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I have come to the realization that this article has developed in two directions. The original text was a series of unsourced OR that I hoped we would be able to find sources for. I still think sources can be found for many of the allegations of fabrication. However, at the same time, the article has also documented the historiography of the controversy over the Nanking Massacre. This is far easier to source and, IMO, a separate topic. For this reason, I have moved the text about allegations of fabrication back to Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre and kept here the text about the historiography of the incident. --Richard (talk) 20:23, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This article is currently about two related but somewhat different topics: (1) characterizing the nature of the Nanking Massacre controversy, mostly in Japan but also on an international scale, to wit in China and the West and (2) the historiography of the incident, once again mostly in Japan but also in China and the West.
So... should this be covered in one article or two? I am considering splitting out the "Historiography" section into a separate article titled something like Historiography of the Nanking Massacre. Does this make sense or would it be splitting the material up into too many articles?
When it became obvious that the discussion about deleting the article on Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre would be closed as "Delete", I merged most of the text of that article into this one. My justification for this is that that article had been split off from this one originally and several of the comments in the AFD suggested merging the "salvageable" and "useful" text (if any) back into this article. Many of the "Delete" comments were on the basis that the Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre article was a POV fork of this one. I always saw it as an article that was detailing one particular school of thought, the denialist school, and thus was not a POV fork but a detailed subsidiary article of which this main article provided a summary.
Someday in the future, I may try to recreate the Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre article as a detailed subsidiary article of this one. However, trying to do so with the text in the form that is right now would only invite a "deletion as recreation of a deleted article". Besides, the problems caused by Arimasa's extreme POV must be addressed first before Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre can survive as an independent article.
In fact, I fear that bringing the text of Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre back into this article will make this article a target of deletion. I note that nobody has nominated this article for deletion so far but I am afraid that they might do so now. In order to avoid this, the article needs to be cleaned up so that it is not perceived to be solely advocating a fringe POV. This may mean dropping much of the detailed assertions that Arimasa inserted into Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre or at least summarizing them.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias, by their nature, summarize information. Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre should never have become a treatise attempting to prove that the Nanking Massacre was a fabrication. It should have been a summary of the key arguments of that school.
As well, the now-deleted article should have been a neutral one with as much information about, say, the Chinese perspective, as there was about the denialist POV. Arimasa was not going to let that happen; he sought to make the 'Alleged' article be his personal sounding board, and worked to excise as much neutral material as possible from it. He doomed that article with the excessive detail and the one-sidedness.
I don't see how you can bring the usable material back in. All those photos with their denial versions... you would have to find a Chinese or international source explaining each one! Good freekin' luck with that.
A new editor hid the Fujiwara reference for Lieutenant General Yasuji Okamura, calling it "supression of an error", and that there is "no definition for this". The sentence in question:
Lieutenant General Yasuji Okamura once wrote his surmise based on what he heard from his staff officers, “It is true that tens of thousands of acts of violence, such as looting and rape, took place against civilians during the assault on Nanking."<<!--<ref name=Fujiwara />(no definition for this)-->
The current text for the image is "The general Iwane Matsui holding a memorial service in Nanking for both the Chinese and the Japanese war dead. He admitted that his men had committed some crimes." But the memorial service was only for the Japanese war dead and he did not admit such thing within the source "Asahi-ban Shina-jihen Gaho No. 15. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun. 1938. p. 29."
The text should be changed to "The general Iwane Matsui holding a memorial service in Nanking for the Japanese war dead. Or there should be other sources for the text. "Sweeper tamonten (talk) 14:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The paragraph relating to the picture says:
On December 18, Matsui held a memorial service with his whole army to express condolences to both the Chinese and the Japanese war dead; in his speech he began to scold his men for what he had heard about crimes of rape, looting, etc. committed by Japanese soldiers in the city. Matsui said, “Some soldiers dishonored our Imperial Army by doing outrageous conduct. What the hell have you done? What you did was unworthy of the Imperial Army. From now on, keep the military discipline strictly and never treat innocent people cruelly. Remember it is the only way to console the war dead.”
Within the source "Maeda, Yuji, Senso no Nagare no Nakani, Zenponsha, Tokyo, 1999, p. 122-124," there is no information for the "both the Chinese and the Japanese war dead." Matsui did not mention rape and looting. His speech was ambiguous. The paragraph did not show what he said. Sweeper tamonten (talk) 15:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is not necessary to limit the image text to the reference shown. Anything that has been established in the article as true can be placed into the image text. Binksternet (talk) 18:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment, Binksternet. I will check what content should be placed in the article according to the source "Maeda, Yuji, Senso no Nagare no Nakani, Zenponsha, Tokyo, 1999, p. 122-124" and ask your comment for the content later. Sweeper tamonten (talk) 23:20, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus of all authoritative historians is that the atrocity is fact.
The only "pundits" who dispute this are cranks or oddballs of the same persuasion as Holocaust deniers. Using the word "controversy" gives validity to their revisionism and conspiracy theories.
More importantly, using the word "controversy" for the article title is as offensive as refering to Holocaust Denial as a "Holocaust Controversy".
The problem, as I see it, is that there is a process for deleting articles (WP:AFD) but not one for deleting POV content. I brought that stuff here in response to the argument that the "Alleged fabrication" article was a POV fork. Are we saying that it is impossible to present this material in an NPOV manner? We need to take a step back and determine how we can present things in an NPOV manner and what exactly is wrong with Arimasa's edits. Perhaps the problem is that the denialists have a slew of detailed challenges and the affirmationists have never bothered to address each and every one of them, preferring to dismiss the lot of them as spurious "denialism". This results in an imbalance out in the real world. Perhaps the solution is to simply summarize the denialist arguments and provide the affirmationist rebuttal to the summary. We need to phrase this in such a way that we can formulate it as a policy for this topic and then build a consensus around it. --Richard (talk) 15:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. It is arguable that Nanking Massacre controversy is a POV fork of Nanking Massacre but pursuing that line of argument would require deleting this article and merging it into Nanking Massacre and that article would then become too long. Besides, editors arguing WP:UNDUE would trim down the treatment of the controversy to a few short paragraphs. I have spent a lot of effort trying to provide an NPOV presentation of the three schools of Japanese thought on the massacre and I am concerned that much of this would be eviscerated by such a merge. Most of the Arimasa stuff should probably be reduced to a summary as it is excessive detail. We are not writing a book here, just an encyclopedia article. --Richard (talk) 15:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, the long-term consequences of a such a merge would do no good. I was arguing that the two articles contain opposing POVs, and they both have NPOV issues. The two articles are inseparably linked, and we need to provide NPOV for both of them. just a littleinsignificant22:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Far too much detail is being introduced here. A summary would suffice with perhaps an example or two for flavor. All the photos from the deleted 'fabrication' article seem to be headed for this page; I don't think we need but a few images, and none that lack counterbalancing stories from both POVs. Binksternet (talk) 14:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Two things I think need to be done about this article, in my humble opinion:
Identify the pictures and texts that violate WP:FRINGE and delete them.
