Portal:Ukraine/Ukraine-related Wikipedia notice board

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Topics in archived closed issues

  1. "Old Ruthenia" fictitious article
  2. Vintage postcards
  3. Are there reasons not to move Khersones to Chersonesos?
  4. Ukrainian language, percentage of speakers
  5. A favour
  6. Aleksandra Lisowska
  7. Cossack and post-revolution times in History of Ukraine
  8. New template and category "uk-4" (near-native)
  9. Announcement of behalf of user:AndriyK

Contents

[edit] URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Some guy invented a bot adding an I think stupid category to UA bio articles. Is there a way for stopping him other than constant reverts? If not addressed, this issue may soon come out of our control. Ukrained 16:06, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks like discussion belongs at Category talk:Living people. Don't worry; what a bot can do it can also undo. —Michael Z. 2006-01-28 16:46 Z
I believe the stupid category was authorized by Jimbo Wales. So we have to live with it. --Ghirla | talk 18:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Please try to improve the article horilka which is voted for deletion now. Although I voted "delete" basing on article content, I am aware that I am not an expert. Also there may be important information in Ukrainian langauge I cannot assess. Mukadderat 16:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikipedia:Peer review/Kiev

I requested Peer review for Kiev. Sashazlv 05:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bringing publicity to Ukrainian topics

I think we should change the priorities. The problem is that there are too few people who contribute to "Ukrainian articles" on a more or less systematic basis. And few people seem to be interested in such articles, in general. We kind of keep creating stubs and seldom update or expand them. Those, who, by chance, get to such a stub will be frustrated and may never come back to any "Ukrainian article". First impression does matter a lot.

Here's a possible solution: 1. Switch effort from quantity to quality. 2. Try a few PR techniques. A good idea may be to try to push Kiev to an FA status.

This whole thing is a voluntary project. So, the only way to make people work is to make them interested. I hope quality + some PR would work out.

What do you think? Sashazlv 04:41, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that UA articles as featured at front page will bring publicity and may bring people to topics. Just for the particality reasons, we have to choose not among the most worthy topics, but among the better shaped article. I am not sure, Kiev is the one, but it is one from a rather small pool.
I think also a good idea is to attract more attention from our neighbors. Just look at the coverage of RU- and PL-related topics (I humbly try to participate, with at Russia portal and (very little) at Wikipedia talk:Polish Wikipedians' notice board). There are editors there with an exceptional commitment and quality of contributions. I will keep campaigning there for more attention to UA topics and will try some new approaches. :) --Irpen 07:54, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to say something here in response to a very understandable remark by Sasha at Talk:Judicial system of Ukraine "Anyway, my long-term impression is that nobody would be interested. So, don't waste your time."

As for using our time most efficiently, I agree with Sasha that the best thing would be to bring more interest to Ukrainian topics by generating 2-3 more Featured Articles. I think Kiev, History of Kiev, Orange Revolution could be developed to WP:FA status. Until recently, the History of Ukrainian language could be spun off from the Ukrainian language article and developed to FA within a reasonable effort. Right now, much of material was deleted from there by AndriyK and it needs to be restored first but it is doable. Actually, I promise to do it myself once this crazy arbitratrion is over. Another exciting topic with a reasonable amount of material already in is History of Christianity in Ukraine that used to be my pet article before I realized I cannot possibly write it on my own. Could we set aside some time this winter, guys? I am sure we could find others to help us! --Irpen 03:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Can you compile a full list of such potential articles? If you/we decide to expand something into an FA, its better to pick an article that is not too contentious. Otherwise, there's a risk it may fall short of formal FA criteria (e.g., an article under an on-going edit war). For that reason, I see problems with Orange Revolution and History of Christianity. Also, you/we should pick exactly one article, so as not to split scarce effort. Sashazlv 05:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Sasha regarding the contentiousness. History of Christianity... is definitely a bad choice. I would say Kiev, if it wasn't actually Kyiv :)). I mean it is a predominantly geography/economics-related article. Some other interesting city/town? May it could be Fastiv, for example? Another approach is a politics-(relatively)-free page. A technical one? (Antonov seems to be a high-tech symbol of Ukraine... Irpen, do all articles listed by me fit the FA criteria of importance, size, topic/subject etc.? Ukrained 19:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I've done it a while ago at the Portal's front page. Check the "Things you can do" window. I created a category: "Articles with Featured Article Candidate's status within reach". We all, myself included, should check the portlal more often. Not just its notice boards :). I picked articles based on their relative saturation with factual info. Any Ukrainian topic is contentious. Perhaps, Ukrainian Baroque then? But I am afraid, there are not enough art specialists between us. "History of UA L", would make a great article and a unique too, as Michael pointed out earlier, since most other language history articles provide history of linguistic development, while ours provides the reflection of political history of the nation on the language. But it is contentous of course. Well, even History of Kiev is contentious for some zealots and there are some and there will be more. In any case, please add articles to the Portal's window of potential WP:FAC. --Irpen 05:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW, we shouldn't be too pessimistic because WP is developing as a whole regardless Ukrainian pages, - but possibly increasing demand for the. E.g., in Ukraine, the influential and growing [Glavred www.glavred.info] informs on WP inner developments systematically, and [Korrespondent www.korrespondent.net] is occasionally citing the WP pages in their news. Ukrained 19:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
The following moved from Talk:Judicial system of Ukraine:
I would say making Kiev a featured article. It's less likely to fall prey to political disagreements -- if history section is kept short. I submitted it for peer review about half a year ago, but it died out at that point. Please, cross-post this on portal talk and add your comments. Sashazlv 23:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, history sections in both Kiev and Ukraine (and few other big articles) should be kept short. They became freaking impossible to edit and preview! If we only could reach an agreement... And let's keep developing/"mainarticling" other sections of Kiev. Ukrained 12:17, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Starobielsk

