Talk:Russian ruble

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"First decimal system"

This article claims that the ruble was "the world's" first decimal currency; this is obviously not true, since everything in China has been decimal for thousands of years. The Decimal Day article repeats this claim, with a contradictory addition about China with a reference in Dutch. I could just delete it, but perhaps there is a useful fact to be presented, that the ruble was the first decimal currency in Europe... Imaginatorium (talk) 07:03, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Russian propaganda lying? Say it isn’t so. Say it isn’t so! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:8D97:ED01:D5CB:BAE9:BC85:CFE3 (talk) 10:07, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Need longer-term exchange rate charts, going back to 1998, 1993, or way back thru Soviet Union Ruble

What have exchange rates looked like over the long term? ★NealMcB★ (talk) 18:50, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Rouble heads to record low, sell-off hits stocks as Russia invades Ukraine

Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-rouble-drops-fresh-record-low-thin-offshore-trade-2022-03-07/

Typo in the History section

There may be a typo in the History section of the article, under the heading 'RUB (1998–present)'. The section states that 'the ruble want above its pre-war value', but I think the correct phrasing would be 'the ruble went above its pre-war value'. If this is the case, an established, registered editor should change it accordingly. 90.139.88.55 (talk) 10:20, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

 Done. lol1VNIO^{[not Lol1VNIO]} (talk • contribs) 11:54, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Countries

@John Maynard Friedman: Regarding these edits, it would be great if you stopped pushing a specific political point of view into economy-focused articles. A country with a de facto functioning government is a country for Wikipedia, and the number of its recognitions doesn't really matter. Yes, we do use "Infobox country" for Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and also for Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, State of Palestine, Taiwan, Western Sahara, etc.

Besides, please stop adding "illegal" to many articles where Russian invasion is mentioned. Most if not all military invasions and most wars globally can be termed as illegal, and it's extremely POV-pushing when you add "illegal" only to wars initiated by Russia. — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:24, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

@Kashmiri: International law requires that countries do not invade and attempt to annex the sovereign territory of other countries. Russia's attack on Ukraine is indisputably illegal under international law. Do you have another definition of "illegal" that does not mean law breaking? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:20, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

So what? This is an article about a currency, not about wars and their legality.

By the way, do you also keep adding the word "illegally" whenever Wikipedia mentions Occupied Palestinian Territories? — kashmīrī ^TALK 10:39, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

re Putin's illegal invasion, I have not written that in the visible text, even though many RSs attest to its illegality, because it is not relevant to the currency at this time.

Re Israel's illegal settlements and de facto annexations, see wp:WHATABOUT.

This stuff is peripheral to my interests, I just got dragged into it when cleaning up after a banned editor. I don't intend to spend any more time on it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:34, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

@kashmīrī and JMF: the MoS subpage that covers the use of these notes is WP:HIDDEN. From a cursory glance those notes appear to be a violation of WP:BADHIDDENTEXT. While the MoS does not have to be applied rigidly, if there is a reason for an exception in this case it should be provided once a discussion is started. If you have no interest in pursuing this further, that's fine but I would recommend reviewing those portions of the MoS to avoid misunderstandings in the future. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 23:16, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, 74.73.224.126, very helpful.

@John Maynard Friedman: (1) May I suggest you to read the full title of the page to which WP:WHATABOUT points? (2) Your interest doesn't seem so "peripheral" when you reverted two different editors objecting your wording. (3) The main problem, however, is that you (a) push your POV that goes against Wikipedia consensus and its NPOV policy: that Abkhazia / South Ossetia "are not countries" or that they "don't have international recognition", both statements being explicitly untrue (see relevant articles), and (b) push your POV where irrelevant (like, here or at List of country calling codes[1]). — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:01, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

English language orthography in the lead

We have a disagreement about how prominently we should cover transliterations of the Russian word. For ESL readers unfamiliar with American and British spelling differences, the problem arises because,

• in British English (and French), the spelling "ruble" rhymes with "rub"
• in American English, the spelling "rouble" rhymes with "rout"

Both forms are recognised in American and British dictionaries, they just list them in order of local preference. Struck out as unhelpful per later discussion. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:23, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I start from the position that it is not really appropriate (see WP:LEAD) for the very first sentence of an article to get sidetracked (IMO!) into the niceties of English language orthography. The article has managed fine without it since its inception in 2007 and only became an issue recently as part of an unpleasant dispute at talk:Ruble that led (among other things) to an editor being banned.

But I recognise the contrary view, so the question is really how can we reconcile these views?

The compromise I have seen elsewhere is to use footnotes. The fairly evident superscript next to each of the forms draws readers' attention to the fact that a more detailed explanation exists, should they want to investigate further. On some systems, merely mousing over the footnote marker will pop up the footnote. Does that resolve the issue? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't really see an issue with the formulation you just introduced, it might be better to combine the footnotes but it's all rather minor stuff. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 19:55, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Some articles have a dedicated section on spelling or etymology (can't quote examples from the top of my head, but they are aplenty). We can also have one, and pronunciation could be added there. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:55, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with JMF that there is a problem with too much parenthesised incidental detail following the subject of the first sentence of the article. This is a Wikipedia-wide failing, as evidenced by the way that people like Google quote a WP lead paragraph with everything in parenthesis removed. I think it is quite standard and acceptable in biographical articles to put the subject's lifespan in brackets after the name, but this has a tendency to expand into details of calendars, maiden names, Uncle Tom Cobley and all. I think a lead sentence should be kept simple, excluding all "sidetracking", but able to use parentheses for genuine purpose. For example:

• The ruble (or rouble) is the currency of the Russian Federation.

I really do not think footnotes are a very satisfactory answer. Everything else belongs in an infobox (if it is a pure one-off detail, such as the ISO code) or further down the article, if it deserves text explanation. I think the issue of spelling should be explained: the name is really "рубль" and this can be Romanised differently. Of course the "rouble" spelling is basically French (even though French has the second-worst spelling "system", this looks like the only way to write it). Please do not use the text at the top of this section, which is almost totally wrong: "ruble" in French would be a IPA:'y' sound, not matching English 'rub'; in BrE it would match 'bugle', not 'rubble'. The current infobox needs work: the plural in English of "ruble" is "rubles"; I really do not think a lesson on Russian grammar (ру́бль рубля́ рублю́ ру́бль рублём рубле́; рубли́ рубле́й рубля́м рубли́ рубля́ми рубля́х) is appropriate here. Imaginatorium (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

And why not рублёвый, ру́блик, and рубли́шко while we're at it?

Anyway, I agree that that even a footnote should be short. I revised it to its current version which I think strikes the balance of explaining the two bolded variants without getting too into the weeds, but I wouldn't be all that bothered to see it go.

I don't really have strong opinion an a dedicated section either, but if one is introduced, it should still be fairly brief. It would also need good sourcing, and I don't believe any has thus far been proposed. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 03:35, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The advantage of a footnote is that it intercepts subsequent well-meaning edits to add "parenthesised incidental detail following the subject of the first sentence of the article". Recall that we are having this discussion precisely because of such an edit. It really should not be necessary but evidently it is. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:34, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. I don't mind a footnote, I wrote the current version after all, I just think it should be brief. Multi-paragraph footnotes also defeat the purpose of allowing a quickmouseover for the curious. If the addition of further parenthetical material continues, a better option may be to just add a hidden note referring to this discussion and asking people to go to the talk page first. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 13:46, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Just to expand a bit, and trying to think in MoS terms.

We should be hesitant to place both рубль, руб, within a footnote or move them out of the lead since those redirect here.

As for the ISO, while the MoS prefers everything in the infobox to be present in text, exceptions sometimes occur where it would be awkward. However including the ISO code in a lead parenthetical is widespread (see e.g. Yen, Euro, United States Dollar, or Pound Sterling), so it wouldn't surprise me if there were some obscure guideline that says to do that.

Otherwise the stuff in the existing parenthetical could be footnoted, but I don't see the need. While a touch longer than usual, it's still short enough where it doesn't interfere with the flow and it's length is by no means exceptional.

In sum, I think it's fine as is, but if someone wants to shuffle a few more things into footnotes or add some hidden text I'm not going to revert.

I think a section on etymology is fine so long as it's not too long (just a WP:WEIGHT thing really), but we need some sources first.

Addendum: If pronunciation has widespread regional variation it's going to be unwise to detail it out even in the body beyond mentioning that mere fact, as it will very quickly result in too much ancillary material for an article about currency. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 14:40, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Rouble doesn't rhyme with "rout" in my American English (i.e. [aʊ]), and I've never heard that pronunciation on TV or radio either! We do pronounce Moscow with an [aʊ] at the end (or some of us do), but that's the same as German does. If you meant the vowel as in "route" (i.e. [uː]), then your word was poorly chosen... AnonMoos (talk) 20:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Well I am not American so it not really surprising that is not a good approximation. Feel free to correct it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

This is preciously why we need sources before adding that. I also suspect there's enough regional variability that detailing pronunciation isn't going to be workable, but again we'll need to have sources to examine before making any kind of determination. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 23:36, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The Wiktionary entries https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ruble and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rouble both indicate only the "oo" ([u:]) pronunciation. I strongly doubt whether any significant number of quasi-standard-English speakers have pronounced it "rowbble" in either the 20th or 21st centuries. As for "rubble", maybe someone got confused by the saying "More rubble for the ruble", which was jocularly claimed to be the Soviet version of "More bang for the buck". There's supposed to be an assonance in "More rubble for the ruble", not a rhyme. AnonMoos (talk) 05:57, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

No, the attempted explanation is the other way round. In each dialect, the current spelling gives a reasonable approximation of the Russian pronunciation, when read by a person with that dialect. The issue is that they do not do so when read by a person of the other dialect.

I'm afraid that this is turning out to be a blind alley / cul-de-sac and it would be best to just discard it as it is just generating more heat than light. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 07:55, 10 June 2023 (UTC)