User talk:Calthinus

(most of my talk has now been archived)

This user is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

Come on. Aryans are not Nazis. It is Indo-European language family and is very different from Caucasian language family. Just because one rotten apple - Hitler claimed to be the pure one, it doesn't mean the terminology which goes way back in time is wrong. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Kavkas (talk) 04:36, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes actually in reality Aryans doesn't refer to Europeans at all but rather to speakers of Indo-Iranian languages- i.e. Iranians and Indians (the only of these that actually live in Europe are Ossetians, Roma and a couple diaspora communities). Hitler and a couple other racial theorists took the word and distorted it. In any case you must know in the modern day people don't consider race to be anything scientific so whether or not North Caucasians "are Aryan" (or even "European") is a totally moot point. --Yalens (talk) 05:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am of the mind that WP:RS trumps WP:OR. If a secondary source says one thing, that is what must be reported, not what editors think to be true. In this situation it translates to this: Msallata was taken by rebels. Unclear situation is probably best now, though I have seen maps made by pro-rebel sources that show Msallata in rebel hands: 1. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm also of the mind that Russian news sources are sketchy, as Russia has worse freedom of press than Zimbabwe. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these. I think you know best what you want to do with the updates, though, so I think I better leave you to them. Cheers. -Kudzu1 (talk) 16:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please explain me why are you keep removing Borchali for the list of separatist movements??--Yerevanci (talk) 02:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see no evidence that Azeris in Georgia ("Borchali", what ever) want to form a new state.--Yalens (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By all means, please do post it here. I'd love to see it. -Kudzu1 (talk) 02:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'd just add those in that same shade of purple you have Sweden and Switzerland in now. Looks good though. -Kudzu1 (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot about Djibouti. It recognised NTC, so map to update.Boniek1988 (talk) 12:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot about: San Marino, Monaco, Brunei, Muaritius, Fidji, Vanuatu (all to purple/pink or whatever this colour is)Boniek1988 (talk) 12:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ahhh... its all the tiny ones that people always forget about. Thanks.--Yalens (talk) 16:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken the discussion to the talk page: Talk:International recognition of the National Transitional Council#Two diffrent maps Is there a better description or a map legand you can add for the map you provided so it becomes more clear? I just do not see much diffrence between the two other than certain before and after dates in time? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:13, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we could do the legend along the lines of the other map (the one you favor) if you want. I think its important to show the progression of recognition, as the page it is on will eventually become a mainly historical page (while Foreign relations of Libya will deal with the to-be current situation).--Yalens (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes having the legend like the one I favor makes it easier to read in my opinion, we could just use both maps too like you suggested on the talk page. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tanzania should also be in dark green [1]. Could you also change the map just above in the article?Boniek1988 (talk) 10:51, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I spotted that you didn't painted Vatican City dot with blue.Boniek1988 (talk) 01:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, on the page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Croatia#Information and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Croatia#Arbitrary break in discussion we have a bitter debate about the use of minority languages in articles about places in Croatia. Because I noticed that you are also interested in human rights of national minorities I'd appreciated if you found time to share your opinion on this subject with us. Have a nice day.--MirkoS18 (talk) 15:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry... I'm really busy nowadays, so its hard to edit regularly. I will take a look soon, hopefully. Cheers. --Yalens (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He Yalens. I noticed there's a new book out about Circassian history [2] (well from 2010). It looks good and is not expensive (I might purchase it). I also recommend you read Moshe Gammer's work (I did, it's good). Together it would be enough to create the articles on the two wars, when we finally have the time of course. Machinarium (talk) 19:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand the book hasnt that much on the Circassian War, and most of that is already published on circassianworld. Too bad, I'm still waiting for a historian to make a book on the Circassian war, similar to Gammer's "Russian Conquest". Machinarium (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'd like to thank you a lot for dropping me this link. It's not just about the war too, but it has plenty of info, and its good to have a published source to use for wiki (and to read for my own purposes!). Sadly, I've been rather busy lately and unable to edit wikipedia much, but when I do get back around to it, I will hopefully be able to work (perhaps in collaboration) on Circassian history using this. Thanks! --Yalens (talk) 22:03, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, but remember that his chapters on the war are available on circassianworld. Another new book is shorter one by Michael Kodarkovsy [3] about a Chechen during the early 19th century. I have a copy of his 'Russia's Steppe Frontier' which is real good, so I might check it out. Machinarium (talk) 02:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I noticed you were recently trying to clean up some of the muddle on the Sectarianism in the 2011-2012 Syrian uprising page. There's an editor there, User:Diroc2, who appears to be an SPA whose English isn't so good. He insists on block-reverting the "Alawites" section to the older version originally written by User:Grimso5, a sock of User:ChronicalUsual, despite intermediate changes, because he either thinks I've somehow "suppressed" information or he's just trying to be an irritation. Anyway, if you could stick around on the page and put in your two bits, wherever you stand on this, I think the outside perspective would be helpful. Cheers. -Kudzu1 (talk) 23:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I found a report by Nir Rosen where he talks briefly about Syrians masking their accents. -Kudzu1 (talk) 20:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's obvious to all and sundry that Fides' reporting is problematic, here. One, I think its integrity is compromised by its Vatican minders' own agenda, and two, I'm not of the opinion that its journalistic practices are sound. Unfortunately, a handful of rabidly pro-Assad editors are going to hold up any efforts to bring due weight to coverage here, so it's really a moot issue what you or I think. -Kudzu1 (talk) 05:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	Good work on the Middle East articles. A difficult topic to handle, but you have done so adroitly. You are an inspiration to the rest of us. FurrySings (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a ton :)!! --Yalens (talk) 14:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Calthinus. You have new messages at Dougweller's talk page.
Message added 19:03, 22 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Dougweller (talk) 19:03, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Left a message about a couple of things that are totally missing from the article. --Niemti (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I learned it from the Holocaust book The Kindly Ones (Littell novel). Yes, it's just a fake memoir, but it's extremely well researched and was acclaimed as such by many including several well-known historians (see the reception section the article for some praise in this context). Here's the relevant part:

--Niemti (talk) 21:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks :). --Yalens (talk) 03:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Uyghur_people#Most_of_the_history_section_needs_to_be_deleted

There are sources all over the talk page, and the talk page archive proving the points I raised if you need references. I want concensus before I work on the history section, basically what I think is that the parts about the khaganate and kingdom of turfan be deleted and replaced with stuff from the Karluk and Kara Khanid articles.

It has nothing to do with separatist politics, because both the Chinese communist party and uyghur separatists peddle the same false narrative that the modern uyghurs are descended from the old uyghur khaganate. Both of them resort to lies (communist party says they arent indigenous since the uyghur khaganate was in mongolia and they moved from there, uyghur separatists make up fairy tales on how the uyghur khaganate ruled over all of xinjiang)Rajmaan (talk) 22:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Yalens, a book on the Circassian Genocide was released last month: [4] I don't know if it's good. It's short and half is about the aftermath, but it doesn't look too bad.

Also I would like to share some pictures with you. First another picture of Khasan Israilov as a kid: [5] from the same community site as before[6]. I also found a picture of the Chechen / Ingush deportation here: [7] showing an Ingush child casualty in 1946. I was never able to find authentic pictures of the deportation before. I've seen some footage but I have no idea if any of those are real. Machinarium (talk) 12:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks for the book- I have to find some time to read one of these days :).

About the pictures: do we have permission or whatnot to use them here on wikipedia?--Yalens (talk) 16:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The one with a young Israilov is probably free to use (old enough). The others might be used with a fair use policy, because they show unique historical happenings. Machinarium (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the most accurate is to say "Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and western Siberia, as well as scattered through the rest of the Soviet Union". But mostly Kazakhstan. Right now it's only Siberia, but it's just absolutely misleading.

In Siberia, precisely at Krasnoyarsk, "about 4,000 Chechens were incarcerated in forced labor concentration camps". (John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya, page 69)

But it was not a place of exile: "A great majority of the Vainakh resettlers were delivered to Kazakhstan (239,768 Chechens and 78,470 Ingushetians) and Kyrgyzstan (70,097 Chechens and 2,278 Ingushetians). In Kazakhstan, Chechens concentrated primarily in the Akmolinsk, Pavlodar, North Kazakhstan, Karaganda, East Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk and Alma-Ata Oblasts, and in Kyrgyzstan in the Frunze and Osh Oblasts." (P. M. Poli͡an, Against Their Will, page 148)

To say "Siberia" captures people's imagination, but it's just untrue. I'll lt you rewrite the article(s). --Niemti (talk) 05:31, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the main reason Siberia shows up more often on the page is that it's mentioned more frequently in the books and that Kazakhstan has occasionally been considered part of Siberia. But yeah, I've edited the various occurrences to mention both. --Yalens (talk) 02:12, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Siberia is basically a sort of meme. Like most people when think of the GULAG will think "Siberia", but the GULAG was literally everywhere. Anyway, all kinds of peoples that were mass exiled by Stalin went to Kazakhstan first and foremost, also other parts of the Soviet Central Asia, notably Kyrgyzstan. (Siberia was used a place of exile settlement by the tsarist regime, especially early on when they were still colonizing it - which was actually not unlike the first British colonies in Australia, except with political prisoners.) --Niemti (talk) 05:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So, I think it's acceptable to write:

• "the Soviet Central Asia and Siberia, mostly to the Kazakh SSR"
• "Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and West Siberia"
• etc. While Kazakhstan is pretty well known, Kyrgyzstan is not really but in fact many more "special settlers" went to Kyrgyzstan than to Siberia. --Niemti (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well the sources have a tendency to mention Siberia first and more, though that shouldn't matter. Is "Central Asia and Siberia" really so inaccurate that it shouldn't be used?

