Talk:Church of Kish/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

DR

Hetoum, pushing your version by edit warring is not gonna work. Why don't you try WP:DR? Clearly there's no consensus for edits that you propose and sources that you use, so the best way for you would be pursuing formal dispute resolution procedures. --Grandmaster 04:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Because there really is no dispute, but vandalism by puppet Ehud. There would have to be a dispute for me to go through resolution. Everything was done by me by rules.Hetoum I 15:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

What you actually do is violation of the rules. Wikipedia works by consensus, and not brutal force. Edit warring to have the article your way is not allowed. And you should assume good faith when dealing with other editors. Unless you have a real proof that Ehud is a sock or meatpuppet, you should not make baseless accusations and work to achieve consensus. --Grandmaster 05:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I have counseled Hetoum I to participate in the dispute resolution process in good faith. If he fails to do so, let me know and I will intervene further. Hopefully, that will not be necessary. --Richard 06:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks very much. --Grandmaster 06:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Karapetian

About Karapetian. Thomas de Waal met him during his travel to the region. De Waal refers to Karapetian as an ultranationalist, and indeed Karapetian expresses extreme nationalist and racist views. Some excerpts from de Waal’s book:

The next day peace talks were due to begin in Key West, Florida, on the future of Nagorny Karabakh. I wanted to hear Samvel's opinion on the talks, although I guessed what his answer would be. Samvel said he opposed any attempt at diplomacy with Azerbaijan, which traded in ancient Armenian lands. "I don't even want to think about it. I hope there won't be a settlement." Still, he asked my opinion on what a peace deal would mean for the Armenian side. I said that it would mean giving up at least six of the occupied regions around Nagorny Karabakh and allowing the hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis, who had been expelled from there, to return. "Even Kelbajar?" Samvel queried. I nodded. "That's impossible," he answered. He had not fought in the war, but as soon as the Kelbajar region had been "liberated" in 1993, he had gone to the region, now emptied of its inhabitants, and found hundreds of Armenian tombs, churches, and fragments. It was a historic treasury of Armenian art, he asserted, that must remain in Armenian hands.

What claims does history have on the present? In what sense can Kelbajar be called "Armenian," when no Armenian had lived there for almost a hundred years? I said that I could not accept that Kelbajar was "liberated" territory, when all of its fifty thousand or so Azerbaijani or Kurdish inhabitants had been expelled. Surely, I argued, these people had the right to live in the homes in which they were born. But for Samvel, the past eclipsed the present: those people were "Turks" and interlopers. When he used to travel on buses in Azerbaijan, he would always end up losing his seat: "Every Turk or Azerbaijani asks you for a little land and says, 'Just give me a little land to live in!' But in a few years you end up with a tiny piece of land and he gets the lot.

The Armenian nationalists use two main devices to denigrate their neighbors. One is to suggest that because most of them were "nomads," they were a class lower than the settled village dwellers. Dismissing the claims of the people who used to live in Kelbajar, Samvel told me, “The people who lost their homes are third generation or fourth generation maximum. They were nomads, the tsar forced them to settle in those villages”. The other line of attack is that Azerbaijan is a recent twentieth-century creation and that its people therefore have fewer "historical rights."

My feelings toward this tireless historian veered between admiration and alarm. He was, an Armenian friend justly said, "a constructive ultranationalist." Whatever Samvel is seeking to prove, the general effect of his work will be to record for the wider world the treasures of medieval Christian art that are little known in the outside world and might otherwise be lost. Yet, if his political views were to predominate, would the Caucasus ever move out of its suspended animation in the medieval period?

Another quote:

An Armenian historian, A. S. Mnatsakanian, set out to rebut Buniatov's historical geography and relocated Caucasian Albania well to the northeast, toward the Caspian Sea. Mnatsakanian said that it had entirely disappeared by the tenth century; as for the medieval-era “Albania”, to the west and in and around Karabakh, he said this was “New Albania”, a region administered by Persia, of which the only Albanian component remaining was the name, but which was entirely populated by Armenians.

Thomas De Waal. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War.

If you check Karapetian and Ulubabian, you’ll see that they repeat the same claims about "New Albania". Considering Karapetian's extreme bias, he cannot be accepted as an impartial and objective scholar, whose judgment on this issue could be trusted. Grandmaster 10:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You just don't seem to get it, do you Grandmaster? You cannot just go around trashing and dismissing everything a particular person has written. You have to cite specific examples of errors in a particular source or in a specific work of a writer, or produce a argument that would suggest there are specific errors. If that is difficult for you to do, perhaps because you don't know the subject well-enough or don't have access to sources, then just leave this article alone. Meowy 16:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

See above. If what this person says is true, it must have been written somewhere else too. Btw, I have a source that says the population of Kish during tsarist Russia rule was Udi. That’s an important aspect. Grandmaster 17:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

There’s a very comprehensive article about udi people by the Russian scholar Igor Kuznetsov. He says, inter alia:

Ко времени прихода русских на Кавказ села, население которых продолжало осозновать себя удинами, были сконцентрированы в основ¬ном в пределах Шекинского ханства (вошло в Россию в 1805 г. как Нухинский уезд Елисаветпольской губернии: с. Варташен, Варданлы, Баян (ныне Огузский р-н), с. Нидж (ныне Кабалинский р-н), с. Киш (Шекинский р-н). [1]

By the time of arrival of Russians to the Caucasus the villages, the population of which considered themselves to be udis, were mostly concentrated within Sheki khanate (which became a part of Russia in 1805 as Nukha uyezd of Elisavetpol governorate): villages of Vartashen, Vardanli, Bayan (currently in Oguz district), Nij (currently in Gabala district), Kish (Sheki district).

So much for Karapetian’s claim that Kish was a “historically Armenian” village. --Grandmaster 17:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations! You have produced a proper argument that would suggest there is a specific error in that essay by Karapetian! Your problem here is that, as far as I recall, nobody in the actual wikipedia entry has been saying that Kish was a "historically Armenian village", I know I was particulary careful not to say that it was, or to even imply that it was. Kish was, as far as I am concerned, after looking at the published evidence and the geography and the architecture, originally a Christian Udi village whose population was, for parts of its history, a member of the Armenian Church, then the Georgian Church, and then the Armenian Church again, by which time they had become to identify themselves as actual Armenians. Your argument also does not give you the right to dismiss everything else in the Karapetian article, in particular all the specific facts that are backed up by proper references. I know a lot more about Karapetian than you - and it is actually very easy to separate out the facts from what are just his personal opinions and dogma. Meowy 22:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think Karapetian is worth of any trust after he falsified the ethnicity of the original inhabitants of the village. And udis did not identify themselves as Armenians, they are still a people with very distinct ethnicity, which survived through millennia. So the church is not Armenian, people ho attended it were udi. Btw, you would be surprised to know that Norwegians came to a conclusion that the church was Georgian. You apparently did not read their report. The existing church is neither Armenian nor Albanian, it is Georgian. But whether or not there was an old church at that location is a subject to dispute. Grandmaster 06:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

"THE TRUTH"

I have not read all the discussion on this Talk Page but I have gathered from skimming it that part of the dispute is around which sources can be used and which cannot. I would like to remind everyone that Wikipedia's emphasis is not on determining what "THE TRUTH" is. There are often multiple Points of View about what "THE TRUTH" is. According to WP:NPOV, we should seek to represent all verifiable Points of View without giving undue weight to any of them or engaging in original research.

That said, if an Armenian or Azerbaijani source is a reputable scholar (like he has a Ph.D.) or is even a newspaper, magazine or book, then that source is sufficient to be a source. Now, you have to evaluate just how reliable the source is but the best thing to do is to characterize the source in such a way that the reader has enough information to make up his/her own mind about the reliability of the source.

It is not our job to tell the reader what to think about a controversial issue. It is our job to give him/her enough information to know where to research the issue further and then make up his/her own mind.

This sort of approach suggests that the path to compromise is to present all sides of the issue covering every assertion with citations and making clear who is asserting what.

Thus, instead of saying "X is true", say things like "According to source A, X is true. Source B challenges this assertion and asserts instead that Y is true." Then cite both statements.

--Richard 17:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Hetoum and Meowy have only one source to support their claims. This source is extremely nationalistic and ethnically biased. Extreme nationalism of the author is noted by third party sources, which I presented above, and is evident from this author's article as well. Now I don’t mind presenting the claims of both Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars, but I object to presenting the claims of Karapetian as absolute truth. If you noted, position of Karapetian is mentioned in the article as “according to Armenian commentator Karapetian”, etc. But that is not enough for Hetoum, he wants to write the whole article based on Karapetian’s position. Thus, his preferred version starts as "The Church of Kish (Armenian: Սուրբ Եղիշե Եկեղեցի, St. Yeghishe Church;Azerbaijani: Kiş kilsəsi) is a former Armenian Apostolic Church and now a museum.”, which is not accurate, since it is position of one person that contradicts all other sources. You cannot take one source with well known bias over others, especially third party ones that have no conflict of interest here. Meowy’s edit about Norwegians is original research and POV, and he was told by Francis that it has no place here. Still Meowy tried to restore it once again. That’s not the way it’s done here. --Grandmaster 18:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that, if your characterization of their edits is accurate, that is not the way it is done here.

