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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kouber (talk | contribs) at 13:44, 5 January 2011 (→Article Title: Response to ETST). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


New material added/sources

These edits by Reenem added a bunch of new material to the article which is not well sourced. The sourced used are:

  1. A blogger reporting on the sea battle, who mainly bases his blog on the interview with a Russian seaman, which the blogger himself assesses as "It’s a bit of a questionable story."
  2. An longish text on a webpage that seems to be hosting various military related texts/books. The text used as source is written in very bad English and contains dozend of photos, which are very obvious copyright violations (several of the other books hosted on the site look like copyright violations as well).
  3. A youtube video. Actually, the video is the best source out of the three, being uploaded by AssociatedPress, but is misquoted in the article. The full video description reads: "A Russian convoy of troops were engaged in an intense firefight, presumably with Georgian soldiers at a bridge in Achabet, South Ossetia Monday. (Aug. 11)". Reenem made out of that: "A joint Russian-Ossetian convoy was also ambushed by Georgian troops on a bridge in Achabet, but fought it off." Neither the ambush, nor the fighting off are mentioned in the description by AP, or apparent in the video (which is basically some soldiers standing around, shooting at an invisible enemy).

This does not hold up with the rest of the, very well sourced, article. --Xeeron (talk) 17:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But these bloggers also made a point of providing physical evidence with their photographs, and sourcing their materials with books. Even if they violate the copyright, we just cite them as sources, we don't actually use those pictures on our pages. And it is obvious that they did fight it off: the APC is shown blasting enemy positions and infantry then counterattack, and the fact that we even have the video proves that the column was not wiped out.--RM (Be my friend) 23:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC) [reply]

We can not link to them is they violate someone else's copyright, check for yourself at Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works. About the firefight specifically, the AP author was very cautious in his decription, and correctly so. There is nothing in the video that sheds a light on which side attacked (and especially nothing that would allow us to speak of an "ambush"). There is not even proof who was the other combatant. For all we know, this might have been an instance of mistaken identity and friendly fire. And finally, the video does not show whether the attackers won, or whether the convoy retreated. Writing about an ambush that was fought off is pure speculation (and WP:OR to boot). --Xeeron (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Map inset - comment

Just because the map inset was viewed by readers to be an excellent graphic does not make it correct. Specifically, the graphic depicts a Russian "blockade" of the Georgian coast. This assertion is not proven by any authoritative information. Either the author needs to provide proof or the depiction of the "blockade" MUST be removed. This is the second request to correct the graphic. The first request for corroborating proof of the asserted "blockade", a maritime action that has a specific definition in international law with criteria not met in this case, went unheeded.Moryak (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4497216.ece --Xeeron (talk) 11:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • An article that makes assertions without proof citing unnamed sources is neither authoritative nor very convincing. The article also contains number of assertive statements by the President of Georgia that weren't true either.Moryak (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Times is a reputable secondary source (unlike the president of Georgia or you, I might add), unless you find a reputable source, or better, several reputable sources that explicitly state that no blockade took place, there is no need to continue discussing this. --Xeeron (talk) 20:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia criteria still states that information must be verifiable. I am asking for verification - not assertion - in accordance with Wikipedia guidance. Some people ask "Show me the money?", I ask "Show me the proof of a blockade?". What specific units conducted the alleged blockade? Where? When? What specific ships were affected by the alleged blockade? I have not seen any addressal of the answers to any of these questions. If the alleged blockade occurred, the answers to these questions should be available.Федоров (talk) 22:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can ask that, but you'll have to search the answer yourself. WP:Source guides what can be used as a source (I suggest you read the relevant section, not only the title), and whether or not you personally agree with Times is not of any importance. --Xeeron (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Blockades happen all of the time without actually being legally declared a blockade, similar to how both Georgia and Russia were at war with each other while at the same time neither declared war. Now would you state that the war didn't exist because legally there was not a state of war between the two countries?XavierGreen (talk) 02:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, yes, the Georgia-Russia interaction in August 2008 was an "armed conflict" and not a "war". Many discussions of current events are sloppy and imprecise in their understanding and use of words. However, words do matter - and "blockade" has a specific definition which does not apply in the case of the graphic noted.Федоров (talk) 10:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you note the article blockade there are mutiple definitions given, what you are refering to is a legal definition while in reality there is more than one definition. For example a blockade can also refer to Close patrol of a hostile port, in order to prevent naval forces from putting to sea, is also referred to as a blockade. Something that happens extremely frequently in any conflict.XavierGreen (talk) 19:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Point taken. Regardless of varying definitions, I still challenge the statement that there was a blockade of Georgia - where is the proof? A self-serving assertion is neither proof nor verifiable fact.Федоров (talk) 19:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • A review of the literature supports questioning whether a "blockade" ever existed. The reported "battle" at sea occurred just south of Sukhumi. The Georgians have/had no naval bases that far north. Poti is farther south. And yes, Russian forces did enter Poti where they sank basically inoperative Georgian naval ships at their moorings but there is no verifiable information that the Russian Navy "blockaded" any Georgian port. The text below Wikipedia edit box explicitly states that "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable". Moryak (talk) 15:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Excuse me, when the georgians sortied they were repulsed no? Did they ever leave port after their sortie? There were russian ships off of the coast of Georgia for the length of the war preventing them from sortieing.XavierGreen (talk) 19:53, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Russians never stopped the Georgians from leaving port. The Russians engaged the Georgians when the Georgians were heading north toward Sukhumi and approaching their ships southwest of Sukhumi. Interestingly, the Georgians never acknowledged the occurrence of the action in which one of their units was sunk by a missile. There is no confirmation that the Russian Navy remained anywhere but off the coast of Abkhazia for the duration of the armed conflict. There is no verifiable confirmation of the Russians ever blockading the Georgian coast during the conflict.Moryak (talk) 21:03, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Heres a source stating that russian vessels were off the coast of georgia during the conflict, enforcing an exclusion zone off the coast of georgia. [[1]] Heres a chinese source stating there was a blockade [[2]]XavierGreen (talk) 04:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The issue is not that there are statements and reports, though I wonder how British and Chinese sources are likely to be authoritative since these types of reports tend to be echoes of others rather than authoritative reporting. The real issue is = what is the truth and can it be verified. Earlier I cited the historical example of Herr Goebbels, who believed and successfully practiced the theory that convincing repetition of falsehood created the perception of truth. I still adhere to that example. As in American politics, you can easily hear totally contradictory statements of seeming fact, however only one of the versions logically can be true. Repeating, where is the verifiable confirmation that there was a Russian naval blockade of the Georgian coast during the August 2008 conflict?Федоров (talk) 12:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I can say the same of you, what evidence do you have that there was not a blockade? This russian source states that a full trade blockade had been in effect since 2006! [[3]] Russian ships were off the coast of georgia, and prevented the georgian fleet from sortieing out of port. The only reasoning i have seen stated that russia did not enact a blockade is because russia was not in a state of war and enacting a blockade would be an act of war, a moot arguement unless you want to argue that russians did not invade georgia in 2008 and that the russian black sea fleet stayed in stevaspol for the length of the war.XavierGreen (talk) 05:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • A challenge to prove negatives is a weak gambit. (Please prove that you do not beat your wife, have never driven through a red light, etc.) The article you cite is a western writer's (Washington Times) opinion and likely also an imprecise use of the word "blockade". It refers to closed transit across land borders and not blockade of maritime trade. Georgia would be the first to say that there is no blockade of its ability to trade by sea. The ports of Poti and Batumi have been and are functioning. The Washington Times article has no bearing on whether there has been a sea blockade of Georgia.Федоров (talk) 13:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge material from Public investigation of the Ossetian War?

It seems to me that the contents of Public investigation of the Ossetian War might more appropriately be incorporated into this article. Comments? Richwales (talk · contribs · review) 04:57, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't think that we should do that. As mentioned in its header (and I mostly agree with the list), the article has multiple unresolved issues. The South Ossetia war article is a very VERY touchy one (I just can't overemphasize, how much). Just one wrong addition like that, and we'll be hearing cries "Russians!" - no, I mean - "Wolves!" - no wait, it's actually - "POVed and unencyclopedic!" all over the place =D. I'd rather enjoy the relative calm that seem to have established lately. Anyway, if you still see some merit in adding the information from "Public Investigation" article, I suggest improving that article directly first (i.e. adding sources, wikifying, etc), and then bringing it to editors' attention once more. How about that? ETST (talk) 14:28, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed — especially with regard to proper sourcing of the information in question. Thanks. Richwales (talk · contribs · review) 00:37, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are welcome =). ETST (talk) 13:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Subsequent references to Mikheil Saakashvili

