Talk:Malakhovka, Moscow Oblast

Terminology

Igels, could you explain your distinction between "Malakhovka the inhabited locality" and "Malakhovka the municipal formation"? I thought that this article was about Malakhovka in Moscow Oblast, isn't that the same as both? Or is that a third thing? I removed the unnecessary reference to "urban settlement" next to the flag and coat of arms as I really could think of no reason to have it there, except to annoy me. William

William MacDougall 10:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

William, it's nice of you to ask, but I am wondering—if you don't understand the reason behind my edit, why would think it's OK to just revert it (and accuse me of "vandalism" at the same time)? Ugh. That's neither nice nor smart.

To answer your question, no, Malakhovka the urban settlement is not the same as Malakhovka the urban-type settlement. The latter is a type of an inhabited locality, while the former is a municipal formation (a territory of several inhabited localities and the territory in between them on which municipal self-government is established). Occasionally, the municipal urban settlements comprise just one locality (in which case the distinction is pretty much moot), but Malakhovka Urban Settlement includes also the village of Pekhorka, as well as the territories adjacent to them both. Furthermore, the inhabited localities of Moscow Oblast cannot and do not have the symbols (flags, coats of arms, anthems) of their own. Only the municipal formations can have them. And since it is an encyclopedia we are working on here, I would certainly appreciate it if you restored the factually correct descriptions of the symbols and stopped crippling the article with primitive oversimplifications. If anything can be called vandalism, knowingly compromising the integrity of the article's information would be it. Please do not do it again. The least you could do is ask before pulling the trigger.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 26, 2010; 15:17 (UTC)

Dear Igels,

Interesting. So the Malakhovka local government that everyone knows is the Urban Settlement, is that right? Is there also a government for the "inhabited locality", or is it just describing an area? If the latter, then isn't it clear that the flag is for the local government, ie the urban settlement? If you think this distinction matters, then perhaps there should be a sentence (at the end?) clarifying it...

William

William MacDougall 18:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no government for a separate inhabited locality (as an administrative/territorial unit), but all inhabited localities fall into the jurisdiction of the oblast and (administrative) district authorities, which cannot interfere in the local matters (handling which is what the local self-government is for), but have a power to enforce the provisions of the oblast/district legislation and perform duties assigned to the oblast/district level (something the local self-government of the low-level municipal formations can't normally touch). With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the administrative and territorial divisions (of which "inhabited localities" are a type) have no need for a flag/coa/anthem, while for the municipal divisions having them is (supposed to be) a matter of local pride.

The distinction wasn't as clear prior to the municipal reform of 2004–2005. Before that, the matter was handled differently in different federal subjects, and some inhabited localities (the territorial units) indeed had their own flags, coat of arms, etc. In some federal subjects, these provisions had never been officially updated, so for some places you could see, for example, a flag assigned not to a municipal formation, but to a populated place. That's why it's important to emphasize the distinction in the image caption; otherwise it's impossible to say whether the flag/coat applies to just one place or several.

As for explaining the distinction, the most appropriate place for it would be the article about the flag and the coat of arms, but we don't have those yet (which, of course, does not mean they cannot be created). Hope this clarifies the problem.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 26, 2010; 19:58 (UTC)

I am sure there is a simpler way of presenting this in the wikipedia. I will think about it... William MacDougall 20:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Good luck there; I hope you can think of something. In the meanwhile, would you please restore the accurate descriptions?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 26, 2010; 20:25 (UTC)

Briefly, I think it is at worst misleading rather than inaccurate; most readers would understand that flags relate to official bodies rather than areas, so that the simplification is not dramatically wrong. I want to look at what is done elsewhere where a government named something covers an area wider than an area with that name. William MacDougall 04:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Igels, thinking about it further, I think there is a general problem in the article of not being clear which is being referred to. I will look at that... William MacDougall 11:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

PS were your population statistics for the narrow or the broad area? William MacDougall 11:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The simplification is not dramatically wrong, but it is wrong nevertheless, and it can be righted by adding just a couple words to the caption. Once again, if we strive to be an encyclopedia, we need to think of such things. This is not a high school newspaper we are writing here; the article is supposed to be a quality reference resource.

On the other hand, you pinpointed the underlying problem quite accurately. Ideally, we should have separate articles about the inhabited localities and the municipal formations. Right now the infobox is a hodgepodge of the data pieces pertaining to various aspects, which necessitates clear labeling or an explanation in the article's body. Ideally, the municipal aspect (which, among other things, includes the flag/coa/anthem) should be shown in the article about the urban settlement, while the administrative and territorial aspects should remain here. Incidentally, such separation is the ultimate goal of all my work here on Wikipedia for the past six years—it's just it makes little sense to start working on the articles about the municipal entities when the articles about the places they comprise are still so severely underdeveloped.

