Talk:Armenian genocide

Photos to add

this image of crucified armenian girls http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/children/07r.jpg from this page should be added http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/online_exhibition_6.php

It is a still from a Hollywood film, as the genocide-museum.am article indicates. Might be usable in the Portrayal in the media section or Armenian Genocide in culture article, but there should be higher resolution versions of the same image available. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

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Aghet inserted in the lede

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Your insertion of Aghet in the lede is not warranted. Aghet has no parity at all with Medz Yeghern, certainly was never traditional, does not belong before Medz Yeghern, and overburdens the lede. Please see the following quotations. The first is from the same work of Marc Nichanian which you selectively quote [emphasis supplied]: 'This event bears a name in Armenian, a name among others, a name that did not really prevail in popular consciousness and henceforth in everyday language, a name which is still waiting for its full understanding.This name is Aghed, which means Catastrophe, like Shoah in Hebrew. Aghed is the proper name of the event. This is why, here and elsewhere, I will write its translation, "Catastrophe"'. And another quotation, from Taline Voskeritchian : “I am not certain how many people in the US-Armenian community use the term aghét when they talk about the genocide, but they are perhaps two handfuls at the most.” From “Between Massacre and Genocide: On Eric Friedler’s ‘Aghét: Nation Murder,’” Jadaliyya, May 16, 2011 http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1591/between-massacre-and-genocide_on-eric-friedlers-ag Diranakir (talk) 20:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Please do not remove referenced content for your personal pov reasons. The source says Aghet / catastrophe has been used to refer to the AG since at least the 1930s and is far more "traditional" than Medz Yeghern as well as predating its usage. In addition, since it is a term that is also not controversial or subject to mistranslation or euphemistic usage, it should be there before your "Medz Yeghern". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:20, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The "popular consciousness" that Nichanian is talking about is the popular consciousness of the wider world (contrasting it with the wider - i.e., non Jewish - world's recognition and understanding of the word "Shoah", the equivalent of "Aghet"). In "Armenian Van Vaspurakan", 2001, Nishanian writes about Gurgen Mahari, a Genocide survivor from Van, and his attempts in the 1930s at writing about "a disaster with no name, beyond all possibility of designation". There is no controversy regarding Aghet as being a name used by Armenians for the Armenian Genocide. "Marc Nishanian is Visiting Professor of Armenian Language and Civilisation at Clumbia University. He has lectured widely on .... responses to the Armenian Genocide or Aghet (Catastrophe)" - p432 "The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies", edited by Richard G. Hovannisian, 2011. And again in "Armenian Tsopk/Kharpert" from 2002, again edited by Richard G. Hovannisian, on page 33, "Nichanian, in a concluding essay, explores the life of Vahan Totovents ... before and after the Aghet, the "Catastrophe". In "Armenian Literary Responses to Genocide" by Rubina Peroomian, in "The Armenian Genocide, History, Politis, Ethics", 1992, the term "Medz Yeghern" is not used even once. Aghet, or "Catastrophe" are the terms used to name the Armenian Genocide. For example, on p222, "The topic of the genocide literature consists of not only literary works with the Catastrophe or Aghet as their theme but also works in which the event is a hidden motive." And an example of its usage in the 1930s is cited on p225: by Hagop Oshagian (1883-1948), "his later works in the 1930s, Mnatsordats ("Remnants", 1932-33), which he calls the novel of the Aghet...", and there is a quote from this book "..we are seeking a scapegoat to blame for the Aghet". The assertion in your cited article (by someone who seems to actually be boasting that she is ignorant and not part of any literary community or, god forbid, a European!) that its author is "uncertain" about the extent of the usage of Aghet is meaningless for here; "we speak of genocide, not aghét - and most of the time, in English" might as well be referring to the Medz Yeghern term which will be equally rare in everyday usage, or even rarer since the author does not even bother to mention it. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:12, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

You have no answer at all to Marc Nichanian's plain statement that Aghed is a name in Armenian that did not really prevail in popular consciousness and therefore did not prevail in everyday language. That statement sums up why it has no place in the lede. By 'popular consciousness', it is obvious that Nichanian is addressing the Armenian world. How could he be addressing the 'wider world' concerning a word that not even most Armenians used? Interesting how you could arrive at such an idea. The use of Aghed as a proper noun for the Armenian Genocide is far from traditional and has been mostly, and legitimately, confined to philosophical discourse and exploration. It certainly does not warrant a place ahead of Medz Yeghern in the lede, and putting it in that position is a travesty of encyclopedic standards as well as an undue verbal overload of the section.

Taline Voskeritchian is a distinguished academic and writer in her own right, as well as the granddaughter of Hagop Oshagan, one of the most important Armenian authors of modern times, a survivor of the Medz Yeghern, and a leading exponent of the concept of Aghed. Dismissing her as 'a nobody' does nothing to advance your argument, quite the contrary. And please note: it is not 'my Medz Yeghern'. Such terminology only shows disrespect for the term and trivializes it.

Concerning your 'source', it is presumed to be that described in your footnote 10, e. g., 'Marc Nichanian, "Writers of Disaster: Armenian Literature in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1, The National Revolution", Gomidas Institute, 2002, page 12.' However, the quotation offered is unfortunately not found on page 12, but rather page 11, complicating matters. Furthermore, your claim on this page that "the source says Aghet/catastrophe has been used to refer to the AG since at least the 1930s and is far more 'traditional' than Medz Yeghern as well as predating its usage" is nowhere to be found within the specified parameters. These sorts of discrepancies and misconceptions make fruitful discussion of the topic very difficult if not impossible. In short, you have distinctly failed to justify insertion of Aghet into the lede. Diranakir (talk) 15:03, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I have given you a full and careful answer to Marc Nichanian's statement. I wrote that the "popular consciousness" that Nichanian is talking about is the popular consciousness of the wider world (contrasting it with the wider - i.e., non Jewish - world's recognition and understanding of the word "Shoah", the equivalent of "Aghet"). Nichanian is not talking about the popular consciousness of the word amongst Armenians, this is clear from the context. Nichanian also makes it clear that it was being used in the 1930s by Oshagian, and the Peroomian source I cited is more specific about the work. Nowhere in either source does it say that Oshagian coined the phrase or was the first to use it (unlike what Voskeritchian claims to have seen in the Nichanian source). The Taline Voskeritchian article is irrelevant to this issue - all the source does is confirm that the word Aghet is used as a name for the genocide. However, only in America could presenting yourself as an anti-intellectual, as she does in that article, be considered a merit. The majority of AG survivors did not settle in America, they settled in the middle east, in Greece, in France, etc., so their opinions and usages are of crucial importance and Voskeritchian's casual dismissal of those communities of Armenians is distasteful. The AG did not take place in North America, most of the survivors did not end up in North America, your edit warring to remove the word that the majority of survivors would have used to refer to the Genocide, a word that is supported by numerous sources, is contrary to numerous Wikipedia standards, including guidance against geographical bias. It is "your" Medz Yeghern because you have edit warred your pov of it into this article over the course of several years and it has been your main editing aims on Wikipedia for several years, to the extent that at times you are almost a single issue editor. I see your desire to delete Aghet as just a continuation of that pov editing. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:39, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd much rather we reduce the amount of "also known as..." to a bare minimum in the first sentence of the lead. It already looks pretty confusing. Étienne Dolet (talk) 18:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: You say, 'Nichanian is not talking about the popular consciousness of the word amongst Armenians, this is clear from the context.' It is not at all clear to me. What in the context convinces you of that? Give me a line, a phrase, a page number, a hint that indicates he was talking about the 'wider word', not Armenians. I believe for most readers that idea is a non-starter. Diranakir (talk) 03:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Nichanian work is a piece of academic writing intended for an international audience of his peers, not a parochial Armenian audience. His peers are not Armenians, his peers are academics (some of whom might be Armenian). The text wording will thus follow the standard of all academic writings intended for an international audience. Unless Nichanian explicitly says "Armenian popular consciousness" he will not mean Armenian when he writes "popular consciousness". And the context, his mention of the extent of the popular consciousness of the word Shoah amongst non-Jews, further indicates his meaning. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Nichanian is addressing anyone interested in the subject, peers or non-peers, Armenians or not, Armenians 'parochial' or otherwise. He is clearly saying that Aghed never really caught on among ordinary Armenians. His subsequent comparison of the meaning of Aghed and Shoah does not alter that fact. His subject is the Armenian world, knowledge of which he is conveying to an international readership. It is a self-induced chimera to see him, in this, addressing the frequency of use of Aghed among non-Armenians. Diranakir (talk) 00:37, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Nichanian does not write "Armenian popular consciousness", so no amount of assertions by you that this is what he means makes it anything more than your assertion. And like your whole opposition argument, it is entirely meaningless. The Nichanian source indicates the term Aghet exists, and it and the numerous other sources I have presented indicate that it is an alternative name for what is generally known as the Armenian Genocide. I have also said that further discussion here is fruitless given the poverty of your arguments. Either retire your objection, allowing Aghet into the lead, or succinctly restate it at the moderated discussion [1]. I will not be responding to any more of your posts here unless you reject the moderated discussion offer. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:55, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

To Etienne Dolet: I agree and that is a large part of the reason I am against adding Aghet to the mix, but not the whole reason. I have stated myself as clearly as I can as to that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diranakir (talk • contribs) 20:20, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

If Aghet goes, then Medz Yeghern certainly must also go. In contrast to the online sources written by amateur or activist contributors cited for Medz Yeghern, those cited for Aghet are printed books by noted academics and thus of far greater status as sources. I urge Diranakir to desist with this. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: 'If Aghet goes, then Medz Yeghern certainly must also go' shows breathtaking dogmatism and tremendous exaggeration of the significance of the bookish sources you have compiled. You can add another twenty or fifty of them, but it will not change the fact that Medz Yeghern lends its name to the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan and Aghed does not, and that the term Medz Yeghern is always a central part of Genocide commemorations around the world whereas Aghed is not. That makes them very different. I repeat, there is no parity at all between the two terms and your effort to equate them has no legitimacy whatsoever. Diranakir (talk) 02:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Claude Mutafian, from Nor Haratch (French weekly), issue 246, page 5, 28 January 2016, 'The Curse of the "Catastrophe" '

Ce terme de « catastrophe » est à reléguer aux oubliettes : c’est un mensonge, qui de plus donne des armes à l’adversaire. . . . Le plus extraordinaire film sur le Génocide, celui d’Eric Friedler, n’a qu’un défaut, son titre « Aghet 1915 ». On ne peut pas le reprocher à l’auteur, quand ce sont les Arméniens eux-mêmes qui véhiculent cette erreur !

This term 'catastrophe' should be consigned to oblivion: it is a lie that gives more ammunition to the opponent. . . . The most extraordinary film about the Genocide, the one by Eric Friedler, has just one fault, its title, "Aghet 1915". The author cannot be blamed, when it is Armenians themselves who transmit this error! Diranakir (talk) 22:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

In the above you make it clear you are opposing entirely for pov reasons - you simply do not like the term "Aghet". This is the sort of opposition that has no validity on Wikipedia. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:46, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Opposing what? What sort of opposition? Are you Wikipedia? Diranakir (talk) 07:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

This sums up your opposition: WP:I just don't like it. You have expressed nothing that goes beyond that in your argument. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Pointing to WP guidelines is no answer. I presented a quotation from a historian which apparently rubbed you the wrong way. You translated this as 'my opposition'. So who is engaging in 'I don't like it'? I ask you again: my opposition to what? Opposition requires a direct object. What is the object you find me opposing? Or are you just throwing the English language around to convey your emotions without regard for meaning? Diranakir (talk) 16:07, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Sources mentioning "Aghet" as a name for the Armenian Genocide (in addition to the 4 sources cited earlier)
Mark Levene, "Devastation: Volume I: The European Rimlands 1912-1938", OUP Oxford, 2013. Page 96: "If the Armenian Genocide turns out to be part of a pattern of violence ... its singularity .. may itself be jeopardized. The Aghet was certainly not the first genocide of the twentieth century." And the index on page 529 has "Aghet (Armenian genocide)" listed. [2]
Mark Levene, "Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume 1: The Meaning of Genocide", I.B.Tauris, 2005, page 70 has a section titled "The Armenian genocide (the Aghet): Attempted extermination of the Ottoman Armenians." [3]
Christian P Scherrer (ed) - Iraq: Silent Death. 2015. Has as Topic 8 "Turkish Genocide of Armenians (Aghet). [4]
Kristin Platt, Mihran Dabag - "Generation und Gedächtnis: Erinnerungen und kollektive Identitäten", Springer-Verlag, 2013, p193 "Die Armenier Haben einen .... Ermordung yeghern, dt. Verfolgungsungluck, und aghet, Katastrophe". [5]
Hannah Jones (ed), Emma Jackson (ed.), "Stories of Cosmopolitan Belonging: Emotion and Location", Routledge, 2014, page "... what Armenians term "the Aghet" (which translates as "catastrophe") ..." [6]
Günther Fuchs, Hans-Ulrich Lüdemann," Mördermord: Dokumente und Dialoge", 2012. Page 164, "Das titelwort "Aghet" bezeichnet im Armenischen (ahnlich wie Shoah im Hebraischen) das Unheil und die Katastrophe schlechthin". [7]
Rolf Hosfeld, "Tod in der Wüste: Der Völkermord an den Armeniern", C.H.Beck, 2015, has in its introduction "Aghet - Katastrophe - so nenned die Armenier jene grauenvollen Ereignisse, die im Fruhiahr 1915 begannen", has its first chapter titled "Aghet" where it says "Fur die Armenier das Aghet, die grose Katastrophe ..." [8]
Krikor Beledian, "L’Expérience de la Catastrophe dans la Littérature Arménienne" in Revue d'Histoire Arménienne Contemporaine no 1, 1995. [9] p5 of the pdf version has "C’est le mot aghéd qui a été le plus souvent employé pour nommer la catastrophe de 1915 et c’est à ce titre qu’une étude lexicale de celui-ci s’impose."
And a few online usage examples.
Assyrian International News Agency press release from 2010 "While Assyrians call the genocide Seyfo (Sword), Armenians refer to the events as Aghet (Catastrophe)." [10].
Christopher Atamian - The Armenian Genocide: A Selected Bibliography and Videography, "Books about the Armenian Genocide have been published on a regular basis since the calamitous events of the Aghet came to an end in 1923." [11]
There is also a large number of online sources about the 2010 documentary film titled "Aghet". Where they explain the meaning of the word Aghet they all essentially say the same thing, so I think quoting from the Wikipedia article is enough to sum them all up: "The documentary has been praised for introducing "Aghet", the Armenian term for the Turkish massacres, to an international audience".
Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:50, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm okay with removing Medz Yeghern. Its modern definition is far from 'genocide', as far as I know. And isn't that what Obama called it? We all know that Obama refrains from acknowledging it as genocide. So that can create confusion for our readers. Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:54, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

That insincere Obama-type usage of Medz Yeghern is what I was thinking of when I said its "euphemistic usage". My preferred solution is to include both in the lead, but there is not a case that can be made to exclude Aghet and keep Medz Yeghern because Aghet has plenty of sources that justify it being there. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:06, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: Then why is it that if you type in Medz Yeghern, Meds Yeghern, or Mets Yeghern into the search field of any WP page it takes you to the AG article? No confusion there. Diranakir (talk) 03:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but renaming articles is different. There's thousands of words that may denote the AG. For example, we can add "Armenian tragedy", "Armenian atrocity", "Armenian extermination"....but we don't. There's no stop to the different names used to describe the AG. But look, I'm not calling for the removal of Medz Yeghern all together, it can be placed elsewhere in the article. I'm just thinking about the average English reader here who has to read Medz Yeghern, Tseghasbanutyun, Aghet, and all these other names in just the first sentence of the article. In other words, I'm for anything that'll make it easier for the English reader, and that's what counts. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:54, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: My point was that if WP has no problem equating Medz Yeghern, Meds Yeghern, Mets Yeghern with the Armenian Genocide, why should you or any other proficient reader of English have a problem with its modern definition as genocide? Diranakir (talk) 07:27, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I get what you mean. But I think it would still be confusing. For example, Obama stated Mets Yeghern in his address, while every one in the world claims he refuses to recognize the AG. Mets Yeghern can't be considered genocide then, can it? Yet, when a curious English speaker searches Mets Yeghern, he'll be redirected to the AG article. I'm sure that can cause confusion. Anyways, I think we're digressing. Like I said, my main concern is the first sentence of the lead being bloated with alternate names. Étienne Dolet (talk) 07:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I have been reading the postings of Tiptoethrutheminefield and I think that it would be extremely useful to know his/her credentials to judge about who is "nobody," who is "amateur or activist," or who is "noted academic." If s/he doesn't want to show them, which is perfectly right, then s/he should abstain from making value judgments. Also, it would be useful to know his credentials to judge about the more or less reliability of an article compared to another article or a book. It is not sheer chance that he dispatches a series of 11 (eleven) scholarly-written articles (which were not "online") with the words "amateur or activist," just because they don't fit his agenda. Finally, since s/he appears to be an extremely knowledgeable person in all matters related to the Armenian language, but unable to spell Aghed in Armenian with uppercase and unable to correctly read the English language (judging from his ludicrous interpretation of what Marc Nichanian has written and his obstinate insistence on it), one should be grateful if s/he could produce an article to prove that the majority of the survivors used Aghed and that Medz Yeghern means "Great Calamity," since the four-year-old edit warring of one previous reincarnation --which he took the pains of digging out from its archival grave -- falsifying the meaning of Medz Yeghern was unable to do it despite his/her considerable display of empty verbiage and zero proofs. He may pile up to death contemporary scholars that say "Aghed," but it doesn't prove anything. One can pile up an equal number of scholars saying "Medz Yeghern."

To Etienne Dolet: Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister of Canada, recognized the Armenian Genocide on April 19, 2006. Please take note that Harper wrote/quoted both "Medz Yeghern" and "Armenian genocide" in the same statement:

"I would like to extend my sincere greetings to all of those marking this somber anniversary of the Medz Yeghern.

Ninety-one years ago the Armenian people experienced terrible suffering and loss of life. In recent years the Senate of Canada adopted a motion acknowledging this period as “the first genocide of the twentieth century,” while the House of Commons adopted a motion that “acknowledges the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemns this act as a crime against humanity.” My party and I supported those resolutions and continue to recognize them today."

Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York, April 24, 2015 (idem, "Meds Yeghern" and "Armenian genocide" in the same sentence):

“Today, we commemorate the Meds Yeghern and honor those who perished in the Armenian genocide 100 years ago in one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, when over a million Armenians were subjected to state-sanctioned murder, rape and massive forced deportations.”

So much for the "insincere Obama-type usage" and the remaining empty verbiage coming from your interlocutor.

Let me add another quotation that shows the equivalence of "anniversary of the Armenian Genocide" and "anniversary of Medz Yeghern":

"Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. However, it is a well-known fact that the statutory limitation can’t be applied to the crimes against humanity. The 100th anniversary of Mets Yeghern is not an endpoint; it is just a unique destination" (Serzh Sargsyan, July 2014, Buenos Aires, in “Breaks Ground for Armenian Genocide Museum in Buenos Aires,” The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, July 18, 2014).

If you are worried about too many Armenian words in the lead, please note that there is only the Armenian literal translation of "Armenian Genocide" and the traditional name Medz Yeghern. No English reader will be confused for reading two names in Armenian. (Look at the beginning of the article "Holocaust.") Aghed is just an addition made with the purpose of muddying the waters and, in the end, causing the disappearance and/or displacement of Medz Yeghern. Let me remind you that "Armenian Genocide" is not the proper name of the genocide, but only the combination of a generic name for a type of crime and an ethnic name that has been uppercased for the past 30 or 40 years. Your examples of "Armenian tragedy," "Armenian atrocities," etc. are not pertinent, because those are not proper names. In any case, there wouldn't be any need to use them in the lead. Armen Ohanian (talk) 04:35, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Armenian extermination, for example, is cited by many scholars and more importantly, by contemporaneous witnesses of the AG. Even in Hovanissian's book, an academic notes: "the United States media (periodicals as well as newspapers) gave extensive coverage to what was then called the Armenian 'extermination.'" Hence, the contemporaneous witnesses are a big issue when it comes to the AG because the term 'genocide' wasn't coined at that time. That's why we have a plethora of words used by them that are now equally valid for inclusion in this article. So I can make a very good argument here to add many different words to the first sentence. But I won't, for the reasons I have mentioned in my previous comment. Right now, I see four names in bold in the first sentence of the lead that, in my view, are four too many. Armenian holocaust? Armenian massacres? Really? I think the redirects are suffice for that. So how bout this...why don't we place all of the alternative names in [note 3]. That way, the first sentence won't be so discombobulated. Here's a proposal for [note 3]:

Spelt Հայոց ցեղասպանութիւն in classical Armenian orthography. In English, the Armenian Genocide is also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally by Armenians, as Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime") etc. etc. etc.

Or we can just add all that information somewhere in the body. Perhaps in the Armenian_Genocide#Studies_on_the_Genocide section. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

To Etienne Dolet: Some of your ideas seem worth to think about. I'll come back about them. Meanwhile, it is clear that witnesses would have used a dozen names, particularly in the first years or decades, as they did. I'm pretty sure I don't need to make a list for you here. However, when we speak about a particular *proper* name, as in the case of Medz Yeghern, we mean the name that became most used. I would be interested to see a sample of a dozen Armenian-language newspaper ads spread over the past hundred years (at least, their dates) that have announced the April 24 commemoration as "1915ի Աղէտի ոգեկոչում." If needed, I can offer a gazillion that have used "1915ի Մեծ Եղեռնի (or Ապրիլեան Եղեռնի) ոգեկոչում." That should mean something for the actual people who read those newspapers, right? If those are found, then we can start talking whether "Aghed is the most frequent name used to name the catastrophe of 1915" (my translation of Beledian's French quote), which means exactly that: the *catastrophe* of 1915 is called "Aghed," whereas the **crime** of 1915 is called "(Medz) Yeghern," and the catastrophe of 1915 wouldn't have existed if there wasn't a crime before: there is one reason why the Young Turk criminals were called եղեռնագործ (criminals) and not աղէտագործ ("catastrophe-doers," a word that doesn't exist in any language that I have been looked into, at least not in Armenian, English, French, Spanish, Turkish, or Italian).

By the way, I could argue that the Holocaust is called "hurban" by the Jews (which is not even a Hebrew, but a Yiddish name), because it was frequently used by the survivors in the first years, and impose it on the lead of the Holocaust article because "I" say so, and put fifty scholarly sources that repeat that to "prove" my point without even knowing Hebrew or Yiddish.

When I spoke about "Armenian extermination," I meant that it wasn't called "Armenian Extermination," with uppercase, which is the only way that it might have pretensions to be a proper name. (Otherwise, "Armenian genocide," with lowercase, is not a proper name; it is the simplified way to say "genocide of the Armenians," as you would say "Tutsi genocide" or "genocide of the .) The US media (say, the NYT) called it "extermination", not "Armenian Extermination" or even "Armenian extermination," as your own citation makes clear, so they didn't give it a name. Proper names usually come after the event, not during the event. Armen Ohanian (talk) 18:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Tell me then Armen Ohanian, what was the proper name for the AG prior to the term 'genocide' being coined? I can't think of one, but I'm sure there's probably dozens. I've stumbled upon many: Armenian Catastophe, Armenian Tragedy, etc. etc. Étienne Dolet (talk) 09:31, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

To Etienne Dolet: if you're asking about names in Western languages, I think that the most usual name was "Armenian Massacres," capitalized. This is the most frequent one I have stumbled-open in the English-language press of the time until 1965 at least. (I believe this is the reason that name has been in the lead for several years, at least since 2010, if I'm not mistaken.) I have mostly seen "Armenian catastrophe," "Armenian tragedy," "Armenian extermination" in lower case, which means that these are not proper names in English. However, this is not what this thread has been discussing. The discussion centers around the suitability of "Aghed" as proper name. On this, we may say a few things:

a) If we consider "Aghed" an Armenian proper name for the annihilation of 1915, we have also to consider whether this name was systematically used to communicate with the public. This why I have said that it is not a matter of piling up a dozen of secondary sources (mostly non-Armenians who don't know a iota of Armenian, and are simply repeating what they have read elsewhere). If someone wants to prove that "Aghed" must be up there and, moreover, as first choice of Armenian proper name, then s/he has to show that it has been more relevant that "Medz Yeghern" from 1915 to 2015. How do you do it? By going to the sources. As I wrote before, newspapers are one such source. Go and find ads in Armenian for the anniversaries. If someone finds a dozen that say "Xth anniversary of the Aghed" over the course of the years, this would amount to something.

b) It has been written before: "Nichanian work is a piece of academic writing intended for an international audience of his peers, not a parochial Armenian audience. His peers are not Armenians, his peers are academics (some of whom might be Armenian). The text wording will thus follow the standard of all academic writings intended for an international audience. Unless Nichanian explicitly says "Armenian popular consciousness" he will not mean Armenian when he writes "popular consciousness". And the context, his mention of the extent of the popular consciousness of the word Shoah amongst non-Jews, further indicates his meaning."

This is, as the author of those lines is fond to say, built entirely out of sheer personal POV (the emphasis and the uppercase are mine). Of course, Nichanian writes for whoever can read in English (or the original French). Anyone writing on this "Talk" page writes for an international audience! The only way to write for a "parochial Armenian audience," as it is implied by this insulting comment, is to write in the "parochial" Armenian language. And the POV wants to make us believe that "unless Nichanian explicitly says... further indicates his meaning." I'm not going to quote page 11-12 of Nichanian's "Writers of Disaster" to prove that the author of the abovementioned paragraph doesn't know/want to read (read = "to have the ability to look at and comprehend the meaning of written or printed matter") those two pages. I'm going to quote from his dialogue with David Kazanjian (David Kazanjian and Marc Nichanian, “Between Genocide and Catastrophe,” in David L. Eng and David Kazanjian (ed.), Loss: The Politics of Mourning, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003, p. 128):

“Now, how Armenians "suppressed" this word, Aghed? Not really. We could say so if the word had been in use at some place or some time during this century and had been supplanted by (for me) the ominous and disgusting one of "Genocide," ominous and disgusting because of its use as a proper name. But this is not really the case” (emphasis added).

