Talk:Administrative divisions of Moscow Oblast

OKATO

i am strongly again of using okato... like with moscow it is not common rule and people mostly use local division types (khimki district for example). moscow province is not administred from moscow, just main offices located in moscow. so i think it's kind of incorrect phrase... Elk Salmon 00:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with OKATO—it's an official, active, regularly updated government document that describes the current system of administrative division of Russia. This article, and indeed the whole series, is not intended to cover common knoweledge ("what people use" and "common rules", as you say). It is only intended to cover the material which is verifiable. If you have access to reliable sources describing traditional view on this oblast's administrative divisions, by all means use them to write an article that would parallel one—I'll be the first to encourage you. If not, I suggest that you come up with better arguments than "this is not what people in the streets think, so it's wrong". We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a compendium of laymen's opinions. Regards,—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 04:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Selsoviets

What with selsoviets? All administrative division on selsoviet level was changed (see Russian WP). Bogomolov.PL 13:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Note this article is called "administrative divisions of Moscow Oblast". The corresponding article in the Russian Wikipedia deals with municipal divisions. A selsoviet in Moscow Oblast is the unit of administrative division, while the corresponding unit of municipal division is a rural settlement (сельское поселение). The articles in en_wiki and ru_wiki are interwikied because there is no closer match, but both articles are incomplete. For an example of complete article on the subject, see administrative divisions of Adygea/update.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Administrative division of RF has 1 level - RF subject. The Soviet system was called soviet because rayon level was administrative level, city, selsovet state administrative level also. Till 1993 everything began change. State administration (and adminstrative division) stops on oblast/kray/republic level, the rest - cities, rayons etc - municipal division. That is why Russian WP tells us about municipal division only. Term "selsovet" is only in traditional use, not official, you see. Bogomolov.PL 06:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but that is not correct. First of all, federal subjects are not administrative divisions; they are constituent units of the Federation. Administrative units start at federal subject level, and they are set by each federal subject independently. Furthemore, administrative units are different from the municipal ones in that that the former are a frame within which federal government and government of a federal subject operate, and the latter are merely a form of local self-government. Municipal units do not have rights to perform functions reserved for the federal subject government (unless such rights have explicitly been granted to them); that's the prerogative of the administrative units' organs. Finally, both administrative and municipal structures are regulated by independent laws. "Selsoviets" (or equivalent units) do still exist in many federal subjects as administrative units of the lowest level. As to Moscow Oblast, if you look at the article closer, you'll see that's the only source used was OKATO. As of today, OKATO still lists selsoviets as the lowest level of administrative division of Moscow Oblast. Considering that the last OKATO's update came out over eight months ago, the current revision does not take into account any legislative documents issued since then. I am, however, hesitant to make any changes until I have sources describing exactly what happened and when. If you can make changes and support them with sources, go right ahead and do so, but please don't change anything based solely on the unsourced list in the Russian Wikipedia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It is great surprise for me: parallel municipal and administrative (different!) division presence. I was sure (see http://mosobl.elcode.ru/zip/005/005120.zip) it is NO selsoviets officially. Show me official document with selsoviets - I don't know any at all legal now. Rostov oblast does not have any selsoviets (http://www.donland.ru/content/info.asp?partId=5&infoId=6978&topicFolderId=33&topicInfoId=0), but we are talking about Moscow oblast administrative divisions, isn't it? Bogomolov.PL 14:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Surprised? Why? OK, selsoviets vs. municipal rural settlements may be one thing, but municipal districts are created on the basis of administrative districts, didn't you know that already?

Anyway, I did a bit of research on the subject of Moscow Oblast, and yes, you are correct about the selsoviets here. However, I don't believe I made myself clear above, so please let me reiterate. When I first started the "administrative divisions of..." series, all the data came from the OKATO. At the time, OKATO was updated more or less regularly, so it was a convenient and reasonably reliable source. Now, of course, it's different—the last update came out over eight months ago, and even at that time quite a few uncorrected discrepancies had accumulated. So, with the frame of the series completed, I started to bring the individual articles in the list up to date. So far, however, I only managed to complete Adygea, and started working on Tatarstan. Being only one person, and one dedicated to the highest quality output, I can only do so much; and this task is extremely time-consuming. While I enhance the articles one by one, the rest remain in place untouched. Since they are all based on the most recent edition of OKATO, they are only as good as that last edition. What this means, is that while they may not take into consideration the most recent updates, all their contents are sourced—readers will not find any single unsourced statement. The fact that the source is out-of-date is the problem of the source, not the problem of the article.

