Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of cities in Donetsk Oblast/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 6 August 2024 (UTC) [1].

---

List of cities in Donetsk Oblast

List of cities in Donetsk Oblast (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured list candidates/List of cities in Donetsk Oblast/archive1

Nominator(s): Dan the Animator 20:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Did an overhaul of the article a few days ago and I think it's ready for the review process. The Ukrainian language wiki version of the list already has selected list status (which is their equivalent of FL) so don't see why this can't be promoted too. Expect there'll be a few things that can be added and some minor improvements but I'm confident based on the state of the article that I'll be able to get this promoted. Also hoping to use this article as a general framework for additional "list of cities in oblast" articles after the review. Cheers, Dan the Animator 20:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Thought I'd put my thoughts about this in case it helps future reviewers. While the article as-is I think covers the subject well, I've been considering adding in a column for the establishment years of the cities (which both the Ukrainian and Russian wiki articles have). That said, the main List of cities in Ukraine just sticks with admin. subdivision and population and I also don't want to overload the table with too much info so not sure if this would be a good addition. Also was thinking of adding into the lead a few sentences about which are the oldest cities, that many were created as part of industrialization and are tied to the mining industry, and maybe also some comments about the current status of some of the cities (e.g. the fact that Bakhmut, Mariupol, Avdiivka, etc. have been mostly destroyed during the full-scale invasion) but not sure if it makes sense here since these already fall in the Donetsk Oblast article's scope. Feel free to let me know y'all's thoughts on these and hopefully they help with ideas but happy to make whatever improvements I can to the article! Cheers, Dan the Animator 21:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• No article should start with "this is a list". Take a look at some other FLCs and come up with a more engaging opening sentence.

Before nominating, I tried searching to see if there's other similar list of cities articles that're FL and found this: List of United States cities by population. Not the exam same type of article but it also starts off with "this is a list." If it helps though, I could take out that sentence and reword the next sentence to say: There are currently 52 populated places in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, that have been officially granted city status...by the Verkhovna Rada, the country's parliament.

That list was promoted over 15 years ago and standards have changed massively since then. Your alternative suggestion sounds good for an opening -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:20, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixed it based on the above. Thanks again ChrisTheDude! :) Dan the Animator 16:24, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• "As of 1 January 2022, the largest city in the oblast is" => "As of 1 January 2022, the largest city in the oblast was" (2022 was two years ago)

Fixed

• Other verbs in that sentence should also be in past tense

Also fixed

• That's all I got - great work! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks ChrisTheDude! :) Dan the Animator 21:19, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:30, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• Drive by comments

• Just like the first comment above saying no article should start with "this is a list", no article should have a reference to the list outside of the list itself. The sentence "The below list shows the English name, Ukrainian name, raion, 2001 census recorded population, 2022 population estimate, and population percent change for each city." does not seem to serve a purpose.

Fixed

• "currently" not needed in first sentence.

Fixed

• What do the numbers in the first column mean? Why is this column there?

Fixed? when overhauling this article, I tried to base it on conceptually similar articles, primarily List of cities in Ukraine and others like List of cities in Australia by population and List of cities in Kansas. From my understanding and the way I've always used it, the column is a type of number ranking which allows readers to sort tables and have number rankings for each row, which can be quiet useful for finding out things like what's the 10th largest city in 2001/2022, how many cities saw 10%+ pop. change, etc. In case it helps, I added one of the template's title options "#" on the top of the column with some extra table code. That said, I saw other list articles such as List of cities in Canada and List of cities in the United Kingdom don't use it so I don't mind taking it out. The template also allows for the title "No." but I think "#" works just the same. Let me know what you think about it though.

• It's not common to have a link to a portal in the see also, would suggest removing both portals from the see also section.

Removed

• Image alts could be more descriptive (for accessibility reasons)

Fixed? Tried to make them more informative but let me know if I should reword/shorten/expand them.

• as could image captions (for example, "the largest city in Donetsk")

same as above

• table completely unsourced, need refs for population columns in header.

Fixed 2022 column; for the 2001 census results, I'm currently searching for a Ukrainian gov. website to add to that column though haven't had luck with finding a gov. source that lists all of them. I'll make sure to send a follow-up update when I find it!

• No need for external links subheading, just external links is fine

Fixed

Normally estimates would not be encyclopedic, but given the extenuating circumstances and lack of any recent census, I suppose this makes sense until the next census? Other than these points above, the article looks quite good! Many of them are vital before being promoted.

