he dealt with many social issues including women's suffrage, single tax system, and public ownership of utilities. He was also a strong supporter of the Democratic Party and aggressively fought the policies and practices of Thomas Pendergast. Creel was not afraid to put politics or party affiliation aside for the greater public good, however. He backed Democrat Joseph W. Folk in a successful run for Missouri Governor in 1904. Then, in 1908, Creel came out in support of Republican Herbert S. Hadley and his gubernatorial campaign. Hadley, an ardent reformer like Folk before him, was the first Republican elected Governor of Missouri in nearly forty years. Said Creel in one of his newspaper editorials regarding party affiliations, "When a man becomes so besotted with partisan prejudice as to exalt party above the interest of the community, state or county, that moment he ceases to be a good citizen."

In late 1909, Creel left Kansas City and the Independent behind for a new political battlefield in Colorado. Reformer John F. Shafroth, a native of Fayette, Missouri, and an acquaintance of Creel's, had been elected Colorado's governor in 1908. Despite the Independent being profitable, he chose to give the newspaper away to a pair of young women who aspired to be newspaper publishers. Leaving Kansas City with just fifty dollars to his name, Creel soon found employment as an editorial writer for the Denver Post. He gained national publicity by calling for the lynching of 11 senators who opposed the public ownership of Denver's water company. He resigned promptly after and had a brief stint working at William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan. He moved on to write editorials for The Rocky Mountain News (1911–1912) where he was a strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson.

In June 1912, Creel was appointed Police Commissioner of Denver by the recently elected reform mayor, Henry J. Arnold. Creel immediately used the office to launch several ambitious reform campaigns, such as ordering police officers to give up their clubs and nightsticks, as well as a campaign to destroy the red-light district in downtown Denver, while providing a tax-funded rehabilitation farm for women leaving prostitution. His time as police commissioner ended after he began pushing the Mayor Henry Arnold to live up to campaign promises. Although he was dismissed by the mayor for the creation of dissension, he was lauded nationally for his watchdog efforts.

Then in 1916, he became heavily involved in President Wilson's re-election campaign. Working under Bob Wooley, the Publicity Head for the Democratic National Committee, Creel wrote newspaper features and interviewed various people. In March 1917, Creel discovered that many of the military leaders wanted strong censorship of any criticism of the war. Creel sent President Wilson a brief in which he argued for "expression, not suppression" of the press. Wilson approved Creel's proposal and appointed him as chairman of the Committee on Public Information.

Committee on Public Information
Seven days after the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information, a propaganda agency acting to release government news, to sustain morale in the US, to administer voluntary press censorship, and to develop propaganda abroad. George Creel was named the head of the committee, and he created 37 distinct divisions, most notably the Division of Pictorial Publicity, the Four Minute Men Division, the News Division, and the Censorship Board.

The Division of Pictorial Publicity was staffed by hundreds of the nation's most talented artists, and they created over 1000 designs for paintings, posters, cartoons, and sculptures that instilled patriotism, fear, and interest in the war efforts. Creel himself said that the images were "something that caught even the most indifferent eye." Through the Four Minute Men division, roughly 75,000 civilian volunteers spoke to 314 million people over the span of 18 months on topics assigned by the CPI, like the draft, rationing, bond drives, and victory gardens. These civilian volunteers spoke at social events in places like movie theaters and fellowship halls for four minutes, which was the time it took to change a movie reel and the time believed to be a human's attention span. The guidelines set forth by Creel directed the volunteers to fill their speeches with facts and appeals to emotions to bolster public support for the war efforts. Between the News Division and Censorship Committee, Creel and the CPI were able to control the flow of official war information. Creel sought to portray facts without bias, though most pieces of news were "colored by nationalistic assumptions." Creel's committee may have produced biased news, but it was his hope that the US could avoid rigid censorship during the war, as Creel's views on censorship were "expression, not repression." Under Creel's direction, the CPI sought only to repress material that contained "dangerous" or "unfavorable" ideas to avoid demoralizing the population.

All activities of the CPI ceased on November 11, 1918, upon the signing of the Armistice with Germany. The efforts of the CPI were regarded as the greatest public relations effort in history, up to its time. Such a massive, offensive, and multifaceted campaign had never been undertaken before, and the CPI brought to light the power of mass persuasion and social influence at a national level – realizations that had a profound effect on the field of public relations. Many of the 20th century's most influential public relations practitioners were trained under Creel on the committee, including Edward Bernays and Carl R. Byoir.

According to historian David F. Trask, all of Creel's strengths proved useful at CPI, especially "his predilection for Wilsonian reform abroad as well as at home, his personal magnetism, his taste for controversy, his tendency to attribute evil rather than misjudgment to those who criticized him." Trask continues:
 * As an administrator Creel was extraordinarily energetic, quick to make decisions, often impulsive. He was capable of inspiring strong devotion....Wilson seems to have held Creel in high regard, probably because of his unbending personal loyalty to the president as well as his effective methods of purveying administrative dogma.

Post-war career
After his prolific career as the chairman of the CPI, Creel joined Collier's magazine as a feature writer, until he retired in the late 1940s. In 1926, he moved to San Francisco and eventually chaired the Regional Labor Board (1933) for California, Utah, and Nevada.

He was an active member of the Democratic Party and ran against the left-wing novelist Upton Sinclair in the 1934 California gubernatorial election. Sinclair defeated Creel in the Democratic primary, but lost in the general election.

Personal life
Creel was married to actress Blanche Bates from 1912 until her death in 1941. The couple had two children, a son named George Jr. and a daughter named Frances. In 1943, he married Alice May Rosseter. During the last years of his life Creel resided in San Francisco until he died on October 2, 1953, at age 76. He was buried in his family plot at Mount Washington Cemetery in Independence, Missouri.

Works
Creel was the author of an extensive collection of writings. Some of his writing and books include:

Articles

 * "Rockefeller Law." The Masses, vol. 6, no. 10, iss. 50 (Jul. 1916), pp. 5-6. Full issue.
 * "The Fight for Public Opinion." Scientific American, vol. 118, no. 14 (Apr. 6, 1918), p. 298. . Full issue.

Books

 * Quatrains of Christ. Preface by Julian Hawthorne. Kansas City: The Independent Press (1907)..
 * Children in Bondage, with Edwin Markham & B. B. Lindsey (1913).
 * Wilson and the Issues (1916).
 * Ireland's Fight for Freedom (1919).
 * How We Advertised America (1920).
 * The War, the World and Wilson (1920).
 * Uncle Henry (1923).
 * The People Next Door: An Interpretive History of Mexico and the Mexicans. New York: John Day Company (1926).
 * Sons of the Eagle: Soaring Figures of America's Past. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company (1927).
 * Sam Houston: Colossus in Buckskin (1928)..
 * Tom Paine Liberty Bell. New York: Sears Pub. Co. (1932)..
 * War Criminals and Punishment (1944)..
 * Rebel at Large: Recollections of Fifty Crowded Years. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons (1947)..
 * Russia's Race for Asia. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill (1949)..

Articles

 * Benson, Krystina (2010). "Archival Analysis of The Committee on Public Information: The Relationship between Propaganda, Journalism and Popular Culture." International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, vol. 6, no. 4. pp. 151–164. abstract
 * Broom, John T. "Creel, George." In: 1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
 * Cornwell Jr, Elmer E. (1959). "Wilson, Creel, and the Presidency." Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 2. pp. 189–202..
 * Doenecke, Justus D. (Feb. 2000) "Creel, George Edward." American National Biography Online.
 * Fishman, Donald (2001). "George Creel: Freedom of Speech, the Film Industry, and Censorship During World War I." Free Speech Yearbook, vol. 39, no. 1. pp. 34–56.
 * Goldman, Emma (Feb. 2013). "Observations and Comments." Mother Earth, vol. VII, no. 12. primary source
 * Larson, Cedric, and James R. Mock (1939). "The Lost Files of the Creel Committee of 1917-19." Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 1. pp. 5–29..
 * Mastrangelo, Lisa (Apr. 4, 2009). "World War I, Public Intellectuals, and the Four Minute Men: Convergent Ideals of Public Speaking and Civic Participation." Rhetoric and Public Affairs.
 * Maxwell, Chloe (Spring 2015). "George Creel and the Committee on Public Information, 1917–1918." Tenor of Our Times, vol. 4, no. 1, article 8.
 * Murphy, Dennis M., and James F. White (2007). "Propaganda: Can a Word Decide a War?" Army War College.
 * Schaack, Eric Van (2006). "The Division of Pictorial Publicity in World War I." Design Issues, vol. 22, no. 1. pp. 32–45.
 * Vogt, George L. (2000). "When Posters Went to War: How America's Best Commercial Artists Helped Win World War I." Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 84, no. 2. pp. 38–47..

Books

 * Ashley, Perry J. (1984). American Newspaper Journalists, 1901–1925. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 25. Detroit: Gale Research. ISBN 978-0810317048.
 * Axlerod, Alan (2009). Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0230605039.
 * Blum, Daniel (1954). Great Stars of the American Stage, Profile #34, 2nd edition.
 * Committee on Public Information (1917). How the War Came to America. Washington: Government Printing Office. primary source.
 * Creel, George (1920). How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information That Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe. New York: Harper & Brothers. ISBN 0548820929..
 * Fleming, Thomas (2003) The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I. New York: Basic Books.
 * Hamilton, John Maxwell (2020). Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. ISBN 978-0807170779.
 * Vaughn, Steven (1980). Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and the Committee on Public Information. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
 * Wilcox, Dennis L., and Glen T. Cameron, Jae-Hwa Shinn, Bryan H. Reber (2013). Think: Public Relations. New Jersey: Pearson Education; Boston: Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 978-0205781690.

title: George Creel


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Wikipedians who support the guideline: "do not revert the same page more than three times in the same day" include:
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 * 20) Hephæstos|§
 * 21) Anthony DiPierro In theory, though there are exceptions.
 * 22) Tannin Note: as a guideline, people seem to be claiming it is a rule. To my astonishment, I find myself agreeing with Anthony DiPierro, who writes: "In theory, though there are exceptions."
 * 23) Fennec - if it's a problem with vandalism, then get someone else to revert it. If it's an edit war, mere reversion is pointless. If someone else breaks the rule, get them censured and/or banned, as necessary, and have someone else revert it. :)
 * 24) →Raul654 05:19, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC) (Wow. Lir, Wik, and Anthony all agreed on something. Scary.)
 * 25) —Eloquence (if consistently enforced)
 * 26) Tuf-Kat
 * 27) Infrogmation
 * 28) Bryan though it will be necessary to make allowances for dealing with people who simply ignore this guideline, since otherwise it puts the "law-abiding" Wikipedians at a significant disadvantage.
 * 29) Cyan
 * 30) Sam Spade 04:24, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) But only if there are NO exceptions for ANYONE (no matter how big their ego is ;). There needs to be a better version of article disputes that is similar to the Conflict resolution process.
 * 31)  Dandrake My naive question: if it's in a triple-revert war, isn't it time to stop messing around? I.e., Metasquares is right.
 * 32) DanKeshet
 * 33) 217.204.254.211
 * 34) Danny
 * 35) Seth Ilys. This is a good idea only if it is strictly enforced.
 * 36) User:Fred Bauder
 * 37) Ruhrjung 13:49, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) - three a day is far too much already
 * 38) RoseParks 18:18, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * 39) Ams80 18:34, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * 40) Flockmeal 20:50, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * 41) Nohat 21:09, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)
 * 42) silsor 02:38, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
 * 43) James F. (talk) 03:13, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * 44) Meelar 13:06, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC).  Recent experience has changed my thinking--the cost of not having this policy is a little too high.
 * 45) Catherine 19:29, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * 46) denny vrandečić 20:15, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * 47) Ryan_Cable 14:59, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 48) Delirium 00:34, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * 49) Kingturtle 06:29, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 50) Robert Merkel 11:32, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 51) FirmLittleFluffyThing definitly as a guideline, not decided as a rule.
 * 52) Stewart Adcock 23:41, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 53) Sean 08:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 54) +sj+ (and preferably less than 3; little alarm bells should start to go off as soon as a page is reverted twice in 24 hours by any one person... more than thrice should be actively avoided (ignoring reversions of anonymous edits))
 * 55) Nephelin (in mind: sysops are normal users)
 * 56) d8uv  (t)  02:28, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC) guideline
 * 57) Cribnotes 18:31, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 58) Jonathan Grynspan (yeah, I can't for the life of me figure out how to insert a time without manually typing it in)
 * 59) Dark Tichondrias 06:23, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 60) --Ye Olde Luke 02:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedians who oppose
Wikipedians who oppose the guideline: "do not revert the same page more than three times in the same day" include:
 * 1) Daniel C. Boyer
 * 2) Taku
 * 3) Daniel Quinlan
 * 4) Wik 13:27, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)
 * 5) NetEsq 00:06, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * 6) Lirath Q. Pynnor If you don't like reverting -- then protect the page in question
 * Anthony DiPierro Not sure how useful this is, but I'm not opposed to it as a guideline.
 * 1) Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 01:28, 2004 May 14 (UTC): I never did like arbitery limits, and even though it is a very good general rule there might be some cases where it is needed, though second opinion should be sought as always.
 * 2) msh210. I do not like revert wars, but I've found it necessary to revert a page twice in a day; see, e.g., DOTA, 29 Mar 2005, and I can easily imagine some persistent vandal making me revert the same article thrice or even, um, fries in a day.   —msh210 16:30, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedians who think it pointless
Wikipedians who think its pointless to declare an "end to revert wars" without advocating another means of solving disputes:
 * Lirath Q. Pynnor
 * Anthony DiPierro I don't see what's wrong with revert wars in the first place. They're a symptom of a much more difficult problem: getting thousands of people across the world to agree on a single version of a page. Stopping people from reverting an article more than a certain number of times a day isn't going to solve that.
 * Tannin (With reservations: i.e., I respect the point but recognise that we have to be more proactive with persistent troublemakers.)
 * Cyan

In rare cases, one might consider having more than one version of the page. Sounds radical, but might resolve some edit wars and since Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia, it doesn't have to be exactly like a paper encyclopaedia.
 * Hemanshu 21:55, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Tannin 21:44, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Having more than one version should be routine.
 * User:Fred Bauder There is more than one valid way of looking at many things.
 * ugen64 - to my experience, there's two kinds of revert wars: anti-vandalism, and a "troll" being reverted repeatedly for no reason at all (Wik once corrected a spelling error and removed extraneous info, then was repeatedly reverted by none other than Tim Starling).

Discussion
I don't know about you lot, but I'm going to follow this rule for myself, as much as I can - and I hope others will follow it too. Revert wars on Wikipedia are typically an indication that two or more people need smacking around the head with a clue stick. Martin 21:18, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * ...or one person is an unrepentant vandal or spammer, as with the person who tried it on the various belly dance related articles today. --Modemac 21:27, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Looks to me like you didn't revert belly dance or other articles more than once. Eg Raqs al Sharqi - you reverted once, and Mav reverted once.
 * You're right: there are times when this guideline is inappropriate, but I think they're surprisingly rare. Martin 21:33, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Two issues come to mind:
 * What about vandalism? Perhaps an exception needs to be made?
 * What about this problem
 * Person 2 makes edit
 * Person 1 reverts - 1
 * Person 2 reverts - 1
 * Person 1 reverts - 2
 * Person 2 reverts - 2

So now Person 2 will always "win" this revert war, no matter what limit is alowed... Dysprosia 22:15, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Person 1 may make another edit to an alternative third version. Now person 2 may not revert without going against our guidelines on numbers of reverts. Person 3 may come along. In any case, Person 2 will only "win" for a day - the following morning, person 1 may, if they still believe they are correct, revert again. Martin 22:35, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Oh right, I see now, so this limit applies to reversions of the same version, not absolute reversions... What about vandalism, still? Will this be excluded? Dysprosia 22:46, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Some of LibertarianAnarchist's edits/vandalism has been reverted many more times than that. This doesn't work with vandalism :( Secretlondon 22:49, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

It's a guideline - in some cases of vandalism you might want to make an exception - but a quick scan of vandalism in progress suggests that with vandalism, a revert war is rarely necessary - most vandals make a few dodgy edits, and then leave.

