User talk:Ezhiki/2008

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[edit] Update

Hi! Hope you're having a good new year. ;) Someone, preferably you, should update Federation Council of Russia -- I know that the Evenk and Taymyr councillors should be gone, but I haven't yet found a source stating whether the Ust-Orda Buryatian councillors will remain until 31 Dec 08...? —Nightstallion 14:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

According to the Federation Council's official website, the Ust-Orda Buryatia's representative's term expires in January 2008. I'll look into this further when I return to editing in a couple of days (I'm still not done celebrating :)). Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Volapük again

Hi Ezhiki. Perhaps you've already noticed that there is a new proposal against the Volapük Wikipedia: m:Proposals for closing projects/Radical cleanup of Volapük Wikipedia. In case you agree that this is not a good proposal for vo.wp, perhaps you could help us fight against it by casting your vote? Thanks! --Smeira 00:15, 3 oct 2008

[edit] SIMS

In my view, putting the context tag on it over two years ago (not that I was the one to do so) was "attempting to bring it to someone's attention." When I see an article that awful, that's gone unimproved for that long, I tend to assume that if nobody's visited the article during that time who can, and wants to, improve the article even a bit, it's not worth keeping. If it is actually a good topic that should have an article, I trust that someone will someday write a new one in a way that meets Wikipedia's standards (including proving the notability of the subject).

I probably did overreact with my sarcasm; I was quite frustrated because when I came across the article, it looked like a textbook example of an article that nobody cared at all about, and then suddenly people couldn't rescue it fast enough (by refusing to let it be deleted, but not by actually taking an initiative to improve it; by all indications, if I hadn't taken it to AFD, it would have remained in the same state for the indefinite future). I don't like seeing things that I think are messy or shoddy or stupid and being unable to fix it because of other people and what I see as poor reasoning. I fully admit this is a personal tic of mine and not the most likable or convenient.

While I suppose the proper thing to do would be to apologize, I don't really think I did anything wrong in expressing my frustration, and I deliberately restrained from calling you or any other poster any names or anything. I did insult the article; the author didn't seem too bothered by the cleanup tag on his work for the last two years, so I figured he wasn't too vulnerable. (Of course, it then turned out to be a copyvio; I AM sorry that I forgot to just check for that in the first place.) Anyway, it seems clear we have different editing philosophies that probably won't be reconciled anytime soon; all I can do, besides leaving you this insanely-overlong message to try to explain my views and actions, is assure you I don't bear any ill will over our disagreement and I hope we don't run into further conflict in the future. Propaniac (talk) 18:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I really don't need your apology, honest :) But thanks for taking your time to write a response this detailed; I really appreciate it.
I stumbled upon that article purely by accident, and by no means took your attitude personally. It's just that I prefer to see a bad, horrible article no one seems to care about over a red link any day. Speedy deletion is reserved for extremely obvious cases, and prod is mainly intended for cases which are marginal cases (i.e., when it is not crystal clear whether they qualify for speedy deletion or not). All I want from you is that next time you consider going straight for AfD in cases when an article is merely in poor condition but is obviously on a topic that should have an article. AfD exposure may not help save the article, but at least it'll get one more chance to be reviewed and possibly rescued. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 Kazan explosion

Hi! Could yo help me to keep this? I'd found that many of such events has own articles, whereas someone offered me to merge this with Kazan... --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 18:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Any particular reason why you don't want to merge this with Kazan? It is a rather short stub, after all...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure, it will be larger as soon as investigation results will be presented. More over, there is something unclear about three missed persons. And finally there are a lot of such short articles, for example: Chechnya Spetsnaz base explosion. --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 18:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe that the majority of the "delete" votes came from people who do not consider the event to be notable. I can see now that it is not the case, but if you could add a few more sources to the article (preferrably in English), I'll gladly oppose the nomination and explain why the notability guidelines (at least in my view) are being met.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moving proposals

Hey there! It's me again. I have been reviewing the stubs on flags of Russian subjects that I have created so far. Recently, I have considered on moving three of them new titles: Flag of Koryak Autonomous Okrug to Flag of Koryak Okrug, Flag of Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug to Flag of Komi-Permyak Okrug, and Flag of Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug to Flag of Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug.

I do not know if the differences between an Autonomous Okrug and an Okrug should be taken into account on this topic. I am just seeking your opinion and approval. Feel free to take your time on this matter if you wish. American Imperialist (talk) 19:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

"Autonomous okrugs" are entities which, despite being in administrative jurisdiction of a krai or an oblast, are nevertheless constituent members of the Russian Federation (i.e., they send their representatives to the Federation Council). They are included with the rest of the federal subjects and have equal rights on the federal level.
Since 2005, some of the autonomous okrugs were merged with other federal subjects, and lost their federal subject status. Some of those autonomous okrugs were given special administrative status, and their names now omit the word "autonomous" (e.g., "Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug" became "Komi-Permyak Okrug" of Perm Krai). As far as the flags and coats of arms are concerned, the okrugs retain them without changes, so, technically, either title ("Flag of Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug" or "Flag of Komi-Permyak Okrug") is correct, although, of course, the latter is more up-to-date. If you do the moves, that would be OK, but if you leave the article as-is, that would not be much of a problem either (after all, the articles would still discuss the flags of these entities, even though the entities themselves ceased to exist in that form).
Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Kresty

My motivation was to suggest that the article has a possible future if that can be addressed. It is more likely to be addressed if it is kept and discussed rather than deleted. I do not intend to address it myself but it may be that somebody with more knowledge of the subject could do so easily. Random Fixer Of Things (talk) 20:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I kind of figured that much myself. However, the difference between this article and any other poorly written article is that while the latter can be improved, this one cannot be until we first determine what exactly we are trying to describe. The last thing we want is for a person from one Kresty to add information to this stub and another person from a different Kresty to "improve" upon that under incorrect assumption that there is only one place by this name. I've seen this happen in the past, and the results are horrible and take an inane amount of time to fix. Considering how much content the article currently contains (almost none), wouldn't you agree that giving a person interested in Kresty a chance to start from a clean slate (by deleting this stub) is a far better option than risking building upon the base which is already fundamentally flawed?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I see what you are saying, but I think that it would be best to keep the stub, preferably as a proper article but maybe as a dab page. At least that way somebody searching for it will have a start point. A lot of people who were just browsing are probably more likely to add to an existing article than start a new one. If they add information about the wrong Kresty, I think that isn't a big problem and it probably happens a lot. Picking a specific Kresty, and therefore making it clear in the article, is probably the best way to minimise this happening. Random Fixer Of Things (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Like I said, in order to improve this particular stub it first needs to be moved to an appropriate title (as per WP:NC:CITY#Russia). Since no one is able to do that because there is not enough information, the article is essentially useless. It's kind of like having an article about "Washington" which would include a piece about Washington, D.C., a piece about Washington state, and a piece about George Washington without making any effort to distinguish between the three. Just because it happens elsewhere does not mean we should not make an effort to correct the mistakes, even if it means deleting a few uninteresting and uninformative lines for good.
Having a dab page would be perfect, of course, and I am perfectly capable of making one which would list all four villages myself, but please see my concerns at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kresty and a discussion at WT:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Proposed rewrite of "Red links" section as to why it is currently a solution non-compliant with the existing guidelines (I am yet to explore the set-index article option, though). Perhaps you'd want to comment there as well :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Advisor.js

Hi! After my long period of inactivity here, I'm back. I'm having a hard time to work around the Opera issues you wrote about, but I'll see what I can do, maybe this weekend. I know that the Opera guys have recently made good effort to resolve their notorious incosistencies with other major browsers, but every now and then an annoyance like the textarea selection issue pops up. Seems somewhat hard for me to fix it quickly...

The "User Scripts" list is a really useful collection. I was hoping to do a major rewrite of my scripts last year, and that's one of the reasons why I didn't include them there. Also, being "busy in real life", you know, deters me from supporting them as actively as I would like to. I'll consider adding Advisor.js, however; somebody somewhere may benefit from it. --Cameltrader (talk) 21:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and glad you are back! I'll be looking forward to further improvements of the script.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ovechkina

I stand by my assessment, the article can always be expanded out and the article states that the town has a population circa 4000 which under most circumstances should be sufficient to narrow it down, I'm sure the town has a webpage and notability is already established. As for it being misspelled: who cares? It can be moved.--The Dominator (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I had this same argument over Kresty (which, incidentally, is also on AfD) just a few days ago. The article, one of a a few dozen, was created by a bot (thankfully the bot has stopped quickly enough, but the mess it left is still unbelievable), which, apparently, took the population estimates from the map legend (probably a 0-4000 group or somesuch), because that's the estimate it supplied in pretty much every single article it created. None of the three villages by the name of "Ovechkino" have populations that large (the districts in which those three villages are located, have total rural populations of 5,605, 33,385, and 11,607 people (as per the 2002 Census results) spread, correspondingly, over 285, 628, and 458 villages. The actual population, I would guess, would be around 1,000 at best, and possibly way less than that. A village this small is extremely unlikely to have its own website (I doubt that even the volost it belongs to would have a website). I am also emphasizing (for the third time!) that this place is not a town (which is easy to find); it is a village (which is not—many would not even have any Google hits, despite, obviously, being real places).
Anyway, the bottom line is that I can easily confirm and reference the fact that three villages by the name of "Ovechkino" do indeed exist in Pskov Oblast, and I can make an educated guess that whatever is currently described in Ovechkina is one of them, but there is no way whatsoever for me or you to determine (based on the article's text) which one of the three it is.
Also note that the article very well qualifies for WP:SPEEDY#A1 (insufficient context). The only reason I have not speedied it myself is because I wanted to give it one more chance (OK, two chances if you count the AfD) to be expanded by the bot owner.
Finally, as far as the misspelling goes—we would you move the article to? Since we know that there are at least three places in Russia named "Ovechkino", the name would have to be disambiguated (as per WP:NC:CITY#Russia). However, as we established above, we cannot disambiguate it properly... because there is not enough information to do so. Any comments on that?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Did you even let the bot-operator know? I don't really have time right now but the article says it is close to the town Velikiye Luki which does have a wiki article that gives its coordinates, therefore the article is referring to the Ovechkino that is closest to those coordinates. And please just respond on my talk page, the "New Messages" feature is here for a reason and I'm not going to watch your page.--The Dominator (talk) 19:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Of course I let the bot operator know; that's a prod requirement. I was leaving the messages on the bot's talk page in order to to overwhelm the person running it; I assume he is watching his own bot's page? As for the place being "close to Velikiye Luki", that's a very vague statement which really depends on the resolution of the map. To me, a place can be considered being "close to Velikiye Luki" when it is either in Velikiye Luki's administrative jurisdiction or when it is in jurisdiction of Velikoluksky District (of which Velikiye Luki is the administrative center). All three of the candidate places are pretty damn far from Velikiye Luki (the one in Ostrovsky District is the closest, but it is still clear on the opposite side of the oblast).
You seem to be operating under assumption that I make no effort to identify these bot-generated places before prodding them. Let me assure you it is not so. I did prod about a dozen of these article for the same reason, but I also corrected errors and re-wrote just as many in cases when I could pinpoint the place without any doubt. Trust me, if I saw a way to keep this stub, I wouldn't have prodded it.
Finally, as for "just responding on your talk page"—huh?.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russian town articles added by Phoenix-bot

I left a message for the person who maintains Phoenix-bot (Phoenix-wiki) letting them know that the articles created by the bot were being deleted as the bot seemed to have gone overboard making articles. They replied on my talk page, acknowledging that having the bot create those pages was probably a bad idea, so I don't think any more pages will be created in that way. If you wanted to talk with the maintainer you could do so at their talk page. I just wanted to let you know, thanks! -- Atamachat 00:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, but I had already been in contact with bot owner soon after the articles were first generated. Probably should have let you know; sorry about that. I am actually reviewing all of those stubs one-by-one, making corrections in cases when places can be identified unambigously and prodding the rest. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

What's up, where did all the Ёzhiki go? :spy: --Illythr (talk) 20:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, we are all still here. Just experimenting with mushrooms :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Well ok, but do be careful with those mushrooms - not all of them are одинаково полезны... ;-)
And don't get lost in the fog, guys - lots of weirdos lurking out there. --Illythr (talk) 14:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Heh, noted :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Heart attack...

You seriously gave a heart attack... I saw your username in red and... and... I believed there for a second that you became just another roadkill of Wikipedia bandwagon... Do do that again, you hear me! :) Renata (talk) 01:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha, eh? :) But seriously, isn't it sad that we now assume the worst when the person does no longer seem to be around, and, sadder enough, "the worst" more often than not turns out to be the reason for leaving?
Anyway, as for me, I will never leave (you can quote me on that). I truly hope you can say the same.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kresty

No, I did relist it. To relist an AfD means to give the AfD another five days, which would involve removing from the original AfD date page and moving it to the most recent AfD date page at the time of re-transclusion. —Kurykh 02:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; you passed :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kaliningrad

Howdy! On the talk page, I had mentioned that the article's history should remain at Kaliningrad instead of being moved to Königsberg. However, when Matthead split the articles, he moved it to Königsberg (Prussia) and then created a new Kaliningrad (Russia) page. Feel free to fix the edit history if you are feeling ambitious. Olessi (talk) 23:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, that was no fun at all, but I think I fixed it, hopefully without fucking something else up :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your assistance. With my limited Internet access at the moment, I didn't want to start changing article histories and risk messing things up without having enough time to correct them. Olessi (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
No problem; glad I could help!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About "National Anthem of the Chuvash Republic"

Dear Ezhiki,

Greeting. The reason why I fill the anthem by an external link is similar with the following case:

The Russian version of the article Buryatia,
the entry "Гимн (=Anthem in English)" is filled by an external MP3 file.

So before the article National Anthem of the Chuvash Republic is created, do you think it's a way? Any reply is appreciated.