Split this article by subject matter instead of doing a POV split.
I'm sure this is a controversial topic, and these tags may have surfaced and resolved before. But regardless these issues with the articles has resurfaced once again. ( Editors might like to watch for more unsourced claims)--KelvinHOWiknerd(talk)12:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Japanese massacre denials given more credibility than Holocaust Denial Page
Hello 'armchair academics'. Why are the Japanese denials of a massacre given serious treatment here, when the Wiki page for Holocaust Denial is openly contemptuous and hostile to and of Holocaust revionist theories ? This implies that a Chinese life is worth less than a European Jew's life, and that Chinese testimony to events is worth less than Jewish testimony. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.61.0.162 (talk) 04:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia needs to represent the state of the "real world", especially as represented in the media and the academic communities. There are respected scholars in Japan and the Western world who believe that there is some truth to the assertion that the Chinese have exaggerated the extent of the massacre. This is not to say that the massacre never happened but that the "truth" lies somewhere between the "Great Massacre affirmationists" and the "Massacre denialists". Read the article. There are parts that are pure denialism (sorry about that, this is, after all, the encyclopedia that anyone can edit) but there are parts that do attempt to describe the range of scholarly (and not so scholarly) opinion on this issue. --Richard S (talk) 05:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The "state of the real world" is not that 9 out of 10 scholars believes the massacre was perpetuated by villainous Chinese soldiers running rampant in a city controlled by the Japanese. The state of this article, inaccurately titled "controversy" when it's almost entirely constituted of denials, would have the reader believe that to be true. 76.22.25.102 (talk) 22:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The contents of this article tilt heavily toward the denial of the Nanking Massacre, i.e. toward sayings of the denialists.
If this article is ever to be kept, the title should change. As the content is mostly detailing the sayings of Nanking Massacre Denialists, a more suitable title is "Sayings of Nanking Massacre Denialists". I agree that the world "controversy" is not appropriate here. Friend2008 (talk) 19:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems pretty clear that this page should be merged into Nanking Massacre, under a subheading "Controversy" or "International Controversy". Or at the least have all material relating to the controversial issues from Nanking Massacre moved to this separate page. I suggest the former. Mistakefinder (talk) 15:28, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree with the proposed merger to Nanking Massacre. This has been proposed above. This article is too long but, even after being trimmed down, it would not fit into Nanking Massacre article.
As for having "all material relating to the controversial issues from Nanking Massacre moved to this separate page", I don't understand what is being proposed. Can you clarify?
In contrast with the above position (to merge this article into the overview page), I submit the following:
It's true that the page title is overbroad, and asserts that it encompasses material covered in the 91k overview page. One possible solution would be to correct this overlap by merging.
However, the page is 203k as of this writing - twice the size at which dividing it posthaste is strongly recommended, and quadruple the maximum recommended size to keep reader interest. Merging it to the overview page is not a rational option.
Correcting the nominal title to reflect the actual content is a far better solution. Retitling it to "Nanking Massacre denial arguments" and adjusting the content to match would require:
Making conservative edits in the interest of argument context - transferring or deleting <3% of the page content.
Making sweeping edits in the interest of focusing only on denial - transferring or deleting <15% of the page content.
Making moderate edits between these two poles - transferring or deleting approximately 5% of the page content, possibly as much as 10%.
Mind, trimming out tangential content would actually be a step towards the bigger goal of getting the article a little closer to 100k. But it would be secondary to correcting the nominally overbroad title.
I would suggest that you be bold and implement the above proposal. It's hard to support or object to the proposal based on such broad generalities. Nonetheless, at 203k, the article is decided too long so radical slashing does seem in order. --Richard S (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you may have missed my central point - first and foremost, the title needs to be changed to reflect the content. I could be wrong, but I don't see that as a broad generality that's difficult to support or object to.
The article is already so overwhelmingly populated by denial arguments that no edits would be required for "Nanking Massacre denial arguments" to be much more accurate. As the editor who seems to have taken the greatest role in merging and maintaining the page as it currently exists, and who has seen others making this argument, I'm sure you're aware of this. Once the title is changed, there'd be much more point to making the body edits needed to make it completely accurate.
"Be bold" is an excellent reflexive exhortation when dealing with changes that no one wants to deal with, and I'd take you up on it - but I have no knowledge of the actual mechanics of changing the title and/or redirecting. (You seem to; please forgive the misunderstanding if that assumption is incorrect.) If you're willing to help out by doing so, that would go a long way. 76.22.25.102 (talk) 01:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've noted that material from the deleted[1] "Alleged fabrication" page was completely inserted here with little critical analysis of the removed material [2][3] . The material should be cleaned up and analysed for WP:FRINGE instead of just sitting here.--PCPP (talk) 16:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I've moved several of the material I objected to [5], if you haven't noticed.
Some of my concerns at this stage are:
The intro - the large paragraph on the population of Nanjing is very distracting and unecessarily enlarges the lead. I suggest moving it to the population dispute section.
Images - need better attrition and analysis of source. Currently it provides undue weight to denialist POV.
Iris Chang's book - needs to be drastically shortened, as this is a separate issue altogether. I suggest move it to the page on her book.
Overall sources - a large dependence on fringe denialists such as Higashinakano etc. Can hopefully be fixed by reducing their commentary on every aspect, note their denialist credentials, and introduce alternate sources by Chinese and Western academics.--PCPP (talk) 19:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Moved the above comment here from my Talk Page. I agree with PCPP that the article is too long and has way too much denialist dreck in it. However, I think his recent truncation was too radical. I'm busy this morning so I can't take a close look at the article right now but I just wanted to put this here to signal a desire to be collegial and collaborative rather than edit-warring. --Richard S (talk) 17:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Removal of section "Analysis of photographic evidence"
This was done without any consensus. The material was very relevant to the article, and fully sourced. I will put it back up and I will make sure it stays there until any arguments in favor of removing it other than "that makes the article too long" are given.