Alternatively, we could state the long version (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Western Siberia, with links to the SSR pages and all) once and then replace other references to Siberia and Central Asia to "while in deportation" or something like that to avoid having to clarify this every single time it gets mentioned. --Yalens (talk) 15:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There were probably more Chechens in Siberia. On page 72 of Dunlop's book[8] it says 4,000 Chechens escaped from a concentration camp in Krasnoyarsk in the year 1954 (2000 of whom were then killed). It also mentions several hundred of Chechens went on a strike in the Kolyma labor camps. Machinarium (talk) 14:55, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And yet there's a fundamental difference between prison camps (and they were everywhere, even in the center of Moscow) and the "special settlers" who were just loaded into trains, then unloaded at the end of the journey in some bare steppe and told they are now to live there. --Niemti (talk) 21:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For sure, but I'm wondering if during the deportation males were also sent to the GULAG concentration camps. Machinarium (talk) 11:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

They went to "Special Settlements", not camps. (Even as "These settlements have been compared to GULAG (Main Administration of Corrective Labour Camps)", were in fact actually run by GULAG until the end of 1944, and those caught trying to escape would be sentenced to 20 years in a camp. One might compare it to a Nazi Ghetto vs a KL (Konzentrationslager) camp.) OK, here are the official figures: Kazakh 380,397; Kirghiz 83,617; Vologda 1,207; Ivanovskaya 787. (Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict Resolution: A Case Study of Chechnya, page 53; The Chechens: A Handbook , page 263) --Niemti (talk) 11:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Yalens, did you catch my e-mail? Machinarium (talk) 16:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Yalens: There is a current discussion going on at the above page about changes to lead of the article. You previously helped in working out the present lead on the talk page, so I was wondering if you'd mind commenting on the discussion going on now. Please come along, if you feel like it. RGloucester (talk) 00:39, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yalens, hello, I just have one question. Why do you insert and use references on Georgia related articles by a charlatan scholar and fervent anti-Georgian Circassian political activist Mr Jamoukha who is well known for his hatred and bias toward Georgians? I noticed you tend to use lots of quotes from his publications to back up some dubious claims (for example that Kakhetians or Kakhs are related to Vainakhs and so on). Is it fair to reference a man that in all despises the entire nation and being politically motivated, intentionally alters the historical or ethnic origins of people who are his nemesis? p.s I highly appreciate your care and contribution for Chechen-related articles. Best. Iberieli (talk) 13:31, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, hey, you're back. I didn't know Jaimoukha was known to have hatred for Georgians (he does tend to be rather biased in favor of the Abkhaz though). When I added stuff from Jaimoukha way back when, it's mainly because there's little coverage at all on English wikipedia about the history of the Caucasus, and Jaimoukha happens to have books in English. It was a passion of mine back then. When I read books, I usually don't look for motives unless they are hugely obvious (example: Serbs talking about Albanians supposedly coming from Azerbaijan), though I guess maybe I should be more cautious. I don't think his claim about Kakheti (he states it like its not his own, but other peoples', I believe) is necessarily anti-Georgian. All it says is that once there was a Nakh people in Kakheti (who are probably now Georgians). If someone talks about the fact that there were once Celts in Northern Italy who didn't speak a Romance language anti-Italian? I do understand how you can see this as potentially anti-Georgian, I just don't. He referenced historical texts, and in the absence of pretty much any other source material on the matter, it seemed worthy to note.

Of course, just because it's not necessarily anti-Georgian doesn't automatically make it correct, as we both know. I do think the section relies way too heavily on one source (Jaimoukha). Since for you, his claims are dubious, maybe you could provide a source disproving them or disagreeing with them, and then we could either show the alternative point of view next to the sections stating what Jaimoukha said...? I would love to have more sources on the matter (the Ancient Caucasus and the origin of the Nakh), really.--Yalens (talk) 00:09, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent answer :) Thanks a lot for finding time and addressing my concern. You did an excellent job on Chechen-related articles and I encourage you to do on because there are tons of information on Vainakhs which is not available on Wiki. Unfortunately, there are very few people who are interested in Caucasus related articles overall. There are of course those who 24/7 are engaged in political rumblings to push their nationalist agendas (Abkhazia articles as an example) but there are few dedicated people like yourself, who should definitely keep up with the editing and adding more information on this fascinating region. I agree with you, there are few quality books on Chechnya and Caucasus in general when it comes to history. That has been my problem when I started to work on Georgian history related articles, in English you basically only get Lang, Allen (1930s) and Suny. Rayfield just published the book on Geo History but its way behind the standard and quality you would expect from University professor from the West. The local Caucasians who study in West mostly avoid specializing in their own cultures, they tend to be more "pragmatic" in career choices. And the few who do (Circassians, Chechens, Georgians, Armenians and so on) are engaged in primitive nationalist interpretations of History or rather who was first in Caucasus and who was greater. Jaimoukha is not the only one. We also have historians like him and they are the problem. Than Professors like Rayfield take their dubious and baseless theories and turn them into interpretation of historic evens which influences the reader to take certain perceptions which in most cases are based on mere speculations by those ethno-nationalist "scholars." Thats the sad reality and I dont see how it will change. I'll tell you how I see the claim about Nakh Kakhs anti-Georgian. The main argument of Circassian or Abkhaz ethno-nationalists is that modern Georgians are newcomers to the region. Kakhetians and Kartlians are the nucleus of Georgian ethnogenesis. If you argue they were in reality Nakhs and not Kartvelians, you create the myth of a "newcomer" which in Caucasus is a favorite derogative. If you ask Jaimoukha, there were no such tribes as Kartvelians in Caucasus and that Georgian national consolidation or the formation of its identity is artificial. Therefore, he will try to argue that North Caucasus tribes populated the South Caucasus (an arguments which suits his views in case of Abkhazia too - how can North Caucasus Apsua tribe live in South Caucasus in the midst of Mingrelian speaking people?). This is clearly a historical revisionism and falsification. And as I mentions he is not the only one engaged in that process. They have certain agendas to fulfill by reinventing history which better suits their political believes. I never in any serious publication seen such claims, even from the fervent Chechen nationalists who claim that the word Sakartvelo (Georgian) transliterated from Chechen as "my backyard" :) Cheers. Iberieli (talk) 07:48, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As for Jaimoukha, I do agree he has some biases, but I think a lot of his work about Chechen history is quite usable (i.e. folklore, the different historical medieval periods, summaries of ancient archaeology, etc...).

As for "newcomers", I find this particularly ironic because Circassians themselves are thought (by some, at least) to have migrated to the Caucasus from pre-Hittite Anatolia, in pre-recorded times, and this fact (the "connection to the ancient civilization of Hatti" or whatever) is actually celebrated by Circassian nationalists.

As for these "Kakh", I can't really say what my view is on that theory. If we could get the original Vakhushti quotes that Jaimoukha uses, that would be good. Is there any other works dealing with that quote? In any case, I don't think it needs to be so touchy. I know that the ethnic histories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are touchy because both sides want to claim that they were there first, but no reasonable person has a thought of taking Kakheti from Georgia (uneducated silly people can claim it sounds like some "backyard" all they want but its never going to mean anything, especially when most Vainakh nowadays see Georgia in a positive light and have utterly no desire to antagonize their southern neighbor given all the problems they already have. Its a funny folk etymology though).

Cheers :). --Yalens (talk) 02:40, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. The thread is "Turkish people". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! EarwigBot ^{operator / talk} 19:50, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aiyaiyai, really? Ugh. --Yalens (talk) 19:56, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I know that it might do so, but I am updating the map, I will create more clear borders around the colors, so people can get a better view of where the people actually lived. As to Malkh people, their state was destroyed by the Mongols, so this map is set before the Mongol invasions. And for the Kists, they have always lived in Georgia (most likely) though some migration and immigration by other Vainakh might have happened. Hope this clarifies the situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deni Mataev (talk • contribs) 17:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An IP has just posted on WP:AN regarding this article - you seem to be involved. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:09, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for this [[9]]. It seems the section is too huge and something went wrong...Alexikoua (talk) 19:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine, everyone makes funny mistakes when editing sometimes. --Yalens (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:RSN#Are these reliable sources for the origins of an ethnic population?. Dougweller (talk) 14:07, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

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I'll read it when I find a moment...--Yalens (talk) 00:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#section name and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

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Thanks,

Hello, we are still awaiting statements for you regarding Ancient Egyptian Long-Term Editor Misconduct as you are a party, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 18:58, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

to this? BMK, Grouchy Realist (talk) 12:27, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see you removed some copyvio from this article. I've removed some obvious copyvio from the same editor, Kevez9. He also added some stuff about Cro-Magnon and IJ-M429 which he sourced to [10] which mentions neither. Dougweller (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Yalens,

Georgian historiography does not consider exactly the "Chechens" to be the Dzurdzuks but the "Vainakh" peoples and not one specific group. So your redirect is indeed wrong and sourceless. Jaqeli (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in truth you are right Dzurdzuks are Vainakh, not just Chechens, and thus they include the Ingush too. However they include neither the Bats nor the other historical Nakh peoples, so one can't say that they're equivalent to the phrase "Nakh peoples". I think a redirect to the part of the History of Chechnya which speaks of Dzurdzuks would be best. Feel free to contact me if you have alternative suggestions or objections. Cheers, --Yalens (talk) 21:00, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, how do you define that Dzurdzuks belong to the Chechen history only? And why not to include it in the History of Ingusheti? Jaqeli (talk) 21:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd actually rather not define it as such. It's simply that the Chechen history page is longer and more detailed than anything we have on the Ingush (keep in mind that before recent centuries, they were one people with one history). I could see maybe putting a redirect to a Vainakh section (currently called "Chechens and Ingush") on the Nakh peoples page though, if you want, though. --Yalens (talk) 21:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That would be much better. By the way the Georgian royal annals call it "Durdzuk" not "Dzurdzuk". Jaqeli (talk) 21:52, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know why Jaimoukha uses the Dzurdzuk spelling?--Yalens (talk) 21:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What is that? Why? Jaqeli (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jaimoukha is the author of The Chechens: A Handbook. Perhaps we should change it to Durdzuks though (I have seen the spelling before, but I didn't know that was the official spelling in the Georgian Annals). --Yalens (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

