Talk:Fall of Constantinople/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Requested move 29 April 2022

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 Mike Cline (talk) 18:40, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

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Fall of Constantinople → Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople – per Wikipedia's policy of maintaining a neutral point-of-view, and in line with articles such as Conquest of Ceuta. The requested move is also to a more specific title. إيان (talk) 16:35, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit: Clarifying rationale for request—

• "Fall of Constantinople" is no longer the "common name;" there is parity between "fall of Constantinople" (3,330 results) and "conquest of Constantinople" (3,140 results) in recent scholarship. Upon this, and per WP:NPOVNAME, "An article title with non-neutral terms cannot simply be a name commonly used in the past, it must be the common name in current use." Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople is also more descriptive and encyclopedic, and Wikipedia avoids a common name is circumstances of "Colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious."
• There are other articles with "fall," including: Fall of Saigon, Fall of Kabul (2001), Fall of Kabul (2021), Fall of Singapore, Fall of Antwerp, but if Wikipedia discusses Western victories as "conquests" and Western losses as "falls," that's obviously not WP:NPOV. signed إيان (talk) 17:23, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Edit

• Why "fall" is not neutral, per Oxford English Dictionary:

- fall, n. 18. The failure, collapse, or ruin of an institution, organization, etc.(Sometimes hard to distinguish from sense 17a: The action or fact of being made to descend or of declining, deteriorating, etc.; descent from or loss of high (political or moral) status, good fortune, or the like; downfall.)

- conquest, n. I. Conquest by war or combat. 1. a. The action of gaining by force of arms; acquisition by war; subjugation of a country, etc.

"Fall" implies descent from or loss status i.e. there's a value judgment, while "conquest" is a more object description of the event. signed إيان (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• Oppose per commonname. Beshogur (talk) 19:30, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and prior discussion from 2019. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment An article title must adhere to Wikipedia's fundamental principle of WP:NPOV. Per WP:NPOVNAME, "An article title with non-neutral terms cannot simply be a name commonly used in the past, it must be the common name in current use." Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople is also more descriptive and encyclopedic, and Wikipedia avoids a common name is circumstances of "Colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious." إيان (talk) 21:15, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

  You appear to be asserting that the current title is not the common name (as you quote WP:NPOVNAME: it must be the common name in current use (emphasis added) in your comment). Do you have any evidence to support this assertion? —Locke Cole • t • c 22:06, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

  My assertion was out of optimism that modern scholarship and discourse generally represent less ideology and Eurocentrism and more diverse perspectives and specificity, and Google scholar results since 2018 seem to support my assertion:

  A search for "fall of Constantinople" yields 3,330 results while "conquest of Constantinople" yields 3,140 results—so it's quite close. إيان (talk) 06:37, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

• Why is "conquest" less POV than "fall"? The stronger argument for a rename is that the current title is ambiguous. The fall of Constantinople in 1204 was also a pretty big deal. Perhaps the most neutral title is Siege of Constantinople (1453). I don't see either "fall" or "conquest" as problematic, but there is precedent for avoiding "conquest". See Talk:Italian invasion of British Somaliland#Requested move 3 August 2020. —Srnec (talk) 00:44, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  There are many, many, many articles using "conquest" and I suggest this move in the name of congruity with them. Also, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople was lasting whereas the example of the Italians in Somaliland was a military campaign of relatively brief tenure, where "invasion" is indeed more appropriate.

  For "fall" and "conquest," I've responded below. إيان (talk) 07:10, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  I am inclined to prefer on labeling it a "siege". While "conquest" can also work, using "siege" would not only be more correct in the sense that it really was a siege before the eventual conquest, it also helps us avoid (or mitigate at the very least) the risk of edit warring instances in the future. DreddLamok (talk) 04:34, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per Commonname, prior discussion from 2019 and I have seen nothing from user: إيان, that would indicate "Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople" is NPOV. --Kansas Bear (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  As mentioned previously, the title Ottoman conquest of Constantinople is congruous with articles for similar events such as the Conquest of Ceuta, which is described as سقوط سبتة "the fall of Ceuta" in North African historiographies.

  If Wikipedia discusses Western victories as "conquests" and Western losses as "falls," that's obviously not WP:NPOV. What I'm seeking with this move request is some congruity. إيان (talk) 06:50, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support. I agree the current title is a bit POV-ish. "Fall" has negative insinuations, as some sort of cataclysm or failure. It is may be commonly used in Western sources, but they tend to see it from Western (Christian) perspective as some sort of "loss". But it not a "loss" from the Turkish perspective, but rather a "gain". However, it can be agreed from any perspective that something was indeed lost - Byzantium. This is not merely the capture of just another town, but the extinction of a notable, long-existing state. But I will support it because the proposed title is actually more informative and useful. That current title leaves me wondering if it is referring to 1204 or 1453. Walrasiad (talk) 06:18, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
• Prefer Siege of Constantinople (1453). Most neutral, factual and historical. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 07:07, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  This wouldn't improve the ambiguity that @Srnec: and I have identified. At 853 Google Scholar results since 2018, it's also far less common than both "fall of Constantinople" (3,330 results) and "conquest of Constantinople" (3,140 results). إيان (talk) 07:17, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. The claim that the proposed title is more neutral is not credible; it merely substitutes a Turkish perspective for a European one, conveniently ignoring the fact that a milestone in Turkish history is also one of the key points in European and world history. P Aculeius (talk) 07:22, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  "Turkish" is anachronistic; the proposal is Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The proposed title, in its congruity with similar articles such as Conquest of Ceuta, is both neutral and conforming with convention. It is also more specific and encyclopedic than the current name. The proposed title does not diminish from, much less "conveniently ignore," the role of the topic in European or world history, as P Aculeius claims without substantiation. إيان (talk) 07:43, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  Clearly you need to read, WP:BLUDGEON.--Kansas Bear (talk) 12:04, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. While the nominator is correct in pointing out some articles are titled '"Conquest of x" they fail to mention there are also many articles titled "Fall of y." See for example Fall of Saigon, Fall of Kabul (2001), Fall of Kabul (2021), Fall of Singapore, Fall of Antwerp and Fall of the Western Roman Empire. (Also, as others have said, the nominator has not explained why conquest is a neutral term and fall is not. As to the later-added common name "evidence" in the nomination, they still prove the current title is the common name.) -- Vaulter 16:28, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per others. Super Ψ Dro 17:37, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose unnecessary, the NPOV argument is spurious ('Fall of Constantinople' betrays pro-Byzantine bias just as much as 'Fall of Berlin' betrays pro-Nazi bias), and the name is quite well established in English. Constantine ✍ 21:15, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Common name.★Trekker (talk) 23:07, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Common name. Alex2006 (talk) 09:14, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Clear common name. And also clearly not in contravention of NPOV, since the city, which was still ruled by the descendants of the people who established it, fell to another power. What's POV about that? It's a fact. Normally I'd agree with "conquest", incidentally, but not if the common name is something different. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

  "Fall of Constantinople" is not the clear common name—as indicated previously, it has virtual 1:1 parity with "conquest of Constantinople" in scholarship published since 2018. Yes it fell, and yes it was conquered. What is not NPOV is how Wikipedia in English discusses Western victories as "conquests" and Western losses as "falls"—it's against WP:TITLECON. إيان (talk) 21:20, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

  But that's not actually true, is it! You have mentioned Fall of Saigon (South Vietnamese loss to North Vietnam), Fall of Kabul (2001) (Afghan loss to other Afgans), Fall of Kabul (2021) (Afghan loss to other Afghans), Fall of Singapore (British loss to Japan, so the only one that actually is in this category), Fall of Antwerp (Dutch loss to Spain). There are plenty of other "Falls" on Wikipedia that had nothing to do with a Western victory and also plenty of "Conquests" that were non-Western victories. You're attempting (without much success) to cherrypick articles to claim that this is an NPOV issue, when in fact it's entirely a COMMONNAME issue. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:59, 6 May 2022 (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.

Translated event names

Hello Beshogur, could you please explain why this edit is an improvement to the encyclopedia? إيان (talk) 10:10, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

What makes you think this is an improvement? Doesn't even look Ottoman to me. Beshogur (talk) 10:20, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a source for those translations? Is there a reason to include those translations? I'm generally only familiar with those templates being used to translate native language titles of published works, not for general names of historical events. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:03, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Addition to the In Popular Culture section

I believe it would be relevant to include a reference to the 2021 novel "Cloud Cuckoo Land" by Anthony Doerr (novel and author both with existing Wikipedia articles). Significant plot lines within the novel follow the lives of two characters on opposing sides of the conflict. David Worton (talk) 15:23, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

@David Worton: I removed the section, actually, as the entries didn't meet the bars set at WP:IPC. I don't think this novel does either—thoughts? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)