The article needs urgent attention. Is it really a village? Is it near Kharkov? What about the spelling? --Ghirlandajo

I did a quick search and found out some amazingly interesting info about this place. I will start working on it and will post the refs at talk page. Thanks, Ghirlandajo, for bringing this up. --Irpen 22:31, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Starobielsk. --Irpen 03:34, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attorney General / Prosecutor General

I couldn't find an article about the Office of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine (Генеральна прокуратура України), or whatever translation you prefer. If it exists under a different name, please, post it below. Sashazlv 04:17, 29 July 2005 (UTC) Lest I forget, external link is: [1].

[edit] Template for links to Zerkalo Nedeli articles

I think it would be useful to make a template for the references to ZN articles. The paper covers a broad array of topics, from current events and remote history. It is bi-/tri- lingual and searchable back to 1995. Something like:

{{ZNref|articlename|Month|Year|ru-link|ua-link|en-link(if any)}}

to bring:

"Article name" in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Month, Year, available online in [linkru Russian] and [linkua Ukrainian].

Is there anyone with experience making templates? I made several but messed up big time. Just a suggestion. --Irpen 06:56, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Done Template:Zerkalo Nedeli. —dima/s-ko/ 00:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New PD-tag as per the UA law below

As per the law below, I just created a tag {{PD-UA-Exempt}} which displays the following message:

According to the Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine on Copyright and Related rights this work is in the public domain within Ukraine and possibly in other jurisdictions because it is one of the following:
  • (a) daily news or details of current events that constitute regular press information;
  • (b) works of folk art (folklore);
  • (c) official documents of a political, legislative or administrative nature (laws, decrees, resolutions, court awards, State standards, etc.) issued by government authorities within their powers, and official translations thereof;
  • (d) State symbols of Ukraine, government awards; symbols and signs of government authorities, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations; symbols of territorial communities; symbols and signs of enterprises, institutions and organizations;
  • (e) bank notes;
  • (f) transport schedules, TV and radio broadcast schedules, telephone directories and other similar databases that do not meet the originality criteria and to which the sui generis right (a particular or special right) is applicable.
Note that drafts of anything that falls under sections (d) and (e), unless officially approved are under copyright.

I also placed a copy of this tag to commons and started to tag images both there and in enwiki. You are welcome! :) --Irpen 04:41, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I was about to do the same, but you beat me to it. One, I tagged all of the Hero of Ukraine images with that tag. Two, check your email inbox and three, if someone can help with some photos of people wearing the title, we can use one or two. Most of the images from Kuchma's era were deleted from his website, replaced with photos of Yushchenko. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:44, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian copyright law's very important excemption

Prompted by Zscout370's request at my talk page I checked for what UA law says on this issue. UA-version of the law is easy to google, but an English version is harder to find and I think the links below are very useful. Anyway, there are a couple of sites that give full text of the 2001 law on copyright in English. The most "official looking" is this pdf file at CIPR's site. The HTML version is available at this fun site but the text is the same. The relevant text from the law is in the PD-UA-exempt tag above, now created both in enwiki and in commons.

Here is the excerpt from the law:

Objects Not Covered by Protection

10. The following items shall not be objects of copyright:
(a) daily news or details of current events that constitute regular press information;
(b) works of folk art (folklore);
(c) official documents of a political, legislative or administrative nature (laws, decrees, resolutions, court awards, State standards, etc.) issued by government authorities within their powers, and official translations thereof;
(d) State symbols of Ukraine, government awards (in original text "nagorody", so yes, it includes orders and medals! -Irpen); symbols and signs of government authorities, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations (should include all insignia, right? -Irpen); symbols of territorial communities (original "terrytorial'nyh gromad", so not only State but local CoA's, I assume. -Irpen); symbols and signs of enterprises, institutions and organizations (I would say it includes logos, including Dinamo Kiev :) -Irpen);
(e) bank notes;
(f) transport schedules, TV and radio broadcast schedules, telephone directories and other similar databases that do not meet the originality criteria and to which the sui generis right (a particular or special right) is applicable.

The drafts of the official symbols and signs specified in points (d) and (e) of part 1 of this Article shall, prior to their official approval, be regarded as works and shall be protected pursuant to this Law.

