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Archived talk: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

You have deleted a post by me with no explaination. Can you explain. The previous deletion got no explanation either even though I asked for one more than once. Is this your policy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cakebread (talk • contribs) 13:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Cakebread. The person who deleted the entry before actually already gave you explanations: it is a circular non-link and a non-article. What this means is that the Caca page is a disambiguation page, and disambiguation pages are supposed to adhere to the guidelines described here. In short, the entry should lead to an article, and it should not be a mere dictionary definition. I will remove the entry once again. Please do not restore it—unfortunately, there is no way to make it work, as dictionary definitions belong in Wiktionary, not in the encyclopedia. Also, on a slightly unrelated note, please mind the three revert rule—no one is supposed to do more than three identical reverts to the same page in a 24-hour period. Please don't hesitate to contact me or Bkonrad should you have any further questions, and I hope your next experience around here will be a tad more pleasant :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 16, 2011; 14:59 (UTC)

How can it lead to an article when you delete it faster than I can write an article for it to link to. If you leave it alone I can link it. This is stupid. This is supposed to be for information right? So why delete it? there is nothing wrong at all in including it.

Why don't you delete the latin discription as well then? The two are the same.I do not see a difference here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cakebread (talk • contribs) 15:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

chinese anti cancer association does not have an article either. can this and the latin discription be deleted then? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cakebread (talk • contribs) 15:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot write an article about your entry for two reasons. First, the link you included in the entry points right back to the disambiguation page on which the entry is placed (which renders the link inoperative). Second, an article which only says something like "Caca is Old English for something round" would also be deleted, because articles are not supposed to consist solely of a dictionary definitions, per this. You need to go to the Wiktionary with this, not here. Wikipedia is supposed to include information, true, but not any and all information.

As for the Latin description, please notice that it is included in the "see also" section, not together with the main entries. Also, it leads to a quite valid and informative article on Latin profanity, which is a subject in and out itself. There is no similar topic to which your Old English definition could be similarly redirected.

And on the Chinese anti-cancer association you are quite right; thanks for pointing it out. I have deleted that entry as well.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 16, 2011; 16:17 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining this more fully Ezhiki. older ≠ wiser 17:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 16, 2011; 18:07 (UTC)

Libcaca also has no link.

The latin profanity are also just dictionary definitions of various latin words so why are they allowed? My link would also go to an informative article but I have spent so much time with this bit the article isn't finished.

So are you saying it can go in the "see also" section?

CB 22:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cakebread (talk • contribs)

Libcaca is OK because it is not a dictionary definition and because it meets the conditions set by the guideline dealing with the red links on disambiguation pages. Your entry was not a valid link (so it could not possibly meet those conditions) and it was a dictionary definition, which are explicitly disallowed, be it on disambiguation pages or as "articles". As for the Latin profanity article, it is not just dictionary definitions of various Latin words. It is an overview of Latin profanity in general, along with the list of words illustrating the subject, each of which has background information in addition to the dictionary definition.

To answer your question, if you manage to write an article for which academic coverage approaches that for Latin profanity, and if the word "caca" can reasonably be expected to serve as a redirect to that article, then yes, you can add a link to the "see also" section. Note, however, that the article should be encyclopedic and about a notable subject. If you are working on something like "list of Old English words dealing with shapes", that won't do. That's not an academic subject, and it will be deleted rather quickly; because of this. At any rate, entries to disambiguation pages should normally be added after the article is written, not before, unless compelling, obvious, or easily explainable reasons exist to do otherwise (and even then editors who are not as liberal with the disambiguation pages as yours truly would likely disagree). Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 17, 2011; 03:30 (UTC)

I wrote the article. It was then deleted within a millisecond (Speedy) with no reason given.

I GIVE UP!!!!

This is clearly not what is advertised. i.e. Anyone can input. Well..you can but it will be deleted straight away.

I won't be adding content again as I have already wasted valuable time on this. ::::::Knowledge is for all and as far as I can see, here, it is being supressed.

CB 14:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

If the article you mean is cakebread, it was deleted because it was perceived as vandalism. I don't know anything about that surname, but I can see how the article in the state you submitted it could be perceived as vandalism. What you needed is a better reference to support what the article was saying—the only link you gave was to a website which does not qualify as a reliable source by a long stretch. Surely you should know of an academic, verifiable source to support that article? If you could point me to such a source, I can help you format and reference the article properly.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 17, 2011; 14:14 (UTC)

The article was entitled "Cacabred" with 2 websources. Other sources would be added as well as more information later on.