Sincerely,

140.112.90.224, 2008-01-29 (Tue) 00:42 UST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.112.115.2 (talk) 00:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, anonymous editor! Generally, when your edit is reverted, the person doing the revert leaves the reason in the edit summary. If you see yourself reverted, just check the article's History (use the "History" tab at the top) to see why. If the reason is unclear, you are, of course, welcome to contact the person who reverted you (as you contacted me).
Anyway, to answer your question, we don't generally put external links into the infoboxes (with the exception of the fields which are specifically intended to hold the external links—such as "Official website", for example). Normally, external links go to the "External links" section at the bottom of the article, which is where I moved them from the infobox. The utility of the red link in the infobox is that it tells readers and editors right away that the article on the subject does not yet exist, and allows to create an article at the proper title.
Now, as for the external links you added being removed altogether, that wasn't by me :) Where I was involved (with Bashkortostan, for example), I simply moved the external link to the External links section. By the looks of it, the links that were removed automatically had been removed by a bot based on the fact that they are hosted by youtube. This is usually done when there is a copyright violation or spam, but since these two reasons obviously do not apply in your case, I would recommend to ask the bot operator (here) for the reasons why this particular rule was applied in your case. I hope this helps, but if anything is still not clear, please let me know. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About "National Anthem of the Republic of Bashkortostan"

Hi Ezhika,

I also found the external link was reverted. Mea culpa. Apologies for inconvenience.

Sincerely,

140.112.90.224, 2008-01-29 (Tue) 00:46 UST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.112.115.2 (talk) 00:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Greetings! I experienced this problem on IceWeasel (that is, Firefox for Debian Linux) version 2.0.0.11. After you left your message, I tried to browse the page with Konqueror and it rendered the box correctly. It may be an IceWeasel-specific bug. Let us hope they'll solve it by the next version. -- Leoadec (talk) 17:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That's not a browser I myself can test, unfortunately :( I know previously some users had this bug with Firefox in Windows, but it seems to have gone away when one of the new Firefox updates was out. Anyway, thanks for letting me know!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sim, Perm Krai

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Sim, Perm Krai, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of Sim, Perm Krai. Terraxos (talk) 00:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi again - saw you removed the PROD template. That's fair enough - looking at the results of those AFDs you linked to in the edit summary, I can see that it makes sense to keep this page, since if disambiguation articles exist between small settlements like these, then the articles on the settlements should exist as well.
Unfortunately, I don't think those AFDs came to the right result. The Manual of Style for disambiguation pages makes it quite clear that articles consisting solely of red links are to be avoided:
"A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link. There is no need to brainstorm all occurrences of the page title and create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics."
That second sentence basically describes the articles that passed those AFDs. Furthermore, the argument used by the closing admin to keep them - that 'all real places are notable' - has been shown in the past to be untrue: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Notice posted on the corridor of the ground floor at Hietalahdenkatu 7A, Helsinki, Finland! (OK, a silly example, but articles on very small or non-notable places have been deleted in the past, and could be again.)
I'm not going to nominate this article for AFD, since I don't have any real problem with it; but I just wanted to draw your attention to the problems with the AFDs you linked me to. If you strongly disagree with the results, you might consider taking them to deletion review. Terraxos (talk) 01:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Terraxos! Thanks for the thorough note. I don't really have a problem with the outcome of these AfDs, because the places, just like Sim, are so minor and insignificant, that either way would have been fine. It least a dozen or so similar substubs I prodded were not contested and are now gone :)
What I do have a problem with is the very same clause of the MOSDAB you quoted. I already tried bringing more attention to it, but, apparently, no one seems to have any trouble whatsoever with a clause that was proposed by one editor and back up by only three (!) other. Now we have situations when people quote that clause left and right without giving any thought as to how it got there. In my view, the clause it replaced was a much more reasonable approach to red links ("if an article could be written on that topic, then a red link on a dab page is fine"). I only wish I had enough time to contest this situation properly, but time recently is one luxury I cannot afford.
Anyway, it might have been interesting to see what would happen if you actually nominated an article like Kresty for AfD on the basis of it violating the redlink clause of the MOSDAB. Just for the experiment sake, I'd try to contest that AfD by stating that Kresty, in fact, is not a disambiguation page, but a set index article page (to which MOSDAB does not apply). Now, the set index clause of the MOSDAB is another thing that perpetually puzzles me. I am yet to see it used anywhere outside the Ships WikiProject, and in the absense of any guidelines regarding formatting/layout/etc. of such pages, it very much seems as an intentional loophole for cases when someone wants to keep something that is essentially a MOSDAB-noncompliant disambiguation page. The clause has been there forever, too; and I can only guess that people just glance over it without giving it much thought, simply because it is written so vaguely that it is even difficult to comprehend its intents and purposes.
Finally, as for Sim, Perm Krai, you could, technically, AfD it, but it will 100% survive, simply because "all locations are notable" and the stub is referenced and easily verifiable. With Kresty, in this form at least, there was a chance for the AfD to succeed (and indeed, some of the articles from the same bot-generated batch did get deleted without much fuss), but Sim technically meets all our criteria; it is just extremely hard to add anything else to that little that's already there.
Why am I writing all this? Basically, I just needed to vent some steam, I guess; maybe to raise awareness a little :) If disambiguation-related issues are something that interests you and if you have time to deal with them, you might want to look into the issues I described above. Otherwise, feel free to ignore this long rant. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ru:Википедия:Атлас википедистов

Открой Америку! ;-) --Obersachse (talk) 18:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Неа, мне тогда придётся признаться, где я живу, а эту информацию я предпочитаю не афишировать :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Я же знал, что ты спецагент 007 ;-) --Obersachse (talk) 09:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opera

Just to let you know, textarea selection in Advisor.js should now work with Opera, but scrolling to the relevant offset seems impossible. It's because of a browser bug that will be fixed in Opera 9.5 (I've put it as a known issue). I recommend that you refresh your browser's cache, as I've added some improvements in the meantime, including help messages (double click on a suggestion), new kinds of suggestions, and some bugfixes. --Cameltrader (talk) 21:38, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for putting so much effort into this! The changes you introduced during the course of past few weeks improved the usability a great deal.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tuva Workgroup

As a past contributor to a Tuva-related article, I was wondering if you would be interested in forming a Tuva workgroup of Wikipedia:WikiProject Central Asia with me? If enough people show interest, I'll go ahead and create the workgroup. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 18:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Stacey! Thanks for the invitation, but I have to decline. Tuva only interests me as one of the federal subjects of Russia, on administrative and municipal divisions of which I am concentrating. This, I believe, is too narrow of a scope for a member of Tuva Workgroup. That said, please do not hesitate to contact me if I could be useful regarding those aspects of Tuva. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks anyway! --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 21:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template

Ezhiki, hi there! I have a question for you. Do you think it would be useful to create a Russian Biographical Dictionary template (like the one we have for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: {{GSE}})?. I sometimes use this dictionary (published by Alexander Polovtsov) when writing certain articles and I want to list it as a source of information used in a given article. Lemme know what you think. Btw, I have no idea how to create templates :). KNewman (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Kmorozov already created this template almost two years ago→{{RBD}}! Let me know if there is anything in it you would like to see changed; I'll gladly improve it if necessary. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanx a lot! I must've missed the announcement :). KNewman (talk) 10:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kharbala (disambiguation)

Another editor has added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Kharbala (disambiguation), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 07:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

De-prodded.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] vkontakte.ru

Привет!!! Есть тут статейка Vkonakte.ru. Перенести её на нормальное навание не представляется возможным без участия администратора. Думается статья о первом сайте Рунета всё-таки должна быть в википедии )) (судя по всему первая версия была удалена как пиар) --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 15:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

А какое у неё должно быть правильное название?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Думается, что vkontakte.ru (по крайней мере, по аналогии odnoklassniki.ru)--Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 16:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Тьфу ты, не заметил, что в названии опечатка :) Готово, перенёс.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hillock and Bandurist

Have a look at the history of Ukrainian language and Zaporozhian Cossacks. As well as other examples. The two are clearly WP:CANVASSing and use their "majority" to simply carelessly revert their own versions, including any corrections that I might bring into the article. I expect you as an administrator to stand up and take a tough line to them. Because they don't even listen to me. --Kuban Cossack 15:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Kuban kazak#Your inquiry and User talk:Hillock65#On revert-warring.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:24, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:User LoonyMoonie

Template:User LoonyMoonie has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Da zdravstvuite!

Привет от английской девушки. Изучает русский яэык. Будущий муж - русский еврей (почти 1992 г. живёт в Англии); живём вместе в Рединг. Уже хорошо говорю по-польски а про меня русский язык...трудно!"

Still at the "Gdye Boris? Vot on!" stage so can't take it much further, just dropping by to ask whether you could help me format my rather unwieldy user page so at least my userboxes are arranged neatly...as yours are. Thank you very much. Lstanley1979 (talk) 17:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot of userboxes! :) Anyway, I am not much of an expert on userpage layouts (my own page was laid out with someone else's help), but I did organize your userboxes into a table, so hopefully it'll work out better for you. Welcome to Wikipedia, by the way!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much...got carried away when I found out how to do them...an evening's entertainment. Спасибо! Lstanley1979 (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
No problem :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Och[er|yor|re]

Hi Ëzhiki,

There are still a few things I'd like to change with the Och[er|yor|re] disambiguation pages. Firstly, Template:See also states that the seealso template "is used for small sets of see also information at the head of article sections according to Wikipedia:Guide to layout," not for disambiguation pages. "See also" sections are the standard according to WP:MOSDAB, such as the following:

==See also==

Also, based on the link you provided:

When the name of the locality is not unique within Russia, use comma-separated name of the federal subject on the territory of which the locality is situated (e.g., Oktyabrsky, Republic of Bashkortostan). If the name of the locality is not unique within a federal subject, precede the federal subject disambiguator with the name of the district on the territory of which the locality is situated (e.g., Vesyoly, Shovgenovsky District, Republic of Adygea).

I wouldn't see Ochyor and Ochyor River as having the same name in this sense, but even if they did, the proper naming of Ochyor would be Ochyor, Perm Krai. I don't even see the need of having an Ochyor disambiguation page because of the two-entry disambiguation page guidelines, the fact that the city is the main entry, and the river is linked on the first line of the city article. I feel that Ocher can be redirected to Ochre, a link to Ochyor can be placed at the top of Ochre and in the "See also" section of Ochre (disambiguation), and Ochyor can be the city article. Please let me know your thoughts on this matter. It's good to be working with you on this.

Neelix (talk) 12:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Neelix! Thanks for your detailed response; let me go through it point by point.
  1. {{See also}}. The only reason why I use this template on dab pages is because it is convenient when only a few "see also" links are available. A full-blown "See also" section with only one or two links looks... well, ugly and unwieldy. The notice on the template page you refer to is nothing more but a usage recommendation; there is nothing preventing us from using the template in other cases when using it makes sense. Note that MOSDAB does not mandate usage of the "see also" section, yet alone sets a standard as to how it should be formatted. All it does is listing the cases which can be suitable for inclusion into such a section (whatever it looks like in the end).
  2. WP:NC:CITY#Russia. You, unfortunately, have only read the first paragraph (which you then quoted), but the move I performed was actually based on paragraph three ([w]hen the name of the locality is completely unique, but conflicts with the name of a different concept, use the parenthesized locality type as disambiguator). A town and a river are different concepts, and there is no other inhabited locality in Russia (and, possibly, in the whole world, although I could be wrong on that one) by that name, hence Ochyor (town) is correct. Trust me on this interpretation, as I was the person who wrote that particular guideline, put it up for community's vote, and got a nearly 100% support :)
  3. More on the town/river separation: they both do have the same name. All rivers include the "River" specifier in the title, regarding of whether it is a part of the actual name or not (where this rule was set, I do not remember, but it is a very common and enforced practice, at least from what I see). In any case, in accordance with Wikipedia:MOSDAB#Examples of individual entries that should not be created, when there is disagreement about whether [the specifier is a part of the name or not], it is often best to assume that it [i]s.
  4. Regarding dab pages with only two entries: as per the very clause you linked me to: [i]n such cases, the disambiguation page is not strictly necessary, but is harmless (emphasis mine). I am fully aware of this clause, but please let me assure you that I only create two-entry dabs when I know for sure that they are further expandable (they minimize the number of maintenance tasks later when the dab is expanded). I don't have access to my archives of Perm Krai reference materials at the moment, but I will look more Ochyors up as soon as I do. In the meanwhile, I don't see how having hatnotes and the dab is of any harm. They just cover more contingencies of how readers arrive to the destination articles, is all.
I'd appreciate your further comments in light of all this. Thanks, and pleasure talking to you again :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Ëzhiki,
I appreciate your thorough explanation of your reasoning and intentions, especially because a large portion of my edits on Wikipedia envolve the standardization of disambiguation pages. I am now content with the current status of the disambiguation pages, and I am glad that you plan to develop more entries for them. I like the format of your userpage, by the way. I'm going to have to clean up mine one of these days.
Neelix (talk) 15:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks and good luck with your edits and your userpage :) If you ever see me doing something with the disambiguation pages that you think is not fully in compliance, please don't hesitate to let me know. As I only work on disambiguation pages which concern Russian toponymics, I very well realize that I may be missing some pieces of the bigger picture. I, in turn, promise to provide the full reasoning for my edits, as they often concern the bits of the big picture other editors don't often get exposed to. That's collaboration in action :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Template:User crh

I replied here. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, although it didn't answer my question of why you don't make sure that all CSD requirements are met before starting to actually tag things...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I do (and it's not very nice to suggest otherwise). However, I've done over 2,000 taggings in the past few weeks, and I have a belly button. I filtered out all templates that end in -<single_digit>, however, it seems some are still in the list. As the speedy tag says, you're free to remove the tag. As Carl said, there's no requirement to list which template has superceded the one tagged, as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I didn't mean to suggest that you don't do your checking; I apologize if that's how it sounded to you. My message was prompted by two such templates showing up in my watchlist in the matter of minutes; both were tagged by you. As for my suggestion regarding mentioning which templates has superceded the one tagged, that was based strictly on how CSD T3 reads—if you, the nominator, do not list which template is being superceded, then how the rest of the users are supposed to know? Since you stated above that you do make sure that all requirements are met before doing the actual tagging, then why not add this information to the tag? You'll be the first one to benefit from the reduced number of inquiries... Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I added "Government of Foo" to most of the guberniya articles and created a variety of redirects; I didn't touch Bessarabia, Chernomore, Georgia, Penza, or Tula, however. I didn't edit Governor of Taganrog either, as I don't know about the Russian terminology. Could you bring that one in line with the other guberniya articles? Olessi (talk) 05:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of that. I added the name to Bessarabia, renamed and expanded Chernomore, and added a bit to Georgia. I am not sure what you wanted me to do with Penza and Tula, as both simply redirect to the articles on corresponding cities, which do not mention governorates at all. Also, governor of Taganrog is in a truly sorry state; I'll add it to my to-do list but may not get to fixing it soon. Hope this helps! Please let me know if there is anything else I can do. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I created the provincial redirects since "province" is another of the many designations used in English for guberniya. Unfortunately, my knowledge of my Cyrillic is less than ideal and my knowledge of former Russian subdivisions even less. I really wouldn't know which information to add. If you feel comfortable fixing the redirects, here are the ones which currently have dabs: Arkhangelsk, Grodno Province, Kherson, Leningrad, Minsk, Mogilev, Moscow, Poltava, Smolensk.
Here are the ones with direct links to the governorates: Chernigov, Courland, Estonia, Ingermanland, Kazan, Kovno, Livonia, Malorossiya, Olonets (forgot that one), Petrograd, Podolia, Saint Petersburg, Taurida, Vilna, Yekaterinoslav.
I mentioned Penza and Tula because redirects of theirs are included within Category:Governorates of the Russian Empire. I didn't edit any of the Caucasus or Poland governorates. Olessi (talk) 17:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the list, it helps. I've fixed Smolensk Province and am planning to go through the rest eventually. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WHY NOT?

