User talk:Ezhiki

Yo? Yo!

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Archived talk: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

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Re:Taskforces

Well, since criminals are related to law enforcement and the latter is related to politics we should use the Politics of Russia task force, isn't it? GreyHood ^Talk 15:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

That was my line of thought, too, but it is not obvious at the first glance and looks quite weird. Perhaps we should have a taskforce for all things legal?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 3, 2011; 16:31 (UTC)

I thought about renaming "Politics of Russia task force" into something like "Politics and law of Russia task force" or "Politics and law enforcement in Russia task force".. GreyHood ^Talk 16:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

That could work. "Law" is probably better than "law enforcement", as it is broader and could include legal stuff that would otherwise have to be put under "science".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 3, 2011; 17:14 (UTC)

Indeed, "Politics and law" is better. If you feel we need the change (personally I'm OK without it, but that's a matter of habit), please rename the relevant pages (though, what about the bot-generated content?). GreyHood ^Talk 17:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't really have time for this now, but I'll add it to my to-do list for later (or, if you want to try taking care of this yourself, you are more than welcome to). I'm not sure about the bot-generated content either, but it should be easy enough to figure it out once we start digging. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 3, 2011; 17:45 (UTC)

OK, I've moved pages around and submitted an amendment request for the PP process, but I'm sure I've missed stuff. Please give the whole structure another look and let me know if you see anything that should be fixed (and you can't fix it yourself). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 1, 2011; 19:28 (UTC)

City vs. federal subject again

Do you notice something wrong with the infobox here? Colchicum (talk) 23:14, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, not really... There are a couple minor things that could use a tweak, but overall it looks fine to me. Could you elaborate what's wrong? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 4, 2011; 13:13 (UTC)

I mean "rank within Russia". It is not really "2nd", is it? Colchicum (talk) 14:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, my bad. I've made the corrections. Of course, the rank should be the same as on the page the link is pointing to. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 4, 2011; 15:24 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, but it is only a short-term solution, which will last until someone else introduces the same very likely error again. The last one survived long enough to worry about it. Colchicum (talk) 15:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, editors just need to pay attention to what it is they are changing :) I sure screwed up myself this time, but that's not a good excuse.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 4, 2011; 15:38 (UTC)

Primorsky Krai

I switched the location map template with a new map with window. Please update.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 4, 2011; 17:08 (UTC)

Boris Gmyrya

Hi vsem yejikam! Vy ne mogli by proverit my English. Spasibo. Please check my English. Thank you. --Lawrentia (talk) 22:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem; I have copyedited it a bit. I wasn't sure about what some of the sentences were supposed to convey, so please double-check that I didn't accidentally twist their meaning. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 5, 2011; 14:29 (UTC)

Infobox for Russian subdivisions

Hi Ezhiki! I noticed that the current infobox for Russian federal districts seems to be outdated and somewhat ugly when compared to the ones found in other articles, so I tried to rework it a little, and since you've been here quite a bit longer than I have and you edit many Russian-related articles, I wanted to ask you for an opinion. Do you think that my edit (which you can find here) is an improvement over the current version? Thank you for your time! --Lady Pablo (talk) 01:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Lady Pablo! First of all, thank you for your time and interest in this! It's always good to have another pair of eyes looking at these templates.

As for the re-design itself, I'm really of two minds about it. I do very much like that your version is not as tall as the current one and that it looks a lot cleaner overall (design and visual appeals are not really my fortes :)). On the down side, I've noticed the following:

• your version has no grouping headings, which makes particular groups of data harder to find—it all just flows continuously. Mind you, I'm not saying that the current green blobs are the best way to address this, but some sort of grouping cues would certainly be helpful. I just don't think separators alone do the job well enough.
• the new version is a wrapper around {{Infobox Settlement}}. In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I've never been a fan of that particular infobox. One can do a lot of things with it, sure, but only some of those things would be done well, and there is little flexibility in how things can be done (it's kind of like Apple products :)). What's especially hard to control is where a particular line would go in the overall structure (with your example, for instance, the names in English and Russian really shouldn't be split by the federal subject type descriptor, and the flag and coat of arms should follow the map, not precede it). Of course, with some ingenuity, one can make certain lines appear in certain places, but that same effect can be achieved a lot easier by using generic building blocks instead. Now, don't take me wrong, the current version is not an epitome of flexibility. It is quite the opposite, but that's because it is the last of the templates on my to-do list which I was planning to re-design until you beat me to it :) My idea was to use the same approach as in, for example, {{Infobox Russian district}}, which is built solely on the generic {{Infobox}} template and where re-arranging the building blocks or adding new ones can be done in a snap.
• I haven't looked at the code closely, but I've noticed that while you are passing the 2002 Census parameters to the template, they don't all show up in the output. I understand how showing both the 2002 Census and 2010 Census results seems redundant, but right now it's a necessity, because the 2010 results aren't yet finalized. Once they are, the 2002 Census lines can be taken out completely, including from the template code. The "latest" population, would still be there, of course (right now it is the 2010 Census results which are the latest, so that parameter is never filled out).

This is probably a lot more feedback than you hoped for, but I hope it's constructive. I'll be thrilled to hear your opinion in more detail in return! Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 8, 2011; 14:01 (UTC)

I have made a few changes to the template (the new version is the one in the middle). Cheers, Lady Pablo (talk) 00:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this should work! It certainly looks much nicer than the current version. Thank you! Just a few minor things:

• the head/governor information should come before legislature, as is customary;
• the head, head name, legislature, and administrative center lines lost their reference tags;
• the area figure needs to be dated, because borders do occasionally change, and the value is used to calculate the population density (possibly using the population count from a different year when nothing better is available);
• the density line lost its explanatory note, and since it is bundled with the rest of the census data, one can get an impression that the value of density also comes from the census sheets, which is not true;
• with "urban" vs. "rural", it's just "rural", not "rural area". The percentage shows the urban/rural population distribution, not the area distribution;
• the "website" line probably doesn't need the "website" label. What do you think about just centering it as it is done in the district infobox?
• "languages" should really be "official languages", otherwise the label gives an impression that all of the major languages spoken in the federal subject should be listed there;
• I'm not sure about the location of the "holiday" line at the very bottom;
• are you planning to try out wrapping this template around {{Infobox}}, or is this your final version?

Regarding the order of the symbols vs the map, it's not so much about the preference, as it is about addressing the readers' needs. The image at the top of the infobox would often be the only image readers see when they first load the page (especially on smaller resolution screens), and the map immediately answers the question of "where", which is the first question readers looking to familiarize themselves with the topic would ask. The flag/coat look nice, but don't really answer any immediate questions, which is why it makes sense to move them down.

Also, I would appreciate your opinion about the charter/constitution line. While each charter/constitution should ideally have their own article, currently none does, so the link on this line is always red. One could also argue that it is not the kind of link that's important in an infobox and is better covered by the text. Do you have an opinion about this?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 13:49 (UTC)

Gennady (Archbishop of Novgorod)

Suggest moving to Gennady of Novgorod, the name under which the subject is venerated and which corresponds to other wikipedias. For some reasons sometimes I can move articles over redirect and sometimes can't, strange. GreyHood ^Talk 13:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

You can only move an article over a redirect when that redirect constitutes the whole editing history. "Gennady of Novgorod" has a bot edit on top of the original redirect, which requires deletion.

