Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Metros of the former Soviet Union

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[edit] We are off!

Well gentlemen and (with luck, one day, :) ladies, we have began something that I had hoped to start ever since I got here back in autumn 2005... long time ago, yes, but anyway here we go. Now the most important thing to understand is that, for me anyway, most of the work will be focused on station articles... Let's face it there are only 21 systems, double that the amount of lines... but for stations... there will be 500+ articles. Now that is a LOT. And it will not be easy to keep an eye on all of those articles let alone write them.

I must say I am AGAINST creating stubs and discourage people from doing so, and instead of having something like Voykovskaya or Grazhdansky Prospekt, I suggest people make an effort and take it to the level of Vyrlytsia or Varshavskaya from scratch... (create the stubs in your sandboxes...and publish them when they are fully complete...

Now then talking about article structure it is crucially important that people follow the guidelines layed out here.

In addition to all that it is important to remeber that all of our systems are being actively developed and plans and designs change by the hour. Now alone it would be impossible to follow all that, but for those of you who can read Russian, I STRONGLY recommend joining this forum which I moderate.

Now then, wrt to the project itself, I want people to put all ideas forward right now, because in our plans is to launch a portal and then we can really let the world know of the jewels that lie under our cities! Good luck everybody! --Kuban Cossack 14:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template reogranization proposal

  • See the layout of cs metro templates cs:Wikipedie:Šablony/Doprava/Metro These templates of course can be modified, but - and this is important - they do not take any space from the right side ot the article. The reason are the images - in many articles en.wiki has many problems with them; they are under the template, under all text. This solutes the problem good, but takes quite a lot of time to use them in all stations. --Aktron 17:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Example cs. layout here:


← směr Medvědkovo Metro v Moskvě – Kalužsko-Rižskaja – 6 směr Bitcevskij park →
{{{pred}}} {{{stanice}}} {{{po}}}
Medvědkovo – Babuškinskaja – Sviblovo – Botaničeskij sad – VDNCh – Aleksejevskaja – Rižskaja – Prospekt Mira 5 – Sucharjevskaja – Turgeněvskaja 1 – Kitaj-gorod 7 – Treťjakovskaja 2 8 – Okťabrskaja 5 – Šabolovskaja – Leninskij prospekt – Akademičeskaja – Profsojuznaja – Novyje Čerjomuški – Kalužskaja – Běljajevo – Konkovo – Ťoplij Stan – Jaseněvo – Bitcevskij park


I Strongly disagree, first of all, I do not know about you, but in Russia most of people use widescreen monitors - and it is not nice to read along hundreds of lines, instead I preffer to have collumn reading, the side template allows for just that. Also it's appearance feature is unquestionable. WRT to images, then like I said in the article layout...make use of commons. If the station is special, at most two thumbnails with max of four images in gallery. Although in many cases you can get away with just two thumbnails, whilst keeping a good commons archive. Examples are: Kashirskaya and Vyrlytsia (Kiev Metro) --Kuban Cossack 18:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, fine. It was just an proposal :-) I have widescreen notebook display too. As I have seen in Kashirskaya article, we can deal with this quite well. But what about people with smaller resolutions? Galleries are also good; 4 images will be in one line and that I think it could be enough for each station. I just wanted to implement here the same system as works well on cs., but here is different system. --Aktron 19:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Well in the end we must remember that this system works, I am not saying the Cs one is bad, but it has its advantages and disadvantages. Netherlands wiki managed to alter it in such a way that you can drop and hide it... I'll give it a go in my sb. --Kuban Cossack 19:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Speaking of images, then wrt I was saying in the first paragraph, a station article w/o an image is effectively useless... Now there are complications that come wrt images, particularly as some systems forbid amateur photography. As far as I am aware:Saint Petersburg, Baku and Kazan have zero tolerance to amateur photography. Luckily Kazan Metro. In question of which sites allow free image distribution then it is the following:walks.ru's owner, Alexey Troshin has allowed free usage of his images on commons, (there is even a special license template for them). mymetro.ru has also allowed for GDFL. Kharkov Transportny and Skorostnoy Tramvay have allowed atribution-any purpose license. I encourage people to write e-mails to various site owners asking to expand our allowed database of images.--Kuban Cossack 18:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I could also add that Tashkent forbids taking images too. --Aktron 19:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I am yet to see a complete gallery of Tashkent online for that reason...--Kuban Cossack 19:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I will be in Ukraine for two months (but not until summer) and will be able to take photographs of the Kiev Metro stations... so hopefully we'll have some good photographs after that... I remember that photography used to be prohibited in the Kiev Metro, is it still prohibited? Well if it is, I believe we can upload the images under fairuse right now, as we will not be able to obtain free use images... —dima/s-ko/ 02:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
No none of the Metros in the Ukraine have any restrictions, at least based on my knowledge.--Kuban Cossack 13:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Our project

