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Archived talk: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Russian Far East

Thanks for your note. Perhaps, as a Russian speaker, you can clarify something that bugs me. Why is wikt:Приморье spelled with a ь? Or more significantly, the common noun wikt:приморье? I would expect "при море" (where "море" is the prepositional case) to mean "near the sea". But is приморье really used as a common noun, and why does it sport a soft sign? --dab (𒁳) 09:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, good question. I can assure you that the construct itself is correct and quite common (cf. взморье, заболотье, заречье, залесье, подлужье, приозерье, приречье, etc.). The soft sign in all these constructs is a suffix which indicates a place and has, to some degree, a meaning of aggregation (i.e., all of the area near the sea for "primorye"; all of the area beyond the river for "zarechye", etc.). The prefix clarifies the location ("при-" means "near", "за-" means "beyond", and so forth). As far as I can tell, this is the only way to construct a noun of this type (something like "при море" cannot be used as a noun on its own). Bear in mind, however, that I am not a linguist, and the above explanation is based on what I remember from my Russian lessons back in secondary school :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 5, 2011; 13:57 (UTC)

I think you inspired me to look into the Russian language a little bit, and I noted just how useful ru:wikt: is for that purpose.

So I have done this, perhaps you want to review my translation. The most difficult lexeme here for me was ru:wikt:резвиться. I assume this is from the adjective ru:wikt:резвый. Is this word, in your mind, connected with wikt:резкий "sharp, abrupt"? So, in the sense of "to make sharp, sudden movements". --dab (𒁳) 12:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I hope there's more where that article came from :) If I may ask, however, what prompted you to translate "ой" as "oy"? Now, I don't know how to best translate it—I myself used "oy" in the Korobeiniki article, and NPR even used my translation, although with the caveat that "it's from Misplaced Pages, so don't blame us if it's wrong", but this translation was later labeled by someone else as "terrible". Which makes me curious how you came to it.

As for the word "резвиться", yes, it's from the adjective "резвый", but no, it's not connected in my mind with "резкий". But then, I never gave this any thought before. So, I checked with Vasmer's etymological dictionary, and whaddayaknow, they are indeed related.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 8, 2011; 16:13 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Hi Ezhiki, a quick question. I am expanding the infoboxes in the Chukotka articles to include the administrative and municipal sections with refs to the relevant laws, but I am not sure how places like Krasneno and Nutepelmen, since they are now part of the inter-settlement territory rather than a rural settlement of their own should be described in the infobox. Should they just be described as "inter-settlement" territory with the ref to the relevant law abolishing their rural settlement status?

Also how should urban type settlements, such as Otrozhny, in the process of being abolished be described. Are they still part of their own urban settlement, or do they become part of the inter-settlement territory upon the decision to abolish them, or are they something completely different? Fenix down (talk) 07:53, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The infobox has a separate parameter for inter-settlement territories. Just set intra_settlement_territory=yes. Of course, the municipal district will still need to be specified, because the intra-settlement territory is a part of a municipal district which is not a part of an urban or rural settlement.

With the inhabited localities in the process of being abolished, no municipal data needs to be filled out in the infobox. Technically, those places are treated as intra-settlement territories (i.e., the population gets the municipal services from the municipal district authorities), but since this is not documented in any of the laws or other sources, we shouldn't be specifying it either. The infobox only has one mandatory parameter (federal subject), so not filling out any other lines would simply suppress them. Does this answer your questions?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 12, 2011; 13:29 (UTC)

It does indeed, I wasn't sure about the settlements being abolished and hadn't seen the inter settlement lines in the infobox template. Thanks a lot. Fenix down (talk) 14:23, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Taldysay

Hi. Can you do a dab page here. If you search in geonames you;ll see multiple settlements in Kazakhstan and Russia. I started a third of the Kazakh settlements a while back as stubs and they've attracted one giant mass AFD . ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that AfD. Interestingly enough, I myself learned of that site only last month (and didn't find it all that thrilling :))

As for Taldysay, there is no place in Russia by this name as of this year (I don't have an ability to quickly and easily check for abolished places, though). The geographic.org search also doesn't return anything by that name located in Russia. Can you perhaps link to the search results you are getting, so I'd have a starting point? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 13:45 (UTC)

See Imeni Sverdlova for instance. Click the search link for geonames and search for it, these types of entries turn up the usual mass of multiples for Russia etc. Can you help dabbing these Kazakhstan places with RUssian places? I've salvaged Saudia Arabia and Oman and am now working through Almaty Province.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

If you give me a list of names you want me to dab (or point to an appropriate cat), I'll be happy to. I suspect, however, that some of the place names will be too "ethnic" to be found in Russia (Taldysay is one example of this).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 15:44 (UTC)

Template:Almaty Province I'm currently ploughing through. A lot of them have an extremely high duplicate rate with Russian villages and other Kazakh villages like Isayevo. Just click on the search and you'll find them. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:46, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I have better means to do the Russian duplicates, though :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 15:48 (UTC)

Oh I know, but a lot like Karagayly have loads of Kazakhstan duplicates too..♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:57, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, let me take care of Russian duplicates first, and then I'll see what I can do about Kazakh ones. Check out Yubileyny: I moved the Russian places into a dedicated set index, moved the Kazakh place to Yubileynoye, Kazakhstan, and edited the dab accordingly. If I do the rest of them the same way, will this work for you?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 16:02 (UTC)

Sure, any way which is easiest and most convenient. Be sure though if you move pages to dab them in the Almaty Province template. Given the expansion of that village previously at AFD I'm certain it is worth having these articles. In fact many of them appear to be small towns rather than villages in certain parts.. I know sub stubs are not a good idea but when you work on geographical development to the extent I do at times it just feels the right thing to do... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'll remember to edit the nav template. Are you planning to be editing it in the next few hours, by the way? Because if you aren't, I'd rather do all corrections in bulk rather than one-by-one (which, however, is fine, if you need to work on it as well).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

Well some of the links to need fixing to capitals but I won't touch the nav box until you've finished with it. Some entries which are problematic I'll db author so those red links can be removed later. The vast majority it seems though are fine.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, never mind that. I keep getting interrupted all the time, so I'll do the edits to the template one at a time. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 16:22 (UTC)

I redirected Mezdurechenskoye but merged your info, this name is OK or worse? It was a duplicate. BTW if you add something to an article can you replace the ref with the geonames one now in this articles and then remove the tag at the top?♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:41, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't really know. We don't have a guideline for the romanization of Kazakh, which complicates things. Looking at BGN/PCGN romanization of Kazakh, however, they recommend to romanize "е" as "ye" at all times, so I guess "Mezhdurechenskoye" is better. What we really need, of course, is a couple of Kazakh editors interested in such things, so they could put together a guideline for us to follow.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 17:47 (UTC)

Mmm Geonames though seems to have approved the o and the a without the Y like Nikolaevka, Kazakhstan not Nikolayevka..Not sure which is current but to me it looks more neutral without the y..♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:51, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

