Talk:Autonomous okrugs of Russia

Withdrawn per the below Aug 2008

Requested Move
Article names should conform to English usages, not named by "borrowing" Russian terms. David Kernow made an exhaustive study of subnational entities in 2006 and concluded there are only an limited number of variations on Administrative divisions at the upperlevels of nation-states, by whatever names. Similarly, lower tier entities have many names, but can be translated and classified well enough without borrowing terms. In short, Articles and categories on the en.wikipedia ought be named in conformance with the upper hierarchies on Davids:

So we don't get creeping dic-def terms like this // Fra nkB 19:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "Okrug" is actually a loanword, at least according to my Oxford English Dictionary; a term which refers to a set of very specific concepts.  "Autonomous okrug" is one of such concepts.  The term "autonomous okrug" is heavily used in specialized literature on the subject, while "autonomous district" (or "region", or "area", or whatever) is merely a simplification used for lay people.  There is nothing wrong with mentioning those simplified terms in the article, but the actual title should be what the academia uses.  That said, the "autonomous district" article should probably go bye-bye (turned into a redirect), unless it is possible to add more entries dealing with other countries.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment (ahem & this... we should avoid "Specialized literature names" in titles. The parent article for subnational entities (A UN term) is Administrative district. Names for all such should conform unless also in common usage in English, such as County or Province. // Fra nkB 20:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Edit your revert interupted: "That said, the "autonomous district" article should probably go bye-bye (turned into a redirect)"

xposted from my talk: re: FrankB#Loanwords et al. Hi, Frank! I knew I'd lure you to my talk :)

First of all, "okrug" and "oblast" are not just words of Slavic origin, they are proper English words, albeit not very common at that (probably just as obsure as, say, "houri", "escarpment", "accoutrements", or "slovenliness", all of which have nice, non-confusing synonyms). The reason why we use those words are not because we want to dazzle our readers with our knowledge of obsure terms, but because substituting them with simpler synonyms would bring more confusion than it would solve. Consider "okrug", for example. In common speach, I myself would refer to any kind of okrug as "district" or "area" (depending on my mood), but in an encyclopedia about everything we must also consider how such simplification works with everything else. If we abolish "okrug" all together and start to consistently use "district", how are we to discuss the administrative divisions of (autonomous) okrugs, which are themselves composed of districts? How are we to convey the fact that Kamchatka Krai, for example, is divided into districts and an okrug (which itself is divided into districts)? With "oblast", if we were to use "province" instead, how are we to distinguish oblasts and provinces (which is a separate term) of Imperial Russia? Should we always explain that we use "province" to refer only to oblasts, and not to krais (some sources do that)? Yes, it is possible to eventually provide explanation in every single instance we use the same lay term to refer to (sometimes wildly different) concepts, but why do it the hard way when we can simply use the proper term, link it, and provide an explanation in an article about that term, or to refer the reader to Wiktionary? I see you are relying on David Kernow's work quite heavily, but we had this discussion with David (who is a fascinating individual, whom I'd love to see back to active editing), and he eventually understood the magnitude of the problem and became an active proponent of using the loanwords (at least in case with Russia, I don't know about other countries).

And no, I am not ashamed to have reverted you :) I normally get ashamed when I have to revert someone twice or more (in which case I realize that I should have brought the issue up somewhere), but once is perfectly normal in my book.  No hard feelings, please!  It's just that this particular issue has been beaten to death a couple of years ago, and the consensus was to keep things as they are now.  I'd very much like not to have to dig this dead horse up again, but will, of course, gladly explain whatever points remain unclear.  And hey, nice to see you back editing! :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, under the Authority Falacy, so to speak. If you convinced David, after all the time and effort I know he put into this study, I have no gripes. I'm merely stumbling across seeming inconsistencies in this case, then. I'll withdraw the Moveto nomination in light of that, as my real focus is on continuing the maps categories structure "maintenance" this month that he and I'd started together back then. Would be nice to see DK back... No question. A black hole swallowed him or something, as his email account went dead too. Be well. // Fra nkB 21:37, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Authority fallacy, eh? Can't say that was my intent, but you made it sound so good :)  Anyway, I can't easily tell if this supports my position any, but it is undoubtedly related to the issue at hand and might be of interest (if not to you, then to some other individual reading through this thread years later :))  Also, for the sake of sharing a good illustrative example: speaking of the UN term ("administrative district"), did you know that Russia has "administrative districts" and "municipal districts", which are different concepts even though they usually refer to the same geographic territories; both are not the same as the "administrative districts" as defined by the UN, and both are one level removed from "autonomous okrugs", which they comprise?  Sometimes using "specialized literature names" is the only way to avoid mass confusion, and Russia is definitely one of such cases!  Thanks for taking care of that redirect, by the way.  Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 02:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)