This should make life easier, shouldn't it? Cheers, -Irpen 00:52, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Besides, similar tag {{PD-RU-exempt}} is created based on the similar RU-law. It is both in commons and enwiki. The tag has a reference to the official text of the Russian Law I pasted to Wikisource. Unfortunately, I was not able to paste an UA-law in English to Wikisource. For one, the RU-law text (English version) is published on RU-gov site (there is not in gov-ua), and the links I found are correct but not official. Secondly, the version of ru-law could be pasted as is, without adding wikimarkup, to produce still reasonable text. If anyone wants to take it upon themselves, you're all welcome.

And finally, there are other permitted uses in both RU- and UA-laws. Such as "reproduction of pieces that are open to public access anyway", etc. Do we need another tag for such? Or common PD and fairuse tags would suffice? Regards, --Irpen 17:53, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

We already have a template for photos taken at or before 1973, called PD-USSR. From 1974-1991, I am not sure about the copyright for those photos. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 20:16, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Quite interesting, actually, because I just uploaded a photo that was taken in the 80s. I marked it as PD but not sure if it's the best choice. -- mno 20:23, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rus' articles' confusion

Please look at the note I just posted at Wikipedia talk:Russian Wikipedians' notice board#Rus' articles and respond there, if you would like to share your opinion on this. Thanks! -Irpen 00:41, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Woah! (Hero of Ukraine)

I've been away for a week, and missed my user page when catching up, yesterday. By dumb luck, I just found the medal you awarded me. What a great surprise. Thanks so much! —Michael Z. 2005-07-27 19:34 Z

 :). BTW, Zscout370, who recently created a Hero of Ukraine and the List of heroes of Ukraine articles (both being developed now, mostly by him) is aware of this. I don't know whether he will add this recipient to the list article. ;) --Irpen 20:31, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Eastern-European cooperation proposal

Crossposted to: Wikipedia talk:Polish Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Russia/Russia-related Wikipedia notice board, Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal/Belarus, Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Ukraine/Ukraine-related Wikipedia notice board

I'd like to propose that Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian (and anybody else who wants to join, you will excuse me if I won't list everyone here, I tried to reach everybody on the Wikipedia:Regional notice boards) Wikipedians join forces and try together to promote some articles to FA, instead of (what seems to be more common, unfortunately) fighting over which name should go first and similar petty issues :>

In this spirit I invite you all to comment on Polish-Muscovy War (1605-1618), an article I (mostly, wiki being wiki) have written over the past few months. It can definetly benefit from introducing Russian/English spelling of some names/people that I added knowing only Polish spelling, adjusting my Polish POV and adding more info from Russian/other sources I have no access to. I believe this article is fairly comprehensive, and we can make it reach FA. In few days I will submit it to Peer Review, and if there are no disputes on PR/article's talk page I will submit it to FA in over a week.

Once again, I invite your comments and edits, and hope this will be the first of many similar projects that proves we can work on together, to show our Eastern European history and culture to English-speaking world, most of whom unfortunately seem never to heard about Muscovy of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. If you like this initative. For now, I invite everybody to copy their replies to my talk page; if there is enough interest, perhaps we can create a serparate page to discuss it (Wikiproject:Eastern Europe or sth like this). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:35, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

The idea is now located at User:Zscout370/Wikiproject:Eastern Europe. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:44, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cuisine

On this vein, can someone explain why we don't have a consistant policy for articles on the related cuisines of East European peoples? Why is it that pyrohy are covered by one article that includes all national varieties, but kovbasa is broken into different articles for Polish and Ukrainian types, and the same with pysanka? Should we try to have a standard or this type of thing or work on a case by case basis? Kevlar67 19:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent questions. Maybe we should start a mini-project to discuss this at Category talk:Slavic cuisine or Talk:Eastern European cuisine. I'm adding these to my watchlist. —Michael Z. 2006-02-04 22:16 Z
There is alreay a stub type page at Eastern European cuisine but there is very little there right now, and no discussion of the issue I'm talking about. Kevlar67 01:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kamianets-Podilskyi

On the issue of East European cooperation, could we get some editors look at the recent history and talk page of Kamianets-Podilskyi and respond there or do something with the article? Thanks! --Irpen 22:17, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of heroes of Ukraine

The list is now complete. It was a months' work of putting together 146 names. You are welcome to stop by and check spelling. Sashazlv 04:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Sasha, thumbs up and a Barnstar! --Irpen 07:18, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Prometheism