It sure is easier to do dabbing between countries when the spellings match, though. For Russian, we use pretty much the same BGN/PCGN conventions, which use "y" extensively.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 13, 2011; 17:59 (UTC)

Metro station naming

Because all metro stations are named after something else, like a locality or street (which in turn is also often named after something or somebody else), a common naming convention is to add a suffix of the bracketed system name to all stations. This makes the subject clear to someone not looking for the station. In the case of Baltiyskaya, the station is not the primary useage of that name as the disambiguation page you created clearly explains. Apparently it is also a brand of Russian vodka. Baltiyskaya now redirects to that disambiguation page. Sw2nd (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The station is named after the rail terminal, which itself is called "Baltiysky, so the titles aren't identical and there is no collision. The vodka currently does not have an article (nor is it even mentioned on the dab page), so there is no collision there either. Since the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC clause of the disambiguation manual of style applies only to the existing articles and to the red-linked articles that satisfy WP:DABRL, I disagree with your assessment of this situation. I would agree to having the metro station article at a disambiguated title if the vodka article is created (providing the vodka itself is notable, of course), or at least red-linked properly; otherwise you a redirecting from a simple form to a disambiguated form for no good reason. Additionally, you seem to be unaware of the BRD cycle—when an edit/move is reverted in good faith, you are supposed to initiate a discussion, not to re-revert (even if that re-revert is followed by a discussion). If you believe the original move was right, a move request would have been a better course of action than a re-revert. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 16, 2011; 17:54 (UTC)

The vodka reference was just a throw away comment to show that it is one of many things or people that users could be looking for. Another editor is currently working feverishly on those Saint Petersburg Metro station articles cleaning things up and giving some consistency :) to them. I don't like to mess with someone who is spending the time to improve a series of related articles like that, and so I reverted your solitary reversion of "a move in good faith". I don't know where you are from in America, but if you check out any US metro, subway or commuter railway in Misplaced Pages, you will see that they always include the system name with the station and this has become a naming convention there. I am watching this page, so if you respond here I will see it. Sw2nd (talk) 18:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Where I am from doesn't really matter one bit. What is of importance, however, is that Wikipedians exercise different approaches to naming of articles about stations pertaining to different transit systems. If the US commuter lines are preemptively disambiguated, more power to them—it must be what worked best for them, or perhaps they didn't want to spend time on fixing all of those unnecessary disambiguators. Russian stations (including metro stations), however, are only disambiguated when the title is, well, ambiguous, which, by the way, is in spirit of the Misplaced Pages disambiguation guidelines overall. A quick look around, say, Category:Moscow Metro stations would confirm this. If somebody's interpretation of "consistency" is that all Russian metro articles should have a parenthetical metro system disambiguator following the name, I'd say it's a problem, not help. I don't see anything on the WP:SOVMETRO's talk page about mass renaming the articles to make them conform with the US naming scheme or whatnot, which implies that if mass moves are taking place, that's not because a consensus was first established in a relevant place. I only watch a handful of metro articles myself and am not that terribly interested in the subject, but notifying potentially interested users of such actions is a matter of a common courtesy, if nothing else. Just because I don't care that much doesn't matter no one else would. Which is why the BRD cycle and move requests are important—they allow for a broader input as opposed to our semi-private chat on my talk page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 16, 2011; 18:50 (UTC)

I see you have now contacted the editor who originally moved the station. That is good. I didn't want to debate something with you that neither of us is directly involved in. The reason I asked where you came from is so that you could look at a system you might be able to relate to, but you don't really care anyway. Just relax - it wasn't a personal question. Since there is no universal naming convention for stations, I agree with you that it is better left for each project to decide. This should be discussed by the participating editors. They do all the work - not us. Note that the Russian Misplaced Pages versions of Saint Petersburg and Moscow metro stations all included a system suffix. You would not expect Roseville Road to be about a station, and yet, although there is no conflict with any existing article, it is about a light rail station. I think that is ambiguous. Following on from that example; station articles without disambiguation are usually the name of the street or community where they are located, which would be the primary usage in life even though those articles do not exist in Misplaced Pages. Although we disagree on this, I do appreciate you position. I too will leave those other editors to decide what they want. Thank you. Sw2nd (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, mine wasn't a personal answer either :) Being an admin it is my job to point out when guidelines or procedure are not being followed. I realize that occasionally makes me sound like a pompous ass, but that's a part of it :) I just wanted to point out that we don't normally follow what Wikipedias in other languages are doing—they may very well have other reasons to pre-disambiguate article titles—it could be a custom, for a linguistic reason, or by their community consensus. In the English Misplaced Pages, however, we have our own guidelines, which is what I was trying to point out. No harm done either way, though. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 17, 2011; 12:49 (UTC)

Hey Mr. Pompous

Hey Mr. Pompous Stupid American, have you heard from Bakharev lately? He seems to be AWOL (not MIA as I specifically never gave him permission to desert his post), so am curious if he is still around. --Russavia 14:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, nice to see you, too, trying to think of a mildly offensive term for Australians... "kangaroo bangers" is perhaps a bit too strong, no? :). Nope, I haven't heard back from him, and honestly it's a little troubling. He may not have been around that much in the past couple of years anyway, but at least he always made sure that the bot of his is running, and it's no longer the case. Since you are close and all, perhaps you'd care to go on a quick road trip to see if all is well?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 17, 2011; 14:29 (UTC)

trying to think of a mildly offensive term for Australians... "kangaroo bangers" is perhaps a bit too strong, no? :). - nah ozstrylians can take the piss (try any web based slang dictionaries for that one northern hemispherical one) - even if they have stupid user names .... oh hahaha - to see the St Petes Metro staion name issue never go away in all this time, no? SatuSuro 14:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the trouble with using the slang dictionaries to come up with a witty term is that if you don't know about the subject at least a little already, it's all too easy to pick a term that you'd think is mildly offensive, but which in fact "slang" used by kiddies in an Australian kindergarten or something :) I'm afraid Russavia has an upper hand on me there, as he has no trouble whatsoever finding the pejoratives for Russians or Americans (or, in my case, both) :) As for St. Pete, well, I wish I caught it sooner, but I sure ain't gonna move them all back now... Anyhoo, what brings you to my talk page? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 17, 2011; 14:43 (UTC)

Don't mind the Chukchi Satu, they're a litle slow ya know lol --Russavia 14:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I, too, think that this stupid guideline has long outlived its usefulness and should be replaced with this :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 17, 2011; 14:51 (UTC)

Cool, then if you initiate the discussion, I'll come and second it for you lol --Russavia 14:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

BTW, have you seen this yet? Pissed myself at the Kompromat. Imagine having to remove that stuff from articles lol. --Russavia 14:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Will have to watch it at home. Is someone really trying to insert a youtube clip into articles as a source?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 17, 2011; 15:04 (UTC)

no, no, no. just watch it, you'll see what i mean. --Russavia 15:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Answering a question lost above - despite my very low edit at the mo something about st petes metro station names caught my attention I always thought that north american usage of piss as part of any expression was different from that of australian - 'take the piss' means that we australians can take/handle the insults without any real offence SatuSuro 23:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Ushakovskoye and Lavrentiya

Hi Ezhiki, a quick couple of questions (as usual!!). Firstly, I note in article 13.2 of Law 33, which does not appear to be have been altered or repealed, that Ushakovskoye (on Wrangel Island) is still counted as a Rural Settlement. I had always assumed it had been abolished. Are you aware of any updated law for Shmidtovsky / Iultinsky district outlining its abolition as I cannot find one.

Secondly, I note a correction to the municipal divisions section of the Chukotsky District article you made a few months ago, where you separated Lavrentiya and Lorino into individual Rural Settlements. I'm sure it is my poor reading of the russian, but I was certain that Article 7.1 of Law 47 indicated Lavrentiya to have Lorino as its administrative centre, strange though it did seem to me.

Are you able to clarify, please? Fenix down (talk) 17:48, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. Law #33 is the law on the administrative-territorial division; it has nothing to do with the municipal divisions. Article 13.2 in particular lists the rural localities, not the rural settlements. Rural settlements may include more than one locality, although in Chukotka it's usually not the case. Ushakovskoye itself, of course, is unpopulated, but it has never been officially abolished (there's quite a bit of bureaucratic overhead involved with officially abolishing a place—it has to be inventoried first, for example—which is why I guess the authorities never bothered and just let it hang). However, since there is no population, it is not mentioned in the laws dealing with the municipal structure of Iultinsky (Municipal) District. It's not a very thorough approach, but that's how things are in Russia :)

As for the Law #47, yes, Lavrentiya and Lorino are incorporated as separate rural settlement, and no, your reading of Russian is not poor—the law does indeed indicate that the administrative center of Lavrentiya Rural Settlement is in Lorino. That could be a mistake in the law (shocking, eh? :)), but it could very well be true. While it is not very common for a municipal formation to have its administrative center in an outside place, such things happen. What there is no doubt about, though, is that Lorino and Lavrentiya are municipally incorporated as separate rural settlements. Hope this helps!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 19, 2011; 18:48 (UTC)

Ğabdulla_Tuqay

Привет! Можешь защитить от малолетних анонимных идиотов? --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 13:12, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Done.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 20, 2011; 13:23 (UTC)

merging articles

Hello friend, how are u?? i would like to merge the article of Online questionnaires into Computer-assisted web interviewing. I left there messages few days ago and no resistence so far. how do i merge them?Superzohar Talk 12:49, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Since you are the only editor of the "computer-assisted web interviewing" article, I think the easiest way to go about it is to move that article into your userspace, move "online questionnaires" into its place, and then incorporate the material from "computer-assisted web interviewing" into it. You should be able to do all these moves yourself, but do let me know if you run into any difficulties.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 22, 2011; 16:25 (UTC)

Hello it wrote me i can't move the online questionnaires into computer-assisted web interviewing and that i should contact administrator. so maybe u can perform that action pls? Superzohar Talk 15:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That's because you needed to move "Computer-assisted web interviewing" (the page you created) into your userspace first. Anyway, I moved it to User:Superzohar/Computer-assisted web interviewing and moved "online questionnaires" into its place. You can now incorporate the material from the userfied version into this article. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 23, 2011; 15:48 (UTC)

Saint Petersburg Metro

Hi. Sorry for delayed response. Thanks for pointing out some errors I've made with creating new articles. It's a bit unclear to me what you mean by "unnecessary disambiguators". I have limited experience with Misplaced Pages edits, so I would appreciate some additional information what how it could be fixed. Is that related to articles I've moved?

I also had a look at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Metros of the former Soviet Union and added myself as participant, thanks for mentioning that to me.--Maxim75 (talk) 02:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to rush you. What I meant by "unnecessary disambiguators" are the redundant parenthetical portions in the titles of the articles you are creating (e.g., Zayeltsovskaya (Novosibirsk Metro)). Since there is no article under Zayeltsovskaya or Zayeltsovsky, the metro station article title is not ambiguous, and does need to be disambiguated. A disambiguator is only needed when the title collides with the title of another article, although something like Didube (Tbilisi Metro) would also be fine (there is nothing under Didube, but a quick search reveals Didube Pantheon, meaning that "Didube" should be a disambiguation page. Please let me know if anything in my explanation isn't clear. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 23, 2011; 13:53 (UTC)

Thanks for explanation. Yes it definitely makes sense, the only downside is that it adds more complexity while using station and services templates, which rely on naming conversions by default, but it could be handled by changing station templates. As of this moment I'm planning to create stub articles for stations with basic info such as name, location, date opened and service info. The info on metro stations is sketchy, even in Russian Misplaced Pages. Thanks --Maxim75 (talk) 03:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I know what you mean about the information being scarce... it's good we have a passionate fellow like you to dig up whatever's available, eh? :) Seriously, once again, thank you for your work.

As for the links, the templates should allow piping links just fine, do they not? The Moscow Metro templates, for example, have been around for a long time, and the links can be piped no problem. There is some inconvenience in having to track which links are disambiguated and which are not, but that is not a major issue, and that is only an inconvenience to the editors. Avoiding unnecessary disambiguation, however, benefits the readers, which is the only thing that matters.

Speaking of conveniences, you might want to check out this script, which colors the links on the page according to the page type they lead to (so redirects would have one color, disambigs would be highlighted, stubs would have the colors of their own, etc.). It takes a little while to get used to, but once you do, it's hard to go back. I personally find this script invaluable for just the kind of jobs you are doing. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 24, 2011; 14:00 (UTC)

Infobox oddness

Thanks. I disabled the rule that was causing it but still have no idea why it was happening! Rich Farmbrough, 16:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC).

I remember asking you once to not replace "Infobox Russian city" and "Infobox Russian town" with "Infobox Russian inhabited locality" (the former two currently redirect to the latter). Could it be related to that?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 23, 2011; 16:39 (UTC)

It's certainly the rule concerned. But I have not the time to dig deeper, and this is a simple exercise, so the rest will have to wait for another day. Rich Farmbrough, 16:55, 23 May 2011 (UTC).

Thanks!

Thanks for reverting that awful edit to the {{Automatic taxobox}}! I hope not many pages were affected during those several minutes! Bob the WikipediaN 18:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the template is transcluded on almost 2,500 pages, which is why I semi-protected it to prevent this from happening again. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 24, 2011; 18:24 (UTC)

!!!! That's a highly used template...now that you mention it, I thought we had it redlocked like the other parts of the taxobox template system! Bob the WikipediaN 19:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

That's one useful purpose vandals serve—they find holes that need to be patched and point us to them :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 24, 2011; 19:16 (UTC)

Indeed! Bob the WikipediaN 19:44, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

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Thank you

For being the voice of reason on WP:CITE. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:28, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the thank you :) To tell you the truth, "shocked", when I saw the number of opposes in that thread, would be putting it mildly. "Hysterical stupor", I believe, comes a little closer...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 1, 2011; 17:32 (UTC)

I guess you saw my comment on Jimbo's page? But even he seems to miss the point... :( --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I haven't seen that one (I stumbled upon the WP:CITE thread by accident). I think Jimbo's got a point to some extent, although it puzzles me somewhat that he seems to give more weight to a stylistic issue over what really matters. If we had a tool or mechanism of some sort to efficiently address the problem of "ugly" cites, I'd sure be using it, but in the absence of such a tool, referencing every sentence is the best defense we've got. Not being able to reference every sentence, not having time for it, or even not wanting to do it in principle is not in itself a sin, but actively preventing others from doing it is, in my opinion, quite harmful to the project.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 1, 2011; 18:26 (UTC)

, ... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:53, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Sad indeed... How can "readability" possibly be more important than verifiability?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 2, 2011; 21:00 (UTC)

Yo!

Sounds familiar? (see image descriptions) NVO (talk) 20:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Damn! Busted! :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 1, 2011; 20:03 (UTC)

US spelling

Hi,

I've spent quite a bit of time investigating. I now see it isn't as large an issue as I first thought it might be. This is because 'er' spelling only occurs when the metric unit is put first, in full form. The second place unit is symbolic and has no spelling variation. Most US articles put the metric unit in second place, in symbolic form and weren't affected.

Some uses of the templates specified the spelling, others didn't. It may be that the default 'er' setting was deliberately applied to the article in some cases, in other cases the editors may not have worried.

Some cases of the template are within other templates. These affect many articles.

Now, what to do? I have a list of affected articles. I can do a run to apply US spelling to each template in each article. Or I can do a run to apply the symbol form to each template in each article (I found many instances where the symbolic form would be an improvement or entirely acceptable). Or I can do part and part.

The easy decision is to apply US spelling to the few that are US articles. I'll do that anyway.

1. What is your preference for the others?

2. I notice you reverted a change to a template within a template, are you open to reconsidering that?

Regards Lightmouse (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Good catch about the issue existing only when the metric unit is first; I've missed that. Glad to hear it's not as bad as I first thought :)

Regarding the list you have compiled (thanks for taking time to do that, by the way), I think since this is a bot run, it would be OK to restore the US spelling where templates such as {{km to mi}} were used. Even if the template was clashing with the rest of the article, one still needs to look at what the first contributor's choice was, and that's not a job for a bot. Restoring the spelling that existed would maintain the status quo—if the article's spelling choices needed to be cleaned up, they will still need to be cleaned up after the bot is done. I think that would be the most reasonable approach; what are your thoughts on this?

My other concern (for lack of a better word—I don't really care that much) is why it is necessary to replace these old templates at all. Wouldn't it be easier to make them into {{Convert}} wrappers instead (similar to how {{km2 to mi2}} is done)? That makes it easier to take care of the spelling issue and also of the folks who continue to use the old templates because they are used to them—otherwise you'll have to repeat those runs periodically. Why do thousands of edits when one edit will suffice?

As for my template revert, feel free to re-revert (taking care of the spelling choice this time), or, if you choose the path above, it can stay as is. My only concern with that revert was breaking the spelling choice in articles that transclude that template. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 3, 2011; 17:30 (UTC)

Hi, I've tracked down and updated articles for 'sp=us'. I've also updated the procedure and the code so this shouldn't happen again. Phew. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I think it's an excellent idea to turn the templates into a wrapper for {{Convert}}. I didn't know that's how {{km2 to mi2}} is done - they're black boxes to me. If it isn't already done, would it be possible for the templates to recognise parameters used in {{Convert}} such as 'on', 'off', 'sp=us'?

Are you able to edit 'Template:Infobox Swiss town' ? If so, could you update the convert templates in there?

Many thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 14:55, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of it! As for the parameters, it is possible to make the template into a {{Convert}} wrapper (which supports all of its applicable parameters) and yet retain support for the old legacy parameters as well, so the old transclusions will continue to work. It's actually a rather simple task. I can look into doing it in the next week or two, if you want, but it'll probably be quicker if you ask one of the {{Convert}} coding gurus to do the code re-write (I'm going to have a crazy busy next week).

As for {{Infobox Swiss town}}, yes, I can update it, but since I am not one of the regular users of that template and may not be aware of all its caveats, it would probably be more appropriate to post an edit request on that template's talk page. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 5, 2011; 15:30 (UTC)

Re: A quick question

Yes, I think it would be helpful to have a similar category for WP:RUSSIA. Sometimes I have to spent some time checking what is already assessed with task force parameters and what is not, and this time could have been saved. Could you provide such a category?

By the way, it seems that our PP lists have been finally created, and some of them are quite interesting. GreyHood 21:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. If I don't get a chance to create it over the weekend, then next week for sure. As for the PP lists, yeah, there are some shockers there :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 3, 2011; 22:23 (UTC)

Thanks! Your helpfulness and knowledge of useful wiki-features is really great! I'll start working with this category next week. GreyHood 18:29, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Korolyov again

Hi again; since this page is still on my watchlist, I noticed that today a user on the Korolyov talk page thinks the page should be moved to "Korolev". Perhaps you'd like to respond on the talk page? I suspect you'll state WP:RUS overrules photos of the city itself, but hey, it's worth a shot. Thanks, Mlm42 (talk) 23:58, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up; I'll respond. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 8, 2011; 12:09 (UTC)

One of the reasons I started that RfC was to ensure WP:RUS is being applied in a way that is consistent with community-wide consensus. I sometimes get the impression that you treat that page as unquestionable law with unanimous support.. but really, how much community-wide support does it have? Mlm42 (talk) 20:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Judging by the fact that random moves of articles about places in Russia went down considerably (and I mean considerably!) during the first year after WP:RUS had been adopted, and that the new articles are being created under the titles WP:RUS recommends, I'd say the support is there. People who think the guideline makes sense and abide by it have no reason to post comments of any kind; it's the dissenters who are the loudest and most persistent. Take you, for example—what practical problem do you hope to fix by diluting WP:RUS to make it more vague? I know it is your personal preference to see "Korolyov" moved to "Korolev", but I won't for a moment believe that's the main reason why you bother with the RfC and all the discussions we've had so far. But if not that, what then? I mean, Russian geography isn't even the area you edit much, which leaves me even more puzzled! I try putting myself in your shoes, and it just doesn't make any sense to me—it's as if I suddenly started to tell the folks at WikiProject Medicine that one of their more esoteric guidelines is wrong and that a more generic guideline would do the same job just fine, even though I don't know much about medicine or am even willing to hear out the explanations. That's how it looks from where I stand—and if you could shed some light on this situation, I'd be most grateful. We might even work something out!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 20:18 (UTC)

I think in practice, the change I'm suggesting will change very little; after all you're pretty much running the show when it comes to Russian geography. I think broadly speaking WP:RUS has community-wide support. My point is that general support doesn't mean absolutely everything in the guideline has support. I've question one of those things in the RfC. One of the things I'd like to accomplish with this RfC is to convince you that maybe some things in WP:RUS actually don't have community-wide support (contrary to the "unanimous" vote in 2007). Mlm42 (talk) 20:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

If teaching me a lesson is the main reason, I must say it's rather disappointing. Discussions are necessary, of course, but I was very much hoping there was something tangible behind this one... I doubt there is one single policy or guideline in Misplaced Pages where absolutely everything in the guideline has universal support.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 21:01 (UTC)

Obviously the end goal is to change WP:RUS so that the community actually supports it in full. One step in achieving this goal is convincing you that the community doesn't support it in full, as it is written currently. Mlm42 (talk) 21:15, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Such a goal can be set for any guideline we have, as for any given guideline one can find people who disagree with it as a whole or with some of its part. However, if there are no practical implications (at least you haven't given me any yet), why waste time? The guidelines are supposed to be helpful to those who use them (i.e., readers and editors who edit in that area), and, amazingly, unlike in 2007, none of the folks who commented so far edit in the area the guideline is supposed to affect. Which brings me back to my WP:Medicine example and leaves me in a state of perpetual puzzlement. Is something going on I'm just not seeing?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 21:30 (UTC)

One implication is that Korolyov could be changed to Korolev (sorry, I couldn't resist). Just because editors don't regularly edit in the area doesn't mean they should stay quiet if I think there's something wrong. I'm suggesting this is different from most guidelines, because there is a particular part with which most people would disagree. So this part should be changed. Also, the more editors (and in particular admins) dig in their heals, the more I want to dislodge them. The articles on Russian places exist within Misplaced Pages, so their editors have to answer to the wider Misplaced Pages community. Aren't admins supposed to be more interested in what the wider community wants? Mlm42 (talk) 22:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

As an admin, the only thing I am interested in is what's best for this encyclopedia. Quite often it is what the wider community wants, but sometimes it isn't (and when that's the case, it's usually because the wider community doesn't have a clue about something that concerns an esoteric area of knowledge... like romanization of Russian). In fact, my unique skill set is precisely why I am volunteering my time and expertise in areas where the "wider community" would have otherwise fly by the seat of their pants and might very well not even land.

I realize that may sound quite snobbish, but when you contribute solely with the interests of the encyclopedia in mind, it makes perfect sense. The more snobbish editors like that we have, the better the end product is. But if you are here just to argue with editors and admins in order to show them who is (or isn't) the boss, I'm sorry, this is where we part our ways. I'm not here to boss people around; I'm here to build the damn best encyclopedia in the world. Are you?

With regards to Korolyov, suppose we do move it. Then, apart from appeasing your tastes, what practical problem will we have solved for most of our readers? Why undermine solid rules to accommodate a non-problem?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 22:14 (UTC)

Wow.. I'm a bit shocked right now.. what you've said goes beyond snobbish. The more you speak, the more I think you shouldn't be an admin.. sorry. It's like you have forgotten about Misplaced Pages:Consensus? Seriously.. Mlm42 (talk) 22:32, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Yet you haven't tried to refute one word of what I've said... I'm sorry, but I am losing any respect I had for you really quickly...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 23:07 (UTC)

What's to refute? I don't doubt your expertise when it comes to technical issues in romanizing Russian. But I think the community wants a broader definition of "common English usage", and you are trying to overrule them, because you're an expert. Not a wise move. Mlm42 (talk) 23:19, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Then, let's continue dumbing down the encyclopedia and making it harder to edit for those who care for the sake of consensus? Don't you think there's something wrong with that? I know Misplaced Pages has a generally disdainful attitudes towards experts of any kind, but do you, personally, think that's the best, or wise, attitude to take? Just curious.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 23:28 (UTC)

I don't think Misplaced Pages has disdain for experts. I think Misplaced Pages has disdain for editors who think they can overrule consensus "because they know better". Experts in specific areas don't necessarily know what's best for Misplaced Pages.

Look, I didn't think this would turn into a heated discussion. I thought one of two things would happen: 1) The community agrees with your interpretation of WP:RUS, and nothing changes, or 2) The community disagrees with your interpretation of WP:RUS, and (as a responsible admin) you would recognize that and accept the community's will. I didn't expect 3) The community disagrees with your interpretation, and you reject them because you think you know better. If there's ever a good time to WP:TROUT someone, now seems like a good time. Misplaced Pages works well because of its consensus-fueled decision-making procedures, not in spite of them. Mlm42 (talk) 03:13, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Of the two of us, the only person who needs to be trouted is you; for the conclusion you jump to in your #3. I am not flouting any consensus, because there is no consensus to flout.

When the discussion is closed and the guideline is properly amended (and no, hastily amending it in the midst of the ongoing debate is not a proper procedure), then, if you see me acting contrary to what the guideline says, you'll have a full right to trout me all you want, and that would be a correct thing to do. As things stand now, we don't have a consensus; we are trying to build one. Editors voicing their opinions is a part the discussion process, and if you expect me not to point out the problems the other parties are mostly ignoring, you better think again. Just because we have more people supporting one side than another doesn't mean the other side should immediately shut up. I'd think that much would be obvious.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 13:59 (UTC)

You're right, we have to wait. I may have misinterpreted your statement: As an admin, the only thing I am interested in is what's best for this encyclopedia. Quite often it is what the wider community wants, but sometimes it isn't. I took this to mean you were willing to go against consensus and enforce what you think is best. Mlm42 (talk) 16:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, honest mistake then.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 16:03 (UTC)

Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov

What about moving it to Fyodor Ushakov, which is redirect currently? GreyHood 19:45, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Done; thanks for finding it!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 20:19 (UTC)

Thanks! By the way, what has happened with the Category:WikiProject Russia articles with no associated task force - the number of items there suddenly fell down from about 15000 to about 13500, and just a pair of days passed since I've checked last time.. Surely we couldn't have assessed so much articles in this period. GreyHood 20:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that was my doing. I took a look at the cat's contents after it finished populating, and discovered that it includes everything that doesn't have a taskforce assigned. Since the category is supposed to contain only articles, I made some tweaks to ensure that cats, files, portals, etc. would be filtered out and only articles remained. Hence the drop. It didn't work perfectly, because the filtering is tied to the value of the class parameter, and cases where the class is automatically detected and populated (such as Category talk:B-Class Russia articles, for example), still go through. Those can still be excluded if the class is set explicitly (i.e., class=Category). It can also be automated, but I think that'd be more trouble than it's worth.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 21:07 (UTC)

GA review of Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union

I've begun the review at Talk:Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union/GA1. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:41, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've only submitted this for the creator of the article, however, and have no intent to participate.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 13:32 (UTC)

Romanization

Please see my edit on its talk page which I posted immediately before this one. Demands for non-neutrality conflict with core policy; retaining the language about dictionaries is to enunciate guidance which has no consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:22, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I've responded there as well. All in all, you don't have the prerogative to decide what violates our core policy and what doesn't; that the community's job. I've seen you usurp the right to make an ultimate decision on more than one occasion, and that really becomes worrisome. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 16:30 (UTC)

Nor does any one editor have the right to declare what is a guideline and revert war for the ancient text. All I have done is to remove what only you support. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

This is getting a bit out of hand.. there's no rush here.. it's not an urgent matter.. maybe we should try and get a few more opinions. Mlm42 (talk) 16:45, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:RUS was up for discussion for over a month in 2007 and had universal support before being promoted to a guideline. You can't get any more "official" than that. I have not added a single word that altered the spirit of the guideline ever since, hence there can't possibly be any parts which "only I support". What I am doing is reverting to the version that has been supported as a result of a formal proposal so those who want to participate in the RfC would have the current version to work with. You, for some reason I don't understand, seem to think that I added chunks between 2007 and now. This is not the case, and this is just outrageous. Are you going to mark all guidelines which you don't like as "essays" now? If you are having a hard day, please take a break to calm down, but if this your genuine attitude, then I think a request for your conduct is in order.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 10, 2011; 16:56 (UTC)

All those who supported this page as it stands should have been invited to challenge the policies with which it is incompatible, which include not only WP:COMMONNAME but WP:NPOV and WP:V. I trust they would have failed; they are welcome to try again. No local consensus can make guidance against policy acceptable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It is true that no local consensus can make guidance against policy acceptable. It is, however, not your place to decide whether it is the case. There are only two ways in which the incompatibility of a lower level guideline with a higher-level policy can be determined—the community discussion and the ArbComm decision. As a member of the Misplaced Pages community, you have the same right as anyone else to identify the problems and fix them in the articles, being mindful to the fact that if your identification is challenged, you will need to initiate a discussion nevertheless. You also have the same rights as anyone else to pinpoint the incompatibilities between the individual policies and guidelines. What you do not have a right to do with the guidelines is to unilaterally act on your own judgement—especially not when the discussion between other members of the community is ongoing. That is neither right nor civil. With that in mind, please revert your changes to the pages in question and kindly let others discuss the issue in a calm environment.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 12:56 (UTC)

Tsardom of ..

Hello Ezhiki. I've made another analysis (in my view, a more comprehensive one than Vmenkov's) on the usage of Tsardom of Russia vs. Tsardom of Russia. Could you please check this and write your opionion on the issue? Thank you very much. --Voyevoda (talk) 10:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for taking time to do that. I'll most certainly review the results. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 12:58 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:F to C

A tag has been placed on Template:F to C requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 17:20, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with this template being deleted.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 12:59 (UTC)

Irkutsk killings

With a fresh controversy over the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs case, could you help on what the words on Nikita Litkin's shirt mean or refer to? The image is here, the words are "Расчленённая ПугачОва". Could this be from a pop group or song, eg here? Thread at Talk:Dnepropetrovsk_maniacs#Copycat_case.3F.--♦IanMacM♦ 18:49, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll respond on that talk page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 13, 2011; 13:07 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:Km2 to mi2

A tag has been placed on Template:Km2 to mi2 requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Reopening a discussion

I want to reopen the discussion Naming_conventions_(Cyrillic)#Example_convention regarding bibliographic references because I think Unicode changes the game somewhat. Since you have participated in the same talk page, I hope you will visit the discussion and give me your opinions. Thanks! LADave (talk) 23:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I've left a comment there.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 20, 2011; 13:25 (UTC)

Yeniseysk and Tuva

Hi. In your article on the Yeniseysk Governorate, you claim that Tuva, as the Uryankhay Krai, was merged into the same administrative framework as Yeniseysk. What sources did you base this on if you don't my asking? All the ones I've seen assert that it was declared an autonomous protectorate of the Russian empire on 17 April 1914.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 05:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Hm. I remember that, for whatever reason, I wrote that article rather hastily, but I can verify that most of the information came from the source cited in the "References" section. That, however, would only be the post-1920 information. Where the pre-1920 stuff came from, I wouldn't remember if you put a gun to my head! Quite embarrassing, actually. I kinda sorta remember that it was something solid (i.e., not a random bit off the internets), but for the life of me I can't recall what it was, nor can I recall why in the world I didn't list that source along with the other.

Anyhoo, if you have sources attesting to the contrary of what that particular sentence states, then please by all means rephrase the sentence and cite your source. If I happen to stumble upon the material I used, I'll let you know. And sorry about the confusion!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 20, 2011; 13:33 (UTC)

I'm not gonna change it right now, but I don’t actually need any evidence to disprove a positive claim – you need evidence to prove it.

Reason I’m asking is because I'm currently involved in a collaborative online map project, and we found contradictory information on Tuva's status from 1914 to 1921. If it was declared an autonomous protectorate inside of the boundaries of the Russian empire (along the lines of Bukhara and Khiva presumably), it would seem rather strange that the Moscow authorities incorporated it into an adjacent province/gubernia, which suggests outright annexation.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 17:18, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, since I'm obviously as stumped about where the claim came from as you are, you can replace it with another positive claim and add evidence to back it up :)

As for Tuva's status, I may have some books about Tuva's history (with the emphasis on its administrative status, since this is the kind of books I collect) in storage, but it may take me a while to get there and look. If I find anything interesting that may be of help to you, I'll let you know. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 21, 2011; 17:30 (UTC)

Ok, thanks in advance.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 17:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Sveinald (Varangian warlord)

Hello! Could you move Sveinald (Varangian warlord) back to Sveneld. The latter title is more nice and simple, and the latter name is much more popular both in google hits and google book hits, even when searching English sources only, vs . GreyHood 16:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe it was obviously incorrectly moved without starting a move request. GreyHood 16:16, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about the "incorrectly" part, but the move is certainly unexplained. I've moved it back.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 22, 2011; 16:23 (UTC)

Thanks for the back move. I mean that it was incorrect technically (brackets addition to unambiguous title) and procedurally; by the way what's with the talk page? Talk:Sveneld (Varangian warlord) is attached to Sveneld and not to Talk:Sveneld. GreyHood 16:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

My screw-up. I'm taking care of it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 22, 2011; 16:32 (UTC)

Mariya Svistunova

Hello, This is an article which started as a very poor translation of an unidentified Russian text. It has been upgraded quite a lot since then but I found some problems with the Russian names as well as the dreadful translation. Forms of Russian names often have many Latin alphabet transliterations depending which European language has been used for the purpose. Many libraries use the ALA-LC romanization for Russian but I have not seen much sign of that in Misplaced Pages. Deciding how to change the names that were wrong was difficult.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Felix! We don't normally use ALA-LC romanization in Misplaced Pages because its use is mainly limited to the library catalogs and not to the actual publications. As for the spellings of people's names, we should stick to the spellings used in the sources being cited (I mean the sources in English, of course). If no such sources are available, we use this system (note that it is currently under discussion, but the discussion concerns only a few minor details). Let me know if you need anything further. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 15:27 (UTC)

Thank you, The history of that article Mariya Svistunova is very peculiar: when I began to edit it it was of disputed notability which I thought was a mistake. The first version includes sources like this:

Notes

↑ Peter S. Svistunov (1752-1808) ↑ Memoranda Alymova ↑ House Svistunov ↑ Russian portraits of 18-19 centuries. Т.3.Vyp.3. № 79. ↑ Russian portraits of 18-19 centuries. Т.3.Vyp.3.№ 78. ↑ Christin F. & La Princesse Tourkestanow. Lettres ecrites de Petersbourg et de Moscou: 1817-1819. Kristen Ferdinand and Princess Turkestanova , 1883 / / Russian Archive, 1882. ↑ А. J. Michael-Danilevsky. Notes of 1814-1815 years. — SPb, 1832.

↑ D. Fikelmon. Diary 1829-1837. The whole Pushkin's Petersburg, 2009 .- p.55 So I suppose it is a machine translation from a Cyrillic encyclopedia article but there is nothing to show the title or edition of the encyclopedia. (The advantage of the ALA-LC romanization is that it works well in both directions but it would be unsuitable for Misplaced Pages to adopt it as a standard.) I think these sources ought to be retained somehow. --Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 23:07, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't have access to any of these, unfortunately. From what I see, all these are originally in Russian (except, of course, the one in French), which means that for spelling guidance [[this page is your best bet (at least until you find anything relevant in English).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 13:35 (UTC)

Malaya Sadovaya street

• Коллега, не могли бы вы ознакомиться с этими двумя небольшими статьями, посвященными картинам русских художников Александра Семёнова и Николая Тимкова: Malaya Sadovaya street (painting) и Russian Winter. Hoarfrost (painting) и высказать здесь и здесь своё мнение по поводу целесообразности их удаления? Как я вижу, среди инициаторов удаления созданных 3 дня назад статей нет занимающихся русским искусством или хотя бы элементарно знающих язык. Статьи являются переводом статей, существующих в русском разделе Википедии: Малая Садовая (картина А. М. Семёнова) и Русская зима. Иней (картина Н. Тимкова) С Уважением, Leningradartist (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Я прокомментировал, но в будущем рекомендую вам не охотиться на участников поодиночке, а обращать внимание на подобные ситуации на WT:RUSSIA.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 15:12 (UTC)

Спасибо за совет. Сделал. Пока не хватает опыта в этих вопросах. Leningradartist (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

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Highlighting in the page history

Perhaps you could explain what the highlighting in pale colours is (as on My contributions to the Russian WP, Polish WP & Hungarian WP). As I do not know enough of those three languages to find an account of what those colours means either not knowing or consulting an editor who will know. I know there is a huge difference between us in time zones (here is GMT +1) so am quite patient.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 12:18, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

That the article's sighted version status. You wouldn't see these colors on the en_wiki because this feature is not implemented here. A pale yellow highlight means that the article needs to be sighted, while pale blue means that the article had already been sighted by someone. The exact implementation details may vary from one Misplaced Pages to another, but in general your edits will always be marked as unsighted in Wikipedias where you don't have an autoreviewer status, and you can do nothing to change that unless you have a reviewer status. The bottom line—you can safely ignore that highlighting :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 13:27 (UTC)

BlagovesHchensky, Russia

Blagoveschensky, Russia VS Blagoveshchensky Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:42, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a typo; I've fixed it. Thanks for catching it!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 17:49 (UTC)

Zyuzino

Maybe you can bring Zyuzino, Russia to SIA standard. The is also one locality in Belarus, so even under your system it would be ", Russia" at least after article creation for that one. But the SIAs don't ask for any article creation to exist, so maybe even under your system, knowledge of the Belarus entity is sufficient, independent of an article or entry in WP. Please no reply on my talk. This was just to inform you. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:10, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I have reformatted that one. As for your question, if I know for sure that a place by the same name exists outside Russia (whether we have an article on it or not), I always take that into consideration when naming the set on the Russian localities. Doing otherwise would just add to future maintenance for no good reason. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 13:55 (UTC)

Article importance script

I'm writing a script which would automatically insert article importance next to the article name on a task force page. I don't know how to write a bot, but an offline script should also work; one just needs to save the task force page on disk and then cut-paste the result back to WP :). You can see a test run here. As you can see, there are still some problems, but I hope I can fix them "soon". Any suggestions on what the script should do? Is format (just adding importance in parentheses at the end of the line) ok? Nanobear (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Some color-coding would be useful (perhaps it is enough to color-code the importance in parentheses). Also, it would be nice if the script could read the tags on page tops, such as clean-up, neutrality tags etc. and insert the relevant information next to importance. GreyHood 18:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, color-coding is a great idea. Any suggestions for the color scheme? Perhaps Top, High, Mid, Low. The tags could be mentioned in smaller text, not to make the page too distracting, like with Tags: npov, references, deadlinks. Nanobear (talk) 18:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Good, but the tags a bit too small. I'd propose this size and style: Tags: npov, references, deadlinks GreyHood 19:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Also I think the word "importance" could be dropped, Top, High, Mid, Low are just enough. GreyHood 19:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think finding and inserting all tags may not be feasible. There's a huge number of them, and one cannot just get all templates on top of the page, because that would also include stuff like infoboxen. If there was a way to get a list cleanup, neutrality, etc. tags directly through the API, it would work. I tried looking but did not find such a feature there. Maybe I could write a predefined list of, say, 10 main tags we want to be listed, like "npov", "unbalanced", "refimprove", "blp", etc. The question is, would it still be a useful feature with this limited list of tags it recognises? Nanobear (talk) 20:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Another test run: User:Nanobear/tftest. Does the coloring look good? Perhaps the font should be a bit larger or at least it should be in bold? If you spot any mistakes made by the script, I would be grateful. Nanobear (talk) 21:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think 10 main predefined tags would be enough. Coloring is quite good! Check the line with "Russian Amber Company" - it is a red link, so where from does it take importance? GreyHood 22:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the best way to check which tags are present in the article is to look in the hidden categories . The script now recognises these categories. I made another test run with the tags listed: User:Nanobear/tftest. Any comments? Does it look OK, and did I select the right categories? Nanobear (talk) 16:45, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Btw, was the style you suggested Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup or Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup? (The markup you mentioned was different from rendered text) Nanobear (talk) 17:21, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The last variants looks OK. A bit too many brackets, though. Maybe it is worth coloring those additional brackets as well, not sure. As for the style of tags its OK either way (perhaps grey is even better), the main point was the font size. GreyHood 18:25, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's a list of some possibilities:

• 1. Article (Top )(Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup)- current style
• 2. Article (Top; Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup) - two brackets less
• 3. Article (Top; Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup) - two brackets less; grey color
• 4. Article (Top) (Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup) - first brackets have same color as their content
• 5. Article (Top) (Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup) - all brackets have same color as content
• 5b. Article (Low) (Tags: NPOV, refs, cleanup) - all brackets have same color as content

Of these, I think 4 looks the best. I cannot think of a good way to have less brackets. 5 has the disadvantage, that everything is of same color if importance is low, as 5b shows. We can always change the style later. A new run of the script always just overwrites the old output.

The main problem is probably going to be that the script needs to be manually run each time; if we want to keep the task-force page always up-to-date, one needs to run the script after every addition. A more realistic scheme would be to run the script only once in a week. A way to make the updating quicker would be to write a PHP script instead, and add it to a web page. Then, one would simply enter the URL of the task force page to the web form, and would receive the updated page as copyable text, which can be pasted back to WP. For smaller updates, one could enter the name of the article you have added to the task force page, and the script would give its importance and tags. The problem is, I don't have a web server with PHP support. Nanobear (talk) 19:17, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree, #4 is the best variant. As for the running issues, let's wait for Ezhiki's advice or perhaps ask some bot-runners, such as User:Alex Bakharev. GreyHood 19:35, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I have to admit that most of the technical stuff related to this is way over my head (I don't know PHP and never learned just how it is exactly the bots operate), so I'm afraid I'm not of much help in that area. We need a willing bot owner to run this, because running this manually every week is not a practical solution, I know that much :)

As for the variants, I also like #4 best.

All in all, great job! I think automating this task was a great idea, and the implementation is pretty good, too.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 14:50 (UTC)

Indeed, doing it manually is not a solution at all. GreyHood 15:21, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

NCRUS - DAB populates places

I started a WP:NCRUS related vote at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Remove Russia-specific clause and apply general rules. It would simply mean to remove the "Dikson (urban-type settlement)"-rule and would result in Dikson, Russia by applying the general Misplaced Pages rules. I hope we can at least agree on that one. Especially for "urban-type settlement" I see only five or so articles that would fall under the clause anyway. For "rural locality" I couldn't find a number.

I agree with your move http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Shamkhal,_Russia&diff=437870425&oldid=437373607 - I made a mistake here, applying the subdivision name, but that is not supported by the rules. Sorry. Again, no need to reply on my talk. This was just to inform you. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:52, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

And once someone writes an article about the port called Dikson, "Dikson, Russia" will be referring to... what? And the article about the urban-type settlement will be moved to... where?

As for Shamkhal, no problem.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 14:39 (UTC)

How would you name the articles on the settlement and on the port if there would be Dikson, Belarus? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:12, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Using parenthetical disambiguators, of course (in addition to country specifier when necessary). This applies to Shamkhal, by the way, since there is a railway station called Shamkhal (although we don't yet have an article about it).

My point is that no guideline will ever cover every possibility, and the more possibilities you try to document, the longer and less usable are the instructions. Look at the length of your proposed NCRUS—just how, may I ask, does it "reduce instruction creep" (which was the whole point of your original proposal)? Instead of three simple rules covering most cases you now have kilobytes of instructions which still don't cover all cases!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 16:22 (UTC)

It is you who invented a massive set of rules. But you have them in your head and didn't write them all down. I only documented what I found you have put into several pages. And I found it was inconsistent. You have to compare all your rules with all rules that would result from my proposals, i.e. written down + your head VS written down as proposed by me. But lets stay at the topic, how would you call the Dikson articles? Please write down the links, as I cannot see what you mean. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:31, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

You know, I'm actually the person who works on these articles most. When I create an article, it needs to go under some title, and no one else will name it for me. And it makes sense to name new articles the same way as the articles that already exist. At some point, it makes sense to document the general trends of how these articles are titled, hence the three simple rules we have. That's really the only way to do things when no one else cares much about the work being done but generally agrees that the work is good and necessary. You wouldn't expect me to wait five years to start creating articles just because there is no one else around to discuss the "naming rules", would you?

Also, the existing rules aren't just in my head; they are actually implemented and can be observed. Note that no one is expected to follow the rules in every little detail you have so far documented—if the three major clauses don't cover a situation neatly, then one may use whatever works in that particular situation. Hence most of the "inconsistencies" which you've found. Some of them can be fixed, some can't, but it doesn't mean that we should replace the three rules with pages and pages of instructions covering every possible situation! The guidelines are supposed to provide general guidance, not step-by-step instructions on how to handle every possible combination of entities we may ever face. And the three general rules allow for more flexibility than two.

To answer your question about Shamkhal, there are multiple ways to handle the situation. If I were faced with this task today, I'd place the articles at "Shamkhal, Iran", "Shamkhal (urban-type settlement), Russia", and "Shamkhal railway station". However, I'd use this setup not because some rules tell me to do it just this way, but because no existing rule covers this situation neatly and this particular approach works reasonably well. If a better way is found, the three articles can always be re-named, but it doesn't mean that we need to add a separate rule to cover the situation of this type.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 17:07 (UTC)

Even if you are the only editor, you should follow WP rules. And if there is no need for Russia specific rules, you shouldn't invent too much. Shamkhal, Russia and Shamkhal railway station see Category:Railway stations in Russia, would be sufficient. Railway stations mostly don't go under the plain name. The only articles the almost always go without the type are localities. They use comma and that's it. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

There are no rules to follow in this area; there are only guidelines to help editors make a choice. Again, these are guidelines, not policies. When the guidelines are inadequate (which in this example they are), it's perfectly alright to make an exception or to use whatever makes sense at the moment. As long as readers can find the article, it's all fine. And if it can be found easier under a certain title without having to click through several pages, it's even better. There's no need to re-write the guidelines for that, especially if the re-written version will no longer conform with the real state of the matters!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 17:35 (UTC)

But you are enforcing your self-made "guidelines" on others . As long as readers can find the article, it's all fine. - Why then, you make so much drama? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:58, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Because it's easier to find an article about an urban-type settlement when it is labeled as such instead of generic "Russia", especially when the other entity is also in Russia? The title needs to be disambiguated anyway, so what use is there in choosing a less specific disambiguator? Just because a generic guideline tells us so? Do we not have our own heads to think with?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 18:06 (UTC)

But lakes almost ever use the word "lake" in the name. The comma is very much pointing that the article is about a locality. And, there can be other settlements called Khasan, e.g. Khasan, Pakistan. WP is far from being complete. Shield the articles from the need for moving around in the next 10 years, by applying ", Russia" in cases where a disambiguator is needed anyway already. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 18:24, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

It's "pointing" for you and me, not your average Joe seeking to find info about "something called X in Russia". If Joe is looking for "X Mountain" in Russia, a list such as "X Lake", "X (cake)", "X, Russia" isn't even telling him that we don't have an article about the mountain; it'll just lead him to click through "X, Russia" and be disappointed. A list such as "X Lake", "X (cake)", "X (rural locality)" at least makes it abundantly clear that we have nothing about the mountain. Similarly, if a Jane looking for the Russian village, the first list gives her no clues that the entry she seeks is the last one, while the second list makes the selection immediately obvious. All in all, you are sacrificing readers' convenience just to prevent us from moving an article on the off-chance something else pops up. That's just wrong.

And if another place, outside of Russia, turns up, then of course the articles will need to be moved and the disambig page edited accordingly, but I don't see the current rules interfering with that process at all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 18:44 (UTC)

So, how come...

...I didn't get an invitation? Canvassing is a sin, you know...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 18:49 (UTC)

What is else is the above than an invite? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 19:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)