Talk:Chernobyl disaster/Archive 3

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Alternative Lenin names

The article mentions that the plant is named after Lenin, but it doesn't give the exact plane name. Is it worth mentioning the name? The variations include "VI Lenin plant/nuclear plant", "Lenin plant/nuclear plant" and "Lenin's plant/nuclear plant". However, "Lenin plant" is the most common one by far. -- Kjkolb 04:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Organizations is the USSR were named (Place) (Type) (Name)

Place is usually a city, but sometimes region where it's located

Type - for example - AZ (Avtozavod) - Car factory, GU (Gosudarstvenniy Universitet) - State university, etc

Name - "imeni XXX", where XXX is a historical figure, or event

For example, Soviet cars were named VAZ, GAZ, KAMAZ,(-model name), universities are MGU, NGU, KGU,...

The Name part is printed only on the organization's stationery, but usually not pronounced. It is also rarely known or interesting to the people outside the organization.

Back to the Chernobyl:

The power plants were (and still are) called TES (burning any fuel), GES (hydro-), AES (atomic electrostantion)

The full name for this one apparently was: Chernobyl'skaya Atomnaya ElektroStantsiya imeni Lenina

in newspapers it's printed: Chernobyl'skaya AES

spoken among people: Chernobyl'skaya Stantsiya

workers were (are?) wearing uniforms with 4 letters "Ch A E S"

this is how these 4 letters look in Russian: ЧАЭС. You can see them at the bottom of the medal.

No one would call it Lenin Plant, because there is more than one with this name.

I lived in Kiev in the 1980s, but I've discovered that the Chernobyl plant was "imeni Lenina" only from this Wikipedia article.

It is occasionally called the Lenin Plant, even though there is more than one, at least online. -- Kjkolb 04:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Not by Russian-speakers.

Well, this is the English Wikipedia. :-) However, I don't think it's very important. -- Kjkolb 01:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

A perspective on 'Chernobyl Forum' (IAEA) material

The balance published by the "Chernobyl Forum" (4000 deaths) is only useful as a sample of disinformation, as shown by reading it:

• The official conclusion emitted by the Forum is written in a opaque way: premature deaths of around 4000 people from the 600 000 affected by the higher radiation doses. These 4000 deaths are from a badly defined subset because the higher radiations doses is not defined. Moreover it somewhat conveys that other exposed people were and are not endangered, but it appears that 5 million exposed Soviet citizens were (and some are) exposed, along with much more people in other countries, and at least some of them were (or are) somewhat endangered.

• No scientist explicitly emitted or endorsed this conclusion. The press release states that "100 scientists validated the report" but we can not find their names, associated to the fact that they validate the presented conclusion. These names may be those of authors of works quoted in the Forum's reports.

• The manager of one of the studies (health) stated that the scientists did not want to include numbers for predicted deaths, but public relations officials had wanted them in the summary.

• The official conclusion refers to reports which only exist in draft state. They are not scientifically published so were not reviewed, therefore those reports are not asserted by the scientific community, albeit they are presented as such.

• The authors and the proofreaders of every thesis in the available (draft) reports are not clearly named, so nobody endorses it.

• None of the diffused conclusions is, under the same shape, in reports.

• The conclusion, presented as published by UNO, is that of some agencies and not of the Organization which is only quoting it.

• The most involved agency (IAEA) will only exist as long as atomic energy will stay in use, therefore its pledge of the exactness of its own conclusions seems insufficient because it is clearly judge and party, therefore biased towards a pro-atomic view.

• The IAEA and the WHO, main implied organizations, restrain themselves to not publish any information considered as annoying by the other one. The pledge of WHO in the study concerning health-related aspects is therefore itself... subject to pledge, because the WHO can only publish material approved by IAEA.

• Other UNO agencies implied are close to the IAEA and at least a top manager was since hired by a nuclear equipment manufacturer.

• The 'health' report explicitly states major and explicit doubts as for the quality of its forecasts

• Some methods used in the 'health' report raised controversy

Very interesting: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025464.400-how-many-more-lives-will-chernobyl-claim.html --217.185.98.87 08:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

From the effects article: "The workers involved in the recovery and cleanup after the accident received high doses of radiation. In most cases, these workers were not equipped with individual dosimeters to measure the amount of radiation received, so experts can only estimate their doses. ". Ergo, the radiation doses are estimated for many if not most of the higher dose population. Midgley 10:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

This article has a relatively high test post/vandalism rate (though many revert their own edits), so you may want to check the history before beginning major work. -- Kjkolb 23:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Today a user 152.163.100.12 altered the title in the first sentence from "Chernobyl accident" to "Chernobyl disaster", as per the name of the page being "Chernobyl accident" I reverted the change. This does not seem to be malicious vandalism, but this IP has a number of unencyclopedic entries, however it also seems to belong to AOL so this could be multiple users. --Matthew 02:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Internal errors, which is it?

