Talk:Russo-Georgian War/Archive 33

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:47, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

2008 South Ossetia war → War in Georgia Georgia War — Title is intended as compromise between current title and previously widely discussed "Russo-Georgian war", about what some editors have raised NPOV concerns.
 * withdrawing move request - its obviously not going to pass and prolonging it it also pointless. Some complaints could be fixed with adding year number, some others cant be compromised any way. Either way I won't bother trying to find solution once more, because there are plenty of those who just cant be compromised in any way, and last discussion before move request was just plain frustrating for me personally. Maybe wikipedia has became just too intellectual or something for primitive person like me. Possibly someone one day will work out title that suits both sides, but I am sceptical.--Staberinde (talk) 20:43, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As nobody has actually supported previous proposal yet, I figure I can rewrite it now (old version below striked through). I also notified all who had commented so far.

Per WP:COMMONNAME "War in Georgia" google books=185 google scholar=407 is more commonly used title in reliable sources compared to "South Ossetia war" (without 2008) gb=12 gs=26 or any other title I have seen. May include "2008" if significant number if people think that it is better that way, I support it either way although I don't really consider year necessary.--Staberinde (talk) 20:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC) Main arguments for move are: 1) Per WP:COMMONNAME "Georgia War" google books=41 google scholar=92 amazon books=4 is more commonly used title in reliable sources compared to "South Ossetia war" (without 2008) gb=12 gs=26 amazon=0. 2) Proposed title is more accurate, as fighting took place not only in South Ossetia, but also in uncontested Georgia, and other seceding republic Abkhazia. 3) Proposed title is more unambiguous, while there is also 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, forcing us to use "2008" in beginning, making current title even more fringe gb=1 gs=13. --Staberinde (talk) 16:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * comment: This isn't the only war in Georgia. I'd say, "2008" ("2008 war in Georgia" or "Georgia war (2008)") is a necessary specification. --Illythr (talk) 17:07, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Wikipedia has Vietnam War, Iraq War and Korean War, despite all those countries having long history of wars, probably comparable to Georgia's.--Staberinde (talk) 17:58, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's because these names are well established in the English language. This one isn't (controversy + less than two years have passed), hence the endless disputes here. There's also the recent example of the 2006 Lebanon War. In any case, I support a move to any of the following: "War in Georgia (2008)," "2008 war in Georgia," "Georgia war (2008)." Neutral on "Georgia War." --Illythr (talk) 18:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Swedish Wikipedia has had the War in Georgia (2008) almost since the war started. Närking (talk) 17:13, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I bet Swedish Wikipedia has a lot less POV-pushers from each side. --Illythr (talk) 18:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I guess so. It's also the name used by the media in Sweden. Närking (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's good to remember though, that we're discussing here not a title for Swedish Wikipedia, and not popular Sweden title for the war, but English Wikipedia and popular English title. It's a pity, that nobody have addressed neutrality concerns and other problems with the title in Sweden Wikipedia, but luckily it's not the case here. ETST (talk) 10:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * On a second thought, I'd like to withdraw my comment above. Let's indeed follow the example of other Wikipedias here: Aragonés, العربية, Žemaitėška, Беларуская, Català, Česky, Dansk, Esperanto, Español, فارسی, Français, Frysk, Galego, עברית, Bahasa Indonesia, Italiano, 日本語, Basa Jawa, 한국어, Limburgs, Lietuvių, Bahasa Melayu, Nederlands, Norsk (bokmål), Polski, Português, Română, Srpskohrvatski / Српскохрватски, ไทย, Türkçe, O'zbek, Tiếng Việt, 中文.
 * I bet these Wikipedias have a lot less POV-pushers from each side. I guess, absence of Rupert Murdoch-owned media (which kept calling Russia an "aggressor" for as long, as it was possible without making people laugh) in a country really matters. ETST (talk) 14:59, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, the claim of added accuracy is obviously spurious: you could use the exact same "logic" once the article had been moved, and say that the move back is required because the war also took place in South Ossetia! The claim of reduced ambiguity is also highly doubtful given Illythr's comment.  That leaves the argument on common usage, and the evidence is hardly convincing given the omission of many commonly-used close variants ("South Ossetian war", "War in South Ossetia" etc).  Oppose until something more convincing is presented. Knepflerle (talk) 19:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actualy first point is my main point all along. Others I just lined up then I had already picked "Georgia War". I have tried various wordings which I simply didn't post here because I focused on title which seemed most common and current title. But it indeed seems that I have missed critical title "War in Georgia" gb=185 gs=407. Nothing else seems to come even close. Bah, now I need to change move proposal somehow.--Staberinde (talk) 19:50, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You might as well not bother with changing your proposal. It's quite obvious, that in majority of these 407 sources "war in Georgia" is used not as a proper name for the war, but as a casual reference. If we exclude all other common titles for the war from your query to determine when "War in Georgia" is used as a proper title, we'll get only 154 hits on Google Scholar. If we do the same to your another favorite "August war" title, we get 97 hits. Is this situation with multiple popular titles what you call "having an established, universally agreed-upon common name for an event"? Majority of experts are still not settled on how to call the war. Not to say, that most of the search results are political articles (like "What Has Moscow Done-Rebuilding US-Russian Relations" or "Can war be just?"), not historic ones. In the light of that, it's plainly ridiculous to talk about "established common name", especially when most of users still come from PR only. That's the main problem with this whole Google Scholar argument, and you've been told about it already: Wars don't get named by Google Hits(TM). They get to be named by military historians. ETST (talk) 10:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And no one used the name South Ossetia war. However, if one proposes a used name like Russia-Georgia war you'll say "we choose names not by what they are called by some sources, but according to NPOV". If then, someone mentions a clearly NPOV name like August war or 5 day war, you'll answer "we don't just use any NPOV name, but use descriptive ones". So finally if one suggests a descriptive title like South Ossetia and Abkhasia war you'll say "we need a commonly used title" and thus the spurious logic moves in circles, only designed to keep the current title. Not surprising, really, been there before, done that. --Xeeron (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Good day, Xeeron. Look, I respect you as an article vet. Unlike many other people here, you actually put some effort in working on the article. But it's all more the reason, that I regret your attitude. I fail to understand, why it's so hard for you to see the current title as one of the best compromises possible? There are several main properties/criteria that people have applied to judge the article title. Current title suffices all of them to a certain degree.
 * South Ossetia war is popular. Granted, not as popular as "War in Georgia" or "Russia-Georgia war". But not as unpopular as "Russian operation to enforce Georgia to peace" or "Georgian-Ossetian war". It's sufficiently popular for this Wikipedia article to pop up first in searches, even if you google for "Russia-Georgia war".
 * South Ossetia war is neutral. Granted, not as neutral as "August war". But not as POV-plagued as "Russia-Georgia war" or "Russian operation to Enforce Georgia to peace".
 * South Ossetia war is descriptive. Granted, not as descriptive as "South Ossetia and Abkhazia war" (which, imo, fails WP:PRECISION). But not as opaque as "August war" or "Five Day War".
 * South Ossetia war is the least ambiguous. There are much fewer wars that qualify as "War in Ossetia", than "War in Georgia".
 * 2008 South Ossetia war is consistent with 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, in title, in the underlying reason, and in the actual sequence of events.
 * Having said all that, I really don't understand your "circular spurious logic" accusation. Yes, it looks exactly like you have described: current title gets confronted by other titles one by one. It has disadvantages and advantages over each of them. But in my opinion, other titles' disadvantages outweigh their advantages. Like only slightly more descriptive but horribly unpopular (practically invented by its proponent) "South Ossetia and Abkhazia war" title. Or more popular but horribly POVed "Russia-Georgia war" title. Current title is a compromise.
 * What I've tried to say in my previous post, though, doesn't concern any of the above. I've tried to say, that it's too early to claim that there exists some kind of established title. Therefore, there's no real justification for changing article title. Any title change at this moment is nothing more than a questionable attempt to re-balance between some of the aforementioned features. In this regard, current title is better, or at least as fine, as any other title. ETST (talk) 19:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Support, maybe the year should be added also, but I'm not sure if it's really needed. Närking (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Whatever the merits of the existing title, the proposed new one is a non-starter, since this is surely not the only war ever to have taken place in Georgia. PatGallacher (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Neutral "Russia-Georgia war" (or the variant Georgia-Russia war) is more descriptive, but Georgia war is also widely used in the media and as such much better than the current title. --Xeeron (talk) 22:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Please explain the consequence of your support for title "Russia - Georgia war".
 * "Russia - Georgia war" began in august 7. Georgia engaged in the war in august 7. Russia engaged in the war in august ~9."
 * Now we have only Georgia fighting with "undefined" opponent in Georgia - Russia war from 7th to 9th august. How could it be?--Bouron (talk) 19:42, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * comment: I agree with Xeeron (above), "Russia-Georgia war 2008" would be the most descriptive. –BruTe Talk 10:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose As was already noted above, there were just too many wars, which can qualify as "War in Georgia". Proposed title really can't be any more ambiguous, than it is. In the light of that, claims that "2008 South Ossetia war" title is ambiguous or inappropriate are preposterous. It is completely analogous to 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, where, just like in our case, Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia by force and Russia intervened. And finally, it's hard to ignore POV concerns about the "War in Georgia" title. They have been stated too many times before, but looks like I have no choice except repeating them. The title "War in Georgia" supports popular pro-Georgian POV notion that South Ossetia has no independence ("South Ossetia is Georgian territory, and therefore there's no such thing as "War in South Ossetia", it's "War in Georgia""), and that the war was a "wholly internal affair" until "Russia unjustly interfered and invaded/occupied Georgia". Complete omission of South Ossetia from the title places undue weight on Russian involvement (and thus helps to "blame" Russia for the war and represent Georgia as a "victim of Russian aggression"), rather than on Georgian attempt to restore control over the region by force - the main cause of this war. Therefore, it is my opinion, that current title, which simultaneously identifies the region where most of of the fighting took place (current military history convention and Wikipedia policy), reflects the Casus Belli of this war, and carries no POV implications, is the most appropriate one. ETST (talk) 11:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Way too vague as it doesn't specify which war or which Georgia.  The web hits cited to support the move mostly reflect the term "war in Georgia" as a descriptive, not a title of the war.  —   AjaxSmack   19:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The war was on the territories of SO and Georgia. The proposed title is not neutral.--Bouron (talk) 20:36, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Question: Do you think the current title is neutral? --Xeeron (talk) 12:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes I do. Current title doesn't include any not neutral contexts such as "South Ossetia is part of Georgia" in proposed title and "South Ossetia is an independent country" in my favorite title "2008 Georgia - SO war". It also doesn't say that the war was only in SO. The only thing we can take from the title is well known fact - "the war was for control of SO".--Bouron (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The war was also in ABK and the Black Sea.... Outback the koala (talk) 00:04, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose per ETST and other arguments related to the POV issues surrounding the location (such as Bourbon). Outback the koala (talk) 00:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment It may be worth reminding people that this title (wasn't it originally 2008 South Ossetia war, to make clear it is not a proper name?) is a placeholder. We should not attempt to name the war ourselves, out of what seems right to us. Eventually historians writing in English will come up with a conventional name, as they have for the Gulf War and the Iraqi War - an irrational pairing, but an established one. Move-warring over this will not work - and is unlikely to change the world any if it did work. Let us resolve ourselves in patience. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose that's a stupid name. As if there's never been war in Georgia; or that the other Georgia's never had a war either. 70.29.210.155 (talk) 03:55, 24 May 2010 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moratorium on renaming debates
The naming of this article has been under debate for virtually the whole period of its existence, with an almost uninterrupted chain of dozens of debates, polls and move requests, often initiated and dominated by the same small number of contributors, and with arguments that all have been stated hundreds of times. This needs to stop. By now, everybody involved must have realised that there is no consensus about this. In Wikipedia, one thing we all need to learn is that there are situations where one simple has to let a matter rest, be the status quo ever so unsatisfactory. Continuing these debates will not lead anywhere good.

