Talk:Russo-Georgian War/Archive 17

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Russian victory???

Is this a coverage of the five-day war, which russia won decisively, the conflict over South Ossetia and Abkhazia which is ongoing, or the entire Russian-Georgian conflict(Russian agression, Georgian attack on South Ossetia, Russian invasion of Georgia, Russian-Georgian cyberwar, and Propaganda)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.91.32 (talk) 16:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

In answer to your question, the focus of this article is on the five-day war. 81.157.177.248 (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Imo, this should be about the war only, since there is also 2008 Georgia–Russia crisis, which deals with the whole crisis. However, that view is not shared by all (check ZedderZulu above). --Xeeron (talk) 16:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Russia routed 90% of the Georgian Army, sunk I think about over 70% or 80% of Georgian Navy and shot down most of Georgian Air Force. I'd say that's a victory that's quite decisive. That and the ease with which the Russians took Senaki, kinda shows that it was a Russian Military victory. Whether they were justified or not in taking Senaki is debatable, I think they were but one could make a counter-argument; however the manner in which they took it, and how brilliantly they set up the battles to take it, cannot be questioned as anything but a victory. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a civil war and rebellion at the same time! Most serious editors have given up on this article. Ottre 11:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It was not a "decisive" Russian victory, they got hammered politically for this- and now they must retreat in humiliation due to international law.

Thats hardly "decisive"

75.179.183.114 (talk) 01:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC) Jade Rat

Whatever happens after the war, the Russian military victory was swift and complete, in other words, it was decisive. --Xeeron (talk) 16:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

So let me get this straight: having a parade as they retreat, while taking away all of the war trophies, including Jeeps, under the drums, and with their flags being properly taken down is called a "retreat in humiliation"? Do you know what humiliation is, or is there a definition of the word humiliation that I do not yet know? Also, Medvedev ordered the retreat; as for International Law being used, the Russians were never sued under International Law, thus they have no order binding them to retreat, they are doing so willingly, because Medvedev promised that Sarkozy. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Under international law- Georgia had the right to repel rebels form it's borders. Thats what it did- but Russia had armor inside Georgia a day before. Aggression against a sovereign country with out just cause is a breach of international law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.179.183.114 (talk) 17:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

A. Sign your posts. B. Read the title above. Now re-read your comment. Is it relevant to the title?

Even though there are A & B, I will still respond. Georgia used GRADs to attack a civillian city, not a rebel military base. In addition it attacked Russian Peacekeepers legitimately stations in the region. In addition Georgia did not enable Russian citizens to flee the combat zone, sniping at the ones trying to flee. In addition Georgia violated a treaty, an act that they knew would lead to war. Russia had armor defending the Roki Tunnel, part of which was on Russian soil. If Georgians had tried to collapse it, it would be seen as a Georgian attack on Russian soil. Russia moved in to prevent that, which was a legitimate move. Oh wait, the Georgians did try to collapse the Roki Tunnel. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/01/georgia.russia?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews If the Russian Armor hadn't been there, and the Georgians succeeded, it would be an attack by Georgia on Russian soil (Roki Tunnel is partially in Russia, and if it collapses, all of it collapses). That would have led to an all out war. Civillian casualties would be much, much higher on both sides. I doubt you'd want that. Right now it appears that civvie dead are under 1,000, although there are still 2,000 missing. So to sum it up: Russia's defense of the Roki Tunnel was legitimate under International Law. Cluster bombs attempting to collapse a tunnel - sounds like a just cause to me.

"Human Rights Watch said it had received a letter from the Georgian defence ministry acknowledging the use of M85 cluster bombs near the Roki tunnel that connects South Ossetia with Russia. " - Guardian. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"Roki Tunnel is partially in Russia, and if it collapses, all of it collapses" - That is technically very wrong, just like your conclusion "it would be seen as a Georgian attack on Russian soil" is very doubtful. --Xeeron (talk) 11:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

A tunnel is like a bridge, in the sense that if a part of it collapses, all of it will be unusable, that's what I meant. And to further clear it up for you - remember what happened when the US Troops blew up bridges linking North Korea to China? You may want to review the Korean War. Always glad to assist in clearing it up! (And yes, Korean War is post-WWII, ergo this post is consistent with all of my other posts.) HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:52, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Georgians claim they didn't try to collapse Roki Tunnel because civilians/refugees were always inside too not only Russian units. But they did try to attack Russian military units after leaving the tunnel on Georgian territory . Cluster ammunition was used by both sides in old Sowjet tradition. Elysander (talk) 23:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The way the Georgians tried to shoot at the tunnel, showed that it could have collapsed. Also, Georgians sniped at civillians headed for Russian hospitals and shelled the South Ossetian Hospital as well, so your argument that Georgians didn't try to go after the tunnel, because of civillian casualties is moot. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/13/georgia.russia3 Georgians couldn't have blown up the tunnel, because the Russians moved troops to block it in advance. They knew the Georgian attack was coming. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The obvious difference between us: You know always exactly what happened because you were witnessing the complete theatre :)) Where i'm using words like "claim" or different tempora you are doing the contrary: a claim turns to my argument. Don't forget if a village in SO was nearly completely evacuated then Tsk. And check as "witness" on southern side of the Roki Tunnel whether your remarks about the Russian military knowledge meet the official Russian time line - you could be soon "witness" for the Georgian time line version. :)) Elysander (talk) 09:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia plot summary about video game as relates Russia-Georgia conflict cited in major magazine!

“When I looked up the game’s plot summary on Wikipedia, the similarities between the first Ghost Recon--set in 2008--and the recent conflict were startling,” wrote Robert Sroka, “Life imitates games,” Electronic Gaming Monthly 234 (November 2008): 18.--Happy editing! Sincerely, Renamed user 19^Tally-ho! 15:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see, that death of people can serve as an inspiration for advertisement. Remove this section, someone, please. I'm sickened. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed - is it also in the article? If it is, show me where and it'll be gone, gone, gone. Poetry about Putin mind-controlling Saakashvili through a US satellite hijacked by the resurrected Lenin reamains irrelevant. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Please do not change other peoples comments. It is really ironic that, had you simply waited 2 hours instead of changing his comment, this would have been archived automatically. Your edit ensured the bot will let it stay another 2 days. --Xeeron (talk) 20:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place to advertise. The guy was advertising a game. I removed the ad. The substance of his comment is still there. Archived or not archived, advertising is advertising. You know how on some forums when you write shit it gets censored as ****, right? Same principle here. Shall I link you to WP:Advertising? Plus, you have yet to prove how his comment is at all relevant. This is an article about actual warfare, not about arcade and/or video games. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Instead of linking WP:SPAM, read it. You'll notice that what Renamed user 19 did was not spamming at all. However what you did, changing his comment, is disallowed by WP:TALK. --Xeeron (talk) 09:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Hm. Never knew about archiving bot. But WP:TALK doesn't "disallow", it just frowns upon. And one of the WP:TALK-valid excuses for editing someone's comment, is it's irrelevancy. Do you think that Renamed user's comment was relevant? 212.192.164.14 (talk) 13:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

It says, quote "Never edit someone's words to change their meaning". Changing the name into Bob does change the meaning imho. It only allows deletion for irrelevancy btw, not replacing with something else. --Xeeron (talk) 14:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

PS: With regards to being relevant: I am dead sure that this part concerns pure spam/vandalism, not comments like above. Otherwise, please argue how HistoricWarrior007's comment or 212.192.164.14's or our discussion about policy are "relevant to improving the article". --Xeeron (talk) 14:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Xeeron, in the US Robert and Bob are one and the same. Like Dick and Richard. Same name. I didn't change the meaning, just elimited the advertisement, but if you really want "Ghost Recon" advertised and are willing to fight tooth and claw about it, go for it. I want less ads, you want more ads.... HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:36, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

If you believe that "Bob" equals "Robert Sroka" and if you believe that I want more ads here, by all means continue to do so, I doubt I can convince you otherwise. However the rules of wikipedia are there for a reason and need to be followed. --Xeeron (talk) 11:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

"With regards to being relevant: I am dead sure that this part concerns pure spam/vandalism, not comments like above. Otherwise, please argue how HistoricWarrior007's comment or 212.192.164.14's or our discussion about policy are "relevant to improving the article"." I'm just asked to remove something i think is morally offensive. I could've done it myself, but it's not only my opinion, that matters. Yes, my plead was irrelevant. But comment by HistoricWarrior, was relevant to improving the article, because of his question whether the article contains irrelevant information. A discussion about policies is always in some way relevant to improving the article, because, hopefully, it let's the participants to understand policies better, and improved editors means improved articles. I'm not so sure, that "this part concerns pure spam/vandalism" only. I mean, yes, i bet it covers majority of it, but, why it's not stated explicitly, then? And, for example, if something is irrelevant and bulky, yet doesn't qualify as spam/vandalism, does WP:TALK really prohibit removing it? Barely. I don't think, that there is some hidden meaning behind the word "irrelevant" in this policy, like you imply. Anyway, WP:TALK is just a guideline, and, as long as you don't remove something that people really need, i see no reason why put such undue weight into that "don't edit other's comments" rule. Ok, guys, enough squabbling. This is just plain silly. Let us wait for archiving bot makes this section disappear as soon as possible.

I agree with that last sentence. Just letting the archiving bot do its work on this section was and still is the best course of action here, so no more edits from me in this section. --Xeeron (talk) 11:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Georgian order of battle

In this edit quite a lot of content was (re-)introduced. Unfortunately, the source is dead, so it is currently unsourced. Please provide a working source for that content. --Xeeron (talk) 11:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep ... and the "new" content differs from section's former content and still following parts . What mean "heavy losses " ? 30%, 40% or more % ? That would't concur with the total amount of losses or casualties as confirmed. If two third of the 1st brigade (Iraq) was not involved in active fights what did the other one third and where? And where did this one third suffered "heavy losses"? Elysander (talk) 12:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Addition: Edit Diff [1] .. Any evidence or signs that Georgian "Iraq-brigade" was active on battlefield? Elysander (talk) 20:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they managed to get back to Georgia before the main fightings were already over. At least that's what I heard when I was in Georgia. I don't have any other source right now though. Närking (talk) 21:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

67.196.197.53 dug up a cached version of the article, but it does not at all correspond to the facts it is used as a source for. It would be great to keep the information about where each of the 5 brigades was and what they did, but the article only reports on the 4th and the 1st, not a word about 2,3&5. --Xeeron (talk) 22:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You are right. And this little subsection is typical for the article overall. For example the Iraq Brigade was not re-deployed to defend Tbilissi as 67.196... stated and his source doesn't support. The cached AP article is full of informations and opinions (!) - not only from American trainers but Georgian combattants and critical analysts ( cease-fire too soon) too. The next source about formal Georgian B.O. INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING UPDATE ARMED FORCES OF GEORGIA - ORBAT offers a rather complete overview which should be inserted. But there are several inconsistencies ( theoretical and effective strength/ 1st brigade - part in Iraq, minor p. in Gori? / losses in men and material etc.). I believe we need additional serious sources to countercheck those informations. The serious work on article had just begun. ;) Elysander (talk) 22:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I checked some of the other stories on oraclesyndicate.twoday.net and stuff like this makes me doubt that this can be considered a serious source. --Xeeron (talk) 09:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

This source was only introduced by ?? because its short passage about Georgia's no more existing fighting ability. The other informations about Georgian B.O. weren't used. oraclesyndicate is a simple news blog between red and yellow, and this so called intelligence briefing was inserted per copy & paste from another place. One step back you can find the same text ( incl. hints to origin & authors) one day earlier [2]. The original text comes from informationclearinghouse where you must make a difference between information and opinion. If we will check the complete article section by section, source by source i'm sure you will find similar things. ;) Elysander (talk) 10:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Rewrote that section. While doing so, I removed the questionable oraclesyndicate source and replaced it with the globalsecurity.org one. The latter does have a lot of very detailed info about the timeline of the conflict, which might be useful for the timeline here.

Unfortunately, the sources only mention the 4th and 1st brigade (and are not really clear on what the 1st did after arriving in Georgia). There is nothing about the other 3 brigades (which one was in Kodori? did any other apart from the 4th fight in SO?). Any information about the position of the Georgian navy before the conflict (anchored in Poti?) is missing as well. The sentence about the airforce is minimalistic, too. Still a lot to be added here. --Xeeron (talk) 13:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Clarity Suggestion

"Following the conflict, Russia withdrew most of its forces from Georgia proper, and completed its withdrawal on 8 October 2008.[39] However, Russian troops remained in Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

Uff, that's very confusing. How about this instead:

"Russia withdrew all of its forces from Georgia proper by October 8, 2008. However, Russian troops remain in Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

I think that clears it up and just makes it look better. It's just a clarity edited, nothing too major, so can someone please make it? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Strange Conspiracy Theory about Tiger Leap plan in Russian Wiki

Has anybody noticed the way that the Tiger Leap plan for improving Georgian schooling has been prominently portrayed in section 1.3 of the Russian version of this article? It claims that it was a US-sponsored program to destabilise South-Ossetia and drive out the Russian peacekeepers. It's placed in such a way that it seems perfect justification for the Russian actions against evil Western conspirators. I've never seen a hint of this conspiracy theory mentioned outside Russia, so could somebody say if it's widely believed in Russia? --Farry (talk) 08:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It's just coincidental(or deliberate, who knows?) match of names for two different plans. I think former military minister of Georgia wasn't talking about schooling improvement, don't you? Moreover, as far as i can see, the schooling plan appeared in 3rd-4th quarter of 2005, when minister says the plan of takeover was set up for 1 May 2005. If one is to speak about conspiracy theories, he might suspect that the schooling plan was named so to smoke-screen cover up the military one. Speaking about believing in Russia, that's where i cannot speak for all russians, but personally, i think this info is worthy of mention. I still need to do some research on it, like political background and all, to form my personal opinion, though. Maybe it's just that former georgian minister of defence took his revenge for forced retirement, or something. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 12:32, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Am I misreading the Russian Wiki? Unfortunately, I have to rely on machine translation. I get: "According to some Russian sources, even in 2006 in Georgia, there was a plan code-named «Throw Tiger», which is expected by 1 May 2006 with the support of the United States and the OSCE to force Russia to withdraw its peacekeepers from South Ossetia." Is it saying that the plan had the support of the United States? --Farry (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I could have sworn, i've seen the date to be 1 May 2005, not 1 May 2006. I need to buy glasses, obviously. Yes, this machine translation is very accurate. "with the support of the US and OSCE" is exactly the phrase. Why do you ask? 212.192.164.14 writing from 217.8.236.149 (talk) 19:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm still trying to makes sense of it. Isn't implying that Tiger Leap was a US-sponsored plan to drive out the Russian peacekeepers strange? It's implying that the *US* planned to attack Russian peacekeepers? And somehow not start world war 3? And "Russian sources" say this? Did they actually say that?--Farry (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

=( Sorry, i don't feel you're "trying to makes sense of it". Looks like you just want to ridicule it. For example, why have you jumped to conclusion that "with support of the US to force Russia to withdraw its peacekeepers" means "attack"? Strangely enough, when i see "...US and OSCE...", i somehow can't imagine the members of security counsil to grab the rifles and drive away russian peacekeepers with them, thus provoking WW3. No, i lied. I can. But that's just because my imagination allows me to place me and Buffy the Vampire Slayer on board of interstellar ship flying to the mountain Orodruin to destroy Sauron's Ring of Power in lava and make a picnic afterwards. But on your place i wouldn't use this level of imagination while considering the matter, and would rather suspect US and OSCE of using some, i dunno... er... WW3-safe Y2K-compliant political leverage? Honestly, if you wanna make some sense of it, try searching for references on that matter and investigate them. Pointing on the first weakly formulated description of the matter you've found and ridiculing it, is not exactly a serious behavior, don't you think? Well, if there is some other way i can help you, for example, confirm the machine translation or translate some sentence which it got unintelligible, i will be glad to do it for you, Farry, just remember that i'm not an expert in this Tiger Leap matter. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

One third or about that

This is about this edit. This sentence is not entirely correct. It's written there that Russia occupied one third of Georgia's territory and the source is Saakashvili's words. It's of course his POV that Abkhazia and SO are *occupied* by Russia and then we get one third or a bit less (Abkh - 8.4, SO - 3.9, parts of Georgia proper - ?, Georgia's - about 70 th km2). We should not present his pov as fact, obviously. Nobody disputes that parts of Georgia's proper were occupied by Russia but their total area is much less than 1/3 of Georgia's territory (de jure or de facto, it doesn't matter). The percentage of Georgia's territory occupied by Russia in the course of the conflict is relevant and should be present in the article (maybe even in the intro) if this info came from neutral (not Georgian or Russian) sources. Alæxis_¿question? 07:27, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, SO and Abkhazia _are_ a part of Georgia. It's entriely Russian POV, that they are not. Давай часы (talk) 12:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Please, please, please READ THE THREAD!!! South Ossetia and Abkhazia were De Jure part of Georgia, and De Facto independent. Now their De Jure status is unknown. I am not going to argue what their De Jure status currently is, in this article, because there's a different article that focuses on it, called International Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, or something like that! De Facto - they are independent. We've talked about this countless times in the renaming section. Also we have an excellent, wonderful, beautiful and neutral map that can lead the reader to his own conclusions should he click on it. Also, Russia could not have occupied most of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, because those areas enabled Russian Peacekeepers to be there already through International Treaties. Thus saying that Russia, during this war, occupied large parts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is factually incorrect! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 16:27, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The version naming Poti and Gori is more specific and as such, I like it better than the 1/3 version. One thing needs to be pointed out though: The map is own work by a wikipedia user and as such not a reliable source (e.g. the buffer zones are not marked, the exact extend of Russian occupation on the map is almost certainly guessed by the author). --Xeeron (talk) 19:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I want to underline the difference between "Georgia proper" ( created by politicians and journalists - if correctly used as description of the Georgian state without its autonomous regions it must exclude Adjar too) and "Georgian territory" ( incl. all autonomous regions) with its borders as recognized by international community except separatists, Russia and Nicaragua. Therefore 1/3 of Georgian state territory was indeed occupied by Russian troops. Russia has left its "peacekeeper status" definitely behind with its massive invasion into Georgia. It is not article leader's task to disseminate the Russian Government's interpretation of its war and its role in it as HistoricWarrior007 (talk) permanently prefers. ;) Elysander (talk) 12:18, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand the general difficulties, just I don't see anything preposterous in the saying, that having entered the Georgia proper, Russian forces occupy one third of the Georgia. They do, because they occupy the SO and Abkhazia. And no, your use of the word "factually" is improper. Russians factually occupy these parts of Georgia (or Georgian state), while they maybe obtained an agreement on this from third parties, which is a real shame. Anyway, maybe de jure (but whay law is in question? the Georgian one should be, since these are parts of the Georgia) they aren't occupants, but de facto they are, as they prevent the legal authorities from regaining control over the territory that belongs to the Georgia. Давай часы (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The Georgians and the Russians signed a treaty in 1993 - allowing the Russian Troops to be there. So it's not occupation in the way that the word is percieved today, but a similar occupation to the US Troops on Ramstein Air Force Base (which I neither reject, nor support, but I'm just citing it as an example of what the term occupation meant). There were no third parties that forced the agreement upon Georgia. Also, these provinces don't view themselves as parts of Georgia, in the same manner that the Batlic States didn't view themselves as part of the USSR. Furthermore - Russians cannot be De Facto occupants: in order to be De Facto occupant - one must not be welcome in the region by the locals living next to the troops. Unless it is clearly proven that South Ossetians and Abkhazians don't want the Russians there, the Russians cannot be called De Facto occupants of those regions. They were De Facto occupants of Senaki though. De Jure is another story: the current De Jure status of the two regions is Unknown/Disputed. That's why it's a complex issue, one which I am not going to get into in this article. Xeeron - it's amazing - we agree on yet another thing. I do like naming of Poti and Gori, and I'd also add Senaki - considering that the Russians destroyed the Georgian military base located there. That would also show the extent of Russian Control. As for the map, whomever did it - did a great job, it's the best map to date that I can find. If you know of better ones - please provide the links. I like all the maps in the article and I'm open to new additions of maps. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

HRW and Cluster Bombs

It seems to me that this HRW statement didn't make it into the article. Humanitarian Impact Section mentions August 21 civilian deaths due to cluster bombs, yet leaves unclarified that their origin is undetermined, which in turn leaves reader to suggest they were russian. Also here i saw some controversy surrounding HRW statements on russians using cluster bombs. I think something of it should be incorporated into the article. ETST (talk) 19:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Today it was reported that the Dutch cameraman that was killed in Gori was indeed killed by Russian cluster bombs. And there were no troops in the area at the time of the attack.[3]. Närking (talk) 19:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Considering weight of such accusations, this article should have been somewhat more specific. I mean, what's up with those "forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts"? Are they published somewhere for anyone to verify, or we are again expected to take their word on it, like it was with HRW? Which one exactly was that mysterious "type of rocket that is only found in Russia's military arsenal"? How come they've concluded it was only Russia who had it, when, last time i checked, it's Georgia who was notorious for it's wide variety of western and soviet-made weapons used in this war? I think we should find primary source here, to back up such claims. Still, this one deserves mention too. We just need to find out precise time and place of the event, and place it into corresponding day's paragraph. ETST (talk) 00:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The investigation was ordered by the Dutch minister of foreign affairs Maxime Verhagen and led by Jacobovits de Szeged (a former ambassador) and Minze Beuvin who was the former commander of the Royal Marechaussee. Human Rights Watch has also drawn the same conclusion. Russia however still denies the use of cluster bombs, but the Dutch government takes it very serious. Grey Fox (talk) 02:31, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

As for your question if it's possible that the cluster bombs were instead dropped by Georgia's army; that seems very unlikely because on August 12 Russian forces weren't even in Gori. Instead Russian forces were bombing Gori, even though reportedly the Georgian army had already left it, which usually happens before the take-over of a city. Grey Fox (talk) 02:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Both sides used cluster bombs, in nearby locations, so you don't know which one hit. If you think you can accurately predict how a cluster bomb will work, you know little about the usage of the weapon. Two sides firing in close quarters, kinda hard to tell which ones hit; /start sarcasm "of course we know it was the Russians, I mean the Dutch commander who wasn't there said so, thus it's clearly the case" /end sarcasm. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 14:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the original research HistoricWarrior007. Grey Fox (talk) 14:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe it's OR, but HistoricWarrior has a point, with which I have to agree. Once shell is shot and landed, there is no way to determine, where it came from. We're speaking here not about bullet forensics, after all. You say "As for your question if it's possible that the cluster bombs were instead dropped by Georgia's army; that seems very unlikely because on August 12 Russian forces weren't even in Gori." The fact, which absolutely in no way stopped Georgians from claiming that they are there, remember? And while, personally, I'd rather prefer to think that georgian government just was telling an outright lie, they simply could have been mistaken. What was there shelled, again? The main square and an outside of a journalists' camp. If you were a georgian, where would you expect russian tanks to have a stay? On the main square. And what would you do, if you need a western attention gripper and a newsflash about evil russians? Bomb the outside of a western press center. You see, it's all not as simple, as it may look. In some way, not even the residents are in position to know, what's really happened in this war. And, if one is to look one of the reports of RussiaToday, which it had made available on YouTube(should be easy to find), one might see, that main square wasn't bombed at all. At least I get it that it was the main square on the footage. Now, that is really interesting, so while I am on it, can anyone, please, point me to the photos which are explicitly labeled as those of the bombed Gori? I've never got to see those, it's time for me to amend that. But let's back to the point.

There can be many explanations why the shell, which killed Dutch cameraman, belongs to any side of the conflict. You just name the side, and I'll give you a plenty of why it surely was their fault. But serious accusations cannot be based on such a unserious stuff, and "only Russia had this missile" is what I consider to be unserious stuff. It's like Georgia is not the country, which spent astronomical sums on arming, and which could have acquired any weapon you know, and any of those, you've never even heard of. Of course, all of the above is my original research. But there are doubts about HRW statements, they can be seen with the links I provided(this one might be of interest, too). The funniest part of it is that you can replace "HRW" with "Dutch investigation" in the text and all of these doubts and questions will stay valid. This investigation suffers from the same flaws as HRW's one, like the lack of publicated evidence. HRW was proved to be wrong for it's mis-identification of israeli-made submunition for russian-made one(the fact which went unnoticed on wikipedia). The Dutch investigation came to it's conclusion through some questionable assumptions like "only Russia had...". So, when you say "Human Rights Watch has also drawn the same conclusion" and "the Dutch government takes it very serious", I kind of start wondering, where the hell the seriousness there is?

Maybe, someday Russia will admit something, but for now it's not the case. So, as I've said before, we should find primary source to back up this claim with evidence. In the meantime, we should incrorporate in the article

1. HRW's "clarification", so the origin of all the mentioned cluster bombs won't be left to be supposedly russian.
2. The expression of doubts concerning all HRW statements.
3. A mention of this Dutch investigation conclusion.

In this exact sequence, please, i.e 1, 2, 3. Not just quick blame-russia piece of 3. Will some natively english-speaking editor do that? ETST (talk) 22:57, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

ETST not one shell was landed, but there was a series of small explosions that lasted for half a minute according to Filios Stangos who was there[4]. Storimans and others were killed near the media centre of the square. You asked for images, here are images of his death scene (graphic) [5] you can see video footage here [6][7] including the impact craters.

"And what would you do, if you need a western attention gripper and a newsflash about evil russians? Bomb the outside of a western press center." Isn't this the famous murder in the name of Russia to discredit Russia conspiracy theory? You just made this up yourself right? "You see, it's all not as simple, as it may look" Fortunately it is. I'm bewildered, as a Russian you should know that the present-day Russian army and government has a reputation of bombing civilians, afterwards denying this and not prosecuting anyone held responsible (chechnya). "Of course, all of the above is my original research." I'm glad you admit this, because original research is not allowed for wiki articles. The entire theory that the cluster bombs were from Georgia is made up by you right? It's not even alleged by Russian officials and as such has no place in this article. The same goes for your allegations that neither the HRW research or the Dutch research is reliable. As long as you don't have reliable sources disputing these researches, such criticism accounts to original research and has no bearing in this article. Grey Fox (talk) 16:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I can't watch them right now, but i'll be able to in a few days. "were killed near the media centre of the square" You wanna say, that the main square and the vicinity of media center is exactly the same place?

