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Template:Did you know nominations/Mixed cities

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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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 01:42, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

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Mixed cities

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The mixed city of Nof HaGalil
The mixed city of Nof HaGalil
  • ... that Israel's mixed cities don't have much mixing? Source: Hawari, 2019, p.177: This rejection of the "mixed city" notion by Johnny and others reflects the spatial reality on ground and the political and social marginalisation faced by the Palestinian community everywhere inside Israel… The narrative of continuous historical coexistence and a mixed present-day reality in Haifa serves to support Israel's self-image as a pluralist and democratic society. In addition to giving the settler-colonial reality legitimacy, the existence of mixed urban spaces leads many to assume that under the current structures of power, a shared life is possible. The reality, however, is a space in which both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews live mostly separately and with vastly different experiences.
    Tzfadia 2011, p. 160: "Israeli mixed cities, particularly after 1948, cannot be perceived as multi-cultural cities, a point poignantly reflected in the absence of this term in the indexes of the reviewed books. Although localities were divided between the culturally distinctive Jews and Arabs, the cities still did not bear the potential to become multicultural. This absence of a multi-cultural vision in Israeli mixed cities impinges on the concept of "right to the city." For example, Yacobi maintains that the Arab community in Lod does not enjoy freedom in the city--it lacks the legitimacy to maintain individual and collective identities and lifestyles, to take part in decision-making, and not to be excluded. Thus, Holston's (1999) project to oppose and undermine dominant narratives of the state within the urban framework and to create alternative local narratives that do not necessarily reflect the rationale of the nation, has failed in mixed cities in Israel."
    Yacobi 2009, p. 1: "However, a critical examination forces us to question the term "mixed city," which might originally suggests the integration of society, while instead the reality is controversial. As in other cases of ethnonationalism, a clear spatial and mental division exists between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and hence the occurrence of "mixed" spaces is both exceptional and involuntary. Rather than occurring naturally, it has resulted from a historical process during which the Israeli territory, including cities that were previously Palestinian, has been Judaized. This book attempts to discursivelv undermine the term "mixed city," which raises images of mutual membership while ignoring questions of power, control and resistance."

Created by Onceinawhile (talk). Self-nominated at 21:40, 15 May 2022 (UTC).

  • Comment: I get that Google pushes the Israeli use to the fore but, no, this term has been in common use since the mid-1800s. The fact so many cites are "sneer quoting" the term suggests they're just calquing some Hebrew term and don't really consider it the main and proper meaning of mixed city in English. This article shouldn't be parked at the main namespace here, and fwiw the plural form is also wrong. It should be at something like Mixed city (Israel). — LlywelynII 04:42, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
The use of the title Mixed cities without any form of disambiguation is supported by peer-reviewed scholarly research in the Journal of Urban History: Karlinsky, Nahum (2021-08-09). "Revisiting Israel's Mixed Cities Trope". Journal of Urban History. 47 (5). SAGE Publications: 1103–1129. doi:10.1177/00961442211029835. ISSN 0096-1442. A search for the phrase mixed cities in English, conducted on Google on June 14, 2020, unequivocally showed the significantly frequent usage of the term in its exceptional Israeli interpretation even if English is used. Of the first forty results, twenty-eight (70%) were about Jewish Arab cities in Israel. Most of these entries referred to quotidian matters and much less so to scholarly studies. Six (15%) denoted articles about the "Most Diverse Cities in America" and in the world. Four (10%) dealt with the notion of mixed use in city planning and various functions; one (2.5%) addressed Apartheid South Africa's so-called "grey" inner cities areas. The last reference (2.5%) was to an article in the British newspaper The Guardian, written by the influential urban scholar Saskia Sassen, in which she enthusiastically characterized the "mixed city" as a social, ethnic, and cultural barricade to the ills of globalization. A search for the term mixed cities in English as an exact phrase (set within quotation marks) produced similar results: thirty-six entries out of the first forty (90%) concerned Israel's multi-ethnic/multi-national urban space.10 These entries comprised many daily reports along with some references to scholarly studies, underlying the fact that this concept is widely used not only in research literature but mainly in discussing daily life in Israel. Similar searches in leading journals of Urban Studies and in Google Scholar produced comparable results to the searches cited above. Thus, a search on Google Scholar on February 17, 2021, for the term mixed cities, found that fifteen of the first twenty results (75%) were about scholarly publications that discussed Jewish Arab urban space in Israel or in British Palestine. An exact search, set in quotation marks, produced even more significant results, as eighteen of the first twenty entries (90%) led to scholarly publications on Palestine/Israel's Arab Jewish urban spaces. Moreover, the above-mentioned searches unequivocally show that an overwhelming majority of scholars who employed the terms mixed cities or mixed towns in their studies of the Arab Jewish urban scene in Israel went through some of Israel's formal and informal socialization systems. These include mainstream Israeli Jewish scholars as well as Arab scholars who were educated in Israel and critical Israeli Jewish scholars. Since most research on this urban space is conducted by these scholars, the unique employment of this term inadvertently creates an exceptional interpretative framework. As mentioned above, as a graduate of that hegemonic discursive regime myself, I have also used that term in a previous publication. Hence, the current critical look is also a self-critical examination of the power of hegemonic discourse on one's own identity construction and scholarly work.
