Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Russia)

Justifications?

I disagree with all of these, except G1. which is largely superfluous; I would prefer, in each case, to follow the policy or guideline to which they link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I also think, except maybe for WP:SET and for the references to WP:ROMRUS, the text under "General rules" and "Conventional names" is more or less a repetition or clarification of the general WP rules. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:07, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:SET

What I don't know is, what the result will be of using WP:SET. Other encyclopedias may use one Romanization system for all their content, and while Wikipedia ends up using different systems, based on what other publications Google did index. I would prefer a high threshold, i.e. to deviate from WP:ROMRUS there must be one name that is 20% more often used than all other systems or so. Otherwise WP ends up looking silly and changing articles titles around. Also article name instability and unpredictability may lead to wrong links, double creations of articles and unnecessary red links. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

This is one of the points I made on the original talk page. We should only deviate from the WP romanization if there is a well-documented English name that is in common use. The vast majority of Russian names will have no coverage in mainstream media, only in gazeteers, atlases etc where the spelling will be defined by their own romanization scheme. As you say these should be discounted and we would use the WP defined scheme. The only time a search engine test is appropriate would be to choose between two spellings widely used in non-specialist publications. Oryol vs Orel for example. Sussexonian (talk) 18:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, if a majority of Reliable sources including gazeteers, Atlases, etc use a common spelling then we should determine that and likewise use it. Our article titles are not supposed to be systematic, but to best represent the term that English readers might expect to find an article under. If they are reasonably using wikipedia to look up information on a town or village that they will only previously have found in a gazeteer or atlas otherwise; then we should make that process easier by mirroring the common usage found in these sources - this does not however prevent a "correct" WP Romanisation from being provided within article text or a redirect from it. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 20:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree in principle. But, in particular, gazeteers and atlases do not intend to reflect English usage; they use Firenze, München, Athini, and, in Russia, Moskva, [Name] Ostrov, even when English doesn't; because those are the most useful to travellers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Generally an English gazeteer should reflect English usage, and a search for Mokva through the gazeteers on Google Books shows that this holds with that name only being used for the river not the city in the majority of cases. I'm browsing from my phone at the moment so can't write a full statistical analysis but I think our wording should advise caution and ensure that comparisons are focused on reliable source usage. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 05:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Stuart, Moskva is irrelevant to this discussion, as it is covered by the normal English name rule. What we are dealing with here is establishing a set of guidelines that will minimize arguments about the "correct" name. I looked at a number of world atlases held in the university library; they all more-or-less use BGN/PCGN romanization rigorously, producing "Nizhniy Novgorod", "Gus'-Khrustal'nyy" "Groznyy" and thousands of similar. There were two "Orel" and two "Orël", three "Tol'yatti" and one "Togliatti".

The point is that these are not "commonly used names in English" they are merely mechanical applications of a romanization scheme that is not the en-WP one. If we accepted the spellings provided by these sources, we may as well abandon any Wikipedia variations to BGN/PCGN romanization at least for place names. The rule should remain: if a common English name exists, use it (Moscow); if a common English spelling exists use that (Baikal); otherwise use the WP system. Sussexonian (talk) 11:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

And by the same logic, the best Wikipedia system for romanization would generalize what is commonly done with English names as far as that is consistent (i.e. Moscow cannot be a model, since no other article will represent ва that way; but Nizhny Novgorod can). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

@Sussexonian which is why we do not limit ourselves to just these sources but take a rounded overall view - Grozny for instance appears in 10 times as many hits as Grosnyy so a SET favours the former; in some cases for instance Korolyov (city) a SET shows the majority of sources use BGN/PCGN "Korolev" with Britanica being a notable exception - why should we be siding with a minority position that is less likely to help our readers? SET should be used but cautiously consider the usage prescibed in WP:NCGN

Consult Google Scholar and Google Books hits (count only articles and books, not number of times the word is used in them) when searched over English language articles and books where the corresponding location is mentioned in relation to the period in question. If the name of the location coincides with the name of another entity, care should be taken to exclude inappropriate pages from the count. If the name is used at least three times as often as any other, in referring to the period, it is widely accepted. Always look at search results, don't just count them. For more, see the section on search engines below.

and

Search engine tests should be used with care: in testing whether a name is widely accepted English usage, we are interested in hits which are in English, represent English usage, mean the place in question, and are not duplicates of each other or of Wikipedia. Search engine results can fail on all of these. Google gives unreliable result estimates at the onset of a search; the number of results shown in the final page should be used whenever feasible. It does not return more than 1,000 actual results; hit counts above this are estimates which cannot be examined, and are weak evidence of actual usage. Adding addtional search terms may reduce the number of hits to this range, but adds additional random variance.

We do not exclude the usage in reliable sources but are cautious in how we analyse them. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 14:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I must agree with those; except "whenever feasible" which misrepresents what Google actually does (the last page is never more than a thousand no matter how common the search phrase is). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

DAB always via WP:ROMRUS

"disambiguation and name pages are always romanized using the WP romanization of Russian" - why? Is it the result of general WP rules, or is this something specific to WP:RUSSIA? What happens if the DAB page covers topics from Russia and from outside Russia? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

It's for consistency and, maintenance-wise, is a logical approach. If you have a bunch of entries which according to (whatever) conventionality criteria are going to end up being spelled differently, it makes sense to have the dab under the default spelling and redirect all other spellings to it. As for the situations when the dab pages cover topics both from Russia and outside Russia under the exact same spelling, those are actually pretty rare, and when they arise, they are handled on a case-by-case basis.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 16:10 (UTC)

But isn't that the result of regular DAB rules? Why at Baykal (disambiguation) the intro does not tell about "Baikal"? What would happen if there would be something called "Baikal" in the United States, with no affiliation to any spelling "Baykal"? (Maybe you have a real world example for the former?) What if all people called <some name> Gorbachev/yov are under <some name> Gorbachev, why would the DAB be at Gorbachyov? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

If there were something called "Baikal" (and never "Baykal") in the United States, we'd add it to the "see also" section of the Baykal dab. If there were more than one place called "Baikal" outside of Russia (with no affiliation to the Russian lake), we'd create an additional "Baikal" dab, and interlink both dabs via the "see also" section. Entries which overlap (i.e., which can be spelled either "Baykal" or "Baikal") would be present on both dabs. This way both dabs would be kept clean, yet all contingencies would still be addressed. Another option is to change the intro line to "Baykal or Baikal may refer to..." and list the entries under both spellings on one page.

Exceptions, by the way, can be made when it makes sense (here's a real one similar to your theoretical Gorbachev example). This, after all, is a guideline, not a "do it my way or die" manual.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 18:17 (UTC)

Discussion on the naming of the articles about the inhabited localities in Russia