Per WP:SURNAME, I believe it would be appropriate to change references in this article (after the first reference) to Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili to say simply "Saakashvili" (or, sparingly and where appropriate, "President Saakashvili"). Right now, he is repeatedly (and, I believe, unnecessarily) referred to throughout the article as "Mikheil Saakashvili" or "President Mikheil Saakashvili". Owing to the sensitivity of this article, I thought it wise to bring up this naming issue here on the talk page first, just in case someone might be aware of an important reason to make an exception to the general style guideline on personal naming conventions. I do understand that routinely referring to people by their surnames alone is not customary in Georgia, but we're talking about the English Wikipedia here. Richwales (talk · contribs · review) 00:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's very thoughtful of you to ask first =). But personally I'm not aware of any good reason for keeping references the current way, and I'm pretty sure that in this case nobody would object, especially since there's a guideline supporting your change. I think, that as a general rule, you should be wary only about adding/changing factual information in the article (e.g how many died, who did when and what to whom, etc). Mere technicalities, like how someone's name is presented/spelled, are unlikely to be of the holywarring folk concern here (and with everybody else you'll be able to come to an agreement). Good luck editing =). ETST (talk) 13:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Andrei Nekrassov, Olga Konskaja film "Russian Lessons"

I think you should watch documentary film "Russian lessons". Atleast half of that info here is wrong.

One video to think about this film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ5eiXn7QJk —Preceding unsigned comment added by KillerEST (talk • contribs) 21:36, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I watched "Уроки русского" some half an year ago. It is indeed a very valuable work and it's a pity that it is forbidden in Russia. Kouber (talk) 10:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article too large

This article is well beyond the 100kb limit that normally indicates a split is necessary. The military sections are a good candidate for a split, and other sections could be easily split as well. --Airborne84 (talk) 12:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone is aware of the problem and this has been considered many times. The subject is complex and splitting off material will create POV concerns. I believe this is one those cases when a large article is necessary. It is allowed by policy: "Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage". Another article about a recent and controversial war, Gaza War is even longer (255 kilobytes long). But in the future, I will start working to improve the article. That includes cutting it down if possible. On first thought, I object to cutting down the military part because I think it's essential. Offliner (talk) 12:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have been working on keeping this article small for a long time now, but there are also reasons why it is as large as it is. Apart from what Offliner already pointed out, consider that this article is extremely rich in sources. As a rough guess, I'd say that about one third of the total Kb number is due to sourcing. However, that should not be counted towards the total article length, since it does bloat the articles' text. --Xeeron (talk) 16:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with xeeron that the sources are a problem, but disagree that it creates POV because no content is/will be removed. Theyd be moved to requisite pages AND duly linked from here. Right now it takes way too long to load, and particularly for editors who have to save and return to the page, which is not to mention readers who could get scared off by it not loading. We can always discuss the necessary cuts here before splits. Gaza flotilla raid also has many splits, which aids editors who focus on only 1 section ahead of others (like i did there)Lihaas (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ukrainian Illegal Weapons Sales

Found this article about the Ukraine illegally selling Georgia the Buk missile systems that shot down the Russian jets. Would it be notable enough to add into the article, or is it too controversial, or needs 100% to be confirmed? Nath1991 (talk) 11:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article already mentions that Georgia used Buk systems. Whether the sale was illegal or not in the Ukraine is not relevant here. --Xeeron (talk) 10:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, if an RS mentions it then one can mention it (although id question the source as being unbiased in this regard)Lihaas (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article Title