OK, thanks for the summary. I was being lazy in not wanting to have to read everything that was written on this page. The article should present the mainstream opinion while making sure to represent all significant minority POVs, characterizing them as such to avoid giving them undue weight. If the topic is controversial enough that there is no dominant "mainstream" opinion, then that should be made clear to the reader. I'm probably telling you something you already know but I thought it would be useful to reiterate what policy is for all concerned.

In a different vein, if Hetoum I and Meowy will not pursue the dispute resolution process, then you might consider doing so yourself. Ask for a third opinion and, if necessary, issue a request for comment.

It is against Wikipedia policy to leave articles protected for long periods of time. The next step is to unprotect the page and block editors who edit in violation of consensus. However, you have to establish that consensus first or any blocking by an admin risks being called biased and arbitrary.

Consult WP:CONSENSUS. I consider a consensus to be one that is supported by two thirds of quorum that is at least 6-8 editors. Six is really low. Nine would be a better quorum but is still kind of low. Obviously, the more participants in the quorum, the better. That's why an RFC is really useful. It invites outside opinions to help resolve a dispute that cannot be resolved by the current editors of the page.

--Richard 18:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, the problem with Armenian and Azerbaijani sources is that they are both engaged in a propaganda war as result of Karabakh conflict. Ph.D. or scientific degree is not enough for these sources to be considered reliable. I quoted above the book by Thomas de Waal, and he is highly critical of both Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars. Note the paragraph on Mnatsakanian above, for example. There are a number of other sources as well, which criticize the scholars in the two countries for using history as a political tool. That’s why I suggest to avoid using Armenian and Azerbaijani sources and rely on third party ones. It worked on other articles, it can work here as well. Grandmaster 18:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Without knowing anything about the subject matter, I would think it is better to use the Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars and then refute them using other third party scholars who have a more neutral POV. It is difficult and often inappropriate to squelch a POV, even if it is biased. It is better to allow the POV to be expressed and then neutralize it with the opposing POV. Assume the reader is intelligent enough to dismiss bias if given enough information that characterizes it as such. And, if the reader doesn't recognize and dismiss the bias after that, it could be that the reader was biased to begin with and you probably won't be able to change his mind. People will believe what they want to believe

--Richard 18:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to present both positions equally and also provide positions of third party sources. However, I object to basing the article on one source and presenting its claims as fact. This is what Hetoum tries to do. I actually did ask for third party opinion, Francis Tyers, who was mediating disputes between Armenian and Azerbaijani users for a long time has also provided his input, and it would be good if you could remain involved as well, if you can spare some time to this. Thanks. Grandmaster 19:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Richard and "The Truth". Richard, have you any concept of why this article should be "controversial"? Why a little insignificant church should provoke such argument? Has you any evidence to back up your implied assertion that every Armenian and every Azeri source is POV, and that there will actually exist ANY genuinely third-party sources? The Azeri "position" is not POV, it is the current political ideology of the Azerbaycan State. Those holding or expressing that ideology don't necessary believe what they are saying, they believe in the reasons behind having the ideology. Unless you find some way of presenting the ideology, and the ideology of the others involved (such as what I have attempted to do with presenting the Norwegian "Odin" connection) there is no way that a reader will ever be able to decide what is the "Truth". Meowy 22:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The short answer to your question is "No". I have no idea why this article is controversial. I've read the article and it looks fine to me.

I don't personally believe that Armenian and Azerbaijani sources are POV and all other third party sources are neutral. I was just using the language that Grandmaster was using.

My belief is that all sources are inherently POV to some extent. Some sources are more POV than others. You don't get to an NPOV stance by quoting one NPOV source and ignoring the others. How would you determine if a source was NPOV? You get to an NPOV stance by quoting all POV sources and trying as best as you can to strike a neutral balance amongst them. Sometimes, this means that you have to say that one source is more biased than another. That can be the source of dispute.

So, I invite you to explain to me what the controversy is. Please do so in short sentences so I can understand. Please realize that most readers will be like me. They will not necessarily have all the background of historical and cultural disputes that seem to be associated with this little church.

--Richard 23:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Richard,

I completely agree with you! This is what I have proposed Grandmaster to do - I told him to provide an Azerbaijani scholar. Where the problem lies is that the sources on the church of Kish are next to non-existent- they are very few. Therefore, the claim that I provide only one source makes no sense, especially since everything Karapetian states is backed by citations. Other than the existence of Kish, every other coverage will be made from the few sources which exist about the subject.

In this case what made me angered me is that Grandmaster has thrown mud on scholars by claiming they were Armenian. On the above he quotes some irrelevant racial slur. I actually had no problem with adding other sources - my problem was with him removing sources by claiming that the writer is Armenian, but, but he would keep a source by a religious figure from an institution in Azerbaijan. It is the sort of source which should be removed according to rules. It is like using as sole source on the American revolution some mathematician and not a historian. Not to mention, none of the information from opposing sources are backed by citations as Karapetian.

If you read Grandmaster’s replies you will see that he is still continuing slandering Armenian scholars. Only by being prejudicial will someone use another Armenian scholar to then generalize and attack the scholar which I have provided mostly because of his ethnicity. I am not the only user who told him to stop doing this, and he refuses to stop. Grandmaster is also claiming that both sides can use history as political tool and therefore he prefers avoiding both. By doing this he is actually avoiding Armenian scholars not both. Armenians over represent themselves on scholarly work on the region, while there are very few notable Azerbaijani scholars. If you scroll down this page, you will see that I have told him to provide an Azerbaijani scholar and that he could quote him but he did not. He rather continued discrediting Armenian scholars with OR.

And to make things worst Ehud who I very strongly suspect to be Adil Baguirov, a banned user will do nothing to easy suspicion and pursue reverting. If you follow even the member (FrancisTyers) to whom Ehud reverted to, reported him suspecting him to be indeed Adil. So for those reasons, I prefer for now leaving dispute resolution and not contributing in this article because I have to admit that I could not assume good faith with Ehud and that Grandmaster will be using this as evidence to have me. So I will wait and see what the arbitrators will think of Ehud in ArbCom; if they believe there is not enough evidence to assume bad faith, I will assume good faith. I know this may seem awkward, but I hope you understand. If you want to mediate you are welcome to do so once the arbitration ends.

Thank you for your time. Hetoum I 00:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Kish

Copying this here from my Talk Page as I don't really wish my page to be cluttered up by the long discussion that is sure to follow.

Grandmaster, can you respond to the points made by Hetoum I and also my comments below his?

--Richard 00:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Richard,

I completely agree with you! This is what I have proposed Grandmaster to do - I told him to provide an Azerbaijani scholar. Where the problem lies is that the sources on the church of Kish are next to non-existent- they are very few. Therefore, the claim that I provide only one source makes no sense, especially since everything Karapetian states is backed by citations. Other than the existence of Kish, every other coverage will be made from the few sources which exist about the subject.

In this case what made me angered me is that Grandmaster has thrown mud on scholars by claiming they were Armenian. On the above he quotes some irrelevant racial slur. I actually had no problem with adding other sources - my problem was with him removing sources by claiming that the writer is Armenian, but, but he would keep a source by a religious figure from an institution in Azerbaijan. It is the sort of source which should be removed according to rules. It is like using as sole source on the American revolution some mathematician and not a historian. Not to mention, none of the information from opposing sources are backed by citations as Karapetian.

If you read Grandmaster’s replies you will see that he is still continuing slandering Armenian scholars. Only by being prejudicial will someone use another Armenian scholar to then generalize and attack the scholar which I have provided mostly because of his ethnicity. I am not the only user who told him to stop doing this, and he refuses to stop. Grandmaster is also claiming that both sides can use history as political tool and therefore he prefers avoiding both. By doing this he is actually avoiding Armenian scholars not both. Armenians over represent themselves on scholarly work on the region, while there are very few notable Azerbaijani scholars. If you scroll down this page, you will see that I have told him to provide an Azerbaijani scholar and that he could quote him but he did not. He rather continued discrediting Armenian scholars with OR.

And to make things worst Ehud who I very strongly suspect to be Adil Baguirov, a banned user will do nothing to easy suspicion and pursue reverting. If you follow even the member (FrancisTyers) to whom Ehud reverted to, reported him suspecting him to be indeed Adil. So for those reasons, I prefer for now leaving dispute resolution and not contributing in this article because I have to admit that I could not assume good faith with Ehud and that Grandmaster will be using this as evidence to have me. So I will wait and see what the arbitrators will think of Ehud in ArbCom; if they believe there is not enough evidence to assume bad faith, I will assume good faith. I know this may seem awkward, but I hope you understand. If you want to mediate you are welcome to do so once the arbitration ends.

Thank you for your time. Hetoum I 00:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to confess that I still don't know what the substance of the dispute is. Is it possible to have the article say "There is a long-standing dispute between the Azerbaijanis and the Armenians over X. According to the Azerbaijani point of view, X is true. However, according to the Armenian point of view, Y is true."? And how do the Albanians fit into all this?

What I haven't managed to get at all from the article is that there is even a dispute, let alone what that dispute is, what its origin is and what the various sides of the dispute think about it. Answering these questions should be the job of an encyclopedic article. Please stop fighting about which side is right and try to agree on the fact that there are two opposing viewpoints, both of which should be presented.