Why not? PROUD CAHIR BOY 1 (talk) 16:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Because IPA shows pronunciation more precisely, and precision is something that is of a great deal of importance in an encyclopedia.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vladimir Belousov

Saw your note re: the speedy of this page. I didn't speedy it for a lack of sources but rather sheer non-notability. He was a soviet geologist and... There was zero assertion of why he should be included. I think that needs to be addressed before it's restored. It had been tagged for a lack of notability for more than six months with no improvement, just an FYI :) TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 15:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! The reason for my note was that I know how Kirill contributes, and he wouldn't be creating an article on a person who does not meet the notability criteria. Belousov is included in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia[1], but I was hoping Kirill has some non-encyclopedia sources. Still, at any rate, a person notable enough to be included in one high-profile encyclopedia is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Gotcha, just wanted you to know of the key issue I'd seen with the article and was afraid if it was simply restored with no notability it would probably be deleted again. Hopefully he or someone else has access to Russian language sources that assert notability and can be translated/summarized to show importance in an article here. I know English sources turned up little, but I don't read Russian. Thanks for posting the message here and on my talk, responding here to keep it in one place. Have a nice day :) TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 16:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry; we'll take good care of this article from this point onward :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Glad to hear that :) TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 16:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi there, Ezhiki! Thanx for saving the article! I tried searching for it, but couldn't find it. Could you please restore it? I just hate it when bots or, what's even worse, people delete articles only because Britannica or Encarta doesn't mention this or that person! I don't even remember writing this article, to tell you the truth, but please restore it :). KNewman (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Done. If you could add a paragraph on why this guy is notable and cite a couple of sources, that'd be great. Otherwise I'll add the GSE information a bit later. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Indeed it does establish notability whereas simply saying he was a geologist didn't. Hopefully more sources can be added at some point but I think he's notable. Thanks for your help TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 15:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
No problem; come back any time.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Краснознаменск

Я еще спросил у нескольких людей на www.odnoklassniki.ru, некоторые из которых там живут и сейчас. Четверо из них ответили, и все пишут, что Краснознаменск. Это, конечно, не "настоящий" источник, но все же. Официального сайта города, к сожалению, нет (или я не нашел), а то можно было бы спросить и там. --SibFreak (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Официального сайта я тоже не нашёл. Всё же, лучше иметь показания очевидцев, нежели догадываться вслепую :) Спасибо.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Официальный сайт есть и не один [2], [3] на прежней версии подчеркивалось, что Краснознаменск (не Краснознамёнск). Местные жители называют город Краснознаменск. Я знаю таких лично.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Спасибо. Мы плохо искали, значит :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Простите, что вмешиваюсь в столь интересную дискуссию, но... Кто сомневаеццо в КраснознАменске? "Краснознамёнск" может только идиот сказать. --Paukrus (talk) 23:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Указанный идиот, по-видимому, и включил данное написание в соответствующую статью в ru-wiki, откуда я его и скопировал. С тех пор статья была поправлена.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 00:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template

No problem, sir. Done ;). - Darwinek (talk) 15:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] thank you

it is working now. :) stepped on another wiki landmine, I did. I need to get a mine detector for the future...

So can I ask for some more assistance? It seems that anonymous IP continues to go to the LifeGem article to remove content and external links about competition. It may be someone associated with the company that doesn't wish to include it, but it is valid and related information. Is there a way to semi-protect against anon IP edits? Rarelibra (talk) 18:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Good luck with that mine detector :) As for LifeGem, seeing that the removal of that section has been going on for a while now and no valid reasons for deletion had ever been given, I've just semi-protected it. Interesting concept, by the way, that LifeGem.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thanks again. Believe it or not, a former roommate of mine is one of the founders. Looking back, maybe I should have invested in the company :) Rarelibra (talk) 18:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe you should call him and ask if he knows who's trying to remove the competition section :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments needed

If you have the time, would love to hear your input here. Rarelibra (talk) 21:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's being put on a vote?! It's like titling an article about a Russian river "Reka Foo", even though "reka" is simply a qualifier of a geographical feature (a river) and is not a part of the proper name (Foo). I assume "Lac de la" is merely a descriptive qualifier as well?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Problem comes from German where "see" is hydronym part (Foosee) not like Lake Foo in two words. The same in Russian: Lake Vodlozero or Lake Vodl(Vodlo?) Or Vodlozero (with no "lake") - is it correct "River Reka Moskva"? But "River Moskva-reka"?Bogomolov.PL (talk) 11:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe these analogies are correct. The situation with Gruyère is not the same.
  1. Москва-река has an established English names ("Moskva River" or "Moscow River"). The name is listed in major English dictionaries and encyclopedias ([4], [5]). "Moskva-reka", "Moskva-reka River", and numerous other variations are used on occasion, but are not standard. Gruyère, on the other hand, is not something a major dictionary would list in any form; it's just to damn small and obscure. "Small and obscure", however, is precisely where Wikipedia conventions should be kicking in, and as of know they say "use English".
  2. "Vodlozero" is a proper Russian name, which happens to include the word "ozero" as its part. In Russian, the qualifier is not omitted when these lakes are being described (consider, for example, the following excerpt from Karelia's law on municipal districts (emphasis mine): граница идёт от точки 2 до т. 3 по... линии озера Укшозеро, ...от т. 6 до т.7 по акватории озера Кончозеро..., от т. 8 до т. 9 по... линии озера Падозеро..., and so on and on and on. "Озеро" here is a part of the proper name, and so should not be omitted (so the Wikipedia articles should be titles "Lake Ukshozero", "Lake Konchozero", and "Lake Padozero". Now, I don't know if this is the same case with German "Foosee", but then the survey is not about the name in German, but about the name in French (I wouldn't even be participating in a similar survey about a German lake name because I don't know German).
At any rate, you'd be better off voicing your opinion on the survey page. The whole point of that survey is to collect as many opinions as possible. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Забайкалье

Been there? I have... but that's beyond the point. Transbaikalia Krai, then we have Transbaikal, then we have loads of out of date maps, Krais of Russia etc. You're the expert here, so sort it all out. --Kuban Cossack 22:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup, been there... But that's beyond the point indeed. I moved the article back. Please do not confuse the established names of geographic and historical regions and the name of a federal subject that is only a few days old and by definition cannot have an "established name" in English. Please refer to the place name exceptions section of WP:RUS for details. We'll need more hard evidence regarding English usage before we move this article to any title other than the current one.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 23:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi there, Ezhiki! I just don't like Zabaykalsky Krai... Sounds like Забэйкальский :). We have Baikal, so why Zabaykalsky? KNewman (talk) 20:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
It is per WP:RUS place names exception clause. "Baikal" is the established English name of the lake, "Baykal" is the BGN/PCGN romanization of the lake's name. As for the krai, here, obviously, no established English name exists, so romanization is used. There are just no good reasons to deviate from the practice, although I do hope that we'll be able to move the article to a variation of "Transbaikal" once the name gets established by the English dictionaries and encyclopedias. Just give it a few years to get there.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IPA chart for Russian

Hi, I just created IPA chart for Russian, I figure that since you're a native speaker you might be interested in it. Maybe I bungled something. Maybe you can contribute to it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 08:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not an expert on IPA, remember? I can merely read it, but I did look at the article from the native speaker's viewpoint and made a few corrections along the way. If anything is missing from the table, I wouldn't have noticed it due to my limited knowledge of the subject. The corrections I made consist of mostly fixing minor formatting flaws and replacing "е" with "ё" where needed (also, in Russian, a stress mark over "ё" is normally omitted, because this letter is pretty much always stressed).
A few other things I noticed:
  1. I have no clue what "герь" or "юбда" are (perhaps some dialectal words?), so I replaced them with "гербарий" и "юла".
  2. In the word "сухой" the second syllable is stressed, not the first. I replaced the example with "пуля".
  3. I would never pronounce the word "зверь" with "з" palatalized—in fact, I need to make a conscious effort to pronounce this word that way. I think you mentioned once that such pronunciation is more common in Moscow (where they talk weird anyway :)), but perhaps a less ambiguous example would be more appropriate?
  4. I am also not so sure about "н" in "женщина" being a good example for plain "н". I find myself occasionally pronouncing this word with a palatalized "н" for no apparent reason—not sure if it's a phenomenon particular to the variation of Russian I speak or if it's a common occurence. "Блиндаж" is one replacement I can think of.
Hope this helps! Let me know if there is anything else I can do.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Former Country

Hi Ezhiki! I'm one of the main developers behind Template:Infobox Former Country, which is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries. I have noticed that you've put a semi-protection on the template to provide it with some measure of protection as it is a potential high-risk template. I would agree that it would be a fair assessment, and protecting it may not be a bad idea. However, I find that I'm no longer able to update or edit the template, and that rather impedes on my ability to perform necessary maintenance and work on development.

What would be the best sollution here? Having the protection removed or applying for admin status? Despite the template being widely used it is still very much in a development phase and there is alot of work to that still needs to be done. Cheers, -- Domino theory (talk) 22:07, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! I must admit this one puzzled me at first:) I only semi-protected the template, so only anonymous and recently established accounts wouldn't be able to work on it. Obviously, you don't fall under either category.
The problem turned out to be with Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Protection, which has cascading protection option turned on. That page transcludes (and protects) Hoysala Empire, which in turn uses (and protects) the "former country" infobox. It looks that Hoysala Empire will be featured on March 8, so you should be able to resume working on the template after that. In other words, you've got the wrong guy :)
Please let me know if anything is still unclear; I'd be happy to provide further help if you need it. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi again! The protection might be warranted, but as a developer I'm finding the situation becoming untenable to the point that I feel a responsibility for the working order of the template, but that might be brought out of my control by secondary events, which not only restricts, but actually prevents me from performing these duties. Secondary events may also in some cases prompt for action where the template needs to be modified in a way where a non-complex solution would not suffice, like the #ifexist limit issue that popped up in early December 2007, where action were needed in just a number of days, and I was basically the only one around who were able and perhaps more importantly had the working knowledge of the template to fix it.
The template as it stands today is quite complex, and in some ways actually too complex to efficiently maintain and update with new features. This is probably the main reason why further development is necessary and the ultimate goal of this is to increase the transparency and accessibility of the template. A part of this will include using more subtemplates and thus in some ways actually increasing complexity to achieve the overall goals.
Basically what it boils down to is that it may be difficult to unworkable, to actually achieve any of this with the restrictions that are imposed by protection and not being able to work with the template, even if this may be the effect of intermittent secondary events. I haven't actively sought to become an admin, but as things has progressed I think it would be quite difficult to maintain the infobox and its related templates, which are at the core of the project, if they are to have a level of edit protection related to them. Would you endorse a nomination for adminship? Cheers, -- Domino theory (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
From what I see, you are a decent editor who could use admin tools. I wouldn't, however, be comfortable nominating you myself because I just don't know you that well. On the other hand, if someone who does know you well nominates you and if no serious issues surface during the nomination, I'd be more than happy to support it. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] St. Petersburg

Hi,

I have several reasons for inclusion of both links. One is that Russian Wikipedia uses the st-petersburg.ru but that is not important enough. Mainly I think that cities usually have one website which includes both information about the city and the administrative information but St. Petersburg has two websites. I honestly believe readers are looking for st-petersburg.ru, as the administration website eng.gov.spb.ru/ is very baldly describing the city (website was last time updated in 2005 it seems). On the other hand st-petersburg.ru is a modern dynamic presentation which also includes updated news. I am not afraid that infobox links will become carbon copies of the "External links" section as we shouldn't include anything else but these two websites, and I am sure it will not go over to the infoboxes of other cities as this seems to be unique case. If the english version of gov.spb.ru had at least a bit more information and at least some dynamic news content it would have been fine but it seems that St. Petersburg is using st-petersburg.ru to reach to the English language readers. Regards --Avala (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Fine, have it your way. I have, however, formatted the links to show full URLs, as it is so done in other infoboxes of this type. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RMs

Hello. There are attempts to move articles about towns in the Republic of Karelia in Russia to Finnish names and I thought you might be interested in this. Please comment/vote at Talk:Suoyarvi and Talk:Lakhdenpokhya. Thanks. - Darwinek (talk) 18:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Almost've missed them :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name

A very frivolous note: I saw your sig, and "Hérissonovich" made me smile. Thank you! SaundersW (talk) 09:59, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

 :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:22, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need input

I am having difficulty with User:Docu and his insistence upon attempts to get me in trouble. If you look here you will see that I was addressing line item comments correctly, as per WTP. User Docu did this revision which lumped my comments into some block summation which didn't make sense. He then tried to warn me about "changing his comments" (which is untrue, I was putting in comments address his line items). When I changed them back I put in "User Docu" to address this issue. But somehow, he is pushing it and got User:Sandstein involved with an attempt to say that I am in the wrong. User Sandstein, an admin, is now issuing "final warnings" to me. I cannot see how I am in the wrong here, as I was address his comments and he signs his comments incorrectly. If anything, he was in the wrong by putting my comments in a block summation.