Mattximus (talk) 02:17, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Yup, the Next Ukrainian census doesn't seem like it's happening anytime soon and with the current war, I don't think the statistics would be as useful anyways since they've been changing a lot frequently. Let me know if there's anything else I can do and many thanks Mattximus for all the comments!!! :D Dan the Animator 05:44, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• Looks good, just two outstanding issues. First, it is critical to have a citation for the 2001 census populations, it cannot pass without this. Second, I do like your change to alphabetize the list (that makes it easier to update when the next census actually comes out), but I think the table should not include the number column as it doesn't serve the purpose beyond a count. Since it is a list of cities, the cities column should be the same colour as the headings. Mattximus (talk) 18:45, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  Still working on the 2001 census citation but for the number column, I removed it. About the cities column shading, I haven't seen any table in a "List of cities" article that has it like that. I've looked through at least a dozen varied similar articles (also highly recommend checking out this to see how other articles do it) and they all use the same general shading (the only column that gets fully shaded in any of the tables I've seen is the number column (which I removed from this article per above) and not the cities column. Also don't think it would conceptually make sense to have that shading since both the English and Ukrainian name columns are both "cities columns" imo (and they both are exactly the same in functionality/formatting). Let me know though if I'm missing something and thanks again with the comments! :) Dan the Animator 21:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I believe this is a requirement for the nomination, I just checked all featured lists of cities have it. I clicked on one at random: Cantons of Costa Rica which was one I put up for promotion. I know this is a requirement because I was asked to do it many times. Mattximus (talk) 15:43, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Mattximus can you post a link to other, more recent past FLs of cities (as many as you know of)? I don't think the article for Cantons of Costa Rica is a good comparison to this article since the Ukrainian equivalent of that article would be List of hromadas of Ukraine (or Raions of Ukraine depending how you look at it). Would help to see maybe some of the other FLs tho, especially if they're more recent (I noticed your FLN for Costa Rica is from 2016 but was wondering if they'd changed it since then). Thanks!!! Dan the Animator 17:10, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes this has been a policy for at least 8 years (it's in the MOS somewhere), common format for all featured lists in general. You can check out User:Mattximus and click on any of the 45 featured lists of cities/municipalities (the ones with a star beside them), there is also a more comprehensive list when you click on featured lists and scroll to find the cities lists. I clicked randomly to a whole bunch, and can't find any that didn't fit this standard, so I think it is a necessary change. Mattximus (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose just for now based on missing citation for the entire 2001 census column (the link failed verification as it has similar but not identical numbers as the table here). And the format for the table seems to be incorrect. Specifically ,city name should be same colour as headings, and tables needs captions (|+ <caption_text>, or |+ <caption_text> if that text would duplicate a nearby section header). Table captions allow screen reader software to jump straight to named tables, without having to read all prior text to provide context.). Mattximus (talk) 18:05, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

@Mattximus: Completely fixed the table/formatting issues. For the citation, would either of these sources (source A, source B) be acceptable? It's alright if not but given the complete 2001 census data increasingly seems like its not available online (and thus would probably be a book citation) and the Ukrainian language wiki page (which has recognized article status) uses the former source (the mashke.org one) in their version of the list, I wanted to ask. Many thanks again with everything and let me know if there's any other issues I can fix (and if the formatting for the table is alright now). Cheers, Dan the Animator 15:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• Table is completely fixed, good work, but the one last citation problem remains. Is there anyone who can help find where these numbers come from? The links you provided give different numbers, and don't seem to come from any official document. But surely this document exists. Maybe another user has an idea? 19:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

@HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith, Ymblanter, Mupper-san, Shwabb1, Yulia Romero, and Микола Василечко: pinging in case y'all have any advice about this (wasn't sure who to ping so sorry in advance for the bother!!!) Dan the Animator 00:41, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not particularly well-versed in the discussion, so do forgive if this isn't what is being talked about, but given the fact that mashke.org has an unclear source and (at least according to Firefox for me) has an unsafe connection, I would personally use the numbers included alongside the currently-used sources, as they're official documentation. As citypopulation.de cites mashke.org, I also wouldn't include it.

Perhaps, it would be possible to e-mail Mr. Bespyatov (the owner of mashke.org, judging by the copyright at the bottom) and ask him for a source? Although I'm not quite sure.

