Talk:Mat (profanity)/Archive 2

"citation needed"

As I stated in my edit comments, I translated the original Russian verse. Therefore, I believe the "who translated" tag needs to be removed.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 23:15, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Please click on the link which constitutes the tag and learn the rule. -M.Altenmann >t 02:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't follow you. Can you please be more specific what you are looking for.

Again, the situation is: someone has inserted the question 'who provided the translation'. I responded: I did. This is the truth, please see the editing history. What else is missing?--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 03:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, you are looking for a third party source to confirm that I actually provided the translation. In this case, you will be waiting a long time, as I crafted the text out of my head. No witnesses. Again, I am a bilingual person who does this for a living. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

NO. I need a third party source which published the translation. (Did you bother to read the wikipedia policies after all? But at least you started thinking in the right direction.) Now let me make one step further and explain what is the problem in your case, which is also an advice how to resolve the problem. Normally there is no problems with adding a literal translation, because, after all, we add information from various sources in various languages and the translation is always involved. This is not so in the case of a poetic translation, because it involves a liberal poetic interpretation and modification by a wikipedian, which is a strict no-no in wikipedia; don't even try. Therefore if you want to help the readers to understand a poem, please provide word-by-word translation, accompanied with the text in which the words are placed in the proper syntactic order. This is how it is done in works in linguistics. It is a completely different story if you provide a published translation. Such text usually has its own encyclopedic value and will not be questioned. -M.Altenmann >t 04:14, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I read the policy. However, I can't see a way to provide a third party source for my own translation. Do you have a suggestion?

If there is no published source, then it is inadmissible for wikipedia. -M.Altenmann >t 06:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

You must be a single-language person, with zero experience of translating from foreign languages. There is no way you can relay a verse in Russian into English verbatim and hope to make sense to an English reader. The two languages are simply too different. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 04:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

That's not true. As I said, linguists do this all the time. (Unless the poem makes no clear sense, pretending to be something elevated.) Puns and cultural allusions can be explained in footnotes. -M.Altenmann >t 06:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

By the way, even Google Translate is smart enough to make sense of the poems in question:

So, I will not pay you:

But if you're just a whore,

Know this: it's an honor to be considered

Acquaintance with Junker's dick!

(needs polishing, but basically the idea is clear)

By the way, Poruchik Rzhevsky was much more elegant and less pompous: Gusary deneg ne berut! -M.Altenmann >t 06:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Can't comment on Rzhevsky. I still like my rendition better as it captures the original Russian in spirit, not in verbatim word. The judgment call on my poetic license is just that, a matter of personal opinion. By the way, the original Rusian verse is well sourced. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:53, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Nobody challenges the Russian verse. And precisely the personal opinion does not count in wikipedia. I challenge your claim that your rendition captures the spirit of the original. Challenged information is verified exclusively via references. No references — bite the bullet. -M.Altenmann >t 05:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Altenmann and Harald Forkbeard, Hi to both of you. Harald asked me at my Talk page to take a look here; he and I edited at Sageworks article and maybe more in past, but we don't have a huge connection. About whether a translation can be included in Wikipedia if the translation itself is not sourced, well I believe of course yes. There are lots of articles brought in from other languages' Wikipedias all the time. I was invited to do that in past, through a way that requires admin privileges though which I don't have. There must be documented procedures for that. So M.Altenmann you must not be familiar with these practices? I have to run now but can look for documentation links later. And from what I've understood quickly from M.Altenmann's comments, I gather there is a high-quality standard for translation of poems and other stuff where the translations' wording is really really important. I was not aware of this kind of thing, am interested to browse about it later. Seems like you two are coming from quite different but legitimate perspectives. I advise: don't edit war at all further...it is not worth risk of this becoming an issue at wp:ANI or wp:3rr, where generally everyone loses. Please leave whatever version is in place right now when you first see this note from me (and be honest with that), I suggest. I am sure some further discussion will resolve this to everyone's satisfaction. Bye for now. --doncram 22:54, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm back. I have only started reading your comments and links provided with them, here at Talk:Mat (Russian profanity) and at User talk:Harald Forkbeard#Mat. But already I have to say that IMO citations are needed to improve the article. I don't know yet about how the translation should be addressed, but I have some basic questions and comments: can either or both of you respond to these?

• Question 1. The article was translated by Harald Forkbeard, from what source? I am assuming you translated it from the Russian language Wikipedia, is that right? Or was your source some other document in the public domain? (If the material is not in the public domain, does its copyright status allow it to be republished? Can you please provide a link directly to it? I don't see the source indicated in credits within the article and I don't see it indicated here on the Talk page. It should be indicated, to give credit to the Russian wikipedia article's writers (or whomever), and there are standard ways to do so. Perhaps credit was indicated in edit summaries but I have not looked for those. Again, what is the source?

