Talk:Imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo

Name

I have restored this article at its proper name ("imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo"). The romanized name is in accordance with the WP:RUS and WP:NC:CITY#Russia Wikipedia guidelines. The original Russian name can be found, for example, on the official website of Kaliningrad.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 24, 2010; 17:02 (UTC)

You have put the name "imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo" (Russian: имени Александра Космодемьянского), thus the place would have its name with small initial letter, like "saint Petersburg" or "moscow". Furthermore, at what is imeni (English: named) point?

You may have noticed, that Александр is written in English witk ks: Aleksandr, not "Alexandr". Please, look at e.g. Aleksandr Griboyedov, Aleksandr Kolchak, Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov, Aleksandr Ostrovsky, Aleksandr Pushkin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Look at also ru:Александр Космодемьянский (Калининград): ...до 1946 года — Метгетен, нем. Metgethen, в 1946—1956 годах — Лесное, but in "imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo": The German name Metgethen (Метгетен) was changed in 1948 to Lesnoy gorodok (Лесной городок) and in 1949 to Lesnoye (Лесно́е).

Yours, --Finrus (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Am I to understand that you haven't even looked at WP:RUS before posting this? That particular guideline has answers to most of your questions about how the Russian names are to be romanized, and how the romanization of people's names differs from the romanization of place names.. As for the name beginning with a small letter, that is not at all uncommon. A number of places whose name start with "imeni" or "im." do not have the initial letter capitalized (a quick search through OKATO or any regional legal document dealing with place names would confirm that). It's not an excuse to start the article with a small letter, which is why I fixed that part, but otherwise there is nothing terribly unusual about this practice.

As for the point of including "imeni" in the title, it is a part of the official place name, and official place names is what is supposed to be romanized per WP:RUS. Russian place names are never translated, even if "translating", as is the case with your changes, means simply putting the name in nominative. Russian place names are always romanized (unless a common English name, as defined by WP:RUS, exists).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 24, 2010; 19:59 (UTC)

Nevertheless, it can not been "imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo", i.e. named (to) Aleksandr Kosmodemyansky, if the person name is Aleksandr Kosmodemyansky. By the way, why the name can even be Posyolok imeni Aleksandra Kosmodemyanskogo (Russian: Посёлок имени Александра Космодемьянского)? Furthermore, Šarkuva is not the Lithuanian name to this place, but to Lesnoy (Russian: Лесной) on the Curonian spit

What is your opinion to the difference ru:Александр Космодемьянский (Калининград): ...до 1946 года — Метгетен, нем. Metgethen, в 1946—1956 годах — Лесное vs. "imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo": The German name Metgethen (Метгетен) was changed in 1948 to Lesnoy gorodok (Лесной городок) and in 1949 to Lesnoye (Лесно́е) ?

--Finrus (talk) 21:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I've only left the article about the person at "ks" spelling as a goodwill gesture; because I didn't have time to look for supporting sources WP:RUS asks for. In any case, the name of the article about the person and the name of the article about the place named after that person can have different spellings just fine. There is nothing wrong about that; that's just the nature of the romanization process ("conventional" name of a person can easily differ from the "conventional" name of a place, or one of the two may not have a conventional English name at all, in which case the default provision kicks in).

As for the difference in the passage you are quoting, neither the Russian, nor the English article have sources to support the claims being made. If I find any, I'll most certainly make corrections where necessary (you could do the same, too). Same goes for equally unsourced "Šarkuva", which you are welcome to delete if you believe it is wrong. I only restored it because no reason for its deletion was originally given.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 24, 2010; 21:08 (UTC)

The reason is, that Lesnoy, Lithuanian: Šarkuva situates on the Curonian spit: lt:Šarkuva and it is different place than former Metgethen and Lesnoye. So I removed your change in the article Lesnoy. --Finrus (talk) 22:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I've restored the entry under the correct name "Lesnoye" and added the gender variations at the same time. Thanks for pointing out the mistake.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 25, 2010; 00:57 (UTC)

However, look at pl:Dyskusja:Aleksandr Kosmodemjanski (Kaliningrad), please :) --Finrus (talk) 19:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, first, it was you who requested the move there, and someone, no doubt assuming good faith, helped you without requesting any reasons. I don't see any discussion related to the request and/or the subsequent move. Secondly, the guidelines used in the English Wikipedia do not extend to the Wikipedias in other languages. If "Aleksandr Kosmodemjanski (Kaliningrad)" works in the Polish wiki, good for them. I have no idea what their guidelines are and can very well imagine that many of them are not going to match ours. After all, BGN/PCGN romanization (on which WP:RUS is based) was developed for use in the English-speaking countries, and trying to use it in the Polish or any other non-English wiki would indeed be strange.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 25, 2010; 20:04 (UTC)

On Russian maps and in official government documents, the town is called "посёлок имени Александра Космодемьянского" (posyolok imeni Aleksandra Kosmodemyanskogo, literally "settlement named in honor of Alexandr Kosmodemyansky"). Gosspravka.ru, an online copy of the OKATO database, lists its name in the abbreviated form as А.Космодемьянского (A. Kosmodemyanskogo). Given that Russian place names in the English Wikipedia are transliterated, not translated, the article should be called either "Alexandra Kosmodenyanskogo" or "imeni Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo" (possibly with ks instead of x, depending on English Wikipedia style guidelines). (IMHO, omitting "imeni" is preferable, since it is rather strange to see "imeni" as the first word of a name.) --Tetromino (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Strange or not, "imeni" is a part of the place name, so there is no good reason to have it removed. There are all kinds of weird place names in Russia, and since we are supposed to transliterate them, we should be transliterating the names in their entirety, not arbitrarily deciding which parts to cut out.

As for gosspravka, I don't know what that website is, but what you linked to is definitely not a copy of OKATO (OKATO does not list streets, KLADR does). I removed the "urban-type settlement" part because the real OKATO (available, for example, in Consultant Plus—scroll down for the part with Kaliningrad Oblast) does not list this place as an urban-type settlement, and it does otherwise list all towns and urban-type settlements in Russia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 26, 2010; 19:45 (UTC)

"it does otherwise list all towns and urban-type settlements in Russia" — somehow I find it hard to believe you personally verified that :) There are dozens of online sources stating that Alexandra Kosmodemyanskogo is an urban-type settlement — see [1], [2], [3], or just look at all the google results. I'm restoring the text about the urban-type settlement. --Tetromino (talk) 21:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I did not have to personally verify it, because the purpose of OKATO (prominently stated on its page one) is to list all administrative-territorial divisions of Russia. By definition, it includes all urban-type settlements.

As for the online sources, mighty plenty sources exist which are simply wrong. If you try hard enough, you'll find a bunch of junky websites which will say that the place is a "town" or a "city" even. It is important to distinguish high-quality sources from the compilation cruft. The original text of OKATO, published in a leading legal database, is pretty high-quality, I would say. With Ruspostindex.ru and Spravki.net it's hard to say even where the data came from, let alone use their information in an encyclopedia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 26, 2010; 21:43 (UTC)