  • Need your help on Międzymorze. I tried to English it as Polish imperialism, but was stymied by Polish editors. In the wikireality, the Russian colonization of Siberia is dubbed imperialism, but the Polish ambitions to extend their territory from one sea to another are not. What do you guys think? --Ghirlandajo 18:40, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
The problem is that you so far failed to provide any evidence that by allying himself with Petlura, Latvia and Hungary Piłsudski planned to expand Polish territory. Also, as usually you forgot to use the talk page... Halibutt 23:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
If I don't discuss my edits for hours on the talk pages, that;s only because I come here to edit and not to chatter. I pointed out on the relevant talk page that Pilsudski's words were belied by his actions. IMHO his aggression against Russia, his annexation of the Lithuanian capital, lost war against Czechs, and landing operation in the free city of Danzig are a clear indication of what he had in mind. It seems to me weird to start building a federation with, say, Lithuania by occupying its capital. You Poles think such approach towards your neighbours perfectly normal, as far as I can see. Now my hands are tied with other articles, but sometime later I plan to contribute a couple of articles on Polish history, to make the approach a bit more NPOV. Clearly, we need the details on the non-aggression pact of Poland with Hitler, about Polish-German partitioning of Czecholovakia in 1938, about the massacre of 60,000 Soviet prisoners of war in Pilsudski's gulags, etc, etc. --Ghirlandajo 01:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Ghirlandajo, please reserve your own judgement for your blog or your posting to a political forum.
On the other hand, if you can provide referencies to creadible sources considering Pilsudski's plans as "imperialism", feel free to add this information along with all other POVs.
Renaming the whole article as "Polish imperialism" would mean pushing a single POV, which is agains the Wikipedia policies.--AndriyK 09:49, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, Ghirlandajo, but I'll have to aggree with AndriyK on this one. Unless you can provide sources, this is but your own interpretation of history. Apparently for you being attacked by a neighbour is also a sign of Imperialism (as in the case of Cieszyn Silesia), same with the outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik War (please provide evidence on who was the attacker there). Also, take a look at the article you moved and the article on Central Lithuania for the reasons of the conflict over what-is-now Vilnius. And why Lithuania refused to ally herself with Poland and chose the Bolsheviks instead.
Also, as to the Piłsudski's gulags - I really await your contributions. Last year I read all three monographies on the topic (two Polish and one Russian) and I wonder if you'll be able to find any evidence outside of the famous YMCA report in which the official quuted that the prisoners were brutally massacred by the Polish guards, in the result one prisoner was killed. Oh my, if only WWII consisted only of such massacres... Halibutt 14:02, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Geographic naming

see Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Geographic names


[edit] Oleksandr Moroz

The article on Oleksandr Moroz was substantially expanded. Please, check it for POVs. Sashazlv 21:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Polish invasion of Russia

I'm looking for your advice on what to do with the recently created Polish invasion of Russia redirect to Polish-Soviet War. The redirect was created by a Russian editor for reasons that are explained in its talk page. Now that it is created, we have to do something with it. I believe that the current redirect is quite inappropriate as while it may be disputed who invaded whom, most of the operations in 1918-1920 took part on soil of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland but not Russia. As the result of the war mostly defined the fate of Ukraine for the next years, I'm interested in Ukraininan opinion about this name. --Wojsyl (talk) 15:40, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

There is another though closely related discussion on Talk:Russo-Polish War. --Ghirlandajo 17:13, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Please contribute there, so that this redirect page may become eligible for inclusion in the Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars ever. —Michael Z. 2005-11-21 16:51 Z
Why, is there any edit war going on there ? --Wojsyl (talk) 18:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Well why do you think I was asking for contributions? —Michael Z. 2005-11-21 21:26 Z
If anything it should be a disambig, not a redirect. A POVed term, which should not be used much in a articlespace, but I don't see much harm in lettign the redirect be.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Red Ruthenia

Can anybody add Ukrainian spellings to counterbalance the Polish ones in the article on Red Rus? --Ghirlandajo 13:58, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Zakarpacie, Koriatowicz

Two questions: what is the correct English name for Zakarpacie? A redirect would be appreciated. Second - a fellow Wikipedian asked me about Koriatowicz family, but I couldn't find that much on Polish or English sites. Perhaps knowledge of Ukrainian and Russian languages may allow you to help him more?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

See Transcarpathia, Mukacheve, and my edits on Iuga of Moldavia. Koriatovich was Jury's patronimic: he was the son of Gedimin's son Koriat. As for the Kurcewicz family, it has nothing to do with Koriat in general and this issue in particular. --Ghirlandajo 12:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
More on Kurcewicz. Although admittedly of Gediminid stock, their early history is painfully obscure and their progenitor cannot be established with any degree of certainty. Like so many Gediminid families (e.g., Sangusko-Lubartowicz), they later assumed a false patronimic, claiming descent from a well-known early Gedimind potentate. Even if Gediminds, Princes Kurcewicz descended not from Koriat but rather from one of his obscure cousins, probably one of Narymunt's sons. --Ghirlandajo 12:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template: User Ukraine

Template: User Ukraine has just been created. Feel free to edit it so that it looks nicer, and I encourage all Ukrainian Wikipedians to add the template to their user pages.--Pecher 08:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian military stuff

I think we have a total disorder in the whole Category:Military of Ukraine. I started cleaning up the mess, but intensive help needed. Of course it is not a priority for Ukraine-editors, but the mess is awful... E.g., take a look at Category:Military equipment of Ukraine: aren't we waisting the resources of WP server with such a deep and confused branching? Ukrained 23:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I got rid of all the empty categories for naval ships, and moved Varyag up two or three levels. I suppose someone created these categories to mirror the organization in other countries' categories, but for now they are just confusing; they can be restored as more ship articles are created. —Michael Z. 2005-12-30 23:47 Z
Great, Michael, thank you for joining! If not informing readers enough on UA military, let's at least not mislead them. BTW, I forgot to explain some of my edits to UAF: their WEbsite is down, so I've deleted the link at all. Ukrained 00:05, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Regions in Ukraine

