Talk:Agathonisi

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What is going on here!? What is the full story with this category? Why shouldn't it be on this page? - Erebus555 18:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced and questionable---the Turkish government has spoken nebulously of "gray zones", but hasn't provided a list. There has been speculation in the Turkish media that has included Agathonisi, but we shouldn't make up categories of rumor and speculation. --Delirium 22:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

(Reply) During Kardak crisis in 1996, a copter of Greek Army downed! (some deathly casualties)! Turkish sent its special forces over the Kardak island in Gray Region and downed Greek flag and landed Turkish flag. Delirium, are these rumor and speculation. Try to land in Kardak see what happens to you Hector 09:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Turkish claim on the island

I removed the Turkish claim on the island since the article cite only the POV of Turkish opposition parties. Moreover, it would be good to have a more reliable source, since a part of the article goes against history, since the islet was occupied from Italy in 1912, as the Italian sources state.Alex2006 (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

That whole story belongs into Aegean conflict, if anywhere, but not on all the individual articles on individual islands. Also, if included, it needs to be sourced to something better than that ridiculously tendentious piece of junk journalism from Today's Zaman [1] (the journalists clearly have no idea what they are writing about). If a Turkish defense minister has again reiterated the old claim about "grey zones", in an internal political discussion, that's a footnote to Aegean dispute, nothing more. There was nothing new in his declarations, as far as I can see. If you look at a slightly better newspaper report about this incident in the parliament ([2], in Turkish), you'll see that neither the minister nor his critics from the nationalist MHP actually named Agathonisi (or any other island) specifically. This, too, is established practice. Ever since the Imia crisis of 1996, Turkish government officials have habitually referred to some vaguely described, anoymous set of islands "that were not ceded to Greece by international treaties", without ever specifying officially which islands exactly those might be. Specific lists have been circulated only by non-official sources, mostly by circles close to the Turkish military, and it is indeed common knowledge that Agathonisi and Farmakonisi are among them, but as long as this doesn't rise to the level of an official government claim proposed internationally, it's of no concern to this article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@Alex2006:

"the article cite only the POV of Turkish opposition parties": "Those islands are part of Turkish territory," Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz responded.

"it would be good to have a more reliable source": Zaman's piece seems to be from Cihan. I have never heard Cihan's reputation questioned, I don't know if you would consider it unreliable.

@Fut.Perf.:

"That whole story belongs into Aegean conflict": Any information about Agathonisi belongs to the Agathonisi page. You are right that we don't need to go into too much detail, we can just link to the Aegean conflict page; but that is no reason to remove information completely.

"neither the minister nor his critics from the nationalist MHP actually named Agathonisi (or any other island) specifically.": The report you linked mentions all 16 islands by name. If have difficulty in believing newspapers and think MPs don't actually mention them by name, here is the video for you: [3] MP lists the 16 islands in the parliament, including Agathonisi. (He even says Agathonisi is officially part of Aydın Province.) The minister responded by saying that those 16 islands are indeed Turkish territory, and Turkey not taking military action doesn't mean Turkey gave up its territorial rights. I don't know if Zaman or Cihan incorrectly translated the defence minister's response (maybe he meant they are grey zones, not Turkish territory, as you say), but there is no confusion as to which islands are in question.

And to clarify Alex2006's confusion, AKP came into power in 2002, not 2004. The claim here is that in 2004 Greek military came and invaded the islands, and Turkey refrained from defending its territory (Erdogan was prime minister at the time). So 2004 is the start of the supposed Greek occupation. That may very well be historically inaccurate (wouldn't be surprised, MHP people are delusional), but that is their claim. Even if the minister's response is only towards internal Turkish politics and Turkey doesn't actively try to promote the case internationally, it still deserves to be mentioned on this article because of the role it plays in Turkish politics and Aegean conflict, and there is no reason to remove it.--18.111.74.107 (talk) 21:13, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Agathonisi and other islands like it have been under continued, uncontroversial Greek rule ever since 1947, as everybody knows who's been to the area. Any claim they were newly "occupied" or "invaded" by Greece after 2004 are so obviously lunatic they really don't deserve to be mentioned. We don't report on the lunatic fringe nonsense of delusional liars like these, be they journalists, MPs or ministers. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:04, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that MHP MP's claim about invasion is so laughable that I had to explain it to Alex2006 who was trying to make sense out of it. What is not laughable is that an MP claims Agathonisi other 15 islands are Turkish territory and the minister of defence affirms it. Wikipedia reports on territorial disputes. According to the sources, Turkey disputes Greek sovereignty over Agathonisi. You are welcome to add references explaining why Turkey's case is so ridiculous. You don't get the remove information about Turkey's stance because you find it legally baseless.--18.111.74.107 (talk) 23:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

No, I think that before all we need (Turkish) sources that explain the reason why Turkey considers these islets Turkish. The "reliable" source repeats exactly what the Turkish newspaper writes (Greek expansion since 2004, etc.). Sentences like "The Greek military has now occupied Eşek Adası, Koyun Adası, Hurşit, Bulamaç (Farmakonisi), Fornoz, Nergizçik, Kalolimnoz, Keçi, Sakarcılar, Koçbaba, Ardacık, Gavdos, Dhia, Dionisades, Gaidhouronisi and Koufonisi islands" makes of the whole article a (bad) piece of propaganda, and because of that unreliable. I remember some years ago another such article about Gavdos, and yet others about the status of Rho and Strongyli near Kastellorizo. Could not be possible to have Turkish official documents explaining what the Turkish official stance is? Besides it, I agree with Fut.Perf. that Agathonisi & co. are a small part of a larger dispute about the status of Aegen Sea, but I agree with the IP that on wikipedia we should only record what the reliable sources say, not considering our personal opinion. Alex2006 (talk) 06:49, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but any source that parrots those stories about recent "occupation" etc., like that "Zaman" website, are ipso facto not reliable sources. I have no objection against including a sentence that Agathonisi has been one of a number of islands that some Turkish commentators and politicians have included among those whose sovereignty Turkey should challenge. Note: it's "commentators and politicians" that are the subject here, not "Turkey" as a whole. "Turkey", officially, has only ever stated that there are some such islands, but has never named which they are (except for Kardak); it has also, IIRC, never explicitly stated that these islands are Turkish but that they are "grey zones" of undetermined sovereignty. This official Turkish position is well documented; we must be citing MFA declarations at Aegean dispute. The "semi-official" position, which does include Agathonisi, is documented in a number of "academic" publications by circles close to the military, which outline at length the (pseudo-)legal theory behind these claims; again, we are already citing some of that stuff in the main article. Everything beyond that, about recent Greek occupation etc., belongs firmly into the realm of the lunatic fringe, whose coverage would be undue weight (no matter how many rubbish newspapers and political gangsters in Turkey keep proliferating it). Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:25, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you, that's why I was asking an official document of the Turkish government (Turkey). Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 07:32, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@Alex2006 and @Fut.Perf.: Zaman is narrating the opposition MP's claims regarding Agathonisi, Farmakonisi and other islands. I don't see how that makes them unreliable. Maybe you could say Zaman favors the Turkish side in the Aegean dispute, but you will have a hard time finding any Turkish newspaper that doesn't, and this doesn't make their coverage of news unreliable. And just to be clear about what they mean by the recent occupation, if you have seen the video of parliamentary proceedings, they explain it: The MP says "The government of Greece started construction activities in Agathonisi and Farmakonisi on October-November 2004, they have set up municipal, police and first aid organizations, hoisted Greek flag, they have positioned armed soldiers, equipment and assault boats. AKP government did not object to this in order to begin negotiation talks on EU membership." The implication here is that police buildings and soldiers were not on these two islands before 2004, although presumably Greece still claimed sovereignty and Greek citizens lived there. Since you seem to know about those islands, maybe you can explain, is the MP lying?

