Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places)

Districts (raions) of Donetsk city

Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine

What's the convention for naming districts of cities in Ukraine? If one takes a look at the category Category:Raions of Donetsk, one sees "Kiev Raion" or "Kirov Raion", and the like. This strikes me as odd. All sources I've seen refer to these as Kyivsky district, Kirovsky district, &c. I especially think it is odd to use "Kiev", given that this particular district has no common name, meaning that the standard Ukrainian transliteration should apply. How exactly is this laid out? RGloucester — ☎ 04:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Does no one have any ideas about this? It is still confusing for me. As a rule, I prefer translations when appropriate, i.e. "district" over "raion", and the like. However, as I know most fellows here are opposed to that, I won't try and push for that again. However, I think that maybe an exception should be made for raions of cities, as opposed to usual raions. It is somewhat confusing to refer these raions of cities as "raions", and it is not at all common in English. Perhaps raions of cities should be called "so and so" district? That's much better than "Kiev Raion, Donetsk", which doesn't appear to be common anywhere. RGloucester — ☎ 22:31, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This project used to name district articles (not just city districts, but regular districts as well) using the transliterations of their Ukrainian spellings, but that changed at some point (I'm not sure there ever was a discussion, but I didn't pay attention that close, so I could have missed it). Now all the districts are named either after their administrative centers (resulting sometimes in different titles for the articles about the districts whose names in Ukrainian are identical) or, as is the case with the city districts, the proper part is simply translated (resulting in such odd constructs as "Factory Raion"). Not sure what's up with that. As you noted, hardly any Ukrainian districts (raions) would have a well-established common name in English, meaning that transliterating the original name is the only sensible thing to do in the vast majority (if not in all) of cases. As for the use of "raion" instead of "district", both are English words (albeit the former is a somewhat obscure loanword), so either is acceptable, as long as the usage is consistent.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 29, 2015; 13:11 (UTC)

Well, would anyone be up for reverting to the "Ukrainian transliteration" system? The absurdity of "Factory Raion" makes it clear that this simply isn't how these districts are referred to in English. I'm all for translation, when it makes sense, but this is instance where it simply does not. If the translations are not commonly used in sources, they should be thrown out. I'd recommend the following: use Ukrainian transliterations + district for raions of cities. Leave regular raions alone. That will make the distinction clearer, in English, and aligns more with how sources describe these entities. RGloucester — ☎ 14:29, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@DDima: As you created many of the district articles, what do you think about this matter? RGloucester — ☎ 19:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@RGloucester and Ezhiki: The original goal of having the naming convention of "administrative center" + "raion" was to remove the long "skyi" endings on district articles, making it easier for English speakers to understand what a "raion" is in its relationship to their administrative centers. Since we already had articles like Donetsk Oblast instead of DonetskA Oblast, then the same format was to be applied to raions. (If I'm not mistaken, it was proposed by MapLover in 2008, who himself is no longer participating on Wikipedia).

This system works great for the general Ukrainian raions since each one of them has an administrative center on which we can base the name. However, city raions do not give us such a luxury, so a hybrid mix was created by Aleksandr Grigoryev. I was never one in favor of naming articles such as Factory Raion as I find it quite odd myself. I believe his reasoning was in favor of Wikipedia:Use English. I myself prefer the Ukrainian variant of Zavodskyi Raion (but that isn't consistent with the standard of not having the -skyi endings—then again, that can be dropped for city raions as proposed by you above).

I agree that if outside readers are looking up about yet another separatist attack on Donetsk's "Zavodskyi Raion," then they might be somewhat bewildered by this hybrid mix. As long as the naming convention is all standardized, uniform, and consistent—it doesn't make much of a difference for me. § DDima 20:31, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, so that's why city raion names end up looking odd. Well, as I said, I'd advocate leaving regular raions alone, as their names make sense. However, city rations, I believe, should use "skyi" ending + "district". This is in line with how sources describe them, more reasonable, and allows and easy differentiation between the two. RGloucester — ☎ 20:34, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

<*ec*>Well, the difference between the oblasts and raions is that the former tend to have established English names (so their names need not be transliterated), while the latter normally don't (so transliteration is the most reasonable option—any other approach would pretty much amount to original research). It's the same with the names of obscure localities—they hardly ever have established names in English and are normally referred to by a transliterated Ukrainian name. You would not, for example, rename the Nyzhnohirskyi article Lower Mountains just to get rid of the "-skyi" ending, would you? :) WP:UE itself states to "follow English-language usage", not to "use only English words". For obscure place names and lower-level divisions, it is an established practice in English to use romanized local names; that's the whole reason why BGN/PCGN romanization exists.

Anyway, since I don't edit articles about Ukraine much, I'm only here in an advisory capacity. I'm sure you'll folks figure this out :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 29, 2015; 20:46 (UTC)

Yea, I thought raion is already a well established term as there are a lot of articles, particularly, concerning Ukraine that have its districts named as raions. I kind of favor the use of district over raion though. When I joined the project, there already were a lot of articles named as raions rather than district. The city district names were based on convention used for Kiev. I case of Kiev, if the name of raion derived from a name of locality such as former village or town (Amur and Nizhnodniprovsk are former settlements) that were incorporated into the city, such name was not translated into English, otherwise raions such as Industrialnyi or Korabelnyi would be translated. I believe there was a discussion in regards of the -skyi ending use in names. We decided to get rid of the ending. Also, please, note that when the Ukraine's territory was occupied by the Western Powers such as Nazi Germany, they used the same system without endings of -skyi. RGloucester, your argument about differentiating raions sounds strange. We need to stick to one convention no matter if it is a city ration or a regular raion. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 20:53, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

We need to do what is done by RS, and RS use "skyi + district" for city raions. I can understand the justification for "administrative centre + raion" for regular raions, as explained by DDima, but there is no such justification for the bizarre translation/transliterations of city raions that are not found in sources. I think the separation is perfectly reasonable. City districts are commonly called "districts" in English, whereas "district" sounds odd to the English ear when referring to regular raions, as they are more like what we call counties. Regardless, all that I know is that the present system for city raions is not supported by RS. RGloucester — ☎ 20:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

If we are revising this subject about raions, what are you thoughts on raions that carry names such as Chervonozavodskyi or Tsentralnomiskyi? I think I already created an article or two named as City Center Raion (instead of Tsentralnomiskyi). What are your thoughts on that? Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 21:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

RGloucester, your argument about "RS" (whatever that means) also strange. As I mentioned before Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany which did not use ending of -skyi in naming their "reichsgebits" and "teilbezirks". Also, coming back to differentiating raions and districts, is it not infringing on original research by doing that? Just asking. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 21:08, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd say that these districts do not have a common English name, meaning that they should be left as transliterations. A translation can be given in the article, but I don't think the title should be translated, unless we can find RS that refer to them as such. I don't think the Reich is relevant here. It isn't OR if RS maintain that distinction. RGloucester — ☎ 21:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think you are missing my point here, but I will cooperate no matter what the convention would be. Also, what about all the historical administrative divisions like voivodeships and governorates? Are we going to change them as well? Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 21:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Why would we? RGloucester — ☎ 21:13, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

In Russian Kiev Governorate is called Kievskaya guberniya, Kiev County is called Kievskiy uyezd (or Kyivskyi povit in Ukrainian). Or we are taking even earlier period, there was a Halytska zemlia as part of the Ruthenian Voivodeship (Ruske wojewodstwo). Also, about your statement that districts sound odd to the English ear. Have you checked the articles on administrative divisions of France? Are those names not an odd sound to the English ear? Just asking. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 21:22, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Here is a good example, Halicz Land, instead of zemlia halicka. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

That's very different, because it is a historical region discussed in sources with that name. There are no "districts" of France. We call them "arrondissements". As you are most likely aware, a large part of English vocabulary comes from French, and so we have no problem with French loan words. "District" can in theory be translated as "arrondissements", but that's not usually done. "Quartier" in French is more like what in English we call a "district". The word "district" also exists in French. Regardless, these comparisons don't make any sense. They have no relevance. The only thing that matters is how these units are described by RS. I can tell you that "Factory Raion" is not a common way of referring to anything. RGloucester — ☎ 21:34, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, RGloucester, what about the city districts of Kiev? We will have to redo them. By the way I found an encyclopedic support for your argument. Here is an article on Kharkiv at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 21:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we'd have to redo all the city districts, but that shouldn't be that hard. RGloucester — ☎ 21:39, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, if there are no objections, I'd like to start working on this. RGloucester — ☎ 04:59, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I have no objections. Perhaps it is be better to differentiate between city raions and regular raions as such (not to mention that they have a different legal standing and are on different levels of administrative subdivisions). If that's what we're rolling with amidst consensus, I'll help move all this stuff and fix all the broken links and such. § DDima 17:53, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay. I'll start to work on Category:Raions of cities in Ukraine in a bit. RGloucester — ☎ 18:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I think it might be worthwhile to write up a guideline on Ukrainian places, so that the scheme is clear. RGloucester — ☎ 18:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I've made a draft: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places). Let's move this discussion there, and sort this out nice and simple. RGloucester — ☎ 19:06, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

thanks for creating the draft. May be a related question then: I often see Oblasts and Raions used with articles (the Donetsk Oblast, the Olevsk Raion). When I see it, I remove "the". Is this actually correct? Should we add this detail to the manual?--Ymblanter (talk) 21:27, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

In English, we'd never say "the Donetsk Oblast". We might say "the region of Donetsk", or "the oblast of Donetsk", but never "the Donetsk Oblast". RGloucester — ☎ 21:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not the answer I got from a professional linguist a few (well, quite a few) years ago :) According to him, either variant is acceptable (although he leaned towards not using the article as well, stating that using it sounds somewhat parochial to his ear), as long as the usage is consistent. Based on that recommendation, I've been removing the definite article ever since... The only exception he could think of was "the Jewish Autonomous Oblast".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 30, 2015; 21:56 (UTC)

It sounds more than parochial, to me. It sounds plain odd. I agree with him on the exception, though. RGloucester — ☎ 22:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

It might be also good to discuss disambiiguation rules since we started the discussion anyway. What is now current practice is different from what is here and als from what we use for Russia. (I do not have any opinion for which system would be better but since I edit articlers on administrative divisions it would be good to fix smth).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I only transcribed what I saw in practice. What did I get wrong? RGloucester — ☎ 21:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

For instance, we have Romaniv (urban-type settlement), which was renamed from Romaniv (UTS).--Ymblanter (talk) 22:03, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems usage is mixed. Either way, I'd definitely not recommend that form of disambiguation. It is much less comprehensible, and gives the reader less information. There is also the possibility of having two uts of the same name. RGloucester — ☎ 22:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I am also not a fan of it, but I prefer not to determine any policies for Ukrainian articles for many reasons. I would go with any policy provided it is consistent.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:29, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, as I said before, if no one objects, I'd like to start working on city raions. Does any have any suggestions for the best way to start implementing the above proposal? Should I just go ahead and start moving stuff? RGloucester — ☎ 22:39, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I've done Category:Raions of Donetsk. Before I do anymore, I'd like someone to check out what've done and see if it was correct, or if anything needs fixing. RGloucester — ☎ 23:13, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

What about eastern cities of Ukraine with Russian names such as Sevastopol that has Gagarin Raion. Does it need to changed to Haharinskyi District?? And what about Krasnohvardiyskyi District, Tsentralnomiskyi District or Chervonozavodskyi District? Is that normal? Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 17:04, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

About Romaniv issue, in the Ukrainian language it could be a last name, therefore in the Ukrainian Wikipedia it was differentiated that way. Romaniv should automatically go to the urban-type settlement, while for people with such last name one should look for Romaniv (name). Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 17:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

As far as Crimea is concerned, I think we should leave whatever is already there alone. We don't want to spark a PoV war for control of Crimea-related articles. RGloucester — ☎ 17:15, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I reverted your copy-paste-move and have done it properly. In the future, please move and not copy and paste.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:29, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

• I think one should never use transliterations if there is an established English language equivalent. Let's use "district" rather than "raion" and "region" rather than "oblast". If there is no equivalent, one should use transliterations, but there are certain rules for them. For example, something "Haharinsky" would probably be wrong transliteration. My very best wishes (talk) 18:20, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Long-standing consensus

This article violates the long-standing consensus that has prevailed in Ukraine for years to list both Russian and Ukrainian names. Since only a couple of editors have participated in this discussion, it cannot be considered a Wikipedia consensus that overrides the previous consensus until more editors have agreed with it. --Taivo (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It does not say not to list both Russian and Ukrainian names. It is referring to article titles. This was discussed at WP:WikiProject Ukraine and developed collaboratively. Matters of article content, i.e. the infobox, are not part of naming conventions. RGloucester — ☎ 04:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

If it only applies to article titles, then I have no problem with it. It was referenced by another editor as applying to content. If it does not apply to content, then my edit was in error. --Taivo (talk) 05:51, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

You are correct, it only applies to article titles. If an editor is citing this with regard to article content, he is doing so incorrectly. The "naming conventions" series of information pages only refer to article naming. RGloucester — ☎ 03:46, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Kyiv/Kiev

@Iryna Harpy: I removed the bullet about Kyiv/Kiev because a user was using it to justify mass-changing Kyiv to Kiev, which I don't believe has any consensus and is contrary to MOS:VAR (see User talk:Joe Roe). What are you referring to when you say "default WP:CON by reason of being long, long standing content"? If you mean this page, it was only created three years ago, does not seem to have been widely discussed, and is rarely cited by other editors.

Information pages like this should describe existing consensus, not dictate it. Where is the consensus? – Joe (talk) 06:03, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The only problem I see with the paragraph you deleted is that it points to 'Kiev' as being a transliteration from the Russian. Why it entered the English language in the form it takes is WP:OFFTOPIC... and is not actually demonstrable. The English language form has existed for centuries: it possibly came from the Russian, but why is it relevant after so long? The short of it is that 'Kiev' remains the dominant WP:COMMONNAME by a long shot. Arguments for change belong on the Talk:Kiev/naming discussion page because that is, ultimately, where consensus absolutely and unquestionably lies. Please read through that talk page (and its archives) carefully. Thank you. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:17, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not disputing that Kiev is the most common spelling or suggesting that Kiev be moved. The discussions at Talk:Kiev/naming are a local consensus about the title of that article and don't represent a consensus that alternative spellings can't be used anywhere on Wikipedia. Compare for example Beijing and thousands of uses of Peking.

And again, pages like this should describe existing consensus, not decide it. If you can't show me that the directive "write Kiev, which is a transliteration derived from the Russian name of the city, and not Kyiv" has been discussed and agreed by the community somewhere, it should not be on this page. – Joe (talk) 06:46, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Kyiv certainly can be used elsewhere for example in FC Dynamo Kyiv, but the local consensus is that indeed Kiev, and not Kyiv, is the English name of the city. (No opinion on whether this should be in the article).--Ymblanter (talk) 08:01, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Joe Roe Is continuing to edit-war without waiting for consensus. In fact, they are going against the long-standing consensus directly to the contrary. AusLondonder (talk) 03:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

You really need to learn what edit war means, AusLondonder. I opened a discussion. Ymblanter expressed some agreement with me, and Iryna didn't reply for a while. So I attempted a compromise. – Joe (talk) 04:16, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that edit, AusLondonder, but can we all please avoid casting aspersions and try to assume good faith. I don't think it's a point worth getting stuck on, but there certainly was no consensus for change. In fact, in all honesty, trying to modify the content of a 'how to' page after it has been clearly reverted with no consensus being formed for any rewording is certainly leaning towards the 'flying under the radar' end of the spectrum given the [usual] lack of traffic here. I certainly have a lot on my plate IRL, hence my having missed the continuation of the discussion process. Joe Roe, I also think that you've misinterpreted Ymblanter's comment which was in reference to a more generalised usage of proper names (which would also include Kyiv Post, for example) as opposed to geographical nomenclature. I'm on the fence about introducing such content, but it may be useful to include a hatnote pointing to WP:UKROM for these issues(?)

Again, my only query is whether the 'Russian transliteration of the name' is necessary as it serves as bait for attracting nationalistic attention which is off-topic and not properly established (the article on Kiev uses a reference for the usage as being from Russian c. 1800, but I'd invoke WP:WINARS as a reference for this article). I know that avoiding relevant content because some people won't like it isn't an excuse for salient information being omitted, but it's not particularly salient. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, however, I'm really not fussed as to whether it stays or goes... and I'm not going to get picky and tag it for reliable sourcing. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I really don't want to get hung up on procedural points, Iryna Harpy, but I don't like your implication that I'm somehow trying to "stealth edit". We all have other things to do – that's why I tend to wait a week or so for replies to a discussion before attempting any WP:BOLD edits. Note that I didn't restore my earlier edit, I tried something that I thought would be a compromise, with an edit summary clearly indicating it as such. I don't know how much more transparent I could be. It's been reverted now, which I'm fine with, so please just take it as the good faith attempt to move towards consensus that it was. – Joe (talk) 05:41, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: You're quite right: I have come off as being harsh, whereas I should have taken it as AGF (as intende). I think this has suddenly escalated to making a mountain out of a molehill. I would have gotten back to this article and questioned the edit eventually, but it seems to have hit an explosive reaction before any further civil discussion was undertaken. Hopefully, it can be resolved in a more respectful manner than sudden backlashes. My reaction was OTT so, again, I offer my sincere apologies for implying wrongdoing on your part. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:54, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Probably I was just being over-sensitive, but thank you Iryna. I agree that this is a trivial issue. – Joe (talk) 12:58, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: There is a longstanding consensus about the title of the Kiev article. Other article titles that mention the city are not affected by the consensus regarding the title of that one article. Each other article has, or must establish, its own consensus on the desired transliterated name of the city. In terms of random use of the city name within Wikipedia articles, there is actually no consensus about that that I am aware of, so that would need to come to an official RfC or other poll before enforcing or dictating or MOS-ing a preferred site-wide spelling. Softlavender (talk) 04:04, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Although the local consensus at Talk:Kiev/naming has continued to be occasionally challenged in the hope that WP:Consensus can change, there is indeed no consensus for changing "Kyiv" to "Kiev" in other Wikipedia entries, nor has there been consensus for the content of the now-deleted controversial guideline specifying the use of "Kiev", rather than "Kyiv".    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Roman Spinner: I'm not sure you do understand the consensus, I note that you were the *only* editor other than the nom to support the requested move last year. AusLondonder (talk) 05:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@AusLondonder: I understand the consensus on this subject all too well. In the cited instance, mine was the initial vote, but in all other instances, after reading what I considered to be incorrect or misleading statements, I merely provided comments which were initially not structured as direct replies or challenges to those statements.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Logic would follow that if consensus holds Kiev should be used for the main article title then we should not use Kyiv elsewhere widely. This seems like a back-door attempt by disconcerted editors to overturn the consensus for Kiev. This guideline has been in place for several years now and not previously subject to controversy. I agree that a RfC to either endorse or reject these naming conventions would be useful. AusLondonder (talk) 04:58, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

No, that doesn't follow at all. See my above example above Beijing/Peking, Czech Republic/Czechia or indeed Airplane/Aeroplane. For technical reasons we have to decide on a single article title, but within articles we can accommodate variants. And the long-standing, project-wide consensus is that we shouldn't attempt to disallow reasonable variants by imposing a single spelling. It's contentious, unproductive and in this case also rather POV.

Your "back-door attempt by disconcerted editors" is a little implausible because: a) I initiated this, and I'm a single editor; b) I've never edited Kiev; c) I've never changed Kiev to Kyiv in an article, only reverted another editor who mass-changed in the other direction. Please try to maintain WP:AGF, or we won't get anywhere.