I am therefore, unilaterally, as an uninvolved administrator, imposing a six-months moratorium on all new renaming debates. (That is, I will treat any re-kindling of these debates by the old combatants as disruptive conduct, possibly worth a block.) During this time, I strongly suggest people concentrate on improving the article content instead.

I also see no point in having the title-pov tag on top of the article during this period, as it will only lure people into renewed pointless arguments. I'm going to remove it again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * My prediction: In 6 months it will be all the same editors around and nothing changes, including the article name (unless the strong status quo bias in Wikipedia changes: unlikely). It is just important to note that the arguments are pointless due to the way wikipedia works, not because the current title is right. --Xeeron (talk) 17:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You should not remove the title pov tag, as you stated the title is challenged by multiple people. There for the tag should stay. That is the entire purpose of the tag in the first place, to show that the articles title is disputed. Even 20 years from now when every english source will call the title by either Georgian War or Russian-Georgian War, a group of russian pov editors will still debate it.XavierGreen (talk) 05:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The tag is meant to notify readers of an ongoing debate on talk, and invite them to participate. Since there isn't going to be any such debate here on talk, for the next few months, the tag is pointless. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:16, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The title is still debated, your just artifically forcing us to accept the one currenty up there for 6 months. If you dont place the ban, then the dispute will go on and it will continue once the ban is over. The tag is not pointless, because without it the reader would not know that there is a dispute about the title of the page. Thats its intended purpose, the tag itself even states that that is its purpose.XavierGreen (talk) 14:18, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you at least change the title to something more accommodating like 2008 South Ossetia and Abkhazia War or some variation of that like 2008 war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia or 2008 war in South Ossetia and Abkhazia? There is no reason why a more descriptive title cannot be put in place of this one. I, and many others would feel less compelled to renew this debate if there was at least a more descriptive name. There seemed to be at least some acceptance of a change along the lines I mentioned among opponents to other changes.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 22:00, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The answer to your question is no. There is a reason: decisions of established editors of this article. You can not always get what you want. Please stop wasting yours and ours time.FeelSunny (talk) 04:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank Jesus! Outback the koala (talk) 00:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Reupdating figures of Georgian forces and casaulties,
I changed size of the Georgian Army forces involved in fights within the conflict zone. The official figure is: Three combat brigades, taking part in the entire conflict. That is allmost the maximum of what Georgia could place on field. Stating numbers like 16,000 to 37,000 are visionary. The Georgian Ground Forces back then consisted of roughly 18,000 to 20,000 trained infantry soldiers. This is the main bulk of it's combat force. The cipher 37,000 may refers to the early figure of Georgian military personnel in total, what is also wrong. The number of military personnel in Georgia ( including noncombat personnel ) never exceeded 33,000. Looking at the structure, we have 3,600 to 4,000 men in each brigade, at the maximum. It has been severaly stated that Georgian brigades cosist of less than 2,500 men.

We have three brigades involved in the fighting, where actually only one was directly involved in the street battles of Tskhinvali, while the others were taking positions on the heights surrounding the city and advancing from the flanks, pushing up the number of Georgian troops involved, step by step. One of five infantry brigades was still deployed in Iraq. The fifth Infantry brigade wasn't involved because it was newly formed and not combat ready, placed in the lighty defendable Kodori valley in Abkhazia. So we have only three leff minus a very considerable force. 10,800 to 12,000 is the most realistic figure according to the given data. Georgia practially send it's entire bulk of Infantry into the regional capital and that bulk was everything they had in the entire region, as for regular army units.

Based on the source I use, the figure of reservists deployed in Gori, is 10,000. It was reported that thousands of Georgian reservists were positioned in Gori during the chaotic retreat of the Georgian Forces, so maybe it were not as much as 10,000. But we have a figure.

The other source I found, deals with the subject of forces of the Ministry of Interior involced in the fighting, with figures of strenght and casaulties during the entire conflict and single engagements.

To the casaulty controvery. The source used to state the casaulties of the Georgian army is based on a single unsourced claim. At the most, based on no other source than itself. At best, assumingly based on the very earliest reports which were later rejected or corrected. The date of the articly allready indicated that it can't be true. Besides that, the giant inconsistency between soldiers killed and soldiers wounded is unrealistic and not logical. There are two possibilites: Either, some 162 soldiers died and a few hundreds were wounded, like maybe up to 1,000 at maximum, or the figure of wounded is true and much much more soldiers have died, than the Georgian government want's people to believe. According to the given official figure of fallen soldiers the source I use, citing an offical, is much more realistc than the first article based on actually nothing or nothing reliable.

Inserting the figure of combat troops beeing deployed in Iraq is importent in the sence that it had great weight for the developement of the entire conflict, since it were the most experienced troops of the regular army parts of the Georgian Armed Forces. Thus giving a higher combat cabability no matter if the war would have been lost anyway. It is still an important information.

TheMightyGeneral (talk) 08:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

New material added/sources
These edits by Reenem added a bunch of new material to the article which is not well sourced. The sourced used are:
 * 1) A blogger reporting on the sea battle, who mainly bases his blog on the interview with a Russian seaman, which the blogger himself assesses as "It’s a bit of a questionable story."
 * 2) An longish text on a webpage that seems to be hosting various military related texts/books. The text used as source is written in very bad English and contains dozend of photos, which are very obvious copyright violations (several of the other books hosted on the site look like copyright violations as well).
 * 3) A youtube video. Actually, the video is the best source out of the three, being uploaded by AssociatedPress, but is misquoted in the article. The full video description reads: "A Russian convoy of troops were engaged in an intense firefight, presumably with Georgian soldiers at a bridge in Achabet, South Ossetia Monday. (Aug. 11)". Reenem made out of that: "A joint Russian-Ossetian convoy was also ambushed by Georgian troops on a bridge in Achabet, but fought it off." Neither the ambush, nor the fighting off are mentioned in the description by AP, or apparent in the video (which is basically some soldiers standing around, shooting at an invisible enemy).

This does not hold up with the rest of the, very well sourced, article. --Xeeron (talk) 17:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

But these bloggers also made a point of providing physical evidence with their photographs, and sourcing their materials with books. Even if they violate the copyright, we just cite them as sources, we don't actually use those pictures on our pages. And it is obvious that they did fight it off: the APC is shown blasting enemy positions and infantry then counterattack, and the fact that we even have the video proves that the column was not wiped out.-- RM ( Be my friend ) 23:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * We can not link to them is they violate someone else's copyright, check for yourself at Copyrights. About the firefight specifically, the AP author was very cautious in his decription, and correctly so. There is nothing in the video that sheds a light on which side attacked (and especially nothing that would allow us to speak of an "ambush"). There is not even proof who was the other combatant. For all we know, this might have been an instance of mistaken identity and friendly fire. And finally, the video does not show whether the attackers won, or whether the convoy retreated. Writing about an ambush that was fought off is pure speculation (and WP:OR to boot). --Xeeron (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Map inset - comment
Just because the map inset was viewed by readers to be an excellent graphic does not make it correct. Specifically, the graphic depicts a Russian "blockade" of the Georgian coast. This assertion is not proven by any authoritative information. Either the author needs to provide proof or the depiction of the "blockade" MUST be removed. This is the second request to correct the graphic. The first request for corroborating proof of the asserted "blockade", a maritime action that has a specific definition in international law with criteria not met in this case, went unheeded.Moryak (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4497216.ece --Xeeron (talk) 11:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * An article that makes assertions without proof citing unnamed sources is neither authoritative nor very convincing. The article also contains number of assertive statements by the President of Georgia that weren't true either.Moryak (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Times is a reputable secondary source (unlike the president of Georgia or you, I might add), unless you find a reputable source, or better, several reputable sources that explicitly state that no blockade took place, there is no need to continue discussing this. --Xeeron (talk) 20:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia criteria still states that information must be verifiable. I am asking for verification - not assertion - in accordance with Wikipedia guidance.  Some people ask "Show me the money?", I ask "Show me the proof of a blockade?".  What specific units conducted the alleged blockade?  Where?  When?  What specific ships were affected by the alleged blockade?  I have not seen any addressal of the answers to any of these questions.  If the alleged blockade occurred, the answers to these questions should be available.Федоров (talk) 22:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You can ask that, but you'll have to search the answer yourself. WP:Source guides what can be used as a source (I suggest you read the relevant section, not only the title), and whether or not you personally agree with Times is not of any importance. --Xeeron (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Blockades happen all of the time without actually being legally declared a blockade, similar to how both Georgia and Russia were at war with each other while at the same time neither declared war. Now would you state that the war didn't exist because legally there was not a state of war between the two countries?XavierGreen (talk) 02:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, yes, the Georgia-Russia interaction in August 2008 was an "armed conflict" and not a "war". Many discussions of current events are sloppy and imprecise in their understanding and use of words.  However, words do matter - and "blockade" has a specific definition which does not apply in the case of the graphic noted.Федоров (talk) 10:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If you note the article blockade there are mutiple definitions given, what you are refering to is a legal definition while in reality there is more than one definition. For example a blockade can also refer to Close patrol of a hostile port, in order to prevent naval forces from putting to sea, is also referred to as a blockade. Something that happens extremely frequently in any conflict.XavierGreen (talk) 19:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Point taken. Regardless of varying definitions, I still challenge the statement that there was a blockade of Georgia - where is the proof?  A self-serving assertion is neither proof nor verifiable fact.Федоров (talk) 19:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The russian navy itself claims to have prevented the georgian navy from sortieing out of port, even to the point of engaging it in combat to do so. See Battle off the coast of Abkhazia, if you read up on the appropriate literature its quite clear the russians blockaded the georgian navy and forced it to stay in port.XavierGreen (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A review of the literature supports questioning whether a "blockade" ever existed. The reported "battle" at sea occurred just south of Sukhumi.  The Georgians have/had no naval bases that far north.  Poti is farther south.  And yes, Russian forces did enter Poti where they sank basically inoperative Georgian naval ships at their moorings but there is no verifiable information that the Russian Navy "blockaded" any Georgian port.  The text below Wikipedia edit box explicitly states that "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable". Moryak (talk) 15:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, when the georgians sortied they were repulsed no? Did they ever leave port after their sortie? There were russian ships off of the coast of Georgia for the length of the war preventing them from sortieing.XavierGreen (talk) 19:53, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Russians never stopped the Georgians from leaving port. The Russians engaged the Georgians when the Georgians were heading north toward Sukhumi and approaching their ships southwest of Sukhumi.  Interestingly, the Georgians never acknowledged the occurrence of the action in which one of  their units was sunk by a missile.  There is no confirmation that the Russian Navy remained anywhere but off the coast of Abkhazia for the duration of the armed conflict.  There is no verifiable confirmation of the Russians ever blockading the Georgian coast during the conflict.Moryak (talk) 21:03, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Heres a source stating that russian vessels were off the coast of georgia during the conflict, enforcing an exclusion zone off the coast of georgia. [] Heres a chinese source stating there was a blockade []XavierGreen (talk) 04:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue is not that there are statements and reports, though I wonder how British and Chinese sources are likely to be authoritative since these types of reports tend to be echoes of others rather than authoritative reporting.  The real issue is = what is the truth and can it be verified.  Earlier I cited the historical example of Herr Goebbels, who believed and successfully practiced the theory that convincing repetition of falsehood created the perception of truth.  I still adhere to that example.  As in American politics, you can easily hear totally contradictory statements of seeming fact, however only one of the versions logically can be true.  Repeating, where is the verifiable confirmation that there was a Russian naval blockade of the Georgian coast during the August 2008 conflict?Федоров (talk) 12:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I can say the same of you, what evidence do you have that there was not a blockade? This russian source states that a full trade blockade had been in effect since 2006! [] Russian ships were off the coast of georgia, and prevented the georgian fleet from sortieing out of port. The only reasoning i have seen stated that russia did not enact a blockade is because russia was not in a state of war and enacting a blockade would be an act of war, a moot arguement unless you want to argue that russians did not invade georgia in 2008 and that the russian black sea fleet stayed in stevaspol for the length of the war.XavierGreen (talk) 05:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A challenge to prove negatives is a weak gambit. (Please prove that you do not beat your wife, have never driven through a red light, etc.) The article you cite is a western writer's (Washington Times) opinion and likely also an imprecise use of the word "blockade".  It refers to closed transit across land borders and not blockade of maritime trade.  Georgia would be the first to say that there is no blockade of its ability to trade by sea.  The ports of Poti and Batumi have been and are functioning.  The Washington Times article has no bearing on whether there has been a sea blockade of Georgia.Федоров (talk) 13:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Its easy to prove i dont beat my wife, im not married.XavierGreen (talk) 06:58, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

"I can say the same of you, what evidence do you have that there was not a blockade?" looks like it's been written by troll; or it;s an object lesson how lack of education could affect an article. Can't believe there is a need to explain such an evident point. If you accuse someone of anything, YOU must prove it. Noone is guilty a priori! Presumption of innocence, have u heard anything about it? Hope yes and we won't discuss it, cause wiki is not the right place for this topic. P.S.sure enough about your marital status, it;s too soon to get married, you'd better finish school at first. Перцев Алексей (talk) 07:19, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge material from Public investigation of the Ossetian War?
It seems to me that the contents of Public investigation of the Ossetian War might more appropriately be incorporated into this article. Comments? Richwales (talk · contribs · review) 04:57, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I really don't think that we should do that. As mentioned in its header (and I mostly agree with the list), the article has multiple unresolved issues. The South Ossetia war article is a very VERY touchy one (I just can't overemphasize, how much). Just one wrong addition like that, and we'll be hearing cries "Russians!" - no, I mean - "Wolves!" - no wait, it's actually - "POVed and unencyclopedic!" all over the place =D. I'd rather enjoy the relative calm that seem to have established lately. Anyway, if you still see some merit in adding the information from "Public Investigation" article, I suggest improving that article directly first (i.e. adding sources, wikifying, etc), and then bringing it to editors' attention once more. How about that? ETST (talk) 14:28, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed — especially with regard to proper sourcing of the information in question. Thanks.  Richwales (talk · contribs · review) 00:37, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You are welcome =). ETST (talk) 13:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Subsequent references to Mikheil Saakashvili
Per WP:SURNAME, I believe it would be appropriate to change references in this article (after the first reference) to Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili to say simply "Saakashvili" (or, sparingly and where appropriate, "President Saakashvili"). Right now, he is repeatedly (and, I believe, unnecessarily) referred to throughout the article as "Mikheil Saakashvili" or "President Mikheil Saakashvili". Owing to the sensitivity of this article, I thought it wise to bring up this naming issue here on the talk page first, just in case someone might be aware of an important reason to make an exception to the general style guideline on personal naming conventions. I do understand that routinely referring to people by their surnames alone is not customary in Georgia, but we're talking about the English Wikipedia here. Richwales (talk · contribs · review) 00:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It's very thoughtful of you to ask first =). But personally I'm not aware of any good reason for keeping references the current way, and I'm pretty sure that in this case nobody would object, especially since there's a guideline supporting your change. I think, that as a general rule, you should be wary only about adding/changing factual information in the article (e.g how many died, who did when and what to whom, etc). Mere technicalities, like how someone's name is presented/spelled, are unlikely to be of the holywarring folk concern here (and with everybody else you'll be able to come to an agreement). Good luck editing =). ETST (talk) 13:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Andrei Nekrassov, Olga Konskaja film "Russian Lessons"
I think you should watch documentary film "Russian lessons". Atleast half of that info here is wrong.

One video to think about this film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ5eiXn7QJk —Preceding unsigned comment added by KillerEST (talk • contribs) 21:36, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I watched "Уроки русского" some half an year ago. It is indeed a very valuable work and it's a pity that it is forbidden in Russia. Kouber (talk) 10:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Article too large
This article is well beyond the 100kb limit that normally indicates a split is necessary. The military sections are a good candidate for a split, and other sections could be easily split as well. --Airborne84 (talk) 12:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Everyone is aware of the problem and this has been considered many times. The subject is complex and splitting off material will create POV concerns. I believe this is one those cases when a large article is necessary. It is allowed by policy: "Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage". Another article about a recent and controversial war, Gaza War is even longer (255 kilobytes long). But in the future, I will start working to improve the article. That includes cutting it down if possible. On first thought, I object to cutting down the military part because I think it's essential. Offliner (talk) 12:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have been working on keeping this article small for a long time now, but there are also reasons why it is as large as it is. Apart from what Offliner already pointed out, consider that this article is extremely rich in sources. As a rough guess, I'd say that about one third of the total Kb number is due to sourcing. However, that should not be counted towards the total article length, since it does bloat the articles' text. --Xeeron (talk) 16:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with xeeron that the sources are a problem, but disagree that it creates POV because no content is/will be removed. Theyd be moved to requisite pages AND duly linked from here. Right now it takes way too long to load, and particularly for editors who have to save and return to the page, which is not to mention readers who could get scared off by it not loading. We can always discuss the necessary cuts here before splits. Gaza flotilla raid also has many splits, which aids editors who focus on only 1 section ahead of others (like i did there)Lihaas (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Ukrainian Illegal Weapons Sales
Found this article about the Ukraine illegally selling Georgia the Buk missile systems that shot down the Russian jets. Would it be notable enough to add into the article, or is it too controversial, or needs 100% to be confirmed? Nath1991 (talk) 11:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The article already mentions that Georgia used Buk systems. Whether the sale was illegal or not in the Ukraine is not relevant here. --Xeeron (talk) 10:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really, if an RS mentions it then one can mention it (although id question the source as being unbiased in this regard)Lihaas (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Title
The current title of the article is not the commmon name for the conflict, rather Russia-Georgian War and Russo-Georgian War are used in english scholarly sources for the conflict. The current title fails wikipedias requirements for Verifiability and No original research. Russo-Georgian War would follow currently used conventions such as the various Russo-Swedish Wars and Russo-Turkish Wars. The current title also is pov towards the ossetian view point of the conflict, as the war took place all over the territory claimed by georgia and not entirely in South Ossetia, and was primarily fought between Russian aligned and Georgian belligerents.XavierGreen (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. The current title is absurd. The fact that such a title was chosen initially (when indeed it reflected the place where the war erupted) doesn't justify the status quo. We have to follow the rules. Kouber (talk) 07:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh my. Not this again. The same people and the same rename proposal. I'd have thought, that after you had demonstrated so much persistence, that you even got yourselves a 6 months Moratorium on Rename Debates, you'd finally become sensible enough not to try pulling the same rename on the same article for 32nd time in 28 months (!!!). Is that really how you're gonna spend Christmas and New Year days? I mean like, really-really?? Oh well, why am I so surprised? Previous 31 times should have taught me a lesson, I guess. ETST (talk) 12:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * More and more scholarly publications are published every week under the titles ive proposed. The the case for a rename grows stronger everyday.XavierGreen (talk) 17:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The terms proposed by XavierGreen are much more widely used at present. Besides, 2008 South Ossetia war doesnt apply to events taking place in this war. We should follow WP:UCN. –BruTe Talk 10:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * And "Oh my" again. An instantaneous rename flashmob with the notorious "common name" argument. In under three days we already have three men, all of whom, incidentally, were strongly in support of rename in several of previous discussions. WP:CANVASS, anyone? I wonder, where had I seen it all before? Why is that people fail to understand, that a 2-year old war is too young to reasonably have any generally-agreed upon name in History? What's driving them to hasten the decision? Does it have something to do with two of them being Georgian/having Georgian friends/generally engaging in pro-Georgian tendentious editing? Why do I have to continuously waste my personal time on them? Oh well, I guess we'll never find out answers to these questions, so let's pretend that I'm interested in seeing a proof for this "most common name" claim, shall we? I'll quickly disprove it and then proceed with doing some actually useful things. ETST (talk) 11:53, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Please stop with these continuous personal attacks and offtopic ad hominem abuses. Accusing me to have Georgian friends is ridiculous. Is it a crime to have such? Or does the fact that somebody's on my talk page makes him my friend? Because there's an Ossetian guy there too, if you didn't noticed. And honestly, I do not understand how my improvements of the Ossetians article are pro-Georgian in any way!? Wtf!?... And what canvassing are talking about? What other more important discussion do we have now on the current talk page?
 * So, do I understand your point well? You agree that the title is bad, but because the war is too young, you propose to keep it bad (some decades more)? Kouber (talk) 16:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "Please stop with these continuous personal attacks and offtopic ad hominem abuses. Accusing me to have Georgian friends is ridiculous. Is it a crime to have such?" It's not attacks and abuses, it's statement of facts. And having Georgian friends is not a crime. Tendentious editing is. I'm just exposing the reason for your persistence to anyone interested. And the fact, that I'm thoroughly annoyed with getting to repeat the same argument for 32nd time, just because you guys are too politically motivated to give up, doesn't help me to stick to the subject either.


 * "Or does the fact that somebody's on my talk page makes him my friend?" No, that alone doesn't do it. The fact, that he called you to join a debate on deletion of a picture, which he and other Georgians wanted to keep, does. Even if not friendship, at least it does point out your political views.


 * "Because there's an Ossetian guy there too, if you didn't noticed. And honestly, I do not understand how my improvements of the Ossetians article are pro-Georgian in any way!?" Yeah, I did notice the Ossetian. It's funny how you forgot to mention, that said Ossetian called you out to question neutrality of your so-called "improvements".


 * "Wtf!?" Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking, when I see people who want to convince someone with that kind of demagoguery.


 * "And what canvassing are talking about? What other more important discussion do we have now on the current talk page?" Then, maybe you'll explain, how after your 3.5-months-long absense on Wikipedia did you manage to go straight to this page (which also wasn't edited for month) just 1.5 days after the discussion started? Oh wait, don't tell me, I'm not actually interested.


 * "So, do I understand your point well? You agree that the title is bad, but because the war is too young, you propose to keep it bad (some decades more)?" No, you have misrepresented my point, which you had heard before just too often to believe that you did it unintentionally. But I'll repeat it nevertheless. I think, that, due to absense of established title, the current title is better than any other title ever proposed here (including, but not limited to, the titles you're rallying for now). And I've also given my arguments in support of that point and you've also have heard them often enough. Please, feel free to refer yourself to our previous discussions, if you think you might have forgotten some of them. ETST (talk) 09:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * So, if I write something on your talk page, it would reflect your political views!? What kind of weird logic is that? Perhaps your position to defend the current totally unpopular title has some similar logical roots? And how you are not attacking me, when you are accusing me of having Georgian friends, of being a tendentious editor, of canvassing, etc., etc.? Please stop with this unacceptable behaviour! If you want to discuss my edits, including my contribution to the Ossetians page, do it on the appropriate talk page, and do it nicely! I didn't invest several hours of my time in reading and analyzing the sources (serious academic works consisting of hundreds of pages) to receive something like that from you. And that's exactly what I proposed to the Ossetian guy in question too (on his talk page). I invited him on the talk page to discuss the changes, in case he has any objections.


 * As to your curiousity why I did appear so "suddenly" here, you can refer to the Watchlist functionality. I was waiting for the 6 months ultimatum to expire and I would have restarted the topic again myself, if it wasn't XavierGreen. Now do you have any more personal questions regarding my spare time spending?


 * Back on topic. In the English sources there are some already established titles, and they do not include the current one. That's why we need to change it. Not because I or anybody else do not like it, but because the sources say so. Kouber (talk) 13:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It doesnt appear that ETST has any objection to the title other than personal bias or political reasons. As for canvassing if you check my contribs i havent talked to anyone about the issue at all besides what ive posted on the talk page here.XavierGreen (talk) 17:25, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "It doesnt appear that ETST has any objection to the title other than personal bias or political reasons." It doesnt appear that...? To whom? Please, stop trying to pretend, that (any of) the following holds true:
 * You're new here.
 * You've never seen me.
 * We've never been arguing about this.
 * We've not been arguing about this long enough.
 * You've never seen my other objections to the title.
 * You've never seen objections to the title, other than mine.
 * You've never seen objections to the title from anyone but me.
 * You've presented brand-new, previously-unheard-of arguments in favor of the title.
 * Your 2-year-old arguments for the title weren't disproved in great clarity and detail each and every time they were presented.
 * Now, if you will stop the pretence, I'll be spared of fulfilling my tedious duty of copy-pasting the counter-argumentation from older discussions. Will you, please, do that? (No, I don't really believe it will happen, so you have an opportunity to surprise me. That would be something, that never happened here before, after all).


 * "As for canvassing if you check my contribs i havent talked to anyone about the issue at all besides what ive posted on the talk page here." Yeah, I know. Well, I guess, stealth canvassing is called stealth exactly because it is done off-wiki. And one can only provide circumstantial evidence for it, and so I did. That is also something, that I've never done before. An alternative would be to just plainly start repeating counter-arguments from previous discussions, like I always had to, but seeing how you guys keep reappearing here with regularity, worthy of better cause, I have concluded that this approach is a waste of time. Ever since now, editors, who will happen to read this discussion, will have more facts to make their judgement from, and that, ultimately, is my only goal. ETST (talk) 09:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * PS. Oh, I nearly forgot. It's funny to see, that you have carefully avoided mentioning in your reply any proof to your "most common title" claim (despite me explicitly asking to demonstrate it), and switched to trying to discretit me, instead. ETST (talk) 09:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want sources for the title ive proposed they can easily be provided, [], [], [], [], [],[], [], [].

Some of the sources of note above include Janes Defense and the Department of the Navy. Janes is one of the highest quality defense issue related sources available. If you want more i can list dozens upon dozens of them if you'd like.XavierGreen (talk) 20:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Just as I've expected. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Dear XavierGreen. But the simple act of opening Google Books/Google Scholar/whatever-you're-going-to-call-a-definitive-demonstrator and picking a few results to your liking (oh, I'm sure, "dozens upon dozens" of them have turned up in the query, b/c you don't seem to be constructing it correctly, anyway) can't be a proof of "most common title" claim. Do you understand the concept of ratio, I wonder? Do you realize, that you can't prove that one number is greater than some others by showing only that number? No, my dear XavierGreen, in order for it to be a proof you have to provide all the links to usage numbers for all the alternatives to your proposed title, and demonstrate, that they're negligibly smaller. Please, go on. I've already seen the numbers myself, so let's see, which of them you're going to show this time, and how you're going to jongle with them to make them prove your point. ETST (talk) 08:51, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * PS. I notice how you didn't start to argue about my "9 points of your pretence". I would have been mildly surprised about it, if only it wouldn't have been rather "not admitting it", than "not continuing to pretend". Sigh. ETST (talk) 09:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The quality of the sources such as Janes and the Defense Department speaks for itself. 2008 South Ossetian Conflict is not used as a title by any source of repute, and i doubt that you can prove me otherwise. And i am not going to respond to your personal attacks against me. If you dont think Janes Defense is a reputable source on defense information than what is might I ask?XavierGreen (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "The quality of the sources such as Janes and the Defense Department speaks for itself." Oh my (sorry for me repeating this so often, but I just can't help it). So you're just going to keep showing a few sources, and claiming they're the ones, that establish the title for the whole English-speaking world? Are you kidding?


 * " "2008 South Ossetian Conflict" is not used as a title by any source of repute, and i doubt that you can prove me otherwise." Firstly, I have to express my amusement at how you try to shift the burden of proof of your claim onto me by daring me to "prove otherwise", which, incidentally, involves demonstrating a source, which
 * uses "South Ossetia conflict" title, yet
 * you will call it "reputable".
 * Seeing, how those two conditions are unlikely to be satisfied simultaneously, I think I'm sharing your doubts. I'm really glad, that this kind of flawed test can't prove me wrong, though.
 * Secondly, I'd like to note, that the simple act of comparing your name with one of less popular names from the list of alternatives cannot be the proof of "most common name" claim, either. I wonder, why is it so hard for you to understand that? Or is it only your title vs "South Ossetia Conflict" in your head? Did you forget, that there are other names for the war? Like "August war", "War in Georgia", "Five day war", etc (take the freedom to look in archives for a full list). Why not also remember "South Ossetia War", at least? It is kinda, uhm... the current article title, isn't it?? Oh well.
 * And lastly, don't try and shift anyone's attention to reputability of sources or whatever. WP:COMMONNAME talks only about majority and reliability. Are the concepts of usage ratio and significant majority beyond your comprehension? Anyway, I'm not going to play in "my source is cooler" game with you. You should have had the decency to, at the very least, look in Google Scholar for usage figures, before creating this whole section. But it seems, you had no reason to start this accursed discussion for 32nd time, besides burning desire to change the title no matter how many tries it will take.


 * "And i am not going to respond to your personal attacks against me." Don't try to make a wrong impression of me. Those are not personal attacks. Those are facts. E.g, how does the fact, that we've been over this discussion many times before, constitute a personal attack against you? True, it raises the question about reasons behind your appearance here. It demonstrates, that forming a consensus with you seems to be impossible. It gives a reason to think, that you'll never give up, and will always look for an opportunity to change the title, while other editors aren't paying attention. But that doesn't make it a "personal attack". It's the facts, not me, that accuse you. They're the only things reasonably worth discussing after 31 rename attempts. Of course, you won't respond, but not because those facts (with readily available prooflinks) are "attacks". It's because you have nothing to say against them. ETST (talk) 10:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Im talking about accusing me of canvassing, that was a personal attack. If you remember there was a six month ban on name issue discussion, that bans over now thats why im hear. I never left, i was merely waiting for the ban to be over. If you do a search for Georgian War in google scholar half of the first ten hits state Russo-Georgian War since that them has "Georgian War" within itself []. When searching South Ossetian Conflict the majority of the sources refer to the the conflict before hand in the early 90's. For example on the first page of results only 1 article even refers to the 20008 war, the rest are all about other conflicts or issues []. Virtually no english publications use the terms Five Day War or August War, google scholar searches show only one relevent article each on the first page when doing searches of the terms.XavierGreen (talk) 00:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "Im talking about accusing me of canvassing, that was a personal attack. If you remember there was a six month ban on name issue discussion, that bans over now thats why im hear. I never left, i was merely waiting for the ban to be over." Hahaha. Sorry, I just can't get enough of this fun. I hate to break it to you, but the ban have been lifted for more than a month, already. It was imposed in May 25th. You started the discussion in December 27th. Tell me, please, XavierGreen, can you count? I'm asking, because you either get to admit, that you can, and then you have to explain how come the three of you have appeared so synchronously after 7 months since previous discussion, and why you all have waited for another month since ban lift? Or you admit, that you can't, and then you still have to explain the same, and also how come all three of you made the same counting mistake? Telepathy? Oh wait, that also suggests stealth canvassing. I'm sorry, XavierGreen, but those are facts, and I'm merely pointing them out to people, who might be genuinely interested in this discussion. I guess I also hope that you will provide some believeable excuse, at least.


 * "When searching South Ossetian Conflict..." Oh my (implied facepalm). As I've expected, you have no idea of how to construct queries correctly. And it's funny to see, how you have limited your scholar searches to just two titles, despite me explicitely telling you not to in my previous post. This poor kind of number-jongling isn't going to get you anywhere.


 * Oh well, let me show you how Google Scholar queries should be done, then. Let's take your Google Scholar link, and correct it. First off, a quality title query places the title in quotes, so that it will be an exact match (and suddenly, a 60-times drop in results, funny isn't it?). And by exact I mean exact  (Your proposed title is not "Georgian war". It's "Russo-Georgian war". A 4-times drop). Finally, for a good measure, let's throw in the time and place, so that GS won't get confused with older Georgian-Russian-Ossetian conflicts. And what do we see? 109 results. "Ok", you say, "but what about the same for South Ossetia war?" 70 results. An oh-so-very-big gap, isn't it? That's definitely the significant majority, that Wikipedia rules always talked about. And just to mock your "most common title" claim further, let's do the same for "August war". It's 213 results, which is kinda 2 times more than your so-called "most common title". Hereby, I rest my case. I could have even started reciting other counter-arguments against "Russo-Georgian war", but it seems that someone below has already taken this noble mission. If you want to uphold the tradition of spawning yet-another-rename-vote, please, do it now, while I feel like participating. ETST (talk) 14:49, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The title "Russo-Georgian war" is flawed. It ignores the participation of South Ossetia and its military forces, which was essential. 150 South Ossetian soldiers and fighters were killed. That's more than the 64 Russian casualties and about a third of the war's total military casualties. It was the South Ossetian military who stopped the Georgian initial advance and held them off until Russian help arrived. This was absolutely crucial for the outcome of the war. Had Georgia managed to occupy Tskinhvali and "dig in", things would have been completely different. It would be biased and dishonest to ignore the South Ossetian participation, but the proposed title does just that. "Russo-Georgian war" is full of anglophone and American POV. Fighting between Russian and Georgian forces was just one aspect of the war. Why should the title describe only this aspect? I understand that the American media could hardly care less about places like South Ossetia. They are only interested in Russia and the US ally Georgia. But Wikipedia should, and must, have a global POV. As has been stated over and over again, "2008 South Ossetia war" is a good compromise, since it avoids this problem. Nanobear (talk) 11:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I would pose your question in another way.