And you may be right, perhaps we shouldn't say Turkey claims sovereignty just because the Minister of Defence said it did during parliamentary proceedings, unless the MFA officially adopts the position. However, I see no reason to remove the information regarding the role that Agathonisi and Farmakonisi play in Turkish politics. And this is not just a singular event, the two islands are a routine source of controversy in Turkey and has been making news for years. e.g. another opposition party leader tried to visit Agathonisi and Farmakonisi in 2011 reiterating the claim that they belong to Turkey and has been under Greek occupation since 2004. Agathonisi and Farmakonisi are the focus of Aegean conflict, at least on the Turkish side, and it would be inadequate if the articles about them do not mention it.--18.111.66.171 (talk) 16:55, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, if the politicians said (possibly correctly) that Greece had been engaging in construction activities and strengthened the presence of their security forces on the island, and then the newspaper turned that (relatively plausible) claim into one of Greece "occupying" and "seizing" the island, then that in itself demonstrates the level of junk journalism here. "Occupying" and "seizing" means that Greek forces suddenly went to a place where there had been none before. If the MP didn't say any such thing and only the newspaper did, then the unreliability is primarily on the side of the newspaper. There are other howlers in that report too: (a) speaking of 16 islands "close to the Turkish coast" and "the 16 easternmost islands" (when some of the 16 are as far off as south of Crete!); (b) speaking of islands "whose status has not been decided by any international court" (as if the sovereignty status of islads was routinely in need of being decided by courts!); (c) speaking of "16 islands in international waters" (a contradiction in terms; an island can never be situated in international waters; every piece of land has its own area of territorial waters around it), and so on. As I said, those journalists have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:21, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

No, the politicians use the word "occupation" (işgal). Their claim is that there wasn't any stationary Greek military and administrative presence on these two islands before 2004. And they claim Greece "invaded" these two islands in 2004 by sending its military, along with 14 other islands, because AKP assured them that Turkey wouldn't react as it did in 1996. I find it a silly use of the term, but that is how it has been used in Turkish politics for years, and the newspaper is merely citing it and their criticism of AKP, it doesn't add anything of its own. Same goes for the other howlers you mention. It doesn't report on the whole Aegean dispute, it reports on a parliamentary debate: how the opposition MPs criticized the government, and how the government minister responded in the parliament. And that is the context in which the article is cited here. And I agree, we shouldn't explicitly state that Turkey considers Agathonisi to be Turkish territory, the minister's statements may not be enough unless a source states that MFA officially pursues it. We should just state the territorial dispute, which involves Turkish MPs and Minister of Defence, and we should refer to Aegean dispute for further details.--18.111.66.171 (talk) 18:32, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

No, the newspaper is not merely "citing" these opinions. The claim of "the Greek occupation of 16 islands and islets since 2004" ("established its grip by seizing islands one after another", etc.) is stated as a presupposed claim of fact, in the newspaper's own voice. Same goes for the other factual inaccuracies I mentioned above. Which means the newspaper is either itself a propaganda outlet of the lunatic nationalist fringe, or it is uncritically copying these claims without basic fact-checking – an obvious breach of the most fundamental demands of responsible journalism. No reliable journalistic source would write like this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:39, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I must agree with Fut.Perf. here. Unfortunately the quality of Turkish newspaper is very low. We need a better, official source here. Alex2006 (talk) 04:36, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

No, the the full sentence says "Turkish opposition slammed the government for its inaction and failure to address the Greek occupation of 16 islands and islets since 2004." That is a exactly true, opposition is slamming the government exactly using that reason. The newspaper does not refrain from sharing the government's position either. What you seem fail to grasp is the government did not dispute these claims, nor did anybody in Turkey deny these claims. Sure, from Greece's point of view its actions in 2004 were not occupation at all, it was just positioning its soldiers on some of its islands. And yes, the newspaper does not mention Greece's point of view; however, this is a report on a Turkish parliamentary debate, so when giving the two sides of the story, it mentions the opposition's side and government's side. And this is fully appropriate here, we are quoting this news to cite Turkey's stance only.

I am really struggling to understand your point here. There has been numerous political debates in Turkey regarding Agathonisi's status. You had difficulty in believing that those really included Agathonisi, so I found the video for you. And if you like, here is the transcript of the discussion from parliament's website. Here is an earlier official document regarding parliamentary investigative committee request, with signatures. (All mention 16 islands by name, all put special emphasis on Agathonisi and Farmakonisi) These are routine debates, and in this instance the newspaper bothered to translate it into English, without adding anything of its own. It is not a piece of investigative journalism, it is mostly a verbatim translation of what the two sides of the debate say against each other, and what the two sides both accept.

And you seem to be uninformed about the situation of Turkish newspapers, as evident by your suggesting that Milliyet is slightly better than Today's Zaman. Milliyet is probably one of the least reputable newspapers in Turkey, since its takeover by Demirören group. I have never heard Cihan's reputation questioned, and if we are to cite a news regarding Turkey, it would be one of the most reliable sources, along with Doğan. The thing is, no matter how reputable, all newspapers would accept Turkish version of the events, regardless of how ridiculously and factually wrong it is. e.g. if the Turkish PM made a statement about Armenian Genocide, the newspapers would report it, and while doing that they would take it for a fact that there is no Armenian Genocide. This may be a blatant lie in the face of history, but it doesn't make the rest of their report unreal. The Turkish PM indeed made that statement, and we can safely quote them on that.--18.111.66.171 (talk) 05:44, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Alex2006, I added the official parliamentary records, as well as other sources to further convince Fut.Perf.. In this case, we are lucky that those statements were made in the parliament, so we can access official records; however, I must say that in general your objection to Today's Zaman is very unreasonable. Hürriyet Daily News and Today's Zaman are the most reputable sources of news about Turkey in English. If they say a person said something, there is no reason to doubt that he actually said it. I have not yet seen an accusation that they misquote people or put words into people's mouths. Unless such a case erupts, we can and need to rely on them about what people say, as there won't always be an official clerk noting down everything one says.--18.111.66.171 (talk) 07:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how reliable the Hurriyet Daily News and Zaman's Today are. Turkey doesn't dispute specific islands, but rather a large sum of islands which Turkey has specifically avoided mentioning/listing. Most of the islands Turkey disputes, the vast majority of, are indisputably Greek covered by international treaties such as the Greece-Italy treaty of 1947, to which Turkey was not a signatory part and has no sovereignty rights on the islands in question. Just because some nationalist Turks claim some Greek islands, and because some nationalist Greeks claim some Turkish cities, doesn't make their arguments valid. This is clearly nationalist POV and Wikipedia's policies are clear about this: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Also, contrary to common belief here, I shall note that just because some of the MPs in the Turkish parliament consider the Greek islands to be belonging to Turkey, doesn't mean that their POV is neutral just because they are members of the Parliament, and of course this does not mean that Wikipedia has to accept the information as such, and without any reliable sourcing. I will be watching the island pages and any nationalist/one-sided POVs will be reverted because they do not belong here but to the Aegean dispute page.