--doncram 04:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The source is the original publications by the respective 19th century Russian poets. This is clearly stated in the article. Another editor inserted the Russian verses, please check the history for details.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 02:28, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Comment 1: Example of standard way to give credit to other-language wikipedia article: I know that the English language wikipedia's coverage of historic monuments in France is largely by translated articles, and browsing I find one: Fort de Queuleu. See its section Fort de Queuleu#Attribution as an example of giving credit within the article. I think there also is a template giving credit that should be included at the top of the Talk page (similar to mention of an AFD discussion), I believe, although Talk:Fort de Queuleu does not show any. Then looking at the history of edits...ah, I see that it was editor Acroterion who did the translating (I'm not surprised, I knew that he translated a lot of these). Note he started with the actual French language page (including its edit history), as of this 27 March 2010 version en francais. In this edit he imported the article from the French wikipedia to the English wikipedia, with edit summary "28 revisions from fr:Fort de Queuleu: importing for translation". Oh, maybe he moved it to MediaWiki, because in the next edit he moved it to his own userspace, with edit summary "moved MediaWiki talk:Fort de Queuleu to User:Acroterion/Fort de Queuleu: move to userspace for translation". Then in many edits he did the translation work, and eventually moved it to English wikipedia mainspace with summary "moved User:Acroterion/Fort de Queuleu to Fort de Queuleu: move to article space with histry". That created this first all-English version of the article with the original French-language editors' being given full credit by the history of edits. There's not an explicit credit given in what displays in the article, nor at the Talk page (though I think a Talk page template perhaps could/should). Acroterion's contribution of translation is visible in the edit history however. If this article is republished by some outside publisher, then by terms of the Wikipedia copyright, the republisher must indicate credit to the authors by listing them or pointing to the edit history. (I hope and expect the process that Acroterion followed then, or an updated process, is written up somewhere in Wikipedia space, will look for it. [See:wp:translation#How to translate for guidance, although Acroterion did an even better job IMO.]) Please comment: do you agree this is a reasonable process? --doncram 04:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
• (Comment 1-B) Note the Mat (Russian profanity) article was started differently; it began with this first draft in English. I gather that User:Harald Forkbeard later added material that he translated from the Russian language wikipedia article, adding it in one or a few chunks. And I gather that the original Russian language editors' edits are NOT included in the edit history. Well, actually this probably could be remedied: a history merge could be done (by an administrator like Acroterion who has experience in this area) which would put the entire Russian language edit history into this articles edit history, just before Harald Forkbeard's edits. And that would give appropriate attribution of the Russian wikipedia writers' work. And a bilingual person would be able to compare the Russian language writing to the English language translation provided by Harald Forkbeard (and they could agree or disagree that the translation was done well, and perhaps make refinements). That would be great, right? --doncram 04:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
• Comment 2: About that 2003 New Yorker article mention. What is most immediately jarring for me in the current version of the article, is that sentence about the 2003 New Yorker article: "A detailed article by Victor Erofeyev (translated by Andrew Bromfeld) analyzing the history, overtones, and sociology of mat appeared in the 15 September 2003 issue of The New Yorker." Huh? What this does is assert some importance for mat, because mat was subject of a major article. But, technically, what is the source for this assertion? Is this a Wikipedia editor's interpretation of The New Yorker article? (I am not sure if that would be okay or not; i suspect Altenmann would then object, right?) Did some later-published article summarize Erofeyev's work in this way? (in which case the writer of that later article should be credited). And what is most obvious: Shouldn't the New Yorker article be used as a source for material in this article, instead? Does anyone have this article? It sounds important. Can someone get it and share it by email to the currently interested editors (actually I could probably do that)? By the way, what's funny is that the sentence was in the original, very first edit of the article in 2004!!! User:Chris Rodgers's version of the sentence was exactly: "A detailed article by Victor Erofeyev (translated by Andrew Bromfeld) analyzing the history, overtones, and sociology of mat appeared in the September 15, 2003 issue of the New Yorker." Hah! I bet Chris Rodgers had read the article, but perhaps didn't have a copy of it to use it more, and NO ONE ELSE SINCE THEN has ever obtained it. (@Chris Rodgers:, who edited as recently as April 2015.) IMO, at this point the sentence is "unsourced" and has been that way for 11 years, and it should be deleted! After 11 years, I no longer trust wikipedia editor CR's interpretation that the New Yorker article is so important (it perhaps was important then, but since no one here has read it for 11 years I don't think it is generally important to know about that article in order to understand mat). Also someone should jolly well get the New Yorker article and use it properly! --doncram 04:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
• Question 2: Creativity in translating Is the issue here that Harald Forkman exercised some creativity in translating a poem, rather than providing simply a word-by-word translation? At least some creativity is encouraged by wp:TRANSLATION; is this a case of too much? --doncram 04:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

  Yes, creativity is the issue. Creativity is original research. Either you provide a faithful translation, or it is your fantasies. YOu seem to completely ignore my explanation. I am not against translation, so your long expose above is wide off the mark. As I explained, I am completely in favor of faithful, verifiable translation. I don't care about poetic skills of a wikipedian. I care about cultural traits of the original text. The translations given delivered a completely false picture about the origin. And no, I will not explain why I think so, not my job. It is the duty of the challenged wikipedian to provide proof when challenged. And you know what kind of proof is accepted in wikipedia. -M.Altenmann >t 05:08, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

No way will we ever agree on the 'faithfulness' of my translation. First off, you are not qualified to comment on it. I stand by my translation as conveying the spirit and the cadence of the original. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 02:33, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

If you believe the translation to be off base, please provide your own alternative, let's discuss it on the merits. If you lack the skills, you are in no position to make the 'faithfulness' allegations. Rather defer the discussion to someone who has them.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 02:33, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

So you think I am completely wrong abut everything? Then do you want to defend keeping that New Yorker article mention?

And, what, you think the good process I gave example of is simply irrelevant? You want to demand publication of translation before it can be included in Wikipedia, and I demonstrate that there are vast areas of Wikipedia where that is not done, and then you dismiss me completely?

Also, I explicitly said I had not yet investigated, that I did not yet understand what the disagreement is about. I clearly said I was commenting on issues that seemed apparent to me, first, and which seem important to address. There is no call for you to be rude. And, you are edit warring.

Anyhow, continuing to try to address the problems here, I looked at wp:NOR which Altenmann has cited a couple times, and see that it doesn't say anything along the lines of his/her complaints. Okay, after looking further for possible standard tags and checking a lot of versions of this article, I finally figure out what the "who translated?" tag is. I don't know who added it first, but I see a couple instances of it restored by Altenmann in this edit using Twinkle. But in fact it is not a tag, it is merely a statement repeated in hidden comments following {{cn}} citation needed tags! Wow, that starts to seem bogus. You want to enforce a new type of demand (and using a secret way of communicating), where other editors Harald Forkbeard and I cannot even understand what you mean? And you act as if it is a standard kind of complaint, while it simply is not. Please do show me where there is a standard tag for anything like this. Please do consult wp:TRANSLATE and quote/cite exactly where your kind of complaint is supported. I don't think that you can. --doncram 06:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Please don't play verbal games with wikipedia rules I clearly cited. I claim the translation is false. I requested proof of the contrary. The burden of proof is on the challenged editor. None was provided and in fact confessed there is none. Please don't restore challenged dubious information. -M.Altenmann >t 06:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, you're losing me further with accusations I don't understand. What wikipedia rules did you clearly cite, where, which are relevant? Do you mean your citations of wp:NOR, which don't seem relevant. What are you talking about? Have you read wp:TRANSLATE? And now you cite wp:BURDEN which is about requiring sources on content assertions, and is clearly not about requiring translations to be proven. You seem to be making up a new rule, which you are personally assuming a right to enforce, about you personally being able to determine when translations (explicitly allowed) are not good enough for you. Your rule would mean that most or perhaps all articles in Wikipedia about historic monuments in France must be deleted, because the translation was not elsewhere published before being put into Wikipedia. Your rule is not making sense. Whatever. I see no verbal games. I see no relevant wikipedia rules which you have cited. This communication is not working well. Enough for now, I will return later/tomorrow perhaps. --doncram 06:45, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Please nod speak about "accusations" and shorten your text. I understand that you "don't understand", and this worries me, because it seems we are talking about different things. Let's start from the very beginning, step by step. Do you know the rules that all content in wikipedia must be verifiable, and when challenged (or may be challenged) it must be properly referenced? (I deliberately did not wikilink the wikipedia rules implicit in this question.) -M.Altenmann >t 07:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This whole discussion is getting way out of control, this much is clear. First of all, the original Russian verses are attributed to their respective authors, viz. the famous Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov, "A Holiday in Peterhof", and the second verse is due to Ivan Barkov. Both poets are covered in Wikipedia articles already.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thus, the original Russian language verses have been fully sourced and attributed to their authors from the start. The verses have been provided by another editor. I merely provided a translation that, in my expert view of a bilingual speaker, captures the spirit of the Russian original. Needless to say, there is always a degree of poetic license when rendering such works from one language to another. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This dogged insistence on rules smacks of obsession. All I did was provide a translation of the verse that reflects the wry humor and cadence of the original. For this I can vouch. If you are not a bilingual person, you cannot appreciate it. Poetry is not a subject of machine translation, it is not a technical manual. Poetic license is intrinsically a part of it if one is to convey both the meaning and the spirit properly. Read Boris Pasternak's translation of Romeo and Juliet, if you can, and then compare it to the original English version. No machine can do this.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the way to put it here is that dogged insistence on NEW rules proposed by the "dogger", not tried-and-true rules accepted by wide consensus, is a problem. I agree sometimes inflexible insistence on adherence to established rules can be problematic, but we don't need to go there. --doncram 16:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It is getting out of control because you write too long texts while not giving a direct reply. It appears you completely misunderstand my objections. Therefore I am trying to start with establishing common grounds. Now, that said, once more: Do you know the rules that all content in wikipedia must be verifiable, and when challenged (or may be challenged) it must be properly referenced? At this moment please don't answer the questions I don't ask, or we never come anywhere. -M.Altenmann >t 05:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

