Talk:2007 Siberian orange snow

Siberia controversy

Summary and chronology

This is about the namechecking of "Siberia" in the lead:

• [1] The word "Siberia" was present in the original stub.
• [2] Ezhiki deleted it without justification in February 2007.
  • The idea was that the edit summary made the reasoning behind removal of the term "Siberia" clear, as a more specific term ("Omsk Oblast") was wikilinked during that same edit. If it was not sufficiently clear, I apologize.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• [3] I independently added back the missing "Siberia" in November after noticing the article at Wikipedia:Did you know.
• [4] Ezhiki immediately deleted it again as "redundant".
• [5] I restored "Siberia" with full justifications
• [6] Goudzovski appeared to delete it again as not being an an administrative division.
• [7] I restored it as "Siberian Federal District" as per Omsk Oblast.

— Komusou ^talk @ 15:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

User talk discussions

The following is a copy-paste of the discussion started at User talk:Komusou, moved here by Komusou for relevance and centralized debate.

I would like to point out that it is generally considered very rude to utilize generic newbie-oriented templates when bringing something to the attention of established editors. Regarding the edit in question, an average reader may, of course, not know the precise location of Omsk Oblast, but considering that the article is titled "2007 Siberian orange snow" and that "Omsk Oblast" is a blue link which can be followed to get more information, specifying "Siberia" in the lead is indeed redundant. What's more, if you take time to actually read the Siberia article, you will see that the definition of this general area is too vague and broad to be of much help to an average reader.

I will appreciate it if you kindly reverted your most recent edit, but, of course, I am not going to waste any more of my time on this if you choose not to do so, as the issue is rather minor. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Komusou, regarding this, perhaps you would you care to explain us your interpretation of WP:OBVIOUS in more details? I am particularly interested to hear your opinion as to how it is not obvious that "2007 Siberian orange snow" fell, well, in Siberia. Also, location-wise, if you believe that identifying an area by federal subject is insufficient, how would you propose to clarify locations of, say, Nalchik, Tolyatti, or Petrozavodsk? Somehow I sincerely doubt that saying that "Nalchik is located in Kabardino-Balkaria, Southern Federal District", "Tambov is located in Samara Oblast, Volga Federal District", and "Petrozavodsk is located in Karelia, Northwestern Federal District" is going to clarify much for an average reader who, according to your interpretation of the guideline, is incapable of following a link to an article about a federal subject in order to find out just where in Russia it is located anyway.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Some answers: [by Komusou, inlined comments by Ezhiki]

