Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia

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[edit] Advertising the Project

I am sure there are quite a lot of Russians and non-Russians out there who could join the Project and help to get things going. If people want, I can start going around asking people if they want to join (for example, by finding Russian users by Userboxes etc.). Is this something that is worth doing? --AVIosad 23:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello! I am new to wikipedia, but love to help. I putted my name to the list :). Ilyushka88 19:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article Vote on Indian Standard Time

Hi in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Indian Standard Time, I've accidentally noted similarity in names of different users participating in the vote & so I guessed that they might be from the same nationality -India. And 6/7 at the time were Indians.

I think that this is an "internal" systemic bias, since Indian articles are written mostly and only by Indian users & they're mostly likely to be the only voters on featured article nominations on India-related articles & in result, making Indian articles attaining featured article status inevitable.

(I want to note that Indians are a special exception from other nationalities in Wikipedia because most of them can speak and write fluent English & thus can participate more in English Wikipedia while other foreigners can't & thus limit their participation in fields related to their nationality/culture & making participation of other third parties more likely.)

I think that there is need for third party, especially across different nationalities. And I would like members of this project to come participate in the vote & read what I've written & what they've replied with & see the article & voice your opinions. Thanks a lot! (Wikimachine 17:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Atomnaya Energiya article from 1974?

In Levinskii, Y.V. (1974) "p-versus-T Phase Diagram of the Uranium-Oxygen System" Atomic Energy 37(4):1075-6, as translated by Springer, there is a question about whether "UO3G" should actually be "UO3,G":

Image:PvTdUOs.png

Please see this discussion for more information.

Does anyone have access to the original Russian journal Atomnaya Energiya[1][2]? Here is its editorial board if that helps any. Do any of your local libraries have volume 37 from 1974? If so, please post on Talk:Uranium trioxide whether the original Russian version has a comma on that top-left label or not. Thank you. LossIsNotMore 22:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Vernacular scripts

vote on the use of scripts--D-Boy 01:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

What a complete mess! Are they really trying to completely do away with vernacular scripts? What a useless proposal! The original-language names are very usefull for cases where you have to search for information but don't have access to a keyboard which would give you those letters, or if you don't know the language. We must fight against options 4 and 5 at all costs. And in any case, this seems to be mainly an Indian issue. Esn 10:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russian History Project

Hi Folks:

I'm one of a group of Russian historians who are considering setting up a WP Russian history project. Most of the members of this group are history professors, and their primary interest is to see that WP entries on Russian history are accurate and well categorized, primarily because their students use them all the time. WP has really become the source of first resort for many students, so we need to make sure it's trustworthy. The idea itself was generated on two professional listserv, H-Russia and H-EarlySlavic. The logs of the on-going discussion are there if you would like to review them.

We'd like your help (as a WP expert) and cooperation. The division between historical and contemporary articles is a natural one. We would concentrate on the former and you could cover the latter, though a certain amount of overlap is to be expected (and, I think, encouraged--I've signed up for the Russia Project).

If you are interested in knowing more about me, see Marshall Poe. You can email me at marshallpoe at gmail dt com. MarshallPoe 15:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings from WPMILHIST/Russia!

I am currently rewritting Red Army and a FAC is ongoing for Russian Ground Forces which I extensively revised. If there are any material not easily available on those topics which people in this project have access to (I'm in New Zealand), please let me know. Paka Buckshot06 00:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance ranking very odd

I belive that some articles are oddly ranked. E. g. such an important article as Nizhny Novgorod is only ranked mid-important, while less important Komsomol and Trans-Siberian Railway is ranked high-important, and minor articles such as AK-47 or Gulag are even of top-importance!

Could you imagine a France-related article ranking such that Lyon were ranked lower than guillotine, or a US-related article ranking such as San Francisco were ranked lower than Indian reservation?--Achp ru 22:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