დურძუკ with just D. And why does that author call it like that? Jaqeli (talk) 22:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know; I was asking you. But I would be for replacing instances of "Dzurdzuks" with "Durdzuks". --Yalens (talk) 23:18, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All right then. I understand you're Chechen or Ingush? Jaqeli (talk) 12:13, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I guess in a sense, yeah. But probably not in the sense you think- I don't live there, for starters. I've explained it to people here before, but I think this time I'd rather not. Wikipedia should be about how we can best make a global encyclopedia working together, not who we are. Having seen how wikipedia works over the years, I think we should avoid getting caught in the whole "I'm Chechen, you're Georgian, he's Armenian, she's Circassian" identity game all the time. That being said, you can be assured that in addition to my interest in the North Caucasus, I also find Georgia's millenia-old civilization fascinating too. I would love to collaborate. I had always thought that working with an editor with access to the Georgian Chronicles would be great for the Nakh-related articles... though nowadays I'm pretty busy, unfortunately.--Yalens (talk) 18:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Simple yes would do. For anything I may help with the Georgian annals just ask and I'll try to help. Jaqeli (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jaqeli Alright I'm going to take you up on your offer and ask for your help. On pages 30-32 ish of his book The Chechens: A Handbook, Amjad Jaimoukha makes a lot of statements about what Leonti Mroveli says in the Georgian Chronicles including (1) Some Targamos, the mythical ancestor of various Caucasian ethnic groupings including the Nakh, migrated into the Caucasus after Urartu fell, established a state with Lake Sevan ("Ereta") as its boundary, and had a son named Kavkasos with a grandson D(z)urdzuk who supposedly founded Dzurdzuketia, i.e. Chechnya. (2) The Urartians (as a whole, supposedly?) "returned" (they were there before?) to the Caucasus after Urartu collapsed. For awhile I guess I was just taking Jaimoukha on his word... but does Mroveli actually say these things and if so, could I get a page number? Thanks so much for your help. --Yalens (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some other user wrongly disambiguated the Caucasian Laks into Kurdish Laks, while the former was actually ment (including source). Btw, did you read my message on the talk page? There's more to work on the current article than the one Iryna reverted without any reason, meaning I'd suggest we revert it to that one, and work further from it (as it already has many aspecst we wanted to include). - Regards LouisAragon (talk) 00:08, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I undid your recent changes to Boston Marathon bombings as the suspects were identified as Chechen, even if they were completely not the sentence that was originally there is correct and the one you changed it to is technically not correct as written, even if they ethnicity is more correct. XFEM Skier (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would contend that:

(1) It has never been proven that the suspects never identified as Avar too (the mother, who seems to have played more of a role in the "radicalization", certainly does). To say that they only identified as Chechen would be OR, unless you've found a source that actually says they disregarded their Avar half (in that case I would say I stand corrected).

(2) The media has been heavily criticized from multiple sides for ethnic tokenism and whatnot for overplaying the fact that the two were Chechen and (indeed) ignoring the fact that they were only half Chechen, when as per their testimonies, ethnicity really played no role in their actions (yes, religion did, but that's not the same thing as there are plenty of secular Chechen Muslims, Chechen atheists and even a couple Chechen Christians). Really, I don't think wikipedia should fall into the same trap. In fact, one can make an even better argument to simply remove the ethnic reference completely as it's totally irrelevant to what happened.--Yalens (talk) 21:53, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My argument was not with the details of their ethnicity but the way it was included. They were indeed identified as Chechen, whether it was true or not. You changed it such that were identified as half Chechen and half Avar, which is not true. Yes it might have been a mistake to identify them just Chechen, but that is still a fact that cannot be changed. I would support the addition of a properly cited clarifying sentence that were are actually half Chechen and half Avar. Also confusing the matter is the concept of ethnically Chechen versus from Chechnya. I hope you understand my point. XFEM Skier (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In fact they aren't from Chechnya, they're from Kyrgyzstan... and I believe I did actually provide a citation. I would ask again why it is necessary to even mention their ethnicity (or debated ethnicity) in the lede (as opposed to just in some background section) when it's so controversial. And also, by 'identified', by whom do you mean? By the media?--Yalens (talk) 00:18, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About the historical demographics section, the Ottoman kaza of Himara incorporated a large number of villages which are not part of the modern municipality. For example villages of the Kurvelesh_municipality and the Shushicë_(river). Here is an old map [[11]] where the K. of Himara includes also inland regions (especially the predominantly Muslim region of Kurvelesh). The modern municipality is limited in the coastal region, with ca. 7-8 villages.Alexikoua (talk) 12:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking Psomas' paper is really of good value. The map you point in p. 249 cites Cassavetes not Virgili (Although it doesn't matter but I can't see where its written about his ethnicity).Alexikoua (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The chart in page 249 cites Cassavetes not Virgili, but he mentions earlier that (on a sentence straddling pages 247 and 248) that the statistics ultimately come from Virgili's work on the 1908 census. I had thought Cassavetes also mentioned Virgili as a Greek, but I just scanned the relevant area of Cassavetes' paper and I can't find it now (sadly my CTRL+F isn't working), and actually other sources say he's Italian. Sorry 'bout that. Maybe I got the idea Virgili was Greek because he's criticized for labeling the population of Metsovo as universally Grecophone Greeks... rather than Vlachophone Greeks, of which Metsovo is known for having many (I'm used to the tendency of Greeks to label all Vlachs Greeks, Albanians to label them all Albanians, and foreignors to label them all a completely separate ethnicity, or Romanian).

Thanks a lot for the map, I had actually been searching for a source on the boundaries of kazas in the late Ottoman era :).

Also, a question- do you know of the Himara district that Kallivretakis speaks of is the Ottoman kaza or the modern Albanian municipality? [it's on Psomas, page 277, and in Kallivretakis, page 53] --Yalens (talk) 17:42, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kalivretakis (& Psomas who cites him) are talking about the modern municipality. Kallivretakis [[12]] (names are bilingual on p. 53). About the villages of the list: Fshat, Shen Mehil and Spile belong to the municipal town of Himara. Kalivretakis also limits the number of Albanian Muslims (AM) in Spile to 1,000, which is the only Muslim population in the municipality.Alexikoua (talk) 21:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah it does seem that the Albanians of the region are Christian... Thanks a lot for the link :). --Yalens (talk) 01:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Yalens. I noticed the maps you created for Demographics of Albania. I was just wondering where you were able to find statistics at the municipal level. When I was checking out the census results, I could only find stats at the county or maybe district level. Regards. --Local hero ^talk 20:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem :). Statistics at the municipal level for Albania as well as many other countries in Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe can be found on this site: http://pop-stat.mashke.org. For the 2011 Albanian census on religion, go here (http://pop-stat.mashke.org/albania-religion-comm2011.htm) and for ethnicity go here (http://pop-stat.mashke.org/albania-ethnic-comm2011.htm). --Yalens (talk) 21:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Truly an interesting census... not to mention the likely under-noting of atheists because Albanians will say "I'm Muslim/Orthodox/Catholic/Bektashi" just because their greatgrandfather was, when really they don't believe anything, we have the magical decrease of 65% Orthodox in the early 1900s to like 15% in the area around Fieri. Things will be interesting when the next census comes out, for sure :). --Yalens (talk) 21:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks a lot. Yea the demographic situation in Albania is certainly a unique one. Cheers. --Local hero ^talk 02:53, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One more question, why did you write it as 'Macedonian/Bulgarian' when the source only states 'Macedonian'? I don't believe 'Bulgarian' was a choice in the census. --Local hero ^talk 15:11, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I know that whether the speakers of a Southeast Slavic dialect in Albania are classed as Macedonians or Bulgarians is controversial- Macedonia claims them as Macedonians, Bulgaria claims they're Bulgarians, and they themselves are divided on how they identify, with some (especially the ones of Muslim background) identifying as neither, and then many in Kukës are classed as "Gorani". I didn't want to offend either Macedonian or Bulgarian users, so I put "Macedonian/Bulgarian" as an attempt to be neutral. Nevertheless, you bring up a good point that this census listed "Macedonian". For that reason, I might change it. --Yalens (talk) 20:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I understand the controversy and trying not to offend. Aside from the Gora region (and the Serb/Montenegrins), it seems to be generally accepted that the Slavic dialects spoken in Albania belong to the Macedonian language and its speakers are Macedonians. I've also come across Bulgarian sources have conceded that the Bulgarians in Albania have been "Macedonised". If the map is to be based on the census, however, there is no data regarding how many ethnic Bulgarians live in the country and where they reside, so that's the basis of my concern. Regards. --Local hero ^talk 23:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Considering that "Macedonian" is what the census actually said, as you fairly pointed out, there is a good case to fix it. I will get to it soon. --Yalens (talk) 00:19, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, thanks. --Local hero ^talk 01:23, 8 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I've been looking at some of the maps and articles you've written and contributed about the topic of religion in Albania. I would recommend you to take a look at the 2011 Albanian census microdata provided by INSTAT. I think that may be able to explain the "mysterious" decrease of the Orthodox population in Albania.--Surnamename1995 (talk) 19:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Surnamename1995: actually I've looked at that pretty meticulously, primarily using pop-stat mashke. Really it can't be attributed to only one factor. The Orthodox Church is likely correct it's members were undercounted in various areas -- many people have come forward and said they were not contacted. Noncounting alone, if we accept the maximal claims, would mean the "true" number of Orthodox is 18%. The Church goes further to claim 24%. I think both of these numbers are far too high, although 6% is too low. Real decrease in the number of Orthodox has occurred because of (a) disproportionate emigration of primarily Orthodox ethnic minorities namely Greeks and Vlachs, (b) higher rates of secularization among Southern Albanians than Northern Albanians, (c) a lower birthrate, (d) low level flows of conversion to Catholicism (hence the appearance of Catholics in many traditionally Orthodox areas). These are only partly offset by (a) higher rates of emigration by Muslim ethnic Albanians than Orthodox ethnic Albanians in the South, and (b) conversions of those with Muslim background to Orthodoxy -- these both are citable, but their effect is certainly no more than 30-40,000 persons, while the sources of decrease have higher magnitude. A more probable figure, also backed by other polling data, would suggest the true Orthodox percent lies between 9% and 16%, very roughly. --Calthinus (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at pop-stat mashke myself, however there is also a microdata sample here, that allows you to do even more, like look at percentages by age groups, calculate fertility rates, intermarriage rates, education rates, socioeconomic level etc. I agree with most of your arguments, but I still believe that the percentage of the Orthodox lies below 9%. If you look at age groups, the percentage of Orthodox peaks at the 81-85 group age, where they reach approximately 14.5%, but at the under 5 group age, it's something less than 5 percent. It seems strange that the census would undercount younger Orthodox in such a way compared to other groups. But what makes me more confident about the census figures, is that I found and downloaded the full Albanian civil registry of 2008 and did a manual counting of 2007 and 2008 births in Albania. I counted as Orthodox those whose father had an Orthodox background and found a figure of approximately 4.6% for both years, which conforms with the figures of the census for that group age. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 18:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Counting all births in 2007 and 2008 seems like a crazy long task. I had some INSTAT indepth stats at one point but they appeared to be a subset as only some 0.6 or so million individuals were included -- not sure why. But it had all the crosstabs and all. This is interesting. I'm not sure I buy that an Orthodox father is a good proxy. For starters the religious backgorund of entire families was often filled out without asking people by poorly trained questioners -- Vargmali has details, I can also supply refs. Further, many Orthodox public figures (Enca Haxhia for one, admittedly not the best example to pull...) have non-Orthodox fathers. Edi Rama has a name shared by some Muslims, an Orthodox father and mother, a Muslim wife and he's ... Catholic (but doesn't practice). But how is an Orthodox father defined anyways? Under communism everyone was either atheist or "atheist". In terms of actually practicing or even actually believing Orthodox people, who knows, it may be lower than 6%, given that the Orthodox are more educated and more secularized. There are also people who are "half-Orthodox quarter-Bektashi quarter-Catholic" and so forth... and practice multiple religions (as for belief... who knows...).