Here, Nichanian explicitly says "if the word had been in use at some place or some time during this century." In plain English, the use of the conditional means the word was not in use at some place or some time. Of course, this is not entirely true. The word was used here and there; it appeared uppercased in some cases, but it didn't have a systematic, easily recognizable and identifiable use, unlike "Medz Yeghern." It was used along with the other names employed here and there. Because it has been said that I only write pov and not facts, here is a source from someone who has actually researched newspaper editorials:

"Survivors of the Armenian Genocide used a number of terms to refer to the destruction of their people in the Ottoman Empire. In the editorials under study, the term most commonly and consistently used from the 1920s to the present is Yeghern (Crime/Catastrophe), or variants like Medz Yeghern (Great Crime) and Abrilian Yeghern (the April Crime). Other terms include Hayasbanutyun (Armenocide), Medz Voghperkutyun (Great Tragedy), Medz Vogchagez (Great Holocaust), Medz Nahadagutyun (Great Martyrdom), Aghed (Catastrophe), Medz Nakhjir and Medz Sbant (both, Great Massacre), Medz Potorig (Great Storm), Sev Vojir (Black Crime) and, after 1948, Tseghasbanutyun (Genocide), or variants like Haygagan Tseghasbanutyun and Hayots Tseghasbanutyun (both, Armenian Genocide).

Yeghern was the word most frequently used when referring to the destruction of the Armenians before the term 'genocide' was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 and incorporated into the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Even after that, Yeghern maintained its prominence for a number of decades" (Khatchig Mouradian, "Explaining the Unexplainable: The Terminology Employed by the Armenian Media when Referring to 1915," The Armenian Weekly, September 23, 2006).

Now, some of the translations are debatable in my opinion (yeghern, nakhjir, and sbant), but that's beside the point. I only wanted to show where Aghed stood in the post-1915 panorama of vocabulary on the genocide.

c) Beledian has written "It is the word "aghed" that has been the most frequently employed to name the catastrophe of 1915..."

The fact is that Beledian writes in lowercase; I believe that we all know here that there is a clear-cut difference between a common name and a proper name. If 1915 was a catastrophe, which it was, then it was naturally going to be said that "it is a catastrophe." It is quite interesting the following comment:

"Selon Krikor Beledian, le terme le plus communément employé dans la littérature arménienne moderne pour rendre compte du processus d’anéantissement programmé qu’est 1915 est la « catastrophe » (aghéd). [According to Krikor Beledian, the term most commonly employed in Armenian modern literature to give an account of the process of programmed extermination that is 1915 is "catastrophe" (aghed) (emphasis added]. Pour une histoire de ce concept voir « L’expérience de la catastrophe dans la littérature arménienne », Revue d’Histoire arménienne contemporaine, 1995, tome 1" (Martine Hovannessian, "Diaspora arménienne et patrimonialisation d’une mémoire collective : l’impossible lieu du témoignage ?," Les cahiers de Framespa, 3, 2007, https://framespa.revues.org/314).

So, we may say that Beledian, who makes a masterful study of literary works of the 1930s in his article of 1995, talks about Armenian modern literature and not the entire spectrum of the Armenian language. In any case, his quotation, which has also been unfairly exploited as a "cheval de bataille," does not say "It is the word Aghed that has been the most frequently employed proper name to name the catastrophe of 1915..."

d) Finally, as I had promised, I would like to go back to your proposal of alleviating the burden in the lead and build up on it. I think it may be fairly reasonable to establish a comparison with the opening sentence of the entry "Holocaust" and divide the first sentence into two:

"The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey."

Compare:

"The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"), also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews."

Along the lines of what you had proposed, footnote 3 would become:

Spelt Հայոց ցեղասպանութիւն in classical Armenian orthography. In English, the Armenian Genocide is also known as the Armenian Holocaust, and, previously, as the Armenian Massacres.

(The last sentence of footnote 3 can even be taken out, if someone thinks that its too "heavy.").Armen Ohanian (talk) 19:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

All of the above, with the exception of the wording of the lead suggestion, is OR and so can be dismissed as OR, though I expect we will soon see a new article on Armenian Weekly containing similar content. I absolutely oppose the aforementioned suggestion. It is a sideline - it does not address the insertion of Aghet (which is the subject of this discussion) - and it contains propaganda text, the "inside their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey" lie, and the pov "Great Crime" translation while omitting the alternative translation. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

We are, of course, in a Catch-22 situation: if you write something without a shower of sources, it is POV. If you toss several sources to back your saying, it is OR. Unless you're, of course, the one and only who is the arbiter of truth, whose cherrypicking from the beginning of this thread is and should be dismissed as OR, and who works by denigrating whoever and whatever doesn't suit his views as OR and/or POV.

To summarize:

1) I have addressed the insertion of Aghed, and rejected by quoting a source that says more than your piled-up secondary references, and explaining what the main sources that you have carefully misinterpreted actually say.

2) "Carried [out] inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey" tries to address the fact that Armenians were annihilated inside the portion of their historical homeland lying within present day-Turkey, as well as around it, meaning the rest of Asiatic Turkey. There is no lie there. Of course, the phrasing can be improved. Perhaps the sentence might be rewritten into two sentences.

3) Since you appear to know Armenian so well, please enrich our knowledge with a study of the "alternative translation" that proves its reliability. The articles that you dismiss as the work of "activists" are based on primary linguistic and literary sources to show what, of course, is sheer "pov" for you. Armen Ohanian (talk) 20:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Armen's proposal looks good to me. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur. An admirable resolution by Armen. Diranakir (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

"C’est le mot "aghéd" qui a été le plus souvent employé pour nommer la catastrophe de 1915 et c’est à ce titre qu’une étude lexicale de celui-ci s’impose." ("It is the word "aghed" that has been the most often used to name the catastrophe of 1915, and as such a lexical study of it is essential") - p131, Krikor Beledian, "L'expérience de la catastrophe dans la littérature arménienne", in "Revue d’histoire arménienne contemporaine", No. 1, 1995. Armen Ohanian brings no sources and, like Diranakir, an argument built almost entirely out of personal pov, plus something new - snide personal attacks. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC) Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:54, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course, you don't need to quote once again Beledian's passage to tell me what I have known for 20 years, since the article was first published, and if you're talking about "snide personal attacks," please look at your own record. I already brought you plenty of reasoning about facts that you are unable to figure out, because you can only rely on translations or secondary sources, and you think that piling up fifty sources saying the same is a way to open room to your own pov. Because you simply don't have arguments, you use the "best defense is offense" argument. If you want me to start piling you original sources in the Armenian language that you will surely be able to read, just let me know. Meanwhile, now I'm telling you: put together a dozen of Armenian-language examples of newspaper ads that gave the name "Aghed" to the event in 1915 at any moment of the past hundred years. I'm pretty sure your advanced knowledge of the language will help you find them easily. If you do it, then you will have a point that Aghed had a real use in real life, rather than being a word mostly used in literature, and today, by accomplished philosophers and literary critics (not historians, not political scientists, not genocide scholars) like Beledian and Nichanian, whose scholarship I know in detail, starting with their Armenian writings. In case you haven't noticed, I'll remind you: one says that Aghed is "most frequently used to name the catastrophe of 1915" (I told you what it means, and you simply dismiss it as "pov" and/or "snide personal attacks"), the other says that "Aghed" did not really prevail in popular consciousness and therefore did not prevail in everyday language, and when told you, you invent your pov explanation of "the popular consciousness of the wider world," which has no ground whatsoever. You just need to read Nichanian a little more than a random page of "Writers of Disaster," in case you want to really understand what he means (which, I'm afraid, you don't really want because it won't suit your own personal viewpoints, abundantly exposed before). And if you think that piling up contemporary works of scholars (which is the only source you may have, because the Internet doesn't readily furnish you the actual Armenian sources to pick and choose without context, as you love to do) may convince anyone that you have a point, feel free to live in your world of delusion. Armen Ohanian (talk) 21:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't see an obvious overloading of the lead. If Aghet and Medz Yeghern are excluded from it then they will need to be inserted and explained somewhere else in the article. However, there is not a legitimate argument to include (be it in the lead or elsewhere) "Medz Yeghern" and exclude "Aghet". I have presented plenty of suitable sources that explicitly show Aghet is a name used to refer to the event more generally known as the Armenian Genocide - and of course it predates the term "Armenian Genocide" since it predates the coining of the word "genocide". In addition, I have earlier mentioned my intention to improve the Portrayal in the media subsection, to perhaps change its title to something like "Artistic responses to the Genocide" and to include content on that, with the content based on what sources have written about artistic responses rather than a mere list of titles. Those sources often mention "Aghet", never "Medz Yeghern", which would make the exclusion of Aghet as an alternative name quite ludicrous. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Since numerous additional sources have been presented to show that the word is used as a name for the Armenian Genocide, and in the absence of any legitimate arguments against its addition, I have restored "Aghet" to the lead until it is decided whether both Aghet and Medz Yeghern should be removed from the lead or remain in it. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Some related discussions from the archives:
[12] - Discussion on variations in the translation of "Medz Yeghern". Diranakir opposes an alternative translation, "Great Calamity", despite sources being presented that have this translation.
[13] - Discussion on whether "Armenian Holocaust" should be inserted into the lead as an alternative name for the Armenian Genocide. In it, Diranakir argues that it should be inserted, saying "'Common use' is not a standard that can be mechanically applied to Armenian matters. The purpose of the article is to inform, give historical perspective, That is what the alternative terms after Genocide do". But, in his opposition to "Aghet" here, he is arguing the exact opposite!
I think these two discussions reveal Diranakir's agenda - that of Armenian activists in North America obsessed with obtaining Armenian Genocide recognition at a political level and wishing to usurp the real meaning of terms in order to make all references or words used for the Armenian Genocide appear to unequivocally support the "genocide" assertion. He is for "Armenian Holocaust" because it has the word "holocaust" in it, he is against "Aghet" because it does not. He is for "Medz Yeghern" being translated as "Great Crime" because it has the word "crime" in it; he is against "Medz Yeghern" being translated as "Great Calamity" because it does not have the word "crime" in it.
Diranakir's editing regarding "Medz_Yeghern" and the "Great Crime" translation
At [14] we have the observation "Is it acceptable for a wikipedia editor to use a large number of recently written articles by the same person to support what looks like an on-going personal agenda? Especially since some of those articles seem to have been written after this discussion about "Great Crime" translation began on Wikipedia". I wrote this (I was new to Wikipedia then and forgot about the signing thing), and the editor I refer to is Diranakir. The "same person" is Vartan Matiossian. Diranakir and Armen Ohanian, opposers of both "Great Calamity" and "Aghet", have worked on the Vartan Matiossian Wikipedia article, an article which was created by a single issue editor and which is almost entirely unsourced. I see an attempt to influence Wikipedia content by producing off-Wikipedia material in order to use that material to support on-Wikipedia content. See this, yet another discussion on the "Great Calamity" / "Great Crime" translation issue[15]. In it Diranakir presents 11 sources for the "Great Crime" translation. All of them are recent, are by the same person (Matiossian), and are published in the same source. I observed at the time "Matiossian has gone to the bother of writing article after article aggressively asserting that the only translation of "Mets Yeghern" can be "Great Crime" because there is an existing controversy about that translation and because there are alternative translations being used". Thanks to relentless low-scale edit warring, Diranakir has been able to exclude sourced content he does not like (alternative translations and alternative terms) and distort the lead of this article for his own agenda, turning the content mentioning the various alternative terms for the Armenian Genocide into a mirror image of a Matiossian ideal. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Since we're delving into the archives, let us get it all out into the sunshine. Did you withdraw the comments or not? Here they are for everyone to see without having to leave this page and to show the calibre of thought being exercised [emphasis supplied]:

Is it acceptable for a wikipedia editor to use a large number of recently written articles by the same person to support what looks like an on-going personal agenda? Especially since some of those articles seem to have been written after this discussion about "Great Crime" translation began on Wikipedia (That is why I think it important to know whether the author of the cited articles and Diranakir might be the same person, and for that reason I can't see how it is a personal insult to do it. Are articles being written in other sources as direct responses to problems the author has had in getting his pov placed into this wikipedia article?). Why is Diranakir so against any compromise, such as placing the "great calamity" translation, which is supported by sources, into the article? EtienneDolet is right - the Armenian Genocide wikipedia article is in such a problematic state that to continually and exclusively dwell on this one tiny issue shows a complete lack of proportion by someone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.64.242.66 (talk) 16:56, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The personal attacks on me with provocative suggestions that I am the same person whose work I cited have gone too far. A full and fair discussion was held to arrive at the definition of Medz Yeghern presently reflected in the lead paragraph of the article. All sides made compromises. It is unfortunate that reckless claims of a personal nature have now intruded this page to obscure the productive discussion held. Diranakir (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

If you feel my question amounted to a personal attack then I do apologise - it was not meant to be seen like that. I felt it was an acceptable question, but because you clearly think it is not, I withdraw it.Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Diranakir - since both myself and EtienneDolet have moved such of our comments that are relevant to content discussion out of this section, and that I have withdrawn my question, would you agree that it is OK to now delete this section from the talk page? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:10, 1 April 2014 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 16:13, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Your speculation about my motives and your description of 'Armenian activists in North America obsessed with obtaining Armenian Genocide recognition at a political level' are simply egregious. Your attempts at a psychological approach are ill-conceived. Medz Yeghern does not have two definitions, either of which can be chosen according to one's agenda. But it seems a vital matter for you to use the concept of calamity in naming the Genocide in the lede. When it could no longer be used to define Medz Yeghern, you discovered aghet. The interesting point in this is that, yes, aghet means catastrophe and has always meant catastrophe, which is precisely why you were in error stubbornly trying to attach its meaning to yeghern all along. In consequence, Medz Yeghern has no value for you any longer and you are grooming a new stand-in for it. That's why you called it 'your Medz Yeghern', meaning me. No, it isn't mine. It has been and will remain at the center of Armenian Genocide commemorations around the world and the lede. Diranakir (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Once more, Tiptoe attacks the person instead of dealing with the issues on their merits. Seeing a series of scholarly articles as aggression is indeed a novelty in literary criticism. Maybe all the presses should be stopped until aggression is certifiably rooted out. Who knows, one of them might be cited by a Wikipedian. Diranakir (talk) 20:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I have proposed moderated discussion elsewhere [16] because I think that this talk page discussion has reached an end of its usefulness. I have linked the archived discussions so that they can be looked at and your stance here can be understood to be part of a longer editing history. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:12, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

A notice to all concerned. The following statement at Dispute Resolution is in error: ' There has been adequate discussion at the talk page.' Robert McClenon (talk) 03:22, 10 April 2016 (UTC)'. This discussion is still very much underway and should not be closed off without the consent of all the parties involved. The issue at stake is of serious importance and much remains to be dealt with. Diranakir (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Do I take it from the above that you are rejecting the proposal of moderated discussion on the dispute resolution noticeboard. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:24, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Three of the four parties to this discussion have reached a satisfactory compromise and agreed on the following wording for the first sentence of the lede: "The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried out inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey." Diranakir (talk) 12:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if we should simply limit the alternative names to legalistic names of the Armenian Genocide. In other words, let's use less traditional and emotive names (which often times creates vague interpretations) and retain more precise alternative names for the AG. For example, Mets Yeghern, Armenian Holocaust, Armenian Massacres all have legal connotations to them. Can we say for certain that Aghet has the same legal signification as these alternative names? To me Aghet is emotive, it can be used for any tragedy or catastrophe, such as a lost of a loved one or if your house gets burnt down. The same can't be said for Holocaust, Massacres, or Mets Yeghern. Just a thought. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Diranakir and Armen Ohanian are you both in favor of excluding Aghet in the body as well? Or just the first sentence? Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:22, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

EtienneDolet If I understand you correctly, I agree that the names that have legal connotations are the most appropriate for the lede. I think the agreement we reached above presents two precise terms, one in English and one in Armenian (Armenian Genocide and Medz Yeghern), that succinctly and adequately address that standard. Aghed clearly does not belong in the same category, being a broad term that some apply to the mass killings of Armenians from 1894 to 1923 and others apply to the annihilations that began in 1915. It also has no legal connotations. I have no objection to its being mentioned in the body or in Note 3, being an important part of the literature on the genocide, but not in the lede overshadowing Medz Yeghern, which still occupies a unique role in Armenian discourse and has its name inscribed in genocide memorials around the world.

There are two main reasons I initiated this discussion: in addition to the four names for the Genocide found in the first sentence of the lede, which you already considered excessive, Tiptoe added Aghet. Not only that, he placed it ahead of Medz Yeghern and made the adjectival phrase '[known] traditionally by Armenians' seem to apply to it, whereas that is totally false. It only relates to Medz Yeghern.

The other reason is that Aghet, while a meaningful term in literary, philosophical and scholarly treatments of the genocide, is in no way on a par with Medz Yeghern in terms of its popular and commemorative significance. Placing it in the lede gives the false impression that it is. The following concise wording for the lede is an effective, truthful and straightforward way to introduce the article. It is what we agreed upon:

'The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried out inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey.' Diranakir (talk) 06:44, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to add my 2 cents about this issue, as someone who is quite knowledgeable about much of the writing on the topic, and about what Armenians in the Diaspora and Armenia say. I have only heard the term Aghet used in one place in my life, ever. The movie. And I did not know what it meant. I also don't hear Armenians use the term Medz Yeghern really, for that matter. I know it has a history of use, but there is no question that Armenians call it the genocide in English or Armenian the vast majority of the time. If anything was to come in a distant second I would say it's simply calling it THE massacre in Armenian (chart@), and calling that period (charti aden - the time of THE massacre). So I have to say I don't see Aghet as a useful addition, especially in such a prominent place. Maybe in a section where the terminology and such are discussed, it could warrant a mention. --RaffiKojian (talk) 06:54, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course, there is a difference between what people call the event in colloquial language or what call them in writing (I'm always talking about the Armenian language, not English), but when you talk about the history of a name, it is basically what is fixed in writing. That's why I asked to find the use of Aghed as the name of the event in media advertisements, for if they called it Aghed, it would mean that the receptors would understand what it meant. The "objector of conscience" who speaks of Armenian language matters every two years as if he knew the language has now discovered the existence of Aghed as a mean to disrupt the beginning of the article, and piled up sixteen sources, as if to asphyxiate us under its weight. (I can pile up fifty sources that tell you that Armenians are monophysite; it doesn't give me the right to write that the Armenian Church is monophysite.) I have already shown beyond doubt --called POV by this "king of misinterpretation"-- that 1) Aghed was/is not part of "popular consciousness" (Raffi Kojian's remark reflects that), 2) It was one of many other names, far below Medz Yeghern. I would also suggest to go and look for any inscription on any memorial of the genocide throughout the world (because it was argued that "the majority of AG survivors did not settle in America, they settled in the middle east, in Greece, in France, etc., so their opinions and usages are of crucial importance") that has used the word Aghed in the past 80 years or so. Therefore, I stand for what I suggested for the lead. If someone is willing to open a section on the history of names of the genocide and to include Aghed in there (its usefulness within the context of this article is another issue) with a careful discussion of its actual literary-philosophical meaning, that's a completely different subject. Armen Ohanian (talk) 15:51, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

With all due respects, Raffi, but your argument is a non-argument for Wikipdia. Personal ignorance of the fact of its use is not a reason to exclude that fact of its use. And the opposite is also true; personal knowledge of a fact is not a reason to include that fact (since it would be OR). Wikipedia content is based on published sources, intelligently used, and needs to reflect what sources are saying. So there has to be sources for everything. 16 sources have been presented that state, without any shades of doubt, that Aghet (or its variant Aghed) used as a Proper Name is a word that is used as a name for the Armenian Genocide. Nobody (i.e., no source, which is all that matters) is saying it is the most used, however there are sources saying it is the most used Armenian word (excluding of course "Armenian Genocide" directly translated into Armenian). Most used Armenian word means most used in total, not the most common in use today. There are far more academic works stating that Aghet = Armenian Genocide than Medz Yeghern = Armenian Genocide (check Google Books). (And incidentally, many of the Medz Yeghern = Armenian Genocide sources DO NOT translate it as "Great Crime"). Please do not in a way continue the Genocide by denying one of the names, the most eloquent and precious one at that, that its survivors used to self-identify their experiences. Nichanian writes "Aghed is a secret word for the event". You should check out some of the thoughtful and carefully-considered writing by Nichanian on "Aghet", and contrast it with the crude, thuggish, short-term, and firmly North American polemics of Matiossian on "Medz Yeghern"". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:01, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes, people are good at trying to masquerade themselves as the apologists of humanity and to shed crocodile tears: "Please do not in a way continue the Genocide by denying one of the names, the most eloquent and precious one at that, that its survivors used to self-identify their experiences." As if they were not in the actual business of "denying one of the names, the most eloquent and precious one at that" and trying to impose their utter ignorance of the Armenian language.

Since you have already taken up the pseudo-business of speaking on behalf of the survivors (your "predecessor" did exactly that... four years ago), please let me enlighten you with another quote from Nichanian: "Yes, the survivors are sometimes using this name [Aghed] as a proper name for the event, but very scarcely" (David Kazanjian and Marc Nichanian, “Between Genocide and Catastrophe,” in David L. Eng and David Kazanjian (ed.), Loss: The Politics of Mourning, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003, p. 127, emphasis added). Do you need me to translate this into plain English? Moreover, here is something about why "Aghed is a secret word for the event," which you thuggishly detach from its context as usual (the standard way for misinterpretation): "Now I repeat: if there is a loss, it can only be the loss of a law. The catastrophic loss is the loss of the law of mourning. And what makes it "catastrophic" is not the loss itself, in itself. There is no recovering from this loss. What makes it catastrophic is the fact that it has to be denied, that is denied in the very moment that it happens. This is why "Catastrophe" [Aghed] is but the secret name of what happened" (idem). Armen Ohanian (talk) 16:43, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Armen Ohanian, your continual use of personal attacks in the form of abusive language will not be tolerated any further. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:02, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Summary: Four out of five contributors to this discussion have concurred that 'Aghet (Catastrophe)' does not belong in the lede. Three have preliminarily agreed on an abbreviated version of the lede which drops Armenian Massacres and Armenian Holocaust in the interests of readability. Diranakir (talk) 16:22, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

For whatever it is worth, as a complete newcomer who has just skimmed the article, and only saw this discussion over at the WP:DRN, my view is that only one Armenian term for the genocide should be used in the lead, as long as we're going to have two other English names and the full thing in a foreign script. Frankly, I would vote for removing all of those alternate names until the second sentence, because it is just irrelevant to the vast majority of readers.

As for which Armenian term to use? I think the simplest method, like counting Google scholar and Google book hits, should be used.

Note that I say this as someone who, on the WP:DRN page, felt instinctively that Aghet should be used, because I thought that it might have some particular significance for victims, and I think it's important that histories respect victim experiences. (Oh, and the reasoning on WP:DRN was very persuasive, whether manipulative or not, in which the writer explained that the only reason for objection was due to the personal whims of the objectors.) However, now that I see the actual text, it's already quite unwieldy and the last thing we should do is pile on more unfamiliar words.

I want to emphasize again that I think the current first sentence is already far too inside baseball. Just two cents from a complete outsider. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 02:52, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

@Cleopatran Apocalypse: I appreciate your interest in the topic. A fresh perspective is always helpful.

Let me ask you a question to get down to brass tacks. You say, 'However, now that I see the actual text, it's already quite unwieldy and the last thing we should do is pile on more unfamiliar words.' That being so, do you think Aghet should be added to the others or rather take their place as the only Armenian name?

One more question: What was 'very persuasive' about the posting at WP:DRN which attributed 'personal whims' to those objecting to Aghet? The objectors posted good faith explanations of their positions. Is the mere charge somehow meritorious in and of itself, or wouldn't it need some evidence that goes beyond the author's unsupported assertion? Diranakir (talk) 22:24, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

To your last point first: of course the charge is not meritorious. But I assumed it was true, and who could object to support if it was indeed so? But then I scanned the conversation and felt slightly taken in by the DRN summary. Clearly the objections to Aghet are not because "I personally don't like it."

Anyway, I made my opinion clear: I think burdening the first sentence with yet another foreign term is unnecessary. Pick either Aghet or Medz Yeghern. I don't understand the substantive difference or cultural connotations between them. I suggest simply using the one that is most widely used and accepted and adopted in the best sources. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 03:36, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest, Cleopatran Apocalypse. If Diranakir wished to dismiss the assertion that his argument against Aghet is substantially "I don't like it" material, he should have taken up the offer of moderated discussion at WP:DRN. That forum gave the opportunity to restate arguments carefully and structurally and free from all the disorder of a talk page. The suggestion to have only one alternative name in the lede has to be founded on what sources say. If sources say there is more than one alternative, or more than one English translation of only one alternative, that makes the suggestion all but impossible to follow if we want to maintain a npov. However, I think the lede length issue has become a distraction because nothing is solved even if all the alternative terms were removed from the lede. Diranakir position is against mention of Aghet anywhere in the article (even though 14+ sources have been presented for its use) and all alternative translations (even though numerous sources have translations other than "Great Crime") of Metz Yeghern deleted from the article, be it in the lede's first sentence, or elsewhere in the lede, or anywhere in the body content. If I am misinterpreting Diranakir's position, he can easily correct my misinterpretation. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:35, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

There are ongoing issues with "Medz Yeghern" that do have cultural and political connotations. President Obama before becoming president used the word genocide to define what other presidents had just called "a tragedy" or suchlike euphemisms. When president he searched around for a way to not mention the genocide word again, in order to not offend Turkey. He settled on calling it "Medz Yeghern", which was usually translated (if at all) as something like "great tragedy" or "great calamity". As a response, Armenian activists in North America began promoting the "Great Crime" translation, so that they could say Obama was accusing Turkey of having committed a great crime. The main source for the "Great Crime" translation argument is a series of recent articles in the Armenian Revolutionary Federation affiliated newspaper Armenian Weekly (source for this statement: "For more on the etymology and historical usage of the term Medz Yeghern, see Vartan Matiossian's eleven articles in Armenian Weekly" [[17]]. Diranakir has been citing these articles as sources for "Great Crime"). The exclusion of Aghet is part of the same process - ideologically, Medz Yeghern / Great Crime is now the only permitted term and translation allowable. I admit it all sounds rather petty, but it has serious issues in that the meaning of words are being altered and genuine history is being distorted or eliminated. And it seriously distorts Wikipedia's editing standards by excluding sourced material and making content obey what recently-produced opinion piece sources say is correct. It is also giving undue weight to North American current opinions and sources, given that the genocide did not take place in America and the majority of its survivors did not settle in America. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: The following statement was posted by you today at 16:35, 16 April 2016 (UTC):

'Diranakir position is against mention of Aghet anywhere in the article (even though 14+ sources have been presented for its use) and all alternative translations (even though numerous sources have translations other than "Great Crime") of Metz Yeghern deleted from the article, be it in the lede's first sentence, or elsewhere in the lede, or anywhere in the body content. If I am misinterpreting Diranakir's position, he can easily correct my misinterpretation.'

Your interpretation is completely and absolutely false. The following is my correction:

'I have no objection to its being mentioned in the body or in Note 3, being an important part of the literature on the genocide. . . .' signed by me at 06:44, 13 April 2016 (UTC) in this very thread. Diranakir (talk) 18:16, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Are you insisting that "Medz Yeghern" remain in the lede and that it is the ONLY alternative term allowed in the lede? Or will you agree to removing all the "also known as ..." alternative terms, including Medz Yeghern? If the former, how do you address the obvious npov issues, given that numerous sources exist for the alternative terms you want excluded, as many or more sources as those that exist for "Medz Yeghern". BTW, Diranakir, there is no need to make verbatim duplications of my text - just reply to my question below the post containing my question and indent your reply to indicate it is a continuation of the same conversation. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: There is no use raising further questions until you have forthrightly and unequivocally acknowledged that you made a serious error at 16:35 above in your allegation concerning my position and assure me that before you make remarks about me and my positions you will carefully read the contents of the thread. Diranakir (talk) 20:50, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Really? Sigh, OK. I forthrightly and unequivocally acknowledge that Diranakir has replied to the call for a clarification of his position detailed in my "If I am misinterpreting Diranakir's position, he can easily correct my misinterpretation" request, and has clarified his position and corrected my misinterpretation. Now, to make progress, Diranakir, could you please also clarify your position regarding exclusivity of Metz Yeghern in the lead? My position is that it is pov to cherrypick it to be the only alternative term there since plentiful sources exist detailing alternative terms. I also do not see a functional reason why the lede cannot contain four alternative terms, one more than present, and still remain perfectly readable. But if it is decided that four is one or two too many, to ensure agreement with sources and to maintain npov, all the alternatives need to leave the lead; I suggest a new section within the article to deal with them all together.Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:07, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Google Scholar results
Aghet + Armenian Genocide, 66 results [18]
Aghed + Armenian Genocide, 48 Results.[19]
Medz Yeghern + Armenian Genocide, 60 results [20]
Medz Yeghern + Great Crime, 19 results [21]
Medz Yeghern + Great Catastrophe, 13 results [22]
Medz Yeghern + Great Calamity, 9 results [23]
Mets Yeghern + Armenian Genocide, 15 results [24]
Mets Yeghern + Great Crime, 3 results [25]
Mets Yeghern + Great Catastrophe, 3 results [26]
Mets Yeghern + Great Calamity, 4 results [27]

There seems to be no overlap in the alternative spellings. There is overlap in the Medz Yeghern / Mets Yeghern translations, the same source will often give two alternative translations. The results show that of the two terms, the most common term used in sources in association with the term "Armenian Genocide" is "Aghet" or its alternative spelling "Aghed", with 114 hits in total. "Medz Yeghern" and its alternative spelling "Mets Yeghern" get 75 hits in total. "Medz Yeghern" on its own gets 81 hits, "Mets Yeghern" on its own gets 19 hits, "Aghet" means something in other languages so results for "Aghet" on its own are not usable. Armenian Genocide on its own gets 13,000 results, which indicates that the both alternative terms rarely get mentioned in sources (an argument perhaps for both being removed). "Armenian Holocaust" gets 394 results, a low number but probably because it will be mainly older sources that use it, sources that Google Scholar neglect. But obsolescence could also be an argument for exclusion from the lede. Armenian Massacres" gets 2760 but those results will include massacres before 1915. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:43, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I present the following as a sober scholarly assessment of the importance of the role of the word yeghern in naming the Armenian Genocide. Google Scholar hits may be informative, but they are not dispositive.

From "The Word Yeghern and the Semantic Field of its Equivalence in English" by Seda Gasparyan - Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor Armenological Researches Institute of YSU, Armenian Folia Anglistika. International Journal of English Studies. No1-2 (7), Yerevan, Lusakn Publishers, 2010, pp. 138-148. [emphasis supplied]:

"The word calamity (աղետ) used in this context may be characterized as a lexical unit with an extremely general and non-differentiated semantic meaning. From a study of the wide array of synonyms of calamity in dictionaries of English synonyms18 (1. trouble, distress, misfortune, misery, unhappiness, affliction; referring to an instance of what is calamitous: trouble, misfortune, misery, distress, disaster /implying unforeseen and adverse forces/, catastrophe /with implications of finality/, blow, scourge /implies severe and continued calamity/; curse/spec./ fatality) the following conclusion may be drawn: although any tragedy or evil, including wars, massacres and devastations may be termed a disaster in the broadest sense, the word calamity appears unable to convey the global meaning of the Armenian Genocide in all its manifestations.'

Then follows 'Conclusion: the adequate English equivalent of yeghern (եղեռն)'. In answer to the ultimate question of the article, i. e., what the adequate English equivalent of yeghern is, Gasparyan concludes with a diagram that consists of an arc of 11 crimes ranging from left to right, each pointing directly down to the word "yeghern/genocide" centered beneath it. The five terms on the left are: "destruction of language (crime), carnage (crime), massacre, mass killing (crime), victimization (crime), forced relocation of children and grown ups (crime)". The five terms on the right are: "ethnic cleansing (crime), race murder (crime), slaughter (crime), racial extermination (crime), destruction of religion, culture (crime)". These ten crimes are divided at the middle by the term "annihilation of a race (crime)" and this points directly down to the central word "yeghern/genocide". [28]
Diranakir (talk) 20:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Again you confirm my assertion that your objection to "Aghet" (along with your objection to all alternative translations of "Meds Yeghern") is based on nothing more substantial than I Don't Like It. You want Wikipedia content to blindly obey the command of selected sources and opinion piece articles that you agree with rather than Wikipedia content reflecting the broader reality of usage that is indicated in the totality of sources, many of which I have presented. You also fail to understand that sources which express dislike for the use of the word "Aghet" or for translations that differ from "Great Crime" cannot be used as a reason to exclude that word or those different translations because those very same sources indicate that the term exists, is used, and is notable, and that different translations exist, are used, and are notable. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

'Wikipedia content reflecting the broader reality of usage that is indicated in the totality of sources' is well manifested in the fact that if one types Medz Yeghern into the search field of any WP page one is immediately taken to the Armenian Genocide article, whereas if one types in Aghet, where is one taken? To the movie. Diranakir (talk) 06:16, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia content is not a source for Wikipedia content, I or anyone can easily direct Aghet to Armenian Genocide by simply editing Wikipedia! In my list of quotes taken from Google found sources mentioning "Aghet", I purposefully left out those dealing exclusively with the film named "Aghet", and I noted this fact at the bottom of the list. Only five of the Google Scholar citations mentioning Aghet appear to be mentioning the term in the context of the film. Why did I omit the Google found sources mentioning the film? Because it is a recently-released film and recent sources should not be used to decide on content relating to the long-term usage of phrases or their meanings. You ignore that sensible precaution - you have cited (n the archived discussion I linked to earlier) a dozen or so opinion-piece articles by Vartan Matiossian, all produced within the last 5 years, as "proof" that Great Crime is and always was the only permissible translation of Medz Yeghern. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 13:50, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

'You want Wikipedia content to blindly obey the command of selected sources and opinion piece articles. . . .' (Tiptoethrutheminefield, 02:22, this date). First, sources do not command anything. The problem there is in your POV. Sources provide relevant information. Your classing Seda Gasparyan's monograph and Vartan Matiossian's 11 part series, two works of serious scholarship, 'opinion-piece articles', shows how far you are willing to go to impose your POV on any discussion. It in fact blinds you and makes you hostile to good faith reasoning which differs from your thinking. You have no answers and therefore brand them 'opinions'. Your Google hits will not change the historical fact that Medz Yeghern has been the most traditional Armenian proper noun for the genocide from 1915 until the present. Diranakir (talk) 18:52, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

To Etienne Dolet: I am forced to remind you to what "we agreed ... quite some time ago" was not the change that you have made in the lead. Either 1) you have had a sudden bout of amnesia (excuse the sarcasm), 2) you forgot what the agreed version was (we are all human), 3) or you have done this in blatant bad faith, because my proposal was the following:

"The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey."

(...) Along the lines of what you [Etienne Dolet] had proposed, footnote 3 would become:

Spelt Հայոց ցեղասպանութիւն in classical Armenian orthography. In English, the Armenian Genocide is also known as the Armenian Holocaust, and, previously, as the Armenian Massacres.

(The last sentence of footnote 3 can even be taken out, if someone thinks that its too "heavy.").Armen Ohanian (talk) 19:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

The answers by Diranakir and you, the two agreeing parties, were:

Armen's proposal looks good to me. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur. An admirable resolution by Armen. Diranakir (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe I do not need to show you the differences with your edit. So, still in the belief that this may have been a simple case of forgetting, I would kindly suggest you to amend your edit to bring it along the lines of what had been actually agreed on April 11 in order to avoid any kind of edit war or whatever you would like to call it. Armen Ohanian (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

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One of first mentions of "Armenian Genocide" in a monument

To Etienne Dolet: I see that you're suggesting WP:RfC. Since I'm not into Wikipedia legalese as you evidently are (I'm not here to delve into controversies), and I believe that matters are related to logic, and not to personal taste, I only read the first two lines of the entire explanation. They say: "Before using the RfC process to get opinions from outside editors, it's often faster and more effective to thoroughly discuss the matter with any other parties on the related talk page" (my underlining). Did you do such thing? No. You just reverted once with a personal opinion, and then someone came in your help to re-revert it with the argument of too many pictures and verbosity. And since you don't seem to have an objective argument, now you submit it to outside editors. On those ground, we could submit every single sentence of the Armenian Genocide article to that procedure, why not?! I took up to clean up the verbosity of all captions, except one lengthy caption that it is a caption by itself (Morgenthau's quote), and eliminated one picture that is unrelated to the topic (although frequently linked to the genocide in the past). (I didn't took up with eliminating other pictures, even some evidently deserve it, because it's not up to me to do so, since I don't own the article. A consensus should be looked up on this point.) Then I proceeded to restore the picture with an objective argument that it is more powerful that any personal opinion of mine, yours or anybody else. If this is the article on the Armenian Genocide, then it is perfectly pertinent to put one of the earliest mentions (I don't know if it's the first, I'm not into that) of "Armenian Genocide of 1915" in a monument related to the topic of the section (Tehlirian) is perfectly pertinent. It is as pertinent as the facsimile of Morgenthau's telegram mentioning "campaign of race extermination." If your beef is with the quote of the translation of the Armenian text, that is also pertinent, because you and I may read Armenian, but it's addressed to people who do not read it and could not perceive the difference. This is all that it is, and there is nothing to warrant your submission.Armen Ohanian (talk) 15:58, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The burden is on you to explain why such a picture is worthy of inclusion into this article. Therefore, a RfC is only helpful if you want to garner support. As of now, several users have reverted you and not a single user, other than yourself, has considered reinserting that picture into the article. Therefore, my suggestion of a RfC was only made so as to help your cause, not undermine it. I'd much rather see you open a RfC then slow edit-war at a 1RR article over this. At any rate, Morgenthau's quote is lengthy but powerful, significant, and most importantly, relevant. I'd welcome a reduction of words in that long quote of his, but it's quite difficult to do so since every single word of that quote is noteworthy and relevant to Morgenthau's strong convictions against the massacres. But your picture of the tombstone inscription brings nothing new to the article. It's just inscribed text that by no ways or means illustrates something that the text should not have already covered. I don't understand why you're so adamant on inserting such a photograph. Frankly, I'd much rather have a photograph of Soghomon Tehlirian himself, as it would actually illustrate who the person is, rather than a tombstone inscription of redundant information. Étienne Dolet (talk) 16:25, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Side note: I have also noticed that you were the one who took that photograph and uploaded it. Might I also add that the photograph is not in PD because it violates this the United States' strict laws on the Freedom of Panorama. I won't go so far as to have the photograph deleted but I strongly discourage any placement of non-free photographs in this article, or any article for that matter. Étienne Dolet (talk) 16:33, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I think I unloaded my burden about "why such a picture is worthy of inclusion into this article" with the previous comment, so I'm not going to delve into it. So far two people reverted me (not several users), one of which is yourself. None of the two have given sounding reasons, other than personal taste ("don't think it adds much," "too many," "verbosity"), for the reversal. I believe to have solved the verbosity of most captions, except for Morgenthau's picture, of which there is nothing else to do, except if someone could find where it was taken, which I think it's unlikely. I already talked about the value of having so many pictures, which is not up to me to decide. So what are we are left with? The "inscribed text" illustrates something that the next has not covered. I have explained what, as well as why I'm so "adamant." It's not a matter of being adamant, indeed. When someone insists on something, unless s/he is a denier, may have valid reasons, whose ground should be examined. Tehlirian's picture would not illustrate much the person; on the same token, you could include Morgenthau, or anyone else you found relevant there (in the same way that Mehmed Celal was included, perhaps because it's the only one of those virtuous Turk whose picture is available).

Re your side note: I'd like to know why a picture of an inscription is a "non-free photograph." Who copyrighted the picture of Tehlirian's monument? On the same note, you should take away the facsimile of Morgenthau's cable, and perhaps "The New York Times" headlines, because they were published in copyrighted sources. Armen Ohanian (talk) 17:29, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The New York Times article is in the public domain because its copyright has been expired (published before 1923). Same goes for Morgenthau's cable. Soghomon's tombstone is non-free because it is a copyrighted 3D artwork and there is no Freedom of Panorama for 3D artwork in the US. It is for this reason that this photograph is uploaded under a non-free premise. This inscription is part of that very same monument and therefore illegal to consider it PD, even if you're the creator of that photograph. Étienne Dolet (talk) 17:41, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: "several users have reverted you" ? ? ? Diranakir (talk) 18:01, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Sure, two users. Iryna Harpy and I. Étienne Dolet (talk) 18:07, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Two users are 'several' in your book? Hmm. . . That's a new one on me. In all fairness, I think we should be more precise in our use of words. Diranakir (talk) 18:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I'll use the word two. But keep in mind that this is a 1RR article, two reverts by two separate users is a lot more influential than two reverts by two separate users in a non-1RR article. This is not to say that we're in an edit-warring competition, but it should be noted that the picture is not really gaining much support at the main space. Hence why we should have a RfC. But the picture needs to overcome its serious copyright issue before anything else. Étienne Dolet (talk) 18:31, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad to have you recognize the difference between 'two' and 'several'. That helps the discussion enormously. Diranakir (talk) 18:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

You could be less sarcastic Diranakir, especially when I made to good faith effort to be more precise at your behest. So I don't get why you would want to focus on such trivial matters when there's illegal photographs being placed in one of the most important articles concerning Armenians, and perhaps all of Wikipedia. Let's reconsider our priorities here please. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:11, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The photo adds nothing to the article and is wasting space in an article that is already overly long: it brings no content and does not expand on or additionally explain anything that is already in the article. An assertion that it is 'one of first mentions of "Armenian Genocide" in a monument' is OR both in the assertion and in the premise that this is a notable thing even if true (and it is also a dubious assertion since there were plenty of monuments erected in 1965, the 50th anniversary). There are probably copyright issues with it too, since the inscription is less than 50 years old and someone carved it (which might also be why the photo of the whole monument on Soghomon Tehlirian is so small). If it is usable, then the Soghomon Tehlirian article is where it should belong. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Diranakir, can I use the word several now? Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:24, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The New York Times articles (there are two) were published in a book copyrighted in 1980, and the heir of the author is still alive. I don't know whether the grandsons or great-grandsons of Morgenthau have any right on the documents he wrote, but it doesn't matter in the end. What matter more is: 1) Tehlirian's monument is not a "tombstone," that why it's relevant. If it were a tombstone, I wouldn't even care about it, since it would be a private endeavor. It's a monument erected by the Armenian community, a public endeavor, and that's why it's relevant for the use of "Armenian Genocide" as a name. 2) "Copyrighted 3D artwork." Who copyrighted the monument? (Mind you, the photograph has nothing to do with the one you refer to, except that they are related to the same object.) On those same grounds of copyrighted 3D artwork, I would suggest that any editor should urgently revert most of this article [29], or at least all the pictures of monuments built in the US since 1965 and displayed there, because they are illegal (copyright law in the US is 70 years after the death of the author). Long before the present discussion, the pictures of the memorials of Tsirtsernakaberd, which was erected in 1967, or of Larnaca, which is even newer, from the present article, should have also been reverted, because copyright law in Armenia or Cyprus might protect them, and they would be illegal. Armen Ohanian (talk) 19:43, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The use of the image and added caption only increasing image clutter rather than enhance the reader's understanding of the subject (per WP:TITLE). The article needs to stay on topic, not drift from WP:PPOV content and images on the understanding that the inclusion is WP:ITSIMPORTANT or WP:ITSINTERESTING (we can even exclude the distinctly salient "it's WP:OR" argument at this point). Direct relevance is the primary concern. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:03, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

When the response in a fact-grounded discussion is based on pov (meaning, shifting perception of one editor) or legalese ("direct relevance" has been abundantly explained above), it becomes useless to continue such discussion. Armen Ohanian (talk) 15:36, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

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Discussion on lede imperative

@EtienneDolet:A sweeping change such as the one you just made needs to be fully discussed beforehand. I am prepared to let Massacres and Holocaust go, but I cannot accept eliminating Medz Yeghern from the lede. What do you say? Diranakir (talk) 22:35, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

You had earlier agreed to the footnote solution! It is pointless discussing anything with you - the only solution you accept is your own and have edit warred that solution into this article for years. I will give temporary support to the edit by EtienneDolet. Once it is there, I will initiate a RfC regarding its content. Once the content issue has been settled, I suggest a second RfC regarding the return of that content to the lede (as said earlier, I do not think the extent of the content overloads the lede). The issue remains the same: either Medz Yeghern is gone from the lede and placed together with the other alternative names in a footnote, or all the alternative names including Medz Yeghern remain in the lede (along with Aghet and the sourced translations of Medz Yeghern). If you, Diranakir, had the slightest interest in consensus based on sourced content, you would have taken up the offer of moderated discussion and presented your what you are "prepared" to accept at that forum. A position that Medz Yeghern with a mere 75 Google Scholar hits remains but "Armenian Holocaust" with 394 Google Scholar hits goes is not sustainable. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

As an alternative, if EtienneDolet want's to drop for now the format of alternative terms in a footnote solution, a RfC can be started right away on what content related to alternative terms there should be in the lede (with the understanding that if the decided content is too much it could be moved into a footnote). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:06, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I thought Diranakir didn't have any objection to it being in the note. At any rate, my concerns over having Medz Yeghern in the first sentence of this article are growing. Its definition is vague. Its interpretation has been a topic of debate for almost a decade now. More disconcertingly, however, Medz Yeghern has become synonymous with Armenian Genocide denial. Obama has said it for the eighth year now and we all know that he refuses to classify the events as genocide. Unfortunately, much more people would take Obama's understanding of the word Medz Yeghern than any other Armenian historian or etymologist. Even the Turks have caught on and I'm not going to let Turkish denialists have the satisfaction of seeing Medz Yeghern in the first sentence of an article on the Armenian Genocide. Unless, for some strange reason, you guys actually think that Obama means genocide when he employs the term Medz Yeghern. I hardly doubt it. As a matter of fact, the only time it is searched is under the context of its denial thanks to Obama's routine annual statements. For all the google scholar (or google in general) hits of Medz Yeghern, 90% of them come after 2008, the year Obama first used the term to describe the events. Unfortunately, whether it's some sort of cruel joke or whether it's some sort mistake of his behalf shouldn't be a concern anymore. The term Medz Yeghern has become corrupted to such a degree that I think it's utterly useless to use it unless there's a long and elaborate explanation as to the terms traditional and historical use. And that's something that only the body of this article can do for us. However, finding it on the first sentence of this article would confuse our English readers and render Medz Yeghern a convenient term to describe the events. I'd much rather it be disassociated with the Armenian Genocide altogether so we wouldn't have to deal with this issue anymore. I also welcome a RfC. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:26, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes Obama, that blatant little hypocrite (in a week where he has been accused of being a blatant little hypocrite rather more than usual, re UK EU membership referendum), has done it again: [30]. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:44, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: At 19:20 on 11 April 2016 (UTC), ArmenOhanian proposed the following to you: 'I think it may be fairly reasonable to establish a comparison with the opening sentence of the entry "Holocaust" and divide the first sentence into two:"The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey." '

To which you replied: 'Armen's proposal looks good to me. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)' and to which I replied: 'I concur. An admirable resolution by Armen. Diranakir (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)'

Shortly after that statement you basically disappeared from the discussion. You next made a clean sweep of the lede of the article, throwing out Medz Yeghern which you had previously accepted. Concerning your first sentence, I don't know whom you were addressing: 'I thought Diranakir didn't have any objection to it being in the note.' Was that a response to me, the readership, or someone else? I also don't know why you waited until the eve of this April 24th to decide that Medz Yeghern was 'synonymous with Armenian Genocide denial'. If you felt that way you should have done something much earlier, it seems to me. It is a bit over the top to declare Medz Yeghern a denialist term when it is part of the name of the Armenian Genocide Complex in Yerevan and appears on many genocide memorials around the world, as well as being used interchangeably with Hayotz Tseghaspanutyun in both Armenia and the diaspora. President Obama's use of the word instead of genocide cannot change its Armenian meaning. That is a fallacy.

'Meds Yeghern', per se, is referred to 3 times at the highest level of international law as reflected in the Judgment of the ECHR in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland on 17 December 2013, Strasbourg. In their Joint Concurring Opinion, judges Raimondi and Sajó state: 'There are occasions when judges of human rights courts have a special moral obligation to account for their position to people affected by the judgment. This is such an occasion. Why do we have a special obligation vis-à-vis the Armenians? Because government-led destruction of a people always commands particular attention and imposes special obligations on all of us. From 1915 to 1917, the Armenian people experienced an unimaginable degree of suffering. This tragedy has had lasting consequences even for the fifth generation that grew up after the Meds Yeghern (Great Crime), in part because that past injustice and suffering has never been fully acknowledged or remedied.'

In paragraph 10 of their Joint Partly Dissenting Opinion, judges Vucinic and Pinto de Albuquerque add a footnote citing President Obama's use of 'Meds Yeghern' in his 14 April 2012 statement. In paragraph 22 they state: 'And the denial of the HayotsTseghaspanutyun (Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն) or Meds Yeghern (Մեծ Եղեռն) is no less dangerous than the denial of the Shoah.' For these and many other reasons, I think you should consider that the purpose of this encyclopedia is to inform the public and not to select what seems to be fit at any given moment based on the shifting perspectives of one editor. Diranakir (talk) 14:57, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

When an average English speaker consults the word Medz Yeghern, they most likely didn't consult it because of what judges Vucinic and Pinto de Albuquerque had to say about it, they consulted it because of Obama said. This is why that term is such a problem, even though there's valid proof that suggests the term can be equated with Armenian Genocide. For every source you can pull that equates Medz Yeghern with genocide, I could probably pull ten more that says its just Obama's way of denying it. Above all, however, this falls under policy. We must provide a WP:COMMONTERM when it relates to not only the title of this article, but of the alternative use of the term as well. As WP:COMMONTERM states:

Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

And it is also noted:

Ambiguity as used here is unrelated to whether a title requires disambiguation pages on the English Wikipedia. For example, heart attack is an ambiguous title, because the term can refer to multiple medical conditions, including cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, and panic attack.

In this case, not only is Medz Yeghern's meaning ambiguous, it's less cited as a term to equate with genocide, and more cited as a term associated with denial. My main concern is creating an image that presents the former, rather than the latter. If we can place Medz Yeghern in another part of this article, with a comprehensive analysis on its usage, I'd welcome it. But in no way do I suggest Medz Yeghern and Armenian Genocide being used interchangeably, at least not anymore. Étienne Dolet (talk) 17:01, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

It appears, as it has happened in the past, that whatever Armenians do or think is dictated by what other, non-Armenian people think. As Marc Nichanian has written, "Out of this demented, if also logical in its coherence and persistence, historical situation, it follows that any reference to the catastrophic event within the civilized world today is under the obligation to abide by the logic of the executioner." When an English reader consults the word Medz Yeghern in Wikipedia, it sends them to Armenian Genocide. So your argument that it is Obama and not the judges is totally irrelevant, even if it were true, which you can't prove. In your reasoning, if Obama uses Medz Yeghern, then we should not use it, because it's a term of denial. This reasoning simply plays into the hands of the denier. Incidentally, who told you that it's a term of denial? In case you don't know it, here's the view of a prominent denialist in an open letter to Obama, six years ago: "Although your statement omitted the highly charged word ‘genocide,’ you twice employed the expression ‘metz yeghern‘ which is the exact translation of ‘genocide’ in the Armenian language. You twice employed the expression ‘metz yeghern’ which is the exact translation of ‘genocide’ in the Armenian language" (Hurriyet Daily News, April 20, 2010). I think I don't need to tell you who Sukru Elekdag is, don't I? The only thing that Obama has consistently done from 2009-2016 is to cite the name Medz Yeghern without using "genocide." As I mentioned in a previous post, the former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, in 2006 used Medz Yeghern and "genocide" in the same sentence. Did he use a term of denial? Of course not, he stated his recognition of the genocide. Today, I heard Senator Chuck Schumer saying "Medz Yeghern, the Armenian Genocide" from Times Square (BTW, he didn't say, "Aghed, the Armenian Genocide") Did he used a term of denial? Of course not. Last year, Pope Francis used "Medz Yeghern" in his message. Did he use a term of denial? Of course not.