Ok then, to kick-start our collaboration, I propose we begin with the station articles about stations that will open later this year. Now for those who know much about the our Metros, they will discover that to foresee an opening of a station is impossible, and thus the following list is sketchy. Nonetheless it be good if we begin with those articles. So here is the forecast for 2007:

  1. In June the eight station Rossiyskaya of the Samara Metro will open
  2. Two stations of Minsk Metro: Borisovsky Trakt and Uruchye (September)
  3. Two in Moscow:Sretensky Bulvar and Trubnaya (September)
  4. In November the first extension of the Kazan Metro - Prospekt Pobedy will open.
  5. Some time after that - the Kiev Metro station Krasny Khutor will follow.

Now there is plenty of press going about those stations, so let's see if we can keep on top of them all.--Kuban Cossack 18:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

OK Slavyansky Bulvar is now finished, we already have Borisovsky Trakt and Uruchye...Can we make some sort of a portal notice or something? In any case I shall start on Trubnaya very soon.--Kuban Cossack 23:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well I got two more done, Trubnaya and Krasny Khutor... so that's five already...two more left and then we need to code a template for it...the good news is that renderings of all the station's are available, the bad news is that sometimes I feel this project was launched for myself only :( WHERE IS ALL THE ENTHUSIASM???--Kuban Cossack 21:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{WikiProject Metros in FSU}}

Instead of tagging every article with {{WikiProject Metros in FSU}} in addition to the {{TrainsWikiProject}} template, I suggest integrating our WikiProject template with the Trains WikiProject one, so all we would have to do is to add {{TrainsWikiProject|class=|subway=yes|metroFSU=yes}} and all the relevant WikiProjects are merged into one template, still keeping all of the categories... —dima/s-ko/ 02:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

So how will it look then?--Kuban Cossack 13:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
It will look like this —dima/s-ko/ 16:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Portal:Trains
 Trains Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Trains, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to rail transport on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
See also: WikiProject Trains to do list
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale within the Trains WikiProject.
This article is mantained by WikiProject Rapid transit.
This article is maintained by the Soviet Metro WikiProject.

Or better yet, with the Rapid Transit WikiProject, because we cover Rapid Transit articles, not all of the trains in FSU. —dima/s-ko/ 17:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok go for it. How about I'll leave the actual evaluation up to you? I am too lost in all this, most important are the headings above, that's what I am drafting now...
Actually you did raise an interesting point, we do need to get round on writing articles about the Metro trains themselves. Here is a resource [1] and [2]--Kuban Cossack 00:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we should try and write articles about the trains.. I have already proposed incorporation of our WIkiProject template with the Trains WikiProject one, but am awaiting administrator attention, because it is currently protected. —dima/s-ko/ 02:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Update: for a Trains, Rapid transit and Metros of the former Soviet Union project banner, just type: {{TrainsWikiProject|subway=yes|SovMetro=yes}}. On the [[3]] page, a bot goes through every day and checks for newly tagged articles for the WikiProject. —dima/s-ko/ 02:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions for the stations

See also: User talk:Kuban kazak#Nizhny

I would like to raise the issue of naming conventions for the metro stations before this project really takes off.

For those who don't know me, I am spending a considerable portion of my wikiediting on straightening out disambiguation pages, redirects, and links dealing with Russian topics. Seeing that many of the metro stations are not named in a consistent manner, I offered Kuban kazak my help to integrate station names into the overall disambiguation scheme (my offer had been made before SOVMETRO was launched). Kuban kindly agreed, and off I went. A few days later, it turned out that I did not quite grasp just exactly how Kuban expected the integration to be done.