Judging by your userspace I guess you are at least considering names. This can be tricky for both forenames and surnames. Most indicate no religion. For surnames, even if we set aside intermarriage, a significant number have a surname of the "wrong" faith -- late Islamisations means there are Muslims named Gjoni. For Christians, because using Muslim names conferred advantage in Ottoman times (even the Mirditors had a habit of using Muslim forenames when in Muslim ares). For forenames it is also very tricky, as "Western" Christian names are fashionable among the young; Muslim names are not so hip currently and are associated with octogenarians but it's not as if (especially older) Christians never have them. The entire idea that religious demography in Albania is supposed to add up to 100% is probably wrong anyhow -- which means no census will ever be able to capture the complexity of a country where entire regions are "two-faithed", people are "half-Muslim half-Christian", and there are people who might say they're Catholic but mean their great granddad was; meanwhile they are in fact a newly converted Muslim.--Calthinus (talk) 19:46, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that long of a task if you strategize it properly before hand. I know about all these caveats you're mentioning, but in 80-85% of cases, someone with a father with Orthodox background will identify with the same religion. In the civil registry I had access not just to the name and the surname of people, but also the name of their father and grandfather. So if someone has a Christian name, but his father's or grandfather's name is Muslim, I did not count him. First of all I created an exhaustive list of Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim names using a software. Using that list I identified specific surnames that only people of a certain religious background have. I did this also for local specificities, as some surnames are entirely Christian in some areas, but may be Muslim in others. Also I did not count Northern Albania since it posed no interest in my undertaking and other areas in Central and Southern Albania that have very few or no Orthodox (Skrapar, Mallakaster, Peqin, Kruje, Librazhd, peripheral Tirana, etc). Then I checked for each relevant municipality manually all the names and surnames to see if there were stuff not picked up by my method or mismatches. So I think there are very few inaccuracies in what I did. I found these figures by district for 2007: Berat 6%, Durres 1.9%, Elbasan 3.4%, Fier 12.5%, Gjirokaster 7.4%, Korce 10.5%, Vlore 10.1% and Tirane 3.7%. The figures for 2008 were relatively similar: Berat 7.1%, Durres 1.9%, Elbasan 3.6%, Fier 12.8%, Gjirokaster 8.7%, Korce 10.9%, Vlore 9.1%, Tirane 3.4%.--Surnamename1995 (talk) 20:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's a structural problem here -- covariance. It has been reported that census workers knocked on people's doors and filled out the entire family's religion based on a name. In fact -- Vargmali can tell you all about how his entire family became "Muslim" this way (not a single one is) -- even after they protested saying they don't have faith, as he told me. What you're doing here is very meticulous research but it runs the risk of reproducing the same source of error.

