Talk:Tank Man/Archive 1

Archive 1

Rationale for Tank Man/Wang Weilin Split

Help me out here -- why do we need an article on both Wang Weilin and Tank man when they refer to the same person? Garrett Albright 22:56, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Smyth and I have been discussing that on my talk page. Look there. →Raul654 23:32, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Here is a copy of the discussion – Smyth 13:07, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is little point in insisting on a link to Wang Weilin, as nobody knows who he is, and no other pages but Tank man link to him. We can't have a bio on him because nobody knows who he is. :) Should the page be created, it would be nothing but a permanent substub with only one useful outgoing link – to Tank man. Surely you don't want to encourage the existence of such a page? — Smyth 20:01, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just to prove everyone wrong, I've gone and written it. It contains 7 internal links, 2 external links, and 3 sentences - quite a bit more than a substub. And there's more room to grow. →Raul654 20:20, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Right, so we now have two articles under two pseudonyms of the same person. The new article contains one new piece of information, which should be incorporated back into the original article. The rest is straight duplication.

This is what redirects are for. – Smyth 20:49, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Tank man should contain information about the suspects (who Tank man could be), and the impact (being on Time Magazine's top 100 most influental people). The Wang Weilin article should be a striaght biography - it could talk about what university he went to, the fact that he was the son of two factory workers, etc - none of which belongs at tank man. →Raul654 21:01, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

If any actual, real, substantiated information was known about Wang Weilin personally, or if he was a notable person in some other way, then I'd agree. But we only have the vaguest hearsay about who "Wang" was, assuming he actually existed, so there is no useful purpose in having a separate article for him. – Smyth 21:24, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Uh, no one is disputing the claim that he existed, or that he was a student, etc etc. The claim that he is tank man might be wrong, but he definitely existed. →Raul654 21:28, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

I'm sure lots of people called Wang Weilin existed, and lots of those were students, and probably one of those students were in the Square on that day. But we don't add a page for every person who exists, we add a page for the Tank Man because he did something worth writing a Wikipedia article about.

I suppose my point really is that there is no prospect that any new information will ever be added to the Wang page which would not equally belong on the Tank man page, because there is nothing else known about him except the barest rumors. In such a situation, having two pages seems unjustified. – Smyth 21:42, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To reiterate what I said above - The Wang Weilin article ... could talk about what university he went to, the fact that he was the son of two factory workers, etc - none of which belongs at tank man. Tank man is about the tank man persona. We can't say for sure that it's Weilin, tank man shouldn't go into depth about his life -- that would be awkward. On the other hand, Wang Weilin is about Weilin himself. There is definitely information that belongs in the latter and not in the former. And with the barest of google searches, I turned up several facts that were usable. If someone wanted to, they could find a lot more info than that. (all they would have to do is email the professor who reported that he had died after 14 days). →Raul654 21:56, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

I've reconsidered my position. I suppose it could go either way - in general, yes, it's a horrible idea to have two articles about the same thing, but this case is odd, since we don't know that they're the same thing. I'm fine with it as is, but if you want to merge the two, I don't think I'll have any further objections. →Raul654 23:35, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

As a sidebar to this discussion, the Chinese version of the Tank Man page in Wikipedia is called "Wang Weilin".

Name of the tank man

The identity of this man is known, at least in China. The official Chinese government position is that they do not know who it is. a merge from the Chinese article of relevant information is needed, and this article moved to "Wang Weilin" with Tank Man and The Unknown rebel left as redirects. I have put this on my to-do list, but if anyone else wants to work on it, leave me a talk message. -Vina 01:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please provide the sources that document this. --Jiang 02:29, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Also, please do not move this to Wang Weilin unless you can prove within a shadow of a doubt that that is this man's name -- that is, you have some bombshell bit of evidence that no other source I've been able to find has had. We've been through this (or something like this) before. Thank you. Garrett Albright 05:37, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

After further research, I agree with both of you that it is not documented (even the Chinese wiki says it is unverified) The point is, most people refer to him by that name (that I am aware of.) The Times article refers to him as the Unknown Rebel and does not mention his (alleged) name because of unverifiability, but his name is referred to as such in many other documents. The reason I hit upon this issue was because I was navigating from the Chinese wiki and trying to find an interwiki link. The Chinese article is titled Wang Weilin (王维林) and not tank man, or the unknown rebel, or any such "mythical" label. I agree that as hard evidence goes, the name is no more "mythical" than the others, but it has more chance of being accurate than the other two. More importantly, people searching will search by his alleged name, rarely by either of the other two alternatives. -Vina 18:28, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wang Weilin redirects to Tank Man. And most of the sources I found while researching the article (I was the original writer) were quite hesitant to refer to him as Wang with certainty, if they mentioned the name at all. I took a similar tack with this article, and I think it's the best path to take at our current level of certainty. Garrett Albright 03:51, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I still think that the actual article should be at Wang Weilin as opposed to Tank man, as more people search for him under that name, at least in my experience. <edit after more research> hmm, looks like English has more "tank man" than Wang Weilin, but Chinese googling turns up an overwhelming majority using that name. You also see a lot more Chinese articles taking his name as fact than english articles. I wonder if there is a Chinese source of which western media is unaware? (highly unlikely, but still, the discrepancy is wierd.</edit> -Vina 21:53, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

whether more people search for Wang Weilin or tank man is irrelevant as long as Wang Weilin redirect here. people will find this article find. at no point should we sacrifice accuracy in favor of popular searches. --Jiang 03:25, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have a New Yorker report, one of those "Letter from Beijing" articles, which confirms that this was Wang Weilin. I'll find it and give exact quotes, page numbers and dates et al. --Bluejay Young (talk) 13:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Tank man or the Unknown Rebel?

Is "Tank man" really a more common usage for him than "The Unknown Rebel"? It seems Time uses the latter, and I happen to think it sounds better. "Tank man" sounds too much like "Tank Girl", or somebody that transforms into a tank, or something else totally unlike who he is. Is there a strong objection to moving this page to "The Unknown Rebel"? -R. fiend 21:19, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Tank man" seems to be an unprecise reference (try googling it) but when people say "The Unknown Rebel" (try googling again), we know theyre talking about this person. I never seen the former before I stumbled upon this article, but BBC uses "tank man" --Jiang 00:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, disreagrding what BBC says, it seems that this information supports a move to "The Unknown Rebel". Is anyone opposed to such a move? -R. fiend 01:14, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just looked at that BBC link. Is that the only place he's referred to as such? That was just in the headline, where word count and length are important, giving "tank man" a certain advantage. In the article itself they call him "the unknown rebel" (or at least say thats how the American media refer to him). -R. fiend 01:18, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Tank man → The Unknown Rebel