The current title of the article is not the commmon name for the conflict, rather Russia-Georgian War and Russo-Georgian War are used in english scholarly sources for the conflict. The current title fails wikipedias requirements for Verifiability and No original research. Russo-Georgian War would follow currently used conventions such as the various Russo-Swedish Wars and Russo-Turkish Wars. The current title also is pov towards the ossetian view point of the conflict, as the war took place all over the territory claimed by georgia and not entirely in South Ossetia, and was primarily fought between Russian aligned and Georgian belligerents.XavierGreen (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The current title is absurd. The fact that such a title was chosen initially (when indeed it reflected the place where the war erupted) doesn't justify the status quo. We have to follow the rules. Kouber (talk) 07:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my. Not this again. The same people and the same rename proposal. I'd have thought, that after you had demonstrated so much persistence, that you even got yourselves a 6 months Moratorium on Rename Debates, you'd finally become sensible enough not to try pulling the same rename on the same article for 32nd time in 28 months (!!!). Is that really how you're gonna spend Christmas and New Year days? I mean like, really-really?? Oh well, why am I so surprised? Previous 31 times should have taught me a lesson, I guess. ETST (talk) 12:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More and more scholarly publications are published every week under the titles ive proposed. The the case for a rename grows stronger everyday.XavierGreen (talk) 17:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The terms proposed by XavierGreen are much more widely used at present. Besides, 2008 South Ossetia war doesnt apply to events taking place in this war. We should follow WP:UCN. –BruTe Talk 10:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And "Oh my" again. An instantaneous rename flashmob with the notorious "common name" argument. In under three days we already have three men, all of whom, incidentally, were strongly in support of rename in several of previous discussions. WP:CANVASS, anyone? I wonder, where had I seen it all before? Why is that people fail to understand, that a 2-year old war is too young to reasonably have any generally-agreed upon name in History? What's driving them to hasten the decision? Does it have something to do with two of them being Georgian/having Georgian friends/generally engaging in pro-Georgian tendentious editing? Why do I have to continuously waste my personal time on them? Oh well, I guess we'll never find out answers to these questions, so let's pretend that I'm interested in seeing a proof for this "most common name" claim, shall we? I'll quickly disprove it and then proceed with doing some actually useful things. ETST (talk) 11:53, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop with these continuous personal attacks and offtopic ad hominem abuses. Accusing me to have Georgian friends is ridiculous. Is it a crime to have such? Or does the fact that somebody's on my talk page makes him my friend? Because there's an Ossetian guy there too, if you didn't noticed. And honestly, I do not understand how my improvements of the Ossetians article are pro-Georgian in any way!? Wtf!?... And what canvassing are talking about? What other more important discussion do we have now on the current talk page?
So, do I understand your point well? You agree that the title is bad, but because the war is too young, you propose to keep it bad (some decades more)? Kouber (talk) 16:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Please stop with these continuous personal attacks and offtopic ad hominem abuses. Accusing me to have Georgian friends is ridiculous. Is it a crime to have such?" It's not attacks and abuses, it's statement of facts. And having Georgian friends is not a crime. Tendentious editing is. I'm just exposing the reason for your persistence to anyone interested. And the fact, that I'm thoroughly annoyed with getting to repeat the same argument for 32nd time, just because you guys are too politically motivated to give up, doesn't help me to stick to the subject either.
"Or does the fact that somebody's on my talk page makes him my friend?" No, that alone doesn't do it. The fact, that he called you to join a debate on deletion of a picture, which he and other Georgians wanted to keep, does. Even if not friendship, at least it does point out your political views.
"Because there's an Ossetian guy there too, if you didn't noticed. And honestly, I do not understand how my improvements of the Ossetians article are pro-Georgian in any way!?" Yeah, I did notice the Ossetian. It's funny how you forgot to mention, that said Ossetian called you out to question neutrality of your so-called "improvements".
"Wtf!?" Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking, when I see people who want to convince someone with that kind of demagoguery.
