Talk:The Báb's trial in Tabríz

Undiscussed edits by Cuñado

I strongly oppose these significant unilateral changes made without any discussion. The article has never focused on the trial, nor does it provide relevant information about the event now, making the title misleading. I believe that both the trial and the two historical accounts of recantation (tawba-náma) deserve their own separate articles. Given that these documents are important in both pro-Bábi/Baháʼí and anti-Bábi/Baháʼí literature and have been extensively analyzed in academic sources, they clearly represent a notable subject. While the article's title can be open to negotiation, I suggest that a title like "Báb's recantation" is comparable to "Virgin Birth of Jesus." Such titles do not imply historical truth but rather indicate topics that are subject to debate. These articles should present various religious perspectives alongside scholarly views from modern academics, ensuring a neutral stance. Khánum Gül (talk) 10:20, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes the article needs more work to make it match the title, but even an article on the trial is not necessarily notable enough for its own article. I think the trial includes the alleged recantation if you want to expand on that. Titling the article "Bab's recantation" is just outrageously non-neutral considering the accounts, creating a WP:POVFORK. Most of the expansion on this topic could be added to the article on the Bab and doesn't need its own article, especially when much of the new article is being repeated on the main page. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 19:13, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that it's inherently a problem for changes to be 'unilateral', after all, creating an article is a unilateral decision by an editor, so it's only once other editors either do or do not alter that article that one knows if consensus exists that the article has a place in the encyclopedia. I think both Khánum Gül (talk · contribs) and Cuñado (talk · contribs) were being appropriately bold in making changes, and we now have a chance to discuss and find consensus.

Personally I think much of the content of the article was good, but titling an article "Bab's recantation" and connecting two distinct events under that title was inherently NPOV and OR, a sort of WP:SYNTH by framing, unless it can be shown that there is a significant body of literature discussing the two events as part of a larger connected subject. A page subject doesn't need to be the main topic of the sources that it cites, but certainly just because sources about a person mention an event doesn't mean that that event is inherently notable enough to be it's own article, and we can't cherrypick sources to develop a new thesis and use articles to present that, that's the job of external researchers who we would then cite. For example, an article on a politican may mention accusations that they have lied about things, but we wouldn't create a page called "Senator Robertson's dishonesty" pulling all those together unless there was substantial treatment of the dishonesty as a subject of it's own and covering that took too much space to fit into the biography.

I support moving the bulk of the content that is valuable into the main biography of the Bab as Cuñado has done, and I don't really think this article needs to exist independently, but if it can be made to be a more in-depth exploration of a part of the content of the main biography, with good sourcing that justifies the extra weight being given to the event, that's great. — penultimate_supper 🚀 ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:42, 27 December 2024 (UTC)