Cakebread was also deleted some time ago for no good reason.

CB 19:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Cacabred has not yet been deleted; it is up for deletion. From what I see, unless you add sources which are truly reliable (as opposed to two random website of dubious quality), deletion will be the outcome. If this last name is so ancient as you are claiming, surely you should be able to add a reference to a book or two as opposed to the links you have provided so far?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 17, 2011; 19:55 (UTC)

The links are realiable actually. I have lots more to add. But, I was unable to access it. I check just now and It is "back"! however. this still doesn't solve the constant deletion of Caca. Which, if it is deleted, I am unable to link of course. The amount of time I have wasted here could have been used to complete my work, links and references.

Hellow! I've found more suitable icons for all task forces, and hope you will implement them soon in the template. Also, I wonder, if there is any possibility to fix the size of icons, so that all of them have the same width in the banner? GreyHood ^Talk 20:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I've missed this thread indeed. I'll take care of the icons (and research the width issue) next week. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 18, 2011; 22:36 (UTC)

No particular need to hurry. See you after the weekend. GreyHood ^Talk 22:38, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again! Thanks for changing the icons. I have few more proposals to improve icons and task forces, see them at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia. GreyHood ^Talk 16:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've created the pages for the splitted science and technology. GreyHood ^Talk 20:28, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing everything. Hope in near future there will be no need to change the entire structure, and we'll have to do only minor tweaks, such as changing icons when better ones are ready. GreyHood ^Talk 22:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As long as there is no need to change the parameters (like removing "scitech" and replacing it with "sci"/"tech"), these changes are actually pretty easy to do. But anyway, I too hope that we are done with this at least for a while :) Thanks for your help as well. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 21, 2011; 22:18 (UTC)

Dear Ezhiki, you probably are right that OED has Krai (Russian term for one of administrative subdivisions) etc, but it also then should have Krai in Buryatian, Mongolian, Chinese, and a hundred of other languages, all known only to the people intimately connected with their native languages. For consistency, the various linguistic expressions for the "Territory" are converted in English WP to an accepted English non-exotic equivalent, in this case Krai => Territory, this is routinely done with all local designations of the admin divisions, titles, ets. that have a well-established English vocabulary. I only followed the WP routine. Barefact (talk) 20:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You know, consider this. Wikipedia has been around for ten years, and the articles about various Russian subdivisions (as krais, oblasts, okrugs, etc.) have been around for at least seven of those years. You don't think that in all this time, today you are the first one to consider why that is? :) This matter had been discussed years ago, more than once, and every single time the outcome was to use the proper loanwords. Yes, it is OK to refer to oblasts as "provinces" and to krais as "territories" in passing where the entity status is of little concern (a newspaper reporting, say, a plane crash in "Novgorod Province" is fine, because the topic is the crash, not the intricacies of the administrative divisions), but we stick to precise terms when we discuss the actual subject matter or where the subject matter, pardon the pun, matters.

Besides, I don't think you understand what kind of havoc you'd wreak by switching to generic terms everywhere. Heck, consider my last edit before I noticed your moves—would you care to explain in generic terms how Leningrad Province was created as a result of a merger of five other provinces and was originally subdivided into nine district which, in turn, were subdivided into districts (and which in turn were also subdivided into districts, but I omitted that part as it would be too much detail for that article)? How will you discuss the switch from three level administrative divisions structure in the early RSFSR to a two-level one, if the only term you have to refer to all three levels is "districts"? How would you distinguish between the 18th century provinces (провинции) and later oblasts?

You are also wrong to assume that the OED includes all kinds of junk. It does not. They have an involved and thorough routine which is followed before any word is included, and I assure you the OED does not contain "hundreds of" Buryat, Chinese, or who knows what else words. Only the words which have been shown to be used in English (i.e., only those which are supported by numerous citations) qualify. We do the same. Things like oblasts and krais are just fine, and things which are not we do change (the articles about the uluses of the Sakha Republic, for example, were moved to "districts" precisely because "ulus" is not an English loanword but rather a straight transliteration of a Russian/Sakha word).

