Portal talk:Russia/New article announcements

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Contents 1 Wikibreak of Alex Bakharev 2 Just an idea 3 Sokolsky District 4 Problems with URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT sections 5 Archiving proposal 6 New articles bot 7 Lvov dab page 8 Why this page belongs to the portal? 9 Non-urgent request 10 Heroes of the Soviet Union 11 Question on "Fyodor" 12 User:AlexNewArtBot - New Article Bot 13 More on the bot 14 Question 15 Suggestion about this page 16 Citizendium 17 Kosovoy

[edit] Wikibreak of Alex Bakharev

Tomorrow, I and my family will fly to Tasmania for a one week vacation. I will be back on March 19. I doubt I would be able to check my mail let alone do some heavy wikiediting. I will appreciate if somebody would do some New Article patrol and report the new Russia-related articles on this board abakharev 08:53, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Today I am going to Saint Petersburg, Russia and will be there for two weeks. I am not sure if I will be able to edit from there (or even check my Email). If somebody could do the New article patrol at that time, it would be great. If something really urgent, please phone 7-812-235-74-87 abakharev 02:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

• So where is it that you're going to :)? Petersburg is a long way from Tasmania :). KNewman 05:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

• • Для бешенной собаки сто верст - не крюк. I was a week on Tasmania, now two in SPb abakharev 07:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just an idea

Hi there, my fellow Wikipedians! A few days ago, I noticed that there's no article on the History of taxation in Russia, which could be an essential part of the Taxation in Russia article. I believe that the history part of the article would be an extremely interesting чтиво, especially if we start with Kievan Rus and the Mongols. I just want to hear your thoughts on this one. KNewman 07:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is a worthwhile subject although I know nothing about it. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sokolsky District

To whom it may concern, I came across this orphaned disambig page containing only redlinks. Cheers. --Fang Aili ^talk 20:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's actually mine, as well as a few dozen of other similar disambigs. Their main purpose is to alert whoever is going to write an article on, say, Sokolsky District in Vologda Oblast, that the name Sokolsky District is ambiguous and to prevent mounds of incorrect cross-links later on (sorting them out post factum is no picnic, trust me on that one :)).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT sections

• 1. This section should not be used to blacklist individual users (diff [1])
• 2. This section should not be used to influence votes not related to Russia, but dear to the hearts of some users because of personal disputes with other editors (again see [2] and especially [3]).
• 3. This section is not a free speech zone, so trying to keep inappropriate comments here on free speech grounds is wrong. (for example, see [4])Balcer 14:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

See your talk for answers by me and Errabee, Balcer. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please move your answers here. This discussion is important, and the issues I presented should be resolved. Balcer 14:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please check this edit of mine. The section which you keep removing was modeled on the section "Articles vandalized or needing attention", which was introduced by Piotrus on Portal_talk:Poland/Poland-related_Wikipedia_notice_board in order to list articles which were being purged from Polish POV. Hey, physician, why don't you heal yourself? --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Ghirla, I've reverted because announcements like that are allowed under WP:SPAM. Please refrain from making your point this way. Errabee 14:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And as I've said earlier, announcements on votes taking place are most certainly allowed under WP:SPAM#Canvassing. And as I said earlier to Constanz, what are you afraid of? We are all sensible people here, quite capable of forming our own opinions and acting upon them. We are not the mindless morons you seem to think we are. Errabee 14:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing important to resolve. Such announcements are legal on WP per WP:SPAM#Canvassing, which clearly states that "Briefly, I think a reasonable amount of communication about issues is fine." Given that it's not a lengthy list, it fits pretty well into the definition. And if I might add, the Polish portal has the same system (and heck, almost all portals and projects do). -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please be consistent then, Ghirlandajo. If you removed those notices from the Polish Noticeboard (which BTW is fine with me), please remove similar notices from the Russian noticeboard. Otherwise you might be thought by some to be a hypocrite. Balcer 14:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It is you who is not consistent, Balcer, by removing this from Portal:Russia, and not from Portal:Poland. Errabee 15:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine, I removed the offending section from Portal:Poland. Apparently the Russian and Polish portals are connected like Siamese twins, and no action on one can fail to have its counterpart on the other. Balcer 15:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The vote in question is not related to Russia! Hence its announcement here might have something to do with a personal vendetta of one user against others. Wars between groups of users should not be encouraged. Anyway, Ghirlandajo removed the urgent announcement section from the Polish Noticeboard, so it would logically follow the same should occur here. Balcer 14:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course the vote in question is related to Russia. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ruled over large parts of Russia, like Smolensk. Errabee 15:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Commonwealth was established in 1569, Jogaila died in 1434. Sure, Lithuania under his rule included territories which are today in Russia. Does this fact justify giving this vote such prominent play in the "Urgent Announcement" section? Sorry, but I don't believe that. And I don't have to, since Ghirlandajo's comments ([5]) explain precisely what his thinking here was. Balcer 15:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And Ghirla should not have done that, so I've reverted. Neither should you remove announcements in this section. Errabee 15:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I will restore the section on the Polish Board, because I believe in the freedom of speech in Wikipedia. It's somewhat cheap to "sanction" my removal, after all who read the Polish board had already voted. I think the announcement on this board should stay, unless Halibutt retracts his spamming sallies here, there, and everywhere. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

