Talk:Çarçovë

It's quite resonable when almost half of the settlements are Greek speaking to have the alternative Greek name. Some wikirules appear to agree with that: "Relevant foreign language names (one used by at least 10% of sources in the English language or is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place) are permitted.[]".Alexikoua (talk) 12:50, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

The region is also currently a municipal unit, thus it appears that edit summaries such as this one [] can be easily considered disruptive, since the specific fact is already stated in lede.Alexikoua (talk) 12:54, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

The Greek name should not be in the lead (settlement is not Greek speaking and the majority of the villages in the municipality are Orthodox and Albanian speaking (either split the two and create a municipality Carcove page where the Greek name can be in the lead, otherwise no). Greek name can be in the sentence where it discusses the Greek speaking settlements. The municipality contains many villages and only two are outright Greek speaking, with some Greek speakers in the other two. Also regarding Dimitropoulos, a senior Wikipedia editor Macrakis in the Northern Epirus talk page noted that Dimitropoulos' work is not peer peer reviewed as it has not been published, whereas Nitsiakos is published and peer reviewed. Dimitropoulos list on page 11 also has other multiple issues which needs to be pointed out. For one he double counts Biovizhde. Valovista is the Greek name of Biovizhde, not a separate settlement (see Nitiakos for more). Secondly Dimitropoulos places on page 11 next to Vllaho-Psilotere the settlement of Apsalla in the Permet region. That is geographically wrong. Apsalla is in the Pogoni municipality and it is a Greek hamlet counted under the bigger Greek village of Sopik). Thridly he also includes Orthodox Albanian speaking villages such as Muzine and Pece (p.13) as Greek which Kallivretakis clearly states are Orthodox Albanian and so does Winnifrith in his article at Faratsoul. Also the village of Kardhikaq is a reconised Greek village from the commie Enver times. Dimitropoulos lists it as unrecognised. Like i said to Rolandi about certain Albanian sources, now i say this to you regarding Dimitropoulos: use with caution as he is not peer reviewed and has multiple mistakes and his work can be challenged. Resnjari (talk) 13:12, 11 July 2015 (UTC)


 * It appears you created fresh-new rules for wikipedia. ("is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place" as given above) Even if there are 2 or 4 Greek villages out of 9 the removal of the alternative name is not acceptable.Alexikoua (talk) 13:44, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually no. For one the name was based from a source (i.e: Dimitropoulos) that is not peer reviewed) and has multiple issues (other issues are like on page 13 when he states that Albanian Muslim villages(in the Konispol area) are "former Greek villages" which he bases on folk information. That's fine, but the Greek song clearly refers to religious conversion i.e. from Orthodoxy, not about ethnic Greek identity. As Baltisoits has pointed it, in Greece its common to conflate the two) I removed the name and went by the policy> BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. You can place it back, but not in the lead. The article is about both the municipality and the village. If the article is about the municipality on its own, then the name can be in the lead. I am going by the precedents set out for example by editors in the Souliots page. Alternative names are within the article, but not in the lead for a number of reasons. Here the reasons are different, but similar results apply. Greek name applicable to the municipality, but not the village. Unless you can find a peer reviewed source that states that the village of Carcove has Greeks there then go for it. Absent that, you can place the alternative Greek name in the sentence that deals with Greek villages or alternatively split and create a new page that deals directly with the municipality and the Greek name can be in the lead. But the village is not Greek, nor are it inhabitants. Resnjari (talk) 14:02, 11 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Although it appears you created a fresh new rule for alternative names in wikipedia (i.e. no alternative names in lede, even if it's in the native language of part of the municipal unit's local population), it's no big deal for me to put the alternative in the specific part below.Alexikoua (talk) 14:59, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, i meant the Konispol area. Sometimes in Albania they say Konispol area because its the largest settlement in the area. Dimitropoulos though lists the following villages Pantejlemon, Markat, Janjar, Sopik, Ciflik, Stjar as being ex-Greeks on page 13 using his song referance which talks about religious conversion. Now for one Sopik and Ciflik are Orthodox and speak the Albanian Cham dialect and have never been Muslim (already Dimitropoulos is having more credibility issues). Pandejlemon, Markat and Janjar are Muslim and speak the Albanian Cham dialect. And Stjar is originally Lab(Rrapaj) with Cham refugees being settled there later (Rrapaj + Kallivretakis). As for the passage you have cited from Kallivretakis, he says that those villagers describe themselves as Chams. In that same paragraph and the bit you have cited in bold he refers to people (refugees) who settled from Greece and are Chams. They are not Greek, nor did the Greek government think of them that way. Lets not confuse the two because its very easy and as Baltsiotis has shown for example regarding Orthodox Albanian speakers. In the detailed list Kallivretakis has on village demographics, he makes no mention of Greeks in those villages. Alexikoua no source interpretations otherwise that is manipulating the source. I have read Kallivretakis very thoroughly. Though Orthodox Albanian Cham dialect speaking villages Sopik, Ciflik and Mursi (scholar Fatos Rrapaj did fieldwork there too) are have having identity debates these days, Albanian Muslim Cham villages do not feel Greek or have Greek national affiliations or are even debating the issue. They are very stern in their Albanian identity. But if you do find a peer reviewed source on what you claim, i would be most interested to read it about Muslim Chams feeling "Greek". Also even Kretsi for that matter does not cite "Greeks" being present when she visited Muslim villages like Konispol in the 2000s, when doing her study of Mursi. Identity debates are mainly occurring amongst Orthodox Albanian speaking villages and that their business. Muslim Albanian speaking villages however feel very strongly about their Albanian identity, and you would get a sense of that if you have ever meet any.