Regarding the population, it is given strictly for the inhabited locality (which becomes obvious when one checks out the source being cited).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 27, 2010; 14:08 (UTC)

Dear Igels,

I don't think it's important enough to do two separate articles, but the current article is impossibly confused.

I think what is required is language early on saying that the locality named Malakhovka is part, the largest part, of the settlement named Malakhovka. And on the table on the right to show population data for each (can you supply that data?), and yes that the flag is for the settlement.

Also, is the "work settlement" the same as the "urban settlement"?

Thanks, William William MacDougall 08:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

But it is important—the concepts are different, and so should be the articles. It does make sense to keep them together when a municipal formation only contains one inhabited locality (as it is occasionally the case), but in other cases they should always be separate. Such approach, by the way, addresses many of your problems as well—with two articles, we would only mention that municipally Malakhovka is a part (and the administrative center) of Malakhovka Urban Settlement, but all the explanations, lists, and municipal terminology would go into the article about the urban settlement. That would clean up the Malakhovka article quite a bit, and that's one of the goals of the project I've been working on for the past few years. For now, however, since most of the articles about the inhabited localities are rather short, it makes a good compromise to stuff both the administrative and municipal aspects into one article about the inhabited locality.

I do agree with you on the second paragraph—for every place, its administrative and municipal jurisdiction should be specified in the text.

As for the population, there are no 2002 Census data for the municipal formations because they simply did not exist in 2002—the municipal structures now in place are the result of the 2004–2005 municipal reform. That should change once the 2010 Census data are released (which will be around 2012). In the meanwhile, we can use the most recent estimates, but those too tend to be tracked by the administrative/territorial, not municipal units.

Finally, a "work settlement" is not at all the same as an "urban settlement". A work settlement is one of several types of an urban-type settlement (which itself is a type of an urban locality). This concepts describes the administrative-territorial unit. An "urban settlement" is a type of a municipal formation. Urban settlements comprise one or several urban localities (cities/towns or urban-type settlements), often along with adjacent rural localities (villages, settlements of rural type, khutors, etc.), and are always a part of a municipal district (urban okrugs, on the other hand, can be thought of as urban settlement with a status equal to that of a municipal district, combining the duties and privileges of both).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 28, 2010; 14:10 (UTC)

Dear Igels,

On reflection, I'm inclined to agree with you that the clearest thing in this case would be to have two articles: The existing article for the narrow locality of Malakhovka (as most of the text concerns that, and existing links to it concern that), and a new article for the wider Malakhovka Urban Settlement, mentioning that in addition to Malakhovka, Moscow Oblast, "it also includes the village of Pekhorka, as well as the territories adjacent to them both" (anything else worth naming?).

Thanks, William (William MacDougall 06:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC))

As I mentioned before, I am all for this approach. It is in fact something I had planned to do from the very start. However, I very much prefer to bring the articles about the inhabited localities in Russia into some semblance of order before initiating yet another time-consuming grand-scale subproject.

My plan is to finish my database (which covers all the administrative, territorial, and municipal entities of Russia) first, then use it to populate the set index articles for the names shared by multiple entities, and then hire a bot to populate the actual articles. Needless to say, someone should design infoboxes to hold information for the municipal formations and for the low-level administrative divisions (such as selsoviets). Once all that is in place, we can trim the infobox for the inhabited localities, move the municipal information into the appropriate articles, and edit the infobox template to only include items pertaining to the locality itself.

Doing things systematically and in order will prevent us from having to do everything manually first only to see the bot stumble later on a bunch of incomplete manually created stubs, or from having to waste time on moving things around (because no set indices are in place to prevent shared names conflicts). It's just a matter of efficient workflow.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 1, 2010; 15:07 (UTC)

Dear Igels,

Why did you remove "(urban settlement)" from my text? I thought you were terribly keen on that term, and that was correct usage as well as the right place for it, wasn't it?

While we're on it, why do you insist on both "Work Settlement" and "Urban locality", when the first is a subgroup of the latter? Surely the former would be sufficient and less wordy?

Thanks, William (William MacDougall 04:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC))

Well, there's just no pleasing you, eh? :) The only reason I removed the "urban settlement" bit was because I heeded your advice and figured that mentioning this highly technical term in the infobox is enough. If you feel it should be restored, I sure am not going to argue (just make sure you link to the subsection, not to the entire page).

Regarding the work settlement/urban locality distinction, that's done for consistency sake. Broad category (urban vs. rural locality) is stated first, followed by the specific type (in this case, "work settlement"). This is because the types do not always match the categories across the federal subjects—a settlement, for example, can be considered an urban locality in one federal subject and a rural one in another.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 17, 2010; 14:21 (UTC)

The whole thing is hopelessly confusing, so I was trying to shed a bit of light. If it's going to be in the infobox (and I'm not sure it should) then it probably should be in the text in a way something like I wrote.

Re your final point: do you mean a "work settlement" can be an urban locality in some places and a rural locality in others?

