Talk:Northwestern Syria clashes (December 2022–present)

WARNING: ACTIVE COMMUNITY SANCTIONS

The article Northwestern Syria clashes (December 2022–present), along with other pages relating to the Syrian Civil War and ISIL, is designated by the community as a contentious topic. The current restrictions are:

Limit of one revert in 24 hours: This article is under WP:1RR (one revert per editor per article per 24-hour period)

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be sanctioned.

Remedy instructions and exemptions

Enforcement procedures:

Violations of any restrictions (excluding 1RR/reverting violations) and other conduct issues should be reported to the administrators' incidents noticeboard. Violations of revert restrictions should be reported to the administrators' edit warring noticeboard.
Editors who violate any listed restrictions may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense.
An editor must be aware before they can be sanctioned.

With respect to any reverting restrictions:

Edits made solely to enforce any clearly established consensus are exempt from all edit-warring restrictions. In order to be considered "clearly established" the consensus must be proven by prior talk-page discussion.
Edits made which remove or otherwise change any material placed by clearly established consensus, without first obtaining consensus to do so, may be treated in the same manner as clear vandalism.
Clear vandalism of any origin may be reverted without restriction.
Reverts of edits made by anonymous (IP) editors that are not vandalism are exempt from the 1RR but are subject to the usual rules on edit warring. If you are in doubt, contact an administrator for assistance.

If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it here on this talk page first. Remember: When in doubt, don't revert!

While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.

Articles for creation

	This article was reviewed by member(s) of WikiProject Articles for creation. The project works to allow users to contribute quality articles and media files to the encyclopedia and track their progress as they are developed. To participate, please visit the project page for more information.Articles for creationWikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creationTemplate:WikiProject Articles for creationAfC articles
	This article was accepted from this draft on 25 December 2022 by reviewer Bkissin (talk · contribs).

Crime and Criminal Biography Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

International relations Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject International relations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of International relations on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.International relationsWikipedia:WikiProject International relationsTemplate:WikiProject International relationsInternational relations articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Islam: Islam and Controversy / Salaf / Shi'a Islam / Sunni Islam Low‑importance

	Islam portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Islam, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Islam-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IslamWikipedia:WikiProject IslamTemplate:WikiProject IslamIslam-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Islam and Controversy task force.
	This article is supported by the Salaf task force.
	This article is supported by the Shi'a Islam task force.
	This article is supported by the Sunni Islam task force.

Military history: Middle East / Post-Cold War C‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

C

This article has been rated as C-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Middle Eastern military history task force
	Post-Cold War task force

Syria Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Syria, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Syria on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SyriaWikipedia:WikiProject SyriaTemplate:WikiProject SyriaSyria articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Terrorism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Terrorism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles on terrorism, individual terrorists, incidents and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TerrorismWikipedia:WikiProject TerrorismTemplate:WikiProject TerrorismTerrorism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Daily pageviews of this article

A graph should have been displayed here but graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at pageviews.wmcloud.org

Clashes subsided[edit]

I'd say it's safe to say that the intensity of clashed on the Idlib front has returned to it's pre-December 2022 state. I'm sure the recent earthquake has had alot to do with this but I digress, I think we should say this phase of clashes has come to an end unless anything large occurs in the next day or so. ThePaganUK (talk) 14:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

State of the article[edit]

@ThePaganUK: First of all let me start by saying thank you for your contributions to the article. With regards to the clashes which have resulted in a single combatant being killed, I don't think they are notable enough to be included in the article. Especially now that the article is quite large in size. With regards to the state of the clashes, they are still described as ongoing by SOHR and could go on for the foreseeable future, the current low intensity is possibly due to the earthquake. You don't have to feel compelled to add each and every single clash in the article, in fact it might be appropriate to remove most of the clashes from the article except large ones with 5+ killed. Ecrusized (talk) 10:01, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I agree with this summary. I do suspect the earthquake has caused quite a stir in that part of the country. I'm happy to proceed as you've mentioned. Thank you for your reply!. ThePaganUK (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"We Will Not Reconcile" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect We Will Not Reconcile has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 April 4 § We Will Not Reconcile until a consensus is reached. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 04:44, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Need more/better sources[edit]

Currently, this entire article is sourced to SOHR, which is at best a week source. We need to diversify, and preferably use non-breaking news pieces (see WP:Breaking news sources and reliable sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@BobFromBrockley: The vast majority of Syrian civil war articles are almost entirely composed of SOHR, since there isn't any other semi-independent source reporting them besides the unreliable pro-government media like al-Mastar and pro-Russian government news like RT. Ecrusized (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ecrusized. I agree that it is a better source than al-Masdar or Russian media, but still poor. But I would question whether something is particularly noteworthy if SOHR is the only source. There are certainly other Syria articles that are overly reliant on it, but I don't think I've seen one as reliant as this one. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bobfrombrockley: I think the article is too large and it goes into too many unnecessary details by citing every single casualty. As a brief summary however, it is important as the clashes mark several milestones. 1) First exchange of territory between the rebels and government since 2020. And 2) Killing of the most senior Russian official in Syria since 2016. The article could be cut down by about 75% in size by removing most of the timeline section, which is where SOHR is used entirely as a source for. Ecrusized (talk) 11:21, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to see editors' work thrown away, but I tend to agree. I might try to find the time to look at what more robust sources find noteworthy and use that to focus the article, but unlikely to do that soon. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:46, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: merge article into Timeline of the Syrian civil war[edit]

This article was created in December 2022 to document what has turned out to be a quite minor and insignificant escalation of the usual clashes along the Idlib line.

It has since evolved into a catch-all page for said usual clashes along the Idlib line, and as this article approaches its first birthday, it bears a strong resemblance to the more recent sections of the Timeline of the Syrian civil war.

The "Northwestern Syria clashes (December 2022-present)" are not a notable or distinct event in and of themselves. The lede mentions "a series of intensified clashes," but that doesn't properly characterize the events of the past eleven months. The start date here is rather arbitrary; a more reasonable timeframe would be "Northwestern Syria clashes (March 2020-present)," because all the fighting since then bears similar, repetitive characteristics, and most importantly a fixed front line.

Because of what this page has become, I believe the information here would be best suited if it were integrated into the Syrian civil war timeline and this article deleted. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 08:19, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]