As to the origin of the term, Karlinsky writes: "scholars concluded that the term was coined by the British authorities during the time Britain controlled Palestine as a League of Nations’ Mandatory Power (1918-1948)." He goes on to argue the British borrowed it from Zionist discourse (which was written in many languages including English).
This is also underpinned by the fact that in 20 years of Wikipedia each of the terms "Mixed cities", "Mixed city", "Mixed towns" or "Mixed town" have remained unused and never even been a redirect.
Onceinawhile (talk) 07:00, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Pretty sure I just said that Google wasn't a reliable source for this. Finding a printed work using an unreliable methodology doesn't validate the same unreliable methodology. It just means you found a shoddy source and still need to fix the namespace. Even within Google, the 2nd highest scoring 'mixed city' is Kirkuk, which (last time I checked) still wasn't within Israel even under the widest territorial claims. See also here for the JUH’s general provincialism and shoddiness, not that it matters given the obviousness of the problem. As far as needing to see broader use of the term, cf various standard phrasings like "mixed cities of the" ~ (ranks just below "mixed cities of Haifa...") and the results range from the ancient Near East to imperial Germany. More generally, "mixed cities of" pulls up modern Israel, ancient Israel, modern Israel, Central Europe, London & Westminster, modern Israel but *not* talking about the formal designation you mean, ancient Israel, ancient Israel, North Africa, modern Israel, ancient Israel, ancient Israel, modern Israel, central Iraq, modern Israel, North Africa, early modern Israel (not the formal designation you mean), British India, modern Israel, the towns of the European Diaspora of Jews, modern Israel, the Ancient Middle East, &c. You're batting about 30-40%, which is a lot but doesn't make this the PRIMARYTOPIC for the lower-case words. Alternatively, if you truly hate dabbing, just capitalize it as a formal class designation instead of a general use of "mixed" + "city", which isn't Israeli focused in the English language.
As far as their previously having been left unused, sure. It's a general term that Wikipedia would leave to Wiktionary to take care of. Even Wiktionary probably considers it mostly SOP. That doesn't make the Israeli sense the PRIMARYTOPIC by default.
It's great that you're helping discuss this topic. Fix the mistaken pluralization, dab the title as a specific use of a general term, and move on. — LlywelynII 18:13, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
No need to be aggressive. You are criticizing the methodology used by a peer-reviewed journal article. If you wish, you can share your opinion on this with the editor of the Journal of Urban History (contact details here). Onceinawhile (talk) 18:42, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Proving further proof that you're mistaken isn't aggression. You took the time to find a (single) source buttressing your point; I respected your work and interest enough to provide a more thorough rebuttal and to remind you that (like I already discussed) the methodology your source used isn't trustworthy, regardless of having been allowed to be published. — LlywelynII 18:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
The aggressive areas of your response were: (1) emphasizing "just"; (2) calling a peer-reviewed article "shoddy"; and (3) implying that your side of this debate is "right". I respect your argument and hope you respect mine. I suggest we cordially agree to disagree and open an WP:RM discussion. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:52, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Those aren't aggressive. It's accurate and important to point out that your "rebuttal" had already been addressed. The journal has problems (sourced) but isn't shoddy. The methodology used by the article you quoted is shoddy, again for the reasons already addressed before you posted it. I didn't use the word 'right', but that part of your comment seems nonsensical. If people didn't believe they were correct they wouldn't need to disagree with one another, with all the attendant unpleasantness when the other person takes it personally, as you currently are.