As of today the Polish board lists the following entries:

Jogaila - the RM saga, Part X

Polish-Soviet War, Kiev Operation, Armia Krajowa

Voting on whether Wawrzyniec Gucewicz should be moved back from Laurynas Gucevicius

As we all know, these are the articles in which the Polish editors currently team up to push nationalist agenda. When I mentioned Jogaila on this board, Balcer unleashed a mad revert warring campaign. Hey, what is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull?.. And who is being hypocritic here? --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I question the whole basis of Ghirlandajo's argument. Why should questionable practices on the Polish Noticeboard justify similar practices on the Russian Noticeboard? Wikipedia is not a warzone in which a Polish-Russian war is waged (not yet anyway, I hope). Attempts by users like Ghirlandajo to paint Wikipedia in such terms increase my pessimism about the future of this project. Balcer 15:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You know Balcer, there is a Christian proverb: "Find salvation yourself, and others will find it around you." So if you want to remove this practice, start with the Polish NB beforehand. Then, you will be able to (and rightly so) set an example. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And after this comment, you dare accuse me of hypocrisy? Yawn... --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I truly find it puzzling that some Russian editors care so much about what Poles do on their noticeboard. Is this a sign of some kind of an inferiority complex? Surely, one would think that Russian editors would want their noticeboard to be the best on Wikipedia, a shining example of how a national portal should work. But instead, the standard seems to be: we must use the same tactics that the Polish noticeboard is using. Balcer 15:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

But let me present you this mirror: Why do you (and Piotrus) care so much what Russians (and Russian speaking editors from other countries) do on their noticeboard? Removing these announcements makes it look like you've got something to hide. As I said earlier, we're for the most part good editors, who are quite capable of making their own judgement. Of course there will be a couple who are just morons (I haven't met them just yet), but I'm sure there are a couple on the Polish noticeboard as well. Why don't you just have faith in the capabilities of the editors here that they will form an opinion of their own, and if they don't they won't vote. Errabee 15:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Any Wikipedia editor can contribute to any discussion on Wikipedia. There should be no criteria where only users of a given nationality can get involved in a discussion on the portal of that nationality. So the question that you posed: "Why do Poles write on Russian Noticeboard" is simply not appropriate, as it may be taken to imply that we have no right to write here.

What I object to is using questionable standards and practices on the Polish noticeboard to justify similar practices on this one. If the two current questionable announcements are acceptable, provide arguments to that effect. Saying simply "Polish noticeboard does the same thing" is totally counterproductive, and it implies that the Polish board is the standard setter on Wikipedia. That might be flattering to some Poles, but it is obviously incorrect.

