Talk:Russo-Georgian War/Archive 23

This is an archive of past discussions about Russo-Georgian War. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 20

Archive 21

Archive 22

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To Those Opposing the current title

Do you actually have any other reasons for opposing aside "Google said so" and "we want to make Russia look guilty by changing the title, stating that Google said so!"??? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No, they don't. You've described the matter of discussion right.FeelSunny (talk) 12:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome to re-read the lengthy discussions on this: The main counterarguements against the current title have been that it is not widely used by the media (see Google) and that it disregards the fighting that took place outside of South Ossetia. Since we have been over this discussion about 4 times now, I think the arguements are well known to everyone, lets vote now. --Xeeron (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

We had, actually. The current naming holds the strongest position in the vote.FeelSunny (talk) 15:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Very little fighting took place outside of Ossetia. Xeeron - guess what, the Battle of Stalingrad was also not entirely fought in Stalingrad, should we rename that? All you have is the Google Argument against our arguments of the current title being the most unbiased and most relevant. But Google Hits will show everything that mass media says as a majority opinion, even if it is bullshit. For instance, Google this: Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction vs. Iraq does not have Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Google hits test, your only hope will tell you that Iraq still has WMDs. And that's the kind of test you are using here in an attempt to trump NPOV relevance. In addition, according to precedence, i.e. the Second Chechen War, well part of it was actually fought in Dagestan, Russia's reason for the Second Chechen War was the Chechen attack on Dagestan. Yet most of the fighting ocurred in Chechnya, hence the Second Chechen War is the name. Now, you are using the Google Hits Test, which will give more hits for whatever 10 CEOs say, in your attempt to trump NPOV, Relevancy, and Precedence. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

For your information it wasn't Xeeron or anyone else at Wikipedia who coined the name Battle of Stalingrad. And as far as I know Wikipedia is not an international institute who decide names of wars or battles. What we should use here is the name used by media, publications etc and not invent something new. Närking (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

We didn't invent South Ossetia. Nor did we invent the title. And once again, the Google-Media argument has been repudiated multiple times, please see above. South Ossetia was an invetion of Stalin, when he chopped Ossetia in two, to give a part of it to his native Georgia. Then Stalin just transferred Abkhazia to Georgia. And if we are to use precedence Narking, then the title works, because the Second Chechen War isn't called the Russia-Dagestan-Chechnya War now is it? The only invention that we came up with, was putting 2008 in the title, and no one has been against that. If you are against having 2008 in the title for clarity purposes, then we can have a vote on removing it. But aside from that, we simply followed the doctrine for naming wars established in the Post-WWII World, Korean War, Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan, First Chechen War, Second Chechen War. None of these were our inventions. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

We'll Mr. HW don't you believe that the Abkhazians might object to that title? I think that might be the prime reason. But we should put this to rest, 2008 SO War is not correct but the media uses it so it would be just to do so and We should remind ourselves that we are here to make this article correct, clearer and easy to find every thing should be done with those intentions in which for the most part is. Thank you every one for all your hard work but the Title should stand as it is.--XChile (talk) 17:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

XChile, thank you for the question. During the Second Chechen War, part of the action took place in Dagestan, however, against the Dagestanis' objections, it is still called the Second Chechen War. Beslan, a terrorist act related to the Second Chechen War, took place in North Ossetia, and yet the title of the war didn't expand. Abkhazians boldly fought for their hard won independence from a corrupt regime, much like the Americans had during the American Revolution. However less then 15% of the war took place in Abkhazia, whereas over 70% of the war took place in South Ossetia. Hence the name. If it was the other way around, we would be calling this the 2008 Abkhazia War. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry to interrupt your discussion, but I actually asked two Abkhazians, residing in Moscow about the title. They do not mind "2008 SO war". I also asked my friend, a Georgian girl (well, she looks a girl to me, though she is divorced and has two babies:)) - she also thinks the name is clear, though she really does not like many other things abt the article. Unfortunately I do not have friends SO nationals, mostly b/c people from SO emigrated not to Moscow, but to Northern O. Just to make it clear, many Georgians and Abkhazians that left during the wars of 1990ies, they live in Russia now, many of them in Moscow. FeelSunny (talk) 09:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) This, and elsewhere mentioned canvassing, is inappropriate: "we want to make Russia look guilty by changing the title". Calling it a war and naming the two belligerents is not a plot to make anyone guilty. It's ludicrous over the top Russian protectionist POV to suggest you can't name the parties to a war. The suggested title is not How did Russia happen to have all those tanks and troops ready right at the border and drove all the way to the sea and destroyed Georgia's coast guard while claiming to not even be there war. Now that could be interpreted as slanted, although it would also be an equally factual title. PetersV TALK 01:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

"Calling something Russia-Georgia War, implies that Russia was the attacker " seems to be the only argument against Russia-Georgia war. Is this even valid? Is there anything in the naming conventions that says the attacker goes first? Is there anything anywhere that says that? If not, why are we even listening to this? Wikipedia does not create names. [1] "90% of the newspapers that used that name, stated that Russia was the attacker. " lol, care to provide a source for that figure? Ostap 00:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

At least in the infobox the aggressor usually comes first: [2] Offliner (talk) 06:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Ostap, the argument is valid. If it comes first in the infobox, it comes first in the title. That would be logical. Peter, when quoting me, try not to take only the part you like, but the whole quote. Also the reason that Russia had all of its tanks in position, is simply because the Caucasian Military District of Russia is the most heavily militarized district, due to the First Chechen, Dagestan and Second Chechen Wars. Furthermore the military drove from their bases in Vladikavkaz and Grozniy, the logical bases for the Russian Federation to have, to the border. That means that the military wasn't on the border. In addition paratroopers were flown from Smolensk. I don't know what your military education was, and maybe mine is biased, but I was taught that having your bases ready to respond to a threat is a great idea! Maybe I was mistaught and the Latvian method is better. As for the Russian fleet, they too waited at the base before the attack began. It's hilarious how the Russians are blamed for being prepared. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

So I may imagine a talk: "Why Russia comes first in the name, for "Georgia" starts from "G" and Russsia from "R", and "R" goes after "G", isn't it?" - "It is, but it was like that in the Google" - "Well, but does it not contradict the WP and common sense practice of placing a subject of an action in the first place and the object of an action in the second place?" - "Yes, but this was like this in the Google", etc... FeelSunny (talk) 20:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Canvassing

User Historic Warrior energetically engaged in canvassing other users in an apparent attempt to influence the poll by recruiting exclusively Russian (-speaking) users. Please see [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. He also left an announcement on Talk:Russia#2008 South Ossetia War Article in the manner clearly designed to influence the voters’ opinion:

There's been a discussion about what to rename the 2008 South Ossetia War, and basically wants to make Russia look evil, by changing it to the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, as if Russia was the attacker (attacker goes first in Wiki Articles). Please help with the voting. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a clear violation of Wikipedia policy. Historic Warrior has essentially disrupted the poll.--Kober^Talk 15:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I knew this poll was going on, and was going to comment at some stage, so his posting on my talk page made no difference to my voicing my opinion. --Russavia ^Dialogue 16:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You knew, but others did not. And Historic's post on Talk:Russia has clearly done its job. According to WP:Canvassing, such behavior is called Inappropriate canvassing/Campaigning/Votestacking --Kober^Talk 16:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A note to Historic Warrior advising him of WP:CANVASS should suffice I think. Of course, it should have been worded neutrally, as it was done on my talk page, and posted to WP:RUSSIA, but as yet, I don't see any harsh damage having been done yet? --Russavia ^Dialogue 16:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically, notifying all the main contributors and relevant Wikiprojects should not be judged as canvassing. But notify the editors selectively might be characterized as canvassing. Both sides engaged in canvassing here or both didn't, why wouldn't you check Narking's edits? (Igny (talk) 16:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

Huh! Narking did that in an abosuletly neutral manner in full compliance with Wikipedia policy. And he has never misused Talk:Georgia (country) calling other users to arms in order to prevent Georgia from being illustrated as "evil".--Kober^Talk 16:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I have taken the initiative of notifying Historic Warrior on his talk page in regards to canvassing, and have removed the message from the Russia talk page. No harm no foul I think we can say? --Russavia ^Dialogue 16:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, given that five Russian (speaking) editors [8],[9],[10],[11],[12], who never edited this article before came here and backed up exactly the vote that HistoricWarrior007 cast himself and taking into account that the two leading suggestions are currently separated by exactly five votes, I can't really agree with the "no harm" part. --Xeeron (talk) 19:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually Xeeron, all the editors I contacted, EDITED THIS ARTICLE before, the most recent one, four days prior to the vote! Stop lying. It's sad. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:57, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey hey hey, I did edit this article before! :-b Like, 2000 revisions ago. Nice try to stack up your cards by limiting your history search to 1000 revisions :-b -- Wesha (talk) 05:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the tradition of getting your facts wrong and then accusing me, I very well know that tactic from the person who "canvassed". If you had bothered to read my post, you'd notice that I did not mention you, because I check your edits before I posted. And if you had bothered to read the tool link I supplied, you'd have noticed that it lists the 1000 editors with the highest edit count, not the last 1000 revisions. Well done on blaming me on stacking the cards when all that happened was you not reading the links I supplied. --Xeeron (talk) 13:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

What "harm" is there in that? I am confident that every editor is capable of making a neutral decision based on his own judgement, regardless of how their attention was drawn to the vote. Offliner (talk) 23:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This surely didn't come as a surprise. It has happened many times before. So much for the beloved NPOV... And Igny, perhaps you should check yourself before you start to accuse someone. And since this vote clearly has been hijacked it would be of much more interest if truly uninvolved editors could come here and give their views. Närking (talk) 22:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, attack the man before he can defend himself. First off, the authors that I PMed have worked on this article before. For instance Kober even included Pocopocopocopoco, with whom I have worked on this article as recently as a month ago. Rather poor checking for such an accusation. Actually, if you read my PMs, Kober, they all started out with "Hello, you have contributed to the article. Currently there is a vote seeking to change the name of said article. Can you please vote as you feel is right?" Not exactly biased. Also, Illythyr didn't take a vote on the two main ones, Wesha didn't vote, Pocopocopocopoco didn't vote, Antony Ivanoff didn't vote. Those were four out of the five that I have sent to, who didn't show up. And yet Xeeron went ahead and made his attack on me anyways, why am I not surprised? Will Xeeron ever apologize? Also, Russavia probably was checking this article regularly, seeing as my "canvassing" didn't do any harm.

The only thing I did wrong was due to my ignorance, and I apologize for leaving a message on the Russia page. Russavia, thank your for the explanation. Igny and Offliner, thank you. The rest of you, thank you for not giving me the chance to defend myself, whilst continiously attacking me. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Should I apologize for showing the results of your canvassing? You went ahead and posted a blatantly biased message on the Russia talk page, I pointed out that 5 Russian editors who previously did not edit here came and voted in exactly the same way as you did? Where is the attack in that? In pointing out that your break of Wikipedia policy was successful? --Xeeron (talk) 13:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Given that User:HistoricWarrior007's apology is an admission of canvassing, I think we should strike these five votes from the poll. Martintg (talk) 08:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You wish. I don't care about anyone's canvassing, I came here just out of my regular habit to look through the talk page in search of interesting info about the war, not because of some Russia talk page, which existence I didn't even know about until now. Moreover, if we are to talk about suspiciously appeared editors, then I must say, that you have nearly no affiliation even with this talk page, let alone the article itself. And nothing, like notification can be seen on your talk page. Stealth-canvassing anyone? The same goes for User:Geagea, and other Kober's pals "who never edited this article before" but mysteriously showed up in the voting.

As a final accord, I want to say that no voting result, let alone the one showing approx. 1 voice advantage of one title over another (notice that, even 5 votes substracted, it's still in favor of "South Ossetia war"), will be legally binding in any way, and if someone expects opposing community to sit and watch title changing reasoned by such "voting results", then I advise him to get real. This voting idea has clearly failed, seeing how we started throwing mutual accusations and segregating editors to the ones "worthy of voting" and "second class". If continued, this will only result in anarchy, and I'm actually surprised at the level of naivety of those who suggested the idea. Did you really expect to resolve 8-months-worth-of-arguing issue like that? --ETST (talk) 12:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

"The same goes for User:Geagea, and other Kober's pals"? I'm afraid you will have to prove that User:Geagea and other Kober's pals appeared here as a result of canvassing à la HistoricWarrior007. --Kober^Talk 17:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

And what's there to prove? That you and User:Geagea are pals? One doesn't have to go beyond his and your talkpage, to see it. And don't try to shift the attention to "canvassing ala someone", because stealth-canvassing is an impossible-to-prove thing. It's funny though, that when Xeeron speaks about editors "who never edited this article before" and mentions me, he also forgets to mention

User:Martintg, who has even less edits on this talk page, than I am.
User:Geagea, Kober's pal, who not only have never edited the article, but wasn't even seen on this talk page before the voting started.
User:Domitori aka "dima", who's not only has less edits, than I am, but also demonstrates a little knowledge of the war, as seen in Key questions about the beginning of the war section, he started.