Dear colleagues, I received the following request:

We must make english version of uk:Категорія:Райони України, but what as name we make? Is there any portal pages about Ukraine? (confused english) --Sheynhertzגעשׁ״ך 23:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Do we have such a category here? Cheers. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 09:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually that category is for districts of Ukraine (districts are administrative subdivisions of oblast), not regions in the geographical sense. Also, I always thought regions to be appropriate translations of Ukrainian oblast. In either case, I doubt that the English wiki is detailed enough to have articles on Ukrainian districts (raions) to need a category for that. --Berkut 10:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
There is an article on Regions of Ukraine, which links to many articles which belong to various categories, including Category:Regions of Ukraine. —Michael Z. 2006-01-5 15:02 Z

BTW, the category mentioned by Michael is I think unnecessary and duplicating both the Category:Subdivisions of Ukraine and Category:Ukrainian historical regions. Shouldn't we remove it in order to clean-up the Wikiservers? Ukrained 21:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it looks to me that Category:Ukrainian historical regions could be merged into its relatively empty parent, Category:Regions of Ukraine, since there isn't much distinction between the two. —Michael Z. 2006-01-7 23:45 Z

[edit] Pattern for the cities

Is anybody interested with this? Ukrained 21:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Great! I am all for consistency! And, btw, for the sake of consistency and common sense my next proposal. ==Irpen 22:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Institutes of higher education in Ukraine

Dear all, I have thought to bring this up for a while and only now got to it. Ukraine has several established institutions of higher education and their coverage is pitiful. We should standartize that and I suggest to start with names. Putting the Kiv/Kyiv-Mogila/Mohyla-Academy aside for now (can we do that please), I suggest that we have the school articles named by the name the institutions were and are best known. There were lots of renaming activity not just in WP but also in Ukraine. At certain point Pedagogical, Kharch-Prom institutes, etc. and even some tekhnikums restyled themsleves "universities". OTOH, some very well-known and respected schools also renamed itslef, like Kiev or Odessa Polytechnic. Also, Kiev University was known as St. Vladimir's in RU epire, KGU in Soviet times (along with the Krasonyarsk one) and "National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv" now. These all names are varieties of one name under which the insitution was known as Kiev University which never changed.

Similarly the famous "Kiev Polytechnic Institute" may have been restyled to National Technical University "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" but it still is known as Kiev Polytechnic Insitute and so should the article be called. Other respected Polytechnics such as Odessa, Lviv, Kharkiv might have also changed to "Universities" (I know for a fact that some did). Let's just call them Polytechnics. Similarly Kharkiv Institue of Radio Electronics, renamed itself into some University.

What do you people think about it?. --Irpen 22:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

In line with the proposal above and with the lack of feedback, I created the article on Chernivtsi University under a simplified title rather than "Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University". Since no one is disagreeing, may I take it that we can move the article? My proposed moves are:

The articles whose names already satisfy the proposed rule are:

Same rule will be applied to the future articles. Please note that this proposal only concerns the titles of the articles. We sill still introduce the official and historic names in the first line. Any thoughts? --Irpen 05:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking on this thankless task, and good work. Sensible organization and naming helps everyone find the right articles and know when they are talking about the same thing. I've completed the move to Kiev University, which required deleting a redirect page with insignificant history. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-01-19 05:22 Z
This is the official term used notation for the KNUCA: Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. The old one (invalid) name is Kiev Civil Engineering Institute. --Christoph Wagener 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template: User DinamoKiev

Template: User DinamoKiev has just been created. Feel free to fix it or edit it so that it looks better. --DDima 21:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lodomeria

I suggest you to fix this silly situation with articles Lodomeria vs. Volodymyr-Volynskyi /Volodymyr-Volynia principality. mikka (t) 02:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Cities in Ukraine and Category:Towns in Ukraine

