Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mongols/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Mongols. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Template:WikiProject Mongols

Template:WikiProject Mongols might be of interest, concerning how it is going to be set up.

A mockup for {{WikiProject Mongols}} is at Template talk:WikiProject Mongols/sandbox.

Examples are on Template talk:WikiProject Mongols/testcases

If taskforces/workgroups are set up, there's some examples for coding them as well.

76.65.128.198 (talk) 12:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I completed it:

––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 07:34, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

This is about the most disagreeable thing you could do. I more or less was stronghanded into agreeing into renaming this work group (which does have advantages, as it has disadvantages), and now you want to divide this project among states, with professed workgroups that don't even have a membership? If you think that Wikipedia is better off without me as an editor and want to bring about that state, you're on the right track! G Purevdorj (talk) 09:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A minor point. We might want to retain the yurt (after all a sign of nomadic culture, i.e. what Mongol culture is all about) as the picture representing the work group. Chinggis Khan, used as a symbol for brute national power in Mongolia now and in China depicted as the wise leader that civilized the wild Mongols in order to reform China, is a very ambigue and very political symbol that I would rather not have. A map would be better, but still not good. The yurt might do. G Purevdorj (talk) 09:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok. A yurt is fine to me. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 09:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I was not splitting the project, but adding subproject. With this structure, you may may make general discussion on the project (not in any subproject/workgroup), even though a Mongolia and an Inner Mongolia workgroup exist. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 09:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The currently defined TF/WG params are for

Mongolia (country)
Inner Mongolia
Buryats
Oirats
Greater Mongolia
Mongol Empire
diaspora
history
ethnicity

So which should we keep, which should we eliminate, what should we add?

I will note that talk pages for WPMILHIST TF/WGs are for the most part redirected to the main talk page, while the front pages list work, so that all the project sees the discussion, while each TF/WG front page lists todo, standards, etc.

76.65.128.198 (talk) 09:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

In comparison to other WikiProjects... there's a WPOttomanEmpire, WPBritishEmpire. WPChina has a TFHistory, WPJapan has a TFHistory, WPJapan has a WGBiography, WPChina and WPJapan have WGs for military. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 10:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't object to subprojects if those arise out of practical need. But they should not be implemented a priori out of a thought that these subgroups would be desirable to have. Given the small number of editors affiliated with this project, I would be extremely surprised if a subproject approach would make sense. The idea of a unified WP Mongols is to bring editors of related topics together, not to divide them from each other by sorting them into subprojects. A subproject with less than 4 or 5 active editors would be entirely pointless. So no task forces / work groups at all as of now. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If we use the WPMILHIST model, there would be no division of editors, since the talk pages are unified into one place (the main talk page), so all discussions are shared by the entire project. Each TF/WG just has a page to list work and standards. Since it would be likely that each major zone of Mongol interest would need specialist standards (like how names work in Inner Mongolia, how to handle the Mongol Empire's holdings outside of Greater Mongolia), these just end up as specialized subpages of the WikiProject, for specific areas of interest. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 10:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

What do you all think about adopting the Tuva task force? Now that WikiProject Mongols has achieved its independence, we seem like a more appropriate parent project than project Central Asia (Russia would be my second choice). Shrigley (talk) 02:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

"This page is within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mongols, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mongol culture, history, politics and language on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks." What about this wording? (It still does not sound ideal, so suggestions for improvement are welcome!) G Purevdorj (talk) 10:09, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds ok. The current text is the default text provided by WPBANNERMETA, so is not all that well worded. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 10:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I have made the page (with very similar text as above). No TF or work group is currently established so not yet mentioned. --Chinyin (talk) 20:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I am fine with this banner, both text and pictures. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. --Chinyin (talk) 18:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Do we want to keep using the same assessment categories as WGMongolia did under WPAsia's banner? 76.65.128.198 (talk) 07:48, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Stub, Start, C, B, GA, FA, List, Featured List. No A. G Purevdorj (talk) 08:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Assessment ratings on banner

For WPAsia, the WGMongolia had assessments for both quality and importance. Those categories it used are called "Mongolia xyz", so obviously with WPMongols, we'd need new names. So, does this wikiproject support assessments? Do we want to keep WGMongolia around with its assessments under a parameter (Mongolia=yes or something, with Mongolia-importance=abc) ? If not, do we want to leave WPAsia's banner with its assessments for Mongolia, or have that stripped as well? Should WGMongolia on WPAsia become WPMongols ? (probably yes to that)

As few pages have been flagged by WGMongolia, the changeover should be relatively easy. We should leave the WPAsia banner in place and add a WPMongols banner as well. If we handle assessments, we might need to remove assessments for Mongolians from WPAsia's template. If we do not, we don't have to change WPAsia's template unless we also want to remove assessments from WGMongolia of that template. If we allow WPAsia as a combined template, then the assessments should remain, if we keep assessments for WGMongolia/WPMongols. (Some people go around and combine WP banners into each other, using the params to indicate other projects, for all projects that can be turned into a flag on another project... )

76.65.128.198 (talk) 09:16, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I know very little about banners. I just looked at the makeup at Talk:Kazakhstan, which does seem quite ok to me. Some integration into WP Asia should be worthwhile, even if I don't know how this might look like. I think that we need an independent quality rating. I advice strongly that we do not use importance ratings. They are very subjective, and there is always dispute about them. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

WGMongolia is integrated into WPAsia's template, so no change is required there. It supports importance ratings however. WPAsia's template uses the Category:Mongolia work group category tree. So, if we implement quality ratings, we'd need to copy the categories contained in Category: Mongolia articles by quality‎ (renamed to Category: WikiProject Mongols articles by quality‎ etc) In place of importance, we can have Category: WikiProject Mongols pages that categorizes all pages bannered.

Though that still leaves whether we integrate WGMongolia completely into WPMongols, or leave it as a workgroup hanging off of WPMongols and WPAsia. If we integrate and eliminate it, some changes will need to be done to WPAsia's template. If we eliminate WGMongolia's importance ratings, some changes will need to be done to WPAsia's template. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 07:51, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Scope

I believe the modern Daurs, even though Mongolic, should better not be covered because they're affiliated to Manchu; however, the Evenks and Oroqens, even though Tungusic, should better be covered because they're affiliated to Mongols. Thess three peoples are interesting because their origin and destiny are opposite to each other. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:02, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Happy Christmas everyone! I agree with User:虞海's above comments too. --Chinyin (talk) 03:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Thirded. The criteria for inclusion should not be so strictly linguistic. Shrigley (talk) 03:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, you utterly amaze me. If you are neither sockpuppets of each other nor have the main goal of derailing this project into uselessness, inconsistency or Sinocentrism, I cannot understand your reasoning at all. You can reason historically, historically-culturally or linguistically. You cannot reason geographically, that could not delimit Mongols in any way. However, you chose to adopt a line of purely (neo-)cultural reasoning that might fit your goal of minimizing the role of Mongolia in favor of the Chinese Central Government and driving a maximum divide between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, but cannot be suited to objective criteria anymore. You might want to found a WP Inner Asia which could accommodate for Turkic, Tungusic and Mongol culture in one, but the wiser choice might be simply joining WP Central Asia, which provides for the necessary scope. But if there is nobody to reinforce other points of view, I guess your distruction is accomplished. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Would you stop assuming the worst of everyone? This project is either about Mongolia(n People's Republic) or about Mongols everywhere. It was your preference to make it about the latter, opening yourself up to the reality that Mongolians have no monopoly on defining "Who is a Mongol?" outside of Mongolia. You can't have it both ways; extending this project's reach to Inner Mongolia and Buryatia yet Khalkha-izing and Cyrillicizing everything. Turkic and Tungusic identities are not mutually exclusive with Mongol identity, because Mongol identity is so much more than speaking a Mongolic language, especially for the majority of self-identified Mongols worldwide who live in China. If anything is "destroyed" here it's Khalkha-centrism, and considering how small a minority that ideology benefits, I'd say that Mongols overall are the real winners here. Shrigley (talk) 17:58, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, let's try to assume good faith, which is also a general (and important) policy of Wikipedia. For example, it's groundless to accuse others of sockpuppets of each other or may have the main goal of "derailing" the project into useless etc just because they all appear to agree on certain point (at certain time). In particular, you obviously knew neither is a sockpuppet of another from other edits or talks, even if just looking at this page. Further, while centrism on certain ideology etc is not a good thing, it should also not deliberately to fight these centrism like Sinocentrism or Khalkha-centrism in WP, or it also shows the possibility of having a strong view. And once again you have mentioned the Chinese Central Government, but it's largely irrelevant and also linked to politics, which this project or WP in general should avoid. The "driving a maximum divide" thing is also related to politics, which should be avoided (please also note that WP is not a forum). It's of course possible to have a work group, TF or even project specific to certain country (incl. the country of Mongolia) when needed, but Mongols may not be considered to be specific to any particular modern country. In fact WP Mongols belong more to an ethnic group, which has associations with various geocultural spheres during different historical periods (and now may also be found in other parts of the world), instead of a single geocultural sphere like Central Asia (or even Inner Asia), even if it may have more associations with such than other from different perspectives. But such a project is certainly very useful to coordinate articles related to Mongols incl. their culture and history etc as a whole (which the work group for the country of Mongolia on the other hand apparently cannot do). In general, try to focus on the ethnic group as we usually defined or use, instead of thinking about how to extend the scope (to some unusual definition) etc; some of the points are also mentioned by other including Shrigley above. --Chinyin (talk) 18:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Assuming good faith, why on earth would you include Tuvan articles like Por-Bazhyn, Administrative divisions of Tuva, and Tyva Kyzy and exclude clearly Mongol-related articles such as Daur and Bayankhongor Province? It makes absolutely no sense. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 07:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that it was User:Shrigley who included articles like Por-Bazhyn and Administrative divisions of Tuva etc to the project, which I also consider to be controversial after taking a brief look at these pages (although some Tuvan articles may be interested to this project, as had been suggested on a different page). Daur etc may be another issue (which was talked about earlier by User:虞海 from a completely different perspective), but as for Tuvan-related articles, Shrigley, it's always better and highly encouraged to discuss properly before such moves, as (at least) some of these actions (e.g. the move of Tuva Task Force to this project) are indeed kind of unilateral and also likely to be disputed. On the other hand, other points such as keeping the discussions visible etc are also pointed out by Sborsody elsewhere, which I fully agree with. --Chinyin (talk) 23:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