"Although it appears you created a fresh new rule for alternative names in wikipedia (i.e. no alternative names in lede, even if it's in the native language of part of the municipal unit's local population), it's no big deal for me to put the alternative in the specific part below."

A while back, I found a source which stated that there were still a few Albanians in Ioannina (the Foss source). Would you allow or be fine with having the Albanian name at the top of the page in the lead. Or for that matter, the Albanian name for Konitsa, as it historically contained an Albanian population for a prolonged period. You would say it is a few people and so what about their (historic) presence, even though there is evidence. Yes the Greek name needs to be in lead if the article was only about the municipality (as per wikipedia policy). However it is also about the village too. Its inappropriate then to have it there. The village is not inhabited by Greeks and the name in the lead would be imply that there are Greeks in the village. Create a separate page for the municipality then and placing the Greek name in the lead is fine. Currently in the article in the section that talks about the ethnic Greek element the name can be there as stands as it refers to the municipality and its ethnic demographics. I am not making up rules. I am going by what many Greek editors have said to Albanian editors (thought their rationale has been based on less an appropriate reasoning as i have been reading through the talk page archives). Like i said, ok for the municipality, but not for the village part. The article is a hybrid (village + municipality) and complicated and i am not making policy up. There is nothing in Wikipedia about hybrid articles and probably the issue needs to be addressed by the wider community.Resnjari (talk) 15:45, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

There is also a issue with the Greek name you have used. Considering that Dimitropoulos has multiple problems, the Greek name that he uses Κεράσοβο might also not be the one Greek speaking locals use. Kerasovo is different and often separate in etymology for formation regarding Slavic place names for one and might not be the correct name used by local Greek speakers. Kokolakis whose work has been published and is peer reviewed uses the name Τσαρσόβα for Carcove on page 274. He also uses Βαλοβίστα for Biovizhde on page 273, which is line with Nitsiakos. See: Κοκολάκης, Μιχάλης. "Η τουρκική στατιστική της Ηπείρου στο Σαλναμέ του 1895." Πληθυσμοί και οικισμοί του ελληνικού χώρου: ιστορικά μελετήματα (2003): 243-312. Link: http://helios-eie.ekt.gr/EIE/bitstream/10442/7682/1/N02.018.09.pdf    Curious as to your thoughts on the matter.....