What is a rationale for two cats that duplicate each other? Can anybody articulate a difference between city and town? It's all very subjective imho. Suppose a new editor starts the article about Chartorysk - how should he know which cat should be preferred? --Ghirla | talk 09:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Something like Category:Cities and towns in Ukraine would be great. But someone should create a bot for changing: we have over 150 cities & towns. Ukrained 12:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
This was discussed briefly at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ukrainian_subdivisions#Towns vs. cities. Urban centres include city (misto), SMT (selyshche mis’koho typu, 'townlet', or perhaps 'town' to use a more common term), and village (selo). Would it make sense to define these as corresponding to Category:Cities in Ukraine, Category:Towns in Ukraine, and Category:Villages in Ukraine? —Michael Z. 2006-02-15 18:37 Z
I recenty moved a few cities/towns between the two categories. Whatever is classified as misto according to 2001 Ukrainian census I put into category Cities in Ukraine. The rest are in the category Towns in Ukraine, which are almost all selyscha mis'kogo tupy. As a result, I created a new List of cities in Ukraine by population, which includes all cities in Ukraine, with links for each city to the Ukrainian wiki. Uapatriot 05:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I think it makes perfect sense to go for:
  • misto = city
  • selysche mis'kogo typu = town
  • selo = village
I'm afraid this classification reeks of original research. Can you cite any scholarly publication defining s.m.t. as town? --Ghirla | talk 08:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
An SMT is a small settlement of urban character—in common parlance, a town. It's not research, just application of common terminology. Whether it's a fair characterization or in some way misleading is a matter of judgement, and I don't know enough about the subject to be the only judge, so more opinions would be welcome. —Michael Z. 2006-02-16 15:30 Z
First, misto/SMT/selo is (1) a current Ukrainian classification, (2) a classification that existed for a long time, and (3) the only classification that I am aware of. Feel free to propose another classification and we will choose which one fits better for Ukraine.
Second, it seems that you agree that misto can be translated as city, and selo as village. If you also check town you can see that the first sentence says: A town is a residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousands. SMT matches the population criteria precisely . The second sentence is: Generally, a "town" is thought of as larger than a village but smaller than a "city." It suggests that for a 3-level classification (as in Ukraine) SMT corresponds to a town. Again, if you have in mind another suggestion, it would be valuable to consider all and choose the best that applies to Ukraine. Uapatriot 18:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I suggest we adopt this convention, and also add a short explanation at the top of each category. The top of the towns category can mention the specific definition of SMT with a link to the townlet article. Essentially, we would be defining it as "category:SMTs in Ukraine", but giving it a friendlier name for the benefit of general readers, while offering a prominent and clear explanation for those who are interested. —Michael Z. 2006-02-16 19:09 Z

And there is also townlet. --Irpen 07:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Townlet =PGT (ru) =SMT (uk). —Michael Z. 2006-03-01 18:35 Z

But it was argued above to use town for SMT, wasn't it? Anyway, I used townlet in Stebliv. I hope I did it right. --Irpen 19:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I see what you mean. Townlet is not a common English word—I'm not sure of its original source, but I think it is essentially made up to serve as a precise translation of the administrative term PGT/SMT. But in general use, e.g., category names or in the text of an article, I think the common term town is a more appropriate term, serving well enough for something that is in between a city and a village. (strictly speaking, I understand that misto includes all cities and larger towns, while PGT/SMT typically refers to "village-sized settlements of urban character", with exceptions) —Michael Z. 2006-03-01 20:33 Z

[edit] Ukrainian family names

How come there are no Ukrainian sections in List of most common surnames or Family name. Are there any articles covering Ukrainian family names at all? .Kevlar67 04:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian Canadian

I completely restructured this article and about doubled it's lenghth by adding many sub-sections. I would like comments on my progress. Kevlar67 01:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of massacres

Reading the list, you learn that the greatest "religious massacre" of the 17th century was as follows: "1648-1649 - Chmielnicki Uprising - 100,000 Poland Jews and Polish nobles killed by Cossacks under Bohdan Chmielnicki". Judging by the spelling of his last name, I get an idea as to who inserted this "fact" into the list. Please take a look if the quoted description is factually accurate. --Ghirla -трёп- 12:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

It would have been great if someone translated fr:Les cosaques Zaporogues écrivant une lettre au sultan de Turquie. The subject is definitely worth it. I would have done it myself if it were not for my self-imposed ban on ua-related articles. Cheers, Ghirla -трёп- 16:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Quick initial article: Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Needs some work, and a good translation of the Apollinaire poem. —Michael Z. 2006-03-25 01:27 Z

[edit] Moved from talk:Ukraine

The comment below is moved from talk Ukraine. --Irpen 20:36, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] one contributor

Dear Ukrainian fellow-Wikipedians, one of our contributing editors Kuban coSSack's talking about dictatorial ruler Lukashenka (who massively and monstrously falsified the vote) and today's storming of the October square, when hundreds of special police arrested peaceful demonstrators, totally destoryed the camp, threw empty vodka bottles into the mess and videotaped that for Belarusan state television. Here's Kuban coSSack's comment about this police action and break-up of a peaceful protest, which took place at 3AM so that there would be no witnesses of their activity:

Dear fellow Wikipedians, do you understand that the only purpose of his contributions on articles about Belarus (such as Belarusian language, Belarusian history, Belarus, etc.) is to push Russian imperial POV and lies? Please, see history and talk pages of the Belarus-related articles. --rydel 16:34, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Webcomics of Ukraine

Please vote to keep or delete Category:Webcomics of Ukraine and Category:Webcomics by country at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 March 29. —Michael Z. 2006-03-29 03:33 Z

[edit] DnieproGES

Just noticed we have two articles on the same dam, Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and DnieproGES. I put a merge request up, anyone would like to edit the text. --Kuban Cossack 19:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Audio-uk

I have created Template:Audio-uk for use with Ukrainian pronunciation .ogg files. Olessi 20:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The scope of Category:Russian people

Please join the discussion at Category talk:Russian people about whether the category should include ethnic Russians and Soviet people. Conscious 04:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

