Talk:Abaza

The Abazas of Khakassia

@Ezhiki: re this revert. You've introduced two separate dab entries that point to the same article: that's not helpful for readers. I don't doubt that the distinction between the two topics may be important, but they're both treated within the same article at the moment. A separate dab entry will be warranted once that article gets created, not before (see [WP:WTAF]]). As for the use of "Siberia" in the description: the point is to differentiate that entry from the other place in Russia (which is in the Caucasus). The use of a small-level entity like "Khakassia" is nice and specific but unlikely to be recognisable to readers and hence of limited usefulness on the dab page. "Siberia" may be in principle vague, but as far as I'm aware, the inclusion of Khakassia in this region isn't. – Uanfala (talk) 19:23, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, Uanfala! The issue at hand really falls into one of those numerous gray areas around disambiguation practices, and is probably too minor to spend much time on. I'll explain my rationale all the same. The links here really disambiguate between three distinct entities—the town proper (an inhabited locality), which has an article; the administrative division (Town of Abaza), which is upmerged; and the municipal division (Abaza Urban Okrug), which is also upmerged. This is not a typical disambiguation situation (albeit common in the context of Russia). The borders of the administrative and municipal division often (although not always) are identical, and in such situations the article on the municipal division (when one exists) tends to cover both the administrative and the municipal entity. Leaving a link to just the town proper might make things a tiny little bit less confusing for readers interested in just the town proper, but a whole lot more confusing to readers actually interested in the distinction. Where an approach brings no real harm but benefits an additional sliver of our readership base, why not take that approach?

On the point of Siberia vs. Khakassia, places in Russia are routinely disambiguated by the federal subject they are in, including in the description (look at it this way—if there were another Abaza in Central Russia, what would you describe it as? "A town in Europe"? That's just silly :)). MOS:DABPLACES makes no real recommendations applicable to this situation, but the examples are basically in the form of "PlaceName, State", with a proviso that the "country name might be necessary" (which here it obviously is). Even looking at MOSDAB's examples, there would be plenty of readers who have no idea where or what "Arkansas" is; but that's not a good reason to describe Jacksonville in that state as "a city in the US Interior Highlands". Khakassia is no different. One can also just click on the article's link to see the map, if identifying the location of Khakassia/Arkansas is a problem.

Note that I have no problem with describing Abazinia as located in the "Caucasus", because unlike the town, it is a historical region with no set borders and much of its historical context not really being tied into the modern federal subject (Karachay-Cherkess Republic) or even Russia as a country. Good catch!

In any case, if a third party wants to chime in on this, I'll accept their judgement and move on. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 14, 2022; 20:09 (UTC)