All of them were not seen lately neither on the article page, nor on this talk page, and since no "polite notification about the voting made in absolutely neutral manner in full compliance with wikipedia rules" can be seen on their talk pages, I am left wondering, how come they have appeared just as voting began? And what exactly is the thing that gives them right to vote for the title, which, in Xeeron's eyes, I don't possess? --ETST (talk) 10:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the ranks of people who get their facts wrong and blame me for it, you people should form a club really. In my eyes, you have exactly the same right to vote as anyone else. My beef is not with you, but with the methods HistoricWarrior used to canvass people, so your claim is simply wrong.

Regarding the three people you list: User:Domitori voted after I made my post, so short of having divine abilities, I don't see how I could have possibly mentioned him in that post. Unlike you, he also edited the article before. User:Martintg also edited the article before. That leaves just User:Geagea, and I have no idea how that user noticed the vote, since I don't know of any canvassing attempts apart from HistoricWarrior's. If you know something, tell us, instead of making baseless accusations. --Xeeron (talk) 12:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It's Ok, if your beef is not with me, but you should join yourself the club you mentioned, since you listed me among those, whom you claimed to be "the harm done with the methods HistoricWarrior used to canvass people". As I already said, I'm not, and that also makes me doubt, that other people you mentioned have voted because of someone's canvassing. Maybe you should follow your advice and provide evidence before "making baseless accusations" next time?

As I expected it beforehand, you started nitpicking at my post, that's why I had checked "South Ossetia war" and "Talk:South Ossetia war" pages edit statistics, prior to writing it. And as I check them again now, they still show me just 4 edits of "South Ossetia war" by Domitori, and something less that 2 edits by Martintg, since he is nowhere to be seen among your "top 1000 editors". So, when you say "Unlike you, he also edited the article before.", you insult my intelligence. I can do 4 edits in half an hour, if that really matters to you. And if I was abstaining from it, it's mostly because I didn't want to introduce my far-from-ideal non-native English language into the article, not because I had nothing to improve it with.

But I guess, it's not the edit count, that mattered for you, but rather evidence it presumably provided, that I have no association with the article. When I was talking about me having more edits than them, I was referring to my posts to this talkpage, which show my advantage over them in terms of edit count (~20 edits more, than Domitori, and ~30 edits more, than Martintg). Why didn't you check this statistic, before calling me a "harm" from someone's "canvassing"? Doesn't that make you - how do you call it? - one from "the ranks of people who get their facts wrong"?

Ok, I didn't mean to attack you, Xeeron, but you should understand my indignation. You alleged, that I'm a result of HistoricWarrior's canvassing, and thusly used me to base your attack on him. And after that you put me into "the ranks of people who get their facts wrong". Still, I apologize for my wrong assumption that you're against my vote, but, please, understand that judging by the view you expressed I had no reasons to expect otherwise.

Speaking of User:Geagea, I don't think he is a result of someone's stealth-canvassing, he probably just saw your notification at the end of Kober's talkpage. But I propose to settle it once and for all, whether the votes of all editors will be counted, or just the votes of editors, who substantially contributed to the article? Better do it now, before sore-losing side - which, I'm sure, will be yours =) - starts complaining either about "second class voters" or "discrimination of voters", don't you think? Of course, it's still senseless, because results of straw polls are not legally binding on Wikipedia, but at least, it will prevent someone, like Martintg, from trying to throw out someone, who's more worthy of voting, than himself. --ETST (talk) 17:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't speak for others, but for me, as I said above, every vote counts the same. Those people who followed the link here are not to blame for the way the link was posted. I didn't call you "harm", I called the fact that the vote was biased by canvassing harm. The one thing I will insist on is that you remain factually correct. I called an action harmful, not a person. That is an important distinction and I wont accept any blame for others mixing it up. Lastly, Martintg has 1 edit (and I claimed nothing more), as can be seen on the list I linked. So please check the list (your browser's search function makes this super simple) before wrongly proclaiming that he is nowhere to be seen there and using that to wrongly allege I was insulting your intelligence, since I wasn't. --Xeeron (talk) 20:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Just as I expected, you, sir, have fallen into a trap of your nitpicking. You're really a person, whose behavior can be predicted from the first sight, aren't you? First off, every non-nitpicking person would have realized, that "...calling me a "harm"..." was just a figure of speech, and you would have noted, if you tried to read carefully, that it wasn't among the reasons of my indignation. The blame I really attributed to you was that "You alleged, that I'm a result of HistoricWarrior's canvassing, and thusly used me to base your attack on him.". And you expect me to be "factually correct" after you yourself wrongly got me as an argument for subduing your opponent? And you still "wont accept any blame" for that? I, on my part, can only accept the blame for intentionally not clarifying that I understand the "important distinction". Believe it or not, but I actually wanted to insert "I realize you have never called me "harm" directly, you just were responding to Russavia's post, but..." right after "I didn't mean to attack you, Xeeron, but you should understand my indignation.", but then I thought "No, that's one clarification too much, he can't be such a nitpicker." and turns out I was underestimating you. =)

The thing I got right, though, is my "Martintg is nowhere to be seen" joke, which I was positively sure you'll take as opportunity to nitpick, and I positively couldn't miss the opportunity to catch you on it. =) Any sensible person, whose goal is not just to prove his opponent wrong, would have realized, that I couldn't be able, or at least wouldn't bother to check (twice!) for Domitori's, Geagea's, and Martintg's rank in both of lists of 1000 names (stats for "South Ossetia war" and "Talk:South Ossetia war"), without knowing about browser's search function, which could have been the only explanation for me "getting my facts incorrect", so thanks for falling into a trap for nitpickers. =)

The art of careful reading really helps, Xeeron, especially since I based my "intelligence insult" accusation, not on my "Martintg is nowhere to be seen" trap, like you "wrongly alleged". It can be hard for you to understand, but even when you "claim nothing more, than" absolutely correct facts, you still can be insulting people. Behold the example:

You said, I didn't edit the article. True.
You said, Martintg did edit the article. True.
You found it necessary to specifically mention and concentrate your attention on the fact, that Martintg edited the whole entire 1 (ONE! Just THINK about how MUCH that is!) time more, than me, as though it makes some really significant difference. Now that's the "insulting intelligence" part of it.

And, doing that twice, for no particular reason but proving me wrong in some tiny detail, is what people call nitpicking. Get it? =)

Ok, I can see that my accusations with hints of humor and sarcasm will lead us nowhere, so I apologize for turning this Wikipedia discussion into "who has more rhetorical skills" competition. But will you please not nitpick at me again? My objections are too straight and simple to warrant this attitude. At least, I hope you understand now, that attacking some secondary weaknesses of opponent's arguments, rather than discussing the core of argument he actually expressed, is not a constructive approach.

Returning to the topic, of course I understand that you can't speak for others, but shouldn't we be doing something like separate vote or discussion, to find out, whose votes community will accept as legitimate? --ETST (talk) 07:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The browser search function works just like the search function in almost any other program and can be accessed either by the pull down menues on top or by the shortcut CRTL-F. I thought that was common knowledge, sorry. Also, no detailed reply, since you don't want any "nitpicking". --Xeeron (talk) 11:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Obviously my English is even less clear, than I hoped. But it's funny that you still didn't understand that I am fully aware of existence of "browser search function"; the fact, which is obvious from my 10:03, 11 March post. For your information, I can imagine plenty of ways the task of finding someone in that list could have been accomplished without resorting to "browser search function", as well as know the whole classes of applications, which due to their overload of shortcuts, have their "find" function assigned to other keys, if at all. So don't be sorry for my knowledge, since it's rather unclear, who from two of us has more of it. Still, it's sad to see, that you continue to confuse detailed reply with nitpicking, and that I am unlikely to have your apology for using me as a tool against your opponent without "getting your facts correct" first, as you constantly suggest to people around, including me. Forget it, then. --ETST (talk) 12:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I was sorry for assuming you knew the search function, but seeing how you indeed knew it, I don't understand what you did at all. If you knew the search function, you must have known that Martintg was on the list, yet you wrote that he is nowhere to be seen. Why would you write that if you knew he was on the list? --Xeeron (talk) 12:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that everyone's edit should count. HistoricWarrior's canvassing on the Russia talk page was not right, but that cannot be helped now. It would be absolutely ridiculous to reject votes from people with 0 edits, and accept votes from people with 1 edit. Claiming that one edit makes any kind of difference is nothing but pure nonsense. It is also impossible to prove that someone came here because of canvassing, and that they weren't interested in the article before the canvassing took place. Offliner (talk) 03:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Martintg - first off with Pocopocopocopoco, it was not canvassing, it was Kober being desperate. You are just unhappy that you didn't get your way. Also, I have contacted all of the users that have edited this article before, or have looked at it, in the case of Russavia and even Kober admitted that Russavia was watching the poll. Meanwhile, some of the votes in favor of changing the title came from editors who mysteriously appearred just as voting began. Coincidence? I think not. And Kober, try proving that I left my messages in mutliple articles as you have stated. Multiple means more then one. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Next time you do such things, you will be reported for personal attacks and harassment. Consider this your last warning.--Kober^Talk 04:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding HistoricWarrior07's "Meanwhile, some of the votes in favor of changing the title came from editors who mysteriously appearred (sic.) just as voting began. Coincidence?" I, for one, have had this page and others regarding the "frozen zone" on my watchlist for a long time. This sort of egregious slandering implying everyone is doing it in order to deflect from one's own actions has no place here. PetersV TALK 13:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Overall, this discussion looks completely dirty and - sorry about using the strong words - disgusting. Many opinions (most, actually) are obviously POVed, with beople accusing only those with different position towards the title and protecting those with the same position, even if they are suspicious. Stealth canvassing is extremely dangerous and should be punished with extreme severity. But it may not be proved so easily. I propose to you all to stop all these accusations, that tend to go to personal level over time. We may be accusing each other and But it's really time we should get back to the article and respect voting results. We all also should stop further canvassing, either open or stealth one.

2. What we have now in the poll are, I suppose, all interested editors. There are two main positions about the title, but the leading option is the current name. We all understand the desire of those opposing it to change the name. However, there are obviously not enough votes to change the current title under the argumentation presented by this time by those users.

PS. Re "established" article editors: Please remember, if we, for example, restrict voting to those who did, at least, 50/100 edits here, we, most possibly, would get an even bigger support of the current title. These people, after all, maintained the title to be this one during all these discussions that were here for the last months. FeelSunny (talk) 10:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The main issue here is that there are opposite (and many extremely POV'ed) viewpoints among numerous editors here all with your "50-100" edits. That is not necessarily the most dispassionate editorial community to evaluate what would be the best title. PetersV TALK 19:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I have asked this time and again. Show me an edit that I made to the article that was POV. Also, 50-100 edits was set by Xeeron, who craves changing the title as much as you do. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Peters, I just say all this discussion is really dirty. To my opinion, both sides used canvassing here, notifying users very selectively of the voting. I could have proposed excluding all editors with 50/100 edits in the article from the vote, but I am 100% sure that next day this "established editor vote" will be canvassed - openly or secretly - by the interested users. So I say again - get over this already. FeelSunny (talk) 13:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Military equipment

I wonder what kind of format the table should have, and what info should it contain? There are three kinds of important info about equipment: 1) which systems the combatant had, 2) how many of those systems they had, 3) which systems were deployed to the theatre or used during the war, 4) how many systems were lost during the war.

Would it be possible to have all that info in one table, or should we make multiple tables, or would that be too much? Offliner (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Why is this so important? I suggest to just split this part, at least all the little details, into its own article and let it develop by itself. Just leave the summary here. But if you want to categorize the equipment the itemized list is better than tables. Like the following

Ground forces
- Infantry
- Armored vehicles
  - Tanks
Air forces —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.158.7.128 (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I think a table is better than a list, since it requires less vertical space. I will be developing the tables here: [13]. Offliner (talk) 13:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Russia together with...?

