Talk:Shusha/Archive 8

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Protected edit request on 23 April 2021

Dear all, I have some questions. The information reg Other sources suggest that Shusha served as a town and an ancient fortress in the Armenian principality of Varanda during the Middle Ages and through the 18th century.[11][12][13][14] It was one of the two main Armenian cities of the Transcaucasus and the center of a self-governing Armenian principality, the Melikdoms of Karabakh, from medieval times through the 1750s.[15] has 5 citiations. Three of them (11,12,13) don't confirm it, they don't note or remind a.m.idea. The ciiations 14 and 15 are not reliable source at all. At least, note that "this source says...", or "according to ....", or remove the first three citations don't match the sentances. it's definitly uncorrect. --Aydin mirza (talk) 04:21, 23 April 2021 (UTC) Aydin mirza (talk) 04:21, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

I cannot check 1st source. It would be good if someone who has access could provide a quote. Second one says "состоитъ старинная крепость, которая имъ обманомъ взята", i.e. "there's an ancient fortress which he took by deception". It is not clear from this source which exactly fortress is mentioned here. If Panah khan is the person meant by this source, he had 3 fortresses. So this source should be removed, it is too vague. Third one says: Melik Shahnazar, cunning in his evil deeds, called him to help him, obeyed him of his own free will and handed over his fortress. Again, it is not clear which fortress it was. To claim it was Shusha would be an original research. So these 2 sources should go. That leaves us with certain Modest Kolerov, who used to run Regnum.com and known for his pro-Armenian bias. Grandmaster 08:24, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

• • Hello. yes, I mean this information is not confirmed with so many citaings. can we remove it? --Aydin mirza (talk) 22:00, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Please, see also this in the article: According to Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi (1773–1853), the author of the Persian-language text History of Karabakh,[43] one of the most significant chronicles on the history of Karabakh in 18th-19th centuries, the Karabakh nobility assembled to discuss the danger of invasion from Iran and told Panah Ali Khan, "We must build among the impassable mountains such an inviolable and inaccessible fort, so that no strong enemy could take it." Melik Shahnazar of Varanda, who was the first of the Armenian meliks (dukes) to accept the suzerainty of Panah Ali Khan and who would remain his loyal supporter, suggested a location for the new fortress.

In this case Mirza Jamal Javanshir is the main source for current information. he, also Raffi, doesn't note Melik Shahnazar as "armenian melik"(maybe I don't miss it in the book,pls, note where can I find it). so, if there is his idea, should be done as he says. some origins of Karabakh meliks dinasties discovered, but some of the not. there is one dinasty by Raffi was udin, not armenian. so, pls, see it and advice. --Aydin mirza (talk) 22:21, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose Source 11 confirms this information again later on pages 29 and 291. Here is another source confirming the fortress being discussed in sources 12 and 13 is Shushi.[1] Sources 14 and 15 are perfectly reliable, and negative reviews from trustworthy sources are needed to claim otherwise. I cannot see page 133 of source 11, but considering this new user is 0–4 in verifiability, I would not take their word for it. Here are additional sources confirming the fortress being discussed in sources 12 and 13 is Shushi.[2][3][4][5] Source 11 also confirms the "...through the 1750s" part source 15 is cited for on page 364. --Steverci (talk) 00:05, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

There is also "In the territory of Varanda lies the modern town of Shushi (or Shusha)." Transcaucasian Boundaries By John Wright, Richard Schofield, Suzanne Goldenberg page 94 Maidyouneed (talk) 01:07, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Those sources do not state that Shusha existed before it was founded by Panah khan. And as I said before, 2 primary sources that do not mention Shusha by name cannot be used, sources must explicitly confirm the claim, and we are not allowed to do our own interpretation of primary sources. It would be an OR. Grandmaster 08:28, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello, all. Dear User:Steverci, reg a.m. citiations (11,12,13,14), I think there is misunderstanding. I mean some citiations don't confirm that it's Shusha, others don't verify that Shusha was served as a town and an ancient fortress in the Armenian principality of Varanda. Probably, it was private for Shahnazar. but in any case it faces to another idea accepting by many reliable sources that the fortress Shusha was built by Panah-khan and in 1752. so it was Karabakh Khanate already. in this case, with these sources exactly, correct expression is "there is a opinion..." or "acoording to ...". there is no way to say it as fact.

11 - says and confirms that Shusha was built by Panah-khan, even with melik Shakhnazar sharing, in the middle of 18 century. it means that the period established of Karabakh khanate. this expression is wrong. 12 - is nothing about Shusha, it's unknow what the author means. which fortress? there were a few in Karabach. I wrote all part in old-Russian, nothing exact. 13 - it has info about Shusha but not in citiation, firstly (should be added). secondly, again we talk about the period already Karabakh khanate. it's not correct to talk (and more that 1 time) about the regions' name, instead of political structure that was already found. 14 - it's the same as 13, as I told you before in Russian - no word about it. and why the citiation? reg 14 and 15 non-reliable source - I made mistake, 14- repeat 13. as reg to 15 - it's opinion, it is not fact, so, pls, the expresion should be change, like "according to .." you note 28https://books.google.de/books?id=EKhXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA29&redir_esc= . with all respect, Shaghen Mkrtschan can't be reliable source, there is no information concerning even his education. now everubody write the books, but reliability should be proved. another link 30 https://books.google.de/books?id=OUlnYdOHJ3wC&pg=PA74&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false . sorry again, but the information is desired depends on the author. Hope, you understand know what I mean. this sentance should be removed, or changed and correct refflexed the information. Please, pay attention to this part of article: The first available demographic information about the city in 1823 suggest that the city had an Azerbaijani-majority,[16] however, the number of Armenian inhabitants of the city steadily grew over time until the destruction of Armenian quarter of the city in 1920 by Azerbaijani forces, which resulted in the death or expulsion of the Armenian part of the population. I understand if there is the note about it, when during the war we can see deportation definite group of nation from definite place. But here is the beginning of 20 century, when there were fightings from all sides. in the same time there is enough the same information in the same time in the same places from azeri side. so, pls, we should change the sentance. for example, "in the result of ethnic fightings in Kaukasus region in 1920 the number of armenian inhabitants became less ..or descreased..". you can correct the style. But please, this provocative expression, that is not acceptable in encyclopedy project. --Aydin mirza (talk) 09:13, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Dear User talk:Grandmaster, any developments? can we make any changes? we discuss, but how could we edit? --Aydin mirza (talk) 20:45, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

As you can see, it was demonstrated here that sources claiming existence of the city before 1752 are not reliable. Therefore the claim should be removed, or better sources requested. Sources cited by Steverci actually do not disprove that it was founded in 1752, they just claim that the city was founded by Panah khan together with Melik Shahnazar, or on the latter's property. That does not mean that the city existed before 1752, quite the contrary. And it is not possible to equate generally accepted fact that the city was founded in 1752 with marginal views that the city existed before. According to WP:WEIGHT, a minority view cannot get equal coverage and weight with the majority view. Grandmaster 07:51, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done – when using the edit request template, please mention specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and establish a consensus for the alteration first. You can read the guidance for using edit requests here. Jr8825 • Talk 15:17, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

thank you, I 'll see. and may be back to you again. Aydin mirza (talk) 04:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I think we should start by removing sources 12 and 13, because as discussed above, they do not mention the town of Shusha by name. Grandmaster 08:14, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose removing because these are still valuable sources, referring to the same information as other sources such as sources 35 and 36 which do refer to it by name. All of the above sources I linked call it by name as well. They could be replaced in the header only with the Emin and Donabédian sources. --Steverci (talk) 20:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

In that case only those sources that refer to it by name could be used, and not primary sources that make no mention of Shusha by name. Personal interpretation of a primary source is considered an WP:OR, therefore primary sources 12 and 13 cannot be used to support a claim, because we cannot make our judgement as to what a source meant when mentioning some nameless place in the region. Grandmaster 08:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 May 2021