I have moved the article to match the naming scheme in Category:Russian saints. There are also a couple more parenthesized titles in that cat you might want to look at, but most are titled "Religionist of Foo", so it makes perfect sense to unify them all that way. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 10, 2011; 13:42 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll look at other titles, and thanks for the move and explanation. GreyHood ^Talk 13:47, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

FA nominee

Hi, Ezhiki. Could you help me nominate the article Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union for featured articles? Please put this article on the appropriate page of the Wikipedia. After you had done it last time, this article has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. So it seems to me that you bring luck. I have improved the article since its recent nomination. Thank you in advance. Psychiatrick (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about good luck—you'd probably be better off thanking the person who did the GA review! All I did was add a line to a page where it was then picked up by a bot :)

As for the FAC submission, I'll be happy to help with it as well, but please note that before an article can be nominated, it should undergo a peer review. The process consists of five easy steps, and while I can certainly submit the article for peer review for you, it makes more sense if you do it yourself, because it's you who'll be the one answering the questions and addressing concerns anyway. Once the peer review is finished, the article can be moved on to FAC.

By the way, great job on expanding that article! It's a very interesting and educational read. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 11, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)

The point is that corresponding articles related to this topic in the Russian Wikipedia were the subject of a long conflict between users and were considered as a challenge to struggle for preventing them from being nominated for the good or featured articles. I would not like the English Wikipedia to have the same conflict. That is why I would like you to submit this article for peer review and help me. Psychiatrick (talk) 18:59, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Unless you are being stalked by your opponents from ru_wiki, I don't see why you would have the same problems here, and it would be you fending off the questions which will come up during the peer review anyway. Submitting a nomination involves going through five mostly procedural (and easy) steps, but if you insist, I'll submit it for peer review next week. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 12, 2011; 19:03 (UTC)

From my previous experience, I know that the procedure for peer reviewing and nominating an article is difficult and brings a user nothing but stress at best or blocks at worst. To start this procedure, I need to feel at least a little bit of moral support that I don’t feel now. Putting an article on the page for peer review can be a sort of moral support. Maybe I’ll nominate this article in half a year. Thanks. Psychiatrick (talk) 21:50, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

If me nominating this article for peer review would count as moral support and help you deal with the questions better, then I will gladly do so :) I was just making sure. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 12, 2011; 21:52 (UTC)

My apologies—I fully intended to submit it for PR on Monday, but it completely slipped my mind after the weekend! Anyway, better late than never. Good luck.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 1, 2011; 18:33 (UTC)

Good time, Ezhiki. I am now having too many problems. For the two last weeks I had problems with my Internet connection because personnel of technical support service of my Internet provider sold me and installed a new modem that did not work. After this incident, problems with software installed on my computer have recently cast a shadow over my relations with a Russian very large software producer. Despite all this, I will try to respond to criticisms on the peer review page. Thanks. Psychiatrick (talk) 19:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, best of luck to you in dealing with the Russian providers :) As for the nom, I'll keep half an eye on it, but it probably will take a while for someone to actually notice and review it, because of the extensive PR backlog. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 1, 2011; 20:01 (UTC)

Sometimes I feel myself like a twig in the ocean, not a master of my ship. From this perspective, it seems a little foolish to aim at or struggle for promotion of my articles to higher status at any cost. But I will respond to reviewers from time to time. Psychiatrick (talk) 21:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Have a cat lol

Ezhiki even if we disagree on that references thing I wanted to let you know that I appreciate your input and believe that the template has improved because of it! Let's work together again some time soon ok?

Lady Pablo (talk) 09:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

What an ugly little creature :) Thanks!

Just so you know, I do appreciate your input and effort just as much (even though it probably doesn't show :)) The template has certainly improved, and disagreements are a part of progress. I'll be happy to work with you in the future. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 12, 2011; 14:27 (UTC)

Give Ezhiki a hedgehog next time ;) Or better a big beautiful porcupine ))) GreyHood ^Talk 15:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

No, not a porcupine! Those abominations, bah!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 12, 2011; 15:54 (UTC)

OMG whatwasdat ?&!? Pork&pine? That's indeed would be toooo much unhealthy attitude ;))) GreyHood ^Talk 16:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Картина «Васильки» С. Осипова

• Добрый день Коллега, не мог удержаться и не пригласить вас на это обсуждение, которому предшествовало это обсуждение номинации, длившееся более месяца. Речь идёт о нравах участников в связи с обсуждением русской версии статьи Cornflowers (painting). Без комментариев. С уважением, Leningradartist (talk) 21:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

MKAD

Suggest moving to Moscow Ring Road. This would correspond better to the naming of Russian article; MKAD is an abbreviation not widely used or recognizable outside of Russia. GreyHood ^Talk 22:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

By the way, currently there are several Russia-related requested moves under discussion. GreyHood ^Talk 10:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

So, it it going to be "Moscow Ring Road", or "Moscow ring road"? :) I suggest we wait for the outcome of the St. Petersburg Ring Road request before the move. Myself, I don't have a preference either way (shocking, eh? :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2011; 13:42 (UTC)

OK! GreyHood ^Talk 16:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Done.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 14:09 (UTC)

Thx! GreyHood ^Talk 14:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Howdy there. Bad move. "Moscow Ring Road" should've been a disambig. NVO (talk) 14:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

What's the other one?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 14:19 (UTC)

There are several Rings of Moscow, yes. But the only one is generally known as the "Moscow Ring Road". GreyHood ^Talk 14:27, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I don't believe the rest are generally known as "Moscow Ring Road" in English, an even if they are, only this one qualifies as primary. Perhaps tweaking the hatnote is all that needs to be done?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 14:35 (UTC)

Unfortunately we haven't the article Rings of Moscow in English still. GreyHood ^Talk 14:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Nagatinsky Zaton

Btw again, Nagatinsky Zaton is capitalized in the Russian wiki. And a number of official cites like this and this use capitalized version. Given this inconsistency, I'd suggest to use capitalized version since it is more in accordance with general naming customs. GreyHood ^Talk 13:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, Russian wiki is hardly an authoritative source, and the official websites screw up every now and then, too. The applicable laws of Moscow is where the correct spelling should be looked up, and those consistently do not capitalize "zaton". Even with this, if you look closer, you'll see that only the website header has the word capitalized, and the actual texts don't. The GKS simply capitalized it wrong—even the bureaucrats don't pay that much attention to the details when those details aren't the primary focus of the document!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 13:44 (UTC)

There is also the problem of consistency with general English place naming customs, which strongly prefer capitalized names. I'm not sure why we should strictly follow the laws of Moscow in this case. The popular usage of capitalized version even in Russian official sources give us an excuse to ignore those laws and uphold the general naming style, and we can't follow those laws to the letter anyway, because we use Moscow and not Moskva. GreyHood ^Talk 13:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking closer at all those official cites I found they use both versions extensively, often at the same page. Looking on the results of the Google search the capitalized version seems to be more popular. GreyHood ^Talk 13:57, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Why? Because it is the the laws which specify what the correct name is, and we, as an encyclopedia, should be striving to use what's correct? Moskva vs. Moscow isn't really a valid analogy, because the use of "Moscow" can be verified by literally thousands of independent reliable English sources, while the name of this district would only be found in a handful of publications most of which are neither reliable nor even on the subject of the district's name. In other words, there is no "common English name" to use, and in such cases we normally romanize the official name verbatim (including the choice of capitalization). Doing otherwise would be original research on our part.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 14:04 (UTC)