LA is obviously a difficult case, and I don't want to be simplistic about him, because there are no easy answers to such problems. I think the spirit of the guideline is clear enough, even if attempting to apply it too rigidly could be a mistake. Also, I note that LA is very definately going against this guideline, both in spirit and in letter. It's another thing to point him to when explaining to him why his behaviour is inappropriate... and that may even lead to a ban, as a last resort. Martin 23:17, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I mean the problem is the prevalence of relentless edit wars that may weed out valuable contributors in the worst case, but not the number of reverting. A kind of imposing numerial limitation is analogous to protecting the article and it cannot be the answer. -- Taku 23:48, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

 * Surely if the problem is that the edit was are relentless, then this would be a good solution?
 * One difference between this guideline, and protecting the article, is that this guideline is soft security, whereas getting a sysop to protect an article is hard security. Thus they are very different things. Martin 00:25, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * If the guidline is that soft then what is difference between it and just saying don't engage in edit wars. I personally don't revert someones' edits several times aside from vandal reasons because I don't want to go to the edit war. -- Taku

 * It's not a soft guideline: it's "soft security". To quote MeatballWiki: That's not the same as weak security. The idea is to protect the system and its users from harm, in gentle and unobtrusive ways. Soft security is like water. It bends under attack, only to rush in from all directions to fill the gaps. It's strong over time yet adaptable to any shape.

 * I could say "don't engage in edit wars" (and, elsewhere, I say something similar) but on this page I'd like to strongly discourage revert wars, which I feel are a particularly counter-productive instance of the edit war species. Martin 00:47, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I moved a following section from the main page. It is not a consensus at all. -- Taku 00:08, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

 * That's cool - I reworked it back above. Martin 00:22, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think it's important to point out that it doesn't have to be a fight between two people. If person 1 is right, then the chances are person 3 will come in to support them, and if person 1 and 3 have both reverted three times, then it's probably time to protect the page. This happened tonight on Freemasonry and Knights Templar where I decided to stop reverting after the third one. Reverts were also made Cyan, Cimon avaro and Hephaestos and then the pages were protected by Minesweeper and Cimon avaro. I think the fact that there was more than one person involved in reverting may have helped Chiramabi to understand what was happening, rather than thinking it was just one person who didn't agree with him. So, even though Freemasonry was reverted 15 times, no one apart from Chiramabi had to revert it more than three times in the same day. Angela 05:10, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Well put, Angela! Perhaps you could alter the proposed text to make that more explicit? Martin 13:37, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * I haven't changed it much. I think the "If the edit really needs reverting that much, somebody else will do it" covers it really. Angela

I worry this proposed change will only benefit people who don't play nice, I would prefer to have the ability for sysops to block/unblock pages for specific problem users. Saying three reverts indicates a problem is unfair to typical editors who run into unreasonable people. Daniel Quinlan
 * But whether you are reasonable or not is just your point of view. By sticking to the policy, you can see whether other people support you and whether you really are reasonable or not. Everyone in an edit war claims they are the reasonable one. Angela

If you need to revert more than once for something other than vandalism, it's time to get the community involved, IMO. That sends a much better message to those doing the problematic things. Look over WikiProjects, seek Peer review, ask for others to assist in the Village pump or do other things instead of participating in escalation. JamesDay 12:25, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The problem with edit wars is not that the Recent Changes are cluttered up. Forcing a reduction in the frequency is not solving the underlying problem of how to settle a content dispute where a consensus can not be reached by discussion. I see only two options there, either a voting procedure or a decision by a special authority to be created for that purpose. In any case there would have to be a final decision which would then be binding on both sides in the dispute. --Wik 13:27, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

 * Well continuing to revert more than three times isn't going to solve a content dispute either. Angela

 * A consensus on the text of Wikipedia articles can always be reached by discussion, where both parties are prepared to discuss. The aim should not be to "settle" the dispute, judging one side right, and the other side wrong, but to create a text with which neither side disagrees. That is the definition of a neutral point of view. Martin 18:59, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * That is quite obviously not true in practice. --Wik 19:10, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

 * Counter-example? Martin 19:23, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Republic of Macedonia, Mother Teresa, Silesia, Adolf Hitler, ... --Wik 19:37, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

 * Republic of Macedonia is chiefly a dispute on the title of a page, not the text of the page. The dispute on the text of the page is basically solved - it's at the tweak stage. Certainly, I agree that in some cases it's not possible to get a unanimous consensus on the best title for a page. On the other hand, a series of move wars won't help either, as Angela points out.

 * Mother Teresa is being solved, by discussion. This will take time and effort, for it is a controversial subject close to people's hearts. I didn't say that consensus can be reached instantly, or without effort - merely that it can be reached. See this post for evidence that discussion was producing.

 * On Silesia, we currently have one party who is refusing to discuss: Caius2ga. Prior to that, we had someone else refusing to discuss. However, note that the conflict between Nico and szopen was solved, and it was solved by discussion, once both were prepared to discuss. This is evidence for my approach, not yours.

 * Adolf Hitler is much closer to consensus than it was prior to discussion, because the alternate solution of having a spelling note at the end of the article (rather than in the introduction) has been suggested and implemented. People seem sufficiently happy with the current version of that endnote, which was arrived at through discussion. Again, evidence for my approach, not yours.

 * Reaching a consensus requires effort. It requires research. It requires communication. All in all it involves a bigger investment in Wikipedia than a series of random revert wars. But once it produces, it produces solutions that last. Revert wars only ever get as far as an uneasy ceasefire - broken as soon as the balance of power twitches momentarilly. Think in terms of the Long Now. Martin 21:46, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't think consensus is always going to be possible. What about September 11, 2001?  I don't think there will ever be a consensus as to whether or not to use the word terrorist in certain situations.  Sometimes you've just gotta vote, it seems.  Hopefully you can make the votes broad enough so that they'll cover lots of different situations, but that's the best you can do. Anthony DiPierro 05:56, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree. Polling wars are usually left as far too personal an issue, in my opinion. Once identified, they should be open to polling and larger debate. If we can keep the debates channeled into the relevant discussion pages, it should calm things down a bit and converge towards a solution. --boiled_elephant 10:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


text:
Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version/Policy vote: 24 hour bans for revert wars

See also:
 * Policy vote: per article ban or per user page protection for revert wars?
 * Poll: revert wars considered harmful

Policy vote: 24 hour bans for revert wars?
The previous poll ("Revert wars considered harmful") and discussion below indicate that the community is broadly in favor of the guideline "do not revert the same page more than three times in the same day".

For the purposes of this proposed policy, since it is more rigid than the current guideline, the rule would be no user may revert 6 or more times in one 24 hour period - these 6 reverts may be to one page, or spread across several pages. This rule is not intended to grant an allowance of 5 reverts per user per day, reverts should still be avoided.

The only exception to this rule will be in cases of clear vandalism — not content disputes, but cleaning up after a user who goes on a spree on vandalism, like the current case of User:Bird and his never-ending list of proxy IPs with which he is circumventing a hard ban.

Currently, when users engage in a revert war, sysops may decide to protect that page. A temporary page protection is supposed to allow the users to calm down and discuss the problem on the article's talk page. However, this prevents all users from editing the page in question, and does nothing to stop the warring users moving on to another article and engaging in exactly the same destructive behaviour.

This proposal is to turn the guideline into a policy, and to back this up with a 24 hour ban for any user who breaks it. This ban could be enforced by any sysop.

-- fabiform

Proposed amendment by Eloquence, added on March 14
Any 24 hour ban decision needs to be confirmed by a quickpoll before it can be implemented. The policy will be refined on the basis of quickpoll results to better deal with exceptions and "gaming".

''If you support this amendment, please add "with quickpolls" to your vote in favor. If you object to it, please add "against quickpolls" to your vote. Please also add your opinion on Wikipedia talk:Quickpolls.''

Arguments in favor
(by fabiform, etc)
 * Sysops already have the power to ban any anonymous user for 24 hours if they engage in destructive behaviour. This extension of their powers to ban logged in users would be clearly defined and their actions would be open to scrutiny.
 * Sysops would not be given the power to extend the 24 hour ban. Once a user returns after a 24 hour ban they have a clean slate and are given a second chance.
 * This ban could be put in place as swiftly as pages are currently protected by sysops; destructive users would no longer be able to disrupt the community for weeks before any action is taken against them.
 * If a sysop were to make a mistake, or abuse this power, the worst that any user would face is not being able to edit this website for 24 hours.
 * Any sysop abusing this new power would be an obvious candidate for desysopping.
 * Banning a user for 24 hours will give them time to calm down and to step back and examine their actions. The present system does little to slow a user down if they lose their sense of proportion and move from page to page as they are protected due to their warring.
 * When one or two users misbehave, the rest of the community is no longer punished by being prevented from editing certain pages and having to follow warring users around, cleaning up after them.

