Talk:Massacres of Albanians in World War I

Contemporary narratives used as wp:RS

The article is in need of serious cleanup since it uses non-neutral narratives as reference.Alexikoua (talk) 23:01, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Non-neutral narratives or historical facts? I don’t know how neutral you can get over the massacre of civilians… Botushali (talk) 02:50, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I wonder how certain users ended up here... AlexBachmann (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Can you give some examples that are currently in the article? Yung Doohickey (talk) 20:50, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Poor sourcing

I have removed this [1]. None of the sources are remotely reliable. One is a Hoxha-era source, the other is a re-print of a 100+ year old Albanian source entitled "Greek Barbarities in Albania" [2]. There is simply no way these can be used in a neutral encyclopedia. Khirurg (talk) 20:07, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Non-arguments. Let's remove all Greek sources too? Çerçok (talk) 00:17, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Did I say to remove all Albanian sources? Did I? I'm just saying these two are not even close to reliable and it makes a mockery of ther encyclopedia to use them. Khirurg (talk) 05:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

If you want remove all Albanian sources up to the end of the Cold War, let's remove all sources up to the end of the cold war. Çerçok (talk) 09:22, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

The word "Barbaritë" from the source by Tomori does not carry the exact same weight or meaning in English as it does in Albanian; in this context it refers to atrocities. There is nothing wrong with that source's title that indicates it will not pass WP:RS. Also, "Hoxha-era source" is not good enough to warrant removal. That would invalidate decades of solid scholarship. Botushali (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Bothushali needs to be accustomed with wp:RS and this source is far from being something close to that: a supposed eyewitness composes a WWI era propaganda paper: no academic, no secondary, no scientific approach on the events. It's a typical publication for internal nationalistic consumption. Even amateur wikipedians can conclude that.Alexikoua (talk) 04:23, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

The user who removes the distinguished historian Dejan Djokić, published by the Cambridge University Press in 2023 [3] as WP:FRINGE, is now developing elaborate explications as to why a certain "Papa Cristo" from...1917 railing about "Greek barbarities" meets WP:RS. And that's not even getting into describing the totalitarian Hoxha regime as "decades of solid scholarship", casually ignoring the fact that there is no academic freedom under totalitarian regimes. Khirurg (talk) 04:37, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Khirurg it is quite irritating when you continue to twist the issues on an unrelated article to try and discredit me as an editor. Again, the specific excerpt used from Djokic is a WP:FRINGE theory, and not his entire book or body of work, but that's an unrelated article. Stick to the matter at hand, what you wrote is WP:OFFTOPIC with malicious intent.

The Hoxha era was indeed marked by a totalitarian regime, but many solid pieces of academic work were created in that time regardless. Each source should be analysed on its own - some were indeed propaganda pieces, others were legitimate scholarly works.

