Talk:Agulis massacre

Feedback from New Page Review process

I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Thanks for creating..

Celestina007 (talk) 18:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Problems

TagaworShah, thanks for creating the article and working on it! However the article is currently really problematic. It uses sources for things that aren't even mentioned in the source (e.g. Hovannasian source being used for death numbers when the source doesn't mention such a thing), it uses non-reliable sources or blogs such as Hyperallergic. I have removed some of these in an attempt to make the article better, but it still needs a ton of work with sources. Also, Emanuele Aliprandi, who seems to be this article's main source, is photographer (making it non-reliable on history) who also writes about Nagorno-Karabakh for the "Italian initiative for Nagorno Karabakh", which is an organization created by the Armenian embassy in Italy, making it a primary source. I have added tags on top of the article for improvement and we can definitely remove them once the article has reliable sources and a neutral tone. Cheers. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 08:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden:- Hi! thanks for voicing your concerns and I’ll take note of everything you said however there are problems with your claims. 1) The source by Emanuele Aliprandi is not a primary source at all, I think you may have confused his identity, he is not the photographer you linked, that is someone else with the same name. Emanuele Aliprandi is a historian in Rome that has a focus on conflicts in the south caucasus and has published many books, he cooperates with the Italian initiative for nagorno karabakh however that has nothing to do with this article seeing as its not about Karabakh at all so his association is irrelevant. 2) the main source for this article is the book by Richard Hovannisian, he is a reliable source and that’s where the bulk of the article comes from, the only primary source in this article is from HOVHANNES HAKHNAZARIAN however this is only used in support of material from Richard Hovannisian and no new information is added from that source so it is perfectly acceptable by wikipedia guidelines due to it being published by a reliable sourcer and used only to support existing claims not add any new content. As for “puffery” or a non neutral tone the only instance of that was already deleted by you however thank you for helping make it a more neutral tone, we can delete that tag. You deleted the citation for the massacre section although it’s directly sourced from there, that entire section is paraphrased from the source by Hovannisian pages 236-238. Also the Hyperallergic journal is written by people who would be considered reliable(Denver-based political analyst Simon Maghakyan has extensive experiences in research and advocacy alike as well as Sarah Pickman who is a phd candidate at Yale and her writing has appeared in publications such as Cosmologics, Somatosphere, Endeavour, and online for Archaeology magazine), therefore it meets wikipedia guidelines for reliability since it’s by authors who are known to be reliable and have multiple published works. Again, this article is still very new and could use more sources, however with the current information it is sourced from reliable sources and the existence of the Agulis massacre isn’t debated so it shouldn’t be deleted from the massacres in Azerbaijan page. This article is overly marked up so I will go ahead and delete some of the confusions that I have discussed with you here, lmk if you have any more concerns, cheers. TagaworShah (talk) 12:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I must've confused the Aliprandis then, but it clearly states in his book that it was written in cooperation with the "Italian initiative for Nagorno Karabakh", so even if his work isn't all connected to this initiative, the one you've cited certainly is. I'm not disputing Hovannisian's reliability and I've not touched anything that was actually from his book on the article, however, you seemed to have used his book as a source for the number of casualties in multiple places when I didn't see anything about it in the book, so I removed the source from these specific places. If it is in the book and I somehow missed it, please tell me. You're correct that Hakhnazarian source is primary, but it wasn't only used in material to support Hovannisian's book in a few places, including in infobox when it used as a source for claims that this was a "genocide" (which is a really serious claim that requires several WP:RS to confirm). I will go ahead and remove the puffery tag since I don't see an excessive case of it anymore either. Unfortunately, even if Hyperallergic is occasionally written by reliable authors, the source itself is still a WP:BLOG and can not be used in Wikipedia. The reason I deleted it from the Massacres in Azerbaijan is that the article still has a lot of problems and again the only source in this article that I can call a WP:RS, without doubting is Hovannasian and that only gives small information about the actual event. Cheers. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 12:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I noticed you deleted almost all the tags. I have gone ahead and reverted these good faith edits because we first need to reach a consensus on whether these sources are primary or not. Though, I have removed the puffery tag as we both seem to agree on it. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 12:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden:- Hi, the book by Emanuele Aliprandi wasn’t written in cooperation with the Italian initiative for Nagorno Karabakh, the source states he cooperates with that initiative on matters regarding Artsakh not all of his works, that is just background but the book he published isn’t in cooperation with the initiative, also per the wikipedia policy on blogs, “ self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications” the authors fit such criteria so it would be considered acceptable, as for Hovannisian he mentions on pages 236-238 that “ According to the Armenian government, up to 400 Armenians were killed in Lower Agulis and up to 1,000 in Upper Agulis.” Cheers. TagaworShah (talk) 12:52, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The notice about cooperation with the Armenian embassy wouldn't be there if the book wasn't made in cooperation with them. In fact all of his books that are about Karabakh seem to be made with the cooperation of the Italian Embassy. Regardless, even if this wasn't the main issue with the source, the author is almost impossible to find anywhere on the internet outside of the Armenian embassy work, so he's clearly not a WP:RS. I imagine you're giving the quote about blogs because of the Hyperallergic source and you'd have to prove that the Armenian authors that worked on that specific blog article are "established subject-matter experts whose work has been published by reliable, independent publications". And thanks for pointing out the Hovannisian's number figure, but this seems to just repeat Hakhnazarian's point and doesn't confirm it independently since it says "According to the Armenian government", so we can add back Hovannasian source to a sentence that states that this is an Armenian government figure. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 13:08, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden:- Emanuele Aliprandi is a published author, he has previously released publications for the geopolitical report that can be found on academia.edu, there wasn’t a notice that it was created in cooperation with the initiative, he is an independent author who aids the initiative in getting their work on Karabakh published, the exact wording is “ He cooperates with the programme ‘Italian initiative for Nagorno Karabakh’ (Iniziativa Italiana per il Karabakh (www.karabakh.it). Within the framework of that programme he has conducted a research and organized conferences on the issue of the right of Nagorno Karabakh Republic (Artsakh) to self-determination.” a background information not as a notice, this article isn’t about the self determination of Artsakh, the popularity of an author isn’t really relevant here, he has been published by independent sources, his work isn’t published by the Armenian government so it’s not a primary source. Also, the authors of the hyperallergic article have been published by many independent publications so they fit the criteria. TagaworShah (talk) 13:23, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Academia.edu is a free site where everyone, including you and me, can join and publish whatever we like. It's not an indication of reliability. However, I do think we should replace primary source inline tag with better source tag. The bias and unreliability of the source, aside from the already provided facts, is obvious. WP:HISTRS can help you identify whether a source about history is reliable or not. Also, simply saying "have been published by many independent publications" isn't enough, you need to provide sources for that. Cheers. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 13:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden:- First, you should not have deleted the part about the destruction of the khachkars, that’s not original research, it was directly mentioned in the 2 sources(which you also incorrectly deleted web though they were both about the Agulis Massacre), I was not the one who made the comparison, the MFA of Armenia did in their address of the Agulis massacre at the Geneva convention, the Agulis massacre is directly related to the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Nakhcivan, I said it was the spokesperson of the MFA who made the comparison in the article. As for Aliprandi, the assertion that he is “biased” needs more evidence, the information in his biography section about previous endeavors has nothing to do with the content of the book, that is more of an ad hominem fallacy. Also I said you can find his publications on Academia.edu not that he self-published there, you can clearly see that he has been published by independent sources, there is simply not enough evidence for you to call him biased. Lastly, i’ve replaced the hyper-allergic article with a more reliable sources, cheers. TagaworShah (talk) 14:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. Thanks for reverting my deletion then. Sometimes I can be too WP:BOLD. About Aliprandi, the fact that he works for the Armenian embassy in Italy is a good enough reason to assert that he's not an unbiased source on this matter. What I said earlier about academia.edu wasn't to state that Aliprandi published the sources himself. It was to show that works existing in academia.edu doesn't mean they're reliable since anyone can publish anything there. You're implying that lot of independent and WP:RS have cited Aliprandi yet I still haven't seen any links/evidence for this, so I'd be happy if you provided one. (Also on a personal note, I have this page in my watchlist, so you don't need to ping me when you reply). Cheers. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 14:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah thank you, I’m still a little new with the wikipedia talk page. Also as a note Aliprandi does not work for the Armenian embassy, he has just cooperated with them in the past, here is one of his previous publications that has been cited by 6 reliable sources: [[1]], lmk if you can see it or if you have any other concerns. Cheers. TagaworShah (talk) 14:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

