User talk:WPK~enwiki

Greece

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October 2008

Teboil

when editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field, especially for big edits or when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Please do no mark substantial changes as minor edit. Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette, especially if the change involves the deletion of some text. Thank you. Beagel (talk) 19:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not the place for you to publish your original ideas for flags as you did at Visional flags of Britain. Who else but you has proposed this flag design? — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 01:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated Mari Karsikas, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mari Karsikas. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 02:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a vote going on about the name of the Parliament of Ukraine. Please wait the result of that vote firts for making mass pagemoves. Wikipedia is a community project so other people opinions are important to. For now I'll redirect all your pagemoves and other changes until there is a consensus on how we'll name the parliament on this wikipedia. — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 22:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, WPK! Thank you for trying to help, but unfortunately all of the articles you moved had to be moved back. The reason for that is WP:RUS, a community-established guideline that guides how the names of places in Russia (among other things) are to be romanized. Particularly applicable is the "Places" section of that guideline and its item #7 (names of places located in Russia must be romanized from Russian). In case you don't understand why that is, there are actually pretty good reasons behind it. See, for example, Talk:Lakhdenpokhya for one of the previous discussions around this issue.

Me and Darwinek had already fixed things the way they are supposed to be. But don't worry—I, for one, found plenty of little things to fix while moving the articles back, so something good actually came out of this experience :) In future, however, please consider asking around when you find yourself in a situation where you believe mass moves/changes are necessary. Wikipedia's been around for nine years now, and when something is done a certain way, it means there's usually a pretty good reason why, even if it's not immediately obvious. Asking around usually brings those reasons to light. Being bold is a laudable thing, but mass moves are usually not so much "bold" as they are "reckless", and often mean someone ends up doing a lot of boring cleanup afterwards.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask me (or Darwinek). Cheers and happy editing!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:14, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

Dear WPK, we understand just fine. What I was trying to tell you (and perhaps not very clearly) is that this precise issue has already been discussed in the past, and all the points you raise here have already been raised. More than once, as a matter of fact. Here are the main points out of those discussions:

• The fact that the places have Finnish names is irrelevant, because the places are located in Russia and the article about those places are written in the English Wikipedia. These same places probably also have Swedish, French, and Esperanto names—using those is just as unacceptable in the English wiki.
• English Wikipedia's policy is to use English names, whenever it is possible. Since these places do not have clearly established English names, other guidelines are to be used.
• For Russian localities, such a guideline is WP:RUS, which prescribes using a BGN/PCGN-based romanization, as that romanization system is what most texts written in English use.
• Finnish names are, of course, to be mentioned as historical, but the articles themselves are to be placed under the titles which are used in English. Imposing the use of Finnish names of Russian places in Karelia in the English Wikipedia simply makes no sense. Let me emphasize this once more, because it's that important—this is not the Finnish Wikipedia, this is the English Wikipedia. For places in Russia which have no conventional English names, their romanized Russian names are used (even if those names are just a bastardization of the names in Finnish/Karelian). For places in Finland which have no conventional English names, their Finnish names are used. For places in Congo that have no conventional English names, their French names are used... and so on and so forth.
• Please note that no major English-language atlases would use Finnish names, and even the academic works would only use them in the context of historical events (i.e., when the places in question were a part of Finland).
• Articles such as Battle of Tolvajärvi should not, of course, be renamed, as the names they used are correct in the historical context. This is pretty much the same situation as with the Gdańsk/Danzig case (note that the main article is located at Gdańsk, while there are still plenty of articles dealing with history that use "Danzig").

I hope this answers your questions. If not, I'll be happy to continue this discussion further. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:22, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

Umm, no, I can't admit that. "Helsinki" is an established name of the city, that's why it's used (not to mention that since it's in Finland, it makes no sense whatsoever to romanize it from Russian). Those Finnish cities that don't have established names are located in the English wiki under their Finnish names, because the alphabet is (more or less) the same and there is no need for romanization. "Лахденпохья" does not have an established English name either, and neither do a great number of other places in Russia, which is why the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN) developed a romanization system that allows to produce a standard English name from any Russian name. WP:RUS is based on just that system, as it is what the English speakers expect. In other words, our readers do not expect to see Finnish names for Russian places because some of those places happened to have Finnish names in the past; they expect to see the romanization of the official Russian name, and if that official name happens to be based on Finnish, that doesn't matter one bit.

