Talk:Armenian genocide/Archive 30

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Location: Anatolia

• "Taken in their entirety, Ottoman and Western archives jointly confirm that the ruling party CUP did deliberately implement a policy of ethnoreligious homogenization of Anatolia that aimed to destroy the Armenian population" — Taner Akcam
• "This imperial violence was followed in 1915–17 with the forced deportation and subsequent destruction of almost the entire Armenian population of Asia Minor." — Fatma Muge Gocek, Denial of Violence (Asia Minor -> Anatolia)
• "Between the years 1915 and 1923 the vast majority of the Armenian population of Anatolia and historical West Armenia was eliminated."—Rouben Paul Adalian[1]
• "The persistence of genocide or near-genocidal incidents from the 1890s through the 1990s, committed by Ottoman and successor Turkish and Iraqi states against Armenian, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Pontic Greek communities in Eastern Anatolia, is striking." —Mark Levene[2]
• "Thereafter, in a wave spreading westwards and southwards throughout the empire from the provinces of eastern Anatolia - the areas of heaviest Armenian population - the Turkish government, led by the Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress: CUP), implemented an increasingly radical programme of deportation and murder."—Donald Bloxham[3]
• "Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kerem Öktem and Maurus Reinkowski argue that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor."[4]
• "Finally, a comprehensive scheme for the removal of the Armenian communities of Anatolia to Syria began in May 1915."[5]

I share this in relation to Diranakir ongoing reverts on the grounds that "Anatolia and adjoining regions" in inaccurate when referring to the location where the genocide took place. (When I search Armenian Genocide Turkey—their preferred terminology—on Google scholar, most results are discussing modern-day Turkish reactions to the genocide.) (t · c) buidhe 04:07, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I touched on this in the proposed edits for the Death Toll section above, but will expand on “Armenians from Anatolia” here too. If Wikipedia editors, or the authors they chose to cite here, were to tell the Ottoman (Western) Armenians that they were “Armenians from Anatolia”, those Armenians would more likely than not laugh in their face. “Eastern Anatolia” is a relatively new toponym which has become increasingly more recognizable in literature. However, it is an innovation, not to say that it is a tautology meaning “Eastern East” and is essentially a Turkish invention to replace a more geographically and historically correct toponym “The Armenian Highlands” or “The Armenian Plateau”. Well, obviously, because the place name contains the ethnonym “Armenian”. Like I said above, there were no “Armenians from Anatolia”. Armenians were living for thousands of years in their native autochthonous habitat, most of which encompassed the Armenian Plateau. If this correct place name is for some unknown reason uncomfortable for the respected Wikipedia editors, I suggest replacing the absurd phrase “Armenians from Anatolia” with “Armenians living in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire and adjoining regions” or “Armenians living in eastern Asia Minor” or “Armenians living in the northern part of Western Asia”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 01:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian

I believe "Asia Minor" is a synonym of "Anatolia", and have no reason to prefer one of these over the other, but I disagree that there is anything wrong with "Armenians in Anatolia"; there are many scholarly sources which use such language and apparently see nothing wrong with it.[6] I agree that "Armenian Highlands" or "Armenian plateau" is a good term for what it refers to, and I used it in the article, but 1) the genocide also occurred in other parts of the empire; according to Kevorkian about 1/3 of the Armenian villages in the empire were located outside the Armenian Highlands 2) the genocide did not occur in Eastern Armenia which is also part of the Armenian Highlands. (t · c) buidhe 14:43, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Anatolia, according to Wikipedia’s own article Anatolia is “a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent”. Sorry, but most Ottoman Armenians lived in easternmost protrusion of the Asian continent. If you believe that Asia Minor is a synonym of Anatolia and have no reason to prefer one of these over the other, then what stops you from replacing this relatively newly cooked term “Anatolia” with a more ancient and thus more geographically and historically correct term “Asia Minor”? Or, in the case of Armenians, “eastern Asia Minor”, to be exact?98.231.157.169 (talk) 14:58, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian

One reason there are many scholarly sources which use “Anatolia” and, as you say, apparently see nothing wrong with it, is that, like I said, in the recent decades this made-up toponym has become more recognizable in the literature. However, it does not mean that this relatively new toponym was there throughout most of the history of the region. Not to say, as I noted already, that the phrase “Armenians from Anatolia” is a misnomer. Most Ottoman Armenians did not live on a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent (this is Wikipedia’s own definition of “Anatolia”). And, fyi, many other scholarly sources continue to use more ancient and more geographically and historically correct toponym “Asia Minor”, and not the Turkish novelty of “Anatolia”. But, for some reason, Wikipedia editors chose to use “Anatolia” with its wrong application to the habitat of most Ottoman Armenians. Why?!98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Now replaced with "Asia Minor" per request. (t · c) buidhe 01:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Anatolia was dead wrong in all respects. Eastern Asia Minor would be more correct.98.231.157.169 (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2021 (UTC)Davidian

• Read this https://www.armgeo.am/en/anatolia/, if you will. I'm sure it'll help widen your horizons.98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:28, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Armenia and Azerbaijan

What is this section doing in an article on the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire? There has been no "Azerbaijan" (not to confuse with an originally and historically Persian province) until 1918 when this first-ever nation-state was created. When it comes to adding death toll numbers greater than editors-favorite "around 1 million" or Ottoman Armenian population size greater than editors-favorite "around 2 million", that are based on many alternative RS, editors are playing dumb accusing readers of "cherry-picking" the sources. But when it comes to a completely unrelated subject such as Armenia-Azerbaijan, they readily include it in an article on genocide. Inimitable Wikipedia editors, do you think bathing in cold water would help you sobber up?98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

• Could you clarify which sources cited in that section are not reliable for the statements they support? (t · c) buidhe 00:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The whole section is without rhyme or reason in an article on the Armenian Genocide.98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:33, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Hi Davidian, nice you come to comment. I have really taken it seriously what you wrote as I am also interested for that the Armenian Genocide has a good representation on Wikipedia and double checked. Now it results that the "whole section" begins with an event in 1965, when Azerbajian actually existed.In fact there is not a single mention of an Azerbajian existing before 1918 in the whole section Armenia and Azerbaijan. Please create an account, edit yourself and try to make sense.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Try to make sense when you hop in here to explain what a section titled “Armenia and Azerbaijan” is doing in an article on the Armenian Genocide. So what that the section begins with an event in 1965 when Azerbaijan actually existed? Jesus Christ… What kind of an argument is this? Papua New Guinea also existed in 1965. So?... I have to repeat my question: What is the section “Armenia and Azerbaijan” doing in an article on the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire? Could anyone switch her or his brains on and explain?98.231.157.169 (talk) 14:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Same author giving conflicting figures. Provide WP:PG, WP:RULES, WP:POLICY or WP:GUIDELINE

Because (t · c) buidhe kept mum about an issue I’d raised twice during this discussion, I felt compelled to create a new section for it, considering it important. Breathe a deep sigh of relief, (t · c) buidhe, this is not about the Armenians’ historical habitat that was never known as “Anatolia” or stupid approximations of victim numbers or the Ottoman Armenian population size. This is about your own “free” encyclopedia’s guidelines and policies. Same author in the same year gave two different figures for the size of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. In They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else , Suny came up with “around 2 million”. In https://www.britannica.com/event/Armenian-Genocide, he noted that “there were about 2.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire”. (t · c) buidhe likes accusing contributors of “cherry-picking” the sources (this is the word you so much like, isn’t it? “cherry-picking”?). Please direct Wikipedia readers and contributors to a relevant WP policy or guideline that gives editors a right to cherry-pick (using the famous parlance) a figure from one source and disregard a different figure from another. I hope I haven’t burdened you with a simple question about Wikipedia’s own policies and guidelines?98.231.157.169 (talk) 15:41, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Dude, chill, this isn't a battleground and if you continue with this kind of behavior your stay here is going to be real brief. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Go call your grandpa “dude”, okay? Get a grip, sonny…98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:53, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

I suggest staying cool when editing this encyclopedia.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay, since my contributions, almost all which RS-based (some of them rare RS), all constructive and helpful, are considered “disruptive (?!) editing”, let’s try for the fourth time and see what happens.

• Dearest Wikipedia Editors, would you please be so kind as to direct me, and a group of experts in the field who are closely monitoring the deliberations in this talk, to a relevant WP:PG, WP:RULES, WP:POLICY or WP:GUIDELINE which regulates your choice of a source in the case when the same author supplied conflicting data in two or more RS published at the same time? I humbly beg pardon if by this innocuous inquiry I inadvertently introduced a disruptive editing to this talk, but, regrettably, it has been the fourth time that we, a group of uneducated and uncouth laymen, are trying to understand the motives behind your logic to cite a source by Ronald Grigor Suny that contains lesser population size of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. I would be eternally grateful to you if you could kindly offer a guidance at your earliest convenience to help us understand the policies behind source selection for this important article. Yours very earnestly,98.231.157.169 (talk) 23:53, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Requested move 15 May 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. This is a pretty controversial move request, with decent arguments on both sides, but there's a consensus to move. Looking at the survey, there are 6 opposes and 6 supports, so no clear numeric consensus. However, the policy-based and source-based arguments of those who support the move are stronger than of those who oppose it. The main argument for moving MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS - that "Armenian genocide" is not a proper noun, and therefore the G should not be capitalized. There are two main arguments against this: the first is that this is not true - and that it is indeed a proper noun, and capitalized in normal prose a majority of the time. The second is that, while it indeed is not a proper noun, we should treat this particular case as an exception.

Reviewing the discussion, and all of the sources listed, it indeed appears that "Armenian genocide" is more common than "Armenian Genocide" in the prose of reliable sources.

Secondly, on the topic of whether we should treat this as an exception. For example, wbm1058 mentioned I'm feeling increasingly annoyed at the examination of use of the term in sentences to determine how to use it in titles. Use of the term in sentences can help in deciding how to use the term in sentences. However, this is not in line with existing guidelines at WP:NCCAPS. There are not listed exceptions there, nor was there any strong argument made in favor of this being an exception. If re-assessment of one of the most important guidelines for titling articles is sought, a single requested move is not the right forum. There is no exception for how much of a "big deal" an article is - we defer to reliable sources, not what individual editors thing.

