Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Kazakhstan

RfC Should Kazakhstan article names follow current transliteration rules?
Should Kazakhstan article names follow current transliteration rules, even where the WP:COMMONNAME found in English language texts uses a differing transliteration?

Recent move requests are using justifications such as "native Kazakh ... (Cyrillic name) is transliterated ... (Latin text)," and "Kazakhstan is also switching to Latin script as well so that makes it written ...".

Batternut (talk) 23:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Current moves under discussion are Balkhash (city) to "Balqash", Akmola Region to "Aqmola Region" and Ak Orda Presidential Palace to "Aqorda Presidential Palace". Other recent attempted moves have been Stepnogorsk to "Stepnogor", Balqash Airport to "Balqash Airport", Arkalyk to "Arqalyq", Zhibek Zholy Street (Almaty) to "Jibek Joly Street (Almaty)", and Nurly Zhol to "Nurly Jol".
 * Context

See Kazakh language for details of Kazakhstan's switch to Latin script. When the switch was announced a proposal to move Kazakhstan to "Qazaqstan" (archived here) was rejected.

Batternut (talk) 23:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

 * No - we should stick to the spelling currently found in English language reliable sources, per policy WP:COMMONNAME, and avoid WP:Crystalball gazing. Batternut (talk) 23:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Leaning No. We had a similar discussion for Ukraine, which is a bit difficult to me now to find. Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic script, but the transliteration rules are pretty straightforward. The outcome was that most Ukrainian localities (the identified exceptions were Kiev, Odessa, Chernobyl, and, later as a RM, Gurzuf) have no established Enlish language names, and for them the transliteration must be applied. I guess the situation is similar to Kazakhstan, most localities have no established names, and we must come with the list of exceptions and for the rest follow the Latin Kazakh alphabet. However, this should not be a permission for indiscriminate undiscussed moves (indeed, users who repeatedly moved Ukrainian articles without discussion have been blocked), and where an established name in English exists it must be used irrespectively of what spelling Kazakhstan chooses to use in Kazakh. Note that in the discussion of Talk:Qaraghandy the spelling was invented by discussion participants, which I personally find absolutely unacceptable.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:12, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment: Apologies for my unnotified page movement, I do think we should stick to WP:COMMONNAME. However, I can highly assure you that the names of the articles I moved have no complete common name and show different good amount of results when written in different language transliteration. I have no real intentions of changing articles with common name such as Kazakhstan to Qazaqstan or Nazarbayev to Nazarbaev since these are the names that I admit, are common. Shadowzpaev (talk) 16:41, 2 June 2018 (UTC) Blocked sock. Dekimasu よ! 20:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)


 * No. As this source points out, the transition to this alphabet is only just beginning in Kazakhstan and it is not reflected in English sources.  I agree with User:Shadowzpaev's "no common name" argument in principle, but it's too early for wholesale moves based on an alphabet that's only been in place since February (and which replaced another one only finalised in 2017).  Wikipedia still uses non-standard transliterations for Azeri nearly 30 years after its switch to the Latin alphabet.  —  AjaxSmack  02:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * No. As per WP:COMMONNAME. Borsoka (talk) 04:33, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I have a comment in response to Ymblanter; It is common in Kazakhstan for highway signs to have English versions for towns.  (I don't know if this should be a factor in our decisions, which is why I am neutral -- I just thought it might be relevant). Kdammers (talk) 09:15, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

 * To assume that last year's decision to switch the preferred script for Kazakh to Latin will result in the newer transliteration becoming the dominant spelling would be WP:Crystalball gazing (Wikipedia does not predict the future). Batternut (talk) 23:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It depends, if there is a very fair amount of Kazakh names about Kazakhstan articles that are mentioned in English language without a fully established WP:COMMONNAME then they should be changed. However if articles like Lake Balkhash, then they should remain the same because many English sources and even maps with Kazakh named cities show its non-Kazakh name. Igor1383 (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC) Blocked sock. Dekimasu よ! 20:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * your "fully established common name" test is expressed by WP:TRANSLITERATE as situations of "too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage". So what number of sources might we consider as "too few"? I think most or all of the above cases have over a hundred sources using the current spellings. Batternut (talk)

17:20, 2 June 2018 (UTC)


 * you assured us that the names of the articles I moved have no complete common name, but they do! One example, "Stepnogorsk" gets about 3,740 book search hits whereas "Stepnogor" gets only 11 hits. At scholar.google.co.uk "Stepnogorsk" gets about 494 hits whereas "Stepnogor" gets only 4 hits! It's the same with the others. Batternut (talk) 10:26, 3 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Shadowzpaev and Igor1383 are confirmed as the being same person, so this appears to be just one person's crusade.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

RfC on election/referendum naming format
An RfC on moving the year from the end to the start of article titles (e.g. South African general election, 2019 to 2019 South African general election) has been reopened for further comment, including on whether a bot could be used move the articles if it closed in favour of the change: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation). Cheers, Number   5  7  15:37, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

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Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
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Draft:Tasbolat Mukhametkaliev
Could anyone provide feedback on this draft? Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:01, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Displaying Russian names as footnotes in former Soviet Union locations?
Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Soviet_Union for a discussion on whether the Russian names should be put in footnotes in articles about former Soviet Union locations (which existed at the time of the Soviet Union) WhisperToMe (talk) 08:32, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Women in Red Asian women contest
From 1 October to 31 December, Women in Red is running a virtual contest on Asian women. In November, this will coincide with Wikipedia Asian Month. We look forward to strong participation from all those interested in improving coverage of women from Kazakhstan.--Ipigott (talk) 19:21, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

First women MPs in Kazakhstan
Hello. I'm compiling a list of the first women MPs in each country, but have been unable to find the answer for Kazakhstan. I'm guessing they would have been an early member(s) of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR, the Congress of Soviets or the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. If anyone can point me to a definitive source, it would be much appreciated. Cheers, Number   5  7  17:59, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Rename articles about uezds for consistency
I’m proposing renaming every article in the form of, for example, Akhtyrka Uyezd → Akhtyrka Uezd, to match the spelling of the renamed main article Uezd. Please discuss at talk:Uezd. —Michael Z. 22:16, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Possible vandalism to First Lady of Kazakhstan
There's a recent edit to the article First Lady of Kazakhstan that looks like it may be vandalism. However, I don't have deep knowledge of the country, so it might just an unsourced yet correct edit. I wanted to raise it to this project where people might have knowledge. After the divorce of current President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, someone named Danny Nakamura is listed as the new First Lady. However, there is no source for this claim, no information in the biographical article about Tokayev about this supposed new First Lady, and no wikilink to an article about Ms. Nakamura. Does anyone know whether this is vandalism or accurate information? Thanks. JamesAM (talk) 18:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, it looks like vandalism, and it was unsourced anyway. I have removed it.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like and turns it into something like
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Romanization or native Latin script?
WP:KAZAKHNAMES says “For Kazakh language, BGN/PCGN romanization of Kazakh is typically used.” But I notice that the articles on Tokayev and Nazarbayev, and some others, use the Latin Kazakh in the lead instead, in contradiction to the example given there. Is this now the convention in use?

It seems to make sense to use the Kazakh Latin (or should I say Qazaq Latin?).

Shall we update the guideline? —Michael Z. 05:43, 13 December 2022 (UTC)


 * No, I do not think there is consensus to use Kazakh Latin. In a year or two it would become official, and then romanization would not be needed. Ymblanter (talk) 19:31, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

List of wars involving Kazakhstan
Was wondering if some members of this WikiProject could take a look at List of wars involving Kazakhstan.There are some MOS:COLOR issues (at least in my opinion) that need to be addressed, but the main thing is that there's seems to be an edit war brewing based upon some recent edits that have been made by some SPAs and the edit summaries that were left for them. If someone knowledgeable about the subject matter could take a look and determine the last good stable version of the article, then perhaps the article could be protected and these SPA could instead be encouraged to use the article talk page to discuss things. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:36, 31 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I protected the article for two weeks, and some of the edit summaries are not really encouraging. Ymblanter (talk) 11:57, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Aykin Tolepbergen
Aykin Tolepbergen is an actor, the page needs additions. Xx236 (talk) 09:49, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Zarina Diyas
Zarina Diyas has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 20:38, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Women in Green's 5th Edit-a-thon
 Hello WikiProject Kazakhstan:

WikiProject Women in Green is holding a  month-long Good Article Edit-a-thon event in October 2023!

Running from October 1 to 31, 2023, WikiProject Women in Green (WiG) is hosting a Good Article (GA) edit-a-thon event with the theme Around the World in 31 Days! All experience levels welcome. Never worked on a GA project before? We'll teach you how to get started. Or maybe you're an old hand at GAs – we'd love to have you involved! Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and women's works (e.g., books, films) during the event period. We hope to collectively cover article subjects from at least 31 countries (or broader international articles) by month's end. GA resources and one-on-one support will be provided by experienced GA editors, and participants will have the opportunity to earn a special WiG barnstar for their efforts.

We hope to see you there! Grnrchst (talk) 13:14, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Request for input on categories
Input is needed to close a discussion on deleting and merging a number of categories at Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 19. Thanks. —Michael Z. 05:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

A few questions about when to use Nur-Sultan vs. Astana
Hi there, I don't know that much about Kazakhstan nor have any connection to the country, but I have been reading Wikipedia and have been finding that several articles still contain "Nur-Sultan" in their titles or body text. Is there a guideline on where to use Nur-Sultan vs. Astana in articles? Specifically, if an event (e.g. election, sports match etc) occurred while the capital's name was Nur-Sultan, do we use Nur-Sultan for that article or do we change that to Astana? Similarly, if something was established while the city was named Nur-Sultan, do we use Nur-Sultan or Astana for that as well? Thanks.  Prodraxis  ( talk ) 20:17, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think this is pretty much as other renamed cities: If an event took place when the name of the city wass Nursultan, it should be as a rule referred to as Nursultan. (Note also that though it was called Astana before and after Nursultan, it was still called Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, and Akmola before Astana). Ymblanter (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Russian or Kazakh speaking help wanted regarding an article title
Recently, I have been finding that across multiple wikis (including en.wp), the capital of Kazakhstan is still called Nur-Sultan, not Astana in inappropriate places against WP:MOS guidelines (see User:Prodraxis/Astana for more info). I have recently come across the article Nur-Sultan Zhas Ulan Republican School while looking for examples of such MOS errors to fix. Now, AFAIK a lot of establishments (e.g. Barys Astana) have changed their names from containing Nur-Sultan to containing Astana when the capital was renamed back to Astana, and I want to know if this is the case for the Nur-Sultan Zhas Ulan Republican School article as well. I tried to google some stuff in English, but I couldn't find anything regarding the school's name, and I don't understand any Russian or Kazakh either and I can't read Cyrillic. Can any Russian or Kazakh speakers help out with this? Thanks.  Prodraxis  ( talk ) 14:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Nvm, please disregard this message - a few days ago, I decided to move the page's title to Astana Zhas Ulan Republican School partly because other articles were named e.g. Almaty Zhas Ulan Republican School and the naming conventions seemed consistently to put the name of the city in front of "Zhas Ulan Republican School" with regards to these articles.  Prodraxis  ( talk ) 15:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Developing Countries WikiContest
Starting this July, we will see a new contest on the scene - the Developing Countries WikiContest (WP:DCWC)! Think of it as a WikiCup but only for articles and media on developing countries.

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Best wishes, Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ( talk to me!/my edits ) 08:19, 19 May 2024 (UTC)