Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Kurds

Response from Amr ibn Kulthoum

 * I am really surprised by this complaint by an admin who has started to take sides instead of moderating a content dispute (and is forcing their narrative on the Talk:Syrian Kurdistan page), although they seem to have limited experience with the topic (and no prior interest), unlike other admins such as or . IDK if I need to respond to each of the claims above since they don't even show the problem with the edit, but if you look at the diff links provided, rather than taking the accusation at face value, you will find that all my edits are supported by RELIABLE sources (mostly or entirely western scholarship), and none of them is contested or involving edit-warring. To provide some specifics:


 * 1) I am not sure about the problem with the edit what Levivich means by saying "using a source entitled "From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava’s New Capital""! The source is written by Fabrice Balanche, from the reputable The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and talk at length about the Kurdification process of Qamishli.
 * 2) Also, is there a problem with changing "Opposition" to Resentment"?
 * 3) Levivich's other claim, "predominantly Kurdish" to "predominantly Arab", citing a source that doesn't support the statement: here an excerpt from the story to judge for yourselves: Most speak Arabic as a mother tongue, in addition to Kurdish and Turkish.. Also, here is the full bio of the author (that Levivich didn't like) from the NatGeo website at the bottom of the story (apologies for the length, but context is important here): Julia Harte is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul, where she focuses on social and environmental justice issues. In 2013, she received a National Geographic Young Explorer grant to travel along the Tigris River from Southern Iraq to Southeastern Turkey, documenting the downstream and upstream impacts of Turkey's Ilısu Dam for a project entitled, "After the Dam, the Deluge: A Final Glimpse at the Ancient Town of Hasankeyf and Traditional Life Along the Tigris". Julia's work has previously appeared in Reuters, Foreign Policy, The World Policy Journal, Global Post, TimeOut Istanbul, the Philadelphia City Paper, and Cultural Survival Quarterly..
 * 4) "'rojava' is POV-pushing per se". Here is an excerpt from Michael Gunter (2018) regarding the use of the term "rojava": The most obvious political consequence of these dynamics was the adoption by some Kurdish parties of the expression "Syrian Kurdistan" or "Rojava", referring to Northern Syria, as opposed to the moderate, "Kurdish regions of Syria".. I can provide more scholarship on this.
 * 5) I was blocked from the Talk page by  for this edit. Maybe time to bring it up. Judge for yourselves!
 * Finally, admins can see the grey literature and whitewashing these articles are full of (e.g. Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Human rights in the AANES, Rojava conflict, etc.). Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Amr ibn KulthoumThe green font is here to highlight the few phrases one deems most important.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 09:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Then also, would you mind providing a diff where I used the phrase as you highlighted exactly this phrase in green?Paradise Chronicle (talk) 15:31, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Response by Shadow4dark
A nonsense report. At point 3 there is no "Kurdish Genocide" in Turkey or wikipage. If you did a properly ressearch, the user who added this is blocked and it was WP:OR. I will not respond further at this nonsense. Shadow4dark (talk) 23:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ToBeFree&diff=prev&oldid=997174990 and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party&diff=996166876&oldid=996093926

I’m done.
I’m probably not going to edit anymore Kurdish-related articles anyway. Apparently, the Kurd-related issue is going to ArbCom and I don’t know what that it is and I don’t want to know what that it is. Anyways, lots of the edits I made were reverting a blocked user's WP:OR. Thepharoah17 (talk) 23:34, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

