Template:Did you know nominations/Confiscated Armenian Properties in Turkey

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Length

Confiscated Armenian Properties in Turkey[edit]

Created/expanded by Proudbolsahye (talk). Self nom at 06:20, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

  • The article was created on December 22 and was nominated for DYK 3 days later. Has more than 2,800 characters. It is overall well-soured. Good to go! --Երևանցի ասելիք կա՞ 03:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I can't get the numbers to add up. While the prose in the intro could use some work, of the 1328 Armenian properties mentioned there, 661 are said to have been confiscated, with 580 as "foundations assets" (no explanation of what the term "foundations" actually means); this is a total of 1241. 87 are completely unaccounted for. Further, it then says that of the 661 confiscated—that's 661, not 1328 as stated in the hook above—"only 143 were appropriated to the rightful ownership of the Armenian foundation" (which "foundation" does this mean; is there a master foundation that handles Armenian property now?). Aside from the inappropriate use of "only" here, what I draw from this is that there were 661 confiscated Armenian properties, and 143 have been restored to the Armenians. Is that correct? If so, then it's fewer than 22%, not 11%, of the confiscated properties that have been returned. If I'm correct in my reading that 580 of the 1328 remained in Armenian hands, then 43.67% were never confiscated at all. Am I correct? If so, the hook is badly misleading, and this whole DYK nomination needs a major, thorough review. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I addressed your concerns. Thank you. Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Thank you for the quick work. There are, unfortunately, significant prose problems throughout the article, starting with the intro (the second sentence has several errors) and continuing through the individual sections and the final table. I strongly recommend you get a copy editor for the whole thing. Also, please delete the "yet" from the various "No civil suits have been filed yet." sentences in the table. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:24, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Did some copy editing and the numbers seem to be correct now. Also, I can't see any problem with the rest of the article. It is well-referenced with a number of reliable sources. --Երևանցի ասելիք կա՞ 20:18, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Yerevanci, while I appreciate the removal of that 10.77% phrase, that was your only change of any note. Proudbolsahye's edits helped a bit with the prose, but significant issues remain unaddressed. If you can't see any problems with the sentence I specifically pointed out or find any prose problems elsewhere, then you need to locate a more experienced copy editor who can go over the article. As it stands, it is not ready. There are also definite POV issues that need addressing: for example, the word "rightful", which is used in the hook and the article's intro, clearly takes a position on all of the confiscations and sets the tone. A less critical matter that is nevertheless a DYK requirement: three of the references are bare URLs, and still need to be fixed; these should have been pointed out as problems in your original review. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
I did a copyedit with a special view towards ironing out POV issues. Now the article is quite cautious in its tone, not even saying that assets retrospectively classified as illegitimate by the Turkish government were "legally acquired" and making no judgment on claims by Armenian Americans to have deeds that prove their families' ownership of certain properties in Turkey. I think the only major problem remaining is that the article lacks the arguments by which the Ottomans and Turks justified the confiscation of properties, although it quotes a dissenter (Ahmed Riza) at length. Shrigley (talk) 22:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I have done some copy-edits but - in the intro ... 143 of the confiscated properties have been appropriated to the ownership of the Armenian foundation. ... I have (almost) no idea what this means in English - If it means 143 of the confiscated properties have been removed from Armenian ownership, then it should say so, and avoid appropriated to. You cannot both 'confiscate from' and 'appropriate to' the same Armenian Foundation, at least not in a Wiki intro. Regards Chienlit (talk) 13:50, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
  • After more thought I have removed the above sentence and stored it (with my reasoning) in the article Talk page. It was not supported in the body of the text. Chienlit (talk) 17:43, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The information in that sentence is the basis of the hook, so if 143 number (as associated with 661) does not appear anywhere in the article, the hook is left unsupported, and a new hook will have to be devised. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:49, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
  • issues in the information in the intro has been resolved and the hook is present in the article. The hook shall remain. Proudbolsahye (talk) 19:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The text in the table still needs copyediting before it is clearly readable and neutral. Chienlit (talk) 12:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I have now completed a copyedit but request some other editors to review, comment and approve etc. Chienlit (talk) 20:58, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Thank you so much for your contributions. The article has gone through 3 copy editors already...how many more do we need?! I actually think its ready to go. Proudbolsahye (talk) 07:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Hello Proudbolsahye, you are welcome. I have probably completed my editing of the visible text, but I confess to being daunted/overwhelmed by the exhaustive internal referencing techniques and languages. You are also welcome to 'think that the article is ready to go', the same opinion that you apparently held 60 edits ago, but editing is a slow, iterative, qualitative process (editing/approving my DYKs has often verged on pernickity) so I am happy to let the decision rest with BlueMoonset 'et dykAl'. Regards Chienlit (talk) 10:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I have extracted the 'hard to read' data from the pie chart graphic into an easily readable Wiki table. It needs some explanation by an expert (Proudbolsahye) because the numbers don't obviously seem to consistently match/support the text analysis. Regards. Chienlit (talk) 14:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • OK. I have now reworked the table so that the numbers are clearly seen to add-up without need for further explanation. Chienlit (talk) 14:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Chienlit, the table is helpful in breaking down the 1328 assets, but I find it also helps illuminate what is unclear in this section. I've made some minor edits there, and I'll be putting some comments and queries on the talk page where I wasn't sure what an item meant—I think you were right initially about additional explanation needed—since it affects the article in general, though depending on the answers it may affect the hook as well. (PS: I reformatted your indentation—if you leave a space between the last colon and the asterisk, the latter isn't formatted into a bullet.) BlueMoonset (talk) 15:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • WP:WIADYK rule 2b says: "DYK articles may freely reuse public domain text per Wikipedia's usual policy, with proper attribution. However, because the emphasis at DYK is on new and original content, text copied verbatim from public domain sources, or which closely paraphrases such sources, is excluded both from the 1,500 minimum character count for new articles, and from the x5 expansion count for x5 expanded articles." The cemetary information is just a small portion of the total article. Shrigley (talk) 19:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Thank you Shrigley! I was just about to comment saying that. Proudbolsahye (talk) 19:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)