Than why we capitalize District if "район" is not capitalized in the Russian texts? Your approach has this obvious fallacy. Why in some cases we apply general English language rules and in other cases ignore it, just because of a little inconsistency in Russian sources which has no serious consequences for Russian usage, but give birth to strange monsters in English? Nagatinsky zaton District looks way too funny, sorry. Capitalized - non-capitalized - capitalized - this is totally against the English language naming style, according to my experience. In fact, such capitalization sequence is against almost any language naming style I suppose. Capitalized descriptor, which is of lower significance, and non-capitalized part of the name, which is of higher significance. GreyHood ^Talk 14:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no fallacy. The word "district" is not a part of the proper name; it is a designation, and it is customary to capitalize designations in English. We do the same with "Street", "Oblast", etc. Designations are translated, while proper names are romanized. What's more, we have a certain leeway in choosing what the designation could be (for example, we stick with "district" when we refer to the raions in Russia, but the Ukrainian Wikiproject went with "raion" instead, even though there hardly is any difference between the two concepts), while we have no leeway with what the proper name should be—it is either what's commonly used in English, or, as in this case where no common English variant exists, we follow the guidelines the community previously agreed on (the transliteration clause of WP:UE). As you can see, the case is pretty well covered by the existing guidelines, and changing the absolutely correct spelling to something else just to fit some vague "style" concerns is simply not my idea of encyclopedicity. Just because a bunch of folks out there can't spell the name right doesn't mean we should follow them on the path off the cliff :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 14:45 (UTC)

Why should we romanize ignoring English naming customs (there seems to be no such proper names or expressions using the discussed capitalization scheme)? This seems to be a clear case of guideline inconsistency. Also, consider the scheme of naming hydronyms in English where the descriptor is always capitalized: Moscow River, Ladoga Lake, Clean Ponds etc. "Zaton" is also a hydronym descriptor, and as hydronym Nagatinsky Zaton should be capitalized, isn't it? GreyHood ^Talk 14:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

While the word "zaton" on its own is indeed a hydronym descriptor, the article is not about a hydrological feature, it is about a district named after that feature (cf. Ulitsa Podbelsogo—an article about a metro station named after a street; the article about the actual street would be under Podbelskogo Street). In this case, "zaton" is a part of a proper name, and we never translate proper names—we either romanize them, or use whatever common English name that exists and can be verified. Since there is no common English name for this district, we romanize the official Russian name in full accordance with WP:UE (which says nothing about "English naming customs" on top of straight romanization). I see no inconsistency here whatsoever. I'm not aware of any guidelines which would put style issues over encyclopedic accuracy.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 15:09 (UTC)

So you mean that as hydronym Nagatinsky Zaton is capitalized, but as a part of the district name it is not capitalized? You drive me mad %)

WP:UE doesn't say anything about capitalizing District or River, but nevertheless we always do it because there are general rules for English usage which are above guidelines. WP:UE says: In deciding whether and how to translate a foreign name into English, follow English-language usage. If there is no established English-language treatment for a name, translate it if this can be done without loss of accuracy and with greater understanding for the English-speaking reader. We have to translate "район" in the discussed case, and in case of "затон" we should do a little minor thing - capitalize it for the greater understanding and consistency. Since capitalization doesn't hinder search, there is no problems with accuracy or encyclopedicity. Problems with accuracy or encyclopedicity would be if we claim that "Нагатинский Затон" is the official Russian name (and we wouldn't be entirely incorrect), but when translating it into English we should care of capitalization much less and not enforce Russian version over general English usage. GreyHood ^Talk 15:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

At the risk of driving you mad even further, no, that's only a part of what I'm saying :) The article about the hydrological feature would probably not be named "Nagatinsky Zaton"; it would be named "Nagatinsky XXX", where "XXX" is the best English term to which the Russian word "затон" translates (sorry, I'm drawing a blank on the actual translation. "Cove"?). Whether "XXX" itself should be capitalized depends solely on the conventions regarding the naming of similar hydrological features the community had previously agreed upon. I'd guess it probably would be, if the conventions for rivers, lakes, etc. are of any indication.

As for WP:UE, you are not looking at the applicable part of it. What it says is [i]f there are too few English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject, which in this case means "do not capitalize 'zaton'". It further says that [n]ames not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Chinese, or Russian names, must be transliterated. Adding one and one, we are transliterating the proper name, and we follow the conventions of the Russian language. The part about deciding whether and how to translate does not apply because we never ever translate proper Russian names. We either romanize them, or we use an established common English name (which isn't at all the same as "translating"; "translating" would be referring to Nizhny Novgorod as "Lower Newcity" despite "Nizhny Novgorod" being an established English usage). We do, of course, translate the descriptors, but as I previously mentioned, descriptors aren't a part of the proper names, and the decision of whether to capitalize them or not is based solely on the concept-specific guidelines we have.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 15:53 (UTC)

WP:UE doesn't say anything directly about capitalization. When it recommends to romanize or to translate it doesn't say we should capitalize or not capitalize. That's why we should turn to common sense, to established practices and to other guidelines (such as WP:CAPS), or to take WP:UE's own general recommendations and use them as to the question of capitalization. Why do you think the phrase [i]f there are too few English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject refers to the conventions of Russian language and not English, or to the conventions of Russian language only? And why Russian language conventions should override general English conventions especially if we can easily avoid it (again, technically capitalization doesn't affect usability)?

As for the word "затон" I'm not sure it should be translated to English at all, because it combines the meanings of boatyard and backwater, and I'm not sure that backwater is used as a descriptor of hydronym names in English.

See again, the capitalization sequence in Nagatinsky zaton District is inacceptable. Firstly the entire expression could be considered a proper name and therefore should be capitalized in English (Proper name#Capitalization). If we consider just Nagatinsky Zaton a proper name and District a standalone descriptor, we again should capitalize Zaton. If we consider zaton to be a descriptor (as it is done in Russian), than there rises a question (in the case of English usage) why we capitalize one descriptor but do not capitalize another descriptor (and, importantly, preceding descriptor amidst an expression)? GreyHood ^Talk 16:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Btw, did you notice the above talk section about MKAD? GreyHood ^Talk 16:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:UE is fairly all-encompassing when it says to follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject; to me, that includes all sorts of things, including capitalization. Additionally, when we romanize a word, we always retain its capitalization, so that's not a good argument either. If we don't retain capitalization, then we are doing something else, something which is not romanization or transliteration and I'd argue it's called "original research" :)

The phrase [i]f there are too few English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject refers in this case to the conventions of the Russian language and not English because of what follows that sentence ([use] German [conventions] for German politicians, Portuguese for Brazilian towns, and so on).

