Talk:Turkoman (ethnonym)/GA3

GA Reassessment

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

The following discussion 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.

---

• Multiple content issues, as detailed at this talk page section (transcluded below). Reviewer has no objections to a delist. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:32, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
• No objections as stated, judging by the points made by TrangaBellam, this should absolutely be delisted, and @Visioncurve should probably read WP:AGF, since he baselessly made the claim that her goal was disruption. Sorry once more for the subpar review. Uness232 (talk) 09:56, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

  Uness232, thanks. You need not apologize - if I was reviewing in an area, where I did not have much subject-knowledge, I wouldn't have done a better job:") TrangaBellam (talk) 10:10, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Uness232, there's no baseless accusation. There's a bigger picture that you are not aware of. This user is basically trying to discredit every article related to Turkmens, especially if it is sourced by the works of Turkmenistani authors (see discussions at Magtymguly, Tuqaq and etc). This user claims to have lived in that country, and it can be easily implied by his/her several messages posted in the above mentioned talk pages that he/she apparently formed a certain negative opinion about it. I believe bias and prejudice is very harmful and would like to believe that it is strongly despised by Wikipedian community. A Wikipedian must not engage in a pattern of editing that focuses on a specific ethnic group and can reasonably be perceived as promoting stereotypes, or as evincing invidious bias and prejudice against the members of the group. Moreover, I believe that it's disruption when a Wikipedian instead of helping to improve an article when he/she clearly can, discredits other contributors' efforts and hard work. Thanks. --Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 12:22, 28 October 2021 (UTC)Visioncurve is the orig. nominator of GA.

This page is for discussion of content issues. My conduct can be discussed at a proper venue but be wary of boomerang. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:40, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

@Visioncurve I am well aware of the discussions present in both articles. I sort of agree with you on your last sentence (I would stop short of calling it disruption, but I think it isn't necessarily best practice), and I did mention this at her talk page. I personally do not see any indication of bias, however. TrangaBellam seems to only contradict our assumptions and bad sourcing with academic, reliable sources, and she seems to know a fair bit about the reliability of certain sources. I would personally advise against escalating this any further by going to ANI, a boomerang seems probable here. Uness232 (talk) 13:49, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

You cannot improve Tuqaq without reducing the article to a stub and rewriting it - every alternate line (I am not exaggerating) is a novel claim or a misrepresentation.

Over this article, the culture and religion section needs to be removed and re-drafted. The sections on dynasties need to be trimmed etc. I could have done all these without going after the GA status but the last time I tried this, people made (valid) claims about why I was rewriting a GA in a radical fashion. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:06, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Issues

Where do I even start? GAs need to be reviewed by people who have some minimum knowledge about the subject area. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:58, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my review has glossed over issues and/or I have made mistakes, but I was not aware of such a rule at WP:GA. Furthermore, I would really appreciate it if you detailed your issues instead of making this comment. Simply writing this is incredibly unproductive; and if there is rough consensus that my review wasn't what it should have been, we can put it up for reassessment. Uness232 (talk) 08:10, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I will provide a few cases out of many:

They later found themselves divided into Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, which most of the time turned them into archenemies. - This line is sourced from a book of military history (!) by one Steven R. Ward who has no academic training in history/sociology but is an intelligence analyst for CIA. Such sources shall not be used except for mil-hist usage like describing battle maneuvers etc. Notwithstanding that, the provided quote is Selim was a devout Sunni who hated the Shia as much as Ismail despised the Sunni. He saw the Shia Turkman of Anatolia as a potential "fifth column". It takes a leap of faith (rather than logic) to conclude that Sunni and Shia Turkmen were archenemies for most of the time from what is essentially the description of an Ottoman-Safavid conflict.

A book aimed at clinical social workers, family therapists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and clinical psychologists is quite the source to use in an article of history about the changes manifested by Islam on its introduction into Turkmen society. As Lynn Edgar notes, In Turkmenistan, as in other parts of Central Asia with a recent history of pastoral nomadism, women were not secluded and did not wear the paranji and chachvon [..] Throughout the Islamic world, veiling is generally less common in rural areas, especially among nomadic and tribal population. Lines like wearing a veil [was] must for a Turkmen woman is ahistorical nonsense.

What is UNESCO's 2000 literary work of the year? The source is only about enlisting Kitaby Dädem Gorkut in a fancy list maintained by UNESCO.

