Jump to content

Talk:Battle of Kyiv

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Requested move 26 February 2022

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

The result of the move request was: no consensus. to move at this time (closed by non-admin page mover) Megan B.... It’s all coming to me till the end of time 18:46, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]


– The historical set of battles is dominantly the "Battle of Kiev"; a user recently WP:BOLDly moved the article from "Battle of Kiev" to "Battle of Kyiv" after Battle of Kyiv (2022) was created. I don't think that "Battle of Kiev" is the dominant use of the disambiguation page (which almost entirely consists of Soviet or pre-soviet articles), so I'd propose that this page be moved back. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:42, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The ongoing Battle of Kyiv (2022) takes priority over all the previous battles for the city which has always been called "Kyiv", even if its name had been previously transliterated into English using the slightly-different Russian transliterated form, "Kiev". As for the disambiguation page's main title header, we should take our cue from the Battle of Beijing disambiguation page which uses the current transliteration of the Chinese capital's name as the all-inclusive main header. —Roman Spinner (talkcontribs) 00:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - per OP. — Golden call me maybe? 21:39, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - historical spelling and current spelling for the name of the city are similar, and many still refer to the city as Kiev. Having a disambiguation page at Battle of Kyiv makes sense, because many might type this while looking for historical battles. Paul Vaurie (talk) 22:12, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why would this help more in finding historical battles than having the disambiguation page match the name of those battles? It seems rather anachronistic to have the modern name at the head of this disambiguation. — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm seeing zero mentions of Battle of Kyiv over the entire life of Google ngrams, while the dominant search term is and has always been Battle of Kiev. It is patently absurd to claim that the unilateral move of "Battle of Kiev" to "Battle of Kyiv" was an improvement in terms of the utility of this disambiguation page; this move proposal, which will revert the unilateral and rapidly contested move made four hours ago, will significantly improve the utility of the disambiguation page and will better match the typical name of the battles indexed under that title. — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:29, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Both of these names refer to the same city. The historical battles that took place there are typically referred to as kiev while the present-day battle is typically referred to in kyiv; however this seems it could be part of a redirect and would lead to confusion especially for the 2022 battle (which is exactly why it needs that 2022 in the title, it would be confusing for readers). I am however more open to the first suggestion for moving this article to Battle of Kiev, as most battles are referring to that spelling. Yeoutie (talk) 01:46, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Kyiv and Kiev are both valid names for the city that have historically, and currently, been in use. We have our page for the city now at Kyiv because of what was determined by consensus to now be the common name. That the current common name was arguably once Kiev isn't important here given both remain valid names, and there is little reason we should differ from the city page name.--Yaksar (let's chat) 01:49, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose per Yaksar. It's the same city. Having two different pages for the different spellings is unintuitive for readers. HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk) 02:13, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per above. Battle of Kyiv and Battle of Kiev should collectively be disambigs and all of the individual battles should have (####) in their title, regardless of how the city name is transliterated. Other suggestions are counterintuitive. Greenbound (talk) 03:03, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose it should to be disambigs to prevent confusing the reader. HurricaneEdgar 07:14, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose It should remain as a 2022 battle because Kyiv or Kiev had several battles beforehand. AustroHungarian1867 (talk) 13:00, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. There have been several battles in Kyiv/Kiev in history, plus Kiev and Kyiv have been synonymous with each other for a long time. Fijipedia (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The spelling choice is not a disambiguator in the real world and relying on it as a signal to readers does not serve them, per the WP:CRITERIA of recognizability and precision. (Evidence: Google Advance Book Search returns 35 English-language results for the exact name,[1] and 271 for the name “Kyiv” on the subject of history.[2]) The decision to use “Kiev” for “historical articles” has consensus, but was arbitrary and based on no rationale except WP:ILIKEIT, and has no relationship to usage in actual WP:reliable sources: not a single non-anthology book in the world uses such an editorial convention. We can’t infer from that decision that the distinction has any meaning, and we mustn’t use it to determine other editorial practices. And, obviously, applying this arbitrary convention to articles and non-encyclopedic content like general disambiguation that do not fall under the letter of its definition is scope creep that defies the strongly established consensus on use of the spelling Kyiv. —Michael Z. 16:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The decision to use “Kiev” for “historical articles” has consensus, but was arbitrary and based on no rationale except WP:ILIKEIT is wholly ignorant of well-established wikipedia policy. WP:OTHERNAMES is extremely explicit that historical differences in naming are valid reasons to title pages differently. As the policy states, Alternative names may be used in article text when context dictates that they are more appropriate than the name used as the title of the article. For example, the city now called Gdańsk is referred to as Danzig in historic contexts to which that name is more suited (e.g. when it was part of Germany or a Free City). Are you seriously arguing that using the Empire-era and Soviet-era term for the city in the context of Soviet-era and Empire-era events is solely WP:ILIKEIT? For what it's worth, vast majority of sources as recently as Google NGrams goes continue to use "Kiev"; the move discussion that you linked contains several editors explicitly acknowledging that the historical term was "Kiev" and that the discussion on the current city name needed to be based on how current sources describe the name of the city in the name's post-Soviet context. I understand the use of the Ukrainian name to refer to the city and to refer to events after 1991, but to frame all of the policy-based arguments against a historical difference as a mere WP:IDONTLIKEIT is simply confused. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, user:Mhawk10. I linked to the relevant discussion above. Neither the proposal nor the decision explained the rationale nor linked to any guidelines except WP:BRD. As far as I can tell, the discussion doesn’t refer to OTHERNAMES. The decision does not refer to any arguments or discussion. On the surface, the determination of consensus was by a straight popularity vote, constitutes WP:LIKE, contravenes WP:RMCOMMENT (“the debate is not a vote”), and probably ought to be challenged.