The consensus, based off of general article titling policy, and analysis of reliable sources, is that in prose of reliable sources, "Armenian genocide" is used more commonly than "Armenian Genocide", and therefore, it should be used in article titles. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk | contribs) 21:41, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

---

• Armenian Genocide → Armenian genocide
• Armenian Genocide denial → Armenian genocide denial
• Armenian Genocide recognition → Armenian genocide recognition
• Armenian Genocide reparations → Armenian genocide reparations
• List of Armenian Genocide memorials → List of Armenian genocide memorials
• Armenian Genocide survivors → Armenian genocide survivors
• Armenian Genocide in Trebizond → Armenian genocide in Trebizond
• Armenian Genocide in culture → Armenian genocide in culture
• Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust → Armenian genocide and the Holocaust
• Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian Genocide → Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian genocide
• Kurdish recognition of the Armenian Genocide → Kurdish recognition of the Armenian genocide

– Sources mostly use lowercase genocide (not counting titles and heading, citations to titles, etc.) Dicklyon (talk) 19:29, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

There may be a few other articles I missed; but we can clean up later.

Before you respond:

• Please review the evidence – While there has been a trend toward more capitalization since Wikipedia got this article started in 2003, book stats still show at least half lowercase when corrected for titles and headings and such. The best way to see this is to look past Armenian Genocide of ... and Armenian Genocide and ..., which occur in oft-cited titles, and look at contexts ending in is, was, as, has, did, as well as the words in these article titles.
  • Here are some book ngram stats
  • And here are some more that are pretty compelling (note that capped "Armenian Genocide recognition" is not found in books enough to be counted, while lowercased "Armenian genocide recognition" is.)
• Please review the policies and guidelines, the most obviously relevant ones being:

  WP:NCCAPS – "Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name. For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence."

  MOS:CAPS – "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. In English, capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence. Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia."

• Please make your comments responsive to WP policies and guidelines, and evidence in sources, avoiding politics and opinions to the extent possible. Dicklyon (talk) 19:29, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

RM Survey

• Oppose. You missed "Terminology of the Armenian Genocide". This strikes me as creating a mountain of work for others to fix something that's not broken. It's a manual of style, as in style guide not a Bible of Style (policy). Why aren't you moving The Holocaust to the holocaust too, for "WP:CONSISTENCY"? wbm1058 (talk) 21:10, 15 May 2021 (UTC) amended 21:51, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you for asking why we don't downcase The Holocaust. Here's why. "Consistently capped in sources". Dicklyon (talk) 22:32, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  So when a genocide happens to Western, white people it's a big deal to our "reliable Western sources" so they capitalize the term used to describe it. But when it happens to Asians or Africans it's not such a big deal to our Western sources, who show their bias by not capitalizing it. Just saying. It's not like they never capitalize it though, your Ngram shows that it's more like a coin toss to decide whether to cap or not. I'll bet sources are more likely to capitalize the term when used in an article title. Wikipedia has it bass-ackwards, being more likely to lowercase the title while leaving proper name usage in article bodies unchanged. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:04, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  You can see why I wrote what I did, just above the RM Survey section heading. Dicklyon (talk) 23:12, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  And Wbm1058's engaging in racialist baiting that doesn't even make sense. Both Armenians and Turks are generally included in broad definitions of "White people", and narrow definitions of same often exclude Jews and Roma, so this attempt to make this be a "White people vs. everyone else" thing is a dismal failure.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

  I said, "Western, white people". Armenia is a part of the Greater Middle East and Turkey is a country straddling Western Asia and Southeast Europe. OK, it's Nazi genocide and not Nazi Genocide. Fair enough. Hmm, Michaud Affair § CKAC Interview and Names of the Holocaust § Objections to the usage of "Holocaust" for Nazi extermination of Jews. wikt:holocaust. Ngram. What strikes me there is that three decades pass before the red and blue lines cross. And genocides in history are so common that the article needs to be split into three parts. My thinking on this matter is evolving. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:43, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support This term is often capitalized, but not consistently capitalized as required by MOS:CAPS. I hope all arguments that aren't based on article titles policy are ignored such as the comment above mine. Other articles with "genocide" in the title, such as Rwandan genocide, were moved to lowercase in the past and it's time this article follows suit for WP:CONSISTENCY as well as WP:COMMONNAME. (t · c) buidhe 21:23, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  The manual of style is a GUIDELINE, not a policy. Guidelines are sets of best practices supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. I suggest that the killing of hundreds of thousands of people is a Big Deal, and that common sense says this should obviously be an exception. wbm1058 (talk) 21:34, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  We do often hear that argument to WP:IAR based on "common sense" for things that are "important". But it's more straightforward and sensible, and work I've volunteered to do, to follow our own style guidelines in not capitalizing for importance. I don't dispute that the genocide was a "Big Deal". Dicklyon (talk) 22:24, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  Wbm1058 likes to keep saying "MOS is a guideline" as if repeating it made a stronger argument (it does not), and as if that somehow means "don't follow it" (it does not; it means "follow it"). To quote from WP:P&G policy: "Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages describe its principles and agreed-upon best practices. Policies are standards all users should normally follow, and guidelines are generally meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense." We make exceptions to a G or a P (more often a G) when a situation rises to WP:IAR level, i.e. when ignoring the rule in a particular instance objectively improves the encyclopedia. That is not the case here. This is just a style quibble. Wbm1058 is, without realizing it, triggering MOS:SIGCAPS: do not capitalize for emphasis or signification of importance. Also, the fact that people propose moving pages to comply with the guideline does not mean that the guideline is being over-applied or misapplied, much less like a "bible" or like some kind of racist conspiracy. It is being applied precisely as intended, through the proper process for move discussions. So these extreme histrionics are not helpful. Present a better, fact-based argument than just a bunch of emotive WP:ITSIMPORTANT / WP:ILIKEIT.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:53, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support per nom. This looks a fairly straightforward case. Ngrams show more sources use sentence case than title case, and per MOS:CAPS we should only treat names as a proper noun if a substantial majority of sources do so. It also matches Rwandan genocide and other similar titles.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:37, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per wbm. Yes, I read the MOS, and the other pile of links, and read them in the lead-up to this conversation, et al. I am deeply unconvinced per the long-ranging discussions recently that this change would improve the encyclopedia. This is not the "anti-MOS partisanship" that people get accused of for opposing a given move discussed in the MOS; most articles at title case shouldn't be at them. Some articles at title case should. The Armenian Genocide, as buidhe noted herself on her talk, is capped in a significant proportion (around 2:1) of sources. I am unconvinced community consensus is actually for "we should sentence-case things that the majority of sources, but not all sources, title-case", per how much furore has existed around such moves recently. I do not think this move would improve the encyclopedia, improve the wider discourse around these issues that the encyclopedia has a deep impact on, or be a particularly productive goal. Vaticidalprophet 00:58, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I just want to challenge this statistic as it's not accurate. As you can see from the results linked above, when used in a sentence, the lowercase form has a clear majority. But there are many frequently referenced books with "Armenian Genocide" as part of the title, which distorts the overall results if you aren't careful about the way you search. (t · c) buidhe 01:14, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

    Indeed, that is always the case with titles. They tend to be capitalised in many sources when used as a title, just as a matter of course, not because the same source would always capitalise it. Some even style their titles as the shouty ARMENIAN GENOCIDE. Our guidelines say not to capitalise article names unless they're routinely capitalised in prose though, which is why a comparison search should include an extra word such as "Armenian genocide was" to filter out the pure titles.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:13, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support, in line with outside usage, style guides, and our own MOS. Tony (talk) 01:53, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support per evidence and WP guidelines. The evidence shows how the subject term might be used in text as distinct from titles etc. The capped and uncapped forms are used about equally in more modern sources (and mush less in earlier sources). It therefore does not satisfy the guideline criterion of being "consistently capitalised". Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 05:22, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose  Authoritative subject-specific references seem to treat this as a proper noun, based on my small, unscientific survey. (By the way, in Google Books Ngram you can compare many phrases like “Armenian Genocide [denial],” etc., using part-of-speech tags, as in Armenian Genocide _NOUN_.) —Michael Z. 03:11, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Library of Congress Subject Headings[7] (these appear to all be in sentence case)
  • Charny (1999), Encyclopedia of Genocide, v 1, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
  • Shelton (2005), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Detroit: Macmillan Reference.
  • Taner Akçam (2012), The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Ronald Grigor Suny (updated 2021), “Armenian Genocide,” Britannica.

  Michael, thanks for ngram tag tip. But as it's clear here, you are fooling yourself by focusing on the nouns that most often follow, which are mostly Museum and Resolution. Of course you'd cap in those contexts, but that has no bearing on the question. That's why I had shown the more specific and more relevant ngram stats. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

  Interesting. If you add the definite article, you get quite different results.[8] Needs more research. —Michael Z. 13:00, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

  The search term "the Armenian Genocide and" is still likely pulling in a lot of title matches. For example: [9][10][11]. That's why the "Armenian genocide was" test is more informative, and still shows a clear lead with the definite article preceded. And even if the title-case form held a slight lead, that still doesn't constitute the "substantial majority" required for us to capitalise it ourselves.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

  Exactly: is, was, or other _VERB_ is much more likely to summarize uses in sentences. Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

  That’s “substantial majority of independent, reliable sources,” which keeps getting left out of the discussion. How many sources in that Ngram chart are reliable? 90 percent, 10 percent, 1 percent? We have a huge guideline describing what are and are not WP:Reliable sources, with supporting guidelines on WP:DUEWEIGHT and use of WP:PSTS. I think my short list, although obviously incomplete, is a better indicator of how a substantial majority of I R S’s capitalize and use this name. I was disappointed at how an argument based on reliable sources didn’t cite a single one, and am pleased with the approach now taken up below. —Michael Z. 14:37, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  With all due respect your list of five sources, which has no indication as to they were picked or evidence that they're a representative sample, is almost meaningless when compared to the ngram, which looks at a vast corpus of published books. And such books are almost invariably taken to be reliable sources on Wikipedia. We routinely use ngrams in discussions like these, because (a) they're representative of a large sample of sources - much larger than anything an individual editor can present in an RM discussion, and (b) they're independent and free from whatever preconceived notions we editors may have of the correct answer to the question.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:48, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support per WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS. The ability to find 5 sources capitaling it doesn't make it near-uniformly capitalized. This is a bit of an edge case. I think more sources capitalize it than don't (and I had assumed this based on reading experience), but lower-case usage is actually way more common than I expected. In books, we're looking at a 4:3 ratio (12:8) [12], which is not much of a lead. This ratio appears to flip itself to favor lower case in scholarly journals [13], and in news [14]. It appears to be authors of monographs who prefer to capitalize it, and only by a small margin which is outweighed by preference for lower-case in other publication spheres.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. A casual glance at the ngram sourcing shows that, for the most recent years, Google used one source, a test prep guide, “5 steps to a 5”, God help us, 4 times based on minor yearly revisions. I wish this were the worst example on ngramitis out there, but it aint. Was there much recent scholarly work refering to this event as such that uses l.c.? Qwirkle (talk) 17:44, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

  Qwirkle, you are being unbelievably disingenuous in your comments! You had to dig pretty deep to find those study guides (which only contribute one count each to the lowercase counts, for the 3 years in the period covered by the stats), while ignoring books like this one specifically on the topic and by a historian, which use lowercase in text (one count), and uppercase in citations to its sources (4 counts); or this one, similarly, with 2 counts lowercase in sentences and 5 capped citation to sources in Title Case. This is the more typical situation, as the ngram stats make clear: that most of the capitalization you see is not in support of interpretation as a proper name, but just title-case citations. Dicklyon (talk) 18:44, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I will leave as an an exercise for the reader what to make of someone who who writes “only contribute one count each” (i.e. 4) in a discusion about 13 hits, and then accuses someone else of misrepresentation or lying.