May I add more diffs?
I'd have some more diffs about canvassing and calling liberated areas from ISIL or Jihadists as Kurdish occupied then also a move discussion of Syrian Kurdistan in 2015. Then also on the comparison between YPG and ISIS.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 03:12, 25 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't see why not; I set this page up so we could gather/discuss diffs. Thanks in advance. Levivich harass/hound 03:14, 25 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The examples provided are great to show who has a political POV agenda here. Look at the discussion to change the name of Tell Abyad, an overwhelmingly Arab town in Syria into a Kurdish name, simply because it was controlled by PYD militias during the power vacuum resulting from the civil war. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 09:17, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem is, the towns name wasn't changed, as it is explained during the discussion. And the Arabic Welcome to Tell Abyad plate was up at all times at the entrance of the city during the Government of the AANES. The fact that you don't to accept this, and edit war the quote about the Kurdification of the place name in the article with a single really unreliable POV source with multiple inaccuracies within a one single (sorry for using twice single) quote for over 6 months, is one of the reasons, why an ArbCom case is appropriate I guess.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:21, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Since you are insisting on discussing this here, let me remind you that we had a DRN case about the quotes, but YOU did not like the result/suggestion of volunteer user Nightenbelle, and decided to repeatedly remove two SOURCED quotes (2-3 lines each) from the Washington Post material (that you call unreliable) and The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, including removal during the DRN and edit-warring, which resulted in your block. suggested that you bring up counter comments to the article but you never delivered. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 22:59, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I tried many times to bring in some neutrality into the article, it was even me who actually wikilinked Kurdification. It was Thepharoah17 who removed the wikilink for Kurdification. I also brought in the existence of the Tell Abyad Canton of which Tell Abyad was the capital of. According to the WINEP quote, Tell Abyad belonged to the Kobane Canton...Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:39, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Here PC was blocked indef for sockpuppetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Koban%C3%AE#Requested_move_19_December_2019 Shadow4dark (talk) 04:24, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that with the (repeated) mentioning of blocks obviously lifted or applied erroneously may also be an interesting discussion. I mention the blocks myself at my user page. Section blocking historial.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:44, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Witch hunt?
The list is weird. It lists all the action of the editors who do not support Kurdistan, and none of the other side. Is this the problem in the eyes of the editor who started it? Any editor who do not agree with the editors who support Kurdistan is a problem that needs to be solved? What are the rationales of this list? What is wrong for example in this: Add "Kurdification process and Christian population opposition" section to Qamishli using a source entitled "From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava’s New Capital"- This is listed as a problematic edit by Amr. Im trying to understand what is going on here, so can User:Levivich explain why adding content not favourable to the Kurdish nationalist narrative is problematic? Why "historically been highly diverse" to "historically been the domain of nomad and sedentary Arabs" is problematic behaviour (if it is supported by reliable sources)? What is going on here exactly?--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 13:44, 27 December 2020 (UTC)


 * "editors who do not support Kurdistan, and none of the other side" - I disagree with dividing editors into two such groups. If something is missing, feel free to add it.
 * Item #4-1 in the section (Amr's):
 * Qamishli is in Rojava and was the capital of AANES until 2016.
 * In the first edit from Sep 2020, Special:Diff/980525889, "Rojava" is removed from the infobox, with an edit summary "Mostly under government, and other political status still unclear."
 * But Amr knows Qamishli is in Rojava and was its capital. For example, in the second edit in December 2020, Special:Diff/993189003, he added a source titled "From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava’s New Capital" to the same article.
 * Amr also knows, from past discussions, that consensus is that WINEP is not reliable, or at least its reliability is much disputed
 * Not verified by the source:
 * "all aspects of life"
 * "starting by changing the name of the city to Qamishlo"
 * "forcing a Kurdish-language curriculum on non-Kurdish citizens" (source says schools will be forced to teach Kurdish, not that non-Kurdish citizens will be forced to learn it)
 * "Christian and Arab population in the city were fiercely opposed to the PYD rule" (source says Christian, not Christian and Arab)
 * What the edit says: "Half the Christian population left by 2017 although no fighting happened in the city", suggesting they're fleeing Kurdification. What the source says: "Half of the Qamishli Christians have already left while the fighting is not touching the city; Christian traders and liberal professionals are fleeing economic stagnation rather than fighting."
 * The third edit, Special:Diff/993298653, changes Christian "opposition" to "resentment", but the source doesn't say "resent", it says "oppose"
 * Item #5-1
 * That's from the Demographics section of the AANES article. What it said before:, cited to McDowall 2004 and others.
 * What it was changed to:, cited to a 1953 article in Geocarrefour. The 1953 article is most definitely not talking about the historical makeup of "the area under PYD control in 2020". This is WP:SYNTH. And worse, it's synth that contradicts the explicit statements of other, newer, actually reliable sources cited in the article, like McDowall.
 * Yes, I think these edits, and all the others, are concerning. Levivich harass/hound 05:27, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think these edits, and all the others, are concerning. Levivich harass/hound 05:27, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

