Talk:Upiór

Merge with Ubir

I added the template to merge with Ubir since they appear to be about essentially the same topic with different spellings. Not sure how to complete the merge myself so I will leave that up to someone else. flod logic (talk) 17:09, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Is Upiór the common name?

The article is presently under a Polish title. Is this Polish term the common name for the topic? As opposed to the Eastern Slavic Upyr (redirect to this article) or South Slavic Vampir (which is a redirect to Vampire)?

I'm unsure if this article needs to be moved to another title or simply merged with Vampire which already discusses etymology and folk beliefs, so that all the Slavic terms point to the same article. – Scyrme (talk) 15:57, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Another idea might be to have three articles:

1. one the Turkic terms/folklore titled something like Vampires in Turkic folklore
2. another on the Slavic terms/folklore titled Vampires in Slavic folklore
3. finally, Vampire, as a general article which links to the first two in its relevant sections.

– Scyrme (talk) 16:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

It says in the lead section of Upiór: Template:Userquote

Therefore, it is not referring to the vampire, but to a prototype of it. SeaDragon1 (talk, contributions) 22:04, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

However, yes, it could be merged in Vampire as a different section. SeaDragon1 (talk, contributions) 22:04, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@SeaDragon1: "Prototype" means "original form". The original form of a vampire is still a vampire, and the description given here is of an undead corpse that drinks human blood, ie. a vampire; plus the various names here include the etymon of the English word vampire and its cognates in other languages. If you support a merge, please see the discussion below. – Scyrme (talk) 22:47, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, well they seem to me like different concepts. SeaDragon1 (talk, contributions) 22:51, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

On what basis? What makes them different? – Scyrme (talk) 22:53, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ SeaDragon1 (talk, contributions) 22:35, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

As an aside, I'm not entirely convinced that the opening line is particularly good. I'm not aware of vampires in Slavic folklore being identified as "demonic beings", for example, but I don't have access to the source referenced so can't check it to see if I should rewrite the line (assuming the article isn't merged or the line is preserved after a merge). – Scyrme (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Merge proposal into Vampire

I'm proposing Upiór be merged into Vampire for the reasons I've mentioned here above and summarised at Talk:Vampire. These reasons are:

• Upiór is almost certainly not the common name for the topic of its articles, making that title unsuitable. It's one of two different Polish words for vampire, and I don't even think it's the most common one used in Polish, let alone the word English speakers would most associate with vampires in the context of Slavic and Turkic folklore.
• Etymologically related Slavic words/synonyms currently redirect to different articles. South Slavic Vampir redirects to Vampire, but East Slavic Upyr redirects to Upiór. The various intermediate forms have to pick one or the other as a target. It would be better if all variants had the same target.
• The two articles overlap in content and scope, resulting in unhelpful redundancy. The topic of Upiór is vampires in Slavic and Turkic folklore. Its content and scope overlaps with Vampire § Etymology and word distribution and Vampire § Folk beliefs. Why have two articles that go into detail about etymology and folklore regarding vampires?

Solution 1, Merge Upiór to Vampire

These issues could all be resolved by merging Upiór into Vampire. All the terms would point to the same destination, which would be at what is indisputably the common name in English. The best of the material of Upiór would be incorporated into the existing sections at Vampire, remedying any redundancy in content or overlap in scope. However, there's a large difference in quality and length, with Vampire already being a very long featured article. A merge would have to be implemented by experienced editors with great care.

Solution 2, Move Upiór to Vampires in folklore and split Vampire

An alternative solution may be be to move Upiór to Vampires in folklore, forking/splitting content from Vampire and incorporating it into Upiór. If the majority of content about etymology and folklore were transferred over, then all the Slavic and Turkic variants could redirect to Vampires in folklore instead. A hatnote could be added for anyone surprised by being redirected to Vampires in folklore when searching for Vampir instead of Vampire. The new title would be at the English common name, vampire, while being naturally disambiguated from Vampire as an article with a narrower scope. This solution would have the additional benefit of making room at Vampire to expand on other aspects of the topic. However, like the merge it would also have to be implemented with care, since content would be being removed from a featured article and would still have to be integrated with the material now at Upiór.

I don't know which solution I prefer, but I'm leaning toward solution 1 so I've started this process as a proposed merge. I'm open to other suggests for an even better solution if anyone has any. – Scyrme (talk) 02:58, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

I would oppose merging any of the content from here into the vampire article because this is not an FA and none of the content here is up to FA quality, while the vampire article is an FA. I would also oppose a split because Vampires are entirely in folklore already. It's the largest part of that article. I have no other opinion on whether this article should be deleted/kept, though. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:22, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Vampires are entirely in folklore already

Vampire also covers modern/popular culture (eg. film, TV, video games, etc.), literary vampires (which differ greatly from those of folklore; a subtopic which has its own article at Vampire literature), and the purported scientific/sociological causes of vampire belief. None of that is folklore, though some of it may be inspired by folklore. – Scyrme (talk) 01:42, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Another option (Solution 3) might be to merge it into Vampire folklore by region if merging into Vampire or using material from Upiór and Vampire to make Vampires in folklore is untenable. Comapring the content, this actually seem less straightforward than merging into Vampire as there's less shared material. Merging with Vampire (Solution 1) has the advantage that it duplicates at lot of the content of Upiór already, such as all the material about etymology. Any material which would clearly lower the quality of Vampire could just be left out of the merge. – Scyrme (talk) 01:51, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

If "the topic of Upiór is vampires in Slavic and Turkic folklore", I suggest moving Upiór to Vampires in Slavic and Turkic folklore. I oppose merging it into Vampire – the overlaps are already handled by links between the articles; the Vampire article is already long enough; as mentioned above, any material merged in from Upiór would need to be at FA standard to avoid undermining Vampire's FA badge; and finally, on less clear ground, I imagine that bringing all the vampire-related material on Wikipedia together into one article woud just create a mess, so using a desire to do that, as part of a merge argument, sets a risky precedent. --Northernhenge (talk) 10:18, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

I imagine that bringing all the vampire-related material on Wikipedia together into one article

@Northernhenge: That's not the point of this. I'm not suggesting merging Vampire literature, Vrykolakas, Vourdalak, Vampire folklore by region, etc. into Vampire. Vampire already duplicates much of Upiór, making the appropriate target of associated redirects unclear. Renaming the article wouldn't help with the redirect situation, namely that redirects that are etymologically related, which form a spectrum of variation, and are synonymous take readers to different locations. Where the content would not affect the quality it can be copied over. Where it would affect the quality, it can be omitted (or, perhaps, merged into Vampire folklore by region instead). The redundant content would not need to be copied over.

If we want to be very cautious about the quality, we could implement the merge in a draft page first then move the changes over once there's consensus that the quality has been maintained. – Scyrme (talk) 16:17, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose I do not find there to be a benefit to merge more specific folklore creatures into a generalized article.★Trekker (talk) 17:59, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

  @StarTrekker: Do you have an alternative suggestion for what to do about the problems I've highlighted? I am open to other solutions (and have already proposed two others, which you've not commented on). – Scyrme (talk) 19:22, 22 February 2026 (UTC)