Talk:Tibetan sky burial

I use "reportedly" and similar constructions a lot, which makes the text a bit wordy.

The reason for this is that I was trying to reflect the fact that I could find nothing written by actual Tibetans or participants in the ceremony, so all the information I had was third-hand and therefore somewhat suspect.

I don't presume to know what Tibetans think about any of this, and I am cautious about non-Tibetan observers--who in most cases do not report talking with the participants at all--presuming to know what Tibetans think.

So even though it's wordy, I want to maintain that sense--that this is a third-hand account, not an authoritative or researched account in any way--by saying "Tibetans reportedly think..." instead of "Tibetans think..."

As always, YMMV!

Vcrs 00:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Merger with Sky burial
No one objected to the merger, so I went ahead and moved the text intact to Sky burial. This seems like a special case of sky burial generally. Mytildebang 05:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Shoot, I'm sorry I missed my chance to object. (I'm only on intermittently). I'm not sure the merger was necessary & I don't it was done very well (not sure how to say this politely). The "Tibetan Sky Burial" article was well-written and thoroughly referenced (if I do say so myself). The former stub at "sky burial" was not well-written and was poorly referenced. Now, the whole is:
 * internally contradictory (the first part says it's not to honor the birds, the second part says it's alms for the birds, which is not the same thing as honor, and which I know is correct)
 * repetitive (both sections talk about the ecological benefits)
 * confusing (Tibet is mentioned in the first section but then discussed in the second section; none of the other places mentioned in the first section ever reappear!)


 * I would have done a disambiguation page on "sky burial" and directed people to the different types. Advantages to this:
 * would keep each one discrete as a separate cultural phenomenon
 * differences among them wouldn't become confusing
 * it wouldn't get unmanageably long--if there were as much info on the other types as there is on Tibetan, the article would be huge, and unnecessarily so, I think.
 * Separate article for each culture's practice would make it easier to link to those articles from other pages about the same culture. (In other words, if I'm on "Tibetan Buddhism" I'd rather link to "Tibetan Sky Burial" than to a section on a huge "Sky Burial" page).
 * I think I will go ahead and change this to a disambig if nobody objects in a few days.... I will put a note on your talk page, too.


 * Hope I don't seem rude or defensive. I was open to the possibility that this would be an improvement, when I first saw that it had been implemented, but I don't think that it was successful. I'm glad you tried it, though, so we could think about this more concretely.


 * Respectfully, Vcrs 20:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't one of these pages be converted into a redirect (to complete the merger)?

Just a thought.

Cashie 06:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)