User talk:Ezhiki/2004

Syrniki, pierogi, and stuff

Hi, could you plese tell me the difference between pierogi, vareniki, sirniki and pelmeni? --Kpalion 01:23, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sure. Pierogi and vareniki are actually not really different (they are called differently because pierogi have Polish origin, and vareniki have Russian origin). Pierogi, however, are usually done with mashed potatoes filling, and vareniki have cottage cheese filling. This is all not set in stone, of course. Pelmeni are kind of like ravioli, have meat filling, but are shaped differently (it is really hard to explain in words). As for sirniki, I am sorry, I just don't remember the details. They do contain cottage cheese, however. Hope this helps!

Thanks. I asked this question because in Poland we generally refer to all of these as pierogi, so the Russian names for different types made me quite confused. In Poland those with meat filling are called "meat pierogi", those with cabbage filling - "cabbage pierogi", and those with potatoes and cheese - "Russian pierogi". --Kpalion 14:32, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Quite interesting. I didn't know that. Also, I found out about sirniki (or syrniki) - the dough is actually mixed with cottage cheese, and then fried (not boiled). Still don't have the recipe though.

Argun / Aigun

Ezhiki, in response to your post on User talk:Ran:
Thanks for the correction from Primorye to Priamurye. And as for the names:
Aigun (Aihui) is a town on the Amur. It's just south of the city of Heihe, right across from Blagoveshchensk.
Argun (Ergun) is a tributary of the Amur. It forms a bit of the border between China and Russia, just north of Mongolia.
That's my understanding of the two terms in any case.
ran 05:20, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Maps

I've created a section on my user page where folks can list US town articles that need maps. Just add them there. -- Seth Ilys 18:29, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Russian Federal Districts

No problem really, I've already changed the map. --Kpalion 18:20, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jewish Autonomous Oblast/Birobidzhan/etc

Odd. The term "capital", and the use of Birobidzhan for the region were both in the article as I found it, and both appear in the materials I've found. However, use of Birobidzhan for the region is not mentioned universally; additionally, these are in English only. I'll revert. Badanedwa 21:03, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

Not a problem. You've been forebearing in my error. My assumptions were colored by the nationalistic vandalism of Nagorno-Karabakh, wherein names were changed from one language to another, back to the other language, mentions of one ethnos removed, etc. Badanedwa 23:03, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

Ёр юзырь пейж:

(1)Ытык-Кёль

(2)Bely OK, but Siniy is better than Siny. Mikkalai 16:28, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Ыттык-Кюель was found using a Yandex search. It is in the table only to give an example of a name starting with an Ы, anyway. Change it, if you want to, I don't mind.

(2)How would one make a decision when to use "-iy", and when "-y"?--Ezhiki 17:41, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

How about you putting your table into the new Transliteration of Russian into English article. (I am tempted to do do this myself, but I wouldn't rob you of priority, glory and the rest :-) Here we can all discuss several confusing things, bout for russians to write for English and for English reading these translits. Mikkalai 18:34, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry about priority, glory, and the rest since everything is under the GDFL license anyway. It's not like I was working on a book to be published :)

I'll copy the table verbatim for now, so it will be at least placed somewhere where it can actually be found and commented on, not to mention tons of related material that can be added to it. Pleasure working with you.--Ezhiki 18:41, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

Sälâm, Ezhiki!

As you know, Tatar (not official yet) uses Latin graphics. Latin graphics is more understandeble, than Russian transliteration. Tatar names are also official, becose in Tatarstan official languages are Tatar and Russian (not Russian and Tatar). As for Kazan, I recognize my mistake: official English name for Kazan is Kazan, Qazan and Kazan'are only local names, as Москва for Moscow.

Человече, ответь по-русски! --Untifler 12:34, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Replied here.--Ezhiki 14:13, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

Full names?

No, the title of the article should be what the person is most commonly known as. See for example Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin, where their full names (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin) are redirects. Everyking 20:53, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Two questions. One - can you please let me know where this policy is described? Two - who decides what is the most common name, i.e., how does one determine whether a full name or a shorter name is more common than the other? Thanks.--Ezhiki 18:09, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if it's laid out as policy anywhere, but it's the common practice. A lot of problems can arise otherwise: for one thing, long names make for awkward titles; for another, putting the commonly used name in the title makes it apparent to the reader how the person's name is usually given, and then the full name can be given in the intro (for example, if the article J. B. S. Haldane was titled John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, how would the reader know that he is usually known by his initials? We'd need an explanatory note the article, which is just unnecessarily awkward in most cases).

Deciding which name is most common would ordinarily be worked out on a talk page for an article, although in almost all cases it's pretty obvious. In cases where there is a dispute, a Google search is a common way of determining what is the most frequent use in English: for example, "Hazret Sovmen" gives me 182 hits, whereas "Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen" gives me not a single one. So based on that we'd say that the former is the most common, and so we should title the article by that name. Everyking 20:32, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ёжик и другие! Не знаю, о чем вы тут говорили, но в великорусский традиционализм с элементами феодальных пережитков давайте не впадать. Отчества эти и на русском не сильно нужны, а уж в английском... Непосредственно по теме спора: Путин известен всюду как просто Путин, Н.С.Хрущев - как Хрущ, Кучма в Украине - как ... (запрещено правилами Вайкипедии). А величать их везде по-батюшке - значит уподобляться ...лизам, которые ведут Ваш, Ёжик, народ к катастрофе. И кстати, педалирование отчества однозначно позиционирует Россию ближе к Северной Корее (где все имена полные, а руководители непогрешимые), чем к Западу (который есть виновник существования Интернета и проектов, подобных тому, где мы сейчас находимся)... AlexPU 14:51, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Здравствуйте, Алекс!

Вам, как журналисту, наверняка сокращённые формы имён ближе, нежели полные. В газетах и журналах, как всем известно, людей полным именем называют нечасто. В энциклопедии же полное имя должно быть приведено - на то она и энциклопедия, чтобы можно было легко найти информацию справочного характера. Everyking, однако, объяснил достаточно убедительно, почему полное имя не должно быть заголовком статьи. Что касается текста статьи, то тут уж, извините, совсем другой балет. Хотя бы один раз полное имя упомянуть надо, и великорусский традиционализм тут вовсе не при чём.

Что касается "моего народа" (какого именно?), близости России к Северной Корее и педалирования отчества, то тут, к сожалению, ход ваших мыслей мне был не совсем ясен, особенно в применении к вышенаходящейся (и, как я считал, законченной) дискуссии.--Ëzhiki 15:36, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

Кедр

Hi Ezhiki - a note to say that when using tree names in articles on Russian places, the Russian name Кедр does not translate into English as cedar (Cedrus). They are species of pine (Pinus): Сибирский Кедр is Pinus sibirica (Siberian Pine in English), Кедр европейский is Pinus cembra (Swiss Pine in English), and Кедр Корейский is Pinus koraiensis (Korean Pine in English). - MPF 14:31, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks — I was always confused by these names, so it is much more clear now. I will take this into consideration when working articles in the future.--Ezhiki 18:31, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

Национальные названия народов России.

Привет, Ёжики!

Интересно, как должны передаваться в английскую и русскую вику слова, обозначающие понятия из языков народов России, произносимые как в самом родном языке как в русской, так и в английской речи. (например. Татарская национальная борьба көрәш - Tatar national wrestling köräş)

Есть ли транслитерация для казахской, украинской кириллиц и для кириллиц народов России. Если чё - могу помочь с башкирским и марийским, м.б. с чувашским. Татарский в транслитерации не нуждается.

Названия населённых пунктов республик России. Мелкие города и деревни - какой должна мыть транслитерация?

--Untifler 15:13, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Replied here.--Ezhiki 15:44, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

J

Ïðèâåò, ¨æèêè! ß äóìàþ âíåñòè â ðóññêóþ òðàíñëèòåðàöèþ îäíî íîâøåñòâî. Ïóòü äæ áóäåò j. Òåì áîëåå ýòè ñî÷åòàíèÿ áóêâ â ðóññêèõ èìåíàõ íå âñòðå÷àþòñÿ. Ýòî áûëî áû íåïëîõî, ñêàæåì, äëÿ êàâêàçñêèõ èì¸í è íàçâàíèé. Âåäü äî ñðåäíåñòàòèñòè÷åñêîãî ÿíêè íå äîïð¸ò, ÷òî äçõ = ýòî äæ.

--Untifler 14:57, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

ßíêè íà ñàìîì äåëå è ïðî "zh" íå äîãàäàþòñÿ, ÷òî ýòî "æ". Íî íàñ÷¸ò èñïîëüçîâàíèÿ "j" âìåñòî "dzh" ÿ íå ñîãëàñåí. Ðóññêîå "äæ" - ýòî äâà çâóêà, â òî âðåìÿ êàê àíãëèéñêîå "j" - ýòî çâóê îäèí (çâîíêîå "ch"). Ïîýòîìó äëÿ òðàíñëèòåðàöèè ðóññêîãî âàðèàíòà ñëîâà íà àíãëèéñêèé òàêîé ñïîñîá íå ïðîéä¸ò (íåïðàâèëüíî ýòî). Ïîä÷¸ðêèâàþ - ðóññêîãî âàðèàíòà (âïîëíå ìîæåò îêàçàòüñÿ, ÷òî ðóññêèé âàðèàíò ýòî óæå òðàíñëèòåðàöèÿ, ê ïðèìåðó, ñ áàøêèðñêîãî). Ïðè òðàíñëèòåðàöèè êàâêàçñêèõ ÿçûêîâ èñïîëüçîâàíèå "j" ìîæåò áûòü â ñàìûé ðàç. Íî ýòî óæå áóäóò äðóãèå ïðàâèëà - ðóññêèé ÿçûê òóò áóäåò íå ïðè äåëàõ.

