Talk:Kirovsk, Luhansk Oblast

Requested move 12 April 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 22:24, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Kirovsk, Luhansk Oblast → Holubivka – due to the Law of Ukraine "On the condemnation of the communist and national socialist (Nazi) regimes, and prohibition of propaganda of their symbols" Олесь Діброва (talk) 18:43, 12 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Unfortunately the Ukrainian government does not have control of this town.  The people who run it continue to call it Kirovsk.  There is very little evidence that the Ukrainian Government's new name is used in English.  (There are many places called Holubivka/Golubovka in Ukraine - for example Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has two: the Holubivka on the River Kil'chen and the Holubivka near Nikopol, so searches on Google are likely to yield more false positives than real hits.)  It is the Tsarist-era name for the town, so in principle I prefer it.  But currently it is called Kirovsk.--  Toddy1 (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note, Category:People from Kirovsk, Luhansk Oblast was renamed Category:People from Holubivka last year. I think this change should be reverted.  Given that there are lots of places called Holubivka/Golubovka in Ukraine (and Kirovsk, Luhansk Oblast is not one of them) the current category name is unhelpful.--  Toddy1 (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should be moved back.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:07, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Done, and amended the four pages in the category.-- Toddy1 (talk) 06:44, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I am afraid you have moved it to the wrong name (I actually tried earlier and could not move it because I am not administrator any more, and the target had some non-bot edit history).--Ymblanter (talk) 07:36, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have raised it at Categories for discussion/Log/2018 April 14.-- Toddy1 (talk) 08:33, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose CNN. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose, as well as for other similar towns. It is not controlled by Ukrainian government, and authorities which control it (as well as the population) continue to use the current name. We had the discussions on Ukrainian localities before and decided that (with some exceptions like Odessa) they do not have independent English name, so that we just transliterate the name which is being most commonly used - in this case, Kirovsk. Localities which are controlled by the central government and are affected by this law have been already renamed as a result of an RfC.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:05, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Request, could you please link to that RFC? Marcocapelle (talk) 09:32, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * , my apologies, it was a RM, not a RFC. Here it is: Talk:Myrnohrad. Note that even though the Rada also formally renamed the localities the government does not control, nobody in the discussion suggested to move the corresponding articles (quite the opposite).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:09, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Support. The city of Holubivka is legally within the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine and the city's Ukrainian name, "Holubivka", redirects to its Russian name since 1944, "Kirovsk", which is, as of this writing, the article's main title header. There is no confusion with other places named Holubivka since it is the sole such place name listed in Wikipedia. It is also not a renaming such as Tsaritsyn/Stalingrad/Volgograd, but rather a return to the original name, such as Saint Petersburg/Leningrad/Saint Petersburg. At its founding in 1764, and until its renaming in 1944, the city's Russian name was Golubovka and its Ukrainian name was Holubivka.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 08:31, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If moved, then it should be to Holubivka, Luhansk Oblast in order to avoid ambiguity. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:20, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Once the government gains control, that would be a good idea.-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:57, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Comparison may be made to places in Northern Cyprus where, although the government has not exercised control since the Turkish invasion of 1974 when all northern cities and other localities officially adopted their equivalent Turkish names, Wikipedia has been using the English transliterations of Greek names, because the Greek-speaking government of Cyprus is considered to be the official legal entity over Cyprus' entire territory.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 14:51, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Russian Wikipedia has it as Kirovsk, Luhansk Oblast, but Ukranian Wikipedia has it as simply Holubivka. The explanation is that it is the only city by that name, while all the other localities are villages listed under Holubivka (disambiguation). If this RM is successful, since one of the 18 villages does have an individual entry in Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedias, English Wikipedia may indeed decide to use Holubivka, Luhansk Oblast.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 15:19, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The disambiguation pages on Russian-language Wikipedia and Ukrainian-language Wikipedia show that there are articles on all the of 17 villages or small towns currently called Holubivka/Golubovka in Ukraine in both Wikipedias.-- Toddy1 (talk) 15:52, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This is fine, we also name Crimean localities using transliteration from Ukrainian, even though Ukraine has no control over them, and the predominant language of the population there is Russian. The difference is that these are real names which are in use. The new names of the localities renamed under the Ukrainian law which are not controlled by the government are a bogus - they are not used by the population and in fact are only used by the Ukraininan government propaganda abd by the Ukraine-based media - and only because it is illegal to use the old names. We are not yet a propaganda outlet for the Ukrainian government, and there is no reason to use these names.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment. It may be also noted that Russian Wikipedia, in this article's lead sentence, indicates the city's Ukrainian names — both former and current, Kirovs'k/Holubivka — and specifies that this city is located in Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast. The article then states that, since April 2014, the city is included within the Luhansk People's Republic. It may be further noted that this republic is not recognized by any member of the United Nations, including Russia. The article also indicates, under section header "Transport", that the train station bears the city's restored name, which is "Golubovka" in Russian (and "Holubivka" in Ukrainian).
 * As for disambiguation of the name, Russian Wikipedia lists 31 entries under "Golubovka" — three in Belarus, two in Kazakhstan, eight in Russia and eighteen in Ukraine — with none serving as the primary topic. The entry for the Golubovka under discussion states that "since 2016 it is the name of the city of Kirovsk in Lugansk Oblast which has been assigned within the framework of the campaign of de-communization. The decision has not been accepted by the de facto administration of the self-declared Lugansk People's Republic".
 * Ukrainian Wikipedia, on the other hand, has twenty-one entries on its dab page — twenty in Ukraine and one in Belarus — with the city under discussion listed as the primary topic with a stand-alone name. It is the sole entry bearing the name/redirect "Golubovka" or "Holubivka" listed in English Wikipedia and, if the nomination achieves consensus, there would be no need for further disambiguation unless one of the other places gains its own article.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:30, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

About control by Ukrainian government
Some users were against renaming, because now Ukraine doesn't control occupied territories. They will be right only with settlements in the Crimea, because the | Ordinance of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 1352-VIII "On renaming of certain settlements and districts of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol" will be of effect after returning this territories under general jurisdition of Ukraine. However, the another | Ordinance "On renaming of certain settlements and districts of temporary occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions" does not have such section, so it is of effect now. Hope for your understanding of this situation. --Олесь Діброва (talk) 10:28, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Nope. The government does not control them and is not in a position to determine how they are called. Period.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:53, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Kirovske, Donetsk Oblast which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:32, 25 October 2023 (UTC)