Now, since Moscow Oblast bothers you so much, I will overhaul the article next week taking into consideration all legislative documents of Moscow Oblast on the subject of administrative and territorial division which are not accounted for by OKATO. Appropriate sources will be added so we don't have to rely on unsourced list in the Russian Wikipedia alone. Deal?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Step forward. Now you agree with selsoviet absence. But you clame: "municipal districts are created on the basis of administrative districts, didn't you know that already?" I never clamed different opinion, this fact is wellknown, and I don't understant your question reasons. You say:"Administrative units start at federal subject level, and they are set by each federal subject independently", so you need use lokal (oblast/krai/republic) legal sources (local laws), but not OKATO - it has no law power.

One more nota bene. I'm one person also, but I've prepared list with every urban okrug, urban/rural poselenie areas, population using local laws. If you need this information - I will provide you. But I'm deeply in Mongolia administrative division project now. But now you know on-line Moskow oblast laws source, so you don't need wait till OKATO will make update. We are talking about Moscow oblast administrative division, isn't it? Bogomolov.PL 15:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I did not disagree with you about the selsoviet absence; I merely stated that selsoviet are in the article because they are listed in the source used for the article. Again, the article is only as good as its source—it may not be current, but it is most definitely not wrong. I also never claimed that OKATO was above local laws—it is merely a statistical reference. It was, however, compiled based on the local laws. The fact that people in charge of compiling it did not always do the best job keeping it up-to-date is unfortunate, but to claim that OKATO should be discarded altogether is not right either.

In any case, I am overjoyed to find out that you work on this from the other end. Had I started from the municipal divisions and not from the administrative ones, I would have probably already had a "municipal divisions of..." series as well. Now I am trying to join the two, and Moscow Oblast's turn isn't up yet. This is not to say I don't welcome help, but it is my unfortunate experience that so far none of the folks who complained about the series being "wrong" actually volunteered to provide any kind of assistance. Having heard a good share of "fix it now it is wrong hahaha"-type of complaints in the past few years, I hope you'll forgive me if I sounded not entirely pleased to hear more of the same complaints over and over again.

Anyway, I do have access to complete list of municipal units for the federal subjects, but I will most certainly contact you if I see that anything of what I have is incomplete. As I previously said, I'll edit this particular article next week. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

My position in WP is: WE need to diskuss problem presence. If problem exists (in our common opinion) we need find how to resolve it. Did I clamed your opinion "wrong"? No. I have different opinion, but I don't edit article if you, the Author, have different opinion. Discussion page is wright place for such kind of job. May be I'm wrong? It is possible. I am not pointing you, but trying help you. So let's tell about my questions and your arguments, not about anonimous critics. I want help you to make the article better, not more. Bogomolov.PL 17:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I offended you in any way; it was not my intent. What I was trying to point out is that while I know perfectly well that the article needs to be improved and how exactly it needs to be done, I cannot upgrade all articles at once as at the moment I am working on something else. I will update this article next week since its not being current is obviously bothering you, but you are very welcome to do it yourself without having to wait, if you have time and inclination. I am the authour, but I don't own this article—anybody can edit it. All I ask is if you choose to edit it, please take into consideration how the whole series is laid out. Are we good now? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, it should be current now. Feel free to re-check, that wouldn't hurt. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

What you mean "current"? In references list is no sources actual in 2007.04. Now what with rural settlements? Now article content is urban settlements list only. Do you believe administrative division stops on urban settlements level? If so, why you put rural settlements (inhabited and no) numbers? Most actual on-line list with population (and zero population) data 2006.08 is [1] You've dissolved selsoviets and what instead? I was sure in Soviet period RF had 3 administrative division levels: oblast/district/town,ПГТ,selsoviet. In most primitive topic (with AO, city districts etc. it was more complex). The idea was - officially - selfgoverning state system from selsoviet, ПГТ, town bottom level thru district to oblast and RF on top. Every selsoviet was state power institution. It was "soviet power" idea. What now? Oblast is administrated with official state institutions (governor + oblast's federal government lokal institutions). Oblast budget is RF state budget part. But what districts, towns, rural settlements? They are municipal units of two types: top level municipal districts (urban okrugs) have bottom level municipalities inside, bottom level urban and rural poselenie is atomic and district part. Bogomolov.PL 13:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Administrative division of Moscow Oblast actually stops on the level of districts and cities/towns under the oblast's jurisdiction; all units below (towns in jurisdiction of the districts, urban-type settlements, rural settlements, and rural localities) are territorial. Thus, while the list is called "administrative divisions of Moscow Oblast", it actually goes slightly beyond that definition, because I also included all territorial units except rural settlements and rural localities. If the list were called "administrative and territorial divisions of Moscow Oblast", only then it would have been incomplete, with missing rural entities.