Please state your opinion at Talk:FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhya (a cut&paste move needs to be fixed). Conscious 10:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You don't need a vote to have cut'n'paste moves fixed. I will ask someone to do it for us. --Irpen 16:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Done abakharev 21:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Volodislav Jahajlo

There is a discussion on how to name this article Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło Juraune 08:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

A new approval poll has begun. Again at Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło. Shilkanni 20:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related discussion

Hey, there is a discussion (and poll) going down at Talk:Georgia (country), we'd appreciate your input. - FrancisTyers · 11:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potemkin Stairs DYK

A potential DYK for the Potemkin Stairs article (by User:Odessaukrain). Discussion is taking place here.--Riurik 18:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The article is being opposed due to a lack of picture showing the "optical illusion" of the Potemkin Stairs. See actual comments at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Did_you_know#August_2--Riurik 16:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Euro-Ukrainian alphabet

I'm concerned that the article Euro-Ukrainian alphabet constitutes original research. Can anyone supply some references? —Michael Z. 2006-08-14 16:51 Z

[edit] Metal-Forum of Ukraine

I added the cleanup tag to this article yesterday: it is in need of attention. I just thought I'd place a note here too. -- Roleplayer 12:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Raions and oblasts

I saw that Ukrainians Wikipedians love to mix English with their own language, and are using "raion" and "oblast" for districts and regions of Ukraine. However, the purpose of Wikipedia is not to enrich the English language. This Wikipedia is for ordinary English speaking people, and I don't think is necesary to force them to check the article raion or oblast in order to understand an other article. I suggest to use district instead of raion and region (or province) instead of oblast. Russians already made this change.--MariusM 22:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] De-russification of names and Naming Conventions

Dear editors of Ukraine-related articles,

I appreciate the de-russification of names, f.e. example Vasyl Ivanchuk instead of Vasily Ivanchuk. The only problem is that this breaks the Naming conventions. In a similar case I wanted to move Rafael Vaganian (an Armenian chess player) to Rafael Vahanyan but this was rejected by other users referring to the naming conventions, the only criterium of which is commonness. But the commonness (i.e. Google) is a result of thoughtless transcription of thousands of people from each other.

That is why I search for allies. In my eyes the mission of an encyclopedia is not the copying of incorrect information but throwing light on things. If anybody is interested in this topic, please answer. Ulf-S. 18:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Ulf-S, it is not Wikipedia's mission to correct something. encyclopedias do not represent truth, they represent knowledge. WP:NC are there for a reason. Common usage decides what name is to be used, true, even if it saddens you or me in a particular case. In one thing you are right, though, that google results in the raw are not the only factor that unquestionably proves the common usage. If you can run a media usage search, it would probably be more objective. --Irpen 00:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
It is a valid point: wp is a collection of knowledge NOT necessarily truth (sounds a bit paradoxical, does it not?). Anyhow, determination of common usage is where the line gets murkier at least in this case. Armenian press and international organizations seem to use Vahanyan whereas NYT and others use Vaganian. In my opinion, I think you have a good case for an article under Vahanyan with Vaganian redirecting to the former. This should not upset fans of the Armenian chess master who will most likely be the ones reading an article about him in the first place.--Riurik (discuss) 03:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

More, his "correct" name is neither Vaganyan, nor Vahanyan but Ռաֆայել Վահանյան and that's what he should be called in Armenian WP. This is the only sure thing. There is no strict rule for the rest. Perhaps the current official translit would be Vahanyan. But this does not make it a correct or incorrect name by itself. It would sure be a correct translit according to a particulat rule. But his English name is what people call him in English speaking world and that should be the title for the article, to avoid the reader's confusion. Other names belong to the text. This is the basic logic behind the rule given in WP:NC(UE): "If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works." Don't get upset over it. Nothing can make him anything else but an Armenian grandmaster :). --Irpen 05:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

