Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Romanization of the Russian language

message: Hi, I shall be the mediator for you case. It is important that all answers and question on this page are free of hosility so that we can have a rational discussion, although I must say that so far both parties have been good natured. Let me start by saying that I have no knowledge of Russian, and so approach this from a very netural point of view. I have read through all the evidence submitted in the Mediation request and on the basis of that have a few initial questions. 
#It seems that User:Kuban kazak, you have a problem with the current transliteration convention for Russian on wikipedia. What steps have you taken to resolve this matter?
#Do you (User:Kuban kazak) feel you have more of a problem with the system of changing the convention than the actual convention itself?
#Do you feel that a vote may be the best solution to this problem; by having a properly conducted poll on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), with arguements on both sides presented? Would this resolve the problem effectively for both parties, and for the wider interested Wikipedia community generally?
If you could leave your respnses below, and please feel free to leave questions for each other, or for me. If for any other reason you need to contact me, and do not wish to leave a message on Wikipedia then e-mail me, Special:Emailuser/Wisden17, which I check a number of times a day.  --Wisden17 16:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

message: The whole purpose of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) (shortcut WP:CYR) is to establish a new convention of romanizing Russian; one that would hopefully be free of of the current system's deficiencies.  So far the progress has been slow and active participants far and few between.  Still, there is progress.
My problem (one that I am hoping to resolve with this mediation), however, is in regards to the interim period, when WP:RUS is still in effect, but WP:CYR is still being developed.  It is my firm belief that until WP:CYR project reaches consensus all Wikipedians must adhere to current policies (which, in this case, is WP:RUS).  Starting making allowances now would lead to nothing good—if everyone starts to apply their own standards to Russian transliteration based on the fact that "it's gonna change anyway" it can introduce a lot of mess if the WP:CYR keeps its slow pace.  Furthermore, while there are several critics of the current WP:RUS policy, they all have slightly different view on what should work.  Allowing them to use their personal guidelines that work best for them, citing "lack of consensus on current policy" will further deteriorate the Russian romanization practices, which are not in their best condition as is.  Lack of consensus on existing policy is not a good enough reason to ignore it.  Obviously, when that policy was adopted, consensus existed.  Using an analogy, if we get lots of users together who are discontent with existing 3RR policy, it does not matter that they can and are in the process of developing a hypethetical 10RR policy—until that new policy is in effect they still must observe 3RR.
I hope my points are clear enough.  I'll be glad to answer any questions as they arise.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 17:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ezhiki's reply and comments to question 3 above

message: Although the questions were asked to be treated separately, I'll do them in one. First of all the problem is not on whether or not one system is better The problem is in the way the English readers are presented with articles that have the most simple yet accurate version of the system. ALL of the systems have their flaws that make them unsuitable for WP. The best way is to obviously start from scratch and make a flexible system, where appropriate - borrowing practices from existing systems and where appropriate - making new ones. However this is where wikipedian policy - No orginal research in effect makes it a closed loop. To answer question one - yes, I did more than once suggested for changes and given the reply I got, that is the answer to question two as well. 
As for the rest, then one has always remember, more often than not, there are common exceptions for Russian words that will not fit any system, but will be more widespread. In such cases I think some consistency has to exist not for the whole articles, but for those that are split into groups of articles. If anything then with Moscow Metro stations it is fully acceptable to bypass the conventions rules in such a case. In other words, treat translit systems as American and British spellings, if a group of articles has predominately more popular (by more popular I mean Googling) results with one system, then for consistency move them all to that system, which I did and which Ezhiki tried to prevent me from doing. 
So in fact we arrive at a contradiction. There is a system which in some cases has and in some cases does not have more popular usage (I'd say about 50:50 to be honest). Trying to augment it and make some concrete changes is received with a boot - No original research. Trying to overstep the system to reflect on more popular usage is also received with a boot. After my brief time on the WP:CYR, I got the impression that the whole programme is nothing more than a hoax...--Kuban Cossack 18:54, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cossack's reply to all questions