As a side note, check out this discussion. In the Update section, I outlined the practices of high-quality English-language atlases. You will see that not a single one uses Finnish names; they all use romanization. Wikipedia's practices are supposed to mirror real-life usage, and that's exactly what WP:RUS is documenting.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 01:37, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

It's not my point; it's what the guidelines say (I do agree, however). All in all, the point is correct. In an article that mentions the place before 1940, you would use the (piped or redirected) "Lahdenpohja" spelling, and in an article that mentions this place after 1940, you would use "Lakhdenpokhya". The article itself is to be located at "Lakhdenpokhya" because it's a place in Russia. Mind you, this is not all about Russia; the practice works the other way, too. We are not using Russian romanizations of names of places in Finland just because Finland once used to be a part of Russia. Alternatively, in the pre-1990s English texts the names of the places in Ukraine were romanized from Russian. Presently all those names (except the ones that have well-established names in English, such as Kiev or Odessa, but those are not "romanizations" per se; they are "conventional names") are romanized not from Russian but from Ukrainian. This is a logical solution that makes sense, is easy to apply, and mirrors real-life usage. Your solution (to use Finnish names for some of the places in Russia) is neither logical, nor easy to apply, nor used by the majority of the sources out there; hence it's not something Wikipedia would use.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:12, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

When the Russian, former Soviet Karelia was the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, i.e. 1940-1956, the official languages were Russian and Finnish. Does that mean, that Jänisjärvi, Lahdenpohja, Helylä etc. changes "Yanisyarvi", "Lakhdenpokhya", "Khelyulya" at one night 1956 - in English?
However, there are also some former Finnish places in Leningrad region and Murmansk region, which names were not been changed 1948: Tammisuo/Таммисуо, Leipäsuo/Лейпясуо, Salmijärvi/Сальмиярви etc. Also, there are places at least in Murmansk region, which have not belonged to Finland, but have Finnish names, like i.a. Niluttijärvi/Нилуттиярви and Yrhämäjärvi/Юрхямяярви.
--WPK (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You know, I don't know how else to convey this simple fact to you—for the purpose of naming of our articles, local languages do not matter. What matters is the practices used in the literature written in the English language. If a place has an established name in English (Moscow, Kiev, Helsinki...), that's the name which is used. If a place does not have an established name in English, then practices developed to deal with such situations are used. For minor place names in Russia, 99.9% of English-language sources would use a romanization of the official name in Russian (and every place in Russia has an official name in Russian, one that's documented and verifiable). That's a fact which is really easy to test—just go to any library carrying books in English. English Wikipedia uses the practices that the rest of the English-speaking world uses. The English-speaking world does not use Finnish place names to refer to places in Russia, and neither does Wikipedia. What else can be unclear here?

Regarding your question ([d]oes that mean, that Jänisjärvi... changes "Yanisyarvi"... at one night 1956 - in English?), the answer is "no". It takes a while for the names to proliferate into English usage; I can't tell you how long it took in that case, but I'm pretty sure it was not overnight. Once the change has occurred, however, the "new" spellings would be used in all contexts after 1956. In addition, since Wikipedia did not exist in 1956, the question is wholly moot. We are discussing how the articles should be titled here in Wikipedia, remember? While the question of how the use of names changed in English over time is very interesting on its own, our naming guidelines deal with the existing situation, not with how that situation developed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:09, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

The articles should be titled same way in Wikipedia - and in other sites, too.

Concerning to the romanization, Михаил Горбачёв transliterates to English Mikhail Gorbachev, to German Michail Gorbatschow and in Finnish Mihail Gorbatšov; Борис Ельцин​ to E. Boris Yeltsin, to G. Boris Jelzin, to F. Boris Jeltsin; Дмитрий Медведев to E. Dmitry Medvedev, to G. Dmitri Medwedew, to F. Dmitri Medvedev and so on.

How we will act e.g. with the name Lauri Letonmäki/Лаури Летонмяки? He was first Finnish, but after Finnish Civil War (1918) he became an inhabitant and a citizen of Russia and Soviet Union. Would the name be "Lauri Letonmyaki" - in English?

--WPK (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are we done discussing the place names now? If so, great.

