Talk:Stepanakert

Requested move 4 January 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Per consensus. At the present, the current title is the common name. Let's wait for six months (from the closure of this discussion) to see if the situation has changed. – robertsky (talk) 03:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Stepanakert → Khankendi – RM for procedural reasons as User:RocketKnightX had moved the page unilaterally rather than via RM. The last RM from the start of November was closed with a result of "wait a couple months", so about now is the right time for another one, now that there has been time for the dust to settle and see what name reliable sources have started using. I am neutral towards such a move so not voting either way. Chessrat ( talk, contributions ) 12:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 02:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for opening this, but as it's only been a month since the previous RM was closed I suspect it would be better to wait another month or two before having another RM? BilledMammal (talk) 12:21, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Depends on whether you count it as two months since the start or the end of the RM, which was admittedly ambiguous. It could have waited a bit longer, but it's now a new year, the time of the supposed official dissolution of Artsakh has passed, and given there have been attempts to unilaterally move the article recently I don't think there's any harm in discussing the matter again. I would propose that if this RM does not have consensus to be moved, a longer wait happens before any more RM (e.g. six months or some major change in events occurring). Chessrat  ( talk, contributions ) 12:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. BilledMammal (talk) 12:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME.
 * On Google Scholar for the past year, we find:
 * 185 results for Stepanakert
 * 60 results for Khankendi
 * On Google News for the past month, we find:
 * around 110 results for Stepanakert
 * around 50 results for Khankendi
 * If we look at the major wire services, we see a similar result. For Reuters in the past year, we find:
 * 17 articles using just Stepanakert
 * 0 articles using just Khankendi
 * 26 using both, with a slight preference for Stepanakert.
 * Looking at AP we see the same thing:
 * 29 articles using just Stepanakert
 * 3 articles using just Khankendi
 * 8 articles using both, with a slight preference for Khankendi but not enough to change the overall preference for Stepanakert.
 * In addition, Google Trends shows continued preference for Stepanakert, with only Turkey preferring to use Khankendi.
 * BilledMammal (talk) 12:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Artsakh has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What kind of interest does WikiProject Artsakh have in a city in Azerbaijan? Hezarfen (talk) 21:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Armenia has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What kind of interest does WikiProject Armenia have in a city in Azerbaijan? Hezarfen (talk) 21:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Azerbaijan has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME and above listed statistics. Archives908 (talk) 15:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME we just had this discussion a month ago with no consensus to change and nothing major has changed since, the consensus was to wait a few months, this is clearly rushing it. Reliable secondary sources still use Stepanakert as the common name, for example this article by CNN “…a military parade in Stepanakert, known by Azerbaijanis as Khankendi” and continues to use Stepanakert throughout as the primary name and OC Media “…deserted city of Stepanakert, known as Khankendi in Azerbaijani” also using Stepanakert as the common name throughout. I suggest a speedy close as this has already been discussed recently.  Tagawor  Shah  (talk) 20:24, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. First of this is not a armenia-Azerbaijan topic. Khankendi is a city in Azerbaijan. It is an issue that has nothing to do with armenians, armenia or Azerbaijan-armenia relations. First of all, since this issue is entirely an internal issue of Azerbaijan, it would be correct to discuss the issue in this direction.
 * stepanakert is the name of the city used by armenians. Not WP:COMMONNAME. An armenian word has nothing to do with the common name of the city in English.