On translating/not translating the word "zaton", I really have no opinion. However, whether we translate it or not, as long as it is used as a descriptor and not as a part of a proper name, its capitalization would be decided by the conventions we apply to the names of similar hydrological features.

The rest of the guidelines you found would not apply because WP:UE is a policy (which is crystal clear about how to deal with this situation), and policies take priority over the guidelines.

Finally, on the MKAD, I have no objections. I'm leaving for today, but I'll take care of it tomorrow, if you don't mind.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 17:04 (UTC)

General English language capitalization practices are above Wikipedia guidelines. Well, I see your logic and respect your opinion, but it seems I should file a move request. GreyHood ^Talk 17:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

(I'm still here for a few minutes). General English capitalization practices are not above the Wikipedia guidelines because there is no such thing as "general English capitalization practices" anyway. There are various style guides which often recommend contradictory things, which is why we have our own guidelines to deal with the most common situations in a uniform manner. If we didn't know 100% what the correct spelling in Russian is, or if the laws were contradictory on this point (as they are, every now in then, in other cases), I'd move this article to a capitalized version myself. "When in doubt, follow the general style"—I am a strong proponent of this approach. In this case, however, there is no doubt whatsoever on what the correct Russian name is, and our policy says flat out to "follow the conventions of the [Russian] language" (romanizing it first, because the name is not in Latin alphabet). I can see how it is tempting to capitalize "zaton" anyway, but that would be neither honest to the encyclopedic spirit, nor logical. Logic, sadly, is one thing that fails and gets ignored often during the move requests...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 17:41 (UTC)

Capitalizing less important and less "proper" part of the name while not capitalizing more important and more proper one is not exactly logical. And again, romanization and capitalization are different things. GreyHood ^Talk 17:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

previous consensus and Wikipedia guidelines

You think this meaningless phrase give you a licence to revert every edit I make to that template? You need to learn a thing or two about article ownership, and there's no guideline that says other people can't edit that particular template just because you created it and you didn't like my edit.--LK (talk) 14:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the most recent version was not created by me, so your "ownership" remark is well off the mark. Now, if you have questions about why I reverted any particular part of your edits, I'll be happy to explain in more detail. There is only so much space in edit summary to explain the rationale, you know. At least I gave some explanation; you just removed a bunch of stuff without even trying!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 14:50 (UTC)

I've listed the problems with your edit, explaining my rationale in greater detail, at Template talk:Infobox Russian federal subject#Most recent edit.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 15:01 (UTC)

Dmitriyevka

Hi Ezhiki, greetings again - hope you're having a good summer. At Russian Air Force there is a mention of an airfield at Dmitriyevka ([Чебеньки]) in Orenburg Oblast, which I cannot find. Would it be possible to look up the details for this Dmitriyevka and add it to the set index article? Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 16:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, will do. There are, however, five rural localities called "Dmitriyevka" in Orenburg Oblast, so if you have anything to add, it might help. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 15, 2011; 16:45 (UTC)

Thanks. I was careful to give you everything I had. Only other thing is that it obviously has an airfield in the vicinity. Sorry I can't help further... Buckshot06 (talk) 17:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem; I haven't even started looking when I asked the question :) I've greatly expanded the Dmitriyevka set index. The Dmitriyevka you need is Dmitriyevka, Sakmarsky District, Orenburg Oblast. Will this work for you, or do you need me to create that stub as well? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2011; 16:45 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I've now located the airfield article at Chebenki, purely by chance. Is Chebenki/Dmitrevika in Sakmarsky District ? Buckshot06 (talk) 17:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, this is getting a little confusing :) What is the airfield called exactly, do you know? Dmitriyevka is located in Sakmarsky District, but the settlement of Chebenki is in neighboring Orenburgsky District. The airfield is located at some distance from them both, although it is closer to Dmitiryevka than it is to the settlement of Chebenki (and it is in Sakmarsky District). I'll move the air base article to Chebenki (air base) and put a dab page at Chebenki, but let me know if there's anything else I can help with. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2011; 17:11 (UTC)

Sorry, as you've probably realised, I'm just working from the neglected work of long-departed User:Timvasquez. See User_talk:Timvasquez#A_statement_about_my_Russian_airport_work. Sorry I can't help further. Buckshot06 (talk) 17:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I've never seen that statement. It helps clarify the overall state of things quite a bit; thanks. Don't hesitate to let me know if you think of anything else I can help with. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2011; 17:19 (UTC)

Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks

I might bore you with all those move requests, but I hope you like this one more than the others. Chaosdruid moved Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks to Varangian-Byzantine trade route, apparently not realising the fact that the name is an idiomatic historical term. I've talked to Chaosdruid and he seems not to object to the idea of revert, but is reluctant to see for the procedure himself. Could you fix the name of the article? Cheers! GreyHood ^Talk 21:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, we have already fixed the issue ourselves. For some reason I was able to move the article to the old title. GreyHood ^Talk 22:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Russian populated places articles deleted

Hello again! Please look here. Wikipedia rules sometimes lead to quite unproductive results. GreyHood ^Talk 11:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The situation with this is, unfortunately, more complicated than it may seem. I'll repair what I can.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2011; 14:09 (UTC)

Thx for fixing this! GreyHood ^Talk 16:31, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 17, 2011; 16:41 (UTC)

Hassan

Hassan or Hasan or Khasan are written the same in Cyrillic alphabet - Хасан. Therefore I think my action was correct. What do you think? Casesdailyhyui (talk) 18:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, if it were Russian Wikipedia, you'd have a point :) In English Wikipedia, places in Russia called "Хасан" are romanized as "Khasan", and these names have completely different etymology from the rest of Has(s)ans on another dab, so a separate dab is doubly warranted.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 16, 2011; 18:29 (UTC)

Town

Hello! Like you, I learned in Russian/Soviet school. Moreover, I live in Russia. Therefore I know that the Russian/Soviet dictionaries translate town as город, and посёлок as settlement. However, they are based on the United Kingdom realities of the XX century. Such dictionaries never are written from scratch nowadays. A new dictionary is simply an old dictionary with some extensions.

In the UK, may cites became towns in the XIX-XX centuries, but they are cities now:

The abolition of some corporate bodies as part of successive local government reforms, beginning with the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, has deprived some ancient cities of their status. However, letters patent have been issued for most of the affected cities to ensure the continuation or restoration of their status. At present, Rochester, Perth and Elgin are the only former cities in the United Kingdom.

The situation in the USA is known to you better than to me:

In most places, town refers to a small incorporated municipality of less than 10,000 people, although some of these municipalities may be called "cities."

The word "settlement" has much wider meaning than посёлок now:

The term may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities.

Therefore, the following statement is obsolete:

Unlike English, the Russian language does not distinguish the terms "city" and "town"—both are translated as "город" (gorod).

Today the word "town" better corresponds to "посёлок", although these words are not fully equivalent. Ufim (talk) 04:56, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi there! Thanks for your comment, but I think we are talking about completely different things here. I don't at all disagree with the points you mentioned above—they are entirely correct. The problem is that you are talking about how Russians translate the English word "town", while the article in question deals with the concept of a town, and the "Russia" section deals with the concept of a town in Russia. The concept is, of course, described by the Russian word "город", which in turn can be translated as either "city" or "town", which is what the statement in question is about. Perhaps the sentence should be revised to make its meaning more clear, but it is most certainly neither wrong nor obsolete.

