Talk:Navajo Nation

"[I]t is illegal to transport original artifacts and artwork off of the reservation." Possibly true, possibly false, depending on whether "artwork" is deemed modified by "original," but in any event, it is grossly inaccurate to refer to Navajo weavings and pottery as "replicas." It's entirely possible and legal to buy the real items, as long as they are of recent origin -- in fact entirely authentic Navajo rugs are a major source of income on the Big Rez, and "replicas" of same, from outside the reservation, are the artisans' bane. I'll fix this when I get a minute. (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 23:27, 9 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Update: it's fixed. Please read and comment. (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:26, 10 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Neato

Nice article! I'm glad to see this area covered. (WT-en) Majnoona 22:59, 24 April 2006 (EDT)

External Links

I had put the link to the website of the navajo nation and it was removed by (WT-en) Ryan apparently as per the guidelines. I fail how this website was misguided here. First, the navajo nation is almost on the same level as a state government. Also, reservations have laws particular to each of them which are likely to be cited/updated on that website. They also have the dates of important events (which change from year to year) like the navajo nation fair as well as the schedule, which could be important information for travellers to know if they want to time their visit with particular events. Would it be better suited to have that website as an inline link in relevant sections then?(WT-en) Charles 21:11, 4 November 2006 (EST)

Actually, the problem is not with the link, but with the External links section. It was becoming a magnet for useless links. The link to the official site certainly has a place as long as it is inline in the relevant section. The right place for it is the "Understand" section, but hey where is the "Understand" section? This place looks like a region and should have the region article template, but it has some sections missing. — (WT-en) Ravikiran 21:22, 4 November 2006 (EST)

I see. Good point. I'll see if I can type up a short understand section with a blurb about some of the particular rules of the Navajo nation. I don't know how specific these could be as rules can change from reservation to reservation and I'm not sure that the Navajo nation territory is treated as a single monolithic reservation. I'll try that. In any case, it would be important for travellers as often a fee is charged on indian reservations for taking pictures and so on. Thanks for the clarification. (WT-en) Charles 21:27, 4 November 2006 (EST)

One caution - Ravi is right that external link sections were magnets for spam, but we also discourage external links because we've found people have a tendency to write things like "rules to be aware of while in the Navajo Nation can be found here". The problem with that approach is that we want guides to be complete, with all important information included in the guide. A link to the Navajo Nation home page is probably fine for this article, but please make sure it isn't used in such a way that future contributors see it as an alternative to adding content to this article. Thanks for discussing, by the way - we tend to be really, really strict with external links, but this one seems like it could fit. -- (WT-en) Ryan 23:01, 4 November 2006 (EST)

Ecchhh!

Jani, did you really have to put that photo up? -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 23:10, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Don't blame me for putting the photo up, blame the Navajo for putting the building up... and the dreamcatcher that looks like a smiley with a top hat and a Hitler moustache. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:38, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, it certainly provides incentive to put up a better image. :-P That's not exactly a dreamcatcher, but the idea works... -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 09:04, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

How about a nice image of Shiprock as the new lead photo ? (WT-en) WineCountryInn 08:06, 6 February 2009 (EST)

Travel topic?

This discussion is based on a comment Texugo made over at Project:Votes for deletion#Four Corners, who expressed concern that the Navajo Nation article was a form of overlap with the other regional articles (Northwest New Mexico, Southwestern Colorado, Northern Arizona, Canyon Country), which violates one of our policies.

So what I'd like to propose is turning this article into a travel topic, along the same lines as Colorado's Wine Country or the New Mexico Pueblos article I'm currently building. In many ways it already has the feel of a travel topic, such as in the Buy, Eat, and Drink sections. Making it a travel topic would not be a hard task, and should alleviate any concerns about overlap. (WT-en) PerryPlanet ^Talk 21:10, 3 February 2009 (EST)

I think this is a really good idea, and should be extended to other natural regions that for one reason or other stand outside of our geographical hierarchy (e.g., Appalachian Mountains, Great Lakes, Alps, etc.). To get that started, all that's really needed is to start adding traveltopic tags to the articles in question. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 21:24, 3 February 2009 (EST)

I've opened a discussion on this topic at Wikivoyage_talk:Geographical_hierarchy#Extra-hierarchical_regions. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 21:24, 3 February 2009 (EST)

I'm opposed. Navajo Nation "feels" more like a region, to those traveling in it, than most of the "regions" in which it resides. Our rules need to be flexible enough to account for outliers like this. However, let's see what the discussion over there turns up. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 01:10, 4 February 2009 (EST)