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Former good article nomineeKyiv was a Geography and places good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 21, 2005Peer reviewReviewed
May 23, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
September 25, 2007Good article nomineeNot listed
Current status: Former good article nominee

Kiev/Kyiv - cleaning up associated articles - historical vs non-historical vs cooking, etc

I guess associated articles like History of Kiev, Timeline of Kiev, Museums in Kiev should be moved per WP:CONSISTENT, but not Principality of Kiev, Kiev Metro, etc., because those are the official and common names ("Kiev"). Can we discuss these here, rather than have this prolonged over weeks/months on individual talk pages, where a quiet discussion may lead to an incorrect, hasty move (I've seen mistaken CONSISTENT moves happen before)? Further, article descriptions containing "Kiev", eg "rapid transit system in Kiev, Ukraine" should probably be fixed with AWB. Sidenote, does Kiev Police even exist? Website is dead, Google isn't showing anything, article has no sources. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:10, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. It would be reasonable to move this down to a new main heading.
Most Ukrainian government and public organizations can certainly be moved, if they’re not correctly named already. That would include Kyiv Metro, whose website doesn’t include either English name, so its name can be simply translated into English, unless there’s some contra-indicating reference.
We can discuss historical names, because I’m sure there will be pushback and objections. But I see no reason not to update most of these that refer to the city, including the Principality of Kyiv, battle of Kyiv, and, gasp!, Kyivan Rus. One exception might be Chicken Kiev, which some style guides resist respelling along with Peking duck and Bombay mix. —Michael Z. 20:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that they should all change to Kyiv as was done with Burma to Myanmar. Chicken Kiev is not a "might be" an exception, it IS an exception. That should not change. There might be a couple more historical entities that are overwhelmingly spelled Kiev but I can't think of any off hand. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:17, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think changing historical names is questionable. e.g. Principality of Kiev existed 1132–1471. If it was called that then, and books etc discussing it also call it "Principality of Kiev", I think that would remain the appropriate name for it. They'd certainly be more controversial than routine moves, like Museums in Kiev. Btw, do you know about the Kiev Police article we have? It seems like something made up to me, perhaps it has more results in the native language. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:44, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn’t called anything in English then, but later its names were Kiow, Kiof, Kiovia. Kiev wasn’t in use until still later, after the Russians took parts of Ukraine. See wikt:Citations:Kiev. Not that that determines how we title Wikipedia’s articles, because it’s written in modern English. But just read the opening paragraph of Principality of Kiev and imagine how it’s about to get edited. —Michael Z. 01:57, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And of course we have some editor moving even the very questionable articles. They moved Chicken Kiev, Grand Prince of Kiev, Yaropolk I of Kyiv, Igor of Kiev, etc... Those are the historical articles that would need to be discussed before moving, And no way should Chicken Kiev be moved. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:02, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. Where should we discuss the historical articles as a group. New section here? Or WP:WikiProject Ukraine, WP:WikiProject history, or WP:WikiProject European history? I had hoped more other moves and article updates would happen before someone started on those, because by then it would be much more self-evident that they should be moved. I wouldn’t sweat it too much, because Kyiv is Kyiv. But yes, it’s a good idea to get everyone yelling in a central location to save poor Fyunck the trouble of herding Kyivan cats. —Michael Z. 23:36, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It was originally brought up here by @ProcrastinatingReader: and when I saw it I thought it made at least some sense with articles dealing with it's past Russian rulers. He said historical articles but not all historical articles of Kyiv should get that kind of grandfather clause. A lot of the source material of those rulers is probably from books that only ever used Kiev. But all I'm saying is because someone brought it up, we should at least look at it before doing a mass moving of historical articles. And I don't believe for a second that Chicken Kyiv is the preferred version of the recipe name in English. I'm not sure about Kiev Cake, but Chicken Kiev should not change unless all the recipe books change. If ProcrastinatingReader wants to start a new topic here, it would be much better than having it all over Wikipedia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:04, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck, I think there is no article about a ruler “of Kiev” about a Russian. Your assumption is based on WP:systemic bias: the colonial-era notion that Kyivan Rus was Russian. —Michael Z. 04:19, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Things with names that have only ever been Kiev - like the cameras and the aircraft carrier - should continue to use the Russian-style spelling.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:21, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a list of articles and categories with "Kiev" in the titles at Talk:Kyiv/cleanup. There are probably more to be added to this list, and then we should divide it into no-brainers that can be moved boldly, no-brainers that should stay where they are, and those that need further discussion. Lev!vich 19:10, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That is probably the best (and easiest) way to do it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:KIEV should be looked at. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:27, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Users hete may ne interested in discussions at Talk:Kievan Rus' and Talk:Territorial evolution of Russia where historical musage is being discussed.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:52, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Current entities should move to "Kyiv" by default. Historical entities should stay at "Kiev" by default. --Khajidha (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What guideline supports this suggestion? —Michael Z. 21:55, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Common name. You have to establish that usage for these separate entities has changed in the same way that usage for the modern city has. Modern things directly connected to the modern city can be assumed to have changed, but the same cannot be said for usage about the past. As someone else said, we don't talk about the Free City of Gdansk. Same principle applies here.--Khajidha (talk) 12:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:MODERNPLACENAME specifically notes that "we have articles called Istanbul, Dubrovnik, Volgograd, and Saint Petersburg, these being the current names of these cities, although former names (Constantinople, Ragusa, Stalingrad, and Leningrad) are also used when referring to appropriate historical periods (if any), including such article names as Battle of Stalingrad and Sieges of Constantinople". And nothing was mentioned in the move request about historical entities and events, only the modern city itself. --Khajidha (talk) 14:28, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


I note that this article has been moved. Not to get into the whole debate of the rationale of the move, but after the move was formalized I note a number of edits on historical articles, trying to impose the rarely used contemporary English spelling 'Kyiv' to articles dealing with historical subjects from the Russian imperial/early Soviet period, when 'Kiev' would have been the prevailing international standard (and COMMONNAME) by any means. It's a bit like imposing 'Istanbul' to every mention of Constantinople. --Soman (talk) 11:14, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Related discussion at Talk:Kyiv#Cleaning_up_associated_articles. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:26, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Soman, please think this through. Before 1845, the most common name and prevailing international standard, such as it was, was Kiow and Kiovia. Our articles are all written in 2020 English, not ye olden middel Engliſhe. Yes, there are arguments to be made for both the nineteenth-century and twenty-first century spellings, but this is not one of them. —Michael Z. 16:09, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at any English-language Soviet publications, regardless of epoch, do you ever find the spelling 'Kyiv'? Is there any evidence that the spelling 'Kyiv' was used in English language mass media anywhere in the world (except possibly by Ukrainian diaspora publications) during the Soviet period? 'Kiev' is very much modern English, it's hardly a medieval spelling. --Soman (talk) 16:36, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That suggests we call it Kyiv in the article Russo-Ukrainian War, Kiev in 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum, Kiow in Ivan Kotliarevsky, and Kiovia in Khmelnytsky Uprising. What do we call Kievan Rus, which name came about 700 years after the subject was gone, Рѹсьскаѧ землѧ? What should we call Ukraine’s capital city throughout the article History of Kyiv? Nope.
Our guidelines support current names for all subjects. Just look at three months of debate on this page and its result. —Michael Z. 19:45, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Current entities should move to "Kyiv" by default. Historical entities should stay at "Kiev" by default. --Khajidha (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Should we use the term 'Free City of Gdansk' rather than 'Free City of Danzig'? Should we use 'Mumbai Presidency' rather than 'Bombay Presidency'? Was the capital of the Byzantine Empire Istanbul? Etc, etc. Consistently throughout the Soviet period, 'Kiev' was used in Soviet English language media and was overwhelmingly (and still is...) the most common English-language naming worldwide. At the least, we cannot apply the neologism 'Kyiv' earlier than the moment that Ukrainian authorities began promoting this spelling for usage in non-Ukrainian languages. From what I can see 'Kiev' was common English-language usage in the 1800s (https://books.google.at/books?id=oCsUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA227, https://books.google.at/books?id=tjsBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP8, https://books.google.at/books?id=8kVRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP93 , although 'Kiow' etc also appears. --Soman (talk) 23:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Let me reiterate support for the two points above about usage in historical articles. I am copying-pasting a comment I made in another page, but realize it should perhaps best be replicated here:
I work primarily in historical articles, and did not follow (nor participate) in the modern Kiev/Kyiv article discussion (I know better than to wade into nationalist pissing contests). But the wave of disruptions has spilled over into historical articles, as some editors have tried imposing that spelling anachronistically. Many historical entities, events and figures (e.g. Kievan Rus, St. Anthony of Kiev, etc.) will be rendered unrecognizable with "Kyivan" or "Kyiv". For many (if not most) historical articles, the "Kiev" form is far and away the most common name in English-language history books and general reference works. Wikipedia criteria for an article doesn't end because another article happens to change its name. It seems to me that at least for historical articles, we're going to have to go on a case-by-case basis, via RMs, with reliable sources from general English-language resources.
I realize this can become tiresome. As a short-cut, perhaps a general rule can be introduced that considers Kiev -> Kyiv to be a name change, much like Constantinople -> Istanbul in 1923, and similarly adopt a boundary date when that change goes into effect (e.g. 1995), so that historical articles that refer to "Kiev" before that date don't get anachronistically affected. Walrasiad (talk) 13:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't take part in the vote..... But I would appreciate it if people who voted for the change to Kyiv would invest a little of there time in changing Kiev to Kyiv in the thousands of English Wikipedia pages where this is appropriate. Although I get the feeling that most of them are just wanting a symbolic victory without wanting to do a little bit of work..... I did notice that R'n'B (I don't blame him because he seems to be a hard working Wikipedian) did move Lisova (Kyiv Metro) and 2014 Kyiv local election but except for the title of the article all the rest of the article only has Kiev..... It is time people start to realise that just voting is not enough to get a result..... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 15:59, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS I have been a busy Wikipedia editor for more then 10 years. So don't give me a "why don't you do it" excuses...... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 16:03, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That might be more likely to happen once we figure out which articles will change and which will not. Once we have some guidelines as to what we leave alone, more might get involved with helping out. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:59, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Some people have been moving dozens of articles one right after the other without changing any of the text on any of the pages. If you move a page, you need to make some effort at changing the text, too.--Khajidha (talk) 00:10, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate it if people who voted for the change to Kyiv would invest a little of there time in changing Kiev to Kyiv - I disagree with this as a matter of logic. For any topic X, there is a group of editors working on that topic ("the regulars"). Whenever the regulars get deadlocked on a content dispute and cannot resolve it, the only way to resolve it is to solicit input from more editors, which means asking editors who do not work on X to comment about X. If we require such editors to then commit to working on X in addition to commenting on the issue in dispute, we will never get the wider input we need to resolve disputes among the regulars of X. We should welcome editors participating in RFCs without doing any additional work in the topic area, because doing otherwise would be counterproductive. Lev!vich 17:47, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • What has everyone else in academia been doing about the historical titles, e.g. "Levivich of Kiev" or "Levivich of Kyiv"? History journals, Britannica, university publishers? Surely we're not the first publication who have made the change and been faced with this issue? Lev!vich 04:30, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sources we looked at for the change were basically all about the modern city: newspapers, maps, airlines, etc. --Khajidha (talk) 09:29, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which is why we changed it to Kyiv. Similar to what we did with Burma as it stayed at Burma for quite awhile. When we did change it to Myanmar, modern usage in related articles changed with it. However in articles such as British rule in Burma, Burma Railway, China Burma India Theater, etc... we kept the historical naming. With Kyiv, modern usage articles should be an easy change, but with food dishes or historical articles many may stay just where they are. And finding recent publishing on some of these obscure subjects may prove difficult. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:00, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which is what I said above. Modern defaults to move, historical defaults to stay (relative to the status quo ante moving this page). However, it seems that many of the Kyiv supporters think that the name Kiev will just magically disappear from all usage in English in all circumstances. --Khajidha (talk) 10:44, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Fully support @Khajidha:. The change on the main page did not imply blind replacement all over, especially in historical context, such disruptions should be immedietaly stopped in many pages ongoing.(KIENGIR (talk) 10:27, 22 September 2020 (UTC))[reply]
  • I'd add Folkstsaytung (Kiev) to the list of articles being moved to 'Kyiv', against what appears to be the prevailing majority view to keep 'Kyiv' solely for present-day articles. --Soman (talk) 14:50, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Interesting case. The name is not article content, it is parenthetical disambiguation in the title, giving the “subject or context to which the topic applies,” to help readers find the right article. That means this is the Folkstsaytung which is in the context of “historical Kiev”; but that K**v falls within the broader context of just Kyiv. Which is the most widely recognizable context which disambiguates this Folkstsaytung from every other Folkstsaytung? The guidelines tell us when we disambiguate to “use the same disambiguating phrase already commonly used for other topics within the same class and context, if any,” and “use only as much additional detail as necessary.” See wp:DAB#Naming the specific topic articles and wp:Article titles#Disambiguation —Michael Z. 20:07, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On a sidenote, it looks like (a) I turned out to be psychic & (b) JIP's concern of a "190 kilobytes" pagesize discussion has only been exemplified, it seems. With over 200k bytes on this page for related moves, and counting, plus > 400k bytes on the move discussion, I guess this really is one of Wikipedia's most heated move discussions ever. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moving naming dispute section?

Do we really need an entirely new article on Kiev/Kyiv naming dispute? It seemed fine where it was. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:32, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh. Well the etymology section shouldn’t be completely removed from this article. If it is too long, then it should be moved to Name of Kyiv. A new article about a dispute with whatever scope can be written as such. —Michael Z. 22:36, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If we look at Macedonian naming dispute, it's about a real-world conflict between nations. The Kiev/Kyiv naming dispute has no such real-world effects. While it might have seemed earth-shaking to Wikipedia editors, its effect in the real world has been virtually nil. It's a PR campaign. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 03:57, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Kyiv#Name etymology section was a stable part of this article for a very long time. I don’t think it should just be relabelled “naming dispute section,” associated with a Wikipedia debate that’s over, and then blown away. I would like to restore it, so it can be carefully edited or forked according to editors’ consensus. —Michael Z. 13:27, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is an article about the ministry for foreign affairs campaign: KyivNotKiev. --Base (talk) 14:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mzajac is quite right and I agree with him with regards to the need for a separate "dispute" article because this was always a dispute within Wikipedia and not the real world (which has been "disputelessly" switching slowly from Kiev to Kyiv for a couple of decades). In its current state, where all those individual data points have been moved to footnotes, it could easily be returned here, its original home (with a hatnote pointing to KyivNotKiev). --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 14:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No. Let’s restore the section and edit it in this article’s history, instead of using Kiev/Kyiv naming dispute/Name of Kyiv as a sandbox. —Michael Z. 15:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't make sense, sorry. The article is in good shape over there and can simply be copied over here as is. People copy stuff from sandboxes into main articles all the time ;) --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:53, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It makes sense (and sometimes edits copied from sandboxes get reverted). Edits to “Kyiv” should be made in the article Kyiv where they will appear on interested editors’ watchlists and in the history, and discussion of those edits should reach consensus on talk:Kyiv, not in talk:Kyiv/Kiev naming debate where they remain controversial and unresolved. That other article has already changed its title and subject matter, and had an edit war about the inclusion of a substantial portion. —Michael Z. 16:59, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reactions

What I'm curious about is, given the off-wiki canvassing that occurred before this RM started, if there are any reactions at all off-wiki to the fact that the article got moved. I did not find any, but quite possibly my Google-fu is not up to standards. Double sharp (talk) 16:11, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Being one of the more vocal opponents to the move, we never discussed anything off-wiki that I was aware of. Among the other editors that I've chatted with on-wiki, we've accepted the move and will continue on. Indeed, all the regular opponents weren't absolutely opposed to the move ever happening, we just weren't sure that now was the right time. Since the community has spoken and the article has moved, it would be extremely surprising to me if there was any real backlash over the move. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 16:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I found a Facebook post by Ukrainian Wikipedia. —Michael Z. 17:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't that page was anti-Kyiv, though and that's what User:Double sharp seemed to be worried about. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 18:06, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@TaivoLinguist and Mzajac: Actually, I was interested in both positive and negative reactions. So, to the both of you, thank you very much. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp Sorry for the misunderstanding. Mzajac read your post better than I did obviously :) --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 19:34, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@TaivoLinguist: No problem. I'm sorry that I'm not always as clear as I'd like to be. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You guys are in the news, should you not know it yet: https://www.unian.info/kyiv/kyivnotkiev-wikipedia-changes-spelling-of-ukrainian-capital-news-kyiv-11150921.html

Zezen (talk) 07:27, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In a sea of admiring reactions, here is at least one not-so-positive (to put it mildly):

For those who don't know Russian, the author basically states that Ukrainian "patriots" have been resorting to psychological manipulation. They portray themselves as eternal victims of "Russification" and whatnot and claim that that's why the world should side with them.

This native of Kiev (not Kyiv!) wholly concurs. I wish I had written this myself :) StefanMashkevich (talk) 21:18, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It was indeed a pure manipulation. It's like if Russian nationalists will start to demand changing English spelling of Moscow to Moskva. Absurd? Indeed. And now all English speakers will need to twist their tongues saying Kyiv instead of Kiev. :) With regards, Oleg. Y. (talk). 21:48, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oleg Yunakov, no it's not. It's as if Indian nationalists demanded the change of Poona to Pune. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:28, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There IS a difference: overwhelming majority of Indian nationalists are native English speakers, so they have a right to express their opinion on that mater. With regard to Ukrainians, English is a foreign language to them, and I have no idea why they are trying to impose their vision of English to native speakers. Germans do not object to Cologne/Munich, Austrians have no objection to Vienna, Czech are ok with Prague, Russians agree that the English name of their capital is Moscow (by the way, "Moscow" preserved the very ancient version of the name, probably, 700 years old; in other words, it comes from the time when future Ukrainians and future Russians spoke the same language); Italians live in Roma, but they do not protest against the English "Rome", and so on. And only Ukrainians are so arrogant that they believe they have a right to teach us how to speak the language that is foreign to them.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
None of those is an example of a name imposed by a colonizer. But this isn’t a forum to slag Ukrainians. Why don’t you criticize Wikipedians who by consensus decided to use the name here? —Michael Z. 03:46, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
First, I have a feeling your vision of consensus is somewhat different from what our policy says. "Consensus" is not a "vote", and a simple majority of votes does not allow us to speak about any consensus. In addition, consensus can change (as you probably know)...
Second, your vision is deeply ahistorical, for you are trying to apply modern concepts (such as "colonialism") to the events in the past. What "colonialism" are you talking about? There were no colonialism in feudal Europe, and there were no nation-states who had colonies in Europe, and no European country had ever been a colony (except Ireland). Borders were constantly changing, but that didn't mean anything. Henry III of France was a king of Poland - did that mean Poland was occupied or colonized by France? Obviously, not. The English word "Kiev" is much older then both Ukrainian and Russian nations are, and the fact that it sounds close (but not identical) to Russian "Kiev" means nothing.
Third, I do not criticize Ukrainians as a nation, for I am sure majority of them are reasonable people. I am criticizing Ukrainian nationalists, including those Wikipedians who want to impose their Ukrainian nationalistic views on us.--Paul Siebert (talk)
Interesting idea, Paul Siebert, that we should use the language of a period to talk about it. But if it were acceptable, then you could just shortcut this argument by pointing out that a “Little Russian language” could never exist (Valuyev 1863), and shut other Wikipedians down from a position of authority because Kyiv comes from a peasant dialect of Russian. But instead you have to resort to denigrating “Ukrainian nationalists,” although, as so often, your blanket pejorative is first applied to “only Ukrainians” as arrogant, and the apologism follows. I suggest you strike these comments as they are against Wikipedia policies WP:CIV and WP:NPA, and do not contribute to the subject.
This is clear, because you seem to have no insults for other arrogant name-changers, the Chinese with their “Beijing,” the Indians with their “Mumbai,” the Inuit with their “Iqaluit,” and indeed, entire articles full implicating even the Germans, Italians, and the Russians.
But my view is not ahistorical at all. In the 1920s, for example, Soviet economist Mykhailo Volobuiev published articles in the official Communist Party journal arguing “that first the tsars and now the Soviet central planners in Moscow subjected Ukraine to colonial exploitation” (Yekelchyk, 2007:95). The following year he was labelled a “nationalist deviationist,” forced to confess his membership in an imaginary “counterrevolutionary Ukrainian organization,” and sentenced to five years. See also Ukrainian dissident Slava Stetsko 1971, Revolutionary Voices: Ukrainian Poltical Prisoners Condemn Russian Colonialism.
But our articles are written based on today’s reliable sources, not primary sources from distant history. Magocsi (2010:718) tells us “‘Chornobyl’,‘ in the words of one Ukrainian political activist, “helped us understand that we are a colony’” Subtelny (2009) quotes another Ukrainian dissident of the 1970s: “Dziuba argued in his ‘Internationalism or Russification?’ that what was behind Russification was old Russian chauvinism and colonialism packaged in a pseudo-Marxist terminology. ‘Colonialism,’ he wrote, ‘can appear not only in the form of open discrimination, but also in the form of “brotherhood,” and this is very characteristic of Russian colonialism.’” Wilson (2002:211–214) has a section on “A ‘Post-Colonial’ Ukraine?”
So please, write about the subject, and stop trying to make arguments by labelling people. We’ve had more than enough of that. —Michael Z. 15:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Michael, you put a DS notice on my talk page. As far as I know, that means that BOTH I and the user who put it on my talk page (i.e. you) are duly warned, so DS may follow if we both do not observe needed decorum in the discussion. In connection to that, let me remind you that my original post was about the difference between Indian and Ukrainian nationalists, and that post was exactly about the subject. Later, I specified that under Ukrainian nationalists I mean ethnic nationalists, and that that phenomenon (ethnic Ukrainian nationalism) is a deeply negative and reactionary phenomenon, and their views should not be presented in Wikipedia. I believe that the users participating in this discussion do not share these backward, ahistorical and reactionary views, and we all implicitly share modernisation views. Therefore, my strongly negative comments about Ukrainian ethnic nationalists, whose views sometimes are dangerously close to fascism, are not directed at any concrete users (who, obviously cannot share these reactionary views), and, therefore have nothing in common with personal attacks or other inappropriate behaviour. Therefore, by claiming that I am "labelling people", you see personal attacks in absolutely acceptable statements, which means you demonstrate unneeded battleground mentality. I don't think that is correct.
Going back to the topic, your quotes are not convincing. Of course, it is possible to find isolated statements that may support the idea that Ukraine was a Russian colony. However, all of that is a highly superficial approach. If you want, you can read this.
However, there is one argument that beats all others. There is one important mistake both Ukrainian and Russian nationalists are making. They apply modern terms, such as "nation" to past time events. Actually, Ukrainian nation is very young, and Russian nation is not older. It would be correct to say that Russian nation started to form in late XIX century, and its formation became complete only in mid XX; I am not sure about Ukrainians, but it seems that the timeline of its formation is pretty much the same. That means such words as "Russian" or "Ukrainian" had different meaning in the past. In XIX century, "Russian" and "Ukrainian" (or "Little Russian") belonged to different categories, for all Orthodox subjects of the Russian Tsar were considered Russians, but among those "Russians" there were three major categories: Great Russians (i.e. modern Russians), Little Russians (i.e. modern Ukrainians) and White Russians (i.e. modern Belorussians). In other words, an ethnic Ukrainian was considered both a Russian (i.e. an Orthodox subject of the Russian Tsar) and Maloross, whereas an ethnic Russian was a Russian and Velikoross. When we say that Tsarist regime saw Ukrainians as Russians, that does not mean they denied the fact of existence of the Ukrainian nation specifically. In reality, they denied the existence of any nation in the Empire, for two reasons: first, these nations didn't exist by that time: even in much more advance Western Europe they started to form in late XVIII century only); second, the Russian Empire society was an estate society, so the division on nations was something Russian officials would be unable to comprehend. Therefore, the very idea that Russians (as a nation) colonized Ukrainians (as a nation) is totally ahistorical.
Another common stereotype is suppression of Ukrainian culture. Come on, who can argue that many talented Ukrainian writers or poets were repressed by Tsarist and later Soviet regime? However, Russian writers were repressed even in a much more impressive scale (actually, even those authors who managed to survive were, to some extent oppressed by the regime, which had a deeply negative impact on their activity). In reality, Russian nationalism was the most suppressed nationalism in the USSR, and, interestingly, it was sees as a threat even by the Tsarist regime too [1]
With regard to suppression of Ukrainian language, in XIX century, that is also quite explainable. Imperial officials just wanted to have some uniform formal language, and they didn't care about spoken "dialects", not because they rejected the fact of existence of a Ukrainian nation, but because the very concept of nation was not recognized by them.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:06, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you pick up the habit of referring to centuries by Roman numerals? —Michael Z. 02:21, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
From school. Glad to see that you have no other comments. I will hardly be available during the week, my weekend has ended, so I will not be able to respond. Meanwhile, try to read the article I am referring to, it is really an interesting reading, which changed my views considerably.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:06, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It’s wrong. What kind of school would teach that? —Michael Z. 03:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's the standard way of writing centuries in many languages. Including Ukrainian. --Khajidha (talk) 11:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No difference. --Khajidha (talk) 23:54, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And the answer to any nationalists trying to interfere with any language other than their own should invariably be the same: "Sorry, guys, but you don't get to determine how a proper name is rendered in our language, even if that name pertains to your country". London is Londres in French, even if English nationalists don't like that. Napoli is Naples in English, whatever Italian nationalists might think... Hamburg is Amburgo in Italian, whatever German nationalists might.... and Kiev is Kiev. Period. StefanMashkevich (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually there is no indication that anyone, in English, will pronounce it any differently than they did before. It will be a long long time before it changes from Key-ev no matter how it gets spelled. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:56, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my God, that article is fucking priceless! This is a pro-Russian website in Ukraine, if I’m not mistaken. “An inferiority complex screams in them.” Everyone should read it, even if in the google translation: Kiev handed over: "Patriots" persuaded Wikipedia. —Michael Z. 03:54, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What kind of a website it is, is totally irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the article states. And yes, "An inferiority complex screams in them" is an accurate statement. Estonians are not trying to convince Finns that their country should be called Eesti, not Viro, in Finnish. Germans are not trying to convince the French that... well, you know the drill. Inferiority complex is what this is all about. Plus a bit of Russophobia, to be sure. It's extremely regrettable that seemingly reasonable people don't recognize this... StefanMashkevich (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually Estonians, Germans, Ukrainians, and everyone else put their own place names in the same international databases. To poo-poo Wikipedia because it finally notices the rest of the world has started using a Ukrainian name for a Ukrainian place does is not seemingly reasonable. —Michael Z. 02:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Small or unimportant locations have no English names, so transliterations are used instead. If Kiev were a small obscure village with zero history, it would be quite correct to replace one transliteration with another when the official transliteration has changed. Unfortunately (or fortunately, that is up to you to decide), Kiev is a very famous, historically important city, whose history is deeply rooted into the history of Europe. Historically important cities, as a rule, have English names that differ from their modern national names, and that emphasizes their historical importance. Thus, Cologne reminds us that the city called by modern Germans as "Köln" is a former Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, and that name became an English word long before the German nation (and the rules of German language) was created. Similarly, the word "Moscow" goes back to the times when people currently known as Russians and Ukrainians spoke the same language (southern and central Old Russian dialect, as opposed to the northern Novgorod dialect). A non-volatility of city's name emphasizes its historical importance, it is something Ukrainians should be proud of.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:20, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Why are you trying to offend other people using theoretical concepts that are not relevant to the topic of discussion?--Geohem (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What do you find offensive in that comment? It seems perfectly fine to me. --Khajidha (talk) 14:57, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if some editors are on talk:Beijing, arguing to reinforce a wp:bias against the consensus spelling of the article’s name that the CPC imposed on the rest of the world. No? Perhaps some editors feel threatened by changes happening now, and so will keep relitigating last summer’s RM, resist applying it to any corner of Wikipedia they think they can, as long as they can try to reframe it all as something those “Ukrainians” who are forcing it on us are too stupid to be proud of. —Michael Z. 02:14, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, you raise an interesting question: are English names of historical cities foreign words of English words? Most European countries use Latin alphabet, so there is no need in transliteration of their names. Therefore, "Cologne", "Prague", "Warsaw", "Lisbon", "Rome" are not transliterations. Obviously, these words became English words many centuries ago, some of them were asqured indirectly (e.g. from French), and they may reflect obsolete pronunciation of these names. For example "Moscow" is a very old historical name of the Russian capital ("Московъ"), which can be very rarely found in a literature. Nevertheless, no Russian in a clear mind will request for renaming the "Moscow" article to "Moskva". No Italian request replacement of "Rome" with "Roma". Frankly, I cannot find any other explanation for the latter RM than "stupidity", because I see no other examples in Europe when a nation requested for the change of the English name of their capital (or some other historically important city). The formal pretext is that "Kiev" is a Russian word, i.e. the name imposed by colonizers, and, therefore, it should be changed. But that is not working, because, first, as I already demonstrated previously, it is impossible to speak about colonization of Ukraine by Russia (and it seems you agreed with that). Ukraine was not more Russian colony that Scotland is an English colony.
Second, "Kiev" was in use in English literature] long before the "colonization" of Ukraine by Russia occurred, so, even if we assume colonization did take place, the word "Kiev" came to English not from the "colonizers".
I agree, it would be stupid to use transliteration of modern names of such cities as Kharkiv or Lviv, because the names "Kharkov" or "Lvov" had never been English words (although "The third battle of Kharkov" and similar names should stay, because it is known under that name in English). That is because these words are not English words.
Again, I am still no seeing any legitimate reason why Ukrainians have a right to demand for the change of the English word "Kiev". The fact that English "Kiev" is identical to the transliteration of the Russian word "Киев" is hardly a legitimate reason, and, in addition, it is just a demonstration that many Ukrainians are still obsessed with Russia.
The only situation when the English name of some European city should change is its renaming ("Chemnitz" to "Karl-Marx-Stadt" and back, "St Petersburg" to "Petrograd" etc). However, no renaming of Киев to Київ occurred in 1991: both names were in use before that date, and both names were official in Ukraine during Soviet times.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:40, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You have your facts wrong. I’m not interested in chatting about your personal research. Ukrainians’ “right to demand” anything is not a question we’re considering; it only keeps getting brought up as a straw man by anti-Kyivans. There’s a moratorium on changing this article’s name, so don’t waste your breath on it. Have a nice day. —Michael Z. 21:44, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry, I thought I am talking with a person who is interesting in analysing of facts and arguments presented by their vis-a-vis.
Your references to the moratorium are irrelevant, because it prohibits new RMs, not a discussion. And, by the way, during the last RM I was busy with much more important things, so I had no opportunity to voice my opinion. Anyway, thank you for your responce, in future I will try to avoid talking with a person who is not interested to know my opinion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:10, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notable people

Igor Sikorsky (1889, Kyiv - 1972, Easton, Conn.)

Please, add to section Kyiv#Notable people from Kyiv: — Yuri V (t•c) 05:14, 19 September 2020 (UTC).[reply]

IMO, having this section in the article is a bad idea. It's better to just add Category:People from Kiev to their articles. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:18, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Examples

— Yuri V (t•c) 15:27, 15:48, 20 September 2020 (UTC).[reply]

So, I ask to add the next text:

[[File:Igor Sikorsky-TIME-1953.jpg|thumb|right|150px|[[Igor Sikorsky]] (1889, Kyiv - 1972, [[Easton]], [[Connecticut|Conn.]])]]

— Yuri V (t•c) 15:52, 20 September 2020 (UTC).[reply]

  • I agree with GGS about not having a "notable people" list for this article (and I also think they should be removed from other city articles). Reminds of the old "in pop culture" sections. There are too many notable people from any major city to bother listing them in an encyclopedia article about the city. The category serves the same purpose and does it better. Lev!vich 16:07, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Add another voice to the votes to remove these here, there, and everywhere. If even my city (Hickory, NC) can drum up a list like that, these sections are obviously just bloat.--Khajidha (talk) 16:53, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Related move requests

Some related move requests. Please add and update. —Michael Z. 20:44, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moved

No consensus to move

In progress

  • –

also in progress are RfC's:

Other informal discussions

Comments

Sorry, but I find it a little concerning that when we started discussing (on the 16th) the fact that historical articles may not fit the move to Kyiv that you said "We can discuss historical names, because I’m sure there will be pushback and objections." Not concerning because you said it, but concerning because two days later you up and went ahead and moved these articles without discussion or during discussion. Kyiv Oblast was fine since it wasn't a recipe or historical article, but the other two are historical. I would expect an anon IP do do that, but not an administrator. It is best if the historical articles are discussed as a whole instead of item by item. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:55, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You said they should be discussed while you lamented chasing after other editors. I suggested you do it centrally to save you some trouble. I’m still waiting to see if you will. In the meantime, I am moving article that I didn’t think would be controversial. Since some editors have ownership issues, I've mainly stayed out of their way and moved ones within the scope of modern Ukraine, including the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Ukrainian SSR, and independent Ukraine. Of course I knew people would be upset, because even Euromaidan is now “historical,” and some editors will chafe at any acknowledgment that this article has been renamed. Even Kyiv Oblast was not “fine”—have you seen its talk page?
Well if you’d like to discuss it, then I’ll ask again where you’d like to do that: new section here, WP:WikiProject Ukraine, WP:WikiProject history, or WP:WikiProject European history, or somewhere else? —Michael Z. 22:47, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And I answered before since he brought up the historic articles, "If ProcrastinatingReader wants to start a new topic here, it would be much better than having it all over Wikipedia." Then right after that was this by Lev!vich... "There is a list of articles and categories with "Kiev" in the titles at Talk:Kyiv/cleanup. There are probably more to be added to this list, and then we should divide it into no-brainers that can be moved boldly, no-brainers that should stay where they are, and those that need further discussion" to which I answered "That is probably the best (and easiest) way to do it." At which point it looks like you went ahead and moved controversial articles. I understand some will be upset with changes, yes I saw Kyiv Oblast. As you said, some will always complain. But that's not what this is about. When Ukraine was part of the USSR and prior, spellings were very different and we have to be careful what we move and change. We all have your back when you move a Kyiv railway station, but maybe not so when it comes to a Russian ruler from the 11th century or a famous battle from WW1. Those types of pages should not be moved and then if someone notices, discussed. They should be lumped and discussed or at least discussed on the article's talk page, BEFORE we move them. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:21, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Fyunck. Please clarify what you’re accusing me of. I don’t recall moving any articles about rulers of Russia or its eleventh-century predecessor, nor even obscure battles of WWI. —Michael Z. 12:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not Fyunck(click), but perhaps [2] and [3] are relevant.Nigel Ish (talk) 13:09, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
St. Anthony of the Caves was a Kyivan monk, who established the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. He was not Russian, as there was no Russia nor Ukraine then, but he was born in territory of today’s Ukraine and died in Kyiv. The February 1918 Battle of Kyiv was part of the Ukrainian–Soviet War, shortly after the Ukrainian People’s Republic declared independence from the Bolsheviks in Petrograd in January, and before it was internationally recognized in March. I’m going to say this is not a prejudice, but WP:systemic bias which makes it seem okay to so many Wikipedians insist on continuing to apply the Russian name to Kyiv, after the main article’s move, without even bothering to read the intro paragraph of the articles in question. I wonder if you’d get familiar with the basic facts, and then briefly consider the valid point of view of an underrepresented minority in the interest of balance? —Michael Z. 13:36, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You still don't get it. Kiev is not and was not the "Russian name". It was the ENGLISH name at the time of the battle. It is neither prejudice, nor systemic bias, it is USING ENGLISH. Unless English language scholarship changes its usage with respect to that battle, it should remain "Kiev". --Khajidha (talk) 13:40, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is the Russian name according to reliable sources. We are discussing the English name at the time of right now. It is systemic balance that a Russian colonial name is not recognized as such by much of the Wikipedia community. —Michael Z. 14:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, why prioritize a Ukrainian-originated spelling over Russian-originated spelling for event of February 1918? The Ukrainian People's Republic had declared independence just a few days earlier, which was not reciprocally recognized by Russia, and Kiev very much a 'Russian' city (not used here as a solely ethnic marker) at the time. Whilst the Ukrainian Bloc won a landslide victory in the Kiev Governorate in the 1917 Constituent Assembly election, it won only 25.6% of the vote in Kiev city itself, followed by a whopping 20.5% for the Black Hundredish Russian monarchist rightwing, 35.6%+ for various All-Russian parties (Kadets, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks etc), 11% for Jewish parties and 6.1% for the Polish list. --Soman (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Soman, this is why I am asking editors to consider the effect of WP:systemic bias. As we have now adopted the English spelling Kyiv for the city, shouldn’t someone work to convince us why every one of those articles should not be moved? Why are you insisting that the Russian imperial name is still the default, and this event in Ukrainian history is not Ukrainian enough to deserve our normal name? The territory of Ukraine was inhabited by Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians in February 1918, and the two states that were established after the civil war were both called Ukraine. Over these circumstances, I don’t see how the details of that particular vote (in which you give privilege to the urban population, for some reason) among tens of thousands of other events should override common sense. —Michael Z. 14:31, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Because the move was about the article on the city. The current city. We were asked what the name for this city is now. NOT what it was in 1917. What it is now does not necessarily matter to what it will be called when discussing 1917. --Khajidha (talk) 15:00, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don’t believe you can show me where we agreed on any such restriction. We were asked what the name is now, of the city. Not of some city that exists now and not in the past. —Michael Z. 18:34, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We were asked about the current common name. I cannot see how "current common name" would apply to 1917.--Khajidha (talk) 19:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
General practice on articles of historical events is that the names used in English at the time are retained for article names it seems: Battle of Madras, Siege of Trichinopoly (1743), Siege of Nundydroog, Battle of Philippeville, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Carlsbad 1923 chess tournament, Battle of Petsamo (1939), and... Battle of Stalingrad. --Soman (talk) 19:30, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Khajidha: In 1917, World War I was called "The Great War"; it wasn't called "World War I" until decades later, after World War II. But we don't call it The Great War, we call it World War I, because we use the modern common name for a historical event. The only question (in my view) is whether the modern common names for these historical events have changed along with the name of the city. FWIW I don't see evidence that they have changed, for most of the examples I've looked at, and I think as a default position, historical titles should stay where they are ("Kiev") until/unless a case for a change in common name can be shown. But it should be the current common name, not the common name at the time of the event. Lev!vich 20:05, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Which is exactly the point I have been making... --Khajidha (talk) 20:27, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) You said you didn't recall moving these articles - please assume good faith.Nigel Ish (talk) 13:45, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No. I said I don’t recall doing what I was accused of, moving any article about a “Russian ruler“ or a “battle from WW1,” and I thought I’d just explained pretty clearly why that’s so. I assume you are missing both Fyunck(click)’s implication and my point in good faith. —Michael Z. 14:14, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As it is clear that the opinions of anyone who is not directly involved in this dispute is not wanted and that anyone who posts here is liable to be attacked, then I will withdraw and unwatch the article and all unrelated articles.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigel Ish (talk • contribs)
I'd like to assume good faith, but it is difficult when you go ahead and keep changing historical articles without discussion, when you know for a fact the matter is controversial. Walrasiad (talk) 23:00, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What are you talking about Mzajac in terms of Kyiv Oblast? That was completely uncontroversial. One editor wondered about the name of the oblast during the Soviet Era, but it was hardly controversial, with not a single solitary editor expressing anything other than "Speedy move" for it. The only "controversy" (quickly corrected) was the notion that the article couldn't be moved without a formal move request. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Intransigence required me to file an RFC and then a formal RM. I showed the editor the respect of using procedure instead of intimidation. This is what had to happen in the biggest no-brainer followup move. Other reasonable moves are now being completely reverted and stalled with a whole variety of tactics and reasoning largely based on systemic bias that no one will for one moment stop to consider, plus reasons not based on guidelines, and circular discussions where editors switch their reasoning every time fallacies or incorrect facts are pointed out. It is very frustrating. —Michael Z. 14:20, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not following the "followup" moves so I wasn't aware how much of a battle was going on. My philosophy in this case is "The only thing worse than not getting your way, is getting your way". Good luck. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:44, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Is that reverse WP:ownership? I still like to think we are all working together and making it better. Sincerely, I am sorry if you feel bad. —Michael Z. 18:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel bad at all. I feel like I don't have to watch the train wreck anymore and can watch other things in Wikipedia. The Wikipedia community made its decision, it wasn't the decision I was supporting, but I accept it and work on other stuff. (You'll note that I was the editor who changed the infobox here and voted for speedy move at Talk:Kyiv Oblast.) I'm just marginally amused at all the problems that proponents now have to deal with beyond just the move of Kiev to Kyiv. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 19:02, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I keep seeing this "systemic bias" baloney being thrown around by Mzajac. That's a phrase that seems very popular these days and is tossed around like candy on Halloween (well maybe not this Halloween). For or against the Kyiv/Kiev debate, I think most editors have taken the result with the grace you would hope for at Wikipedia. Most articles and terminology will change to Kyiv with no issues. There will always be a couple of knuckleheads though. Controversial Historical items like battles, wars, religious items, food, 500 year old leaders, etc... will have to be looked at BEFORE moving. This was brought up very early on this talk page. Some of those items might move but many likely won't. They can be looked at individually or looked at in groups for ease of determination. One editor noted that while they !voted for the change to Kyiv they had no idea it would also affect historical articles. Someone mentioned that there is a cleanup page with a list of items that can be looked at. That might help here. To be honest I don't care a whole bunch where these controversial articles finally wind up (except Chicken Kiev)... historians, theologians, and military experts have a better feel for this debate on where these articles should be located. As long as it's a group effort all will be well in my book. But procedure is paramount here. If we can group the entities in question we can ask for help from the appropriate WikiProject(s). But at this point, considering the discussions here, it is disruptive to move controversial Kyiv items without input from others. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Well, yes I have found the limits of “controversial.” As to systemic bias, which Wikipedia has creditably managed to define as a problem, by its very nature, the majority of Wikipedians will discount it as a problem when it is pointed out to them. I have found the limits of that too. —Michael Z. 20:36, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Related articles

It is probably worth establishing consensus around names of related articles, since there has been some drama. As a rule of thumb, I think I am right in considering that the following is appropriate:

  • For unambiguously current topics (e.g. Kyiv Metro), articles should be renamed
  • For unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive), articles should not be renamed
  • For any edge cases, an RfC or move request debate is recommended
  • Current should probably be viewed in the context of October 1995
    • Articles on events pre-1995 should be Kiev
    • Is post-1995 the "modern" cutoff or is there a grey zone?

What do others think? Guy (help! - typo?) 16:18, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Pretty good guidelines, though I would go back to the dissolution of the USSR for the beginning of "modern". --Khajidha (talk) 17:34, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also would use the USSR breakup as the beginning of modern. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:54, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • JzG, that is an excellent summary of criteria, but I would also agree on the dissolution of the USSR as the beginning of uncontested "Kyiv". It's a clearer moment in time for most readers. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 19:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems like good idea. I'd choose 2018 as the cut-off, since it matches the launch of the KyivNotKiev campaign, i.e. the point when Ukrainian government authorities actively began campaigning internationally to replace 'Kiev' with 'Kyiv'. --Soman (talk) 19:35, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with the first three bullets, but I think the cut-off should be dissolution of the USSR (1991). BTW if it helps, most (but not all) of these articles are listed at Talk:Kyiv/cleanup#Pre-21st century. Lev!vich 20:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Subsequent discussion below has changed my mind. I no longer think the best default rule is one based on dates; the name of the city hasn't changed, only the English spelling of a Ukrainian word has changed. We shouldn't use the spelling that was in use at the time we are referring to, but rather the spelling that is in use today, even when we are referring to things in the past.
      The Chinese philosopher 老子 had his name spelled "Lao Tzu" for a very long time (and his work was known as the "Tao Te Ching"), using Wade–Giles romanization. In the 1980s, Pinyin was adopted as an international standard, and the Pinyin romanizations of Laozi and Daode Jing became more popular (ngram). People either use the W-G or the Pinyin, regardless of what time period they're referring to. Nobody uses W-G when referring to stuff before the 1980s and Pinyin when referring to stuff after the 1980s. They either adopted the change in transliteration, or they didn't. "老子" is transliterated either as "Lao Tzu" or "Laozi".
      Similarly, we should be consistently transliterating "Київ" the same way in English in every instance in which we're transliterating that word. It's inconsistent to use two different transliterations for the same word, and so using one transliteration for events before a certain date, and another transliteration for events after a certain date, would be inconsistent and confusing. People will think that Kiev and Kyiv are two different places. Referring to things like, "Levivich of Kiev (1580)" and "Levivich of Kyiv (2020)" is confusing because it suggests those Leviviches (Levivichi?) came from two different places.
      PS: When you read the paragraph about Laozi, did you notice that Wikipedia uses the W-D for Tao Te Ching and the Pinyin for Laozi as titles, and did you ask yourself why we have that inconsistency? If you did, perhaps you see my point: our readers will ask the same thing when they read that the Battle of Kiev occurred in Kyiv, or they read that the Battle of Kiev occurred in Kiev but when they click on the link, they're taken to Kyiv. Lev!vich 19:22, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Levivich, I feel you're ignoring the fact that Kiev and Kyiv are transliterating two different languages. No disputes that the name in Ukrainian hasn't changed, but the change of Kiev to Kyiv is not just a change in transliteration strategies like Pinyin from Wade-Giles, it's more akin to Danzig vs. Gdansk or Lwow vs. Lviv vs. Lemberg (all three of which are used in History of Lviv. Given that the whole reason for changing from Kiev is that this is the "Russian name" I find the current argument that we should now use Kyiv in all contexts because its the same as Kiev rather confusing.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:28, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ermenrich, that's true, they are transliterations from two different languages, which makes it not exactly the same as the change to Pinyin. Here comes the "but": In 1918, Lviv was called Lwow, so we have Lwów pogrom (1918) and Lviv pogroms (1941), yet I had no trouble finding academic publishers (because they were cited in our article) calling it the Lviv (or "L'viv") pogrom of 1918: [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. These five were all published in the last five years; they themselves rely on older sources that call it the "Lwow pogrom", but yet they still call it the Lviv pogrom. We should move Lwów pogrom (1918) to Lviv pogrom (1918) ... and History of Lviv is a mess, using various different names for the same city. You find some academic publishers call it "Lwow/Lviv" or "Lviv (then called Lwow)" or something like that, but I don't think many books will call it Lwow in Chapter 1 and Lviv in Chapter 10. Lev!vich 02:47, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I object to the whole idea of an arbitrary cut-off date. We moved the main article to Kyiv because that is the name of the city. Not the name of some city built in 1995. (And what to do, for example, about survey articles that deal with Territorial evolution of Russia, 1533–2020, or History of Kyiv, 482–2020?)
All of the discussion surrounding the “historical name” is a mass of different ideas based around resistance to change and the same wp:systemic bias by which many people in the West still routinely refer to the multinational Soviet Union as “Russia,” and before 1991 had no idea Ukrainians existed and inhabited the largest country inside Europe.
As Kyiv is our main article, and both Kyiv and Kiev are used in academic and popular literature about all periods, to me it would make sense to justify on an individual basis why articles should not be moved. Obviously, this would never find consensus, due to the general conservatism of editors in my view.
But sorry, the name is already in use in the majority of respected reliable sources on Ukrainian history, and obviously is only going to remain prevalent from now. For example these searchable books use the spellings Kyiv and Kyivan Rus.
Mzajac, it's not an arbitrary cutoff date, as the discussion shows, it's anything but arbitrary, and it's not a mandatory cutoff date, it's just a guide to reduce churn and drama. It doesn't prejudge whether earlier transliterations should be used for other periods. It's just about an orderly transition right now. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:25, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted a link to this conversation at wt:Ukraine, wt:History, wt:Geog, and wt:Title. —Michael Z. 20:25, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I added links to wikiprojects Former countries, Russia, Military history. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:47, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have posted a link to this conversation at wt:Poland and wt:Lithuania.--67.175.201.50 (talk) 04:13, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that Yekelchyk explicitly says that he is not using the established English forms and that Subtelny says that he is following Ukrainian usage, I fail to see how those have any bearing on English usage.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Khajidha (talk • contribs)
That is not what he said. Thirteen years ago, he referred to some names that had established forms derived from Russian. Since, as many have pointed out in the RM discussion above, Wikipedia is a follower, the recent move shows that Kyiv has since become established. —Michael Z. 21:49, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree, probably the easiest solution which, if it were implemented at the time of RfC. would save us a lot of time. For simplicity, I would also set 1991 (the dissolution of the USSR) as a cut-off date.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:33, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ymblanter, Should we add a FAQ or something? Guy (help! - typo?) 21:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, we should have smth like FAQ, since we have some IDHT editors who otherwise would claim that we have not discussed issues which we in fact made implicit.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:26, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, because drama is also around usage in the body of the articles (see Talk:Territorial evolution of Russia), I would explicitly extend this to any usage in the articles, not just titles.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:36, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Kyiv everywhere in general phrases (Buildings in Kyiv, Sport in Kyiv, Transport in Kyiv). RfC in other cases - when Kyiv/Kiev is part of undeniable compound term. Year - not relevant. PS: Surprised that the move happened, finally :) Chrzwzcz (talk) 22:24, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support 1991 cut off date as the easiest solution. As I've said elsewhere, no one disputes that some scholars use Kyiv for earlier periods, but they clearly are not in the majority. That could change, but Wikipedia isn't a crystal ball.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:37, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support 1995 cut off date, since that's when the Ukrainian government proposed to standardize and use the new transliteration itself. So 1995 is the official domestic name change date, like "Constantinople" to "Istanbul" in 1923. I wouldn't set it at time of dissolution (1991), since that is an arbitrary date, the Ukranian government itself used "Kiev" then and for several years after. Official date name change date of 1995 should be the cut-off date in usage, both in article title and inside articles. Just like in articles about late Ottoman Turkey or early Turkish Republic articles (e.g. Turkish War of Independence) doesn't switch to Istanbul until new transliteration is officially adopted in 1923. Naturally, long articles that cover both eras can retain modern spelling for title, just like History of Istanbul, Timeline of Istanbul, etc.
"Kyiv" has no more "always been" the name of Kiev, than "Istanbul" has always been the name of Constantinople, or "Mumbai" always been the name of Bombay. These name are all of the same quality, i.e. they are long-held local pronunciations of old cities (in Ukrainian, Turkish and Marathi languages respectively), which have been given new English transliterations to reflect the local pronunciation better. As far as English is concerned, these are name changes, and name changes which have a certain date.
As the official date of name-change - 1995 - is the only clear and unassailable date, whereas all other dates are ambiguous and debatable, that should be the one adopted here for cut off.
Should usage change over time we can revisit. Adoption of a cut-off date does not mean conventional Wikipedia rules are suspended. Wikipedia has to remember its obligation to its readers, rely on its criteria of recognizability, common name, etc. The cut-off date just trumps the consistency argument, if that is the only argument that is brought to bear.
As a more general point, I would like to remind editors that Wikipedia should not get involved, unwarily or not, in promoting nationalist programs to rewrite or push history in any direction. Ukrainian transliterations are no more special than Turkish or Marathi transliterations. It would set a dangerous precedent and encourage disruptive surges of other nationalists keen on rewriting history articles in the hope of doing the same thing, and end up with unrecognizable articles about Siege of Istanbul or the Mumbai Presidency. Walrasiad (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not correct examples. Kyiv - it is not different (ukrainian) naming. It is the case of english transliteration same as another old versions: Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, Kiovia. We don't use each of these old version for relevant periods, but use only modern name. --Geohem (talk) 06:57, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is the new official English transliteration adopted by the Ukrainian government in 1995. As far as English usage is concerned, it is a name change as much as Istanbul or Mumbai. And exactly the same reason and procedure. (Those places too have other old spellings, e.g. Stamboul or Bombaim) Walrasiad (talk) 07:22, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is only about transliteration, the cities name didn't changed. So we didn't use the another different transliteration like Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, Kiovia event if they were used in English previously. Same as we didn't use Stamboul instead of Istanbul −−Geohem (talk) 08:28, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
People keep confusing "transliteration" with "English name". Wikipedia only cares about English name, not about transliteration. If English still used "Kiovia" for the name of Ukraine's capital, it wouldn't matter whether it is an accurate transliteration of either Russian or Ukrainian. That would be its name. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 10:53, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. The English name was considered to be Kiev, it is now considered to be Kyiv. As those are two different letter sequences, that makes it a name change in English. What the name is, was, or will be in Ukrainian, Russian, Swahili, Japanese, Navajo, or Klingon is totally irrelevant to the point at hand. --Khajidha (talk) 11:19, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They are two spellings of one name. Both are valid, but one is preferred and the other dated. If one quotes a speech, or TV or radio report heard, they have to choose a spelling of the name. This is an editorial decision. In published books, it is standard to quote written sources and apply editorial style, like American or British spelling, punctuation, and spelling—for example, changing spelling to Kyiv to match publisher’s house style. —Michael Z. 14:25, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We changed the primary spelling to Kyiv when we moved the article, with reference to many publishers’ style manuals. We should follow, and just like all of them update our style manual, to recommend spelling consistently with current standards. This will serve our readers. —Michael Z. 14:31, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What evidence do you have that one is dated? Doesn't look that way to me.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:29, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The contents and result of the two-and-a-half month move request, above. The title of the article Kyiv. —Michael Z. 14:33, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't mean what you say it does. It means a consensus of editors said that the currently most common name of the city is Kyiv, not that Kiev is "outdated". You're interpreting things that are not said anywhere.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:45, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ermenrich, I opposed the move to "Kyiv", but the move was debated for three months, then decided by an uninvolved admin. It's over, Wikipedia recognizes "Kyiv" as the English name of Ukraine's capital to be used in Wikipedia ("spelling" and "transliteration" are red herrings, what Wikipedia cares about is the English name). We are not going to relitigate the English name used in Wikipedia again. What is being decided in this section is how to deal with articles on historical topics where the common English name of the topic uses "Kiev". --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:20, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
TaivoLinguist, That’s precisely what I’m talking about. All this talk of “outdated” is just an excuse to impose the spelling Kyiv on historical articles where it runs counter to usage. I have no interest in arguing about modern topics, that’s been decided.—Ermenrich (talk) 15:23, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ermenrich My apologies then. I misunderstood your intent. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:25, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ermenrich, please stop misleadingly using quotation marks to imply that I used that word. When we elevate a spelling to the primary one, then the former main one can be described as dated. It is no longer the preferred or recommended one. Its use dates the writing. Seems self-evident to me.
Insisting on an exemption to use it in titles and text of some set of articles arbitrarily labelled as “historical,” or “pre Ukrainian independence,” or whatever seems to be exactly what you called special pleading, no? It is re-arguing the same question, to apply to a subset of the precious nineteenth-century usage. They’re destroying history when they knock these spellings off their plinths!
At least it’s progress. I thing “bargaining” is the third stage. —Michael Z. 15:42, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You keep just ignoring the actual policies in question. If you're right why is it Battle of Peking (1900). Beijing didn't change its name. And I'm using quotation marks because that's the word you used, I'm not implying anything.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:58, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Where did I use “outdated”? Please don’t use quotation marks to argue against something I didn’t say.
As I’ve already argued, Kyiv and Kiev are different spellings of a single spoken name. There is no reason to use the dated spelling in arbitrarily selected contexts except stubborn attachment. —Michael Z. 16:14, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Are you really denying having said outdated? [9], [10]. Are you arguing under some sort of technicality because you used the synonym "dated?" I don't have time to look through every post you've made everywhere, but this does not strike me as arguing in good faith to claim you're not using a word you clearly used, or a near synonym.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please don’t use the English convention for direct quotations to present as things I wrote things I had not written. I am requesting that you respect a normal requirement in polite discussion and public writing. Being argumentative about it is not going to achieve anything. And yes, I am denying I said “outdated,” and your own diff links seem to support that fact. —Michael Z. 20:23, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mzajac I find it a bit confusing that you argued for three months that "Kiev" and "Kyiv" are different Russian and Ukrainian names, but then above you wrote that "Kiev" and "Kyiv" are two versions of the same spoken name (presumably in Ukrainian). Which is it? Are they from two different languages (Russian and Ukrainian) or from one language, just spelled differently? You can't have it both ways. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 21:17, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Let me clarify. The city has one name in English. It is generally pronounced /ˈkiːɛv/ in English. Today there are two commonly used English spelling variants of this name, one derived from a transliteration from Russian, the other from Ukrainian. I hope this is helpful. —Michael Z. 21:44, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I dispute the notion that "Kiev" and "Kyiv" are pronounced the same way in English. That's like saying "Calcutta" and "Kolkata" are pronounced the same way in English. They are pretty clearly not meant to be pronounced the same way, so if an English speaker is spelling it "Kyiv" but pronouncing it /ˈkiːɛv/, then he is either misspelling it or mispronouncing it. Rreagan007 (talk) 20:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The sources are quite clear that the intended pronunciation of Kyiv is exactly as in Ukrainian. This runs into the fairly basic problem that the Ukrainian pronunciation breaks several rules of English phonology. As a result, the word is nigh-on unpronounceable for a monoglot English-speaker. But, if the sources say that the intended pronunciation is as in Ukrainian, then the intended pronounciation is as in Ukrainian.
OTOH, if the city's name is generally pronounced /ˈkiːɛv/ then that is evidence that the common name is still Kiev and thus that the conclusion reached at the RM was wrong. Kahastok talk 20:29, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please cite some of the sources about “the intended pronunciation of Kyiv.” But it would be even more fun if you reopened the RM instead of just whining about the sour grapes. —Michael Z. 03:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the English language is concerned, they are two different names, spelled and pronounced differently. Much like Bombay/Mumbai, etc. It is not arbitrary - the official name change was adopted by the Ukrainian government in 1995. You anachronistically imposing it backwards and making historical articles unrecognizable and outside common use in English language sources. Walrasiad (talk) 16:27, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not so. It is one name, usually pronounced one way (despite a couple of articles about “Keeve,” heard or misheard during the Trump impeachment trial), with two common spelling variants. It is usually shown as such in references. The current spelling was a minority usage since at least 1937. As the current spelling is adopted, we would find legacy article titles that diverge from the main article’s and common global usage becoming gradually less recognizable, which is why we have the guidelines at wp:consistency. Re-litigating the RM. —Michael Z. 21:12, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You may want it to be pronounced the same way in English as "Kiev" traditionally is, but if native English speakers reading "Kyiv" start pronouncing it something like "Keeve", then that is very likely going to become the standard English language pronunciation over time. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:19, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's a big if. Right now pretty much everyone pronounces it Key-ev no matter the spelling and that may not change at all. We've been told Quebek is pronounce Kebek but everyone still says Kwebek. Plus the fact that Kyiv is not actually pronounce Keeve at all, but with two sylables ki-yeeve. Americans tend to pronounce things as the combination of letters is pronounce in English which may someday be more like Key-iv rather than Key-ev. But who knows how long that will take. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Considering all of these articles, some of which say things such as According to Polack, the correct way to pronounce the capital city of Ukraine is KEE-yiv This is compared to the Russian pronunciation of KEE-yev. [11], I'm certain Ukrainians do not intend for English speakers to just go on saying Kee-yev. The "Keeve" pronunciation is also widely noted, because, as any English speaker will tell you, Kee-yiv is extremely weird for an English speaker [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. Some dictionaries continue to list "Kee-yev" as the way "Kyiv" should be pronounced, but this seems unlikely to last. Otherwise the "spelling change" is simply idiotic. Why would Ukrainians force us to adopt a less phonetic way to write Kee-yev? That would be like if Ireland insisted we wrote Cork (city) "Corcaigh" but still said "Cork."--Ermenrich (talk) 19:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for jumping in late. 'Let me clarify. 'Kyiv and Kiev are not different spellings of the same name. The first one is the transliteration from Ukrainian, the second one is the transliteration from Russian. And this is the major reason of the Ukrainians push for renaming. They look similar because the languages are similar. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:32, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

1995 is meaningless date for English and Kyiv. Same as 2020 is (The Date Wikipedia Switched). How about an article describing pre-1995 and post-1995? Person "A" was born in Kiev and later he studied in Kyiv. Why? Same name, different spelling. Pick one! Color-colour type of situation. :) Chrzwzcz (talk) 16:45, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support the proposal at the top of the thread, with suggested cutoff of 1991, the year of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:46, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. May I draw attention to the fact that Mzajac has continued changing Kiev to Kyiv in historical articles despite being fully aware that this is currently contested, e.g. [17], [18].—Ermenrich (talk) 00:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That is really sad. Those pages are not listed at Talk:Kyiv/cleanup because they don't have Kiev in the title, but considering the discussion here and in multiple other places where administrator Mzajac is fervently posting, that seems to be bad faith editing. Some changes were linked to places like Kyiv Oblast, so no issue there, but some were links to battles and other historical items and he should know better. I reverted those edits but there may be dozens more. This is very concerning, but remember there are a lot of articles and prose that need to be changed (far more than don't) and someone has to do it. At least Mzajac is taking the time to do it, you can't fault him there. He's just overzealous in his changes. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Also Kish otaman was changed but now reverted. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:29, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This is behavior unbecoming of an administrator. They should be presented to ANI or AE, but I will not be the one doing this. I have already been accused in being an anti-Ukrainian editor, pro-Russian POV pusher, and a liar, merely for my insistence that WP:Consensus should be taken into account when edits are made, and I do not really enjoy it. In addition, I have already bothered the community with this Kyiv stuff for too much. I will not be acting at this point any further.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:59, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Not me either. It's tough enough to get the point across at ANI without everyone getting more upset, and this is an administrator. No thanks. And my heritage is Polish from Ukraine. We'll just plug along and revert if more historical articles change without consensus. And really that's my beef with this whole thing. If everyone wants to change all the historical and recipe and military articles to Kyiv, well, then that's what will happen. But it looks like there is a lot of pushback against full blanket changes. People who !voted for Kyiv didn't realize it could change every instance of the spelling. I changed a couple Kiev's to Kyiv today because they looked like a slam dunk, but historical ones are under heated discussion. Everyone commenting here should know that beyond any doubt. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:30, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it will cause a lot of problems. Many people will be confused, because of factually the citie's name always was the same (Ukrainian: Київ). And nobody will understand why in one case we should use English name of city - Kyiv, and in another - the old version Kiev. ––Geohem (talk) 07:13, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    We could try to make a helpful update to WP:KIEV. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed, but the information page that contains WP:KYIV follows our conventions and guidelines. We can’t say too much there until we have agreed what they are. All we know is that Kyiv is now the main article’s name. —Michael Z. 14:46, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Given that vast majority of English-speaking people are more familiar with "Kiev" than "Kyiv", few will be surprised by Kiev. Simply do as is commonly done for articles where name changes have happened: editor puts a note in the article text in parenthesis if they feel it is needed, e.g. "Kiev (modern Kyiv)", "Calcutta (modern Kolkata)", "Bombay (modern Mumbai)", etc. Perfectly understandable. Walrasiad (talk) 11:40, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm only familiar with the literature on World War II in this context, and Kiev is always used. Nick-D (talk) 10:22, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also support the proposal at the top of this thread.--Jetstreamer Talk 12:12, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support 1995 as cut-off date. Hanberke (talk) 14:20, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    First, I would object, and many will find it tone-deaf, if not outrightly offensive, to create a specific exception to the use of our main article’s name for the purpose of imposing a colonial spelling on articles that are clearly Ukrainian topics. For example, Ukrainian declaration of independence, 1991, Act of restoration of the Ukrainian state, 1941, or Fourth Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council, 1918. I have just updated all the articles on Ukraine’s heads of state and heads of government from 2020 back to 1917—is that really wrong? 2) What does that actually mean? Every article that mentions pre-1995 should use Kiev?—then we may as well move the city’s article back. If not, then what about, for example, the text of Territorial evolution of Russia which covers 1533 to 2020 and mentions the city? And 3) what about bibliographic references? Does the publication place of a single book appear as Kyiv in some articles and Kiev in others? This is inconsistent, confusing, and contrary to bibliographic standards. Should translated passages in those foreign-language references translate the name two different ways in different articles? Lots of comments like yours seem to be off-the-cuff reactions resisting change, but have not thought through the implications. —Michael Z. 14:44, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    colonial spelling is extremely oriented. Kiev is an English-language spelling, not a Russian one, and last time I checked England never colonized Ukraine. From these discussions I have learned that the standard romanization of the Russian name of the city is actually Kijev. Place Clichy (talk) 15:42, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is Kijev, not Kiev. Hanberke (talk) 16:17, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is Kiyev according to WP:RUS (which we are using on Wikipedia for Romanization if there is no established English name)--Ymblanter (talk) 16:29, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It would have been nice if you three had addressed my actual arguments and questions, or said anything but reject one without considering it. You’ll tire me out and create a wall of text to bury my arguments, but I can just paste them again until it sounds like someone’s bothered to read them.
The tangent you’ve got off on is based on false premises and original research. Kiev is an English-language spelling, and it’s from a Russian name via transliteration from a Russian spelling. Are you really going to object and make me dig up some references, again? Our article on Romanization of Russian describes thirteen international standards. According to eleven of them the Russian name Киев is transliterated Kiev (by two it is transcribed Kiyev, but not “Kijev” by any of these, so I don’t even know where you got that). WP:romanization of Russian is not a standard, nor a Wikipedia policy nor guideline, but our own original-research essay. And that’s academic, because we don’t use WP:RUS, but WP:UKR for Ukrainian, and it refers to the standard, an actual standard, by which all Ukrainian place names are determined. —Michael Z. 20:26, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It would have been nice if you started listening to what about a dozen editors are actually trying to tell you. We are trying to say two simple things. (1) We go by WP:COMMONNAME. Not by whatever arguments you cite, not for example by the sense of empathy to a new state which tries to get out of what it feels to be colonial oppression, but WP:COMMONNAME which is a Wikipedia policy. If a majority of academic sources refer to the 12th century polity as Kievan Rus' and not as Kyivan Rus the name of the article should be Kievan Rus'. If the majority refer to it as Kyivan Rus, the name of the article should be Kyivan Rus. (2) May be in the end this discussion would be closed in favor of moving everything, every instance from Kiev to Kyiv. May be it will not, but in two years there is consensus that Kiev is an outdated term in all contexts. This is possible. But as far as this discussion has not been closed you need to stop replacing Kiev with Kyiv in all historical contexts before 1995. The fact that you continue replacing it despite multiple objections and despite consensus not yet having been established is a textbook example of disruptive editing. I am sorry that you feel tired out, however, I am also tired out by this massive disruption in which you unfortunately participate - though you have been given the admin flag to stop disruption, not to increase it.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:56, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You’ve settled on 1995 then, the date of, what is it, the enactment of a law by the Verkhovna Rada or something? I don’t think that date has any significant relationship to what defines “historical articles,” but I wonder if anyone will see this as symbolic if you insist on it. —Michael Z. 21:51, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is incorrect. In my !vote, I said 1991 (independence of Ukraine), but I would be also fine wit 1995 (standization of the spelling by the Ukrainian government) or even 1917 (end of the Russian Empire). However, what we are currently discussing here (what is in the proposal) is 1995.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:34, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK, your points are well explained. However, we need some point (or a range of points) in the past to differentiate these R-spelling and U-spelling. What do you or U-spelling supporters intend as an ultimate purpose? To entirely wipe out or lock down the word Kiev from English? A total destruction? I'm not familiar with RU-UA relations and dynamics in between regarding their common/joint history, but from neutral point of view, it seems a kind of revanchist approach against a word in a third-party language (in terms of EN historiography). No one can decide if a word is outdated ot not, course of time will show what will come out. We nned to find a way to keep both spellings up. Hanberke (talk) 15:55, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I thought we were all on the same side. The community chose the spelling Kyiv, now let’s work on the encyclopedia instead of drawing up battle lines and casting other editors as the enemy. —Michael Z. 20:29, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support the proposal at the top of the thread, with no strong opinion about the cut-off date. It's important to recognise that this will simply be the default - if there is a particular reason why a particular article about a pre-cut-off topic should use "Kyiv" or vice versa then it can be explained in a requested move discussion for that article. Thryduulf (talk) 14:48, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the proposition at the top of the thread, which I believe reflects current consensus both on and outside of Wikipedia. Both suggested dates of 1991 and 1995 have there merits. Clearly it should be acceptable for any good faith editor to use Kyiv any time after the Independence (which is not an arbitrary cut-off date in any way, it is the kind of era-changing moment that history provides). However in guidelines we may suggest using Kiev for events before the standardization of the use of this transliteration by the government in 1995. Time-independent articles such as History of Kyiv should use Kyiv in the title, Kiev about past events (such as Kiev Bolshevik Uprising) and depending on editor's judgment about geographical use (did the Nazis enter Kiev or Kyiv in 1943?). Anyway, it is out of the question to slice historical articles before and after the entry if force of the new transliteration. Place Clichy (talk) 15:42, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for making a more concrete proposal than most. I see a few problems, but I’ll ask about one. I’ve already had my edits reverted in a “time-independent article,” Russia. The edit summary claimed the rationale that this is a “historical name.” How would you resolve this, keeping in mind that given the scope of the article it could well mention the city’s name when talking about political developments in the recent past or near future? —Michael Z. 21:30, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I know what I might do in this instance. I would want to be as consistent as possible within an article. So with articles that are more general, and cover a big time period I would tend to use Kyiv. If there is reference in the article to a historic battle, I would use "Battle of Kiev." It's a little like what we do with so many tennis articles. When we talk about a specific 1960 Wimbledon tournament we use the entry name of Margaret Smith. It's a specific historical article. If we are talking about a list of Grand Slam tournament winners with a huge list from 1870 to 2020 we use Margaret Court throughout and say that Margaret Court won 24 singles titles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Fyunck. Would you be interested in chiming in at talk:Russia?
    Regarding the cutoff date: in Court’s case, a living person changed her own name. Even she would still say that her name was Smith until 1967. The city’s name never changed, standards and references are adopting this spelling variant, and publishers and style guides have followed suit, without any confusing restrictions by context. —Michael Z. 15:49, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue with the Russia article is fairly easy to address. Instead of ...Oleg of Novgorod ventured south and conquered [[Kyiv]]..., one could write: ...ventured south and conquered [[Kiev]] (today Kyiv, [[Ukraine]])... Alternatively: ...ventured south and conquered Kiev (today [[Kyiv]], [[Ukraine]]).... And then continue on with "Kiev", "Kievan Rus'", etc. To me, this is a preferred approach where the modern place name is different from the historical one, since the reader would be aware of the alternate English spellings. Such cases are: Wrocław/Breslau; Lviv/Lwów; Kharkiv/Kharkov, etc. Or people just use Breslau, Lwów and Kharkov, if appropriate for the period. There are still a lot of incoming links to the historical names. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:53, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    So Kiev is not just for historical article titles, and historical article text, in your view? You supported this proposal for a huge exception, but now you’re proposing further exception, with no rationale. Where do you draw the line? —Michael Z. 00:51, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    No one is proposing a "huge exception", we are proposing following the normal process for dealing with name changes on English Wikipedia. You can keep claiming that Kyiv is the same as Kiev, but if that were true we wouldn't have changed the name.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposed exception covers an arbitrary ninety-nine percent of history, and editors like K.e.coffman and my reverter in Russia have expressed no intention to respect our consensus name in the rest. How about yourself? Will you support using Kyiv in the article Russia?
    And I’ll say it again. No has one changed the name since 482 AD. We have adopted a variant spelling of it. References attest to this (e.g., Merriam-Webster, Britannica). —Michael Z. 16:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support Guy's proposal, and an update of WP:P-NUK as such. RGloucester — ☎ 15:46, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That essay should be updated following our demonstrated adoption of a suggestion, not before it. —Michael Z. 02:36, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would support Guy's proposal above, and don't object to using independence as the cut-off for "modern". Kahastok talk 20:45, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose the proposal at the top of the thread.
Mumbai, Istanbul, and St. Petersburg are renamed by locals. Kyiv has not been renamed ever since it was founded. In 1995, the government did not rename the city, but approved its own transliteration table.(1)
We cannot rename Kyiv or any other city in any period of its history. If we do this, it will be an invention of a new historical concept or theory. Wikipedia is not the place for original research WP:ORIGINAL.
It is unacceptable to make it so that in different periods of history Kyiv was called differently. Because in this case we will rename the city, this is an incorrect and distorts the perception of history. It also violates the verifiability policy WP:VERIFY. Why? Because I have not seen any authoritative source in which different names of Kyiv are used in different periods of history. Why? Because Kyiv has not been renamed ever since it was founded. Therefore, it cannot be such that Kyiv in one period of history was named "Kiev", and in another "Kyiv" or "Kiow".
We do not change the name of the city, we change the spelling, the sequence of letters "Kiev" to the sequence of letters "Kyiv". Before there was "Kiow", then "Kiev", then "Kyiv". If we change the spelling, we change it in the overwhelming majority of the articles. It is incorrect to have a different spellings for the same reasons as to rename the city, which I wrote about above. Authoritative sources don't do that, it violates wikipedia policies and other reasons which we know about.
As for me, such articles as Chicken Kiev can be written with "Kiev" or discussed separately. Also write "Kiev" in quotes, cite titles and so on appropriate. And in the entire historical line since Kyiv was founded, including places, events and persons, we must write "Kyiv".
Then in any case we will have Kyiv, and if there is a need to emphasize the historical context, we can write like "in Soviet Kyiv". It is simple, consistent, without confusion, without distorting the historical context for those readers who do not have a Ph.D. in history. Sorry for my English. --AndriiDr (talk) 20:33, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support proposal on the top, with 1991 cutoff, concur with Ermenrich per arguments which is shared by many others or very similarly. Btw, the user directly above does not seem to properly cite/know our policies, no problem to use in different historical timelines contemporary names, it is a common everyday practise regarding many cities. As well we know and may decide easily when Danzig or Gdansk is more suitable, e.g.(KIENGIR (talk) 01:29, 27 September 2020 (UTC))[reply]

Wikipiping

I see people started massive "derussification" of Kyiv in wikipedia. However one kind of changes I see as incorrect: hiding article titles under the wikipipe: Kievan Rus -->> [[Kievan Rus|Kyivan Rus]] You have to request article renaming instead. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:31, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see that a new user Olksder (talk · contribs) is doing this on a massive scale: [[Kiev|Kyiv]] I think all these edits must be reverted, because this is an improper use of wikipiping. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:38, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You’re right. Let’s just link to the main article Kyiv with [[Kyiv]]. But then it will be awkward and potentially confusing when an article also links to [[Kievan Rus]]. —Michael Z. 20:46, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RM cited in the article

We now have a sentence that reads, "In September 2020 the English Wikipedia switched from using Kiev to Kyiv." Wikipedia is not a style authority. IMO, it would make more sense to cite the BGN decision. 3K008P9 (talk) 06:22, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not sure why we mention Wikipedia switching either - there’s no reason to single out another authority though.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:36, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Ermenrich. Wikipedia (or any other single source) should only be mentioned if there is significant coverage in independent reliable sources about that source's choice of spelling. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've actually gone ahead and removed the reference to Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 12:41, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I look, it seems both Kyiv#Name and Name of Kyiv have too much OR and not enough secondary sources (e.g. the CJR and Atlantic articles). Lev!vich 16:51, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Levivich, agreed, they're both in need of a cleanup. The etymology isn't even really explained in this article except sort of in the flowing text. This article needs a lot of improvement, most of which have probably been ignored in favor of arguing about Kiev vs. Kyiv for the past 20 years.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:51, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The entire “Name” section was deleted shortly after the article was renamed. Let’s restore it. —Michael Z. 19:47, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Parking some secondary sources here for now: Why Kiev is now Kyiv - Columbia Journalism Review, Kiev, Kyiv, How Do You Pronounce (and Spell) It? - The New York Times, Kyiv not Kiev: Why spelling matters in Ukraine’s quest for an independent identity - Atlantic Council, Kiev or Kyiv?: why is the question of what to call Ukraine’s capital so hard to answer? — The Calvert Journal, Kiev Or Kyiv? - Business Insider, Spellcheck beware: Ukraine’s capital is #KyivNotKiev - PRI's The World Ukraine and the politics of transliteration - CSMonitor.com. Lev!vich 20:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here’s a cite list with those and a couple more, sorted by date. Anyone please expand or re-format. —Michael Z. 22:24, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I think this article should handle things like etymology and history of the name (in Ukrainian, Russian, and English) more than we need to display why the form has changed in the West. That can be handled very briefly here and in more detail over at Name of Kyiv if desired.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:35, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One hundred percent agreement. I would be in favour of restoring the deleted “Name” section and improving it. —Michael Z. 03:08, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Kiev", "Kiyiv", and "Keev"

At some point, this pronunciation issue must be addressed. There is no issue with either the Russian pronunciation (when speaking Russian) or the Ukrainian pronunciation (when speaking Ukrainian). That's not what I'm talking about here. But as "Kyiv" becomes an English name separate from "Kiev" [kiɛv] the pronunciation will inevitably shift to something else. As long as the capital of Ukraine is spelled so radically different from its pronunciation it is a foregone conclusion that its pronunciation will shift to match the spelling just as Peking [pikɪŋ] became Beijing [bedʒɪŋ] in English. Natural English phonotactics will quickly reduce the high front vowel-palatal glide-high front vowel sequence to a long high front vowel [ki:v]. It is inevitable among native speakers of English, 99.99% of whom don't speak Ukrainian and 80% of whom don't speak any other language or give a rat's behind how its pronounced in some other language. Indeed, the New York Times has already reported from the impeachment hearings that there were three different pronunciations in evidence--"Kiev", "Kiyiv", and "Keev". Despite the desires of Ukrainian speakers and other "purists", [ki:v] is already becoming the English pronunciation of "Kyiv". It will not be pronounced [kiɛv] in English as the spelling "Kyiv" takes hold. They are not the "same name" (or else they'd be spelled the same). This is just my forewarning about how we present the pronunciation of "Kyiv" in English. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest I disagree. I do not see a "radical" difference in Kyiv being pronounce as Key-ev. I could see a lot of people doing it. For me the most natural thing in seeing it is to pronounce it Key-iv instead of Key-ev. The Keeve thing was a mistake by the New York Times. It may very well change to Key-iv but it also might take a long long time. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:21, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not just The NYT, basically ever major US news source reported on it. See my post earlier on the subject in the thread above.—Ermenrich (talk) 00:36, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
They reported it, but it was shown as being the incorrect pronunciation. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:02, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
TaivoLinguist’s prediction is excellent, and we should address it the very minute that reliable sources tell us that it was correct.
Currently, dictionaries indicate the prevailing English pronunciation based on their lexicographers’ research into the large corpus of English speech. And during one week a few articles told us how a few non-Ukrainian-speaking non-linguists observed two individuals pronounce a name as in Ukrainian at a specific event, Trump’s impeachment trial (“American lawmakers and officials at Wednesday’s hearing generally sounded as if they were trying to pronounce Kiev in Ukrainian, rather than the way it is pronounced in Russian. But at points, it sounded more like “keev,” with the long “ee” pronounced as a single syllable.”).[19]
The article should reflect this.
Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary tells us that the name is pronounced \ˈkē-ˌef, -ˌev, -if; ˈkēv\, or in Ukrainian contexts \ˈki-​yē-​ü\, equivalent to Wikipedia’s IPA /ˈkiɛf, ˈkiɛv, ˈkiɪf, kiːv/ and /ˈkɪjiu/ (see their Guide to Pronunciation and help on entries, regarding variants). The OED Online, entry updated December 2019,[20] tells us Brit. /ˈkiːɛv/, /ˈkiːɛf/, /ˌkiːˈɛv/, /ˌkiːˈɛf/, U.S. /ˈkiɛv/, /ˈkiɛf/, /ˌkiˈɛv/, /ˌkiˈɛf/. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004) says /ˈkiːef/, in Ukrainian contexts /ˈki·ɪf/. —Michael Z. 03:18, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, in standard Russian it is pronounced KEY - if, not KEY - ef.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Those dictionaries tell us how people are pronouncing Kiev, not Kyiv. Kiev has the advantage of being a centuries-old English word whose pronunciation has been adapted by English speakers.
The sources are clear that Kyiv and Kiev are supposed to be pronounced differently - but then go on to tell us to pronounce Kyiv exactly as in Ukrainian. Complete with unaspirated and unpalatalised initial [k] before a front vowel, impossible middle vowel combination [ˈɪji] and word-final /w/. That's not going to happen.
At this point, I don't think we can give an English pronunciation of Kyiv, because there isn't one - only a Ukrainian pronunciation. We can give a standard English pronunciation of Kiev pretty easily. Kahastok talk 08:37, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"At this point, I don't think we can give an English pronunciation of Kyiv, because there isn't one - only a Ukrainian pronunciation." Can't disagree with that, and that is a standard procedure for pronunciation guidelines on Wikipedia for non-tonal languages. Softlavender (talk) 08:49, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No. I’m tagging the two preceding two comments [Original Research]. I just quoted the pronunciation given by three English dictionaries that give both spelling variations. Please stop presenting your personal hypotheses. —Michael Z. 12:35, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's appropriate for Wikipedia to list four or five pronunciations of the same spelling in the lede (except maybe in a footnote). That would just amount to clutter, in my opinion. It is appropriate to list the correct pronunciation in the original language. Softlavender (talk) 12:51, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mzajac, Please don't be so aggressive. One of the dictionaries you quote actually does give the "Keeve" pronunciation, Merriam-Webster. At any rate, it's only been a year since a wide audience was introduced to the notion that Kiev has a different name in Ukrainian, we can't expect the pronunciation of a word to that's basically impossible to say in English yo stabilize or change overnight. If we look at the media reports from last year, I'd say change is in the air: According to Polack, the correct way to pronounce the capital city of Ukraine is KEE-yiv This is compared to the Russian pronunciation of KEE-yev. [21], I made a 30-second video explaining the lesson in post-Soviet politics: Kiev is a transliteration from Russian, Kyiv is the preferred Ukrainian transliteration, and after simplifying Ukrainian’s guttural vowels for American speakers, the proper pronunciation is “Keeve.” [22], Bagliere explains that in Ukrainian, it is pronounced more like "Keev." [23], Perhaps some of the reticence [to adopting Kyiv] can be attributed to the difficulty many Americans have pronouncing Kyiv the Ukrainian way. Chernetsky and Wallo noticed some diplomats on Capitol Hill as well as some national broadcast journalists slurring the syllables (two should remain, albeit with the first one accented) into one. [24], According to Dr. Shevchuk, State Department employees and others who work in foreign policy in Washington generally try to pronounce it the Ukrainian way, out of respect to Ukrainians. [25], In other words: ‘Ki-’yeev.’ [26]. It simply does not make sense to most people that we would change how we spell Kiev to be "the Ukrainian name" Kyiv - and then just keep saying "Key-ev". So whether Keeve or something more authentic like Key-iv wins out, I can't imagine "Key-ev" has much longer to go as the dominate pronunciation, since people have it in their heads that it's "Russian" and offensive to Ukrainians.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Worth adding the quote from Miriam Webster here.

Kiev geographical name
Ki·​ev | \ ˈkē-ˌef, -ˌev, -if; ˈkēv \
variants: or Ukrainian Kyiv or Kyyiv \ ˈki-​yē-​ü \

I would have thought it perfectly obvious to even the meanest understanding that the pronunciation given to Kiev is ˈkē-ˌef, -ˌev, -if; ˈkēv, and that the pronunciation of Kyiv and Kyyiv is the Ukrainian ˈki-​yē-​ü - just as I described. Kahastok talk 13:03, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am not being aggressive. I apologize if I wrote something upsetting, but I did not intend to sound aggressive.
I am not disputing any of the facts that you editors are challenging me with. I am disputing some of your original inferences and conclusions. A day earlier I hadn’t seen M–W’s added \ˈkēv\ pronunciation. I don’t know if it was added before or after the Trump impeachment trial, but we have no evidence connecting the two. It doesn’t matter. The article should include what these references say, in some summarized and clear form, including that. Please notice that M–W does not label that pronunciation US. M–W does not say that a particular spelling is pronounced a certain way—it shows “spellings variants” (their words) and pronunciations that are used in Ukrainian contexts. We should not add our own research and speculation.
By the way, this is also one of the rationales for Wikipedia to use the current spelling Kyiv in Ukrainian contexts, including “historical” Ukrainian contexts. —Michael Z. 15:28, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To add to the above, Oxford’s NOAD (American) gives pronunciation as |ˌkiˈɛv, ˈkiɛv|, and their ODE (British) gives |ˈkiːɛv, ˈkiːɛf|. —Michael Z. 15:42, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 5th ed. (2018), pp 810 and 800:
  • Ky·iv (kē′yo͞o) capital of Ukraine, on the Dnieper: Russ. name Kiev.
  • Ki·ev (Kē′ef′, -ev′) Russ. name for Kyiv —Ki′ev′an (-ən) n., adj.
This dictionary and Britannica are the Chicago Manual of Style’s primary recommended sources for spelling of place names. —Michael Z. 20:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Michael Z., Wikipedia is not the Chicago Manual of Style, and Wikipedia also does not blindly follow certain, or indeed any particular, source or authority. Wikipedia operates by consensus, and what happens in this wiki article will be determined by consensus. Softlavender (talk) 12:42, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I know. That’s why I’m discussing here to help reach a consensus. WP:Manual of Style#Further reading refers to the CMOS. WP:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Widely accepted name refers to Oxford dictionaries and M–W’s Geographical Dictionary (M–W Online and the NWCD reflect more up-to-date versions of their findings). These guidelines reflect our consensus and prevailing conventions. The sources I quoted are among the best, most relevant, and most current WP:reliable sources that we refer to when including information like pronunciation and usage in this article. Thanks. —Michael Z. 15:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, I think we're still too early for a "pronunciation guide" since the name of Ukraine's capital has not stabilized in American speech (the majority of English speakers). Americans who say [kiɛv] are not saying "Kyiv", but "Kiev", and the pronunciations of "Kyiv" have not stabilized, but range from [ki:v}/[kjɪv] (the most natural ways for Americans to pronounce "Kyiv" without hearing it) to perfectionists who say [kɪjou] because they want to sound "international". I just wanted to raise the issue as something to keep our eyes (and ears) open for. Coming to a consensus now is a fool's errand because it will be in flux as Americans shift from pronouncing "Kiev" to "Kyiv". --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It’s never too early to glean facts from the latest sources. Do you have reliable sources saying that the reliable sources are no longer accurate? That the pronunciation is currently “in flux” and “has not stabilized”? We should include the facts that sources give, and not write them off based on speculation. The sources have dates, but you can explicitly write “as of 2018,” or whatever, if you have evidence that they are out of date. —Michael Z. 19:38, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how much contact you have with English speakers trying to say, "Kyiv", but that's why I'm saying things are in flux. Published pronunciation guides are baloney as long as the actual pronunciation is seeking a stable situation. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 20:39, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With respect, you sound like a fresh Wikipedian who’s has yet to be pointed toward WP:RS and WP:OR. This is not productive dialogue. —Michael Z. 20:53, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And with equal respect, you sound like a rigid wikilawyer who thinks that his tried and true source from 2001 is the current state of affairs. You're sounding more like some of the "Kiev" supporters than someone who recognizes that the ground is shifting. At no point have I advocated a change at this moment, but I'm also smart enough to see that the state of affairs is rapidly changing. I stated at the very beginning that at some point we need to address this and to go beyond the "correct Ukrainian" pronunciation and to be aware (obviously through reliable sources) of common American pronunciation. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 23:36, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Taivo, do we really need to address it at all? As far as I know, an English pronunciation of some name is always quite different from the foreign pronunciation (just compare English "Paris" and French "Paris": they sound totally differently). Not only Ukrainians started to teach us how to write the name of their capital in English, they are teaching us how to pronounce it. That is totally ridiculous. Whereas "Kiev -> Kyiv" can be explained (at least formally) by the desire of Ukrainians to separate themselves from evil Russians (and from their Russian speaking compatriots), the attempt to impose their vision on pronunciation do not have even that shaky ground, for English pronunciation of "Kiev" has nothing in common with Russian "Киев". Linguistic prescription is not universally accepted approach at all, and it is especially unacceptable when it is initiated by non-native speakers. Even if the time will come to replace Kiev with Kyiv (the recent renaming is an error, IMO, and it does not reflect the current state of things), a long time has to pass before some generally accepted pronunciation will emerge (or there will be no change at all).--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:45, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well I’m sorry, I don’t understand. It sounded like you don’t want pronunciation in the article. Otherwise I don’t know what you mean by “too early for a pronunciation guide.” I think the pronunciation that is there needs to be made visible in the article text, rather than being buried in a note, and tweaked to better reflect recent sources. —Michael Z. 03:17, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The pronunciation guide, such as it is, should not be highlighted because it is a situation in flex phonetically until the pronunciation of "Kyiv" settles down. The present complex footnote is fairly accurate for the time being. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 03:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Then write in the article that it is in flux, citing the reliable sources on pronunciation that say so. —Michael Z. 18:34, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree there is no standard English pronunciation for "Kyiv" as of yet. If we offer a pronunciation guide for it, it should probably be for the Ukrainian pronunciation. English speakers currently pronounce it several ways (four or five different ways), so that would be too cluttery for the lede, although a footnote could be inserted conveying those pronunciations. Also, "Kiev" and "Kyiv" are not the same word; "Kiev" is an anglicization like "Calcutta"; "Kyiv" is a transliteration, or the accepted official transliteration, of the Ukranian-language word for the city. Softlavender (talk) 07:16, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have cited sources, above, that give an attested English pronunciation of the name in Ukrainian contexts. The lede can certainly include the usual English pronunciation, /kiɛv, kiɛf/ with variable stress. The details and can go in the “Name” section. "Kiev" is an anglicization like "Calcutta"; "Kyiv" is a transliteration, or the accepted official transliteration, of the Ukranian-language word for the city: please cite your sources, and we can add this to the article too. Thanks. —Michael Z. 18:40, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The information I posted is already in the wiki article, with citations. What readers want to know is how to pronounce the newly established widely used name for the city, "Kyiv", and its pronunciation is not the same as for the long-used, historic, traditional anglicization "Kiev". That's why English speakers (Congresspersons and other politicians, news broadcasters and commentators, documentarians, etc.) are going to so much trouble to differentiate the pronunciation from that of "Kiev", and as has been brought up several times in this thread and in numerous news articles and other webs sources, the pronunciation of "Kyiv" is not yet settled in the anglosphere. Softlavender (talk) 11:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

'Kyiv' before 1991?

I did a quick review of google books, of books published 1800-1991 using 'Kyiv' in English (or any other Latin-script language). Now Google books dating isn't always perfect, but still it gives an indication;

This is not a selection of the hits using 'Kyiv' published 1800-1990, but its all the hits using 'Kyiv' in Latin letters during this period. Effectively the sole publication where I found 'Kyiv' used in prose is Ukrainian Quarterly. I suspect the 'It was Ruce-Ukraine...' book might also contain 'Kyiv' in prose. It is clear by any means that it is impossible to claim that there was any widespread usage of the spelling 'Kyiv' in English or any other Western language prior to the 1990s. --Soman (talk) 18:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Missing the point, I think. But if you want to follow through in your logic that we should use contemporary spellings for things, please list all the sources that used Kiev before 1845. I’m afraid you’d have us use five different spellings in the article History of Kyiv. Oh, and start renaming articles about pre-1979 using Peking. Thanks. —Michael Z. 18:49, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Pre-1845 mentions of 'Kiev':

etc, etc... There is clearly more mentions of 'Kiev' pre-1845 in English than the 1-2 mentions of 'Kyiv' 1800-1990. Kiev appears to have been a common name in English before 1845, albeit not necessarily the sole English-language name used at the time. --Soman (talk) 20:32, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, Kiev was a minority spelling, not very common. See this Ngram. Only became a majority usage >50% in the 20th century. But that’s still missing the point. —Michael Z. 20:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A common name is not the same as the common name. Arguably the proportion Kief/Kiev is far more even as of 1850-1920 than Kiev/Kyiv today, look at the size of the gap as of the 1860s. But sure, 'Kief' could be used in articles from 1800s, albeit I'd say that's just an archaic spelling of Kiev, see for example; "The Russians pronounce the v like an f at the end of words . Thus they call Romanov , Romanof ; Rostov , Rostof and Kiev , Kief .; hence these words will be found written in both ways in" ([31]), "On the English maps of Russia, you will find the names of rivers, provinces, and towns given in many different ways ; as, Kief, Kiev, and Kiew," ([32]), "Kief , Kiev , or Kieu , is an ancient city upon the Dnieper" ([33]), "The name of this town has been very variously written , Kiew , Kiev , Kief , Kioff , Kiow , Kiowia , Kiovia , & c . Kiev or Kief gives the real prounciation, though written Kiew by the Russians." ([34]) --Soman (talk) 21:41, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do you realize in 1825 “the Russians” in a Ukrainian context referred to Ukrainians? This is why we use modern names, not dated, archaic, or obsolete ones. By the way, MOS:Identity says “When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by recent reliable sources. If it is unclear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses.” The people of Kyiv are Kyivans. —Michael Z. 23:22, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the version of Kyiv's spelling that I saw above are new to me (i.e., Kieu, Kiou), some I found to be typos (i.e., the 1819 The Cyclopaedia book cited above actually gives Kiof and not Kios) but I think I actually found a new spelling that hasn't been mentioned here before: Þiðreks saga written in 1300's mentions Kyiv as Kiu. Perhaps, those here who wish to use different spelling for Kyiv for different ages, should consider re-writing Wikipedia articles, so that the "historical period" of 1300s would use Kiu.--RogueRickC137 (talk) 05:19, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Kyiv/Kiev in other articles

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus for implementing the following when it comes to choosing whether to use Kyiv or Kiev in an article:
  • For unambiguously current / ongoing topics (e.g. Kyiv Metro), Kyiv is preferred
  • For unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive), do not change existing content
  • For any edge cases, or in case of doubt or dispute, an RfC or move request debate is recommended
  • In all cases, name changes must follow the WP:BRD cycle.

There is also support for the following as a rule of thumb about what his current and historical:

  • From October 1995 (Resolution of the Ukrainian Commission for Legal Terminology No. 5), Kyiv is presumptively appropriate subject to specifics of the article
  • From 24 August 1991 (Ukrainian independence), Kyiv is likely to be appropriate, but proceed with caution
The opposition to this proposal came from a belief that it does not handle complex/edge cases well and from a belief that it does not go far enough (namely that it should be Kyiv except when common name dictates otherwise). However, a consensus of felt that clear guidance was needed and that this proposal did so in an appropriate way. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:38, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Should the following be adopted as a content guide for naming of Kyiv in other articles? Guy (help! - typo?) 11:22, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Style guide: name of Kyiv

  • For unambiguously current / ongoing topics (e.g. Kyiv Metro), Kyiv is preferred
  • For unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive), do not change existing content
  • For any edge cases, or in case of doubt or dispute, an RfC or move request debate is recommended
  • For interpretation of "current":
    • From October 1995 (Resolution of the Ukrainian Commission for Legal Terminology No. 5), Kyiv is presumptively appropriate subject to specifics of the article
    • From 24 August 1991 (Ukrainian independence), Kyiv is likely to be appropriate, but proceed with caution
  • In all cases, name changes must follow the WP:BRD cycle.

Moving to formal RfC based on comments above. If adopted, this would also be added as a FAQ to this talk page. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:22, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions

  • Support as proposer. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:22, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support proposal is entirely consistent with what I would expect with any such name change.--Khajidha (talk) 11:42, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support following the above discussion--Ymblanter (talk) 12:16, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 12:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Kiev to Kyiv is a name change in English, whether the people who insisted we change it will admit it or not. No one disputes that the name in Ukrainian hasn't changed, but the usual practice in such situations is to use the historical form prior to the change unless there is some compelling reason not to. This is entirely consistent with Talk:Gdańsk/Vote. Additionally, numerous historical entities like Kievan Rus' show no sign of shifting from use of Kiev to Kyiv and should be left where they are.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:07, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    It is not the “usual practice.” Peking, for example, is not used in articles pre-1979. It’s used for less than a handful of specific articles in all the subcategories of Category:History of Beijing. —Michael Z. 13:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    You fail to address the Gdansk vote precedent. Peking is just an alternative transliteration of the same name in Chinese, not a difference in language like, e.g. Khanbaliq and Beijing. Anyway, I think discussion is supposed to happen in the section below?--Ermenrich (talk) 14:14, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The etymology is not directly relevant to our treatment, but you are wrong. Peking is from a romanization based on Cantonese, while Beijing is based on Mandarin. Close parallel to Russian– and Ukrainian-based Kiev and Kyiv, although the latter two are closer and effectively just spelling variants, with no generally accepted difference in pronunciation. In English, when we hear /ˌbeɪˈdʒɪŋ/ or /ˌpeɪˈkɪŋ/ then we know which spelling to transcribe each one with. When you hear /kiːɛv/, you can transcribe with either spelling, and normally preferring the current one. —Michael Z. 15:42, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That isn't correct, Wade-Giles was always intended for use with Mandarin, so the situation is not parallel. Additionally, I and other editors dispute that "Kyiv" is meant to transcribe a name pronounced "Kiev", which would render the name change simply idiotic, as if Cork (city) were now spelled Corcaigh but still pronounced Cork.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:57, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Peking is Chinese postal romanization, sorry not Cantonese, but “based on ‘Southern Mandarin,’ an idealized form of Nanjing dialect.” See also Names of Beijing#Peking.
    The name used in English isn’t “meant to transcribe” anything. As a name, it is used to refer to something. If you’re disputing that the spelling Kiev is associated with Russian, then maybe I should assemble some sources to refer you to, because I’m kind of tired of hearing arguments based on this false assertion. —Michael Z. 16:55, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    No one is disputing that "Kiev" is derived from Russian. It's just that "derived from" is not the same as "is". Unless you are using some sort of cladistic-style definition that would be the linguistic equivalent of the biological statement that "humans are bony fish". Roughly 200 years of usage of Kiev in English means that it IS English. --Khajidha (talk) 17:12, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Google ngram says "Kiev" was in use when it was under Polish rule, and no "Kyiv" was used during those times. By that time, Western contacts with Duchy of Moscow were much less intense than with Poland, and cultural weight of Kiev was greater than that of Moscow (that is why Nikon initiated his Orthodox reform in Russia). Taking into account that written language in Russia and Ukraine was Old Slavonic, Russian could not be an origin of English "Kiev" at all, because all Russian texts during that time were written in Old Slavonic. In Old Slavonic, Kiev's name is "Киевъ", which is close to English "Kiev" than to the modern Russian words, which is pronounced "Kieff".--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:03, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Siebert’s wp:original research is very bad and his conclusions wrong. Kiev only became the majority spelling in the twentieth century: Google Books ngram? all Russian texts during that time were written in Old Slavonic—at what time? Old East Slavic was written down by c. 1110, before a distinct Russian language, ethnic group, or state indisputably existed. —Michael Z. 00:57, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Now you put forward rational arguments, so I am gladly responding.
First of all, we are not talking about all versions of the Kiev's name, we are talking about "Russian" Kiev and "Ukrainian" Kyiv. In reality, "Ukrainian" Kyiv was not used at all, Kiew+Kiow+Kiou+Kiovia are Polonized versions, and Kieff+Kief are true Russian phonetic names. In contrast to that "Kiev" is close to Old Slavonic "Києвъ"(in Old Salvonic, as well as in modern Ukrainian, the letter "в" at the end of the word pronounced as "v", whereas in Russian it sounds as "f"). Meanwhile, in Old Slavonic, both "и" and "i" sound as the first letter in English "eve".
By the way, due to this discussion I was able to find and fix a blatant fake introduced to Wikipedia 13 years ago. Laurentian chronicle uses the word "Києвъ", not "Кꙑєвь", and, therefore, the English word "Kiev" is more close to the historical name of the city than the neologism Kyiv, which you are trying to introduce into English.
With regard to Old Slavonic, ... by the way, do you understand the difference between Old East Slavic and Old Slavonic? Actually, to participate in a serious discussion, one has to understand the difference. When we are speaking about that subject, we must keep in mind that both Russian and Ukrainian society were diglossic until XVIII century: the written language was almost exclusively Old Slavonic, although spoken language was evolving. In Russia, the situation changed only due to Pushkin (and in Ukraine, probably, thanks to Ivan Kotliarevsky). Before that time, all Russian (and Ukrainian) written documents were strongly influenced by Old Slavonic, which was considered a literature language, whereas emerging Russian and Ukrainian languages were considered "low and rural". Taking into account that English authors were dealing primarily with Russian written sources, only "Києвъ", which was preserved in that form in Old Slavonic, and Polonized versions (Kiew, etc) was available for them, so evil Russian colonizers were unable to impose their colonial name, for a very simple reason: they didn't use it in written documents.
And, by the way, you forgot to address my another argument: the same ngram search shows that "Kiev" was used long before "colonisation" of Ukraine by evil Russians colonizers, and "Kyiv" was not used at all. How do you explain that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:38, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I added the word colonizers to my abowe post in a response to this. Thanks to Michael, now my above post is more precise, and it better reflects what I was going to say.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:00, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Sensible proposal, in line with our common practice in similar situations. No such user (talk) 15:03, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per the "support votes" and discussions made above. Idealigic (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose  An wp:RFC should be neutral, and not advocating for a position. A better question would be “how should we decide which articles’ titles use Kyiv and Kiev?”, for example. In my opinion, Ukrainian subjects, including the history of Ukraine and Ukrainians, should use the Kyiv spelling, following subject-specific wp:reliable sources, and for wp:consistency with main articles Kyiv and History of Kyiv. Exceptions should be subject to RFC or RM. The wording of this RFC restricts responses, and discounts possible opinions other than its author’s. —Michael Z. 15:57, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, so now you want us to want to have us ask question whether something should be one or the other? I guess that whole 'its easier to seek forgiveness instead of permission' thing didn't work out so well... - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That was two weeks ago, Jack Sebastian, now I want you to stop harassing me. —Michael Z. 05:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is an English name change. We should treat it as such - just as we do in parallel cases in Eastern Europe, including Gdansk. If evidence arises in the future that historians have adopted Kyiv in historical contexts, then we can change at that time. I see no such evidence now. Kahastok talk 16:32, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as per nom and Kahastok and others. I aprticularly support the use of RfC if BRD or normal discussion breaks down (as in the case of mass edits by a given editor who never returns to the discussion). Utterly oppose Mzajac's/Michael's (or whatever nom de plume they are using this week) attempts to rewrite history by renaming all Kiev articles. That's not going to happen. Full stop. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:16, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Jack Sebastian, less snark please. Mzajac / Michael Z is pretty obviously a real name. My sig has my name but links to my username. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:12, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I think I got a little carried away at the user pretending that this whole Kieve thing was not big deal (after seeing how deeply invested they were in it). My apologies for the snark, @Mzajac:. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 02:37, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per many arguments above and what I explained here and another article's discussions.(KIENGIR (talk) 21:38, 12 October 2020 (UTC))[reply]
  • Support having proposed this myself earlier in the page, and given my reasons therein. Walrasiad (talk) 10:04, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Whichever way it goes Mzajac made an observation from Wikipedia Guidelines on naming conventions. particularly point 3 in the link. Articles that change to Kyiv, on first use in prose, should take the form of Kyiv (Kiev). Likewise I would think that it would be good practice in articles that don't change to use Kiev (Kyiv) on first use, unless Kiev is part of a formal name. It might help our readers and that should always be in the forefront. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:21, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It is a logical move. Mikola22 (talk) 19:25, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this as an addition to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places). RGloucester — ☎ 00:41, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Perhaps just a "moral oppose" at this point. I started out in favor of this approach, but the more I dig into it, the more I look at historical articles, the more I think it's totally unworkable. Look: Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) was Patriarch from 1942-1993. Was he "Patriarch of Kiev" or "Patriarch of Kyiv"? Let's say he was Patriarch of Kiev. So his successors Volodymyr (Romaniuk) and Dymytriy (Yarema) (there was a split), in 1993, were Patriarchs of Kyiv or Patriarchs of Kiev? How do we say Mstyslav was Patriarch of Kiev 1942-1993, followed by Dymytriy who was Patriarch of Kyiv 1993-2000? Is it called Patriarch of Kiev or Patriarch of Kyiv? ("Kyiv", according to an RM that just closed, by the way). The Patriarchy's church is St Volodymyr's Cathedral, built in the 19th century. Was it built in Kiev or Kyiv? Are we going to say that St Volodymyr's Cathedral was built in Kiev and is home to Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate? That makes no sense, it's super confusing.
    Then we get into: how do we list Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate at List of Metropolitans and Patriarchs of Kiev? Why is the "Patriarchy of Kyiv" listed in "Patriarchs of Kiev"? Epiphanius I of Ukraine is the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and holds the title "Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine" since 2018. Or is it Metropolitan of Kiev? So OK, we change it to "List of Metropolitans and Patriarchs of Kyiv"... and we haven't even gotten to the Metropolitan yet. But is he "Metropolitan of Kyiv" or "Metropolitan of Kiev"? Volodymyr Sabodan was Metropolitan from 1992 until 2014... of Kiev or Kyiv? If we say he was "Metropolitan of Kyiv", then are we going to say his predecessor was "Metropolitan of Kiev"? Are we going to say "Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine" but "Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus'"? It's the same city in both cases. Are we going to say the Metropolitan of Kyiv was established during the Christianization of the Kievan Rus'?
    This date-cutoff approach doesn't work for offices; it doesn't work for buildings; it doesn't work for people (Born in Kiev, died in Kyiv? Reminds me of that Russian joke about being born in St. Petersberg, grew up in Petrograd, lived in Leningrad, died in St. Petersberg, but never left the city). At the RM at Talk:Folkstsaytung (Kiev), I pointed out that Henry Abramson's book originally published by Harvard [35] uses "Kyiv" even when it's discussing stuff that happened 100+ years ago. It just consistently uses one spelling throughout the book, past and present. We should do the same. Atlas Obscura is not an academic publisher but they are owned partly by The New York Times and they have no problem talking about the "Battle of Kyiv" [36]. Memory Studies (journal) published a paper (admittedly by a PhD student, but published in a peer reviewed journal nonetheless) that uses "Battle of Kyiv" [37]. We should follow them. We should use the same spelling throughout the encyclopedia. Lev!vich 15:41, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Levivich, Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) does not meet the post-95, so falls into the historical and post-91, mostly historical. It's an obvious "case by case" under my proposed guidance. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:37, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    "Born in Kiev, died in Kyiv?" Yes. It happens all the time. You may find it funny, but it's hardly rare. "Born in Leningrad, died in St. Petersburg" is extremely common. Since our Ukrainian friends seem to like to play up colonialism quite a bit, welcome to the reality many former colonial subjects have to live with, "Born in Lourenco Marques, died in Maputo", "Born in Salisbury, died in Harare", etc. History is to be preserved, not erased. Walrasiad (talk) 23:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Please list a few well-written sources that use the alternative spellings Kiev and Kyiv this way. Are there none? MOS:CAPS#Place names discusses this general issue, speaking of “places that have not been parts of more than one culture or have had only one name. An article about Junípero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not in California because the latter entity did not exist at the time of Junípero Serra.” Kyiv one year apart is nothing like that. Every article should use one name or the other. —Michael Z. 00:46, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Adding to my !vote rationale that at this point, despite repeated calls, nobody has yet come up with an example of any RS using two spellings for the same city in the same work based on the time period discussed. I think we might be the first and only publication to do that for Kiev/Kyiv. Nobody writes "born in Kiev, died in Kyiv". Lev!vich 14:57, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Makes sense to avoid "Kyiv" for topics preceding 1995. Dimadick (talk) 17:38, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Michael Z. and Lev!vich. Kyiv is a fundamental world city in the same manner as the three metropolises — Beijing, Mumbai and Kolkata — which also underwent name transliteration revisions, at least as far as those transliterations are applicable to the English-speaking world (for example, the main title headers in French, Italian and Spanish Wikipedias are Kiev, Kiev and Kiev, Pékin, Pechino and Pekín, Bombay, Mumbai and Bombay and Calcutta, Calcutta and Calcuta, respectively). As far as city names are concerned in a historical context within English Wikipedia entries, Kyiv should be treated no differently than Beijing, Mumbai or Kolkata. Thus, there are historical uses, such as Bombay Castle or Black Hole of Calcutta, but there are also main headers using present-day names for historical entities — Battle of Beijing (1644), Tan Prefecture (Beijing), Guozijian (Beijing), Gobindapur, Kolkata or British Electric Traction Company (Mumbai). Granted that WP:OTHER STUFF EXISTS, but if the former English transliteration of Kyiv is to be retained in associated article headers, as discussed at Talk:Folkstsaytung (Kiev)#Requested move 28 September 2020, then analogous standards should apply to former transliterations of other entities. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:49, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Lev!vich: ultimately this would be a mess. There is much more continuity pre-1991/1995 Kyiv with the present in contrast with Gdánsk, whose German population was largely replaced by Poles. Therefore, I would be in favor of treating more like we do Beijing, Mumbai, or Kolkata. (t · c) buidhe 09:42, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Levivich and Buidhe, the articles should be consistent and not confused the readers. --Geohem (talk) 09:48, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Geohem, what confusion? Kiev redirects to Kyiv, and we explain the naming history right up front. There's no confusion. But talking about the "Kyiv Offensive" would be confusing since it happened before the adoption of modern Ukrainian, at a time when Ukraine was officially Russophone. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    No, the Ukrainian People’s Republic was officially Ukrainophone during the Kyiv Offensive, although it had published some of its founding documents in Ukrainian but also Polish, Russian, and Yiddish. And some of its currency. The Ukrainian SSR had no official language until 1990, but once established it operated primarily in Ukrainian until Stalin’s 1933 crackdown. This is academic, because we are not writing for the people of 1920, and sources on this subject matter are using Kyiv from now going forward. —Michael Z. 18:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding "Kiev Offensive", "Kievan Rus" - no question it is historical terms and should be renames only with separate discussion. But it seem to be a little bit stupid "painter who held exhibitions in "Kiev, Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv and St.Peterburg" in the 1980s through the 1990s" --Geohem (talk) 11:58, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, if there's a good reason to change pre-1991/5, you can always start a discussion in that article. My guess is that most cases will not be controversial. This is just a proposed guideline, not a rule.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:11, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    "painter who held exhibitions in "Kiev, Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv and St.Peterburg" in the 1980s through the 1990s" Well, yeah, if you purposefully write it in that stupid way it looks stupid. Especially when the Kyiv exhibition was posthumous, so that the painter can't be said to have held it. Why not write something like "exhibited his work in "Kiev, Moscow, Leningrad, and St.Peterburg" in the 1980s and 1990s. Posthumous exhibitions were later held in some of the same cities."--Khajidha (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Where this is a change in transliteration, not in the name itself like St. Petersburg or Constantinople, we shouldn't be so reluctant to apply it prior the 1990s. -- Calidum 13:22, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as proposed. One can argue on the logic of exact years, especially considering that Kiev remains the predominant common name in English ever after 1991/1995/2018, but as overall style guide this a good compromise and a path forward. I suggest that it be applied with common sense in article editing. It's not a huge problem that two different names appear in the same article, as long as the prose works well. If dealing with a subject that has both historical and contemporary components, you can use wordings like '[foo event] happened in Kiev (today also known as Kyiv in English) in 19xx' or likewise, and then just using 'the city' in rest of article unless necessary that the name be spelt out. --Soman (talk) 14:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as it is. Starzoner (talk) 14:52, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Mzajac, Levivich, Roman Spinner, buidhe, Geohem, and Calidum. Following RM change from Kiev to Kyiv, the name should change everywhere on Wikipedia, with the exception of idiomatic expressions such as "Chicken Kiev", which stay as they are because they are idiomatic expressions. It makes absolutely no sense to impose any restrictions on the use of Kyiv in any other context outside of idiomatic expressions (including "historical topics") in both titles and body of articles, because the name of the city has never changed since Kyiv's establishment in AD 482. The only thing that has ever changed in the last 15 centuries since city's foundation, is the spellings of its name in English Latin alphabet. In different centuries it was transliterated/romanized into English from Ukrainian/Russian/Polish/Lithuanian in many different ways, including (among others) Kief, Kiev, Kiyev, Kijova, Kiew, Kyyiv, Kyjiv, Kyїv, Kyiw, and finally Kyiv. Some editors here have expressed an incorrect statement that Kyiv is an English word - no, it is merely a transliteration/Romanization of the city's name into English Latin alphabet; English never had an actual English name for Kyiv (the only language that ever had its own unique name for Kyiv is Icelandic and its Kænugarður (which roughly translates as boats-fortress (Kæna - a kind of boat, garður - fortress, city)). The vast majority of Support votes (with the exception of Mikola22 and JzG, who voted for Kyiv during the RM, and their current Support vote for this arbitrary restrictions on the usage of Kyiv pre 1991/1995 seems illogical and counterproductive) seem to be strongly in the pro-Kiev camp and all their arguments seem to be basically against Kyiv in general, so they are essentially trying to re-litigate the RM by trying to create artificial "permissible boundaries" of where Kyiv can be used on Wikipedia.--RogueRickC137 (talk) 22:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Note to closer. This account has exactly 17 edits, joined today, and has posted exclusively on Ukrainian topics.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:02, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: There should be a consistent title across Wikipedia, with rare exceptions where it is effectively a direct quotation. Take for example the book, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (Penguin, 2018) by Serhii Plokhy, referenced above. The author consistently uses Kyiv throughout, with the cingle exception of a reference to the Chicken Kiev speech from George H. W. Bush. We should take a simple encyclopedic approach of a consistent spelling of the name in English. I'd contrast this with the changing and alternating usage by effect, as in for example, Philippe Sands's excellent East West Street, where he swerved jarringly between references to Lviv, Lvov, Lwów and Lemberg, sometimes within paragraphs or sentences of each other. An interesting editorial decision in a stylised historical work where the changing identity of the city was a key part of the narrative. But ordinarily, if we make a decision to adopt one spelling, it should presumptively be that in all contexts. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 19:41, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We can't invent and choose this date here, we should take it from sources. But this date does not exist there, because only the spelling was changed. I have not seen any authoritative source in which different names of Kyiv are used in different periods of history. Therefore, the wording of this RfC violates WP:ORIGINAL, WP:VERIFY and distorts the perception of history. I'm sure that we should write "Kyiv" in the entire historical line since Kyiv was founded, including places, events and persons. --AndriiDr (talk) 01:53, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as proposed, per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NAMECHANGES, which addresses situations like these. The arguments that it's just a spelling change are not compelling; this is a name change in the English language, while subjects like Kievan Rus', Olga of Kiev, Battle of Kiev (1941), etc. have their own established common English names in the preponderance of sources. --K.e.coffman (talk) 16:32, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as reflecting the general consensus and consistent with off-Wikipedia English-language usage. However room should be allowed for a lot of flexibility based on common sense, such as favouring consistency within the same article, especially biographical articles, or historical sections which can reflect a specific context. If a Ukrainian character in notable in a context where Kyiv is the majority usage, then this spelling should probably used consistently all along their biographical article, even if they were born before 1991. Also, from examples given above, if generic time-independent article List of Metropolitans and Patriarchs of Kyiv should use Kyiv, articles about past Metropolitans located in a context where Kiev is the better usage should probably use Kiev for the same title, e.g. 15th-century Isidore of Kiev. Also, section Russia § Kievan Rus' should of course follow the same convention as Kievan Rus' because that is the local context. Place Clichy (talk) 09:42, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The whole Kyiv/Kiev thing has been and continues to be a jumbled stew of opinions and back and forth. I'm not sure this proposal is ideal, but it is workable and reasonable. It will not appease the "Never-Kievers" nor those who want articles written with both spellings in the same paragraph depending on the year in question, but it has a compromised-built framework that is understandable and "I think" doable. A reminder that on first use in an article per Wikipedia it should be Kyiv (Kiev) and perhaps Kiev (Kyiv) for clarity to our readers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I feel this proposals focus on time periods is looking at the wrong aspect of titles. The more relevant consideration is whether Kiev/Kyiv is used as part of a descriptive title (eg. History of Kyiv), or within a proper name (eg. FC Dynamo Kyiv). Where it is used as part of a proper name, WP:TITLE considerations would apply to that name as a whole, rather than just the single word Kiev/Kyiv. I would say this applies to both the current and historical examples given in the opening request: Kiev Offensive (1920) and Kyiv Metro. In both cases, Kiev/Kyiv is not an independent word but part of a larger term. Prior to the recent move, such a distinction regarding proper names was already made, which is why FC Dynamo Kyiv was already at Kyiv. The proposed guidelines may be a useful way to meet WP:NDESC, but they should not overrule WP:TITLE characteristic considerations for individual articles that aren't using a descriptive title. CMD (talk) 17:16, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Given the Kyiv/Kiev thing has been an issue for sometime now a proposal is obviously needed. –Davey2010Talk 19:49, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - As per nom, but the others have clearly pointed out that, in the absence of guidelines, visiting editors and Khiev advocates were thinking they had a free hand to edit-willy-nilly. This proposal seeks to address that, and I am completely in agreement with it. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This RfC partially reiterates what our policy or guidelines say, and partially introduces new rules that contradict to commonly accepted rules. I've compared the proposed content rules with that, and in connection to that I have a question: do I understand it correctly that we are going to essentially reiterate commonly accepted guidelines for Kiev specifically? What is the difference between Guy's proposal and what WP:MPN says? If there is no difference, why do we need this RfC? If there IS some difference, what is the reason to introduce specific rules for Kiev?
In my opinion, guidelines are quite clear:
"In some cases it is not the local name but the spelling of the name in English that has changed over time. For example, Nanjing, as the contemporary pinyin spelling, is used for the name of the article rather than Nanking. However, the article on the Treaty of Nanking spells the city as was customary in 1842, because modern English scholarship still does."
Clearly, Kiev -> Kyiv is the change of spelling, because the city's name never changed. In connection to that, similar to the cited example, the decision should be made based on how the majority of sources spell that name in each concrete context. If majority of sources say "Battle of Kiev", the word "Kiev" should be used in the Battle of Kiev article, if majority of sources say "Kyiv metro", then "Kyiv" should be used. Any specific threshold looks like original research, and that is something that cannot be decided by consensus or vote, because our content policy cannot be overruled by a local consensus. At least, a bunch of mainstream reliable sources should be provided that clearly say: "since 1991, an English name of Ukrainian capital is "Kyiv"" (per WP:WIAN).
In addition, our policy does not require that all related articles use the same name in their titles. This talk page relates to this concrete article, and I am not sure we can develop some common rules for other articles. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

There is an ugly truth about Wikipedia that isn't always admitted--it's inconsistent in certain respects. "Kiev to Kyiv is just like X." "No, it's not just like X, it's just like Y." Each side claims divine imprimatur because there are Wikipedia precedents. The truth is that both editors are right because the process of WP:CONSENSUS drives that inconsistency. One group of editors at X chose to follow one path and another group of editors at Y chose to follow a different path. And there is often a third group of editors at Z who were in a similar situation and chose a third path that no one mentions. That's just the way it is. Just like you can prove anything from the Bible, you can prove anything by reference to Wikipedia articles. That's just my two cents. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:10, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. But by examining precedent, we can ensure that we don’t make decisions that are wildly and illogically inconsistent with others. That precedent can be used to help us identify our own prejudices (wp:bias) that might make a certain decision feel right. —Michael Z. 15:51, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah but the problem with that parallel is that it fails to address the situation where a significant number of contributors show up and start editing all Jesus-based articles to denote that he had two wives and children, based on a few interpretations of Scripture. Enough of these people get together and edit ALL of the Christianity articles to reflect this, and they have a pre-determined consensus (backing up each other's edits in discussion and via reverts. etc.) and suddenly the very process we utilize to create neutral articles has been hijacked by folk with an agenda. And frankly, people coming here with a nationalistic agenda don't belong here. At all. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:22, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Which people are those, specifically, Jack Sebastian? Please don’t start accusing undefined groups of unknown or anticipated malign acts against Wikipedia. If you have a specific accusation, then address the Wikipedia on their talk page or take the issue to WP:ANI. If you want to say Ukrainians are nationalists and should be banned, then name them. But innuendo or conspiracy theory is unhelpful. —Michael Z. 20:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I was clear as to what group I was referring to, Mzahac/Michael. You've been advocating this change since your very second edit in Wikipedia. You have a horse in this race, and its exceptionally disingenuous to pretend you don't know the name of the horse. I would prefer to not play semantic games with you, since nothing I say is going to convince you of the wrongness of your actions here. I am writing to express my view to others who have a more open mind on the subject. Good day. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jack Sebastian Your comment is unfair. I learned about COMMONNAME shortly after, in 2004, that and haven’t proposed an RM of Kyiv since. I advocated for the right decision since, and I complained about abuse by other editors, and I don’t need to apologize to you or anyone for it. If you’ve checked my comments of sixteen years ago you’d know I’ve used the same sig since, so it is disingenuous to cast petty shade about “whatever nom de plume they are using this week” in comments elsewhere without pinging me. And your accusations are inappropriate. This is a personal attack. —Michael Z. 23:54, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification needed: this is about article titles, and not word usage in the body text, right?

Clarification needed: Kyiv Metro, an article about an entity with a 60-year history is “unambiguously current/ongoing,” right? What about the following: History of Kyiv, Timeline of Kyiv, and their parent Category:History of Kiev, and see the titles of articles in that category?

So, 2008 Kyiv local election is current, but once they’re added 1994 Kyiv local election will be current but 1990 Kiev local election “historical”? This would defy wp:consistent and wp:titlecon. How about the category names in Category:Decades in Kiev and Category:Centuries in Kiev?

Why is 1990 “historical”? Many of us lived through this time. Articles about living people include ones that took part in this history. If nothing else, then living inhabitants of Kyiv should be referred to as Kyivans, per MOS:IDENTITY: “When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by recent reliable sources. If it is unclear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses.” —Michael Z. 15:47, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mzajac, the RfC is neutrally stated because it proposes adopting a guideline. We don't say "what should a guideline on naming look like", we propose a guideline and it is then either accepted or rejected. In this case the details are the result of discussion above.
The reasons for defining historical and ongoing are stated, and edge cases like the categories are covered by WP:BRD and "edge cases, or in case of doubt or dispute". If you would like to propose an alternate guide, you are absolutely free to do so. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:36, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Guy, are you saying that the example of History of Kyiv is not unambiguously historical? —Michael Z. 15:58, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources? - This has been asked before and I haven't seen an answer yet: are there any examples of a book, article, or other reliable source that refers to the city as both "Kiev" and "Kyiv" in the same work based on the time period being discussed? Does any reliable source do this? Would Wikipedia be the first and only to ever do this? Lev!vich 14:29, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I found one source that self-consciously uses the two spellings. The author uses Kyiv throughout the main text, and Kiev on only two pages, in reference to medieval Ukraine (note this, opponents of Kyivan Rus), and in the name of a military institution that spanned the history of five states.

    [p 2, “Author’s Note”] Ukrainian words, names and places are transliterated Ukrainian-style, while Russian ones are rendered in their form. Thus, although Russian-speaking insurgents would refer to e.g. Donbass, Lugansk and Slavyansk, these are rendered as Donbas, Luhansk and Slovyansk. References to Kiev rather than Kyiv relate to the period before 1991, when the Russian form of the Ukrainian capital was most widely used.
    [p 4] The very name Ukraine springs from the word for “border,” yet it can rightly call itself the heart and wellspring of the Rus people. Its capital, Kiev, was politically and culturally dominant amongst their city-states before it was sacked by the invading Mongols in 1240. During the years of Mongol domination, the small town of Moscow and the ruthlessly opportunistic Rurikid dynasty that controlled it rose to assume Kiev’s place.
    [pp 41–42] At the end of 1991, when the USSR was dismantled, Kyiv assumed control of these legacy forces on its territory: the Carpathian, Kiev, and Odessa Military Districts, four Air Armies, the 8th Air Defense Army, five armies, and an army corps.

    — Mark Galeotti (2019), Armies of Russia’s War in Ukraine, Oxford: Osprey.
    Obviously, anyone that holds that Kiev is the majority usage in historical sources would see this one and only instance as a counterexample of their argument (I cite numerous reliable sources using Kyiv in histories about Ukraine’s pre-1991 history). But I think these majority-usage claimants should 1. present evidence that this claim is true in current sources, and 2. accept other criteria in the spirit of the move of the main article, that found: the debate above provides evidence for two common names, and thus (per COMMONNAME) we should consider criteria other than frequency to figure out which name is better.
    Anyway, if we accept this as a reliable source, maybe one lesson is that in practice we can have some tolerance for different usage in appropriate contexts. To be clear, this is my appeal for compromise, not an invitation to take this as support for an inflexible position. Not necessarily for using mixed spellings in every article, but recognizing that as spellings Kyiv, Kyivans, and Kyivan Rus and other Ukrainian spellings are certainly appropriate in Ukrainian contexts, like History of Kyiv, they also belong in a Ukrainian historical context in other articles. —Michael Z. 14:35, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The other case of mixed spelling in a work is, of course, per article in academic peer-reviewed journals, edited books, conference proceedings, &c., where authors generally follow their own style choices, and one sees the Ukrainian spelling used in Ukrainian subjects, regardless of historical period covered. Take notepad this too, proponents of “common use” in some restricted context. For example:
 —Michael Z. 23:57, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Continued changes by MichaelZ

Mzajac has continued to move instances of Kiev to Kyiv from before 1991 despite being aware of the immense controversy and this RfC: [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], among many, many others. It becomes difficult to assume good faith when he has repeatedly been asked to stop until a consensus is reached. This appears to be an attempt to present us with a fait accompli.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:13, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Kost Novytsky, living person, in Category:21st-century Ukrainian musicians. one of the more influential bandurists in Kyiv today. . . . Currently he teaches bandura at the Kyiv Conservatory
  2. Hryhory Nazarenko, died 1997. In the United States he continued for a brief time to be a member of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. Nazarenko died in Detroit in 1997. Nazarenko had written works published posthumously in 1998 and 2013. A creative career doesn’t just stop like digging ditches.
  3. Victor Mishalow, living person, in Category:21st-century Ukrainian musicians. In 2013 he became an Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. . . . Victor Mishalow was awarded the title of Merited Artist of Ukraine by Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma in October, 1999. In August 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit 3rd class, by Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko and the Medal of "Cossack Glory" from the Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks for his services to Ukrainian musical culture. Mishalow’s works listed in the article date up to 2014.
  4. Honcharenko brothers, died 2000 and 2005. From 1949 to 1989 he oversaw 34 concert tours on three continents and arranged 550 concerts. . . . In 1992 Ukraine's Ministry of Culture recognized Petro Honcharenko for furthering the refinement of the bandura instrument, and the propagation of "the art of the kobzari" by naming him Merited Artist of Ukraine. With this decree, the government of Ukraine underscored Petro Honcharenko's lifetime achievements as important and significant in the annals of bandura development and artistry.
  5. Nina Matviyenko. Living person, in Category:21st-century Ukrainian musicians, published recordings in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2002, and 2004.
Please get a more productive hobby, Ermenrich. You got real issues with me, talk to me on my talk page.
This just goes to show what a bad idea some 1995 or 1991 cutoff is, when half of us editing this page were adults at the time. These people are not “historical.” Some of us could personally know them. It’s also in the middle of one of the most important periods of change in Ukrainian history, during Hlasnist and Perebudova, declarations of sovereignty, independence, and the dissolution of the USSR. Mixing up spellings in the middle of this will be a mess.
Let’s work on these articles instead of stalking each other to find things to complain about. Just use the modern name in this modern encyclopedia. —Michael Z. 20:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mzajac, perhaps you should get a more productive hobby than blatantly disregarding consensus and being snarky about it. I don't dispute that they have done something post 95, however, you also changed: (December 26, 1950 in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, In 1935 he was enlisted into the newly formed combined Kiev Bandurist Capella, In 1979 he received a scholarship to attend the Kiev Conservatory, Peter was born in the village of Olshanytsia near Kiev, in the Russian Empire and She completed her studies in Ukrainian philology at the Kiev University in 1975.. That's just to take a random example from each of the articles I cite here, which are only a fraction of the ones you've changed in pre-1995/91 sections. These all obviously predate the 1995 proposed cut-off, and you are fully aware of it. Telling me about some other things these people did afterward does not change that. At least stop making these changes until consensus is reached, as many people, not just me, have asked you. This is the third or fourth time this has been brought up to you, and it really does feel like you are abusing the process. This comment Just use the modern name in this modern encyclopedia for instance seems to go to show you really are just going to keep on doing what you're doing, damned whatever anybody else thinks. Just cool it with the changes. It's not that hard.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
75,000 words of discussion about a proposal, and you guys haven’t even figured out that half of you want to apply it to whole articles, while the other half thinks everybody’s talking about “historical context” on a sentence-by-sentence basis. Maybe write a concrete proposal with some real examples, or you’ll still be discussing this in 2025 and still not realize the only “consensus” you have is that you’re not willing to accept Wikipedia’s actual consensus to adopt the modern spelling. —Michael Z. 21:30, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear: I have not moved any of those. —Michael Z. 03:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ermenrich, Guy’s proposal is clearly about entire articles as context. His example of Kyiv Metro makes this clear, as that article discusses 1884 and 1916 to the present, but only spells Kiev in direct quotations. Only one or two editors wants to use mixed spellings in an article, apparently without being aware that no one else wants that. I see no evidence of consensus for this notion or that you have even tried to plainly discuss it. Someone should expand Guy’s proposal by phrasing it as a clear guideline, by mentioning more than just two examples, and actually determining how it would be applied there. Until then, it is just a lot of talk, and will continue to cause disagreements even if adopted. —Michael Z. 17:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Don't entirely disagree with you on there probably will be more arguments, but I think just as a show of good faith it would be nice if you held off on a few things - for now. If consensus is to change every or most instances of Kiev to Kyiv, then I certainly won't complain again. I changed the heading, as, as you point out, you haven't actually moved anything.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:56, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

First use of Kiev accompanied by explanatory (Kyiv)

According to wp:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Place names:

In general, other articles should refer to places by the names which are used in the articles on those places, according to the rules described at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). If a different name is appropriate in a given historical or other context, then that may be used instead, although it is normal to follow the first occurrence of such a name with the standard modern name in parentheses.

I think this should be uncontroversial (but I suppose I’ll soon learn of my foolishness). When an article uses the spelling Kiev in its text, the first occurrence should have the modern name for clarity, like “Kiev (Kyiv).” This formula should be repeated in a new section that is widely separated or likely to be referred to independently from the first occurrence. This should be implemented in articles whether their title includes the name Kiev or not. —Michael Z. 20:39, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a good idea on first use. Not sure about subsequent use though. Once is usually enough unless the article is unusually large. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:42, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PLACE#General guidelines describes this, in point no. 3. I mention it because I have occasionally been frustrated when I refer to an article section to be baffled by an unfamiliar abbreviation or technical term, and finally hunt down its meaning way up in a barely related context in a very long article.
I don’t expect readers will be too confused by either spelling of Kyiv or the other, but I expect many will wonder what is the significance of or reason for intentionally using two different ones—there is virtually none, as they are exact synonyms. So I am concerned that the stated reason of using Kiev in some articles to prevent confusion is self-defeating. Certainly to use different spellings in different sections of one article, as a few editors have suggested, would be bad. —Michael Z. 03:03, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Mzajac: Number 3 does not cover this. This is backwards from #3. It says if a "widely accepted historical English name" is different than the article name, it should be in parenthesis on first use. The historical (and widely accepted) name is already Kiev. Point three tells us that when we use Kyiv in a Kyiv article, on first use it should be Kyiv (Kiev). I have no problem extrapolating that to say Kiev (Kyiv) in such articles with Kiev in their titles, but that's not what it says in point 3 of general guidelines. All the articles that have recently been changed to Kyiv should always say Kyiv (Kiev) on first use in the article. Did you do that, since you changed 100s of them? Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:26, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a hard issue. By the rules and the practise, at first occurence we mention both (order depending by context), and only after one version fitting the article. Or by all instance in brackets. These are generally applied most of the articles, lamentating more on this is useless and boring, I hope there won't be a new thread and lenghty debates of the number regarding occurences. However, in this online chatlist what this page have become, everything is possible :-) (KIENGIR (talk) 03:11, 1 October 2020 (UTC))[reply]
"I don’t expect readers will be too confused by either spelling of Kyiv or the other"? Mzajac, you've been advocating Kyiv since 2008; I would be somewhat surprised if you were to have any other stance. To you, this is obvious and clear, and has been for over 12 years. You need to step back from this and visualize it as someone who hasn't been soaking in Ukrainian -related articles for that long. You have to understand why others might not see you as a neutral advocate in this matter; its what you have been seeking for a very, very long time. The very fact that you - not liking the way the above RfC was going (wherein you were the only real dissenter) - began your own RfC that reframed the question to your benefit is a pretty clear indication that are not neutral in this matter, and the fact that you are also an admin might make it worrisome for those who might disagree with your viewpoint. I myself admit to a bit of trepidation. Please pull back; you are too deeply invested in this. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you like writing about me so much, why don’t you start an article on me? —Michael Z. 12:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Getting snarky (when someone else has defended you from that very same level of incivility) isn't going to serve you well; you might want to try another path. I would suggest the one where you read what I wrote and consider pulling back and cooling off. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 11:07, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, makes sense. Lev!vich 15:46, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification on historical usage

From some recent interactions with @Mzajac:, there seems to be some confusion as to the meaning of 'historical'. There's some historical articles (entirely historical), which are unambiguous, but there's also articles which use the term historically. In my understanding of the RfC above, the coverage is for historical use of the term. The particular case arose in reference to a Soviet-era painter who held exhibitions in "Kiev, Moscow, and Leningrad" in the 1950s through the 1980s. But because the artist died in 1994, it was felt it was not a historical article and thus justified to rewrite it and claim he had held exhibitions in "Kyiv, Moscow and St. Petersburg" (even though he didn't hold exhibitions in the 1990s). In his reading, it is not a historical article and so can be changed. In my reading, it is still historical use of the terms since it refers exclusively to Soviet-era exhibitions (so should be Kiev & Leningrad). Since this seems straightforward to me, but apparently confusing to some others, maybe it needs to be clarified and placed in the guidelines. Walrasiad (talk) 03:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I share the same understanding - that historical means in respect to the person/event which mentioned, not in respect in which article the term is used. HoweverI am consistently confronted with a different understanding, for example this edit a day before yesterday and the subsequent exchange was so stressful for me that I have decided to significantly reduce my meta-activity. This issue has to be written down clearly, and IDHT behavior related to the issue must be stopped by blocks and topic bans.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:38, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Walrasiad, let's apply the proposed guidance.
  • unambiguously current / ongoing topics: No
  • unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive): probably yes, and definitely not no, so:
  • edge cases, or in case of doubt or dispute, an RfC or move request debate is recommended
Edge case, WP:BRD, RfC if disputed. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:42, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Articles about living people are clearly not in the category of “historical articles.” Articles about people who died pre-1991, apparently, are historical according to some. Do we know one hundred percent that Fyodor Zakharov did not have a retrospective exhibition or receive an award of merit in 1991-1995, and therefore was “historically” like a dead person? Do we update usage of Kyiv after arguing whether some local exhibition was historically significant for a week (and are we really that morbidly attached to our historical spelling)?

Just use the clear and simple measure of date of death to determine what meets the arbitrary cutoff. Please don’t create a category of “historical zombies of Kiev (Kyiv).” —Michael Z. 13:33, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously historical refers to when something happened, not when the person died. Before 1995 Kiev, after 1995 Kyiv. This is not a difficult concept, and your battle against it is clearly influenced by your prejudice against the form Kiev.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:54, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, can we discuss the question and can the personal criticism? Thanks. Okay. Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedia articles about Fyodor Zakharov tell us that this happened: memorial exhibitions of his work were held in 2003 and 2004, in 2005 in Kyiv, and in 2016. If I add these facts to the English article, does it become “current” and not “historical” per the proposal you supported above? Do we then change the spelling usage in the article, or just in the sentences about these facts? (His death also definitely happened, so I don’t under stand your objection, but whatever.) Simple but necessary details like these are not addressed by this proposal and its supporters. Sincerely hoping for input on what this is “obviously” before I get labelled as making bad-faith edits. —Michael Z. 22:31, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You can certainly say there were memorial exhibitions in Kyiv and St. Petersburg in the 2000s. But that doesn't affect the fact that the original exhibitions were still in Kiev and Leningrad. Don't change historical uses of the term in their context. Is this really that difficult to understand? Walrasiad (talk) 00:08, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You actually mean we should talk about, for example, “So-and-So held a 1990 exhibition in Kiev and a 1992 exhibition in Kyiv,” in the same article? No. That is bad English style. All it can do is confuse and distract readers. These are not different historical contexts. No reliable source does that, except, sometimes, in literal quotations. WP:MOS says “Spell a name consistently in the title and the text of an article.” —Michael Z. 00:34, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Bad English style? Nonsense. There are ways to word it less clumsily, but it is perfectly workable. Despite your bandying the word "colonialism" around, I take it you don't have much experience with articles about colonies or former colonies? We have to handle this all the time. And this particular example is very easy, since he was a Soviet era painter, exhibiting in Soviet cities, for all his career as a painter, so, if anything, the preponderance would favor use of Kiev everywhere. Allowing the use of Kyiv in an appendix note about some modern posthumous memorial is a harmless concession. Walrasiad (talk) 08:46, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t think we should have to rewrite articles and add “appendix notes” (where’s that in the MOS?) to accommodate your inconsistent spelling recommendation. But please, show us examples of some reliable sources that do this with Kiev and Kyiv, so we can get the idea. —Michael Z. 13:38, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mm. Maybe something got lost in translation. I am using "appendix" in its general sense. A posthumous exhibition is a retroactive addendum to someone's life, and would not belong to its main body describing his life and career. Alas, I don't have reliable sources at hand that use "Kyiv" at all, so I can't really help you there. But there are plenty of other examples, e.g. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Amsterdam, has a posthumous memorial in New York. Vasco da Gama lived and died in Cochin, and his tomb can still be visited in a church in Kochi, etc.
Things are pretty easy for this Zakharov fellow, since his entire career was spent in the Soviet era. More tricky will be the ones who have significant careers in overlapping eras. But again we do this all the time, e.g. Ian Smith had a prominent political career in a place that went through multiple name changes - Southern Rhodesia, Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. We use all three terms in his biographical article, each at different phases of his career. You are raising phantom problems which are not problems at all. Walrasiad (talk) 15:19, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So in a list of all his exhibitions, including both during life and retrospectives, you would spell K**v two different ways? Or does your preference for two spellings require the list to be split between two article sections? I’m still calling this either bad English style, or worse, your idiosyncratic spelling choice forcing the restructuring of an article. —Michael Z. 16:31, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I can search a few of the references listed in Vasco da Gama. None uses Cochin/Kochi that way. This one, for example, uses Cochin throughout, and has an index entry for Cochin (Kochi). Are there examples that support your suggestion? —Michael Z. 17:44, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yay, Subrahmanyam! Love this guy. Yes, he is using "Cochin" in its historical sense. Should he write about Cochin today, he would use "Kochi". But he is a historian, so he doesn't need to write about modern Kochi. But I do. I write a lot about the history of Cochin and like to link it up to the modern city. And in my articles I use both - Cochin historically, and Kochi if referring to the modern city and/or specific landmarks inside it. So I will write things like "traces of the old Portuguese Fort Manuel of Cochin can still be found in the Fort Kochi neighborhood of the modern city". It's a simple accommodation. It doesn't satisfy Indian nationalists fully, and they make exactly the same arguments you do, but it is a compromise that works well enough. You just have to take a little care when you write.
I've already recommended you look at any colonial/ex-colonial articles here as examples, but you still seem confused. If you still don't understand how it works, maybe you should refrain from editing articles for now, see how others do it first, and maybe you'll get the gist. Walrasiad (talk) 22:37, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be senseless, when in same article we should to write that in one year smbd lived in Kiev, but next year he started to do smth in Kyiv. The article should be clear and consistent.--Geohem (talk) 14:42, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1. It makes no sense to say in 1994 Levivich lived in Kiev but in 1995 Levivich lived in Kyiv. We should spell the name of the city the same way every time we refer to it, regardless of the date. Lev!vich 14:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome to vote in the RFC then Levivich, but clearly many users disagree.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Sure. You take an article where there are no references to Kiev/Kyiv later than the 17th century, add a completely unnecessary reference to Kyiv in 2014, and then argue that the consistency requires that the 17th century references also become Kyiv. A very nice way to push the preferred spelling into the articles, isn't it? And who cares that the sources by far refer to the 17th century city as Kiev.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You are also pushing your preferred spelling into articles, as am I. We are no different than each other or the people we disagree with about this issue; I wish you would accept this truth. Lev!vich 15:44, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is incorrect. I do not have a preferred spelling and I am not pushing anything. You can easily find my recent edits introducing Kyiv or replacing Kiev with Kyiv where appropriate. I am not a native English speaker and prefer not to teach the native speakers how they should speak. I have not voted on the Kiev/Kyiv RfC. I am just dead tired from this fucking disruption and IDHT behavior which does not stop because a handful of people are just not interested in listening to the consensus, even after they have been told dozens of times what the consensus currently is.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:50, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You say you don't have a preferred spelling yet you complain almost daily about people changing it to "Kyiv", who you describe as disruptive and so forth. That you think consensus is established (and that it's "Kiev") also shows that "Kiev" is your preferred spelling. Maybe it's not your intention, but you have consistently come across to me as "pro-Kiev", even though you don't !vote. Frankly, I'd rather you just !voted instead of accusing editors of misconduct. Or just take it to ANI. Because while you're tired of disruption, I'm tired of reading your complaints about it day after day, as well as the complaints of others. Between you and a few others, these complaints have shown up in every discussion I've read, on every page, in every RM, in multiple AN and ANI threads, and so on and so on. I'm also very tired of it.
Let's figure out a way forward so that we're both less tired. My suggestion is: if you think I'm doing something wrong, tell me and I'll stop; if you think someone else is doing something wrong, tell them and if they don't stop, take them to a noticeboard; otherwise, don't mention it on article talk pages. (That goes for everyone.) Lev!vich 16:07, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I have to as well express you are incorrect with @Ymblanter:, he is not pushing anything, but acts sanely as many other editors (and just because he very politely wish to less involve and use his admin privilieges and necessarily avoid open cutting edge reports as well, but express his concerns of the talk is not to be critized in such case, and the phenomenon he draws the attention I also notice and see on several pages, highly concerning...). Back on the subject (far) above @Ermenrich:, yes such issues may be dealt easily - again per other article's practise - even if any article's timeline is running the present, no problem, because those parts/sections which has historical affiliations, are treated as discussed in the above section. E.g. In Transylvania related articles, Hungarian, German and Romanian names and others well co-exist in attributed relevance in some periods, so we don't need to reinvent the wheel.(KIENGIR (talk) 16:26, 2 October 2020 (UTC))[reply]
(ec) I have actually taken it to ANI (and this is why we have this discussion at all), a few times, I have taken it once or twice to the arbitration enforcement, and since the community as a whole does not care I do not want to take every single case to ANI. My feeling is that I have already wasted too much time of the community. In this particular case, for historical reasons, there is a group of people who pushed for Kyiv, and there is no users who are consistently pushing to Kyiv (at least have never seen anybody who after the closure of the RfC was replacing Kyiv with Kiev in a modern context). I see daily edits on my watchlist, even though I removed from there almost all Ukraine-related articles. But, indeed, I should just stop. I realized already a long time ago that Wikipedia is not perfect, will never be perfect, and there will always be topic areas where I absolutely should not trust it. I am not going to spend months trying to topic-ban Mzajac or get them desysopped. I do not think it will be a productive use of my time, and I do not think this would be good for my health. My conclusion is just that Wikipedia is too vulnerable against POV pushing of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. If the community thinks their activity is useful or at least not disruptive, let it be so. I am not going to spend my time on it anymore.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:30, 2 October 2020 (UTC) Striken off on request by Mzajac,--Ymblanter (talk) 21:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, whatever you decide to do, I hope it lowers your frustration level. Maybe this joke will help: A woman attends a football match. In the first half, the referee penalizes one of the home team's players, and the woman is on her feet, yelling at the referee: "What's the matter with you, ref? Are you blind?! You moron!" Later, the home team scores, and the crowd cheers, but the woman stays in her seat, totally silent. In the second half, the referee penalizes one of the visiting team's players. Again, the woman is on her feet, shouting loudly, "You stupid moron! That's not a foul! Do you even know the rules of the game?!" Later, the visiting team scores, but the woman stays in her seat, totally silent. Perplexed, a man sitting next to her asks, "I don't understand, which team are you here to support?" "Oh, I'm not permitted to support either team," the woman replies, "my husband is the referee." Lev!vich 17:41, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The name "Kiev" is used 3 times more frequently than "Kyiv"

We already did this. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:57, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Why someone changed the name of the city from "Kiev" to "Kyiv"? If you check Google, you will see the following:

Kiev: 130000000 results on Google

Kyiv: 45100000 results on Google

So, in 75% of cases people use the word "Kiev" and only in 25% the word "Kyiv". You should revert this change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:20:1015:5C20:8DB6:1BA5:C4D3:9C91 (talk) 12:25, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your question. It is a good one.
In short: both Kiev and Kyiv are common names in use, but Kyiv satisfies more of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, including WP:MODERNPLACENAME and WP:NAMECHANGES. This conclusion was supported by a rough consensus of two to one by participants in a very long debate on the article's discussion page, and the title was changed on 16 September 2020. You can read the full rationale and discussion in the talk archive: talk:Kyiv/Archive 6#Requested move 28 August 2020.
The decision followed a huge debate with a lot of participants on both sides. The rationale for the decision was solid, and there has been no viable challenge. To avoid disruption requests to rename this article again are under a moratorium for a year after the recent move. I’m afraid this is set in stone for the next while.
As many commented during the debates, Wikipedia is a follower, and not a trend-setter. If you have a look at the kind of reliable sources that Wikipedia’s information is based on, you’ll find that many or most current news sources, academic publishers, and other media already use the spelling Kyiv. This was a fair and correct move, at this time.
I’ve added part of this answer to the FAQ banner at the top of this page. —Michael Z. 20:14, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the Google search results counts at the top of the page are inaccurate, sometimes wildly. To get the real numbers, do a smaller search and go to the last page of results. The number at the top of that page, only, is correct. More info at WP:GOOGLE
Right now, Google Web searches for "Kiev" -Wikipedia and "Kyiv" -Wikipedia limited to the past 24 hours return 219 and 120 results, respectively (not 276,000 and 75,000 as estimated on the first page), or a ratio of just over 1.8 to 1. Google News searches for Kiev and Kyiv give me 36 and 65 results, or 1 to 1.8. —Michael Z. 20:32, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(Where are all the highly motivated enforcers of moratoriums now?) —Michael Z. 12:50, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mzajac, it would probably be helpful to develop an FAQ subpage (maybe it has and I've missed it) so that we can point to that answer when the Kiev/Kyiv question is raised again in the future (and for this IP now). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:19, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. I didn’t know that was a thing. I will also suggest that we clean up or close off the separate naming-discussion ghetto. Thanks. —Michael Z. 19:52, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It would only make sense to then rename Cologne into Köln, according to that rule then. --Spafky (talk) 19:57, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Related category renaming

Hi, all. Category:Kyiv has now been renamed, including all of its branches except the contents of Category:History of Kyiv and a few strays.

