Talk:Late Ottoman genocides

Obligatory talk page section
Why do you keep restoring your preferred date without providing a single reliable source that supports it? Verifiability is not optional. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  18:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Unbalanced tag
, thanks for commenting on the article. A tag such as the one you added should come with an explanation of viewpoints that are missing/overrepresented, preferably with sources that show the prominence of different viewpoints. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  04:45, 29 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response. I would have added opposing scholarly viewpoints to the 'late Ottoman genocides' thesis but it seems that the issue is simply that this article hinges on a singular 2008 article by Schaller and Zimmerer in an issue of the Journal of Genocide Research 'which focuses on the topic. I frankly do not see how a historiographical theory which hasn't entrenched itself in its relevant area of scholarship warrants its own Wikipedia article. If this article is about the theory itself, then the Schaller and Zimmerer article would be considered a primary source, and no secondary or tertiary sources seem to exist on it, as it is not explicitly referenced or named in any of the literature either — only other articles which cite Schaller and Zimmerer. The 'overview' section seems to try to unite a disparate array of views on this historical period, but I would contend that this article (at least in its current form) is not an ideal place to do so. yaguzi (talk) 08:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Article needs rewriting/deletion?
The issue with this article is that it's not quite sure what it is about: since its inception, the topic seems to have been the historiographical theory of the 'late Ottoman genocides', yet, as I've expressed above, this is far from a theory entrenched in the historical scholarship or frequently utilized in the historiography of this period. Schaller and Zimmerer, the originators of the theory, are the only ones to use it in a 2008 article, aside from a number of brief references to that article. This would render their article a primary source on the topic where no notable secondary sources exist, failing WP:N (The Thirty Year Genocide doesn't seem to mention the theory explicitly either, and already has a better-written and more appropriate article on it). Additionally, theories of Ottoman historiography that do warrant separate Wikipedia articles, like the decline thesis, are significantly more prevalent in and have shaped the literature of the field, for better or for worse. Of course, all of this is aside from my opinion that the Thirty Year Genocide is a poorly-researched, poorly-written book by a literal genocide supporter that should be used with caution at best.

I would have directly put this article up for AfD for the reasons given above, but I would like to be more constructive to see if anyone has suggestions for improving it first. yaguzi (talk) 07:41, 30 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I think that the article could potentially benefit from being rescoped to something like "mass violence in the late ottoman empire" (eg. 1 2 3 4 5) which may move the article away from the partisan and less accepted viewpoints of Morris, Dadrian et al. However, I do think there is enough coverage of the latter topic to merit an article—the question is defining it in such a way that relevant research can be included without going into original research. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  13:23, 30 May 2024 (UTC)