By the way I do think this is a useful page and would support an attempt to promote it to a guideline. But it is much more likely to succeed if we drop overly-prescriptive things like this. – Joe (talk) 05:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Your counter examples don't convince me. There are many uses of "Peking" that are to some degree separate from the city (there's no need to change the name of the dish "Peking duck") or are specific to a time period before the modern renaming (just as we talk about Danzig in various periods of history instead of Gdansk). The discussions at the Czech Republic article actually decided that using Czechia in running text anywhere on Wikipedia was counter to consensus. And "airplane/aeroplane" is a matter of differences between usage within major Anglophone countries and is still subject to commonality. "Kyiv" is not the majority usage in any Anglophone country and, even if it were, the prevalence of "Kiev" in other English dialects would override it (see Ganges).--Khajidha (talk) 13:06, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. "Kiev" is not a transliteration. It is the English name of Ukraine's capital city. "Kyiv" is a transliteration from Ukrainian and is what the Rada would prefer that English speakers use rather than the English name. Obviously, the Rada has no power over the lexicon of English, despite what official government channels on both sides of the Atlantic have chosen to do. "Kiev" is still the English name of Ukraine's capital and its ultimate origin long ago doesn't matter. We might as well argue that since french fries might be Belgian, we should not use that name in Wikipedia. The Belgians see "french fries" as an overbearing imposition of French snobbery. --Taivo (talk) 06:07, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, it is indeed a transliteration. The Ukrainian (or Russian or Old Eastern Slavic) name is in Cyrillic alphabet, and transliterations into Latin alphabet have varied over time and convention. Also there is no single "English name" for the capital of Ukraine, but "Kiev" is the long-term consensus spelling for the title of the Kiev article, but not necessarily for the title of various other articles about Kievan-related subjects. Wikipedia operates by consensus, and not by fiat. Softlavender (talk) 13:15, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Unless you are composing a Wikipedia article in Russian and then converting it to English, there is neither translation nor transliteration involved. "Kiev" is the long-standing assimilated term in English. --Khajidha (talk) 13:23, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
      • No, any Latin alphabet designation of any word or name of an item strictly from countries that use a non-Latin alphabet is a de facto transliteration. This is true whether the language of origin is Chinese (which has notably had a lot of changes in transliteration, and varied systems of transliterations, over the years), Russian, Arabic, or any other non-Latin-alphabet language. Softlavender (talk) 10:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
        • So you would say that I am transliterating every time I use the word "troika" in English? Or when I talk about a "gyro"? Or "bamboo"? Nope, sorry, that is nonsensical. All of those terms have been assimilated and are no longer transliterations. And the same is true of Kiev.--Khajidha (talk) 14:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

  Do you we Bombay or Mumbai? By this logic, we should still be saying Bombay, because the Indian parliament has no authority over the English language. Anamatv (talk) 01:45, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

• Comment about the paragraph. While we're at it, could we please drop the "whilst?" It is poor archaic grammar in American English and even British English will usually use a synonymous term such as although, whereas, or while. Otherwise I would pretty much agree with what editor Taivo explained just above. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • There is absolutely nothing wrong with using "whilst". It's perfectly good British English. Being "archaic" in American English is irrelevant (I should note that a number of Americanisms also seem archaic to many British people). -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:15, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
• If the article is titled Kiev, then using Kyiv anywhere else (aside from direct quotations and such) is blatantly stupid and not useful to our readers. --Khajidha (talk) 10:47, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Any guideline, which might be reconstituted as a replacement for the deleted one, should continue to clearly specify that the name "Kiev" is the English transliteration of the Russian name of the Ukrainian capital in the same manner that "Moskva" is the English transliteration of the Russian name of the Russian capital.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 11:39, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Wrong. It originated that way, but it isn't a transliteration any longer. --Khajidha (talk) 11:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Not wrong. The Russian name of the Russian capital continues to be transliterated into English as "Moskva" and the Russian name of the Ukrainian capital continues to be transliterated into English as "Kiev".    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 12:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

When one is transliterating, then yes. When one is simply using the existing English name, then it is simply "Kiev" with no transliteration needed. --Khajidha (talk) 12:49, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

To clarify, because you seem to have some trouble understanding this, if one is working from an existing Russian text and rendering it into English, then "Kiev" is a transliteration. However, if one is simply writing in English, "Kiev" is an assimilated English word. These are two different things. Since we are discussing text originally composed in English, there is no transliteration involved. --Khajidha (talk) 12:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I have no trouble whatsoever understanding this. As of this writing, the third point at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places)#First-level divisions states, "... write Kiev, which is a transliteration derived from the Russian name of the city..." "Kiev" was, indeed, once the sole English name for the Ukrainian capital in the same manner that Peking, Bombay, Calcutta or Madras were once the sole English names for those cities. Times and circumstances, however, have changed and "Kiev" now shares English usage with "Kyiv".    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 13:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

If you understand this, then please quit stating that it is a transliteration every time we have these discussions. "Sharing usage" does not mean that the two are equally prominent or that they should both be used. There are many words that "share usage" with another word for a particular meaning, but that are nonetheless not used in Wikipedia prose for any of a number of reasons. --Khajidha (talk) 13:32, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

When using the term "transliteration", I am not stating my personal opinion, but simply quoting from the above-linked naming conventions. We do not use the native names, Moskva and Warszawa for the capitals of Russia and Poland, because those cities' unique English exonyms, Moscow and Warsaw are not used in any other language. That is not the case with the Ukrainian capital, which lacks a unique English exonym, thus leaving English speakers with a choice of using the transliterated Russian form — Kiev — or the transliterated Ukrainian form — Kyiv — per the city's own English-language logo in Wikimedia Commons — "everything starts in KYIV".    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 14:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

1) Then the above-linked naming conventions are not written in correct English and should be changed, 2) it is unsupported synthesis that the existence or non-existence of a unique English exonym is relevant in any way. For example, the Italian city of Livorno has the unique exonym of "Leghorn", which is rarely used in modern sources. Established English usage for over 200 years is "Kiev". To change that usage either in article titles or in running text here requires the demonstration that "Kyiv" is not just present in English sources, but is predominant over "Kiev". --Khajidha (talk) 14:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

No one would contradict that "Moskva" and "Kiev" are, indeed, the Russian names (in English transliteration) for the capitals of Russia and Ukraine. It is further undeniable, and cannot be brushed away as immaterial, that the heart of the controversy centers around that very fact of the Russian origin of the name "Kiev". The explanation is at English exonyms#Ukraine, "Many Ukrainian place names in English historically match the Russian spelling/pronunciation". Ukraine, however, has been an independent nation since 1991 and such historical grandfathering is being shelved as outdated.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 16:43, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The Russian names of the capitals of Russia and Ukraine do transliterate to Moskva and Kiev, but that is not the point. The point is that usage in English for 200+ years means that Kiev is no more a Russian word than microscope is a Greek one. If Ukrainians cannot handle that simple fact, then I feel sorry for their lack of self-esteem but it is of no importance to English usage and they should just pull up their big kid pants and deal with it. --Khajidha (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Geographical designations/place names carry historical and political weight which cannot be compared to ordinary words. The extermination camp is always referenced by its German name, Auschwitz, but the town after which the camp was named, which became part of Poland at the end of World War II, is referenced by its Polish name, Oświęcim. Numerous colonial-era European place names and country names in Asia and Africa were revised to reflect local culture. The English-speaking world absorbed those changes and its geographers have handled the revisions in the same manner that "Kiev" continues being changed to "Kyiv" on English-language maps.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

And there are other places that have not changed names. As for your example of the former location of the death camp, it is not so much that it has changed its name as it is that it is simply not spoken of in English in a modern context. --Khajidha (talk) 18:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

"Geographers have handled the revisions" is totally immaterial. Geographers may have listed "Praha", "Warszawa", and "Moskva" on their maps, but geographers are not the arbiters of common English usage. They are a tiny group of English speakers and writers, the vast majority of whom still use "Prague", "Warsaw", "Moscow", and "Kiev". "Kiev" is no more a Russian word than "Moscow" is. It may be similar to the Russian pronunciation of the Russian word, but it is an English placename. That's the simple truth. It's not a Russian transliteration, it is an English placename like Warsaw, Prague, and Copenhagen. --Taivo (talk) 00:15, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Let me present you with a relevant example. In 2007 I was a Fulbright Scholar assigned to Ukraine along with about 20 other American scholars. The director of the Ukraine Fulbright office briefed us at a pre-fellowship workshop in Washington. He (a native speaker of Ukrainian) kept saying some city name that started with a "K" that no one was recognizing. Finally, someone asked him what city he was talking about and he said "that's the name of 'Kiev' in Ukrainian." While 2007 was a decade ago, it simply illustrates that there is a wide gap between the English word "Kiev" and the Ukrainian name of Ukraine's capital city. Wikipedia is tied to English language usage by native speakers of English, not to the political will of the Rada or any other government organization, or even less to the hopes and dreams of the Ukrainian diaspora. --Taivo (talk) 00:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

A frequently presented, but incorrect, argument is that if the US State Department, Lonely Planet, Google Maps or Yahoo Maps are using the form "Kyiv", rather than "Kiev", then those entities must be also using such forms as Warszawa, București, Praha, Beograd, Roma, Firenze or München. However, a glance at the online English-language maps, State Department dispatches or the covers of Lonely Planet city guides proves that alongside their use of "Kyiv", all of these other cities are referenced by their English exonyms — Warsaw, Bucharest, Prague, Belgrade, Rome, Florence and Munich. Only Kyiv is no longer being referenced by its Russian name. As Khajidha confirmed above (16:51, 4 September), "The Russian names of the capitals of Russia and Ukraine do transliterate to Moskva and Kiev..." Of course, "Kiev" was once the English WP:COMMONNAME of the Ukrainian capital since, as indicated under English exonyms#Ukraine, Ukrainian places and Ukrainian people are still being referenced under their Russian names (See Talk:Oleg Sentsov#Requested move 21 October 2016 for an example).

As for the reminiscence from 2007, it illustrates how pervasive the Ukrainian capital's Russian name has been in the English-speaking world that even the very highly educated Fulbright Scholars were unable to recognize the unfamiliar sound of the city's Ukrainian name. Examples may be presented of a hypothetical director of Poland Fulbright office ten years earlier, in 1997, mentioning Warsaw, but also Kraków and, when asked what city he was talking about, he would explain, "that's the name of Cracow in Polish" or still earlier, a hypothetical director of India Fulbright office explaining, "that's how we pronounce Bombay and Calcutta", or China office, "that's how we pronounce "Peking"". Basically, the pronunciation is unimportant — as long as the main title header is "Kyiv", the capital's name can be pronounced to the best of one's ability — and if it's pronounced as in Chicken Kiev, that is up to the individual. Few English speakers know how to properly say the name of the Moldovan capital, Chișinău, but it's still the main header of the article. Kolkata can be pronounced as Calcutta, Kraków can be pronounced as Cracow and Kyiv can be pronounced as Kiev as long as the names of those cities are rendered in print as Kolkata, Kraków and Kyiv.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:47, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

You simply don't get it. You have not understood that "Kiev" is not the "Russian name", but the English name and you still try to spin this to make Kyiv "the English name". "Kyiv" is a transliteration of the Ukrainian name, it is not the English name of Ukraine's capital. It might be someday, but it is not at this time by the overwhelming bulk of usage in contemporary English (proven over and over and over again in discussions at Talk:Kiev/naming). And it simply doesn't matter how you pronounce the name of cities in foreign languages. When you are speaking English, you pronounce the name of the cities as they are pronounced in English if you want to be understood by English speakers. If I were giving a lecture on the Czech Republic to English speakers, I would not continually say "Praha" if I wanted my listeners to understand what I was saying. I would say "Prague". The name for Ukraine's capital in English is "Kiev". The evidence is overwhelming. "Kiev" is not "the Russian name", it is the English name. Your assertions that "Kyiv" is the common name in English are laughable and based on no evidence whatsoever other than your own statement. The evidence for "Kiev" being the most common name in English has been presented ad infinitum at Talk:Kiev/naming and is clear and incontrovertible. You are just choosing to ignore it. --Taivo (talk) 07:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I get it as well as you do, even if we don't draw the same conclusions. "Kiev" is indeed the Russian name and formerly the English name in the same manner that Danzig and Lemberg are the German, and formerly English, names for the Polish city of Gdańsk and the former Polish city of Lwów, which is now the Ukrainian city of Lviv. Some city names undergo complete changes such as Tsaritsyn/Stalingrad/Volgograd, Königsberg/Kaliningrad or Madras/Chennai, while other city names, such as Peking/Beijing, Bombay/Mumbai, Calcutta/Kolkata, Lwów/Lvov/Lviv, Odessa/Odesa or Kiev/Kyiv are tweaked via minor revising/restructuring of the existing Latin-alphabet form or of the transliteration.

The example of you as a lecturer using "Praha" instead of "Prague" is counterintuitive since, unlike "Kiev", "Prague" is the universally accepted exonym across the English as well as French-speaking world. A more apt example would have been Chișinău which, in the same manner as Kyiv, is known (as a minor national capital) in the English-speaking world under its transliterated Russian name "Kishinev". As a matter of convenience, Kyiv presents less of a pronunciation problem than Chișinău, since it contains three of the four letters within "Kiev". All that is needed is a replacement of "e" with "y" and for "y" and "i" to exchange places.

The mis-communication with the director of the Ukraine Fulbright office arose from the fact that he probably over-enunciated the name "Kyiv" and did not explain beforehand that he would be using the Ukrainian pronunciation KIH-yeev, rather than the Russian pronunciation KEE-yev. Ultimately, however, all transliterations are inexact and, in cases such as Cracow/Kraków or close re-transliterations such as Calcutta/Kolkata or Kiev/Kyiv, it should make no difference at all, except when pronounced by native speakers. We can still reference Black Hole of Calcutta, Free City of Cracow or Chicken Kiev and pronounce the city names in the same manner as before, as long as it is made clear that the modern-day written form of those city names is Kolkata, Kraków and Kyiv.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

You are still completely wrong on several points, but the most important is that "Kiev" is presently the English name of Ukraine's capital. It is, by an overwhelming majority, the name that English speakers consider to be the name of Ukraine's capital. It doesn't matter what you think, what the Rada thinks, what the US government thinks. All that matters is what English speakers use when they write in English. "Kiev" is not "the Russian name", it is the English name. Once you understand that (which you refuse to understand), then other minor issues can be discussed. But as long as you refuse to recognize the very simple and easily demonstrable fact that "Kiev" is the English place name for Ukraine's capital city by a preponderence of the evidence, then discussing this with you is pointless. Even here in Wikipedia, every single time that Kyiv/Kiev has been discussed, the discussion has been closed by WP:SNOW. Since nothing whatsoever has changed in terms of what English speakers call the capital of Ukraine in English, I doubt that anything will be different here. --Taivo (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I am still completely wrong on several points to the extent that you are still completely wrong on several points. I don't recall how much resistance there was and how many years were required for acceptance by the print and broadcast media as well as by the public of the names Beijing, Mumbai and Kolkata when those were introduced four decades ago, but the struggle for Kyiv has been ongoing for over two decades (Kyiv Post began publication in October 1995).

The notion, however, that the US government, Lonely Planet or the capital's English language newspaper are ignorant of the fact that they are not using what is "by an overwhelming majority, the name that English speakers consider to be the name of Ukraine's capital" is... ridiculous. No entity or entities fly in the face of "overwhelming majority" in such a fashion. After all, Moscow's English newspaper is The Moscow Times, not The Moskva Times. Prague's was The Prague Post, not The Praha Post, etc.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

No, the notion that those sources you mentioned are not using the majority term is a simple statement of fact borne out by comparison to the vast majority of the English language corpus. And the examples you give of other papers in other cities doing other things are simply irrelevant. --Khajidha (talk) 23:26, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Since previous arguments have contended that entities which use "Kyiv" are likely to use native names of other cities, thus suggesting that it would be normal for English-language publications in non-English speaking cities to use those cities' native names, it is extremely relevant to show by comparison that the masthead of Kyiv Post is, in fact, displaying the common English name of the city in which it is published.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

No, Roman Spinner, what non-native speakers of English in other countries do is 100% irrelevant to what is true of the English language in countries where English is the native language. And trying to examine the history of other cities whose names have changed is ignored via WP:OTHERSTUFF. Only the WP:SNOW results of "Kiev" as the native English name for Ukraine's capital city is relevant. It's been decided over and over and over again (at least annually for the last 10 years or so). By "native" I of course mean the name of Ukraine's capital used by native speakers of English in overwhelming numbers, not that "Kiev" was originally a word of English origin. But now the origin of "Kiev" is unknown to native speakers (and they don't generally care). It is an English-language place name. --Taivo (talk) 03:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Taivo, even when you are unwilling to see or accept them, milestones in the non-English-speaking world are 100% relevant in the English-speaking world when they receive sufficient spotlight, with this case being a good example.

As for WP:OTHERSTUFF — there is no WP:OTHERSTUFF — the examples of other cities' English newspapers were only submitted as confirmation that this name dispute is uniquely positioned. The world's largest publisher of travel books, Lonely Planet, uses common English geographical names for the titles of its books — and yet it uses "Kyiv". The US State Department uses common English geographical names in its dispatches (not Warszawa or Praha) and it still uses Kyiv. Not a single English-language city newspaper in a non-English-speaking country uses anything other than that city's common English name, thus Kyiv Post must be using its native city's common English name.

Finally, the staff responsible for writing and editing newspaper content in non-English-speaking countries is composed of either native speakers of English or locals who have near-native English skills. As for the general public in the English-speaking world, those who "don't generally care" would probably only know that the difference between Chicken Kiev and Peking duck is that the former is a chicken and the latter is a duck. On the other hand, those who do have occasion to reference "Kyiv" as the Ukrainian capital are likely to be well informed due to the name dispute's media coverage: 1.(2000), 2.(2004), 3.(2008), 4.(2014), 5.(2014), 6.(2014), 7.(2014), 8.(2017), 9.(2017), 10.(2017) and numerous other examples.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 16:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

No, Roman, the usage by non-native speakers is irrelevant. Language norms in any language are set by the native speakers. As far as your point that "the examples of other cities' English newspapers were only submitted as confirmation that this name dispute is uniquely positioned" goes, the answer is "so what?" There's lots of irregularities and unique usages in English. What papers in Prague or Moscow do is no more relevant to the discussion of the name of Ukraine's capital than the conjugation of the verb "to run" is to the conjugation of the verb "to be". "Not a single English-language city newspaper in a non-English-speaking country uses anything other than that city's common English name, thus Kyiv Post must be using its native city's common English name." Since every discussion so far has come to the conclusion that Kiev is the common English name, this sentence is demonstrably false. And this is quite aside from the fact that it is begging the question by stating that "not a single English-language city newspaper in a non-English-speaking country uses anything other than that city's common English name" as proof that Kyiv is the common English name. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you meant to say "in any other non-English speaking country", your conclusion does not follow from your premise.--Khajidha (talk) 17:36, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

(ec)You (Roman) keep calling "Kyiv" the common English name when it is absolutely not. Your carefully cherry-picked articles are not relevant except in the sense that they exist as single data points for "Kyiv". The majority of usage isn't in articles about names, which are still not relevant when they are in media from countries where English is not the native language. Of course those papers will not follow common English usage, they will follow the usage of the country they originate from. You are claiming that expat native speakers are arbiters of common English usage? What a joke! The opinions of a few newspaper editors and ex-pats in non-English-speaking countries does not matter when determining English usage. Take a couple minutes and examine the evidence that has been amassed in the archives of Talk:Kiev/naming and you will see that "Kiev" is the name that is overwhelmingly used by English speakers, not just your cherry-picked selection of a half dozen expats and editors. I just ran a search of the New York Times for "Kiev" from 1 Jan to today and got 107 hits. Just yesterday (5 Sep), this appeared: "Bremmer, who met Freeland in Kiev in 1992, good-naturedly chided her for a strange foible: a habit of writing notes on her hands even when she has notepads." Those articles include topics such as trade, the war in the Donbass, the war on corruption in the government, and sport. I ran a search with the same parameters for "Kyiv" and got 5 hits. One of those hits here uses "Kiev" throughout and the only use of "Kyiv" is in the name of a Facebook page that is referenced in the article. That's 20 to 1 for "Kiev" from the most influential American newspaper during the last 8 months. I could run this test on 20 other American, British, and Canadian papers and come up with similar results. (The Miami Herald favors "Kyiv" because its owner is Ukrainian.) That's how you determine common English usage--by what is used in general, not by a travel book, expats, and opinion writers. --Taivo (talk) 17:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Khajidha, "the usage by non-native speakers is irrelevant" to my last comment since I made no mention of it (you were most likely referencing that perennial legislative villain, Verkhovna Rada). As for "your conclusion does not follow from your premise" — it does indeed so follow. The lead sentence of my paragraph immediately above was, "...the staff responsible for writing and editing newspaper content in non-English-speaking countries is composed of either native speakers of English or locals who have near-native English skills". No one knows better than they what their own city's WP:COMMONNAME is in English in the same manner as the staffs of such papers as The Moscow Times or The Warsaw Voice know the English name of their respective city. Finally, giving me "the benefit of the doubt" that I meant to say "in any other non-English speaking country" would lead to an incorrect conclusion. I meant exactly what I said.