I think that it is a POV saying that it ...was an armed conflict between Georgia on one side, and Russia together with separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other. So, according to this, I can say that Georgian troops were killing olny separatists in SO (i.e. children were separatists; schools and hospitals were their headquarters)? Right? Taamu (talk) 06:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually that would be POV. You should say Ossetians and Abkhaz People, instead of separatists. I believe they are human beings belonging to an ethnicity, that should be named. Of course there are people here who would disagree. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree, it's absurd to claim that all people from SO (excepting ethnic Georgians) are separatists. Taamu (talk) 07:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. The important thing in this sentence is who was fighting against Georgia, not who was killed. As far as I know children weren't fighting. So, Georgia wasn't in war with South Ossetia, but with separatists willing to separate this territory from Georgia (and according to some sources they were firing from civilian buildings as well, hence risking civilians' lives, but that's not the point here). I believe the term separatist clearly defines who was fighting and what were his goals. Not to mention that there are many Ossetians who lived in peace together with Georgians in one state and who aren't happy with South Ossetia being separated from Georgia (according also to my own contacts and conversations in Georgia). So, I find it misleading to say that Ossetians were fighting against Georgians, as it wasn't the actual situation. Kouber (talk) 11:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should try to find some compromise formulation. I also think that there is a slight problem with "separatist": if a foreign country attacks my homeland, and I pick up arms to defend it, I am fighting as a defender, not as a "separatist." I am not fighting for independence - I am simply fighting to defend my home and family. Offliner (talk) 11:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

True. But South Ossetia was (and still is, except for Russia and Nicaragua) within internationally recognised borders of Georgia, so Georgia couldn't be considered as a foreign country in that situation. Not to mention that Georgia (together with Russia) also had peacekeeping responsibilities there, and the operation of Georgian army was in response to heavy shelling of Georgian villages, it wasn't an attack on Ossetian people (there're Georgians living in Tskhinvali too). Kouber (talk) 11:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

We are not talking about the Georgian villages, we are talking about the word separatist. You say ...internationally recognised borders..., but does your country respect the territorial integrity of Serbia? No! It's double standards. Taamu (talk) 11:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

My country decided to recognise Kosovo. Me personally, I'm considering Kosovo as part of Serbia and disagree with the official decision of my country... why are you mentioning that, i.e. what's the relation with the issue we're currently discussing? Kouber (talk) 12:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, I guess my compromise solution, "separatist governments", is even worse than just "separatists," because undoubtedly some Ossetian militiamen fought without getting orders from their government... Offliner (talk) 18:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Offliner, well, worse, since you objected to "separatist authorities" as not being the people in power who necessarily fought per your revert, then certainly your "separatist governments" means, by your own logic, only ostensibly elected South Ossetian (and Abkhazian, elsewhere) legislative representatives participated in hostilities. PetersV TALK 19:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Simply "separatists" should be fully descriptive and sufficient. (Edit prior to the insertion of "governments.") PetersV TALK 19:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

"Governments" is better than "authorities," since the former is an institution and thus a better (more general) word to represent the nation of South Ossetia. "Authorities" would mean just a group of officials, not an institution. Offliner (talk) 20:08, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Just say Ossetians and Abkhaz people. That way you know who's for Russia and who's not. Simply saying "separatists" is POV. I don't recall anyone calling George Washington a "separatist". Also, you cannot be an independent nation (as opposed to state) and be separatist at the same time. You cannot separate from yourself. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, "Ossetians and Abkhazians" sounds like a good solution. It is both accurate and neutral. Offliner (talk) 22:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

And treats people as human beings. Oftentimes we forget that when we write these articles. We must not forget the human factor. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense. Taamu (talk) 07:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The main goal of SO policy in the last 20 years and the main goal in both wars was to separate from Georgia and form an independant state. So "separatists" is the correct description. I like Offliners version of separatist governments best. When reading about a war, it is clear from the context that by saying government A fights, we mean that the forces/people under control of A fight, not the actual government itself. --Xeeron (talk) 11:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

As many sources are not afraid to call the war between georgia and south ossetia as such, see for example here, why are we afraid to do so? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.158.22.60 (talk) 13:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Also if you like google hits so much, this should give you as many references as you like. Find me respectable sources saying georgia attacked so government or so authorities. You will fail because georgia attacked so, not south ossetians, but south ossetia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.158.22.60 (talk) 13:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Missing

In the infobox, the figure 1492, included missing. Should we mention that? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I think yes, we may leave it there

1) indicating it included missing people (the city was shelled at the time, so it's only natural missing number to be big enough) and

2) that it was a preliminary asessment. Then,

3) in the footnote, we may add that it was made at the initial stage of Georgian offensive

4) by Ossetian authorities and then repeated by Russian authorities as an explanation of starting the operation. FeelSunny (talk) 13:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The military report I was reading from the Russian side at the time of the war, said that it was up to 2,000 casualties, meaning that 1 was killed and 1,999 were missing, or that 1,999 were killed and 1 was missing, or any number in between. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 17:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree. And four points above, 2 last in the footnote look reasonable for any of the two numbers we include. FeelSunny (talk) 19:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If you add "missing", please add a source for it as well. Both sources currently used speak only of dead, not missing. --Xeeron (talk) 10:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Key questions about the beginning of the war

According to the first declaration of war by the Russian President 2008 August 9, see http://www.mil.ru/info/1068/uios/19347/index.shtml?id=49328 many thousand people were killed by the Georgian military troops before August 9. Most of them were Russians, see http://www.mil.ru/info/1069/details/index.shtml?id=49353

Can anybody cite any document answering the following two questions below?

1. Did these thousands killed Russians have an entry permit, which allowed the stayment at the territory of Georgia?

2. What for did these thousand Russians abandoned their Homeland, going to Georgia, just in time when thousands Ossetians used to escape from that region?

Any official explanations with respect to this subject may be very important. dima (talk) 07:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Er... Are you aware, that "Russian citizens" is not the same thing as "Russians"? Or that majority of South Ossetians are in possession of Russian citizenship? Maybe you should at least read the article? Before voting for its title, at least? ETST (talk) 09:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I answer questions by ETST:

1."Are you aware, that "Russian citizens" is not the same thing as "Russians"?" - Yes.

2."Or that majority of South Ossetians are in possession of Russian citizenship?" If the victims with Russian citizenship did not have the double citizenship, then they were "Russian citizens"; by the Law, they were allowed to stay and work and live at Moscow without special permission, but I doubt about the same in Tzkhinwali.

3."Maybe you should at least read the article?" – Yes, of course.

Now you may try to answer my questions. Perhaps, you wanted me to use term "citizen of RF" instead of "Russians". I reformulate the question; may be now you will be able to answer:

Did Georgian officials representatives authorise the presence of foreighers at their country in amount 10^4 – 10^5 people? dima (talk) 12:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Just in case: You say there are "10^4-10^5" Russian citizens in SO. 'I add - they were living on the same territory in what you (but not Ossetians) consider Georgia, for at least 100 years already. If you presume Georgia still did not give them it's citizenship, I would say most obviously reason can be Georgia is either a nazi country or a failing state. I can not see any other reasons for giving your citizenship to people that live in your country for 100 years. Even in Baltics, they give citizenship to minorities faster. FeelSunny (talk) 14:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

They did have double citizenship, and it was clarified many times in this talkpage, as well as in the article itself. I'll reformulate my question, maybe now you'll be able to answer:

Since you have agreed, that you should at least read the article, why won't you proceed with that, before asking rather senseless questions about "conveniently migrating Russian crowds"? ETST (talk) 15:18, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Other than double citizenship, there are other things you should know:

Georgians did not give Georgian passports to S.Ossetians for many years, when they started to, Ossetians did not want to take them (quite obvious, b/c of 1990.
Russia gives Russian citizenship to Ossetians that still have Soviet passports/ citizenship (ask Gamsakhurdia & Shevarnadze - why?). Russian citizenship laws say that former Soviet citizens of any nationality have such rights.

PS. AFAIK, there was no official declaration of war, which is a signed document delivered to the opposing side. None was signed by Russia and none by Georgia. FeelSunny (talk) 08:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

<==Thanks for not deleting!==> FeelSunny (talk) 14:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

There was "prinuzdenie k miru". I translate this into English as "war".

The Russian official declaration mentioned does not say "double citizenship", it says "Russian citizenship". For me, this is sufficient reason to believe that those thousands were just soldiers, the first part of the Russian army sent to Georgia in August 1 - August 7, which was completely destroyed by the Georgian troops by August 8; and August 9, that tall was reported by the Russian President. There was no "Erratum" from the Russian officials. Therefore, there is no reason to doubt in these data. dima (talk) 10:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

<==Thanks for not deleting!==> FeelSunny (talk) 14:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you really that slow? A significant number of South Ossetians got Russian citizenship. Russia does not recognize double citizenship, in a sense that it ignores all other citizenships as if the other citizenships did not exist. To Russia all people with Russian citizenship are Russian citizens, period. For that reason, for example, Russians with American citizenship can not get Russian visa to travel as Americans. When Russian officials mentioned the toll of 1500+ civilians they cited the South Ossetian officials. So you should say There was no "Erratum" from the South Ossetian officials. Peace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.158.7.128 (talk) 15:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Russia surely does not ban a double citizenship, as, for example, Ukraine does (at least I heard it does). There are Russian nationals that are at the same time Georgian citizens. Or Israeli citizens. That simple. FeelSunny (talk) 14:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

There was no "Erratum" from the South Ossetian officials. - No way. To submit an "Erratun", if some serious errors are revealed, is element of civilization. If Russian officials are semi-civilized, the Ossetians those are not civilized at all. For example, Kokoity had confirmed the total destruction of Georgian anclaves, and had declared, that the return of Georgian people there is impossible. For me, such a declaration is evidence of genocide. As for the Russian governors, they seem to prefer to kill journalists, who indicate the errors, rather than to accept, that some actions by RF were wrong. dima (talk) 07:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

And what constitutes "evidence of genocide" to me, is a nightly artillery sneak-attack on a town with unsuspecting sleeping people. That act of Georgians was a civilized one, isn't it? Clearly, there's no excuse for those uncivilized barbarian Ossetians who destroyed some Georgian enclaves on their territory! And without apparent reason, too! What a bunch of neanderthals they are! Georgians should have succeeded in killing them all - whoops - I meant, in "putting an end to their criminal regime".

Despite my bitter sarcasm, I, unlike you, realize, that Georgians and Ossetians were doing bad things to each other for 15 years now, which of course can't be an excuse for any of their actions. But if someone has the moral right to judge them, it's neither me, nor you.

And speaking of "accepting wrongness of someone's actions". Yor are still having troubles even with reading the article, let alone knowing something about the war besides what your undoubtedly biased media told you. And your contributions to this talkpage consist only of blame-gaming forum-talk. Will you admit that, or you'll just fall in line with "Russian governors"? I don't mean to try and drive you out (not that I can, anyway, but even so), but, honestly, if you're not intending to learn something about the war, and clearly unable to contribute, what is exactly the point of your presence here? --ETST (talk) 13:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

"Unable to contribte" – statement by ETST is not supported. As for his questions, "..what is exactly the point of your presence here?", the point of my presence here is: Either the article should be renamed to Russian official interpretation of the war of 2008, or the Gerogian point of view should be presented too. (And also the South Ossetian point of view.) The most of the current content of the article should become section "Russian point of view". dima (talk) 20:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Let us assume for a moment that you are being serious (haha, but ok). What is your concrete suggestion? What Georgian POV is missing here? What Russian POV is over-represented here? Could you give an outline of the article as it should be in your version? Some concrete improvements for some specific parts of the article? If you can not support your claim that you are able to contribute then it is not ETST's fault. (93.158.26.174 (talk) 21:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC))

Suggestions by dima (talk)

My suggestion: the article should be revritten. The present version is so big, and so slow to load, that it is almost unusable.

Loads in less then a second on my computer. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

No neutral

As the first concrete improvement, the warning "noneutral" should appear at the top. I tried, but the article is so long, that even such small edition fails.

What exactly is non neutral? Your edit regarding thousands of deaths was non neutral, and I'm glad it was undone. 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

thousands of Russians killed in Georgia even before the declaration of war

The article gives a lot of background details, without to answer the main questions which arise at the reading of the first Russian declarations. In particular, the article should mention the following questions:

1. Why the thousands of Russians gone to Georgia namely in time, when the ethnic ossetians used to move out from that region?

- Ethnic Ossetians didn't move out from the region. Got facts backing this up? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

2. Did those thousands of Russian have the Военный билет, as the most of other Russians do?

- Nope. Ossetians had their Soviet passports renewed to Russian passports. Since Russia took on the debt of the USSR, and no one minded that, Russia also took on the passports of the USSR. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

3. Did those thousands of Russian have the valid entry permit, which would allow their staying and labor at Georgia?

- You don't need entry permit if you already live there. That's kind of international law. No one is asking Serbs living in South Kosovo for entry permits. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

4. Did those thousands of Russian have any civilian ocupation, did they have some permanent civilian job, verifiable by the co-workers?

- You don't need a job to own property last time I checked. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I could not found any official declaration from the Russian government, answering these questions; therefore, these questons should be mentioned as non-answered, and the war should be qualified as under-investigated.

- I could not find an official war declaration from Georgia either. Thus, according to your logic, this should not be called a war. Let's call this article, rename it, as "The South Ossetian Chillax".