As for users forming their own opinions, that is of course true. At the same time, Wikipedia recognizes that some vote canvassing may be harmful to the project. It is instructive to read WP:Spam here. Similarly, blacklisting a user cannot be justfied by stating that "other editors are smart enough to form their own opinions about that user anyway". Balcer 20:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, I never implied you or any other Polish editor weren't allowed to post here, I simply mirrored your words. If you imply from them that Polish editors aren't allowed to post here, than I'm beginning to worry about your true intentions. Do you feel that Russians should not be posting and even looking at the Polish notice boards?

Furthermore, I have already referenced WP:SPAM#Canvassing, in which it is allowed to alert other users via a portal. Read the quoted sentence by Grafikm above. Errabee 23:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, canvassing by mass solicitation of User talk pages, as Piotrus is fond of doing, is really questionable. Errabee 23:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

To answer your direct question and reassure you about my intentions: no, obviously I do not believe that Russian editors (or any other for that matter) should not be posting the Polish Noticeboard. Anyone interested in Poland-related topics should be welcome there.

At any rate this discussion has been completely sidetracked. The fact that I am Polish or the practices on the Polish Noticeboard are not the real issue here. The real issue, again is the question: 1. can the rather prominent URGENT ANNOUNCEMENTS section be used to blacklist an editor? 2. can this prominent section be used to advertise a vote at best tangentially related to Russia, added by an editor who justified his vote as "I am amazed at the tireless activities of some Polish guys ...". Balcer 00:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Already answered. 2. Yes. How an editor justifies his vote has nothing to do with the right to post it at the urgent announcements section. Errabee 01:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

To show my good faith and lack of hypocrisy in this matter, I have removed the questionable "articles needing attention" box from the Polish noticeboard ([6]). So, now that the childish argument "but Polish Noticeboard does this too" is out of the way, would anyone care to seriously address the three points I made at the beginning? Balcer 15:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the wrong way to proceed. I won't revert you, but that box had every right to be there. Now as for your points mentioned above, I do have a problem with blacklisting the Finnish editor, but he does seem to be very problematic (and not only for Russian, but also Swedish topics). Perhaps removing that announcement and creating a RfC would be a better way to proceed. As for number 2, it is a judgement call by the person who places it. It is not up to you to decide that this topic has nothing to do with Russia, and then deleting it. How would you feel if you placed a topic on the Polish notice board and I removed it because I felt that it had nothing to do with Poland? And about free speech, I don't get your point. If you disagree with something you're welcome to mention that (but please leave the original message intact). Now messages get condensed from time to time, and depending on the conclusion of the discussion the original message may go or may be altered. Errabee 15:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I am glad you agree with me to some extent on the first point. As for the second, Ghirlandajo's motivation is explained perfectly in his vote. In his judgement the vote is part of the war between Russian and Polish editors, and he calls his troops to arms here. I do not believe that such a war exists, unless people like Ghirlandajo (but of course not only him) manage to convince us that it does.

As for free speech, keep in mind that Ghirlandajo routinely removed comments by other users from the "URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT" section for his own reasons, so trying to justify reverting me on free speech grounds is silly. Anyway, that section has to be emptied regularly anyway, so comments will eventually get deleted whatever happens. Finally, I do agree that the section should be relatively brief, so on the whole I would agree with removing excessive comments.

I have no problem with any user expressing his opinion in the discussion sections, where there is plenty of space for other users to respond. In contrast, the Urgent Announcement sections are clearly special, since by their very nature there is almost no space for discussion there, so one should be careful what goes in there.