On the same token, besides some other tasks I had suggested to you, you may also want to cleanup all references to Morgenthau in this article. Although the "little hypocrite" spoke about him in 2015 and 2016, don't forget that Morgenthau is nothing else but a liar and a creator of "tall Armenian tales," according to a former Princeton University professor and a sizable amount of Turkish sources. So, since he's "associated with denial," Morgenthau must go. (Otherwise, there's the risk that some troll will come and plant those sources for you.) Do you want me to continue with this theater of the absurd?

Should someone "abide by the logic of the executioner" and allow him to dictate what to do? He or his representatives or imitators must even dictate what to do with the language about which they have no clue? I am sure you have learned long time ago that denial is just a continuous fishing expedition for all possible ambiguities in order to create escape doors. I'm afraid you're unwillingly helping feed the fishermen.

You don't suggest Medz Yeghern and Armenian Genocide being used interchangeably. It's your and only your problem. FYI, the facts of language doesn't abide by what you or I think. Here is just one example. The President of Armenia said the following in April 2014 (98th anniversary). Of course, he spoke in Armenian, but there is an English translation (www.president.am) that I assume it's official. For your benefit, I took upon myself to find how he said "Armenian Genocide" and I'm putting into brackets what I found:

"Today we bow to the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide [Hayots Medz Yeghern]. One and a half million Armenians fell prey to such a crime which did not have a name at that time.(...) Up until now, all the parts of Armenian people and all generations have known what the outcomes of the Genocide [Medz Yeghern] feel like. (...)The 24th of April is just a symbolic date: it is clear that the Armenian Genocide [Hayots Tseghasbanutiun] was not initiated and put an end in one day. (...)Today, we stand on the threshold of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide [Hayots Tseghasbanutiun]. (...) We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide [Hayots Tseghasbanutiun] with a straightening back, open-faced and having a state whose name is the Republic of Armenia." Armen Ohanian (talk) 23:40, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

To Dolet: The reference to the ECHR judges was to show the international standing of the term Meds Yeghern/Great Crime. It can't just be chucked out of the lede as irrelevant or 'ambiguous'. If an average Anglophone reader runs into the word in the AG article, they are given a simple, unambiguous definition right there in the lede, Great Crime. You can't prove that most people look up the word because of the president's statement. The statement doesn't even get that much circulation. There are all kinds of ways someone might look up the word. And it takes more than your reservations or resentments about the use of a word to make it 'ambiguous'. There must be something inherently unclear in its meaning. That is not the case with Medz Yeghern, unless you subscribe to the fraudulent 'alternate meaning' gambit of your associate in this discussion. The meaning of the word in the lede (Great Crime) is very clear, since it is presented as a synonym or alternate name for the Armenian Genocide. The ECHR judges used the term in very straightforward fashion, not a hint of ambiguity. So, the big problem with the term is not a big problem. Your sentence, 'This is why that term is such a problem, even though there's valid proof that suggests the term can be equated with Armenian Genocide', is not as straightforward as it could have been. You should have said, 'Even though there is proof that the term has been equated with the Armenian Genocide, it is a problem'. That's what your sentence amounts to. So spare me the fancy WP acronyms, they don't help. Diranakir (talk) 01:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't subscribe to that fraudulent view, but this is not about me, nor is it about you. It's about the average English reader who has stumbled upon the term Medz Yeghern when Obama gave his annual denial statement. That English reader, who sees Medz Yeghern in the first sentence of this article, is immediately inclined to feel that Obama's statement is justified, and that the terminology he uses is acceptable. That's just great news for denialists who would love to spread the word Medz Yeghern around rather than genocide. And as I have already mentioned, the Turkish media is loving it. So I'm not going to give them that satisfaction. Also, if the Anglophone reader stumbles upon this article, he will see nothing that will help clarify this for him. All he sees is "traditionally by Armenians, as Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime")" and it would make matters even more confusing. Hell, it makes matters confusing for Armenians, let alone non-Armenians. So in order to shed light on this matter, it needs to be placed under context. That can only happen in the body of the article, or in a note. But not in the first sentence. Also, if this bargain isn't suitable enough for you two, I will go ahead and start a RfC. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:34, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Since you have clearly forgotten what I have written and what you had agreed before (you're surely familiar with the colloquial term "flip-flopping"), I will remind you a small part of my proposal that I left aside for the sake of space at the end of the previous thread:

"Finally, as I had promised, I would like to go back to your proposal of alleviating the burden in the lead and build up on it. I think it may be fairly reasonable to establish a comparison with the opening sentence of the entry "Holocaust" and divide the first sentence into two:

"The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey."

Compare:

"The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"), also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews" (Wikipedia, "Holocaust")

What part in the first sentence of the Holocaust entry is "confusing" to you or to any average English reader? Is there anything more "confusing" to any average English reader in the first sentence of my proposal, to which you had agreed? The Holocaust or the Assyrian genocide entries may have their proper names in the language of the victims in the first sentence, but the English average reader is too stupid to be able to read the same in the first sentence of the Armenian genocide entry? If you want to write "the Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the genocide by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population" to make it even more clear by repeating "genocide" twice, go ahead! The Holocaust Have you ever seen in any of Obama's eight statements a translation for "Medz Yeghern"? Have you ever seen in any of Obama's statements for the Holocaust the translation for "Shoah"? Do you need me to clutter even more this page with citations of English readers who are not daunted or confused by the meaning of Medz Yeghern? Didn't I show you, with sources, that the terminology that Obama uses is acceptable, except that he has excluded the word "genocide"? (Don't tell me that John Paul II, Stephen Harper, or Francis are less famous than Obama, and that's why you don't take him into consideration.) Didn't I show you, with sources, what denialists think of Medz Yeghern? You want to create context? As in the case of the Holocaust, create an article, "Names of the Armenian Genocide," and feel free to start writing it, or even a subsection in the AG article. You say that this is not about you, or about someone else. In the same way that I deferred to the combination of pov and legalese in the picture matter, you may want to finish this conversation for the extensive series of proofs given in this entire talk. There is absolutely no need of RfC, CfR, fCR, or RCf. There is only need for common sense, i. e., "sometimes, someone else may be right." Armen Ohanian (talk) 14:20, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet:(05:35 above) I'm very glad to see you openly state you do not subscribe to the fraudulent view that 'great calamity' is an alternative definition of Medz Yeghern. I hope we hear nothing more about that nonsense again. The issue was never about you or me in the first place. I doubt you can speak for the average English or Armenian reader. You may be right. You may be wrong. This is something that requires evidence, not a blanket statement by one person. As for the Turkish media loving it, Armen Ohanian has given you an example of a prominent Turk who sent up flares about it, and as usual the Turkish establishment is making its yearly vigorous objections to the statement. What's just great for denialists is for Armenians to be represented as having had no genuine word for their genocide before Raphael Lemkin supplied them with one 25 or so years later. That goes right along with their idea that there was no genocide before 'genocide', a lie. As I said, there is nothing 'confusing' about the use of Medz Yeghern following on the word Armenian Genocide nor in the ECHR verdict I cited. If necessary, further context can be supplied in the body of the article or a note, as you suggest. But because some readers might get the impression that President Obama came close to the truth should not be a criterion for eliminating a word from the lede which has a long and meaningful history of use among Armenians and corresponds in function if not literal meaning to Shoah as used by Jews. Diranakir (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The fundamental difference is that the Shoah is not being used in the context of denying the Holocaust. That's why English readers won't get confused when they see it as part of the first sentence of the Holocaust article. The same cannot be said for Medz Yeghern, which has been used consistently by notorious deniers of the AG such as George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and many Turkish denialist journalists and writers. In fact, the entire I Apologize campaign uses that term instead of soykırım or jenosit. And if you don't remember, the founding members of that campaign aimed specifically at not using the term genocide. Hence, many Turkish sources use that term without any problem now, and these sources continue to deny the Armenian Genocide at the same time. And again, this is not about whether Obama, Bush, and Turkish intellectuals/denialists are right or wrong in their understanding of the term, this is about what the word has become regardless of that. It's for the sake of the average English reader who would be more likely learn about the Medz Yeghern under the context of its denial (i.e. Bush's, Obama's annual denialist statement) than he would under the context of what the ECHR or what Armenian linguists or historians use it as. And no, I'm not picking sides either (i.e. "it's Obama's word over John Paul II's"). My fundamental argument is that the term Medz Yeghern is not being used under a universally applicable context, but rather in many different contexts. Therefore, it's not a black or white picture. And to say that my argument is not backed by sources is to not understand the point of this discussion. What were trying to apply here is WP:COMMONTERM. Obama's annual denialist statement and the media uproar surrounding it is suffice in relation to that argument. Hence, there's no denying that Medz Yeghern is being used to deny the AG. The sources are there and its use as a euphemism to deny the Armenian Genocide is clear and abundant. The fact that the English, Turkish, and Armenian news media outlets have picked up on the whole: "Obama does not call 1915 events ‘genocide’ instead calls it Medz Yeghern" can be seen all over the internet. The question is whether it belongs in the first sentence of the AG article. I say no, and for good reason. In fact, unless this term cannot be clarified elsewhere in the article, I say remove it from the article in its entirety. Until then, I strongly suggest that such an expression used to appease the whims of a denialist never be equated with the Armenian Genocide. Étienne Dolet (talk) 17:31, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I will repeat the quote: ""Out of this demented, if also logical in its coherence and persistence, historical situation, it follows that any reference to the catastrophic event within the civilized world today is under the obligation to abide by the logic of the executioner" (Marc Nichanian). Therefore, if a couple of American presidents and Turkish denialist journalists and writers use it (BTW, Bush didn't use it, only its "translation"), then the whole world comes to an end and the clarion of retreat must sound: "Remove it from the article in its entirety!" This is exactly what denialists want. Period. I already quoted you one. How many do you want me to quote you? If your problem is not to write/say anything to feed denialists (Obama or Bush omitting the use of "genocide" does not make them automatic denialists; for instance, go and read what "mass atrocity" means in current genocide scholarship.), don't you know that genocide and denial were/are born at the same time?

What about all the others, Americans and Turks who use Medz Yeghern to affirm the genocide? Nada, zilch, because they don't help your case. I brought you the example: you have to purge the AG article from any reference to or from Morgenthau, because he has been rejected as a trustworthy source by American and Turkish denialists. Absurd? It is as absurd as your insistence in taking out Medz Yeghern, the proper name (did I tell you that "Armenian Genocide" is not a proper name?) that was characterized, right and wrong, as "the only definition, the only expression, used until the Armenian Diaspora discovered the PR value of ‘Armenian Genocide.'" Do you remember who said this? Baskin Oran, the one guy in the apology campaign who explicitly rejects using "genocide," but uses "great massacre." (Do I need to remind you that Turkish denialists did not, do not even accept the term "massacre"?) By the way, if you don't remember, some of the founding members of that campaign did not aim specifically at not using the term genocide. Here is one quote when the campaign was still ongoing: "The Armenian Genocide is a common tragedy of Anatolia, and even today what is uttered in the villages of Anatolia as part of the old stories is the tally of an unprecedented catastrophe" (Hurriyet Daily News, February 24, 2009). This was Cengiz Aktar. I don't think that you need me to quote Aktar's articles of 2014, 2015, and 2016 where he uses "genocide" all over the place.

No word is used in a universally applicable context. An Ukrainian understands "Holodomor" to be genocide, many Russians probably not. That has not deterred whoever created the entry on the Ukrainian Great Famine to call the entry "Holodomor" and not "Ukrainian Great Famine."

"Until then, I strongly suggest that such an expression used to appease the whims of a denialist never be equated with the Armenian Genocide." You're 40 years late. If you read or speak Armenian, you should know by now that Armenians have been doing that since the 1970s at least. Following your strong suggestion, the words "annihilation," "mass atrocity," "tragedy," "catastrophe," "disaster," "mass killing," "murder," "exile," "deportation," and many others must be banned from the vocabulary used by Armenians, because all those words, one way or another, have been used to "appease the whims of a denialist" by past or present American presidents. I'll repeat what I said yesterday: "FYI, the facts of language doesn't abide by what you or I think." Armen Ohanian (talk) 19:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

To Dolet: The term 'Medz Yeghern/Great Crime' is out in the public domain now, as the numerous examples that have been cited show. Trying to return to the status quo ante by making it taboo is not a responsible solution to the problem of Turkish denialism. It would be a retreat. 76.102.205.37 (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2016 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The point I think that EtienneDolet is making is that properly explaining the issues and ambiguities connected to the alternative terms and their usages is far too complex to be contained in the lead, and to just state the alternative names without such an explanation is to not give the whole picture and in fact give an inaccurate picture. I see validity in this, but there is also a bit of cart-before-the-horse here, since there is no article content dealing with these issues and ambiguities, and the lede's purpose is to summarise article content. For example, while just about everyone agrees it is true, an assertion that President Obama has taken to using Medz Yeghern as a way of avoiding saying "Armenian Genocide" can only be made in the article if a source is found making that assertion (and it has to be an actual article or book source, not one of the many critical comments we find posted in response to an article about Obama mentioning Medz Yeghern). Here is one for the first time he said it [31], here is one for his seventh [32]. Oh, and btw, we have in that first source an Armenian spokesperson translating Medz Yeghern as "Great Calamity" - an indication that my assertion that the "Great Crime" translation is a translation coined and propagated in recent years as a response to Obama's insincere usage of "Medz Yeghern" has substance. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:24, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

As I said, if there is the need to give the picture of the alternative names, an article called "Names of the Armenian Genocide" can be created. I already brought the initial sentences in the entries on Holocaust, Holodomor, and Assyrian Genocide as examples to follow in the construction of the initial sentence of the lead. And, btw, since you feel the need to go back again to the same tired issue, let me tell you something: if someone comes and asks for your opinion or mine, you don't become a spokesperson. The "spokesperson" was "speaking as an individual." Besides, FYI, she doesn't speak the Armenian language.

As a bonus, regarding the substance of your assertion, I will copy two sources that may help you assess it (http://armenianweekly.com/2013/01/04/the-great-calamity-hoax-what-medz-yeghern-actually-meant-for-the-survivors/).

This is the direct translation of a text in Armenian:

“But the Armenian martyrdom lacked principally a voice of conscience and piety, a cry of resistance on the part of the millions who constitute that people who carry the entire responsibility for this horrible yeghern."

Here is the English published translation:

"What is principally lacking in the records of Armenia’s martyrdom is the voice of conscience on the part of the millions who constitute the nation that is entirely responsible for this fearful crime.”

The Armenian text is from Aram Andonian's The Great Crime, Boston, 1921, p. 5. The English is from its translation, The Memoirs of Naim Bey, Newton Sq., Pennsylvania, 1964, p. IX. As you surely know, this is the photographic reproduction of the original edition of 1920.

The translation "crime" in this text is eighty-nine years (89) older than Obama's first statement. So much for the "substance" of your assertion. Please drop the issue and you will do yourself (and others) a favor. Armen Ohanian (talk) 00:15, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Yet, Armen Ohanian still continues to quote people like Marc Nishanian, who no average English reader knows about or cares to know about. An average English reader's chances of encountering Medz Yeghern is not due to Marc Nishanian, it is due to Obama. It would be insane to suggest otherwise. However, we agree that there's more than one understanding of Medz Yeghern, therefore the term needs some sort of clarification, or else we're left with the reader to decide what its definition and signification is at the risk of outside influences (i.e. Obama, Turkish denialists, and etc.). You see, the first sentence of this article cannot be an appropriate place for us to clarify that for them. But if you feel that we should make an article on the names of the AG, be my guest. Personally, I'd rather just have a section devoted to the topic. But until then, don't add such expressions in the article if you're not willing to express who, what, why its being said and for what reason. Otherwise, it shall go. And it doesn't end with Medz Yeghern. We also have the "Armenian massacres" alternative name. Wonderful. I mean really, is this some sort of joke? Britannica used that term to deny the genocide for nearly a decade. The AG article on Turkish Wikipedia, a notorious outlet to deny the genocide, is called "Ermeni Kırımı", or Armenian Massacres, for crying out loud. In fact, I remember when they first chose the term "Ermeni Kırımı" for their article title, they used these ridiculous alternative names on the English Wikipedia and Britannica to justify their reasoning to avoid the term genocide ([33][34][35]). Talk about embarrassing. Étienne Dolet (talk) 01:27, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

1) Yet, you continue to conveniently forget what I had suggested as the first two sentences of the lead on April 11 and you agreed with. I have to repeat it for the third time (not my fault):

"The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey."

Along the lines of what you [Etienne Dolet] had proposed, footnote 3 would become:

"Spelt Հայոց ցեղասպանութիւն in classical Armenian orthography. In English, the Armenian Genocide is also known as the Armenian Holocaust, and, previously, as the Armenian Massacres.

(The last sentence of footnote 3 can even be taken out, if someone thinks that its too "heavy.").Armen Ohanian (talk) 19:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

The answers by Diranakir and you, the two agreeing parties, were:

Armen's proposal looks good to me. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur. An admirable resolution by Armen. Diranakir (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

It seems that your absence afterwards made you forget some things. . Following YOUR proposal, I sent two names to the footnotes and even said that they could be deleted, if someone wanted to. Translation: "I'm not going to delete them by myself, I'm looking for consensus." What are you still talking about Armenian Massacres and the like? Armenian Massacres existed as a name for decades, until the 60s at least, and neither Britannica nor Ermeni Kırımı had anything to do with it. I even wrote "previously," in case the name would remain, to indicate that it's no longer the case.

I didn't quote Marc Nichanian for the average English reader, but to show the ridiculous predicament where we put ourselves (in this case, you put yourself): whoever says something unfavorable, we bow and fall back. If Obama says "Meds Yeghern," then we automatically want to take it out, because "it's a term of denial." I have explained extensively why we don't need to take it out, and you have just clung to the scarecrow of the "average English reader" and repeat it mechanically as the ultimate discovery.

Again, I don't need to clarify anything. Did Obama write any translation? NO. What did he use? The name that WE have traditionally used. He used the PROPER name, Medz Yeghern, not the legal qualification of the crime committed by the Ottoman Empire, genocide. What does the lead say? Armenian Genocide, traditionally called Medz Yeghern ("Great Crime"). Period. I don't care where your "English average reader" comes from. He will come there and see the article "Armenian Genocide" and the first three words: "The Armenian Genocide..." Period. I don't need to explain why the name is that and why the translation is that. There is a reference for that. The same as there is a reference to why it's called Armenian Genocide. It's enough for the "average English reader." He can go to those references and find for himself/herself.

Since you're in the mood of nitpicking where there is no need for (except to play into the hands of denialists, which I'm sure it isn't your actual intention), let me tell you: everybody says Shoah "Catastrophe". But I'm sure you know that there four or five different translations for Shoah, "catastrophe," "destruction," and so on. Go and find the list. Do they talk about "ambiguities"? No. They write "Shoah" "Catastrophe" and end of story. It doesn't even have a footnote. Armen Ohanian (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: At 01:08, 25 April, I made the point there must be something inherently unclear about the meaning of a word for it to be called ambiguous (not just your issues with the use of the word), then said "That is not the case with Medz Yeghern, unless you subscribe to the fraudulent 'alternative meaning' gambit of your associate in this discussion" to which you responded at 05:34, "I don't subscribe to that fraudulent view". The fraudulent view I was referring to was the idea that there is a so-called 'alternative definition' of Medz Yeghern, i. e., 'great calamity'. At 01:27 today you said, "However, we agree that there's more than one understanding of Medz Yeghern", which forces me to ask in order to clear the confusion: Do you believe Medz Yeghern has two definitions, Great Crime and Great Calamity? Diranakir (talk) 03:56, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Why does that matter? Étienne Dolet (talk) 06:21, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

The asking of the question "Do you believe Medz Yeghern has two definitions, Great Crime and Great Calamity?" again reveals that Diranakir and his co-actor Armen Ohanian either fail to accept or fail to understand the premise at the very core of Wikipedia. If this failure continues, they should both be blocked because they are unable or unwilling to follow that core premise. Content on Wikipedia is not about what you believe, or what I believe, or what they believe - it is about what acceptable sources say. Such sources give two translations of Medz Yeghern, "Great Crime" and "Great Calamity". The question that Diranakir and Armen Ohanian need to answer is "do you dispute that sources exist giving translations of Medz Yeghern as "Great Crime" and as "Great Calamity"? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:25, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Your "answer" actually does not even deserves the time I'm using to write this one. I have presented you an "acceptable source" from 1920 that substantiates that "yeghern" means "crime" and kills your "substantial assertion." The "answer" is utter silence and insistence on the same broken music. Sources that give the translation as "Great Calamity" exist. The actual question that you and anyone else need to answer is: "Are those sources reliable"? I'll give you not one, but two examples of what I mean:

a) A Princeton professor, when he was not yet a professor, said that Morgenthau's memoirs are "crude half-truths and outright falsehoods." It is an acceptable source? Of course, the assertion was published in a book, and archival sources were used to substantiate the assertion. By your standards, there should be a sentence in the AG article that disputed whatever is quoted about Morgenthau. However, that assertion has been debunked. Therefore, it has no room there, because there is a difference between acceptable and reliable source, which you seem to ignore.

b) By your standards, the source used to say that the roundup of the intellectuals in Constantinople happened on the night of April 23-24 is "acceptable." It was published in a book by a reputable author. But you will never bother to find out that the source is wrong, and the roundup did not happen on the night of April 23-24, because, for you, acceptability and reliability are the same thing.

Anything or anyone that doesn't fit your agenda simply deserves to be ignored or dismissed. You insist with intentionally committed fallacies in debates and reasoning, which an outsider observer would call "intellectual dishonesty" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty), repeating things already said and factually debunked for the past four years, while hiding behind your particular (mis)interpretation of what "acceptable" is. If this failure continues, I would suggest that you should be blocked, because you are unable or unwilling to believe that there is a limit to what you can "substantiate," after which you enter into disruption. Armen Ohanian (talk) 18:41, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Now that you have affirmed that sources do give two translations of Medz Yeghern: "Great Crime" and "Great Calamity, do you agree that Wikipedia content should be content derived from acceptable sources and presented with a neutral point of view, and that an "acceptable source" is a source that is deemed to be reliable and high-quality using Wikipedia's standards? Will you also confirm that you will follow standard Wikipedia procedures to determine the suitability of a source if the quality or reliability of that source is being questioned by you? This is your final final warning regarding your relentless personal attacks against me - accusing someone of intellectual dishonesty is a personal attack, accusing someone of lying (as in your weasily worded "intentionally committed fallacies") is also a personal attack. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I said: "Sources that give the translation as "Great Calamity" exist." I have not "affirmed that sources do give two translations of Medz Yeghern: "Great Crime" and "Great Calamity." This is you who has said the latter, not me. Armen Ohanian (talk) 01:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

If there is a controversy about the terminology for the event and it is mentioned in several presumably reliable sources, it should be covered and explained in the body of the article. Swiping it under the rug to justify someone's sensibilities seems to violate an important part of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view: "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint." Dimadick (talk) 17:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: I am willing to delete our exchange about Google Scholar hits under the 'Discussion' heading below but still insist that they are not a reliable source for determining what key words in the Armenian language mean. I appreciate your informing me about the protocol you follow, but I still get substantial fluctuations in results from one transaction to another, confirming that the method is fundamentally flawed, if not a heady form of original research in which arcane protocol combined with tendentious interpretation achieves a desired result. I explicitly said I depended on my arguments above to support my position and not Google Scholar hits. Diranakir (talk) 05:06, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

It is not just the protocol I follow, it is the correct protocol, see [36]: "The single most useful search engine tool may be the use of quotation marks to find an exact match for a phrase". You can't get fluctuating results that vary from person to person or location to location - every identical search will give the same result if searched at the same time. If you click on the urls beside my search results you are making a new search, not getting an archive of my search, and you should get the same results. Of course they will vary over time as new sources are either published or put on Google's database but that changes slowly and the numbers will never go down. Except for when I corrected my 2 errors of a missing inverted comma in a search parameter, the search results I got have not varied from when I first posted them a month ago. If you have got questions about Google Scholar's usefulness or how it should be used there are probably other forums to ask about this - but I know that search results from it are more highly regarded for Wikipedia sourcing purposes that Google internet search results. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:20, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

From the page you recommended, "Wikipedia: Search engine test". You will of course have a ready explanation.

"Google Scholar provides evidence of how many times a publication, document, or author has been cited or quoted by others. Best for scientific or academic topics." [Philology? I don't think so.]

"A raw hit count should never be relied upon to prove notability. Attention should instead be paid to what (the books, news articles, scholarly articles, and web pages) is found, and whether they actually do demonstrate notability or non-notability, case by case. Hit counts have always been, and very likely always will remain, an extremely erroneous tool for measuring notability, and should not be considered either definitive or conclusive." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diranakir (talk • contribs) 15:03, 28 April 2016 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 15:09, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Which is why I did not quote the "raw hit count" for Aghet in my google scholar results, and why I gave actual quotes from numerous sources in my earlier "Sources mentioning "Aghet" as a name for the Armenian Genocide (in addition to the 4 sources cited earlier)" post. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:21, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

For the record. The following are my Google Scholar results which differed from those of Tiptoethrutheminefield and Tiptoethrutheminefield's critique of same, both of which had been posted in the now-deleted 'Discussion' section which had followed the RfC and was deleted to facilitate the RfC. The whole content of that section is reproduced below.

