Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aghdaban massacre

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. Clear consensus supports deleting the article. Also salting the article to protect re-creation per multiple requests here. Daniel (talk) 11:35, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aghdaban massacre[edit]

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Is this some kind of a joke? This article (if you call it that) is based on clearly propagandist Azeri websites. There are two external links to historyoftruth.com "Armenian Allegations" (pretty self-explanatory). The first link entitled "20 Years Pass Since Armenians Committed Genocide [!] In Aghdaban" claims that "Armenians burnt 130-house Aghdaban village, tortured people, 33 people were killed, 8 old people aged 90-100, 2 children, 7 women were burnt alive, 2 went missing, 12 were seriously injured. Armenians burnt the manuscripts Aghdabanli Gurban and Ashug Shamshir." Երևանցի ^talk 09:18, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Sources provided are POV, cannot find RS, not even to confirm the event occurred. Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Ağdaban, not notable outside that locality.--Auric talk 14:41, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and tag refimprove. The particular 'propagandist' websites can be hashed out on the RSN. There is a book out there – My brother's road OCLC 56805609 which may qualify to substantiate the event. – S. Rich (talk) 18:40, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete In addition to the concerns I have raised at ANI, the massacre, tragedy, or genocide (whatever you want to call it) cannot be found in any independent RS. When searching for Aghdaban massacre, Aghdaban tragedy, or Aghdaban genocide, nothing seems to show up. My Brothers Road merely states that Armenians "attacked the militarized village of Aghdaban" which sounds nothing like how the article presents the event, let alone some sort of massacre of the innocents. Proudbolsahye (talk) 18:56, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
there is no reliably sourced content to merge. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:20, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To the users who support "merge": merge what? Can you please take a few seconds and look at those sources? They are some blog-like Azeri amateur sites. --Երևանցի ^talk 19:49, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I see nothing "blog-like" about any of the links. --Auric talk 23:11, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.historyoftruth.com/ Its title is "Armenian Allegations". What do you call that? Or what's http://karabakh.org/? I don't see how they can ever be considered reliable. If there was a massacre as claimed by these sites, I'm sure there would be at least a few mentions in books on the Nagorno-Karabakh War. One of the best works on the topic is Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War and it doesn't say anything about Aghdaban. --Երևանցի ^talk 23:18, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unreliable, yes; blog-like, no. I do agree that it's not really notable on its own. It was a war. Things happen. The conquering of a village is only notable in the history of that village.--Auric talk 23:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Uhm. Yeah, it is a blog-like site. See here. It located in WordPress ("a free and open source blogging tool"). You missed the point or maybe I wasn't clear enough. There is no question of notability here. I doubt the occurrence of this massacre, because the only sources that talk about it are clearly biased Azeri sites. --Երևանցի ^talk 23:48, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I was looking at this which mentions nothing about wordpress. I direct you to "Svante E. Cornell (1999), "The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict" (PDF), Report No 46, Department of East European Studies, Uppsala University" No massacre is claimed, merely an eviction. So something happened, just not a massacre.--Auric talk 00:02, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cornell says "Azeri villages of Malybeili, Karadagly, and Agdaban were conquered an their population evicted [i.e. expelled], leading to at least 99 civilian deaths and 140 wounded." As you said, there's nothing about massacres. Therefore, I don't see any reason to have an article entitled "Aghdaban massacre" and especially "Aghdaban genocide" simply based on Azeri propagandist sites. --Երևանցի ^talk 02:56, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - major WP:V issues, so nothing to merge, and it's completely non-notable - if it even occurred. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:44, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Armenia-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Azerbaijan-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete – what the heck happened to sources and neutral point of view? Epicgenius (talk) 02:17, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - alleged incident appears to lack "significant" coverage in WP:RS so even if it happened it is probably non-notable per WP:GNG. Nothing stopping article being recreated if RS come to light in the future but in its current state this needs to be binned ASAP as it cannot be verified per WP:V and seems to be POV. Anotherclown (talk) 03:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and salt no reliable sources, no notability, blatantly POV. As per multiple views above. DES ^(talk) 15:14, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, obviously. In fact, it would be entirely proper for someone to IAR and delete it right now. Joefromrandb (talk) 08:14, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Snow delete and SALT. No Reliable sources. Fails WP:V....William 16:35, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and tag refimprove. The UN does have letters regarding this and other violence (probably falling under war crimes rather than Military-related) in the region, noting Aghdaban as one of the targeted villages. Arbitrary deletion using terminology such as, "not notable outside that locality" or, "I doubt the occurrence of this massacre" is... well, unsavoury to say the least. Perhaps it's a hoax, but I'd be reticent to dismiss it entirely because it has failed to gain a plethora of Western media attention. EDIT Change to Delete: If any WP:V and WP:RS does emerge, an appropriately named article can be written at a later date. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:15, 28 December 2013 (UTC) --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:37, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Kindly do not denigrate your fellow editors by calling their currently well-founded opinions "unsavoury". If you have evidence that this event happened, then please present it; I see nothing at the link you provided (which is to the website of the Azerbaijani Mission to the U.N., and so is, again, potentially a POV source - if there was actually anything at the link to read). Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:25, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you meant to send us to the "Armenian aggression" section of the page (there's a neutral title for you). What I can find there about Aghdaban is this:
43. In May 1992, Shusha, the Azerbaijani-populated administrative centre of the district within Nagorny Karabakh, and Lachyn, the district situated between Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh, were occupied. In 1993, the armed forces of Armenia captured another six districts of Azerbaijan around Nagorny Karabakh: Kalbajar (April 1993), Aghdam (July 1993), Jabrayil (August 1993), Gubadly (August 1993), Fuzuli (August 1993) and Zangilan (October 1993).