In short, it would seem to me that new, clearer rules are needed for how the "URGENT ANNOUCEMENT" section is used to prevent its abuse. Avoiding blacklisting users and avoiding vote influencing announcements made to recruit others into one user's war against his Wiki-enemies would seem to be appropriate. Balcer 16:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You say "recruit into war", I call it "invite to join a discussion". Your panic is unwarranted. New and more "Clearer rules" are slowly turning wikipedia into wikilawyering realm. The only rule natural and initially tentatively ofserved rule should be that it is a place for brief announcement and discussion of this announcement (but not the topic in question). Of course, sometimes a discussion there goes over board, but shit happens, what the heck, no big deal. `'mikkanarxi 23:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Call it what you will, but Ghirlandajo's motivation is explained perfectly in his vote. He is not interested in encouraging discussion. For him, this is all about fighting a group of "Polish guys" who have crossed him. Fighting this war is his business, but should he be allowed to use the URGENT ANNOUNCEMENTS section on the Russian noticeboard to recruit fighters for it? I say no, as conflicts of this type should not be encouraged and widened. Balcer 00:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's assume Ghirla is indeed fighting a group of Polish guys who have crossed him (I don't really believe that, but let's assume). Even then should he be allowed to use the urgent announcements section, because it contains useful information for the rest of us. He does not recruit fighters here. You're assuming bad faith on all of us here. As I've said multiple times before, just because Ghirla opposes or supports something doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of us agrees with him. And btw, if we're assuming bad faith here anyway, then Piotrus is recruiting fighters as well by spamming user talk pages, so what's your problem? We don't spam user talk pages here, we just post one message on the notice board.

And for another matter, Ghirla's motivation is his motivation on his vote; it does not mean he is recruiting fighters; of he thinks it is a Russian related subject, he has every right to draw attention to it, no matter how or why he votes. Errabee 01:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Really, is it useful information? As I said before, Jogaila is at best only tangentially related to Russia. Sure, he ruled over some lands which are now in Russia. But so did all the rulers of Prussia and the German Empire (since they ruled today's Kaliningrad Oblast, now part of Russia). Would it be justified if I started posting announcements on votes concerning Germany based solely on that kind of flimsy justification? Hey, according to your reasoning, that is simply useful information and under free speech I should be able to post it. Besides, the dispute on that page is whether to use the Lithuanian vs Polish name for that article. The Russian name is not one of the options (if Jogaila had one).

There is simply no way to avoiding the conclusion that Ghirlandajo made the URGENT ANNOUCEMENT because he thinks the Jogaila move is supported by "some Polish guys" he does not like. Hence, I simply wanted to register my objection to this kind of tactics. But since I am not receiving any support in this matter, I will now withdraw from this discussion. Balcer 02:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This is visible in most Ghirla's posts, just check the one starting this part of the thread. Alas, I am afraid this is pointless: I have yet to see editors here being critical of Ghirla, so it is my sad conclusion that he will have free reign on pages like this to spread his pers... ah, cynical remarks (because of course 'Polish editors currently team up to push nationalist agenda' is not a personal attack', right?).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo should check WP:PA. --Jaakko Sivonen 17:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And you should check WP:NPOV. Errabee 17:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And WP:TE, and WP:NOR and WP:V and a lot of other important readings... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving proposal

Seeing how this page is the most popular of all of P:RUS subpages, I propose to split each month into three periods instead of two. November 2006, for example, would be split into November 1-10, November 11-20, and November 21-30. This would allow for more frequent archiving, thus significantly reducing the page size. I, with unlimited Internet access, often find this page in its existing form cumbersome to access and edit, and I can only imagine how unwieldy (not to mention costly) it is to folks in Russia with low-speed broadband or even dial-up.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

As a representative of "folks in Russia with low-speed broadband or even dial-up" I don't find it cumbersome at all. Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

That statement was not meant to offend, by the way. I just remembered my hellish experience of accessing and updating this page from Ukraine via a slow broadband connection. Anyway, case closed, I guess. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New articles bot

Please support my request at Wikipedia:Bot requests#New articles bot. This will save all reporters much time.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lvov dab page

We need it, so can someone please create a dab page for Lvov? I don't want to mess up Lviv and Lvov family articles and stuff. I'll populate it later. Thanks! KNewman 21:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If you are going to populate it yourself anyway, then what kind of help are you looking for? Just start Lvov (disambiguation), and place dablinks pointing to it at the top of Lviv and Lvov family when you are done; that's all there is to it. Is there something else you need?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Тормознул немного :). Wanted to wipe out Lvov itself :). Thanx! KNewman 18:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't start to imagine how many new friends you'd make if you did that :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why this page belongs to the portal?