Also I shall note that because the island sovereignty dispute raised by Turkey against Greece is part of a larger dispute called Aegean dispute, it is better that all the information and data related to it, goes to the relevant aforementioned article. Such political disputes between states have no place in the Wiki articles about the very islands themselves. Have a good day. --SilentResident (talk) 01:21, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you, there is no point in repeating for each islet the Turkish claims in detail. I think that here there should be only a sentence, like "As of 2015, in the wake of the Aegean dispute Turkey is claiming its sovereignty on the island", or something like that, with a link to the Aegean dispute article. Alex2006 (talk) 09:37, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I oppose mentioning any kind of disputes on the island articles themselves, because of the nature of that dispute: the Turkish disputes are not stable and specific - they change over time. The Turkish government disputed just 2 islets in 1990s, then this number grew to 10+ islands in 2000s, and today Turkey has expanded her claims to over 160+ islands that are of Greek sovereignty and EU territory. My point is that due to the unclear stance of the Turkish government, and due to the background of the dispute which is more about the Aegean sea rather than about specific islands, all the info should just be gathered in a single article: Aegean dispute and refrain from mentioning this dispute on EVERY greek Island page. After all, Turkey doesn't dispute just the sovereignty of the islands, but they do dispute them as part of a larger dispute (maritime borders, national airspace, EEZ, and demilitarization of greek islands). Because of these facts, it is better that Wikipedia does not rush to have this dispute mentioned in DOZENS of and EVERY ONE of Greek island articles just because Turkey says so. It is recommended that all the info about the dispute goes to the article dedicated to this dispute, not on the island pages, since none else acknowledges the Turkish claims on these islands except Turkey herself, while the international community, including the EU and Italy, acknowledge the Greek sovereignty over them and urged the EU-candidate member country Turkey to promote good neighborly relations with Greece. It is very important that Wikipedia has to stay neutral on this matter and do not rush to add "this island is disputed" text/flag to every Greek island article just because some Turkish MPs in the Turkish Parliament claim so. --SilentResident (talk) 20:33, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I think that @SilentResident: is basically correct. Besides his arguments, I think that there was also a problem of recentism and undue weight in the reverted edits. As already written above, I think that this info belongs to the Aegean dispute article. On the single island articles we should insert a sentence hinting to the claim (maybe in the History section) with a link to the Aegean dispute article, where the Turkish point of view can be explained at length. Alex2006 (talk) 14:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Regarding the notable non native (historical) names, consensus is that these (not just the Turkish, but also the Italians for Dodecanese or former Venetian/Genoese islands, etc.) should go on a separate "Name" section. Alex2006 (talk) 14:52, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

@Alessandro57:, recently I have created a new "Name" section for Agathonisi. Now all the names for the island are concentrated in here for the readers and visitors of the page to learn about. If you happen to know any other names for the island that are missing/not been added yet to the Names section, feel free to add them. I have the impression that there are still some more names for that island which are missing, such as the Venetian one. --SilentResident (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Removal of content

SilentResident, please explain why you removed the sentences "In 2011, Namık Kemal Zeybek, leader of the Democratic Party (DP) claimed that Agathonisi, along with Farmakonisi, was invaded by Greece in 2004 and criticized the government for not preventing it. On May 2011, DP officials tried to visit Agathonisi and Farmakonisi without passports, but their boat was not allowed to dock at the islands." from the articles Agathonisi and Farmakonisi, as well as the rest of the paragraph. Those information is clearly relevant to those two islands, they appear to be well sourced and nothing you wrote even attempts to justify suppressing such relevant information. From what you wrote, all I can infer is you don't like it. We are not here to judge how ridiculous Turkey's claim is. We may add sources explaining why it is ridiculous, but there is no excuse for removing them because you believe they don't have legal validity. And nobody tries to add a paragraph to dozens of articles, those two islands are clearly more relevant or important, and a number of things happened in particular to those islands. If Greece had disputed Turkish sovereignty over Akköy, Didim, a number of important politicians including ministers made statements with that line, a prominent Greek politician tried go there on boat without a passport etc., we would certainly include those in that article, and there would be no justification in removing that either.--Orwellianist (talk) 09:30, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I have heard MPs and Political parties in the Hellenic Parliament, claiming that Istanbul is not a Turkish but a Byzantine Greek city, and there are accidents following these claims, taking part in Istanbul and especially in the Hagia Sophia. Could however these POV claims and incidents, be added into the Istanbul article or the Hagia Sophia article, dear Orwellianist? Honestly, I don't think so. This goes against Wikipedia's quality standards. To clarify something: I am not saying that these Greek claims for Istanbul do not belong in Wikipedia, but were added on the wrong articles. As you see, this kind of POV content is not appropriate to be added to the article about Istanbul itself even if Istanbul is the very target of these POVs. A more appropriate article for these claims could be perhaps the article Greece-Turkey relations and especially the article Greek nationalism. Do you understand what I am trying to say?

Let me bring another similar political incident: I have heard that some Turkish officials claim and support the theory of America being discovered (etc), not by Americo Vespucci and Christopher Colombus, but by the Muslims (and especially by the Turks). Could these POV claims be included in the articles Voyages of Christopher Columbus and History of the Americas and have these articles be updated accordingly? Or could we just add this POV claim in the (more appropriate) pages Religious nationalism and Turkish nationalism? I do not believe Wikipedia's role is to present the POVs of certain individual MEPS as an established fact, and cite them anywhere in Wikipedia. I am afraid that the Wikipedia is not a mirror of politicians; Wikipedia has to stay neutral and keep any POV material only in articles related to them. This cannot be done by adding POV anywhere; info of what some Turkish nationalist politicians do in every Greek Island article, or what some Greek nationalist politicians do in every Turkish City article. This is ridiculous and this goes against Wikipedia's quality standards.

What I propose: This information about Namık Kemal Zeybek's (leader of the Democratic Party (DP) political claims/incidents to be added in his own Wikipedia article (if he has any) under a new section called "Activism" or "Incident", depending how it is seen, and, if this helps, perhaps in the article Turkish nationalism.

Also, I shall note that in the case the Turkish Government officially supports/adopts Namık Kemal Zeybek's claims, then, this should be also worth mentioning in the articles Aegean dispute and Greece-Turkey relations. In all cases, I shall remind you that the articles of Farmakonisi and Agathonisi are not the appropriate place for incidents related to the Aegean Dispute, because these two small Greek islands are not the epicenter of the dispute, are just parts of a larger Aegean dispute that sometimes includes 10 islands, and sometimes 150 islands, depending the sources from the Turkish Government, which are not stable and vary considerably over time. Again, it is pointless to remind you that this is a very sensitive political issue, so whenever such content is added to the article Aegean Dispute, it must always meet Wikipedia's quality standards and especially Wikipedia: Reliable sources and Wikipedia: Point of view. Thank you. --SilentResident (talk) 14:09, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I have removed your edits from the article of Farmakonisi and Agathonisi. Please refrain from doing that again. If you wish to add the Turkish position regarding the sovereignty of the Aegean islands and its disputes with Greece, please do so, but in the relevant page about that dispute, not here! These island articles here are not about the Aegean dispute, but about the islands themselves. Thank you. --SilentResident (talk) 14:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

First of all, you just removed a well-sourced and very relevant information about those islands that were added to this article after long discussions. Please revert your edit and don't do that again until the discussion ends.