The modern [..] literature of [..] Turkmenistan [is] also considered Oghuz literature since it was produced by their descendants — I cannot even guess what was intended to be conveyed.

Agadzhanov was speculative about Тō-kü-mǒng; in our article, it has become a fact. This hypothesis has since fallen out of favor in mainstream scholarship.

Turkomans primarily spoke languages that belong or belonged to the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages and Oghuz branch of Turkic languages are languages spoken by Turkomen - both are factually correct (to a degree) but hardly aids a reader. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:09, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

While I do see your point, and have no problems with a reassessment, I would like to remind you of Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not. While I did not have access to all of the sources you talked about, I did have access to the vast majority of sources on this page, and what I've checked was whether the sources stated what was written in the article, not imposing quality standards that are not on the GAC (This is not to say that I made no mistakes even when considering this, but The Tokümong argument, for example, falls into this area). This is similar to how there are 50 pages in the Manual of Style, but GAC only requires articles to conform to five.

I think it's important to keep this in mind when trying to get something reassessed, as it could potentially pass again without the issues being solved. Instead, I would suggest editing (I could help too, although I definitely do disagree on one of the statements you made) per WP:BRD first. Uness232 (talk) 14:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Uness232, my issue is not that you failed to recognize the falling out of favor. It is that you did not insist the nominating editor use the language of speculation, like the source. I would like to hear about the statement, you disagree with - it is plausible that I made an error of judgment. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:54, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

First of all, I'm sorry for taking issue with the statement you provided, misunderstanding on my part. I could continue to defend my review, but at this point, I understand its shortcomings and I'm willing to accept that I was too lenient in regards to sourcing. (To be fair to myself, I was a very new editor when I reviewed the sourcing, and in my second review, I made the ill-advised decision of not revisiting old sources I had already checked, but still, you are right.)

The statement I disagree with is the one on veiling. You are correct that veiling was not common in Central Asia, and that Turkmen women almost never used the paranja. The sentence "wearing a veil [was] must for a Turkmen woman" relates to Turkomans in Asia Minor, however, and women there absolutely did practice veiling, even if it only involved a headscarf and/or a jilbab, and more conservative and wealthy women often wore the yashmak or the çarşaf. Of course, if a jilbab and a headscarf isn't considered veiling, that statement is completely wrong, but according to most Islamic commentaries, at least, it would be considered hijab, so I would think that it is considered as such. Uness232 (talk) 04:09, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Uness232, thanks. It was not (at all) clear from the line that we were talking about Turkmen women in Asia Minor. Yet, I am not convinced — consult Hillenbrand, Carole (2010). "Seljuq Women". In Balim-Harding, Çigdem; Imber, Colin (eds.). The Balance of Truth: Essays in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Lewis. Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies. Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781463231576. Nothing significantly changed under the Beyliks.

Even for the Ottoman empire, where your claims stand on a firmer ground, academic scholarship shows a lot of complexity. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 10:13, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam Thanks for your response, I am aware of the complexities of veiling in the Ottomans, at least ever since I expanded the Women in the Ottoman Empire article (my focus on editing is more on music and current events, and less on history, so my knowledge might still be incomplete), although it is clear to me now that I do not have enough knowledge about the situation for the Seljuks and the beyliks. Thanks for clearing this up, and I am, again, sorry for wasting your time on this. Uness232 (talk) 10:41, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

You might wish to consult Peacock (2010), who provides a decent coverage of the multifaceted complexities surrounding "Türkmen", that is missing in our article. Off to delisting. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Regarding your "In Turkmenistan, as in other parts of Central Asia with a recent history of pastoral nomadism, women were not secluded and did not wear the paranji and chachvon [..] Lines like wearing a veil [was] must for a Turkmen woman is ahistorical nonsense", do you actually understand that this article is not about modern Turkmen people of Turkmenistan but about medieval Oghuz Turks? There's a line in the lead section which clearly explains that "Turkoman", "Turkmen", "Turkman" and "Torkaman" were – and continue to be – used interchangeably. Moreover, you started with: "Where do I even start? I will provide a few cases out of many...", as if there were serious violations of Wikipedia rules and principles. Moreover, you have provided only 3 or 4 issues since, that you believe beg for immediate attention. In fact, all of them are so minor that your request to reassess this page looks as a complete joke. You also refused to respond to Uness232 proposal of "it could potentially pass again without the issues being solved. Instead, I would suggest editing (I could help too)", which clearly shows that you are pursuing only one goal: to cause disruption. --Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 12:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Notwithstanding your inaccurate claim about the lifetime of Turkomen, have you consulted the works of Eric Hanne and Omid Safi? What do they say? I have cited some other sources (Hildenbrand et al) to Visioncurve, as well.