Why this page belongs to the portal (i.e. the main space) rather than to the project "Russia"?--Planemo 18:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Because it was started long before WikiProject Russia was established. Seemed like the most appropriate place at the time.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

And another point: projects are by definition temporary, a portal is lasting. We don't want to discontinue this page just because the project stops. Errabee 16:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-urgent request

Portal:Russia/Did You Know Articles doesn't seem to be maintained recently ... I'm going through Wikipedia:Recent additions to try to find stuff that's been DYK'ed since April 2006. If you're bored, pick an archive number that hasn't been done already and come help =). Will bother sorting by date later maybe. cab 03:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heroes of the Soviet Union

Should we create a list of such people (approx. 4,500 people) or category is really enough? I'd like to hear your comments on this one. I'll post this question on the USSR Portal as well. Cheers! KNewman 18:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• If you have the source such a list maybe worth to have. The redlinks will be inspirations for the authors Alex Bakharev 12:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• See the comparable List of Medal of Honor recipients for a sample format. `'mikka 20:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• I support this idea. Also, this list would be constant, since CCCP no longer exists. - Darwinek 20:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Shoot, I'm no good with tables... KNewman 20:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on "Fyodor"

Hello. I am planning to write an article on Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov, a Soviet painter. Could you tell me how I ought to transliterate the name into English - Fyodor? Fedor? Feodor? Thank you. - Tragic Baboon (banana receptacle) 20:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Fyodor is the right spelling, since the Russian letter Ё is transliterated as yo. KNewman 20:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • ...in wikipedia. `'mikka 20:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That other encyclopedias have the wrong name, is no excuse for Wikipedia to also have the wrong name. We are here to educate people after all. Errabee 20:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:AlexNewArtBot - New Article Bot

Hi, I am in the trial runs of the User:AlexNewArtBot (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/AlexNewArtBot). The bot analyzes the new articles for a day and puts suspected Russia-related articles into User:AlexNewArtBot/RussiaSearchResult, the articles are suppose to be manually put into the portal page and/or removed if irrelevant.

The list of rules are in User:AlexNewArtBot/Russia the first pattern between the slashes on each line is the pattern that should be present in the article to trigger the rule (note the case insensitive match. The other patterns on the same line are suppose to inhibit the rule. E.g. /florida/ inhibits /petersburg/ rule as the article is most probably the American city. If you reasonably familiar with the regular expressions and know what you are doing, you can edit the list straight away, but better ask me. Some rules I had to remove: e.g. there are a lot of non-Russians named Vladimir and Chita, so I had to remove the names of the cities or have to much false positive. If you are interested why an article went to the list there is log on the User:AlexNewArtBot/RussiaLog explaining the rule that sent an article there (if it is cleared try to look into the history of the log).

That is all. Any suggestions are welcome. Alex Bakharev 03:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well done! But it finds too much noise. Colchicum 15:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Still, not bad for a draft version with a surprisingly limited set of rules. I'm sure as the rules base gets expanded, the noise will go down considerably.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope with some tuneup of the rules we could decrease the amount of false positive but there are limits of this technology. The main problems are article that somehow related to Russia (or other topics) but only tangentially: an American musician who made a concert in Russia (among hundreds other places), a footballer who once played against a Russian team, a sporting event with a Russian participation, a Hungarian who emigrated to USA fleding Soviets, An article with reference in Russian, that sort of things. It is easy to decrease the number of false negative - just add more rules, but I do not know how to fight false positives, especially if they not 100% false. Even including articles that only meet two or more rules is not helping. A singer on his visit to Russia may perform in Moscow, SPb and Samara and still have no relations with Russian culture. Still it is much easy to sort out list of 10 articles than the original list of 3000 new articles a day.

I think that the rules ror Russia and Moscow are not very useful. Looking at User:AlexNewArtBot/RussiaLog, one can see that they are mostly redundant. Wouldn't it be better to delete them to fight false positives? Colchicum 13:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The idea is that one should not move articles out of the "Bot" section unless personally identified as related to Russia. Because of this flooding, I'd suggest to move into the "Dated" section only articles for which one of major categories is a Russia-related category.