The countries involved

The cointries "South Ossetia" and "Abkhasia" cannot be mentioned in the inset, because their status is doubtful, and definitely, they did not exist duting the conflict.

- They aren't mentioned as countries, but as entities involved in combat. You don't have to be a country to get invaded. If you feel otherwise, feel free to make that suggestion to the "Free Tibet" crowd, and I shall see what responses you get. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Results of war

The first and main result of war is that thousands people, mainly Russian citisen, were killed, and now it is not possible to estimate even the order of magnitude of the total tall. This cannot be qualified as winning.

- Umm, 365 civillians, 64 military. Where are the thousands? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The second result is that the parts of Georgia is occupied by Russian troops, and there are intents to create two completely dependent republics at these occupied territories.

- Actually it's one independent Republic and one dependent Republic, and they've already been created. Intent says future, not past. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The third result is that Russia happens in the pollitical isolation and entered the economical crisis.

- Political isolation from whom? Ukraine, Poland, Georgia and the Baltic States, and the UK, don't amount to political isolation. Russia is cooperating with US in hunting down bin Laden, signing new economic treaties with EU, establishing ties with China, building an air defense system in Belarus, streghtening ties with Kazakstan, I mean it may be pollitical isolation, but certainly not political isolation. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The war triggered the separatist movement in Russia. Some authors believe, that the raise of this separatist movement is result of the Georgian propaganda.

- The war actually destroyed the last remnants of the separatist movements in Russia. Stop making up facts that contradict actual facts. Like right now! Thanks. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Separation of points of view

The statement by Kokoity about the total destruction of Georgian anclaves should be mentioned.

- Got link? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Much more

While we do not count with any official Russian explanation, what did those thousands Russian do at the territory of Georgia before August 8, all the speculations about "issuing of Russian passports" should be qualified as a kind of "conspiration theory" and removed into a separate article.

- Soviet citizens got Russian passports. Also, feel free to qualify it as a conspiration theory, but it's definitely not a conspiracy theory. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The most of other contennt of the present paper shold moved to another separated article; the title can be Official Russian Position on the war in Ossetia (2008)".

- It's not the Russian position, it's more like the truth.

I have mentioned only the basic group of improvements. Later, I plan to type more suggestions. Also, I plan to add references to the statements above, if requested. dima (talk) 01:16, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

- Please show us the references. Also, please no oil company sponsored references, and no references from Pravda-like news.

- Also, please read WP:Original Research. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of dima's proposal

I could suggest you write a draft in your userpage of the Official Georgian position regarding the war. But remember that there is a matter of original research and content forking to deal with here. (93.158.10.246 (talk) 07:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC))

Also some counter-points. The Russians in Ossetia did not enter Ossetia/Georgia, they lived and worked there for decades, so they did not need entry/work permits. Just at some point they applied and received Russian citizenship. I believe there are still places to work there, but even if not a person can stay unemployed, that is his business. Russians who live abroad are not required to have voinskii bilet, moreover by law Russians have to give the bilet to voenkomat for storage if they plan to move abroad. The financial crisis which you blame on the war was the global economic crisis, and Russia had to participate because of the oil prices, which are also not connected to the war. (93.158.7.207 (talk) 08:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC))

I also believe that it is not WP's job to investigate the war, it is not even WP's job to report on it. WP has to summarize the reports of others, not create its own. (93.158.7.207 (talk) 08:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC))

The official information about thousands causalities among Russian citizen were not denounced. We cannot investigate the case, but we need to say that information from the Russian source is self-contradictive. In the present form, the article is not neutral. In particular, the recognition by a single underdeveloped country cannot be qualified as "partial recognition". (It remembers an anecdot about "the Russian competitor got the Second place" in a cometition of 2 participants). The article should be rewritten. dima (talk) 12:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Dima, though we all appreciate your active participation in this discussion, I would like to present this link to you to make sure next time you know what an "underdevelopment" means. Please search for Russia there before you continue editing - just not to look underdeveloped. FeelSunny (talk) 11:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Focusing our energy

I wonder what this article would be like if people would focus their energy on actually making major improvements, instead of fighting each other and waging war over the article title, wordings and other minor things. Sometimes it seems that actual improvements are done by a very small number of people, while others concentrate solely on the aforementioned things. Please note, that I am not personally accusing anyone of anything. Does anyone have an idea of what is keeping people from making substantial edits? Is it just lack of time, or is there some other reason? Offliner (talk) 11:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Big issues catch editorial attention first. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 15:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it seems to me the article now has more information one would possibly need. However, it lacks structure and, in some places, POVs balance. That is what is being corrected now. FeelSunny (talk) 19:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, at first people lacked information, they just added as much published speculation as possible to further their POV. Now information is all here, and its presentation becomes an issue, a huge one. And ever since the beginning the editors have lacked respect to each others' contributions, to say the least, and now most editors just resort to personal attacks and POV pushing.

Yes, very few contributed to the article's essence/structure, and I understand Offliner's position to try to change that.

Regarding the structure. One has to admit that there is a significant pro-Russian bias currently here, but that is understandable and hard to fix since (a) Russia has won the war, (b) Russia is winning the blame war. But one has to deliver Georgia's message here despite that its position is somewhat weaker, to say the least, and it would not change for the better in near future unless some new information comes out (in other words, a miracle occurs).

Regarding the content. The article has too much unnecessary details, the details about which few care now, and noone will care in near future. If only I had more time, I would suggest a significant rewrite, but unfortunately I have to leave soon (work, travel, etc) for a few months, and I am not sure if my interest remains as high as now later. (93.158.20.47 (talk) 23:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

Russia is not winning the blame war. Russia lost the Media War. The only reason that Russia isn't portrayed as the ebil empire, is because certain countries are in deep recession, and their citizens care about their pockets more then Russia, and Corporate Media feeds the beast. Also, I fail to see how this article is so pro-Russian. August 7th: Georgia attacks. August 8th: Russia counter-attacks. I'm assuming the American Ambassador to Russia also has a pro-Russian bias, because he called Russia's action, a counter-attack. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree to Historic Warrior - if we compare, say 1000 English language sources on the war, we will sure find that Russia is portrayed as an agressor in most of them, while Georgia is presented as a freedom-loving democratic state attacked by the huge autocratic neighbour. Russia actually lost war in Western medias b/c it was really in the West's best interest to beleive that Georgia, the host of Nabucco, future NATO member (it is now too), and a staunch ally of USA in the region, is the victim here. Who would say otherwise if everyone was taught during the last 10 years that Russia means danger? Some did, however, there is a bunch of journalists that actually worked, travelled to the region, and saw Tskhinvali. Some, but not the majority. FeelSunny (talk) 07:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems a lot of people let of steam on this talkpage instead of focusing there energy on writing articles. PS if Russia lost the Western media war it has more to do with the dislike of Putin and his policy's (and the fact he just doesn't seem to care about the killing of journalist on the streets of Moskwa probably doesn't help either) by western journalist then that western journalist want Georgia to be a NATO country as far as I see. Hope everybody had a nice Ivan Mazepa birthday. I know I did, yeah! :))))))))) — Mariah-Yulia (talk) 00:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

OK now I did let of steam :), but Russians telling me how my media works? C'mon I know them better I live among them..... — Mariah-Yulia (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Media War is not only limited to Ukraine. Don't mind if I skip on Mazepa day. Also, why does the West dislike Putin? Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Brezhnev were no better. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't live in Ukraine, I live in a NATO country... I agree that Yeltsin, Gorbachev and Brezhnev were no better but they looked (especially Gorbachev and Yeltsin!) more sympathetic... I always hear here that there was more freedom for journalists in Yeltsin times then now (so that's probably why he gets better press then Putin) and most Western journalist probably hardly know anything about Brezhnev-times. This is just an impression of mine. But I find it very hard to believe that a CNN or BBC journalist thinks Georgia is a staunch ally of the USA, let's treat them nice. Western media are very ethical about reporting independent. — Mariah-Yulia (talk) 01:39, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but we all actually live in "your" environment. Just b/c we all live in the web environment. I have read much more FT and Guardian articles on the web than watched TV news on Russian TV during the last year. Actually my TV is on only when I watch Euronews, which is free and universally broadcasted in European Russia, just in case you did not know. Plus, restricting the ability to analyze Western medias to people from the West only is not really the thing I expected from you. I presume that you also imply we in Russia can not tell lie from the truth after 70 years of Soviet regime. The situation is actually quite opposite: when USSR lost the Cold War, all Russian illusions were gone.

In the West all neocon illusions lived well up to the mid 2008. And mid 2008 is the time when the North Ossetia war took place. It is only now, when the neocon world began to crumble, that these people get any feeling of reality. That Africa really exists, for example, or that U.S. is the largest arms dealer in the world, or that "The top 10 percent of the US population has an aggregate income equal to income of the poorest 43 percent of people in the world, or differently put, total income of the richest 25 million Americans is equal to total income of almost 2 billion people." (Milanovic 2002, p.50) and that the only reason businesses transfer jobs to China and India is people in the West just ask too much for the same job. Now that is me who let of steam:)) FeelSunny (talk) 10:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Non-free sources

I found the following interesting sources, but they are non-free:

If someone has some extra money, or has access to the journals in a library, it might be worth checking those out. Offliner (talk) 22:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

At least one of them had a free version available as well: Georgia: Costly Illusions Offliner (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

200 Kilometers of Russian Tanks?!

One of the sources used by Kouber has in it's translated title, the phrase "200 kilometers of Russian Tanks". Now I'm not sure if the source is being sarcastic, but to me that seems more tanks then Russia currently has. Even if a Russian tank occupied 10 meters, that would require Russia to have 200,000 tanks. That's a bit much. Generally the Russian sources in this article, criticizing Russia, with some exceptions, are poorly written and/or cited. Another source "Svoboda News" - aka Freedom News, which means they can print whatever they want and call it news, made a brilliant prediction: "Even if Russia intervenes, South Ossetia will fall to Georgia!" I was unaware that we could use source that get facts wrong. If so, can I start my own newspaper, call it "Istina" - Truth, and print News free from complex thought, and get them published on Wikipedia? Do I get to say that Saakashvili's excessive tie-eating was a direct cause of Russian Intervention? That God wanted Georgia to suffer?

In all honesty, no matter how you spin it, bad sources are bad sources. If they fail and comprehending basic facts, i.e. if Russians say they will intervene on August 5th, and a paper acts "surprised" on August 8th - we shouldn't use these "sources" that are utter bullshit. Otherwise, we are just promoting propaganda, unworthy of encyclopedic material. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 08:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Please, no propaganda! We have no formal criterion, which distance should be assumed between tanks. I doubt if tanks may move keeping the distance 10meters; the distance could be 100 meters as well. Let us deal first witht the official communications. The first official Russian communication declares that somehow many Russian citizen happened to be on the territory of Georgia, and before August 9, thousands of them were killed. The Russian government claims, this was an aggression from side of Georgia. As soon as the official Russian representatives (for example, the President) declare, that those thousands victims had double citizenship, we may consider this version seriously. dima (talk) 11:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, as you know the title of an article could be a matter of artistic feeling of the author, playing with words, etc. Also, I am not pretending everything in that article is true. What I am giving is a different point of view, and I'm making it clear which is that point of view. The author of that article - Yulia Latynina, is well respected writer and journalist, as is Vadim Rechkalov.

I know perfectly well that Russia wants us to believe that Georgia destroyed Tskhinvali, but as you can see, there are different opinions on that. I disagree to include only the Russian point of view. We all saw that official Russia lied to the entire world, talking of genocide, of thousands killed, of Tskhinvali being raized to the ground, etc. and we saw that none of this was true. So, I'm considering all the official Russian statements concerning South Ossetia very questionable.