"And what canvassing are talking about? What other more important discussion do we have now on the current talk page?" Then, maybe you'll explain, how after your 3.5-months-long absense on Wikipedia did you manage to go straight to this page (which also wasn't edited for month) just 1.5 days after the discussion started? Oh wait, don't tell me, I'm not actually interested.
"So, do I understand your point well? You agree that the title is bad, but because the war is too young, you propose to keep it bad (some decades more)?" No, you have misrepresented my point, which you had heard before just too often to believe that you did it unintentionally. But I'll repeat it nevertheless. I think, that, due to absense of established title, the current title is better than any other title ever proposed here (including, but not limited to, the titles you're rallying for now). And I've also given my arguments in support of that point and you've also have heard them often enough. Please, feel free to refer yourself to our previous discussions, if you think you might have forgotten some of them. ETST (talk) 09:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, if I write something on your talk page, it would reflect your political views!? What kind of weird logic is that? Perhaps your position to defend the current totally unpopular title has some similar logical roots? And how you are not attacking me, when you are accusing me of having Georgian friends, of being a tendentious editor, of canvassing, etc., etc.? Please stop with this unacceptable behaviour! If you want to discuss my edits, including my contribution to the Ossetians page, do it on the appropriate talk page, and do it nicely! I didn't invest several hours of my time in reading and analyzing the sources (serious academic works consisting of hundreds of pages) to receive something like that from you. And that's exactly what I proposed to the Ossetian guy in question too (on his talk page). I invited him on the talk page to discuss the changes, in case he has any objections.
As to your curiousity why I did appear so "suddenly" here, you can refer to the Watchlist functionality. I was waiting for the 6 months ultimatum to expire and I would have restarted the topic again myself, if it wasn't XavierGreen. Now do you have any more personal questions regarding my spare time spending?
Back on topic. In the English sources there are some already established titles, and they do not include the current one. That's why we need to change it. Not because I or anybody else do not like it, but because the sources say so. Kouber (talk) 13:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It doesnt appear that ETST has any objection to the title other than personal bias or political reasons. As for canvassing if you check my contribs i havent talked to anyone about the issue at all besides what ive posted on the talk page here.XavierGreen (talk) 17:25, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"It doesnt appear that ETST has any objection to the title other than personal bias or political reasons." It doesnt appear that...? To whom? Please, stop trying to pretend, that (any of) the following holds true:
  1. You're new here.
  2. You've never seen me.
  3. We've never been arguing about this.
  4. We've not been arguing about this long enough.
  5. You've never seen my other objections to the title.
  6. You've never seen objections to the title, other than mine.
  7. You've never seen objections to the title from anyone but me.
  8. You've presented brand-new, previously-unheard-of arguments in favor of the title.
  9. Your 2-year-old arguments for the title weren't disproved in great clarity and detail each and every time they were presented.
Now, if you will stop the pretence, I'll be spared of fulfilling my tedious duty of copy-pasting the counter-argumentation from older discussions. Will you, please, do that? (No, I don't really believe it will happen, so you have an opportunity to surprise me. That would be something, that never happened here before, after all).
"As for canvassing if you check my contribs i havent talked to anyone about the issue at all besides what ive posted on the talk page here." Yeah, I know. Well, I guess, stealth canvassing is called stealth exactly because it is done off-wiki. And one can only provide circumstantial evidence for it, and so I did. That is also something, that I've never done before. An alternative would be to just plainly start repeating counter-arguments from previous discussions, like I always had to, but seeing how you guys keep reappearing here with regularity, worthy of better cause, I have concluded that this approach is a waste of time. Ever since now, editors, who will happen to read this discussion, will have more facts to make their judgement from, and that, ultimately, is my only goal. ETST (talk) 09:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PS. Oh, I nearly forgot. It's funny to see, that you have carefully avoided mentioning in your reply any proof to your "most common title" claim (despite me explicitly asking to demonstrate it), and switched to trying to discretit me, instead. ETST (talk) 09:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you want sources for the title ive proposed they can easily be provided, [[4]], [[5]], [[6]], [[7]], [[8]],[[9]], [[10]], [[11]].