Kosta Papa Tomori is not "railing about Greek barbarities", rather, he wrote about atrocities perpetrated by Greek forces against Albanians. Nothing about that should surprise you, it was a common occurrence during that time. The only plausible issue is WP:AGEMATTERS, unless Tomori's work can be corroborated by newer sources. Botushali (talk) 06:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Another OR. And this time it is the propaganda machine of a neutral country with no government and no army... Just stop covering up massacres. Çerçok (talk) 09:33, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Papa Cristo Tomori was personally involved in the conflicts and there is also no wp:ACADEMIC, no wp:SECONDARY and no traces of wp:RS. There are plenty of Greek accounts of similar fashion (see this [[4]]) but an experienced editor can understand that such sources are not wp:RS.Alexikoua (talk) 05:36, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: The events which occurred in Panarit are widely known in Albania and there's an annual event about the massacre in Panarit which is held by the county, the commune of Vithkuq and a representative of the President's office or the Prime Minister. It is an official commemoration ceremony, not an obscure, semi-unknown event with unknown victims. I have added an additional source which describes the event as a massacre. Nicholson (2013): The only significant exceptions were two groups of families, each from a single village, both of which had been the sites of massacres (Kotani, 2003:92, 98) a handful of families from the mountains of the south west, and several traders all from the same village. In all but the last there were apparent links of kinship. In the first case, refugees from the village of Panarit in the hills in the South-East, 13 families,75 people in all, were located in or close to three hamlets in neighbouring villages, from which the others could be reached on foot within an hour or so.--Maleschreiber (talk) 12:21, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  You can't use a source like korcaregion.com for the number of casualties, you will have to find a better source. Khirurg (talk) 16:19, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the lead and infobox as it was originally written as though the death figures came from reliable sources. This is not the case as this entire article is primarily based off of newspaper articles of the time and as I have come to found, a letter. These are not assertions but in fact, claims. It has been over a century and if only newspaper articles and letters can be used to reference brutal war crimes, then this article must reference this event as claims until suitable sources that meet WP:RS can be found. Additionally, the figures provided by Spencer cover deaths as a whole and are not specific to war crimes itself. I will do my best to find some reliable sources to add to the page. ElderZamzam (talk) 22:46, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi ElderZamzam, I have just removed your addition of claimed to have been in the lede, because it’s a real historical occurrence. Besides the older sources that describe first-hand experiences and accounts, I can see a number of WP:RS sources from recent decades that have been incorporated into the article that discuss death toll, specific atrocities, events etc. As such, it would seem to be beyond a claim at this point. In the Albanian settlements of North Macedonia, many of the elders relay how previous generations would talk about the brutality of the Bulgarian forces, and I believe there are a few murals and the like that commemorate those lost during the massacres, although I’d have to find sources online.

I do agree with you that more figures and WP:RS sources that focus specifically on this period would be beneficial to the article. I will also try and search for sources at some point if I have enough free time on my hand. Botushali (talk) 03:38, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

No problem, thank you. ElderZamzam (talk) 22:20, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Recycling POV narratives

It would be better to avoid recycling further POV narratives without sticking to scholarship (and I mean scholarship and not propaganda).Alexikoua (talk) 03:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Why this piece of information was removed [[5]]: Whether or not the French were involved the event is clear: Butka massacred a number of natives in Moscopole and obviously this falls under the scope of this article.Alexikoua (talk) 03:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

The source I tried to list in my edit summary (I only managed to put in the first half) clearly explains that Aromanians were targeted at Moscopole. Sali did not kill Albanian civilians, this article is titled 'Massacres of Albanians in World War I'. Botushali (talk) 22:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Predatory publishing

MJSS falls into predatory publishing [[6]]. It's really weird for a business student (or bisness... as even the spelling is wrong in that publication) with specialty in tourism to become an author of a history paper.

Blind reverts such as this one with wrong edit summaries [[7]] (removing academic scholarship and reputed journals while adding propaganda papers and tabloid journalism, with pov titles such as 'barbarities in Albania' etc. ) will be reported next time.Alexikoua (talk) 04:12, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Reporting someone for the above is probably not the best idea, considering you are removing a whole sourced piece of information taken from Robert Elsie’s “The Albanian Bektashi” for absolutely no reason. Stop threatening people with reports when you are guilty of the same behaviour yourself. Botushali (talk) 07:10, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Aromanians

Alexikoua added[8] that Sali Butka in charge of a group of bandits violently attacked Moscopole, burnt a major part of the city and executed tens of inhabitants and Botushali removed it as off-topic. The statement is off-topic and it isn't covered by the scope of this article. There are also some mistakes in the statement. Voskopoja was not a city, but a small village in this period and Sali Butka threatened the remaining Aromanian quarters of the village that there would be punitive measures against them if they collaborated with the Greek army. Some did collaborate with the Greek army and Sali Butka attacked their quarters of the village, killed tens of them and then burnt down their houses. Most Aromanians in the city of Korça were supporters of the Albanian national movement and the Greek army burned down their quarters and killed many of them. Such events can't be covered by this article. They require a new article which would discuss the role of different Aromanian communities in 1913-1920.--Maleschreiber (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2023 (UTC)