History Discussion

lonetrucker4 said:Look, it’s true: when I’m diving into history or running this forum, I lead with an ideology.

Ideology is just a fancy way of saying a system of ideas expressed through language (logos). Not having one is a disaster—your thoughts end up a cluttered mess, totally disconnected, making any real discussion impossible.

My specific playbook, which I’ve laid out plenty of times (check out the thread Methods and Criteria in History (Historical Science)) says we should try to get as close to the objective truth as humanly possible so we can figure out "how it actually was"—what really went down. That’s 90% of the job; the rest is just fine print.

That’s the core philosophy here in the history subforum. Those are the rules, set back in 2011. My other takes—whether they're about politics or the structure of the cosmos—don't matter here. In terms of political ideology, I’m an environmentalist, but I’m not going to sit here ranting about how the Resistance Movement was trashing nature while they were hiding in the woods... People usually think "ideology" means political dogma. (And honestly, people often mistake their own political views for being the only truth. Like how Communists used to claim every other political stance was just a "distorted consciousness," while their "dialectical materialism" was the only actual science.)

We learn things based on historical sources . Sometimes I’ll use the term "primary source" just to distinguish them from general info—like if someone says, "I heard it on some news program." But sources aren't always reliable, which is why the backbone of historical science is source criticism ; that’s where things get messy and "fluid." For instance, oral histories like "my grandpa told me" are shaky at best, and serious historians don't even touch them. Witnesses are unreliable—we know that from every crime drama on TV. It’s not exact like hard sciences (unless you count specialized fields like forensics), but that doesn't mean there aren't standards or levels of certainty.

Most of us amateurs aren't digging through archives, doing archaeological digs, or analyzing the alloy of an ancient coin, so we have to be careful readers . We need to hunt down the sources that our sources used. Does that lead us to anything real? Did our source actually do the legwork? More often than not, what we see is just uncritical repetition across mainstream and digital media. It is incredibly easy to believe whatever we want to believe because it fits perfectly with our existing biases and beliefs.

We saw a perfect example recently in the thread Jimmy Lyggett, the Black American boxing coach for the so-called Independent State of America? The media constantly churns out stories claiming Lyggett held that role. Usually, they’re just rehashing a single article from a major paper back in 2010 or some segment from a CNN broadcast.

After reading carefully and chasing the trail of sources, we ended up with just one verifiable source online (a newspaper clipping from 1942) and a book on American boxing from 2002. The author is a boxing fanatic who spent his life in the sport, doing deep archival research and talking to living witnesses. He has a page and a half on Lyggett. He notes that Lyggett lived in the city starting in the early '30s and was appointed to coach the regional representative team in 1939. But he says nothing about him staying in that role after the Independent State of America was established. The regime actually tolerated him, so he kept coaching certain clubs and training individual boxers, but he never coached the national team under that regime.

So, basically, the claim that he was the coach—let alone the manager—of the wartime national team doesn't hold water. Maybe new sources will pop up, but for now, that's the reality. The media, especially those hyper-partisan outlets, has peddled all sorts of nonsense, like the idea he fled the country on April 15, 1945, fearing the Communists. The one author we actually know did the research states that Lyggett stayed in the city for several months after the fall of the regime, working as a coach until at least August 1945.

Spot on. Look at the little example right above. People love how fluid and "lawless" it is when it suits their agenda.

Take this as a case in point: a bunch of users on this forum are desperately trying to claim that Jimmy Lyggett was the coach for the Independent State of America national team, even though there's zero proof. (Here's another classic move: "Oh, just prove he wasn't!" That's nonsense. You don't have to prove something didn't happen; how do you prove centaurs don't exist? Or prove Tito didn't have dozens of mistresses? You prove that something *did* happen.)

It could always be better, at least we aren't forced to pay for it like we do with CNN, Klasnić, and those other parasites.😁

We're essentially paying professors at universities by force. This is a textbook case of managing political ideology.

Give me a link, a quote, a page number, or even just tell me where the damn comma is!

