Talk:Genghis Khan/Archive 4

message: The position of the Tatars on the map appears to be wrong; the map shows them living west of the Mongols, while the article itself, as well as other sources I've checked, says they lived to the east.--Rob117 00:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map- Eurasia on the eve of the Mongol invasions. 

message: Possibilly? Well, what are the other possible scenarios? that she willingly had sex with the Merkits? Olorin28 01:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or maybe she didn't have sex with any of them at all.  Alternately, she was raped by/had sex with one of the Merkits and was not impregnated by him, but by Temujin upon their reunion, who therefore would be Jochi's biological father.  It's most likely that she was raped (in the same sense that Hoelun herself was "raped" by Yesugei) by one of the Merkits and that Jochi is the product of that encounter, but there is no existing evidence to conclusively decide either way.  This situation is similar to that of Qin Shi Huang, who was most likely the son of Lu Buwei and not his "father", Qin Zhuangxiang.  In that case, as in this one, we can only "presume", but not say for certain, despite it being a very reasonable inference. siafu 01:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah I agree with him on this. We really need a factual evidence that it actually happened and it was a "rape." If we don't have evidence, it's really impossible to say that it was. It's pretty strong assumption too and therefore it should have evidence. 67.190.113.165 06:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not that strong an assumption, really.  The same tactic led to the birth of Temujin.  It's just a little bit too strong, since if we're challenged for factual evidence there isn't any. siafu 13:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Borte's Rape 

message: This article has really changed quite a bit since I last looked in.  Any negative information about Genghis Khan has been surpressed, the legacy section now simply has a "Positive" header filled with original research, and the whole article is now heavily biased towards a heroic view of this military conquerer.  Take a look at the difference between an older version and the current.  Every negative thing is played down with unsourced mentions like "modern scholars argue that their historians exaggerate the numbers of deaths."  There are many sources that say otherwise, say, about Genghis Khan and genocide:
*Le Monde Diplomatique: "The destruction began with the genocide of the Tangut people of the Western Xia empire in northwest China. The Mongols razed many prosperous towns and reduced provinces to arid steppes, killing as they passed through: eventually they slaughtered some 600,000 Tanguts."
*History of the Mongol Conquests, JJ Saunders, U. Pennsylvania Press, 1972: "The cold and deliberate genocide practiced by the Mongols, which has no parallel save that of the ancient Assyrians and the modern Nazis, perhaps arose from mixed motives of military advantage and superstitious fears..."  From the really cool Google Print feature.
*Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review edited by Israel W Charney, 1994, lists the invasion of Afghanistan by Genghis as a genocide
*Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century by Benjamin A Valentino, gives the Mongols as one of the earliest examples
We don't need to say that he committed genocide in the article, but the strong bias here needs to be turned back, the legacy section needs to be revamped, and the intro needs to talk more about the negative side of his conquests.  --Goodoldpolonius2 07:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are couple of problems with presenting the way you want. First of all, there are no factual numbers on how many people were killed. In one national geographic reporter said, there couldn't have been 1.2 million people in Bakteria town. There is no factual information available and let's account for the centuries of old bias from these scholars. Everything written about the Mongols are from their opponents, there is no question about that and we should look with skeptical eye. The numbers of casualties have no substantial evidence. Once people start saying that they killed 20 million people, there is no other way to argue opposite it and in general people don't like them, especially Genghis Khan. Secondly, the negative aspect in the legacy section has been discussed and it was on the way of being inserted into the legacy section (please see above). There was some argument, but it was going to be written of course. My final point is that, let's not rush to judgment on this topic; i agree there were a lot of killings and possibly intentional killing because of long centuries of refusing to be ruled by Mongols, like the Chinese ethnic groups; but let's not make this article the one that was earlier that says, Genghis was gay, feudal conquerer, rapist, barbaric. Let's not tilt in anyway. I strongly support this article to be as accurate as possible. Thirdly a section about consequences of conquest. It looks at what happened to civilians and properties. There is special section for that, and final point is this article should include everyone, especially the Mongols. The whole problem with Mongol sources is that they are so biased (mostly) that it it's hard to find the truth. I'm opposed to calling Genghis Khan rapist, man eater, head chopper, barbaric man first of all. 67.190.113.165 14:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course we should look at the high levels of casualties with a critical eye, but the key here is to include sourced opinions by verifiable, credible experts.  I provided some of those opinions about high levels of casualties above, and it (or material like it) should go in the article.  Similarly, you have a good point that some people argue strongly against Genghis-as-mass-murderer, so the arguments against should be similarly sourced.  Either way, this is a critical part of Genghis's legacy, and it is relegated to a small section at the end in an article heavily tilted towards a heroic view, based on original research, that includes almost entirely positive aspects of his conquests without sources.  My suggestion is that sources shoild be made clear, and the views of historians included to make it clear that there is debate over the legacy, but that many people (including important historians) primarily DO view him as responsible for some of the worst massacres until the 20th century, rather than as the inventer of the Mongol written language, which is all that is in the intro.  --Goodoldpolonius2 16:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very good point. I'm with you 100% to do what you want to do. Please be bold in editing the article and do what you have to do. I made some changes. 67.190.113.165 06:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: Ok we got to start thinking about what it will take this article to make it become a FAC article. What are your guys opinions? What is the thing that you don't like about this article? What can be the improvements? What are the good areas? What would you like to see? Please write, write, say what you want to say. Thanks. More opinions the better. 71.196.154.224 04:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For me 71.196.154.224 04:56, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: There is a lot of attention on "neutrality" on this article, at the expense of sufficient information.  Too much of it (relatively speaking) is on subjects surrounding Genghis Khan, and not enough on the man himself. siafu 04:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that's why we have to start moving some of the extra sections into the main articles themselves, instead of convoluting gk article with mongol empire and military generals. i agree. 71.196.154.224 04:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nomination for fac