Some of the sources of note above include Janes Defense and the Department of the Navy. Janes is one of the highest quality defense issue related sources available. If you want more i can list dozens upon dozens of them if you'd like.XavierGreen (talk) 20:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just as I've expected. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Dear XavierGreen. But the simple act of opening Google Books/Google Scholar/whatever-you're-going-to-call-a-definitive-demonstrator and picking a few results to your liking (oh, I'm sure, "dozens upon dozens" of them have turned up in the query, b/c you don't seem to be constructing it correctly, anyway) can't be a proof of "most common title" claim. Do you understand the concept of ratio, I wonder? Do you realize, that you can't prove that one number is greater than some others by showing only that number? No, my dear XavierGreen, in order for it to be a proof you have to provide all the links to usage numbers for all the alternatives to your proposed title, and demonstrate, that they're negligibly smaller. Please, go on. I've already seen the numbers myself, so let's see, which of them you're going to show this time, and how you're going to jongle with them to make them prove your point. ETST (talk) 08:51, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
PS. I notice how you didn't start to argue about my "9 points of your pretence". I would have been mildly surprised about it, if only it wouldn't have been rather "not admitting it", than "not continuing to pretend". Sigh. ETST (talk) 09:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The quality of the sources such as Janes and the Defense Department speaks for itself. 2008 South Ossetian Conflict is not used as a title by any source of repute, and i doubt that you can prove me otherwise. And i am not going to respond to your personal attacks against me. If you dont think Janes Defense is a reputable source on defense information than what is might I ask?XavierGreen (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"The quality of the sources such as Janes and the Defense Department speaks for itself." Oh my (sorry for me repeating this so often, but I just can't help it). So you're just going to keep showing a few sources, and claiming they're the ones, that establish the title for the whole English-speaking world? Are you kidding?
" "2008 South Ossetian Conflict" is not used as a title by any source of repute, and i doubt that you can prove me otherwise." Firstly, I have to express my amusement at how you try to shift the burden of proof of your claim onto me by daring me to "prove otherwise", which, incidentally, involves demonstrating a source, which
  1. uses "South Ossetia conflict" title, yet
  2. you will call it "reputable".
Seeing, how those two conditions are unlikely to be satisfied simultaneously, I think I'm sharing your doubts. I'm really glad, that this kind of flawed test can't prove me wrong, though.
Secondly, I'd like to note, that the simple act of comparing your name with one of less popular names from the list of alternatives cannot be the proof of "most common name" claim, either. I wonder, why is it so hard for you to understand that? Or is it only your title vs "South Ossetia Conflict" in your head? Did you forget, that there are other names for the war? Like "August war", "War in Georgia", "Five day war", etc (take the freedom to look in archives for a full list). Why not also remember "South Ossetia War", at least? It is kinda, uhm... the current article title, isn't it?? Oh well.
And lastly, don't try and shift anyone's attention to reputability of sources or whatever. WP:COMMONNAME talks only about majority and reliability. Are the concepts of usage ratio and significant majority beyond your comprehension? Anyway, I'm not going to play in "my source is cooler" game with you. You should have had the decency to, at the very least, look in Google Scholar for usage figures, before creating this whole section. But it seems, you had no reason to start this accursed discussion for 32nd time, besides burning desire to change the title no matter how many tries it will take.
"And i am not going to respond to your personal attacks against me." Don't try to make a wrong impression of me. Those are not personal attacks. Those are facts. E.g, how does the fact, that we've been over this discussion many times before, constitute a personal attack against you? True, it raises the question about reasons behind your appearance here. It demonstrates, that forming a consensus with you seems to be impossible. It gives a reason to think, that you'll never give up, and will always look for an opportunity to change the title, while other editors aren't paying attention. But that doesn't make it a "personal attack". It's the facts, not me, that accuse you. They're the only things reasonably worth discussing after 31 rename attempts. Of course, you won't respond, but not because those facts (with readily available prooflinks) are "attacks". It's because you have nothing to say against them. ETST (talk) 10:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Im talking about accusing me of canvassing, that was a personal attack. If you remember there was a six month ban on name issue discussion, that bans over now thats why im hear. I never left, i was merely waiting for the ban to be over. If you do a search for Georgian War in google scholar half of the first ten hits state Russo-Georgian War since that them has "Georgian War" within itself [[12]]. When searching South Ossetian Conflict the majority of the sources refer to the the conflict before hand in the early 90's. For example on the first page of results only 1 article even refers to the 20008 war, the rest are all about other conflicts or issues [[13]]. Virtually no english publications use the terms Five Day War or August War, google scholar searches show only one relevent article each on the first page when doing searches of the terms.XavierGreen (talk) 00:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The title "Russo-Georgian war" is flawed. It ignores the participation of South Ossetia and its military forces, which was essential. 150 South Ossetian soldiers and fighters were killed. That's more than the 64 Russian casualties and about a third of the war's total military casualties. It was the South Ossetian military who stopped the Georgian initial advance and held them off until Russian help arrived. This was absolutely crucial for the outcome of the war. Had Georgia managed to occupy Tskinhvali and "dig in", things would have been completely different. It would be biased and dishonest to ignore the South Ossetian participation, but the proposed title does just that. "Russo-Georgian war" is full of anglophone and American POV. Fighting between Russian and Georgian forces was just one aspect of the war. Why should the title describe only this aspect? I understand that the American media could hardly care less about places like South Ossetia. They are only interested in Russia and the US ally Georgia. But Wikipedia should, and must, have a global POV. As has been stated over and over again, "2008 South Ossetia war" is a good compromise, since it avoids this problem. Nanobear (talk) 11:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I would pose your question in another way.
1. Would the South Ossetians manage to stop Georgians without Russia's intervention (and continuous military support)?
2. Would Georgia stop it's actions without the opening of the Abkhazian front (and without the Naval and Air Bombing actions taken by Russia in areas hundreds kilometers away from South Ossetia)?
I seriously doubt it. And, in fact, our mission as Wikipedians is not to invent ourselves the best title, but to follow the rules and see what the English sources say (including the sources we use as references in the article). And they say everything else but not South Ossetia war (except in some rare RIA Novosti, and Kremlin.ru cases). The current title is ridiculous. Kouber (talk) 13:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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