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The result of the move request was: not moved. No prospect of consensus. I would suggest that the next step is to develop a proposal for a naming convention. This proposal would clarify those proposals below regarding the best names for en:Wikipedia to use, and also clarify the scope of the convention. If consensus can be achieved on this convention, then propose an RfC to adopt it. Andrewa ( talk) 20:03, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
– I would like to suggest that the article names for the historically Armenian-populated towns and villages in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) (along with the historically Armenian-populated towns and villages in the Artsakh-claimed Shahumyan and Getashen districts - which took part in the Artsakh declaration of independence) should be changed to the Armenian language names, which in the vast majority of the cases represent the common names for the localities. When multiple names exists ", Nagorno-Karabakh" can be added to the page names for clarification. When the common names of individual localities turn out to deviate from the proposed norm - this can of course also been taken into account. I've tried to follow the instructions for moving multiple pages per WP:RM#CM as much as possible for this request.
Apart from the larger towns in Nagorno-Karabakh such as Martakert, Stepanakert, Martuni and so on, right now Nagorno-Karabakh page names are generally set to the names decided by the Azerbaijani government since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Azerbaijani parliament dissolving the NKAO, and have not been set to conform with WP:COMMONNAME which is the main Wikipedia guideline for place names. Wikipedia guidelines are quite clear about it not being prudent for official names to form the basis for determining article names.
Using the 1989 demographics for Nagorno-Karabakh (+Shahumyan&Getashen) [1] as a basis to determine the historical majority population of the towns and villages would be useful in this regard. The majority population for towns before the First Nagorno-Karabakh War has been used as a useful neutral point of departure on NK Wikipedia articles in other regards, which is a bit more anchored in modernity with regard to WP:COMMONNAME, while still taking the historical context of the region's towns and villages into account. Some historical figures for the demographics of the region are also available here: [2]
I've listed three of the larger NK settlements in the list above as examples, however the actual amount of articles are too many to practically list here. The List of cities and towns in Artsakh lists the towns and villages currently controlled by Artsakh, which are all former NKAO villages, except for the towns in the Lachin corridor. It also lists the historically Armenian populated towns in the former NKAO now controlled by Azerbaijan after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. The articles for the towns in the Lachin corridor outside of the former NKAO that had Azerbaijani majorities, currently under Artsakh/Russian control ( Lachin, Zabux, Sus) and the former NKAO towns and villages that had Azerbaijani majorities, such as Shusha, Khojaly and Ümüdlü - would retain their Azerbaijani place names under the same rationale.
AntonSamuel ( talk) 16:18, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Solavirum: When exceptions exist - this can be taken into account as I mentioned. However, practically all of the Armenian-majority villages in 1989 were also historically Armenian, and their place names can be said to represent the main common names with regard to the people who have lived there historically or that live there today or very recently, and can also be found in most academic and media reports about the localities. Regarding past Azerbaijani and Armenian populations in Armenia and Azerbaijan outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, such as for Baku and Yerevan - this is a separate issue, as Nagorno-Karabakh has been a disputed area for a considerable amount of time, and remains so today.
@ CuriousGolden: Sure, the Soviet map can be useful as well to help in determining the common names - However, the 1989 demographic map also feature the same names in Russian script as far as I can see - and in some cases both the Azerbaijani and the Armenian names. The majority of the names for the villages that were established before 1989 have stayed the same - I can see that on the Soviet map as well. Regarding Haterk vs Aterk - if the latter is used in the majority of contemporary sources that can be found, that's fine. However if not, since the difference is more cosmetic it would be prudent to use the correct Armenian transliteration - Haterk, for clarity. "Nagorno-Karabakh" is useful as it the long-established common name for the region and serves to represent a more neutral term for the geographical region. Using "Khojavend" would be problematic in that it would be using the official name for the Azerbaijani administrative division of the region, which is not standard per Wikipedia guidelines as I mentioned earlier. "Khojavend" also isn't the common name for the town in question, " Martuni" is.
AntonSamuel ( talk) 17:41, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Regarding Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh, my comparison was mainly with regard to a "dormant" conflict - however, Kosovo is far from universally recognized internationally and is not a member of the UN as well, and the scope of the ethnic cleansing and destruction of cultural/religious heritage that has occurred in Kosovo on both sides makes it a good comparison in general I would argue.
