Wikipedia talk:Stress marks in East Slavic words/Archive 1

Moving the essay
This essay is a personal (and very biased) opinion of. Things wouldn't be so bad had the user not reverted other people's edits and referred to this essay as if it were an established rule or something. This is why I strongly suggest that the essay be moved to Mike Nofikoff's user space or elsewhere. Any comments/suggestions? Taurus Littrow (talk) 21:18, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've tried to move the essay to Mike Novikoff's userspace, but he moved it back. Maybe it should be just deleted. Cause if it is not deleted, it will continue to be used as justification for controversial edits. --Moscow Connection (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Deleting it will be just fine. Note that he also added the link to it here: Romanization of Russian, and when tried to remove the link, he put it back and even left a warning on the user's page! Very dishonest and uncooperative behavior. This is a serious encyclopedia, not Mike Novikoff's personal blog. I wonder if something could be done about this user. Taurus Littrow (talk) 22:32, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * > even left a warning Content removals shouldn't be unexplained, be it within the mainspace or elsewhere. And no personal attacks please. — Mike Novikoff 22:49, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Mike Novikoff, would you just stop victimizing yourself? You're harassing other users, you're removing other people's edits just because those edits don't agree with your personal opinion, you wrote a highly biased essay (original research) to justify your opinion, and yet you have the cheek to accuse other people of attacking you. The problem clearly lies with you, not with others. Taurus Littrow (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:NPA (Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence) and WP:AVOIDYOU (arguments should not be personalized; that is, they should be directed at content and actions rather than people). — Mike Novikoff 05:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * > but he moved it back ...and an admin had told you to stop. — Mike Novikoff 22:35, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've never said it's an established rule, I just use a shortcut within my edit summaries to explain my point. — Mike Novikoff 22:35, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This essay is clearly original research, so you can't possibly use it to justify your reverts of other people's edits. The problem with you is that it's not an honest mistake; you obviously realize that your behavior is dishonest and misleading, and yet you persist at it. Not a good thing. The essay should definitely be removed. Taurus Littrow (talk) 22:46, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe you'll start with explaining your own edits first? When you add these stress marks, you don't explain why you are doing this. Please also note that WP:OR does not apply to essays. — Mike Novikoff 23:00, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess I'll just write my own essay (which will state exactly the opposite) and then use it as a justification for reverting other people's edits, no problem. P.S. The arguments for using stress marks were listed by on your page, so you're obviously familiar with them. I'll include them into my essay, sure enough. Taurus Littrow (talk) 23:23, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Please do. I really wonder what rationale your essay will contain except the obvious "It is common practice for Russian encyclopedias to mark stresses", and will it convince anyone in English encyclopedia. — Mike Novikoff 00:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Read what I said below. The arguments (plenty) were provided by Moscow Connection (something I pointed out on your talk page at the very beginning). Please don't ridicule and belittle them by misquoting them out of context. That's obviously against the rules. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:23, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I saw this at WP:ANI. No more essays please. Everyone should work on this essay (since it is in Wikipedia space). It looks like there is a significant disagreement so an RfC will be required. Or, if the essay is considered undesirable, it should be discussed at WP:MFD where one possible result might be "userfy", that is, move to the creator's user space. Johnuniq (talk) 01:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a disagreement is not so significant as it may seem from ANI. In fact, I'm doing this kind of spelling corrections for a couple of years already, and I use the shortcut to this essay since September, yet there are only two (or three?) users who oppose, one of them never saw it before yesterday and none of them have provided valid arguments. On the other hand, there are tens if not hundreds of users who saw my edit summaries with a shortcut, and I dare say they form a kind of WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS. — Mike Novikoff 04:35, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * None of them have provided valid arguments – Come on, provided plenty of valid arguments on your page, and I said I agree with them. And now you're just trying to ridicule them, misquoting them and claiming they are not valid. And have you actually asked the opinion of those "tens if not hundreds of users" you are referring to? Have you made a poll or something? Really, your conduct is very dishonest and misleading. Taurus Littrow (talk) 05:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggest that anyone wanting this essay changed should start a new section on this page with a proposal. Do not mention previous trouble or other editors. Do not mention other pages. Stick to one or two relatively simple points that you think need improvement or correction. Include an example of how the essay was used to (in your view, incorrectly) justify an edit to an article. People should then respond and discuss the points raised, preferably in a way that others could follow even if we don't understand the details. After that, an RfC or MfD could be considered. I'll watch this page for a while. Johnuniq (talk) 08:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your suggestion, it seems reasonable, and I might do it. But frankly, the entire essay is quite one-sided and very biased, so it would be easier just to move it elsewhere or simply delete it. One important argument for using stresses: They are used in adapted books for foreigners who study Russian, so it is perfectly normal to use them here, on English wiki, as well. Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It is unlikely the community would support a forced move of the essay unless a reasonable discussion could be seen with reasons clearly set out, and with minimum drama. The above mentions a discussion elsewhere but this talk is the proper place and I suggest starting again by paraphrasing the best points here. Ideally you would have two reasonably recent examples of different articles being edited per this essay and where you believe the result was incorrect, and you would outline the problem. Johnuniq (talk) 09:07, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I just started a new topic where I listed my arguments and a possible solution. Let's see what other users say. Thanks. Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I read the first sentence but stopped there because it is a massive fail. First, experienced editors expect new topics to be at the bottom of the page. Please use "new section" or however it appears in your browser. Second, the idea of a discussion is to discuss, not to start (or continue) a fight. We know that you think the essay is shit so you don't need to say it. Further, saying it is pointless (what happens if someone else says they like it?). It guarantees that no reasonable discussion can follow. Please read my earlier comment again. WP:AGF is not just a policy, it's something you have to do. Johnuniq (talk) 09:56, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh well, I tried my best. That wasn't intentional. Maybe people could just list their arguments pro and contra? Also, I moved the new topic to the bottom. P.S. The problem is that I don't see how the article can be possibly rewritten. Every sentence just makes me cringe. It would be a colosal work to discuss every sentence and propose edits to it. The whole thing should be moved to the user's space (or deleted altogether), this is my solution. Taurus Littrow (talk) 10:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd also ping a couple of users who might be interested in the discussions on this matter: . — Mike Novikoff 10:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Issues with the essay
This essay looks very biased and one-sided, and it obviously enjoys no consensus. What is worse: it is often used by the author as a justification to revert other people's edits and remove the stress marks in Russian names or words: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. etc. Now, the author claims he does not use this essay as a guideline, but that's definitely the impression one could get. So this is why I propose either to rewrite it or move it to the author's userspace (or maybe even delete it altogether). Here are some of the reasons for using stress marks in Cyrillic forms. Stresses are used: My solution is that stress marks can be used on English wiki for guidance purposes, but not on a mandatory basis. That is, if you see stress marks in an article, leave them as is; and if you don't see them, you can add them if you believe it will help non-Russian users. Anyway, no one should engage himself or herself in a crusade of removing or adding stresses to every article and (what is worse) reverting other users' edits. Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC) — Stress placement cannot be predicted. "That is why those Russian resources traditionally use stress marks in proper names" — Yes, my concern is mainly about proper names. There are many articles about Russian people that don't have a Russian version. That's because the Russian Wikipedia is much smaller and because it has much stricter notability rules for people, especially artists and sportspeople. So if you delete all the stress marks from everywhere, there often will be no way to determine the correct pronunciation. And please don't forget about the Spanish, Catalan, Greek, etc. wikipedias. The people there need to know the correct stress placement to name the articles properly. If you delete stress marks from everywhere in the English Wikipedia, these smaller wikis will suffer. --Moscow Connection (talk) 06:01, 22 January 2021 (UTC) — Then the English Wikipedia articles should be consistent in having stresses marked. Cause if you remove stress marks in an article that doesn't have an IPA transcription, the article becomes much less informative. Proper pronunciation is crucial in languages like Russian. What's the point in having a developed article about a Russian person if the readers won't even know the person's correct name from it? --Moscow Connection (talk) 06:43, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * by the modern Great Russian Encyclopedia;
 * by the highly prestigious Great Soviet Encyclopedia;
 * in major Russian explanatory dictionaries, such as those by Dal, Ushakov or Ozhegov;
 * on Russian wiki;
 * in adapted books for foreigners who study Russian (all polysyllabic words are stressed).
 * That's what this essay should look like. If it is not userfied, you should rewrite it like this. You can explain that stress plays an important role in the Russian language, but it doesn't follow any kind of pattern, and therefore Russian encyclopedias have stresses marked, etc. --Moscow Connection (talk) 17:07, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that those Russian resources are not good examples to follow in English Wikipedia. Those resources are targeted for Russian speakers, all of whom, with rare exceptions, understand that stress marks are for pronunciation only and must be ignored for spelling purposes. Russian is a largely phonetic language. This means that a word's pronunciation can be predicted from its spelling and its spelling from its pronunciation in most cases. Because of this there is no established practice to have an elaborate pronunciation guides such as IPA (except some special linguistic literature). Which syllables should be stressed might be the only uncertain part in some cases, especially in proper names. That is why those Russian resources traditionally use stress marks in proper names, again, implying that everyone understands that they are not a part of spelling and should be used for pronunciation only. You will never see stress marks in reliable sources such as newspapers, magazines, books (except language learning books) and so on.
 * In contrast, English is not a phonetic language, and there is established practice to use IPA for pronunciation purposes. So we should rely on that here in English Wikipedia. Retimuko (talk) 21:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "This means that a word's pronunciation can be predicted from its spelling and its spelling from its pronunciation in most cases."
 * Moscow Connection: Yes, a word's pronunciation obviously CANNOT be predicted (unlike claimed by Retimuko). Even native speakers have problems with some words.
 * Retimuko said: "You will never see stress marks in reliable sources such as newspapers, magazines, books (except language learning books) and so on." – Yes, but you always see stress marks in other reliable sources such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, books for small Russian kids, reading books for foreigners, etc. As I point out below, using stresses is obviously not "forbidden" or "illegal"; stresses just can seem excessive in some cases, but in other cases they actually can be (and are) used as an aid.
 * Retimuko said: "I believe that those Russian resources are not good examples to follow in English Wikipedia." – This is a very strange statement. We can't pretend that English Wikipedia is in a vacuum or something. We definitely can and must consider the 200-year-old Russian practice of using stresses for guidance purposes, a practice which is still in common use, as evidenced by the recently published Great Russian Encyclopedia in 36 volumes. Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:56, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * > if you delete all the stress marks from everywhere, there often will be no way to determine the correct pronunciation If a research is so unique and original, it definitely has no place in Wikipedia, that's what WP:OR is all about. — Mike Novikoff 16:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And please note that Mike Novikoff doesn't add an IPA transcription when he removes stress marks. I can't help but wonder what are his motives cause what he is doing doesn't improve Wikipedia a little bit. --Moscow Connection (talk) 06:01, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I fail to see why do you bring up Spanish, Greek and other Wikipedias. We are discussing English Wikipedia, aren't we? My opinion is that stress marks should not be used if IPA is present or added. I am not quite sure what to do if there is no IPA, but I am leaning towards consistency. Retimuko (talk) 06:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Please note that stress marks are used in Russian reading books for foreigners, where EVERY polysyllabic word is stressed. Really, there's nothing wrong in using stresses in Russian words, especially in encyclopedias and dictionaries; this has been a common practice for the last 200 years. The Great Russian Encyclopedia, published only recently, between 2004 and 2017, by the prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences, also uses accents. So I don't see why we should set up a rule expressly forbidding the use of accents, ignoring the 200-year-old common practice, just because a couple of users here don't like it. Also, as correctly point out by Moscow Connection, it's quite difficult for a foreigner to tell where a stress falls. As to the IPA (as well as the audio pronunciation), it can be used, of course, but as an addition to the stresses, not as a replacement. Otherwise it would be like forbidding one to walk on foot just because he/she has a car. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:49, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Because Wikipedia is not just the one in English. --Moscow Connection (talk) 06:43, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "I am not quite sure what to do if there is no IPA, but I am leaning towards consistency."
 * Why do you prioritize pronunciation? Do you believe that most readers come here to learn how to pronounce a name? Perhaps, most come to learn how to spell that name. So they copy-paste the name not realizing that the marks must be removed. To borrow your phrase, "what's the point in having a developed article about a Russian person if the readers won't even know the correct spelling of the name?". If IPA is present, the presence of the marks is a duplication at best. And I still fail to understand what practices in English Wikipedia have to do with wikis in other languages. Why do you bring this up at all? Retimuko (talk) 06:58, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "If IPA is present, the presence of the marks is a duplication at best." – No, it's not, as I pointed out above. The IPA can be used as an additional aid (along with the audio pronunciation), but not as a replacement of such a simple (and commonly used) solution as using stresses. I repeat, there is nothing wrong in using stresses in Russian words; they indeed seem excessive in some cases (in "normal" books for Russians, newspapers, magazines, etc.), but they can be (and are) used as a guidance in encyclopedias and dictionaries, as well as in books for foreigners. So the question should be not whether it is "forbidden" or "illegal" to use stresses (it's obviously not), but whether stresses can be used for guidance purposes here. And since they are used in books for foreigners, as well as in encyclopedias and dictionaries for Russians (who are supposed to know how these words are pronounced, so the stresses could actually seem excessive), I don't see why we can't use them here, to help non-Russian speakers. What is not forbidden, is allowed. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:23, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think people come here to learn many things, including pronunciation. --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:25, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems we are going in circles. I stated my opinion. I am not convinced by your arguments. I am not inclined to spend more time on this. Perhaps, you could try an RFC to have a broader discussion. Retimuko (talk) 18:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't need a RFC. I personally just wanted to stop Mike Novikoff from removing stress marks. I hope he has stopped. may also want to rewrite this essay so that it reflects the real situation. It should probably say that stress marks help to determine the correct pronunciation and that in the case of Russian proper names they are even indispensable. --Moscow Connection (talk) 21:15, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree. They are dispensable if IPA is present, even harmful, since most readers don't realize that the marks should be ignored for spelling. And IPA does much better job describing pronunciation including stress, and it is a standard practice in English Wikipedia (unlike Russian Wikipedia). However I have already stated that above. There is no consensus for what you call "real situation". Please gain consensus before changing the essay. Thank you. Retimuko (talk) 23:37, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Mike Novikoff doesn't own this essay. Neither do you. --Moscow Connection (talk) 05:46, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, I think that if there are any problems, the admins will see that you were summoned here by Mike Novikoff. (He obviously called you here for support.) So you aren't a neutral third party in this discussion at all. --Moscow Connection (talk) 05:55, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My ping was much more neutral than the way that Taurus Littrow woke up you. (And then he proceeded to call up Ymblanter as an admin, before even pointing out his reasons at my talk page. Alarm-alarm, sentence first, discusion afterwards!). — Mike Novikoff 10:20, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What problems are you referring to? I had this page in my watch list for quite some time. I really dislike your tone here and shifting the discussion to motives of editors from the substance in question. This is an argument ad hominem. Please stay on topic. Thank you. Retimuko (talk) 19:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * the discussion has now moved to WT:MOS, and I encourage you to express your opinion there. Don't be afraid, Moscow Connection has no real reasons to scare you, and if he continues to behave this way he'll be a subject for a scrutiny himself, we've already got enough evidence for that. — Mike Novikoff 16:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC) ping to the admin who has promised to watch this page. Please see what happens and do what you think is appropriate. — Mike Novikoff 16:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * > I personally just wanted to stop Mike Novikoff from removing stress marks. I hope he has stopped. I haven't, and I'm not going to. I just wait for discussions to conclude, so as not to engage in edit wars. — Mike Novikoff 00:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You will be reverted. And eventually blocked for disruptive editing. (See Disruptive editing.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 05:46, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * See my reply here. — Mike Novikoff 09:33, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

At last, I've followed the popular request and opened a topic at WT:MOS. — Mike Novikoff 14:27, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately there is quite a lot of activity at that page and the discussion may go nowhere. I tried to understand the issue and I put a summary in a comment there. I would encourage those participating here to read my summary and add a comment pointing out any mistakes/misunderstandings. Please do not talk about other editors or anything other than the issue. Ultimately an RfC will probably be needed. Johnuniq (talk) 02:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Improper use of the essay
Mike Novikoff has used a link to his essay to attack his opponents in the Russian Wikipedia (or maybe even Russian Wikipedia editors as a whole):. (The edit summary says: "And look at WP:RUSTRESS, dedicated to you, my dears.") --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:13, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, very childish behavior. I wonder why we should tolerate this user and his whims here. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:25, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * By the way, I've already pointed out before (see Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1052) that this essay looked like an attack page against the Russian Wikipedia. --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:35, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's totally unacceptable. Mike Novikoff is obviously under the delusion that English Wikipedia is his personal blog. Hopefully, something will be done about him soon. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:39, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Should I even comment on this? I really dislike ruwiki, but I had practically left it two years ago and returned to enwiki that has always been my home. I'm focusing on improving the latter, and such thing as "an attack page" is the last thing that would come to my mind. And you guys are both acting very hostile and uncivil, not to mention WP:AGF. It seems that you are determined to get the essay destroyed one way or another. — Mike Novikoff 14:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Stress marks on Cyrillic are useful to the reader. WP should be useful to the reader. When I come across a Russian word on WP, I want to know how to pronounce it. I am willing to edit-war over keeping them and report the remover to ANI, unless the remover replaces them with something equivalent so the information is not lost.

I don't feel as strongly about replacements, and won't fight against a reasonable solution, though I'd prefer to keep the stress marks in addition to other solutions. — kwami (talk) 23:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Edit warring
Mike Novikoff is now edit warring at Romanization of Russian over a link to this essay. . This is really annoying. --Moscow Connection (talk) 22:15, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * To put an end to this, we should either 1) move this essay to Novikoff's personal space or 2) rename Wikipedia to Novikoffpedia. Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

More neutral wording
Oh well, I finally found time to edit the article so as to make it more neutral. I also removed some irrelevant info, like those on reverted words. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Just don't make discussions too long as this whole thing has gotten very tiresome. Note that we're here to find a consensus, not push someone's point of view. --Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Parallels in other scripts, use of footnotes for the ignorant
I added mention of the close parallel in Latinate vocab in English technical dictionaries. Arabic and Hebrew vowel marking is also similar and might also be mentioned.

My suggestion for a simple solution: use Cyrillic with accent marks and add a footnote that the accent marks are there for the benefit of the reader and aren't normally seen in print.

Having Cyrillic twice, with and without accent marks, seems rather silly to me, and we'd still need a footnote for the confused to explain why we'd do such a thing.

Cyrillic + IPA would be acceptable if someone wants to bother, but stress marks are much easier to add, so regardless we need to address how to handle the very large number of articles where someone has not (yet) bothered to add IPA.

If we could create an IPA template that would take Cyrillic input and automatically generate the proper vowel qualities depending on where they lie relative to the stress, that would make things easy for us and ensure consistent quality. But for most readers it would still be easier to read Cyrillic with stress marking than to read IPA, so IMO even if we supply IPA we should retain stress marks on the Cyrillic. — kwami (talk) 23:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * My suggestion for a simple solution: use Cyrillic with accent marks and add a footnote that the accent marks are there for the benefit of the reader and aren't normally seen in print. — Thank you. I actually proposed this solution in this discussion and some users accepted it. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:00, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. I added this possible solution to the essay. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't see that. TLDR. (Which I made worse because I like to hear myself talk.) Mark me down as accepting in that thread if you like. — kwami (talk) 06:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That's OK. I'm replying to you in that discussion, but it might take a while. Your suggestions look very good to me so far. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:43, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Arabic and Hebrew vowel marking is also similar and might also be mentioned. — Done. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Highly unconstrunctive behavior
Mike Novikoff removed all our edits from this essay and restored an old version, even if I politely asked him not to do so and be constructive: here: The essay doesn't belong to you; it's in common space, and some other users actually asked me to edit it. One other user edited it before me, anyway, and another after me (I also included a sentence suggested by a third user). You can give a link to the old version here, and we can discuss the whole thing on the talk page. Anyway, I tried to include both points of view, and I didn't remove most of your arguments (save for the irrelevant or misleading stuff). Let's not complicate things. — I wonder if something could be done about it. It's very frustrating, to say the least. I ask some administrator to intervene. . P.S. I pinged a wrong user by mistake; I actually wanted to ping Johnuniq. Sorry. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hadn't Johnuniq (an admin) told you to gain consensus before changing the essay? And now you are starting an edit war. — Mike Novikoff 06:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This essay had no consensus to start with. Please don't make unconstructive edits. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you should obey what an admin had told you. Moreover, we are currently having a discussion at MoS, and changing the essay is not helpful in the middle of it, until there are at least some conclusions. — Mike Novikoff 06:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I explained to Johnuniq that discussing every existing sentence and every possible change or addition would be a titanic job, since the essay was very one-sided (and not very accurate, frankly). Now, however, it looks much more informative and actually includes both points of view. So if anyone doesn't like some new wording, it can be discussed here. That would be much easier, imho. Theoretically, I could write my own essay, but that would only complicate things, which is not my intention. Again, I ask everyone to be constructive. P.S. I explained at MoS that you can give the link to an old version of the essay (which you actually had already done before my suggestion). Let's not be nitpicking. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I moved the essay back to the user namespace. We have WP:OWNERSHIP problems here which are ok in the user namespace but are not ok for the Wikipedia namespace. Please do not move back.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Ymblanter, thank you so much. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Could you also delete the shortcut from the Wikipedia namespace (WP:RUSTRESS)? --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:15, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It is not eligible for speedy, needs to go to MfD if needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Mike, I was about to suggest the same thing. If you want this to be your personal essay, safe from interference from those who disagree with you, then it needs to be in your personal user space, and not masquerade as community opinion. — kwami (talk) 06:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

A new essay
Now that Novikoff has again restored his old version (which he is probably entitled to do), I might write a second essay, after all, which will include the version he reverted. Any thoughts or ideas? P.S. I guess the RUSTRESS shortcut must go now. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:13, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Here you are: New essay. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Missing links
This essay could be improved by inserting a link to WP's general pronunciation MOS that recommends/prescribes IPA transcriptions, and more importantly a link to WP's IPA key for Russian. — BTW, I don't think it is helpful to mention (and not illustrate) where the IPA stress mark goes. Users who don't even know that will have to navigate to the IPA key to understand a bunch of other symbols as well, anyway. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:53, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your suggestions! I've added the links that you've named. You could have done it youself: be bold!And I'm not sure what's best for the users who don't even know the IPA at all. In my experience, it's been taught in the elementary school (1980s in Moscow and Crimea). — Mike Novikoff 23:50, 6 December 2021 (UTC)