A conflict arouse from the fact that currently most of Russia-related topics use the "unique names" naming scheme. What this means is that if an entity has a unique name, that name is used as a title. If an entity's name conflicts with the name of another entity, then both entities are disambiguated. For example, Baumanskaya station is named just "Baumanskaya", because there is nothing else by this name (nothing else worthy of inclusion into Wikipedia, that is). On the other hand, Alexeyevskaya (Metro) is disambiguated because even though it's the only metro station by this name, there is also a number of villages in Russia named "Alexeyevskaya". Akademicheskaya (Moscow Metro) is disambiguated even more to distinguish it from Akademicheskaya (Saint Petersburg Metro). All in all, the majority of Wikipedia articles are disambiguated this way. Names of stations of the Moscow and Saint Petersburg Metros, while occasionally showing some inconsistencies with this scheme, generally also comply with this naming scheme.

Naturally, when I made my help offer, I meant to fix whatever naming inconsistencies currently exist using the scheme I've just described above. Kuban's idea, however, was different. He believes that the best way to name the stations is by pre-disambiguating their titles. For example, using the examples above, Akademicheskaya (Saint Petersburg Metro) and Akademicheskaya (Moscow Metro) would stay where they are, Alexeyevskaya (Metro) would be moved to Alexeyevskaya (Moscow Metro), and Baumanskaya would be moved to Baumanskaya (Moscow Metro). Needless to say, I think it is a bad idea. The major downsides are: 1) pre-disambiguation system is poorly compatible with existing conventions, thus hindering intergration of metro stations' names into the disambiguation paradigm; 2) it would create a large amount of needless work, as the majority of existing Moscow and St. Petersburg articles would have to be moved, their dependencies checked, redirects and backlinks straightened out, and disambiguation pages fixed, thus effectively shifting this project participants' time away from editing towards unnecessary cleanup chores; 3) it is contrary to the overall Wikipedia's tendency to move away from using pre-disambiguation in favor of using (shorter) unique names.

With that in mind, I am now seeking council of other participants of this WikiProject. If the majority decides that using pre-disambiguation is unnecessary, then my offer of helping straightening out existing few inconsistencies still stands (I have vast experience with this kind of work, by the way, so I assure it will be done properly). If, on the other hand, the participants, for whatever reasons, decide that pre-disambiguation is a must-have, it is no big deal either. I will simply disassociate from the project and move on.

Please, comment.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that all Wikipedia article titles should use the most common name of the subject of the article unless there is a naming conflict with another existing entity in Wikipedia (in which case it should be disambiguated unless it is unquestionably the primary use of that name). Pre-disambiguation, disambiguating a title for an article whose most common name has no conflicts, is a bad idea. However, use of redirects named according to some common predisambiguation format for a given area is encouraged. --Serge 20:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't really think it is all that bad... Yes, it is against the naming convention rules, but I think it is easier to understand (well at least for me). For instance, numerous Kiev Metro stations are named after the respective neighbourhoods/items... and it sort of separates them for easier use. Also, look at Category:New York City Subway stations, Category:Bucharest Metro stations, Category:Berlin U-Bahn stations, Category:London Underground stations, and they all use the (metro station), (XX Metro), metro station disambiguation system. And the Ukrainian and Dutch wikis apparantly do the same thing: [4] and [5]. But yes, moving the Saint Petersbug and Moscow Metro stations would take a lot of needed time, but currently all other metro stations (Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kryvyi Rih) already use the method of (XX Metro). —dima/s-ko/ 03:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Moreover just on a side note, have a look at Nizhny Novgorod Metro. How many names does it have that are unique to it? Ok it is unlikely there will be a Kanavinskaya or Burnakovskaya elsewhere, but all other stations ... ie more than 90% of the names either have tyozkas in other cities or potentially could have... So for many cities, it is a minority of unique names. Same for Samara, Novosibirsk... On the Ukraine it is the same. There are numerous Vokzalnas, Teatralnas etc. Moreover, as Dmitry pointed out, most of the stations are either halfway full of this convention and/or complete. In such a case it is important that we do not overrationalise ourselves. In the end the naming convention, although a policy, has numerous exceptions...I think the most important is that we simply make a system that would be most comfortable for all. The most important is that we bring existing stations that do have tyozkas, but were incorrectly created to the standard of disambigs... BTW shall I make a translation of this table that I created in ru-wiki at ru:Станции-тёзки метро?--Kuban Cossack 12:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is against the naming convention rules, but I think it is easier to understand... for me???!! Writing the titles in Russian/Ukrainian instead of English is probably even easier to understand, wouldn't you think? Yay, to hell with readers, let's give the editors all the conveniences they deserve! Let the laziness of other metro-writers serve you well.
Anyway, have it you way. I will take no part in this as I really don't see how having to sacrifice standardization for dubious convenience of editors (!) is going to benefit the project. My offer was exactly to sort out all those "numerous" stations and disambiguate between them so no one would have to guess ever again. If you think it's not helpful, then I am leaving all the joys of the grunt work to you. Pity you'll have less time to write actual articles, though. Good luck,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Ну не кипятись...First and foremost, metro writers choose a convention that is most suitable for them, and actually you will find that nearly all underground systems like London Underground stations follow their own set of rules. The point is, it works! Remember how you said that we need not to make exceptions to the translit conventions and stick with those given, I agree. However removing (Nizhny Novgorod Metro) from two of the thirteen stations just because they have no tyozkas elsewhere is IMO unnecessary. --Kuban Cossack 21:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I am not angry, I am just at a loss why you would refuse someone's help with this much amount of grunt work (because whatever way you go, it's still going to be a lot of routine stuff to do). My point was that if other writers were too lazy to disambiguate their stations properly, there is no reason why you should follow them, especially when help is available. The other systems don't work all that well, by the way. I went to Berlin last summer, and naturally used Wikipedia's articles on U-Bahn stations (which are pre-disambiguated) to plan my visit. Tell you what, it's a pain in the ass to find what you need. Navigation is pitiful, you never know where to look, and it's very easy to miss something important. From the point of view of an uninformed reader, the system sucks rocks.
On the other hand, having to disambiguate, for example, all of NN stations but two is only confusing when the job is half-done or not done properly at all. The right way is to link to disambiguated names from disambiguation pages; this way readers would only need to enter the station's name into the search box, and voilà—they'd be looking at a disambig page on which the link to the metro station they seek is listed. You just can't possibly get lost this way. If the name is unique, well, that's where you end up from your search—again, no confusion whatsoever. Now set up redirects to proper locations from all disambiguated names, and editors have nothing to worry about when they write articles as well. Try hard as you may, I see no downsides, except that you'll have to survive and get around a month or so of mess while I work.
Anyway, ranting aside, you are, of course, free to do as you like. If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Well you said there. Keep the redirect of the short name ix-skaya and ix-skaya (Metro) to ix-skaya (igrik-sk Metro). I.e. for places that do not need extra disambigs, just do the standard procedure with redirects. However keep all the titles consistent. Is that really hard to do? --Kuban Cossack 01:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
No, it's not hard to achieve consistency just within the Metro articles (and there are many ways to do it, not just yours or mine). The major problem is integration into existing disambiguation system (i.e., everything besides the Metros), which currently does not rely on pre-disambiguation. You need to see the big picture (the whole of Wikipedia), otherwise you'd have to create stupid maintenance work for yourself and others in the long run. I don't know how to explain this better, sorry. The bottom line is if you want it to be done efficiently, consistently with the rest of Wikipedia, and without having to waste your time on it, ask me, I'll do it. Otherwise, feel free to travel that swamp yourself and do it whatever way you like. That's my final offer.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 06:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I still find it difficult to follow the argument...so do what you must, but in case of disagreement, don't dart into edit wars. --Kuban Cossack 12:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't do edit wars. I reason. Anyway, before I continue, I need some advice. I reviewed the naming conventions for other rapid transit systems, and London Underground (as well as a few others utilizing a similar scheme) got me intrigued. They seem to name each station "XXX station" instead of just "XXX". I believe that same approach could work quite well for FSU metros. It will, for example, eliminate the less-than-perfect "XXX (Metro)" names (e.g., Kolomenskaya (Metro) which you recently rewrote). By having all stations named "XXX station", we will only two variants ("XXX station" and "XXX station (YYY Metro)") instead of three ("XXX", "XXX (Metro)", and "XXX (YYY Metro)"). This is very much the same as the convention used for naming rivers (which are predominantly called "XXX River" instead of just "XXX"). What do you think? Of course, if you think it's workable, I still agree to take care of all necessary routines needed for standardization and interlinking. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Case reopened