You (Taivo) also arrived at an incorrect understanding of my posting's last paragraph, when you assumed that the ten links which I provided were "carefully cherry-picked articles" which were intended to demonstrate that newspapers were using "Kyiv", rather than "Kiev". Those links were actually submitted in reply to the last line in your previous posting, "But now the origin of "Kiev" is unknown to native speakers (and they don't generally care). It is an English-language place name". All ten of those links, which you apparently did not examine, deal solely with editorial decision/indecision as to whether "Kyiv" or "Kiev" is the correct use. They, in fact, opted for "Kiev" for the time being, but not without concluding that "Kyiv" was also an option. My thanks to you, however, for providing the links to Miami Herald in the previous discussion, even if those were unfavorable to your position. However, Miami Herald is still in the minority and will not overcome the use of "Kiev" by other newspapers.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:24, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

No, Roman, I was referring to your mention of "milestones in the non-English speaking world" and "Not a single English-language city newspaper in a non-English-speaking country" with that comment. And, no, the conclusion that because English language newspapers in Moscow and Warsaw use the common English names that the usage of Kyiv by the Kyiv Post means that Kyiv is the common English name does not follow. As for your point that "No one knows better than they what their own city's WP:COMMONNAME is in English", that really makes no sense. A newspaper is named what its owners and publishers want it to be named, not what outsiders think it should be named. Thus, the names of these papers only show the preferred usage of said owners and publishers, not the preferred usage of the Anlosphere.--Khajidha (talk) 00:38, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

It is still wrong. "Kiev" is not a transliteration from the Russian, but the English name of the city. Transliteration from the Russian would be "Kiyev", for that matter. 37.151.19.210 (talk) 09:26, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Break for ease of editing

This discussion has been completely derailed. At no point has anyone contested that Kiev is the most common name for the city in English. But WP:COMMONNAME is a guideline for article titles, not spelling within articles. The question here was whether there was a pre-existing consensus to prefer Kiev over Kyiv in article text across Wikipedia. – Joe (talk) 09:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. Agree that in general we should use Kiev in all mentions of the city except in cases where direct quotes from Ukrainian are being used. To do otherwise would be illogical, given we have a consensus that the English name is Kiev. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:12, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
• No, there is no such official consensus. Also, it would not work with articles such as Kyiv Post, which are proper names that use "Kyiv" and/or have "Kyiv" in the article title (there appear to be hundreds of Wikipedia article titles which currently use "Kyiv"). Softlavender (talk) 10:29, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • The Kyiv Post is a clear exception to the general rule. But there won't be many. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

    FC Dynamo Kyiv is another one, and it probably generates most of the pages with Kyiv in the title.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:06, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Kiev/naming/archive_007#RfC:_The_common_name_in_the_English-language_of_the_capital_of_Ukraine_is_"Kiev" Especially read the comments AFTER the closing box around the discussion. --Khajidha (talk) 11:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• Whether Kiev is at "Kiev" or "Kyiv", there will always be titles that require the other spelling since they are proper names (Chicken Kiev and Kyiv Post, for example). That has never been the issue and is a red herring. But there is a consensus that "Kiev" is the most common English term and should be the article title (see continual rehashing at Talk:Kiev/naming). Since the article title is "Kiev" and since the consensus to keep the article at that name is based on fact-based discussions of common English usage, then there is, ipso facto, a consensus that the name of Ukraine's capital in English is "Kiev" and that should be the named used across Wikipedia. Isn't there an overt Wikipedia-wide guideline or policy that articles, when linking to another article, should always use the name of that other article and not link to a redirect unless there is an overwhelming reason not to? --Taivo (talk) 11:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• "Isn't there an overt Wikipedia-wide guideline or policy that articles, when linking to another article, should always use the name of that other article and not link to a redirect unless there is an overwhelming reason not to?" No, there isn't. Also, "Kyiv" is in boldface as the alternate spelling in the first sentence of Kiev, and is the official Ukrainian and U.S. governmental spelling. Softlavender (talk) 12:19, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• Wikipedia cares not one whit for any official government policy. It cares about common English usage only. "Kiev" is the name of Ukraine's capital in common English usage. That's all that matters--what English speakers actually use, not what their governments use. --Taivo (talk) 12:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• You misunderstand. There is no "Wikipedia-wide guideline or policy that articles, when linking to another article, should always use the name of that other article and not link to a redirect". Softlavender (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• There are 554 Wikipedia articles with "Kyiv" in the title: [1]. (Only a fraction are related to Dynamo Kyiv.) -- Softlavender (talk) 11:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Looking at that page I saw a lot of redirects where the actual page uses "Kiev". I also saw a lot of names that are directly analogous to Dynamo Kyiv in that "Kyiv" is part of the subjects name, but is not really being used as the city name. For example, "Kyiv Post". That is the name for the newspaper and that spelling is used when referring to that publication even by sources that use "Kiev" for the name of the city itself. These pages are no more indicative that we should be using "Kyiv" directly as the city name in running text than the existence of Bayern Munich indicates that the region of Germany should be referred to as Bayern rather than Bavaria--Khajidha (talk) 12:08, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Out of the 929 articles listed there, I subtracted all the sections, redirects, and categories, which leaves 554 Wikipedia articles with "Kyiv" in the title. -- Softlavender (talk) 12:12, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Which leaves mostly articles that, to quote LjL from the discussion I linked above, "are examples of proper nouns that contain the name of the city but are not the name of the city: the rules for spelling them are independent." In other words, those articles are irrelevant to the discussion. In normal English usage, one would write things like "While in Kiev, I watched the Dynamo Kyiv game and read the Kyiv Post, but could not find a restaurant that served a good chicken Kiev." --Khajidha (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

We're not talking about your personal conception of normal English usage; we're talking about Wikipedia policy, and there is no policy against using the official Ukrainian and official U.S. governmental spelling ("Kyiv") within articles other than Kiev. Therefore each article must establish its own consensus, if there is any dispute. Softlavender (talk) 12:23, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I think the point is that if an article mentions the city, it should mention Kiev and not Kyiv. If it mentions anything else, such as Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, there should be consensus on that page (of the university) what usage is proper.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

According to whom? There is no Wikipedia policy that so states, there is no consensus for that, and it is contrary to MOS:VAR. -- Softlavender (talk) 12:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

There was consensus for that in the discussion I linked. I'm not sure that MOS:VAR applies to this question, but to whatever extent it does it would be overridden by the advice on that page to use plain English and to seek commonality. --Khajidha (talk) 12:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

No, there wasn't. That discussion was closed within three days, and was only a consensus for the title of the Kiev article, per WP:COMMONAME, which in itself only applies to article titles, not spellings or usages within articles. Softlavender (talk) 13:03, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

According to the statement from the closer, there was such a consensus. --Khajidha (talk) 13:32, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

The discussion wasn't even opened about the title of the article. It was about "Kiev" being the most common English name for Ukraine's capital, not about moving the article. Here's the requester's opening statement: "Even though it is not the officially-accepted direct transliteration of the name of the city from Ukrainian, the historically accurate common English-language name for the capital of Ukraine is 'Kiev'". That was the basis for the discussion and moving (or not moving) the article wasn't even mentioned (except, perhaps, in passing--I'm not going to read the entire thread since the result was "SNOW"). --Taivo (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

And if closing per WP:SNOW isn't WP:CONSENSUS in Wikipedia, then there is no such thing as consensus. --Taivo (talk) 15:12, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment A small band of editors don't like the fact we regard Kiev as the appropriate, common name to use on English Wikipedia because it's Russian (nope, it's an English word now, the Russian name for the city is Киев, anyway) and are seeking to effectively game the system and shop their discontent here. It is a tiresome example of Wikilawyering arguing that sure, overwhelming community consensus is we use Kiev but we shouldn't use it in actual article text, only titles. How ridiculous and illogical is that? These editors are now seeking to foist a red herring upon us, saying "oh, but what about proper names, like Kyiv Post?" But that was *never* the issue. The initial editor to raise this dispute was en masse changing links in places such as infoboxes from Kiev to Kyiv, see an example here and here. The editor in question did this dozens and dozens of times across a huge number of pages. AusLondonder (talk) 17:00, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi AusLondonder. I have a name, and that's a blatant falsehood. I reverted a single batch of undiscussed changes of Kyiv to Kiev–63 articles to be precise–by AndreyKva. You cited this information page to justify reverting my reverts two months later, which is why I attempted to update it. – Joe (talk) 17:30, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Let us go back and try to be constructive rather that evolve into mutual accusations. Do we all agree on what current consensus is, and which changes are appropriate, and which are not?--Ymblanter (talk) 17:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Well the purpose of this discussion was to ascertain whether there was an existing consensus to prefer Kiev over Kyiv, not try forge a new one. The fact that such a simple question has generated this lengthy and contentious discussion surely points to the answer being no. Personally I'd like to update this page to reflect that, but since it doesn't have guideline status anyway, it's immaterial. Various editors seem to feel strongly that we should impose Kiev, whether everywhere or only outside proper names, based on prior discussions at Talk:Kiev/naming, but for that I'd suggest there would need to be an RfC or similar discussion on a more widely watched page. – Joe (talk) 18:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

We can do open a RfC indeed, though I am not really looking forward given that some users have very strong feelings about the issue (and canvassing from other projects could occur as well).--Ymblanter (talk) 18:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I feel that this is already covered by the principles of use English, avoid jargon, and commonality. If we have determined that the common name is "Kiev", then it seems obvious that that would be the name utilized in running text. With obvious exceptions for direct quotations and names of things that incorporate the city name in the form Kyiv when spoken of in English (ie: the Dynamo Kyiv type usage). --Khajidha (talk) 18:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

If we do do an RFC, we might want to generalize it to cover similar occurences elsewhere (Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, East Timor, Swaziland, etc). That is, it is resolved that "general usage of country/city names on Wikipedia should follow the naming of the article (eg: Cape Verde, not Cabo Verde; Swaziland, not Eswatini)." --Khajidha (talk) 18:30, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: I don't regard 63 changes as a "single" change. It seems perfectly appropriate to described that as "en masse changing". You "attempted" to "update" a guideline because you didn't like it? Yet you are criticising other editors for "undiscussed changes" (by that you mean using the long-agreed name for the Ukrainian capital)? I disagree with your second set of comments, I believe a consensus exists in favour of this set of naming conventions until consensus is developed to the contrary (Status quo ante bellum) which would presumably be linked to the main article naming. As far as I know, no one has suggested "imposing" Kiev "everywhere" - very specifically excluding rare examples such as the Kyiv Post. AusLondonder (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Agree with Khajidha that a RfC should be unnecessary, although it may become the only option to avoid the persistent Kyiv POV-pushing (and I'm not just referring to this dispute). WP:BLUDGEON and WP:COMMONSENSE come in here. The use English policy is a very good point, since Kiev is the generally accepted English word for the city. AusLondonder (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Do you know what "batch" means? The point is I am not part of some conspiracy going around changing Kiev to Kyiv. Andrey made a bold set of changes (which I am not at all criticising him for), I happened to notice and challenge them, we discussed it on his talk page. That's how Wikipedia works. It was only months later that you dredged it up again and turned it into this bizarre battleground.

The status quo is a) nobody has pointed to a single prior discussion about the use of Kyiv/Kiev in articles; b) Kyiv is used in hundreds of articles apparently without any objection; c) in the absence of guidelines to the contrary, MOS:VAR advises us not to change one accepted spelling variant to another. English being the wonderfully diverse language that it is, equating the most common spelling with the only accepted spelling is a non sequitur.

I changed this information page (not a guideline) in good faith because they are supposed to reflect existing consensus, not dictate it. I think it's a good idea to have such a guideline, but if editors insist on including guidance that does not have consensus behind it, it will remain unenforceable and useless. Get consensus first, then write the advice. – Joe (talk) 18:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I believe that we have demonstrated here that consensus already exists with the consistent closing of Kyiv/Kiev arguments at Talk:Kiev/naming by WP:SNOW in favor of "Kiev", whether the article name was or was not being specifically discussed. It is only a comparatively miniscule number of editors who insist on repeatedly pushing "Kyiv" every six months to a year without any real measurable increase in actual overall usage. --Taivo (talk) 21:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

A few additional aspects of the previously quoted WP:SNOW vote at Talk:Kiev/naming/archive_007#RfC:_The_common_name_in_the_English-language_of_the_capital_of_Ukraine_is_"Kiev" should be taken into consideration. That discussion took place in late November 2015, over two years and nine months ago, which is a long time in today's world. WP:Consensus can change and subsequent discussions and votes could not come close to the same level of participation. Replacement of "Kyiv" with "Kiev" in articles which feature the form "Kyiv" should not be done wholesale and each such change should be explained and justified on the relevant article's talk page.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

You are grasping at straws in the face of overwhelming evidence. The discussions concerning the overwhelming usage of "Kiev" over "Kyiv" in English are regular and at least annual--whether discussing the article title or a broader scope, the evidence has not changed one iota in that time. Indeed, some media sources (such as the NY Times as I recall) looked like they might switch to "Kyiv" 10 years ago, but are now firmly fixed in the "Kiev" camp. Your assertion that the evidence is changing rapidly is simply false and not based on actual facts. "Kiev" is now, as much as ever, the overwhelming choice of native speakers of English as the name of Ukraine's capital. --Taivo (talk) 03:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

No you have not. For one, those discussions are about the title of a specific article – a different question to that posed here, governed by a completely different set of policies (WP:COMMONNAME versus MOS:VAR). Second, local consensus on one article talk (sub)page can't be considered binding across every article on the project. AusLondonder's canvasing of editors from Talk:Kiev/naming was unfortunate, because it has turned this discussion into an extension of that long-running debate, when in fact it is entirely separate. – Joe (talk) 04:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

You're wrong in so many ways it's tiring to address all the inaccuracies. You obviously don't know understand what canvassing is. WP:APPNOTE, part of the WP:CANVASS policy, says "An editor who may wish to draw a wider range of informed, but uninvolved, editors to a discussion can place a message at any of the following: The talk page or noticeboard of one or more WikiProjects or other Wikipedia collaborations which may have interest in the topic under discussion. and The talk page of one or more directly related articles. So I think you should apologise for the false accusation of inappropriate conduct on my part. It was completely proper for me to notify interested editors and prevent your "updates". Furthermore, you are completely wrong to suggest consensus formed to support a naming policy does not apply project-wide. That's the whole point of consensus. MOS:VAR has nothing whatsoever to do with this situation. WP:UE certainly does, though. AusLondonder (talk) 09:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Quite. It's clearly ludicrous to claim that this is a separate issue. The two issues are very obviously closely entangled. People who have expressed their opinion on the naming of the city should obviously have been alerted to this discussion as the issue obviously interests them. Any claim that this was inappropriate is, frankly, ridiculous. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:36, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

As I have already pointed out at Talk:Kiev/naming, the problem was not the notification itself but the decidedly non-neutral wording: where an editor is seeking to overturn the existing consensus that we use the "Kiev" spelling is a blatant distortion of the context of this discussion; plainly a call for reinforcements from those who are already invested in the phantom 'consensus' in favour of Kiev. You only have to look at the section above to see that it succeeded in derailing the original discussion and turning this into an extension of an existing WP:BATTLEGROUND. I will not apologise for AusLondonder overlooking what I actually wrote in favour of responding to a strawman that fits better with his narrative of anti-Kiev conspiracy – a habit so reliably seen in this discussion that I have to conclude it's deliberate.

Wikipedia editors, of course, don't get to decide what the name of a city is. That would be ludicrous. We can reach a consensus on the best title for an article (which we have) and also which variants are established enough for use project-wide (which we haven't). Unless you are seriously contending that Kyiv is not used in English, WP:UE doesn't help us resolve the second issue. – Joe (talk) 12:24, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

The resolution of the title question gives us the answer to the question of what to use in running text. The only real exceptions to this would be titles that are highly connected to one particular English dialect, which are allowed in very few cases. Use English says that "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage". If we have established that general English usage is "Kiev", then WP usage should be "Kiev".--Khajidha (talk) 12:58, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

That's strange, because what you actually just wrote was: AusLondonder's canvasing of editors from Talk:Kiev/naming was unfortunate, because it has turned this discussion into an extension of that long-running debate, when in fact it is entirely separate. Which certainly looks like you objected to him even posting it on the talkpage and do not consider that these are completely interrelated issues (as they very clearly are). If that's not what you meant then I suggest you word it better. His posting it was in no way "unfortunate". It was perfectly normal, acceptable and useful. It certainly alerted me to this discussion, which I would not otherwise have been aware of. Of course people with a strong view on the naming of the city (whether that be Kiev or Kyiv) are also going to have a strong view on the naming of articles which feature the name of the city. And they have a right to put this view across and to be alerted to relevant discussions. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

And to say that the title of the article and the usage in running text are separate issues is patently ridiculous since the data used to prove the preponderance of "Kiev" in English over "Kyiv", whether for an article title or for running text is exactly the same. If you require proof X to determine A and proof X to determine B, then if you have proven X, you have proven BOTH A and B. It's not rocket science. "Kiev" has been proven over and over and over again at Talk:Kiev/naming to be the normal and most widely-used English name (by an overwhelming proportion) for Ukraine's capital city. The consensus to use "Kiev" at Talk:Kiev/naming is built on WP:SNOW, so there is overwhelming acceptance of the evidence among Wikipedia editors. To somehow try to claim that the snowball consensus at Talk:Kiev/naming is invalid in this discussion is simply an attempt to ignore Wikipedia editors that you wanted to hide this discussion from and push your own snowed-under minority viewpoint free from opposition. It's hard to WP:AGF when your statements belie your disappointment at having opposition evidence and views based on that evidence presented here. --Taivo (talk) 14:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I believe the correct formula for what is happening here is: If X=A and X=B then A=B. The snowball consensus for article's title equals the snowball consensus for running text because the evidence for both is exactly the same. (With exceptions for proper names, of course.) --Taivo (talk) 14:35, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Outdated wording re: “Kyiv, this usage is not common”

I updated the wording “Kyiv, this usage is not common” to “Kyiv, this form was not common historically,” but my edit was reverted.

Please consult WP:Naming conventions (geographic names), especially the section #Widely accepted name, which gives suggestions that include:

• “Disinterested, authoritative reference works are almost always reliable if they are current.” – Most English-language standards updated in the last few years use Kyiv, including the authoritative Ukrainian database of toponyms, the BGN GeoNames database, the LOC Name Authority File, the OCLC Virtual International Authority File, IATA’s database of locations, the UN, the EU, etcetera.
• “English-language news media can also be very reliable sources.” – The Associated Press’s AP Styleguide recommends Kyiv, not Kiev, and directly guides news in 15,000 sources. The New York Times, the BBC, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Globe and Mail all use Kyiv. As of right now, Google News results for the last week give me exactly 50–50 usage, 159 results each for Kyiv and Kiev (reminder: Google only shows the correct number on the very last page of results: you may have to click “Tools” to reveal the figures).

It’s patently false to say current usage of Kyiv “is not common.” This should be updated. user:Ymblanter, please reply here. —Michael Z. 2019-11-27 18:00 z

I reverted myself, because indeed Kyiv is certainly common at least in Ukraine, where it is basically impossible for anybody now to write Kiev. I am not generally happy however with you introducing this edit. We just had a discussion at Talk:Kiev, which, against your objections, was closed with a moratorium. It is clear that you feel strongly about the subject, and our policies do not recommend making edits in this situation.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:24, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Please cite the specific policy that should discourage me from the factual edit I made here.

If you are happy enough with the passage to restore it, it would seem that you’re simply “not generally happy” because it was I who made this edit. You’re literally describing your emotional state as the reason for reverting my edit. Maybe you shouldn’t revert my edits, since it is clear that you feel strongly about me. —Michael Z. 2019-11-28 00:11 z

Yes, I’m just making a point. I have generally found it’s more productive on Wikipedia discussions to talk about changes in articles, and not try to make a lot of assertions about the people you’re talking to and their feelings and inner thoughts. —Michael Z. 2019-11-28 00:15 z

Request for policies update after Kiev->Kyiv page move

Per resolved move request, "Kyiv is the better title given usage in reliable, English-language sources". Thus, suggestion to "write Kiev" in articles is outdated and needs to be replaced. — Exlevan (talk) 13:04, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Kyiv/Kiev revisited

This page currently recommends the spelling Kiev over Kyiv (WP:KIEV):

Whilst the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city known as Kiev in the English language is Kyiv, this form was not common historically.^{[note 4]} For this reason, write Kiev, which is the common English form derived from a transliteration of the Russian name of the city, and not Kyiv.

One of the main arguments for this (see above) is that our article on the city used to be named Kiev, based on a consensus that that spelling was the common name in English. The article has now been moved to Kyiv, after a lengthy RM discussion failed to reach a consensus on which spelling was more common, but concluded that Kyiv was preferred in light of WP:MODERNPLACENAME and WP:NAMECHANGES. Is it therefore time to revisit this advice?

I would suggest rewording to something that recognises both spellings as acceptable in English and applies the principle of MOS:VAR. For example:

Kiev is the traditional name of the capital of Ukraine in English. Kyiv is the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city and its current official name. Both forms may be used on Wikipedia.^{[note 4]} Within a given article, use one form consistently, and do not change an article from one form to another unless there is a substantial reason and a consensus to do so.

– Joe (talk) 13:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

This information page has a lot of specific guidance that is redundant with our general guidelines. That material is unnecessary, confusing, and prone to getting out-of-sync with real guidelines (as the Kyiv example demonstrates). It should probably be weeded out. (The page also has some unreferenced background and explanatory material, and it would serve editors to refer to encyclopedia articles for this purpose instead.) It would be best if this was just a very brief summary and guide to anything not covered by other materials. So I support any effort that trims the fat. —Michael Z. 19:56, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

P.S., be bold. —Michael Z. 19:57, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I tried that on this page before and it didn't go so well, so I thought I should at least wait for objections :) – Joe (talk) 14:09, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Which "real guidelines" are you referring to? This seems to be the page of choice for naming conventions of Ukrainian places, and the key idea that Ukrainian romanisation should be the primary choice seems to be aptly presented. Place Clichy (talk) 12:19, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Place Clichy: "Page of choice" is a matter of perspective. In the sense that it's the only guideline on Ukrainian place names? Sure. In the sense that it actually has consensus behind it? Not so clear. In its current from it was largely written by one editor and as far as I know was never the subject of an explicit discussion to promote it to a guideline. Instead it's tagged as an information page, which I think is a bit misleading since it contains a lot of novel recommendations which aren't found in the real guideline it purportedly "describes". The majority of recent edits and discussions have been about the Kyiv/Kiev dispute which has not really been resolved. It can't really said to represent a stable consensus and perhaps as a result it's rarely cited by other editors. That said, I think it's a fine guideline, and if we can come to a reasonable compromise on the Kyiv/Kiev issue, it probably can be formally promoted to one. – Joe (talk) 13:11, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Cleaning up this page and providing a simple consensual guideline cannot harm. I came here because this naming convention was citing in a discussion requesting the renaming of a large number of categories. Place Clichy (talk) 13:30, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

The proposition above by Joe Roe is actually pretty good. The ideas that both forms are correct in English, and that "rough" consensus has been recognized to rename Kyiv and not beyond are key messages that must be conveyed. If we want to try and give more precise advice on when to use either Kyiv or Kiev, I suggest mentioning the notions of modern usage (c. post-independence) vs. historical usage, and of derivative names for which specific use or historiographic conventions can be observed, such ad Dynamo Kyiv, Chicken Kiev, Kievan Rus′ or Kiev Governorate. I tried to convey that in this version, but was (partially reverted). I therefore withdrew changes to the stable version until a consensus is reached here, per WP:BRD. Place Clichy (talk) 12:19, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to over-specify; we can probably trust editors' judgement and the normal processes to decide when an exception to the general guidance is warranted. For example, while Kyivan Rus' is undoubtedly less common than Kievan Rus', it is sometimes used in scholarly literature, and so it might make sense to use it for consistency in an article that otherwise uses the Kyiv spelling. – Joe (talk) 13:51, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

This page is a distraction. It says right at the top what it is not, but it is already being cited in other discussions as if it were guidance.

It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, but rather intends to describe some aspect(s) of the Wikipedia general conventions on place names.