Arguments in opposition
(by Martin, etc)
 * Sysops and users widely differ in what they see as "clear vandalism", so making an exception for clear vandals increases controversy. For example, note that Wik considers Lir a clear vandal.
 * Not making an exception for "clear vandalism" encourages individual vandals to get reverted (three times each!) by a wide variety of good Wikipedians. This promotes cohesiveness, shares the load, guards against burnouts, and displays a united community front.
 * When is a revert not a revert? When it is:
 * A partial revert - I revert part of an edit, but not the other part
 * A logical revert - I made a change, it got reverted, so I made the same changed but phrased it differently (hoping it would be more acceptable the second time).
 * A revert+edit - I reverted, and then I added some extra text myself (hoping it will address the relevant point).
 * Protecting the version disliked by the reversionista is a better alternative (see proposal and support below)
 * Banning prevents discussion, and discussion is very often precisely the force required to fix the revert war at source. While protection does not encourage discussion in all cases, often it does.
 * Extremely active editors may well revert six times in 24 hours for legitimate reasons without realizing it, particularly when the reverts are spread out over a large number of unrelated pages.
 * As phrased, there are too many ways to "game" the system
 * Setting per-user limits of any kind will set us up for endless, pointless games of "hunt the sock puppet."

Wikipedians in favor of this proposed policy

 * 1) mav (revert wars solve nothing and only lead to ruined edit histories, high tempers, and increased attrition of valuable contributors. A 24 hour time-out should lesson the harm from edit disputes and encourage people to engage in consensus editing)
 * 2) Nilmerg
 * 3) -Robert Merkel 11:32, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) (I hate to have to make rules, but this one has become necessary).
 * 4. Pfortuny 11:38, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC). See comment below.
 * 1) —Eloquence 12:14, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC) (Tannin makes good points, but we can address these on a case-by-case basis)
 * 2) Stewart Adcock 23:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) (We should be able to trust any sysop to implement such bans on a case-by-case basis, when demanded by events.)
 * 3) RickK 03:27, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)  Make it so.
 * 4) BCorr ¤ Брайен  13:48, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) Good idea, Martin. Anything to reduce the anti-vandalism workload, is worth a try. --Uncle Ed 13:57, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * (Martin has voted against this, he added the arguments in opposition list. I wrote the proposal but have yet to vote.  fabiform | talk 14:38, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC))
 * 1) llywrch
 * 2) Sean 08:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Arvindn 13:46, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Hephaestos|§ 17:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC) I'll come right out and say one of the reasons I'm voting for this proposal is because if Wik, Lir and Anthony are all voting against it then it must be at least getting close to what we need here.  Martin et al. have some very good objections, and these almost swayed my vote, but I think the overriding concern is that we need something in place now (yesterday, last month, last year).  We cannot afford to allow this disruptive behavior to continue any longer. My feeling is that if this policy is put in place as-is now, any problems, glitches or nuances can be worked out on the fly.
 * 5) Imran 19:57, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Darkelf 01:36, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Nephelin (in mind that sysops are normal users)
 * 8) J-V Heiskanen 15:11, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC) Hephaestos talks with my voice.
 * 9) Bryan 22:38, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC) If this turns out to lead to worse heartache it can always be rescinded later, but edit wars are causing problems right now. We should be bold in experimenting with ways to fix them.
 * 10) I like this idea. Perl 22:43, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 11) With quickpolls, I change my vote. ugen64 23:12, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * 12) +sj+ 23:17, 2004 Mar 14 (UTC)  (with quickpolls)
 * 13) with quickpolls fabiform | talk 23:23, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 14) Angela - support with or without quickpolls. (note - I changed my vote from mildly oppose to support). I can't see any reason for one person to revert four times in the same day.
 * 15) Ryan_Cable 11:31, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedians opposed to this proposed policy

 * 1) Tannin 11:48, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) Much too inflexible to cope with reality. For example, two days ago someone moved a page ill-advisedly and I moved it back, then did about 30 reverts to fix all the links up again. That means I'd now be a banned user! A nice idea, but without more thought, this policy is a very bad one.
 * 2) anthony 14:04, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) The line between "clear vandalism" and "unclear vandalism" is far too fuzzy. This would allow subtle trolls to destroy wikipedia.  Instead, I support some form of quickpolls, but the current implementation is not adequate.
 * 3) Taku
 * 4) Wik 18:15, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC) (This accomplishes nothing, edit wars will just go on with each side making 5 reverts a day. Furthermore people will mask reverts by making trivial changes to other parts of the article and by not indicating the revert in the edit summary. When two or more users have a content dispute that they can't resolve between themselves, someone else will just have to make a binding decision on the matter. That really should be obvious. But some people prefer to treat symptoms rather than causes.)
 * That's what this accomplishes: it removes those who are edit warring from the process and leaves others free to work on the article, instead of having those who edit war to get their version and only their version force the article to be protected indefinitely. The refinement tackles the dodging issue, by applying human judgement to the question. Jamesday 06:17, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * How does it remove them from the process? It just throttles them. There is no resolution of the dispute. --Wik 22:42, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) In its current form only, because I do not believe that an individual person should make a block, ban, unblock or unban decision. Jamesday 07:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) James F. (talk) 14:02, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Lirath Q. Pynnor
 * 4) Strongly oppose, for the primary reason that "clear vandalism" is often unclear! Bird, at the start of his attacks, looked almost reasonable. A smarter vandal will be able to obscure himself in so much confusion that this rule will render us in effective to stop him. When we face a massive coordinated attack of smart vandals (and you know we will in the not-to-distant future) we don't want to be hindered by a six-revert-per-day rule and force the vandals to make us become hypocrites... -- Seth Ilys 20:13, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) *I think we might be able to use the "Quickpoll" proposed above to deal with these situations instead of setting hard and fast rules. -- Seth Ilys 22:22, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) User:Anthere.
 * 11. Ruhrjung 11:20, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) Unless combined with a protection of the affected page(s) lasting much longer than these 24 hours, I fear a 24-hour ban is more of a teaser than teacher for the villians. — revised vote: something done is better than nothing! I've cast a vote in support of the quickpoll scheme.
 * Avoiding protection, so that others can continue to improve the article, is one of the objectives. Jamesday 07:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * We clearly have quite different frames of references with respect to time. I consider 24 hours a very short time. Far too short for other users to produce something the warrior won't feel tempted to disrupt. Had the ban been for a week or a month, and by default included neighbouring IP-adresses, it would have been quite another matter. --Ruhrjung 17:49, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 1)  It can lead to abuse very easily.Muriel 21:40, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 2)  I say it will you mite not be able to uther things then? Maybe just tel them to stop it -- zzo38 17:42, 2004 Mar 26 (UTC)
 * 3) No. That means that each user can revert only 5 vandals every 24 hour period, and that's not counting any non-patent nonsense reverts. Anyway, this would probably cause "across the board reverts" - people could revert Wik without fear, because there's many (the general population) vs. a few (Wik, etc.). "Gang-up reverting" isn't a very good idea. ugen64 20:40, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose: If a revert war is under way then the page can be protected. Why need this?. Also what if someone is persistantly adding factually incorect statements etc to articles, and needs to be reverted G-Man 20:47, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose for all the reasons listed; the cure is worse than the disease.  UninvitedCompany 21:07, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose, with quickpolls (that is to say, if this policy is forced through, the quickpoll ammendment would be a slight improvement). However, generally speaking, there are far too many different and legitimate reasons for reverting to justify an arbitrary limit of 6 (or any other number). Reverts and page protection routines should be dealt with individually and on their own merits. I would support simply a descision for page protection via quickpoll, but banning is never the answer to content disputes. 80.255 16:47, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose. JRR Trollkien (see warning) 17:36, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose. Favors those with POV to come through, slant article, start revert war and leave the serious contributor on the down side of the rules. The rules should always favor wikicontent over nonwikicontent. Stirling Newberry 15:46, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * 9) Eric B. and Rakim 21:01, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * 10) -- orthogonal 03:33, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
 * 11) Oppose, I do not enjoy revert wars. I get involved in them when a user isists on POV. I prefer the topic be locked temporarily. Cat chi? 23:19, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 12) Oppose. Jtkiefer 21:46, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC) The way I see it this would only place another layer of beaurocracy in the way of giving proper bans, I think this is an uneccessary extra block in the way of letting admins do their job.
 * 13) Oppose.  Not relatred to what it intends to accomplish, too time-delaying when many sysops won't even block and will remove someone elses block if the event happened even a few hours ago.  Gene Nygaard 19:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 14) Oppose. That would effect any user with a large amount of pages on watchlist too easily. On a real war where 2 parties revert each other accross a set of articles something similar might be benefitial but not in this form. Agathoclea 11:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Abstaining Wikipedians