William MacDougall 06:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

If you take time to study the differences, it becomes a lot less confusing (and that's true of any "confusing" subject area). Regarding your last question, not exactly like that, but in general the answer is yes (although it's not some places, but rather some federal subjects).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 18, 2010; 12:54 (UTC)

Now I'm even more confused. "Subjects" normally means people not places. You do mean places in Russia don't you? William MacDougall 15:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

William, we will never have a productive discussion if you continue to refuse to click on the links to terms the meanings of which you do not understand. I linked to the federal subjects of Russia so many times before that I thought it would be redundant to do so in my comment above. Apparently not.

Anyway, I did not mean "places" in Russia. I meant "federal subjects"—the constituent members of the Russian Federation.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 18, 2010; 16:29 (UTC)

Well if you use English words in strange ways you should expect confusion. You do mean "places" in Russia, members of the federation, or the Russian word "субъектов"; I'm not sure "subjects" is a good translation of that word in this context, though I realise you are not the only one to translate it that way. You should beware of "false friends" in translating, and often it is good to use synonyms to help understanding. Where possible without lengthy explanation, these articles should be reasonably understandable to a reader without him having to do extensive research elsewhere...

William MacDougall 17:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't use English words is strange ways; I use them in a way they are used by the academia and by the experts (and clicking on a link and reading the first few lines hardly qualifies as "extensive research"; in fact, this is how Wikipedia is supposed to work). See Talk:Federal subjects of Russia#"Subject" for a previous discussion of this (and feel free to accept the challenge there, which is still outstanding). The bottom line is that while the term is obscure to most Anglophones, it is grammatically correct and enjoys widespread usage in this context. In those regards, it is no different from any other term in a subject area unfamiliar to a person. An average reader would, for example, find the term "color charge" equally confusing and used in a "strange way" (no relation to this definition of "strange" :)), which does not mean we should be explaining it every single time it is used.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 18, 2010; 18:05 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out the discussion on the "Subjects" talk page. I agree with the objectors there; "subjects" is a very poor translation of the Russian word, and should not be used without explanation.

William MacDougall 18:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. In response I would like to say that you can disagree all you want, but it won't change the fact that the term is used by the academia (as confirmed by hundreds of sources) and that its use is grammatically sound (as confirmed by the OED). Just like other objectors, you seem to have a personal opinion unsubstantiated by facts and that's where your arguments end. As for the "explanation", that's why Wikipedia has links. Once you stop ignoring the words in blue and start clicking on them, you'll find them pretty darn handy. That's a promise.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 18, 2010; 21:05 (UTC)

Dear Igels, when you first used the word "Subjects" here you did not site the corresponding Wiki article, so naturally I understood the way the word is used in standard English. In any case, as I've just argued on the "subjects" talk page, it is a bad translation that few English speakers would understand and really should not be used anywhere without qualification.

Going back to the original point, I propose restoring the reference in the final sentence, that you deleted.

Thanks, William (William MacDougall 16:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC))

Regarding the term "subject", I replied on that page—you are right that that discussion belongs there and not here. As for the reference, I'm not sure which one you mean—I don't think I removed any references, only added them. Could you, please, clarify? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 19, 2010; 16:19 (UTC)

Link now restored. William MacDougall 17:35, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so it's a "link", not a "reference". You had me confused there for a moment. Anyway, I've got it fixed. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 19, 2010; 18:47 (UTC)

References

Igels, I see that when you created references to the official classifications you did so not within the article but rather in templates outside the article. Is there really any reason for this? They appear only to be referenced in the Malakhovka article, and rather unlikely to be referenced elsewhere. Surely it would be better to embed them in the article? I propose to do so when I shorten them to what is necessary to find them, as we discussed elsewhere... William MacDougall 11:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

William, I already explained this to you in the past at least twice. It is really frustrating that you are not even listening to what I'm saying. Third time a charm?

The references are done as templates for two reasons. First, while they are only used in this article now, they will also be used in other articles, most of which are not yet created. Resolution #10-PG, for example, can be used as a reference in over 6,000 articles (that's how many inhabited localities there are in Moscow Oblast), and is already used by eight. Law #81 can be used as a reference in at least 22 articles (the number of inhabited localities in Lyuberetsky District). And while the Charter reference only covers two inhabited localities (Malakhovka and Pekhorka), it can be used in articles about other concepts (such as the flag/coa, or the government, etc.). So, as you see, the "rather unlikely" argument of yours isn't quite right.

The second reason is that these laws are updated at least several times a year, which makes it important to specify as of which date the reference being cited is current. With the template, you only need to change the reference once, and the "what links here" feature allows to immediately see which articles use the reference, so it's easy to find those affected by the changes. If the reference is incorporated into a text, every time there's a change you'd have to manually find the articles using the reference and update it. Needless to say, it's easy to miss something that way, which compromises the information integrity.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 28, 2010; 13:48 (UTC)