"I disagree with dividing editors into two such groups"- But this is how things are. Anyways, thanks for explaining why you see these edits problematice. The editors mentioned in this list should start gathering problematic edits by the other camp. This problem of Kurdish articles goes both ways.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 05:58, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't dispute that the problems relating to Kurdish articles involve multiple POVs, not just anti-Kurdish, and I don't think of these edits as anti-Kurdish. Some might be but I'm not saying they all are. To take one example, an editor might remove the word "Rojava" from an article because it's not supported by the sources, or because of a POV, or some other reason. If it's POV, it might be anti-Kurdish POV, or anti-YPG, anti-PYD, pro-Syrian, pro-Arab, pro-Assad, or if the article happens to be Qamishli, it might be pro-Christian; if it's Afrin, it might be pro-Turkish, or pro-Erdogan; if it's Kobani, it might be pro-ISIS; there are so many possibilities. We can't say every removal of "Rojava" is anti-Kurdish POV, and I'm not saying that. It's so much more complicated than that. That's why I don't think it's two sides. The number of sides is at least equal to twice the number of ethnic groups. Levivich harass/hound 07:26, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, you (as an admin) seeing only one side (and forcing that as you did in the Syrian Kurdistan Talk page) of this very complex and contentious issue is way more concerning than my edits. I am not aware that WINEP (which I don't like) is considered unreliable; by whom (any link to previous discussions/RSN)? Here is an expanded quote (sorry to the readers for the length) from the WINEP story to answer most of your comments above: . A similar story is published by Carnegie on another Arab area under PYD control, and there is a ton more that I can provide upon request or for a meaningful discussion. As for the rojava removal from the text box of Qamishli; this is still a city in Syria, and it is so recognized by the international community. Adding rojava is POV-pushing, per the sources you provided on the Syrian Kurdistan Talk page such as Michael Gunter (2018):, or Kaya and Lowe (2017) , or Ozcelik (2019): . As for your comment about a reference from 1953 versus 2020, history does not change with time, and the 1953 reference talks about the initial composition of the population, which is what the statement you are referring is about, and here is a statement from a 2017 Carnegie story confirming the same thing (and I will add this story later to the Qamishli article for your convenience):  I am happy to provide more stories on this Kurdish immigration from Turkey. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 07:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I am not an admin. We discussed the same WINEP author, Balanche, and think tanks, at Talk:Syrian Kurdistan. I think most recent RSN thread is Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 301 Levivich harass/hound 07:38, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Great to know, thanks for the link. WINEP is used quite a bit in Kurdish-related articles (mostly adopting Kurdish views and claims, such as the 16% Kurds in Syria numbers against all other sources putting them under 10%), and I will be happy to consider it unreliable across the board (not cherry-picking). Also, we should go through some of the references in the AANES, Rojava conflict, Human rights in the AANES, etc. where things like Rudaw, ANF, Kurdistan24, ARA News, etc. and personal websites are used such as this one in this page Constitution of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 08:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I support having an academic source restriction in this topic area. Levivich harass/hound 20:04, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , I'm thinking that needs to be added to the (proposal? is that what this is?) —valereee (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Just a page to collect diffs. I don't know what to propose. There are a number of ways to do a source restriction in theory: by the community, by Arbcom, by unilateral admin action in some cases. Maybe it should be a proposal page, or a brainstorming page. Levivich harass/hound 21:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , ugh. You're going to make me try to think? —valereee (talk) 21:38, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * —valereee As to me, it as a brainstorming page where it can be discussed how to make a case for the noticeboards or for the ArbCom. For the noticeboards anyone can bring up a discussion, either the issue is discussed or seen as irrelevant for the Admins. But for the ArbCom there should be a good case presented, thoroughly discussed (constructively), if possible by both sides. If the other side wants to present diffs as well, as to me, it is only fair. But there is clearly a problem on the Kurdish issue which Wikipedia as a whole and Valereee in particular really felt during the last month of discussion. Syrian Kurdistan was one of only ten Goldlocked pages out of more than six million on the English Wikipedia... If there is no help for the ArbCom, (Levivich was not so delighted of an ArbCom case) I would also wait for GPinkerton, who is aware of the several issues in the Kurdish issue (and wanted to have some admin action in the dispute) until his topic ban is lifted in some months. The current Tell Abyad discussion on the quotes is going on almost since more than 8 months, and was going on for years before, so ca. six months is a small time on the Kurdish issue and a long time enough to present a solid case to the ArbCom.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:45, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ooops,I was not the only one who had the idea that GPinkerton may take part in the discussion as well. But seeing your dialogue it seems GPinkerton might not be interested in an ArbCom case for now (absolutely understandable, it'll be quite a task to find a fair solution here). Let's see where these many diffs lead us.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:22, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Indeffed users leading the discussion now?
We have the t-banned user who just came back from being indeffed on the condition they stay away from the Middle East post 1492 topics. Well, they never respected that condition and are still trying to game the system by WP:Canvassing in several articles. They canvassed here while negotiating a t-ban and again here as soon as the indef block was lifted. They were warned by here, still they are coming back to the topic in full force on this board. Any admin thoughts on this? Thanks, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 19:32, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Look here he ignores his topic ban []. Shadow4dark (talk) 20:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

