Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia

Russia articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 9 17 29 31 1 87 FL 2 4 6 2 14 FM 90 90 A 2 3 12 12 29 GA 28 39 118 225 3 413 B 218 295 512 739 248 2,012 C 351 614 1,214 2,889 781 5,849 Start 447 1,548 6,513 14,640 1 2,532 25,681 Stub 11 237 4,113 45,328 54 3,641 53,384 List 70 94 423 3,149 36 190 3,962 Category 21,385 21,385 Disambig 248 248 File 476 476 Portal 26 26 Project 140 140 Redirect 3 522 1,958 2,483 Template 4,377 4,377 NA 4 26 30 Other 119 119 Assessed 1,138 2,851 12,943 67,541 28,936 7,396 120,805 Unassessed 1 375 1,459 1,835 Total 1,138 2,851 12,944 67,916 28,936 8,855 122,640 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 478,683 Ω = 5.48

Russian Ground Forces

Russian Ground Forces has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parrot of Doom (talk • contribs)

Assessments heads-up

Just a heads-up to folks who are doing assessments—when assessing/re-assessing articles, please spell out the banner name completely (i.e., use {{WikiProject Russia}}, not {{WPRUSSIA}} or any other shortcuts). The reason for that is the new {{ArticleAlertbotSubscription}} service available to WikiProjects—it watches the articles pertaining to the WikiProjects based on the banner which the articles are tagged with, but, unfortunately, it does not work with the redirects to the main banner. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:53, February 24, 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Things we can do

Could some of the members of our numerous membership base please comment at Portal talk:Russia/Things you can do regarding how the "what you can do" banner situated at the top of this very page should be treated? Should we just worship it or is anyone planning on actually putting it to some use? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:01, March 30, 2009 (UTC)

Infobox practices and original research

There is a discussion going on at Template talk:Infobox Russian federal city regarding whether determining the elevation of a city via Google Earth is considered original research, and whether poorly-definable figures such as metro area/population should be included in the infoboxes at all. Additional input there would most certainly be appreciated.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:48, May 6, 2009 (UTC)

Another Vote for article renaming for the 2008 South Ossetia War article

Yup folks, some users are trying rename this article yet again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2008_South_Ossetia_war#Requested_move

Same arguments, same story. Also, so that I don't get accused of "canvassing" this time, can someone else ask others who edited that talkpage to comment and/or vote. Thank you! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Nizhny Novgorod oblast --> Nizhni Novgorod oblast

Please help me change "Nizhny Novgorod oblast" to "Nizhni Novgorod oblast" regarding The Constitution of Russia (http://kremlin.ru/eng/articles/ConstEng3.shtml). There hundreds of articles with errors in name or content. nejron (talk) 08:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the article back. "Nizhny Novgorod Oblast" spelling is supported by the WP:UE and WP:RUS guidelines and is correct. "Nizhni Novgorod oblast" is not incorrect, but it is not the variant recommended by our guidelines.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:11, June 8, 2009 (UTC)

Why? It's in The Constitution of Russia (http://kremlin.ru/eng/articles/ConstEng3.shtml). I think The Constitution is the most important source. nejron (talk) 18:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The Constitution of Russia, in Russian, is indeed a very important source. Its translations, however, depend very much on the preferences of translators and the guidelines of the agencies for whose purposes the translations are being done. If you consider Wikipedia as being one of such agencies, you should take into consideration the rules applicable to this kind of translation, which, in this case, are WP:UE and WP:RUS. We use "Nizhny", not "Nizhni" because of WP:RUS, we use "oblast" and not, say, "region" because our guidelines call for use of exact terminology (we are, after all, an encyclopedia), and we capitalize "Oblast" because this is the general approach taken by our naming conventions.