Inhabited localities - clarify wording and reduce number of disambiguators Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Russia)#Inhabited_localities has three rules. Firstly the rule number three seems to have wrong wording, missing "among place names" and having more than redundant completely. Secondly, how about using the same disambiguator for the last two rules, and use ", Russia" also for rule three? This would reduce the number of disambiguators. Changing Rule 3: When the name of the locality is completely unique, but conflicts with the name of a different concept, use the parenthesized locality type as disambiguator (e.g., Chupa (urban-type settlement)). to Rule 3 (new): When the name of the locality is completely unique among place names, but conflicts with the name of a different concept, use ", Russia" as disambiguator (e.g., Chupa, Russia). Taking this a step further would be to merge Rule 2: When the name of the locality is unique within Russia, but conflicts with the name of another locality in a different country, disambiguate the name with "Russia" (e.g., Dimitrovgrad, Russia). Rule 3: When the name of the locality is completely unique, but conflicts with the name of a different concept, use the parenthesized locality type as disambiguator (e.g., Chupa (urban-type settlement)). into Rule 2 (after merge with Rule 3): When the name of the locality is unique within Russia, but conflicts with the name of another locality in a different country, or with the name of a different concept, disambiguate the name with ", Russia" (e.g., Dimitrovgrad, Russia, Chupa, Russia)). Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 15:13, 27 June 2011 (UTC) This guideline is actually a compilation of observations of how things are currently being done. Changing Rule 3 as proposed would immediately necessitate moving hundreds of articles for no good reason other than simplifying a guideline which is not that complex to begin with (I'm yet to see anyone complain about the current state of the matters). Plus, a title like "Chupa, Russia" hints strongly that there is some other place called "Chupa" outside of Russia, which just isn't the case; and is ambiguous in itself, because "Chupa, Russia" can refer to pretty much anything in Russia—a populated place, a river, a lake, a mountain, etc. Using the concept descriptor as a disambiguator deals with that kind of ambiguity very nicely.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 16:19 (UTC) I complain, because of unnecessary complexity. "Chupa, Russia" hints strongly that there is some other place called "Chupa" - maybe to those trained by the current rules. "Chupa, Russia" can refer to pretty much anything in Russia—a populated place, a river, a lake, a mountain - do you have any example of a river, lake or mountain in Russia that is called "X, Russia"? From my reading of the NC regarding lakes, rivers, mountains this would violate site wide NCs. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:43, 27 June 2011 (UTC) As WP:NCGN shows, country-specific naming conventions tend to represent the practices used in naming of the articles about the places in those countries (i.e., something is already being done that way on a grand scale, so the guideline merely describes the practice). Changing these guidelines is, of course, possible, but shouldn't be done just for the sake of change itself; I would expect a tangible benefit in return. With your proposal, the only benefit is shortening the guideline from three lines to two, but the downside is the vast maintenance that would need to be performed for no other reason than "simplifying the rules". It just doesn't balance out—I, for one, am not willing to put in innumerable hours hunting down all links, dabs, redirects, and backlinks (a great deal of which are red and not easy to find) just to make sure they all comply with the new rule, and neither, I suspect, are you. Yet if there's no one willing to put in those hours, the change you are proposing will be meaningless and not representative of the existing practice, rendering the whole guideline pretty much useless. You are the first one to complain about the perceived complexity, by the way, which to me indicates a non-problem. What is the purpose of fixing something that's not broken? To answer your other question, no, I don't think we have any articles about rivers/lakes/mountains titled "X, Russia". The question here, however, is not how the article is titled, but what "X, Russia" may refer to (which is pretty much any kind of geographic object).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 18:07 (UTC) @hunting all links etc. I think you are making a little bit drama about that. If all other countries do it the other way, Russia can be changed, no need to have that overnight, but the change can be done gradually. @"X, Russia" can refer to any kind of geographic object - sorry, not under NC lakes/rivers/mountains. ", Russia" is reserved for human settlements / localities. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 19:17, 27 June 2011 (UTC) I'd say no need to do it at all. Why create work for no good reason? That's not drama, that's just plain common sense. Whether you do it overnight or gradually, it's still hours of completely pointless work; and doing it gradually leads to a huge interim period of complete mess and confusion on top of everything. As for the benefits? None to be seen. On the second point, we are still talking about different things. Wikipedians may reserve the "X, Russia" format for use only with the populated places, but it doesn't change the fact that it may refer (if only in our readers' heads) to any geographic object. Rivers/lakes/etc. may not not a good illustration, but various administrative divisions are. When "X" is the name of a populated place and, say, of a district or a selsoviet, it doesn't help to refer only to a populated place as "X, Russia". Something like "X (rural locality)" is a lot more helpful; both to the editors and the readers.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 27, 2011; 19:51 (UTC) Again drama and unsubstantiated attacks. "no good reason" - I gave a reason, and you initially objected because it would cause work. "completely pointless work" - reducing the guideline complexity. "a huge interim period of complete mess and confusion on top of everything" - drama, no substance. Redirects will be created automatically. A) "X (rural locality)" does reveal X is a A1) rural locality, likely on the A2) planet earth. B) "X, Russia" does reveal X is a place in B1) Russia, B2) likely a locality since natural features and administrative division usually have the class type added when disambiguation is needed. It would be "X District". For the selsoviet I don't know. Any example of a selsoviet in Russia? Version B has the benefit, if a place X of the same type from outside Russia gets an article in WP, the Russian article does not need to be moved. ", Russia" is then the more stable solution leading to less conflicts with other WikiProject's articles. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 02:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC) I didn't say for "no reason"; I said for "no good reason". "Reducing guideline complexity" for its own sake is not a good reason, and I'd argue that the guideline is not that complex to begin with! At any rate, the goal of Wikipedia is to create encyclopedic content, not the best guidelines in the known Universe. The guidelines serve as a means to an end, and unless changing a guideline leads to vast improvement on the encyclopedic side, I can see no good reason to support such a change.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 13:45 (UTC) And you decide which reasons are good? And a reduction in complexity is not good? And you run again for drama when comparing with the "Universe"? Look, guidelines shall make the work of the editors easier. The less complex the guidelines, the easier the editing, the better the chance to have good content. Anyway, any example for selsoviet which you mentioned to be a anti reason for "X, Russia". Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:37, 28 June 2011 (UTC) I would support Bogdan in favour of using a disambiguator that indicates that the article is about something related to Russia. The purpose of the phrase in parentheses is to indicate to a casual user what entity the article is about. If the visitor is indeed looking for Chupa the place in Russia, they will be satisfied when they find "Chupa, Russia". If they are looking for some other meaning of "chupa", they will come across the peculiar phrase "urban-type settlement" and perhaps not instantly be able to dismiss it as not what is being sought. It really is a very technical term in classifying Russian subdivisions and not suitable for a general disambiguator. Ëzhiki, you can not guarantee there is no place called Chupa anywhere in the world. Perhaps there is a place in Zambia called Chupa, which has not yet been given an article: there are many countries without a Ëzhiki-equivalent creating articles on local places. If that place did in fact exist, the title Chupa (urban-type settlement) could lead a visitor to assume it was about the place they were looking for, whereas "Chupa, Russia" would not. When an article "Chupa, Zambia" was finally created presumably the existing one would then have to be moved under the current set-up. And as for having to rename thousands of articles, we could build into NCRUS that this is not required for existing articles, just a guide on creating new ones. Sussexonian (talk) 16:49, 28 June 2011 (UTC) Thanks. I added at table to WP:NCRUS. I also think that ", Russia" results in more stable names. In support of Sussexonian's example: The likelihood to discover another place "Chupa" outside Russia is larger than inside Russia. In that case, the rules would call for a rename to ", Russia". In case a locality in Russia is discovered it would call for rename to ", federal subject". Having it at ", Russia" would take away the need for rename for discoveries outside Russia. Also the type could change from rural to urban. Or someone thinks it should be "khutor". The name is more likely to be stable at ", Russia". If WP:NCRUS is changed, there is no one forcing people to update all pages. But if someone wants to spend his time on this, he could. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC) @Bogdan—we are collecting opinions here, not making decisions (at least not yet). My opinion is that the change you are proposing is not good because it does not make life easier for editors, it makes it more difficult. A "reduction in complexity" would be good if it weren't associated with numerous downsides, which just isn't the case here. As for the note that "no one is forcing people to update all pages", that doesn't really make much sense. This particular guideline is intended to be not so much prescriptive as descriptive. The titles about the vast majority of populated places in Russia follow it, which is why the guideline says what is says. If you change the guideline, it will neither describe the true state of the matters, nor be of any use as a guidance to editors wondering how to properly title an article they've just created. All in all, you'll have a "simplified" guideline which is utterly useless and, considering its obscurity, will just get ignored a lot (people tend to title articles the way other articles are titled, not the way a guideline stuck in the middle of nowhere tells to). @Sussexonian—we don't need to guarantee that there is no other place called Chupa in the world. The only thing we need to guarantee is that there is no article in Wikipedia about a place called Chupa elsewhere in the world, and that is something that can be very easily checked. It's the same approach used for disambiguation—we only take into consideration the articles which we already have, not the article we may some day have. As new articles appear, some of the older ones may need to be moved, but that's not unusual in the disambiguation world—articles get moved around for that reason all the time. As for the choice of disambiguator, that's not what's being discussed. According to the current wording, the disambiguator can be pretty much anything, as long as it specifies the entity type. "Urban-type settlement", by the way, looks peculiar because it is a peculiar concept, and it's not necessarily going to be perceived as terribly peculiar by the person actually looking for that article (as opposed to someone who accidentally stumbled upon it). More generic (and, in practice, more common) descriptors include "urban locality" and "rural locality".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 17:58 (UTC) P.S. By the way, there are very, very few articles about actual places titled with a parenthetical disambiguator. The clause is used mostly for titling the set index articles, such as the one linked to from this dab.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 18:09 (UTC) "we don't need to guarantee that there is no other place called Chupa in the world" - but we can choose disambiguators that are not ambiguous in case such a place gets and article in enWP. And you didn't address the fact that the type may change. Your other argument is circular - one cannot change the guideline, because it reflects the current state and then, one cannot change the current state because the guideline says differently. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 18:16, 28 June 2011 (UTC) We can choose whatever we want, but that won't change the fact that the actual articles out there are titled using the scheme which this guideline currently describes. Yes, I realize the argument is circular, but that is not a problem. If the existing guidelines were a hindrance to readers or to editors, then it would make sense to break out of the circular argument loop (i.e., to "change the current state") and get to work fixing the problem. As things stand now, there is simply no problem to be fixed, just a theoretically "better" approach with only superficial benefits. You are proposing to organize the articles using a better way, but no one on this page is willing to do the actual work (plus I disagree that your approach is even an improvement). If you change the guideline and do nothing else, it will simply sit here describing the situation that's contrary to reality—how is that helpful to anyone? It certainly isn't going to be helpful to me, and most of my edits are to the articles which this guideline is supposed to cover! The important thing to remember is this guideline is just one approach to doing things. Other approaches are possible, but we are not here to try them all out and figure out which one is the best, we are here to build an encyclopedia. If an approach works reasonably well, what's the point of messing with it? Seems like an awful waste of time to me. It's like spending time on inventing a "better" hammer instead of buying a reasonably good hammer in the store and using it to get some real work done! Now, if you were to find a specific problem which could only be fixed by changing this guideline, that'd be another matter entirely.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 19:01 (UTC) "messing with it" - to call a suggestion messing with it does not gain you respect from my side. Stick to arguments whether one approach is better or not. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 00:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC) DAB populates places DAB populates places - proposal 1 Current rules When the name is unique among localities worldwide, but conflicts with the name of a different concept, use the parenthesized locality type as disambiguator (e.g., Chupa (urban-type settlement)). When the name is unique among localities in Russia, but conflicts with the name of a locality in another country, disambiguate the name with ", Russia" (e.g., Dimitrovgrad, Russia). When the name is unique among localities in the same federal subject, but conflicts with the name of a locality in Russia, use comma-separated name of the federal subject on the territory of which the locality is situated (e.g., Oktyabrsky, Republic of Bashkortostan). When the name of the locality is not unique within a federal subject, precede the federal subject disambiguator with the name of the district on the territory of which the locality is situated (e.g., Novopetrovka, Blagoveshchensky District, Amur Oblast). Current results X (<class>) X, Russia [Note: class is dropped] X, <federal subject> [Note: "Russia" is dropped] X, <level below federal subject>, <federal subject> [Note: "Russia" is dropped] Current examples base name another concept another locality another locality in Russia another locality in the same federal subject example Chupa yes no no no Chupa (urban-type settlement) Dimitrovgrad does not matter yes no no Dimitrovgrad, Russia Oktyabrsky does not matter does not matter yes no Oktyabrsky, Republic of Bashkortostan Novopetrovka does not matter does not matter does not matter yes Novopetrovka, Blagoveshchensky District, Amur Oblast I suggest to be consistent and to use ", " for all inhabited localities, and to use one level of disambiguators if possible. Proposed rule Attach the name of the highest administrative level that makes the title unique via comma and space to the base name. Proposed results X, Russia X, Russia X, <federal subject> X, <level below federal subject> Proposed examples base name another concept another locality another locality in Russia another locality in the same federal subject example Chupa yes no no no Chupa, Russia Dimitrovgrad does not matter yes no no Dimitrovgrad, Russia Oktyabrsky does not matter does not matter yes no Oktyabrsky, Republic of Bashkortostan Novopetrovka does not matter does not matter does not matter yes Novopetrovka, Blagoveshchensky District Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 00:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC) I hope you realize that the rule set (either in its present condition or as proposed by you) is not exhaustive by any measure. There are actually hundreds of places which share the same name not only within Russia, not only within the same federal subject, not only within the same district, but even within the same selsoviet (or its equivalent); and some of those even are of the exact same type! And there are many other possible permutations which this guideline does not cover. While it's not impossible to document them all, doing so in a guideline will make it unusable for sure. In practice, the three simple rules in the original guideline take care of the vast majority of the problematic situations, yet allow more flexibility in dealing with the permutations I've mentioned. Your simplified wording does not. Also, you can't be serious about using #4 ("X, <level below federal subject>")! How is something like "Novopetrovka, Novopetrovsky Selsoviet", or even "Novopetrovka, Blagoveshchensky District" helpful to anyone? There is a dozen of places called "Novopetrovka" and three districts called "Blagoveshchensky" in Russia!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 16:46 (UTC) I am happy you mention this. "you can't be serious" - Without attacking me, you would save some time. Please can you stick to the topic? The idea of the disambiguator is not to tell the reader where exactly something is located, but to disambiguate. E.g. ", Russia" only reveals the country, one wouldn't know within which federal subject. If there is only one "Novopetrovka, Blagoveshchensky District" it is sufficient for disambiguation. Please provide examples. To not document certain cases makes the guideline unusable in certain cases. If anything is not covered, it needs to be added to allow following the guideline in all cases. If a new case not covered is found, it can be added. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC) The idea of the disambiguator is not only to disambiguate (or we could just sequentially number the ambiguous articles), but also to help readers in navigation. A list of a dozen entries all styled "X, YYY District" or "X, YYY Selsoviet" isn't very user-friendly. Note how this naming convention is not used for any other country—for places that share the same name within the same country the first level (state, federal subject, etc.) is always used first, and then lower levels (districts, counties, etc.) are added as necessary. I've already explained why the current system works and how the majority of articles already comply with it. Since it is you who insists that your system is better, it is up to you to provide examples when the new names under this new system are going to be more helpful than the old names. Showing how the switch is worth the maintenance effort and listing the problems it will fix is also up to you. Please oblige.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 30, 2011; 17:51 (UTC) @using the first level first, that is what the proposal says: "highest administrative level". Highest is the country, then the federal subject, etc. On "X, <federal subject>" one also drops the higher level, Russia, and the same can be done for "X, <level below the federal subject>" dropping the federal subject. This significantly reduces the length of the article name. I found one example Oktyabrsky, Oktyabrsky District, Perm Krai which cannot use 1st level alone (due to Oktyabrsky, Dobryanka, Perm Krai) nor 2nd level alone (due to Oktyabrsky, Oktyabrsky District, Volgograd Oblast) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:14, 30 June 2011 (UTC) This doesn't work because it's unreasonable to expect readers to be familiar with the levels below the federal subject, and using just country is seldom sufficient. The US articles don't use titles like "Springfield, Jackson County" because there are so many Springfields and so many Jackson Counties, even though there may only be one Springfield in Jackson County of a certain state. Nor is such a convention used for the articles about places in any other country, which makes sense, because it's important to mind the balance. Tidy perfect rules are good, but not when they interfere with actually finding information. As for the article names being long, most of the affected articles would be those about tiny obscure villages anyway. Exceptions for larger cities are done all the time regardless of what this guideline says—Oktyabrsky, Republic of Bashkortostan should technically be "Oktyabrsky, Oktyabrsky City of Republican Significance, Republic of Bashkortostan", but titling it so will be unnecessary pedantry that helps nobody and confuses more than it clarifies. With a properly implemented system of hatnotes, dabs, and redirects any situation can be addressed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 15:44 (UTC) @Jackson County - Look at Category:Towns in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, there is only one La Crosse County, still several entities use "X, La Crosse County, Wisconsin". @Nor is such a convention used for the articles about places in any other country - Read WP:NCGN#Italy: places in Italy are disambiguated using the "comma convention" by the larger of the region, province or municipality needed to identify it uniquely, as appropriate, not as Placename, Italy. @This doesn't work because it's unreasonable to expect readers to be familiar with the levels below the federal subject - readers do not need to be familiar with that level, they even don't need to be familiar with the federal subject level, and still this is used for disambiguation. Article text can inform the reader about the levels, as is done with all articles that have no disambiguation term at all in the title. You are inconsistent, on the one hand you ask level info to be in the title, on the other you vote for not having it in the title, but having "urban-type settlement". Note, WP:NCGN does not support the latter. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC) Not sure what you are trying to prove with the La Crosse County example. Those entries are titled the way they are because the corresponding "XXX, Wisconsin" pages are disambigs. Note how no entries are titled "XXX, YYY County"—that's what my point is. The Italy example is also not a valid comparison. The country disambiguator is routinely dropped all across Wikipedia in favor of the first-level division disambiguator when several places share the same name in different divisions of the same country. What I was saying is that there are no countries (that I know of) where the first-level division disambiguator is dropped in favor of a lower-division disambiguator, which is what your proposal is all about. So, basically, elsewhere you are asking why for Russia certain things are treated differently from everyone else, yet here you are proposing to do something that's not done by anyone else. Did someone mention "inconsistency"? :) The "level info" doesn't need to be in the titles of articles about the places which aren't ambiguous to any other places. It's more important to hint the readers that the line is about an inhabited locality (as opposed to a completely different concept), not about where that inhabited locality is (who cares if it's the only one). Yet when you have more than one, then the location becomes more important.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 18:25 (UTC) @Jackson County/La Crosse County - I was trying to show that your assumption The US articles don't use titles like "Springfield, Jackson County" because there are ... so many Jackson Counties is not true. The number of counties is irrelevant. @The Italy example is also not a valid comparison. - of course it is. It is not saying that the country is dropped when places in one country share the same name, but the Italy convention says, that ", Italy" is never used: " not as Placename, Italy". Repeat: " not as Placename, Italy".Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 01:14, 2 July 2011 (UTC) So far I'm inclined to support the proposal regarding rule #1, simply because "X, Russia" looks nicer than "X (<class>)", and i don't really like brackets. Also "X, Russia" is often shorter than "X (<class>)". However, regarding rule #4 Ezhiki's argumentation is more convincing. We shouldn't disambiguate just with little known and often ambiguous districts or selsovets. GreyHood Talk 17:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC) DAB populates places - proposal 2 Invoking Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Disambiguation It is often the case that the same widely accepted English name will apply to more than one place, or to a place and to other things; in either case disambiguation will be necessary. ... Primary topic aside ... In other cases, a disambiguating tag will usually be needed. ... Places are often disambiguated by the country in which they lie, if this is sufficient. However, when tags are required for places in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Mexico, South Africa or the United States, use the name of the state, province or territory (if the place lies within a single such entity). Generic parenthetical disambiguating tags as used for most Wikipedia articles are used only occasionally for geographic names (as in Wolin (town), where no regional tag would be sufficient to distinguish the town from the island of Wolin). Proposal for NCRUS: If a disambiguation tag is needed, use the "comma convention": ", <name of the federal subject>", for articles on specific places (Expanding the Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, United States convention to Russia. Removing parenthetical tags.) ", Russia", for articles on set indices of localities in Russia (1. Removing current mixture of parenthetical tags "(inhabited locality)", "(rural locality)", [there is no tag "(urban locality)" in use] and ", Russia"; 2. Harmonize with set indices on Russian districts that use ", Russia" exclusively.) By doing so, articles on specific places and articles on set index are clearly separated. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC) I don't see any contradiction. For Russia, generic paretheticals are used "only occasionally" for articles (set indices aren't exactly in the scope of NCGN). We use them only to distinguish from other concepts (like Chupa) or to include additional disambiguating information when the administrative divisions information is insufficient (like "Dmitrovskoye (Mednovskoye Rural Settlement), Kalininsky District, Tver Oblast", where "Mednovskoye Rural Settlement" is not an administrative division—Kalininsky District of Tver Oblast does not have any lower level divisions, and the other Dmitrovskoye in that district is also a village). And like I said in my comment to Proposal 1, if the application of this guideline leads to the name of any place of sufficient notability ending up looking like Dmitrovskoye, it can be simplified as an exception.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 15:59 (UTC) Comment: 1) We use them only to distinguish from other concepts (like Chupa) is against the WP:NCGN recommendation. 2) That set index articles should not follow WP:NCGN needs to be proven. At least they follow WP:NCGN by using ", Russia" for some articles. This comma convention for disambiguation is very likely not documented outside the disambiguation of place names, that is, it is strongly related to WP:NCGN. Furthermore it is also used for DAB pages of place names. The Russian inhabited locality set pages are systematically bypassing WP:NCGN - while it would be very easy to make them conform with WP:NCGN. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:17, 1 July 2011 (UTC) First off, you misunderstood what NCGN was saying when you added Brazil, Italy, South Africa, and Mexico. The articles about places in the US, Canada, and Australia (the original list) are always disambiguated by state/province/territory. For those countries, the state/province/territory qualifier is added even if the original title is unambiguous to begin with; i.e., there could be only one place in the world called XXX, and if it happens to be in the US, it would still be titled "XXX, State". The guidelines for Brazil, Italy, South Africa, and Mexico, on the other hand, say to use the first-level division when the original title is ambiguous. As for the rest of your points. 1) A recommendation is called a recommendation because it recommends doing things in a certain way, not mandates it. When good reasons exist not to follow a recommendation, it may be ignored. As long as the exceptions are made sparingly (which for Russia they are), there is no problem. 2) What the NCGN says, verbatim, is that generic parenthetical disambiguating tags as used for most Wikipedia articles are used only occasionally for geographic names. Titles of set index articles are not "geographic names", they are the names of the lists which, in turn, contain actual geographic names (pursuant to disambiguation practices caveats). Using "XXX (rural locality)" is merely a convenient shorthand for what otherwise would be "List of inhabited localities of rural type called XXX", and the latter is not a "geographic name" by any stretch of imagination, is it? Note also how the latter title doesn't require the country to be specified, as long as the target page is one country-specific, and no places in other countries share the same XXX name (if they do, the set index should be moved to "XXX, Russia").—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 18:44 (UTC) NCGN : "However, when tags are required for places in " - has nothing to do with the fact whether they are 'always' disambiguated by state/province/territory. The country specific disambiguation sections say exactly that. And even for the US 'always' is not true, see Chicago. "X, Russia" is used for some articles on sets of localities in Russia, so it is fine to use it for any of these sets, if disambiguation is required. Making it conforming with NCGN, avoiding future article moves and stating the country, whilst preserving the information that the article is related to a locality for all those readers that know that the comma convention is almost exclusively applied to localities and administrative divisions. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 01:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC) Perhaps I don't understand this proposal.. Does it result in names like Tula, Tula Oblast instead of Tula, Russia? Clearly, the "X, Russia" variant is better here. GreyHood Talk 17:12, 2 July 2011 (UTC) "Clearly" - To me not that clearly. I think both are fine and most important, both are at least better than "(class)". To me Tula, Tula Oblast would indicate that the locality might be the oblast's center and therefore have a certain size and importance, while Tula, Russia could be a 10 inhabitants village. For Russia there is the benefit, that "Oblast" does not exist outside the Eastern Europe/Ex-Soviet Union, so the locality is clearly located in that part of the world. X, X Province would be less helpful and is more likely to be ambiguous, e.g. Cordoba, Cordoba Province. But I also see benefits in ", Russia", e.g. Oblasts can change, or people create index pages like User:Emijrp/Geonames/Cities1000/RU/6 and use the ", Russia" as default. Existing articles under ", <federal subject>" would not be detected by this index page. I think I may withdraw this proposal. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:41, 2 July 2011 (UTC) DAB populated places - drop parenthesis clause for Russia on NCGN Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2011/July#Remove Russia-specific clause and apply general rules. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:34, 5 July 2011 (UTC) DAB set indices of populates places Category:Set indices on Russian inhabited localities contains four formats, the following are example representations: X Abramovka - containing only rural localities Energetik - having a disambiguation hat note X, Russia Alexandrovka, Russia - containing rural and urban localities, there are inhabited localities outside Russia Balta, Russia - containing only rural localities, there are rural localities outside Russia X (inhabited locality) Alexeyevsky (inhabited locality) - containing rural and urban localities Blagoveshchensk (inhabited locality) - containing only urban localities Dubensky (inhabited locality) - containing only rural localities Gagarinsky (inhabited locality) - containing only rural localities AND one entry called Gagarinsky (rural locality) Altaysky (rural locality) - containing only rural localities I suggest to reduce to two formats Abramovka Alexandrovka, Russia / Alexeyevsky, Russia / Altaysky, Russia Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 00:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC) That's actually three formats, not four (just like there are three rules in the guideline). The first one is unambiguous, the second one is ambiguous to places called Alexandrovka outside of Russia, the third one includes both the urban and rural localities within Russia, and the forth one includes only the rural localities within Russia (because there are no urban localities by that name). "Alexeyevsky, Russia" and "Altaysky, Russia" make no sense because there are no articles in Wikipedia about places by these same names outside of Russia, and they don't give readers a clue as to what to expect on the target page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 16:52 (UTC) Whether one defines 3 and 4 as one format or two depends on the definition. "make no sense because there are no articles in Wikipedia about places by these same names outside of Russia" - the idea of a disambiguator is to disambiguate, and that ", Russia" does. So it does make sense. You are not earning any credibility on my side with such statements. I prefer if you would simply address the problems. You read a lot into the disambiguator. Suddenly when one discovers an "Altaysky" outside Russia, one has to rename the page. While ", Russia" can stay forever for objects inside Category:Set indices on Russian inhabited localities. Also, with you logic of reading more from the dab term than it contains, one could also say: "Alexandrovka, Russia" - isn't it an inhabited locality, like Alexeyevsky (inhabited locality)? It's arbitrary. And ", Russia" can be used throughout, why using complex rules, if you can have a simple one? Or one could ask "Altaysky (rural locality)" is this about items inside and outside Russia, since it does not specify "Russia" as in Alexandrovka, Russia? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC) The idea of a disambiguator is to disambiguate, and to achieve that goal it really doesn't matter what kind of disambiguator you use, as long as you use some. To achieve other goals, however, the current system works better; for the reasons I have explained above. "Alexandrovka, Russia" is used because there are articles about other inhabited localities by this name outside of Russia; something that can be very easily checked. There are no articles about places outside of Russia called "Altaysky".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 30, 2011; 17:38 (UTC) I guess it would also be used if there were some uninhabited localities outside Russia. Why in one instance say "rural" and in the other say "inhabited"? Is the rural one not inhabited? And why not reveal that the rural ones or the inhabited ones are in Russia? There are different bits of information, in your mind maybe it is all located in Russia so you see no need to reveal they are in that country. Below is an overview about what the disambiguators reveal. Using ", Russia" does disclose what the two one using "locality" disclose both with a very high likelihood and additionally disclose with very high likelihood that the items are located in Russia. It does not say it is rural or inhabited, but the other two also do not both disclose that. Base name Article name geography related a place name related to a populated place or concept thereof related to a rural place or concept thereof revealing the country bits of information Abramovka Abramovka Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. No. 0 Alexandrovka Alexandrovka, Russia Yes, implicitly, very likely, since has a comma followed by a upper case word which likely is recognized as a name of country. Yes, implicitly, very likely, since has a comma followed by a upper case word which likely is recognized as a name of country. Unknown. Unknown. Yes. 3 Alexeyevsky Alexeyevsky (inhabited locality) Yes, "locality". Likely. But could be a concept. Yes, "inhabited". Unknown. No. 2.5 Altaysky Altaysky (rural locality) Yes, "locality". Likely. But could be a concept. Unknown. Yes, "rural" No. 2.5 Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:56, 30 June 2011 (UTC) The last point by Bogdan Nagachop seems reasonable. Specifying that something is located in Russia might be more important than specifying whether it is urban-type settlement or rural etc. GreyHood Talk 17:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC) @Greyhood: revealing that something is located in Russia is important when there is another place by the same name located outside of Russia. When a place by a certain name only exists in Russia, readers looking for it will find it anyway, in which case specifying the concept becomes more important. Also, specifying the concept is not done to indicate whether a place is urban or rural, but to distinguish it from other concepts which share the name.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 14:21 (UTC) @Bogdan: "uninhabited" localities are the localities which were inhabited at some point, so that's not a distinction we normally make (although, it certainly could be made when absolutely necessary). On "rural" vs. "inhabited", that's merely the terminology quirks. A rural locality is, of course, inhabited, but an inhabited locality is not necessarily rural (it can be urban). So, "rural" includes only the rural localities, while "inhabited" includes both rural and urban localities (although in reality things are a little more complicated because of the grammatical gender issues—an article may list only rural localities but still be under "inhabited" because all entries are of different gender, and one would match the set's title if the latter were to be placed under "rural"). All in all, it matters little what naming convention is used, as one are going to have problems with some articles anyway. Same arguments you are making about the inhabited localities can be made about the railway stations—you could use ", Russia" to name the articles about them, but you'll have to resort to a parenthetical disambiguator to distinguish them from the inhabited localities by the same name anyway (just try fitting the articles about the railway stations into your table above). The current system allows for taking care of that problem, and so, in a different way, does yours. The benefit of the current system, however, is that it can be left alone and followed, while a switch to yours will require a great deal of unnecessary maintenance work. And unnecessary maintenance work is the last thing WP:RUSSIA needs.