The reader is also invited to ask how “deep” one has to dig by clicking the rightmost box in an ngram. For me, that was the first hit; YMMV. Qwirkle (talk) 19:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I can't figure out what you refer to by "rightmost box", or which n-gram query, or what "13 hits" you are referring to. Ah, probably you picked the context "... was" and the years 2017–2019, where you get about 13 books in Google Book Search, 3 of which have those three lowercase counts you don't like. Here's another that comes up in that narrow search and has a couple more lowercase counts; and another. And one with 5 uppercase counts but all in citations to title cased book titles. You dislike of the study guides is not in any way changing the pattern that is so obvious in the sources, and it's disingenuous of you to act like it does. Dicklyon (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I can't figure out what you refer to by "rightmost box", or which n-gram query… …yet you could, and did. Heh.

More importantly, this isn’t about what I, or anyone for that matter, likes; it’s about the suitability of ngrams for showing usage. A single work showed up more than once. The same thing shows up in the previous year. This makes the results inaccurate; quibbles about how inaccurate are quibbling. Qwirkle (talk) 22:34, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I hope nobody is claiming that ngrams are "accurate". But they provide a good starting point. When you dig in, it is almost always the case that capped uses are way over-represented, since titles, citations to titles, headings, etc. are in the mix. Many of the books I checked mentioned "Armenian genocide" once or twice in the text, and had quite a few citations to titles containing "Armenian Genocide"; like the ones I showed you. Look at any proper name (or name treated as proper by sources, if you prefer), however, and you see more like 95% caps in sources. Like the Holocaust, for example. That's very far from the pattern we're seeing here. But you know that already, as we've been through it with you a few times. So why keep misrepresenting what the sources are telling us? Dicklyon (talk) 01:29, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Are you under the impression that you have discussed this with me previously? That is not simply untrue.

That aside, you are confusing “proper name” with “thing that is capitalized”. Many phrases which refer to particular persons, places, or things are not capitalized. Qwirkle (talk) 02:03, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

I was recalling previous discussions such as at Talk:Charles/MGH station#Over-capitalization. Maybe not precisely the same, but about your tendency to want to cap things that sources mostly don't. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah, you mean the discussion in which you were unable to separate meanings of phrases which had similar words in them, yes. Qwirkle (talk) 04:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah, and you're confusing n-gram counts with book hits. Each occurrence in a book is counted; that's where so many of the capped counts come from – Title-Cased citations; also from front-cover title and title-page title and headings and such. Dicklyon (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

No. That’s the next level of possible problems, though. Qwirkle (talk) 22:34, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Our article clearly treats it as an event, rather than a subject (i.e. "The Armenian Genocide" vs "genocide in Armenia"), and its capitalisation is therefore unexceptional. The MOS does lots of things well, but capitalisation is not one of them, and of course it's only ever a guideline anyway. The presence of other uncapitalised articles which could also be argued to be incorrect is simply an application of WP:OSE. Black Kite (talk) 19:13, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  Articles that don't cap it also make clear that it's an event, via the definite article. See stats; none of these are about generic "genocide in Armenia". So you've provided no reason to not follow the usual WP style guidance, just that you prefer to ignore it. Dicklyon (talk) 22:05, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  Indeed. Not liking a particular guideline is not an argument to ignore it, and absent any other reason why we should IAR in this particular case, it seems unlikely a closing admin will assign much weight to such a viewpoint. Incidentally, WP:OSE doesn't say to ignore other examples (as most people think it does), rather it says that sometimes the existence of other stuff is relevant, and sometimes it's not. When it comes to article titles, WP:CONSISTENCY has been explicitly defined as one of the guiding policies, so it's certainly something to strive for in this instance.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:03, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Per user wbm1058. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:11, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support, with my support being conditional on a continued showing that the fully capitalized version is not used in "a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". I encourage potential closers to allow additional time for opponents of this RM to engage with RS in an attempt to show a majority proper noun usage. Yes, our manual of style is a guideline; no, we shouldn't ignore it without good reason; no, this genocide being a devastating, abhorrent, under-acknowledged tragedy is not a reason to ignore the guideline. I empathize deeply with editors who associate this RM with ongoing worldwide efforts to erase, diminish, or deny history, but I have every reason to believe such an association is unwarranted. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:20, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

A challenge

Here's the deal: I offer to find 3 good sources supporting lowercase genocide for every 2 that opposers find supporting uppercase Genocide, for as long as they want to keep it up. That will help us build a bibliography of usage right here, while seeing if I'm right that lowercase dominates, in terms of source counts instead of usage counts. Rules: 1. only uses in sentences count (not titles, headings, captions that aren't sentences, index entries, uses that are part of a larger proper name, etc.); 2. sources that use it in sentences both uppercase and lowercase will not count for either; 3. WP:RS books, news, and scholarly articles that can be verified online for free are the domain of interest; 4. Multiple editions only count once. Anyone want to give it a go? Dicklyon (talk) 01:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

We can just look at the sources cited in the article.

• Judgment At Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials consistently uses upper case, at least in the opening pages I looked at in preview. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:20, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  No, it has it lowercase on pages 54 and 66 in sentences. If it also has it uppercase in sentences, let us know so we don't count this in my column. The frequent "Armenian Genocide Trials" appear to be page headings. Dicklyon (talk) 03:28, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  On page 54, start of the last paragraph: "Justice Minister Ibrahim's interrogation yielded a number of revelations about the hidden aspects of the Armenian Genocide." I'm not finding the lowercase usage that you claim to see on page 54. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:37, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  But the paragraph before that, just before the block quote, has "...when the Armenian genocide was all but consummated." Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  The Washington football team was in a tight battle with the New York, Philadelphia and Dallas football teams to land the fourth-seed playoff spot in the National Football Conference. Entering the final weekend none of their rivals had been eliminated but by late Sunday night the Washington Football Team was the NFC East champion. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:02, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  OK, it's mixed, so we'll ignore that one. Wbm1058 seems to be saying that sometimes is a proper name and sometimes not? If we had a clear criterion for that, and evidence, we could consider it, but I'm not seeing it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  Why do you get to set the ground rules. Of all the holocausts in history, the Nazi Holocaust is the one most associated with the term. Should we call that mixed usage too? Just because you found a couple instances of lower case, you get to discard it as "mixed"? Those could be typesetting errors. What if uppercase Armenian Genocide usage dominates lower case Armenian genocide usage in that book by a ten-to-one margin? You still discard it as mixed? wbm1058 (talk) 11:13, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  If you're not responding to Dicklyon's challenge, then you may wish to comment in the RM Survey section above. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 13:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  His was the first response above. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  I don't mean that they haven't already responded. I mean that this is a strange section to be saying "Why do you get to set the ground rules." Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:14, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  OK, I suppose if I want to change Dick's mind I need to play by his rules. So far the score is 0–0. I think rule #2 makes it difficult to score. wbm1058 (talk) 17:11, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  If I fail to match your sources 3:2, that might change some minds. But I've looked at sources enough that I don't think it will change my mind; even if I only come up with 1:1 matches, you're not close to "consistently capitalized in sources". But I'm willing to bet that I can do 3:2; we can make it cash bet (or a bottle of whiskey) if someone wants. Dicklyon (talk) 17:49, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  For Rule 2, how about, if you want to exhaustively comb through a mixed usage source and the vast majority (>90%) of usage is cap or lc, you can say so and count it. If it's that overwhelming, the minority usage is probably more of a mistake than a stylistic choice. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:55, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  Sure, if you find enough uses in sentences to get to 90% upper or lower, I'd accept that. To be clear, if you find one lower and only 8 upper, that's not meeting your >90% threshold. Dicklyon (talk) 20:49, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Firefangledfeathers: I don't think you've registered your opinion in the survey above. Got one? Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

  Feel free to propose different rules or set your own challenge. Just my proposal. As to the Holocaust, I already showed that our capitalization is supported by something like 95% of sources, which is well above what anyone has ever interpreted "consistently" to mean. It's just not a comparable situation at all. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  The Columbus soccer club tried to follow the Washington football team's lead by genericizing their Official Name. It did not go well: Columbus Crew bails on attempted rebrand to Columbus SC after a week following fan outrage. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:44, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  Are you on the wrong page, or is there some obscure connection you see here? Dicklyon (talk) 15:59, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  The vast majority of uses in this book are clearly intentionally capitalized as a proper noun (in stark contrast to the term “Armenian massacres” which occurs many times, consistently in l.c.). There are isolated cases where it appears with l.c., but they may have different meaning, e.g. “a genocide in Armenia,” or more likely, they are editorial mistakes. It is an anthology of separately published papers all translated from another language. There is plenty of opportunity for copyediting errors, but a few slipping through doesn’t make it an unreliable source. The authors’ or editors’ intent was clearly to capitalize it most or all of the time, so it counts. —Michael Z. 15:02, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire p. 127: "The Genocide did not result primarily from..." ... "The Genocide was, rather..." ... "It is not difficult to consider that Armenian Genocide research will move in a similar direction." Capitalized multiple times on just that single page. wbm1058 (talk) 17:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
  • "The Turkish state's official policy towards the Armenian genocide was and is indeed characterized by misrepresentation, mystification and manipulation."[15] "This article examines the recently increasing representation of the Armenian genocide and its aftermath in modern Kurdish literature in Turkey."[16] (t · c) buidhe 18:01, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

    That's not the same source. This bullet is for the 2012 book by Taner Akçam. wbm1058 (talk) 18:24, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