"Soviet scientists have reported that the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor contained about 190 metric tons of uranium dioxide fuel and fission products. Estimates of the amount of this material that escaped range from 13 to 30 percent."

"About 95% of the fuel (about 180 tonnes) in the reactor at the time of the accident remains inside the shelter, with a total radioactivity of nearly 18 million curies (670 PBq). "

Different sources have reported different numbers, the historical account reports that 95% of the fuel remains in the reactor, newer estimates have strongly questioned this long-held assumption, which is most likely the source of the 13-20% fuel escape numbers. This topic would strongly benefit from careful sourcing and a through explanation of the different estimates. --Matthew 06:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Wormwood Removal

Large portions of the section discussing the origin of the word for wormwood and Chernobyl were removed without any discussion. While it is easy to see that the biblical sections could be consider POV, I strongly question the removal of the nearly the entire section. --Matthew 02:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

After discussion with Renesis13, this is considered resolved. The full discussion is included below --Matthew 02:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

You wrote:

You removed a large portion of the section regarding the translation of wormwood and its comparison to Chernobyl. I have been muling over these changes, and I strongly question your removal of the sections that are purely factual and not POV. I am curious as to why you believe these sections should be excluded from the article. Thanks, --Matthew 02:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

If you are referring to my first change... First I removed "urban myth," because for Wikipedia to be truly NPOV, not only can it not support interpretations of prophetic or religious works (or interpretations of any works, for that matter), but it also cannot reject interpretations. Rather, it should merely report in a neutral way the facts relating to the subject. It is a fact that some people believe the Chernobyl accident was prophesied in the bible. It is not a fact, however, that this has been disproved. The word myth is thrown in to present the idea immediately as false, and is definite POV. (I think weasel words applies here.)

Second, I removed the following paragraph:

It is important to note that, according to theologians, the Book of Revelation is a book of prophecy, and that the events of the book take place in the future as a series, not isolated events throughout time. Theologically speaking, such interpretations are incorrect and taken out of context.

This paragraph has several flaws. First, it says "according to theologians", which pretty much discounts the rest of the paragraph as more "weasel words" (opinion attributed to an anonymous source). Second, it states as fact a direct interpretation of the Book of Revelation based purely on conjecture (that the noted "theologians" in fact know how the series of events was intended to take place). Third, the last sentence (starting with "Theologically speaking") draws a conclusion of assertion that the "urban myth" is false. I see no way to prove or disprove this, unless we travel back in time to speak to the author of Revelation and even then, we'd only be able to take him at his word.

Another reason for the removal is that "Chornobyl" in fact does refer to a type of "wormwood"—the problem is just that the translation in the other direction (English to Ukranian) is not as direct. The paragraph about the meaning of the word was incomprehensible, as well as misleading. This is the reason for my second edit. I tried to reformat the paragraph to better reflect the real meaning of the word, as I understand it from Chernobyl#Name origin.

What section do you feel I removed that was purely factual? -- Renesis13 03:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your removal of the biblical piece and the its associated POV, I was specifically refering to the text you removed in your edit on | February 8, 2006 at 13:12 EST:

"The name of the city comes from the Ukrainian word for mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), which is "chornobyl". The word is a combination of chornyi (чорний, black) and byllia (билля, grass blades or stalks), hence it literally means black grass or black stalks."

As well as:

"Chernobyl also could be translated as mugwort because the two had very similar properties, such as the plants looked almost identical, had a very bitter taste and had effects on people's moods."

I am not a linguist, nor familiar with these languages, but these paragraphs seem to me as if they are factual and are not really POV statements. Do you believe these statements are incorrect? --Matthew 18:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I didn't remove that text because of POV, but because it was difficult to understand and a little misleading. According to the first section of Chernobyl, "Chornobyl" is the Ukranian word for "Mugwort" (which according to Wikipedia, is "common wormwood"). Then it goes on to explain where the word chornobyl comes from, and says it means "black grass" or "black stalks". This is fairly irrelevant (in the context of the Chernobyl Accident/Wormwood discussion), since it already stated that "chornobyl" is the word for "mugwort/common wormwood". I did not remove it from the article Chernobyl, but rather tried to summarize the relevant information from that article. I felt the way it was before was a little misleading because it was as if it was trying to also say that Chornobyl does not translate to a type of wormwood (it does, as far as I can tell).