Also, when did this article change it's name from "Nanking massacre controvery and denial" into solely "Nanking massacre denial"? --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 20:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To be truthful, the article is *extraordinarily long*. And so much of it seems unrelated to the specific theme of 'denial' of the massacre. Not a comment on the analysis of photographic evidence.—Zujine|talk04:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article contains more or less all arguments used by denialists, and "faked evidence" is one of their main arguments, so I see it as very relevant. If the article is long, perhaps it should be split up into several articles, but it would be better to make those articles first before removing stuff from here. Personally I don't feel much for what the denialists have to say, but nevertheless, this Wikipedia article needs to be kept on the same level as all other large Wikipedia articles, it is not acceptable if random people go here and remove what they don't like without a consensus to back it up. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 14:05, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why not treat the denials in more of a summary form--why does every single piece of evidence and every minor thing need to be told in depth? Less is more, as they say. —Zujine|talk14:08, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we shouldn't include every single pic that guy had something to say about, but at least those who were actually proven to be fake, I remember there were 3-4 of those in total, while most others just were given "plausible arguments" why they do not actually depict what they're said to depict. Anyways, in it's current form this section has simply been castrated without any kind of consensus at all. And I will not accept that. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 19:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That the material does not belong here (even though it's very relevant to the article in my opinion, you know, photographical evidence in a section about photographical evidence, but then again that just might be me) is your opinion. This article is exactly about Nanking Massacre Denial (however, also people who don't question that a massacre happened, but rather, that the death toll is inflated, but that's beyond the point here). You know, a compilation of arguments provided by part from denialists. And it has a section about photographical evidence. It only is logical to include a couple of examples of that, so until there has been a consensus on which images to include, I will put all back up, as you removed them simply because you felt like it, and that's not how things work on here. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 19:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum:
Evaluating claims
Many encyclopedic topics can be evaluated from a number of different perspectives, and some of these perspectives may make claims that lack verification in research, that are inherently untestable, or that are pseudoscientific. In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical, scientific, and cultural prominence. Claims that are uncontroversial and uncontested within reliable sources should be presented as simple statements of fact — e.g. "An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton." Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context — e.g. "There are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind." Such claims may contain or be followed by qualifiers to maintain neutrality — e.g. "Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view." — but restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations. It is also best to avoid hiding all disputations in an end criticism section, but instead work for integrated, easy to read, and accurate article prose.
From WP:FRINGE. This is exactly what the material you removed was, a couple of arguments on why certain photos aren't actually proof of the Nanking Massacre, attributed to Higashinakano. None of the material you deleted presented any denialist claims as indisputable facts, in fact it was more on the contrary. The material you removed was well within what is acceptable according to WP:FRINGE. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 20:12, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So what, that doesn't change the fact that the views of Higashinakano etc are of a minority are should be presented as such, and yet his crackpot theories are attributed to cover almost the entire article. The photos, in particular, contains large amounts of original research claims and only presented sources from Higashinakano. The article is a complete whitewash - it's like writing the Holocaust denial article with 80% of the sources attributed from David Irving. Per WP:NPOV:
Accurately indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view. For example, to state that "According to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field.
I don't see the problem with providing images of the photos that were proven to be fake by reliable sources. Could anyone point out the problem with that? —Zujine|talk03:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to misunderstand the concept of "minority views". If a minority holds the presented view, it should be clarified that it is held by a minority, not that the view should be made as a minor part of the whole article. Again, you were simply removing well sourced material that did not offend any Wikipedia guidelines, only your own personal opinion. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 19:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it was really nice of you, PCPP, to simply remove the gallery again without stating so in this discussion section, merely giving "POV pushing" as reason, as you've apparently abandoned FRINGE as reason after I took my time to explain to you what FRINGE is and what it is not. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 22:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: no consensus to move - that much is clear. There does seem to also be a consensus to split the article into two so I'd suggest interested parties take the split forward. Dpmuk (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nanking Massacre denial → Nanking Massacre controversy and denial — PCPP previously moved both the article Nanking Massacre controversy and denial and it's talkpage to Nanking Massacre denial with it's corresponding counterpart with the motivation "Per consistancy with other "denialist" page names eg Rwanda, Armenia". However, this was done without any consensus at all, at least to my knowledge. If a consensus was reached, I kindly ask whoever knows of this to show it to me. Such major moves can't just be made without a consensus. Second off, I personally consider "denial" only to be rather misleading, as from what I have been able to read in the article, rather few denialists outright deny that the massacre took place. Most of them are rather questioning the total death toll, therefore controversy. Even the "Great Massacre School" in Japan which acknowledges the massacre happened to it's fullest extent, disagrees on the total death toll. And those are pretty far from being "denialists". Neither will I accept any reversions or further content removals by PCPP unless he presents his arguments so a consensus can be reached. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 22:57, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Considering this article has issues with it's size, I think it could be a good idea. An article about Nanking Massacre denial and another about Nanking Massacre death toll controversy. If there are no serious objections, I don't see why it shouldn't be done. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 03:04, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This article is about denial of the Massacre, with context about the controversies about the extent of the Massacre among historians who do not deny it; an article about these controversies separately would be helpful. We can discuss what title a merged article should have when discussing a merge; but that's after writing two articles.SeptentrionalisPMAnderson04:56, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose move (but feel free to read the long version after the dot). Let's start with the obvious point: this is really a scope discussion in the guise of a title dispute. In my opinion, material on the subject of "denial" and material on the subject of "differing figures" are not at all the same thing. Outright denial that the massacre ever occurred is an "unreasonable" opinion; it ignores the fact that many people of many nationalities and allegiances - including Nazis, as a matter of fact - witnessed the massacre and testified to its occurrence. In fact, most often denialism on this subject takes the form of an attack on the record - trying to destroy the credibility of evidence after the fact. There's a lot to say about denialism, but covering it adequately in the main article tends to place undue weight on the credibility of denialists. Hence we have this article. Differences of opinion about the exact casualty figures, on the other hand, are (to summarize) examples of "reasonable" opinions; there is a generally agreed range of casualties, but there can be no authoritative census of them, so partial disagreements with the usual figures can reasonably be entertained. The reasonable opinions can be covered most effectively in the main Nanking Massacre article, and should be summarized here only for context. Presenting them alongside the material on denialism only serves to portray denialism as more reasonable than it actually is, so it ought to be avoided. With that opinion on the scope clear (I hope it is, now), the title ought to match the proper scope - as the present one does, and the former (and now proposed) title does not. — Gavia immer (talk)05:44, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose move (oppose moving back to the old title but generally agreeing with Binksternet and Gavia immer that the full article should not stay here). As per Binksternet et al, we might wish to have two articles: one here at Nanking massacre denial which focuses entirely on the denial as argued by the "Illusion School", the other article could be called Nanking massacre controversy or Debate over the Nanking massacre which could cover the three schools ("Great Massacre", "Middle of the Road" and "Illusion"). I propose that we move the whole article to Debate over the Nanking massacre and then pull out the details of the "Illusion school" and put it here in this article titled Nanking Massacre denial. --Richard S (talk) 18:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose move Bad faith nomination by Raubfreundschaft. First of all, much of the material here comes from the now deleted "Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre" article [6], which was found to be POV fork pushing denialist propaganda by User:Arimasa [7] (aka Arimasa Kubo who runs a denialist website in real life [8]). Furthermore this page suffers from a bad case of WP:FRINGE, giving credibility to the crackpot theories of denialists like Higashinakano and making it sound as if they are accepted as legitimate research.--PCPP (talk) 08:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Requested move and split (January 2011): Proposal to split this article per discussion on the Requested Move proposal