The "factual errors" I was referring to in my edit summary are with regards to the criteria an inhabited locality needs to meet in order to qualify for the city/town status. In your revision, you state that in Russia, a settlement can become city (gorod) only if it has more than 12000 inhabitants and the occupation of no less than 85% of inhabitants must be other than agriculture. That was true in the Soviet times, but is no longer the case after the adoption of the 1993 Constitution. Currently, the criteria are set by each federal subject individually; there is no federal regulation to that effect. While it is true that many federal subjects retained the Soviet set of criteria in some form, others did in fact diverge from it (in Khabarovsk Krai, for example, the 12,000 population limit is retained for the towns of district significance, but the limit for the towns of krai significance is 50,000, and the agricultural aspect is no longer numerically defined, while in Dagestan there is no district/republican aspect and the threshold is 50,000 for all cities/town; the agricultural aspect is also not explicitly defined).

Hope this clarifies the rationale behind my edit. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 17, 2011; 13:40 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification.Ufim (talk) 15:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Zyryanka

Hi Ezhiki. Can you create a dab page for this? I created an article on the town in Sakha but there are others with the same name.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:11, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Done.

On an unrelated note, may I ask when you are planning to finish your work on the districts of Russia? Some of those are a horrendous mess, and need fixing ASAP. Why didn't you ask me to create proper templates for them at least? You know I would have been happy to oblige (witness my earlier collaboration with Starzynka). Right now we have several hundred useless stubs which add nothing of value to what is said on the corresponding "administrative divisions of..." pages, and what little they do add is either incorrect or improperly attributed. This was very disappointing, what you did... Did they replace you with the evil Blofeld from several years ago or something? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 17:18 (UTC)

That's not very nice, seems as I spent several hours creating them, and that they are set up with the population, area and others ready to be expanded. I gather you haven't clicked edit on the pages and seen what is hidden? I tried to create them to they are in a position in which they are can be easily expanded. Of course nothing is perfect for you and you pick out the negative things, like in some districts it may be an urban type settlement others a rural being the seat but is minimal I think. The 1989, 2002 and 2009/2010 templates are there to simply be added to. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Not very nice? Are you pulling my leg or something? Let me say this once again—we have several hundred stubs which are either incorrect or improperly attributed. Every single one of them needs to be corrected. Every. Single. One. (well, OK, maybe 90%, but still). And until someone actually corrects them, they'll just sit there spreading misinformation. Spending several hours on something like that is nothing to be proud of!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 17:29 (UTC)

You know you come across as a major control freak. Unless anything is done your way you scoff at it. And don't give me the usual rant about being a "one man band" and how thou art not create an article on a Russian subject because Master Ezhiki can't take the "hrrendous workload". We should have had articles on the districts at least five years ago. As they stand they are in a position to be expanded. Of course it would help if I spoke Russian fluently and could fully expand them all. Anyway I recall asking you to help me create the remaining districts a while back and you weren't interested. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

So where are these errors enmasse then Ezhiki? Or are they simply minor issues which can be corrected when population and data is added? What is so hugely wrong about this. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:36, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Blof, this isn't about stuff being done "my way". While it is true that I have very high standards which are not always easy to meet, and that I prefer to take time to do something right once instead of going about it in iterations, in this case that's not about it all. Nor is this about the "workload" which I allegedly can't take. This is about the fact that you have created hundreds of articles which are factually wrong and incorrectly attributed, and instead of admitting it you are trying to counter-blame me. If someone pointed out to me that hundreds of articles I recently created have glaring mistakes, I'd be on top of it fixing things the next minute! You, instead, are trying to accuse me of being a "control freak". Take a responsibility for your mess for a change, will ya? Making two factual mistakes in a sentence that states three things and is attributed to an unrelated source is hardly a valuable contribution. As for me not being interested, that's not true at all. I may not have time to do them all myself, but I would have happily created templates like this one for you to work with, if you only had asked...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 17:47 (UTC)

Please tell me how this is much different. I don't seme to recall you leaving a message on my talk page of these huge errors apparent across 90% of the articles. So why didn't you tell me then. Why it is only now you bring it up if its that huge a problem? Because you were so pissed off you'd have blown your lid and said something you regretted or because maybe its not as huge an issue as you imply? As far as I can see all the articles need is to go through them and for data and links to be added and the occasional changing of urban type settlement to rural type settlement. You assume I would not be willing to go through them, have you actually asked for crying out loud? I could quite easily go through the oblasts already created and add in ready made templates if that's what you want but as I said I fail to see the difference between your ready made templates and my parameters which I've hidden.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing terribly wrong about Glushkovsky District, but that's one of those where skipping the references altogether was actually a wiser solution than adding a reference which does not apply. Minor problems (which are, however, not so minor once you multiply them by several hundred) include the implication that the administrative center is an urban-type settlement (which for this particular district it is, but for about half of other districts is not), using the accent mark in the interwiki template, and encouraging entering the 2009 population estimate instead of the more recent data. On top of that, the visible text adds nothing to what the administrative divisions of Kursk Oblast already says, and the parts which are commented out could have included many more useful things on which it would have been easier to expand later (and that's the difference between your template and mine).

An example of more serious problems would be something like Garinsky District, which incorrectly states that it is both an administrative and municipal district and attributes that misinformation to a source that does not even deal with the municipal aspect. I'd say 50% error rate in an article composed of a single sentence is a problem, no?

As for me not pointing this out to you sooner, until today I was under the assumption that you were not yet done with those articles. See, I have hard time imagining how an editor worth his salt would consider this kind of sloppy job "done". I know that your approach to creating articles is different from mine, so I assumed that you'll continue later, and the mess is only temporary. Well, I guess not, eh? Why, indeed—it's so much easier to blame me for not jumping right on it to fix it for you! It's sad that you aren't even willing to take responsibility for this. I will, of course, fix it all in due course, but I'm not going to alter my editing schedule just because someone though that creating hundreds of stubs on a topic they don't know much about is a great idea and an improvement.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 18:14 (UTC)

What? I've begun going through the districts adding the link, maps and some things. I most certainly have not "finished". You say "It's sad that you aren't even willing to take responsibility for this." If you had noted I had not finished, then how can you spout such utter crap?? Yes I will need your help with population being added but I am well aware it is you who apparently wears the trousers in any situation. I wouldn't dream of even attempting to order you to do something, you've made it 200% clear everything has to be done your way and according to you. Besides should you consider attempting to add population and data for a raion I would be more than happy to do further preliminary work for you and quickly update the hidden parameters so they can easily be added to. If you could highlight those raions which have the inappropriate reference I can ask to see if an AWBer can remove the reference and "municipal" at least until I or you get around to expanding them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:22, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, great, I'm glad we've at least cleared the pants business up.</sarcasm> Sarcasm aside, it's not so much about things being done my way; it's about things being done right. You see the difference, do you not? Things can be done right in many different ways, and I don't think I ever bitched about someone doing things right, but differently from the way I would have done it myself. And certainly there is a difference between someone creating a template which does the job but which I think could have been improved in many ways from the start, and someone creating a template which is just plain wrong and misleading!