 * Also Moreover, unlike the Armenians' statements here, the name of the city is mentioned as Khankendi in all major sources. Sources regarding this have been given many times above. If this request is closed, it will be reopened after a month or two. If it is closed it will reopen in a month or two. Because the name of the city was Khankendi. Although some may not accept it, Wikipedia is not anyone's personal diary. Hezarfen (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME and above listed sources.  // Timothy :: talk  23:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment. In the longer run, given the near-total depopulation of the city, it may be worthwhile to look to Wikipedia precedent like Königsberg v. Kaliningrad, where the former name is largely the article about the city that was, and the current name is largely the article about the city that is. A similar split may make sense here, and possibly help avoid pointless nationalist edit wars. 2001:4479:3403:9800:FDE8:B576:84A3:CFFB (talk) 08:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Kaliningrad is the only case of that practice being used on Wikipedia; every other article on cities which have changed in that way is not split. See Gdańsk, Szczecin, Wrocław, Baltiysk, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, etc. Chessrat ( talk, contributions ) 13:12, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. AntonSamuel (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Support per previous RM. There has been a change in circumstance and most of the previous news results are not helpful, with many of the continuing references talking about how Stepanakert is now a deserted city.  I don't think that there's sufficient information about the modern city to do a full Konigsberg / Kaliningrad style split, but there really might as well be barring a surprising turn of events.  Anyway, if hypothetically Konigsberg / Kaliningrad was One Big Article, then it should be under the Kaliningrad name even if hypothetically 90% of the content was about the Konigsberg era.  I think there's a similar issue here - the article title should be the current, modern name, even if there's not a lot to say about the empty city of Khakendi.  SnowFire (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Side note:, while I too support the move, it doesn't help to say that the city "has nothing to do with armenians or armenia." That's just looking to start a fight for no reason.  Of course Armenia has an interest here, just the article should still move in spite of that.  SnowFire (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per still being WP:COMMONNAME; a recent article by Laurence Broers gave priority to the Stepanakert name. And this move request may have been done in bad faith, being created exactly one month after the previous one concluded (which advised to wait "a couple months"), and because Chessrat is already using "Khankendi" in the article in spite of the previous consensus. --KhndzorUtogh (talk) 23:12, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * definitely shouldn't be doing that; also shouldn't be removing massive amounts of info just because the Armenians are gone. Helps cultural genocide, even if it's inadvertent and unintentional. JM (talk) 03:31, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment Aside from this RM it's probably worth also having a discussion about the use of names in this and related articles in general. When I used the name "Khankendi" in that edit, the infobox still placed equal priority to both names so I assumed that they would be used equally in the article depending on context. Since then, the infobox has been changed to only using "Stepanakert". Chessrat ( talk, contributions ) 00:04, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Mentions of an article on Wikipedia should generally use the article title. This provides the useful function of stopping the same RM debate being duplicated across every use case. CMD (talk) 01:31, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In the case of cities whose names have changed, that isn't always the case- e.g. Gdańsk uses "Danzig" in its Gdańsk section. Chessrat ( talk, contributions ) 12:11, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There are exceptions ("generally"), the point was that the practice is to stick to one name as a default rather than using multiple names equally. CMD (talk) 15:18, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and the oppose arguments above. JM (talk) 00:38, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * - Support as the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh no longer exists, its sad what happed but there is really no reason to not name this article "Khankendi" as the only country that currently lays claim and has defacto control recognizes the city as "Khankendi" instead of the former name of Stepanakert 2601:404:D600:DEE0:7899:6435:9505:BE64 (talk) 16:10, 10 January 2024 (UTC) — 2601:404:D600:DEE0:7899:6435:9505:BE64 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.  JM (talk) 19:22, 10 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Relisting comment: to give more time for discussion on a contentious topic – robertsky (talk) 02:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Support. The recent report of The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights uses the name of Khankendi throughout the report, only once in the beginning mentioning that the city is "referred to as Stepanakert by Karabakh Armenians". I think WP:NAMECHANGES applies here, as the name of Khankendi has become more widely used in the international media and by the international organizations.  Grand  master  22:46, 15 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose The name of this article should remain as Stepanakert in my view as Wikipedia should uphold the values of humanitarianism. As a city that has been militarily sieged and ethnically cleansed, there cannot be a discussion apart from Azerbaijan's dictatorial government on how to change the name/how to accept both names. We see in general examples such as Bolzano, Bienne, where one country can rule over a city where the population speaks another language, and yet still accepts the population's right to vote and choose their city's name, keep their tradition, and keep their language rights. We do not see this in Stepanakert currently as it has been ethnically cleansed as per international reports. The mayor of the city was not elected by the people, rather appointed by the President. --Lucky102 (talk) 09:06, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Despite your view, Wikipedia is, in fact, not there to "uphold the values of humanitarianism", but to mirror what reliable sources say. Also, it is a matter of fact that there was no ethnic cleansing in Khankendi, the Armenians left voluntarily. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.52.195.1 (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Once again Stepanakert remains the common name which is the deciding factor when it comes to article titles, not changes in political status or control. Lightspecs (talk) 03:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose — nothing fundamentally changed since last RM. WP:COMMONNAME seems to still be (at least presumptively) Stepanakert. And given the amount of recent bad-faith behavior by various editors, I think it would be best if we cool down for at least three months before the next one. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 04:08, 17 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Neutral. I think in the long term the Armenian name will indeed disappear, but for now Khankendi is an Azeri city most widely known under its Armenian name, similar to how Szczecin was still widely known as Stettin for many years after WWII. I think we should lock the discussion for about six months and review the question in July. De wafelenbak (talk) 22:33, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The official name of a city is not a matter of voting in Wiki
The city is an internationally recognised part of Azerbaijan. It is Azerbaijan's right to determine the name of the city and international law allows them to do so. I saw other users brought this up and some high-rank editors silenced them by blocking the user and closing the topic. You may like it or not based on your worldview. But if we accept that this world should have some sort of law, we should respect it even if we don't like the outcome. This is not a responsible behaviour by Wikipedia. I request the editors to respect the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and international law. Yalancinin (talk) 17:44, 23 January 2024 (UTC) — is a confirmed sock puppet of.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  19:56, 25 January 2024 (UTC) }
 * "It is Azerbaijan's right to determine the name of the city" What term Azerbaijan uses to refer to the occupied city is irrelevant. The guideline here is Use commonly recognizable names: "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources)". In other words, we should not care about what Azerbaijan does. Dimadick (talk) 23:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

::All countries in the world, including Armenia, have recognised Karabakh and therefore Khankendi as a part of Azerbaijan. It is not up to individuals to question UN resolutions and international law here. Wikipedia must change the name of article to align with international laws. According to article S.17 of UN statistic division, countries determine legal toponyms inside their territories. Therefore, I urge Wikipedia editors to comply with international rules and change the name of this article. Yalancinin (talk) 00:22, 24 January 2024 (UTC) — is a confirmed sock puppet of.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  19:56, 25 January 2024 (UTC) }
 * You will have to propose that Wikipedia follow UN resolutions at Village pump (policy), although I caution against optimism on the proposal's success. CMD (talk) 01:31, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Above, you allegedly stated that Azerbaijan occupied Khankendi. This was a wrong idea. Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity. He supposedly changed the name of the city. Why did you allow the names of the cities under occupation to be called Armenian until 2020? Stop this pro-Armenianism.Qolcomaq (talk) 20:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Mass undoing of edits by AntonSamuel and revival of the "update" tag
In this edit from 25 January, engaged in a mass reversion of about a month's worth of edits, and brought back the tag about the article needing to be updated. Some of those edits in the past month had been by me with the intention of updating the article enough such that it does not need that tag any more, but the reversion to the older version included a large amount of re-inclusion of obviously outdated information such as "Artsakh athletes also take part with the representing teams and athletes in the Pan-Armenian Games", and stating that Stepanakert is twinned with a list of cities. It also removed the addition of cited information I had added about the rebuilding of the Stepanakert to Yevlakh railway following the Azerbaijani conquest.

I'd like to ask what, if anything, should be done to update the article, if there is an "update" tag but any actual removal+updating of outdated information is being reverted en masse. Chessrat ( talk, contributions ) 18:17, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I also noticed that he reverted a lot of discussed and agreed content with no discussion at talk. For example, the statement of Azerbaijan's president about return of Azerbaijani refugees that was extensively discussed above has disappeared. I don't think it is acceptable.  Grand  master  09:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Information shouldn't be simply removed, it should be recontextualised or moved elsewhere as historical information. Are there other reverts as implied by en masse that should be looked at or just the one from three months ago? CMD (talk) 21:10, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I see that a lot of information was lost between the two edits. I agree that any dated information should be provided in the historical context, but updates as mentioned above, such as restoration of the railway connection, or return of Azerbaijani refugees should be restored. Grand  master  15:06, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * > it should be recontextualised or moved elsewhere as historical information.