Mupper-san (talk) 01:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Mupper-san! :) I agree with the concerns for the two sources though the only official Ukrainian government source I could find lists the 2001 census results for only 28 of the 50+ cities in the oblast. Also, although my guess is he got the numbers from the physical records in Kyiv, I think contacting Mr. Bespyatov is a great idea! I'll send him an email in a moment and reply here if he follows up. Dan the Animator 04:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

It's on the 2001 census website. Go to Publications, download the file kl_2001.rar under "Кількість та територіальне розміщення населення України" (The number and territorial distribution of the population of Ukraine). Open the file 5.xls, you'll see the breakdown of population by raion/city/urban-type settlement. The data for Donetsk Oblast starts on row 552. Be aware that the names are before the decommunization laws (e.g., Artemivsk instead of Bakhmut). Shwabb1 (talk) 05:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Shwabb1!!!!! :D It worked perfectly and I accessed all the stats (only one of the numbers was off on the article thankfully tho). @Mattximus: I think that about finishes everything? Take a look and let me know if there's anything else to do. Dan the Animator 17:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Overall looks good, I only see two small mistakes: Krasnoarmiysk should be Krasnoarmiisk using official romanization (per WP:UAPLACE), and in the first citation "urban-type settlements" are mistranslated as "towns". Shwabb1 (talk) 01:10, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Looks good now I will strike the oppose. I think there should be a heading "notes" just like references below and the note can go there instead of floating kind of below the table. I think the format of the reference needs a bit of work (I believe you need filetype for something like a rar?), but nothing here to oppose over. Nice work! Mattximus (talk) 21:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Mattximus and Shwabb1!!!! :) I think I fixed basically all the above suggestions! For the new reference's formatting tho, I wasn't sure exactly how much needed changing but I added the |format= parameter in with a link to RAR which hopefully helps (feel free to let me know if there's anything else I can do tho). Dan the Animator 01:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Accessibility review (MOS:DTAB)

• Tables need captions, which allow screen reader software to jump straight to named tables without having to read out all of the text before it each time. Visual captions can be added by putting |+ caption_text as the first line of the table code; if that caption would duplicate a nearby section header, you can make it screen-reader-only by putting |+ {{sronly|caption_text}} instead.
• Tables need column scopes for all column header cells, which in combination with row scopes lets screen reader software accurately determine and read out the headers for each cell of a data table. Column scopes can be added by adding !scope=col to each header cell, e.g. ! [[City|City name]] becomes !scope=col | [[City|City name]]. If the cell spans multiple columns with a colspan, then use !scope=colgroup instead.
• Tables need row scopes on the "primary" column for each row, which in combination with column scopes lets screen reader software accurately determine and read out the headers for each cell of a data table. Row scopes can be added by adding !scope=row to each primary cell, e.g. |[[Amvrosiivka]] becomes !scope=row |[[Amvrosiivka]], on its own line. If the cell spans multiple rows with a rowspan, then use !scope=rowgroup instead.
• Please see MOS:DTAB for example table code if this isn't clear. I don't return to these reviews until the nomination is ready to close, so ping me if you have any questions. --PresN 18:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  @PresN: Done! The table should be completely fixed now. Let me know if there's any other formatting/other issues that I can fix. Cheers, Dan the Animator 15:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Mattximus and PresN: after going through the article meticulously (with sourcing, formatting, and everything in between), completely addressing all the comments here and applying the feedback from my other related FLN for cities in Luhansk Oblast to this article as well, and considering that this list was nominated a month ago and hasn't received any new comments since June 11, I think it should be finally ready to pass. If there are any remaining issues with this article, please let me know but otherwise, I think its time to take this article out of the queue and promote it! Also pinging FL director for their insight @Giants2008:. Apologies all for the bother and many thanks for all the support! :) Dan the Animator 00:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Per the box at the top of WP:FLC: "The featured list director, Giants2008, or his delegate, PresN, determine the timing of the process for each nomination. Each nomination will typically last at least twenty days, but may last longer if changes are ongoing or insufficient discussion or analysis has occurred. For a nomination to be promoted to FL status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. The directors determine whether there is consensus." This nomination currently has only a single support, which is not typically considered a consensus to promote. Unlike FAC, we don't typically archive nominations that don't get a lot of attention but instead let them stay a little longer, so don't worry, but please do be patient. --PresN 03:19, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks PresN for the reply! I was hoping when I pinged that you and Mattximus would give supports to this nom, which would bring the support count up to 3 which I think is the minimum needed for consensus? That said, I'm not too much in a rush; rather, since I have to take a semi-Wikibreak not long from now (in July) where I'll be able to edit but not too much, I was hoping to get this list as thoroughly checked and improved as possible so that when I nominate the remaining lists for this series, I won't have to make any major edits on those articles (they're all relatively similar too so whatever change I make one list likely would have to be made on the others, which is easier to do before those articles are created). I understand you all are busy so no worries about promoting but it would help a lot to know if I should expect to make additional changes. Cheers, Dan the Animator 23:40, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• I'm still getting an error on the citation for the 2001 census, is it just me? One more small change:

Fixed? I think I accessed it using the link about a week ago but you're right! Don't know why both the archived and normal link stopped working. I switched it with the permanent, webpage link and added instructions on the ref of how to access the numbers. Let me know if its good now.