Anyway, if you are not done yet, then why didn't you just say so straight up instead of sending the abundance of compliments my way in your third comment of this thread?

Back to business. On identifying the districts which need to be corrected, you realize that it will take me hours to go through all of them and create a list of those which need to be corrected? In other words, about the same amount of time it would have taken me to go through them and just correct them myself... Arghhh!

Still, a good place to start clean up would be Sverdlovsk Oblast. It has thirty administrative districts, but only five of them are also municipal districts. Another bulk change could be the removal of OKATO reference from the sentences which mention the municipal aspect. That reference can be moved to the "administrative" part, but it would be best to remove it completely, because for most federal subjects sources of better quality than OKATO exist.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 18:41 (UTC)

I began adding to the first two raions I created the other day and intend to proceed through them all adding the maps/flags and a bit of data. I was well aware of the urban type settlements vs selo and had spotted the accent which yes irritated me when I noticed that. I figured that when it comes to be edited it wouldn't take much to add selo instead. As far as I saw there were many urban type settlements so it seemed plausible to create them like that. Yes I did look through many and saw the administrative and municipal and started assuming they were all like that, You'll notice though that many were not created with a source or the "municipal" part. I was aware of all of the issues you identified before creation and I figured that changing urban-type to selo and 2009 to 2010 or 2011 might not be that much of a pain. I did forget though to add the Panoh part in the infobox.. OK its far from ideal but the way I saw it is that some framework is there now to add the basic data and maps and it gives me something to work towards. Tell me which districts are also municipal and I'll fix em. The reference BTW is intended to be for the number of districts. If saying one of the 28 districts ref for example is wrong then why does the raion and district list ref the figure in the box? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, I see; thanks for the explanation.

In Sverdlovsk Oblast, the districts which are both administrative and municipal are Baykalovsky, Kamyshlovsky, Nizhneserginsky, Slobodo-Turinsky, and Taborinsky. Thanks for taking care of that.

The number of administrative and municipal districts differs in some other federal subjects as well. The ref in the "administrative divisions of..." articles only references the number of administrative districts, and only per OKATO (which is not always current). Since the lists are titled "administrative divisions...", the municipal aspect is not covered at all, hence the ref is correct. Once the municipal aspect is described, those lists would look completely differently and are referenced differently, too.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 18:56 (UTC)

Something aint right with Alapayevsky District. The Russian name and link seems wrong. lso Russian for Artinsky District seems to be okrug.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you trying to synchronize these articles with the Russian Wikipedia? If so, that's the problem. They are going about these articles differently. We consistently treat the articles about the administrative divisions as primary (because the municipal divisions are often formed on the basis of the administrative divisions), while they usually treat the municipal divisions as primary, but they don't always do it consistently, so some of those articles in ru-wiki are a complete mess. Normally, such synchronization works anyway because a great number of administrative and municipal districts match 1:1, but this is obviously not going to be the case for Sverdlovsk Oblast (to which Artinsky District, an administrative division, is a good illustration—municipally it is incorporated as Artinsky Urban Okrug, and ru-wiki does not have an article about the district).

With Alapayevsky District, the Russian article you linked to is about the flag of Alapayevskoye Urban Okrug (which the territory of Alapayevsky Administrative District is municipally incorporated as), but the article itself is also incorrectly titled "flag of Alapayevsky District" (which assumes that something called "Alapayevsky Municipal District" actually exists—it doesn't). The bottom line: there is no corresponding article in ru-wiki to use for interwiki purposes in this case.

Another thing I would like to ask you is to please not copy the number of lower-level divisions from the "administrative divisions of..." articles. Those articles are based solely on OKATO, which is often outdated. There is little sense in proliferating that information into the actual articles, although, technically, doing so is not wrong (the information is attributed and can be verified). Each federal subject has laws on the administrative-territorial division, which are more up-to-date and accurate.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 19:57 (UTC)

Well I've fixed what you wanted. The ru versions as you say don't seme to match so I won't persist with adding the Russian and inter links. I will gradually go through the other raions I started.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 20:11 (UTC)

On the weekend will go through Amur, Astrakhan and Belgorod. What is the municipal score with those Ezhiki? Can you also add a image skyline option to the district parameters?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

In Amur and Astrakhan Oblasts, the counts match (twenty administrative districts incorporated as twenty municipal districts in Amur Oblast and eleven administrative districts incorporated as eleven municipal districts in Astrakhan Oblast). In Belgorod Oblast, there are twenty-one administrative and nineteen municipal districts (Gubkinsky District is municipally incorporated as Gubkinsky Urban Okrug, and Starooskolsky District is municipally incorporated as Starooskolsky Urban Okrug; the rest match 1:1).

As for the parameter, it probably shouldn't be called "skyline"—I take it it's going to contain a typical view of the district, whatever that might be? I'll do it tomorrow, as I'm about to take off for today, but do you think it's really necessary? Districts are pretty large and seldom can be summarized by just one picture.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 18, 2011; 21:01 (UTC)

Montage images are usually appropriate for districts and provinces I find. Tomorrow I'll add the maps and flags to the Moscow articles and add infoboxes, maps and flags to those which are without them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, good point about the montages, although I can hardly think of an appropriate montage for the majority of the Russian districts. Most of them are basically a large decrepit village (or an urban-type settlement, or a town) surrounded by smaller decrepit villages with empty spaces in between :) Still, it's a possibility. I've added the image_view and image_caption parameters to the infobox.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)

Onega, Russia

In the infobox, the municipal distict appears as unreferenced, though you have put in the reference there. I assume this is a general problem with the template (I tried Velsk, and it leads to the same problem). Could you please have a look at the template and possibly fix it. Thanks in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The template is actually fine, but I misspelled the parameter name in the infobox (and it looks that you copy-pasted it to Velsk). I've fixed it; sorry for not noticing it right away!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 11:59 (UTC)

Apologies

Apology accepted. I knew why I didn't hear anything from you and figured it was because you could have said something you regretted and even lost your admin tools in the heat of the moment. That's why I let it cool down a little bit before I contacted you. I knew you'd be upset, but I sort of got impatient as I like to start things first and then build it piece by piece. Yes there is a huge amount of work to do but I don't think the task is that huge if we do it gradually. It would have to all be done anyway. The time I spent creating the remainder really is inconsequential, and can easily be overidden with more details and stuff. Yes if you give me a template I can go back over them as long as it is a stage at a time and in manageable chunks, so long as you will in the population data afterwards. Sorry to add to the workload but I consider districts as very important and I really feel we should have had these before many of the articles we have on small urban type settlements and selos.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:37, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Admin tools were the last thing on my mind when I saw the stubs... But you know, it's a humbling experience when you wake in the morning, re-read the latest threads on your own talk page, and think to yourself—"what kind of fuckhead would write something like this?"—and then realize that oh wait, that was me :)

Anyhoo, I hope we are good. You can use Alexandrovsky District as a template for the rest of the districts of Stavropol Krai, and I'll try to make one template a day for the rest of the federal subjects as well, starting next week. Does that sound like a plan?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 16:44 (UTC)

