For the record I do not use Mehmet, in Turkey I go by atakan, and in the U.S. by ato.
Please make additions to the bottom of this page.

Past contents of this page (I will continue to archive this page if contents get old or too big):

Archive1 (archived on about 16:05, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC))

Discussions

Paper version of wiki ?

Hello. About Wikipedia:Images_for_deletion : Image:3-ball_cascade_diagram.png The animated gif will be less instructive for paper version. .

Definitely, an animated gif on paper is of no interest! :-)

As a mater of discussion: Though I couldn't find documentation on the potential paper edition of wikipedia. Would you know such a pointer? I am imagining that actually the concept of paper documentaion is to be avoided at all cost. Personally I came to the conclusion that most print are practicaly a waist. I don't print anymore, and slowly I go to electronic versions of books as they are available. Is there a convention wiki tend to stick to, that I am not aware of ? :-) --Gtabary 14:24, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I cannot remember a pointer for paper edition of Wikipedia but in the future if I encounter one I will submit it here. I have seen it many times though, and it is quite conceivable that somebody will print Wikipedia on paper, in full or in part. I am not advocating that we should keep this in mind while making contributions but rather we should not ignore it while deleting stuff. --ato 15:56, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Will drop a question on any guideline for that on the ifd page. --Gtabary 17:09, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

From my user page

I gave up on trying to edit articles regarding Turkish history to remove the bias that is arising from the hostility towards Turkish people. I am writing this note as a protest. I removed them from my watchlist. In my opinion Wikipedia's history articles will always be biased and hence unreliable for me. My loss I guess. ato 02:41, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Then why did you immediately remove the references to the Armenian Genocide? --RaffiKojian 03:18, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I put it on the wrong page by accident - didn't realize you had a user and talk page as well.I asked why you removed it if you had "given up on trying to edit articles regarding Turkish history", not to say that I think in any way that the term Armenian Genocide is biased, and promotes hostility. As for your comment that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a medium "to get the word out", I say exactly! And that is why it belongs there, to leave it out is a ridiculous omission, making the article questionable. There is no debate. The only "historians" who have ever bothered to say there was no Armenian Genocide can easily be shown to be in the pay of the Turkish Government. Your government spends a great deal of time and money on this issue, which is really like rubbing salt in the wounds. I wish you'd read a few books I recommend on the topic. And please don't ask me to read any "other side" material because I already have read a great deal and it would be quite funny in its juvenile, confused approach, if it weren't so sad.

From Talk:History of Turkey

Moved to here per "Wikipedia is not a soapbox" policy for talk pages.

NEW TURKISH LAW TO CRIMINALIZE GENOCIDE AFFIRMATION

The Turkish parliament last Sunday passed a new Criminal Code, including articles that would severely restrict freedom of speech on matters seen as "insulting national dignity," Turkish media reported. The new Code has come on the insistence of the European Union (EU), which Turkey seeks to join, and EU officials have yet to comment on new restrictions that are due to come into force next April.

Article 306 of the new Code would punish individual Turkish citizens or groups that confirm the fact of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey or call for the end of the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus with up to fifteen years in prison. Bekir Bozdag, a member of the Turkish Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the article was added on the insistence of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). ...--RaffiKojian 03:06, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think there is a misunderstanding. Admittedly I did not go over the changes article by article but I know the changes define "genocide" for the first time in Turkish law, which can be seen as a first step in recognizing the actions against Armenian or more recently against Kurdish people as genocide. I cannot read anyone's mind of course, I do not know the rationale behind this. There are new laws which define the punishments due to "insulting national dignity". Criticism is allowed though. Why would anyone interpret "confirm the fact of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey or call for the end of the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus" as an insult? Whereever you quoted this from has put a ridicilous spin to it. BTW, my source for the new changes (in Turkish) is here [1]. at0 03:55, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My apologies: I think you are right. I now have reason [2] (again in Turkish) to believe that article 306 specifically restricts criticism and opinions differing with the official state policy including in particular Armenian Genocide and Cyprus issues. There is hope though, it may be found unconstitutional and reverted or voided. Also, the law says " ... against the wellbeing of the state ... against the historical facts ...", so the burden of proof may be on the state to prove that what is claimed is against the facts. However this is obviously aimed for criticisms not insults. I will try to learn more about this issue. at0 04:19, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ato- I do respect that you are being open minded and looking into this. I will be interested to see where this goes as Turkey moves towards the EU... --RaffiKojian 14:20, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That law is unfortunately compatible with EU standards. I am sure you are aware that in France arguments claiming the events of 1915 does not qualify as genocide are illegal, see e.g., Bernard Lewis [3]. Freedom of speech is not protected in the EU. at0 03:37, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here are two references on what I wrote on the Turkish History talk page for your information. The first is about the teachers arrest, the second metions the law on teaching there was no genocide:

Agence France Presse July 1, 2003 Tuesday 11:57 AM Eastern Time

ANKARA, July 1

A Turkish court Tuesday began hearing a case against seven teachers who face jail for questioning the country's official line on the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire and for disrupting a conference on the issue, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The incident occurred last month in the southern city of Kilis during a conference given by a scholar, who argued that the Armenians -- forced out of eastern Anatolia after revolting against their Ottoman rulers during World War I -- were not massacred on orders of the state.

The scholar said the Armenians had instead died while being transferred to the deserts of Syria because of bad weather or because of raids by local Kurdish tribes.

But Hulya Akpinar, a teacher attending the gathering, contested the figure of 250,000 Armenian victims given the scholar, and said 800,000 were killed in massacres orchestrated by the state.

She also asked what Turkey might do if more countries decided to term the massacres a genocide.

The scholar chided the woman, who -- joined by six colleagues -- walked out in protest.

Prosecutors contend the seven defendants, who face up to three years in jail if convicted, "committed a collective crime by disrupting the order of a meeting," Anatolia said.

The massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire is a highly controversial issue in Turkey and which can arouse strong nationalist sentiments.

Turkey categorically rejects claims of genocide, saying that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in what was a civil strife during World War I when Armenians joined forces with Russian invaders against the Ottomans.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen were massacred in orchestrated killings and have for years sought to have the killings acknowledged as genocide.

In 2001, France triggered a storm in its relations with Turkey when its parliament passed a resolution describing the massacres as genocide.

Erdogan Calls For “Offensive” On Armenian Genocide Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Turkish-American community this week that his government would go on the “offensive” on the issue of the Genocide of over one million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. In a bid to avoid legal responsibility, Turkey has for decades tried to hide the extent of the crime through government pressure at home and abroad. This week, Erdogan criticized Switzerland for its recent resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide and reiterated Turkey’s long-time objective to remove the issue from the political agenda to “be dealt with by historians.”

In what Erdogan presented as a concession on the issue, he suggested removing mandatory anti-Armenian studies from the Turkish Education Ministry school curricula. Turkey viewed the introduction of teaching of the purported “Armenian crimes” against Turkey as a way to “counter Armenian arguments.” Last year, the measure led to a scandal, when seven Turkish teachers were taken to court after publicly challenging the Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Also this week, Armenia’s Prime Minister Andranik Margarian and Deputy Foreign Minister Ruben Shugarian participated in an international forum on Genocide prevention. In his address to the conference, Margarian stressed the importance of affirmation and study of past genocides in order to prevent similar crimes in the future. He urged Turkey to take a necessary, if painful, step of reassessing its past to pave way for normal Armenian-Turkish relations. Organized by the government of Sweden, the Stockholm International Forum 2004, included the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the European Union’s Secretary-General Javier Solana and senior officials from over fifty countries.

