User talk:Greyhood/Archive 2011 January-June

List of Russian People
I was just wondering if you'd ever thought of splitting the List of Russian people into 2 parts? The list could be split at the Art section, making that and everything below it the "List of Russian people part 2". If I add notes for the rest of the performing arts sections, chess players and sportspeople, the list will go over 250k again. If the list was split into part 1 and part 2, size wouldn't be such a worry.-- I NEVER CRY   22:31, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the problem is why split the list this way and not another way? Right now better just continue to add notes, and when the list is close to 250k again, just remove some less important entries from various sections. Also, I'm going to make some work on the descriptions and wikilinks in the arts section, which will give us some additional space. Grey Hood   Talk  23:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to find a way to avoid adding notes that'll just be deleted later. I'll try to be selective when I add more notes.-- I NEVER CRY   23:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No need to be selective. We should create a separate standalone lists like the List of Russian actors, List of Russian film directors etc, just as I've created many standalone lists with previous sections, fully preserving all the notes I've done initially in the main list, before trimming the corresponding sections (like the list of Russian biologists, list of Russian philologists etc). Grey Hood   Talk  00:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Skolkovo again
Happy New Year to you as well. I have just semied the page for a week. Not only is the link in question a selfpub, it also fails WP:EL and contains nothing but original research and copypasted news excerpts. I would have been happy to explain all this to the anon as well, but the fella keeps changing his IP addresses, which renders posting a note moot.

As for the expansion (or, rather, lack of it), I understand completely. There are always things around here to carry us away from one task to another :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 4, 2011; 17:25 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Grey Hood   Talk  17:28, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN: January 2011 Rio de Janeiro floods and mudslides
Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 01:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Nice to get this sort of stuff from time to time. Grey Hood   Talk  01:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Klyuchevsky


Here's a new portrait of Vasily Klyuchevsky that I found and uploaded (left). The old image that was being used on his page and on the List of Russian historians was recently deleted, so I replaced both of them with this one. I'm not sure if the darkness on the right side of his moustache/beard looks bad or not? I think it does but the image editor I have isn't the greatest, so it'd be difficult or impossible for me to fix something as complex as a beard with it. There's another decent portrait of him on commons that we could use (right). I think the one on the right might be the best, but his hair looks a bit strange in this one.-- I NEVER CRY   02:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think both portraits are good, though Klyuchevsky looks younger and perhaps more nice on the right portrait. Grey Hood   Talk  16:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I put the younger pic on his page and kept the older one on the list of historians.-- I NEVER CRY   18:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Pavel Sukhoi.jpg
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Pavel Sukhoi.jpg, has been listed at Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. --Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN for Oil reserves in Venezuela
--BorgQueen (talk) 12:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Russia's weather satellite network
I recently created Elektro–L. I'm not sure how much the development of this satellite type cost, so perhaps it doesn't deserve a place in Timeline of largest projects in the Russian economy by itself. However, it is part of Russia's efforts to restore its weather satellite network. There should be 5 operational satellites in 2013, and for whole network to be restored we need to patiently wait until 2030. Perhaps the latter could be inserted into the list. The project is certainly going to cost a lot more than $100 million. What do you think? Nanobear (talk) 17:18, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this definitely should be inserted into the timeline, better under year 2030, but with a note that there will be 5 satellites in 2013 and that the first new generation satellite, Elektro–L, has been launched in 2011. So we need some article like Russia's weather satellite network, or at least a good redirect (is there any article about the previous Soviet system?). Also, they are going to launch Arktika satellite grouping already in 2014, and I believe both Arctic and the global weather satellite systems fall into the category of megaprojects. Grey Hood   Talk  17:36, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I could try creating Russia's weather satellite network in the next few days. I couldn't find any info about the Soviet weather satellite network in WP. Judging from the quality of the articles at Category:Weather_satellites, it seems that weather satellites are somewhat of a neglected topic. Nanobear (talk) 18:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN for Green Party (Ireland)
-- HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   04:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Russian Athletes
Hi,

Going through the various lists of Russian people, I realized that there is no separate list for Russian athletes (sportspeople). I think that one should be made (especially when you consider the huge impact of Russians on the Olympics, and sports in general.)

I just wanted some advice on how to proceed, for example, should I create a test page, and what layout/structure should be used.--Therexbanner (talk) 17:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello. If you look at the Category:Russian people by occupation, you'll see that the Category:Russian sportspeople is one of the most populated categories there (in fact, it is the largest one, I suppose), so the List of Russian sportspeople certainly will be a huge list. There are hundreds of Olympic Champions, and many more other important athletes.


 * That's why my proposal is to use a simple layout, similar to the List of Russian people, which is one of the largest lists in the encyclopedia. The sections corresponding to different sports shouldn't contain all Russian sportspeople present on English Wikipedia, but only the most successful in their sports (champions, medalists, etc.), with short notes about their achievements, like it is done in the List of Russian people. The full listings by specific kinds of sports should be located at specific standalone lists, like the List of Russian chess players, List of Russian figure skaters etc. The general list should contain links to these specific lists.
 * If you have enough time for work on this project, I can recommend the following scheme:
 * go to a specific category, for example Category:Russian figure skaters
 * copy its contents (all persons) in alphabethical order to the List of Russian figure skaters in layout similar to the List of Russian chess players (dates of birth and death are not necessarily needed, better add some pictures of the most notable persons like in the list of Russian aviators)
 * copy the contents and the pictures to the corresponding section, the List of Russian sportspeople, add link to the List of Russian figure skaters there as well
 * remove less notable persons from the List of Russian sportspeople
 * if possible, add short notes about the achievements of the remaining persons
 * if possible, copy these notes to the List of Russian figure skaters
 * proceed to other subcategories in the Category:Russian sportspeople
 * Well, I hope you can take at least some ideas from my proposal. Grey Hood   Talk  18:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Renewable energy in Russia
Thank you for your continued work on this article. I'm planning on adding sections on biomass and biofuel next, as well as expanding some of the other sections. What do you think? --Slon02 (talk) 02:08, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This topic is one of my priorities. I'll try to help you if I have enough time. Perhaps soon I'll add the lists or tables of largest power stations and largest renewable energy projects by each type of energy. Also, we need to find some good lead image for the top of the article. Something like this, but in Russia. Grey Hood   Talk  02:20, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have added a section on biofuel. Tomorrow I hope to add a section on biomass and expand the section on solar power. I tried to find a good image for the top of the article, but I didn't manage to find one yet, although I'll keep looking. --Slon02 (talk) 04:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have started a discussion on whether peat should be included in the article here. --Slon02 (talk) 22:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have any other ideas about what else needs to be added to the article? --Slon02 (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is section Current situation but no History section. Grey Hood   Talk  22:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I would propose creating new stubs by copying the material from each energy type section into a separate article (including copying into the existing Geothermal power in Russia). Grey Hood   Talk  22:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
--  HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN for A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria
--Thanks. I'm hoping the exposure will get more people expanding it over the next few days. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   03:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN for 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak
-- can  dle • wicke  17:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, very timely! Right now I'm working on the ITN credits section of my userpage. Grey Hood   Talk  17:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN for Sakhalin-I
Nice to see such interesting news on the main page.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! With such discussions on the Errors page these news become even more interesting! Grey Hood   Talk  15:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Russia to-do list
Hello there! You know, the last twenty or so wonderful productive active editors of WP:RUSSIA-related topics who announced their intent to be busy for a period longer than a few weeks are yet to be seen back. Which makes me kind of sad but hoping (against the odds) that your case will be an exception and we will see you back to active editing after all. At any rate, real life obligations are real life obligations. Hope you'll be victorious :)

Regarding the question, WikiProjects normally organize topic-specific to-do lists around task forces or workgroups. Those are basically mini-WikiProjects in their own right; however, their scope is smaller and they rely on the main WikiProject's infrastructure to operate. The task force pages are usually the subpages of the main project and can be of various degree of complexity. While it is generally not recommended to start a task force unless a group of interested (and active) editors already exists, that's hardly a rule set in stone. I remember WP:RUSSIA discussing the possibility of setting up some task forces, but the idea languished due to the lack of interest. Still, for your purposes it could be beneficial&mdash;even if there is no interest, if we keep the overhead low (i.e., keep it simple around the to-do list instead of adding all those bells and whistles like taskforce-specific assessments, workflows, etc.), it might indeed be helpful to future editors if they see that some specific areas are better organized than others. There's definitely no harm in having them.

So, here's what I propose you do (and I will, of course, help, if you need help). Start with a simple page that describes the taskforce's scope, provides a places for the participants to sign up, and gives access to the to-do list (which at this stage will be the most elaborate feature). Looking at your projects, "Economy of Russia" task force would cover most of the things you have on the list. Perhaps having "Techonology in Russia" and "Inventors from Russia" task forces would also be warranted. Once those are set up, we'll link them from the main WP:RUSSIA page, so they are easily accessible, and we can also make an announcement to the other applicable WikiProject(s) (in case of "Economy of Russia", it would be WP:WikiProject Business). Once people start signing up, the structure and the direction of the task forces can be further discussed. Does this help?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 1, 2011; 17:12 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think it is a good solution, thanks for the proposal! Despite my rather long editing history, I'm a bit of novice in the area of WikiProjects, so I hope you could help at least in setting up the proposed task force pages and adding the links to them to the WikiProject Russia. Perhaps, it should be this way:
 * WikiProject Russia/Economy of Russia task force (could it be also integrated with WikiProject Business/Economy of Russia task force?)
 * WikiProject Russia/Technology in Russia task force (I think inventions and inventors could be covered on this page; afterall, there is no need to create too specific task forces on this stage)


 * Of course, I can start the related pages in my userspace first, but I think that there is no particular need for it. Also, I think that User:Nanobear and perhaps User:Slon02 are likely to quickly sign up for these task forces if asked.


 * So, could you start the two proposed pages (if you agree with their titles), provide few basic sections headers for them (Scope, Participants etc), add categories down the page and perhaps some other decoration? Then I'll add the description of scope, start adding the contents of to-do lists and ask few people to sign up. What do you think about this plan?


 * (Also, I'm not going to leave Wikipedia completely for any period, I'll just have to significantly reduce the number of my edits per day, perhaps several times less. But hope I'll be around here most of the time)


 * Grey Hood  Talk  18:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not too good with WikiProjects myself, although I'm probably the most knowledgeable guy around about what's going on with WP:RUSSIA. Sad, eh?
 * Regarding the decision to set up the task force at WP:RUSSIA or at WP:BUSINESS, it's largely up to you. WP:BUSINESS is a more active and vibrant project, but I suspect they don't care too much about nation-specific task forces. You might want to ask them there&mdash;it's certainly a possibility, just the one I can't help you much with. On the other hand, if you decide to incorporate the task force into WP:RUSSIA, you'll probably have to deal with a lot less bureaucracy (since we don't have many members to support it). It's just that the task force should be incorporated in one place, even if it is an intersection of two projects.
 * If you decide to stick with WP:RUSSIA, please let me know. I'll start on setting up the basic task force infrastructure some time this or next week and will let you know when (and where) you can start transferring your to-do lists. The rest of the plan sounds good to me, and boy am I glad you are not temporarily leaving completely :) It's been great having your around.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 1, 2011; 19:52 (UTC)
 * Naturally, I want to incorporate these task forces into WP:RUSSIA. I just thought there could be some transclusion into WP:BUSINESS, or link from their main page, or redirect to one page from both of the red links I've proposed for economy task.
 * So, I hopefully request you to set up the necessary infrastructure at WP:RUSSIA when it is convenient for you, but preferably within the next two weeks. And thank you for your kind words on my part  Grey Hood   Talk  20:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, you deserve them :) I will set everything up in the next few days and will let you know. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 1, 2011; 20:20 (UTC)
 * I've just thought that WikiProject Russia/Science and technology in Russia task force or WikiProject Russia/S&T in Russia task force may be even better choice, since it will allow to cover Russian science along with technology and innovation. What do you think? Grey Hood   Talk  01:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Makes sense; I'll use that.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 2, 2011; 01:47 (UTC)
 * OK, here we go: WikiProject Russia/Science and technology in Russia task force. It's rather plain and no-frills, really. Take a look at it, give it a try, and let me know if anything isn't working for you or you think is missing. Once you are satisfied, we'll create one for the Economy in Russia task force, modeled after this one.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 2, 2011; 18:09 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I agree that it is right way starting one page and only then another one. I'll go on filling the page later this day or tomorrow. Grey Hood   Talk  18:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you think there is any sense in establishing task force parameter for the WP:RUSSIA template? It should look like this:

It would be nice to have not only WP:RUSSIA/PP, but also a subtopic list like this. Grey Hood  Talk  01:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's funny that you should mention a task force parameter for the banner. I was fiddling with just that only yesterday :) I finally got lost in the banner structure because of distractions, but I am certainly planning to re-visit this task. As for the popular pages listing, it doesn't really make sense to implement it now. For the listing to work (and be meaningful), we need to have a substantial body of articles already tagged for the task force. I will look into it once the banner is functional and tagging has started; in the meanwhile you may need to make do without such a listing.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 14:22 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course some tagging work should precede the creation of PP list. As for the banner parameters, I've just made some reading from a link that you have provided above (about task forces and workgroups). But I haven't found so far how to fix the problem, and I suppose you are more experienced in it, or at least you know a noticeboard where to ask a question. Grey Hood   Talk  14:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I've started my work on WikiProject Russia/Science and technology in Russia task force. While I've done not that much, could you answer few questions:
 * Do you find the format of the Open tasks section good enough?
 * Do you agree with the specific goals of the task force?

Also, it would be really great if you check out the section Goals for spelling, grammar, and style. It is an important section, and I'm possibly not that good in literary English. Grey Hood  Talk  14:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Tweaking the banner is actually easier than it seems (but apparently more difficult than I thought yesterday :)). Several taskforce-specific parameters need to be added to WikiProject Russia, and then some maintenance needs to be done around the taskforce-specific categories, but that's pretty much it. Figuring out how the WikiProject banners work has been on my own to-do list for a while, so having the Russian scitech taskforce just gives me an additional incentive to get to it.
 * As for the questions, bear in mind that I'm not the one who'll be joining the taskforce :) (I have my own mile-long list of things to do, and they all deal with administrative and other divisions, so there's probably not going to be a lot of cross-pollination between the two areas). At first glance, the Open Tasks' structure seems fine&mdash;it's easy to get to the type of task one is interested in (creation or expansion), and it's also easy to get to the specific period. The Goals section is quite elaborate and detailed, I would say. You have your basic goals right in the first paragraph, and those who are still interested after reading it can glance through the task-specific subsections below. I'm sure you'll think of many new ways to re-arrange it all; I guess the important thing is not to get obsessed with it too much&mdash;after all, the purpose of the list is to give people quick pointers to the areas needing improvement, so as long as the list works, the presentation shouldn't matter too much. A taskforce page is supposed to be a tool, not a literary masterpiece :) I'll take a look at spelling and such later today though.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 15:12 (UTC)
 * OK, thank you. I'm not that obsessed with all this guideline stuff, but I just hope that the better page we do now, the easier will be the way to set up the Economy task force later, by simply copying the main infrastructure and changing some decoration. Also, I think we could even complete a larger project of covering the whole WP:RUSSIA with few task forces. These could be:
 * WikiProject Russia/Economy of Russia task force
 * WikiProject Russia/Politics of Russia task force
 * WikiProject Russia/Geography of Russia task force
 * WikiProject Russia/History of Russia task force
 * WikiProject Russia/Culture of Russia task force
 * I've already asked Nanobear to think about setting up the Economy and Politics pages, since these two are among his favourite topics. Also I think you could set up Geography task force and incorporate your administrative divisions there or into the Politics page. What do you think about this world conquering plan? %) Grey Hood   Talk  16:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's a solid long-term strategy, but probably not of the highest priority at this point of time. I'm OK with creating taskforces where you can place already existing to-do lists, but in absence of active participants setting up other pages would probably be just a waste of time. What do you think?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 16:36 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't propose to make this a number one priority for everyone, and I agree that it is very important to have active participants. It just happens so that for each of the proposed task forces I know one or two editors which are likely to participate. And I believe that starting the projects and doing even such small things as task force-specific tagging may attract more potential contributors over time. Grey Hood   Talk  16:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you think about placing this strategy to the talk page of WP:RUSSIA, so that more people could discuss the proposed structure of subprojects and perhaps take part in establishing the Geography, History and Culture tasks? Grey Hood   Talk  16:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * About bringing this up at WT:RUSSIA, absolutely. I just thought you'd want to finish one taskforce page before doing so, but I think the scitech page is already rather informative as it is.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 17:00 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I'll bring this to a wider discussion when I finish with the S&T to-do list. Its indeed reasonable not to try to get everything too fast, since it is not exactly easy to manage so many topics at once. Grey Hood   Talk  17:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your copy-editing efforts. I've changed one place though, so that specific goal titles have the same grammatic structures. Grey Hood   Talk  21:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 21:33 (UTC)

I have added the task force parameter ("scitech=") to WikiProject Russia. A usage example is available at Talk:Memorial Museum of Astronautics. The catchment cat is Category:Science and technology in Russia task force articles. I did not implement taskforce-specific class/importance ratings, but it is trivial to do should you decide it would be useful. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 4, 2011; 18:46 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think that's enough for now. Taskforce-specific class/importance would be excessive on the present stage. Grey Hood   Talk  19:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you intend to include biographies (such as this one, for example) in the scope of the S&T task force? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 9, 2011; 15:44 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course, the biographies of scientists do belong to the scope of the task force, as well as biographies of educators, inventors, engineers, and state officials and politicians who have played some role in the history of S&T and education in Russia. Grey Hood   Talk  17:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I figured you'd want the major bios covered, but wasn't so sure about the "small people" :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 9, 2011; 17:14 (UTC)

Родина слонов
Nice job with the pictures of things invented in Russia. You have no idea how hard it was for me to resist adding quadro-triticale to the list :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 7, 2011; 19:02 (UTC)
 * If you mean this story, than I'm happy to inform you that space food is already listed among the inventions of Soviet Russia ;) (along with space toilet, by the way %) ) Grey Hood   Talk  20:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, this reminds me to add the task for translation of ru:Россия — родина слонов to the S&T to-do list. Do you have any ideas about the exact translation of the phrase? Grey Hood   Talk  20:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's the "motherland of elephants" (and there are even a few decent sources to support it!). On the other hand, it seems that the "fatherland of elephants was popular back in the 1960s :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 9, 2011; 17:18 (UTC)
 * Hm, seems that Google search for books has some merits... Thanks, especially for the 1960s reference! So the article should be called either Russia is the motherland of elephants or just Motherland of elephants (or should the latter become redirect to Russia? :) ). You see, it's an important article, related to the birth of the Russian Wikipedia, and the English Wiki also should have this article. Grey Hood   Talk  17:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I remember that article in the Russian Wikipedia... it actually was one of the reasons why I decided to stick with en_wiki instead of ru_wiki :) Not so sure about having an article about this phrase in en_wiki, though. Those few books I found do mention the phrase, but they don't really discuss it in detail. There's a difference between being covered by a reliable source and being mentioned in a reliable source (about something else). On the other hand, I haven't read those passages too carefully, so may be the idea has some merit...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 9, 2011; 17:49 (UTC)
 * Well, this article is not one of my immediate priorities, but if I actually start it later, I'll try to find more reliable sources. There are tons of sources in Russian language on this phrase, but finding the best ones may not be that easy...   Grey Hood   Talk  18:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

ITN for John Barry (composer)
-- HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   00:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Future
On a note unrelated to the above, when you are again able to return to more active editing, would you consider running for adminship? I will gladly submit a nomination for you, although you probably will need to spend quite a bit of time answering people's questions. Is this something you'd be interested in? We sure could use another admin at WP:RUSSIA, and I don't see why it couldn't be you. What do you think?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 2, 2011; 19:26 (UTC)
 * I have had to spend some time reading WP:ADM and WP:GRFA before answering your question. Yes, I won't mind having some admin tools, and hopefully I do qualify for the criteria set up in the guidelines. I have a bit of experience with AfDs and vandal fighting, I've a clean block log and mostly have avoided major disputes. But I think it's better to postpone this idea for a few weeks or months, since now I want to concentrate my efforts on the task forces of our WikiProject (and doing some work for WikiProject(s) is a good thing according to the guidelines). So I propose to return to the question of running for adminship a month or two later. And thanks for the proposal, it gave me much to think about %) Grey Hood   Talk  22:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A month or two later is pretty much the timeframe I had in mind :) Just let me know when you are ready.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 00:04 (UTC)

RfA
Thanks for the suggestion. Slon02 is a great candidate whom I'd support any day, but he already ran twice last year and failed per WP:NOTNOW. "Not now" is pretty much a technicality to relieve certain people's uneasiness regarding the candidates who they feel haven't been around enough, so it's not a big deal, but in light of the previous two noms I think January is still too soon to try again. If I were in his place, I'd shoot for this summer or so.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2011; 14:28 (UTC)
 * OK, hope Slon02 will be successful next time. Grey Hood   Talk  14:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

ITN
I saw you do alot of work with ITN i thought you would interested in nominating Jhala Nath Khanal for it. He was elected Prime Minster of Nepal today here is a link,. I never nomiated aything to ITN so i do not know what to do but ITN doesnt cover Himalayas countries that much except India. Also he is a world leader so i dont know if that would help it. Its ok if you dont want to. Spongie555 (talk) 05:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've nominated this, see here. However the article about Jhala Nath Khanal needs to be expanded at least twice in size, and needs to get more references. Likely I'll not be able to perform this task myself, so if you want to get this posted, you should improve the article yourself or find other editors to help. Cheers! Grey Hood   Talk  15:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Yuri Gagarin
Please do not re-add images that have already deleted a number of times because they are copyright. ChiZeroOne (talk) 17:59, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Copyright? This is really iconic image, and we should better thought about its fair use in the related articles with appropriate rationales. Grey Hood   Talk  18:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, could you please replace the image with different ones instead of plain deleting, caption included? Copyrighting should not lead to such a redundant downgrading of the quality of involved articles. Grey Hood   Talk  18:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, copyright of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, which is why it has been deleted a number of times. See Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Gagarin_space_suite.jpg for example. If you wish to use as fair-use then upload with the appropriate rational, and even then only for a small number of articles as per fair-use policy.  There are no different ones I'm aware of and it's is not my responsibility to fix it either. ChiZeroOne (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of different free pictures which I'm currently inserting to fix the articles, and I think that proper illustrating of articles is as important task as copyright issues. Grey Hood   Talk  18:21, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I meant I didn't think there were equivalent free real-life images rather than stamp pictures etc. I agree a good level of illustration is great but the articles were better without a copyright image. ChiZeroOne (talk) 18:41, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The grand plan
Thanks, I'll add my comment there (which may or may not be today). By the way, it seems that you copy-pasted most of that post from somewhere else, because there are still a couple references to "language and literature" where you mean a generic taskforce. That probably needs correcting. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 11, 2011; 15:33 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've fixed my mistake. Grey Hood   Talk  15:40, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Languages and literature of Russia task force
The languages part sounds good, but I just don't see enough people who're interested in contributing to Russian lit articles here on Wikipedia. For now, I'm spending most of my time on Wikimedia, cleaning up and restoring images, and translating descriptions. -- I NEVER CRY   23:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I do know few people here and on Russian Wikipedia who likely would join such a task force. Anyway, I hope that if such force is created, you sign up. Also, I've started the discussion on the larger task force project, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia. Grey Hood   Talk  22:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

ITN: Economic history of modern China
--  tariq abjotu  15:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Grey Hood   Talk  15:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Icons
Sorry, I've missed this thread indeed. I'll take care of the icons (and research the width issue) next week. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 18, 2011; 22:37 (UTC)
 * No particular need to hurry. See you after the weekend. Grey Hood   Talk  22:38, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As long as there is no need to change the parameters (like removing "scitech" and replacing it with "sci"/"tech"), these changes are actually pretty easy to do. But anyway, I too hope that we are done with this at least for a while :) Thanks for your help as well. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 21, 2011; 22:18 (UTC)

Popular pages
Well, with only a handful of articles in almost every taskforce cat, it's almost easier to look the most popular pages up manually, one by one :) At any rate, I can help setting these up, but I haven't yet looked at what it involves. Let me take a look and I'll let you know if I see anything that may complicate matters. Or, you could probably start the work on the PP lists yourself&mdash;I don't suppose there is any admin work or complex markup involved? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 15:32 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I could, if no admin work is required. Just hint me where to start. Grey Hood   Talk  15:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I propose to use the File:Russia coa.png as icon for the History task force, because I've found nothing better, and the birch bark document looks bad at low resolution. Could you change it as well? Grey Hood   Talk  16:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've changed the icon. As for setting up the popular pages, requests (one per each taskforce) should be submitted using this form. Note that once the popular pages are set up, it would mean additional hassle should we decide to merge/split more taskforces. That was another reason why I wanted to wait, but if you are sure we are done with the structure, please go ahead and submit the requests. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)
 * Hm, I am almost sure.. Well, let's better wait until we assess more, you've convinced me. Also, I've made the background of economy icon transparent: File:Russian Gold Coin.png, change it in the template please. I'll see if I could deal with the background of matryoshka image.. Grey Hood   Talk  16:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile, I've made a better icon for Religion, comprising the four traditional religions of Russia: File:Religions of Russia.png. Grey Hood   Talk  16:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But what of atheism? It's not a religion, of course, but it is in the scope of the task force...
 * I've changed the econ icon, by the way.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 16:59 (UTC)
 * Also, if this icon is to represent the religions of Russia, the cross probably shouldn't be Latin.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 17:02 (UTC)
 * Well, atheism has no common symbol as far as I know, and it is not a religion strictly speaking. Of course we should include it into the scope of the Religion task force, but we can't add it to the icon. As for the cross, I'll try to change it. Grey Hood   Talk  17:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a religion, but, strictly speaking, you are not making an icon to represent the religions, but an icon to represent the scope of the taskforce :) As for the symbol, this is probably the closest to a universally recognizable symbol of atheism that can be found. And another one that the icon does not cover is Slavic Neopaganism.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 17:09 (UTC)
 * I've changed the cross. I'm not sure that Slavic Neopaganism has more followers than non-Orthodox Christianity denominations in Russia. Anyway, there are adherents of every possible religion in Russia and we can't reflect all them in the icon. Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism are considered Russia’s traditional religions, legally a part of Russia's "historical heritage" - that's a line from Russia article, and that's why I think these four should be on the icon. As for the atheism, we could insert the Atom symbol onto the icon, of course, but is it worth doing so? We could possibly have, I believe, very few atheism-related articles, such as yet unexisting Atheism in Russia, while we'll have hundreds and thousands of articles about various temples, religious leaders etc., related to the religions. So I propose not to include atheism in the icon, but mention it in the scope of course. Grey Hood   Talk  17:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, technically it is better to have either 4 or 9 symbols on the icon, and while we likely couldn't have 9, we have to choose 4. Grey Hood   Talk  17:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You are probably right about the neopaganism, but I disagree with your assessment of atheism. By different counts, the atheists comprise from 15% to 60% of Russia's population, and whatever number is right, it is certainly on par with the major religious denominations. And that we have so few articles to fall into scope of atheism in Russia is more of a testament to the condition of WP:RUSSIA in general and to the fact that atheism-related articles are of a different nature than those related to religions. There's a lot that can be written about the history of atheism in Russia, its current state of the matter, the clericalization of the country, pseudo-sciences which are becoming rampant, philosophy, lifestyle, and so on and so forth. Not much in terms of temples and leaders, true, but still plenty to cover.
 * Of course, there are still technical questions left (about how to fit the symbol, and what symbol, into the icon). You are right on that point. Let me sit on it for some time and if I can think of a better solution, I'll let you know. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 18:11 (UTC)
 * Atheism icon is not used by Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion, nor it is used in the Pluralism symbols on Commons. However, if you insist on the inclusion of File:Atom of Atheism (lowres)-Zanaq.png, I could try to add it, but we need one more symbol to have at least 6. We could use something related to Slavic paganism, but I'm not sure what to choose. Grey Hood   Talk  18:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why does it have to be six? We could have three in the top row and two in the bottom row (kind of like Olympic rings).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 18:32 (UTC)
 * That requires a bit more effort, but technically possible of course. I'm still unsure about the inclusion of non-religion among religions.. By the way, what do you think about the idea of changing the name of task force to Religion and philosophy (changing the parameter to "belief=yes")? I've intended to include philosophy to Languages and literature, but perhaps it is better to combine it with religion? Then we could include not only the atheism symbol to the icon, but also anarchism, marxism/communism, and Pax Cultura? With the File:Sun symbol.svg for traditional religions we'll have 9 symbols. Grey Hood   Talk  18:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I always thought that philosophy is a science? I can see how some philosophies can be considered to be "beliefs", but certainly not the way the traditional beliefs in gods are? Not all philosophies explain the world in supernatural terms like religion does. Do you have any reservations about putting philosophy under "science and education"?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 19:10 (UTC)
 * Oh, I've missed that obvious option for some reason. OK, so do you agree to use 4 "traditional religions", the Sun symbol, and the Atom of Atheism in the icon, the total of six? Seems a good solution. Grey Hood   Talk  19:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sound reasonable. But will you mind re-doing it if I think of something better later? :)) Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 19:38 (UTC)
 * Re-doing is OK, but just remember that I'm not very good with image editing, and can't perform complex effects on the images. Grey Hood   Talk  19:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Join the club :) I promise to keep it simple.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 20:02 (UTC)
 * Here is the file File:Religion in Russia.png. Grey Hood   Talk  21:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I already added the previous version, and since the file name has not changed, no other changes are necessary. I appreciate all your help with this!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 21:03 (UTC)
 * But I've changed the file name this time, so that we could have both files on Commons. It's File:Religions of Russia.png vs File:Religion in Russia.png. Grey Hood   Talk  21:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, crud; thanks for pointing it out. I'll make changes shortly.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 21:12 (UTC)

Tweaking parameters
The nested descriptor screw-up is totally my own. I inserted the parameter into the tech taskforce section, but forgot to carry it over to the rest of the sections. An easy fix, but the catch is that it seems that the nested parameter is only supported for the five taskforces built directly into the banner, not for the ten additional ones supported via a hook. To cut the long story short, we can pick and choose the five taskforces for which the descriptor will be displayed (right now they are tech, demo, langlit, art, and perform); the rest will have to do without.