    But your argument, and most of these arguments, also misconstrue the OTHERNAMES rationale, which is about contemporary names in current use with a nonsensical argument about reviving the colonial-era Russian-influenced spelling. By example, I’ll point out that the spelling Kiev was not in use when either the Siege of Kiev (968) or the Siege of Kiev (1240) took place, and it was not attested for more than another 500 years. The city had no English name at the time, so these should be titled Siege of Kyiv, following the main article. The closest historical name is Kiou, first attested in the seventeenth century. The “historical article” argument, as it’s constructed, is bunk. The argument might make sense for, e.g., Constantinople and Istanbul, names which may be used in a single reliable source to refer to a city with very different historical identities; but it is nonsense for the two most common spelling variants of Kyiv: where both are still in use, where every reliable history source uses either one or the other for the city in any period, and no source ever uses older historical spellings like Kiou, Kioff, or Kiovia.
    Furthermore, the scope of this disambiguation page’s content spans past the date of the cutoff for that “historical article” decision, 1991 and/or 1995, so it doesn’t apply here by its own terms.
    Further-furthermore, this is not a “historical article” as defined in that decision; it is a disambiguation page: Wikipedia navigation content and not encyclopedic content, so that decision doesn’t apply at all. See, for example, the decision to move Folkstsaytung (Kyiv), which determined “historical context is moot because the city’s name in this case is just a disambiguator, not part of the name of the topic.” —Michael Z. 18:14, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:CONSISTENT also behooves us to consider the title of Kyiv offensive (disambiguation), which was just ratified, and Kiev Uprising (disambiguation). It would be better to have an explicit consensus whether the “historical articles” decisions applies to “historical” disambiguation pages too. —Michael Z. 17:47, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We have too many historical textbooks that mention numerous "Battle of Kyiv"s over hundreds of years. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:58, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Google Ngram seems to disagree, for what it's worth, listing zero occurrences of it, as has already been stated. Dege31 (talk) 21:44, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - taking a look down the pages being disambiguated, the formulation "Battle of Kiev" clearly predominates in WP:COMMONNAME usage with no less than 5 articles sharing that exact phrasing; it is this formulation that requires disambiguation. By contrast, very few English-language sources have referred to the city as "Kyiv" in historiography of battles save for the current 2022 engagement. When English-languages sources switch convention to using "Battle of Kyiv" more widely to describe earlier historical battles, then there may be an argument, but as it currently stands this usage is limited to exactly one recent context. Benjitheijneb (talk) 05:30, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Yaksar, and oppose per WP:NCEVENTS: the majority of events should include the year. Removing the year would also not be WP:CONSISTENT with the other titles listed in the DAB page. Pilaz (talk) 14:50, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support moving the disambiguation page back to "Battle of Kiev". Neutral on whether this would require the removal of the date from the article about the current war. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:24, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Pilaz above as well as that Kyiv is the most commonly used name of the city and that since Battle of Kiev already links to the disambiguation page there is no reason to change it. Paradox NiteOwl (Discussion?) 16:59, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There are already other "Battles of Kyiv", all of which have the date in the title. It's simply a matter of keeping everything straight (plus, what do we do about the disambiguation page if it is moved?). Thebrakeman2 (talk) 17:52, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – At least a couple of comments have stated that Google Ngram Viewer has “zero occurrences” of the name “battle of Kyiv.” This is false, as 1) Ngram doesn’t report absolute numbers of occurrences, but relative proportions, 2) Ngram says “we only consider ngrams that occur in at least 40 books,”[3] and 3) Google Book Search returns 219 results for Battle of Kyiv, and we can only speculate why Ngram is not consistent with it. —Michael Z. 14:47, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mazajc: you are correct that Google Ngrams shows a flatline for "Battle of Kyiv" for literally each year in its dataset. What you are seeing is that there are zero years in which Ngrams found significant use of the term that you unilaterally moved this page to despite multiple prior WP:BOLD moves of yours having been reverted. There is no policy-based reason to have the page in its current location, while the WP:COMMONNAME of the thing that people are most likely to search for is Battle of Kiev. — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:31, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I have outlined a good case for this move above. What moves have been reverted and how is that relevant? What proportion of all of my moves is that? Let’s stick to the question and not sound like we’re trying to argue a case about another editor personally, please. —Michael Z. 20:17, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My use of the second-person pronoun is perhaps distracting from the point I was trying to make—that multiple bold moves had been previously attempted and were reverted. That a third bold move has happened, despite it being plainly obvious from the history of this page that such a move is controversial, shows that this contentious move from the longstanding title should have been handled via RM, rather than the move request being filed the other way around. — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:43, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I understand that some people don’t like it, but in my opinion this disambiguation page is now clearly out of the scope of the “historical articles” decision, even broadly interpreted. Its contents are not restricted to pre-1995. The main article’s title is clear consensus default name for this city in Wikipedia, and that was reached with WP:COMMONNAME front and centre of the discussion. As far as I can tell, it was last moved in September 2020, so I’m not sure what bold moves you are concerned with. I was fully prepared for a BRD revert, but no one chose to do that. I agree that there should be a clear consensus identified either way. Now we are discussing it to determine consensus, so I don’t see what is to be accomplished by complaining about the completely legitimate WP:BOLD move that led to this discussion. Completely without relation to how we should proceed, I can’t help but note the irony that the Russians made this inevitable by attacking Kyiv last week. —Michael Z. 00:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 17 October 2022

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

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move
There is only 1 editor in support of the original suggestion and opposition dwarfs the support for Battle of Kiev (non-admin closure) >>> Extorc.talk 06:01, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Battle of KyivBattle of Kiev (disambiguation)WP:COMMONNAME Of the 23 battles or sieges fought over Kiev/Kyiv, all but one are commonly referred to using the name "Kiev", both by historical sources and Wikipedia itself. Furthermore, this page should denote that is a disambiguation of the term. BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 04:15, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support move per OP. O.N.R. (talk) 07:54, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Battle of Kiev. The use of Kyiv in English-language sources is very recent. However, "(disambiguation)" doesn't need to be there since there is no primary topic and we don't add "(disambiguation)" unless there is one. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose disambiguation pages do not have any reason to adapt to any historical contexts unlike formal articles. They serve navigational purposes for readers so that they can find the article they're looking for. In English, the name that is given to the Ukrainian capital is Kyiv, and I expect most people today to do their searches using it as it is the modern English name. If a minority of people chose to use the old name for some reason (in social media, it tends to be just for the sake of disrespect to Ukraine), we cannot do anything about it.
Also, WP:COMMONNAME does not back this proposal in any way. To imply so is a misinterpretation of the policy. Super Ψ Dro 14:04, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "disambiguation pages do not have any reason to adapt to any historical contexts unlike formal articles."
When said page links to 25 different articles, 22 of them linking to historical article using the name "Kiev", yes there is definitely a reason it to adapt to historical norms.
  • "In English, the name that is given to the Ukrainian capital is Kyiv"
"Kiev" and "Kyiv" are both used and accepted in English, so this is a categorically false claim.
  • "and I expect most people today to do their searches using it as it is the modern English name"
A dubious claim at best. The vast majority of people searching for any of the 22 battles of Kiev other than the one 2022 will likely do so under the name "Kiev" not "Kyiv".
  • "If a minority of people chose to use the old name for some reason (in social media, it tends to be just for the sake of disrespect to Ukraine), we cannot do anything about it."
Do not employ ad hominem attacks which use accusations of bad faith for the sake of your argument. What name people are using on social media and why is completely irrelevant for the purposes of naming this article. You even mentioning this brings into question your motives for opposing this move.
  • "WP:COMMONNAME does not back this proposal in any way."
But it does. WP:COMMONNAME reads: "Use commonly recognizable names", and the commonly recognized name for 22 of the 23 armed conflicts are the battle/siege of "Kiev". Thus the most commonly recognized name is "Battle of Kiev". Just because Wikipedia has decided to call the modern city "Kyiv" does not mean we are purging every mention of spelling "Kiev". BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 21:52, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
When said page links to 25 different articles, 22 of them linking to historical article using the name "Kiev", yes there is definitely a reason it to adapt to historical norms. no. There's no Wikipedia policy saying this. It doesn't matter if it's 22/25 or 1/1000. What matters is what proper name does the real subject covered by this artificial product by Wikipedia have. "Kiev" and "Kyiv" are both used and accepted in English, so this is a categorically false claim. indeed, both are accepted and used. But for a title we are forced to chose one and Kyiv is the most common, proof of this is that it is used as the title of Ukraine's capital. The vast majority of people searching for any of the 22 battles of Kiev other than the one 2022 will likely do so under the name "Kiev" not "Kyiv". you have zero evidence of this. I believe, per common sense, that people are more likely not to stop and think about the historical period they're looking something from and try to remember any exceptions and changes to the rule today, but to just do their search using the modern name, which is Kyiv. If you wish for evidence that Kyiv is the most common name, I can provide some to you, but I will just copypaste arguments from past discussions. Do not employ ad hominem