Talk:Orlando Figes

Lead summary

Insertion of a new paragraph into the lead summary with a respect of information in the section on the Amazon controversy (as long ago as 2010) seems inappropriate and probably motivated by malice. There are many more important things that are not in the Introduction. I think this should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London67943 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC) — London67943 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

"The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." Verbatim from WP:LEDE. I think a scandal involving attempting to discredit rivals where damages were paid for libel, is pretty important. I see no bad faith in including it in the lede and certainly no reason to whitewash it. Toddst1 (talk) 00:13, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

No libel damages were paid. It was a media "scandal". If this stays in the introduction there should also be a summary of all the other sections to avoid suspicion of bad faith. Care to provide this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.255.235.214 (talk • contribs) 00:21, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I assume you accidentally logged out when you left that comment. WP:SOFIXIT applies. Toddst1 (talk) 00:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Libel damages, plus costs, were indeed awarded, according to the BBC. Straw Cat (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

As cited in the article. Toddst1 (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes my mistake. So what do you say to a summary of all the sections in the article to make the lede more balanced and remove suspicion of bad faith? You haven't answered that

Sure, add what you want, but your repeated blanking of that material and accusations of collusion is considered WP:TENDENTIOUS. Toddst1 (talk) 17:54, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

What is tendentious is adding a repeat of something with its own section to the introduction when there are other more important things - e.g about his books - that have not been added at the same time. The "scandal" is a bit of media tit-tat that is adequately covered by its own section. Surely Wikipedia needs to be more balanced in BLP. I suggest we put this to dispute resolution — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ London67943 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I think consensus is pretty clear that it belongs there. @Straw Cat: has demonstrated their support for inclusion. I've stated it. All we have is a WP:SPA that wishes to whitewash the lede, has assumed bad-faith from the start and has edit warred to remove it and is now rejecting the consensus, asking for dispute resolution. The dispute is your own. Respect consensus. Toddst1 (talk) 14:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not a rival Oxbridge historian, so even Inspector Morse would find it hard to prove malice here. I've no animus against Figes, and consider that it is his very eminence as an historian that makes the inclusion of a summary of this matter - in the lead - essential. Straw Cat (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think this whole page (and the lead) are simply blown out of proportion. Someone with an obvious COI inserted a lot of meaningless laudatory phrasing. An opposite "side", possibly also with a COI, tried to shame the subject. I will fix at least the lead. My very best wishes (talk) 13:03, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Other Scandals

The Amazon controversy is mentioned here, but how is it that the section on Natasha's dance does not include the accusations of plagiarism, and the section on the Whisperers lacks the accusations by other scholars and the Russian victims advocate organization "Memorial" that the book did not receive a Russian edition due to falsification of quotes and other inaccuracies, rather than, as he claimed, due to pressure from the Putin regime?

[1]https://www.mhpbooks.com/figes-career-implodes-amidst-legal-threats-and-charges-of-long-standing-plagiarism/

[2]https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/orlando-figes-and-stalins-victims/tnamp/

[3]https://www.mhpbooks.com/orlando-figes-in-trouble-again-for-gross-inaccuracies-and-misrepresentations/ Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 04:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chilltherevolutionist Just come across this page for the first time but it seems off in exactly the way you describe. The controversy over Polonsky's review of Natasha's dance (which all but accused him of plagiarism), the Pipes plagiarism accusation (which I think Figes won the lawsuit over, something which we should obviously include as well), the Whisperers Russian-issue problems, all these don't appear. I haven't done a deep or wide check of the published sources but I'd be pretty shocked if Figes' portrayal in this entry matches that of the balance of the published reliable sources. Looks like some things have been excised over time, and that doesn't seem to match the discussion above. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Whisperers criticism