Now, as the list is intended to be a temporary solution, it is why I did not calculate and list the number of rural localities (сельские населённые пункты) by district. The historical numbers from 2002 (which are clearly marked as "not current") should do for now, unless you are willing to calculate more current numbers yourself. Same goes for the (administrative) rural settlements (сельские поселения)—you are more than welcome to add them if you are so inclined, but I don't have time to work on Moscow Oblast now. In all other ways the list is absolutely current (as of today), as the laws the material is based on are current. The easiest way to alleviate your concerns would be to add a blurb in the beginning describing all types of units of administrative and territorial units of Moscow Oblast and noting that rural-level territorial units are not included in the list. I will gladly do that if that finally makes you feel better.

As for your little lecture on how federal subjects are governed, you (accidentally, I hope) left out the detail describing the difference between the administrative districts (through which government powers are chanelled) and the municipal districts (which are a form of local self-government). Budget-related distinctions are very important and indeed the most visible part of this separation, but there is more to this than budgets. Whenever a piece of legistlature dealing with local administrative units is passed, the federal and federal subject governments act on the level of administrative divisions, not municipal ones. When government deals with emergencies, it does so within the boundaries of administrative units, not municipal ones. Just because borders of municipal units match those of administrative units does not make the two concepts identical. Indeed, municipal formations do not have to match the borders of administrative units; the reason they do in real life is because it is convenient.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:39, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Federal and oblast level administration officially state power administration are. You agree, I hope. Federal and oblast property only are the state property. Can you find official state power body on district level? Budget and property on district level are municipal, administration also. You can find only police dept etc. on disrict level, but no state power institutions.

When I asked you about urban-type settlements etc. you said actual article content "actually goes slightly beyond" even your administrative division definition. After that you invite me to complete rural settlements, which will be strongly beyond any administrative division definition. No problem, but for me is important to be precise with definitions. You put emphasis on this: "If the list were called "administrative and territorial divisions of Moscow Oblast", only then it would have been incomplete, with missing rural entities" - you say. May be you want acticle name changing? If you want add rural settlements (this units are "territorial" in your opinion) you need article name changing. Bogomolov.PL 06:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you find official state power body on district level? I most certainly can. Examples include military registration and draft (военкоматы), marriage registration (ЗАГСы), social assistance (пенсии и т.п.), and, yes, militsiya, which you for some reason excluded from "state power institutions". Some of these functions can be legally "outsourced" by state power to the municipal bodies, but when it happens, each and every case is regulated and legislated separately. By default, these functions are out of jurisdiction of municipal governments.

After that you invite me to complete rural settlements, which will be strongly beyond any administrative division definition. Since you yourself strongly advised my to switch to primary sources instead of using OKATO, and since I followed your advise, I find it strange that you are now questioning the possibility of inclusion of the rural settlements. That very same Law #20/119 currently used as a source explicitly states that a "rural settlement [is] a territorial unit". My suggestion was that if you want to improve this article, you could include missing territorial units and maybe municipal units (and yes, renaming the article after that's done would be a good idea).

[T]his units are "territorial" in your opinion. Not (solely) in my opinion. They are "territorial" by the definition of the law I quoted above.

Just so we are on the same line, here is a summary (as per the applicable laws of Moscow Oblast): administrative units include districts and cities/towns under the oblast's jurisdiction; territorial units include districts, cities/towns (regardless of jurisdiction), urban-type settlements, closed localities, rural settlements, and rural localities; municipal units include (municipal) districts, (municipal) urban okrugs, (municipal) urban settlements, and (municipal) rural settlements. Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

When I asked you about official state power body on district level I meant: is district administration state one?. Answer is negative. Are state instiutions on district level? - Positive, are. You can find police dept etc. (your institutions list is more complete). Does state institutions presence make municipal administration state one? - Negative. Are on district level two administrations - state and municipal? No. Is district administrative division unit?