Can you do me a favour though, can you use your word program to save me time and bullet/wiki link all of the entries in User:Aymatth2/Articles. Once that is done I will resume with the Russian districts!♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:42, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Will do.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 16:44 (UTC)

Hehe, well Ezhiki I am always honest. I only really insult the people I really dislike and you are far from being classed in that category. Yes, if I'm honest I think you like to be in control and on top of any situation and don't like having your sense of order disturbed but I know many people like that and they are highly organized and quite impressive people. We both know what each other are capable of and you know the purpose of the articles is not for them to remain useless as they are currently. There is a plan... I know the stubs seem lousy right now but its more a psychological thing for me to think OK, stage 1 the articles are blue linked. For me it seems like there is less to do when the articles are already blue linked. While this is probably not true for me it gives us something to play with. The thing is Ezhiki I think of wikipedia like a world map conquest and an area missing at least the size of Europe seemed wrong.. . Anyway I will make a start with the aptly named Stavropol. Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought you'd appreciate the starting point :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 16:56 (UTC)

Yes I do, and it takes a real ballsy guy to admit that, which makes me respect you more Ezhiki.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be some sort of navigation plate linking the Stavropol districts and the main settlements? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I forgot all about that; thanks for reminding. When I was working with Starzynka, he would always re-do the "cities and towns" template into one that lists also the districts.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 17:13 (UTC)

Ah I see, link the districts and major settlements in one template. It wouldn't be correct though to list districts under a template named cities and towns though.. Can we move it to just Stavrpol Krai? I see you have said twenty six, you do know though that is against the MOS guidlines to write numbers in words above 10?♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:16, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I've moved the template and added the districts to it—that's how we always did it in the past. Should be good now. As for spelling out the numbers, no, I wasn't aware there's a MOS guideline to that effect (can you point me to it, please?). I occasionally copy-edit handouts in my company, and our style guide says to spell out all numbers below 100, which is how I ended up assuming it's what everyone (including Wikipedia) does. Apparently not. I'll make sure to remember this in the future. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 17:26 (UTC)

Thanks. Read WP:ORDINAL. Have started going through Stavropol now.17:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, OK. But ORDINAL says that ...in the body of an article, single-digit whole numbers from zero to nine are spelled out in words; numbers greater than nine are commonly rendered in numerals, or in words if they are expressed in one or two words... (emphasis mine). Seems to me that either approach is fine.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 17:34 (UTC)

Stavropol is ready for your input.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll make sure to go through them and make cosmetic changes where necessary (and create the missing ref templates). By the way, I've just looked at the History section of Alexandrovsky District, and unlike the Economy section, it didn't translate well at all. Too much specialized terminology google translate knows nothing about. Do you mind skipping those sections for now? Ru-wiki is notorious for not referencing them anyway, and usually they are taken from the official websites, where the quality of such information is abysmal.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 18:34 (UTC)

Remove whatever is incorrect. Would be nice to have a full articles on every district of course. I may see if I can find some sources for some of the others...♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:39, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Of course it'd be nice. Writing history sections like this one is the main reason why I stick around, by the way. Problem is, not only it takes time to produce a more or less acceptable result, it also takes time to figure out what's usable and what's not. Ru-wiki articles are mostly unusable as sources, except when they are well-referenced (which is to say, hardly ever).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 18:50 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	For your quick efforts to format User:Aymatth2/Articles. Thankyou!! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:57, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but that was nothing. If you ever need a refresher course on how to do this quickly yourself, I'll be happy to oblige.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 16:59 (UTC)

I know about the ^p and control H and such but I tried it and it didn't work for this particular list for some reason! Anyway much appreciated!♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:01, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

More deleted pages

Hello again! There are still few Russian administrative division history pages deleted for some reason: Derbent Governorate, Irkutsk Governorate, Kaluga Governorate, Kostroma Governorate, Mount Shamkhal, Saratov Governorate, Saratov Viceroyalty, Suvorov, Russia, Yaroslavl Governorate. GreyHood ^Talk 18:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, you know what the reason is... G5. I'll take a look. Thanks for finding them!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 19, 2011; 18:26 (UTC)

Brateyevo District

Доброго времени суток! Не очень понятно, зачем была удалена информация об автобусных маршрутах, связывающих один из районов Москвы (Братеево) с ближайшими статьями метро? В статье ведь говорится: "There are no metro stations in Brateyevo District. The nearest stations are: ..." ("В Братеево нет станций метро. Ближайшие станции: ...") Я добавил информацию, чтобы люди знали, как добраться до метро, если в районе их пока нет. Именно в этом контексте эта информация очень даже уместна. Источник по этой информации есть. Тем более что в аналогичной статье Русской Википедии она спокойно себе поживает.

За остальную помощь при работе со статьёй — большое спасибо! Английский у меня на средненьком уровне, поэтому переодически бывают ошибки.

Можете ответить как на русском, так и на английском. (понимаю я лучше, чем говорю, но лучше на русском!) --Brateevsky ^{(talk to me)} 10:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Добрый день, коллега! Мне, к сожалению, неизвестны правила, которыми руководствуется русская Википедия, но в нашем лесу партия нам спустила предельно ясные указания: Википедия — это не путеводитель :) Это не означает, конечно, что о транспорте писать вообще ничего не надо. Очень даже наооборот — надо, но только энциклопедическую информацию. Список автобусных маршрутов же это типичный материал для путеводителей, тем более что по вашим же словам вы добавили её для туристов, а не пользователей энциклопедии. В принципе, даже и информация про метро, наверное, попадает в разряд путеводительства, но это всё-таки более серая область, да и ссылки на статьи там есть, поэтому эту часть я оставил. Вот такие пироги.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)

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Vologda oblast district templates

Could you now please have a look at Tarnogsky District — do you find it ok to proceed like this with the municipal division (especially ref), or do we need a separate template for each district? I follow your talk page, so that it is perfectly fine to reply here, without notifying me on my talk page. Thanks in advance, there is no hurry, I still need a couple of days to finish the essential articles pertaining to Arkhangelsk Oblast.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems fine, although I haven't looked too closely. I'll make sure to check those after I'm done with Stavropol Krai and will definitely let you know if I see anything amiss. Thanks much for your work; you have no idea how appreciated it is! :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 15:08 (UTC)

I'm planning to turn the Tarnogsky District article into a template next week. Also, I wanted to let you know not to worry about creating the administrative/municipal divisions sections. They must be taking you a lot of time to compile (and I wouldn't think you see it as a fun task, unless you share the same perverted idea of "fun" with yours truly :)), and I actually have a database which can produce those sections in just a couple clicks. The database is still missing the data for Arkhangelsk and Sverdlovsk Oblasts (and since you concentrated your effort mostly on the former, I didn't let you know this earlier), but for the rest of the federal subjects these sections can be populated in a matter of days. Also, the database is based on the actual administrative-territorial and municipal laws, not on OKATO. I'm planning to deploy it after creating the necessary disambigs for selsoviets/rural settlements (same way I did with the districts; cf. Leninsky District, Russia), and having all the links point to proper locations will be an important benefit. Sure beats doing it all manually! :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 26, 2011; 15:25 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Indeed, I will be doing Vologda Oblast next, I will then skip the Divisions sections in the district articles. I expect to finish the articles on Arkhangelsk oblast today or tomorrow (still need to finish Arkhangelsk, Arkhangelsk Governorate, Arkhangelsk Oblast, create one article and upload one image), but there is so much work to do on Vologda Oblast that there is no hurry anyway.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've tweaked Tarnogsky District so it can now be used as a template for the rest of the Vologda Oblast district articles. Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 29, 2011; 16:02 (UTC)