    Why did they capitalize "Genocide Studies"? That's bizarre, it's like they're saying their Studies are more important than the genocide. Anyhow, capitalizing Genocide in "Genocide Studies" is enough to neutralize that scoring attempt, per rule #2. wbm1058 (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

    That's a funny interpretation. The author "is Lecturer in the Department of History at Utrecht University and at the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD) in Amsterdam." Probably treats "Genocide Studies" as the proper name of a field. I agree I wouldn't like it, but he nevertheless seems to provide clear evidence that "Armenian genocide" is not considered by him (or maybe by his field?) to be a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

    • The International Association of Genocide Scholars uses Armenian Genocide. See IAGS Armenian Genocide Resolution here https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IAGSArmenian-Genocide-Resolution-_0.pdf. Cheers,98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:21, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

      Sure enough, a classic specialist org and web site (as opposed to the book, papers, and news I asked for). But I searched the site for other uses; lots of hits on "Armenian Genocide" never have it in a sentence, so don't help here; lots of others have it both upper and lower case (sometimes due to quoting other sources, or including abstracts by different authors). A few pages use it only lowercase ([17] and [18] are the two I found). So if you find another there that has it only uppercase in sentences, I won't be able to get to 3:2; so I'd lose (at this website), if this was in the bounds I proposed. Dicklyon (talk) 20:45, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

      I don’t think there’s a need to search the IAGS site for other uses. I specifically embedded a link to IAGS’ Armenian Genocide Resolution, wherein Armenian Genocide is capitalized. And, again, one cannot but fall under the impression that opening a lowercase vs uppercase discussion may be intended to distract contributors to this talk from key issues such as, and I hate to repeat myself, the RS-based range of the number of killed to be placed in the lede.98.231.157.169 (talk) 21:08, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

      OK, sorry about that impression. Those other issues are not where I'm at, not where I'm coming from, and not something I want to distract from. But there's never a good time on this talk page to bring up my little issue of style. Dicklyon (talk) 21:29, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

• So, let me get this straight. All other concerns re: the wrong place name for Armenians’ historical habitat (Anatolia vs Asia Minor), impermissible approximation of the number of killed in the lede (around one million vs from 800,000 to 1,500,000), impermissible approximation of the number of Ottoman Armenian populations (around two million vs from 1,800,000 to 2,500,000) have been addressed, so we now start a new section about whether or not Armenian Genocide should be capitalized? Is someone trying to lead us astray from these key issues?98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  • This discussion does seem unnecessary I have to agree. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 19:51, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

  I assure you I came here with no agenda other than the narrow style issue. Please do get back to those discussions of issues more important to you. Dicklyon (talk) 20:45, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Yepper. Accuracy be damned, as long as it’s stylin’ small! Qwirkle (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

That's a complete red herring. If you want to argue about or discuss the death toll, then go right ahead and do so in another section of this page. I have no knowledge or opinion on that, and I doubt that Dicklyon does either. Furthermore, if you think the capitalisation of the title is a minor issue, then don't spend so much of your time arguing about it... just accept the strong evidence presented that the current name doesn't correspond to real-world usage.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:26, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

And in your real world proper nouns are not capitalized?98.231.157.169 (talk) 21:54, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Proper nouns are certainly capitalised. It's just that "Armenian genocide" isn't a proper noun, it's a descriptive phrase.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:01, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Underlying this “descriptive phrase” was a heinous crime, first in the twentieth century, whose magnitude prompted Raphael Lemkin to coin the word “Genocide” helping establish the term in international law. Therefore, by no means is the Armenian Genocide a mere “descriptive phrase”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:18, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Nobody said "mere". But look at the sources – they don't support your claim (or desire) that this is a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 22:36, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, then with the same token, in your real world Holocaust may also qualify as a “descriptive phrase”, and not a proper name, as it means a burnt sacrifice offered whole to God.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

As I've pointed out several times already in this discussion, the Holocaust is capitalized in 95% or so of sources. That's plenty enough for WP to conclude that sources treat it as a proper name. The gap between near 50% and 95% is huge. Dicklyon (talk) 00:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

* Comment: This discussion is about the name of the article (IAW the WP guidelines on that particular matter) and more specifically, Dicklyon's "challenge" - one issued in good-faith to help resolve the issue of naming. Regardless of how an editor might perceive the adequacy of the contents of this article, this discussion is not the venue for airing any such grievance. The appropriate course is to address these through normal editing and/or to raise a separate discussion on this talk page. I am of the view that to persist in making comments is not in "good-faith" and outside the reasonable scope of the subject of this discussion - ie, the name of the article and more specifically, the challenge issue by Dicklyon. This article is subject to Arb-Com discretionary sanctions. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Rouben Paul Adalian, Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Armenian Genocide” [and following articles], Israel W. Charny (1999), Encyclopedia of Genocide, v 1, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp 61–105. In Google Books. —Michael Z. 16:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, capped in sentences. Dicklyon (talk) 17:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and the Armenian Genocide,” Dinah Shelton (2005), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, v 1, Detroit: Macmillan Reference, pp 67–76. Available online at Hathi Trust with a subscribing library account. —Michael Z. 16:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  Mixed in sentences. See lowercase on p.359, for example (I used GBS; couldn't see how to get there in Hathi Trust). Or maybe different articles in the same encyclopedia count as different sources? Dicklyon (talk) 17:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  The long article on Armenia and the Genocide consistently uses caps, although one photo caption within it does not (the caption is credited “Bettmann/Corbis,” and presumably is not written by the article’s author). P. 359 is part of the article “Films, Armenian Documentary” by J. Michael Hagopian. Following the above ground rules to the letter stacks the deck by disqualifying any anthology or encyclopedia, and any source that has a chance of including a typo or editorial error: it unfairly ignores undeniable authors’ intent. (At Hathi Trust you need to log in with the yellow button top-right, then choose your own library in the list. Then you can check out the book to read full text, and the search results helpfully show each occurrence on each page.) —Michael Z. 17:08, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

  OK, you get that one. Dicklyon (talk) 03:56, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

• Ronald Grigor Suny (updated 2021), “Armenian Genocide,” Britannica. —Michael Z. 16:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  Mixed at best. The sentence "Learn about the history of the Armenian genocide during World War I" is sort of a heading and has no period, but it serves. The non-sentence lead says "Armenian Genocide, campaign of deportation and mass killing conducted against the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turk government during World War I (1914–18)." referring to the title case article title, and the sentence "Below is the full article. For the article summary, see Armenian Genocide summary." which also refers to the title-case article title. No actual instance of using the term in a sentence capped, as far as I can find. Dicklyon (talk) 17:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

  No it is not. The single instance with lowercase is an embedded caption from a video link, and not part of the article. It is used twice in sentences in the “Causes and Consequence” section. Content on this site loads as you scroll down, and it seems you didn’t. —Michael Z. 15:31, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

  OK, I'll give you that. Odd that they make an article where find in page doesn't work. Dicklyon (talk) 03:56, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Sources with capped "Armenian Genocide" in sentences

Please add links to sources that consistently capitalize in sentences:

1. Book: The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity
2. PDF on genocidescholars.org: The Armenian Genocide Resolution Unanimously Passed By The Association of Genocide Scholars of North America
3. Rouben Paul Adalian, Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Armenian Genocide” [and following articles], Israel W. Charny (1999), Encyclopedia of Genocide, v 1, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp 61–105. In Google Books.
4. Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and the Armenian Genocide,” Dinah Shelton (2005), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, v 1, Detroit: Macmillan Reference, pp 67–76. Available online at Hathi Trust with a subscribing library account.
5. Ronald Grigor Suny (updated 2021), “Armenian Genocide,” Britannica.

It has been a week since the RM opened. Are these really the only sources that the opposers think are worth calling attention to? The best argument you can muster is ignore the guidelines and capitalize even though sources mostly don't, because you prefer to think of it as a proper name? Dicklyon (talk) 17:26, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Sources with lowercase "Armemian genocide" in sentences

Please add links to sources that consistently use lowercase in sentences:

1. Article: "Lost in commemoration: the Armenian genocide in memory and identity"
2. Article: The Armenian Genocide in the Kurdish Novel: Restructuring Identity through Collective Memory
3. PDF on genocidescholars.org: "Communal Self-Protection During Genocide"
4. Web page on genocidescholars.org: Museums & Memorials
5. cited article Dixon 2010
6. cited article Aharon 2020
7. cited article Avedian 2012
8. review of Taner Akçam, The Young Turks' crime against humanity: the Armenian genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012)
9. book The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History "of the Armenian genocide" p.757 for example.
10. J. Michael Hagopian "Films, Armenian Documentary," Dinah Shelton (2005), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, v 1, Detroit: Macmillan Reference, p.359. Available online at Hathi Trust with a subscribing library account.

I got a little ahead, as I'll be busy traveling tomorrow. Dicklyon (talk) 05:07, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm feeling increasingly annoyed at the examination of use of the term in sentences to determine how to use it in titles. Use of the term in sentences can help in deciding how to use the term in sentences.

