Serbia C‑class High‑importance

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This article seems to be glorifying Serbia. - 208.42.198.62

"The Turks defeated the Serbian army in two crucial battles..." Indeed it does

In my opinion it glorifies more Austria, Hungary and Turkey... serbs are presented "as piggy in between" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.68.189 (talk) 21:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FocalPoint, since you renamed article to title "History of Ottoman Serbia", please provide and source/evidence that says that there was an territory known as "Ottoman Serbia". Title to which I renamed article ("History of Serbia during Ottoman administration") does not imply the existence of non-existing territory named "Ottoman Serbia", but refers to "history of territory of present-day Serbia during Ottoman administration". PANONIAN 16:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article was renamed by PANONIAN on the 17th of March, therefore, I only reverted that renaming. I will write more later. --FocalPoint (talk) 17:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As the issue is under discussion, I find the second move on your part, really unnecessary. --FocalPoint (talk) 17:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And your own move was necessary? By the way, I asked you about sources that would support existence of "Ottoman Serbia"? You have such sources to present or not? PANONIAN 18:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support "History of Serbia during Ottoman administration" instead of "History of Ottoman Serbia" or "Ottoman Serbia" (same with all categories in Category:History of the Ottoman Empire by country).--Zoupan 18:28, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ottoman Serbia: Budin Province, Ottoman Empire: A book called Ottoman Serbia, is it enough or you want me to continue? --FocalPoint (talk) 18:32, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is Wikipedia-based book (book that used data from Wikipedia), not reliable source. Please continue. PANONIAN 18:36, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ISBN-13: 9781155717630, Publisher: General Books LLC, Publication date: 5/6/2010, Pages: 56
A published book not a reliable source? Is this a joke? --FocalPoint (talk) 18:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Books LLC--Antidiskriminator (talk) 19:00, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did not question the information that this could be Wikipedia based. My question is whether a book (in this case supposedly a derivative work of Wikipedia) is or is not a reliable source. --FocalPoint (talk) 19:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No. Wikipedia articles (or Wikipedia mirrors) are not reliable sources for any purpose. My comment does not mean that I disagree with you. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:50, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do appreciate your assistance. Wikipedia accepts that articles or mirrors of Wikipedia are not reliable sources, however, in this case we have a derivative work, the editor of which could choose another title. --FocalPoint (talk) 21:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Ottomans and the Balkans: a discussion of historiography, Fikret Adanir, Suraiya Faroqhi, page 40, BRILL, 2002 "The liberation struggles in Ottoman Serbia, Greece or Bulgaria..."

Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: F-O Tony Jaques, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, page 773 "A patriot army ... advanced into Ottoman Serbia"

--FocalPoint (talk) 21:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but main problem is that there was no historical territory that was officially named "Ottoman Serbia". I do not deny that name is used in certain sources, but term have purely geographical meaning and various sources are using the term for different areas in different time periods. It would be impossible to have one generally accepted definition what term "Ottoman Serbia" might mean. This article should be a part of the series of the articles about history of Serbia and therefore it should describe "period of Ottoman administration in the history of Serbia" and not some officially non-existing territory named "Ottoman Serbia". PANONIAN 08:03, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The name under which this article was developed was "History of Ottoman Serbia". The name "Ottoman Serbia" is widely used as you can see not only from the two books shown above but also many from other sources:

• A Brief History of the Serbian Insurrections 1804-1817 By Dale Pappas, Ottoman Serbia
• The Balkan Economies C. 1800-1914: Evolution Without Development, Michael R. Palairet Cambridge University Press, "Given the low population density of Ottoman Serbia..."
• Land Campaigns Book 1, Roger Underwood "It attempts to re-create the invasion of Ottoman Serbia by a Habsburg Imperial army led by "
• Yugoslavia As History: Twice There Was a Country, John R. Lampe, Cambridge University Press, 2000 "...roughly half as much again as Ottoman Serbia or ..."

You have changed the name of the articles (for other parts of the Ottoman territories as well) and the categorization, for something you think is right, while there is wide bibliographical evidence the the term "Ottoman Serbia" is in use. This is completely unacceptable practice in Wikipedia. We do not record my opinion or your opinion. We record what the sources are writing. The sources are clearly writing about Ottoman Serbia. So I am asking you and I expect you to follow Wikipedia rules and practices and refrain from such changes. --FocalPoint (talk) 09:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Following the conclusive proof presented above, I moved the article back. --FocalPoint (talk) 09:57, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FocalPoint, you did not had need to engage yourself in revert warring. As I explained to you, term "Ottoman Serbia" is too undefined to be used for Wikipedia article. Can you define this term? To which territory (and in which time period) would term "Ottoman Serbia" refer to? Can you answer these questions? It is not enough that you find some term in some sources but you have to be able to say what that term mean and to what exactly it referring. And if you cannot answer these questions then what you doing here would be inventing of history of an fictional non-existing country in Wikipedia. And by the way, if this is some kind of "revenge" because I renamed articles and categories about Greece as well, I can tell you that I only acted in good faith, but, as far as I am concerned you can have Greece-related articles as POV and inaccurate as you want (I will not touch them any more). But please, do not engage yourself in POV-ization of Serbia-related articles. PANONIAN 15:07, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting discussion. Of course, the modern states of Serbia, Syria, Greece, Armenia, etc. did not exist in the Ottoman period, and it is anachronistic to speak of "Ottoman Serbia/Syria/Greece/etc." But I don't see how it is any better to speak of "Serbia/etc. under Ottoman administration/rule". Neither Serbia nor Greece nor Armenia was "under Ottoman rule", because there was no such thing as Serbia or Greece or Armenia -- they were not administrative units within the Ottoman system, and in fact even before the Ottomans, the borders of the historical Serbian, etc. kingdoms did not coincide with modern borders, and their states certainly didn't have the ethno-nationalist pretensions of the modern states.

So in some sense the problem isn't the title -- there isn't even a subject matter corresponding to the title "Ottoman Serbia" or "Serbia under Ottoman rule". But in fact, there is a modern literature which divides along modern-national lines so that all the history, at all periods, of Kastoria is treated as part of "Greek history", that of Gjirokastër is part of "Albanian history" (cf. Albania under the Serbian Empire), and that of Vidin is part of "Bulgarian history", even though all these cities were ruled at various times by Serbian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Ottoman rulers, and had populations with a variety of religions and languages.

Which means we need to find a title for those things that is not too misleading. An accurate but clumsy title would be "History of the territory of modern X under Ottoman rule". To my ear at least, "Serbia under Ottoman administration" is worse than "Ottoman Serbia". Both incorrectly imply that there was such a thing as "Serbia" at the time, but the first seems to imply it more strongly. The first also implies that there was a stable thing called Serbia which was "administered" (why not "ruled"?) by various bureaucracies. So I find "Ottoman Serbia", like Ottoman Greece, the better title. Similarly, by the way for History of Bulgaria during Ottoman administration, which I'd prefer to see at Ottoman Bulgaria.

But in the end my personal preferences aren't the issue. What do reliable, third-party sources use? First of all, in reference to Serbia, "Ottoman rule" is about 10x more common than "Ottoman administration" in Google Books. The phrases "Serbia under Ottoman rule/empire/domination/yoke/administration" are infrequent enough that it's hard to draw conclusions, but it's suggestive that the ratios are 15/5/3/1/0. But "Ottoman Serbia" appears 244 times. Seems like the clear winner. --Macrakis (talk) 17:06, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]