Can you assist me here in clarification? Thank you. Rarelibra (talk) 13:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I asked for his comment at User talk:Sandstein#More.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
He (Sandstein) is still confused, and is still threatening me. See his comments. I think he is not understanding that those comments were removed after I restored my own comments back to the line item comments as allowed per guidelines. Do we need to involve more with Sandstein for him to understand not to threaten me? Rarelibra (talk) 17:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've just posted a comment. I think you'd be better off if in similar situations you start providing diffs to illustrate your point instead of describing it with your own words. I myself interpreted the situation incorrectly (albeit in a totally different light!) when I made some of my comments earlier today. Having diffs to show the whole picture helps a great deal. Please review my latest comment to Sandstein and let me know if I gave the correct description of the situation. You also have my explicit permission to edit my comments in that thread if anything is wrong or incomplete :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template request

Hi there, Ezhiki! Could you please create a template (like the GSE or RBD templates) for the Энциклопедия "Москва" (издание было выпущено к 850-летию города в 1997 г.)? I've used it to write an article about the Moscow Print Yard and would like to mention it as a source. Thanx a lot! KNewman (talk) 09:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem creating this template for you, but is there any reason why you wouldn't want to simply add this encyclopedia as a reference (i.e., using the <ref></ref> tags)?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Could you post an example on my talk page? I'm a lamer when it comes to HTML programming (or whatever they call it :)). KNewman (talk) 19:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
What if I translated the whole article? Then I don't need a footnote :).
If you translated the whole article word-for-word, you committed a copyright infringement :) If you narrated it in your own words, however, then you can simply add your source to the "References" section—you don't need to use any special templates or mark-up; just add the source you used. Templates like {{GSE}} are useful when they are used often; if you only need to cite your source a few times it's easier just to spell it out in words. Let me know if you still want the template, though—I'm not trying to weasel out of helping you :) Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Basically, in order to source something, you need to enclose the source citation within <ref name="Refname">…</ref> tags (where "…" is your reference), and then add {{Reflist}} to the "References" section of the article (if there is one there already, then you don't need another one). "Refname" is the name of the reference, you only need to specify if you are planning to use the same reference more than once on the same page, and it can be anything you want. Here is an example:

Moscow is a very big city, and polar bears roam its streets in winter<ref name="MosEncycl">''Moscow Encyclopedia'', 850th Anniversary edition, p. 123. Moscow, 1997.</ref>

followed by:

==References== {{Reflist}}

which produces:

Moscow is a very big city, and polar bears roam its streets in winter.[1]

What if I translated the whole article? Then I don't need a footnote :).

[edit] References

  1. ^ Moscow Encyclopedia, 850th Anniversary edition, p. 123. Moscow, 1997.

Basically, you write up your standard reference (as you would in an academic paper) within the ref tags.

You might also want to read WP:CITE for a more detailed explanation. Hope this helps!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ?

Sorry, already reverted. I thought you'd deleted some relevant information. My bad. Rsazevedo msg 20:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Figured that much. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] em-dashes

Did you mean "support" instead of "oppose" at WP:MoS, or am I misunderstanding? People opposed to spaced em-dashes are all voting "Support". - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Umm, that's really screwy! Here is what the proposal says:
I now propose that we change the guidelines to favour only two kinds of sentence-punctuating dashes: spaced en dashes and unspaced em dashes, consistently in any given article.
Since I am not in favor of having "only two kinds of sentence-punctuating dashes" (because I am in favor of only one kind—unspaced), I voted "oppose".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, but you're not on the side of the opposition, then. The opposition wants 3 kinds: spaced and unspaced em-dashes, and spaced en-dashes. Do you really want to get rid of all en-dashes on Wikipedia? I haven't heard anyone else suggest that, ever. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
No, I most certainly don't want that :) However, by the looks of it, I can't vote "support", because that wouldn't be what I want either (once again, I want unspaced em-dashes and unspaced en-dashes). Any tips? Perhaps it's not too late to split the proposal into several and sort existing votes into the corresponding buckets?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I'm really not following you. You're right about the proposal, it says: "two kinds of sentence-punctuating dashes: spaced en dashes and unspaced em dashes". You also want two kinds: "unspaced em-dashes and unspaced en-dashes". You're saying you do not support ... is that because you want people to be able to mix up both different kinds in the same article? I think all the supporters could live with that, if you explain what you mean. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but same here—I'm still not sure what so confusing about my reasoning? The proposal calls for spaced en-dashes—and that's the part I don't support (I want them unspaced). Since the whole proposal is a logical conjunction, disagreement with any part of it would result in an automatic "oppose". Perhaps I'd better withdraw my vote altogether, because by the looks of it I ain't gonna get what I want no matter how I vote. Which reminds me of something :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Now I get it, but I don't think the WT:MoS folks will (without more explanation after your vote). I don't see any need for you to withdraw your vote, but of course, as everywhere on Wikipedia votes per se don't count, it's the reason or support behind the vote. I have never seen a proposal to never allow spaces around en-dashes; all of the major style guides recommend it. That doesn't mean we have to, but it will look "professional" if you give your reason along with your vote. (Almost) no one will disrespect a valid reason, even if it's not a popular vote ... in fact, some folks (like me) really like seeing reasoned opposition, it forces everyone to be clear instead of just allowing them to say "I think this is the way it's done". - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Formatting consistency was my only reasoning. I realize that spaced ndashes are recommended by the style guides, but I could never force myself to see something like "1911 – 1925" as "professional". Anyway, I'll tweak my vote to "support", because, as you correctly pointed out, this would be closer to my preferences. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, by the way!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Any time, thanks for clarifying your position. Having more participants in WP:MoS discussions really does significantly improve the outcomes. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gorki

Hi, I checked the zh-interwiki link at the Gorki disambiguation page. zh:高尔基 is a disambiguation page with 3 entries: Maxim Gorky, Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) and Camillo Golgi (due to phonetic constraints in the Chinese language, words that are pronounced differently in English may be transliterated into the same characters). Even though "Gorki" can also be transliterated to the three characters, the links in the Gorki page have no corresponding links in the Chinese Wikipedia page. IMO, the link should be at the Gorky page, and I had moved it there. Cheers, Joshua Say "hi" to me!What have I done? 16:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Thanks again!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I have never seen a disambiguation disrupted in such a way in good faith (which I do understand is the case now). Thanks for the link to the MOS, it is rather suprising to me; in any case I believe that the fact that Polish wikipedia has articles on those villages should be treated as confirming their notability and the right to "red-linkedness" in the meantime.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I was as surprised as the next guy when I was pointed out that clause a while ago. I was even more surprised when I found out how many people it took for that clause to come into being. I do understand the intents behind the revision, and the only reason why I did not complain (apart from the lack of time) was because set index articles provided means to achieve pretty much the same result as dabs with red links had allowed for before the above MOSDAB revision. It is still highly annoying, though, especially considering how no one bothered to verify just how many pages would be harmed by overzealous dab-cleaners hell-bent on sticking to the letter of the guideline at the expense of everything else. Oh well... I'm going to leave the Górki situation to you (there's not much I could do beyond bringing the page to the attention of Polish editors anyway); I trust you'll take good care of it from now on. Just don't let it get merged into Gorki :) Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I have proposed a modification here. As to the letter of the law triumphing over the spirit, I have seen this happen elsewhere, alwways with bad results. Remember, though: WP:IAR is still a valid policy! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
It is, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain it to the "cleaners". This is probably the tenth or so time I run into a situation like this, and every time it takes days and kilobytes of explanations until the opponents finally "get it" or label me as a nasty case and leave.
Anyway, thanks for submitting the modification proposal. Hopefully it'll get somewhere.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Иркутский военный округ

Irpen посоветовал передать

Не знаю или заинтересован, но нашел качественное описание здесь http://mion.isu.ru/pub/rasp/

Всего хорошего--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Спасибо, но поскольку я человек сугубо мирный, вопросы территориального деления занимают меня только в гражданском аспекте :) Однако, ссылка может оказаться интересной участнику Buckshot06, который специализируется как раз по вопросам военных округов. Я передам.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Thankyou Ezhiki. However though I can read enough Russian to put this comment under the right heading, that's only because I now recognise specific military terms - I cannot understand whole webpages. However if Mrg3105 wants to do it, as he can read & speak Russian, I'll gladly assist with finishing touches if he wishes - I'll tell him that too. Regards Buckshot06 (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey, by the way, was looking at your userpage and saw you were the person responsible for the administrative divisions of Russian federal subjects in great detail. Thank you very much indeed.Thanks to you, I have a chance of linking the right village when I work with Soviet or Russian military formations rather than the wrong one - and there are often several potential wrong choices! Buckshot06 (talk) 22:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I was not aware that you don't know Russian (I guess I did not expect that from a person so interested in such a specific thing as Russian military districts!).
As for the administrative divisions, you are welcome. I'm glad someone finds that work useful :) Incidentally, if you ever stumble upon an ambigous name you can't resolve, you are very welcome to drop me a message, as the material I have so far added to Wikipedia accounts for only about 1% of what I have available. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ейск, Yeisk and Yeysk