It's shushi not shusha 49.180.140.52 (talk) 01:14, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:20, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Dear all, please, see the templates of unreliable sources. If no additions, the information with unrelieble sources or without any citations should be removed. --Aydin mirza (talk) 23:52, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Shahen Mkrtchyan

A source of Mkrtchyan attributing an etymology has been challenged on the basis of Mkrtchyan allegedly not being a historian. Per (https://www.artsakhtert.com/arm/index.php/carriage/item/21149-shahen-mkrtchyan). He was the founding director of the State Museum of History and Geography of Nagorno Karabakh, and a member of the Center for Russian-Armenian Studies (Moscow). Within Azerbaijani sources he is explicitly described as a historian (https://azertag.az/store/files/2021/APREL/04/Hesabat%202020%20eng_Layout%201.pdf p210). Note also the etymology is given with the caveat of "According to...". If the user wises nonetheless still wants to make a change here on these grounds please first get consensus, as obviously the change currently does not have approvalMaidyouneed (talk) 15:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Maidyouneed, first of all, he was direktor of museum in Nagorni Karabakh in soviet time, not founder. second, he's not historian. and applying in this case to azerbaijan sources(as usually are not acceptable) at least seems funny. do you personally accept azertag.az as reliable sources? member of any Center doesn't make him historian in this case. and https://www.artsakhtert.com/arm/index.php/carriage/item/21149-shahen-mkrtchyan is also not reliable. but I understood, the rules are not to follow them, but use as it needs. Ok, I will apply to consensus. --Aydin mirza (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Header

Specifically, the full quote on the source is, "But Gabrielian said that the town of his youth is gone for ever, destroyed in a couple of days after the Armenian victory." A typical de Waal habit of using random civilians to construct the narrative he wants to create. The source dramatically claims the city was completely "destroyed", which is false, and saying "almost completely destroyed" is vague. So it's better to just put damaged. As for the detail about the 1992 majority population of the city, a very recent addition, there likely would've been no Armenians in the city at all at this point of the war, so it's not relevant, especially without actual demographic figures. --Steverci (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The source says the city was 80% destroyed. That means that it was almost completely destroyed by Armenian forces and looters. Not much of it was left. Quote: After a battle that lasted less than 24 hours, the Azerbaijanis abandoned their last stronghold in Karabakh almost intact. However, Armenians came in and set the town on fire. Ten years on, at least 80 per cent of Shusha is still in ruins. And the same source says that town had more than 90% Azerbaijani majority. I see no reason for removing that, considering that demographic figures are provided further in the article. Grandmaster 08:06, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

We can say exactly per cited source that 80% of the town was destroyed. This gives the precise extent of the damage and idea how bad it was. Brandmeister^talk 16:07, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. Saying that it was just "damaged" does not give any idea about the extent of the damage. Grandmaster 18:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Calling "damaged" something that sources claim as either "destroyed" or "almost completely destroyed" is blatant whitewashing. As for De Waal's estimate, he is considered a reliable source on the conflict so there is nothing controversial about relying on his wording (unless you are able to come up with a counter-argument in the form of another reliable source or a book review that would criticise De Waal's way of describing the destruction of the city).

How does this edit suggest that Azerbaijanis had already been the majority in the city? I am not able to follow the logic when you say "there likely would've been no Armenians in the city at all at this point of the war"? What do you mean by "likely" and how should a reader be expected to understand what is "likely"? Parishan (talk) 21:46, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The source actually says 80 percent is in ruins many years later, which could just be buildings neglected due to not as many people living there. de Waal wasn't actually there during the war, and he has been accused of being pro-Azeri. Another source claiming 80 percent would be needed to give such an exact figure. "Almost completely destroyed" sounds more like 99 percent. Perhaps "heavily damaged" could be used instead, as my original edit stated. By this point in the war, all of the Armenians in Shushi would've been killed or forced to leave, so it makes no sense to mention demographics like that. And the same paragraph already uses the phrase "Azerbaijani-majority", writing that constantly is just agenda pushing. And saying "Azerbaijani majority" again is redundant because the paragraph already says "the city mainly fostered a mixed Armenian–Azerbaijani population" and "the death or expulsion of the Armenian part of the population". --Steverci (talk) 16:15, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Building do not get destroyed by more than 80% because of neglect. It only happens because of deliberate destruction, as described in the source. The source says "still in ruins", i.e. same as it was after Armenians set it on fire. And Shusha had more than 90% Azerbaijani population, mixed or whatever does not explain demographic situation at that point in time. So it should be written exactly as in source, without personal interpretations. Grandmaster 13:18, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Arguments like "could just be" and "sounds more like" are WP:OR. We as editors are not entitled to project our personal impressions of what reliable sources say onto articles. Who accuses De Waal of being "pro-Azeri"? Please cite negative peer reviews of his work, otherwise these accusations have zero value. De Waal is perfectly qualified to make such statements: he is a specialist in conflictology who remains one of the most widely-cited references (if not the most) for the history of this conflict, and yes, he did visit Shusha as part of his research. If uses the word "destroyed" (and not "damaged", as you suggest) and talks about 80% of the city lying in ruins, there is no reason not to use that wording in this article.

I still do not see how the expulsion of Armenians in 1920 undoes the necessity to mention that in 1992, Shusha was an Azeri-majority town? How are the two interrelated? The fact that Shusha was Azeri-majority in 1992 over seventy (!) years after the Armenian-Azerbaijani war of 1920 cannot be concluded from any of the preceding sentences; furthermore, it remains an important detail showing that the Armenian separatist movement affected not only Armenian-majority but also Azeri-majority localities. Parishan (talk) 18:05, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Saying "almost completely destroyed" is original research, just saying it was damaged is not. If we're going to repeat that Azeris were the majority, why not repeat that it was due to the Armenian quarter being massacred as well? Mentioning the city's demographics a second time is not relevant to the writing and is just agenda pushing.

de Waal avoided calling the Armenian Genocide a genocide until around 2012. He has a long reputation of both falsifying and censoring information to create a false balance to the benefit of Azerbaijan.[6] He likely gets funding from the British government if his work promotes their interests, which is pro-Turkey (and by extension, pro-Azerbaijan). He's just a journalist, not a historian or any kind of expert by any means. A lot of his writing is sensationalist journalism, with the source being an example, which is very reliable. Per WP:UNDUE, if 80 percent was a widely held figure, it should be no issue to find a (I won't say "another") neutral and reliable source with that as well.

Also, I just noticed that the source says the burning was not caused by the Armenian forces during the capture, it was caused by Armenian civilians from Stepanakert afterward because Azeri forces had been bombing their residential areas for months. de Waal even specifies the burning came after the capture. If the city's damage is mentioned in header at all, should say it was done by Armenian citizens after months of Azerbaijani forces bombing Stepanakert from Shushi. --Steverci (talk) 00:04, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

80% destruction is almost complete devastation. There's no way to downplay it. If you wish, we can write that the city was destroyed by 80%. De Waal is a top international expert on Karabakh, and there's no serious criticism of his work. And he does not say that the city was destroyed by people of Stepanakert because of shelling. The source says: Armenians came in and set the town on fire. After Armenian forces captured the town, hundreds of people swarmed into it, looting and burning. Only Armenian commander Tatevosyan mentions people of Stepanakert, but he says they burnt the city to prevent Azeris from returning to their homes: "The [Armenian] Karabakhis have a very bad habit, a superstition, of burning houses, so the enemy cannot return," said Ter-Tatevosian. Grandmaster 08:39, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

"Mentioning the city's demographics a second time is not relevant to the writing and is just agenda pushing". There is no "second time". You removed the only existing reference to Azeris being the majority. This is agenda pushing. Parishan (talk) 20:39, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