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Comment. The issue here is not an outright denial of the massacre, but the questioning of the total death toll. As for example, the Great Massacre Schools which considers the massacre to have taken place in its fullest extent, still doesn't agree to the 300k+ death toll. So it's not denialism, but controversy. This is not the same thing as holocaust denial, as holocaust denialists, like Nanking denialists (but denialists are not the case here) deny that anything took place. Making a distinction between these two camps would only benefit Wikipedia. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 19:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support. As there is a distinct difference between Higashinakano's total denial and the total death toll controversy which is has a lot more support in Japan than the outright denialism. Also it seems my request got archived before I managed to make any responses. Oh well, next time I should think of my timing. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 19:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The "Japanese fringe minority" is the one that claims that nothing happened in Nanking at all. A majority of Japanese historians agree that the 300,000 death toll figure was fully impossible, thus "controversy". Comparing this to Holocaust denial is rather ridiculous, as Holocaust denialists claim that extermination camps weren't actually extermination camps (therefore denial), rather than "there were exterminations camps, but 6 million jews didn't die, it was more like 2.3 or something". You need to be able to differentiate between well meant questioning and outright denialism.--Raubfreundschaft (talk) 22:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
I find that this section is Undue Weight. Worse than that, it seems to make this page over into an effort to deny the scope of the massacre, rather than describe the phenomenon of 'massacre denial' or 'revisionism'. If Higashinakano is "the rarest of figures in the revisionist camp", why have we allowed him to author so much of this Wikipedia entry? He should be a topic of the article, not the author of the article.
The photos are significant to demonstrate a feature of the phenomenon of revisionism. But this phenomenon does not require so many photos to express, and it is bizarre to give Higashinakano the first and last unanswered word on every subject. Perhaps we could discuss the subject. I will remove the photos per Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, while discussion takes place. I hope to find more time to pare back Higashinakano's influence on this entry, in the coming weeks. For now, what do you think? DBaba (talk) 23:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As the section is a gallery, there should at least be some photos presented. I'm pretty sure some of them were actually proven fakes (like the crying infant in the bombed train station) which have been acknowledged as such before Higashinakano was around. Anyways, until we have come to an agreement about which pictures should be in the gallery, I will put all of them back up, as I consider a complete absence of photos in a gallery to be more harmful than beneficial to the article as a whole, regardless of whom most of the images are being attributed to. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 00:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The baby crying in the bombed-out train station is not so much faked as it is staged. The baby was available, the bombed-out train station was real, and the photographer put them together to make a more emotional shot. He was aiming to make the bombing look inhuman, and he did. It is not at all connected to Nanking, so I am removing it from this article. Binksternet (talk) 01:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned that you are defying the Wikipedia policy I cited. Have I misunderstood it? Shouldn't we be discussing this prior to its inclusion? I do not see that a series of allegedly-mislabeled photos necessitates a gallery, presented from a fringe perspective unadulterated by sober scholarship. Perhaps we could discuss this before making contentious edits? Cheers, DBaba (talk) 01:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If any of these photos are relevant to the Nanking Massacre denial, I am willing to see them included. The baby crying in Shanghai's South Station is not relevant to Nanking, though; it's the wrong battle. Nothing about the photograph relates specifically to denial of Nanking—instead, the photo relates directly to Western, especially American, views about the Japanese committing atrocities in China. The general subject of Japanese atrocities in China, or at least Western appreciation of Japanese atrocities in China, is not what this article is about. This article is about the Nanking Massacre by itself. Binksternet (talk) 03:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as Wikipedia guidelines go, this article is accurate. Since this article was changed from Nanking denial and controversy to merely denial, a move I opposed for reasons previously stated further up, this article does not offend UNDUE; "In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained. How much detail is required depends on the subject.", therefore it is highly inappropiate to delete a majority of material giving support on a minority opinion in an article about the opinion of that specific minority. If anything, now that the article has been changed to solely Nanking denial, and not controversy, a lot of the previously removed stuff could easily be put back up as long as it has sufficient sourcing.--Raubfreundschaft (talk) 10:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I believe I have given my best to discuss all changes that I propose (which mostly aren't even changes, rather the complete opposite of a change). The only text I've inserted is here on the talk page, and in a few previous reversions of content deletions made by PCPP. Discussion is what I've been doing here the whole time. As this article was changed from Nanking controversy and denial to only Nanking denial, it is only natural to cover denialists (even if they are a minority, as this article is about a minority) and their arguments. If for example there are counter arguments for Higashinakanos arguments, they certainly should be included. But as of now, every argument made by denialists in this article is clarified as such, so honestly I do not see how it offends any Wikipedia guideline. I am not particularly interest in the content itself, but the fact that people as of recently, mostly PCPP, have been removing material from the article for various reasons. A lot in fact, even some material that by all guidelines would still fit into the article, and it's that material which I am trying to keep on this page. I've told PCPP that if he has any serious arguments against the gallery as of now, he should forward these arguments to me. He mentioned some guidelines normally used for articles that are completely unlike this one, so I told him that. After that I've received no further response, he just deleted the material again, this time claiming "POV pushing", which I don't see how it is accurate in this case either. My POV is purely based on Wikipedia guidelines, so it confuses me how he can justify further content deletions despite of that. Besides, it's him who changed the subject of the article from "controversy and denial" to "denial" alone, by all means making it an article about denial, rather than general controversy about the event. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 17:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, my apologies if my blunt reversion of your reversion of my reversion insulting to you. I am not on this site to stir up feelings, or to defend Japanese nationalists, or anything in that direction, in case it seemed so to you. What I do however is to check controversial articles and try to keep them balanced, if they are not. But before I do such, I want to discuss everything with the other editors of each article, unless it's an article that gets little attention, and even then, I state my intent on the talk page weeks before I perform any change. --Raubfreundschaft (talk) 17:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Binksternet, I'd like your opinion on something. Is this article slanted to have become a forum for a fringe view, which is not properly contextualized with mainstream views? Looking at just the photo section, shouldn't these captions have at least some counterpoint to Higashinakano's 'school' of thought? Do you think the majority view is explained in sufficient detail in this article? DBaba (talk) 12:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the mainstream thought has been thrown in the weeds, that the gallery is a straightforward promotion of a minority opinion, a gross violation of WP:UNDUE, and should at the very least be labeled as coming from Japanese nationalists. For my take on the proper balance between mainstream global and minority nationalist views on the one photo I removed, check out the new article I'm working on today: Bloody Saturday (photograph). When the 'inuse' tag goes away, feel free to help me out if you see any errors of commission or omission. Binksternet (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, my view is that this article would do fine without having the gallery of Higashinakano's so-called "photographic evidence". However, I am not so opposed to having them that I would insist on excluding them from the article completely. I don't think they should get as much space as Arimasa would like but we should discuss how much space to give them, if any.
