User talk:Vmenkov

Archive
1 2 3 4 5 6

Could you give me the Dungan translation for these words:

Christianity

China

Jesus

Bible

Twenty

Century

True

America

--Jose77 (talk) 03:06, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jose, this is a more realistic request for me than attempting to translate a paragraph into a language that I don't know. This is what my dictionary (ed. Yu. Yanshansin, 1968, Bishkek) would have (with Russian or Chinese equivalent, added by me, when obvious):

Christianity = җидўҗё

China = Җунгуй (中国)

Jesus = Эрса

Bible= Инҗил

Twenty - эршы (二十)

Century - шыҗи (but 世 is шы, so 世纪 probably would be шыҗи)

True = ?; but they have

• шыди = truth; real (实的 ?)
• шызэ = truly, in reality (实在)
• шыян = true words, truth (实言)
• шыхуа = truth, true words (实话)

America - Америка (Russian loanword)

As you might imagine, a small Soviet dictionary like this would not be heavy of Christian terminology, so I don't have an idea if, for example, when Dungan people decide to talk about Christianity they would use a word like 基督教 [Jidujiao] (which could be transcribed җидўҗё, in the regular way), or one more like the Russian or Arabic/Persian name for the same concept (maybe equipped with a Chinise suffix, such as 教 "җё"). Similarly, I would have no idea if Jesus would be 基督 (Җидў), or a word like Rusisan "Иисус" or Arabic Isa is used; whether the "Bible" would be 圣经 (шынҗин), or "Библия" (from Russian), or some Arabic/Persian loanword is used; whether the word 教派 (җёпэ) exists in Dungan, etc, etc.

You may be interested to know that there actually were people who set themselves the task of translating the Gospel into Dungan: http://www.ibt.org.ru/english/info/info_news_en06.htm ; http://www.orthodox.cn/news/20061115dungan_en.htm . There is a photo of the book cover there. And guess what is the word chosen to mean "Gospel"? It's "Инҗил", which of course is not Mandarin at all, but Arabic Injil! So I would say that if you are really serious about rendering your Church's message into that language, you may want to contact IBT and get yourself a copy of the Gospels in Dungan - that would give you all vocabulary you need.

In practice, though, my impression is that that Russian is very widely known in Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan by people of all ethnic groups. Regardless of one's ethnicity, pretty much all Internet users in those countries are likely to have a good command of Russian. Nonetheless, I appreciate your desire to express your message in other languages, and I am sorry that I don't happen to know them.

I agree. Perhaps the word for "Jesus" could be "Isa" as mentioned in the Koran but this needs to be confirmed. --Jose77 (talk) 09:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC) The Dungan word for "Jesus" is "Эрса". --Jose77 (talk) 04:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a bonus, a few words that were attested in the dictionary:

• җин = a holy book, a religious book (经)
• җин = an evil spirit, a daemon (憬)
• пушы = (entire) world (普世)
• пушыди = world wide ( (普世的)
• пушы-тянщя = everywhere in the world (普世天下)
• тян = sky, heaven (天)
• тяншон = in the sky ("in the heaven"?) (天上)
• тянтон = Paradise (天堂 ?)
• тянщя = universe (天下)
• тянщян = angel (天仙 ?)
• Шэтани = shaitan, satan (from Arabic)
• шыщин-шыйи = sincerely, honestly (实心实意)
• шызы = cross (十字)
• шыдэ = era (时代)
• шын = spirit, deity (神? 圣? )
• шын ды гуй = [the good] spirit and the devil (神...鬼)
• шы, шыҗе = world (世, 世界)
• шынпэзы = [a Christian] icon (圣牌子)
• шысы = fact (事实)
• шыфын-шийи = in reality (十分实意 (?))
• шышон, шыҗёшон = in the world (世上, 世界上)

Regards, Vmenkov (talk) 04:46, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou very very much for your Excellent help Mr. Vmenkov.

I am currently in the process of compiling a Chinese pinyin to Dungan vocabulary list.

Would you also be able to kindly help me transliterate the "real" Dungan text here into the Dungan cyrillic alphabet? Because it is currently in latinized form.

Thankyou very much.--Jose77 (talk) 07:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Ah, the schoolbook exaxmples quoted in Victor Mair's article! I'll try to do it some time, but not right away. Vmenkov (talk) 08:00, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the meantime do you know the Dungan equivalents for these words:

• Pray 祷告
• Year年
• Feet/foot 脚
• Spirit灵
• Wash洗
• Rest/sabbath 安息/安息日
• Save/salvation救
• Receive 得到
• Judgement 审判
• Last最后
• Sing Song 唱歌
• Dance 跳舞
• Cure 医治
• Illness 病
• True 真
• cast out (the devil) 赶
• interpretation 解释
• ten thousand 万
• luck 福
• sound 声音
• Nation 民族
• meeting 开会
• worship 拜
• mistake 错误
• Spread 传
• Enter 进入
• Welcome 欢迎

--Jose77 (talk) 08:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if I have caused any inconveniencies to you due to my regular editing on your talk page. --Jose77 (talk) 09:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See below, as per the same small dictionary. For some words not in the dictionary I have put a hypothetical "transcription" preceded by a "*".

• Pray 祷告 (*дого)
• Year年 нян
• Feet/foot 脚  ? (*җё)
• Spirit灵  ? (but they have шын = spirit, deity (神? 圣? ))
• Wash洗 щи
• Rest/sabbath 安息/安息日 ?
• Save/salvation救 җю (not necessarily with any religious overtones, of course)
• Receive 得到 дый (得) (* дыйдо, 得到)
• Judgement 审判  ? (* шынпан)
• Last最后  ? (* зуйху)
• Sing Song 唱歌 (* чон гә)
• Dance 跳舞 (* тё ву)
• Cure 医治 ?
• Illness 病 бин
• True 真 (see my previous message)
• cast out (the devil) 赶 ?
• interpretation 解释 ?
• ten thousand 万 ван (they do have вансуй for 万岁)
• luck 福 фу
• sound 声音 шын, шынйин
• Nation 民族 минзў
• meeting 开会 кэ хўй (to open a meeting; to conduct a meeting)
• worship 拜 ?
• mistake 错误 цуә (错) to make a mistake; a mistake
• Spread 传 чуан
• Enter 进入 (* җинжў: they do have җин (进))
• Welcome 欢迎  ?

Bonus words, from the same 1968 dictionary:

• йимани - belief (in God) (from Arabic iman)
• йилюха - to bequeath
• вансуй - 万岁
• мәмин - a true Muslim
• минҗин - the time of one's death
• Мыйгуй - 美国 (along with Америка)
• нэмазы - namaz (Muslim prayer)
• сэвабу - an action good for the salvation of one's soul
• сэҗыдэ - bowing to the ground (while praying)
• суәдэгэ - alms, donations (to religious charity)
• хуәкын - Hell (火坑)
• хўйхўй - a Muslim; a Hui person (回回)
• хўйхўй җё - Islam (回回教)

Obviously, the fact that I could not find a Dungan version of a Mandarin word in this small dictionary (looking up at its expected spelling) does not mean that it does not exist - and vice versa, some words attested in the dictionary may not be current anymore... Vmenkov (talk) 12:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

THANKYOU SO MUCH Mr. Vladimir Menkov for your Outstanding Translation effort!

I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

May God Bless you!

If you want your favorite articles to be translated into the Chinese or Minnan language, then I would be glad to help you. --Jose77 (talk) 22:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings Mr. Vladimir Menkov my friend,

Do you know the Dungan translations for these Chinese characters:

• 安 (ān); eg. Peace (平安), comfort (安慰)
• 和 (hé); eg. and (与/及)
• 现 (xiàn); eg. appear (出现), discover (发现）
• 创 (chuàng); eg. create (创造）, establish (创建/建立), begin/commence (开始）
• 目标 (mùbiāo); eg. Aim/purpose/goal (目的）
• 更 (gēng); eg. Change/alter （更改）, Renovate (更新）, Reform (改革）
• 各 (gè); eg. Every/each (各自）
• 误 (wù); eg. Misunderstanding (误解）, Error (错误/误差)
• 对 (duì); eg. Sorry (对不起）, Dialogue (对话）, Compare (对照）
• 解 (jiě); eg. Understanding (了解）, Explain/Explanation (解释）
• 正 (zhèng); eg. Accurate (正确), Correct/correction (更正),
• 拯 (zhěng); eg. Rescue/Save/deliver (拯救）
• 真 (zhēn); eg. Sincere/Genuine (真诚); Real/Actual/Authentic (真实); , genuine/real (真正)
• 包 (bāo); eg. Including/comprising/consisting of (包括)
• 靠 (kào); eg. rely on/lean on/depend on (依靠)
• 赶 (gǎn); eg. catch up (赶上), hurry up (赶快),
• 治 (zhì); eg. Rule/govern/administer (统治/治理),
• 礼 (lǐ); eg. Ceremony (典礼), Circumcision (割礼), Marriage (婚礼), religious service (礼拜),
• 拜 (bài); eg. Visit/pay a visit (拜访), Request (拜托）
• 餐 (cān); eg. Meal (餐), restaurant (餐厅), Breaskfast/Lunch/dinner (早餐/午餐/晚餐)
• 息 (xī); eg. New/tidings (消息), Interest (利息)
• 主 (zhǔ); eg. Lord/master (主/主人), Advocate/proposal (主张), mainly/mostly/principal (主要), Allah (真主)
• 跪 (guì); eg. Kneel down (跪下)
• 同 (tóng); eg. Same time (同时), identical (相同/同样)
• 本 (běn); eg. Originally （本来/原本）, basic (基本)
• 独 (dú); eg. independent (独立), unique (独特)
• 地 (dì); eg. Earth/ground (地球/地上), Map (地图)
• 徒 (tú); eg. Members/Followers/disciples/believers (信徒/门徒)
• 强 (qiáng); eg. Emphasise (强调); Strong (强)

--Jose77 (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you check the Russian-Dungan dictionary to see if the following words exist:

• Soul/Душа/灵魂
• Genuine (подлинный, истинный, настоящий, искренний, одлинный, подлинный, неподдельный, чистопородный)
• Establish (учреждать, упрочивать, укреплять, создавать, заложить)

--Jose77 (talk) 06:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On September 30, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Linxia County, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Kanonkas :  Talk  04:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of Louis J. Gallagher at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! –Katerenka (talk • contribs) 08:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

		The Original Barnstar
		For your many months of service to Wikipedia, I, Jose77, hereby award Mister Vladimir Menkov this barnstar. --Joseph, 22:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On October 11, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Louis J. Gallagher, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

JamieS93 15:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 02:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On October 14, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thank you - have a rest! Lots of time to get a Halloween hook Victuallers (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. No worry, I expect bots to add interwiki links after creation. If no, I will add links later or ask bot to add them. My goal is to start all counties and then import figures from de wiki. Sources will be added later too, I don't know Chinese.Starzynka (talk) 15:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Eugenios Voulgaris, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://orthodoxwiki.org/Eugenios_Voulgaris. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. See our copyright policy for further details.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 02:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On October 28, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bento de Góis, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 15:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

On November 22, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Musa Sayrami, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

⇌ Jake Wartenberg 07:15, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On November 23, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Li Yingshi, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Mifter (talk) 01:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You added this to article Ivan Petlin. What do you think of the use of 'Cossack' to refer to practically the whole Russian population of early Siberia? These people were mostly from Northern Russia and seemingly had nothing to do with the Don or Zaporozhian Cossacks. Is this a loose way of saying that they were neither landlords not peasants, is it a misuse by foreigners, or does Cossack have some meaning that I do not understand?Benjamin Trovato (talk) 02:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Truth be told, I don't know much about the Cosacks, but I am certainly aware that besides the better known Don Cossacks and Zaporozhia Cossacks, there was a veritable host of other "Cossack hosts", such as the Siberian Cossacks. I believe that being a Cossack was indeed a particular legal status (soslovie) in Czarist Russia (distinct, indeed, both from peasants and landlords), with its own rights and obligations (in particular, military ones, of course).

As to Ivan Petlin and his traveling companion, I follow the venerable Samuel Purchas, who no doubt went along with the text of the original (1619) reports in Russian, which include phrases like this: "Лета 7128 августа в... день государь царь и великий князь Михайло Федорович всеа Русии велел сибирского Томского города казаку Ивану Петлину проведывати про Китайское государство и про Обь-реку великую и про иные государства" ("On August ... of AM 7128, the Lord Mikhailo Feodorovich, Czar and Great Prince of All Russia, ordered Ivan Petlin, a Cossack of the Siberian City of Tomsk to investigate about the Cathayan [Kitayskoye] State and the great Ob River and about other states"). The "Tomsk Cossack" appellation was then used in the title of numerous Russian publications of Petlin papers in the 19th and early 20th century, back when the Cossacks were still around as an actual soslovie, so I assume that the historians who used the term knew what they were doing.

As I was looking at other "Petlin papers" in this collection, I've noticed that at least one does use a more general term than "Cossack" to describe Petlin and Madov. Namely, the Tomsk voevoda I.S. Kurakin, reporting to Czar Mikhail, writes: "В нынешнем, государь, во 127 году писали мы, холопи твои, к [91] тебе, государю, с тоболь[ским] конным казаком с Климком Бобошиным, што пришли в Тоболеск ис Китайского государства и от Алтына-царя томские служилые люди Иваинко Петлин да Ондрюшка Мадов", i.e., "we... sent a report to Your Majesty with the Tobolsk Mounted Cossack Klim Boboshin, that the Tomsk Service People Ivan Petln and Andrei Madov had returned to Tobolsk ....". So in this letter, the voyvoda uses different terms for different people: he sends a Cossack to the Czar to report of the arrival of the Service class people (ru:Служилые люди) Petlin and Madov. But even then, according to the Russian wiki, the Service class people (ru:Служилые люди) included Cossacks as one of their subgroups, so this text is not necessarily contradictory. Vmenkov (talk) 03:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. And as to the very early Russian Siberian (i.e. the first several decades of the 17th century), I would not be surprised that most of the Russian people in Siberia (or at least in the areas closer to the current frontier of expansion) during some decades were in fact classified as Cossacks [or Service People in general]. While I don't know this for a fact, I reckon that in any given region there certainly had to be a period of exploration / conquest prior to the start of more regular agricultural and urban settlement, which brought more "conventional" Russian peasants and city people (meshchane, ru:мещане) to the region. Vmenkov (talk) 03:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The best source I could find is Raymond H. Fisher, 'The Russian Fur Trade',1943. He says that service-men were divided into Voyevodas,boyar-sons,streltsy,prisoners of war and cossacks-the largest class. In return for compulsory military service they received a salary and a plot of land (in eastern Siberia??) and elected their own atamans (??). When their services were not needed they could work on their own account. 'Ultimately all these military serving men came to be known as Cossacks', probably because distinctions broke down under frontier conditions. This still does not explain how the term migrated from the Don to Siberia. A mystery. Benjamin Trovato (talk) 06:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I don't claim expertise on this matter, but I reckon that the term migrated from the Lower Volga (home of the Volga Cossacks, mostly suppressed by the government in the late 16th) to the Kama (being recently conquered, and intensively colonized, in the 1570s) to Siberia (with Yermak).

A cursory search on Google Books reveals plenty of references to the 16th century Cossack activities not just on the Don and the Yaik (now Ural; see Ural Cossacks) but on the Volga as well. (They sure knew the way there - after all, that's where Stepan Razin had his rebellion a century later... ). While you don't hear much about "Volga Cossacks" these days, they apparently were quite active in the 16th c. - but already in decline, suppressed by Moscow authorities, by 1600: http://books.google.com/books?id=oIJcxOCwv54C&pg=PA11&dq="volga+cossacks"&as_brr=3&ei=VDMOS_DQHpOElQTo4JGYDA#v=onepage&q="volga cossacks"&f=false , page 11; http://books.google.com/books?id=SXewkdStLTEC&pg=PA60&dq="volga+cossacks"&as_brr=3&ei=4zEOS8C5FZWelQS6iqTYCw#v=onepage&q="volga cossacks"&f=false Ranging on the Volga, of course they would take part in the colonization of the recently conquered (after the fall of Kazan) Kama basin in the second half of the 16th century; thus, Yermak Timofeyevich was able to go from the Upper Kama to Siberia ca. 1580 with a band of Cossacks...

Forsyth has 58 hits for "Cossacks" in his book ( http://books.google.com/books?id=nzhq85nPrdsC&pg=PA33&dq=cossacks&as_brr=3&ei=eDQOS9nqE4qQlQSD8vicDA#v=onepage&q=cossacks&f=false , mostly none too complimentary ), and feels that the term was sometimes used quite generically (pp. 33-34). Vmenkov (talk) 08:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. can you help out with this? I've used it in a FAC here and the comment has been this. Thanks. Fainites ^barleyscribs 16:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much.Fainites ^barleyscribs 23:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a message for you at the bottom of my talkpage.Fainites ^barleyscribs 14:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help.Fainites ^barleyscribs 19:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Vladimir! When I first joined Wikipedia, my intent was to work on the topics related mostly to the Russian Far East. I did that for a while, but then moved on to broader subjects. Nevertheless, I managed to leave after me a whole lot of mess (well, it wasn't mess then, but by our current criteria it is). One of the things I was routinely doing is to include very early histories of areas on which modern Russian places now stand. History of Primorsky Krai, for example, contains a whole bunch of stuff dating back to Bronze and Iron Ages, and there were a few other articles like that. At that time, there was no good place to put that kind of information, but now it can probably very easily be split into separate articles or even merged into existing ones. Would that be something you'd be interested in doing every now and then? I see, for instance, that you've recently worked on the Blagoveshchensk article; perhaps it would have been easy for you to offload the "early history" section to somewhere else? I do believe this kind of information adds value to these articles, but the problem is that it is often way too elaborate and creates a false impression of longer history (which, for the most part, has nothing to do with the Russians). A short paragraph or two is often quite sufficient, and, if a need arises, the main subject can always be linked to via {{Main}}. Do you have any thoughts about this?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:47, November 30, 2009 (UTC)

Uvazhaemye Ëzhiki:

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. This region is not my top interest at the moment, but I do edit relevant articles every now and then. More often than not, I do it when I get too annoyed by seeing a little fact appear in a distorted or a strangely out-of-context way (as it was with Nikolayevsk-on-Amur a while back, I believe), and I feel it appropriate to provide more of that context. So in a sense I feel that I don't initiate "adding remote and irrelevant history" (as someone might say) to those articles, but rather try to bring existing half-digested pieces of history (usually, deposited by some anonymous contributors ages ago) into better shape. Thus my response to your suggestion will be necessarily "nuanced".

1) I certainly feel that plenty more separate articles on historical issues - peoples, places, and events - related to the Russian Far East and Northeastern China ought to be created and expanded. I myself have created such articles as Duchers, Sarhuda, Yishiha, Tyr, Russia, Boris Petrovich Polevoy and significantly expanded Zabaykalsk, South Manchurian Railway, Aigun, Ning'an, Ivan Petlin, Russian–Manchu border conflicts, Willow Palisade. I hope to do something with Outer Manchuria some day; at present, I can only be puzzled by the term, because of a seemingly anachronistic and "a-historic" name (basically, my impression is that the expression "Outer Manchuria" has hardly been ever used in the purported meaning outside of Wikipedia; a more likely early (19th c) use was simply, "the part of Manchuria north of the Willow Palisade". But I digress here...) So I certainly am in favor in creating higher-level historical articles and linking to them from individual cities' articles. How to properly "divide" the history is, of course, another issue - there should be of course a History of Amur Oblast article, but even then much material could probably located not there but in articles whose topic is defined in a more appropriately historical way - e.g. Amur Valley during the Bronze Age, or Russian settlements in 17th century Amur Basin, or Qiqiha'er Governorate, or whatever.

2) In principle, I quite agree with you in not being in favor of putting only vaguely relevant history material into every article that it can be conceivable connected to. (E.g., one could insert a disquisition on the Silk Road into most articles about Central Asian cities, but I try only to insert facts from that period that are relevant to the particular city).

3) Nonetheless, I don't think that I added too much "prehistory" to this particular article, Blagoveshchensk. That is, there are now exactly 7 sentences in the section Blagoveshchensk#Early_history_of_the_region (i.e., dealing with the area's history before 1856). These sentences were intended either to link to larger-scope historic articles of relevance (such as Russian–Manchu border conflicts or Treaty of Nerchinsk), or to talk about settlements that existed within immediate vicinity of today's Blagoveshchensk (i.e., first the Duchers' Aytyun, then the Manchus' Old Aigun), and for which there is no separate article. I don't think that the "impression of longer history" is necessarily false; nor do I think that the fact that the people who had lived in the area of today's Blagoveshchensk and Heihe during most of the last 1000 years had "nothing to do with the Russians" (or with Chinese) implies that the their history does not belong in the story of Blagoveshchensk. There is a big paragraph on Eora in Sydney; there is a bit of Mi'kmaq, and plenty more on Acadians in City of Halifax; so I daresay that the Duchers or Daurs deserve at least as much. In my view, history is continuous, and the existence of the (Ducher) agricultural civilization in the region in the 17th century affected both the Russians' and the Manchus' actions at the time, which in their turn determined what happened to the area for the next 200 years. And even if the Russian settlers and governors of the 1860s and later decades may have wanted to have a clean break with the past, I don't think that that was possible.

From my point of view, the problem with Blagoveshchensk#History is not so much that it has too much on "pre-history", but that it has too little on later (Russian Empire / USSR) history! As you can see, I have added a couple paragraphs (and references) on 1890-1900, but I have no ambition to write other sections from scratch - but it, obviously, is absolutely ridiculous that the article presently has exactly one (1) sentence on the city's USSR-period history! I guess that, unlike Nizhny Novgorod, Khabarovsk, or, lately, Tyumen, we just don't have any contributors from Blagoveshchensk who are interested in writing a good article about the place's more recent history - but IMHO that's hardly a reason why other contributors should not add information on other periods for which they have sources. Ideally, of course, the history section should be expanded to at least a couple pages, with both pre- and post-1917 information; and once it's that big, it will be justify to move most of it into a separate History of Blagoveshchensk article.

With Nikolayevsk-na-Amure (which I edited a year or so ago) the situation was a bit different: it used to have some, generally correct, but strangely represented, facts, and I just tried reference them and put them in the right context (which, incidentally, would indicate that Tyr, Russia is a fairly long way upstream from Nikolayevsk-na-Amure, so the facts in fact aren't all that relevant... But again, lacking a history article with a proper scope to which I could move those facts (and then refer to them with {{Main}}), I did not move them out of the article.

4) If you have an inclination to reorganize history coverage for the region by creating appropriate articles and reshuffling existing material accordingly, I will be only glad to see that. I probably don't have time and sufficient dedication to undertake such a project myself. Two projects for which I do have plans to finally complete them are User:Vmenkov/Linxia City and Dungan Rebellion, and both are 2+ years in the making already... Vmenkov (talk) 01:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful reply, Vladimir. With Blagoveshchensk, I admit it wasn't the best example to use; it just was something that popped up in my watchlist that day, so I used it as an example. I most certainly don't think that there is too much "pre-history" in that particular article. History of Primorsky Krai, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely.

All in all, my thoughts about handling the history sections of places/oblasts/krais in the RFE are as follows. With cities, I believe it suffices to provide a short blurb regarding the area in which that particular city is located, but the detailed stuff should start from around the time of the city's foundation by the Russians. With Vladivostok, for example, we could mention that the area had a rich medieval history followed by a period of relative quiet, and then really go into details starting with the 1850s. For modern polities (like Primorsky Krai or Amur Oblast) the focus should really be on the 1930s and later. Earlier histories should be placed in articles about earlier entities (like currently non-existing Primorskaya Oblast), and histories earlier still would be covered in more appropriate articles (for example, describing the intricacies of Mohe tribes in the "history of Primorsky Krai" article in relation to modern districts of Primorsky Krai, as it is currently done, makes no sense whatsoever). Yeah, Mohe did live on the territory of modern Terneysky District, but that warrants a short side note in the Terneysky District article at best, not an elaborate description in an article about the history of a krai which did not even exist until 1938. While history is continuous, care should be exercised as to not imply connections which are simply not there. It's not about severing links to the past (i.e., separating Russian and pre-Russian histories); it's about not creating links that never were. Ancient Jurchens have no relation to modern Primorsky Krai whatsoever, other than the fact that their empires covered the same territory Primorsky Krai now does. There simply is no continuity here. You and me know that, of course, but I'm afraid an uninformed reader stumbling upon the "history of Primorsky Krai" article might very well get a very false impression.

The bottom line is that I'd love to be the one to organize all that history stuff neatly and properly, but when I was asking you I was kind of hoping you'd be able to do it (since you are one of very few people interested in this area). Alas, it seems you don't have much more time for that than I do, so I'm not going to keep bugging you, asking to clean up the mess for which I myself am in no small part responsible. So, all I ask of you is to keep in mind possible splits and separations if you happen to stumble upon something you are going to edit anyway (like Blagoveshchensk or Nikolayevsk-na-Amure). Thanks again for your time and response!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:54, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

A content RfC has been opened on this topic if you would like to comment. Cla68 (talk) 07:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you for the help and input with the article. One concern: this edit provided some good information, but it isn't cited. In order to pass the Good Article assessment, it needs a citation. A Russian language source is fine if that's where it's from. Otherwise, I'll have to remove it in order to pass the assessment. Cla68 (talk) 05:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great work on adding a lot of good information. Perhaps a lot of that also needs to be added to the main articles on those railroads. I'll need to go through and list the sources in the references section, so I may need to ask you for more detail on the Russian sources. Thanks again. Cla68 (talk) 12:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[1] It's just that when I searched for the word in Wikipedia, it came up with several locations around Eastern China with that same name, so I took the easy way of dealing with it. Cla68 (talk) 12:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That link to Trans-Eurasian logistics is very useful. By the way, I'll probably be spending some time fixing up the Bering Strait crossing article which means I may be away from the Eurasian Land Bridge article for awhile. Cla68 (talk) 23:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On January 3, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Turtle farming, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Marco Polo Bridge image's caption is far longer than the other one, thus I think in terms of appearance, it looks much better for it to be on the right and leave some space for the image and the text. It looks crowded if its on the left hand side.--Sevilledade (talk) 23:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of Bixi (tortoise) at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Bradjamesbrown (talk) 22:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Vmenkov,

I've often seen you making edits to China-related articles and you always do good work. So I was wondering if you'd like to (if you have time) offer comments or criticism on the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, which is currently at FAC (see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/July 2009 Ürümqi riots/archive1). If not, that's ok; just thought I'd ask. Best, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 08:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On January 25, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bixi (tortoise), which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We are having problems to reach a stable consensus about removal of visa-free sections from the Passport articles. Please share your opinion with us here: Talk:Passport and here: a request for mediation Thanks. --Ozguroot (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

... has been challenged at DYK. Please respond to the concerns raised, thanks Gatoclass (talk) 10:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On March 1, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Linxia City, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 06:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to make sure that you had seen my discussion re: my plans to split Motorized bicycle into two articles, one of which will deal exclusively with ebikes. Please let me know if you have any input. Thanks! Ebikeguy (talk) 20:28, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned that this may be a sock of Yongle the Great (talk · contribs) who had some sleeper socks and still edits daily with new accounts and IPs. Like Yongle, he/she is unresponsive on their talk page, doesn't use edit summaries, and edits similar arguments. I'm away now until Saturday so can do little about him except place a warning on his page. Dougweller (talk) 14:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, if you feel like undoing what he did (and I did after him), I have nothing against that. Vmenkov (talk) 14:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Vmenkov! I just wrote a short article about (de:Xidaotang) (in German). Do you have further information about the building? Best, Reiner Stoppok --77.188.129.20 (talk) 21:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reiner, Thank you for writing the article. By the way, I recall that there is a whole chapter (or at least a section) on Xidaotang in J. Lipman's book. If you are interested, but neither have access to the hard copy of the book nor can view those pages on Google Books, I can email you a photocopy.

As to the mosque building itself, I don't know anything about it - I just took a picture as I was walking by... In fact, you can see from the file names that when I (and the other poster, earlier) posted our photos, neither of us even knew its name! Now I have added the coordinates of the building (as based on the "Satellite" mode in Google Maps, where it can be seen quite clearly; the Satellite view seems to be shifted by a few hundreds of meters from the "Map" mode, though!) to commons:Category:Linxia_Xidaotang_Machang_Mosque, but that's the only bit of knowledge I can communicate.

Keep the good work! -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:58, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here it is more clear ... ;) Keep the good work (and the good photography)! Reiner Stoppok --77.183.115.102 (talk) 12:19, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Vmenkov. We have discussed this article before, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in expressing your opinion or offering suggestions/criticisms at the FAC, located here. Thanks, rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Vmenkov

Please see my note in the discussion page of Bixi (tortoise). Have a nice day.Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 06:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note taken, correction made. Thanks for correcting the Kagan's name. -- Vmenkov (talk) 20:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Vmenkov,

Here my attempt at the translation to Dungan:

What do you think? --Jose77 (talk) 03:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to give you some kudos for updating the Ma Hualong page. Jordalus (talk) 17:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 20:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading or contributing to File:Chingachgook-ASIN-B00005NFMB.jpg. I notice the file page specifies that the file is being used under fair use but there is not a suitable explanation or rationale as to why each specific use in Wikipedia constitutes fair use. Please go to the file description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you have anything to add here Talk:Metallurgical_education#Redirection? Thanks. Philly jawn (talk) 16:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An article that you have been involved in editing, Metallurgical education, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Metallurgical education. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 18:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Vmenkov. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Muticolored Mosque, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: reasonable redirect from alternative spelling. Thank you. JohnCD (talk) 09:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't spot the missing "l" - that is indeed a good R3 and I have deleted it. JohnCD (talk) 14:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of Hong Bao at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know!

On 4 September 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Hong Bao, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

— Rlevse • Talk • 00:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Your submission of Ghiyasu'd-Din Naqqah at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know!  Sandstein  21:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi~ Based on some of your recent edits, I wanted to invite you to join WikiProject Central Asia. I think you would be a valuable contributor. Aelfthrytha (talk) 02:30, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See discussions at User talk:Silver seren#Article rescue and User talk:Uncle G#About mumijo. It might be worth your dropping at note at Talk:Shilajit#Mumiyo deserves a separate article, too. Uncle G (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since you previously commented on the issue, you might want to chime in at Talk:Ministry of External Relations (Soviet Union)#Requested move. Nsk92 (talk) 15:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to say thanks for this clarification. But do you know if it is a part of any inhabited locality there, or not? I'm trying to rid that page of that entry altogether and move the fort information to an applicable article, and I don't have access to mapping services at the moment. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 1, 2010; 20:07 (UTC)

All I know is what the Russian Wikipedia and Google Maps say! The article ru:Белоярское сельское поселение (Ульяновская область) claims that the "rural settlement" includes (among other things):

1. село Новый Белый Яр — административный центр;
2. село Старый Белый Яр;

Google Maps shows both villages, within 2-3 miles from each other. It would be logical to assume that the old fort (and, probably whatever is shown as Bely Jar at File:Stielers_Handatlas_1891_47.jpg) was at (or near) what's called Stary Bely Yar now-a-days; some of the old village may have been lost to the Kuybyshev Reservoir, though. The article at http://www.ulgov.ru/power/regions/cherdaklar/ actually has a phone number for the village's local government - you can call if you really care! :-) -- Vmenkov (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Did a bit of searching, and here are all the gory details, much as I thought. It seems that the most notable event in the 20th-century history of the place was the capture of a giant beluga sturgeon in 1933: "21 июня 1933 года недалеко от Старого Белого Яра удалось поймать неводом белугу весом 343 кг." -- Vmenkov (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do actually care to the point that I would call them :) Unfortunately, whatever they tell me (which I doubt is going to be much if I just call out of the blue) won't qualify as a reliable source, so there. At any rate, thanks much for looking into this. I'm going to check what kind of old maps I have back at home; perhaps there'll be some clues there. Thanks again; you've helped quite a bit!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 1, 2010; 21:16 (UTC)

On 11 December 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Fate, Shulan, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that many sturgeons of the Sungari River spent the last several months of their lives in Fate Town, Jilin? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 12:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I noticed you’ve contributed to the article on Xiao’erjing. Could you please help adding inline citations to that article and/or discuss here? --Babelfisch (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken a look at the history, and my contribution to that article was pretty minimal, and not involved adding actual facts. I don't consider myself knowledgeable on the topic in any way, but know that Lipman's book (mentioned among the sources) has a few pages on the history of XEJ, and probably so does Dillon's book as well. Unfortunately, I will be traveling for the next month, and won't have a chance to look at the sources. -- Vmenkov (talk) 05:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Zhejiang Railway Station. Since you had some involvement with the Zhejiang Railway Station redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). HXL's Roundtable and Record 22:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for providing all the material on these sites. I appreciate it a lot. rm (talk) 14:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

兄台在Talk:Family tree of Confucius in the main line of descent这里的留言，我怎么看不懂？——星光下的人 (talk) 10:00, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

我所要说的是：人要是写什么关于的空子的嫡孙，就都写 "孔德成,孔子77代嫡孙",＂孔令贻, 孔子76代嫡孙","孔祥珂,孔子75代嫡孫", 等等. 我就觉得，我们在Family tree of Confucius in the main line of descent也会写, "Kong Decheng (77)", "Kong Lingyi (76)", "Kong Xiangke (75)", 等等. 读者要是问＂第43,53,63的是谁？＂，就可能马上找到他。(Articles, books, monuments almost always say something like "Kong Decheng, the 77th-generation descendant of Confucius", etc. Every time these people are mentioned, their generation number is mentioned too. So I thought that it would be useful to have the generation number given for every [main line of descent] person in the table as well. This way if a reader wants to know e.g. "Who was the 43rd/53rd/63rd-generation descendant of Confucius?", he can easily find him in the table.) -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

这恐怕有难度，汉朝封给孔家世袭的爵位始于孔霸，但他是二房长孙，长房长孙孔何齐一支是殷绍嘉公，负责祭祀成汤的，这成问题。更不必说宋元金时代南北衍圣公并立，一度出现三个衍圣公同时存在的情况。——星光下的人 (talk) 03:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, would you have an interest in improving "Turtle farming" to WP:Good article?TCO (talk) 18:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I would be glad to see that article improved to the GA state; but I am pretty busy at the moment with my work and other projects, and don't think I will be able to contribute too much to this project. Besides, I am not very knowledgeable about all the formal criteria that an article has to satisfy to qualify as a GA, and don't have time and inclination to learn about them at the moment. So if you want to start the process and to manage it, I will put the discussion page on my watchlist and will try to make some of the requested improvements; but it is you who may end up having to do most of the work! -- Vmenkov (talk) 19:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Vmenkov
I am from the french Wiki. I've seen that you ask yourself of the changes made by an IP:95.238.96.77, on the talk page of Purevdorj . I can tell you this IP made the same on french Wikipedia. All these autochtonous names are absolutely nonsense, but from someone who knows transcriptions systems and IPA..A strange case! There were, as on en:Wiki, different IP adresses during a few days. Dhegiha (talk) 10:55, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Here are two other IP: [2], [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhegiha (talk • contribs) 11:02, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea to replace memorization with Hafiz (Qur'an) here. There's one little further improvement: The piped link gives the reader no indication that it goes to an article more pertinent than the simple term "memorize" (see WP:EGG). I was thinking about clarifying that in the text, but I don't know how to do that elegantly, because I don't know enough about hafiz. Do you have an idea? — Sebastian 11:34, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have re-worded for clarity, although at the cost of having a longer sentence. If you can improve on it, feel free to do it. I am sure don't know any more of the subject than you do. -- Vmenkov (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that's about what I could have come up with yesterday. Now that I reread it, I think I found a better solution by rearranging the text of the two last sentences. I'm sorry that I'm thereby replacing your carefully worded addition; please don't hesitate to revert me if you'd rather not have such a big change. Thank you for your patience with this trifle, there are of course much bigger issues here waiting for us. — Sebastian 20:29, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. -- Vmenkov (talk) 01:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All new imperial gauge categories have their metric equivalents displayed within the category. All metric gauge categories that survived are subcats of the appropriate imperial gauge category. Mjroots (talk) 11:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the confusion. I'm trying to make a consistent category and template that does not look like these are country-country bilateral borders. There is a bit of flux of redlinks because it seems like the db cache is not current. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

If you have a moment, please take a look at this diff, showing edits to the Nivkh language article by someone who may be the same author as the one you identified on as producing subtle vandalism, or perhaps disinformation, on the Evenki language talk page. However, I'm not well enough acquainted with the language to know alone. If you are able to verify these edits in fact published false information, please let me know here on your talk page, and I'll undo them. If you are aware of other similar edits to language articles, I can undo those also. Cheers! JFHJr (㊟) 06:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism of course, this and others. --Vmenkov (talk) 14:35, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll get on it. JFHJr (㊟) 17:00, 16 May 2011 (UTC) You beat me to it! Thanks again. JFHJr (㊟) 17:06, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On 13 June 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bernardino de Escalante, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that one of the first European books to contain Chinese characters was written by an officer of the Spanish Inquisition, and translated into English by an escaped former prisoner of the Inquisition? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 06:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re-nommed. —HXL's Roundtable and Record 17:24, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please reply to my query on the talkpage? Thanks, Ironholds (talk) 09:29, 1 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A while back, I posted a new proposal for Tibetan naming conventions, i.e. conventions that can be used to determine the most appropriate titles for articles related to the Tibetan region. This came out of discussions about article titles on Talk:Qamdo and Talk:Lhoka (Shannan) Prefecture. I hope that discussions on the proposal's talk page will lead to consensus in favour of making these conventions official, but so far only a few editors have left comments. If you would be interested in taking a look at the proposed naming conventions and giving your opinion, I would definitely appreciate it. Thanks—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 16:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much. I've been begging for input. Your edits are most welcome. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure. I certainly like these navboxes.

Here's my opinion on navboxes like this in general. Pragmatically, they are useful, as they would give a reader an idea of what articles to look at in order to learn more about a province. However, such a box is only useful if it is of a more or less manageable size (i.e., only occupies a smallish portion of a screen). Editorially, therefore, it may be a struggle to decide where to put the cut-off line for inclusion.

E.g., we have 4 universities included in the Hubei navbox. Even if we assume that these are the "top 4" universities according to some widely accepted ranking, how can we object who feels that schools no. 5 and 6 in the same ranking also should be included, and so on - and there are probably over a dozen universities just in Wuhan. (And, of course, there is no universally accepted ranking of universities in reality).

Same goes for ethnic groups - I see that you have listed Han. Manchu, Mongol and Hui for Hubei. Fair enough, they all live there and are connected to the region's history. But in Gansu, for example, besides Han, there are 8 ethnic groups whose names appear in the names of various autonomous counties and prefectures (Hui, Mongol, Dongxiang, Bao'an, Salar, Yugur, Kazakh, Tibetan) - should we list all 9 there, or only those for which Gansu is the "main home"?

The cut-off decision may be even more problematic for, say, water features, mountain ranges (take a look at a map of Sichuan or Tibet A.R.!), or visitor attractions. I've added a couple of each to Hubei - but who is to say that, for example, the East Lake of Wuhan, Tortoise Mountain TV Tower, or Danjiangkou Reservoir should not be there as well? Common sense stops me from trying to overload the template with entries like those - but everybody has his own version of common sense; so how will we avoid future edit wars? Would you like to propose some kind of formal/informal guidelines on what should be included? Perhaps it can be worked on in Category talk:Country and territory topics templates, or, better, on the discussion pages of an appropriate subcategory. -- Vmenkov (talk) 19:19, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You make good points. I do suggest waiting. The reason is that, unlike list articles, most drive-by editors don't think of adding to templates. More established editors usually work on them. These navboxes will expand, but I guess slowly. During that free-for-all time, the templates might improve naturally as editors who know the provinces, remove and add items per relative notability. I suggest addressing the problem if and when it becomes a problem.

For now, I am delighted to see you applying your judgment. When I made these navboves, I didn't know what should be added. I anticipated relying on editors like you to properly shape them. What do you think? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Shuǐ diào gē tóu is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shuǐ diào gē tóu until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. --Gh87 (talk) 04:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you're interested in more Bloomington photos, you may want to pay attention to the subcategories of Commons:Category:Streets in Bloomington, Indiana. I've been avoiding getting local pictures over the summer, since I've been trying to get more out-of-town photos (including two trips to Evansville), but with the advent of the new school year, I'm not likely to have time for many photos outside of the local area. Besides the historic buildings, I've been getting some others; the one that you'll likely find most interesting is File:School at 2280 Smith Road near Bloomington.jpg. According to Monroe County's GIS website, it was owned by All Saints Church from 1994 to 2002. Nyttend (talk) 02:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, have you ever encountered Bloomingpedia? Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Glad you're enjoying everything; as I'm both in library science and in history (with a strong interest in microhistory/local history), I find it interesting/useful to give lots of details in the descriptions. I'm interning right now in the Monroe County History Center (the Carnegie Library, Washington and 6th, downtown), and I well know the annoyance of having an interesting photo but not knowing much about its subject, so I'm doing my best to spare future users that frustration. The All Saints connection to this property I found entirely by accident — I learned that there was once a PCA congregation in the area, so I contacted a man whom I know at their denominational archives (mainly for the History Center's benefit); he told me of its location, so I used the GIS and thus found the list of former owners as well as confirmation that it was the PCA congregation's property. One simple request: when you know the location, would you mind adding the coordinates? It will make it simpler for me to find the property and other information that you might not have. Nyttend (talk) 02:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any other church photos that aren't online? In connexion with the internship, I've put together a list at User:Nyttend/Monroe County churches and added a photo for every church on the list if available on Commons, including your photo of the Hindustan church; however, a lot of rural churches are missing at the moment. Thanks! Nyttend backup (talk) 16:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! Unlike with average houses, the coords and descriptions aren't that important in my mind — I can't easily find an average house, but churches are generally easier to find. As well, I've already added data (and I have far more offline) to the list page, so as long as you specify which church is pictured, anything you don't add I should be able to do easily. Nyttend (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot! I was at Mount Ebal the other day (by accident: I made a wrong turn) and got a picture of significantly poorer quality. After the congregation folded in the 1970s, it was restored by a guy who now rents it out to people for weddings, dinners, etc.; that's probably why they advertise the fact that they have air conditioning. Nyttend (talk) 11:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another batch is in, in case you still need 'em. Of course, what's a landmark and what's an eyesore is in the eyes of the beholder... -- Vmenkov (talk) 22:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you had blue sky today in Bloomington? I'm in Pennsylvania at Homecoming, and we had just-almost-freezing rain today...thanks for the new photos! Nyttend (talk) 05:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On 19 September 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Yangshan Quarry, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the giant stele (section pictured) with which the Yongle Emperor meant to honor his father, never left the quarry? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Yangshan Quarry.You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 08:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good work, getting your own photo featured in DYK! Have you ever had your own photo featured there before? Nyttend (talk) 12:03, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious, where did you get St. Fireman's Church for First United? The station across the street? The tall tower out in front?

At some point, I suspect that we'll run into each other by accident: we'll both be photographing the same building, and then a day later we'll find each other's pictures online :-) Nyttend (talk) 19:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for making Wikipedia a better place. Enjoy this brownie! Pinkstrawberry02™ talk 01:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to Wikipedia:The Musical in NYC, an editathon, Wikipedia meet-up and lectures that will be held on Saturday, October 22, 2011, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (at Lincoln Center), as part of the Wikipedia Loves Libraries events being held across the USA.

All are welcome, sign up on the wiki and here!--Pharos (talk) 05:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New page patrol – Survey Invitation Hello Vmenkov! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you  have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to  know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you. If this invitation  also appears on other accounts you  may  have, please complete the  survey  once only.  If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it. Please click HERE to take part. Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback. You are receiving this invitation because you  have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey. Global message delivery 13:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You are invited to the National Archives ExtravaSCANza, taking place every day next week from January 4–7, Wednesday to Saturday, in College Park, Maryland (Washington, DC metro area). Come help me cap off my stint as Wikipedian in Residence at the National Archives with one last success! This will be a casual working event in which Wikipedians are getting together to scan interesting documents at the National Archives related to a different theme each day—currently: spaceflight, women's suffrage, Chile, and battleships—for use on Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons. The event is being held on multiple days, and in the evenings and weekend, so that as many locals and out-of-towners from nearby regions1 as possible can come. Please join us! Dominic·t 01:42, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply] 1 Wikipedians from DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New York City, and Pittsburgh have been invited.

Hi there, I happen to see that you have some knowledge on the tomb of the king of Boni, so would you please help us improve our page? I am a student of Nanjing Normal University, and I and some of my classmates have been working on a translation project on wikipedia. We are not sure of some of the translations, and we wish that you can help us. We are looking forward to your comments~ NNUTransAliceFan03090230 (talk) 15:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying you are translating zh:浡泥国王墓? Great idea! I will be glad to take a look at your draft (e.g., in your user space on Wikipedia), and see if I can make any improvements. -- Vmenkov (talk) 16:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I saw your comments and edits, thank you sooooo much for your help! If you need any help in the future about the Chinese culture, please feel free to ask us (although I think you probably know some of stuff better than we Chinese ourselves do...). Thank you again for your kind help!NNUTransAliceFan03090230 (talk) 15:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On 12 April 2012, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Turtle-back tombs, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that while Chinese emperors had stone tortoises guard their tombs, some of their subjects in Fujian were laid to rest under plaster tortoises (example pictured)? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Turtle-back tombs.You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 08:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

... for the error-catches and additions at Battle of Cocos :) -- saberwyn 04:37, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Am glad you found it useful. -- Vmenkov (talk) 05:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding User talk:Anna Frodesiak#Turtle farming: Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:21, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking an interest in the Zhaoqing page. I seem to be one of the few people interested in it :-) I'm good at new content and finding it but my poor word usage and run on sentencing tendencies are sometimes obvious as you can see; or I need to reread it a while later to see my errors. So do you have an interest in Zhaoqing or are you more on the technical side? You don't have to answer if you don't want, I'm not sure how this whole thing works yet. Cheers Whoisgalt (talk) 16:17, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not particularly interested in Zhaoqing, but I made a few additions to that article a few years ago, when I was reading about Matteo Ricci, the Yongli Emperor, Michael Boym, and all that. So it has stayed on my watchlist ever since - somebody has to occasionally check for vandalism etc, after all... BTW, if you want to do some serious article rewriting and content adding, look at this one: Hui'an County! -- Vmenkov (talk) 16:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)