Talk:Topkhana Forest

Recent edits

Recent edits by Parishan have added false information into the article. It is clear from all the cited sources that no forest named Topkhana actually existed, and that there was no "state reserve" at the location opposite Shusha known as Topkhana. Thus this article cannot be linked to Wikipedia categories State Reserves of Azerbaijan, and Forests of Azerbaijan. The Hunut Gorge forest was a protected area during Soviet times, and still is, but it is not the invented "Topkhana Forest". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:25, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

It is listed as a state reserve on Azerbaijani government websites [1] which are more reliable that the unsourced and unencyclopedic POV wording such as "an imaginary forest". Please cite the sources you are referring to in order to substantiate your claim that the forest does not exist. Parishan (talk) 01:33, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Your supposed "source" (which appears to be a propaganda website and thus is not a valid source) does not even mention a "Topkhana forest state reserve" and a single line consisting of just the words "Topxana meşəsi", stated without any context or reference or explanation, means nothing even if it were not in an unsuitable source. The article has NUMEROUS sources to indicate that no physical entity named "Topkhana Forest" existed. For example, the quotes that state that the site contained "just one rather spindly tree and some scrubby bushes" and explain that "a rather nondescript hill became a sacred forest in Baku media". If you want to suggest an alternative wording for "an imaginary forest", be my guest - I don't particularly like that exact wording (I just used it because there is a category of such things on Wikipedia). "Media-invented forest" perhaps? However, you cannot blatantly ignore neutral sources that state that no forest or reserve existed. Nor can a lede go against what the main body of an article says. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:51, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

The "propaganda source" is a government website, and since the status of Topkhana as a state reserve has been determined by the Azerbaijani authorities, there is nothing strange about me citing an official government source in this case. It is mentioned as a reserve also on the website of the Azeri Community of Nagorno-Karabakh, another official government body: [2]. None of your sources deny the existence of Topkhana, however spindly or nondescript it may have come across as. It may have seemed to them as a hill with a tree and a few bushes, but no one says it did not exist. I also question the notability of Mark Malkasian as a source. Parishan (talk) 02:20, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

All the neutral sources state that the "forest" is a propaganda creation by Azerbaijan - so the fact that Azerbaijani propaganda sources "have determined" there is a forest does not suddenly make an invented "forest reserve" real. The sources are all quite explicit about it - there was no forest, there was no reserve, it was an invention by Azeri media. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:23, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

None of the sources you have quoted explicitly say that. If you believe so, please cite a neutral source which would explicitly state exactly that "there was no forest, there was no reserve, it was an invention by Azeri media". Parishan (talk) 00:35, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying the text "the site was described by Galina Starovoitova as home to "just one rather spindly tree and some scrubby bushes"", and "a rather nondescript hill became a sacred forest in Baku media" that is already in the article is not clear enough in saying that there was no forest on the site and that it was all a media invention? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:27, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

It is only Starovoitova's comment that is in question, because Malkasian, a former high school teacher with an M.A. in history, is not a reliable source. And yes, I do not believe that saying "one rather spindly tree and some scrubby bushes" is anything close to saying "no forest, no reserve, an invention by Azeri media". Even if it was a tree on a hill surrounded by bushes, it does not mean that it could not be protected by the state. Parishan (talk) 02:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I have restored the article to its earlier version. Parishan, you have presented no credible sources that support the assertion that the invented "Topkhana Forest" ever was a state reserve. ("Was" would be the correct word since the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic no longer exists and its successor state has no longer any administrative control over this region). The word "forest" actually means something - a "spindly tree and some bushes" is not a forest. So in what way are you claiming "Starovoitova's comment is in question"? If you have an issue with the Malkassian source, it has to be more than "high school teacher with an M.A. in history". Your edit also removed, without explanation, content derived from the Yuri Rost source. That source backed up the content of the Malkassian source. I have also removed the recently added photograph - it is a photograph of the Hunut gorge, which is a well-known forested national reserve that exists in the NK republic below Shushi. It is not the location known as Topkhana so is off-topic for this article in the absence of a photo showing the actual Topkhana site. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:04, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

You could not resist the temptation to revert the page back to your POV version without addressing any of my arguments against it presented here earlier. Not very WP:Good faith of you, I must say.