You appear to be immune to reason. All explanations in the article, done by editors other than myself, are not verified. It is clear that other bilingual editors have provided translations of Russian swear words and interpretations of their meaning, based on their own experience.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 03:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It would be useful if you were to refrain from blind adherence to obscure rules and carefully re-read the article. See for yourself, the content is nothing more than interpretation by experts versed in the nuances of Russian and English colloquial terms. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 03:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I find these interpretations highly useful as a Wikipedia user. Without this level of contribution, Wikipedia would quickly turn into a useless assemblage of rote quotes from questionable resources. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 03:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Please stop dodging the question. Answer it. -M.Altenmann >t 04:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Personal insinuations ("blind adherence to obscure rules", hints that I and somehow linguistically inferior to you, etc. is not a valid way to carry out discussion in wikipedia - a yet another major rule which seems to be an "obscure rule" for you). -M.Altenmann >t 04:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

No question has been dodged as none have been posed in any coherent manner. This dogged insistence on rules again borders on obsession. Wikipedia is about contributions that make sense, not blind obedience to self-imposed rules. Besides, your interpretation of these rules is just that, a misguided interpretation. I fail to see what you are trying to accomplish aside from antagonizing other editors who make sensible, and in my view, highly valuable contributions. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 06:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

This discussion section is superseded by the RFC discussion opened below. Thank you to Altenmann for opening that and seeking others' comments; that seems to be constructive. Further discussion should probably go there. --doncram 16:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Question: this may sound dumb and benign but do we have a source for the Russian language version of the Lermontov poem first? Otherwise we don't even know that's an accurate citation of the poem itself and this secondary issue of its translation is just pointless. Second, wasn't the poem written in 1834? We need more than a conventional Russian speaker to understand how Russian was understood then. I can't just pull English text from the 1830s and state what I think words mean based on today's meanings. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:18, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Source for Lermontov poem

I again removed the poem. We first need a source for the Russian language version of the poem itself. We have no evidence that there exists that poem at all. From there, we can argue about its translation and meaning. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:54, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Forget it. This New Yorker piece provides sources for both the poem and its translation. I hope that ends all this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Khuy citations

In the current version, the khuy section refers to Pederson, 1908 and to Merlingen, 1955 with no additional details. Pederson links to (1) [1], a dead link to a blog and to (2) [2] which doesn't list any Pederson here. (someone named Kovalyov write it I think). There's no evidence either of those are reliable sources. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:46, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced idioms

I'm not going to keep fighting this but WP:BURDEN requires a source before putting back any of this content. The fact that people refuse to demand that others spend ten minutes pulling sources (such a Russian-English dictionary of idioms like I found here is why this page is nothing but arguments. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, do you have an actual suspicion that the removed content might be unverifiable, or are you removing it because it is currently unreferenced? Those are different things. Diego (talk) 20:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether it's verifiable. WP:V is a policy here as is the WP:BURDEN and responsibility for verifying content. I question whether it's true, whether it's accurate, whether it's an actual phrasing and the way to resolve that is to provide references. I could say that President Obama is really made of cheese and no one cares whether that's verifiable. Similarly, when you say those idioms are accurate, please produce proof that they are (especially the ones unsourced since 2011). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

(ec) I restored the material again. This is sort of following the Bold-Revert-Discuss process, except that it is Bold-Revert-Bold-Revert so far, and now here may be some Discussion. Thank you to Ricky81682 for opening this discussion section, but the BRD process does not mean you get to repeat a Bold edit upon your making a discussion comment. The point of BRD is to have some substantial discussion, towards a consensus. Like editor Diego asks, I so far understand this material to be possibly fine, just not currently referenced. In my first Revert edit summary I questioned that, and indicated I thought removing it all was a Bold move.

Okay, about the content, Ricky81682, you seem to suggest that a Russian-English dictionary of idioms would suffice to provide references here. Thank you for linking to one source. So why not insert some such references. Or, could you please identify which one item, if any, amounts to saying "President Obama is really made of cheese"? I think this needs to be done in detail, item by item, rather than deleting everything at once. This is not at all my area of expertise, so I hesitate to begin this myself (which does not mean I am wrong to restore the material, either). --doncram 21:52, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

And Ricky81682 deleted more material with an edit summary complaining about it being unreferenced, and I restored that again too. When you say "I'm not going to keep fighting this", what do you mean by that, I wonder. I don't want to fight either. To be clear I do not "own" this article; i was invited to comment here, I am at the moment just trying to support some rational discussion and development, and it seems to me that several Bold deletions deserve to be Reverted, to support that. --doncram 22:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I dispute every single comment. Prove each one to me. There's little evidence that this isn't anything more than synthesis of original research by people just guessing the history. If this isn't your area of expertise, why are you insistent on keeping it around? Per WP:BURDEN, the default is that we don't include content without proof, not that we include content unless we can't find evidence (or to let some people put up whatever they want and demand that other people do the work for them). Anything else is backwards. Your logic is why we had fights like WP:RANDY for years: anyone puts up something and everyone has to treat their random statement equal to someone who puts in their work. Someone put that content there and they either did it because they know their stuff or they are full of BS. Take it out and let them bring it back if they can justify it. Either way, they should find the sources, not everyone else around here. Take it out again and I'm reporting you to ANI for being disruptive. WP:V is very clear here, the burden is one the people who want the content, not on everyone to do your work for you. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