"Nagorno-Karabakh" is a well established and the accepted term for the region and used by the majority of UN states when referring to the region. Using the common name for a geographic region, or an autonomous region, as well as when it's in dispute, as a disambiguation tag is standard on Wikipedia - here are a couple of examples: Copceac, Gagauzia, Gaidar, Gagauzia, Tomai, Gagauzia, Ocnița, Transnistria, Rotari, Transnistria, Mitrovica, Kosovo, Kamenica, Kosovo. This formulation was also favored by the administrator that moved Khojavend to Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh at the move discussion on Talk:Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Taking all that's been argued in mind, my suggestion for the three example articles based on the Armenian majority names, and also taking common name investigation (with smoother/correct transliterations used) into consideration is:
AntonSamuel ( talk) 10:17, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
WP:SMALLDETAILS states that "The general approach is that whatever readers might type in the search box, they are guided as swiftly as possible to the topic they might reasonably be expected to be looking for.", and I argued previously why Haterk would be the most probable search option for contemporary readers familiar with the subject. I've made it clear that I consider the use of more correct transliterations valid for all names - not just this case, so I don't believe that I'm cherry-picking in this case. The policies I've mentioned are all part of the Wikipedia:Article titles guidelines so I doubt that I could be legitimately accused of playing the policies against each other like you're suggesting, simply for arguing that they should be taken into consideration. AntonSamuel ( talk) 11:53, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Update: For clarity regarding which of pages beyond the three example articles that would be affected by the proposed move - I've created an
infopage with a list of the towns claimed or controlled by the Republic of Artsakh which had Armenian-majority populations in 1989 - with their Armenian-language names being the likely common names for the majority of them - and would therefore be affected by the move request if not already moved to their likely common names (with smoother/correct transliterations used). I've proposed using the ", Nagorno-Karabakh" disambiguation tag when needed, and I would also argue that it's suitable per
WP:NPOV to use the
administrative divisions of the former NKAO as disambiguation tags, for localities in Nagorno-Karabakh that share names. The infopage is based on the
List of cities and towns in Artsakh article, which also contains localities claimed, controlled or previously controlled by Artsakh, which had Azerbaijani majorities in 1989.
AntonSamuel (
talk)
23:14, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Andrewa: Hey, I was wondering regarding your recent closure of the move request discussion above - with the current lack of clear consensus for the proposal and the current problematic situation with the majority of the articles not being named according to the common names of the localities concerned, but their official names - would moving the articles on a case to case basis be an option that you would recommend as well? While an RfC for creating a naming convention may be optimal, because of the scope of such a project and the contentiousness of the issue, a thorough common name investigation for individual articles might at least move things forward a bit. AntonSamuel ( talk) 20:49, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Andrewa: Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into doing some single-page move requests that will hopefully be able to serve as examples. This page can also be renamed to "Karakend" without problem, which wasn't a point of contention and is the English-language version of the current name as well as the most likely common name from the investigation that was done in the past debate. Creating a name convention for either all of Azerbaijan or just the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region (which I was more or less attempting for this move request) would probably be ideal however. AntonSamuel ( talk) 08:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The result of the move request was: not moved. No prospect of consensus. I would suggest that the next step is to develop a proposal for a naming convention. This proposal would clarify those proposals below regarding the best names for en:Wikipedia to use, and also clarify the scope of the convention. If consensus can be achieved on this convention, then propose an RfC to adopt it. Andrewa ( talk) 20:03, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
– I would like to suggest that the article names for the historically Armenian-populated towns and villages in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) (along with the historically Armenian-populated towns and villages in the Artsakh-claimed Shahumyan and Getashen districts - which took part in the Artsakh declaration of independence) should be changed to the Armenian language names, which in the vast majority of the cases represent the common names for the localities. When multiple names exists ", Nagorno-Karabakh" can be added to the page names for clarification. When the common names of individual localities turn out to deviate from the proposed norm - this can of course also been taken into account. I've tried to follow the instructions for moving multiple pages per WP:RM#CM as much as possible for this request.
Apart from the larger towns in Nagorno-Karabakh such as Martakert, Stepanakert, Martuni and so on, right now Nagorno-Karabakh page names are generally set to the names decided by the Azerbaijani government since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Azerbaijani parliament dissolving the NKAO, and have not been set to conform with WP:COMMONNAME which is the main Wikipedia guideline for place names. Wikipedia guidelines are quite clear about it not being prudent for official names to form the basis for determining article names.
Using the 1989 demographics for Nagorno-Karabakh (+Shahumyan&Getashen) [1] as a basis to determine the historical majority population of the towns and villages would be useful in this regard. The majority population for towns before the First Nagorno-Karabakh War has been used as a useful neutral point of departure on NK Wikipedia articles in other regards, which is a bit more anchored in modernity with regard to WP:COMMONNAME, while still taking the historical context of the region's towns and villages into account. Some historical figures for the demographics of the region are also available here: [2]
I've listed three of the larger NK settlements in the list above as examples, however the actual amount of articles are too many to practically list here. The List of cities and towns in Artsakh lists the towns and villages currently controlled by Artsakh, which are all former NKAO villages, except for the towns in the Lachin corridor. It also lists the historically Armenian populated towns in the former NKAO now controlled by Azerbaijan after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. The articles for the towns in the Lachin corridor outside of the former NKAO that had Azerbaijani majorities, currently under Artsakh/Russian control ( Lachin, Zabux, Sus) and the former NKAO towns and villages that had Azerbaijani majorities, such as Shusha, Khojaly and Ümüdlü - would retain their Azerbaijani place names under the same rationale.