In addition, Russia (South Ossetia) is still not allowing any international non-biased investigations to be held in that region of Georgia, hence the need to show many points of view. Kouber (talk) 13:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Latynina respected? She's a yellow journalist. She's the Russian Ann Coulter - an airhead who says crazy, nutcase things, without much to back herself up. The problem is, that whilst Coulter is rightly written off as a total loon by the western media (with the exception of Faux News), the same western media listens to Latynina without questioning her journalism. And yes, I've read the article, and it is ALL opinion of herself. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:TALK. This is not a place for you platform your personal views. Thanks. Ostap 23:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Both Narking and Russavia critique Latynina and yet Ostap attacks Russavia and ignores Narking. That is so NPOV, eh Ostap? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, is that meant to be ironic? Russavia's comment attacked somebody (crazy, nutcase, total loon), and you criticise me for pointing out wikipedia talkpage guidelines calling it an "attack"? An attack? How is "Please read WP:TALK. This is not a place for you platform your personal views. Thanks. " and attack? Maybe you need to take a break from wikipedia. Ostap 01:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I just read WP:TALK. Did you know that it had a "Be Objective" Section? Also, the way you phrased it, the verb you used, "platform" made it sound like an attack. Maybe American English is different from English, to the extent that "platform" means something non-hostile. But to me, it came off as hostile. Also, telling me to take a break from Wikipedia, because you don't like my comments, is also hostile, and not very objective. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I can tell you that many Moscovites do love to listen to Latynina's clever talk show on Ekho Moskvy. And why not read her latest one [14] in Moscow Times. Närking (talk) 22:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Many Russians will listen to Eho Moskvy says and Eho Moskvy has various viewpoints, some of them rather anti-Russian. However if you want to use Eho Moskvy, Echo of Moscow, you have to gather all of the announcers from Echo, and you will find a wide variety of opinions from Echo, most heavily in favor of Russia, with Latuynina as one of the outliers. I'm perfectly fine with Echo material in this article, provided it's all of Echo material, not as was initially the case with Lokshina, where only the stuff that hurts Russia was placed in the article. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok first off, no matter how you spin it, 200 kilometers of any tanks, is absurd. Even if the distance was 100 meteres, that means the Russians used 2,000 tanks. A tank has a crew of 3 men, at least. So that means that out of 6,000 troops in South Ossetia, all were tankers. No infantry. And that is assuming the distance of 100 meters was kept between tanks, which as can be seen on the photo taken, was not the case. If one takes the trumped up number of 10,000 in South Ossetia, still that would leave the majority tankers. Thus it is absurd. Also, if Russia destroyed Tskhinvali Kouber, why in the World are South Ossetians fighting on the Russian side?! Why did the Russians spend money to rebuild it?! And don't you think that the North Ossetians, who wield quite a bit of power in the Caucasian Region, be extremely upset if the Russians destroyed the capital city of thier brothers? And yet North Ossetians were allowed in, and they came back, not angry at the Russians. Dima, for the umpteenth time, if you were a citizen of the USSR, you can be a citizen of Russia, this is not complicated to understand, unless you don't want to. Kouber - well respected writers and professionals, never play with the title to such a degree of inaccuracy; going from 20 to 200 kilometers, is not called artistic license.

Not only the Russian Media was playing the 2,000 casuatly number, the Western Media was going at it too. CNN direct script: "Russia invades Georgia. 2000 casualties result." I could find the same for Fox News, New York Times, Sky News, etc. Seeing how you are only blaming the Russian media Kouber, for a mistake that pretty much most of the media made, I cannot help but feel that you are biased in singling out the Russian Media. I on the other hand, have critiqued Russia Today. I was saying that both sides are overplaying their civillian casualty figures and underplaying their military casualty figures. I was the one who pointed out that the 2,000 number was applied to dead and missing. And with Russia's registration system, 2,000 out of 23,000-30,000 refugees would make sense. Also Kouber, get your facts straight. Russia is allowing journalists in. Russia isn't allowing military inside the borders, as well as "journalists" traveling with special forces, using their cell phones as homing beacons for missiles. However journalists, like Mark Ames and Peter Finn, can come in and out as they wish. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why South Ossetian military groups were fighting on the side of Russia. However, I know very well where all the guns and armaments for them came from. According to Andrei Illarionov for example, for all these years South Ossetia became the most militarised region in the world, surpassing even North Korea ^[1] ^[2]. And all this happened in front of the eyes of the peacekeepers. So, I guess the source of the military orders was the same as was the source of the armament.

You are right - the North Ossetians would be extremely upset if they discover that Russians destroyed Tskhinvali. Indeed, that's the reason why Russia is trying to convince everybody that it was the Georgian army who did it. Tell me, HistoricWarrior007, if Russia is so innocent, why it is still not allowing international investigation to be held in South Ossetia? It would be extremely simple and useful for all of us, trying to reach the unbiased truth by a third party independent source. So, why it isn't allowing it? Probably in order not to upset Ossetians!? I'm not talking of organised journalistic tours, as described by Jonathan Little in an article called Georgian diary ^[3] (Bulgarian language, didn't managed to find it in English).

When thinking of it logically, you can also question who actually destroyed Tskhivali. As we know the Georgian army was already in the city by 10 a.m. on the 8th of August. However, bombings and explosions in the city were reported till the 11th of August. So, if the Georgian army was already there, who was dropping bombs on it? Who was firing on it with artillery? The Geogrian army itself was bombing its own troops probably?!... I doubt so. The civilians hiding in the basements cannot know whose bombs were falling. Instead, they knew it later from the T.V. and medias, where propaganda played well its role. So, it is our responsibility to show that it isn't that clear who did it.

Concerning the number of 2000 killed, it was repeated by Western medias but as a statement of the Russian authorities. I personally saw Vitaly Churkin on the T.V. asking the journalists in the UN whether two thousand killed are enough to qualify it as genocide. So, I'm not blaming neither Russian, nor Western medias, as they were all citing Vitaly Churkin. Kouber (talk) 10:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Georgia was not bombings its own troops. According to the article, they launched a major artillery and rocket onslaught on the city before their ground forces went in. They used 27 Grad rocket launcher systems - a very destructive and unprecise system which should never be used anywhere near civilians. OSCE monitors reported shells falling on Tskhinvali every 20-30 seconds. It seems clear that this initial barrage is where the most casualties and infrastructure damage in Tskhinvali came from. Offliner (talk) 11:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

For me it doesn't seem clear at all. You mean that one night of firing caused more damage than three days of bombing and heavy fighting? The Russian army, for example, was also using Grad systems on Tskhinvali.

Don't get me wrong. I am not telling the Georgian army did nothing to the city, but I disagree to blame only it and continue repeating a thing that wasn't proven. Kouber (talk) 11:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

"If one takes the trumped up number of 10,000 in South Ossetia, still that would leave the majority tankers. Thus it is absurd.", does HistoricWarrior007 type.
Sorry, but this is not absurd. From the official Russian declaration, we know, that THOUSANDS Russian citizen were killed even before the official "beginning" of the war (pardon, "prinuzhdenie k miry", as it is called in Russian official news). We do not know, how many thousands – 2 thousands or 20 thousands. We do not know wether the majority of the inviders were killed or the minority, and, perhaps, we'll never know this. Unfortunately, in Russia, there is no efficient judiciary which could catch the killers. This allows some political group to eliminate journalists, who publish the "unwanted" materials. Therefore, we cannot believe any "official" information from Russia. We have almost no true information about events in Russia, and even less – about events in Russian military forces. Therefore, we have no evidence which would allow to qualify the estimate 10,000 as "an absurd". If there was, for example, 10^5 Russian soldiers, and 10^4 among them were killed, (together with tanks or separately), we still could have the same official declarations from the Russian officials, as those cited in the references. I expect, at least at the beginning of the conflict, less than a million of Russian soldiers were killed; overvice, Medvedev and then the Ministery of Defence of RF would have to report millions of Russian citizen killed, not thousands. dima (talk) 12:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually I was referring to tankers. Please read my post and the title above it. It wasn't about civillians. Tankers = military soldiers not civilians See the section title and last time I checked, tanks aren't driven by civillians. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 17:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Dima, and all others being so sceptical about number of losses, stop for one minute and think that every one of 365 deceased civilians named by Ossetian NGOs was once a living person, had family and friends. Each of them deserved a better fate. Please think of it when next time you say that Georgians did not kill that much. the fact is that the city was bombed, bu Georgian salvo missiles, bombed as a city. And you just keep on denying this. FeelSunny (talk) 13:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, right. And all the killed Georgians didn't have their families and friends and weren't living persons?! Kouber (talk) 14:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The Georgian civilians who were killed were living persons who were unfortunate enough to pay the price for their leader's stupidity (or miscalculation if you prefer). However, the military and the defense contractors knew what they were signing up for. My heart goes out to the Georgian civilians, just as to Ossetian civilians, but the contractors and the military had a choice to make and they made the wrong one. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 17:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to ask everyone to avoid expressing personal opinions and speculations, and instead to focus on the subject: improving this article. Offliner (talk) 13:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I beleive every victim in this war was unacceptable. I feel deep sorrow for every civilian and military who lost his/ her life in this bloody aventure. Please do not misrepresent my words - when I spoke of Ossetians I by no means implied they are the only victims, or some "first class" compared to Georgians. Civilians are absolutely equal, whatever nation they come from. The only reason I used ethnonym was that you started to doubt the Ossetian casualties numbers as if 365 is more "acceptable" for you then 1400 or 2000 or whatever they thought casualties are in the first day of the war.

I also must mention that your way of calling those killed in Tskhinvali "invaders" is really appalling. Something comparable to calling those killed in 9/11 "parasites on the Arab world", I think. I would really advise you to consider changing your position towards those people. FeelSunny (talk) 20:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am slow; so, I add to the bottom of the section, in order to simplify the reading in the chronologic order. (talk) 17:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC) had typed: "..you just keep on denying this" - I keep denying that we have certain information about number of victims and their military status. Please keep in mind that in Russia, the military conscription is compulsory. The self-consitent interpretation of events should explain, in particular, why the international observers were not allowed to enter the South Ossetia. One reasonable explanation is, that the most of victims were Russian soldiers, and the South Ossetia is covered by 10^5 killed Russian citizen, and the Russian officials want to keep this as a secret. As for the "acceptable" number of victims, I agree with the comment above; zero would be acceptable number. dima (talk) 07:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Domitori, get a grip, will you? Your conspiracy theories and horrible facts about Russian compulsory conscription notwithstanding, why won't you READ the article, at last? It says "In contrast to the weak conscript soldiers used in Chechnya, Russia's force in Georgia was made up entirely of professional soldiers, according to commanders. Reuters reporters on the ground in Georgia saw disciplined, well-equipped troops.". What's the part of it that you didn't understand? And frankly, I say you (being Russian, I can), that those casualties of "10^5 killed Russian citizens" wouldn't anger me against "Russian officials" or my government, or whatever, like you suggest to make your theories look more credible. I just would have demanded from my government to continue the war, so I can finally see Saakashvili hanging on his tie. Not more, not less.

Kouber, "when thinking of it logically", one can question your interpretation of events. Georgian forces were in the Tskhinvali by 10a.m August 8th, but they were driven out mere 2-3 hours later. Your own words: "However, bombings and explosions in the city were reported till the 11th of August". So I repeat your questions: "Who was dropping bombs on it? Who was firing on it with artillery?" It's only natural to assume that it were Russians, who were in posession of the city during all those 3 days, isn't it? --ETST (talk) 12:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, there could be various interpretations. I don't put into question what Kezerashvili said (cited later by Washington Post), but according to some sources there were Georgian divisions in Tskhinvali even after the initial "drive out" ^[4], and it is evident that there was heavy fighting for and in the city. What Kezerashvili explained as "something like hell" was a result of Russian artillery and air attacks on Georgian troops in Tskhinvali. So, I disagree with the pro-Russian presumption that Georgian attacks are causing damage and civilian deaths, but Russian ones - aren't. Even more given the extensive use of Russian air-force. Kouber (talk) 15:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, according to your logic, the only guilty in 1941-1944 Siege of Leningrad were Soviet authorities - hadn't they fight Hitler, Hitler would have no cause to set a Leningrad blockade, right? And, I think, on par with Tskhinvali, Stalingrad was also destroyed by Russians? You don't even see how erratic is your logic: would a victim not resist rape, that would be a sex on mutual consent, so everything could be ok, and it's actually the victim who is guilty.

PS. And, of course, Russian Peacekeepers base and cemeteries in Tskhinvali were also destroyed by Russian army - who but Russians could have hated Ossetian cemeteries and Russian Peacekeeper bases so much? FeelSunny (talk) 22:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The comparision you're making is irrelevant. The Siege of Leningrad and the battle of Stalingrad were part of the efforts of Nazi Germany to invade Soviet Union - one country invading another. South Ossetia however is part of Georgia (and even Russia recognised it as such). Georgia had the right and the responsibility to protect Georgian citizens on its own territory (IMHO much more than the right of Russia to protect Russian passport-holders on another's territory). And when there was an artillery fire for several days coming from Tskhinvali on the Georgian-controlled villages, with the Russian peacekeepers doing nothing to prevent it (there were even reports of fire coming just close to the headquarters of those "peacekeepers"), I think it's logical that Georgia would try to stop it.

You cannot open fire on Georgian policemen and soldiers in Georgia and not expect a reaction from the state. Also, when you're firing from a city and from civilian buildings, you should take responisibility for your actions. So, you're blaming Georgia for destroying Tskhinvali, but if there was no firing from Tskhinvali would the city be damaged at all? Would there be a war at all?