• The article is supposed to be self-sufficient, and its MediaWiki page header isn't part of it. That's why the article title is usually namechecked in bold at the start of the lead. Similarly, an article's main redirects are usually added in bold in the lead, even though the page header says "Redirected from redirectname".
  • "Omsk Oblast" is self-sufficient enough (and I am saying this based on the fact that yours is the first complaint regarding this I've heard in three years I've been with Wikipedia). Of course, there will always be people who have no idea where it is, but it does not mean that every subnational entity of every country that happens to be mentioned in the lead of some article must be clarified to the point of absurdity. For example, there are many English-speaking people who would have no idea where Wisconsin is located. It does not mean that every time Wisconsin is mentioned in the lead we should refer to it as "Wisconsin, Midwest, United States". This is not what "self-sufficient" means at all. Lines must be drawn somewhere, and in case of Russia, it is drawn on the level of federal subjects in 99% of cases.
• The WP:LEAD too is supposed to by a standalone summary of the article, not counting the title. One of the projects of Wikipedia is to make a concise CD-ROM with only the leads of the articles.
  • Pretty much the same as above. The CD-ROM version will retain the links, so a reader will always be able to check just where Omsk Oblast is. Plus, even if you see this as a problem, it would still be a problem with the examples I outlined above (with Nalchik, Tolyatti, and Petrozavodsk)—those need a lot more clarification that simply specifying the federal district, as there would not be a convenient lazy term such as "Siberia" available. Over-clarification in those cases, however, would be against WP:LEAD, as the lead must also be consise.
• Articles are supposed to be reasonably independant, readers are not supposed to have to click on every blue word just to get the most basic facts (where/when/what is the word). That's why it's common to write something such as "...during the Third Crusade (1189–1192)..." because the reader shouldn't have to click just to know when this fact happens in the biography he is reading.
  • Again, how is adding a federal district solves this problem for Nalchik, Tolyatti, and Petrozavodsk? You'll need a lot more than an additional clause to specify their locations.
• Wikipedia is intended to be mirrored on tons of other sites, that do not necessarily display the page header, or not as prominently, or do it only way up in the browser's titlebar. The content of the article is the wikisource, not the page header.
  • That is not our problem; that is the problem of the sites that mirror Wikipedia.
• Many people print or download articles for later reading and don't have hyperlinks available. Many people copy-paste parts of an article to email to friends or post on their blog, and our prose should be reasonably self-sufficient. Many people consult Wikipedia on handheld devices with small bandwith and don't have the luxury of clicking and loading everything for every word.
  • As someone who regularly peruses Wikipedia on a handheld device, I assure you there are many more problems with this means of access than a simple hesitation to follow an extra link. The title of the article, however, shows without any problems both in print and on a handheld device. As for copypasting parts of articles, it is impossible to make sure that any random part of any article is self-sufficient and unambigous. All in all, a very weak argument.
• Many people won't notice the title or won't make the link or may even see the title and think that "Siberian orange snow" means a snow coming from Siberia but fallen out of Siberia in that Omsk Oblast place. Wikipedia isn't elitist and is also for kids, senior folks, and plain dumb people.
  • Again, a line must be drawn somewhere. Just because dumb people read Wikipedia does not mean that we have to dumb down our content to their level. I see "Omsk Oblast, Siberia" as nothing more as dumbing down, because "Siberia", according to some definitions, covers pretty much most of the territory of Russia. "Siberian Federal District" is more specific and accurate, but the approach is flawed due to the reasons I outlined in above responses.
• (Actually even Omsk Oblast is an ultra-lame name for the English-speaking wiki, it should be "Omsk State" (as most English documents on .ru sites) or "Omsk Province" or at least "the state of Omsk Oblast". Most reader will think there the snow has fallen in a town named "Omsk Oblast", and why shouldn't they think that? They have no reason to know what an oblast is, and not even a reason to click the link. WP:OBVIOUS is about these things, too.)
  • Omsk Oblast is not a state, it's a federal subject (constituent member of the Federation) with a status of an oblast. A republic would be a rough equivalent of a state, if you insist on dumbing down the terminology. If you are proposing that we should abolish serious terminology in favor of laymen terms and English terms used by Russian (!) websites, you very much disappoint me as an editor. "Oblast", "krai", "okrug" are the terms used in the English-language research papers on the subject of Russian subdivisions. Saying a "state of Omsk Oblast" is just as ignorant as calling an assignment statement "a math equation". Terminology is terminology is terminology. We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a "Compendum of Simplified, Dumbed-Down, and Occasionally Inaccurate (but Only for the Sake of Simplicity!) Facts for Dumb People".
• And last but not least, the district is not for all Russian articles but only this one, because this article needs to namecheck "Siberia" somehow. All articles in the Reference section are about the "Siberian snow", too, that's the common name in the English-speaking world. The article's lead has to namecheck Siberia. Since you and your friend deleted it twice, I had to use the clumsier district instead.
  • Goudzovski is not my friend; he is a fellow editor who made a decision to revert your edit on his own. "Siberia" is just too vague of a term to be of much help; you might as well just use "Russia". There is no need to overexplain every unfamiliar term (such as oblast) to readers; that's why we have links in the first place. The article is about a phenomenon (orange snow), not about where Omsk Oblast is located in relation to the rest of Russia. It is titled "Siberian" orange snow, the precise location is given (Omsk Oblast) and clarified even further (near Kazakhstan). That, in addition to availability of links (Omsk Oblast, Tomsk Oblast, Tyumen Oblast, Kazakhstan, Russia), is more than sufficient for a reader to get an idea of the location without us having to resort to vague but "familiar" terms such as "Siberia".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

— Komusou ^talk @ 21:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The following is a copy-paste of the discussion at User talk:Goudzovski, moved here by Komusou for relevance and centralized debate.

• [note about WP:MINOR irrelevant here]
• Please also have a look at Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles, especially the section #State the obvious, in order to avoid edits like this, which I fixed. The idea is "Don't delete, improve" (AKA "Improve, don't delete"). Thank you. — Komusou ^talk @ 20:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments concerning style guides. Mentioning Siberian Federal District instead of Siberia looks correct for me, though I still consider it overkill. Normally the Federal district is not specified when speaking about Federation subject (at least inside Russia). However, I consider it a minor question. Regards, Goudzovski (talk) 09:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

End of the two discussions transferred by — Komusou ^talk @ 15:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Further discussion

Answer to Ezhiki:

1. Once again, I only said it was needed here for this very article because a "Siberian orange snow" should namecheck "Siberia" in its lead. I never said that "every subnational entity of every country" should be namechecked in every article as a rule of thumb, the rest is a straw man argument.

