Talk:Bulgur Palas

CeeGee 15:57, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

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

The result was: promoted by Launchballer talk 17:40, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

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Bulgur Palas

• ... that the historic mansion Bulgur Palas (pictured) takes its name from bulgur, Turkish word for cracked wheat foodstuff, the first owner traded?

• Source: "Habib Bey’in savaş yıllarında karaborsa bulgur satarak yaptırdığı iddia edilen Bulgur Palas" (in Turkish) code: tur promoted to code: tr; [1]

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/I Gusti Ngurah Jaya Negara

Created by CeeGee (talk) and Burackb (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 220 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

CeeGee 12:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC).

• Starting review. Alex2006 (talk) 08:16, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Very nice article about I building which I often admired from the old commuter train Halkali - Sirkeci (and I thought it was the Armenian patriarchate... :-( ), and which I saw again last March after traveling for the first time on the new T6 line. I would say that the only thing that the article needs is a copyedit, and that the hook should explain where the building is: i propose the following version:

ALT1 ... that the Bulgur Palas (pictured) a historic mansion in Istanbul, takes its name from bulgur, wheat groats that the first owner traded?

What do you think about it?

Moreover, I would mention in the article that the mansion was home to canaries (this could be the subject of another interesting hook), and that was plundered during the Istanbul pogrom, but I leave these additions to you. Cheers! Alex2006 (talk) 08:59, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

• ALT2 ... that the historic mansion Bulgur Palas (pictured) in Istanbul hosted a birdhouse for hundreds of domestic canaries in one room during its ownership by the Ottoman Bank? CeeGee 12:22, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
• @Alessandro57: Thank you for your review and nice comment. ALT1 hook is better formulated. I've expanded the article according to your advice, and provided ALT2 hook. Please recheck. Who knows what notable buildings we pass by every day and don't know really about them. Cheers. CeeGee 12:22, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

• There is absolutely no way this article can be passed on Main Page in the current state. It often uses a word-order that seems to reflect Turkish grammar, rather than English, and at time simply invents words ("aquiry" is one staring at us from the first sentences). I assure you that I sympathize with the creator, as code-switching between such vastly different languages must be a terrible ordeal. Dahn (talk) 12:56, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

@CeeGee: thanks a lot for your expansion and for ALT2. @Dahn:, I agree with you that the article needs copy editing (that's why I asked for it), and I suppose the horrible language level is due to the author of the translation, who is not the nominator. I am the reviewer (and my native language is Italian), so I am not allowed to do that. CeeGee, do you think you can do it, or do we have to find someone else? Alex2006 (talk) 17:24, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Alessandro57 and Dahn: I will request copyediting by the GOCE. Let's see if the nomination can survive the two-month limit. CeeGee 04:57, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

• @CeeGee: Good idea! Teşekkürler, Alex2006 (talk) 06:16, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Launchballer and TSventon: Thank you for your voluntarily copyedits. CeeGee 08:37, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

• @CeeGee: thank you for the ping, I have done a quick copy edit. TSventon (talk) 09:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

• @TSventon: Thank you very much indeed for your great help. CeeGee 10:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Dahn: A nice user copyedited the article. I ask you to recheck it. Please let me know if you don't complain anymore so that ı can remove my request from the GOCE, and the reviewer can proceed. CeeGee 10:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
• @CeeGee: Fine work. But I have some (additional) questions regarding the sourcing. For instance: "Due to the financial difficulties experienced by Habip Bey resulting from his arrest after the Armistice of Mudros in 1918 and his exile to Malta in 1919,[2] the construction could not be fully completed.[3]" How can reference [2] not cite the part referenced with reference [3], without this being a case of WP:SYNTH? Either that, or they both cite the second part of the phrase, in which case the referencing is unusually sloppy. Dahn (talk 19:43, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Dahm: The fact used in the article is below in original Turkish form. If needed, I can supply a Google translation:

“Mütareke döneminde Habib Bey, İtilaf Devletlerinin talebi doğrultusunda tutuklanarak Bekirağa Bölüğü 'ne hapsedilir.”, “Habib Bey daha sonra 1 yıldan daha fazla kalacağı Malta'ya sürgüne gönderilir.” [2] (ref #2)

“Bolulu Habib Bey de 20’likler listesinde Malta’ya sürülür. Malta’da kurulan mahkemede yargılanan Habib Bey, 20 Temmuz 1920’de hiçbir ceza almadan İstanbul’a geri gönderilir. Ancak bir süre sonra tekrar tutuklanır. Bu dönemde Habib Bey’in ailesi bankalara epeyce borçlanmıştı. Osmanlı Bankası’ndan alınan kredilerin faizi bile ödenemez duruma gelir. Bulgur Palas’ın inşaatı da bir türlü bitirilemez. “ [3] (ref #3)

CeeGee 05:11, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Well that is precisely my point: the tidbit about the exile and how it left the house unfinished is verified by two (three?) sources, one of which also verified another fact. The citation of these facts was entirely chaotic, using just one of the sources for the fact, and giving the impression that two facts were pasted together. I tried to amend the references and syntax accordingly. Other parts of the article continue to have the same issue: "a room in the downstairs was reserved as a birdhouse for hundreds of domestic canaries,[4] which were probably raised to live in the branches of the Ottoman Bank.[2]" This gives the impression that source number [4] verifies the number of canaries, and source [2] discusses how they got there. But is this really the case? Dahn (talk) 06:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• I don't understand what you mean with "But is this really the case?" Please specify more clear for me. CeeGee 10:15, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• Dahn is asking whether it really is the case that source number [4] verifies the number of canaries, and source [2] discusses how they got there? TSventon (talk) 11:03, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• Is there a need to know how the birds got there? I really cannot understand this question. It is mentioned that they were there. CeeGee 11:52, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• @CeeGee: It's a style issue. The phrase uses two references, both of which presumably verify that canaries lived there. From how they are used, I gather that the first one specifies a fact not mentioned in the former: the (rough) number of canaries; presumably, the other one doesn't go into that level of detail, but specifies how they got there ("raised to live in etc."). Is this how the sources are used, or is this this another case of just randomly adding citations to various parts of a phrase? Dahn (talk) 19:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Dahn: Thank you for your attention. The citations were mismatched. I fixed it now. CeeGee 10:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

• @CeeGee: Not really. I verified myself, and it gets really weird: both sources actually cite both facts (the number of canaries, and how they got in the building), so prima facie it makes absolutely no sense to not add them both as citations to the end of the phrase (this is the "sloppy referencing" I mentioned -- I don't understand why anyone would play eenie-meeny with references, randomly picking out what source to use for what fact (instead of checking all sources, for all facts). But then, get this: at least in that portion of the text, both sources are identical, because one is a likely mirror of the other, or because they plagiarized each other. This makes it even more absurd: two identical references, one of which would have to be redundant, but each used to source a different fact. Dahn (talk) 10:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Dahn: are you happy for Alessandro57 to resume their review, or do you have further questions? TSventon (talk) 14:22, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

• @TSventon: The issue I raised above remains unaddressed by either the editor or the nominator (the latest edit simply switched the references around, which does not answer the objection). The weird use of sources/citations is prevalent in other parts of the article as well. Consider: "The building consists of five floors:[8] one cellar, three full floors and one half floor.[9]" How can source [9] not verify the fact verified by source [8], if it spells out the same number of floors? Dahn (talk) 14:27, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Dahn: I think your post on 8 May was probably read as a comment, which did not need an answer. Could you list the remaining problems, ping CeeGee and tell them what you want them to do?

The original version of the article as translated from tr Wikipedia said "It consists of three full floors and one half floor.[4]" CeeGee (I think) has expanded that to the current version, adding "one cellar", which is not mentioned by source [9]. I am unsure whether the half floor is a semi-basement or a mezzanine, the pictures suggest that the building has four storeys including the towers plus a semi-basement. TSventon (talk) 15:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

• @CeeGee: Please make sure your copyedit addresses the issues I raised above: the sources need to be used consistently, of the two sources with the exact same text (for the canary factoid) only once must be selected, the disagreement in sources regarding the number of floors needs to be noted (if this indeed what has happened there). In general: if a fact is verified by several sources, the usage of references needs to change. It's not: "my dog has four legs,[1] one of which is darker than the other three[2]", but either: "my dog has four legs[1][2]. One is darker than the other three[2]", or "my dog has four legs, one of which is darker than the other three[2]". Dahn (talk) 15:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

• CeeGee, I have another query. The article says "It is claimed that the house, also called the Bolulu Habip Bey Mansion, was financed by the black market trade in grain and bulgur, a cracked wheat foodstuff, during World War I.[1]" This seems to be based on the opening lines of ref #1. However ref #2 and ref #3 via Google translate do not mention the black market. The quote from ref #1 looks like a political editorial comment, how did you decide it was more reliable than the accounts in ref #2 and ref #3?

"Bulgur Palace, which Habib Bey allegedly had built by selling bulgur on the black market during the war years, is opening to the public almost 100 years later. It is as if the history of the mansion is also the history of the country." [4] (ref #1) via Google translate.

An example from ref 2 "During this period, Mehmed Habib Bey, who was a Bolu deputy from the Committee of Union and Progress, made a great fortune from the grain and bulgur monopoly, and with the money he earned, he built the building, somewhat ironically known as 'Bulgur Palace' among the public."[5] (ref #2). via Google translate.

TSventon (talk) 10:56, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• "İttihat Terakki Bolu Mebusu Habib Bey’in bulgur vurgunundan kazandığı paralarla yaptırıldığı için Bulgur Palas olarak anılan konağın ardında ise derin acılar yatıyor." [6] CeeGee 11:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• The article uses the term black market, i.e. trading that violates laws or rules. "bulgur vurgunundan" Google translates as bulgur profiteering, i.e. unethical but not necessarily illegal trading. That is an important difference in English, obviously the terms used in another language won't exactly correspond to those used in English. I would avoid black market unless I was sure it was justified. TSventon (talk) 12:13, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

• I won't oppose to you. It may be better to use "profiteering" or "fortune from unfair trade". I guess you can formulate it better in that soft way. CeeGee 05:25, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

• I would suggest the easiest thing is to leave out black market. The source doesn't explain why Habib Bey's trading was black market and only uses the word in an 21st century context, rather than in the section about Habib Bey. An alternative would be to explain the context in more detail, but I would find that difficult as I don't speak Turkish or know much about Ottoman economic history. TSventon (talk) 11:02, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

•  Done CeeGee 12:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Dahn: About the phrase with"canaries": I didn't know that difference in using references. Fixed it now. About the phrase with "floors": I tried to clarify it in two sentences. Please recheck. CeeGee 10:32, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, CeeGee, but the way in which this article uses sources continues to be ridiculous. I fixed another such sophomoric use of the citations, but I'm bewildered by the sort of logic that went for instance in citing the very same fact, about Mogeri being the architect, twice in the text, each time with a different source. This is probably something that happened in other parts of the article, probably throughout -- judging from a quick glance at the text and the sources. I also noticed that several sources have authors clearly indicated in the link, yet they are not mentioned in the citation. I am sorry for burdening you with this task, but the article needs a deeper copyedit. Dahn (talk) 14:07, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

• No problem as long as you have time. I tried to fix the "Mongeri"-issue. Since I cannot detect any others by myself, you may specify explicitly. CeeGee 08:32, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

• @CeeGee: Please accept my apologies for the delay. It appears that the issues were fixed, and also that I was dead wrong about the authors not being cited (probably because I was looking at an earlier version when trying to determine if the citations had been shifted around). Either way, this article has been greatly improved, and I extend my thanks to all those who have contributed their time and skill toward this goal. Dahn (talk) 10:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Alessandro57, Dahn, and TSventon: I thank you all very much for your time, contributions and cooperation to elevate the article to a higher level. CeeGee 10:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks to you, @CeeGee:, it's good to go! Alex2006 (talk) 11:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

@CeeGee and Alessandro57: Article says "claimed that the house [...] was financed by the trade in grain and bulgur", hook says it definitely was. These are not the same thing.--Launchballer 17:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Launchballer and Alessandro57: Sentence modified. CeeGee 10:04, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

My concern has been assuaged.--Launchballer 10:08, 21 May 2024 (UTC)