The Wikipedia routine is to discuss the moves which are non-obvious—in many cases you'd be surprised to learn just how many reasons exist to do things the way which may not make 100% at the first glance. All that's needed is a second glance. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 18, 2011; 20:26 (UTC)

Please do not move any more of these articles without consensus. I disagree with this move too. Nanobear (talk) 21:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Ezhiki, Happy New Year!! I've been working on a translated Russian airborne regiment article (108th Guards paraborne regiment (Russia)), and one of the towns involved, mentioned during the Second World War, is Trezhbon (due to planned mergers, mentioned at ru:7-я_гвардейская_десантно-штурмовая_(горная)_дивизия as Трежбонь). Can you give me any guidance at all on which town this might be? Very much appreciate any assistance you might be able to give. Buckshot06 (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not 100% sure, but I think what you are looking for is Třeboň, which is usually called "Тршебонь" in Russian, but is occasionally referred to as "Трежбонь".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 21, 2011; 12:57 (UTC)

This is not exactly urgent, but still I want to discuss it now. The bot compiles PP lists monthly. So perhaps there is some sense in creating PP lists for task forces before the end of February. I think it may be interesting even if we don't assess a majority of WP:RUSSIA articles by that time. What do you think about that? GreyHood ^Talk 23:06, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, with only a handful of articles in almost every taskforce cat, it's almost easier to look the most popular pages up manually, one by one :) At any rate, I can help setting these up, but I haven't yet looked at what it involves. Let me take a look and I'll let you know if I see anything that may complicate matters. Or, you could probably start the work on the PP lists yourself—I don't suppose there is any admin work or complex markup involved? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 15:32 (UTC)

Perhaps I could, if no admin work is required. Just hint me where to start. GreyHood ^Talk 15:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I propose to use the File:Russia coa.png as icon for the History task force, because I've found nothing better, and the birch bark document looks bad at low resolution. Could you change it as well? GreyHood ^Talk 16:05, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the icon. As for setting up the popular pages, requests (one per each taskforce) should be submitted using this form. Note that once the popular pages are set up, it would mean additional hassle should we decide to merge/split more taskforces. That was another reason why I wanted to wait, but if you are sure we are done with the structure, please go ahead and submit the requests. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

Hm, I am almost sure.. Well, let's better wait until we assess more, you've convinced me. Also, I've made the background of economy icon transparent: File:Russian Gold Coin.png, change it in the template please. I'll see if I could deal with the background of matryoshka image.. GreyHood ^Talk 16:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile, I've made a better icon for Religion, comprising the four traditional religions of Russia: File:Religions of Russia.png. GreyHood ^Talk 16:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But what of atheism? It's not a religion, of course, but it is in the scope of the task force...

I've changed the econ icon, by the way.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 16:59 (UTC)

Also, if this icon is to represent the religions of Russia, the cross probably shouldn't be Latin.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 17:02 (UTC)

Well, atheism has no common symbol as far as I know, and it is not a religion strictly speaking. Of course we should include it into the scope of the Religion task force, but we can't add it to the icon. As for the cross, I'll try to change it. GreyHood ^Talk 17:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not a religion, but, strictly speaking, you are not making an icon to represent the religions, but an icon to represent the scope of the taskforce :) As for the symbol, this is probably the closest to a universally recognizable symbol of atheism that can be found. And another one that the icon does not cover is Slavic Neopaganism.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 17:09 (UTC)

I've changed the cross. I'm not sure that Slavic Neopaganism has more followers than non-Orthodox Christianity denominations in Russia. Anyway, there are adherents of every possible religion in Russia and we can't reflect all them in the icon. Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism are considered Russia’s traditional religions, legally a part of Russia's "historical heritage" - that's a line from Russia article, and that's why I think these four should be on the icon. As for the atheism, we could insert the Atom symbol onto the icon, of course, but is it worth doing so? We could possibly have, I believe, very few atheism-related articles, such as yet unexisting Atheism in Russia, while we'll have hundreds and thousands of articles about various temples, religious leaders etc., related to the religions. So I propose not to include atheism in the icon, but mention it in the scope of course. GreyHood ^Talk 17:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, technically it is better to have either 4 or 9 symbols on the icon, and while we likely couldn't have 9, we have to choose 4. GreyHood ^Talk 17:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably right about the neopaganism, but I disagree with your assessment of atheism. By different counts, the atheists comprise from 15% to 60% of Russia's population, and whatever number is right, it is certainly on par with the major religious denominations. And that we have so few articles to fall into scope of atheism in Russia is more of a testament to the condition of WP:RUSSIA in general and to the fact that atheism-related articles are of a different nature than those related to religions. There's a lot that can be written about the history of atheism in Russia, its current state of the matter, the clericalization of the country, pseudo-sciences which are becoming rampant, philosophy, lifestyle, and so on and so forth. Not much in terms of temples and leaders, true, but still plenty to cover.

Of course, there are still technical questions left (about how to fit the symbol, and what symbol, into the icon). You are right on that point. Let me sit on it for some time and if I can think of a better solution, I'll let you know. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 18:09 (UTC)

Atheism icon is not used by Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion, nor it is used in the Pluralism symbols on Commons. However, if you insist on the inclusion of File:Atom of Atheism (lowres)-Zanaq.png, I could try to add it, but we need one more symbol to have at least 6. We could use something related to Slavic paganism, but I'm not sure what to choose. GreyHood ^Talk 18:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it have to be six? We could have three in the top row and two in the bottom row (kind of like Olympic rings).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 18:32 (UTC)

That requires a bit more effort, but technically possible of course. I'm still unsure about the inclusion of non-religion among religions.. By the way, what do you think about the idea of changing the name of task force to Religion and philosophy (changing the parameter to "belief=yes")? I've intended to include philosophy to Languages and literature, but perhaps it is better to combine it with religion? Then we could include not only the atheism symbol to the icon, but also anarchism, marxism/communism, and Pax Cultura? With the File:Sun symbol.svg for traditional religions we'll have 9 symbols. GreyHood ^Talk 18:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I always thought that philosophy is a science? I can see how some philosophies can be considered to be "beliefs", but certainly not the way the traditional beliefs in gods are? Not all philosophies explain the world in supernatural terms like religion does. Do you have any reservations about putting philosophy under "science and education"?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 19:10 (UTC)

Oh, I've missed that obvious option for some reason. OK, so do you agree to use 4 "traditional religions", the Sun symbol, and the Atom of Atheism in the icon, the total of six? Seems a good solution. GreyHood ^Talk 19:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sound reasonable. But will you mind re-doing it if I think of something better later? :)) Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 19:38 (UTC)

Re-doing is OK, but just remember that I'm not very good with image editing, and can't perform complex effects on the images. GreyHood ^Talk 19:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Join the club :) I promise to keep it simple.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 20:02 (UTC)

Here is the file File:Religion in Russia.png. GreyHood ^Talk 20:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I already added the previous version, and since the file name has not changed, no other changes are necessary. I appreciate all your help with this!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 21:03 (UTC)

But I've changed the file name this time, so that we could have both files on Commons. It's File:Religions of Russia.png vs File:Religion in Russia.png. GreyHood ^Talk 21:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, crud; thanks for pointing it out. I'll make changes shortly.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 21:12 (UTC)

Sorry for possible creation of even more work for you, but I believe the faster we'll deal with it the better.

Look at Talk:Ice hockey. We see the line WikiProject Canada / Sport there, while only WikiProject Russia below. For some reason the similar effect as with WP:CANADA happens only in case of Technology with WP:RUSSIA (see, for example Talk:GLONASS). This better be fixed somehow and sometime.

What is more urgent is that we still haven't assessed too many articles and can simplify task force parameters, so that to make assessment a bit easier.

• For example, in the case of WP:CANADA they have just "sport=yes" and not "sports=yes".
• We could also change "langlit=" to just "lit=" (literature will fill a vast majority of the scope anyway, and "lit" also hints to language, though vaguely).
• Also we could think how to simplify other long parameter names, "humgeo", "physgeo" and "perform". If there are any good ideas, better change them to shorter variants. I could perform the reassessment myself, if you agree to change something. What do you think? GreyHood ^Talk 21:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The nested descriptor screw-up is totally my own. I inserted the parameter into the tech taskforce section, but forgot to carry it over to the rest of the sections. An easy fix, but the catch is that it seems that the nested parameter is only supported for the five taskforces built directly into the banner, not for the ten additional ones supported via a hook. To cut the long story short, we can pick and choose the five taskforces for which the descriptor will be displayed (right now they are tech, demo, langlit, art, and perform); the rest will have to do without.