×òî-òî ó ìåíÿ ñåãîäíÿ ìûñëè íå î÷åíü ïëàâíî òåêóò - åñëè ÷òî íåïîíÿòíî â ìîåé ëîãèêå, ïåðåñïðàøèâàéòå :)--Ezhiki 17:20, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

3/4 kilograms of unhealthy attitude?

Sounds like fun. Дайте мне немного. 3 или 4 килограмма хорошо. Darn I wish I had a Cyrillic Keyboard! I have to use babelfish, even tho I'm fluent! Ilyanep (Talk) 01:40, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Nah, that's not something that can be given — only acquired :) --Ëzhiki 15:27, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

That's okay, I'll go 'aquire' (Bribe some people for it) some :). Ilyanep (Talk) 15:42, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Russian Far East and Siberia

Maximaximax 22:26, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC): Quote from your words: "In terms of physical geography, RFE is actually a superior division of landmass of Russia, on par with North Caucasus or Siberia. Zabaykalye and Altai are well-defined, but much smaller regions." Look on the map please - Altai and Zabaykalye are comparable by area with North Caucasus. But its not a problem. For example in the article http://www.centerru.com/regions/sib.asp they have a point of view similar to your one. But in Brochaus & Efron, in MS Encarta (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556603/Siberia.html) and http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13767b.htm they have another opinion. So, there are several opinions in this subject. I more like the case where Siberia is larger than Canada, you like when it is without Far East :), but our opinions are both correct, and both of them concern of geography, but not of history, sorry - it's only difference between broad or narrow sense.

Вкратце:

Залили в татарскую вику статью о Татарстане из ттатарской энциклопедии. Там выдержка из нашей конституции, которая в свою очередь приведена под российскую, татарским по белому: Татарстан - госво, связанное с Россией на правах её субъекта.... Т.е. надо бы на страницу Tatarstan выложить обе позиции: и по Конституции Татарстана и по Конституции России, с прояснением ситуации. Тем более что для англоязычного зарубежного пользователя российский основной закон - не последняя инстанция. Как говорили Romans, "должна быть выслушана и другая сторона".

--Untifler 12:51, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Если есть ссылка на конституцию Татарстана на русском (или это из области фантастики?), то я без проблем переведу на английский и добавлю в статью. Это действительно самый разумный вариант. Если на русском конституции нет, то переводить вам придётся самому - татарским я, к сожалению, не владею. В любом случае - могу помочь подправить, чтобы совпадало с духом оригинала.--Ëzhiki 15:40, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

Пока ссылку не нашёл: напечатаю сам (я думаю достаточно одного предложения): РТ - суверн., демократ, правовое гос-во, субъект межд. права, ассоц с РФ на основе Договор. "О разгр. полном. и т.д."

Ну и т.д. Потом найду. --Untifler 20:56, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Про суверенитет так было написано в старой, сепаратисткой конституции... Современную конституцию Республики Татарстан можно прочитать на http://www.tatar.ru/constitution.html - там также есть версии на татарском и английском языках. [[User:Drbug| Dr Bug ]] 21:10, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ñìîòðåòü ñþäà: http://www.tatar.ru/?DNSID=5600e9eed2a311d5b0614072c6eff7cf&node_id=803

Êñòàòè òàì ïðàâèëüíûé ïåðåâîä íàçâàíèÿ äîãîâîðà, ñàìîãî äîãîâîðà è ò.ä., ÷òî ìîæíî ïîìåñòèòü íà Tatarstan.

--217.30.249.18 15:22, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Islands

Yes I found Transliteration of Russian into English from your user page, and have retrofitted all my articles, including mending the links & redirects. Some of the image names don't conform though, but - tough! --Keith Edkins 22:29, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for going through all that trouble!--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:58, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

It's my party and I'll krai if I want to...

I have to say that it was a long shot, going up against the "self-appointed keeper of consistency" - but i thought it worth a try at least. I won't change Sergey Darkin (633 Google hits) back to Sergei Darkin (2,080 hits) as I'm not into "reversion wars" and you are clearly zealous in defending what you claim to be the "proper" system of transcription. No one system is universally regarded as "proper", and while I would claim that the one I use is more generally accepted, I see that resistance is futile and I give way to you, sir. I would just point out that you forgot to change "Primorsky Krai" into "Kray". Spokoinoi nochi, Ezhiki. -- Picapica 19:59, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dear Picapica:

First of all, I would like to apologize for not leaving you a message explaining my reasons for reverts right after I made the changes. I had only about 15 minutes on Wikipedia on Sunday before I had to leave home, and figured I would write an explanation on Monday. Well, you beat me at that. Again, I apologize for the haste—I should have probably waited with the edits till Monday. Anyway, what's done is done, and I just hope you would have engough patience to read through my rattle below to better understand why I undid your changes.

1. Fact: Serge(i/y/j/jj/yi) Darkin is a governor of Primorsk(y/iy/i) Kra(i/y/j/jj/yi). As one can imagine, he is just one of the thousands third-rate politicians who are sold a penny a dozen on a sunny day—that is to say he is not all that well known throughout the world. Just like you mentioned, Google gives us less than 3,000 hits (with all spelling variants combined). Heck, even Yandex only produces 14,642 hits. Now, I am not a huge fan of using Google to resolve these kinds of disputes, although I recognize that this method has its merits. In this particular case, however, the merits of Google comparison are pretty weak. Let's take Mikhail Gorbachev to illustrate the point. A correct way to transliterate his last name is, of course, Gorbachyov. Google, however, will give 114,000 hits for Mikhail Gorbachev, and only 228 for Mikhail Gorbachyov. Well, this is what can be called a representative sampling. An "incorrect" way of transliteration overwhelms the "correct" way by three orders of magnitude. This does not make it right, but it does make it something important to consider—namely, a widely accepted convention. To go against that would not only be useless, it would be plain stupid. Plus, Mr. Gorbachev himself prefer his last name to be spelled as "Gorbachev". That is totally his right to do so. If he wanted it to be spelled "Gorbahchioff" and started using it from the beginning of his presidency, that would probably be what we would be using today. Hence, of the rules that I am trying to follow, emerges rule number one—when a spelling is widely accepted or when it is preferred by the person bearing the name, then it's the one to be used, and not an "orthographically correct" version. (That's also the reason why "krai" stays there without being replaced with "kray")

Now, back to Mr. Darkin. Since he is not very well-known, there just can't be the only way of transliterating his first name, patronymic, and even his last name. I am using one system, you are using another, and someone else may have no clue as to how the name "should" be transliterated, not to mention those who would just have no knowledge of any existing transliteration systems or even that such systems exist. The second part of rule number one also does not hold—Mr. Darkin does not have a clear personal preference as to how his name should be transliterated (or at least he never expressed a desire to have his name spelled in any particular way).

Clearly, in such (numerous) cases we must use some kind of transliteration system.

2. Fact: Having one transliteration system in place helps reduce confusion. Now, let me reiterate—I am using one system, you are using another, there are quite a few other systems in place, and none of them is accepted as "An Official System of Transliteration of the Russian Language into the English One" and published in a little nifty green book for everyone to use. That's all obvious truisms. Is the system I use necessarily better that yours? No. Is any system better than another? In some senses, yes, but it depends. Am I trying to make everyone use a (=one) transliteration system on Wikipedia? Yes! Am I trying to make everyone use the (=mine) system on Wikipedia? From reading your post above, it sure as hell looks like it, but in fact the answer is no.

So, why is it there as a guideline? Well, the answer is quite simple. It is "the" recommended system because most of the Russia-related Wikipedia articles (not written or edited by yours truly, by the way) use a transliteration convention that matches the guidelines in the transliteration article!!! In fact, the transliteration article's table is a compilation of the transliteration rules which are most popular on Wikipedia. That, of course, leaves quite a few articles that use a different convention (or do not use any convention at all), but at least it minimizes work on making all of the articles consistently transliterated for whoever might want to engage in such an activity.

A little offtopic—I have just noticed that someone removed the stub message from the Transliteration of Russian into English article. The stub message was there for a reason. I, believing that only one system is necessary for Wikipedia and having a preference at which one to be used, compiled that particular article. What I did not mean was to carve it in stone and use it as an idol to pray to. As a matter of fact, I was kind of hoping that people like you would expand on the article, adding notices that there are a lot of other systems, and giving examples. What's more, even in the table that's currently in the article, there are numerous things I would like to see changed or resolved.