As the one who has done all the importance ratings, I did this with a philosophy in mind:
  • I aimed at 100 Top-important, 200 high-important, 400 mid-important and the rest of low-importance
  • This importance rating is not about how important the place is, but with what probability someone not familiar with Russia would try to search for that article.
  • I also aimed at including different topics in the several ranks, so not only biographies and cities are included but also other subjects like songs, ballets, books, wars, guns, daily life etc. Each category should at least contain some articles that appeal to a reader, and not all readers are interested in cities.
  • the importance rating should be viewed not from a Russian point of view, but from the point of view from someone with only a limited knowledge of Russia and its predecessors.
  • Now you may consider AK-47 to be a minor article, but everybody outside Russia knows the Kalashnikov gun. Certainly not everybody knows about Nizhny Novgorod. In fact, many would confuse it with Veliky Novgorod. I do understand that for Russians Nizhny Novgorod is a very importance place, but outside Russia it is barely known (sorry, just stating how I see things, no offense meant).
  • Likewise, almost everybody has heard of Gulags and the Trans-Siberian Railway is a legend for every train-loving individual. I admit that Komsomol might not be that well-known, but I included it to have some political articles as well.
  • In the same train of thought, I would indeed rank guillotine higher than Lyon (which by the way is not so important as Paris or Marseille), because everyone outside France knows about the guillotine, but not necessarily about Lyon.
  • The US-related example is not very good, I think. I would rate Indian reservation as Mid-importance (perhaps even low), but Native Americans in the United States would be rated Top. Furthermore, I think San Francisco would also be rated top (together with Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C.) That makes 4 US cities versus 4 Russian cities (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan and Veliky Novgorod). Note that e.g Chicago would not be in this list, but only of high importance.
  • The difference between San Francisco and Nizhny Novgorod is that many people outside the US know SF because of the major earthquake in 1906 or because many movies or television series are located there.
Perhaps you've already noticed, but I'm not Russian. But I think I have an above-average knowledge of Russia and that gives me a unique perspective, which makes me better suited than the average editor to evaluate the "importance" of an article. BTW, I think importance is a really awful word to describe the idea behind it, priority would be much better.
I'm very sorry if I've hurt your feelings, but if you have some good suggestions, please don't hesitate to offer them. Errabee 18:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree that importance should be based on familiarity among non-Russians. On that logic, "communism," "vodka," and possibly "snow" would be of maximum importance, while "Vladimir Vysotsky," "Rurik," "Yuri Andropov," "Andrey Tarkovsky," and "Vladimir Menshov" wouldn't even deserve articles. The point of Wikipedia is to educate, not pander to existing stereotypes. Wouldn't it be wonderful for someone not so knowledgeable about Russia to come across a page on Pushkin that didn't have a "help expand this page" banner across the top? Madler 04:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
You are mixing two goals here. The goal of Wikipedia in itself is to educate, and articles on all subjects are very welcome. The goal of WikiProjects is to select and enhance articles for the CD-version, which can only contain so many articles. This CD-version is not country targeted, so Russians are not the primary goal, rather the entire English-speaking community is. And I can also quote from the project page:
The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of Russia.
So I absolutely agree with you that it would be wonderful if more Pushkin-related pages got expanded up to GA or maybe even FA grade material, but I'm inclined to say that the existing stereotypes are exactly what we're looking for in this project. Therefore, vodka is indeed top-important, communism is doubtful whether it is in scope of this project (but Communist Party of the Soviet Union is high-important); snow is definitely not in scope (what a reductio ad absurdum) but should be in scope of a Weather Project. And yes, I've allowed myself some liberties in promoting certain articles; Andrei Tarkovsky is high important because he should be well enough known for movie lovers. But indeed, articles like Rurik, Vladimir Vysotsky and Vladimir Menshov (never heard of him btw; should say enough) are not likely to be selected for the cd-version of Wikipedia, as their target readers constitute a too small community. Errabee 06:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Russia/Assessment page, it says: "The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of Russia."
So our job is to provide high-quality pages of things readers are likely to already know something about? If that's the case, then we're wasting our time, because if it's something that's already widely known, our bright-eyed searcher can probably find it somewhere else on the internet, which would seem to defeat the purpose. Compare AK-47 and AK-47. Strip the Wikifluff from the Wiki article, and what do you have? A much less detailed description than someone can find elsewhere on the internet. I'm not arguing that the Wiki article shouldn't be made better. Of course it should. What I'm arguing is that these rankings (which aren't specifically about the CD - "While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work") should focus on what's really important, not cultural flotsam some 14-year-old in California can tell his friends about to sound cool. ("The flag of Mozambique has an AK-47 on it!" "That's so cool! Man, our flag sucks!") Madler 13:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, to use another reductio ad absurdum: you might as well suggest AK-47 doesn't deserve an article, since it is so well described on the internet. Instead, the goal is to create an entry with so much (verifiable) information that all other internet sites pale in comparison. Who would even bother to look up an entry in an encyclopedia with only subjects he has never even heard of? Those are the real die-hards, and they would be hard to find. The top-important entries are there to lure people into reading further, and have by default to be subjects the potential readers are already aware of. Errabee 15:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
