Talk:Sloboda

Definition
"East Slavic lands" is vague, in my opinion. What counts as "East Slavic lands"? Is it the whole territory of modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine? Does it refer to Rus? Some of these lands were part of colonization at the time or formerly inhabited by Cumans, Tatars etc, so can we consider these territories as part of "East Slavic lands"? There was also the German Sloboda, and so on. Mellk (talk) 17:25, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is intentionally vague. It is lands inhabited by East Slavs, who used the term 'sloboda'. Russian sources say "medieval Russia" or something. - Altenmann >talk 17:32, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "East Slavic lands" implies they were native to these all these territories, rather than settlers. Mellk (talk) 17:35, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Nope. But I changed the lede to avoid the dispute. - Altenmann >talk 18:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Page move
It is generally a bad idea to move a page created 20 years ago. - Altenmann >talk 22:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Um, citation needed :D --Joy (talk) 22:53, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 22 May 2024

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

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 21:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Sloboda → Sloboda (settlement)
 * Sloboda (disambiguation) → Sloboda

– This word means "freedom" in the original Slavic languages, and while there is a significant usage in Russian and Ukrainian history as well as some usage in modern-day Russian administrative divisions, described at this presumed primary topic, its usage and long-term significance does not actually overshadow the ambiguity over the other uses of the word for the average English reader.

In preparation for this move, I went through the list of ~200 incoming links to preemptively disambiguate them. The usage is typically clerical, to explain the strange term, which is most commonly placed in italics. This indicates that the fact that the explanation was directly at "sloboda" was a very easy way to get the etymological explanation. However, that's a possible description of editor behavior, which is not necessarily the reader behavior (WP:RF).

It should also be noted that Russian toponymy lists are quite weird from the perspective of a navigation purpose for set indices, with an apparent habit of linking these kinds of terms contrary to what MOS:DABONE would advise. It's not that I'm opposed to having a link somewhere in such a set index to explain the term, but the volume of this skews the statistics.

After going through the list, I was left with 19 links (~10%) where I couldn't identify a clear connection to this particular subject. Mostly they seemed to be generic references to the Slavic word for "freedom". This also extended to Russian topics. Some were references to specific places named Sloboda, not the concept. I had also disambiguated numerous others by linking Foobar Svoboda instead of keeping a largely useless partial link (sadly I didn't keep a count of these to be able to note the percentage).

A search in Google Books for me does not identify this meaning to be primary - I get more references to people named this way. Likewise for Google Scholar. I don't have reason to believe that this would differ for the average English reader.

WikiNav for Sloboda and meta:Research:Wikipedia clickstream archive indicate that the hatnote is consistently one of the most commonly clicked links on the page - even in months where we see a larger readership, it's still among the most commonly clicked links (for example in March '24, with 162 clickstreams to 9 identified destinations, the hatnote was #3 with 17). This is typically indicative of a navigation issue.

Another editor reverted the initial preparatory move, thinking this broke links (it did not) and saying this changes a 'long established' status quo - I don't see an actual rationale there. Just because this grew organically as is - doesn't mean it's not subject to evaluation and adjustment.

In addition, similar terms like svoboda and swoboda are not short-circuiting here and are indeed disambiguated, so this change would seem to make things more consistent. Joy (talk) 23:14, 22 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 07:22, 29 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 07:44, 6 June 2024 (UTC)  — Relisting. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 10:15, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose the very fact that there were " ~200 incoming links" the nom had to go through says that the term is well-entrenched in its primary meaning as a type of settlement. There are other similar articles about types of settlement: kibbutz, kampong, Village, Kishlak, Miasteczko, Lhota, ... accompanied with disambig pages. - Altenmann >talk 01:17, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * P.S. regarding "similar terms like svoboda and swoboda" - these do not have individual meanings. - Altenmann >talk 01:29, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * No, I can't find any proof that it is well-entrenched. As mentioned above, I couldn't even find proof that it was well-entrenched in Russian usage, where we have ambiguous usage already in the articles. Please demonstrate a rationale for that sweeping assertion. This list of examples is incoherent - it includes both the common English word "village" and a variety of foreign examples that are nowhere near its status for the average English reader (also, not the average geography and history enthusiast). --Joy (talk) 09:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Relisting comment: Final relist. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 10:15, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Russia/Human geography of Russia task force, WikiProject Russia, and WikiProject Ukraine have been notified of this discussion. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 10:16, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.