As for the alternative parameters, I've added both "lit" and "sport", but the old ones will continue to work as well (so we don't need to do any re-assessments right away). As for humgeo/physgeo/perform, I unfortunately can't think of anything to replace them with at the moment. I'll keep them in mind though.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 22:03 (UTC)
 * By the way, not all WikiProjects find short parameter names useful. WP:MILHIST is the most illustrative exception, with such parameter names as "Russian-task-force" and "Ancient-Near-East-task-force".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 22, 2011; 22:06 (UTC)
 * That's really good that parameters can be fixed so easily, thanks! As for the descriptors I just propose to change obsolete "demo" with new "sport". And I've edited the matryoshka image so that to make it transparent and larger as icon: File:Matryoshka_transparent.png. Hope this finally ends our work with icons, unless accidentally we encounter better icon candidates. Grey Hood   Talk  22:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant "ethno", not "demo". Do you still want to replace it? The matryoshka icon I have taken care of.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 02:01 (UTC)
 * Yes, better replace it. I just thought there should be some logic in what five task forces we choose, and for me technology, sports, literature, visual and performing arts are the main areas of Russian culture and achievements. Thanks again for fixing everything.  Grey Hood   Talk  02:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. I have switched ethno and sports; sports should now display a descriptor when the banner is collapsed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 13:56 (UTC)

Taskforce Russian History
Question, would it be possible to add the "the history of Russia task force." template to the Soviet Union WikiProject Template? --TIAYN (talk) 10:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think so. See how WikiProject Military history/Russian and Soviet military history task force is implemented into Template:WikiProject Russia. You just need to link the task force and its category in the template, and add some parameter for them, such as "hist". Grey Hood   Talk  10:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added WikiProject Military history/Russian and Soviet military history task force and WikiProject Russia/History of Russia task force to the Template:WikiProject Soviet Union. Feel free to fix the images and parameters in the way you find appropriate. Grey Hood   Talk  10:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) --TIAYN (talk) 10:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't really know what to say but thank you very much for the barnstar, It's appreciated. --TIAYN (talk) 07:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I must admit, I approve of the new template you added to the Vyacheslav Molotov page! --TIAYN (talk) 10:21, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's good! I'll fix assessment of the articles I've reassessed recently. However, in cases when there are Russian task forces unsupported by WP:SOVIET UNION (such as Economy of Russia task force), the Russian template has to stay. Grey Hood   Talk  10:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I like the inclusion.. Continue with your great work. But a question, why have you created all these taskforces? --TIAYN (talk) 10:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, me and few other people thought that it is handy to have more topic-specific workgroups within WP:RUSSIA, to share common to-do lists. Also, eventually it should give us a number of useful tools, such as separate lists of popular pages for Russian economy, politics, etc. Grey Hood   Talk  10:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Might as well tell you that I added the economy taskforce to the WikiProject USSR template. --TIAYN (talk) 10:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. But as far as I know, the number of task forces supported by the project is limited to 15, and perhaps there is more sense in adding WikiProjects of other post-Soviet countries. Grey Hood   Talk  10:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The other post-Soviet republics WikiProject don't really have the same problem as the Russia and the USSR WikiProject. I mean, they are barely to be seen on talk pages to famous Soviet-non Russians. And there is barely any information regarding the Soviet Republics, that includes the Russian SFSR, so it's not that important. I wouldn't have any problem with adding them to the Soviet WikiProject template, but I see no reason for their inclusion either. --TIAYN (talk) 10:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Economy of Russia
Thank you for your work in creating the task forces. I think I'm now done with GLONASS (the article still very desperately needs pictures, but there is nothing I can do expect to send permission requests per email and wait), so I can move on to other things. Now I need to expand A Just Russia, but I could do Economy of Russia after that, because it's a high-profile article. Perhaps I could even try to get it to GA status before the end of the next WikiCup round on 28 April. Previously you said you would like to create Industry in Russia - would you be able to do this during the next month? The summary of this spin-off article would make up an important part of Economy of Russia. There are already 5 industry articles (aircraft, automotive, defense, petroleum, shipbuilding). If we could additionally create Information technology industry in Russia (and perhaps Machine building in Russia (see Talk:Automotive_industry_in_Russia), that should be enough material for a good overview article. I don't the like the current text of Economy of Russia, so I will probably end up rewriting a major part of the article. First I will need to do some research, which is always the most time-consuming phase. I could start the rewrite sometime during March. If you can help me with the article in the next 2 months, that would be great. Nanobear (talk) 11:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Machine building industry is definitely worth creating. As for the Industry of Russia, I'll try to keep it in mind and perhaps start it in March or maybe this weekend. Grey Hood   Talk  11:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry to butt in, but I thought I'd pinch you and remind you about Kola Peninsula, which needs a good section about modern economy :) That, and a few other tweaks, should be enough for GA, and WikiCup-wise it seems an easier job to finish than the economy of Russia, which is a major undertaking. No pressure, though :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 13:59 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry about the delay with Kola. Looks like my promised schedules tend to slip like those of the Russian space industry. I'll take a look on it soon after I've finished some other stuff. Nanobear (talk) 12:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't want to make an impression that it's urgent (because it's not); I just wanted to make sure that it's still in the plans :) Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 24, 2011; 18:06 (UTC)

Barnstar
Hey, thanks! But you probably don't know how ironic this award is&mdash;team spirit is one virtue I very thoroughly lack :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 13:56 (UTC)
 * Me too :) But I believe the ability to productively work together is a different and better thing than team spirit. Grey Hood   Talk  14:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Minor tweaks
I am not sure I agree about politics&mdash;any reason why politics of, say, the Russian Empire, should be disqualified? Yes, it's history too, but something like the members of the first Duma would definitely be politics. Another reason is that even if you talk me into it, others will still consider politics to be politics, no matter which period. When some rule needs to be explained or pointed out to each person individually, it's not a good rule. Perhaps renaming the taskforce to "modern" or "post-1991 politics" will help?

As for the languages, it is my understanding that the taskforce is to cover all languages of Russia, not just Russian. Using plural emphasizes it. From the technical standpoint, it will require null-editing all articles in Category:Languages and literature of Russia task force articles (or waiting really long time until they update on their own).

Let me know what you think. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:20 (UTC)
 * Well, I've added the line about post-1991 to the scope of Politics task force, and I think that's enough. I think we should limit the scope to this period so that to have two different usable PP lists in future - one on modern politics and one on history. The primary topics of history are politics and wars, and we simply don't need two task forces with largely coinciding scope. If you think that defining the scope on the task force page is not enough, we may rename the task force to Modern Russian politics, but I think that there is no particular need in it, at least for now.
 * As for the language and literature, there is no emphasis on just Russian language. It is just a common general topic name, see for example Good articles/Language and literature, or Russia. The name "language and literature" just indicates that the scope is related to language in general, and literature in general, no matter how many particular languages and literatures in these languages fall within that scope. Also, It makes sense to include Russian linguists and philologists in the scope of this task force, even those who studied foreign languages and literature, and that's why the name of the task force should be as general as possible. Grey Hood   Talk  16:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't necessarily disagree with the reasoning; I just think that adding a line to the Scope section is not enough. I'll stop tagging the political topics of yore with "pol" for now, but let me think about how to best handle this a little more.
 * I'll make corrections to the Lang&Lit taskforce name.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:45 (UTC)
 * I've changed the lang&lit to "languages...". As for the category, I filed a WP:CfD, which will take a couple days, but will spare us from the mind-bogglingly boring work on null-editing each article in the cat. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:52 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I fear you are getting bored about all these renamings and tweaks. I'm tired of it myself, frankly. But the quick fixing of everything right now means we'll not have to fix it in the future when it could become more problematic. Grey Hood   Talk  17:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, I'm fine. But like I said before, no matter how much thought and effort we put into it, something that can be improved or change will still remain :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:06 (UTC)

Human geography of Russia
I was going to talk to you about that. Listing the districts, inhabited localities, etc. as you find them really doesn't make much sense. There are just too damn many of them. On the other hand, I was looking at my to-do list the other day, and while there are some things which I can transfer, overall it is built around my workflow which has very specific steps and order in which things are to be done. However, that's my workflow, and while I believe it to be the most efficient, organized, and blah-blah-blah, I don't think it's right to impose it on other members, who may have their own preferences regarding what to work on and in which order.

The best approach to take at this point, I think, is by identifying the clusters of information which need work. Take districts, for example. We have articles of various degree of thoroughness for the districts of all republics (except Sakha) and all the krais (through Primorsky). Those all have basic stats in place, but could really use some meat (history, economic overviews, etc.). On the other hand, districts of the oblasts and the autonomous entities are 99% red links. I'm going through them to fill the basic stats in, but despite small sizes, that's not easy work (see, for example, my original template for Primorsky Krai, which ideally should be 100% filled out for each district). With the inhabited localities, it would be really unhelpful if someone just started creating the stubs en masse (I won't go into the reasons so as not to bore you with details, but let me know if you are interested why). The first half of articles about the federal subjects uses the new infobox template, while the second half used an old, deprecated one. That needs to be remedied. I hope you see what I mean by "clusters". Each cluster would have too much to make listing individual entities practical, but identifying the clusters would still allow interested people to find the areas where work is needed.

Of course, the articles of special importance can and should be listed separately; that goes without saying.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:32 (UTC)
 * I can imagine why creating the stubs en masse won't be helpful.. Afterall, there is a working system of naming of inhabited localities, and everything should be interlinked with the related templates, categories, etc, which means a bit more work than creating plain stubs.
 * As for the clusters, that sounds reasonable, and I agree that the work should be organised over an hierarchy of subdivisions, with more priority to the upper levels. Perhaps you could insert at least the short descriptions of the main clusters to the task force page, while organising the section for requested articles and expansions somehow? Grey Hood   Talk  16:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I will, but it probably won't be today. Did you know that if every individual item on my to-do list were taken care of, the English Wikipedia would grow in size by 7%? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 16:59 (UTC)
 * Wow, do you have city districts on your list too? Grey Hood   Talk  17:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why, yes. There are only 300 of them in modern Russia, after all, and even if you add the historical entities, you still probably wouldn't be pushing past 1,000. Now, microdistricts, those I try not to go into :) They are mostly non-notable anyway.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:14 (UTC)
 * Well, I do know that there are about 150,000 inhabited localities (населенные пункты) in Russia, but what makes the rest of your list then? Grey Hood   Talk  17:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, but did you know that about 70,000 rural localities in Russia were destroyed (and many of which were never rebuilt) during World War II? Those account for a good chunk of the rest. Also, there's infrastructure (set indices like this one) and articles about low-level administrative divisions like selsoviets and volosts, which over the years split and merged like crazy. And then there are of course articles explaining the Russia-specific concepts like uyezd, and the chronological lists, and categorization lists, and so on and so forth. Of course, I'll be lucky to be able to even start working on even a small portion of all this before I die from old age :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:34 (UTC)
 * That's indeed impressive figures. Your knowledge of the topic seems to be great, and I think you shouldn't keep all your materials in userspace, but introduce them to a wider attention, so that there would be some working outline for other editors. Grey Hood   Talk  17:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My materials consist mainly of an old-fashioned home library and the database of the Russian administrative and municipal divisions, which I am ever so close to finishing but still can't finish quite yet. In other words, it's not exactly something that's easy to share. Once the database is done, it would allow for all sorts of neat things. Even now, for example, I can generate set index articles like this by basically specifying the name, pressing a button, and waiting ten seconds for the output which can be copied and pasted into a Wikipedia article. Once I build the referencing feature in, I will be unstoppable :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 17:49 (UTC)
 * Sounds cool. Perhaps you could set up some kind of sofisticated bot that creates or manages articles about Russian locations. Grey Hood   Talk  18:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, a couple bot-owners had already agreed to run a bot once the database is in place. Doing it all manually would be an onerous task indeed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 18:25 (UTC)
 * That's very good news. If you really manage to add all these hundreds of thousands of articles to en-wiki, that would be the greatest Wikipedian feat I ever heard of %) By the way, you could also help people from ru-wiki, I heard there have been similar projects to create articles about all Russian localities. Grey Hood   Talk  18:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Later, maybe. Over my seven years around here, ru_wiki's editors had "планов громадьё" as far as the databases go, but I am yet to see one tangible thing to come out of it. All too often they all boil down to "let's just copy OKATO", which if they ever do would be a disaster of gigantic proportions and a pain in the ass to fix. So there.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 18:58 (UTC)
 * Just interesting, what's wrong with OKATO? Grey Hood   Talk  19:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Theoretically (and from the point of its being a reliable source), nothing. It is supposed to be the aggregate of the information which the federal government collects from the governments of the federal subjects, uniformly organizes, and makes available for a variety of different purposes. In practice, however, the federal government does a very lousy job at said collecting and organizing :) There are still sections which were out of date even in 1995 (when the first revision was published), and waiting for them to catch up with more recent changes is worse than watching paint dry. Worse yet, the updates are not consistent. Some administrative changes make into OKATO just months after taking effect, yet some can take years or are not processed at all. Add on top of that the typos, the abysmal organization of legislative documentation in some federal subjects, and the general turmoil of the 1990s, and in practice the OKATO turns out to be far less helpful than it could (and is supposed to) be.
 * When I just started to work in this area in Wikipedia, using OKATO was my first thought, too. In fact, nothing better was available in 2004, and all but one article in the "Administrative divisions of..." series are still built upon the OKATO foundation. But even though those articles only cover the divisions through the district level (and give counts for selsoviets, and skip over the rural localities altogether), they are often way out of date. Obviously, fixing this situation is one of my top priorities, but after fixing the first one, I somehow keep getting distracted with other things :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 23, 2011; 19:23 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explanation. I see now how you became "self-appointed keeper of consistency" ;) Grey Hood   Talk  19:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Rollback
I meant to do it a while ago, but only got around to it today. You now have rollback rights, which should make dealing with minor vandalism a little more convenient. Please read WP:ROLLBACK before using the tool, but otherwise I hope you'll find it helpful. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 25, 2011; 15:06 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It might be very helpful indeed. I was considering to make a request for the rollback rights, but you've made it easier. Grey Hood   Talk  15:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Korsakov
Actually, WP:RUS was not ignored; the move was done in accordance with it. See WP:RUS for the list of conditions which should be checked (and which this article meets) before the default romanization (described in the table at the bottom of WP:RUS) can be applied. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 25, 2011; 19:16 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking. I've read the policy, of course, and I've meant the cases when the default romanization could be ignored (sorry for not wording it clear). I just haven't time for proper checking the sources myself for few next hours, and my experience with transliteration issues is rather poor. There are two English sources in the article using Semen Korsakov, and if that's enough, OK. Grey Hood   Talk  19:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, as far as the enforcement of WP:RUS goes, you are not required to check the sources beyond those which are already in the article. Information in any article should be verifiable, and the choice of spelling is no exception. The default romanization provisions are there for cases where multiple incompatible choices are available, or when no sources in English can easily be found to establish the conventional spelling of a person's name, or in similar cases.
 * That, of course, does not mean you should never bother to look for more sources, but the assumption here is that if you do, you'll add what you find to the article.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 25, 2011; 19:39 (UTC)