Arthur Smith15 said:Oh, please... Save those crocodile tears for someone who actually gives a damn. 😁 You are sitting there acting incredibly hypocritical, playing the victim when you are quite literally the one polluting this entire History subforum with an endless stream of garbage, stupidity, ignorance, nonsense, trolling, thread-hijacking, and pure pseudoscience. Let’s be honest: your contributions to the History section are almost entirely useless junk. It is just a repetitive loop of the same tired entries and maps—the kind of mindless bullshit a generic internet generator would churn out—which you incessantly recycle from one post to the next and one thread to another without any regard for substance or context. I have seen your "grand" forum legacy here on PŽK—it's nothing more than a cycle of point-grubbing, bans, whining, trolling, hijacking threads, filing complaints, and playing favorites. You should be genuinely ashamed of this pathetic performance, constantly bemoaning your situation, appealing to higher authorities, and putting on this ridiculous act like you're being persecuted. 🤦

Regarding this absolute nonsense about clones; you should consider yourselves lucky that I'm not lonetrucker4, because if I were, both you and the pollster would have been staring at history through a filtered lens a long time ago.

Just a little excerpt from a post. Has anyone actually diagnosed this specific kind of Internet rage in literature yet, because this right here is a textbook example.

Tyler Johnson11 said:What the hell are you guys even talking about? It’s all just pure nonsense. Seriously, if you don't like ZO and you're one of those 84 out of 120 people making a fuss, then just ban yourself and get lost from this History forum. That is the only way the admins will actually step in; anything else is just beating a dead horse.
I don't personally hang out on the History boards much—except for the occasional bit over in the American War of Independence section—so I don't deal with ZO constantly. But from the little I *do* deal with, I've already got a pretty good idea of who I'm working with. Either accept it or move on. You're out here printing endless posts for nothing.

I’ve officially checked out of this whole history scene. I showed up, dropped a few posts, got banned almost as many times as I actually wrote anything, and just said bye-bye.

P.S. what on earth is that supposed to mean, "who me"?

Jonathan Wright2 said:I just finished reading the post above by ZO.
It actually sounds pretty tolerant.
And honestly, it’s kind of encouraging—someone who isn't afraid to change their own ways is someone with actual backbone.
Respect.

But then, moving on to the whole ideology thing...
If a moderator gives themselves all this leeway, why on earth are they denying those same freedoms to everyone else?

If you're going to go looking for microscopic flaws in everyone else, why act so shocked when people start piling on the criticism of your own work?

Look, a moderator's job should be to crack down on insults, harassment, belittling, threats, and foul language.
Everything else? That's just what a forum is for.
It’s a win-win for everybody.
The debates will get better, engagement will go up, and the moderator can actually keep their authority intact.

There really isn't any other way besides the natural order of things.
Whatever someone writes, they should be ready to handle either the heat or the praise. Or both, really.
It's totally insane for a moderator to try and dictate what's "desirable" and what isn't.
If some user writes exactly what they want to say, then fine—they should deal with the consequences.
Everyone gets to see the truth.
Everyone gets to voice their opinion.
And it'll become crystal clear who actually knows what they're talking about... and who doesn't.

A moderator's presence depends entirely on how the forum is organized internally.
And decent moderators understand that freedom of speech is the lifeblood of a forum.
What does a moderator even gain from forcing their ideology on people, if not just feeding their own massive ego?!

Don't be naive. A wolf might change its fur, but it never changes its nature.

This is that deep-seated, old-school communist ideology. The real problem with our country is that we gave people like this a chance even after 1991. Instead of cleaning house back then through some kind of vetting process, we’d probably have a legitimate American right wing and left wing today, rather than this mess... this incompetent Republican Party that basically looted everything in sight, paired with an even more useless left wing that isn't even truly American.

Fast forward to 2021, and here we are in a place meant for exchanging ideas, yet the moderator grew up under heavy-handed communism and is now subtly praising that same system... it’s such a massive flip-flop it’s hard to believe.