Armenian genocide denial seems problematic to me. Armenian Genocide denial clearly indicates that the Armenian Genocide is what's being denied. Armenian genocide denial implies that Armenians are denying some generic genocide, or denying that genocides are a thing. If you insist on sentence case then you need to sacrifice conciseness, thus Turkish denial of genocide of Armenians because there is no commonly recognized Proper Name for this genocide it must then be generically described. By not assigning it a Proper Name we would seem to be assisting the genocide deniers. wbm1058 (talk) 11:31, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: you could I suppose make an argument for using title case for article names, including cases such as this where it is more usual to write the name in sentence case where it appears in prose. For better or worse, that's not the route Wikipedia has decided to go down though. We use sentence case in both our prose and our titles, except in such cases where it's almost unheard of to do otherwise. As much as it may seen "increasingly annoying", this is a completely settled issue on the project, and I don't see much value in trying to make a single exception here. It's unlikely the RM closer will assign too much weight to such a notion either. The use of sentence case even for historical events just has too much pedigree down the years now - see Civil rights movement, Syrian civil war, Rwandan genocide for a few examples of notable events that we used to capitalise but have now lower-cased based on source usage. My suggestion if you really want to change this convention, or to move the capitalisation threshold further along the spectrum from where it currently is, would be to start an RFC somewhere at a prominent central venue - with a specific proposal to amend MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. But I don't think it's correct to make this one page a special carve-out, if only for WP:CONSISTENCY reasons. CHeers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:23, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Armenian treachery

In the same vein as above and in the same paragraph, I strongly recommend "a loss blamed on alleged Armenian treachery." Diranakir (talk) 04:35, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Weren't you blocked for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.15.96.125 (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 April 2021

Change "and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenians" to "and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenian Christians"

sources https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-overview https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56874811 https://www.britannica.com/event/Armenian-Genocide Mylovejesus (talk) 05:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

We should discuss it further in the article. They may have been targeted as Christians by the state (per Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi’s) but the Armenian intellectuals deported from Constantinople were many known to be secular. Armenian writers at the time "advocated that the Armenian national revival should not be dominated by the Church". This article is pushing the selective interpretations of politically interested parties that is not accurate to the history and events of that time. These reinterpretations and revivals are in the service of today's political controversies and we have already given it more weight than its due. As long as that continues our article is, even at best, only as good as the current scholarship. Gators bayou (talk) 11:39, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. This is under discussion. If a consensus emerges then the edit request can be reopened. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Can someone revert my edit

After a second consideration, I decided that "by whom" was unnecessary in lead. But I can't revert due to 1RR. Some help would be appreciated.--Visnelma (talk) 10:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Visnelma, Self revert is not considered a revert according to the limits imposed. Now if you want to know the answer, not even Suny is that specific, stating: "Enver [who commanded the armies at Sarikamish] and his closest associates framed the story of the battle in their own way, and the prevailing view placed Armenian treachery at the center of the narrative." (t · c) buidhe 17:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I changed my mind after re-reading MOS:AWW.--Visnelma (talk) 18:50, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

There is not a clear-cut answer, and Suny is not the Bible either. Long before him, Enver's duplicity, first praising his Armenian soldiers in a well-known letter to the Primate of Konia, Karekin Khachadourian, and then blaming them as traitors, was well-established. Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

As well as Enver's incompetence leading to the defeat, which he tried to cover up by blaming the Armenians. But since Suny does not mention it, then we don't mention it. Armen Ohanian (talk) 11:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Oddly enough Kieser says something different:

Talaat could not reproach Şakir and Enver for a scheme that he himself had supported from the start. Enver was therefore welcomed and accepted, apparently without a critical assessment of what had gone wrong. The failure was seen as a natural outcome of gambling, not as an issue that demanded responsibility. (p. 219)

Perhaps this explains why other CUP leaders accepted the explanation blaming Armenians. Ungor says that both Talat and Enver blamed Armenians, and ultimately, "The CUP leadership had reached a consensus that the disastrous defeats at Sarikamish and Dilman had been caused by ‘Armenian treachery’."[19] (t · c) buidhe 01:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Casualties

To start, I have no relation to the 98 IP, he seems rather combative and unrelenting. Hopefully he does not join this discussion.

Excuse me if you considered my actions to be forum shopping, I will address my issues here.

To the point Buidhe, Wikipedia is not supposed to reflect the truth or what you perceive to be the truth (same for me as well). It's only objective is to reflect what RS say, full stop. All of the sources I provided previously give the figure of 1.5 million, and I may note that many of the provided sources give a range with 1.5 million as the upper bound. That alone is grounds for inclusion. If you think these RS are wrong, outdated, or untruthful, then you must take it up with an RFC or some other to determine, with consensus, that these RS are wholly unreliable. On a completely unrelated point, if a partisan Armenian organization states that 1.5 million is the death toll, that too is grounds for inclusion. At least with the context that that is their specific point of view. Thank you for your patience.

One more addition. The casualties page for the Armenian genocide even gives 1.5 million in the lede for 1915 to 1918. What's wrong with adding that number as an upper bound in this page? 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• The sources you brought up are mostly news organizations, which I would not consider reliable sources for information on historical events. (After all, a lot of them discuss the Armenian genocide as a he-said-she-said issue, using false balance). For something like casualties of a well-studied event, we want a source that sums up the scholarly literature on the subject. For example, Morris and Ze'evi state, "Most Western scholarship on the subject has concluded that the Ottoman Empire, exploiting the fog and exigencies of war, carried out a genocidal campaign that resultedin a million or so Armenian dead." Elsewhere they note, "For decades, Armenian spokesmen and historians have zoomed in on World War I and have referred to 1-1.5 million Armenians murdered during 1915–1916, the core genocidal event during the 30- year period. Recent works, including by Armenian historians, have revised that figure substantially downwards." I guess we could put it in the "recognition" section that many Armenian organizations have set the death toll at 1.5 million, even though that's out of line with current scholarship. (t · c) buidhe 00:24, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for replying. But again, you are using one source, which you characterize as authoritative. And the source is fine to be used in this article, but it provides but one viewpoint. I'm fairly confident that there is "current scholarship" which supports higher numbers. But that is besides the point. The news sources provide a number, if you find them outdated/wrong, that is your POV. Maybe you're right, but that's not how Wiki works. It reports what RS say, full stop. I can understand your concern; the Bombing of Dresden in World War II article cites 23k dead because of recent scholarship, and not the old Nazi propaganda of hundreds of thousands dead. But this is a different case, as the majority of RS are still reporting the higher number, and it is not our decision to determine what is up to date or wrong or right. I personally think a range of 800,000 to 1.5 million should be in this article. Anything above or below will probably be too contentious.

https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-armenia-guide/ *here is a Holocaust organization giving the 1.5 million number

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/armenian_genocide *this scholarly source of Suny gives 1.5 million as an upper bound, and favors lower numbers

http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/exhibits/show/armenianstudies/armenia-genocide/armenia-genocide-info *University of South Florida source gives 1.5 million dead

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/24/990292454/biden-calls-slaughter-of-armenians-a-genocide-posing-test-for-u-s-ties-with-turk *Another news source, but I doubt you'll question the merits of NPR

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095424433 *Oxford Reference

I can go on, but this is grounds enough for inclusion in a range. 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 01:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Reliability is a spectrum, and a library research guide or general reference work is NOT the same WP:WEIGHT as peer reviewed research. Whether to formulate estimates as a point or range based estimate is a matter of editorial discretion. For example, at the Holocaust article, editors chose to use a point based estimate of "some 6 million Jews". Naturally, you can find sources arguing that the actual number of Jews killed in somewhat higher or lower than six million. Furthermore, if you include 1.5 million in a range of Armenian Genocide deaths, you would have to go lower to other estimates which have at least as much academic support, in the range of 600,000 to 700,000. One should note that the Suny source you cite states, "The more conservative estimates of between 600,000 and 800,000 killed, with hundreds of thousands of others converted to Islam or surviving as refugees, appear most accurate." (t · c) buidhe 01:55, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I am aware of Suny's next sentence, the point is he mentions 1.5 million as an upper bound. And I wouldn't mind having a range of 600,000 to 1,500,000 dead, if backed up by reliable sources. For the point of the Holocaust, I am well aware too that the most recent scholarship points to around 5 to 6 million Jewish dead, but the 6 figure is chosen simply because it was/is the most popular; by your grain of thinking, the number should be brought down to perhaps 5.5 million. Besides, if this is about "editorial discretion," which I humbly disagree is not the main issue, the Armenian Genocide has a much stronger case for a range than a point. To illustrate, the Holocaust retains the infamous 6 million as a point-based estimate, mostly because there have never been many estimates with different numbers, ie. 4 mil or 8 mil, etc. In major contrast, the Armenian genocide has been given much different estimates (the death toll in virtually every source is given in a range), going from 600,000 to 1.8 million (once again, I would support a range of 600k-1.5mil). Thus, editorial discretion would lead to giving a range. Moreover, the sheer volume of RS reporting 1.5 million merits some mention in the article. Thank you for your patience. 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 02:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Nice to have a second IP completely unrelated to IP 98 interested in the same section of a topic right from the start of their edit historial. Such a seldom coincidence merits some attention from myself. I see that a casualty range of more than a million and several 100'000 converted Armenians mentioned in the article. Please also note that the article focuses mainly on World War I and that other massacres of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire are focused on in other articles. This mentioned, I invite you to add the info you have to some of the many articles related to the Armenian Genocide like I have also encouraged IP 98. Everybody can edit Wikipedia, it mainly needs interest, of which you apparently seem to have a lot.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:59, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Actually this article is protected against IP editing. This is probably why the IP raised the issue on the talk page. Another option is mentioning a range in the death toll section if this would be a satisfactory solution. (t · c) buidhe 03:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, while I am in tangential agreement with the previous IP 98, his argumentative style consisted of insults and strawmen, so he wholly deserves his frustration. Buidhe, if I may propose a compromise/solution: the lede remains the same, if you want to add a reference (even a mere footnote) mentioning the widely quoted figure of 1.5 million, that is up to your discretion. The recognition section should of course have mention of the figure, as interest groups commonly cite it. Lastly, in the infobox and the death section, a range should be given, perhaps 600,000 - 1,500,000 dead, as RS provide each number as a lower bound and upper bound, respectively. As Paradise Chronicle noted, this page mostly focuses on the years 1915-1918, and as the 1.5 million figure is usually given for the WW1 era massacres (discounting the slaughter of tens of thousands of Armenians from 1919-1923), it would be relevant for this page. I believe this would adequately address any concerns. Any thoughts, comments? 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 03:43, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

OK, I also added a range in the infobox. FYI, the only recent historian I know who is giving the 1.5 million estimate based on examination of the original sources is Raymond Kevorkian, who says that there were around 1 million killed during World War I, or alternately as many as 1.5 million including the entire 1914–1923 period. (t · c) buidhe 03:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'm glad we could come to a compromise! 2601:85:C101:C9D0:590B:AC23:75C1:BF73 (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

"Ottoman leaders took ... evidence of a nonexistent widespread conspiracy"

Intro says "Ottoman leaders took isolated indications of Armenian resistance as evidence of a nonexistent widespread conspiracy." The alleged conspiracy was nonexistent, but the Ottoman leaders acted as if it was real. The sentence needs rewording along the lines of "Ottoman leaders took isolated indications of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread conspiracy, even though no such conspiracy existed." Nurg (talk) 02:09, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Nurg, OK, I changed the wording to what you suggested. Thanks for the suggestion. (t · c) buidhe 02:27, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

“The only recent historian who is giving the 1.5 million estimate is Raymond Kevorkian”—Wrong

“Recent”, adj., Oxford English Dictionary: “Having happened, begun, or been done not long ago or not long before; belonging to a past period of time comparatively close to the present”. Well, then, in past period of time comparatively close to the present, several historians and/or authors gave the 1.5—or up to 1.5—million estimate. Note: A number of non-English speaking historians from France, Russia, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Armenia, etc., who supplied the same estimate, had to be omitted here, because this Wikipedia page is in English.