 * 1) Oppose: Martin: See below: I prefer allowing sysops to protect the version used by the set of contributors who have abided by the three revert guideline. I also question whether a limit of five reverts is too low. I also don't see the benefit in making exceptions for vandalism - pure vandalism will always be reverted by someone else. Also, I note that certain Wikipedians have felt free to unilaterally label other people as vandals, even where this is disputed, which would make this rule unnecessarilly controversial.
 * How does that address the desire to avoid protecting the article, so others can improve it? Jamesday 07:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Talkpages!--Ruhrjung 15:23, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Some articles (e.g. DNA) are frozen for a long time, and editors might read talk pages, but people using wikipedia as a resource aren't going to. fabiform | talk 15:39, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * That's already failed. Those who are most prone to edit wars don't discuss and seek consensus, they edit war instead. That and the uneditability consequences of it is why we're having this discussion. Jamesday 06:11, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Jimbo said, That's something I could enthusiastically support. --mav 07:56, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I have changed my vote to abstain - having made the above protection policy (un)"official", I'm interested to see whether it's enough, or whether we need to do more. Martin 17:09, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Vote on refinement of the proposal
If you object, would the following change cause you to change your vote?
 * Whether the threshold has been passed is to be decided by a straw poll which requires at least five sysops participating and at least an 80% agreement that the threshold has been passed. If that 80% is subsequently not met, the block should be removed until it is. Sysops only because one concern raised elsewhere was that the process would be subverted through the use of multiple accounts created for the purpose. Human judgement should be used to decide what is a revert and what is legitimate dealing with trolls or masked reverts through trivial changes elsewhere in the article.

The purpose is to remove the scope for unilateral action and allow for human interpretation of whether a series of edits is legitimate, such as dealing with vandalism, or an attempt to work around the limit, as postulated by Wik. Jamesday 07:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Support refinement
"Yes, I'd change vote" ... or "I support the proposed policy with this refinement":
 * 1) Jamesday 07:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:06, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC) (seems like a reasonable well-defined formulation of what I was grappling for in the chat below).
 * 3) This might address the issue of the differentiation between good and bad reverts being so subjective if the decision were not left to one sysop. Even if it's a "good revert", it doesn't need to be made 4 times, so there is no need for a modification. The rule should apply in all cases. Angela
 * 4) Tannin. At least I'd probably change my vote. I think there needs to be a bit more thought and refinement yet, but this suggestion is clearly heading in the right direction.
 * 5) Perl 22:44, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Oppose refinement
"No, I wouldn't change vote" ... or "I don't support the proposed policy with this refinement":
 * 1) Wik 15:18, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Ruhrjung 15:23, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC) has cast vote in favor of quickpolls
 * 3) Anthony DiPierro Sysops have too much power as it is.
 * 4) I oppose this refinement Sam Spade 20:36, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) 80.255 16:54, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC). I echo the sentiment of Anthony DiPierro
 * 6) JRR Trollkien (see warning) 17:37, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Stirling Newberry 15:55, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC) After having thought about it, there are just too many individual variables. Revert wars, the real kind, seem to come at the end of deteroriating relations between two users. That should be the deciding factor - how people have behaved over the course of the dispute. Otherwise, this is an incentive to goad a reasonable poster into anger and then ban them. That's a school yard game of long standing and institutionalizing it is a bad idea. There is also the very difference between pages with many contributors and pages with a few. In the many contributors section, "someone else will revert" is a reasonable attitude, however, in many cases where a page, particular in a topic that has a zealous net following, one could easily have several dittoheads against one reasonable poster.
 * 8) Gene Nygaard 19:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC) (would be even more opposed)

Support the proposed policy but wouldn't support it with this change

 * 1) Darkelf 01:41, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC) — The refined policy as I understand it would make the 24 hour bans useless again. A committee will take too long to decide and by that time the revert war will be in full force again.
 * 2) I oppose this refinement Sam Spade 20:36, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Abstentions

 * — Fennec

Comments, suggestions for refinements, arguments against
Refactored conversation
 * We still need to warn people better that (multiple) reverting is bad.
 * There should be a 'semi-automatic' way of dealing with this problem. Ban lengths could be proportional to number of reverts. If a user reverts 60 times in the last two days, punished, say, (60/6/2)*24 = 120 hours (he was 5 times "a single bad behaviour")
 * This suggestion is inflexible and unrelated to quality of reversions. Why not just use a string of 24-hour bans?
 * This rule is trivial for a troll to "game" by making trivial (bad) edits, which a good user wouldn't be allowed to revert.
 * This rule isn't aimed at all trollish behaviour. We need seperate rules for that (and we need them badly).
 * You shouldn't feed the troll by following him and reverting every troll. Rather, call for community support.

 * Proposal: A user can be banned for 24 hours if X sysops post agreement, with reasons, on some notice page, within some short timespace. X would be at least 3 but small enough to enable a rapid response.
 * Proposal seconded, thirded, and fourthed; given glory laud and honor.
 * No good. This would delay implementing a ban and add an extra layer of bureaucracy. Still, it's not that bad: small values of X, and shared responsibility.
 * Unless a single admin can ban a user, there is scope for this bureaucracy. Yes, it should be easy to find 4-5 sysops. Not advocating a software change- there can just be a page for it.
 * Sysops currently have the technical ability to ban a logged in users, but absolutely no right to do so, except in the case of re-encarnations of hard banned users.
 * Too open-ended, and dangerously broad. Might allow a small number of sysops to effectively create policy as well as enforce it. Open to abuse. Voting for a fast ban could split the community. Sysops shouldn't have such broad powers.
 * Proposal was badly worded. Try instead: "X admins can ban a user if, in their collective opinion, the user has breached established policy." In effect it would be a rapid-fire arbitration committee, with more limited powers (temporary bans only). Binding decision would only be made by the real committee.
 * Administrators says "Sysops are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility." This goes against that.
 * Well, currently any one sysop can ban a user for violating policy established by the whole community. This would make it require X sysops to agree, and is more democratic. We have already tried having whole community input (the old /ban pages). They were a disaster: lots of talk but decisions still had to be taken by Jimbo.
 * Yes, even one sysop has the power, but that's supposed to be used only for clear vandalism and reincarnations of hard-banned users. Extending this power to breaches of established policy is a significant change.
 * An X sysops model may be too simplistic. Suppose that X agree, but several disagree. Rather, we need ways to develop a consensus faster in an emergency.
 * This is reasonable and urgently needed until some of the ideas on the mailing list (in the Rethinking Vandalism and Transition to WikiDemocracy threads) come into being.