@London67943 - the inclusion of the Stephen Cohen line strikes me as very wrong. Unless we are going to do a detailed report on the worst political affiliation of anyone who publicises any accusation on Wikipedia, including it here just sounds like a way of discrediting the accusation. Clearly, the Memorial Society is not pro-Putin. It's also WP: SYNTHESIS to take the politics of someone from sources elsewhere, and combine it with the fact that they engaged in criticism here. It reads as if we are trying to tar the criticism as being politically motivated, when this is not what the sources say. If there are reliable sources that say directly that all, most, or even some significant minority of the criticism of Figes over Whisperers was motivated by or connected to pro-Putin politics, I will of course accede that we should include that fact - not a random allusion to the pro-Putin politics of an individual critic. I'm removing it for now on that basis, but would welcome a discussion if you think there is something that must be included along these lines. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Cohen's pro-Putin line is exactly the point. It is a point of fact that Cohen publicised the Kremlin point of view. It is relevant here because it was Cohen, not Memorial, that tried to discredit Figes by publicising what should have been a private correspondence between Figes and his Russian publisher. I have restored the previous edit and added a reliable source on Cohen's support for the Putin regime. London67943 (talk) 05:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@London67943 There are two problems with specifying Cohen and his pro-Putin politics. One is that the sources indicate that the story was exposed by both Peter Reddaway and Stephen Cohen. Is Peter Reddaway pro-Putin as well? Are we going to provide an account of the ulterior political motives of every person involved in the chain of transmission of the story?

The second problem is that the sources that mention Cohen in the context of this story do not mention pro-Putin politics. Including it in this context is Wikipedia:SYNTHESIS. Please read the Synthesis policy - the first line should do the trick "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." You've stated here explicitly the conclusion you are implying with your text - that Cohen unearthed the story as part of a pro-Putin political attack on Figes and/or Memorial. If that is an argument made by the sources, leave it in. Otherwise it needs to be removed.

Separately, material needs consensus to be added. There clearly wasn't consensus here, and I opened a discussion about it as I removed it so we could try and reach one. Re-adding the material, especially as you clearly saw the discussion, seems a lot like Wikipedia:Edit warring to me, and I'd respectfully ask you to refrain. Samuelshraga (talk) 11:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@samuelshraga Hello - I suggest you read the archive of Stephen Cohen which shows clearly that no further evidence of alleged inaccuracies was provided by Memorial or Corpus for publication by Figes' critics publicising the story to the world press - Stephen Cohen, Peter Reddaway and their hidden co-conspirator, Rachel Polonsky. The Polonsky connection ought to be developed here as her involvement is relevant. But this section is long enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London67943 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@London67943 I skimmed through the archive - can you say which document makes the claim and I'll take a closer look? Samuelshraga (talk) 07:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@London67943, in an entirely foolish and self-inflicted blow to my own time, I have actually read the archive of Stephen F. Cohen's correspondence relating to the publication (or non-publication in this case) of an op-ed in the Guardian. Both the Russian and the English. I draw three conclusions relevant to this discussion, and one that just jumps out from the archive itself:

• The archive does not include the claim that Corpus "did not provide evidence of any other alleged inaccuracies". No figure in the archive made that claim. I am removing the text and the citation on this basis.
• For most of the documents in the archive, if the claim had been made, it would be irrelevant as it would have been found in private correspondence, and Reliable Source or | Original Research concerns would prevent our using it. The exceptions would be the press cuttings, which could more effectively be referenced directly, rather than in their annotated form in Stephen Cohen's files. The press cuttings do not seem to make this claim.
• I agree with you that the involvement of Rachel Polonsky in the publication of this story is amply demonstrated by this archive. I disagree that it ought to be developed here, again see Wikipedia:Reliable sources or Wikipedia:No original research. Or, and I suspect that this is the most appropriate to you, Wikipedia:SOAP.

I want to ask at this juncture if you have a conflict of interest to declare, whether you are editing as Orlando Figes or he is your family, friend, employer, or you have any financial or personal connection to Orlando Figes? This bearing in mind the guideline around Wikipedia:Conflict of interest editing. Samuelshraga (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

No conflict of interest to declare. How about you? Who are You? Look at the second file in the archive. It shows that Polonsky and Cohen knew that they could not get Memorial to come forward with any further evidence. It also shows that Polonsky lied to the Guardian about her involvement in the hit-and-run on Figes, which in her case was motivated by her long-running spat with him, and in Cohen's case by his serving the Kremlin. 2001:8003:B01E:8000:40B4:A7DA:FCDB:D679 (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Assuming that this is @London67943, please retroactively edit your signature when you comment logged out. I can see this isn't the first time you've been asked to do this.