Ezhiki, если вы не возражаете, мне было бы приятнее перейти на русский :) Первое, что я бы хотел узнать - это ваше личное мнение. Не как администратора Википедии, а как русского человека, отлично владеющего английским языком. Вот представьте себя жителем Ейска, ейчанином. Вас лично не коробила бы транслитерация "yeychanin"? Меня лично слово "Yeysk" просто вымораживает. Иначе как недоразумением я его назвать не могу. Неужели с учетом всех перечисленных доводов (не хочу лишний раз повторяться) вы не находите нелогичность использования слова "Yeysk"? Как администратор вы можете оставаться на своих "рубежах", пожалуйста, но мне интересно ваше мнение. Далее, (уже обращаюсь как к администратору), я не говорил, что "Yeisk" превращается в брэнд! Обратите внимание, что говоря о брэнде, название города я привел в кириллице. Тем не менее, вопрос об официальном англоязычном варианте названия города вскоре станет очень актуальным. И я хочу сделать всё возможное, чтобы не только сообщество англоязычной Википедии приняло "Yeisk" вместо ущербного "Yeysk", но и чтобы ведущие зарубежные бюро и издательства, выпускающие атласы и энциклопедии, перешли к этому названию. Не скрою, что у меня есть идея, и я собирался выйти на "The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use" и "U.S. Board on Geographic Names" с предложением рассмотреть этот вопрос. Но в каком-то смысле своей стойкостью вы оптимизма у меня поубавили :) Если так сложно доказать казалось бы очевидные вещи сообществу открытой энциклопедии, то что уж говорить об учёных мужах Оксфорда и Кембриджа?.. Тем не менее, я считаю, что здесь они допустили ошибку. Не специально, не по своей вине. Просто они бездумно применили "шаблон", "кальку", который заранее придумали. Но из любого правила всегда бывают исключения. Ейск является им. Не потому, что он какой-то особенный. А просто потому, что он единственный во всем мире начинает называться с сочетания букв "Ей"... --Yeisker (talk) 19:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Пожалуйста, могу и по-русски, мне не трудно. Начну, правда, не со своей личной точки зрения, а с описания одной очень распространённой ошибки, которую совершают многие из тех, кто здесь впервые (или новичок). Вообще, со списком этих ошибок и недоразумений можно ознакомиться вот тут, но в применении к нашей ситуации применимы вот эти: "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought" (see also WP:NOR) и "Wikipedia is not a soapbox". На практике это означает то, что цель Википедии — это сбор и организация существующих знаний, а не продвижение новых концепций и идей и исправление ошибок (see also WP:V—"the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth). Новые идеи, какие бы замечательные они ни были, Википедией описаны не будут пока они не приобретут определённую степень значимости в реальном мире. Очень хорошо это иллюстрирует следующий пример — если бы Википедия существовала на заре зарождения телевидения, статьи о телевидении в ней (согласно существующим правилам) не появилось бы до тех пор, пока оно не вышло бы из экспериментальной фазы и стало фактом жизни.
Разумеется, всё вышесказанное относится в первую очередь к контенту, а не к правилам, регулирующим функционирование Википедии. Что касается собственно правил, то они устанавливаются сообществом в результате дискуссий и предложений, и их вполне возможно изменить, если они плохо работают в каких-либо ситуациях. Касательно WP:RUS, принятие его в форме минимизирующей правила основанные на личных пристрастиях и убеждениях участников было очень важной целью, нитью проходившей через все дискуссии. И разве это не логично? Если правило основано на системе, успешно использующейся в реальной жизни, направленной на ту же аудиторию, и не имеющей серьёзных недостатков, то зачем изобретать велосипед заново? Если у правил нет теоретической базы, то сегодня придёте вы и начнёте настаивать на том, что "Ейск" должен писаться как "Yeisk", завтра придёт ваш земляк и начнёт настаивать что нет, "Eisk" — это более правильно, а послезавтра ввалится поклонник ГОСТа, и скажет, что поскольку российское правительство официально использует ГОСТ, то "Jejsk" — это единственно правильное написание, а всё остальное ересь чистой воды. И все, между прочим, будут по-своему правы. Это, кстати, не теоретические рассуждения — до того как WP:RUS был принят в текущей форме с такими ситуациями приходилось встречаться чуть ли не каждый месяц (почитайте, например, дискуссии на WP:CYR, хотя это и далеко не вся картина). Всем угодить нельзя никогда, но стандартизация (любая!) по-крайней мере позволяет избежать ненужной мартышкиной работы в виде проверок и перепроверок всех возможных написаний каждого наименования. И это не праздные заботы — учитывая объём Википедии любое уменьшение объёмов такой работы приносит вполне ощутимые результаты, особенно в "российском секторе" английской Википедии, поскольку число участников в нём по очевидным причинам довольно ограниченно, при том что количество энциклопедического материала просто огромно.
Что касается моего личного мнения, то я считаю, что английская энциклопедия должна использовать английские же конвенции. Мы здесь всё-таки гости, пусть почётные и уважаемые, но не местные, и насаждать наши личные взгляды и пристрастия было бы просто верхом неуважения. Какие именно конвенции использовать мне, честно говоря, глубоко фиолетово, единственное, что имеет значение, это то, что они должны работать для целей написания энциклопедии и быть понятны/знакомы англоязычной аудитории. Если бы этой аудитории подошёл тот же ГОСТ, то мы бы сейчас спорили о том, почему статья про Ейск должна именоваться "Jejsk" :) Важно не забывать, что в английской Википедии то, как выглядит транслитерированное русское слово, важно для англичан, а не для русских. Если бы это была Википедия на английском языке, направленная на русскоязычную аудиторию (в целях изучения языка, например), то и аргументы в пользу выбора системы транслитерации были бы совсем другими. Я ответил на ваши вопросы? Если нет, с удовольствием продолжу эту дискуссию :)
Что касается петиции в BGN/PCGN, то почему бы и нет? Если вам вдруг удастся их (пере)убедить, и они пересмотрят правила, то это будет означать только то, что был найден более эффективный способ донести русские названия до англоговорящей аудитории. В этом случае и нам будет не грех пересмотреть наше руководство по романизации. Ввели же они интерпункт для "unusual Russian character sequences". Не забывайте только, что правила они тоже составляли для целей стандартизации, а не для максимально корректной передачи написания/произношения, поэтому минимизация количества исключений для них (как и для нас) будет, скорее всего, иметь более высокий приоритет.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Вот, что называется родной язык! Гораздо проще уловить степень того, насколько сильно ты надоел собеседнику :) Отвечая на вопрос "Я ответил на ваши вопросы?", скажу, что нет: не ответили. Вы не захотели (или не смогли) поставить себя на место жителя города Ейска, т.е. заинтересованного человека. Често говоря, переходя на русский язык, я надеялся найти в вас союзника хотя бы в отношении обращения в BGN/PCGN. Но фраза "глубоко фиолетово" очень хорошо проиллюстрировала вашу позицию по этому вопросу. От своего лица лишь добавлю, что я не считаю рассмотрение этой проблемы "верхом неуважения". Ещё большее удивление у меня вызвала фраза про "насаждение личных взглядов". К сожалению, вы не увидели моей точки зрения. Возможно, сказалось ваше многолетнее положение в статусте администратора. А может быть, дело в моём плохом английском... Who knows, who knows... --Yeisker (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Ну, насчёт английского не прибедняйтесь — он у вас получше чем у некоторых :) Что касается отсутствия ответа на ранее заданный вопрос, то, как говорится, whoops. Отвлёкся на связанную тематику и пропустил самое главное. Извиняюсь.
В общем, что касается постановки себя в позицию жителя города, то мне, честно говоря, из этой позиции не совсем понятно, какая вам вообще разница как по-английски называют ваш город? Мне это чем-то напоминает нескончаемые попытки определённого сегмента наших украинских коллег переименовать Kiev в Kyiv (если дискуссия на WP:CYR показалась вам длинной, взгляните сюда и обратите внимание на архивы :)). С этим вопросом пропонентов переименования хотя бы можно понять — для них английское название Kiev воспринимается как наследие тяжёлого колониального прошлого, и эмоциональность вопроса перевешивает тот факт, что именно "Kiev" является устоявшимся названием города в английском языке. Ну а ейчанам-то какая разница? Вас волнует, что ваш город по-французски называется "Ieïsk", а по-корейски "예이스크"? Вам известны преценденты, когда англоязычный визитёр, ознакомившись с фактом того, что по-русски город называется "Ейск" сказал "gee, I wonder why the hell we call it 'Yeysk' in English and not 'Yeisk'"? Почему вас волнует, что англичане вдруг подумают, что буквы "y" в обеих позициях должны произноситься одинаково? В довольно распространённом междометии "yay", например, буквы "y" передают разные звуки, а "Yeysk" — довольно похожая фонетическая конструкция (я даже не затрагиваю того вопроса, что максимально точная передачи произношения/написания вообще не является задачей романизации). Русские и сами направо и налево перевирают английские названия (возьмите хотя бы тот же Вашингтон) — вам известны случаи, когда русскоговорящие американцы делали бы из этого трагедию в рувики? Объясните мне, пожалуйста, в чём заключается проблема? Зачем лечить исправную систему? Мне это искренне непонятно, и именно поэтому я упомянул "насаждение личных взглядов" и "персональные предпочтения" (это не камешек лично в ваш огород, а вообще по теме любви российских участников указывать англофонам какую именно систему стандартизации им "надо" использовать). Можете объяснить?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Ëzhiki, если вы спросите, какой процент жителей города Ейска волнует этот вопрос, то я отвечу: "Наверное, ничтожный". Весьма сомневаюсь, что в Ейске найдется хоть один человек, который сидит днями и ночами и думает: "Ёлки-палки! Ну как же все-таки правильно романизировать название моего города?.." Лично меня этот вопрос интересовал и ранее. Удивление, недоумение, может быть даже обида - вот, какие чувства появлялись у меня, когда я вновь наталкивался на злополучное "Yeysk". Но по большому счету мне было все равно. Да мне, собственно, и сейчас все равно, какие там правила романизации используют в Англии. Давайте назовем проблему "Ейск: Yeisk or Yeysk?" полунаучным хобби :) Так будет проще понять суть моей мотивации. Вопрос этот действительно интересен. На самом деле, кроме Ейска незаслуженно "страдают" и такие города, как Копейск, Адыгейск, Алейск, Байкальск и др. Оказывается, что феномен буквы "Й" действительно заслуживает отдельного внимания и изучения. Вчера вот я нашел очень и очень любопытную ссылку - Загадка буквы Й. Надеюсь, что автор этого топика поможет приблизиться к разгадке этой злополучной буквы. Одно для меня очевидно на 100%: однозначно транслитировать букву "й" в "y" АБСОЛЮТНО НЕДОПУСТИМО. --Yeisker (talk) 19:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
А я всё-таки скажу, что это не абсолютно недопустимо, а полностью зависит от вкуса человека. Меня вот, например, написания типа "Alexei" и "Andrei" просто коробят чуть ли не с детства (вот, кстати, и ещё один ответ на ваш вопрос о моих личных предпочтениях). Если бы тот же BGN/PCGN изменил правило с "й в y" на "й в i", то мне лично это было бы довольно неприятно (хотя, опять-таки, с точки зрения стандартизации "глубоко фиолетово" — лишь бы было задокументировано и широко использовалось). В общем, закрывая (надеюсь) вопрос — если только не изменится система, на которой базируется WP:RUS, кардинальных изменений в нём ждать не стоит. Википедия, after all, is not an agent of change, but a tool documenting the state of the environment. Но поговорить с вами было интересно, приходите ещё :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of '

Need your advice, is there a point in insisting that ' is used in words like L'vov? It is currently not used it seems, and although part of ISO, I can't find a discussion on the convention.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 22:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Romanization of Ukrainian names is covered by WP:UKR, romanization of Russian names—by WP:RUS. Both guidelines omit apostrophes. We don't use ISO because it does not work well for our purposes. Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Courtesy call

I have quoted you here, I hope you don't mind. if you disagree with the way I have used your remark or if you have any other comments, I am sure you will say so. Apologies if this is not the correct way to do business. :)Abtract (talk) 12:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with someone else quoting what I say in relevant situations :) I have neveretheless clarified my position on the the talk page you linked to, because it indeed can be interpreted both ways. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Primorsky Krai

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article History of Primorsky Krai, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of History of Primorsky Krai. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

De-prodded. It's in awful condition, but salvageable.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of History of Primorsky Krai

I have nominated History of Primorsky Krai, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of Primorsky Krai. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unlock request

Thanks for the birthday greeting, could you unlock Ukrainian language since I doubt there will be any edit war there. --Kuban Cossack 16:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Done.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Saint Petersburg

Hi! Could you please fix the mess with the infobox of Saint Petersburg? The problem is that 606 km2 is the area of the city proper, while the area of the federal subject is 1,439 km2. Someone was concerned that the former figure should be used for the sake of consistency (across different European cities). This might be reasonable, but the problem is that the population figure seems to include the entire federal subject, and the population density is calculated automatically, which yields nonsense as output. Is it possible to add another optional row to the infobox (area of the city proper) to include both 606 and 1,439? Otherwise the mess is unavoidable in the long run. Colchicum (talk) 16:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I started fixing this, but ran into a snag with assigning area/population ratios. Do you know which parts of the federal subject are not considered to be the parts of the city proper? The 2002 Census, for example, gives the population distributions by St. Petersburg's districts, but the 4.6 million total figure is for the whole federal subject, while "city proper" is completely undefined. Where does the 606 km² area number come from? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The boundaries of the city proper don't coincide with the boundaries of the city districts, e.g. Primorsky and Vyborgsky Districts are only partially within the city proper. Well, whenever we deal with a municipal settlement or something similar, it is not within the city proper. I failed to find city legislation concerning the exact position of the boundaries, but the distinction is certainly in use and is displayed on maps and road signs. The figure comes from the official website of Saint Petersburg. Colchicum (talk) 17:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
It looks like all subject is in the city limits, so 'city proper' has no sense.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
May be okrugs sum is the city proper, settlements and towns are out:
  • Приморский район excl. поселок Лисий Нос
  • Колпинский район (all excl.)
  • Красносельский район excl. город Красное Село
  • Кронштадтский район (all excl.)
  • Курортный район(all excl.)
  • Петродворцовый район (all excl.)
  • Выборгский район excl. поселок Левашово, поселок Парголово
Official Federal Municipal Units DB has no data for the SPb units yet. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Official okrugs boundaries descriptions are here.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
We need Лисий Нос,Красное Село, Левашово, Парголово exclude from the respective districts and exclude Колпинский, Кронштадтский, Курортный, Петродворцовый rayons also.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
How about I let you folks figure it out (and source it)? I, unfortunately, don't currently have time to research these issues myself. What I do have time for (and what I'll do today or tomorrow) is fixing the infobox by including the lines which deal with area/population for the city/federal subject and include separate lines for density calculations. Will that work?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why?

[6] DSROpen (talk) 17:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Because articles as generic as Lipetsk Oblast are not supposed to include information this specific. There are over 1,500 rural localities in Lipetsk Oblast, why single out just one? The list of rural localities of Gryazinsky District should be placed in the Gryazinsky District article, not in the article overviewing the whole oblast. Please let me know if you have further questions. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Doroshenko

Now, this couldn't possibly be correct :) I think some algorithm tweaking is in order...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah! Tricky. As it happens I had an exception in my bot for "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" (which use 'a' rather than 'an'), but I didn't have one for the misspelt 'Ukrainan'! I have added a spelling correction rule to my bot for 'Ukrainan' in case this happens again though. Cheers, CmdrObot (talk) 22:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: MOSDAB

I think we can try changing the policy and see if we get reverted. There was no significant opposition, as far as I can tell. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind doing it? I regret to admit that the dab project folks can't stand my guts any more, so you'll have better chances of not being reverted on the spot for being, well, you :) I will, of course, back you up if need be. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rurikids

Kuthen/KOTIAN of the Cumens.I have edited the article on Philppa of Hainault.Her maternal ancestry has been traced in an unbroken line to Elizabeth of Bosnia who was the daughter of Kuthen,Khan of the Cumens by a woman listed in all records as a Galicie of Halicz, said to have been the daughter of Rurikide "Mstislaw" Jaroslwitsch, Prince de Halicz.Is this possible? Judging from the article on Mstislav, it appears ,he may, in fact have been her maternal grandfather intead.thank you for your help.jeanne (talk) 12:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Jeanne! I'm afraid I'm not the person best qualified to answer this question, sorry. What you are asking is way beyond my area of expertise. If you post this question at the Russian notice board, however, you might have better luck in getting an answer.
Sorry not to be of more help, but please let me know if there is anything else I could be of assistance with.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Геральдика

Привет! Не знаешь, куда снесли всю геральдику, в частности из статьи Kazan? И почему?--Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 12:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Герб Казани из en.wiki был удалён, потому что то же самое изображение с тем же самым названием был на Commons, а из Commons его удалили где-то в марте за отсутствием лицензии. Флаг с Commons удалили также по причине отсутствия лицензии. Если что-то ещё откуда-то исчезло, то, подозреваю, по той же самой причине...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Там ведь была какая-то линцензия, которая позволяла именно с этого сайта брать российскую геральдику.. и вроде бы я даже этот тэг проставил (( --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 20:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Я не знаю. Поскольку на Commons я не админ, то и посмотреть, что там было до удаления не в состоянии :(—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sakha Republic

Hi after having read your comments on Talk:New Siberian Islands I realised that you are the right person to ask about the ulus of the Sakha Republic. I asked the question on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia#Russian time zones before I found Wikipedia:WikiProject Russian federal subjects. basically I was wondering if you know (or can figure out) which ulus lie in which time zone. Thanks Lokal_Profil 22:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I have replied on the WikiProject's talk page. Please let me know if you need anything else. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Dabs

Just recently I have read about index pages, but it doesn't quite say that the rules from WP:D should be ignored. Can you place some additional thoughts over here? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Not on my page please. Discuss on Sesshomaru's talk page, here, the talk page of the article in question, or on one of the dab project talk pages. Thanks. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, better off a response on my talk page below yours Ezhiki. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks; I replied on your talk page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Вандал