I have provided two sources stating that according to Azerbaijani state records, the state reserve known as the Topkhana Forest does exist. There is nothing that justifies your removal of those sources. I am still waiting for a valid explanation. In the meantime, I will throw in more sources:

1. Yevgeni Kotlyarov, USSR Master of Sports and contemporary specialist on athletic tourism, mentions "forested slopes of the Topkhana plateau in Shusha" in his 1978 publication on mountain tourism in Karabakh: [3]
2. A 1985 issue of the magazine Literary Azerbaijan mentions the existence of a forest in Topkhana: [4].

These pre-conflict publications prove that Topkhana was not "invented" in 1988 for propaganda purposes. Furthermore, they are clearly of greater significance than the sources from the conflict period because they are not tainted by nationalist bias and because they were published before claims of Topkhana's destruction (which may have been the reason why others only saw "scrubby bushes" there) were publicly voiced.

The dictionary meaning of the word 'forest' is completely irrelevant to this article. What matters is that no one denied the existence of this forest. Even Starovoytova, despite her scepticism, does not call it "imaginary". Your claim that it was "media-invented" is not supported by ANY course. There is no source that uses the wording "media-invented", so it may NOT appear in the article, otherwise it is a gross violation of WP:OR. I do know know how to be more clear in communicating this basic Wikipedia truth to you.

My issue with Malkasian is very much in line with Wikipedia rules on notability. An author's notability in the given subject must be established in order for his or her work to be cited in an article. I suggest you familiarise yourself with those conditions. Kotlyarov is notable: he was a member of the Geographical Society of the Azerbaijan SSR already in the 1960s [5], cited in many Soviet academic journals, such as this one, among others. Starovoytova is notable: she was a conflictologist and a scholar with a Candidate of Sciences degree in history who visited Nagorno-Karabakh numerous times before and during the conflict. I expect you to cite anything that proves that Malkasian, a random high school teacher of history, deserves to be mentioned in this article as a reliable specialist on Nagorno-Karabakh. Otherwise any Joe Blow can publish a brochure and claim notability. Parishan (talk) 07:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

In the above you are making a number of unsupported claims and making a number of distortions.

You claim the article is saying Topkhana was "invented" in 1988. The article does not make such a claim, and in fact the article explains the historical event that was behind the use of the name as the name of the location. The article details, using sourced information, what happened in 1988: the media invention of a forest located on its site and the media invention of its destruction.

You claim "no one denied the existence of this forest" - this is a complete reversal of the reality. EVERY acceptable source denies the existence of a "Topkhana forest" - they explain that it was an invention of Baku-based race-hate-filled media in 1988. You cite a source by Yevgeni Kotlyarovis containing the text "wooded slopes of the Topkhana plateau" - All that indicates is that the toponym "Topkhana" exists, but we already have sources for that. "Wooded slopes" does not equal "state forest reserve" and this article is not about the Topkhana plateau, it is about a specific location opposite Shusha that, in 1988, was intended to be the site of a symbolic Armenian structure, with its construction being on a site containing "just one rather spindly tree and some scrubby bushes" - and this reality was inflated by Azeri Baku-based media into the construction of an aluminium plant by Armenians and the destruction of a "sacred forest" to make way for it.

You claim that since the exact phrase "media-invented" is not found in a source, it may NOT appear in the article. This is an incorrect assertion. The phrase is used in the article's lead. A lead is intended to summarise the content of the article, not reproduce the exact words of a source. The content of the article explains that both the forest and its destruction was a media invention by Baku-based media outlets: we have the quote "a rather nondescript hill became a sacred forest in Baku media" as well as content derived from other sources, such as the Starovoitova "spindly tree and some scrubby bushes" quote that refers to the site BEFORE any construction work took place. The phrase "media-invented" in the lead accurately summarises that content so it is justifed. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:44, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