I don't know neither "murder in name of Russia" conspiracy theory, nor how "famous" it is, but I've heard something about cars blowed up not far from two popular places of some georgian town(without getting anybody hurt), with georgian government trying to pass it off as russian bombings(quite in the mood of Saak-running-away-from-non-existent-bomber video). I don't exactly recall, where I've heard it, but maybe it was the very same RussiaToday report on YouTube that I've mentioned. Take another step in thinking, and "blow the vicinity of western media center" "conspiracy theory" becomes not so unbelievable. Unfortunately, there are quite a few things in life which are simple and obvious, and only kiddies can think otherwise about matters, like this war, which require several years of international investigation, which can, despite all the effort, yield no conclusive result, unless investigators will resort to lame implications like "...Georgia didn't have...". No offense.

"...as a Russian you should know..." As a russian, I know many things on the matter, some of which somewhat undermine these Russia-bombed-civilians claims. I also could've pointed on some other countries which undoubtedly did bomb civilians. And of course, it's not like Georgia has a reputation of unexpectedly bombing civilians, especially while they're asleep, isn't it? But, non-bewilderingly enough, i'm not going to start another holywar here.

"I'm glad you admit this, because original research is not allowed for wiki articles." Er... Is it just me, or a possibility of me knowing wikipedia rules was denied to exist just now? I was rather under impression, that we were doing nothing more than exchanging personal opinions. Maybe you should keep this snide remark for the time when I'll actually start proposing "Georgians bombed Gori themselves" conspiracy theory for inclusion, how do you think? For now, as you can see, it's not listed in my three-point Medvedev-ETST wikipedia contribution plan. Speaking of which, I must point out, that point 1 aka "HRW clarification" is not an allegiation, in case you haven't noticed, but a statement from HRW itself. Point 2 aka "Allegiations of HRW unreliability" are supported with sources I provided. They're not reliable enough for you? Why won't you find the reliable ones, then? This should be relatively easy, seeing how I stumbled upon my links without even searching.

Ok, I don't really have time for this. I came here only to provide some relevant info. But I think these doubts about HRW should have their place in the article, so I ask some responsible editor to try and make my case on point 2 for me. ETST (talk) 22:17, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The media centre had been set up on the roof of the city's television and radio centre, which was at the boundaries of the main square.

The cars blown up to pull them off as if they were blown up by Russia could indeed be one of those theories. You should probably refrain from basing things on Russia Today, because theres censorship there as well as reported state influince. Another example of Russia using this theory is when they officially accuse "Boris Berizovsky" for murdering Anna Politkovskaya, a theory so unbelievable not even Tolkien would write about it. At the same time they don't provide any evidence whatsoever, which is odd when there's an arrest warrent out for him, and the accusations that Georgian cluster bombs killed these civilians in Gori will probably not be backed up by evidence either.

Yes you can indeed point out other countries that have bombed civilians, but the difference is that in the case of western countries this is followed by researches and prosecutions, unlike in modern-day Russia where instead reported war criminals such as Vladimir Shamanov (who also participated in this war) receive a dozen of medals. Above all Russia's reputation is uncomparable to that of western nations, unless you want to go back as far as the Vietnam War. For many years Grozny was the most destroyed city in Europe since World War II, and not to speak about the hundreds of villages that had been completely wiped off the map.

I was not aware that you were simply trying to exchange opinions, (we're actually not allowed to use these talk pages as a forum), but sorry for my cynical comments, they were unnecesary. As for the link you provided earlier, the writer seems notable, but she quotes a peculiar source herself when she mentions the theory of Georgia bombings its own civilians (moon of alabama), which in its turn even quotes a random Russian blogger. I don't think we're dealing with experts here, unlike the participants of the recent dutch investigation which included military experts. As for the proposal you made with the three points, I'm fine with that, but point 2/3 should probably just have Russia's official reply to the investigation reports. Further details might be revealed in the future. Grey Fox (talk) 23:26, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you ETST! I fully agree with you! Also, Grey Fox, here's a question for you - you seem to be totally ok with failing to slander me, but totally fail at answering my questions: Why would HRW blame both Georgians and Russians for cluster bombs? Could it be because HRW has partial proof that both sides used them, proof that they cannot confirm without divulging their sources, and unlike the NY Times they don't just want to make shit up, but actually get proof? You seemed perfectly fine with misquoting HRW civillian casualty estimates, why won't you side with them on cluster bombs? Any other explanation besides bias? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:02, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

HistoricWarrior007 you're rather uncivil on talk pages, please see the policy WP:AGF. As for your question, I do condemn Georgia's use of cluster bombs as well. The difference so far is that Georgia has not used them against civilian targets, but the danger of cluster bombs is that they can still make civilian casualties in the future. My country has signed a pact to never use cluster bombs again and is trying to persuade both Russia and Georgia to sign it as well. Grey Fox (talk) 16:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Grey Fox - once you stop trying to slander me, you'll find me rather civil. Otherwise I kinda like the Code of Hammurabi. You claim for instance that I've said HRW research isn't reliable, when I said that it is reliable and should be quoted word per word. Then you claim that I've said is that it's unreliable. Stop lying about what I've said! When I point out your slander against me, you still have the gall to call me uncivil. Are you trying to provoke me into doing something foolish so you can get me kicked off because you cannot argue against my arguments? You are also You are also editing your posts, on the talk pages, after I respond to them - that's just downright dirty tactic. Note Grey Fox's post before my previous one is 16:01, while mine is 3:02, same day. And after doing all that, I am somehow the one who is being uncivil? Seeing provocations and calling them out is not uncivil. Also, Georgia used Grads against civillians, that much has been proven. It takes no leap of imagination, to see that those who used Grads (missile launchers) wouldn't hesitate to use cluster bombs too, both are illegal to use on civillians according to the UN. As for my 'original research' here you go, enjoy: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/whose-cluster-b.html http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.rep-of-georgia/browse_thread/thread/2705df75816f8e3c/5caca363bac8deb2?lnk=raot http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1220186499847&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/01/georgia.russia?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews Need more? That's only the first page of my search. Also there were South Ossetian civillians running through the Roki Tunnel, which again Georgia admitted. So let's see here: Georgia knew of civillians near Roki Tunnel. Georgia dropped bombs near Roki Tunnel. Thus Georgia used cluster bombs in civillian areas - against civillians!!! Because I posted this, I am clearly uncivil, according to Grey Fox. Now let's see if he civilly alters the post before mine yet again. Screenshots FTW! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 16:40, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

HistoricWarrior007 you still have not pointed out where I try to "slander you". And no I don't "edit my posts, on the talk pages, after you respond to them", my message from 16:01 is in reply to User:ETST, not you. Thanks for the links on Georgia's use of cluster bombs, but what's the point? If you read my messages properly, I have not denied they've used cluster bombs, instead I admit they did. Grey Fox (talk) 17:18, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I have pointed that out on your very own talk page. You first assumed that I was from Russia, an irrelevant assumption on Wikipedia, and then you informed me that my media was biased. My media is the Internet - which by definition cannot be biased, because I have access to the exact source that you have access to. And although you haven't denied Georgia's use of cluster bombs, you have denied their use on civillian targets. Your very own qoute: "The difference so far is that Georgia has not used them against civilian targets" - and I pointed out that Georgia used them in the Roki Tunnel Area, where Georgia knew, damn well knew, that there were civillian targets. As for the post, my post says the time at 3:02 - your post - above mine, states the time at 16:01 on the same day. Last time I checked, 16 comes after 3. Yet your post comes before mine. Again qouting Jon Stewart "Don't you people know we are recording this stuff!!!" HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 05:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't just assume you were from Russia I thought I had picked it up somewhere, but perhaps I was wrong. It doesn't matter though. As for your allegation that Georgia "used cluster bombs on civilians", is this another example of your original research? Because as far as I can see, the area arround the Roki tunnel is completely uninhabited.Grey Fox (talk) 08:47, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, as predictable as it can be, some Russian official has now indeed alleged that they were "georgian cluster bombs". The representatives of the independent investigation have also responded that that's not true and that their research is still genuine. Grey Fox (talk) 20:54, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

No civillians live on a bridge either. However civillians do move across the bridge. Same thing with a tunnel, such as the Roki Tunnel. I shall repeat it yet a third time for you: A. Georgians used clusted bombs near Roki Tunnel Area. B. Civillians were fleeing through the Roki Tunnel at the same time. Thus, when we combine A + B = that Georgians were dropping clusted bombs near the Roki Tunnel area as the South Ossetian Civillians were fleeing through the tunnel. HRW reports are under review, and there are allegations that both sides used cluster bombs. Please note that I didn't take the pro-Russian side on this, by saying that only Georgia used the cluster bombs, but rather took the side of honesty. How that makes me pro-Russian biased, is beyond me. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Ahem - in the Russian casualty Box

Ok, this is just pure original research. The info box reads: "Russian Prosecutor's Office Committee claims 154 deaths, creating a confusion with 1,492 reported by Russian media." For this it cites a source - an e-mail. Nowhere in the e-mail is there ANY word called "confusion". Whomever made the edit "creating a confusion..." performed nothing less then original research. It should instantly be removed. Furthermore the article read: "We also reference the figures arrived at by Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General's office, which is investigating now 154 deaths (its first published figure was 133). We have always said that it was completely unclear whether the Prosecutor General's investigation is distinguishing between civilians and volunteer militias, and if so, how. The many men in South Ossetia who took up arms to defend their homes are not military, but they are regarded as combatants by international humanitarian law and as such should not be counted among civilian casualties. (The same issues are relevant to the list of 310 deaths compiled in South Ossetia by a commission of Russian and Ossetian public figures)." Note the word "investigating" which isn't the same as "citing" or "claiming". You can claim 5,000 murders and investigate only 1. This is just becoming plain pathetic. The "editors" doing these "edits" are using HRW's claims of uncertainty - again citing from the source here: "We did not present this figure, or any other figure, as a comprehensive account because Human Rights Watch does not have the capacity to make a definitive estimate as to the number of civilian casualties." The "editors" completely ignore this part of the article, and "edit" away, without any standards of professionalism. Unless these standards rapidly improve, I will ask for a lock on the casualty box and place a sign there saying "shut down due to original pro-Georgian research" - which is clearly what's going on. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 08:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Made the edit that took out all of the original research and left the blunt facts. Anyone engaging in Original Research in the infobox - consider this a warning. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 08:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry ... you did insert similar nonsense in article as before. (There is still so much "trash" in this article it will need weeks or more to get an acceptable article). Check the sources - not only the mentioned - and then make acceptable changes! It doesn't make sense to substitute "nonsense" for "nonsense". In short: Regarding different Russian/Ossetian official sources we have a certain chronologic history of "reports" about civilian losses on SO side: Putin's "Genocide" - Death of "2000 civilians and more" - then estimations from SO side between ca. 1500 and 1600. All these estimations were disputed by HRW from beginning , later by Memorial (at last in October) and Russian publicists because the stupendous difference between the gradually decreasing estimations and real confirmations of casualties ( by sampling and/or investigation) and the not appropriate rate of alleged dead people and de facto wounded people. Elysander (talk) 11:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Where did I insert nonsense? I edited out the nonsense. Please stop making up stuff about me Elyslander, or provide proof. S.O. side initially said that 2,000 were killed/missing, then some people came back, so it dropped to 1492 killed/missing, of which tehre are XXX amount (it's in the article) of confirmed deaths. I took the sources that were there, and simply qouted them verbatum, taking out all of the nonsense. Elyslander - show me where exactly did I post nonsense, in the actual article, link me! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Russia and South Ossetian officials claim 1,492 South Ossetian civilians killed/missing (365 confirmed by September 25)[21][22][23] HRW and Memorial[24][25] claim up to 100 killed[26]. Russian Prosecutor's Office Committee is investigating 154 deaths.[27] You were substituting "nonsense" for "nonsense. Official Russian claim at war beginning was "Genocide", then Russian and SO officials claimed 2000 and more; later SO officials claimed 1492, the last "official" SO estimation was 1592. The results of investigations (=confirmations of deads/casualties) by SO and Russian prosecutors are different til today. These estimations and confirmations are disputed by several NGO and media. Obviously on SO side it will be not consequently divided between "civilians" and "combatants". In contrary to "your claim" HRW and Memorial say they cannot tell exact numbers. Conclusio: Your 3 sentences are all anyway wrong! Elysander (talk) 13:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The Russians said up to 2,000 - which meant that some were killed and some were missing. With 24,000 refugees (to use the HRW's number) it's very plausible that 2,000 people may get lost, or simply not get to a location in time, or the clerk loses the paperwork. The initial claim made by Russian Officials was "2000 Ossetians UNACCOUNTED FOR" - i.e. could be dead, missing, wounded, etc. Also, you are calling my sentences wrong, but throwing in complete nonsense. I've taken the sources, and instead of doing original research, like you, simply quoted them verbatum. Thus it cannot possibly be original research, because the articles were quoted verbatum Elyslander. And for removing the original b/s written by pro-Georgian editors, you lash out at me, without making any sense in your post. Do you understand that concept? Just to clear up the definition - Genocide means removal of an entire race from society, Ethnic Clensing means removal of a certain group of people from region X. HUGE difference. The Russians can call it whatever they want, I mean Saakashvili is talking about how the Russians fired the first shots (most likely through telepathy). They were wrong to call it Genocide. However firing Grads on civillians isn't exactly a Democratic Approach, Elyslander. It's a Failed Attempt at Ethnic Clensing. I am not responsible for what the Russians say. I am responsible for my edits, which had NOTHING to do with Genocide Elyslander. Please try to understand that. Thank you Elyslander. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Great secondary source

An interview of Andrei Illarionov at Echo of Moscow that he made after visiting South Ossetia (unfortunately Russian): [8]. He explains advance preparations of Russia for this war in great detail and a lot of other things.Biophys (talk) 17:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Some important points (I can not translate right now):

• на 7 августа за всего лишь 6 дней из Южной Осетии было эвакуировано 17 тысяч человек. Это данные ФМС России. общая численность осетинского населения не превышала 40 тысяч человек. 17 тысяч человек от всего осетинского населения Южной Осетии это практически все гражданское население....по уже наблюдениям российских журналистов, которые оказались в Цхинвали 6 и 7 августа, процентов 80-90 гражданского населения из Цхинвали и осетинских сел было уже эвакуировано. Там оставалось практически только мужское население призывного возраста.

17 thousand of South Ossetians were evacuated to North Ossetia During 6 days prior to August 7. According to Russian press, 80-90% of civilian South Ossetians were evacuated by August 6. Only man of fighting age remained.

• Это было принято решение, оно осуществлялось со 2 августа. Было централизованное решение, впервые за почти 20-летнюю современную историю конфликта, практически все гражданское население было эвакуировано и это поставило большие вопросы, в том числе и перед грузинской стороной. Потому что никогда за все предшествующие периоды, в том числе и периоды ведения спорадических военных действий и обстрелов, югоосетинские власти не эвакуировали все гражданское население с территории Южной Осетии. Эта операция была проведена до 7 августа и точно до вечера 7 августа, когда произошло обострение боевых действий.

That evacuation started at August 2. That was an unprecendented centralized decision. Evacuation ended precisely at August 7, the beginning of military action.

1. 2-3 августа была объявлена мобилизация на Северном Кавказе. Так называемая мобилизация добровольцев и казаков на помощь Южной Осетии. Для всех тех, кто знаком с организацией военных действий, собственно говоря, началом военных действий является объявление мобилизации. История Первой мировой, история других войн показывает, что когда объявляется мобилизация, остановить дальнейшее развитие боевых действий оказывается чрезвычайно трудным. Почти невозможным. С 3 августа начинают поступать добровольцы на территорию Южной Осетии от 300 до 1000 человек в каждую ночь. Причем это такие добровольцы, о которых организаторы этого движения сообщают, что в этот раз, я цитирую: никакой самодеятельности здесь нет, все добровольцы получают регистрацию в военных комиссариатах республик Северного Кавказа, и мы всех отправляем организованными колоннами на территорию Южной Осетии. С 4 числа разворачивается несколько специальных подразделений российских на территории Южной Осетии. 6-7 числа на территорию Южной Осетии прибывает большая группа российских журналистов. Специально готовых освещать и стремящихся освещать войну. Собственно говоря, осетинские СМИ с конца июля особенно в самом начале августа практически все переполнены сообщениями о том, что будет война, готовимся к войне.

On August 2-3, a mobilization was declared at North Caucasus. Every night, 300 to 1000 "volunteers" crossed to the South Ossetian territory every night. All "volunteers" were officially registered in Russian military commissariats. Several units of Russian special forces were placed in South Ossetia on August 4. A large group of Russian journalists came there to cover the events on August 6-7. South Ossetian media were filled up with articles about the future war.

• поскольку это началось 2-3 августа, грузинская сторона делает несколько обращений к российской стороне об установлении совместного грузино-российского контроля за Рокским тоннелем и за движением людей и сил через Рокский тоннель. Дело в том, что через Рокский тоннель каждую ночь продвигалось большое количество людей, и грузины неоднократно обращались к российским властям для того, чтобы пресечь как они говорили: движение непонятных вооруженных людей через Рокский тоннель и установление совместного контроля. Они обращались несколько раз, причем затем к ним присоединились даже власти США.

1. российское Министерство обороны регулярно публиковало сводки о прохождении маневров «Кавказ-2008» с середины июля до 2 августа, когда около 10 тысяч солдат и офицеров при поддержке как минимум 700 единиц бронетехники проводили маневры на Северном Кавказе. Правда, после завершения маневров 2 августа войска никуда не ушли, а остались на своих местах. Сообщения же офицеров и солдат, участвующих в этих маневрах, говорят о том, что часть участников маневров не только участвовали в маневрах на территории Северного Кавказа, не только вышли на перевалы, и довольно много об этом было публикаций и на сайте Минобороны, и в газете «Красная Звезда», но и перешли эти перевалы. И некоторые из них довольно подробно рассказывают о том, что «у нас были маневры на территории Южной Осетии». Некоторые рассказывают о том, что «мы в течение недели находимся на холмах, окружающих Цхинвали, и видим, как там происходят в течение недели обстрелы». То есть это все происходило до 7 августа.

• как минимум четыре подразделения российской армии находились на территории Южной Осетии еще до 7 августа, включая 135-й мотострелковый полк и 22-ю бригаду спецназа. Кроме того, там же находились и некоторые танковые подразделения регулярных российских войск, которые участвовали поначалу в маневрах «Кавказ-2008», а потом оказались на территории Южной Осетии.

• Что касается концентрации войск, вооружений и военной техники, то Россия и югоосетинская сторона стали накапливать вооруженные силы и вооружение на территории Южной Осетии с мая 2004 года. Еще раз повторю – с мая 2004 года. То есть за 4 с лишним года до начала этой острой фазы конфликта, и в результате накопления этих вооруженных сил и вооружений Южная Осетия стала регионом, наиболее милитаризованным в современном мире. По количеству вооруженных сил на тысячу жителей она вдвое опередила абсолютного рекордсмена до 2004 года – Северную Корею. А по количеству боевой техники, танков, артиллерийских систем, самоходных артиллерийских установок, систем «град» на тысячу населения Южная Осетия в 5-7 раз превышает даже показатель Северной Кореи. Так что накопление вооруженных сил и вооружения на территории Южной Осетии продолжалось более 4 лет. Офицеры югоосетинской армии получали образование и тренировку в российских вооруженных силах. Во владикавказском военном училище был открыт специальный югоосетинский факультет подготовки соответствующих кадров. С 2005 года российские офицеры на действительной военной службе стали занимать ведущие позиции в югоосетинских силовых структурах, посты министров обороны, министров внутренних дел, руководителей КГБ, министерства по чрезвычайным ситуациям, секретаря совета безопасности и т.д. и т.п.

Russia and the South Ossetian side started accumulation of military forces at the Georgian (S.Ossetia) territory since May of 2004, making this a more militarized zone than North Korea.

• Это [this war] геополитическая катастрофа [for Russia], потому что в течение как минимум двух с лишним столетий многие поколения российских людей и российских властей создавали и поддерживали очень хрупкий и очень неустойчивый геополитический баланс на Южном Кавказе, где основным партнером, основным союзником для России была Грузия. И в результате многих кампаний, которые происходили в течение этого времени, Грузия и Россия были на одной стороне, были союзниками. В течение нескольких месяцев, прошедших после этого, этот геополитический баланс, создававшийся поколениями политиков и оплаченный кровью десятков, если не сотен тысяч людей, был разрушен на Кавказе. Biophys (talk) 17:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Well as this is not in English its not a lot of use, please provide a translation[[Slatersteven (talk) 18:33, 25 October 2008 (UTC)]]

You can always run it through Google translation [9]. It will give a rather good translation. And the interview with Andrei Illarionov sure is very interesting. Närking (talk) 19:38, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

the onous is on the person posting a non english source to provide a translation[[[User:Slatersteven|Slatersteven]] (talk) 20:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)]]

It is an ok secondary source, not great. I am not going to argue against the points raised here. But you do not have to be an expert to see how biased Illarionov's arguments are. He portrayed the Russia-Georgia conflict which ultimately led to the war as it was all Russia's fault and it was long planned by Russia. He basically focused on the Russian side of the escalation of hostilities. Did he mention anything about Georgia's anti-Russian sentiments, its NATO ambitions, military buildup, recent NATO-Georgia military exercises, all the provocations against the peacekeepers? I do not see that. Other good points to include are Russian embargoes versus US economic and military help for Georgia. So it is escalation of mistakes for both sides not just Russian. And this is a geopolitical catastrophe for both Russia and Georgia, not just Russia. A clear gain by USA though. (Igny (talk) 20:53, 25 October 2008 (UTC))

Note that he had talked to all sides of the conflict, Georgian (both Government and opposition), South Ossetian (where he interestingly didn't find any opposite views) and Russian. And Andrei Illarionov isn't just anybody, but Putin's former advisor. Närking (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

That does not make these arguments any less biased. If you look hard enough you will probably be able to find Georgians, former high ranking officials, who are criticizing Saakashvili now (does anyone here know the Georgian language?) I would like everyone here to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which, among other things, teaches children that some people only see what they wants to acknowledge. And it is hard to argue with them, because both sides would argue about different things. (Igny (talk) 21:20, 25 October 2008 (UTC))

killed Russian peacekeepers

Why do certain editors keep deleting any mention of the well referenced and well documented and very important event of killing Russian peacekeepers by Georgians at the start of this war? At some moment there was no mention of this event anywhere in the article. (Igny (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2008 (UTC))

Ridiculous comment! Article's time line documents the death of Georgian and Russian peacekeepers in the chronology of events on 7/8 August Elysander (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I had a typo in the search command when looking for the keywords. And I expected it to be in line for August 7 (when it actually happened), not 8 (when it was reported). Sorry. (Igny (talk) 23:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC))

Why was the cell phone interception calls taken out?