I would still like to get a definite response for the above, please.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I became a bit of a rebel and follow WP:IAR now... so keep make changes all you want, but only in cases when you need to lengthen the name...don't shorten it...please...--Kuban Cossack 21:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
How do you shorten a single feminine adjective? ;) Of course, they will only be lengthened. Anyway, I'm planning to start with Samara Metro (the least amount of work), so unforseen problems can more easily be dealt later with larger metro systems. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, I normalized the names of stations of Kazan, Samara, and Yekaterinburg Metros. All stations are now named "xxx metro station". When "xxx metro station" is ambiguous, then city disambiguator is added ("xxx metro station (YYY)"), and "xxx metro station" is set up as a disambiguation page. Straight "xxx" is included into "xxx" disambiguation pages (when they exist), or should redirect to "xxx metro station". Note that presently disambiguation pages may mix the old-style name and the new-style names (as, for example, in Moskovskaya metro station). This is temporary—I will be straightening those links up as I go. Please let me know if you have questions/see problems. I am planning to do other smaller metro systems (such as Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, etc.) next, leaving St. Petersburg and Moscow for last as they would be the most labor-intense.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I have several problems with this already. One is that it completely broke the consensus version (city Metro) and second if we are going to rename them then at least let's do it XXX metro station, although I still fail to see the disadvantage of (city Metro)... I am looking forward to reverting it soon...--Kuban Cossack 16:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, for crying out loud, how many times do I have to repeat myself? Didn't you say "yes, go ahead" just a few paragraphs above? Well, like I previously said, either I will go ahead, producing a nice clean naming scheme, or I won't, in which case feel free to sort everything out by yourself.
Here:
  1. The disadvantage of (city metro) is 1) if you use it at all times, you will produce a wholly redundant naming scheme with unnecessary pre-disambiguation built in; 2) if you use it only when needed, you will wind up with three types of titles—"xxx" (when the name is completely unique), "xxx (city metro)" (when two or more metro systems have a station named "xxx"), or "xxx (Metro)" (when the station name is unique, but "xxx" may also refer to something else, like a river or a town). The last two can be merged, of course, but you will, again, end up with a partially redundant naming scheme.
  2. Having all stations named "xxx metro station" leads only to two types of names: "xxx metro station" (for unique names) and "xxx metro station (YYY)" (when two or more metro systems have a station named "xxx"). The "metro station" qualifier completely takes care of collisions with other concepts, and it avoids pre-disambiguation hassles. Note that the London Underground articles, to which you referred me earlier, use this same naming scheme.
  3. Consenus. Can someone else comment on this, please? Was there a consensus, or do you folks simply don't care?
  4. Finally, I don't quite understand what you mean by if we are going to rename them then at least let's do it XXX metro station? Isn't this exactly what I did with Samara, Kazan, and Yekaterinburg? Did you mean something else perhaps?
—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. I intend to use it for ALL cases, except maybe Moscow, but not out of principle, but out of the work load that will require to move 150+ articles.
  2. I meant XXX YYY metro station, IMO the system has to go in the title.
  3. Well we used it and it works and is convinient...
  4. Explained in point 2 --Kuban Cossack 17:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. I offered my help in cleaning this up, and I agreed to do whatever grunt work necessary to achieve this. If 150 articles have to be moved, I'll do it and will do it properly (i.e., taking care of dependencies, not just the moves). I just don't understand what you are complaining about here—all you need to do is sit and wait for the end result.
  2. XXX YYY metro station is not in line with naming conventions, and it sounds kind of awkward and confusing, too (Moskovskaya Kazan Metro station—"Moskovskaya Kazan" or "Kazan metro"?). That's why the city is used as disambiguator, but if you want, we could use something like "Moskovskaya metro station (Kazan Metro)". It's a bit longer to type and is redundant compared with "Moskovskaya metro station (Kazan)", but it's a possible solution.
  3. It works for your purposes, but from disambiguation point of view it's not very convenient. Think about the readers—do you want them to locate the article they need easily or not? Also, the scheme was not very reliable—only yesterday I found two metro stations which were not disambiguatied (Teatralnaya is one of them), and I remember finding more during my previous attempt to bring order to all this. Quite a few stations were not included into proper disambiguation pages; I am taking care of that as I go as well.
Still not convinced?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. Well let's move them...I can help (start on one end, you on the other)
  2. And we move them to Krasnopresnenskaya (Moscow Metro) and so on.
  3. Because the system is attached to the city!
  4. Yes I am still not convinced! --Kuban Cossack 11:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. Move them anywhere you want to; I'm sick and tire of this bickering.
  2. I already explained (more than once!) why this does not work as well as my current proposal.
  3. Solved in my current proposal→"Xxx metro station (Yyy Metro)", taking care of all other problems
  4. Good luck with this project. Bye.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
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