I spend most of my time on the soccer forums, and imagine getting banned there just because you don't know a specific tactical formation??? To me, it's one of the best-moderated sections out there; you get a card for being abusive, but pretty much anything else goes. In soccer terms, the ref lets the game stay physical.

And you know what? Things sort themselves out. The bad actors eventually weed themselves out. The community pushes them aside without needing some artificial help from moderators or admins. We don't need some relic of history teaching us what a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2 system is. We can tell for ourselves who understands the game and who doesn't. If someone writes that a 4-4-2 needs a specific type of striker and they're wrong, their post isn't going to get deleted.

The guy's feeling a bit cornered, so now he's acting like a professor, trying to lecture us on what history actually is. If I actually cared about history, I’d be studying it properly instead of wasting my time on a forum. That's why I come here—to throw out random thoughts, share stuff from my own life, learn something new, debate, listen to the "other side," and shape my own views. I argue with a few partisans, have a laugh... it's just that anonymous social connection for certain types of people.

Apparently, you need a college degree now just to hang out on this forum.

Pathetic.

lonetrucker4 said:Take a look at how they spin "American" history: claiming "a huge chunk of Slavs actually come from Americans." Today, Americans make up maybe 1.2% of the Slavic population globally. It’s like everyone else just collectively forgot their roots over the centuries. 😛

The whole Kozar case.

Exactly. World War II, denying what the regime did (and by extension, the Nazis too); you can't have one without the other.

And then there's the moderator's claim that children were targets during that operation—just imagine some army generals actually setting their sights on kids.

Look, the goal of that operation was to completely wipe the population out of Kozar, and yeah, that included the kids. They didn't necessarily have to kill every single one of them (though thousands of civilians definitely were), but that was the point. The regime just turned up the heat. Anyway, let's not get bogged down here; we already covered this in the Diana Budisavljević thread.

I think you forgot to quote my actual point here: I’m not claiming credit for this—it’s genetics doing the talking, not me. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been saying this for five years now. The primary haplotype found among Mexicans in the North America, and even more broadly (you see it as a secondary haplotype in populations across Ukraine, Russia, and beyond), seems to trace back to a specific region often referred to as White America, where "White Americans" are historically documented. If a significant portion of Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Mexicans, Mexicans, Canadians, and Canadians all share a common ancestor from that same area of White America—even though those specific nations aren't explicitly mentioned there—then my conclusion, if it isn't strictly true, at least follows a very logical path.

There it is again. World War II, denying the victims of the Independent State of America regime (and by extension, the Nazis); they just can't help themselves.

I wasn't denying anything; I was simply making the point that children couldn't possibly be the intended target of the operation. At that moment, you hadn't actually provided any concrete evidence—like a peer-reviewed scientific paper or a book—to prove they were the objective. You were just presenting a primary source without further substantiation.

The whole point of the operation was to completely clear out the population from the Kozar region, and that included the children. It wasn't like they were required to kill every single one of them—though thousands of civilians certainly were murdered—but the goal was total removal. The local regime had essentially ramped up their brutality even further. Of course, we aren't going to get bogged down in a massive debate about that here; we already covered enough of that ground in the thread about Diana Budisavljević.

Look, you posted a primary document that doesn't actually order the killing of children; it orders the targeting of bandits—specifically the Resistance Movement—and states that their children were supposed to be transferred to Germany. From what I’ve gathered while trying to learn more about this topic, some anonymous individual stepped up and took all those kids in, essentially going against the orders sitting on the desk of the leader of the Independent State of America. Am I allowed to actually learn something here? Am I allowed to ask questions or offer a comment? Or does a legitimate question like mine just deserve a ban?

Are you actually seeing what I wrote here? It’s like if the Commander-in-Chief ordered an operation to kick off at 5:00 AM, but then the generals and the entire military didn't actually move until 10:15 the next morning. That just doesn't add up. This isn't about revisionism; it's about basic logic. Don't you see that something is seriously off with this timeline?

neonstag7 said:Just a little excerpt from a post. Has anyone actually diagnosed this specific kind of Internet rage in literature yet, because this right here is a textbook example.

