Talk:Khazars

Introducing new matter

I removed this:

In opposition, in the Chinese lists of the "nine tribes," that is, of the Toquz-Oghuz people contained in the old and the new "Histories of the Tang Dynasty," the tribe of Kosa (Qasar) is referred to as the sixth. In the other important Tang compendium, Tang Huiyao ("Institutional History of Tang"), the tribe Sijie (Siker,Esegels) is named as the sixth one. This contradiction was already noticed by E. Pulleyblank and was finally explained by T. Senga, who showed that both Tanshu combined the list of names for "small" tribes (subtribal names) which were a part of the Uighurs, and the list of names of the "nine tribes," that is, of the Toquz-Oghuz people. Summarizing the results of several studies by Japanese scholars, T. Senga showed that the tribe Kosa (Qasar) dominated in the tribal group of the Sijie (Siker,Esegel), which included the tribe Apusy (Abuz).

S.G. Klyashtornyi from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in several of his works considered as the fact that Qasar/Kosa/Khazar are the same tribe and as the fact that the tribal alliance of Qasar/Khazar only partially migrated to the west of the Eurasian steppes(Klyashtornyi 2005, 2007)

Some of this might, in a sentence, be retried. It is unlinked, refers to inaccessible sources, and is needlessly fixated on an issue best clarified on the relevant pages. Generally, I see an indifference to the scholarly format that is the page's standard in several new edits, and the effect is to scar or blight the work done so far. Editors should try to adopt the conventions agreed on for a page.

Split

With a significant period of time passing from a previous proposal to split and no response to May 2015 proposal, i would like to raise again the idea to split off an article on the Khazar Khaganate (the Khazar Kingdom), leaving this Khazars article to emphasize the ethnic and cultural scope of the Khazars from antiquity to their disappearance, rather than the political and historical aspects of their kingdom, which existed during early middle ages. Specifically, i propose to split the geopolitical entity template and sections "Rise of the Khazar state", "Khazar state: culture and institutions", "Khazars and Byzantium", "Arab–Khazar wars" and "Rise of the Rus' and the collapse of the Khazarian state", leaving instead a summary of the Khazar Khaganate within the history section.

The reasons for split include logical separation of ethnic and geopolitical topics, like Nabatean kingdom vs Nabateans or Philistia vs Philistines. In addition, the Khazars article includes a former state template at the beginning, which is misleading some to think this article describes solely the Middle Ages' political entity. Furthermore, the current size of Khazars article (which combines both ethnic scope and state's history) is 173Kb, closing to the upper threshold of article size (typically 200Kb), thus implying that a split is a good thing. Support and/or other opinions for this proposal are welcome.GreyShark (dibra) 10:52, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support split as per GreyShark, the proposed split seems entirely reasonable and in line with several comparable examples. Jeppiz (talk) 11:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose.
• (1)This comes far too quickly after the failed split proposal last year. It smacks of impatience with that decision(non-decision.
• (2)The result will be stub creation. Philistia is a pathetic stub (2 k) and will remain so, as is Nabatean kingdom (7 k). Both those articles should be incorporated into the mother articles which are themselves undersized. No one works them, as no one works Turkic khaganate articles (Avar Khaganate 23K), Uyghur Khaganate (26k),Turkic Khaganate (23 k), Rouran Khaganate (11 k), Western Turkic Khaganate (7k).
• (3)The length is not problematical since it is 25k under the threshold limit.
• (4)The curse of Wikipedia is stub creation with no follow on, rather than concentration on a comprehensive article of encyclopedic quality, which this one arguably exhibits.
• (5)The article, representing a year's collective review and work to at least GA standard, works by virtue of a delicate meshing of very complex materials that, were they split up or fractured thematically, probably led to loss of links and thematic associations, and only lead to a demand for a return to what was a rather strenuous effort, collectively endorsed. The bibliographical and template methods used do not lend themselves to an easy split, and fixing the forseeable mess would be extremely time consuming.
• (6)Any reader, raised on twitter, can see anything she is particularly interested in, by going to the relevant sections.
• Given these complexities, any split arrangement should optimally be done consensually on a special work page, rather than being done unilaterally and preemptively (even if one gets the nod) by one editor. If several editors were confident that could be done, and worked to produce a result that was satisfactory, my negative verdict would be changed. Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Doubt. I have doubts there is much written about the Khazars as an ethnic group apart from anything which defines that ethnic group as the one which ruled the Khaganate? The two subjects seem to be published about together almost exclusively? Like Nishidani what I have seem result from such proposals in the past on Wikipedia has normally been bad. Not only does it lead to stubs, but also often the creation of separate articles is a way to slip less well-sourced material into the less read article. Khazars has clearly been a subject with a long history of POV debates where I would expect such things would eventually result.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:26, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Per reasons given by Nishidani above. Khazar (talk) 21:32, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Nishidani gave the reasons that why it can not be splitted under this circumstances. Karak1lc1k (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
• Support - The Khazars are not the same subject as the Khazar Khaganate; they are distinctly separate subjects yet both notable. Complaining that it might be a stub or "might ruin all the work we put in to make it a good article" is not a valid reason (and smacks of WP:OWNERSHIP) if someone wants to put in the work to splitting the article. The Russian articles show the amount of material available across two articles (Хазары, Хазарский каганат), so obviously there is no reason to fear it would be a stub. —Мандичка^YO 😜 17:03, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