The name "The Unknown Rebel" is what he is more commonly called, and it just sounds better. "Tank Man" is a stupid name, and it seems to me it came from a single headline where it had the advantage of being shorter. This is not a reason to use it as the title of the article. I brought up the discussion on the talk page and have no opposition so far. - R. fiend 16:30, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Would it not be better to name the article Wang Weilin (if his identity is established...which I thought it was) and redirect both the above to Wang Weilin? Otherwise, I support the move provided the identity of Tank Man isn't established. —ExplorerCDT 16:43, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • There's a big stink on the talk page about how verifiable the name "Wang Weillin" is. Until that's settled (and I doubt it ever will be) I'm in agreement with those who say it should not be the article's title. -R. fiend 17:02, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I wrote a good chuck of this article (including most of the stuff about Wang Weilin. Explorer's claim that Wang Weiling is the "established" identify is laughable - in fact, he's very, very probably not tank man. He's the one that the London Star (a tablooid) happened to identify based on super flimsy evidence. The short of it is - nobody knows who he is. There's really no evidence, and no one claiming to be. I support because the Unknown Rebel is the name I've heard it as. →Raul654 19:53, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
    • I didn't claim that it was "established." A simple readback of my comment will show you that much. However, I agree it is laughable because a lot of people (even academics) go around thinking someone in the media identified him. I have always heard that someone figured out who he was, and tracked down that he was executed. It wasn't until reading this article that I learned there was significant doubt as to those claims. Surprisingly, I have never heard him referred to as either of the two article titles above. If he can be positively identified, I think both Tank man and The Unknown Rebel should redirect to him, but lacking that positive identification, I support the move as requested. Again Raul654, you should re-read my comments to see that I didn't claim an identity was established, only mentioned an alternate conditional suggestion. —ExplorerCDT 20:52, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support, makes sense. Timrollpickering 19:48, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support, for reasons I outlined above. →Raul654 19:53, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, because even though it is a somewhat stupid name, it seems to be more common. Now both names are somewhat ambigous, so the best google test I could think of was ["tank man" Tiananmen]:2,410 and ["unknown rebel" Tiananmen]:425. It is better if this article be found from a search engine with a stupid name than not found at all.--Pharos 00:41, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Tank man" is stupid, but no more so than "The Unknown Rebel," which I would expect to star Burt Reynolds and involve motorcycles and Chevy muscle. The current name for him is generic, hence the minuscule m; the proposed alternative is a nickname apparently coined by Time magazine—which actually scores it a few points with me, but it still lacks the ubiquity required to make it the article's title. ADH (t&m) 02:37, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Neutrality^talk 06:38, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
• Support. "Tank man" makes him sound like a video game character. Proteus (Talk) 12:38, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Indeed . Actually there's a small downloadable game called Tank man [1] --LukeSurl 16:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Lots of unknown rebels, but "tank man" is descriptive of one particular rebel. For instance, without looking at the article I kinda guessed who it was about. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Estel (talk) 17:46, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Both titles are meaningless, what has title to do with Wang Weilin, he was meant to have been a student at Tiananmen Square protest. Where these titles some kind of US media promotion?--Daeron 07:31, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. As noted above, while none of the nicknames are particularily clever or aescetically pleasing, I find Tank man to be far more descriptive of who it is than the Unknown Rebel.--kissekatt 17:00, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)
• Support for reasons outlined above. The Tank man is actually the name of a British electronica band, a [2004 Finnish Film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432127/] and an American World War II painting. I'm not suggesting that these take the place of this article, but it goes to show how general the phrase is. To me, the phrase "Tank man" would imply an article about people who make tanks move rather than stop them.--LukeSurl 16:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. If "Tank Man" is good enough for Frontline, then it's good enough for me. Like Tony, I had an idea of what this article would be about just from the name. -AED 05:52, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to submit comment: "Tank Man" sounds rather dumb. It describes everything but the kind of person who would risk his life standing in front of a tank. Really, it makes it sound like he's the guy driving the things, not protesting them. Nah, the "Uknown Rebel" isn't much better, but at least clearly indicates who the man is in the picture.

Vote talley as of April 2006:

Support 7, Oppose 6. No consensus

I support using the identifier "Tank Man". 64.127.65.26 16:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

What about the man in the 1st tank?

I'd really like to know about the guy who was the driver of the first tank; He was almost as signifacant player in this event. The fact that he actively avoided running down Tank Man for 30 minutes contrasts starkely with the subsequent crackdown closer to the square.

Couldn't agree more. You have to wonder if the people who pulled him away from the tank made the wrong choice. They basically sided with the tanks against the people.

Rubbish, just because one is trying to saves another life, doesn't mean one is siding with the opposition in the process.

I agree. I wonder what happened to that soldier (he's also a Tank Man ;) ). All countries need more soldiers like that. Even if an evil dictator takes over and gives them orders, they won't blindly obey and later give stupid excuses like "I was just following orders".

If I'm not mistaken, he was awarded a medeal from the People's Liberation Army for patience. I would like to see more written from him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.90.112 (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Or for demonstrating such and making good PR for Chinese Army, as one having merciful tank commanders. But really i think he just did not want to participate and emotionally sided with protesters. He did not have the only option of driving the man over, he just could rearrange his tanks into two columns, then the Tank Man could only stop one single tank and three would just pass by his side and go on. Tank Man could really stopped one tank, but not more. I would not be surprised, if all that episode was not a clash, but a cooperative performance, demonstrating how polite and caring is Army to citizens, even annoying ones. 109.170.106.105 (talk) 10:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I also think the tank driver deserves a little bit of recognition. He committed a heroic act that day as well, he refused to drive over the man. If he'd done what his country's government had wanted he would have not even tried to avoid the man. He took a stand and knew it was wrong to run over that man. There were two heroes that day. 99.240.146.252 (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

It was well known at the time that the event was being filmed and photographed by multiple journalists. I believe the only reason the tank stopped, is because they knew they were being watched. It was the power of the media that saved this man, not a compassionate soldier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.21.103.6 (talk) 01:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

PLA Top Brass was clearly embarrassed by the incident!