As for the alternative parameters, I've added both "lit" and "sport", but the old ones will continue to work as well (so we don't need to do any re-assessments right away). As for humgeo/physgeo/perform, I unfortunately can't think of anything to replace them with at the moment. I'll keep them in mind though.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 22:02 (UTC)

By the way, not all WikiProjects find short parameter names useful. WP:MILHIST is the most illustrative exception, with such parameter names as "Russian-task-force" and "Ancient-Near-East-task-force".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 22:06 (UTC)

That's really good that parameters can be fixed so easily, thanks! As for the descriptors I just propose to change obsolete "demo" with new "sport". And I've edited the matryoshka image so that to make it transparent and larger as icon: File:Matryoshka_transparent.png. Hope this finally ends our work with icons, unless accidentally we encounter better icon candidates. GreyHood ^Talk 22:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant "ethno", not "demo". Do you still want to replace it? The matryoshka icon I have taken care of.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 02:01 (UTC)

Yes, better replace it. I just thought there should be some logic in what five task forces we choose, and for me technology, sports, literature, visual and performing arts are the main areas of Russian culture and achievements. Thanks again for fixing everything. GreyHood ^Talk 02:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I have switched ethno and sports; sports should now display a descriptor when the banner is collapsed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 13:55 (UTC)

		The Teamwork Barnstar
		For your helpfullness, reasonable and cold mind, hard-working and good-spirited character! Establishing the infrastructure for fifteen task forces in a short while is a great achievement! GreyHood Talk 02:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks! But you probably don't know how ironic this award is—team spirit is one virtue I very thoroughly lack :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 13:56 (UTC)

Me too :) But I believe the ability to productively work together is a different and better thing than team spirit. GreyHood ^Talk 14:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again! I think we should better reserve politics task force exclusively for modern politics (after 1991), while everything else goes to history (anyway, all historical politicians will be covered by history).

Also, if it is technically non-problematic, I propose to move "Languages and literature task force" to "Language and literature task force". This looks better, and has the same meaning as a name of general topic. GreyHood ^Talk 16:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure I agree about politics—any reason why politics of, say, the Russian Empire, should be disqualified? Yes, it's history too, but something like the members of the first Duma would definitely be politics. Another reason is that even if you talk me into it, others will still consider politics to be politics, no matter which period. When some rule needs to be explained or pointed out to each person individually, it's not a good rule. Perhaps renaming the taskforce to "modern" or "post-1991 politics" will help?

As for the languages, it is my understanding that the taskforce is to cover all languages of Russia, not just Russian. Using plural emphasizes it. From the technical standpoint, it will require null-editing all articles in Category:Languages and literature of Russia task force articles (or waiting really long time until they update on their own).

Let me know what you think. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:19 (UTC)

Well, I've added the line about post-1991 to the scope of Politics task force, and I think that's enough. I think we should limit the scope to this period so that to have two different usable PP lists in future - one on modern politics and one on history. The primary topics of history are politics and wars, and we simply don't need two task forces with largely coinciding scope. If you think that defining the scope on the task force page is not enough, we may rename the task force to Modern Russian politics, but I think that there is no particular need in it, at least for now.

As for the language and literature, there is no emphasis on just Russian language. It is just a common general topic name, see for example Wikipedia:Good articles/Language and literature, or Russia#Language. The name "language and literature" just indicates that the scope is related to language in general, and literature in general, no matter how many particular languages and literatures in these languages fall within that scope. Also, It makes sense to include Russian linguists and philologists in the scope of this task force, even those who studied foreign languages and literature, and that's why the name of the task force should be as general as possible. GreyHood ^Talk 16:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't necessarily disagree with the reasoning; I just think that adding a line to the Scope section is not enough. I'll stop tagging the political topics of yore with "pol" for now, but let me think about how to best handle this a little more.

I'll make corrections to the Lang&Lit taskforce name.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:44 (UTC)

I've changed the lang&lit to "languages...". As for the category, I filed a WP:CfD, which will take a couple days, but will spare us from the mind-bogglingly boring work on null-editing each article in the cat. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:52 (UTC)

Thanks! I fear you are getting bored about all these renamings and tweaks. I'm tired of it myself, frankly. But the quick fixing of everything right now means we'll not have to fix it in the future when it could become more problematic. GreyHood ^Talk 17:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I'm fine. But like I said before, no matter how much thought and effort we put into it, something that can be improved or change will still remain :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:06 (UTC)

And one more thing, I've started adding items to the to-do list of Human geography task force. Do you think there is any sense in organising the list regionally (by federal districts and federal subjects)? Perhaps you could set some reasonable structure of sections there? I understand that there are tens of thousands of possible requested articles about Russian subdivisions and settlements, and we can't insert them all to the list. But still we need some structure for placement of expansion requests, and for especially important new articles requests. GreyHood ^Talk 16:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to talk to you about that. Listing the districts, inhabited localities, etc. as you find them really doesn't make much sense. There are just too damn many of them. On the other hand, I was looking at my to-do list the other day, and while there are some things which I can transfer, overall it is built around my workflow which has very specific steps and order in which things are to be done. However, that's my workflow, and while I believe it to be the most efficient, organized, and blah-blah-blah, I don't think it's right to impose it on other members, who may have their own preferences regarding what to work on and in which order.