 * 1. Would the South Ossetians manage to stop Georgians without Russia's intervention (and continuous military support)?
 * 2. Would Georgia stop it's actions without the opening of the Abkhazian front (and without the Naval and Air Bombing actions taken by Russia in areas hundreds kilometers away from South Ossetia)?


 * I seriously doubt it. And, in fact, our mission as Wikipedians is not to invent ourselves the best title, but to follow the rules and see what the English sources say (including the sources we use as references in the article). And they say everything else but South Ossetia war (except in some rare RIA Novosti, and Kremlin.ru cases). The current title is ridiculous. Kouber (talk) 13:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "Well, I would pose your question in another way..." Demagoguery, as always. I can re-"pose the question" in the following way:
 * Would Georgia have assaulted South Ossetia, if the latter wasn't a truly independent and freedom-loving country?
 * Would South Ossetians have even needed to "manage stopping Georgians", if the latter haven't assaulted?
 * The most critical event in this whole war, is the one of Georgians having started it all (as confirmed by UN report). Don't try to shift anyone's attention away from that. Russians and Ossetians wouldn't have "managed" without each other's help. Arbitrarily pointing at Russians and claiming, that it's exactly them, who should be mentioned in the title, is strange at least. But of course, you've heard all that many times before, and, knowing your pro-Georgian attitude, I don't expect you to be reasoned. Oh, I wish that some administrator will stop this madness already. ETST (talk) 15:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Who started the war has nothing to do with the title. And in regards to Nanobear the names of wars often do not reflect all of the polities involved, only the most powerful or primary combatants. For example the Polish–Soviet War included several ukranian polities but Ukranian is never included in the title. Another excellent example is the Franco-Prussian War which also included Baden, Wuretemburg, and Bavaria but no scholar ever would make up a title to include them in the name of the conflict.XavierGreen (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course, the question could be posed in many different ways. That's indeed why I reposed it - in order to show that putting arguments in favor of the current title such as that "South Ossetian participation was essential" are completely pointless and out of the topic. The only thing that matters here are the sources. If they describe this war as "Martian war", for example, we should stick to that title, regardless of whether this title "ignores" somebody's participation and regardless of whether you like it or not.
 * Now, you tried to quote the report of the EU fact-finding mission (not UN), which I believe is one of the most credible sources we have so far (consisting itself of hundreds of sources). The title used there is "The Conflict in Georgia". The same title is used by many other English-language credible sources we are currently using as references in the article, such as The BBC, New York Times, The Independent, Reuters and many others. Mind to explain us why you dislike that title (given that it does not include Russia, just as you wish) and prefer such an unpopular title as the current one? Kouber (talk) 07:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you look back through the archives here you'll see that i proposed the title Georgian War, as it is also used by a large number of sources to describe the war. The reason why I favor Russo-Georgian War is because of the numerous high quality defence analyst sources that use the title and also as a historian there is a precident for naming Russian conflicts as ive pointed out above (Russo-Japanese War, Russo-Persian War, Russo-Swedish Wars, Russo-Turkish wars, Russo-Kazan Wars, Russo-Crimean Wars ect). If Georgian War was the most common title, id support that. The same would go with Conflict in Georgia, though that title is a bit ambiguous (there have been many conflicts in georgia). I suppose later today ill do an analysis of the various titles via google books and scholar and post it here.XavierGreen (talk) 23:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "Of course, the question could be posed in many different ways. That's indeed why I reposed it - in order to show that putting arguments in favor of the current title such as that "South Ossetian participation was essential" are completely pointless and out of the topic." I'm sorry, but don't try to pretend that you had some basis under your demagoguery. Nanobear used his reasoning in a justified manner. He quoted Ossetian casualties and noted, that they're more than twice as big, as Russian ones, so it's really strange to see Ossetia out of title. That was his reasoning. And what did you do? You twisted it, substituted the whole point of this war (Georgia trying to capture South Ossetia, killing Ossetians in process) for "whose participation was the most crucial for the outcome". And you even mentioned Abkhazian front... on which there were how many casualties? Exactly 1 killed, 2 wounded. A grand total of 3 men. Oh so very important front, indeed. (Should I really bother myself with placing sarcasm tags, I wonder? Or is my sarcasm clear enough to be noticed nevertheless?). You may consider Nanobear's argument as much pointless, as you want. But yours is not even a proper argument.


 * "The only thing that matters here are the sources. If they describe this war as "Martian war", for example, we should stick to that title, regardless of whether this title "ignores" somebody's participation and regardless of whether you like it or not." Yep, the sources matter. Therefore, it's real pity, that they're still in disarray about how this war should be called. There is no clear winner among the titles yet, which is kind of... expected of a 2-year old war. Even if we are to use Google hits as the ultimate judge, tell me, please, why are you so hasty about changing one title to a not much better one? And are we supposed to rename the article every time Google changes number of hits? I'm sorry, Kouber, but personally, I don't see your reasoning as justifying a title change. And, per WP:TITLECHANGES, "Editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." Regardless of whether you like it, or not.


 * "Now, you tried to quote the report of the EU fact-finding mission (not UN)" Indeed, a stupid mistake. Thanks for correcting me.


 * "...which I believe is one of the most credible sources we have so far (consisting itself of hundreds of sources). The title used there is "The Conflict in Georgia"..." And here you, again, use the same flawed argument that XavierGreen did. Even if some source presents itself as an "aggregation" of "hundreds of sources", it doesn't miraculously become "The Definitive Source That We Should Use To Name The Article", and it doesn't nullify the aggregated sources. It's just yet another source, which (maybe) provides some more information and insight, than the aggregated sources already have. Its significance in solving a very relevant and popular question of "who is responsible" (although, arguably, the answer was known long before) has nothing to do with the question of title preference.


 * "The same title is used by many other English-language credible sources we are currently using as references in the article, such as..." ...and then goes a long list of news agencies, that weren't a least bit neutral (and I'd say, have lost most of their credibility) during the war. I'm sorry, Kouber, but I'd say, that the time, when we had no choice but base our article title on what some news agencies made up, is already over. We need to look into what actual military historians say about the war, and that was actually the main reason, that it is Google Scholar, not just plain Google, that is used to make "The Google Hits Argument" for quite a while now.


 * "Mind to explain us why you dislike that title..." I don't "dislike" it. I consider it inappropriate for the article, for reasons, that were stated all too often. You've also heard them so many times, that I consider your yet another request to recite them a personal insult. But it seems, it can't be helped, so I'll elaborate. (Dear God, what did I do wrong to deserve all that?)


 * "...(given that it does not include Russia, just as you wish)..." Oh my. I feel, that this somehow implies, that I'm at conflict of interest with Wikipedia goals, and whatever I'm doing here is somehow "for Russia's sake". I'm sorry, Kouber, but my main reason to participate in these discussions is Neutrality. You know, that thing, that gets violated by the titles you guys propose. Don't try and represent me as a pro-Russian POV pusher. The current title, that I'm defending, and proposed titles, that I'm opposing, were respectively defended and opposed by majority of neutral editors of American, Canadian, and other "non-Russian" origin. This can be clearly seen both in the latest vote and in the biggest one, in which the current title got majority of support (even in spite of EEML cabal interference). Keeping the title, that the majority of neutral editors chose, despite expectable persistence of some restless politically-motivated groups and individuals, is my only goal and reason to participate in these discussions. And, fortunately, it doesn't conflict with Wikipedia goals. To make it even clearer, I would have seen no problem in mentioning Russia in the title, if it somehow made the title neutral. Or, at least, very popular, making other titles pale in comparison. But it doesn't.


 * "...and prefer such an unpopular title as the current one?" First of all, it's not "unpopular". It has a quite large proportion in usage, and much less popular titles had been proposed here before, and you know it. Here go the reasons, that I promised above to recite. Because I've grown tired of rephasing the same arguments for the umpteenth time, I'll use my favorite quotes from previous discussions.






 * I also can add, that, ever since the EU report, it is obvious, that Russia wasn't invading Georgia. So that point becomes even more sound.




 * The above quotations mostly concerned neutrality. This is the most important of Wikipedia cornerstones, but let's also mention some other criterions for choosing a title.






 * And finally, let me refer you to WP:TITLECHANGES again.




 * And seeing, how nothing has drastically changed in the title situation after those 6 months of renaming moratorium, I still think the same.


 * Ok, then, I guess, this would be just about enough quotes for you to be able to start nitpicking and making a reasonably believeable pretence at constructively continuing the same long-dead discussion. Have a nice day. ETST (talk) 11:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "He quoted Ossetian casualties and noted, that they're more than twice as big, as Russian ones, so it's really strange to see Ossetia out of title... And you even mentioned Abkhazian front... on which there were how many casualties... " And why don't you think about Georgian casualties and infrastructure damage, then? A lot more Georgian houses were burnt to the ground (intentionally!!!) and more Georgians were killed and injured, than Ossetians. Then, isn't it "strange to see Georgia out of the title", according to your logic? I mentioned the Abkhazian front, because it had huge strategical impact on the whole conflict, not because of the number of casualties. In any way that doesn't matter! What do matter are the sources! But no, you continue with your reflections, citations and original research.


 * The citations you mentioned because of their "neutrality" all insist that skipping South Ossetia would neglect its independence. Wtf? The fact that Russia and such crazy (Ugo) and tiny (Nauru) exceptions treat South Ossetia as independent, doesn't mean that the huge majority of the World share this position! Especially when we're discussing the English title of the article. For the entire English speaking world South Ossetia is still a part of Georgia. What "neutrality" are you talking about, then? I am sorry, but this article is addressed to English speaking readers, and not to Kremlin's well washed brains.


 * And I would indeed recite WP:AT: "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed". Would you call a title with 32 requests for a change in 28 months a "stable title"?! And there's a clear reason to change the title - the sources say so. Less than 1% of our 405 references use the current title. Does it mean something to you or you would continue insisting to invent reasons to keep "South Ossetia" because of the importance of its "independence"?