After looking into the matter, I discovered there is an almost 60 page long criticism of de Waal, exposing his false balance and pro-Azeri writing. It is written by Dr. Christian Kolter, who wrote a dissertation on post-Soviet territorial conflicts (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Artsakh). From 2006 to 2015, Kolter was a research assistant at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig, where he researched post-Soviet urban development, geopolitics, energy policy, and the demography. Essentially, Kolter is the expert that financial donors and organizations with economic interests in Azerbaijan have tried to paint de Waal as. If de Waal is the lone source for something, it's WP:UNDUE. --Steverci (talk) 00:09, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Kolter himself has strong connections to Armenia, and is not a well-known expert on the subject. De Waal is a top internationally renown expert on the subject. And this is de Waal's own comment on this guy: [7] Grandmaster 09:07, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

For a review to be taken seriously it needs to be published in an academic journal and not by "Deutsch-Armenische Gesellschaft", which openly declares "the keeping of the interests of Armenians living in Germany" as one of its missions; and preferably by an established scholar (which is why it is called a peer review) and not someone without a clear affiliation and cited almost exclusively by Armenian websites. Parishan (talk) 02:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Not at all. de Waal is often cited for interviews and tweets, and he never wrote anything academic in his life. There's no problem citing a of his book review. The President of the Armenian Academy of Political Research criticizing de Waal proves there's a significant due weight for criticism of de Waal from the Armenian side. And the Azeri side always insisting on de Waal's credibility only further confirms his bias. De Waal is funded by International Crisis Group, which is based in Turkey and has been accused of being anti-Armenian. So Kolter doing research in Stepanakert doesn't de-legitimize him in any way. --Steverci (talk) 20:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Never wrote anything academic? For your information, De Waal has authored four large monographs, three of which were published by Oxford University Press, one of the most renowned academic publishing companies in the world. The only sources accusing him of impartiality are highly partisan themselves, not to mention them not having sufficient academic authority to criticise him. I can cite a dozen of dubious Azerbaijani sources that describe, say, Bournoutian as highly biased and dismiss him on the grounds of there being "a significant due weight for criticism of him from the Azerbaijani side". This is not how sources are checked for credibility. I would also ask you to refrain from making arguments that even Wikipedia can verify as being not true: (1) The International Crisis Group is based in Belgium, not Turkey; (2) Thomas de Waal is working for Carnegie Europe, not the ICG; (3) There is no reliable source claiming that "the Azeri side always insists on de Waal's credibility". Parishan (talk) 03:46, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

The primary references de Waal uses throughout his Black Garden book are his own personal recollections of random civilians he interviewed. And given that he distorted Serzh Sargsyan's interview, who knows how selective his interviews with non-public figures were. When he tries to write about historical background, he makes several falsifications and distortions, as Kolter pointed out. He's just a journalist, not an expert. Although apparently he prefers the term "senior fellow". If there's a great amount of due weight Armenian criticism of de Waal, than that's because de Waal himself is highly partisan. De Waal confesses that Black Garden is a pro-Azerbaijani book and avoided calling the Armenian Genocide a genocide until the 2012 reprint. --Steverci (talk) 01:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

There's no criticism of de Waal's work by any reliable third party source. Our personal opinions cannot be considered such sources. Grandmaster 16:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Puhleeez. As if that's even a logical argument. Just because no one has written systematic critique of De Waal's work doesn't mean that he's infallible and that you can't drive a dump truck through some of the clear holes in his arguments. He's a journalist with a degree in Russian literature who in the early 2000s carried out some interviews and who now works at a think tank. That's all. That doesn't place him at all at a level above actual historians who study the Caucasus (Ohannes Geukjian's Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus is undeservedly ignored and is probably one of the best academic studies on the Caucasus -- miles ahead of De Waal). Let's try to be a little honest here. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 16:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

No no no you don’t understand, De Waal = good cause he says things I prefer. Doesn’t matter if he can be right or wrong, or why he is even attempted to be considered this untouchable “source” on Karabakh by some editors to begin with. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 17:52, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

No source is not infallible but a source cannot be discarded just on your say-so. He may have a degree in Russian literature, but he is the one published and republished by OUP, he is the one receiving awards for his reporting and he is the one interviewed as the most prominent Western expert on this conflict in addition to lack of adequate criticism of his work. There is nothing wrong with taking a published source to task but in the case of sources with well-established reliability like De Waal, criticism standards must be proportionally high. "He has holes in arguments" cannot possibly constitute valid criticism, especially when this particular point you are criticising him for is supported by other reliable sources. I may be missing something but is there anyone who says the opposite, i.e. that Shusha was left intact following its occupation? Let us, indeed, be honest here: it seems that every argument brought up against him so far in this discussion comes down to a simple "I do not like what he says". Parishan (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Like it or not, he is the top authority on the subject of South Caucasus. It is not a matter of someone's personal preference, it is just a fact. And if he is so bad, then why all the criticism comes from Armenian and Azerbaijani partisan sources, but not from outside of the region? Just because you personally don't like what he writes does not make him unreliable. Grandmaster 18:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

First of all, this subject isn’t so well known worldwide, and he isn’t a “top authority” on it. Moreover, it’s only natural that the people/sources criticizing him will mostly come from the countries he talks about, especially given the “popularity” of our region or the lack thereof. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 19:32, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, you know the rules. The reliability of a source is not established by what we personally think of it, but by what third party reliable sources say. And subject of NK and South Caucasus is not obscure. The region makes international headlines from time to time, and gets extensive coverage in international media. De Waal is one of the persons who gets interviewed the most. Plus, there's plenty of scholarly literature on the subject too. Yet the reaction to de Waal's work is mostly positive. Grandmaster 08:16, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

He can be right, and a lot of times he can create false balances, and at times have an apparent bias when discussing the topic. The issue is that he shouldn’t be considered this “untouchable source” or the “top authority” in your words. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 08:31, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Another thing is that there's plenty of photo and video evidence of what is left of Shusha after 28 years of Armenian occupation. Not much, only ruins. A couple of Khrushev era buildings and a church were renovated, and that was it. It was observed by many travelers who visited the place when it was under Armenian control. An example: [8] So what de Waal and other sources write can be easily verified by photo and video evidence. Grandmaster 18:28, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Satellite imagery of 2014 also shows almost complete destruction of the city: [9] Grandmaster 08:19, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that on a general level De Waal is a fairly reliable figure and we can cite his works. While he is a scholar, he is not a historian and he most certainly is not some specialist on urban spaces and architecture. He's imperfect and at times his analogies do indeed stretch one's imagination. He does work for a think tank, after all. I don't know if he just eyeballed it and came up with the 80% figure based on his brief visit, but it is an extraordinary claim. By all counts the fighting over Shushi in 1992 ended real quickly and did not involve a pre-bombardment with heavy artillery and aircraft, unlike in 2020 (several hundred men at most and tanks were involved). Now, after 1994 it is possible that the town grew dilapidated, but I would like to see a far more reliable source that says that city suffered deliberate destruction as a result of NKR state policy (unlikely) rather than a lack of state funds (highly likely). Once the city was repopulated and more funding arrived in the early 2000s, the town experienced a revival and there was more money to build schools and renovate older Soviet-era buildings and other structures. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 00:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

It is not just what de Waal himself said. Armenian leaders that he interviewed like Tatevosyan also confirm that Armenians burned and destroyed the town. "The [Armenian] Karabakhis have a very bad habit, a superstition, of burning houses, so the enemy cannot return," said Ter-Tatevosian. It is pretty much admitted by Armenian leaders themselves. The destruction that is clearly visible is not the result of neglect. There are videos of Armenians burning houses and mosques. Grandmaster 09:07, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, De Waal is quoting him. But anyways, burning some buildings and looting right after the capture of the town in 1992 does not, however, automatically lead one to the conclusion that in 2000-2001, when De Waal visited, that the then-current state of Shushi was a reflection of what had taken place 8 years earlier. There is no proof of that connection aside from the one that De Waal is apparently trying to make, but his evidence to support this in the book is thin, at best. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 13:12, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

There is plenty of other evidence, including photo and video evidence. Some even call what was done to Shusha in 1992 an urbicide: [10] Grandmaster 13:14, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

One more source suggesting Shusha was destroyed and not just "grew dilapidated" in the next eight years: ""for the third time, the city was destroyed when Armenian militias conquered one of the last Azerbaijani strongholds in Karabakh in a victory that is commemorated annually throughout the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on May 9. Following previous patterns, this time the Azerbaijani quarter of Shusha was looted and its cultural monuments defaced and destroyed". (Sebastian Muth (2016). "Language Removal, Commodification and the Negotiation of Cultural Identity in Nagorno-Karabakh". In: Rani Rubdy & Selim Ben Said. Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape. London: Palgrave Macmillan).