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 14:21 (UTC) Good reasoning, but the matter is wider than that. If you mean that readers type "X" in search form, than come to "X (disambiguation)", than choose "X (<class>)" or "X, Russia" than perhaps there is no significant difference between the two formats in this case. Though I'm not sure that most readers are well aware of such terms as "urban-type settlement" or "rural locality".. (By the way, urban-type settlements etc must exist not only in Russia but in the other post-Soviet states as well, and often there are many localities with the same name in various regions of Russia, so why not reserve "X (<class>)" for the names of dabs, while "X, Russia" or "X, Y District, Z Oblast" for the articles?) But if user types some disambiguator to the search form, I think more often it will be "Russia" than "urban-type settlement" or anything else (perhaps with such exeptions as "city" or "town"). Also, "X, Russia" is 1) often shorter 2) more universal method 3) nicer without parenthesis 4) easier to type. As disambiguator from other concepts, when it's enough, it serves no worse than "(<class>)". The only possible drawback is that it could affect readers to make a suggestion that X exists not only in Russia. But I think that it is minor point, given that such a format seems to be commonly used throughout Wikipedia, and the aesthetic and other advantages of "X, Russia" are more important. Re: railway stations - I'm not sure, but it seems that "X railway station" or "X railway station, Russia" or "X railway station, Y District, Z Oblast" are enough to disambiguate anything with no need for parenthesis. Re: maintenance - strong point, but if the amended system brings some net benefits, why not make a change. We don't need to change everything in haste, and two formats can co-exist for some time. GreyHood Talk 15:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC) Urban-type settlements do, of course, exist in other post-Soviet states, but that's beyond the point. When a populated place in Russia shares a name with another populated place outside Russia, then the disambiguator would be "Russia" regardless of what type the place is. As for how other WikiProject title the articles in their scope, that's their concern, not ours. We don't have a unified naming convention covering all countries; many have quirks of their own, and that's expected, considering how the structures and terminologies differ across various countries. On the other hand, even when a place by a certain name only exists in Russia, using "Russia" as a disambiguator may still lead to all sorts of confusion; something that using the parenthetical disambiguator can very easily fix. For example, if your average reader is looking for a lake in Russia and sees a list of two entries that includes "X (gadget)" and "X, Russia", which one do you think he'll click (and find himself disappointed)? Even experienced editors like you and me, who know full well that "country name" disambiguator is normally reserved for populated places, would still click through, on the off-chance the article is misnamed. "X, Russia", after all, is not a grammatically incorrect way to refer to a lake! Now replace "X, Russia" with "X (rural locality)", and it's 100% clear that hey, we don't have anything about the lake yet! And if that reader is looking specifically for the village, "X (rural locality)" is so much more specific than non-descript "X, Russia". That's a very specific sort of situation the rule handles very well, with virtually no downsides.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 19:12 (UTC) In this case you try to tune very fine points in the area where you are very knowledgable, but the resulting complexity of rules and titles might be not worth it. Any format has its drawbacks when it comes to readers' understanding and convenience. Consider that it is likely that if someone search a lake, they would type "Lake X" or "X Lake", but it is unlikely that an Anglophone user would type "X urban-type settlement" or "urban-type settlement X" (too long and too specific term, and connection with the country or region is usually much more important than connection with a settlement type). They would type "X Russia" or "X, Russia", and if there is such an article, they will find it. Also, with such common abbreviations as Washington, D.C. I do agree with a view that most likely "X, Russia" would be understood by an Anglophone reader as a place name. Gadgets etc. either should have more specific disambiguators, or at least use the "X (Russia)" format. GreyHood Talk 20:14, 5 July 2011 (UTC) Hmm, if I were to point out a rule where the complexity is way over the top, it would be this proposed one :) As it stands, we are talking about an additional two-liner in a three-bullet list which covers a handful of very specific situations, most of which are incredibly obscure (and when they are not, I'd argue the article should be considered to be primary usage, as we do with Blagoveshchensk). I guess I just am not seeing the same complexity you are! As for your other point, we do not, of course, expect the readers to routinely type in "urban-type settlement" into a search box (as compared to "lake" or some such), but it does make for a very good hint once the reader is already on the dab page which only contains entries on different concepts (especially when more than one of which is in Russia). Readers are more likely to type in non-disambiguated titles ("X") into the search box rather than disambiguated ones ("X, Russia") anyway, so chances are good they will land on a dab. And it's not like some readers won't type in "X, Russia" when they are looking for something in Russia and are not exactly sure what (is it a place? is it an air base? is it a port? All I know it's in Russia!), in which case routing them to the article about an inhabited locality may be doing them a disservice. Per our ever-so-helpful WP:MOSDAB, articles with disambiguated titles (such as "X, Russia") aren't even supposed to have hatnotes indicating that a dab page also exists; a hatnote is only warranted if there are other places by the same name. The current wording of the guideline alleviates this problem at least somewhat; the proposed one only makes it worse.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 20:34 (UTC) I won't comment on the whole proposed guideline which you know better, and I also consider the current guidelines good and working. But I think that it might be possible to make them even better. As for the specific point we discuss, but both at the first glance and after some on-wiki experience I'm inclined to think that "X, Russia" is simplier, better-looking, shorter and overall more handy than "X (<class>)". Complexity results from the fact that there are several classes of inhabited localities and the terms designating them are not handy enough or familiar to Anglophone readers. GreyHood Talk 20:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC) Also, a disambiguation page should typically not just list the article titles, but give short descriptions of what those articles are about. Such description alleviate the possible problems resulting from not specific enough titles. GreyHood Talk 20:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC) "X, Russia" is indeed a simpler-looking approach, but what I am trying to explain is that it's too simple for its own sake on pages where entities are not location-specific or where multiple entities of different type are located in Russia (and thus can be thought of as "X, Russia"). The extra bullet we are discussing takes care of just such cases. Perhaps if terms such as "urban-type settlement" et al. are seen as too scary-looking, we can change the wording to be more generic (something like "use a disambiguator best fit to describe the concept", or "use 'inhabited locality'" instead of highly specific "locality type"), but I just don't see the benefit of removing the clause altogether and using "Russia" instead. As for the the descriptors on the dab pages, MOSDAB actually does not encourage the use of such descriptors on the lines pertaining to populated places, and this lack of encouragement is all too often seen as the actual recommendation which I've on many occasions seen enforced. This practice is yet another point in favor of keeping the rule being discussed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 21:16 (UTC) In fact, I suppose that scary looks of "X (urban-type settlement)", "X (rural locality)" and "X (inhabited locality)" might be the main reason why the other people propose a different format; for me this is certainly the main drawback which could not be justified by minor advantages on dab pages. Perhaps you are right that it is the best variant from the point of view of reading and maintaining dabs and set indexes, but the titles without brackets seem to be nicer and handier from the point of view of reading and writing articles. And I suppose that from editor's point of view, especially the editor who is less familiar with Russian settlements classification, it is better to use shorter article names without thinking of their specific type where it is not the easiest way to disambiguate. GreyHood Talk 22:19, 5 July 2011 (UTC) @Ezhiki "X, Russia" is indeed a simpler-looking approach, but what I am trying to explain is that it's too simple for its own sake on pages where entities are not location-specific or where multiple entities of different type are located in Russia - the clause in question refers to situations where the name is unique for localities in Russia, it enforces "X (<class>)" in situations where "X, Russia" is sufficient. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 09:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC) @Greyhood: I can see your point about some inconvenience to the editors, but the convenience of the editors should always take a back seat to the convenience of the readers. But even with the editors the inconvenience is minor, because, first, the convention affects only a handful of articles, and second, if you use a place name in an article and discover that it leads to a disambig page, choosing the correct target requires only picking out the right entry on the said disambig. As for picking out the entries on the disambigs, I already illustrated above how using parenthetical disambiguators in situations where the ambiguity is between different concepts is more beneficial. Regardless of how you look at it, it's either a benefit or it doesn't change anything, resulting in a net benefit. Minor, but a benefit nevertheless. @Bogdan: you are not addressing my replies, you are just repeating the same thing over and over. I've shown already how "X, Russia" is not sufficient in certain situations and how the clause in question remedies those situations. I'd be happy to hear out your reasoning if you think the examples I provided aren't sufficiently illustrative, but so far you haven't said anything of the sort.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 6, 2011; 16:00 (UTC) Specific SIA issues Energetik (Russian: Энергетик) is the name of several rural localities in Russia: ... ... Energetik, a former urban-type settlement in Vladimir Oblast, Russia; since 2006—part of the city of Vladimir[1] - NOT RURAL, IS IT? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 09:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC) Well, so? It's easy to fix by moving that line to the "see also" section. If you look hard enough, you'll probably find a bunch of similar minor mistakes which accumulated over the years. Welcome to Wikipedia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 16:05 (UTC) Names of categories Categories: Populated places vs Inhabited localities Common use seems to be "Populated places", the only one differing in Category:Populated places by country is Russia, having Category:Inhabited localities in Russia. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 00:52, 29 June 2011 (UTC) This is outside the scope of the discussion on this page. Previous consensus was to leave the choice of the terminology starting at the country level to individual WikiProjects. Feel free to move this to CfD.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 17:01 (UTC) Where is it defined that "Naming conventions (Russia)" is not to cover categories? Where is this "previous consensus" documented? Wouldn't the best place be "Naming conventions (Russia)"? I only see two entries talking about "settlements" VS "inhabited localities" Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_October_28#Category:Settlements_in_Russia where "consensus" is the work of one user (Ezhiki). Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_March_14#Category:Inhabited_localities_in_Russia referring mostly to the previous CfD. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:41, 30 June 2011 (UTC) Good point; this appears to have been missed out in last May's mass move from "Settlements in X" to "Populated place in X".. possibly because the move was mostly done by a bot, and Russia's category had a different name. This should be brought up at CfD, where it will probably be moved. Mlm42 (talk) 16:55, 30 June 2011 (UTC) Types of inhabited localities in Russia does not show "inhabited locality" to be official. It fits nicely with "urban locality" and "rural locality". But are these official? BGN seems to use "populated place" [2]. I think this should be a WP wide decision, there is no special Russia reason here. Also some subcategories of Category:Inhabited localities in Russia use "populated places" and no single one uses "Inhabited localities". Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:06, 30 June 2011 (UTC) Multiple translations of any term are always possible. We pick the ones which work best for our purposes, and for Russia it's "inhabited localities". As long as it's used in English, it's not a problem, as no one expects 100% uniformity of terminology across all countries, to which the presence of multiple country-specific sections in NCGN is the best illustration. So many countries have provinces as their first-level divisions, but it would be foolish to advocate moving the articles on the first-level divisions of all countries to "provinces", wouldn't it? :) This thread is still offtopic, by the way. Discussions of categories belong on CfD, not here.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 16:13 (UTC) Proposing something stupid and asking whether it would be foolish, does not help you to argue against a completely different proposal. We pick the ones which work best for our purposes, and for Russia it's "inhabited localities". - Who is "We"? And why can Russia not use the same name as all the other countries? Partially you argue by referring to what other countries do, partially you say you don't want to do what other countries do. Is it you who invented this naming system for articles on Russian localities, which is not in line with general WP approaches? Is this your pet project? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC) "We" are the members of the WikiProject who actually care about the articles, not about how to burnish the guidelines until there is a hole in the ground. The guidelines of this type are simply a way to document the practices which are already being followed; nothing is to be gained by "improving" them just so they look pretty. As I said before, if a proposal does not fix some serious problem or introduce a tangible improvement on the encyclopedic side of the matters, there are no reasons to support it, especially when it's associated with added maintenance. On the cat name, once again, that's a CfD matter which does not belong here. By the by, I'd appreciate if you didn't immediately tag me as someone who'd oppose the cat rename if it were to be submitted properly. You haven't even asked whether I'd support or oppose it, yet for some reason believe that I'll oppose simply because I keep directing you to the proper procedural path. As it happens, I don't mind renaming this cat to "populated places" at all (although I was very much against renaming it to "settlements" when most other cats were named so; fortunately that situation had long been remedied). What I do oppose is the proliferation of the term "populated places" to the articles specific to Russia. Mind you, it's not incorrect by any means, but neither is "inhabited localities", and the latter works so much better for Russia. Why does it work better for Russia but not for other countries? Because the distinction between the urban and rural localities in Russia is so much more ingrained into all geographic aspects, so the terms "urban locality" and "rural locality" (collectively known as "inhabited localities") have very specific, clearly defined, and widely used meanings. In other countries the distinction is either mostly informal, or is limited to much narrower fields than in Russia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 19:04 (UTC) "We" are the members of the WikiProject who actually care about the articles - so combined with the former, you mean anyone questioning the current naming conventions is not caring about the articles. Thanks for the clarification. Back to the topic of this section: The topic is category naming, if you don't oppose that - fine, then we are done here. No need for drama. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 00:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC) No need for drama. Amen to that. I've started the CfD discussion here. Mlm42 (talk) 05:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC) Categories: Set indices on Russian inhabited localities vs Set indices on populated places in Russia By the same reasoning Category:Set indices on Russian inhabited localities should be renamed. And it should be "in Russia", to make clear the items are not ethnicity related, but country related. Proposing: Category:Set indices on populated places in Russia. Should it be "on" or "of"? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 08:33, 2 July 2011 (UTC) I agree with the "in Russia" proposal, but not with the "populated places" proposal. Names of categories should follow the terminology used in the articles, unless those categories are a part of a larger scheme within which a consensus to name them uniformly exists. That would be the case for the general "populated places in Foo" cats, but the SIA cats are not a part of any bigger scheme, and "inhabited localities" is the terminology used in all Russia-specific articles. There is no reason to sacrifice encyclopedic accuracy for the sake of consistency here, because there is nothing for this cat to be consistent with.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 14:04 (UTC) Which populated place in Russia is not an inhabited locality in Russia? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 14:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC) Indeed.. I thought populated=inhabited, and place=locality. So I don't see what the problem is; the category should be consistent with Category:Populated places in Russia. Mlm42 (talk) 17:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC) And the only other reason that comes to my mind is, that "inhabited locality" is an official designation, but I see no evidence for that. The main article could be moved too, I made a proposal at Talk:Types of inhabited localities in Russia#Move to Types of populated places in Russia. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Proposed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 July 19#Category:Set indices on Russian inhabited localities. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:28, 19 July 2011 (UTC) Articles placed under ambiguous place names Kumukh, Russian WP mentions two "Kumukh" Oktyabrsky, Republic of Bashkortostan, English WP mentions several at Oktyabrsky (inhabited locality) Blagoveshchensk, another locality under Blagoveshchensk, Republic of Bashkortostan and a set index under Blagoveshchensk (inhabited locality). No disambiguation page. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 06:52, 1 July 2011 (UTC) The first one is due to Wikipedia being (perpetually) incomplete. Once we have an article about another Kumukh, this one can be moved. The other two are exceptions made on purpose. Oktyabrsky in Bashkortostan is the biggest and most notable of all places with this name, and Blagoveshchensk in Amur Oblast is overwhelmingly more notable than any other places called that. When one place is more notable than all other places by the same name combined, making an exception to the rule is only sensible.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 16:19 (UTC) NCRUS vs NCGN Chupa (urban-type settlement) - Opposed to WP:NCGN#Disambiguation "parenthetical disambiguating tags as used for most Wikipedia articles are used only occasionally for geographic names, (as in Wolin (town), where no regional tag would be sufficient to distinguish the town from the island of Wolin)" Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC) Chupa is one of the very few articles using the parenthetical disambiguating tags, so I don't see any contradiction. The parenthetical convention is indeed used "only occasionally" for places in Russia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 16:20 (UTC) But why this exception, why not use WP:NCGN (where no regional tag would be sufficient)? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC) I had to move Chupa, by the way, because there are several other places by that name in Russia (I didn't realize that last time I edited the Chupa-related pages). To answer your question, the exception is important because on the dabs which list different concepts it's more helpful to the readers to identify the link by type than by location. Location is important only when there are more than one entity of the same type. "XXX (urban-type settlement)" is a link to an article about an urban-type settlement, while "XXX, Russia" can be a link to anything in Russia. You'd think that a description on the dab page could provide additional hints as to what exactly in Russia the article is about, but under the strict interpretation of WP:MOSDAB (and, I gather, you are a fan of strict interpretations): for places, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article. That's one of those stupid rules which only the MOSDAB zealots actually enforce (and oh boy, do they enforce it) and most sane folks ignore, but it is officially there and needs to be taken into consideration in other guidelines.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 19:15 (UTC) This is the same debate as the Alexeyev etc debate above. "it's more helpful to the readers to identify the link by type than by location." Ëzhiki, that is your supposition, which can't be verified. The number of readers who are looking for an obscure Russian place must be tiny, and such a hypothetical reader may or may not know how it is classified ("type"), and may or may not know in which part of Russia ("location") it is found. But the reader who is looking for something other than a Russian place when typing "Chupa" is not well served by having an entry called Chupa (inhabited locality) which gives no clue as to where in the world it is located. See Chita where every entry is well explained. Sussexonian (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2011 (UTC) Well, the opposite statement is also a supposition which can't be verified, so that's not a convincing argument for change. What can, however, be verified is that most articles about the places in Russia conform with the existing guideline, and it's pretty obvious that changing it to something else brings no benefit whatsoever (Bogdan's only argument is that it makes the guideline look cleaner, which is a dubious achievement considering how no one wants to enforce the proposal if it passes and how it implies that policy space pages are more important than the articles). With the current approach it is at least immediately clear which entry is a populated place; unlike ", Russia", it leaves no room for guessing. As for "Chupa (inhabited locality)", it does indeed give no clue where it's located, but since we only have articles about places by this name in Russia, what does it matter? The titles of most articles about populated places give no indication of where they are located either, simply because their names are not ambiguous! (Orlovat is one example I found after clicking "random page" just three times). If a reader is looking for an article which we don't have, they are going to run into all kinds of dead ends anyway, so that situation is largely irrelevant to this discussion. It can only be fixed by writing a new article, and once that's done, it's likely some maintenance will need to be done to other articles anyway. These guidelines help with performing that maintenance by describing how the majority of other articles are organized. As for Chita, it gives a thorough explanation for each entry because the members of WP:RUSSIA took care of it. If one of the hardcore MOSDAB regulars ever finds it, they are going to strip most of the explanations away so it'll end up looking just like this.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 20:42 (UTC) @it is more helpful to show the type instead of the country or the federal subject, the latter appended via the comma convention which is an indicator for a populated place. - By doing it that way, one looses the country and wins a tiny benefit, a little bit more info about the type. Still, this information, which you claim is so important, is not shown for any locality that shares a name with any other locality inside or outside Russia, even if it is a unique name for that type, e.g. there is only one village Dombay, but is is listed as Dombay, Omsk Oblast, and only one urban-type settlement, but it is listed as Dombay, Karachay-Cherkess Republic. @lot of time for maintenance/implementing the change - how long did it take to /move/ "Chupa (urban-type settlement)" to "Chupa, Republic of Karelia"? 30 seconds? 1 min? So for 60 entries it would be one hour? Following are all urban-type settlements with parenthetical disambiguation that I found, several will need a move like Chupa, marked with !!, because there are same named localities, maybe you can check your sources whether you find more possible conflicts for those that I couldn't find one yet: Dikson (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Dikson Enem (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Enem !! place in Indonesia Muyezersky (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Muyezersky Plastun (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Plastun Seymchan (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Seymchan Sheksna (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Sheksna formerly using "(urban-type settlement)", moved because there are other localities Chupa (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Chupa => Chupa, Republic of Karelia Pyra (urban-type settlement) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Pyra !! Pyra, Belarus + a place in Estonia ==> redirect from Pyra, Russia created. This is also linked from User:Emijrp/Geonames/Cities1000/RU/6, an example for benefit of the ", Russia" standard. Shamkhal (urban-type settlement) (at page Shamkhal) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Shamkhal !! place in Iran ==> Now Shamkhal, Republic of Dagestan now a rural locality (Aban (rural locality) moved 30 June 2008 from Aban (urban-type settlement)) http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Aban !! several places outside Russia => now at Aban, Russia The rural locality articles with parenthetical disambiguation are harder to find for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&ns0=1&redirs=0&search=rural+locality&limit=500&offset=0 lists set index pages and article pages as "X (rural locality)". Why are the types for the articles not more specific, e.g. "(selo)" or "(village)"? Both terms used for disambiguation in some other articles of places in Russia. Why using the generic "rural locality" for articles at all? And , to me Afrikanda, Murmansk Oblast or Afrikanda, Russia means more than Afrikanda (rural locality). So four out of the nine articles listed above will need to be moved in the future. This extra work could be prevented by choosing ", Russia" right from the start. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 00:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC) Well, kudos, but so what? Like I said before, our naming conventions do not require an extensive research in order to choose article titles. All we care about is the ambiguity among the articles we already have. Of course, if you are already aware of a place outside of Russia that shares the name with a place in Russia, then accounting for that when choosing appropriate disambiguators is only sensible, but if you don't, it's no big deal—the articles can be moved later as ambiguities turn up. It is an exercise in futility to try to come up with a system that prevents moves from ever being done. The name of any place can change just as easily as its type; in fact, name changes in Russia are actually more frequent than type changes! As for Afrikanda, how can "Afrikanda, Russia" make more sense if both the rural locality and the air base are in Russia (and in Murmansk Oblast)?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 19:29 (UTC) @"our naming conventions" - The general WP conventions disambiguate with ", country" or something like ", state". By doing so, there can only be ambiguity on the country or state level. But your convention that you designed for WP Russia leaves room for ambiguity worldwide, and since "X (rural locality)" can clash with current and future articles will put more work on editors in the future, more moves, more work to disambiguate links. Work that better can be spend in other fields. @A"how can "Afrikanda, Russia" make more sense" - I didn't say it makes more sense in general, nor that it makes more sense at all. I said it means more to me. It does not reveal the rural nature, but like "Afrikanda (rural locality)" it reveals that it is a locality, since it uses the comma convention, which is reserved for localities and administrative divisions, the latter always running with a type. Items in Category:Russian Air Force bases do not use ", ". Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 09:43, 6 July 2011 (UTC) The general conventions do advocate that yes, but the country-specific conventions do all sorts of things differently from the general conventions. That's the whole point of having country-specific conventions, so things could be done differently for the countries where doing so is beneficial, yet no other countries (where the approach may not be as beneficial) would be affected. As for your increased maintenance argument, I'm not buying it. It takes a certain amount of work to move any article, but articles are moved for all sorts of reasons, and this particular reason is not even very common. I, for one, move more articles because of name changes than because of type changes, and the amount of work involved with such moves is exactly the same. Moving stuff is a part of Wikipedia, and if you aim to reduce maintenance, it would be easier to move a few stragglers which don't conform with the current guidelines than to move hundreds of articles and waste hours of hours on cleanup to conform with an "improved" guideline (which isn't even that improved). As for Afrikanda, "Afrikanda (rural locality)" is not used to "reveal its rural nature". It is used to contrast it to other entities which are not rural localities (or inhabited localities). You seem to imply that "rural locality" is used because it is important in itself. It's not. As I said before, any other parenthetical disambiguator will work for this purpose as long as it is sufficient to distinguish this entry from air bases, cakes, lakes, wedding ceremonies, mountains, or what-else-have-you. Choosing the locality type for this purpose is just a logical choice. If you are reading a book that mentions Afrikanda in Russia and want to look it up, it's easier to choose between an "air base" and a "rural locality" than between an "air base" and "whatever it is, it's in Russia". Most readers have no idea that we reserve the comma convention for the localities and administrative divisions, so they'll take "X, Russia" at face value (which is "anything in Russia"). Readers are always right, readers are who we should be thinking of first, and assuming that everyone knows in intricate detail all our naming conventions is just plain arrogance.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 6, 2011; 15:45 (UTC) the country-specific conventions do all sorts of things differently from the general conventions - no, they do not. Read WP:NCGN. There are a lot of sections, but they are repeating same concepts. Only Russia introduces a new one. Most readers have no idea that we reserve the comma convention for the localities ... they'll take "X, Russia" at face value (which is "anything in Russia") - and they take "X (rural locality)" at face value, which is any rural locality, whatever that is, in the world. And the most important thing, your self-made rule switches from "X (rural locality)" to "X, Russia" anyway, as soon as /any/ type of locality anywhere in the world named "X" gets an article in WP, even if it is not a rural locality. What you claim to be so important goes away immediately and is reduced to "anything in Russia" anyway. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 01:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC) Oh yes they do. Italy follows the same horrible convention that you proposed for Russia and then withdrew. The UK uses different procedures for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The US and a few other countries pre-disambiguate almost all place names. And, the US is the only one, or one of very few, that explicitly prohibit using the "X, country" convention, meaning that Russia is not "the only one to introduce a new rule". And so on and so forth; your arguments just aren't backed up by evidence. Indonesia doesn't have an NCGN section, but uses "(city)" for disambiguation routinely. So does India (for which a proposal similar to yours did not generate any interest and was not supported; I'd speculate it's because the benefit didn't justify the maintenance, which is also a reason for my opposition). I'm sure you'll find many more example if you keep looking. There just is no good reason to unify these all under one guideline, because no one guideline can ever be flexible enough to cover everything. What's more, I'd say that other countries not using parenthetical disambiguators in situations when ambiguity is between concepts, not places by the same name, is their loss. The utility of this approach is obvious, the drawbacks non-existent, and the opposition is only due to the fact that a generic guideline tells us to do otherwise, giving no explanation of why (incidentally, why???) You might also want to read NCGN in its entirety. If specific disambiguation conventions apply to places of a particular type or in a particular country, then it is important to follow these—why are you not following this advice, but do follow the line immediately above it? On your other point (that readers will take something like "rural locality" at its face value), I've asked you this several times before, and I will ask this again—so what? The face value of "rural locality" is a lot more specific than the face value of ", Russia" in the context the guideline is applied in. When we need to emphasize that something is a rural locality (and not a cake, a lake, or a German tamagochi brand from the 1990s), "X (rural locality)" is so much more helpful than "X, Russia". Why sacrifice specificity where it actually matters? On your last point (that "X (rural locality)" will be moved to "X, Russia" when an article about a place called X outside of Russia is written, and so the important information will be lost), if you recall your question about Shamkhal, I'd be in favor of retaining the parenthetical disambiguator (in addition to "Russia) anyway if the place is not very notable (which is going to be most cases). If it is fairly notable, I'd see "X, Russia" (as opposed to "X (type), Russia") to be a simplification for the sake of balance—basically for the same reason why I have no problem with having the article about the city of Pushkino under simplified title (Pushkino, Moscow Oblast) instead of a technically more correct but unwieldy "Pushkino, Pushkinsky District, Moscow Oblast". Plus, entries on several places sharing the same name but in different countries would most likely go under a "populated places" heading on the dab page (so the type information is not lost; it's transformed into a dab header), which is not something that can be done when ambiguity is between concepts. When ambiguity is between concepts, parenthetical disambiguators are the only tool that allows sufficient specificity.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 7, 2011; 17:23 (UTC) Rural localities Federal subject Total articles using "X, " using "X (rural locality)", including "X (village)" "X (rural locality)" or "X (village)" needing move Adygea, Republic of 10 2 None. Altai Krai 6 4 1 (Mamontovsky) Amur Oblast 3 1 None. Arkhangelsk Oblast 6 None. None. Astrakhan Oblast 1 None. None. Bashkortostan 9 7 None. Belgorod Oblast 4 2 None. Bryansk Oblast 3 3 None. Buryatia, Republic of 3 None. 1 (Gusinoye Ozero) Chechnya 18 1 None. Chelyabinsk Oblast 4 2 None. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug 41 6 1 (Omolon) Omolon will need move, places in Magadan [3] Chuvash Republic 7 2 None. Dagestan 9 1 None. Ingushetia, Republic of 3 None. None. Dagestan 9 1 None. Irkutsk Oblast 8 1 1 (Kezhemsky) Ivanovo Oblast 2 1 None. Jewish Autonomous Oblast 5 None. None. Kabardino-Balkaria 2 1 1 (Nartan) Kaliningrad Oblast 17 8 None. Kalmykia 2 None. None. Kaluga Oblast 6 3 None. Kalmykia 2 None. None. Kamchatka Krai 4 2 None. Karachay-Cherkessia 2 None. None. Karelia, Republic of 9 None. None. Khabarovsk Krai 6 2 1 Kirov Oblast 3 2 1 (Nizhnyaya Toyma) None. Komi Republic 4 1 None. Krasnodar Krai 11 1 2 (Ryazanskaya, Kostromskaya (village)) Kostromskaya - There might be a conflict with one in Udmurtia [4] Krasnoyarsk Krai 11 4 2 (Podkamennaya Tunguska, Popigay) None. Kursk Oblast 1 1 None. Total for the above 231 59 11 1 are ambiguous, likely a second too. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 12:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC), Ayon, Loyno, Khatanga moved Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 22:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC) What is this supposed to illustrate?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 7, 2011; 16:41 (UTC) I think it's supposed to demonstrate that Bogdan can make wikitables. As with the main NCRUS page the lower half of which is full of something similar. I agree with Bogdan that X, Russia is preferred to X (weird-type phrase) where a name is shared between Russia and non Russia items. But the never-ending detail he is adding serves only to obscure the main point of the discussion and it has now spread to about 4 pages. I think the NCRUS page needs to be stripped back to the basics and the discussion restarted. Sussexonian (talk) 23:05, 7 July 2011 (UTC) Hear, hear. The original discussion was about a different (and more important!) issue entirely, which is now entirely lost in this onslaught of geographic details. Bogdan, would you kindly move the NCGN-related discussion elsewhere or archive it, so we could return to discussing the conventionality criteria (NCRUS)? The NCGN-related opinions should go to the NCGN thread anyway; there's little use in having the same discussion in two places. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 8, 2011; 13:26 (UTC) The above table gives some statistics regarding the effects of the naming conventions. There is lot of talk without providing any quantitative analysis. Every side is giving single examples. There is more help in a broader view. This is NCRUS related, since it is a Russia specific naming convention. This is only discussed on NCGN to get more input. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC) Well, I'd say this analysis is not very useful because it's based on a very limited (and non-representative) sample, but still, why not move it to a subpage to which other discussions can be linked if needed? The NCGN discussion is ongoing on the NCGN talk page (as it should) anyway. Here we could focus on more important things... which actually affect more than a handful of articles!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 14, 2011; 14:31 (UTC) Statistics for 231 articles is more than you have ever contributed in any discussion I have seen. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 14:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC) I don't understand this comment.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 14, 2011; 16:26 (UTC) I think Bogdan's table is helpful, because gives an idea of what we are actually talking about. I, for one, certainly appreciate the injection of more balanced and systematic facts into the discussion; it's not helpful when editors cherry pick examples, and then claim those examples are somehow representative, when in fact they are not. I'm also surprised at how dismissive Sussexonian and Ezhiki's comments have been regarding this new information. Mlm42 (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC) I agree that cherry-picked examples such as the ones this table contains aren't helpful. It claims to be representative, but overlooks the fact that a majority of cases that actually illustrate the point are nothing more than overlooked remnants from years past. This is a good cleanup listing, but it doesn't prove any points (beyond the fact that some cleanup needs to be done irregardless of what the guideline says). With that in mind, I should note that I am not dismissive regarding this table, I'm just pointing out that for the sake of resuming the original discussion it could be moved elsewhere. The NCGN clause was not even part of the original conventionality criteria, yet now it is overshadowing everything else. Flooding the original issue in the deluge of only tangentially related geographic trivia isn't helpful to anyone, which is the point Sussexonian and me are trying to bring across. The discussion that matters is ongoing on the NCGN talk; why keep it here as well?