No, all articles should be good. I just don't think that those topics which happen to lie in the overlapping section of the Venn diagram for "Russia" and "stuff non-Russians know" should be given maximum importance. I say let's give people who know something about the language and the culture more say in the rankings. Madler 22:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I think the way Errabee interprets and applies the rankings is perfectly fine. Just because people are familiar with vodka, sputnik, glastnost, and Dostoyevsky does not at all mean they know much about them beyond the stereotypes. We should definitely make sure that the most developed articles are those which have the best chance of being looked at first. An average American who suddenly developed an interest in Russia isn't suddenly going to read an article about Pushkin; it's safe to assume that such an American wouldn't even know who the hell Pushkin (let alone Menshov) was. Instead, he would probably start with an article on a subject he already knows (or thinks he knows) something about. The fact that such an article is very much likely to be about vodka is unfortunate, but quite real. If we snobbily decide that an article about vodka is not important at all, because there are many more worthy subjects, and delay working on it till later, then we risk losing the person with potential interest in Russia because the very first article in Wikipedia he happened to read turns out to be crap. In my view, the whole purpose of the importance ratings is to tag the articles proportionally to their potential to attract and retain readers, and the importance rating system as it exists copes with this task quite efficiently.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 02:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
It's my understanding that importance rankings are designed to encourage work on certain articles. If an article is already high on the American pop-culture radar, then by definition no further encouragement will be needed to ensure its English-language Wikipedia article is worked on. We need to promote those articles which are important, but fall outside the average American's ken. Therefore, what I'm proposing isn't snobbism, but practical and realistic. Vodka will take care of itself without further encouragement. Lomonosov won't. Madler 05:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Not just on certain articles, but on articles which are the most likely to be looked at. Which returns us to the starting point of this discussion—just because a topic is popular (known in American pop-culture, if you wish), it does not mean the article will automatically write itself.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I posted my thoughts about this topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia/Assessment. I too think that the way importance ratings are assigned right now is completely innappropriate. Some of you are putting too much stake in what the project page says. Yes, it indeed says that the point is to asses which articles will be most needed by an average user - but I think that's those words are there largely to avoid arguments between editors about objective importance rankings. I do not believe that it should be taken as an instruction to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The goal of wikipedia is and should always be to inform, not to pander to those who don't even know what they're looking for in the first place by leaving out or not focusing on the articles that they should have read first. Esn 02:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Your argument is centered around the thought that (the editors of) Wikipedia should decide what should be the content of the encyclopedia. That is a false premise, because ultimately Wikipedia's success can only be measured by the readers, not by the editors. You should therefore consider what you would expect from an encyclopedia as a reader, not as an expert on several subjects. This is a painstakingly difficult process, as every person has his or hers own POV, and tends to argue in favor of more subjects included as being more important than they are rated now. I have been brainstorming for quite some time, trying to put aside my own personal preferences and prejudices. I still feel the list is not perfect but grosso modo I think the list is rather consistent and broad in the range of topics. Errabee 03:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The premise which you advocate has a flaw as well, which is that people generally go to wikipedia to find information about things they do not know - indeed, the very purpose and structure of wikipedia (the interlinks, as just one example), are meant to expand the breadth of knowledge of its readers, to correct the misconceptions that many of them have, to sweep away the cobwebs of ignorance. If the only thing most people know about Russians is that they drink lots of vodka, do we want to make a huge article about "Vodka in Russian culture" to cater to those people or do we want to focus our energies on the (likely fewer) amount of people who are actually seriously interested in finding out about Russia? The idea that we should focus on what people are going to look for has a certain merit of course, but we must decide which group we owe a greater obligation to - the serious readers, or those looking for fluff and entertainment. As far as I can tell, this is "WikiProject Russia", not "WikiProject Perceptions of Russia in Western Culture", but from looking at the importance ratings you wouldn't know it. "Vodka" is currently ranked top-importance, while "History of the Soviet Union" is ranked mid-importance. This is disrespectful and unfair to more serious readers - those would be most appreciative of the effort if the job were done well. Of course an article about vodka is necessary, but top importance? That would be roughly equivalent to having Maple syrup top importance for Canada, for crying out loud - that's almost all a lot of Americans know about the country, after all.