Note that even this biased sourced doesn't refer to an "Aghdaban genocide" or "massacre", even though only a few sections above it had no problem with referring to a "Khojaly genocide" in February 1992. Also note that the date given for the Armenian military take-over of Aghdaban is "July 1993", not the April 1992 or May 1993 given in the Wiki-article under examination here.
The"Armenian aggression" statement is a potpourri of claims and charges, none of which can be taken at face value, because it's an attempt by one party to hostilities to make a case against the other party. There's little doubt that something happened, maybe some of these claims are bona fide, but there's no way to tell without the information coming from a neutral source. The website of the Azerbaijani Mission to the U.N. doesn't qualify as that, and therefore cannot be accepted as a reliable source. It's not our job to sort out the truth from claims and counter-claims, it;s our job to present neutral facts from trusted sources, of which he have none for this article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While you were writing all of that, I was finding this:- Please read this PDF from the site. The fact that it reads, "In the first years of the conflict, the tragedy and terrorism committed by Armenians against the Azerbaijani population of Karabakh in the villages of Kerkijahan(and here), Mesheli, Koushjular, Karadaghly and Aghdaban, and finally the Khodjaly genocide..." would lead me to suspect that, although the information in the article/item in question is not encyclopaedic and overtly POV, there is very probably substance in the claim. I've managed to find this connection in under a half an hour just through a quick google search. I find it surprising that no one else seems to have found anything outside of the obvious and unsubstantiated cris de coeur entries. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:08, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You also missed my suggestion regarding what to do with the current article: merge and tag for refimprove (that is, merge into Aghdaban). I'd say that, in terms of naming conventions, you couldn't get much more neutral. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:14, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We appreciate your efforts, but at least read the PDF you found. It's a letter. Since when is a letter a reliable source? I think you've been here long enough to know that. --Երևանցի ^talk 04:15, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Iryna Harpy - Since there is no reliable source to verify that the event occurred (as required by WP:V), there is nothing to be merged. We don't usually keep stuff around in the hope that someday someone may come up with a source to back it up. Instead, we delete it, and then if a reliable source is later found, an article can be written around what that source says. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:19, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And, to support what Yerevantsi said, a letter from the "Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan" to the General Secretary of the U.N. can be considered a reliable source only as to the opinions of the government of Azerbaijan. That's not a neutral source for establishing facts. You'll have to do better than that, since we're looking for a citation from an unbiased reliable source. (If there was a U.N. report on the matter, the result of an investigation by U.N. officials, for instance, or written by a third party and officially accepted by the U.N., that might qualify. But not letters from Azerbaijani or Armenian officials, or their close allies.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can certainly complain that this is a subject area that hasn't been dealt with well by the Western media, and you'd have a valid point, I think, but the fact of the matter is we need someone of that sort to verify this claim, and nothing has turned up, at least that I can find, and I believe others have also tried and come up empty. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:30, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@րևանցի and @Beyond My Ken. Yes, my apologies to all. I've been working on too many politically sensitive articles and am getting uncivil and bitey. While I suspect that there could be some substance to the allegations, it isn't our job to create the news, nor am I particularly interested in playing at investigative journalism. I get a little anxious about the number of articles that need to be cleared vs. being expedient for the sake of clearing articles. I'll change my comment to 'delete' and have an aspirin and a little lie down. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:32, 28 December 2013 (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.