Firstly to do with the supposed source for the claim:

The second document in the archive as I see it is page 00000005.tif. It does not contain an the admission that Memorial couldn't come forward with further evidence. If I'm not looking at the right document, please give the page reference and ideally an indication of where on the page this information is - I read Russian but it takes me a while.

Secondly, as regards any conflict of interest:

I take the "Who are You?" to be something of a deflection. I don't think there's any reason to believe that I have a conflict of interest, I edit wikipedia on a variety of topics I find to be of interest. You on the other hand are a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account dedicated to the Orlando Figes page, from an extremely specific, well-informed, and I think fringe point of view. If you are Orlando Figes, for example, you should know that Conflict of Interest editing is allowed, but there are rules about it - firstly that your conflict of interest is declared. If not, I would appreciate an explanation of your singular focus on this article and your very specific point of view. Otherwise I fear we must move this to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard Samuelshraga (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• I would say this paragraph must be re-written to include more sources, such as [4], [5]. I did check a link provided above, i.e. [6]. That's a lot of stuff, mostly primary sources. An exchange between Stephen F. Cohen and Dmitry Muratov is interesting. Some other stuff has been reliably published and already used on the page, i.e. this exchange and "Dishonoring Stalin's Victims and Russian History". I do not see anything "dishonoring" though. Some of the stories, as described by Figes, can well be true [7], and a lot of errors and distortions are almost inevitable in the "oral history" books such as that one. I assume that the number of errors and distortions in The Gulag Archipelago is significantly greater, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn admitted this up front. The point of such books is not to be precise in every detail, but document the overall picture. My very best wishes (talk) 01:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  I am Orlando Figes and I am responding to Vampa and My Very best wishes on the cancellation of the Russian edition of The Whisperers because your edits have been brought to my attention this morning. This is a complicated issue with a lot of spin in the newspaper sources, which sadly count for reputable sources in Wikipedia. I suggest you base any account on the main primary source, the thing itself, which is the Stephen Cohen Archive. From this you will learn that: (a) the Memorial report was written by one person, Irina Ostrovskaya, who hated me; (b) it was based on a very poor translation of the book into Russian (Ostrovskaya does not read English) by Maxim Trudoliubov - and obviously errors creep into a translation of Russian sources from English back into Russian; (c) Memorial's director Roginsky would not add to the 3 examples of mistakes printed in the press because, quite rightly, he took the view that Memorial is an archive and does not comment on the interpretation of its sources by historians - and most of the alleged errors involved differences over interpretation (the researchers at Memorial disagreed with Ostrovskaya's interpretation); (d) the hidden instigator of this attack on my work in the press was none other than Rachel Polonsky, who carefully concealed her role and lied about the nature and motives of her involevement to the Guardian Newspaper's editor Kathy Viner after accidentally cc'g her in an email with her co-conspirators. Now, make sense of all this as you will, but if you want the truth, Vampa, as you say you do, then I suggest you base any rewrite on the archive, not on partial press reports instigated by my detractors. As it stands, the short version of just two sentences (by My Very best wishes) which I have reverted to seems to me a fair representation of what happened with both sides represented and without the over-long and confusing attempt by Vampa to piece together a narrative from inaccurate press reports. Orlandofiges (talk) 07:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

One relevant policy here is WP:COI. Meaning you should not edit articles about yourself. However, you can make suggestions on article talk pages. For example, you may suggest here a specific text "..." to be included in specific section. This text should be consistent with other policies, such as WP:V and WP:NPOV. Then, some other participants who have no COI would look at your text and decide if something, possibly in a modified form, could be included to the page. Other relevant policies are WP:PRIMARY and WP:BLP. Meaning that one must rely mostly on secondary RS here, although nothing precludes from using primary sources as outlined in WP:PRIMARY. I will refrain from more specific comments right now, but the shorter version of the paragraph I made was not intended as final. Every version is wrong version. My very best wishes (talk) 13:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking at two alternative versions here [8], I would definitely prefer the shorter one and do not see it problematic in any aspects. As an alternative, a longer version could be possible, but I would place it to another section, to be in context of the overall work of Figes in Russia. I started doing this [9], but user VampaVampa reverted. My very best wishes (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I made a few quick changes and believe the page is now consistent with our WP:BLP policy. My very best wishes (talk) 16:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Mr Figes, I understand from your message above that the edit you reverted contained neither defamation nor serious error, nor that you found any inaccuracies in the paragraph which reconstructed the sequence of events and attributed statements or actions to their authors, but that you claim the secondary sources on which the passage was based to be seriously biased against you (a matter which is not easy to verify without additional secondary sources). Therefore, strictly speaking, as pointed out by Myverybestwishes above, your edit reversal contravened Wikipedia policy on the conflict of interest.

