Talk:Olyka

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Contents 1 Town or Village 2 Retelling broad histories in narrow articles

[edit] Town or Village

Guys, it must be a town or village. Ukraine is not so large, and I live there for all my life. So if I haven't heard of such a city, it is not. Check you sources. AlexPU 22:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The article says it's a town, my sources say it's a town... so where's the problem? Anyway, it's there and it's pretty small nowadays, only some 4k inhabitants or so. Halibutt 03:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Vitam! The only problem is the category saying it's the "city of Ukraine" :) AlexPU 07:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Retelling broad histories in narrow articles

Gentlemen, I already raised the issue elsewhere and couple of times but please take a look again. We need to do something about a tendency to attempt retelling a complex history of Ukraine in many placename articles within one paragraph. The trhird paragraph of Kamianets-Podilskyi#History and this article is just two of many examples. Let's take a look at this paragraph of the article:

After the Partitions of Poland in 1795 the town was annexed by Russia. In 19th century it continued to play its role as a centre of wood and grain trade. During World War I in 1915 and 1916 the area was a scene of heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and Austria-Hungary. After the Polish-Bolshevik War the town was restored to Poland and the local palace was refurbished. In the effect of the Polish Defence War of 1939 and the Nazi-Soviet Alliance, the town was occupied by Soviet Union. After the Operation Barbarossa the German occupation started and lasted until 1944. After World War II the area was annexed by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. Since 1991 it is a part of Ukraine.

How much from this is town related? Well perhaps only these:

...In 19th century it continued to play its role as a centre of wood and grain trade. During World War I in 1915 and 1916 the area was a scene of heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and Austria-Hungary... the local palace was refurbished.

That's all. If it was a location of concentration camp, fine, we would mention that and the WW2. If it was Petlyura's headquarters or smth, we could bring in the PSW or PUW. But attempting to retell the history of UA in two sentences has an obvious caveat of being just impossible. Some events cannot be told without the context and the context cannot fit into the small space when the article is devoted to a town or a fortress. As an example, the Dubno article is relatively balanced in that it does not bring in too much of an unrelated info (I am not saying it is balanced in every respect).

I hate to get into deleting pieces of other people's writing as this is one of the most annoying things at wikipedia, comparable only to Games with the Names. But I would like to hear from others about it and, if possible, to see this problem addressed. Regards, --Irpen 21:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I second Irpen's summary of the problem. No need to repeat the same stuff in thousands articles on every town and village. --Ghirlandajo 07:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I get your point, though I do not agree with it. We write such articles for people who have no idea whatsoever on what a certain town is. To explain its history, we have to resort to explaining a tad of region's history as well - no town is an island in Central Europe. Of course, at times such a shortened description is not enough - but hey, that's when people can check History of Ukraine or History of Galicia, or any similar article linked in the see also section. As to the specific example above - it is by far not enough as per the article on History of certain region or country. However, it gives some insight into what actually happened, refers to proper places where more info could be obtained and explains the reasons why the town changed hands. As such, I see nothing wrong with it, as long as we keep the links. Halibutt 10:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with it is that there is no way to give an objective picture of the history of Ukraine within three short sentences. Controversial events described without context of the time when they happened could only be misleading rather than informative. The city articles should present only what's relevant to the city. You can add links [[History of country]] (Ukraine or other) or the [[region article]] (Pokuttya or Bukovina) where the more space can be allocated to histories and anyone's interested will click. But adding links, which is harmless and useful, doesn't justify trying to retell what's in those long articles under these links in two sentences, because it is simply impossible to tell it this way without harm of loading the reader with misleading or meaningless (or both) info.

• Example of misleading info: "After the Polish-Bolshevik War the town was restored to Poland.... In the effect of the Polish Defence War of 1939 and the Nazi-Soviet Alliance, the town was occupied by Soviet Union. .. After World War II the area was annexed by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. "
  • There are no untruths in it, just lack of context caused by the necessitated brevity makes it misleading as well as the bolded terminology.
• Example of meaningless info "After the Operation Barbarossa the German occupation started and lasted until 1944... Since 1991 it is a part of Ukraine."
  • See also, [1] and [2].
• Example of relevant info: "In XXXX the local palace was refurbished.".

--Irpen 23:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Since there are no responses, I will purge the article from what's irrelevant to the town of Olyka. --Irpen 20:10, 25 December 2005 (UTC)