From the discussion beginning I was on position 1) "selsoviet" term is out of date and 2) selsoviet in modern definition is rural poselenie and is not administrative division unit. I sent to you Moscow oblast's law link, you erased selsoviets. But this law is not on references list, à propos. Then I asked you why you want rural settlements in administrative division list, if even you agree they are not administrative units, you tell me: not only me, but law says that districts, okrugs, urban and rural poselenies are territorial units. So, I repeate my question: "Is necessary to change article name to administrative-territorial division? Only in article with this name is reasonable place territorial units also. Bogomolov.PL 14:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Does state institutions presence make municipal administration state one? - Negative. I never said that it would. Administrative and municipal districts are two separate concepts, the former dealing with the territorial organization of state power, and the latter—with the issues of local self-government. Both concepts are legally separate, and that's exactly the point I am trying to convey in both this article and in this discussion.

Are on district level two administrations - state and municipal? No. True, but I don't see your point. Just because there is no "state district administration" does not mean that administrative districts do not exist.

Then I asked you why you want rural settlements in administrative division list, if even you agree they are not administrative units, you tell me: not only me, but law says that districts, okrugs, urban and rural poselenies are territorial units "Rural settlements" is a term that refers to both territorial units (as per the law on administrative-territorial organization of Moscow Oblast) and municipal units (as per the law on general principles of organization of local self-government). The definition of a rural settlement as a territorial unit is "an agglomeration of several rural localities sharing a common territory, the borders of which coincide with the borders of a municipal formation with the status of a rural settlement". As you can see, both are related, but not the same. Municipal divisions are currently out of scope of this article.

So, I repeate my question: "Is necessary to change article name to administrative-territorial division? And I in turn will repeat as well: the way the article is now, it is not necessary (although possible) to change its name. Currently it lists all administrative and some territorial units, i.e. it covers a bit more than the title suggests. Once you add rural settlements and rural localities, only then the list will include all administrative and territorial units, so renaming would make sense. If you additionally include municipal units (urban okrugs, urban settlements, and rural settlements), then the article will have to be renamed once again, to something like "administrative, territorial, and municipal divisions of Moscow Oblast". I don't know how to explain this any better.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

When you declare difference between territorial and miunicipal division you need make comment in WP article. You said: "that's exactly the point I am trying to convey in both this article and in this discussion". I'm confused - where, where in this article you did this explanation?

Your article in fact is administrative (68 pcs) and territorial (119 pcs) units list only. You are sure 119 "covers a bit more than the title suggests" and so it's no need article renaming. Compare: 68 administrative units vs 119 territorial. Is 119 "bit more"?. It is not enough? I'm sure author's comment is necessary. 119 cities and urban-type settlements look like administrative division units, is it correct? How it is possible to recognize this difference? How far is possible go out of this article title?

Why you are naming work settlements with common name urban-type, but dacha settlements with official name? Work settlement is official definition, but urban-type is not in official use.

If we agree to change article title, we need add rural settlements list. Is it reasonable to add rural localities numbers? And a lot of cities administrate rural localities (up to 84 for Dmitrov). Bogomolov.PL 12:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

What's with the nitpicking? By "a bit more" I meant that, in addition to administrative units, the article includes some (but not all) types of territorial units as well. Of course, when you count them individually piece by piece, it may not seem like "a bit". As far as the "explanation" goes, to me it is pretty self-explanatory that if an article is titled "administrative divisions", then it very likely does not include municipal units.

119 cities and urban-type settlements look like administrative division units, is it correct? Not entirely. If you scroll above (or read the text of the laws yourself), you'll see exactly what's covered by the definitions of "administrative", "territorial", and "municipal". Let's not go in circles, please.

How it is possible to recognize this difference? By looking at the definitions provided in the law, perhaps?

How far is possible go out of this article title? As far as consensus permits. So far we don't seem to have any.

Why you are naming work settlements with common name urban-type, but dacha settlements with official name? Work settlements are the most common type of urban-type settlements and the terms are often used synonymously. Feel free to amend if this bothers you.

Work settlement is official definition, but urban-type is not in official use. Incorrect. According to the law of Moscow Oblast On Administrative-Territorial Division (and, in fact, of many other federal subjects), "urban-type settlement" is a territorial unit, of which there are two types: work settlements and suburban (dacha) settlements (in some federal subjects "resort settlements" are also recognized as a third type).

If we agree to change article title, we need add rural settlements list. Is it reasonable to add rural localities numbers? Isn't this what I've been trying to say from day one? If you want to add rural localities and/or rural settlements, or their numbers, go right ahead. If I knew this discussion would take so long, I would have added them myself already.

Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, urban-type is a category, but type can be work, dacha, resort. Qestion is: why one is called with category name, an other one - with type? If type is in use - all ПГТ would be work or dacha. If category - all of them would be urban-type with no distinction. First one (type) is better. Or it is possible make footnote that dacha are urban-type also, and urban-type are work.

"Nitpicking" - article reader does not know that units listed are not administrative units only. I'm not talking about me and you, but about WP customer. It is not comfortable for him(she) look into Russian references and study Russian laws, isn't it? I'm understanding that my proposition changes this kind of articles cliché, but may be I have some reason?

I never made massive editing in WP, but I'll try with rural settlements. Bogomolov.PL 16:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Qestion is: why one is called with category name, an other one - with type? I already answered this (see above about synonyms). Once again, you are more than welcome to amend the terminology for consistency as the point is very valid.

[A]rticle reader does not know that units listed are not administrative units only. Another valid point. This article, however, just as any other article in Wikipedia, is a work in progress; a great deal of work is required to significantly improve it. I am working on improving them, but like I previously said, I cannot improve them all overnight. Hell, it took me and another editor several months to upgrade a similar list on Adygea, and it is still not finished! So, if you have time and desire to improve this particular article before I get to it, by all means do it. I think by now we have addressed all misunderstandings. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

-sky

I wonder why not say "Kashira District" etc. rather than "Kashirsky District"? Is there an English-language tradition of such naming of Russian raions? Ivan Volodin (talk) 20:45, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no English-language tradition per se; the current naming convention is a combination of romanization guidelines and common English usage (or, more precisely, lack thereof). "Kashirsky District", for example, maps back to "Каширский район" very easily, "Kashira District" does not. Imagine a reader who wants to find an article about a particular district—with current conventions all he needs to do is to romanize the district name to arrive to the destination; with your proposal, he would need to know the name of the administrative center and then somehow guess the name of the district. With Kashirsky District, he would need to know that the administrative center is Kashira, which is only slightly more complicated (but already more complicated than "Kashirsky"!). With Lukhovitsky District, he would have to know that the administrative center is called "Lukhovitsy", not "Lukhovitsa", and Leninsky District he may not find at all.

Equally important are the concerns around "common English usage". According to WP:UE, we are supposed to use the names which are established in the English language. When no such names are clearly established (which is the case for pretty much all of Russia's districts), other guidelines kick in. In case with Russia, the romanization guideline is WP:RUS, which lays down a very clear scheme guiding the way names of Russian places are to be named. In full accordance with that guideline, all districts are named with "-sky".

Another thing to consider is how these titles fall into the overall naming scheme already in place in Wikipedia. Being a consistency freak, I am proud to inform that 100% consistency rate was achieved in this area :) There are virtually hundreds of inter-related articles and disambiguation pages which rely on the current naming scheme. Changing that for just one federal subject is simply going to wreak havoc into the neat organization, and changing that for all federal subjects is not only an enormous time-waster, but also does not work for the reasons I outlined above.

Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any further questions.

On an unrelated subject, I would like to thank you for the time you took to overhaul this article. I just wanted to point out that unlike the Russian Wikipedia we do not favor municipal divisions over administrative ones, so both aspects should be included. For tips on how to bring both aspects together in one article, you can take a look at administrative and municipal divisions of Adygea. I realize that not all formatting choices made there are going to work here (if only because there are so many more entities in Moscow Oblast than there are in Adygea), but the overall trend should be clear. For this particular article, in my opinion, it would be best to incorporate both administrative and municipal divisions into one table, with administrative divisions in the left column, municipal divisions in the right column, and differences between the two pointed out in the middle column. Of course, if you have better ideas, no one prevents us from trying them out as well! For now, I restored the administrative divisions section and moved the municipal divisions down.

Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:18, December 22, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations and for the acknoledgements. In fact, I don't really agree with the transliteration argument, as an English-language reader would most probably be unable to read Russian. If you try to search Google for "Kashira district" [2] and "Kashirsky district" [3] you will see the difference. And it works even for Lukhovitsy [4] [5] and Pavlovsky Posad! [6] [7] It was impossible to check Leninsky district since there are too many of them across Russia. I think the logic should be the opposite: for an English speaker it is often impossible to figure out the adjective form of a district name if he knows the name of the centre. I am also thinking of other languages: in French, arrondissement de Kachira would sound much better than arrondissement Kachirsky, and also correspond to the naming of French administrative divisions. This goes for Spanish and Italian as well, as far as I can imagine. The only important argument is consistency through Wikipedia.