Different Google Scholar results obtained

Aghet + Armenian Genocide, 66 results [37]

Aghed + Armenian Genocide, 48 results [38]

Medz Yeghern + Armenian Genocide, 127 results [39]

Medz Yeghern + Great Crime, 81 results [40]

Medz Yeghern + Great Catastrophe, 68 results [41]

Medz Yeghern + Great Calamity, 14 results [42]

Mets Yeghern + Armenian Genocide, 22 results [43]

Mets Yeghern + Great Crime,14 results [44]

Mets Yeghern + Great Catastrophe, 11 results [45]

Mets Yeghern + Great Calamity, 7 results [46]

Comment: I obtained very different results from Google Scholar than those posted above by Tiptoethrutheminefield. Such wide discrepancies prove Google Scholar hits to be completely unreliable as sourcing for this discussion. They constitute, in fact, the polar opposite of reliable sources. Results that fluctuate according to geographical location, date of transaction, etc., are patently disqualifying in any purported source. But let's suppose for the sake of argument that Google hits is the gold standard of truth that Tiptoethrutheminefield makes it out to be. Then it clearly supports my position, not his: Tiptoethrutheminefield boasts of 114 hits for Aghet/Aghed, compared to 75 for Medz Yeghern/Mets Yeghern. I obtained 149 hits for Medz Yeghern/Mets Yeghern, far exceeding that 114. If, additionally, we do a search under the term 'Meds Yeghern + Armenian Genocide', another 130 hits fall into the Medz Yeghern/Mets Yeghern/Meds Yeghern column. But I am not invoking the fickle Google hits standard to prove my point. I have stated my case without it and, as I tried to tell Tiptoethrutheminefield, it is not dispositive. Aghet, a valid and meaningful term in its own context, is not traditional among Armenians as a name for their genocide. It has no parity with Medz Yeghern as far as inclusion in the lede is concerned, and the majority of knowledgeable contributors to this discussion have agreed it does not belong there. Diranakir (talk) 21:59, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Your search is invalid because you have not searched for any terms! You need to use inverted commas to define each of the actual terms for each search. Otherwise you are just searching for individual words. See my own search results to understand this. Though it is easy to forget how to do it - I now see that I too omitted the inverted commas in my own searches on two occasions (I have now corrected this) However, I think the very act of trying to duplicate what I have done and then presenting your results as being different exhibits bad faith on your part. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:08, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Can we please not get off-topic about the Aghed stuff and defer the conversation over to section above: Talk:Armenian_Genocide#Aghet_inserted_in_the_lede. I really don't want to confuse non-involved editors who want to participate in the RfC. Étienne Dolet (talk) 23:57, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Given that the result of Diranakir's Google Scholar search is invalid due to it being incorrectly done, and that assertions derived from that invalid search must also be invalid, and given that if the search had been dome correctly it would have exactly reproduced the data I have already given in the RfC, I suggest that Diranakir deletes this entire section. I have no objection to my response post being deleted. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:46, 28 April 2016 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Ottoman massacres in neighboring Persia

Hello editors,

I believe we should form a proper, small and coherent sentence that can be put in the lede about the Ottoman massacres in neighboring Persia, that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Armenians. As of currently, the way it is put, its as if only the Armenians inside the Ottoman Empire were massacred, even though many native Armenians in Iranian Azerbaijan, e.g. in the towns of Salmas, Maku, Khoy, and Urmia perished as well. Though obviously comparatively less, it is still a part of this event. As this article is very sensitive to some people, and as it receives alot of attention/"care", I'd like to ask others about what would be the best to add in the lede, and also where in the lede precisely. Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I think it needs to be mentioned in the body of the article first - chronologically it would be before the events at Van. I had earlier put Persia and Russian Empire into the infobox, but they were recently deleted. I see you have now restored Persia to it, I have also now restored Russian Empire. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:34, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I placed it in a form of a note because the central figures of the CUP never intended on massacring the Armenians in Persia or the Russian Empire. The underlining goal was to annihilate all Armenians living within the Ottoman Empire. Sure, some massacres did spread into other countries, but it was never intended on being so in the initial planning and execution of the AG. Also, there's no need for so much sources in the infobox. The article has sourced content about those massacres already. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:00, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree about the sources in the infobox - they are not needed. Of the rest, I disagree, what you are asserting is not historically or chronologically correct. The genocide did not spread outward into other countries, it spread inward: the massacres in Persia occurred before any massacres happened inside Ottoman territory. The actions of the Ottoman Empire indicate a twin intent of expansive invasion and of committing genocide against non-Muslims from the outset of its entry into the war. Persia was the first to be affected by invasion and the civilian Christian populations in Persia were its first victims of genocide. For that reason I have restored the infobox mentioning of Persia and the Russian Empire. I've left the sources for Persia there for now - they could be used for article content. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 18:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the simple solution here is to say that massacres took place in Russia and Persia in the form of a note. But let's not forget the underlining premise of the Armenian Genocide, the annihilation of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian subjects by the Ottoman government. The final solution to the Empire's Armenian question. So I don't think we should be putting the massacres that happened in Persia and Russia in the same basket. That misrepresents the intended purpose of the AG as a whole. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Why should a note be suitable for this? The location category in the infobox is just there to succinctly state where the event detailed in the article took place, not to do anything more than that, so having "Ottoman Empire", "Russian Empire", and "Persia" as the locations is correctly giving the locations. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:09, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Because when it concerns genocide, the intent is key. There was no intent in massacring the Armenians in Persia or Russia by the central CUP authorities in the initial planning of the AG. This is evident by the Tehcir Law itself, which only affected Armenians living the the OE. This was not the case in Russia or Persia. To give equal weight to Russia and Persia, two countries where the Ottoman government never initially intended on annihilating the entire Armenian population, would be to misrepresent the systematic nature and goal of the policy. Again, this is not to say those massacres didn't occur. So I think the note is a suitable compromise. Étienne Dolet (talk) 21:57, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

But that is not the function of an infobox. For example, the conflict infobox has a category named "Belligerents" and in it all the belligerents should be mentioned, not just the main warring parties or those that started it, and in the Location category all the theatres of the war should mentioned, not just the main ones. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:12, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I see what you mean. But genocide is different from war. When we discuss things like genocide, we need to focus on the intent of the perpetrator. Otherwise, it can't be considered genocide. In this case, the Ottoman government's intent was to annihilate the Armenians found within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, if we don't find a genocidal intent behind the massacres of Persia and Russia, then we cannot argue that it's part of that same policy. This is why I find that separating these entities from the OE in a form of a note is a simple solution. Étienne Dolet (talk) 06:44, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

We don't have a genocide infobox, it is just a civilian attack infobox, and the location field is a required field to detail the physical place where it took place. If there are sources connecting the massacres in Persia, and the massacres in the Russian Caucasus with the Armenian Genocide then that is enough to have these additional places there. There are certainly sources that mention the massacres (and of refugees fleeing the certain expectation of massacre) inside Russian territory in the context of the Armenian Genocide. Arguably, maybe we should say northwestern Persia, or Russian Caucasus. Or perhaps Russian Empire and Persia should be wikilinked to articles about the actual regions where massacres took place rather than the main articles. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:31, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

RfC for Medz Yeghern as an alternative name

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should we include the term 'Medz Yeghern' as an alternative name to the Armenian Genocide in the first sentence of this article? Please comment precisely whether you want to exclude or include the term. Étienne Dolet (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments

Exclude per WP:COMMONTERM and for reasons I have aforementioned. The expression Medz Yeghern (Great Crime, sometimes called "Great Calamity") has become a euphemism for genocide deniers to use in place of the more appropriate legal term: genocide. This expression is now less cited as a term to equate with genocide, and more cited as a term associated with its denial. Comparisons between the term Shoah and the Holocaust have been made, but the fundamental difference is that the Shoah is not being used in the context of denying the Holocaust. The same cannot be said for Medz Yeghern, however, which has been consistently used by notorious deniers of the AG such as George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and many Turkish denialist journalists and writers. For example, for those who don’t know, Obama has used the term Medz Yeghern for the eighth year in a row in his most recent annual denialist statement. And again, this is not about whether Obama, Bush, Armenian linguists, and Turkish intellectuals/denialists are right or wrong in their understanding of the term, this is about what the expression is currently recognized as. This is also not to say that Medz Yeghern is not being used to describe the events of 1915 as genocide either. Indeed, there are those who do so. But it is due to these different meanings and interpretations of this particular expression that ultimately render it too ambiguous to be used as an alternative name. Therefore, as another user mentioned, to just state the alternative names without such an explanation is to not give the whole picture and in fact give an inaccurate picture. The first sentence is simply not a convenient place to provide such a clarification on all these interpretations. And if this isn’t handled properly, we're left with the reader to decide what its definition and signification is at the risk of outside influences (i.e. Obama, Turkish denialists, and etc.). Therefore, I propose removing the term Medz Yeghern in the first sentence of the article and creating a section in the body of the article that clarifies this for our readers by providing a brief explanation of the term, bearing in mind its historical and contemporary usage. Étienne Dolet (talk) 22:30, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Keep based on the exchanges above and the following. The name Medz Yeghern/ Great Crime was given to the Armenian Genocide by the leading lights of the Armenian nation while it was still underway and was adopted by the people as the principal and most enduring name they gave to the apocalypse they had suffered. It has been used continuously since that time and today lends its name to the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex in Yerevan as well as genocide memorials around the world. The name embodies much more than tragedy. It conveys outrage at the shocking rupture of every rule of civilized behavior that led to national death and destruction. This is the name that it is being proposed to shut away in a footnote with the reasoning that it is too 'ambiguous', does not justify the space it occupies in the lede, and is a 'euphemism' exploited by 'notorious genocide deniers' such as President Obama. Ignoring the word's historic standing as well as its contemporary recognition and notability as reflected in the 2013 ECHR verdict in Perincek v. Switzerland (as 'Meds Yeghern')[47]
it is denied the same standing as Shoah because 'Shoah is not used to deny the Holocaust'. The reason it is not used and cannot be used to deny the Holocaust is because Germany long ago accepted responsibility for the Holocaust whereas Turkey has for 101 years adamantly refused to face up to its historic role in the Armenian Genocide and uses every stratagem to continue doing so. Proposing to exclude the word betrays a reluctance to trust the average reader to judge for themselves and overlooks the fact that trying to rehabilitate the Great Calamity fallacy as an 'alternative meaning' invests the word, now very clearly defined, with the very ambiguity and euphemism found to be so objectionable. This would only be a shot in the arm to genocide deniers and apologists who want to convince the world that Armenians never had a clear-cut legal name for what happened to them and that there was no genocide before the word 'genocide', a complete myth. While an understanding was reached above to drop Armenian Massacres and Armenian Holocaust from the lede, these are the reasons I propose that Medz Yeghern be kept in the lede. Diranakir (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Exclude. It is a compromise solution. There are many different terms and phrases used as alternative terms for the Armenian Genocide, and several different nuances of meaning in the usages of each term, or in their translation. To maintain a neutral point of view these terms and translations would need to be given equal status in the lede. I am not convinced this is impossible to do, but EtienneDolet has said it will make the lede too complicated. If equal status were to be done, the lede would contain something like "...also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally by Armenians, as the Aghet (Armenian: Աղետ, usually translated as "Catastrophe") and Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, usually translated as "Great Crime" or "Great Calamity"). The bulk of the recent talk page discussions over several weeks reveals the refusal of two editors, Diranakir and Armen Ohanian, to accept the equal status principle. This alternative proposal - to remove them all and instead deal with them in the article's content - was an attempt at reaching a compromise. However, the same two editors also oppose the compromise. What I am certain of is that the issues of usage and meaning cannot be explained in the lede - it is not the appropriate place to do it. To cherrypick for lede content just one term ("Medz Yeghern") from all of them and to additionally cherrypick just one translation ("Great Crime") for that one term is unsustainably pov. As proof, Google Scholar (see section below this post) indicates that there is an alternative Armenian term, "Aghet" (which, when translated, is almost always translated as "Catastrophe"), that is of equal status (actually slightly higher, based on the number and the age of sources), and alternative English Language terms (such as "Armenian Holocaust") are far more popular than either of the two Armenian ones. Google Scholar also indicated differing English-language translations of Medz Yeghern and the choice of which translation to use is defined as a matter of controversy in some of those sources. In addition, there are nuances of usage with Medz Yeghern: it has been written that politicians have been using Medz Yeghern as an Armenian genocide denialist methodology to avoid mentioning the word "genocide" [48], [49], [50]. The singling out as "Medz Yeghern" as alone being fit to be included as an alternative term is simply not justifiable. Note that Diranakir and Armen Ohanian refused an early request for moderated discussion on this issue [51]. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:00, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Google Scholar results

Google Scholar results
Aghet + Armenian Genocide, 61 results [52]
Aghet + Armenian Genocide + Catastrophe 19 results [53]
Aghed + Armenian Genocide, 38 Results [54]
Aghed + Armenian Genocide + Catastrophe, 28 Results [55]
Medz Yeghern + Armenian Genocide, 60 results [56]
Medz Yeghern + Great Crime, 19 results [57]
Medz Yeghern + Armenian Genocide + Great Crime 19 results[58]
Medz Yeghern + Great Catastrophe, 13 results [59]
Medz Yeghern + Great Calamity, 9 results [60]
Mets Yeghern + Armenian Genocide, 15 results [61]
Mets Yeghern + Great Crime, 3 results [62]
Mets Yeghern + Great Catastrophe, 3 results [63]
Mets Yeghern + Great Calamity, 4 results [64]

There seems to be no overlap in the alternative spellings of each phrase. There seems to be a minor overlap in the Medz Yeghern / Mets Yeghern translations, where the same source gives two alternative translations [65] & [66]. The results show that of the two terms, the most common term used in association with the term "Armenian Genocide" is "Aghet" or its alternative spelling "Aghed", with 99 hits in total. "Medz Yeghern" and its alternative spelling "Mets Yeghern" used in association with the term "Armenian Genocide" get 75 hits in total. "Medz Yeghern" searched for on its own gets 81 hits, "Mets Yeghern" on its own gets 19 hits, "Aghet" means something in other languages so raw results for "Aghet" on its own are not usable. "Armenian Holocaust" gets 394 results, a low number but probably because it will be mainly older sources that use it, sources that Google Scholar neglect. "Armenian Massacres" gets 2760 but those results will include massacres before 1915. "Armenian Genocide" on its own gets 13,000 results, which indicates that all the alternative terms actually rarely get mentioned in sources compared to Armenian Genocide (an argument perhaps for all the alternatives being removed from the lede). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:38, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly, the portmanteau word "Armenocide" gets 166 hits. So it too should definitely be classed as an alternative term. [67] Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Keep for reasons I have extensively mentioned in the discussion and the following. A proper name, Medz Yeghern, cannot be equated to a generic expression, genocide. It has and is equated by Armenian political and worldwide leaders (president and church heads) to “Armenian Genocide.” Three world leaders, Pope John Paul II, Stephen Harper (PM of Canada, 2006-2015), and Pope Francis, have used Medz Yeghern and genocide. One world leader, Barack Obama, has used Medz Yeghern without genocide (George W. Bush never used Medz Yeghern), instead using “mass atrocities” (= “mass atrocity crimes”), which currently designates what is embraced by the description “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.” No serious commentator or newspaper, whether Armenian or not, has called Obama a “denier” and/or equated him to Turkish denialist journalists and writers for using Medz Yeghern, but he has been repeatedly called out for having “refused to properly acknowledge the Armenian Genocide” due to his failure to use genocide. Notorious Turkish deniers, incidentally, have reproached Obama the use of Medz Yeghern, claiming that it is synonymous with genocide. (There is good reason why the current Turkish government has never used Medz Yeghern and chided Obama for using it.) Medz Yeghern appears in the lede in the same way as Shoah and Sayfo appear in the lede of the articles “Assyrian genocide” and “The Holocaust”, and Holodomor as the entry name for the Ukrainian genocide. The article is named “Armenian Genocide,” starts with the words “The Armenian Genocide...” and continues with its literal translation in Armenian and the proper name in the same language. No ambiguity is left there, and no further clarification is needed in the lede. The issue revolving around “Great Calamity” and “Aghed” (including the groundless attempt to put the latter before Medz Yeghern with omission of conclusive evidence to the contrary) is the result of the years-long search for anything to debunk the meaning of “Great Crime” that may appear acceptable, with token consideration of scholarly procedures, prominence, reliability, and content of sources, and above all, with no knowledge of the language in question to have a saying on linguistic issues. Here is the reason for the so-called "refusal... to accept the equal status principle." It does not matter whether something is true or just a good find: hence the renewed attempt to impose a solution at any cost through two pseudo-methods: "Google hits," which could also be claimed to enter any discredited theory to Wikipedia through the backdoor (say, revisionist views in the Holocaust article), or "Google Scholar," which assumes that a bunch of hits represents the entire universe of mentions (= if it isn't on the Internet, it doesn't exist). Therefore, I propose, as in the case of the article on the Holocaust, to keep the proper name Medz Yeghern in its current place--along the lines of my proposal previously accepted and then left aside--and to add a section as the first one in the body of the article that explains briefly the historical and current use of the term. Armen Ohanian (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

But you propose excluding the proper name "Aghet", and the proper name "Armenian Holocaust", and the proper name "Armenocide", and the "Great Calamity / Great Catastrophe" translations for "Medz Yeghern" from the lede, even though all of them are sourced, and "Aghet", "Armenian Holocaust", and "Armenocide" all have more sources than "Medz Yeghern" has. How does your proposal not break WP:neutral point of view guidelines? Are you also advocating the exclusion of "Aghet", "Armenian Holocaust", "Armenocide" and the "Great Calamity / Great Catastrophe" translations for Medz Yeghern from your proposed article section that would explain the historical and current use of the term Medz Yeghern? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:02, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

This is not the place to discuss the value of each of those names. The lede is one thing, the proposed article section is a different thing. The article section only needs to explain succinctly what "Medz Yeghern" means and what has been its historical and current use of the term. Exactly as it is for "Shoah" in the Holocaust article, which doesn't explain other alternative names in the seven lines of the section "Etymology and use of the term." For all the other names, you can create an article called "Names of the Armenian Genocide," in the same way as there is an article called "Names of the Holocaust." Armen Ohanian (talk) 03:50, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

You are avoiding responding to my valid question. Please answer the accusation that your desire to exclude all sourced alternative terms from the lede except "Medz Yeghern", and exclude all sourced alternative translations of "Medz Yeghern" from the lede except "Great Crime", breaks npov guidelines. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:00, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Exclude there's many alternative names to the Armenian Genocide, some of these alternative names have different interpretations than others. Therefore, it needs to be better elaborated on somewhere in the article. I'm ready to help out with the section proposal and we need to keep WP:NPOV in mind when doing so, as Dimadick pointed out above. --Երևանցի ^talk 18:53, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment I haven't forgotten about this. The consensus is clearly in favor of its removal. But I'll still wait till more opinions before going ahead with the proposal. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I too was hoping for more opinions, but it does not look like the subject is interesting enough to attract attention. Maybe some work should be started on what the content section will look like that would contain all the alternative terms. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:36, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• Exclude from lead. As it stands, I don't think that there's any point as, by the time you get an uninvolved third party around to responding to closing, Legobot will have removed the RfC template. If editors felt strongly about this, I'm sure more would have spoken up. Personally, I've abstained from !voting so far as I don't like getting involved in every RfC, but I am against its use in the lead, particularly as being presented as if it were an alternative COMMONNAME. There's no parallel between the commonality of usage of "Medz/Mets Yeghern" to, for example, that of "Holodomor". Should the situation change at a future point in time, there's no problem in updating the content of the article as it will be obvious. Until then, per Yerevantsi's observation, it should be elaborated on in an appropriate section within the body of the article. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:12, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Comment to Iryna Harpy: For the record and as far as it bears on future discussion of this topic, the relevant parallel is not between Holodomor and Medz Yeghern, but between Terror-Famine and Medz Yeghern. Diranakir (talk) 20:53, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. As it is, there were perpetual arguments over the use of 'Holodomor' because it is not an English language COMMONNAME. It is, in fact, already the equivalent of 'Medz Yeghern' in that it is the Ukrainian language term for that incident. Holodomor has, however, become the prominent name used in English language scholarship, but 'Terror-Famine' and 'Famine-Genocide in Ukraine' appeared in scholarship (and continue to do so) because English language variants on the terminology pre-date the use of Holodomor in scholarship. By the same token, there is no weight of scholarship demonstrating the use of 'Medz Yeghern' as being a common usage alternative nomenclature for the genocide. I responded as I did because I did not see Armen Ohanian's argument about "The Holocaust" or "Holodomor" as being relevant. Comparing the details between genocides is like comparing apples and oranges: each instance should be accorded due respect and treated on a case by case basis.

Personally, I've never !voted on whether other terms are appropriate for the lead for the Holodomor article, and I'd be reticent to start a discussion as to their usage because the Holodomor related articles are amongst the most egregious on Wikipedia. The "Holodomor" article alone has not budged from its uncomfortable truce-consensus state for years. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:38, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The relevance of the argument is that you have three articles on genocides -- "The Holocaust," "Holodomor," and "Assyrian genocide," -- where the name of the event in each language (Shoah, Holodomor, Sayfo) is mentioned in the first paragraph or as the article name. I didn't compare details between genocides, but between the articles on genocides, which is a comparison between four types of apples. The Armenian genocide has a traditionally used proper name in its own language: it is Medz Yeghern ("Great Crime" / "Great Genocide"), not the calque translation of "Armenian Genocide." There is a weight of scholarship showing its use as proper name. I have offered a perfectly reasonable solution that makes the first sentence readable and understandable to any middle English reader, as much as it is readable and understandable in the case of the other three articles on genocides. As I have said previously, whether deniers or euphemistic users exploit it, I don't see a reason to budge to denial and use pov as pretext to eliminate the name from the first paragraph. Armen Ohanian (talk) 00:25, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

To Iryna Harpy: In relation to the articles on the Armenian Genocide and the Holodomor, we are talking about lead sentences that, in each, begin with the principal name of the article followed by alternative names in the 'also known as' clauses. Holodomor and Armenian Genocide correspond to each other in the roles they play in their respective sentences, and Terror-Famine and Medz Yeghern bear a similar relationship in their respective 'also known as' clauses. That should be self-evident. It therefore remains a complete mystery to me what it is you disagree with and why the inclusion of Medz Yeghern in the lede is such a problem for you, given that it is the most enduring name Armenians have given their genocide. Diranakir (talk) 05:36, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

As indicated it the Google Scholar results that I have posted in this RfC, and in the numerous quotes and citations I provided in earlier discussions, the weight of scholarship that Armen Ohanian mentions actually indicates that Medz Yeghern is rather far down the list of common names in terms of its academic usage, lower than that of Aghet, and that the English translation that he and Diranakir have repeatedly insisted Medz Yeghern MUST HAVE is not even the majority translation. The edit warring of their pov into the article, and their inability to make or accept any compromise, has led to an impasse where the only solution available to move forward is the removal of all alternative terms from the lede and instead have them mentioned and explained in the body of the article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Your "predecessor" in the same insistence on "Great Calamity" and yourself have been UNABLE for the past four years to bring a single, decent argument that proves that "Great Calamity" is a real translation, except quoting people that say so, but do not prove it, and filling these pages with pov, including the newfangled claim that pretends that Google Books or Google Scholar is the modern equivalent of the library of Alexandria, and everything is there. This is, unfortunately, the risk of Wikipedia rules: to quote some secondary source to prove a point leads to not give any attention to the accuracy of the source. (For instance, the picture of the eight severed heads stayed for years in the main text, because there was a source that said that there were the heads of "eight Armenian professors." I cleaned up the picture, indicating that the source was inaccurate, since the picture had been first published in 1899. Nobody argued, despite the fact that the same picture and the same inaccuracy had been remarked in 1992 by two researchers from Germany, but alas, that article published in an Armenian scholarly journal in English IS NOT in Google Scholar.) The so-called "repeated" insistence is the consequence of the repeated insistence on anything that may serve to prove your pov. It is akin to the picture that we see every time that a denialist rejects a certain fact and someone upholds the fact. Another denialist comes back with the same denial and someone else upholds the same fact, and the same goes again and again. Here, the difference is that someone rejects a fact (I don't imply that anyone is a denialist here), and when that fact is upheld with stronger proof, the same person comes back with a variation on the same theme, and the vicious circle continues again and again. Now the latest "discovery" is the existence of Aghed and Armenocide (Armenocide was invented fifty years ago or so, and neither Aghed nor Armenocide are "more common Common Names," except in your opinion, which unfortunately rejects referenced opinions) to help clutter the lead and, in this way, create an artificial "impasse" with the aim of imposing the pov by any means. I repeat it: a clean version of the lede had been introduced and won necessary consensus more than a month ago, but unjustifiable pov concerns botched that agreement and led to this unnecessary situation.Armen Ohanian (talk) 20:56, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

For the record: The alternative name Medz Yeghern (Մեծ Եղեռն) has been part of the lede for a decade now and it is curious that those who are presently campaigning to have it thrown out have only recently been seized with the urgency of applying the COMMON NAME principle to it. Where were they all that time with the COMMON NAME principle? Or is their real problem with its UNAMBIGUOUS and fully documented translation as Great Crime? Diranakir (talk) 22:35, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

And the reason it can no longer remain is thanks to your pov edit warring. Past versions of the article lede included Great Calamity as either the main translation of Medz Yeghern, [68], or its only translation [69]. But you and Armen Ohanian have edit warred for years against that referenced content and also against the addition of any additional alternative names even if better sourced, and have insisted that the recently-coined "Great Crime" translation is the only valid one despite numerous sources indicating otherwise. You have been unwilling to accept any compromise. So the only solution is to remove all of the existing alternative terms. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:31, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, your response already shows that you seem to only read what it suits your pov. There was NO referenced content for "Great Calamity" in the lead for the past decade, as I explained to you in my latest posting, except "quoting people that say so, but do not prove it" (apologies for quoting myself), and the source currently referencing "Great Crime," if your read it outside your edit-warring mind --you're ascribing what you have started to others --, proves with extensive examples that the meaning "crime" for yeghern existed even before the genocide, and it is not "recently-coined" by any means. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Armen Ohanian (talk • contribs) 13:46, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• Keep. Current name of the page, Armenian Genocide, is fully consistent with WP:Common name. There are also several alternative names. Given that they are sufficiently widely used, keeping them in intro is fine. Even if one of them was frequently used by "denialists", that does not invalidate mentioning the term in lede. My very best wishes (talk) 15:03, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

In which case you will agree that the even more common Common Names, such as Aghet and Armenocide, should be there too, and that the alternative translations of Medz Yeghern should also be there, yes? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:26, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above shows that Medz Yeghern is rather widely used and even became a matter of controversy (the presentations by Obama, etc.). Is "Armenocide" that significant? I do not know. The number of Google hits is significant, but one should look at actual sources. If it is important, then yes, there is nothing wrong with including it too. My very best wishes (talk) 12:24, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

User:My very best wishes, this RfC was started because two editors - Diranakir & Armen Ohanian - have point blank refused to include in the lede anything except Medz Yeghern and anything except "Great Crime" as its translation. This is even after sources and google scholar data has been presented that shows their position is invalid. (Part of that data has been presented in this RfC, so your Armenocide question is easy to answer: 166 hits on Google Scholar, more than Medz Yeghern.) The RfC proposes a compromise solution - remove all alternative names and translations from the lede and instead deal with them all in the article. No content is going to be deleted. Since you are opposing this compromise solution, what alternative solution do you suggest to move forward. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:28, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Many pages have alternative names in intro. They must be there (in the first phrase) simply for convenience of a reader. Starting an RfC to exclude an alternative name that arguably should be included looks to me something very strange. Just keep the alternative name and move forward. This is very simple. My very best wishes (talk) 14:29, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Except that it has been anything than very simple! I don't think the RfC was well worded or explained, but its purpose was to resolve the long running issue of two editors refusing any compromise on their opinion that no alternative Armenian names can be inserted into the lede except Meds Yeghern, and no alterantive translation than "Great Crime" is allowed for Meds Yeghern. This is all despite plentiful sources indicating that this opinion is nothing but a pov opinion of those two editors. Showt of getting them banned, there is no way to move forward. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

MVBW, you're missing the point that there are a great number of WP:OTHERNAMES. What is being suggested is that OTHERNAMES take on the same status as the COMMONNAME: in other words, editors are taking it upon themselves to promote other names... which is WP:OR. If the WP:TITLE of the article were "Various names used for the Armenian Genocide", then I would have to agree with the inclusion in the lead. The TITLE is, however, "Armenian Genocide". Other names belong in the body where/if appropriate, not in the lead. The rationale behind Wikipedia is that we don't run ahead of the ball and make the news (i.e., we would be facilitating the acceptance of other names as common names). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:43, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I think having three alternative names in the first phrase right now is fine, just as on this page and a lot of other pages, and it is consistent with WP:OTHERNAMES. That would not work with a larger number of names (e.g. generic names of drugs). Once again, this something very minor that does not deserve RfC and this discussion. My very best wishes (talk) 04:15, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

There are MORE than three othernames names. "Aghet" and "Armenocide" have more Google Scholar hits than "Medz Yeghern". To include Medz Yeghern in the lede and not the other two is a pov decision that is not supported by sources. To state in the lede that "Great Crime" is the only translation of Medz Yeghern is a pov decision that is not supported by sources. So, what exactly are you supporting? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:36, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

While we wait for the response to your question from My very best wishes, it has become quite clear what you are supporting, unfortunately: 1) your own pov agenda, which you continuously try to hide behind your "sources" that have been solidly shown once and again to be a smokescreen, 2) your not-so-veiled menaces to end your four-year-long campaign against Medz Yeghern by having other editors banned because they don't conform to your "my way or highway."