The first question to ask is "how notable is Higashinakano's work?" I rather expect that they are widely known and cited by massacre denialists. If this is not true, then Higashinakano doesn't deserve much space at all. If, on the other hand, his work is notable in a way that the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is, then we need to discuss his work, however non-mainstream an opinion it may be. Is it the case that every massacre denialist in Japan knows of Higashinakano's work and is likely to mention it in almost every discussion of the massacre? I myself don't know enough to answer this question but I think it is the key question to answer.
Assuming that we decide to cover Higashinakano's photos in a gallery, the next question is "how many photos is enough?". I'd say 3-5 at a minimum, 10 at a maximum. It would be good if we could select a "representative sample". This would mean establishing categories of photos. For example, there are lots of photos of friendly Chinese that are used to argue that the Chinese liked and trusted the occupying Japanese soldiers. We don't need more than one of these to establish that Higashinakano uses such photos to make this argument. I haven't looked at these photos in over a year so I can't generate a list of categories for us to use but I think it would be useful to review the photos and see if we can generate such a list and then select one photo to represent each category.
Finally, I agree with Binksternet that we must make it very clear that Higashinakano comes from the denialist school. The real question is whether we can find any source that has methodically reviewed his allegations and refuted them at a detailed level. (i.e. someone who has provided counterarguments to Higashinakano's specific comments about individual photos or groups of photos as opposed to just categorically rejecting the entire lot). If we could do that, then we should present the photo, Higashinakano's argument and the rebuttal. That would come closer to the kind of NPOV treatment that is found in Bloody Saturday (photograph).
I suggest "Nanking Massacre controversy" rather than "Nanking denial" which gives the reader the impression that it is altogether denied. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.181.114.227 (talk) 22:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Should Higashinakano's nationalistic revisionism really be quoted as fact throughout this article? Where is the evidence that murder via bayoneting the vagina is "typically Chinese, not Japanese"? That isn't legitimate scholarship. Neither is his absurd allegation that swinging a sword with one-hand is "Chinese, not Japanese". How can anybody but the most delusional Japanese nationalist take this kind of "analysis" seriously? It boggles the mind.
Higashinakano's "analysis" is laughable and his fringe theories are given far too much coverage in this article. I suggest his views be granted their own sub-heading rather than dominating the page. — Preceding unsignted comment added by 77.99.63.125 (talk) 20:58, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'am not sure the true intention of Higashinakano's analysis,whether he or she want to prove japanese are very good invaders,considers the Japanese war crimes in other places,especially in Southeast Asia,An Australian POW captured in New Guinea, Sgt. Leonard Siffleet, about to be beheaded by the Japanese with a shin guntō sword, 1943..The Japanese didnot dare to deny their torture and killing of white men,only because they are afraid of them.--Ksyrie(Talkie talkie) 03:08, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is it just me, or does almost literally every single photo on this article seem to be in some way supporting the "Look how happy the Chinese are with the Japanese! No massacre!" viewpoint? The one photo I can see that might in some way suggest that there might have maybe been an atrocity is linked to a caption explaining how the bones the photo showed may very well have been the result of something perfectly innocent!
Yeh... it's really hard to maintain a neutral point of view in discussing a denialist POV. I haven't read the article recently but when I worked on it, I tried really hard to describe the denialist POV in as NPOV a manner as possible. There is lots of photographic evidence of a massacre having been perpetrated. Some of those photos are in the Nanking massacre article. This article is about the denial of that massacre having taken place. It's hard to take photos of a massacre that didn't happen. Most of the photos presented to argue that there was no massacre is based on the idea that the Chinese populace were happy under Japanese occupation. Yes, it's a biased POV but the subject of this article is the presentation of that biased POV (in an NPOV way, of course). --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 15:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly, but it does seem that, if you remove the entire rest of the article and leave only the photos and the captions, what you have is in essence a series of photos explicitly laying out the evidence against a massacre. I'll admit I might be looking just a bit squint-eyed based off a reading of the article, though, which itself raised a few eyebrows with me (my knowledge of the massacre is a bit sketchy, so when I read the bulk of the article I was half-way convinced there might not have been a massacre! Seems just a bit odd for something which, upon later review, purports that only a minority of people in Japan actually deny the massacre outright.)
That aside, while I do recognize that photos of a non-event are tricky to take, I do have to wonder if we really need no less than 12 (and possibly 14 depending on how you view it) photos pushing the exact same point, viz. "The Chinese smiled at one point! They can't possibly have undergone a massacre!" It may also be worth noting that the mass majority of these photos apparently come from Japanese newspapers of the time, who might have what one might call something of an interest in demonstrating how happy the Chinese were under Japanese rule.
Now, granted, I imagine Western or Chinese newspaper photos of the massacre might be said to have an interest in showing what terrible people the Japanese were themselves, so it's not like we should excise each and every photo in this article on that basis. Nevertheless, so many photos pushing the exact same point coming from the same sources seems a tad excessive unless you're deliberately out to persuade someone that your point of view is true. And heck, some of the photos seem downright irrelevant, particularly the photo of the officer with a smiling Chinese boy - one kid being happy at one point really does not seem to contribute anything so far as I can see.
But maybe I'm just biased against massacre denialism and thus have trouble seeing NPOV in something that isn't weighed directly against my opposed POV? I dunno, like I said, I'm no Wikipedia expert.199.4.27.122 (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The issue seems to be that the images have descriptions that give one point of view from the minority perspective, while neglecting the general view (it places considerable weight on the former, none on the latter). It's not even placed in context of the article (which itself also drifts out of context sometimes). The context being-... It skews the info. --Cold Season (talk) 16:40, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK... let's back up and review the history of how this article came into being. Some Japanese denialist editors kept wanting to put this material into Nanking massacre but the amount of material that they wanted to put in was way out of balance with the rest of the article. Since this is essentially a fringe POV, it didn't deserve anywhere near the amount of coverage that the denialist editors wanted in that article.