What and how to present an ArbCom case of the Kurdish issue?
I'll open here a section/discussion for the ArbCom case we aim to present. Here just issues, not the diffs. should be presented. I ask other editors, to also present issues which they deem as necessary to be addressed. It is clear we have differences. We can not deny this, and we have admins who are helping us to find a solution for them.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Issues presented by Paradise Chronicle


 * 1) Some editors are removing mentions relating to Kurds instead of accepting an academic source for it.
 * 2) Some editors are/were denying the mere existence of a (Syrian) Kurdistan in other articles.
 * 3) Others removed mentions to Kurds (like it is populated by Kurds) or Kurdish language (like the Kurdish name of a locality) instead of looking for an easy to find source for it. (I'd just add a citation needed tag instead of removing it, but I told this multiple times already, so if there is an ArbCom case, let's bring it up.)
 * 4) Another issue is the equating of the YPG as a terrorist organization similar to the ISIL
 * 5) Some editors call the pro-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (or Kurds) as occupiers of Syrian areas (liberated by ISIL and Jihadists).Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Further Discussion I would add:
 * 1) Some editors misrepresenting sources through misquoting or selective quoting
 * 2) Some editors using unreliable sources (primary sources, PhD thesis, CIA reports, sources from 100+ years ago), even when those sources contradict modern reliable sources (like academic works)
 * 3) Some editors removing references to or "whitewashing" historical events (this is similar to #5 above, which is about changing who is the invader and who is the defender)
 * 4) Some editors moving articles from Kurdish names to Arabic names or other non-Kurdish names Levivich harass/hound 18:39, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment: There should be no source restriction. There can be good documents or old and historical sources with valuable information, old maps. In some cases they might have to be presented as being from that source, but that's a discussion for each source on a case-by-case basis. So it shouldn't be allowed to move a Kurdish name article to an Arabic name, but no problem moving an Arabic name article to a Kurdish name? Very neutral policy suggestion. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


 * If you have examples of editors moving Arabic name articles to Kurdish names, I invite you to add those diffs to the list of diffs. Levivich harass/hound 19:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One diff from 2015 by an already-blocked account. Wow. Levivich harass/hound 19:21, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Upon advice of Levivich, I've started a draft on the Kurdish ArbCom case at my Userspace ]. The aim is to present a case where both views are shown. I want a discussion which is seen as delivering a solution for an academic commonsense consensus on Wikipedia. I of course defend the mention of Kurds, Kurdish language etc. in areas where Kurds live or have lived and also to mention them in a realistic way and have added diffs of my interest. If other issues seem to be of a matter as well, please add them, both issues and diffs. Anyone interested is absolutely welcome to create a framework for a constructive discussion. It might also help to check the active sanctions in place.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The aim is to present the case in an efficient manner, with only the most relevant diffs and issues as Levivich has mentioned. I'll ping (sorry, I didn't do it before) some of the editors relevant for the case and also some involved admins so they are updated on the issue and if necessary can also advise us on how to move forward.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:05, 5 January 2021 (UTC)