The passage "also known (...) traditionally by Armenians, as Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Great Crime)" speaks of the knowledge by Armenians, understandably, in the Armenian language (hence "TRADITIONALLY"), not in English or any other language, which are not the TRADITIONAL language of Armenians. Therefore, all Google Scholar/Google Books lucubrations are null and void, because nobody asked about English, German, French (or Chinese, for that matter) mentions of Medz Yeghern, Aghed, Armenocide, or the next name that one can think of in any particular language. They only serve to give a cover to utter ignorance of the Armenian language, because knowing words like Medz Yeghern or Aghed do not give anyone the right to claim knowledge of the language (unless such knowledge is demonstrated otherwise), the same as I don't claim that I know Ukrainian because I know Holodomor. Unfortunately, we have come to the point where people who do not know the Armenian language take upon themselves the right to speak about linguistic issues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Armen Ohanian (talk • contribs) 19:49, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

You really are Not There in every sense of the term. I doubt anyone else could be so willfully and consistently in error about Wikipedia's insistence on content being sourced. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:06, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't need any lessons about Wikipedia's insistence on sourced content, since I know very well the value of sources. The insistence of people in exploiting that insistence by Wikipedia for their own purposes is what remains incomprehensible to me. I doubt anyone else could be so willfully and consistently in purposeful disdain of all sorts of evidence that contradicts his views and still repeats those same views.Armen Ohanian (talk) 05:11, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Exclude - term has lost its original meaning and is a violation of common name rule. --Oatitonimly (talk) 17:18, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:Common name is about title of the article, i.e. "Armenian genocide", not about alternative, less commonly used names, which can also be included merely for convenience of a reader. Was that alternative name used in important recent publications on the subject? Yes, it was. Hence including it was fine.My very best wishes (talk) 17:29, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Question to Oatitonimly: Please specify what original meaning the term has lost.

Comment to My very best wishes: I appreciate your raising a very important point about the application of the common name 'rule'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diranakir (talk • contribs) 18:22, 25 May 2016 (UTC) Diranakir (talk) 18:58, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that at this point, there's been an open debate about the current meaning of Medz Yeghern for quite some time. Medz Yeghern has lost its meaning because it is not a term associated with the Armenian Genocide anymore. Rather, it is a term used to deny it. So the ambiguity of this meaning, whether it be in our understanding of WP:COMMONNAME or WP:OTHERNAMES, should be handled the same way. Ambiguous names should be removed from the lead and further expressed in the article. Wikipedia is pretty clear on this. Oatitonimly (talk) 21:09, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

You didn't answer my simple question. What is the original meaning that was lost? Either you meant something by it or you didn't. Diranakir (talk) 22:12, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

The original meaning was something that was untranslatable, beyond a precise definition, a name to give something beyond comprehension or encompassment or description or explanation. Now it is mostly a euphemism that gutless politicians are using to avoid mentioning the word genocide. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Tiptoe, why is it that when I ask another editor a direct question, it is you who jumps in? This is the second time it has happened. Are they not capable of answering for themselves? Apparently not. It seems they prefer talking through their various hats. Thanks for a perfect description of the muddle in which you propose to bury Medz Yeghern. Diranakir (talk) 21:00, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Exclude from the lead per concerns expressed by ÉtienneDolet and other editors. It seems to be a name preferred by genocide deniers (such as Obama) and I see the situation could be compared to adding notions used by Holocaust deniers to the lead of the article on Holocaust. The problem also is that there are numerous other variants more often used than Medz Yeghern that should then consequently also be added to the lead, for which I see no reason. Dorpater (talk) 19:29, 28 May 2016 (UTC) (vote by sock of blocked user). 17:41, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• This is strange. Last time when I checked Wiktionalry [70], it was telling: "Meds Yeghern is used by Armenians refer to the Armenian Genocide the way Shoah is used by Jews to refer to the Holocaust." Other sources were telling the same. So no, this is not terminology by deniers or Obama, but a terminology by Armenians. My very best wishes (talk) 21:45, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Wiktionary is not a citable source! More seriously, are you saying it is incorrect to say that Obama since becoming president has on numerous occasions said "Meds Yeghern" and has never once said "Armenian Genocide" and that there are many sources that state he chooses the former to avoid saying the latter? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

So what? It is clear who cares about what Obama said: 1) Those people who ignore the Armenian language and dare to give lessons about it; 2) Those people who supposedly know the Armenian language, but are simply obsessed with the word "genocide" and reject the language that supposedly they know; 3) Those people who are pushing the others to impose their POV.

Instead, I will quote from a different source that cannot be suspected of denying anything, the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. John Paul II, Stephen Harper, and Pope Francis are not enough for you, then I have to add a fourth person who is not a "gutless politician" in this issue, the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. I have FOUR using Medz Yeghern and genocide, you have ONE not using both:

"Today, we commemorate the memory of the holy martyrs of the Armenian Genocide. More than a century has passed since the Meds Yeghern" (April 24, 2016)(www.president.am/en/statements-and-messages/item/2016/04/24/President-Serzh-Sargsyan-speech-April-24/)

"The crimes of genocide – Medz Yeghern, Shoah, those committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and elsewhere, shall be commemorated by both the successors of the victims and perpetrators. The path to reconciliation is not paved by denial, but rather by the consciousness of memory" (April 22, 2015)(www.president.am/en/statements-and-messages/item/2015/04/22/President-Serzh-Sargsyan-Genocide-global-forum-April-22-speech/).

If Wiktionary is not a citable source, it is more than enough to quote the same from a source that has been a darling to source-twisters like you in a different time and name:

"Armenians sometimes still refer to the Armenian Genocide as ‘Medz Yeghern,’ just as the Jews use the Hebrew word Shoah for the Holocaust.” (Harut Sassounian, California Courier, January 5, 2005)

If that is not enough, there one more for you and for everybody else out there who are ignorant of their own language to the point of simply considering "Medz Yeghern" just one more about many:

"When Metz Yeghern is used, Armenians understand genocide" (Sukru Elekdag, former ambassador of Turkey to the United States, December 2008, http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/12/2680-tv-debate-transcript-32nd-day-on.html).Armen Ohanian (talk) 05:11, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

The consensus is overwhelming in favor of the removal of Medz Yeghern. I've begun working on an alternative names section. I will remove Medz Yeghern bit in the lead and work to make the section in the coming days. Anyone is welcome to work on it with me. This is long overdue. Étienne Dolet (talk) 17:45, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect, the "overwhelming consensus" --do you include, to mention only one case, the sock puppet who almost copied and pasted your opinion and who was blocked a few days ago?-- only exists (and I will repeat myself, since you seem not to have read much of what has been written here) in the imagination of: 1) Those people who ignore the Armenian language and dare to give lessons about it; 2) Those people who supposedly know the Armenian language, but are simply obsessed with the word "genocide" and reject the language that supposedly they know; 3) Those people who are pushing the others to impose their POV.

Will all due respect again, you unfortunately happened to be the person who broke the consensus reached almost three months ago and opened the floodgates for an endless discussion that has been going on and on since then. (It was an useful experience, however: every time someone's groundless arguments were crushed with facts, these facts were left aside and another groundless argument came forward, and this is how you built the "overwhelming consensus." It allowed me to see first hand how a denialist would operate in a slightly different context.) It was clearly explained that every COMPARABLE article in Wikipedia has the proper name of the genocide in its first paragraph, and I could not hear a single rational objection, except what amounted to denialism: when you deny your own name on the name of denial, you allow others to deny it too, as it happened.

"Last April 24, on the 100th anniversary of what Armenians call the Great Crime, the Bundestag postponed voting on a similar resolution to classify the mass killings as genocide. Yet German President Joachim Gauck used the term, drawing criticism from Turkey." This was written by Deutsche Welle on May 31, 2016 (http://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-erdogan-warns-germany-ahead-of-armenian-genocide-vote/a-19296898). They didn't call it Great Catastrophe/Calamity/Disaster/Tragedy or Aghed. "(...) WHAT ARMENIANS CALL THE GREAT CRIME." This is the name of the genocide (other than "Armenian Genocide," which is not the Armenian name), and this is what should remain in the first paragraph of Wikipedia, as the Holocaust, the Holodomor, and the Assyrian genocide do. Afterwards, one could write a full article about the names of the Armenian genocide in good conscience. But now, please do not hide behind "overwhelming consensus," because that looks like the emperor's new clothes. Armen Ohanian (talk) 20:49, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Six users ([71][72][73][74][75] as opposed to three appears to be quite overwhelming. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:26, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The merits of the word "overwhelming," as well as of your mathematical source to come to that conclusion are very disputable, but I'll leave them to your conscience, the same as the entire merit of this discussion, for which we are indebted to your previous break of overwhelming consensus (two users opposed to one are as overwhelming as six to three) and the lack of grounded argumentation that followed. Armen Ohanian (talk) 13:16, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I stand corrected for the record. Two users opposed to one are as overwhelming as five to three. Banned sock puppets do not count. Armen Ohanian (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I never "broke a consensus" concerning this Medz Yeghern stuff. I don't get why you keep bringing that up with every comment of yours. My agreement was a temporary solution (the stuff about Aghed) to an otherwise very large problem. Étienne Dolet (talk) 16:11, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Here's your agreement as a so-called "temporary solution" to a problem that it has never looked (and it does not) as "otherwise very large." Indeed, I was addressing you in the comment):

"d) Finally, as I had promised, I would like to go back to your proposal of alleviating the burden in the lead and build up on it. I think it may be fairly reasonable to establish a comparison with the opening sentence of the entry "Holocaust" and divide the first sentence into two:

"The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the systematic extermination by the Ottoman government of its Armenian population. It was carried inside and around their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey."

Compare:

"The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"), also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews."

Along the lines of what you had proposed, footnote 3 would become:

Spelt Հայոց ցեղասպանութիւն in classical Armenian orthography. In English, the Armenian Genocide is also known as the Armenian Holocaust, and, previously, as the Armenian Massacres.

(The last sentence of footnote 3 can even be taken out, if someone thinks that its too "heavy.").Armen Ohanian (talk) 19:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Armen's proposal looks good to me. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur. An admirable resolution by Armen. Diranakir (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2016 (UTC)"

Your proposal was to alleviate the burden in the lead. I build up on it and I proposed how to alleviate the lead, and I gave a comparative example to another lead. There was no "temporary solution" there. This was a consensus for a final solution. This is what you broke and you don't remember.

The "stuff about Aghed" was an artificial issue created by someone who has never spoken the word "aghed" or any other Armenian word in his entire life, and who brought the word to muddle the field (including a fair amount of misinterpretation, indeed), as he has tried relentlessly to do for the past four years. This has shown beyond the need of more proof. Unfortunately, you seem to have bought that red herring.Armen Ohanian (talk) 20:42, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Yup. It was a temporary solution for Aghed, but not the final solution for Medz Yeghern. I don't know why I need to go back and forth with you on this. It really doesn't matter, even if I did "break" some sort of consensus. After all, a consensus can always change. Étienne Dolet (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Nobody forces you to go back and forth. Consensus may always change. POV doesn't. This is, unfortunately, the bottom line of this issue: POV based on a subjective perception of denial for Medz Yeghern and the red herring of Aghed bought from someone who didn't know of its existence until he found it in his crusade to impose his own POV. Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Armen Ohanian, your above is just a continuation of your ignoring of Wikipedia rules regarding sources. What you say you want, what you say you know to be true, what you think is correct, all of that has no place in deciding what Wikipedia content should be. Sources decide content. Also, long-established sources are more important that recent ones when deciding on spellings or translations. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:21, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

If you believed in what you said, you would have ended this discussion long ago. If you think that I say what I want, what I know to be true, what I think it is correct, then look at yourself and your opinions and stop ascribing your own attitude to others. Long-established sources have been shown long ago, but you preferred to ignore them. I have backed what I say and what I think with sources of which you have not the slightest idea, as it has been proved once and again. Your remaining arguments are the repetition of hot air to which readers and editors have been used for the past four years. Armen Ohanian (talk) 00:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Armen, you seem to be missing the point of this whole discussion. Something true years ago isn't necessarily true in the present day. --Oatitonimly (talk) 21:30, 3 June 2016 (UTC).

That is the point of this discussion? Anything which was true in the past is no longer true? Unless there are sounding facts that prove the contrary -- not speculations based on POV -- a truth remains as such. In this case, the truth of the proper name "Medz Yeghern," its meaning, and its importance remains there. Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I have cited numerous articles, I have cited the Google search results, I have cited the Google Scholar results. All hot air to Armen Ohanian? However, this "hot air" forms the basis of deciding what Wikipedia article content should consist of.Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:09, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Any denialist may cite numerous articles, Google search results, and Google Scholar results, and claim that those "form the basis of deciding what Wikipedia article content should consist of." In such a case, and in this case, the reliability of those citations is what is at stake. This is what has been called into question and debunked once and again, and not just with words. But, of course, whoever has one and only one goal in his mind will never renounce to it. Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing your work, EtienneDolet,but could you place the proposed new section here first, rather than going straight into the article with it. So it can be discussed. What do you think about having the origin of the word genocide section combined into this news terminology section, detail when and why it was coined, then detail and explain the various names for the AG that were used before the coining of the term genocide, names that contemporary sources called it or described it (things like "the murder of a nation" (in the 1915 Toynbee booklet) is more a description than an actual term), and then onto the internalized names Armenians used, like Aghet and Medz Yeghern. And maybe also the terminology found in denialist sources, and the ways that avoid mentioning the word "genocide". This proposed section can be inserted regardless of any lede content decision, regardless of the AfD (which did have a clear majority to delete but the low numbers participating probably preclude calling it overwhelming). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:09, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: here's my draft. Nothing too elaborate so far. You're welcome to work on it with me, as is everybody else here. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:26, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: so what do you think of the draft? Are you willing to work on it? I should I just place what I got so far? Étienne Dolet (talk) 23:50, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I have not worked on it yet. I think it could be far more comprehensive. Is reproducing the terms found in denialist sources permissible, or would that be OR unless a third source refers to those phrases (things like "a tragedy", or "Armenian allegations" or "the events of 1915", etc.) as phrases found in denialist literature. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:33, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

To Etienne Dolet: 5 to 3 is no overwhelming consensus, especially given an RfC tarnished by sock puppetry. Your proposal to throw Medz Yeghern out of the lede is based on what you think is appropriate for the reader to see or not see at the top of the page, that is what it comes down to. The name has unique status in Armenian tradition, as Armen Ohanian has made perfectly clear. You choose to ignore that in the interests of your beef with the POTUS. Not very neutral. "Too many words, too confusing for the reader, not a common name", nonsense. All the other articles on genocides can have their alternative names in the lede but this one? Not very encyclopedic. Diranakir (talk) 00:32, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Note that one of the three, My very best wishes, said that all alternative names should be inserted into the lede. This is something that the other two of the three refuse to accept (and their refusal was the reason for having this RfC). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:14, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

My very best wishes said that in reference to the THREE alternative names ALREADY on the lede for the past ten years (but you know this even before I did), not for what you are implying. (This proves my point that you cling to anything that suits your goals.) He said, in reference to Medz Yeghern (May 27): "Many pages have alternative names in intro. They must be there (in the first phrase) simply for convenience of a reader. Starting an RfC to exclude an alternative name that arguably should be included looks to me something very strange. Just keep the alternative name and move forward. This is very simple." And later (May 28): "I think having three alternative names in the first phrase right now is fine, just as on this page and a lot of other pages, and it is consistent with WP:OTHERNAMES. That would not work with a larger number of names (e.g. generic names of drugs). Once again, this something very minor that does not deserve RfC and this discussion." Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Exclude per WP:OTHERNAMES. Medz Yeghern has become an euphemistic term mostly used by Armenian Genocide deniers. Denialists and US presidents have employed the term Medz Yeghern to the point that the term has been perverted of its meaning. There's no denying that Medz Yeghern was or still is a word for the Armenian Genocide, but this background info needs to be clarified elsewhere in the article in a more appropriate place. WP:OTHERNAMES for example encourages us to have an alternative names section in the article to handle these kind of problems. 92slim (talk) 17:47, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

To 92slim: You say 'Exclude per WP:OTHERNAMES' then immediately follow with the comment, 'Medz Yeghern has become an euphemistic term mostly used by Armenian Genocide deniers' , as if that is the reason for applying the 'othernames' principle, when it isn't. Then you say, 'Medz Yeghern was or is still a word for the Armenian Genocide'. Why the confusion? Why don't you just say is? With credit to 'My very best wishes', I have to point out that the very fact that we are having this discussion shows that the name has real prominence, far above any of the other alternative names. By the common name/other name principle as interpreted by you, 'Hayots tseghaspanutyun' should also be excluded from the lede. It is far less commonly known than Medz Yeghern. Diranakir (talk) 15:57, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Has anyone actually submitted this RfC for closure at the WP:ANRFC? It really needs a neutral admin/experienced user to close it. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:42, 9 June 2016 (UTC) Striking as it is listed. Just a huge backlog on the board. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:45, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

OR, Synthesis and Undue Weight issues relating to edits made to the consensus solution - This edit [76] adds the claim that Obama had acknowledged the AG by using the term Medz Yeghern. This was a clear case of undue weight, and I have removed it. Obama, before becoming president, had used the words "Armenian Genocide" - so his acknowledgement predated his use of Medz Yeghern. As soon as he became president he stopped doing that, saying only "Medz Yeghern" instead. Six years have passed since the cited source's opinion - an opinion that was about the FIRST instance of Obama having used the term. In those six years Obama has continued each year to decline to say the words "Armenian Genocide" and has continued to only say "Medz Yeghern". It is his continued use of Medz Yeghern and continued refusal to say Armenian Genocide that the sources say amounts to denial (or gives encouragement to and succor for denialists). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:14, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Diranakir, without answering any of the points made above, has again inserted this content [77]. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

And has edit warred it in yet again [78], despite being directed to discuss it here. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:25, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

This edit [79] as well as having an extremely bad faith edit summary that is probably sanctionable, adds OR, Synthesis, and Undue Weight. It is a return by Armen Ohanian to exactly the same edit warring that obliged this RfC. Yet again this editor removes Aghet as an alternative term, despite the Google Scholar results presented during this RfC that indicate it is the most common term used, more common than Medz Yeghern. In order to try to placate this editor I deliberately did not put "Aghet" before "Medz Yeghern", even though the Google results would suggest it should be - but nothing it seems will stop Armen Ohanian's pov warring. And the alternative translation "Great Calamity" for Medz Yeghern is yet again deleted, despite the Google Scholar results indicating it is quite common, about half as common as the "Great Crime" translation. In this edit we also have a curious use of commas inside quotation marks: "xxx", "yyy", (which appears the correct usage to me) becomes "xxx," "yyy,", etc. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Ultimately, while the ANRFC may be frustratingly backlogged, there has been no ruling to include Medz Yeghern or any other naming convention... meaning that no editors should be reintroducing the content in any shape or form, much less elaborating on it. Such tactics can only be understood as being WP:BATTLEGROUND, reflecting badly on the editor tampering with what currently stands as the status quo. Please wait until a decision is made. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:58, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

To be completely correct, the RfC was about lede content and whether particular content should be in the lede or should not. Since these edits concern body content and are thus independent of the lede content I think they do not need to wait for a final RfC decision. The troubling thing is that the same pov exclusion of Aghet and promotion of Medz Yeghern (with "Great Crime" as its only permissible translation) that was edit warred into the lede - to the extent that the only way to progress was the removal of all terms - seems to be being transferred into the article body content. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:39, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

There's nothing to "close" here. The RfC template expired a long time ago. We can't close a template that doesn't exist. This tends to happen a lot during RfCs. And as for the RfC itself, it's nothing but a method to help get the community further involved, hence why it's called a "request for comment" and it should be treated as such. The discussion has reached a point in which we were able to fix up the lede without any further problems or altercations, so I think we would be beating the dead horse. We aren't supposed to view RfC's as something like congress voting over a bill and waiting for the speaker of the house to confirm the result. That's not how RfCs work. The importance given to the discussion and the result of it is what counts. Étienne Dolet (talk) 00:59, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Apologies for not checking the edit more thoroughly. I admit that I only took a cursory look. Agreed that no one is interested in closing, just as another RfC trying to overturn a recently adopted guideline RfC is going to be ignored. The give away with whether an RfC is going to have a third party close it is the fact that it was submitted before the 30 days were up. If admins and other experienced users are disinclined to close, it becomes an in-house issue. I believe that there was also a DRN submitted and either declined immediately, or within a short period of time (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Looking at the edit again, WP:DTS summarises the situation succinctly. Omission from the lead does not preclude that POV pushing is acceptable for the body. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:11, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes there was a Dispute Resolution request some months before the RfC - I submitted it, but the other invited parties declined to accept. At issue was what I saw as the pov exclusion of alternative terms from the lede. Identical issues now seem to be arising in the article body now that there is a section about terminology. However, lede content is meant to summarize body content, so in a way the earlier discussions were doing it the wrong way around because the lede content dealing with terminology summarized nothing that was in the body. This is why having a terminology section is required to move forward, regardless of the content that ends up being in it. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 18:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Content allegation that "clamity" is a denialist term. It was inserted, I fact tagged it, a source was provided, it was invalid, I have deleted both the tagged claim and the invalid source. [80]. The source is a denialist text, but the cited page is actually part of a huge verbatim quotation of many passages from Hovhannes Katchaznouni's "The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Has Nothing To Do Any More", in which the word "calamity" is used once by Katchaznouni. Katchaznouni is not denying the Armenian Genocide (the word genocide was not coined when he wrote his pamphlet), nor is the source claiming that he was, the source does not even mention anything about Katchaznouni's usage of the word "calamity" - there is nothing in this to even remotely support a claim that "clamity" is a denialist term. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:51, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Numbers

I strongly disagree with the way the death toll is portrayed now. The widely agreed upon number of 1.5 million Armenians having been killed should be given in the first sentence. Compare The Holocaust, where in the first sentence the number of 6 million is also immediately given. Nearly every reliable source immediately describes it as the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians, so having the second sentence say "The number of victims is estimated at between 800,000 and 1.5 million." is straight up disrespectful. Giving equal value to a much rarer estimate that is almost half of what is generally agreed upon gives credit to deniers and is an insult to the hundreds of thousands that died in it. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 13:02, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with you, number of 1.5 million should be highlighted, as it is the most published number. Your sourcing is sufficient.Jirka.h23 (talk) 05:08, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I do not think it should be in the first sentence. Genocide is not directly connected to the number of victims, it is to do with aims and effects. But, as long as it is made clear in the wording that this is an "around about" figure given in the majority of sources, just having 1.5 million seems acceptable. An maybe a footnote to give other legitimate higher and lower estimates would be useful because the figure for Armenian deaths, unlike the politicized and almost religious dogma that surrounds the Holocaust's "6 million", is subject to legitimate variations in estimates in legitimate sources that have nothing to do with any attempts to deny the genocide. 13:26, 3 June 2016 (UTC)Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk)