You have also presented no evidence, no acceptable sources, that indicate any "State Forest Reserve" existed at Topkhana. You Azeri "sources" range from propaganda websites to racist hate websites, and are not suitable to be used as sources on Wikipedia. For example, [6] just reproduces as if they were true the lies that the sources used in the article talk about being generated back in 1988. The online map site [7] is created by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Tourism as an alternative to Google Maps because Google Maps shows Armenian place names in NK. The numerous adverts on the website for Azerbaijan's dictator and his relations should be enough to indicate it is a propaganda source. But if more evidence is needed, a glance at its outrageous "history of Azerbaijan" section makes things clear. It has text such as "Armenians started claims to our lands. Later the tsarist Russia made the next effort: it armed armenians and began mass genocide against Turkic-Moslem Azerbaijanis and gave start to the genocide of all Azerbaijanis and the Turkic-Moslem population of the southern Caucasus". And "1948-1953 are characterized as new level of mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from their historical lands - the Western Azerbaijan (named as Armenia SSR). Armenians stabled their positions in the Western Azerbaijan and their quantity predominated on that area". So, according to this website, the Armenian Genocide didn't happen, it was actually Armenians committing genocide on "Turkic-Moslem Azerbaijanis" and all of the Armenian Republic is actually "Western Azerbaijan", and its population are just fast-breeding animals who have been "stabled" there. Any source making claims like that is not suitable for Wikipedia. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:53, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

And your overly-personal attack on Malkasian ("a random high school teacher of history") is worthless. The author has a MA in History (received from UCLA), so is well-enough qualified, the book in question is published by a reputable US publisher, and a google search indicated that the book has been cited in numerous sources. It is also used as a source in a number of Wikipedia articles. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:12, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not personally attacking anyone. I am asserting a simple truth: obtaining an MA from the University of California does not suffice to qualify as a reputable scholar. Malkasian has no background in academics or research, no peer reviews, no publications (apart from this quite tendentious one); in other words, he is not a valid source. His only relevant academic experience is teaching history in a high school, and there is nothing offensive in stating this. The use of his book in other articles on Wikipedia has to be dealt with later. For now, he has not been proven to be as a reliable source for this particular article, so whatever he had to say about the status of Topkhana is unacceptable.

The Russian word for 'forest' is les; the adjective used by Kotlyarov is lesistyj, literally meaning 'covered in forest'. You can take liberties with the translation, but this is enough evidence to say that there was indeed a forest. May I remind you that initially you were not arguing against the existence of a state reserve - you were arguing against the existence of the very forest, which, as this and the other pre-war sources indicate, is not an accurate assertion. Starovoytova's opinion should be included in the article, but it should be noted that this opinion was voiced in 1990, two years after the Azerbaijani media blew whistles about the destruction of the forest.

I request that you please cite at least one source that explicitly says that the forest was "an invention of Baku-based race-hate-filled media", otherwise it does not make sense for me to comment on your personal interpretations, including what we can or cannot put in the lead.

I did additional research and found out that the Topkhana Forest by itself is indeed not a reserve, but it is located within a protected area known as the Dashalty State Natural Protected Area (Azerbaijani: Daşaltı Dövlət Təbiət Yasaqlığı; Russian: Государственный Природный Заказник "Дашалты") established in 1988, of which you can find sources that do mention the Topkhana Forest as one of its sites: Azerbaijan Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Azerbaijan Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Eco-Alam Public Union. Parishan (talk) 22:50, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Once again you are making distortions. The article has a source that state explicitly that there was no forest on the site of the 1988 constructions. Starovoytova's description of the site is not an "opinion", it is an eyewitness account. This article details how Azeri media dreamed-up a non-existent forest on that site to claim that evil Armenians had destroyed it in order to whip Azeri's in Baku into a frenzy of race hate. Your "Dashalty State Natural Protected Area" is actually the Hunut Gorge State Reserve, a completely different site from Topkhana. Azeri propaganda uses photos of the heavily forested Hunut Gorge State Reserve as images of the imaginary Topkhana Forest before its imaginary destruction by those evil Armenians. There is nothing more to add re the Malkasian source. I consider it to be a reliable source, as must the many other sources that cite that book, and you have presented nothing that suggests otherwise. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

How am I making distortions? The article does not say there was no forest and the article does not say it was dreamt up. It only says that it was a rather poorly vegetated area, but that is it. It is only you who claims that it was "made up". You cannot make personal conclusions of this sort. I asked you two times to quote the exact words where the source says it was "made up", and you have failed to do so. At least, I have presented pre-conflict sources where the existence of a forested area in Topkhana is clearly mentioned for the time when it had not been yet cut down (like during Starovoytova's account) and quoted from them directly.

