Talk:Pogrom

Hamidian massacres

I've moved the following recent insertion here for discussion:

The Hamidian massacres of 1894–1896, refers to the massacring of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. Jonathan C. Friedman wrote ,"They cost the lives of about 100,000 Armenians, mostly men and boys, who were killed in a wave in pogrom-like violence perpetrated by individuals who had organized in mosques and whom the local authorities tolerated or encouraged."

These terrible events are typically referred to as a "massacre", not a pogrom, and the visible source used only refers to them as "pogrom-like". This article is about events typically referred to as "pogroms", not events typically referred to as other things (e.g. "massacres", "riots", etc.), even if a small number of stray sources use the term "pogrom", or "pogrom-like", or compare them to a pogrom. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Istanbul riots

I've moved the following recent insertion here for discussion:

In the 1955 Istanbul pogrom, ethnic Greeks, Armenians, and Jews were attacked and overwhelmed by ethnic Turkish mobs.

These terrible events are typically referred to as a "riots", not a pogrom - that is, in fact, the name given them by our own Wikipedia article! The source itself only describes them as a "pogrom" in passing (in an image caption). This article is about events typically referred to as "pogroms", not events typically referred to as other things (e.g. "massacres", "riots", etc.), even if a small number of stray sources use the term "pogrom", or "pogrom-like", or compare them to a pogrom. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I reverted, as google shows that "pogrom" is frequently employed as a description of these events, indeed google books returns more hits for "pogrom" than it does for "riots". Gatoclass (talk) 03:17, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're searching, but for books published since 1955, removing the publishers that just print the contents of Wikipedia articles, novels, and other false positives:

• +"the istanbul pogrom" -"General Books LLC" -"vdm publishing" : 9 hits
• +"the istanbul riots" -"General Books LLC" -"vdm publishing": 66 hits

Reading through the results it quickly becomes apparent that there are almost no false positives in the second search, and that "Istanbul riots" is seven times as common in reliable sources as "Istanbul pogrom". Jayjg ^(talk) 03:31, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't strike me as a very efficient search string. I did a search on google books for "1955 istanbul greek pogrom" and "1955 istanbul greek riot" (both without the parenthesis quote marks) and returned, from memory, about 1,700 hits for the first and 1,500 for the second. Gatoclass (talk) 03:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Why isn't it an "efficient search string"? We're looking for the name of the events, that's a search that will get it much more efficiently than any other. And when I do a google search for ""1955 istanbul greek pogrom" I get zero hits; when you say "without parenthesis" do you mean not enclosed in quotation marks? If so, you're just getting hundreds of false positives. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Just repeated the search with the "general books llc" and "vdm publishing" results excluded, and got about 1950 hits for the "pogrom" string and 3390 for "riots". Regardless, I think it should be clear from those results that "pogrom" is a commonly employed term for this event. Gatoclass (talk) 03:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

No, again, these are false positives. As far as I can tell there are only nine non-fiction books on Google books that use the term, as opposed to 66 that use "riots". You need to make proper searches - what is your exact search? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:58, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sorry, yes, I meant quote marks. With regard to your search string, in my experience, having too specific a search string tends to exclude a lot of valid hits. But since you raise the question of false positives, I might do a couple of other searches to see what comes up. Gatoclass (talk) 04:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Having refined my search terms a tad, I have to concede that "istanbul riots" seems a much more common term. I will probably have to look at the results much more closely to resolve the issue, but as I don't have time to do so right now, I will not object to a reversion at this point. Gatoclass (talk) 04:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

1984 anti-Sikh riots

I've moved the following recent insertion here for discussion:

In 1984, Sikhs experienced a pogrom in India.

These terrible events are typically referred to as a "riots", not a pogrom - that is, in fact, the name given them by our own Wikipedia article! Moreover, that is the name given them in the sources too, aside from the headline (in one case), which are typically written to entice readers to read the article, not for accuracy, and from a single mention in the other source. This article is about events typically referred to as "pogroms", not events typically referred to as other things (e.g. "massacres", "riots", etc.), even if a small number of stray sources use the term "pogrom", or "pogrom-like", or compare them to a pogrom. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Jakarta Riots of May 1998

I've moved the following recent insertion here for discussion:

The Jakarta Riots of May 1998 were pogroms targeted against ethnic Chinese in Indonesia.

These terrible events are typically referred to as a "riots", not a pogrom - that is, in fact, the name given them by our own Wikipedia article! In fact, it's also the term used by the first source, aside from one generic mention, and the it's also only used once by the second source, a free-lance writer. This article is about events typically referred to as "pogroms", not events typically referred to as other things (e.g. "massacres", "riots", etc.), even if a small number of stray sources use the term "pogrom", or "pogrom-like", or compare them to a pogrom. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

wiki articles can not be used as sources --we use reliable secondary sources and if they call it a pogrom that's what we go by. Rjensen (talk) 18:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not a real response. These events are typically called "riots", even if a couple of stray sources also refer to them in some way as "pogroms" (and sometimes as both). Please respond more meaningfully and substantively. Also, you haven't responded regarding the other riots; each case is unique. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry when the RS call them pogroms that's what we report. You are taking a fringe position here that violates the RS rules. Rjensen (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Unclear what you mean. Sources call them all sorts of things; a fringe set of them use the word "pogrom", often in addition to the word "riot". You are taking a position that violates RS rules. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:59, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

P.S. If you wish to have a real discussion about this, you will need to make meaningful and substantive responses. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)