Talk:Cenk Uygur

Significant Information?

Is the note about Cenk being a Steelers fan really necessary to be included in the article? I would understand if it affected his show, but it really doesn't. I've watched his show and he only talks about football rarely, let alone his favorite team.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cremnlin (talk • contribs) 02:27, September 17, 2009

Genocide denial

Why is this page in the category "Armenian Genocide deniers" when it doesn't mention the genocide even once? If Cenk Uygur is a noted Genocide denier, then evidence should be provided, and if he isn't, then he shouldn't be listed as one. --Stephen C Wells (talk) 01:25, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I did a bit of research, and I have found that he did express doubt over the Genocide back in the 90s. However, though I can't find any evidence that he has outright repudiated his statements, it does seem that he no longer holds that view, based on his acknowledgement of the Genocide on his show and in this opinion piece he wrote on Huffington Post. As well, I found his college, Ana Kasparian, responding to this letter to the editor of Armenian Weekly in which she defends him and the show, and claims that Uygur no longer denies the Genocide. (For the record, the editor of Armenian Weekly also defended Uygur.)

However, as I said, I cannot find an outright repudiation or apology for those earlier statements by Uygur himself. --Stephen C Wells (talk) 22:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I've removed the material. The sources were either of very poor quality or else were primary sources, and the whole thing read like original research. WP:BLP is very strict about the use of primary sources: "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. ... Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." If we can find a good quality secondary source that deals specifically with his views on the Armenian genocide (e.g. it is the main topic of an article from a reliable source), then it might be appropriate to include it. I'd argue, however, that this deserves no more than a sentence at most, to avoid giving undue weight to what is after all not exactly a defining biographical detail - Uygur is certainly not known because of his views on the Armenian genocide. Cmeiqnj (talk) 19:55, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Wonderful, now we're not just in denial about Uygur's well-documented denial but we're whitewashing his whitewashing. Ah, Wikipedia. Same old, same old. - Glynth (talk) 09:03, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

It's not a question of whitewashing, or censorship. It's a question of what should be included in the article if we wish to provide the reader with a fair representation of the subject. Wikipedia doesn't get to decide which aspects of a topic are important. We can only follow what's written about the subject in reliable secondary sources. We can only repeat what's already been written. If the kind of coverage that we would like to exist does not exist, then too bad, but it is not our place to invent that coverage. If we don't abide by these constraints then individual editors will inevitably try to use every article as a soapbox for their own views on the subject. And the rules are particularly strict for articles about living people - rightly so. To return to the topic at hand, I simply don't see any coverage in reliable sources dealing with Uygur's views on the Armenian genocide. For us to include it, then, would be a gross misrepresentation of the secondary literature. It's not Wikipedia's fault if the coverage you want to exist does not exist. Cmeiqnj (talk) 16:59, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Salon, which published Uygur's letter to the editor, is a reliable secondary source. Other RS abound on the internet.

Would you take this view--that the content should be removed--if Uygur denied the Nazi Holocaust?TummyTurtle (talk) 02:20, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The fact that the letter was published by Salon does not make it a secondary source, at least not when we're using it to make claims about Uygur himself. See WP:PRIMARY for guidance. The point is, if we're going to include a claim about what Uyugr's opinions are, then we can't rely primarily on material written by Uygur himself, because that would be "analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources", i.e. original research, which is, and always has been, a big no no on Wikipedia. As for your claim that "Other RS abound on the internet", I don't see them. Where are they? All I see in the article at present is a couple of dead links, an intemperate facebook comment from the Mayor of Glendale, and then this, which is presented as if it were a dispassionate news report but reads like advocacy. Certainly it is not a neutral source. And in the absence of any response from Uygur being reported anywhere, and absent other, more independent coverage of the event from elsewhere, it would be wrong to include this source because it gives, at best, a distorted view of the facts. Including it would give undue weight to an opinion that does not appear to have received any coverage at all in good independent sources. See also WP:V#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, which is policy. In the absence of any evidence of the existence of such exceptional sources, I'm removing the material again. By the way, I realize it may be annoying that I keep citing all these policy pages, but they exist for a reason - to keep the encyclopedia functioning as a reliable source of information for our readers, and not as a battlefield, and in the case of living people, to prevent us making defamatory claims that are not backed up by serious, bulletproof evidence. Cmeiqnj (talk) 10:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

We're supposed to construe rules according to their purpose; we're not supposed to apply them mechanistically. (See WP:IAR) The purpose of the BLP rules is to avoid publishing defamatory or inaccurate content. In this case, there is no question that Uygur denied the genocide, so removing that stuff from the article only serves to censor information.

In any case, I've added two more secondary sources in an effort to placate you: An article from Glendale News-Press noting Cenk's denial (and the Armenian protests against him); and a press release condemning Uygur's denial from the Armenian National Committee of America. TummyTurtle (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2016 (UTC) See also this The Daily Caller article criticizing Uygur's denialism (from 2014). TummyTurtle (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for providing more evidence. I'd say the Glendale News-Press piece is the closest thing we've got so far to a good independent source. But it is not primarily about Uygur and only mentions him briefly at the end - hardly an adequate basis on which to make a biographical claim. I've opened up a discussion at this noticeboard, requesting outside comment: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Cenk Uygur. I will also remove the material again, pending the outcome of the discussion, per WP:ONUS. Note that IAR is basically a motivational dictum designed to free editors from unnecessary anxiety about red tape; it is not a trump card to be played in a content dispute. Cmeiqnj (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Reading this it is clear that there is some confusion over whether Cenk's denial. Here is a scanned copy of his initial denial of the Armenian Genocide (as he wrote in The Daily Pennsylvanian). I hope this at least clears up one aspect of this issue: http://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/pennsylvania?a=d&d=tdp19911122-01.2.24. Not sure how to sign this, since I'm not a user, but my IP address is in the next section.

I'm afraid I cannot ignore the level of edit warring any longer, so I'm fully protecting the page for two weeks or until this dispute is resolved. When content is removed from an article, it's good practice to let a discussion take its course and allow consensus to be established before re-inserting the same or similar content, so as to avoid edit warring. This is even more true when an editor has in good faith raised WP:BLP policy related concerns – see WP:GRAPEVINE. I don't consider the content to be a blatant violation of BLP policy, though I do understand why concerns have been raised over the language used and use of sources, so I'm going to insist that all genocide related content stays out of the article until a consensus is reached on whether and how such material is included. I will review the protection as the discussion here and at WP:BLPN progresses. CT Cooper · talk 20:22, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I've never contributed to a talk page before, so I hope I'm doing it correctly. But I just wanted to point out that Ana Kasparian's claim that Cenk Uygur no longer denies the Armenian Genocide, aside from being hearsay, actually claims that he never denied the Armenian Genocide, which I believe is provably false just by looking at his own letters and the other sources that others provided above me here. In her comment she says that "Cenk Uygur (the host) never denied the Genocide. When he was in college, he argued that although the genocide did occur, he didn’t believe it was considered a 'genocide.'" Not believing that it was considered a "genocide" is the definition of genocide denial , and is the stance that the Turkish government has taken . Raphael Lemkin, the man who created the word genocide, used the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust as examples that led to the term's creation . I believe this would call Kasparian's entire statement into question.Jrwhite8 (talk) 03:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