Also, if there are no scholarly references, are there any popular references in newspaper and magazine articles? Speeches by politicians or church leaders?

--Richard 00:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Richard, there are actually a lot of facets to the various ideologies that are being inflicted on this little building. I have already tried to give the Norwegian angle in a previous edit.

The Azeri ideology seeks to eliminate all mention of Armenians having lived at any location or at any time-period within the current territory of Azerbaijan. This means disenfranchising or destroying the artefacts created by those Armenians. Part of the Azeri ideology involves stating that everything built by Armenians was actually built by "Caucasian Albanians". Unfortunately for Azerbaijan, there are no Caucasian Albanians: they disappeared from history 1000 years ago. Azerbaijan has got round that by claiming that the Udi are the last remnants of the Caucasian Albanians. In that they are probably right. However, Azerbaijan seeks to massively extend the original population range of the Udi, making out that all Armenian settlements, however far away from the present Udi hinterland, were originally Udi, and those Armenians are either recent arrivals or are not actually Armenians at all but were originally Udi.

Take a look at the wikipedia article on Julfa. There, Azerbaijan has claimed that that place too was created by those semi-mythical "Caucasian Albanians", even though it is many hundreds of miles from the lands of Caucasian Albania at their maximum extent. This ideology is not being expressed because it is believed by Azerbaijan, or even that Azerbaijan expects it to be believed by others. It is expressed so that articles like this can say, "an Azerbaijan source says this, an Armenian source says that". It is an artificially created POV.

As for Armenian sources. They try to make out that "Caucasian Albania" was actually a region, and not a distinctive ethnic population as such. There is some truth to that, but Armenians like Karapetian over-egg their pudding, making obvious errors and exagerations - like the one Grandmaster has pointed out. The Armenian Church is also completely intolerant towards other Churches, hence its obliteration of Caucasian Albania as an independant Church with its own particular liturgy, language, and history.

So, the controversy in this article arises from the fact that Azerbaijan cannot permit the mention of Armenia anywhere in the history of this church, and Armenia cannot permit the mention of "Caucasian Albania" anywhere in the history of this church. Meowy 00:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful! A concise explanation that I was just not able to completely figure out from skimming the discussion higher up on this Talk Page. I had some idea that this was the gist of the dispute but I hadn't pieced it all together yet. Thanks, Meowy.

Now, ordinarily, one might ask why we can't put Meowy's explanation in the article but it should seem obvious that this is a huge digression from the discussion of one small church. Is the Church of Kish the only church over which this dispute is relevant? Or is it simply one instance that the various editors have chosen as the locus of the dispute?

What I'm really getting at is I wonder whether Meowy's explanation belongs in a separate article called something like Armenian-Azerbaijani controversy. If such an article existed, this article could then have a few short sentences that explained the role of this church in the larger dispute with a Wikilink to the article describing the dispute in greater detail.

P.S. I haven't figured out what the Norwegians have to do with this. Aren't they like really, really far away from this area?

--Richard 00:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The same ideological dispute will be found in any mention of the medieval monuments in Nagorno Karabagh, and closer to this region, in the recently-restored 19th-century former Armenian church at the Udi village of Nidj a little to the southeast of Kish. That restoration was done by the same Norwegian organisation that did the Kish church, and was accompanied by the erasing of a long and important building inscription in Armenian above its entrance and Armenian inscriptions on gravestones in the church's graveyard. The destruction was strongly condemned by Norway's ambassador to Azerbaijan, who refused to attend the church's reopening. However, the director of Norwegian Humaniterian Aid did attend and is reported on NHE's own website as "rejoicing" at the opening celebration of what NHE describes as an "Udi-Albanian church". Meowy 02:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Norway is in Azerbaijan because of its oil and gas resources. For example, the Norwegian company Statoil has a 25% stake in the largest gas field in Azerbaijan and has sole control of the new gas pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey. Meowy 02:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Sounds to me like the issue is encyclopedic as a separate topic from the Church of Kish. Can you suggest a name for an article about this issue? --Richard 03:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The issue we talk about I believe is covered to a certain extent in Nagorno-Karabakh article. --Grandmaster 06:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've looked at that article briefly. But can you give me a concise explanation of how the Church of Kish is related to Nagorno-Karabakh? It seems the question is that there are a number of old churches whose provenance is unknown. Apparently, different sides of the territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh claim sovereignty based upon the "original" occupants of the land being Armenian or Azerbaijani. Thus, understanding how old the churches really are and who built them is considered relevant to the territorial dispute of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.

Did I get that right? If so, it would be really good to find citations to newspaper or magazine articles that actually make this assertion. Otherwise, the claim (and the dispute surrounding it here on Wikipedia) sounds like a lot of original research. In other words, is this really a bone of contention out in the real world or is it just a bunch of hotheads here at Wikipedia deciding that this is an important issue on which to flog their favorite hobbyhorse?

I understand that there is a real territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. What I'm looking for is some evidence that the age and origin of these churches is really considered relevant to that dispute "in the real world".

--Richard 14:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

In retrospect, I realize that the last couple of sentence could be read as insulting and disrespectful. That was not my intent. If you read it that way, please accept my apologies.

My point was that, absent proof that the real world does care about this controversy, you might appear to be hotheads. So let's work on providing that proof. Grandmaster's citing of Ilya Chavchavadze is a step towards showing that the real world does care about this. However, that is one source from the 19th century. Are there any more contemporary sources from the 20th century?

IMO, a reliable source doesn't have to be right to be reliable. It just has to have a valid claim to expertise on the subject. Thus, if the Armenian scholars really are scholars (as opposed to unknown hotheads with a website or a blog), then their POV deserves to be presented. Is their work published in reputable peer-reviewed academic journals?

--Richard 15:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Norwegian scholars are really the only neutral and reliable source here. Some Armenian scholars are known for claiming that almost every ancient church that exists in the region is Armenian. This is a very old issue, which led to well-known conflicts with the neighboring people. Georgian classical writer Ilya Chavchavadze wrote a large essay on this topic called “Armenian wisemen and weeping stones” back in the 19th century. It is available online in Russian, I can provide a link if you can read Russian. --Grandmaster 06:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't read Russian. Can you translate a few key passages for me?--Richard 14:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

He described in very much detail how some Armenian scholars falsified writings on Georgian churches to claim that they were Armenian. The only reliable source here are Norwegian scholars, who conducted archeological excavation in and around the church and came to very interesting conclusions. Of course, their findings do not support the claims of Karapetian that the church is Armenian. That’s why people like Karapetian tried to dismiss this perfectly neutral source. There’s not a slightest evidence of any bias of Norwegian scientists. Yes, Norwegian oil companies work in Azerbaijan, but so do oil companies from all over the world (American, British, Japanese, German, Italian, etc). It does not mean that people from those countries have some bias in this issue. --Grandmaster 06:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Now let’s have a look at the section Meowy tries to readd. [2] This section is POV and OR, and has nothing to do with the church and is nothing but a personal interpretation of unrelated facts by Meowy. Francis Tyers moved all this stuff to the respective articles about each person and organization mentioned, still for unknown reason Meowy tries to add it back without any consensus on talk. Please check the top of this section, [3] this issue was discussed in much detail before, still Meowy adds back this irrelevant stuff without any agreement with other involved parties. --Grandmaster 06:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

And here's interview with the Norwegian scholar who led the researches in Kish: [4] I think it might be helpful for Richard to form an opinion about what is being discussed. --Grandmaster 06:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

There are no "Norwegian scholars" involved in the Kish church. Storfjell is a propagator of pseudoarchaeology. His involvement with Heyerdahl in the Azov excavation indicates that he is a firm believer in Hayerdahl's laughable "Odin" theory. The content of his Thor Hayardal Research center website clearly indicates that continued believe in Heyerdahl's theory. Meowy 17:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Richards question about Kish and the Nagorno Karabagh churches. There is no actual cultural connection, but Azerbaijan seeks to make a connection by saying that all the medieval Armenian churches there were actually Caucasian Albanian churches. It isn't something that is taken seriously by anyone who knows about the architecture of this region. I don't know of any work that deals with the subject - so much of any proposed wikipedia article would be original research. Christina Maranci has written an interesting book "Medieval Armenian Architecture, Constructions of Race and Nation" that investigated the various identities that scholars - both foreign and Armenian - have seeked to impose on the architecture of this part of the World. However, there is nothing about the Azeri theories in it, presumably because she did not see those theories as legitimate theories worthy of serious examination. She does touch a bit on the disputes between the identities of and influences between Armenian and Georgian architecture. Meowy 17:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Meowy, your statement about Storfjell is your original research. It has no place here. As for churches in Karabakh, some of them indeed were Albanian, but that's absolutely irrelevant to this particular article. Kish is not in Karabakh. Grandmaster 06:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, the church of Kish is not related to the conflict in Karabakh. Armenia never claimed this territory, so it is not a subject to any international dispute. However, some aggressively nationalistic Armenian scholars claim the entire heritage of Caucasian Albania as Armenian, even on territories that historically never were part of any Armenian state. Karapetian is one of such scholars. The book of Chavchavadze is available at this Georgian website: [5]

It is a very large article, but the main point of his criticism is that certain Armenian scholars tried to claim that ancient Georgian churches and other monuments were Armenian. For these purposes they even removed original Georgian inscriptions and replaced them with Armenian ones. I do not draw any parallels here, but this is an evidence that some Armenian historians were as guilty of unscholarly actions as much they accuse others. There are plenty of modern sources about use of history as a political tool by Armenian scholars. For example, this is an excerpt from the book written by a professional Western archeologist:

No less problematic are heavily slanted interpretations of the Urartian kingdom, the first historically attested state in Transcaucasia (ninth to seventh centuries BC). Armenian chauvinists must explain why this state, a worthy adversary of the neo-Assyrian Empire of northern Mesopotamia and one that expanded over much of "historic Armenia," composed its royal cuneiform inscriptions in Urartian, a non Indo-European (i.e., non-Armenian) language, related to Hurrian and ancestral to the Northeastern Caucasian family of languages spoken today by different peoples in Daghestan, Chechenia, and Ingushetia (see Jankowska 1991:231). Reasonable historical hypotheses can be advanced for a Proto-Armenian component to this kingdom, and there is a real sense in which the Armenians are the cultural heirs of Urartu, but an essentialist view of Armenian culture which equates it precisely with the Urartian kingdom cannot be sustained.