 * My arguments still stay! In the English sources there are some already established titles, and they do not include the current one. That's why we need to change it! Kouber (talk) 20:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Russia DID invade Georgia!!! South Ossetia WAS and Is an integral, and historical part of Georgia. The title must be changed back to Russia-Georgia War and 'South Ossetia War' can be used a redirect, not the other way around. In August 2008 even Russia recognized that region as a part Georgia. That means that Russia did invade the territory of Georgia, and Georgia acted on its own territory. Also, Russia invaded not only the South Ossetian or Samachablo part of Georgia, but also Abkhazia, and other parts of Georgia. So, naming the article as the South Ossetia Was is simply logically wrong, and an attempt of blatant pro-Russian propaganda. This is part of Russia's attempt to portray itself not as the main part of the war and the conflict in overall, but as a 'peacekeeper' and 'mediator' between Georgians and Ossetians. So, to the admin who watches this article, please change the title, or otherwise I'll do that, and refer your action or inaction to bureaucrat/s. The whole article is ridden with Russian POV, but changing the title back to 'Russia-Georgia War' would be a good start to make it more neutral. Is Wikipedia becoming another 'Russia Today' - a supplement of Putin’s information warfare machine? Vasilvlad (talk) 03:35, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, another Russia-hater believes Wikipedia shall follow his "neutral" point of view and write about an Evil Empire - Small Yet Proud Paragon Of Freedom war. You may be surprised, but the it's not the problem of hundreds of Wikipedia editors who wrote this article, it is about you, to realize your bias and learn to keep it away from Wiki.

The names of wars are not exclusively "Righto-Left war" The Winter war was not fought by the armies of winter. The Opium wars were not fought by drug-users. South Ossetia, Tskhinvali in particular, was the place where all major fighting went; SO was the cause, goal and the stage of war. And there were two more combatants than Russia and Georgia, which would turn it into "Russo-Ossetian-Abkhazian-Georgian war". Garret Beaumain (talk) 05:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As i pointed out above the names of wars often only include the two main belligerents and ingore smaller ones, such as the Polish-Soviet War. The war was russian aligned polities against georgia and hence why many scholars simply use Russo-Georgian War.XavierGreen (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Why is secondary, frankly, even immaterial. It should be more than enough that scholarly sources use "Russo-Georgian war"—unless someone here is trying to make a POV WP:POINT. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 15:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well in some scholar sources you can meet American-Korean war, American-Vietnamese war, American-Iraqi war instead of Korean war, Vietnam war and Iraq war etc (the list is too long; you can read this article). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Давид Эвоян (talk • contribs) 16:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Illustrations
I like the illustrations. Some of them make me laugh. Are they illustrations or caricatures?
 * "An apartment building in Gori, damaged during the war" - We have five relatives living in Gori and two of them (I won't tell their names) lived in that house. During the war Georgian officers came to the house and ordered all the inhabitants to leave their appartments and after an hour they started to bomb the house. And then some reporters came and started to shoot the house. My relatives were astonished by the clownery.Давид Эвоян (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "A Russian missile booster lies largely intact in a bedroom of a home in Gori." Really? I thought it was a peace of paper, because a missile, waighing a ton just cannot fall at a speed of 200mph and make no damage. Besides, where did it fall from? I cannot imagine the trajectory of the "missile".Давид Эвоян (talk) 20:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you notice its the booster and not the warhead, boosters dont explode there just metal cylanders.XavierGreen (talk) 22:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They don't explode. But I think a soccer ball would make more damage if it fell at a very high speed. It is obvious that the foto is fake.Давид Эвоян (talk) 12:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You have no idea of the velocity at which it fell or the hight at which it dropped, ive seen photos of meteor strikes on houses that have done less damage and fallen at extreme velocities and heights.XavierGreen (talk) 17:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I really don't care who's house it was and if it's propaganda or not but this photo is 100% fake. Several hundreds of kilos stopped by a :D door! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.254.76.249 (talk) 14:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect picture title
It's Georgian BMP on the road to Tbilisi:

Here the same BMP: http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1267666,00.jpg  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.120.49.153 (talk) 09:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

However, it has been updated now

W have real destroyed Russian armor replacing it. TheMightyGeneral (talk) 09:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice. But I strongly suggest You not to vandalize discussion page. Why do You delete this picture of destroyed Russian BTR-70 from the article? [[File:BMP-1_or_BMP-2,_South_Ossetia_War.jpg]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.120.47.52 (talk) 12:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, mhm sure. First study about military vehicles and then comply. This is a destroyed BMP-2 and most probably from the Georgian Army. Not a BTR-70 how you claim .... and I strongly advice you to stop that nonsence. TheMightyGeneral (talk) 07:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it is a MTLB! 71.58.198.190 (talk) 02:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Renaming, once again
@Kouber's and my note of a while ago, it doesn't matter why a title for a conflict is the most common. Yet once more the observation must be made that the title of this article does not reflect common usage for the name of the conflict. "Russo-Georgian war" is the appropriate title. And since we're > 30 renaming discussions, if we are to discuss again, let us stick to what reputable sources use (now that some time has passed), not what we opine personally. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:12, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support, since the conflict did not take place just in South Ossetia. Like I would prefer it if 2011 Libyan Civil War is moved to Libyan Civil War for the same reasons given in WP:COMMONNAME. -- 92.4.75.68 (talk) 12:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see this discussion going farther than any other rename discussion. See the archive. My position remains the same. Outback the koala (talk) 01:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, Outback. No sane admin would listen to an EEML cabal member, and an anonymous IP editor, whose first 3 edits betray involvement in certain political themes and high familiarity with Wikipedia, which clearly suggests he's a political edit warring professional, who have just been kicked out of his previous account. We've been over this talk too many times already. At that point, they might as well start pasting here their favorite cookie recipes (at least that would be interesting). ETST (talk) 12:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Wait. Before any of you continue debating here, let me make the following procedural clarification: Brief, civilized and constructive comments on this suggested process please? Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) ETST, stop the strident rhetoric and the personal attacks. This is a one and only, official warning. One more contribution in this tone, and you are excluded from this article permanently.
 * 2) Both in this version of the proposal, and in the one preceding (further up on this page), it has been asserted that "Russo-Georgian War" is more frequently used in the sources. While this would constitute a compelling argument according to our policy if true, no evidence has been brought forward. Without properly documented usage data, such claims are worthless.
 * 3) It is well known that among the established editors of this page there is no consensus about the title, and it's unlikely there will ever be one. As I said about 12 months ago when imposing the moratorium, it is generally not constructive to re-kindle such a debate for the n-th time unless there is something substantially new in the debate. Right now I'm not seeing any reason to believe this is the case.
 * 4) As a matter of experience, the continued presence of long involved editors with deeply entrenched views in a debate has the effect of chasing away new outside commentators. But without fresh outside input this can never be solved conclusively. This is not an accusation of disruptiveness against anybody in particular, but people with a long involvement in the debate need to take a step back and let others decide.
 * In light of the fact that it's been about a year since the last serious move request, I'd like to give the proponents one final chance. However, if we're going to do this, this move request will be conducted under close procedural supervision (I'm ruthlessly appointing myself dictator here.) The rules are as follows:
 * Each group of involved editors, i.e. proponents and opponents of the move, will be given one (1) section on this talk page each in which they may summarize what they consider the central long-standing arguments in favour of their view, in one brief paragraph (max 250 words) on behalf of the whole group.
 * Each group of involved editors will have one (1) section on this talk page in which they are expected to document relevant usage statistics from reliable sources, as a basis for a decision under WP:COMMONNAME.
 * We will then have the usual poll conducted under the usual rules, but all editors who have a long-standing involvement in this dispute will be excluded from voting and commenting on it. Leave this to outside, fresh observers to settle.
 * I will personally ask two or three trustworthy admin colleagues to assess consensus together at the end of the process. Consensus evaluation will be based on strength of policy-based arguments, not on head count.
 * This seems like a fair way to run things, I'm in support of Fut.Perf.☼'s suggestion. What is the status of this process? Or has it been shelved in favor of Xeeron 's suggestions below?  I wouldn't mind reading over the summaries and giving input as someone who hasn't been involved. Sxoa (talk) 10:07, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

A new proposal (and it is not a new name)
I take a long break, and, no surprise, this is the latest entry on the talk page when I come back. I'll spare everyone a repeat of the arguements (which can be found in the archives) and will describe the basic situation: Side 1 uses bring something up again and again and again till it succeeds to change the article name. Meanwhile, side 2 reponds with drang on discussions forever with endless repetitions of the same points to prevent anything from happening. Due to the way wikipedia is set up, side 2 is successful so far.

I thoroughly hate this debate by now, but I have not just 1 but 2 new ideas to bring to the table. My preference is option 2.
 * Idea 1: The debate is stuck because wikipedia requires consensus, but there is no possible compromise, only 2 mutually exclusive options (dont try to come up with consensus names. They have *all* been tried. At least 3 times). There is an obvious way that most of the world deals with such problems: Holding a majority vote.

So idea 1 is for both sides to agree on a vote, to agree on the parameters of the vote and to agree to drop the topic once the vote is over.

Idea 1 is easy, but I doubt that everyone can be won over to implement it. That is why I prefer Idea 2: Currently the article describes the war on the ossetian front and the abkhasian front. Problem being: There are a ton of differences between the two. They start differently (Ossetia: Georgian attack/Abkhasia: Abkhasian/Russian attack), they evolve differently (Georgia taking Tskinvali vs Abkhasia taking Kodori), one has a sea theater, the other doesn't, in one case Georgia controlled almost half the territory, on the other much less, etc. All in all, the Abkhasian theater is badly underrepresented in the current format, especially where history, buildup and aftermath are concerned.
 * Idea 2: Split up the article

Splitting up would help on 3 issues: It would make the naming less contentious, it would make it easier to represent the Abkhasian part of the war and it would also serve to shorten the article (which has been too long since almost forever). --Xeeron (talk) 19:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that the suggestion would have these 3 advantages. But I think it's going to be difficult to implement. In any case, we need a general article which combines info about both fronts, otherwise it's not possible for the reader to fully understand the war. The "Abkhazian front" chapter is not very long, so there's not much that can be split off. I'm not very interested in the naming debate anymore; there a lot more important things to do regarding this article. So if the main advantage of the split would be to end the debates, I would probably oppose since doing the split is difficult. Btw, I think that Battle of Tskhinvali actually describes the Ossetian front (not just the Tshkinvali theater, although the latter was a very major part of it). Nanobear (talk) 02:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Ending the debates is a very welcome side effect, but the main problem (which has been my main problem with the name all along as well, since I suspect the one-sided name leads to one-sided writing), is the severe lack of info about the situation in Abkhazia. Check the intro and background sections - Abkhazia is barely mentioned. And that despite the fact that the history there is just as violent as in South Ossetia (and Abkhazia is arguably the more important of the two). --Xeeron (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is a list of articles to better illustrate matters: Additionally, there are the articles about the earlier wars + subarticles.
 * 2008 South Ossetia war - Very detailed, quite well written (despite recent slip)
 * Battle of Tskhinvali - Subarticle moved out, detailed, well written, deals with SO front
 * Occupation of Gori - Similar, deals with Russian army in Gori
 * Battle of the Kodori Valley - Similar, a little short, deals with Abkhazian front
 * Background of the 2008 South Ossetia war - Subarticle moved out, deals with background in terms of different interests
 * Georgian–Ossetian conflict - Pretty messy
 * 2008 Georgia–Russia crisis - Very messy, almost bullet point style, very detailed
 * Georgia–Russia relations - Pretty messy, lacking updates for events after August 2008
 * Georgian–Abkhazian conflict - Very short

As you can see, there are a total of 5 articles all going into the background of the situation in South Ossetia in more or less detail (2008 South Ossetia war, Background of the 2008 South Ossetia war, Georgian–Ossetian conflict, 2008 Georgia–Russia crisis, Georgia–Russia relations). On the other side, there is only one, smallish article for Abkhazia (Georgian–Abkhazian conflict). So the problem is really different for the two issues:

For South Ossetia, the main problem is to make all the different articles consistent and find some way of arranging them that makes stuff less confusing. For Abkhazia, the main problem is the opposite, there is hardly overarching connection at all. To mess things up further, Georgia and Russia are involved in both conflicts at the same time, so while being geographically separate, they go through similar stages at the same time.