• For example, Jeffrey Manber it is a non-Russian bio, although has significant interaction with Russia. For articles like this one one may want to maintain a separate list of "Articles on topics that interact with Russia or something like this.
• On the opther hand, Iron Eagles hardly have place here.

`'mikka 20:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC) `'mikka 20:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Please move the list Possible Russia-related articles found by bot to a sub-page. It is very long and disturbing. Kmorozov 06:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• It should be better now. Is it still annoying that much ? Alex Bakharev 00:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • One more option: to use hide as in Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser version history Kmorozov 06:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Done Alex Bakharev 07:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• Alex, this bot is certainly useful, but at the same time it is making a mess of the New Article Announcements section. It's pumping all the articles with the word "Russia" in them, although a good half of these articles has nothing to do with Russian history or people. Can we do something about it? What do you guys think? Am I alone in thinking like this? Please, voice your opinions at the Talk page. KNewman 19:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I am trying this solution at the Ukrainian board. All the bot's finds are automatically posted not to the mainboard but to the auxiliary Portal:Ukraine/New_article_announcements_2. Processed entries are manually split between the boards (or deleted) according to relevance/importance. You may want to try it. --Irpen 09:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
• Once in a while we get these "people" who troll on all Chechnya related articles. User:Samian, help me out here...--Kuban Cossack 13:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
• WTF is with Zolotaryov's Siberiada? Who knows which strings to pull? It takes ridiculously long time. `'mikka 22:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Personally I don't think it is worth bothering much about the existence of ru-sib while maintaining en- or ru-WP. As to ru-sib, if they like it, let them care. I see no problem here. If they hadn't this, they would try somewhere else... Colchicum 16:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
    • As long as the articles in enwiki are clear from interwiki links to this joke this concerns me very little. Most bot owners are notified to amend their software. Here is the new perl. "Батя наш - матьора молитва в христьянсве, котору слекотал сам Исус... Дык Твойо же царство, и сила, и слава, таперича, и завседа" seem to me a blasphemy. --Irpen 09:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
      • the problem is these links pop up all the time. `'mikka 22:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
        • When I saw a bot adding them, I notified the bot owner and gave a couple of links to the WP:ANI discussions of the issue. It always worked. If you see some new bots adding them, make sure you leave a message to their owners. Much more effective than trying to fight the bots. --Irpen 22:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
      • So what? If you don't like reading it, don't follow the links. Anyway, this announcement is hardly appropriate on this board. Colchicum 12:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Besides, apparently unlike you, I neither speak nor understand ru-sib, so I cannot share your impression from this article. And I don't think that it would be wise for anybody to care about Wikipedias that (s)he has no chance to understand.Colchicum 14:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More on the bot

Could we somehow visually distinguish the articles found by the bot, please? Highlight them, or make them small, for example?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Highlighting is better, if you ask me. Good idea. KNewman 14:13, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I could do, but what is the point? Is my or say bookworm's article becomes better or worse because it is found by the bot? I was thinking to compress the results produced by the bot as we do manually. So if a user started three articles on a certain day the bot would just put:

• art1,art2, art3 by User:X

instead of thre lines:

• art1 by [[User:X]

...

• art2 by User:X

...

• art3 by User:X

I think we could save some valuable real estate this way.

More radical proposal is implemented by User:Irpen he separated from the P:UKR/NEW Portal:Ukraine/New article announcements 2: "articles that are of lesser interest to Ukrainians". So only interesting articles or articles in desperate need of review are to go to the main board. I am not sure if it is the right way. Topics interesting for some maybe not that interesting for others.

