User talk:Vmenkov/Archive 2

Re:But surely that's not a menorah...
Thanks for discussing this interesting issue on my page. I'll try to provide as much as I know, though I'm absolutely no Buddhist expert.

I've absolutely no idea about the 7 spiked trident in Thailand. You need to ask some Thais.

For the next two photos of a small Chinese shrine. I feel confident to say that the trident-like symbol on top of the roof is a derivative or variation of ancient Chinese character "寿", literally meaning "longevity". Please note there are hundreds of variations of this character in Chinese calligraphy. This linked picture shows some of them. In addition, I can tell from your pictures that this is a small family or community temple (shrine), that worships some ancient celebrity in that local area. It may not be a strict Buddhist temple, though it may adopt some Buddhist ritual performance. We may also keep in mind that since Buddhism was introduced into China, it has been integrated into Chinese traditional culture, specially with the influences of Confucianism and Taoism.

This shrine is also called "三星在", or "Three Stars Pavilion". In Chinese culture, Three Stars means Fortune, Wealth and Longevity. Thus, there's no wonder there's a Longevity symbol on the top. The three stars concept is definitely NOT a Buddhism dogma. Somehow it's against Buddhist idealism. But in China, lots of things are amalgams after such a long journey in the history.

I believe this longevity symbol is still quite common in China, specially in the apparatuses in temple. Here's a picture of candlesticks bearing this mark. They are called "Two Dragons Holding a Longevity Candlesticks" in case you can't read Chinese. Hope it helps. Ramtears (talk) 17:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello again. You're right. Referring your exampleImage:LonggangZhen-NanyangShidi-0025.jpg, in 南阳世第, 南阳 means the area name. 世 means generations, 第 has a meaning equivalent to 府, which means "house" or "home". If combined, 世第 means family's house, the same meaning as 宗祠. Note another name of this building is 成氏宗祠, meaning the family shrine for surname Cheng (成). 府第 belongs to ancient language, but even today, it is commonly seen in China (old words revival? ). This link shows a new residential tower group may be called **府第.

You may also want to note the difference between 公祠 and 宗祠. 公祠 means community shrine donated by different families residing in the same neighborhood. For example, a former mayor of a county with good reputation deserves a community shrine for people to commemorate his achievement in local area. While 宗祠(family shrine) is owned and managed by a single family. The family may have many branches, but they share the same ancestor and same surname. They all contribute to and benefit from the shrine. Of course, not every family in China has family shrine. Only rich and large families, (or at least some branches are rich), can sponsor the family shrine. Besides the worship ceremony, in ancient times, family shrines also provide family schools for children within this family. Ramtears (talk) 19:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

re Debate over China's economic responsibilities
Vmenkov, thanks very much for adding the two photos to the Debate over China's economic responsibilities for climate change mitigation article (I'm the original author) -- the photos add a lot to the article. --CathCarey (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Siberian River Routes
Sources: unfortunately all I have is Forsyth, who is very good. I really need something besides google earth to check him against. The thing needs better maps, but I'm not smart enough to make them. Amur,Indigirka: adding that would push the article toward history, which is something else. Current History of Siberia is too big and disorganized. Maybe I can think of something. Trans-Siberian: agree. I'll add final section on it. Canada: I have Eccles:Canadian Frontier which has everything needed. When I get time I'll make an article, if it hasn't been done already. Benjamin Trovato (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Hankou map
The map you dug up for Hankou looks great. Excellent work, &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 03:56, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: Lotus Field
Thanks for the advice! I do have a bunch of photos like this, so I should probably get an account and move them to Commons. &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 04:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey, sorry to bug you, but to you know how to set up an integrated account between WP and commons? I know I've seen stuff about that before but I can't seem to find the correct page right now.  Thanks, &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 15:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, never mind, I just found it. &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 15:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Mulino
I was recently asked to create this. I did the basics, however, the stub is really just bare bones. Would you be able to add anything interesting to it? Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:50, December 3, 2008 (UTC) 14:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks a bunch!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:29, December 4, 2008 (UTC) 15:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