Or, if you insist to always make such comparisions, why Paris was left intact in the Second World War? ;-)

I repeat, I'm not telling neither whose fault is this, nor who's guilty - who's the good and who's the bad guy. Wikipedia is not the place for such qualifications. But as long as there's no independent unbiased investigation held, we must provide the points of view and the statements of both sides involved in the battle. Do you agree? Kouber (talk) 11:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

If a region is a part of your country, and you are using rocket launchers against said part of your country, it can declare independence according to the Badinter Comission on International Law that can be accessed from the United Nations archive. Georgia civilians were allowed to be evacuated. Georgia did not need to shell Tskhinvali with Grads in order to evacuate its citizens. Also, in International Law there is a doctrine with of Equal Response. If someone fires at you with a mortar, you cannot respond with rockets. I just spoke to an international lawyer about this. Also, if Georgia dresses up its special forces as policemen, they are still special forces. When you are invading a city, they will firing at you, and you should expect no less. You're shelling a peaceful city, then sending your troops in, and expect them to be greeted as liberators?! Paris was left untouched in the Second World War because Hitler wanted to take care of the Slavs first. Ever notice how in the Nazi Government Hitler destroyed liberals and then went after the conservatives? Everyone would have gotten their turn, had it not been for USSR. As for points of view, you must provide valid points of you, not those of a "historian" working for an oil company, and writing whatever his boss wants him to write. Those are conspiracy theories and not allowed in Wikipedia. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:44, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention that this section had everything to do with the source citing 200 kilometers of Russian tanks. So back on topic, can we remove that source? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, initially I've put it there, because it contained an interview with a Russian "GRAD" systems operator, revealing the amount of missiles he (and his division) fired on Tskhinvali, hence the relation with infrastructure damage. However, since it's not an official statement, we can put in the "Statements by analysts" section instead, if you prefer? Kouber (talk) 14:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

What source does it come from? FeelSunny (talk) 11:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

She is citing an interview made by Vadim Rechkalov:

22.00 pm, on 9th of August, special correspondent of “Moskovsky Komsomolets” newspaper, Vadim Rechkalov, interviews Grad missile complex operator (292nd regiment of 19th Russian division), who seems agitated. He tells that his complex launched missiles “8 times” on 9th of August.

- How about yesterday?

* Yesterday we launched a lot more missiles, not less than 20 times. In order to take Tskhinvali.

“All night long Georgian positions were bombed by heavy cannons and Grad missiles”, writes Irina Kuksenkova about the night from 8th to 9th of August. Kouber (talk) 12:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

This is what I actually dislike about Geoprgian propaganda: they twist wording from the original sources to promote their point any time they feel like it. Care to explain difference between positions of Georgian army that is shelling the sity with salvo missiles and the territory of the city itself?? FeelSunny (talk) 08:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

What twisting are you talking about? The exact words of the missile operator, as cited in the original article, are: "Намного больше выпустили, не меньше двадцати пакетов, если все посчитать. Вчера же мы по Цхинвалу били. Чтоб его взять." Calling every article that differs from the official Russian version of events Georgian propaganda is not worth much though. Kouber (talk) 11:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This is why I hate non-military experts "interpreting" military testimony. He is saying that they shot at Georgian military positions in support of their infantry attacks on Tskhinvali. That means that Georgians have already taken over the parts of Tskhinvali being attacked. Furthermore, the quote (Russian) says that the 20+ packets, were aimed beyond Tskhinvali, i.e. he says that "yesterday we shot at Tskhinvali" - whereas the packets were fired today. Your translation Kouber - is horrific. You got the day wrong. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

And yet another thing I like about Georgian propaganda even more: you use totally freaking sources to promote your POV. It is really not at all surprising no links in the Runet contain words "Намного больше выпустили, не меньше двадцати пакетов, если все посчитать. Вчера же мы по Цхинвалу били. Чтоб его взять" - which are used by you as a "quote from the oh-oh-we in Georgia all heard it-interview". The only source where the phrase is used is actually Latynina's article. So how comes that Latynina heard the quote? Did she take the interview? Hell no, she was in Moscow, and she claims the interview was taken by KP journalist? So how on Earth she cites an interview that was taken 1000 km away from her and was not published anywhere? If you really think it's not important, I tell you, every word here is important and I would not beleive Latynina can resist the temptation of inserting several her own ones in the quote published by Latynina only. Just to make sure you see my logic: 194 links to Latynina article, 7 links to the quote without "Latynina" word, all 7 from the blogs/ forums, where anti-Ossetian users just re-post words of Latynina's article. So the quote you provided is just a Latynina's paraphrase of an alledged interview that was never published or heard by anyone, but Latynina, according to Google. Can I actually see the quote from the interview? FeelSunny (talk) 14:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Latunina's central argument seems to be this: Because, as we can see, Georgians controlled Tskhinvali on 8th of August, and on 9th of August. So, who was shelling this town then, full of Georgian tanks? And what happened to another column which was believed to have taken Tskhinvali a day before, on 8th of August?

However, this is contradicted by Human Rights Watch: On the night of August 7-8, Georgian forces subjected the city of Tskhinvali and several nearby Ossetian villages, including Nizhnii Gudjabauri and Khetagurovo, to heavy shelling. That night other villages were also shelled, though less heavily, including Tbeti, Novyi Tbeti, Sarabuki, Dmenisi, and Muguti. Tskhinvali was heavily shelled during daytime hours on August 8. Shelling resumed at a smaller scale on August 9, when Georgian forces were targeting Russian troops who by then had moved into Tskhinvali and other areas of South Ossetia. Offliner (talk) 23:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, Latynina again:)) FeelSunny (talk) 11:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Killed Georgian civilians

There seems to be a contradiction with two sources:

Officials confirmed at least 228 Georgian civilians killed [15][16]
Georgian government claims 69 civilians killed [17]

What is going on? Maybe we should mention both figures? Offliner (talk) 05:18, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

No, we should not. The Guardian explicitly states that the claims come from the Georgian gov't, but we have a primary (governmental) source for that. There's an obvious mistake in the Guardian report.--Kober^Talk 05:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

So it seems. They got the Russian casualty count wrong as well. Congratulations to the quality newspaper. Offliner (talk) 05:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Ever heard of fog of war? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 08:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The Associated Press, a reliable source of news, reported Georgian regime's allegations of 69 civilians and 169 soldiers killed. This was also reported by the Financial Times.Kupredu (talk) 21:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Read the comment by Kober above please: When source A reports that source B said 69, but source B itself says 228, obviously source A is wrong (or, to be kind to Guardian, outdated). --Xeeron (talk) 10:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

That is not a Guardian article, but is an Associated Press story published by the Guardian. Nor is it an outdated article because it was published in 2009. It was Georgia's ambassador to the UN who reported similar figures when the war ended in August 2008.Kupredu (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the second source linked above as well? It is from http://georgiaupdate.gov.ge, notice the gov.ge part. So whatever AP says that the Georgian government said, the Georgian government itself says 228. --Xeeron (talk) 22:34, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute

Is there a reason the neutrality banner is up? Aside from conspiracy theories, and thousands of dead people, that didn't really die, I'd like to see a reason. If I don't, it will soon be gone. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:52, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually it should be gone now as no explanation is given. FeelSunny (talk) 08:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. there is reason. Now, the article represents only the position of the Russian government. The article provides a lot of doubtful details, without to answer the key questions I had formulated, in oartucular, if the thousands or Russian citizen killer before the declaration of war, had the "voenyj bilet", as the most of Russian citizen have. The results of the war formilated in the inset are wrong. I try to correct it step by step. Should I move the neutrality disput here?dima (talk) 11:42, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Domitori's English is so bad that it's hard to understand what he's trying to say. Since he's suggestions and claims are unclear and unsourced, I cannot support any of them at this point. Offliner (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I use short and simple sentences: The RF had reported thousands Russian citizens killed by Georgian troops just before the declaration of war ("prinizhdenie k miru"). Do you understand this statement? dima (talk) 18:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean the infamous "2,000 civilians killed" statement? What about it? Offliner (talk) 18:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

In general: you'll have to express your views a lot more clearly if you want anyone to agree with you. You should also try to be more concrete, make concrete proposals and always provide refs for your claims. Right now, the concerns you have raised are so general and so full of confusing language and unsourced claims, it's hard to comment on them in any helpful way. Offliner (talk) 18:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I mean "thousands", reported by Medvedev 2008 August 9. This statement is sourced:

"Результатом спланированных и осуществлённых грузинским руководством варварских действий стали многочисленные – счёт идёт на тысячи – человеческие жертвы: "Принципиальные оценки ситуации в Южной Осетии Президент РФ Дмитрий Медведев изложил в телефонном разговоре с Президентом США Джорджем Бушем". Управление пресс-службы и информации МО РФ, 9.08.2008 года http://www.mil.ru/info/1068/uios/19347/index.shtml?id=49328

Next day, 10 Sept. 2008, The Ministery of Defence reported that more that two thousands were killed, and most of them are citizens of Russia:

В результате нападения Грузии на Южную Осетию и, в частности, на Цхинвали, по последним данным, погибло более двух тысяч человек. Среди них большинство являются гражданами России Кроме того, более 30 тысяч человек были вынуждены уйти из своих поселков и покинуть Цхинвали.

Управление пресс-службы и информации МО РФ, 10.08.2008 года. http://www.mil.ru/info/1069/details/index.shtml?id=49353

These thousands should be taken into account counting the total loss of the Russian side in the war. This means between 2*10^3 and 10^6. Would it be more than 10^6, Medvedev would have to say "million" (or "Millions", if several). I would take 10^4 as a rough estimate. The current version is inconsistent. dima (talk) 21:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Given that elsewhere they said 1,400-2,000 [18], I think your "rough estimate" of 10,000 is a bit off. I also don't understand why the inconsistency between the early number and the later estimates is so important to you. It is clear, that an estimate given during the war and only 2 days after the beginning, probably won't be very precise, and isn't meant to be either. Offliner (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Note that the estimates "over 2000" refer to the period before Russia officially declared the war. Therefore, we may expect, that after Russia begun the full-scale war, the loss among Russian troops is an order of magnitude higher. Therefore, the estimate 10^4 is not "a bit off". One of inconsistencies of the article is, that it gives numbers with few decimal digits, while we do not know even the order of magnitude. This style may be good describing glory of Gargantua and Pantagruel, but it is not appropriate in the article about ossetian war. Then, we should not say "victory" talking about about a country which had lost many thousands of citizen in the war. It should be qualified in terms "loss": In this war, Russia lost of order of 10^4 citizens. dima (talk) 03:03, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

In this war, Russia lost of order of 10^4 citizens. I do not understand, is this your own conclusion or you read this somewhere? (Igny (talk) 03:14, 22 March 2009 (UTC))

It is my translation of statement "погибло более двух тысяч" into English. dima (talk) 09:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you show any other reference for such translation? I myself would translate it as "more than 2000 were killed." And who actually counted? Medvedev/Putin/Kokoity themselves, or they cited some census committee/bureau? Was it a definite count, as in 1,2,3,...2001,..., or just an estimate? The number sounds too rounded to be an actual count. (Igny (talk) 11:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC))

I have rounded the decimal logarithm of the number of victims declared to the smallest integer number larger than

\log _{10}(2000)

. The result is 4. Therefore, I say "of order of 10^4". This is estimate of the loss of the Russian side in that war. Such a loss is not victory. Therefore, the article is wrong and should be rewritten. dima (talk) 18:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Why didn't you round

\log _{1000}(2000)

up? That would be 2, resulting in a more impressive estimate of 1 million. (Igny (talk) 18:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC))

Because, in English, the decimal numeral system is the most usual.dima (talk) 18:56, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. Are you saying that

2000=2\cdot 10^{3}

is of order of

10^{4}

, and, say,

102000=1.02\cdot 10^{5}

is of order of

10^{6}

? (Igny (talk) 19:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC))

No, Igny. The declared Russian loss counts more than 2000. The calucus is simple:

\lg(3)<2000

, hence, 10^3 as the estimate is wrong, and

\lg(4)>2000

, hence, 10^4 as estimate is correct. dima (talk) 01:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

2001 is more than 2000. Is 2001 of order 10000? I still can not understand why your estimate of 10000 is better than the reported estimate of 2000.(Igny (talk) 03:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC))