Why did someone delete that? Georgia intercepted phone calls saying Russian troops had bee entering the country a day before the invasion. Why did it get taken out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.179.183.114 (talk) 17:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Check the archives! You will find two already archived talk subsections about. These certain informations are inserted in article's timeline. Elysander (talk) 10:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Because. Prove it first before making wild allegations.--SergeiXXX (talk) 01:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The tapes were genuine according to the news agency who received them (respected newspaper I forget). Grey Fox (talk) 13:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Not because! There are still open questions. It's obvious that Russian-government-lobbyists are not interested to clear them. ;) Elysander (talk) 10:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

If the tapes are so amazingly clear, why not let the UN analyze them? I mean if you've got nothing to hide and it's not forged, why not let the UN take a crack at it? Just for the record Russia is letting peaceful UNers, like HRW into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, they're not letting the UN troops go in. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The tapes were genuine said a pro-Georgian newspaper. A pro-Russian newspaper said they weren't and challenged the Georgians to produce these "factual" tapes to the UN. The Georgians failed to do so, therefore the tapes aren't proven factually, and cannot be proven facts. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't a pro-Georgian newspaper. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/world/europe/16georgia.html Grey Fox (talk) 12:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

1st off, the US Corporate Media has been overwhelmingly pro-Georgian. Ny Times is US Corporate Media. You saying that US Corporate Media sources aren't pro-Georgian are just as ridiculuous as someone saying that Belorussian Government Media isn't pro-Russian. Secondly, the FACT that I cited was from the UN, and thus cannot possibly be pro-Russian. I don't think the US and the UK gave up their UN veto power, so I don't regard the UN as a pro-Russain institution, and by you calling the UN pro-Russian - you clearly and blatantly show your bias. Asking the UN to review something isn't considered pro-anything, it's just asking the source to be verified. We've seen how well the NY Times verified the Iraqi WMDs Reports: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2957 And here's the NY Times being critical of the Second Chechen War: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E5DE1F3CF935A15753C1A9649C8B63 Wait, that's not constructive criticism, that's just flat out bashing Russia, without bothering to mention that the Chechens attacked Dagestan. And on August 7th, when Georgian Grads rolled into South Ossetia to shell hell on Tkshinvali, the Western Corporate Media didn't even bother to document those atrocities. US Corporate Media's parroting of White House and White House Puppet lines makes them a poor source, and pro-Georgian to say the least. Also, the tape has yet to be proven true by an independent sources, even NATO countries such as Germany, Greece, Spain, Slovakia, etc. It's pure spin-off, and that's not something that Wikipedia promotes. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Once again you don't seem to understand the difference between free press and unfree press, such as in your home country Russia. Read the wiki rules on reliable sources. An article like this is certainly one we can use, and someone who believes in a conspiracy from the new york times is not allowed to delete it. As for "Chechens attacked Dagestan", first of all many, if not most, weren't chechens, and second of all it makes no difference whatsoever because they weren't subordinate to the Chechen government and as such carry no reason to overthrow a democratically elected government.Grey Fox (talk) 23:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Grey Fox - first off I don't live in Russia. Stop it with the personal attacks already, seriously, you're placing yourself below nil with those. Secondly, if the tapes are real, I fail to see why Georgia won't hand them over to be analyzed by the UN's Security Council. You attempting to hint at my bias, while failing to counter my argument, shows your bias. See how that works? Finally, the tapes are clearly baised and what's the point of putting another biased source in the article, while we're trying to keep it short? I don't get that. I love how you dodge the question as to why Georgia won't let the UN Security Council examine the tapes, hoping to instead provoke me to further go off-topic in the Dagestan Debate. At that you fail. Argue against my arguments, not against me, otherwise I'll just repeat my arguments and point out your fallacies, until either you get it, or the readers get it. And stop throwing read this wiki or read that wiki stuff at me please; first off they don't back up your argument one bit; secondly it makes you look weak, as you try to say that the purposely ambiguous wording of wikipedia backs up your claim, when it reality doesn't and could go either way. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 05:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I am glad that you have come round to acepting that the UN is not biased HistoricWarrior007. Can I remind you of this edit above? It shows that the UN uses "Situation in Georgia" to refer to the war. Which, by your own logic, since Russia has not given up its veto yet, can not be pro-Georgian. Disproves your implication of being de-facto part of Georgia and thus biased theory used above. --Xeeron (talk) 09:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

"The intercepts circulated last week among intelligence agencies in the United States and Europe, part of a Georgian government effort to persuade the West and opposition voices at home that Georgia was under invasion and attacked defensively. Georgia argues that as a tiny and vulnerable nation allied with the West, it deserves extensive military and political support. Georgia also provided audio files of the intercepts along with English translations to The New York Times, which made its own independent translation from the original Ossetian into Russian and then into English. Russia has not disputed the veracity of the phone calls, which were apparently made by Ossetian border guards on a private Georgian cellphone network. " Somehow this is all a big conspiracy right? "Georgian officials said they provided the materials last week to the United States and France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, in addition to two reporters for The Times. The Times hired an independent Ossetian linguist in Russia to translate the recordings." Grey Fox (talk) 14:06, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok Xeeron - the UN uses "Situation in Georgia" to describe the whole affair, our article is focused on the August War. This article further clarifies my explanation, that the "Situation in Georgia" means the whole ting, not the August War. http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/10527.html It's still "Situation in Georgia" for the UN, whereas the war is over. Our article is focused specifically on the war, not the situation as a whole. Therefore, your suggestion that we follow the name that you propose using the UN, is as foolish, as asking the US Civil Historians to change the name "Battle of Bull Run" to "The Virginia Theatre". In other words, our article is SPECIFIC to the war, the UN issue covers not only the war, but a lot of other stuff as well, thus being GENERAL in scope. See the difference? Good. Grey Fox - you can easily bribe a linguist to say anything you want. Also, didn't Georgia say that those tapes were in Russian? If the tapes are in Russian, why an Ossetian translator? If we're talking about joint Russo-Ossetian military operations, wouldn't Russian have been the language of choice here? Also, why not give the tapes over to the UN Security Council if they're so bulletproof? As for the conspiracy - umm that already happened, Iraq War, 2003, all Corporate Media Channels claiming that Saddam had WMDs, but their data didn't stand up to UN standards. Same exact case here. Shish, stop making me look like a crazy conspiracy theorist, for merely asking: "If the tapes are bulletproof why not show them to the UN Security Council?" It's a legitimate question, that any astute reader should ask, and has nothing to do with crazy conspiracy theories. Why you try so hard to make me look bad, yet fail to answer the question is beyond me. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The conversations were between Ossetian borderguards. That's why the language was Ossetian. I don't recall "all corporate media channels" claiming that Saddam had WMDs, they only repeated the allegations from US and other intelligence agencies, but still in quotations. And what makes you think the tapes weren't sent to the UN? Maybe they have? Anyway there's no point in arguing. If you really believe the NYT is a bad source, try to run it through one of the source noticeboards of wikipedia. Grey Fox (talk) 02:14, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

If they were sent to the UN, I'd read about it, because the UN News Centre would publish it. Duh! Also, Ossetian borderguards seeing Russian tanks on Georgian-Ossetian border? Does that mean that Saakashvili launched the attack, knowing he was going to lose? What a nice leader the Georgians have. Also, why would South Ossetia guard it's border with North Ossetia, the two are blood-sworn allies? And where was the Ossetian border guard positioned? Cause if it was North Ossetia - well no shit Russian tanks were in North Ossetia - you don't even have to prove that, there's a military base there! I don't believe NYT is a bad source necessarily, just biased when it comes to Russia. Also, the US Corporate Media quoted Bush's lines over and over again. So what if they were in quotations, they still refused to tell the other side of the story. Like even hint that if Saddam had WMDs - couldn't he have used them again US troops and produce massive American casualties? If you quote something, and then don't counterargue it - you are implicitely supporting it. Not to mention that even in certain American circles US Corporate Media is considered "shit" when it comes to reporting America's Foreign Policy. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's an article full of inaccuracies: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/world/europe/10georgia.html?hp 15,000 Russian Troops = All Out War? "appeared to be developing into the worst clashes between Russia and a foreign military since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979" - why don't they mention Chechnya? To hint that Russia's actions in Georgia are similar to that of Afghanistan? Hint or no hint, that's biased and inaccurate! "As Russia moved more forces into the region and continued aerial bombing, it appeared determined to occupy both South Ossetia and Abkhazia." Should say re-occupy, not occupy, again misleading and biased. "showed Mr. Putin meeting generals, suggesting that he was directly in charge of military operations, eclipsing the authority of President Dmitri A. Medvedev." Incorrect, Medevedev delegated the Caucasian Region to Putin, and Vlad was there on Dmitri's authority. Another misleading quote: "Other Western officials monitored the movements with alarm. “The record is crystal clear,” said a Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Russia has launched a full-scale military operation, on air, land and sea. We have entered a totally new realm — politically, legally and diplomatically.”" Note how the source is anonymous - could be a person, could be just NY Times opinion, no way to confirm. Also 15,000 troops hardly warrant a full scale military operation. As for the New Realm comment, that would require Russia taking Tbilisi, which they didn't even try to do. "Russia’s oil riches and desire to assert economic leverage over Europe and the West had emboldened Kremlin country to attack." Again, look at the maps in the article, Russia gave oil pipelines back, and anyone thinking that those two pipelines would help Russia's economic leverage over Europe is a Buffoon. "If the world is not able to stop Russia here, then Russian tanks and Russian paratroopers can appear in every European capital" - ROFL!!! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry .. but you are not able to read a simple text. You cannot obviously distinguish between informations, citations from third parties and journalistic comment; you are running in your own trap of inaccuracy and bias. Was Chechnya UN, OSCE etc. member? NYT mirrored correctly the public ( and publicized) opinon in Russia about Putin's role at war's beginning. What you believe as anonymous and "misleading quote" you can find at different places in the SOWar article itself - often distinctly "Pro-Russian". And at last do you really want to sell us Georgian citations ( oil etc.) as NYT comment/opinion??? - ROTFL Elysander (talk) 11:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Elysander, it appears that you are unable to understand basic military tactics. You claim that since Chechnya was De Jure part of Russia in between the First and Second Chechen Wars, there could be no foreign military there, correct? What about the Mujaheedin of Afghanistan that fought on the Chechen Side? Wouldn't that be foreign military? Wouldn't omitting that be blatantly biased? Shouldn't your lack of knowledge on this issue preclude you from commenting? Also, there were many organization internationally that helped supply the Chechen Rebellion that would be considered foreign military. The NY Times made a mistake and showed clear and blantant BIAS in doing so. Also, when an article cites a source, and then either gives a weak argument against it (as the NY Times did) or no argument, it ENDORSES the citation. That's Journalism 101. I urge you to study it Elysander. Also, do you have an actual source for the anonymous qoute? Or am I supposed to trust you on this, like Americans trusted Bush on Iraqi WMDs and Saddam-Osama links? Can I get a link on the anonymous qoute? Or is it corporate media SPAM like Saddam - Osama - WMDs? Being pro-Russian or anti-Russian has nothing to do with the qoute being made up! If you cannot prove it, take it out, pro-Russian or not! Saying "according to an anonymous source that we cannot reveal due to the sensitivity of the information" is exactly the same as saying "trust what we say, regardless of our source". Finally, as I've said earlier, if NY Times cites it, and give weak opposition to it, it's an ENDORSEMENT of the qoute. Otherwise, why cite it, if you don't think it's credible? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

HistoricWarrior007 you can place your complaints that the NYT is not a reliable source at WP:RSN. Good luck with that. Grey Fox (talk) 16:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear Grey Fox, once again I shall repeat: reading comprehension is a wonderful thing, and I said that NY Times is not a reliable source when it comes to Russia; I never said that on other matters, such as reporting on New York City, which is the paper's main job, the NY Times is unreliable. Just because a paper gets a whole section wrong, doesn't mean that all of the paper's wrong, i.e. you know when you're taking an exam and there are four essays on it, you can totally fail one and still pass the test. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 16:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Tell the noticeboard exactly that and they'll tell you if you're wrong or right. Otherwise you have no legitimate reason to remove NYT sources. Grey Fox (talk) 17:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Grey Fox - no more cluster bomb arguments? How come? In order to question a source the way that you are proposing, takes quite a bit of time to establish an argument. I have already proven you wrong on the cluster bomb issue, and I have merely asked, if the tapes are bulletproof - why no send it to the UN? I'm not against NY Times as a whole, just certain of its articles on Russia. Included amongst those, is the translation tapes article. All I have asked to do was to either remove it, or point out that the tapes were not turned over to the UN for inspection, despite UN's request. You fail at trying to make this the NY Times vs. HistoricWarrior issue, because it is not. You cannot simply quote the NY Times, without quoting the UN, when they're talking about the same damn issue, which is what you did, and it was part of the reason for the removal. This is as clear as I can make it. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 05:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Please show a reliable source that states that 1) the UN requested the tapes and 2) they did not receive them. Grey Fox (talk) 08:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be kinda silly to have an article showing that Russians haven't recieved the tapes. On the contrary, had the Russians recieved the tapes, I am sure there would be an article about that. But asking me to show what cannot exist is silly. I cannot show you that I don't have a fruit. As for Russia requesting the tapes through the UN, here ya go, how's MSNBC for ya? "I would be grateful if they provide such satellite data to us and the entire global community, provide specific data," Nesterenko said sarcastically. "Allegations that they have eavesdropped on someone and heard something are simply not serious." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26739573/ By satellite data - he means that every cell phone call emits a satellite signal, when dialed, thus Georgia could easily produce the satellite data, provided that the calls were not bullshit. Note he says "to us AND the entire global community - i.e. the UN". Also, bugging a cell without it being noticed by a satellite, especially when the Russians had their satellites honed in on the Caucasian region since Chechen troops entered Dagestan, does sound a tad ridiculous. Don't believe me? Dial 911 - and you'll experience satellite phone tracking. Don't do it for too long, otherwise you might get into trouble. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The source doesn't say anything about the UN, and doesn't quote the UN at all. "either remove it, or point out that the tapes were not turned over to the UN for inspection, despite UN's request." "You cannot simply quote the NY Times, without quoting the UN, when they're talking about the same damn issue," Again which quotes from the UN are you talking about? Also, absence of proof is not absence. The source can stay, and you may include Russia's dismissal. Grey Fox (talk) 02:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Grey Fox - can you please tell me what Russia could have meant by the Global Community, if they didn't mean the UN? Anything else? Like the World Bank? Or IMF? Also, if you have the tapes with Georgia and NY Times saying X, and Russia saying - "let's see the tapes and have the Global Community look through them to find X" and Georgia REFUSING to do so, doesn't that, via any form of common sense, mean that Georgia and NY Times are lying on this particular issue? I mean it's not like Georgia's satellite technology is superior to Russia's. Just use common sense man, that's all I ask. Is that a bit too much? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the Russian state-owned media is a *much* better alternative *rolls eyes*

75.185.105.36 (talk) 14:27, 25 October 2008 (UTC) Jade Rat

Umm, objection! Relevance! Are you just trying to bash me Jade Rat? Cause the articles I qouted weren't exactly Russian state media. Wow, for asking people to use common sense I somehow related to Pravda. Wow, just wow. So tell me Jade Rat, do you believe that MSNBC is Russian state media? Cause that was the article I qouted. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

A decent article - I think, and here's what I want to include from it...

http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2008/09/georgians_question_saakashvili.html

Cleveland - not pro-Russian. Ok we've established that, yay!

"Nino Burdzhanadze, the former speaker of parliament, said Georgia does not need a new revolution. "We are farther from solving the conflict that we were before the August crisis," she told The Associated Press. "We have problems with the economy and democracy, how can you speak of promises right now?" She blamed Saakashvili for the political and economic disruption caused by last month's war with Russia, in which Georgia used military force to try to reclaim control of a separatist region, South Ossetia. Russia crushed the Georgian military, drove deep within Georgia and later recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia."

I realize that I prolly won't be able to include all of that - but the fact that Saakashvili was blamed for the disruption of the war with Russia - shows that Georgians were the initial attackers. Also, finally someone had the guts to admit that Georgia went into South Ossetia, unprovoked by Russia, and that caused Russia's response. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:46, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why we need to prove the sky is blue. The Georgian goverment announce that they were "Restoring the Georgian constitution to South Ossetia" so they were the initial attackers in terms of a ground assault. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Because quite a lot of corporate media sources blamed Russia, and it's often hard to go against the flow, even when the facts support your conclusions. Look at all the times I'm been bashed here, especially after I took out the original reserach from the casualty box and quoted it verbatum. So I think something like that in the intro. paragraph would be nice - it shows who fired the first shots, and who shot back, more accurately shall we say. (((I could also direct your attention to the Kosovo article, and the attitude of some pro-Albanian editors there, i.e. "we don't need it cause I said so" kind of edits, or "well the majority of us said so" etc. The dust is clearing up here and my predictions, and I've yet to be wrong with these, it's why I get what get, BTW Obama to win, is that eventually Kosovo will once again become a De Jure part of Serbia; NATO cannot afford to be there forever, and for Thaci there was a saying "you can conquer, but it doesn't mean that you can rule".))) HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Georgian troops might have well been provoked [10] or at least got shot at before the war... Mariah-Yulia (talk) 22:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Provoked to enter South Ossetian soil? Provoked to withdraw their Peacekeepers from South Ossetia? And that article is a joke, could easily be refuted, cites very few verifiable sources, and has a certain degree of B/S. Kosovo was a foreign relations disaster for the Americans - Georgia - umm, not really. Inability to defend a country that's fired first, using Grads on Russians, that's bordering Russia, isn't exactly a foreign policy failure. Also the article really tries too hard to evoke the New Cold War imagery; the New Cold War theory is a joke. It's designed to gear the newspaper's readers' attention away from the Economic Crisis and into the New Cold War, hoping that the readers will forgive the government's failings of the economy, and gear up to fight Russia. The fact is that no country (except maybe China) can afford the New Cold War. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:25, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The Sunday Times is a respectable newspaper and you are not. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 00:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but even respectable sources have poor articles. If for critiquing these I lose the respect of your highness, then so be it. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

In terms of Russia, many 'western' sources are not reliable. Take Karinna_Moskalenko#Poisoning_by_mercury for a prime example. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 01:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

“Not only had America and its Nato partners been shamed by the invasion of a country that had been welcomed into the western embrace, but they had also shown themselves incapable of sending home the Russians and their henchmen. This humiliation raises far-reaching questions about American power, Russian revanchism and Europe’s sometimes craven relationship with the Kremlin.”

What was NATO supposed to do? When Saakashvili’s soldiers shot at Russian soldiers legitimately positioned on South Ossetia’s territory, and the Russians responded, was NATO supposed to go against Russia, thus ensuring Russians supplies to Iran to deal a serious blow to the American war efforts in Iraq, or an economic blockade by Russia of Europe, which would have resulted in a depression? There’s no shame in not backing up a tie chewer’s attack on Russian soldiers and citizens, especially when his country is adjacent to Russia.

““Realist” diplomats from Henry Kissinger downwards are pointing out that America can’t do both because a contained Russia won’t be a cooperative Russia.”

Why’s realist in quotes? Was Henry Kissinger not a realist diplomat. Also, how can you contain Russia? They kind of state a fact there, no reason to insult them for merely stating facts.

“However, if Georgia were to join Nato…”

Yeah, and if pigs could fly… any non-simpleton studying Geopolitics would know that Germany and France would reject Georgia as long as it had South Ossetia and Abkhazia being part of it, and due to Russia’s objections, because Russia supplies energy to these countries. Doh!

“Is the invasion of Georgia the first step towards an armed confrontation between America and Russia?”

Here we go again with the scare tactics. Russia is about to invade Georgia – Ukraine could be next, and then it could be, Poland, and oh my! We’ll be in a nuclear war before we know it!

“On Friday, Russia even threatened Poland with nuclear retaliation for agreeing to host US rockets as part of its antimissile shield.”

Quick – get me my anti-nuclear security blanket. Of first off, it was a Col. General who made the threat, which wasn’t seconded by either Medvedev or Putin. It is similar to the threat made by Curtis LeMay to nuke Russia. Never happened. This “threat” was made by a person who neither decides Russian nuclear policy, nor has any say whatsoever in Russia’s nuclear policy. It’s similar to say that tomorrow, Mickey Mouse will say that America will nuke Iraq. It is a horrible misquotation and a scare tactic. And poor journalism.

“Moscow’s relations with the tiny nation of 5m”

Actually Georgia’s population is 4 million, not counting South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which at best combine for 300k. Shows how much the author cares about facts.

“Vladimir Putin has watched the process with mounting anger.” –

They can read Putin’s mind? Can they look into his soul too? This article’s joke, just like the ones spoon-fed to English speaking readers about Iraq, WMDs, Hussein’s connections to bin Laden, Mike Moore’s stellar movie Sicko – etc. Be angry, watch out, we have virtually no facts, but Russia’s coming to get ya! ROAR! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

According to the article [11] on August 1 2008 two roadside bombs, believed to have been planted by South Ossetian separatists sympathetic to Russia exploded leaving Five Georgian policemen injured, plus there have been shooting accidents for years on the border of S-O [12]. Maybe the car bombs where a provocation. Maybe the Georgian army exploded some bombs making it look it was S-O separatists so they had an excuses to invade S-O (like the incident on Georgian election day witch seems to be a set up). Unfortunately I don't trust Putin or Saakasvjvili so I don't have a clue. I think there both ruthless enough to set up this kind of provocation. Of course sometimes media gets it wrong but that happens in every country. I was only interested in the roadside bombs bit of the article honestly I haven't read the rest since it looked like guesswork to me. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 02:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Question: What does that have to do with my wanting to include Nino Burzhanadze questioning Mikhail Saakashvili, as the subtitle of this suggested edit to the article points out? Also, in response to that article you posted, please see this fine article - also not a pro-Russian source. http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/south_ossetia_the_perfect_wron.html HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Gore

Stop adding pictures of dead soldiers here. All wars, accidents, terror attacks, disasters have many dead bodies, mutilated bodies and other gore. This material is inappropriate for WP, I am just too lazy to look for a relevant guideline/policy. Do you see lots of dead bodies in Iraq war or in Hurricane Katrina for example? (Igny (talk) 21:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Start with WP:CENSORED. I believe such materials are warranted as they are a part of the war; remember war is not simply an outlet for wikipedia editors to push their f'ing propaganda, but are real life events with real life consequences; and to show death and destruction, two major aspects of war, is not only encyclopaedic but absolutely warranted. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 22:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

You're partially right, but there's two things wrong with it. First of all casualties from both sides should be shown per wp:pov / wp:undue and not just from one side (although this is mostly important when it comes to civilians, not soldiers). Second of all I saw an image of a dead Georgian soldier whose identifiable. Dead soldiers isn't really a problem, there's many pictures of dead soldiers on war pages, however I jest how an image is used of a man whose identifiable, especially so soon after his death. You're from Russia, you might have friends or even relatives who have served in the military, how would you feel if their face was posted on wikipedia? Grey Fox (talk) 23:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiousity, why did you tag the image of dead Russians with speedy deletion, but not the image of a dead Georgian? Grey Fox (talk) 23:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE is a policy related to article content, not visual aids used in articles, so that is a misinterpretation of the policy itself. About other photo, it has also been put up for speedy deletion. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 13:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I have knowingly waited. It is significant that at the same time one picture with dead Russian soldiers was uploaded one certain user was rather immediately reacting and discovered such material is not appropriate for WP. The picture of a plundered dead identifiable (!) Georgian soldier was obviously appropriate enough for this certain user til a Russian counterpart appeared - now it's GORE!!

At my opinion generally such stuff doesn't belong to this article or similar articles. Not only copyright questions must be answered questions regarding authenticity too. I didn't check articles about contemporary wars or disasters pictures of dead or mutilated people may perhaps anyway "illustrate" but they are not adding necessary encyclopedic informations. Elysander (talk) 11:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It is ok in my opinion to have such pictures in the articles about these gruesome results of war, such as in Holocaust. It is not ok to have them in articles about wars themselves, such as Iraq war or 2008 South Ossetia war. I haven't seen the Georgian soldier here before, because usually it got removed fast enough. So stop making wild allegations about some pro-Russian conspiracy here and stop making personal attacks.

I was wrong (perhaps) about WP having a specific policy about this. However, an interesting quote from WP:PROFANITY:

Including information about offensive material is part of Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission; being offensive is not.

I also hope that editors here are not some hormone-crazed teenagers who add gore and other offensive material to the articles just because they can per WP:CENSORED. (Igny (talk) 13:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC))

There has been a photo in Battle of Tskhinvali for some weeks now, and it is stable. The problem is that some want to censor WP and use it for non-encyclopaedic purposes, and that is not on. War is not a Playstation game, but a real life tragedy with tragic results, and we should be showing the horrors of war wherever possible. I would suggest getting outside opinion at WP:RFC or WP:VILLAGE if needed. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 13:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Russavia that soldiers dying is an integral part of war and as such we can show it in pictures. --Xeeron (talk) 15:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The role of pictures is to illustrate the article. In my opinion, they also make the subject of the article more concrete (in a "whoa, this really did happen!" -sense.) Adding pictures of dead bodies is a perfectly fine way to illustrate the war. Offliner (talk) 22:49, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I did only check the en:wiki articles regarding the 2 Chechen Wars. And I found one such "illustrating" picture per article. Personally i'm still against inserting of such pictures; i cannot see any additional value regarding the encyclopedic task; and phrases like "whoa, this really did happen!" -sense and perfectly fine way to illustrate the war encouraging me in this opinion.

If such pictures are introduced by majority following should be considered before posting: Copyright checked, authenticity proven, proportionality given and a minimum sense of decency. Regarding the presented examples it is not "necessary" ( I believe it is not acceptable) to show burnt corpses or identifiable individuals. Elysander (talk) 11:24, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

How do you show war without death....? In every real war i.e. Cold "War" doesn't count people have died. To ignore that is ridiculous! Obviously, I agree with Elysander too—an entire article doesn't need bodies plastered all over it, but one, maybe (in, say, the Darfur article) two pictures are ok (no more though). —Ed 17 for President _{Vote for Ed} 17:06, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

As long as its dead Russians, i don't think anyone will mind..

75.185.105.36 (talk) 14:32, 25 October 2008 (UTC) Jade Rat

Having served in a warzone, I see no problem with picture content of death and destruction; that's what you find in a war. It's not pretty or pleasant to look at and it cetainly did happen. People need to know that their are consequences that occur in sending an army off to war. I would see limits being placed on identifable remains and make sure that the picture is authentic and properly captioned. Cuprum17 (talk) 17:15, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't an anti-war site. It's not here to try to convince people that war is bad. It is here to document what happened. Therefore I don't think it's appropriate. It's not Wikipedia's job to shock people and make them think 'woah, this really happened' Kislorod (talk) 02:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

So did people dying really happen and therefore should we document it or not? --Xeeron (talk) 10:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The article already documents the fact that people "really died" - the infobox reports the casualties and losses reported by both sides. So if documenting casualties is your primary concern there is no need for a photograph at all. If reporting, in a general way, that "war is bad", then a more general "war is bad" article would be a more appropriate place for a photograph of casualties than an article on a specific war. AnthonyUK (talk) 23:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You are right, we dont need any photographs at all. They are included because adding photos makes the article more visually apealling and easier to read and grasp. While the written words "casualty" or "destroyed building" are pretty abstract, adding a picture of a dead soldier or a burned house immediately conveyes what happened.

If you want to argue that articles should not use pictures, that is fine with me, but why distinguish between dead bodies, burned houses and pictures of war material? --Xeeron (talk) 10:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Or a video of an announcement of recognition of independence of A & SO, for that matter. --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 11:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

If you want to continue that discussion, I suggest re-making a separate section for it. --Xeeron (talk) 21:09, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Response to RFC

I think the main thing here is whether the images add anything to the article, once that is identified we can then consider what, if any, other considerations might apply around the nature of the images and balance.

My first inclination is that imagery of corpses probably don't add much, although I've only seen one of the two, the Russian casualty having been deleted when I looked. The image of the Georgian doesn't demonstrate a great deal, the body has clearly already had boots removed and at the resolution and image size isn't clearly bringing anything informative to the reader. Based on that I wouldn't bother using the image.

Notwithstanding that, there appears to be a determination to use an image of a corpse anyway, and it's clear from the foregoing discussion that value in the article isn't the main point of debate. with that in mind I would put some effort into finding an image that is quite clearly a corpse, and demonstrates some of the damage that this level of conflict brings. Clearly finding an image of an explicitly damaged corpse reduces the risk of that corpse being identifiable, which I would suggest is a fairly significant aspect of this article, given the currency of the events.

In the interests of balance I do agree that the ideal would be two images of corpses, demonstrating that casualties occurred on both sides of the conflict.