Thanks/ Sure, I have questions. 1) Do these Law #371-OZ and Resolution #178 remain the same for all districts? Apparently, in Vologda Oblast they have separate laws for every district. 2) Did you removed the selsoviet list on purpose, in order to add them to all districts with your program? 3) Is the redirect Tarnogsky such a good idea given that the article on Tarnogsky Gorodok will be created within days (may be even tomorrow)?--Ymblanter (talk) 17:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

1) Yes, these two are oblast-level and list all the districts. The municipal laws such as #1123-OZ, on the other hand, will be different for each district—feel free to comment those parts out and I will create the necessary templates and uncomment them as I go through them later. 2) Yes. 3) "Tarnogsky" should not redirect to "Tarnogsky Gorodok", nor should we have a disambig at "Tarnogsky" listing "Tarnogsky Gorodok". We do not normally create redirects/disambigs for partial names (I should be able to dig up the appropriate guideline, if you want me to). With the district, since the "district" part is not a part of the name but merely an entity type specifier, the redirect is valid. The only other valid candidates for a possible disambig would be Tarnogsky Selsoviet and Tarnogskoye Rural Settlement, but those are unlikely to be created soon and at any rate they will be redlinked from the district article first. I'll be taking care of such cases once the database is ready to be deployed. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 29, 2011; 18:30 (UTC)

OK, good, thx.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Zabaykalsky Krai

I would rather not leave empty text lying about. Once you've done Stavropol I'll happily continue with Zabaykalsky Krai.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:49, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem, but just so you know, I wasn't planning on polishing more than three a day (because this task kind of cut ahead of pretty much everything else on my to-do list, and it's more labor-intensive than it seems on surface). I'm obviously not going to tell you how to structure your workflow, but if you change your mind, please let me know and I'll gladly continue creating the templates for you (without stopping my trudging forward with Stavropol Krai et al., of course). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 17:55 (UTC)

As long as they won't be left empty for months... I'll do Zabay tomorrow evening most likely. Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:59, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, at three a day you can calculate exactly how long they'll stay empty and pace yourself accordingly :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 22, 2011; 18:00 (UTC)

Zabaykalsky Krai is done, although I missed those which had articles and data. They need infoboxes still. I will resume with the next when Stavropl is done and you have started on Zabay.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:26, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

'K, thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 24, 2011; 12:03 (UTC)

Antwerp

Our citation policy does not require citations at the end of every sentence, but it does require citations for all information. You will observe that featured articles do not have citations at the end of every sentence, but that all information is sourced; check Ambondro mahabo, a random one, for an example — everything in the body of the article is cited, often with citations at the ends of paragraphs. The lead has no citations, but per WP:LEAD, they're not required for information that's sourced elsewhere: everything, like in my preferred version of the Antwerp article but unlike in your preferred version, is based upon reliable sources. Nyttend (talk) 16:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Our citation policy requires citations for anything that is challenged or is likely to be challenged. Since I am unable to verify the source you used, please consider my citation requests as such challenge and source them accordingly. I obviously cannot attribute the sentences which I perceive as unsourced to the source you used, because I don't have access to it, so that job falls onto you.

Also, you have not addressed your removal of the information I added. Do you have good reasons to believe it is factually wrong? If not, I suggest you leave it there to be referenced later (perhaps not even by me!). Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 23, 2011; 16:08 (UTC)

Arctic policy of Russia

Hello! I noticed that you assessed the article Arctic policy of Russia that I created about a month ago. Would you be able to reassess it? I think that it has since improved beyond start-class. Although I'm still working on it, I think that it's more or less come together.--Slon02 (talk) 03:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I've re-assessed it as C. By the way, whenever you are improving an article, you are welcome to tweak its assessment yourself as well. The basic criteria are easy to check, and anyone can change those ratings (the only thing to remember is that WP:RUSSIA does not use A-Class). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 29, 2011; 13:24 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Request to close a guideline proposal

Please see my reply at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Request to close a guideline proposal. I hope that once things are made easier for the admins, someone will close the guideline proposal. Thank you, Cunard (talk) 08:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've re-organized the thread to be closed as suggested.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 29, 2011; 13:41 (UTC)

Yelena Viktorovna Panova

Can you check the translation of the theatre roles from Russian wikipedia?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Seem fine.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 31, 2011; 15:21 (UTC)

Thanks, and the filmography?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Filmography should use English titles for those movies which have been released in the English-speaking countries and romanized Russian titles for those which haven't been. Since I have no idea about these particular movies, and since most of those don't have articles, I'm afraid I can't help much. The translations seem more or less accurate, but if you have doubts about specific entries, I can look at those individually.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 31, 2011; 15:44 (UTC)

Women's Work is at Risk for Life-Investigator Hope Postnikov. Is Hope Postnikov part of the name of the film or her character?♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Got that fixed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 31, 2011; 16:30 (UTC)

Returned from a Trip with my Husband , I think One, Two.., Do Not I and Mother Rent also look odd?♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The husband one is a popular intro line from the Russian jokes; I've fixed it but perhaps there is a better (or more traditional) translation I am not aware of. As for the rest, I've fixed 'em. But, once again, this is just my translation, and the movies might have been released under completely different titles in English (or should simply be transliterated if they had never been released in English). Perhaps it would be best to limit the filmography only to the entries on which we already have articles?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 31, 2011; 18:51 (UTC)

new russian military organization

hi i wanted to start an article about the recently formed Западный военный округ. In some sources they translate it to "Western Operational Strategic Command" and in others "Western Military District". so which is the best name to call the article? best regrads, Superzohar Talk 11:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Since the articles on all other similar entities are titled using "military district", "Western Military District" is the best choice for this one, too.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 1, 2011; 11:59 (UTC)

Superzohar, thanks for your initiative in this area: we need the new MDs. While they were initially referred to in the discussion stage as OSCs (OCKs), the presidential decree (which you can find if you look) specifically refers to them as the Western Military District, Central Military District, Southern Military District, and Eastern Military District. Cheers and thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 12:04, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Russian images to Commons

Hi Ezhiki. There are a couple of images on the Russian wikipedia that I would like to add to wp:en articles, but they're on ru:wiki, not Commons. Would it be possible for you to move them? They're at http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:Эмблема 22 ТБАД.jpg and http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:Здание штаба ТуркВО.jpg . They're at the 22nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Division and the Turkestan Military District pages. Cheers and thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 12:04, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I've asked Russavia (talk · contribs) to take a look at your request. He's an admin on the Commons, and since he deals with this kind of tasks all the time, I'm more confident in his ability to take care of this properly. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 2, 2011; 14:18 (UTC)

Thanks Ezhiki - just asked you because my Russian is not up to the job of reading all the instructions.. Buckshot06 (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

These pics are deletion firewood on commons. Upload to :en directly (perhaps under fair use terms). NVO (talk) 14:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)