• The image captions seem to be incorrect, the are not the largest or smallest cities, as no land area was given. They are the most populous, least populous, have the second largest population, wording like that is more correct.

Fixed

• That's it!

Mattximus (talk) 15:29, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Mattximus! :) Let me know if that fixes everything! Dan the Animator 16:29, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Things look great, but I still can't access the source for the 2001 statistics. I do believe this article needs a source review so whoever does that will give the go ahead and I'll agree with them since I'm not an expert on sourcing. Mattximus (talk) 16:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Mattximus:! :) I saw that the Luhansk list is already in queue for a source review but not this one so not sure if there'll be a source review soon. About the source tho, how does it look on your end? Is it the link to the ukr gov stats website that doesn't work (it's an unsecure site so might help to check browser settings) or is it the RAR file download link that doesn't work (the instructions on the wikiref are supposed to help with this)? Dan the Animator 00:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Image review by Staraction

• All images are relevant to the article
• All images are usage tagged properly (AGF on own works)
• All images have alt text except for the map in the infobox. Suggestion: the alt text has citation numbers (ie. [22]) for some images, those probably do not need to be in the alt text
• All images have relevant captions

Thanks for your work @Dan the Animator! Staraction (talk | contribs) 17:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Comment by FL nominator

• @Mattximus, Steelkamp, Dajasj, and Chipmunkdavis: Many sorries for the bother but considering y'all's contribution to the other, very similar FLN for List of cities in Luhansk Oblast which got promoted a few days ago, and my completion of applying all the suggestions from that nom to this article, I thought I'd ping y'all in case any of y'all are interested taking (or retaking) a look at this list now and hopefully providing comments so the nom can advance. @PresN: thanks for doing the source review on the Luhansk list!!! :) Thought I'd ping here in case you're interested in doing this one too; also, they share about 70% of the same exact refs (plus a lot of shared content too) so most of the source review for this article you already technically did with the Luhansk review which I thought might make this one a lot easier/quicker to get through. Sorry again for any bothers and looking forward to any additional feedback and to getting this nom completed! Dan the Animator 03:17, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Support from CMD

As the nominator noted above, I made comments at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of cities in Luhansk Oblast/archive1 which appear to have already been actioned here.

• Prose/lead.

  "...occupied all cities located..." might be clearer with a number, "...occupied all X cities located..."

  A number may also be helpful at "Additional cities were...", which may provide a route to reword/remove the "...while an additional two cities (Lyman and Sviatohirsk) have been recovered..." wording, as I am not sure "addition" is clear in meaning. Having numbers for both invasions and the counteroffensive means that there is no need for an "As of X date...", which might quickly appear dated.

  The final sentence is a tad confusing. Firstly, "occupation of the three reformed raions" is an odd pipe, all of the raions were reformed (removing "the" may solve this problem). Secondly, "including the cities of Bunhe, Chystiakove, Kalmiuske, and Khrestivka" is unclear, I assume those four are former cities of regional significance, but the preceding clause already states "reformed raions" so I would assume they are included by default. Lastly, "the three raions[b] and four cities' new names have only de jure status" seems to imply that the cities under Russian control outside of the 2015 occupation zone de facto use the new names, which would surprise me. It also reads oddly that the raion names are specifically pointed out, this list isn't about the raions and noting names specifically as de jure suggests that the raion otherwise operates de facto, which would also surprise me.

• Comprehensiveness: Comprehensive.
• Structure: Is one table, sortable.
• Style: Not necessarily my strong point, but the decorative images are all licenced as is the locator map. There is a "Jump to table of cities" for mobile access. Alt text is present on all images bar the infobox, which does not seem to have the feature encoded.
• Stability: Stable.