Resnjari (talk) 17:39, 11 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm looking forward about the issues you claim in Dimitropoulos. About Kerasovo what makes it different in etymology for formation regarding Slavic place names? Actually names such as this (or with similar spelling: Kresovo etc.) are quite usual in the region (Greece & Albania) & there is also a "Kresovo" in the same Kaza of Leskovik (per Kokolakis). Also there is no doubt that alternative names of similar spellings also existed as Kokolakis points in detail in p. 253-257. However, a quick check in google makes it clear that in modern Greek "Τσαρτσοβο/α" is often used as the Greek name.Alexikoua (talk) 21:11, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Just in case others might think my reply above is based on who knows what, it was in reply to you to what you wrote here before you deleted it because you needed, to quote you, "to double check". Using a song (as Dimitropoulos as done on page 13) to claim that Muslim Albanians were "once Greeks" is not only source manipulation, but shows either Dimitropoulos did not do his research or his work has bias. The song only talks of religious conversion, not some linguistic or ethnic identity shift. Moreover he claims as villages that converted like Sopik or Ciflik which is not the case. He double counts Biovizhde as a Greek village and he places Apsalle in the Permet area. Apsalle is a small hamlet located in Albanian  Pogoni (map link: ). Now unless you know of a Apsalla in the Permet area close by to Vllaho-Psiilotere (as Dimitropoulos states) please show me, otherwise it shows again that Dimitropoulos either did not proof read his work, or was sloppy in his work etc. Also Apsalla is counted under Sopik in Pogon. Check this really detailed Soviet map of the area. Since you can read Greek, working out the Russian wont be hard. For me it was the reverse, i can read and write in Macedonian, so Greek was not a long stretch. See another very detailed Soviet map which shows the Permet border area. . Now yes you might claim that the Albanian government "changed" the name of some place from Apsalla to something else. One there is no Apsalla in the area, even in Kokolakis' Ottoman statistics and two not even the Austro-Hungarian military maps prior to the region becoming fully part of Albania do not show a "Apsalla" (link: ). Thus just these things call into question Dimitropoulos work as even being consistent yet alone of being non biased or even accurate.

Your right that Kokolakkis says that there multiple versions of names due to the people living there or the administrators being of a another ethnicity (Ottoman Turks etc) and so on. However Kokolakis writes down Greek names (as he published his material in a Greek publication and its peer reviewed), unless the name differs much from the Greek version (as case in point is Biovizhde- Valovista) and gives it in the footnote. What is this Kerasovo that Dimitropoulos has based this on? You have even said "However, a quick check in google makes it clear that in modern Greek "Τσαρτσοβο/α" is often used as the Greek name." Only Dimitropoulos gives a "alternative" Greek name to the other Greek names which are in agreement with each other. Also, even if we took into account Max Wasmar's study of Slavic toponyms lists 3 Kerasovo's in Greek Epirus as he gives each a different etymology for their name origin form the Slavic, with one possibly being a hybrid place name [see entry, 159, 160 and 161. Link: ), nothing about the keras part evolving into the Carsh or Carc part). Also scholar Xhelal Ylli has done a extensive study of Slavic place names in Albania. He has published with the noted Kubon-Sagner German publishing house and those two peer reviewed books are accessible for free. In the second book (Das slavische Lehngut im Albanischen. Teil 2: Ortsnamen: link: )on page 99 he writes the following regarding Çarçove (he gives the form Carshove before the Albanian government made a alteration to the spelling replacing sh with ç recently due to the second form now more used with a ç sound):

ÇARSHÔV/Ë,-A (1431 Çarșove, Përmet; 1856 Τσαρσόβα, PR) A. B. Eine -ов-a-Bildung. Die Wurzel ist unklar. Zu bulg. череш а ,Kirsche‘, oder wohl zum PN Царчо, РФЛИБ 526. Im zweiten Fall sehr alt, da die Lautwandeln c - ć > ć - dund weiter č> s > š, vgl. porosit, Ylli 206, anzunehmen sind. C.

