Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:18, 8 October 2005

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Hi Yiyu Shen! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Misplaced Pages community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

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Happy editing! --PhilipO 01:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: Mao Zedong's poetry

Copied from the deletion vote page: Better idea: move to Wikisource under the main banner of Poetry of Mao Zedong, then create an article detailing Mao's Poetry at Poetry of Mao Zedong then link to the source poems. Best of both worlds, you have the article detailing his style and influence then you have source documents that are linked to. How does that sound? I'd be happy to help finish that up. Sasquatcht|c 03:42, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

That sound good to you? Sasquatcht|c 03:46, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikisource

Ni hau. In response to your complaint about articles that contain the full text of poems, I posted a suggestion on Talk:Ame ni mo Makezu, that the article be moved to Wikisource. The other two poem articles you mentioned do not contain the full text of the poem. I hope this helps persuade you that our votes against "Snow" are not based in anti-Mao or anti-Chinese bias.

Incidentally, I noticed that you did not yet have a user page, so I created one for you. It's very plain, but you can change it to be whatever you want. DS 12:13, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Mao Zedong

This message is regarding the article Mao Zedong. Thanks for experimenting with Misplaced Pages. Your test worked, and has been removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. Jtkiefer ----- 22:53, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

3 Revert Rule

You should be aware that there is a three revert rule with Misplaced Pages. Your reversions of Mao Zedong could result in your account being blocked. Try and resolve the issue on the article's talk page. --PhilipO 22:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

A bit puzzled

The thing is the passages I tried to delete are obviously POV, I believe it's offensive to most people from China. I don't see why other users keeping reversing back could be tolerated while mine will result in blocking the account. I don't know what Jtkiefer was saying in the message above, I am not experimenting anything.

I think this kind of keeping deleting and reserving between two opposite groups of users is kind of stupid. Please tell me if I can find anywhere on Misplaced Pages I can complain and argue about POV matters in a more reasonable way. If I can't find a better solution for this problem I will keep deleting those passages in Mao Zedong which seems to me strongly distorted and biased.

If at the end it results in my account being blocked, well, I don't mind. If such things happen then I will believe Misplaced Pages is not a place as 'neutral' as it claims and I won't bother staying.

Yiyu 23:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the edit history of Mao Zedong you can see User:Great Veritas has reverted at least 8 time

Yes, I realise that, and left a message on his Talk page too about 3-RR violations. --PhilipO 23:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Blocked.

You have been blocked for 24 hours for violation of the three-revert rule. If you have any questions about this block, leave them here, and I will answer them as soon as I can. Ral315 W_S 23:22, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I think for this kind of polarized argument it will be better for you administrators to take a look at the disputed passages and decide if it's POV nor not. Anyway it's you guys who decide the definition of POV and you should have a better opinion about it. Yiyu 23:30, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

In future, if you feel there is a POV issue on a given article, please discuss it on that articles discussion page. If you unilaterally remove large parts of the article (regardless of whether the reason is valid or not), it will be quickly reverted and you will not get a receptive audience. Please employ a softer touch, and discuss large edits before making them, since you as well cannot decide what is POV or not. I hope you will come back and contribute to our growing community. - RoyBoy 00:32, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Avoiding an Edit War

Hey. I'm hoping that maybe I can help you avoid a further dispute with User:The Great Veritas - you're both quite new to Misplaced Pages (he's been here even less time than you!) and I'd hate for you to get disenchanted and leave the project.

First, you were blocked for violating the Three Revert Rule - and so was Veritas. We call this an "edit war". Edit wars are almost as annoying for the witnesses as they are for the participants.

Next, the passage want to remove. Here's the thing - I agree that it's phrased in a very offensive way. But just deleting it is not the way to go.

There are claims that Mao lied about his youth and faked the Battle of the Dadu. You don't deny that, I hope. And the fact that these claims exist - leaving aside the question of whether they are true or not, because I don't know enough about the subject to make a decision - is relevant to understanding how people think about Mao today.

Here's my suggested version:

"Mao has also been criticized for his role in creating a cult of personality. Some analysts believe that he fabricated many myths about his background and youth, to enhance his image as a true "people's hero". It has also been suggested that details relevant to key events in the Long March, in particular the 1935 Battle of Luding Bridge, were falsified.

As well, Mao is widely held responsible for the millions of deaths that occurred during his lifetime - both indirectly, as a result of flawed policies during the Three Bitter Years, and directly, as a result of power struggles and the execution of those who were linked to his opponents and rivals.

Contemporary views about him in the PRC are affected by bans on works that criticise Mao heavily. The controversial "Mao: the Unknown Story", by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, provides a far less flattering picture of Mao than the Chinese authorities would like."

I think you will find this to be more acceptable; I am presenting this text to Veritas as well, in the hopes that he will likewise agree. DS 13:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

---

DS: Thanks a lot for your advices. I think as to the exchange with Great Veritas I could have argued in a less hot-headed way, this is something I will pay attention to.

As to your suggested version I'm afraid I won't agree. In my opinion, the key point is that all the controversial claims that the argued passages, including Mao fabricated many of his youth stories, and Luding Bridge, ect, are all first brought out by Chang Chung's book, which is very biased, I could almost say close to slandering. As I argued in the talk page of Mao Zedong, the official record of Mao's youth experience is consistent with the memoirs of many of his earlier friends, including some who became his dead enemies later. Many criticized him harshly for his political ideas, but almost all agreed he was indeed quite idealistic and brave. And the stories of Long March, including LuDing battle, are also mostly consistent with KMT's history records. Among the communist leaders who took part in Long March, some became the enemies of CPC several years later, like Zhang Guotao, Gong Chu, also wrote detail memoirs. Their records of Long March indicated stories like Luding are not fabricated. There are even more objective records of Long March. For example, in 1935 two French priests was arrested by Red Army during the Long March and travelled with them for almost one year. They wrote a book about this experience after they returned to France and had a high opinion of the Red Army.

Therefore the reason I can't accept your proposed text is that it implies there are two opposite view regarding the authenticity of stories of Long March and Mao's youth experience in SERIOUS historical research, but this is not true. In serious historical research there are no opposite view about these stories.

So that's why I don't want the opinion that Mao fabricated Long March, etc, enter the text. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, and should contain truth. Though sometimes it's hard for us to know what is the truth, we at least shouldn't let obvious lies enter. It's one thing to contain opposite views from serious historical research, it's another thing to present truth and obvious lies as two opposite view, by this way we are hurting the true history.

Yiyu

• All right, so the first paragraph needs more work. But you'll notice, it's not presenting the alternate historical view that the Long March and the Battle of Luding never happened. It's saying that the alternate historical view is that some details were falsified and/or exaggerated. And that's relevant to understanding how people outside of China think of Mao.

Do you have any problems with the second and third paragraphs? DS 13:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

DS: how about this?

"Mao has also been criticized for his role in creating a cult of personality. As well, Mao is widely criticized for millions of deaths that occurred under his rule - including those died from hungary for his wrong economic policy during the Three Bitter Years, and those killed or exiled during political movements lead by him, including 'Repressing Anti-revolution Movement' and 'Land Reform Movement' in early 1950's, 'Anti-rightists Movement' in 1957, 'Cultural Revolution' during 1966-1976."

I don't think the last paragraph is accurate either, because books having hash critism of Mao have indeed been published in China frequently in last 20 years, though not every book of this kind is allowed by government. For example, the memoir of Li Rui, who was Mao's secretary during 1950s' and been put into prison by Mao after the 1958 Lu Shan Incident, wrote several books detailing Mao's acts in 1950's , and critized his role in Three Bitter Years. The sufferings of ordinary people during Three Bitter Years and Cultural Revolution are frequently recorded in various historical books and literature. Zhang Guotao's memoir, which didn't say much good words about Mao, could also be bought at some bookstores in Beijing and Shanghai, though it's kind of "inner circulation", which means foreigners and people from Taiwain can't buy it, but ordinary Chinese citizen will have no difficulty getting it. On the other hand, Li Zhisui's book : Private Life of Mao, is indeed ban by government, though people can easily get one from black market (I bought one myself in Shenzhen).

What I want to say is that 1) Though there's indeed certain kinds of restrictions on criticism of Mao in China, it's quite loose in general, the current Chinese government has little link with Mao in either heritage or political doctrines and doesn't have much motivation to keep information about him from people 2)Never what kind of 'ban' there is, Chinese people's view about Mao is not affected too much by it.

Thank you very much

Yiyu 15:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Yiyu,

Don't work too much on the Mao article here -- whatever you agree on will have no real strength behind it because you are not working with other editors, and when you polish something together, it will ultimately be destroyed by those that had no part in it.

You also need to watch out for what wikipedia calls "weasel terms" that are used in the draft above. "weasel terms" are ways of saying thing that really avoid the issue. If an editor says "some analysts believe", it really means "I don't know who believes it, but I want it in this article".

Unfortunately, the current wiki has no way to decide "truth" and "lies". The best you can do is present all sides (not just one, or two) and cite evidence. For everything that is a lie, you can add sentences describing why it is untrue. There have been some movements to give weight to editors that are educated in one area more than those that are just shooting their mouths off, but they have failed. As we all know, many times history has been distorted and many people have been fooled, so don't be too sure that you know what really happened, when all most of us really have are hand-me-down stories.

Lastly, be sure not to get too wrapped up in articles. Find other articles to edit and your experience will be much more fulfilling. Come to visit Mao often, and put it on your watchlist, but don't let it consume you or sour you on wikipedia. I can guarantee you that 10 years from now, there will STILL be edit wars on the Mao page. Working through the night to make a perfect article won't stop someone from getting up in the morning and ruining your delicate balancing act. You probably have great insight into many things that are completely uncovered in Wiki -- give those a try sometime.

Hope this helps, Gummy