Talk:Kanach Zham

message: Hey! I was wondering if you could shed some light on the historical details of this church, I've found conflicting reports regarding the date of its founding, sources such as these:  state that the church was founded in 1818, while Shahen Mkrtchʻyan's Treasures of Artsakh-Karabagh seems to state that it was founded in 1847, which I assume is referring to the inscription dating from 1847 on the church, at least from what I can see from the Google Books preview:  Do you know any more specifics about the history of the church? AntonSamuel (talk) 08:03, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Kanach Zham 

message: 1 and 2 contain the satellite images of entirely destroyed church site. Anybody with good non-free image uploading skills, would be grateful if the satellite images are uploaded and featured in article, to reflect the current situation. Thanks. --Armatura (talk) 22:38, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Satellite images of destruction  

message: , can you explain why you remove the "demolished" where a secondary neutral source is saying that
 Furthermore, satellite images have shown that the 19th century Kanach Zham church – also in Shushi – has been demolished since falling into Azerbaijani hands.
--Armatura (talk) 15:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Because "Christian Memo" from "Emerging Europe" referring to satellite images does not outweigh the Russian Orthodox Church, represented by an archbishop in Azerbaijan, which denies the demolition. We cannot quote sources selectively. All sources agree that there has been damage done to the church (which should be the consensus wording) but there are as many sources claiming its destruction as those that refute these claims. What is the logic of highlighting only of those positions? Parishan (talk) 15:34, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  A case of WP:IJDLI, sorry, right after your lecture about neutrality and basing WP on reliable sources. Since when claims by religious leaders from involved countries are preferred over reports of neutral third party sources? Unless you have a source saying Christian Memo is an Armenian, lives with an Armenian or has otherwise have conflict of interest with AA topic that disallows them to write neutrally then your argument does not hold a criticism, sorry. Russian Church in Azerbaijan is still a source from Azerbaijan, with conflict of interest with Azerbaijan. It's easy to see that your "many sources claiming its destruction as those that refute these claims" do have that conflict of interest. By the way, no need for politicised language here - it's not "position" when neutral sources with no demonstrable conflict of interest report what happened, and support their report by evidence. The position of some National Socialists was that Hitler did not know about the gas chambers, shall we take that position into "consensus" about gas chambers? --Armatura (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I absolutely do not mind continuing my lecture on neutrality over here. The very fact that you believe Christian Mamo "being an Armenian and living with an Armenian" could constitute a valid argument to discard a source demonstrates a poor understanding on your part of what a reliable source is. The Russian Orthodox Church represents an uninvolved party (the Azerbaijani government has no control over the statements it issues) and quite a reliable one given that it is the largest foreign Christian establishment in the whole Caucasus, and its reaction was considered notable enough to feature in a third-party news report. I am not saying it is more reliable than a Western source but you are calling on ignoring it completely in favour of Mamo, which unacceptable. According to WP:SECONDARY, "Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source." Even though I have serious doubts that Mamo, who had only been a reporter for Emerging Europe for two months and clearly has never been to Shusha, is reliable, I do not object to his article being quoted alongside the article citing the Azerbaijani response to the claims as well as a reaction from the Russian Orthodox Church. However, using such a source to transform the entire article into a tribute to a demolished monument while the claim of its demolition has not even been formally verified (and especially in the presence of contradicting reports) violates WP:WEIGHT (I also advise that you take time to read this). So far, the only claim that is supported by all sources is the damage. Parishan (talk) 16:26, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

text: In addition, it is quite telling that in his more recent article, published in June, when talking about the fate of Karabakh's Armenian heritage on the Azerbaijani-controlled territory, Mamo cites the relevant bit from his April article in its entirety but leaves out the part on Kanach Zham (which is very strange given that the article is primarily about Shusha). This is another reason to consider this claim dubious and to refrain from assigning it weight over all the other reports. Parishan (talk) 16:55, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  It feels like patronising, , please avoid characterising other editors' level of understanding  and stick to the topic. Does not matter how big that church is, it has a conflict of interest with Azerbaijan by the fact of being in Azerbaijan - it is a source from Azerbaijan (and the sky is blue), and it cannot be given a priority over or equal weight with neutral third party sources. Currently (in your version) the word "demolished" is absent altogether (lead and body)- and that  does not even remotely smell of consensus. You are welcome to propose a deprecation of Emerging Europe for biased or no editorial oversight, but not here - there is a place for that. You can present all that evidence you have collected on the editor whose article you don't trust or like. You can also write to him/him or their editor and complain directly if you like. You are against cherry-picking sources, right? Regards, --Armatura (talk) 17:14, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The BBC video tells us all that we need to know. If it is not utterly destroyed, it has, at the very least, been put beyond use. Which was probably the intention of the bombing. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:26, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What BBC video? Parishan (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:   Is that a BBC video about Kanach Zham or the church in Jabrail? Do you have the link? --Armatura (talk) 18:51, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

text: Armatura, not at all. Collecting evidence on an author's professional background is the best way of establishing their reliability. Christian Mamo is not a reliable source on Nagorno-Karabakh but is acceptable as a third-party source reporting on a partisan claim. Meanwhile, Nagorno-Karabakh has been visited by dozens of third-party reporters since November 2020, including from BBC, RIA and Sputnik, and somehow none of them happened to notice or to suspect that a whole church was missing. Not a single source has picked up this claim in the past two months, including Mamo himself in his latest article on the fate of the Armenian churches in Karabakh, which seriously affects the credibility of the claim and its status per WP:WEIGHT. The article mentions the word "destruction" and "destroyed" five (!) times in both the lede and the body; this should be plenty for a claim that is unverified and refuted. Parishan (talk) 17:38, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:   There is no 'destroyed' in the lead or 'demolished' anywhere in the current version edited by yourself, you can use CTRL+F and see yourself, we both share the same vision I hope. You somehow decided that the article is not reliable by some logic that may not make sense to others (does not to me). It's not up to you, as you told me recently, to find "the truth", either, my impression is that you just don't like that source as it uses a stronger term (damage and destroy could be accidental, but demolished means deliberate destruction, which is sometimes done as part of ethnic cleansing). We could argue where to use it - in the body or body+lead but leaving out that citation from a RS altogether is not acceptable, sorry. If you think it is just me (a non-neutral editor) not agreeing with you, why don't you request a third opinion and see what people who don't know you or where Kanach Zham is think instead of reverting? --Armatura (talk) 18:01, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What I said was: "The article mentions the word "destruction" and "destroyed" five (!) times in both the lede and the body", and the lede under its current version does read: "there have been claims of its destruction". If you think "demolished" is more suitable wording, I do not object to saying "claims of its demolition" in the lede or anywhere else where a reference to Mamo is applicable. I also did not suggest that Mamo's article should be removed as a source completely. I suggested that it be given due weight according to WP:SECONDARY and WP:WEIGHT, as a single source making a controversial and dubious claim. Controversial claims require significant coverage, and judging from Mamo's further reports on the issue, it looks so far as if even this one source is backtracking on its original claim. Parishan (talk) 18:17, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks, that's a step forward towards consensus. And I of course don't mind the Russian Church claim to be cited, as if even what they are saying is false, it's still ok to cite what they said as a claim / position of a notable organisation. Only in a way that it does not make the neutral reader to think that that (affiliated) organization have somehow managed to "prove it to be false" or "disprove" it or "refute it" (these are dictionary synonyms).  --Armatura (talk) 18:43, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Demolished? Ruined? Damaged?