• "Wikipedia's role is to present the POVs of certain individual MEPS as an established fact, and cite them anywhere in Wikipedia:" Exactly. Which is why this article doesn't present the POVs of certain individual as an established fact. It states the Turkey's stance about the article without taking a stance, and it mentions the action of a physical action of an MP that is about the island. I am yet to see on what ground do you propose removing that. If Turkey bombed this island over this dispute, that action would be mentioned in this article as well. If Turkish nationalists threw Turkish flags to the island from afar, that would be mentioned in this article. Frankly, considering the size of the article how otherwise insignificant is as an island, almost any encyclopedic information about the island would be worth noting. If someone famous was from this island, it would be mentioned as well. Because that is clearly an information about the island and as long as it is sourced and undisputed there is no ground to remove it. I don't think either of us disputes that that politician took that action and the government ministers and members of parliament of Turkey said those things about the island. The only reason for removing content related to the island would be if the article is too long, so we need to remove some material even if it is directly related to this island. This is clearly not the case here.
• "Wikipedia has to stay neutral and keep any POV material only in articles related to them:" Which is exactly why you cannot remove information you don't like about these articles.
• "because these two small Greek islands are not the epicenter of the dispute, are just parts of a larger Aegean dispute that sometimes includes 10 islands, and sometimes 150 islands:" The article makes it very, very clear that they are the epicenter of the dispute at least on the Turkish side. They may not be on the Greek side, but that paragraph is concerned with Turkish claims. The sources don't mention by name those 150 islands you speak of; but they include these two islands by name, and specific incidents happened on these two islands. Frankly, what you are saying is so insensible that you might as well say "All content of Imia/Kardak must be removed from that page and must be moved to the Aegean dispute page, which this crisis is part of". We mention those information on that article because sources specifically mention Imia/Kardak and incidents occurred there, just like the case here.
• "Could however these POV claims and incidents, be added into the Istanbul article or the Hagia Sophia article, dear Orwellianist?:" I have already answered that. "If Greece had disputed Turkish sovereignty over Akköy, Didim, a number of important politicians including ministers made statements with that line, a prominent Greek politician tried go there on boat without a passport etc., we would certainly include those in that article, and there would be no justification in removing that either." In the case of Istanbul, we have abundance of sourced information that is very relevant to that city, and a small claim almost certainly would not find place, and there is no large scale claim, as no country disputes Istanbul's status. In Akköy, Didim's case, and in the case of these two islands, there isn't such a constraint. Plus, the claim doesn't come from some unimportant person, Turkey officially doesn't recognize Greek sovereignty over these two islands, and the Turkish Minister of Defense very clearly states that Turkey sees those two islands as Turkish islands.
• "it must always meet Wikipedia's quality standards and especially Wikipedia: Reliable sources and Wikipedia: Point of view:" That's always the case. The sentences conform to those two policies as far as I can see, if you see any problem anywhere, you are welcome to share your opinion or change it yourself.
• Look, you might be an activist, I don't judge that, a lot of people on Wikipedia are. But even the most fervent political activists don't remove undisputed facts from articles, and you clearly don't dispute their factualness, and their relation to the article is extremely evident. You may think Turkey's case is ridiculous, I certainly think it is. You are welcome to add additional sources explaining how Turkey's case is ridiculous. Better yet, you should do that over the page Aegean dispute. This article should only include details related to this article, and other details about the dispute including each countries' cases should be explained over that page, as they are not specific to this page. That's the line a political activist should take. There is no question that Turkey disputes sovereignty over these two islands, and there is no question that specific incidents happened over these islands. Wikipedia's job is to give information about these events about these islands neutrally, and linking to the Aegean dispute page for the general details.
• I don't propose changing the first sentence of the article to say it is a disputed island. But frankly, you have such an unreasonable case for your censorship that I wonder how would you respond if a Turkish Wikipedian came along and say that the article should be rewritten similar to Imia/Kardak to remove all statements that imply that it is a Greek island. Frankly, he would have a good case here. From what I understand, this island is part of the same dispute as Imia/Kardak, and it would only make sense to follow the same pattern here. As I said, I am not making that case, as I think Turkey's case is ridiculous here as in the case of Imia itself; but I am having a hard time understanding how you oppose just including Turkey's claims even when Greece's sovereignty remains as an undisputed fact on the article. In a way, someone could accuse us both of taking a Greek POV, but you are just taking it to an extreme.--Orwellianist (talk) 17:23, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

"well-sourced and very relevant information". It doesn't matter how well sourced your content is. I am saying what the moderator and the other users in this Talk Page already said: there already a article dedicated to the dispute: the Aegean dispute article. So, please, if you want to add anything related to the dispute regarding the Aegean Sea and its islands, this can be done here in that aforementioned page, not here.

"It states the Turkey's stance". Yes, that is why you should add it to the Aegean dispute page instead of here. The article of the Aegean dispute is a much better environment and a more appropriate place for the development of the political stances of Turkish and Greek sides on dispute over the Aegean Sea and its islands, and matters related to it.

"Wikipedia has to stay neutral and keep any POV material only in articles related to them:" What you did by restoring this section here: [4] is to present ONLY the Turkish position on the matter, while the Greek position is totally absent. This is a violation of Wikipedia's rules. Do I need to say more? So please, why not bring your information in the Aegean dispute page, where both side's positions can be explained thoroughly and in a orderly manner?

"The article makes it very, very clear that they are the epicenter of the dispute at least on the Turkish side" I am sorry to disappoint you, but the dispute is not just about the X island or the Y island. The dispute covers a broader area, which includes national territorial waters and airspace, demilitarization status, and the Athens FIR. All these are related to each other, and for this reason, the Aegean dispute article was created, to help readers and visitors gather all information and events in one place and get a complete image of the ongoing dispute and its aspects.

"their relation to the article is extremely evident." The Aegean dispute is related to all the islands in question. So like how the Wikipedia moderator FuturePerfectatSunrise explained above (but you seem to have ignored his comment): "That whole story belongs into Aegean conflict, if anywhere, but not on all the individual articles on individual islands".

I hope I have made things clear. Any information about the Aegean dispute and any accidents related to it, could and should be presented in that page here, not on the article about the island itself. Please keep this page clear of any POV! Thanks --SilentResident (talk) 17:56, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but the dispute is not just about the X island or the Y island:" I am starting to think that you didn't read the content you removed from the article. It is clear that the islets of Imia/Kardak are the most important ones as most conflict occurred over those, and after that comes Agathonisi and Farmakonisi, at least from the Turkish point of view. They get extensive media coverage; those two islands specifically, and not other islands, has been subject of a number of incidents and government statements. We cannot refrain from adding that information to the article. If other islands get similar coverage and attention, we will add to those articles what the sources say about those islands as well. I still don't see why you don't support deleting all content regarding the dispute from Imia/Kardak, but want that here. We mention those information on Imia/Kardak because sources specifically mention Imia/Kardak and incidents occurred there, just like the case here.

"is to present ONLY the Turkish position on the matter, while the Greek position is totally absent:" You really cannot be serious. All of the article is based on the Greek position here. The Greek position is that the island belongs to Greece. This article takes the Greek position as a fact. As if that is not an NPOV enough, you are saying that Turkish position should not even be mentioned in a paragraph.

If that's where you want to take it, I'll have to suggest a different approach. Currently sources indicate that both the Turkish and the Greek governments claim the island of Agathonisi. The article currently accepts the Greek government's claim as a fact and is in clear violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. To ensure NPOV, the article shouldn't accept either side's claim. The article should start with "Agathonisi/Eşek is a small island in the Aegean Sea, disputed between the governments of Greece and Turkey. See Aegean dispute for the legal arguments of the sides."