My point is, only Dimitropoulos gives "Kerasovo" while other Greek sources as you yourself have noted give Τσαρτσοβο or Kokolakis Τσαρσόβα, but definitely not Kerasovo. Given there there are multiple issues with Dimitropoulos as noted, best to stick with Greek spellings that are uniform and in rough agreement with each other. Its similar to some Albanian authors, when they cannot get the local names they then provide their "own version" of the place name, and Dimitropoulos has done just that here.Resnjari (talk) 09:31, 12 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Claiming that a academic thesis is useless because the author uses slightly different spellings of a village is too weak as an arguments. Kokolakis clearly points that this is a fact in several village names (for example he uses "Πισκοπη", instead of "Επισκοπη" which is the established form today, and so far he is the only one that uses this form). Also about the supposed folksong, Dimitropoulos cites a specific work published by the University of Gjirokaster (not just the song itself as you claim).Alexikoua (talk) 11:42, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

He cites that work and in his inline citation he give the examples of a song it not "supposed" (its on page 13 if anyone else is curious) that talks about religious conversion, not a ethnic or linguistic identity shift. Usually when a person includes an inline citation they do so because they know that whatever information they have placed and the arguments they are making is on a topic that is controversial. He has based the information on ethnic identity shift on a folk song. One can cite folk songs here or there, but the claim has to be based on its content, not a manipulation of it. Like you also stated before you deleted your comment that there are Greek speakers in villages like Markat by placing a novel interpretation on Kallivretakis, yet when i checked makes no such claim what so ever. Dimitropoulos also includes Albanian speaking villages that are Christian even today Sopik and Ciflik as having being those who converted (wrong info was was it "another slip up"). Already apart from source manipulation, that is giving wrong information. They are Albanian speaking, but never converted, unless Fatos Rrapaj and Kallivretakis got it wrong and the people there were "crypto-Muslims" or whatever. Lol ! As for Kokolakis ""Πισκοπη", instead of "Επισκοπη"" is hardly a leap and change from Tsarsova to Kerasovo. How do you explain that one when you yourself state that most Greek sources use some variation of Tsarsova? Its also not just spelling that is an issue. He double counts Biovizhde (why? whats he basing that one. He is a scholar right that deals with that material in depth, he should be aware) and places Apsalla as being located in the Permet area (which is wrong and again goes to the credibility of the scholar). If Dimitropoulos has just these few errors in a space of a few pages, goodness knows what else is an issue. Best some Greek version of Tsarsova is placed in the article, no Kerasovo to avoid POV issues.Resnjari (talk) 15:15, 12 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I fail to understand the academic value of this claim "Muslim Albanian speaking villages however feel very strongly about their Albanian identity, and you would get a sense of that if you have ever meet any.". Is it taken from a specific work or it's just a personal claim that should be incorporated for some reason in a number of articles? (obviously not in this one)Alexikoua (talk) 11:57, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Not a claim, and nor have i said yet that it should be incorporated in articles, but who knows what the future holds. Anyway, yes i have based that comment on personal experience, but also one borne out in literature here and there. If you have ever mixed with most Muslim Albanians from any part of the Balkans, they don't say they are "Turk" (though yes they do perceive the Turks as close and friends) and have a strong sense of their identity. There are be a few who have adopted other identities i.e. Luan Shabani> Leonidas Sabanis etc (its mainly and actually only in Southern Albania). However, in case you have missed it within peer reviewed literature, those who are always having those identity issues are the Albanian speakers who remained Orthodox (for more see proposed edits with academic content contained in Talk:Northern Epirus). Find me sources that say Muslim Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and the majority in Albania today are having "identity issues" of them wanting to declare themselves (in a free and fair environment -none of that forced Rankovic era Turk stuff) as something else. Albanians exist and those that are, are mainly Muslim and the ones most expressive of that identity. Even the Greek state was aware of this. Here are a series of peer received sources which touch upon those issues both in a historic sense and over time until recent years:

Nitisiakos, On the Border. p. 371. "However, the fact of changing Muslim names into Christian has to do mostly with the need to secure a visa to Greece and access to the opportunities offered there, rather than with any process of religious conversion."