   I don't mean to go in circles, but how would you justify namechecking "Siberia" in the lead of this article and not namechecking names of other locations in similar situations when a convenient term such as "Siberia" is not available? Not to mention that you still fail to convince me that there is no redundancy in this particular case.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

2. The article, and also its lead, still have to be self-sufficient in the main prose. The title may always be changed by a pagemove, illustrations and captions may come and go, infoboxes too, they are all appendages to the article's body and not supposed to contain information not found in the article proper.

   When an article is changed in such a manner, then we can take care of the problem such a change causes. Preemptive measures are usually a poor choice because we have no means to predict how the article may change in the future. In the existing form, an additional namecheck looks redundant and is not very helpful anyway.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

3. If you scorn so much "dumb people", you may be at the wrong place. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia by the people for the people, all people. Striving at making information accessible and useful to laymen doesn't mean dumbing down. Being encyclopedic doesn't require elitism. Once again, please see Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles for a primer about our philosophy.

   There are limits as to how far we should go to cater to dumb people. With all due respect, your suggestion to replace "Omsk Oblast" with "the state of Omsk Oblast" looks very much like catering to dumb people at the expense of accuracy for the sake of false and misleading "clarity". If you consider this opinion of mine "elitist", you are really doing this project more harm than good. Just because thousands of people use the term "Siberia" without really understanding what the definition covers (and that, indeed, there are multiple valid definitions) does not mean that we should use this term when trying to clarify a location of a place. Refusal to employ pop-culture terms (and the phrase "smth. is located in Siberia, Russia" is nothing more than a pop-culture definition) in encyclopedic sense is not "elitism", it is common sense and is very much in spirit of this project.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

4. For someone who said previously it was a minor issue beneath his notice, you're making an awful fuss for a mere word added for clarity and backed by guidelines and standard practice. One could eventually suspect ulterior motives or an agenda.

   You forgot to mention cabal and conspiracy, eh? Assume good faith already! The only reason I am going into such lengths is because while I do indeed find the whole "problem" laughable and insignificant, your approach to it, your attitude, and, more significantly, your explanations deeply disturb me. I don't see that you fully understand the spirit of the guidelines you are trying to enforce, you do not seem to respect your fellow editors, and you are too easily prepared to sacrifice quality for dubious "accessibility". Seeing that you are fairly new here, I hope that you'll overcome this shortcomings with time and wish you best of luck with that.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Answer to Goudzovski:

1. I agree it would be overkill if done systematically in all articles, having four levels with "City, State, Fed. District, Russia". But this was special to this article, the need being to explain this "Siberian snow" by namechecking "Siberia" in the location, and this is the simplest way I could find.
2. On a related note, a common source of misunderstandings is that, per policy, we use the spelling or usage most common or familiar in the English-speaking world for the English Wikipedia, even when it contradicts local usages or is a "wrong" spelling. Thus, the fact that the Federal district isn't used in Russian usage wouldn't be the point here, but rather which most common usage is useful and understood by English-speaking readers. The format "Eugene, Oregon, U.S." or "Nikkô, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan" is pretty much the standard here. But how and when it should be applied to Russian Federal districts, I don't know. Probably not used as a rule of thumb, but added in any special case for clarity.

— Komusou ^talk @ 15:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Concerning standard naming of the places: in my opinion, the standard is "Tara, Omsk Oblast, Russia", which is exactly like "Eugene, Oregon, U.S." mentioned. Larger scale administrative divisions are not normally listed. I think the artcle name should be changed to something like "2007 orange snow near Omsk" to avoid the vague term Siberia anywhere in the title ro in the text. In fact the present article name wrongly suggests that the orange snow covered a huge area comparable to the size of Siberia. Goudzovski (talk) 15:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC).

We could also change the name to Orange snow in Omsk Oblast (cf. Red rain in Kerala). The year in title is redundant, unless orange snow fell in some other location in a different year.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Just another argument for omitting the mentioning of Siberia: according to Wikipedia articles, the area of Siberia is actually larger than the one of the United States, so the term does not help much to specify the location. Goudzovski (talk) 09:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC).

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/02/mystery_of_oran.html
  • In 2007 Siberian orange snow on 2011-05-26 03:00:44, 404 Not Found
  • In 2007 Siberian orange snow on 2011-05-27 15:17:57, 404 Not Found
  • In 2007 Siberian orange snow on 2011-06-15 17:31:46, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 17:32, 15 June 2011 (UTC)