As with the previous review this is a novel interwiki usage, but I don't see how it affects the FLCR. I do think this article (and similar ones) would be served well by dropping the locator infobox and replacing it with a map of the Oblast showing the various city locations, but that is also not a FLCR requirement. In summary, questions for FLCR1/2 and no questions for the other FLCR. CMD (talk) 07:13, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @CMD: for the review! I think all the suggestions should be addressed. I applied some of the rewording and moved some of the other confusing content into efn notes. Also, thanks for the suggestion with the map! Added it and I think it turned out perfect! (props to Tone for their exceptional work on the UNESCO FL maps which helped a ton with creating this map)! :) I'll also apply these edits to the other lists if you think they're alright CMD but let me know if there's anything else I can do to improve these lists! Thanks again! Dan the Animator 04:45, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

The suggestions were addressed, the efn notes help and nice work finding relevant sources. Hopefully more secondary sources emerge on the topic, it is an area not currently well covered on en.wiki. I had a look and could not find a source linking the 2020 raions with the 2015 era occupation (the current primary source used does not support "by 2015"). However, I did find this source, which mentions the DPR and LPR continuing to use the old names (page 10), and has a list of renamed places and whether they are occupied (pages 84-89). It uses the old raions, but it has relevant dates and names that can supplement the existing sources for "by 2015" and those in the efn notes. CMD (talk) 12:45, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks CMD! I added in your source into the names efn together with some additional sources. I added a complementary source for the primary ref I think you're talking about (the "About the boundaries and list of raions...temporarily occupied" ref): journalist's David Gormezano France 24 piece characterizes the main Donbas war phase as "April 2014 – February 2015" and also says in that section "On February 12, 2015, the so-called Minsk II agreements formalised the de facto partition of Ukrainian territory...In the years that followed, and until the full-scale Russian attack on February 24, 2022, small-scale attacks and artillery fire hardly ever ceased, without the line of contact between the forces really moving." which should be enough imo to back up the 2015 year (most of the cities were actually occupied in 2014 but due to Debaltseve, I think the wording "by 2015" is more accurate. To sum up, the "About the boundaries" ref verifies which cities were occupied during the Donbas war while the France 24 piece backs up the claim that the occupations of cities during the Donbas war happened between April 2014 and February 2015.

About the use of the 2020 raions when talking about the 2014-2015 occupation: its mostly done out of concision than any actual connection between the two (technically, the new raions' boundaries were decided with consideration of what territories were occupied by DPR/LPR forces at the time so the area could be easier to govern (at least as far as I know) but aside from that, there isn't any actual meaningful connection between the new raions and what areas are occupied). Using the new raions saves on words and makes it easier to understand since there's no caveat to which cities in the raions are occupied and which aren't (for the older raions, since many of the cities are also municipalities, there'd be a need to either list all 21 cities occupied or separately list all the occupied city municipalities and raions, both of which would be unduly and more confusing imo). Let me know if it'd help to find a source mentioning/discussing this rationale for the boundaries for the new raions.

Let me know if there's anything I'm missing or anything else that can be improved and whether this list is ready for promotion! Thanks, Dan the Animator 23:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't have an issue using the new raions, just wish there was more research on the matter. More sources would help of course, surely someone somewhere has looked up how the de facto raions function in reality and what provisions are in place for the raions that don't exist in reality yet? But, for the purposes of this article the sources are now enough that the list is ready for promotion. CMD (talk) 01:46, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah got it. I definitely agree more research should be done regarding Ukrainian administrative laws and reforms. About the de facto/de jure raions, as far as I understand it, the de facto raions function as they've always had in the pre-2022 occupied territories while for newly occupied territories, my guess would be it mostly affects the number of Russia-appointed representatives certain administrative entities get, what sort of government websites/digital representation the Russian government gives those entities, how the areas subordinated to those entities are referred to in Russian law, and, at least on paper, how much money/funding goes to each district (although I think its fair to say a lot of that money gets siphoned off by those Russia-appointed representatives or by Russia itself). Probably also a few other miscellaneous things but those are the main "practical effects" of the de facto raions. For de jure raions, its mostly just having websites in some cases (I remember reading a law regarding Crimea's new raions which mandated creating representation of the raions, which would likely include websites), and how the territories subordinated to new raions are referred to in laws (both in Ukraine and by others).

I think one of the reasons why there hasn't really been any research into the "prospective" raions is because they didn't actually exist, either de jure or de facto, until relatively recently (the "occupied terr. admin. reform date" efn note elaborates on this caveat a bit more). And with the ongoing invasion and considerable budget strain of the Ukrainian government, I doubt they've been able to do anything meaningful in the way of these raions imo. Not sure if my reply really answers your question or helps too much but hope its interesting. Thanks again for the review and great suggestions (and the source)! :) Dan the Animator 02:37, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Source review passed; promoting. --PresN 19:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.