As for the people names, if you took time to read WP:RUS, you saw that "People" is a separate sub-section, did you not? Anyway, the set of rules there might look different at the first glance, but the underlying principle is exactly the same—for any Russian person, we first find out whether there is a spelling of his/her name that is widely used in English (again, this is the English Wikipedia, remember?). For Горбачёв, such spelling is "Gorbachev", for Ельцин it is "Yeltsin", for Медведев it is "Medvedev", and so on and so forth. This isn't romanization on our part, it's simply a choice of a spelling that is predominantly used in English. When no clearly predominant spelling exists, we do other checks, like verifying whether there was a spelling under which the person himself/herself preferred to be known in English, or whether there was an English spelling predominantly used in the academic works dealing with the field in which the person in question specialized. Only when everything else fails we resort to straight-out romanization. Such checks, of course, work best when done by editors familiar with the person and/or his/her work, and when in doubt, romanization can be used as an interim measure.

Since I am not familiar with Lauri Letonmäki (I never heard of this person before today), I am hardly the best person to give advice about which spelling works best for him. A quick google books check shows, however, that a good number of English-language books exists that uses the Finnish spelling ("Lauri Letonmäki") and very very few that use the Russian romanization ("Letonmyaki"). A prudent decision in this case would be to go with the former.

The lesson learned in this example is simple—people are treated differently from place names (or organization names, for that matter). Nobody keeps a registry of Finnish people so the spellings of their names could be changed in English if they switch allegiances; while places, on the other hand, are all recorded somewhere (maps, atlases, registries, documents, etc.), and if their international jurisdiction changes, so does often their "standard name" in English—this is practiced by both BGN and PCGN, for example. We simply follow what others do.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:56, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

You wrote: A quick google books check shows, however, that a good number of English-language books exists that uses the Finnish spelling ("Lauri Letonmäki") and very very few that use the Russian romanization ("Letonmyaki"). A prudent decision in this case would be to go with the former. Why this is not possible also in Russian places, which have Finnish names?

--WPK (talk) 22:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because places are not people. As I also said above, there are no registries of people supported just for the sake of having a "standard English name" for every person in the world. There are, however, registries of places supported for different purposes, including one of having a "standard English name". BGN/PCGN established practices that allow having a standard for any place in the world; those practices are widely accepted and used, hence Wikipedia uses them as well. There are no such practices for human beings (or even if there are, they are not widely accepted and used), hence Wikipedia has to consider each case individually, using a set of rules that produces the best results. Does that answer your question?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 23:05, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

That one needs to be moved (although not to "Suomenvedenpokhya").—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 02:07, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

On the first point, "Helylä", "Höyhenjärvi", "Jänisjärvi", etc. are not "already romanized names". These are the names in a different language (namely, Finnish). Romanization is not taking a name written in a language using a non-Latin-based alphabet and replacing it with a name taken from a random language that does use a Latin-based alphabet; it is a system of standardization that uses established and clearly defined methods. The method Wikipedia uses is based on BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian. But I already explained it multiple times above; we are starting to go in circles.

The naming of the Tolyatti article in the English Wikipedia is explained in WP:RUS. I have nothing to add to what WP:RUS already says, except that what the Russian place is called in other languages (Italian, Czech, German, French...) has no influence whatsoever on what that Russian place is called in English.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:52, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

I think I see now where we are not connecting. Yes, the Finnish names of those places did not change. The names Soviets used to refer to those places did not change either (except, obviously, for those which were explicitly renamed). What did change is the territory on which those places are located. Which brings me back to my original point—while places in Finland are usually rendered in English by their Finnish names, places in Russia are romanized from Russian (even if that Russian happens to be a modification of a name in Finnish). In short: before the territorial changes Finnish names were used in English. After, romanized Russian names were used in English. Can't be any simpler than that. If you don't like it, I suggest you contact BGN/PCGN and petition them to change their backward and "incorrect" practices.