The best approach to take at this point, I think, is by identifying the clusters of information which need work. Take districts, for example. We have articles of various degree of thoroughness for the districts of all republics (except Sakha) and all the krais (through Primorsky). Those all have basic stats in place, but could really use some meat (history, economic overviews, etc.). On the other hand, districts of the oblasts and the autonomous entities are 99% red links. I'm going through them to fill the basic stats in, but despite small sizes, that's not easy work (see, for example, my original template for Primorsky Krai, which ideally should be 100% filled out for each district). With the inhabited localities, it would be really unhelpful if someone just started creating the stubs en masse (I won't go into the reasons so as not to bore you with details, but let me know if you are interested why). The first half of articles about the federal subjects uses the new infobox template, while the second half used an old, deprecated one. That needs to be remedied. I hope you see what I mean by "clusters". Each cluster would have too much to make listing individual entities practical, but identifying the clusters would still allow interested people to find the areas where work is needed.

Of course, the articles of special importance can and should be listed separately; that goes without saying.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:31 (UTC)

I can imagine why creating the stubs en masse won't be helpful.. Afterall, there is a working system of naming of inhabited localities, and everything should be interlinked with the related templates, categories, etc, which means a bit more work than creating plain stubs.

As for the clusters, that sounds reasonable, and I agree that the work should be organised over an hierarchy of subdivisions, with more priority to the upper levels. Perhaps you could insert at least the short descriptions of the main clusters to the task force page, while organising the section for requested articles and expansions somehow? GreyHood ^Talk 16:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will, but it probably won't be today. Did you know that if every individual item on my to-do list were taken care of, the English Wikipedia would grow in size by 7%? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:59 (UTC)

Wow, do you have city districts on your list too? GreyHood ^Talk 17:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why, yes. There are only 300 of them in modern Russia, after all, and even if you add the historical entities, you still probably wouldn't be pushing past 1,000. Now, microdistricts, those I try not to go into :) They are mostly non-notable anyway.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:14 (UTC)

Well, I do know that there are about 150,000 inhabited localities (населенные пункты) in Russia, but what makes the rest of your list then? GreyHood ^Talk 17:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but did you know that about 70,000 rural localities in Russia were destroyed (and many of which were never rebuilt) during World War II? Those account for a good chunk of the rest. Also, there's infrastructure (set indices like this one) and articles about low-level administrative divisions like selsoviets and volosts, which over the years split and merged like crazy. And then there are of course articles explaining the Russia-specific concepts like uyezd, and the chronological lists, and categorization lists, and so on and so forth. Of course, I'll be lucky to be able to even start working on even a small portion of all this before I die from old age :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:34 (UTC)

That's indeed impressive figures. Your knowledge of the topic seems to be great, and I think you shouldn't keep all your materials in userspace, but introduce them to a wider attention, so that there would be some working outline for other editors. GreyHood ^Talk 17:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My materials consist mainly of an old-fashioned home library and the database of the Russian administrative and municipal divisions, which I am ever so close to finishing but still can't finish quite yet. In other words, it's not exactly something that's easy to share. Once the database is done, it would allow for all sorts of neat things. Even now, for example, I can generate set index articles like this by basically specifying the name, pressing a button, and waiting ten seconds for the output which can be copied and pasted into a Wikipedia article. Once I build the referencing feature in, I will be unstoppable :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:48 (UTC)

Sounds cool. Perhaps you could set up some kind of sofisticated bot that creates or manages articles about Russian locations. GreyHood ^Talk 18:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, a couple bot-owners had already agreed to run a bot once the database is in place. Doing it all manually would be an onerous task indeed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 18:25 (UTC)