The tank column consisting of regularly 18 units Type 79 (Type 69-III) medium battle tanks (37,5 tons, 105 mm gun, heavy machine gun demonstratively covered!) was part of the tank regiment of the elite 40th Group Army of PLA Military District Chengdu. Consequently these technologically rather primitive Main Battle Tanks were among the best equipment the PLA was able to field in 1989. Through CNN satellite TV coverage nearly a billion people on the globe saw instructively that Chinas military might was at least 20 years obsolete in comparison to first rate militaries of the time. Audiences worldwide could easily observe that not only the methods but also the means were rooted deep in the 1950´s. Actually the tanks the Soviet Army used to suppress the reformminded Dubcek government in Czechoslovakia 1968 were mainly more advanced than the crude armour of PLA tank regiments over two decades later. The whole situation ended up as a double nightmare for PLA officers. Humiliating enough was the fact that they had to secure the power of the CCP against ordinary people in the streets of their capital instead of safeguarding the security of a emerging major power, but the ultimate embarrassment was the stunning disclosure of technological backwardness in front of the world public. Eventually this tormenting incident was one of the driving forces that led to the modernization of the PLA since 1991 because the leadership recognized that such a disaster must not happen again. Another show of weakness was to be avoided at any cost since the consequences for the party and the army would be inevitably fatal. G.R.S 26.12.2005

well, maybe they did not feel the need to use the more sophisicated tanks. after all, the people don't even have a single gun. it was used to scare the people, i think. you said that the heavy machine gun was covered, that was the reason. however, i don't think that it was the reason they wanted to update their army, they saw what happened at the golf war, that was the main reason from what i have heard so far. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.1.247.15 (talk) 06:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC).

What a pointless troll post, I feel like deleting this whole section because of how pointless it is. Do you really think the capacity of the Chinese military were not known before this event? Especially during the cold war; the general public where well "educated" in communist capacity, in other word, kept in fear of the threat. But hey, at least it was good trolling effort! 24.89.245.62 06:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Most powerful photo ever?

I don't know about you guys, but when I look at that photo and think of the story behind it, I almost want to cry. If anyone can think of a more powerful photo, I'd like to see it. MondoManDevout 06:18, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Photo #2 in Time Magazine's 2005 Photo of the Year spread (flash required)

http://www.time.com/time/potw/2005_viewers_choice/ The photo was taken on location in Iraq during the battle of mosul, and was nominated for a pulitzer prize.

There is certainly no lack of powerful images. [2] from [3] and images planes sticking out of the twin towers. So much drama transpires within our lives, capturing on film is inevitable.

Did the American kill the girl?

[No], he was trying to save her life after a car bomb exploded. --Johnny (Cuervo) 07:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Injured man?

The article contains this text:

Neverminding the injured man, the tanks continued on their path, crushing him.

What injured man? Who was crushed? That paragraph repeatedly uses "him" to refer to Tank Man, and I'm not sure who the Injured Man was supposed to be. I finally figured it must be Tank Man who was crushed, but then I read that no one knows what happened to him...

This is a very confusing way to end the writeup. If someone was crushed to death I want to know more about it, and it should be clear that it was not Tank Man himself.

Wire photo?

From the article:

This image also represents one of the first instances of the digital transfer of images, as the Associated Press photographer there wired the image directly to the United States hours after the image was taken. This began a significant step into the transfer of information around the world.

This seems a bit odd - "wire photography" was around since the 1930s. It may be referring to a specific form of technology, but even so... I've cut it out for now. Shimgray | talk | 23:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It may have been the first emailed digital photo for AP wire? I agree this seems rather odd.  ALKIVAR™ 00:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Email seems pretty odd, too, in '89. Possible, but "in the field"? Shimgray | talk | 17:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well email sort of did exist back then. AOL was in operation starting in 1988, Prodigy and Compuserve and the like were as well. So its not as if a provider didnt exist. Then theres the fact that Fidonet and BBSes existed back then. So its entirely possible that these images were uploaded directly via modem. I'm not saying that it necessarily was ... but the potential was there...  ALKIVAR™ 22:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Google.cn

The article doesn't seem to have any reference to Google's censorship in its new China service. I think it's relevant. Essentially, a search for Tiananmen Square on ordinary Google brings up Tank Man as the first hit. A search on google.cn, the Chinese version provided by Google to the PRC, does not show the Tank Man, instead it shows families having fun in the park. This sort of censorship shows that discussion of Tank Man isn't just risque but actually banned. Anyone mind if I add this to the article (with links)? -Kasreyn 10:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC) in case you don't know, there is an article about google.cn.