Traditionally all of these places except for Skrapari, Peqini, some village clusters around Tirana had some Orthodox (Tirana itself was historically 8%). Skrapari was entirely Bektashi with maybe a few Sunnis in Corovoda, Peqini entirely Sunni except for a very small, negligible number of Orthodox. See Leonard Carcani on Central Albania-- Librazhdi had Orthodox, upper Shpati was full of Orthodox, Elbasani the city was 1/6 Orto, Kavaja 1/5 etc. Kavaja actually is overwhelmingly Muslim nowadays, this much is true. Durres not so much. In 1918 had 36% Orthodox [[13]]. Emigration, internal migration, low birthrates etc can explain a lot. They do not explain a fall from 36% to... 1.9% (secularization... is a better explanation here). No I don't think modern Durres is 36%. Maybe 10%. Could go on at length -- one can observe in Berat (historically 43% -- familiar with this one, I"d gestimate 20-35% today, many districts are full of them), Korcha (80%), Lushnja (50%), Fieri(65%)....it's pretty hard to make sense of these estimates of such a huge drop. Yeah Chams got dumped in Myzeqe, but even so, the raw numbers overall, not even percents, are lacking -- and this led to at least one MP denouncing it. Gjirokastra's more believable, your estimate for VLora may actually be high. 1918 census and later censuses before communism are largely in agreement. One thing is possible that there was a large Orthodox relocation to cities due to Ottoman hangover, that was only realized under communism -- it is true that nowadays Ortos are more urban, especially because under the millet system they lacked land. But, that means in the cities they were undercounted -- which is exactly what the Orthodox clergy were complaining about, that in most major cities, 1/3 of their followers were contacted. I don't buy their figure, but I believe the phenomenon of poorly executed census taking... affected every community in some way, most likely.--Calthinus (talk) 21:44, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget that Durres and Elbasan have experienced a lot of migration after 1945. Elbasan primarily because of its industry during Hoxha's time, while Durres especially after 1990 has been one of the few Albanian cities to have continuously grown. 1.9% is the percentage in all the county (including villages of Durres, Shijak and all of Kruje). 35% was in the city of Durres according to the Austrians in 1917, which at the time had a population of less than 5,000, while today Durres city has more than 100k inhabitants. Nonetheless if you look at the guys born before 1930 who live in the city of Durres, you'll still find about 20% of them being Orthodox. In Elbasan it was interesting because of the Shpati region, where you have quite a few Muslim surnames that are used by Orthodox, so I had to be more careful there to spot them, surnames like Dervishi or Halili. Once again Korça was 75-80% Christian only in the city, but the whole region was 60-40 Muslim before WW2. If you look at the census figures for the city of Korca in the older group ages, you'll still find more Orthodox than Muslim, but that proportion changes in the younger group ages. This is what I also found in the civil registry. So even if we take it for granted that it was harder to count urban populations, the issue remains that even within urban areas the Orthodox population has fallen quite a lot and decreases linearly by age (which doesn't happen for other groups). My estimate for Vlora also contains Saranda and Delvina, these are county figures (Vlore district is 8.6%, Saranda 14.6% and Delvina 11.4%). Berat once again you say 43%, but that is only the city, the rural population was mostly Muslims there (nowadays it is almost completely). The Myzeqe case is maybe harder to explain, but it is undeniable that the Orthodox population there does not make up more than 20-25% at the very most. It was easier to spot people there, because the surnames tended to be unique to each group and there were fewer people of Muslim background who had Orthodox names compared to southerner areas. I found 12.5% and 11.8% for Fier in 2017 and 2018, while for Lushnje I found 17.3% and 18.5%. In Tirana, for 2017 and 2018 births they make up about 6.5% of the city (11 units) and more than 10% in the central units. In terms of intermarriage, I still found a slight majority of children were born to parents of the same religious background. This was more notable in the Myzeqe area (because of the high concentration of Orthodox there) and in Korce city. Nonetheless, even in mixed marriages, in many cases the child had a Christian or even traditional Orthodox or Greek name, which is evidence of retained identity. I agree with some of the criticisms of the census, but even if done properly, the figures would not have changed that much. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 22:40, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it's the qarket! Yeah I thought you were talking about the cities. For the counties, yeah that's much more plausible -- 14% for Saranda is......low (this is a county that still has tons of Greeks in Vurg, in addition to Ortho Albanians and Vlachs around Lukova etc). Unless you mean Saranda city, which is probably less than 14% Ortho. In Berat the only other place you should be finding many Orthos is Vertop, and the areas north and west of Berat which are technically part of Myzeqe, culturally. Korcha county is very different to measure "before WW2" because there was a hug emigration of only the Orthodox to the West... most of which returned around 1930, called the kurbet. Nowadays it's emigration but its of both Muslims and Christians; in Vithkuqi, yes, it's known this led to the erosion of the local Orthodox majority into a plurality, in Devoll -- as well as other places like Lunxheria in the SW -- it seems to be the opposite, whereby Muslims are emigrating, and converting to Orthodoxy in the process -- the net effect of this shouldn't be exaggerated though as the Orthodox have lower birthrates and greater likelihood to leave their faith for other reasons. I fundamentally disagree with the idea of using the names. From the mid 1930s onward naming practices changed (at the same time, ideological atheism emerged-- before communism). "Greek" names... run into ethnopolitical... issues. Not pleasant, very unfortunate. I know many people from Myzeqe. A majority are Christian (the Muslims all happen to ultimately hail from Mallakastra). Not a single one has a "Christian" let alone "Greek" name... but plenty of Majlindas. You do not want to grow up in Albania with a "Greek" name, have fun getting beaten up at school every day, "Jorgaq" (by your Cham classmates, welcome to Myzeqe). Hence a lot of Ortos today prefer not exactly traditional Germanic names like "Leonard" or "Albert" (the "Alb" is "patriotic", nickname is "Albi", etc). Meanwhile, if you see "Emiliano" or "Luigji", I suppose you think it's a Catholic? Because it's usually not. Using the names is somewhat more defensible before 1930, but after that Albanians began abandoning traditional naming practices -- then, the assumption that a name corresponds to the identity you think it does is more likely. Nowadays religious forenames are rare among both Christians and Muslims. Technically Christian names are probably more common among both Christians and Muslims, but much more likely both will be named Majlinda, Flori(ani), Erjoni, Endriti, Valoni, Albani, Mimoza, Adelina, Lindita, Majlinda et cetera. In rural regions old naming practices sometimes still matter, I'I'd imagine especially Tropoja or Mirdita. If someone is Naim or Ismail and not eighty, who knows, it could be a devout Muslim... or an atheist naming their kid after Naim Frasheri or Ismail Kadare (an atheist). Mario and Emiliano and Luigji could be Catholics... or not, since most Albanians love Italian everything. Maybe even a Turcophile atheist/Christian could name their kid Rexhep, who knows.--Calthinus (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I made a lapsus when I said district when I actually meant county, sorry. The Saranda figure is very probably higher among adults, but this was about births in 2007 and 2008. Measuring this, let's say, for those born before 1991 is futile, because everyone was born in Albania back then and you can't know whether someone has migrated or not after 1990, while for those born in Albania during 2007-2008, there is a much higher likelihood that they're still in Albania. In Berat county, you find Orthodox in the urban areas of Berat, Ura Vajgurore and Kucove and in a few villages like Sqepur or Konezbalte. Once again, using just names would have been impossible to complete this task, it's because I could access grandparental names, who were born in the 30s and 40s, that I could pinpoint their background. This thing about being bullied for a Greek name may be correct in central Albania and Myzeqe, but not that much in Korce, Gjirokaster or Vlore, where Muslims have also adopted these names quite a lot due to migration to Greece. Names such as Erion, Majlinda, Endrit were very popular during the 1980s, but they become less widespread after 1990. Among families of Orthodox background, the most popular names after 1990 seem to be variations of Krist-, such as Kristi, Krist, Kristian, Kristina, Kristel etc. Then names such as Maria, Johana, Johan are popular as well. There is also a tendency to occidentalize older names, for example Nikolla to Nikolas, Thoma to Tomas, Stefan to Stiven, Grigor to Gregor. So there is a resurgence of Christian names after 1990 compared to the mostly secularized names that were very common in the 1970s and 80s. But I would like to note that my purpose was not to find the number of believers through names, but to show that the percentage of those with such a background has decreased quite a lot and even if all of them identified with their religious background, the percentage of believers would still be low.--Surnamename1995 (talk) 08:22, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the next Census is just one year I away (2020), I think it is more reasonable to wait the next census and use the their microdata, since I think it is reasonable to think that the next will be less controversial less problematic. I personally think a low percentage can be considered reasonable in the context of many people of Orthodox background having become secularised, but the large problems the census faced I find hard to ignore. Besides non-religious people, which I think were the most impacted by the census, I also know personally of the some cases were the religion of some Orthodox/Evangelical people was assumed just because they had a "Muslim sounding" family name. I think proof of this can be considered the fact that in all other religious polls in Albania the Orthodox and the Evangelical Christians are always more than the numbers of the Census. I don't think this can be a coincidence because the number of studies is rather large. As for the Civil Registry thing, besides it being itself problematic, I think the only thing you can be certain with your study it that the % of Orthodox people of background has declined, which I think we all agree, but in generall there are just too many variables to take account. I also want to add that both of you are underestimating the number of Orthodox conversions, especially for Albanians who immigrated to Greece and returned. These Albanians have been very prominent in Orthodox clergy but also in general. Vargmali (talk) 14:09, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is all interesting all. Vargmali the number I've come across for Christianizations in Greece is 30,000 though I suppose it is outdated. Do you have more on this? I suppose there could also be a phenomenon of Muslims or Catholics converting as they move into Orthodox environments (as a matter of fact my Myzeqars... are now atheist or Catholic, as I know them from my time in a mostly Catholic area of the West, even though none originally were). Surnamename1995 I think we all agree it's safe to say -- and that your surname study is further proof -- that the share of people originally hailing from the Orthodox millet, so to speak, has fallen in the past century. Furthermore, I also think the number of actual believers, in the Western or Middle Eastern sense of the word, is also rather low and possibly below 6%. The census missed people of all backgrounds, in raw numbers. The question about the "correct" % of Orthodox, then, hinges on what defines a person as Orthodox. If we mean believers, the census is high. For the culturally/ancestrally/etc "Orthodox" this an depend on definition and I agree your name study clearly shows a decrease -- as can be explained by lower birthrates and disproportionate emigration of minorities etj -- but I'm not sure about what it can say about the magnitude. In terms of who the census screwed over the most, it's probably either the irreligious or the Bektashis -- both of which having issues of ambiguous identity definitions (i.e. a good chunk of Albanians are technically deist, but don't know the word) playing a large role. The original INSTAT release had 70% irreligious... and somehow it "mysteriously" dropped to less than 20% (defensible suspicion of mine: family names were used for many people who refused to answer for any reason whatsoever, meaning neither the 70% stat nor the 16% or so are reliable and the truth must lurk somewhere in between). --Calthinus (talk) 17:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is hard to get any data about the religions of Albanians in Greece, but we have from the Italian Statistical Institute data from 2011 that showed that in Italy, Catholics were like 27.67% which I don't think is because of the over-representation of Albanian Catholics in Immigration, but because of convertion. So for Greece I think the numbers could be even higher, since even Bashkim Zeneli, a former Albanian Ambassador to Greece noticed since generally assimilation pressures for Albanians in Greece were and still are quite high. We also the UNDP Albania poll from 2018, which had a religious background question and 13% said they were Orthodox families, which does make sense in my view. That is why we should wait for the next Census and hope it will work better than the 2011 one, which I think it will because thanks to the internet things that happened in 2011 would cause massive media outrage at least for Orthodox. I also hope the situation for the non-religious will improve, but that remains to be seen. Vargmali (talk) 19:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vargmali But we also have the Demographics and Health Survey of Albania that has over 10k respondents and there the percentage of Orthodox is 7%. Also INSTAT has collected info about religious identification before the census through their LSMS (Life Standards Measurement Survey) and they had these percentage over the years for Orthodox: 9.5% for 2002, 8.4% in 2005, 6.4% in 2008, 7.2% in 2012. These surveys also have over 10k respondents. So I think they are better representative than that UNDP poll that probably oversampled urban and educated older folks. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 19:59, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The UNDP poll has from what I saw a very representative sample which was not more urban that the INSTAT data. The problem with the DHS studies is that they don't focus on religion they give very very low numbers even for Bektashis. However I have not seen the LSMS studies, would care to link them here? I have not found them in the internet. Vargmali (talk) 20:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The question framing is also different i.e. UNDP had background, which is relevant as most irreligious people are disproportionately of Orthodox or Bektashi ultimate extraction. Different questions getting different results-- not necessarily a contradiction. I could easily believe over half of people descended from Ortos patrilineally are not today Orto.--Calthinus (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I also forgot to mention that the Health Survey excludes people above the age of 49, which is quite a big deal considering all data shows that Orthodox people are more represented in the older age categories. So we should take Health Survey for what it is I think. Vargmali (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vargmali The LSMS surveys are in the microdata site, same place as the census sample microdata, here. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 22:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vargmali Calthinus I communicated with the professor who studies the 1918 Austrian census data for Albania and he said that in a few months, probably early next year, the full data will be released to the public. So we'll have some more data about Albania that is very interesting. They've already released a small sample of about 9k inhabitants from or around Kruja here in this site. That's where the full data will be released as well. --Surnamename1995 (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I agree entirely with you that "scientific racism" based on classifying humans into races is rejected as science. However, it is still of historical importance, and should be documented along with other discarded concepts such as phlogiston and phrenology. Also, we need to deal with the fact that the concept was discarded at different times in different scientific communities -- apparently it was still current in Hungary in the 1990s (see Turanian race). And there still seem to be some editors on WP who believe in scientific racism. For example, I recently edited Turanian race to mention that it was an obsolete concept, and another editor re-edited the text to agree that it was obsolete, because the "current" term was "South Siberian race"! I look forward to working with you to improve these articles so that (a) WP clearly indicates that these concepts are no longer widely accepted; (b) WP documents the theories themselves; (c) WP documents the history of the theories. --Macrakis (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would make a couple points:

1) While I agree it is important to document the history of these theories, I would make what I believe to be a strong case that the page of a modern day ethnic group and its members is not the place to do it. At best, it can seem a little off-topic, going from talk of cultural traditions and modern diasporas to history of outdated scientific racism (which here was not labeled as such).

2) It is true that many wikipedia editors still hold scientific racist works to be valid. For the most part I find this fairly innocent on their part because most come from countries that don't have long and problematic histories of appearance-based racism (including Armenia and Turkey, where a lot of the editors on this page hail from). Nevertheless the topic is dealt with extensively on pages like Scientific racism and Turanid race, and it doesn't really need to have a whole section on a page about modern Turkish people, does it? --Yalens (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I was mostly arguing that we need to improve Turanid race so that it doesn't read as though it were describing the current scientific consensus. I do think however that it would be useful to include in x People articles a brief reference, along the lines of: "In the now-obsolete system of scientific racism, the x people were classified as members of the y race." I disagree that scientific racism is "innocent" in the Middle Eastern context. Consider for example pan-Turanianism. --Macrakis (talk) 14:18, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On Pan-Turanianism, fair point. On putting them on the page of "x people", I think the slight problem with this is that the classifications, flimsy as they were, were often quite varied. For example in teh period of scientific racism the Turkish people had not only been classified as "Turanid", but also "Alpine", "Mediterranean", "Pontic", "Armenoid" and a host of all sorts of other things by different authors. Turanid may be the one that Turkish nationalists seem to favor, but it's nevertheless just as absurd as the rest, if not more. To be fair, if we're going to mention Turanid, and probably have to explain what it meant, we'd have to mention all these others too, and that would just get ridiculous and take up way too much of the page (by which I mean more than just a few sentences, really...). Naw, let's just keep it on the appropriate pages. Speaking of those, I've done a little work on Turanid race. Do you think these sorts of rewordings ("was said to predominate in", rather than "predominates in", etc...), replicated en masse elsewhere on wikipedia, will be enough? --Yalens (talk) 02:06, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For your first point, I think it's worth mentioning all the classifications--as cross-references to the appropriate pages. Otherwise there is no place for the reader to find this information collected by "people being classified" as opposed to "classification". Something along the lines of: "In various now-obsolete systems of [[scientific racism]], the x's were classified as [[A race]],<ref>who?</ref> [[B race]],<ref>who?</ref> ...".