3. So, here are my reasons. If you want to give yours—be my guest. I am not quite sure why you took such a hostile attitude towards me without even trying to ask me for explanation (and, again, I know, I should have given my part of the explanations as soon as I made the edits, if not before that, and I apologize for the oversight), and I sure as hell never participated in the reversion wars. So far I either explained all of the reverts that I made and convinced the other side they were better for Wikipedia, or I let the other side to convince me that I was not right. I do know that I can be overprotective of my own edits and contributions, but that does not mean I am incapable of changing my point of view given the good (logical) reasons to do so. I just sincerely hope that you are not going to reply with "my system is better that yours because yours sucks and I like mine better and there are examples that other people use it too" line.

Sincerely yours,

--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:26, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Dobroye utro, Yozhiki!

If you detected, correctly, a certain tetchiness in my posting then here is why:

(my emphases)

Sergey Mikhaylovich Darkin

17:02, 8 Aug 2004 Ezhiki m (Moved back using proper transliteration (see Transliteration of Russian into English))

Sergei Mikhailovich Darkin

17:03, 8 Aug 2004 Ezhiki m (made into a redir (correcting previous move error))

List of Russians

17:04, 8 Aug 2004 Ezhiki m (rv translit error)

Sergey Darkin

17:05, 8 Aug 2004 Ezhiki m (translit error)

Primorsky Krai

17:19, 8 Aug 2004 Ezhiki m (translit error)

It hardly demonstrates objectivity - does it? - to disparage a fellow Wikipedian's considered contributions as "errors" tout court. You might consider my views and opinions to be foolish, misguided, and devoid of good sense... fair enough, but to call opinions "errors" smacks of the Holy Inquisition, not to say the spirit of Stalinism.

If I write that the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1954 was Iosif Stalin, that is an error - Stalin died in 1953. However, if I write "Iosef Stalin died on 5 March" where you would prefer to write "Joseph Stalin died on March 5", that is a matter of taste and preference, not of error. How would you react to my changing your sentence with notes saying "date error", "name moved to proper spelling"?

You go to some pains in your response to admit pluralism:

Am I trying to make everyone use the (=mine) system on Wikipedia? [...] in fact the answer is no."

And yet you post a phrase like "Moved back using proper transliteration"; in other words, my "transliteration"(*) was an improper one.

(*) Let me mention here, for the purposes of elucidation, that what you call "transliteration" I call "transcription". For me, "transliteration" is a symbol-for-symbol mapping of the kind one finds, for example, in the English version of online Russian railway timetables. "Transcription", on the other hand, attempts - to a greater or lesser extent - to map onto the sounds of the target language. Thus, when Lithuanian gives the name of the UK premier as "Tonis Bleras" it is not only declining the name according to Lithuanian grammar rules but also transcribing it according to Lithuanian spelling rules. The French language normally transliterates English loan words - "football" becomes "football"; Spanish much more frequently transcribes - "football" becomes "fútbol". When Russian writes Саутгемптон for Southampton it is transcribing not transliterating. This is not a scientifically accurate transcripion, of course (Bulgarian arguably comes closer with Саутхямптън), but then "Tchaikovsky" (quite apart from the fact that that spelling is a borrowing from French -- English is a promiscuous language and doesn't care about such niceties!) is somewhat distant from the sound of Чайковский.

By the way, Yozhiki, mention of Pyotr Ilyich, reminds me that it was I who some time ago (when I was still anonymous) contributed the name "Tchaikovsky" to the "Tch for Ч when it is a commonly accepted convention" section of the Transliteration of Russian into English article (though "Tchaikovsky" is probably the sole example - can a one-case example constitute a convention?).

So, it's not as if I'm ideologically opposed to your project, Y. - though for me it does have elements of the quixotic. The English language is not, and I hope never will be, thoroughly consistent, after all: if we can successfully maneuver/manoeuvre between American- and world-English practice/practise in the matter of how our words are spelled/spelt, then surely we can live with Sergei/Sergey without screaming "foul" whenever we see the alternative spelling. -- (Soroka) Picapica 22:41, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dear Picapica:

I am again sorry for being somewhat harsh in my original comments. Like I mentioned before, I only had about 15 minutes on the day I made the edits, so choosing words for comments was not a very high priority for me. As this discussion clearly shows, this was not a wise thing to do. The word "proper" was one of the words that I should have chosen more carefully.

As for the difference between "transliteration" and "transcription"—I am perfectly aware of the difference. I would, however, disagree with you that the convention described in the Transliteration of Russian into English article is a transcription system. Transcription maps the sounds of the original word, not its letter representation. So, for example, the word "хорошо" (good, well) would be transcribed as "(k)harasho", because this is how the word is pronounced, but transliterated as "(k)horosho", because this is how the word is spelled (use of h/kh depends on which system you are using). The system described by the article does not transcribe words, it uses the written form of a word as a basis for converting it into another script; plus, it takes into account the most common conventions used when transliterating Russian words into English. I can agree that this particular transliteration system has some minor elements that can be more properly described as transcription elements (e.g., using "y" for the "-ий" and "-ый" endings, and omission of the soft sign in most cases); the only reason these elements are there is because they are extensively used throughout the Wikipedia and other reference materials.

As for the "ch/tch" dillema: Pyotr Ilyich is not really the only example of the exception to the "Ch for ч" rule. Some people choose to write their own last names with a "tch"—Tchaikovsky is just the most recognized name to be used as an example (thank you for providing it, by the way). Other examples to support the "convention" would include other words that came to English from Russian through French. I cannot, unfortunately, think of any examples right now, which, of course, does not mean these examples do not exist. In any case, even if Tchaikovsky were the only example, he is well worth including into the table to illustrate an exception to the rule.

Finally, as for the Engish language not being thorougly consistent. That's true, but it does not mean we have to make Wikipedia an equally inconsistent mess. The only goal I am pursuing is that all transliterated Russian names are placed under the headers using one consistent transliteration system. Do you really want to have an article on Darkin under "Sergei Darkin" and an article on Lukyanenko (Russian science fiction writer) under "Sergey Lukyanenko" and then have people (especially those who have no clue as to how Russian language works) wondering if these are two different names, or if there is a spelling error in one of the article, or what the proper way to to spell the name of Mr. Penkin is—Sergey Penkin or Sergei Penkin? Wouldn't it be so much cleaner to use just one transliteration variant (and I prefer using "y" for "й" rather than "i" or "j", since "y" is used the most often across the articles) and then to clarify through the means of in-article notes and redirects that other ways of transliteration are also possible? I strongly believe it would (even though my earlier note about the necessity of using a spelling variant of the name that a person him/her/huself prefers still stands)...--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:17, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Ëzhiki, I've been putting this off, but now 'tis time I bit the bullet. To change metaphors (and as one wildlife form to another), let me say that I have always seen my niche in the ecology of Wiki as that of a small and normally unnoticed scavenger creature who lives off the minor errors of others and, in so doing, performs what I hope is a small service to all. It does so happen, though, that occasionally I get caught on the open grazing-plain, and in broad daylight, by one or other of the galumphing über-beasts of Wikiworld, and my little legs have to run very fast indeed to preserve my existence for another day... :-)

We shall have to "agree to diagree" on the "transliteration" v. "transcription" question. For me transliteration has to be one-to-one in both directions (e.g. Serbian in the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets): everything else is transcription - "phonetic transcription" perhaps, but still transcription.

Re the Transliteration of Russian into English article: I think you should take the bull by the horns, Ëshiki, and wield Ockham's Razor here (what a mixed-metaphor day I am having today!). Nothing wrong with your outlining your transcription system, but but but... stick to your basic rules and then simply add a statement to the effect that "None of these rules applies where a different English form is well established by general usage and custom: e.g. Tchaikovsky, not Chaykovsky". This will enable you to shorten the article and omit all the "Alexei, not Aleksey" business.

I think I've already conceded that all transcription systems are compromises and unlikely therefore ever to please all. Without saying else, then, about the merits of your system over mine or vice versa, let me at least say before I go that I find the use of "y" for "й" the most problematic feature of all in your system. The Roman letter "y" has to perform so many other tasks in your system that I find this to be one too many -- and I will never find Sergey anything other than very odd-looking (compared to Sergei). And the same goes for the "Altay" Mountains, the "balalayka", the "Bolshoy Ballet", "borzoy" dogs, and the "Yenisey" River. Altai, balalaika, Bolshoi, borzoi, Yenisei -- these are the forms I have grown up with.

Spokoinoi nochi. -- Picapica 18:13, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dear Picapica,

I would also like to apologize for the delayed response; hopefully you are still interested in this discussion.

I am not going to delve into the "transliteration vs. transcription" argument, because if we start introducing "degrees of trascription" that take the level of phonetic closeness into account, it would lead us to nowhere and have real specialists on the subject laugh real hard :)

Your suggestion about simply adding a note regarding established English forms is quite good, though, and it would indeed take care of many unnecessary details. The only problem with it is when there is no established English form, or when several forms exist on a seemingly equal basis. This would be quite common for the names of many minor geographical objects, as well as for the names of not-so-famous-but-still-worth-an-encyclopedia-article-about-them people (as with Mr. Darkin above).

