Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Turkish people/1

Turkish people

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted per consensus and the neutrality warning banner the article has carried since September, indicating serious instability. Khazar2 (talk) 02:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)}

• The article was promoted to GA status without a single reviewer comment or modification. Just like *that*. This is highly dubious, I have never seen an article be promoted to GA in this fashion.

• For many sources ([1] [2], and many others), no page numbers are provided. When this is brought up in the talkpage, it is met with belligerence, contempt, and hostility [3].

• The article is plagued by a very persistent and ubiquitous Anatolianist/indigenist POV. Sources are misquoted/misused to push the POV that the modern Turkish people are the direct, lineal descendants of the heterogeneous collection of peoples known as the Ancient Anatolians. Unreliable sources such as Antonio Arnaiz-Villena are used throughout. The same info is repeated over and over for effect (e.g. the lede, then the history section, then the genetics section, for good measure). The editor responsible for this POV pushing is extremely belligerent, arrogant, incivil, and obdurate, it is impossible to reach an agreement with him in the talkpage. He only makes tactical withdrawals to return later with full force. This has been going on for several weeks and shows no sign of abating.

• • The "Modern Turkish people primarily descend from these indigenous groups" claim uses as a source the controversial work of Antonio Arnaiz-Villena which has been the recipient of severe criticism by the academic community [4].

• • Of the sources used to claim "Modern Turkish people primarily descend from these indigenous groups" in the lede, only the Yardumian source explicitly does so. The others do not. Roseer et al. only states that Turks "are between the Armenians and Greeks", Cinnioglu et al. only state that "The variety of Turkish haplotypes is witness to Turkey being both an important source and recipient of gene flow." Wells et al. state that "This finding is consistent with a model in which the Turkic languages, originating in the Altai-Sayan region of Central Asia and northwestern Mongolia (31), were imposed on the Caucasian and Anatolian peoples with relatively little genetic admixture—another possible example of elite dominance-driven linguistic replacement. ", but in this context it means all the inhabitants of Anatolia (Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, in addition to Ancient Anatolians, not the ancient Anatolians per se. To infer that"Modern Turkish people primarily descend from these indigenous groups" using these sources is source manipulation on a major scale.

• • The genetic impact of the settlement of millions of Balkan Muslims and Caucasus Muslims is ignored, we are led to believe that modern Turks are the direct lineal descendants of the Bronze Age populations, even though the statement most strongly supported by the literature is simply that "The genetic composition of Anatolia is extraordinarily varied and complex" (e.g. Cinnioglu et al.).

• Population number inflation in the infobox. Sources are misquoted/misused, for example regarding the number of Turkish people in North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia , Algeria). For other countries, (USA, Australia), reliable sources such as national censi are relegated to a footnote or removed entirely, replaced by wild overestimates from Turkish newspapers and advocacy groups. Athenean (talk) 22:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• The use of non-neutral words like "However" and "Furthermore" is widespread throughout the article when demographics or genetics are concerned.

• Several other users have asked for a GA reassessment [5]. Athenean (talk) 02:52, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• The controversy regarding genetics has been going on for weeks now, and shows no sign of abating. The article has been subject to edit-warring for well over the past month, a POV tag has been in place for quite some time now, in summary the article fails both the "neutrality" and "stability" criteria. Athenean (talk) 03:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Cinnioglu et al. also talk about Bronze Age Population, which supports the statement. Arnaiz-Villena et al. also supported the statement, which you randomly took out,[6] even though it is a peer reviewed journal article that has not been retracted. And controversy about Arnaiz-Villena was not relevant to any of the statements in this article. And even tho Arnaiz-Villena is the principal author in the first study in question, there are like 10 more other authors. Yardumian et al. is a review study and includes numerous studies. Other studies like Rosser et al. and Wells et al. are being cited in conjunction with other sources, since they say Turkic people did not replace locals. Cavann (talk) 23:55, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

"Locals" means anyone who was inhabiting Anatolia prior to the Turkic conquest. This includes Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, Laz, Assyrians. You can't take a statement to the effect of "The conquering Turkic tribes did not replace the local population" to mean "Modern Turks are descended from ancient Anatolians". As far as I can tell, the only source that explicitly backs that claim is Yardumian, which, even though a review, has been cited only once. As far as Arnaiz-Villena, I hope that the case is closed following the result of your post to RSN. Athenean (talk) 02:04, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment: It is quite weird that Athenean are calling these sources [7] (e.g., Arnaiz-Villena et al., Yardumian et al.) [8] ( "Turks: nationality", Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East) "unreliable." Genetics section talks about ancestry in greater detail. Prehistory section is about relevant historic info, such as Hittites etc. The part of it in question is only one paragraph.[9] One sentence, 'Various genetic studies suggested that these indigenous populations form the basis of modern Turkish population today,[76][68] with the "genetic continuity of Anatolia’s Iron Age populations into the Seljuk, Mamluk and Ottoman eras."[68]:18', is there to explain relevance, about why we are talking about Ancient Anatolians, etc. I had looked at various GA ethnicity articles, and kinda emulated British people (e.g., British_people#Ancestral_roots) before I improved Turkish people article.