I created this article in order to focus on the denialist argument. I haven't re-read the article text in a long while so I cannot certify that it strikes an appropriately NPOV stance although I think it was pretty close to NPOV when I last edited a couple of years ago. In an article like this, there is a constant creep towards POV that must be combatted continuously. I have stopped monitoring this article closely and so I can't guarantee that it is actually NPOV at the moment.
That said, we should make an honest effort to present the denialist arguments while also providing sourced refutations of them. The photographs in question were almost all inserted by denialist editors. If you think there are too many and that some should be removed, I will not object. If you can think of other photos that we should add, please suggest them. It occurs to me that we could add photos of some of the more prominent Japanese denialists.
I've removed an old POV template with a dormant discussion, per the instructions on that template's page:
This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
If editors are continuing to work toward resolution of any issue and I missed it, however, please feel free to restore. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Removed racist nazi reference to nanking population
A cultist pseudohistorian from shintoist japanese origins appear referenced as claiming Nanking didn´t have enough population, in order to deny massacre.
Similar to neo-nazi argument that Auschwitz only have very few prisoners.
So I removed it by violate NPOV.190.207.187.233 (talk) 15:46, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As the article exists presently, it almost exclusively quotes a number of discredited denialist academics, and appears to have been written with the general attention of actually pushing and giving undue weight to denialist viewpoints, in addition to its other pre-existing issues. While there is certainly a place for these sources and this article, in line with the weight ascribed to prominent minority viewpoints, the fact that the vast majority of historical scholarship is contrary to denialist claims is extremely under-represented in this article. A major rewrite, emphasizing mainstream historical scholarship, and heavily reducing the credence given to revisionist and fringe denialist viewpoints, I believe, is in order for this article.MtulliusC 04:53, 11 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zmflavius (talk • contribs)
I've conducted a preliminary rewrite of the article, however, owing to the large size of the pre-existing article, rewriting is still very much a work in progress. One of the most serious issues with the old article was, as mentioned above, that rather than accurately portraying Japanese revisionism as a fringe viewpoint with little support in academia or most scholarship, the article portrayed the denialist standpoint as being the most legitimate, and devoted an undue amount of article space towards arguing against the evidence of the massacre. A large portion of the article as it was before consisted of spurious claims and war-time propaganda entered by revisionists, which I have since removed. While eventually, claims and refutations with regards to revisionists should be restored, in the form they took beforehand, the article was biased heavily in favor of denialist viewpoints. Thus far, rewriting has taken the form of the above recommended suggestions of re-ordering Japanese revisionism into sections by revisionist, with a comparison of the claims made to mainstream historiography. For this purpose, the sources and text of the Nanjing Massacre main article were used heavily. In addition, I have also removed the vast majority of the images previously in the thread, of which virtually all were from Japanese war-time propaganda, and which did not present an accurate picture of the message the article was meant to convey. In addition, mainstream sources also need to be organized; at present and before, the article only mentioned denialist sources extensively.Zmflavius07:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a great stroke of clarity if this article can be completely stripped of denial-pushing fringe wording and sources. Instead, the denial should be described by third party observers who will of course quote the denialists. Some possible sources to use:
Definitely, I think that your proposed expansion and rewrite process would be productive for this article. I would definitely love to be able to help, but right now, I'm finding myself to be swamped by university (which is actually a big part of the reason why my initial rewrite was so incomplete). I'll try to do what I can to continue to add to the article, but my editing time may be limited. Any and all help would be appreciated!Zmflavius (talk) 18:56, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This section, thus far, has been the subject of several reverts. It as follows, reads:
==Existence in textbook and media==
Higashinakano argues that for decades Nanking Massacre doesn't exist in Chinese textbook.There seems to be some corroborate materials.A Chinese author Zhu Shiwei has recalled that the first time he had heard the massacre he was told by his teacher gingerly.[1]Also People's Daily didn't post one single article about the massacre from 1960 to 1982.[2]
I move that this section be deleted, or at least, the majority removed, on the basis that overall, it is unencylopedic, not to mention poorly sourced. Of the first part, no source whatsoever is given; if a source is found, then this material should be moved to Higashinakano's section. Furthermore, as Higashinakano is widely regarded as a fringe historian, holding views contrary to that of the vast majority of mainstream scholars, his views should likewise be published with qualifications noting that they are not widely accepted among the historical community. The second part, about Chinese author Zhu Shiwei, is entirely meaningless, besides being an anecdote of no value historically (what on earth does 'gingerly' mean, and what bearing does it have on the histocrity of the massacre?), appears to also be from a source which is not even about the Second Sino-Japanese War. The third part is non-indicative at all of the histocrity of the massacre; it is in fact quite common for historical events to go decades without being mentioned in a newspaper, even propaganda newspapers. Should we, for example, take the likely true fact that the Italian Wars were not likely mentioned often in French newspapers as evidence they did not happen? In any case, the source, which merely is the name of the newspaper, is not a proper source.Zmflavius (talk) 01:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First part,no source is given?It is a Chinese book,if you think Chinese book cannot be used in the entry,go find someone higher than you and me to dictate that.And again, what is "unencylopedic"?If all you can do is repeating"unencylopedic".I can do the same on"encylopedic".And again who decides what is historically valuable and where this"historical community"reside and how you are authorized to speak for it?As far as I can see,the Zhu's words and People's daily are used in entry,as of 02:10 UTC of 2014 Feb.13. It's not Italian war not mentioned in French newspaper,it's a massacre conducted by some invaders on French soil,for 22 years not mentioned in French newspaper.Thank you.Don't delete it,but feel free to move it to any part of the entry.Victorkd (talk) 02:10, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No source is given, as in, literally, no source has been provided for Higashinakano's quote. If you can give the source of Higashikano's claim, then I will move the relevant material to Higashinakano's section of the article, but until then, the material does not belong on wikipedia. Furthermore, even if the quote is eventually included, the status of Higashinakano as a fringe historian of limited credibility in academic circles (a point that actually has been noted by other sources in this article) means that some qualification should be made with regards to his claims. For the next quote, the source has nothing to do with it being Chinese, and everything to do with the fact that it apparently is a history of the Eastern Front, the section of the war involving the USSR and Germany, which is not relevant at all to this topic. It may be that there was some reference to the Nanjing Massacre within the pages. If so, it would be helpful if you could describe the quote here. At present, however, said quote appears to be a discussion between two people, neither of them academic historians, using a weasel word of wide meaning. In that case, the quote would not satisfy WP:RELIABILITY and thus, should not be concluded. Finally, as the massacre occurred in 1937, it is not at all strange that it might forego mention in a newspaper between 1960 and 1982. The absence of mention in a particular time period far removed from that of the massacre should not be taken as evidence of absence in this case. In any case, the source given for that claim is not an adequate source for any article, and certainly