"I consider it a reliable source" is not enough to establish reliability. Malkasian is not peer-reviewed, he does not have any academic background or title, he has never done any scientific research, and he has got no other publications. This is enough to doubt his reliability.

"Hunut Gorge State Reserve" does not exist, let it alone it "being the same" as the Dashalty State Natural Protected Area. The latter is attested on the official list of state reserves and protected areas of Azerbaijan. There are no images in the sources I have provided, so I have no idea where your argumentation stems from. Parishan (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

You have no evidence of any "cutting down", Starovoytova's account indicates there was nothing to cut down. If you want to contest the Malkasian source you know how to. The Hunot Gorge and the Dashalti Gorge are the same thing. It is a state natural reserve, the state being the Nagorno Karabakh republic, see [8]. Its called the "Hunot Canyon State Natural–Historical Reserve" here [9]. Here are photos of the Hunot gorge misrepresented as "Topkhana forest" http://portal.azertag.az/ru/node/1085#.VULqWO9FD0N Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I have no evidence of cutting down, but I have evidence from third-party sources who reported witnessing a "forested area" in Topkhana before the conflict flared up. None of your sources say that the Hunot Canyon and the Dashalty Protected Area cover the same territory. Your are synthesising sources again. The image from a children's portal (!) has nothing to do with the sources I presented above. You cannot use it to disprove information from the Ministry of Ecology website, unless it was the Ministry itself using that image.

I am not taking the Malkasian issue to the next forum unless you present a plausible argument as to why he should be considered a reliable source. Having an M.A. is not enough. I have an M.A as well, but I do not go around claiming my own notability as a source. Parishan (talk) 04:33, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

That "children's portal" was considered an acceptable source when this article was created, back when it was simply a piece of Azeri propaganda. In fact, it was actually the ONLY source when this article was created! If you are disputing that the Hunot and Dashalti reserves are identical, maybe you should stop those Azeri internet warriors on Google Earth who place "Dashalti gorge" captions on photos of Hunot gorge. As for Malkasian, it is you who is disputing the suitability of the source - so it is you who needs to present an argument that it is unsuitable, and do it on the appropriate Wikipedia forum. At the moment, the facts that the author is a qualified academic (having a MA in History from a well-known US university), that the book has been cited in numerous other works, and that the book has already been accepted as a suitable source in other Wikipedia articles, mean that it is a suitable source for this article. In addition, your claim that Malkasian "does not have any academic background or title, he has never done any scientific research, and he has got no other publications" is false. At the time of the book's publication he was a researcher at the Zoryan Institute, and another of his works, "The Disintegration of the Armenian Cause in the United States, 1918–1927" is cited six times in Donald Bloxham's 2005 OUP publication "The Great Game of Genocide". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I am not responsible for "Internet warriors". We are not here to discuss the image; we are here to establish the existence of a forest, and so far there are two pre-conflict sources (from the time before the forest's cutting down was claimed), Kotlyarov (1978) and Literary Azerbaijan (1985), which state that the area was covered in a forest. I repeat: there is no source that says "a forest invented by Baku-based media", even Malkasian whose notability is still questionable (Zoryan Institute is not really an institute; it is an NGO, and referring to other Wikipedia articles to prove his suitability on this one violates WP:OSE). You made that wording up, and if you fail to justify the existence of this very wording in a reliable source, it will be removed immediately as unencyclopedic, tendentious and OR. Parishan (talk) 00:54, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Stop producing "I don't like it" hot air. If you had a genuine concern for the sources you would have taken the question to the suitable forum long ago. The cited source states "a rather nondescript hill became a sacred forest in Baku media" - those words (together with all the other sources which say there was no forest) more than justify the "a forest invented by Baku-based media" text used in the lead. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

