User talk:Latebird

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I will answer questions on the same page as asked, so that the dialog remains in one piece.
This means that I'll observe your talk page after posting there.
If you post here, please do the same.

For Mongolia related questions please also check here:

Contents

[edit] Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

====We were having some trouble with the inventor of AHP Thomas Saaty {TSaaty} and his wife {RozannSaaty} deleting criticisms to AHP and replacing it with advertising. I was looking for an appropriate tag but I guess I missed the mark by puting a vandalism warning tag on the article itself. Then another user added a COI tag. I removed that tag because the current version is the one that existed before the COI problems. I'm open to any advice on better ways of addressing this. Thanks. Hubbardaie 13:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

As long as the article is in an acceptable state, there is nothing to address there. After your report to WP:COIN, it's probably best to leave the rest to other editors there, especially if you may have a personal interest in the topic as Ǣwell. --Latebird 13:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't characterize my interest as personal. But I have studied the AHP method once and read about some of the theoretical problems in other research. I don't think one would even have to do that much to see that the other version was a serious COI and POV. Your advice is very sensible.Hubbardaie 13:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Mongolian Barnstar of National Merit

The Mongolian Barnstar of National Merit
I award you this Barnstar for your outstanding contributions and unconditional participation to all kinds of Mongolia-related topics. Your work is inspiring! Temur 23:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
this WikiAward was given to {{subst:PAGENAME}} by ~~~ on ~~~~~

[edit] Bayanteel

Bayanteel in Övörkhangai aimag is not Bayanteel, but Bayanteeg (Баянтээг ). There are sources in the web with Bayanteeg named a sum. But I think, Bayanteeg just now is a coal mining settlement (тосгон?) where a thermal power station is planned, paved road from Arvaiheer to Bayankhongor would be built via this settlement. I think it is not any 20-th sum, but tosgon in Narin teel. And in German Wiki it is absent... And Narin teel has to be Nariinteel. How to change articles names? Bogomolov.PL 14:47, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a "move" tab at the top of the page. --Latebird 14:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kiyad

can we please get rid of this article? it seems to have been a complete failure from the start, confusing clan names and geographical names. I don't know if any further information than "Kiyad is a group Yesügei belonged to" can be gotten from any sources, certainly not from the Secret History (where 'Kiyad is only mentioned once IIRC, and not even in a clear relation to other groups like the Borjigin). Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that the article would ever grow beyond something that could just as well be covered in the List of medieval Mongol tribes. Yaan 14:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't ask me. Ask THEM. --Latebird 17:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
What about this ? Yaan 12:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Works too. --Latebird 13:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolia images

Thankyou for making any adjustments to my edits on Mongolia but did you have to be so patronising in the edit summaries? I believe the page has improved now since yesterday ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 13:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if those comments sounded patronizing. It's just that I'm allergic against guesswork, when the correct information is so readily available. I know you do a hell of a lot of edits, but unfortunately, many of those that I have come across left a certain impression of sloppyness, creating unnecessary extra work for others. One, ahem, very recent example includes starting a new discussion without using a new subtitle... ;) --Latebird 14:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Great work on Mongolia though. I hope we can eventually have detailed on articles on all the sums. Unfortunately there isn't that much online info is there? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 13:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

No, there's nothing useful online about most of them. I'd prefer to destub all the aimag articles first, though. --Latebird 14:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes sorry about that no excuse - I intended rewriting it later - there are several other sources I want to combine. I may write my own version later combining various sources and rference it in my sandbox and see what you think. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 14:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

To begin with I'd like to see all of the sums look like Chandmani-Öndör, Khövsgöl. I don't know where this info is from - I can't find it in the link. Yes I'd like to see the airmags with articles like the main Mongolia one also I also started List of Mongolian films ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 17:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC) Just wondering how on earth you happened to be editing Template:Filmsbycountry!!! I didn't know you were remotely interested in film ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 20:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I noticed in List of Mongolian films that the navbox looked almost bigger than the rest of the article, so I made it a little less imposing. I do occasionally venture in gnomish activities independent of specific topics anyway. --Latebird 23:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Altai city and Altai sum

It happens, but Altai sum is on the chinese border, but Govi-Altai aimag capital is in Yesönbulag sum. I don't know what to do with Altai because a lot of wiki links are pointing on it. Usually two articles were created: Choibalsan (city) and Choibalsan (sum) if aimag capital and a sum with the its name are not the same. Bogomolov.PL 10:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Altai, Govi-Altai for the sum and Altai (city) make the most sense. Similarly with Choibalsan, Dornod and Choibalsan (city). Adequate "other uses" links should remove any remaining confusion. Using both parentheses and comma delimited specifiers in the same title looks ugly and I don't think it has been done anywhere else. --Latebird 18:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, Altai (city), but on Altai, Govi-Altai are links pointing on Altay city. How relink multinational links? Bogomolov.PL 05:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I made the move for Altai and fixed all the incoming links I could find, including the two interwiki links. What is missing now are the coordinates of the sum. In the map, the Yesönbulag sum should also get a label. --Latebird 07:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think, there are two aspects:

- Sum map needs to be updated, the label has to be: ALTAY (Yesönbulag sum)

- Coordinates label in Google Earth will be poiting at the same spot, the "fork" will be in Google Earth.

Bogomolov.PL 08:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongol Page

I think the history that I added to the entry is relevant. On the pages of other ethnic groups in Wikipedia the entries discuss the history of the people in addition to modern day conditions. What would the Jews be without a history? What is any ethnic group without its history? The Mongols have an especially illustrious one that is worth including. Jojokintel 19:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Seth

Discussion started and continues here. --Latebird 05:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Franco-Mongol alliance

Hi, your name was recommended to me as someone who was one of the Mongol experts on Wikipedia? Do you have access to many reliable sources, specifically about their activities in the Middle East around the year 1300? We've run into some conflicting reports in our own sources, but our own books are mostly focused on the Crusades and the Arab caliphates, and none of us seem to have access to Mongol-focused books. And Google searches seem to be drawing up the pseudo-history websites, so we could really use help from reliable sources. Is this something that you might be able to help with? Any help appreciated, Elonka 16:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm much more familiar with modern Mongolia than the arcane details of all their historic military campaigns. I also don't have any good books at hand about the times after Genghis' death. Generally speaking, conflicting sources are to be expected in those areas, and an extra source focusing on the Mongol side may potentially just add to the confusion. Unfortunately, the Mongols themselfes didn't keep any historic records, and other contemporary reports were often distorted to fit someone's interests. If things don't clear up, then you'll simply have to present both views next to each other. --Latebird 23:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Alright, thanks.  :) --Elonka 23:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] :)

Danke schön mein bruder. I will obey the rules that you told me.

Auf wiederschreiben

Kızılsungur 22:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Withdrawal

Hi, Latebird. Is there an option to delete my account from Wikipedia? Gantuya eng 02:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Why on earth would you want to do that? I for one would miss your contributions! But to answer the specific question: No, Wikipedia needs to preserve all accounts for eternity, so they can reference your contributions to it, which is required by the GFDL. If you really decide to leave, then you just leave everything behind as it is. Or if you're paranoid, you could have your account blocked indefinitely. --Latebird 12:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Sum maps new versions

Sums of Bayan-Ölgii
Sums of Bayan-Ölgii

Do you agree with it? Tsagaannuur and Olgii with own territories? Several sum maps were changed also. Bogomolov.PL 16:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Assuming it's correct, I can't really complain... ;) The article says nothing about the territory of Ölgii city. Is it really that big? --Latebird 17:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a hypothesis only... To show Olgii city own territory presence I was forced to show this territory larger then aimag center star. Is this territory really so small? Bugat sum center is very close to Olgii and Bugat has to be out of the city territory. Sum boundary at NW, W and SW edge is surrounding Olgii, Bugat limits Olgii sum at SE direction, so I just looped the ring.

Tsagaannuur is a more difficult topic. You can find in the Google Earth that Tsagaannuur is in the "bootle neck" of the dale coming from Russian Altai down to Tsagaannuur. Sum boundaries are surrounding this dale from N, NW, W, SW, S and SE. To the E from Tsagaannuur are lakes, then dale narrows and cuts the range. This range I've vectorized as Tsagaannuur boundary. Bogomolov.PL 06:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... We shouldn't speculate unless we really have to. And if we have to, then we should make it clear that we're not showing accurate data. I think that the star is enough if Ölgii is "only" a city/town. Leaving Tsagaannuur away as well would be wrong, though. Maybe you can make the guessed borderlines dashed there, and add a note that dashed lines are "not accurate", until we find a good source showing the real borders. Did you have similar problems with other aimags as well? --Latebird 18:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Dashed lines - OK, it's possible... Other aimags:

  • Dornod (Choibalsan city) we don't need dashed, city really divides Kherlen sum (there are maps).
  • Arkhangay - we know the area (in sq km) but not boundaries - so dashed line cutting northern 500 sq km of the Bulgan sum.
  • Bayankhongor aimag - the capital is small (64 sq km), so the area on the map shows its own territory presence (between Bayanovoo and Olziyt sums).
  • Bulgan aimag - Bulgan city is surrounded with sum boundary at E, SE, S, SW, and W. Boundary separating city from Bugat sum - with dashed line.
  • Darkhan-Uul aimag - Darkhan city territory we have area value and map sources, so normal boundary.
  • Khovd aimag - Khovd city territory value is known, map we have also.
  • Khovsgol aimag - Moron city is surrounded with Tunel sum boundary at NE, E, SE, S. Boundary separating city from Tunel sum has to be with dashed line.
  • Omnogovi aimag - Dalanzadgad city territory we have, line separating from Khankhongor sum has to be dashed.
  • Ovorkhangai aimag - Arvaikheer city territory boundary with dashed line (area value is unknown yet).
  • Selenge aimag - Sukhbaatar city area value we know, we have maps, so city limits with normal line.
  • Sukhbaatar aimag - Baruun-Urt city territory boundary with dashed line (area value is unknown yet).
  • Tov aimag - Zuunmod city area value we know, line separating from Sergelen sum has to be dashed.
  • Zavkhan aimag - Uliastai city territory boundary with dashed line (area value is unknown yet).

Bogomolov.PL 07:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Quite a research project, eh? --Latebird 08:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Натюрлихь! But it takes a lot of time... Now Selenge aimag is coming: 3 cities, 5 tosgons (the tosgon list is in official documents published at the aimag web site). Can we add tosgons to the cities table (Khentii aimag has only CITY table)? And call it "Cities and towns"? But Khötöl and Züünkharaa cities population is unknown (Mandal, Selenge sum has Züünkharaa city + Tünkhel tosgon + Kherkh tosgon, so 22,000 pohulation is summa of them. But Züünkharaa city is large (for Mongolia, you see) and Kherkh is its suburb... So Züünkharaa city population is close to 20,000. Kherkh population is unknown, but school in it has 731 pupils, so couple of thousands Kherkh has. Bogomolov.PL 11:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it what you like? Bogomolov.PL 17:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Sums of Arkhangai
Sums of Arkhangai
Yes, that's what I meant. Although I don't think that the legend needs a grey background. --Latebird 12:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Gray background was used to separate legend from map. The second reason - aimag star and sum quadrangle have white edges visible on the filled space only. Bogomolov.PL 08:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolia during Qing

Found this new page. Maybe you have seen its yourself and can make more sense of it.--Tikiwont 08:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Not seen before, thanks for the pointer. By principle, this seems to be valid and potentially interseting information. Maybe the author was inspired by my remark when I tried to salvage this information. Unfortunately, the "references" given are entirely unacceptable. Hopefully we can convince the author to dig up real sources, so it can stay, possibly under a different title. I really hope this isn't just a pretext to place a link to the authors own discussion board. --Latebird 15:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Frog


The frog, the frog--it has one mouth,
Two eyes and four legs;
It has jumped and jumped into a glass,
Who's gonna drink the frog in the glass?

Мэлхий, мэлхий нэг л амтай даа,
Хоёр нүдтэй, дөрвөн хөлтэй дөө,
Дэвхрэн, дэвхрэн жүнзэнд орлоо доо,
Жүнзтэй архийг хэн маань уух вэ хө.


This is the Mongolian text. :)
Gantuya eng 13:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! --Latebird 15:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stalinist purges in Mongolia

Hi!

Someone recently started an article on the subject. I always had wanted to, but was a bit intimidated by the complexity of the subject - three years time frame; soviet involvement, indigenous power struggles, comintern meddling(?); purges within the party, the army, and destruction of the buddhist church at the same time; the somewhat real threat from Japan; maybe the contemporary events around Tseveen Jamsrano, Elbegdorj Rinchino and others, etc etc. Also, I lack good (i.e. post-1990) sources. So, what do you think could be done to improve the article? And do you think the title is now correct? I already posted the same on Gantuya's talk page, because I think the topic is one of the most important events of Mongolia under socialism and deserves a better article than the current one. Yaan 18:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have any useful sources on the topic either. If I'm not mistaken, then the Book by Baabar would be a good reference, but that's far beyond my current language skills. --Latebird 22:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Baabar's books "Twentieth Century Mongolia" and "History of Mongolia" are available in English. Gantuya eng 05:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Isn't it actually one and the same book? My library does not have a copy, on amazon it sells for about 70 Euro. And I feel a bit reluctant to order an english-language copy from Mongolia (costs about 20,000 tögrög IIRC) as I already own the Mongolian version. Yaan 14:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Besides, I wasn't really too impressed when having a look into the english version. He just didn't seem to really examine the information he was reproducing - and the lack of page numbers in some of his citations make it difficult to check the info yourself, even if you happen to stumble upon the sources he used. C.R. Bawden's Modern History of Mongolia does a much better job in this regard - plus it is really written in a highly readable style. Unfortunately in 1968, he just wasn't able to get any reliable information.
There are some works by Tsedendambyn Batbayar that seem to be interesting. I guess there are also a number of papers out there, but unfortunately I seem to lack access to any of them. Yaan 15:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
OK. A modern historian Rinchen (don't remember his patronymic) has done a lot of research concerning the purges. He was active in 1990's. As I understand he is one of the leading researchers in this area. Perhaps he has written some papers. Gantuya eng 12:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Does he have a website? Even then, we would still have to find a way to access his works.Yaan 18:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't think he has one. He didn't publicly appeared in recent years. But he seemed to be doing serious work in 1990's. Gantuya eng 00:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongol Nation

Seems like an AfD candidate for me. Any opinions? Yaan 18:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Why? --Latebird 05:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mongol bichig in the Inner Mongolia article

Hi,

I think there is something wrong with the Mongol script in the Infobox at the IMAR article. I think I know what is wrong (see talk page of the article), and I also think I know what would be right (in unicode terms, Monggol would be 182E 1823 1829 182D 1824 (or 1823) 182F, and -un would be 1824 1828), but I don't know how to fix it. Can you help me out? Yaan 15:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

My system only shows a row of question marks there, so I probably won't be much help... --Latebird 16:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Is there no way to code it in Unicode?Yaan 16:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Probably, but my "expertise" in this field is largely theoretical. --Latebird 19:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I think I figured it out, with some workarounds. see the talk page of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaan (talk • contribs) 20:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] News

Hi, I discovered www.baabarpedia.mn just for your information. Virtually most of the spelling are ultra-modern (Өгөөдэй, etc.) there, so people like me would be confused searching things there. This phonetical spelling should lead Чингис to Чингэс, Хубилай to Хувилай, but they haven't yet metamorphosed to that level. Gantuya eng (talk) 05:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Uul,Nuur,Gol,Mörön,Khooloi,Davaa

Uul, Nuur, Gol, Mörön, Khooloi, Davaa, Khötöl, Bulag, Nuruu, Khöndii, Tal, Govi, Tolgoi, Zoo, Khongor, Ukhaa, Toirom, Els, Khavtsal, Sair, Khyar, Teeg, Zag, Shil, Dörölj, Mankhan, Khamar, Oroi, Rashaan, Chuluu

May be I've lost something. Have we add this words to toponymes? Have we create the rule to the Naming Convention? Or this rule exists? Have we create list of English toponymes different from Mongolian? And add this list to the naming convention? Have we create the vocabulary page for mongolian toponymes naming system?Bogomolov.PL (talk) 10:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem? Without checking systematically, those all look like correct transcriptions according to WP:MON. --Latebird (talk) 12:51, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
We have use in WP
  • Selenge Mörön River or Selenge River?
  • Orog Nuur Lake or Orog Lake?
  • Tsetsen Uul Mountain or Tsetsen Mountain?
  • Khongoryn Tal Steppe or Khongoryn Steppe?
If we will make any decision, has it be added to the naming conventions?
Do we need explain the toponymes system - what gol, tal etc. mean?

Bogomolov.PL (talk) 13:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, your examples are all a little silly. Why would you want to use pleonasms? As always, the most common name wins. In some cases that will be Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur, in others it will be Selenge River. There are some instances where a suboptimal choice has been made. This includes those where the Mongolian toponym requires the genitive case (eg. Egiin Gol, Ideriin Gol, etc.). But this is not really a question for my user talk page. The application of WP:MON is normally discussed on Wikipedia Talk:Naming conventions (Mongolian). --Latebird (talk) 14:55, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Stupid questions ("silly") are most difficult. I don't want pleonastic words, you say "most common" wins. There are hundreds of lakes, rivers, montains etc. - we have wait for most common form spontanic creation. It takes a time. Your opinion is if "-iin" suffix is present we use pleonastic gol, nuur etc. and this approach reduces freedom for "most common", isn't it? Or you think I need close this conversation? And move it to the Naming Convention page? Bogomolov.PL (talk) 15:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not the question that is silly, only the examples. "Selenge Mörön River" is a pleonasm, because "Mörön" and "River" mean the same thing. The genitive form is an entirely seperate problem from that. In the case of "Ideriin Gol", the river has a perfectly fine common English name "Ider" (which is what readers will search for), as is the case for many others. In contrast, the "Nuur" in "Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur" or "Khar Nuur" is necessary, because the name wouldn't make sense without. And yes, I think this discussion should be moved to a more public place. --Latebird (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
My Mongol maps have Идэр гол not Идэрийн гол. "Selenge Mörön River" is a pleonasm, this absurd example I used to show how preposterous is pleonasm. But Delgermörön river exists in WP."Khar Nuur" is not necessary, because the name will make sense with word "Lake" wich better explane sens then Mongolian Nuur. I've created some proposals at Naming Conventions discussion page.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How ban hooligan?

147.31.184.70 is typical hooligan! Bogomolov.PL (talk) 17:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Through the normal escalation path starting with warning tags on the user talk page etc. But it's usually not worth the effort with IPs, as most of them are dynamic anyway. It's two clicks to revert and then you can spend your time with more productive things again. --Latebird (talk) 17:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kaldan merged with Galdan Boshugtu Khan

Hi, Kaldan was merged with Galdan Boshugtu Khan, and I also attempted to merge its talk page according to the instruction. Gantuya eng (talk) 02:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Almost. If a talk page is redirected, then it should point to another talk page, not an article. I've done it correctly now. --Latebird (talk) 03:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I see, it was my mistake. Gantuya eng (talk) 10:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coverb

Hallo Latebird!

Ich könnte gut deine Hilfe im Artikel über "Coverb" gebrauchen, zu dem man auch mit dem Suchbegriff "Converb" verbunden wird. Koverben und Konverben sind leider etwas vollkommen Verschiedenes, wie auch auch der Diskussionsseite schon richtig festgestellt worden ist. Der Artikel ist momentan in lustiger (oder auch nicht so lustiger) Weise geteilt in einen einleitenden Text über Konverben, wo ich grad noch am Verändern bin, und einen Text über Koverben im Chinesischen, ohne dass es prinzipiell einen einleitenden Text zu Koverben an und für sich gibt. Da Koverben und serielle Verben sich sehr nahe stehen, meine Kenntnisse über serielle Verben aber sehr begrenzt sind, kann ich hierfür ohne Weiteres auch keinen Text schreiben. Mein Vorschlag wäre, den vorhandenen Artikel zu "Converb" umzubenennen, den Text über Koverben im Chinesischen hier zu löschen, eine leere Seite über Koverben aufzumachen und den Text über Koverben im Chinesischen auf der Diskussionsseite von "Coverb" interessierten Autoren zur Verfügung zu stellen. Was hältst du von der Idee, und hast du Zeit und Muße, sie umzusetzen? Blöd ist, dass der Artikel im Moment eines Cleanups wirklich zu bedürfen scheint.

Grüße G Purevdorj 03:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I've done the technical chore of splitting the article. Please check that I didn't botch up any linguistics on the way. --Latebird (talk) 13:33, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Vielen Dank! Ich hab die Einleitung für "Coverb" noch etwas geändert, da es sich ja nicht um Adpositionen handelt, sondern eben um deren Funktion, wie sie z.B. im Deutschen bestehen würde, und Bisang mit seiner Hervorhebung von serialisierenden Sprachen eine recht eng gefasste Definition des Terminus angestrebt zu haben scheint (aber in serialisierenden Sprachen muss es ja keine Koverben geben; andererseits krankt die weiter gefasste Definition an einer in manchen Ansätzen ungenügenden Abgrenzung zum "Leichtverb"). Ich bin kein Expert dafür, und zweifellos besteht da noch einiger Arbeitsbedarf, aber zumindest gibt es jetzt zwei richtige und auch von Ansatz her richtig eingeleitete Artikel. Schönen Dank nochmal. G Purevdorj 14:25, 28 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by G Purevdorj (talk • contribs)
Da habe ich zwar jetzt nur Bahnhof verstanden, aber das wird schon richtig sein so... ;) --Latebird (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monasteries in Mongolia

I also think the category Category:Monasteries in Mongolia is not needed. I thought it should be more specific, so I created Category:Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia - the idea being that it could then fit it into Category:Buddhist monasteries by country, which "Monasteries in Mongolia" will not do. (Mind meal (talk) 18:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Names

Hi! I saw that you have corrected the Mongolain names e.g. Khashbaataryn Tsagaanbaatar. Am I right that Khashbaataryn is the father's name and can I also call this name family name? Is the order for Mongolian names always at first father's (family) name and then first name? If so I would like to add a header to these pages to explain the name like this is done for Chinese and Korean names. Many thanks for your help and kind regards Doma-w (talk) 01:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Khashbaatar is the first name of Tsagaanbaatar's father (-yn is one of the possible genitive suffixes). This patronymic is not a family name, since both father and mother each have their own and different ones. Mongolian name explains some of it, and WP:MON defines when to use that standard form. I never felt a need to put a "disclaimer" into articles to specify this. But if you really think it is needed, then it would probably have to look similar to {{Malay name}}. --Latebird (talk) 06:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for your answer. Yes, I understand the rules as they are similar to e.g. Tamil names. I prefer to add a disclaimer because the order of the names differs to the order used in the Western world. This would explain to all users that the given name is not the "first name". Could the header look like this:
This is a Mongolian name; the name "Khashbaataryn" is a patronymic, not a family name, and the person should be referred to by his or her given name, "Tsagaanbaatar".
Please allow me also to ask what must be done here: Judo at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's 60 kg in the Main bracket there is listed only one name - the family name. Which one must be taken for Khashbaataryn Tsagaanbaatar? Thank you and kind regards Doma-w (talk) 12:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The header text looks ok like that, even if I still need to get used to having one...
Should we really call the genitive form (Khashbaataryn) the patronymic? From my experience, patronymics are nowadays often given as nominative (Khashbaatar), even in spoken language. And of course the nominative form is also the one that appears in passports. I think the genitive form definitely makes sense in the article name, because this way one can easily see that the name is indeed meant to be rendered according to Mongolian, not western standards, but on its own the genitive looks a bit strange. Or maybe I just need to get used to it. Yaan (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's a good idea to only use one name component in ranking tables, because that often isn't unique even with western names. I would at least add the initial of the other name. With Mongolian names, the given name is the one that always needs to be spelled out, because people are generally referred to that way. In the given example, using Tsagaanbaatar is correct. --Latebird (talk) 16:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for your quick answer. To add only one name is no problem, all the links are correct. We only use one name to save space and initials are shown where two persons of the same name compete in the same event.
I still think it would be good to explain the name with a disclaimer like this is done e.g. for Chinese, Korean, Malay, and Hungarian. This makes it really easier for those who are no familar with these names. Kind regards and :) Doma-w (talk) 18:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Are there any discussions about using it for those other languages that we could check for arguments? Yaan brings up a good point about the genitive form as well. Maybe a better place to continue this discussion would be Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Mongolian). If we end up recommending such a header, then the Naming convention page will be the place to specify the details anyway. --Latebird (talk) 19:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, this was only a personal question because I wanted to lern more about Mongolian names. I didn't want to start a discussion about the genitive form or about a disclaimer. I do not know if there were discussions about using a disclaimer for the other languages, I only know that they are very helpful. Kind regards and many thank again for all Doma-w (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, now that you created the template, we'll have to figure out the genitive question anyway. I've put it up for discussion here. --Latebird (talk) 05:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] copyright question

Hi, do you know what the copyright status of photographs taken in 1910s/1920s Mongolia would be? My sources give no copyright info, nor do they say who shot the pictures or where and when they were first published. I am also a bit at a loss which copyright laws apply in this case on english WP. Mongolian/American/(Republican) Chinese? Thanks a lot, Yaan (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

In Mongolia, photographs are in the public domain 25 years after creation. Summary here, more details here. I had actually planned to add this information to the Commons one day, but didn't get around to it yet... --Latebird (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, this sounds good enough. Yaan (talk) 19:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ongud

Hi Latebird. Regarding your question about Ongud, I have the spelling "Öngüt" in J.P. Roux. Best regards. PHG (talk) 18:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wind Horse

Just wanted to write and say that I like and appreciated your work today on the Wind Horse article. At some point I want to add a section on the Nyingma appropriation of the idea of wind horse for inner tantra - the breath work and channel work of tantric yogas - called tsa lung or sometimes just increasing lungta. But that will take some serious research to find non-secret references. I think the topic is quite interesting overall though, and I didn't realize it had such import in Mongolia. Great to read about that. - Owlmonkey (talk) 21:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, it was the suggestion to merge Wind Horse with Lungta (redirecting to Prayer flag) on your user page that motivated me to finally translate the German language article to English. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure if that redirect is correct, bacause Lungta is only one variety of flag. Should we have it redirect to Wind Horse instead? That's the actual meaning of the term, after all. --Latebird (talk) 05:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Well in some Nyingma traditions - as far as I can tell - Lungta is used more like Qi or life force energy and perhaps also a way to refer to different Dzogchen anu yoga practices. Then in English that concept renders also as wind horse. So perhaps that is more of an inner meaning than the prayer flag; like the result to one's inner state of being by using the flags: it captures life force. But I haven't done the research yet for such an involved expansion, still have more to read about. Ju Mipham in the 19th century though I think would be a good source, also some modern Tibetan Nyingma teachers translating his work or in his lineage. - Owlmonkey (talk) 08:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
The more I look at it, the more it becomes clear that the prayer flag is just a derived meaning of the term. I've now retargeted the two redirects "lungta" and "lung ta" to Wind Horse. Maybe it's a good idea to go through the articles that link to both targets individually, and check which one they really mean. --Latebird (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Do you think we should have the different meanings (inner energy and flag) on one article or split them into two different ones? I'm inclined to have one article and just have everything point to it. But that was just my first thought / and i haven't had time to work on it yet. On my to-do list though to do the research still. Thank you for the link fixes! Those are great. - Owlmonkey (talk) 02:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think the current split is just right. Mention the flag as a derived meaning of the term on Wind Horse, and flesh out all the details about it on Prayer flag. --Latebird (talk) 03:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Thanks again for all your efforts on this. - Owlmonkey (talk) 03:35, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Love all the edits you've made so far, by the way, to the Wind Horse article. It is soooo much better now: really looking good. I'll search for citations when I have time to bolster the tibetan buddhism side of things. Glad you have some of the historical and shamanic perspective. - Owlmonkey (talk) 02:35, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolia project

This discussion was originally held (mostly) on John Carters talk page.

Hi, would it really have been too much to ask the actual participants before turning our workgroup into a project? As matters are, we have no intention of maintaining a full blown project. Living as a workgroup and leaving the administrative overhead to the WikiProject Central Asia was the perfect match to our way of handling things. Since I've never seen you work on any Mongolia-related topics, I find your way of handling this rather disruptive. --Latebird (talk) 19:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Please note that I did edit at least one Mongolia-related page, that being the Mongolia project page, which I created. The page was renamed because as the person who has gone around creating the pages for most of the smaller national projects and overseas territories, it made most sense to try to differentiate the names between the projects for individual countries, which logically could be "WikiProjects", and the names of subnational entities, like, for instance, Madeira, which would get named "work group" so that they can indicate which titular "WikiProjects" they are subprojects of, generally the geographic and political "parents". I am in the process of setting up the Central Asia banner to allow for separate assessments for the five subprojects, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as for Afghanistan and Tajikistan, should those projects decide to use the Central Asia banner, which will allow for separate "statistics" pages for each project, as well as allow them to each rank a given article on the basis of their own importance ranking. Unfortunately, it took me a bit of time to get around to this banner, having done the Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, South America, Central America, Africa, Caribbean, and Western Asia banners first. With any luck however, the Central Asia banner should be set up for separate assessments by the end of tomorrow at the latest. There was no specific intention of trying to indicate that the Project would have to use separate templates, as I am in the process of adjusting the Central Asia banner as we speak for the five groups. It was just done to try to differentiate between sovreign states and dependencies. John Carter (talk) 19:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Doing any of this without talking to the people first who have to live and work with the result is clearly not acceptable. Please STOP IMMEDIATELY, as you are in blatant violation of Wikipedia spirit here. --Latebird (talk) 19:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Please Assume good faith, and believe that someone who has done this sort of thing in the past month or so for about 50 to 100 projects actually knows what he's doing. Most of the separate subprojects of WikiProject Africa, if you look it over, were also created by me, all the subprojects of WikiProject Caribbean barring I think three, Trust me, I am well aware of making it possible for each project to be able to keep track of its own articles, having created most of the existing national projects and being the person who is probably going to make sure that the relevant articles get tagged as soon as he's done with this banner and the Southeast Asia banner. The amount of work involved in creating separate assessments, and thus separate statistics pages, is actually quite small. All that is required is adding "(name of country)=yes" and "(name of country)-importance=(blank)" to the banner to get the separate assessments for each of the five national projects of that project which I created, as well as for Afghanistan and Tajikistan, should they choose to use the banner. Having said that, as you appear to have no intention of accepting that anyone has any right to do anything without your explicit prior approval, I can remove separate Mongolia related parameters from the banner, and will do so. Also, as a member of the various projects which I created, I will notify any projects which have had people join subsequently of the new banner, and invite discussion before replacement. John Carter (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I didn't question your good faith, but your methods. Just because you may have done the same 50 more times doesn't necessarily make it right. Remeber that not everyhody has the exact same goals as you do. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, and collaboration means to talk to each other before barging ahead. Just claiming "I know what I'm doing and you'll all have to follow me" does not fit in there. This is not about me personally disagreeing, I'm only one person. But you're imposing a rather drastical change on the way people work, and as far as I can see none of the several dozen active editors in the WikiProject Central Asia have been consulted beforehand. Please join the discussion there and listen to what people have to say. --Latebird (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I will. Actually, creating the project in the first place was a change in the ways things were done as well, but you didn't seem to mind that. :) However, you clearly misrepresented your own comments above. And the change will actually probably be done by bot anyway. However, as you have misrepresented your own statements above, I will stand by mine. The banner will not be set up for separate Mongolia assessment, as you stated that you wanted work on that point stopped immediately. John Carter (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
John Carter decided to delete all of the above (including a MfD nominaion notice) from his talk page, with an editor note saying "removing comments from editor clearly unfamiliar with WP:CIVILITY" and following up with the friendly note below. I'm copying it over here as documentation. --Latebird (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New discussion

I saw no purpose in keeping your clearly arrogant and rather obnoxious comments on my talk page, so I have deleted them. Regarding the articles subpage, it is generally my habit of filling that out as I go through the various articles to assess them. However, given your reception, which seemed to violate more than a few rules and guidelines of wikipedia itself, not that that would ever occur to you, of course, rest assured, upon completion of the articles list, I don't think I will necessarily have anything to do with the area of Mongolia in any way, shape, or form, including looking over any articles for inclusion in a release version, if only to avoid you and your own presumptuous, arrogant, and rather uncivil self. You should also have noted that at least one of the projects you proposed for deletion had received another member beyond myself before nominating it for deletion as well, if you had bothered to pay attention to such details. But, given your refusal to pay attention to any of the comments I had made earlier, and the note below about your terrorizing another wiki with clearly inappropriate demands of copyright violations on material which is freely available, I guess it's no real surprise that you didn't. :) John Carter (talk) 18:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes indeed, asking that an uploader put the Mongolian version of the {{PD-USGov}} tag on NASA images is truly outrageous. I must be the most clueless Wikipedia editor ever for even thinking of such a thing! --Latebird (talk) 07:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stop terrorizing Mongolian wiki

You knew that everybody can use NASA images openly in Wikipedia but you intentionally put copyright violation sign in Mongolian wiki. Stop your racist terrorist actions in Mongolian wiki. Plus most images in german or french or russian language Wiki's have very different copyright format than english therefore our Mongolian format cannot be written only your preferred format unless you are something racist westerner. Orgio —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.18.223 (talk) 19:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid, I'm unable to grasp every nuance of this pleasant genteleman's ideas. Other than, of course, that he strongly objects to an "evil foreigner" trying to enforce copyright and associated WP policies on mnwiki. --Latebird (talk) 06:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolian work group

Now that I have spelled it out, I actually like the idea of a more pan-Mongolian work group. Not for POV-pushing, but because there may be a number of similarities, and those topics that are not similar may still be enlightning. Given that much of Mongol history, at least between 1368 and 1636, actually happened in Inner Mongolia, I think focusing too much on Outer Mongolia may be not the perfect path. Maybe Wikipedia can have both a Project on Mongolia and a Mongolian work group, with the latter being attached to Wikiproject Central Asia (as long as it doesn't get deleted, anyway) ?

Btw. there is also a picture of Zorig's statue at Image:Zorig memorial.jpg. The colours and the point of view are not as cool as one the picture currently shown on mn wiki, though. Yaan (talk) 15:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

My goal in activating the Mongolia work group was to focus discussion, not to split it again. Actually, you just came up with another good reason to revert it back to a work group. As a seperate "country project", it will be reduced to dealing with the country alone. As a workgroup within the Central Asia project, it will be more flexible. That could even be reflected in the name as you suggest, by calling it "Mongolian" instead of "Mongolia". Having both next to each other would be very confusing, though.
Thanks for the picture pointer. I'd forgotten about that one. --Latebird (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the above statement is almost entirely incorrect, which honestly doesn't surprise me from this editor. The scope of any group, project or otherwise, is explicitly determined by its own stated scope. Generally, this is done by saying something to the effect of "we shall deal with articles in "Category X". If anything, a "WikiProject" has a broader potential range, because by making it clearly a subproject of another project, it is effectively limited to the scope of that parent project. So, if, for instance, American Mongolians are not included in the scope of the Central Asia project, then they can't really be said to be in the scope of a subproject of that project. But, as stated above, this editor has stated earlier that his reason for wanting the group to be a subproject was to avoid creating templates, which is basically irrelevant to the naming issues. So, in effect, regrettably, I think his at best ill-informed opinions on any matter relating to Projects should be given only the weight such ill-informed opinions deserve. John Carter (talk) 19:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
You seem to miss the point. The problem is that for example Ejin Horo Banner could hardly be covered by Mongolian country-specific project, though it definitely relates to Mongolian history. Yaan (talk) 19:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it could. It depends on how the scope of the project is defined. If the Mongolia project/group explicitly included in its scope content related to Inner Mongolia, and all the categories in the Category:Inner Mongolia, which could easily be done by placing that category in the Category:History of Mongolia or another category, it could be handled by the "national" project as a part of its "national" history. In fact, several different national/regional projects already deal with several articles which lie outside of their existing boundaries, because of the location of previous boundaries, so it is, basically, a non-issue if the scope of the project were to explicitly include Inner Mongolia as a part of greater "Mongolia". John Carter (talk) 20:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, theoretically it could. But placing a "Mongolia" banner (or even one with the Mongolian flag) into discussions on places in Inner Mongolia is rather likely to open a can of worms. Central Asia is a term that comes without any claims and counter-claims of souvereignity, so it is much less likely to offend all those patriots on either side. Yaan (talk) 10:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

@Yaan, the scope of the work group should really be discussed there, and not on my user page, so let's not continue this here.

@John, didn't you promise to avoid me and all matters relating to Mongolia? Why are you still here, continuing to misrepresent what I wrote and how I meant it? --Latebird (talk) 13:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I was responding to a question about projects in general. Trust me, however, any editor who can get in such an irrational snit and break WP:DE, among other policies, as you have repeatedly demonstrated your ability to do, is something I personally cannot imagine a use for. However, given your, dare I say, repeated violation of probably several policies, that doesn't mean that I think you don't bear watching. John Carter (talk) 15:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
So that gave you an opportunity to throw in a few more thinly veiled insults and unsubstantiated policy violation accusations. Now go with god, but go. --Latebird (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tuva Workgroup

As a past contributor to a Tuva-related article, I was wondering if you would be interested in forming a Tuva workgroup of Wikipedia:WikiProject Central Asia with me? If enough people show interest, I'll go ahead and create the workgroup. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 18:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

My primary interest in Tuva is in how it relates to Mongolia. So I might put such a workgroup on my watchlist, once it exists, but it might be more realistic not to count me to the active participants. --Latebird (talk) 19:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please do not make unilateral decisions without consensus

I notice that apparently you are responsible for the possible deletion of Central Asia Workgroup Project: WikiProject Central Asia#Possible Deletion of this project. Further, you are misunderstanding the cluster of areas involved Ubsunur Hollow Biosphere Reserve, Uvs Nuur Basin etc. Please desist from further unilateral changes. Please understand that the lake is a subset of the basin i.e. the basin is the larger factor, being a watershed for the surrounding mountains. The lake varies in size depending on how much water flows from the watershed and into the basin to form a lake. Further, please read the instructions about disambiguation pages on Wikipedia:Disambiguation. If a link in on a disambig page, that means an article is needed. Therefore, the redlinks on the disambig page you created are going to need articles. I tried to fix some of the mistakes on it. Regards, Mattisse 02:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Please do not make assumptions without checking what actually happened. In the workgroup case, it was the other person who acted unilaterally. I asked them to cooperate with the involved people, and the threat of "possibly" submitting that project for deletion was an overreaction by them, which they then successfully weaseled out of again ("I was only asking"). If you want to make me responsible for the irrational behaviour of other people, fell free to do so, but please don't expect anyone to buy into it.
In the other matter, I will freely admit that I'm confused about the difference between a basin and a hollow, and several other issues. I actually intended to ask a few questions about that today or tomorrow. You seem to have missed that I'm already participating in the discussion on Talk:Uvs Nuur, so accusing me of unilateral actions is baseless in this case as well. To be honest, I still don't quite understand why our conversation on your talk page produced increasingly hostile reactions from you, getting more severe after each time that I stated agreement with your opinion that it makes sense to split the topics again that had previously been merged into Uvs Nuur.
And what exactly makes you think it was me who created or even touched Uvs Nuur (disambiguation)? Would you mind checking your facts before throwing around random accusations?
The details about which geographical entities are a "subset" of which other ones should be discussed on the respective article talk pages, not here. --Latebird (talk) 05:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
In the mean time, Mattisse was so nice as to apologize for operating under incorrect assumptions. Some other people could learn from that kind of grandeur! --Latebird (talk) 17:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Factual errors, or at least lack of any effort to find information, on your part

You seem to be determined to continue an argument which is in large part both irrational and completely ill-informed, and basically resolved to the apparent satisfaction of seemingly everybody but yourself. Since you seemingly have little or any information regarding the subject, and have also, so far as I can tell, shown no interest in even trying to find anything out about them, I will give you some relevant information.

  • The projects in question were all created as subprojects of existing regional projects, using that existing regional projects banner. They were either for independent nations, which generally can be seen as being important enough to merit such focus, or for overseas territories of nations. The latter received such attention, basically, as a way of consolidating banners. The assessment for the overseas territories can be made to include assessment information for the parent country as well, thus in effect reducing the need for two banners. This is a rational response to the proliferation of banners. They were and are often independent projects in name only. And there is sufficient precedent to say that projects which are of value to the encyclopedia, whether they have a great deal of prior interest, could qualify for creation on that basis itself.
  • Also, your indication that projects have to be created with prior consultation shows almost a total lack of information on the subject, which, given your earlier behavior, is hardly surprising. Many/most of the projects which are created are created by anybody are created with little consultation from anybody. In fact, indicating that specifically you, as you are seemingly only interested in the little territory with which you deal, have to be notified places you as fairly clearly indicating that you own that content, and as you know, indicating such things is a violation of policy. You need only look at the User:John Carter/Alphabetical listing of WikiProjects to see just how many I am constantly finding have been created without anyone's knowledge or awareness. Also, by creating them with existing banners, it reduces the amount of banner clutter on many talk pages, which is a real and existing concern.
  • You also display a rather pronounced ignorance of most if not all of the rest of the encyclopedia. In fact, the majority of the projects created deal with Africa. There was pronounced opposition to even initially creating the first Africa project, because several people said that they would only accept separate projects for each individual country. So, in effect, a compromise was reached. Single independent project pages for each country, all using a larger banner, in effect separate WikiProjects in name only. Most were given that name only because of the probability that, in time, someone will create a subproject, often with even less consultation, and this would allow that subproject to "merge" into a parent. You would probably see that most of those projects you objected to have in fact already gained additional members. Perhaps it might be the actions and behavior of, well, certain individuals who will go nameless, which serve as a detriment to other projects getting less interest than they have. Certainly, that has been found to be the case before with other projects.
  • You said you hope that you aren't alone in opposing bold action on the part of others. In fact, what it seems to me you actually are doing is, basically, whining that someone else had the initiative to do something you didn't, and then further whining because you mistakenly thought something which was not attended to was out of neglect, again, without bothering to check on that yourself (evidently, however, only other people have to consult with you, not the other way around), and then having the gall to nominate for deletion several pages which would be useful on the basis of your own self-admitted irrational, ill-informed, and, if I may be so bold, incompetent opinions. I hope you can understand that that sort of action can be and generally will be opposed here. In short, your continuing to basically beat a dead horse seems to me to be motivated almost exclusively by your own prior opinions, which were and are clearly ill-informed, probably willfully so, and irrational. I very sincerely doubt that your continuing to basically whine about something because you don't like it is going to meet much support anywhere. For what it's worth, I had intended to leave that part of the world in the hands of those who had previously expressed interest in it, as I had indicated above. In any event, it would help the editors interested in that subject to find out how many articles, and often how many duplicate articles, exist in their subject area. All that would be required would be to make a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests for automatic tagging of all articles in preselected relevant categories for any subproject which has separate assessments to be able to keep track of just how many articles they have in their scope and the relative quality of those articles.
  • I am currently, as at least indicated above, creating an update of the Project Directory, which will include all the projects which exist, including the national and subnational projects recently created, thus, in effect, ensuring that they won't be duplicated. I sincerely hope that you stop to think that, regardless of your own opinions, perhaps your own prior and current actions may, in fact, be the ones which are least productive to the development of the encyclopedia. Good day. John Carter (talk) 17:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


So you've gone to all that great length, filling two full pages of my user talk page, breaking your promise not to return here again, and all you can muster are strawman arguments? The large majority of the stuff that you purportedly "refute" in the above has little to do with anything I ever thought or said. You're fighting your own imagination here, disproving statements that you only assume I could possibly have made. And then you go on to throw personal insults at me based merely on your own assumptions. I thought you were smarter than that... --Latebird (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I made no such promise, just a statement. You have once again mischaracterized the statements of others to suit your own purposes, which is hardly surprising, I regret to say, given your history. You also write off the rational bases for actions of others, as a "Straw man", without bothering to check on the evidence presented, once again indicating that your emotions, and not any rationsl discussion, is all that motivates you in this matter. I regret to say that my own assessment of your intelligence, which was never particularly high, is dropping dramatically every time you continue to continue beating a dead horse, which this discussion started by you on the basis of your own irrational, ill-informed emotional responses, almost certainly qualifies as. John Carter (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
More personal attacks. How pleasant. --Latebird (talk) 17:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Almost as pleasant as your willful misstatements of fact, many of which could also be seen as being personal attacks. If you could ever deign to become less unpleasant than you have already demonstrated yourself to be, you might not have quite as many problems. John Carter (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I don't currently have any real problems, but thanks for your concern. --Latebird (talk) 19:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Uvs Nuur Issue

Hi -- I'm trying to get a handle on what's happening over there. Would you be willing to not edit that article for an hour and a half to an hour while I try to read and wrap my mind around what's happened and what the essence of the dispute is? I'll let you know when I've at least read up to what's there now. Let me know if you have concerns. Aelfthrytha (talk) 22:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. I tried and I already have a headache. Will ask for Russian speaking admins to check it out. Aelfthrytha (talk) 22:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I haven't actually edited much around there. My focus was on trying to get any meaningful discussions going on the open questions. But for some details, I also need to rely on Russian speaking editors. In any case, thanks for checking by. --Latebird (talk) 05:16, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Warning advice

Please do not make legal threats as you seemed to approach doing here [1] . If anything is construed as a legal threat, it is usually severely frowned upon on Wikipedia, and often results in a block. As regards to who is right or wrong in the content dispute, I don't know anything about it, but I know this is wording which you would be better to avoid. Merkinsmum 20:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that policy and I'm confident that I haven't even come close to threatening anyone with that remark. There's a fundamental difference between informing someone that what they are doing comes close to libel, or saying "I'll sue you!". I'm also not involved in any content dispute over there that I'm aware of. I just find myself in need of defending myself against entirely baseless accusations. What other choice do I have than to make my position as clear as possible? --Latebird (talk) 20:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Calling it libel sort of is a threat, but more so when you said 'face the consequences'- although I think you were talking about the consequences on wikipedia when you said that. It is a content dispute (which isn't to say anything bad about you- we all have them on wiki) in that you are engaged in a discussion about whether certain pages/things need to be on wiki or just be redirects- i.e. whether they are the same thing or not. I don't know what you personally have done to the article itself- rather than on the talk page- as I realise there's been some claims that you've done something when you haven't. That's happened to me on wiki in the past and it can be very hurtful. The possible aggro conduct on either side is a different matter, and I notice another editor agreeing with your position on Mattisse's talk page. Any problems such as this with any editor in future, you can always report to WP:ANI if you have spoken to the editor concerned and not got a result you are happy with- there admins will consider if they need to intervene. But I don't think you need do that unless it happens again- at the moment, admins will see that Mattisse has said she'll stop editing those pages, so say that they don't need to do anything. Hope this helps so you at least have somewhere you can ask in future. You can always still try asking there now if you feel the need. :) Merkinsmum 22:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
My warning was very explicit in stating that I had consequences within WP in mind. Mentioning that her behaviour was unacceptable in real-world terms as well, doesn't change that.
Wrt. "content dispute", I think that you got confused by her false allegations. In reality, I hold almost none of the opinions that she attributes to me. In fact, her hostility started shortly after I first stated agreement with her that splitting topics again might be a good idea. Go figure?
I don't mind her editing in the area at all, as I welcome all productive editors, as long as they are willing and able to cooperate with other people. But if she continues with her recent conduct, then I'll have no choice but to call in admin support. Preparing for that was the main purpose of that warning.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by with some advice. It's not the first time that I'm confronted with agressive editors, but usually it was just the POV pushers, which were handled promptly when reported. A case like this, almost entirely grown out of someone's imagination, is new to me as well... --Latebird (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Usually the person concerned quickly apologises, or removes their comments. Merkinsmum 23:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Continuing grudges

You indicated earlier that your own out of process requested of deletion of the new projects was because you were "pissed off". You have since then attempted to continue to beat the subject to death, even after it was pointed out to you that your own objections as you expressed them were at best not even remotely relevant to the issue. And yet you seek to continue to show yourself unwilling, possibly unable, to assume good faith, and even chose to directly avoid responding to the points I had made. I am once again forced to question, as per your earlier out of process MfD proposal, whether you are at least at times incapable of rational conduct. I have asked you again what specific purpose you sought to accomplish by your post on the AI/N page. Please be so kind as to indicate what sort of action, if any, you want taken, and on what basis. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of an ANI report is to bring a situation to the attention of administrators. Does that really need a specific explanation? And the idea that out of more than a thousand at least theoretically available admins, the single one who recently was involved in a conflict with me and has openly declared to hold a low opinion of me might not be best suited to assist me has nothing to do with assuming bad faith or holding grudges. It's just plain common sense. --Latebird (talk) 05:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Email

Check yours. Just some advice. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for your fairness

Hi Latebird, thanks for your understanding. As I complained in History_of_Xinjiang discussion page, the article is extremely biased. It seems that original article tolerates history with no citations and wishful thinkings but denies historical facts with references.—Preceding unsigned comment added by FACT NEEDED (talk • contribs) 12:19, 1 September 2007

[edit] Comment about History of Xinjiang

Hi Latebird. I'm just responding to the comments you left for me on the Talk:History of Xinjiang. In quick summary you touched on, adding new content is not considered sweeping changes, that grammar is never an relevent excuse to remove material, that I left no content comments of my own, and that I bite the newbie.

I always remind people to assume good faith and I sincerely hope you don't take this the wrong way. I feel you made some fairly hasty judgements with out an understanding of the whole situation. As a result you made some comments that were almost scolding, yet the same could be said about your same comments.

I made no comments about the content matter, its grammar, and spelling, nor did I revert any changes on those grounds so please do not say I did. I did make a comment much like you where I said the disputed work should be cited and properly discussed. My presence on the article was not to be another contributing 'writer' but to address the edit war itself as it was flagged and nearing WP:3RR. Your paraphrase of, "I don't like that" had nothing to do with my comments on the page and quite frankly I see no constructive criticism in that remark and a lot of sarcasm which in my experience does not benefit an argument in any way.

I will admit I bite User:FACT NEEDED and probably should not have given him my 'personal biography' but you will see that over a couple hours we were able to come to a working understanding. I over-reacted because he reported me to an administrator as well as called me a vandal not only on my talk page, but other editor's talk pages and over a few other article talk pages. He also deleted comments and tags I left to encourage the other editors to stop reverting each other's changes and go to the discussion page or sandbox I had set up.

However, over the next couple of hours we all came to a working understanding. As you can imagine over that time length and all getting fairly 'hot headed' a lot was said and done and it seems like our argeements were not long lasting, but they were agreements and it's easy to judge from a far, but please do not be so quick to criticize, label people, and state their intensions as in this case I believe you were wrong. Not just about me but also with User:FACT NEEDED and the others. Looking forward to talking about this more with you. Mkdwtalk 21:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It's quite interesting, how often simply describing straightforward observations of behaviour results in a "please assume good faith". It may well be that my observations were incomplete or mistaken, but I don't remember making any assumptions beyond that. Don't worry, In those rare cases where I happen to really assume bad faith, I'll say so in unmistakeable terms.
I made no comments about the content matter, its grammar, and spelling, nor did I revert any changes on those grounds so please do not say I did - Two paragraphs further up you were paraphrasing me correctly about this. In fact, I referred to "I don't like it" specifically because content was removed without ever (on the article talk page) offering any content-related arguments. So you're complaining about the exact opposite of what I really said here.
I arrived at that debate following your request for comments. I found an editor objecting to content without any discernible arguments other than it was new, demanding that approval was required first. Relevant additions to the article were summarily reverted even after being sourced. It's possible that there are more debates elsewhere, but the article talk page gives no indication of that. Now you're telling me that a common understanding has been reached. Unfortunately, the article talk page still shows nothing of that, and also no pointer about where it might have happened. Since I didn't really intend to get further involved in the dispute than by offering some comments, I'll just have to take your word for the positive result. I also see that more editors are contributing to the article, so I'll not worry about it any further. --Latebird (talk) 06:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Tömörtiin Ovoo Zinc Mine

Thank you, Latebird, for your help! Bogomolov.PL (talk) 06:50, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilawyering

Another editor created a useful article with valid information in 2003, several years before you even registered to Wikipedia. And just because you don't like the page title he chose back then you post a "vandalism warning" to his user talkpage today? May I point you to WP:AGF, WP:POINT, and WP:GAME? --Latebird (talk) 05:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The above entry on Appletree's user talk page triggered the following response here. Since he chose to censor the critical remarks there, I'm copying them over here for documentation. --Latebird (talk) 12:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Title of article is very important because with it people can access article and get information that people need. But how can people reach it with the wrong name? Your claim that "I don't like' is just absurd. I searched the article and couldn't find any because not only the title was named with her Japanese name during Japanese occupation but also her original name was spelled wrong. The other editors also couldn't find the article until today. I know the editor who created the article and your preach is not suitable based on ongoing situations and his "vandalism" on Korean related articles. If you don't know anything about him or 2channel stuff, your WP:Wikilawyering sounds just beyond WP:AGF, WP:POINT. The editor is very lucky not to get any warning because people can't access the article with the name! People don't easily get changed and the warning sign is very suitable because he should know that his past wrongdoing can be judged and discussed as long as he sticks in Wikipedia. --Appletrees (talk) 11:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You post "vandalism warnings" to someone for things that happened five years ago and obviously weren't vandalism. And if I point out that this doesn't make sense, I'm "wikilawyering"? Great logic! And no, it doesn't suddenly start to make sense just because of some other unrelated disagreements you also might have with him. --Latebird (talk) 12:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Obviously vandalism in my point of view, so we're in disagreement. That is so called a matter of WP:Point. You suddenly busted into my page with the comment what did you expect? Welcoming? Sadly, the editor has kept the same attitude for 5 years, so he should be mindful of that everyone can see him. --Appletrees (talk) 12:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Throwing around ridiculous accusations hurts your credibility, not his. --Latebird (talk) 12:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
You surely are throwing "ridiculous personal attack" to me, so you better worry about your own credibility first. --Appletrees (talk) 12:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Diff please? Where did I attack you personally? --Latebird (talk) 00:33, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] gamma

Hi,

does this look good on your computer: Ulaγan/Ulaγan? On mine (currently Apple) it does, but I would like to know what it looks like on others before replacing all those latin gammas. Regards, Yaan (talk) 16:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there any good reason to use a greek character in otherwise latin words? Whether it looks good or not on a particular computer depends on the correctness of the installed fonts, and is largely irrelevant for Wikipedia's purposes. --Latebird (talk) 18:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a letter commonly used in transcriptions of classical Mongolian. I noticed the latin gamma looked rather crappy when I use windows+firefox, but OK when I use windows+ie (but not quite like the gamma used offline), so I thought the greek gamma with serifs would be closer to the real world, and look better. Yaan (talk) 18:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bogd Khan Uul/ Tavan Bogd Uul

Hi, I think you may have been confusing things here. But I don't really feel sure enough to change it myself. Regards, Yaan (talk) 15:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Ooops, yes. Thanks for the heads up! --Latebird (talk) 19:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] khairkhan

I actually looked this up a while ago (after becoming suspicious of my initial translation) and according to Vietze "khairkhan" is a more honorary designations for mountains. I know it was my mistake in the first place, but I hope I have fixed most instances of this mistranslation now. Just so you know. Regards, Yaan (talk) 15:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] dörbelǰin üsüg

Hi,

The reason I used this form is because, according to van der Kuijp, writing in Daniels & Bright, this is what the Mongols called the script at the time. I don't know if there's still a word for it today. kwami (talk) 18:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course there still is a word for it today. Why don't you check the interwiki link on that page to the Mongolian Wikipedia? Not surprisingly, they have an article about it too, and I fully trust the editors there to know the correct name in their language. --Latebird (talk) 18:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning Jack Weatherford's "Genghis Khan and the Making of the modern World"

Hello,

I have complemented the article by listing a number of errors and msirepresentations in Weatherford's book. I trust you will respect them.

Ojevindlang (talk) 19:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mongolia task force

Hi Latebird I know you believe the task force is best as a branch of WikiProject Central Asia. I agree with you as until there enough people to sustain a full project and actively work at it this is best. However I strongly think you should open up to the suggestion that the Mongolian articles undergo assessment as part of WP:Central Asia. E.g {WikiProject Central Asia|Mongolia=yes|class-stub|importance=low|Mongolia-importance-mid}. This way we have an infrastructure in place on Mongolian articles and can monitor article progression but not have to even consider moving the Mongolia task force to a full project. Mongolia is one of the few countries on here which hasn't any form of individual assessment and I think it would be a major improvement to do it this way. Please let me know, thanks ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 11:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The primary objection from me and other people back then was against installing such stuff without talking to tbe affected editors first. I have no fundamental problem with some extra assessment machinery, if (and that's a big IF) there are enough editors who are active in the area and willing to actually use it. In fact, adding the necessary code to the banner template is a relatively trivial matter that I could easily do myself if necessary. --Latebird (talk) 22:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you do that? Its just I really think it is important that we take care of the articles, and assessing each Mongolian article individually. Please let me know when you have done it and the project members can be notified to help with tagging. Also I have begun adding maps to some of the articles. I'll try to get hold of a nicer looking map for Mongolia if possible though ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 10:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

And who will do the assessments? Has anyone besides you expressed interest in doing this? Besides, wouldn't it be good to discuss this in the work group first? That's what it's there fore after all... --Latebird (talk) 06:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recatting Mongolia

This discussion follows up on a question originally raised here.

Perhaps it didn't come up at CFD, but I fear I'm still a novice with AWB and haven't figured out how to customize edit messages, and that one looked as good as any.

For the rest, I'm going to quote something that User:Blofeld of SPECTRE left on User:Ezeu's talk page last month, because he's more familiar with it all than I am:

The CFD discussion was back in 2005 when categories such as Category:Cities, towns and villages in Cyprus were created -see the edit history with the statement it was created after CFD discussion. Gradually the categories have undergone change as article content has developed. Things will only get better in regards to this trust me ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 20:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Beyond that, I don't know, honestly. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 13:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Another thought, by the by - shall I mark the talk pages with a Project CentralAsia template? If you think it'd be good I'll try and do it tonight. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 19:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
You should not rely just on remarks left by one individual on another individual's talk page in such matters, but verify the original discussions yourself. There was indeed a Cyprus specific discussion, but it only applies to that country. Obviously, Cyprus does have villages (as a legal category seperate from cities and towns), as probably all European countries do. However, extending such a finding to Mongolia without checking is quite a stretch, and most likely wrong. To find a better solution, you might want to bring up the question in the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Central Asia/Mongolia work group. --Latebird (talk) 12:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
PS: As I just see, someone else has already raised the question in the work group. --Latebird (talk) 12:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Mmm its a little difficult to see on the new one. How about the one on the right? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 21:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No need to bring that up here, as I systematically follow Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Central Asia/Mongolia work group anyway. --Latebird (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Genghis Kahn article

Hello. You wrote "that's just one movie out of many, let's not start listing them all here". I took note of the fact that, without discussion, you removed the Popular Media section in the Genghis Khan article. Pity. "Mongols" is part of a film trilogy dedicated to his life. And what you said about films could be true about reference books. Cheers. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

If you don't understand the difference between reference works listed because of their historical accuracy and fictional works listed for their popularity, then I can't really help you. You'll just have to accept that under Wikpedia policy they're not treated the same. --Latebird (talk) 05:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I do understand the difference. Point was taken. Thanks and Cheers. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 16:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Köse Dağ

Latebird, this is a friendly notice to inform you of a discussion I have begun at Talk:Battle_of_Köse Dağ#Lev_Gumilev. Your significant contributions in the area of Mongolian history suggested to me that you might be able to contribute. Regards, Aramgar (talk) 16:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I appreciate your efforts in establishing good sense and order in Wikipedia's articles on Central Asia. Regards, Aramgar (talk) 03:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)