References

• Comment I feel the page is being whitewashed. Mentioning the genocide is a very important issue. it's a valid controversy. he never publicly apologized or denied that he denied the genocide. in fact there is a high chance he named his show after the Young Turks movement. He was also confronted by Armenian groups multiple times, which should also be mentioned. VC19 (talk) 09:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• Further comment is see the issue was on the page and sourced. removing sourced material is problematic, especially if it results in whitewashing the page. VC19 (talk) 09:37, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

But where is the high quality coverage in reliable independent sources? We've already been back and forth on this at the BLP noticeboard. Since that conversation has now been archived, I've copied the content below. Cmeiqnj (talk) 12:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Archived BLPN discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
There's a long-standing dispute at the article Cenk Uygur over the inclusion of material on the subject's past comments about the Armenian Genocide. Uyugr is now a high-profile web news host. Here's a piece about him that was published in The Guardian a couple of days ago. I have no history of editing his article, I just happened to look it up the other day and I was surprised to see that the article's lead included an unsourced remark about him being a denier of the Armenian Genocide. The body of the article itself contained a longer discussion on the subject, referring to his past remarks. The lead claimed that he had made "past statements in support of Armenian Genocide denial, statements that he has never publicly repudiated." Strong claim. I thought this material had serious BLP and OR issues, so I removed it, leaving a note on the talk page. Now, here are the relevant facts: when he was at college, in 1991, Uygur wrote a piece for his student newspaper questioning the genocide,[1] and then later he wrote a letter to the editor of Salon, which was published online in 1999, questioning whether "genocide" was the appropriate term.[2] These are primary sources, of course. The trouble is, these do not appear to have been discussed by a single good independent source. And also, if you look at the article talk page and its archive you'll see several comments claiming that Uygur no longer holds the views that he appeared to hold in the 1990s, although again, no one appears to have provided a good independent source one way or the other. I challenged another editor on the talk page to provide a better source, and the best that has been provided so far is this, from a local paper, in a report about protests by an Armenian group in California at a Democratic Party event, which includes this single sentence, "Uygur is host of the "Young Turks” TV program and made denialist comments about the genocide in the 1990s." I believe that we have a very flimsy evidence base on which to say anything about his views on the Armenian Genocide - past or present. The good quality coverage in reliable sources simply does not exist. And Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Certainly the claim that "he has never publicly repudiated" his remarks from the 1990s is OR. I also think the inclusion of the material gives undue weight to an aspect of the subject which is not at all a defining biographical detail. See also the talk page, where I have set out in more detail my reasons for removing the material: Talk:Cenk Uygur#Genocide denial. Another editor has reverted me twice. The trouble is, I am not the first editor to remove this material. It has been repeatedly added over the past few years by various editors, and repeatedly removed by other editors citing BLP concerns. It would be useful to establish a consensus on 1) whether it is appropriate to mention anything at all about his comments from the 1990s, and 2) if it is, how should this material be presented? I request input from those more expert than I am in BLP matters. Cmeiqnj (talk) 22:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC) With respect, OP's summary is inaccurate in several fronts. There are several reliable sources that discuss Uygur's denial of the Armenian genocide, including: The Daily Caller, the Glendale-News Press, Asbarez, and the Armenian National Committee of America. These sources are cited in the version of the article OP keeps reverting. I also disagree with OP's understanding of WP:BLP. The point is to avoid the possibility of inaccurate or defamatory information; here it is plain that Uygur is a denier from the cited sources. TummyTurtle (talk) 05:18, 4 April 2016 (UTC) Quick question for OP: Are you disputing the accuracy of the claim that Uygur is a denier? Or do you merely object to inclusion of the claim in the article on notability grounds? TummyTurtle (talk) 05:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC) I do not believe we have grounds for including the disputed material, for all the reasons I have set out: issues with original research, with verifiability, with neutrality of point of view, and BLP concerns. The other sources you mention are unacceptable. The Daily Caller piece is an op-ed by someone moaning about political correctness and "liberals' double standards", and is not about Uygur's views on the Armenian genocide, but about the name of his show (although, granted, he does briefly compare Uygur to a holocaust denier - nice rhetorical flourish). The other sources are from Armenian-American pressure groups (I include the Asbarez piece in that category, for present purposes, for reasons already stated on the talk page), and are therefore, in this context, primary sources. The Glendale News-Press piece is the one I mentioned above; it is the only source you've offered so far that appears to be independent and non-biased and not a primary source, but again that only has one sentence about Uygur's views. It does not provide nearly enough detail to support even a mention in Uygur's article. So I ask again: on what grounds can we include this material? Cmeiqnj (talk) 11:15, 4 April 2016 (UTC) Note: I have also removed essentially the same material from the page Genocide denial, where someone had inserted it. Cmeiqnj (talk) 11:41, 4 April 2016 (UTC) Why are you dismissing all the Armenian-oriented newspapers as "pressure-groups?" A magazine can have an ethnic angle while maintaining standards of journalistic integrity. TummyTurtle (talk) 00:06, 5 April 2016 (UTC) This piece does not read like journalism, it reads like a partisan write-up of a protest. The writer makes no attempt to get a response from Uygur. It is certainly not the quality of source that we should be relying on to make a contentious biographical claim. Cmeiqnj (talk) 15:00, 5 April 2016 (UTC) The claim isn't contentious, though. We know Uygur denied the Armenian genocide and has failed to publicly repudiated it. (Or do you dispute this?) TummyTurtle (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'd suggest the entire Political views section should be removed from the article as things currently stand - it currently stands at over 800 words long and cites only a single secondary source, as far as I can see (a piece from The Progressive - and even that appears to be mostly a Q&A). Cmeiqnj (talk) 12:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

this is called whitewashing and it goes against WP:NPOV. VC19 (talk) 15:45, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

The content you're insisting be included is called original research, and it goes against WP:NOR. Cmeiqnj (talk) 16:03, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

of course. but only after you make sure dismiss source after source, even though consensus is against you. VC19 (talk) 16:12, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Observing the conversation from the outside, it sure seems like some party(ies) are vehemently trying to get this inserted into this article. Its like a political attack ad bringing up quotes from 20 years ago to discredit a politician's current position on an issue. "See, see . . . He's a bad guy." Uygur repeatedly does say he has changed his politics from moderate Republican to liberal since college. As the Republican Party has gone increasingly right wing and shifted the center, one could say the Democratic Party has essentially moved to occupy the space formerly occupied by moderate Republicans. But the point is Uygur has changed considerably beyond that. While he does rarely mention contemporary Turkish politics, it is his country of birth, he does not spend even a tiny fraction of time talking about the period of the Armenian Genocide. Its not a part of his content. In 14 plus years of being a public media figure as a political commentator, he has not repeated anything of the sort. Sources, whether you believe them or not, don't show that. Under NPOV, I don't believe we should force this content to be included in the article. Its not a relevant noose to hang around his neck as those with this WP:AGENDA clearly want to do. Trackinfo (talk) 18:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

lol. talk about a biased rant. also, it's one or 2 people who are desperate to whitewash the page. remember, wikipedia is not for advertisement or promotion. VC19 (talk) 19:03, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Let me ask you, why is it so important to you to add this to the article? Are you doing this out of the goodness of your heart? Or do you have intentions of compiling a (very negative sounding) list of Armenian Genocide deniers? Or are you directly trying to discredit or cast negative aspersions only on Uygur? Trackinfo (talk) 22:21, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

because it belongs. you are the ones making it into a big issue. VC19 (talk) 23:56, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

The absence of substance to your argument belies the dastardly nature I suspected. Trackinfo (talk) 03:37, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

of course i'm so dastardly, and so are the other i'm guessing, to include sourced material of you idol. VC19 (talk) 09:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I've let the protection expire as things seem to have cooled down a bit. I stated earlier that all genocide denial related material should stay out of the article as per WP:BLP until there was a consensus on whether and how such material is included. Please bear in mind that consensus on Wikipedia is determined by strength of arguments related to policy, not by counting heads and no weight is given to poorly justified or irrelevant arguments – incivility, personal attacks and the like get no weight. I don't see any consensus here in favour of including such material and certainly no consensus on how it should be included. I would however welcome discussion to continue, as I think there is room for a compromise. CT Cooper · talk 16:39, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks CT Cooper. I just removed this material again. It turns out Uyugr has now rescinded his earlier comments, in a blog post dated April 22. Perhaps he has done this now because he knows that his wikipedia biography is subject to an edit war over the comments? Troubling if so: a person should not be forced into a particular action purely because of what their wikipedia page is saying about them. Anyway, there is still no coverage of this in reliable sources. Nothing on google news at present. So I see even less reason to include this now. This new statement from Uygur is just another primary source. And Uygur himself says, "I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about." So evidently he has no intention of making this an important part of his biography in future. Cmeiqnj (talk) 04:21, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

In the interests of compromise, I'd suggest that if something turns up in a reliable source reporting the blog post, then we could include a sentence or two about the whole affair in the article (not a whole section, which is ridiculously wp:undue). But again, there's nothing in RS that I can see at present, so for now I think policy dictates that we have to leave it out. It's not our job to write the news. Cmeiqnj (talk) 04:32, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

and the refusal to add anything about the issue is censorship or whitewhashing. VC19 (talk) 10:57, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Just repeating the same line over and over again will not achieve anything, VC19.

To be clear on the situation here, given that multiple editors in good standing have raised concerns over content related to the genocide, I'm treating it as problematic under WP:GRAPEVINE and insisting that it stays out of the article until there is a consensus on weather and how it is included. One of the core principles of WP:BLP is to exercise caution when dealing with contentious material, which yes, does sometimes mean leaving out material for a time which may be later included – Wikipedia is not for journalism and we are not a news site; we can take our time over these things. That said, I would accept the addition of a tag like {{POV}} to the article to address "censorship" concerns, as long as there's a reasonably active discussion happening on the talk page.

Administrators, such as myself, have a broad remit when it comes to enforcing and upholding WP:BLP policy. Attempts to by-pass talk page discussion by edit warring the material into the article will not be tolerated – I may protect the page, but I may also warn offending parties, and if necessary, block them. VC19 (talk · contribs) and Solntsa90 (talk · contribs) should consider themselves duly warned that any further attempts to restore contentious material to this article will lead to a block. As a last resort, I will also consider imposing discretionary sanctions on this article and involved parties. CT Cooper · talk 13:01, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

• Include the material First of all, I'd like to offer my apologies for not noticing the talk page. I seriously thought it wasn't being monitored, so I overlooked it.

Secondly, I'd like to comment on the issue of Cenk Uygur and Armenian Genocide.

Usually, it stands that BLP violations would be due for mentioning such things about a living person. However, there is ample evidence that Cenk's comments about Armenian Genocide that he has made in various letters to publications in the 90s has raised such contention, that even politicians and civic leaders have gotten involved against him and The Young Turks.

The ethnic Armenian-American press has reported that there was a political protest against Cenk over his refusal to condemn the Armenian Genocide (as well as the withdrawal of a politician over what he has said) and to this day, the Armenian community press has not reconciled with Cenk since he has never made a public comment about the Armenian Genocide where he admits as much as it existing.

I think the inclusion of the material is necessary, only because it reflects on a big controversial part of his past, the same way we'd have to report on David Duke being Klan leader for many years. It is an important part of his past, and it should be reflected in his biography as something that has drawn considerable controversy.

We should also however, including his rescinding of the letter he sent to the Daily Pennsylvanian (but strangely, not the one to Salon), as this would at least shown he has tried to mention something to the fact of the matter. However, we should also include the ethnic Armenian press' response, as they will surely commentate. Solntsa90 (talk) 09:10, 26 April 2016 (UTC) Solntsa90 (talk) 09:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

It's important to remember we're dealing with a Holocaust Revisionist here, who even still refuses to admit a genocide took place. We would show the facts to the matter on any other holocaust denier, why not Cenk? Solntsa90 (talk) 09:14, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

But, again, where is the coverage in reliable independent sources? You must recognize that the section that various accounts keep re-inserting is totally inadequate in terms of sourcing, given the strict requirements of BLP? If Uygur's comments really are "a big controversial part of his past", then surely we should have no problem finding suitable sources.

His blog post rescinding the comments has received absolutely no media coverage up to this point. (By the way, he does mention the Salon letter: "I also rescind the statements I made in a letter to the editor I wrote in 1999 on the same issue.") This leaves us with an even bigger problem. We can't mention the blog post without supporting independent coverage, because it's a primary source. I note, also, that there's no archive of the page [3] because the blog post has been excluded from archiving in TYT's robots.txt file (the post is also invisible to search engines). So if the blog post gets deleted from TYT's website, there'll be nothing to link to at all. The text of the post has been copied to reddit and to a couple of blog posts, but there's nothing that qualifies as a suitable source. So the question is: how can we cover this without violating BLP? I don't see how we can, until there's something that we can cite in RS. Cmeiqnj (talk) 08:22, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