searching for tiananmen at google.cn does not bring up pictures of The Tank Man on the front page; however, searching for tienanmen does show it. furthermore, at the time of this posting, you can in fact see the picture of The Tank Man on the third page, albeit only as a picture in another picture.

the google search link: http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen&num=10&hl=zh-CN&lr=&start=20&sa=N&filter=0

the found page: http://images.google.cn/imgres?imgurl=http://cryptome.cn/tk/pict506.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cryptome.cn/tk/tiananmen-eyeball.htm&h=345&w=512&sz=23&tbnid=WL2Zdn_TWnTnbM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=128&hl=zh-CN&start=22&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtiananmen%26start%3D20%26num%3D10%26hl%3Dzh-CN%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

the actual page: http://cryptome.cn/tk/tiananmen-eyeball.htm

the actual image: http://cryptome.cn/tk/pict506.jpg

further more, on this page (note the .cn tld!) you can actually see the original picture.

original tank man picture: http://cryptome.cn/tk/pict536.jpg

of course, whether or not that image would be banned if i had a chinese ip is unknown. i'm not sure if there's anyone in china who'd be willing to try this out either. bluemonq 05:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• I would say that this is a matter for the Internet censorship in mainland China article LukeSurl 20:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

i don't know; while it might be a good example of the situation, it might be a bit too specific. bluemonq 08:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

If you go to Google.cn and search for "Tank Man", no results appear and you get the message in Chinese, "Search results may not comply with the relevant laws, regulations and policy, can not be displayed." 198.169.65.1 (talk) 22:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed. A query of "tank man" returns a yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it, accompanied by the text, "搜索结果可能涉及不符合相关法律法规和政策的内容，无法显示," which, very roughly translated, can be taken to mean, "What you're searching for is probably illegal, so fuck right off." This shows up even though I'm accessing google.cn from California. I guess it's kind of comforting ... in a not-all-that-borderline creepy way ... that Jingjing and Chacha are still diligently looking out for the integrity of my moral fiber all the way over here in the States. Back on topic, the question at hand is seems to be whether or not google.cn's censorship of this guy's nickname is a significant enough affront to merit a mention in this article. I think it might be worth a quick blurb in the finale of the article as a sign of the PRC's continuing discomfort with anything to do with the 1989 crackdown.
Curiously, typing "王维林," ostensibly Tank Man's real name, into google.cn leads directly to zh:王维林, Chinese Wikipedia's version of this article. --Dynaflow babble 01:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

This is no longer the case. A search for 'tank man' on google.cn as of May 24, 2010 yields many relevant results, including this article.Jfjuno (talk) 10:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

alternate credit for photo

other references name Brit journalist John Keenan as the source of the photo of Tank Man; note also that the angle of the photo as shown could NOT be from sixth floor from half a mile away

funny i was aware this was originally recording and a still shot was taken. i think the footage came from a security camera of some kind. the chinesse goverment managed to get a hold of the footage too because the chinesse got a hold of it and displayed on TV. -Yadrin

Date of the Barbara Walters interview

There's a documentary on the tank man mentioning the interview by Barbara Walters where the final statement on "Tank Man" took place in 1990, not 1992. There are numerous sources for both years, but 1990 seems more accurate, does anyone have a final say on this? Arjarj 19:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

you should watch the video clips on this pbs site:[4], part 6, the struggle of controlling information. i think that it said that it was in 1990. at the end, it showed the conversation walters had wih jiang.

everyone who wants to edit this should watch this

the pbs video tank man, it is on here [5], you can watch the video clips without paying. then come back add anything u want. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.1.247.15 (talk) 05:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC).

More Pop-Culture

It lists a few of the places that The Unkown Rebel has been used in pop culture but I can think of at least one other and it seems like there were even more that aren't coming to mind right now.

Garth Brooks shows a video clip of The Unkown Rebel in his music video The Change which was dedicated to the World Trade Centers of 9-11. The images of the Unkown Rebel and the story behind them are powerful enough as it is but when you add the words of a song like that under those circumstances the result is chilling.

I've heard people say he was pretty dumb ... my opinion is that people who think that are the ones who could use a better education. Bravery for a cause isn't stupidity, even if the cause is something the masses don't agree with. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.33.226.34 (talk) 15:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

Uncited claims removed per BLP

I removed two potentially libellous claims about a possibly living person per the policy on biographies of living people. The second claim is alleging that the PRC government said X about Tank Man, but unless it can be substantiated that they actually said it, it's merely a form of weasel words. Andjam 20:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Passive or Active?