message: We need to figure out what is NPOV about this article and work towards removing the npov tag? What is it? Goodoldpolonius? and perhaps others 71.196.154.224 07:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: We need to flesh out what the neutrality concern is

message: someone has vandalised the section about the kwarezimid conquest and written brian der was here fool!
i am enraged
SHANE WAS HERE
::If Borte was one of her wifes, how come his other children from other wives wasn't even mentioned strongly than Borte? How come Borte's sons were the only ones legitimate for Great Khan promotion? Are you making sh*t up? 168.253.13.134 06:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I am not making shit up, and it would probably be a good idea to review WP:Civil before you continue.  Borte was Genghis Khan's first wife and primary empress (which is why her sons were in line to inherit), but he had many other wives.  Yesugen and Yesui, for example, he married after assimilating the defeated Tatars into his enclave:Temujin wanted the surviving Tatars taken in as full members of his tribe, not as slaves.  To stress this, he not only adopted another Tatar child for his mother, but also encouraged intermarriage.  Until this time he had only one official wife, Borte, who bore him four sons and an unknown number of daughters, but he now took the aristocratic Tatar Yesugen and her elder sister Yesui as additional wives.(Weatherford, p.51)They were clearly wives, and clearly existed, according to sources. siafu 07:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok but just to let you know nothing about who he was and what he was is highly contested and not known in almost anyway. He is very enigmatic figure I hope you keep that in mind and think about it if you are copying from anything else. Use your own brain when you can and the edit, just imho. Thanks for the edit though but don't make personal attack on GK. I made this article the way it is like this from like a year ago when it was 1/5 what it was, and now I'm happy that people are contesting stuff and writing about it. When this article first started, he was called barbarian. 168.253.13.134 07:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that Genghis Khan is an "enigmatic figure" does not impress me to ignoring research.  Unless you have sources to back up any of your claims, we can't use them in the article; I'm not making any "personal attacks" on Genghis Khan (?), I'm just stating facts; and finally, the fact that you've edited this article in the past (as have I, for over a year) does not imply ownership -- see WP:OWN. siafu 07:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I agree with WP:OWN, but one person's source is not enough to be included in this article. We are making approximations and estimations with the information on this article. Nobody possibly can say that this article is factually accurate and is not even close to Adolf Hitler or Napoleons because he is very old historic figure and there is very little information about him and when there is one, it's their enemies writing about him (most of the time). I'm just skeptical and cautious about making bold claims, and I highly contest any writer's knowledge of Genghis Khan except that ones that saw him in person like Juziani. I don't have any evidence for myself for this reason. I hope you keep that in mind, but let's improve it. Good work. 168.253.13.134 07:18, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am improving it.  Unless you can provide any references or citations for anything, you are not.  What bold claims, exactly, are you contesting?  That he had many wives?  This is recorded in the Secret History, as well as elsewhere.  That he had daughters?  Information on a few of them survives through other sources, but the fact that they aren't mentioned in the Secret History makes it clear that we can't conclusively say how many.  I'm still not sure what you're objecting to and calling a "personal attack" on Genghis Khan, or what you think is POV about the article.  All you've said so far is that we don't know as much about Genghis Khan as we do about more recent historical figures, which is obvious and clear from the article. siafu 07:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism report 