On administrative and municipal divisions, I will try to make a single table. Need to think how to do it the best way. Ivan Volodin (talk) 19:05, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Consistency through Wikipedia: Moscow (Twer, Tula) oblast (not Moskovskaya, Tverskaya, Tulskaya oblast), why with districts we have a different naming principle? Polish divisions are Łódź Voivodeship (not Łódzkie Voivodeship) and subdivisions as Sieradz County (not Sieradzki county).Bogomolov.PL (talk) 11:09, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

To Bogomolov: the answer to your question is WP:RUS (conventionality criteria). In short—"Tula Oblast" (Тульская область) is conventional English usage (check just about any major English dictionary/encyclopedia), while "Tula District" (Тульский район) is not (too obscure), hence it is romanized.

Long answer (to both Bogomolov and Ivan). First of all, I am sorry I was not particularly clear in my previous comment. The explanations I supplied merely provided (some of) the rationale behind the current practices, but I failed to emphasize that the practices themselves are the direct result of the application of WP:RUS, a Wikipedia guideline governing the conversion of Russian names into English. In brief, for place names, we check the leading English-language reference sources to determine the “common name”, and when a particular place name is not listed in such sources (because of its obscurity), we use romanization (the technical side of romanization is also described in the guideline). Please note that the guideline explicitly states not to rely on search engine results alone; the reasons for that are numerous.

Lest you are under impression that this particular guideline is merely a collection of someone’s personal preferences, I assure you that it is not. It is, as a matter of fact, a result of numerous painful discussions and heated arguments which took place over the course of several years. You can get a glimpse of those discussions by looking at the guideline’s talk page and also on WP:CYR (be warned, the discussion there goes on and on and on and on, sometimes in full circles). The existing guidelines are thus the end result of reconciling numerous suggestions with Wikipedia’s goals and practices, and I believe they achieve a great balance between common usage, translation, and romanization. After the guidelines were implemented the number of time-wasting conflicts around the choice of the romanization system and the definition of “common usage” dropped significantly (in fact, for the past year yours is the first serious inquiry regarding the possibility of making large-scale changes).

All that said, I also would like to point out that no Wikipedia guideline, no matter how well-established it seems to be, is set in stone forever. One can always challenge anything; it is one of the rights of Wikipedia’s editors. So, if you don’t mind me giving an advice to you, here is a friendly one regarding how to go about the change should that be something you want to seriously pursue. First of all, in order to unseat an existing guideline you will need to offer the community a counter-proposal--that is, a new guideline that will replace the existing one. While that is the only step that is required, you should, of course, be prepared for possible questions, the most important of which will be regarding the exact advantages of the new system over the existing one (i.e., what existing problem is the new system going to fix?). Other possible questions you might want to consider are whether all problem areas covered by the existing guideline are going to be covered by the new guideline, whether the advantages of the new guideline are going to be sufficient to justify the time required to implement it, whether it is possible that the new system would introduce new problems (how would, say, Prigorodny District be named under it and why?), who precisely is going to do the actual conversion to the new system (in this particular case, we are talking about hundreds of heavily interlinked articles and disambiguation pages and possibly thousands of redirects, not to mention editors and readers who are already accustomed to the existing naming scheme), and how long that conversion is going to take. These, as you see, are all serious concerns that need to be addressed. If you do not foresee yourself as being able to address them, then the proposal would be very unlikely to pass.

Anyway, while I, as you might have already guessed, am strongly against any sweeping changes in the area of Russian place names, please understand that despite that I am quite willing to help you with the processes outlined above, providing you can commit to seeing it through (and realize that there are many more things to consider here besides those few you pointed out above). I don’t doubt that improvements can be made to the existing system, but I assure you that the most obvious ones have not been implemented for very good reasons--because they break something else that is not that obvious but still important. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:42, December 25, 2008 (UTC)