I also do not understand why De Waal's account should be regarded as an exceptional claim. No one seems to have any problem relying on De Waal and using him as the sole source to talk about "the destruction of the Armenian quarter" in 1920 in the lede of this article but when it comes to a much more verifiable claim about Shusha's destruction in 1992 in the body of the article, all of a sudden his opinion is viewed as "biased" and "exceptional". There are many confirmed instances of Armenian forces deliberately razing occupied cities to the ground, Agdam being a notable example. Parishan (talk) 18:28, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Because he isn't a historian and because most of his sources are based on interviews, which in themselves can be problematic. I think his book is invaluable, as it is a mine of information, but too often he makes glib remarks and resorts to over-stretched metaphors in order for it to fit the main thesis of his book. It's fine, it's a work of its time and its author, but he doesn't have the final say on matters when there may be other sources to be had. On the destruction of the Armenian quarter of Shushi, for example, the authority on the subject (or the person who has written the most detailed study on the subject) would be Richard Hovannisian (vol. 3 of his Republic of Armenia). His word naturally would take any precedence over that of a journalist's. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 15:54, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

An author visiting an area in 2000 need not be a historian to talk authoritatively about what happened in 1992, i.e. only eight years prior. This is not ancient history. We have plenty of journalists cited all across Wikipedia articles about the Karabakh conflict who reported on events taking place years before the reports were published. Besides, there is enough evidence from other sources to support De Waal's assertion, whether anyone finds it too flamboyant or not. Parishan (talk) 22:37, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Hovannisian is a historian, and not an expert on present day situation in the region, unlike de Waal, who did a dedicated research on the conflict and is considered a top expert on the subject. Grandmaster 08:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I attributed the claim to de Waal, so I think that should solve the problem. It is now cited as an estimate by this author. Grandmaster 16:33, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Steverci, the source literally says: "In an interview, Arkady Ter-Tatevosian, the Armenian commander who masterminded the capture of Shusha, blamed the burning of the town on aggrieved Armenian citizens living in neighbouring Stepanakert who had endured months of Azerbaijani shelling. "The [Armenian] Karabakhis have a very bad habit, a superstition, of burning houses, so the enemy cannot return," said Ter-Tatevosian." If there is proper attribution ("According to Armenian commander Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan"), what is the purpose of removing the last part of the quote? Parishan (talk) 23:11, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

I expanded that part to more accurately reflect the source and sound more encyclopedic. --Steverci (talk) 03:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC - Displaying significant alternative name "Shushi" in boldface in the lead section

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

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Wikipedia guidelines regarding names for geographical places per WP:NCGN#Alternative names and MOS:BOLDLEAD state that significant alternative names (representing 10% or more of available English literature on the place) should be in boldface in the lead section.

The inclusion and status of Armenian-language "Shushi" as a significant alternative name for this article was extensively discussed on this talk page previously: [11] [12]. In short: There is a vast amount of sourced material on this article utilizing "Shushi" and which relates to the town's Armenian history and heritage. By utilizing search engine tests for Google and Google Scholar, Shushi seems quite prominent and the results exceed 10% as WP:NCGN requires. According to WP:NCGN, search engine tests are permissible to utilize (such as for multiple local names), despite their issues as far as I've gathered.

Taking all this into account - the issue of this RfC is therefore if it's prudent to display "Shushi" in boldface in the lead section. AntonSamuel (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2021 (UTC) AntonSamuel (talk) 18:53, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• Full text regarding the relevant guidelines: WP:NCGN#Alternative names states that: "..other names, especially those used significantly often (say, 10% of the time or more) in the available English literature on a place, past or present, should be mentioned in the article, as encyclopedic information. Two or three alternative names can be mentioned in the first line of the article; it is general Wikipedia practice to bold them so they stand out." and MOS:BOLDLEAD/MOS:BOLDSYN states that: "..the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles are placed in bold".

Search engine tests - I've clarified the searches with English-language "Karabakh" to provide increased accuracy: Google Scholar: "Shushi" "Karabakh": 375 [13]; "Shusha" "Karabakh": 992 [14]; Google: "Shushi" "Karabakh": 747 000 [15]; "Shusha" "Karabakh": 697 000 [16]

I have previously added the name in boldface in the lead section on my own initiative: [17] but since there was an issue regarding the matter, an administrator advised that an RfC would be prudent so that further input from more editors could be provided to clear up the issue: [18] AntonSamuel (talk) 20:35, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• Display This is even in doubt? Of course "Shushi" should appear in boldface in the lead. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Both of the previous long discussions on this matter concluded that it'd be best to keep the Armenian name in the article, inside a {{lang}} template rather than a bold one (topic about the Armenian name's inclusion or deletion gets reopened by a different user every once a week and we really need to drop the topic already). Inclusion of the Armenian name in this fashion already follows MOS:BOLDSYN and MOS:ALTNAME, which advise putting the alternative name inside parentheses. Making it bold won't help add anything of value to the reader other than adding WP:UNDUE to an alternate name not used by the city's pre-war population. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 19:26, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

The previous discussions had to do with the matter of the inclusion of "Shushi" in any form as there were attempts to remove it from the lead and the infobox. Regarding displaying it in boldface, the current format is not in line with WP:NCGN#Alternative names and MOS:BOLDLEAD/MOS:BOLDSYN which clearly specifies what is recommended for significant alternative names for geographical places - that they should be in boldface. The argument that Shushi Armenians are not "native" to the town is your personal opinion and one which I, and many others don't share - and I wouldn't say that this represents taking a neutral stance with regard to cultural and historical narratives for the town held by Armenians and Azerbaijanis. AntonSamuel (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Shushi is a significant English name of the location, not just an Armenian name, per common usage. Just as Shusha is not just the Azerbaijani name. Neither should only just be inside a {{lang}} Maidyouneed (talk) 01:29, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Display as "Shushi" has significant use in English literature and Armenians have been city's native population with predominance in numbers more than once (including for last 30 years), forced out of their homes just a few months ago, hardly anybody resides there now apart from armed forces. Merely the fact that it is currently controlled by Azerbaijani forces does not mean the Armenian version of the name should vanish from English Wikipedia as it did in Azerbaijani Wikipedia. We can take Russian Wikipedia as an example, both Shusha and Shushi are in boldface there --Armatura (talk) 19:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• @AntonSamuel: what is your brief and neutral statement? At around 2,600 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/History and geography. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: Hey, thanks for pointing this issue out! Would you recommend that I simply trim the main text down a bit and move the rest to a response of my own below to fix it? AntonSamuel (talk) 20:17, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  You could do that. The main thing is to ensure that when Legobot next runs (21:00 UTC) it detects a significantly shorter statement. This might be a brief summary of the issue, then a signature (you can copy the existing one), then the complete statement and its signature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:29, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: I've trimmed the statement down a bit now, with the rest of the original material as a response below. I hope this solves the issue! AntonSamuel (talk) 20:39, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you that worked. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:06, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I had, in my edit comment, previously stated that I'm really sick of discussing this issue every two-to-three weeks. If one of the involved editors, despite reaching to a consensus and agreeing on the current version of the article, is going to ask the same thing two weeks later, there is no reason for us to discuss it in the first place. In this regard, yes, bolding the Armenified name of the city is undue. --► Sincerely: SolaVirum 02:13, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