And no, I couldn't find a thing through that source (again, that's why I'm questioning it) but I don't speak Russian so it may be I'm not searching under the right characters. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Um, this is getting ridiculous. Besides making a threat to report me to ANI, editor Ricky81682 just deleted a non-controversial sentence, "However, it is considered highly uncultured and very offensive in certain social circles in Russia, especially if women are present." with edit summary that it was unsourced. I believe that is non-controversial, and non-controversial generalities do not all need to be sourced. I do not believe that they really dispute this sentence; i think at this point there is a battleground mentality setting in. Ricky81682, could you please state whether you really do think that is an untrue sentence. I'll pause, but I expect to restore it if there's not decent discussion. --doncram 22:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Good that you believe that it's not controversial but our policy isn't "WP:V unless doncram think it's not controversial." Who is being disruptive here? I'm finding sources for the poem, for the four main pillars and adding that content in. You want to leave in random content that I want to get rid of so I can write an intelligible coherent article rather than having bits of unsourced nonsense left in a bullet format for some oddball reason. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:40, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

sTOP destroying it. Doncram is trying to keep all that content in, you just hate that other people object to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.171.121.182 (talk) 23:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'm with Ricky81682 on this. Put up sources, or these original research attempts to explain/translate these phrases have to go.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:59, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

  PS: That said, I agree that "However, it is considered highly uncultured and very offensive in certain social circles in Russia, especially if women are present." is probably non-controversial.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

RfC: How much "poetic license" does a translator of primary sources have in wikipedia?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

How much "poetic freedom" do our policies give to wikipedians in their translation of poetry, song lyrics, highly idiomatic prose, etc., when there are no good references with the translation of the text in question? (For a seasoned wikipedian the second part of the question is redundant, but I want to cut off some trivial answers.) -M.Altenmann >t 04:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Specifically, two issues: allowable slack in retelling (suggested shortcut: "RETELL" ) and available means of verification ("PROOF"):

• RETELL: Whether large deviation of the poetic translation from the literal text is allowed? And by "large" I mean cases which do not boil down to "PotAYto vs. PotAHto" or "dick vs. prick" nitpicking.-M.Altenmann >t 05:24, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
• PROOF: If the translation is challenged, whether our basic policies about providing proof of correctness basing on references from reliable sources are applicable? -M.Altenmann >t 05:24, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

This is my first RfC to start and I have no idea whether I am allowed to present my arguments right now. Please advice -M.Altenmann >t 05:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Notice: This topic has been raised more generally at WP:Village pump (policy)#RfC: How much "poetic license" does a translator of primary sources have in wikipedia?. While the intent was to draw editors to the discussion here, it has also led to some independent commentary at that location, which should be factored in when weighing consensus at this one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

This is amazing. Do you have any idea how inappropriate this sounds? This translation has been provided for the benefit of Wikipedia readers, and most certainly not to appease your inexplicable adherence to 'rules'. To date, you have provided absolutely no contribution to this article, only obstructive comments. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 06:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

There is plenty of 'poetic license' used by a number of editors of this article, most notably in the section Key words and expressions. The translations provided are matches against plausible English equivalents, however, the translations are of highly idiomatic nature and can be easily challenged by a native Russian / English speaker. Needless to say, there is no reliable published third party verification as is typical of colloquial expressions. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 06:12, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

You are not helpful. You are not answering the question posted. I was not asking about your translation. Please read WP:RFC, the link prominently highlighted in the starting marker of this section. Also, regretfully I have to remind you another rule I've cited for you already, but you obviously ignored to read: if you continue with your personal attacks, you will be blocked from editing for disruption. -M.Altenmann >t 06:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - Short answer: as much as required by the topic, and allowed by WP:Consensus and WP:Ignore All Rules, which are pillars of the project.

Long answer (which you might not like, given a quick glance at your stated position in the linked discussion): any translation is by its very nature an exercise in creation; there is no such thing as "faithful translation" (haven't you heard the Italian saying traduttore, traditore?), only different degrees of deviation from the original, either in word choice or proximity to the author's intent. Current WP:NOENG policy is clear that the original text works as a reference so that WP:Verifiability is satisfied, and it does allow for Wikipedians crafting one if no translation in RSs is available (in fact, providing a translation in such case is mandated by that policy).

I have not read the whole affair, but if your concern is with the translation being innacurate or interpretive, a good solution (which we used back at All Your Base Are Belong To Us, which faced a similar controversy -an was an equally tricky translation, if you ask me) was to add an explicit note that the translation was provided by editors.

So, your concern with respect to the translation should by solved by quoting the original, and letting readers judge their accuracy (i.e. WP:Verify) by themselves - which they should know to be aware of, thanks to a similar note. Diego (talk) 13:31, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• <sigh> You are not addressing the concern: The concern was: is the translation allowed to have a grave deviation from the text. And in wikipedia, the correctness of information is not judged by readers, but by writers. The note "wikipedian translated it" is not a license to distort the original. We have a similar concern with self-drawn maps. And the general concern is that the map drawer must provide reasonable proof of the correctness of the map. And if it was proven that the map distorts the data, it is removed. -M.Altenmann >t 15:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Policy says yes, if consensus is that the translation is valid. The point is that your original complaint about verifiability is not a solid one, since verifiability (reasonable proof which any reader may be able to check - verifiability is all about readers, not editors) is achieved with the text in the original language. The policy recognizes that an external source providing the translation is best, but does not mandate it; consensus is the arbiter. Diego (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I was wrong; your point that verifiability is in terms of any reasonable person is valid. And you are right that the original text is a valid attempt to provide a reference for the sake of verifiablity. Now, let's make a step in this analogy further. It is not uncommon that wikipedians misinterpret the source and (acting in a good faith!) provide an invalid reference. What's next? -M.Altenmann >t 03:49, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I would say that a translation is necessary, otherwise the phrase is not useful for English Wikipedia. It is important that the original phrase can be found. This is clearly the case here as both a Cyrillic and a transliteration of the original source are given. So in my view no problem so far.
  