He's well known on the internet where he makes a living, in reputable Armenian-American sources (who have an interest in exposing his denial) and on various blogs that he was and continues to be an Armenian Holocaust denier. Unless he has disavowed his previous denial and is now on record with apology and recognition, I don't see how this isn't a controversy. Are we going to allow all those who supports human rights violations to have their Wikipedia pages cleansed if they merely put out one blog post that attempts to whitewash their views? Also how are Armenian-American sources not reputable? This issue is still noteworthy because it's mentioned on a plethora of sources online and revolves around hate speech. Unless you can tell us why Armenian-American sources are not reputable, the material cannot be removed and must be included. We wouldn't allow David Duke to have this Wikipedia page wiped clean by posting one comment on his blog clouding the waters on his denial.Urartu TH (talk) 04:12, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Then we don't mention the blogpost, but that still isn't reason for discluding his long history of genocide denial. And what problem is there with suitable sources? I've linked to the Armenian-American press, who report on it because they find it newsworthy and in their interest to do so. Solntsa90 (talk) 15:48, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I've very disappointed in the approach CT Cooper has taken with this issue. Just rip it out until there is a consensus? There's basically one guy who is not terribly happy to see the Genocide issue brought up in this article, and is trying to use any and every Wikipedia rule he can to make it seem inappropriate. This article is about a guy who is involved in political commentary, and his views are quite relevant, especially on the Armenian Genocide, since he was born in Turkey. We had a well referenced section, that linked to his original 2 letters he wrote on the subject, showing that yes, he really cared a fair bit and held strong enough views to write a letter of denial to an editor. Then he kind of quieted down on the issue, and recently said he doesn't know enough about the subject to say. Others have written and commented on his stance. What's so controversial about including this? Why should it be left out? And until what? Until we convince people who don't want to see this information to agree that they'd like to see it go back up? No, I'm sorry, this is not cool. If you had the same thing going on with Holocaust Denial, this would NOT be sitting in talk page purgatory. I do not accept being a second class genocide victim, and I would like to see this section restored. If someone has specific issues with specific parts of the section, that's normal and can be discussed here on the talk page. Leaving the whole section out? Come on. --RaffiKojian (talk) 03:21, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

thank you! couldn't have said it better myself. But you're too easy on him. CT Cooper approach to the issue reeks of bias. So much so, he convinced me he's a fanboy/fangirl, who tries to hide behind wiki policy, no matter how minuscule the detail might be and how important the actual issue is. VC19 (talk) 11:27, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2016

I have a link to Cenk's denial of the Armenian Genocide which I think would be helpful to all parties. http://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/pennsylvania?a=d&d=tdp19911122-01.2.24 73.163.74.223 (talk) 17:44, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

There is a discussion about this ongoing. See above. Cmeiqnj (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 4 April 2016

http://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/pennsylvania?a=d&d=tdp19911122-01.2.24 This is the actual link to the paper Cenk wrote for, denying the Armenian Genocide.

71.29.238.146 (talk) 20:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the link, though you have already done so in the section above this one. I'm answering this request without action as all genocide related content is staying out of the article until a consensus on the issue is reached as per my comment at #Genocide denial. CT Cooper · talk 21:30, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Further Discussion - Armenian Genocide

This has been discussed for too long. There is obviously no issue with WP:BLP or primary sources. He himself wrote the letters to the editor to The Daily Pennsylvanian and Salon. He had to feel pretty strongly to do so. They were published in those publications, not "self published". The Armenian press has called him on this issue, as that is who it concerns most immediately. He most recently kind of took back his statements. There is no question that in the Wikipedia article about a Turkish political commentator in the US, the public denial of the Armenian Genocide in his past is a relevant topic to cover. There is no question that his denials have been published in a place and manner that there is no problem whatsoever including it in his Wikipedia article. About those things there really can be no dispute - certainly not under the WP:BLP/primary sources rules that one user continues to continue to push.

So. If anyone has a REAL GENUINE reason other than WP:BLP/primary sources that this cannot be included speak up now. Otherwise, it must go back in, as this is whitewashing for no reason other than to brush this issue under the rug, which I will not accept. Also, if you have *specific* issues with the final version of the text that was removed, please make your real cases now, before it is re-inserted. This discussion should not take forever. I've already told CT Cooper I do not agree with his decision to leave it out until there is a consensus. This section is about genocide denial and the removal is another form of genocide denial. It's a pretty obvious case where it needs to be in the article, and the discussion shouldn't take forever. It seems obvious there is no reason to exclude it and that almost everyone agrees (consensus). So let's finish this and put it back in ASAP. --RaffiKojian (talk) 03:14, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Armenian Genocide denial

In a letter published by The Daily Pennsylvanian in 1991 Uygur asserted that "The claims of an Armenian Genocide are not based on historical facts. If the history of the period is examined it becomes evident that in fact no such genocide took place." He repeated this view in a letter to the editor of Salon in 1999. In 2012, Uygur's letters later drew criticism from the west-coast affiliate of the Armenian National Committee of America and the California Armenian American Democrats who subsequently staged protests during his speech at the California Democratic Party 2012 State Convention with the support of Charles Calderon and Janice Hahn.

At a progressive caucus of the California Democratic Party meeting on February 11, 2012, Cenk stressed that "The Young Turks" title referenced the phrase as it applies to any generic progressive political movement that threatens to upend the established order, and was not an endorsement of the Young Turks' regime, which was responsible for the genocide.

In a 2011 piece in The Huffington Post, Uygur asked rhetorically if the United States should invade Turkey because Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denies the Armenian Genocide referring to calls to attack Iran because its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust.

In 2016 Zareh Sinanyan, the Armenian-born former mayor of Glendale, California, criticized Uygur for his denial of the genocide.

On April 22, 2016, Cenk rescinded his statements about the Armenian Genocide, saying he "was a 21 year-old kid, who had a lot of opinions that I have since changed" and he "does not know nearly enough" about it.

References

DISCUSSION BELOW PLEASE --RaffiKojian (talk) 03:15, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

So my personal take on the final text would be to take out the Huffington Post paragraph, and potentially the following paragraph about Zareh's criticism. The rest I think does a concise job of covering the subject. --RaffiKojian (talk) 05:06, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Consensus is not the same thing as shouting the loudest or the longest. There is not a different standard of consensus for articles about subjects that you have a particularly strong opinion about. Consensus is about how best to construct the encyclopedia within the framework of existing policies and guidelines. You cannot simply dismiss those policies out of hand whenever you happen to find them inconvenient.

This discussion has never been about what Uygur said or when. When I posted my concerns to the BLP noticeboard I was careful to lay out the relevant background.[4] I have been disappointed that no serious attempt has been made to address the concerns I raised there. All we've had since then is a series of insistences that the content should be included in spite of the concerns raised. Any argument against including it is "whitewashing". Yes, we heard you the first time. And your accusation, RaffiKojian, that "the removal is another form of genocide denial" is a new low, and frankly out of order. Perhaps you'd like to retract it?

The problem is over sourcing, and this has been the problem from the beginning. It remains the case that the sources for saying anything about the two Uygur pieces from the 1990s are very poor: all we've got are the pieces themselves (which Uygur has now "rescinded") and one obviously partisan report (Asbarez, and this is now out of date in an important respect, given the "rescinding" post). The rest of the sources are either dead links or they are self-published blog posts or videos.