Grigory_Potemkin
In case you are unaware: I'm performing a GA review on Grigory_Potemkin right now. I noticed your edits, and they look good; editing it is absolutely fine.

Please comment on the page Talk:Grigory_Potemkin/GA1, if possible. Thank you.  Chzz  ► 15:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the offer. I've fixed NPOV issues with the article and commented on the review page. Grey Hood   Talk  17:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That's great, thanks. I'll be carefully checking it for all the little issues required of a GA, but I'm in contact with Jarry (main editor), and hope we can pass it in the very near future. Thanks again for your input - greatly appreciated.  Chzz  ► 17:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Greyhood/Users
I think your intention is to send task force invitation messages to the users listed at User:Greyhood/Users. If this is the case, I think it could be useful to write the user's favourite topic area next to his name in the list. Then it's easy to invite him to the correct task force. It's probably more fruitful to invite an user to a specific task force rather than making a general invitation. What do you think? Nanobear (talk) 13:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. I thought about changing the main page of WP:RUSSIA first, so that it includes a good prominent list of task forces, where we can link to. Then we'll be able to direct users both to the general list of task forces, and invite them to specific task forces. As for writing the user's favourite topic area next to his name in the list, I was going to do it later by making overview of contributions. If you like, you may help with this task, doing it right now or later. Grey Hood   Talk  13:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

BLP
You seems not to understand the meaning of WP:BLP. While Wikipedia could include any expressions, it should avoid including non-neutral expressions in BLP contexts, especially when there is such a dubious and weak factual base behind them. Cheers! And I kindly advice you to put more effort in using more neutral language and attitude not only in the articles, but on the talk pages as well. Grey Hood  Talk  18:22, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I will readily admit that I am no expert on BLP--far from it. So I look at the page for guidance, and I read this (I've added the bold face):
 * BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subject.
 * In my opinion, The Times of London (and the dozens of other sources that I could add to say the same thing) constitute the epitome of "reliable sources". And what I wrote was totally non-partisan, indeed, I have no interest in the subject in the article, other than being another person on the same planet. If you think what I wrote was in a partisan manner, then you need to be able to show how it could be written in a non-partisan manner.  I don't mean excluding it--if it's widely documented, then you can't surpress it, much as it may distress you to read it--I mean, write the same facts in a more "dispassionate" and "non-partisan" way.  I doubt very much that you can do that, because what I wrote was dispassionate.


 * If there were any passions invoked today, it was not on my part. I submit that it is more likely that it was you who reacted emotionally, simply because you found my addition offensive, and that you may have failed to dispassionately consider it when you first reverted it (although, since you are much more knowledgeable than I on the subject, I must also acknowledge that you may have instinctively reacted as you did because you know it to no longer be true).  I know that I have certain subjects on which I will quickly squash an edit that I don't like, and on one or two occasions, after discussion, I have recognized that I was in error, that my reaction was based upon emotion, not the facts.  Are you immune to such possibilities?  In one sense, it doesn't matter, because Nanobear has convinced me that the edits don't belong (for other reasons).  But might you do this again?  That's what concerns me.  Please don't forget that having greater knowledge of a subject does not necessarily mean that one is the fittest candidate to be the final arbiter of all decisions.


 * Now, as I've already acknowledged, my information was dated. And, frankly, I'm glad to see that things have changed, and I sincerely hope that the perception in Russia accurately reflects the reality of the government.  If I have a bias, it is in favor of genuine democracy, and I hope that democracy is gaining a stronger foothold in Mother Russia.


 * Oh, and as to my attitude? I think (but who am I to judge such a thing?) that I respond in kind to others (that is, that I let them set the tone) and that most other editors find me to be quite reasonable.  But I could be wrong, and I will take your observation about my language and attitude to heart and try to do a better job of monitoring myself. HuskyHuskie (talk) 18:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer not to talk about "passions", about "who reacted emotionally" and so on, because that's exactly something what I consider non-neutral attitude in discussion. We should talk about the Wikipedia policies, about the quality of the sources, about facts and about logic. I should remind you, that BLP wasn't the only policy cited by me when I reverted your addition second time. The others were NPOV and factual inaccuracy, which are closely linked to BLP.
 * It is my stance, and a stance of Wikipedia guidelines, that we should use neutral language, especially in the case of BLP. I'll try to show you how this works in this case. Let's analyze your sources.
 * This one (pre-inauguration source) uses the word "puppet" only in the headline. A typical habit of the media, to make the headings short and sensationalized.
 * This source (extremely outdated, 2007) uses the word "puppet" in the title, and one time in the text, saying that once Medvedev actually becomes President his authority would grow (well, one can't disagree with this logic, but why use the biased terms?). Besides, this is not news, this is a commentary, almost blog-style.
 * This source (around the time of inauguration) use the word in the title, and once in the text, saying that many view Medvedev as Putin's puppet. How many? Who are these people?
 * While these sources might report the basical facts without major errors, they use typical media style, non-neutral and non-encyclopedic language, in order to sensationalize, (over)simplify and push their own political agenda. We may use such sources for referencing facts, but we must be very careful with opinions and language.
 * See, Medvedev was elected because he was the appointee and chosen successor of highly popular President Putin. It was a part of his presidential campaign and a promise to the citizens of Russia that he would continue Putin's politics (though adding something new as well) and retain Putin in the government. Medvedev won the elections and mostly kept his promises. This is absolutely normal, democratic and decent development of events, that deserves a neutral coverage. Yes, Medvedev was chosen by Putin, and he is a president in the country where Putin is the head of the majority party in the Parliament (the party, which won the election even before Putin's choice of successor became known). You may call Medvedev appointee, dependent on Putin and his political party, or even controlled by them, but don't forget that Medvedev also controls Putin and United Russia since he has certain powers according to the Constitution of Russia. And Medvedev is actually expected by many Russians, who elected him, to act in accordance with Putin and his old policies.
 * On the other hand, "puppet leader" is a non-neutral term, that implies a negative connotation, seemingly making long story short but also hugely oversimplifying the matter (in the discussed case). That's why this term should be rejected, and more neutral and detailed account of the situation should be used. I proposed a number of more neutral terms and wordings, as well as a way of more correct and detailed coverage by inserting more up-to-date information from polls in Russia.
 * Note also, that your outdated references dubbed Medvedev "puppet" even before he actually became inaugurated president, and they tried to present negatively what would have been normal and routine situation in most democratic countries. This indicates that even the "epitome" RS should be used with reservations when there is some political agenda involved.
 * As for your own attitude, I just think that trying to introduce "passions", guessing personal affiliations and calling other editors "buddy" is not helpful to the editing process. For me personally, nothing of this is offending, but this is a waste of time, potentially distracting the discussion away from facts and guidelines.
 * Hope I have explained the logic of my actions enough. Cheers, and let's consider all this matter resolved. Grey Hood   Talk  21:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * As you can see, we both are capable of composing lengthy replies. I am chomping at the bit to write some additional clarifications.  But given that I have no intentions of changing the article, you're right, it has become a waste of time.  You've made some excellent points in your reply above, more than enough to impress me both with your good faith and your competence as a Wikipedian.  I may not agree with you 100%, but you certainly have my sincere respect.  Happy editing. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:12, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I like interesting discussions and don't mind lengthy ones sometimes, though I try to avoid certain dimensions. Grey Hood   Talk  22:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Alekseyevs et al.
Hopefully everything is fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 28, 2011; 19:38 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Seems now everything is all right. Grey Hood   Talk  19:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Soviet history
I just created the articles History of the Soviet Union (1953–1964) and History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982), and I'm wondering, seeing that you seem to be the most active WPRussia participant, if it would be a good idea to split the History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–1927) into two separate articles; History of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1922) and History of the Soviet Union (1922–1927). Would you be against such a change? --TIAYN (talk) 15:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a very good proposal, and I support such a change, sure. Those are two quite different periods. Grey Hood   Talk  15:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Good, then I'll do that, but not know, I'll have to work my ass of these coming days by copyediting the 1964–1982 Soviet history article while at the same time expanding the 1953–1964 Soviet history article. But thanks for your support! --TIAYN (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Inna Meiman-Kitrossky
Thanks for taking part in this article. have any notion how to get permission for the picture of Inna's funerals? It is from Washington Times, but they does not answer my emails. This is a unique picture, but how to get the name of the photographer at least. Great thanks, --lkitross (talk) 17:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I can't help you and can't do more than you have already done. If you have the picture, but haven't permission, you may just try to upload it with fair use rationale. If the copyright holder information is essential, just write that Washington Times is the copyright holder. I'm not particularly sure about all this, but that's what I would have done. Grey Hood   Talk  18:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Done all this here File:Kitrossky Meiman Funerals Washington.jpg, but...--lkitross (talk) 21:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The French Invasion of Russia
I believe that is actually a quote from a Historian, but one of the more interesting things about writing on this subject is just how many times in "official" histories you get outright lied too! LOL! Cheers and thanks I thought I was about the only one that had an interest without a poetical axe to grind on it.Tirronan (talk) 21:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Frankly speaking, these your words are a bit to complex for me, and too poetical to understand their full meaning :) But if you liked my edits, thanks. Hope I've made a neutral enough and comprehensive introduction to the article. Grey Hood   Talk  22:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Gopniki removal
Hi Greyhood,

I was just wondering why you removed my section about gopniki in "Moscow" page. They may be a subculture as well, but that doesn't really undo the fact that they exist. The way I see it there's no reason not to write about them.