All in all, you can't single out just one source (no matter how good it is) and use it as the reason for doing something, especially if that something is not supporting the facts, but rather representing an arbitrary choice of formatting. With hundreds of different ways of doing any given thing, we have to standardize on something. From the encyclopedia point of view, WP:UE and BGN/PCGN-based romanization guidelines make a lot more sense than relying on whatever random choice one branch of government decided to use on its website. Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:35, June 8, 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Renaming of 2008 South Ossetia war

Hey everyone! I know that (HistoricWarrior007 has already brought this proposed renaming up on this page already, but I'd like to do so again in a more neutral manner.

Currently, there is a discussion underway at Talk:2008 South Ossetia war#Requested move about a renaming of the article from its current name ("2008 South Ossetia war") to "Russia-Georgia war" or "Russian-Georgian war". This discussion seems to be spending literally more space on Russia's war guilt, or absence thereof, than what English-speakers actually call this war!

A similar discussion already occurred about two to three months ago, during which an extraordinarily slim majority of users (the final tally was 24-23, although one user voted for both sides and the deciding vote was cast after the survey had been concluded for several hours) defeated the proposed renaming. However, the renaming proposal was brought back up, as some individuals feel that a new consensus has appeared.

I hope that the input from this project will help get the discussion back on track, so that the improvement of this article, which our project considers to be of Top Importance, will swiftly continue. And personally, I don't really care what we call the war, as long as we consider our readers in the process. Thank you, and happy editing! Laurinavicius (talk) 03:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Erast Fandorin

I am conducting a reassessment as part of the GA sweeps process. I have found come concerns which need addressing if this article is to keep its GA status, which may be found at Talk:Erast Fandorin/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:19, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Belarusian/Russian spelling

User:Geregen2 is going around to every Belarusian article and changing the spelling to what he calls to "Belarusian spelling". Check out his edit history: [1] . Just in the past day he has probably moved a hundred articles to his "Belarusian spelling". Most Belarusian websites I've visited are in Russian. UEFA uses the Russian spelling for Belarusian footballers. For example, Sergei Kislyak is spelled as Sergei Kislyak according to UEFA (link here for proof = [2]), but User:Geregen2 moved the WP article to Syarhey Kislyak anyway. Is there any way we can annul his edits without having to go through tediously one by one? He's literally spent 6 straight hours just moving articles. I think he may be a bot. --Tocino 17:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, he's not a bot, he's just a very prolific editor. Regarding the matter, I am not quite sure what it has to do with WP:RUSSIA. How the names of Belarusian athletes (or, indeed, not just athletes) are romanized is a matter of guidelines which should be developed by WP:BELARUS. For Russian names, we have WP:RUS, which, if the problem concerned people from Russia, would favor your approach (i.e., that the variant predominantly used in English takes priority), but for Belarusian all we have is WP:CYR#Belarusian, which doesn't exactly address the issue. I see you have posted this inquiry to WP:BELARUS as well; I trust it is them who should be responding to this. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:55, June 25, 2009 (UTC)

WP:BELARUS is not very active, so that's why I posted on here as well. --Tocino 18:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you need advice, I can recommend you to first and formost contact the user in question and let him know that you have a problem with his edits. Point out that many of his moves are in contradiction with WP:UE; show some examples. How it goes from there depends pretty much on how your communication develops. I would still think that polishing the nuances of WP:UE/WP:CYR#Belarusian divide are best left to the WP:BELARUS folks, but if they aren't very active, here's your chance to discuss setting some standards so this situation does not repeat in the future. My personal opinion—the moves, from what I see, do not conform with WP:UE and should be reverted, but each case still needs to be looked at individually. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:48, June 25, 2009 (UTC)

Dnepropetrovsk maniacs

Could someone help with this on the translation? Thanks, --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Ruff

Hello all, in an attempt to address any English bias, I would be very grateful if any Russian-speaking person knew of or could find any folklore, or history of hunting or, or any other information on, the Ruff in their native country which might not be covered in the article currently at FAC. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:41, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Gazprom