The article states that the Tank Man's moving-in-front-of-the-tank was passive resistance, however wouldn't it technically be active resistance, since he moved infront of the tanks when they swerved around him? ^Talk User:Fissionfox 08:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Shrug. --Johnny (Cuervo) 07:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Biography

quote from the article "other sources say he was killed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests." Who are these "other sources"? Shouldn't one be more specific?

Also, it's not obvious from where "Bruce Herschensohn" has his information. I don't know "Apple Daily". It appears to be a yellow press magazine. So much about credibility :( 71.131.178.150

Grainy version of image

Is there a reason the main image on the page was replaced with a grainier version? I though the original looked much better.--Daveswagon 06:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted back to the original version. Mgiganteus1 12:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Too reliant on the photos?

This is a very interesting article. However, the opening paragraphs give the photographs prominence at the expense of the video/?videos of the events. Who took the video(s)? Shouldn't there be more discussion of them? The video/s is/are, to my mind at least, far more dramatic than the photographs.

'By looking at these two photographs and using the painted road lines as a reference: it is evident that the tank has moved forward.' (I'll ignore the fact that this seems a bit of a non-sequitur. So what if it has moved forward? The discussion in the text of the action has already made it clear that this was the approximate sequence of events). Is this referring to the two photos shown in the article? It's not clear. If it is, then their order should be changed as the bottom photo (the more 'distant' shot) is apparently the first in the sequence as the tank is further back along the road. 82.32.238.139 15:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Tank man → The Unknown Rebel

Yes, I'm reviving the debate above. I find "Tank man" almost disrespectful. It also sounds like some kind of cyborg-superhero-Transformers person, and it shares a name with a band. For some reason, Unknown Rebel's "What links here" doesn't include any article links - which is odd, since I followed one to get to this page. Anyway, reviewing the arguments above that were against the move, the majority seem to say either "doesn't matter, so leave it" in which case it shouldn't matter if someone else moves, or they go to the google test, which has no place on Wikipedia. Feel free to vote, if there's no consensus, it can just sit for another two years or whatever like it is now. --Milton 00:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Almost editwar

Hey folks, I happened to see that a lot of recent edits have been reversions of someone else's. I just wanted to remind you all that edit warring solves nothing, and that the best way to settle this type of disagreement is discussing it on this talk page, and agreeing to WP:CONSENSUS. Hope I didn't step on any toes. Regards, Milton 22:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. There's a particular vandal obsessed with making certain edits to particular articles, formerly known as SummerThunder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). See also Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of SummerThunder and Wikipedia:Long term abuse/SummerThunder. The next time a SummerThunder sock shows up, please make a report on WP:AIV so he can be blocked right away, thanks.Inspector Lee 22:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for pointing that out to me. I wasn't aware of that. I've just been monitoring some edit wars at various pages, and was afraid another one was brewing. I'll keep an eye out for Summer Thunder. Thanks again --Milton 22:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No worries.Inspector Lee 22:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Indonesian interwiki

Please add id: Tank Man in the article. --125.160.121.39 02:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. Grandmasterka 08:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

in popular culture

I removed the "in popular culture section". It's irrelevant and uninteresting. Feel free to discuss it here, though. —Ruud 01:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Many articles seem to have such a section, and considering the iconic nature of the tank man, I think it might worth showing what's been done with his image.--Daveswagon 01:42, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Many people are rather irritated by the fact that such a large number of articles have an "in popular culture" section (Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections). I can't imagine any realistic scenario in which I would be interested in the fact that Tank Man has appeared in some form in some cartoon, when looking up this article. If it's isn't even worth mentioning that on the article of that cartoon, it certainly isn't worth mentioning it here. —Ruud 09:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, but as a bit of a history buff myself, it is fun to see Family Guy or the Simpsons' take on such events.--Daveswagon 21:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Ruud, I daresay you personally wouldn't be interested in where the "tank man" has appeared in cartoons or popular culture. But other people might be; I certainly would find it interesting. Anyway, I'm selling T shirts with a logo based on the Tank Man, and I'm minded to say so in the main article, unless someone thinks I shouldn't. -- Cabalamat (talk) 02:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Unknown Beijing Rebel