 * This is precisely what happened– I moved Artsakh-era-specific information into Stepanakert in the Republic of Artsakh with the appropriate changes to past tense, to ensure that the information is retained from a historical perspective and not lost. Now that the information has been reinserted here, it is now duplicated. <b style="color: #c90; font-family: comic sans ms">Chessrat</b> ( talk, contributions ) 15:11, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * That article was created on your own initiative then? What purpose does it serve to separate the history of Stepanakert? AntonSamuel (talk) 17:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Separate articles for different historical periods are not novel to this situation. Chessrat, a bit more information regarding the creation of Stepanakert in the Republic of Artsakh would be helpful for attribution purposes at its talkpage. Was the whole thing copied, were the modifications during copying, etc. Template:Copied on both pages would help too. CMD (talk) 01:22, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It was largely a content fork with some modifications where needed (tense changes, etc). I had only been aware of the practice of noting the fork in the edit description and not of doing so on the talk page too, so thank you for letting me know. It
 * It felt necessary to do as some content had already been lost from the article since the Azerbaijani takeover and ethnic cleansing, and if the article I created didn't exist then more information would gradually be lost over time (for example, notice how little of Szczecin describes the German culture that was dominant for centuries). <b style="color: #c90; font-family: comic sans ms">Chessrat</b> ( talk, contributions ) 11:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Having looked into it, Template:Copied might not be appropriate as I copied from several different revisions, both from the start of 2024 and from prior to September 2023. <b style="color: #c90; font-family: comic sans ms">Chessrat</b> ( talk, contributions ) 12:23, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You can use it to note multiple revisions, it's a bit lower in the documentation. (I try to directly copy paste from only one page to another page with no modification in any single edit to ease attribution, and make any merging/modifications in subsequent edits.) CMD (talk) 02:21, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The recent changes that were reverted were not discussed thoroughly enough - they included large removals of information and completely changed the introduction of the article – tilting all focus away from the recent ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of the city and resulted in a version that was content-wise far away from the long-term stable version of the article. I have no issue with balanced updates with regard to the facts on the ground. AntonSamuel (talk) 15:29, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 24 June 2024
Five months have passed since the last move discussion and someone is trying to push Commons into changing the name to "Khankendi" because supposedly it's more widely adopted at this point. Although I doubt they are correct and I don't think Commons should adopt the new name until it's at least changed on Wikipedia's end. So is there a reason the articles title can't be changed to "Khankendi" or does the same justification for not changing it from 5 months ago still apply? Thanks. Adamant1 (talk) 06:17, 25 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Nothing notable has happened in the city for the past five months (it’s essentially a ghost city) so it has not garnered any additional international news coverage that would suggest the common name has changed in international reliable sources. The past 2 move discussions were unsuccessful because Stepanakert was still the common name in majority of sources. There really hasn’t been any significant change in the past 5 months or even any significant amount of high quality sources covering the city since then to merit a move discussion.  Tagawor  Shah  (talk) 14:24, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's what I figured. Thought I'd ask though. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:47, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I should note that most of the wikis have updated the title to Khankendi (except for Armenian and English Wikipedias). Per sources, I can see some updates, inclucing Reuters, CTV where Khankendi was prioritized. A vast majority of the older sources (since September 2023) have called the city Khankendi with a note that it has ben known to Armenians as Stepanakert. Both politically and realistically, the article title should be changed. There's zero reason to keep it Stepanakert at this point. <span style="font-family: 'Droid Sans', Calibri, Verdana, sans; color: silver;">— Toghrul R (t) 10:11, 30 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Neither "politically" nor "realistically" are valid reasons for the names of articles on Wikipedia. As TagaworShah pointed out, nothing has changed with regards to coverage of the city by reliable sources within the past several months to warrant a renaming of this page now. Lightspecs (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Lightspecs They are valid reasons at this point. The city renamed Khankendi in 1991, and as it was under NKR control, the most-used title was chosen as the article title. Now the city is no longer under de-facto NKR control; there has been established multiple institutions in the city, even a university is operating in the city.
 * As I mentioned, several wikis (e.g. French, Spanish, Russian) changed the article titles just because of the recent updates. I don't know what you mean by reliable sources, but international resources are going to call the city with both titles for a long time, but the primary title has been Khankendi, per the links I mentioned <span style="font-family: 'Droid Sans', Calibri, Verdana, sans; color: silver;">— Toghrul R (t) 07:04, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The Reuters link deliberately goes out of its way to avoid picking one title. The CTV link does not work. It has never been policy to name places by their control, nor do the words used in other languages directly relate to the words used on English Wikipedia. CMD (talk) 07:18, 1 July 2024 (UTC)