The examples cited actually confirm the concerns expressed above. The article on the ethnic group is a short stub, while that on the Khaganate is extensive. Splitting this article will create a similar stub plus an article of lower quality because an essential element has been removed. I Oppose a split. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 17:29, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

The examples show nobody has fixed them beyond stubs yet, not they are doomed to stay stubs. As I said, if someone wants to do the work to split them, then they should. —Мандичка^YO 😜 05:36, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

The examples show that stubs have remained stubs, to not visible advantage to the encyclopedia.Nishidani (talk) 10:27, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Also no harm to the encyclopedia that I can see. I would assume the person who wants to split it would flesh it out beyond a stub at the same time and that is the whole point. But are you suggesting all stubs might as well be merged up to a parent topic as they are not "visible advantages"? —Мандичка^YO 😜 13:01, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

As I originally noted, the person who wants to 'split' should show in detail how it is split. I can't see a split being done without massive reorganization, and rewriting. The word 'split' is itself in appropriate as if one could 'hive off' neatly sections and lo and behold, we have two independent articles without content loss, or problems of narrative continuity. As someone who actually has experience in writing articles, I can affirm that this is no simple matter of cleaving, but of a radical rewrite of the existing article. One should not 'vote' by an act of faith or by assuming without evidence that things will turn out for the good. For all we know, we might end up with 2 messes.Nishidani (talk) 13:36, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

How could this possibly confuse you? How is it not obvious how it would be split? Do you not understand the difference between the Khazars and the Khazar Khaganate? There are only about 10k examples on WP about groups of people and political entities, and how they are constructed. Do you understand the difference between English people and England and what goes on each page? Again you don't own this article so nobody owes you any "evidence that things will turn out for the good." Gimme a break. —Мандичка^YO 😜 14:53, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

The Khazars had a 3-4 century history, poorly represented and largely hypothetical, unlike England/English people, or the France/French people, each side of the binome having vast quantities of information. I don't know why you keep (three times) throwing the ownership innuendo at me. I did quite a lot of the work but Jeppiz, Andrew Lancaster, Laszlo Panaflex, and Khazar have been in on this article throughout the rewriting, which was both compositionally difficult given the complexities of the material, and given the insistent attempts to destabilize the article. These are all independent editors, who, as here, can disagree according to their lights, and yet not make arguments via innuendoes. Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

• Support The same thing should happen to the Huns, and Safavid article, the people/dynasty should be separate from the Empire. As the person a who is supporting above me says they are different subject Alexis Ivanov (talk) 23:49, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Surely there can never be a general rule about when a people and their political community should be in different articles. For some there is almost no information. Wikipedia core content policies tell us how to judge it though: it depends what the good published sources do.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:29, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose for the reasons expressed by Nishidani and Laszlo. DeCausa (talk) 23:54, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Editing without sources

I have removed this, since it intrudes into a footnote without any link.

Genetic reasearch published by Balanovsky in 2011 confirmed high rates of the so-called Cohen gene Haplogroup J-M267 amongst several Caucasian peoples, namely the Avars, Dargins, Kubachi, Kaitak and Lezghins

I can't verify this in Oleg Balanovsky et al 'Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region,' Molecular Biology and Evolution Volume 28, Issue 10 Pp. 2905-2920Nishidani (talk) 14:17, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Sources

So there seems to be some bias in this article, with a certain user reverting my edits twice now. It wasn't just a 'state' but an empire, which dates from 680/681, as written in books. How is it fair that the word empire is used for the Khazars and 'Rus, but not for the Bulgars? Do yourself a favour and go read some books, where 'First Bulgarian Empire' is mentioned. It is clear, and not arguable, that Asparukh laid the foundations for the First Bulgarian Empire/ that he created the First Bulgarian Empire. To revert my edits seems, in my opinion, to be biased and possibly shows some agenda here.

Here are some sources, amongst others: 1)Bulgarian Review, Volumes 26-27, pg. 14. There is says "1300th Anniversary of the Foundation of the First Bulgarian..." Empire, referring to 681 - when Asparuh first came and laid the foundations/ created the empire. 2)Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria by Raymond Detrez, pg. 52. It is written there that Asparuh is the founder of the First Bulgarian Empire, go read that... Smart Nomad (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2015 (UTC)