One must distinguish between popular and professional Armenian interpretations of Urartu, the latter being subtler and more difficult to evaluate. Thus, popular reference to the "Piotrovskii problem" is based on the fact that B.B. Piotrovskii, the late Director of the Hermitage in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and former head of the excavations at Karmir Blur (the ancient Urartian capital of Teishebaine now located within the city of Yerevan), had quite reasonably maintained that the mighty Urartian Iron Age kingdom did not constitute the first Armenian state for the reasons stated above; the "problem" only existed for those who wanted Armenians always to have lived in and controlled "historic Armenia" until the later ravages wrought by Romans, Persians, Arabs, and Turks. More discriminating professional archaeologists, who may accept the reasonable theory that the ethnogenesis or formation of Armenian culture occurred during post-Urartian Achaemenid times, extol the might of the Urartians and see them exercising political control over most of eastern Anatolia, western Iran, and Transcaucasia; in this respect they remain the direct precursors of the Armenian kingdom under Tigran II.

Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology (New Directions in Archaeology). ISBN: 0521558395

As you can see the author even accuses some Armenian scholars of “chauvinism”, because they twist the facts about the ancient state of Urartu with the purpose of proving, as the above source says, that "Armenians always lived in and controlled "historic Armenia", which some of them extend to cover the whole territory of modern Azerbaijan republic. I provided above the quote from de Waal about Mnatsakanian, who went as far as creating “New Albania”, which he claimed had Armenian population. I’m not saying that Azerbaijani scholars are not guilty of similar things, therefore I believe that sources representing both sides should be used with caution. --Grandmaster 07:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Btw, I think this is the most appropriate quote here:

Ironically, chauvinistic Azeri and Armenian archaeologists alike share a need to see their people as always present in the greater eastern Anatolian/northwest Iranian/Transcaucasian region.

Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology (New Directions in Archaeology). ISBN: 0521558395

And the point of that quote was? VartanM 07:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The point was to illustrate that sources representing both sides of the dispute should be used with caution. --Grandmaster 07:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Good job, now it doesn't look like you're misdirectly using racial slurs. VartanM 08:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I would very much appreciate if you could provide just one example of me making a racial slur. Otherwise, I expect an apology. --Grandmaster 10:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster, your childish posturing is getting out of hand. Information about the excavators and restorers of the Kish church would be a legitimate part of any article about the Kish church. This is the talk page about the Kish article; my statement that Storfjell is a propagator of pseudoarchaeology was saind in the talk page and for that reason is completely appropriate. Opinions are for the talk page, verifiable facts are for the actual entry. My opinion about Storfjell is based on published facts and statements easily found. You wish them removed from the actual Kish entry for the obvious reason that anyone reading those facts would come to the same opinion about Storfjell as I have come to.

Richard asked me a question whether Azerbaijan's irredentalist theories about "Caucasian Albania" were applicable to other places in addition to Kish. And I gave him details. Again, that is entirely appropriate for this talk page. However, your introduction of Urartu into the page is NOT justifieable. If Urartu is going to be your latest bugbear, then take it a page about Urartu. (But if you are going to do that, you will have to do better that some discussion about the long out-of-date and obsolete works of Piotrovskii on a minor site near Yerevan. 90% of Urartian sites are outside of Armenia, and 90% of modern research on Urartu is based on excavations of sites within present-day Turkey). Meowy 15:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Grandmaster's statement, "For these purposes they even removed original Georgian inscriptions and replaced them with Armenian ones". I demand that either he backs up that statment by facts or withdraws it. If he does neither, I accuse him of knowingly propagating blatant lies. Meowy 15:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

First of all, comment on content, not the contributor. “Childish posturing”, etc is not appropriate language here. Second, any information that is not related to the church should be added to the appropriated article. There’s no reliable source that criticizes Storfjell for “propagation of pseudoarchaeology”, so it is your original research in an attempt to discredit the source. You cannot do that. Francis already told you that it is not acceptable, yet you continue adding to the article information that has nothing to do with the church. As for Urartu, the info above is actually covered in the respective articles, I posted it here to show that Armenian scholars are guilty of twisting facts and using history for political purposes. It is true not only with regard to Urartu, but with regard to Caucasian Albania as well. I’m not proposing to add it to the article, I posted it just to illustrate my point. --Grandmaster 15:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

As for the replacement of Georgian inscriptions, it is not my claim, this is what Chavchavadze said in the early 20th century. Here’s the quote:

Что армянские книжники-грамотеи упражняются и повинны в таких проделках, тоже ясно. А так как наступит время, когда исторические остатки и памятники заговорят о том, – кто занимал, и кто ныне занимает данные места, и так как камни, многочисленные постройки, монастыри, храмы вопиют, что с самых древних времен на этих местах обитали грузины – то, что и говорить, является необходимость зажать рот этим правдивым свидетелям грузин, не дать им возможности пикнуть слово. С этой целью они выкинули достойное похвалы коленце: взяли и, где только смогли и сумели, уничтожили всякий след.

Проделка не особенно головоломная, лишь бы была на это охота и податливая совесть. Ныне времена такие, когда для достижения своей цели ни пред какими средствами не останавливаются, – будет ли это достигнуто путем обмана, фальсификации, подлогов – безразлично. Достижение цели подобным путем считается ныне мерилом ума. Мы имеем немало примеров, что армяне силились стирать и уничтожать следы грузинского происхождения на грузинских храмах и монастырях, соскабливать или стирать с камней грузинские надписи, вынимать самые камни из построек и вставлять взамен их другие с армянскими надписями, о чем даже писалось в русских, и в грузинских газетах. Между прочим, покойный Д. Бакрадзе рассказывает об одном случае, указывающем нам на такую милую способность этой группы армян. В Артвине существует весьма старая церковь. Тамошние армяне возымели желание наготове присвоить себе этот храм. Но местные греки начали оспаривать его у них на том основании, что так как он с давних времен принадлежал грузинам, то, следовательно, мы, мол, как православные, имеем преимущество пред вам. В нем был вделан камень с грузинской надписью, а так как эта надпись служила доказательством принадлежности храма грузинам, то армяне изволили благоразумно «припрятать» этот камень.

Таким образом, вырвав эту церковь из рук православных, – армяне присвоили ее себе. Разве подобная проделка простолюдину-армянину придет в голову?! Даже если бы это и было дело рук простого армянина, то мысль, в подобных случаях, очевидно, внушена ему грамотеями и учеными. Поэтому мы имеем основание приписывать эту и подобные проделки только этой группе армян, но отнюдь не целому народу. [6]

I have no time for translation, so I hope you can get it translated. Again, I’m only a messenger here, I draw no parallels with modern-day events. This is just something to consider. Grandmaster 15:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

But in any case, all the info that is not about the church is irrelevant here. Meowy, can you please explain what particular issues you have with Storfjell’s research and findings, other than you believing him to be a “pseudo-archaeologist”? --Grandmaster 15:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster, you haven't the slightest idea of the events that went on in Georgia at the start of the 20th century. You quote from texts without knowing anything about the historical context of those texts, or why those texts were written. 100 years ago Georgian intellectuals and political activists were trying to re-invent Georgia. Part of that involved conciously excluding Armenians and writing blatantly anti-Armenian tracts. The reasons for that was because, at the time, most of Georgia's institutions and trade and intellectual life were in the hands of Armenians and the majority of the population of Tiflis was actually Armenian.

Thor Heyerdahl is recognised as being a pseudo-archaeologist and a pseudo-historian: his theories are discounted by all proper historians and archaeologists and have been consitantly been disproven. His most condemned theory was his final one, his "Odin theory". That is the one Storfjell believes in, and has been involved in propagating. That is why he also can be classed as a pseudo-archaeologist. Meowy 16:16, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Erasing of Armenian inscriptions by Georgians (a recent news report) [7]. Similar destruction, from the 1990s.[8]. Erasure of Armenians inscriptions by Azerbaijan at the church of Nij, after a "restoration" done by the same Norwegian organisation that did Kish [9] - you can see a photo of one of the gravestone inscriptions before its erasure here. Meowy 16:29, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

There’s a difference between restoration in Kish and Nij. Norwegians were not involved in any works in Nij, while they took part in archeological research in Kish. Norwegian Humanitarian organization only funded the works in Nij (and did not actually do them, as you state), and they disapproved removal of Armenian inscriptions by local Udi community. This has no relation with the works in Kish, where Norwegian scholars were involved directly and oversaw all the works. There was no controversy of any sort in Kish, so any parallels are baseless. You failed to answer my question. Again, Meowy, can you please explain what particular issues you have with Storfjell’s research and findings, other than you believing him to be a “pseudo-archaeologist”? Do you have any particular objections to any of his findings, methods, etc? And do you have any reliable third party source that accuses Storfjell of being a pseudo-archaeologist? We cannot rely on your assumptions, we need an actual statement by some reliable source to support your claim. --Grandmaster 05:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, even if we assume that you are right and Storfjell indeed supported some extreme theories, it does not mean that he has no qualification to conduct an archeological research. If scientists did not support wild theories, many important discoveries would have never been made. The point in question is do we actually have any evidence to assume that Storfjell did not perform the research up to the good professional standards? If there’s such evidence, please present it, but making assumptions based on unrelated facts is not something we should do here. --Grandmaster 05:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster continues mud-slinging and racial slurs

Are you done yet? Fueling Armenians and then adding their reaction in the evidence page. Ilia Chavchavadze is not an archaeologist, neither a historian. His argument is that Armenians not being Orthodox, their 'Orthodox' design can not be Armenian. The title of Chavchavadze work: The Crying stones was coined by Golmstrem, and he was answering the latter. It was right during the cold Russian revolution and the cold war between the Georgians and Armenians for the control of the regions serounding Lori, Meseti, and Klargeti as Georgians will call it. The event described in Chavchadze work relates to the last two decades of the 19th century and when each stones each monuments would have given advantage to one side against the other. Each side therefore started forging pictures with the arrival of photographic technology and then would be bringing archaeologists and historians to support their side. Each was ready for war checking each material published about archaeological advantage. Then there will be this journalist by the name of Golmstrem who will be taking the Armenian side by distinguishing between pictures and the actual stone who were crying the truth since they never lie. This made Ilia Chavchavadze furious, who countered back by accusing the Armenian side to replacing Georgian letters with Armenian ones, and then supporting it by claiming Armenians are not even Orthodox so they could not have possibly made such Orthodox design. Part of the event is described here not the last though.

By slinging mud at Armenian scholars this way, you are only discrediting yourself. I have really enough of your continued, frivolous, free accusations. In each answer you take the occasion to bash on Armenian academics. Using a Georgian revolutionary who was engaged in one side during a cold war to then generalize one particular event to discredit the whole Armenian academia is really of bad taste. Scratching that far to find some stuff unrelated to then trash at scholars is not only original research, it's disgusting. I don't see why I am even debating with you. To say the truth, I'm done with you.Hetoum I 20:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for that link, Hetoum. It's disapointing that Georgian nationalistic ideology does not seem to have changed much in 100 years. Meowy 21:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I’m not going to get deep into the issues between Armenian and Georgian scholars, my point was to illustrate that Armenian scholars were engaged in a lot of controversy, and it is not something new. I have a lot more sources that criticize Armenian historians, they are all third party. I can present more of such evidence, but I see no point. I also presented criticism of the approach of some Armenian historians to the issue of ancient Caucasian Albania (see the quote from de Waal), and Meowy seemed to agree that such criticism was justified. This was my response to the point made earlier by Hetoum that Armenian sources were trustworthy, while Azerbaijani ones were not. In my opinion, both Azerbaijani and Armenian sources should be used with extreme caution due to an obvious conflict of interest. And Hetoum’s accusation of “racial slurs” is nothing but another assumption of bad faith. I never said anything bad about Armenian people, I only quoted some third party sources that criticized Armenian historians (and not people). How’s that a “racial slur”? I demand that Hetoum either provides an example of me making “racial slurs” or apologizes for baseless accusations. Grandmaster 05:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Edits

Let’s get back to discussing actual edits to the article. Hetoum, what particular edits do you propose to make to the article and what sources do you propose to back them up? --Grandmaster 05:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You can start by putting back Armenian name of the church. Hetoum I 23:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Territorial claims to Caucasian Albania

I'm confused and I'll admit that part of my confusion is probably due to not having spent enough time reading what has been written above. However, in my defense, it's really hard to read stuff that is written in a polemic argument where each side assumes that the reader already knows quite a bit about the topic.

I'm confused about Nagorno-Karabakh and its relevance to this dispute. Where is the Church of Kish? Is it in what was once Caucasian Albania?

Is it fair to say that the age and founding history of churches in Caucasian Albania are in dispute and this dispute is not just one of historical interest but is also used to fuel territorial claims by Armenia and Azerbaijan to the territory which was once Caucasian Albania?

Is this the essence of the dispute?

If it is, it would seem that the dispute boils down to whether the inhabitants of this region were ever Armenian or whether they were something else (Udi?). Is there an active territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan?

If we can answer these questions, then I think we can take steps towards documenting the answers in Wikipedia.

My current feeling is that this article should reference the dispute and explain the importance of the ancient history of these churches in that dispute. However, what we need is an article that describes the dispute in greater detail since it appears that this dispute is about more than just the history of this one church.

--Richard 17:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Church of Kish is located in Shaki (see the map in the respective article about the region). The region was part of ancient Caucasian Albania, but located far from Karabakh, on the border with Georgia. The dispute over Caucasian Albania has political context because the Armenian side tries to justify its claims to Karabakh by pushing the historical boundaries of Caucasian Albania to the East, towards the Caspian, thus extending the boundaries of historical Armenia, while Azerbaijani side does the opposite. I’m actually surprised that this article became such an issue in Wikipedia, because it is not a big issue in real life. Yes, some nationalistic Armenian scholars like Karapetian claim the church to be historically Armenian, but there’s no large dispute over its origin between the academia of two countries. I think the dispute over Caucasian Albania has no relevance to the article, it has no relevance even to the article about Caucasian Albania, as it is an issue of modern politics. I think the article should be about the church only, but be based on reliable sources. So far the best source is the research conducted by Norwegian archaeologists [10] And you are right, one part of our dispute is whether the original inhabitants of the region were Armenian or Udi people, the latter being the only direct descendants of Albanians. I have sources to attest that Kish was populated by Udis, which I’m going to add to the article. The importance of this particular church is related to the fact that local tradition considers this church to be the first one in the Caucasus. --Grandmaster 19:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking for a way to reduce the dispute on this page to about a few lines that says something like "Most historians believe that the XYZ people built the Church of Kish. Some Aremenian scholars such as Karapetian claims the church to be historically Armenian. This is relevant to the Armenian-Azerbaijani territorial dispute."

The intent here is to neatly package up the relationship between the Church of Kish and the territorial dispute into a few lines that no one can argue with.

Presumably the territorial dispute is an encyclopedic topic unto itself. We can start an article about the dispute and present both sides of the issue there. The key question would be how much weight to give this part of the dispute and how much weight to give to Karapetian.

--Richard 19:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard if you compare with previous versions, I included their point of view how some Azeri scholars, media and ONE norwegian says this is church of KISH=GIS. BUT they do not say WHY 2 different names are the same. I then said how research has shown the 2 sites are not the same - detailed explanation published in soviet publication. I think I balanced the views, no Richard? Perhaps you should question Grandmaster's conduct here and why he has spend all this time trying to suppress and "Armenian Source" with "Racial slurs." Do you not think it would be right for him to apologize for this? Hetoum I 23:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you are making too much of this bit, Hetoum. There are more important things that should be worked on and I'm not sure why you are so worried about that bit of it. Kish and Gis are so similar in sound that that no explanation is needed as to why they could be thought of as the same places. The article should mention that the identification of Gis with Kish is not certain because the location of Kish does not seem to match the earliest description of the location of Gis. However, it is clear that for many hundreds of years Kish has been identified by everyone in the region as the traditional site of the saint's martyrdom. Meowy 01:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm really not interested in the petty name-calling and personal feuding that has been going on here. You guys can go outside and settle this with pistols at dawn if that will help.

An admin's responsibility is only to protect pages and unprotect them as requested. However, since I do like to try and help settle disputes when I can, I thought I'd stick around and try. I am doing that just as an ordinary Wikipedian, not in my role as an admin.

This is a good time for everybody to abandon past grudges and try to observe WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Let's try to focus on the substantive issues and leave the namecalling, grudges and vengeance behind.

Please answer the question I asked earlier... am I on the right track? Have I captured the essence of the dispute accurately? Can this serve as the basis for a compromise?

If so, we might perhaps get this page unprotected and move forward.

If we can't move forward, the other solution is to pursue the dispute resolution process. The next step is a Request for comment. If that doesn't help, it might make more sense to block all the editors involved (Grandmaster, Hetoum I and Meowy) for disruption and then unprotect the page.

Try to make good use of the time that the page is protected to find a path to compromise.