As for the "y" for "й", I, unsurprisingly, agree. Trust me, if there was one system that could prevent using one Roman letter for representing several Cyrillic letters, I would be the one eager beaver to promote it and have it adopted. Your solution ("i" for "й"), while resolving the disambiguity between "й" and "ы", nevertheless introduces the whole new issue of "й" vs. "и". To me, this is far less acceptable because letter "и" is so much more common in the Russian language, and there are so many words having both "и" and "й" in them. Then, if you also start using "i" for "-ий" and "-ый" endings, you end up with a system which is by no means better than the one currently outlined in the article; with ambiguity shifted from one letter to another. Case in point: it is much easier to restore original spelling from "Spokoynoy nochi", than from "Spokoinoi nochi".

Altai, balalaika, Bolshoi, borzoi, Yenisei—these are the forms that you grew up with, and which are by no means proposed to be replaced with the y-versions (although Britannica and Encarta actually do use "Altay" when referring to the republic). It is less common words the transliteration system is to cover. "Sergey" and "Sergei", for example, are used almost equally in the English language (a simple Google search can confirm that); a name of one person can be spelled differently depending on the source.

So, to summarize—a) I am not a proponent of changing every single word of Russian origin with its transliteration which would be in strict accordance with the system outlined in the article; b) I still prefer "y" over "i" for the reasons outlined above; c) the system outlined in the transliteration article is only there because it is the one most commonly used across this fine encyclopedia; d) I strongly believe that one and only one system should be used when transliterating Russian words which do not have an established English form; e) I don't think I ever mentioned it before, but the article should probably mention that the system is to mostly cover personal and geographical names, not sentences and texts; f) I am sorry we disagree on this issue so much—I am trying to be consistent, and you are trying to use conventions that you deem most acceptable and established. I hope these comments of mine will alleviate the tension at least partially.

Best regards,

--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:37, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Just desire

Hi, Ezhik! (sorry, I don't know your real name) I know that you contribute mostly in English Wikipedia, because you like it more than our tiny one, but may be (sure, if you want and have time for it) you can also synchronyze your changes of Russia-related articles with ru:? It will really help us, and we will appreciate you a lot. The main benefit is that it is simpler for you (as author) to do it, than for others. For example, now I see your changes in List of city name changes and I have to synchronize them with russian Wikipedia, but to do it I have to check spelling of each Russian name, and it needs lots of time. Sorry, if it is not your intention to do it, but I think that there should be no borders between language subparts of Wikipedia project - they all belong to one great project of the largest multylingual encyclopedia. I also contribute sometimes in English part - though my language level is not enough to write articles I can add or correct facts. I hope that you understand me, sorry if I was too annoying. Thank you! Maximaximax 03:46, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Max! I have nothing against contributing to the Russian Wikipedia (especially when asked :) or when a parallel article exists). I just did not not notice that a Russian version of this particular article was also available. How about I finish the English version first, and then synchronize the Russian article with it? It may take a while till I get to it, but I am willing to do it.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:49, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Thanx! It would be very nice :) About City name changes - in fact it's me who contributed most of Russian city names to it before you, and I never saw such a list before (BTW where did you get it?), so I like this article very much and want to have the same in ru:. Before your changes it was synchronized, so you may just see the fifference and add them. Thanx again for your cooperation :)Maximaximax 04:32, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The list I have was published in a local paper in the town where I used to live (in Russia). Apparently, they did not have many local news to cover (and the quality of their coverage was so crappy that they eventually went out of business), so they published a bunch of useless facts every week—from the information on the periodic table elements to the lists of Russian tsars. The list of name changes was quite large, and I saved it for no apparent reason. I don't know where they were taking all that information from—probably just copied it off a reference book of some sort.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 13:50, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

List of city name changes

I'm not sure that in this list should be names of cities that they had before they get city status (when they were villages). For example, for Russian cities: village "Alexandrovskoye" get city status and get it's new name "Alexandrovka" in 1926. Another example, more obvious: village "Zavoyko" was renamed to village "Yelizovo" in 1924, and long after in 1975 village "Yelizovo" get city status, so there was no city "Zavoyko" at all, only village with this name. The article title is "List of city name changes" so I guess here must be only changes of city names. I Russia, for example, there are a lot of villages that were renamed, it is also interesting information, but it should be written in another article, I guess. Tell me if I'm wrong, and please answer on the article talk page. Maximaximax 04:01, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Replied on the Talk:List of city name changes page.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:17, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Transliteration to English or English names? About Wikipedia:Naming convention

Specially for Gene s: I communicate with Ezhiki in Russian, becose it is more easy for us both. Sorry. I know that it is English Wikipedia.

Тут мне втирают, что дескать у людей, (как и у всех городов и деревень) может существовать несколко имён, в том числе и английские. Т.о. все имена как с русского, так и с других языков России (а по мнению Гене с в Росии пишущих латинским шрифтом народов нет), должны иметь какое-то английское имя, неизменное, причём, похоже, во преки всем правилам фонетки и естественного права человека использовать своё имя так, как он его произносит). Нельзя ли как-нибудь внести в Конвенцию по именам то, о чём мы уже договорились - а именно создания главного файла с испеользованием родного произношения, а для альтернативных - создание широкой сетки редиректов.

С уважением, ----Untifler 13:02, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Этот вопрос рассматривается в подсекции о Naming Conventions, а именно тут — Wikipedia: Naming conventions (use English). Согласно этой конвенции, английский вариант имени/названия (вне зависимости от его "правильности" с точки зрения грамматических норм исходного языка) всегда должен использоваться как основной, за исключением случаев, когда родной спеллинг более распространён, чем английский вариант (имена политиков, как Gerhard Schröder, сюда как раз и попадают). Если устоявшегося варианта не существует (что верно для малоизвестных имён/названий, того же г-на Салахова, например), то в качестве основного используется родной вариант. Для русского языка это будет транслитерация, в случае же с языком татарским всё усложняется тем фактом, что как кирилличес&#1082;ий, так и латинский алфавит этого языка имеют своих противников. Если в качестве основного принять кириллический алфавит, то вариант имени должен быть латинской транслитерацией, если же за основной алфавит принять латинский, то тогда слово должно использоваться в родной форме со всеми умляутами и седиллами. На мой взгляд, пока мы все не определимся, какой алфавит считать основным, спорить о том, какую форму татарского имени/названия считать правильной (при отсутствии устоявшегося английского варианта) просто бессмысленно.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:17, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Я понимаю, что вопрос был не ко мне - но английское имя не есть какое-то "неизменное" имя, а то имя, которое чаще всего используется англоговорящими. Поменять это правило практически невозможно. Это правило выстрадано в многочисленных баталиях, и с каждым новым обсуждением оно только укрепляется.

Dr Bug (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 15:18, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

is KGB rules on Wikipedia? 8^)

Про КГБ я, если честно, намёк не совсем понял. Можно прояснить?--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:17, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Re: cyrillic

Sorry, you probably didn't understand me. I was talking about writing in cyrillic in the Edit summary field. While the body of the article shows cyrillic written in "#8765;" format, the summaries shown in the history are obviously not processed in the same way as text body. Mikkalai 16:08, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, that. Sorry, I did indeed misunderstand. The summary fields are often the names of the sections, which are sometimes in Russian. Since I usually just look at the page as a whole when looking for what's changes, I don't pay the summaries much attention. But I get your point. Thanks. Not that there is much I can do to make everybody write the headings only in English, though :)--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:15, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Years in television

Nothing major - just wanted to say, nice work on keeping the 'years in television' pages sorted: a heroic task given how chaotic they can be! Angmering 20:05, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. As a matter of fact, I do them to relax, so nothing heroic on my part, really :)--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 20:11, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

How about nominating you for an adminship?

What do you say? Gene s 11:44, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Gee, thanks :) I am not sure though if I'll be able to handle all the new responsibilities that come with this status. Is there anything special (meaning time-consuming) I will absolutely have to do if I am nominated and approved?--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 13:29, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

You don't 'have to do anything special. Go take a look: Wikipedia:Administrators#Becoming_an_administrator Gene s 13:36, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, no, I'll have to "exercise care"! :) Just kidding, of course. If you or someone else wish to nominate me, I will be honored to accept the nomination. Thanks again.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 13:46, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

You got yourself a nomination: Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Current_nominations. You have to formally accept it. Gene s 14:15, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wow. Удачи. будим оба "сисоп"! fun, eh? [[User:Ilyanep|Ilyanep Old sig...back wen I used templates...now gone]] 16:16, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! :)--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:18, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Despite I haven't seen any situations yet when you needed the admin rights, I clearly see the situations when they would be handy for you! Dr Bug (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 18:04, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I just hope I'll be able to move/merge articles faster and more effectively if the admin status is granted. Thanks for the support though!--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 18:34, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, not if, but when! :-) Dr Bug (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 18:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Kamchatka vs. Kamchatska -- Maybe comment out until have stronger evidence?

I did the replacement on the basis of three pieces of evidence all of which can be disputed. First, I noticed this IRC conversion on #wikipedia:

<node_ue> Nick: The most widely-accepted theory among experts is that the

Ainu, Nivkh, Chukchi, and other indigenous peoples of the Kamchatska

Peninsula are all related and perhaps remnants of an earlier

population

Being curious, I went in search of "Kamchatska" on Wikipedia, only to find one reference in Wikipedia (my second piece of evidence). Later, when I discovered "Kamchatka" and found it was the more common term, I subsequently changed that single Wikipedia occurrence to the Kamchatka as you, and virtually everyone else, favors.