1. Bernard Lewis, “Now a desperate struggle between them [Turks and Armenians] began […] for the possession of a single homeland, that ended with the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished.”
2. Dickran Boyajian, “Up to 1.5 million Armenians were wiped out by the Ottoman Empire”.
3. Robert Melson, “It may be suggested that this higher figure [1.5 million] reflects all the [Armenian] victims from 1915 to 1923”.
4. R. Hrair Dekmejian, “The Ottoman Turkish and Nazi German milieux both meet the forgoing criteria. In the Armenian case, the apparatus of the Young Turk party […] was instrumental in planning and executing the massacre of 1.5 million people”.
5. Donald E. Miller, “Armenians calculate that 1.5 million perished between 1915 and 1923. […] Much of the discussion centers on the size of the Armenian population at the time and whether to consider the period from 1894 to 1923 or the narrower time frame of 1915-16. An accurate generalization, however, is that approximately half of the Armenian population died as a direct result of the genocide. Worldwide, one-third of the total population of Armenians died. Surviving Armenians included the several hundred thousand who were living in Constantinople and Smyrna who were not deported, children who were adopted into Turkish or Kurdish homes, perhaps three hundred thousand Armenians who escaped across the Russian border, and the pathetic remnant that survived months of deportation.”
6. Derek Nelson, “The largest body of genocide scholars in the world, the Association of Genocide Scholars of North America, puts the likely number somewhere between 1.2 and 1.3 million”.
7. Jennifer M. Dixon, “An estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were killed over the course of, and under the cover of, this forced deportation.4 As a result, the Armenian minority community that had lived for centuries in Anatolia—in what is now the territory of the Republic of Turkey—was destroyed”; fn 4: “The number of Armenians killed is difficult to ascertain, and is one of the sites of dispute in the historiography of the genocide. Estimates range from a low of 55,000 (Halaçoğlu 2002) to a high of 1.5 million.”
8. Wolf Gruner, “Estimations set the death toll somewhere between 800,000 and 1.5 million people”.
9. Christopher Thornton, “This is Armenia’s memorial to the estimated 1.5 million victims of the 1915 genocide by Ottoman forces, who were either burned alive, shot, butchered, or driven into the deserts of Syria where they died of heat and starvation.”
10. Laure Marchand, Guillaume Perrier, and Debbie Blythe, “In the principal phase of the Armenian genocide, lasting until the end of World War I, 1–1.5 million people die”; “Almost a century later, Turkey still refuses to use the word ‘genocide’ to describe the systematic deportation and massacre of 1 to 1.5 million Armenians.”
11. Tessa Hofmann, “This contribution documents and analyses the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during 1915 and 1916 and is based mainly on the German diplomatic correspondence of the time […]”
12. Farhan Javed, “[…] the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in […] 1915”.
13. Eldad Ben Aharon, “From massacres to death marches, 1.5 million of the Armenian population were exterminated”; “It is estimated that between 800,000 and 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians were deported and then killed, while thousands more were Turkified, becoming part of the new social fabric of the Republic of Turkey that emerged after World War I”; “the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 […]”.

I’m always here to help. Besides, not only historians can qualify for RS, but also genocide scholars, political scientists, international lawyers, etc. When they need to downsize the number of Armenian victims by rounding it up, editors bring in journalist Tom de Waal. But when they are invited—more than once—to provide the range with the upper bound totaling 1.5 million, they only refer to “recent” historians. Also, which WP:PG particularly states that RS must be recent? Curious to know...98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

• There is a template Template:Obsolete source, you know?--Visnelma (talk) 21:28, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you Visnelma. Since you’re the first ever editor who replied to several inquiries here re. regulations, might you also know which specific WP:GP governs the editors’ selection of RS that contain conflicting population data? (see section “Same author giving conflicting figures” above). I’m trying to comprehend the grounds for inclusion of “around two million” and the dismissal of “about 2.5 million”—both suggested by Suny in 2015 in two different publications (see Armenians in the Ottoman Empire). In “Armenian Genocide” published in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Suny has stated: “At the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 2.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire”. What WP:GP governs the selection of sources and why the prevalence was given to one source over the other in the case when both were written by the same author at the same time? Thanks.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:56, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

You might find it weird but actually Britannica is not considered a reliable source here. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Encyclopædia Britannica. For the other source you should discuss it with other users because I did not read it.--Visnelma (talk) 23:04, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

It is, indeed, weird. But at least Britannica, which is not considered a reliable source here, never stooped to rounding up Armenian numbers. I’m sorry to say this, but this is true.98.231.157.169 (talk) 23:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

• And, one more question re. regulations, if you please, since at last someone cared to respond to several such inquiries here. Which WP:GP gives editors an authority to follow order of approximation, as in the lede para., and not a range which is seen throughout the entire relevant literature on the subject? Thank you in advance.98.231.157.169 (talk) 18:15, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

I actually see the range from 600.000 to 1.500.000 in the article.--Visnelma (talk) 20:16, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Noted with gratitude, Visnelma. If “the exact number of Armenians who died is not known and is impossible to determine”, as it says in Death Toll, and quite rightly so, then common sense suggests that this same range, and not the rounded figure, be placed in the lede. I urge you to be consistent with this most sensitive issue for the millions of the descendants of genocide survivors and scores of genocide scholars, historians, political scientists, international lawyers, and human rights activists worldwide. Thank you.98.231.157.169 (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

I don't know what lede means but the range is already shown in the lead and death tolls. I can't see any problem about that. Please don't reply to me.--Visnelma (talk) 21:43, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I understand from the Oxford English Dictionary that lede is “the first sentence or paragraph of a story, giving the most important points of the story”. I do see the range in the Death Toll, but I fail to see it in the opening sentence or paragraph. The estimated RS-based range of killed Armenians is THE most important point of the story, need I say? And I regret to see that the opening sentence is still far from being perfect due to several blunders:

1. As was pointed out many times (avoiding WP:BLUDGEON), the range, and not the approximated number, needs to be placed in it;
2. “Armenians from Anatolia” is a misnomer in many respects. I’d rather refrain (avoiding WP:BLUDGEON) from going through another round of stating the obvious that most Ottoman Armenians—historically and geographically—never belonged to “Anatolia”.
3. The preposition “from” gives an impression as if the Armenians just happened to take a stroll in their historical habitat. I suggest “Armenians inhabiting” instead of “from”.
4. The Committee of Union and Progress was ruling party that administered the affairs of the Ottoman state. Editors are quite correct in this. However, and more importantly, the CUP was also the wartime government of the Ottoman Empire. I think this factor is very important so it be added in the lede.

Hope this helps.98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Ruling party vs Wartime government

The opening sentence in the lede, in addition to grave factual blunders for which tons of edits have been suggested… and to no effect (avoiding WP:BLUDGEON), not quite correctly states that the systematic mass murder of Armenians [was perpetrated] by the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). But the CUP was also—and more importantly—the wartime government of the Ottoman Empire. In political science, there is a difference between ruling party and government. Government is the agency of the ruling party which is responsible for implementation of the policies proclaimed by the party before fighting election. In other words, ruling party is a word for political individuals, political parties, and political ideologies. Whereas government is a generic term meaning a group of people who govern a country or state. I believe the latter is more fitting to the context of this article.98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

"Ottoman government and CUP” is obfuscatory, distributes responsibility for the genocide to two separable political entities without clearly assigning full responsibility to either, thus leaving the matter in doubt. It is a distinction ill-suited to the purposes of the lede. Ultimately, regardless of what the behind the scenes political machinations or processes were, the Ottoman government was the perpetrator.Diranakir (talk) 22:49, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

On top of this, the English language doesn’t seem to operate the way the phrase is placed in the opening sentence: “systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing by the Ottoman Empire”. In order to substantiate my point I suggest “the Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing of […] Armenians […] by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the wartime government of the Ottoman Empire […].98.231.157.169 (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian

RfC on the location

What location should be used in the first sentence of the article? Various alternatives have been proposed, including "Anatolia", "Asia Minor", "Ottoman Empire", and "Armenian Highlands".

Prior to the dispute, the first sentence of the article read, "The Armenian Genocide (other names) was the systematic mass murder and ethnic cleansing of around one million ethnic Armenians from Anatolia and adjoining regions by the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), during World War I." (t · c) buidhe 21:15, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Anatolia

1. "Taken in their entirety, Ottoman and Western archives jointly confirm that the ruling party CUP did deliberately implement a policy of ethnoreligious homogenization of Anatolia that aimed to destroy the Armenian population"[20] — Taner Akcam
2. "The persistence of genocide or near-genocidal incidents from the 1890s through the 1990s, committed by Ottoman and successor Turkish and Iraqi states against Armenian, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Pontic Greek communities in Eastern Anatolia, is striking." —Mark Levene[21]
3. "Thereafter, in a wave spreading westwards and southwards throughout the empire from the provinces of eastern Anatolia - the areas of heaviest Armenian population - the Turkish government, led by the Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress: CUP), implemented an increasingly radical programme of deportation and murder."—Donald Bloxham[22]
4. "Between the years 1915 and 1923 the vast majority of the Armenian population of Anatolia and historical West Armenia was eliminated."—Rouben Paul Adalian[23]
5. "Finally, a comprehensive scheme for the removal of the Armenian communities of Anatolia to Syria began in May 1915."[24]
6. "Rather than a long-planned and orchestrated program of extermination, the Armenian genocide appears as more a vengeful and determined act of suppression that turned into an opportunistic policy to rid Anatolia of Armenians..."—Ronald Grigor Suny [25]
7. "... the Armenian genocide call out for remembering and for the historical understanding of a series of events that concluded with the elimination of the Armenian nation from its ancient homelands in Anatolia" — Norman Naimark [26]
8. "The Armenian Genocide occurred primarily between 1915 and 1918 (with some killings and deaths continuing until 1922), when the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, CUP, also known as the Young Turks) eliminated one and a half million Armenians from their historic homeland in and neighboring Anatolia..." —Özlem Belçim Galip [27]
9. "... the mass deportation of the Anatolian Armenians, which would lead to the Armenian genocide of 1915-16"— Erik-Jan Zürcher [28]