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 14, 2011; 17:17 (UTC) If you think the examples in the table have been cherry-picked, then I think you are misusing that phrase. The table systematically goes through the first part of Category:Rural localities in Russia. I think the point was to determine the current situation for article names of "Rural localities" in Russia, right now; that's what the table does. This talk page seems like an appropriate place for it. Of course the main discussion should stay at WP:NCGN. Mlm42 (talk) 19:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC) Nope, I'm not misusing the phrase. The Category:Rural localities in Russia contains articles on only a tiny fraction of all rural localities in Russia, and has been populated mostly by me and mostly with articles which are ambiguous to something else in all sorts of different ways. In other words, it contains mostly test cases to try finding the best way to organize the information, created over the course of several years and using different approaches. As such, it is not a good representation of the overall picture, and I happen to know that Bogdan is perfectly aware of that fact, yet he doesn't hesitate to use these stats as if they were actually meaningful.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 14, 2011; 19:30 (UTC) Please provide evidence for the claim about me. I am myself not aware of this characteristic of me, but maybe you know more about me than I do. Using the categories was the easiest way, I don't know where else to get statistics that fast. If you have tools that can provide other statistics that fast, go for it, I am happy to see them.Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 15:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC) "Maybe" is right (and maybe you forgot; it's been a while, after all). If you are OK with my posting our email correspondence from a few years ago here or on your talk page as "evidence", I'll be happy to oblige. Otherwise I suggest you search your email archives to refresh your memory and retract this comment. As for stats, I can fairly quickly provide any stats for ambiguities inside Russia; just let me know what you need me to pull. I don't have an ability to pull the stats for ambiguities with other concepts (I don't think anyone has) or for places outside Russia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 15, 2011; 15:20 (UTC) To be clear, when you say the category "contains articles on only a tiny fraction of all rural localities in Russia", do you mean there are other articles in Wikipedia which are about rural localities in Russia, but which aren't in the category? Or do you mean there are rural localities in Russia which don't yet have Wikipedia articles? Mlm42 (talk) 19:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC) I mean there are many (i.e., tens of thousands) rural localities in Russia which should have articles and don't. Fixing this is what I've been working on for the past seven years, and how to organize those articles is a big part of the project on which everything else is dependent (hence the importance of the test cases and the consistency of the infrastructure). On an unrelated note, it's a pity that in seven years I met only about a dozen editors willing to work on the actual articles about places in Russia, yet the flow of editors willing only to debate and revise the naming conventions seems to be never-ending.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 14, 2011; 19:52 (UTC) The flow of editors willing only to debate and revise the naming conventions seems to be never-ending. If the Russian-related naming conventions were more in-line with site-wide policies, then maybe you wouldn't be facing so much resistance? Also, I should point out that the above table obviously is not claiming to be representative of all rural localities in Russia. It is a representative table of Wikipedia articles about rural localities in Russia (and hence has not been cherry-picked). Mlm42 (talk) 04:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Hey, we already had perfectly good guidelines in place until another wave of such editors came along (and I am yet to see any actual improvements that wave has brought to the article space—care to show me?). I'll bet you my shirt that another wave will be forthcoming in a few years to contest these new guidelines. That, unfortunately, is the sad reality of Wikipedia—at any given time more people are interested in debating policies than in working on the content. On cherry-picking, I don't know of a better term to use in a situation when one knows perfectly well that a certain set of the Wikipedia articles about a subject are skewed yet doesn't hesitate to use that set as if it were a truly representative sample of the overall situation. Note what the last column lists—all those articles are all either older tests, or incorrectly disambiguated because new articles appeared after these had been created, or simple mistakes, yet the point being made is that they are all examples of how the guideline doesn't work. If that's not cherry-picking, I don't know what is.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 15, 2011; 13:24 (UTC) @actual improvement: New SIA pages: Chulym, Russia, Karasuk, Russia. Improving the what you yourself call important infrastructure, by moving articles that resided under ambiguous names, changing some red links that where ambiguous. @skewed, see the below city and towns section, there you have numbers taken from Adygea -> Ivanovo: 11 articles that will need a move to "X, something" vs. 1 that can stay under "X (class)". Yes, rural locality was skewed, it gave a better impression of the guidelines than the reality is. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC) I have nothing against improvements (and you are the only person who's actually helping with this, by the way; thank you for that). I never denied that there is mighty plenty cleanup that needs to be done in this area, yet I am but one man who can't do it all in one sitting. As a result, there's always something hanging that needs to (and will eventually) be cleaned up at some later date. All that mess is only an illustration of the fact that we don't have enough people to do the chores. As for the cities/towns, I replied below.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 15, 2011; 14:16 (UTC) Cities and towns All categories inside Category:Cities and towns in Russia have been search for "X (type)" and then X has been checked for ambiguity. Articles that needed a move: Ob (town) -> Ob, Russia - locality outside Russia: Ob, Germany (with no Wikipedia article) Chulym (town) -> Chulym, Novosibirsk Oblast - locality in Russia Karasuk (town) -> Karasuk, Novosibirsk Oblast - locality in Russia Zhukovsky (city) -> Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast locality in Russia (caught and fixed in April 2011) Kusa (town) -> Kusa, Russia, due to localities outside Russia, e.g. Kusa, Latvia Argun (town) - localities in and outside Russia (correct) - move awaited, SIA at Argun, Russia Yuryuzan (town) -> Yuryuzan, Chelyabinsk Oblast locality in Russia: Yuryuzan, Bashkortostan Alatyr (town) -> Alatyr, Chuvashia locality in Russia: Alatyr, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Onega (town) -> Onega, Russia - localities outside Russia: Onega, Minnesota, Onega, Texas (with no Wikipedia article; although ambiguous to a historical US city name) Furmanov (town) -> Furmanov, Ivanovo Oblast, localities in and outside Russia: Furmanov, Russia, Furmanov, Kazakhstan Neman (town) -> Neman, Kaliningrad Oblast, localities outside Russia Zhukov (town) -> Zhukov, Kaluga Oblast, SIA at Zhukov, Russia due to Zhukov, Ukraine Kem (town) -> Kem, Russia (currently at Kem, Karelia - was a mistake) Abaza (town) -> Abaza, Russia : places in Niger, Nigeria, Turkey Buy (town) -> Buy, Kostroma Oblast : SIA at Buy, Russia Usman (town) -> Usman, Russia, several places in Pakistan, Kazakhstan etc Korolyov (city) -> Korolyov, Moscow Oblast other places in Russia [5] Kola (town) -> Kola, Russia several places outside Russia [6] Semyonov (town) -> Semyonov, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast SIA at Semyonov, Russia Uren (town) -> Uren, Russia places outside Russia Pushkin (town) -> Pushkin, Sankt-Peterburg, places in Rostov, Krasnodar, Azerbaijan Makarov (town) -> Makarov, Sakhalin Oblast several [7] SIA at Makarov, Russia Yershov (town) -> Yershov, Saratov Oblast, SIA needed Yershov, Russia [8] Bolgar (town) -> Bolgar, Tatarstan SIA Bolgar, Russia there is one in Ukraine [9] Suvorov (town) -> Suvorov, Tula Oblast SIA Suvorov, Russia, place in Ukraine [10] Kashin (town) -> Kashin, Tver Oblast, places in Volgograd and Tver Oblast Inza (town) -> Inza, Russia places in Colombia, Central African Republic and Burma Pokrov (town) -> Pokrov, Vladimir Oblast SIA at Pokrov, Russia Kirillov (town) -> Kirillov, Vologda Oblast several places in Russia SIA needed Kalach (town) -> Kalach, Voronezh Oblast SIA Kalach, Russia Articles that will need a move even under current rules: Zeya (town) - locality outside Russia (with no Wikipedia article) Babushkin (town) - locality in Russia in Novosibirsk (incorrect; the Novosibirsk Oblast registry does not list any places by this name and there is nothing at the specified coordinates) Asha (town) i+o (in Dagestan (Dagestan is incorrect—the place at those coordinates is called "Ashcha", not "Asha"; no Wikipedia articles for places outside Russia, but there is a dab entry for Cyprus) Plast (town) i (in Krasnoyarsk Krai) (incorrect; the Krasnoyarsk Krai registry does not list any places by this name and there is nothing at the specified coordinates) Zima (town) o (with no Wikipedia article) Demidov (town) -> Demidov, Smolensk Oblast SIA Demidov, Russia also place in Ukraine Need checking Dmitriyev (town) maybe SIA Dmitriyev, Russia Gorbatov (town) - maybe SIA, also place in Ukraine [11] Balashov (town) likely -> Balashov, Saratov Oblast there is one in Astrakhan [12] maybe SIA needed Engels (city) - locality outside Russia (with no Wikipedia article) Ertil (town) - needs check http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=ertil&country= Yefremov (town) there is an abandoned populated place in Lipetsk http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Yefremov&country= Shilka (town) - place in Krasnoyarsk http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Shilka&country= Articles that don't need a move under current rules Anadyr (town) Salair (town) Ilansky (town) Domodedovo (town) Roshal (town) Belinsky (town) Ochyor (town) Korsakov (town) Bogdanovich (town) Serov (town) Alexandrov (town) Clarification needed for Petrovsk-Zabaykalsky, if X is a locality, do X District and X Oblast compete for the primary place? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Amended Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC) several amendments Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC) Once again, a great cleanup listing (although Ob gives me pause), but how does it prove that the guideline is a failure? Most of the articles in this list were created when Wikipedia didn't have any articles about other places by these names (and many of those other places "inside and outside Russia" still don't have articles). As I pointed out before, researching possible ambiguities beforehand is a good practice, but it is not required by our guidelines. As new articles are written, some of the older ones need to be moved, but that's a very general problem, not one specific only to this particular guideline.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 15, 2011; 14:08 (UTC) No one ever claimed that researching possible ambiguities beforehand is required by any guideline. But what is true, is that other WikiProjects don't cause the trouble Russia is causing, since they don't interfere with localities in other countries. They do so [updated, added "They do so"] by using "X, <country>" or "X, <region>" in cases where the plain name cannot be used and disambiguation is needed anyway. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 14:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Trouble? What trouble? I'm yet to see anyone complaining about inability to create an article because the place is taken, so to speak. At any rate, moves due to something else by the same name popping up are not at all unusual and most of them have nothing to do with this guideline. Plus, if you move "X (class)" to "X, Russia" and then discover that there are actually two places in Russia called "X", you'll have to do yet another move, so your "interference" argument doesn't hold water. Or, what if some other place in Russia is renamed and the new names happens to be ambiguous to a previously unambiguous name of some other place? What guideline should we amend to prevent such a horror? By your own research there are more articles titled "X, Country", and there is a chance many of them need to be moved because there might be more than one place called "X" in that "Country". What are you going to do about that? Amending this guideline certainly doesn't address that issue at all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 15, 2011; 21:33 (UTC) The cases you mention, like renaming of a locality are not subject of the proposal to use "X, Russia" instead of "X (class)". The X part was not addressed. You are again diving into drama. Not sure what you mean with "hold water", but Ayon (rural locality) was occupied by a rural locality in Russia, while there is a village in Indonesia. Good WP practice is to use "X, Country name". If all WikiProjects would work like WP Russia, this would cause a lot of wrong links. People would create listings and assume the village in their country is the only one. But then links might end up on village articles on far away countries. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Stress marks on Russian names in English Wikipedia.

Moved to WT:RUSSIA#Using accent marks to indicate stress.