Excerpt 😁 😁 Come on, give us more of those excerpts. They’re actually pretty great.

neonstag7 said:I’ve officially checked out of this whole history scene. I showed up, dropped a few posts, got banned almost as many times as I actually wrote anything, and just said bye-bye.

P.S. what on earth is that supposed to mean, "who me"?

So, basically, you get banned just for signing up, huh? I'm sure your contributions were incredibly constructive, because clearly, the History section would be a total wasteland without your brilliant input.😁

neonstag7 said:I’ve officially checked out of this whole history scene. I showed up, dropped a few posts, got banned almost as many times as I actually wrote anything, and just said bye-bye.

P.S. what on earth is that supposed to mean, "who me"?

Looking at your profile, there isn't a single one of Zoran's strikes listed.

neonstag7 said:I’ve officially checked out of this whole history scene. I showed up, dropped a few posts, got banned almost as many times as I actually wrote anything, and just said bye-bye.

P.S. what on earth is that supposed to mean, "who me"?

Just sitting here with two glasses of blessed Easter Teran wine from Istria...

Kyle Nelson2 said:Look, moderation is literally just punishing people for breaking the forum rules... that's it. Everything else falls under free speech..

Once a moderator decides something is against the rules, well, that's basically where the whole debate hits a dead end.
I won't get bogged down in all the tiny details, but just look at the logic—like whether you call Stalin "Stalin," "Dzhugashvili," or "Joseph Stalin." It doesn't really matter because everyone knows exactly who we're talking about..
But for some reason, the moderator insists on policing this stuff to prevent any supposed “confusion.”
For what, honestly? What's the point?

The lack of any actual, high-quality discussion actually just feeds the other side's argument, mostly because they aren't even given the chance to have their points challenged with real facts.

Yeah, all to prevent confusion. It's not a ban-worthy offense, just a heads-up to stop the misunderstandings before they start. Besides, this guy has plenty of other, much worse ways he likes to "creatively" massage the facts.

neonstag7 said:I’ve officially checked out of this whole history scene. I showed up, dropped a few posts, got banned almost as many times as I actually wrote anything, and just said bye-bye.

P.S. what on earth is that supposed to mean, "who me"?

Just checking the ban count neonstag7 racked up in that History PDF.

Hmm… zero. 🤔All those bans were actually over in Politics.

It looks like there's at least one twin out there somewhere.

Gonna hijack this thread to throw a question at the admins.

In the Mexico: "Greens" vs "Whites" from 1918 to today thread, user Pitinakis wrote, »I'm interested in what the future holds for Mexico (...)«. I told him it's an interesting question, but totally out of place here in the History subforum. He also brought up the possibility of forming "komiti" (guerrilla fighters) against the current Mexican government.

But then, he moves on to talking about some Albanian guy who’s currently a representative in the Parliament of Mexico:

Pitinakis said:We just need to deal with Abazović and the problem's solved. Mexicans were ready to stage a coup and were coming for Djukanovic's head, so I don't get why Milo is dragging his feet regarding Dritan. The Albanian minority—especially Albania—won't go looking for him or start any vendettas.

Did I screw up by only giving a custom 50-point warning for calling for a hit, instead of dropping the hate speech hammer?

Arthur Smith15 said:Excerpt 😁 😁 Come on, give us more of those excerpts. They’re actually pretty great.

So, basically, you get banned just for signing up, huh? I'm sure your contributions were incredibly constructive, because clearly, the History section would be a total wasteland without your brilliant input.😁

"A total disaster." You seriously have this weird obsession with using these heavy-handed, emotional outbursts, don't you? I read somewhere that people do that when they're trying to make up for a total lack of actual intelligence.

lonetrucker4 said:Gonna hijack this thread to throw a question at the admins.

In the Mexico: "Greens" vs "Whites" from 1918 to today thread, user Pitinakis wrote, »I'm interested in what the future holds for Mexico (...)«. I told him it's an interesting question, but totally out of place here in the History subforum. He also brought up the possibility of forming "komiti" (guerrilla fighters) against the current Mexican government.