ALR (talk) 21:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

I think, the title 2008 Armed conflict in Georgia is more correct — UN prefer this name for the conflict; georgaphy of the war is much more wider than territory of South Ossetia. --Z h o e e (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• It was discussed many times before. The result was this name.Garret Beaumain (talk) 19:28, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no result yet. The discussion about the article's name can be found on the separate page: [13]. Närking (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Exactly ;) Elysander (talk) 20:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully it won't last as long as the Kiev naming discussion... of couse I prefer Kyiv :) -- Mariah-Yulia (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Z h o e e, as Narking stated, a discussion is ongoing regarding a change in the name of the article. As a result, the move request you have started is redundant, and I request a close of it as a result. OpenSeven (talk) 23:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

We already have like 70 pages discussion the name changes. Please at least have the decency to read them, or parts of them, before making such a controversial move. Seriously are you guys going for a novel or what? 2008 South Ossetia War is NPOV. 2008 Armed conflict in Georgia is POV, because it implies that South Ossetia was De Facto part of Georgia. If you need reading comprehension help, or are too damn lazy to read the previous "rename" discussion, that alone, doesn't warrant the move. Also, there is still armed conflict in Georgia, between South Ossetian "police" and Georgian "police". The war ended. Mariah - it already is longer then the Kiev naming discussion. And I like Kiev, because I don't like renaming stuff a kazillion times. I second the move to close such uninformed redundancy. 68.164.118.28 (talk) 02:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose move I fully agree with OpenSeven and 68.164. The move request is redundant and should be closed. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 05:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war#Etymology reflects ongoing discussion about article's title Elysander (talk) 10:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Conditional oppose Has discussion outside Wikipedia settled on a single predominant name for this, and is it the one proposed? Evidence is welcome; but unless such evidence is forthcoming, we should not make up a name to suit ourselves. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Scroll up to the google links. --Xeeron (talk) 16:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Rename

Since there seems to be little action on the talk page for a new title and considerable time has passed I think now's an appropriate time to reach conclusions on the title. Not only is there clear opposition to the current title shown by those explicitly opposing it and implicitly opposing it by supporting a rename there is also a decreasing amount of usage of the term South Ossetia War, South Ossetian conflict, and variations of that name to describe the conflict. At the same time the title continues to reflect an inappropriate description of the war since the scope was far broader than South Ossetia. While I supported some form of Russia-Georgia it seems that too is going down in usage. The main usage is "War in Georgia" and it clearly beats out any other usage not only in frequency, but also nature and prominence of usage. So my suggestion is this article now be renamed to "War in Georga (2008)" as this seems to be the title which not only is most widely used, but also the one which avoids any serious POV objections and adequately reflects the broad scope of the conflict.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There's also been clear opposition to renaming. Majority of other wikis keep calling it "South Ossetia War" without any problems. Usage of "War in Georgia" goes up due to usual media euphemising and love for catch phrases: "War in Iraq", "War on Terror", "War on Drugs". "South Ossetia War" is still how it's being referred to in more thoughtful sources. Also, many people would consider renaming it a POV. We might create a redirect though. Billyblind (talk) 06:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

This war isn’t a first war which has many names. For example, there is “Terminology” section in the Vietnam War article which contains brief etymology of the Vietnam War. I think that it’s possible to make something like it in this article, and it will be more useful than the rename of the article itself. (Pubkjre (talk) 08:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC))

The articles name should reflect how the war is commonly refered to in the media. South Ossetia war is neither the most common name in the media, nor an accurate description of the combatants/area of hostilities. Therefore I support moving to War in Georgia (2008). Russian-Georgian war or Georgian-Russian war would be ok to me as well. --Xeeron (talk) 10:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The articles name should reflect how the war is commonly refered to in the media. But we shouldn't forget that wikipedia titles are not without influence on medias. To avoid such unwelcomed feedback we should think about going back to a more neutral title as Kaukasus Conflict 2008 and wait til generally medias have reached conclusions on title. Other wikipedias use SO War still as temporary solution. Elysander (talk) 10:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

If the wiki has an influence on the media (not sure about that one myself), that is one more reason not to have a misleading title. Many other wikis, especially the smaller ones are likely to copy and translate the biggest wiki out there, namely this one. We should rather look at mainstream media than other wikis. --Xeeron (talk) 11:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

OMG. Aren't we done yet? For the last time: there were no consensus on that matter. The title stays as it is. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 14:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't have to be a majority vote for a title when the title is already determined by media. Wikipedia is not a democracy. It's not up to us to decide what the title of this war is, it's what used the most in mainstream media. I've checked, and ["Russia-Georgia+war"&btnG=Zoeken Russia-Georgia war] gets 869.000 results on google. ["war+in+georgia"&btnG=Zoeken war in georgia] gets 750.000 results in google. ["south+ossetia+war"&btnG=Zoeken South Ossetia war] only has 125.000 results, and often refers to the first war. Those trying to uphold "south ossetia" war are mostly trying to do this because it fits their personal POV better. Russia-Georgia war is what this article should be named, and the alternative titles can be listed in the introduction. Grey Fox (talk) 23:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

A general Google search will not be fully informative as to what the name should be. Searching Google news brings very different results. Google News overtime removes older results so the newest results are the ones mentioned. In that sense Russia-Georgia War is decreasing in usage, South Ossetia War is at the point of falling of the market completely, and reference to War in Georgia is increasing. Russia-Georgia War can be mentioned as an alternative name in the intro, but the current title is clearly inappropriate. Most opposing a rename are single-purpose accounts or give horrible arguments for keeping it. I don't think it's even controversial to suggest a rename. I don't know why people are opposing one. It doesn't make any sense at all.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"Those trying to uphold "south ossetia" war are mostly trying to do this because it fits their personal POV better." Yeah, and I can say, that those trying to change it to something like "Russia-Georgia war" are mostly trying to do this because it fits their personal POV better, so what? You seem to be failing to comprehend, that behind the words "no consensus" lie numerous discussions, all of which had far more convincing arguments, than the ones you've managed to bring up here with "google hits" being lamest of them. Oh, no, the lamest one is dismissal of counter-arguments, reasoned by accusing people of POV-pushing. Frankly, are you refusing to get the point? Because, if you read this article, you'll understand, how, for example, your hardly unintentional misinterpretation of consensus with "majority vote" and following citation of WP:NOTDEMOCRACY rule looks like. I repeat once again for you, Grey Fox: i'm talking about consensus, not "majority vote", please, don't use these words interchangeably to prove your point, again. These unceasing claims of "Google Count IS The Decisive Argument", while it's certainly not, smell of proof by assertion and lack of real argumentation. And this persistent "we should rename" theme, when no "people changed their minds because new things came up"(i'm loosely citing WP:CONSENSUS here) event happened yet, stinks of WP:FORUMSHOP. I hope, we'll be able to abstain from coming back to this discussion, till such event arises. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 12:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"Georgia Crisis" and "Conflict in Georgia" are used by mainstream media (BBC, CNN and so on)Finalyzer (talk) 02:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Counting google hits is not a very good argumentation as it doesn't take into account the quality of pages - google search for accomodate returns 7,640,000 hits. Many people would consider any variation on "Georgia War" a POV similarly to how many other would "Yugoslavia War". Differences between the two are subject to POV. Billyblind (talk) 04:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Once more: back to a neutral title which cannot be seen as POV!! Some little wikipedias have decided in favour of "Russian-Georgian war", the majority is keeping "SO War" or similar titles but more as temporary solution. Elysander (talk) 09:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

War in Georgia 2008 is neutral. Grey Fox (talk) 10:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

One can argue if it was any real 'war' in "mainland" Georgia. Finalyzer (talk) 16:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

OK ! Support moving to War in Georgia (2008). Elysander (talk) 11:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow! What do you call a majority of voters? 3-5 people? It's a minority. "War in Georgia" has irrelevant semantics. Let's keep the voting process a bit longer to make it unbiassed. Taamu (talk) 12:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Reposting from last name change conversation. This if the fourth time the Devil's Advocate is desperately trying to get the name changed. Should I post all four attempts on his talk page? Qouting: "So I'll sum it up: the name of the article was challenged on several grounds: 1. Most of the media says so, and we should do so! 2. It would be easier to find. 3. Naming this the 2008 South Ossetia War is somehow Russian Propaganda. These arguments are plain silly. If one googles "Russia, Georgia, War" in any order, and adds "wiki" at the end this is the very first article that pops up, so #2 is moot. Also Wikipedia shouldn't follow CNN "The Most Trusted Name in News" - who later alluded that Russian were responsible for 2,000 civvie deaths, whereas it is under 150, very trustworthy CNN, or Fox News who called MSNBC's FACT READING OF THE WAR "pro-Russian" and they're somehow supposed to be "Fair and Balanced". In truth CNN/Fox News/Sky News are massively pro-Georgian and have been so throught the war, Fox News even pulling the interview of a South Ossetian girl. The coverage of Georgia's attack on Tskhinvali was scarce, the coverage of Russia's response was abundant, very "Fair and Balanced". CNN trimmed Putin's 30 minute interview to 3 minutes, and after this we're supposed to trust CNN to show all sides, when Saakashvili gets unlimited time and Putin gets 3 minutes of CNN selected quotes? CNN/Fox News/Sky News have propagated (from propaganda) this war as the Russia-Georgia War to protray Russia as the attacker, despite the FACT that Russian Peacekeepers were fired upon first. The status of the Peacekeepers was legitimized by the Russo-Georgian Treaties [such as the one signed by both countries in 1992]. If you want to debate those, then create or look for articles regarding to those treaties and debate it there. In this case the Russian Peacekeepers, a part of the Russian Army, were fired upon, and when the Russian Army is fired upon it has this tendency to shoot back. Thus #1 and #3 are moot if Wikipedia is to be objective. The irony here is that people are calling the title "2008 South Ossetia War" Russian Propaganda, whereas their suggesting to amend it is blatant CNN/Fox News/Sky News Propaganda. " 68.164.150.25 (talk) 05:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, all the google hits and google news hits are from "propaganda sources"? Grey Fox (talk) 10:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

That's another time you've failed to get the point. The point: Google Hit Prevalency IS NOT The Decisive Argument, Because Mainstream Media Neutrality Is Disputed. That makes your google stats absolutely irrelevant to renaming discussion at the moment. I don't see, why it's so hard for you to understand. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 13:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"Mainstream Media Neutrality Is Disputed". Uhm by who? Read WP:V, current media reports and academic material is exactly what we need. Otherwise you're closing to Original Research. Grey Fox (talk) 16:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The Mainstream Media, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC each call each other liars. If that's not a dispute, I don't know what is. 72.245.82.86 (talk) 06:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Please read wikipedia's core policy, verifiability, not truth. We should go by mainstream media for a title, not make up some kind of title that you personally like better. Grey Fox (talk) 18:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I keep calling for a rename because the article needs to be renamed. In the conflict box listing conflicts in the former Soviet Union, this one is listed as Second South Ossetia, but it was also the third Abkhazia war by any account because the war spread there as well and it involved undisputed Georgian territory. So clearly the scope is well beyond South Ossetia and the article's title should reflect that and not stick to a title that is the same damn thing it was called at the very beginning! When this article was first started this title was given and the title then did accurately reflect the scope of the conflict. Now it does not reflect the scope of the conflict so the title should be changed. That's rename 101. You can also find maybe a dozen recent sources that called this the "South Ossetia War" and thousands saying it was the "War in Georgia" so tell me who wins out in that equation? It's not even a contest. Instead of giving a lot of worthless argument against changing the title how about providing some legitimate justification for keeping the title. Does it accurately reflect that this conflict spread to Abkhazia, Poti, Gori, saw naval engagements on Georgia's western coast (far from South Ossetia), and involved dozens of air sorties over all of Georgia including the capital Tblisi? If it does not, then it needs to be changed and that much shouldn't even be a matter of discussion.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And we've been over this before. Your reasoning for the change is invalid. Saying "most people that I like say so" isn't something that can be viewed as objective. If you want a majority rules contest, I urge you to watch American Idol. Also, over 80% of the fighting took place in South Ossetia, and had Georgia NOT invaded South Ossetia, there would be no war. Period. There are a lot more actual INDEPENDENT media resources calling it 2008 South Ossetia War if you are willing to look beyond Corporate Sponsored "Independent" Reports and accross the Atlantic, whilst avoding the UK, who's gov't. is so unpopular with its people that they're signing petitions saying "the government doesn't speak for us". Let the name stay as it is for a few months, let tensions cool down a tad and then MAYBE we can talk about changing it, but suggesting name changes 4 times in 2 weeks does make you look like an annoying [comment edidted]. Some people think it does, you think it doesn't, tough, no need to be annoying about it. There are a lot of things I don't like about this article too. 72.245.82.86 (talk) 06:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

72.245.82.86, you alledge that someone deliberately influenced the bulk of western media to call the war "conflict in georgia" instead of "south ossetia war". That is such an absurd conspiracy theory that I am almost at a loss how to respond. There is no single person or organistation powerful enough to pull that off. Neither would anyone (some wikipedia editors apart) care enough to pull such a stunt.

You alledge that "lot more actual INDEPENDENT media resources calling it 2008 South Ossetia War" and that "The Mainstream Media, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC each call each other liars." without any evidence whatsoever. Might I asked what you regard as independent media? Or how any of that changes the fact that the war was not exclusively fought in South Ossetia for that matter? --Xeeron (talk) 09:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Before 72.245.82.86 will have his say, i want to point out, that you, Xeeron, by your "war was not exclusively fought in South Ossetia" are shifting an emphasis to the argument, that was already countered. Just for example(quoting from old discussions):

"The flashpoint for this conflict as well as its main focus of operation was the South Ossetian region. Conflicts are commonly named after the region the conflict is over, not just an overarcing term to describe all regions involved. Both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are named so despite involving actions and operations outside of the territorial boundaries of those countries."

"The flashpoint for this conflict" was rather Abkhazia for weeks and months and years before August of 2008. --83.13.196.130 (talk) 13:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"The conflict began in South Ossetia, and although it did spread, a majority of the fighting between involved parties (and causalities inflicted by ground warfare) occurred in that territory. Now, if Russia and Georgia fight again over unresolved issues in the region (hopefully not) then it will probably necessitate a name change."

"The current name reflects the cause, objective, and the primary theater of the war. Neutralizing offensive capabilities of Georgia by Russia within Georgia proper does not change these facts and does not make it a war between Georgia and Russia."

If Georgia decided to "neutralize offensive capabilities of Russia" and bombed Moscow and invaded and occupied North Ossetia, would it "not make it a war between Georgia and Russia", too? --83.13.196.130 (talk) 13:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall Russia killing Georgian Civvies without provocation either. 72.245.3.111 (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

To the day, i haven't seen any counter-arguments to that. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 12:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The larger part of the air strikes did not occur in SO. None of the naval action did occur in or anywhere near SO. The huge majority of the territory captured by russian troops (going by the map) was not in SO. The two biggest cities occupied where not in SO. One of the parties listed as belligerents is Abkhazia. As a result, two countries were recognised by russia, not one. --Xeeron (talk) 15:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Over 80-90% of the fighting occurred in South Ossetia. The naval action lasted about five minutes. There were a few minor sparks in Abkhazia, as is seen by the few numbers of military casualties there. As the defeated Georgian Army ran from South Ossetia, the Russians moved in and captured a lot of territorry in skirmishes, not major fighting. Only major battle was the Battle of Tskhinvali, the rest were just skirmishes and pre-emptive Georgian routs. Therefore the name correctly portrays the war. 72.245.3.111 (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Xeeron, you clearly aren't watching American Media. Xeeron said (reposting) ""72.245.82.86, you alledge that someone deliberately influenced the bulk of western media to call the war "conflict in georgia" instead of "south ossetia war". That is such an absurd conspiracy theory that I am almost at a loss how to respond. There is no single person or organistation powerful enough to pull that off. Neither would anyone (some wikipedia editors apart) care enough to pull such a stunt.

You alledge that "lot more actual INDEPENDENT media resources calling it 2008 South Ossetia War" and that "The Mainstream Media, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC each call each other liars." without any evidence whatsoever. Might I asked what you regard as independent media? Or how any of that changes the fact that the war was not exclusively fought in South Ossetia for that matter? --Xeeron (talk) 09:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)""

Mind you, isn't this the same person who brought up George Soros? That push for a disclaimer didn't get very far. Ottre 01:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually Xeeron it's not an absurd conspiracy. When Georgia invaded South Ossetia the media simply stated "Georgian forces enter South Ossetia" in a very one line, calm manner. When Russia responded, in came the punches, with Fox News and CNN leading the way, but it was all over the major newspapers too! LA Times had pictures of suffering Georgian Citizens, nothing about South Ossetian Citizens. The Georgian provacation was a one liner, the Russian Response was telivized as if Russia's starting a World War. There's a plethora of evidence pointing to lies, such as CNN's bullshit claim that Russia killed 2,000 civillians. Then the "most trusted name in news" as CNN claims gave Saakashvili unlimited air time, but failed to televise Putin's 30 minute interview, trimming it to 3 minutes instead. In the very first days of war the videos on Youtube (where Putin's CNN interview is available) contrasted drastically with those propelled by the mainstream media. Fox News pulled an interview with an Ossetian Girl from their network, becaused she dared to say that Georgians were shooting at them, not Russians. Is Youtube pro-Russian?

As for Fox News, CNN and MSNBC criticizing each other - just google "Olberman - O'Reilly" or "MSNBC - Fox News". What world are you living in Xeeron? In terms of politics CNN and Fox News suck up to Republicans, and MSNBC is more of a Democratic station, so yeah, they are biased. Just watch Olberman or O'Reilly, virtually any episode, and you'll find them calling each other liars, only difference is Olberman offers facts, while O'Reilly doesn't live in the real World. Do you really need me to Google this and post the very first (or sometimes second or third links) here? The purpose of this article prevents me from commenting further, but if you actually had the decency to Google it before your post, you would be very surprised by the results. You may also check out German Media, which is, surprisingly and aside from Jon Stewart, the most unbiased in the war. 72.245.3.111 (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

<< LA Times had pictures of suffering Georgian Citizens, nothing about South Ossetian Citizens.>>

It could be because there are no pictures of suffering South Ossetian Citizens. Mind you if there were, they would probably pass them off as Georgians.Kislorod (talk) 02:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

For your sake, I did google both "Olberman - O'Reilly" and "MSNBC - Fox News". What does it tell you? The first that two talk show hosts have to big egos, the second that some news channels in america are leftwing and some are rightwing. Apart from the fact that you should not use talk shows as your primary source of information, what does that tell you about any anti-russian or anti-georgian bias? Nothing.

Finally, "mainstream press" is not restricted to the US. All international media reporting (quite a lot) is included. --Xeeron (talk) 13:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

"Finally, "mainstream press" is not restricted to the US. All international media reporting (quite a lot) is included." With the exception of many russian secondary sources, of course. And "Quite a lot" means BBC copypasting from CNN and vice versa, maybe a bit of AlJazeera, some russian anti-governmental newspapers and ...? 212.192.164.14 (talk) 13:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia works with reliable sources people, see WP:V. It says "verifiability, not truth". Most reliable sources, in fact almost all of them, name this conflict either the "war in georgia" or the "russian-georgian war". "south ossetia war" is hardly used at all. All of the arguments against renaming are simply based on Original Research, which means that many of you are trying to make up a title which simply fits your Point of View better. This should stop and a rename is completely legitimate. Grey Fox (talk) 18:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "almost all of them" counted as reliable source. Check 'Georgia crisis' it beats every other name easily. Finalyzer (talk) 20:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

On regular google it does, but is surpassed by "georgia war". Not on google news where "War in Georgia" is still the most popular term. Also "Georgia Crisis" mostly refers to the conflict excluding warfare as well, for example, the georgia crisis is still ongoing, but the war in georgia already ended. Grey Fox (talk) 01:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just checked, "georgia war" - 600,000 ; "Georgia Crisis" - 1,100,000 and all mainstream media there. And it wasn't any real war in mainland Georgia to say that it's already ended. Finalyzer (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"Georgia War" gives me 1.340.000 results, "Georgia Crisis" 585.000. It was initially a bit higher than 585, so numbers change over time. Anyway it's better to use google news searches, not regular google. The "war in georgia" surpasses every other title, even though it only refers to the past shootings. Georgia crisis, or georgia conflict refers to the overall conflict that has been ongoing for years. Grey Fox (talk) 01:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That's odd. We are obviously using different googles :-). I'd say google results aren't applicable to our discussion then. Finalyzer (talk) 02:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Not always, but google news (a different search engine) is pretty reliable. They give pretty obvious results that prove that the name "south ossetia war" hardly exists. Grey Fox (talk) 03:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Am I to understand, that we and users worldwide should use only those of search engines, which pretty obviously prove your point? :) 212.192.164.14 (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No? Google news search is the quickest way to get an overview of reliable sources. Grey Fox (talk) 16:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and on Google, www.google.com, it's the first article that pops up, and it's called 2008 South Ossetian War. Earlier people wanted to rename this to Russo-Georgian (or Russia-Georgia) war, because they claimed it's how mass media portrayed it. Now they want to rename it Georgian War, because that's the most popular search. Well guys, this is the FIRST LINK off of Google and it's called "2008 South Ossetian War". This isn't a popularity contest, it's wikipedia, but even if this was a popularity contest, it still comes first, under the search terms "Georgia" "Russia" and "War". Ergo this article is clearly popular, so why not use the article's popularity to inform the reader where most of the fighting took place right away, rather then turning it into "my media said so and they're better then your media" popularity contest. 68.165.239.187 (talk) 20:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Uhh, since when is the "first result" supposed to be the best result? Also the first result is often wikipedia. War In georgia (2008) is probably the best, alternatively the Russian-Georgian War for which a large amount of sources exist as well. Sources for the "south ossetia war" hardly exist. Grey Fox (talk) 20:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"since when is the "first result" supposed to be the best result?" Ok, let me explain. If you will actually read wikipedia rules, you'll find out, that

(a) Naming article for most popular title in media is a guideline, not a policy, and, in case of controversy, is supposed to be superseded by, you know, that "CONSENSUS" thing, i keep blabbing about.

(b) Spirit of this guideline is not to fix our choices of article name with those from pop-culture, like you seem to think, but to provide an article name, that allows average user to come across wikipedia page, while searching for a phrase he is most likely to use. Or, as wikipedia puts it "The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more." We have achieved that, don't you think? Please, keep any other of your google stats, especially those, which imply, that we must have your preferred title, somewhere else.

(c) First priority place in article naming is held not by verifiability and popular usage, but by neutrality and, yeah, consensus. Wikipedia says: "In these types of disputes, it is important to note that verifiability lives alongside neutrality, it does not override it... Verifiability is only one content criterion. Neutral point of view is a core policy of Wikipedia, mandatory, non-negotiable, and to be followed in all articles. Concerns related to undue weight, non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited." "South Ossetia war", besides having other advantages, is neutral: it does not say who was right or wrong, it does not do so even implicitly, by stating whose war that was: Russia vs Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhasia vs Georgia, CIS Peacekeepers vs Georgia, or... do i mention Georgia a lot? Should we, therefore, call our article "War in Georgia", thereby implicitly denying independence of South Ossetia? I don't think so.