not for this claim, because it is solely the title of the newspaper, whereas a newspaper source should be a specific article: if you can find a reliable source which makes this claim and connects it to the massacre adequately, then it may be included.Zmflavius (talk) 03:25, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Zhu Shiwei gives his memory as a Chinese pupil,that's it and that's all and he is more a historian author than you and me.It doesn't matter whether the book is about Germany-Soviet war or some other war.About Higashinakano,I wonder if you have ever read one single book to assert he doesn't quote any source?If it is not strange to forego the newspaper for 22 years,then you have no reason at all to delete it.So much for the WP:RELIABILITY .Victorkd (talk) 03:40, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Zhu Shiwei's memory as a Chinese pupil, even if he became a historian later in life, is not particularly relevant, if he uses this to conduct historical analysis, then please quote the relevant portions from the source, until then, it does not meet Wikipedia's standards for original research. WRT to Higashinakano, the point is not whether he quotes sources or not, but the precise book written by Higashinakano where he makes this particular claim. Without it, this claim of his, which, to be sure, he probably made, is unsourced. Finally, if it is not reliably sourced, or likely in this case, cannot be reliably sourced, then it, simply put, does not belong on wikipedia.Zmflavius (talk) 04:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As things stand, I would suggest that the Zhu Shiwei part and the People's Daily part both be deleted without delay, and the Higashinakano part be moved to the Higashinakano section. Is this proposal suitable?Zmflavius (talk) 04:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Zhu Shiwei's memory is in the publicated book,and of course is relevant.As is People's Daily part.If you don't understand what source is ,go read the policy by yourself.Zhu Shiwei's book is source.If you want to refute him,go publish some book to say he is lying,or interview him to make him say he was wrong.That's what source mean.(talk) 05:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see it's you who don't understand them at all.Source is,published material,except for those having been agreed up its unneutrality and inaccuracy,like Mein Kampf.Original research is"I as a Chinese,remember that My textbook didn't mention Nanking massacre"or "I,as a Chinese,don't believe Zhu's honesty"and so on.Victorkkd (talk) 05:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A source firstly, is not just any published material, but for wikipedia, typically is required to be academic literature or news reports. While the book may well fall into the former category, the fact that it is a book about the Eastern Front makes it quite irrelevant to the subject of the article. Likewise, as it is somewhat unlikely to be part of some greater analysis within the book, and you have not explained otherwise why it is not, the specific anecdote described is for all purposes likely to be original research, and possibly out of context original research as well.Zmflavius (talk) 19:08, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
ZHU‘S BOOK is public material,and its about history,go find any administrator to say its not legitimate source to back you up first.talk) 05:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
References
^朱世巍《东线1941-1945：第一个冬天（Eastern Front 1941-1945 Vol4: The First Winter）》P68
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The last sentence in the lede is currently "Although these controversial debates may continue or pop up, subsequent Japanese governments have continuously and officially apologised and have sought to make many amendments in regards to the war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan during WWII.[citation needed]" This sentence has a NPOV framing. "Sought to make many amendments" is vague to the point of meaninglessness, while the first clause of the sentence sets up the sentence as a minimization of this article's subject matter, by essentially saying that the Japanese government has adequately shown contrition for Japanese war crimes in WWII, in spite of which these debates continue. Furthermore, it is rather disingenuous to mention the apologies at all without also mentioning the controversy about their sincerity, phraseology and other criticisms of these extremely controversial apologies.
I would like to see a sentence more like "Post-war Japanese governments have issued official apologies to various East Asian nations. However, these apologies have not necessarily been well-received and have been criticized for a perceived lack of sincerity. Among other reasons, incidents of war crime denialism or trivialization, including Nanjing Massacre denialism, by Japanese government officials or public figures have contributed to the controversy surrounding these apologies." Hussierhussier1 (talk) 08:27, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some historians accept the findings of the Tokyo tribunal with respect to the scope and nature of the atrocities which were committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the Battle of Nanking, but others do not What does "some" and "others" mean? It sounds as if the historians are seriously split on this. Are they? What exactly does "the findings" refer to here? International Military Tribunal for the Far East does not mention Nanjing (or Nanking) much, so this wording makes the sentence even more unclear.
...is a real piece of work. If you don't speak Japanese, take a look at it with a machine translator and a dictionary (obviously take with a grain of salt). Every paragraph contains skepticism or denial that the massacre occurred. Even the page itself is titled "Nanjing Incident". toobigtokale (talk) 17:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not uncommon for a Wikipedia topic to be treated radically differently in places where the topic is a sore point. For instance, the Turkish language version of the Armenian genocide article is an affront. The problem is that blocs of partisan editors form to protect or (mis)represent a topic, and outsiders are easily pushed away because they are outvoted. Binksternet (talk) 18:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Depressing :( The world, including Japan, deserves access to better information. Little I can do about this article specifically but I’ll work hard on the English Wikipedia on related topics. We absolutely cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. toobigtokale (talk) 20:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neither Schneider's China's Digital Nationalism nor Gustafsson (2019) explicitly use the term denialism in describing Wikipedia's portrayal of the Nanjing Massacre. Is every instance of editorial bias in a reference work (lack of images, "less negative" portrayal of the Japanese military, etc.) an example of Nanjing Massacre denial (falsification of the historical record)? The statements about Wikipedia don't really belong in this article, unless the source for each statement explicitly states how these examples somehow amount to denial of the Nanjing Massacre. First Comet (talk) 07:48, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am tagging Nanjing Massacre denial#Japanese Wikipedia with {{Importance section}} because a significant portion of what is discussed in that section does not really seem relevant to the subject of this article (falsification of the historical record). Not every instance of editorial bias in a reference work constitutes historical denialism, and the source does not frame it as such. Omitting images is not the same as falsifying the historical record. The section should include only those instances that WP:RS explicitly cites as examples of Nanjing Massacre denial. First Comet (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The way the term "denialism" is used in the lead of this article is not "the complete absence of any crime", it is the denial of the fact that Imperial Japanese forces murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians in the city of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Attempts to downplay the international consensus on the massacre count as denialism in the current scope of the article. That applies to omitting images too. If someone deliberately selectively omitted valuable context from an article, both of us would probably accuse the writing of revisionism (denialism in the scope of this article) toobigtokale (talk) 08:15, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Omitting images doesn't usually count as downplaying the international consensus (many reference works that cover the Nanjing Massacre don't include images of the massacre, either). And when Gustafsson (2019) says that the Japanese Wikipedia portrays the Japanese military "less negatively," what the author means (if I remember correctly) is that it portrays the Japanese military less negatively than the Chinese Wikipedia, which the author claims is equally problematic.
