Talk:Russian Wikipedia

There are two paragraphs in question (they can be found in article history). Are they notable enough and are they properly sourced to be included in the article? SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 19:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Link: paragraphs themselves. vvv^t 19:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
• I would suggest a more general approach. We should decide if this article is allowed to use any Wikipedia-derived information. If such information is not allowed, then 70% of the content should be removed as Wikipedia citing itself. However, if factually correct information derived from Wikipedia documents is allowed, I do not see any reason for censorship here. It is very notable that in ruwiki users are banned not for violating the rules, but for off-wiki activities (blogs, private life). I would also include examples of "collective letter" writings (or collective stalking) and some other quite notable facts. SA ru (talk) 22:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia should not be used as source for itself. See this for explanation why. All such information (except, may be, links to counters) shall be deleted from the article. Only information noted in newspapers/magazines/etc shall be preserved. Vlsergey (talk) 00:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  That's just an essay where I could find no explanation of your position. Furthermore rules in Russian Wikipedia do not apply in English Wikipedia. Finally it'd be superb if there was some reviewer who is _not_ taking part in Russian Wikipedia. SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 09:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  Of course this is not a rule. This is an essay with detailed explanation and examples what will happens if the position described in essay is not taken into account. By the way, if you insist that reviewer shall not be editor of ru-wiki, you must retreat first. Along with SmartAss (SA ru) preferably. Vlsergey (talk) 09:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  Well, I do insist on it and there's just no need for me and Smartass to retreat (We're not pretending to be a third party reviewer). SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 10:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  SmartAssociation officially is not a ruwiki editor because he/she is banned in ruwiki. Besides, you duplicated his/her suggestions. Once the article is open for editing, I will remove all information that is not confirmed by non-Wikipedia sources. SA ru (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  It's weird to talk about yourself in 3-rd face, you know? Vlsergey (talk) 16:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  I presume that by this comment you intend to state that you are the smartass here, not someone else. Well, you are entitled to think whatever you want. But please stick to the discussion topic. SA ru (talk) 21:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

  I think that the fact that one of editors of ru-wiki article (you = SA ru = smartass = SmartAssociation = smartass2008 = whatever) is blocked in ru-wiki is the fact that shall be noted in case this discussion is going to be on RfC. Vlsergey (talk) 21:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

  First of all, I was not even involved in that war of edits (check the edit history first, then attack). Second, I already explained to ru:user:Alex Smotrov that ad hominem arguments^[1] are not such a good idea, and the drama creators like you should not be so self-confident because the drama may turn a different way from the way they planned. So, you want to mention on RfC that I was banned in ruwiki? OK. May be we should also mention that ru:user:Vlsergey did not get a sysop position because some of the users accused him of antisemitism? For your information, I do not have any particular interest in this article, and I am not even going to insert any new information. What I might do is only remove ALL information sourced by Wikipedia itself. SA ru (talk) 22:41, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

• To quote WP:WEIGHT: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." The fact that users can be blocked for activities external to Wikipedia might perhaps be significant enough to give it a couple of lines. However, the story of the sysop who became the live-in girlfriend of an infamous vandal and sock puppeteer has, IMHO, no encyclopedic significance whatsoever; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. Tetromino (talk) 18:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Now, please imagine this: user SkyBon decides to read the archives of English ArbCom, picks some cases that he finds interesting and then "impoves" English Wikipedia article by adding his own interpretation of each case. Let me ask you: would you need RFC to discuss that? It's obvious that all these guys have is their own opinion which they try to push into the article as a way to continue their trolling started in Russian Wikipedia. Why are we even discussing this in the first place? — AlexSm 19:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Please do not make personal attacks and do not accuse people in trolling. (Are you trying to say that you yourself are a great contributor to the articles content as opposed to the ones whom you accuse in trolling? If you insist we can compare the contributions.) Speaking of opinions, I do not see any opinions in the two paragraphs in question:

Paragraph1: The arbitration committee has on several occasions blocked users for behavior outside Wikipedia, for example, for critical blog comments about other Wikipedia users. In addition, an administator of the Russian Wikipedia was desysoped for being a domestic partner of vandal and for splashing one of the administrators with a glass of water at one of the Wikimeetings. Such blocks have proven to be quite controversial, and as a result, a major discussion to establish whether a user can be blocked for external behavior took place in February 2010.