Anyway, I went back to #wikipedia to ask about this inconsistency:

<emRick> node_ue: I was looking up Kamchatska in Wikipedia but only found

Kamchatka. Am I correct in assuming that Kamchatska is a (less

common) alternate spelling of Kamchatka?

<emRick> node_ue: I also noticed a few occurences of Kamchatska on google but

thousands of Kamchatka

<node_ue> emrick: not sure

<node_ue> I always have troubles with that

<bumm13> but that was at a university...

<node_ue> Whenever I would write articles on Ainu topics, I'd say kamchatska

only to later have to replace it with kamchatka

So, true, this is hardly sterling evidence.

Anyway, as my third piece of dubious evidence, google did find 86 distinct webpages (up to 144 pages including repeats). Many of these webpages include both the Kamchatka and Kamchatska spellings. This seems a bit too many to simply be a frequent spelling mistake (unless there's a strong urge to type "-ska" in all things Russian?). So, I drew the debatable conclusion that some other dialect or language in Russia uses Kamchatska; after all, Russia has so many languages and conflicting historical tendencies.

Anyway, I suggest the following steps:

instead of entirely deleting Kamchatska in Kamchatka, rather, comment out my alternate spelling
- ie, use
include a request for evidence/refutation in this comment
for now, leave in the two redirects that I added (ie Kamchatska and Kamchatska Peninsula)

Sound good to you? (I'm just trying to be helpful and "Be Bold" and am open to correction.) WpZurp 13:46, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wow, you did get me intrigued there. You are right, there is a good possibility that "Kamchatska" is most likely a spelling variant in one of the local dialects. It probably would be a good idea to comment it out for now, but I will certainly try to research this when I have time. I will also copy this discussion to Kamchatka talk page to be referred to when commenting out your change. The redirects should be fine, after all, even if it is a typo, it is not an uncommon one.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:01, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

I've just realized that "Kamchatska" can actually be a broken version of "Kamchatskaya Oblast" ("Камчатская область" in Russian). This is translated as "Kamchatka Oblast", but the "-aya" ending sometimes tends to be dropped out by people who do not know Russian (it is easier to pronounce this way), thus making it into "Kamchatska". If this is the case, "Kamchatska" would be incorrect, and it would also explain the unusually large number of hits (for a simple typo). I will still look into the local dialects version though.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:23, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

In russian (the way I speak it :D) it is written камчатка so...in english : "Kamchatka" . Maybe if you want to say The Kamtchatkan territory or something you could put "Kamchaskaya oblast or komchaska oblast" , etc. [[User:Ilyanep|Ilyanep Old sig...back wen I used templates...now gone]] 20:46, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In russian Камчатка (Kamchatka) is the same as Камчатский полуостров (Kamchatskiy Pennisula). Here, "камчат-" ("kamchat-") is radical of both words "Камчатка" and "Камчатский". "Камчатка" is a noun with derivational suffix "-к-" ("-k-"), and "Камчатский" is adjective with derivational suffix "-ск-" ("-sk-"). There is no need to transliterate suffixes "-k-" and "-sk-". --ru:Участник:Jaroslavleff

Thanks, but that was exactly what I was trying to explain earlier (see above), only in other words. Russian is my first language, after all :)) Anyway, I believe the issue has been addressed—the only reason I did not revert the "sk-" variant right away was because I wanted to make sure there was indeed no other spelling variant based the ways natives of Kamchatka could render the name of their peninsula.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 02:34, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Sysop

Congratulations! You are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the administrators' how-to guide helpful. Good luck. Angela . 14:34, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations, Ezhiki! [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 14:38, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Congrats! Dr Bug (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 14:39, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you everybody for your support and trust! I am very honored. Thank you again.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:42, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Avrora

Actually, I wanted to put the photo in a table, and by mistake I took image:Aurora.jpg instead of image:Aurora1.jpg. I know it was an ugly porno pic for some time (it wasn't me who changed it to that shit!), but yesterday I've uploaded correct Avrora as Aurora.jpg again. To me it looks OK now. Please, check image:Aurora.jpg again and try to refresh browser's cache (F5) - this cruiser must be somewhere there... Pibwl 19:33, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Anyway, sems it's best just to use Aurora1.jpg and delete the hell that troublesome Aurora.jpg... Pibwl 20:26, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Too late :) Already did it the other way around.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 20:29, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Request to move a page

Congrats on your new super-powers :-). Could you please move the page & talk Yar Çallee to Naberezhnye Chelny. I believe the disagreement with User:Untifler regarding the Tatar city/town names is settled. --Gene s 06:49, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Gee, 3 weeks later I finally see that you left me this message. Great attention to detail on my part, won't you say? :) Anyway, I did move the article. It's amazing that you had enough patience to wait for me to move it for 3 weeks.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:46, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. It's not like my life depended on it :-) --Gene s 03:55, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Translit

Dear Ezhiki,

Why, I'm very interested in transliteration. But citing myself, "I don't like to make things that others can do much better than me." I found that you well know what you do and I decided not to mess up :-). If there anyone who knows the history better than me and will prevent nationalists from replacing a common knowledge with a newly invented theories, I will be happy to change my point of attention. Ok, looking into the article... Dr Bug (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 07:04, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PS. As for supporting you as a sysop, you're of course welcome!

Sorry...

...for making you have to go and add "UK" to all those Picture Page entries I added to the Years in Television pages! :-) Angmering 16:56, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No problem, there's probably going to be more of those anyway :) Plus, I found a couple other shows I missed.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:11, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Soaps

I noticed you added many soaps to the years in television pages. Are you interested in them, or have you watched them, or what? I'm always interested to hear opinions about the shows. Mike H 17:00, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

People would probably object to listing a separate soaps section, but daytime shows are, by and large, a very different genre from nighttime shows. I know which shows are popular in what year (like, I don't really believe in having a soap being listed for every year. I'm thinking of taking All My Children off some years. For example, Guiding Light, which was popular in the 1950s and 1960s, is the second-lowest-rated soap today, and isn't all that popular anymore). Mike H 17:10, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Vladivostok

Thanks for wikify the page--enceladus 22:35, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's just a start. I'm going to get back to it—it still needs a lot of work.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 01:06, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Russian republics

Your corrections to my edits on the Russian republics articles don't suggest I severely screwed them up ;). It's just that you didn't like that I changed the box's format without your permission. Take it easy. --Cantus 00:40, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

First, I am not the primary authority to give permissions to people who wish to work on the articles that I work on as well. These are not "my" articles, even if I was the one to contribute the most content to them. Second, I actually did like the new box format; it looks cleaner and more appealing. Third, I kind of rushed to leave a comment after seeing what you did to the article on Komi Republic (just a box with dummy information)—I automatically assumed that all changes were of similar nature. Fourth, I really did not like that you went ahead with changing the headers without finishing the discussion. That contributed to the tone of my message somewhat.

Anyway, at least the looks are nice now. Thanks.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 18:04, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Well, what a turn of events :) --Cantus 22:32, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Moving articles

Can you please move Mariy El to Mari El, as in Britannica and Encarta, and Columbia Encyclopedia? Thanks. --Cantus 04:34, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Also, please move Altai Republic to Altay. Wikipedia policy is to use short names for the article's name. Thanks. --Cantus 05:06, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Can you move Komi Republic to Komi as well. Thanks. --Cantus 05:34, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Here's several facts regarding the moves that you've requested and have already made:

Adygeya was moved to Adygea.
- Google search: Adygeya=43,800; Adygea=3,400
- Britannica=Adygea
- Encarta=Adygea
- Columbia=Adygey Republic
Consider conducting a poll regarding the name to be used as the encyclopedias do not seem to reflect the most common spelling.
Proposed to move Altai Republic to Altay.
- Google search: Altai Republic=41,400; Altay Republic=708
- Google search #2: Altai=155,000; Altay=73,700
- Britannica: article on the republic is under "Altay"; article on the region is under "Altai Mountains"
- Encarta: article on the republic is under "Altay"; article on the region is under "Altai Mountains"
- Columbia: article on the republic in under "Altai Republic"; article on the region is under "Altai"
"Altai" spelling is more common except in Britannica and Encarta, which stick with transliteration guidelines and use "Altay". If the article on "Altai Republic" is to be moved, it should be moved to "Altai", not to "Altay". "Altai", however, is currently an article on the Altai region/mountains, and it has a right to stay there under the same policy to use short names you are referring to. Moving "Altai Republic" to "Altay" would create a confusion between "Altay" and "Altai", even if clarifying links are placed in the articles, plus, this is a far less common spelling variant. Shortened name will also conflict with "Altai Krai", which can also be shortened to Altai. Either leave this as is, or consider conducting a poll.
Buryat Republic was moved to Buryatia.
OK.
Proposed to move Komi Republic to Komi
- Britannica=Komi
- Encarta=Komi
- Columbia=Komi Republic
The word "Komi" has several meanings, as the Komi (disambiguation) article clearly shows. The word "Komi" itself is more strongly associated with the Komi people, not with the Komi Republic. Consider conducting a poll regarding the name. Meanwhile, I changed "Komi" to a redirect to the disambiguation page instead of the page about the republic.
Proposed to move Mariy El to Mari El.
- Google search: Mariy El=2,810; Mari El=98,900
- Britannica=Mari El
- Encarta=Mari El
- Columbia=Mari El
Moved.
Moved Sakha Republic to Sakha.
- Britannica=Sakha
- Encarta=Sakha
- Columbia=Sakha Republic
OK.