Hi, I'm interested in improving the article Gazprom. Does anyone have any improvement suggestions? There isn't a lot going on on the article talk page, so please tell me what you think. Offliner (talk) 19:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Kuril Islands dispute

Kuril Islands dispute was unilaterally renamed Northern Territories dispute. There is currently a requested move filed to move it back. 76.66.194.17 (talk) 08:05, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

It's been moved back by an admin, as there was no discussion.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:35, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Most popular pages

I have request that a popular pages function be set up for the project at http://toolserver.org/~alexz/pop/config.php. Should be all good I think? --Russavia ^Dialogue 10:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice! I wasn't aware such a service was available on a project-by-project basis. Thanks for finding that! Now we just need to find people who'd be working on the top 100 or so pages once we establish what those pages are.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:48, July 14, 2009 (UTC)

Crazy Day or The Marriage of Figaro

This article has been nominated for deletion. There are enough sources available on internet. If someone is interested, please improve its contents. Thank you.--Rubikonchik (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

What is the Official English Name of Russia?

Hello,

There is a discussion on the Russia talk page about the Official name of Russia here: [[3]].

It can be difficult to determine an "official" name in English, but a google search quickly comes up with this: [[4]].

Any comments/suggestions on the talk page would be greatly appreciated, Thanks, Horlo (talk) 09:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The dispute in a nutshell: Every editor involved in the dispute except Horlo agrees that, noting that there is no such thing as an official list of country names that applies across the English-speaking world, the Russian Constitution is the arbiter of this, and it clearly states that the two names "Russia" and "The Russian Federation" are both official and of precisely the same standing. Horlo believes that as the constitution was originally written in Russian it carries little weight on the English wikipedia, which should always prefer original English-language sources (i.e. approved translations of the constitution don't count). In support of this he cites WP:UE, although it has been pointed out more than once to him that WP:UE refers to the names of Wikipedia articles (And the title "Russia" is not in dispute), not details about official names of countries within articles. Please feel free to contribute.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 22:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello, VsevolodKrolikov, please do not drag the "dispute" here. I have asked a large group of knowledgeable editors their opinions. Please allow them to accept the invitation, study the situation, and contribute. Please note that I will not be posting any more replies to you here - if you want, we can continue the discussion on the Russia talk page. Thanks, Horlo (talk) 10:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

• Official sight of Russian President: http://kremlin.ru/eng.--Andrey! 16:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
• Main law of russia: The Constitution of Rusiia.--Andrey! 16:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
• The first offer in official translate: The Constitution of the. Russian Federation was adopted on December 12, 1993.--Andrey! 16:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
• But thus the official site uses a word russia in all cases, except the ceremonial. Look.--Andrey! 16:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

  Hello, thank you, but all of the sources you provided were Russian in origin. It seems that English sources which do state a difference between common name and official name always give "Russian Federation" as the official name. Horlo (talk) 18:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

  Then they cannot be official.--Andrey! 16:18, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Horlo, I suggest you drag the conversation back to the relevant talk page, where, as you know, you've already been given accounts of several organisations that use Russia in addition to the Russian Federation. Forum shopping is not the same as inviting other people to the discussion.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:23, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Help with a question about Russian bridges

If a member of this project is willing to help, I have a question about bridges in Russia. This is being done to assist in editing the Canton Viaduct article. There is a question as to whether two bridges on the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway modeled after this one exist or even were built. Knowing this will help answer the question of whether Canton Viaduct is a unique structure. Thanks in advance (also posted in machine translated Russian @ ru:Википедия:Форум/Иноязычный). Sswonk (talk) 23:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

About what bridge you ask?--Andrey! 12:03, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the problem, we don't know which bridge or bridges – it is unknown if they were ever built. Here is the passage from the article Canton Viaduct, which will include information and links to articles about the Russian bridges if they are known:

Around this time Russia was interested in building railroads so Tsar Nicholas I sent workmen to draw extensive diagrams of the Canton Viaduct. He later summoned Whistler to Russia as a consulting engineer to design the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway, on which two bridges were modeled after the Canton Viaduct.