--Richard 23:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, it is nothing to do with a territorial dispute. It is a racial dispute. Hitler did not have a territorial dispute with the Jews when he sent them off to the gas chambers. Azerbaijan did not have a territorial dispute with Armenia when it destroyed at Julfa thousands of medieval gravestones of Armenians who died 500 years ago. The only disruption here is from you. You disrupted the natural course of the argument by protecting the page, and then by asking loads of off-topic questions rather than exploring what the article could reasonably contain. The point of the talk page is to explore the content of the entry, not to try to educate you in a subject you knew nothing about, and still know almost nothing about. Maybe after 20-odd years of dealing with the subject like I have, you will begin to approach an understanding of it. You call for namecalling, grudges and vengeance to cease, then make slanderous statement that others have done the disrupting and should be blocked. In your ignorance, you can't decide what is right - so conclude everyone else must be wrong. It all once again just reflects the blind arrogance of your typical Wikipedia administrator. Meowy 01:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to ignore the personal attacks in the above message. Other less tolerant admins might have blocked Meowy after such a tirade.

I don't think that the argument whose "natural course" I interrupted was likely to produce a consensus but, if you wish, I will duck out and let the three of you continue wrangling, personal attacking and being incivil to each other until somebody else decides to block you.

The page will stay protected until consensus is reached, though.

--Richard 03:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Page Protection

Come on Richard, you well know that pages are not protected to achieve consensus. They are protected in the hope that those doing the editing loose interest. Moreover, pages are almost never unprotected becasue a concensus has been reached, they are unprotected because there had been no activity for months on their talk pages. Nor do you have personal control over the protection of this page - any administrator can unprotect it. Meowy 22:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly true that page protection sometimes works the way that you describe sometimes. Maybe even most of the time. I haven't seen enough cases to be able to judge. Maybe you have. I've seen things work out that way at least once. I've also seen it work the other way.

Are you saying that you think no consensus is possible here? Your "new start" five points and Grandmaster's revison of those five points - are they steps towards consensus? I asked Hetoum I for his opinion on the "five points" a couple of days ago and I've heard nothing. If you two can agree and Hetoum I either agrees or says nothing, I am ready to lift page protection.

You're right that I do not have personal control over protecting this page. I should have said, "I won't unprotect this page until I see signs that a consensus has been reached."

If you think another admin will unprotect this page for you, you are welcome to make your request on WP:RPP.

--Richard 22:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd still say that for most of the time it works the way I said it works, especially the unprotecting of previously protected pages! Going a bit off-topic, perusing the contentious issues, the blocked pages, the requests for arbitration and so on is enlightening because I believe it shows the direction that wikipedia is going - a battlefield for ethnic minority groups and a platform for the propagation of business / political / ideological special interest groups. I'm pretty certain everyone here so far are "amateurs", but do you honestly think that companies and governments that spend hundreds of millons of dollars each year in media management, lobbying, and PR ignore what is on Wikipedia and don't bother to try to control its content. How many of your fellow administrators (or those even higher up the Wikipedia food chain) operate secretly on behalf of third parties? Meowy 02:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I think you should be aware that all the parties to this dispute are also parties to the new arbcom case called Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2. This and the previous case basically involve all active Armenian and Azerbaijani users. You may wish to provide your evidence to help arbitrators to pass the right decision. Here’s the evidence page: [11]

Also, could you please remain involved with the article? It is very hard for me to deal with Hetoum and Meowy due to constant personal attacks and incivility by these 2 users. Meowy claims that you disrupted the natural course of the argument when you protected the article, however “the natural course” for them is nothing but edit warring, which already resulted in 3 protections of the article and 3RR block for Meowy. Hetoum claims that I made racial slurs by criticizing Armenian scholar Karapetian. As an impartial person, could you please address this issue? If I indeed made any racial slurs, I’m willing to apologize, but I do not think that pointing out an obvious bias of a source in this issue is a racial slur.

Now, regarding the issue itself, I believe the territorial dispute is not much relevant to this particular church, because Armenia does not claim this part of Azerbaijan. The disputes between Azerbaijani and Armenian scholars may indeed be a topic for a separate article. But I agree that we should present all the known and undisputed facts in an accurate fashion. As for the disputed aspects, we should also present them with proper attribution of each view. There’s no large dispute over this church, the only person challenging the established view is Karapetian. So we can present his position, but make it clear that it is opinion of this person. I will provide more details in my response to Meowy. --Grandmaster 05:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster tries to cover up racial slurs and mud slinging

If you see here, after we revealed truth behind another attempt by Grandmaster to discredit Armenian scholars with typical racism, he says “I DO NOT WANT TO GET INTO IT DEEP.”

Then, I am accused of “ASSUMING BAD FAITH.” When Grandmaster throws mud and racial slurs why does he even bother saying I “ASSUME BAD FAITH.” How do I assume bad faith?

Then, Grandmaster lies again, as he lied several times on this talkpage. He says “ I NEVER SAID ANYTHING BAD AGAINST ARMENIAN PEOPLE.” He says PROVE OR APOLOGIZE!!!

GRANDMASTER IS RIGHT! I should apologize for HIS RACIAL SLURS AND MUD SLINGING LIKE:

• We are not interested in what Ulubabian and other modern Armenian sources claim.
• You cited no sources other than that Armenian website, which is not reliable.
• The Armenian website that they use as their sole source is not reliable and cannot be accepted.
• Whatever is written by Karapetian is not reliable
• This is from Karapetian and therefore not reliable. Quote the original document,

Grandmaster still continues throwing racial slurs, instead of providing Azerbaijani scholars. No Armenian user here has show racial slurs, but rather is waiting for Grandmaster to show Azeri scholars. Why is he mudslinging instead of providing reference?

I tried to balance both the sources Grandmaster used with one from RAA.Hetoum I 23:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

How criticizing an aggressive nationalistic source is a racial slur? Please explain? Yes, Karapetian is not reliable due to his strong bias in this issue. So far you provided no third party sources to support your claims. And I'm not quoting Azeri sources because I believe we should stick to neutral ones. --Grandmaster 05:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Meowy, let's act without any personal attacks. Your anger for no reason whatsoever should not be taken out on Richard, a user, who's a neutral party to this article resolution and who tries his best to settle this dispute that has been going on for quite a while. Imagine someone is asking you to settle a dispute between two parties that have more knowledge in their own history than you do. While researching to find a better solution you would have been faced with thousands of theories, articles and POV's and would be puzzled and mislead by a vast quantity of available information. So, the admin is not to blame.

Richard, I request your continuous observation of this dispute. Neutrality in this kind of a dispute is very appreciated.

I would also like to answer Hetoum. Hetoum, you keep asking for Azerbaijani scholars.

Please tell me: Will bringing of references from Azerbaijani scholars on the Church end this dispute? If so, I will get you some, but you would have to agree first. Do you really think in the whole academia of Azerbaijani and Central Asian historical research there aren't any arguments which would oppose the Karapetian arguments? If you haven't found those Azerbaijani arguments online through the google search, that does not mean they do not exist, does it? As noted above by Grandmaster, quoting Azeri sources in this particular article can be understood biased due to the conflict of interest. Hence, the willingness for working this out with unbiased articles. Ehud 06:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

A new start

Well, it's no fun to be called an ignoramus even if you are an ignoramus and know it. Meowy has basically called me an ignoramus on this topic and I readily admit my ignorance in this regard. If I have made an ass of myself by blundering about in my ignorance, I apologize.

I had hoped to find a compromise position by asking enough intelligent questions to understand the dispute and find a middle ground that everyone could agree on.

Meowy's comments above may be valid although a gentler tone could have been used.

For my part, I could have been gentler rather than throwing out the threat of a block. In my defense, I was getting frustrated at all the incivility and personal attacks that were flying back and forth without any indication that progress was being made.

Meowy's attempt below to "start again" looks like a good faith attempt to find a solution. Is it workable? If there are issues with it, can we discuss those concerns without personal attacks or incivility?

--Richard 06:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry Richard - maybe I could have been gentler and come over a bit less heavy in that posting. Though I didn't call you an ignoramus. I just said you were ignorant of this subject. Once a hippopotamus, always a hippopotamus; once an ignoramus always an ignoramus. But mere ignorance about something can be cured by knowledge and time. :-) Meowy 02:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I personally do not think that the language used by Meowy is acceptable and will certainly bring that to the attention of the arbitrators. People might not be familiar with the topic in question, but if they make a good faith attempt to help resolve the dispute, there’s no justification to using incivil language. I note that this is not the first instance of such behavior by Hetoum and Meowy. I on my part always did my best to not respond to any incivil remarks directed at me and be polite and courteous. I expect similar behavior from other users, and it is very sad that this is not happening. As for Meowy’s proposals, I will take this opportunity to assume good faith and work on reaching a consensus to put an end to this prolonged dispute. --Grandmaster 10:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's start again. What should the entry contain?

Given that all of the previous talk has got nowhere. Meowy 01:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

1/ the legendary origin of the church and the tradition attached to it should be detailed, but with the note that the identification of Gis with Kish is not certain, and the reason why.

2/ The history of the church should be detailed. This history is detailed in reference works cited by Karapetian. Regardless of whatever opinion editors have about Karapetian, it cannot reasonably be argued that factual historical information should be excluded just because they are contained in an article written by Karapetian. All periods of the history should to be mentioned if information is available.

3/ Some way should be found to express the fact that the church has had (and still has) multiple identities, and that phrases like "Armenian Church", "Georgian Church" express liturgy and not ethnicity, and "Armenian church", "Georgian church" express architectural styles/trends and not ethnicity. The probability that the church was built for and used by the Udi people should be clearly expressed. Some mention could be made of the "Caucasian Albania" controversy – but that should not be an important part of this article and is best dealt with elsewhere.