That's very good news. If you really manage to add all these hundreds of thousands of articles to en-wiki, that would be the greatest Wikipedian feat I ever heard of %) By the way, you could also help people from ru-wiki, I heard there have been similar projects to create articles about all Russian localities. GreyHood ^Talk 18:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Later, maybe. Over my seven years around here, ru_wiki's editors had "планов громадьё" as far as the databases go, but I am yet to see one tangible thing to come out of it. All too often they all boil down to "let's just copy OKATO", which if they ever do would be a disaster of gigantic proportions and a pain in the ass to fix. So there.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 18:58 (UTC)

Just interesting, what's wrong with OKATO? GreyHood ^Talk 19:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretically (and from the point of its being a reliable source), nothing. It is supposed to be the aggregate of the information which the federal government collects from the governments of the federal subjects, uniformly organizes, and makes available for a variety of different purposes. In practice, however, the federal government does a very lousy job at said collecting and organizing :) There are still sections which were out of date even in 1995 (when the first revision was published), and waiting for them to catch up with more recent changes is worse than watching paint dry. Worse yet, the updates are not consistent. Some administrative changes make into OKATO just months after taking effect, yet some can take years or are not processed at all. Add on top of that the typos, the abysmal organization of legislative documentation in some federal subjects, and the general turmoil of the 1990s, and in practice the OKATO turns out to be far less helpful than it could (and is supposed to) be.

When I just started to work in this area in Wikipedia, using OKATO was my first thought, too. In fact, nothing better was available in 2004, and all but one article in the "Administrative divisions of..." series are still built upon the OKATO foundation. But even though those articles only cover the divisions through the district level (and give counts for selsoviets, and skip over the rural localities altogether), they are often way out of date. Obviously, fixing this situation is one of my top priorities, but after fixing the first one, I somehow keep getting distracted with other things :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 19:23 (UTC)

Thanks for explanation. I see now how you became "self-appointed keeper of consistency" ;) GreyHood ^Talk 19:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Привет! Защити пожалуйста статью от анонимов - они переправляют статью о регионе на стать о проекте татарской государственности, совершенно игнорируя, что такая статья уже есть. --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 11:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Semied for two weeks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 25, 2011; 14:34 (UTC)

I've moved Semen Korsakov to Semyon Korsakov, but it was moved back again. I'm not particularly sure if this is the case where one can ignore WP:RUS. GreyHood ^Talk 19:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, WP:RUS was not ignored; the move was done in accordance with it. See WP:RUS#People for the list of conditions which should be checked (and which this article meets) before the default romanization (described in the table at the bottom of WP:RUS) can be applied. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 25, 2011; 19:16 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I've read the policy, of course, and I've meant the cases when the default romanization could be ignored (sorry for not wording it clear). I just haven't time for proper checking the sources myself for few next hours, and my experience with transliteration issues is rather poor. There are two English sources in the article using Semen Korsakov, and if that's enough, OK. GreyHood ^Talk 19:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, as far as the enforcement of WP:RUS goes, you are not required to check the sources beyond those which are already in the article. Information in any article should be verifiable, and the choice of spelling is no exception. The default romanization provisions are there for cases where multiple incompatible choices are available, or when no sources in English can easily be found to establish the conventional spelling of a person's name, or in similar cases.

That, of course, does not mean you should never bother to look for more sources, but the assumption here is that if you do, you'll add what you find to the article.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 25, 2011; 19:38 (UTC)

I appreciate your diligence in reverting my contribution of an image to Mir (disambiguation). I started a conversation about the notion of images in disambiguation pages over here: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Images_in_special_cases. I figure you might like to join in. -- ke4roh (talk) 14:55, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for contacting me. I don't really have anything new to add to what's already been said there already. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 28, 2011; 14:14 (UTC)

Hello, there are few things that need fixing. The Category:Language and literature of Russia task force should be merged with the Category:Language and literature of Russia task force articles (there is a mistake in Template:WikiProject Russia, itroduced by someone else).

Also, the disambiguation page Valeri Alekseyev has the talk page Talk:Valeri Alekseyev, which simultaneously is the talk page for Valeri Valentinovich Alekseyev (that's partially my mistake, initially Valeri Alekseyev was for some reason attached to the talk page Talk:Valeri Valentinovich Alekseyev and I've moved the latter page). The same problem is found with Yevgeni Alekseyev, which also has a wrong talk page. GreyHood ^Talk 19:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully everything is fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 28, 2011; 19:38 (UTC)

Thanks. Seems now everything is all right. GreyHood ^Talk 19:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]