User talk:January First-of-May/The Great Russian Graticule Name Project

For any automatable tasks, FippeBot can assist in this project. If you provide names for the graticules, I can probably get the bot to move the unnamed graticule page to the right page and replace links accordingly. --Fippe (talk) 06:03, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! It's going to be a while before I start, because I'm currently embarked on a different, if closely related, project (essentially, a 5x5 degree box version of this map). --January First-of-May (talk) 17:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Where is the correct place to complain about non-working footnotes? (By which I mean the References tag.) --January First-of-May (talk) 14:05, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

You can ask DanQ, he is in charge. --Fippe (talk) 17:01, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Had a bunch of naming convention questions that I'm not sure what to do with...

• Should it be "Lake X" or "X Lake"? I currently have names with either.
• Similarly, should it be "Mount X" or "X Mountain"? I currently use the former, but looking at graticule names elsewhere (outside Russia), maybe I should have used the latter.
• Should "Губа" translate to "Guba", "Bay", or something else? (Perhaps "Inlet"?)
  • I currently use "Bay" for both Губа and Бухта (Залив is "Gulf"), but I recently encountered a graticule that had both a Guba and a Bukhta of the same name (fortunately they were both in the same graticule).
• Should I even translate the natural feature terms at all? Maybe I should just use "Gora" (mountain) and "Ozero" (lake) and "Reka" (river) and so on.
  • Compare the existing graticules of Ostrov Kharlov, Russia and Kunashir Island, Russia; I currently use the latter precedent (though I kept the former name, as it was technically a settlement).
• For (most of) the Franz Josef Land graticules, I tried to search for English names of the capes and islands, especially when the Russian names were clearly transliterations (e.g. Cape Mary Harmsworth, not "Cape Meri-Kharmsuort"). Was this a good thing? Should it be extended outside Franz Josef Land?
• Should I focus on settlements (even abandoned and/or very minor ones), or on natural features? My reference maps tend to have both (and they're old enough that it's not always clear when a settlement is abandoned).
  • Specific example that (again) brought it to my mind: 68,59, which is dominated by the Khaypudyrskaya Bay, but also happens to contain the village of Sin'kin (pop 1 as of most recent data I'm aware of, was much larger when the maps were made) near the eastern edge. I want to call it "Khaypudyrskaya Bay, Russia" (or similar). Would that be dishonest?
• Should those remote Arctic graticules even have names? (Silly question. If Cape Colan, Nunavut has a right to exist, then so do those.)
• Kind of a corner case: 71,158, where I had to cheat. My name for it is "Nauynadanu Coast, Russia", where Nauynadanu is a feature (river, IIRC) in a different graticule (actually several) but close enough for this one to be (part of) its closest coast. Is that an acceptable option, or would you suggest something else?

There are probably many other similar questions. Just wondering what your opinions are...
(Incidentally, is there a geohashing-themed Discord server? Sounds like that could be a good place for all of those discussions.) --January First-of-May (talk) 21:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I think you should go with the Russian name of the features, but use the Latin transliteration. Graticules are usually named after the local name, for example Roma, Italy (not Rome) or München, Germany (not Munich). Moscow, Russia should be renamed to Moskva in my opinion, but I will leave that decision to Russian Geohashers. Губа should be Guba, Бухта should be Bukhta, Big Diomede, Russia should be Ostrov Ratmanova, Russia.

The order ("Lake X" or "X Lake") should depend on the Russian term, when in doubt use the version that Russian Wikipedia uses.

I agree that the foreign name should be used when the Russian term was transliterated from a foreign language, like Cape Mary Harmsworth.

Generally I think that populated places should have a higher priority than natural features, but you can make exceptions if you want to. Khaypudyrskaya Guba is a good example of a graticule where I think naming it after the enormous bay instead of the one hermit living in Sin'kin is acceptable.

Every graticule should have a name, if possible. Unnamed graticules only exist because nobody named them yet.

71,158 is difficult, I think that your solution is acceptable.

There is no discord server that I know about. There is an IRC channel but I have never been able to hold a conversation there because nobody ever seems to be online. If you want to make a discord server, you can make one, but I don't know how many people will use it. I think the Wiki is a good place to discuss these questions. --Fippe (talk) 21:43, 7 August 2020 (UTC)