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History of Japan

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

In August this article went through a massive, one-user rewrite with almost all of the sources being replaced and much of the wording of the article being altered. It passed GA ten days later having been reviewed by a user who had never edited this area before and apparently didn't examine the article very closely (see below), with the only other input being from the user who rewrote it and nominated it. The sourcing of the article was only briefly touched on in the context of whether every sentence should have a citation. This seems like failure to properly assess for GA purposes, given that one of the criteria for GAs is that they be "verifiable with no original research".

There are many sourcing and verification problems with the article, as demonstrated by the examples below:

In the space of three weeks there have been several protracted edit wars, a lengthy talk page dispute and even two ANI threads over this article. This in my opinion should not be the case with a GA-class article.

Pinging involved users: @CurtisNaito: @Nishidani: @Sturmgewehr88: @Curly Turkey: @Rjensen: @Calvin999: @Vivexdino: @MSJapan: @Phoenix7777: @TH1980: @Signedzzz:

Virtually every sentence the above users and I have checked was found to contain a factual error or a misrepresentation of a cited source. It would be an enormous project to check every such instance and bring the article to legitimate GA status. Not pretending it already is a GA is the simplest and most realistic place to start, especially given that preserving the text as it was at GA review was likely an impetus for the recent edit-warring.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:32, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• The GA review was totally inadequate. Obviously a lot of work has gone into the article, but it has issues with focus and scope—it's a long article on an topic that has a lot to be covered, and the editors don't seem to be able to agree on how much detail is too much at this scope. The article should give a birdseye view of the topic and not dwell on details such as disputed numbers that belong in the (many, many) subarticles; such detail at this scope only hampers readability and detracts from much more important details. The prose needs a very thorough copyedit: as a random example, there's "Following the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, Emperor Taishō acceded to the throne."—which is at least twice as long as it needs to be, and perhaps is another big reason the article is so long Note: this is a single random example to demonstrate a kind of problem the article suffers from in general. The lead has gotten a lot better than it was, but it needs more than tweaks—it needs to be rethought and refocused. I won't comment on the sourcing issues as I haven't looked at them, and judging sources at that level is beyond my expertise. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:41, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Regarding article length, Misplaced Pages recommends that articles be between "4,000 to 10,000 words". At the time it passed good article review, the article was 8,800 words and while it has expanded over the past month to 9,180 words, it's still below the limit of 10,000 words. Although there may not be a current consensus on how much detail to include, the large majority of users who have edited the article since it passed good article review have been trying to expand it in some way rather than reducing its size. Apparently there is some consensus for expanding the article, which I think should not be a problem provided we stay under 10,000 words.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:17, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

No the article is longer than it needs to be because of out-of-scope details and verbose writing, and this hampers readability. The length in itself is not the issue I'm indicating—if it were 12,000 of focused meat there'd be no issue. I was trying to improve the prose myself, but—well, things happened and I've withdrawn my services, an experience which only convinces me the problems won't be solved easily. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• It does need work, as it seems the GA was somewhat "forced." I am in the process of combing my library for material, and I know we have editors asking for access to JSTOR, etc. for other materials. We can definitely reassess this ourselves, but I have a feeling the final product is going to be very, very different, so it might be wise to delist anyway, because it's not going to be a short process. Ideally thisd should be a survey-type article, and it isn't at the moment. MSJapan (talk) 16:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Keep - No one has yet found any actual problems with the sourcing used in the article, neither the current sourcing nor the sourcing that was used when the article passed good article review. Most of these alleged errors are actually just the inevitable result of summarization of the sources' content. Henshall dated The Tale of Genji to 1004, so I simply opted to go with that date rather than explaining the other possible dates which are already discussed in the novel's own Misplaced Pages article. Such a minor issue, which has already been changed through editing, is no reason to downgrade the article. Though the overwhelming majority of Hijiri's criticisms are just these sort of minor quibbles, others can't even be explained by this. Hijiri objected to the article saying that "the Yayoi culture was established by invaders from the Asian mainland", even though both Jared Diamond and Kenneth Henshall, the sources which were cited, concur with this. Henshall says, "Around 400 BC... Japan was effectively invaded. Immigrants arrived in number from the continent, immigrants different in appearance and culture from the Jomon people." Regarding Jared Diamond, a majority of users on the talk page, including Hko2333 who was not pinged, concurred that his article was a reliable source. Given how blatantly inaccurate or trivial all of Hijiri's criticisms are, we have to ask whether he nominated this article for reassessment more out of anger than reason.

Hijiri's initial declaration that he would reassess the article was appropriately dismissed with the comment Deliberate harassment of Curtis by Hijiri88. Even before Hijiri88 had even checked the references he had already somehow concluded that "I'd bet that every single reference to Japanese literature in your rewrite of the article contains an obvious error or misreading of a source that I could point out". He made harassing comments on the article talk page concerning the good article nomination.