Second question is what translation should be provided. In my view, especially for literature, in the ideal world we would have a professional translation from a published source (with reference). However if nobody can provide such a translation a Wiki editor translation should suffice. As Diego already reports above, the listing of the original text satisfies WP:verifiability; so 'unsourced' type of tags seem unwarranted. Instead if there is disagreement about the quality of the translation the editors on this page should aim to achieve consensus on the talk page on what a better translation might be. This should ideally be done through providing and discussing alternatives to the currently given translation - before changing the article. Arnoutf (talk) 14:48, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• You are wide off the mark: the question is whether the translation whould be proved when challenged, not "provided". And the original is not the proof of the translation. -M.Altenmann >t 15:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• Respectfully, you're wrong in your interpretation of policy, as WP:Verifiability explicitly says that external references are not indispensable for the translation itself (nice to have, yes; necessary, no)- i.e. this point you try to make was already agreed upon by the community, and they -we- decided to take the opposite position of what you're defending. Diego (talk) 16:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

  Respectfully, you are wrong about what I want and what my interpretation is. FYI by our policies ext refs are not indispensable at all, and I darn well know this for 10 years now. (Do you know when ext refs are indispensable?) Please don't read my mind. Just give direct answers to the questions posted. -M.Altenmann >t 03:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• @>t. You asked for comments, which means you simply have to wait and listen to those comments. Aggressive responses on comments that do not support your point go against the whole idea of request for comments. To respond on your content remark. Proving a correct translation is impossible. If it were that simple there would be only a single "correct" translation of e.g. the bible, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The only way forward is to argue in detail what is exactly wrong with the given translation and provide a better alternative. Arnoutf (talk) 16:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

  With due respect, I understand your point, but I am not going aggressively against non-my point, which I didn't make. If you bothered to see the beginning of the RfC I even asked whether I am permitted to make my point. What I am going after is not answering my question of the RfC, answering not mine question, and reading my mind. These three are the road to derailing the RfC. Here again you are missing my point. Yes, proving a "correct" translation is impossible. Just as impossible to write Truth in wikipedia. Just as science does not know everything. But this is not the focus of this RfC. Please re-read the two questions asked and give direct answers. -M.Altenmann >t 03:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• Q & A. Q: How much license is allowed? A: Some. There is no good way to measure the extent of poetic license. Perhaps zero-level poetic license in translation could be defined as a word-for-word translation (which all would agree is often quite awful). Or perhaps zero-level poetic license could be defined as usage of Google translate (whatever is the current quality of its algorithm, which is itself hard/impossible to describe) or as usage of some other "machine" translation. But again, "machine"-type translation is recognized to be awful often, to#o. So some intelligent exercise of discretion has to be allowed. So "Some" is the only possible answer to the literal question posed. --doncram 14:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

  Yes, "some" is the common sense answer. and "no good way" is also true. That's why there is a second part of my question. How to handle the objection that the translation is in fact a grave distortion of the origin? -M.Altenmann >t 15:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

This is flagrant lie. I stand by my translation as true and artistically accurate. Please offer an alternative, if you can, let's compare. I am an expert, you clearly are not. I suggest you desist from persistent reverts as you may run afoul of the 3 revert rule and face being blocked. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 04:40, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

In wikipedia expertise of a wikipedian is not taken into account when the correctness of the article text is verified. Only actual arguments based on logic and references are considered. And a wikipedian's angry diatribe is not a proof of correctness nor of expertise. And there haven't been a single revert since July 28. -M.Altenmann >t 07:33, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

You try to build a consensus with your fellow editors on how to translate the text best. Which is that Arnoutf suggested above, and does not call for battling about missing references. ;-) Diego (talk) 16:03, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• That's what I am doing right now, or not? To build a consensus one must set ground rules, find the middle ground, smoke the peace pipe, etc etc, and hopefully I see there is a chance to see the light from both ends of the tunnel. -M.Altenmann >t 03:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
• P.S. Why are you stuck up with "missing references"? What's wrong with asking for a reliable source? If there is a published translation, then clearly it will be superior. Please take a look how it was done, e.g., in The_Internationale#English lyrics. -M.Altenmann >t 04:00, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

You are not building a consensus. You are acting in a disruptive, belligerent manner showing no respect to the opinions of other editors. You have so far failed to add anything other than rote quotes from so-called rules that you interpret to suit your hostile attitude. Please desist from removing the article translations, as you are acting against the opinion of several editors. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 04:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

This is strike three. Either you immediately stop casting insults or I will ask an admin to ban you from this talk page for disruption of a calm and so far logical discussion. -M.Altenmann >t 07:33, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

@-M.Altenmann >t. Yes a published translation may be a better option than a Wikipedia editor translation. However, that is not essential (see much of the discussion above). If you think a published translation should be used, it is up to YOU to find one, propose it, and find consensus to use it. Until that time, in my view no templates or warnings should be placed in the article space. In this case (in my view) I suggest you have a good look at the text and propose an improved translation before criticizing an editor who have provided one in good faith. Arnoutf (talk) 10:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, here we agree that a published translation is a better option. -M.Altenmann >t 14:27, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Note that I also state that an unpublished translation is acceptable, and should not be tagged in article space until a generally agreed upon published translation has been provided. I hope you also agree to that essential clause to my comment above. Arnoutf (talk) 14:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I as said, my goal is to establish a common ground. Once it is done and we have a common understanding of some things, we can proceed to disagreements. This is how consensus is being built. If everybody just entrenches in their beliefs, the dispute will never be resolved. -M.Altenmann >t 14:45, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Let me rephrase myself again. We should be looking to find consensus for the best AVAILABLE (emphasis intentional) translation. The editor created translation is currently the only, and therefore by definition the best available translation. Consensus building for a potentially better translation can be supported by a published translation. However the relevance of a published translation can only be discussed AFTER (emphasis intentional) such a published translation is brought into the discussion. Since this is not yet the case, your so called common ground is currently no more than a castle in the air. Arnoutf (talk) 15:14, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

And let me rephrase myself again. This is an RfC for a specific question. This RfC is not for discussing the current translation. Therefore I am not commenting on it. Depending on the outcome of this RfC, I will start discussing other things.One thing at a time, please. Otherwise attention is dispersed and the discusssion will go nowhere, which, sadly, had happened many times in wikipedia talk pages. -M.Altenmann >t 15:19, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I can rephrase the above in a general way (i.e. If there is at one stage only a single editor created translation that is by definition the best available translation). I guess that will not convince you as you don't seem to be willing to listen to any comment that does not support you. I have given my comment on request. Do with it what you think best. Arnoutf (talk) 19:12, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, You are mistaken. Your opinion is appreciated and in fact influenced my position. I explain why I don't comment on some issues: they are outside the scope of this RfC and I will comment on them after this RfC is closed. -M.Altenmann >t 01:27, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

@-M.Altenmann >t this article is being watched by several editors who are asking you to work on consensus building. So far you have managed only a bewildering array of misinterpretations on various Wikipedia rules, without any constructive contribution. If some personal bias prevents you from working with others on this article, I would suggest that you refrain from editing it and find something else to do.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 13:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

False accusation; violation of WP:NPA. Please cease and desist doing this. -M.Altenmann >t 01:27, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Please tone down the offensive, combative attitude. If you want to work on developing consensus, it would help to show other editors some respect and defer to their opinion. So far, you have made no such effort.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 03:18, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

• Question: What exact edit do you have in mind? If you're not discussing this specific page, this is just a waste of time and energy here. The burden is on the editors proposing the text. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:27, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Sorry for my oversight, due to being entrenched in the discussion and forgetting that an uninvolved person may not recognize the context. Clarification: The questions is how to interpret WP:BURDEN with respect to a challenged unpublished translation of a published literary work (present in the article) and whether WP:BURDEN is applicable. -M.Altenmann >t 02:24, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
  • P.S. Sorry for reverting one part of your edit: you deleted the disputed poetry; you probably did not recognize that it is subject to the current discussion, and until the talk closed, probably best let it live as is. The original poetry is ...er... original, and of course it has references, being primary sources. -M.Altenmann >t 02:28, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

