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Iwane Matsui

Iwane Matsui (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Iwane Matsui/archive1

Nominator(s): CurtisNaito (talk) 03:11, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

This article is about Iwane Matsui, Japanese general and prominent pan-Asianist, noted for his involvement in the notorious Nanking Massacre.CurtisNaito (talk) 03:11, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• If you mentioned the Nanking Massacre (and maybe other details) I imagine you'd attract more reviewers. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I have expanded the introductory sentence.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:44, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Iwane_Matsui.jpg: how does this meet point 2 of the URAA tag?
• File:Matsui_in_1933.jpg: when was the source published? Same with File:Matsui_and_Bose.jpg, File:Matsui_in_1945.jpg
• File:Koa_Kannon.JPG: since Japan does not have freedom of panorama for sculptural works, you'll need to indicate the licensing of the statue as well as the image
• File:Iwane_Matui_and_Asakanomiya_on_Parade_of_Nanking.jpg: can you please translate the description and source? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:58, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding "File:Iwane_Matsui.jpg", the copyright of the photograph has expired in Japan and there is no evidence that it was ever copyrighted in the United States. Concerning "File:Matsui_in_1933.jpg", "File:Matsui_and_Bose.jpg", and "File:Matsui_in_1945.jpg", I admit the source in which I found the photos does not appear to give an explicit date of publication, but all the photos are dated to when they were taken so presumably they were published around the same time they were taken. I added a note to the file "File:Koa_Kannon.JPG" explaining that the statue was created in 1940. The copyright ought to be expired by now.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• The URAA tag you are using indicates under what circumstances it can be used - I don't think these have been met
• We can't assume they were published around the same time they were taken - they may have been archival photos, for example.
• We'll need a licensing tag for the statue as well. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:58, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I removed the photographs and added a licensing tag to the statue.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Driveby comments from Curly Turkey

• I probably won't do a proper review, but I have some comments:
  • Yasukuni. The article gives us no context on the significance of this event, or how it was gone about: how it was done secretively, how it didn't become public until 1979, the controversy it raised, etc. Also—six war criminals? There were 14 Class A war criminals alone, along with 1054 Class B and C. Is this supposed to mean six war criminals were enshrined at one ceremony? Were they all Class A? Of course, the Yasukuni article should deal with the fine details, but we need more context here.
  • "the Hitler of Japan": That's quite the hyperbole—who called him this? How widespread is it? I have to wonder if quoting it is perhaps WP:UNDUE—or at least should be better contextualized.
  • There's a mix of MONTH-DAY-YEAR and DAY-MONTH-YEAR dat formats—you'll have to settle on one style. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:40, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
• Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:06, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I fixed all these issues. I think the confusion about the war criminals was caused by another editor who accidentally introduced some ambiguity while copyediting the article. Among the war criminals enshrined in 1978 were all seven war criminals executed by the IMTFE (including Matsui). Matsui was the only one of them who was not convicted of Class A war crimes.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

So, he was convicted and executed, but not as a Class A? What class was he, then? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:06, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

This issue is mentioned in the article in this section, . Class A war crimes means "crimes against peace"(plotting aggressive war in other words), whereas Class B/C means conventional war crimes/crimes against humanity(like mistreatment of POWs or civilians). Matsui was charged with Class A war crimes as well as Class B/C war crimes. The IMTFE was mainly convened to deal with Class A war criminals, but some suspected Class A war criminals like Matsui were also accused of Class B/C war crimes at the same time. Ultimately, Matsui was convicted of only one count, Count 55. Count 55 meant failure to uphold the laws of war, not plotting to start a war. In other words, Matsui was convicted of Class B/C war crimes. The Japanese language sources that I consulted including the book by Masataka Matsuura noted that fact that Count 55 was unrelated to Class A war crimes.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

But if he was convicted of only one count, that count would be either B or C, not both, right? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:14, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

They are usually called Class B/C war crimes. On paper the Allies initially meant them to be two distinct categories of war crimes, but in actual practice it was impossible to tell the difference between them and so even at the time they were often referred to Class B/C war crimes. I guess I really should research an article for Misplaced Pages on Class B/C war crimes because it's a complicated topic to understand.

Class A war crimes are clear enough. Class A war crimes means plotting to start an aggressive war. I have read in other books that Class B was supposed to be for the mistreatment of prisoners or civilians in violation of pre-existing laws of war, whereas Class C was for any general massacres and persecutions on occupied territories not necessarily directly related to a specific law of war. However, most of the contemporary sources and most of the recent books that I consulted just call them Class B/C.

