Talk:1766 Istanbul earthquake

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 23:02, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

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The wall of Constantinople damaged by the quake in a 19th century etching

• ... that the earthquake of 1766 in Istanbul (damage to the walls pictured) was the last major earthquake to rock Istanbul? Source: [1]
  • ALT1:... that the earthquake of 1766 in Istanbul (damage to the walls pictured) caused 4,000 victims, 850 of them in the city? Source: [2]
    • ALT2:... that the earthquake of 1766 in Istanbul (damage to the walls pictured) was the last major earthquake due to a rupture of the North Anatolian Fault to rock Istanbul? Source: [3]
    • ALT3:... that the earthquake of 1766 in Istanbul (damage to the walls pictured) was the last major earthquake whose epicenter lay in the immediate vicinity of Istanbul? Source: [4]

• Comment: I will review an article asap.

Created by Alessandro57 (talk). Self-nominated at 11:35, 27 October 2019 (UTC).

• I apologies if this is something lost in translation. The source for the hook, when Google Translated into English, says "On the afternoon of July 10, 1894, Istanbul was shaken by a severe earthquake. This earthquake affected a wide area from Istanbul to Yalova. The 7.3 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Şarköy-Mürefte on 9 August 1912 caused great damage in the south of Edirne and caused partial damage in Istanbul." I don't know what the threshold for being a "major" earthquake is, but the source says the 1894 one was severe and widespread and our article on it says that 278 deaths occurred in Istanbul—I'd say that was major. I cannot access the source given for ALT1, but the second of two footnotes in the article (the Pondard paper) gives a figure of 880, not 850.

The illustration is great and I think it would be a real hook for readers. However, the image description says "Walls of Constantinople possibly damaged by 1766 earthquake". I don't like this wording—we can't run an image that is "possibly" of something. The same illustration is included in this Tarih-i Kadim article, and (again, depending on a decent translation), its caption may imply it's a 19th century image or 19th century damage (therefore possibly depicting the 1894 earthquake). MIDI (talk) 13:47, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

• I've read the article a little further, and I think there's a bit of work doing to improve the article before it can run. For instance, the Characteristics of the earthquake section includes contradictory statements: "It is said that the aftershocks continued for 18 days without causing further damage" and "The aftershocks continued for 45 days after the main event". Does this mean that after 18 days the aftershocks began to cause further damage? "It is said" is also a WP:WEASEL, and although the text may be cited with the footnote, it's offline so I can't verify. Best to avoid phrases like that. There are quite a few other statements in the article that need referencing. It may be best to chat with the editors over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Earthquakes, who can help with this sort of article far better than I can (and, of course, the improvement of the article is not relevant to this DYK discussion). MIDI (talk) 14:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

• The image caption states "Engraving of late XVIIII, early XIX century", which means it pre-dates the 1894 earthquake. While we should strive to fix GR and such, that's for the article talk page, not DYK. Maury Markowitz (talk) 10:53, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

• It appears the image *might* originate from one of the works of Julia Pardoe, which would mean it would pre-date 1894. I'd be happier if we could find a direct source of the image. I agree re: article fixes, hence my final comment above. MIDI (talk) 11:53, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your very accurate review, @MIDI: and@Maury Markowitz:. First of all, I must apologize since I created the article using an old version which contains spurious and wrong information: I realize the mistake only reading the review, shame on myself! I removed the wrong statements, and added some info. About the different objections:

• Regarding damage and victims, it is true that the quake of 1766 has been for sure stronger than those of 1894 and 1912, but since you correctly pointed out that the definition of major is not objective, we can emend the hook (now ALT2) with the info that it was the last major earthquake to strike Istanbul due to the rupture of the North Anatolian Fault. Another possibility is ALT3 since the event happened under the Çınarcık basin, or near the Princes' Islands, while the quakes of 1894 and 1912 occurred much further (and do not count in the computation of the probability of the recurrence of another big event near Istanbul).
• About the image: unfortunately on the web there is practically no image referencing directly to this event: I chose this drawing since stylistically belongs clearly to the romantic period, this means for sure before 1894 and after 1766. In that case, the damage depicted on the walls would derive from this quake. Of course, mine is only a deduction based upon the style of the image, and you are free to accept or reject it. As you point out, it would be important to find the source to be sure about that.
• The review of the article by some geophysicist is a great idea; I will ask to do it!
• References: I will find the missing references (I got some info from a Turkish article which I read in Istanbul - I started the article there - , but I can search it on the web).

I will notify you when the work will be finished! Thanks a lot for your work, cheers. Alex2006 (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

P.S. I found the author of the drawing: it is an engraving of W. H. Bartlett's showing the tower to the right of the Hucum Kapisi before it collapsed (ca 1838). Alex2006 (talk) 20:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

• Looking good! Once you've had a go at the article a bit (and the citations tagcan come off), I'd be happy to progress with a modified ALT1, with the following slight rewording:

ALT4: ... that the earthquake of 1766 in Istanbul (C19 engraving of damage pictured) caused 4,000 deaths, 880 of which were in the city? Source: "4000 people were killed and 880 died in the city of Istanbul" MIDI (talk) 10:52, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

If you're happy with the above hook, @Alessandro57:, I'd give this my approval once a QPQ is performed. MIDI (talk) 11:43, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, @MIDI: This morning I noticed that a real :-) geophysicist reviewed positively the article: unfortunately today and in the next two days I am totally busy in real life, but as soon as I will have a moment I will do my QPQ and I will ping you again. Thanks again for your review! Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 17:34, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• Hallo @MIDI: QPQ done: FLOW (programming language). Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 17:16, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

All good to go with ALT4 as per above discussions. MIDI (talk) 10:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

1766 Istanbul earthquake → 1766 Constantinople earthquake – The name "Istanbul" is anachronistic and need be changed to reflect the reality during the period. A historical event should not use the name that didn't exist at the time. Fv21fiv (talk) 07:16, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Following WP:COMMONNAME, which states "Wikipedia ....... prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)", it is clear from looking at Google generally (removing wikipedia + clones mostly) and both Google Books (although note that only a few of those listed actually mention the earthquake - Google Books produces odd search results sometimes) and Google Scholar that the current title is how this event is known in reliable sources. A general google search on "1766 Constantinople earthquake" gets a solitary hit and that is to a search page that returned no results, so can be ignored. I do agree that the current mixture of "Istanbul" and "Constantinople" in the current text needs to be sorted out. When referring to the city at the time of the earthquake then we should probably use "Constantinople" and restrict the usage of "Istanbul" to anything (such as in the "Tectonic setting" section) that refers to the city as it is now. Mikenorton (talk) 11:52, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

When I wrote the article, the first problem which I met was the title; should be it called "Constantinople" or "Istanbul" earthquake? As Mike did, I first checked google, getting the same results; after reading all the references, I realized that all the papers written by seismologists (included Nicholas Ambraseys, who was a Greek) use the expression "1766 Istanbul earthquake" . Anyway, I used "Constantinople" together with "Istanbul" in the "Damage" section of the text (as Robert Mantran in his "Vie quotidienne" does), but as Mike suggests and if everyone agrees I can substitute Istanbul with Constantinople in the Damage section (although "Stambul", one of the common names in English for the historical peninsula - today's Fatih- would also be correct for most of the citations). Alex2006 (talk) 12:07, 21 December 2019 (UTC)