The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. After extended time for discussion, there is a clear absence of consensus for a move at this time. BD2412 T 04:12, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Cherkasy Oblast → Cherkasy oblast
• Chernihiv Oblast → Chernihiv oblast
• Chernivtsi Oblast → Chernivtsi oblast
• Dnipropetrovsk Oblast → Dnipropetrovsk oblast
• Donetsk Oblast → Donetsk oblast
• Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast → Ivano-Frankivsk oblast
• Kharkiv Oblast → Kharkiv oblast
• Kherson Oblast → Kherson oblast
• Khmelnytskyi Oblast → Khmelnytskyi oblast
• Kyiv Oblast → Kyiv oblast
• Kirovohrad Oblast → Kirovohrad oblast
• Luhansk Oblast → Luhansk oblast
• Lviv Oblast → Lviv oblast
• Mykolaiv Oblast → Mykolaiv oblast
• Odessa Oblast → Odessa oblast
• Poltava Oblast → Poltava oblast
• Rivne Oblast → Rivne oblast
• Sumy Oblast → Sumy oblast
• Ternopil Oblast → Ternopil oblast
• Vinnytsia Oblast → Vinnytsia oblast
• Volyn Oblast → Volyn oblast
• Zakarpattia Oblast → Zakarpattia oblast
• Zaporizhzhia Oblast → Zaporizhzhia oblast
• Zhytomyr Oblast → Zhytomyr oblast

– "Oblast", like "province", "district", and "vilayet", is not consistently capitalized in sources. When sources are mixed, Wikipedia generally prefers lowercase. Examples of mixed use follow for Cherkasy, Chernihiv and Chernivtsi. This RM follows up on a remark initially made at Talk:Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast/Archive 1#Requested move 29 April 2022. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:40, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support  While a lot of recent popular usage has followed Wikipedia’s capitalization (by WP:CITOGENESIS), I have seen many or most academic sources use lower case for this kind of geographical reference with proper name plus foreign subdivision type. For example, the proper name Kyivska (oblast) = Kyiv oblast, Kyiv region, or Kyiv province, in parallel with the city’s name (misto) Kyiv = Kyiv (city). I recall the global use of capitalized “oblast” was something we agreed a long time ago, but without a firm basis. —Michael Z. 17:25, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Hm, but when did we capitalize names of the raions of Ukraine? —Michael Z. 17:28, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  At least we’ll be WP:CONSISTENT with the names of Category:Hromadas of Ukraine. —Michael Z. 17:30, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I'm going through the news reports and it seems like all I see is today is "Kharkiv Oblast." Whether it's news from Yahoo, news from The Hill, news from CNBC, news from France 24, news on FoxNews, news from Forbes, news from Financial Times, etc... With so many sources using Kharkiv Oblast in sentences, why would we want to change it? Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Looking at news sources only is skewed, but anyway Google News restricted to the last 24 hours gives me 1 Kharkiv oblast, 2 Kharkiv Oblast,[1] 1 Kharkiv province,[2] and 29 Kharkiv region[3] (the latter can be interpreted in a more general sense, but is still a common direct translation). —Michael Z. 19:01, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Neutral Oppose as proposed 13:58, 16 May 2022 (UTC). I don't have the regional knowledge to say which of Zakarpattia Oblast or Zakarpattia (oblast) is more appropriate, but simply de-capitalizing 'oblast' strikes me a bad middle ground. Either we should retain the formal, title-caps version currently in place (also used for Japanese prefectures, e.g., Osaka Prefecture), or we should adopt names and parenthetical disambiguations (as are used for top-level jurisdictions in France, Mexico, and the U.S.; e.g., Ardennes (department), Chihuahua (state), Washington (state)). —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 04:29, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Zarkapattia (=“trans-Carpathia”) is an exception, because it is a geographical region and predates the institutionalization of oblasts. But the oblasts are political subdivisions subordinate to their capitals and mostly named for them, so Kharkiv oblast is the oblast of the city of Kharkiv. In Ukrainian it can be referred to by the adjectival form and properly l.c. division type Kharkivsa oblast or a derived name using a geographical suffix Kharkivshchyna. I don’t know if it’s really a middle ground, because saying “Kharkiv oblast” is using a disambiguator as we would distinguish the “state of Georgia” from the UN member country. —Michael Z. 19:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Per WP:AT, naturalness is a selection criteria for an article name. Where disambiguation is required (as is here), "natural language" is preferred over parenthetic disambiguation (ie using brackets or a comma). Cinderella157 (talk) 09:54, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Cinderella157, Mzajac—would either of you be able to provide examples of English Wikipedia article titles that split the capitalization in the manner being proposed? I could be persuaded to come around if there were notable precedent, but I’m finding none. To be unambiguous, I’m looking for examples that parallel these article titles reasonably closely, so place names would be the gold standard; I’m open to alternatives, but instances in which a name is being used as an adjective inside a larger phrase (e.g., Effects of the Chernobyl disaster or 1992 Los Angeles riots) would not be suitable examples. Cheers —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 16:00, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  JamesLucas, I can cite the following multipage moves which are similar to this proposal where the result has been to down-case the descriptor (eg "provence" or "vilayet") [4] [5] [6]

  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinderella157 (talk • contribs) 2022 May 15 (UTC)

  I don’t love the potential to make title capitalization more subject to debate, but your examples seems like compelling evidence that this new format has traction. Change always looks weird at the outset, so that shouldn’t be an argument against it. I have amended my position to ‘neutral’. —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 13:58, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose It's a proper noun, so it needs to be capitalized. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 21:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Per WP:AT (on caps), WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS and WP:CONSISTENT. These are descriptive noun phrases and not intrinsically a proper name (ie they describe the oblast of X). In Cyrillic script, they are not capitalised - see lead section: Cherkasy Oblast,Odessa Oblast and Volyn Oblast as examples. If the phrase (specifically "oblast") is not normally capitalised in its native language (and similar languages) that have similar orthographic conventions for capitalisation of proper names, it is a strong indicator not to capitalise here. As well as the n-grams sampled by the OP, I sampled Sumy oblast, Lviv oblast and Kirovohrad oblast. It should be noted that n-grams do not distinguish headings, captions and like that are normally in title-case not running prose and tend to over-report capitalisation in running prose as a consequence. MOS:CAPS states: only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. Collectively, the proposed articles do not appear to meet the high threshold set by MOS:CAPS, nor does there appear to be evidence herein that would meet the WP:BURDEN set by MOS:CAPS that capitalisation is necessary. If it might be shown that a particular case achieves the threshold set, then WP:CONSISTENT applies to a set of articles for a particular country. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:49, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, it's a proper name and should be capitalized in English. Renata•3 00:38, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, since, as Renata said, the oblast names are proper names. Furthermore, the capitalization of the O in "Oblast" would be consistent with not only the names of the Ukrainian raiony, but also other administrative divisions around the world. For example, the names of federal subjects of Russia, regions of Belarus, provinces of the Dominican Republic, decentralized administrations of Greece, and many more are often completely capitalized on Wikipedia. Therefore, capitalizing the O in "Oblast" for Ukrainian oblasty would not only be consistent with how we treat other oblasty, but their equivalents around the world. SleepTrain456 (talk) 01:04, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Did you notice the "province", "district", and "vilayet" examples in the above rationale? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:14, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, seems to be a proper name and should therefore be capitalized in English.--Wolbo (talk) 15:16, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support – sources make it clear that "oblast" is not part of the proper names of these oblasts. Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose in English we capitalize both parts unlike Russian or Ukrainian LICA98 (talk) 22:20, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong oppose - like above CR-1-AB (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.