I did read at least one book, "The Politics of Nanjing" by Minoru Kitamura, which does explicitly say that Count 55 was Class B. However, the source also notes that "at the IMTFE, Class C War Crimes (Crimes against Humanity) did not constitute an independent category." I could cite Kitamura and say that Count 55 was Class B, but I figured I might as well go with standard practice and just call it Class B/C.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a footnote would be helpful, as the general reader (the target reader) can't be expected to know that. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

A footnote has been added.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments from AustralianRupert

G'day, thanks for your efforts on this article. Not a topic I know much about, unfortunately, so I only have a few superficial comments/suggestions. I hope they help in some way:

• in the first sentence of the lead, the dates probably need commas: e.g. "July 27 1878 – December 23 1948" (commas to separate the day and year);
• year ranges such as "1906–1931" should be changed to "1906–31" per WP:DATERANGE;
• be careful of duplicate links. The duplicate link script reports a few examples of possible overlink, e.g: Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office; Kwantung Army; French Indochina; Sugamo Prison; Tokushi Kasahara; Communist Party of China;
• inconsistent presentation: "in the Army" and "in the army"; I think here they are being used to refer to a specific army (i.e. the Japanese Army), so they should probably be capitalised
• "flagship the Yura..." by convention, ship title's are usually presented in italics;
• " city massacred POWs": I don't think this abbreviation has been formally introduced;
• I think some of the sentences could be improved with the addition of introductory commas;
• "participated in an conspiracy.." --> "participated in a conspiracy"
• this doesn't quite seem to flow to me: "...US Army took away his ashes to prevent a memorial from being created. Actually, the..." Perhaps it might work better as: "...US Army ordered his ashes be taken away to prevent a memorial from being created. Nevertheless, the..."?
• " the International Military Tribunal for the Far East": probably best to add the abbreviation IMTFE in brackets here after the full presentation;
• "were officially shrined in Yasukuni Shrine..." --> "were officially enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine..."?
• "until the next year..." --> "until the following year";
• in the "Later assessments and historical perception" section, the first paragraph probably should end with a citation (it would probably just be possible to move Citation # 67);
• Anyway, that's it from me. Good luck with the review. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:01, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

All these changes have been implemented.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Cheers, I support promotion to FA. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. A lively, readable account of a notorious general. - Dank (push to talk) 17:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing concerns from Hijiri88

I mentioned in the GA review back in May my concerns that the article relies far too heavily on sources published by right-leaning magazine companies, whose titles ("...の真実" = "The Truth about ...") set them up as being somewhat biased and fringe-y. My concerns were not addressed at that time, and the GA reviewer himself admitted that he was not capable of examining any of the sources. The principal author of this article, CurtisNaito, has since made it very clear that he has a poor understanding of WP:V and WP:RS and as a result virtually everywhere the History of Japan article quotes Henshall, that article's main source, it appears to be misquoting him. CurtisNaito has also repeatedly denied that any such misrepresentation of sources took place, and so his claiming in the GA review (and likely here too) that he has not been misrepresenting his sources in this article as well should be taken as suspect at best. Without a Japanese-speaking Wikipedian checking through all the places the Iwane Matsui article quotes a source like Hayase 1999 or Hayasaka 2011, I don't think we should just be assuming that they say what the Misplaced Pages article says they do. I tried to find a copy of Hayase 1999, indisputably this article's main source at present, so I could do this myself, but I couldn't find one because it is old, obscure and out of print. Using old, obscure and out of print sources should be acceptable when those sources are indisputably the best ones on the topic, but in this case it clearly is not. Neither Hayase nor Hayasaka are professional historians or specialists in this area, and I find it hard to believe that for such an important figure there are no sources written by mainstream historians, as CurtisNaito previously claimed to be the case. I don't doubt that CurtisNaito will try to claim again that my concerns have been addressed and collapse this comment as he did last time -- I will revert any such attempt to hide my comments just because the article's "owner" doesn't like them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Mentioning other articles like History of Japan, which I recently brought to good article status, is not relevant here, though for the record, you have not yet shown that I misread any sources either there or here. The fact is that Hayase and Hayasaka are the only individuals who have written biographies of Iwane Matsui since 1938, so it's natural to use them. Furthermore, I wouldn't say that the sources are obscure, as they are both widely available in libraries and sold on Amazon.

During the good article review you were told by user Sturmvogel 66, "I'm not sure that those used here are actually biased, regardless of their origins. If you have anything substantial saying that they are, please provide them now." You never provided anything substantial, and you still haven't. Just because you haven't read the sources, does not mean that they are poor sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 14:48, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Looking quickly at your talk pages, you have both done a lot of quality work on Misplaced Pages ... thanks for that. Hijiri, I understand that you're skeptical, and I get that the article may rely too heavily on less-than-stellar sources; you might want to post a polite note at WT:MIL asking for help in finding sources. At FAC, "there must be a source somewhere that contradicts these sources" isn't usually a persuasive argument. - Dank (push to talk) 15:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Support This article shows high quality research and sourcing. Furthermore, another user recently gave it a very thorough copy edit, and it certainly appears to be featured article quality now.TH1980 (talk) 19:31, 9 September 2015 (UTC)