I'll take a look at Turanid race. Thanks for your work on this. --Macrakis (talk) 14:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Yalens,

Recently i have been editing the article Albania–Turkey relations. I have trawled over many sources and hope i have covered most things. Can you have a look just in case, even for a grammar fixup if need be. Also, any comments to making the article better or if i missed anything that should be there. I want to send it to GA soon. Best.Resnjari (talk) 16:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Things are a bit crazy for me right now but life should be clearer in three days or so, so I should have it looked over by the weekend. Great work by the way putting all these articles together.--Yalens (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very far from done but at the moment a couple things that could be mentioned come to mind:

1) Albanians in Albania and in Turkey made significant contributions to the late Ottoman reform movements that culminated in the founding of modern Turkey. Some of these guys later also became Albanian nationalists.

2) At least at some point there was a paradigm of rivalry between "Turkish" and "Arab" Islam in the Balkans (as well as attempts at influence from Iran over the Bektashi), with the "Turkish" tradition (as represented by Gulen, and others) being favored as a moderate counterweight to the Arab and Iranian influences, and one more in line with Albanian traditions. The US and the EU also seemed to favor the propagation of the Turkish tradition for the same reasons, although at least one (Greek) author thinks this changed after the Gezi Park protests. I had a good paper on this at one point (I think it was by Babuna) and there was some news articles in Balkan Insight and the like. I'll see if I can find them.

3) Although "Christian issues" are present in the discussion, the issue of the portrayal of the Ottoman Empire in Albanian history books isn't just a Christian Albanians vs. Turkey thing, as there are plenty of Muslim Albanians who also hold and defend negative views of Ottoman rule including the depiction of Ottomans/Turks as "occupiers" or even "colonizers" (not relevant to the page but there are also plenty of typically secular Turks who despite national "Ottomania" retain negative views of the Ottoman period as corrupt and 'feudal').

4) Oktem's quoted citation about Kosovar and Macedonian Albanians' especially close ties to Turkey due to more recent migration is relevant though I'm not sure if it supports what it's cited for (I'm sure the other source does?)

Overall the page is pretty comprehensive and well-cited, which is great of course. --Yalens (talk) 01:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the analysis. Much appreciated. Thing about school text books, i only came across Jazexhi and am not to familiar with Albanian voices who have opposed Turkish relations with Albania as i am from the diaspora. I looked for them and that's what came up in the literature, maybe there is stuff out there in the Albanian media. Very hard and big topic. On the geopolitical end i exhausted the search, its more now at the media articles level to fill in gaps. Yalens, i got a couple of Babuna's articles. I got heaps others. Email me, i'll send you stuff since i noticed you have similar interests on certain subjects that could assist in editing. Best.Resnjari (talk) 18:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I'm still busy at the moment (things will probably be freer in the summer), but I'll finish looking through the page. One more thing that would probably be good to include, if only I could find the author : someone did an analysis of the portrayal of Albanians in Ottoman plays and other cultural media, to find that Albanians were on the one hand regarded as vital parts of the empire due to their contributions, their sacrifice of "blood and treasure", and their "Islam, despite the number of Christian families among them", but on the other hand there was a widespread ethnic stereotype of Albanians as "wild" and "hot-blooded/hot-headed". While Turks admired this "Albanian love of freedom", Albanians, and especially Ghegs (probably most of all Catholic Ghegs), were occasionally portrayed as lawless savages who needed to be tamed for their own good. Sadly I can't seem to relocate the source. Perhaps it belongs elsewhere, like in Anti-Albanism/Albanophilia -- note that in modern Turkey there's still a stereotype of hot-headed Albanians versus cool-headed Bulgarians, while Tosks sometimes said the same things about Ghegs, and there's some historical Greek stereotyping of Christian Albanians following the same 'hot-head/savage' trend (despite Ottoman Greeks being vilified by a similar 'bandit' stereotype themselves) -- i.e. Cassavetes, a Greek Epirote, when he's not claiming Christian Albanians are Albanized Greeks, goes on about how Catholic Albanians are crazy and love their guns, firing them at intervals during marriages and Christian services, and so on. Anyhow, I finished looking through the page and overall it looks pretty good. --Yalens (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there Yalens,

I was thinking that we should add a subsection about the 2011 Census in the Religion in Albania or a complete new article since it devolves in to many details that might be confusing to readers. What do you think about? Vargmali (talk) 11:04, 10 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree. I'm theoretically busy with some major life stuff but I will probably inevitably end up back on here, so I'm down to work on it, but don't expect consistency. --Yalens (talk) 18:59, 10 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will add the "Reactions to the 2011 census" subsection for the time being whith all the info of the Census. Vargmali (talk) 08:34, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your work on the Albanian religion, especially on the maps has been very good.

Thank you Yalens!

Vargmali (talk) 19:55, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you sir :) --Yalens (talk) 20:12, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Are Georgians Adyghe? Seraphim System ^(talk) 04:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. Neither are Chechens, Azeris, Ossetes, "Dagestanians" (whatever that means, as Dagestan is a very diverse multiethnic area), or Armenians, but all of those were included on the map. Meanwhile, it excluded Georgians, Ingush and various other peoples. It was a bad map and just duplicates information elsewhere on the page. --Yalens (talk) 18:06, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, ok - yes, it sounds like it was a bad map, thank you. Seraphim System ^(talk) 18:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. --Yalens (talk) 19:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

		The Epic Barnstar
		For your perseverance and resolve in making many excellent and much needed contributions. Keep the good work up ! Resnjari (talk) 04:42, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks man!! --Yalens (talk) 19:04, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some modern demographics about the Albanian settlements (Konispol etc., once part of Filiates kaza) are found here in Kallivretakis; list [[14]]. Thus far found nothing serious about Thesprotia, apart from a general conclusion by Tsoutsoumpis p. 121 [[15]], and by Kallivretakis (about Albanian speakers in p. 37-38).Alexikoua (talk) 18:17, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!--Yalens (talk) 18:35, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No problem with your edit, if you think it improves the article, I have no problem with an editor in good standing restoring content. WCM_email 07:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, that's what it's all about. Props to you for looking out for potential sock vandals though, it's useful for us all :) --Yalens (talk) 07:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nice notice. Emporia is the Greek name for Mborje [[16]].Alexikoua (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!--Yalens (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Yalens. Can you please check that article? I think there are things that don't add up. Whenever/if you have the time, you can check the article history, my edit-summary and my post at the talkpage. Thanks. Dr. K. 04:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dr.K. Sure thing. Just gimme a day or two. --Yalens (talk) 05:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much Yalens. No rush. Take care. Dr. K. 05:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done --Yalens (talk) 12:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you again Yalens. Looking back at my first revert, aside from the wrong credit rating, some of the stuff I reverted was pure vandalism. It listed, among other vandalism, "GDP (PPP): $3600.524 billion", and "Top export items 2014: Space ships ($560000), Orbital stations($3000), Aircraft carriers($2501)", etc.. Dr. K. 16:34, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've reread my comment at the talk page in that article, and I believe an apology is warranted. From my comment it's not clear that I assumed good faith, and I believe it was unnecessarily harsh. Unfortunately, the lack of good communicative skills is not an uncommon problem for people with predominantly technical background like yours truly. That said, my intent was merely to indicate the problem. Of course, I had no illusions that my cursory read on the topic would make me a better expert than regular editors of the article, which is why I abstained from suggesting the changes to the text to fix the problem. In addition, I lacked some cited books, so I'd have either to find a good library or spend sums like $100 from my family's budget to buy the said books, which is not a decision I should make on impulse. Thanks for your attention, Document hippo (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's okay, we all make mistakes some time, I make plenty myself. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. --Yalens (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

About the recent edits I assume something is missing on the inline (Fraseri). However I would be very cautious to rely on material that was created during the P.R. of Albania era (or revisions based on works of that era). It would be also erroneous to have the 1880s foundation of the first Albanian school in the city in the history section without to mention what was going on before that decade in local education.10:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Alexikoua Frasheri is an especially useful source for Albanian secret societies in the late Ottoman era, given his family connections to the actual people and their heirs. I don't intend to use him for any of the disputed facts. You probably mean to say "unbalanced" not "erroneous". But I disagree- the page already has loads about Greek education in the city before that which duplicates itself left and right. In fact, sentences discussing Greek education take up 12750 characters, about a fifth of the page -- although some of this is because of citations and inlines, that's still a lot on a 65,823 byte page. It should be no more than 10%-- there's much more to the city. And when I first came to the page, the word "Greek" was mentioned more than "Albania", on top of other interesting stats-- that looked bad. --Yalens (talk) 12:24, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As for inlines I can do that. Give me a bit, I'm busy, but I'll get to it, I promise. Last I heard, Resnjari was getting criticized for using too many inlines, so I thought that wasn't cool anymore. --Yalens (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course Korcha is complex and multifaceted, and thanks to Greek education (even if Albanians hate admitting it) Korcha was the cradle of Albanian nationalism, producing most of its earliest writers. But right now the page looks like its all about nationalism (actually the vast majority of the page is devoted to this)-- there should be more about sports, beer, museums, etc... If anything, we may need to split off and summarize the history and repetitive education blurbs (both Greek and Albanian) as they are taking up far too much of the page. --Yalens (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Really sorry for writing a lot, but I realize there's one other thing that needed a response-- while authoritarian regimes sometimes had a chilling effect on academic writings, I don't think it's fair to question the credibility of all sources from a certain era without considering them and their individual authors, individually. Greece too has suffered from many authoritarian regimes, such as Metaxas or the West-backed military juntas, but I would never go so far as to categorically question the validity of works from either era, as it seems unfair to the authors. --Yalens (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On inlines one, is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Use of scholarship produced during the communist i have not used on my part (i don't have accesses to it anyway ass academic institution where i live don't have Albanian literature and what i do have i have forked out money or gotten through the library congress through my uni), but neither have i used sources produced from the modern except on literally a couple of time that can be counted on a hand in English Wikipedia. If its about something non- controversial, then its ok. On the Albanian element, it was present in Korce and played a prominent role in the dynamics of identity matters relating to the Orthodox and Muslim Albanian (speaking) element in the era and the awakening. On the education section, i do agree its kind of become a bit distracting taking away from the' main article.Resnjari (talk) 13:37, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yalens your addition of K.Frasheri's work lacks some essential features: ISBN, year of publication, publishing house, which revision is used since the specific work was initially printed during the PR Albania era and then reprinted after the restoration of democracy. The full tag doesn't necessary mean that a quote is needed: the 'vn' tag is most appropriate if we need a quote to verify the correspondent information. Anyway thanks for the quotes. I've also noticed that Frasheri's work adapts the usual nationalist rhetoric about "persecution by the Greek Patriarchate". A view mainly accepted in the bibliography of the P.R. Albania-era due to misinterpretation of primary material (see Giakoumis for details).Alexikoua (talk) 18:28, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