What you are afraid of is an edits warring and/or discussion revival. My question was about a consistency through English Wikipedia. Polish en:wiki team solution looks more natural from English language naming principles POV, I guess, but different approaches in the same wiki makes it inconsistent, I see. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:48, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, I don't want to see edit warring over this ever again (you weren't around or very active at the time, but the number of manhours that was wasted on this seemingly trivial matter is simply astonishing). At any rate, WP:RUS is actually pretty consistent in its approach—if a place has a conventional name, that name is used (in full accordance with WP:UE), if no conventional name can be (easily) established, then romanization is used. The definition of a "conventional name" is also given, so there is no problem here as well. What can be more consistent than that? With Ivan's suggestion implemented, we will have to re-invent every single name, and any of those names might still be later questioned by someone else with "better ideas". And how exactly is, say, "Kashira District" better than "Kashirsky District"? First, neither version can be said to be more "conventional" than the other. Second, for those who don't know Russian it doesn't really make a difference either way, but for those who do it is much easier to simply romanize the Russian name to get to the target article than to play guessing games as to how we decided to name the article. Even with Kashirsky District, if we name districts after their administrative centers, one would have to know beforehand whether the administrative center of Kashirsky District is called "Kashira", "Kashirsk", "Kashiry", or something else entirely. Needless to say, if one wants to find out what the administrative center of the district actually is, a construct like "Kashira District" makes it virtually impossible to find out, unless an overly complex system of redirects is implemented.

Like I said before, other approaches, different from the existing one, are most certainly possible (your pl-wiki example, for one, illustrates that). What I am advocating against here is not eradicating possible good ideas for improvement, but rather a complete overhaul which brings dubious, if any, advantages. The current system had been discussed in the past by numerous editors, agreed upon, implemented, and is already in place, covering no less than 99% of applicable material, and is, let me add with all undue modesty, working simply marvelously. Switching to something else (and untested something else at that) would be like deciding to change an engine on a space shuttle that has already been launched to outer space—it's only a good idea if the engine completely dies, which is not the case in our situation. There simply exists no problem serious enough to be fixed, especially using such radical methods as complete overhaul. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:11, December 26, 2008 (UTC)

Frankly speaking, I am not convinced at all. "Kashira district" does not contradict the naming conventions since "Каширский" is not a geographical name in itself but rather the word used to describe the district that belongs to Kashira in accordance with the Russian language requirements. To follow your logic and to romanize fully, we need to say "Kashirsky Rayon".

"if we name districts after their administrative centers, one would have to know beforehand whether the administrative center of Kashirsky District is called "Kashira", "Kashirsk", "Kashiry", or something else entirely" - Yes and no. This situation may only occur to someone who already knows that the district is called "Kashirsky". But I believe the opposite situation is much more frequent: one knows the town of Kashira and wants to read about its district. How would he/she arrive at "Kashirsky" unless he/she is a Russian-speaker?

" Needless to say, if one wants to find out what the administrative center of the district actually is, a construct like "Kashira District" makes it virtually impossible to find out" - This is something I completely fail to understand.

Finally, WP:SET, advising not to rely only on search engines, accepts that they are a serious source of information. I bet if Moscow Oblast was administered by the UK or the US, or if districts were slightly more important and more often mentioned in English-language sources, it would be "Kashira District" that would be used officially, just like it is the case with Moscow Oblast rather than Moskovskaya Oblast.

But well, if you say the matter has been broadly discussed, be it as it is. Not that it is the most important problem for myself or for Wikipedia. I would appreciate a link to the discussions though. And, frankly, if the system was working marvelously, there should have been redirects such as Solnechnogorsk District->Solnechnogorsky District. Ivan Volodin (talk) 16:50, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

To follow your logic and to romanize fully, we need to say "Kashirsky Rayon". Here is another example where one needs to dig really, really deep to understand the intricacies of issues of romanization, translation, and common use. The name of the district (administrative, not municipal!), in Russian, is not "Каширский район", as you seem to imply; it is "Каширский", while "район" is simply an indication/description of what the entity is. The word "район" translates as "district", hence that's the term we use in the article's title ("raion", by the way, could be used as well, because it is an English loanword; "district" was chosen simply because it is much better understood by Anglophones and, unlike the possible choice of "province" for "oblast", it does not introduce mass-scale confusion. But I digress). The name of the district (which is "Каширский"), on the other hand, does not a have a conventional English translation (it is no "Москва", which is easily translated as "Moscow"). Per WP:UE#No established usage, when no established English use exists for a name, guidelines specific for the language in question kick in. For Russian, such guideline is WP:RUS, which, after going through some more common use-related checks and balances described in the "Conventional names" section, produces "Kashirsky" as the end result. The rationale behind this was that if a place is so obscure that no established English usage exists, then the most possible source which the Anglophones can reference to find it would be a map/an atlas. Since all maps/atlases use romanization when listing Russian places, the romanized name is the one most likely to be typed into the Wikipedia search box by an interested reader.