Because of his behavior, Hijiri was explicitly warned that "the goal of a reassessment is to not to punish those responsible as you may be hoping, but rather to improve Misplaced Pages by helping the article deserve its GA status."CurtisNaito (talk) 17:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Please refrain from making personal comments here. Nothing in my delisting rationale is based on a desire to "punish" anyone. Pinging User:Prhartcom to correct the above misquoting of them -- they didn't comment on "behavior" and neither did I above. Neither should you. The misquoting of me does not even merit a response. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 18:01, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't misquote you. The problem is that you haven't found any problems with the article as it stands.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:17, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I concur. This will probably be remembered as the most frivolous good article reassessment in Misplaced Pages's history.TH1980 (talk) 20:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

You took the words "I'd be that every single reference to Japanese literature in your rewrite of the article contains an obvious error or misreading of a source that I could point out" out of context by saying that this was "before had even checked the references": I had clearly already checked the several references I listed above. Also, by repeating your previous IDHT "you haven't found any problems", you are explicitly violating Dennis Brown's moratorium on ANI. I have informed another user of this and it will soon be investigated. I have no intention of violating the moratorium myself, so I'm keeping this user-conduct discussion to the bare minimum, and will not reply more than twice. I'll leave it to the community from here. Farewell. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 18:28, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

@CurtisNaito: are you kidding? We bickered for weeks and had an ANI thread over the sourcing issues of this article. And that was just over the sourcing used for the GA review. Since it centered on Jomon-Yayoi sources, I'm sure we haven't even scratched the surface yet. You should stop the WP:IDHT behavior before you dig an even deeper WP:HOLE, and don't bring up Hijiri's "harrassment" without owning up to your own faults. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 18:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

There was no problem with the way the original sources were cited, but there was disagreement over certain dates and details and so ultimately the original sources were replaced with different sources. Just because one reliable source doesn't give the exact same date as a different reliable source is no reason to reassess the article, especially since the article has already been changed to reflect what the objecting users wanted. In a reassessment, discussion should focus on alleged problems with the article as it is, not alleged problems which no longer exist.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:58, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

@CurtisNaito: again, seriously? Evidence was presented, here and at the talk page, and we argued and edit warred over it for weeks, and you're still denying it? And about those "alleged" problems which no longer exist, since they were present in the assessed version of the article, the article shouldn't have been passed in the first place and doesn't deserve GA status. And the sourcing issues were from only two sections of the whole article; once we start looking through other sections I'm sure we'll find more. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 04:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Keep - I have checked most of the citations in the article myself and I didn't see any problem with them. It is Hijiri, rather than CurtisNaito, who has been misreading the sources here. At any rate, the purpose of a good article review is to point out existing problems with the article in question and fix them. Hijiri is only pointing out "problems" which he already "fixed" through editing. If any real problems have crept into the article since it passed the good article review, then we should work together to fix those. But no one has found any actual problems with the article as it is.TH1980 (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

@TH1980: again, your dispute with Hijiri is blinding you. We found plenty of problems with the sources used in the GA reviewed version, which were solved with no thanks to you or CurtisNaito. The article "as it is" has not been investigated outside the initial focus of the Jomon-Yayoi period, but is sure to have similar sourcing issues. Saying that " have checked most of the citations... and didn't see any problem" (after it was proven that there were sourcing issues) means your opinion of the current article's sourcing has no merit. If you wouldn't pick the wrong side simply because it isn't Hijiri's side every time, maybe we could actually "work together to fix" the article. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 18:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, we should be working together to improve the article, and changes of varying quality have been made to the article since the good article review. However, it was more a clash of opinions than a clash of sources. I myself checked the book by Kenneth Henshall and can attest that it was cited properly. Vaguely claiming that the article is "sure to have similar sourcing issues" is not a basis for good article reassessment and not likely to be true in any case.TH1980 (talk) 21:33, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

No, Henshall was not cited properly: "about 1004" became "in 1004", " poetry" became "Japanese poetry", "immigration" became "invasion", Henshall's dubious summary of the scholarly consensus on the Man'yōshū's date was taken at fact value. 100% of references to Henshall I checked involved him being misquoted; how many of the places I was unable to check misquoted him? There are almost certainly several dozen more such instances that could be found. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:20, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think that your errors here have been corrected enough times already, but based on Henshall the year 1004 was accurately cited and Henshall did mention the invasion of peoples from mainland Asia. I think even CurtisNaito mentioned that "Japanese poetry" could have been replaced with "Japanese-produced poetry", but whether or not that change was for the best it has already been made and so it is not relevant to this review. I checked the same book you checked, but my conclusion is that 100% of the citations (which I have looked into so far) are accurately represented in the article.TH1980 (talk) 03:15, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