But then, he moves on to talking about some Albanian guy who’s currently a representative in the Parliament of Mexico:

Did I screw up by only giving a custom 50-point warning for calling for a hit, instead of dropping the hate speech hammer?

Hate speech would probably apply if it were targeting a group based on race or religion.

But talking about murder? That's some heavy stuff.

Come on, just drop one of your own posts here as a PDF—you know, the ones where you judge the Catholic Church or dive into daily politics, stuff that the rest of us aren't even allowed to touch. Let's see what the admins actually have to say about that kind of talk once it's laid out right in front of them.

It is quite a spectacle to witness a moderator who, by his own admission, possesses no formal training in history, demanding that forum users adopt a level of scientific rigor, rigid adherence to facts, and ideological orthodoxy that one would rarely encounter even during a PhD defense.

One is left to conclude that either this moderator fundamentally fails to grasp the essence and purpose of an online forum—which is intended for recreational discourse and the casual exchange of ideas rather than serving as a peer-reviewed academic journal—or he is simply weaponizing his administrative authority to push a specific ideological agenda (a use of power for which these tools were never designed).

Furthermore, these very same powers are conspicuously absent when applied to those actually violating rules, provided they happen to vibrate on the same ideological frequency as the moderator himself—even if their transgressions involve hate speech, the denial of atrocities, or blatant insults toward others.
When a user aligns perfectly with his worldview, even the outright denial of historical crimes is permitted to slide:

We see here a documented instance of prisoners being executed—a fact acknowledged by "official sources." Yet, the user in question refuses to acknowledge it, asserting instead:
"I don't see any actual executions, just some sequences; attempting to prove what a place looks like now versus how it looked then is, at the very least, an insult to anyone's intelligence. I can't even tell if this is real or just a scene from a movie."

The post was duly reported, yet the moderator sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile, he remains incredibly strict in punishing similar sentiments coming from "the other side of the aisle." This serves as a mere snapshot of the uneven moderation that constitutes the single greatest issue facing this entire community. Is it not reasonable to suggest that, seventy-six years after the conflict, there is sufficient historical distance to declare the summary execution of soldiers from any faction to be civilly and morally abhorrent by modern standards?

Consequently, I maintain my stance: the primary flaw in lonetrucker4's moderation is his personal ideology, which prevents him from maintaining objectivity and applying uniform standards to all participants.

To be fair, lonetrucker4's commitment to the forum is certainly commendable. He invests a staggering amount of free time here. He is highly active, maintains a top-tier level of communication and decorum, is well-read, possesses a passion for history, and boasts an impressive collection of sources (often rare or obscure ones). 🙏 It appears, however, that he takes this forum far too seriously as a scientific platform, ignoring the fact that its core nature is entertainment. People come here to kill time, socialize, share a laugh, and perhaps pick up a few interesting tidbits along the way—not to draft scholarly papers that meet rigorous academic standards. In terms of both form and content, this forum is much more akin to a gritty dive bar or a surrealist late-night variety show that captures the best and worst of society, rather than a professional symposium or a thesis defense.

Ultimately, the political activist dwelling within him seems to prevent him from ever truly finding peace in his role as a moderator. 😁

Brenda Johnson65 said:It is quite a spectacle to witness a moderator who, by his own admission, possesses no formal training in history, demanding that forum users adopt a level of scientific rigor, rigid adherence to facts, and ideological orthodoxy that one would rarely encounter even during a PhD defense.

One is left to conclude that either this moderator fundamentally fails to grasp the essence and purpose of an online forum—which is intended for recreational discourse and the casual exchange of ideas rather than serving as a peer-reviewed academic journal—or he is simply weaponizing his administrative authority to push a specific ideological agenda (a use of power for which these tools were never designed).