Paragraph2: Some actions of the administrators have raised concerns in the community like deleting an article of indefinitely blocked user in order to rewrite it from scratch so as not to attribute him despite the broad consensus about the positive contributions by the indefinitely blocked.

I do not see any opinions here, just mere facts. Are you trying to say that any of these statements are incorrect (besides a slight error in the sequence of events in the story of ru:user:Lvova's indefinite ban)? SA ru (talk) 21:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Both statements are false, and you know it very well. But even if they weren't, they are not notable and there are no external reliable sources => that's it, they do not belong in the article. This discussion is pointless unless you provide the sources. P.S. You were permabanned for trolling in ruwiki by 10+ admins and then by ArbCom, so this is indeed a fact, however, I'm not trying to insert this into any article, unlike you. — AlexSm 21:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that there are no external sources for this information. However, you use this argumentation only to remove very specific facts from this article and somehow do not notice that 70% of the article is based on quoting Wikipedia (just look at the reference list). The two facts are true and I know that. If you think they are not true tell exactly what is not true. Regarding my record, I simply could not get indefinitely banned in ruwiki for trolling because at the time of the ban I had been banned for several months and did not edit ruwiki. I was banned for making jokes of you guys at external sites completely unrelated with Wikipedia. Additionally, the so-called arbiters falsely attributed to me some ruwiki accounts which neither I nor any of the people who might have access to my computer have anything to do with. This is a falsification, provocation and harassment. I repeated this multiple times. If they want to argue with me, the first thing to do is to disclose to me the results of their checks. Let me see these IPs, and then we will talk. Curiously, one of the arbiters (ru:user:Андрей Романенко) is a real sockpuppet, which makes the situation even funnier. In any way, it looks like we are coming to a consensus that all information sourced only by Wikipedia should be removed from the article. Do you agree with that? SA ru (talk) 22:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Your excuses and futher made-up allegations have nothing to do with the article, so please just stop with the drama. Since we came to the same conclusion that those two paragraphs do not belong in the article, this discussion is over. If you want to discuss other parts of the article, please start a separate talk section. — AlexSm 23:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

First you want to create a drama by making ad hominem arguments^[1], but then, when the drama does not go exactly the way you wanted it to go, you want to stop. OK, let's stop. This discussion is not finished, though. Other people may want to express their opinion. And we do not agree that only these two paragraphs should go. We only agree that all statements without the sources should be deleted. And I am not starting a new section on that because it is quite obvious. SA ru (talk) 23:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

If you read the discussion above, my arguments were notability and sources; my opinion of your real intentions could not and simply never been an "argument" here. — AlexSm 05:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If your opinion of my real intentions simply never has been an argument here, why did you bring this topic? Here is my contribution to the article. Note that unlike you I was not involved in a war of edits, but simply suggested a topic for discussion. I do not see any problem in my behavior, do you? The next time you want to speak of intentions, please be more specific and stick to a concrete topic. SA ru (talk) 12:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

1. [1]

   Very long and completely unrelated post was moved to User talk:SA ru#Smear attempt. -- AlexSm

I ask you again you not to post stuff completely unrelated to this discussion. This is not a place fot your propaganda against Russian Wikipedia and not a place to try to get you unbanned. — AlexSm 23:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Noted. I deleted you insertion in my talk page because it does not belong there. SA ru (talk) 00:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If somebody uninvolved still feels that it's necessary to keep this can of worms open, I propose the following edit:

The arbitration committee has on several occasions blocked users for behavior outside Wikipedia such as posting abusive comments about sysops on other sites^[1]. Such blocks have proven to be quite controversial, and as a result, a major discussion to establish whether a user can be blocked for external behavior took place in February 2010.^[2].--Victoria (talk) 23:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

These comments were not necessarily abusive. SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 23:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I oppose. Still no proof that those facts are notable. vvv^t 10:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is my proposal: Do not include paras in question. Remove all wiki-sourced statements (4 out of 6 sources). SkyBon^{Talk/Contributions} 16:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Bingo. --→James Kidd (contr/talk/email) 10:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I have noted recent deletion of the information from the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_Wikipedia&action=historysubmit&diff=391233891&oldid=391207687).

• Hermitage Capital corruption scandal. Russian Wikipedia bans links to – an anticorruption site launched by friends and relatives of late Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Moscow prison after he was denied medical help on the orders of corrupted police officials.

I think this information is important. Information on the Magnitsky case is censored heavily in Russian mass media. I see banning of the information site from Russian Wiki as another move of the corrupted Russian police and FSB officials. IMHO this case of censorship is important feature of Russian Wikipedia and as such should be present in the article. Stop Censorship (talk) 13:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Right now it is your original research since you do not rely your claim on any reliable secondary source. It also fails to comply with WP:NPOV, since I hardly believe it is neutral to call putting the site into the spam blacklist "censorship". vvv^t 15:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, vvv.

I may agree with you as for my statement in the discussion above (Magnitsky case, etc.). But the fact that the site www.russian-untouchables.com dedicated to Sergei Magnitsky has been banned in Russian Wiki is a self obvious one. It can be checked directly and as such do not need references. May I ask why you keep deleting this fact from the article? Stop Censorship (talk) 07:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I keep deleting it because it violates Wikipedia policies, i.e. WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:OR. vvv^t 17:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. Let us go through these points:

• WP:NPOV - ru.wiki bans information site directly related to an important and much discussed international topic. Ru.Wiki is unique in this sense, i.g. the site in question is cited freely in en.wiki and many other projects. That is why this fact should be mentioned in the article as per NPOV rule. Stop Censorship (talk) 14:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• WP:V - I can partly agree. The fact can be verified easily by anyone, but it takes additional actions namely trying to cite www.russian-untouchables.com in ru.wiki. To overcome this objection I can provide the ban-message in the paragraph. Will it suit you?
• WP:OR - taking in aaccount your objections I have striped the paragraphe of all comnclusions such as mentioning censorship, etc and have retained the bare facts only.

In lieu of conclusion: Considering that Wikipedia is based on freedom of information I see banning of an information site from a language project as an important feature of the latter. If you desagree I propose to apply for a Third Opinion as per rules of resolving disputes. Stop Censorship (talk) 15:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

As of March 1th. 2011, it has surpassed Portuguese and Dutch Wikipedias. It must be written in this article--Noder4 (talk) 17:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Already mentioned since February 25th. --illythr (talk) 19:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Lui (2013-05-11), Why Wikipedia's Millionth Russian Page Is Worth Celebrating, archived from the original on 2013-05-15, retrieved 2013-05-15--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 09:59, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

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An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Википедию. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 22:13, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

1) Putin mistakenly talked "alternative" — Western press wrote. Putin's secretary Peskov the next day disproved — Western press didn't write. 2) Russian press mistakenly said "abandoned" — Western press wrote. Russian ministry the next day disproved — Western press didn't write. RESULT: English Wikipedia collects 2 mistakes. When I try to fix it — Philip Cross returns the mistakes on his good faith. --ssr (talk) 19:51, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

You need a reliable source to say The Guardian and The Times made a mistake. You did not provide one. Philip Cross (talk) 19:56, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Not them, but their Russian sources. Them did not disprove the next day. All available sources are in Russian—that's what I'm talking about. E. g. here is TASS on 2nd case: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/8464579 The 1st case is aged, needs more search. --ssr (talk) 20:05, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, here is the 1st case from RIA Novosti: https://ria.ru/20191108/1560715571.html why don't you remove the mistakes you entered in Wikipedia twice? --ssr (talk) 03:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Philip Cross: I added such a source. I ask you to smooth the expressions, my English is not native.·Carn·!? 11:53, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

As for now, phrase "Vladimir Putin called for a government-run alternative to Wikipedia" is a falsehood, and all of the paragraph has nothing to do with title "Troubles with the government of Russian Wikipedia". All of these were/are blatantly failed journalism and Wikipedia at this point is spreading that (intended to be the opposite). --ssr (talk) 12:05, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

This information about "edit warring" in the Russian Wikipedia will be useful? This information is available in ruwiki. This "edits warring" is due to disagreements over the different beliefs of the participants. By beliefs in religion, politics, history, sexual orientation, and so on. From what the participants are the constant requests to administrators, and administrators are constantly putting the protection on the article. For example, participants have disagreements during armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space, and Wikipedia users are representatives of warring nations (Armenians and Azerbaijanis during conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh are a vivid example). AntonBanderos (talk) 15:45, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

There is nothing special about edit-warring in the Russian Wikipedia which would not apply to other projects (including the English Wikipedia).--Ymblanter (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Also, a year ago, there was a trial about 12 editors. where one person with 12 own accounts made offensive edits in articles about the opposition, but made a positive statement in articles about russian officials. After that, 12 accounts were blocked. And this case was published in some Russian media, for example in Lenta.ru. AntonBanderos (talk) 16:08, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Contents describes 900,000 pages, now 1,800,000.Xx236 (talk) 09:04, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/01/1090279187/russia-wikipedia-fine?t=1649322090690 Xx236 (talk) 09:03, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Interesting to find a report of the Russian Army using Wikipedia to learn how to use their weapons. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:25, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there any reason to believe that the judgement has any possibility of being enforced? Has the Foundation responded in any way? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

No, I do not think they are going to pay, which makes perfect sense to me. Ymblanter (talk) 16:21, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I thought not, but it would be good to add a (cited) statement to that effect. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost has coverage of a new fork of ruwiki here. So far, I can't see any coverage of it on WP:RS, but when they do, this should be covered in a "forks" subsection in this article, along with the existing mention of Runiversalis. — The Anome (talk) 10:40, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

There is quite some coverage in reliable sources, though, as far as I see, exclusively in Russian. However, I am too involved with the topic, someone else must write the story. Ymblanter (talk) 11:23, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia pages are patrolled.

Википедия:Проверка статей/Пояснение для читателей Википедия:Проверка статей/Пояснение для читателей Wisdood (talk) 14:43, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Are they gonna make the logo darker if they reached 3 million articles? 95.24.5.7 (talk) 10:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ymblanter WP:RUS is not a Wikipedia policy, it is an essay. That has no weight on anything. Especially not when there are countless English Wikipedia articles each of varying Romanization systems for Russian topics. ja is the romanization given by Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic and has been used for decades, and /ja/ is more correct as it matches the IPA pronunciation of the letter.

For transliterating «я», should "ja" be used or "ya"? (This could also be extended to other Cyrillic letters (ш as š, etc.) 2605:8D80:6C21:7EF8:E15E:B72C:BEBC:AE40 (talk) 21:09, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion, but you do not cite any policy either.Generally, we are using WP:RUS on Wikipedia. Ymblanter (talk) 21:10, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't need to cite a policy to "overrule" an essay that has no official standing. Furthermore, a closer analysis of the contents of the essay say nothing about providing transliterations, only about the general use names such as personal names and names of cities, being referred to the n an English context throughout the page. Generally, we are using WP:RUS on Wikipedia. according to whom? Yourself? 2605:8D80:6C21:7EF8:E15E:B72C:BEBC:AE40 (talk) 21:15, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I have a bit of experience on this project, so, indeed, according to myself. You can check this if you want. Ymblanter (talk) 08:38, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Which by the way means that we have a de facto consensus, which you are trying to evade without any good arguments. Ymblanter (talk) 08:39, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, they have cited Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic, which looks to me like a "good argument". Though maybe it would be more productive to make that argument at Wikipedia talk:RUS because you (plural) are not going to resolve it here and in the meantime WP:status quo applies. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

This concerns dozens of thousands of articles, at the very least it should be an RfC very broadly publicized. Ymblanter (talk) 11:26, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Note that the IP continued their disruptive activity like if this discussion does not exist. Ymblanter (talk) 18:03, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Can you give a single instance of "disruptive activity" besides me changing the article to using a consistent romanization in the article which previously had three different romanizations? And curiously ignore the other changes I made to the page (merging the Finnish governorates into the list and adding the Galician governorates from World War I)? You reverted an edit merely because you disagreed with one aspect, you are actively withholding information from the article over cosmetic disputes. Do you want to talk about "disruptive activity"? How about we talk about your threat "blocks would [sic] be coming" as if anything I did on that page is block worthy? It doesn't even cross the three-revert edit war measure. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, you continued to make changes which were objected to, and instead of stopping resorted to edit-warring. This is blockable here. Ymblanter (talk) 19:01, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page — whether involving the same or different material — within a 24-hour period. A series of consecutive edits that undoes or manually reverses other editors' actions — whether in whole or in part — counts as a single revert. Violations of this rule often attract blocks of at least 24 hours. Fourth reverts just outside the 24-hour period will usually also be considered edit warring, especially if repeated or combined with other edit-warring behavior. See below for exemptions. (WP:3RR) You further refused to address the additional content or even hold dialogue on it. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 19:04, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Can we agree to hold dialogue going forward? That's the point of the RfC, to solicit input from the wider community and come to an agreement regarding how Cyrillic should be transliterated. — 🪫Volatile ^{📲T | ⌨️C} 19:10, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

That's fair. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 19:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Note that the RfC template was added to this discussion today and not on 12 september. Ymblanter (talk) 19:33, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

In addition, I strong oppose using š in any context. Absolutely senseless. Ymblanter (talk) 19:34, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

How is that relevant to anything exactly? Do you think you're somehow suggesting that the RfC is less legitimate because it was placed a few weeks after the section was first created? 24.50.56.74 (talk) 19:36, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

First, you changed the topic of the discussion. Second, you pretended like the discussion from the very beginning was in the framework of the RfC whereas it was not.Generally, amending own statements after they have been replied to is a very poor practice. Ymblanter (talk) 20:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I did not make any dishonest amendment, what you alleged would apply if I suddenly changed the topic of the RfC to something entirely different or even irrelevant to make all the "support/oppose" responses invalid. I furthermore did not "pretend" anything either nor is there some nebulous ulterior motive behind my actions. Let's keep the bad faith accusations out of here. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 20:26, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Citing a comically outdated transliteration system is less productive than citing an essay—blindlynx 21:07, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

"ya" should be used. Matching IPA doesn't mean anything, in English "ja" is pronounced /dʒɑ/ and the transliteration is for English speakers. REAL_MOUSE_IRL talk 19:23, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree with @REAL MOUSE IRL. "Ja" will cause native English speakers to mispronounce the word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

If the proposal is to adopt the Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic (which is just one system of romanization and is not *the* scientific transliteration of Cyrillic) then I strongly oppose. It's almost never used by modern English-language sources and is not natural for English speakers, being created in Germany.

If the proposal is to adopt some other system in place of WP:RUS, I'm not against it, but I'd like to see what exactly is proposed and the analysis of costs and benefits. Such a move would consume a lot of editors' time and attention and the benefits are not obvious. Alaexis_¿question? 10:50, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not against WP:RUS or continuing to use BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian (considering this is an English Wikipedia after all) - but as it stands WP:RUS is apparently not an official guideline/policy, and I'm not particularly sure if it's relevant enough to be elevated to an official guideline. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 14:14, 6 October 2025 (UTC)