Talk:Armenian genocide denial

Grammar issues

Trying to get through this entry, I repeatedly came across ungrammatical sentences, perhaps written by non-native English speakers. Someone with a good command of the English language needs to go through this whole entry and clean it up. 75.42.222.134 (talk) 07:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)Mark P

Move to "Armenian genocide dispute" and merge in "recognition of the Armenian Genocide"

To remove the POV fork, I suggest that we follow the lead of the BBC and move this article to Armenian genocide dispute and merge into it the article called recognition of the Armenian Genocide PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Denial of the Armenian Genocide → Armenian genocide dispute — I suggest that we follow the lead of the BBC and move this article to Armenian genocide dispute and merge into it the article called recognition of the Armenian Genocide PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

At the moment there are three articles. One which concentrates on the events themselves and is called the Armenian Genocide and two more articles called recognition of the Armenian Genocide (RAG) and the other was called denial of the Armenian Genocide (DAG). I my opinion the two article construct of recognition and denial are a clear example of a point of view (POV) fork:

A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies.

and this is a problem because the article names imply that there are only two positions—either the events took place and they were a genocide or they did not and no genocide took place. However there are shades of opinion that range between these two positions which means that either these in between views have to be repeated in both articles or they are marginalized in one or both articles.

For example the BBC article, mentioned in this article called "Q&A: Armenian genocide dispute", makes the point that "The UK, US and Israel are among those that use different terminology to describe the events." yet there is no mention of this in this article and the UK's position is mentioned in one sentence in the RAG article. In 2001 the BBC reported that the British government's position is "The Foreign Office accepts that the massacres [of Armenian civilians] took place, but insists that they do not qualify as genocide." This position does not deny that the events took place but it does deny that the events constituted a genocide because the intent to destroy a group requirement of the Genocide Convention has not been proven. The British Government may or may not be correct, but the current content forking of these two article makes it difficult to present all views in a WP:NPOV.

As this covers more than one process I am going to advertise it in several places. -- PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

See also Talk:Denial of the Armenian Genocide/Archive 2#RFC: Merge "recognition of the Armenian Genocide" into this article --PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

To the closing administrator. Please look at the arguments carefully and decide the issue on policy and guidelines not by counting the number of opinions expressed here. --PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The closing administrator must also look very carefully at Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_1#Requested_move and Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_1#Second_requested_move.
The closing administrator should also consider the discussions at Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_2#Reversal_by_Gazifikator, and at Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_2#Moving.2C_redirecting_and_cut-and-pasting.... Those two discussions arose as a result of PBS ignoring the results of those two move requests and deciding to unilaterally rename the page. 93.97.143.19 (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. --PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I know of at least one regular contributor to this article who is temporarily blocked. Should we suspend the RfC until they return? --Goodmorningworld (talk) 10:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Others may be on holiday, etc, etc. Who is the regular contributor, and how long have they been blocked for? --PBS (talk) 10:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Meowy, 1 month.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that the closing admin read Talk:Denial of the Armenian Genocide/Archive 2#RFC: Merge "recognition of the Armenian Genocide" into this article as Meowy contributed significantly to the last debate so his/her points of view can be considered. -- PBS (talk) 15:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support Definitely a reasonable idea, but a heck of a deal to accomplish. I suggest you guys reserve a special place for your coffeemakers and cans of RedBull^(R). (People who are temporarily blocked must've been blocked for some reason (no?) and being on vacation is an excuse similar to "I ran out of RedBull^(R)"...) Seb az86556 (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Is this some sort of joke? There is no "dispute" about the Armenian Genocide (certainly none among any serious historians) asides from the imaginary one the Republic of Turkey and its cohorts have created. Just because Turkey is still desperately attempting to quash any wider efforts of recognition doesn't mean we have to kowtow their political line as well. This is a completely unacceptable measure to even be proposed and its ill-faith nomination and unabashedly POV name is another low by PBS. Almost 100 years have passed and it's a total copout to pretend that the jury is still out after all this time. The word asinine hardly begins to describes the nature of this proposal.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 18:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What you say may be true, but a reliable source uses this title and there is no getting away from the fact that we have Wikipedia:Content forking policy that says "A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." -- PBS (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The above is a good point to make. Come to think of it, I don't think there's an article "Holocaust dispute"... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 00:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