"Around this time" refers to 1832-1835. The bridges in Russia, if built, were designed using the Canton Viaduct as a model. The type of bridge is significant: double blind arcade, meaning filled arches resulting in a bridge that is built with a hollow walled structure. They would be bridges built in the period around 1835 on the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway. Any help would be appreciated. Sswonk (talk) 16:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Format of federal subjects articles

I think it would be better in many cases to use prose instead of lists. For example (this is from Republic of Karelia:

• Area: 172,400 km2 (66,600 sq mi)
• Borders:
  • internal: Murmansk Oblast (N), Arkhangelsk Oblast (E/SE), Vologda Oblast (SE/S), Leningrad Oblast (S/SW)
  • international: Finland (SW/W/NW) (border line length: 723 km)
  • water: White Sea (an inlet of the Barents Sea) (N/NE/E), Lake Onega (SE), Lake Ladoga (SW)
• Highest point: 576 m (1,890 ft), the Nuorunen peak.

Could be converted to something like:

"The republic of Karelia covers an area of 172,400 km2. To the west, it shares a 723 km long border with Finland, to the north it is bordered by Murmansk Oblast, to the east - by Arkhangelsk Oblast, etc... The White Sea is located to the north east of the region. Major lakes include Onega and Ladoga. The highest point is the Nuorunen peak (576 km)."

The prose style is more often used in encyclopedias, I think, and it doesn't look as ugly as the list. We might lose some small info (like the SW/W/NW things), but it doesn't seem important. Offliner (talk) 07:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree absolutely. The box is for quick reference (and perhaps information could be added there if lost in the text); it's better that information is presented in two different ways rather than have a list and a box that lists.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:32, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Just as an FYI, these lists were added a long time ago when no usable infobox was available for these articles. The infobox is now in place, so converting these lists to prose makes all the sense. By the way, the orientation information can still be included with the prose as well—I don't see why it would a problem to keep it (the Foo Republic borders Foofoo Krai to the north, north-east, and east...).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:30, August 3, 2009 (UTC)

Russian heraldry

As a member of WP:HV, I've created this page. If someone could give it a quick look-over and put it in a suitable Russia-based category and then rate/importance-rate it, that would be great. (You can also contribute!) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

revevenues of Sofia Rotaru

Users who speak Russian, could you please help as third parties in reading the articles provided as sources in Russian on the talk page of Sofia Rotaru, namely articles from RIA Novosti and Kommersant:

Here is the simple rough translation by http://translate.google.com of 1) http://rian.com.ua/economy/20080718/77966106.html "...People's Artist of Ukraine Sofia Rotaru declared the highest revenue for the year 2008, said deputy chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine Sergiy healer at a press briefing on Friday.

In doing so, he did not specify the amount of declared, but added that "the most revenue significantly exceeds 500 million (hryvnia) (about 100 million dollars)...."

"... Народная артистка Украины София Ротару задекларировала самые высокие доходы за 2008 год, сообщил заместитель председателя государственной налоговой администрации Украины Сергей Лекарь на брифинге в пятницу.

При этом, он не уточнил задекларированную сумму, но добавил, что "наибольший доход значительно превышает 500 миллионов (гривен) (около 100 миллионов долларов)". ..."

2) http://kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=915810

"...The singer Sofia Rotaru declared the highest incomes in the Ukraine in 2007, said deputy chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine Sergiy healer. He did not specify the amount of declared, but noted that revenue People's Artist of Ukraine "is much higher than 500 million hryvnia (about $ 100 million)...."--Rubikonchik (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

User: Erikupoeg, the matter is simple, all you have to do is to prove the contrary of what the sources say. So far you did not and your mere personal assertions, deliberately bad faithed, cannot certainly account for anything.