We have to assume the everybody's good will. The officials could not have the exact number. Therefore, would the number be 2001, they would have to say "of order of 2000". Unfortunately, they wrote "более двух тысяч". By the way, is the English version of that telephone talk pubished?dima (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) This isn't a comment on whether I personally believe the quoted numbers, but if we are interpreting "погибло более двух тысяч", that is, more than a round number of 2,000, the next round number up is 3,000. Since 3,000 is not quoted, "more than 2,000" would mean more than two thousand and likely not more than half-way to 3,000 (as more than that would be "nearly 3,000"). We're talking increments of 1,000, not orders of magnitude. PetersV TALK 06:02, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Vecrumba, even If there were between 2000 and 3000 victims before the declaration of war, it is difficult to believe, that after the declaration, war, the number of victims was smaller. This justifies the estimate 10^4 victims.dima (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I see, the discussion is a llittle bit out of topic: we have no need to guess the number of victims. It is sufficient to write, that the Russian officials had claimed more than 2000 victims, mainly Russians, before the official beginning of the war; and 1800 victims after. This should be written instead of word "victory". We should not believe that the massacre of thousands of Russians was goal of the Russian government, and we should not interpret this goal as a victory. dima (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so you admit that they claimed more than 2000 early in the conflict. Did they confirm that estimate later? At some point they confirmed and listed ~360 civilian victims. And you wrongly interpret the Russian goals. I understand that their goals were to retake SO, crush Georgia's military, punish Georgia for the (alleged) massacre, and ultimately recognize the SO/Abkh. independence. All these goals were achieved so Russian victory was the correct result. They did pay a price in terms of the diplomatic relationships with other countries, but I would not classify this as the Pyrrhic victory by no means. (Igny (talk) 14:10, 23 March 2009 (UTC))

Can't we just stick with indipendant sourches (like BBC)? This looks a lot like WP:OR from the pro-'s and anti-'s Shaki's and Vladi's of wikipedia. - Mariah-Yulia (talk) 15:03, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree - we don't need that banner, IMHO there're no neutrality problems in the article. As long as we're including independent sources and/or the points of view of both sides in the conflict (when there aren't any independent reliable sources), it is O.K. Kouber (talk) 15:10, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Independent does not mean reliable. Taamu (talk) 15:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Including points of view of both sides then? — Mariah-Yulia (talk) 15:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

On what? 10^3 or 10^4?? FeelSunny (talk) 14:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Regading the claim of 2,000 civillians "killed". The Russian Media messed up on this. Wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the last time. The initial military report that I read, (that I cannot qoute due to copyright laws) stated 2,000 missing! The actual report is 365 killed. Missing does not mean killed. Furthermore the number reported most often was 2,000 casualties, which in military terms include those killed, wounded and missing. Considering that there were over 2,000 people missing, the report did not inflate anything. If you are running to save your family, and going back to defend your homes, standing in Russian registration line to not be considered missing for a Wikipedia article isn't going to be your first thought. HRW said 300-400 killed. Russia said (after the dust settled) 365 killed. Another agency stated that around 300 were killed. Ok, since to other problems were presented here, expect for the horrific "thousands of casualties claim" the tag is outta there. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Crap, I can't figure out how to get rid of it. Help! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Just forget it, then. There were so much noise and manipulations about these figures, that it's quite impossible to get the truth back to the light. By now we have certain numbers (the ones you posted in the previous post), and we should rely on them. FeelSunny (talk) 09:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The EU investigation commission

...has concluded lately that Weorgia started the war. The comission's adequacy was questioned by Georgia. Sorry, the following link is in Russian: [19] FeelSunny (talk) 11:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

German one FeelSunny (talk) 11:51, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know when exactly Kurashvili gave the order. We already know that Saakashvili made his announcement to "restore constitutional order" at 23:00 on August 7. If it turns out he gave the order even earlier, perhaps already before Saakashvili's "ceasefire" at 17:00, then it would prove that had planned the war and decided to attack even before Saakashvili claims he received intelligence reports of Russian troops entering the tunnel. Offliner (talk) 12:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

English version Offliner (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

This is probably the slip by Kurashvili the article is referring to [20]:

However, Mr Saakashvili’s account of this sequence is seemingly called into question by the public statements of his own senior military staff. At 11.05pm local time, General Mamuka Qurashvili, the chief of peacekeeping operations at the Georgian defence ministry, made a nationwide televised broadcast, announcing the end of the ceasefire and the beginning of a massive Georgian operation against South Ossetia. But he did not mention the presence of a Russian invasion force, instead saying the target of the operation was South Ossetian insurgents.

Despite our call for peace and a unilateral ceasefire, separatists continued the shelling of Georgian villages. We had demanded that that they sit at the negotiating table but all of this was met with a backwards reaction and there was constant shooting. The Georgian power-wielding bodies decided to restore constitutional order throughout the whole region, he said, according to a translation of the broadcast by BBC Monitoring

Mr Saakashvili denied in an interview with the FT on Saturday night that the operation was aimed at “restoring constitutional order” or that he had ever used those words. Gen Qurashvili, who was badly injured in the conflict, could not be interviewed to clarify what he meant and whether, as he had said, the decision was made by “Georgian power wielding bodies”.

11.05 pm local (Tbilisi) time would be 20:00 UTC. If this is confirmed, then it is proven that the Georgians decided to launch a massive operation long before they intercepted the calls about Russian troops entering the tunnel (which was around 23:30 according to Saakashvili.) Offliner (talk) 12:38, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Now that I've read the longer version of the article, I guess it's more about the formulation of the order than its timing. Offliner (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Now, isn't Saakashvili's order number 2 more notable than Life Goes On (news article)? (Igny (talk) 15:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC))

No official EU report is available as of now. Hence, attribution to the Spiegel is mandatory. Futhermore, Georgia has already denied the existence of this mythic order.--Kober^Talk 18:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, Krasnaya Zvezda also made the correction to Life Goes On (news article) removing the controversial claim, yet the article on WP was created about that. (Igny (talk) 18:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC))

What has your latest comment to do with what I said? I just pointed out how the information should be included in a NPOV manner. If you disagee, feel free to present your counterarguments and bring the discussion about Life Goes On to the appropriate talk page. --Kober^Talk 18:51, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Kober, so how does your state at the same time 1) Says there is no report and - at the same time - 2) Says the report is secret? that is all given in the Georgian source you provided. FeelSunny (talk) 21:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest to remove the following controversial blame discussion from the lead. Just discuss it in detail further down the article.

Georgia claims that it responded to the movement of Russian troops entering South Ossetia through the Roki Tunnel and in reaction to heavy shelling of Georgian-controlled villages by Ossetians.[51][52] Later, the EU probe put Tbilisi's justification of the Georgian attack into doubt.[dubious – discuss][17][53]

Considering that the lead is getting big, I think this is a good solution. Assigning the blame can be restored in the lead later when it is not longer under the dispute. Another reason is that it is hard to paraphrase sources' statements in a short format suitable for the lead. Just copying a long quote (to avoid dubious) is not acceptable for the lead. (Igny (talk) 00:14, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

IMHO it is important to keep Georgian reasons of (re)action. Kouber (talk) 11:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Then for balance it is important to keep the results of the EU probe. Any suggestion how to make it less dubious? A suggestion about according to spiegel is not good in my opinion. I do not think the results are preliminary either. (Igny (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

Actually, it is preliminary, because the report isn't published yet. As it is stated in the article "the commission's report is expected to be submitted in early summer". The commission is still working on it, gathering more documents, etc. What we are discussing here is an article of Spiegel about an enquiry in progress, not the results of the enquiry itself, so I even don't see the point of citing it neither.

The thing is that if we remove that, the lead section would become too vague:

1. Increasing tensions

2. Georgia attacks Tskhinvali

3. Russia reacts

While I think it's important to mention the reasons of actions too:

1. Increasing tensions

2. Georgia reacts to those tensions (by attacking Tskhinvali)

3. Russia reacts

IMHO the lead section is good enough as it is now, isn't it? Kouber (talk) 15:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, agree. I am also ok with saying preliminary results reported by Spiegel, rather than according to Spiegel. (Igny (talk) 17:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

It's not absolutely necessary to have any reasons in the lead. Right now, I think it would be better to have no casus belli material at all there, since it's next to impossible to summarize everything in a few sentences in a balanced way. For example, the current version does not mention Saakashvili's election promise to reconquer the territories. Neither does it mention that according to OSCE monitors there was no "heavy shelling" of Georgian villages, or that according to Western experts there was no provocation which could explain Saakashvili's massive attack. Suggestion: remove all this from the lead for now. Offliner (talk) 03:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit that you are right. It is just the phrase of escalating tensions which seems too vague to me. I'm thinking of ways to improve it as it is essential for the beginning of the active stage of the war, i.e. it's rather part of the war itself, than of its pre-history. Kouber (talk) 12:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Giving justice to the "who did what when" discussion in the small space of the intro is fiendishly hard. But then, comming up with a good version that dodges the issue is as well. --Xeeron (talk) 23:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Revision of Casualty figures

I have found that some references state different casualty figures than are in the Infobox. While I agree with the figures of 150 South Ossetian troops and 1 Abkhazian soldier, I think that the correct figure for Russia is 71 dead, 341 wounded, and 6 captured, while I think Georgia sustained 215 dead. Reenem (talk)

Could you give a link to the references? Offliner (talk) 03:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of casualties, no one challenged Russia's or Georgia's claims, at least not those in the article regarding civilian casualties. Thus we can safely place civilian casualties as is done in other articles, such as this one: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/World_War_II - i.e. directly under military casualties. And we should remove "Russia claims" or "Georgia claims" because no one is really challenging these claims. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Military equipment table

Here's the current version: [21]. Any comments so far? Any help would also be appreciated. Offliner (talk) 18:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. Is there a way to add column width? ~~It may be too wide in some resolutions (I think)~~. Actually I tried different zooms, it is fine. What's about Navy? (Igny (talk) 21:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

Navies and rifles should probably be added next. More information on Russian equipment losses would also be nice. Maybe Georgian media has something on this? Also I'm not sure if all 82 Georgian tanks were used in the war. Spiegel says they has 75 tanks + other armored vehicles on the border on August 7. Should we quote this instead? What about Georgian helicopters - should we give the total Georgian inventory or just those units for which it has been confirmed that they were used in the war? Offliner (talk) 21:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I added the table to the article. One of the main reasons this table was created was that then we could remove the huge amount of (pretty unreadable) text describing the equipment. However, I haven't removed any text yet. Firstly because not all equipment is in the table yet (one could also ask: must everything be there,) secondly, I'd like to hear some opinions on which parts of the text can be removed and which not. Also, please improve the table in any way you see fit. Some fields are still missing the ref, for example. Offliner (talk) 22:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Russian peacekeepers

Were they actually fighting back after Georgian attack on their positions? I have not found a single source claiming this. At the same time, they (Kulakhmetov) are named among the belligerents. FeelSunny (talk) 15:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think they did fight. See [22]:

What thwarted the Georgian operation in the end was not the Russian Air Force, but the resistance offered by peacekeepers and lightly armed, poorly organized South Ossetian units that stayed behind to defend the capital. Offliner (talk) 15:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

ok, I agree, thank you for finding the link, Offliner! FeelSunny (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Tank picture comments

The "burned by the Molotov Cocktail" comment was written by the author. The person that took the picture. Why should we argue that this source is reliable, when we do not question, for example, that this is near the Georgian perliament, or that this is Ossetian girl in alagir, and not, for example, Iraqi girl in Syria? What can we do if we presume we can not beleive the author of the picture? And how comes that an author posting in the Livejournal becomes "not reliable, especially going into combat details"? FeelSunny (talk) 18:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing incredible in the photos like "Georgian girl in Tbilisi" and "Ossetian girl in Alagir". However, a tank being destroyed by the Molotov cocktail is an important detail of fighting - essentially an exceptional claim requiring exceptional sources. Try to note a difference. --Kober^Talk 19:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You should check the article on Livejournal and especially the comments below. A reader there found the amount of damage questionable for a molotov cocktail. This is what the author who posted the picture answered (google translation): "some tanks destroyed bottles, some grenade. than what I do not know. I know that and beat them both. perhaps it is this - grenade launcher". So basically she has no idea what destroyed the tank. --Xeeron (talk) 10:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I checked the story before making a comment to the picture. The pic description by the author claims "(Story about this tank - http://c-o-r-w-i-n.livejournal.com/709330.html)". We go to check the "story". Here she says (in Russian): Напротив школы встал танк и прямой наводкой начал фигачить. Ополченцы (то есть мужское население Цхинвала) сражались с танками. ... Ребята брали пластиковое бутылки из под газировки, сливали из машин бензин, наливали его в бутылки и этот коктейль Молотова бросали сзади в грузинские танки...Фото одного из этих танков. She does not say "what I do not know", she says "guys took plastic bottles from soda and filled them with gasoline from the cars, and then throwed this Molotov cocktail at Georgian tanks. I do not know how many of these guys died there. But they have destroyed the tank. Then another one came, and strarted to fire at the Work Unions' House, at the Scool #6, at civilian houses. Just stopped in the center of the square and started to fire at them. They have also destroyed it. Then the third one. Svetlana told me she was sitting [in the basement] and praying to die in a fast way." Then she adds: "A picture of one of these tanks". So how comes we do not regard this tanks (there are several tanks on the picture) to be "Reported to be burned with Molotov cocktail by the Ossetian defenders of the city"? FeelSunny (talk) 08:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

For your convenience, I highlighted part of my comment above. You translated the wrong part. --Xeeron (talk) 11:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

To make sure we do not look at two different LJ pages, I'll copy the full text. "Расскажу только одну историю, которая на меня произвела большое впечатление. Когда начали бомбить город, женщины и дети попрятались в подвалы. Женщина, которая мне это рассказывала (не помню как зовут, но пусть будет Светлана) тоже спряталась в подвале. Но ее дом находился в центре, а центр больше всего бомбили. Бомбежки с воздуха шли сутки. Их дом загорелся. Огонь дошел до подвала. Но пол был земляной, и они начали зарываться в землю. Светлана показывала руки, иссеченные осколками, обломанные ногти. Потом им на помощь пришли защитники города. Было им 16-17 лет. Они их вытащили из горящего подвала, и те перебежали в подвал школы №6. Это школа советской постройки, и все знали, что в ее подвале бомбоубежище. Тем временем в город вошли грузинские танки и пехота. Напротив школы встал танк и прямой наводкой начал фигачить. Ополченцы (то есть мужское население Цхинвала) сражались с танками. Оружия у них почти не было, кое у кого были лишь автоматы и гранатометы, но это редкость. Ребята брали пластиковое бутылки из под газировки, сливали из машин бензин, наливали его в бутылки и этот коктейль Молотова бросали сзади в грузинские танки... Сколько там полегло парней - не счесть. Но таким образом они подбили танк.Через некоторое время пришел еще один, и опять начал палить прямой наводкой по зданию дома Профсоюзов, по школе №6, по жилым домам. Просто вставал в центре площали и вокруг стрелял. Его тоже подбили. И третий..."