To conclude this section of my post, I would like to point out that Wikipedia policy clearly states that the last thing we should be doing is deliberately promoting systematic bias.

One more comment - I find questionable your limit on the number of articles which can be in the top 4 categories ("100 Top-important, 200 high-important, 400 mid-important and the rest of low-importance"). I believe that this approach is clumsy, as it is based on artificial limits rather than an article's actual importance. If you're going to assign aritrary limits to how many articles can be in a category, you might as well delete the descriptions of the various levels of "importance", since obviously they cannot actually describe the articles in the categories. I imagine that eventually, as things fill up, even high-level pages (based on the description of high-level) will end up in the low-level section due to the numerical constraints. Esn 04:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

My premise is that people go to Wikipedia to find out more about subjects they have already heard about, and want to know about in more detail. I think the most hits are due to Google searches. And you are mixing two things with countering systemic bias. The bias WikiProject Countering systemic bias is fighting, is the bias amongst the editors, not bias amongst the readers. This means that very specialized subjects can be described in great detail (well done, I would say), while something as a biography of Alexander Pushkin is in a really shocking state. However, the very specialized subject is only of importance to a very select group of readers, while Pushkin would be of interest to many more readers. Therefore countering systemic bias means that the article on Pushkin should be expanded.
The issue of the number of articles can always be adjusted. But I think 100 articles for top-importance is more than enough for now. Ideally, the number of top-important articles should be less than high-important articles, and so on. So 100 top-important, 200 high-important, 400 mid-important and 800 low-important would amount to 1,500 articles. When we reach that number, it will be time to evaluate again how many subjects should be in each category.
And again, I believe History of Russia contains more than enough information on the history of the Soviet Union to satisfy the initial demand of the reader. Any further information is therefore automatically lower-rated. This is certainly not disrespectful, not having an article on vodka is inexcusable from the reader's pov, as well as it would mean a missed opportunity to correct some prejudices in the world. Errabee 10:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Films?

I'm just wondering if I should start adding the template to any Russian film articles that I find - are they within the scope, or would it be better to only add the template to articles about Russian films in general? (eg. History of Russian animation)

Also, just a note... I think that a link to Portal:Russia should be somewhere on the main page, and perhaps even a link to the new article announcements page. Esn 22:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Films are definitely in scope. Errabee 02:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Russia-struct-stub}}

Hi, I've added {{Russia-struct-stub}} to your list of stubs. It would be cool, if you could help WP:WSS by helping add that template to any stubs about buildings or structures in Russia, because there is still a large number of such stubs without it.--Carabinieri 19:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Igor Stravinsky

This article has been selected for Feature Article Review. Please see the talk page and discussion at FAR for improvements you can make to retain its FA status. Jeffpw 10:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Igor Stravinsky has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Military history of the Soviet Union FAR

Military history of the Soviet Union has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article: List of Soviet tank factories

List of Soviet tank factories. —Michael Z. 2007-02-06 07:58 Z

[edit] Biography collaboration of the fortnight

Mikhail Baryshnikov is the Wikiproject:Biography collaboration of the fortnight through February 28. Please stop by and help move the article towards featured status. Mocko13 14:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov is up for WP:FAC, not many people have commented so far, could use some feedback.--Konstable 23:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Moscow

Nominated, but far from ready, and the nominator is not being very constructive. Please comment (and hopefully improve the article, although lots of work is needed before it can be a FA). Also, please consider reviewing it for its current 'A' status - the GA step has been skipped by somebody :( -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  06:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving Talk:Joseph Stalin

This talk page is over 300 kbs long. It desperately needs someone to archive it, and I don't want to take the risk of screwing it up myself. John Carter 23:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rostislav Alexeev - a remarkable engineer

Hi Guys

I have just created a long overdue article about the genius that was Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeev. He was the inventor and designer of the famous ekranoplans.

Like a lot of you, I am often extremely amazed by such a well known and admired russian vehicle design. Yet for so long its designer has been ignored. Ironically, same thing happened to him in real life, where despite creating a remarkable craft, his work was abandoned and his legacy was ignored.

I have taken the first step. But as you may know, here in the west, not much is known about details of Alexeev's life. So, this is my open plea to anyone out there who can improve this article. I have s far found some info on him. But do you know more? Like has he got honours, etc. during his lifetime? Please help.

Thanks -- Ash sul 00:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Bronze Horseman

For so remarkable a feat of Russian achievement, the article is sorely lacking. I've done a wee bit, but surely you Russophiles can do it justice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Oreo Priest (talk • contribs) 03:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

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