Talk:Iwane Matsui/GA1
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Reviewer: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs) 18:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
I'll get to this shortly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for your interest.CurtisNaito (talk) 19:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Discussion concerning inconsistent style and sourcing problems (extended version)
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The spelling of Japanese authors' and publishers' names, including macrons, should conform to WP:MOS-JA, unless there is some specific reason why they do not already. 182.249.216.8 (talk) 02:19, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
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Comments to all the above
- I do not read Japanese and so cannot evaluate any sources in that language.
- Incidentally, I can provide you with English language versions of the sources in question if you are interested in checking them.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree with your argument, Hijiri, that books and articles written by non-professional historians are inherently unreliable when used for a GA or better quality article. If they're unacceptably biased, prove it; the burden is indeed on you.
- I am very much not fond of the citation style used in this article as I also strongly prefer a short cite of author, page #, backed up by a bibliography with full citations. That said we must all respect WP:CITEVAR and CurtisNaito has been consistent in using his preferred method and need not make any changes to pass muster in this review.
- Matsuura, by comparison, is a professor of modern history whose book was published by a university press, and he is cited only 15 times; the last names him inline, but neither Hayasaka nor Hayase is named inline -- the reverse. I'm not following your argument here. What's wrong with how Matsuura is mentioned in the article?
Review
- No DABs, external links OK.
- What do you mean by this?CurtisNaito (talk) 01:45, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- File:Matsui on trial.jpg and File:Iwane Matsui.jpg need a US license as well as a Japanese one. I think that {{PD-1996}} will be acceptable. Done
- Link on first use, Kannon, bodhisattva, Second Sino-Japanese War, Nagoya, Russo-Japanese War, Greater Asia Association, major general, Jinan Done
- Put the abbreviation for the tribunal in parentheses after its first mention. Done
- After winning the battle Matsui succeeded in convincing Japan's high command to advance on the Chinese capital city of Nanking, though after capturing the city on December 13 troops under his command committed the notorious Nanking Massacre. Matsui retired from the army definitively in 1938, but after Japan's defeat in World War II he was charged with war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and was ultimately executed by hanging. These are rather long and convoluted. I suggest breaking them in half. Done
- Briefly tell the reader why his classmates were important; if they all became future general, say so. Done
- You do not need to have a citation for every sentence. If every fact in a paragraph is derived from the same source, then only a single cite at the end of the paragraph is necessary. Forex, cites 5 and 6 in the 3rd sentence of the first para of the main body can be deleted because they're both used in the last sentence of that paragraph. You've got cites splattered all over the article that can be profitably consolidated, so go through the article thoroughly and get rid of them. Done
- Is Sei Arao notable enough for an article? If so then redlink his name. Read through everything up to the Chinese war section. More later. DoneYes Sei Arao was a very influential army officer and should definitely have his own article.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:55, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:38, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree with your argument, Hijiri, that books and articles written by non-professional historians are inherently unreliable when used for a GA or better quality article. If they're unacceptably biased, prove it; the burden is indeed on you. I didn't say that, though: I said books and articles written by non-professional historians for right-leaning literary magazines whose titles contain "the TRUTH!!1!" should be taken with a grain of salt, and when 60-70% of the article is based on such sources is concerning. CurtisNaito has shown on numerous other articles that he doesn't know how to properly/critically read even good English-language sources, so I find it incredibly difficult to just take his word for it when he says "I didn't see any problem with it".
- I'm not following your argument here. What's wrong with how Matsuura is mentioned in the article? No problem at all with how Matsuura is mentioned in the article. I wish the whole article was written the way that one sentence was written.
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- No actual evidence was ever provided in that discussion that I did not read the sources correctly. You were making accusations but not providing any proof for them.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for linking to the ANI thread which, if nothing else, shows that you two have a lot of bad blood between you, which greatly complicates my ability to assess the validity of each of y'all comments about points raised by the other. Hijirii, what sources do you think should be used for this article, preferably ones in English that I can read for myself to assess any POV issues? And thanks for clarifying your point above. In general I'd agree with you about biased sources, but 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. Thus far the article seems pretty neutral in tone, but I haven't gotten to Nanking yet. That seems the most likely place for any whitewashing, so is there anything tying Matsui more directly to the massacres?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:12, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- When it comes to the massacre, I think I provided all the available details. For most aspects of Matsui's life I struggled to keep it concise and only include the most pertinent information, but for the Nanking Massacre I decided to provide complete coverage on Matsui's role. As noted by historian Yutaka Yoshida in this article, Matsui certainly could have done more to prevent the massacre, but there is no evidence of direct involvement. Matsui fully admitted being aware of individual criminal acts, but no evidence has yet come to light that he was aware of the full extent of the massacre.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for linking to the ANI thread which, if nothing else, shows that you two have a lot of bad blood between you, which greatly complicates my ability to assess the validity of each of y'all comments about points raised by the other. Hijirii, what sources do you think should be used for this article, preferably ones in English that I can read for myself to assess any POV issues? And thanks for clarifying your point above. In general I'd agree with you about biased sources, but 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. Thus far the article seems pretty neutral in tone, but I haven't gotten to Nanking yet. That seems the most likely place for any whitewashing, so is there anything tying Matsui more directly to the massacres?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:12, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- No actual evidence was ever provided in that discussion that I did not read the sources correctly. You were making accusations but not providing any proof for them.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
- Your changes are generally good, although I had to move a number of cites to the end of their paragraphs. I'm a little surprised that you haven't referenced Iris Chang's book on Nanking as that really revived interest in the incident in the Anglosphere. What does she have to say about Matsui's part in the massacre?