Imho, all of these need to be tackled at the same time. Some ideas:


 * 1) Move a lot more of the actual "fighting" (from active stage section) into the 3 Battle/Occupation subarticles to create space in the main article.
 * 2) Considerably upgrate the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict into an overarching story about that theater.
 * 3) Either create a new article about the war on the Abkhazian front or considerably upgrade this article with stuff about it
 * 4) Consolidate 2008 South Ossetia war, 2008 South Ossetia war, Background of the 2008 South Ossetia war, Georgian–Ossetian conflict, 2008 Georgia–Russia crisis, Georgia–Russia relations:
 * 5) *2008 South Ossetia war should be shorter on SO and refer more of the historic stuff to Georgian–Ossetian conflict
 * 6) *Similar for 2008 South Ossetia war, parts of which should be moved to the Background article
 * 7) *2008 Georgia–Russia crisis should be completely deleted and interesting stuff moved to Background of the 2008 South Ossetia war, Georgian–Ossetian conflict, and Georgia–Russia relations

All that would leave: 2 "Georgian-XX conflict" articles with the big storyline, this article and subarticles with the fighting, the "background ..." article with all the detail we dont want here and "Georgia-Russia relations" with another big storyline from the Russian perspective. --Xeeron (talk) 13:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for this excellent overview of the situation. I think I agree with your points. What we need is a centralised page with a general plan for "what goes where" and a good todo-list. Perhaps we could even establish a WP:MILHIST task force for this purpose (I asked if this is a good idea here). Btw, do you think we could restore 2004 South Ossetia clashes? It is a pretty well-defined conflict, so it satisfies the criteria for a separate article. A separate article is easier to comprehend (with an infobox and all). I could do some work on the 2004 conflict as a start for improving the pre-2008 articles. Nanobear (talk) 09:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Leaving link here: WikiProject Military history/Strategy/Incubator/2008 South Ossetia war.
 * I will also copy my post above to the talk page there. --Xeeron (talk) 15:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that the material about the Abkhazian front should be expanded. As a first step, wouldn't it be good to rename Battle of the Kodori Gorge to Abkhazian front in the 2008 South Ossetia war (a more general name so that we can add naval operations, etc.)? Nanobear (talk) 10:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced additions
I've noticed that some editors have added a lot of unsourced material. For example, in the Battle of Tskhinvali section, the sentence "A little tank battle took place, during which one Russian T-62, one T-72B and one Georgian T-72Sim1" is not found in the given source. The part beginning with "Ossetian militia using handheld anti-tank weaponry proved effective against Georgian armor" is sourced to, which doesn't seem to be a reliable source. And the last paragraph of the section (beginning with "During its orderly retreat out of South Ossetia into Gori, the Georgian forces were repeatedly hit...") has no inline cite at all. Can we remove these materials please? Nanobear (talk) 02:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You will find that most of these additions were made by User:Reenem, who has an extraordinarily long history of introducing unsourced facts. The easiest way to clean up might be to go through his contributions one by one and check for sources upon addition. --Xeeron (talk) 12:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.globalaffairs.ru/docs/2008_english4.pdf
 * In Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia on 2011-03-18 09:32:33, 404 Not Found
 * In 1991–1992 South Ossetia War on 2011-05-25 05:58:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 2008 South Ossetia war on 2011-06-16 14:49:36, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 14:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC) what is the doc about? what's the name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.5.135.210 (talk) 20:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Dead link 2
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.messenger.com.ge/issues/1237_november_15_2006/n_1237_brief.htm
 * In Davit Kezerashvili on 2011-03-17 00:05:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2008 South Ossetia war on 2011-06-16 14:49:49, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 14:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

A couple of gotchas
Just perusing this article for no real reason, I notice a bunch of claims that set off little red flags, and start checking them against sources. The claims keep coming up false, and skewed towards official Georgian government positions. (I don't know whether this is a reflection of the claims I chose to examine, or whether the article overall really is skewed pro-Georgian.)

Examples: ''Saakashvili's government ... created "passably democratic institutions" and implemented what many[quantify] viewed as a pro-US foreign policy.[41]''

The source #41 speaks of "creation of passably democratic institutions and the implementation of an unwaveringly pro-U.S. foreign policy." The "passably democratic" part has been passed along without attribution, while the "unwaveringly pro-U.S" part has been diluted, given a vague attribution, and then tagged with a reliability warning. This is, if anything, the opposite of what should have been done, since there is no controversy that Misha pursued a strongly pro-US agenda, but the "passability" of his democratic credentials is in serious dispute (eg    etc.)

''At 10:30 p.m. of 7 August, Georgian artillery units began firing smoke shells into South Ossetia to draw civilians away from dangerous areas. To give civilians time to evacuate, the Georgians ceased fire and provided an interval before their main artillery attack began.[145]

Half an hour later, Georgian forces began a major artillery bombardment...

Source #145, the international fact-finding report, does not say that warning smoke shells were fired, but rather that the fact-finding commission was told by the Georgians that this was done; it also says that "This seems to fall short of giving effective advance warning under [international humanitarian law]." So what we have is an official Georgian claim cited as if it were an established fact reported by a neutral arbiter. Meanwhile, relevant information the arbiter actually did present, about the apparent inadequacy of the warnings, is elided. #145 also does not say that the Georgians ceased fire and provided an interval; this appears to be made up outright. 145 simply says that the Georgians opened fire with smoke and then fifteen (not thirty) minutes later with explosive.

I'd just fix this stuff, but I really don't have the heart to get into the inevitable fight over it. So consider this a drive-by criticism and do with it what you feel. TiC (talk) 00:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Lose figures
http://sites.google.com/site/afivedaywar/Home/getanklosses Just take a look here and tell me how there are just 5tanks lost by the georgian side... I hate wiki for this, other language other story Bullshit! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.193.92.221 (talk) 00:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Summary of why there needs to be a rename
While, I have long insisted on a rename I recognize that any discussion with the general body of editors is likely to fail to reach complete agreement. Though the rules of Wikipedia by no means require such agreement it seems the admins are unwilling to take action so long as a few biased users continue to object to a name change. So I am simply going to reiterate why there needs to be a change, preferably to the name Russia-Georgia War. First of all, I have to note that under the rules the name Russia-Georgia War is just as good as Russo-Georgian War, Russian-Georgian War, Georgia-Russia, Georgian-Russian War, and any other variation. The order of countries in the title is an irrelevant point as any order is considered valid, though the most common order is preferred.

Due to this fact the only discussion of relevance is whether the title should only include the countries Russia and Georgia. In this respect one has to consider the nature of the conflict, it's scope, and the involvement of the belligerents. Some editors tried to draw a comparison with the Kosovo War noting the article on that conflict is not called "NATO-Yugoslavia War", but this is invalid mainly for the fact that it refers to a war that was going on long before NATO intervention. Unlike in the Kosovo War, South Ossetia was only at war for a matter of hours before Russia officially intervened and had it not been for Russia's intervention it is likely Georgia would have overrun the territory within the day. So the nature of the conflict merits a focus on Russia and Georgia, as opposed to South Ossetia.

In addition to the above, the scope of the conflict was never limited to South Ossetia or its neighboring environs. From the onset of war Abkhaz forces, together with Russian forces in the area of Abkhazia, were taking action against Georgian forces there. It is off the shore of Abkhazia that one of the largest engagements of the war, and the only major naval engagement, took place. Only one thing differentiates the Abkhaz front from the Ossetian front and that is the casualty count in land engagements. However, this is as much because of Georgia's lack of ability or interest to put up strong resistance to moves on the Abkhaz front. One cannot deny that major moves into Georgia were launched from Abkhaz territory and that some of these were on the basis of gaining ground in a territorial dispute between the government of Abkhazia and Georgia. The current title completely disregards this scope and impacts the direction of the entire article as the article's background to the conflict focuses almost entirely on South Ossetia, despite the fact that tension in Abkhazia was the main focus in the lead-up to the conflcit.

Finally there is the actual involvement of the belligerents in the conflict. While South Ossetia was involved, it was mainly within South Ossetia as well as some involvement in Gori, which was itself only really possible due to the considerable involvement of Russia in the conflict. On the other hand, Russia was pushing beyond Gori at times and initiated a large build-up in Abkhazia. Both fronts saw major involvement by Russian forces including on the Abkhaz front the move into Poti where Georgian ships were destroyed and nearly two dozen soldiers taken prisoner. As I already noted the build-up to war was focused more in Abkhazia than South Ossetia. The tensions were primarily due to Russian actions in Abkhazia and Georgian actions in response. Again it is clear that the involvement of Russia and Georgia is of paramount importance in building up towards conflict and in the conflict itself. More importantly, when one considers the conflict appropriately as one between Russia and Georgia, in which South Ossetia and Abkhazia were merely proxies, it allows us to note the deeper geopolitical background of the conflict. Those of us who had kept an eye on this brewing conflict for years before it finally erupted understand that, just as Abkhazia and South Ossetia were proxies of Russia, Georgia was acting as a proxy for the United States. It is in the broader geopolitical context of NATO encirclement of Russia and Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence that we see the real cause of the conflict.

By making this all about South Ossetia I imagine Russian editors hope to downplay the deliberate provocations by Russia, but at the same time the reasons for Russia's provocations are also lost. We are left talking about South Ossetia, which has no relevance to the actual purpose of the conflict except insomuch as it provided a casus belli.