But then the litmus test is: Do you want to remove Vasyl Ivanchuk to Vasily Ivanchuk because it is more common? Volunteers, one pace forward! Ulf-S. 08:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC) P.S. I do not know whether this phrase works in English, I meant it ironically. Ulf-S. 08:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Per Irpen: google results in the raw are not the only factor that unquestionably proves the common usage. Like I said previously, you have a decent argument. If after you move it, there is still a lot of opposition maybe writing a couple of sentences about vahanyan vs vaganian can help. I really do not see any harm in having the article under Vahanyan with Vaganian redirecting there as long as the spelling is explained somewhere in the article. This issue does not need to usurp so much time as to take away from other projects.--Riurik (discuss) 19:10, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I only said that google test in not a single argument, and I stand by that assertion. It does not mean that the common usage cannot be determined. The better than google test way to determine the common usage is to check what names are used my modern media. If NYT and other major media use Vaganyan, I am afraid you have no case. I have recently elaborated on the issue here. I think if you just move the article on your own, this would be an extremely poor and inflammatory action. Still, if you can demonstrate that the commonness of Vaganyan cannot be established, you would have a case. It is up to you to do a media search and raise the issue at the article's talk. As for the Ukrainian chess-player, perhaps the current article's name does not reflect WP:NC either. If someone would challenge it, the issue will be looked at. I won't because I have too much to do.
Just as a food for thought, take a look at the Dvorovenko article about a world-class ballet dancer, originally from Kiev, who mostly performs in the West nowadays. Transliterated from Ukrainian according to the adopted convention, her first name is Iryna. She is very well known internationally and is called Irina by the media and in the stagebills. As such, her article's name reflects that.
So, let's separate two issues. There is no question that the article should be titled according to the most commonly used in English name and our NC reflect that. How to determine such name and whether it is possible to determine it, is a separate issue. There are certianly no eastablished English names for the people and places that are relatively obscure. Such, should be called by the national name trasniterated according to a fixed rule. There is no question that chess-players and dancers of this' acclaim are known in the English speaking world. If we can show under what name they are known, that name should be used and the national name, if different, should be explained in the article's text. If we cannot determine which name is more common (that is both are used in equal measure) perhaps the national name should take precedence. But this is not the case for Վահանյան and Дворовенко. If someone (or myself) takes it upon himself to do the research on the Ivasyuk's name, than the issue will (or will not) be addressed. --Irpen 20:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Ulf-S: Being a volunteer, I checked "Vasyl Ivanchuk" vs. "Vasily Ivanchuk" and I didn't find a valid reason to prefer the latter name over the former. Best, KPbIC 22:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I know that might dissapoint some but I did the same and the results do not support Krys's assertion. I made a search of the usage restricted to the Major English language papers in the last 24 months using Lexis Nexis. These are the results for several variants:
--Irpen 00:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Rinning Google search, I found 400 hits on Vasyl Ivanchuk and 700 hits on Vasily Ivanchuk. Both numbers are unsignificant, thus I did not see a reason to prefer "Vasily Ivanchuk" over "Vasyl Ivanchuk". --KPbIC 01:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As agreed above, google search results by itself are just one of the factors to take into account. Major media results here are very convinsing. But here, even google results if compared correctly yield the same. Just make sure you restrict your search to the sites in English:

The article needs moved to the latter title. --Irpen 01:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Ivanchuk is listed on FIDE website as "Vassily Ivanchuk", and this is probably the reason for the rest of hits. The other Ukrainian players among top 100 are listed as "Ponomariov, Ruslan", "Karjakin, Sergey", "Volokitin, Andrei", "Eljanov, Pavel", "Moiseenko, Alexander", "Areshchenko, Alexander", "Efimenko, Zahar", "Baklan, Vladimir". Either they are all Russians, or FIDE is run by Russians. Guess what? --KPbIC 02:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You can hypothesize what's "probably" but your (or mine) hypothesizing belongs to the talk pages at most. Please do not confuse the facts on the ground with the reasons why they are such. Encyclopedia should reflect the current situation. The person is known to the English reader under a certain name and the article should reflect that and this is exactly what WP:NC state. The proper place to campaign against the world injustices is the media and street demonstrations, not encyclopedias which should summarize available sources. When you attain some change in the world usage, the encyclopedia will reflect those changes. Similarly to how Kharkiv replaced Kharkov in the modern usage. --Irpen 02:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to delete my last comment, if you think, it's inappropriate. However, in my opinion, in general, a person who understands reasons behind facts can do a better job in describing and following the facts. And, I don't see a reason you suspect that I confuse facts and reasons. I think I don't. --KPbIC 03:41, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Dear KPbIC,
I took Ivanchuk as an example because I had checked it beforehand. I think there are only two groups of people who knows Ivanchuk‘s true name: People who know Ukrainian and people who know Russian but dislike Russification. The rest of the world trust in the FIDE listing. (By the way, Ivanchuk is the only top Ukrainian player whose mother tongue is Ukrainian.)
But my point is the difference between references in a printed encyclopedia and redirects in Wikipedia. We should reflect the technical possibilites of Wikipedia. One does not have to search or even take another volume, one is simply redirected and just has to read one, two or three sentences and everything becomes clear. I expect that somebody who reads Wikipedia is ready to do that and is generally interested in such things. I am not a fundamentalist. I do not oppose f.e. using Vasily (or Vassily) Ivanchuk in a list of famous grandmasters or somewhere else. People see this and know who is meant and if they are interested in Ivanchuk they click and are redirected. I think this does not overstrain average readers of Wikipedia (quite contrary, when I was redirected in the German edition to Wassyl Iwantschuk instead of Wassili Iwantschuk I became especially interested). Ulf-S. 10:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.--Peta 02:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Already being done. --Irpen 02:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sukhomlinsky

The page about an educator is on AfD. Could someone take alook? TIA (posting here as the Talk page looks abandoned) Pavel Vozenilek 13:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't forget these image sources

Just a reminder of a couple of excellent image sources that are UA specific.

Also, remembering the worldwide sites such as Flickr goes without saying of course.

Personally, I do not recommend uploading to commons, particularly the images from ua.vlasenko.net and klymenko.data-tec.net. Those images have watermarks and their being in commons results in this. If the image is copied from Wiki to commons, then deleted from Wiki as redundant and then attacked and deleted in Commons, the image becomes lost along with its source. So, sticking it to Wiki has advantages. See this for more. --Irpen 11:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

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