 * What we need is to delay all edits so they won't take place for several days, during which you'd only see the update while editing. Edit wars wouldn't be exciting.
 * This is a horrible idea. It's a WikiWiki. Fast fast. What you propose is a fundemental change which would drain the life and vitality of everything good about our rapid-fire editing processes. - Fennec 14:35, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * This wiki should be an encyclopedia, right? Encyclopedic articles don't need to be hastily changeable. Quite the contrary, indeed.--Ruhrjung 15:27, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * The instant gratification of a visible edit is a big part of what attracts people to the project. I fear this route would lead to a dramatic slowdon in "new blood". Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:55, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * In the case of Wikipedia, I think three strikes are a sufficient criterion; three reverts by one user on a page within 24 hours, and the page is protected. Three revert or edit wars accumulated by one user, and he's banned for a week. Low enough thresholds to stop vandalism early, but high enough to allow room for a newbie learning curve. -- Seth Ilys 20:21, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Seconded! We need to act quicly. Additionally: it should be possible to make a script to scan articles history to find out the alternating same users' edits (like that at Expulsion of Germans after World War II), isn't it? Perhaps that script could automatically protect page at 3rd round of revert? -- Forseti 09:40, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * May I ask from where this 24-hours period originates? While I'm all for measures against the extremely un-cooperative behavior certain regular wikipedians seem addicted to, I've found most of the ideas presented in this context to be far too lenient, and thereby maybe rather counterproductive. If the offenders get satisfaction from our indignation, then a 24-hours period is little more than the time to sleep, eat, and return from school/work/whatever. Would there be any support in this community for more perceptible sanctions, as for instance a bann lasting two or four weeks?--Ruhrjung 15:33, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * A ban lasting 3 days or one week is more appropriate. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  20:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

--

moved from mother page, a dissident vote :-)

Unequality proposition
But Erik, you are trying to have edit wars solution be based uniquely on 2 or 3 wik-like people, while there are many other very regular and sometimes very respected contributors, who actually sometimes get into edit war and reversion war themselves in the heat of the moment.

For Wik-like people, yes, a temporary ban may be a relief. Now, for regular editors, I think it is a bad solution.

Suggestion : What about a different policy depending on whether editors are listed as "frequently involved in wars" people ?

For those "problematic users", for example, though not mandatory, any 3 reverts session could grant either softban or page protection or slow-editing for 24 hours. Without the sysop doing the ban or the protection or the slow edit having to justify himself or to argue he did not commit sysop abuse.

However, none of these three actions would be mandatory. People could still consider applying one or another, depending on the person.

Now, for people not listed as "problematic", only page protection could be applied, eventually, after a certain number of reverts.

As for listing people problematic, I can just suggest a poll. If over 75% wikipedians agree a person is problematic, well, he may undergo harder punishement than others.

This will allow people like Wik to be blocked after 3 reverts. So, satisfy some wikipedians. This will allow regular users only to see only article protection occuring for 3 reverts in most cases, so might satisfy all those against the ban for 3 revert rule. This should satisfy both those willing to stop editors like Wik, and those saying he is part of the project. This will sent him the signal "better behavior" -> "lighter punishment"

Similar to real life when a person gets heavier and heavier punishement as he multiplies offenses.

FirmLittleFluffyThing 03:06, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * May I ask what "Wik-like people" is supposed to mean? --Wik 22:42, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

the general behaviour of a user is one more thing to take into account when deciding on a "punishment" or whatever

24-hour bans for serious revert wars withdrawn

Proposal: Quickpolls
I have created Quickpolls to add a review stage to the proposed 24 hour ban policy. This page would serve as a quick way to decide whether the policy has been violated in spirit and in letter. This way we address the problem of "gaming" the policy in various ways, and can adapt the policy over time rather than have to inflexibly apply it.

I would like to invite all who have voted against 24 hour bans to reexamine their arguments in light of this proposed system, to change their vote accordingly if they want to, and to add their support/opposition on Wikipedia talk:Quickpolls.—Eloquence 15:45, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)


text:
Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version/Policy vote: Protect or slow down editing

See Also:
 * Policy vote: 24 hour bans for revert wars?
 * Poll: revert wars considered harmful

Policy vote: per article ban or per user page protection for revert wars?
The previous poll ("Revert wars considered harmful") and discussion below indicate that a large majority of the community are in favor of the guideline "do not revert the same page more than three times in the same day".

For the purposes of this proposed policy, since it is more rigid than the current guideline, the rule would be no user may revert 6 or more times the same page in one 24 hour period - these 6 reverts have to be to one page. This rule is not intended to grant an allowance of 5 reverts per user per day per article: reverts should be avoided.

The only exception to this rule will be in cases of clear political conflict; not content disputes, but covering up after a user who goes on a timely campaign of political activism, like the current case of User:Bird and her never-ending list of proxy IPs, sock puppets and allies with which she is circumventing a hard ban. Of course, assaults against User:bird began after Bird reverted pages only once.

Currently, when users engage in a revert war, sysops may decide to protect that page. A temporary page protection is supposed to allow the users to calm down and discuss the problem on the article's talk page. However, this prevents all users from editing the page in question.

This proposal is intended to be less agressive toward the user (as it does not prevent him entirely from editing wikipedia, at least talk pages are available) to avoid the risk of teaming up of a couple of users against another user.

Two options are proposed.
 * 1) Banning one (or more) user from the page during 24 hours;
 * 2) Slowing down the edition process of a page from one specific (or more) user during 24 hours (for example, only one edit for that page for the user)

Arguments in favor

 * More acceptable to the numerous people who expressed themselves in disfavor of the ban
 * Banning or slowing down a user for 24 hours will give them time to calm down and to step back and examine their actions.
 * When one or two users misbehave, the rest of the community is no longer punished by being prevented from editing certain pages and having to follow warring users around, cleaning up after them.
 * Less aggressive toward users

Arguments in opposition

 * Requires tech implementation, but protection of article per user has often been mentioned as potentially very beneficial
 * What about anonymous users? IP addresses can change, particularly with users on dial-up.
 * The definition for user is uncertain. Includes "user" sysops as well? It's a requirement...

Wikipedians in favor

 * 1) FirmLittleFluffyThing
 * 2) James F. (talk) 13:07, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) BCorr ¤ Брайен
 * 4) This sounds like the "throttling" idea Jimbo proposed yesterday. --Uncle Ed 14:06, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 5) Jwrosenzweig 21:45, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Sean 08:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Fennec 13:42, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC) So long as it doesn't interfere with counter-vandalism efforts.
 * 8) El
 * 9) Hephaestos|§ 17:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC) (this is long overdue)
 * 10) Angela. This would be very useful.
 * 11) Only if they do it excessively: a couple of articles with very very very questionable edits should not cause someone to be blocked. ugen64 01:33, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * 12) +sj+  Similarly, per-article protection (for limited stretches of time) from editing by anonymous users could be useful.
 * 13) Bryan 22:33, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 14) Ryan_Cable 11:36, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 15) Sam Spade 05:23, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC) Must include sysops!
 * 16) Jamesday 03:11, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * 17) Zigger 02:40, 2004 Jul 3 (UTC) Also allow per-page protection from IP ranges.

Wikipedians opposed to this proposed policy

 * 1) Taku
 * 2) Ruhrjung
 * 3) Wik
 * 4) Anthony DiPierro
 * 5) Lirath Q. Pynnor
 * 6) Nephelin
 * 7) bsoft
 * 8) Stirling Newberry
 * 9) Gene Nygaard 19:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Abstentions

 * (none)

Wikipedians in favor

 * 1) FirmLittleFluffyThing
 * 2) Ruhrjung (Aint sure about precise implementation, but slowing down editing seems a good idea)
 * 3) James F. (talk) 13:07, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) BCorr ¤ Брайен
 * 5) This sounds like the "throttling" idea Jimbo proposed yesterday. --Uncle Ed 14:06, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) Jwrosenzweig 21:45, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Sean 08:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 8) Fennec So long as it doesn't mess up counter-vandalism efforts.
 * 9) Angela.
 * 10) Bryan 22:33, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 11) Sam Spade 05:24, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC) Must include sysops!
 * 12) Jamesday 03:11, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) though this one won't stop deterined edit warriors it may be a useful initial step or others before going to a ban from an article.
 * 13) Scott Gall 09:21, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC) But how can you slow down editing? How long would it take to edit if it's slowed down?

Wikipedians opposed

 * 1) Taku
 * 2) Wik
 * 3) Anthony DiPierro
 * 4) Lirath Q. Pynnor
 * 5) El
 * 6) Among other things, this won't stop reverters. ugen64 01:34, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) Nephelin - an ip address is easily changed
 * 8) bsoft
 * 9) Ryan_Cable 11:36, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * 10) Stirling Newberry

Abstentions

 * 1) Hephaestos|§ 17:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)


text:
Timeline of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War

The following is a timeline relating to the Second Italo–Ethiopian War to the end of 1936. A number of related political and military events followed until 1942, but these have been omitted.

1930

 * Italy builds a fort at Walwal, an oasis in the Ogaden, as part of their gradual encroachment into what had been generally considered Ethiopian territory.