But I believe the opposite situation is much more frequent: one knows the town of Kashira and wants to read about its district. How would he/she arrive at "Kashirsky" unless he/she is a Russian-speaker? He would type "Kashira" into the search box and arrive here. The article about the town currently does not mention the district, but only because it is so incomplete. So, if you know the name of the town, type its name, then read the article to find out what the district is called. It does not work in reverse, though—if you only know the Russian name of the district, under your proposal you'll have hard time finding the article about it, because you wouldn't know what to type in—"Kashira", "Kashirsk", etc. The bottom line: under either system, one can find the district if one knows the name of the town, but one cannot find (not easily, anyway) the article about the district if one only knows its Russian name under your system. So, no gain, one loss. No improvement.

"Needless to say, if one wants to find out what the administrative center of the district actually is, a construct like "Kashira District" makes it virtually impossible to find out" - This is something I completely fail to understand. Sorry for confusing wording, I'm going to try to do a better job know. Suppose you are an Anglophone with rudimentary knowledge of Russian (perhaps you can just read Cyrillic). For some reason you become interested in "Каширский район". You know the Russian name of the district, but you want to find out what its administrative center is. You type in "Kashirsky District" into the search box, and arrive... nowhere (because the article is "conveniently" located at "Kashira District", named after the administrative center!). If this problem seems kind of artificial, just multiply it by over 1,000 of districts in Russia, and you'll see that this theoretical situation will happen sooner rather than later.

Regarding search engines, they are a serious source of information. When one variant produced thousandfold more results than the other, it is a fact that's pretty hard to ignore (and, indeed, it would be foolish to do so). Yet one cannot seriously argue that "Kashira District" must be the variant only because it produces ~400 search results, which is ~300 results more than "Kashirsky District". "Podolsky District", on the other hand, produces ~10,000 results, way over measly 1,000 for "Podolsk District". So, should be leave Podolsky District alone, but move Kashirsky District to Kashira District? This is exactly the kind of situation WP:SET is to prevent!

[I]f the system was working marvelously, there should have been redirects such as Solnechnogorsk District->Solnechnogorsky District. Why not set one up? Why not set similar ones for each district (doing that will, by the way, give you an idea of how enormous the scope of the changes you proposed are)? Adding alternative redirects sure is a less intensive and less disruptive task that overhauling the existing system as a whole! If you look closer, you'll see that there are already all kinds of possible redirects as far as the districts are concerned, and, by the way, you'll probably be surprised to learn that creating district redirects using the AdmCenter+"District" scheme is actually one of the tasks on my own to-do list! All in all, the system is working marvelously on its own, it's just that we need manpower to cover other possible contingencies (which include your proposal, as well as the romanization systems not based on BGN/PCGN).

I would appreciate a link to the discussions though. WP:CYR, WT:CYR, WT:RUS. There were also plenty of discussions scattered across random article talk pages (like this one), but I, unfortunately, never thought to catalog them.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:22, December 26, 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion it is not a good idea to introduce any Russian (or Mongolian, Polish) grammar suffixes into en:wiki naming, but a possible solution is adding in the name description (in an article preface) an English style name option ("also: Kashira District or Kashira Rayon") as we are adding normally every name variants. So presence an English style name (not established name, but with more common form) makes possible to browse it in Wiki and in web.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 20:57, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

This has never been questioned. If a district is referred to by any alternative names/spellings, those names/spellings should be mentioned in the article; it's that simple. WP:RUS was not adopted to stomp out any alternative names, it was adopted to establish a consistent and logical naming scheme for maintenance and navigation purposes, as well as to deal with the cases when a decision needs to be made which of the many available alternative names to use as a primary title. Whatever other names exist, they should be included in the article, as well as set up as redirects.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:13, December 26, 2008 (UTC)

I was not talking about present name versions listing, this has never been questioned, but an English style (no Russian suffixes) name variant adding to this type of list as we are doing with actually present name variants.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 22:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Mergers

What would be the best practice to reflect the past merger of Yubileyny and Korolyov, and todays merger of Balashikha and Zheleznodorozhny? They promised more mergers are forthcoming.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:27, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

These lists are supposed to represent the most current situation, so I'd say simply removing the merged entities should be sufficient. The whole page needs a complete overhaul, however, since it's been formatted differently from every other article in the series and is by now somewhat outdated. The historical information would have been covered in the History section, but one has not yet been started.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 26, 2014; 14:57 (UTC)