message: A nicer-looking map than Premongol-copy.png that we have would be appreciated, if anyone can get their hands on one. siafu 14:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What are you talking about? Which map? I don't understand 168.253.21.156 01:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Map image

message: Is this really appropriate? I don't really know of anyone(Chinese) who would compare Genghis Khan to Columbus... Most either 1. Consider Genghis Khan as a great Chinese emperor (since Mongols are considered an ethnic group of China) or 2. Genghis Khan = barbarian hero who killed many innocent people. Olorin28 23:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well the implication sounds like it is intended for western audiences, because they will know who Columbus was and can relate the sentence to him. I don't think it is really needed in the article to mention Columbus, because not a lot of people around the world knows about Columbus and what he has done. Also on the Mongols being ethnic group in China, China has many ethnic groups, many, many, and Mongols are one of them. They are officially recognized by the government. But Mongols have a nation and independence. Genghis Khan is never considered Chinese emperor and even the Chinese knows it, but Kublai is considered Chinese in China and Mongolia in general public, not necessarily Mongolian because he transferred his culture and adopted Chinese lifestyle in a major way. Genghis Khan is definitely the outcast for Chinese compared to Kublai, and China is proud and big and Mongols and Chinese are like the Irish and English, never really got together well with each other, tention, etc. 168.253.21.156
The Columbus reference should not be in this article...
Here are the different viewpoints offered by the Chinese Wikipedia concerning the ethnicity of Genghis Khan: 1. Genghis Khan and his descendants are Chinese because they are a frontier power of Song Dynasty and eventually conquered it, unifying the country. The Chinese Wikipedia also noted that the "Mongol" ethnic group never existed until Mongol Empire, much like the Han ethnic group and Han Dynasty. Mao Zedong named Genghis Khan as one of the five most outstanding emperor in Chinese history and called him the "Proud Son of Heaven". 
2. Genghis Khan is a barbaric emperor of another nation which conquered Song Dynasty and subjugated the Han ethnic group. Therefore he should be considered as a foreign national. 
3. Only Khubilai and his descendants who established Yuan Dynasty should be considered Chinese, despite the fact that Khubilai crowned posthumously his grandfather Genghis Khan.  Olorin28 03:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparing Genghis Khan to Columbus 

message: When I was learning in Russian schools, Genghis Khan was described as a "most unpure", "devil", horrible tyrant", etc. He was described as an "force of great evil". Now, I can understand Genghis Khan being called a bastard* by others, because in fact Genghis Khan did kill a lot of innocent people ( though he was doing it to rule the lands and make his Empire stronger) and used brutal force, but what I can't stand, that the same Russian textbook calling Ivan the Terrible "perhapes stricktest ruler of Russia, but a great help and father to Russia". What the hell*!!! Ivan the Terrible killed almost as much as Genghis Khan, and he killed his own just because he felt like it. Genghis Khan never killed any of his own unless there was a good or mere reason for it. Who can see the really messed up fact?!
*Pardon me Wikipedia for the kind of words I used, but other wouldn't fully describe the anger and hate I felt.
Kniaz 6:07 pm. Tuesday 3/28/06
:: I hear you we are trying to put it matter-of-factly as possible and the whole world history is Western biased and we are trying to change that and Wikipedia helps. More power to equality and fairness at least in history. People view different things different ways, it's just how humans are. But we are striving for world-wide point of view including Chinese, Japanese, Mongols, Middle Eastern to give wholesome article, which this article is becoming day to day. Don't get stressed, it's changing. 71.196.154.224 06:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  O_0* 

message: I put a lot of expand and copyedit templates in the article. The military campaign section should be expanded and copyedited very heavily, or perhaps re-written. It doesn't contain anything useful and the wording and structure is just messed up and like rough draft. Someone please expand and improve the military campaign. It looks like crap. Thanks 71.196.154.224 06:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit and expand templates