I have nominated for full discussion at CFD:

Please chime in there. —Michael Z. 19:55, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also nominated:

 —Michael Z. 20:43, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Finding more month-old nominations still opposed. —Michael Z. 22:39, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moved contested speedies to full nomination. —Michael Z. 01:47, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"and it is gaining in frequency in English-language sources"

This is an original research. I propose either to change it to a direct reference to EB and Oxford (without generalisations), or to remove altogether, or to add a source that directly makes that general statement.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The existing OED reference is terse, but it clearly refers to a gain in frequency. Its entry for Kiev (as a modifier noun, e.g., as used in chicken Kiev), updated December 2019, states “Origin: From a proper name. Etymon: proper name Kiev. Etymology. < Kiev (now also Kyiv; Ukrainian Kyjiv), the name of the capital city of Ukraine,” a gain in frequency to “now also,” from previously not. —Michael Z. 17:50, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the situation is even worse. I didn't participate in the last RfC, but I assume some convincing arguments and reliable sources were proposed during that discussion, and it was firmly established that Kyiv has already gained popularity in English literature, and its popularity is stable. I assume that that was persuasively demonstrated, because, per WP:NCGN, when a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it, which means renaming may take place only if it has been demonstrated that the new name is the most popular English name.
The claim that Kyiv is just gaining popularity implies that either that statement or the RfC were wrong. Wikipedia does not predict the future, and renaming could not have occurred just in a response to some emerging trend. Therefore, the text cited by me should be either replaced with "and it has become the most common in English-language sources" (and supplemented with a bunch of sources that clearly say so), or removed altogether, because it violates our guidelines and policy. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:06, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If by RFC you mean the requested move and decision, I suggest you at least read the full decision if you have not yet done so: talk:Kyiv/Archive 7 § Requested move 28 August 2020. —Michael Z. 00:46, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In this section, I am discussing not the renaming, but the article's text. Concretely, the statement "Kyiv is gaining in frequency in English-language sources" which is quite relevant to the article named "Kiev", but it looks ridiculously in the "Kyiv" article. I am going to remove it, because it casts a doubt on validity of the article's renaming.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:37, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That’s doesn’t seem to be a good reason to remove factual information. But I agree that the two or three sentences of the #Name section are woefully inadequate, and I would support restoring the entire section that was deleted and improving that. —Michael Z. 02:13, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I placed the "citation needed" template to the weasel word "historically". This word is ambiguous, because it may imply that (i) "Kiev" is in use for many centuries (and is still the most common), and (ii) that the word was common, and is obsolete now. If (i) is true, this word is redundant, if (ii) is true, some mainstream and respectable source(s) must be provided to confirm that clearly and unequivocally. The sources mush meet NPOV and NOR criteria. If no sources will be provided in one month, I am going to remove the word "historically".--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:54, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That is an exceptionally ridiculous demand for cn. It's POV to the extreme. ii is false because "Kiev" is still extremely common (probably still more common). i is true. Please don't clutter our articles with needless and WP:POINTy demands for citations. You might as well demand citations for "the earth is not flat". --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 01:15, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This seems a little bit too aggressive. As I already explained, the word "historically" is ambiguous and it seems redundant. Can you please provide arguments in support of this word (taking into account that the source does not say "Kiev" is a historical name, it just says "Kiev" is an English name of this city.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:19, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Historically" simply and clearly means that the name "Kiev" is not a recent invention, but is the name applied to the city in English for a long historical period including the present day. It's not a "weasel" word at all, but a simple and clear statement of fact. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 01:21, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean "historically most common" by no means can be interpreted as "obsolete"?--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I looked more closely at the sentence and the English syntax was quite poor. I've rewritten it. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 06:01, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Paul Siebert that that summary is much too vague. It was written as an introduction to a long “Name” section that was deleted, and doesn’t stand alone without it. Kiev is not the traditional name, it is a traditional name, following other traditional names like Kiof, Kiow, and Kiovia. The factual statement about frequency of use is vague too, and needs to be sourced. I still think the deleted section should be restored and edited further. —Michael Z. 23:03, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I am satisfied with the current version of this section. I also agree with TaivoLinguist, who removed the cn tag. The tagged sentens is already sourced. The cited source (OED) says:
"Kiev"
Forms: 19– Kieff, 19– Kiev.
Origin: From a proper name. Etymon: proper name Kiev.
Etymology: < Kiev (now also Kyiv; Ukrainian Kyjiv), the name of the capital city of Ukraine.
Clearly, if all other names are mentioned only in a context of etymology (i.e. about the origin of this English word), "Kiev" is THE name of Ukrainian capital city in English, whereas all other names are foreign words. --Paul Siebert (talk) 01:18, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You think the article should say Kieff and Kiev are the traditional and most common English names for the city? That’s what your original research implies.
Google news search limited to last 24 hours, "Kyiv" in quotation marks 63 results, "Kiev" in quotation marks 35. Kiev is not “the most common English name” without qualifications, and this bald statement is dubious. TaivoLinguist’s “common knowledge” is not worth the paper it’s written on if neither of you can find a single citation that actually says what you’ve written. —Michael Z. 03:51, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
First, you accused me of engaging in original research, i.e. in violation of our core content policy. Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence are considered personal attacks. Remember, you placed DS warning on my talk page, which implies you yourself were duly warned. Taking into account that that is a second time when you accused me of doing original research, it is a good time to stop.
Second, the dictionary is quite clear. If you type "Kiev", you get an entry that says "Kiev" is a dictionary word, which originated from a foreign word Kieff/Kiev/Kyiv. If you type "Kieff", you get
1. the entry "kef | keif | kief, n.
2. the entry "Kiev, n.
The same happens when you type "Kyiv": it says "No dictionary entries found for ‘Kyiv’."
Obviously, if some word has a separate entry in OED, it IS an English word. If some word has no entry in OED, it is hardly an English word. It might be an English word, but it is quite unlikely that it is as common and popular as the word that has its own entry.
With regard to you exercises with google search, please familiarise yourself with the correct procedure described in relevant guidelines.
Finally, your poorly explained re-addition of the cn template does not fit a good practice (I mean BRD), and is the first step to edit warring. Do you really need that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:30, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the statement "The Oxford English Dictionary added a standalone entry for "Kiev, n." in December 2019, citing the name of the city as "Kiev (now also Kyiv" in the footnote 24 seems incorrect: Currently, OED has no such entry as "Kyiv" (I cannot provide a link, because it will not work from IPs not associated with my university, however, I can provide a screenshot if there is a possibility to send it).--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:38, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Which “the dictionary” are you referring to? The OED has no entries for names of places. It only mentions Kiev and Kyiv in the etymology of an entry for different versions of the name as part of “chicken K**v,” and related terms.
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 5th ed., has a main entry for Kyiv and a “see-also” reference from the spelling variant Kiev. This does imply that its lexicographers have determined that Kiev is not the most common spelling. Since sources seem to disagree, I suggest that it is wrong to just say so without any references, and in fact, wrong to just say so when the unqualified statement has been shown to be false.
And sorry, if you’re drawing conclusions from original research, I don’t think it’s against any guideline or common sense for me to point it out. Just cite sources that directly back up your statements. —Michael Z. 17:44, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OED does have an entry for the word "Kiev", and has no separate entries for "Kyiv"/"Kieff". That means "Kiev" is an English word, whereas "Kyev"/"Kieff" are just transliterations of Ukrainian/Russian names. Since the OED is not accessible from random IP, I saved a screenshot from my computer, because my university provides access to OED. This screenshot will be provided to arbitrators in a case if this conflict will be escalated further.
I checked Webster, and results are:
That is inconsistent with what you say, and suggests that either I or you cannot use English dictionaries properly.
You again accuse me of doing original research. Next time, please refrain from that in future. If you are not sure, please post a question at NORN, and throw such accusations only after the consensus will be achieved that the statement in question was OR.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With regard to Webster New world, here it is:
In other words, your source clearly says "Kyiv" is an alternative name (which implied "Kiev" is the most common name). In future I am going to check every your statement to make sure you correctly transmited what the sources cited by you say.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:35, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With regard to Britannica, yes, it changed "Kiev" to "Kyiv" in 2020, and it can be used as a source for the last sentence (the current source does not support the statement, and it does not pass the OR filter.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
PS. With regard to Webster New World, it seems that the link I found redirected me to YourDictionary, which seems to be different from the WNW. dictionary. I need some time to figure out what WNW says.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:42, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t think you’re getting my point, so let me explain in some detail.
Firstly, the OED will never have separate entries for Kieff, Kiev, and Kyiv, because each entry represents one term with a common etymology, including all of its spellings—you will notice that near the top it says “Forms: 19– Kieff, 19– Kiev,” indicating that these spellings were in use from the 1900s on. Secondly, as I mentioned, the OED does not include entries for proper names—it is only defining Kiev as a postmodifier and common noun used in I.1. chicken Kiev, I.2. phrases like pheasant Kiev, and II.3. as a common noun as in “while the Kievs cooked,” which also explains why there are no forms at all listed from the 1600s, 1700s, when the city was not called Kiev, nor from the 1800s. Thirdly, as a historical dictionary, the OED tends to use the earliest etymological spelling as its headword, so I suspect it will continue to use Kiev as the headword spelling until and only if that spelling’s usage becomes rare or obsolete. What the OED does say about the proper name of the city is only its mention in the etymology, where it refers to “< Kiev (now also Kyiv; Ukrainian Kyjiv), the name of the capital city of Ukraine.”
Now let me walk through my argument. The article used to say “Kiev is the . . . historically most commonly used English name for the city.” That is vague, but I think we can agree that it is true if we interpret “historically” as meaning in the past (specifically from around 1800 to the 2010s). TaivoLinguist changed it to “Kiev is the . . . most common English name for the city,” meaning in the present. This is dubious, and possibly false. It needs a source. I think even TaivoLinguist has written that usage is changing at at some point Kiev may no longer be the most common spelling. There is no source saying that point has not already come. In some realms, e.g., in journalism and in academic writing, I think there is evidence that it already has. And as I demonstrated, at least one recently updated major dictionary has now listed Kyiv as the main headword, implying that that has become a majority usage in the corpus. So stating that it has not is not “common knowledge,” it is an un-cited assertion, that doesn’t belong here without being tagged as such. —Michael Z. 21:33, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And re: “The source directly supports the statement,” that is false. The OED’s list of quotations is a survey demonstrating usage and spelling, and doesn’t say anything about frequency of use. To interpret it as such is WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH. The second source cited, Britannica which updated its entry title to Kyiv, implies that the exact opposite may be true, although it also does not say so explicitly. —Michael Z. 21:39, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Michael, now I understand your logic. Yes, OED's entry for "Kiev" is "Compounds, as a postmodifier". It doesn't say "Kiev = a capital city of Ukraine". I compared it with other names, and that is what I got:

  • Moscow: "Originally: the government (ideology, etc.) of the Soviet Union (now historical). Now also: the government of Russia."
  • Prague: "1. Prague ham, 2. attributive. Designating, of, or relating to the Prague Linguistic Circle"
  • Paris: "1. Paris candle, 2a 2. attributive. Designating articles or materials made in Paris"

etc. That means OED can hardly be used in that context, because it provides no direct information about names of cities in general (not only to Kiev). I suggest to remove it, because its current usage is close to original research. Nevertheless, if I type "Kyiv" OED says "no such entry", which means "Kiev" is more acceptable as a postmodifier than Kyiv.

However, all of that does not change the fact that other two dictionaries (Merriam-Webster and MyDictionary) say "Kiev" is the name of Ukrainian capital, and "Kyiv" is just an another form of it. By the way, Wikipedia's own spell checker also says "Kyiv" is not an English word (when I type "Kyiv", it highlights it as a typo). I haven't checked Webster New World, because it seems it is available in a printed form only, and I am to lazy to go to a library, but I agree that Britannica changed "Kiev" to "Kyiv". Other dictionaries say the following:

I omitted the dictionaries that, like Cambridge, contain no entries both for "Kiev" and "Kyiv", but you can see that majority of dictionaries in the list either have no separate entry for "Kyiv", so the primary entry is "Kiev", or/and say that "Kyiv" is a Ukrainian name of the city known as "Kiev" in the English world, or just redirect "Kyiv" to "Kiev". And I was not able to find a single dictionary that lists "Kyiv" as a primary entry, and "Kiev" as a secondary or obsolete.

Whereas I agree that your arguments were logical, and that they forced me to modify my original opinion, I believe you must admit new evidences are quite convincing. Therefore, I believe I've sustained my burden of evidence.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:22, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Please cite your sources properly, including the actual source and date of publication or compilation, and drop the duplicates and dated versions from these aggregators of dictionary entries. For example, the two supposed entries in your first dictionary are not; they are from different dictionaries, one dated by a decade and a half. Scroll down and you’ll see that Dictionary.com’s entry for Kiev cites “THE NEW DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL LITERACY, THIRD EDITION COPYRIGHT © 2005 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT PUBLISHING COMPANY. PUBLISHED BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT PUBLISHING COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED,” while its entry for Kyiv is from a different, up-to-date dictionary: “DICTIONARY.COM UNABRIDGED BASED ON THE RANDOM HOUSE UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY, © RANDOM HOUSE, INC. 2020.” As another example, several of these are based on the American Heritage Dictionary, 5th edition (2016), but don’t even list that date, and define Kyyiv but lack Kyiv. Many encyclopedic dictionaries republish their encyclopedic content from other sources and don’t work very hard on it.
And no, you have not demonstrated that Kiev is currently the most common spelling. Not one of those sources says that. You have demonstrated that sources even a very few years old lack a spelling found in almost every current newspaper, and shouldn’t be indiscriminately relied upon to answer questions like this one. Your survey of dictionaries to support a conclusion that is not stated in any of them is the epitome of original research. Please restore the citation-needed tag. —Michael Z. 02:05, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The cn tag is nothing more than a WP:POINTy attempt to push the "Kyiv über alles" narrative. Based on his arguments in the move discussion, Mzajac will probably reject each and every attempt to provide evidence that "Kiev" is still the most common in usage (outside of the listing of style guides that tipped the Kiev>Kyiv argument). He has rejected all types of search results no matter how carefully constructed. The opponents of the move provided multiple searches of of media usage within the last year, including the very media that were trying to switch to "Kyiv" in their style guides, but these were rejected and argued away with incessant "but the style guides" comments. Short of "Kiev is a historical form that is no longer used", what wording will you accept that "Kiev" is still widely used and quite common, User:Mzajac? --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 08:22, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Same we can tell about your and Paul Siebert position that "Kiev" is the most common/ only correct version, despite the fact that it is not true. I propose to remove all subjective estimations based on original research from the article.--Geohem (talk) 08:47, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, TaivoLinguist, I am encouraging you make any attempt to provide evidence to support the statement you added to the article, but you are rejecting it. Your assertion in the article says most common, not “quite common.”
And please spare us the Nazi references while you cast shade on the consensus decision to move the article. About eighty Wikipedians participated, and the “Ukrainian government,” the “Cossacks,” and I did not bamboozle them all. Either challenge the decision or show a bit of respect for the community. —Michael Z. 14:12, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Premature RM?

Whereas I know that there was a one year moratorium on RM, however, taking into account that I was busy during the last RM and was not able to voice my opinion, I propose all of you to think about the following (we cannot initiate a RM, but we can discuss the subject, can't we?):

Compare these ngram plots:

and especially this with

that. For all these cities (except Kiev), the usage of non-traditional English names becomes more frequent in the XX century, but after some maximum has been achieved, it stabilizes at some level, which is always below the traditional name's level. If we lived in 1960, we would expect "Praha" to become a common English name, but that never happened. It seems the situation with modern Kyiv is the same as with Praha in 1960: My spell checker is still marking both words as non-English words. In connection to that, I am reminding you that Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and it does not predict the future. We cannot present emerging trends as generally accepted facts. Therefore, I propose to think about the next RM in 2021, after the moratorium expires. In general, I think we should discuss some general rule: renaming may occur only after an obvious transition has occurred, and some sufficiently long time has passed after that. That transition can be a combination of ngram data with several other objective criteria. We must be cautious with renaming, because Wikipedia by itself has a huge cytogenic potential, so renaming may by itself shift the balance considerably. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:31, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kyiv managed to "break into" English language sources, and recently. Look why Praha has a peak in ~1958. Google ngram counts very strange sources as the "English" ones. Not trustworthy tool in this. Chrzwzcz (talk) 16:09, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Paul Siebert: You're absolutely right but bear in mind that the name change was influenced by politics and quasiscience. The most frequently used name of the city in the English language is 'Kiev'. This name has been used in the language for centuries; it appears in all English-language versions of the classical works of world literature mentioning the city (including recent reprints); it is by far the dominant name used in the prints of UK-based publishers; and it still prevails on the Internet as the most dominant name. We all know this and even some of those who, as a result of other reasons, voted for renaming to 'Kyiv'. On the other hand, the name 'Kyiv' is a variant fervently pushed by the Ukrainian government — not an official regulator of the English language. You may draw a comparison to other incorrect names used in English translations across countries, such as 'Beograd', 'Praha' or 'Moskva', but it's literally more than that — it's like allowing foreigners to introduce new spelling rules without consulting any linguists or the principles of the language. Moreover, if you cast a glance over the discussion that resulted in the name change, you can easily notice that, instead of scientific argumentation, the discussion regressed to the use of 'Kyiv' at international airports as a relevant factor. And it's up to you to guess what will happen after the moratorium ends but be aware that the name change to 'Kyiv' on one of the most visited sites on the Internet will inevitably impact its overall use on the web. Good luck if you plan to keep up tilting at the windmils.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:17, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
but we can discuss the subject, can't we? You kids don’t appreciate how easy you have it. During the previous anti-Kyiv “moratorium,” editors were actively and constantly prevented from discussing the subject by a small group of editors claiming to represent “consensus,” and even discussion about improving the #Name section was banned. Just another example of certain kinds of invisible but pervasive wp:systemic bias allowing prejudicial treatment of underrepresented POVs. When that ended, the RM attracted broader attention and concluded with a broader consensus. Now, apparently, this page is becoming a support group for hard-done-by anti-Kyivan refugees. Let’s move this to the Talk:Kyiv/naming ghetto or close it as WP:FORUM. —Michael Z. 19:54, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, I am somewhat disappointed that such an experienced admin as you demonstrates partisan mentality. If some "anti-Kyiv" users opposed to attempts to discuss renaming, what relation does it have to me? Is it your standard practice to separate people on some parties? I never supported any attempt to suppress a freedom of discussion, and I am slightly offended by your attempt to associate me with those who suppress a right of users to propose fresh arguments and discuss article's improvement (if they believe "Kiev -> Kyiv" is an improvement, they have a right to think so). In general, I suggest you to switch to a more productive manner to conduct a discussion, because your comments on my posts are focused on some petty and unimportant details, or they are focused on behavioural issues. Are you interested in a substantive discussion?
With regard to moving this discussion to another place, keep in mind that WP:CCC, and any attempt to move my comments from this page to another place will be against our policy and guidelines. They are about article's improvement, they raise previously unconsidered arguments or circumstances, and they are totally relevant to this page.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:15, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I am in favour of you discussing anything you want, in an appropriate place. This page is for improvements to the article, and WP:TALK#TOPIC asks us to stay on topic. At the top of this page is an explicit note saying A special subpage has been created for discussing the name of the article, Talk:Kyiv/naming. Please take all naming discussion there! It was placed there in August 2007: I had nothing to do with it, but its endurance does imply consensus. And since there is now a moratorium imposed on moves under Arbcom sanctions, I suggest you take heed and hold discussions that are not about improving this article, or implementing the results of its recent move, elsewhere. —Michael Z. 00:25, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=988543657

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