River delta
I replied on my talk page to keep the thread together - thanks for your work on the article. Awickert (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Tian Shan: would love to see Walnut comment
The walnut place is Arslanbob —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjamin Trovato (talk • contribs) 05:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the pointer; this must be a lovely place to visit! But anyway, if you have a reference (book/web article) on the flora of the region, it would be worthwhile to add it to the Tian Shan article. And maybe mention the local juniper species, locally known as archa. Vmenkov (talk) 13:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thalweg
The thalweg is the deepest part of the river channel, so it tracks the channel location, not the valley location. There is no term I know of for the steepest downvalley direction, so I just write the whole thing out. Crazy terminology, eh? Awickert (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking around more at definitions, Thalweg can either be the channel or the valley - so it looks like I'm 1/2-wrong. But for geologists, it is the channel - so that explains my answer to you. And if there is ambiguity, maybe the link should just stay removed. Awickert (talk) 16:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Vmenkov (talk) 00:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Vanino
My philosophy is to use the main title (Vanino, in this case) as disambiguation whenever no large (my personal cutoff is at 100K) or historically significant entities are involved; for consistency sake. Vanino in Khabarovsk Krai, of course, is way more important and well-known than any other Vaninos throughout Russia (which are all tiny villages, as you correctly noted), but it is still only an urban-type settlement with a population of less than 20,000 people. On the world-wide scale, it is one of thousands of similarly small places. I just didn't feel there was enough justification to make it the main article.

That said, do I care much if it is made the main article? The answer is "no". As long as all related articles are integrated and interlinked properly, it makes no difference from the maintenance or development point of view how the nodes of the dab-articles structure are aligned. I just want to ask that you give one more thought to whether this place is indeed as important as you think it is (especially to the English-speaking audience, which the English edition of Wikipedia targets), and if your answer is still "yes", I'll gladly move the articles back for you. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:53, January 23, 2009 (UTC)

Doubtful changes in article
Hi. Fifst of all thank you for correction my terrible English in the article under review. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyumen

But I'm to ask why did you canged my words "in 8-10 folds" into "8-10 meters" in the #Topography section? Do you have a confirmed data on this or just considered I use wrong words? The matter raised cause I ment not the flush but flood. I'm really doubt there was low bank settelemnt for 4 centuries if there really was 10 meter difference spring to summer while anti flush dam was constructed only 20 years ago and it does not look 10 meters high... Am I wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romualdas Arm (talk • contribs) 17:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Romualdas: No, I don't have any special knowledge on the river, although I have added now a link to a 2005 article forecasting an 8-meter flood. To be honest, I simply did not understand what the article tried to say [originally]: "at high tide, its shores reached 8-10 times to low tide". Since it's not a tidal river, as it's nowhere near the sea, I suppose you were ? the water level (relative to what)? To clarify this, you can add a reference to the source of this information, either to the Tyumen article where you use it, or maybe in ru:Тюмень Тура.


 * And why we are at this, "Average temperatire of July −18.6 °C (−1.5 °F), max" in the next section seems rather doubtful to me either. Vmenkov (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Vmenkov:1) I was comparing the snow melt flood period in the spring with the low water season in the late summer. I mean the width of the river. To the date I can not find any reliable internet source to make a ref to and the article you mentioned is actually a stub. It it seems to me there is no such data in open sources. If it seems unreasonable it can be removed or replaced by the existing data from  The Great Soviet encyclopedia (beforehand sorry for my English):

Tura River. A long river in Sverdlovskaya and Tyumenskaya Oblast left inflow of Tobol River (Ob river basin). Total length 1030 km basin area 80 400 km2. Begins at the Middle Ural (Lowest mountain area of Ural Mountains); flow over West Siberian Plain. River Feed hfrom different sources but snow melting prevails. Flood since April till July. Average water flow 177 m3/sec at the distance of 184 km from river mouth. Max water flow 3300 m3/sec (May), min water flow 8,6 m3/sec (end of March). River freeze in October-November, ice broke up in April- beginning of May. Major inflows: Salda, Tagil, Nitsa, Pishma(from the right). Float able (wood), navigable up to 753 km from it's mouth. There are 3 storage pond (overall area 23 km2). Towns: Verhnyaya Tura, Nizhnyaya Tura, Verhoturye, Turinsk, Tyumen.

Source text in Russian is here:http://slovari.yandex.ru/dict/bse/article/00081/11200.htm?text=%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0&encid=bse

2)Average temp - I took this data from the article on Tyumen Province from the electronic version of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia at http://slovari.yandex.ru/dict/bse/article/00081/45900.htm?text=%D0%A2%D1%8E%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8C&encid=bse

There is also data on average year temperature Normal +0,3°, min -1,8° (1969) max +3,2° (1983). at the official site of the city http://www.tyumen-city.ru/gorodtumeny/geografiigoroda/ There are difficulties with obtaining reliable climatic data for Tyumen there are almost no open sources at all not talking about official internet articles from metoe services of authorities :(


 * Alright, I think I have restored your original meaning now, and also have added more details on the flood height, whatever I could find with a cursory google search. I did not check the climate references, but I still have changed the average July temp from -18 C to +18 C; the latter seems rather more likely to me for most places in the world outside Antarctica! Vmenkov (talk) 13:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Vmenkov - ah... I just get your Idea with temp - it was a mistype ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romualdas Arm (talk • contribs) 15:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Vmenkov: I'd to ask you for a favor. I also need help with this section of the same article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyumen#Scope

The problem in 'English' languge and it's here:

The "official" city center is located at the crossing of Kuznetsova St. and Yalutorovskay St.; its geographic coordinates, rounded to minutes, are 57° 09'N 65°32'E is almost the crossing of Kuznetsova St. and Yalutorovskay St. However, this place actually plays no role in city life and is not thought of as the city center by Tymen's residents. The actual location of town center is at the front of the City Hall at about 57°09'11"N; 65°32'00"E.

It was already edited y another person and the changes he made shows that I was unable to bring my idea clearly.

I mean that: if some one will try to put offical tyumen coords into any geo service such as googlemaps etc he will get to the point at the map which is "almost at the crossing of Kuznetsova St. and Yalutorovskay St" and This point is not a center of Tyumen  anyhow...

I do not know how to say it both short and clear to avoid further misunderstanding... Can you please rephrase it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romualdas Arm (talk • contribs) 17:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I see what you meant. But my main question is, what makes these coordinates (57° 09'N 65°32'E) official (and worth mentioning in Wikipedia)? One meaning of "official" is "established by a local or national law". For example, the city flag or coat of arms become "official" because they have been approved by the City Council (or some other local or national government body, as the case may be); the "official boundaries" of the city have similarly been drawn by an appropriate local law; etc. Another meaning of "official" is "as reported by the government-run (or recognized by the government) institution charged with statistical etc. data". For example one can talk about "official" population numbers or CPI (inflation) numbers (from the census office or Bureau of Economic Statistics, etc), as opposed to whatever e.g. the numbers reported by a local journalist (who may claim e.g. that the census underreports illegal migrants or that CPI does not account for the prices people really pay). But the coordianates... are they "offciial" just because some standard reference books usually mention them, or what?


 * For example, I have an atlas where the index gives the coordinates (in ° and ') for every city, so that people could easily find it on the map. But I would not call them "official" (or would not even necessarily mention them in a wikipedia article), because I realize that the mapmakers just put those number there for convenience, uniformly rounding them to degrees and minutes. So for articles I write I just pick the coordinates from Wikimapia or a good printed map. Vmenkov (talk) 01:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Vmenkov: This coords are mentioned in all official sources as city geographic location starting atlases encyclopedias and finishing official sites of Tyumen City and Tyumen Region. In case if it does not mean center... then it possible can be removed - I do not know... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romualdas Arm (talk • contribs) 05:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I have reworded the paragraph according to what you've said. Also, I have rounded all other coordinates to just minutes and seconds. Considering that a second of longitude is about 31 meters, and a second of longitude (in Tyumen) is around 17 m, I don't think it's ever necessary to give the location of an object - even as small as a monument - using fractions of a second, even though it may be possible with modern tools (such as GPS and Google maps). You may want to double check all coordinates in that paragraph to make sure I have not introduced any errors accidentally. Vmenkov (talk) 06:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, on an unrelated issue: I don't think it's usually necessary to put the name of the photographer on the captions of images as they appear in a Wikipedia article, unless maybe the photographer is particularly famous or something (as it's the case with Prokudin-Gorski's pictures). After all, the photographer's name can be always looked up by clicking on an image and viewing the details at the image's own page. Otherwise, if a reader sees the caption "Statue of X, by Y", he would assume that Y is the name of the sculptor! Vmenkov (talk) 06:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Vmenkov: Tank you . As for Signature, I added name several times while used template from Pokudin-Gorskiy photo and then stopped to do it cause it litters signature.

NB: Pokudin Gorskiy is famous among very few number of people who understand in photography... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romualdas Arm (talk • contribs) 11:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Russkoye Ustye
Sorry, but I am still not quite getting what exactly this sentence means. Could you, please, re-word it once more or, better yet, break it down into a couple of separate sentences? I am especially confused about the "closest to European Russia" part. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 02:19, March 14, 2009 (UTC)


 * Done as suggested. Unfortunately, I could not locate the exact source where I recall seeing this etymology - it was probably not online in the first place - but I'll put the reference in if I ever located it. Vmenkov (talk) 05:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I appreciate it. I do, however, have a few more things I wanted to clarify.  First, do you think the "Russkoe" spelling is necessary? It is just one of several available romanizations, and we do not normally include all of them in the articles, just the main one.  Not that I care much if it's there or not, but it certainly seems redundant, given that the difference is just one letter.  Second, I am still puzzled about the "closest to European Russia part".  I understand that you promised to reference it if/when you find the source, but in the meanwhile, without the reference this bit makes very little sense to an uninformed reader&mdash;after all, of all the Sakha uluses, Allaikhovsky is definitely not the one closest to the European Russia, not to mention that European Russia itself is quite far off from even the westernmost border of the republic.  The river mouth is not westernmost of all river mouths in the republic either.  Sorry to continue pestering you with all this; I just want the sentence to make sense even if it means removing some of the useful (and possibly correct), but unsourced information.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:57, March 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * Ezhiki, thanks for constructive criticism. I put in the "Russkoe" spelling because it is the one used in the English translation of Rasputin's book - arguably, the best non-specialist account on the place that's available online in English. (Basically, I wanted to get back to the book by typing the usual spelling, "Russkoye Ustye" on Google Books - and when it was not brought up, I realized that Rasputin's translators used a different spelling). I personally have no particular love for that spelling, but since was used in a very prominent source, I thought that it is approaching the status of a "name used in English", and is worth mentioning, just for pragmatic reasons. As to the naming of the river mouths, of course people who named them 300+ years ago did so not in comparison to other rivers or to other parts of the Saha Republic (which of course did not exist then), but simply reflecting relative position of all outlets of the same delta. While I don't have an exact quote on that, but at least the list of names is fairly stable in literature: "И(ндигирка) вливается в Ледовитый океан 4-мя устьями, из которых вост. называется Колымским, зап. - Русским; ширина образуемой рукавами И. дельты у моря доходит до 75 в" (http://www.wikiznanie.ru/ru-wz/index.php/Индигирка ); "В 130 км от устья Индигирка разбивается на рукава (главные: Русское устье, Средний — наиболее крупный, Колымский)." (http://bse.sci-lib.com/article054139.html ). Somewhat similarly, e.g. the westernmost channel of the Lena Delta is called Olenyoksky, because it is the one closest to the Olenyok (the western neighbor of the Lena). Vmenkov (talk) 23:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. Regarding the spelling, do you think a redirect would be enough to take care of the pragmatic side?  Anyway, it's not that big of a deal; I just hate to see the lead packed with all kinds of spellings when there are so many other useful things we could put there.
 * Regarding the name, I think I get the point now. In any case, I'll be on the lookout for a reference as well.  Thanks again!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:26, March 17, 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the alt spelling into a footnote. Hope that makes the lead look better for your taste. Vmenkov (talk) 13:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Works for me. I've also set up a redirect.  Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:22, March 17, 2009 (UTC)

Contact
Vmenkov，how can I contact you? wfpiggie@126.comWfpiggie (talk) 12:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)wfpiggie


 * I've responded to your email message. Vmenkov (talk) 23:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Rollback
I have granted rollback rights to your account; the reason for this is that after a review of some of your contributions, I believe I can trust you to use rollback correctly by using it for its intended usage of reverting vandalism, and that you will not abuse it by reverting good-faith edits or to revert-war. For information on rollback, see New admin school/Rollback and Rollback feature. If you do not want rollback, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Good luck and thanks. –Juliancolton Talk  ·  Review  01:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Duchers
Hi, could you revisit your DYK entry Duchers, as some clarification is needed. Thanks. Regards, &mdash; Mattisse (Talk) 22:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Qapqal News
Hey --- glad you liked it. I just happened to read about it on Google last night when I was looking for something else. By the way, you know anyone who can make images of Xibe/Manchu script (or Mongolian, it's close enough except for one letter)? Cheers, cab (talk) 06:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Prayer mat
Since you were active on the RfD you might like to comment on the Requested move to get Prayer mats back to their rightful place. Bazj (talk) 09:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

2008 Chinese winter storm photos
I am not sure how the licensing would work on Commons. Would it be possible instead to just add an interwiki link to EN Wiki? --  李博杰    | —Talk contribs email guestbook complaints 03:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I am just afraid that they might not accept it because it was from a family member. I could add a link (not a thumb) to the EN Wiki pages at the bottom (e.g. in a "See also" header) just to be on the safe side. I don't want to go into all the trouble of OTRSes, especially as the family member in question is all the way in China right now, and it would be difficult to get a "written permission" from him (even though he has given me permission, OTRS requires it in writing). --  李博杰    | —Talk contribs email guestbook complaints 04:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)