To sum it all up. We have already had a huge discussion about article renaming, but it resembled a talk of mute with deaf, meaning, each side's arguments being presented, were barely countered, or even seemed to be heard, for that matter. And, frankly, i don't think, that any further discussions will be any better. It can be seen very clearly on the example of the one we're having right now, with its underrepresentation of editors and arguments. Speak about neutrality in such a conditions, i dare you. This discussion about article renaming is useless, at the very least. Unless some striking new information appears, the name should stay as it is. I hope, i've explained things as clearly as possible. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 11:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

212 is correct. Naming the article War in Georgia would confuse the reader by implying that South Ossetia did not have de facto independence, which we all know is bullshit. De Jure it was part of Georgia before the war began, De Facto it was independent, that's what created the initial controversy. Now the De Jure status of the region is uncertain - take for instance the EU stance which explicitly points out that the region is part of Georgia, but also says that it will not do anything about Russian troops staying in the region of South Ossetia. By renaming the article the War in Georgia - we are implicitly denying the average reader the option to research De Facto vs. De Jure. Thus the name must stay. Also guys, give it a rest already, another post and I'm writing a novel on it. It's not a threat, just a fact. And Mr. Grey Fox, didn't you earlier imply that we should change to title to get more hits? Then when I point out that we're number one in hits, you say: "Uhh, since when is the "first result" supposed to be the best result?". Are you flip-flopping on your own words? Isn't that like really, really bad for a wikipedia editor? As for media biased that I've talked about earlier I forgot to add that one should Youtube "Outfoxed". 68.164.117.178 (talk) 20:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

(RI) How is "South Ossetia war" any less or more POV than "War in Georgia" or "Russia-Georgia war" or "Georgia-Russia-South Ossetia-Abkhazia war"? I can take you arguement, flip the words 180 degrees and it will state we are taking sides with this title as well. Which is the reason the title should be based on how it is commonly called by other sources. --Xeeron (talk) 22:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Xeeron - 2008 South Ossetia War means that the war started in the South Ossetian Region in 2008. If you can tell me how that's POV and not a fact, please do. Educate me. And it doesn't go into whether South Ossetia is a country or not, because some countries (Nauru) are a single region. Other regions, such as North Ossetia, are part of countries, such as Russia. Thus, from the South Ossetian/Russian angle the title is unbiased, and from the Georgian/Western Mass Media angle the title's unbiased. It's totally non-biased. The 2008 Georgian War IMPLIES that South Ossetia is and/or was De Facto part of Georgia, which is NOT TRUE. 67.101.55.80 (talk) 00:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

2008 South Ossetia war suggests that the war took place only in SO and suggests the war was only about SO, which is just as much a one-sided POV as any of the other names. --Xeeron (talk) 14:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Or may be it suggest that the war was for the fate of South Ossetia? Finalyzer (talk) 23:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

This is nonsense. It's not a question of POV or whether you use google searches. This title cannot stand because the scope of the conflict went well beyond South Ossetia and no one could possibly deny this. I'm only suggesting the name that is used the most in Western, Russian, and other world media sources. It is also used the most in academic circles. In general the scope of the subject justifies a different title and it is boosted by the fact the current title is hardly used while another is very widely used.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Very colorfull argument Devil's Advocate. Calling my argument nonsense, and making a statement unfiltered by rational thought. War in South Ossetia 2008 is the official name that's used in Russia. You shouldn't be making arguments that are contradicted by facts. Furthermore over 90% of the fighting took place in South Ossetia and Georgian brutal attack on Tskhnivali was the main reason that the Russians went in. French Wikipedia also calls it War in South Ossetia, German Wikipedia calls it Conflict in the Caucasian Region (which is incorrect). Spanish Wikipedia also calls it War in South Ossetia. So saying that 'other World media sources' uses it the most is bullshit. English media sources used the Russia-Georgia War initially, now they've switched over to War in Georgia, who knows they may swtich yet again. In short your argument is moot, and it also FAILS at countering my main point that "War in Georgia" would be POV, since it implies that South Ossetia is part of Georgia, whereas "South Ossetia War 2008" doesn't imply that South Ossetia is independent from Georgia, but merely points the reader to the reason for the conflict, as well as pointing the reader to the location where over 90% of the actual fighting took place. And you had no trouble concurring with the Google Search arguments when they've made your point, now you're against them? 68.164.117.79 (talk) 01:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Mr. 68.164.117.79 I don't mean to be frank but your title does assert that SO is a de factor a country when only a handful number of countries recognizes it as such, The majority of the world still see it as a part of Georgia after all it was and is a civilwar. On top of that South Ossetians & Abkahzians are Russian citizens so this would mean that they are in fact part of the Russian Federation. This is also the problem logically, to call it as such, is to recognize the regional sovereignty of that area therefore confirming that the region exist but many speak of it which confirms it's existence now that the region is confirmed to exist what is this region part of? It is for the most part still the Georgian region its more to do with logic then POV. My friend Mr 68.164.117.79 I'm trying front with you whatsoever but that statement SO War doesn't make sense to me. However I think that the solution is probably like Pubkjre said in regards to the Vietnam article but this needs to stop any title can seem that it has a POV and can have great arguments to support it even though the title has good intentions so to debate it any further wouldn't do good, every informational data base has a bias its just a question of how much.Furthermore I'm going to also defend the google searches because it a good way to see how many individuals speak of in reference to, I am not saying that because everyone calls it as such then it should be so, but the easier it is to find the better as illogical as that sounds.In Summation I second Pubkjre we should have a Etymology page that way it will be clear on who is using what name and why. --XChile (talk) 14:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

68.164.117.79, you should think about registering an account here. It is really hard to know whom we are discussing here if half of the entries are by IPs. Obviously one of the above IPs must be you as well, since you talk about "my argument". It would make this discussion easier if you always signed with the same name. --Xeeron (talk) 14:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

In response to XChile - South Ossetia is NOT a biased name. It's the name of a region (if you are Georgian) or a region that is a country (if you are Russian). If you look at a map of Georgian Regions, provided by the Georgian government, South Ossetia is one of the regions. Duh! Also De Facto countries do not need recognition, De Jure countries do. Taiwan is a De Facto Country - yet only a handful of countries recognized it. De Facto country means Unrecognized Country, unrecognized by the UN. De Jure Country means a country that's a UN member. Thus we are calling the war after the region where it started and where most of the fighting took place. Xeeron - I think I will register an account on Wikipedia. I'll only focus on a couple of articles though. Just as military historian, I love that a war is fought and written about in my time, that's so cool, barring civvie losses of course. 68.164.117.79 (talk) 23:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Mr.68.164.117.79 Yes point holds ground but you failed to understand the point I bring that is we should have a Etymology page as Pubkjre said because of high debate and the many reasons for different titles and we need to stop debating it. I highly welcome your facts and info if you have the time please do register your contribution is welcomed. But let it be known that for the record that the two regions in questions have russian citizenship which makes them russians so then a war between the citizens of the state of Georgia and Russia its quite clear were I stand However changing the title seems pointless now as it is in cease fire in Summation as I said previously no title is without bias therefore like Pubkjre asserted Etymology page please. For now we should put the question of the title should be put to rest....for now. But Mr. 68.164.117.79 I welcome your opinions on my talk page.--XChile (talk) 02:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you gonna object to the title "American civil war" because it suggests the Confederacy wasn't a country? How about the article on the 90's referring to the Georgian Civil War which happens to include South Ossetia and Abkhazia? How about numerous separatist conflicts where the name refers to the country as a whole or calls it a civil war? Are you gonna object to all these on POV grounds? The fact Abkhazia and South Ossetia were negotiating their status in the first place suggests they even acknowledged they had not truly gained their independence and significant portions of South Ossetian and Abkhaz territory being fought over in this war was under Georgian control and hence de-facto part of Georgia. You say "War in Georgia" is POV because the Russians don't see it that way when the Russia media has actually called it that. This title needs to be changed because, yet again, it doesn't reflect the scope of the conflict. You'd think nothing happened in the Black Sea, that nothing happened in the Kodori Gorge, that nothing happened in Gori, that nothing happened in Poti, or that somehow there were no air raids across Georgia.

Honestly, I don't care what this title is changed to because the only thing that matters is it changes to something which reflects the true scope of the conflict as the current title does not. I'm only suggesting the title "War in Georgia" because it is for all intents and purposes the most widely used.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

"Are you gonna object to the title "American civil war" because it suggests the Confederacy wasn't a country?" I don't think that a reference to a war, which happened way before WW2, inside an ethnically isotropic population, is appropriate here.

"How about the article on the 90's referring to the Georgian Civil War which happens to include South Ossetia and Abkhazia? How about numerous separatist conflicts where the name refers to the country as a whole or calls it a civil war? Are you gonna object to all these on POV grounds?" Actually, yes, I am. I'd have thought, that the well-known facts of forced addition of South Ossetia territory to Georgia during Stalin's rule, and South Ossetia declaring independence in full accordance with USSR secession procedure earlier than Georgia(therefore, not being part of it in any way), will do that for me, but i'm obviously mistaken.

"The fact Abkhazia and South Ossetia were negotiating their status in the first place suggests they even acknowledged they had not truly gained their independence and significant portions of South Ossetian and Abkhaz territory being fought over in this war was under Georgian control and hence de-facto part of Georgia." Yeah, and Iraq, being under US control, is de-facto part of US. Good point, i should remember it. Of course they were "negotiating", if that's what you call 15 years worth of regularly occuring skirmishes. You should try telling that "you're not acknowledged your independence" sentence to some abkhazian guy, and see what happens.

"You say "War in Georgia" is POV because the Russians don't see it that way when the Russia media has actually called it that." You know, not very hard, though, it may be to guess, but i'm obliged to tell, that i'm a russian. And neither me, nor anyone i've talked to since the event, "see it that way". I've barely heard russian media calling it anything but "Georgian-Ossetian conflict" and "peacekeeping operation". Pointing at these rare ocassions, when it's called "War in Georgia", and claiming, that they have any significance, looks very strange to me.

"This title needs to be changed because, yet again, it doesn't reflect the scope of the conflict." Vietnam war wasn't restricted to Vietnam either, it just was "about" Vietnam. And the Black Sea isn't the part of Georgia, should we, therefore, in our eagerness to "reflect the scope of the conflict", name our article something like "Conflict in Caucasus region"?

"Honestly, I don't care what this title is changed to because the only thing that matters is it changes to something which reflects the true scope of the conflict as the current title does not. I'm only suggesting the title "War in Georgia" because it is for all intents and purposes the most widely used." You know, Advocate, I would be very glad to believe, that you "don't care". But it's not like you will care about me trusting you, and it's not like it will be easy for me, after having read all your posts in older "rename" discussions. By the way, i suggest you and everybody else to reread these, they will show, that every single argument and counter-argument used in that section, was there. That's why i believe this discussion to be pointless. 217.8.236.170 (talk) 18:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The vietnam war is a very good example, because it has its own "terminology" section (most likely after they had the same discussion on their own talk page). In any case "Conflict in the caucasus" is still better than south ossetian war. Btw, the part of the Black sea next to georgia is part of georgia, check Territorial waters.

"every single argument and counter-argument used in that section, was there. That's why i believe this discussion to be pointless." Assume I moved the article to "War in Georgia" now and after you complain, I point out that "every single argument and counter-argument" has been used before. Would you agree that your complaint would be pointless? I hope not. --Xeeron (talk) 15:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Xeeron - I want you to walk up to an Armenian and recommend that this title should be changed to Conflict in the Caucases. Provided that you don't get knocked out in the first round, you will soon realize why that title would be very, very bad. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 15:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess the Armenian would tell me "Why conflict in the caucaus, when this war was only fought in georgia?". To which I would answer: "I hear you man, but there are those people on wiki talk pages who feel that war in georgia is POV, because parts of south ossetia were de facto independant before the war". At which point he would look at me puzzled, agree with me that wikipedia editors are a crazy folk and invite me over for dinner. Alternatively, he would share the story of his own 3 year edit war over Nagorno-Karabakh. --Xeeron (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate continues his erroneous ways: "Are you gonna object to the title "American civil war" because it suggests the Confederacy wasn't a country? How about the article on the 90's referring to the Georgian Civil War which happens to include South Ossetia and Abkhazia? How about numerous separatist conflicts where the name refers to the country as a whole or calls it a civil war? Are you gonna object to all these on POV grounds? The fact Abkhazia and South Ossetia were negotiating their status in the first place suggests they even acknowledged they had not truly gained their independence and significant portions of South Ossetian and Abkhaz territory being fought over in this war was under Georgian control and hence de-facto part of Georgia. You say "War in Georgia" is POV because the Russians don't see it that way when the Russia media has actually called it that. This title needs to be changed because, yet again, it doesn't reflect the scope of the conflict. You'd think nothing happened in the Black Sea, that nothing happened in the Kodori Gorge, that nothing happened in Gori, that nothing happened in Poti, or that somehow there were no air raids across Georgia. Honestly, I don't care what this title is changed to because the only thing that matters is it changes to something which reflects the true scope of the conflict as the current title does not. I'm only suggesting the title "War in Georgia" because it is for all intents and purposes the most widely used."

Once again, as I've told you many a time, we are living in the 21st century, and naming wars following the post-WWII conventions. The article's on the 90's included battles all over Georgia, where Georgian Nationalists fought South Ossetian and Abkhazian nationalists, and quite frankly that war was poorly documented. In addition it included conflicts in Adjaria, which is De Facto part of Georgia. So that was actually a messy civil war where 80% of the fighting did NOT take place in a single region. Now as per numerous separatist conflicts - do you mean like Darfur? Oh wait, that's called the Darfur crisis, NOT the Sudan Civil War. Furthermore Devil's Advocate, you really have to read the article before commenting; there's a map that shows that aside from the Kodori Valley, Georgian held territorry was in no way, shape or form significant, and the Kodori Valley campaign wasn't a significant part of the war. Furthermore, the astute reader can look at the map, (before talking about significant portions would help) and see that Poti, Gori, Senaki, etc. came under attack. But this war has been over De Facto Independence of the South Ossetian Region, and calling it anything else is B/S, plain and simple.

Of course you don't care, you just vehemently want to change it to something that reflects your POV. Please, don't lie, at least not in the same discussion title. On a side note I figured out why Georgia War gets so many hits. There's also a state called Georgia, and Georgia War picks up Georgia Civil War as well. And I registered! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 15:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I would say it's pretty clear that War in Georgia is the most common name used in English speaking news (and also in most other languages, but I guess we should stick to English news since this is English Wikipedia). South Ossetia war only gets 14 hits at Google News Search while War in Georgia gets 3600+ hits. Can it be clearer? Staying with South Ossetia War, which some editors have claimed to be the name used in Russian media, sounds much more like a Russian POV. Närking (talk) 16:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

It's also possible to rename 1991-1992_South_Ossetia_War article too, but... Does somebody think that the war in 2008 isn't a part of Georgian–Ossetian conflict? Is it possible that the Georgian Civil War isn't concerned with Georgian–Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts? Does somebody think that those conflicts ended in 90th?..

And again, please read the Vietnam War article. It has not only Terminology/Etymology section... The first words of that article are "The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975". I think that it is a good example... (Pubkjre (talk) 21:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC))

I may only wonder, why do i have to recite the posts from this very section. Here goes:

"(a) Naming article for most popular title in media is a guideline, not a policy"

So, Närking, your "guess we should stick to English news" is wrong.

"(b) Spirit of this guideline is not to fix our choices of article name with those from pop-culture... but to provide an article name, that allows average user to come across wikipedia page, while searching for a phrase he is most likely to use... We have achieved that."

That means, that

"under the search terms "Georgia" "Russia" and "War"... this is the FIRST LINK off of Google and it's called "2008 South Ossetian War". This isn't a popularity contest, it's wikipedia, but even if this was a popularity contest, it still comes first."

So

"Please, keep any other of your google stats, especially those, which imply, that we must have your preferred title, somewhere else."

"(c) First priority place in article naming is held not by verifiability and popular usage, but by neutrality... Concerns related to... non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited."

That means, non-neutral title may be ten times popular in whatever media you think is reliable, but that doesn't make it an appropriate title for wikipedia.

Major candidates are:

1)(RGW) Spelling variations of Russian-Georgian war

2)(WiG) War in Georgia

3)(SOW) War in South Ossetia/South Ossetia war

We're looking for neutral title and

""South Ossetia war", besides having other advantages, is neutral: it does not say who was right or wrong, it does not do so even implicitly, by stating whose war that was: Russia vs Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhasia vs Georgia, CIS Peacekeepers vs Georgia, or... do i mention Georgia a lot? Should we, therefore, call our article "War in Georgia", thereby implicitly denying independence of South Ossetia? I don't think so."

I can only add, that completely skipping the mention of South Ossetia in the title, will not only deny it's independence, but will imply, that the war was not "about" South Ossetia, like Russia protecting it from Georgia, but rather about something more gruesome like Russia invading Georgia, which is clearly pro-georgian POV. One might turn my argument inside out, and say, that SOW title is clearly pro-russian POV, because it implies the other way, but that means he didn't notice a subtle difference: whether or not Russia was invading Georgia is disputed, whether or not Georgia was invading South Ossetia is not. That means, SOW title says only that Russia was fighting on one side with South Ossetia, not that it had no "imperial ambitions". That's why SOW takes point over WiG.

RGW carries negative connotations of "aboutness" a step further from WiG. Of course, one might say

"the two regions in questions have russian citizenship which makes them russians so then a war between the citizens of the state of Georgia and Russia, its quite clear were I stand."

I say, yeah, RGW can be considered technically neutral this way, but still, i can tell you, that people here in Russia, including me, would object to such kind of neutralness. For us it was not a "war between russian citizens and georgian citizens", it was a war of men on military service, who, therefore, don't have free will by definition, even when for georgians it meant executing criminal orders of their high command. So, you see, it was more like Russia-Saakashvili war for us. I hold nothing against common georgians. We hope here, that this shameful event will not be left in history with a name like RGW, thus further spreading animosity, seeded by a bunch of wicked politicians, but will soon be forgotten by both nations, and we'll return to our usual friendly coexistence. No, that's not saying it properly. I have georgian friends here, dammit! And i still wanna be friends with them, and their kids be friends with mine, not being taught in their history classes about "imperialistic russia's attempt of invasion", like it seems to be going to happen! I hope, you see now, why RGW can be considered POV, not to mention it's suffering from the same drawbacks as WiG.

"No title is without bias" says XChile, and i agree with him, but SOW title, has at least one neutral interpretation: the region, where nearly all fighting occured, and the casus belli. One might argue, that our WiG can also be neutrally interpreted as a region, moreover, as the region, where all fighting took place. But i have already presented my argumentation in favor of SOW and against WiG, and it's not like we just have to include in our title every single location, the fighting took place in, to abide by wikipedia rules and historical conventions:

"Conflicts are commonly named after the region the conflict is over, not just an overarcing term to describe all regions involved. Both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are named so despite involving actions and operations outside of the territorial boundaries of those countries."

And to conclude my point, i want to counter what Närking said. He said:

"Staying with South Ossetia War, which some editors have claimed to be the name used in Russian media, sounds much more like a Russian POV."

If someone POVed says something, that does not mean it's non-neutral. Something is either neutral or not, no matter who said it, Närking, or concept of wikipedia wouldn't work, because we all have a POV, after all. 217.8.236.185 (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

XChile/Pubkrje - I like your idea of Etymology, but I'm just tired of this "Rename" battle. Is there a war we can get in a few months breather and then do Etymology? I have nothing against it, it's just over and over and over.... HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

People who read news or watch TV would search for War in Georgia since that's what it is called there and while doing so they wouldn't find their way to Wikipedia since here it is for some reason called South Ossetia war. At least the Swedish Wikipedia has changed to Kriget i Georgien 2008 which corresponds to what it is called in Media (originally they had South Ossetia there too). Närking (talk) 11:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

People, who READ, would have known from above, that any kind of search for "Russia"+"Georgia"+"War"+"wiki" brings our page as first link, that any kind of search for "Russia"+"Georgia"+"War" lists our article on the first result page at the very least, and that any kind of search for "Georgia"+"War" will drown our article, no matter how it's named, in plenty of other pages and wikipedia articles about other numerous events, which qualify as "War in Georgia", so insisting on such a title is plainly stupid. Please, cease bringing up such proposals, it's getting ridiculous. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 11:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

What can I say, HistoricWarrior007?.. Please wait for a year, or better for several years. Only after that time we will know the best name for this article. And it's possible that future name will have nothing in common with current names...

Now we see the logical finals of Georgian–Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts after the failed attempt of the Georgian government to gain revenge for Georgian Civil War.

Well, there is the naming problem... But this problem is concerned not only with this article, but with the whole problem of Georgian–Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian relations.(Pubkjre (talk) 20:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC))

Ok, because of 217.8.236.185 long post above, I took the time to reread the appropriate wikipedia pages:

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions is a wikipedia policy (not a guideline)
• Wikipedia:Naming conflict is more specific, but not a policy

The policy does not deal specifically with conflicts, but states in the first section Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

Naming conflict is more specific (following subsection copied from there):

Identification of common names using external references

A number of methods can be used to identify which of a pair (or more) conflicting names is the most prevalent in English.

• The Google test. Using Google's advanced search option, search for each conflicting name and confine the results to pages written in English; also exclude the word "Wikipedia" (as we want to see what other people are using, not our own usage). Note which is the most commonly used term.
• International organisations. Search for the conflicting names on the websites of organisations such as the United Nations, NATO, OSCE, IMF, etc.
• Major English-language media outlets. Use Google News and, where possible, the archives of major outlets such as BBC News and CNN to identify common usages. Some media organisations have established style guides covering naming issues, which can provide useful guidance (e.g. The Guardian's style guide says use Ukraine, not the Ukraine).
• Reference works. Check other encyclopedias. If there is general agreement on the use of a name (as there often will be), that is usually a good sign of the name being the preferred term in English.
• Geographic name servers. Check geographic name servers such as the NGIA GNS server at http://gnswww.nga.mil/geonames/GNS/index.jsp .
• Scientific nomenclature. Check usage by international bodies like CIPM, IUPAP, IUPAC, and other scientific bodies concerned with nomenclature; consider also the national standards agencies NIST and NPL. Consult style guides of scientific journals.

end of copied part

That pretty much lays down the way we should proceed. Find out how the conflict/war is called by international organisations, by other reference works, by major endlish media and use google, where wikipedia is to be excluded. --Xeeron (talk) 12:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

With regard to international organisations, I looked up up the most recent press statements of UN, NATO and OSCE. It should be noted that the UN statement is from the security council, where Russia is a veto wielding member and that NATO has been accused of taking the side of Georgia.

• UN uses "Georgia crisis" and "Situation in Georgia" (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9456.doc.htm)
• NATO uses "Conflict in Georgia" (http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2008/p08-114e.html)
• OSCE uses "Conflict in Georgia" as well (http://www.osce.org/item/33350.html) --Xeeron (talk) 13:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Google delivers:

• "War in Georgia" - 468.000 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=War+in+Georgia&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images)
• "South Ossetia war" - 36.100 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=South+Ossetia+war&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images)
• "Russia-Georgia war" - 229.000 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=Russia-Georgia+war&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images)
• "Georgia-Russia war" - 47.600 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=Georgia-Russia+war&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images)
• "Georgia crisis" -253.000 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=Georgia+crisis&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images)
• "Conflict in Georgia" - 191.000 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=Conflict+in+Georgia&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images)
• "Situation in Georgia" - 559.000 hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=Situation+in+Georgia&as_oq=&as_eq=Wikipedia&num=10&lr=lang_en&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images) --Xeeron (talk) 13:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Updated hit numbers. --Xeeron (talk) 16:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Latest BBC and CNN reports:

• BBC uses "Georgia conflict" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7646422.stm)
• CNN uses "[Moscow's] August war with Georgia" (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/01/georgia.monitors.russia.ap/index.html) --Xeeron (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

ROFL! Xeeron - earlier I've stated that "Georgia + War" brings more hits, because the State of Georgia was involved in the US Civil War - which is by far the best documented war, and has a lot of hits! "Carolina + war" gets 67.8 million hits. In addition Georgia was a name of some state in England or another dependency thereof, that's also had wars. And "Georgia + War" also refers to pre-19th century wars too! So Google test here is invalid. Also, please note this "with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" - which is what we have. It's the first link, finding it is easy and second nature. This article's name, in no way shape or form violates the Wikipedia naming conventions. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 14:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Once again if you search for "War in Georgia" you will get the hits like Xeeron states above, and there are no hits for Georgia in America when you search exactly like that. And once again search Google News and the difference is even bigger. And there you surely don't get any news about the American Civil war. Närking (talk) 15:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

HistoricWarrior007, do you understand the difference between searching for "Georgia" + "in" + "War" and searching for "War in Georgia" on Google? Just check the entries that show up, they are predominantly about this war, not the american civil war. --Xeeron (talk) 16:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Search for "War in Georgia" -Wikipedia -russia reveals 177k hits precisely for the War in American Georgia. (Igny (talk) 17:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC))

And 523000 hits do not even mention Ossetia, and similarly 400k+ hits do not mention Saakashvili or Putin. That probably means that war in Georgia is too generic a phrase. (Igny (talk) 17:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC))

At last, the real talk. I appreciate you, Xeeron, engaging into what i hope to be productive conversation, which will lead us to some agreement. I don't want to shift your attention from HistoricWarrior007's argument above, but i'd like to present you some of my own.

"Wikipedia:Naming conventions is a wikipedia policy (not a guideline). Wikipedia:Naming conflict is more specific, but not a policy" Yeah, i screwed that. I just quoted without checking first, i admit. But while Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy, indeed, supports your point to some extent, it also states in the first section, that

"This policy should be interpreted using other policies and not in isolation. In particular editors should familiarise themselves with the three content policies Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view."

I see, you didn't comment this one of my selected quotes, which i believe to come from WP:NPOV:

"(c) First priority place in article naming is held not by verifiability and popular usage, but by neutrality... Concerns related to... non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited."

I hope, you will agree with me, that the most important thing for wikipedia is to remain neutral. At least WP:NPOV says

"In these types of disputes, it is important to note that verifiability lives alongside neutrality, it does not override it... Verifiability is only one content criterion. Neutral point of view is a core policy of Wikipedia, mandatory, non-negotiable, and to be followed in all articles."

What i'm trying to tell, is that writers of WP:NAMECON hadn't anticipated such a geopolitical event, after which the neutrality of "major media outlets", like CNN and BBC, will be disputed on greater scale, than petty allegiations of adherence to some inner-political wing, or any other accusations, in which only local folk gets interested.

If, every time, when we need a clarifications on something, concerning Russia, we will go for them to "international organizations" like NATO, then we will be better off with closing wikipedia, and spending the rest of our life tending our private gardens, rather than wikipedia articles. (I think, it's obvious, why).

I hope you see, why i think, that this "Identification of common names using external references" guideline doesn't work in our case. It comes as no wonder, that most common usage in English follows BBC and CNN, but its "commonness" does not amend the fact, that it's not neutral(for the reasons, i've already stated in my previous post). So, when you quote from WP:NAME

"Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity"

I get obliged to point out, that it's "generally", not "compulsively, to the point of WP:NPOV ignorance". And, the very same WP:NAME in its in "Controversial Names" section states

"The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more."

So here is the question: why put such undue weight into google hits, when our article can already be found on the very first page of any google search, you can possibly imagine? Why these renames with questionable advantages for google hits, and other assessments of common usage, are continued to be proposed, despite quite founded POV accusations? Why it's all happening, when i've collected and presented many arguments for current title being NPOV, descriptive, unambiguous, and abiding by historical and wikipedia naming conventions? I hope, you will answer me, Xeeron. 217.8.236.200 (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to make it clear. Your statement "our article can already be found on the very first page of any google search" is not true. Try to search War in Georgia and you will see it turns up first on page 5. Interestingly pravda.ru does show up on page 4. So my question is why make such an effort on keeping this name of the article? And by the way the other day the EU observers began a Georgia mission and not a South Ossetia mission. Närking (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

217.8.236.200 (I'll assume you are also 217.8.236.185, it would be good if you could register a username), I could not find the quote starting with "(c)" in WP:NPOV, please point me to its exact location.

You are correct in stating that WP:NAME is to be used together with Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. However it is clear from the policy where the emphasis is: The summary as well as the first section state that "Article naming should be easily recognizable by English speakers". Not only google hits, but about any possible measure suggested points out that normal English speakers do not use "South Ossetian war" for the event described here, therefore the current title does not fulfill the main demand of the policy.

You remain adamant that only "South Ossetian war" is NPOV. That is not an opinion I can share. While your personal conclusions point that way, it is simply not backed up by other sources. Not only the american yellow press, but also media with a rock solid tradition of non-bias like the BBC do not use "South Ossetian war". You can easily check that even Chinese media or Al Jazeera (definitely not sources that can be accused of being western stooges), do not use "South Ossetian war". Finally, even the UN security council does not use "South Ossetian war". Russia is a veto wielding power there! They did not prevent the usage of "conflict in georgia" (It is interesting to see that the UN security council press releases never speak of "war", using "conflict" or "situation" instead, no doubt because Russia objected to "war"). So to sum up: You allege that only "South Ossetian war" is NPOV, but everyone disagrees. Western media, chinese media, arab media, even the UN security council and by implication the russian diplomats use a different wording. --Xeeron (talk) 19:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you prove to me that South Ossetian War 2008 is POV? We disagree on whether 2008 Georgia War is POV or not, but we all agree that 2008 South Ossetia War is NPOV. It does NOT imply that South Ossetia is an independent region or a part of Georgia. As for English speakers not using South Ossetia War - so Jon Stewart is NOT an English speaker? As for the UN - see this link: "http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9419.doc.htm" They call it "South Ossetian Conflict" - and how's war not a conflict again? That's un.org/news/press - it's pretty damn official, and the war has already expanded to the Kodori Gorge, so congratulations on another moot argument. Now approaching 50 pages of the "I want to be a good Propaganda boii let's change the title" discussion. Finally, as I've pointed out earlier, if one types in "War in Georgia Wiki" it's the second link. And it was the first link when I made that post, I know how to use Google, and history of this article shows that other editors did the same. As for your other point Narking - that's because they are being deployed to Georian BUFFER ZONES. Not to South Ossetia. And Narking - just to flip your question - why put such an effort into changing the title, when the rest of the article needs work? If you don't think South Ossetia War 2008 is NPOV Xeeron, I want to see your argument, here and now. I've had enough of this from you people, so I AM CALLING ON ALL "LET'S CHANGE THE NAME" EDITORS TO PROVE THAT 2008 SOUTH OSSETIA WAR IS POV. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:47, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

For your information the EU observers are deployed not only in the buffer zone close to South Ossetia but also in other areas in Georgia that's currently occupied by Russian troops, that's why it's a Georgian mission. Närking (talk) 21:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, lets go through your points one by one: "As for English speakers not using South Ossetia war", whom are you speaking to? Me? Your local Straw man? I never claimed that English speakers don't use it. In fact I linked Google to show that about 63 thousand websites use it. Just happens that is less than one tenths of the amount of use of other terms.

