Kolyma I came across the Kolyma article while checking out some facts presented in a Danish newspaper article and was surprised to see that it had been marked as lacking neutrality in view of assertations made about the Kolyma Gulag without reliable references etc As I believe it is extremely important to ensure that the story of the Gulag is presented properly I have spent a few hours on this article The main problem seems to be that the author is not too familiar with Wiki editing So I have begun to straighten a few things out in particular correct internal links to the authors cited additional links to the outside world and some footnoting It would be great if some of the experts on Russia and Russian Soviet history could chip in too There has been a suggestion that the geographical page on Kolyma should be separated from the article on the Gulag Sooner or later I think we should do that but the immediate problem is one of establishing the authenticity of the current write up I found it interesting that of all the Kolyma articles in other languages and there are currently 16 see only two French and Catalan describe the Gulag Poland has a special page on this I look forward to hearing from interested parties Thank you for your effort in cleaning this up I had several concerns about how these historical topics are reflected in the Wikipedia in particular Gross inflation of casualty numbers I think the current version is more or less ok for that Use of strong emotional terms to describe an encyclopedic subject which is completely unacceptable in my opinion List the numbers the facts and let the reader do the math There is a little bit of that left in the current version but it s probably ok now too Biased representation of the camps as working only to destroy as many people as possible and comparison to Nazi death camps The goal of the Soviet system was to industrialize the country in 10 years something that the Western countries covered in two centuries before that and to prepare for the inevitable large scale war against countless aggressors Germany the US Japan etc each of whom has invaded Russia just two decades prior to that To that end the most important purpose of the camps was to build the industry that has later launched the man in space and up to this day is in the heart of modern Russia and to manage to do so in complete isolation and with very few available resources before getting attacked The brutality of the methods is very regrettable but should be mentioned in an objective article along with the actual productive goals of the program and the benefits the country has reaped although at a very very high price Drawing most of the information from Solzh s Gulag and dissidents accounts who most certainly should not monopolize the license for eternal truth As I mentioned in the page s discussion eyewitness accounts are important but not the only one and by far not the most objective source of info If you record testimony of 227 inmates of Abu Ghraib or Guant namo Bay they will say that those places are hell on Earth the most mercilessly terrorized particularly sadistic and the most unimaginably cruel human run organizations and the whole US concentration camp system is evil as they would probably claim are the US themselves This alone would not make a good article on Guant namo Bay Furthermore Solzh s book was used as an ideological weapon against the 70 s and later Soviet Union to present even the second part of the 20th century in Russia as one endless deadly torture and gulag which is of course a complete nonsense Given that hysterical overestimation and bias are very common in the West when it comes to these topics I long ago gave up on trying to thoroughly improve related pages because every time it sparks an endless flame war with people who tell me about tens and hundreds of millions of fictional casualties and then my edits get erased or lost in the never ending stream of b s So now I only do minor corrections and appreciate when people try to constructively research the topic If the arguments I presented here would help you in your further editing then good if not then Wikipedia will remain a place of hysterical hatred for anything Soviet especially in comparison to much more mellow and well researched Britannica and Encarta I appreciate these comments and will certainly bear them in mind for future editing Yolanda I ve been trying to put something together on Yolanda of Vianden as she seems to be one of Luxembourg s mor