Обрати внимание на Ivan Samohvalov (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), в рувики он заблокирован бессрочно.--Torin-ru (talk) 06:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Спасибо, буду иметь в виду. Только можно ссылку на подробности в рувики, пожалуйста?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Это клевета, товарищ. Меня там заблокировали ни за что ни про что. у меня небыло никакого вандализма. я писал статьи и ставил шаблоны. поставил шаблон в статью про рокировку, что там нет источников, так его почему-то убрали. а там нет источников!! а теперь вообще запрещают редактировать даже анонимно, хотя я сегодня написал хорошую статью - про группу "Rock-Bottom Remainders‎". сейчас и тут заблокируют, да? нечестно...--Ivan Samohvalov (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Да никто вас не собирается тут блокировать только за то, что вас блокировали на рувики. Ведите себя хорошо, да и все дела :) Будут вопросы — обращайтесь; с удовольствием помогу.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Он у вас уже совершил нарушение и весьма серьёзное: он подделал мои подписи в моём обсуждении. Запроси чек-юзеров, пусть проверят.--Torin-ru (talk) 03:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
    Плюс к этому, у меня состоялась переписка с админом ру-вики Сайгой20, он здесь не регистрировался, так что тот Сайга20, который отметился на моей странице также, скорее всего виртуал Самохвалова. --Torin-ru (talk) 08:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
    А как он зарегистрировался, если для админов единая учётная запись? --Paukrus (talk) 10:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
    Так ведь для этого запрос надо подавать, а он этого не делал. Сегодня он мне сообщил, что в англо-вике он не регился.--Torin-ru (talk) 14:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
    Да, действие не для админа. :( Ладно, надо ему сказать. И прекратить разговорчики по-русски, ибо нас тут обвинят ещё в заговоре. :) --Paukrus (talk) 21:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Alex took care of this, and I concur with his decision. Please let me know if I am expected to do anything further to this effect.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Хотелось бы привлечь внимание сюда. В рувики есть один вандал, который зарегистрировался тут под никами нескольких рувики-админов (или под похожими именами), и на этой странице одна из кукл жалуется на другую... В том числе, кстати, одна из этих кукл подделывала Вашу подпись.
Можно ли обменяться какими-то контактами? Так уж получилось, что я администратор в русской Википедии, и мне хотелось бы иметь какую-то возможность быстрого обмена мнениями. Если нужно подтвердить мою подлинность :), то у меня SUL, подтвержден почтовый адрес, я частый гость на #wikipedia-ru, где ник Lvova, опять же, подтвержден. Lvova Anastasiya (talk) 15:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Что касается контактов, то быстрее чем через эту страницу меня поймать вряд ли возможно. Если я онлайн и что-то серьёзное, то отвечу сразу.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Ок. Можно ли попросить помощи в ускорении проверки чекюзерами? У меня случилась прекрасная переписка с упомянутым вандалом, он обещал шалить 26го (я так понимаю, в честь Чернобыля). Lvova Anastasiya (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Я, к сожалению, ни одного чекъюзера не знаю настолько хорошо, чтобы просить об одолжении, но если через пару дней дело не продвинется, то обращусь к кому-нибудь из них персонально. Если за эти пару дней товарищ Иван начнёт массовое хулиганство, напишите мне записку, буду действовать быстрее.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Настенька, ну причем тут Чернобыль? Мои диапазоны просто разблокируют в этот день - 26 апреля. Вечно Ваш, Иван Самохвалов.--89.204.103.238 (talk) 17:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Иван, если вы будете продолжать подделывать чужие подписи, то в этот же день вас заблокируют обратно.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Должен призначть, это самый прекольный способ вандализма. но ведь есть и другие. вам-то в любом случаен езачем беспокоиться. мне в ру-вике веселее. Иван Самохвалов.--89.204.103.238 (talk) 17:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ЧЮ

Так что, не пнуть ли ЧЮ-то? :) Эту запись добавили к запросу на проверку. Мы сейчас обсуждаем, что с ним можно делать, но не хотелось бы тут фиксировать идеи, нужно обсудить в каком-нибудь im. Lvova Anastasiya (talk) 17:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Аккаунт заблокировал, и IP вместе с ними. Пускай светит свои запасы, что ли.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Кстати, в качестве формальности, подтвердите, пожалуйста что это не ваша запись (in English). Дифф добавим сюда.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
That's not my account. Lvova Anastasiya (talk) 17:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. As for imming, I don't have access to anything at the moment; sorry.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: your recent edits to Baykal (disambiguation)

I noted you changed the opening statement on this page from:

Baykal, also spelled Baikal, is a lake in southern Siberia, Russia.

to

Baykal may refer to Lake Baikal , a lake in southern Siberia, Russia.

...While it is understood that Baykal doesn't only refer to the lake of that name, the fact is that Baykal redirects to the article on Lake Baikal, therefore making Lake Baikal the primary topic. As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Linking to a primary topic the opening statement should give a simple description of what the primary topic "is", not what it "may be". In addition, it should also be formatted so as to start with a link to the primary topic's article and should not contain more than one link - your choice of phrase results in two links to the very same article.

If you disagree with Lake Baykal's position as the primary topic then you might want to use that article's discussion page to propose redirecting Baykal to the disambiguation page, or to whichever page you see fit (unlike yourself, I know very little of Russian geography/history.) You will also want to fix any current links to Baykal and Baikal, should you choose to make such a change.

Lastly, I noted you moved the link to Baikal highway under the heading "Rural localities". I don't think a highway can be considered a "locality."

Please let me know what you think. If you do not object I would like to revert the opening statement to what it was, in order to reflect Wikipedia's manual of style. Marchije (talk) 09:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Marchije! Thanks for your message.
Regarding the opening line, you might want to take a look at Talk:Baykal (disambiguation), where it was discussed in much detail (and, I'm sorry to admit, often in hot tempers). "My" version, in fact, is not really mine but rather a compromise outcome of the discussion. Anyway—take a look at the talk page; after reading it you might very well find yourself having stepped right in the middle of a proverbial can of worms :)
As for the highway, it wasn't me who moved it to the "rural localities" section, it was you who grouped it in "Geography" and me who overlooked it when subdividing the Geography section into subsections. You are, of course, correct that it does not qualify as a "locality". In any case, seeing that Mikka has removed most of the "microsections" (an action I neither agree nor disagree with), the point is moot now. I don't have a strong opinion regarding whether the subsections so details are really necessary.
Feel free to let me know if you have any further questions, though. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi Ëzhiki,
Thanks for the quick response. I must admit that I had quickly scanned the previous discussions; I obviously should be paying closer attention...
Since there has already been a long, heated discussion about it all, I truly would rather not get involved. I guess I'll leave the page as is. I think people are taking this all WAAAAAYYY to personally!! Marchije (talk) 14:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Not anymore they don't. Well, I hope they don't, anyway :) I sure have taken it too personally at some point. Shame on me :) Anyways, thanks again.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About Baykal (disambiguation)

In regards to this edit, where exactly is the consensus on talk for this bit of overlinking? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Sigh... Why do I have to keep doing all the work for you? How hard was it to find this (see under #1, Intro line)?
Don't know if this is qualifies as consensus proper, but with two people supporting this wording and the rest of the world silent or indifferent, I guess it would have to do. If you take ten minutes to read through all of it, perhaps you will even understand the reasoning behind this solution (hint—we are writing an encyclopedia, so encyclopedic goals beat formalities such as MOSDAB every time). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
How is that consensus? I see one support (you), one neutral-ish (JHunterJ), and one oppose (me). How is that consensus? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Like I said, it's not so much about consensus, as it is about factual correctness. Please do not mangle geographic names just because MOSDAB says you can.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Please refrain from belittling me. If that's what it takes, then I'll open up a new discussion later because not only am I a stickler for the rules, I obviously don't agree with the layout. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Sess, it was not my intent to "belittle" you. Your work on cleaning the dab pages is very much appreciated. The only message I am trying to get to you is that while the dab guidelines are important for achieving consistent formatting, they should never be viewed as having a higher priority than encyclopedic content. There are very good reasons not to stick to each and every letter of MOSDAB on the Baykal dab page; I hope you'll understand what they are if you keep an open mind. I provided numerous explanations to that effect on the talk page.
As for the layout, I have no strong opinion about it; so I'm not sure why you mention it to me. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kiev Governorate

I've stubbed Kiev Governorate and Volhynian Governorate from pl wiki, but they have much larger articles on ru wiki. Pl wiki states that Kiev Governorate was created in late 18th century, but other sources I have indicate it existed decades before that - perhaps it was created after the Treaty of Andrusovo gave Kiev to Russia? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Ezhiki, I will take these over if you don't mind. But you could turn your eyes to this redlink some day Soviet administrative reform of 1923–1929. Long overdue and I don't know who else to ask. Cheers, --Irpen 03:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure, no problem. You probably have more information on these two than I do anyway (I mostly tend to focus on territories which are a part of modern Russia). As for the administrative reform article, it is on my to-do list, but I doubt I'll get to it any time soon. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Yes, I do have sources but they are spread among several houses and it may take me a while to get them all together. So, if you have some online ones handy, pls feel free to list them. Would appreciate. Also, I modified the two Russian journal article refs you were using. Thanks for finding them. Very useful stuff. С наступающим! :) --Irpen 20:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't have anything online, but I am planning to review these article after you are done with them, as I now have a couple of very good books which may prove useful. Even if I don't add anything, at least the articles will be additionally verified. Also, с наступающим чем???—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Куличём :) --Irpen 20:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
D'oh! Although I guess I can be partially excused by the fact that I don't celebrate this particular holiday :) Anyway, thanks, and same to you!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Welcome by all means and thanks! I won't have much time for several hours anyway. Cheers, --Irpen 18:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

BTW, should not {{lang-ru|Киевская губерния}} use old style azbuka "Кіевская губернія"? Not that this is the highest priority concern for me. --Irpen 18:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks; I'm not going to usurp it for long, though (I'm almost done, as a matter of fact). As for the pre-reform spelling, I'll add it to the modern one. Not sure how to handle this properly, so feel free to play around with order/formatting, etc. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh! Go, usurp it by all means. It needs so much work! But I will try my best to make it as complete as possible. As for the pre-reform spelling, I have neither an opinion nor a view on its usage. --Irpen 19:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I've added what I could; for now anyway. By the way, I left you a comment in the body of the text, because I was not able to track where the statement about "four districts" came from. All yours now! :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Some inconsistency. Both sources name all eleven locations but one says that two of them were not uyezds. Any clue? --Irpen 20:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's what Fundukley says, verbatim (in modern spelling): "Второю эпохою в образовании Киевской Губернии было учреждение трёх Малороссийских Губерний или Наместничеств, по Указу Екатерины II, 1784 г. Сентября 16. В исполнение этого Указа, 1782 года 9 Января открыто Киевское Наместничество, составленное из 11 уездов: Киевского, и по ту сторону Днепра — Остёрского, Козелецкого, Переяславского, Пирятинского, Лубенского, Миргородского, Хорольского, Голтвянского, Городиского или Городищенского и Золотоношского. Тогда в этом краю введены были новый порядок и новые формы управления, по учреждению о губерниях, начертанному Императрицею в 1775 году."
Judging that this description is not overly specific, I could imagine the sources you used may be correct as well, although I was hesitant to leave them in the text due to the fact they did not come from particularly reliable sources and could easily be mis-interpretations of the original source (which we are yet to identify). Fundukley at least specifically names eleven uyezds. In any case, I'll keep looking and will let you know if I find anything more definite. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Ezhiki, are you currently in the possession on this book? Do you know, or could you check the following, please. Was Kiev guberniya still "subdivided" into one province after 1727, when 3 out of 4 provinces were split off, or was it just a guberniya without any provinces. The latter seems logical, but what was in the reality? Thanks, Greggerr (talk) 23:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Gregger! Kiev Governorate indeed remained comprised of one province (Kiev Province), and it was not the only Governorate "subdivided" in such a manner—Revel, Riga, Smolensk, and Astrakhan Governorates were all comprised of only one province as well. Unlike provinces of other Governorates, however, Kiev was divided not into uyezds but into regiments (which had autonomous rights). Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Шаблон Template:RussianPMs

Огромная просьба разблокировать этот шаблон! --SeNeKa (talk) 16:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Хорошо, разблокировал. Просьба, однако, больше не воевать — если у вас какие-то несогласия с другими участниками по поводу форматирования/содержания, то воспользуйтесь страницей обсуждения.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Спасибо. воевать не буду --SeNeKa (talk) 16:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Governorate template

Hello, long time no chat, huh? :) Anyway, I noticed that somewhere on your to-do list is an infobox for Russian governorates. Well, I used {{Infobox Former Subdivision}} couple times before, and I think it works quite well. Hope you'll find it useful. Renata (talk) 04:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I still have this infobox on my to-do list, although it is not a priority. If {{Infobox Former Subdivision}} is working out for now, that's great, but I suspect that down the road it will no longer be sufficient as there are going to be some very particular specifics that generic infobox would be unable to handle. In any case, if you have any ideas, drop me a line. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Project

Myself and several other editors have been compiling a list of very active editors who would likely be available to help new editors in the event they have questions or concerns. As the list grew and the table became more detailed, it was determined that the best way to complete the table was to ask each potential candidate to fill in their own information, if they so desire. This list is sorted geographically in order to provide a better estimate as to whether the listed editor is likely to be active.