I actually agree with the Greek government, probably same as you, but if you object to even mentioning the other side's view in that paragraph, then this is the only way of clearing this page from POV.--Orwellianist (talk) 18:51, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Except the sources you have added do not state that Turkey is claiming the island, in fact they state the exact opposite. An internal Turkish debate is off-topic in this article. There might be other articles in wikipedia where it belongs, but definitely not here. Athenean (talk) 19:13, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

"The article currently accepts the Greek government's claim as a fact and is in clear violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. To ensure NPOV, the article shouldn't accept either side's claim. The article should start with "Agathonisi/Eşek is a small island in the Aegean Sea, disputed between the governments of Greece and Turkey." Wait, dear Orwellianist, since when does the Republic of Turkey have legal rights over the island of Agathonisi? The Wikipedia is not taking the Greek government's side - it is just telling facts by their name: Agathonisi never came under Turkish control/ownership at no point through the entire history of the Republic of Turkey. You must have had confused the Rep. of Turkey for the Ottoman Empire? The island was indeed under Ottoman control (note: not Turkish, but Ottoman - since the modern Republic of Turkey didn't exist as a state back then), and Italy took it over from the Ottomans, and years later, she passed the island to Greece with the Greco-Italian Treaty. The Republic of Turkey wasn't signatory part of that Treaty, and never owned Agathonisi in the first place. The modern day Republic of Turkey was established under the auspices of the Treaty of Lausanne which defined its borders. Agathonisi has nothing to do with the modern-day Republic of Turkey which was founded only after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Where are the legal rights you claim, come from? Are you suggesting that Wikipedia tags the island as "claimed by Greece" when it passed from the Italian state to the Greek state through legal treaties? --SilentResident (talk) 19:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Orwellianist, I don't think that the kind of lead that you propose is typical for similar land disputes at Wikipedia. Look for example at Ceuta. I don't see anything about Moroccan claims there, and the dispute about Ceuta is continuing since decades. Alex2006 (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, dear Alex2006, it is unfortunate that this Aegean dispute is sensitive to both sides of the Aegean sea, and this often leads the users to ignore Wikipedia's quality standards. These standards is what I am trying to defend, here. I want for once any political disputes to be moved to the corresponding page: Aegean dispute, rather than here, on EVERY article about Greece's islands. Perhaps could some Discretionary sanctions of some sort be applied to all Greek island articles for this nonsense to be put to an end, once and for all? --SilentResident (talk) 20:00, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think that if some kind of guideline should be found, since this is a general issue on Wikipedia. Moreover, what I am still missing here, is the reason why Turkey is claiming Agathonisi and not, for example, Symi. I remember that about 10 years ago there were a couple of Turkish deputies who organized a landing to Ro, proclaiming that it was Turkish: why Ro, and not Strongyli? Alex2006 (talk) 07:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Alex2006, Personally, I believe that the Turkish political claims on Greek islands are less about logic and legality, but more about nationalist sentiments, feelings and desire of the Turkish politicians for the restoration of a long lost Imperial (Ottoman) past. To understand the driving force of the Turkish stance on various issues concerning former regions of the Ottoman Empire, such as Greece and her islands, the Balkans, etc, the articles Neo-Ottomanism and Turkish nationalism, as well as the Nationalist Movement Party and Gallipoli Campaign (and in some extend the Turkish invasion of Cyprus), can help give a fraction of how Turkey' modern policy is influenced and determined. Many events in the country that happened in the past 100 years, helped shape or determine how nationalism dominates the domestic politics in the country. I shall clarify that the driving forces that shape the Turkish Foreign policy are pretty complicated and cannot be completely understood in a narrow sense, but reading the aforementioned articles can give you an idea how the country sees its relations with the outside world. This is only just my personal opinion. But I am afraid, this is not the place for discussing such things, as the Turkish domestic affairs have nothing to do with the article about Agathonisi, even if these domestic affairs are the driving force behind the claims on Agathonisi. And Wikipedia is not a forum where we can chat. This is a talk page, and I believe that, if we have to prevent the edit-war history repeating itself for the next 20 years on the article of Agathonisi, we should really find or make some guidelines or some sort of, to deal with sensitive articles such as this. (or at least, raise protection level on the page?) I don't know. --SilentResident (talk) 11:50, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear @SilentResident, I don't think that our goal here is to speculate about the reasons that bring the Turkish government to claim these islands: of course I have also my opinion about it, but this should not appear in the article. The main problem here is a practical one, that is to avoid the cluttering of the single articles about Greek islands with information which is repetitive and incomplete. Since I suppose that all these claims are part of a larger dispute, I repeat that the place to inform about it should be the article that deals with the dispute itself. On the single articles there should be a remark that links to this article. Taking as example the so called Adriatic question, one did not repeat for each Adriatic island, (from Cherso to Saseno) claimed at that time by the Kingdom of Italy, all the declarations of the various Nitti, Bissolati, Sforza, Ciano, etc. but the whole issue had been described (and hopefully, explained) in one single article. Alex2006 (talk) 12:41, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, @Alessandro57. I agree absolutely with you. The best place to inform readers about it should be the article that deals with the dispute itself. And like I said before: Concentrating and keeping the material about the dispute to the article dedicated to that dispute is the most recommended of all solutions. But, nevertheless, the problem still remains: people often seem to ignore the Talk Pages and restore the material in Agathonisi's page. What shall be done to prevent this from happening in the future? Perhaps a Notice? --SilentResident (talk) 13:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

No idea: unfortunately this is like Wikipedia (at least enwiki) works. Maybe we should contact Erdogan, and tell him that right now he has too many irons in the fire... :-) Alex2006 (talk) 13:33, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Orwellianist, (as I am summarizing from what we talked here), you are not suggesting that the Island's infobox is marked as "disputed", but you are suggesting that the content of the article, (in regards to Agathonisi's sovereignty) shall reflect the nationalist claims of individual Turkish MPs of the Turkish Parliament with more "weight" than what is established through international treaties (such as the Greco-Italian Treaty)? I am afraid this won't happen. Internal Turkish affairs and debates are not Wikipedia's business and is against Wikipedia's standards to add them here. --SilentResident (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear SilentResident, you are saying that the Greco-Italian Treaty gave the island to Greece. While I have not researched this issue well, I completely agree with you from what I know. But Turkey clearly and officially disagrees, they almost went to war over this in the 90s. I don't know why you bothered to write a long paragraph explaining how Turkey doesn't control the island. The sources and the text indicates that Turkey doesn't claim that Greece doesn't administer it; Greek administration of the island is an indisputable fact. Actually, the text that you removed proves that it is administered by Greece, a Turkish politician tried to go there without a passport and stopped by Greek guard. In any case, I don't know why you spend time trying to convince me; I told you that I am personally fully on the Greek government's side here, there is nothing to convince.

Dear Alex2006, I agree. While I am not well informed about either case, Agathonisi may indeed be like Ceuta. If you read the discussion above, my proposal wasn't to call it a disputed territory (like Imia/Kardak is currently being called in that article) but merely restore the sourced content that SilentResident removed from the article, which was added after long discussions. I just said that would be the only other alternative if he continued his approach. I would respond the same way if someone tried to remove the Dispute with Morocco subsection from the article Ceuta. His response, deleting a complete subsection that includes sourced information, is political activism at its worst. The text he removed is not my text by the way, and I don't endorse it, if there are corrections to be made I encourage all to do that.--Orwellianist (talk) 15:11, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Orwellianist, as you can read from the discussion above, there was no consensus for this addition also some month ago. Myself and another user were both for the solution which I sketched above. However, since both of us are not edit warriors, we just let the ip to add the content and, as often happens at Wikipedia, the lack of consensus manifested again some time later, when another user, having the same doubts that we had, removed the content. I don't want to repeat a third (fourth?) time what I think, since I hope that it is clear for now. I just say that consensus for your solution is lacking, and that according to my ten year experience here, no addition can remain without a lack of consensus. Bye, Alex2006 (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Orwellianist, there is no consensus on adding this material to Agathonisi article, but there is wide consensus on adding it in the Aegean dispute article. Like I have repeated myself many times above, (and I hate to repeat myself that many times), any Aegean Dispute-related content should be concentrated into this page where it belongs, not here in Agathonisi's article. Everyone who attempts otherwise and clutter the island articles with that kind of content, will have his/her edits reverted without a further notice. --SilentResident (talk) 20:50, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Alex2006, I do not see edit warring in the article's history. On 10:39, 21 July 2015, you removed the content and redirected the IP to the talk page. It seems he followed the Wikipedia procedure thoroughly, not trying to reinstate the content once. Only after he came up with references that addressed all your concerns did he add the content back. Maybe you didn't have the time to make your case, or maybe you didn't have any objections to him at that point, I don't know, but it is fair to say that the content was added to the article by consensus. Until SilentResident came along later and removed the content, for an extremely POV reason.

Now, I am very averse to edit warring as well, which is why I didn't immediately revert SilentResident's edit after he removed the content one more time, even though I believe he has no right to do such a thing without consensus. But I most certainly cannot come to terms with such a fundamental policy violation, the worst case I have seen on Wikipedia so far. All I see is a user removing well-sourced information that is about the island of Agathonisi from the article because they don't conform to his point of view. If I saw someone removing the Dispute with Morocco subsection from the article Ceuta, it would be my duty to revert his edit as well. One may disagree about the exact sentences to use, the length, etc. I would understand it if he proposed to keep it briefer than it is and direct the readers to a page that contains the rest of the information with a link. Then we would have something to discuss. But trying to suppress all information about one aspect of Agathonisi is utterly and completely unacceptable.--Orwellianist (talk) 05:28, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Please walk away from this argument dear Orwellianist. This made-in-Turkey controversy is an artifact of Turkish wishful thinking and has no basis or recognition in International law or any other recognised international body. If some lunatic fringe politicians in Turkey adhere to this nonsense that's their problem but Wikipedia is not the tool to advertise their message.

I can see from the way you also added the Turkish name version of this Greek island on top of the fringe Turkish political claims that you are also interested in adding an onomatological Turkish claim to the island. That kind of editing is disruptive so I advise you to discontinue it.

I know that no arguments will persuade you to accept this given your continuing defence of this fringe material but I will put it another way so that you may understand the point: You have no consensus to add this fringe Turkish political material to this article. In fact the consensus is definitely against you. The sooner you understand this point the less disruption you will cause. Thank you. Dr. K. 06:08, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

This lunatic fringe politician is Turkey's minister of defense. And the fact that you and I think that Turkey's claim to this island is legally baseless is no reason to remove information from Wikipedia about Turkey's claim to this island. I advise all users to abandon explaining what their opinion on the subject is and how they don't want to see some content on the Wikipedia the accuracy of which they don't dispute, and come up with arguments based on Wikipedia policy instead. Their messages along that line are irrelevant and no amount of flooding the talk page with such messages will make Wikipedia censor the information they don't like to see.--Orwellianist (talk) 06:47, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

You curt dismissal of my arguments and those of the other editors here is indicative of your strong POV on the subject. I advise to respect the consensus and drop the rhetoric. You can continue arguing and creating more disruption but, again, I wouldn't advise that. The Turkish minister of defence is free to hold any fringe, and illegal under international law, views he likes. But that does not stop them from being irrelevant to this Greek article. I repeat: Wikipedia articles should not be used as a channel to transmit the fringe views of Turkish political wishful thinking. Dr. K. 07:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Orwellianist, the content you are fighting to include in the article consists almost entirely of "In 2011 the Turkish minister of said X" and "In 2012 one Turkish parliamentarian said X to which another parliamentarian said Y". Such content is of very low encyclopedic value. Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS and wikipedia articles are not meant to be repositories of press releases by politicians. Next year, more ministers and parliamentarians will say X and Y, to which other ministers and parliamentarians will say W and Z. Are we to include every single statement by some Turkish politician regarding this or that island? Why limit ourselves to parliamentarians and ministers? What about the mayor from the fishing village across Agathonisi? Military officials? Why start at 2011? Such statements were made before 2011. So why not include statements from 2010? 1974? Already, the additions you are proposing are very large, in fact larger than the entire content of the article. And if we continue like this, they will make an even larger portion of the article in the future. Just because something is sourced does not mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. Let's not lose track of that. Athenean (talk) 09:18, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Dr. K., I agree absolutely with what you have said. Dear Orwellianist, you may not have realized it, but it is cases such as this one that are endangering the Wikipedia project with flocks of political opinions & actions about every matter concerning the politicians in the world. Although this is very obvious, somehow I still feel the necessity for a reminder to the wiki visitors: that the Wikipedia is not a newspaper. An encyclopaedia and a newspaper are two different things. If every article was supposed to host the personal political opinions and individual political actions which are indisputably related to the said places (which is, more or less, what you have insisted), then not only Wikipedia could lose its encyclopedic norms, but also go against the principles on which Wikipedia was founded in the first place. Internal domestic politics of Turkey have no place in Agathonisi's and Farmakonisi's articles. Have a good day. --SilentResident (talk) 16:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your well-made points SR. Thank you. Now I see that the same POV-push is happening at Farmaconisi as well. Including the addition of the Turkish name at the lead. Seems like a simple recipe. Add the Turkish name at the lead and then the lunatic fringe claims of the Turkish wishful thinkers and presto! you got an instant territorial dispute. It would be almost amusing if Wikipedia were not abused in the process in such a blatant manner. Dr. K. 21:52, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Dr. K., the point still remains as I discussed above with Alex2006; that this trend of adding references to what some ultra-nationalist Turkish politicians do and say, continues and this debate is ongoing for many years now (if you see, since at least the year 2006, Agathonisi's article is victim of the non-stop POV-pusing and disruptive edits). That is almost 10 whole years this story goes on! And is likely to continue to happen in the future, judging from the article's history log, where you can see large amount of edit warring that is unusually high for the standards of such a small article about a small island. The whole story did not (and still does not) contribute positively in the article's healthy development. --SilentResident (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you SR. I had no idea although I can't say I'm surprised. I have seen similar disruption all across Wikipedia and on many subjects. In such areas, the healthy development of an article, as you put it, is the furthest thing from the minds of the POV-pushers. Dr. K. 02:11, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I still think that a centralised information at the relevant articles with links from the single articles of each involved Greek island/islet/cliff/rock is the only sensible solution here. The comparison with Ceuta (on Melilla there is only a couple of lines with a link to another article) does not hold: the dispute there is much older and deals mainly with two important cities and not tenths of islets and rocks (mostly uninhibited). Moreover, that dispute is not instrumental, meaning that the Moroccans really want the two cities. On the contrary, in this case, the real agenda of Turkey behind these claims is another one, and can be read on many articles appeared on Foreign relation magazines (like the Italian "Limes", for example). Because of that, the barycenter of the information (and what we need is real information: "the minister x declared" falls under WP:ISNOT, we need to know WHY the minister declared something) should be on a single article. Günaydın/Καλημέρα :-) Alex2006 (talk) 08:57, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Grazie Alessandro for your sage analysis. Buongiorno. :) Dr. K. 15:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree. This could be the best among the available solutions. --SilentResident (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I am appalled, appalled by the amount of POV-pushing going on here in this talk page, for I have never seen it done so recklessly with such self confidence. I guess a degree of it must be expected on articles that matters to nationalists, and they will invariably try to promote their view/suppress others; but removing all information about a topic completely? That's a different level of nationalistic POV pushing. Not really a subtle one, but a typical example of WP:BADPOV.

And I have even been blamed for the content of the section, when all I did was reverting SilentResident's POV-pushing edit. I have now edited the section into how I would write it based on the given sources, in order to make a note of it in the page's history. I removed all sentences except the one that is directly about Agathonisi and an internal link to the main article about the issue. Seeing the number of POV-pushers frequenting this page, I expect all info including the link to be once again removed; but at least the diff page will provide a basis for putting notices in relevant pages about the NPOV violation. Looking at the page's history, the problem seems chronic; so solving it will probably require input from uninvolved editors.--Orwellianist (talk) 02:31, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, of course. When your POV fails to gain consensus you start the personal attacks and the silly references to editors' national origin. Please stop that. This is a warning. Dr. K. 02:45, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I am accused for POV-Pushing! All right, then lets go as mr. Orwellianist suggests on doing what he perceives as neutrality: lets populate the articles Farmakonisi, Agathonisi, (and why not, 150 more Greek island articles) with far-right Turkish political content, with claims and incidents by some ultra-nationalist Turkish politicians, who claim Agathonisi is theirs, Farmakonisi is theirs, Psaronisi is theirs, Leros is theirs, Kalolimnos is theirs, Kastellorizo is theirs, Kos is theirs, and when that is done, lets turn Wikipedia into an ever bigger tool for the promotion of Turkish propaganda. And why shall we stop in Aegean? We got the racist Gray Wolves claiming that the Greek city of Thessaloniki too is a Turkish city or "of a disputed sovereignty". Sure, lets add and mark Thessaloniki and even Komotini if not Alexandropolis too, as Turkish-claimed cities with a new pompous section in every of these articles, with well-sourced but very relevant content of what some Turkish politicians say and claim! Because I am the one who is POV-Pushing here, because of the removal of "well-sourced, very relevant and important info" about what some ultra-nationalist Turkish politicians say and do! Fine. If this is how you see Wikipedia, then perhaps it isn't an encyclopedia at all, or perhaps I came in the wrong place. Honestly, you don't understand, do you, my dear Orwellianist? If you think you can go ahead with your own personal rules of what is POV and what is not, at the expense of Wikipedia's established rules for Wi:NPOV, even if the community clearly disagreed with you, and just because your opinion here matters more than Wikipedia's quality standards, and you really believe that by resorting to personal attacks you can make your point, then go ahead. Restore the deleted POV content which you badly seek to restore in Agathonisi and Farmakonisi articles...

And if I am allowed to add to my above comment, mr. Orwellianist, you have pointed out at Wiki:Removal of information but you are turning deaf ears to what the whole case here is about: here, in the talk page, we are not disputing the removed information, but how you are trying to relate it to the specific articles. Like how I have explained above many times: I am not disputing your content. None here in the Talk page ever disputed it. As you see, we didn't and we don't dispute your content, just we are asking you to move it to a more appropriate page where it fits better. The removal of this content has nothing to do with it being disputed by other editors. The problem here is that you are insisting in adding a content about a heavily debatable issue (Aegean dispute) into an article (Agathonisi) which is not dedicated to that political issue but to the island of same name. Wikipedia did not create Agathonisi article to have Aegean dispute-related content added in it, Wikipedia made the wise decision to create and have all information about the Aegean dispute gathered on their own article here. This was done in order for every Greek island article to not be flocked with political and debatable content about that dispute. The community here is disagreeing with the way you want to implement such political content to the articles that are less about politics and more about places, islands and cities. (With simple words, you do the mistake to determine a content's relativeness to an article with the wrong criteria.) That is all. Just Wikipedia can't have EVERY city and island of Greece flocked with information about what some Turkish politicians say and do about territorial disputes and claims. Wikipedia has to stay clean and in an orderly manner: have any dispute-related info concentrated into its own article, where everyone can easily read and update all-in-one place, instead of messing 150+ different Greek island articles and force the Wiki visitors and Wiki editors to navigate through multiple pages just for one subject. Furthermore, before I forget it: trying to use every Greek island to promote information about the opinions and actions of the one side (Turkish in this case, with the Greek side's opinions being absent) outside the frame and scope of the article defined as the place where both sides can fairly have their positions explained and where both sides's opinions are present, clearly constitutes POV. Good day. --SilentResident (talk) 04:18, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I looked at the content that was reworked and readded by Orwellianist, but again, I just don't see anything of encyclopedic value. None of the addition meet WP:EVENT and thus have no place in the article. We have "Officially the Turkish government doesn't recognize the Greek sovereignty over the island, and considers the Greek administration to be temporary and de facto." which is sourced to three articles are about internal Turkish debates. In my opinion this is a non-event. These articles also mention the Dodecanese in general, and are hardly specific to Agathonisi. And then we have"By virtue of its proximity to the Turkish coast compared to the other disputed islands, Agathonisi in particular has been the center of Turkish attention including attempts by DP to go to the island by boat without a passport, and by VP to hold a swimming contest to the island.". In other words, a couple of publicity stunts by nationalist nobodies. In other words, more non-events. Also salient is the fact that none of these non-events received coverage outside the Turkish media. If these were indeed notable incidents, we should expect that they would have received coverage in English-language media. Time to Put down the stick and slowly start backing away from the horse. Athenean (talk) 04:53, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• @Dr.K.: From what I see, a lot of users here are involved in Civil POV pushing, attempting at WP:BADPOV with the expected arguments, but you don't even appear to be doing that. You even admitted to care about possible real-life consequences of having information about the article ("presto! you got an instant territorial dispute"), the very definition of Advocacy. I was happy that the information was removed by you and not others, as that makes the chronic problem with this page more evident for future reference.

• @SilentResident: If you are interested in this issue, which it appears you are, you are welcome to add the information to the other pages that you think are relevant. But in this case, it wouldn't help, as you have even went so far as to remove the internal links to that page. The simple truth is, you want that aspect of information about Agathonisi to be completely invisible to Wikipedia readers.

• @Athenean: The debate in the source is not about whether Greek has sovereignty over the island, both sides take it as a given that it doesn't, as the government minister makes it clear. The debate is what should Turkey do to end the supposed Greek occupation. The sources that indicate that Agathonisi is the focus includes CHP and MHP sources as well as newspaper reports, which all list other islands but mainly focus on Agathonisi, and sometimes on Farmakonisi to a lesser extent. (I removed the details of how exactly the focus is on Agathonisi, as there are those who don't want to see it in this page.) And I don't know how you expect those small local events to meet WP:EVENT, I don't think anybody attempted to create the article VP swimming contest to Agathonisi. But of course, if your desire is to remove some of the information about the island, such arguments are normal.

• And I don't know why you are suggesting me to back away. I already stated that I am editing the article only to make a note of it in the page's history for future reference about the POV-pushing problem in the article. I wasn't even going to reply here, if it wasn't for the first part of your last comment which was at least relevant to the discussion and needed to be addressed. I am well aware of futility of arguing with a bloc of editors whose intent don't appear to be writing a good Agathonisi article, but keeping the article completely in line with their view. I have nothing further to say about this issue, for by now the situation is all too clear for anyone who isn't hopelessly biased, and it will be corrected when neutral editors notice what a bloc of editors are trying to do here, I did my part.--Orwellianist (talk) 21:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• @Orwellianist: Reading your misleading claim: You even admitted to care about possible real-life consequences of having information about the article ("presto! you got an instant territorial dispute"), the very definition of Advocacy. I think you are getting desperate. Your tactics however work only when you miss the whole paragraph that I wrote to give context to my phrase: "presto! you got an instant territorial dispute"
• I repeat it here so that you won't fool someone reading that sentence alone and without context: Now I see that the same POV-push is happening at Farmaconisi as well. Including the addition of the Turkish name at the lead. Seems like a simple recipe. Add the Turkish name at the lead and then the lunatic fringe claims of the Turkish wishful thinkers and presto! you got an instant territorial dispute. My paragraph describes your own actions: You engaged in onomatologically injecting the Turkish name into the article on top of adding the lunatic fringe political claims. This was a complex edit that can only have one purpose: to highlight a non-existent dispute and combine it onomatologically with the Turkish name so as to give the island a fictitious Turkish identity. Your blatant POV-push however did not succeed. Noone here supports your blatant distortion of the contents of this article. You are desperately clinging at vicious personal attacks to save your derailed POV-push. I strongly advise you to stop that and assume good faith, something that so far seems alien to your thinking as projected by your nonsense conspiracy theories. Your crass attacks notwithstanding, I don't care about any real-life consequences regarding this dispute. I care that no POV-pusher will get his way of adding fringe political claims and engaging in onomatological tricks to manufacture a dispute where none exists. Dr. K. 23:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Orwellianist, you are completely missing the point, again. Internal debates in the Turkish parliament are a dime a dozen and not encyclopedic material. If we were to mention in wikipedia every time the name of a Greek island passes the lips of a Turkish politician, every article from Samothraki to Kastellorizo would have a huge and growing section of useless quotes. As for the publicity stunts, they are just that, publicity stunts. These are trivial non-events that don't belong in an encyclopedia. At this point you are refusing to understand the point and are engaging in constant personal attacks, so it seems further discussion is a waste of time. Athenean (talk) 06:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Geographic inconsistency

The article text currently says that the settlements Mikro Chorio and Megalo Chorio are "both inland", and that "[t]he island's only port is the settlement of Agios Georgios (Saint George), which consists of a few hotels and restaurants". However, the image shows the "main harbor" and calls it "Megalo Chorio". How is this to be resolved? Is the area around the harbor considered to be part of "Megalo Chorio"? Google Earth [5] seems to suggest that the main part of the village is indeed a bit further up, behind the hill on the right. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Fut.Perf., the image only shows the Saint George port, which is not part of the Big Village. The caption, therefore, needs to be corrected. I am not surprised if people confuse/merge together the Big Village, the Small Village and the Saint George Port, due to their close proximity to each each other; the three settlements are only a short distance from each other, and it does take no more than 5-10 minutes to get from the one to the other on foot. --SilentResident (talk) 13:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Turkish claim on the island 2

Turkish claims have no place on the Greek island articles and Turkish politics should be kept out of these articles. The Turkish claims on the Aegean sea have already been tackled here, on the Aegean dispute article, which is about them. To duplicate these claims on every one of the 200 Greek island articles (or 6, or 18 or 120, depending which Turkish official you are quoting) on top of that is way too much. If there is anything to be added about the Turkish claims on Aegean islands, it should be done on the article dedicated to that dispute. Nothing more, nothing less. Any further POV-pushing attempts to include the Turkish claims outside the article dedicated to them, will be reverted without any further warnings. Have a good day. --SILENTRESIDENT 17:24, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I shall bring to everyone's attention that even in the case the Turkish Minister's alleged claims against the Greek sovereignty on Agathonisi are quoted in the Aegean dispute article, it is important to take in account the more recent Turkish President's statements too (the President is the leader of the Turkish state and needless to say, he carries more weight than a Minister does) where he, just less than a month ago from today, pledged for the opposite. (see here: link, link). Unfortunately, the Turkish government not only is showing many contradicting positions, not only about the actual number of islands they do dispute, but also about whether they actually dispute the border treaty itself or not (on the action level, they do, but on a verbal level they appear to be contradicting themselves - or at least hold a different perception of the treaty's revisions). None can be certain for sure, but if anyone here really wants to carry this hot potato, I suggest caution as it can burn. --SILENTRESIDENT 17:38, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Having read up a bit on how present this topic has been in the Turkish media over the last few months (and how brazen-faced and unanimous the systematic disinformation of the Turkish public by its own media regarding alleged Turkish rights has been, unfortunately), I've come to the opinion that it wouldn't be "undue" to include some coverage in some form here. However, it should be something that captures the actual structural situation of the conflict, along the lines of: "Agathonisi is one of several Greek islands whose sovereignty has repeatedly been questioned by Turkey since the Imia crisis of 1996, with Turkish sources arguing that these islands were not validly ceded by Turkey in the Treaty of Lausanne. While the official Turkish government position has been that there are "grey zones" of undetermined sovereignty without defining which islands exactly are included in them, unofficial or semi-official Turkish sources have repeatedly named Agathonisi among the islands concerned. Since 2016, some Turkish politicians and media have advanced the claim that Agathonisi and certain other small islands were only recently "occupied" by Greek forces and that they constituted actual Turkish territories until then." I'm only looking for some good solid third-party sources that sum up the situation like that. What we shouldn't really have is this give-and-take of quotations ("On date soandso, politician soandso said Agathonisi was Turkish, and then on date soandso, the Greek government retorted this and that"); that's not really insightful, doesn't help the reader understand the issue and really should fall under WP:NOTNEWS. – As for Erdogan's statements about Lausanne, I think that's rather orthogonal to the issue. There was some internal ideological squabble in Turkey over whether they should regard the Lausanne treaty as a heroic national achievement of the Kemalist powers of the time or rather as a document of national weekness, but that's really nothing to do with wether you're going to claim those islets. Remember the Turkish argument is that they weren't ceded by the treaty to begin with. The argument is bogus, of course, but since it's been part of the official government line, it's entirely consistent for a Turkish politician to say he wants the Lausanne treaty fully respected and then to claim Agathonisi the next moment. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:58, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Your comment confirms what I was saying - be the claims falling under WP:NOTNEWS or not, they are no more than just part of Turkey's internal politics. What is said or claimed inside Turkey, has no place here. My position remains unchanged on this and I will oppose the inclusion of such information on any related articles unless they relate to the Aegean dispute and meet Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion into that article. My position also remains same regardless of country politics so please do not see this stance as being a pro-Greek POV or anti-Turkish POV: be it the Patriarch of the Macedonian Orthodox Church claiming the Greek city of Thessalonica, be it the leader of the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party claiming the Turkish city of Istanbul, or the leader of CHP and the Minister of European Affairs claiming Agathonisi, or even President Erdogan claiming the Iraqi city of Mosul. Such information simply has no place in Wikipedia. Do not ever expect such claims to show up on this article, or this article either. The region of Southeastern Europe is notorious for its immature politics and revisionist policies. Wikipedia shouldn't give them more light outside of the context (i.e. nationalism and Great Ideas). To include such claims on every city or island article in Wikipedia, just because it happened that they were made by public figures in other countries, is to go against Wikipedia's rules. --SILENTRESIDENT 21:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

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migrants coming from Turkey

Agathonisi is one of those islands quite near Turkey mainland. Does someone have numers / statistics how many migrants came ? Is there a camp or sth similar @ Agathonisi ? Are they brought to another island ? his article is the starting of my question --Neun-x (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2018 (UTC)