The UN link you cited is from the stage of the war when the UN did not actually discuss the fighting in Abkhazia. Which you would know if you read the text since it talks about "military build-up on the Abkhaz side", not actual fighting. You'll notice that press releases from later on call it conflict in georgia. Now that your arguements here have evaporated in light of the evidence, let me come back to the main point (and let me kindly ignore your repeated question about proofing your the POV, since you ignored my answer to that very question the last time you asked it): Articles should be named according to what english speakers commonly use. There is an more common English name that is so NPOV that even the Russians use it, except you refuse to see that point. --Xeeron (talk) 22:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

"I AM CALLING ON ALL "LET'S CHANGE THE NAME" EDITORS TO PROVE THAT 2008 SOUTH OSSETIA WAR IS POV". That's impossible to prove, HistoricWarrior007, and absence of proof is not proof of absence. The point is that "South Ossetia War" has hardly any reliable sources. This name was used on this wiki ages ago, before the conflict expanded beyond Ossetia. You can't just make up a name for a conflict which you personally find "more neutral", because that comes down to WP:OR. If that's the case, then articles on war pages would have constant name disputes. No we need to go by what's used most amongst analysts and historians and academics and independent media etc. etc. If several names are used, the most populair one should be picked, and the rest can follow up in the lead article. For example, this article would be titled "War in Georgia (2008)" and start with "The War in Georgia, also known as the Russian-Georgian War or the South Ossetia War was an armed conflict between...". Grey Fox (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Narking - ok and that disproves my point how? I said that advisors are stationed in Georgia proper ("Buffer Zones" are UN controlled areas of Georgia proper), so it's a Georgian mission. You said that advisors are stationed in Georgia proper, so it's a Georgian mission. Well done! Xeeron, I get 2.87 million links when I google "South Ossetia War". That's English buddy. If only Xeeron, you read the title "SECURITY COUNCIL HOLDS THIRD EMERGENCY MEETING AS SOUTH OSSETIA CONFLICT INTENSIFIES, EXPANDS TO OTHER PARTS OF GEORGIA" South Ossetia Conflict (War) expands, as in already expanded, it says expands, NOT expanding, or about to expand, therefore, the UN knowingly named the war the [2008] South Ossetia War, KNOWING that it will expand. See how important reading the title, and getting the correct title is? My arguments haven't evaporated anywhere; South Ossetia is still location-based (my initial argument); it is still where over 90% of the fighting took place; it still has the most important battle (Tskhinvali); my arguments are still here buddy. And Xeeron, I have pointed to you countless times that might doesn't make right. Saying the majority says so, does NOT make it NPOV. If you would have lived in the South during the Civil Rights Movenment you'd realize that might doesn't make right, or NPOV for that matter. I've seen your majority view point and called it a farce many times. Grey Fox - I have proof for how the "2008 Georgia War" is biased; it is biased because it IMPLIES that South Ossetia was a De Facto part of Georgia - which as we all know is bullshit, because if a region is De Facto and De Jure part of a country - there is no war! My Russian colleagues may disagree, but Chechnya was not De Facto part of Russia in the 1990's, it was De Jure. And it was called the Second Chechen War, not the Russian War 1999-2006. So in other words Mr. Grey Fox, and the other two of you, you have FAILED to show my how 2008 South Ossetia War is NPOV, but I HAVE shown you, and cited an example of how 2008 Georgia War would be incorrect and biased. Therefore the title stays, case closed. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I urge you to turn down your tone, there's no need for the constant use of capitalised letters to make a point. Also if you get 2.87 search results when you google "south ossetia war" then you forget to apply quotations, which are essential. You argument that 90% of the fighting took place in South Ossetia is WP:OR because it's only based on your personal estimation. It's disputed because georgian casualty figures for example give much higher casualties in Georgia than in South Ossetia, with victims fallen after the Russian bombardments. As for your argument that "Georgia War" is biased, there's no proof whatsoever. War In Georgia doesn't imply at all that South Ossetia was a de facto part of Georgia, but simply that it was a de jure part of Georgia. The comparison with Chechnya is wrong, because the chechen wars weren't fought between Russia and another country such as Georgia, but with just Chechnya. South ossetia War and War in Abkhazia are already used for the armed conflicts from decades ago. This conflict is different however, because it was mostly between Russia and Georgia. Grey Fox (talk) 00:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason I use caps is because I had to make the exact same point for the THIRD TIME IN ONE WEEK. Also, when you call it the "War in Georgia", that is POV, because it does imply that South Ossetia is De Facto AND De Jure part of Georgia. As for no other nationalities participating in the Second Chechen War, I highly doubt that considering that I've read articles about it, written by the actual people who fought there (in Russian) who describe the armament and the composition of too many "freedom fighters" or "insurgents" as non-Chechens, and in addition, the Chechens did get aid from Georgia in fighting their war against Russia. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Three weeks? I've been doing it even longer. The neutrality of this article is largely disputed and if every small change needs months of debate it will never change. You say that "war in georgia" implies that South Ossetia is a de facto part of Georgia but that's simply not true. Moreover it's absolutely absurd to just call it South Ossetia War when the war was also fought on Abkhazian and Georgian proper. As for Chechnya, yes it's true that there were and still are foreigners fighting there, but this is a small number especially compared to the indegenous people. They did get aid from Georgia at times. The point however is that the war is still largely fought between the Russian army, and caucasian rebels, whereas this conflict was fought mainly between the Russian army and the Georgian army. Grey Fox (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

"Three weeks? I've been doing it even longer." I've been participating in that discussion from the very creation of the article, but HistoricWarrior007 was talking not about "three weeks", but about "third time in ONE week". That's different points.

"if every small change needs months of debate it will never change" Article title in our case is not just "every small change".

"Moreover it's absolutely absurd to just call it South Ossetia War when the war was also fought on Abkhazian and Georgian proper." Here i refer you to the point you seem to haven't noticed:

"Conflicts are commonly named after the region the conflict is over, not just an overarcing term to describe all regions involved. Both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are named so despite involving actions and operations outside of the territorial boundaries of those countries."

You said again, that "this conflict was fought mainly between the Russian army and the Georgian army." For explanation, why i think this can't be an argument in renaming discussion, i refer you to my post below. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 07:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I propose we all take an extended hiatus concerning the name of the article, then come back and decide once the outside world has made a decision on the official name. Say, three to six months? DerekMBarnes (talk) 02:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I concur! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 09:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

No thanks. How about we change it to War in Georgia, and then let it rest for "six months"? Grey Fox (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Which, funny enough, would result in the name that you argued for all along to stick in place. Quite an obvious ploy. However, you are right insofar that I am getting tired of explaining the same stuff ("South Ossetia war" search is not equal to "South" + "Ossetia" + "war" search. Or the fact that the UN changed the name they use to Conflict in Georgia) again and again, only to be ignored and the same wrong facts comming up once more. This needs an wider audience. --Xeeron (talk) 09:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

3-2 so far on giving it a rest (for 3-6 months) with the status quo. Is your guys' plan to sipmly be superbly annoying until we tire of it and get the name changed? Because you seem to be absolutely inept at proving that "2008 South Ossetia War" is POV. And Xeeron, South Ossetia War in terms of searching IS equal to South + Ossetia + War, it's basic search engine principles. How about we not parrot the CNN/Fox News biased line? Can we do that, or is it might makes right on Wikipedia? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 14:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

At lot of times, one has to deal with areas of grey in wikipedia. Fortunately, not here. It is NOT equal in terms of searching, as anyone can find out within seconds by typing the 2 lines I wrote into google. I invite you to inform yourself about the basic workings of a search engine by copying the following two lines into google and hitting search:

"South Ossetia War"

"South" + "Ossetia" + "War"

--Xeeron (talk) 18:09, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

"Which, funny enough, would result in the name that you argued for all along to stick in place. Quite an obvious ploy." I opted for that, just to have some rest, and i did that after you alleged the ploy. It all was so tiresome, that someone here said, he will write a novel about this renaming discussion, and, frankly, i will be one of his grateful readers. It's just i still think, that arguments for keeping current title are more than reasonable, so current title will hold, whether we will argue about it, or not.

For starters, Narking said "Just to make it clear. Your statement "our article can already be found on the very first page of any google search" is not true." Just to make it clear. As i said it to you earlier, even if you name it "War in Georgia", it "will drown ... in plenty of other pages and wikipedia articles about other numerous events, which qualify as "War in Georgia"". "Any search", means any reasonable search, Narking. If you'd really cared that much about our article to be easily found, you'd rather focused on promoting etymology section, because it's contents of the page, not its title, what Google search engine appreciates more.

Xeeron, you asked: "I could not find the quote starting with "(c)" in WP:NPOV, please point me to its exact location." That quote was from my older post. First part of it "First priority place in article naming is held not by verifiability and popular usage, but by neutrality..." was my interpretation of last part "Concerns related to... non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited.", which can be found in WP:NPOV#Neutrality_And_verifiability.

You say "However it is clear from the policy where the emphasis is: The summary as well as the first section state that "Article naming should be easily recognizable by English speakers"", but i wouldn't be so sure about where exactly between recognizability and neutrality emphasis lays. WP:NPOV#Article_naming states:

"Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality."

And yes, name should be recognizable by English speakers, but WP:POV#English_language says

"Also be careful to avoid an English-speaking Point of View" with the example of "Accounts of conflicts and their outcomes providing the interpretation of the side most English-speaking nations supported".

You see, Xeeron, every Google count or other "any possible measure" of gathering English usage statistics you provide in support of "Russian-Georgian war", or any other title, which forgets to mention that it all was about South Ossetia, is the result of this very "interpretation of the side most English-speaking nations supported". Will you argue that?

"You remain adamant that only "South Ossetian war" is NPOV. That is not an opinion I can share. While your personal conclusions point that way, it is simply not backed up by other sources. Not only the american yellow press, but also media with a rock solid tradition of non-bias like the BBC do not use "South Ossetian war"." You see, Xeeron, i don't want to start "my media is better than yours" contest, because we both know about Russia accusations of western media being non-neutral, and i hope you'll agree with me, that no "rock solid tradition of non-bias" you presume, can be the rock solid proof it was followed this time. The dispute exists, so it's as incorrect for you to use "BBC is neutral" assumption, as for me to base my arguments on the opposite.

"You can easily check that even Chinese media or Al Jazeera (definitely not sources that can be accused of being western stooges), do not use "South Ossetian war"." I've noticed that many wikipedia editors brought up that argument. And thus, they all have exhibited one small logical fallacy. News agency don't have to be "western stooge", to refer to something using the same terms as in western press. And country don't have to be "western stooge", to side with the west on the occasion, in pursue of its own unknown national interests, which ultimately may or may not contradict those of the west.

"Finally, even the UN security council does not use "South Ossetian war". Russia is a veto wielding power there! They did not prevent the usage of "conflict in georgia" (It is interesting to see that the UN security council press releases never speak of "war", using "conflict" or "situation" instead, no doubt because Russia objected to "war"). If Russia hadn't vetoed the usage of the word "Georgia", it's because talks, held in UN council, were concerning Georgia, not only South Ossetia. And, frankly, i would be surprised to see Russia brandishing with its veto for a weeks, before UN will be left no choice in names but something like "Conflict in Georgia and South Ossetia"(so nobody forgets about SO), or "Georgian invasion of South Ossetia"(additionally states who is to blame).

"So to sum up: You allege that only "South Ossetian war" is NPOV, but everyone disagrees. Western media, chinese media, arab media, even the UN security council and by implication the russian diplomats use a different wording." So to sum it up, i don't quite understand, what all of the presented facts have to do with POVness of SOW title, or NPOVness of RGW title. I think, you've assumed incorrect implications here. If some media agencies, countries, or even international security councils don't use some name like SOW, that doesn't mean it's POV. And if they got used to refer to it with some name like "Conflict in Georgia", that does not mean it's NPOV. You see, all these medias and councils aren't obliged to use name free of negative connotations, especially if, from layman's point of view, they are too subtle to think about. But we, wikipedia editors, should put our best effort in naming our article as neutrally, as possible, so if something is satisfactory for medias and diplomats, that doesn't automatically makes it appropriate for wikipedia article title. The possibility of any of them having some discussion about what name to prefer for the sake of neutrality and deciding in favor of some name, can not be used as an excuse for us not holding our own discussion, or as an argument for underestimating opposition to that name. So, i really don't understand why you've brought this up.

You said in your argument with HistoricWarrior007, that "There is an more common English name that is so NPOV that even the Russians use it" I have to disagree with you. It was already explained here, why russians see it as POV. You see, if we(russians) are sometimes have to use it, it's because, in russian language, titles like "Operation For Enforcing Peace", "Peacekeeping operation in South Ossetia", and "Georgian-Ossetian conflict", sound even longer than they are in English, so "War in Georgia" comes here as relief. It's not because we think it's NPOV, i assure you.

Grey Fox said "georgian casualty figures for example give much higher casualties in Georgia than in South Ossetia, with victims fallen after the Russian bombardments" I've just looked on the infobox, and, as far as i can see, it's the other way round. Please, explain, what have you meant.

Also Grey Fox said "This conflict is different however, because it was mostly between Russia and Georgia." Such approach to naming wikipedia articles was disproved several times with very simple counter-examples like 2003 Iraq war being chosen for article name, not US-Iraq war, despite "it was mostly between" US and Iraq.

And, for our discussion to someday see its end, i want us to agree on something. Xeeron, do you agree, that "2008 South Ossetia war" is NPOV? 212.192.164.14 (talk) 14:49, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting to see that the unkown IP editor change arguments when proved being wrong. The same IP has also called the Russian invasion in Georgia "Russian Peacekeeping operation in South Ossetia" [14]. Is that NPOV that you seem to care so much about? Närking (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting to see that you neither change your arguments when proved wrong, nor admit it. Changing arguments, when old ones were proved wrong, not simply endlessly repeating them, has something to do with reaching consensus, don't you think? And attacking editors on the front beyond their arguments surely has nothing to do with it, and is rather unpleasant personal trait of yours, won't you agree? And yeah, i did that edit you mentioned. But, as you also pointed out, the previous version of the phrase was "Russian war in Georgia". Such POVed namings on peripheral articles no one's properly watching are more than common. And this one, when we haven't even reached consensus on how to call our own article, was just the very last straw for me. I was angered beyond reason when i was doing that edit, and I'm really sorry about doing it, but that neither excuses me, nor makes it NPOV, i admit it. I urge someone to change it to something NPOV. But, please, choose not from somewhere among the lines of "Russian invasion in Georgia", i ask you. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 05:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

My point is that many of you here hide behind NPOV to push your own strong POV. And finally "War in Georgia" is not my personal favourite to name this war or conflict. I probably would go for "Russia-Georgia war" or something like that since it tells more about the war. But it's not I or anyone else here at Wikipedia who choose how this war should be named. As stated many times above it's clearly named "War in Georgia". I might think that the Russian name of the Winter War would be a better name, but that's not something I can change even though "Soviet-Finland War" probably would tell more about the war. Närking (talk) 06:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"My point is that many of you here hide behind NPOV to push your own strong POV." Yes, that's exactly what i've thought you're pointing out, when i was writing my previous post. But, i neither hide my POV, nor deny it's strongness. And what about you? My insistence, is, at least, understandable. We're talking here about my country after all. And what is the reason for your persistence? Because you so enormously care about infinitesimal, if any, advantage in google hits our article will experience if renamed? Seriously, don't expect me to believe that. Personally, i think that "many of you here hide behind NPOV to push your own strong POV" applies to you even more, than it is to me. But i keep such thoughts to myself, despite them occuring being quite expectable if one is to read your old posts, because they have nothing to do with your arguments being reasonable or not. Everybody has a POV. Everybody edits wikipedia for some personal reasons. Whatever these reasons are, it's not an excuse for not taking any arguments seriously, as long as they're valid, and we're being polite. I hope, i've been talking to you and everybody else here with all due respect and politeness, and my arguments were reasonable enough. At least they were not like "back off from my title, you POVed capitalist pigs(or whatever you think brainwashed russians think about you)". I've been respecting you and seriously contemplating all of your arguments, and i expect from you the same. As far as i understood your post, you were implicating, that, if i have a POV, then my arguments somehow don't have any value. That's what i've meant by you're "attacking editors on the front beyond their arguments", and that's what i think you're continuing to do, because - i'm refreshing Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad page now, aaaaand... - yes, despite you caring so much about my POVed edit, and me, asking to fix it, you didn't. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 10:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"But it's not I or anyone else here at Wikipedia who choose how this war should be named." Yes, let it be decided by scientific publications. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 10:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

If you had read what I had written you would have seen that I don't think "War in Georgia" is the best name either, but since it's now known as that I don't see why Wikipedia should stick with "South Ossetia war". I don't have any personal motives for this like you apparently have. I'm neither Georgian or Russian. I would say one big problem with this article is the many one subject editors. And by the way the first published book about the war in Sweden name it "rysk-georgiska kriget" (Russian-Georgian War). Närking (talk) 19:23, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"I don't think "War in Georgia" is the best name either, but since it's now known as that I don't see why Wikipedia should stick with "South Ossetia war"" Er... maybe this have something to do with, i dunno... "War in Georgia" being POV, and "South Ossetia war" being NPOV? Forgive me my irony, i understand that, for now, those, who share this opinion of mine, are greatly outnumbered here, but, after i spent here two weeks carefully quoting each and everyone's arguments, complementing them with my opposing comments supported by quotes from wikipedia policy, i would have thought you'll at least "see" something. But the whole talk i got looked like that:

Me: "citeA1" bla-bla, wikicite1, counter-argument1... "citeA13" bla-bla-bla, wikicite13, counter-argument13.

Someone: War in Georgia is popular. "Wikipedia should... generally RECOGNIZABLE by Englishmen ... battles beyond borders of SO..." (carefully avoiding to counter any of my arguments on one-by-one basis)

Me: "citeB1" bla-bla-bla-bla, counter-argument14... "citeB45" bla-bla-bla-bla-bla, counter-argument58. "Wikipedia should... GENERALLY recognizable by Englishmen ... not an overarcing term ..."

Someone else: But War in Georgia is popular. "Wikipedia should... generally RECOGNIZABLE by Englishmen ... battles beyond borders of SO..."

Me: (at loss of words because nobody seems to hear me)

I, again, sincerely apologize for my irony, it's just getting hard for me to resist it. Honestly, if someone needs "stopping the discussion now" as "only a round about way of keeping their prefered title" like Xeeron said below, then it's not me. You see, I haven't ran out of arguments, and they rely on more than one wikipedia policy too. And, if no one, maybe with the exception of Xeeron, didn't even try to thoroughly counter them, or even notice them(like Devil's Advocate certainly failed to do for a third time in a row), it's not my fault. Also i wanna skip commenting about you having no "apparent personal interests". I don't know, what kind of personal interests you think i have, but they're nothing more, than keeping article title, which will let the reader to form his own opinion(not pre-set him to take any russian statements with "informed scepticism", as those titles you propose do(i know i know, you're not proposing, you're just seeing no reason why, etc)). You, again, just failed to understand, that presence or absence of "personal interests", as long as it don't result in conflict with wikipedia goal, doesn't matter neither for wikipedia, nor for me. And life seemingly haven't taught you a lesson, that it's not whether you're "Georgian or Russian" or someone else determines you're strongly POVed or not.

And about "I would say one big problem with this article is the many one subject editors." If those tiny scraps, which technically can be called my free time, are completely consumed by this discussion, and i have no time left to do something more productive on wikipedia, that doesn't make me a "one subject editor". And, talking about "one subject editors", my POVed edit on Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad page is still unfixed, despite me asking to do it. Twice. Yes, i'll never let you forget about that, like you didn't let me forget about my POVed edit instead of silently fixing it and living happily ever after. :) Sincerely yours, 212.192.164.14 writing from 194.226.182.40 (talk) 06:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

"War in Georgia" is not POV by implying Abkhazia and South Ossetia are what they are, separatists. That's what they are, entities trying to separate from Georgia. The problem with this title is it doesn't reflect the scope of the conflict period. There was a naval battle in Georgian waters, air strikes all over Georgia, troop movements into undisputed Georgian territory, land seizures by Abkhazia, the battle in the Kodori Gorge. The fact the Georgians ran away so there was no serious battle in Gori, Senaki, or Poti doesn't change the fact there were military actions in those areas. This was clearly not just about retaking South Ossetia for either side and obviously was more broad. I think right now the neutral way to address this broad scope and the way most favored is "War in Georgia" hence why I'm saying it should be renamed to this. Talk of waiting until a name is decide on is nonsense as it's already clear what name has been decided on. Russian sources call it a War in Georgia and none call it "South Ossetia War" so why is Wikipedia doing this? Wikipedia should go with what English users commonly call it, calling this a war in Georgia is quite neutral as this involved a conflict between Georgia and separatists wishing to secede from Georgia. Russia came on the side of those separatists and it was clear Russia's government saw them as separatists within Georgia. In general the fact they were separatists means it can be considered to have taken within Georgia between Georgian central government forces and the separatist entities with Russian backing.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

By the same way we can say that "War in Georgia" is POV by implying Abkhazia and South Ossetia are separatists, because this name doesn’t implying that Georgia themselves is separatist with unclear separation from USSR. And this unclear separation is the source of both Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts, whose are the sources of both Georgian Civil War in 1980-1990th years and of this war too, because this war was an attempt of the Georgian government to gain revenge for that Georgian Civil War. "War in Georgia" also doesn’t implying that the control over the small part of the Kodori Gorge (which is the only part of this gorge that was controlled by Georgian government, not the whole gorge) has been taken by Georgia in 2006, and for ten or more years neither Abkhazia nor Georgia really controlled it.

So, the name "War in Georgia" doesn’t implying that the sources of this war are Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts, and also the Georgian Civil War. And this name also doesn’t implying that this war was the Russian intervention in the New Georgian Civil War similarly to Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918-1922. (Pubkjre (talk) 08:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC))

I wrote: "I propose we all take an extended hiatus concerning the name of the article, then come back and decide once the outside world has made a decision on the official name. Say, three to six months?"'

Xeeron replied: "Which, funny enough, would result in the name that you argued for all along to stick in place. Quite an obvious ploy. However, you are right insofar that I am getting tired of explaining the same stuff."

Actually, I don't have an opinion on the name. I just got sick of looking at all of you bickering over it. I figured we could just wait for the next edition of canonized paper-print encyclopedias to come out, and use whatever consensus they reached, saving us a lot of time and effort we could have spent on more important things.

But if you want to keep cycling through the same cruft over and over again to the point that we don't NEED to write a novel in order to publish a 300-page book...don't mind me.

As I honestly have nothing else I want to say about this, I hereby close my piece in this talk section. DerekMBarnes (talk) 06:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I also think that "wait for the next edition of canonized paper-print encyclopedias to come out, and use whatever consensus they reached" currently is the best way. (Pubkjre (talk) 08:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC))

Derek - how dare you offer a sensible solution to their arguments. Narking still has trouble either reading or dating, because I suggested that we should go via post-WWII, because that's what's used in naming wars nowadays, and Narking then cited the Russo-Finnish War, which was in no way shape or form post WWII. But Derek's suggestion does make sense, and once again, I must concur as I refuse to argue against logic. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess I have to explain it a little clearer so everyone will understand. By just mentioning Winter War my point was to show that it's not I or you who choose the name of a conflict. It's as clear as that. Närking (talk) 06:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Heh, ok fine, let me call your bluff: How about renaming the article now and then discussing again in 6 months, are you ok with that, HistoricWarrior007 and Pubkjre? --Xeeron (talk) 09:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Your argument could be turned against you like that: Heh, ok fine, let me call your bluff: we're renaming the article the way you want, an when we return again in 6 months with 2008 South Ossetia war inscribed on hardcopy of some encyclopedia, you will say something among the lines of "that's just one encyclopedia let's wait for more", if i show you russian encyclopedias and scientific articles, you'll say something like "this POVed russian-sponsored propaganda doesn't deserve the name of encyclopedia", and if western encyclopedias somehow will manage to abstain from pro-georgian stance, you will start repeating your old arguments of "RGW title is most widely used, folks, it's clearly unnecesary for us to rename" etc. Please, don't create an atmosphere of mutual distrust here, Xeeron. I've expected better from you. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 10:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I am waiting for the answer from HistoricWarrior007 and Pubkjre. If they agree with my proposal, I'll apologize to them and concede that they indeed only wanted to end the discussion. If they do not, I'll stick to my point that stopping the discussion now is only a round about way of keeping their prefered title and this whole arguement is simply meant to distract from the issue discussed. --Xeeron (talk) 10:56, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

You want my answer?.. Good... But I’d like to tell a few words before...

I can say that the situation around South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia looks like "The Mirror Of The Kosovo War". For example, Russians call that war as "1999 War in Yugoslavia", not "Kosovo War". This war is unofficially called as "Events in South Ossetia" or "Battles in South Ossetia" in Russia (officially it’s named something like "Peace Enforcing Operation"), but in Western countries it’s currently called "War in Georgia". The POV-depending mirror, isn’t it?

