Talk:Minsk Metro

Naming
Let's have the Belarusian names here, too, possibly using the ref. to Nyamiha I've made just now? Yury Tarasievich 18:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok well lets disect the issue. First of all issues, like stations of the Minsk Metro, beyond the interested circles are virtually unknown, particularly outside Minsk. Nonetheless to rail and rapid-transit circles this is not insignificant. However the best (and most prominant) english language publication www.urbanrail.net, uses Russian names for Minsk, and in general it has been very prompt with any changes, for example Kharkov Metro . Now the parallels between Minsk and Kharkov wrt to Russian language are not to be ignored. Kharkov retains bilingual voice announcements and on the technical level - you will not see a Ukrainian word anywhere. For Minsk it is the same case, except nobody on the state level is trying to purge Russian from the Metro. This is why only Russian translits of Minsk stations are used in English rail circles, and I bet that even travel guides would use the Russian names for stations over their Belarusian ones... Now I know this is not wikitravel, but its the total absence of Belarusian translits in non-Belarusian sources, be they railway circles or travel guides or whatever, it is the sole reason why I chose to write them in Russian.

Now this is by no means set in stone, and as with many other articles this one needs input. We have already began WP:SOVMETRO and hopefully that will give it the push it needs.--Kuban Cossack 20:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, urbanrail.net, unlike the entities of BGN/PCGN kind, is private operation, however good and/or popular. Now, while the parallels with Ukraine don't tell anything to me, I know for sure that English-language cartographic production for tourists (like Minsk map or Struve arc map) produced here in Belarus is using the Belarusian version of the geogr. names (although I can't tell you off the top of my head, how metro stations are denoted there, if at all).
 * I'd suggest having two versions of the names here, explicitly marked, if needed, with Belarusian as primary, and Russian as secondary. Yury Tarasievich 22:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. `'mikka 22:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The point here is not about the versions that cartographers use, its about to whom is this article important. Now among railway-interested people (remember they are going to provide most references) it is without a doubt that the Russian version is predominant in all aspects. I mean a quick google test of any station will show at least a ten times greater...Not that google is important, but it shows that in English publications, Russian romanised derivations of station names are used. Now I did not quite catch your suggestion do you mean we title them Uruchye/Uruchcha? Then I am against, it will double the template. Making Uruchye a mess.--Kuban Cossack 17:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Each article in Encyclopedia is, potentially, for everyone. And nowadays people from "all over the world" just do not automatically expect Russian sources on Belarusian entities -- esp. when they refer to the BGN database or to these maps.

Yes, slashed form is a mess. Now, my suggestion, right now, is for everybody to try to think of the best form for this. I just do not "see" it yet. Yury Tarasievich 21:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Like I said, what is the harm out of Russian titles? The point is imagine an average Joe, he types in Minsk Metro into google and his two top results are Urbanrail and wikipedia. The rest is just arbitrary crap... Now at present both use Russian, but both give the Belarusian alternative. Now imagine this, he goes to Minsk stands in the middle of the platform and on one side he will see Площадь Победы, on the other Площча Перамоги. Like you said there is a 50:50 chance of him hearing a Russian or a Belarusian sound, but when he begins to ask directions, and people give them in broken English which version will they use? Russian or Belarusian. I have to say, but given the facts presented, there is much more favour for Russian. It is true that our NC is derived from BGN, but on a practical level, there are clear cases where it cannot be adapted...and so far Minsk is one. We can of course do Victory Square, Institute of Culture...but that will completely go against principle... --Kuban Cossack 18:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Although I understand your point-of-view about having the uniformly Russian-derived station names in post-USSR metros, I can't solidarise with it, as it feels of somewhat poor cultural taste to me. Does anyone in the Anglophone world really care, what goes first as long as all relevant bits are in? And Russian titles have plenty of metroes for them to go as firsts. The urbanrail is indeed the only good source out there, but it's private, while here in WP we have some cultural standards to conform to. Let us concentrate on working out the acceptable format for presentation, then. Yury Tarasievich 21:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That said, I'll try to formulate some guidelines for this.
 * For starters, I'd suggest having Belarusian names of stations as primary article names, with Russian names created as redirects to them. Therefore, each kind of search will return something meaningful. Ditto for leading paragraphs. No real problems here.
 * The text and map are trickier. For me, just Belarusian names would be enough, however, I understand there'd be hurt feelings and discontent here. What's your suggestion? Yury Tarasievich 21:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Cultural taste or not Russian is the official language of Belarus, and it is also the dominant one of Belarusian society and Culture.
 * Now wrt what goes first, it is no difference to me, what is important is the title of the article itself, and the main wikilinks in the article and template.
 * The map I can bilingualise, in a similar method that I used for Karkiv Metro, note on the map there that despite the Russian text preceding Ukrainian, my play with colours and the gamma actually make the Ukrainian titles look more significant...Would you like me to create a similar map? It will not be immediate but I shall make an effort.

Lastly, as a compromise gesture for titles I suggest the following: we move the articles to their respective Belarusian titles, but we keep the wikilinks in the templates and the main article as they are. Could that work?--Kuban Cossack 23:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

To wrap up this section, I'll just remind that there are two official languages in Belarus, each of them with millions of speakers (well, census results say so, and I definitely can hear both on the street).

Guidelines
The problem, as I see it, can be safely reducted (broken down) to the following:
 * Language version of the name of the primary article
 * My suggestion: National language, with additional redirect to it, translit'ed from Russian.
 * Wikilinks in templates and main article
 * I didn't quite understand your paragraph on this, do you mean the articles' texts will have links with "national" addressing and "Russian" informative part, like [Radyanskoi Armii|Sovetskoi Armii] ?
 * Maps
 * Your (?) Kharkiv Metro map shows quite an amount of work, but strikes me as somewhat diverting with how you describe it. Currently, coloured Ukrainian text is smaller in points and in weight, and when put against the black background, blue and green are significantly less legible than white and taller and bolder Russian text. As one of the options, I'd suggest:
 * When on the black background, do both texts in white, equal size, one over another, lower one indented slightly to the right, with markers of language (coloured geometricals? 2-3 letters abbreviations of language?) preceding the texts.
 * Remark of the more general nature: putting line transfers (quite an important feature!) into the common legend doesn't look the happiest solution to me. At the very least, they've got to get the separate legend for them or their names should be attached to them in callouts. Additionally, for such scheme a good idea would be to put thin rings of neutral colour around the line junctions (I think I've seen such feature on Moscow and Minsk real-life schemes). Yury Tarasievich 08:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

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Station and line names do not make sense
I suggest this article should use the same names passengers in Minsk see and hear - please see the map on the Metro's official website, http://metropoliten.by/. The same map is in every carriage and at every station. These names are announced: Next station - Plošča Pieramohi. Also Google maps, e.g. https://goo.gl/maps/MaadHBaqchJSaf2u8 This translit standard has been in use for a few years now. It is also used on the Belarusian Railway website - using anything else would only confuse Wikipedia users. --Nieszczarda2 (talk) 17:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)