Furthermore, your statement that any of these places carrying Finnish names and situating in Russia is not explained in WP:RUS is incorrect. Item 7 under "Places" explicitly states that [n]ames of places located in Russia must be romanized from Russian. And it means all places in Russia, not just those that "carry Finnish names". And what does "carrying Finnish names" even mean? Every single place in Russia would, of course, have a name in Finnish (I trust they have already invented maps and atlases in Finland, and I doubt they use Cyrillics for all places which never were a part of Finland). Those names are used in Finnish Wikipedia, for example. A Swahili Wikipedia would refer to those same places by their Swahili names. And our English Wikipedia refers to them by the names which have been standardized using the practices common in the English-speaking world (i.e., conventional names and BGN/PCGN romanization).

You very last statement (because e.g. the Finnish name järvi/ярви - means lake - is written to järvi in English, in spite of it situates in Finland or in Russia) is also wrong. Names of the Russian lakes are romanized from the official names in Russian (meaning you'll get "yarvi") (per BGN/PCGN & WP:RUS—check any major English-language map or atlas of Russia). Names of the Finnish lakes would be given in Finnish ("järvi"). Names of the lakes located on the border likely need to be investigated individually (and in such cases "järvi" would probably be more common).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:05, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere in the English Wikipedia does it say that the names of those places were "changed". WP:RUS simply guides what the title of the article should be, is all. You are trying to read something into the guidelines which is not even there (and is not supposed to be).

You also point out that "many places in Russia have Finnish names, which is used also in the Russian language". I said it before, and I will say it one more time—from the point of view of this English Wikipedia this fact is irrelevant. All BGN/PCGN does is taking the official Russian name of a place (the one in Cyrillics!), romanizing it using industry standards, and that's that. No other languages besides English and Russian ever come into this picture. Wikipedia didn't invent this approach; it's been in use forever.

Good catch with Peterhof, though. Peterhof, until recently, was an article dealing predominantly with the palaces; and the palace complex is predominantly referred to in English as "Peterhof" (that would be its "conventinal name" under WP:RUS). The palaces information, however, has been split out just a few days ago, and the article about the city now needs to be moved (yes, to "Petergof"). I'll do that.

"Kronstadt" is a case similar to Tolyatti, and the article needs to be moved as well. Thanks for catching those two; I'll move them later today. All in all, what you found is not the illogical part of the romanization guidelines, but rather an inconsistency in their application.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:21, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

How about we stay focused at the issue at hand (naming of the articles) then; instead of discussing unrelated "it would be" topics?

As for the "oddness" of using "Lahdenpohja" prior to 1940 and "Lakhdenpokhya" after 1940, it's in the eye of the beholder. What seems "odd" to you looks perfectly OK to a native English speaker, and native English speakers are the primary audience of the English Wikipedia. Besides, what exactly do you want me to do? I did not come up with the practice; I merely follow our guidelines (WP:RUS), which, in turn, merely follow real-life standards. I am not even employed by either BGN or PCGN, nor was I even born when the standard was established! If you don't like these standards, please contact the agencies that developed them and let them know; I don't know what else to recommend to you. Wikipedia is most certainly not going to abandon a guideline firmly rooted in real-life practice to replace it with something "better" you personally came up with. If we did that, we'd be "improving" the guidelines every time someone new show up with complaints.

For my part, I, to the best of my ability, tried to explain you why these standards make perfect sense. Wikipedia is not in business of inventing better practices; we merely identify what is being used out there and borrow it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:35, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

Dear WPK, while Wikipedia is, of course, for everybody and not just the Anglophones, the English Wikipedia targets the Anglophones first and foremost, and only then everyone else. Editors are encouraged to use English or adhere to the standards used in the English-speaking countries.

Regarding your second point, no one in their right mind would deny that the names of some places in Russia were derived from languages other than Russian. There are names of Finnish, German, Ukrainian, Tatar, Buryat origin, as well as names which originated from numerous other local languages. What I am trying to explain here is that while the origins of those names vary greatly, every single place in Russia does nevertheless have a Russian name (which is officially recorded somewhere, is written in Cyrillic, and is verifiable). From the romanization point of view, only that Russian name matters; the origins of that name do not. No one would deny you the right to add to, say, the Lakhdenpokhya article, a statement that the Russian name of a place is simply a cyrillization of the name in Finnish, because that's exactly what it is; indeed, if such a statement is referenced, it would make a welcome addition.