I agree that we really have naming problem. But I don’t think that the article must be renamed right now. Well, I agreed that it’s possible to make a trade-off and rename the article now and then discussing again in 6 months, but not to "War in Georgia" and some other popular names (all medias are biased, and "When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before" [Rudyard Kipling]...).

So, if the rename is required, the only way is to create a new temporary "synthetic" name and discuss it again in 6 months... (Pubkjre (talk) 13:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC))

Such as? The Greogian civil indepedence conflict of South Osssretia and Akbarsia featuring Russia intervasion (yes I have invented a new word)?[[Slatersteven (talk) 18:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)]]

Not only indepedence, but ethnic conflict too: "The Georgian Civil War consisted of inter-ethnic and inter-national conflicts in the regions of South Ossetia (1988-1992) and Abkhazia (1992-1993)". In this war the Georgian government attempted to gain revenge for that war and to reincorporate South Ossetia and Abkhazia into Georgia... The main problem is that all events are much politicized now due to a "conflict of interests" between Russia and U.S. The "old good Great Game" came back, but with new players! (Pubkjre (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC))

Xeeron - the title you are proposing, I have proven them to be biased, time and again. You have FAILED to prove the current title to be biased. I cannot make it any clearer then that. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

If you actually bothered to read my last 2 posts, you would have noticed that I did not propose any specific title, so good job in proving it is biased. Since you have repeated that same accusation about 5 times now, I'll spare myself the typing of a 5th response and direct you some pages up, where I already replied to that. --Xeeron (talk) 23:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not a matter of it being biased, the current title is completely inappropriate. This title was tacked on when the article was first created for fuck's sake. It's the title this was given when the war began. It's completely ridiculous that this title remains and it simply should be changed. The problem is a bunch of editors, many biased, jump in every time a name is proposed and attack the basis of the proposed name and completely ignore the fact this current title is completely inconsistent with any naming convention.

On the matter of POV, not everyone believes the Armenian Genocide was genocide, including the Turkish government, but we don't bow down to those few people who disagree. Not even Russia considered South Ossetia or Abkhazia independent during the war so it seems the only people who considered them being outside of Georgia were the Abkhaz and South Ossetians in those separatist areas. I don't see why their opinion should dictate what the title of this article should be for the entire world. This is a serious case of WP:FRINGE.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Devil's Advocate, South Ossetia and Abkhazia were De Facto Independent. This is a fact. The title, 2008 Georgia War implicitely contradicts this fact. Therefore it is biased. Narking - I'm glad the Swedes wrote a book on it before the dust cleared. More material for students to critique - i.e. why writing a book before the dust clears is a bad idea. I don't know when the dust will clear, I think it's in January, but right now there's so much we still don't know about the war. I still cannot find the damn proper ORBATs (as in what units participated).

Here's what I think is a proper Orbat (for me proper means really detailed)

1st Army (commander) Corps Alpha (commander) Division III (commander) 4th Regiment (commander) 1st Motorized Inf-Tank Brigade (Col XXX): 3 tanks and 12 men led by Sgt. XXX - 2 wounded, none killed) 2 btrs and 24 men led by Sgt. XXX - 1 killed, 3 wounded)

We don't have that kind of intel, nor do we have the types of tanks or BTRs, and both sides are to blame. We don't even know on what side of the tunnel the Russians were. So I think it's smart to wait until the dust clears, and we can get full intel on it. And NOT RENAME it a kazillion times till then. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 08:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

So are you suggesting we rename the article on the Armenian Genocide because not everyone agrees it was genocide? How about the Holocaust? Not everyone agrees on that. You're suggesting the views of a very small minority should dictate the title of this article. While that may seem fine and dandy here the same argument can be disastrous elsewhere and is why Wikipedia policy is clear that neutrality is about "significant" views not all. Of course Abkhazia and South Ossetia considered themselves independent, but no one else did. I imagine many of the West's opponents in the War on Terrorism don't consider themselves terrorists, but that doesn't mean that title should be rejected for POV reasons. The term "War in Georgia" has been used most widely and no significant source has called it South Ossetia War following the conflict. Also War in Georgia appropriately reflects the scope of the conflict. No part of this war happened outside of Georgia or Georgian waters, but plenty of it happened outside South Ossetia.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 10:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

So, nearly all russians(140 millions) who think that "Russian-Georgian War" title is blatant CNN/Fox News propaganda and horrible POV are "very small minority" now? And their view is not "significant"? Oh, i guess i know your next argument. It certainly will be in the mood of "I imagine many of the West's opponents in the War on Terrorism don't consider themselves terrorists, but that doesn't mean that title should be rejected for POV reasons." like "Russians don't consider themselves attackers of Georgia, let alone invaders, but that does not mean that title should be rejected for POV reasons". Neat. One can hardly argue that. There's the Russians and there's the Terrorists, is there any difference, really? 212.192.164.14 (talk) 11:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You know the line "screenshot or it didn't happen"? Wikipedia is the same: Bring a source or it is simply your personal opinion. You are in no position to speak for 140 million others. --Xeeron (talk) 14:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems like some editors here think this is Russian Wikipedia. This is English Wikipedia so articles won't have Russian names like "Soviet-Finnish War" but the name of the war that it is known as in the English speaking world (and in most other parts of the world), namely Winter War in that case. If this current war is known as "South Ossetia War" in Russia the article in Russian Wikipedia will be like that, but that can't change the fact the war is known as "War in Georgia" in the English speaking world (and in most other parts of the world). Närking (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You know, your argument is so clearly biased there's no reason to even consider it in this discussion. Accusing CNN and Fox News of propaganda and making rather ridiculous claims about Russia just suggests you're just a pro-Russian anonymous IP user. I suggested Russia-Georgia War because I though it was most appropriate at the time, but now it is clear the primary name is "War in Georgia" and as such that should be the title of this article on the English-speaking Wikipedia.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:18, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. Most of other wikis about this war refer to South Ossetia in the title. In any way, war in Georgia is too generic a name. It is akin to calling, say, Napoleonic Wars as wars in Europe. Clearly a generic name would win any popularity contest when compared to a more specific name. (Igny (talk) 00:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC))

What Wikipedia says in another language is not a precedent for what the English-speaking Wikipedia says. In fact, most often it's the other way around and Wikipedia in other languages adopts the name used in the English version. None should really use the another language version, but in the end it is usually the English version that is used.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:18, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• That was 'Russian-Georgian war. There were 120 thousand+ Google hits for combination "Russian-Georgian war" (see here), and only 12 thousand for "2008 South Ossetia war". Even many Russian commentators consider this to be Russian-Georgian war. For example, Yulia Latynina tells this (an approximate translation): "I want to emphasize: this is Russian-Georgian war. The strike [by Russia] was conducted from two fronts: the Abkhazian and the South Ossetian fronts; approximately 25,000 Russian Army serviceman have been involved and several hundred tanks; rocket strikes have been conducted, and Russian strategic aviation completed sorties..." see here. Biophys (talk) 04:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough - we should rename it "South Ossetian War", that gets over 3 million hits on Google. Adding 2008 at the end gets 2.7 million. So either "South Ossetian War" or "South Ossetian War 2008" so we can add an "n" to South Ossetia and move 2008 to the back, that way we get more Google Hits! Yippee. And since you cite Yulia Latynina, let's get a qoute from this "unbiased" journalist: "Yulia Latynina is known for her sharp and polemic statements. She claimed that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, French President Jacques Chirac, Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder, and U.S. President George W. Bush have all been successfully "recruited" by Vladimir Putin to serve his political objectives.[1] She also alleged that "President Putin will secure a third term simply because this is the authorities' logic. Power in Russia is in essence authoritarian, and there are no other ways to hand over power: control must be maintained over it."[2]" HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess you still haven't learned how to use Google although several other editors have explained it above. "South Ossetian War" only gets 18.500 hits while "War in Georgia" gets 790.000 hits and "Russian-Georgian War" 127.000 hits. Närking (talk) 11:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

And "Russia-Georgia War" 314.000. That's probably the best title. Grey Fox (talk) 12:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Apparently you haven't learned either. "war in Georgia" -russia gives 170k hits about the american civil war. "war in Georgia" russia ossetia -wikipedia gives only 70k hits. (Hmm, I have repeated the search again 5 minutes later and Google produced 150k hits. What can I say, this statistics is not reliable) (Igny (talk) 13:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC))

And aparently you haven't read what I have written before about this. To avoid any possible American Civil War hit you can also search Google News and then you sure will see the difference even clearer. "War in Georgia" gets 2116, "Russia-Georgia War" gets 738, "Russian-Georgian War" gets 151 hits, "South Ossetian war" gets 58 and "South Ossetia war" get 13 hits. Can it be clearer? Närking (talk) 15:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

So now you guys want to base every Wikipedia Title on Google Hits, regardless of whether it's POV or not? Hmm, where did those Russkies that produced the bots that crushed something in Estonia in 2007 go? I bet they can produce millions of Google hits all referreing to Georgia as Loserland. Does that then mean that we should change the title of Georgia? Seriously though, you arguing for a Wikipedia title to be changed based on Google hits from an NPOV version to a POV version is just plain ridiculous. Also Narking, why don't you add "August 2008" at the and see what you get. I mean if it's not referring to any other wars and to no pundits, you should have no trouble finding searches. Oh wait, there are none. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In case you didn't know Google News search the news the latest month. And if you don't trust Google search you could perhaps also start to read the news yourself and see how this war is known (and I don't mean Russia Today or Pervy Kanal). Närking (talk) 10:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the name is out-dated, "2nd South Ossetian war" Or the " 08.08.08 Russian invasion of Georgia" would be better candidates.

75.179.183.114 (talk) 01:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC) Jade Rat

Narking - perhaps you didn't get my earlier point, which was that articles should be named on the basis of the most NPOV name, as the article is currently named, not on the basis of Google hits. Also, Jade Rat, or user 75.179, Russian forces were already in Georgia during the attack, at least the Peacekeepers, so it doesn't exaclty meet the definition of invasion. Also Russians are close to China, they would never have started a war just when the Chinese opened their Olympics. Russia isn't going to antagonize China for no reason, and waiting two weeks wouldn't have changed anything from Russia's perspective. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

War in Georgia is no more POV than American Civil War. Even though the latter involves a secessionist entity no one considers it biased to have the main title be American Civil War. That's because it is what this is called by most people. Not everyone believes the Armenian Genocide was genocide, but the majority of English users know it by that name and hence that name is used, also partly because it's not very controversial. Your argument about "War in Georgia" being POV is based solely on the idea that it's biased against South Ossetia and Abkhazia by implying they were part of Georgia, but at the time no country disputed whether they were independent or not. South Ossetia and Abkhazia were widely reported to be "celebrating independence" after recognition following the war. So it seems even the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia didn't consider themselves truly independent until winning recognition. I see nothing controversial in calling this War in Georgia and I don't think many would. Wikipedia shouldn't cater to a vocal fringe, but go with the predominant views.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Somehow I suspected it beforehand, that if i get distracted by outer events, this discussion will reduce to one-sided google count citations, but i couldn't have imagined it will happen that fast. Guess i'm wasting precious time of my life here... but what the hell.

Xeeron, commenting on my post about "140 millions russians don't think they're invaders", said:

"You know the line "screenshot or it didn't happen"? Wikipedia is the same: Bring a source or it is simply your personal opinion. You are in no position to speak for 140 million others."

Well, a search on two semantic variations of "public protests against Georgian aggression in South Ossetia" on russian Google on its first page only gives me these (warning - they're in russian) pages: this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. I have more, but i got tired of copypasting their urls here. And that's only those of public protests, which managed to make their way into WWW, mind you. Majority of them were not mentioned beyond local newspapers with no WWW mirror. When i was searching on semantic variations of "public protests against Russian aggression in Georgia" on Google, results describing such events involving russians were nearly non-existent compared to above. Personally, i would have thought, that, being russian, speaking on the matter with russians, and living in a russian city, which, incidentally, contains more than one percent of the aforementioned 140 million russian population, enables me to quite reliably judge on what most russians' opinion is. But it seems, it went out of fashion here to assume good faith.

Narking (btw, is substitution of 'ä' with 'a' in references to you appropriate and non-insulting for you? it's just that reproducing 'ä' is hard with my keyboard, i have to find and copypaste it from the text, and that takes time), you said:

"Seems like some editors here think this is Russian Wikipedia... If this current war is known as "South Ossetia War" in Russia the article in Russian Wikipedia will be like that, but that can't change the fact the war is known as "War in Georgia" in the English speaking world (and in most other parts of the world)."

If by "some editors" you mean me, i urge you to state that specifically in the future. But, i think, you got my point wrong. My point wasn't that english wikipedia should name it's article as russians want or as it's named in Russian Wikipedia. The reason, i've brought up that "russians think so" argument for, was to disprove Devil's Advocate derogatory(my personal opinion), discriminative and false claim of "those, who think it was about South Ossetia and not about Georgia, constitute minority, their view is insignificant and we shouldn't listen to them, while thinking about how to name the article"(summary of my understanding of the point he expressed). I can only wonder, how possibly the view of any side of the conflict can be considered insignificant, especially in the context of determining article title neutrality? But let this remain on his conscience, and us return to the topic. You mentioned that "the war is known as War in Georgia in the English speaking world". For reason why this argument is not the decisive one, i refer you to one of my previous arguments with Xeeron, which, incidentally, you had commented with nothing, but a reference to my only POVed edit(which you still hadn't fixed). :)

{quote starts}

And yes, name should be recognizable by English speakers, but WP:POV#English_language says

"Also be careful to avoid an English-speaking Point of View" with the example of "Accounts of conflicts and their outcomes providing the interpretation of the side most English-speaking nations supported".

You see, Xeeron, every Google count or other "any possible measure" of gathering English usage statistics you provide in support of "Russian-Georgian war", or any other title, which forgets to mention that it all was about South Ossetia, is the result of this very "interpretation of the side most English-speaking nations supported". Will you argue that?

{quote ends} But the question stays.

It strikes me as funny, that the only time i got Devil's Advocate attention, it looked like that:

"You know, your argument is so clearly biased there's no reason to even consider it in this discussion. Accusing CNN and Fox News of propaganda and making rather ridiculous claims about Russia just suggests you're just a pro-Russian anonymous IP user."

I'm glad that, after three weeks of you making cameo appearances with pre-programmed statements, which said nothing new and countered nothing i said, you decided to notice me. If you had read me carefully, Advocate, you would be able to tell the subtle difference between accusing CNN/Fox News of propaganda and saying that many russians think these channels spouted propaganda. But of course, suspecting CNN for being biased is just so much more POVish, than impenetrable faith in its reliability (i'm holding out a Sarcasm Sign here). That's clearly a valid excuse for dismissing my argument (i'm still holding a Sarcasm Sign). And speaking of "rather ridiculous claims about Russia", if someone's claims about Russia were ridiculous here, they were not the ones of the nearly only one russian here. They were like "Russian Market fails because of the war", "Russians mostly use War in Georgia name, and they do that, because they think it's neutral", etc. After that comment of yours i am left wondering, what's a "clearly biased" argument of mine you've managed to spot, and in what way it was actually biased? Also, i advice you to read again WP:Civility and WP:Etiquette, especially the parts about judgemental tone, accusations of bias and how to resolve POV-related problems properly. (Yes, i need to reread that too)

Now, for "War in Georgia is no more POV than American Civil War". I've already explained to you, Devil's Advocate, why this comparison is invalid. Try reading my posts at occasion. And i might add, that if majority of people of America agreed to use some name, mostly because they don't care anymore, it's not an example for Ossetians, Abkhazs and Russians, because they care a lot.

Not everyone believes the Armenian Genocide was genocide, but the majority of English users know it by that name and hence that name is used, also partly because it's not very controversial. I'm actually smiled, when you said "not very controversial". Let aside Armenian Genocide, but do you really want to say "War in Georgia" and "Russian-Georgian War" are "not very controversial"? I'm just out of words. What i'm doing here, then? Obviously, i just have nothing else to do(Sarcasm Sign). But, probably, you should once again read WP:NPOVD, which says

"Note, however, that there is a strong inductive argument that, if a page is in an NPOV dispute, it probably is not neutral — or, at least, that the topic is a controversial one, and one should be wary of a possible slant or bias. The salient point is that one side — who cares enough to be making the point — thinks that the article says something that other people would want to disagree with."

The fact, that someone, who is, simultaneously,

1. russian
2. speaks english
3. gives a damn about what's written in english wikipedia on geopolitical topic

, or, in other words, someone of nearly extinct species, actually finds time to make an appearance and say something, despite being more than busy at the moment, should have said something about "non-controversialness" of proposed titles.

"South Ossetia and Abkhazia were widely reported to be "celebrating independence" after recognition following the war. So it seems even the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia didn't consider themselves truly independent until winning recognition." Naturally, they were celebrating. After 15 years of unceasing struggle, they were, at last, officially recognized. They've got them an ally to rescue them at any time. No more living with fear of some twisted georgian nationalist making war upon them. You've made this point once already, and i've left with no choice but, once again, urge you to tell any ordinary Ossetian or Abkhazian guy, that they "didn't consider themselves independent" and see what happens. And what is actually that "true independence", you're talking about? Something that won't let you cast aside "War in Georgia" title POVness? I'm not sure, whether such thing exists, then.

"Wikipedia shouldn't cater to a vocal fringe, but go with the predominant views" What can i say... I can only repeat what someone had already said to you:

"Way to be selective Mr. Devil's Advocate, way to care for minority rights."

And if you are somehow referring to WP:FRINGE, Advocate, then point me to specific section. Otherwise, i'll take all of these "fringe" accusations as a personal insult. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 12:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You try to say that "also be careful to avoid an English-speaking Point of View" phrase sounds like a PC version of "don’t be English-speaking chauvinist". Am I right? (Pubkjre (talk) 20:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC))

Sorry, Pubkjre, i can't answer your question in its current form. The word Chauvinist is ambiguous, and generally carries negative judgement with it. I don't want to insult anyone here, despite my talk with Devil's Advocate being quite harsh, even more harsh than i wanted(been too tired at the moment of writing - the usual story). Will you, please, reformulate your question? All i wanted to say, is that the most popular english title carries in it a pro-georgian POV and one of the causes for it being popular is an overwhelming support of Georgia in US and UK. And that's the reason for us to avoid it, as any other POV, no matter how popular among English-speaking people it is. In other words, neutrality is more important than popularity in wikipedia, and WP:POV#English_language section is another place where wikipedia states it. 212.192.164.14 (talk) 10:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

You know, there's not much point in discussing this with you. Rather than being constructive you decide to trip up any attempt to rename this by arguing any alternative will be pushing a POV. However, there is almost always a contrary POV to a title or a subject. The policy on neutrality leaves out fringe POVs. The fact a very small group of people think South Ossetia and Abkhazia were unquestionably independent during the war doesn't mean somehow we should prevent the most commonly used English title from being the title of this article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Devil's Advocate: the word Chauvinist isn't ambiguous. One of the definitions obtained from Dictionary.com describes you Title Changers perfectly: "biased devotion to any group, attitude, or cause." There have been neutral people, truly neutral people calling to stop this madness, such as Derek M. Barnes who earlier said: "I propose we all take an extended hiatus concerning the name of the article, then come back and decide once the outside world has made a decision on the official name. Say, three to six months? " Instantly Grey Fox said nah, let's keep on arguing about it. Xeeron and yourself concurred. Truth be told, there's only a few editors - you amongst them - that want the title change, the rest either want to give it a break or keep it. I've also not seen the "Title Changers" have any positive comments about Russia, except the blatantly obvious ones, such as "yeah they won!" In addition quite a few people think that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were De Facto Independent; in fact Saakashvili's attack was to prevent South Ossetia from being De Facto independent from Georgia. Now there are people who don't recognize De Jure Independence, and only go by De Facto Independence; while that may be a fringe group, the fact that South Ossetia was De Facto Independent, remains a fact and is not subject to POV. The title change that you are proposing, will ensure that the reader believes that South Ossetia was not De Facto Independent; thus it would be a pro-Georgian POV going against FACTS! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

For the record: Grey Fox did not say that sentence and I did not concur with it, as anyone can easily check above. --Xeeron (talk) 22:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Xeeron - I was referring to your and Grey Fox's responses to Derek M. Barnes. And you wanted to keep on arguing about it as well. It wasn't a direct quote of what you said Xeeron, but when Derek said "let's stop arguing and leave it alone already" both of you instantly criticized him saying that. And you've yet to disprove my argument, so I'll repost it, yet again and bold it this time: Quite a few people think that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were De Facto Independent; in fact Saakashvili's attack was to prevent South Ossetia from being De Facto independent from Georgia. Now there are people who don't recognize De Jure Independence, and only go by De Facto Independence; while that may be a fringe group, the fact that South Ossetia was De Facto Independent, remains a fact and is not subject to POV. The title change that you are proposing, will ensure that the reader believes that South Ossetia was not De Facto Independent; thus it would be a pro-Georgian POV going against FACTS! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

"The title change that you are proposing, will ensure that the reader believes that South Ossetia was not De Facto Independent". I don't see how "2008 Russia-Georgia war" somehow indicates that S. Ossetia and Abkhazia weren't de facto independent. The war was primarily between Russia and Georgia. If you want to mention these regions in the title then it shold be "2008 South Ossetia and Abkhazia war". Grey Fox (talk) 01:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Your personal attacks aside your argument is hurt by the fact the American Civil War involved a separatist entity as did the Nigerian Civil War. However, this is what people call the war most commonly. In this case even Russian media call this "War in Georgia" including RIA Novosti and Kommersant. Even Pravda online calls this a War in Georgia. These sources I might add are either nationalistic or tied to the state. I'll have you know I looked up "peacemaking operation" and "peace enforcement operation" as well and came up with hardly anything significant, but one thing I noticed is pretty much every time it was called an operation "in Georgia" and these sources also called it a war in Georgia before, or Georgian war in some instances, so it seems even those using the ridiculous verbiage of the Russian government are saying it happened in Georgia, seemingly suggesting South Ossetia and Abkhazia were not independent or that it was at least irrelevant to the naming. You may be able to provide some Russian sources that say something else, but in the end the fact major Russian media outlets show little disagreement with the title used in the Western media (and the Iranian media, the Indian media, the Chinese media and countless others) suggests it is an acceptable title.

On the peace enforcement verbiage there are even official sources saying it was "in Georgia" effectively saying South Ossetia and Abkhazia were not independent: A Russian consulate in India which you'll note also refers to South Ossetia as "Georgia's" breakaway territory: [15] Russia's mission to NATO: [16] and Russia's Defense Ministry: [17].

Really?.. The first link is named "TIMELINE OF THE CONFLICT IN SOUTH OSSETIA (July 23 – August 12, 2008)", in the second one Georgia is called as "aggressor" (Georgia is the aggressor against Georgia’s own territory, isn’t it?), and the third contains "Speech at an Awards Ceremony for Russian Servicemen who Distinguished Themselves in Battle in the Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict Zone". The two first links contains the word "breakaway", the third – not. But, please, don’t mix different types of the Independence/Sovereignty... If something doesn’t exist in the diplomatic languages, it doesn’t mean the inexistence in reality.(Pubkjre (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC))

We can argue back and forth on whether it's fair that Abkhaz and South Ossetians are effectively being said to have been part of Georgia when they didn't think they were, but in the grand scheme of things no one else significant in the world thought the way they did. Hence those opinions are "fringe" and not acceptable in a neutrality dispute, least of all when it concerns a commonly-accepted title for a conflict.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Abkhazia and South Ossetia were the parts of Georgia similarly to the way as Taiwan being a part of the People's Republic of China. But it isn’t an only problem with the name of this war (but the existence of the Georgian State Ministry for Reintegration, formerly called the State Ministry for Conflict Resolution Issues, presumes that Georgians need to reintegrate their territories)...

The problem is that the war is concerned not only with Russian-Georgian relations, but with Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian ethnic conflicts. (Pubkjre (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC))

OMG. I'm in hell. And there will never be an end.

Grey Fox said: "I don't see how "2008 Russia-Georgia war" somehow indicates that S. Ossetia and Abkhazia weren't de facto independent. The war was primarily between Russia and Georgia."

For christ's sake, why do i have to cite from my own posts, from this very section, as old as of September 27th?

""South Ossetia war", besides having other advantages, is neutral: it does not say who was right or wrong, it does not do so even implicitly, by stating whose war that was: Russia vs Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhasia vs Georgia, CIS Peacekeepers vs Georgia, or... do i mention Georgia a lot? Should we, therefore, call our article "War in Georgia", thereby implicitly denying independence of South Ossetia? I don't think so.

Later addition to the above:

"I can only add, that completely skipping the mention of South Ossetia in the title, will not only deny it's independence, but will imply, that the war was not "about" South Ossetia, like Russia protecting it from Georgia, but rather about something more gruesome like Russia invading Georgia, which is clearly pro-georgian POV. One might turn my argument inside out, and say, that SOW title is clearly pro-russian POV, because it implies the other way, but that means he didn't notice a subtle difference: whether or not Russia was invading Georgia is disputed, whether or not Georgia was invading South Ossetia is not. That means, SOW title says only that Russia was fighting on one side with South Ossetia, not that it had no "imperial ambitions". That's why SOW takes point over WiG."

The following quote comes from my post, as recent as of October 3rd:

{quote starts}

Also Grey Fox said "This conflict is different however, because it was mostly between Russia and Georgia." Such approach to naming wikipedia articles was disproved several times with very simple counter-examples like 2003 Iraq war being chosen for article name, not US-Iraq war, despite "it was mostly between" US and Iraq.

{quote ends}

I can extend my argument further, but you are yet to counter these.

Despite the odds, i've held my hope high for Devil's Advocate starting normal discussion with me. What have i got?

"You know, there's not much point in discussing this with you. Rather than being constructive you decide to trip up any attempt to rename this by arguing any alternative will be pushing a POV. However, there is almost always a contrary POV to a title or a subject. The policy on neutrality leaves out fringe POVs. The fact a very small group of people think South Ossetia and Abkhazia were unquestionably independent during the war doesn't mean somehow we should prevent the most commonly used English title from being the title of this article."

