ceigered:Don't associate "ing" with "ado" - 'ing' in English is technically more closer to "anta"

In English "ing" is also used for gerunds which can be translated using the "ad" suffix. Something like "punado" could certainly mean "punishing", for example punado estas necesa - punishing (or punishment) is necessary. In this case "punishing" is a gerund not a participle, and functions semantically as a noun not an adjective. The same is true of the Esperanto equivalent.

erinja:You could say "Mi volas tion skribita" (I want that [to have been] written" and that would be correct.

In that example it would be ok to have left off the -n from "skribita" because there is an implied verb "esti".

No, the -n is needed, also in the case of existing "esti". Otherwise "skribita" relates to "mi".

Mi volas tion (esti) skribitan: tion (estas) skribitan
Mi volas tion skribita: mi (estas) skribita

But it's possible to write

Mi volas tion, kio estas skribita. (Not the same meaning)
Mi volas tion, ke ĝi estu skribita.
Mi volas, ke tiu estu skribita.

Apart from the suggestions already given, La altaĵo havis alton je 50 metroj and La punado ne estis same severa ĉiuokaze; fojfoje, puno estis tre malsevera may be suitable examples.
In my view Mi volas tion skriba could also work.

fizikisto:No, the -n is needed, also in the case of existing "esti". Otherwise "skribita" relates to "mi".

This is not correct. The accusative ending is not required in order to link the participle adjective to the object. There are endless examples of this ("farbas la domon ruĝa", "vidis la knabon kuranta" etc) but if you want to see many more you could run this query through Tekstaro: \\b[mnvlŝi]l?i \\w+[iaou]s (la )?(\\w{3,}[uo]j?n|[mnvlŝi]l?in) \\w{3,}aj?\\b

This is what PMEG calls Perverba priskribo de la objekto.

"Mi volas tion skribita" is perfectly ok and functionally means the same as "mi volas, ke tio estu skribita".

tommjames:

ceigered:Don't associate "ing" with "ado" - 'ing' in English is technically more closer to "anta"

In English "ing" is also used for gerunds which can be translated using the "ad" suffix. Something like "punado" could certainly mean "punishing", for example punado estas necesa - punishing (or punishment) is necessary. In this case "punishing" is a gerund not a participle, and functions semantically as a noun not an adjective. The same is true of the Esperanto equivalent.

Yes but that's a complicated aspect of English grammar seeped in a whole heap of sound changes (ende -> en -> ing) that I didn't want to get into - the point is, ing has two meanings (which get more complicated as there are no differences between adjective, noun and participle forms) while -ad- only has one core meaning itself, so my post was trying to encourage learners of these things to *not* put ing and ado in the same boat.

Anyway, it's like comparing apples and oranges. There are two -ings, one for the gerund and one for the present participle, while in Esperanto there is one -ad- which signifies continuation, and there is an -o which signifies nouns. -ado is a combination of the two with significantly more precise meaning than simply -o, but there is no real equivalent in English and vice-versa (well, at least not in Modern English - if the learner knows Middle or Old English or enough European languages and has a creative enough imagination, it should all work out anyway, but hopefully my reasons for giving such prior advice make sense ).

As for the other issue regarding things like "Mi volas tion skribita" etc, maybe at a learner level it's best to just use -e? Less confusing I guess. The word order of "Mi volas tion skribita" doesn't really create much confusion given the separation of mi and skribita (maybe computers might get confused), but -e looks more neutral in this case.

ceigered:
As for the other issue regarding things like "Mi volas tion skribita" etc, maybe at a learner level it's best to just use -e? Less confusing I guess. The word order of "Mi volas tion skribita" doesn't really create much confusion given the separation of mi and skribita (maybe computers might get confused), but -e looks more neutral in this case.

There are no different rules in grammar in Esperanto for beginners and for advanced speakers. If you use -e then it's an adverb and belongs to 'volas' or 'mi' and not to 'tion', and that makes no sence.

ceigered:the point is, ing has two meanings while -ad- only has one core meaning itself

I wouldn't say "ad" only has one meaning. It's sense can be reduced to "continuation" but other distinct ideas are extracted out of this such as repetition, longness, habitual aspects and gerunds. In any case the fact is -ado forms are often used when you'd say -ing in English so I don't see any compelling reason to think ad and ing shouldn't "be in the same boat". Of course they're not equivalent in all cases but often they will be.

horsto:There are no different rules in grammar in Esperanto for beginners and for advanced speakers.

Fundamenta Ekzercaro, §27:

La personoj, kiuj ne komprenas la uzadon de la artikolo (ekzemple rusoj aŭ poloj, kiuj ne scias alian lingvon krom sia propra), povas en la unua tempo tute ne uzi la artikolon, ĉar ĝi estas oportuna sed ne necesa.

However, of course you're right that mi volas tion skribite would mean "Having been written, I want this".

horsto:

ceigered:
As for the other issue regarding things like "Mi volas tion skribita" etc, maybe at a learner level it's best to just use -e? Less confusing I guess. The word order of "Mi volas tion skribita" doesn't really create much confusion given the separation of mi and skribita (maybe computers might get confused), but -e looks more neutral in this case.

There are no different rules in grammar in Esperanto for beginners and for advanced speakers. If you use -e then it's an adverb and belongs to 'volas' or 'mi' and not to 'tion', and that makes no sence.

I agree but don't agree - "Mi iras hejme" seems just as logical as "Mi volas tion skribite" - logic belonging to species in the genus homo is developed enough to figure out what exactly the adverb is addressing. In "iras" with "hejme", it means that the action of going is associated with a home (going home), but just as flexibly could mean "to go in a house like fashion". In "volas" with "skribite", it means there is a wish to do with something written - either a written wish or a wish for an object which is written.

In each case, we can understand using our own inbuilt logic. Ni ne estas neflekseblaj komputiloj, ni estas malkonkretaj pensantoj

tommjames:

ceigered:the point is, ing has two meanings while -ad- only has one core meaning itself

I wouldn't say "ad" only has one meaning. It's sense can be reduced to "continuation" but other distinct ideas are extracted out of this such as repetition, longness, habitual aspects and gerunds. In any case the fact is -ado forms are often used when you'd say -ing in English so I don't see any compelling reason to think ad and ing shouldn't "be in the same boat". Of course they're not equivalent in all cases but often they will be.

True but we're talking about learners here - we don't want to create confusion (although by discussing this further I'm certainly not helping, but for future cases... ).
If we think for example about how one might teach a learner how to make questions in French using the "est-ce que" form, would you go and explain that "est-ce que" is actually an extension of the verb-subject inversion method for making questions (est-ce being the inverted pair here)? Generally not, you'd just tell the learner what it means and leave it like that. Later on they will learn the significancies. Otherwise you have to assume that people know half of this lingustics-esque terminology which is hardly the case for most people (here it's markedly different). So I guess an important factor is how you want to direct your approach (but for most people who are only interested in speaking Esperanto linguistics and grammatical terms might not be interesting, they might only care about speaking how its spoken)