Asia Minor

1. "This imperial violence was followed in 1915–17 with the forced deportation and subsequent destruction of almost the entire Armenian population of Asia Minor." — Fatma Muge Gocek, Denial of Violence (Asia Minor -> Anatolia)
2. "Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kerem Öktem and Maurus Reinkowski argue that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor."[29]
3. Winston Churchill, "In 1915 the Turkish Government began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous general massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor."98.231.157.169 (talk) 00:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
4. Raymond Kévorkian, “Between April and September of 1915, the 3000-year-old Armenian land—the Armenian provinces of the East and of Asia Minor—were methodically emptied of their population—wiped off the map—in the space of a few months.98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
5. Joseph Pomiankowski, “The gruesome annihilation of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor by the Young Turk regime was a barbaric act […]”.
6. Christopher J. Walker, “[Turkish troops’] attacks [on Armenians] were planned throughout Asia Minor as well as Cilicia”.
7. Malcolm Edward Yapp, “During the war the Young Turks also took the opportunity to attack certain internal problems […] the Armenian community in eastern Asia Minor and Cilicia was massacred or deported […]”98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:55, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
8. Erik-Jan Zürcher, “[…] from [1914] onwards the Ottomans began to see the creation of a homeland in Asia Minor […] as a political priority. As a result, [...] Armenian Christians were driven from their homes and [...] many were massacred.”98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
9. Hans-Lukas Kieser and Donald Bloxham, “[...] a whole complex of meetings, orders and acts from February/March through May [of 1915] that, taken together, amounted finally to the destruction of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor”; “Without mentioning the Armenians explicitly, a provisional law of 27 May […] allowed repression and mass deportation if national security were at issue. The law served as legal cover for the comprehensive removal of Asia Minor’s Armenians”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 18:56, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
10. Joannis K. Hassiotis, “The calamitous consequences of Turkish chauvinism […] formed the unvarying common denominator between the Greeks and Armenians. The almost identical fates of the two ethnic elements in Asia Minor drew them together. Consequently, it would be most interesting to examine the attitude of the Greek Orthodox element to the persecution and slaughter of their Armenian “brethren” […] during the genocide of 1915”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:41, 28 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
11. Fikret Adanır, “More comprehensive and radical measures taken against the Armenians in 1915–16 […] were accompanied by recurrent massacres, culminating in the complete destruction of the Armenian communities of Asia Minor.”98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
12. Ozan Ozavci, “Armenians who had been brought in by rail and on foot from towns in Asia Minor were divided up in Urfa. The old men, old women and younger children were separated into one group, the able-bodied men into a second group, and the marriageable girls and young women into a third group. […] In the course of a short time the majority of these people perished.”98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
13. Hamit Bozarslan, “Chronology—August 1915: As the war continues, telegrams with deportation orders extend over Asia Minor. Mass deportations of Armenians begin in Aintab and Ankara, although Catholics and Protestants in Aintab are told they can remain. Talaat sends instructions to replace foot-dragging officials in order to increase the efficiency of the deportation process.”98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
14. Yücel Güçlü, “Little can be known about Armenians in Asia Minor in 1915 without reference to the Ottoman records, and no valid historical conclusions can be reached without consulting them.”
15. Thomas C. Leonard, “Lord Bryce’s estimate jumped to 800,000 Armenians ‘slain in cold blood in Asia Minor’ since May [1915]”; “The equation of dead Armenians with a parade of Americans eager to fight was telling: foreign alliances brought a small minority in Asia Minor into the “we” of public discourse.”
16. Donald Bloxham, “One of their [Major-General William Thompson and his successor] rationales for these drastic measures was that Armenia would be heavily territorially compensated in Asia Minor by the terms of the anticipated peace treaty.”98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Mentions of Asia Minor that don't mention the Armenian Genocide

Richard G. Hovannisian, “The numerous Armenian communities of Asia Minor are often overlooked or else treated very cursorily in most histories of the Armenian people.”98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian Joshua J. Mark, “In the ancient world, Asia Minor was the seat of the kingdoms and cities of […] Armenia”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian Akhilesh Pillalamarri, “After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Asia Minor was mostly Hellenized and remained solidly Greek until the 11th century, with Armenians forming the majority in the eastern parts of the region, as they had since antiquity”.98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian Alexander Beihammer, “After various expansionist stages that culminated in the reign of Basil II (976-1025) the [Byzantine] empire’s eastern provinces stretched from the western coastland of Asia Minor as far as northern Syria, the Upper Euphrates region, and the Armenian Highlands”. (This extract from Beihammer's (2020) work is specifically intended for those who need no lecturing on the topic and claim that the toponyms "Asia Minor" and "Armenian Highlands" are "redolent of the biblical period")98.231.157.169 (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Ottoman Empire

1. Marc David Baer defines the Armenian Genocide as "mass murder of Armenians carried out in the Ottoman Empire in 1915"[30]
2. According to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "the Armenian genocide refers to the physical annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from spring 1915 through autumn 1916."[31]
3. Stefan Ihrig refers to "The Armenian Genocide, as a historical event... happened in the Ottoman Empire in 1915/1916"[32]

• "The presence of Armenians in the Anatolia has been documented since the sixth century BCE." Well... there has been no "Anatolia" before the sixth century BC and ever since until relatively recently when Turks have invented this toponym in order to get rid of a geographically and historically correct term "Armenian Highlands" or "Armenian Plateau" which was a part of Asia Minor or northern sector of Western Asia (both are correct). Please stop jamming in newly invented Turkish place names into this article. The historical place of habitat of the Armenians was the Armenian Highlands and the surrounding parts of Asia Minor. The fact that several authors use "Anatolia" does not suggest that this place name was there throughout millennia. Any self-respecting historian can testify to this.98.231.157.169 (talk) 23:58, 26 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
  • Why does it matter whether people used the name "Anatolia" back then? We should use whatever names are commonly used today. Many English names for places did not exist in the time that their histories are described, like "Mesoamerica" for the ancient Mayans or "Mesopotamia" and "Asia" for the Mesopotamians. < Atom (Anomalies) 06:14, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
    • First, because we need to be geographically, historically, and toponymically correct when it comes to a historical habitat of a “people”. Second, because the relatively newly cooked term “Anatolia” has been put in use by Turkey in order to remove any reference to the much older and much more widespread place name “Armenian Highlands” or “Armenian Plateau”. And third, if the “all-knowing” Wikipedia editors, or the authors they chose to cherry-pick and cite here, were to tell the pre-genocide Western (Ottoman) Armenians that they were—surprise!—Armenians “from Anatolia”, those Armenians would laugh in the editors' face.98.231.157.169 (talk) 14:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

• • • • It's not "newly cooked." Even Armenians themselves referred to the region as Anatolia (but more often than not as "Turkish Armenia"). You're never going to satisfy everyone, but no historian refers to this region as the "Armenian Highlands/Plateau" at this time. That's something more akin to a geographical designation and for a much earlier era, typically before the founding of the first Armenian states in the first millennium BC. Yes, it's insidious that the current Turkish Republic has done so much to expunge any remnant of Armenian identity since the genocide, but, like it or not, "eastern Anatolia" is about as close and as neutral as it's going to get. Most non-Armenian and non-Turkish speakers will not quite be aware of the nuances but that is the reality. The Armenian nationalist argument to call this region "Western Armenia" or the "Armenian Plateau" will confuse readers who are looking for more information on this important subject. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:48, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• • • • • @Marshall Bagramyan I’m not among those who consider themselves “Armenian nationalists”. You could arrive at this conclusion had you read my contributions closely. Or perhaps you were thinking about yourself when writing this rubbish to me? That’s first. Second, I said relatively newly cooked. Yes, relatively new as compared to older, more widespread, and more recognizable toponyms such as “Asia Minor” or “Armenian Highlands”. And, in case you didn’t notice, I’ve never used “Western Armenia”. So next time please refrain from putting words in my mouth that I've never uttered, okay? And I have no clue, of course, where you got this hogwash that “even Armenians themselves referred to the region as Anatolia”. What?!... Even the Turks referred to this region as “Armenia” after the emergence of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. In fact, throughout most of the Ottoman era the never-before-existed term “Anatolia” was never used to indicate Armenia. Islamic world maps from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries show “Ermenistan” in a specific territory (see Lusine Sahakyan, Turkification of the Toponyms in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. Montreal: Arod Books, 2010). Armenia, along with her historical boundaries, was mentioned in the works of Ottoman chroniclers until the state ban was imposed after the 1878 Congress of Berlin referred to Eastern Asia Minor vilayets as “provinces inhabited by the Armenians.” Widen your horizons. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the place name “Asia Minor”, which is quite recognizable among non-Armenian and non-Turkish readers, and in the professional literature on the subject as well. Stick to the geographical, historical, and toponymic correctness, and not to the “political correctness”. After all, this is an encyclopedia, for Heaven's sake.98.231.157.169 (talk) 18:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

I've been on editing on Wikipedia for more than fifteen years, anon. Check your tone and modify your language and your stay here will be far more pleasant. That being said, you're probably the last person who needs to deliver a lecture to me on this topic. Feel free to peruse the Armenian newspapers of this period: more than a handful of them call this region "Anatolia" - so the term did not carry the opprobrium that it does now. Many terms were used to refer to this region, it's true, but we don't necessarily have to kowtow to the language of any particular national group. A group of Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish historians have recently come to suggest the "Ottoman East"; it may not satisfy everyone but it's an interesting alternative to take into consideration as it does not prejudice one group's views over the other's. "Asia Minor," as I've noted another section, is a name redolent of the biblical period. For our purposes, Anatolia or the Ottoman East is about as accurate and fair as we're going to get in an article that is catering, after all, to a general audience. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 19:04, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

You might have thought of refraining from taking a swipe at your readers, bringing in “Armenian nationalist arguments” and “Western Armenia” into this thread. And, yes, I have all the required qualifications to deliver a lecture to you on the topic. Taking a glance at my contributions in this discussion should have given you a hint that—perhaps?—it is not a layman you’re dealing with. And, thank you, I do in fact peruse the periodicals of the period, not only Armenian, but in several other languages. I can’t say I don’t see the term “Anatolia” in some of them, however, rarely does this relatively new Turkish malarkey figure in the periodicals as a widespread toponym designating the eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire. And, no, you’re mistaken, I regret to say, “Asia Minor” and “Armenian Highland” are not “the language of any particular national group”. These geographical and historical toponyms are seen throughout most of the European literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries that pertains to the region. Again, I have no clue as to where you might have come across these terms referring solely to the biblical period.98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian

Survey

• Anatolia (first choice), Asia Minor (second choice), or Ottoman Empire (third choice), per sources. As you can see, Anatolia is the most common term used to refer to the location where the genocide took place and most sources define Anatolia/Asia Minor as stretching as far east as the Ottoman Empire's eastern border in 1914. "Armenian Highlands" is not used in sources, besides it's not accurate, as the Armenian Genocide did not take place in Alexandropol, Lake Sevan, or Shusha, whereas it did take place in Edirne, which is nowhere near the Armenian Highlands, but is adjacent to Anatolia. An advantage of "Anatolia" as opposed to the "Ottoman Empire" is that it's accurate to say that Armenians were ethnically cleansed from Anatolia. I ask that the pre-dispute version is retained as long as the RfC is ongoing. (t · c) buidhe 21:15, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Despite the ever-multiplying ambiguities and confusions in this discussion obviously preventing the clear definition of the geographic setting for the Armenian Genocide, it would seem reasonable to say "in the territory of the present-day Republic of Turkey and adjoining regions." Wouldn't that be better than all this "tedium"? The constant invocation of RS is seriously getting in the way of common sense and logic. What does it say about one's dedication to historical truth to deny the obvious geographical fact (because no RS says it that way!) to endlessly trade one geographically indeterminate phrase for another, as if one is just as good as another. Give me a break!2601:644:400:A350:7816:6EE0:745B:3B10 (talk) 02:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 02:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Anatolia and adjoining regions or Asia Minor and adjoining regions since most sources use these terms and it is more narrow than just the "Ottoman Empire". It depends on the time, but the Ottoman Empire could mean Egypt and the Balkans which is not what the article is talking about. "Armenian Highlands and adjoining regions" or "Western Armenia and adjoining regions" could work. I am not sure that there are many books and articles that will tell you that it happened in the Armenian Highlands without mentioning Anatolia or Asia Minor first but I could be wrong! < Atom (Anomalies) 06:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Atom Thanks for your input. I don't mean to bludgeon the discussion but as mentioned above, Armenians were also deported from the Aegean coast of Anatolia and European Turkey, which were nowhere near (and thus not "adjoining") the Armenian Highlands or Western Armenia. The Armenian Highlands also includes Eastern Armenia, where the genocide did not occur. (t · c) buidhe 06:30, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
    • DEAD WRONG. Scores of contemporary witnesses (Johannes Lepsius et al), genocide scholars, and late Ottoman era historians will educate Wikipedia editors that, in 1918, the genocide continued on the lands of Eastern (Russian) Armenia.98.231.157.169 (talk) 14:42, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
      • It is unfortunate to note that this argument has already crossed the line of tedium long time ago, reaching near the frontiers of pedantry. Hiding behind the RS mantra does not help. Anatolia was the area located to the immediate west of the Armenian Highlands. The deportation of Armenians from Ankara or Kayseri or Urfa or Cilicia was from Anatolia, like the deportation of those living in the rest of the area until the Aegean Sea and Eastern Thrace, and technically adjoining the western section of the Armenian Highlands. Whether the Turkish intent to destroy the Armenians of Eastern Armenia in 1918, as written by German military officers throughout 1918 and confessed by Halil Kut (uncle of Enver) in August 1918, counts as part of the genocide started in 1915 or not, it is irrelevant to the argument. Whether it was the north, the south, the east or the west, it was IN the Armenian Highlands. This is why it is correct to say "Armenian Highland, Anatolia [or Asia Minor], and adjoining areas" [e.g. Eastern Thrace, Syria, and Mesopotamia]. Of course, "the current territory of the Republic of Turkey" would be even better for the sake of conciseness, but we already know that if we use it, then single-source users (Are we aware that 25% of the footnotes in the article come from one single source: a well-regarded historian who has written *one* book about this subject? And that all reliable sources before 2006 have been banished to oblivion from the footnotes and/or bibliography in the most arbitrary and simplistic fashion? I wonder why the "Holocaust" article editors have kept Raoul Hilberg's 1961 book since they should consider it outdated after six decades according to the highest scholarly standards maintained here) will object to it. Armen Ohanian (talk) 18:08, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
        • it is correct to say "Armenian Highland, Asia Minor, and adjoining areas", because "Anatolia" is a relatively, repeat: RELATIVELY, newly cooked Turkish invention as compared to much, MUCH older, and geographically and historically more correct, toponyms "Armenian Highland" and "Asia Minor".98.231.157.169 (talk) 18:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
          • @Armen Ohanian “Are we aware that 25% of the footnotes in the article come from one single source: a well-regarded historian who has written *one* book about this subject? And that all reliable sources before 2006 have been banished to oblivion from the footnotes and/or bibliography in the most arbitrary and simplistic fashion?” Of course, we are. I, for one, have been confronting these editors’ conduct for months now. In the case of the Armenian Genocide, it is okay to cite a single source because, well…, it suits the agenda of those who pull their strings. It is also okay to round up the number of Armenian victims and approximate the size of Ottoman Armenian populations. Can you imagine such brazen-faced attitude in an article on Holocaust?98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
            • One graphic example is Suny (see Section “Same author giving conflicting figures” below) who in 2015 published two works. In one, he gave “around 2 million” for the size of Armenian populations in the Ottoman Empire. In another, he suggested “around 2.5 million”. Do you need help with taking a guess which source these editors opted for? Right…98.231.157.169 (talk) 20:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
• Anatolia. A perfectly good name for the area as evidenced by its use in sources, as well as more commonly known and less dated than Asia Minor. Lennart97 (talk) 13:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Asia Minor. By no means “Asia Minor” is more dated or less commonly used than the relatively new Turkish cook-up “Anatolia” or, even worse, “Eastern Anatolia”, a sheer tautology meaning “Eastern East”. In Sources (Asia Minor) above, you may enlighten yourself with just a few cases of usage of the toponym “Asia Minor” in the works of modern, repeat: MODERN, authors. Most Ottoman Armenians never belonged to the landmass called “Anatolia”, see here: https://www.armgeo.am/en/anatolia. Editors, please restrain yourselves from geographical, historical, numerical, and toponymic falsifications in this article. This is opprobrious, I'm sorry to say.98.231.157.169 (talk) 15:39, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
    • This might be of interest to you: WP:BLUDGEON. Thanks and good luck. Lennart97 (talk) 16:16, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
      • The sub-section Sources above was introduced by (t · c) buidhe, not me. This might be of interest to you. So please redirect WP:BLUDGEON to whoever re-opened discussion in this sub-section, okay? And good luck to you too.98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:25, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
        • WP:EP "Nobody owns articles, so if you see a problem that you can fix, do so. Everyone is encouraged to copyedit articles, add content and create new articles if they have knowledge about the topic at hand or are willing to do the necessary research to improve it."98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
          • Problem is: the IP "Davidian" refuses to copyedit or create content on Wikipedia, and mainly likes to comment and the style of their comments have been questioned by several editors. They have more than 250 edits at the Armenian Genocide Talk Page and apparently are still not satisfied. If the topic is so important to them, why not create an account or at least edit as well. Their knowledge will be very welcomed in many Armenian Genocide related articles not as well expanded as the Armenian Genocide one. Who will read 250 edits of several thousands of bytes? One might read 10, others maybe even 20, but then soon move on. Good luck.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:32, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
            • How do you imagine someone to be satisfied, if none of his or her 250+ edits—all RS-based, constructive and helpful—has been implemented? Funny folks you editors are… Until now you even refused to direct us to a relevant WP:PG which deals with handling the conflicting data from the same author. How do you call this “style”? How about tying an ancient people to an area that's never been their historical habitat? How about approximation of victim numbers instead of providing the range? How about downsizing the population size instead of providing the range? Very “stylish” of you, isn’t it?98.231.157.169 (talk) 21:25, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
• Anatolia Most of the reported sources used it and it's more accurate. Sea Ane (talk) 10:34, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Enlighten yourself here https://www.armgeo.am/en/anatolia/ and have a look at Sources above. I'll stop here so that another editor won't pop up and accuse me of WP:BLUDGEON.98.231.157.169 (talk) 16:36, 30 April 2021 (UTC)Davidian
• Anatolia first choice, per all above I think Anatolia is generally the more descriptive term all around. Armenian Highlands second, however much of the genocide and mass murder also took place elsewhere so Anatolia is the most descriptive overall source. Thanks. Des Vallee (talk) 22:00, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
  • @Des Vallee You’re quite correct that the genocide and mass murder (and forced deportations too) also took place beyond Armenian Highlands, a historical habitat of most Armenians. But since the article refers to an event that took place in the early twentieth century, and not in our times, the region in question was largely (or also, if you wish) known as “Asia Minor”. I don’t advocate for “Armenian Highlands”, never did actually, so that someone who’s been on editing on Wikipedia for more than fifteen years won’t accuse me of “Armenian nationalist argument”. I think “Eastern Asia Minor and adjoining regions” will quite suffice.98.231.157.169 (talk) 17:52, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
    • I see your point, and you make a generally good point but isn't Asia Minor just an overall synonym for Anatolia. So either one would be generally descriptive however I think Anatolia is more overall common, I also think that maybe we can learn from naming policy on this, if we agree that "Anatolia" and "Asia Minor" are both the overall same term "Anatolia" has less overall characters. Many thanks. Des Vallee (talk) 19:06, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
      • Thank you, too. The problem with “Anatolia” figuring independently in the text, without any mention of “Asia Minor”, is that in modern times, more specifically, after the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Turks deliberately extended the boundaries of Anatolia, which was used to designate the westernmost protrusion of Asia Minor, to cover the whole of their new country after the Christian minorities were either massacred or forcefully deported. As a result, in spite of the fact that Anatolia was the name used solely for the westernmost peninsula of Asia Minor, the Turkish Republic from its inception onwards decided to rename the whole territory of the country “Anadolu”, or “Anatolia” in European languages. For the Armenian Highlands in the East, Turks until now use “Eastern Anatolia”, a cook-up term, a sheer tautology meaning “Eastern East”, if translated from Greek. But most Ottoman Armenians at the time of genocide never belonged to Anatolia, most of them were “Armenians of Asia Minor” or “Armenians of eastern parts of Asia Minor” or "Armenians of eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire". Rarely can you find “Anatolia” designating their historical place of habitat in the pre-genocide period. Lastly, if Asia Minor is an overall synonym for Anatolia, why not, at the very least, place Asia Minor in the text, that is, a more geographically and historically correct toponym, with "Anatolia" in parentheses? Asia Minor figures vastly—and independently—in the modern literature on the subject. It is not that the Turkish cook-up toponym has eclipsed it.98.231.157.169 (talk) 19:28, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Davidian
• Anatolia I think suits the context better Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:20, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

References