The previous discussion was about the inclusion of "Shushi" in any form and its status as a significant alternative name as you removed it from the lead - so your description of a consensus to keep the current status quo from the discussion is not correct I would say and an administrator recommended this RfC since he described consensus as seeming to be unclear regarding the matter. I've presented an argument based on Wikipedia guidelines for the depiction of Shushi in boldface, if you have a reasonable policy-compliant rationale to present in opposition, I welcome your input. AntonSamuel (talk) 08:41, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Current version of the opening sentence where Armenian name is presented in parenthesis should suffice. The town has been reclaimed and is now within Azerbaijan, meaning Armenian is no longer used in the town, so WP:FALSEBALANCE applies here. For the search engine purpose, "Shushi" is already mentioned multiple times anyway. Brandmeister^talk 09:48, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:FALSEBALANCE, as I understand it, mainly concerns "minority views" or "extraordinary claims" such as conspiracy theories or pseudoscience not in line with accepted mainstream scholarship. I would argue that the relevant guidelines mentioned in the opening statement are pretty clear when it comes it being prudent for significant alternative names to be displayed in boldface. The fact that Azerbaijan has conquered the town and that it has been emptied of its Armenian population is not a valid rationale in itself for the marginalization of "Shushi" in my view. AntonSamuel (talk) 10:10, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Actually, Azerbaijan hasn't conquered it, but reclaimed the town within the country's internationally recognized borders (that is, Azerbaijan took what had legally belonged to it). This is comparable to location labels on maps which typically are in one language only, especially when a town/city is within the international borders of one country. Brandmeister^talk 14:03, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Display bold. "Shushi" occurs dozens of times in the article; the name is therefore notable for the subject. Shushi redirects to this article. Therefore, it should be bold. The only arguments against seem to insist there's a POV/DUE issue here, but I see none; it's just standard WP formatting for notable redirects. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 02:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. What is the point of suggesting that "Shushi" is on a par with "Shusha" when it is neither the official name, nor the de facto name, nor the historical name, nor a name that the local population or any of its part refers to it as? Parishan (talk) 02:30, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Even though I lean toward the oppose side and am not casting a vote one way or the other, the points listed here are absurd to the extreme. There's arguing on the merits of guidelines, and then there's the espousal of historical negationism, which, it seems, has only been reinforced on these pages since the end of the second war. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 13:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess since this comment was left directly below mine, I am supposed to be its target audience. My point may have been expressed a bit too bluntly but it remains within the scope of the guidelines. May I remind you, a veteran AA2 contributor, that the same logic was once used in a collective and highly systematic effort to rid certain articles of alternative Azeri names, branding them as "anachronistic" and "POV" (not to mention resorting to ridiculous terminological battles over whether or not the language or its writing system existed before 1918). Why should this article be any different? That the name "Shushi" does not meet the same notability requirements as the mainstream name barely raises any doubts. Parishan (talk) 15:37, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, my comments were directed at yours. As far as I'm concerned, many articles on Wikipedia pertaining to Nagorno-Karabakh are in need of a complete revamping and the attention of editors who have the professional expertise (in its full literal sense, such as historians, anthropologists, linguists, etc.), time, and resources to devote to their improvement. You ask why such discussions degenerated into such acrimony in the past - it was because more often than not editors approached the issues with less than good faith intentions. I am not exempting anyone from either side from engaging in such tactics, but if we're treating Azerbaijani national identity (as elaborated in the general studies on nationalism by Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, and historians who more specifically work on the Soviet period like Terry Martin, Ron Suny, and others) as an early twentieth-century phenomenon, then to add the spellings or incorporate them within a more general temporal framework of a "history of x" country does indeed come across as grafting an anachronistic veneer to what is recognized as a fairly recent idea. There's a much better case to be made for emphasizing the Armenian name for this article (its disputed founding, its nearly thirty-year-long period under an ethnic Armenian government) than it does on others. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

A people's national identity has nothing to do with the (non-)existence of their language. There are dozens of societies around the world where the existence of a distinct language predates by centuries the formation of the nation-state where that language eventually became official, and the two processes are rarely parallel. This does not mean that the speakers of that language did not possess distinct terminology for the concepts in question before they became a nation. This point had been demonstrated over and over, and yet the issue was deliberately brought back with every new discussion in a pathetic effort to buy time and wear the other side out. You know very well that those discussions were quite far from being inspired by "general studies of nationalism" to which you are referring (and in general, how wise is it to adapt the Christian European model of national identity to a largely Middle Eastern Islamic society, whose understanding of "identity" nurtured by a culture that discourages ethnic division is completely different; not inferior/superior/absent but simply alternative?). Those discussions were inspired by nothing but the ill-intentioned juvenile "Azerbaijan-(and everything loosely associated with it, including its language and culture)-is-younger-than-Coca-Cola" mindset, itself the very definition of historical negationism; much more so than what can supposedly be inferred from the point I have made above. Therefore, please spare me the analogies and the patronising.

The disputable origin does not favour the Armenian version of the city's history if one considers non-partisan sources, and the "almost thirty-year-old" Armenian administration has barely managed to render the alternative name half as notable. Parishan (talk) 21:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

This is not the forum to be having this discussion and I don't wish to pursue it any further here. But I am more than well versed on the Eurocentric conceptions of nationalism and its at times ill-suitability for other global cultures (so you can put that card right back into the deck). You should nevertheless know that theories on nationalism also rule out an a priori identification of a language with a certain ethnic group prior to the advent of modern nationalism. I am not at all interested in the admittedly pedantic Coca Cola references, either, but there is no doubt that a notion of a modern Azerbaijani identity did not coalesce until the early 20th century and its anachronistic backdating to previous eras on these pages is what really concerns me. Were it not for the relentless efforts of Soviet and later Azerbaijani historians to do their utmost to scrub the history of others out of this region (and to then witness it on Wikipedia) we wouldn't be having this debate, and our discussions would be more productive and engaging. But seeing the whitewashing taking place just days after the signing of the November 10 peace agreement reinforces in me the belief that diligence is necessary in order to retain the pages' dignity and reputation. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

There are many modern identities that "coalesced in the early twentieth century" both in Europe and in the Middle East, Turkey being a major example. Nevertheless no one is seen going around vigorously erasing Turkish exonyms from Wikipedia articles claiming that "there was no Turkey before 1923 but only the Ottoman Empire" and "the Latin Turkish alphabet is of no relevance because it did not exist back then". The revisionist tendencies of modern Azerbaijani historians are not an excuse to prevent any good-faith reference to anything Azeri in a pre-1918 context (even to the language, which obviously did not come about overnight in 1918 but had existed long before then and was even referred by some as such) from being duly mentioned. The formation of Azerbaijan may have been crucial in shaping the modern national identity but an Azeri ethnic mass with a identifiably distinct language, culture and forms of political organisation (whatever the names by which sources refer to them, but whose direct flesh-and-blood continuity with the modern Azerbaijani identity is undeniable) existed in the region from a much earlier time. Yet so very often, a reference to Azeris on an AA2 article would be unnecessarily scrutinised for weeks, sometimes months, in an effort to present it as bogus if the existence of the Republic of Azerbaijan was not applicable to the given context. You know very well who pedalled those discussions, and I am quite surprised that you of all users would come out here, to an AA2 discussion page, and express your bewilderment at someone else's effort to question the relevance of an alternative placename and call it "absurd". I also cannot believe that you are sincerely convinced we are only having this discussion because I partake in the efforts of Azerbaijani historians to "scrub the history of others out of this region". I am not enjoying this discussion either, Marshal Bagramyan, but it is not like you have done nothing to compel me to respond. Parishan (talk) 03:14, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I do agree with the mentioned points, presented by Parishan. Ali Ahwazi (talk) 10:47, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support Shushi is in common use, and represents much more than 10% of common usage if google search/ngrams is in any way representative. Maidyouneed (talk) 04:13, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

