Talk:Muntasir Billah Brigade

No proper source for "division" rename

As long as only a Twitter account (which might or might not be linked to the group) is used as source for this unit officially calling itself "division", the is no ground for change. The only other source for "division" I found is yenisafak, a often unreliable site whose translations are usually somewhat wacky. The unit is still called "Liwa al-Muntasir Billah" or "Muntasir Billah Brigade" in almost all sources from 2017, including by experts such as Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, SOHR, Heise (a German news site), stj-sy, and the European Asylum Support Office. Even pro-Turkish sources like TRTWorld still call it by that name. Applodion (talk) 13:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

While there is little in the way of English-language reporting using "division" as opposed to "brigade," the military unit in question is a relatively obscure Syrian group with minimal English-language coverage to begin with, opening the door for inconsistency and unreliability. It would be prudent to expand the search to Turkish- and Arabic-language media, in order to conclusively determine its most recent and agreed-upon name.

Turkish sources seem to strongly prefer "Muntasir Billah Tümeni" in recent years, as evidenced by articles from Sabah, Yeni Akit, Haber7, Kanal5, Vatan, and Anadolu Agency. Sources using Firqah al-Muntasir Billah in Arabic include Enab Baladi, Al-Araby, and Hawar News.

While Al-Tamimi provides the name of the group as Liwa (Brigade), this is seemingly a mistake, considering the reference he uses to do so actually supports changing the name of the article to Division. In a twist of irony, he links a screenshot (see below) of a Tweet from the aforementioned @MuntasrBillahTR Twitter account. While you called the account's legitimacy into question, he was confident it was linked to the group, giving more credence to my edit. The Turkish word "Tümeni" and the Arabic word "Al-Firqah" are both seen in the screenshot; alternative designations of a Muntasir Billah Brigade are not present. The newer "division" logo appears twice.

The European Asylum Support Office's reliability on these matters is immediately put into question as it counts Muntasir Billah among the "most powerful and influential armed groups in the SNA" and claims that it is based in Jarabulus rather than Al-Rai (Cobanbey).

Will hold off on unnecessarily revising the article until the dispute is resolved in this Talk page.

Note: I am forbidden from directly linking Al-Tamimi's screenshot as I originally intended, as he used an image hosting website which is on Wikipedia's blacklist. Nevertheless, it is easily accessible through his article you have already linked.

Cheers

IvanSidorenkoSG (talk) 15:24, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@IvanSidorenkoSG: Thank you for providing these sources, although I have to admit that I am still unsure. Your argument about the Twitter account being official makes sense, and the sources you provided do show a prevalence in Turkish. However, the case does seem to be less clear-cut in Arabic. Briagde is still used by enabbaladi, Smart News, Jesr Press, Al Ghad. I found that the Arabic version of Hawar, and alaraby, and others use "division". Overall, I think that the best solution might be to use both titles in the lede, but still keep the article name as "Muntasir Billah Brigade" due to the prevalence of English media using that name. In that case, the lede would be something like this "The Muntasir Billah Division (translations), commonly known by its original name Muntasir Billah Brigade (translations), ... [etc]". What do you think? Applodion (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Applodion: Your proposal for the lede seems ideal for now, as long as media use of the name remains inconsistent. I don't know what would make the most sense for the article title, so I'll accept whatever you think best based on your experience. One little suggestion for the lede: maybe "also known" (or something along those lines) would be more appropriate than "commonly known," as this unit doesn't really seem to be too commonly known or reported on to begin with.

Cheers

IvanSidorenkoSG (talk) 12:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Alright, I will change the lede accordingly. It is high time to update the article anyway (using, among others, the sources we collected here); I will try to find the time to do so in the next days. Applodion (talk) 13:08, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I have added a note as well. For the future, I think that it might be best to add an etymology section to discuss the confused naming. Applodion (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)