It is only intended to be a summary of 1) other guidelines and 2) specific consensus decisions. In the first role it fails because it is redundant, and in the second it will always be in danger of becoming out of date. It is entirely much too specific, and sounds like a policy, which we know it is not. It should be pared down to the most basic and spare startup guide for editors who want to concentrate on the subject area.

For Kyiv and any related articles, its advice should be replaced with a note that the main article has been moved but discussions are ongoing to determine consensus on all related matters. —Michael Z. 17:54, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the page to note that the move took place, and that a consensus has not emerged on the subject of other usage. I think this is the best approach for now. However, I think it is clear that the page move will inevitably mean a shift to using 'Kyiv' in article bodies for articles on contemporary subjects, and I expect the guidance here should eventually be updated as such.

I see that there is some question about the nature of this page. If the circumstances of its creation are not clear, please let me inform you. Ukrainian place articles were a complete mess of inconsistencies until this page was created. The main purpose of the page was to clarify the naming schemes for things like cities, oblats, and raions, and to suppress recurring arguments over the appropriate transliteration to use at a given time that emerged during Wikipedia's expanding coverage of the Ukrainian crisis. By and large, the page served to document actual practice on Wikipedia, rather than establish new rules. The only 'new' piece of guidance developed here and at the WikiProject Ukraine page was the establishment of a coherent scheme for how to title raion-related articles, and especially urban district articles, which had been all over the place. That scheme has now been stable for a very long time, and is working well. Perhaps it is hard to appreciate the purpose of this page at this point, when its practices have been stable for years, but if you had seen the mess we had before hand (with weird half-translated names for articles like Factory Raion), I think you'd all appreciate it. The debate over Kiev/Kyiv was never its central focus, nor an important factor in its creation. RGloucester — ☎ 15:08, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I now see that there is a discussion at Talk:Kyiv#Related articles. I suppose the result of that discussion will determine what we include here. RGloucester — ☎ 15:47, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I totally agree with the shift to using 'Kyiv' in article bodies for articles on contemporary subjects, and with the discussion at

Talk:Kyiv#Related articles expected to provide clarity on some topics. Place Clichy (talk) 16:26, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:KYIV has now been updated in accordance with the closing of the RfC. RGloucester — ☎ 16:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Hromadas

• @Yulia Romero, DDima, and Ezhiki: This page needs to be updated to take into account the creation of hromadas, and the creation of various articles on hromadas. I'd like to invite a few editors I know are working on this topic to discuss how Wikipedia should refer to hromadas, and how hromada-related articles should be titled. It seems that the present working consensus is to refer to hromadas by the transliteration of the Ukrainian name, rather than with translations like 'united territorial community'. I don't know if anyone has any opinion on this subject, but the simplest way we can deal with this problem is write that hromadas should be referred to as "XXXX Hromada", unless anyone has an objection. RGloucester — ☎ 15:14, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

As I explained in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy on 19 September 2020 it does indeed seems that the consensus has become to refer to hromadas by the transliteration of the Ukrainian name. So I also think that hromadas should be referred to as "XXXX Hromada". Fortunately English Wikipedia now seems to have 3 articles about hromadas (being the administrative units):

• Chkalovska United territorial community
• Deliatyn Settlement Community
• Ternopil City hromada

, of which now 2 need to be renamed (not Ternopil City hromada) I do believe.

PS We are getting swamped with maintenance work on Ukrainian Wikipedia articles..... Because of the administrative reform to merge most Raions of Ukraine most article about the Raions of Ukraine are either completely outdated because the Raion does not exist anymore or the map in the article is outdated and also most of the Ukraine region (oblast) templates are completely outdated (because they list Raions that don't exist anymore) + the Kiev->Kyiv page move has created thousands of English Wikipedia articles where Kiev->(has to be changed in)Kyiv.... I don't have the time to do all this changes plus updating Kiev->Kyiv Raions of Ukraine Wikipedia articles is boring as...... I make edits to learn something, I never had an interest in learning the names of the Raions of Ukraine...... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 16:53, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

O, I forgot , most of the Ukraine region (oblast) templates are also completely outdated because they don't list any of the hromadas of their Oblast (keep in mind that the forming of hromadas is now an ongoing process that could take years to finish.....). (I am sorry to say that) I don't have an interest either in learning the names of the hromadas of Ukraine...... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 16:58, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I too have been too busy to being doing much Wikipedia work at all, but I'd like to help in setting up some clear scheme for sorting out this situation. As always, thank you for your hard work, Yulia. When thinking about Hromadas, I wonder how we classify them...I presume they are a third-level unit, technically a subdivision of a raion, but administratively superseding them. Is this correct? RGloucester — ☎ 17:10, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work too, we seem to have lost some experienced Ukrainian Wikipedia articles editors lately, so it is nice to see an experienced Ukrainian Wikipedia articles editor like you still being around! As far as I understood the Hromadas are supposed to replace the Raions.... which would make them de-facto second level units and de-facto Raions third-level units..... If I understood Ukrainian media correct the Hromadas have much more power and financing then the Raions ever had.... As for the official classification.... I did not come across information about that. I do have made a ready to copy-paste reference for the new Raions by the way: it is here — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 17:27, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposed update

Here is my proposed update to the third-level divisions section, based on what you've said above. What do you think, Yulia? I am proposing that this be placed in the third-level section for now, on the basis that the constitutional reform that would eliminate raions and replace them with hromadas as a second-level division has not yet gone through.

Districts are divided into hromadas ("territorial communities"), a category that includes cities, villages, and rural and urban-type settlements. Since 2015, the hromadas are in the process of being merged to form new "amalgamated hromadas" (also known as "united territorial communities" or "amalgamated territorial communities"). The names of hromadas and post–2015 amalgamated hromadas should be transliterated into Latin letters with the Ukrainian national system. Do not use transliterations derived from Russian names for hromadas, e.g. write Dmytrivka, not Dmitrovka.

• When referring to the administration of an urban-type settlement, write "settlement Council", e.g. Balabyne Council, not Balabyne Settlement Council or Balabyne Town Council.
• When referring to the administration of a rural settlement, write "settlement Rural Council", e.g. Avhustynivka Rural Council, not Avhustynivka Village Council or Avhustynivka Council.
• An article about a post–2015 amalgamated hromada should be titled "administrative centre Amalgamated Hromada", e.g. Ternopil Amalgamated Hromada for the hromada with its administrative centre in Ternopil.

I figured that it makes sense to omit the 'city' and other similar descriptors, like 'settlement', in the hromada names, and these don't seem to be commonly used in practice. A more WP:CONCISE title is usually preferable, unless disambiguation is required. RGloucester — ☎ 17:31, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I need to some time to process your ideas..... I'll get back to you.... if I don't forget to do that.... would not be the first time — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 18:01, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the proposal to make clear the distinction between the existing hromadas and the amalgamated hromadas. The use of the term hromada was not necessary in English until the rise of the new unit, so I think some people are confused. The process of amalgamation of the former hromadas types, such as cities and rural settlements, into an 'amalgamated hromada', is ongoing. It seems someone tried to carry out a strange merger of United territorial communities of Ukraine into Hromada, and in the process destroyed the distinction between the old regular hromada and new amalgamated ones...I've tried to restore that. RGloucester — ☎ 21:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if we need to more clearly make the distinction between the 'hromada' and 'amalgamated hromada'...reliable sources seem to call them 'united territorial communities', and I am worried that referring to them as just 'hromada' might lead to some confusion. I think it's time to go back to the drawing board. I get 50,000 hits for united territorial community, compared to 8000 for amalgamated hromada. I've therefore reverted the undiscussed merger at United territorial communities of Ukraine (which was apparently carried out by a now globally-locked account). RGloucester — ☎ 21:16, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

• @Yulia Romero: Any further opinion on this topic? I'm thinking that we should standardise on 'united territorial communities', and get this done. The merge at United territorial communities of Ukraine has already been overturned. RGloucester — ☎ 15:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I, is back.... Sorry for the delay.... I was looking for something..... A couple of days ago (or more.... I can not find the edit...) a user somewhere on English Wikipedia moved a page about United territorial communities of Ukraine to "hromada...." claiming that it was logic to use the Ukrainian name for the administrative units because English Wikipedia does the same for the Raions of Ukraine (who are not referred to here as their more English equivalent "district") and the Oblasts of Ukraine (who are not named "region" or "province" here on English Wikipedia). For consistency within Wikipedia using some form of "hromada" makes a lot of sense. This might not reflect the common English usage rules, but there are not enough English language sources about Ukrainian administrative units for them to have a common English name..... In Ukrainian language press the "United territorial communities of Ukraine" are mostly referred to as "Об'єднані територіальні громади" (or "ОТГ", or "ОT громади"), so I am inclined to support a page move to United territorial hromada or United territorial hromadas. I think this also avoids confusion with the term Hromada as a Ukrainian term for community or public, more precise an association of the people united by mutual interest, position or goal, widely known in Ukraine. — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 17:13, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I understand your point, but Wikipedia can't very well use a name that gets only 7 hits in a Google search when 'united territorial communities' is commonly used. It really isn't Wikipedia's job to come up with a new name, only to follow RS. If you want a 'common' English name that includes 'hromada', the one that I have found in RS is amalgamated hromada, which is quite common, though not as common as 'united territorial communities. However, considering your point of 'consistency', this might make more sense. RGloucester — ☎ 01:36, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't want to muddle this discussion further.... but after doing some Google research myself I found out that research institutions like carnegie and jamestown do call the administrative units "hromada". It is likely that readers from Carnegie Europe and Jamestown Foundation will look for more information on English Wikipedia..... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 14:30, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that usage, but it's only possible to call them 'hromada' after the context has been established, otherwise the distinction between traditional hromada and new hromada is not clear. I'm sure you must be aware that an urban-type settlement, or whatever, is also a hromada in the usual definition posited by the constitution of Ukraine. That's why they the new ones are called 'new', 'united', or 'amalgamated' in the first place. This is an encylopaedia where we need to be clear and concise, and where a specific Ukrainian context is not established (we speak to a generalist audience). I am not opposed to 'amalgamated hromada', but we simply cannot create a misleading title that is not actually used in reliable sources. RGloucester — ☎ 16:17, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

After thinking about it I also think "United territorial communities of Ukraine" is a far too general term that makes no sense to common Wikipedia readers (aren't all Oblast together also not the "United territorial communities of Ukraine" one could think). "United territorial communities of Ukraine" probably sound very meaningless to most readers.... Using Wikipedia:NATURALNESS and Wikipedia:RECOGNIZABILITY "United territorial communities of Ukraine" does not sound like the best article title.... So for me it is most logic to do a page move to United territorial hromada or United territorial hromadas. "amalgamated hromada" is I think for most Wikipedia readers a very strange name for a Wikipedia article. As you might have figured out in naming articles I (tend to ignore the constitution of Ukraine and) think of what is the most logic name for the average Wikipedia reader. But Amalgamated hromada seems to be the only tittle we have common ground on....

By the way.... I do not want to be a heckler.... but the Wikipedia article name War in Donbass is (also) not the Wikipedia:ESTABLISHED name of the conflict; for instance the BBC labels it Ukraine conflict (which does not make sense.... it is a war, not a conflict). In fact I never saw an international news media outlet call the War in Donbass War in Donbass...... So I think there is room to be Wikipedia:5P5-likeish (aka (slightly) ignoring reliable sources common naming of the subject of the Wikipedia article) in Wikipedia:Naming articles.... In conclusion for me it is most logic to do a page move to United territorial hromada or United territorial hromadas, but second best for me would be a move to Amalgamated hromada. — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 17:04, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I agreed that none of the potential names are particularly 'natural' for an English-speaking reader. At the same, though, we have an obligation to base our observations in RS. I agreed that War in Donbass was probably not the established name of the conflict at the time that article was renamed. However, over time, we can say that it has become the established name, along with variants like "Donbass war" as evidenced by a Google search returning more than a one-hundred thousand hits. In any case, ignoring that tangent, I think that we have two goals here. One, to preserve the Ukrainian word 'hromada', as the translations are confusing and not particularly comprehensible, and because we already use Ukrainian names for oblasts and raions, rather than 'regions' and 'districts'. The other goal is to make clear the distinction between old hromadas and new hromadas. I cannot help but think that the best compromise, which suits both our purposes, and Wikipedia guidelines and policies, is a move to amalgamated hromadas, which is used in reliable sources. In fact, it is even used by the Association of Amalgamated Hromadas. Do you think we can settle this as such? RGloucester — ☎ 00:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

, yes I agree that amalgamated hromadas is the best solution. Let's settle this as such. The Ukrainian government official website on Decentralisation uses it too (in its English version of the website (full of not very easy to read English and light on usable information.... )). And who knows because of Wikipedia that name might become the Wikipedia:ESTABLISHED of the administrative unit (more)...... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 15:12, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and implemented the proposal. Hopefully we can now have a consistent scheme for covering these new hromadas. RGloucester — ☎ 17:39, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I made some edits on Wikidata to assist you with the transformation (at least I hope I helped....) — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 18:00, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Yulia Romero and RGloucester: I'm a little late to the discussion. I've been sporadically on here, but seeing how I was one of the main Ukraine-related geographical editors from way back in the days, I thought I'd chime in. I like the direction where this is going - Amalgamated Hromada does seem like the best option given the options that we were presented. However, we have a huge task in re-coding all of the templates... I think, if we take it step by step, oblast by oblast, we can make sure that this sphere of wiki-Ukraine related articles is up to date and is understandable to the general populace of the English Wiki. I just noticed that the Ukrainian Wikipedia does distinguish the templates according to whether they were based off of the pre-2020 administrative divisions or post-reform (e.g. uk:Шаблон:Чернігівська область (до 2020) vs uk:Шаблон:Чернігівська область I have a knack for editing articles with areas I am familiar with, so at some point within the next few months (if no one get's to it), I'll have a go at tackling {{Chernihiv Oblast}} § DDima 03:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Infobox advice

This guide could benefit editors with some advice on filling out {{infobox settlement}} consistently. A few issues come to mind.

• There has been controversy in the past over any the use of the transliteration fields, translit_lang1, translit_lang1_type, translit_lang1_info, etcetera, which allow up to 6 transliterations from 2 languages.
• name, native_name, official_name, and other_name are used inconsistently. Different combinations may display differently, and we should pick the best one.
• official_name almost never contains the correct name. The Toponymic Guidelines for international use recommend a direct romanization of the native name retaining capitalization, and not anglicized, e.g., Kyivska oblast, not Kyiv Oblast, and Pivnichnokrymskyi kanal not North Crimean Canal. This is what will be found in online maps and other sources, and should appear in every article for searchability.
• What else?

 —Michael Z. 19:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

References

Expanding the style guide

A couple of questions have recently come up:

• just Donbas, or the Donbas with the article?
• capitalized War in Donbas/Donbas War or l.c. war in Donbas/Donbas war?

I think I know the answer to these, but we need a place to discuss such questions and record the consensus advice about them (with reference to the original discussions, whether they be here, in WP:WikiProject Ukraine, or in individual articles). Perhaps it makes sense to expand this page beyond geography to include events, people, and other Ukraine-related style matters. As well, it is already more than just a naming convention, but a style guide on writing and usage. We could use a main MOS:UKRAINE. —Michael Z. 23:11, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Kiev / Kyiv

I see lots of discussion about the name of the city, but no consensus formally closed by an administrator. Since Ngram Viewer still shows Kiev as the far more common English spelling, I'd suggest the jury's still out. Bermicourt (talk) 16:48, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

There is an RfC closed by an administrator, stating that "There is consensus for implementing the following when it comes to choosing whether to use Kyiv or Kiev in an article: For unambiguously current / ongoing topics (e.g. Kyiv Metro), Kyiv is preferred …". Doesn't that qualify as consensus?

Various ngram results were already used in the latest Kiev->Kyiv RM discussion as an argument both for and against the move, but the conclusion still was "that "Kyiv" is the better title given usage in reliable, English-language sources". You can check the list of numerous sources supporting this spelling. Exlevan (talk) 00:34, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with that. In addition, I would like to see a proof that this statement ("Whilst the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city with special status also known as Kiev in the English language is Kyiv, this form was less commonly used in English until recently") correctly reflects what majority RS say. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:40, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation: settlements in (un)ambiguous raions

The guide currently instructs,

• "If there is more than one settlement with a certain name in an oblast, and there is also a settlement of that name in another oblast, disambiguate with both district and oblast, e.g. write Kalynivka, Vasylkiv Raion, Kyiv Oblast."

However, typically the raion alone can be used to completely disambiguate, since most raions have a name unique in the world. Therefore, including an oblast in an article's title in this case is redundant and goes against WP:CONCISE (and indeed against the usual practice described in WP:PRECISE). Above that, the guide also instructs,

• "If there is more than one settlement with a certain name in an oblast, disambiguate by district, e.g. write Hrabove, Shatsk Raion."

However, this is not sufficiently precise in the instance that a raion alone cannot disambiguate, e.g. Mykolaiv Raion.

For that reason, I propose that we change these rules to

• "If there is more than one settlement with a certain name in an oblast, but the district is unambiguous, disambiguate by district, e.g. write Hrabove, Shatsk Raion."
• "If there is more than one settlement with a certain name in an oblast, and the district is ambiguous, disambiguate with both district and oblast, e.g. write Ukrainka, Mykolaiv Raion, Mykolaiv Oblast."
  • [I did not find a good example of two settlements which required the second sort of disambiguation, so the example of "Ukrainka" is a placeholder.]

For the sake of reference, according to the article Raions of Ukraine, while there used to be 490 raions in Ukraine when the existing guidance was written, there are now only 136 in Ukraine (and about 2000 in all former Soviet countries, according to the page Raion). What are our thoughts on this proposal? —AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 18:30, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@RGloucester @Ymblanter Thoughts? —AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 23:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I actually believe that in the new system, there are no overlapping raion names, every name is unique (would need to check it though). There are many cases of several settlements with the same name being in the same raion, and these mainly should be disambiguated using hromadas. Concerning the main proposal (to drop Oblast), I do not have a very strong opinion on it, but I believe that it the oblast is part of the name there is a bigger chance (although still small for an English speaker) that somebody would recognize it than if only the raion is part of the name. I think this is what is done for American localities: Locality, County, State rather than Locality, County, just because without the state it is not recognizable. Ymblanter (talk) 07:46, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

While there are 24 oblasts in Ukraine and 56 states, federal districts and inhabited territories in the US, the 136 raions of Ukraine don't compare so well to the 3,143 county-level divisions in the US.

A better analogy is France, which is closer in population size to Ukraine. France is split into 18 of its first subdivision (the région) and 96 of its second division (the départment) – much closer to the 24 and 136 for Ukraine's equivalents. The policy for French settlement disambiguation is to ignore the région and to instead go straight for the more numerous départment. Another thing to consider is that both France and Ukraine are unitary states, while the US is federal, giving US states greater importance than oblasts or régions. I don't suggest we copy the French system entirely by ignoring oblasts, but I do suggest that if including only the départment in the title suffices for French settlements, and if (per the existing policy) including only the raion in the title already suffices "if there is more than one settlement with a certain name in an oblast [and there is no settlement of that name in another oblast]", then including the raion in the title can also suffice regardless of whether there is a settlement of that name in another oblast.

Something else to note is that removing oblasts from some titles would only affect settlements the size of Dubliany, Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast (with less than 10,000 people) and smaller. Users searching for settlements of this size might be assumed to have a little knowledge of Ukrainian raions; even if they do not, it should suffice to use disambiguation pages along with the templates {{about}}, {{for}} etc. —AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 02:27, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

The comparison to the departments of France is problematic, due to the fact that the departments were first established in 1790. With 200 years of historic coverage they are established to the point that any person familiar enough with French geography can easily decipher where a hypothetical settlement is. The same can't be said for the Ukrainian raions, which were merged and redrawn only 2 years ago. The merges obviously can create some confusion, but the raions also lack the coverage both on Wikipedia, and in general. All the Wikipedia articles regarding raions I've stumbled upon are barely 2-3 line stubs, meanwhile in the French example every department I checked has at least a somewhat meaningful amount written of its history, geography, demographics, politics, etc. Meanwhile, the relevant encyclopedic knowledge on Ukrainian subdivisions exists solely at the oblast level.

I would support a future move to disambiguation by raion should the Wikipedia articles regarding them have the coverage required to establish them as a prevalent division of Ukraine, but as of right now that is simply not the case. Hecseur (talk) 09:37, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@AlphaMikeOmega and Ymblanter: I would like to hear what you think about the arguements raised here. Right now there are a lot of Ukrainian places that are categorised by Raion, contrary to the current naming convention, and the counterarguement I made to AlphaMikeOmega's proposal last month. Some sort of consensus is needed to decide how we sort out these inconsistencies. What are your thoughts about this situation currently? Hecseur (talk) 11:44, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I still believe it is beneficial both raion and oblast (or only oblast if this makes the name unique) for the reasons I stated. Ymblanter (talk) 11:52, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I still believe that in the case that "[settlement], [oblast]" is ambiguous but "[settlement], [raion]" is unambiguous, "[settlement], [raion]" is preferable to "[settlement], [raion], [oblast]". However, I am willing to concede to the majority here and accept the longer format as part of the style guide till the coverage of raions is encyclopedic: I agree that this is a useful proxy for notability. —AlphaMikeOmega (talk) 13:15, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Nonsense

Am I the only person who sees a logical fallacy in the statement "Whilst the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city with special status also known as Kiev in the English language is Kyiv, this form was less commonly used in English until recently"? It literally says ""Kyiv" was not in use in the past, it is a recent phenomenon, but it IS a standard transliteration". How can the transliteration that is still less frequently be a "standard"? Paul Siebert (talk) 17:47, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

This data ends in 2019, and doesn't reflect the very recent and sharp shift in usage. Regardless, this was decided on when the Wikipedia article was moved from Kiev to Kyiv back in September 2020. You can read the many arguements that were raised in the archives at Talk:Kyiv/naming. Hope this helps answer your question. Hecseur (talk) 22:28, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

The decision was made about the article's title. It was not a decision on what name is standard. Any statements in Wikipedia (except talk pages) must be supported by RS and reflect what majority RS say.

WRT ngram, we cannot predict future. Let's wait how the events will develop. So far, I see no evidence that "Kyiv" has bacome a standard spelling. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:17, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

There’s no logical fallacy for anyone to see. The standard transliteration is the spelling according to the standardized system for romanization of Ukrainian. clear now?  —Michael Z. 14:09, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

These two reverts and edit summaries may be understood as a total ignorance of our policy.

[2] Hecseur, if you look at the top of the page, the banner says that in is neither a policy or guidelines.

[3] Mzajac, you are an admin, you are supposed to know our policy: do you really think consensus is needed to place the "cn" tag? Paul Siebert (talk) 16:12, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how putting a "cn" tag makes any sense in a naming convention in the first place. The purpose of the information here is to guideline edits to the Wiki according to consensus. Template:Citation needed reads: "The citation needed template is intended for use when there is a general question of the verifiability of a statement, or when an editor believes that a reference verifying the statement should be provided." The specific issue here isn't that "there isn't proof that Kyiv is a standard romanisation of Київ from Ukrainian, it requires a citation for verification", the issue is that this specific message is poorly communicated. A purpose of the "cn" tag is also that it automatically adds the page to maintenance categories, and there is no category for "WP-space articles with unsourced statements", so I highly doubt this is appropriate usage. Hecseur (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

"The purpose of the information here is to guideline edits to the Wiki according to consensus" Actually, no. This page by no means reflects any consensus. It is not a policy, and even not guidelines. If you claim that "Kyiv" is a standard English word, and "Kiev" is not, you are supposed to provide some source. Paul Siebert (talk) 05:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

This page has 8 years worth of various discussions; It reflects the consensus achieved by them. As of today, both "Kiev" and "Kyiv" are used as English words, Kyiv being used predominantly in recent coverage. There is no such claim here that "Kiev is not a standard English word", that is a strawman arguement. The current phrasing reads, as everyone here has already mentioned, that Kyiv is the standard romanisation of this city's name in the accepted transliteration system for Ukrainian (which applies to all things transliterated from Ukrainian, cities included).

As for your question regarding the difference between "spelling" and "transliteration" I had ChatGPT write an excellent explanation:

"Transliteration is the process of representing the characters or sounds of one writing system in another writing system. It involves converting the letters or characters of one language into equivalent or similar letters or characters in another language. Transliteration is commonly used when dealing with languages that have different writing systems or when trying to represent names or terms from one language in another language. The goal of transliteration is to capture the pronunciation or phonetics of the original language as accurately as possible in the target language.

Spelling, on the other hand, refers to the arrangement of letters and the sequence of characters used to represent the words and sounds of a particular language. It involves following the accepted rules and conventions of a language to represent words correctly. Spelling encompasses the correct choice and arrangement of letters, including the use of diacritics, accent marks, and other orthographic symbols, to accurately represent the pronunciation and meaning of words within a specific language."

In this specific case, the accepted rules and conventions of English have changed; While in the past "Kiev" was the only accepted word for the name of the city, nowadays the standard transliteration from Ukrainian, "Kyiv", has become predominant in its usage in media coverage. "Kiev" is still an English word, and on Wikipedia is used extensively to refer to the city in historical contexts. Any modern coverage uses the much more common "Kyiv", which is the standard Ukranian transliteration. The guidelines established in the Kiev/Kyiv section of the page (which mind you, are not OFFICIAL Wikipedia guidelines, but are guidelines of the accepted consensus) clearly define when you should use the name "Kyiv" and when you should use the name "Kiev" on Wikipedia. Outside of Wikipedia "Kiev" can absolutely be used to refer to the city in whichever context you would like, as it is an English word that refers to this same city, but on Wikipedia the usage of either of the terms is decided by the current consensus. Hecseur (talk) 10:21, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Why do you believe the Ukrainians have an exclusive right to change English spelling? What about Czech (Praha/Prague), Polish (Warzawa/Warsaw), Italian (Roma/Rome), Portugese (Lisboa/Lisbon), Serbian (Београд (Beograd)/Belgrde), Russian (Москва(Moskva)/Moscow)?

Interestingly, to demonstrate you a difference between a transliteration of a Russian name and the English word, I canremind you the Russian military ship sank during the Ukrainian-Russian war. The name of the ship is Москва (it was named after the Russian capital Москва). However, in English, the word is transcribed as "Moskva", not "Moscow".

That is a difference between the Russian word "Москва" and the English name "Moscow".

Furthermore, as you probably know, in the Moscow dialect, they pronounce it like "Maskva". Imagine that Russian orthography reform will change the rules, and "Москва" becomes "Масква". Will it have any effect on the English word "Moscow"? Absolutely not. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:31, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Ops, I forgot another capital, Sofia. According to romanization of Bulgarian rules, a correct spelling of the name "София" should be "Sofiya", not "Sofia".

That is an additional demonstration of the difference between romanisation and English spelling. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

By having said that, I fully agree with you that a correct romanisation of the Ukrainian name Київ should be "Kyiv". And that is what Wikipedia should say: the city that is known under its English name "Kiev" is called "Kyiv" in Ukrainian. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:07, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I’ll try again, from the beginning.

Am I the only person who sees a logical fallacy. . . ? Apparently yes.

It literally says ""Kyiv" was not in use in the past. it literally does not. It literally says what Paul Siebert quoted just before that: “this form was less commonly used.” It refers to a form, meaning a particular spelling.

How can the transliteration that is still less frequently be a "standard”? “Standard transliteration from Ukrainian” does not mean “most commonly used form.” The concepts aren’t even comparable.

There are various standards. Some are little used. This is the chief standard romanizing Ukrainian names in Ukraine (according to the 2010 Ukrainian National system), internationally (according to the United Nations GEGN), and in Wikipedia (according to WP:UKR).

But the form Kiev is not a transliteration from Ukrainian, standard or non-standard. It is a spelling derived from a Russian name. The sentence refers to apples and oranges, but it does not compare them.

There is no contradiction nor logical fallacy in the sentence that Paul Siebert insists on tagging. He writes as if he were demanding absolutely disciplined logic in the convention, but actually analyzes it with no logic or discipline at all, and demands answers nonsensical, unanswerable questions. He refuses to listen to explanations that don’t lead to meeting his demands (for what exactly, removal of the sentence? Some unspecified change to the entire romanization convention?).

This is a big waste of time.  —Michael Z. 03:42, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

What is a difference between "transliteration" and "spelling"?

Are, the word "pogrom", "gulag", "sputnik" etc, English words or transliterations of Russian words? It is hard to tell, but we have serious reason to conclude they became English words. Thus, I frequently see something like "in the gulags". This form (plural) is never used in Russian, so it is an indication that this word became the English word. Similar to that, "Kiev" (like "Belgrade", "Sofia", "Moscow", "Prague", "Rome" etc) are English words. It doesn't matter from which language each of them came to English: they all are English words, and they will change only if these cities will be renamed (e.g. "Moscow" -> "Putingrad", "Kiev" -> "Zelensk", etc).

Yes, Kyiv is an official Ukrainian name of the capital of Ukraine (transliterated according to the Ukrainian romanisation rules), and in English we call it "Kiev". Because we call София "Sophia" (not "Sofiya"), and we call Москва "Moscow" (not "Moskva"). Paul Siebert (talk) 05:12, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

But the form Kiev is not a transliteration from Ukrainian, standard or non-standard. It is a spelling derived from a Russian name. I am sure "Prague" was derived not from modern Czech, "Cologne", "Vienna" or "Munich" was derived not from modern German, and the Hague not from Dutch. So what? Paul Siebert (talk) 05:16, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Language changes. It used to be true that in English we call it "Kiev" – it isn't any more. Time to move on. – Joe (talk) 06:08, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I would like to see the proof. So far, I got nothing. By 2019, "Kiev" was used much more frequently according to ngram. Even if today's statistics will be published, and it shows that "Kyiv" started to dominate, that may be just a local fluctuation. Some reasonably long time need to pass to make sure this transition has occurred.

Actually, I already wrote about that, but I repeat it again: English names of a majority of historically important European cities are different from their spelling in their local languages: Prague, Warsaw, Rome, Lisbon, Belgrade, Sofia, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Moscow, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Naples, Athens, the Hague, Hamburg, Brussels (I am sure that list is by no means complete). And the fact that Kiev belongs to this "noble family" is an indication of its historical importance. Don't destroy that precious heritage. Paul Siebert (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Now I see why Paul Siebert’s 800 words request no actual change in the text. He is trying to WP:right great wrongs: a “precious heritage” of English language that sources tell us is a Russian colonial name.

I refer again to P. S.’s question number one: “am I the only person?” Yes, yes you are. There is no consensus or agreement to change this information page or tag it.

There is no movement in this discussion either. P. S. ought to leave it be if he can’t find any support for his views.  —Michael Z. 15:03, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:OWN?

It seems Mzajac implies that in XVIII century, Ukraine (as a nation) was a colony of Russia (as a nation-state). That view is a typical primordialism.

Actually, I am feeling that we need to specify the status of this page. It seems it reflects some local consensus that may be inconsistent with our policy. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

No, I’m not implying that, @Paul Siebert. I’ve asked you before to stop casting aspersions by falsely labelling me with that term. Please strike or remove it.  —Michael Z. 18:35, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

No problem. I will gladly strike my words if you explain me what exactly did you mean under "Russian colonial name". So far I got not answer to this question, which I asked several times.

I have serious reason to suspect that "Russian colonial name" is an euphemism invented by Mzajac himself, and that that term is not used by a scholarly community in this context. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:42, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I decided to check if I am biased. This and this are exhaustive lists of sources that mention Kiev/Kyiv and the words "colonial name". It is easy to see that none of those sources mentions Kiev in the "colonial name" context.

From that, I conclude that would probably not be an exaggeration to call the views expressed by Mzajac as a primordialist POV, which is not supported by reliable sources. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

You've provided your own evidence: the ngram you posted above shows quite clearly that Kiev is no longer the only name for the city in English. Usage is split, and that is all this page says. And yes, I think we're all aware that exonyms are a thing. – Joe (talk) 13:21, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: the fact that usage is split is undeniable, and I cannot rule out a possibility that we are witnessing a transition from "Kiev" to "Kyiv". However, the text currently says:

"Whilst the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city with special status also known as Kiev in the English language is Kyiv, this form was less commonly used in English until recently, and "Kiev" was the longstanding title of Wikipedia's article on the subject."

In other words, the text implies that the standard transliteration is "Kyiv". In other words, it says that this transition has already occurred. This bold statement needs a confirmation. So far, I've seen no conformation. Until recently, my text editor was recognizing "Kyiv" as a typo. "Kyiv" has always been a less common version of this name: even before "Kiev" became a common name (in 1800s), various forms of the Polish version ("Kijow" etc) were common in English literature. That means "Kyiv" had never been a standard name, so it is obviously a neologism.

You correctly pointed out that "Kiev" (like Prague, Warsaw, Rome, Lisbon, Belgrade, Sofia, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Moscow, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Naples, Athens, the Hague, Hamburg, Brussels) is an exonym, i.e. an established, non-native name for a geographical place. The difference between an exonym and a transliteration of an endonym is that the former is an English word (which obeys English rules), whereas the latter is a word of a local language.

Since English exonyms are English words, Ukrainians (Russians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Poles, Italians etc) have no authority over them. They can teach English speakers how to correctly transliterate their cities names, but they cannot tell us how should we spell our exonyms. Germans call themselves "Deutsch", Russians call themselves "Russky", Ukrainians call themselves "Ukrainets", etc. but English speakers do not care. We use exonyms instead of transliterations for almost every European nation names and for the name of almost every European capital or a historically important cities: why do me make an exception for the capital of Ukraine? Paul Siebert (talk) 01:18, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

This is simply due to WP:NAMECHANGES. As you would've seen in the many citations in the discussions at Talk:Kyiv/naming, recent media coverage as early as 3 years ago in independent, reliable English-language sources routinely and commonly used the name "Kyiv". I'd say it's highly likely even more sources use Kyiv now following the Russian invasion. Wikipedia article titles are not decided by the fact an English exonym exists, but by the relevant Wikipedia policy. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Use English: If a native name is more often used in English sources than a corresponding traditional English name, then use the native name. Two examples are Livorno and Regensburg, which are now known more widely under their native names than under the traditional respective English names "Leghorn" and "Ratisbon". The reason the article was moved from Kiev to Kyiv in the first place was because the move abided the existing policy, and it is by no means an exception. Hecseur (talk) 05:14, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

As I already wrote, I agree that during the last year (already after the Kiev article had been renamed) teh word "Kyiv" is found much more frequently than "Kiev", and if that situation will not change during next years, we probably can conclude that the "Kiev -> Kyiv" transition has occurred.

However, that would be more like "Prague -> Praha", or "Belgrade -> Beograd", or "Sofia -> Sofiya" transitions: i.e. a replacement of an old English word with a neologism.

Therefore, it would be correct to describe it as such. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:18, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

"...we probably can conclude that..." No, we (as in, the people discussing here) cannot conclude anything. This debate has already concluded in favour of changing usage from Kiev to Kyiv in non-historic circumstances as per Wikipedia policy regarding the transition in English usage. The discussion regarding this concluded back in September 2020. Your opinion on "replacements of old English words with neologisms" does not change policy or change consensus in a meaningful way (other than the one vote you can cast). If you insist on arguing this, you are more than welcome to open an RfC regarding the usage of Kyiv vs Kiev on Wikipedia. There's no more use in discussing this here, as the discussion here does not grant authority to undo existing consensus. Hecseur (talk) 08:50, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

In my post, we refers to the Wikipedia community that decided in 2020 (in my opinion, prematurely) that the article should be renamed. Due to my rl business, I didn't participate in that discussion, but I disagreed with that. Now I am seeing that the "Kiev -> Kyiv" transition is really occurring (although I would say that transition is still in progress), so if the next round of the renaming discussion will be initiated, I would probably support "Kyiv".

However, all of that doesn't change the fact that "Kiev" is the English word, and "Kyiv" was virtually not in use until recently (it was just a transliteration of the Ukrainian name, which occasionally appeared in English books).

Therefore,

• We should clearly discriminate between "transliteration" and "English words". I already explained the difference: "Belgrade" is an English name for Serbia/SFRYu, and "Beograd" is a transliteration of the Serbian word from Cyrillic to Latin. "Sofia" is an English name, "Sofiya" is a transliteration. "Moscow" is the English name of the Russian/Soviet capital, and "Moskva" is a transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin. As you probably know, English sources use the word Moskva for the ship sank in 2022, and that perfectly demonstrates the difference between transliteration and English words.

The only problem with "Kiev" is the fact that this English word coincides with a transliteration of the Russian word. However, English "Kiev" is the English word, not a transliteration.

• We cannot speak about "Kyiv" as a "standard transliteration. It is the transliteration of the Ukrainian name that is currently replacing "Kiev", which has been the English word for centuries.

Paul Siebert (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

On your first point: I'm curious on how you would apply this to the section. Please give an example on how you would rewrite the section to apply this.

On the second: You are correct that "Kiev" has been the standard in English for centuries, so perhaps "standard" is not the most intuitive way to describe it. Perhaps "modern" would fit better? Such that: Whilst the modern transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city with special status also known as Kiev in the English language is Kyiv... Hecseur (talk) 17:05, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

The Kiev spelling wasn’t standard until sometime in the first half of the twentieth century.[4]  —Michael Z. 18:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Well spotted. Hecseur (talk) 18:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Majority usage from 1912, standard from about 1941 to 1991.[5]  —Michael Z. 19:49, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Why did you change your initial word set (Kyiv,Kiou,Kiow,Kiovia,Kioff,Kiof,Kiew,Kief,Kieff)? If we return to your original word set + Kyiv, we get this.

Moreover, other forms (as I already explained) were derived either from Polish (Kiou,Kiow,Kiovia,Kioff,Kiof) or from Russian (Kiew,Kief,Kieff), and virtually no "Kyiv" was found in literature.

Therefore, the situation was as follows: before 1800, English sources were using mostly Polish derived versions of this name, which was not stable (several forms were used in parallel). After that, the forms derived from Russian started to dominate. After 1900, the word became stable, and it became an English word.

What is especially important, "Kyiv" was not used at all: we must concede that the transliteration of this name from Ukrainian is gradually substituting the English word "Kiev".

I reiterate: majority of English names of European capitals and historically important cities: Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Belgrade, Sofia, Lisbon, Cologne, Munich, the Hague, Rome, Lisbon etc are English names, they differ from the original spelling. Usually that happens because these names came from some foreign language, e.g. Cologne came from French. That has nothing in common with "colonialism". If, for some reason, the process of substitution of "Cologne" with "Koln" occurred, that would be not a return of some "correct name", just an introduction of a neologism. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:52, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

...that would be not a return of some "correct name" This is not discussion on a "correct" name, but merely on what name would be appropriate for Wikipedia in various scenarios. This discussion once again does not seem beneficial to improving existing guidelines. @Paul Siebert: If you could please specify the exact changes you would like to make to the phrasing of the section so we could discuss them, as that discussion would have merit and will be beneficial to improving this information page. Hecseur (talk) 20:06, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

As I explained, the words:

""Whilst the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the city with special status also known as Kiev in the English language is Kyiv"

imply that there is a common name "Kyiv", which is also known under the name "Kiev".

In reality, a correct description of the situation is:

""Whilst "Kiev" has been the standard English name of the Ukrainian capital, the transliteration of the Ukrainian name ("Kyiv") is becoming more predominant in English sources during the last year." Paul Siebert (talk) 20:15, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

"During the last year (or in 2022)" (actually, after Russia attacked Ukraine) is important, because, as Michael's search results demonstrate, "Kiev" was dominating even by 2020, when the article was renamed (I reiterate, that renaming was premature). Paul Siebert (talk) 20:18, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I will remind you once again that consensus was established back in September 2020, this is due to the fact that even by then reliable sources in English in the media have used Kyiv frequently and commonly, which is obviously not a change that is reflected by Google Ngram Viewer (another reminder that recent reliable media sources carry much more weight on name changes as per policy). Also using the words "during the last year" is probably not a good idea, considering these guidelines will live on for an extended period of time, and this is also not indicative of when consensus was decided, regardless of whether it was "premature". I'd also avoid the word "standard", as this discussion certainly shown that this word raises ambiguity. I'd suggest changing it more into something along the lines of: Whilst until recently Kiev has been the customary name of the city with special status, the modern transliteration of the Ukrainian name, namely Kyiv, has become more commonly used in English. "Kiev" was the longstanding title of Wikipedia's article on the subject. However, A move discussion closed on 16 September 2020 resulted in that article being moved to the title "Kyiv", following a documented shift in usage in English-language media. Hecseur (talk) 20:38, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

And I am reminding you that WP:CCC. I did not participate in the 2020 renaming discussion, and I have a feeling that my participation may have tipped the balance to "keep". By having said that, I agree that, because of the ongoing war, the balance is tipping to "Kyiv".

As I already noted in my previous post, I agree that "during the last year" is not a good wording, and that is why I added "in 2022".

I disagree with "which has become more commonly used in English". In reality, we are witnessing the transition that may occur (or not). I remember several examples when some new form became more predominant for a short period of time, but the situation quickly changed back.

We can claim that "Kyiv" has become more common only after several years, if this situation becomes stable. Therefore, "which is becoming more commonly used in English", would be more correct (although we have no unequivocal proof even for that soft statement: no ngram statistics is available for 2022-23 period yet). In connection to that, I would like to see what do you mean under "documented shift".

In addition, why so much emphasis is made on "media"? Per WP:V, magazines and newspapers are not the most reliable sources. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:52, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

You are correct consensus can change, but that would require an RfC to supersede the existing one. While I lament the fact you couldn't participate in the prior discussion, speculating about what could have been if you had is not a helpful arguement. WP:NAMECHANGES is the relevant policy on giving far more weight to recent reliable sources, most of which tend to be from media as a consequence of difference in time and effort required to publish compared to books or academic works. The discussion from 2020, which I have already linked to you multiple times, presented a plethora of reliable sources which began using "Kyiv" rather than "Kiev", mostly beginning in 2019. Since then there have passed 4 years and Kyiv is unequivocally used more in recent reliable English-language sources than Kiev.

I remember several examples when some new form became more predominant for a short period of time, but the situation quickly changed back. I doubt a case existed where there has been consensus on Wikipedia regarding a name change for 3 years, in which a name change was later unequivocally adopted by virtually all established and reliable English-language sources, and then usage suddenly and inexplicably reverted to the previous name. Regardles of this, anecdotal predictions on what might happen in the future are irrelevant, the fact of the matter is that the move abided policy and was supported by consensus. If the future requires us to change policy on this naming, we will. As of today there is no arguement to be raised regarding Kyiv being more commonly, if not almost exclusively used by reliable English sources, this is simply a fact.

As you've seen, I'm more than willing to make compromises in order to achieve a new, clearer phrasing for the existing consensus. If your interest isn't in a simple rephrasing, but rather in any change to the core meaning of the section then there is no merit to discussing here; You would need to make an RfC to discuss superseding existing consensus achived by the previous RfC. Hecseur (talk) 08:14, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

"I doubt a case existed where there has been consensus on Wikipedia regarding a name change for 3 years"

I mean not Wikipedia, but transitions in ngram trends.

"... this is simply a fact." Yes, but it is a very recent fact, and even today we cannot speak about a stable transition.

As you probably noticed, I started this section specifically to challenge one concrete sentence. I am glad you are ready to discuss it. Let's continue. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:58, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I, too, am glad to have a civil discussion regarding this. While I do agree we can't necessarily speak of a stable transition, there is no requirement by Wikipedia policy for such, just a proven transition. Should the accepted name in English ever transition back to "Kiev" or to a different name, policy would likely dictate a move in that direction just as well.

Lets return to discussing specific changes. Following is the draft change I introduced earlier. I am including only the first sentence as that is the only one I have changed, and is the focus of the discussion:

"Whilst until recently Kiev has been the customary name of the city with special status, the modern transliteration of the Ukrainian name, namely Kyiv, has become more commonly used in English."

I'm assuming your remaining issue with this phrasing is the part stating: "Kyiv...has become more commonly used in English." It is unclear whether this statement asserts that Kyiv is used in English more commonly than Kiev, or if Kyiv became more commonly used in English in general, though both are true at these recent times. While it may give further context to mention the stability of the change, I do find that mentioning this is rather difficult without it being read as shoehorned information (as the stability of the change isn't relevant to the name change policy). Even if you avoid simply shoehorning it in, I struggle to think of a phrasing that adds this information without it being unnecessarily awkward, which is much less than ideal.

I'm very curious to hear what specific phrasing you have in mind for this, as my mind is coming up blank. Hecseur (talk) 12:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I checked this and that, and I am not sure we can speaks about a transition that has already occurred. It seems it is obvious that we can claim the transition has occurred only after "Kyiv" become significantly more popular, and that popularity is stable (at least, during several years).

I propose:

""Whilst until recently "Kiev" has been the customary English name of the city with special status, the modern transliteration of the Ukrainian name, namely Kyiv, is becoming commonly used in English."

Paul Siebert (talk) 14:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

"...has been the customary English name..." is a good and well spotted addition. However, I do find the phrasing "...is becoming commonly used in English." problematic, as it could be read as to imply that Kyiv is not yet commonly used in English, which is not true.

While we can't necessarily speak of a transition that has already occured according to every measurement, the transition has occured by enough measurements to meet the standards of Wikipedia policy. The Google Scholar links do show that Kyiv is more commonly used than Kiev in recent scholarly work, and if you take into account the fact that scholarly work is generally significantly less recent than standard published media on the web (as it takes more work to write and publish), it does support the transition being very extensive already.

I will be interested in other suggestions for phrasing. I still don't have an alternative to the existing "...has become more commonly used in English." However, I do personally find the existing phrasing suitable, although not necessarily ideal. Hecseur (talk) 21:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, what about "...has become more commonly used in English recently". That is really a very recent phenomenon. Thus, I noticed that even in 2022 "Kyiv" was recognized as a typo by our own Wikipedia text editor. That situation changed just few month ago. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I think that's a great way to put it. I'll go with "...has recently become more commonly used in English", since I find it better connects to the rest of the sentence. Otherwise I believe we are done here! I will update the page. Hecseur (talk) 00:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. It was a pleasure to work with you. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:01, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Those old names of Kyiv are not from Polish.

A clear majority of European capitals, 34 out of 50, have English names identical to a native name or to a reasonable transliteration (35 if you accept that Riga = Rīga). (And comparing longtime state capitals to a city distant from English-speaking countries and directly colonized until 1991 doesn’t prove any principle.)  —Michael Z. 20:46, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

WRT "A clear majority...", I believe you excluded London and Dublin from that list, right? Furthermore, some capitals (like Berlin) are not the most historically important cities. Other capitals are spelled identically in their own language and in other European languages (or course, if we forget about diacritic symbols that are absent in a standard Latin alphabet). Thus, Riga has the same spelling in all major European languages (French, Italian, German), so it would be impossible to imagine a reason why the English word could be an exception.

With regard to your "directly colonized", this your position is a mixture of a weird primordialism and Soviet Marxist doctrine, and I refuse to discuss it anymore. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Your position on my position is one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever read about me.  —Michael Z. 04:03, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

See WP:DUCK. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:48, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I mean, if we count not capitals, but old and historically important cities (like Cologne, the Hague, Naples, etc) the ratio would be different. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:01, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

"Those old names of Kyiv are not from Polish" Really? The difference between Ukrainian, Polish and Russian pronunciation is that Ukrainians say "K y ee v", Poles say "K ee yo v, and Russians say "K ee ye ff".

Therefore, all forms ending with "f" or "ff" and containing penultimate "e" were influenced by Russian, and the forms that have the second "i", penultimate "jo"/"yo" etc, and last "w" are definitely derived from Polish. Which would be quite logical to expect taking into account cultural dominance of Poland during those times. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

You’re just speculating, based on your preconceptions.  —Michael Z. 04:02, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Actually the Polish version would be "K ee yu ff". In Polish ó is correctly pronounced [u], and when w is the final letter of a word it is pronounced [f] rather than [v]. Hecseur (talk) 08:26, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

You may be right, but it is not easy to check, because Polish words do not need transliteration. Maybe, some users who are proficient in Polish, e.g. User:Piotrus may comment.

Anyway, my major point is that the form "Kyiv" is virtually not found before late XX century, and all evidences support it. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Since I was pinged - I think Hecseur pronoucation sounds more "Polish" (uff, not ov). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:01, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Piotrus. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:27, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

That’s not how Ukrainian Київ is pronounced, according to Kyiv#Name. A normal English reading out loud of Kiow, Kiew, or Kiou sounds quite like the Ukrainian pronunciation [ˈkɪjiu̯]. Many of those spellings are Latinized. Plokhy in the chapter of Frontline on the Radvila map tells us that Ruthenian nobles influenced the map with their local knowledge. They were literate in Ruthenian (Middle Ukrainian), Polish, and Latin. The map labels Kyiv “Kijouia” and “lacus antiquæ Kiovie.”

Siebert’s speculation and survey of one Polish speaker gives no insight into the etymology of these earlier English spellings.  —Michael Z. 04:21, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

It seems you are beating a dead horse, but...

First, to make sure we are talking about the same things, here Ukrainian and Russian pronunciations are compared, and the difference is that in Ukrainian the first "k" sounds more hard, whereas in Russian is more soft. The second difference is that in Ukrainian the last vowel sounds like "yi", whereas in Russian it is like "ye". The last difference is that in Russian the last "v" transforms to "ff", whereas in Ukrainian it is voiced. Therefore, I can agree that "w" or "u" sounds closer to modern Ukrainian, but the rest is closer to modern Russian. Actually, we are speaking about the times when no clear separation on Ukrainian or Russian languages had occurred yet, and these emerging languages were even closer to each other then they currently are.

I suggest you to stop it. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:49, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

You’re telling us that these English spellings definitely are from Polish (sources?), but there was no separate Ukrainian at the time (sources?). At which time exactly was that?  —Michael Z. 05:42, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

No. I am not telling that. Frankly, I find this discussion senseless: in old East Slavic languages, phonetics was different from modern languages, and both in Kiev and Moscow a literary language was Old Church Slavonic.

My point is that before 1800, there was no stable form for Kiev. Paul Siebert (talk) 05:59, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

BTW, apparently, the form "Kief", which the mpst closely corresponds to the modern Russian pronunciation, seems to be one of the oldest forms found in literature. Paul Siebert (talk) 05:34, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

How old? What oldest sources does it appear in?  —Michael Z. 05:39, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Click at the link. However, I by no means am going to draw any far reaching conclusions from that. My point is that all theorising of that type are just a waste of our time. Let's stop it. Paul Siebert (talk) 06:01, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Paul Siebert’s submission is full of misinformation and bad original research. It totally ignores explanations that have been given above, and it’s a waste of time to continue to reply to the virtual monologue of this user who refuses to WP:hear. Things they insist on getting completely wrong:

• The meaning of “standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name”
• The false assertion that Kijow was ever common in English
• The false assertion that Kyiv, in use for a century, is a “neologism”
• The false assertion that Russian-derived Kiev, in use for about two, is an English exonym (it’s a transliteration of a Russian exonym, from a colonial language external to and imposed on Ukraine)
• The nonsense about people from certain countries having “authority” over certain words of special status (and the implied conclusion that only the English have authority over the specially designated by Paul Siebert name Kiev)
• The apples-and-oranges comparison of “English-speakers” vs “Ukrainians,” “Germans,” and “Russians”
• The bad OR used to set up an emotional argument: “why do me make an exception for the capital of Ukraine?”

Please don’t dignify this by responding seriously to it. It’s wrong “facts” and bad “logic” meant to denigrate a neutral POV and privilege an extremely prejudiced one.  —Michael Z. 13:36, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:NPA says: Serious accusations require serious evidence, usually in the form of diffs and links.

WP:NOR says: This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards.

Michael accused me of OR. As far as I remember, I already informed him that NOR is not applicable to talk pages or similar pages, and now I am formally notifying him about that, and I am expecting he will refrain from throwing accusations of OR during .

He also accused me of lying (posting misinformation). Let's check if these accusations have any ground.

• "The meaning of “standard transliteration of the Ukrainian name”" Transliteration " is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another". The Ukrainian name "Київ" is transliterated as "Kyiv". Does anybody disagrees with that?
• "The false assertion that Kijow was ever common in English" This "false assertion" was based on the ngram search made by Michael. Actually, before Michael provided these results, I didn't pay attention to other forms of the word "Kiev". Now I see that the forms derived from Polish "Kijów" (i.e. Kiou+Kiow+Kiovia+Kioff+Kiof) were prevalent before 1800, the forms derived from "Kiev" (Kiew+Kief+Kieff) started to prevail after that, and "Kyiv" was virtually not used at all [6].
• "The false assertion that Kyiv, in use for a century, is a “neologism”" As Michael's own ngram search show, "Kyiv" was very rarely found in English literature until recently, so it is definitely a neologism in English.
• "The false assertion that Russian-derived Kiev, in use for about two, is an English exonym (it’s a transliteration of a Russian exonym, from a colonial language external to and imposed on Ukraine)" First, these two statements are not mutually exclusive. Many exonyms are transliterations of some foreign words. Polish "nemcy" is not a transliteration, but English "Dutch", or English "Germany", or Finnish "Saxsa" are transliterations.

In addition, the assertion that Russian is "a colonial language external to and imposed on Ukraine" seems to be a manifestation of an extreme ethnic nationalism (which is inconsistent with the modern nation-state concept). If you look at that, you may see that this subject is being studied mostly by S. Velychenko, who argues that the idea of Ukraine as "Russian colony"was proposed by Soviet Marxists, and it is not considered seriously by other authors.

• "The nonsense about people from certain countries having “authority” over certain words". I think, it is obvious to any reasonable person that non-native speakers of some language cannot teach native speakers how to speak their mother tongue. That equally applicable to Ukrainians< Russians, Poles, etc.
• "The apples-and-oranges comparison of “English-speakers” vs “Ukrainians,” “Germans,” and “Russians”" I think it should be obvious to any reasonable persons that I meant "native English speakers". WRT the rest, see above.
• "The bad OR" - see WP:NOR.

In summary, the above post made by Michael is full of false or poorly substantiated claims, and it contains a blatant accusation of bad faith. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:11, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Please don’t make up things I never said and then conclude it was “blatant.” Your accusations against me are as badly structured as your earlier arguments. I don’t have time to point out every single leap, contradiction, and solecism in the above. The title of this talk section will have to do.  —Michael Z. 17:52, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

If you point me at the things that you believe have been "made up", and explain how have you came to this conclusion, I'll gladly cross it.

In my opinion, my posts are very well structured: I am disproving each your false statement one by one. Thus, you made a totally unsubstantiated claim that my assertion about Kijow was false. In response, I persuasively demonstrated, with diffs and links, that this my "false assertion" was based on your own ngram search: this search was initially made by you, and it was you who pointed my attention at the fact that not "Kiev", and not "Kyiv" were common before 1800 in English literature, but various forms derived from Polish "Kijów", as well as some variants of "Kiev" ((Kiew, Kief, Kieff). As you probably know, in Ukrainian (in contrast to Russian) the last voiced consonant is not devoiced, so the Russians pronounce, e.g. "Smirnov" like "Smirnoff", whereas the Ukrainians pronounce it like "Smirnou" (which is closer to Old Slavonic or Italian)..

In any event, instead of apologizing for throwing unsubstantiated false accusations, you throw more unsubstantiated allegations. Do you really want to continue this discussion at AE? Paul Siebert (talk) 18:11, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

@Mzajac and Paul Siebert: Both of you seem to have forgotten WP:EQ. Please refrain from continuing this discussion. If you MUST continue it, you're more than welcome to do it at WP:ANI. Hecseur (talk) 09:33, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Fair.  —Michael Z. 14:35, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I noticed that you removed the "cn" tag. Actually, I am not sure if I understand the status of this page: it seems it is neither a policy nor guidelines, does it mean it is just an essay? If that is correct, and it reflects a point of view of an unknown fraction of Wikipedians, that is probably ok.

However, do you know if NOR and V are applicable to essays? If yes, then the tag should be restored. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Banner at the top indicates it's an information page: "Informative and instructional pages are typically edited by the community; while not policies or guidelines themselves, they are intended to supplement or clarify Wikipedia guidelines, policies, or other Wikipedia processes and practices that are communal norms. Where essay pages offer advice or opinions through viewpoints, information pages should supplement or clarify technical or factual information about Wikipedia impartially. In comparison to policies and guidelines, information pages, like essay pages, have a limited status, and can reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting."

In the case of this page, and more specifically in the case of the Kiev/Kyiv debate, there is a large consensus reflected; The specifc line that you are incessant about specifically notes the 16 archives worth of deliberating regarding this at Talk:Kyiv/naming. A single opinion is not enough to change this existing consensus, and if you do insist that there is a wrong being made here I highly suggest you read all of the relevant discussions before making wild assertions on existing cosensus. Further, WP:V states "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists, and captions, must be verifiable.", which as defined by WP:MAINSPACE, does not include information pages, or WP: space pages in general. You will however find extensive citations of the factual claims made in this page in the discussions at Talk:Kyiv/naming, which again I must encourage you to read before further contribution to what is an established consensus. Hecseur (talk) 23:38, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Is this a fact or opinion?

The word Crimea formerly took the definite article in English, but this is no longer the case. Dictionaries do not seem to support this as a fact. The Oxford Dictionary of English (©2010, 2022) says “usually the Crimea.” Merriam–Webster says “NOTE: Especially in running text, Crimea is often referred to as the Crimea,”[7] and the dictionaries represented at Collins[8] and Dictionary.com[9] are mute on this.  —Michael Z. 00:11, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not certain if dictionaries are the correct source to support it. I'd think recent reliable English-language sources in media would have much more weight on this. I do agree that this needs to be sourced, as I don't believe that there was a discussion that introduced any sources regarding this. Otherwise we could just note the consensus containing the citations as is done for Kiev/Kyiv. Hecseur (talk) 05:19, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean secondary sources that state this? That would be great.

Or do you mean doing our own OR by surveying sources? I agree that I’ve observed “the Crimea” probably being used less than in the past. GB Ngram lets us see the relative frequency of the name preceded by a determiner (including the article the) has dropped.[10] We can agree to recognize that as an observed trend.

But it doesn’t support the absolute statement I quoted above, and it’s implied prescriptive directive. So if there’s no objection, I will remove it, until and if there is a consensus to avoid the style “the Crimea.”  —Michael Z. 13:55, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

this is no longer the case is the part that makes this statement completely incorrect, as there are still cases where Crimea does take the definite article. I think the section should state that there's currently no consensus on the usage of Crimea vs. The Crimea on Wikipedia, and that articles should use the variant chosen when they were first written (Like variants of English from Help:Language on articles that do not have regional ties). Hecseur (talk) 08:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable (and it follows that “formerly” is not supported). If it just follows the general rules, is it necessary to mention it at all? (I can think of arguments both ways.) Please go ahead and update the text.  —Michael Z. 14:04, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done Hecseur (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Clarification on Kiev Offensive

For unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive), do not change existing content. The use of "Kiev Offensive" is now confusing due to overlaping titles between Kyiv Offensive (2022) and Kiev Offensive (1920) of the Polish–Soviet War. Confusion is furthered by the fact the former is viewed much more than the latter (in the past 30 days: 21,453 views vs 3,679). I think the best course of action would be to replace the example of Kiev Offensive with another historical topic. Maybe Kiev Governorate? Hecseur (talk) 09:17, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

And the fact that Kiev offensive redirects to Kyiv offensive.

The problem with “Kiev governorate” is that it is unused by reliable sources.[11] (Compare.)[12] It is a made-up example of some implied principle, not a real one.  —Michael Z. 14:03, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

And the problem that in the actual names used for this, there is a rationale against the deprecated Kiev spelling. In the actual WP:COMMONNAME for the subject, K**v province, Kyiv has the same relative frequency of usage as the main-article spelling Kyiv in general.[13]  —Michael Z. 14:22, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes I suppose the main reason "Kiev Governorate" is used in this specific scenario is because the accepted English name on Wikipedia for the "gubernia" administrative unit is "Governorate" (possibly to avoid confusion with government), even though the only English sources that Ngram can find that mention the Kiev Governorate specifically use "Kiev gubernia"/"Kiev government" instead. In English, Kiev/Kyiv Province could refer to anything from Kyiv Oblast, to the Kiev Voivodeship, to many other current and historical regions centered around Kiev/Kyiv, which again leads to confusion. In this case maybe Principality of Kiev [14] would be appropriate? Hecseur (talk) 07:50, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Although the first reference on the Wikipedia page for it implies that in Ukrainian sources "Kyiv Principality" is used, Ngram usage definitely only leans towards Kiev in this scenario. It also seems frequent enough to be reliable for this purpose in this case. [15] Hecseur (talk) 07:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

The slash in Ngram is a mathematical operator that shows relative proportion. Kyiv principality is actually used proportionately even more than Kyiv in general[16] (although “principality of Kyiv” is not used enough to register in Ngram).

What this is showing is that the “in historical articles” rule doesn’t reflect reliable sources and should be nixed rather than kludged to maintain an appearance of its legitimacy.

(It’s also complicated but vague, leading to counterproductive discussions like this one.)  —Michael Z. 14:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

It’s a very small sample, but as a snapshot of current usage, GB search restricted to English-language sources returns 12 results each for “principality of K**v.”[17][18]  —Michael Z. 14:56, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

The first link you sent here [19] quite clearly states "Ngrams not found: Kyiv Principality", as I'm assuming there's no usage of this term in the data pool. The "in historical articles" could be better phrased, but it is part of the established consensus and cannot be easily changed. I usually approach this topic thinking of how Constantinople and Istanbul are applied to understand more intuitively when to use Kiev vs Kyiv, as they give a very intuitive example of when to use the old name and when to use the accepted modern English name.

Regarding the discussion on Talk:Kiev Military District I will make a response there. Hecseur (talk) 15:52, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Oops. I believe that error message means that one of the upper/lowercase variations was not found. But then the graph that looks sensible doesn’t make sense. I guess that’s best disregarded as a glitch due to too-small sample. Still, the book search shows the suggested example text does not reflect current sources.

Istanbul is no precedent for Kyiv. That city was renamed and a completely different name used for centuries. Literate people don’t need to be told that Kiev and Kyiv aren’t completely different subjects. Reliable sources switch when they refer to that city in medieval times or today, whereas sources about Ukrainian history and Kyiv do not.

A similar example of a variant spelling is Istanbul/Stamboul,[20] or perhaps Mumbai/Bombay or Beijing/Peking. But still, *sta*b**l, **mba*, and *e**ing are more significant variations than K**v.  —Michael Z. 21:19, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I would discuss my personal beliefs on this, but it does not bear weight on the focus of the discussion at hand. We do however need to find a replacement for the unclear "Kiev Offensive". I'm still quite certain that although book sources are a mixed bag, the "Principality of Kiev" fits precisely to where the consensus on historical use of Kyiv/Kiev lies. I do find a lot of these books in general cannot be counted as reliable though: They don't cite their sources, and in general there is definitely interest by multiple groups in historical negationism on anything surrounding Ukrainian history.

I stand firmly "Principality of Kiev" fits current consensus. If you have a better suggestion, please suggest it here. Hecseur (talk) 18:47, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, those books are sources. And they comprise the corpus of usage (as opposed to expert advice). But I will try to get a better survey of sources, although it may take a day or so because IRL.  —Michael Z. 13:18, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Historical Dictionary of Ukraine (2013), for example, uses “Kyiv principality.”[21]  —Michael Z. 13:31, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

But since we are quoting a decision, we could simply add a note that says the facts are dated and leave it at that, instead of presumptively amending the consensus of talk:Kyiv on November 11, 2020.  —Michael Z. 13:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure there are plenty of examples for any usage of Kiev AND Kyiv in historical contexts. Our job is not to decide whether it is right to use one or the other, it's just to clarify the existing consensus as the example previously chosen was made obtuse by the 2022 Kyiv Offensive. As far as current consensus is concerned "Principality of Kiev" is the form to be used on Wikipedia. Should consensus ever change (and the points you raised certainly show potential for such change) then so will this specific guideline. I would hold off on submitting an RfC regarding this just yet, but there is a build up of examples of Kyiv being used in historical contexts where Kiev once was, so perhaps in the near future such an RfC will be able to create new consensus.

In the mean time I will be replacing "Kiev Offensive" with "Principality of Kiev", since it quite demonstrably clarifies guidelines on the current consensus. Hecseur (talk) 01:01, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Heading on Kyiv

After my edit[22] and revert by @Hecseur.[23]

• The subject of the section is how to refer to Kyiv, so the headline should follow its own advice.
• Kyiv is the article title and primary name, so it should be used, or at least appear first.
• Expressing a concept with a slash instead of a grammatical sentence is poor style, and discouraged by MOS:SLASH. A headline should name a subject, anyway.

I tried to maintain the meaning by paraphrasing a dictionary or glossary headword: “Kyiv (also Kiev),” showing that one variant is the main and the other used in restricted circumstances. But really, it should be “Kyiv,” or “Referring to Kyiv” (the latter is superfluous, because the entire page is about referring to things).

As an aside, this “naming conventions” page could acknowledge that its scope is really naming and WP:MOS.  —Michael Z. 13:58, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

The brackets are also of poor grammatical sense in my opinion. The manual of style specifically applies to articles, as is acknowledged at WP:MOS. While there's no requirement for this information page to withstand with the manual of style, it could aid the reader in understanding the subject of matter by doing so anyways. "Referring to Kyiv" while superfluous, does do a much better work withstanding with manual of style guidelines. I would prefer "Referring to Kyiv" over the existing "Kiev/Kyiv", which I admit is not an ideal title. Hecseur (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Done.  —Michael Z. 13:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Centralization re: decommunization of names

@HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith @Mzajac @Ymblanter I think these discussions should be more centralized and visible to the broader community. It's a stretch to claim precedent when there is no real wide participation. Even the Talk:Kadiivka RM from "Stakhanov" had relatively few participants compared to celebrated discussions like Gdansk/Danzig, (London)Derry, or even KyivNotKiev etc etc so

As for invocations of WP:UAPLACE, it took a very close perusal to see where the purported legalistic basis to support name changes lies. Rather than attempts at back-alley WikiHermeneutics, the common-sense approach is to seek wider consensus, and potentially an RfC, about what guidelines, if any, there should be regarding decommunized names in "temporarily occupied" areas.

Also, to be absolutely clear, WP:UAPLACE is not a policy or a guideline, but merely an information page.

Anyway, pinging @Slatersteven and @Cinderella157 as they have extensive track records of consensus-building, mediation, and stuff, with complementary and differing cognitive/methodological approaches to complex issues.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 16:15, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

The thing is that we just had a common RM and it failed miserably. The conclusion was to renominate the localities separately, and this is what is happening now. What I am really disappointed with is that they are now being nominated one by one using exactly the same arguments, as if nothing was discussed before. Ymblanter (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Though it would be great to have more participants of course. Ymblanter (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

As the RM's are closed, I am unsure that it expected. Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

No, there are about a dozen which are open. Ymblanter (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I see that some of them have actually been moved, and my arguments were completely ignored (not even reflected in the closure statements). Fine, I guess the best I can do it to move to a different topic area. This one became completely polluted by POV editors. Ymblanter (talk) 19:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Hm, a quick search identified at least these 3 recent closures by 2 different editors:

• Talk:Piatypillia#Requested move 6 November 2023
• Talk:Sofiivka, Horlivka Raion, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 4 November 2023
• Talk:Buran, Ukraine#Requested move 4 November 2023

Like in maybe 80% of all closures, both sides’ arguments were “ignored,” because closer only wrote the result: “moved.”

The exception has a closing summary written by a 3rd closer. In this case, Ymblanter commented objecting to the application of UAPLACE (but didn’t actually write “oppose”), and the summary referred to only COMMONNAME and not the fallback convention UAPLACE – perhaps it didn’t need to be considered for the decision at all.

• Talk:Lypske#Requested move 5 November 2023

IMO, Ymblanter’s complaint appears to be unfounded, given these RMs. If I missed any that tell a different story, please let us know.

Using negative labelling “polluted by POV editors” by a minority-POV editor, along with its implications, is unhelpful.  —Michael Z. 18:11, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for creating this discussion. I'm not very experienced at all with these kinds of large-scale RfCs (which is why I hadn’t created one myself) so I probably wont be participating in this that much, but this should be very useful. Regardless, I won’t create any more RMs on this topic until this discussion reaches consensus. HappyWith (talk) 17:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

we can't centralize RM's as each page will have unique issues. Each RM must be assessed on its own merits.Slatersteven (talk) 17:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I recall being told quite recently that there is a broad consensus on these names.

Anyway, the recent RMs have passed based on consensus, guidelines including WP:WIAN, WP:PLACENAME, and WP:MODERNPLACENAME, and evidence from reliable sources. UAPLACE has not replaced them: in fact the RMs have reinforced the usefulness of UAPLACE as a predictor of consensus on place names in Ukraine (consensus-making will naturally decide whether these RMs are a precedent or not).

Counterarguments have been you can only rename something you control, which is just a rephrasing of “use Moscow’s name and not Kyiv’s (because might makes right)” – but either side of that argument is moot, because WP:OFFICIALNAME: naming is a broader agreement out of the control of either Bankova or the Kremlin. Article titling comes from the use of names in RS and editors’ consensus.

Blaming UAPLACE is a distraction. Core guidelines and consensus are handling these RMs perfectly adequately. A bunch of obscure villages under Moscow’s occupation are not likely to become a “celebrated” discussion that editors flock to.

But go ahead and challenge the closed RMs on procedural grounds and widely publicize the ones in progress. Whatever determines a broader consensus and satisfies the complaints is positive. If RS show changed usage next year, you’re welcome to file RMs to change back (as some vowed to do after the celebrated Kyiv RM).

Still want to file an RFC? Suit yourself. There’s no deadline.  —Michael Z. 17:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

• I've been trying to get my head around the issue. I can see the multi-move at Talk:Kirovske, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 25 October 2023 and an earlier discussion at the same page. There are multiple moves by HappyWith such as this move at Talk:Sverdlove#Requested move 12 November 2023. The proposition is to adopt the official Ukrainian name changed from a former name ca 2016. Per WP:MODERNPLACENAME, Per Wikipedia's naming policy, our choice of name does not automatically follow the official or local form, but depends on that change having become predominant in common global usage. The circumstances are that these localities have little to no mention in English language sources since 2016 for either name based on Google searches or similar. However, WP:WIAN would have us consult a range of sources including gazetteers and geographical databases. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#General guidelines would tell us when there is no English common name, the modern official name ... should be used. At multiple places, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) qualifies official name as local official name. Herein lies the nub of the issue when these places have not been controlled by Ukraine since before Ukraine proclaimed the changes of names and whether the Ukrainian government official name is the local official name. We could argue the legalities of official in respect to de jure v de facto but the adage is that possession is nine-tenths of the law. WP deals with such issues at arms length. We follow, we do not lead. Adopting the Ukrainian government name can be seen as endorsing the Ukrainian government and bolsterism for the Ukrainian cause. No matter what our personal opinions are, we should take every care to not only be apartisan but appear to be apartisan. We are not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Have the gazetteers and like listed at WP:WIAN changed? If not, then we certainly should not. Until there is a clear good reason to change these names, we should be guided by there is WP:NODEADLINE. Because of the inherent POV issues relating to these article names, it probably is something to be resolved by RfC and broader community scrutiny regarding applying the local official name.

There are some other issues I see regarding WP:UAPLACE. This would be the tendency to quite long article titles when there may be no actual requirement (no real article title conflict) for a long but precise title. There is also an issue of capitalisation of terms for levels of political divisions (eg Luhansk Oblast) when such capitalisation of oblast is not supported by sources (see here). Cinderella157 (talk) 11:21, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the very good summary. I’ll add:

• In the case of recent moves in this category, although small in number, there had been recent sources named in WIAN which supported the move.
• RGW can cut either way: don’t take the title to mean that a position that may be morally correct cannot also be the one mandated by the guidelines. Editors’ ideas of right and wrong vary. IMO insisting that occupied status (that has nothing to do with guidelines) should determine the title, while the actual evidence, policies, and consensus should not, is textbook RGW if it is based on supposed “rightness.”

 —Michael Z. 15:01, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your statement about UAPLACE causing a tendency towards unnecessarily long article names, though I don't think that's actually in the infopage - it's just a standard editors have seemingly drifted towards over the years. Ex: if the name of a hromada is unique, I don't see why we have to list the name of the raion and oblast after it every time. This could theoretically get even more comically long-winded if there happen to be two settlements with the same name in the same hromada. HappyWith (talk) 16:53, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm guilty of this. I do agree there's actually not that much sense for it, still I think it is nice that Ukrainian localities use consistent names. This does require some discussion. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll try to explain my main argument here the way I see it: I think that when there is no WP:COMMONNAME, we should choose the name given to the settlement by the Ukrainian government.

This is because, while I think it's true that the DPR and LPR have refused to accept the changed names, there are not actually any WP:RS that I know of that cover this fact - it's only their own press releases. Some of these settlements are so obscure that I had to search really hard to even find references confirming that they were occupied. There aren't any RS - or even less-than reliable sources that I know of - where it says something like "The local separatist authorities still refer to Boikivske as Telmanove", for instance. Even since the start of the full-scale invasion in Feb 22, these settlements are so far behind the frontline that they've gotten no coverage from RS that mentions the Russian government names for them, etc. It's essentially original research to say that the de facto authorities, or the locals in the settlements, still use the communist names, even though it's probably true.

Another argument I've made before is that Wikipedia should follow the coverage style of RS. RS have recently shifted to preferring to use modern Ukrainian names, like Odesa instead of Odessa, and Dnipro instead of Dnieper, etc - and so we should follow their example. I apologize that I can't link some policy to support this argument, but I assume that must be a policy even though I don't know the specific shorthand. International organizations and non-news sources seem to especially like using decommunized names, like the OSCE and the ISW. The OSCE's usage may be because it's illegal to use the old names (although, I'm not sure how true this is? The Mariupol mayoral advisor uses "Telmanove" in this article [24] ) but I don't know if that actually matters to us at WP. I think, even if it's because of censorship, we can still interpret a usage standard in well-respected sources.

I think it also somewhat matters that, from 2016 to 2022, the occupiers were unrecognized separatists. I think this sets the Donbas settlements slightly apart from the Crimean ones - even though Russia is also an illegal occupier there, it's at least a real country. The L/DPR were unrecognized by every country in the world, including Russia. I think that "endorsing the Ukrainian POV" isn't really POV in that case, given how international media and the United Nations were (and are) also overwhelmingly on that side of the issue.

Like Michael said, UAPLACE isn't really an issue here - I think my argument still makes sense even without citing it.

Sorry for how rambly this was, I hope it makes sense. Like I said, I'm not experienced with these kinds of large-scale discussions, but I wanted to try to explain my personal reasonings here. HappyWith (talk) 17:10, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I apologize that I can't link some policy to support this argument I think WP:COMMONNAME applies here. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Official names are propagated through electronic databases: most states maintain their own central one, and the UN, the US GNIS, and others draw on those. UN agencies and international organizations are among the first consumers, because they work with states and have policies on respecting states’ self-identification, and have the technical framework to consume these databases. Online mapping draws on them too.

“it's illegal to use the old names” – dubious: can you cite this? (Every country has policies that specify official names of places, but that doesn’t criminalize calling things something else.)

The occupiers were not “unrecognized separatists.” It was an open secret that they were Russian-controlled proxies, and much of the press was really bad for both-sidesing their identity. The MH17 trial legally established that this was an international conflict because they were under the overall control of Russia from at least mid May 2014, and the ICC (if I recall correctly) established that there was no civil conflict at the same time, therefore Russia was responsible for all of their war crimes. They were Russia under international law. And the 2022 Russian invasion and “annexation” put the nail in the coffin. The press practically never refers to the so-called DLNR, mostly no longer refers to “pro-Russian separatists,” but to territory “occupied by Russia before February 2022.” Academic sources concur. The timelines were different, but Russia “recognized” the proxies that it set up and controlled in both Crimea and in the Donbas, and then it annexed (or “annexed”) them both, and wrote these territories of Ukraine into its own constitution. The only difference is that the DLNR nominally had militias: they were commanded by Russian officers from practically the beginning. The “People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic” was also the 1st Army Corps of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Russian Armed Forces, and the PMLNR was the 2AC of the 8CAA.  —Michael Z. 02:31, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I‘ve heard Ymblanter say it’s illegal, but I’m not sure how true it is either. I think this comes from a misinterpretation of the law? I think it’s illegal to glorify or deny communist+fascist atrocities, not to call settlements by their old names. HappyWith (talk) 03:36, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

• I've participated in several of these RMs. I don't see a point in this discussion. There should be no convention or general rule, as I see it geographic-specific rules overcomplicate editing in a topic area and thus hinder improvement. We have enough Wikipedia policies to suit each RM that is started. I incite HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith to keep starting RMs if they think there's a strong case for it, I myself have voted against some of them when I deemed it necessary, so it's not because I blindly support applying Ukrainian government names whenever possible. Though I do believe some of them should have had more research behind before the decision of starting them was made.

Regarding Cinderella157's comments I disagree that there is room for interpretation as to what the official names of Russian-occupied settlements in Ukraine are. In Wikipedia we use de jure maps, all of these localities use maps of Ukraine and their infoboxes and articles state they're part of Ukraine. I think "official" is inherently connected to the de jure situation, exceptions being for example Stepanakert (there's a RM anyway) which used the separatist name because most English-language sources do so; many (likely most) of the occupied Ukrainian localities do not have a common English name. I think any alternative to using de jure as a fixed standard is quite arbitrary and problematic, should we move articles any time one of the two sides makes territorial advances? Should we leave the original title under which the article was created? By what policy is this supported?

Personally I don't think any useful conclusion will come out of this discussion, this wave of RMs will eventually fade away and the articles in which consensus for moving was found will be moved and those in which consensus was not found for moving will not be moved. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

There are about 40 settlements that I have on my list of articles that still use the pre-decommunized name as their title, so it would be convenient to establish consensus on this issue so I don't have to RM each one, but I agree that it's unlikely we're going to reach consensus here. I think I'll start working on research to submit another medium-sized multimove to try and clear out the least-controversial ones. HappyWith (talk) 03:46, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

• WP:NCPLACE would tell us: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. The premise of these moves is that there is no WP:COMMONNAME. WP:WIAN would list GNIS as one source to consult to determine the widely accepted name, it is one source. Google and Apple maps are not listed and from what I have seen, theses are often in conflict for the subject articles. Google Maps has a record of questionable naming and names can be changed by user submission without reasonable editorial oversight. At WP:RSP, there is no consensus that it is generally reliable. As I said before, where WP:NCPLACE would defer to the official name where there is no WP:COMMONNAME, it also refers to the local official name at several places. It would state in the lead: ... we also avoid arguments about what a place ought to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it is called. Fairly explicitly, it is telling us to ignore such arguments such as this is the de jure official name that we ought to use. WP:WIAN would state: For modern sources, it is important to identify any recent watershed moments in the location's history (such as the fall of the Soviet Union for Eastern Europe, or other revolutions, invasions and nationality changes), and limit sources to those published after that watershed [emphasis added]. Just as a revolution etc can lead to a name change, it can also prevent a name change being adopted when subsequently being imposed from without. This BBC News article would report that the Ukrainian government would eventually impose the name changes in Crimea but only upon return of Crimea to Ukraine. Is it perhaps wishful thinking that the government can impose such changes in DPR and LPR controlled areas now annexed by Russia? As I observed above, possession is nine-tenths of the law. HappyWith reported: ... while I think it's true that the DPR and LPR have refused to accept the changed names, there are not actually any WP:RS that I know of that cover this fact - it's only their own press releases. I suggest that these reports fall to WP:ABOUTSELF and are reliable for reporting that the names within their control are not changing. Considering the prevailing WP:P&G (including WP:NAMECHANGES and WP:NODEADLINE), we probably should not be changing such article titles for localities which have not been controlled by the Ukrainian government since it passed laws to change their names. There may be some exceptions that tend to WP:COMMONNAME English language usage but these would be exceptional in this context. I would observe that there are probably passionate views here as to how these localities ought to be named but this is all the more reason to poll the consensus of the broader community. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  Should we make an RFC then? Seems like this discussion has only involved the same five people that keep voting in the RMs. HappyWith (talk) 17:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  WIAN does say “maps (such as those from the National Geographic Society), whether printed or electronic.” I have cited Google and Apple as having full coverage, being regularly updated, and widely used map sources. Could also consult Bing Maps (part of MS Windows), MapQuest, and others in Category:Web Map Services, but those I checked were sufficient to demonstrate that the changed names are being adopted by RS.  —Michael Z. 19:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  (Everyone, please stop referring to “DPR and LNR controlled areas.” These are occupied by Russia and have been de-facto controlled by Russia for a decade, and Russia gave up its pretences over a year ago. If we are concerned with avoiding what someone or other thinks ought to be, then please let’s use the neutral language of current, reliable sources. I am glad to provide sources if there is doubt.)  —Michael Z. 19:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  To be plain, assertions that the “local official name” is the one imposed from the Moscow Kremlin look like OR to me, and need more backing than invoking the names of the so-called “DLNR.”  —Michael Z. 20:01, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it's also worth mentioning that "local official names" are in my view hard to identify in areas controlled by a state in which this happens [25] [26]. Few civilians in occupied Ukraine would dare to use the Ukrainian government names in the public space but that does not mean there is some widely accepted name among the populace like the syntagma "local official name" could imply. we also avoid arguments about what a place ought to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it is called. this will also depend on the context. From an international and legal point of view Ukrainian government names are used, from a public point of view within the localities the old names are used, and from the popular and private point of view we can't reliably know. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Fairly explicitly, it is telling us to ignore such arguments such as this is the de jure official name that we ought to use. I believe this is Cinderella157's own personal interpretation of this vague set of words, above is my own interpretation. I think there's a margin for discussion and interpretation of these policies in the case of which a RfC may indeed be due. For modern sources, it is important to identify any recent watershed moments in the location's history (such as the fall of the Soviet Union for Eastern Europe, or other revolutions, invasions and nationality changes), and limit sources to those published after that watershed here I'd argue the policy was not written having in mind current (as in currently developing) events. Proof of this could be calling the fall of the USSR "recent". Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 20:46, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The “local official name” argument is also illogical. The supposed local official names used by Russia are Russian, not Ukrainian, because Ukrainian language is de facto banned and certainly not officially used. Recent moves have included: Proletarske → Piatypillia (where the “local official name” would be Russian Proletarskoye), Karlo-Marksove → Sofiivka, Horlivka Raion, Donetsk Oblast (Russian Karlo-Marksovo), and Enhelsove → Buran, Ukraine (Russian Engelsovo). The entreaty to respect local official names is not something even its proponents have been proposing or considering.  —Michael Z. 21:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I have listed some of the affected pages that I am aware of for which move requests have been made. Might others add to this list. We might also add other potentially affected localities. These would be localities for which the Ukrainian government legislated name changes in 2016, for which there are Wiki articles and which have not been controlled by the Ukrainian government since prior to the legislative change. These would also be localities in areas that were nominally controlled by the DPR/LPR, since the legislative changes are acknowledged to not affect Crimea. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:48, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Talk:Kirovske, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 25 October 2023 (multi-page move) - not moved
• Talk:Piatypillia#Requested move 6 November 2023 - moved
• Talk:Sofiivka, Horlivka Raion, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 4 November 2023 - moved
• Talk:Buran, Ukraine#Requested move 4 November 2023 - moved
• Talk:Lypske#Requested move 5 November 2023 - moved
• Talk:Kholodne, Donetsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 12 November 2023 (and Voikovskyi → Kopani, Donetsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast) - moved

In addition to those I mentioned above, the supposed “local official names” are Russian Sverdlovo not Ukrainian Sverdlove, Voikovskii not Voikovskyi, and Krasnyi Oktiabr, but some would have it spelled Krasnyy Oktyabr. —Michael Z. 06:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Months later, it seems to me that there is a conflict between UAPLACE (an information-page essay) and NCPLACE (a guideline), so the former has to be clarified; that the UAPLACE "rule" hasn't been followed anyway; that the RM results are inconsistent, probably directly as a result of this conflict; and nothing's been done to resolve this. I would thus suggest that peeps most involved with this page propose a specific wording change to resolve the problem (or just do it WP:BOLDly and see if it sticks), leaning toward following WP:COMMONAME and NCCPLACE like everywhere else. This page should be saying how to apply the policy and the broader guideline to this specific-country context, not trying to defy them. After that and any other issues are resolved, this should be proposed at WP:VPPOL for promotion to {{Guideline}}. It really doesn't serve anyone's purposes to have this lingering around in an essay state. Either it's reparable and is advice that should be followed, or it is irreparable old junk that should be marked {{Historical}}.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation of settlements in same raion/hromada

The page does not mention how to disambiguate between settlements that are in the same raion but in different hromadas (e.g., there are two villages named Hannusivka in Oleksandriia Raion), or in same hromada but in different starosta okruhs (e.g., there are two villaged named Volodymyrivka in Domanivka settlement hromada). Actually, the page doesn't mention starosta okruhs at all. Shwabb1 (talk) 05:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Are there actual articles that exist (or about to exist) that require disambiguation? Cinderella157 (talk) 11:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

One example that I know of is the two Hrabove villages in Kovel Raion, Volyn Oblast - one in Serekhovychi rural hromada and another in Shatsk settlement hromada. I'm uncertain whether there are any other articles like these in English Wikipedia, but there are many examples in Ukrainian Wikipedia. Shwabb1 (talk) 12:39, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

There's two villages named Topoli in the same hromada. In that case we focus on their legal administrative status, one is a selo (village) while the other is a rural-type settlement. Thus we have Topoli (village), Kharkiv Oblast and Topoli (rural-type settlement). Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 13:43, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

The naming conventions here have the potential to create some ridiculously long article names. The first principle of disambiguation is that we only disambiguate actual conflicts in article names. Hence, if there are five places in the world called A but only one has an article, no disambiguation should be applied. Secondly, disambiguation is not applied to a primary target but I will assumme that most of these places are obscure and there is no particular one in a set of localities sharing the same name that is particularly well known in English or might otherwise reasonably be given primacy. We should then disambiguate with the highest administrative division sufficient to achieve this. For three localities (A1, A2 and A3) if A1 is in oblast X but A2 and A3 are in oblast Y, Then we would name A1 as "A,X". We would distinguish A2 and A3 by their raions (eg M and N raions) giving titles "A,M" and "A,N". We can avoid using the administrative levels in the article title except if this is necessary for disambiguation (eg Donetsk for the city but Donetsk Oblast).

Considering the examples provided in the above responses: There are only two Wiki articles for Hrabove. I would title these as: Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada, Volyn Oblast → Hrabove, Serekhovychi and Hrabove, Shatsk settlement hromada, Kovel Raion, Volyn Oblast → Hrabove, Shatsk. There are only two articles for Topoli on Wiki. Distinguishing these by their administrative status is an appropriate solution. I would title these as Topoli (village), Kharkiv Oblast → Topoli (village) and Topoli (rural-type settlement) → Topoli (rural settlement).

If these options dont work in a particular situation, we might disambiguate based on relative position within a raion - eg Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada, Volyn Oblast could be Hrabove, eastern Kovel and Hrabove, Shatsk settlement hromada, Kovel Raion, Volyn Oblast could be Hrabove, western Kovel. Note that the positional descriptor is in lower case and does not imply an official name that Western Kovel might.

These are some thoughts that address potential improvement of the advice herein as well as the more specific question posed. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:15, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Serekhovychi, Shatsk, and Kovel are settlements - not the regions that they are the centers of. If using the administrative divisions rather than their centers:

Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada, Volyn Oblast → Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada or Hrabove, eastern Kovel Raion

Hrabove, Shatsk settlement hromada, Kovel Raion, Volyn Oblast → Hrabove, Shatsk settlement hromada or Hrabove, western Kovel Raion

With the hromadas, the titles may seem a bit long but they are shorter than the current titles, so it's an improvement. Shwabb1 (talk) 12:29, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the "Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada" proposal - it makes it as short as possible, while still being precise and systematic. HappyWith (talk) 17:07, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Could somebody explain why (for the purpose of disambiguation) it is necessary to say Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada rather than Hrabove, Serekhovychi or Hrabove, Shatsk settlement hromada rather than Hrabove, Shatsk? WP:AT would prefer concision over precision not necessary for disambiguation. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:59, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Serekhovychi and Shatsk are both settlements, not administrative divisions. Saying Hrabove, Serekhovychi is comparable to saying Orange, Sacaramento instead of Orange, California - Sacramento is the capital of California, just like Serekhovychi is the center of Serekhovychi rural hromada. If you want to shorten the titles even more, perhaps Hrabove, Serekhovychi hromada and Hrabove, Shatsk hromada could work. Shwabb1 (talk) 04:37, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but the analogy doesn't work. Hrabove is within Serekhovychi [hromada] and Hrabove is within Shatsk [hromada]. Orange [City], California is not within Sacaramento. It is not comparable. Orange, California distinguishes it from other cities called Orange in other US states but there is no other city/town called Orange in California. Similarly, Orange County, California distinguishes it from other counties in other US states called Orange but there is only one such county in California. States are the highest level descriptor sufficient to disambiguate cities in other states with the same name but we don't add state after the name of the state. Why should we add hromada in these instances? We add county to distinguish counties from cities with the same name but we do not also add city to the article title for the city. Indeed, why should we add raion or oblast to part of an article title here, unless it is a necessary part of the disambiguation in a way similar to county. In each case, we see that concision is being applied to disambigation of titles over unnecessary precision. So, my original question stands. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:37, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

You don't add state to the end of the states simply because most of them are not named after their capitals/centers (meaning that nobody will confuse the state with its capital), while most Ukrainian subdivisions are (Zhytomyr is a city, while Zhytomyr Oblast is a division; Berdychiv is a city, while Berdychiv Raion is a division; Andrushivka is a city, while Andrushivka urban hromada is a division).

"We add county to distinguish counties from cities with the same name" - just like we add hromada to distinguish hromada from the city (or, in this case, an urban-type settlement and a village). Shwabb1 (talk) 06:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

What I said was: Indeed, why should we add raion or oblast to part of an article title here, unless it is a necessary part of the disambiguation ... [emphasis added]. For the article title Berdychiv Raion, raion is a necessary part of the disambiguation to distinguish it from Berdychiv, the city. For Romanivka, Berdychiv Raion, raion is unnecessary in the same way that state is unnecessary detail/precision in Orange, California. While we add county to distinguish Orange County, California from the city, Orange, California, this is not the same as how we might use hromada in the examples - eg Hrabove, Shatsk hromada. There is no separate article for Hrabove, Shatsk that requires hromada for disambiguation. We should also appreciate that this thread is about disambiguating relatively obscure localities, where the primary target for Hrabove is a disambiguation page. While the guidance at WP:AT is to prefer concision over precision unnecessary to achieve disambiguation, it is perfectly reasonable to provide supplementary detail on a disambiguation page. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you're trying to say now, but I still disagree - "Romanivka, Berdychiv" implies that Romanivka is a neighborhood of the city of Berdychiv. This is because the word "Berdychiv" on its own is generally interpreted as a noun (Бердичів), but in the phrase Berdychiv Raion, "Berdychiv" acts as an adjective (Бердичівський). English does not differentiate between the noun form and the adjective form, it all depends on whether the word oblast/raion/hromada is present. Shwabb1 (talk) 10:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

In the noun phrase Berdychiv Raion, Berdychiv is a proper noun and it modifies the common noun raion. In this case, where it acts like an adjective, it is called an attributive noun. However, Berdychiv as the proper noun for the raion can also be used to refer to the raion without being followed by the word raion. As an example, you will see many examples where Donetsk or Luhansk are used is sources to refer to the oblasts without being followed by the word oblast. An assertion that in English, a name like Berdychiv as a reference to the raion must be followed by the word raion (eg Berdychiv Raion) or, that Berdychiv alone only refers to the city would be incorrect. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't have any exact statistics on this, but I find it much more common for oblasts and raions to be referred to as what they are, not as their centers (on both the news and English Wikipedia). Visit any article on an oblast or a raion, and you will notice that. Shwabb1 (talk) 10:13, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, Wiki is not a source that we would use to establish such a thing. To the second, I have conducted a search of the explicit string (ie in quote makes) "fighting in Donetsk" on google news since the start of 2022 here with 3,290 results and for "fighting in Donetsk Oblast" here with only 10 results. Since there has been no fighting in the city since then, all reports for "fighting in Donetsk" are for fighting in the oblast generally and not the city. The premise is quite exploded (paraphrasing Oscar Wilde). Cinderella157 (talk) 12:38, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Huh, I guess that the news I'm reading happen to more commonly use Donetsk Oblast over Donetsk.

Either way, my point about the possible confusion with the city if hromada/raion/oblast is not added still stands. I can already imagine a situation: someone stumbles upon an article named "Romanivka, Berdychiv," wants to find out more about the administrative division that the city is located in, searches for "Berdychiv," and gets confused upon finding out that it is a city too. Adding one extra word to the title is not a big sacrifice for avoiding possible confusion. Shwabb1 (talk) 15:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

The argument is flawed because it is based on the premise that the hypothetical person doesn't even read the first and only line of the lead for the article on Romanivka in Berdychiv and that they don't follow the link therein. As I said below: Localities within the state of Washington are disambiguated by adding Washington after a comma, not Washington (state) and localities within the state a New York are similarly disambiguated. One should also consider WP:RECOGNIZABILITY: The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. With no other choice for a place called Romanivka associated with somewhere called Berdychiv, would such a person find this place with it using the title Romanivka, Berdychiv. This is the acid test that should be applied. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:42, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree that Romanivka, Berdychiv is recognizable enough, but it is not precise enough. As I said multiple times before, this title can and will cause confusion, and US states are in a completely different situation due to their names not being derived from their centers. And if we want to bring familiarity into this, asking the question "Will people from Romanivka or a nearby village recognize the English title (assuming that they have a decent level of English)?" - I would say that they will only recognize it from context but will be confused, as uk: Бердичів is a separate city while uk: Бердичівський район is the subdivision. Romanivka, Berdychiv Raion is the optimal option - it is not much longer than Romanivka, Berdychiv and leaves no room for confusion. Even if you prefer the name Romanivka, Berdychiv, when you type it in the Wikipedia search bar, it will suggest the article Romanivka, Berdychiv Raion.

And I did notice that we have drifted from the original topic, which was to resolve the issue of how to disambiguate between settlements that are in the same raion but in different hromadas. Shwabb1 (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The case of a location in the state of New York is directly equivalent to this situation. The case of a location in the state of Washington is pertinent because Washington most commonly refers to the city which is the capital of the US (not the state). It would arguably create the same type of confusion asserted to exist for the article title, Romanivka, Berdychiv. The search bar presently suggests Romanivka, Berdychiv Raion because that is how the article is presently named. If Romanivka, Berdychiv is sufficiently recognisable and precise to get a person to the article about Romanivka in Berdychiv (as opposed to the one in Mykolaiv), then it serves its purpose quite adequately. The question we are discussing in this sub thread is whether we should be adding descriptions (eg raion) to titles as a matter of course or only where necessary for disambiguation. While we may be using a simpler example, it is still in the context of resolving how to disambiguate between settlements that are in the same raion but in different hromadas. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The case of a location in the state of New York is directly equivalent to this situation

Not quite. It would be equivalent if the state was named New York State and the city was named New York, but both are named New York. In our case, Berdychiv Raion is rarely called Berdychiv.

I agree that Romanivka, Berdychiv is sufficiently recognisable, but it is not precise enough, as it could cause confusion. Shwabb1 (talk) 07:32, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

That's fully correct Cinderella. The issue in disamibiguating this way isn't that it's improper English, it's that in the context of a title it's ambiguous; The title could refer both to the city or to the administrative unit named after the city. This does not meet WP:PRECISION. Hecseur (talk) 10:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

There would appear to be some misconception of precision as a WP:CRITERIA which states: Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See Precision and disambiguation, below) [note the link]. WP:PRECISION is a link to the section on Precision and disambiguation, which are intricately related to each other. According to WP:PRECISION we should use the title Romanivka except that there are articles for other places called "Romanivka" apart from the one in Berdychiv. Hence we must disambiguate the title per WP:TITLEDAB: It is not always possible to use the exact title that may be desired for an article, as that title may have other meanings, and therefore may have been already used for other articles. According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary [emphasis added]. Hence, concision is preferred over unnecessary precision to distinguish actual articles. There is only one article for "Romanivka" in Berdychiv. Romanivka, Berdychiv is sufficient precision to distinguish it from articles for other places called "Romanivka". It is immaterial to the guidance in respect to WP:PRECISION that [t]he title could [hypothetically] refer both to the city or to the administrative unit named after the city. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:37, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Your arguement hinges on interpreting "use only as much additional detail as necessary" such that the distinction in the article title between the city and the administrative unit is unnecessary. WP:PRECISION clearly states "Usually, titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that." The topical scope of this article is "a settlement called Romanivka in Berdychiv Raion". Using a scope such as "a settlement called Romanivka in Berdychiv" would be ambiguous as it can be incorrectly interpreted as "a settlement called Romanivka in the city of Berdychiv". Hecseur (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

The shortcut WP:PRECISION is a link to the section Precision and disambiguation - not to the subsection within titled Precision. When linking to WP:PRECISION, the section Precision and disambiguation must be considered as a whole - as I have done. An argument that focusses on one part rather than the section as a whole is flawed. Localities within the state of Washington are disambiguated by adding Washington after a comma, not Washington (state) and localities within the state a New York are similarly disambiguated. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:23, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

My mistake regarding WP:PRECISION. It seems that WP:OVERPRECISION is supposed to redirect specifically to that section but currently does not, I will remedy this following my reply. My arguement was evidently focused on how the precision section defines the meaning of what is "necessary" as is later mentioned in the following disambiguation section; I don't comprehend how that "fails to consider [the section] as a whole". Your example of US localities is irrelevant; As per WP:USPLACE, sticking the word state every time a state is mentioned would be "contrary to general American usage". If the bulk of general use in English dropped the word "Raion" when referring to disambiguated localities then this could be a valid arguement. In the case of English-language coverage being lacking or nonexistent this could also be a valid arguement if it was the accepted norm in Ukrainian to drop "район" when disambiguating. However, neither of these is the case, and current consensus here reaffirms this.

As per WP:PLACEDAB: "Places are often disambiguated by the country in which they lie. If using the country name would still lead to ambiguity, use the name of a smaller administrative division (such as a state or province) instead." In the general use case when mentioning Ukrainian administrative subdivisions, the subdivision's name will be followed by the subdivision's type; Oblast, raion, or hromada (with some notable in-sentence use exceptions in English such as Donetsk). This is the accepted disambiguation structure I've seen throughout both official sources and vernacular use.

More importantly though, an additional remark for the Romanivka example: Without the subdivision type the title comes to the absurd situation where it can misdirect you both to both the city of Berdychiv AND to Berdychiv urban hromada instead of the intended Berdychiv Raion. This is not an "efficient" or "concise" method, this would all be nonstandard, very clearly ambiguous, and very confusing. Hecseur (talk) 07:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

As I have stated before, The link from precision at WP:CRITERIA links to the section Precision and disambiguation. The intent, therefore, is that the section should be considered as a whole in respect to the issue of precision, not just that sub-section on precision. The examples of Washington and New York are relevant because they are directly comparable to the situation being argued. It is not a case of sticking the word state every time a state is mentioned. It is the case that we do not add the word state. Similarly, nor should we add oblast (or raion) in a comparable situation. We should also recognise that this is EN Wiki not US Wiki but that is another issue. Allegorical evidence is little more than unsubstantiated personal opinion.

The assertion is that an oblast is consistently referred to with oblast as part of the noun phrase (and similar) in Ukrainian, because there aren't enough examples in English and that Donetsk is a notable exception. See here and here for another case that is quite exploded. At some point, these exception won't be all that notable. It is just a case of being clever enough to come up with appropriate search strings that can only refer to the oblast as a whole.

To the third para, my comment above already addresses this. More specifically, the title does not direct (or link) anyone anywhere. The links in the lead and the infobox do this. There is nothing ambiguous, and very confusing about this unless the links in the lead or infobox are inaccutate. There is no actual evidence that this would all be nonstandard English. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:54, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how any of this properly addresses my arguements. I am withdrawing myself from this discussion. Feel free to submit an RfC if you would like to change established disambiguation consensus regarding this. Hecseur (talk) 14:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

See here and here for another case that is quite exploded.

I do want to note - 6 of the 11 sources found for "fighting in Luhansk" include fighting in Luhansk Oblast, fighting in Luhansk region, and fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk/Kharkiv Oblasts. Only 5 out of the 11 sources referred to Luhansk Oblast simply as Luhansk. Shwabb1 (talk) 14:40, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The first search string "fighting in Luhansk" does not exclude "fighting in Luhansk oblast", the second search string. The premise addressed is that a reference to the region is consistently followed by oblast (etc) and a reference without this refers to a city. The evidence does not support the premise. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:23, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Zaporizhzhia is another (see here and [27]). Cinderella157 (talk) 10:36, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

This one could be influenced by the fact that even in Ukrainian, Zaporizhzhia Oblast is often called Zaporizhzhia, as the city's name comes from the historical region. Shwabb1 (talk) 03:30, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

My thoughts about this: There was previously discussion on raion disambiguation here where I raised the point that disamibiguation solely by non-prevailing subdivisions is not going to be useful to the average reader when such subdivisions don't have adequate coverage to inform the reader. That arguement then was regarding disambiguation by raions; it even more acutely applies here, where instead of 2 line stubs there is ZERO information on nearly ALL hromadas on Wikipedia. If any settlements are disambiguated by hromada they will need to include all subdivisions required to make the title unambiguous:

• If all settlements by this name are found in the same raion, disambiguate only by hromada.
• If multiple settlements by this name are in the same raion and all settlements by this name are found in the same oblast, disambiguate by hromada and raion.
• If multiple settlements by this name are in the same raion and some settlements by this name are found in a different oblast, disambiguate by hromada and oblast.
• If multiple settlements by this name are in the same raion and some settlements by this name are found both in the same oblast and a different oblast, disambiguate by hromada, raion and oblast.

I completely agree with removing the hromada type when disambiguating as it's more WP:CONCISE. The name of the hromada is sufficient for disambiguation without specifying what type of hromada it is in the disambiguated article title.

For the Hrabove examples:

• Hrabove, Serekhovychi rural hromada, Volyn Oblast → Hrabove, Serekhovychi hromada, Volyn Oblast
• Hrabove, Shatsk settlement hromada, Kovel Raion, Volyn Oblast → Hrabove, Shatsk hromada, Volyn Oblast

In this specific case disambiguation by oblast is also necessary due to villages called Hrabove found in Donetsk and Odesa oblasts. Hecseur (talk) 08:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal, seems reasonable. Shwabb1 (talk) 11:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Should we make an RFC to officially decide on some of these changes? HappyWith (talk) 17:48, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Odesa/Odessa

I always thought the double-S version of this city's name came from its Greek version, viz. Οδησσός. At the least (1) I was unaware what the Russian spelling was, (2) I spell it with two Ss following the Greek example, not out of Russophilism, & (3) how Russian spells its proper nouns has less influence on English spelling than might otherwise be suspected: witness variant spellings for the novelist Dostoyevsky, Dostoevsky, Dostoevski, etc. -- llywrch (talk) 18:35, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

It came to English from Russian. Одесса, Odessa, is Russian, not Greek (romanization of the Greek name of the Bulgarian city would be Odēssos or Odissos, I believe). I don’t know whether the Russian spelling has a double S only from its Greek etymology and strict transliteration, or retained it for some other quirk of spelling or pronunciation, but it doesn’t matter. The name of this city in Ukraine originates in Russian: Catherine II and her advisors were only inspired by the Odessos of antiquity, which we now know had been located at Varna, Bulgaria. Like most Russian settlements “founded” after annexation from the Crimean Khanate, the fortress there already had a Crimean Tatar name, Hacıbey, and was given a Greekish name to promote the myths of Russia as the eternal Third Rome and southern Ukraine as terra nullius, and to help overlook the ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars.

Now we use the spelling from native Ukrainian instead of colonial Russian. No one is spelling Ukrainian names some way to show respect for self-determination of the Ancient Greeks.

Those Dosto--- spellings are all examples of transliteration directly from the Russian name Достоевский. The first may be according to the BGN/PCGN system with the -iy ending simplified, the second follows the widely used modified Library of Congress system which conventionally simplifies -iĭ to -y, and the third has the Polish-looking -ski rendering of -ский which is rare. Systematic spellings with simplified endings are most commonly used.[28] Since he was Russian, we don’t romanize his name from Ukrainian or Ancient Greek.  —Michael Z. 20:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Odessa took its name from the Greek colony of Odessos, according to Patricia Herlihy the name was changed to the feminine version at the special request of Empress Catherine, and one of the reasons for choosing the name was to attract Greek merchants. Your hunch that the double S comes from an ancient Greek name is correct as far as it goes. Marcelus (talk) 22:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Official Crimean Tatar names

I've been doing some cleanup on articles for raions of Crimea that have been officially renamed to their indigenous Crimean Tatar names (ex: Lenine Raion, Kirovske Raion, Krasnohvardiiske Raion), and I've run into a bit of a quandary. A lot of these articles have been edited to add their official Ukrainian names as alternative names, spelled according to the native Crimean Tatar orthography (eg: "Yedi Quyu Raion", "Qurman Raion"), but there isn't anything at UAPLACE that specifies this - going by what's here, we would instead call it "Yedy-Kuiu Raion", after the national transliteration of the Ukrainian name. That doesn't really seem right to me, though - it's going through two layers of clunky transliteration for a name that was originally in the Latin alphabet anyway. I don't know what spelling system English-language sources generally use for the alternative names of these mostly very obscure settlements and districts. This also all applies for the settlements themselves. Do any editors here have thoughts on what to do for these? HappyWith (talk) 23:07, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

As these are Ukrainian official place names, the official names are in both the state language, Ukrainian (spelled in Cyrillic), and the Indigenous language, Crimean Tatar (with a Latin Turkic alphabet in the process of being implemented). So both should appear under official and/or native name. Where the Ukrainian Cyrillic appears, it should be romanized as usual in parentheses. Remains to be seen which Latin-alphabet version will become most used in English sources, but there’s a good argument for the Turkic version because it is native to these names.

The linked articles look good at first glance.

Under Russian occupation the Cyrillic alphabet for Crimean Tatar is probably imposed, but the Crimean Tatar names are probably not allowed, so I don’t know what to do with that. Does anyone see a reason to include it too?  —Michael Z. 04:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I think we should use the Crimean Tatar latin when rather than a translit of uki (per WP:DONTUSEENGLISH) unless there is an established english spelling but i doubt there will be many cases of that.

Crimean Tatar names should always be included in latin simply because we're going to have to translit to it anyways when using the cyrillic. I don't really see a good reason to mandate inclusion or exclusion of Tatar cyrillic though—blindlynx 17:20, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Urban-type settlements

Urban-type settlements were abolished recently, being replaced by rural settlements (selyshches). It is to note that the councils of pre-2024 rural settlements are village councils while the councils of former urban-type settlements are settlement councils - meaning that if a rural settlement is a center of a hromada, the hromada could be either rural or settlement. See more info on Talk:Urban-type settlements in Ukraine. Shwabb1 (talk) 13:34, 1 February 2024 (UTC)