Can you tell me, which part of the author's text is translated to English as "some tanks destroyed bottles, some grenade. than what I do not know."? It seems to me your translator took the text wrong. FeelSunny (talk) 08:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

We are looking at the same page, but you are not looking at the comments. Scroll all the way down and you'll find it: "какие-то танки уничтожались бутылками, какие-то гранатометами. какие именно чем я не знаю. знаю, что подбивали и тем и другим. возможно именно этот - гранатометом". --Xeeron (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

How can a Molotov cocktail cause such a heavy damage to an armoured tank at all? I mean, look at the picture, at the chains and the wheels of the tank. It is just ridiculous to claim that a bottle full of gasoline can do it. Kouber (talk) 16:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Xeeron: yes, I agree I just missed the comments. I agree we should not add the sentence about molotov cocktail to the description.

Kouber: explosion of munition may be well caused by molotov cocktail burning inside the tank. Most probably a badly trained tankist driving the tank in a city, and not expecting any resistance from the defenders, would not close the hatch. Look at the tower - it does not have any visible damage caused by the anti-tank missile/ grenade, but it is clear the explosion of munition happened at the moment when the tank was destroyed, and thrown the tower up. This is not quite easy to do when a tank is moving with an active explosive defense on the tower to hit it so deadly with an RPG grenade (hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher). FeelSunny (talk) 18:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Shortening the responsibility chapter

The responsibility chapter has now been splitted off to Responsibility for the 2008 South Ossetia war and trimmed down bit. What do you think of the balance in the current version? Should we shorten the chapter even more? Offliner (talk) 03:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The section needs to be rewritten, not merely shortened. It is essentially a list of individual quotes instead of integrated prose. It might even be better to work with the old version to rewrite the section instead of deleting individual quotes. --Xeeron (talk) 16:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

A rewrite to prose should be done eventually, but it requires a lot more time and even skill, so I didn't even try to do it yet. Offliner (talk) 20:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

I'm not here to start WWIII. Please comment and be civil. The way it was written before was not proper English and named individual people, not countries. USchick (talk) 14:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what you think was wrong with the old introduction? I think your version is too short. It doesn't summarize what happened during the war or the war's results at all. Offliner (talk) 15:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The sentence structure was very difficult to follow, as if the author was translating from another language. "Ossetians" and "Abkhazians"are individuals and don't have the ability or authority to wage war. I did not remove any information, simply moved it down, it's all still there. USchick (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If you don't like the language, you should try to rewrite the lead entirely, and not just write a second introduction on top of the old one. Could you more examples of what you didn't like in the old intro? Offliner (talk) 15:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I moved up the explanation, do you like it better? USchick (talk) 16:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't think your version is in any way better than the old lead. You removed mention of the history and the escalating tensions from the lead. You messed up the background section by moving part of the lead there. Your formulation:

The initial conflict started on the border between Georgia and South Ossetia, with military forces from the Russian Federation supporting South Ossetia. The war escalated into the territory of Abkhazia and into the Black Sea. After the war, a number of incidents have occurred in the conflict zone, and tensions remain high.

is in no way better than the original one:

The 2008 South Ossetia War, also known as the August War[42], the Five-Day War[43], the Georgia-Russia Conflict[44] or the Russia-Georgia War[45], was an armed conflict between Georgia on one side, and Russia together with Ossetians and Abkhazians on the other. It occurred in August 2008, and involved land, air and sea warfare.

Your version repeats the exact same info about how the conflict spread to Abkhazia, etc. that is given in the next paragraph. I think your edits did not bring any improvement at all, and only messed up things. Therefore, I have reverted them. Offliner (talk) 18:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I must agree that new version by USchick was indeed better, because it provides a more neutral and commonly accepted version of the events in first paragraph.Biophys (talk) 18:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

People, please don't take any offence, and I'm not here to say something offencive, but please please be bold somewhere else. This article is on a verge of a very fragile ceasefire, and it's been at least for a month we've got any freaking resemblance of a consensus here.

With these bold edits in the lead we can now lose this peacefire in days and the article will be back to chaos for quite some time. With edit-warring, competing naming, tons of "guerilla editors" and trolling, fringe links, vandalism and it will require tons of work and very much time to get it all back to some comprehensive text. Please do not start it all over again.

In no way I propose you not to edit, but please discuss before editing, any time you get reverted. And please - please - do not reinsert your undone edits before we all come to some consensus. FeelSunny (talk) 20:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

PS. I explained why I reverted the USchick edit that was reinserted by Biophys, but just in case I will repost the explanation here:

There was no border b/w SO and G on August 7-8, at least no UN member state recognized such a border.
"Armed forces" of Russia in no way supported Ossetians in the beginning of the conflict, at least to beleive major non-Georgian sources. Inserting Russian support is a clear POV here.
Unlike the former lead, the latter by USchick does not mentions sides, which is quite an important point for the article about a war with four beliggerents. FeelSunny (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

(Re-Indent) USChick, no one is questioning your English skills. However, you base your edits on a mistaken assumption, that people cannot wage a war. It is people that wage wars. Having a country is not a prerequisite for waging a war. The American War of Independence was not a war between Britain and Britain - which is exacly how you attempt to describe this war. Also, authority doesn't matter, the US didn't have authority to wage war in Iraq, there was still a war. So people have ability to wage war, and don't need authority to do so. Since your initial premise was based on people not having ability or authority to wage war, it was incorrect, and we must go back to the wording, prior to your edits, unless you can offer better arguments. Until then, as per discussion page, your edits must be undone. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's more about France and Britain than Britain and Britain:) Though I would definetely not try to change the lead of the War for Independence without prior discussion:) FeelSunny (talk) 10:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The new version is written in better english, but unfortunately worse in many other respects. I'll try to be a bit more explicit, so you know what we are talking about. Keep in mind that this is the most controversial part of an already controversial article, so editing the intro is like walking a minefield.

Country or people: There was no recognised country South Ossetia when the conflict began and not all inhabitants of the region South Ossetia fought against the Georgians (because there was a Georgian minority there). However, it is fair to say that the entirety of the Ossetian population of South Ossetia was against Georgia. The previous version tried to express that.
Started at the border: While (part of) the conflict did start at the border, keep in mind that South Ossetia is tiny. It is not like there was some military action at the border and only later on in the center of South Ossetia. That formulation also disregards the Georgian enclaves inside South Ossetia and the Georgian fighters inside them.
Escalated into Abkhazia: While taking place at the same time, those were separate fronts, without any "escalation" from one to the other. Abkhazia simply used the opportunity of their old enemies being busy to start a second front and settle their conflict with the Georgians.
Russian military forces: That makes it sound like some individual Russian forces acted without orders from the headquarter, while in fact the HQ did give orders. That distinction is important, because Russian forces fought in the 91/92 SO war, but most likely without orders from HQ.

You see, there is a reason for almost any single word in the intro. I'd say, don't stop being bold, but in this case, be prepared to be reverted. --Xeeron (talk) 13:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Even though not an independent/recognized country, South Ossetia existed long before August 2008. Like Texas. Imagine a US-Texas war. It would not be US-Texans. My suggestion could be to use an older version of separatist republics of SO and Abkhazia. Who did not like that version? (Igny (talk) 14:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

What about the governments in exile of the above? Kouber (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Iraq also had a government in exile at the start of war. Chechnya still has government in exile (I think). So what? (Igny (talk) 16:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

I agree. Although I like more the current version, both South Ossetians and Abkhazians and separatist republics of SO & Abkhazia are O.K. for me.Kouber (talk) 09:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Kouber, do you regard Dmitry Sanakoyev to be elected during the democratic, free elections where the majority of the SO residents took elected him? That's not even close to being funny.

Sanakoyev was 100% "appointed" from Georgia, and it shows quite well, how much Georgians want to get rid of Ossetian and Abkhazian autonomies. "Governments in exile" are elected first, then exiled. "puppet regimes" are first created abroad, then "implanted" in the country. Like in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or like Georgia did in 2006 with the "alternative elections" for South Ossetia, where only Georgian enclaves voted. FeelSunny (talk) 07:17, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, AFAIK both elections were held simultaneously, and both were criticised. For example the Georgian population didn't took part in the Kokoity's elections and vice versa. Anyway, I had in mind rather the situation with the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, than the one in South Ossetia.Kouber (talk) 09:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It's about wording, not about legitimacy. Sanakoyev's puppet regime could well be legitimate, if only the majority of Georgian citizens living in South Ossetia wanted to see him a president. But it could not become less puppet even then. FeelSunny (talk) 18:27, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is a good idea to try to make radical changes every now and then to see if the new version works better. However, this one certainly didn't. Offliner (talk) 12:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Gentlemen, thank you for considering the change and for having such an adult discussion. You seem happy with the choices you are making, (although they make no sense to me) :-) and my time can be put to much better use. USchick (talk) 15:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick comment on governments in exile: in order to be considered as governing a certain area, you have to be in control of said area. I could declare myself the government in exile of New Zealand, and have as much legitimacy as the Chechen government in exile. The reason for control is simple: governments are needed to sign treaties and follow international law. A government that doesn't control the area, cannot enforce the treaties that they've signed, and cannot follow international law in an area that they don't control, which is why governmens in exile are not given the same treatment as rebels/freedom fighters that actually control an area. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:09, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Troubles with Memorial reporting

It does not give any numbers, just "majorities" and "minorities".
It does not give any sources, just "SO residents". Which ones - Georgians? Ossetians?.
It does not distinguish b/w civilian defenders and army defenders and guerilla defenders. There was no SO army in Tskhinval, only self-defence troops, civilian people that took arms to protect their own homes. Does a 14-y.o. boy become a "legitimate target" when he throws a Molotov cocktail at a Georgian tank firing at his house?
Let's cite the report in full then and not omit the next sentence: most Tskhinvali civilians died when a) left cellars to get any water to drink, b) beleived the President of Georgia and tried to leave the city through the "safe corridor" while there was none. FeelSunny (talk) 20:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

1. When the words "majority" and "minority" became forbidden in Wikipedia?!

2. The sentence in the report is: "From interviews with residents of Ossetian villages and residents of the most badly damaged regions of Tskhinvali we learnt that most of the killed were the representatives of armed resistance." I think it's clear that the residents of Ossetian villages are Ossetians, isn't it? But even if it's not the case, what's wrong with it? I don't think your conclusion, that the University of Tskhinvali was damaged by Georgian artillery fire is any better - the only thing to support it is that "some civilians in the area conceded" that it "might be" the situation as the University lies between two armies firing at each other. Which civilians made the presumption - Georgian or Ossetian ones?...

3. Everybody firing on the Georgian army is a legitimate target. "Civilian people with arms in hand" is an oximoron - once you decide to took arms and participate in a battle, you cannot be considered a civilian no more.

4. I don't disagree to use other parts of the source. Concerning b), actually there was such a corridor indeed, but it was south of Tskhinvali, not north of it (where Russians were coming and active battle was already in progress). Kouber (talk) 12:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

[1] ttp://aillarionov.livejournal.com/22131.html

[2] ttp://aillarionov.livejournal.com/60579.html

[3] ttp://www.librev.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=389&Itemid=26

[4] ttp://www.apsny.ge/cgi-bin/news/print.cgi?id=EkFyEZAAAZnYyoXMGJ

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