During the visit, Margarian held talks with the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, who said he was impressed with the pace of Armenia’s economic recovery. The two also discussed Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union, while establishing good ties with its neighbors. Sweden is among a growing number of European countries that have officially affirmed the Armenian Genocide. (Sources: Stockholm International Forum http://www.preventinggenocide.com; Arminfo 3-28-03, 1-27, 28, 29; Agence France Presse 7-1-03; Azg 1-28; Turkish Daily News 1-28; Turks.us 1-28)

--RaffiKojian 04:07, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A third party opinion

I am writing to both of you on your own talk pages to apologize for 3 days of silence. One or both of you may by now have noticed that i haven't edited for a week, but i'm back on line now. I'll respond to both of you in the next 24 hours, probably in the next 12, for whatever my opinion is worth, continuing the discussion on my own talk page (which means you'll need to check that page's history, rather than expecting a "You have new messages" annotation near the top of your WP windows).

I think it is also important to be clear (and it might as well be the first thing of substance that i say about the request) that my understanding of the obligations of admins precludes my acting in an admin role in this matter, so neither of you should anticipate that i would even consider protecting the article (as opposed to asking another admin to make a judgement about whether admin action is warranted). (I don't assume either of your is confused about that, but ensuring clarity is, like all good insurance policies, effort probably wasted, but in any case effort well wasted.)

Thank you for consulting me, and i hope i turn out to be helpful in the comments that i look forward to making ASAP.
--Jerzy (t) 04:26, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

My overdue response is now at User talk:Jerzy#Jerzy's Pseudo-Solomonic Response. --Jerzy (t) 04:37, 2004 Oct 8 (UTC) [4]

Mediation

Hello. Please could you see Wikipedia:Requests for mediation for an update on your mediation request. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 11:18, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:Istlogo.png

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the imagesand I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 01:08, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Turkey flag image

Hey, I am sorry about the flag. I took the white border out, since I thought it was a mistake. But based on your evidence, it is not. Please accept my apologies. Zscout370 (talk) 00:25, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sunbul Effendi

Hi Ato- as a Turkish wikipedian, I am seeking your comments on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sunbul Effendi. As it the article topic is related to Turkey, I assume Turkish Wikipedians are more likely than most to know whether the article is Wikipedia-worthy --AYArktos 00:23, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Primary Turkish language subject pages

Should the primary pages for places, things and people be under their Turkish spelling or under their ASCII standard character spelling? Nerdy, but important I think. Gerry Lynch 23:24, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Armenian genocide

Inclusion of Armenian Genocide in Turkey and History of Turkey articles has been discussed extensively in the past. Please read those discussions before making edits regarding this issue. Otherwise you will quite possibly start a revert war or something.

I will read it more thoroughly, but I do not think that removal of information is the proper way of handling it.--Wiglaf 06:22, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Turkey flag

Hello, it is me again. To let you know, I am going to upload a copy of your flag image to the Wikimedia Commons. I also am going to rename it to Flag of Turkey.png, but your file will look the same. If you have any questions, please let me know. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 22:38, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Izmir clock tower.jpg

Hi there. I noticed you uploaded this image on July 1st, 2004. Unfortunately, merely being on a freely-distributed brochure does not make the image public domain, and so another user has added a PUI tag to it. If you have any information about the actual license terms, please provide them, else the image is liable to be deleted within 5-7 days. Rob Church ^Talk 11:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image Tagging for Image:Bagdikian.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Bagdikian.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 11:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Globular Cluster rewrite

I plan a major rewrite of this article, any suggestions or comments? Ato 03:14, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I've been making a number of changes to the Globular Cluster article to try to make it more comprehensive. Would you be interested in adding in some of the content or revisions you were planning? Thank you. — RJH (talk) 22:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image:H.Yerlikaya S.Eroglu.jpg

Hi Atakan,

An image you uploaded, H.Yerlikaya S.Eroglu.jpg, is listed for deletion. According to your note, the image is coming from a Turkish government website. The Turkish copyright law clearly states that that kind of material is copyrighted.

You can find the list here.

Peace!

Vito Genovese 23:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Ato. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page.

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Ato. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. Mdann52 (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Ato. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]