Someone's created a fork of this article at Unknown Beijing Rebel. They should probably be merged. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It was created by yet another sock of Wikipedia:Long term abuse/SummerThunder and has been turned into a redirect pointing here. SummerThunder seems to have an extreme fondness for his version of this page. --Dynaflow babble 05:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll be redirect it now, but Unknow Rebel from Beijing was the latest one to watch. I protected the redirect and blocked the sockpuppet, but be on the lookout for more! Cheers, CP 04:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing image:TankMan2.jpg for copyright

I have removed the second Photograph from this article, since it appears to be unjustifiable for inclusion. Since we have two nearly identical photos, and have been granted explicit permission from the copyright holder to use the first Image:Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester).jpg, we cannot claim fair use on the second. Specifically, fair use for the second image requires that "no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information". Since the AP photo we have been granted permission to use conveys nearly the identical information, it seems unjustifiable to include the second. Since this orphans the second photo, I have nominated it for deletion as well as a non-free ophan, so it will be deleted on the 14th of february. If anyone has objections, I propose we discuss them here and remove the deletion tag (but not re-include the image in the article) until a consensus is reached. -Lanoitarus _^(talk) .:. 18:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Photographers

"Franklin subsequently won a World Press Award for the photograph". That's incorrect. While Stuart Franklin (Magnum / Time) takes another version of this picture, the 1989 World Press Photo Award was for another version from Charlie Cole (AP / Newsweek). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.155.145.233 (talk) 23:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Here is a reference: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4313282.stm. Cole should definitely be added to the page. Johnny^California 16:36, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Anxious onlookers = chinese government spies

The tank man was not ushered away by "anxious onlookers"; he was approached by a man on a bicycle who told him something that made the man step back in fear...subsequently into the arms of two blue men wearing blue shirts who grabbed the man by the neck and arm, whilst urging the tanks to continue. He was aggressively removed from the scene by these men, taken into police custody and never seen again. They were obviously government spies. Antralexus (talk) 12:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

the worlds best sinologists are undecided about this, so it's not as obvious as you are suggesting. --Bernard —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.191.120.158 (talk) 11:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

no, it is as obvious as he is suggesting. don't be silly. anyone who has studied history and has any familiarity with the chinese communist government knows what happens to dissidents and/or rebels and/or prominent members of a revolt. they say the earliest he was killed was 14 days later; i wouldn't be surprised if he was executed in the alleyway 15 minutes later. distracting someone before arresting them in a sting is a common police tactic, which is exactly what the bicycler was doing. the fact that two people, not one grabbed him--both wearing the same clothes no less--suggests they were in uniform or had taken off their uniforms but still wore the same undergarments. this man was removed by government forces. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.120.152.80 (talk) 04:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Bias

The sentence "He could have been one of the hundreds of students, workers, physicians, and children later found dead, shot in the back" is hardly neutral. It's unlikely he was one of the children and it is just a dig at the Chinese authorities. Although I agree that he could have been, and I'm not condoning the Chinese government, this sentence cuold be more neutral. Jimjom (talk) 18:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I think it is better to say "the fate of this man is disputed. Some sources claim the man has died in the subsequent crack down or shot by firing squad. Other sources claim he currently lives in China or Taiwan." Shaoquan (talk) 02:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I posit that it is useless to blame on the PLA as they were soilders who must obey orders. As a Chinese student,I believe that it is more crucial for the young people of our generation who was born after the incident to know this piece of history than giving ajudgement on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.112.75.244 (talk) 20:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Useless to blame the PLA? Wrong. Soldiers do obey orders, yes. But not all orders. Specifically, orders that are unlawful. Example: executing innocent civilians. Civilians can't only be punished like that if they are found guilty in some sort of legal tribunal or found to be acting in a combat role while not wearing a proper uniform A.K.A. spying. In the US, the USMJ specifically states you cannot follow an unlawful order. Most other reputable militaries in the world have similar laws governing their armed forces as well. I would think the Chinese would have something similar as well, but as we know the law only applies in China when the higher ups want it to, or get paid off enough.

BTW, saying you shouldn't judge this piece of history is insane. That's like saying "Oh, we should learn about the Holocaust, but we shouldn't judge whether it was good or bad.' Gimme a break. Just admit your nation did a terrible thing and move on. We do it ALL the time in the West. We're always admitting fault for things we did, or sometimes didn't do. Perpetual guilt. 68.157.21.233 (talk) 05:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay hero, first off, it's UCMJ, not USMJ. Second, you are absolutely off your rocker applying US RoE and LoAC to China. To the PLA, I'm quite sure EVERY order is "lawful," as the entire concept of an "unlawful order" would fly in the face of their government type. Jersey John (talk) 11:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

With whom did he speak?