attacks which use accusations of bad faith for the sake of your argument. What name people are using on social media and why is completely irrelevant for the purposes of naming this article. no I didn't refer to you specifically, what I meant is that many people today use "Kiev" to disrespect and delegitimize the Ukrainian state. To support my argument I invite you to for example go through the latest tweets using "Kiev" and see what kind of people you can find. You even mentioning this brings into question your motives for opposing this move. I am afraid this is only your perception. I only wish Wikipedia not to use a name Ukrainians clearly are unwelcome of. WP:COMMONNAME reads: "Use commonly recognizable names" indeed. Today, the most common name is "Kyiv", so this artificial Wikipedia page only destined for the readers and not for giving any informational value should stick to the most common name Kyiv receives to fullfill its purposes. Just because Wikipedia has decided to call the modern city "Kyiv" does not mean we are purging every mention of spelling "Kiev". Yes. Nobody here is doing that. Super Ψ Dro 14:28, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This nomination is hardly timed to convince voters who were left unconvinced by the Talk:Battle of Kyiv#Requested move 26 February 2022 nomination submitted two days after the start of hostilities. As an additional point, I will parrot my own argument from 00:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC), above: "As for the disambiguation page's main title header, we should take our cue from the Battle of Beijing disambiguation page which uses the current transliteration of the Chinese capital's name as the all-inclusive main header." —Roman Spinner (talkcontribs) 00:47, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the vast majority of these battles are titled with "Kiev", because that's the name of the city for the vast majority of military history. yes, this is true. But it isn't anymore. Why does the old name matter anymore for anything that isn't historical? Super Ψ Dro 14:28, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Every entry on the list except the last one is historical! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:38, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But should the list use a historical name due to this? Super Ψ Dro 16:38, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. If I have 22 blue marbles and one red marble, should I package said marbles under the moniker "red"? BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 22:49, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, if you have 22 marbles that were made at a period when they were known as "marbs" or whatever and another one that was made in a period when they were known as marbles, you will call them marbles, because it's 2022 and in 2022 marbles are known as such. Super Ψ Dro 13:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is not true.  —Michael Z. 20:18, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That’s absolutely false. Kiev is a relatively recent spelling, probably not used before the 1790s. When the vast majority of these battles took place it was spelled Kiou, Kiow, Kiovia, Kiowia, Kioff, Kiof, Kiew, Kief, or Kieff.
This just shows that the desire to use the old 19th–20th century spelling represents nostalgia or some other version of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and has no logical basis in either the usage of contemporaneous names or our guidelines. —Michael Z. 20:18, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence: no English Kiev before 1792: "Kiev".  —Michael Z. 20:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter if "Kiev" was a term that gained popularity in the 1790s or not. It is the common name under which all the sieges and battles prior to 2022 are referred to as. Q.E.D., the WP:COMMONNAME is "Battle of Kiev".
So there absolutely is a: "logical basis in either the usage of contemporaneous names or our guidelines". It's almost like you're just throwing out words and phrases with zero regard for their meaning, and seeing what sticks. Your accusations of "nostalgia" and WP:IDONTLIKEIT are completely unfounded and amount to little more than ad hominem personal attacks, in lieu of an actual argument that pertains to the issue. BUZZLIGHTYEAR99 (talk) 23:45, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It is the common name under which all the sieges and battles prior to 2022 and guess what year is it currently! Super Ψ Dro 13:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was addressing Red-tailed hawk’s argument. You’re making a different argument, which is already being discussed above. —Michael Z. 15:33, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.