1934

 * September 29: Italy and Ethiopia release a joint statement refuting any aggression between each other.
 * November 23: An Anglo–Ethiopian boundary commission discovers the Italian force at Walwal. British members of the delegation soon retire to avoid an international incident.
 * December 5: Tensions result in a border clash at Walwal.
 * December 6: Abyssinia protests Italian aggression at Walwal.
 * December 8: Italy demands apology for Walwal incident.

1935

 * January 3: Ethiopia appeals to the League of Nations for arbitration into the Walwal incident.
 * January 7: On Pierre Laval's visit to Rome, the French and Italians sign a pact which, among other conditions, allows Italy a free hand in dealing with Ethiopia in exchange for Italian support against German aggression.
 * February 23: Benito Mussolini sends Emilio De Bono to Italian Eritrea and Rodolfo Graziani to Italian Somaliland along with 100,000 Italian troops to prepare for invasion.
 * March 8: Ethiopia again requests arbitration and notes Italian military build-up.
 * March 13: Italy and Ethiopia agree on a neutral zone in the Ogaden.
 * March 17: Ethiopia again appeals to the League due to Italian build-up.
 * March 22: The Italians yield to pressure from the League of Nations for arbitration into the Walwal incident.
 * May 11: Ethiopia again protests the Italian mobilization.
 * May 20 – 21: The League of Nations holds a special session to discuss the crisis in Ethiopia.
 * May 25: League council resolves to meet if no fifth arbitrator has been selected by June 25, or if a settlement isn't reached by August 25.
 * June 19: Ethiopia requests neutral observers.
 * June 23 – 24: Britain sends Anthony Eden to offer concessions about Ethiopia, they are rejected by Italy.
 * June 25: Italian and Ethiopian officials meet in The Hague to discuss arbitration.
 * July 9: The discussions fall apart.
 * July 25: Britain declares an arms embargo on both Italy and Ethiopia.
 * July 26: The League confirms that no fifth member has been selected.
 * August 3: The League limits arbitration talks to matters except for the sovereignty of Walwal. They are to meet again on September 4 to examine relations between the two countries.
 * August 12: Abyssinia pleads for arms embargo to be lifted.
 * August 16: France and Britain offer Italy large concessions in Ethiopia to avert war which are rejected.
 * August 22: Britain reaffirms its embargo on armaments.
 * September 3: The League exonerates both Italy and Ethiopia of the Walwal incident since both powers believed it was within their border.
 * September 10: Pierre Laval, Anthony Eden and Sir Samuel Hoare agree on limitations to Italian sanctions.
 * September 25: Ethiopia again asks for neutral observers.
 * September 28: Ethiopia begins to mobilize its large, but poorly-equipped, army.
 * October 3: Italy invades Ethiopia. Italian forces under De Bono advance from Eritrea into northern Ethiopia.  Italian forces under Graziani stand ready to advance from Italian Somaliland into southern Ethiopia.  Italy is condemned by the League for attacking without formal declaration of war.
 * October 5: The northern Italian army captures Adigrat.
 * October 6: The northern Italian army captures Adowa.
 * October 7: The League of Nations declares Italy the aggressor, prepares to set sanctions against it.
 * October 11: League members voted to impose sanctions unless Italy withdraws.
 * October 14: De Bono issues a proclamation ordering the suppression of slavery in Ethiopia.
 * October 15: The northern Italian army captures Axum.
 * October 18: Britain assures Italy it will not take independent action in the Mediterranean.
 * October 27: Mussolini gives Badoglio permission to use mustard gas "as an 'ultima ratio' to overwhelm enemy resistance and in case of counter-attack." This was in direct violation of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, which outlawed the use of chemical weapons.
 * November 6: Due to the cautious approach of General De Bono, Mussolini threatens to replace him.
 * November 8: The northern Italian army captures Mekele.
 * November 18: Sanctions go into effect against Italy. They do not include oil or steel.
 * December 8: Hoare-Laval Plan is signed, which conceded two-thirds of Ethiopia to Italy.
 * December 9: Hoare-Laval Plan is made public. It is rejected by Ethiopia and causes political scandal in France and Britain.
 * December 17: De Bono is replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Commander in Chief of the entire operation and as the commander in the north. Soon after, Haile Selassie launches his "Christmas Offensive" to test the new Italian commander.
 * December 26: Italian aviator Tito Minniti is killed by Ethiopian forces.
 * December 28. Ostensibly in response to Minniti's killing and mutilation, Mussolini gives Badoglio permission to use mustard gas "on a vast scale". Again, this was in direct violation of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, which outlawed the use of chemical weapons.

1936

 * January 3: Emperor Haile Selassie protests to League about Italy's bombing of villages.
 * January 7 – 10: In the Battle of Ganale Dorya, General Graziani counter-attacks the advancing troops of Ras Desta Damtew. After more than three days of slaughter, the Ethiopians break and flee.
 * January 20: Negele Boran in Sidamo province is captured by Graziani. Ethiopia asks for stronger sanctions against Italy.
 * January 20– 24: The inconclusive First Battle of Tembien brings the Ethiopian "Christmas Offensive" to an end.
 * February 10: The Italians attack and the Ethiopians under Ras Mulugeta counterattack in the Battle of Amba Aradam southwest of Chalacot.
 * February 19: The Battle of Amba Aradam ends and the Ethiopians are defeated with heavy losses, including Mulugeta and his son.
 * February 27: The Second Battle of Tembien begins.
 * February 29: The Ethiopians are defeated in the Second Battle of Tembien leaving few survivors from the armies of Ras Kassa and Ras Seyoum.
 * February 29: The Battle of Shire begins.
 * March 3: The League asks Italy and Ethiopia to open negotiations.
 * March 4: The Battle of Shire ends with the destruction of Ras Imru's army.
 * March 5: Ethiopia accepts negotiations appeal.
 * March 20: Ethiopia again appeals to the League, stating that nothing effective had yet been enforced.
 * March 21: Emperor Haile Selassie protests to the League again, reporting Italian atrocities such as use of chemical weapons, destruction of ambulances and the massacre of civilians.
 * March 29: Italian planes firebomb Harar.
 * March 31: Emperor Haile Selassie personally leads an unsuccessful counterattack in the Battle of Maychew. This is the last major battle of the war on the northern front.
 * April 1: Ethiopia pleads for removal of arms embargo, financial assistance, and heavier sanctions on Italy; Achille Starace's East African Fast Column (Colonna Celere dell'Africa Orientale) arrives in Gondar.
 * April 4: Most of what remained of Haile Selassie's withdrawing army is destroyed at Lake Ashangi.
 * April 14: The Battle of the Ogaden begins on the southern front.
 * April 17: The League admits failure in the Italo-Ethiopian dispute.
 * April 25: The Ethiopians are defeated during the Battle of the Ogaden, but much of the Ethiopian army escapes.
 * April 26: Badoglio's launches his "March of the Iron Will" from Dessie.
 * April 27: Princess Tsehai of Ethiopia appeals to the League.
 * May 2: Emperor Haile Selassie leaves the capital city of Addis Ababa for Djibouti, whence he travels to Europe to personally address the League. He appoints Ras Imru Haile Selassie as his regent during his absence.
 * May 5: The "March of the Iron Will" is completed and Addis Ababa is captured by Italian forces.
 * May 7: Italy officially annexes Ethiopia.
 * May 8: Graziani enters Harar.
 * May 9: Victor Emmanuel III is proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia and Badoglio is appointed as his Viceroy in Ethiopia.
 * May 10: Italian troops from the northern front and from the southern front link up at Dire Dawa.
 * June 1: Italy merges Ethiopia with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, calling the new state Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East Africa).
 * June 11: Marshal Graziani is appointed Viceroy of Ethiopia.
 * June 30: Emperor Haile Selassie addresses the League of Nations. The League officially condemns the Italian actions.
 * July 4: The League drops all sanctions against Italy.
 * July 28: Two sons of Ras Kassa lead several thousand men in an attempt to recapture Addis Ababa from the Italians, but are driven back by the Italian garrison. Suspected of supporting this action, the archbishop of Dessie, Abuna Petros, is shot by the Italians.
 * October: The Italians begin armed campaigns into the two-thirds of Ethiopia still administered by Imperial officials.
 * December 18: Ras Imru surrenders to the Italians near the Gojeb River. Italy declares the country pacified.