Were the current title the most popular this would be of little relevance, but in fact the title I am suggesting not only fits best with the facts of the conflict it also is used most frequently in one form or another when naming the conflict (see the first paragraph). Not only is it used most often in English sources the usage shows all indications of it being an accepted name on all sides as even state-owned RIA Novosti uses "Russia-Georgia war" regularly to refer to the conflict. "Russia-Georgia War" fits the criteria for a rename far better than any other name presently out there and satisfies the criteria far better than the present title as well. I do not intend to discuss this matter further as I see no reason for further discussion. We have spent three years with the current title and at not point has it shown any sign of gaining currency outside Wikipedia and various mirror sites. There is no reason to believe that trend will reverse and the argument for a rename to "Russia-Georgia War" remains just as strong as it was when the issue was first raised, if it is not stronger. So, in lieu of acquiescence on the part of obstructionist pro-Russian editors, I implore the admins to consider taking action themselves and move this article to its proper place so as to end the stalemate for good.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:42, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not one of the editors normally involved in these discussions. My preferred title for this article would be August 2008 War (or else simply August War). I haven't seen any argument why the article title should be changed to something like Russia-Georgia War rather than August 2008 War, especially since I recall someone presenting evidence that variations on August War and August 2008 War are actually the most commonly used designations used by 3rd party sources. sephia karta  |  dimmi  10:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it was about three years ago when there was a first consensus decision that the article does not need to be renamed. We all understand that some editors have other point of view. But I really can not understand why after dozens of votes we still need to come to the article every other week and vote against renaming it again. Really, I believe some people are just getting tired of doing pointless things over and over again.FeelSunny (talk) 17:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What tires me is obstructionists insistently lying by claiming there is a consensus on their side. The most you could say is that there was a lack of consensus, if not consensus for a change. Just because your group keeps drowning out the rational reasons for changing the name with invalid nonsense making admins wary of implementing the change does not mean you somehow "win" at Wikipedia. You may be right that discussion is useless thanks to editors like you, but I am not going to have you try and rewrite the history of this debate.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 21:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Devil&#39;s Advocate, please refrain from personal insults. There's no need to claim I am an "obstructionist", "lie", or that I am a member of any "group", or want to "win at Wikipedia" - this is not true. The only "group" I heard about lately was the anti-Russian Eastern European Mailing list. There's also no need to argue using other weasel words like "rational" and "invalid nonsense" - this only shows you're probably not here for a team work.
 * There's been a great number of proposals for renaming/ moving this article. In almost every of these votes someone was using the arguments you named. And those arguments were discussed again and again every time. And none of these proposals was accepted by a majority of users. That's how voting process works. By trying to move the article again, you just make everybody around participate in the same discussion we had, dozens of times, before.
 * I would really wish all authors interested in the topic to rather concentrate on more useful - and more difficult - work, like shortening the article and making it more readable. I myself added numerous pictures to it, added notes, wrote some text, making the article more easy to comprehend, which I'm proud of. And I'm ready to spend my (believe me, quite valuable) time to make the article better. And it's really sad that changing the title to promote some point of view is just too attractive for some users, and, as a result, we all need to spend time discussing the title again and again - instead of concentrating on readability. FeelSunny (talk) 09:44, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry to be snippy with you, but unlike you, I am not insisting there is a consensus for one side or the other. None of the major discussions could be regarded as having been a consensus for keeping the current title and the argument that changing it to Russia-Georgia War would promote a POV was long ago rejected by admins who had reviewed the discussion. The main reason I got from admins for why they ruled that there was a lack of consensus is because they did not believe a common name had emerged, not that they felt a specific alternative was biased.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 01:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you propose a common name for a vote now?FeelSunny (talk) 19:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * While I'm not in favour of any concrete name, it is sure that all the proposals so far are far better than the current one. Both Russia-Georgia war and August war are used many times more than the current title. A few months ago I made some research over the sources we use as references in the article (as one of the wp naming rules mentions this approach) and I discovered that from 150 examined sources (the first 150), the term South Ossetia conflict (or derivatives, such as Tragedy in South Ossetia, used by kremlin.ru, etc.) is used only 6 times, which represents only 4%. I had no more spare time to accomplish this research then, but it became clear to me that the current title is very unpopular, compared to Georgia conflict or Russia-Georgia conflict, for example. I still do not understand why some people insist on keeping a title, which contradicts with what the sources are saying.Kouber (talk) 18:02, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And South Ossetia and Abkhazia are many times more often called "breakaway regions of Georgia" in English language sources, and Kosovo is called a "state" many times more often, so? I just don't see why do we need to repeat all those discussions again, Kober. You both propose for a vote names that were on vote, names that were rejected by a vote, did anything change, to go through it all again? If yes, what changed? If no, why do we all need to our spend time again discussing the name, while we could be working on articles instead?FeelSunny (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The change is that the arguments regularly presented for changing the name continue to be reinforced. Russian sources, such as RIA Novosti, regularly use the term "Russia-Georgia War" and most other English-language sources use that term most prominently and most regularly. We have no indication that the current title will ever be a common name and it remains insufficient in describing the conflict with most reliable sources from all countries, Russia included, characterizing it more as a war between Russia and Georgia rather than a war over South Ossetia, which was just one of the disputed regions the war could be said to have been fought over. Look at what took place before the war and it is pretty clear that this war could just as easily have started in Abkhazia. It was not the disputed regions that were at issue, but relations between Russia and Georgia or, more broadly, Russia and the United States. By keeping the title at South Ossetia War it implies those issues are not as relevant to the conflict as the action in South Ossetia. Given that it was Georgia's invasion of the disputed region that sparked off the war there is an obvious POV interest in making this about South Ossetia.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 18:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the need for a rename of the article. The current title is accurate and this discussion just goes round and round brought up by the same users every few months; clearly hoping others will stop paying attention/discussing the issue. Outback the koala (talk) 08:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. FeelSunny (talk) 13:15, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting speach by president Medvedev
President Medvedev said in November 2011 about the war that “For some of our partners, including NATO, it was a signal that they must think about geopolitical stability before making a decision to expand the alliance.” According to the article this is the first time a Russian official has acknowledged that its conflict with Georgia was not only about “protecting compatriots,” but also about the need to forestall strategic changes on Russia’s border. And by the way the war is called the Russian-Georgian war in the headline. Närking (talk) 17:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Might just as well mean NATO should be careful when choosing candidates for membership, and not pledge support to lunatics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.5.135.210 (talk) 20:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Spelling issue
I understand that this article follows British spelling, but it is my understanding that two US-run program(me)s (Georgia Train and Equip Program and Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program) should retain their original spellings, per exceptions made in ENGVAR. Compare using "Oil for Food Program" [instead of "Programme"] in a US spelling article - it would be technically incorrect because the proper name uses the UK/Commonwealth spelling. I did already make the changes, but I just wanted to better explain them than the edit comment allows.--L1A1 FAL (talk) 13:50, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

"Due to the absence of satellite-targeting, precision-guided munitions could not be used (US controlled GPS was unavailable since the war zone was blacked out)"
Didn't Russia have GLONASS?

Or was it not implemented enough then?

71.58.198.190 (talk) 02:40, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I once asked Arthur Chilingarov about GLONASS, if it's used to guide expeditions in Arctic, and he said system was not fully complete to cover that much territory. This was in 2010. Garret Beaumain (talk) 19:26, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

U.S. support in factbox
Many right-hand factboxes of Wikipedia articles on wars (such as October War or Spanish Civil War) list supporters in addition to the belligerents. Because "The Georgian air defence early warning and command control tactical system was connected to a NATO Air Situation Data Exchange (ASDE) through Turkey, allowing Georgia to receive data directly from the unified NATO air-defence system.[383]" and "Two to three days later the U.S. Air Force airlifted it to Georgia, too late to take part in the Battle of Tskhinvali.[398]", the USA and possibly NATO should be listed as supporters of Georgia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deathmare (talk • contribs) 17:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

KIA, WIA, MIA, and POW cleanup
The amounts listed in the totals do not match the amounts of KIA, WIA, ect listed in the belligerant/unit breakdown. Also I have a problem that the Georgian KIA and WIA are listed as civilians. Even the South Ossetian forces list their "military and civilian" losses together. In the articles current state their is no way to discern how many soldiers were killed on either side, how many civilians were killed, and how many Georgians were wounded (The number varies from 1200 to 250 in the total.) This is either horribly sloppy work or somone really went out of thier way to NOT make the distinction between people who died fighting, and people who died while walking down the street un-armed. 67.165.53.163 (talk) 20:22, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

The listing of the various units of KIA, WIA, POW soldiers is also irrelevant. Best just to keep the tolls to national army size rather than battalions

This entire article is a mess just like all Military History articles on Wikipedia. I really dislike seeing sensitive history such as this written by punters. Wikipedia shouldn't have a history section, end of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.66.45 (talk) 16:42, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review

 * The article does not seem to represent some side's POV. Its only problem is that it's incredibly long and too detailed for such a minor event in history. Can't believe it is five time longer than Great Northern War.Garret Beaumain (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Every Wikipropaganda article has a POV - that of the American NAZI scum — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.155.55.70 (talk) 21:33, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your English teacher thought of a more intelligent use of this instrument, probably.FeelSunny (talk) 01:02, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Who started conflict and roles of peacekeepers
Hi, Couple of days ago i have made edits on the following link 2008 South Ossetia war since it lacks impartiality(to me), this time i will not bring examples of all the changes i tried to make, i will do for some points with the very important reference. One of the changes i tried to make was this excerpt from the link above Russia reacted by deploying units of the 58th Army and to this i have added long before prepared and after my addits it looked like this: Russia reacted by deploying long before prepared units of the 58th Army which was not accetped. Here below i am giving the link on what Putin had stated on 4th Year of anniversary of the conflict, apart of this link you can see this on ony other offical sources. Just reminding you that Putin was the only one who ordered the assault on Georgia, this information is more clear on the following link as well.

Before going for the link, below the link is excerpts from that link for your quick access.

http://www.minnpost.com/christian-science-monitor/2012/08/was-putin-charge-during-georgia-war-medvedev-begs-differ

"In separate comments dedicated to the fourth anniversary of the 2008 Georgia war, Russia'sPresident Vladimir Putin has possibly generated more than one nasty controversy, which the Kremlin leader can ill afford. One remark by Mr. Putin, which has the Georgian Foreign Ministry in full cry, was his unexpected insistence that Russia "had a plan" for war with Georgia even before Georgian forces struck the capital of breakaway South Ossetia on Aug. 8, 2008, triggering the conflict.

"This admission contradicts Russia's earlier assertions that its 2008 military attack was in response to a surprise attack from Georgia and that its invasion was meant to prevent a genocide and protect Russian citizens," the statement said. "It also underscores the premeditated nature of the invasion and highlights Moscow's utter disregard for international law."

"in a terse statement Thursday, Georgia's Foreign Ministry said world public opinion ought to revisit the events of August 2008 and recognize Russia's culpability in fomenting the conflict.

Another changes i tried to make was to highlight Russian peacekeepers as a instigators which is also clear from above, their interest never was a peace in this region, their interest always was a war, this conflict was from the beginning fueled by them in order to weaken Georgian as a punishment for tring to join to the developed west, NATO, etc.

So now i am asking what more information is needed to make changes i was trying to do.

Archil Maisuradze — Preceding unsigned comment added by Archil Maisuradze (talk • contribs) 09:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There's no sensation. When you expect someone to attack you or your allies, you have to prepare a plan for such a case. That's what General Staff in every army is for. And if the war caught you by surprise, fire your intelligence chief. Garret Beaumain (talk) 19:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, army in every country is getting prepared for wars, and every army creates plans on how to stop aggression. So, Archil, what makes you want to stress this long before prepared in this article?FeelSunny (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)