Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China/Uyghurs workgroup

How can I help?

How can I help? I am not very knowledgeable about "Chinese Turkestan" itself, but I want to remedy that and involvement here seems like a good way to do that.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:27, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Hi, welcome, and good question! Most of my knowledge on the subject comes from a research paper I did last semester in school, and a lot of the information on Wikipedia currently seems rather slight compared to the depth of some of my sources, hence my desire to start this WikiProject. Xinjiang, for example, currently makes no mention of Chinese policies on the practice of religion, the influx of Han Chinese immigration, or much of any of the history of the territory prior to the assumption of Communist rule. Uyghur covers the historical origins fairly well but essentially stops its history at about the 15th Century, and has relatively little on Uyghur culture or religious practices as of right now. East Turkistan suffers from POV problems - parts of it should be merged into other articles, some of which don't exist yet, and the concept of "East Turkistan" should be more clearly disambiguated. Having never done something like this before, I'm not entirely sure where it's best to start; right now, I'm working on writing an entry for the First East Turkistan Republic, which offers some more detailed historical background to both Uyghur political history and Xinjiang more generally; on the cultural front, I made an article for the Fragrant Concubine, a popular legend with ties to the region. Most of my sources have been books rather than web so far, so I'm not sure what I can recommend to start with - my research paper is here, if you want a more detailed introduction, though it's probably not NPOV enough in places to use in Wikipedia right now. Wikipedia:WikiProject Uyghurs of Western China/Structure has some pages right now that I think will be important to the project at some point, but I'm not sure where your interests might lie or where you would want to start, and currently only have a general idea about how information might be organized. If you have ideas, please let me know since as I said, I'm new to Wikipedia and not sure how Wikiprojects are usually done. Thanks for your interest! --MC MasterChef 13:39, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ummm...how about taking that long para above and making it a To-Do list? See Wikipedia:List of missing Africa topics and Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board for examples. Just put it there--and you'll be amazed how other Wikipedians will pitch in. I started the Africa-related board without mentioning it much to anyone or adverstising it. And look at it now.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:01, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

And why not post your text here anyway--other editors can then NPOV it.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:03, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Why not put the ToDO template on the main page? Isn't that where it belongs instead of the talk page?—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:12, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Though careful when you do that--be sure to copy the contents of the list before you remove it from this page.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:14, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

"East Turkistan Independence Movement"

Should this become our main article for Uyghur separatism/nationalism/political activism/etc? "East Turkistan" (as opposed to "Uyghur") could conceivably be broader, including groups like the Tajiks and the Kyrgyz; it doesn't seem too likely to risk any POV charges (I don't know if nationalism or separatism would, but I could imagine how they might) either. So I'm inclined to go for it, and disambiguate East Turkistan accordingly. If I understand Wikipedia naming conventions right, "independence movement" should be lower caps though, since we're not talking about a formal organization here but rather the broader political movement, right? --MC MasterChef 22:37, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes. And I agree. If the articles will be long enough, they should be separate.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 00:37, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to help too

Hi. I have noticed that the information on Wikipedia about the Uyghurs are pretty lacking. I'd like to help do work on the to-do list, but my scope of the topic are limit. I also see that the articles on the Hui ethnic group, another Muslim ethnic group under mainland China's control, lack even more info than the Uyghur articles, even though the two groups have (i think) about the same population. Thanks. --Basawala 01:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Uyghur Scouting

Can you help render Tayyar Bol (Be Prepared), the Scout Motto, into Uyghur script? Thanks! Chris 06:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)