Overall, I was just trying to make it more understandable. The second paragraph ("Chernobyl also could be translated...") didn't really make any sense, because it is translated as "mugwort" in the first place, and in the second place what does it mean by "the two"? Anyway, that information may be useful if anyone else can verify what it is trying to say. I couldn't tell and don't have the experience to know. The section on the meaning of wormwood had been that way for several months (see my request for cleanup on the talk page) and I felt I could at least make it match the Chernobyl article better. I think it is more understandable now. If you don't agree, what do you think should happen? -- Renesis13 18:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with you that the section is a bit confusing, but it would be benefical to the article to have a piece that addresses the translations of "wormword" and "Chernobyl" more throughly. I am also inclined to think the article was better with the section than without it, but if you have a problem with including it we can ditch it. I really feel that just saying that the translation is disputed is sort of a cop out though. There is probably a right and wrong translation and a linguist would probably be able to explain it better. I think we should endeavour to find a proper, well justified translation rather than just cop out. I will attempt to find such a source. --Matthew 21:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Source term

I have started a new section on the radioactive release (source term). About the iodine release, I think that it is vital to give as many details as possible about the form in which the radioisotopes were released becuase for those for which internal exposure is most important the physical and chemical form of the release will control the dose to the population.

I reverted the organic iodine becuase the iodine chemical form question is important. I will add some more to the page in the near future.Cadmium 08:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Added addition information explaining control rod design to clarify impact of design on accident; also added additional World Nuclear Association reference to reflect source of control rod information. Dinosnake 01:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Article Size

This article is getting really long, so sections, such as those about radiation and its effects, might do well as there own articles, with summaries and "Main article" links here. The present article is 52KB, this is very long, see Article Size.--Matthew 02:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Since no one has objected, I think it is time to be bold, I am breaking off the health effects of Chernobyl into a seperate article, because this section is quite long and could stand on its own. --Matthew 00:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I have created a new article: Chernobyl accident effects and moved an exact copy of the existing effect sections there. I have also linked the article from Chernobyl accident, and shortended the effect sections there to make them summaries. The Chernobyl accident article is now 46 kilobytes long, which is a bit longer than ideal, but closer to acceptable levels, see Article Size. --Matthew 00:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed until factually refferenced

I removed parts of the following sentance that were added today:

It is difficult to accurately tally the number of deaths caused by the events at Chernobyl, as the most of short-term fatalities have been covered-up by Soviet goverment, and the expected long-term fatalities, especially those from cancer, have not yet actually occurred, and will be difficult to attribute specifically to the accident.

I am not sure this is a very factual representation of what happened, and it seems to be a little POV. The edit was made by an anonymous user, 24.5.205.48, so it is not possible to follow up on this statement with them. This user does not have any history of revisions other than today, and their other edits today also displayed inappropriate content that other editors have reverted. (See Kiev)

Matthew 23:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

My "factual representation" based on my own experience living in Kiev at the time of disaster, and personally knowing people who were forced to "volonteer" at the cleanup. I'm flattered that Matthew spent his valuable time to research my edits :) Get a life! gene

Gene, I would be interested to hear you personnal account and in particular more about your experiances with your friends who worked as part of the cleanup. There are very few first hand accounts of the Chernobyl accident and how it affected civilians. Feel free to write here or on my Talk Page.

Many wikipedians, including myself take a tremendous amount of pride in the factuality of articles on Wikipedia. We all have lives beyond being editors, we do this for many reasons, but I personally edit Wikipedia because I think it's a great way to make knowledge readily availible to everyone. You can read more about any wikipedian on their User Page --Matthew 18:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Gene, I have to support Matthew on this. Your knowledge on the event may be substantial, but there are two very important Wikipedia policies that need to be adhered to and especially apply to these edits, no original research and verifiability. If you can dig up some third party references supporting your statements, then your edits will be perfect for Wikipedia. But as they are currently only known by you, and have not been published by any verifiable third-party, Matthew is right - they should be left here on the talk page until verified. Remember also that the responsibility for verifiability lies with you, the editor wishing to include new information, not the editor who removed the material, Matthew. -- Renesis13 19:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)