I can't respect yours at the moment because you're just appealing to authority. Normally that's fine (WP:RS and all that) but here you can specifically see their reasoning for their point and it's slapdash vanilla Google results which, as already discussed, is problematic. If you had some actual rebuttal to the points I'm making besides "where's your peer review huh?" that would be more helpful. It's very clear that the peer review involved was about the article's actual research and not nit-picking about their term or the mistaken argument they made about it. On the other hand, since it means your current article violates WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:SINGULAR, it does mean we need to hold up the nomination over this until it gets fixed. You're welcome to do a WP:RM and/or WP:RFC to pull in more voices though. 30-40% certainly is debatable (not entirely wrong like you seem to think I'm saying) but it does seem unhelpful to tie such a basic term to just 8 or so towns in Israel.
As far as research that helps buttress your case a little, "mixed cities like..." does pull in more Israeli results: modern Israel x2, "Boston and San Francisco", prepartition Israel, modern Israel x2, Kurdistan, "Yonkers, New York, or Hayward, California", "Jakarta or Medan", modern Israel, Kurdistan, modern Israel, Kurdistan x2, modern Israel x4, Kurdistan... At least there, you're over 50% on something besides trusting Google's vanilla algorithm. It still seems too mixed to me to hold up the lower-case form of the words, but maybe other editors would think it rises to PRIMARYTOPIC. In any case, you still need to fix the singular issue regardless. — LlywelynII 19:18, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Here is an eye-opener. Put "the term mixed cities" (using the quotation marks) into google or google books. I believe 100% of the results relate to Israel. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:06, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
That isn't an eye opener. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The entire problem is that "mixed city" is used as a generic descriptor rather than a term. Yes, as a specific term to a specific class of cities, the Israeli use would be the primary topic. The problem is all the generic use. That's why I was suggesting Mixed City might be more appropriate, although of course you can't force the capitalization onto scholarship or the Israeli government if they don't already use it. — LlywelynII 19:18, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi LlywelynII, thanks for your last two posts. To address this first, I see this as a common situation across our project. See for example: cold ironing, stomach division, dog watch or free company. Each of these articles have uncapitalized names which are frequently used generically, but the articles are focused on a specific technical use of the terminology. None of those articles have disambiguating brackets because the first sentence of each article makes it abundantly clear what the article is about. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:30, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
The problem with those is that there aren't common uses of other senses of those words. I guess "cold ironing" could be using an unheated iron or "dog watch" could be a canine timepiece, but I can't imagine many people would ever actually use either. With "mixed cities" you're looking at somewhere between 30-70% of people using it in printed works to talk about other topics. Anyway, I've raised my point and made my case. I'll shut up already before I scare off your genuine reviewers and they can weigh in on which of us they agree with. Thanks for coming back around to seeing that it's nothing personal at all, just a difference of opinion about the primarytopic here. (Plus, use the singular form as the article title but I'll let other people nag you about that xD.) — LlywelynII 22:05, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Full review needed now that initial discussion has run its course. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:37, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm working on this. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Article is long enough and new enough.
  • The last sentence of the 2nd paragraph The eighth city is Jerusalem ... is not recognized as such under international law needs a citation to a WP:RS.
  • a clear spatial and mental division exists between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and hence the occurrence of "mixed" spaces is both exceptional and involuntary is a direct quote, so it needs to be quoted and referenced. Other than that, I'm not seeing any copyvio/paraphrasing problems.
  • This isn't a DKY issue per-se, but replace several uses of "c." with {{Circa}}.