AntonSamuel ( talk) 16:18, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Solavirum: When exceptions exist - this can be taken into account as I mentioned. However, practically all of the Armenian-majority villages in 1989 were also historically Armenian, and their place names can be said to represent the main common names with regard to the people who have lived there historically or that live there today or very recently, and can also be found in most academic and media reports about the localities. Regarding past Azerbaijani and Armenian populations in Armenia and Azerbaijan outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, such as for Baku and Yerevan - this is a separate issue, as Nagorno-Karabakh has been a disputed area for a considerable amount of time, and remains so today.
@ CuriousGolden: Sure, the Soviet map can be useful as well to help in determining the common names - However, the 1989 demographic map also feature the same names in Russian script as far as I can see - and in some cases both the Azerbaijani and the Armenian names. The majority of the names for the villages that were established before 1989 have stayed the same - I can see that on the Soviet map as well. Regarding Haterk vs Aterk - if the latter is used in the majority of contemporary sources that can be found, that's fine. However if not, since the difference is more cosmetic it would be prudent to use the correct Armenian transliteration - Haterk, for clarity. "Nagorno-Karabakh" is useful as it the long-established common name for the region and serves to represent a more neutral term for the geographical region. Using "Khojavend" would be problematic in that it would be using the official name for the Azerbaijani administrative division of the region, which is not standard per Wikipedia guidelines as I mentioned earlier. "Khojavend" also isn't the common name for the town in question, " Martuni" is.
AntonSamuel ( talk) 17:41, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Regarding Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh, my comparison was mainly with regard to a "dormant" conflict - however, Kosovo is far from universally recognized internationally and is not a member of the UN as well, and the scope of the ethnic cleansing and destruction of cultural/religious heritage that has occurred in Kosovo on both sides makes it a good comparison in general I would argue.
"Nagorno-Karabakh" is a well established and the accepted term for the region and used by the majority of UN states when referring to the region. Using the common name for a geographic region, or an autonomous region, as well as when it's in dispute, as a disambiguation tag is standard on Wikipedia - here are a couple of examples: Copceac, Gagauzia, Gaidar, Gagauzia, Tomai, Gagauzia, Ocnița, Transnistria, Rotari, Transnistria, Mitrovica, Kosovo, Kamenica, Kosovo. This formulation was also favored by the administrator that moved Khojavend to Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh at the move discussion on Talk:Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Taking all that's been argued in mind, my suggestion for the three example articles based on the Armenian majority names, and also taking common name investigation (with smoother/correct transliterations used) into consideration is:
AntonSamuel ( talk) 10:17, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
WP:SMALLDETAILS states that "The general approach is that whatever readers might type in the search box, they are guided as swiftly as possible to the topic they might reasonably be expected to be looking for.", and I argued previously why Haterk would be the most probable search option for contemporary readers familiar with the subject. I've made it clear that I consider the use of more correct transliterations valid for all names - not just this case, so I don't believe that I'm cherry-picking in this case. The policies I've mentioned are all part of the Wikipedia:Article titles guidelines so I doubt that I could be legitimately accused of playing the policies against each other like you're suggesting, simply for arguing that they should be taken into consideration. AntonSamuel ( talk) 11:53, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Update: For clarity regarding which of pages beyond the three example articles that would be affected by the proposed move - I've created an
infopage with a list of the towns claimed or controlled by the Republic of Artsakh which had Armenian-majority populations in 1989 - with their Armenian-language names being the likely common names for the majority of them - and would therefore be affected by the move request if not already moved to their likely common names (with smoother/correct transliterations used). I've proposed using the ", Nagorno-Karabakh" disambiguation tag when needed, and I would also argue that it's suitable per
WP:NPOV to use the
administrative divisions of the former NKAO as disambiguation tags, for localities in Nagorno-Karabakh that share names. The infopage is based on the
List of cities and towns in Artsakh article, which also contains localities claimed, controlled or previously controlled by Artsakh, which had Azerbaijani majorities in 1989.
AntonSamuel (
talk)
23:14, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Andrewa: Hey, I was wondering regarding your recent closure of the move request discussion above - with the current lack of clear consensus for the proposal and the current problematic situation with the majority of the articles not being named according to the common names of the localities concerned, but their official names - would moving the articles on a case to case basis be an option that you would recommend as well? While an RfC for creating a naming convention may be optimal, because of the scope of such a project and the contentiousness of the issue, a thorough common name investigation for individual articles might at least move things forward a bit. AntonSamuel ( talk) 20:49, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
@ Andrewa: Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into doing some single-page move requests that will hopefully be able to serve as examples. This page can also be renamed to "Karakend" without problem, which wasn't a point of contention and is the English-language version of the current name as well as the most likely common name from the investigation that was done in the past debate. Creating a name convention for either all of Azerbaijan or just the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region (which I was more or less attempting for this move request) would probably be ideal however. AntonSamuel ( talk) 08:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)