You are of course entitled to make suggestions and it may well be useful for Wikipedia editors to review the Stephen Cohen Archive for any information that can be used under primary source guidelines, i.e. for plainly stated facts that do not require additional insight to be recognised as evident. Under the guidelines, one is not allowed to privilege any information derived from the archive over secondary sources except to correct summaries of the same information in secondary sources. Where the archive contradicts secondary sources, this can and should be included, but again with no interpretation or suggestion that this is the only acceptable account.

Please correct me if I am wrong in believing that the main point of contention is Memorial's claim that the book contained more than a handful of mistakes. This is something that cannot be disproven based on a primary source, unless the very source material on which the secondary source relied in its claim is present in the archive and directly refutes the claim in secondary sources beyond any reasonable doubt (evident to non-specialist). Would that be the case here? Further, it would go against the guidelines on primary sources to allege that Polonsky, not Cohen and Reddaway, instigated the public discussion of the errors unless there is a direct statement to that effect in the archive. It could be reported what the archive shows, but one must not interpret or give priority to mere hints in primary sources in the absence of secondary material.

I will not contest the majority of the changes introduced by Myverybestwishes by a thousand cuts since, except where they consist of removing sourced information, and I think the new section on sanctions resolves the problems with the structuring of Russia-related content rather well.

However, (1) I object to the proposal by Myverybestwishes to move the dispute over the scholarly accuracy of The Whisperers into the political section on Russia, which would be to accept your 2009 allegations, Mr Figes, at face value, and that would be all the more strange seeing that you appeared to distance yourself from them in 2012. And (2) the matter of the Russian refusal to publish certainly deserves more than two sentences in the article, since it bears on the very activity you are notable for. In the interest of accuracy and verifiability, I keep insisting that the current two-sentence version contains two claims which are not in the sources: 2012 as the date of the Russian translation and, more importantly, that the political explanation was related to the second refusal to publish (the only one currently mentioned). It would misrepresent the available sources to claim that anyone, including yourself, Mr Figes, sought to attribute the second refusal to publish to political pressure. Reddaway and Cohen argued that you had not retracted your 2009 comments by 2012 but that is a weak claim (taking things out of their context) and I would be baffled if you were to try to agree with them now.

With regard to Memorial, the sources do say that one of the comments I included was made by a single researcher. I do not know whether that was the person you allege had an animus against you, perhaps the archive bears it out (incidentally, it would make things easier if you could include links to passages from the archive that support your statements). That might be an argument against including the quotation - though not against quoting the head of Corpus or the executive director of Dynasty. However, the secondary sources I have seen so far do not suggest in any way a disagreement between Memorial staff on this matter, or any undue influence of a single person over the organisation's stance. That may (with the provisos above) be refuted by the archive, but generally I would advise against trying to refute your secondary source critics on Wikipedia, when the most credible way to do that would have been through seeking rectification of their alleged distortions in the press, which you were naturally entitled to (and which you may have obtained to a very small degree, as the note at the bottom of The Guardian article suggests). The press are obliged to withdraw any errors of fact to prevent defamation and I am not aware of you having pursued a lawsuit against either The Guardian or The Nation. Short of that, or of a new publication on the matter, I expect it will be difficult to argue from the archive against all the claims made in the press. I think no one here is under any obligation to study the archive extensively, but to ensure fairness it would only be fair to oblige your request to do so in the near future. For now, I do not see any grounds to remove information in the way you and Myverybestwishes did. VampaVampa (talk) 23:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

"I object to the proposal by Myverybestwishes to move the dispute". OK, no problem. I realized that you objected and therefore did not do it. But I think these controversies should be described very briefly, so we are taking into account the concerns by Dr. Figes as much as possible. Which should not be a problem (the current version mentions all controversies and totally consistent with WP:BLP), except that Dr. Figes must respect WP:COI and only make suggestions for edits on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 02:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