Cheers, Xfactor2000 (talk) 17:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Gopniki seem to exist in all major Russian cities, not only in Moscow. The way you have inserted them to the article makes it look like they are typically or exclusively Muscovite phenomenon, which is wrong. Also, the section you have inserted was written like a part of a travel guide, which is not good for encyclopedia. I'd welcome reinserting the section, if it is properly rewritten to reflect all these issues. Grey Hood   Talk  18:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Can I message you somehow personally so that we could discuss the details in Russian? It would be simpler I think. I'm new here, but I plan to make several contributions to Wikipedia. Again, I would like to discuss it with you personally in Russian if you don't mind. Thanks, Xfactor2000 (talk) 19:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to write in Russian right here. Grey Hood   Talk  19:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Нет проблем. Я не совсем понял что я должен переписать - параграф который был удален? Если да - то каким образом? Xfactor2000 (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Дело в том, что удаленный параграф был написан не вполне энциклопедическим языком, а скорее напоминал часть туристического буклета. Это было бы нормально для статьи на Wikitravel, но явно не подходит для энциклопедической статьи. Посмотрите Rio de Janeiro как пример. Там приводится статистика и рассказывается в деталях, какой уровень преступности в Рио и как на это реагируют власти. Простое упоминание о том, что в Москве существует уличная преступность и в ней участвуют гопники, не несет никакой ценной информации, так как уличная преступность существует во всех больших городах мира, а гопники существуют во всех больших городах России.
 * Вообще, я обратил бы внимание на то, что в статьях о многих других больших городах, например Mumbai, Beijing, нет отдельной секции Crime. По сравнению с организованной преступностью в Рио, Нью-Йорке или Лос-Анжелесе, московские гопники это просто смешные ребята. Поэтому я рекомендую или переписать раздел о преступности, так чтобы он был энциклопедичен и содержал нетривиальную информацию, либо вообще начать в разделе Life and Culture подраздел под названием Society, о московском обществе, социальных проблемах и субкультурах, где можно и гопников упомянуть. Grey Hood   Talk  21:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Понял, спасибо, попробую переписать. Если что - я могу выложить свой текст сюда для согласования, чтобы потом не было чехарды с добавлениями/удалениями? Xfactor2000 (talk) 06:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Да, можно выложить здесь. Если имеет смысл привлечь большее число участников к обсуждению, то стандартная практика состоит в том, что спорные моменты и предложения выносятся на страницы обсуждения при статьях, то есть Talk:Moscow в данном случае. Однако там лучше вести разговор на английском. Grey Hood   Talk  13:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * ОК, понял. Я посмотрел что я мог бы добавить и выходит,что добавить я мог бы достаточно много, но тут возникает такой вопрос. Скажем, я мог бы расписать секцию про Тверскую в Night life, написать какие именно магазины там есть и т.д. Эта информация есть на моем сайте, вопрос в том смогу ли я в этом случае оставить на нее ссылку как, скажем, сделал другой вебмастер в разделе Airports? 84.228.162.169 (talk) 21:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Я более-менее определился - мне кажется что есть смысл вставить небольшую секцию Shopping после Culture где я расскажу про основные торговые центры в Москве (Атриум, Мега и т.д.), с одной из ссылок на соответствующую статью на моем сайте. Есть возражения? Xfactor2000 (talk) 21:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Попробуйте написать про Тверскую и шоппинг в Москве. Однако, лучше добавить информацию лишь про очень небольшое число наиболее известных магазинов и торговых центров. Moscow - это общая обзорная статья, и менее значимые детали там не нужны (для них есть Tverskaya Street и другие более специальные статьи). Если вы намереваетесь делать правки на нейтральные темы, то лучше добавляйте их сразу в статью, со мной их согласовывать не надо. Однако хочу сразу предупредить, что другие участники могут посчитать, что Ваш сайт попадает в категорию Self-published sources и удалить ссылки на него. Хотя, при отсутствии лучших источников, и при качественной и нейтральной подаче информации, весьма вероятно, что его оставят. Grey Hood   Talk  21:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Понял, я собственно так и хотел. В общем я сделаю секцию, максимально ее "причешу" и попробую выложить. Если что - буду исправлять. Попробуюю обойтись без лишних согласований - мне кажется я неплохо осознал что от меня требуется. Спасибо за помощь! Xfactor2000 (talk) 22:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Added "Shopping" section, hope it fits the guidelines. Thanks, Xfactor2000 (talk) 10:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * For me it looks good enough. Thanks for your contributions. Grey Hood   Talk  10:58, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Dabs
I was wondering if there is a point of assigning the dab pages to taskforces (as you did with Zavodskoy). The way I see it, the target articles would be classified under appropriate taskforces anyway, and the dab itself does not really have any encyclopedic value (as it is solely a navigational tool). What do you think?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 2, 2011; 19:54 (UTC)
 * I agree that dabs have little encyclopedic value, but sometimes it happens that you find mistakes in dabs that should be corrected, and perhaps there is some sense (however little) in including them into the scope of WP:RUSSIA and task forces, so that to watch dabs in bot alerts etc. But if you insist, I may drop the practice. I've started it because there were some dabs in the project already, though most of the current 83 were assessed by me. Grey Hood   Talk  20:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't insist; I just don't see the value :) Having them tagged with the WP:RUSSIA banner is marginally useful because the AAlertsBot catches them when they are nominated for deletion or something else along those lines happens, but I just don't see the point of having them tagged for the taskforces as well.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 2, 2011; 20:11 (UTC)
 * Well, I just was going to ask you to install bot alerts for the task forces ;), just as you had done for the splitted S&T. You should remember my plan to start inviting people to the task forces, but before implementing that plan, we better improve the infrastructure a little bit more. I am going to add the lists of featured and good articles for the task forces (and update the list for WP:RUSSIA, btw), define the scopes of the task forces in more detail, and add more complex section structures for the to-do-lists. Could you help me at least with bot alerts? Grey Hood   Talk  20:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As for the dabs, I'm not really going to assess all Russia-related dabs, that would be time-wasting, but I think that if I assess few dabs I'm passing by, there is no any problem. Grey Hood   Talk  20:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I will help with the alerts, sure. Just give me a holler when you are ready :) As for the dabs, I see your point, but it's probably unnecessary to have the dab alerts both on the main page and on the taskforce-specific pages, although it probably matters little in practice. Feel free to do what you think helps the taskforces. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 2, 2011; 20:28 (UTC)

For a change of pace...
Hey, when all that tagging and assessing starts coming out of your ears, would you be interested in upgrading Ruswelcome for a change of pace? :) It could use a face-lift; plus it would be a great place to add a note about the taskforces. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 3, 2011; 17:07 (UTC)
 * Nice idea. I've added a picture for the template (yes, again Matryoshka; it shoud have been bread and salt, but there is no good enough image). As for the task forces, I'm not sure if we could add the full list of them to the template. Do you think it is possible? By the way, I wanted to discuss adding the list of task forces to the main page of WP:RUSSIA. I think we don't need such a large image on the top right corner of the page. Better move it to the top left corner and reduce in size, while adding the list of task forces to the right panel (we could just copy the list of task forces with icons from the talk page of WP:RUSSIA). What do you think about that? Grey Hood   Talk  17:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I didn't mean to add the whole list to the welcome template; that would overload it too much. I meant we should mention them and probably give a prominent link to where the list of taskforces is located, and a good description of what it is to go with it.
 * As for the project page, I agree. I think the large image was a carry-over from the generic wikiproject template used to build ours. We can, of course, tweak the layout any way that works for us now. The right panel should work just fine for the list of the taskforces.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 3, 2011; 17:41 (UTC)
 * So, we add the task forces to the top right of WP:RUSSIA and add a link to WP:RUSSIA to the template. I'll try to perform the task and see the effect. Grey Hood   Talk  17:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I've done it (including the link in Ruswelcome). Please check if it works right an looks good. Grey Hood   Talk  19:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks great, thanks! By the by, what ever happened to the new icon for the performing arts taskforce? You were going to change the background to transparent, if my memory serves me right.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 3, 2011; 19:28 (UTC)
 * Over time I've developed a liking for balalaika ;) and unfortunately figures of ballet dancers are a bit too small at low resolution. So let's cancel or at least delay changing this icon. Grey Hood   Talk  19:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

By the way...
...look what I've just found. This probably needs to be incorporated into the performing arts somehow.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 3, 2011; 19:38 (UTC)
 * Yes, I also have noticed this task force. I believe a simple but prominent link on the Performing arts page will be enough for the beginning. Grey Hood   Talk  19:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Editing Russian Culture
Доброго времени суток еще раз. Хотел бы посоветоваться насчет статьи о России, конкретно о секции Folk culture and cuisine. Хотел бы добавить туда немного информации о русских блюдах, вопрос как это лучше сделать - добавить их просто к остальным в список, например там где идет ...Flavourful soups and stews include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka and okroshka... или можно написать 1-2 параграфа о русских блюдах которые там не упоминаются? Спасибо, Xfactor2000 (talk) 14:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Лучше просто добавить в список, со ссылками. Если Вы можете добавить ссылки к уже упомянутым там блюдам, то наверное это тоже будет неплохо. Если вдруг статья не упоминает какие-то особенно важные вещи, которые заслуживают не просто места в списке, а целого предложения, то можете попробовать добавить параграф или несколько предложений.
 * Вообще, я поддерживаю всяческие добавления о русской культуре, в том числе о кухне. Проблема состоит в том, что статья Russia очень большая и сравнительно долго загружается. Весьма вероятно, что скоро придется ее сократить, чтобы она могла попасть в категорию хороших статей. Поэтому пробуйте делать любые добавления, но не удивляйтесь, если потом Ваш текст сократят или вообще удалят. Рекомендую по возможности продублировать добавления в Russian cuisine, там до необходимости сокращения еще далеко. Grey Hood   Talk  14:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi, added reference to golubtsy in 'Folk culture and cuisine' section, please let me know if it's OK. Thanks, Xfactor2000 (talk) 05:24, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's OK. Grey Hood   Talk  14:53, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Moscow hotels page
Hello GreyHood,

I found out there is no page about Moscow hotels in Wikipedia, so I decided to start one. Here's a rough draft I prepared (I will be adding more information of course) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xfactor2000/moscow_hotels_draft

Please let me know what you think because I wouldn't like to continue without knowing the page is OK.

Thanks, Xfactor2000 (talk) 06:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks OK. Hope you could start the article Hotels in Moscow from this draft, with a list of hotels and some images. Grey Hood   Talk  14:54, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Shall I call it exactly that - "Hotels in Moscow"? Or should I keep it the old name "Moscow hotels"? Xfactor2000 (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the title is not particularly important: on one hand we have Hotels in London, on the other hand we have New York City hotels etc. But looking at the Category:Hotels by city I'd prefer the name "Hotels in Moscow" better. Grey Hood   Talk  15:14, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Finished the draft, would be grateful if you had a glance at it as well. It came out smaller than I expected, but I hope other users will make it grow with time. At least it's a start :) Xfactor2000 (talk) 06:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good for the beginning. The article is ready to start. Grey Hood   Talk  13:01, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Task forces roadmap
Darn, I was hoping that your current level of involvement is already at what you call "reduced" :) Anyway, thanks for the roadmap. It seems I am going to be swamped at work in the near future as well, but your outline above is a great reference on what needs to be done. I'm not making any promises regarding when I'll finish all that you asked for above, but I will start working on it. I'll be taking care of the article alerts first, and it's really not that difficult&mdash;one of those cases where observing somebody do it is easier that trying to explain all the steps that need to be done. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 10, 2011; 15:34 (UTC)
 * Thanks! In fact I'm already very busy in real life for a pair of days, and if my current level of activity doesn't seem reduced, that's great :) As for the question of when everything should be finished, there are no any deadlines of course, but I just think that since PP lists are refreshed at the beginning of each month, we should try to establish as much PP lists for task forces as we can by the end of March. If you fix everything in the WP:RUSSIA template in advance, I can take the task of filling the application form and establishing the rest of PP lists myself, but I think it makes sense that first you try how it works at least with one task force. Grey Hood   Talk  15:45, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Congrats
Hello Greyhood. I just want to drop a note of thanks and congratulations for all of the work that you put in on the 'Polar exploration' navbox that you have created. It is comprehensive and well thought out. I think you deserve a sea otter fur lined parka and boots to keep you warm on your next expedition for your effort. Thanks again and cheers. MarnetteD | Talk 12:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Your words help me keep warm. Grey Hood   Talk  13:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Sreda
Thanks for showing me that mistake. I'm still a beginner in Russian, but I'm working on it daily with my grammar textbook and dictionaries.--  I Never Cry  21:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. You've fixed the mistake rather quickly, and I'm sure you can achieve great progress in studying Russian. Grey Hood   Talk  21:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Bot-populated featured content lists
I was actually waiting for this to populate before going live... Seems that the next update should be next week.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2011; 20:08 (UTC)
 * Ah, so we'll have to wait... By the way, I'm in the midst of reassessing WikiProject Russian History articles with WP:RUSSIA tag and "hist=yes". It will take a pair of days to finish, and better postpone the installation of PP list until Monday. Grey Hood   Talk  20:14, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Gaa, I forgot to tell you that I tweaked the "Russian history" banner so it categorizes all those articles under the history taskforce automatically. There's a server lag issue, but eventually they'll flow to the taskforce cat automatically. We should definitely be changing those banners to proper "WikiProject Russia" when we stumble upon them, but I don't think we need to hunt them down specifically. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2011; 20:21 (UTC)
 * No problem, I've noticed your tweaks, it's just that Russian History articles usually are not properly assessed with class and importance parameters. But if you think that won't hinder the PP list making, there is no need to wait, possibly. Grey Hood   Talk  20:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it shouldn't hinder it. WikiProject Russia/Popular pages, for example, currently includes a completely unassessed article under #1499, and its being unassessed did not prevent it from being included anyway. Taskforces aren't any different. There is another problem, however (not sure if you've seen it yet).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2011; 20:48 (UTC)
 * Hm, so we need to wait for Mr.Z-man's answer. By the way, WikiProject Military history/Russian and Soviet military history task force/Popular pages has only class and no importance rating. Better have importance, of course, but it is not really important :) Perhaps the problem could be solved by making the required class-related categories only. Grey Hood   Talk  21:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The PP request form does not ask for an importance cat (the importance listed on the results page is probably simply poached from the banner during compilation), but it does specifically ask for a quality assessment cat (and for some reason, only the one for B-Class). The quality cats can be populated automatically via the assessment banner by tweaking a few parameters, but it is only possible for the first five taskforces, not for those added via the hook. I was hoping it would be possible to submit a request manually&mdash;but that'll only work if the bot can create cat intersections.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2011; 21:05 (UTC)
 * In the worst case, even lists of page views without any class or importance ratings would do. Grey Hood   Talk  21:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, yeah, I agree. Let's see what the response is going to be. I'm afraid we are unlikely to be able make it in time for the next run, though :( Sorry!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2011; 21:13 (UTC)
 * Hm, if we look at WP:MILHIST we see it works with multiple task forces, so there definitely should be some way to fix everything. Grey Hood   Talk  21:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * MILHIST's banner is custom-coded. Ours is built on the standard foundation, which doesn't allow for some bells and whistles.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 17, 2011; 21:21 (UTC)
 * OK, let's wait and see what could be done. Grey Hood   Talk  21:23, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am going to go home, open a half-liter bottle of you-know-what, and contemplate the problem very intensely :)
 * Seriously, though, it looks that if we want PP lists for every taskforce (and not just the first five), the assessment banner will need to be re-designed, probably in the image of what MILHIST uses. I'm going to look into that and see if it's feasible. In the meanwhile, if you have any other ideas, I will of course gladly hear them out.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2011; 16:10 (UTC)
 * I liked the first idea of yours ;) Seriously, I agree that the assessment banner will need to be re-designed, if there is no other way to have all instruments. What I can suggest right now, is that if we don't manage to fix the banner until the end of March, we could make B-class category for top five task forces by number of assessed articles and launch 5 respective PP lists. Then, by the beginning of May we could make request to change the settings. Grey Hood   Talk  16:18, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I was actually hoping there would be an easier way of automatically creating the taskforce-specific quality cats based on the general quality assessment already in the banner. That still would require tweaking the banner, but hopefully it wouldn't be so drastic as a complete re-write. Having a completely custom banner allows for some neat additional and otherwise unavailable features, but with a custom banner there are many more people capable of tweaking and maintaining the infrastructure.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2011; 16:31 (UTC)
 * If there are simplier ways, I'm all for it. Right now, I should note, the number of people which could edit the banner is restricted more by its protected status, than by it's complexity ;) Grey Hood   Talk  16:53, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, there's always edit protected, if you are up for it :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2011; 17:10 (UTC)

OK, check this out (and, incidentally, this :)). If you can help me set up the same category structure for the rest of the taskforces, I'd very much appreciate it. The cats are being populated automatically, but they still need to be created so they don't show up as red links. After the cats are done, the PP requests for the rest of the taskforces can be submitted. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2011; 20:43 (UTC)
 * Do you mean we can set up ALL of the task force PP lists? If so, that's great! I'll help with categories, of course. Grey Hood   Talk  20:52, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's exactly what I mean :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2011; 20:56 (UTC)
 * I've made categories for the first 5 task forces. Unfortunately, there are no red links for the rest... Also, I've made two excessive categories - it is better to delete them: Category:A-Class Russia (sports and games) articles and Category:Portal-Class Russia (sports and games) articles. Grey Hood   Talk  21:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the banner will only show you the links for the first five. It doesn't matter, though&mdash;the rest of the cats are still supported and populated. See, for example, Category:Stub-Class Russia (physical geography) articles. The names of the cats after XXX-Class can be found in the banner code under TF_#_ASSESSMENT_CAT (where # is the number from 1 to 10).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2011; 23:21 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll return for that task tomorrow. Grey Hood   Talk  23:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello again! I've resumed the work on the categories, and there is one more page mistakenly created: Category-Class Russia (demographics and ethnography) articles. Grey Hood   Talk  17:58, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fixes. Hope I'll finish the categories soon. As far as I understand, we don't need the categories for the Military task force. Grey Hood   Talk  18:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, no problem. Thank you for helping out! As for the military taskforce, you are right, the cats for those are not needed, since they would be a duplicate of WP:MILHIST's infrastructure. Also, I've created the cats for mass media and demo&ethno. If you are not done with the rest of the cats today, I should be able to finish this task tomorrow.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 22, 2011; 18:46 (UTC)
 * Seems I've found a quick way of creating categories and will finish the task myself, even though I am a bit sleepy today. But please remove an extra space from "(science and education )" in the WP:RUSSIA template. Grey Hood   Talk  19:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching that. Corrected.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 22, 2011; 20:10 (UTC)
 * I've finished with categories, but making submissions is a bit too much for me today, and likely I'll be rather busy tomorrow. So please see to that if you have time. Also, since we have created the class-categories, I think it makes sense to provide bot-generated statistics tables for the task forces, like the one we already have in the Military task force.  Grey Hood   Talk  22:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for helping out with this&mdash;much appreciated! I already submitted most of the PP requests yesterday and have just finished submitting the remaining two. Hopefully they'll make it by next month&mdash;I see the pending queue still has some entries from March 12. I'll also look into setting up the stats tables. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 23, 2011; 13:15 (UTC)

Another hoax
Someone's got quite a talent for writing fiction! Too bad they choose to play with Wikipedia instead of channeling it towards something more productive. Yes, this certainly looks hoaxy. Just for kicks, I tried searching for some sources, and of course there is nothing in either English or Russian. On the very remote chance this is legit, I have not speedied it as a hoax, but labeled it as a potential hoax and an unsourced BLP.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 18, 2011; 16:20 (UTC)

Rape during the liberation of Poland
Sorry about missing the neutrality template (there are so many templates that I've developed an unfortunate blindspot to them, like ad banners) and not checking the article's talk page. I didn't realize it had been created so recently, which is why I just checked the template's history and talk. I don't read Polish nor am any kind of expert, just was reading the various war rape in WWII articles, so I can't help comment on notability or neutrality of sources. Gotyear (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem, and seems I've added the neutrality template after your edits. Unfortunately, this topic area is very controversial and prone to dispute and misunderstanding. There is a related article on rapes in Germany which is also tagged non-neutral and still is included into WWII template, but at least it is better referenced and balanced, and the matter is more publicized. Grey Hood   Talk  17:15, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Vorkuta gulag
I noticed the templates you put on the Vorkuta uprising talk page, I put the same templates on the article talk page for Talk:Vorkuta Gulag. If you could possibly check to see if they're correct it would be appreciated. 7mike5000 (talk) 18:04, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed the "mil=yes" parameter, otherwise it looks fine. Grey Hood   Talk  18:09, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your time, I appreciate it. 7mike5000 (talk) 19:15, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Andrianov
I just wanted to point out that this is not about rating; it's about the standing in the project. He is most certainly of very high importance to the projects about the Olympics and gymnastics. For Russia (the whole country with over a thousand years of history), not so much. The parameter is unfortunately called "importance", where in reality it's more of "priority". (And would you believe it if I told you that I saw your edit in this feed? :)) Perhaps this is something that needs to be discussed on the project talk page, because it'd be nice if the editors approached these ratings consistently. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 23, 2011; 21:07 (UTC)
 * Oh, well, I've downgraded the rating a bit more. I agree that the assessment criteria is an important thing that probably needs more discussion. Usually I look whether the topic is central in some way, whether it is likely to be linked from many other articles in the project, and to provide links to many other articles. Andrianov doesn't fulfill those criteria, so I've indeed made mistakes with my recent assessments, thank you for correcting me... I'm really rather tired and weary in the last two days... But still the scale of his achievements is high, and he is likely to be interlinked with many other sports-related articles, both those within WP:RUSSIA and from other projects, so I've set importance to "mid". Grey Hood   Talk  21:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I have thought about what is the correct assessment criteria too. It's hard to think of any good objective criteria. Probably many of my assessments would need rechecking by someone else. Usually I just go by my own feeling of what is important. However, for me the parameter is pretty much useless. When I have the desire to work on an "important article", then I look at the views per day statistic instead of the "importance" parameter. If we had a guideline to help us with the assessment, I would of course follow it. Nanobear (talk) 21:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Per day views reflect the current popularity of the article, which may significantly change from time to time (for example, such recent celebrities like Irina Shayk suddenly jump to the top of WP:RUSSIA/PP, but are very likely to get to the bottom of the list over few months or years). The importance rating, however, should try to assign more stable, long-term-calculated values for the articles. Also, when speaking of the number of views, we must remember that there are such factors as the quality of the article (I don't think that the articles about the children of Nicholas II or about Russian battlecruisers could get the levels of viewership they currently have if they weren't featured/good articles). I agree with Ezhiki that our importance rating should try to reflect the ultimate historical significance of the topic (even though with the current events/people in many cases we could not be sure if we made a correct assessment). Also, I think, that we should reserve "top" and "high" ratings for the general overview articles and lists, such as List of Russian scientists, and for the articles about especially complex things, persons and events, such as Russian polymaths, like Mikhail Lomonosov, or large-scale and large-impact geographic expeditions, like the Great Northern Expedition. Grey Hood   Talk  22:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * From the mathematical point of view, if we could create the graph showing all Wikipedia articles and links between them, the articles with most links to/from them should have recieved "top" importance rating, and orphan articles or poorly interlinked articles should have been marked as "low" importance, IMHO. But that would be correct only in the case when all important articles were already created and properly developed. Since it is not the case, and likely would not be case for a very long time or forever, and since anyway (as far as I know) we haven't the instruments to measure interlinking, we should rely on our personal assumptions on whether the article in question should eventually take central or periphery place in the system of Wikipedia articles, in its idealized fully developed state. For example, I think that Industry of Russia should be made Top-Importance right after it is created, and some underdeveloped articles such as First Russian circumnavigation are already High-Importance or Top-Importance even though they are poorly interlinked at the moment and get too few views. Grey Hood   Talk  22:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As for the guidelines, some general recommendations for WikiProject Russia/Assessment already exist, I believe, and over time and with some effort we could develop detailed Russia-specific recommendations as well. Grey Hood   Talk  22:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We do have fairly good guidelines for articles classes, but the guidelines for importance are a bit too general and vague.. Also, it is an interesting question, how does the general importance assessment for WP:RUSSIA comply with what would have been assessment for its task forces. For example, if we had a specific assessment for our Sports task force, we certainly should have assessed Andrianov as Top-Importance or High-Importance article. But that seems too much for the general position in WP:RUSSIA. I think, that we should avoid task-force specific assessment, as it is too much additional work, and not really important work at the present level of the project development. But I think also, that the articles which would have been Top-Importance or High-Importance on a task force scale, should receive no lower than Mid-Importance rating on general scale.  Grey Hood   Talk  15:44, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Some WikiProjects actually implement separate priority/importance ratings for their taskforces. I agree we are not there yet, so our importance rating is specific to the whole WikiProject (even though the taskforces at the moment inherit it). While I am not terribly against considering the articles in the frame of the taskforces they belong to, I think doing so will unnecessarily complicate the assessment process. You and me may get it, but if someone else starts helping us with the assessment task, this point will need to be made explicitly, because I'm not aware of any other WikiProjects which do it that way. Besides, if an article is in the scope of multiple taskforces, then the process becomes even more complicated, and the whole "importance" thing wasn't really that "important" to begin with!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 24, 2011; 15:50 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that your assessment in error. I just wanted to point out that we seem to have different approaches to assessment, and since the two of us are responsible for most of them, it'd be nice if we approached the task consistently. What shape that consistency will take depends, of course, on where we converge. As for myself, I am trying to roughly follow these guidlines. At any rate, this is not urgent. Have some rest; we need you to be lively and energetic :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 24, 2011; 02:51 (UTC)
 * I think that now we better just proceed with assessment, and when we finish with adding task force parameters to the current WP:RUSSIA articles, we may just look through the Category:Top-importance Russia articles and Category:High-importance Russia articles, pick up the most likely candidates to downgrade or upgrade, discuss it between us or on WP:RUSSIA talk page, and be happy with it. Then, on the basis of what would be left in those top categories, we may even write more detailed recommendations on importance assessment, if we like. Grey Hood   Talk  17:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. After all, the purpose of the assessments is not having a spotless hierarchy of ratings, but rather helping editors with planning of various content-centered activities. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 24, 2011; 17:56 (UTC)

Rus' related edits
Hey, i've noticed that you've reverted some of my edits, and changed a number of previous edits by other users of articles associated with Rus'. Regarding the etymology of Rus', i dont get why you removed the sentences about the earliest references to the word Rus by the Franks, and why you removed the citations from the Kievan Primary Chronicle. I see that you regard it as not universally accepted, which history rarely is, but isn't it unecessory to remove it alltogether just because it's not accepted by everybody. And why did you remove Novgorod as the capital of the Rus' Khaganate? This frustrating :( Alphasinus (talk) 08:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed the earliest references to the word Rhos (not Rus') from where they do not belong, such as Russia article. The two names might be related, (and it is very likely), but it is not known for sure. It's just a hypothesis. This should be covered only in the spesific articles, such as Rus (people) and Rus (name), along with other versions - and there is simply not enough space in Russia article for the balanced coverage of all hypothesises. Grey Hood   Talk  13:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As for the Primary Chronicle, it describes Rus' and Swedes as different Varangian peoples. So the sentences you have added were problematic because of the contradiction to the Primary Chronicle.
 * As for Novgorod as capital of the Rus' Khaganate, there are no sources (if I'm not mistaken) that say that Novgorod was a seat of Rus' khagan. It was just one of the largest cities in Garðaríki. But Staraya Ladoga, for example, was also a very significant city, and is another candidate for the capital of the khaganate. So, unless there are some reliable sources that exactly identify the capital, we should either name a number of capital candidates (and there is quite a number of them) or completely exclude capital from the infobox. Grey Hood   Talk  13:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Couldnt it be an alternative to substitute the term Swedes with Norsemen to avoid contradicting the Primary Chronicle? According to the this source:, used in the Rus' people article, the Primary chronicles referred to the Rus as Norse. Alphasinus (talk) 13:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Primary Chronicle refers to Rus' as Varangians who came from over the sea. It doesn't use the term Norse. In fact, the very first reference to Rus' people looks like this:


 * «И сказали себе [словене]: „Поищем себе князя, который бы владел нами и судил по праву“. И пошли за море к варягам, к руси. Те варяги назывались русью, как другие называются свеи, а иные норманны и англы, а ещё иные готы, — вот так и эти.»
 * And they [Slovens] said: "Let's seek a prince for ourselves, who would rule over us and deliver justice". And they went over the sea to Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus', just as other are called Swedes, and other are Normans and Angles, and yet another are Goths, and so they [Rus'] were [Varangians] likewise (my translation)
 * The chronicle likens Rus' to Germanic tribes, not exclusively Norse. Furthermore, in some other places the chronicle mixes Rus' and Slavs. Not to mention the theories that connect Rurik to Slavs from Rügen or to Indo-Iranians in Kuban region. Grey Hood   Talk  14:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Were Swedes, Angles and Goths called Varangians in the chronicles?. Alphasinus (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hm, after doing some more research, I see that "Angles" in the cited fragment might be interpreted as Danish, "Normans" (Urmans) as Norwegians, and "Goths" as Gotlanders, and there seems to be even earlier reference in the chronicle to all those 5 peoples (Varangians, Sveans, Urmans, Angles and Gots) among the descendants of Japheth. However, the very term "Varangians" had only one definite meaning in Kievan Rus': people who came from over the sea, traders, warriors and immigrants from the Baltic region. Since the 12th century the term "Varangians" was replaced in Kievan Rus' with the term "nemtsy" (немцы), which today is the Russian word for Germans. So, I think, that we should avoid any unconditional statement that Varangians were Norse in Wikipedia articles, but we also should mention that the Norse hypothesis of their ethnic origin is the primary one. Grey Hood   Talk  14:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Tula, Russia
I thought this exact thought a couple years ago, but eventually decided against it. Half of viewership for the Mexican town compared to Russian Tula still amounts to quite a bit of traffic, and in my experience (which is more empiric than anything), if you ask an English speaker (in my case, Americans), what "Tula" is, most wouldn't know, but those who do would say that it's a place in Mexico. Maybe it's different for Britons, Australians, etc., but since Americans make up a good chunk of the English Wikipedia users, we should take note of such matters. This said, you are of course welcome to file a move request and see if it goes anywhere. I personally don't believe that the coverage for the Mexican town can be discarded in favor of Russian Tula so easily.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 25, 2011; 13:49 (UTC)
 * Hm, I share your concerns of course, but still I think that the current state of affairs is not convenient for anyone and there is way to improve encyclopedia. If the proposal is implemented, nothing will change for worse for Tula, Hidalgo - it will remain with the same name (or could be moved to Tula de Allende), and will retain the current link to Tula (disambiguation) (which currently redirects to Tula). But with Tula we'll have simplification of the name, twice less mouse clicks for the larger part of viewers, and no more need to dab many thousands of links to the city. It's a net gain. Grey Hood   Talk  17:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not only about the convenience; it's also about not giving undue weight to one of the ambiguous variants. At any rate, I think it should be an RM, not a unilateral move. I myself will abstain :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 25, 2011; 18:05 (UTC)
 * Judging by the numbers of views it is clear where we do have a greater weight. But, OK, I'll return to a RM idea later, perhaps after expanding Tula, Russia article, so that the significance of the city would be more clear. Afterall, Tula has every sort of cool stuff: Tula Arms Plant, samovars, Tula gingerbread, Leo Tolstoy etc. etc., not to mention that it is a living city and a capital of a federal subject, while Tula, Hidalgo has just few ancient statues and crippled pyramids ;) Grey Hood   Talk  18:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you not like Mexicans or something? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 25, 2011; 18:20 (UTC)
 * I like everyone, but it is a question of where the greater weight lies ;) Also, I like gingerbreads and shiny stuff :) Grey Hood   Talk  18:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't help you with the latter, but with the former the RM is the best way :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 25, 2011; 18:51 (UTC)

Soviet Union
Is there some particular reason you've decided to mass revert my work? You have restored bad grammar, spelling mistakes, incorrect or unusual choices of words (e.g. "were"), unnecessary verbiage, and awkward phrasing. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, there was no particular reason, just a mistake. I meant only to reinsert a mention of "Soviet Russia" (apparantly removed previously by another editor), but somehow I got reverted your recent edit. I've returned all your work. By the way, thanks for the mass improvements to the article! Grey Hood   Talk  20:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

SU
Hi, Greyhood. I generally appreciate your edits, but this does seem a bit incorrect to put in the lede.

What Soviet sources are there that refer to the entire Soviet Union as "Soviet Russia" (not the RSFSR but the USSR as a whole)? People in the other republics certainly did not think of themselves as "Sovetskaya Rossiya", but as citizens of their own republics and the USSR. Of course, the wider "Soviet Russia" usage was employed by some in the West, especially anti-communists. But it strikes me as bad usage, like saying "England" when one is referring to Great Britain in its entirety. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 00:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that formally it is incorrect to call Soviet Union "Soviet Russia". But de-facto it was often called so, including in the Soviet Union itself, and is still sometimes called so in modern Russian sources. I'm sure you could find many examples of such usage in Russian Internet. However, perhaps you are right that it doesn't belong to the lede. Maybe it is better to create a separate section or subsection about the Name of the country (just as there is Etymology section in many country articles), and put the "Soviet Union", the "USSR", "Soviet Russia" and other stuff there, with appropriate explanations of the terms and their usage. Grey Hood   Talk  01:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * An etymology section could help in this case, but it might be seen as a little redundant, since the name Soviet Union came into being when the state did - when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic merged with the other Soviet Republics in '22. Perhaps it would be better placed in the history section? I came to discuss this because I can't find any Soviet-era sources that refer to the Soviet Union as "Soviet Russia" myself. I lived in the USSR and can't recount any such usage, which makes me think that it wasn't widespread. There was the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya (still published in the Russian Federation), but it was a newspaper of the Russian SFSR - e.g., the Ukrainian SSR actually had Sovetskaya Ukraina instead.


 * As I recently discovered from Google, there was an American group called "Friends of Soviet Russia" in the United States, but it was founded before the creation of the Soviet Union (in 1921) and changed its name to "The American Friends of the Soviet Union" in 1930. The Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin (in 1947) actually wrote an article entitled "The Soviet Union is not Russia". In modern Russia, the Russian State Duma International Committee Chairman Konstantin Kusachyov has also criticized criticized the usage of "Soviet Russia" in lieu of "the Soviet Union" as equating the Soviet Union with the modern Russian state.


 * Of course, the USSR was (and is) widely seen as a continuation of Russian statehood, including in the USSR itself, but this is different from the etymology and terminology that was employed. It seems that people would have more likelier just referred to the Soviet Union as "Russia" for that than using "Soviet Russia".


 * Most importantly, the people in the 14 non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union were not considered, and did not conisder themselves, as Russians, whereas putting "Soviet Russia" in the lede of the Soviet Union article promotes the mistaken impression that this was the case. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 17:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * All these are good points. I still think that a separate section for the explanation of names is the best solution, but if you see the way of inserting mention of "Soviet Russia" and "Russia" terms, as applied to the USSR, into the History section, please feel free to insert them there and remove from the lead. Grey Hood   Talk  18:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Vladimir Fyodorov.JPG
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Varangians
Nice work! Alphasinus (talk) 09:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I hoped to create a balanced general account, however the main body of the article is mostly about the Varangian Guard, which I think should be made separate article (of course, retaining a short summury of Varangian Guard in one or two subsections), while the article about Varangians should have a more general picture of their activities. Grey Hood   Talk  12:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Russian River (Alaska)
I'm afraid I've felt it necessary to revert this edit. While Alaska was at one time considered to be property of Russia it has been part of the United States since 1867. Despite the name this river is not in Russia and in fact the source used indicates the name was not in use before 1904. The exact reason it is called the Russian River is not clear, but personally I have always suspected it to be a bit of a joke, a play on the word "rushing" due to the strong currents on the river during fishing season. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If the name indeed wasn't used before 1904, please revert my edit. Grey Hood   Talk
 * Well, even if it were there are many, many places in Alaska that are still known by names given to them by the Russians or are even occupied by Russian people to this very day. That doesn't mean they are in Russia. By that logic every article about anything in Alaska that even existed during the period it was considered property of Russia would be covered by the Russia WikiProject. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's certainly is not an aim of WP:RUSSIA. We do not need the majority of Alaska-related articles in the project. But the articles strongly related to Russian history, such as places called in honor of Russian explorers, or settlements founded by Russians, seem to belong to the project's scope. Also, anyway, the project tag doesn't mean that the subject of the article is situated in Russia, it just means that it is somehow related to Russia. If this relation is very weak and largely unimportant, than better remove the tag. It seems I was wrong in the case of the discussed article, so feel free to remove the tag. Grey Hood   Talk  20:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

thanks for finishing off move on Khazars
Thanks for this. The phone rang while I was sorting this out, and when I came back you'd fixed it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. I was going to comment on the move anyway. Grey Hood   Talk  13:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Moscow Aviation Institute
I'm all for it, but I'd first leave a message to User:Ksaine who moved it to the longer version. However, s/he's not been editing since last November, so that is unlikely to do much good, but it's still common courtesy.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)
 * Message is left here. Grey Hood   Talk  13:56, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll move it in a couple days. Ping me if I forget. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 13:57 (UTC)

Solovyov
I usually am hesitant to do such moves unilaterally unless it is a very, very obvious case (on the same level of recognition as the Sun). It's a good RM candidate, though.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 15:01 (UTC)
 * I've filed a request at Talk:Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher). Grey Hood   Talk  15:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Владимир Григорьевич Фёдоров
-- I NEVER CRY    05:52, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It's really very nice and timely! Grey Hood   Talk  10:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Time zones
Yeah, I saw your changes. The changes I was referring to above (on my talk page) already take yours into account. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 31, 2011; 17:07 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that good. The situation with time zones reform in Russia is rather strange.. Grey Hood   Talk  17:11, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind it to be strange here in the US, too... See, I hate changing time back and forth... so I'm pretty envious you folks no longer have to do it :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 31, 2011; 17:18 (UTC)

Time in Russia
Your changes to Time in Russia, Irkutsk Time, and Buryatia Time seem to imply that the Irkutsk Oblast did indeed turn its clocks forward on 27 March 2011 along with the rest of Russia, thereby not joining Krasnoyarsk Time and staying on the same time as Buryatia. Do you have sources to back up the fact that this is in fact what happened? All indications I've seen on time zone news sites (such as this) say that Irkutsk didn't shift its clocks with the rest of the country and therefore changed time zones relative to the rest of the country although it didn't change its UTC offset. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. --Tim Parenti (talk) 17:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, just check various sites showing the time in Irkutsk, for example this. It's UTC+9. The situation with changing the time zone was really vague and controversial, and it seems that it wasn't known for sure, until the very last days before 27 March, if the transition would happen. It is rather hard to find good post-factum sources that say something about why exactly the transition eventually was not implemented. But here are few links from Irkutsk newspapers that say that previous news about the change had been wrong and that there would be no transition:, , . It seems that federal government decided last moment not to sanction the change, perhaps taking into account that many people in Irkutsk Oblast were against it. Grey Hood   Talk  18:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I would be inclined to say that many (although definitely not all) websites showing the time in Irkutsk are working off of the tz database, which hasn't yet been updated for Russia's year-round observation of DST or Irkutsk's now-in-question time zone change (although that is scheduled to be done tomorrow). So it's possible that, after the next tz update, some of those sites would shift to UTC+8 (KRAST) for Irkutsk.  That said, source #1 above (which I read using Google Translate, since I don't know Russian) seems fairly authoritative even if it doesn't give a "post-factum" reason.  I'll notify the folks at the tz database of this article and see if they can't dig up more to help sort out what's really going on, one way or the other.  --Tim Parenti (talk) 18:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

List of Russian explorers
hello,

this article is really great and has been hugely improved since I saw it; this is amazing! However, I have issues with it; here are some examples:


 * Lead: It begins with the old-style "This is a list of..."; instead write about the beginning of the exploration of Russians of the earth and outside. What about the very first explorations? The fact that Russia never had any colonies (except Alaska) is also important. This sentence I don't understand: "For the full plain list of Russian explorers on Wikipedia, see Category:Russian explorers." &mdash; is this really true, that the category has the full list of explorers? The last sentence is fully unnecessary.
 * Tables: You are using boldface, italicface, small text tags without explaining in the list.

I will begin working with the references and clean them up. I am sure this can be featured, but improvements are needed. Regards.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 15:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * All this sounds reasonable, feel free to improve the lead and explain the faces as you wish. I think that it is better not to change the usage of boldface and small text tags; they highlight more important information. The intro may be reworded, of course; an important thing is to retain the note on ethnicity, emigrants and immigrants in some form. Grey Hood   Talk  21:38, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Zhukovsky
No, you aren't, but I'm afraid I'm getting boring with my replies :) (as you might have already guessed, I am firmly in the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC-haters camp).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 6, 2011; 00:29 (UTC)
 * OK. The problem is that WP:RM procedure might get really long in case of articles with less views, and I'm in the Red tape-haters camp %) Grey Hood   Talk  14:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, we aren't on any particular schedule :) Plus, process is important.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 6, 2011; 14:48 (UTC)

Cosmonautics Day
I don't really have an opinion on this one, but I don't see why you can't contest the move by moving the article back and inviting comments on the talk page or by asking the person who moved the article about the reasons. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 14, 2011; 13:58 (UTC)
 * OK. Grey Hood   Talk  15:34, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a pilot study
I am a Wikipedian, who is studying the phenomenon on Wikipedia. I need your help to conduct my research on about understanding "Motivation of Wikipedia contributors." I would like to invite you to a short survey. Please give me your valuable time, which estimates only ‘’’5 minutes’’’ cooldenny (talk) 15:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. Grey Hood   Talk  15:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Electricity sector in Russia
Grey Hood, please see the discussion: Electricity sector in Russia. Sorry for my delay. Watti Renew (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Atlasov.jpg
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Atlasov.jpg, has been listed at Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. --MGA73 (talk) 17:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Request
Hey Greyhood! I would like to request your assistance in a newly created article recently linked to the Potential superpowers-page - India as a rising superpower. In my opinion, the article should be deleted on the grounds that we already have an article on India's superpower-status and that the article, India as a rising superpower, is full of SYN and OR, but all I ask is that you take a look and give your two cents about it. Also check the discussion page for more.Swedish pirate (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Владимир Атласов
-- I NEVER CRY    02:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Really nice pic, though I'm not sure about the time of its creation. Grey Hood   Talk  19:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Просьба от заблокированного
Здравствуйте коллега. Меня тут безвременно заблокировали после того как я полез против одного заслуженного орденоносного товарисча (ну точнее, сначала полез он против меня, но я стал огрызаться. В общем, если интересно, то дело было так).

Так товарисчу одной моей блокировки было мало, он ещё и всё к чему я руку приложил вознамерился удалить. Но время не ждёт, и пока я буду бодаться за своё восстановление в правах (не факт что результат будет положительным), не могли бы Вы пока присмотреть за статьями вьетнамской тематики, отмеченными как копипиздинг: Окажите услугу, я буду Вам очень признателен. P. S. Администратор который меня заблокировал, упомянул в обсуждении о том что меня якобы уже заблокировали и в русской ВП, но это не правда. Если я Вам понадоблюсь — пишите мне сюда. С уважением, Георгий Сердечный 09:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Anti-Corruption
I need some advice on an article title. I think there is enough material for a separate article about Medvedev's anti-corruption efforts. But what should be title? I'm considering these options (listed in order of generality): Each these has its own problems. I guess "National Anti-Corruption Strategy" is one of the best choices, since it's a real and not an invented name. But then it could be difficult to add anything that's not specifically written in the strategy. I was wondering if you would have a suggestion. Nanobear (talk) 06:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Russian anti-corruption efforts"
 * "Anti-Corruption efforts of Dmitry Medvedev"
 * "Anti-Corruption efforts under Medvedev's presidency"
 * "National Anti-Corruption Strategy" (this is the government's mid-term strategy)
 * "National Anti-Corruption Plan" (this is the government's the short-term plan)
 * "National Anti-Corruption Strategy" is indeed a good choice for the limited scope of the article. For a more broad scope I'd use "Anti-corruption campaign in Russia" (395 Google hits) or better "Russian anti-corruption campaign" (1 890 Google hits) (compare to "Anti-corruption efforts in Russia" with 425 hits and to "Russian anti-corruption efforts" with just 2 hits). In Russian, "Антикоррупционная кампания" (Anti-corruption campaign) with 358 000 hits is more popular than "Антикоррупционные меры" (Anti-corruption efforts or anti-corruption measures) with 292 000 hits. "Medvedev's anti-corruption campaign" is also a good choice with 3 080 hits (again more popular than "Medvedev's anti-corruption efforts" with 2 230 hits). Grey Hood   Talk  13:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

A quick question
Say, would a cat similar to this one be useful in your WP:RUSSIA assessment activities?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 3, 2011; 20:54 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it would be helpful to have a similar category for WP:RUSSIA. Sometimes I have to spent some time checking what is already assessed with task force parameters and what is not, and this time could have been saved. Could you provide such a category?
 * By the way, it seems that our PP lists have been finally created, and some of them are quite interesting. Grey Hood   Talk  21:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem. If I don't get a chance to create it over the weekend, then next week for sure. As for the PP lists, yeah, there are some shockers there :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 3, 2011; 22:23 (UTC)
 * OK, done. It may, however, take a while for the cat to populate completely.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 4, 2011; 15:20 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Your helpfulness and knowledge of useful wiki-features is really great! Next week I'll start working with articles in this category. Grey Hood   Talk  18:29, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Brusilov offensive
Hello