4/ There should be a proper architectural description of the church. Part of this could be got from the various articles by Storfjell – however his description is inexact and not very technical. More could be added by simply describing the church from its photographs (unless that is counted as original research).

5/ The recent excavation and restoration should be mentioned, and results of the excavation summarised. The background to that restoration (including the origin and reason for the Norwegian interest in the church) should be mentioned. Meowy 02:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

1. I agree, but we should also explain that the only person challenging the location of Gis is Karapetian. Actually, this is what is done in the current version of the article.
2. We can use those sources, but we need to find original documents, and not Karapetian’s interpretations. I never had any problems with the original sources.
3. Yes, most probably the church was built for udi people who inhabited the region, and it was a Georgian church according to Storfjell. If you look at it, it looks nothing like Armenian church. Whether there was an older church at that location is a subject for dispute, but the existing building was constructed between 10-12 centuries. If we have any proper reference that at certain point this church was Armenian, this could be mentioned as well, but we need to know exactly when this church was Armenian? It was not originally built as such. And I agree that "Armenian church", "Georgian church" express architectural styles/trends and not ethnicity, because the region was inhabited by udi people.
4. I agree
5. I agree that Norwegian research should be included, but the original research about “origin and reason for the Norwegian interest in the church” should be kept out of the article. It is not relevant to the church and is a personal interpretation. --Grandmaster 05:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

But still should there not be some mention of why some people want to cast it and other churches in the area as Armenian? And why Armenian inscriptions were allegedly erased? Based on what has been written before on this page, it seems to me that the dispute is not solely about "the location of Gis" but about other churches in the area and whether they were Armenian or not. I don't think a long discussion of this is appropriate here. That discussion probably belongs somewhere else with a link to it from this article.

Am I being an ignoramus again? I think the above arguments capture Hetoum I's perspective. It seems to me that he was arguing that Azerbaijanis were attempting to erase the memory of Armenian presence in this land. Did I get that right? And, if so, is it a legitimate argument?

--Richard 06:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

This is would be an original research. There's no controversy around this church documented by any reliable source. If we are to draw our own parallels, this would be our own interpretation. It would be Ok to do so if any controversy surrounding this church was documented by some reliable source, but we don't have any. No inscriptions were erased in this particular church during restoration. The argument of the Armenian side that Azerbaijanis tried to erase Armenian presence in this land is not related to Kish and is only promoted by one source, which is Armenian scholar Karapetian. Third party sources do not support the claim that the church had anything to do with Armenians. So we can only quote Karapetian and attribute his position to him. Grandmaster 06:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I stand corrected. --Richard 08:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Meowy, Karapetian is a definite no-go, and this has nothing to do with racism. Research made by historians described by third party as radical Armenian nationalists are simply not the best choice when it comes to controversial topics like this one, i.e. that remain a matter of huge debate between the Armenian and Azerbaijani academia. Parishan 07:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster, can you merge Meowy's five points with your five points into a single combined proposal and see if everybody can agree to it? I worry that Hetoum I has not expressed an opinion yet and since he was one of the edit warriors that led to this page being protected, it would be good to get him to sign on to any consensus that is agreed upon. His most recent edit on Wikipedia was on July 15th. Perhaps he is away.

--Richard 08:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Please see below:

1. The legendary origin of the church and the tradition attached to it should be detailed, but with the note that Armenian researcher Karapetian challenges the identification of Gis with Kish. If there are more sources casting doubt on this identification, they should be mentioned as well.

2. The history of the church should be detailed. All periods of the history should to be mentioned if information is available. The information should be based on reliable sources.

3. The probability that the church was built for and used by the Udi people should be clearly expressed. If there are reliable sources to support this, some way should be found to express the fact that the church has had multiple identities, with detailing the time and specifics of each.

4. There should be a proper architectural description of the church. Part of this could be got from the various articles by Storfjell.

5. The recent excavation and restoration should be mentioned, and results of the excavation summarized.

--Grandmaster 10:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

As Richard has said, I don't do "gentle tones". Grandmaster's start again solution seems to contains nothing more than his usual stuff. Words like "if there are reliable sources" in reality mean "if the sources support what I want the article to contain" - for this discussion it means we are back where we started. His desire to exclude all the sources cited by Karapetian continues to be unjustified. Follow his method of thinking and all information from Azerbaijan International should also be excluded given that it a mouthpiece of Azerbaijan. Look at their page on Karabagh for example [12]. A neutral website would give lots of links for 'More on Nagorno-Karabakh', but azer.com gives only one, a pro-Azerbaijan site hosted in Azerbaijan. Look at the refugee page and see what is at the top: an article by Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev! Look at the very bottom of this page [13]. Azerbaijan International's editor, Betty Blair, involved in lobbying on behalf of Azerbaijan together with a blatant lie (the US actually gives large quantities of aid to Azerbaijan for humanitarian purposes, and the only restriction by Congress is that the amount given must match that given to Armenia). That is just a few examples of the many that can be found on their website. But I am NOT advocating excluding all information from azer.com - facts can be true regardless of the alignment of the source. If a particular point is false I will argue against that specific point and will not advocate a blanket exclusion (unlike Grandmaster with his anti-Karapetian obsession). Meowy 23:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

About the comments made by Grandmaster before his 5 points. The church obviously does have an Armenian connection. It was used by members of the Armenian Church in the 19th century, and at that time its congregation had Armenian names and identifed themselves as being Armenian. The latter point is significant because it contrasts with the Armenian Church congregation at nearby Nij. There, the congregation were quite insistant that they were not ethnic Armenians, but Udi, and objected to the heavy-handed control of Etchmiadzin [14]. The Kish church would have continued in use as an Armenian church until its abandonment (which happened in the Soviet period, I guess). The "restoration" deliberately set out to remove evidence of this period of use by destroying the raised bema of the church. A raised bema is seen by some as a characteristic of Armenian churches, and they claim that Georgian churches have a much lower bema. In other words, the bema was destroyed by the restorers to remove what they saw as an Armenian connection. This destruction actually breaks several articles of the UN's International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites. Information about the origin and reasons for the Norwegian interest in the church is not original research and has not been re-interpreted by me. It comes from public statements made in the same sources that Grandmaster seeks to use (such as azer.com). Meowy 23:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

First, we do not refer to what azer.com personnel wrote, we refer to the article by Storfjell. Whether azer.com is neutral or not is another matter, but in this case we only refer to the Norwegian scholar who published an article there. We do not mention the opinion of azer.com. As I said before, the Norwegian scholar is a third party source, and there’s no documented bias of this person in the regional issues. As for your claims of “destruction”, do you have any reliable sources to support your claim that something was destroyed during restoration in Kish? Note that we talk about Kish and not any other place. Grandmaster 06:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The article is not by Storfjell - the article is, to quote azer.com's own words, "an interview with J. Bjornar Storfjell". I will have to withdraw my comment about the apse because I cannot give a source for it. I read about the removal of the original apse floor and its replacement with a lower one in an Azeri news report about the opening. Unfortunately, I cannot now locate this report on the internet. A picture of the new version of the apse can be seen here [15]. The floor is entirely new, and the altar depicted in the pre-restoration church photos has been destroyed, but the height of the apse floor not shown in the photo. Meowy 16:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it is an interview with the Norwegian scholar, still it reflects the opinion of the scholar and not the newspaper. And the rest is original research. --Grandmaster 04:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I was going to start the suggestions for the entry's content by working on what would be the least contentious part of the proposal: giving an architectural description of the church based on the published photos. However, Grandmaster's above comments suggests that even that would be unacceptable to him since he counts describing what is shown in a photograph as "original research". Is he correct, and is there a Wikipedia policy on this? Meowy 16:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I have unprotected the article. Please try to edit within consensus and without edit-warring. I recommend the WP:BRD approach. If someone reverts your edit, take it to the Talk Page and work it out instead of re-reverting and inviting an edit war.

As for the question of describing what is in a photo, I am not aware of a policy that treats with this specifically. However, I don't claim to have all the policies memorized.

I am also hampered by not knowing what the photo is or what the proposed description is.

However, here are some broad, abstract guidelines that I would suggest...

I think the commonsense approach is to limit captions to what is incontrovertibly true e.g. "a photo of the Church of Kish". If the origin of the architectural elements are disputed, then it is unhelpful to have a caption that says "The Church of Kish which has Armenian architectural elements". Equally, having a caption which claims that Armenian inscriptions have been removed is likely to raise an objection. In general, the caption should not assert anything that is an interpretation of the picture unless the interpretation is uncontroversial. If it can be agreed that there are some people who consider the architectural elements to be Armenian, then the caption or text can say "photo of the Church of Kish showing architectural elements which are claimed by some to be Armenian in origin" or, even better, "photo of the Church of Kish showing the architectural elements whose origin is disputed". You get the idea.

--Richard 17:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let’s try adding the description of church. But may I suggest that you base it mostly on the description of Storfjell, as it is verifiable info? Or propose your alternative version, and we discuss it. Grandmaster 04:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

A lot of Storfjell's description is just wrong - like the bit where he says it "in North Syria, there are more than a hundred churches that bear close resemblance to this one in Kish that were constructed between the 4th and 7th centuries". A comment like that would send anyone who actually knows the region into fits of laughter! Nowhere in Syria or Cappadocia will you find a church looking like Kish from that period! Meowy 17:07, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

How about this for the architectural description?