If I knew that adopting the Tuva work group would cause so much acrimony, I wouldn't have done it. That workgroup looked dead at the time, anyway, but I'm clearly not pursuing the closure of this artificial Tuvan-Mongol distinction if some people are so invested in it. My reasoning for including Administrative divisions of Tuva under the Mongols umbrella because Tuva is a post-Mongol territory (see Tannu Uriankhai), and because Tuvans are recognized as Mongols in China, even if they may not be in Russia due to a successful divide and conquer policy. I have to wonder, though, why some users support WP Central Asia's taking such an absurdly large scope, and at the same time constricting WP Mongols to such a small one. Shrigley (talk) 01:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The inclusion of Tuva may make some sense from some perspectives. But I think it may be more or less equally controversial to include Tuvas in Russia and some Mongolic groups such as Daurs into the Mongol ethnic group (another user previously added Daur etc without discussion probably because of this, but I think it would be better to try to point out the issue(s) directly instead of doing such counter-actions, which is not really a good conduct either and may even deepen the dispute). Note that the number of Tuvans in China is *much* smaller than Tuvans in Russia. The Tuvans in China may have identified themselves as such because of the fact there is very small amount of them in this country. But this may be considered a special case, after all, vast majority of Tuvans currently live in Russia, and they consider themselves as a different ethnic group (so it would obviously be controversial to include them into ethnic Mongols). Tannu Uriankhai etc may be a good point, but it has to mention that this region and the bulk of Outer Mongolia were (to a large degree) administrated separately even during the Qing Dynasty. Also it is better not to talk about the "divide and conquer policy", as it is obviously politics-related, which is generally to be avoided in WP. But after all, it is always a good thing to have a discussion for the move of Tuva work group or similar, which is the usual way in WP to solve problems. --Chinyin (talk) 02:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Tuvans in China have been classified under the Mongol ethnicity by China, not by themselves. See "The Jungar Tuvas: language and national identity in the PRC" by Talant Mawkanuli in Central Asian Survey (2001), 20 (4). "Beginning in 1979, and especially in the early 1980s, representatives of the Jungar Tuva people began to appeal to the Chinese government to recognize Tuva as an official nationalitity of the XUAR. ... Most of the scholars in the research group proposed that Jungar Tuva should be granted a nationality status. However, ultimately, this research group recommended against recognizing the Jungar Tuvas as an official nationality for two reasons. First, strong weight was given to the view of the regional Mongol official who thought that the official status of Mongols in Xinjiang would be jeopardized if they were further divided or weakened in numbers. Second, the argument was made that the Jungar Tuvas were in a transitional process, as shown by the fact that a group of 'Uriyangkhais' in the same Altay region also used to be Tuvas but, after living with Mongols for a long time, had lost their own Turkic language and now considered themselves to be Mongols. This process was claimed to be happening to the remaining Jungar Tuvas as well, and so it was not certain that they would exist as a distinct nationality in the future. As a result of this research group's recommendation, the Jungar Tuvas failed to gain nationality status." In other words, for purely political reasons, the Tuvans in China are not recognized as Tuvans. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 03:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting point. In such case, it would even further the separations. --Chinyin (talk) 03:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand that there hasn't been much activity with Tuva Task Force. The Tuva Task Force could not really be it's own WikiProject as a result. It is always good practice to solicit existing members for input anyway. WPMongols could definitely tag some Tuva-related articles and improve them. Tuva is as much a post-Scythian, post-Uighur, post-Kyrgyz, post-Xiongnu, post-etc. territory as it is post-Mongol. Hungary is also post-Mongol territory, but it wouldn't make sense to have a Hungarian task force under WPMongols. That's why, to me, some Tuva-related articles just don't make sense under WPMongols. Another example: Tuvan_People's_Revolutionary_Party. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 03:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Then in general some of the articles related to Tuva or some other Mongolic peoples incl. Daur may be interested to this project and can be tagged and improved by this project. But there is no need to (and probably should never) place the entire topics etc under the scope of WPMongols or include the whole topics explicitly under the scope section of the project main page (but some discussions or descriptions may be possible). --Chinyin (talk) 04:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Tuva and Mongolia