Another source,

Thus, as we see from medieval authors writing from an urban perspective such as Ibn Bībī and İmam Kadı, there were perceived differences between the urban and rural practices of Islam. Indeed, these differences were not based on doctrinal issues but rather on cultural issues.

The North African traveller Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s testimony reveals the fluidity and heterogeneity of Muslim society and provides us with an important record of many aspects of early fourteenth-century Anatolian cultural and religious life, providing evidence of the latitudinarian practice of Islam among both the ruling elite and the urban population as well as among Turkmen. In a similar vein, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa was astonished by the liberal attitudes among Anatolian Muslims with respect to their women, who did not veil and received guests in their homes as if they were family members.

The first contact with Islam by various Turkmen beys (rulers) was often through the teachings of charismatic Sufi masters and dervishes. [...] Hacı Bektaş, perhaps the most enigmatic figure of Turkish Sufism, provides us with another good example of the religious fluidity of medieval Anatolia. On the one hand, the incompatibility of his actions with religious law is persistently noted by the sources. On the other hand, even his adversaries recognised that he was a great saint who commanded miracle-working powers and possessed mystical knowledge of God.

Sarı Saltuk (alternatively, Sarı Saltık) is depicted along the same lines in contemporary accounts. The earliest available source for Sarı Saltuk, the Tuffāḥ al-Arwāḥ, written in Arabic in 716/1316 by Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Sarrāj al-Rifāʿī, reports that Saltuk was an ascetic, antinomian, miracle-working Sufi who had been a disciple of Maḥmūd al-Rifāʿī. Stereotypically, he periodically spent time in seclusion on mountain tops, miraculously converted Christians to Islam and commanded ‘the waters of the sea’. Yet, he appears to have not been approved of by the legalistically minded who demanded stricter conformity with the religious law.
— Peacock, A.C.S., & Nicola, B.D. (2015). Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 293-297

Minor? You wish for a detailed scrutiny of every line like at Tuqaq?

Assuming you have read Karamustafa (2020), how did your proceed to create such bland sub-section the Ottoman before filling them with details, largely irrelevant to our subject? As Karamustafa shows, various powers were using and disusing the term —with different perspectives in different contexts— towards different political ends. I will leave one particular line:

Ottoman court historians and religious scholars distinguished between Türk and Türkmen, frequently using the former for loyal sedentary subjects and the latter for nomadic tribes who “resisted against the Ottoman regime,” especially the Karamānids.

You claim the Burids to be of Turkomen origin — however the quoted source (EI) notes them to be of Turkish origin. So does, Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties (1996). I have not seen any prim. source refer to them as Turkoman, either. Afirov explicitly rejects that they were Turkomen.

You claim Bosworth 1996, p. 191. to support the claim of Zangids having a Turkoman origin. Can you quote the line for me? What I see is,

Zangī was the son of Aq Sunqur, who was a Turkish slave commander of the Great Seljuq Sultan Malik Shāh and governor of Aleppo from 479/1086 to 487/1094 (the origin of the name Zangī is unclear; an obvious meaning would be ‘black African’, possibly relating to a swarthy complexion, but this would be unusual for a Turk.)

However, in this particular case, you were right - Ibn Athir noted of Sunqur to be from the Turkmen tribe of Sabyo (as noted by El-Azharii [2006]).

This article should have been about the variant usage (and meanings) of the term "Turkoman" across the centuries — this has been the only focus of scholars [please find me an exception], from Peacock to Karmustafa.

Instead, our article is filled with content about dynasties of Turkmen origin, copied from other articles. How many scholars comment on "Turkoman literature", as against "Turkmen literature"? You need to fix the scope of any article in tune with available sources, and ensure that content is not duplicated across our articles.

As I stated, this article does not provide a whiff of the multifaceted complexities that surround the subject and narrates a reductive (and often, incorrect) version of events with a hefty dose of careless synthesis. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:12, 27 October 2021 (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.