For what it's worth, I do suspect that better sources will emerge in the future. I suspect (and again, my view here is totally irrelevant to the question of what the content of the encyclopedia should be today) that at some point in the future Uygur will be forced to change the name of his network. For one thing it is totally hypocritical of him to criticize others for defending organizations with offensive names while his own organization itself has an obviously offensive name. The TYT name is unsustainable. And from my reading of his comments, I think Uygur knows this. But that doesn't at all change the fact that as of today the reliable sources simply do not exist to permit us to say anything about this in the article. Those agitating to include the disputed material seem to want to bring about a further response from Uygur. It seems that some people want to take advantage of the high traffic to Uygur's wikipedia biography in order to shape the broader public narrative about him and his show. In other words, you are trying to use wikipedia as an agent in influencing Uygur's behaviour, and in turn the content of this biography. Well, I'm sorry but that is simply not what wikipedia is for, as can be appreciated from a glance at the first two of the five pillars. Wikipedia articles must reflect the content of existing reliable secondary sources. If wikipedia is saying something that the reliable sources are not yet saying, then things have gone badly wrong. Wikipedia is not a vanguard press for promoting social justice campaigns, however righteous those campaigns may be. It is an encyclopedia, and it is bound to follow what's written in existing sources. Cmeiqnj (talk) 11:04, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Cmeiqnj, I have read everything you have had to say on the subject, including your link to your original comment on this page. You do not seem to be happy using his own words, published twice in the 1990s as opinion/letters, as the source that he denies the genocide. The first is a lengthy column stating outright that it was not a genocide, and then laying out a lengthy argument as to why. The second was a letter to Salon's editors stating that he did not believe it was genocide. The entire crux of your argument is that these cannot be used because they either violate original research or BLP rules. And you then lay out a conspiracy theory that you think that the reason people want to include this in his bio in order to force him to publicly refute the genocide. Let me address this latter fear of yours first. 1) It is irrelevant if that is peoples motivation. 2) I have never heard of a case of anyone refuting their views on the genocide because it has been included on Wikipedia, and has never occurred to me that they would. 3) The only reason I want it on there, no matter where his views end up, is because this is an encyclopedia article that should reflect important topics he is involved in. And in this case it will reflect his starting position and his current position and any changes. That is all. No need to ever bring up that irrelevant topic again.

So for your actual Wikipedia reasoning why it should not be included, you first mention the policy on Personal Research. The policy is very clear. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.. Here we have two published sources in his own words showing him denying the genocide. It's crystal clear he has said it, we have sources, and he even addressed one of these denials a couple of weeks ago. I cannot even begin to understand how you can assert there is an issue here, I have not seen you address it in any meaningful way, and will have a hard time entertaining any further theories about this policy.

Your other actual Wikipedia reasoning on why it should not be included is the Biographies of Living Persons policies. The policy in question here in a nutshell is Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.. Well obviously we have sources here. So your claim which you expand on is that they are poor sources. I don't know how to take it seriously that his own opinion piece denying the genocide is a poor source for saying that he denied the genocide. I mean, to me that is a ludicrous argument and it is beyond obvious that we have the absolute perfect documentation (x2) the he has denied the genocide. There is nothing contentious about saying he has denied the genocide. Again, a couple of weeks ago he referred to both of his past denials of the Armenian Genocide on his own blog. There is just no way we can say that these statements are poorly sourced. It's not possible.

I cannot quote Wikipedia policies like you, but I can say you have failed to provide a policy that is violated by the inclusion of this material. Beyond that your belief that people are trying to pressure Uygur through Wikipedia has led you to try to erase this information from multiple articles, even while your belief is irrelevant and the policies you are referring to are not being violated. I think that you need to step back and look at this with fresh eyes. A respectable encyclopedia article about this man would need to include this information, and it would be included with unquestionable references. His views and their evolution are an important part of his story. --RaffiKojian (talk) 12:35, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

In your comment above, you not-so-indirectly accused me of being a genocide denier. I politely suggested that you might like to retract this accusation. In your 700 word response above, you have failed to do so. You have also accused an administrator, who has been nothing but polite, of "playing into the denial", again suggesting that "the real reason this is being debated is because of genocide denial/revisionism".[5] This is a tactic known as poisoning the well: an attempt to "win" an argument by making the discussion so unpleasant that reasonable people simply stop participating. I leave others to judge what merit the rest of your comments possess. Cmeiqnj (talk) 13:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I have in no way accused you or intended to accuse you of being a denier - not even indirectly. I have said quite plainly that you have made it a mission to remove this section on virtually invented ground because you, in your own words, feel that everyone that is interested in including this information is doing so out of a belief it will force him to change his position publicly. This is 100% not true - nor is it relevant. As I said, it had never occurred to me and I don't know of an instance where such a thing has happened with Armenian Genocide denial on Wikipedia.

I'm not afraid to apologize if I had accused you of such a thing, which it's quite clear you have not done and I would be silly to accuse you of. But when an admin agrees to leave genocide denial out of an article which even upon first glance clearly does not merit removal, it is in essence playing into the hands of genocide denialism, whether anybody likes it or not. What I do apologize for is if my comments or words have made the conversation unpleasant for you. That was not my intent, or I would not have asked you at the end to step back and reevaluate your own position and approach. --RaffiKojian (talk) 13:45, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

It is most reassuring to be told that I have not denied the genocide. Thank you for that. This does, however, leave me at a loss to figure out just what I'm being asked to step back from. Puzzling. Again, I leave it to others to judge the ingenuousness of your remarks. Cmeiqnj (talk) 14:26, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I qualified it because it was not my intent - not because you did or didn't have a right to find me unpleasant. I can't say I thought your dismissal of over half a dozen people who took exception to your removal on the talk page, and more in the actual article terribly constructive. Nor does pointing out that my comment is over 700 words - your comments on this topic are in the thousands and thousands. Nor does accusing me of accusing you "not-so-indirectly" being a genocide denier and demanding an apology, when I did nothing resembling that. And then when I apologized that you found me unpleasant, you call it a non-apology. You're acting a bit more holier-than-thou than I think you've earned. If you step back and take a look, you might just see that... but then you haven't liked my suggestion of that in the past either. --RaffiKojian (talk) 17:15, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I would just like to add that I strongly support RaffiKojian's initial argument, and say that is great reason to include the material regarding the Armenian genocide into the article. Solntsa90 (talk) 20:06, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Those who have deleted well-sourced material in regards to Cenk Uygur's Armenian Holocaust Denial have no valid BLP qualms. The sources from the Armenian-American community publications and non-Armenian Los Angeles-based publications on this being a contemporaneously relevant issue should suffice. Whoever doesn't believe that they do represent valid sources should carefully lay out why. If not, I will revert the removals. Cmeiqnj, this is your chance. Your attempt to hijack this entire process by deleting material and then claiming that there is no "consensus" is troubling. You are the only one who seems to find issue with including Cenk's repeated and well-documented Armenian Holocaust Denial. There are clearly no WP:BLP issues, so I wonder what your agenda is?--Urartu TH (talk) 09:50, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I note, for the benefit of watching administrators, that the above useraccount was blocked two years ago, following an arbitration request, for WP:BATTLEGROUND conduct.[6] The closing admin stated: "Should Urartu TH continue to exhibit a battleground mentality, another enforcement request can be made." Cmeiqnj (talk) 10:38, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Let's not be petty User:Cmeiqnj. You've been making baseless points to buttress your removal of this material. You've yet to explain how the material violates WP:OR, WP:GRAPEVINE, WP:Rs, WP:V, or WP:NOR. You cannot simply throw everyting at the wall and hope it sticks. The primary sourced material should stay along with a neutrally worded portion describing the Armenian communities grievances with his denial and use of the infamous name "Young Turks." Urartu TH (talk) 09:42, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are not in a position to make such threats. Any potentially contentious material that is to be added will only be added when there is a clear consensus that it is compatible with WP:BLP policy as per WP:GRAPEVINE - full stop, the end. Multiple users have raised concerns about the disputed material, including another administrator who has reviewed the situation independently of myself at the Talk:Genocide denial article, so policy is clear at this point that it stays out. CT Cooper · talk 12:19, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think that it reasonable to include a short factual discussion of the letters Uygur wrote, and his retraction of them. These stradle a sort of grey space between primary and secondary sources, but there is no dispute about their authenticity, and considering Uygur's later retraction of them, they can be considered somewhat notably at least. It is an established principle that self-published information can be used to a limited extent in articles about the topic itself. I do not think that the newspaper of an Armenian "revolutionary nationalist" group can be considered as a reliable source on this topic. That said, we should be very careful NOT to comment on the content of the letters, or to label Uygur a "genocide denier" in any way, unless more reliable secondary sources can be found making the claim. That seems to me fair to both "sides" of this dispute and respectful of wikpedia sourcing guidelines. Peregrine981 (talk) 10:35, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I have read all the rules and regulations that CT Cooper and the other admin PBS have raised, as well as Cmeiqnj's. These rules appear at the least allow, and at best *specifically* state that a primary source (like his letters/opinion pieces and his blog post) can be used. So I don't understand what their problem is, or why they think these specific sources are bad in any way, much less forbidden. It makes zero sense, and they don't care to explain how the specific allowances of primary sources shouldn't apply here.

User:CT Cooper brings up "WP:BLP policy as per WP:GRAPEVINE". So if we look at the Biographies of Living Persons (BLP) page, under the Grapevine link, we see the following rule: Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that: relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP. Well, obviously the 2 pieces from the 1990s and the blog post from last month were written by Cenk.

User:PBS brings up WP:PSTS which states Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia (without interpretation) and WP:SYN which states Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. Was this a problem with our existing text? I don't see it.

User:Cmeiqnj brings up WP:OR. There is no Original Research or OR violation going on here, so this is not applicable. He also brings up WP:Rs, which states Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources. Obviously the pieces published in the 1990s are reliable, and we even have further evidence of that from his blog post last month where he refers to them. He also references the BP:Primary, which brings us back to the same Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia (without interpretation). So not an issue. Also mentions WP:NOR, the No Original Research policy that states Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.. Again, obviously not a problem. He also brings up WP:V, ie. Verifiability, which states In Wikipedia, verifiability means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.. Again, not a problem. He also mentions his conspiracy theory that we're all here trying to get this included in order to force an apology from Cenk, which as I've said is irrelevant and something that I've never heard of happening and had never occurred to me.

So I've gone through all of the rules I've found them mentioning and linking to. None of these would justify the removal of mention of his two pieces from the 90s, nor mentioning that he retracted them last month. Some of these links go through the trouble of specifically mentioning that these sources are perfectly usable. I don't see how anyone can justify not including this, and am waiting to see if they can in their infinite links to WP policy come up with a valid reason we shouldn't include this.

At this point we have addressed both issues that CT Cooper has raised (at least regarding the primary sources), and other than Cmeiqnj, we have a consensus. Anyone more discussion, concerns, comments?? --RaffiKojian (talk) 17:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

There is plenty to take issue with there. I'll try to lay things out as clearly as possible here:

1. You have repeatedly accused me of peddling a "conspiracy theory" about the motives of editors who want to reinsert the material. Not at all. I have no idea what your motives are. Nor do I care. I do, however, think that it is patently obvious that if we permanently include this material in the manner in which you wish to include it - as a dedicated sub-section with an entry in the article's table of contents - then it is entirely foreseeable that Uygur will be forced, at some point in the future, to provide a further response. Here is my reasoning: 1) This is a high traffic page: nearly 2,500 hits per day over the last 90 days [7]. The page is also the top hit when you type Uygur's name into google (as seems to be the case with most names of people with wikipedia biographies). 2) Anything included in the page therefore automatically becomes highly visible. And, 3) the way the material was presented when I first removed it, with its own mention in the lead and its own multiple-paragraph section in the article entitled "Armenian genocide denial", it was presented in such a way that the casual reader could hardly miss it. The entry in the ToC, in particular, appeared to be designed to act as a big flashing sign saying to all comers: THIS MAN IS A GENOCIDE DENIER. 4) Now, are Uygur's political opponents in the media likely to stumble upon this information and use it against him? Of course they are! So 5) yes, of course he will be forced to respond at some point in the future.
2. Let me stress again: I make no claim about the intentions of those inserting this material. Nor do I care. But I also suggest that, given the page's high visibility, these consequences are entirely foreseeable. Surely we can all agree that these consequences are foreseeable? And yet somehow I suspect you'll find a way to deny this.
3. It's a bit rich to accuse someone else of promoting a "conspiracy theory" when you yourself have said that the removal of the material is a "form of genocide denial", and you have said that "the real reason this is being debated is because of genocide denial/revisionism". Get your own house in order.
4. It's true that WP:BLP does permit the use of self-published material when it is "written by the subject of the BLP". But it also includes the sentence I quoted in my first post on this talk page: "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. ... Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." The question is, given these two statements, how should we deal with the particular material that I and others have removed from this particular article? I'm not sure how to deal with it. That is why I posted my concerns to the BLP noticeboard.
5. I hoped, by posting to the BLP noticeboard, to get some input from those with more BLP expertise. No one responded. Oh well, I tried. But, per WP:ONUS, it's not my problem to establish a consensus in order to keep the material out. The onus falls on those wanting to put it in. That's the established protocol. If you want to establish a clear consensus for including the material, then that's your problem. Perhaps you should try reaching out to those with policy expertise in other forums.
6. On the issue of consensus, you have repeatedly tried to declare that consensus is in your favour. You gave this talk section the title "FINAL DISCUSSION - Armenian Genocide" and demanded that anyone disagreeing with you immediately present "a REAL GENUINE reason" for doing so, clearly failing to assume good faith. You insisted that the removal was "whitewashing for no reason other than to brush this issue under the rug, which I will not accept". This is WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour.
7. You have also repeatedly claimed that I am the only editor disagreeing with your self-declared "consensus". Not so. Another editor in the thread above, User:Trackinfo, clearly disagrees with the inclusion. And then just look at the talk page archive. Multiple editors in good standing have raised concerns about this issue, going back to 2011, including User:Jatkins, User:Milowent, User:InverseHypercube, and User:Iselilja. This material has been repeatedly added, and repeatedly removed by editors with genuine BLP concerns.
8. Also, take a look at the deletion log for the page. Several admins have deleted specific revisions of the page, mostly citing BLP issues. I can't see the deleted content, but I'm guessing this is over the Armenian material?
9. Let's be honest: none of us who have participated in this discussion so far are really in a position to declare consensus. I'd suggest that, before the material can be added back in, consensus should be assessed by an uninvolved admin. Can we all agree to that?
10. You have not addressed WP:UNDUE. Undue weight is probably the most problematic issue here. (And before you accuse me of shifting the goalposts: No, I'm not just bringing this up now, I brought it up when I first posted to this talk page on April 1,[8] I brought it up when I posted to the BLP noticeboard,[9] and I have brought it up several times since.) To date, none of the pro-inclusion useraccounts have addressed this point.
11. WP:UNDUE is part of WP:NPOV. From the intro to that policy, presenting a neutral point of view "means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." So the question is, do Uygur's comments merit mention at all, if we are to respect NPOV? Do Uygur's comments in those pieces in the 1990s constitute the kind of thing that a reasonable, informed reader would expect to find in a short encyclopedia biography of the man?
12. Well, if the comments did merit mention before he rescinded them, then surely his act of rescinding the comments must have been a noteworthy event in itself. Surely such an event would attract the attention of the media? Or, at the very least the attention of the specialist Armenian press? Well, let's take a look at the google news results for the phrase "Cenk Uygur", searching by date. Let's scroll back to April 22 - the day Uygur posted that blog. Where is the coverage about the blog post? There is none. The complete lack of coverage, to date, would seem to be a pretty clear indication that his earlier comments are not, after all, noteworthy enough for inclusion here.
13. If no reliable sources are covering this, then on what grounds can we include it here while claiming to be neutral? Doesn't its inclusion make the wikipedia article look like a WP:SOAPBOX for a specific grievance? Cmeiqnj (talk) 21:59, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Following up to Cmeiqnj's comments. I will impugn the motives of the people pushing to add this content. This content is being added for Character assassination purposes and so far nobody has shown otherwise. They are being sent here on a semi-robotic mission by POV pushing websites [10] [11] [12] [13] (I could go on . . . ), not to mention the deceptive, vicious and fallacious internet memes, to numerically overwhelm the reasonable policies of wikipedia and to ultimately discredit Uyghur's work as an opinionated American political commentator. Armenian genocide is no a subject covered on his network by him, or his Armenian-American co-host. I think the onus should be on them to show why this content should be included. Trackinfo (talk) 22:26, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Cmeiqnj, from what you've written, I think we've already progressed much closer to a compromise. I think it would be best to put aside anything irrelevant to the issue, including motivations, and focus on getting in a text that is sourced properly, and does not give undue weight or interpretation.