Please continue this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russian federal subjects#Names of the republics.

Russian & Ukrainian, transliteration

Hi, Ezhiki.

You reverted some of my changes at oblast, just as I was adding some relevant material to Transliteration of Russian into English. I transliterated oblast' with an apostrophe for the soft sign, which is used in every official system of transliteration for Russian and Ukrainian (PDF links), but not for Russian transliteration on Wikipedia. I've been using the Ukrainian National system for Ukrainian names in Wikipedia articles. How do we resolve this rare instance of one transliteration for both languages?

Another issue: I've been putting Ukrainian words first in parentheses, as in (о́бласть in Russian and Ukrainian) as opposed to (Russian, Ukrainian: о́бласть).

It can get more complicated with more languages and romanizations, but still works; see an example at Lviv. I've been using the form (слово, slovo in Ukrainian).

I realize this is more a matter of writer's style, but I like this because:

The subject of the sentence fragment appears first.
The translated name of the article appears closer to the English name.
Short words "and" and "in" are less busy-looking for readers than punctuation.
the actual translation is bold-faced, when it's the subject of the article, and the transliteration merely emphasized. This helps visually identify the actual word, as opposed to a secondary representation of it.

It would be nice to link to the transliteration pages for reference, but I don't know how best to do this.

There are still several forms used for translations and transliterations on Wikipedia for Russian, Ukrainian, Belorusian and their intersections, and if we can agree on a convention it will be easier for readers.

—Michael Z. 17:37, 2004 Sep 20 (UTC)

Hi, Michael!

Sorry about the inconvenience with the apostrophe. Both systems (with an apostrophe and without) are in fact used—it is entirely possible to give both variants (see Siberia for an example). The only reason I personally prefer using no apostrophe is because most of the words of Russian origin are transliterated without it throughout Wikipedia. It is much easier to continue using no apostrophe than going through all articles and add it back. What's more, there is no loss of information—transliteration is mainly added for search engines indexing purposes, and apostrophes (especially trailing) are usually omitted when a word containing them is indexed. Whether you use "oblast" or "oblast'", it makes no difference. "Oblast", however, looks much neater than "oblast'" (but, like I said before, it can be placed with the apostrope-less variant).

As for transliterating Ukrainian, I think it would be the best if a separate article is created. Granted, much of the information would be duplicate, but it is the details where the devil is in :) The article on Russian transliteration still needs a lot of work, and adding Ukrainian to the mix would only complicate the matters to the point where no one would want to mess with it (I may be wrong, of course—some people strive on challenges of this kind).

Most of the same reasoning goes for using the " xxx in Russian" notation vs. "Russian: xxx " notation. The latter is just more commonly used across the Wikipedia. I don't think there is a policy regarding this, but for consistency sake I would suggest using notation with the colon. This would make all of the articles look similar, which is always better than using different styles in different articles. Plus, when you add transliteration to this notation, the whole structure looks more streamlined (and enables you to add a link to the transliteration article). Here is an example:

The Republic of Ingushetia (Russian: Респу́блика Ингуше́тия; English transliteration: Respublika Ingushetiya; Ingush: Гiалгiай Мохк) is a ....

For your reference, Mr. Cantus opposes this notation as being too long. I was proposing to put transliteration into a separate block (as you rightfully mentioned it is derivative information), but Cantus opposed with a promise to explain why in the future.

Bolding a non-Engilsh word (as in your "slovo" example) is something I really do not like (see similar discussion here, although it is a lot of information to read through and probably is not fun at all). While I do not claim I am the only person who is right about this (you will find that Mr. Cantus is also a huge proponent of your system), my point of view is supported by the same fact—bolding non-English words is not very common through Wikipedia and is not very consistent in regards to the articles that do not use bolding. It may not be wrong, but so far no one (Mr. Cantus included) volunteered to change all of the articles in such a way as to use the convention with bolded non-English words.

I hope I was clear in explaining my point of view. I do not see anything wrong with your system, and I sure hope you did not take my changes personally (they are not). It is just that I think utilizing already existing conventions (even when they are not outlined in policies of any kind) is always better than inventing new ones. I myself am often tempted to change particular styles and formatting, but a mere thought of the number of places the changes would need to occur is usually enough to stop such a temptation :)

In any case, feel free to drop me a note if you want to further discuss this or if you have questions and suggestions of any kind. I noticed that you are planning to work on oblasts of Ukraine—wish you the best of luck with that! As I found out with the Russian Federal Subjects WikiProject, it is much more work than I initially thought it would be. It is quite interesting, though.

Take care! --Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 18:37, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your good points, and patient explanation. I tend to forget that there would be a lot more articles to update to new conventions than just the ones concerning Ukrainian. I'll follow up on your link and do some more reading.

Regarding Ukrainian transliterations, I've created an article at Romanization of Ukrainian, outlining the most common systems. I've chosen to use the Ukrainian National system, because there didn't seem to be a clear consensus on Wikipedia, apart from many names that either have a well-established form or are recently in the news. As you probably already know, the National system is used by Ukraine, the U.N., foreign services and in most new atlases, so it seems the most authoritative to me.

I'll have a closer look at the Wikipedia: name space. There should be a place to note some of these conventions.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but here's a marginally shorter version of your format, which still seems to be understandable.

The Republic of Ingushetia (Russian Респу́блика Ингуше́тия, transl. Respublika Ingushetiya; Ingush Гiалгiай Мохк) is a ....

Cheers. —Michael Z. 20:16, 2004 Sep 20 (UTC)

I sure envy you that you can actually select the best system to use for Ukrainian articles, because there are not that many existing articles that should be changed to start with :) Great job on the Romanization of Ukrainian, too. I'd love to see the Transliteration of Russian into English article structured just like that, but, alas, I can't work on so many projects at once. Maybe someday, if no one beats me to it...

As for abbreviating "transliteration" to "transl.", this was actually also discussed on the Russian federal subjects project's talk page (see the link I gave you earlier). The more I think of it, the more I believe it would be a good idea, although what particular abbreviation to use is still to be decided (so far, in addition to "transl." proposed by you, the proposed options include "tr." and "translit."). If there is a third way to handle the format (without punctuation-overloaded parentheses and without having to spell all variants in separate sentences), I'd love to hear what it might be.

Anyway, thanks again for your interest! Best,

--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 20:51, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment about Romanization. I just posted Ukrainian alphabet this morning, too. I think I may do some work on Cyrillic alphabet eventually, and maybe Transliteration of Russian into English, but I don't know Russian at all (but I am learning a bit about it from Wikipedia!).

I just skimmed over the talk at Russian Federal Subjects/Temp. Whew!

Well, translit. is perfectly unambiguous, while trans. makes me think of translation, for some reason. I'm not strongly against either.

You know, I think just using (транзлітерація, tr. transliteratsia) might be sufficient, because the tool-tip appears over the link with a perfectly appropriate title. The ambiguousness of the abbreviation is enough to make the unfamiliar reader pause and check the title, but won't slow you down or clutter the page.

It's too bad Wikipedia puts the tool-tip over every single freakin' link, so users don't even read them. I just filed a Bug 542 at bugzilla.wikipedia.org.

What kind of cities has official English names?

Когда ищешь в Гугле слова Arça и Arsk, выдаёт примерно однаковое количество. Но ни то, ни другое с тсатарским городом Арском не связано:) Какие выводы можно делать о наименовании статьи? Тем более что чем меньше нас.пункт, тем сложнее найти хоть чё-то стоящее в интернете... Надо выработать рамки в которых... Короче не надо принимать то, что изначально статьи с сылками на татарстанские города я называл исходя из татарских имён, а не общеприянтых английских, которые мне как коренному жителю не известны, .. за проявления национализма и сепаратизна - просто хотелось, чтобы до англоязычного читателя дошло origin. Конечно, значки эти надстрочные не всем известны, но даже без них имена и названия всё-таки более корректные, чем 2-жды странслитерованные через русский. Надеюсь на понимание как систоп систопа :) Но в принципе сложившейся ситуацией доволен - всё правильно делают. User:Untifler--217.30.250.140 22:10, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

ps вообще англоязычные энциклопедии будут пополняться из Вики?

На мой взгляд, большие и относительно большие/известные города (как Набережные Челны) должны располагаться под тем названием, под которым они наиболее известны в англоязычных странах (в данном случае, Naberezhnye Chelny). Эта информация легко добывается из гугля. Естественно, все другие наименования должны быть как упомянуты в тексте статьи, так и оформлены в виде редиректов.

Что касается небольших населённых пунктов, то с ними всегда проблемы. На мой взгляд правильнее всего было бы брать оригинальное название на татарском языке и приводить его к латинскому написанию без надстрочных/подстрочных знаков. Отдельно отмечаю — не просто опускать эти знаки, а именно приводить к латинскому написанию (т.е. буква "ç", например, будет передаваться как "ch", а не как "c") татарского я не знаю, предположение было сделано из расчёта того, что "ç" читается как "ч"; если ошибся — прошу поправить. Таким образом, статья об Арске будет находиться под заголовком "Archa", в то время как "Arsk" и "Arça" будут редиректами (и, разумеется, также должны упоминаться в тесте статьи).

Если случайно какой-нибудь из мелких городов при использовании этой системы окажется под "неправильным" названием (т.е. в случае, когда в английском уже будет более распространённое название), то я более чем уверен, что тут же найдутся желающие вам об этом сообщить :) В таких случаях статью всегда можно будет переместить под более распространённое название. Бо́льшая же часть статей о небольших населённых пунктах будет располагаться под названиями, которые будут давать представление об их татарском наименовании.

Что касается постскриптума, то я, боюсь, не очень понял суть вопроса. Вы имели в виду, будут ли традиционные, "бумажные" энциклопедии (Британника, Коламбия) пополняться из Вики? Теоретически, это, конечно, возможно. Практически, я в этом очень и очень сомневаюсь.

Если в вопросе имелось в виду что-то другое, пожалуйста, переформулируйте.

Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:43, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Отдельно хочу отметить, что всё вышеизложенное — это исключительно моё личное предложение, не подкреплённое никакими policies and procedures. Я бы очень хотел знать единственный верный ответ, но, к сожалению, он мне неизвестен. Моё предположение, на мой же взгляд, является довольно приемлемым компромиссом между использованием татарских, русских и английских наименований небольших городов. Как известно, наилучший компромисс считается достигнутым тогда, когда ни одна из сторон не довольна результатом :) (вам и остальным жителям Татарстана наверняка хотелось бы видеть эти статьи под оригинальными татарскими названиями, написанными латиницей; а мне — английскую транслитерацию с русского названия). Не исключено, что есть и другие точки зрения.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:50, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Да, я согласен :) Такой метод нужен ещё и потому, что многие жители самого Татарстана искренне полагают, что в английском тексте никакие надстрочные знаки писать ни в коем случае нельзя - мол в английском алфавите такого нет, да и враскладке, устанавливаемой на наш софт - ничего подобного нет.

Вот как традиционно транслитерируются буквы: Согласные:

ş - sh
ç - ch
ğ - gh
ñ - ng

С гласными сложнее: можно оставлять "умляуты" попросту отбросив - ошибки не будет. А можно и так (более конкрето, если можно выразиться):

ä - ae
ö - oe
ü - ue
í - ei (не общепринято, да и встречается редко)
ı - ee

Но с эти всегда успеем. А касаемо городов - предлагаю города менее 50.000 обозначать указанным вами способом, а больше - традиционно.

Есть ещё слова которые даже в ркуском тексте пишутся татарскими буквами (или по татарским правилам чтнеия). Их скорей всего лучше писать с настрочными, создав конечно густую сеть редиректов :) Напр: Qorban Bäyräme, Näwrüz Bäyräme --Untifler 17:44, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's a porn picture no if's and's or but's

That is a porn picture and there are children on this website think of them next time revert me. God bless you--198.81.26.8 19:32, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please follow the established procedures for dealing with materials you deem questionable. You can start with the article's talk page. Deleting information from the article is considered vandalism.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 19:34, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Years in television

Original question:
Hi Heegoop! I changed the sections back, and explained why in the edit summary. As 2000 is the last year of the 20th century, it belongs to 1990s (there must be 10 years in all decades!). Let me know if you have questions.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:45, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

The year 2000 is not in the 1990s because a. It doesn't have 199? in its name b. It's not on the list of years in the 1990s page. Heegoop 14:56, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems that decades can be named either ways (so 1990 can be either the last year of 1980s or the first year of 1990s). Since it would be silly going through all of the articles and changing them from one system to another (not to mention it would meet resistance from ignoramuses who still think 2000 was the first year of the 21st century), I will change "Years in television" back. Should have done my research first :) This does get confusing at times though.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 19:09, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Söyembikä

Такой вот вопрос. Как-то хотел средиректовать Syuyumbike на Söyembikä, но что-то напутал и переименовал туда страницу. Можно ли как-нибудь вернуть обратно, не прибегая к копирванию.

Второй вопрос. По правилам какого языка целесообразно транслитерировать имена золотоордынских ханов (не Казанских или Крымских)? Ведь они говорили не на татарском в современном понимании. Да и вообще говоря, они были Чингизиды - т.е. монголы. К тому же варниантов транслитерации я насчитал не менее пяти - русский, татарский, польский, литовский, турецкий, традиционный западый. Но на странице Golden Horde имена даны в какой-то то ли узбекской, то ли азербайджанской традиции. Хотя всё-же ближе к истине, чем в русской:) Так как? --Untifler 15:04, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Не очень понял проблему. Статья Söyembikä выглядит правильно, по крайней мере в плане контента. Статьи Syuyumbike не существует (вообще, ни редиректа, ни истории удалений, вообще ничего)—проверьте, пожалуйста, что статья называется именно так.

На Söyembikä имеются три редиректа—Suyumbika, Soyembika и Suyumbike. Если какой-то из них неверен и с ним надо сделать что-то, что можно сделать только администратору, то дайте знать—сделаю.

Что касается золотоордынских ханов, то в соответствии с политикой Википедии надо использовать традиционные западные имена. Если в статье про Золотую Орду используются другие названия, то их, по-видимому, надо заменить на традиционные. Предварительно, однако, я бы порекомендовал просмотреть историю статьи и попробовать побеседовать с теми людьми, кто использовали узбекско-азербайджанские варианты написания—проверить, были ли у них веские причины использовать именно их.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:50, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Kyiv or Kiev?

Listen Kyiv(Kiev) is Ukrainian city - capital of Ukraine, and so in Ukrainian transliteraion it is Kyiv, not Kiev - it is Russian transliteration. OK? Then let be Київ - Kyiv, but no Russian Киев = Kiev.

I would strongly recommend that you read Talk:Kiev before you lunge into a fight that's already been fought. I am perfectly aware of the dispute and, honestly, I don't care if the city is called one way or another. I am merely stating that the consensus have been to use Kiev, not Kyiv.

Next time, please research the subject before making abrupt changes and blaming others for not agreeing with you. It would also be great if you started using the "Edit summary" box and the "Show preview" button when editing articles, as well as if you started to sign your posts. Like this→—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:30, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC). Let me know if you have questions—I'm here to help (among other things).

Federal subjects of Russia

Original message to Neutrality:
Hi, Neutrality!

Just wanted to drop a thank-you note for your interest in this article. Articles on federal subjects of Russia are pretty much neglected, so it's nice when someone takes an interest in them.

I did, however, wanted to let you know a couple of things regarding the Administrative division section. I am generally trying to separate this information into a standalone article (see, for example, Administrative divisions of Bashkortostan or Administrative divisions of Adygeya). This is done as a part of the Russian federal subjects WikiProject, but since I am the only active participant of the project (hint, hint!—sorry, I couldn't not do this :)), the conversion is progressing painfully slow. It is, however, my intent, to re-do the articles on all of the Russian federal subjects, so this is just a fair warning that the districts box you added will eventually be replaced with a separate article. I thought I need to let you know in case you plan to add more of those. I like the box you did a lot, but since the article it will eventually be replaced with will have much more information, I don't know if you decide to proceed with the boxes or not.

Anyway, thanks for your interest again, and let me know if you have any questions.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:02, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sure, that sounds good. I think we can have the stand-alone list and a separte article and a template footer to be in the articles about each district (none are written yet, but hopefully they will be. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 15:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think I didn't quite get your idea. If a standalone article lists (and links to) all of the districts of a federal subject, what would the purpose of a template footer be? Or did you mean that the footer will be included into the main article? Could you, please, clarify this?

As for the articles on districts not having been written yet—whoever takes a go at those will get my full support and a barnstar. There are 1,866 districts in Russia, and less than a dozen have articles right now. It's just that I'd hate to see 1,800+ stubs or substubs added—almost each district can be expanded into an article, but that's sure helluva work.

Finally, just to let you know—the box header should read "Districts (районы)" instead of "Districts (районов)". That actually was a mistake on my part—in Russian, the word "districts" in the "consists of a number of districts" construction is used in Genitive (районов), and this was the form I put inside the parentheses and then copypasted it all over. I should have used Nominative instead—районы. I fixed it in the box you created and just wanted to point this out so you don't accidentally use the Genitive form in other boxes (should you go ahead and create any more of them). Also, if you could please deitalicize the Russian spelling in the list itself—it has been decided that italicized Russian text is difficult to read for non-native speakers. I didn't want to specifically deitalicize every instance, but I do so if I make other, more significant edits, at the same time.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:41, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

I mean that when articles on each district are written, we can put the template footer at the bottom of each article. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 23:00, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

It probably is funny, but I did not understand what you meant before until you explained it to me. It's like there was a brick in my brains blocking circuits responsible for bloody obvious :)—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 19:19, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

St. Petersburg administrative areas

Thanks for russian transliteration. Unless you can produce some more information than just the list of those raions, I don't see a reason to create separate page for St. Petersburg administrative areas. I am finishing the district map right now, so that will clarify the picture a lot more. Some places quote 21 raions, some quote 20, do you for sure the number of raions? I could only find a list of 20 raions from SPB official pages.