The 10% requirement is for showing alternative names in parenthesis, which is already the case. It does not presuppose adding an alternative name in bold. Parishan (talk) 04:37, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

The lead comment in this talk section states otherwise in support of bolding.Maidyouneed (talk) 04:54, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

I should add Shushi is significantly more usage when checking Google Ngrams by at least a factor of five. It should be bolded, if it is not the article title itselfMaidyouneed (talk) 04:54, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

That still falls under WP:FALSEBALANCE, as Brandmeister pointed out above. WP:Alternative names states that "alternative names may be used in article text when context dictates that they are more appropriate than the name used as the title of the article. For example, the city now called Gdańsk is referred to as Danzig in historic contexts to which that name is more suited (e.g. when it was part of Germany or a Free City)". In the given historical context, Shusha is a city in Azerbaijan, with no ambiguous status or irredentist population whose political position would make the name "Shushi" of any relevance in English. It made sense for the Armenian name to feature in bold before 2021 but hardly now. You do not see "Danzig" in the article Gdansk, nor "Breslau" in the article Wroclaw, nor "Kafan" in the article Kapan, despite the fact that they all show results "above 10%" on Google Scholar and what have you. Parishan (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't fall under WP:FALSEBALANCE because I am not making a claim based on neutrality, but rather common usage. Shushi is a significant name that is in common usage. Danzing does appear in the article Gdansk, and "Breslau" in the article Wroclaw; However if you feel those other pages still need to be edited differently, you should raise it there.Maidyouneed (talk) 01:18, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

"Danzig" and "Breslau" do not appear in bold. There is no reason for me to raise that question because I do not believe secondary names of little contemporary relevance should appear in bold. "Shushi" is no exception. Parishan (talk) 03:39, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

By that standard, as "Shushi" is of significant relevance, attested to by it's common usage, it should be bolded. Maidyouneed (talk) 05:39, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

By what standard? We have just established that former German names for currently Polish cities are even more prominent in English-language sources than "Shushi" is for Shusha. Yet they do not feature in the respective articles because their current relevance is not comparable to that of the official name; and much less so for "Shushi", which has gained limited notability in English only in the past two decades (or less) and is still quite far in prominence from "Shusha", a name that has been around for centuries. Parishan (talk) 05:51, 11 February 2021 (UTC) :SHu

Shushi has significant notability in English by common usage. I'll leave the Polish city edits to you. Even if we claimed that Shushi as an English term existed only in the last two decades, which I don't, we don't avoid common usage words just because they have been used for decades. Maidyouneed (talk) 06:39, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

There is no need to "leave them to me" because I do not believe those edits are required. On the contrary, I am rather curious to know why you believe "Shushi" deserves to be boldened any more than the German names of Polish cities. What exactly makes the case of "Shushi" so strong against all others? Parishan (talk) 00:56, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Common usage and the significance of the term Shushi are why it should be included and bolded, as already justified by myself (first comment in this thread) and other editors. I've repeated this several times in this thread already, and I question why you are asking what has already been answered; As it is going this discussion thread with yourself is not productive. Will I need to repeat again in the next response? I have no particular position on Polish cities, but in general if there is a significant common usage alternative name for a city it is reasonable for it to be considered for inclusion and bolding. Nonetheless see WP:OTHERCONTENT "The nature of Wikipedia means that you cannot make a convincing argument based solely on whether or not the same or similar content exists or is formatted similarly in some other page" Maidyouneed (talk) 06:29, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCONTENT is not applicable here because we are not comparing the context of two pages. We are comparing a general tendency with a particular case, and the burden of proving why the case of "Shushi" is more particular than any other one is on those who believe the name should be displayed in bold. Everything you have said so far applies to all other cases as well, and does not suggest that "Shushi" should be treated any differently. Parishan (talk) 22:35, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

You've repeatedly gave specific examples of Polish cities which you did compare against Shushi/Shusha, hence WP:OTHERCONTENT. If you are talking about the "general tendency" as I've already said "...in general if there is a significant common usage alternative name for a city it is reasonable for it to be considered for inclusion and bolding." Shushi should not be treated differently. It should be included and bolded.Maidyouneed (talk) 23:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Display Per above. The town's rich cultural history, spanning centuries, militates especially in favor of including its other, significant name in the lead. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 05:05, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

So much for "leaning toward the oppose side". No earlier than two weeks ago, I remember you suggesting that a user who had proposed to add the Azeri name to the article Yerevan let go and "move on", despite the fact that Yerevan's "history spanning centuries" included a lengthy period when it was mainly known by its non-Armenian name. Strangely, when it comes to Shusha, which throughout its "history spanning centuries" was mainly known in English by its Azeri name, no such nonchalance is exhibited. Somehow though, I am the one who gets blamed for advocating "historical negationism". Parishan (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Apples and bowling balls. I'm sorry you fail to see the distinction. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 22:35, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

And I am sorry this article is falling victim to collateral damage brought about by clumsy quests for balance. It is a shame that one needs to go this far and sacrifice common sense just so that some unrelated instances of Azerbaijani historical revisionism are not memorialised on Wikipedia. Parishan (talk) 00:09, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Display bold Google Books search results in English for Shushi are 47,000 while for Shusha only 33,700. As the more common name, being in bold for the lead should be obvious. --Steverci (talk) 02:27, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

...especially considering that 90% of your "Shushi" results refer to Shushi Gaku (Japanese Confucianist philosophy). Parishan (talk) 02:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

And many of the "Shusha" results refer to Abu Shusha and Ghuwayr Abu Shusha. --Steverci (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. So why are you using this as an argument to support your point? Parishan (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Steverci, that is very misleading. --► Sincerely: SolaVirum 10:45, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

If we search rather for Shushi Karabakh (Shushi karabakh -wikipedia) vs Shusha Karabakh (Shusha karabakh -wikipedia) we see the results of 2,090 vs 5,790 respectively. That should answer the questions of alternative meanings of Shushi/Shusha impacting the search results. This verifies Shushi is a significant name that is in common usage, so should be included and bolded. Maidyouneed (talk) 01:24, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose It is neither official, nor historical name. Grandmaster 09:15, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Display bold and comment - both options are unpalatable to one side of the conflict and I support the status quo – which, it turns out, is actually including both names in bold, as after digging through the article history I see this was the long-standing situation before it was changed last November in this (probably well-intentioned) edit by CuriousGolden. Subsequent edits have further watered down the placement of 'Shushi' (albeit subtly), and in the interest of balance I tweaked the infobox today to present both names in equal size. As I've said in previous discussions, I don't have a particular issue with this newer version: as we're using Shusha as the primary English translation I think it's fine to present Shushi as a foreign language alternative (as we're currently doing using {{lang}}, in the infobox and in the etymology section). That said, I agree there's an argument for bolding Shushi that's supportable by our guidelines on naming conventions. Basically, I think both are fine, both meet our policies and neither violates our policies. I'm reluctant to support unnecessary change in the point-scoring atmosphere of ARBAA2, especially as I believe the rationale of this RfC is a concern about Shushi being sidelined in the article, not a technical argument about style. I resorted to looking at the article history, and found there's merit in this concern. I support restoring the version from before the 2020 war (and the associated flare up of POV-pushing in the topic area), which includes both translations presented in bold in the first sentence. I'm repulsed by the arguments above suggesting that the Armenian name has no historical basis, which reiterates to me the importance of making sure that the history of Armenians in this area is not downplayed (and equally, that Azerbaijani/Turkic history is also protected from POV-pushing).

Sadly relevant:

Who cares what name you call a town? / Who'll care when you're six feet beneath the ground?

Jr8825 • Talk 21:47, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

No one was suggesting historical irrelevance. The question is whether the name is historically relevant to the English language, whether that relevance is mainly based on the city's interwar political status and whether the recent war has changed that. We are not here to publish a pamphlet or organise a public event and come up with solutions to make sure everyone keeps a smile on their face. We are here to edit an article and keep it up-to-date. When defining balance, Wikipedia rules suggest that "neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence". It is not repulsive to believe that the alternative name in this case is not equal in prominence to the common name, at least not enough to feature in bold. It is no more repulsive to believe that the use of "Shushi" in English is not a historically established phenomenon, like "Tiflis" is for Tbilisi, and was only conditioned by a political reality that is no longer applicable. Lastly, I believe that the recent war did affect the balance between the prominence of the two names in that the common name now is not only de jure but also de facto prominent, and there is no alternative basis that could continue sustaining the prominence of the less common name. What is there to feel repulsed? No one is erasing "Shushi" completely from the lead. It is still there, and it still features as the alternative Armenian name. Suggesting that those who oppose bolding it are driven by "repulsive" intentions is extemely bad-faith. Preventing POV-pushing on Wikipedia is more than fine; it is, in fact, our duty as editors. What I personally find repulsive, however, is that some apparently think it is alright to use Wikipedia as a tool to fight actuality and genuineness for the fear of offending political sensitivities of one of the sides. There are many more AA2 articles where such efforts would be much more efficient and useful. Parishan (talk) 04:09, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Except that what is common English term doesn't solely depend on the "de jure" or "de facto" ("political realities") status. While Armenia is Hayastan in Armenian, and that it is both "de jure" and "de facto" administrated by Armenian nationals, wouldn't alone justify renaming the article Armenia to Hayastan. And even if political realities as you call it, was the only criteria, there is inertia involved here. All the material that was published using the word Shushi, or indexed on google, don't just disappear like that. Hemşinli çocuk 04:59, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Your Hayastan example only proves my point. The fact that there is an Armenian-language name for a place inhabited by Armenians does not necessarily make it a prominent name in English. Contextual relevance does play a role. We have half as much English literature mentioning places in what is now Poland under their pre-1945 German names as we have them under their current Polish names but this does not justify showing the German names in bold next to the current official names. What I find particularly disturbing is that the inclusion of "Shushi" in bold seems to be advocated here by some not for its encyclopaedic merit but merely out of personal sense of unease that Azerbaijani historical revisionism is targeting the region's Armenian heritage, that somehow Wikipedia has an obligation to counter this and that artificially assigning weight to a less prominent name is justified by concerns for "the welfare of local Armenians". I find this approach in clear violation of WP:SOAPBOX. Parishan (talk) 05:37, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Parishan: "No one was suggesting historical irrelevance" – yes, they are. The argument was written right above my comment, as well as further up this discussion, and is in your comment here. It's not about making a judgement of the relative balance between the two names, because as the RfC statement points out the naming conventions policy indicates we may bold any 'significant' alternative names. The first two pages (of 543,000 results) of a 'must include' Google search for "shushi nagorno karabakh" include news reports from reliable sources such as the BBC, Guardian and NY Times (which carefully mentions both names), a travel guide from Lonely Planet and a 1998 report published by the UK Parliament. I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the Armenian name has a reasonably 'significant' usage in English. I did not suggest that those who are opposed to bolding must be motivated by bad faith. I agree with some of the arguments made, even though I think that, on balance, they're outweighed by other concerns. I expressed my belief that one particular argument in opposition to bolding Shushi (that the Armenian name "is not a historically established phenomenon") is indicative of bias that makes some editors' judgement in this area incorrect. I'm not in the slightest motivated by "fear of offending political sensitivities"; as I explained, I'm motivated by fear of bias, as bias runs against NPOV. Jr8825 • Talk 04:02, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Display bold The Armenian version of the name has no less significance than the Azerbaijani version of the name, and if the Azerbaijani name is already being used as the main name for the article, I think it's well justified and balanced to at least make the Armenian name bolded. Achemish (talk) 03:14, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Display I do agree with some of the arguments against bold inclusion, especially in the face of the recent reconquest/reclaim of Susha by the Republic of Azerbaijan. However, given the extremely politicized and turbulent (read: Soviet funded) history of the region since the 20th century, and the importance of the city for both Azerbaijanis and Armenians, the Armenian name should be bolded in the lede. Some food for thought:

1. "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the current Azeri historians have not only continued to use the terms "northern" and "southern" Azerbaijan, but also assert that the present-day Armenian Republic was a part of northern Azerbaijan. In their fury over what they view as the "Armenian occupation" of Nagorno-Karabakh [which incidentally was an autonomous Armenian region within Soviet Azerbaijan], Azeri politicians and historians deny any historic Armenian presence in the South Caucasus and add that all Armenian architectural monuments located in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan are not Armenian but [Caucasian] Albanian." -- The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province prior to its Annexation by Russia. (2016, Gibb Memorial Trust.). p. xviii
2. "Until the Sovietization of the South Caucasus, Russian language sources refer to the Turkish-speaking Muslims of that region as “Tatars,” while referring to the Ottomans as “Turks.” Prior to the first decade of the twentieth century, the term “Azerbaijan” applied mainly to the Iranian province of Azarbayjan. The Iranian and Russian sources of the time, with rare exceptions, view it as the region located south of the Aras River. Iranian sources refer to the inhabitants north of the Aras by where they lived; hence Yerevanis, Ganjavis, etc. In 1918, the Muslim inhabitants north of the Aras and their spoken Turkish dialect became identified as Azerbaijani. The educated among them, however, continued to use the Persian alphabet for some time. The Soviets, in order to reduce the influence of Islam, as well as to instill a much-needed national identity, devised new alphabets for them." -- Bournoutian, George (2021). From the Kur to the Aras: A Military History of Russia’s Move into the South Caucasus and the First Russo-Iranian War, 1801-1813 Brill.
3. "As noted, in order to construct an Azerbaijani national history and identity based on the territorial definition of a nation, as well as to reduce the influence of Islam and Iran, the Azeri nationalists, prompted by Moscow devised an "Azeri" alphabet, which replaced the Arabo-Persian script. In the 1930s a number of Soviet historians, including the prominent Russian Orientalist, Ilya Petrushevskii, were instructed by the Kremlin to accept the totally unsubstantiated notion that the territory of the former Iranian khanates (except Yerevan, which had become Soviet Armenia) was part of an Azerbaijani nation. Petrushevskii's two important studies dealing with the South Caucasus, therefore, use the term Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani in his works on the history of the region from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Other Russian academics went even further and claimed that an Azeri nation had existed from ancient times and had continued to the present. Since all the Russian surveys and almost all nineteenth-century Russian primary sources referred to the Muslims who resided in the South Caucasus as "Tatars" and not "Azerbaijanis", Soviet historians simply substituted Azerbaijani for Tatars. Azeri historians and writers, starting in 1937, followed suit and began to view the three-thousand-year history of the region as that of Azerbaijan. The pre-Iranian, Iranian, and Arab eras were expunged. Anyone who lived in the territory of Soviet Azerbaijan was classified as Azeri; hence the great Iranian poet Nezami, who had written only in Persian, became the national poet of Azerbaijan" -- The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province prior to its Annexation by Russia. (2016, Gibb Memorial Trust.). p. xvi

- LouisAragon (talk) 18:01, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

So just because Azerbaijani academia is pursuing negationist policies regarding historical matters having to do with Armenians but not particularly related to Shusha, this article should be turned into some sort of beacon of counter-crusade against historical revisionism? Parishan (talk) 01:02, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, what does all that unnecessary copy-paste exercise have to do with the name of Shusha? None of those sources mentions Shusha, or has any relevance to the topic of this article. Grandmaster 00:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. per the points made by ParishanSea Ane (talk) 17:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with Brandmeister. "Shushi" is not official name, nor historical. "Shushi" is a name given after the Battle of Shusha.--NMW03 (talk) 20:08, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Blocked socks; please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/EljanM. Mz7 (talk) 01:13, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Oppose The city of Shusha was founded by Panah Ali khan . During Artsakh's control, Azerbaijani cultural centers were completely destroyed[19] [20]. The first residents and founder of Shusha were Azerbaijanis. Later, the Armenians formed a majority in the city for a short time. Even in Soviet times, the name of the city was simply Shusha. Before the conflict, 86% of Shusha was Azerbaijani[21]. Before the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, all Armenians used the name SHUSHA, and I even have proof. Armenian priest Pargev Martirosyan used the name Shusha in 1992 when he prayed for the capture of Shusha[22] WP:COMMONNAME. The city of Shusha is de facto and de jure the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan WP:OFFICIALNAME. There is no reason to write the name Shushi in bold. IskandarRoCkEt [MESSAGE] 08:44, 26 March 2021 Comment "Later, the Armenians formed a majority in the city for a short time." That's true, after the Shusha massacre not many Armenians were left. Hey Presto! Instent Azeri/Tatar majority. Sad. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC) I've shown all proofs about Shusha. You can see demographics of Yerevan. Azerbaijanis were majority there. Then Azerbaijanis were killed and expelled from Yerevan.(Sad) Shusha is the cultural capital of Azerbaijan. IskandarRoCkEt [MESSAGE] 08:58, 28 March 2021 Oppose I support points of IskandarRoCkEt. He has showed all proofs. Armenians were using the name Shusha until Battle of Shusha (1992). This city has one name and that name is Shusha. There is no reason to add "Shushi" to this page. It's clearly WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OFFICIALNAME. HelloCaucasus (talk) 13:33, 29 March 2021

• Display this way Shusha/Shushi (Azerbaijani: Şuşa, Armenian: Շուշի) until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved. In many historical sources the city's name was known Shusha or Shushi and was signifisant for both, Armenians and Caucasian Tatars (i.e. Azerbaijanis). Also, Google gives for COMMONNAME pretty same results: Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakh =575 000; Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh=518 000. Sincerely, Գարիկ Ավագյան (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that Armenians used the name Shushi until 1992? I've shown all evidences. Armenians used to call this city as Shusha until 1992. Shushi is a new name. Almost 90% Armenians are using latin alphabeth to search something in Google. That's why Shushi gives 518 000 result. There is no proofs to write in bold the name Shushi. Shusha is clearly WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OFFICIALNAME. IskandarRoCkEt [MESSAGE] 09:26, 4 April 2021

• Comment I would like to note that user "HelloCaucasus" [23], who voted here, has only made one edit on Wikipedia, whereas user "IskandarRoCkEt", who also voted on this page, has only made 21 edits.[24] - LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

• I'm also concerned about some of the comments announcing that 'Shushi' was not used before 1992 and that there's "proof" of this. The only source I've seen brought up to evidence this is a YouTube video. Meanwhile, there are multiple academic sources in the history section of the article which, prrovided they're being quoted accurately, demonstrate use of "Shushi" in the 18th/19th centuries. These claims seem like rather far-fetched OR to me. Jr8825 • Talk 12:01, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Jr8825: Which sources? Please write. IskandarRoCkEt [MESSAGE] 15:06, 4 April 2021

@IskandarRoCkEt: Currently inline refs 11 ("Shushi", from a modern source describing a 1725 document), 35 ("Shushikala", related to the accounts of 18th century Russian general Alexander Suvorov), 38 ("Shushi village", attributed to Russian historian P. G. Butkov, 1775–1857), 39 ("the modern town of Shushi (or Shusha)", from a 1995 academic text) and 40 ("Shushee", Joseph Wolff 1861). I haven't verified each of the sources myself (and I wouldn't be capable of checking the Russian language ones) but this looks like a considerable amount of historic and academic sourcing to me, regardless of the COMMONNAME argument about the widespread use of "Shushi" in recent years. Jr8825 • Talk 22:05, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Jr8825: Please write link of the sources. You've written only names of Russian generals and historians. Please open the map of Caucasus in the Russian empire.[25][26] I wrote links of the map of Caucasus in the Russian empire. There was no city or village that named Shushi or Stepanakert. I'm saying again there's no evidence to write 'Shushi' in bold. After 1-2 years we can delete the name 'Shushi' from the info-box. IskandarRoCkEt [MESSAGE] 08:30, 5 April 2021

References

• support per opening statement by @AntonSamuel:, also as much as I can see much oppose arguments are partisan "rules that we made because they suit us" meanwhile completely ignoring that per Wikipedia policy the name should have been included in bold long ago. The consensus looks clear to me (but that's just my personal opinion) - Kevo³²⁷ (talk) 08:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Archive suggests that there has already been several discussions on this matter. It is not official name nor historic name for this town. It has been used by Armenians only since the beginning of the Karabakh conflict and it not controlled by Armenian forces anymore. I suggest leaving it as it is. --Mastersun25 (talk) 18:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

new consensuses and arguments can always be made. It is a historically valid name and was the name used by Armenians even before the conflict, Famous Author Raffi uses it in his books published in 1882, loooong before any ethnic issues. It's not like Armenians discovered the name Shushi in 1992. And no one ever argues that control = name rights in contested areas. Half of your arguing point are inherently wrong to begin with, and none of Them address the opening statement in which WP:NCGN#Alternative names and MOS:BOLDLEAD apply and allow for the use of the name in bold. - Kevo³²⁷ (talk) 21:20, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The Armenian name is already mentioned in the preview. Naming in bold suggests that the two names are equally official, but they are not. The city is controlled by Azerbaijan and there is only one official naming of it in Azerbaijan. The rest can be mentioned in the history section. Since you are redirecting me to WP:NCGN#Alternative names, please see the examples of how this rule is implemented in other articles, such as [27], [28], [29]. --Mastersun25 (talk) 17:53, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

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

City name repeated in subheading titles

Mastersun25 When you disagree with something but that something does not blatantly violate WP guidelines, you don't just revert by throwing a comment "absolutely no need for that" like you did here:, you discuss instead on Talk page, and try to reach consensus. Don't leave an impression of WP:Ownership. Otherwise somebody will come and revert your revert, leading another to WP:EDITWAR, and there were a few editors previously active here blocked long-term for exactly that kind of spinal-reflex-level-reverting. You don't need Shushi in subheading titles, the article title tells the reader it's all about Shushi. If we write "2.3 Shusha within the Russian Empire", then it has to be "2.1 Foundation of Shusha", "2.2 Shusha's Conflict with the Qajars", 2.4 "Shusha in Early 20th century" and "2.5 Shusha in Soviet era" to keep the uniformity of the style, but as it is clearly excessive, then no need for the city name in 2.3 subheading either. --Armatura (talk) 18:14, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

The latest edits to this article are absolutely ridiculous. They basically include the removal of Azerbaijani name of the town while adding an Armenian name in every possible case, something which didn't happen even when the town was de-facto under Armenian control. I honestly don't have a desire nor enough energy to discuss this on everyday basis. If for Armenian editors this serves as some kind of sublimation caused by the loss and the fact that the town will never ever be Armenian again, so be it. --Mastersun25 (talk) 12:56, 6 June 2021 (UTC)