Please make descisions I would like to implement community's suggestions Alex Bakharev 22:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't talk for everyone, but for me the difference between the articles directly announced by our editors and the articles found by the bot boils down to differences between content and maintenance. Editors who announce their articles directly are usually those who have been around for a while and who know what it is to be expected of Russia-related encyclopedic articles. Such articles are usually already well-written, even though they may be incomplete. On the other hand, the articles found by the bot are usually written by the people for whom Russia is only a side interest, or by newbies. Such articles are often in need of heavy copyediting and fact-checking. They are usually poorely formatted and/or structured and require a lot of work to bring them up to standards. With that in mind, quickly differentiating between these two sets may be useful. I suggested highlighting the bot articles so they would stand out as those needing more work.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I would like to create a list of people who have been stripped of the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for whatever reason, but I'm not sure how to name it. It comes out kinda long. How about List of people stripped of the Hero of the Soviet Union title? Or maybe List of people stripped of the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union? Any ideas? KNewman 19:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

If there are people who voluntarily rejected the Hero title (I can quite imagine that there might be such ones), I would suggest the article title List of former Heroes of the Soviet Union. `'mikka 23:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting point, I'll look into it. Anyway, even those officially stripped of the title would fit nicely into the Former Heroes category. KNewman 07:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion about this page

While the bot is very useful, it definitely spoiled the fun. :-) To bring some back, I'd suggest to introduce a very rough categorization in this page, the one which can be done looking at the article title, namely: I am suggesting subsections

• People, to include bios, bands and other topics basically about people, categories of people, people occupations, etc.
• Places - geography, buildings, etc.
• Util - images, categories, templates, lists, disambig pages, etc.
• Other - other things, etc.

Of course, one does not to think hard to place something in a category. Any thoughts? `'mikka 23:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd support this any day. Even without the bot, the number of articles is hard to msnage when it's all in one heap.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 00:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

As an alternative, you may broach the solution implemented at the Ukraine Portal. See WP:UKR/NEW2. --Irpen 07:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Irpen, I don't really like that approach (doesn't mean others won't, though). How do you judge an article as "secondary interest"? What's secondary to me, may be of primary interest to someone else, and vice-versa.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course judging is arbitrary and people who disagree can always move an article from board 2 to board 1. What mostly ends up at the board 2 are current sportsmen, notable enough for wp in general, but not starry enough to raise general interest. Say Oleg Blokhin, Sergei Bubka, Vassily Ivanchuk or any of the Klitschko's belong to board 1. Also articles about something only loosely related to UA and this looseness is judged, yes, arbitrary, but it is easy to move articles between boards and the sorter's judgment was never yet challenged. If anyone ever disagrees with the sorter's judgment that person would just move an article from board two to board one, I can't imagine fights over it.

It seemed to me the problem was too many articles, not just lack of categorization. But, then again, it may be me and a handful of users who attend the Ukrainian boards and what works for us may not be the best here where the number of both articles and attendees is much greater. --Irpen 00:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is happening and the board is gradually loosing any meaningful function with bot's log not getting cleared for two long and even when it is being cleared the board is inundated with articles in such numbers that no one is able to check the new ones, which is the primary function of the board. With all the passingly relevant or unimportant articles dumped to the board 2, look how nice and manageable the Ukrainian New Articles board remains to be. Also, if you look at Ukraine's board two, you will not be able to find a single article of wide interest there. Please, guys, give another thought to my suggestion or find some better way to manage this flood. --Irpen 03:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citizendium

To answer KNewman's question regarding Citizendium in today's urgent announcements: don't worry about it. Citizendium is too restrictive in accepting editors, so they will never have as many as Wikipedia. Then, there is a question of operating under one's real name—quite a few people (including yours truly) will never agree to that. Finally, the most important point is that Citizendium will operate under the same GFDL license as Wikipedia, which will make it extremely easy to feed whatever articles Citizendium produces back to Wikipedia, thus turning it into yet another source of information (hopefully, high quality). I don't see how they can play on even ground with Wikipedia, yet alone overtake it. Essentially, Citizendium a facelifted Nupedia, and we all now just how much encyclopedic content that one produced.

Of course, I reserve the right to be completely wrong about all this, so don't shovel this post under my nose in five years if things for some reason develop in a completely different way :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing to worry about. Wikipedia gained such big momentum in the past, it is very difficult to compete with it. - Vald 13:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

And competition is a good way to improve Wikipedia. Colchicum 13:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kosovoy

Stumbled across this "river" in Kamchatka. Is there such a river there? Anyone? KNewman 19:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Prodded. If this river exists, it's probably a pretty small one. In its current form, the article does not have enough information to start any further research.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)