TH1980, your disruptiveness is going to bite you one of these days. No-one here believes you've read the sources. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:48, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

The book by Henshall is not hard to acquire and is available in many libraries. I've been going through and checking the citations, but I haven't found any of the alleged problems stated above.TH1980 (talk) 17:25, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for verifying the accuracy of the citations TH1980. If the sourcing issue has now been dealt with, I suppose the only issue remaining to be resolved is a little copyediting.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

If no one else is going to step up to the plate then I will do it. I think another user already started copy editing the first part, so I'll give the remaining two thirds a thorough copy edit.TH1980 (talk) 22:03, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

If Henshall is available on JSTOR I will look it up myself tomorrow. Either way, if the source says "about 1004" and you put "in 1004", you're making stuff up. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 03:18, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

TH1980, "about 1004" and "in 1004" are not the same. Henshall said "about 1004", a rough date with which no mainstream scholar disagrees; our article, at the time of its GA review, misquoted Henshall as saying "in 1004" -- an overly specific and very narrow date with which no mainstream scholar agrees. And yes, you and CurtisNaito have claimed several times that "Japanese poetry" was meant to be read as "Japanese-produced poetry", and that it is my fault for misreading it as saying "Japanese poetry"; but the fact is that even if that was the case, wording that is vague enough that the most intuitive reading is the wrong reading is just as much of a fault as being outright wrong. Regarding 759: the article cited an inadequate, tertiary source and so contained misleading information, which should have come up in the initial GA rebiew. The fact that the initial GA review failed to recognize these and many other blatant errors and misrepresentations of sources means it needs to be undone pending an actual thorough examination of the article and its sources. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:45, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Keep - I don't know why anyone objected to the use of the Jared Diamond article, but it doesn't seem to matter anymore. The rest of the article is in good shape and I don't see any reason to change its status. Hko2333 (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

@Hko2333: Did you even read the above discussion? Jared Diamond isn't even mentioned, except briefly as a fringe source written by a non-specialist for a popular magazine. And yes, such sources are inappropriate for Misplaced Pages in general and unbecoming of GA-standard articles in particular. But what about all the places where good sources are being misquoted ("about 1004" became "in 1004", " poetry" became "Japanese poetry", "immigration" became "invasion") and the factual errors that were introduced by using such sources when they were less-than-ideal (Henshall's dating the Man'yōshū's compilation to exactly 759 is not accepted by mainstream scholars)? How many more such instances of misreading of sources exist that we haven't located yet? I checked only references to classical literature and every place I checked had such an error. Also, can I ask who you are? You made several edits to Japan-Korea disputes back on September 22, 2008, and then disappeared for seven years -- you wouldn't have anything to do with the massive sockpuppet problems in the Japan-Korea historical dispute area, would you? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a sockpuppet. I read the above discussion, I just didn't see any decent evidence for what you're saying. I don't know whether every single citaiton is accurate or not, but the only ones you mentioned are either minor quibbling with dates or else have already been changed.Hko2333 (talk) 19:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Revoke GA status - given that the single reviewer, who never edits in this topic area, appears to have reviewed this article as a favor and had obviously missed the glaring sourcing issues, and the only other supporter of the GA review was the editor who rewrote and nominated it, this article shouldn't have gotten GA status in the first place. After weeks of arguing, edit warring, and two ANI threads, the sourcing issues in one section have been resolved. If, and only if, the sourcing issues are completely fixed and the scope of the article is corrected before this GAR is closed, then it may keep its GA status. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 04:15, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment

While I agree that for such an important, extensive article the GA review should have been a lot more thorough, in looking at this article it does appear to have the basics in place and is adequately sourced for GA. I'd need to read it fully to judge the prose quality and examine the sources to assess whether or not User:Hijiri88 is right about the sourcing issue. He seems to be an experienced editor, so might well be right. I'm not very knowledgeable about Japanese history so couldn't say if it is truly an effective or accurate overview, but other than the sourcing issue it does seem to have a summary of each period, and for the main article you'd not expect any real detail anyway as it's a basic outline of the entire history. It is for Good article too, the articles don't need to be really that comprehensive. I agree with Hijiri though that for such an article it would be better for more editors to collaborate, and rather than rush towards promoting it, that it is done in a way different editors can all approve of it. All I can say is that it is a core article which really does need to be brought up to GA status, so if there are sourcing problems I'd urge towards fixing them rather than an immediate delisting unless the problems are genuinely so extensive they'd take months to fix.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages good article reassessment