Let's check:

1. I've got another excuse, why you continue to ignore my argument.
2. I've been accused of being unconstructive.
3. I've got another "fringe" accusation, without any reference to specific section of WP:FRINGE. Did i forget something? Oh yeah:
4. Me and other Russians, Ossetians and Abkhazians were, again, called minority with insignificant view.

All in all, the best thing in this post is that it could have been worse. Your excuse was perfect. It sounded like "mom, i won't discuss with him, because he disagrees with me". Or it there another interpretation of "...you decide to trip up any attempt to rename this by arguing any alternative will be pushing a POV"? No, it's just typical disguised "he is unreasonable POVed badass" accusation. Don't create a wrong impression of me, Advocate. I'm arguing that not just "any", but your alternative will be pushing POV. And i "decided" to do that, not without reason too. Mostly because it's true, you see.

You call me unconstructive, simply because i stand for keeping an "old" title? And you consider yourself constructive, just because you propose a "new" title? Or is there some other explanation, how serving my tedious duty of protecting the title, which i reasonably believe to be the best, from changing makes me unconstructive? Don't make me laugh, ok? I wanted to be constructive ever since i've entered that discussion. I hoped to persuade everybody, that current title is the best (in wikipedia's sense, mind you), and, after that, to offer making several redirects, namely "2008 War in Georgia" and "2008 Russia-Georgia war", to address the issues, which concerned you and others. All i wanted to ask, was a balancing redirect like "2008 Russian Peacekeeping operation in Georgia". And what i've discovered just now? We already have the redirects! With the exception of one, of course. Does anyone want to place a bet on which is it? It's not so much of a challenge, though, so stakes will be low, mind you. You knew! No "peacekeeping operation". We have 2008 War in Georgia and Russia-Georgia war! Note the latter doesn't even have a date! What a concern about prying user - all he got to do, is copypaste the line from his favorite biased news, and voila! And i've been taking all of your "hard to find" and "scope of conflict" arguments seriously. So much for me. Guess i should be wiser next time.

Do you want to know, how i could have been really unconstructive from the very start? It's easy - all i got to do, is follow wikipedia policies, written specially for such cases. Should you, or anyone else change the title, without reaching the consensus first i will:

1. change it back.
2. file the perpetrator for disruptive editing.
3. personally send to each and every one interested editor an invitation to join this discussion. It will clearly show, that there is no consensus, and, therefore, no chance for you to change the title. Side-effects include intensified edit-warring and significant drop in quality of article for several weeks.

Note the complete absence of any necessity for me to waste my time on this discussion. The plan is self-sufficient, and, after it comes to point 3, i'll be able to have a vacation from this discussion for a month. But here i am, honestly quoting each and every argument of yours in my hope to reach a consensus. Can you still call me unconstructive? And without making me laugh?

But enough of abusing my goodwill. From now on, you can forget about lame "not most popular" argument. It holds for true renaming only. Not for moving article to its POVed redirect, and making its older NPOV title a redirect instead.

Also, spare me seeing you recite "fringe" accusations. You haven't pointed me to a specific section of WP:FRINGE, so i'm not interested anymore.

You may also want to not bore me to death with your references to American Civil War or even Nigerian Civil War. It's obvious why they can't be used as an example, but i've already explained it two times nevertheless, with no perceivable result whatsoever.

Keep your rhetorics on "why NPOV somehow allows us to forget about Ossetian's opinion" to yourself, because they're not grounded in WP:NPOV, however much you try to pretend they are. You've been continuously told by various editors, that might does not make right. Ossetian view is just as significant as any other participant-of-the-conflict's view, no matter how minor their minority is.

I've also pointed out before, that no diplomat or media is obliged to weed out POV from their words, especially if it means using long "South Ossetia war" instead of short "War in Georgia" in every other sentence they utter. The aim of a media, is to use a catchy phrase. The diplomat will use a short and most recognizable phrase in all, but dedicated speeches which specifically put an emphasis on wording to convey a point. So, if any of them use "War in Georgia", it doesn't make it NPOV. It doesn't even mean that "Abkhaz and South Ossetians are effectively being said to have been part of Georgia". That just means their independence wasn't the key point of such speeches. It's not an excuse for us to use it as a Wikipedia article title, because, as with every encyclopedia, user assumes every single word of it makes a key point. All in all, this argument of yours can be reduced to "popularity overrides neutrality". It's false.

And i don't know whom did you try to convince, when you said that "in the grand scheme of things no one else significant in the world thought the way they did." You've made that conclusion, based on public statements of countries, which, by the way, have nothing to do with de-facto independency. Seems like invalid implication of "if something is said by officials, then it's NPOV, and nothing else matters" clearly runs all over your argument. But world's population doesn't end with politicians. I dunno, maybe in american population, in which, i believe, barely one in a hundred had ever heard about South Ossetia prior to the conflict, no one ever "thought the way they did". But for russian people, Ossetian de-facto independence was obvious since it's declaration. Oh i know, they're not on the list of those, whom you consider to be "grand" and "significant" enough to influence which title we can use, aren't they?

To sum all up. Talking with you and others alike have been not unlike talking with a wall. I had been carefully quoting and countering every your argument for two months, and got nearly nothing in responce. I had to repeat my arguments five times each, but they, miraculously, hadn't sink in. Someone even failed to notice, let alone recall, a week-old sentence which was explicitly addressed to him. Each time i had someone cornered with logic and wikipedia rules, he would disappear for a couple of days, wait for someone else to repeat some another mouldy argument, and then reappear like nothing happened, without bothering to answer to my old posts, jumping to support current "spearhead of attack" editor instead. There's four of you and only me and HistoricWarrior007 in opposition, so it can't be denied that this tactic of yours quite works out. All adequate, serious and neutral editors are nauseated by (not to mention uninterested in) this discussion, and it's literally takes the better of me and throws it away. In the light of the above, i think, it's time for me to give up on you. No more talk. If you want to change the title, say it now. We will send everyone an invitation, and, in an unlikely outcome of more than say 25% of the invited will actually come, we'll have a second big discussion. No? Then let us keep silence for six months from now at the very least. Your word? 217.8.236.127 (talk) 21:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems like you missed the point. It's not Wikipedia that decides the name of a war. Ever heard of WP:OR? What do you say about the Football War for example? It doesn't even mention where the war was going on but I don't think we should change to the more descriptive "El Salvador-Honduras War" since it's already known as the Football War. And the same with this war we are talking about. It's simply not known as "South Ossetia war". Närking (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Medias is just a new battlefield now... Can we be sure that "War in Georgia" is a "stable" name for at least six month? (Pubkjre (talk) 22:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC))

Fair talk. But i disagree with you, Närking. Your example shows not that "It's not Wikipedia that decides the name of a war". It shows, that if we have a popular non-controversial name for a war, then there is no reason for us to name article differently. But it's not our case. Proposed title for our article is highly controversial, and, as such, cannot be an analogue to nearly humorous example of Football War, which would have been humorous indeed, if it wasn't about a war. You still think, that your example makes your point? Please, explain me how.

Also i notice you mention WP:OR often. But WP:OR concerns nothing beyond making sourced statements in article contents. It's up to editors, not up to reliable sources, to decide, whether article title is neutral, and it's in no way constitutes original research. If something is verifiable and cited, it does not make it neutral. A consensus of editors is the thing, that matters. Am i mistaken? I'd like to be corrected, then.

I have no trouble in believing that the war is "simply not known as "South Ossetia war"" in English-speaking world. But we have all the popularly-named redirects, what else can you possibly want? And why? 212.192.164.14 (talk) 07:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Out of hand this has gotten, reasons should be bound by logic not by an Admins power or wikipedias "rules". Just make your case sound. I've silently waited for a while and I agian second for an Etymology section its time to set convictions aside and to compromise. As HistoricWarrior007 siad I too am tired of this argument and see no point of it persisting.--XChile (talk) 14:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support for War in Georgia (2008). IMHO 1) 2008 South Ossetia War is not technically correct b/c a considerable part, even more than half, of the action took part away from South Ossetia. Also, the war was not about South Ossetia (SO). It it was also about Abhazia and a possible change of regime in Tbilisi. Otherwise it seems that "Abhazia became "independent" after the South Ossetia War". Nonsense. 2) Russia-Georgia War is not technically correct because it excludes Abhazia and South Ossetia, who were very important parts of the conflict. The two were not part of Russia neither before nor after the conflict. Also, there was technically no declaration of war betwen the two, and both very much tried to avoid "our war with R/G" 3) The argument against War in Georgia seems to be (quote) Should we, therefore, call our article "War in Georgia", thereby implicitly denying independence of South Ossetia? I don't think so. (endquate) I also don't think so. IMHO, there is no such implication, since before and during the war, SO was part of Georgia, recognized so even by Russia. The war in Gori and Poti brought SO "independence". Dc76\^talk 04:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Before commenting, please READ the commentary of others, particulalry of user 212.192.164.14 It is considered RUDE to just come up here and state your case, without reading what MANY others wrote for and against your case. In addition - it does help to get your facts correct as well. Most editors agree that over 70% of the action took place in South Ossetia, which means by default that 50% of the action could not have taken place outside of South Ossetia. Some users, such as myself, say that as much as 90% of the action occurred in South Ossetia. When we are talking about action, we are talking about ACTUAL COMBAT, not about the Black Sea Fleet swimming from Sevastopol to Poti; out of that whole trip, only about 10 minutes would be defined as action. Furthermore, after the Battle of Tskhinvali, which is now recognized as a Major Russian Victory (amazing how new analysis changes viewpoints) the Georgian Army was ROUTED. They ran all the way till Tbilisi, where 1,000 American Troops were all that stood between Russia and Tbilisi. Furthermore, the Russian capture of Poti and Senaki was to destroy Georgian Military bases and establish buffer zones. The Battle of Tskhinvali did more then anything else to bring independence to South Ossetia. Russia lost 74 men, (71 men figure's incorrect, but the info. box sucks as it is) 67 out of 74 were killed due to the Battle of Tskhinvali. So your claim that "more then half of the action took part away from South Ossetia" is factually incorrect. I encourage you do research facts and read up on the issues, before commenting here again. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I did read the above commentaries before adding my first comment. It took me a whole hour. True, only the first half I read everything. The second half I read what saw important.

Second, after your argument about ACTUAL COMBAT, I get to modify partly my view. I recongnize now that in my view the arguments against 2008 South Ossetia War are now weaker, but I still consider them strong enough to at least consider the possibility of renaming. We simply have to compare between the arguments pro/against titles 1) and 3) more systematically/graphically. Maybe we should make a table? Because where in the above mess can one see "actual combat" pointed out as a cornerstone agrument?

Third, I humbly believe it is more rude to modify directly in the article than to come and talk and let others modify. I don't really get what was rude from my part. But, let me appologize anyway, for creating an impression of rudenss.

Forth, I should have said more clearly "IMHO". I can be proven wrong, as you just saw.

Fifth, could you please kindly elaborate more/link about "1,000 American Troops were all that stood between Russia and Tbilisi" I am just personally currious, 1000 American troops in Georgia? Are you sure not 200 disperssed technical non-combat advisors? Dc76\^talk 23:25, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The Problem with the possibility of renaming is that all of the suggested options for renaming showed POV, either pro-Georgian (War in Georgia) or pro-Russian (War to prevent South Ossetian Genocide). I've yet to see a renaming option that doesn't show bias, aside from this one. You have to go with the best possible option, and that's what we have here. For instance, War in Georgia implies that South Ossetia was De Facto part of Georgia, which is simply not true. If that was true, this war wouldn't have happened. The title 2008 South Ossetia War shows no POV bias, and that's why I like it! I do agree with you that it is more rude to modify directly in the article then to come and discuss it here. My post "Read Before Commenting" wasn't directed at you; it's just that we've had at least twice "editors" ask to get the title changed, making their own sections, without even bothering to read the table of contents! And we have an editor here who totally insists that the war really wasn't a Russian Victory. We also have "editors" who love to repeat their arguments. Those are the "editors" that my comment was directed to; it wasn't directed at you and I'm sorry about the misunderstanding there. Whoopsie. As for the 1,000 claim, here's the linky: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63921&archive=true HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid you are jumping too fast to conclusions. The link you gave does not imply at all what you said. Also, just read yourself: "For instance, War in Georgia implies that South Ossetia was De Facto part of Georgia, which is simply not true." If that's your assumption, than I am not surprized you are against renaming. Yur logic is correct, but your assumption is wrong. Also, this simply show unwillingness to listen to other arguments: "The title 2008 South Ossetia War shows no POV bias, and that's why I like it!", which is the cornerstone of WP. Dc76\^talk 07:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I sense a disturbance in the Force. Oh, no, it's Dc76. =) Welcome. Seems like you want to participate in this notorious discussion. A desire, which i certainly would like to discourage, unless you're very sure your mental stability won't be endangered by never-ending frustrating talks. Personally, i am starting to doubt that i'm stable enough. =)) Fun aside, let's talk. Why do you believe the assumption to be wrong? 212.192.164.14 (talk) 13:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

That's not my assumption, that's a fact. Fact#1: South Ossetia is De Facto Independent of Georgia. Fact#2: Calling the war, 2008 War in Georgia, implies that South Ossetia is De Facto part of Georgia. Conclusion: therefore it is BIASED. No one called the Second Chechen War - "1999-2004 War in Russia". Where is the assumption? You cannot just call facts an assumption, without any proof. I've listened to all other arguments and responded to them, countless times. Just because I don't want to repeat myself a kazillion times, doesn't mean I'm sturdy-headed as you try to portray me, in vain. Also, your post seems to be lacking a key ingredient. I believe it's called a fact. I highly recommend it! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:38, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Your second "Fact" is not a fact but an implication. And imo, the implication is wrong. Calling it 2008 War in Georgia does not necessarily implicate that SO was de facto part of Georgia. --Xeeron (talk) 09:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

So, you want to say, that after this war was started in South Ossetia(de-facto not part of Georgia), capital of South Ossetia(not capital of Georgia) was ruined, majority of civilian deaths were in South Ossetia(not in Georgia), and majority of fighting took place in South Ossetia(again, de-facto not part of Georgia), this war can be simply named War in Georgia, and that won't "necessarily implicate" that South Ossetia was de-facto part of Georgia? What's your example of something "necessarily implicating", then? 212.192.164.14 writing from 217.8.236.161 (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

First question: Yes. Example: The fact that person X died in the war necessarily implicates that person X is not alife after the war since being dead and being alife is mutually exclusive. --Xeeron (talk) 15:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Believe it or not, but i knew you will come up with something like citing some classical logic's axiom. I, too, have some education and can tell you some stuff about classical logic, temporal logics, modal logics, computational logic... just don't get me started about logic, ok? WP:NPOV doesn't say, that the only way the title constitutes POV is if it's can be proved by the laws of whatever logic. WP:NPOV is about the impression a reader might get from reading the title. It might come as a surprise, but there is hardly any title wording which will make every reader to "necessarily" come to some POVed conclusion, about what the title says, yet that doesn't mean they're all NPOV.

Example: "Russian invasion in Georgia" title is POV, and i hope no one here will deny that. But, strangely enough, it "does not necessarily implicate", that russians wanted to conquer Georgia, that they wanted to change it's regime, that they were the ones who started the war, that they have absolutely no pretext or excuse for entering this war, that civilians who died in this war were mostly georgians, etc. The technical meaning of word "invade" is "to enter with military forces". So, Russia entered with military forces in Georgia. Isn't that the truth, one might ask? It is. In the light of it, one can hardly understand, what these POV-whiners can possibly complain about? It's clearly "unnecessary" for the readers to make any inconvenient assumptions, especially the ones which are based just on their whole previous experience, like "The word 'invasion' usually carries negative connotations, an indication of who, sometimes even without a reason, started the war, who mostly suffered and who is really to blame, etc.", or "Every time i read articles about wars, their titles were indicating the region, which was the main battleground or main reason for starting the war.", etc. So, does that mean that we should adopt that title? I don't think so, but if someone here wants to say "Yes", then he probably should know, that i already have a similar "proof" of NPOVness for "Russian peacekeeping operation in Georgia" sketched.

This is getting ridiculous. Some wild concepts like "necessarily implicating" are starting to get invented. Forgive me, Xeeron, but we're talking here not about logic, but about common sense. Even your little seemingly-taken-from-life example cannot stand without some common sense facts and assumptions behind it, like "There are no means to resurrect the person, or reverse the flow of time, or quantum-copy and reproduce him, or be simultaneously alive and dead e.g. undead, etc". Nothing in life can be implicated without common sense. And if you still don't see how common sense will make many readers to make many POVed assumptions after seeing "War in Georgia" title, then i probably won't be able to explain it to you. Look, i know you're no stupid, Xeeron, and you perfectly knew everything i've said here. The question, which concerns me now, is: Will we now proceed to delineation of where the common sense ends and my wild unnecessary assumptions start, or we'd rather spare us the pleasure? Believe me: we won't come to any reasonable argument that way, but even if somehow we will, then it'll belong rather to Talk:WP:NPOV, than here. As for now, WP:NPOV says nothing resembling anything you said. Or is it? Where can i find it, then? 212.192.164.14 writing from 217.8.236.149 (talk) 03:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

You asked a rethorical question, a fine rethorical device, I choose to give a real answer (that itself being a rethorical device as well). Quickest way to get to the point without writing pages of text. To get right to your point: You say common sense dictates that the NPOV title should be "South Ossetia war", I say that common sense dictates that we should not call a war that saw action in Abkhazia, the black sea and other parts of Georgia "South Ossetia war". --Xeeron (talk) 18:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Which gets us to the question i've already asked: are we gonna start determining, whose common sense is more sensible or something? Now, to quickly get to my point without writing pages of text, i want you to answer me a question, which i've asked you before, but you didn't elaborate. Further discussion will be pointless if you won't answer. Do you agree with me, Xeeron, that "South Ossetia war" title is NPOV? 212.192.164.14 writing from 217.8.236.157 (talk) 00:19, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary header

(2 edits copied from "Why was the cell phone interception calls taken out?" because they belong on the renaming discussion)

I am glad that you have come round to acepting that the UN is not biased HistoricWarrior007. Can I remind you of this edit above? It shows that the UN uses "Situation in Georgia" to refer to the war. Which, by your own logic, since Russia has not given up its veto yet, can not be pro-Georgian. Disproves your implication of being de-facto part of Georgia and thus biased theory used above. --Xeeron (talk) 09:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok Xeeron - the UN uses "Situation in Georgia" to describe the whole affair, our article is focused on the August War. This article further clarifies my explanation, that the "Situation in Georgia" means the whole ting, not the August War. http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/10527.html It's still "Situation in Georgia" for the UN, whereas the war is over. Our article is focused specifically on the war, not the situation as a whole. Therefore, your suggestion that we follow the name that you propose using the UN, is as foolish, as asking the US Civil Historians to change the name "Battle of Bull Run" to "The Virginia Theatre". In other words, our article is SPECIFIC to the war, the UN issue covers not only the war, but a lot of other stuff as well, thus being GENERAL in scope. See the difference? Good. Grey Fox - you can easily bribe a linguist to say anything you want. Also, didn't Georgia say that those tapes were in Russian? If the tapes are in Russian, why an Ossetian translator? If we're talking about joint Russo-Ossetian military operations, wouldn't Russian have been the language of choice here? Also, why not give the tapes over to the UN Security Council if they're so bulletproof? As for the conspiracy - umm that already happened, Iraq War, 2003, all Corporate Media Channels claiming that Saddam had WMDs, but their data didn't stand up to UN standards. Same exact case here. Shish, stop making me look like a crazy conspiracy theorist, for merely asking: "If the tapes are bulletproof why not show them to the UN Security Council?" It's a legitimate question, that any astute reader should ask, and has nothing to do with crazy conspiracy theories. Why you try so hard to make me look bad, yet fail to answer the question is beyond me. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

(end of copied edits)

Your link is a horrible example. It is a summary of a UN radio program, not a UN Security council press release. Big difference. Furthermore, you totally misquoted, since the program is about the humanitarian situation in Georgia, not the general situation. What other stuff might the UN be concerned with? The humanitaries impact of the war, like our article? The international reaction, like our article? The post-conflict incidents, like our article? Not that you have shown that the UN distinguishes in the first place ... --Xeeron (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Once again Xeeron - colorful words and total failure arguing against my point. I'll repeat it: The UN views the situation in Georgia in GENERAL terms, whereas our article is SPECIFIC to the events that took place in August (and maybe, big maybe here, the last few days of June). Is the coverage of the Virginia Theater like the Battle of Bull Run coverage? Yes. Is the humanitarian impact coverage of the Virginia Theater like the Battle of Bull Run coverage? Yes. Do we call the Virginia Theater and the Battle of Bull Run different names, because one is GENERAL the other is SPECIFIC? Yes. Is that the same as our article GENERAL-SPECIFIC comparison? Yes. Also, our article is about the WAR, to which International Reaction consisted of the Six Point Peace Plan; we don't care in this article who recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia; the UN does. We have a whole other article on that! Say it with me Xeeron, GENERAL IS NOT SPECIFIC, and thus the names will be DIFFERENT! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

"Say it with me Xeeron, GENERAL IS NOT SPECIFIC, and thus the names will be DIFFERENT!". Hmmmm. ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD?. Sorry, if you want a serious response from me, be serious yourself. --Xeeron (talk) 18:49, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Really Xeeron? That's your response? "Dear HistoricWarrior, your point that completely obliterates mine, is not serious" - that's it? Ok, then, good response. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 05:34, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

More like "you must have hypnotoad's powers to know how the UN views the situation in Georgia.". Or maybe the UN sent you a private email explaining, because that pitiful UN radio website's summary definitely does not. Or maybe you completely made that up while replying, there is no way to tell the difference unless you bring some sources to back up your claim. --Xeeron (talk) 18:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

"that pitiful UN radio website's summary definitely does not" - Damn you pitiful UN radio - update your website to meet Xeeron's standards of professionalism! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The radio summary is perfectly fine - as a radio summary. It is pitiful as a source for this article, but that can not be blamed on the UN, but rather on your poor grasp of what constitues a good source. --Xeeron (talk) 11:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

How is a UN radio script a poor source for an article that wants the UN's opinion on subject X, if the radio script is related to subject X? Just because you don't like it Xeeron, doesn't make it a poor source. Do tell, what makes it pitiful? Aside from your POV, go on... HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:13, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Take the words "summary of a radio program" and "press release by UN security council", read them next to each other and the question what is a bad and what is a good source will be answered (of course the best source would be a secondary one, but I'll not go into that again). --Xeeron (talk) 10:13, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

My main point was to prove that the UN views the Georgian crisis as ongoing, whereas the war that this article is about ended. Therefore using the current UN Title for this war would be foolish. Congratulation on the stellar job you did at nitpicking Xeeron, you must really be #1 in that area. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 13:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

How about this?

The August War? The Google news aggregator's articles seem to be picking up this particular name more often now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.168.242.16 (talk) 00:36, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I cannot think of a single war named after dates that occurred after WWII. But thank you for informing us that Google's changed popularity three times already. I'm sure eventually, Google will also follow our name - the 2008 South Ossetia War. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 05:34, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

There was the Six Day War. That occured after WWII, no? Anyway, if the name fits, it shouldn't matter. The above name may or may not be perfect, but it certainly sounds more accurate than the 2008 South Ossetia War, which was only the site of one battle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.172.226.162 (talk) 22:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Please sign your posts. Also, the Battle of Tskhinvali was the crucial battle of the war; The Russians lost 67/74 men total, 67 at Tskhinvali, 7 in all the other battles combined. This war was fought over South Ossetia. Both of these are established facts, not theories. The Six Day War is a rare exception to the overall rule. The August War is so damn ambiguous that it doesn't fit at all. You might as well call it the 2008 War. Why not the 21st Century War? As for the Six Day War, it was so named for Israeli Propaganda, to show that the Israelis achieved their objective in six days. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

What happened to "everything is about POV"? Seems that suddenly descriptiveness of the title does play a role. --

Xeeron (talk) 18:24, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

When did I say that the descriptiveness hasn't played a role? I said that it had to be reasonable - remember my initial argument about not calling it the Russo-Georgian War because it didn't take place on Russian soil? Wasn't that all about descriptiveness of where the war took place? The best is a balance between descriptiveness and NPOV, which our current title, 2008 South Ossetia War, fits perfectly. It was never about "everyting POV". It is about the reasonable balance of the NPOV and descriptiveness. But good question, thank you for letting me clarify that. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:18, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

By your arguement, Abkhazia doesn't matter at all, since the battle for it was not "crucial" enough. I have to contest that simply because of the two seperatist regions, Abkhazia was larger, and has more chance of independant survivability thanks to its coastline and port. That is not to say S. Ossetia is unimportant, since it overlooks Gori, but your arguement ignores one territory for another. Of course, any title with both of them in it sounds very convoluted, so rather than go by geographical location, which is the whole contention of the conflict and thus naturally subject to POV, it seems better to go by time period, which was five days in August. So I again suggest August War or a derivation thereof. Maybe even Second Georgian Civil War, but that has different connotations, so it may not work that well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.172.239.250 (talk) 23:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This war was fought over South Ossetia, NOT over Abkhazia. Tkshinvali, not Sukhumi was the main battle site. This article's job is to document the war, not to please one side or another. Abkhazia, while larger in size and population, did NOT serve as the battlefield. The Abkhazians claim 1 military death, wheareas the Ossetians confirmed 365 civillian deaths, 41 military captured, and unknown military deaths. By my argument, Abkhazia shouldn't be in the title, and your argument also doesn't place Abkhazia in the title. Abkhazia does matter, just not enough to be placed in the title of a military article. Russia also matters, do you see me placing that in the military title? Or Georgia? We're not talking about the whole article, we are just talking about the title. Fighters from all over the Caucasian Region participated in the Second Chechen War, and we call it the Second Chechen War. Did North Ossetia not matter in the Second Chechen War? I would argue that it did, but not enough to be placed in the article title. There's a difference between an article title and the article itself. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest against renaming, as it is, its easy to find(which i consider the most important above all else) and since the main objective of the aggressor was to force the de facto almost-independent South Ossetia to submit to the Tblisi government the name is at least reasonably accurate.

DW75 (talk) 17:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)