About the education section I wonder why Avramidis' decision "not" to contribute to Albanian education should be written in detail. On the other hand his contribution to Greek education is minimal although he sponsored the foundation of 3 schools etc.. As for the impact on the local population Greek vs Albanian Ottoman era-education appears nearly 50-50, although Albanian education had a minimal impact compared to the Greek one in the daily life of the city: it existed c. 1-2 decades and never exceeded 30 pupils a year.Alexikoua (talk) 18:37, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alexikoua Yes it does, but I doubt he would fabricate simple facts like when an organization was founded. Is that what you think he did? Does Giakoumis say that? We can remove Avramidis. Although many more people were given Greek education, the foundation of the first Albanian schools in Korcha was monumental and highly influential to the history of Albania-- I doubt one can call that a minimal impact. In contrast, in the history of Greece and the Greek people, even if we limit it to the post-1500 history, anything that ever happened in Korcha is in a parenthesis if it gets mentioned at all.--Yalens (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't object the specific event, however works that recycle the usual national rhetoric about persecution and victimization due to the efforts of the "Greek Patriarchate" should be taken under precaution. Giakoumis noticed that this myth is still dominant in some modern-era revisions too: [[17]] ... Inter alia this edition (History of the Albanian People, '02) reproduces the stereotype that ―the religion of Albania is Albanianism and cauterizes the systematic efforts of the ―Greek Patriarchate and the chauvinist milieu of neighbouring states to drown the attempts to use Albanian is Church services and in schools. Such views, based on selective use and superficial interpretation of conveniently selected sources, in spite of existing opposing evidence, point out to a classical example of how a topic viewed merely in a local setting and isolated from its supranational dimensions drives to misleading conclusions, that were widely instrumentalized at the beginning of the 20th century in a collective attempt to construct a national identity just after the establishment of the Albanian state.

By double checking the education section the information that concerns Greek education exclusively (a period of c. 2 centuries) is limited to the first paragraph. The 2nd paragraph describes the first initiatives to introduce Albanian as well as the first reactions & the 3rd goes into detail about the 2 Albanian schools that operated for a limited time & were not so popular in their period of operation: almost every single person involved is mentioned by name (with their background info. in some cases) & some information is double mentioned (the closing of the schools). The later initiatives had more a symbolic impact on Albanian nationalism. To sum up: since our subject is Korce and not Albanian/Greek national histories I believe that Greek education deserves the specific amount of information in the current version.Alexikoua (talk) 21:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

However, "Greek education" seems to have found its way onto other parts of the page, including History where it is incredibly redundant, and the "Modern Education" section which is dominated by "Greek education" among others. I disagree strongly about the significance of Korcha for Albania (and its notability): the first Albanian literature, the first modern attempts at an Albanian alphabet, the first writing of nationalist sentiments, the first establishment of schools that advocated Albanism, the foundation of the first Albanian cultural clubs and then nationalist organizations, and so on... these are so much more than only "symbolic" in significance (but even symbolism can be important). Especially language and folklore have a larger role in Albanian identity than neighbors (filling a gap left by the role of religion), as has been discussed by people like Rrapaj, Glenny etc, these were especially important. ---Yalens (talk) 01:56, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As for Frasheri, I agree that his interpretations should be taken with caution. But even many non-Albanian authors note that the Greek school system and the Patriarchate were often partial to Greek nationalist views and acted to propagate them (Palairet, widely used on the page is one, Zickel, Glenny, etc.), while acting in tandem with the Ottoman state to suppress "subversive" activity by other nationalists, especially Bulgarian and Albanian. Of course there are other reasons for not wanting to use languages other than church Greek which were viewed as lower and you're right Albanian nationalist views may neglect this sort of sociolinguistic take on it. --Yalens (talk) 02:44, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A school that never exceeded 30 pupils and operated for a short term can't have a significant impact on the education of its city (though I do not doubt about the symbolical character of this initiative, it was the very first attempt of this kind). On the other hand pupils in Greek schools numbered 2k+ that time. I disagree that nationalism and all this "secret societies" should be part of education section. However, I fully agree that more culture is needed here (about past and present), for example the theatrical performances and concerts undertaken after the initiative of bishop Photios & the various institutions established by the Lasso fund (apart from schools).Alexikoua (talk) 14:10, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you arguing against things I didn't say? It seems you agree that the advent of Albanian schooling in the city is historically significant. Notability is the question, not whether it had a "significant impact on education in the city"-- a paradigm shift. In principle alone, Photios stuff is notable and fine to have on the page, or a page we could create about "History of Korce", though many Albanians will take Photios stuff as a calculated insult and may be mad at me for saying this.

But I'm a bit concerned that every single thing you have proposed is once again Greek. How is it that every single thing Greek is somehow necessary to the page in your view, and every single thing that you want to remove is Albanian? While some Greeks (probably a minority in Greece even, though some guys with big ideas and interesting political views may be quite loud about it) may view "Koritza" as a "Greek city", this is anything but the international consensus, and I have never seen a credible source that asserted that actual ethnic Greeks make up any large percentage of the population. We cannot portray it as such by talking so disproportionately about everything Greek and trying to remove the rest. You would easily convince me if you talked about adding/removing things that didn't stack so consistently by ethnicity. You may still yet convince me. Obviously Greek contributions to the city are quite fine to note, but the way that page has been had strayed deep into the territory of implying dominance, not contributions -- a POV/balance headache. --Yalens (talk) 00:16, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree about Photios and how "many Albanians" might be insulted about such addition: theater, music performances, foundation of hospitals by the Lasso etc.. are initiatives that are nice to stay and contribute to the rich cultural part of the city. Off course I won't object similar addition of other cultural initiatives in Ottoman/modern-era Korca. I also understand that Albanian historiography terms Korca as "the center of Albanian nationalism"(similar situation about Greek nationalists, though Korca is in parenthesis in their list), but cultural plurality was a dominant feature, especially in the past .Alexikoua (talk) 13:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned that they'd be insulted because I'm aware Photios' picture has caused conflict on Wikipedia before. The view of Korca's prominence in Albanian history is not restricted to "Albanian historiography" (which by the way prefers "Albanism" and "rilindja" aka "renaissance" to "nationalism" as a term), Korca just happened to be a city where disproportionately many important things happened for Albanians. For Greeks, that would be Ioannina, Constantinople, Athens, even Odessa, etc. Never is Korca included in a primary list, it's hard to think of how it could compare to those. But it's good that we agree about including stuff from all groups on the page. --Yalens (talk) 19:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair it did appear that my previous assessment of the page missed that this claim was somehow there, uncited for quite some time -- [[18]] -- it's removed now of course.--Yalens (talk) 16:43, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	The violence in Catalonia’s referendum was not an easy topic. Congratulations on your work that made reaching a consensus possible. Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:53, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Crystallizedcarbon Thanks a ton, and thanks for your constructive help! I'm gonna wait a week before displaying this one -- don't want to jinx the current lack of edit warring haha. --Calthinus (talk) 16:59, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