message: [after edit conflict]
We discussed this point before as well.  Wikipedia:Search engine test describes very well why google tests are not as reliable as people want them to be and why they should be used as a rough approximation only.  To save our mediator's time, I'll reiterate the main points:
*the number of Google hits is not a reliable indicator of common English usage (e.g., the majority of those "Novogireevo" hits are either pages targeting foreigners in general, not necessarily Anglophones, or pages where a Russian name was romanized for internal technical purposes such as file names).  It would be much more reliable to query fairly recent English-language publications (books, research papers, and media publications), but unfortunately there is no such tool available to general public.
*the number of google hits may change over time, which is important to remember with hit ratios of lower order.
*the number of hits returned by google is affected by google search algorithms.  If one is to query for "novogireevo" and go to the last page of search results (page 36 as of this writing), one will see that the number of unique results is only 356.  "Novogireyevo" produces eight pages of results with 71 unique results.  Now, using Google Advanced Search, narrow down the results to English-language pages only, and the number of unique results drops to 161 and 52 correspondingly.  One can further tweak this by limiting the domains to exclude Russian servers or invent a great number of other legitimately-looking ways to alter the results, maybe even reversing the trend.  The problem, however, remains—for scales of less than roughly 1:1,000,000 google tests suck and for scales of less than 1:10,000 they are pretty much meaningless.
With all that in mind, having a unified transliteration system does no longer seem all that bad.  It is also important to remember that while the article can have only one title, the number of redirects to it is not limited, and more or less common spelling variations which are out of compliance with existing translit policy can still be mentioned in the article body.  A combination of redirects and alternate spellings covers the needs of readers very well, and a spelled-out romanization policy equally well covers the needs of the editors.  When you title an article, would you rather apply a system that is used by scholars and governments and is common and comprehensible (and I don't mean WP:RUS in its current state), and be done with it, or would you rather prefer to query search engines straight, backwards, and sideways, and then backwards again, then decide which result is "more common" and on what basis, and whether one result is better than other, and then defend your variant from the people who do not agree with your judgement?  To me, the answer is obvious.  Furthermore, the existing rules are written out in such a way that they only allow for "common Engilsh names" and WP:RUS.  If it's not "common", it's romanized, period.  Search engine tests for borderline cases are not a part of any of these two policies.  Again, a proposal can be made to include them, but it's the same story all over again—if you wish to propose a new rule, by all means do so but please abide by existing rules until yours goes through.
Finally, neither I, nor other editors who support my views on romanization practices, are snobs who "were here first", and hence are always right.  Those who were here first created many policies, but none of these policies are set in stone.  There is a procedure that can be followed to (try) changing any of Wikipedia's policies.  Propose, discuss, review, vote, accept (or decline)—these are five essential steps that should not be skipped.  Meanwhile, old policies are upheld.  If one has no time or desire or patience to go through these steps, one should be content with what's already there.  That's all I am trying to say.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 21:16, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by Ezhiki to Cossack's passage immediately above

message: [after an edit conflict, so some points are identical to Wisden's above]
About the "(y)e" after vowel: I honestly don't care; whatever the WP:CYR (or any other alternative policy that may appear in the future) leads to, I'll use.  What I do care about is that:
*we abide by the current rules why they stand;
*we propose and discuss new rules, but do not implement them until they are agreed upon by all parties.
For me personally it is also important that we use a translit system which is documented and is not an empirical approximation of practices outside of Wikipedia (i.e., if we go with BGN/PCGN, then we use "ye", if it's ALA-LC, then we use "e").  This is why I am hesitant to use any simplified and customized systems, because simplification and customization points will always leave door wide open for new disputes.  Current WP:RUS is a simplified and customized system already, and look at all the disputes around it.  The less wiggle room we leave in the rules, the less time we will spend arguing about the fine points of romanization from the empirical point of view and the more time we'll have left to do actual editing.
But this, of course, is my personal view only.  The only way to find out if that's what the community wants/does not want is to let them know.  The draft of my proposal is already at WP:CYR and so is yours and Michael's; so let's refine them and put them out for a formal vote.  Whatever variant the community accepts (even if it's ugly GOST :)), you can count on me to accept and enforce it from that point onward.  As long as it's a communal decision, and not that of a single user, I am going to be fine with it.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 15:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ezhiki's answer to Cossack's e/ye question