Tiptoethrutheminefield, to clarify: I'm not trying to say lower estimates are automatically attempts at denial, and you are right in saying that the numbers aren't pivotal to a genocide. I'm saying that giving equal weight (in this case: WP:FALSEBALANCE) to lower and rarer estimates has a detrimental effect on an article's accuracy. We may never know the exact numbers, and we may never reach a consensus based on exactly how many people were killed as a result of genocide, but the best thing we can do is follow the RS. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 16:12, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

We use the general consensus number 1.5 million in the lede using words like, up to 1.5 million, as many as 1.5 million, approximately 1.5 million, or just "1.5 million", whatever editors choose. Elsewhere in the article we can note scholarly variations while again reiterating the the scholarly consensus number is 1.5 million. This has been in the news lately because of Turkish anger at Germany for acknowledging the genocide, but anyone denying the Armenian Genocide holds a WP:FRINGE view and should be treated as such. Lipsquid (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Concerning the unfortunate phrase used above by Tiptoethrutheminefield, the politicized and almost religious dogma that surrounds the Holocaust's "6 million", it is in order to directly quote what the WP Holocaust article says so that there are no grounds left for misunderstanding or obfuscation: The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"), also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews. Diranakir (talk) 17:23, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

A timely reminder (to me) about why I oppose Diranakir's editing aims here. Diranakir's promised land of "no grounds left for misunderstanding or obfuscation" is a nightmarish society where truth (and the quest for it) is banished and is replaced by whatever dogma the controlling elite has decided should be final, unalterable, and alone permissible. 19:15, 4 June 2016 (UTC)Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk)

"... A nightmarish society where truth (and the quest of it) is banished and is replaced by whatever dogma the controlling elite has decided should be final, unalterable, and alone permissible." Whether its author wanted it or not, this is another unfortunate phrase that sounds dangerously close to the "Armenian version of this history" expounded by Bernard Lewis in November 1993 and to what Turkish neo-denialists use to push forward their distorted version as an alternative narrative: the "quest of truth." It is also a timely reminder (to me, at least) about the motive behind its author's relentless and years-long quest to downgrade --ultimately, to exclude-- the name Medz Yeghern from that same first paragraph at any cost, even "giving equal weight... to lower and rarer estimates" (Prinszgezinde dixit): because it doesn't suit his relativist POV about "the controlling elite" under the guise of the "quest of truth." Armen Ohanian (talk) 23:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It is complete nonsense to quote a figure of 1.5 million having in mind the Armenian population in Ottoman lands before WW1]. This topic has become simply mater of politics than historical facts. Hittit (talk) 19:46, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It certainly is frightening to see the Turkish Wikipedia promoting that myth, as those numbers have been debunked endlessly (see Armenian Genocide denial), but as described in WP:CIRC Wikipedia is not a reliable source and we're getting off topic here. I'd hate to straight up accuse you, but alleging that there were far less than 1.5 million Armenians even in the Ottoman regions at the time is a fringe view often used by deniers that we will never voice for the reason that the scholarly consensus is entirely against it. It's unhelpful to give an argument of "don't include it because it's nonsense" when the factual accuracy of it being possible isn't even up for debate here. We're discussing how and where to present it. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 20:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It is even more nonsensical to put any faith in Turkish sources regarding this subject. Lipsquid (talk) 20:34, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Ottoman archives are the only reliable statistics in this matter, as the population data is available. I can understand if the facts are not liked, the article POV shows it. Hittit (talk) 20:50, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

They are not reliable. See here. Scholars have long been denied access to these archives. And even when they could (under conditions) access it, as stated by Taner Akçam, a significant portion of the documents are missing. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 21:24, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

For those who think that "Ottoman archives are the only reliable statistics," Talaat's "Black Book" may give them a surprise. Armen Ohanian (talk) 23:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Tiptoethrutheminefield speaking of me and Armen Ohanian: Showt of getting them banned, there is no way to move forward. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2016. (UTC). So just who is dreaming of a dogmatic, nightmarish society purged of all opposition and ruled by a conspiratorial elite? Diranakir (talk) 02:22, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Take it to user pages, not a discussion about Armenian Genocide. People can have all the arguments they want, keeping it out of the public eye is best for everyone. I am not picking you out nor negating your right to defend yourself, this is probably just not the right place. Lipsquid (talk) 02:54, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I Agree that the number 1.5 million should be used in the lead, then other numbers from other secondary sources should be included later in the article. Markewilliams (talk) 14:15, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Moving discussions from OWNTALK here

These threads were started on my WP:OWNTALK, but I'm moving them here as they are relevant to this article's talk page as a matter of transparency.

On synth

Regarding the Armenian Genocide article, in your edit summary at 22:08, 17 June 2016 you say "‎There's also a difference between WP:SYNTH & WP:NOTSYNTH". As far as I can see, the difference is merely that between two different pages or sections of guidelines. I don't get the point. Perhaps you were using shorthand. Please clarify. Thanks. Diranakir (talk) 12:18, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

[81] - there are numerous sources around concerning the issue of Obama's continuing use of Medz Yeghern. I do not know if that particular citation says it equates to genocide denial, but there are sources that do make that equation. I am not going to be able to look for them as I will be away from Wikipedia for the next 5 weeks and this will probably be my last post here for a while. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

False balance

Concerning your edit on the Armenian Genocide article at 00:14, 18 June 2016‎: your suggestion that a statement by a genuine legal body in Armenia concerning President Obama's use of the term Meds Yeghern may be a 'minority view' or falls into the same category as 'flat Earth' theories and other forms of pseudoscience seems a considerable stretch of the WP:GEVAL guidance. If you have 'no idea' as to the quality as an RS in context, how relevant can that suggestion be? Diranakir (talk) 18:41, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

It is more than a minority view, it is an off-topic view and it is an outdated view. To have this content next to content concerning the effect of Obama's usage of Medz Yeghgern is editorializing for effect. The article in that source was written as a response to President Obama's first use of the term "Medz Yeghern" in a public statement. Many years have passed since the cited source's opinion, and over those years Obama has used "Medz Yeghern" on multiple occasions but has never used the phrase "Armenian genocide" (despite having said it before becoming president). It is the repeated non-uttering of "Armenian genocide" and the use of "Medz Yeghern" instead that MULTIPLE sources say is a way of Obama avoiding mentioning the word "genocide". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:30, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

@Diranakir and Tiptoethrutheminefield: When discussing content matters on highly controversial articles, I prefer not to use my OWNTALK page as a matter of transparency. My apologies for not following up my revert and changes on the article's talk page, but I'm pushing myself for time on Wikipedia with IRL obligations at the moment. To qualify, Diranakir, the GEVAL policy means exactly what the header describes it as being, that is "Giving 'equal validity' can create a false balance'. The use of extreme examples is merely an indicator of what it encompasses. The use of tit for tat content in order to negate the prominent academic position is precisely that, and is antithetical to NPOV. Requesting multiple references for something that is NOTSYNTH leads to WP:CITEOVERKILL. There are multiple RS to attest to it as being a denialist position, but forcing other editor's hands into providing these is a BATTLEGROUND position. Finally, my ES saying that 'I don't know' was a polite way of saying that I think that the source is a dud. I should have called it an op-ed piece in from a source that I've never heard of (and have never seen being used as a source anywhere else). If the opinion were attributed to an expert, it may have some merit... but it isn't, so it may as well be from a blog or forum for its reliability. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:36, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Calling the source a 'dud' is not academic. It appears that your never having heard of it is what makes it a 'dud'. That does not make the case. Quoting the header also does not make the case. The source is entirely valid. There is nothing extreme about it. Diranakir (talk) 00:13, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

It's a dud... and I've explained to you in technical terms why it's a dud. It's an op-ed piece from an anonymous writer (probably a staff piece) in a source that only meets with WP:BIASED. Please stop edit warring this content back. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:18, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

It's no more a dud or an op-ed or outdated than the unsigned 1997 statement from the IAGS given in footnote 11 in the lede. Quit edit warring against valid content and defending a lopsided presentation of the matter. Diranakir (talk) 02:02, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

I fail to see the comparison. IAGS is a scholarly community, and this is their stated, ongoing position (unless you have RS contradicting that it is still their position). How does this op-ed piece in an unknown quantity source eliciting its own opinion of what Obama 'meant' the second time he used "Meds Yeghern" rather than calling it the Armenian Genocide compare? Even the title - "Obama lawyer recognized Armenian Genocide: RA Council of Bar Association" - is misleading. It presents as if Obama's lawyer recognised the Armenian Genocide when, in fact, it's drawing on the Obama's being a lawyer... and that he is the lawyer being alluded to. It's badly written and is dependent on the assumption that it can read his mind. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:54, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

I have removed the claim and the source. My point that it is an outdated source, inappropriate for content that relates to the sustained usage of Medz Yeghern by Obama long after the source was published, has not been countered. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:55, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Over-elaboration in terminology section

Please stop developing the terminology section without WP:CON. It's WP:UNDUE, protracted WP:ITSIMPORTANT content. There's more rambling about how many names there were, how often they were used, and when they were used than there is on the use of "genocide": and Lemkin's use of "genocide" takes precedence for the benefit of the reader. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:56, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Please stop it with the WP jargon over-kill (WP:WL) which obscures the fact that the spanking new section (Origins of the word genocide/Terminology) was a sprawling mess to begin with, which you never seemed to notice until some valid points were made to repair the damage done to the article when Medz Yeghern was thrown out of the lede in an aborted RfC, as if it could simply be excised from its proper place without consequence. Editors whom you favor and with whom you 'voted' in the RfC are now to be given an unopposed field day to romp as they wish with a serious matter, which is the actual meaning of the name Medz Yeghern. This is not allowable. By your own admission, the RfC was not duly closed (of course, because of backlog). WP says that an RfC is not simply a 'vote' and that an uninvolved 3rd party is to make an assessment on the merits of the arguments to complement the 'votes'. Nothing like this was remotely done and your repeated efforts to fill that gap do not serve well, no matter how many WP:THIS&THATs you invoke. Diranakir (talk) 15:44, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

@Diranakir: I think you ought to read WP:PETTIFOG carefully, particularly the section on misuse of the terms. Between yourself and Armen Ohanian, the terminology section has been developed here, here (reduces the verbiage?), even further here and here to create a lengthy paragraph of a multitude of names used before the term 'genocide' was created and employed in any languages. It appears that neither of you see that this does not improve the quality of the article, but is antithetical to the reader's understanding of the 'Armenian genocide': it is WP:OFFTOPIC and so elaborate as to trivialise the subject of the article which is the genocide of Armenians. The subject is 'genocide', not:

"The Armenian Genocide happened before the coining of the term 'genocide'. English-language words and phrases used by contemporary accounts to characterise the event include 'massacres', 'atrocities', 'annihilation', 'holocaust', 'the murder of a nation', 'race extermination' and 'a crime against humanity'. 'Yeghern (Crime/Catastrophe), or variants like Medz Yeghern (Great Crime) and Abrilian Yeghern (the April Crime)' were the terms most commonly used. Other terms used by the survivors included Medz Voghperkutyun ('Great Tragedy'), Medz Vogchagez ('Great Holocaust'), Medz Nahadagutyun ('Great Martyrdom'), Aghed ('Catastrophe'), Medz Nakhjir and Medz Sbant (both meaning 'Great Massacre'), Medz Potorig ('Great Storm') and Sev Vojir ('Black Crime'). The common name 'aghed,' usually translated as 'catastrophe,' was, according to Beledian, the term most often used to name the catastrophe of 1915 in Armenian literature. After the coining of genocide, the portmanteau word Armenocide was also used for the Armenian Genocide."

I find it disturbing that neither of you seem to understand why other editors think that it's overkill, and that it detracts from the flow of imparting relevant information. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:48, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

There was only one Armenian-language name that was enough for any reader for ten years, including many journalists who have used Wikipedia as a source for their information, and its meaning was established with a reliable source until this entirely unnecessary discussion was provoked (I have pointed out its unnecessary nature with plenty of facts) and the present situation of "overkill" was generated. Please go and check who wrote down entire paragraphs about "English-language words and phrases" and "multitude of names" before getting disturbed about overkill and addressing your discomfort to the wrong addresses.Armen Ohanian (talk) 22:30, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Finger pointing really isn't a constructive method of trying to improve the article content. The escalation of picking over details in the content was far more complicated than a single parsing of COMMONNAME, however I thoroughly commend the elimination of all but the primary terms used in Armenian. I hope that any grudges can be put aside, and AGF be adopted again in order to make a positive impact on the quality of the article. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:55, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

My request to you is that you communicate your points with common sense, in ordinary English, and in accord with conventional rules of reasoning, rather than habitually putting the focus on sources outside the specific area of discussion (WP:THIS/THAT) which often cut both ways and can be interpreted in a multiplicity of ways. For instance, can you give me an ordinary English translation of the following sentence? "The escalation of picking over details in the content was far more complicated than a single parsing of COMMONNAME." As far as the verbiage in the section, most of that was installed the day Medz Yeghern was removed from the lede, and I had nothing to do with it. See [82] I am with you in welcoming the elimination of all but the primary terms used in Armenian. Diranakir (talk) 05:00, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Armenian Massacres and Armenian Holocaust in the lead

Should they stay or should they go? Étienne Dolet (talk) 17:17, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Both seem common (use quotation marks " " to make sure the two words in the term aren't separated – linking doesn't seem to allow this). I see no reason why they should go. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 14:37, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Sentence adjustment needed

The very first sentence of the first alinea of the body states: "Armenia had come largely under Ottoman rule during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." This is impossible, and unverifiable, given that the Ottomans hadn't even expanded into Eastern Anatolia/Western Armenia/modern-day Eastern Turkey in the fifteenth century. The Battle of Chaldiran, which marked the first Ottoman expansion into the region, only took place in 1514 and was a temporary gain. With the Peace of Amasya (1555), they secured Western Armenia, which is nevertheless only a part of the historical Armenia meant here. To conclude what I mean; neither in the 15th nor the 16th century, did Armenia come largely under Ottoman rule. The sentence therefore needs some adjustment. Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 01:38, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

A very reasonable suggestion. The sentence should reflect that the Ottoman rule was extended over the western portion of Armenia in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, following the treaties of Amasya (1555) and Zuhab (1639), with the latter establishing a lasting border between the Ottoman and Persian empire. Armen Ohanian (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

@Armen Ohanian:, thanks for your constructive response. I just rewrote that part, and added 3 sources to it as well. Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 15:00, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

numbers in lead

The Armenian massacres enjoys a vast array of research which is not monolithic, and at least the lead has to display that. Lets not turn this into the puritanism Holocaust scholarship suffers from. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 02:51, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Dolet do you mind to at the very least support the claim you made in your summary?

was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of about 1.5 million[note 4] of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey.[13][14]

There is two controversial statements in the above sentence, while mine actually has none. If the above sentence was to be true, my wording would still stand while the contrary is not necessarily true.

Your wording excludes large array of published scholarship, while mine includes all including what you'd call denialist, revisionist etc... Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 04:40, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia consensus sees the Armenian Genocide as a policy of extermination and not some debatable topic. It's been like this ever since the project started. Denialist opinion has always been in the minority. Please don't try to make amends to denialists in this article. That actually leads to sanctions in the WP:AA2 topic area. Étienne Dolet (talk) 04:59, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Are you Wikipedia? I just randomly checked versions of the article, and found different ranges of figures... but here in talk, I have seen no rational of an absolute number to change ranges.

Where does my version suggests it was extermination or not? It simply avoids the term. The way your version is worded, it entirely excludes relevant scholarship, denialists or not, minority or not; this is arbitrary and largely selective. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 05:09, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

@Yahya Talatin: A) Try reading through the archives; B) There is nothing 'arbitrary' about mainstream scholarship and perceptions... and I seriously suspect that you don't understand what the WP:NPOV policy means. As a further suggestion, beware of WP:FRINGE. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:22, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I actually did, also the history of the article... this current wording seems to be new when considering the age of the article (check it for yourself). Arbitrary is to divide scholarship into two distinct group or use constructs to assume what is mainstream and what is not. Besides your reply is loaded with perceptions. More like what I assume rather than what I actually have written. You never in fact commented about the accuracy of the wording I proposed. You made different assumptions, even going as far as warning me about WP:FRINGE. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 05:37, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

We actually have sources within this article that clarifies the fact that most genocide scholars and historians view this event as genocide, alongside the fact that 29 countries (as opposed to just one) have recognized the Armenian Genocide. You are pushing a minority position of denial which is disruptive and can lead to sanctioning. I already gave you an AA2 advisory and I suggest you don't edit-war over this again. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:47, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

What I was telling you in as polite a manner as I deem to be fit, Yaḥyā, is that you are using this talk page as a soapbox. Take a look at the top of this talk page and read the warning boxes. Now, please desist from your advocacy. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:03, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

To Dolet, Your accusation of revert warring doesn't stick scrutiny! Where did I ever write anything about if it was a genocide? I above avoided (and only in the talkpage) the term, because this term is a construct coined for ideological reasons attributed to an author (who holds authority on the word) to be used by authors and jurists, while massacre is an universally known word not attributed to someone and known in every language and nation. I won't take part in this word game which is devoid of any true meaning! But you again failed to tell me where in the wording (you reverted) there is an error! Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 06:12, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

To Iryna, please show me what is the advocacy in question, and where in my above comment, there is any indication that I am using this talkpage as a soapbox, again your reply is irrelevant to the comment it was meant to answer. I am done (made my point)... this alone shows who is the activist. An activist has an ideology to defend, and will never be the one to drop the sword. Actions speak louder than words.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yahya Talatin (talk • contribs) 13:33, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Yahya Talatin, I added that as per the discussion above. False balance is using "above X" when the actual number Y is much, much higher than X. That there were more than hundreds of thousands (which can be as low as 200,000-300,000) is quite uncontroversial. The current number is reported in nearly all prominent media outlets about the subject. That makes it the most accepted. By the way, most languages do have a word for "genocide". In Turkish, this is soykırım. I know the Turkish wiki uses just kırım ("killing") here, but this is not the Turkish wiki. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 09:49, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't change the fact that 1.5 million is an absolute number and it would require a form of selection to present it as actual figures representing the number of victims. The little research which has been done to provide any accurate figures were limited because of such things as the way the Ottoman Empire kept its records. Most British academics I've checked provide figures in the range of 600,000 or 800,000 figures. Why aren't they mainstream? You see where I am getting at? As for the term genocide, if I reply to this, I will probably be accused of soapboxing the talkpage. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

'About 1.5 million' is in no way an 'absolute number'. How could anyone read it as such, let alone push the point? There is no basis for criticism. All the reasoning was duly and patiently presented ahead of time. Diranakir (talk) 22:11, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

You'd prefer a better term? How about, it is the most controversial way the figures could be presented. It isn't even up to but about! There is no room to variations for a wording like this, therefor it is presented as absolute truth. Anyone who doesn't see the problem, is just selectively ignoring. I'd like to see the reasoning which was duly and patiently presented. How does it address the fact that it excludes all those mainstream estimates which aren't 1,5 million? Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 22:46, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Yahya Talatin: As already noted, the precise wording is "...of about 1.5 million". In light of the fact that the reader is rightly assumed to have reasonable cognitive skills, who is going to read this as an 'absolute' figure. You're clutching at straws. Please drop it. An intelligent and logical consensus has existed here for a long time, so it should be clear that persisting with WP:BLUDGEON tactics is not going to change this consensus. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:52, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Iryna, I reworded that (absolute) above (to explain what I have meant by that word), we're not here to find bugs on others writings... I translated that wording (of about) in google translate into several languages (to be sure that I am not missing up some English language rules). ex. French environ 1.5 million. I repeat for the last time, word it the way you want it, but the current wording ignores a large array of estimates which are far away from the of about and which are considered as mainstream. In all the above replies, I have been accused of advocacy, of edit warring (for ONE revert) etc. but not once anyone has directly answered this. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 23:07, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The "large array of estimates... considered as mainstream" have been reflected in a particular section of the article. Armen Ohanian (talk) 15:24, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Armen,

One sober estimate (just a proposition, as there could be other sober estimates too) would be to take the highest estimate the Turkish side is willing to concede as minima and then the lowest the Armenian side is willing to concede. And present this as probably if it happens that the real number lies outside of the range, we won't make a mistake, because we wrote probably.

Checking the articles on the subject published on Wikipedia (in different languages) and their talkpage... here is what we find.

The highest figure I found from the other side were suggested by Justin McCarthy, I chose it because it is published by The Turkish Historical Society For The Council Of Culture, Arts (Publications Of The Grand National Assembly Of Turkey.

It was an estimate by Justin McCarthy based on figures drawn by the parishes, he claims that if the parishes records are genuine, that he would have to raise his previous numbers with 250,000 more deaths (total: over 800,000 deaths). Given that those estimates appeared in a publication of The Grand National Assembly Of Turkey, I guess we can assume that it is the highest figures the Turkish side is ready to concede. From what can be found on Wikipedia, those are similar to the highest figures the Ottoman Empire (and newly created republic of Turkey) were ready to concede (800,000) back then, so they correspond.

Now, coming to the lowest figures the Armenian side is ready to concede. What I found are those which circulate in France (drafted by the Armenian community), which is 1,2 million. This figure is also what appears in the lede of the French article about the event on Wikipedia.

One is close to a million, the other is over a million.

In this case, it would be something like (feel free to find a better wording) probably close to or over a million or something like that... by excluding any numerals we subject the article to even less controversy. Any estimates out of the range would be included, but not in the lede.

Again, those are just my propositions, since I have never gone so far to explain the rational behind my position. This kind of estimate is more stable, because it generally takes the most reasonable figures from either sides. There will be several other estimates, but the maximum one side is ready to concede and the minimum to other side is ready to concede are less likely to change. They are also coming from official organs from both sides. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yahya Talatin (talk • contribs) 01:11, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Other ranges include 600,000 to 1,500,000, 600,000 to 1,200,000... or 300,000 to 1,500,000, etc. with a higher inclusion criteria...

We could increase the range by being more permissive but wider estimates are worthless.

Interestingly, the means aren't much affected... they all revolve around the million (with expected variations).

I guess we can for all practicable purpose just write probably about a million and clarifying in the notes. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 02:47, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

We could also write: approximatively a million.

Britannica uses of the range: Conservative estimates have calculated that some 600,000 to more than 1,000,000 Armenians were slaughtered or died on the marches. [[83]]

Encyclopedie Universalis (which is published by Britannica for French readers) uses: près d'un million cinq cent mille personnes perdent la vie en 1915-1916, dans des conditions effroyables, victimes du régime jeune-turc.

Average between Britannica two versions: Lowest here: 600,000 (English) to highest 1,500,000 (French), again the mean is about a million.

I'll search more to see if the approximative figure of a million is confirmed. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Another encyclopedia, this time more specific of the Islamic World uses the term: More than a million. [84]

An encyclopedia of the middle East and Africa: 600,000 to 1,500,000. [85]

So seems the consensus are those ranges, with an invariable mean. Encyclopedia's of war crime and genocide are too specific and might be suffering of selection bias, by using the highest estimates.

We can therefor not really be wrong with the approximatively a million. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 14:24, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

To incite editors to take a more sober stance, just reminding them that if they make the effort with the reasonable concessions, the article could become a good article and later even a featured. Note that the last time I have checked, there are no genocide article meeting the good article criteria (not even the Holocaust). This might be the first. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 03:33, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Yaḥyā, I think you are straying into essay writing and OR here. The lede summarizes content. The content being summarized in this case will be the content contained in the Armenian population, deaths, survivors, 1914 to 1918 section. So I think any issues regarding the generally accepted figure should be worked out there first. That section does seem very inadequate at the moment. For example, it has a figure contained in a report compiled on 24 May 1916, and then wording that this report doesn't contains figures after May 1916. Well duh! Talk about stating the bleeding obvious!! There seems also to be too much emphasis on genocide denialist McCarthy's figures in both the amount of content in the section and in his overall position regarding the AG (which is fringe in relation to mainstream AG research). And why only "1914 to 1918"? Surely the section should deal with the entire timespan of the killing phase of the genocide. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:27, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I have changed the date in the section title to 1923. Is justified since 1923 is mentioned in the infobox note for the year 1915. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:08, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) While I think that Yahya's approach to 'discussion' has been acerbic from the onset, the fact is that Prinsgezinde himself described eliminating any range of estimates as being a bold move, therefore I'd suggest that there be an attempt to discuss whether a range is appropriate for the lead in a WP:CIVIL manner. Personally, I see a rationale for presenting reliably sourced lower estimates (and this does not mean the use of denialist figures). 'About' is a terrible qualifier where the discrepancy in estimates is literally tens of thousands of people. 'Up to' is equally ineffectual as it can be construed to be anything from 73 people to 1.4 million. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:17, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Iryna, thank you for your feedback. Just to clarify that the point in avoiding numerals (like 1.2 etc.) in ranges (or single absolute figure) is that those will be relying on specific sources (which would require exclusion of other figures). New publications are regularly published and references works are regularly updated with different estimates or ranges provided. This was behind the rational of using more stable ways of conveying information. The proposition of taking the highest of one to the lowest of other was to find if there might by overlapping or close to..., with a range which might be less prone to variate in time, and then check if it is confirmed in reference work (tertiary). The mean seems to remain the same (more or less) regardless of the variations. Rounding up numbers with approximations without numerals (such as 0,6, 1,2 etc.) would make the article more stable; less prone to change each time there is a new reference work or notable book published. Just my opinion. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 01:27, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I think 1.5 million adequately does that, but I think there needs to be better justification for it given within the content of the "Armenian population, deaths, survivors, 1914 to 1918" section of the article. One issue is that figures, including those you have stated, can cover different periods. This article is about the Armenian Genocide, not just about Ottoman Armenian victims of the Armenian Genocide, or Armenian victims of the genocide killed during WW1. So any overall number of victims needs to include all victims in all territories in which the genocide took place and over the full period of its accepted timeline. 02:19, 30 July 2016 (UTC)Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk)

I see your point, but those dates are too precise (along with selected lede figure), more you add precision more you have to rely on records, which can individually be discarded by further publications. It just isn't stable in time. When you go over the period of 1916/17, then you create even more controversy. You should rather rely on wording such as during World War I (which includes a period from 1914 to late 1918) without specifying dates in category title. Also by widening the range to 1915-23 you downplay the extent of the tragedy... because most victims were reported in the period between 1915 to 17. Also as stated, round numbers which don't require numerals will always remain there.