Nitisiakos, On the Border. p.209. "What unites and directs them towards the downplaying of religion is a faith in the national idea and the rebirth” of the Albanian nation in the form of a unified and independent state. We should also point out that, in a way, from the very beginnings of the Albanian national movement, an ambience has been formed. In which particular religious communities compete with each other as to their commitment to Albanianism. Within this framework, Orthodox Christians begin to self-identify as the purest Albanians, claiming that Orthodox Christianity is the oldest religion of the Albanian people, whereas Muslims collaborated and identified largely with the Ottomans (and this is why they call them “Turks, even today). '''On their part, the Muslims believe that they are the purest Albanians, because they constituted the nucleus of the national renaissance and as great patriots resisted the Serbs, who tried to penetrate and conquer Albanian territories. In reference to (Christians, they claim that the Orthodox identified with the Greeks''' and the Catholic with the Italians. The Catholics, in their turn, stake their claim to Albanian purity in that they have kept traditional customs and morals intact, especially the Albanian common law with its specific codes of honour (kanuni).

De Rapper, Better than Muslims, not as good as Greeks, p.182: "The people who were settled in the new village were mainly shepherds from Kurvelesh, and were Muslims. The same thing happened for the village of Arshi Llongo, while other Muslims from Kurvelesh settled in the villages of lower Lunxhëri (Karjan, Shën Todër, Valare) and in Suhë. As a result, it is not exceptional to hear today from the Lunxhots, such as one of my informants, a retired engineer living in Tirana, that ‘in 1945 a Muslim buffer-zone was created between Dropull and Lunxhëri to stop the Hellenisation of Lunxhëri. Muslims were thought to be more determined against Greeks."

Kokolakos (Το ύστερο Γιαννιώτικο Πασαλίκι: χώρος, διοίκηση και πληθυσμός στην τουρκοκρατούμενη Ηπειρο (1820-1913) p.56. “Η διαδικασία αυτή του εξελληνισμού των ορθόδοξων περιοχών, λειτουργώντας αντίστροφα προς εκείνη του εξισλαμισμού, επιταχύνει την ταύτιση του αλβανικού στοιχείου με το μουσουλμανισμό, στοιχείο που θ' αποβεί αποφασιστικό στην εξέλιξη των εθνικιστικών συγκρούσεων του τέλους του 19ου αιώνα.”

Baltsiotis, The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece, 2011: "The Albanian-speaking, Orthodox population did not share the national ideas of their Muslim neighbors and remained Greek-oriented, identifying themselves as Greeks."..... "As we will discuss below, under the prevalent ideology in Greece at the time every Orthodox Christian was considered Greek, and conversely after 1913, when the territory which from then onwards was called “Northern Epirus” in Greece was ceded to Albania, every Muslim of that area was considered Albanian."

I can also cite a case in point regarding the small pocket of Gheg Orthodox Albanians of the Upper Reka region in R. of Macedonia that have with time identified themselves as Macedonians due to sharing Orthodoxy as a religion etc. For more see Pieroni who did fieldwork there a few years back:

Pieroni, Andrea, et al. "One century later: the folk botanical knowledge of the last remaining Albanians of the upper Reka Valley, Mount Korab, Western Macedonia." Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, 9. (1), 2013: 2-3. "Locals are now exclusively Muslims, but Albanians of Christian Orthodox faith also lived in the villages until a few decades ago. For example, in Nistrovë, one side of the village (with a mosque) is inhabited by Muslims, while the other side was inhabited by Orthodox believers. The entire population of Orthodox Christians migrated to towns a few decades ago, but they return to their village homes sometimes during the summer. Most of the houses in this part of the village are however abandoned even though the Church has been recently restored. According to our (Albanian Muslim) informants, these migrated Orthodox Christian Albanians assimilated within the Macedonian culture and now prefer to be labelled as “Macedonians”, even if they are still able to fluently speak Albanian. Contact between these two subsets of the village communities, which were very intense and continuous in the past, no longer exists today." My point is the formula Orthodox + Albanian speaking (+ traditional ethnonym Shqiptar) = Albanian has had mixed results as per the peer reviewed non Albanian Rilindja type literature (an example see: Elias G. Skoulidas [[The Albanian Greek-Orthodox Intellectuals: Aspects of their Discourse between Albanian and Greek National Narratives (late 19th - early 20th centuries) ). The formula Muslim + Albanian speaking (+ traditional ethnonym Shqiptar) = Albanian has equaled Albanian most of the time, even in Turkey, where Turks themselves are aware of large numbers of Albanians with a Albanian identity in their midst (see: articles: Albanians in Turkey celebrate their cultural heritage and Albanian awakening: The worm has turned! . In Greece Orthodox Albanian speakers have even resorted to calling themselves "Brazilians"[e.g. see [[Eleni Foureira]]) of all things to distance themselves from anything Albanian like the Arvanites (see article in English on Arvanites and the one in Albanian Arvanitët. All inline citations for the Albanian article are from peer reviewed material and are in English that you can read). Its very simple. Like i said i am no nationalist and i definitely do not follow no Rilindja propaganda which says that just because a person speaks Albanian, uses the ethnoyn Shqiptar or Arberesh, they are automatically "Albanian". They may feel it or not as is borne out in the literature. Often though Islam plays a huge part in determining whether a person feels Albanian the same way Orthodoxy does for Greeks (see contents of article that has POV pushing title Greek Muslims). Bulent Arinc, a deputy prime minister of Receps speaks fluent Cretan Greek yet he is the most vocal, actually the only and main guy who calls for the Hagia Sofia to be turned back into a mosque. He like other Cretan Muslims call the language Romeyka yet they consider themselves ethnic Turks. The irony....A simple question to Greeks would be, is he Greek and are other Muslim speaking Greeks Greek? What makes a Greek in that case ? Millet system, Orthodoxy, Greek language, calling ones self a Romioi and also a "Turk" etc ? Resnjari (talk) 15:15, 12 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The list of settlements in Dimitropoulos agrees with the one published by the official press of the Greek government (about immigration policy)[] (Kerasovo, etc.). Thus, Dimitropoulos has not made up these names by himself. At least about this part he appears to have checked the list.Alexikoua (talk) 14:41, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

p:1145:

Επαρχία Κερασόβου (Çarshova) 41. Βαλοβίστα (Vallovistë) 42. Βιοβίστα (Biovizhdë) 43. Βλαχοϋψηλοτέρα ή Βλάχο και Υψηλοτέρα (Vllahopsilloterë ή Apsallë)

Just curious though, who ever wrote the official Greek list, they are aware that Biovizdhe is one settlement right (there is not Valloviste) and that Apsalla is in Pogoni. Unless even people living on the ground missed that there are two Biovizhda's. Or that Apsalla is in the Permet area. Seeing the Greek gov document you can then cite Kerasovo. Also you need to add Kokolakos which gives the form Tsarsova as well because you yourself said that Tsarsova is used by most other sources. I am still though challenging the credibility of even the government Greek source for use. Find me that there are two Biovizhda'a and that Apsalla is located in the Permet area, not the Pogoni area and then i will relent. As a scholar, when using such sources one still must always double and triple check especially for something as simple as that. Dimitropoulos did not. A simple map would have done the trick. Or even reading Nitsiakos' on the border published one year before/ Like i said find me the second Biovizhda (or is the Greek government double counting villages in Albania as well) ?Resnjari (talk) 15:26, 12 July 2015 (UTC)


 * So far I can't see anything that makes Valloviste & Biovishde two separate settlements. I can send an e-mail to the involved ministries, but I can't guarantee that they will answer soon. I see that the above list is published in more than one official documents (a new list that includes Himara was published in early '15, and Κεράσοβο with the 3 villages are also there). I can't blame Dimitropoulos and dismiss his work in general, but in this part he is based on a list that can't be verified in gmaps (&similar databases), although based on concrete citation.