  • I'm not totally following the history here, but the article was tagged with {{NPOV}} in Special:Diff/1091862473 which was removed by RMCD bot in Special:Diff/1091864638. I suspect the bot mis-parsed things because of an unclosed <noinclude> tag. @Tombah: is this still an issue, or has the NPOV been resolved to your satisfaction?
  • No WP:BLP or other policy issues except as noted above.
  • QPQ has been satisfied.
  • The hook is OK, but a pithier verion might be:
  • -- RoySmith (talk) 17:07, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Hi @RoySmith: many thanks for your review. I have added the source for the Jerusalem sentence. The "clear spatial and mental division" sentence is in quotation marks in a footnote sourced to Yacobi 2009. I have replaced the occurances of c. with {{Circa}}. The three questions raised by Tombah were addressed by (1) the RM discussion, and (2+3) their and others' edits to the article which have remained in place, together with the talk page discussion. I like your ALT1 a lot - much more "hooky". Onceinawhile (talk) 16:46, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
@Tombah: can you confirm (or not) that the issues you raised when you added the NPOV tag have been resolved to your satisfaction? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Hi @RoySmith:, I think not. Leaving aside the terminology, which still prefers in many case one term over the other, more accepted one, this article is still missing other views on the subject. I am still not sure this article adds something to Wikipedia that cannot be expanded in the respective city articles or the article about demography in Israel. Generally, I am not entirely convinced the Israeli case of mixed cities justifies its own article at all. Tombah (talk) 19:50, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Based on the previous comment, I've restored the {{NPOV}} and marking this as requiring additional work. If the issues raised by Tombah can't be resolved, then this submission will need to be declined, but I'll leave the final decision on that up to the DYK regulars. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:36, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
RoySmith, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this and so chose to avoid complicating the discussion. But now I am left with no other choice. The history is as follows:
Note: the Khirbet el Ormeh article has nothing to do with the article we are discussing here
Apart from the obvious “tit for tat” behavior, Tombah’s comments at this article are unsupported by sources, and have been opposed by other editors, both in the RM discussion and in the specific comment thread Tombah created. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
One way or another, this has to be resolved. DYK can't accept an article with a NPOV template on it. As far as I can tell (see upthread for details), the original template was removed by a bot which misfunctioned due to incorrect markup causing the page to be mis-parsed. That's not a valid resolution to the dispute. I can't take sides in a content dispute. It's something the editors of this article need to resolve among themselves, and a DYK nomination is not the right place to be doing that. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:25, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
RoySmith, correct. There is no ongoing content dispute, irrespective of whether one editor with provably questionable motives wants to repeat their points. The editor's points failed to gain consensus, after being discussed by other uninvolved editors. The dispute has thus already been resolved, per wp:consensus – we must not expect unanimity. To be clear, the editor made three points:[1]
(1) the scope of the article. Per this RM discussion, three editors (including me) disagree with the editor's concern. Above, the editor did not repeat the point, presumably for this reason.
(2) terminology for Palestinians in Israel / Israeli Arabs. The editor made a number of edits to this effect,[2] removing the word Palestinian in multiple places. I don't agree but left the changes, in order to minimize the dispute. A third editor stated we should just follow the sources, which is what the article does.[3] Above, the editor says "Leaving aside the terminology", which I assume to be a silent acknowledgement of this.
(3) other opinions; this is the point the editor repeats above. The problem is the editor has not provided any new sources, so this is impossible to resolve. A third editor made a suggestion to address the concern, which I have implemented.[4]
New point above: the editor's final two points in the comment above suggest proposed article deletion. That is obviously nonsense, given the huge scholarly coverage of this topic. But the editor is welcome to open an AfD
There is no consensus for that NPOV template, which is why it has stayed out of the article until you re-added it. The editor has had three weeks to gain consensus for his concerns, and has found multiple editors opposing all his points. WP:consensus tells us we can move on.
Onceinawhile (talk) 23:31, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Is there are consensus for removal? --Shrike (talk) 14:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I removed the tag, there is no basis for it. Produce sourcing to back up personal opinions or leave things be. Selfstudier (talk) 10:15, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
  • It has been 5 days since the NPOV template was removed by Selfstudier, with nobody adding it back. So I think we're good to go now. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:41, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
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