Besides, precisions of records don't allow to slice more accurately than the million division, and luckily here, this is where the mean lies. A scholar could endorse low figures of victims, he will never be able to reject that the mean of the ranges of estimates is a million, and his own estimates are further from it. In research, the meta-analysis is generally considered the standard rather than one single study, particularly when the study is further from the center. By endorsing the million, you close the door to any later attempt to question it. And by adopting less precise dates, even more.

The level of sophistication of the revisionist material can only be countered by being fully and wholly neutral. The Turkish government can finance scholars, but those individual scholars will never be able to change the mean (it is Earth which gravitates around the Sun, not the other way around; since Earth's mass is insignificant for the Sun). Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 04:09, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Forgot to add (to clarify the analogy with the Sun) on Turkish government financed and Holocaust uniqueness adherents studies and scholars. For each low new biased estimates there will be, they will be balanced with those new other estimates biased toward Armenian side. This is why the mean is the only invariable figure, no matter what a couple of scholars publish, it will remain there. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 15:49, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Tiptoethrutheminefield, I am just providing different figures and check if they correspond. OR concerns the injection of ones thought in the article itself. On McCarthy figures, the reason this much weight is given on his figures, are because it is through him the Ottoman records were published in length. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 00:06, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Heath W. Lowry article

For editors interested, there is currently a discussion on the NPOVN regarding potential POVPUSH issues on Lowry's article. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

My reply on the noticeboard gives clues on how to treat scholars positions on the issue. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 18:43, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Erdogan uses of the word massacre

Erdogan uses of the term ought to be mentioned in the article. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 04:50, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Britannica references to the research of Arnold J. Toynbee

The reference to it from the article has to be removed. Britannica does not refer to it anymore, the material was removed from its page. [86] This is an example of what I was referring to, it was too far from the mean, didn't resist. I just want users to trust me that I will not mislead anyone. There is currently a shift in the way the Turkish population is perceiving this event; here is the time to invite Turkish editors to contribute and provide their feedback. This article internal structure is to be drafted anew. There just are too much arbitrary divisions and inclusions and exclusions, just one example is why this [87] goes just after the Russian military, and why the Russian military goes there and not elsewhere. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 23:44, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

You wrote earlier: "Average between Britannica two versions: Lowest here: 600,000 (English) to highest 1,500,000 (French), again the mean is about a million" - I think this is invalid as a starting point. If one source says 1 million and 10 say 1.5 million, the mean is not 1.25. We would use the number (or range of numbers) that the majority of suitable sources use, and describe that number in that way. In fact, any talk of getting a "mean" figure is OR because it means you or I doing research to work out that mean! This is what I meant when I said you were straying into OR. I still think 1.5 million is the figure used in the majority of suitable sources, though I don't have general works to hand to cite. Those that initially advocated stating just 1.5 million as the lede figure need to come in to this discussion, with sources. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the rest of your post, but this article should not be an exercise in "reconciliation" - it should not be written to reflect the shifting perceptions or sensibilities of sets of ethnicities, nor should its facts be artificially softened to make a catch-up-to-the-truth process by Turks easier for them. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:14, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

But the thing is that I am not disagreeing with you, I am just disagreeing with your exclusion of some parameters to draw your conclusions.

For instance, Britannica is a very reputable encyclopedia with hight standards. While in the past it had changed its figures of losses to more conservative numbers reportedly because of pressures from the Turkish diplomacy, it was later compensated with it's French encyclopedia Universalis. It has taken the approach to use both figures to convey the less popular number for both sides (million).

It can be considered as established that we can not just use plurality of published secondary sources to compute means. Thousands might be using the same source and have therefor to be rejected to avoid redundancy. More importantly is that most reference works do have ranges closer to a million. Those are generally never used by those who defend or reject the term genocide, because it satisfies neither sides (too low for one, too high for the other). See how when searching Armenian massacres million on google book [88]. All results on top are directly related with the subject of defending the thesis of genocide, and therefor provide the highest ranges (it's selection bias). See Taner Akcam estimates with the others here [89], footnote 35. While Lewy figures there are further from the range (expected, Ottoman books are generally biased toward the other side so they will tend to include the low estimates), Taner Akcam endorses the mean (800,000 to a million, because of the original Turkish figures), even Vahakn Dadrian doesn't provide explicit figures! Also in the list you will find Fuat Dundar (he has works published in the European Journal of Turkish studies) estimates of 664,000, he was the author of Crime of Numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918). Why he is relevant is that here we have a Turkish scholar who use the official Ottoman records and statistics to compute data and finds a number above the 600,000 range. Quite obviously things seem to revolve around a same mean, one way or another. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 23:17, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

My reason to invite Turkish editors is because they will be more critical and they will be the first to point out which wordings are problematic.

Lastly, what I am doing isn't OR (I am not editing mainspace), I am using three different methods which are being used to compute and treat data, and am finding the same results and this systematically and then compare them with tertiary sources to see if they confirm the results, and they do. While any selection process to choose 1,5 million is either entirely undisclosed or rely on incomplete ways of choosing and polling the data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yahya Talatin (talk • contribs) 21:44, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Reintroduction of lawyer claim

The edit summary here [90] is weird, the author of this comment should explain his rational to justify it. Why is this man opinion even relevant? An opinion which we don't even know he still maintain, or why it should make any differences if he does. Will it still remain there after Obama was replaced? Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 19:18, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually, everyone [91], except the editor who has repeatedly inserted this content, agrees that it needs to go. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:18, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I missed that discussion, tks! Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 21:49, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed it again. The rationale has been discussed at length and reintroducing the content on flimsy pretexts is not an option when the relevance and WP:WEIGHT of a dated source is dubious. Yes, there is a 'shelf life' as has been explained clearly. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:04, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no such thing as 'shelf life' of sources. If there were, all of WP would come unraveled. It is a fabricated standard to avoid content the proponents wish to censor. The statement by the ABA speaks for itself, being the carefully weighed position of one of the top civil bodies of Armenian society about President Obama's statement. Nothing has changed. The WH statement has been the same from year to year. The ABA statement still holds. It doesn't need to be issued each year, as seems to be suggested. Diranakir (talk) 15:28, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi Diranakir, all the edit warring on Wikipedia are directly or indirectly related with sources shelf life. We can not overemphasis on individuals positions, because those individuals can change minds, discredited or their inclusions or exclusions can sound arbitrary for others (why Mr. X, not Mr. Y?). I can understand why it might be considered as relevant to some as a statment, but a better approach is to concentrate on the event itself rather than it's wording. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 16:22, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Obama, before becoming president, had used the phrase Armenian Genocide and had stated that the event was a genocide. Thus his "recognition and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide" occurred before his first public use of the phrase Medz Yeghern - so it is deceptive wording to suggest that it had occurred only when he said Medz Yeghern [92]. Many sources have said that Obama's CONTINUED public use of the phrase Meds Yeghern rather than Armenian Genocide was to intentionally avoid repeating his earlier explicit "recognition and affirmation". It is a case of undue weight to introduce a single source, a source that talks only about (and dates from) Obama's FIRST public use of the phrase, in order to imply that those other MORE RECENT sources are incorrect in their opinions about his REPEATED public use of it. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 12:27, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

We are here talking about different views of Obama's use of M Y. No one said that his recognition and affirmation occurred only when he used it. The Armenian Bar Association statement (given in the censored source) said that he described 1915 as genocide and used the Armenian name for it the same as Armenians do. What is called a 'single source' is a statement by the highest professional legal body in Armenia. That is giving INSUFFICIENT WEIGHT to the source. Their endorsement of Obama's statement (which has essentially remained the same until today) was based on close analysis and interpretation of the statement. One may disagree with their conclusion, but it is a fact that cannot be left out of the picture without engaging in crude censorship and preventing a presumably mature readership from reaching their own conclusions. M Y is one of the two principal names for 1915 used by Armenians, a full synonym of Hayotz Tseghasbanutyun, used all over the place in Armenia and outside, used completely interchangeably with HT. To pretend otherwise is to stick your head in the sand. You can do so if you wish, but you shouldn't try to force others to do the same. It is a travesty to have an article on the Armenian Genocide that gives virtually no recognition to the name Medz Yeghern which is commensurate with its importance. If you look at the article on the Armenian Genocide in Armenian Wikipedia, you will see otherwise. The same if you look at the official site for the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex. Enough of contrived excuses and tortured timelines for avoiding the issue. Diranakir (talk) 03:56, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

You have admitted it - you have one source that is, contrary to what all the other (later) sources are saying, concluding that Obama's use of "Medz Yeghern" is not a genocide negating usage. All the other sources of course have the benefit of seeing Obama's continued use of "Medz Yeghern" (and continued lack of usage of "Armenian Genocide") as evidence to support their opinion. We do not use sources giving inaccurate reportage of or opinion of events when later, more accurate ones, emerge. Yet you continue to pov war on this issue in order to minimize mention of the fact that sources are saying that Obama and others have been using your dearly-held "Meds Yeghern" term as a way of avoiding saying the word "genocide" when talking about the Armenian Genocide. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:26, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

What 'other (later) sources' ? I don't see them. Please specify and don't beat around the bush. Diranakir (talk) 04:27, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Ref 201. And cited earlier on this talk page, in discussions you took part in (maybe your conveniently goldfish-like memory fails to remember that) were several more, online media sources such as [93] and [94] and [95]. And an additional dozen or so more can easily be found using google. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:33, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I was wrong: you did not beat around the bush; you faded into the tall grass. In evoking earlier discussions on this talk page, which sources do you mean? Either quote them directly or give me the time and date of prominent examples of what you mean.

You are making up your own rules as you go and to very unwholesome effect. If you have valid sources for your point, you should make them as inline citations so that they can be fairly assessed and responded to, this in accord with accepted WP practices. What is in your head or what you may tactically scrape together after the fact does not count. If that is allowed, then the whole principle of reliable sources and their proper citation is out the window. You are engaged in an effort to prevent presentation of the fact that not everyone in the world shares your crimped view of Medz Yeghern and its implications. I will repeat: you and those who support your stance are engaging in outright censorship. You have no right or justification for keeping the ABA statement out of the article to push the POV that Medz Yeghern is universally condemned as a 'negating usage', when it is in fact a well-known, full synonym for the Armenian Genocide, as reflected in many quotations from government figures and pontiffs in the previous discussions which you conveniently ignore. You are thereby turning the section in question into an 'opinion piece', at best. A very low standard to set for the encyclopedia. Diranakir (talk) 15:22, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Does your goldfish memory not even last two seconds, the time it takes for you to see a link and then decide to click on it? If you can't remember what discussions you took part in, it's your lamentable memory that is at fault. Conveniently lamentable of course, conveniently goldfish-like, since it allows you to resurrect any long settled discussion point you lost and restart it from scratch as if you had never lost the argument and the discussion had never taken place. 21:19, 6 August 2016 (UTC)Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk)

Diranakir, please stop pushing the envelope on goading and drop the stick. Your arguments have ceased to be coherent. Take some time to cool your heels. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:28, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

To Iryna Harpy: Instead of using provocative labels, you might point out how I have 'ceased to be coherent'. Unless you are willing to do that, there really isn't much to your comment. Diranakir (talk) 23:41, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

You've reduced the argument to 'Medz Yeghern' being a full synonym for the Armenian genocide as being a well known 'fact'. Really? Should we put that to the test with an RfC to find out whether the title of the article should be changed to "Medz Yeghern" if they're so interchangeable? Instead of being provocative, please stop this WP:BLUDGEON. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:57, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Diranakir - the article has content that clearly states that "Medz Yeghern" is a term that is used to refer to the Armenian Genocide. So your claim that the article's content expresses the opinion that "Medz Yeghern is universally condemned as a 'negating usage'" is nonsense. The section you are pointlessly warring over details the usage by certain non-Armenians of "Medz Yeghern". Four sources have been presented that give the opinion that President Obama's REPEATED usage of "Medz Yeghern" is to avoid him having to say the word "genocide", and many more sources giving an identical opinion are available. Yet you still insist on edit warring into the article a marginal opinion expressed in only a single source, and an obsolete opinion at that, since it was based on Obama's FIRST use of the term. Would you stop flogging this dead horse. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:04, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

"By admitting the facts and labeling the event as 'Meds Yeghern' Obama de facto acknowledges genocide. But the argumentation is manipulative and he thus avoids admitting it de jure" (Zarine Avetisyan, "Speech Impact Realization via Manipulative Argumentation Techniques in Modern American Political Discourse," International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, vol. 9, No. 6, 2015, p. 1787). So much for the "obsolete opinion," the "dead horse," and the useless nitpicking about the issue. Opinions about the first and the last use of "Medz Yeghern" are equally valid, since the word is the same, whether in 2009 or in 2016. Armen Ohanian (talk) 17:14, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Have you actually given any thought as to what you've reproduced here? "But the argumentation is manipulative and he thus avoids admitting it de jure...". You've just contradicted what you're trying to prove in one fell swoop. Could you please try to come up with an RS that doesn't defy your own logic? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:57, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, the PDF of the source you're invoking can be found by Googling it (available at waset.org). I can't paste the URL here because it's blacklisted by Wikipedia. Reading the article will assist other editors to understand the context in which the observation is made. It's a deconstruction of spin-doctoring and, in the context of this article, the complexity of the example of the Armenian genocide is used within a research paper not even examining the subject. What you are presenting as evidence is pure WP:SYNTH. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:12, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

It's an article worth reading (though a bit badly written because its author is obviously not a native English speaker). Backs up what I have always felt - that Obama's supposedly highly praised oratory skills result in amongst the most deceit-filled productions emanating from any politician. Thankfully there is a two term limit on US presidencies - someone that able to (and that willing to) manipulate the masses could do no end of damage without that limit. There has to be some alternative to either the manipulative snake-oil-salesman speak of Obama and his ilk, or the absence of any reasoned argumentation crudity of Trump's utterances. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:58, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

It's an excellent read for personal interest. What it lacks in eloquence is made up for in content (in spades). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:02, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Armen Ohanian's sources defy his own logic regularly. Here he is trying to uncapitalise "Aghet" [96], but his same French source also does not capitalise "Yeghern". Is he going to follow the logic of his own argument and argue it should be yeghern? Probably not. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:46, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Sarafian

I changed it, because he applied the undercounting reported by Talaat, the figures used there in the black book (particularly the undercounting) are nothing new, see here [97] Justin McCarthy had used similar correction values then. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 01:37, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

If someone disagree in replacing the name, I won't bother if it is changed back, but it should be clarified it's not exactly Sarafian view... even though it seems he did add some undisclosed extra in it (probably assumptions of Protestant Armenians etc.) That's the problem with scholars in such case is that they always seem to add undisclosed stuff, they're like closed source softwares. :) Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 01:48, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm restoring Sarafian because he is the WP:SECONDARY source who interprets Talaat's figures. Please familiarise yourself with WP:RS carefully. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:52, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi Irnya, I won't disagree, I realized later about that. My language skills are limited but I am under the impression from reading the sentence that he thinks there are as much Armenians: Therefore, according to the historian Ara Sarafian, the population of Armenians should have been approximately 1,700,000 prior to the start of the war. I don't know if a clarification is appropriate to clarify that he is presenting Talaat figures. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

There is more, he does not say approximatively but rather close, won't make much differences but still. The actual wording is: based on official figures, close to 1,700,000 people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yahya Talatin (talk • contribs) 02:11, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it's clear without further qualifications (i.e., we could get caught up in pedantry over much of the content in various Wikipedia articles), but other editors may deem it relevant to note that Sarafian used state documentation. If so, they're welcome to discuss it here further. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:47, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Errors in lede sentence

The lede sentence contains two very striking errors.

In the first place the historic homeland of Armenia is not contained within the borders of modern day Turkey (possibly an irredentist claim?) The historic homelands of the Armenians comprise the eastern regions of Turkey as well as all of present day Armenia and parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia. About half the historic homeland is contained within Turkey.

Secondly the figure of 1,500,000 fatalities is not confined to Ottoman-Armenians living within the Ottoman empire, but include some 400,000 fatalities suffered post-1916 by Armenians living outside the Ottoman empire during attempts by the Ottomans to expand their empire.

Of course these errors should be corrected. Awen23 (talk) 19:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

If you can provide scholar sources for your claim, edit the prose to fit the sources. if not, the article should remain as is. Lipsquid (talk) 19:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello Lipsquid. I'm surprized by your response because my understanding is that protected articles like these need consensus on the Talk page before an edit can be made in the article. Perhaps you can clarify and meanwhile I can try and get consensus here in the way you suggest. Do you in fact challenge my assertions above? Awen23 (talk) 20:18, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

First of all, regarding the article's own sources for the assertion that the historic homeland of the Armenians lies within modern day Turkey, these are two in number 13 14. These are from CNN and the Huffington Post and while certainly reliable sources, I don't think they would normally be regarded as the scholarly sources you say should be cited. But no matter, because neither in fact supports the assertion that the historic homeland of the Armenians is contained within present day Turkey. Awen23 (talk) 20:36, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

It is therefore the duty of the existing editors to provide scholarly sources for their assertion that the historic homeland of the Armenians lies within present day Turkey. Awen23 (talk) 21:16, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the 1,500,000 fatalities mentioned by the article, it's quite correct that's the consensus of the sources. But it's important to observe that relates to the whole period 1915 to 1923. The article's sources referenced in its note are newspapers and not scholarly sources and for the most part gloss the situation. Dadrian's standard history, the authoritative source, is perfectly clear on the subject right at the start of his introduction: there were some one million fatalities in the Ottoman empire during the war 1915-1917 and several hundred of thousand more as the Ottomans attempted to extend their empire into Russia Armenia. To quote armenian-genocide.org

It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of W.W.I. Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright. Many others died of starvation, exhaustion, and epidemics which ravaged the concentration camps. Among the Armenians living along the periphery of the Ottoman Empire many at first escaped the fate of their countrymen in the central provinces of Turkey. Tens of thousands in the east fled to the Russian border to lead a precarious existence as refugees. The majority of the Armenians in Constantinople, the capital city, were spared deportation. In 1918, however, the Young Turk regime took the war into the Caucasus, where approximately 1,800,000 Armenians lived under Russian dominion. Ottoman forces advancing through East Armenia and Azerbaijan here too engaged in systematic massacres. The expulsions and massacres carried by the Nationalist Turks between 1920 and 1922 added tens of thousands of more victims. By 1923 the entire landmass of Asia Minor and historic West Armenia had been expunged of its Armenian population. The destruction of the Armenian communities in this part of the world was total.

Of course Russia Armenia was not part of present day Turkey. Awen23 (talk) 22:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

It's clear that the lede sentence currently misrepresents the facts. I invite response so that we can build a consensus. Awen23 (talk) 22:27, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

The issue of the inaccurate (or at the very least, misleading) "historic homeland" lede content has been raised in the past. However, expect a conflict at least as long as the recent Medz Yeghern thing to get rid of it. The victim total should be for the entire period of the Armenian Genocide because this is the subject of the article. So it necessarily will include deaths inside Russian territory and Persian territory and deaths that happened after the year 1918, as long as the events are considered to be part of the Armenian Genocide. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:55, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

That's right about "misleading". You really have to abuse English quite a lot to construe the sense as talking about the historic homeland of the Ottoman Armenians (as distinct from Armenians in general) as these cannot be said to have an historic homeland as Ottomans. Rather the Ottoman Armenians were an Armenian minority within the Ottoman empire who happened to be Ottoman subjects through conquest. This is how Dadrian describes them in the opening paragraph of his introduction I link in the introduction above.

That's right also that the victim total should be for the whole 1915-1923 period, cited in multiple sources including Dadrian as 1,500,000 fatalities. But the problem is that if you understand the opening sentence as the editors intend, i.e. as about the Ottoman Armenians, then that's no longer correct because the number of victims among the Ottoman Armenians is cited by Dadrian and multiple other authors as of the order of 1 million. It's the 400,000 or so post-1917 fatalities outside the Ottoman empire that brings the total to 1,500,000.

I do think it quite likely irredentist enthusiasm that is at the heart of the matter here. But a reader new to the subject is wholly misled and it should be corrected. I'll wait a few more days to see what established editors here propose. Awen23 (talk) 20:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reworded it. It is not irredentism, imo. It is just the simplified and simplistic sound bite material that Armenians have been dishing out to non-Armenians for decades. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:42, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Nice edit, certainly a move in the right direction which is as much succinct clarity in the lede as possible. Lipsquid (talk) 01:20, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes. It's much better and I thank Tiptoethrutheminefield for that. A remaining concern is the reference to the Ottoman government because that of course was not in place after 1918 (rather there were two competing governments during the Turkish War of Independence).I think that needs to be addressed as well.

I'll look back, but I don't really want to get involved editing here. Awen23 (talk) 01:25, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh, and while I'm here, I would like to see "Armenian Holocaust" go. That's a neologism due to Robert Fisk and it hasn't gained currency nor is it especially useful I think, much as I admire Fisk. Awen23 (talk) 01:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not a neologism, it actually dates back to the 1920s. Whether it should be in the lede is a different matter though. If it was the primary term used to refer to the Armenian genocide before the coining of the word "genocide", then I think it should be there. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:26, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Small h holocaust, as a massacre dates from Victorian times developing from Milton's (that great coiner of neologisms) use of it in Samson to mean a consuming fire. Big H Holocaust (by itself) to mean the Nazi genocide of the Jews was used by historians of the 1950s as a translation of the Jewish term shoah and took a while to catch on. Small h holocaust does appear in some 1940s sources describing the Nazi genocide and quite possibly appears in earlier texts describing the Armenian genocide. It's strictly incorrect to talk about the "Jewish Holocaust", but that is what Fisk affects in his piece and it really irritates me. However no great matter. The business of Ottoman Government is a great matter that ought to be addressed. I note the article's wikilink for it states its end as 1918.

Nevertheless, as I remarked, I have no plans to edit here, and I am grateful for the attention you gave my original request. Awen23 (talk) 04:03, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Curiously enough "Armenian Holocaust" has been there ever since the article began, so I suppose it had better stay. The Fisk citation needs repairing (the article is still extant on The Independent site so it shouldn't default to its archive) and I shall do that when I have a spare moment. Those early versions of the article have a certain charm :). I'm not sure in the end they're not more informative. I glanced through the Medz Yeghern debate. See what you mean. Awen23 (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The article Names of the Holocaust cites Winston Churchill using "holocaust" writing about the Armenian Genocide in the 1920s. Awen23 (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I can't access a copy of Churchill's book, but the quote can be verified via the Encyclopedia of Genocideas, "...whole districts blotted out at one administrative holocaust..."

I can't, however, account for the remainder of the quote in this article (in the "Allied forces in the Middle East" section). I also think one needs to be careful in how the parallel usages of the pre-existing English language word/term 'holocaust' is used as as a descriptor: that is, it is not used in the same way as the later neologism The Holocaust is used. Per the Charny encyclopaedia, it was evident that 'holocaust' was used to describe wholesale organised destruction of a civilian population before Lemkin's coining of the word 'genocide'. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:34, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

References

Ah yes, thanks for that. I hadn't realized it was quoted in the article. I used my unlimited Kindle account with a certain internet provider to collect the two sources in full as follows:

The conduct of the Bulgarians in Serbia excited the extreme indignation of the investigators. As for Turkish atrocities: marching till they dropped dead the greater part of the garrison at Kut; massacring uncounted thousands of helpless Armenians, men, women, and children together, whole districts blotted out in one administrative holocaust— these were beyond human redress.

Churchill, Winston S.. The World Crisis, Vol. 4 (Winston Churchill's World Crisis Collection) (Kindle Locations 2213-2215). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

When Turkey attacked Russian Armenia, the Czar’s Government, fearing that a successful defence of Caucasia by Armenians would dangerously inflame the Nationalist aspirations of the race, conveyed a hundred and fifty thousand Armenian conscripts to the Polish and Galician fronts and brought other Russian troops to defend Armenian hearths and homes in Caucasia. Few of these hundred and fifty thousand Armenian soldiers survived the European battles or were able to return to Caucasia before the end of the War. This was hard measure. But worse remained. The Turkish war plan failed. Their offensive against Caucasia in December, 1914 and January, 1915 was defeated. They recoiled in deep resentment. They accused the Armenians of the Turkish eastern districts of having acted as spies and agents on behalf of Russia, and of having assailed the Turkish lines of communication. These charges were probably true; but true or false, they provoked a vengeance which was also in accord with deliberate policy. In 1915 the Turkish Government began, and ruthlessly carried out, the infamous general massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor. Three or four hundred thousand men, women, and children escaped into Russian territory and others into Persia or Mesopotamia; but the clearance of the race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so great, could well be. It is supposed that about one and a quarter millions of Armenians were involved, of whom more than half perished. There is no reasonable doubt that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons. The opportunity presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race opposed to all Turkish ambitions, cherishing National ambitions that could only be satisfied at the expense of Turkey and planted geographically between Turkish and Caucasian Moslems. It may well be that the British attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula stimulated the merciless fury of the Turkish Government. Even, thought the Pan-Turks, if Constantinople were to fall and Turkey lost the war, the clearance would have been effected and a permanent advantage for the future of the Turkish race would be gained.

Churchill, Winston S.. The World Crisis, Vol. 4 (Winston Churchill's World Crisis Collection) (Kindle Locations 6099-6101). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

The first comes from a section on war crimes investigations. I don't know what the context for the second is (trouble with ebooks is that they're hard to flick through). It's perfectly clear, however, that Churchill was quite clear in his mind that this was genocide as it would later be called (likewise Lloyd George later in that interesting source you cite).

I'm content to stay with "Armenian Holocaust" in the lede in the circumstances, notwithstanding your reservation. I honestly thought it was an innovation of Fisk's (which I suppose it strictly is from the capital H point of view).

Thanks for correcting my Fisk citation edit by the way. Indeed I should have cited the first Wayback archive. Awen23 (talk) 03:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)