Frankly, this looks likes an abuse of GA reassessment process. Besides his various personal attacks against me here, Athenean is bringing this assessment during an edit war.Cavann (talk) 22:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Stability and Neutrality are key elements of a GA. Currently this article has neither. There has been a POV template there for a while now, and you have been edit-warring ad behaving in WP:OWN fashion for several weeks now. Athenean (talk) 22:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

You have got to be joking. This looks like a personal attack page ("The editor responsible for this POV pushing is extremely belligerent, arrogant, incivil, and obdurate, it is impossible to reach an agreement with him in the talkpage. He only makes tactical withdrawals to return later with full force. This has been going on for several weeks and shows no sign of abating.") in addition to moving a content dispute here, rather than any serious attempt to improve Wikipedia. I will ignore the discussion here until neutral third party editors get involved. Cavann (talk) 18:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I welcome that this review request may bring neutral editors to Turkish people article, so they can have a look at the issues and sources. However, your reassessment request is still appropriate, as you filed it during edit warring [10], even though you were warned in the article talk page that "Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate." [11] Cavann (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Per reassessment criteria this is appropriate since "If significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered.". Actually per talkpage discussion the article was never close to stability the last 3 months.Alexikoua (talk) 22:43, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I knew this was coming. The article has a lot of problems that must be sorted out before being accepted as a GA status article. The nominator and the reviewer made almost no note of this. The Talk Page highlights much of these problems in addition to Athenean's concerns outlined here. First and foremost, claims from sources written by controversial academics who have rarely been referred to and are almost unheard of in today's academia were used to make bold and controversial claims. These claims and sources are already being examined by the WP:RS community so I am not going to lay them out here. Continuous edit-warring and problematic edits have severely tarnished this articles stance as being a GA article. If the article needs reassessment, I believe all editors involved with the concerns raised in the talk page of the article to reach a consensus or to somehow involve non-involved editors/admins to help them do so. We can't have this going on forever. As for my opinion, I support a reassessment of the article as a GA. Proudbolsahye (talk) 05:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Without commenting on the article in and of itself, I should note that many diffs from 2009 were plagiarism additions by User:thetruthonly. I'm not sure how much of his revisions remain in the article, since there has been a very large number of edits since, but they will have to be reviewed on google books for this to remain a GA. His diffs are here: (+6070)(+975)(+747)(+1322)(+1761)(+794)(+6800). Wizardman 18:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Only material in diff 794 remain (in architecture). I'll fix it once the article gets out of page protection.Cavann (talk) 18:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Went ahead and rewrote. It's unsourced unfortunately since I found an old clean revision, so that will have to be fixed once the article is unprotected. Thanks for looking them over. Wizardman 19:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

It does look as though there are some real problems here. Looking back over how some of the sources and stats have been used raises some real questions for me, and the sources I'm able to easily check aren't backing up the cited claims being made. I'd support a reassessment. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:23, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Some issues are in dispute resolution Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Turkish_people. I would welcome a reassessment after this. Cavann (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Original research, as concluded above, and falsification of the given sources are noticeable, even from the lede. I've initially asked for full citations (quotes/pages), since I couldn't find where was that written in the references. No wonder, I can conclude with certainty now (after full citations have been provided) that the problematic issues are too obvious, so a delisting will be unavoidable, in case no major rewording and restructuring takes place soon.Alexikoua (talk) 22:34, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

There are multiple copyright violations concerning the status of images as pointed here [[12]]. This leaves me no doubt to ask for speedy delisting.Alexikoua (talk) 13:00, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - This article has serious issue with NPOV, specifically WP:UNDUE because of undue weight given to some interpretations of the genetic researches. That is why it also does not meet (at least) fifth GA criteria because it is not stable due to ongoing dispute about this issue. Note: I am one of involved editors who expressed more than once my, I believe, valid concerns about this issues and supported my position with scholarly secondary sources clearly presented at article's talkpage. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:55, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - There's more copyright violations. A photograph from the main body of the article has recently been removed due to copyright violations (see here). Proudbolsahye (talk) 01:19, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

And? Where is the copyright violation now if that image has been deleted? The image used to have "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported" licence in Commons btw. Kevin ^(talk) 01:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Copyright violations were there when the GA review was conducted. This means that the review did not take into consideration the copyright status of photographs and texts along with other issues that have been aforementioned. That's why we are here for a reassessment. Proudbolsahye (talk) 01:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• De-list - ASAP its clear a proper assessment was not done to begin with. Also clear that the article is not even close to stable. -- Moxy (talk) 21:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC)