Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ossetia/Archive 3

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts
This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the  parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:31, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

A & SO pov problems
There is an issue that WP:OSSETIA editors may be interested in. I have edited some articles, which include List of countries and capitals in native languages, List of official languages by state, List of official languages, and have inserted Abkhazia and South Ossetia, based upon:

1) The fact that they are recognised by one other country which has broad international recognition 2) The fact that Kosovo is listed independently on such lists 3) If Kosovo and Taiwan are listed independently, then the same has to go for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in the interests of NPOV.

Another editor has at some stage also inserted Abkhazia and South Ossetia as part of Europe, based also upon the existence of Kosovo being listed independently.

There is now discussion at Talk:Europe in which editors are arguing that Kosovo should be listed, with the ommission of Abhkazia and South Ossetia. I have suggested, and it appears to be the general consensus on other articles, such as List of countries, that so-called partially recognised states (this means Abhazia, Kosovo, Taiwan, South Ossetia, SADR and Palestine) be listed inline with their partially recognised status, but with a notation that their independence is disputed.

Perhaps interested project members will like to provide their opinions on the talk page. --Russavia Dialogue 20:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Kosovo is actually less viable to be called an independent state than either Abkhazia, or South Ossetia. The reason is that Kosovo doesn't control, but claims, North Kosovo, which is controlled by Serbia, whereas South Ossetia and Abkhazia control the entirety of their territories. Thus the legal status of all three is disputed, Kosovo being blocked by Russia's and China's veto and South Ossetia and Abkhazia being blocked by the US and UK veto, and yet all three are recognized, and represented, by at least one UN member state. Thus the De Jure status is disputed. However from a De Facto standpoint, while North Kosovo is disputed, no areas of South Ossetia or Abkhazia are disputed. As per the Eritrean Precedent, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are more viable than Kosovo to be treated as an independent state. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Nicaragua–South Ossetia relations
Hi group, Nicaragua–South Ossetia relations is currently up for AfD at Articles for deletion/Nicaragua–South Ossetia relations. As this is article is within the scope of this project, editors are of course welcome to voice their opinions at the AfD page. Cheers. --Russavia Dialogue 10:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Renaming of 2008 South Ossetia war
Good day, everyone! I would just like to let everyone know that currently, there is a discussion underway at Talk:2008 South Ossetia war about a renaming of the article from its current name ("2008 South Ossetia war") to "Russia-Georgia war" or "Russian-Georgian war". This discussion seems to be spending literally more space on Russia's war guilt, or absence thereof, than what English-speakers actually call this war!

A similar discussion already occurred about two to three months ago, during which an extraordinarily slim majority of users (the final tally was 24-23, although one user voted for both sides) defeated the proposed renaming. However, the renaming proposal was brought back up, as some individuals feel that a new consensus has appeared, while other users believe that the consensus has not changed since the last polling.

I hope that the input from this project will help get the discussion back on track, so that the improvement of this article, which your project considers to be of Top Importance, will swiftly continue. And personally, I don't really care what we call the war, as long as we consider our readers in the process. Thank you, and happy editing! Laurinavicius (talk) 02:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

New pictures
Cominf.org has agreed to release the pictures at under the Creative Commons license. I've already uploaded some to Commons, but if you think others could be used somewhere as well, please upload them too. Let's try to make South Ossetia -related articles prettier. The OTRS ticket is #2009081010067736. Offliner (talk) 08:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

New Proposals
I have some ideas on how to improve the project:

Somehow try to educated and get Ossetian users to represent Ossetia. I'm not Ossetian, I'm just flying the South Ossetian flag out of respect to those that held out in the Battle of Tskhinval[i]. As for the Californian Flag, I'm currently living in the Golden State, I hope most users have figured that one out ;)

Organize Articles in a logical manner, i.e:

Ossetia
 * North Ossetia
 * Vladikavkaz
 * Beslan
 * Pyramida (maybe do an article on the KVN team)
 * South Ossetia
 * Tskhinval
 * Gergiev
 * 2008 South Ossetia War
 * Background of the 2008 South Ossetia War
 * Georgian-Ossetian Conflict
 * South Ossetian Independence Referendum
 * Timeline of the 2008 South Ossetia War
 * Battle of Tskhinvali
 * Humanitarian Impact of the 2008 South Ossetia War
 * Humanitarian Response to the 2008 South Ossetia War
 * Responsibility for the 2008 South Ossetia War
 * International Reaction to the 2008 South Ossetia War
 * 1991–1992 South Ossetia War
 * Georgian–Ossetian conflict (1918–1920)

Please note that the above is just an outline, and the only part of the outline that is completed, is the 2008 South Ossetia War. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:39, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Article Guide
Since the goal of this specific WikiProject is to inform the reader of all viewpoints regarding Ossetia, I don't see the reason why we should include biased articles, which only present the views of the New York Times, the Norwegian something commission, and a plethora of other limited, anti-Russian sources that parrot said lines. In the article, the pro-Georgian editors do as they please, ignore all discussion, cite faulty sources, and in general push their POV, without any discussion whatsoever. I do not believe that such an article, should be included in this fine WikiProject. Thus, I have removed the article "2008 'ethnic cleansing' of Georgians in South Ossetia from this wikiproject, due to the biased nature of that POV fork. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)