If you consider yourself a very active Wikipedian who is willing to help newcomers, please either complete your information in the table or add your entry. If you do not want to be on the list, either remove your name or just disregard this message and your entry will be removed within 48 hours. The table can be found at User:Useight/Highly Active, as it has yet to have been moved into the Wikipedia namespace. Thank you for your help. Useight (talk) 17:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

While I would never turn down an editor (a newbie or not) who contacted me directly for help, I, unfortunately, cannot afford the time committment providing such help on a regular basis would require. Sorry!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Krylia Sovetov

I've moved the page back. We had a wp:rm discussion only a few months ago, please go through wp:rm if you want to move the page again, cheers. BanRay 16:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer; I did miss that RM. Note, however, that "Krylya" is a correct romanization of "Крылья" as per WP:RUS (I see there was some confusion about that), hence the dab page should be located at "Krylya Sovetov". Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, Technically Krylya is indeed the correct transliteration, so I didn't touch the disambiguation page, thanks for the quick response. BanRay 17:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kaz

I've searched Google for Kaz (referring to Scott Kazmir, a pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays) and came up with over 46,000 results (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Kaz%2Btampa+bay+rays&btnG=Search). Does it necessarily have to mention Kaz in the article? If so, I can work it in. phøenixMøurning ( talk/contribs ) 16:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the target article has to mention the word used to link to it from the dab page. With Kaz, if you can work it in the article (and especially if you can reference it, which, judging from 46K google hits, shouldn't be a problem), that would take care of the problem completely, and the dab entry can be restored. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help mate :) phøenixMøurning ( talk/contribs ) 18:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Bc

Template:Bc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. RichardΩ612 Ɣ |ɸ 20:07, May 13, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for catching it. I no longer have a need for it (as well as for the companion {{ob}}), and they are hanging out there only because I completely forgot about them. I supplied a comment on TfD to this effect.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shaulay (Baltics/Belorussian SSR?)

In the 4th Mechanized Corps article, at the bottom, linked with a reference you'll find a note referring to the 'Shaulay area'. I cannot find this place but Google searches point toward Lithuania. Can you look into this? Kind regards Buckshot06(prof) 09:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like you've been able to find it yourself. Anyway, let me know if you need anything else. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Testing templates

I realize that and I am sorry. Stay assured it won't happen again. Thanks for quick reaction and cheers. --Ml01172 (talk) 18:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem; just wanted to let you know about the template sandbox. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category question

Hello my friend! I was doing a routine cleanup of Russian subdivision categories and its subcategories and one question came to my mind. Shouldn't Cat:North Ossetia be renamed to "North Ossetia-Alania"? Thanks. - Darwinek (talk) 09:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

There is also doubled naming of Cat:Sakha and its subcategories often using "Sakha Republic". This should be unified - which version should be used? - Darwinek (talk) 09:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

And a final third question, sorry for having it so much towards you. :) What to do with Cat:Chita Oblast? Since it technically no longer exists should all articles and subcategories be moved to Zabaykalsky Krai category and its subcategories? - Darwinek (talk) 12:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Darwinek! Have you somehow got a copy of my to-do list or what? :) Because these items are there, only at the bottom of it.
Anyhoo, I don't think it makes any difference as to how the North Ossetia cat is titled—both Category:North Ossetia or Category:North Ossetia - Alania are fine. The Sakha cat is called that only because the main article used to be called "Sakha" (instead of the current "Sakha Republic"). This one definitely could use a renaming. Finally, the Chita Oblast cat needs to be retained, but it should be cleaned up as well. Most of the items should be re-categorized to Category:Zabaykalsky Krai, but Chita Oblast-specific topics (such as Chita Oblast itself) should stay.
What I am getting at here is that if you are willing to put in time to have these three cats cleaned, I'll be able to cross three things from my to-do list, so you won't be hearing any complaints from me :) Do let me know if you need help or if anything is unclear, though. Thanks much!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Great! So I will let North Ossetia be and will check out the Zabaykalsky Krai later on today. Should I also rename "Sakha Republic" categories to just "Sakha"? I like such cleanup work, it is maybe a dirty work but much needed, Ordnung muss sein as Germans say. Plus, Russian geography is attracting me much, I've never been in Russia but I know there are many many wild and beauty natural areas of all kind there, often combined with good fun as in the Osobennosti Nacjonalnoj Ochoty. :) - Darwinek (talk) 14:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you ever deplete your supply of mindless grunt work, just give me a hollar :) As for Sakha, it would be better to rename all of the cats to use "Sakha Republic", since that's the title of the main article. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Both done. Just a remaining issue, should Cat:History of Chita Oblast stay or be renamed? Look at the contents of this cat and let me know. Meanwhile, I'll be sorting Rivers of Russia by federal subjects. - Darwinek (talk) 19:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Most of the contents of that cat refer to pre-oblast times anyway (mostly Civil War), so it should be safe to re-cat them to "History of Zabaykalsky Krai". Thanks for taking care of this stuff; much appreciated!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About SUL

Hi! Plz, rename User:Pauk -> any other (f.e. Pauk_old) and rename my account User:Paukrus -> User:Pauk. I need for SUL. --Paukrus (talk) 07:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! In order to rename an account you'll need help of a bureaucrat (I am not one). You can submit an account rename request at WP:CHU. Also, I assume that the account User:Pauk is yours; if not, you'll also need to submit a request at WP:CHU/U. Sorry for not being of more help. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

Appreciate your restore of my user page--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't mention it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot approved: dabbing help needed

Hi there. Fritz bot has been approved at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FritzpollBot for filling in a possible 1.8 million articles on settlements across the world. Now dabbing needs to be done for links which aren't sorted as the bot will bypass any blue links. and I need as many people as possible to help me with Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Places to prepare for the bot. If you could tackle a page or two everything counts as it will be hard to do it alone. Thankyou ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 12:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Judging from the sources this bot is going to use, the outcome is going to be a complete mess. I don't know about other countries, but please keep this bot away from articles on Russian inhabited localities. I am currently working on a database that would include all Russian inhabited localities, but I don't expect it to be finished for another year or so (it is about 35% complete now, covering ~55,000 inhabited localities). The database, for the most part, draws the information from the primary sources, i.e., from the legislative documents of the Russian federal subjects, as well as from the offical reference materials (not available online) published by the governments of the federal subjects. These sources are far more complete and accurate than anything currently available online (especially any English-language sources). Can the bot tackle the issues of romanization? How is it going to handle duplicate titles (of the 55,000+ places in my database about half have duplicate names!)? I don't know anyone who would be looking forward to having to clean up 150,000+ stubs on Russian places after the bot is done with them (I am yet to clean up this and this mess (and there's more), which was the outcome of someone else trying to automate the process. It took me weeks to clean up a few other cats in a similar state, and that was only a hundred something articles. Imagine the magnitude of the disaster when such "articles" start to multiply into thousands.
All in all, if I could shoot this bot on sight, I would do so. Nothing personal, I just don't believe it is a good idea. I hope you understand. If you are intent to continue with this bot, please keep its scope to countries where no editors are actively working on the subject of populated places (and Russia is not one of them). No bot will ever be as good as humans, and this one is going to create more problems than it is going to solve. Please let me know if you need further information. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi. OK Thats your opinion. Problems with translated names is always difficult and names will never be perfect, even on existing articles we have on wikipedia there is consierable conflict over the correct transliterations as is to be expected. But I wouldn't right it off as a complete disaster, that , yes we are using the best source we can for coordinates and names using the national geo agency data. But this is only intended as an initial starter. Given time information should become avilable using individual government sources where any outsnading problems can be identified, and phase two of the project will be to try to expand the articles if government data can be found, If many places names turn out to be problematic we are setting up an infrastructure to address this on a mass scale. Each country will undergo an assessment, but if you are working on Russia as a working progress the bot will stay away from Russia providing you can add a full coverage. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 14:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
We believe that an attempt to address the serious systematic bias on wikipedia is an extremely important one, and whether several names aren't transliterated correctly or not from a native speaking perspective, the location and existence of these places is without a doubt. What we would ask however is that people who have a better insight into proper names, or have sources which would seem to be evne better, then we would warmly appreciate any cooperation to ensure we can start these places within countries to the best of our ability given the sources avialable ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 14:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Thanks. I would also suggest that before the bot starts working on any new country, a notification is posted on an appropriate portal's noticeboard. This way editors working on coverage of that particular country would have a chance to comment if they immediately see any problems before the bot screws anything up.
As for Russia, yes, I will be able to provide complete coverage, but, judging from my current pace, I will need at least a year to complete the database (providing there are no unexpected delays). I, of course, have nothing against adding the articles/stubs manually, but I don't believe any bot would be able to consider all of the peculiarities of the Russian administrative and municipal structure (unless such a bot is written specifically for that purpose, which yours is not). Whatever the bot screws up may not be such a problem for any other countries, but the scope for Russia is vast indeed, and quite far from being straightforward, so even minor mistakes (especially transliteration, because the bot is going to use not the original Russian names, but names already romanized by someone else, with that romanization not exactly matching our guidelines) may lead to the necessity of doing the cleanup on a massive scale, thus completely negating and outweighing any bot's benefit. What's more, just because the bot uses the best sources available to it does not mean there are no better sources available to human editors. Again, thanks for your understanding. I'm sure the bot will be kept busy even if it'll only have to cover 50% of those 1.8 million places. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify, since every country has a slightly different administrative structure, I am already making adjustments as I go to make sure that the articles come out ok. The bot does nothing more than the grunt work of article creation, which can be tedious. Everything else is delegated to human editors - the bot assumes nothing. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Well yes I fully agree with you about writing the articles. But the biggest task really is to try to address uneven geographical coverage worldwide and the first task really is just to get them started. In a way using a bot to start them will actually make the process more consistent for most countries with a standard infobox/sources etc which for me, having done a great deal of work on geo articles worldwide already this is the big problem is inconsistency and I've worked hard to try to add infoboxes/sources etc to one line stubs without references. For some countries particularly India and Russia which have been identified already we may need to discuss heavily the best way to create the articles and both Fritz and I are completely open to using the best sources possible for any countries which could be identified. I fully agree with you that encyclopedia articles cannot be written by a bot, that is up to the decent editors on here to accomplish, but we can certianly use it as a power tool to establish something in just months which otherwise might take 10-20 years to establish worldwide. If indeed you are tackling Russia as you have said, I am always the first to offer my uttermost thanks for filling in deficient areas. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 14:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, Russia already has some pretty decent coverage in Wikipedia, as far as cities/towns and urban-type settlements go. Rural localities are not well-covered at all, but that's mostly because very little can be said about them apart from their location and where they fall in the administrative and municipal structure (here is a typical example). Regardless, these two issues are precisely what my database aims to cover. I will need bot's assistance once the database is complete, but that will not happen soon, and the task will definitely need a specialized bot (i.e., working only on Russian places). If you or Fritz are around by that time, I'll sure let you know when bot assistance is going to be needed. For now, runnig a bot for Russia is premature. Thanks again for your understanding. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I was asked to comment, so here I am! If you look at the spec for the bot at requests for approval, you'll see that your underlying concern about humans being better than bots is addressed - I knew that the bot would struggle with duplicate names, typos in the data etc. This is why it is a two-step process. The bot extracts the data into lists, listed at the link Blofeld gave you in the initial message. Editors then check the lists, make changes, remove things, disambiguate multiple places, etc. Only when I'm told that the lists have been checked and are ok, does the bot run through the lists creating articles. The reason Blofeld was here talking to you is because he needed people to help with this checking, which, as you so rightly assert, is utterly necessary if the bot isn't going to need to correct masses of data afterwards.

If you feel the sources are unsuitable for Russia in terms of English names, since that is what the article titles will be, then I am happy to discuss this with you, but writing off the entire project because you feel the bot will do things wildly and unchecked or supervised suggests that you haven't understood parts of the proposal. I may be wrong, or I may have misunderstood your concerns. Nonetheless, I'm happy to discuss this further on this page (mine is becoming very cluttered!) :) Fritzpoll (talk) 14:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You are correct about the part where I misunderstood that the bot is going to work off the list which had been double-checked by humans. That changes things quite a bit, but, unfortunately, not enough as far as matters of Russian inhabited localities go.
The reason for that is that the list of Russian places is going to be 150,000+ entries long, and considering that a very decent list of about 35% of them is already available, it makes more sense just to finish the database than to download the data from some English-language repository (which would use romanization rules not matching ours and most likely contain information that is neither up-to-date nor 100% correct) and then to have clean those up. If you look at the time it would take to do things either way, your approach is likely to be a few months faster but result in output which is far less than ideal. I can guarantee my database to be at least 95% accurate (and 99.9% up-to-date; i.e., it is accurate as of this month)—can you say the same regarding any of the sources your bot is going to use? I'd rather wait an extra year (if need be) and produce something that is pretty much in its final state than dump things in one place and hope someone will show up to clean them up (which will take years, and the process of such cleanup will not be much different from my approach anyway, except it's going to be much more labor-intensive because of all that moving, re-naming, and re-linking).
I realize this problem is probably irrelevant to most of the countries the bot will cover, but with Russia I would still like to ask that the bot skips it, perhaps permanently. If you would like to get an idea of what kind of difficulties the bot (or the people cleaning up the list of places the bot will use) will have to work around, just glance at subdivisions of Russia, types of inhabited localities in Russia, WP:RUS, and WP:NC:CITY#Russia. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Not a problem at all, and I completely understand your position. Might I suggest that when you have finished your database, we collaborate to get the bot to create the articles from your source? Otherwise you will have to create a very large number of articles by hand. The bot approval will still stand, and I can adapt the interface to simply read from the database straight into Wikipedia, provided you are happy to allow me access to it? Fritzpoll (talk) 15:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Like I've just said... :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Lol - that's fine. Doing the rest of the world will likely take the better part of a year in any case. Nearer the time, perhaps you can enlighten me about some technical aspects, like the database format, etc. and I can have them ready by the time your information is complete. Stay in touch, but the bot will avoid Russia for now, I promise. Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 15:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll let you know the details once it is at least 80% done. That should give us enough time to build an interface and flag potential problems. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Probably we would have left Russia, CHina and India till last anyway. CHina is also another country to be exercised with caution. But it would be good to add those rural localities at a later date... Probably they will be more difficult to write about but not impossible. Kepe up the good work with Russia anyway ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. Leaving these countries till last will also let you polish the bot and take care of any problems which are impossible to even predict now. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maps of Russia