No, they do not. Your personal interpretation of sources has no place on Wikipedia. Consult WP:OR and if you still disagree, take it to a third party. Long after the above discussion I added three sources from pre-conflict time which you blindly deleted without even addressing them. Consider this a warning. Parishan (talk) 22:08, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

This is the last time I am asking you to provide a source that would refer to this forest as "invented". Otherwise I will be forced to request admin involvement. Parishan (talk) 09:52, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

You seem consistently incapable of accepting that Wikipedia content is a synthesis and compression of content derived from valid sources. It is not a requirement to reproduce exactly the text found in those sources, in fact it is expressly forbidden to do so (for copyright reasons). We use the source text to write the content using our own words. Thus, there is no requirement to find a source that uses the actual word "invented", all that is required is for the word to be justifiable when compared to the content found in valid sources. It is quite clear from the already cited sources that this forest was an invented entity concocted for propaganda purposes ("a rather nondescript hill became a sacred forest in Baku media", home to "just one rather spindly tree and some scrubby bushes"", etc.), so "invented" is an appropriate word to use in the article lede to summarize the reality of this "forest" as expressed in the sources and as explained in the content found in the body of the article. You have been edit warring on this for several years so if it will silence you by all means take it somewhere else. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:08, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you seem to have it all wrong. Wikipedia is exactly the opposite of what you said and it does not permit synthesis or original research. What seems "appropriate" to you is your personal opinion which does not belong in an objective article. I suggest you read WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:OR before you continue this discussion. Parishan (talk)

?Based on your 10 May post, I though we were NOT continuing with this discussion. I do not see much point in continuing given your lack (be it genuine or contrived) of understanding about what OR and Synthesis is, and about how article content is written, and about what a lede is meant to accomplish. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Tiptoethrutheminefield, giving up the discussion and then showing up months later to perform a sneaky revert is not a good strategy. All the sources referring to the existence of this forest have been presented. None of your sources state that the forest was "invented". Parishan (talk) 21:36, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

The talk page points to an accuracy dispute so I have added the appropriate tag to the article. Jackal 21:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Parishan, the sneaky reverting is being done by you. You refuse to address the fact that all the RS sources are in agreement that there was no forest to be destroyed and that both the forest and its "destruction" were media inventions. As I have tried to explain to you several times, it is the article's content that justifies the lede's use of the word "invented", a word that summarizes the position of those sources. See WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. Your failure to understand that the purpose of a lede is to do this, to summarize the article's content, is beginning to look forced. You have produce a lede that bares no relation to what those souces say, and no relation to what the body of the article says! The "sources" you bring are a joke. Do you honestly think this [10] is something usable, or that two words on a list on an Azeri propaganda website [11] is usable? I am reversing your edit to the lede. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:25, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I now see that Parishan's edit was much more extensive that just altering the lede [12]. This edit contained a great deal of troubling content. Large sections of sourced content have been, without any explanation or any prior discussion, blanked from view using "< ! - -" coding. Other content appears to have been weasely rewritten. For example, the deletion of the important qualifier that the description of Topkhana (by Starovoitova) being home to "just one rather spindly tree and some scrubby bushes" was a description of the place before any construction work took place - thus making the description appear to be evidence of the aftermath of an actual destruction rather than a description intended to indicate no forest existed to be destroyed. That intention, to indicate that no forest existed, is not my OR synthesis, it was the intent of the source (Rost) which quotes Starovoitova. Rost, immediately after the quote, mentions Baku news reports that a "sacred grove had been destroyed" and then adds his observation that "there was no grove to speak of, as I saw for myself". Given those effects, I have now reversed the entire edit by Parishan. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:22, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Starovoitova did not visit the region until after the Spitak earthquake, which means no earlier than mid-December 1988. The construction in Topkhana started on 9 November. Five weeks was more than enough to turn a forest into "a field with just one spindly tree", so her account does not disprove the fact of the forest's existence. When I coded Malkasian, at least I bothered to provide an explanation (see above) as to why I did so. You removed references to Kotlyarov, Rzayev and Afandiyev without saying why. Not to mention adding outrageously POV and OR statements like "media-invented" and "pictures of the Hunot Gorge are presented in Azerbaijan as pictures of Topkhana". Parishan (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)