"...// ЧУЖОЙ КАРМАН И в рост и в гривну Певица София Ротару задекларировала самые высокие доходы на Украине за 2007 год, сообщил заместитель председателя государственной налоговой администрации Украины Сергей Лекарь. Он не уточнил задекларированную сумму, но отметил, что доход народной артистки Украины "значительно превышает 500 млн гривен" (около $100 млн). Также он сообщил, что по итогам прошлого года 360 украинцев задекларировали доход более 10 млн гривен (около $2 млн). Подобные декларации за 2006 год подали 200 граждан Украины. Более 1 млрд гривен дохода за прошлый год на Украине никто официально не получил. Зампред государственной налоговой администрации отметил, что высокие доходы декларируют футболисты, боксеры, артисты. ..."

Another user claims that this is not what the article says, however no source to support his assertion was provided aside his personal point of view. The ongoing debate is getting very long, to the point that I have asked for a comment about the conduct of the aforementioned user.

Your fresh reading input would be most valuable! Thank you.--Rubikonchik (talk) 08:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It says exactly what your editing of google translate says. There's no ambiguity or nuance to be had. The rest of the second piece says (translating on the fly) "He also stated that according to results from the previous year, 360 Ukrainians declared income of more than 10 Million hryvna (around $2 million). Similar declarations were made in 2006 by 200 Citizens of Ukraine. No one officially received an income of more than a billion hryvnas. The deputy chariman of the state tax administration remarked that high incomes are declared by footballers, boxers, artists. ..." The user who disputes your claims is either acting in bad faith or cannot read Russian beyond an elementary level.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, I would appreciate if you could leave a word here Talk:Sofia Rotaru, or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Erikupoeg, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Sofia_Rotaru. Thank you very much in advance. I agree with you that the issue is quite simple, but a user has turned it in a major discussion on numerous talk pages, having as argument only "all means are good to exclude this info"...--Rubikonchik (talk) 16:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Symbols of change in Russia

Hi guys,

I'm really sorry to post something that is not about an article, but I thought this would be the perfect place to find some smart brains to help me out on the following issue:

I'm currently working on a think piece about 'symbols of change' in Russia. I unfortunately don't speak Russian and have only been to Moscow once for a couple of days. So to be honest: I don't have too much of a clue about Russian culture (especially when it comes to contemporary pop culture).

What I need is to find out how Russians interprete the word change, what they associate it with and how it is visually represented.

Or in more detail:

- Arts, architecture, films, music, plays, novels, mythologies etc. representing change - Idioms/proverbs about change - Cultural symbols of change (people, places, things) - Rituals that represent/cue change (e.g. rites of passage) - events that symbolise change (formal or informal) - common visual representations of change - How would Russians characterize “a changing world?” What factors are changing in this world? How and why? - How did people think about change in the past? What symbolized change in the past? Is this still the case, or has something else replaced these symbols of change? - What are the new symbols of change? What do you see emerging on the horizon? - What do people in Russia tend to do in times of change? - What are the top three core traditions in Russia? What must everyone participate in? How and when do these relate to change? - Who are the icons of change in each country (real or fictional, human or otherwise)? What do they represent? What is the message? How does it address the idea of change? Why does the story about them persist? - What do Russians understand under change? How does one know change has happened?

I don't expect you to take the time answering this whole catalogue of questions, but I would awfully happy, if anyone of you can suggest useful and reliable sources! But of course - if you have any spontaneous ideas on any of those points or in general.

Many many thanks!!

Kat--80.169.44.180 (talk) 18:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Translation help requested

I don't know if this is the right location, but I would like to post a request for assistance from Russian speakers for some English language articles where the use of Russian-language sources would be appropriate. If anyone can point me in the right direction, please leave a note on my talk page. Thanks in advance. Coleacanth (talk) 21:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)