Yes, there are only 20 as of 2004 (this is per OKATO—Russian administrative classificator).

As for creating a page, please take a look at, for example, Administrative divisions of Bashkortostan, and let me know if you want me to produce a similar page for St. Petersburg. The article will have the lists of administrative entities (not just the districts), as well as information on subordination. The layout will be the same.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 18:41, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, you were very quick in creating that administrative divisions page for st. petersburg, thank you! I uploaded the districts map into that article. I am not sure if it should be uploaded to st. petersburg main page as well without the district numberings. Also I could enlarge the thumbnail version of the map, so that the numbers could be seen without the need to enlarge that image. Tell me what you think. Moscow could use similar district map too. -- Huopa

Hey, that's a great map, thanks! Say, would it be possible to renumber the districts on the map to match the order in which they are listed in the article (so the bulleted list can be replaced with the numbered list)? It is, of course, possible, to rearrange the list to match the map, but I think keeping the list in the alphabetical order as it is now is probably a better solution. Anyway, let me know what you think.

As for Moscow, if you can create a similar map, I will certainly be able to compile an article on administrative division of the city to go along with it.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:45, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I can try. In fact, I thought of that at first, but the four smallest districts in the downtown are so small also in map that two-digit numbers can hardly fit there. I will see today if it looks good or not. -- Huopa

One problem came... what is that Lisi Nos district? I couldn't find it, but if we number the list, it will be assigned a separate number, so .. otherwise the alphabetical numbering works fine. -- Huopa

Please continue this discussion at Talk:Administrative division of Saint Petersburg

Doctor Who in Years in Television

Any reason why you (well, I say you, I apologise if it was one of the other guardians of these pages!) have Doctor Who stopping in 1984 and re-staring in 1986? True, there was an eighteen month gap between seasons twenty-two and twenty-three, but twenty-two ended in early 1985 and twenty-three began in late 1986. Although there was some worry at the time, the show was never cancelled, the twenty-third season was never anything other than delayed to the autumn rather than the spring, and the production office was never suspended or closed down.

The years it ran should therefore read: 1963-1989; 1996; 2005-

Paul the Picky Who Fan ;-) Angmering 17:01, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh no! Now I have to go back and re-do them all again! :( I made the changes per Hig Hertenfleurst's edits (namely, this one). I did not realize that the show was still on in early 1985.

Also, what happened in 1996? I admit I didn't read the article on Dr. Who all that close; so, did I miss something about 96?

Anyway, I'll fix the mess I made. Thanks a lot for catching this!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:10, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, the show returned for a one-off TV Movie in 1996, co-financed by the BBC, Universal Television and the Fox Network. It was an attempt to launch the series as a major concern in the US, but didn't really succeed and remained a one-off. It's interesting though because I think it's the only time a US version of a British show has carried on the narrative thread from the original rather than being a re-make, and the TV Movie is regarded as being part of the same story as the original series. I think I did an entry for the movie's broadcast in the 'events' section of the 1996 page a while back. Angmering 19:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A quick note to say thanks

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to thank you for your support in my request for adminship. It was certainly a wild ride, and I really appreciate you taking some time out to contribute. ClockworkSoul 16:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You are very welcome. I believe that you are going to be a great admin.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:34, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Join RWNB!!

Hello!

I see from your contributions that you are interested in Russian topics. Perhaps you would like to join the new Russian wikipedians' notice board? It is a discussion forum for wikipedians interested in all things Russian. Also, each week we pick an unfinished stub article to improve through collaboration.

Russian Collaboration of the Week

Every week, a lacking Russian topic is picked to be the Russian Collaboration of the Week.
The current RCOTW is Vostochny.

Notice boards and Collaborations-Of-The-Week have become increasingly popular on wikipedia reciently, with Irish, British, US and many more. There is also a score board for competing collaborations! See FAC.

Isn't it about time we got articles on Russia up to standard?

Hope to see you on RWNB!

Seabhcán 12:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm back :-).

Dear Ёzhiki,

thank you very much, I'm happy to know that you are glad to see me :-)

Dr Bug (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 08:21, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pls move page Kursk, Russia

Please move Kursk, Russia to Kursk. The Kursk page is currently a redirect to Kursk (disambiguation) which makes no sense. Thanks. --Gene s 08:59, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for catching that.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:33, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Arbcom vote

The election doesn't start until midnight UTC, it was just switched on for a few minutes for testing. I'm going to delete the log from those few minutes, you'll have to vote again. -- Tim Starling 17:16, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, it made me wonder that the election page stated the election did not start until the 4th, but the actual voting was active. I kind of tested to see if it works, and since it did... well, you get the picture. Thanks for the note, though.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:33, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

RFC pages on VfD

Should RFC pages be placed on VfD to be deleted? I'm considering removing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Slrubenstein, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jwrosenzweig and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/John Kenney from WP:VFD. Each of them was listed by CheeseDreams. Your comments on whether I should do this would be appreciated. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't think RfC pages should have wound up on VfD in the first place. Aren't they supposed to be archived indefinitely? Anyway, I'd say remove them from VfD for sure, they don't belong there.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 19:07, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I'm going to shift your comments to the new admin noticeboard... if you have any specific objections to this please let me know. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:30, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:IngushetiaCoatofArms.png

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 21:47, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

The image was taken from the Estonian article on Ingushetia. I no longer remember where they got it from, I must have merely assumed it was licensed under GFDL (which I cannot guarantee). Currently that Estonian article features a different (and much better) image of the coat of arms, stating it came from geraldika.ru. I do not know whether that would qualify as fair use, so I am leaving the decision up to you. Please let me know what you think, because most of my images (and all of the flags and coats of arms I contributed) were taken directly from Wikipedias in other languages. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 22:23, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Accents

I notice you restored the accents I removed in the cyrillic oblast names. Are these accents really essential? They are not used on Russian Wikipedia. Even worse, they look horrible under Linux (at least for me) because apparently they are not placed above the letters but beside them, giving a totally mangled result. What is the use for these accents, exactly? Are they even correct in the Russian language? Balcer 00:13, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi there! To answer your questions:

Yes, the accents are quite essential. They show the stressed syllable, which is useful to people who don't know Russian all that well (but are able to read Cyrillic). Putting accents on words is standard practice, Russian dictionaries and encyclopedias always show accents. There are many words in Russian with which it is not quite apparent (even to a native speaker!) what syllable should be stressed.
Accents are in fact used on Russian Wikipedia. They started doing it fairly recently, so there are still many articles that do not have accents. Of course, not every word is supposed to be accented, only the bolded subject of the article.
I am sorry the accents look bad to you. You may want to tweak your fonts/settings. Also, just because they look bad to you does not mean they do not retain their value, especially to people to whom they look OK. I find Greek texts rendered pretty ugly on my machine, which is not a reason to remove all Greek words from the articles.
Of course the accents are correct. There are quite a few Russian Wikipedians who'd correct them if they were wrong.

Hope this resolves the issue. Please don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 00:35, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I dug out my Russian dictionary and indeed the accents are standard. The only slight problem I can see is that the accented cyrillic version gives rather poor results when used in Google searches. For example,

"Тверска́я о́бласть" - 9 hits, first hit is the Wikipedia article itself
"Тверская область" - 182,000 hits, first hit is the official oblast homepage

Thus accents might improve user pronounciation, but they make much more difficult searching for additional sites in Russian via Google. The average user will not know how to remove the accents and will simply attempt to cut and paste from the Wikipedia article into the Google search box. Doing this he may develop the incorrect impression that the Internet in Russia barely exists. Balcer 05:34, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You are quite right about the search engines. This issue was already brought up before (also here and on Russian Wikipedia as well). Mr. Monedula, I believe, was the one who started accenting Russian words, not without protests from other users. The issue seems to come back up every once in a while.

So, here's a summary of previous discussions:

Search engines not being able to render the accented Russian words are a technical limitation, which will hopefully be overcome in the future. Yandex, for example, is smart enough to search for two different spellings of a word containing the letter ё (so, a search for полёт will also look for полет). Accents are no different in that sense. It is believed that the only reason why search engines can't yet automatically strip accents during search is that the accents aren't all that common on the net (except in encyclopedic and dictionary resources). Eventually this will be fixed.
As far as Russian federal subjects go, I am trying to address this issue through the Russian federal subjects WikiProject. The template used by the project calls to using an accented version in the introduction, and non-accented version in the infobox header (see Ingushetia for an example). This is also done to aide some backwards-oriented search engines index the words properly (so, with two versions, both an accented and non-accented variant will be indexed). The Project is far from complete (only a handful of republics is done so far), but eventually every Russian federal subject will stick to the template.
The "stupid user issue" is something that can never be resolved. I am sure that even when all of the articles on Russian federal subjects contain the English name, the Russian name (both accented and unaccented), its transliteration (and maybe even a list of all transliteration variants), a link to the article in Russian Wikipedia, and a bunch of links in the External Links section, there will always be some users who plug an incorrect word into the search engine. All we can do is to provide the end user with a selection to choose from and hope for the best.

—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:12, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)