Nor is it clear from the source what kind of social impact/significance the way the massacre is covered on Wikipedia has had on public discourse. The article also fails to mention many instances of denial of the Nanjing Massacre by prominent academics/politicians whose work is covered in their own Wikipedia biographies, which presumably have had a far greater impact on public understanding of the massacre than Wikipedia, and where failure to mention them would be a critical omission. We must be careful not to make the article an indiscriminate collection of information by including any material that is somehow related to the subject, regardless of its cultural importance/significance to the topic at hand (although the issue of bias clearly deserves its own section in articles that exist specifically to address Wikipedia, such as Japanese Wikipedia and Ideological bias on Wikipedia). First Comet (talk) 09:46, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Omitting images doesn't usually count as downplaying the international consensus (many reference works that cover the Nanjing Massacre don't include images of the massacre, either). This doesn't address strategic removal. Reference texts don't always have the option to include images, nor is it expected for some texts to have images in the first place (e.g. some academic journals don't allow images). In Wikipedia the article is juxtaposed next to every other version that has images, even some language versions that are 1-2 paragraphs long have images that the Japanese article completely lacks. That seems perfectly okay to you? It would keep me up at night if I knew Korean editors were doing that about any of the Korea-related controversies that make my stomach churn, and this incident is one of the most stomach churning events in human history.
And when Gustafsson (2019) says that the Japanese Wikipedia portrays the Japanese military "less negatively," what the author means (if I remember correctly) is that it portrays the Japanese military less negatively than the Chinese Wikipedia, which the author claims is equally problematic. and that makes what the Japanese Wikipedia is doing ok? Two wrongs don't make a right.
:::Nor is it clear from the source what kind of social impact/significance the way the massacre is covered on Wikipedia has had on public discourse. So every piece of information ever, including "this person got elected on x day", has to include a bit about social impact in order to get included on Wikipedia? That's a bit of a high bar. I don't agree that that should be the case. The article isn't suffering from being overly long, we can include things like these.
The article also fails to mention many instances of denial of the Nanjing Massacre by prominent academics/politicians whose work is covered in their own Wikipedia biographies, which presumably have had a far greater impact on public understanding of the massacre than Wikipedia, and where failure to mention them would be a critical omission. We should be doing WP:SUMMARY style. Not including exhaustive levels of detail, but still enumerating enough to give readers to click onto for more details. If you want to argue that the length of the mention should be reduced that's a fairer argument. But complete omission from this article, when it's clearly relevant to the topic, seems strange.
We must be careful not to make the article an indiscriminate collection of information by including any material that is somehow related to the subject This isn't an accurate characterization of the information. The information contains examples of Nanjing Massacre denialism as per the definition in the lead. You just want there to be an assessment of social impact, which I don't agree is necessary as per previous point. Also: some of the previous examples of revisionism listed don't have social impact explained for them, should we delete all those? On every article about an author who's published a book about this topic, should we check to see if the article explains the social impact of their work, and if not we delete it? toobigtokale (talk) 10:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Any response? Sorry for coming off a bit strong, I see your other edits on this topic and I know they're constructive. But this topic is worth being strong over I think.
If no other response, if you're okay with it I'm willing to wait a few more days to see if other people want to contribute to the discussion, otherwise I'd like to remove the template. toobigtokale (talk) 06:22, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced by your argument because the language of the sources seems to at least partially contradict the way the information is presented. For example, Gustafsson (2019) says, While editing continues, in both the versions, episodes are depicted in quite consistent ways, suggesting that the narratives have become relatively settled and that in each of the two language versions what is considered a fairly neutral point of view has been achieved.andThe Japanese account tends to downplay Japanese agency and emphasise Chinese agency and responsibility, while the Chinese narrative does the complete opposite. The author discusses how the Japanese/Chinese articles present the historical account of the massacre in a biased manner by overrepresenting material that supports the Japanese/Chinese viewpoint and omitting/underrepresenting information that undermines that viewpoint, but there is no discussion of the instances of historical denialism as the term is commonly understood. These are instances of editorial bias, not denialism. In fact, the author says that the narratives are consistent in the two editions. Passively omitting images, including "strategic removal", is not the same as actively denying historical facts, even if such omission is an instance of editorial bias.
We may need other people to chip in, it looks like we won't convince each other. I'll try anyway.
Passively omitting images, including "strategic removal", is not the same as actively denying historical facts, even if such omission is an instance of editorial bias.
I can't let "passively omitting" slide. That is not what is going on on the Japanese Wikipedia. You can see the talk page where they discuss and reject all of the images of the event, that is not passive. It seems far from a happy accident that images that are universally accepted as depicting the massacre outside of Japan are basically unfailingly shown on other language wikis (some versions seemingly with 1/100th the number of edits the Japanese article has), meanwhile the Japanese Wiki has rejected all of them.
Let's use "strategic removal". Quote from Schneider:
An earlier version (spring 2013, no longer available) included an image of a hospital staffed with Japanese medical professionals, effectively suggesting that the Japanese presence in Nanjing was benevolent. Reads denialist to me.
What I can concede is that these sources are thinner than desired. The research on this topic is shamefully sparse. I've emailed a few dozen researchers in this area about this issue. I'll get around to contacting journalists as well. Hopefully by the end of next year we'll have more to work with. toobigtokale (talk) 11:05, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Japanese Wikipedia version of the Nanjing Massacre article is undergoing a significant upheaval right now. It has leaned (according to non Japanese scholars) fringe and excessively denialist for around 10+ years now. A few weeks ago, a few users managed to make a significant rewrite more in line with the international consensus that managed to stay up for a week or two. It's since been reverted and they've been defending their version ever since, but they're a minority.
I encourage you to keep watching how they change the article in future. This has been one of the most significant pushes ever to fix the article. It'd be a shame if it doesn't stick. toobigtokale (talk) 01:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good news; they've appeared to have successfully defended their revision. However, we'll need to be constantly vigilant from now on. Very plausible that it'll creep back to revisionism. toobigtokale (talk) 22:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