But I would oppose to this edit [10]. Here is why, informally speaking. The book was published by Henry Holt and Company and received The New York Times Book Review award. That is a very high mark in terms of WP:RS. Now, some guys are saying it was not good enough to be published in Putin's Russia. Come on. This is either a bias or political interference, softly speaking. There is really a lot of stories about other books that have not been published in Russia for political reasons, and especially if the author criticized Putin. Sure, we can say that the book was not published for such and such alleged reasons and we can cite reviews about the book (as we did), but your version creates wrong impression that the book was indeed absolutely terrible and therefore could not published. In fact, it was published by much better publishers than they would be in Russia.My very best wishes (talk) 02:41, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I should remind you that to maintain a neutral point of view is to represent fairly not only Dr Figes but everyone else involved in the matter, such as the Russian researchers and publishers, or rival academics, and even alleged war criminals.

As to what the impression my version "creates", I think you will find that readers are wont to form very different impressions - as long as they have any information to start with, rather than the sort of speculation or manipulation (with regard to the object of WP:RS) you are engaging in.

What you can do is propose a concrete improvement to my version, based on sources including the Stephen Cohen Archive, because so far it offers the only account of the matter that agrees with the available material. VampaVampa (talk) 05:03, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Amazon reviews

• This is an excellent book, I enjoyed reading it. It may have a few minor errors, but of course it was not published in Russia for political reasons. That paragraph could be improved. But I am more concerned about the "Amazon review controversy". My personal inclination would be to remove it, but it was objected by others in the past. My very best wishes (talk) 01:51, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  You were initially inclined to remove but then you became bold and went ahead, citing WP:PUBLICFIGURE. But a best-selling author who is regularly consulted by media meets the criteria of a public figure, therefore I am going to revert your change. Of course, wording or citations in the passage might be improved - I would encourage you to use your editorial powers for that. By the way, your personal opinion about the book is not relevant, as is your unsourced opinion about the Russian refusal to publish, and there is little point in seeking to sway anyone with it. VampaVampa (talk) 23:51, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, he claimed it was not published for political reasons [11] and his claim is plausible based on content in section Orlando_Figes#On_Putin's_Russia. The official explanation was of course different. That can be easily reflected on the page. You are saying he is a public figure because he was seeking media attention per Wikipedia:Who_is_a_low-profile_individual#Media_attention. Well, I am not convinced. He seems to be just an academic/professor who published books, was helping as a history consultant and gave a few interviews because he was asked by journalists to give them (e.g. as mentioned here [12]). Same as Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky who have been involved in the same story. They also do not look good because they sued Figes. But we do not include this story on their pages, and for same very good reason. Therefore, I would remove it also here. But this is not an outright BLP violation. So whatever. My very best wishes (talk) 01:18, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Then perhaps it should feature on their pages as well, if you are keen to add it - I have zero problems with that. More information is rarely a bad thing, except when it is unsourced, libellous, irrelevant etc. Concluded legal proceedings are perfectly encyclopedic.

He is a public figure because he is keen to do public engagement - see the "Film and television work" section. Even if he had been sought out for creating TV content, it still counts as being a public commentator.

His views on the Labour Party are relevant because he has claimed in the interview you have cited under "[5]" that he was a supporter of the Labour Party. If Niall Ferguson has a paragraph on his political leanings and positions, then I do not see why we should not provide a representative sample of Figes's political opinion intended for public consumption here.

I agree with your other changes with one exception - threatening legal action is not a plain denial of responsibility and ought to be mentioned. VampaVampa (talk) 02:07, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Which source says that he threatened legal action and where? Yes, sure, he said he supports Labor Party. Who cares? Why this is so important? And no, I am not placing this stuff on any BLP pages. If you placed it here and insist this should be included, this is your responsibility. My very best wishes (talk) 02:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I did not place it but it is well-sourced as it is. Political comments and stances of public figures are a core part of their activity - they are quite like the doctrinal positions of church leaders. VampaVampa (talk) 02:32, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

OK, I found a source that say it. No wish to dig any deeper. Good luck! My very best wishes (talk) 17:17, 2 June 2024 (UTC)