- While not a requirement, it's generally a good idea to have an ISBN or OCLC number for books and an ISSN for journals for each entry in the bibliography that will facilitate readers hunting down copies of the sources for themselves. Also page ranges in cites need to use an endash, not a hyphen. But, again, not a requirement for GAN, just something to keep in mind.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:20, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- I have added ISBN numbers and dashes as per your recommendations. Incidentally, Sturmvogel 66, your policies on citations are the exact opposite of most good article reviewers. Most of them are very insistent on the issues of "Citations should be provided at the end of every sentence" and "Please place citations at the end of every sentence throughout the article".
- Here is what Iris Chang says about Matsui's role in the massacre, "historians have suggested that Matsui may have served as a scapegoat for the Rape of Nanking. A sickly and frail man suffering from tuberculosis, Matsui was not even in Nanking when the city fell. Because of the lack of literature on the subject, Matsui's responsibility for the crimes at Nanking remains a subject for further research and debate. The evidence suggests, however, that the tubercular general was guilt-stricken over the entire episode, no doubt because he was unable to maintain order in the Japanese army after Asaka took command." (p.174)
- However, the reason why I didn't cite Chang is that I was concerned that doing so might cause controversy. Those who check the citations in Chang's book will note that the large majority of what she writes about Iwane Matsui comes directly from David Bergamini's book "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy". Informed readers would probably be aware of this book's notoriety. For instance, Charles Sheldon wrote in the journal "Modern Asian Studies" that Bergamini's book "is a polemic which, to our knowledge, contradicts all previous scholarly work, whether in English or Japanese. It also contradicts the facts upon which this previous scholarship rested. Specialists on Japan have unanimously demolished Bergamini's thesis and his pretensions to careful scholarship." Many scholars directly accused Bergamini of falsification, such as Herschel Webb who noted in the journal "Pacific Historical Review" that, "The published sources alone are only in a handful of instances even claimed by the author to support his charges... when one tracks down that handful to the sources, one finds that in every single case they say something different from what he says they say." Iris Chang's heavy reliance on Bergamini for information about the Japanese Army was itself widely criticized. Daqing Yang wrote in the journal "The American Historical Review" that Chang's "failure to consult the numerous available Japanese records or scholarly works, however, has led her to rely on the flawed and dated work of popular historian David Bergamini, even while she makes a token acknowledgement of his shortcomings."
- And yet, when I looked at the information provided by Bergamini/Chang on Iwane Matsui it actually mostly matched the information provided by more reliable sources, so this may be one of the few areas that Bergamini got right. Even so, due to the controversial nature of the book, I decided from the outset of my research that I would avoid citing Bergamini/Chang where possible, and I also decided that if something that Bergamini/Chang had written about Matsui was contradicted by sources which did not rely on Bergamini, then I would use the more reliable sources.
- There were some areas where I followed that latter course. For instance, Bergamini stated that Matsui suffered from tuberculosis during the Nanking campaign, and Chang also stated this citing Bergamini. However, every single Japanese and English language source which did not cite Bergamini, including Matsui's own field diary, stated that Matsui suffered from malaria, not tuberculosis. Therefore, I opted to go with malaria. Likewise Chang insists, citing Bergamini, that Prince Asaka rather than Iwane Matsui was the de-facto supreme commander during and right after the Battle of Nanking, but all the other sources said that Matsui maintained both de-jure and de-facto command during the battle and that Asaka was by and large a figurehead who had real control over very little. Whenever Chang's descriptions of Matsui clearly contradicted all other sources which did not cite Bergamini, I opted to include only the opinions of the more reliable sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 19:10, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- You can read the policy for yourself at WP:CITE; nowhere does it state that every sentence needs to be cited and I've even had objections from some other reviewers that once per paragraph isn't strictly required either. Perhaps not, but I think it serves to help the reader tracking what information is attributable to which source. Frankly, I'd have told your reviewers to show me the exact source of their onerous requirement, although I'd have probably had to request a second reviewer to ensure that the review was fair. Your justifications for not referencing Chang seem reasonable as Bergamini does seem a bit "over the top" on his judgements on the Japanese.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- I regret to say that you conflated two separate ISBNs into a single one when you added them. Recent books had a 13-digit number while older ones have a 10-digit number.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:35, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- Oh sorry, I just copied them from Worldcat. How do I tell the difference? Should I just delete everything after the first 13 numbers?CurtisNaito (talk) 19:38, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- @Sturmvogel 66 - Okay I think that I fixed the issue. Is there anything else that needs to be done?CurtisNaito (talk) 21:40, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- I regret to say that you conflated two separate ISBNs into a single one when you added them. Recent books had a 13-digit number while older ones have a 10-digit number.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:35, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- You can read the policy for yourself at WP:CITE; nowhere does it state that every sentence needs to be cited and I've even had objections from some other reviewers that once per paragraph isn't strictly required either. Perhaps not, but I think it serves to help the reader tracking what information is attributable to which source. Frankly, I'd have told your reviewers to show me the exact source of their onerous requirement, although I'd have probably had to request a second reviewer to ensure that the review was fair. Your justifications for not referencing Chang seem reasonable as Bergamini does seem a bit "over the top" on his judgements on the Japanese.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)