So the argument for including this text, aside from the obvious public interest, at least from Armenians, is that Cenk himself twice in the 1990s took the time to submit his opinion on the topic for publication. And last month stepped back from his 1990s comments. He is a notable person, and this is a notable topic that he took notable action on - even if it wasn't "on his show" (reference to Trackinfo's comment). And you are correct that the amount of space that should be dedicated to this should not be so large as to foster legitimate POV issues. In other words, I agree that this topic does not belong in the lead. Should it have its own section? Well it's a pretty large article, and unless it was lumped under Political Views, or a new Controversies section, I don't think a short section on this and the Young Turks name would be out of order, but I'll wait to hear what your thoughts are on where it should go.

For the text regarding the genocide, I think 2 sentences would suffice. Something like, "In 1991 Cenk Uygur wrote an opinion piece in The Daily Pennsylvanian stating that the massacres of Armenian during WWI era Ottoman Empire did not constitute genocide, a view he again expressed in a Salon letter to the editor in 1999. In April 2016, he distanced himself from that opinion, saying he was young at the time, adding that he doesn't know enough to form an opinion". Simple, short, and covers the topic nicely without interpretation or excess. What do you think?

I also think the topic of the name of the show should be covered. We have focused on the genocide issue so far. Would you like to share your thoughts on inclusion in general, your thoughts on the usefulness of the sources, where to put it, and perhaps a proposed text if you'd like?

Thanks --RaffiKojian (talk) 04:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello everyone,

Since I was brought up in this discussion for comments I made in 2012 I will comment. At that time I objected to having a separate section dedicated to this issue. I no longer have a strong view on whether a separate section is warranted, but I definitely do think that the information should be included in the article. It clearly meets the criterion of being "relevant to a disinterested article about the subject" (WP:BLPGOSSIP), and there are sufficient reliable sources for it. I like User:RaffiKojian's proposed two sentences, and I would, in addition, suggest a third describing the Armenian community's reaction to Uygur's comments (the Asbarez article would work as a citation).

I, too, do not wish to suggest bad intent on the part of those who want this information totally removed, but I note the fact that had these comments been about, for example, the Jewish Holocaust, there would be no debate. InverseHypercube (talk) 06:43, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I would support RaffiKojian's basic formulation suggested above, except I would in the second sentence I would say "In April 2016, he rescinded the statements made in the earlier letters, adding that he doesn't know enough to comment on the Armenian genocide." This sticks more closely to the wording Cenk used in his statement. I don't think we should get into a discussion of the name of the network unless a more neutral secondary source can be found discussing it. I don't think that Armenian advocacy organisations should be considered as reliable sources on this topic. Peregrine981 (talk) 08:25, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

• Mentioned for an old comment I made, chiming in to say I like RaffiKojian's proposed two sentences. In context, this is a not a subject that deserves a lengthy discussion. I know this issue is important to Armenians, but it has not been important to Uygur's career. Almost any college student with Turkish heritage in 1991 (pre-internet) would say similar things, it has not defined his career.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 10:37, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
• I don't believe I ever chimed into previous debates, but the proposed few sentences would work. Previous editions were WP:UNDUE.LM2000 (talk) 21:57, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
• I agree with nearly everyone else that RaffiKojian's proposal is quite fair and we should move forward with it. I also believe the inclusion of a sentence or two that explains the name controversy is important. Cenk is on record as an Armenian Genocide denier and the name of his show is the same as the name of the group that carried out the attacks, the Young Turks. Urartu TH (talk) 01:38, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Cmeiqnj, has my proposed text addressed your concerns as well? It is okay with everyone who has replied so far. --RaffiKojian (talk) 16:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

As it stands, this article ought to have a {{third-party}} or {{primary}} tag on it: pretty much everything in the "Political views" section is sourced directly to Uygur and his youtube videos. Compare this with, say, Michael Moore#Political views, which, granted, is not perfect, but it does at least source most of its statements to third-parties. The problem we have, basically, is that Cenk Uygur is not a sufficiently important person for there to be any abundance of reliable sources about him and his views. We should be uncomfortable about presenting a set of claims about his views that are sourced exclusively to him, and not sourced to third-party RSs. Doing so certainly goes against the spirit of wikipedia's core content policies. We should be uncomfortable about presenting information in a way that does not reflect the current content of RSs. As such, no, I do not believe that adding the proposed sentences would constitute an improvement on the current article. I still think it would be preferable to do away with the Political views section entirely, as things stand. That was my view at the beginning and nothing that has been said has persuaded me that I was wrong. But I agree that it would be preferable for this discussion to be brought to a close. I therefore suggest, again, that an uninvolved admin should close this discussion. If they think it's appropriate to add the suggested sentences in, I'll accept their decision. I'd add that, whatever the decision is for this article, there should be no question of the material being re-inserted into the article Genocide denial, as in this edit. The material simply has no business being there - to include it there would be to treat that article as an indiscriminate repository of acts of denial. Cmeiqnj (talk) 16:03, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Cmeiqnj, well I'm quite comfortable using a person as a source for their own views, and Wikipedia specifically allows it - going out of its way to say so. Everyone else who has commented on my proposed text agrees. If you can get a new admin to take a look, please do. I guess it's not surprising that I disagree with you the denial article as well, and do not consider it "indiscriminate" to add Cenk there. --RaffiKojian (talk) 08:00, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Cmeiqnj, you've been active on wikipedia, but ignored this issue, even though a consensus has indeed formed. --RaffiKojian (talk) 00:14, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I have not ignored the issue. Cmeiqnj (talk) 11:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Cmeiqnj, it's time to move forward with RaffiKojian's suggestion--which is supported by a consensus. Urartu TH (talk) 23:20, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I just happened to come across this. Somebody misunderstands the purpose of the primary-source thing. Primary sources are to be excluded when it comes to absolute statements ("XYZ is the greatest of all singers" or "ABC is the most beautiful woman" or some such) when only the subject makes that claim. When it comes to someone's opinions ("XYZ thinks that ice cream is awesome" or "ABC said that hip-hop sucks") the subject can well be quoted. 184.101.253.15 (talk) 04:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