Furthermore, these very same powers are conspicuously absent when applied to those actually violating rules, provided they happen to vibrate on the same ideological frequency as the moderator himself—even if their transgressions involve hate speech, the denial of atrocities, or blatant insults toward others.
When a user aligns perfectly with his worldview, even the outright denial of historical crimes is permitted to slide:

We see here a documented instance of prisoners being executed—a fact acknowledged by "official sources." Yet, the user in question refuses to acknowledge it, asserting instead:
"I don't see any actual executions, just some sequences; attempting to prove what a place looks like now versus how it looked then is, at the very least, an insult to anyone's intelligence. I can't even tell if this is real or just a scene from a movie."

The post was duly reported, yet the moderator sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile, he remains incredibly strict in punishing similar sentiments coming from "the other side of the aisle." This serves as a mere snapshot of the uneven moderation that constitutes the single greatest issue facing this entire community. Is it not reasonable to suggest that, seventy-six years after the conflict, there is sufficient historical distance to declare the summary execution of soldiers from any faction to be civilly and morally abhorrent by modern standards?

Consequently, I maintain my stance: the primary flaw in lonetrucker4's moderation is his personal ideology, which prevents him from maintaining objectivity and applying uniform standards to all participants.

To be fair, lonetrucker4's commitment to the forum is certainly commendable. He invests a staggering amount of free time here. He is highly active, maintains a top-tier level of communication and decorum, is well-read, possesses a passion for history, and boasts an impressive collection of sources (often rare or obscure ones). 🙏 It appears, however, that he takes this forum far too seriously as a scientific platform, ignoring the fact that its core nature is entertainment. People come here to kill time, socialize, share a laugh, and perhaps pick up a few interesting tidbits along the way—not to draft scholarly papers that meet rigorous academic standards. In terms of both form and content, this forum is much more akin to a gritty dive bar or a surrealist late-night variety show that captures the best and worst of society, rather than a professional symposium or a thesis defense.

Ultimately, the political activist dwelling within him seems to prevent him from ever truly finding peace in his role as a moderator. 😁

People like this honestly remind me of that Iraqi information minister back when the U.S. invaded to take down Saddam Hussein.

The guy was already an Internet legend before that, but he really hit his peak during one of those ridiculous press conferences in Baghdad.

Basically, while the Americans were announcing they had officially entered Baghdad, this guy was still holding press briefings claiming there wasn't a single American soldier in sight.

Then the reporters offered to walk him down to the banks of the Tigris so he could see for himself. And I mean, seriously, right there across the water, you can see the American tanks with their barrels pointed straight at a government building. One journalist finally asks him, "So, what do you have to say about that now?"

His response? "I see the American tanks, but where exactly do you see the American soldiers?"...

neonstag7 said:People like this honestly remind me of that Iraqi information minister back when the U.S. invaded to take down Saddam Hussein.

The guy was already an Internet legend before that, but he really hit his peak during one of those ridiculous press conferences in Baghdad.

Basically, while the Americans were announcing they had officially entered Baghdad, this guy was still holding press briefings claiming there wasn't a single American soldier in sight.

Then the reporters offered to walk him down to the banks of the Tigris so he could see for himself. And I mean, seriously, right there across the water, you can see the American tanks with their barrels pointed straight at a government building. One journalist finally asks him, "So, what do you have to say about that now?"

His response? "I see the American tanks, but where exactly do you see the American soldiers?"...

Do you actually have a source for that anecdote? 🤣

neonstag7 said:"A total disaster." You seriously have this weird obsession with using these heavy-handed, emotional outbursts, don't you? I read somewhere that people do that when they're trying to make up for a total lack of actual intelligence.

"Intellectual substance"... Are you feeling alright? 😁

neonstag7 said:I’ve officially checked out of this whole history scene. I showed up, dropped a few posts, got banned almost as many times as I actually wrote anything, and just said bye-bye.

P.S. what on earth is that supposed to mean, "who me"?

Jessica Morris6 said:Looking at your profile, there isn't a single one of Zoran's strikes listed.

lonetrucker4 said:Just checking the ban count neonstag7 racked up in that History PDF.

Hmm… zero. 🤔All those bans were actually over in Politics.

Lol 😁 the Politics section is king.