"Tsartsova" (Τσάρτσοβα) is used in all Greek works that are focused in WWII (a typical search in google []).Alexikoua (talk) 16:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Your going to have to include Τσάρτσοβα or Τσαρσόβα alongside Kerasovo to avoid POV issues (with a Τσάρτσοβα or Τσαρσόβα going before Kerasovo). Pick your Greek source and have it in the article. Since you say pre-ww2 works use Tsartsova or similar variations, then Kerasovo is a new name. One is not certain if is a name used by local Greek speakers for the settlement that has no Greeks or Greek speakers, or a new name or variation for the place by Greeks in recent times. As for the Biovizhde issue (don't forget Apsalla too regarding geographical location, ask the ministry why include it in Carcove municipality, it clearly belongs in Pogoni. When you send the email, send a few maps too and ask them to clarify). As Greek government documents regarding their economy have been an issue (problematic numbers and information) in recent times, this document that you cite i also will take with caution considering what i have pointed out. As for Dimitropoulos, there is much more issues with his work. I pointed out the source manipulation about how he has placed a interpretation on a song/poem etc (page 13) as being evidence showing that once the people of Market etc where once "Greeks" when the source talks about just religious conversion. He also included villages such as Sopik and Ciflik as being villages who converted and abandoned being "Greek". As i pointed out they never converted. Was that another 'oversight' by him ? So, i am taking Dimitropoulos work with extreme caution. As a scholar regarding his citation of Greek numbers he should have known better and double checked (as he places "new" villages in his list as being Greek, i.e. Zhepe, Dracove, Muzine etc <these 3 all Orthodox Albanian speaking) as he would have went through numerous works in Greek dealing with Greek speaking settlements on the matter (or maybe not). Little mistakes like that are not good enough. He submitted his thesis in 2011 and the Greek government document you showed me still contains those errors (so it must be an old error also. Greek Government government double count occurring from a longer period). Have these things in mind. I am not saying Dimitropoulos cannot be used, but when used full scrutiny will be applied to the part of his thesis cited in an article to make sure it tallies up with other sources (I light of all this I am concerned about the Zhepe and Dracove citation. You might need to find more sources for that). If 'little mistakes' like that did not exist then that would be different. Wikipedia policy does state Identifying reliable sources:


 * "Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a PhD, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources. Some of them will have gone through a process of academic peer reviewing, of varying levels of rigor, but some will not. If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by third parties. Dissertations in progress have not been vetted and are not regarded as published and are thus not reliable sources as a rule. Some theses are later published in the form of scholarly monographs or peer reviewed articles, and, if available, these are usually preferable to the original thesis as sources. Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence."


 * Resnjari (talk) 17:22, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


 * So far I believe the best option is to include Ktistakis' option (confirmed by various sources as in google hits above). I have some reluctance in the Kerasovo option, although I can't dismiss Dimitropoulos work in general (prof. N. Sarris, head of the thesis' academic committee is one of the top experts of this institution in the field of Balkan&Anatolian history). In light of the arguments provided here so far, I feel that it's better to have only "Tsartsova".Alexikoua (talk) 18:58, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Dimitropoulos' academic supervisor N. Sarris, was not responsible for the final outcome and also like you say his expertise is in "Balkan&Anatolian history". Epirus may not be his main area of focus so little things like that have slipped sadly. Also when someone corrects the final thesis it is given to a member/s of the department whose expertise might touch upon the area discussed but not fully, so as to not create bias. Just going by how things are done here. So a few of the things things got missed by the markers. It's up to Dimitropoulos in the end as a scholar to have double checked. That's one of the things post graduate work is about. Like i said, his work when cited needs to be taken with caution. As for the Ktistakis, yes add it. It should go before Kerasovo though. Resnjari (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2015 (UTC)