I found this

I found in the Oxford companion to military history, 1,5 million losses for the Austrians/Hungarians and Germans vs 0.5 million for the Russians

http://www.answers.com/topic/brusilov-aleksey-alekseyevich

If you could help me make sure that these correct numbers are not replaced by some others that include things that are not the Brusilov offensive, that would be nice

Paperspots12 (talk) 00:10, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reminding me about the Brusilov offensive page. Grey Hood   Talk  13:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Ushakov
Done; thanks for finding it!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 20:19 (UTC)
 * Thanks! By the way, what has happened with the Category:WikiProject Russia articles with no associated task force - the number of items there suddenly fell down from about 15000 to about 13500, and just a pair of days passed since I've checked last time.. Surely we couldn't have assessed so much articles in this period. Grey Hood   Talk  20:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that was my doing. I took a look at the cat's contents after it finished populating, and discovered that it includes everything that doesn't have a taskforce assigned. Since the category is supposed to contain only articles, I made some tweaks to ensure that cats, files, portals, etc. would be filtered out and only articles remained. Hence the drop. It didn't work perfectly, because the filtering is tied to the value of the class parameter, and cases where the class is automatically detected and populated (such as Category talk:B-Class Russia articles, for example), still go through. Those can still be excluded if the class is set explicitly (i.e., class=Category). It can also be automated, but I think that'd be more trouble than it's worth.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 9, 2011; 21:07 (UTC)

Purges
Not right all Greyhood. Firstly, yes it was. And while you're right that some were pardoned, they were not in 1941, or by the end of Barbarossa (which it the period under which I'm operating), and certainly not in the air forces. Dapi89 (talk) 23:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have the relevant statistics for the air force? Anyway, the main point in the discussed case is the huge growth in the size of the army in 1937-1941 which means there would be lack of experienced officers anyway. This fact, and the lack of fuel were far more significant in the early poor performance of the Soviet airforce than purges.
 * As for the purge in the army, here is the Russian wiki article about it: ru:Репрессии в РККА 1937—1938. It cites data from different studies, and from the table there it seems that a majority of "repressed" officers in fact were just sacked, not arrested, and from a quater to half of them (all sacked or arrested) returned to the army after some time. Also, that article sites that in 1937 only 29% of high ranking officers (generals and upper ranks) had "academic" military education, while there were 52% such officers in 1941, which means that purges didn't lower the level of qualification of Red army commanders. Not sure about air force, but in general it seems, wrongly arrested high ranking officers were typically released in 1939-41, before the war, as was the case with Rokossovsky and some others.
 * As for the purges in general, strictly speaking they were organised by the leadership of Communist party in the whole, not by Stalin alone - he hadn't absolute power until after the purges, and could have become a "victim" of purges himself, since actually the entire purge campaign was a kind of civil war between Soviet leadership, which resulted in executions of a large number of Communist leaders. Grey Hood   Talk  11:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes I have statistics. 60,000 educated personnel were removed included 6,000 experienced officers which were not replaced by 1941. None of your statistics are specific to the VVS. I have already discussed the difficulty in expansion which + purges made the situation worse. Harrison in the Russian Way of War re: operational art 1904-1940 indicated the number of educated officers in the VVS fell by over 50 per cent. I'm going to find those figures which I have not done so yet.
 * I agree that Stalin did not enact them alone, but the ultimate decision remained with hime; accoording to Rayfield Stalin and his Hangmen. Dapi89 (talk) 12:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, perhaps the situation in airforce was worse than in other branches of the army. But it is important to know the year by which the number of officers and the percent of educated officers fell and were not restored. Anyway, I think that it is more important to mention the difficulty in expansion in the intro, which is more sound and uncontroversial factor, than purges. Grey Hood   Talk  12:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Discoveries
I disagree with the assertion that the creation of Ununhexium and Ununquadium is a discovery in a strict and literal sense.

Superheavy elements do not occur naturally, and they were literally created by the Dubna team. Just like Popov created/invented radio by discovering it. Nuclear energy has existed for billions of years, but the creation of nuclear power for civilian uses is also listed there.

In that sense I do believe that it is a kind of invention as there was nothing to discover, until the team painstakingly created and stored (albeit for a few seconds) those particles.--Therexbanner (talk) 18:26, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, in this sense you may be right. But the year of placement into the timeline should be changed, since in 2011 the synthesis of these elements was just recognized, not made. And perhaps few more elements synthesized in Dubna should be added to the list as well. Grey Hood   Talk  18:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * These elements and dates are as follows: rutherfordium (1964), nobelium (1966), dubnium (1968), seaborgium (1974), bohrium (1976), ununquadium (Island of stability, 1999), ununhexium (2001), ununtrium (2004), ununpentium (2004), ununoctium (2006), ununseptium (2010). I'm still unsure whether all these should be included to inventions.. Grey Hood   Talk  19:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well you can think of it as part of technological records. After all, the article is called Russian inventions and technological records. I think that the creation of an element that has never been seen before, is a good candidate. Good find with the other elements, it seems that Russian physics are still going strong, even after the budget cuts of the 90s.
 * I also agree that the dates listed should be the date of first synthesis.--Therexbanner (talk) 21:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thinking of records, perhaps we could list ununoctium as synthesis of element with heaviest atomic mass so far, but I'm not sure whether other elements could be connected to some standing records.
 * See, when we speak about new elements we speak about their discovery, not invention (unlike, for example, Periodic table, which could be considered invented as table and a special way of ordering information, but at the same time it is discovered as Periodic law). Also, as far as I understand, those transuranium elements could exist in nature in principle (for example in some high energy objects like stars), they just do not exist on Earth. Grey Hood   Talk  23:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So I'm inclined to think it is better to create a special list or timeline for discoveries and insert such stuff there. It's very easy in fact: we could just search through the List of Russian scientists (and, perhaps, also the List of Russian explorers), take all discoveries mentioned there and insert them into new article, ordered by time or by field of science. I could create such timeline myself, but I just don't have enough time and right spirit now. Grey Hood   Talk  23:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes I guess a new article/list wouldn't hurt. I'll make a draft when I get some free time.--Therexbanner (talk) 17:57, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please let me know when you start such a draft. Grey Hood   Talk  18:10, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Elena Guro
I just finished an article on the futurist painter and writer Elena Guro. I added her to all the writing related lists, and to the List of Russian artists. I'll be expanding the article as soon as I can. Check her out when you get a chance.-- I NEVER CRY    02:52, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hope I've improved the article a bit. Grey Hood   Talk  20:56, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the pic. It balances out the other one I wanted to use.-- I NEVER CRY    21:16, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Sochi Mass Graves
Why are trying to remove factual information about Russian genocide in Circassia and building of Sochi Olympic facilities on or near mass grave sites ? The Olympic facilities in Sochi are being built in areas that contain mass graves of Circassians that were killed during ethnic cleansing by Russia in military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864.[1] Circassian organizations in Russia and the Circassian diaspora around the world are asking to stop construction on the bones of the Circassians, and not to hold the Olympics on the place of the genocide. Georgia has recognized Circassian ethnic cleansing by Russia as Circassian Genocide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.182.104 (talk) 18:21, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Georgia is a very biased side in this matter, and the source is Georgian. No independent investigation confirmed the existence of these "graves", especially in the places of construction - they would long have been found if there were any. There is enough controversy without it, since the deportation of Circassians indeed took place from that area, which is described in the article. Grey Hood   Talk  21:02, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

List navigation
I added tags to each alphabetical section of the Russian literature related lists to make navigation of the lists easier. This is especially helpful with long lists like the List of Russian language novelists. I got the idea while working on the List of women writers. I think this could work well with the other long Russian lists (artists, explorers, architects, etc). This way viewers of the lists dont have to scroll up or down so much. Check out my lists, and see what you think.-- I NEVER CRY    20:34, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This is nice idea, perhaps I'll implement it on few more lists. What do you think about fixing the width of tables in the lists, the way I've done in the List of Russian language poets in this diff? When a width of one table differs from another one it doesn't look neat on big screens. Perhaps we could set the width less than 100%, but at least it should be the same everywhere. Perhaps also we should change the widths of columns ("Portrait"/"Person"/"Notable works"/"Sample"), so that the table could look more compact. Grey Hood   Talk  21:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've done the same basic 100% table width fix for the novelists and playwrights. I'm already thinking of some adjustments I'd like to make to the columns, etc.-- I NEVER CRY    21:34, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

New articles
I've written quite a few new articles over the past week or two:


 * Olga Forsh
 * Anna Bunina
 * Spiridon Drozhzhin
 * Asar Eppel
 * Mikhail Albov
 * Nikolay Naumov
 * Pyotr Pavlenko
 * Sergey Terpigorev

Incase you want to assess or make additions.-- I NEVER CRY    21:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've already added Olga Forsh on my watchlist before. You are writing really nice-looking articles. Grey Hood   Talk  21:49, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Znanie Publishers- Here's another one. -- I NEVER CRY    22:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's a few more: -- I NEVER CRY    17:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Panteleimon Romanov
 * Pyotr Boborykin
 * Olga Shapir
 * Nikolay Leykin
 * Veronika Tushnova
 * Fragments (magazine)

Barnstar
Wow! I never saw this barnstar before... Nice! Grey Hood  Talk  20:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Shiny, eh? :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 22, 2011; 16:24 (UTC)
 * You guys make me red with your jokes and compliments! If I get more stuff like this I should change my username for something brighter %) Grey Hood   Talk  16:44, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Sveneld
I don't know about the "incorrectly" part, but the move is certainly unexplained. I've moved it back.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 22, 2011; 16:24 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the back move. I mean that it was incorrect technically (brackets addition to unambiguous title) and procedurally; by the way what's with the talk page? Talk:Sveneld (Varangian warlord) is attached to Sveneld and not to Talk:Sveneld. Grey Hood   Talk  16:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * My screw-up. I'm taking care of it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 22, 2011; 16:32 (UTC)

Malaya Sadovaya street

 * Коллега, не могли бы вы ознакомиться с этими двумя небольшими статьями, посвященными картинам русских художников Александра Семёнова и Николая Тимкова: Malaya Sadovaya street (painting) и Russian Winter. Hoarfrost (painting) и высказать здесь и здесь своё мнение по поводу целесообразности их удаления? Как я вижу, среди инициаторов удаления созданных 3 дня назад статей нет занимающихся русским искусством или хотя бы элементарно знающих язык. Статьи являются переводом статей, существующих в русском разделе Википедии: Малая Садовая (картина А. М. Семёнова) и Русская зима. Иней (картина Н. Тимкова) С Уважением, Leningradartist (talk) 21:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Я бы Вам посоветовал вставить в статьи ссылки (references) на все источники, которые упомянуты в библиографии (независимые публикации о выставках, в которых участвовали эти картины; интересно также, существуют ли источники с описанием и анализом картин, а не просто воспроизводящие их или упоминающие их участие в выставках). В статьях должны присутствовать ссылки хотя бы на какие-то независимые источники, иначе трудно выстраивать аргументацию за то, чтобы данные статьи оставить. Grey Hood   Talk  00:37, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Спасибо за совет. Постараюсь его реализовать. К сожалению, в русской-советской литературе существовала иная традиция, отличная от Западной, что здесь зачастую не понимают и понимать не хотят. Если на Западе о значимости картины судят по количеству статей о ней или цене, то в СССР прежде всего по уровню выставок, на которые картина была отобрана выставкомами (что фиксировалось в каталогах этих выставок). Сам факт попадания картины в экспозицию таких выставок был признанием её неоспоримых художественных достоинств и как правило не требовал дополнительных разъяснений (и это было во многом справедливо). Как справедливо и обратное: много публикаций может иметь картина никакая в художественном отношении. Leningradartist (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Спасибо большое за эту оценку моих скромных трудов и за участие в дискуссии. Обе статьи сохранены и в этом есть Ваш заметный вклад. С уважением, Leningradartist (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Your revert
Hi Greyhood. I have a question about this edit summary. Are you going to revert everything that is sourced to The Gulag Archipelago? If so, why do you think this not RS? Thanks, Biophys (talk) 02:44, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The Gulag Archipelago can be used as a source in certain contexts, but I'm against the usage of The Gulag Archipelago as primary or prominent source, since it is not a scientific study, but a "художественное исследование" (which is hard to translate, but basically it corresponds to opinion journalism). Highly exaggerated estimates of repressions, multiple factual errors, heavy reliance on doubtful sources, the very fact that it was composed before opening of archives and that it was extensively used as anti-Soviet propaganda - all this speaks against this book as RS. Solzhenitsyn was a writer, not scholar, and to use his books as a source for historical facts is nearly as much wrong as to use Shakespeare's plays as sources for the biography of Macbeth of Scotland or Richard III of England. Grey Hood   Talk  13:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It does not work this way. If one has concerns about the most famous book by a Nobel Prize winner, he should post The Gulag Archipelago at Reliable sources/Noticeboard and ask if it qualifies as RS. But we both know that answer will be "yes" because it does qualify as RS. Biophys (talk) 02:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Nobel Prize winner in literature. Grey Hood   Talk  05:54, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, but this book is nonfiction documentary, described by author as "research" and highly cited with regard to Gulag in literature. Moreover, the word "Gulag" became known to western public because of this book. Frankly, this is most notable book existing on this subject. It can be quoted with appropriate attribution in any article related to Gulag. If any information in the book (for example his estimate of the number of prisoners) contradicts other sources, this should be treated per NPOV, i.e. by quoting also other sources that tell something different. But just removing text that quotes the most notable book on the subject (as you just did), instead of bringing more sources, goes against NPOV policy.Biophys (talk) 14:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Extermination through labor is very feebly related to Gulag once we look at serious research and analyze the basic numbers of Gulag mortality. Highly controversial topics require higher quality of sources, and the outdated, non-scientific and often erroneous sources such as The Gulag Archipelago should be given least priority, and certainly don't deserve such extent of attention as it was proposed in the version which I reverted. I'm not against the mention of Solzhenitsyn's view in that article in principle, but it should be given due weight and due estimate, as poorly sourced, contradicting official statistics and highly controversial. Also, there is certainly no justification for removal of recent well-referenced additions by Paul Siebert and replacing them with Solzhenitsyn.  Grey Hood   Talk  14:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If you are not against using books by Nobelists "in principle", why did you make a complete revert instead of creating a compromise version? Biophys (talk) 19:49, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've re-added the first lines related to Solzhenitsyn. Grey Hood   Talk  20:05, 30 June 2011 (UTC)