The Kish church stands alone in an open area. Although it was originally part of a monastery, none of the monastery buildings have survived.

The style of architecture found in the Kish church is common throughout the Transcaucasus region.

The Kish church has a rectangular nave that ends in a semicircular apse slightly narrower than the nave. Above the eastern half of the nave is a dome supported on a cylindrical drum with 6 windows. On the outside, the dome has a steeply pitched octagonal conical roof. The apse is semicircular internally and externally, and has a single window. Before the restoration the apse contained a stone-built altar that stood on a raised chancel one metre higher than the floor of the nave. During the 2000 excavation it was discovered that this chancel floor had originally been between 30 and 40 cm high, and had been raised at a later period to its current height. The only entrance to the church is a small, arched doorway in the west façade.

The church is built out of rubble masonry and has few architectural details; cut stone is restricted to window frames and the doorway. The interior walls were plastered but had no frescos. The exterior walls were also rendered: this coating was renewed during the recent restoration.

At the top of the exterior north and south facades, in line with the dome, is a pedimented gable. As commented on by Storfjell, the purpose of this feature appears have been to make the church resemble a grander-looking building with a free-cross plan, such as can be found in larger churches in the Transcaucasus region. Meowy 19:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

NB, I have used the neutral word "Transcaucasus" rather than, for example Armenia/Georgia. Storfjell incorrectly uses the phrase "cross-in-square" in his interview here [16]. A "cross-in-square" plan is actually one in which a cross-shaped interior is inscribed within a square exterior. The gables on the Kish church are there to make it resemble a "free-cross" plan, where a cross-shaped interior is openly reflected in the exterior facade. Meowy 19:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

My concern is that we should not make any original research that may lead the reader astray and reflect our personal opinion. So we need sources with regard to the following:

Although it was originally part of a monastery, none of the monastery buildings have survived.

According to Storfjell:

Evidence also seems to indicate that the building was a small country church, only used by the people who lived in the village. Kish is still a living village today. "We found very little jewelry except for a few bronze pieces. This tells us about the general economy of the area," Storfjell says. "There's no evidence of mosaics on the floor; it was probably made of stone or just plaster. Perhaps there was a monastery complex associated with the church, as was often the case with churches in the 5th to 7th centuries." [17]

So it is not certain that there was a monastery, but it is possible. Wording needs to be corrected.

This one is also dubious:

Before the restoration the apse contained a stone-built altar that stood on a raised chancel one metre higher than the floor of the nave.

From what I can see Storfjell says nothing about removal of altar. Otherwise the description is good, it may just need a few more tweaks and clarifications.

Storfjell inclines to think that the church was Georgian, due to its architectural features and the fact that the region was under the Georgian dominion (indeed, it is located on the border with Georgia and much closer to Georgia than Armenia) and that Georgian priest to this day conduct services there. According to Storfjell:

Since the architecture of the apse of the original church in Kish suggests a diophysite Christology, and since the Georgian Church was the only diophysite church existing in the Caucasus in the late medieval period, it seems reasonable to suggest that the Kish church was built as a Georgian church and was later taken over by monophysites. The remaining three radiocarbon dates also seem to favor such an interpretation.

It is also interesting that Karapetian to a certain extant reluctantly supports this:

Kish Monastery and the Georgians. It is generally accepted in Georgian historiography that in the 10th century the population of Kish converted to the Georgian Orthodox Church. It is also alleged that between the 10th and 11th centuries, those very people built Sourb Astvatzatzin Church which later turned into the residence of the Georgian bishop, functioning till the 17th century. According to Georgian historians, the Armenian newcomers took possession of the sanctuary only between the 1850s and 60s. [18]

Grandmaster 06:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Most Transcaucasian churches in the early medieval period were connected to monasteries. They were not built as congregational churches - such things did not exist outside of towns - which is why the churches are so small in size. Storfjell's assertion that the Kish church was a "small country church, only used by the people who lived in the village" would have been true for the 19th century, but not for the period when the church was built. And there are references that mention it was part of a monastery - the medieval Georgian sources for example. I got some of the description from looking at photographs - you can see the original altar [19] in the photo with the Georgian priest. The altar is gone in this post-restoration photo [20]. I agree that the possible reason (difference in monophysite/diophysite rites) why the apse was raised should be given. BTW, I made a mistake - the old exterior rendering wasn't renewed during the recent restoration, it seems to have been removed. Meowy 17:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, if you look at the top photo here [21] you can see that the altar has been removed. Its replacement as pictured here is an explicit statement of the Azeri state's position that the Kish church is "Caucasian Albanian" - if you look at it carefully, you can see it is a reproduction of this design. Meowy 17:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is the problem we have here. What you are trying to do is called original research, which is not allowed here. Interpretation of photographs, maps, etc is also an original research. See this from WP:NOR:

An edit counts as original research if it does any of the following:

* It introduces an argument, without citing a reputable source for that argument, that purports to refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position;

* It introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source;

This is what you do. We can only refer to the arguments made by some published reputable source. The same about your assertions about Storfjell. If what you say have already been published in some reliable source, you can use it as an argument and include that opinion in the article. But drawing conclusions from a synthesis of facts published in other sources is an OR. As for the description of the church, I agree with everything except for the part about removal of altar, which is OR, so we can add that to the article if you wish. We can make progress gradually by agreeing on certain parts and adding them to the article. Also, maybe we should ask for the third opinion once again, for example via RfC? Grandmaster 04:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In that case, all I have to do is cite the particular published photograph? I'm not interpreting a photograph to the extent of producing original research, I'm just describing what it shows. Saying that in photo X there is an object, and in photo Y it is not there - that is just descriptive. Meowy 20:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It is an OR, as you interpret the picture. You can only add a general description, like "Frontal view of the building", but drawing any conclusions from photos is OR, unless you cite a published source which does that. I for one am not sure that the pictures show the same location within the church. Whatever we add to the article needs to have a source. Grandmaster 07:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability

The problem again and over again is notability. We have a nationalist Armenian source, and a pseudoarcheologist interviewed in azer.com and some church stationed in Azerbaijan. If there is no relevent materials on the subject which are credible, or notable, it means the coverage of is not notable and up for deletion.

We know the Kish church exist, we know it was used by Armenians up to one time. The rest is a speculation, all the mythologies on the church like being the first in the Caucasus are speculations not published in peer reviewed publications. Probably the church was used up to one time by Albanians, and either build by Armenians or Georgians, from the design it seem a Georgian church. But of course this will be an original research. The fact of the matter is that we can sit here talk about this, and turn once more into an endless discussion, and end point is that, there is no relevent material at least not for now.

Either we remove everything which is not from a notable credible source, which will mean almost nothing will remain in the article, or submit it for deletion. This is going by policy. Anatolmethanol 21:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

A lot of the above reflects my initial thoughts on first seeing the Church of Kish page. "Better this page had never been created, because its existence just gives a platform for the propagation of propaganda", I thought. However, to wipe the entry clean now, after so much time and so many words have been expended, does seem wasteful, to put it mildly. Though, even if it were wiped, for myself the process has been useful because I learnt a lot about the malign influences of the Norwegian Church in this region,(and indeed about the malign influences of the Norwegian Church in Norway!), stuff that I would otherwise never have known about. And if the entry is deleted, this talk page MUST remain. Meowy 16:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think that you can accuse people of being pseudoarchaeologists without any third party references. J. Bjørnar Storfjell, Ph.D., is formerly professor of archaeology at Andrews University in Michigan (1980-1999), and is qualified to conduct the researches in places like Kish. I provided third party references about Karapetian, even if it was obvious from the very nature of his website that it was a nationalistic one. If you believe that Storfjell is not a good specialist, you need to provide some reliable evidence to support such claim. Other than you, who else thinks so? Grandmaster 06:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thor Heyerdahl is generally accepted to have been a pseudo-archaeologist of the worst sort. Storfjell's close association with Heyerdahl is not, in itself, a reason to also call Storfjell a pseudo-archaeologist. However, Storfjell was the head of Heyerdahl's two archaeological expeditions to the sea of Azof to find evidence to back up Heyerdah's Odin theory (a theory that has been dismissed as being entirely based on pseudo-archaeology and pseudo-history). This, together with the fact that Storfjell heads the Thor Heyerdahl Research Centre, leads to the inevitable conclusion that he also believes in the Odin theory. Storfjell's opinions as contained in the various azer.com articles also indicate he does not have much knowledge of the region and the cultures he is working in. For example, I've already pointed out his mistake in using the term "cross-in-square", and no-one who knows the architecture of the region would ever have said the "architectural style suggests that the Kish church might be earlier" than the 7th century. [22] Before becoming involved with Azerbaijan, Storfjell's career was at Andrews University, an educational establishment adhering to the Seventh-day Adventist sect. He was part of their Theological Seminary Faculty, in a department dedicated to Biblical archaeology (a field notorious for its use of pseodo-archaeology and pseudo-history). Interestingly, he got his degree from another Seventh-day Adventist institution, Walla Walla College in Washington State. Meowy 16:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)