		The Barnstar of Diplomacy
		I also want to thank you for your kindness, your effectiveness and your great work on a so complicated issue as violence in Catalonia’s referendum. BallenaBlanca (Talk) 18:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BallenaBlanca Thanks a ton, best of luck and happy editing! --Calthinus (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Calthinus, hope you are doing well. I am very concerned with the development in the article (see also talk page), and the takeover attempts by the two editors above that at all costs are bulldozing their views. I have been for long in the EN WP and we have seen, like other editors, what is going on in critical Spanish matters. Not long ago, we lastly managed to ban a troll, a typical case of WP:NOTTHERE, after a long period of disruption to the WP that scared away productive editors. I may not be all the diplomatic I should per WP standards but I should urge you not to give up the article. Thank you Iñaki LL (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Iñaki LL, hope you're doing well as well. In my opinion, while you may perceive what's going on as a POV push (likewise Carbon and Ballena probably perceive the same of your own edits), my take on this is that both you and them feel like you're on the defensive. A long time ago, I saw some of your work on Basque language, especially with the video concerning the sociolinguistics of Basque usage -- I'm glad that's on the page, and for your work on that. With that in mind, I hope this isn't patronizing, but I urge you to be a bit more diplomatic. I have recently been mainly editing Balkan topics, and I've got to tell you the differences between editors there are often run much deeper than the ones here (the climate also gets a lot worse there than in Iberian topics, with lots of ultimately unnecessary casualties). I think this dispute can be resolved, but the main issue is a siege mentality that is found on both sides. Once again, my apologies if this sounds patronizing-- I am too busy at the moment to try to word this in a way that I'm sure it will come out exactly as I intended. --Calthinus (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Good to hear from you, Calthinus and thanks for your comment! The thing is I have been quite a bit in some Spanish history and national areas of the EN WP to see enough, to deal with multi-tentacled "hydras", and have more than a taste of what is going on deep within, this may be not the best place to talk about it. I am sure that in the Balkans and elsewhere there are disputes that have run deeper, I have heard testimonies first-hand. Now coming back to this, I would not say there is just some POV pushing, as you may have noticed in the political argumentation used in the talk page to veto relevant information from the lede, but a lot of noise, disruptive editing, and aggresive attitude under a thin layer of 'humility', and bulldozing. You are an experienced editor, so you know well, and you have shown me that have seen or gone through tough and/or tricky disrputes. Now I should slightly disagree with your last comment in the talk page, but will add my point there. Best regards Iñaki LL (talk) 21:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Calthinus, would not like to bother here, I thought we were on the last stage, but I do think this is not going to end up well, unless you make your point beyond tempering attempts. As I pointed, the first paragraph is irremediably biased, charged in a row with negativity, I tried to find a middle-of-the-road solution, but found a revert and a self-entitled summary line. This is my last plea. Best, Iñaki LL (talk) 22:26, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Iñaki LL We don't have to worry about whether it will "end well" as improving Wikipedia is a never ending and continuous process. Now, as for POV in the lede, not just isolating the first paragraph, I decided to count the number of statements that could fall either way, and I ended up with 9 "pro-referendum" and "anti-crackdown" statements combined and 14 "anti-referendum" statements, so there is a bit of a disbalance, but I'm not sure it is quite as drastic as you think. Squinting I would see a POV-character representation of about 1:2, so it's a similar story. There is a lot more that could be done to improve this page, but the sad fact is that I am really busy right now and really shouldn't be involving myself in this.

So instead I'll give you my advice. I know you may think that Carbon and Ballena are POV-pushing, and they think you are too. Imo they and you are both being overly defensive-- typical of topics like this. In fact, when I first got on this page, I confess, I thought some Spanish editors were editing tendentiously, but I was hasty in my judgment and in truth some people deserve on apology for that first thought. I believe you for sure that there are POV edit-warriors lurking around the topics, but in my admittedly short experience specifically with Ballena and Carbon, if you stick to arguments about content and policy, and demonstrate respect for them as colleagues they can be accommodating.

They do have strong personal opinions which obviously differ from yours (quite possibly from mine too, I'm probably somewhere in the middle), but if you demonstrate that you yourself just want equal representation and aren't trying to impose the Catalan separatist (or Basque) view on the page (as they may think you are), I'm pretty optimistic that you can reach an agreement with them. Ballena compromised with you at least once I saw. You can, and should, build on that -- they aren't East Europe style edit warriors actually both typically edit outside of politics. I have faith in you, and I'll be watching from time to time. Hope that didn't come off as a lecture. Best, --Calthinus (talk) 02:23, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply, Calthinus. My concern is more about the second sentence and the first paragraph, irremediably charged with negative, lecturing-style wording. I was happy to see for a moment that eventually (only eventually) we reached a common ground with the Ballena yesterday, but that did not happen actually, it was an illusion. Let's see Iñaki LL (talk) 11:04, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've no problem with you removing comments that the user probably hasn't seen yet. I'm saying it here so as not to further clutter the talk page. You're welcome to remove the stricken comment and my reply if you want. Scolaire (talk) 08:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.  Done --Calthinus (talk) 16:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Political prisoners in Spain is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Political prisoners in Spain until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Scolaire (talk) 09:08, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know, you haven't struck through your original !vote. Scolaire (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh crap, thanks. I'm a bit clumsy sometimes. --Calthinus (talk) 14:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I only meant that you should strike the word "Keep" (and maybe unbold the word "Delete" at the end). I think it's a shame to strike through the whole thing, because it was an insightful and useful contribution to the discussion. Scolaire (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done --Calthinus (talk) 15:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Prince Osman Rifat Ibrahim's Homepage is a real source, because he is a direct descendant in paternal line of Mehmed Ali Pasha. Please have a Look, His Ancestors was from the Turkish City İliç, www.mohamedali.eu/mohamed_ali.html

Does not look like it passes WP:RS.--Calthinus (talk) 00:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What you mean? didnt understand you answer

I'm sorry, my bad I used jargon. I mean that we have certain standards on Wikipedia about what constitutes a good source to use. A website typically doesn't pass unless we have evidence that it does scrupulous fact-checking. On the other hand academic papers and reputed books are much more welcomed. --Calthinus (talk) 01:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my comment was not directed at you personally, though I understand that it may have felt personal because I used your words as an example of the general derogatory tone about Turkification and Turkish language in the recent discussions. I think as with all sensitive issues editors should exercise some restraint, but this was only a minor example. Do you understand how "thanks to Turkification" can come across that way? You may not have meant it that way, but on the whole I think we should be careful when working on a culture that isn't as well represented in Western Scholarship as other cultures that we write about, and example our own biases (which may be unconscious). There is nothing we can do about the limited depth of scholarship here on Wikipedia, but I would appreciate if we could be careful about the words we use. We don't say "thanks to hellenization ..." we usually say "as a result of hellenization" - at least I do. Seraphim System ^(talk) 01:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seraphim System I was actually about to apologize to you about that. I was unnecessarily snappy. And I agree that for the sake of sanity on Wikipedia editors should refrain from saying things that are likely to be taken as offensive by other groups. I'm sure I have my own biases. As far as I see it, since you brought it up, the fact that many people in Turkey that had been of other groups identify as Turks, speak only Turkish etc is proof of their Turkification -- assimilation is also often a voluntary process and is very common globally (whether voluntary, non-voluntary, quasi-voluntary, semi-voluntary whatever). But it's a vague word and given the climate of that talk page maybe I shouldn't have said it.

Funny thing is, "thanks to Hellenization" is almost certainly a line I have used in the past probably in reference to Arvanites and tbh I shouldn't have (Turks and Greeks might have a different viewpoint on these things than the other Balkan peoples I suspect). To be fair I have seen you say things that likely rub into some people of other backgrounds -- questioning whether Israel can be both Jewish and democratic, "criticism is building against Greece", and (I know this is massively controversial) editing stuff about the Armenian Genocide, all while you're in Turkey disputes with people from those places. Last one I'm saying because if you're in disputes with Armenian editors and you do that, it looks like you're a denier and many of them might even have relatives or ancestors who died in it. Obv you're free to edit whatever you want but some things are just not a good idea because people think you're something that I think you're not. I'm not saying this to reprimand you or anything-- just that it's a bad idea. We're both guilty of making these sorts of mistakes but it's really shooting yourself/myself in the foot. --Calthinus (talk) 01:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that - there is some good advice there. I think generally I have a positive attitude about questioning, I think we should question things, but on Wikipedia we should stick to sources. Regarding Greece, I think there is massive controversy about the positions of their far right party where the controversy about Macedonia has reached the ICJ, and on other issues they describe the Sieg Heil salute as an "ancient greek" symbol - I assume the regular editors in the topic are already aware of these issues.

On Armenian Genocide - I know a lot of Turkish Armenians, and they don't feel comfortable disclosing their identity to everyone but Greeks and Armenians have shared their backgrounds with me, and I'm honored that they have shown me that kind of trust, so it comes as a shock to me to be accused of being denialist or Pro-Government position, because that is so far from who I have been my entire life. Regarding recognition, I think Turgut Ozal was willing, but a lot has changed since then. I thought my edits were fairly minor and did not effect the balance of the article - For example I was asked not add citation needed tags without discussion (Edit summary: Go to the talkpage and explain why these facts need verification.)[19] -it did not seem to me that the editors were interested in discussing or improving the article. I don't know where they are from, because they have never told me.Seraphim System ^(talk) 02:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seraphim System Yeah, read the part I deleted too, actually. Honestly I don't want you to end up where some others have that I've seen. On Greece, yes the country has some issues (like unfortunate economic issues helping a crazy fash party with big ideas get more popularity). I don't know if you know, but the Macedonia issue has seen a lot of meh stuff on both sides and to be fair to the Greeks there are Macedonian nationalist groups too who occasionally make coy remarks about whether certain territories (i.e. in Greek Macedonia, the province) should actually belong to Greece, which of course if you're Greek that's a massive provocation. Between Greece and Albania too there is some criticism to be had on both sides. But as far as I see it, singling out one country and saying "criticism is building against you" just feels kind of threatening if you're of that nationality, no matter how justified or unjustified it might. That applies in some other places that have a tendency to be singled out too, regardless of how justified or unjustified it is, it makes people feel bad, which does not make for a good climate on Wiki. Given that Turkey is a country that itself is singled out unfairly for criticism that actually applies to a lot of different countries, and you yourself have been critical of this, I think you can understand that.

That's pretty interesting re: Turkish Armenians, I didn't know that so many still held on to their roots. Thing is that on wikipedia people often assume the worst-- on both sides. Sometimes they aren't, but I personally I think in a lot of that notorious "nationalist POV-warring" it's because both sides think they're on the defensive and make the other side into something they're not. --Calthinus (talk) 02:50, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the entire region of the Balkans is full of provocations I think, but I was referring more to the Greek far-rights rhetoric of expansion, which I think can be scary when a country appears unstable. Actually, Greece probably isn't getting as much attention as I think - it is probably more what I have been reading recently that makes it seem that way. I have Armenian neighbors who speak Turkish (but I think Armenian is their first language) and they have been close to my family my entire life. It's actually pretty depressing that a few Armenian militants in the 80s did so much damage to Ozal's agenda where he wanted to actually offer repatriation to the diaspora. Seraphim System ^(talk) 03:11, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On the Balkans I agree completely, though I'm not sure which country you're referring to. Tbh it doesn't matter. Naturally they damaged Ozal's agenda. What else could be more threatening to their dream of revisionism, than the possibility of reconciliation within stable borders? That shit had to be stopped immediately. Granted as I understand some of that militancy had historically originated as acting in Soviet, rather than specifically Armenian, interests.--Calthinus (talk) 03:19, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply