Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seydibesir POW Camp

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Sandstein 10:59, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seydibesir POW Camp[edit]

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This is an entirely unsourced article making what is a wholly tendentious claim....(the reason for the alleged blinding was that the British were "hypnotised by the Armenians")acording to an evidently scrupulously impartial website. (not that I have much respect for the British, being one myself). True the POW camp may be notable but imo WP:TNT applies. TheLongTone (talk) 14:35, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also nominating

Keep.This is a well known tragedia of WW1. True, the article is a stub and it needs to be expanded. But there is no reason to delete it. Besides in the article I haven't seen any reference to Armenians and I don't know why the proposer mentions "hypnotised by the Armenians" . Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 08:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well-known my eye. I mention Armenians because both of the very flaky sources I found on the Web mentioned Armenians. Come up with a half-way reputable source for this guff, please. It might be possible to come up with more if the place was referred to by its Egyptian/Arabic name, incidentally.TheLongTone (talk) 13:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Middle East-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The camp itself may be notable, but the article isn't about the camp. It's about an alleged atrocity that hasn't, as far as I can tell, had a single shred of hard evidence put forward to prove it ever actually happened and which can join the serried ranks of conspiracy theories (the British apparently did it at the behest of the Armenians, an unbelievably unlikely story) and urban legends. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:38, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete unless WP:RS can be provided. I have no doubt that following the campaign in Palestine, the British had a lot of POWs and it may be that a few went blind while imprisoned. I suspect that this is a story that has been greatly exaggerated, if not a plain HOAX. While this was the period before the Geneva Conventions, the British were used to keeping POWs in camps. This happened with captured Germans. I therefore doubt that the British would be incapable of dealing with their Turkish WWI prisoners. I suspect that this is an invented story to use to counter issues about the Armenian genocide. That was wrong, but perhaps capable of justification in Turkish eyes on the basis that their Christian subjects were potential traitors. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per above. Heyyouoverthere (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as there do not appear to be any reliable sources confirming that this event occurred. Karl Dickman ^talk 21:57, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Fails WP:V, WP:EVENT and WP:NOR.--Ddcm8991 (talk) 17:40, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment:The creator may be a beginner and the articles may be problematic. But Seydibesir Event is notable. (Nobody can say that blinded 15000 soldiers is not notable) Please see [1] for the diary of a soldier . Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 12:14, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. But there is no even halfway reliable source for this lurid and improbable story. And the camp was called Sidi Bishr, btw. And was regularly inspected by the International Red Cross. TheLongTone (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it would be notable if 15,000 soldiers had been blinded, especially if they'd been deliberately blinded. But there's no reliable evidence for this incredibly far-fetched story. It seems to be a typical myth that has grown in the telling and is taken as fact by some with no real attempt to question its veracity or gather evidence. If it had happened then it is inconceivable that there would be no reliable sources. The "source" you cite says: "Because the British were brainwashed by Armenians, being told that in a potential new war they could come up against these soldiers again. The solution was massacre..." So the British Empire, which ruled half the world, was brainwashed by a bunch of Armenians into massacring Turkish soldiers, who they'd just defeated, because they might possibly face them again in war? And you expect us to take that as a reliable source? It's about as reliable as Nazi propaganda saying that the Jews were responsible for all the world's ills by hoodwinking every Western government. Those danged Armenians with their supernatural powers of mind control! Pity they didn't use them to stop the Turks massacring them! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:08, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete both - at best these articles seem to refer to a myth that seems to have built up over time which was the probably the result of a far smaller number of prisoners going blind due to a vitamin deficiency caused by a poor diet (see for instance Yucel Yanikdag (2013) Healing the Nation: Prisoners of War, Medicine and Nationalism in Turkey, 1914-1939, p. 160 [2] published by Edinburgh University so meets the req's of WP:RS as far as I can tell). There appears to be some coverage of this topic (i.e. the myth) in Google Books (although I couldn't read the sources so cannot verify the content). Given this I am tempted to say the "myth" itself *might* be notable; however, the manner in which these articles deal with it is entirely different, being the unsourced WP:FRINGE version presented without context. Quite simply unless someone is able to rewrite these really quickly I think they do indeed need to be blown up lest Wikipedia further assist the spread of yet another hoax / myth. I've tagged both as disputed for now to alert readers at least. Anotherclown (talk) 07:08, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete both Seydibesir Event for lack of verifiability and Seydibesir POW Camp because the present article is not about the camp, and it is better to start over (WP:TNT) with an article at the camp's acknowledged name, Sidi Bishr, as TheLongTone suggets. --Bejnar (talk) 03:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.