CuriousGolden also as for the hyperallergic article, here is the profile and works of Sarah pickman, the author: [[2]] as you can see she has been published and cited as a reliable source. TagaworShah (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Not everything on Google Scholar constitutes as a reliable source, so this is still doesn't prove reliablitity (also this was a search for a completely unrelated book he published, so it's not really related to what we're discussing). Also, at least one of the results in the Scholar for the citations is by Aliprandi himself. Thanks for the Hyperallergic confirmation, you can add it back now. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 14:57, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks I’ll add the hyperallergic article back! As for Aliprandi, you said that you wanted to see RS that cited a work of Aliprandi, out of the 5(excluding the one of himself), most of them look like reliable sources and are published by independent publications, he was also published by the Association of Studies, Research and Internationalization in Eurasia and Africa, which is an independent source, I don’t see how his work is not reliable, his previous associations have nothing to do with the work itself, lmk why please? TagaworShah (talk) 15:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

It's not just previous association though. Aliprandi seems to be known for making articles/books for Armenians & with pro-Armenian bias (For example, see in Karabakh Council#Formation of the Karabakh Council "Emanuele Aliprandi, an Italian writer who edits the bi-weekly newsletter of the Italian Armenian community's online website"). Also, the book which you've given Google Scholar search results for was also made with the Armenian embassy (Armenian community in Rome featuring his book). All in all, this author is definitely not WP:RS and you should try to find a replacement for it if you want to increase the article's verifiability. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 15:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey so i’ve deleted most of the references to Aliprandi because they were already in the other sources, I still don’t agree that he is a biased source though because bias is found in the work not in the author, everything in the quote by him is supported by the other sources which we’ve already deemed reliable. Also in Hovannisians book he says the turkish army was joined by the Azerbaijani militia and locals(see massacre section) if thats all done I think we can get rid of the additional citation tag for now. Cheers. TagaworShah (talk) 15:34, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! Also, I couldn't find anything about local Azerbaijani militia or date of the massacre being in 24 December in Hovannisian's book. Could you please give me the pages or the exact phrases to search for in the book? — CuriousGolden (T·C) 16:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, “ On December 24, the mob, joined by the local Azerbaijani gendarmerie, entered Upper Agulis and started to pillage the town. They then proceeded to massacre its Armenian population, leaving Upper Agulis in smoldering ruins the next day.” this is on pages 236-238 of Hovannisians book TagaworShah (talk) 16:23, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, if it’s fine by you, I think we can remove the additional citation tag for now since all the information is sourced now, Thank you for helping me make the article better, cheers TagaworShah (talk) 16:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. Are we looking at same books? I'm using this one which is linked in the article and only sentences similar to what you've said that I could find was "On December 17-18, a Muslim mob, including refugees from Zangezur, sacked Lower Akulis, drove off the flocks, killed all Armenians falling into their hands, and sent the remainder fleeing to the upper town." and "The gendermarie joined the Muslim mob in a pogrom, forcing the victims into the street and then firing volley after volley into their midst.". Nothing about the ethnicities of the gendermaries.

Also we can remove the tag once we clarify the above issue. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 17:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes that is the section, it can be reasonably inferred that they were Azerbaijani since a gendermarie is a local law enforcement agency and this was in Azerbaijan also knowing the history of the region, the refugees from Zangezur were Azerbaijani, I think it’s pretty reasonable to say Azerbaijani since all the Muslims of Azerbaijan in that region are in fact considered Azerbaijani, Lmk what you think. TagaworShah (talk) 17:23, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we can infer gendermarie refers to Azerbaijanis because in 1919, Nakhchivan has changed hands multiple times, going from Azerbaijan to de facto Turkish control to Armenia and so on.., so it could very well be Turkish gendermarie. But I agree that refugees are probably Azerbaijani since Armenians and Azerbaijanis were basically the only 2 main ethnicities in Zangezur at the time. I'll change the article accordingly and remove the more source needed tag. Thanks for the help. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 18:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks for helping better the article! best, TagaworShah (talk) 18:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Revert

@TagaworShah: In this revert, you've also added "due to the war with Armenian forces" and "The mob eventually settled in the abandoned Armenian homes after the massacre." both of which aren't present in the source. Also, the chronology in my edit is already correct since as you also write, the deportations and famine was the reason for the attack, which means it happened before the attack. Therefore, I'm asking you to revert your edit, please. Cheers. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 19:42, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden: Hi, let’s break down the problems with the chronology, first you it said Azerbaijanis “ sought relief in Lower Agulis and then spilled into the upper town” which was after December 17 because as the source says the Azerbaijani refugees came on December 17th and the upper town on december 24th which was the day of the massacre and the next sentence “ Matters came to a head-on December 17, when frenzied Muslims who had been deported from Zangezur, made their way to Lower Agulis” which doesn’t make sense since you already said Azerbaijanis entered Lower Agulis. The content is the same I just moved it to fit the chronology of the article. As for "The mob eventually settled in the abandoned Armenian homes after the massacre." that was paraphrased from “then spilled into the upper town, where they took shelter in the abandoned Armenian homes“ which was what you wrote, that happened after the massacre so we can remove that completely if you’d like and “Armenian outrages” is very ambiguous, a more concise word would be “Armenian forces”, hope this helps understand my reasoning TagaworShah (talk) 19:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Alright, your chronology does seem to make sense, thanks for explaining. What I had a problem with in the "The mob eventually settled in the abandoned Armenian homes after the massacre." is the fact that source doesn't mention them as mobs, but refugees, so if you replace the words, it'll be fine. About the "Armenian outrages", it most likely refers to Armenian revolts and I'm almost certain that an "Armenian outrage" does not mean "Azerbaijanis' war with Armenians". It'd be best if we kept it as "Armenian outrages" per the source or changed it to Armenian revolts per common sense. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 20:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Alright glad we got the chronology out of the way, as for the word “mobs” the source mention the Azerbaijanis who entered upper agulis as mobs several times, they weren’t peaceful settlers and the Armenian homes were abandoned because of the massacre saying the refugees sought refuge in abandoned Armenian homes without providing proper context gives the wrong idea that they werent the ones who massacred the people living there, all of that is present in Hovannisians book so he can use that wording but for our article we need to be precise. As for Armenian outrages, the wording is very vague, the source states “the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic unsuccessfully attempted to wrestle the region of Zangezur from Armenian control.“ the area was already under Armenian control so revolts wouldn’t make sense, also knowing that time period, Armenian forces were the ones deporting Azerbaijanis from Syunik, see Azerbaijanis in Armenia article for more detail, hope this helps TagaworShah (talk) 20:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

An "Armenian outrage" could mean a lot of things, that's why we should keep it just as that instead of making WP:OR assumptions, because as you see even we don't agree with what the other has assumed it means. I'll head off now, so I probably won't be able to reply to any comments. Cheers. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 20:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden: I changed the wording from mob to Azerbaijanis and from changed it back to Armenian outrages with some context, lmk if you agree now TagaworShah (talk) 20:36, 28 January 2021 (UTC)