1937

 * February 19: The final battle between the two armies is fought: Gogetti. The surviving elements of the armies of Sidamo and Bale are encircled and destroyed by the Italian forces near Lake Shala. Dejazmach Beiene Merid and Dejazmach Gabre Mariam are killed; Ras Desta Damtew although wounded escapes the slaughter, only to be hunted down and killed five days later.
 * February 19: Yekatit 12 massacre. In response to the attempted assassination of Marshal Graziani by Ethiopian rebels, between 19,200 and 30,000 Ethiopian civilians were massacred in Addis Ababa.
 * December 21: Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta is appointed Viceroy of Ethiopia.


text:
User:Dellfalconer

http://robbsnet.com

title: User:Dellfalconer


text:
Paul Kossoff

Paul Francis Kossoff (14 September 1950 – 19 March 1976) was an English guitarist, best known as the co-founder and guitarist of the rock band Free. He was ranked number 51 in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Early years
Kossoff was born on 14 September 1950 in Hampstead, London, the son of Margaret (née Jenkins) and actor David Kossoff. His uncle was the broadcaster Alan Keith and he was a cousin of the judge Brian Keith and the model Linda Keith.

At age nine, Kossoff started classical guitar lessons with Blanche Monroe. His classical guitar training continued until he was fifteen. In December 1965, he saw Eric Clapton with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers at The Refectory, Golders Green, North West London. This encounter inspired him to purchase a Gibson Les Paul guitar. During 1966, Kossoff worked as a junior salesman at Selmer's Music Shop in Charing Cross Road. He received lessons from session guitarist Colin Falconer, who worked in the guitar department at Selmer's.

In 1966 Kossoff joined the Chicago-style blues band Black Cat Bones. The band played with touring blues piano player Champion Jack Dupree, often supporting Fleetwood Mac and other gigs with Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green. Kossoff's bandmate in Black Cat Bones was drummer Simon Kirke and the two went on to play on Dupree's April 1968 album When You Feel the Feeling You Was Feeling.

Free

In April 1968, Kossoff and Kirke teamed up with Paul Rodgers (vocals) and Andy Fraser (bass) to form Free. They toured for two years, during which they recorded two albums: Tons of Sobs (1968) and Free (1969). Both albums showcased the band's blues- and soul-influenced sound, a style that was in contrast to some of their progressive and heavier counterparts at the time.

Success came in 1970 when their third album, Fire and Water (1970), spawned the hit "All Right Now". The band played the Isle of Wight festival to both audience and critical acclaim, followed by sold-out tours in the United Kingdom, Europe and Japan.

However, after the release of the next album, Highway (1970) and its relatively poor sales, band pressures led to a split. The live album Free Live! was recorded in 1970 and released in 1971 as a farewell record.

Kossoff and Kirke teamed up with Texan keyboard player John "Rabbit" Bundrick and Japanese bass player Tetsu Yamauchi to release the 1971 album Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu and Rabbit. Rodgers and Fraser pursued unsuccessful solo projects.

Free reformed and released the album Free at Last (1972). Following its release, Fraser decided he had had enough and quit to form Sharks. Free drafted Tetsu and Rabbit for the album Heartbreaker (1973) after which the group disbanded.

Kossoff song-writing
Kossoff co-wrote several Free songs, including "Oh I Wept" and "Mr Big" on the Fire and Water album.

After Free
Rodgers and Kirke went on to form the successful supergroup Bad Company.

Kossoff released a solo album, Back Street Crawler (1973). He then accompanied John Martyn on a 1975 tour.

Kossoff then assembled a group called Back Street Crawler, which released two albums: The Band Plays On in 1975 and 2nd Street in 1976. Recordings from one of the band's UK concerts in 1975 were first released in 1983 on the album Live at Croydon Fairfield Halls 15/6/75.

Kossoff's guitar playing was also much in demand for session work and he contributed solos on several albums including: Martha Veléz's Fiends and Angels (1969); Michael Gately's Gately's Cafe (1971) and Mike Vernon's 1971 album Bring It Back Home; Uncle Dog's Old Hat (1972); Jim Capaldi's Oh How We Danced (1972) and Short Cut Draw Blood (1975); The Amazing Blondel's Mulgrave Street (1974).

He also played on four demos by Ken Hensley (eventually released on the 1994 album titled From Time to Time) and three tracks that appear on the CD-only issue of John Martyn's Live at Leeds album from 1975.

Posthumous releases
In 1977 career retrospective Koss was released and in 1986 Blue Soul.

The late 1990s saw a renewed interest in Kossoff and Blue Soul was re-released, as well as the five-disc Free box set Songs of Yesterday.

In 2006, an unreleased guitar solo surfaced on the title track to the album All One by David Elliot, who recorded with Kossoff in the 1970s.

In 2011 a selection of early recordings Kossoff made with Black Cat Bones was released on the album Paul's Blues.

Books
In 2000 a Free biography entitled Heavy Load: The Story of Free was published.

2017 saw publication of the Paul Kossoff biography entitled Paul Kossoff: All Right Now – The Guitars, The Gear, The Music.

Drug use
Kossoff used drugs from age 15. Simon Kirke has said "he clearly had a predisposition." He used Mandrax among other drugs. Paul Rodgers has said Kossoff was healthy and playing well in 1973 although this is disputed, but that he wonders about the company that Kossoff kept, and felt that "Koss was just too sensitive for this world."

Kossoff's drug use made him unreliable in the latter stages of Free. Andy Fraser noted "he felt intimidated by those other guitarists, and when people began speaking of him in terms of Clapton and so on, it frightened him. Drugs were a defence, his excuse".

Death
Kossoff's unhappiness following the break-up of Free and his drug addictions contributed to a drastic decline in his health. In a BBC website page about the 1970 death of Jimi Hendrix, Simon Kirke said that Kossoff idolised Hendrix and never really recovered from his death.

Kossoff died on a flight from Los Angeles to New York City on 19 March 1976 from a pulmonary embolism after a blood clot in his leg moved to his lung, while touring America with Back Street Crawler. His body was returned to England and cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in North West London. His epitaph in the Summerhouse there reads: "All right now".

Legacy
One of Kossoff's signature guitars, a 1957 Fender Stratocaster, was bought by English guitarist Dave Murray of the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden; Murray paid £1,400 for the guitar in 1976.

In 2012, one of his most famous and iconic guitars, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul (the Kossoff Burst), was recreated and made into a limited edition reissue by Gibson and named the 'Paul Kossoff 1959 Les Paul Standard'.

In December 2015 Bonhams listed for auction a Gibson Les Paul Standard owned by Kossoff from 1970 to 1976.

In April 2017 Guitar magazine featured the 'stripped' Gibson Les Paul that Kossoff played at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. Kossoff sold the guitar to Mike Gooch and in May 1994 it was sold for £12,000 at Christie's.

with Free

 * Tons of Sobs (1969)
 * Free (1969)
 * Fire and Water (1970)
 * Highway (1971)
 * Free Live! (1971)
 * Free at Last (1972)
 * Heartbreaker (1973)
 * Songs of Yesterday (Box-Set) (2000)
 * Free – Live at the BBC (2006)

Paul Kossoff, Simon Kirke, Tetsu Yamauchi, John "Rabbit" Bundrick

 * Kossoff Kirke Tetsu Rabbit (1972)

with Back Street Crawler

 * The Band Plays On (1975)
 * 2nd Street (1976)
 * Live at Croydon Fairfield Halls 15/6/75 (1983) 2LP
 * (Note: after Kossoff's death, the band—now called simply 'Crawler'—made further albums)

Solo

 * Back Street Crawler (1973)
 * Koss (1977) 2-LP compilation
 * Blue Soul (1986) 2-LP compilation

title: Paul Kossoff


text:
The Loudness of Sam

The Loudness of Sam (Harcourt, ISBN 0-15-202087-X) is a 1999 American children's book written and illustrated by James Proimos.

Overview
Sam is a child whose laughs and cries were extraordinarily loud. "Is that nuts and bolts in the blender?" "No, that's just the baby." One day, Sam visits his quiet aunt in the city. On the last day of the visit, she laughs loudly, because the loudness of Sam is contagious!

Television series
The Loudness of Sam has its own animated television series, produced by the Canadian company Nelvana Enterprises, Inc..

title: The Loudness of Sam