[Wikipedia-l] Sensitive subjects on some Wikipedias

[oscar van dillen]

the armenian holocaust is at this moment a rather *hot* political issue
inside turkey itself, with possibly legal consequences for people who
publish other than an "official view" in or from turkey afaik. there is a
discussion going on even on eu-level about these things.
writers and journalists in turkey are often in a difficult position when
writing about these historical events.

of course our mission is to collect, develop and desseminate npov content,
but this may in such cases collide with present-day political situations and
power, present-day political points of view and interests of a nation or a
regime, perhaps in some cases even encompass certain dangers for some of our
editors as well.

in all projects, a fine balance needs to be found on all its controversial
subjects, which may at times be slightly different in different projects and
languages, a phenomenon that i consider acceptable if and when within
certain limits of *linguistical compromise*, since they are meant to address
different "audiences" (the speakers of that language: each language also has
its own context of at least history, literature, science and politics), but
not when it becomes a *political compromise*.

descriptions of and terminology for historical events in an encyclopedia
should generally be based on the science of history, concurring with and
referring to relevant international scientifical sources (if available also
in the language of a project), not on current political views or
nomenclature. but what if there are different views among different
scientists, different views in different scientifical literature, possibly
in different languages, whether linked to politics or not, how and who are
we to judge?

content may perhaps differ slightly in various languages, incorporating
linguistical compromises, but i agree this does not seem to be the case
here. the title [[Claims_of_an_Armenian_Genocide]] does suggest a pov, and
the article itself possibly needs serious revision as well, maybe an article
[[Armenian_Genocide]] is still missing on tr.wikipedia as well as an article
[[International_recognition_of_an_Armenian_Genocide]] (or
[[International_recognition_of_the_Armenian_Genocide]], change
"international" for "scientific" or "political" and you have 2 more) and
probably a whole bunch more like [[Denials_of_an_Armenian_Genocide]] and
[[Historical_demography_of_the_Armenians_during_the_Ottoman_period]].

it may be that the situation in tr.wikipedia at this point also simply
reflects the present status quo in the published turkish language and its
publically available sources. yet i do not know 100% for sure, i am no
historian myself, and also my turkish (though "tr-1") is simply not good
enough to evaluate all this on my own.

that said, i would like to suggest {{sofixit}} to Bogdan Giusca as well,
since i think it is finally up to (editors of the) projects themselves to
gradually develop an acceptable npov over a period of time, even when this
means lengthy and difficult discussions. these had best take place first of
all on the project itself imho.

best regards,
oscar

-- 
*edito ergo sum*

On 7/13/07, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
>
> The Turkish Wikipedia has no article on Armenian Genocide.
>
> However, unlike all the other 38 Wikipedias which have articles
> on the "Armenian Genocide", it has an article on "Claims of
> an Armenian Genocide".
>
> I'm sure that if German Wikipedia had "Holocaust" redirect to
> "Claims of a Holocaust", there'd be an outcry, but why doesn't the
> same thing happen about this article on Turkish Wikipedia?
>
>