On a slightly different note, I may see if I can get hold of some locator maps for Russia. I;ve noticed many of the articles use just the entire country map for location. WHile this is good Russia is such a gigantic country that I would suggest that more specific provincial maps for the pushpin could be created for the Russian oblasts in addition. I have created most of the location maps for the infoboxes around the world see User:Blofeld of SPECTRE/Missing locator maps. What I would propose is that some regional oblast maps of Russia are created such as Template:Location map Buenos Aires Province. This would give a more specific location in addition to the national locator map. Naturally I would like to see every article on a russian city, town or urabn settlement with an infobox and locator map ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I do have some skills working with the maps, but I'm afraid I'm not the person to talk to when it comes to creating them from scratch. The very least we need is the federal subject maps for European and Asian parts of the country, and then separate maps for each federal subject are definitely in order. I think this was brought up before, but at the time nobody was able to produce such a set. If you happen to know someone willing to work on this, that person's efforts will definitely not go unappreciated.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The guy to ask would be User:Sadalmelik for maps and in terms of creating the digits for the location maps User:MJCdetroit. I'll see what dutch wikipedia has, the dutch always seem to be technically much more advanced than us! It would certainly be possible to create oblast maps and to be able to create a specific location for any settlmeent within it using coordinates. Given that some of the russian oblasts are larger than some countries put together an oblast locator map would be very useful for russian towns and cities, I'll look into it . Best regards ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
You are in luck!!!! See here the oblast maps and coordinates already list. In the next few days I can help transfer them to english wikipedia, Sound good? For example Archangelsk. If we had maps like this in the articles we could see location not only within the oblast but within the subdivisions of it. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll see about redlinking them here either tonight or tomorrow ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, that's great! Thanks for finding them! Now we just need a set of locator templates to incorporate those maps, and we are all set.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes I've red linked them ready. The only thing is I think they are only compatible with a standard infobox city/settlement. I'll create a map later and add an infobox to an article and let me know if you are happy with it. Ideally the infoboxes would have two maps, one of the location in the whole of russia and the second one location in the specific oblast. It should look pretty decent. Eventually there should be no article on a russia settlement without an infobox and its own location maps using the pushpin pin ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I've made the first one Template:Location map Arkhangelsk. I'll see how it looks in an article later. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
We don't yet have infoboxes for Russian rural localities or urban-type settlements (because the existing articles on them are usually too short, and an infobox would overwhelm them for no good reason); only for cities/towns ({{Infobox Russian city}}). It will be easy enough to modify that template to include two maps, as the locator template is already built-in into it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Novgorod or Nizhny Novgorod?

Buanos días, señor Ëzhiki. Одним вредным бельгийцем в английскую Википедию было upload'нуто изображение Novgorod Oblast Flag.gif. Всё бы ничего, но это изображение флага Нижегородской области, а не Новгородской. Теперь это изображение используется в разных статьях то как нижегородский, то как новгородский флаг. Зато в статье Novgorod Oblast приведено изображение настоящего флага Новгородской области (Flag of Novgorod oblast.png). Любопытно, что в статье Flags of federal subjects of Russia флага Новгородской области нет вовсе — там есть только Novgorod Oblast Flag.gif, который изображает и подписан как флаг Нижегородской области. Увы, моих навыков не хватает чтобы исправить столь глубоко проросшую ошибку. Could you fix that please? — Hellerick (talk) 10:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'll take a look and see what I can fix some time next week. Thanks for bringing this to light!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Alright, should be all taken care of now. I also completely delinked Image:Novgorod Oblast Flag.gif from everywhere and listed it for deletion. Thanks again.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assistance needed

I was wondering if you can help. I have had lengthy discussion with User:DIREKTOR over contents of Belgrade Offensive. The crux of it is that he asserts the operation was conducted as a joint operation between the Red Front involved and the Yugoslav Partisans. To back his up DIREKTOR used one reference from a general survey of the history of Yugoslavia derived from the country data entry from Library of Congress that uses the word joint. What DIREKTOR refuses to understand is that joint operations are very complex that just were not there during the operation so far as I have been able to identify. There were diverging strategic goals between Tito and Timoshenko and althoguh there was some cooperation at tactical level (inevitably), and the Red Army ensured Yugoslavs were there for the liberation of Belgrade, as a whole, the cooperation was minimal, and certainly the 3rd Ukrainian Front's planning did not envisage close cooperation due to disparity in the forces involved in terms of training, capabilities, communications, etc.

Owing to my failure to explain all this, and now having provided a source from a well known, if dated British military historian that confirms the diverging roles of the two forces, I am going to request a history RfC. In the meantime, would you be able to protect the page until the RfC is concluded, or until I am able to find more sources to prove myself wrong. There is just not a lot available in English. I had asked David Glantz, but he recommended a source in Russian which I don't have. Regards--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 13:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Before you take any action regarding this I'd recommend you check the page history, the various options offered by editors involved (including myself recently) and potentially counsel Mrg3105 about the value in other peoples' opinions - not instant reverts. Buckshot06(prof) 21:52, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Mgr! I am sorry, but I am unable to grant your request. Full protection of articles is reserved for a very limited number of situations, and pending RfC is not one of them. In general, articles are fully protected only when they are heavily vandalized or when a revert war is going on with no signs of stopping (see WP:PROT for details). Even then, full protection is applied for as short a term as possible. Since there is no ovbious vandalism to the article in question, and the only revert war going on is the one you yourself are involved with, the best course of action is to leave the article as is (at least as far as the part being contended is concerned) until additional sources become available. Note that if you choose to continue with the reverts, you are more likely to get yourself blocked rather than to have the argument resolved.
Again, sorry for not being of much help with this. I hope you'll be able to hunt down the sources which will help resolve the discussion and improve the article, and I wish you best of luck in this endeavor. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, well, since I am seemingly the only one looking for sources, I guess it will have to wait resolution of the RfC--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 21:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I wish I could help, but I'm afraid military history is not one of my fortes...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adamnajjarian

Are you able to do something about this user? He has repeatedly deleted large sections of the article Battle of Stalingrad. Regards--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like simple vandalism to me. If he continues like that, he'll get his standard warnings and then be blocked; perhaps indefinitely (as a vandalism-only account). I'll keep an eye on the article. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming Category:Kaliningrad to Category:Kaliningrad (city)

I still have a few pages left to tag - am putting together a rather large nomination for cities in the Russian fed. who share a name with oblasts/krais. Mayumashu (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, in that case I would ask you to reconsider doing so (the main reason why I pointed out that Kaliningrad is missing an entry is because I wanted to oppose). "Kaliningrad" and "Kaliningrad Oblast" are two different entities, and since the latter should never be referred to as simply "Kaliningrad" (without any qualifiers such as "Oblast", "province", "region", etc.), there should not be any ambiguity and hence no need to disambiguate the city. Same goes for all other federal subjects you intend to nominate (unless, of course, they conflict with something else besides the federal subjects for which they serve as administrative centers—cf. Kirov, Kirov Oblast). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I ve done this nomination a few times in the past for places in Italy, Nigeria, and a few others. In those cases too, the cities were the more well-known than the state, county, or whathaveyou, but more contributors favoured adding the word city in parentheses for that extra bit of clarity - hence we have Rome (for the city) andCategory:People from Rome (city); Lagos and Category:People from Lagos (city), and Dublin and Category:People from Dublin (city). Mayumashu (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I am afraid you misunderstand this. While both the city of Lagos and Lagos State can be referred to as Lagos, only the city of Kaliningrad can be referred to as simply Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast cannot. Oblast is not a qualifier here, it is part of the name. Colchicum (talk) 22:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Probably Kaliningrad (disambiguation) has to be reworded. It doesn't read correctly. Colchicum (talk) 23:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Ditto. You (Mayumashu) are, of course, welcome to go ahead with the nom; I just wanted to save you time on doing something that is unlikely to succeed. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 00:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Ezhiki! You can go here and vote and comment. - Darwinek (talk) 09:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Done.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rudnichny

Per your edit summary: "rv unexplained deletion" I'd like to clarify that I didn't delete anything, I made the page into a redirect which I explained in the summary. If you don't agree with someone ask them why they did somehting. It's where talk pages are for. FelisLeoTalk! 14:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that you took it that way, but replacing a number of entries with a redirect with no explanation of why sure looks like "unexplained deletion" to me. In any case, I removed a red-linked entry on a person with no back links (and who does not, in my opinion, pass the notability threshold) and re-classed the page as a set index article. If you disagree, let's discuss it on Talk:Rudnichny. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, to be honest I was being BOLD and really thought it would be better to change the list to a redirect. My reasoning behind the change initially is that I don't think the redlinks would ever grow into decent articles. But in any case, the version you reverted to seems better that the original I made into a redirect anyways so I'm okay with this outcome. I realise that I did say WHAT I did in the edit summary but not WHY I didt it ;) FelisLeoTalk! 14:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Being bold usually only works in places no one watches or cares about :) This particular set happens to be a node in a huge system, in which consistency plays an important role. Anyway, no harm done, and since we did manage to spot and kill an entry that was not supposed to be, the net outcome is positive. Let me know if there's anything else I should address. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Nikolayevka

Your Russian geographical knowledge is needed here. The redirect to the current location of this world war 2 battle - Livenka - goes at the moment to a musical type(!) Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 01:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I though it was going to be simple (since someone helpfully provided Livenka's coordinates), but it did not really turn out this way. The good news is that I was able to find both Livenka and Nikolayevka, though.
First of all, I should note that my sources on Belgorod Oblast (where Livenka is and Nikolayevka was located) do not go back any further than 1959, so that's what I had to work with. In 1959, there were two Livenkas in Belgorod Oblast—one in Korochansky District and the other one in Nikitovsky District. The one in Korochansky District, however, was a khutor (a very small village), and it no longer exists (as of at least 1992). So my second guess was Livenka in Nikitovsky District, which at the time was a selo and the administrative center of that district's Livensky Selsoviet. Currently, it is a selo and the administrative center of Livensky Rural Okrug of Krasnogvardeysky District of Belgorod Oblast. I can tell for sure that there was never a city or a town in Belgorod Oblast called "Livenka", so this one must be the right one.
As for Nikolayevka itself, my 1959 source shows one in Nikitovsky District (in Livensky Selsoviet, within one kilometer of Livenka), which further confirms that Livenka identified above is the right one.
As a result, I created a dab page for all of the Livenkas I could find and straightened out the link on battle of Nikolayevka as you requested. Please let me know if you need anything else or have questions. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
And here is this stub to kill off a red link. Enjoy!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Hey great work very quickly done - thanks a bunch. What do you think about this proposal to create roughly one million(?) town stubs - should I support or oppose? Buckshot06(prof) 21:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Hey, it's your call; I can't impose my views on you :) If you must know, however, I strongly opposed at first, but then the proposal was revised to include more human oversight, so not only that won me over, but I also agreed to participate... eventually (see above). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't asking for imposition of views, but I know nothing about the subject, and I wanted to be guided in my participation in the debate, if any, by someone who knew something, not just my random thoughts. I'll take a look. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 23:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Varfolomeyevka

Another one - Varfolomeyevka, northwest of Ussuriysk in the far east - it's an airbase. Any details? Buckshot06(prof) 00:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

But of course I can—it is located in Primorsky Krai, where I lived most of my life :) Varfolomeyevka you need is located in Yakovlevsky District of Primorsky Krai, at 44°18′N 133°26′E / 44.3, 133.433. Yes, there is an airbase there; a small one, if I remember correctly (never been in that area myself except in transit, however). There is also the railway station of Varfolomeyevka in the vicinity, which is incorporated as a separate inhabited locality, but I doubt you need to go into such fine details. Anyway, what exactly would you like me to find about this place?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Hey, great prompt response. Would you mind listing it in the appropriate way in your article about subdivisions of Primorsky Krai, with any relevant details, plus coordinates? Buckshot06(prof) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Assuming you mean this, no, I can't—this list is supposed to include only the top level divisions, cities/towns, and urban-type settlements, not rural localities (mainly because there are over 600 of them in Primorsky Krai, and listing them all would overload the list). What I can do, however, is to create a set index article at Varfolomeyevka. Another viable option is, of course, creating the article on Yakovlevsky District and list all of its inhabited localities there (same way it is done in, for example, the Giaginsky District article), but that's a lot more work. Please let me know if a set index will be sufficient for you. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
No, making known more information about the North Caucasus areas etc is far more important than having to create district articles for the Far East - it's quiet and sleepy and can be left for much later. All I'd ask for the moment is just that you advise me of the appropriate spelling for the redlink in 11th Air Army, correct any other redlink spellings you come across, and put a Varfolomeyevka stub on your list of things to do this year. It's not very important. More importantly, what is your order of priority for creating district level articles like Giaginsky? Also, hope you didn't mind me adding your info to the Air Army page. Buckshot06(prof) 21:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, it may seem as quiet sleepy backwaters to you, but since it's my original home, I, naturally, tend to pay those articles more attention than I probably should :) (in fact, administrative divisions of Primorsky Krai is only second to Agygea in terms of the percentage of blue links).
Anyhoo, to answer your question about my priorities, apart from promising this user to bring administrative divisions of Tatarstan to featured status (which is not something I can do without his help, because he has Tatar-language sources needed to paint most of the red links blue), my schedule is pretty flexible. I'd like to finish my database of Russian populated places before I do any more major work on the administrative divisions articles, but after that I am wide-open to suggestions as to what to work on next. The list of Adygea's divisions was just a pilot project (Adygea is alphabetically the first in the list and is pretty small, so different organization/formatting ideas could have been tried without having to change hundreds of articles every time there is a minor improvement to the process).
As for Varfolomeyevka, I'll put together a set index today as promised. Also, while I don't have any problems with you citing me, the ref you added to the 11th Air Army is not really appropriate since another Wikipedia user cannot serve as a reference for an article. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
OK good luck with your plans. Yes the set index article for Varfolomeyvka will solve the unsourced problem on the 11 VA article. Buckshot06(prof) 21:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bagay-Baranovka

You couldn't find another airfield for me, could you. ПриВО (Саратовская область, н.п. Багай-Барановка - PriVolga Military District, Saratov Oblast, Bagai-Baranovka? Cheers and thanks. Actually found it - Sennoy (airport). Buckshot06(prof) 02:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Great, less work for me :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)