That's answers my question. Why was that the point of this RFC? This roundabout way of asking the question looks like WP:Wikilawyering in circles. My question is what is the exact edit you all are arguing about. Otherwise the answer you'll get is you have as much leeway as long as it's not original research which is a meaningless statement because you asked a vague, meaningless question in your RFC. You start with a source (in this case, a source in a foreign language) and you are interpreting that source. If there's disagreement about what the source says/its implication, we follow all the general sourcing and consensus guidelines. The first would be to find a secondary source that discusses a translation (not a primary source of Russian text that uses mat in (what you think) is a profane manner. Are you in fact arguing directly that a source using the word "mat" as profanity (meaning you are creating original research)? If so, there's a dispute and it should be removed until there's consensus supporting your view. We have plenty of Russian-speaking editors here and if there's this much disagreement on your content, that tells me your translation is a fringe translation that shouldn't be included. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

My view stands. You have leeway until it falls into WP:OR. Fortunately, I find a source in the New Yorker that discusses this very poem. However it only has a half-way English translation (namely English minus the actual mat words) so we still need a translation of the Russian variation or else I'll have to re-write it that way. Your translation was pretty spot on though so I don't think there's too much of an issue though I hope. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

• Very little leeway, to answer the RfC. Translation between idiomatic phrases that are differently structured but carry equivalent meaning (where a literal translation would be meaningless in English) is permissible, but extensive rewording, e.g. to preserve rhyme, alliteration, syllabification, or other creative structure, at the cost of meaning/intent accuracy, is impermissible original research. Wikipedia is not a literary publication and does not engaging in artistic "retellings".

  To adapt some of Diego Montoya's comments: "as much as required by the topic" is a good rule of thumb, and this will always be a case-by-case determination at the article. Harald Forkbeard's WP:OWNish view on this is not valid. No one has to be a regular editor (or an editor at all) at any particular article to start editing it, whether that's for adding new material, or removing or objecting to present material that is seen as encyclopedically inappropriate. Otherwise WP would have zero articles at all. "Everyone can edit" is our central principle. To return to Moya's comments, "proximity to the author's intent" in the most important criterion in judging "different degrees of deviation from the original", and editors "must provide reasonable proof of the correctness". This is usually done by citation to the original, and it's expected that native speakers, or subject-matter experts, may and will challenge, rewrite, and even delete misleading translations, which most often results from attempts to be "artistic" instead of to convey the meaning of the original. The "you haven't contributed to this article before, so you can bugger off" view cannot stand on Wikipedia, ever, anywhere. While WP:LOCALCONSENSUS does tend to determine what to do in case-by-case questions at particular article, that consensus is determined by all editors who show up to discuss it, not by who feels WP:VESTED by dint of some supposition of "tenure" on a particular page. The WP:BURDEN is in fact on the editors proposing to include the alleged translation.

  We do not need new "WP:RETELL" and "WP:PROOF" policies about this. Existing policy already covers the matter adequately. WP:PROOF already leads to WP:Verifiability, anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

  PS: In relation to this particular article, examples like this are not helpful:

  • пизде́ц (pizdéts) — "deep shit" is often used as an exclamation. Also means death or end of something.
  • пиздеть / пизде́ть (pizdét') — to lie, to talk a lot, occasionally used for simlpy "to talk".
  • пи́здить (pízdit') — "to steal" or "to beat somebody".

  They need literal translations as well as figurative English equivalents, since what they mean syntactically in relation to the stem word (a vulgarity for 'vagina') is totally unclear to the reader who doesn't speak Russian. Providing both literal and figurative equivalents would make 90% of this sort of dispute on pages like this just disappear.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:00, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Especially when they have no sources. An English-Russian dictionary (particularly one of idioms) would resolve these matters quite quickly. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:09, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Indeedy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: If there are particular words or phrases that are disputed why not just get out dictionaries of words and idiomatic phrases and see what they say?

I think it's tough to say how much "poetic freedom" is allowed. Maybe converting particular idioms is allowed, but the overall meaning of the text should not be deviated from

WhisperToMe (talk) 10:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: No leeway—Wikipedia must not become a primary source. Translation of poetry necessitates interpretation.

Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.[…] Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.[…] Do not…interpret…material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.[…] Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material.

If there exists no discussion of a given translation in secondary sources, the primary source of that translation might be acceptable. If no literary experts have published an English translation in even a primary source, the English translation of the work/poem/lyric as a whole is probably not yet notable enough for en.wiki. The best that can be done in such a case would be to cite dictionary entries for idiomatic phrases as mentioned above.

Any argument that WP:Translation applies to this case is failing to make a use–mention distinction. WP:RFT is for mentioning a translation; WP:Verify is for using a translation. 72.152.225.29 (talk) 03:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

State of this Article

Okay, so, i know i'm just some anonymous blob here but i was a frequent reader of this page - which helped me tremendously with understanding russian mat (and was verified by plenty of native speakers i spoke to). The current state of this article is a mess that is unworthy of any encyclopedia and should just be outright deleted, because it provides nothing of value. Get your shit together people, this is incredibly ridiculous. I for one will use an old version of this page - one that is actually usable and not fucked up by your dumb policies. 2A02:810D:D80:18E0:7DB7:CF96:89AD:32DB (talk) 15:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

There is plenty other websites about Russian mat. Wikipedia's "dumb policies" help to keep bullshit off the site. Unfortunately today is 1 active wikipedian per 2,000 articles, and looks like Russian mat is not on top of the list of their priorities. - üser:Altenmann >t 16:24, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The article has been completely destroyed. The amount of hot air surrounding it goes to show just how useful the so called "dumb policies" are. They serve to stroke bloated egos and utterly fail the users of this site. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Please abstain from attacking wikipedians. - üser:Altenmann >t 17:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

You don't give up, do you? You are the primiry reason this article is in the sorry state it is. The amount of time and effort wasted because of your complaints could have been better spent producing an article visitors can use. Shame on you.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 18:20, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Please abstain from attacking wikipedians. - üser:Altenmann >t 17:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Feel no shame, eh? Look at the article, your handiwork. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 22:14, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Please abstain from Wikipedia.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 22:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Well that's not helpful at all. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:29, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• If you could provide some specifics on what your issue is, that would be helpful. There's been two main changes: one is the replacement of Harald's poem quotation with the New Yorker which I doubt is particularly an issue and the second is the removal of completely unsourced idioms. As explained above, there exists sources but it seems like there's little interest in actually find sources so that we don't just have a list of random alleged Russian insults that anyone on the internet thinks is accurate. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:29, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey Ricky, my main gripe and why i have now put the old Revision from last December into my favorite bar is the missing of the Idioms. I can't judge wether or not the poem was well translated - but the different idioms were the main reason why I got to the article in the first place. I get your gripe with the sourcing, and hell i don't know all the rules of Wikipedia. But based on my user POV, I prefer the earlier revision. If we contrast the current revision to the old revision, right now you get 4 examples of idioms that are "the four pillars of mat" - which is rather lackluster. Especially since words like súka, which you will hear the most next to blyad, are completely missing. 2A02:810D:D80:18E0:7838:2B89:9A62:B452 (talk) 15:41, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

You got it. EVERYBODY on the internet, except for some folks here thinks the idioms were very good. A living language, Russian in this case, defies the English language sources, is that so hard to understand?

Either you allow viable idioms in this article, regardless of the English sources, or delete the article altogether as non-viable and refer the visitors to Russian language sources and / or other resources that don't have this issue with 'random alleged insults'. Incidentally, I am a native speaker of Russian and find the idioms originally presented in the article very accurate.Is the article written for you or for the Wikipedia visitors looking for accurate information? --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 02:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

No, not even everyone on the internet. Just a few users here. You could have Russian sources too. The article cites Russian sources but there were no in-line or other citations to the idioms. Sources do exist for these things and it's been four years since the idioms were added. The problem is you say they're accurate, another editor who claims to speak Russian (or doesn't even) says they aren't, we argue about whether you two even know Russian or whatever when all of this could be solved by just finding a reference that's more than "I know Russian, trust me." I looked for a source, and I couldn't find those particular idioms. Same as what I did with your translation issue and I think that resolves it. The Russian version of this page is much longer and seems to have citations to things so a Russian speaker can copy content (with attribution and with the sources) from there if that would help but simply "hey trust me I speak Russian" isn't a long-term solution. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Here is the deal, Ricky. The English article is useless as it stands today. You can copy the Russian references to this article, but they are not very useful for an English speaker. I am not aware of a Russian - English idiom dictionary that has been published by a reputable source and covers the missing idioms. Failing that quality of reference, you either allow the Russian / English bilingual editors to do the job using consensus or get rid of the English article altogether and send the visitors to the Russian version that is way more informative as of now. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The Russian references can be used to keep the idioms in the article. Even if not all English readers can use them, Russian speakers can attest from the sources that their meaning are accurate. Having the idioms in the article with Russian references would benefit all readers while at the same time satisfying the rules that require verifiability. Diego (talk) 23:38, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Right on, bro. Completely agree.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 00:24, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I don't see a disagreement. The issue is this version had no sources (and Russian Wikipedia editors saying that they "know" it's accurate isn't a reliable source). No one responded to my questions at #Khuy citations which are also about sources, so is the issue Russian sources or that Russian speakers want to attest based on themselves alone as to the content here? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:10, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Right, bro. The Russian speakers want to attest that the Russian dirty language really works. Been using it without references ever since my dad taught me to chew gum and swear my head off. No references required. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:36, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

References are needed: that's how Wikipedia works. And they exist, apparently (at the Russian language wikipedia page), so put them in. --doncram 01:22, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Russian speakers saying "this is how the language works" isn't the way it's done. Articles like fuck and cunt have sources and aren't just "here's some cursing I heard growing up" because that would somehow be considered "useful" to people. If people are looking for ways to curse in Russian, an encyclopedia isn't it anyways. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:34, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

what is mat?

The topic sentence of the article is really lacking, or I have a misunderstanding of what mat is. I previously got the impression that mat is something like a genre, a way of speaking, an expressive art, a style of Russian vulgar slang. I got the impression it is fresh and a "living language", like what Harald Forkbeard has said. Involving an in-your-face willingness to offend, perhaps competitive in pushing further and further, and being defiant of the norms of others. What HF's interpretations in English of Russian mat poetry got across really well. I pretty much believe the thrust of HF's (over-stated for effect) assertion that "EVERYBODY on the internet...thinks the idioms were very good". I prefer for those interpretations to be given alongside tamer word-for-word translations, and I prefer for the idioms, to be kept in the article (although the idioms do need references).

However, the intro suggests that there is no art at all, it is merely profuse obscenity, expressing nothing. If it is just grownups acting like children and stringing together as many obscenities as they can, trying to top other idiots doing the same, then I don't see how this is an encyclopedic topic at all. What I thought was "a thing" is nothing at all? That's where I am moving in my understanding, given little/no progress happening on this article. I thought that there would exist literate discussion of what mat is, perhaps how it might have evolved in response to events and conditions, perhaps how it influenced important events and conditions, perhaps how there are regional variations that make some sense. I thought that there would be literate, important people who speak of it, who find it is important, and appreciate or hate it, and that there would exist some study of it, at least at some level like masters students writing theses about it. I want to hear examples of all these things by now, and I don't, so I am drifting towards thinking nothing like that exists.

(Yes, i see that the article mentions one "linguist and folklorist Alexei Plutser-Sarno" taking time to compile a "great" dictionary of it, so I imagine he has something to say about it, but I see nothing of his views in this article. And I still see the promising mention of a "detailed article by Victor Erofeyev (translated by Andrew Bromfeld) analyzing the history, overtones, and sociology of mat [that] appeared in the 15 September 2003 issue of The New Yorker". However I do not see any such analysis, any literate discussion, any insightful quotes that would get across anything. And so on.)

The article is at a low level, for so much attention having been paid to it. Is there really no readily-available reference that defines it to be something interesting, something more than "the term for strong obscene profanity in Russian and some other Slavic language communities"? --doncram 01:22, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

This is the start of the Erofeyev piece. It requires a subscription for the remainder. The problem is this is a linguistic topic and we don't have the proper linguistic background here. I think it's basically a type of obscene wording that can be compounded into phrasing. As noted, there exist Russian-English idiom dictionaries so they would have the proper background or summary. The other New Yorker piece here I reviewed and put into the article while the Four Dirty Words needs some context. As noted above, the problem is that editors would rather insist on their own personal "I know this cursing is real because I've heard it all my life" rather than actually look for sources. Look at how much time and energy was spent on the RFC when a simple search find an English translation of the actual work itself. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:44, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

'There exist Russian English idiom dictionaries' doesn't cut it. Please be specific, and let's see the quality of translation offered by this article's original version. In your exposition there does not seem to be enough respect for the living language and its native speakers. As doncram intimates, the idiomatic language is a living breathing entity constantly evolving and subject to interpretation. By whom? The proficient speakers, of course. The sources are inevitably behind the times. For the benefit of Wikipedia users, I would prefer the consensus-based native speaker contribution to any dated reference.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Here is a portion from one from Yale University Press. There's probably over 250 of these types of books out there. And I prefer actual reliable sources from academics than random individuals on the internet who claim to speak Russian. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:59, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Your dictionary reference offers good idiom coverage. But not the dirty slang that is the subject of this article. Trust me on this, I grew up in Moscow and used both extensively. Don't hate me for this.--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 14:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I can assure you that the actual users and students of 'Mat' don't give a hoot about academics who publish books. This is a part of the language that is created by people on the street, they are the best source. --Harald Forkbeard (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Fine for you to have pride and interest in the slang. However, again it is not how Wikipedia works, to include anything at all with no support. Why not put every single word in the Russian language into the English wikipedia, with equally uninformative entries: "Sobaka is the term for dog, in Russian", "Kot is the term for cat, in Russian", etc.? --doncram 15:06, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

If visitors find cat and dog terms useful, then so be it. Alternative is to have a non-resource collecting useless references and of no value to the visitor. You need to re-read the visitor's complaint above. See the problem?--Harald Forkbeard (talk) 16:48, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

We had visitors complain when people removed the individual pages about each Pokemon character. I'm not sure what your point is. If you want to propose a change to WP:RS or any other policy, go right ahead but otherwise, this will be a circular game where you propose edits against policy, group after group disagrees with you and eventually you'll be blocked or banned as disruptive. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:25, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Fuck your mother

The lede says that the term "mat" comes from the phrase "Ёб твою мать". This was formerly translated as "fuck your mother", but this was recently changed to "[I] fuck[ed] your mother".

I don't speak Russian, and I'm guessing that the editor who made this change does. But "fuck your mother" is quite different from (and considerably more offensive than) 'I fucked your mother". And "[I] fuck[ed] your mother" is just nonsense, a hopeless attempt to unify a declaration with a command.

So what does "Ёб твою мать" mean? Is it the declarative "I fucked your mother"? Or the imperative "fuck your mother"? TypoBoy (talk) 15:24, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Compare: Grammatical_conjugation#Verbal_agreement, “I go, you go, we go, they go are all grammatical in standard English, she go is not (except in the subjunctive, as "They requested that she go with them").” Remember that we are talking about Russian grammar, not English one; and the English version here is just a translation. Verb forms in different persons, cases etc can be written the same way (is it called polysemy?), especially with exceptional short forms like this. When you exclaim "fuck!", do you actually think of fucking? The sentence is almost never declarative now, it's just an interjection, unless you take it literally as mentioned in the article referred to. “[first or third person masculine singular] fucked your mother” is a more plausible literal interpretation; the reference says that “Scholars believe … is a fragment of an old Slavic formula, pyos yob tvoyu mat’ («a dog fucked your mother»."”. --AVRS (talk) 19:54, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

No blasphemous words at all?

It seems that while mat' includes a wide variety of obscene words, perhaps unmatched by any other language, not even one of them relates to any religious concept. This would set Russian apart from Western European languages and even from nearby languages such as Finnish; see Finnish profanity.

Can we confirm this? That even the most foulmouthed Russians avoid saying things considered blasphemous? And if so, is this because blasphemy is considered even more taboo than the worst of the obscenities, or is it because atheism has taken all the bite out of blasphemy? Even if we can't figure out why mat' apparently excludes blasphemy, I think it is well worth mentioning if it is true. —Soap— 00:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

It is not true, at least now, that "even the most foulmouthed Russians avoid saying things considered blasphemous" or that "blasphemy is considered even more taboo than the worst of the obscenities". At least until recently, it was safe to use words based on roots translatable as "devil" (чёрт, дьявол, чертовски, чёртов) or "damn" (проклятие, проклятый), but they are far from being as flexible and have too many consonants. I guess they have little bite exactly because they are safe to use. --AVRS (talk) 17:28, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay thank you. I'd like to get that mentioned on the article but I don't really have the means to pore through Russian-language sources. —Soap— 03:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

David Remnick

• Hello colleague AVRS. Regarding your edit.

It is not strange, but the specialists of philologists do not have any common opinion about the number of obscene pillars of mat. I have not found a single job on this topic (I’ve been looking for a long time). David Remnick is not a philologist, let alone a specialist in the Russian language; he is generally an English-speaking journalist, of course he speaks Russian, but that does not make his words an authoritative source.

Предлагаю сослаться в тексте статьи не на David Remnick, а на постановление Роскомнадзора 2014 года. Ничего другого кроме этого постановления я не нашел. Но как вы понимаете постановление Роскомнадзора это никак не научное филологическое исследование, а лишь государственный запрет. Если вы найдете филологическое исследование на эту тему, то я буду очень рад.Wlbw68 (talk) 03:47, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• • • • Интересно, что самого постановления Роскомнадзора о нецензурной брани на официальном сайте нет, есть статья в газете «Известия» и больше ничего нет. Wlbw68 (talk) 08:39, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_(online_and_paper) says "content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is also generally unacceptable". Here is the version of the article right before the mention of "mudak" was removed because of the David Remnick reference. The Russian article mentions that a source says the top 7 words according to "polls" include "муде". And the top 35 words from that list include "жрать"! Did the author make that list WAY too long? --AVRS (talk) 22:47, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
    • Hello colleague AVRS

From the sources we see that the number of obscene pillars of mat is different for different authors. Unfortunately, all sources mentioned in ru-Wikipedia are not authoritative sources. Their authors have no learned degrees in philology or linguistics. Therefore, talking about the four pillars of mat is wrong. I propose to remove this information from the article, supplementing it with information about the different number of pillars from different authors. What are your objections? Wlbw68 (talk) 09:07, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Do use Wiktionary. It is quite reputable, as the etymology standards are high.

Zezen (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

"Блядь" vs. "Блять"

The section on the word "блядь" (blyad) refers to it as being part of a meme phrase, preceded by "сука". Is the correct phrase not "сука блять" (suka blyat), as opposed to "сука блядь"? I've never seen a native Russian speaker say "suka blyad" rather than "suka blyat". Are both correct? I know that блядь is technically "correct" and блять originated as a misspelling, but is my understanding that блять is used as a unique word incorrect? I do believe I've seen Russian speakers discuss that the words have different connotations– I've most often seen the former translated as "whore" and the latter as "fuck/to fuck". I am relatively new to the language and absolutely not a native speaker, so I wanted to ask a second opinion before making any edits to the page myself, especially considering that slang and vulgar language are complex to learn as an outsider. —Bbuingjoo (talk) 09:08, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

While "-ть" may be thought of as the interjection version of "-дь", that's probably rare and very irregular. It's definitely not a verb. It can only really be seen in writing. --AVRS (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Блядь is a whore and Блять is an interjection that can express a lot of feelings. More often it is used as a demonstration of annoyance but can show both joy and anger and sadness.

@AVRS, Bbuingjoo

It is due to devoicing of the final d and then misspelling. Look it up: Final-obstruent devoicing.

Bows Zezen (talk) 21:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

"Govno" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Govno and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 10#Govno until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)