I see that TFTuva is now flagged onto this WPP banner. Should I add the code for Mongolia as well? (the country) WGMongolia can still be bannered. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 09:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Uyghurjin

At WT:JAPAN there're developing a {{Vertical text RTL}}, since Uyghurjin is written vertically, left to right, perhaps we should also develop a {{Vertical text LTR}}? {{MongolUnicode}} currently requires IE9, and since many people use Chrome or Firefox, it will not work with those browsers. 70.49.124.157 (talk) 06:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I am using Firefox on Windows 7 (IE8 being still installed), but I'm not experiencing any problems with {{MongolUnicode}} as far as display is concerned. As for displaying the text vertically: where on English Wikipedia will we be making use of such (large) Japanese text boxes? I'm asking just to get an idea about applicability. G Purevdorj (talk) 08:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't work for me on Chrome. And apparently not for alot of other people either, as evidenced by the comments found at WT:JAPAN. 70.24.247.54 (talk) 05:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Mongols will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in Mongolian's history, society and culture. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 21:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Khitan

{{portal|Khitan}} Portal:Khitan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion. 70.24.247.54 (talk) 07:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Ulan Bator districts

Hi! Which districts in Ulan Bator are these locations in?

Chinggis Khaan International Airport
Head office of MIAT Mongolian Airlines: MIAT building, Buyant-Ukhaa 45 Ulaanbaatar 210134, Mongolia

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 14:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

--Khan-Uul District --chinneeb-talk 03:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Images in Mongols

I think a revamp of the portrait images in the Mongols article is needed. I posted a discussion on Talk:Mongols, but no-one seems to have noticed. Any suggestions for improvement? At least Ondor Gongor should go. --chinneeb-talk 03:35, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Transliteration of Tuvan Language

Please join a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Central_Asia/Tuva_task_force#Transliteration_of_Tuvan_Language. Thanks. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 22:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

There is a problem

I want a discussion on this. The move from Mongolia workgroup to Wikiproject Mongols was not agreed upon by members. The members page (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mongols/Members) shows how almost none of the members have switched to the new group. This wikiproject has alienated most contributors, and the only reason I'm still posting here is that this is the only Mongolia related group still in existence. --chinneeb-talk 06:07, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I wish some of you had been around when the actual discussion took place, but they (particularly Qingley) were determined to change things as quickly as possible without any time for others to consider. For those who demanded a change, there was one major problem: the activities of the workgroup extended beyond the Mongolian borders, but the workgroup itself was perceived as relating to the Mongolian state. I don’t mind using the label “Mongolia” for a cultural area, but a lot of Chinese do. But even so, I would tend to include the Moghol-speakers of Afghanistan into the project, which is truly not covered by any extension of the term “Mongolia” that I know. So I was in principle not opposed to changing to “WP Mongols”, but I was afraid that they might then find other ways to wrack havoc, and they did. I hold (and I know that scholars such as Janhunen or Enwall do so as well) that we need to require a certain mongolicity (which can be culturally and historically defined) to define whom to call a “Mongol” and whom not. As we all know, the Chinese state inflates the meaning of this word by reassigning Mongolian ethnicity to any citizen who asks for it, provided that there was some Mongolian ancestor (and be it seven generations apart). As belonging to minorities entails some advantages (such as the permission to have two children), a lot of people that exclusively subscribe to Han culture are assumed Mongolian ethnicity. And the Chinese editors insisted on labeling those as Mongols. According to their say, Han culture in Inner Mongolia ought to be included, and the Chinese language should be among the main priorities of our project. This, for me, means the destruction (or entire sinification) of WP Mongols. The Mongolian state has to assume a special status: all things related to Mongolia ought to belong to the WP, because they are all related to distinctly Mongolian culture, but not all things related to majority rule or factually non-Mongolian citizens in China or Russia should. I think if we could affect such a change in the project content, a number of the old members (as far as they are still affiliated with the project, which, as I think, holds for a minority) might switch. Best, G Purevdorj (talk) 08:58, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Considering how Shrigley and co. seem to have destroyed this wikiproject, what about just starting a new one, focusing on Mongolia proper. I know, for example, how Hazaras are perceived by some Mongols as being of Mongol ethnicity, but the Hazara themselves don't. Instead of including them, we could focus on history that took place on the Mongolian steppe (Mongol Empire as a whole until the fall, Northern Yuan, Outer Mongolia, Mongolia). --chinneeb-talk 10:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Current historical studies don’t enable us to understand the Hazara within a Mongol context, for they seem to have gotten there BEFORE the time of Chinggis Khan. The speakers of Moghol, in contrast, are not genetically Mongols, but they were integrated into the Mongol cultural and linguistic sphere during the time of the Il-Khanate. With their complete integration into the Afghan cultural sphere, these would cease to be of interest for WP Mongols.

But maybe you should not take my word for what happened to the workgroup and rather look into the discussion yourself. With your suggestion that we might make up a new WP with focus on all things related to the current Mongolian state, including its history, your position is fairly close to Chinyin and Yuhai who would be content with having a major project and within this workgroups for Buryatia, Kalmykia, Inner Mongolia and the Mongolian state. Their suggestion is even slightly more agreeable, as Mongolian history would remain with the mother project. The only practical obstacle for all those workgroups would be its lack of members; one forum for all Mongols-related issues on Wikipedia is enough, and would still be more effective if we were five times as many or as active as we are now. But this forum should not be delimited by political lines (and the power of the respective states to enforce definitions and divides within their own territory), but along cultural and linguistic lines. Not Kalmykia, but Oirats in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, western Mongolia and Kalmykia. Not Outer or Inner Mongolia, but Mongolians, even if they are situated in Heilongjiang along the border of Inner Mongolia. No less Dagurs, Monguors etc. Seeking and pointing out political borders just divides what should be subject to one analysis. The problem is only that the Chinese editors will not accept that the Mongolian state falls entirely within a project thus delimited, while Mandarin Chinese as one of the official languages of Inner Mongolia would not. But a way to arrive at such a project would be having a simple majority of editors who decide about the delimiation of this project. But I don't see any crucial number of editors, on neither side, to meaningfully take up this hot iron right now. G Purevdorj (talk) 12:34, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

No, I'd be quite happy to include Inner Mongolia (strictly from a Mongol perspective), Moghol culture, in a proposed wp. I guess the only point they are making is that even Mongolia is not fully Mongol. The Kazakh population in Mongolia are Mongolian in nationality, but not Mongol in ethnicity. But the point should be approached with common sense. Mongolia is majority Mongol, so everything should be under the scope of the project. But Inner Mongolia, Kalmyk, Oirats, Moghol, etc. are in a majority non-Mongol area, so articles about them should be under the scope, but on a limited, less "political" scale (Mandarin, for example, shouldn't be under the scope).

And I understand the hot iron thing. I got embroiled on a war on freedom of panorama over at the commons over the summer, and I recently delved back in. They are ridiculous over there; a lot of people are fully up to the idea that deleting all building pictures in Mongolia is acceptable.

One question, why was Gantuya banned? --chinneeb-talk 14:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Ganaa was accused of sockpuppetry. The evidence that checkuser (a tool only usable by admins) found apparently confirmed the case: there were a number of completely unused accounts that checkuser linked to Ganaa. So she got banned. Looking at what actually had happened on talk pages, Yaan and I were not at all convinced that anything like that had happened. The opinions held by Monkhnaran (now blocked as sockpuppet) just seemed to have the common denominator that she is a Mongolian. Unfortunately, I could not contact any of the two accounts that were claimed to be Ganaa’s main sockpuppets. Later, after an unblocking request, her account was opened again, but she was not exonerated. Sad that apparently unfounded accusations let to such a story. G Purevdorj (talk) 16:56, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

There are actually some noticeboards on wp (though I think no work groups or projects) that are delineated by language rather than by geography, e.g. Wikipedia:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board. Not sure whether this would solve any of the current problems with a lack of meaningful participation. Yaan (talk) 15:36, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Possible public-domain 1920 photos of Mongolia?

I can't find a death-date for one Beatrix Bulstrode, but this page has an online scan of her book of travels in Mongolia; if they can be verified as Public Domain, maybe a cool source for images: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bulstrode/mongolia/mongolia.html MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

You'd have to find her year of death. The relevant year currently is 1941, where she would have been 72 years old, and quite possibly still alive. --Latebird (talk) 07:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The copyright for pictures is different, isn't it? The instructor of a course in GB recently lectured that the copyright of pictures, in contrast to texts, expires 50 years after creation. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:51, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Albert Kahn

I wonder if anyone can get some Albert Kahn photos currently on exhibit in Ulaanbaatar? --chinneeb-talk 15:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan

Take a look at this, the pictures of the two men in that website look completely different from the currently common ones we already have on Wikipedia. So, maybe we should upload those pictures to WIkipedia so we can have another view of how the 2 men look, should we? ༆ (talk) 23:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Anyone can sit down and paint "a picture of Chinggis Khan". The pictures we do have are of very questionable authenticity, but the.y still count among the oldest or are the oldest. So there is some merit in having these and not some other, more fanciful recent drawings. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Mongolian/Buryat shamanism articles

We're having a little bit of a drive this week at User talk:Drmies#'sup. So far we have:

Some of the sources are written in Cyrillic, and we also need help with all of the Mongolian, Buryat, Russian, and other names for these things. (A couple of sources we've located are encyclopaedias, and, ironically, they contain many of these names at the heads of their entries.) See Drmies' talk page for more. Uncle G (talk) 09:20, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Review of edits to Civil Will-Green Party

Could anyone please check if the edits here are in good faith. My main concern is the change of the official website link to what looks like a blog but with no knowledge of Mongolian it is difficult to tell. Tim! (talk) 07:47, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

historical controversy - the of the battle of Samara Bend - how to address?

I know I'm going to run smack-against nationalist pride here, but really, this article and it's reflection in another article desperately need to be corrected. Both Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, and Chambers, The Devil's Horsemen, state that the Mongols ambushed the Volga Bolgars, not the other way around. Chambers even states that the Bolgars told the Russian princes that were neighbors that they had claimed a victory (knowing that any sign of weakness would have meant probable invasion to take advantage of it) - after the thrashing that the Mongols had given the Russian armies with Subotai's/Jebe's relatively small "reconnaissance in force" they probably took such claims very suspiciously. Nardo's Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire makes no mention at all of any Bolgar ambush during this campaign. After the military probe into Bolgar territory - which Subotai had to agree to in order for Genghis to permit the military reconnoiter of the Caspian surrounding lands, their force struck and beat the Saixin and Eastern Cuman tribes (killing their khagan) - hardly a feat that would have been possible if they had suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the Bolgars. After this, Jebe (who died of a fever prior to reaching the Khan's territories) and Subotai rode back with Jochi to the Mongol lands, pushing thousands of horses they'd acquired as tribute and carrying their extensive booty with them. Chambers points out that during the Batu's European invasion that the Poles had made up stories that they had won the Battle of Liegnitz - so this sort of thing is not uncommon. Chambers also points out that several modern history books on these battles have many errors that get perpetuated due to mis-translations (and probably just not doing one's research properly or relying on other incorrect secondary sources). Mongol specialist-historian David Morgan has praised Chambers' work in print. An example in a supposedly studious modern work of the myth of the "Battle of Samara Bend" is contained in Christopher Atwood's Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire - which among the many other erroneous statements I've found in it is the return to Mongolia of a living Jebe! Everything we know of Jebe and Subotai's supreme military leadership (hand in hand with inhuman barbarity and senseless slaughter) is that they were masters of ambush - it is highly unlikely that any strategic battle had been lost by them, or that the finest army in the world - even working in strengths of less than three tumens - would have been beaten by unproffessional, decaying Bolgars at this time in history. While a couple of times during the Batu invasion a vanguard was destroyed, the final result of all the battles was Mongol victory. I've seen the claims of "local oral traditions" (COMPLETELY unreliable as a source for Wiki) and an "Arab chronicler" and some sites in Russian (also not Reliable Sources for the English Wikipedia) used in the current article. We cannot use primary sources - which are shown not to be reliable the farther in space and time from the event that they were written - in the articles; that is the job of expert historians to sift and balance the historical records and archaeology to come up with as close to the facts as possible. Chambers work is THE work in English for the military campaigns in Europe by the Mongols, and has stood the test of time very, very well. I've discussed the problem with a few local university professors - since, although I took 15 courses in history at university, professionally I am a nuclear/electronics engineer (retired) - and from what they've told me there has been much confusion since the lifting of communism from Russia and the corresponding nationalist/"fringe" historical claims that muddy the waters of serious Russian historians trying to due to serious work there. Which means I will no doubt pick up much disagreement for trying to get these articles corrected. My first course, as always, is Reliable Sources - I've pointed out two works that are considered classics in the field, and critiques of some modern works by their authors - in English. If no serious counter-claims can be given - by Reliable Sources - in English - I think these articles should be corrected ASAP per the Wiki rules. To date, the first actual defeat of the Mongol forces outside of China - where stalemates were often fought, but ultimately the Mongols prevailed - is the Battle of Ain Julat. It should also be noted that Batu's campaign very quickly overran and defeated the Volga Bolgars in totality, with horrible slaughter being visited on them by Subotai at Bolgar itself - Mongol training, weapons and tactics completely outclassed anything the Bolgars could counter with, as indeed, occurred everywhere else prior to Hulegu's withdraw from Syria. There should be no "shame" by modern citizens of any of these territories - a problem I have noticed quite often is taking personal by some Wiki editors events that occurred centuries, even millennia ago - in looking at the facts of the deadly amazing character of the Mongol armies and their victories and getting these articles corrected. But if they are not, we may be perpetuating a myth, to the loss of the mission of Wikipedia. HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

BTW, some time ago on that article's talk page, an anon also found this to be highly dubious. HammerFilmFan (talk) 13:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It is not really that rare to find that misinterpretations are carried from one historical work on to the next and, finally, on to wp. A pretty nice example for this is the story of Ban Chao conquering Central Asia up to the Caspian Sea - a story that got debunked by influential historicians around 100 years ago and is still repeated in modern literature (search for it on google books). But at least it is gone from wp for now.

I think the way to go here would be to state both POVs (that the Mongols won and that the Bolgars won), and then point out that proponents of one POV have criticized the other POV. What is written on WP:NPOV, basically.

However, I do not think one should disqualify sources just because they are not written in English. The battle took place in what is now Russia, so it is reasonable to assume that some important research on the battle is in Russian. And the Russians are probably more familiar with the somewhat peculiar terrain. Plus quite a lot of important research on the Mongols has been done by Russians, too. I also could not find anything against foreign-language sources on WP:RS, though maybe I just did not look hard enough (just tried a text search). Similarly, I do believe that it might be worth mentioning from what primary source(s) current knowledge of the battle is actually derived.

Just my thoughts. Yaan (talk) 14:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I think your post would be a bit easier to read if you could break it down into paragraphs. Yaan (talk) 14:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S. Should it not be "Battle of the Samara Bend"? Yaan (talk) 14:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The English Wiki requires sources in English UNLESS some unique piece of information exists of scholarly value not available in an English source, for which we rely on a knowledgeable editor to provide the necessary English summary (the users of the English Wikipedia are assumed to understand English only, more or less, so they need English references; it also provides problems with verifiability for English-restricted editors to confirm a source). The current article only has dead links without any inline citations (if they ever truly existed, I have my doubts and also am wondering if they pointed to a personal blog-type affair) to some Russian language sites. Since we don't really have any Reliable Sources that support the point of view in the article, I'm almost leaning to the deletion of that article entirely, and then fixing the article on the Mongol Invasion of Volga Bolgar as the nicest way to clean this stuff all up. I don't know, I may try to edit the current one and see which way the flak flies. Either way, that entire article, as it stands, can technically be removed as it is unsourced. HammerFilmFan (talk) 15:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of WP:NOENG is that non-english sources are entirely acceptable, just that e.g. "Empire of the Steppes" should take precedence over "L'Empire des Steppes". Otherwise, wp would run into quite a few issues with anything that happens or happened outside the english-speaking world - e.g. anything that happened on the Volga.

The sources given below this particular article look pretty official ("History of Tatarstan", "History of the Tatar ASSR"), so I guess they at least represent a relevant POV.

Anyway, I guess this be better discussed in the article's talk page. Yaan (talk) 15:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

That article was under this project, so I brought the discussion here first trying to find someone that was still involved with the subject. MANY things have been written about in English scholarly sources that happened outside of the English-speaking world - I don't follow your argument; specialists study/learn the languages of other cultures so that they can study them and write about them - i.e., you don't have to be a chicken to judge an egg - look at the masterworks written about Japanese history in English. I put one of the references through a translator and it turned out to be a primary-school manual - if that is the equivalent here that it is in Russia, I would think that first ref would not be considered good enough for a Reliable Source here. Again, English sources are preferred as long as they contain the same information at the same scholarly level - I've seen administrators enforce that many times in articles, and also by consensus in many articles. Grousset has been translated into English more than once for decades, so his work is easily available to English readers. Let me take a crack at the original article and see if it will stir up a response - the article is classed as a stub, after all. Thanks. HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Not really sure what reference exactly you are talking about re. primary school manual. I do not speak any Russian, but I am still willing to bet a good part of my wp reputation (as if there was any) on История Татарстана, Казань, "ТаРИХ", 2001 meaning "History of Tatarstan, Kasan, "Tarikh" [this seems to be the name of the publishing company, derived from what seems to be the Tatar word for history], 2001", and on История Татарской АССР, Казань, Татарское книжное издательство, 1980 meaning "History of the Tatar ASSR, Kasan, Tatar publishing house, 1980". Nothing about primary schools in the titles as far as I can see.

I am not trying to make any point re. the validity of the battle. I just think "I do not understand the sources" is no really convincing argument. Like it or not, the less interesting a topic is for non-locals (and 14th century battles in the Volga region are probably not that interesting to most people), the less research is going to be published in non-local languages. Incidentically, it is not that difficult to find history articles from other parts of the world that heavily rely in non-English language sources, e.g. Paris Commune or Battle of Grunwald. I also believe that, if you ask, the other authors of the article might be willing to help you with any language problems.

Yaan (talk) 02:10, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the more-accurate translation - like I said, that's what an online translator spit out - while I have friends in Samara and in Irkutsk, my Russian blows big hairy chunks. :-) HammerFilmFan (talk) 14:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I've been in communication with both Prof. David Morgan, who referred me to Prof. Peter Jackson, and am trying to get the matter resolved. Prof. Jackson is the author of many books on the Mongols and the Middle East of the middle ages. HammerFilmFan (talk) 11:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to ask a favor - can anyone give the English titles of the Russian books mentioned in the article? I'd like to note them parenthetically for our majority-English speaking readers. Thanks. HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

As said, I am pretty sure that it is "History of Tatarstan" and "History of the Tatar ASSR" (that is, unless Russian 'Istoriya' has not the same as English 'history'). You could probably ask around at the Russian Wikiproject. Yaan (talk) 19:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Merging "Mongolian script" and "Traditional Mongolian alphabet"

I think these two articles should be merged. Opinions? --chinneeb-talk 18:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

There is a technical difference between the orthographic system and the set of letters that might have been used originally to justify these two articles. There was a discussion on this less than two years ago, I think. But in their current stage, these two articles (Traditional Mongolian alphabet, Mongolian script) have basically the same topic. I'd be inclined to do away with the alphabet article, and forget about the word "traditional" entirely. Alphabets (Middle Mongol, Classical Mongol, contemporary Inner Mongolian conventions) and derived systems can be dealt with within the script article. G Purevdorj (talk) 11:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Mythology of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples

FYI Mythology of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples has been proposed to be split, see talk:Mythology of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 22:33, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

AfD

Manjaagiin Ichinnorov. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:24, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

An Tu

An Tu, princess of the Yuan Dynasty is up for renaming. See Talk:An Tu -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 09:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Yangtze headwaters

Hej, Mongols!

The section of Yangtze River dealing with the headwaters in Qinghai is currently a little broken and could use some help from a person conversant in Mongolian. See Talk:Yangtze_River#Tuotuo. — $Llywelyn II$ 00:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

need transliteration for expansion of Mongolian Braille

Hi,

I thought I had this figured out, then I find that braille for the traditional alphabet is completely different from Cyrillic. I've got a parallel text, but my attempts of working out the print version are pretty pathetic. Could someone transliterate this into either Cyrillic or Latin?

Thanks, — kwami (talk) 08:59, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

An annoying little poem. I gave it a try:

Odo-tai tngri Orciju bülüge. Olan ulus ?bolq-a temeceldüjü bülüge. Oron-daga[n] ülü oron Oljalaldun bülüge. Körüsütü ?etügen Körbejü bülüge. Kür ulus ?bolq-a temeceldüjü bülüge. Könjile-degen ülü kebten Könögeldün bülüge.

I'm uncertain about these points: kür ulus = all the people etügen: possibly the mountain bolq-a: not clear. possibly bolgan

If so, Cyrillic would read like this:

Одоотой тэнгэр Орчиж бөлгөө/бүлгээ. Олон улс болгон тэмцэлдэж бөлгөө. Орондоо үл орон Олзолдон бөлгөө. Хөрстэй Этүгэн Хөрвөж бөлгөө. Хүр улс болгон тэмцэлдэж бөлгөө. Хөнжилдөө үл хэвтэн Хөнөөлдөн бөлгөө.

Quite archaizing, so if some correspondencies don't work, never mind. бөлгөө might also be spelled бүлгээ.

G Purevdorj (talk) 17:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! That should allow me to work out the braille. Between the homographs in Mongolian and the positional variants in braille (looks like the braille uses the same letter for initial k/g as it does for final i, but might also contain typos), I didn't have much confidence it my transcription. 23:33, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I assume "tngri" is missing a vowel? — kwami (talk) 23:58, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

"tngri" is a loan orthography from Old Uyghur, so it is NOT missing a vowel. There is a modernized Mongolian script spelling "tenggeri". G Purevdorj (talk) 09:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

No vowel in the braille either, so that makes sense. Can't tell if some of the other oddities are typos (entire words are missing, so they could be), illegible/erased dots, or if there's something else going on. Also wish we had the provenance of the text, but oh well. — kwami (talk) 10:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

But is the text supposed to correspond to Cyrillic or Mongolian script? The vowel ought to be present if it originated from Cyrillic. G Purevdorj (talk) 13:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Merge categories

Category:Mongol peoples and Category:Mongols are same.182.160.14.42 (talk) 04:29, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, the latter might be understood as "Mongolian people(s) and things pertaining to them", but I basically agree that we don't need two cats here. "Mongols" as the more general cat should probably take precedence. G Purevdorj (talk) 09:49, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm suggesting to merge into Category:Mongols : Category_talk:Mongol_peoples 182.160.38.200 (talk) 05:15, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

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Portraits of Mongol khans up for deletion

FYI, 19 portraits of Mongol khans have been nominated for deletion. As these pictures are widely used on en:wp and elsewhere I am posting this notification here. Thanks. BabelStone (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Toluid Civil War up for GA

I wrote Toluid Civil War, which is now up for a GA nomination. It's a significant event in Mongol history that permanently divided the Mongol Empire into autonomous Khanates. Please leave comments. Thanks.--Khanate General ☪ talk ^{project mongol conquests} 05:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Help requested at Mongolian Arat Air Squadron

Hi all,

I've created this article, but rapidly realized I don't have the language skills to access most of the material related to it, much of which is in Mongol or Russian. Nevertheless, I believe it is one of the most significant parts of Mongolia's involvement in World War II, so deserves to be better. In any case, if anyone is willing, I'd much appreciate help on it! Brigade Piron (talk) 13:52, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

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Checking the translation of a Mongolian title

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Languages in censuses and Race and ethnicity in censuses

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