We do not have an article about "recognition of the Holocaust" we only have Holocaust denial. The article Criticism of Holocaust denial, it could be argued should be wound back into the main article but as it is a subsidiary article of Holocaust denial#Examination of claims (see Wikiepdia:summary article) and the size of the two articles make that difficult. It could also be argued that Denial of the Armenian Genocide and Recognition of the Armenian Genocide are subsidiary articles of Armenian Genocide, but although they are they could also exist as one article because the main article is structured differently. But it could be also be argued that the current structure of the Armenian Genocide article does not follow the advise in the pro and con lists guideline, placing the two article into one would allow this to be done. If we were to follow the advise of the Wikiepdia:summary article then this article (denial) ought to be titled "Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide" --PBS (talk) 09:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm tired of these denialist-motivated 'merges'. It is not the first time we're closing a discussion on the same topic. How many times we need to discuss it? Andranikpasha (talk) 14:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support This material should all be in the same place. For me, there is no "dispute" but there is a controversy. To me, "dispute" implies that there is a valid denial side, which I don't think exists, but controversy is the activity of those who deny the genocide, whether they are right, or not. Please put all this in the same place. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• Strong, strong, strong Oppose Two points: If an editor suggested changing Holocaust to Holocaust dispute they would be promptly warned and if they persisted, blocked. I feel the same way about those other lesser known genocides. Second point: I can't stand how editors attempt to water down article names to somehow lesson the horrors of the massacres. Several CIA and US military articles come immediately to mind: Torture manuals, the No Gun Ri Korean war incident, and American terrorism. It is like a minor form of holocaust denial when editors do this, in this case, it is a major one. Ikip (talk) 15:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. "denial of the Armenian Genocide" is an appropriate title for the same reason that "Holocaust denial" is, to summarise: a "point of view" is something based on fact. The Armenian Genocide is considered a fact by almost all of academia; claiming that it never happened is therefore essentially bullshit, and if not bullshit then incredibly unlikely bullshit. We don't include the "the genocide never happened" point of view in our thinking when picking appropriate titles for the same reason that we don't consider the theory that the missing Armenians actually decided to form a human peace-chain around the pacific ocean and were gobbled by sharks; it's bullshit. Ironholds (talk) 09:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

There is another position held by the British Government which has held the position since n May 24, 1915, that the events that happened were crimes against humanity. They still hold that position, because in the opinion of successive British governments, the evidence is not sufficiently unequivocal to persuade them that these events should be characterised as genocide under the 1948 UN convention on genocide. This contrasts with the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) which considers "the mass murder of over a million Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is a case of genocide which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide." Since the IAGS there has been considerable advance in the legal understanding of what a genocide is, and an important part of that is the intent of the perpetrators (see the Bosnian Genocide article for details of these developments. Now it may be that there is enough evidence to conclude that it was a genocide, and that successive British Governments are wrong, but it is not up to us to make that judgment call it is up to us to present the information and all significant points of view in a non biased way. From what you say aboveIronholds, you agree with the IAGS and not with the point of view of the British Government, but can you not see that by having two similar articles with polarized names it is not possible to present the information by comparing and contrast the information (as I have done in this paragraph in a NPOV way), unless the two articles duplicate much of the same information. What we have ended up with are two Wikinfo forked POV articles not one Wikipedia NPOV article. --PBS (talk) 18:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Or, what is more likely, the British government doesn't wish to damage their relations with the Republic of Turkey and instead employs the canard of "insufficient evidence" as an excuse to preserve its economic and military ties, and hence British interests, with it. A simple look at the Armenian Genocide page and its 150 or so citations demolishes the above argument. Perhaps the most damning evidence we can introduce is David Lloyd George's own comments: "It was the actions of the British government that led...worst of all, [to] the Holocaust of 1915. Yet the British Government has failed, and still is failing in addressing their role in these wrongs." Thankfully, historians and scholars have absolutely no obligation toe the line set by politicians, whether they're British MPs, the Prime Minister, or the President of the United States.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 23:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Your arguments may well be valid, and I am sure that reliable sources can be found to substantiate such views, but the current structure of having two separate articles, inhibits such points of view being presented in a NOV way. -- PBS (talk) 10:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• Note. I do not have a strong opinion on this either way. However, I do not perceive the proposal by PBS to be motivated by a denialist agenda. Goodmorningworld (talk) 15:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per MarshallBagramyan. Let's call things the way they are. A genocide occurred and the party responsible denies it happened. The only controversy is this. - Fedayee (talk) 04:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I notice that your edit history entry for this opinion is "vote" this is not a vote. It is your opinion that a genocide took place and that "the party responsible denies it happened" yet the party responsible no longer exists. Further the British government was not a party to the events (quite the opposite), yet they claim it was not a genocide but a crime against humanity. Do you have any comments to make on the Wikipedia policy issue of POV forks and these two articles? --PBS (talk) 10:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this the third or fourth time Philip has attempted to pull this off? TA-ME (talk) 11:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

No. --PBS (talk) 13:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You should take a look at what is considered a reliable source. Political sources are plainly included and it is advised better sources should be used. UK has billions of dollars worth of military contracts with the republic of Turkey. So the British government is more than a party in this case. - Fedayee (talk) 22:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If all that is true, and I am not saying that it is not, then isn't the current structure which is against Wikipedia policy (Wikipedia:Content forking) hindering the development of an article that allows a balanced article with all POVs to be presented? --PBS (talk) 08:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support - Wikipedia strives for a neutral point of view, no matter how much we may agree or disagree with the viewpoint. The only reason I would not recommend the same for Holocaust denial is that it, well, is the common term for it. Also, as a side note, I have seen no arguments against the move other than "it happened so we should keep it here" - which is precisely the wrong argument, given the nature of the controversy. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)