Template talk:Armenian fortresses

Scope of this template

The purpose of a template like this is to connect articles that are in someway related to each other in their subject. Lately, this template has been subject to certain changes in title and in scope. I think that the purpose of this template needs to be discussed before making such changes.

The title has been changed from "Historical Fortresses in Armenia" to "Historical Armenian Fortresses" then back to "Historical Fortresses in Armenia" and then back again. Articles within the template have also been removed in an attempt to make it match "Historical Armenian Fortresses".

The questions that I think need to be answered are "what is Armenia?" and "what is an 'Armenian fortress'?".
Meowy 23:24, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Is this "Armenia" going to be anywhere in the modern Republic of Armenia, or anywhere in historical Armenia, or anywhere historically inhabited by Armenians? Are the fortresses going to be "Armenian fortresses" (fortresses built by Armenians, or used by Armenians at some time) inside the republic of Armenia, or any fortress from any historical period (not just Armenian) inside the Republic of Armenia, or Armenian-built fortresses inside Historical Armenia, or all fortresses inside historical Armenia, or Armenia-built fortresses anywhere historically inhabited by Armenians? Meowy 23:34, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

This also might be significant. A template is NOT a list article. We have, for example, List of castles in France (and similar article for many other countries). So this template could be different from the List of castles in Armenia article. Maybe its content should be confined to specifically Armenian structures, but expand beyond the borders of present-day Armenia. That would mean removing all of the Urartian sites and so on, and rewording "Historical Fortresses in Armenia" to "Historical Armenian Fortresses". There will of course be an inevitable overlap with other templates no matter what (a site can have multiple identities and owners over its history). Meowy 23:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I have pretty much made my opinion clear. It is unacceptable to lug in everything into this template. I see two ways around this:

1. Listing Armenian-built fortresses in the areas historically inhabited by Armenians, leaving out the Urartian, Persian and Ottoman ones and calling the template Historical Armenian fortresses. In this case, calling it ...in Armenia is rather POV, and I hope you understand that, because the template lists sites located in Turkey and Azerbaijan;
2. Listing fortresses located in Armenia whatever their origin, leaving out the ones located in Turkey and Azerbaijan and calling the template Historical fortresses in Armenia. Parishan (talk) 05:06, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello, and thanks to Meowy for inviting me to give my opinion in this discussion. I should make clear that I have no deep knowledge of this particular issue, and my expertise in Caucasian history is mostly restricted to Georgia; still, I might help find useful ways to define this template.

The options, as appears from both of your contributions, are either a "small template" covering fortresses on the present-day territory of the Republic of Armenia, or a "large" one with all Armenian-built fortresses wherever they might be.

The small option is easy to implement (delete all entries except for those in the RoA), but would lead to loss of information: in such historical topics, what matters is maybe less the current borders, and more the common history those structures share.

The "large" option on the other hand could suffer from a problem of definition, and possible pov-pushing, with rival claims being made regarding the "true" ethnic origin of any particular structure. Fortresses, even more than churches for instance, will be used, built, rebuilt, by pretty much anyone who detains political power and wants to defend it in a given area. From my area of knowledge, I would have trouble saying if the Narikala Fortress in Tbilisi is a Georgian, Persian, Iberian, etc. fortress, and I assume such problems could arise about many "Armenian" fortresses too.

Not surprisingly, actually, that seems to be exactly the case right now. Opening a few articles from those listed in Turkey, I already find Bagras, built by the Knights Templar and then held by the Armenians (the Cilician kingdom, I guess); Rumkale ("the present structure is largely Byzantine and Armenian in origin, with extensive rebuilding following the Mamluk conquest"); Rusahinili is an Urartian site; Akhtamar is an Armenian site for sure, but no mention of any fortress in the article. For the ones in current Armenia, Sardar's Fortress was built by Persians using material from the ancient Armenian city of Armavir; it would be far-fetched to put it as an "Armenian" fortress according to the large template criteria.

A solution for the large template option could be to list those structures that were built/used by Armenian states, classifying them according to those historical states (antique and medieval KofA, Cilician Kingdom, etc.). Would you think it is feasible?

So, to conclude, I would favor a reorganization of the template following historical origin and use, rather than current borders, but with stricter rules for inclusion; or, if deemed unpractical, the small, "in Armenia" option with no regard for who built each structure. Hope that helps!--Susuman77 (talk) 10:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

So what you suggest is to drop sites such as Rusahinili and Sardar's Fortress and only leave those built/used by Armenian states? Parishan (talk) 18:36, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, if we choose the "Armenian" option rather than "in Armenia", yes. Cleaning the template of structures not really related to any Armenian historical entity seems to me necessary in that case, together with a more historical organization of the info.--Susuman77 (talk) 10:17, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Just thought of another possible problem. Template as it is now is full of red links. If the "in Armenia" option is chosen, it's not such a problem, as the location of those fortresses is not in doubt. If the "Armenian" one is, though, it would be hard to assess the relevance and category of each one if there is no corresponding article, and most of them would as such have to be removed from the template, unless someone's ready to create all those articles first...--Susuman77 (talk) 10:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I am fine with either option. Let us see what Meowy has to say. Parishan (talk) 06:46, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it indicates that small changes throw up incongruities and can lead to the need for bigger changes - so sometimes it is maybe better to leave things alone if they were not causing much problems! If there have to be changes to the template,and the "wide option" is chosen the Urartian fortresses should go because they are not Armenian fortresses by any definition (and they could maybe be included in the list of castles in Armenia article). I'm not so sure about excluding Sardar's Fortress. It will depend on how we define an Armenian fortress. I don't think having red links to non-articles are that significant, lots of templates have them and it should be easy to weed out anything that is obviously there for wrong reasons. I need to thank Susuman77 for his contributions. I asked him here because I was wanting a relative outsider to perhaps think about what the purpose of the template should be, about what an informed user might want from it and what such a user would consider to be useful content. I worry that being too strict about inclusions or exclusions from the template will damage its usefulness and remove useful content, but at the same time it has to correctly fill its intended purpose. I favour the "wide option" because, beyond their geographic proximity, there would be (in most cases) no connection (architecturally or historically or culturally) between an Urartian fortress in Armenia and a medieval Armenian fortress in Armenia. But there might be parallels with or connections between a medieval Armenian fortress located in present-day Armenia and one located in present-day Turkey. Meowy 16:59, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Meowy, like I said before, I am fine keeping the content of this template, so long as the POV heading is changed. You must understand that listing Urartian, Armenian, Persian, European and Ottoman fortresses in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey under the heading 'in Armenia' is unacceptable, and Susuman77 seems to agree with me on that. Therefore if you could find a way that would unite fortresses of various origins and located in three different countries under one neutral name, we would reach a consensus. The fact is that we may not "leave things as it is" with the template in its current form. You cannot sacrifice neutrality to productivity. Would it otherwise be acceptable to list Muslim monuments in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia under the name 'Historical monuments in Azerbaijan'? Parishan (talk) 03:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC)