Talk:Tibet

border issue

It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people

1) what is the exact definition of tibetan people? here is my first problem with this sentence. if tibetan people is defined as the indiginous population of the tibetan plateau, then should it also include other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas. Before PRC, the ROC defined tibetans as just the indiginous groups from the tibetan region and does not define other ethnic groups from that region with different names. the whole 56 minorities definition is a product of prc. according to the first part of the sentence, it appears to me that the original writer excluded other indiginous groups such as Monpas, Qiang and Lhobas from the indiginous populations of tibet. however, one part of wiki describes those groups as the indiginous populations of the region. for example, american english uses native americans to describe indiginous population of america but there are also different tribal groups under the title of native americans but they are not excluded from the native american group simply because they have different tribal names.

2) problem is describing the immigrant groups of the tibetan plateau. if we are talking about the whole tibetan plateau, then only god knows how many different groups have been living in this region. How come we can not include immigrant groups from other regions such as nepal, mongolia, india and china. it is obvious that these neighborring regions have been interacting with each other for centuries and those so call immigrants are also a very significant group of the population in tibet.

3) this sentence has certain level of pan-dalai lama political message with in it. one of the pts of the dalai lama middle-way plan is demanding tibetans for tibetans and all other none-tibetans should just move out. however, his definition of the tibetan region also includes many indiginous groups who have been living aroud the region for centuries, but they are unfairly targeted as none tibetans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eastern2western (talk • contribs) 06:29, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's important that the intro associate the geographic/cultural region with the Tibetan ethnic group. It doesn't need to have a firm definition; in fact, no ethnic group has a firm definition definition. Generally, "Tibetan people" are people who speak Tibetan (i.e., a language descended from Old Tibetan) and participate in Tibetan culture. I'm not sure what you mean by "the original writer", but the version of the article that you quoted does not say that Monpas, Qiang, Lhobas, etc. are not indigenous to the region.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 06:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe addressing tibetan people as the ones who only participate in the tibetan culture and speak tibetan carries certain level of racism. what about those groups who do not have access to the traditional tibetan education system and they have a dialect that is different from the popular dialect? do exclude them from being tibetans? for example, native americans represents indiginous people of america but they also have a lot of different dialects and cultures? simply because they are different, should they have a different title than native americans.

Well, I don't think it's racist. Being called "Native American" or "Tibetan" is not particularly a privilege; it's just a description (governments may or may not attach legal privileges or disadvantages in some cases, but that is a separate policy question) (in fact, the term "Native American" or "American Indian" often does exclude Eskimos and Aleuts, more or less arbitrarily). The difference between "Native American" and "Tibetan" is that "Native American" is a catch-all category, while "Tibetan" is a specific group of people.

I disagree with you completely and I believe what you said is a violation of npov of wikipedia. if you click on tibetan people, wiki defined the word as for indiginous people of the tibetan region. then it is not your job to define who the tibetans are. as long as they are indiginous, then you can not exclude them from the definition of tibetans. native american and tibetans are used to defined the native people of their land and I do not see the pt of separating the minority groups out because they do not pratice certain culture or speak a certain dialect. it is much more neutral to include them as part of the tibetan population.

As for "the popular dialect", the rule-of-thumb definition that I gave explicitly includes all Tibetan dialects (and I defined what that means). This definition makes Monpas a non-Tibetan group, although it is definitely worth noting that the Monpas are close cousins to the Tibetans both linguistically and culturally.

then what is your pt of excluding monpas from tibetans if they do speak a dialect and pratice a culture that have similarities with the traditional cultures of tibet. if wiki defines tibetan as indiginous population of the tibetan region, then it is a must to include all native groups as part of the general tibetan ethnicity.

I think people usually exclude Nepalese and Indian immigrant populations when talking about Tibet because they are only found in geographically small areas such as Sikkim and Darjeeling that are outside of the PRC and therefore are usually not thought as "Tibet" anyway.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 06:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

wow the pt is trying to address the migratory population or foreigh population of tibetan region, then all neighborring groups shoud be included or address. simply because they are not in the region of prc does not exclude them from the migratory population of the tibetan plateau.

you should include groups from different neighboring regions because tibetan plateau is a huge region and has always been historically porous which allowed a lot of freedom of immigration. the major point that I would like to address is that the tibetan plateau has always been a region of multi cultural influence and the immigrant groups are not always simply be from hans and muslims because there are other people from different regions have been living for a very long time.

Hans and Sinophone Muslims are by far the largest and most influential recent immigrant groups in Tibet. They are also by far the largest non-Tibetan-speaking population (recent or otherwise) in Tibet. I don't think they should be treated in the same terms as Indian and Nepalese immigrants, whose numbers are negligible outside of a few small, isolated areas. As for "multi-cultural influence", that is true of basically every place on Earth. I don't think it needs special emphasis in the intro.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

they should be treated as part of the migratory population of the tibetan plateau. being large in numbers does not make them the exclive migratory groups of tibet.

The version of the article that you quoted doesn't say anything about a political program to exclude people who are not ethnic Tibetans from Tibet (nor am I aware of the Dalai Lama making such a proposal), so I think you are reading the pan-Dalai perspective into it.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 06:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

completely disagree with you because dalai lama's middle way approach has been asking for tibet for tibetans and removal of all none tibetans from the tibet region. judging from your photo, your opinions are obviously very pro-dalai.

I'm not interested in discussing the Dalai Lama's political proposals with you further, except insofar as they pertain directly to writing this article. As I said, I don't think this sentence has a "pan-Dalai" bias except what you have read into it.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I just undid this group of changes which replaced a perfectly good sentence with a vague and unclear statement: "It is the traditional homeland of a very diverse population that is a mixture of indiginous groups and residents from neighborring regions". Apart from the misspellings it is unclear whether the traditional homeland is the home of the indigenous groups only or residents from neighboring regions. More importantly the previous version contains useful information on the various peoples with links which can be used for background. Without them its unclear what diverse population or what neighboring region is referred to.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:42, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

first thing is the demographic section of the article has already provided enoug details about the population makeup of tibet and I find it very strange to be repeating the exact same information with cntradictions in the header. according to the demographic section, it is very obvious that the tibetan plateau is a very huge region that a diverse population has been living in it. thus it is much more neutral to state that the indiginous population is not just excluvely from a certain group. I just think it is much better off being simplified and stating this tibetan region is very diverse and does not just belong to a certain group —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eastern2western (talk • contribs) 20:02, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

No version of this article has ever said that the indigenous population is exclusively from a certain group.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

read the sentence in question because it excluded minority groups from the definition of tibetan simply because they do not match your definition of what a tibetan should be.

Well, I definitely think the definition of "Tibetan" I gave above is a provisional rule of thumb, not anything like a hard-and-fast standard. Wikipedia does treat Tibetans as a specific ethnic group, not as a catch-all for people who live in Tibet. For instance, the article on Tibetan people says "Tibetans speak the Tibetan language, which has many mutually unintelligible dialects."

Monpa is a language that is related to Tibetan just as Dutch is a language that is related to German. They are similar, but not the same.

The lead does not need a thorough description of migration patterns in Tibet. I think the only reason it mentions Han and Hui people at all is to point out that not just Tibetans (and minor tribal groups) live in Tibet.

Is the sentence in question, "It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas"? That says specifically that not only Tibetans but also, Monpas, Qiang, Lhobas, and others are indigenous to Tibet.—Greg Pandatshang (talk)

First line of this article

I think the first line should read "Tibet is a plateau region in China", no? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.216.23.254 (talk) 18:02, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

If there're no comments, let's change that line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.216.23.254 (talk) 20:38, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed--88.104.110.251 (talk) 12:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

That Tibet is a region of China is a controversial claim because of a) political disputes over the current political status of Tibet as well as how to describe its historical relationship with China; and b) the extent of Tibet is ambiguous under some definitions and may extend to some areas outside of the PRC. I wouldn't suggest that the first line should be "Tibet is a plateau region not in China" or anything like that, but I don't see a need to introduce the controversy in the first sentence.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 00:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/images/map/china/china-map-2-m.gif You'll notice that Tibet is in said map. Tibet is a region in China which is a sovereign state in Asia. Politics are not appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.213.212 (talk) 20:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The People's Republic of China is a political entity, so the fact that Tibet is within the sovereign territory of the PRC is itself a fact of politics. If we were trying to take politics out of the discussion entirely, I would suggest a wording along the lines of "Tibet is a cultural region in central Asia, located near India and China." However, people don't normally take a purely non-political approach to these types of questions.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 22:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Problem is you take a political side by saying it is near China when in fact its IN China. Near would make it clear the article claims Tibet is its own entity which it is not. If we're not allowed to test political waters here, I think the most neutral ground would be to say "Tibet is a cultural region of autonomous rule within the sovereign state of China, though there are ongoing disputes as to its political status as a territory of the PRC." That acknowledges that Tibet is Chinese without getting into the political arena. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.213.212 (talk) 21:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

If you did try to treat "Tibet is Chinese" as a purely cultural and nonpolitical statement, then I think the bulk of the sources would find it to be simply inaccurate.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 05:08, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Images

Who was the idiot who removed all of the beautiful images in this article? Tibet is one of the most scenic areas in the world, what happened to those lovely pictures of yaks grazing in pastures and mountains and images of old Tibetan ladies? Coming from the founder of WP:Tibet, this article sucks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:25, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

See [1] and the rationale in the comment. NebY (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet

"Some archaeological data suggests humans may have passed through Tibet at the time India was first inhabited, half a million years ago.[12]" There were no humans 500k years ago! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulj1952 (talk • contribs) 17:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

As pointed out by this user, this statement is ludicrous: humans didn't leave Africa until <100,000 year ago. The supposed citation for this comment is also incomplete -- as are most of the citations on the page! {Author last name, date, pp.} is not a complete citation. What about the title of the work?! Please fix. thank you! Habarimbu (talk) 03:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the nonsensical sentence. Zanhe (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Those references are to the sources listed at the foot of the article. This is a normal way of making repeated references to the same work legible but brief. Which said, the claim was so extraordinary that it would require much clearer substantiation. NebY (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Demographics

The wording in this last change to demographics sounds like it comes straight from the PRC. Changing "a concern voiced" to "politicized". Isn't politicized what the PRC calls it? "Has stated" -> "claims"; did he not state it? As for the illiteracy rate and population I looked at the source and see this. Do you have a source, which does not come from PRC which shows this not true? Drumzandspace2000 (talk) 10:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

No one should ever talk about the demographics of Tibet without being clear about what they mean by Tibet. There's no good reason to include Xining as part of Tibet, but people do sometimes, which makes a big difference to how the numbers add up. Whether or not to include Golmud makes a difference, too, and there are some other examples. Of course, PRC sources will limit Tibet to the TAR. I have no idea whether or not the source cited is credible, but we can't assume that it is just because it is from outside the PRC. I agree that the phrasing "politicized by Tibetan exile groups" is not acceptable. Everyone blames everyone else for the political problem, so we can't write the article to blame one side for it.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 12:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong I am not saying "the source is non PRC so it is good". I am saying why change the article saying "Undo another tendentious revert. That the statistic is wrong has already been explained. Continue the dialogue on talk to reach a consensus before insertion again" as Quigley did on October 2nd without showing that the source is no good. At the same time the wording of politicized was added, which has a bias so it leads one to think that the rest of the edit was done to be biased. Drumzandspace2000 (talk) 12:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you the same person as User:Celinabluewick? Celinabluewick falsified source material to try to pass off Chinese census numbers for Xinjiang as "various independent... based outside of China" numbers for "Tibet". I told him or her about this serious error multiple times but he or she refused to listen, and now you are repeating the identical arguments and mistakes. Furthermore, I didn't add any new wording as you claim; I only reverted Celinabluewick's edits. Yes, the Dalai Lama "claims" not "states" that China has a policy to change Tibet's ethnic makeup, because he is not a representative of that government and that same government denies such a thing. To present this complex issue as simply one of whose numbers you believe is a gross misrepresentation. Considering that this article doesn't have a clear definition of "Tibet", much like China until a short while ago, I don't think it should have a demographics section. Quigley (talk) 23:16, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I think demographic changes and rumours of demographic changes are a very important social and political issue in various Tibetan-inhabited regions, so they should be covered in this article. We will need to be as clear as possible which areas we are talking about when. There may be some cases where it is necessary to say "X says Y about Tibetan demographics, but X does not specify which areas X is including within 'Tibet'", if the claim itself is particularly notable, but I would tend to avoid that.

Wikipedia generally favors "state" over "claim". The latter implies an assertion is false. As for state, however, statements are made by wise men, liars, and fools alike.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 19:30, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I am not any user other then myself. I have a few times made edits not logged in and those would be under a few IP addresses, however I do know that I have never edited the Tibet page as an IP address. With that out of the way I am not making any argument saying that the sources are correct or not; I was asking why this information was deleted when the source was cited and no source showing that it was wrong or "made up" was shown. As for the wording change I still say "politicized" is the wording of the PRC and not neutral wording same as "claims" over "states" Drumzandspace2000 (talk) 10:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

But did you notice the link above that mentions the source you're citing? It implies that the source is being cited inaccurately. That would answer the question of why information was deleted.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 10:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

In the third sentence of the article, "earth" ought to be capitalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.39.210.24 (talk) 23:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)