Any given article can be located only at one title, and all WP:RUS does is providing guidance as to what that title should be for a certain (and well-defined) subset of our articles. It does not prohibit using alternative names in that article or in the articles that link to it, and it is most certainly not a political decision. Rather, it is a matter of convenience, standardization, and compliance with real-life practices.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:02, February 3, 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the question. "Königsberg" is the German name of the city, "Кёнигсберг" is the Russian name of the city (which, of course, is simply a cyrillization of the German name) and the official (Russian) name of the city in 1945–1946, "Kyonigsberg" is the romanization of the Russian name per WP:RUS. As per our guidelines, we (=editors of the English Wikipedia) should refer to the city as "Königsberg" in the pre-1945 timeframe, as "Kyonigsberg" in the 1945–1946 timeframe, and as "Kaliningrad" in the post-1946 timeframe. Was that your question?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 11, 2010; 21:33 (UTC)

You know, you are asking exactly the same questions as in our previous discussion, only about a different city...

With Kaliningrad, we are not concerned what the city was called by the Germans/Russian/English speakers in 1946; we are only concerned with how we should refer to the city during its various time periods here, in the English Wikipedia, now. This is not about the "historical truth", this is only about consistency and standardization. There is no need to "separate the German name Königsberg" from the name "in Cyrillic Russian" because it is irrelevant to the problem at hand (the problem being consistency and standardization). In case you are still curious, no, there is no difference between Cyrillized German name and the official Russian name of the city in 1945–1946. It'd be strange if there were...

As for the "romanization not working everywhere", you kind of got a point there. However, it not so much a matter of "doesn't work" as it is of "not applied correctly". There are plenty of guidelines in Wikipedia, but it would be foolish to expect that every single article complies with every single guideline we came up with. In some cases, exceptions are warranted. In others, someone made a mistake. In others yet, someone might have come from somewhere where the guidelines are different and was not aware that ours are not the same. Possibilities to go wrong are endless. Whenever you see an article that goes against a guideline, the easiest way out is to either fix the article yourself or, if you are not sure, ask about the difference. More often than not the difference is going to be because someone made a mistake.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 15, 2010; 13:33 (UTC)

Sorry, WPK, I am at times having great trouble understanding what it is you want. As for my "as per our guidelines..." statement, I see no mistake—we should be referring to the city the way I described. "Should", however, does not always translate to "always do so" in practice, which is something that needs to be corrected, not picked on. Furthermore, I once again repeat—what the city was called in 1946 is not an issue here. What we should be calling it in the English Wikipedia, now, as applied to different time periods is.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 15, 2010; 14:30 (UTC)

I have moved the article back per reasons previously explained and per our standing guidelines. If you disagree with those reasons, please open a move request. Thank you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 16, 2010; 12:11 (UTC)

Oh no, the Russian transliteration "Petergof" means the Dutch/German name Peterhof. The same with the town and palace. --WPK (talk) 14:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First, it's not "Russian transliteration"; it's a romanization (the subtle difference is quite important here). Second, it does not mean "Peterhof"; it's merely a different representation of the same name. Third, what a proper name means is of no consequences to our practices. Meanings are supposed to be conveyed in the article body, not pushed by force into the titles.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 16, 2010; 14:48 (UTC)

Of course the German word hof is transliterated гоф, "gof" in Russian. When the name Peterhof Palace exists, then also the town has name Peterhof. --WPK (talk) 16:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We do not transliterate "the German word" here; we romanize the Russian name. Do you understand the difference? "Peterhof Palace" is the title we use per WP:UE; whilst "Petergof" is the title we use per WP:RUS, because WP:UE's provisions are not sufficiently met and the buck is passed down the romanization route.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 16, 2010; 17:02 (UTC)

You don't understand, best Yozhiki. Peterhof is a German name and its transliteration in Russian is Петергоф, "Petergof". Instead, e.g. Петродвор is a Russian name and its romanization in English is Petrodvor. --WPK (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I understand perfectly. It is you who is confusing what our guidelines say with the practices you prefer. This is not to say that your preferences are incorrect, this is only to say that you are not grasping the fact that our standards are built differently.

"Peterhof" is indeed a German (Dutch?) word. It is Cyrillized as "Петергоф". "Петергоф" is also the official name of the town in Russian. When romanized, "Петергоф" becomes "Petergof". As per our guidelines, it is the romanized version which is used to refer to the inhabited localities in Russia, not the word in another language from which the name is derived. I can't explain it any simpler than this.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 16, 2010; 20:40 (UTC)

What on earth? The town (and palace) name is German/Dutch word and, of course, is written by Latin alphabet Peterhof, which is Cyrillized as Петергоф ("Petergof"). (You know, that h ao. in Dutch, English, German and Swedish, not in Finnish, is Cyrillized as г ("g").) Then, when the name is Latinized back, it is naturally Peterhof, not "Petergof". Remember the names eg. Königsberg > Кёнигсберг ("Kyonigsberg") > Königsberg and Lahdenpohja > Лахденпохья ("Lakhdenpokhya") > Lahdenpohja, too. --WPK (talk) 23:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The variant one gets after applying romanization rules to a Russian word depends solely on the system of romanization one uses. The one we use (along with the US and UK governments I should add) produces what it produces and most people are quite content with it. If you are not, I am sorry, but I neither can do anything about it, nor, frankly, am willing to. I'm simply enforcing the rules already in place (and trying to explain them to the best of my ability). You are always welcome to develop your own guidelines and present them to the community for discussion; no one can ever rob you of that right.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2010; 00:45 (UTC)

Dear WPK, if you are unable to continue the discussion, please desist. Moves like the ones you do with Petergof are contrary to the established guidelines, will be reverted, and you may be blocked for disruption. If you believe the guidelines are applied incorrectly, please file a move request. Thank you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 18, 2010; 15:24 (UTC)

This is your final warning. If you continue to move the articles without substantiation and against the established guidelines, you will be temporarily blocked for disruption. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 18, 2010; 18:04 (UTC)

WPK, I never got a response from you to my question—why do you keep asking me all these questions? I merely enforce the guideline in place, is all. Even if for some magical reason I start agreeing with you, I can't change much on my own.

That said, both of your questions are easily addressed. As for the first one, it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that the English versions of the Russian websites are seldom developed by the native speakers; they are mostly produced by Russians with varying degrees of proficiency in English who are not always aware of such things as BGN/PCGN romanization or bothered too much about the consistency on their own websites.

Case in point—the very pages you cited. Take this one—if the ridiculous "metropolitan region" did not clue you in, then the fact that the administrative center of "Lahdenpohja Metropolitan Region" is... "Lahdenpohya" surely should? Or that while the page on the history of Pitkyarantsky District is titled Reference on historical and cultural features of Pitkäranta region (what happened to "metropolitan" here, by the way?), the page about the district itself is called Pitkyaranta Metropolitan Region (with the administrative center of "Pitkyaranta")? Or that the list of these so-called "metropolitan regions" refers to them as... districts ("Pitkyarantsky district", "Lahdenpohsky district", and a mysterious "Souyarvsky district", which goes to a page about "Suojärvi Metropolitan Region" with the administrative center of... "Suoyarvi"?)

As you see, what even the official websites use is not always something you should trust on first sight. Not to mention that since the official website of Karelia has nothing to do with the Wikimedia Foundation, they have a full right to use whatever conventions they see fit (including making a whole mess as they are currently doing). Our community develops and follows the conventions that work best for the English speakers. We would be doing a poor service to our readers if we started adopting half-illiterate and inconsistent uses masterminded by non-native speakers as our guidelines.

As for your second question, I completely agree that since Finnish and English both use the Latin alphabet, there is no need to transform the Finnish names for use in the English-language texts. That's why all articles about places in Finland are titled using their Finnish names. Names of places in Russia, however, are romanized from Russian; and since all places in Russia have Russian names, written in a different script, that is why romanization is necessary. Did I mention (five or six times) before that the origin of the official Russian place name does not matter for the romanization purposes? Whether a place name originated from Finnish, German, Sami, or Udege, makes no difference whatsoever, because the BGN/PCGN guidelines only deal with the Russian spelling as a starting point.

Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 29, 2010; 13:48 (UTC)

I said it several times before, and I'll say it again—no, I do not agree. Neither you nor me can possibly know better that BGN/PCGN, who developed the guidelines on which ours are based. I can't possibly have more "prestige" than the government bodies of the United States and the United Kingdom, specializing in standardization of the names of geographic locations! If you think they are in error, you are quite welcome to contact them and ask why things are the way they are. Why keep badgering me?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 29, 2010; 20:55 (UTC)

The discussion on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) has been closed. If you want to continue the discussion I suggest you do it on some other website, but not on Wikipedia. This is an encyclopedia, not a general discussion forum. Yoenit (talk) 20:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add or change content, as you did to the article Volkswagen Group, please cite a reliable source for the content of your edit. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for how to cite sources, and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Letdorf (talk) 23:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Please, look at Volkswagen AG (German):

Im Jahre 1978 wurde unter dem Namen V.A.G eine gemeinsame Vertriebsplattform für Audi und Volkswagen eingeführt. Die Händlerbetriebe bekamen in Form eines umlaufenden blauen Bandes ein einheitliches Erscheinungsbild. Die VW Kredit Bank GmbH wurde im gleichen Jahr in V.A.G Kredit Bank GmbH umbenannt. Die Leasing-Tochter änderte ihren Namen in V.A.G Leasing GmbH. Die Bedeutung der drei Buchstaben wurde nie von Volkswagen aufgelöst. Gängige Deutungen waren „Volkswagen-Audi-Gemeinschaft“ oder „Volkswagen Audi-Gruppe“ – was auch den Sinn der Firmierung widerspiegelt. Andere Meinungen gehen von „Volkswagen AG“ aus. Der gesamte Konzern firmierte zu dieser Zeit immer noch als Volkswagenwerk AG (bis 1985).

Sincerely, --WPK (talk) 14:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I translate the relevant part of that as The importance of the three letters was never resolved by Volkswagen. Common interpretations were "Volkswagen-Audi-Community" or "Volkswagen Audi Group". A "common interpretation" (or misconception, in this case) is of lesser importance than an official meaning (or even an official lack of meaning, as your quote states). Besides, Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Wikipedia, and the above quote is unsourced in the German article. Regards, Letdorf (talk) 00:32, 20 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Hello WPK,

I reverted your edits and article move of the article Mariinsky Theatre, as there is no source that I could find that referred to the theatre as the "Marian Theatre". Feel free to discuss this on the article talk page with any sources that you have. Dkreisst (talk) 05:38, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello WPK,

I see that you have reverted my edit reverting your move with the explanation that "Мариинский, Mariinsky is the Russian, not English genetive form of the name Мaria." I also see that you have a history of moving articles to places with names that do not correspond to where Wikipedia policy would place them. This is the case for this article. That is, the recognizability of the the name Mariinsky is more important that what the English genetive of the name Maria is. For more on this see Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title and Wikipedia:Article titles#Common names.

Please revert your edit or bring a source that shows that the theatre is recognized as the "Marian Theatre".

Please use this space or the article talk page space to discuss this instead of the edit summary. Dkreisst (talk) 19:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On the face of it, there seems to be no justifcationn for the name change to "Marian".

I support Uder:DKreisst's request. Viva-Verdi (talk) 20:55, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi WPK,

Seeing no response after more than 24 hours, I am rereverting your move. Again, please bring up any concerns you have with this here or on the article talk page. Dkreisst (talk) 01:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I fully support Dkreisst's reversion to the Mariinsky name. Again, if anyone has objections, they should be discussed on the article's Talk page before any further changes are made. Viva-Verdi (talk) 08:48, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop undiscussed moves which are contrary to established policy.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 19, 2014; 11:44 (UTC)

What is the so called established policy? Look at e.g. The history of the German national district and German National District in Siberia, please. --WPK (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The established policy is WP:UE, which states that [i]f there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject. There can be found only a handful of sources which deal with the subject (note also that blogs are not accepted as reliable sources), and the conventions for dealing with Russian place names call for direct transliteration of the Russian toponym; same way BGN/PCGN deals with this. And please don't pretend you haven't heard this before—I've explaining this to you over and over again for several years now.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 19, 2014; 18:57 (UTC)

However, how the Nemetsky National District is in German Deutscher Nationaler Rayon (look at the first picture)? Furthermore, Halbstadt should be written Halbstadt, not "Galbschtadt" (German) and "Galbshtadt" (English) - look at the second picture. --WPK (talk) 01:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

German names are of no significance as far as naming of articles about Russian place names in the English Wikipedia goes. Blogs are not reliable sources. Bears shit in the woods.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 20, 2014; 12:06 (UTC)

03:33, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

20:22, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

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