That is true, but what can not be done is this case is to say Cenk Uygur denies that a genocide took place unless a reliable third party source say so. The Duke of Wellington said of the battle of Waterloo "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life..." as IP 184.101.253.15 says such a quote can be (and is) included in the article. However let us suppose that he had written "I won that little skirmish easily...". now let us assumed that there are many sources that say the Battle of Waterloo was a large pitched battle. What we as editors can not do is use syn to draw the inference that Wellington denied that the Battle of Waterloo was a pitched battle — we have to find a reliable secondary source to join up the dots for us and state that as a fact. If someone denies that an event was a genocide, then as editors we need to find a reliable secondary source that states that such a denial took place. Take an example from the genocide denial article

• Bernard Lewis was fined one franc by a French court for denying the Armenian genocide in a November 1993 Le Monde article (Robert Fisk The Independent on Sunday, 14 October 2006)

In this example we have statement of fact, and no WP:SYN. If on the other-hand we only had the original statement by Bernard Lewis in Le Monde and some other opinions that the events were a genocide, putting the two together, as was done for us by the French court, would be a syn.

-- PBS (talk) 08:47, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

It was of course Charles James Napier who punned: Peccavi -- PBS (talk) 17:13, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

A proposal by RaffiKojian

PBS, a strong consensus has formed in favor of RaffiKojian's proposal. Since you're an administrator, how's it best to move forward on this matter? Urartu TH (talk) 06:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I endorse Raffi's proposal. Steeletrap (talk) 06:21, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

In the following collapse box is the text that I think the two of you are stating has consensus. If I am wrong then please modify as appropriate. I have numbered the paragraphs to make discussion easier

RaffiKojian's proposed words

[Heading] Armenian Genocide denial' [Paragraph 1] In a letter published by The Daily Pennsylvanian in 1991 Uygur asserted that "The claims of an Armenian Genocide are not based on historical facts. If the history of the period is examined it becomes evident that in fact no such genocide took place." He repeated this view in a letter to the editor of Salon in 1999. In 2012, Uygur's letters later drew criticism from the west-coast affiliate of the Armenian National Committee of America and the California Armenian American Democrats who subsequently staged protests during his speech at the California Democratic Party 2012 State Convention with the support of Charles Calderon and Janice Hahn. [Paragraph 2] At a progressive caucus of the California Democratic Party meeting on February 11, 2012, Cenk stressed that "The Young Turks" title referenced the phrase as it applies to any generic progressive political movement that threatens to upend the established order, and was not an endorsement of the Young Turks' regime, which was responsible for the genocide. [Paragraph 3] In a 2011 piece in The Huffington Post, Uygur asked rhetorically if the United States should invade Turkey because Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denies the Armenian Genocide referring to calls to attack Iran because its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust. [Paragraph 4] In 2016 Zareh Sinanyan, the Armenian-born former mayor of Glendale, California, criticized Uygur for his denial of the genocide. [Paragraph 5] On April 22, 2016, Cenk rescinded his statements about the Armenian Genocide, saying he "was a 21 year-old kid, who had a lot of opinions that I have since changed" and he "does not know nearly enough" about it. References

Users Cmeiqnj and CT Cooper are you happy with all of it or none of it? If some paragraphs are acceptable and other not then please list those which are acceptable, those that are not and those that would be with changes. -- PBS (talk) 15:33, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure why that full section was copied. The consensus was on including only a couple of sentences, with no explicit agreement on where these sentences would go: "In 1991 Cenk Uygur wrote an opinion piece in The Daily Pennsylvanian stating that the massacres of Armenian during WWI era Ottoman Empire did not constitute genocide, a view he again expressed in a Salon letter to the editor in 1999. In April 2016, he distanced himself from that opinion, saying he was young at the time, adding that he doesn't know enough to form an opinion."

A couple of modifications were also suggested:

• Change second sentence to "In April 2016, he rescinded the statements made in the earlier letters, adding that he doesn't know enough to comment on the Armenian genocide."
• Add a third sentence describing the Armenian community's reaction to Uygur's comments

Turbot warrior (talk) 17:25, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I thought the whole point was that we had more or less made a "consensus" of sorts around a much shortened version? Why is this whole long text back in play? Agree mostly with User:Turbot warrior, except that I don't think that the Armenian community's reaction is really well sourced, and therefore should not be included. It can fairly be surmised they would not be happy IMO. Peregrine981 (talk) 15:52, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

It seems likely the original text we were working off of was accidentally copy/pasted rather than the new one. I agree we have a consensus (and a very broad one at that) on the shortened version regarding the genocide, and should now include it. PBS, can we move forward? --RaffiKojian (talk) 10:05, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

I strongly endorse the new text proposal by RaffiKojian. Solntsa90 (talk) 22:25, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I oppose all mentions of Armenian genocide.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 22:35, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Dear PBS, considering the overwhelming consensus that has formed in favor of the proposal by users who have actually argued over its merits, is it time to move forward with RaffiKojian's proposal? Urartu TH (talk) 02:49, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

This is not sourced correctly, especially for a WP:BLP. It relies on WP:PRIMARY sources, and thus is WP:OR. And there is no legitimate reason to link to this Youtube video.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 04:24, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

This has already been discussed above. WP:PRIMARY states: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia (without interpretation). The primary sources referencing the proposal text are reputably published. Therefore the proposal is neither in violation of WP:PRIMARY nor WP:OR. WP:BLP has also already been discussed. As to using the subject as a self-published source, WP:BLP states: Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Here we have Cenk writing about himself in a reputable publication. WP:BLP also states: In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. Here, we have Cenk Armenian Genocide denial, in his own words, noted in the Daily Pennsylvanian, and on Salon.com. Furthermore, the YouTube is an actual video of him refusing to disavow his former statements during protest against him. These are all reliable sources and must document what these sources say. Finally, WP:BLP also states: Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. There is firm agreement as to the truncated text proposal for the Armenian Genocide denial section. The text is concise, conservative and is not meant to malign the living person, but rather bring light to a controversy in their life. Urartu TH (talk) 05:57, 30 May 2016 (UTC)