I have taken the liberty of expanding the "Behind the image" narrative section using a relatively uncut version of the BBC video footage. I have made a couple of implicit assumptions about the tank's crew members. Specifically, I refer to the Tank Man passing by the driver's hatch and speaking with someone at the gunner's hatch, and then to the tank's commander emerging from the tank. I base my designations on who would be expected to be where in the standard layout of the Type 59 MBT. --Dynaflow babble 04:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Protesting Market Reforms

Why is the reason for all of the opposition toward the Chinese government at the time never mentioned? All we hear from the Western Media sources is that Tank Man and all of the dissidents at the time were protesting China because it was "Communist". That is far from the truth. Most of the dissidents were actually protesting against the Market Reforms and market liberalization that affected millions of workers in China. These reforms were enforced without any consent from the public and that is what drove many in China to protest. They wanted not just freedom and democracy from tyrannical Chinese rule but also democratic say in the economy too. Why is this never mentioned in the Western media? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.194.220.186 (talk) 18:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Tiananmen Square Massacre —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.174.95.1 (talk) 22:51, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

[...] "Jan Wong writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China. "

"In Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China."

I have this book in front of me and I really don't think it says this. The section on the incident is on pages 263-264 and she says only that some say he's dead and others say he's alive.

"Other commentary has also insisted that the men who pulled him out of the tanks' way were not the secret police, but rather concerned civilians."

Which other commentary? 76.71.205.9 (talk) 05:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Replaced File:Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester).jpg with File:Tank Man BBC.png

The Widener version is heavily debated and AP has reneged on their stance from when the former file was originally uploaded and now requires a fee for the usage of their images. See Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_April_12#File:Tank Man (Tiananmen Square protester).jpg. S_peakF_ree (talk) 01:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

The photo before the photo

Here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3100157871795 --MaGioZal (talk) 06:40, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

A fringe view

I don't know whether this is extreme WP:FRINGE or not, but there's currently a spreading story on Chinese forums such as Tianya Club, NetEase and Mop.com, and it goes along the lines that the "Tank man" was actually giving the tired, hungry soldiers inside the tank some food and snacks to eat, since he was holding shopping backs full of food and other groceries and jumped on the tank to talk to the soldiers inside. The copypasta post then continues to say that the image can be taken out of context to suggest anything, but in reality it was a benevolent man who felt sorry for the tired soldiers, and claimed to be an acquaintance of the person in the photographs. Just thought this was rather interesting; I doubt that there are decent WP:RS out there though, heh heh. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 15:22, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

He must have stood in front of the tanks for a long time in order to allow the soldiers to properly digest their food. CMD (talk) 15:40, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Presumably the original fabricator of the story has seen the photo but has not seen the video footage. Running around blocking the tank as it swerved is possibly not the behaviour of someone who is just offering food to the soldiers inside. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide references? This could be included in a section of this article. Kingturtle = (talk) 14:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's an uncropped version of the photo, showing Tank Man actually stopping the tanks from leaving TAM:

http://twistedsifter.com/2012/06/the-bigger-picture-uncropped-versions-of-iconic-photos/

Bobby fletcher (talk) 05:46, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Shame on Chinese Wikipedia self-censorship

Dear all citizens from the world of freedom,

I am here to told you a horrible story about Chinese wikipedia registered users removing "unwanted" contents systematically such as "the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989" and "Tank Man" from the related articles, for example "Type 59 tank". In these articles they remove everything about Tiananmen or tank man, including links, pictures, or even just text, they won't let any wordings (such as "1989" or 64 which represnts "June 4") survive in these articles. Any content about June 4 had been removed recent years, and it seems no one would dare to change the condition.

In some cases, they even request for deleting the whole articles. For example, in the talk page of "Tank man" Chinese version, you can even see how they attempted to delete the whole article.

Here are just some of the notable examples. Recently they even tried to remove an article about Masanjia Labor Camp by laying "there is no report by western media." Then a guy added some links such as Huffington Post, Daily Mail and CNN. A user from China then questioned if The Huffington Post and Daily Mail of British "reliable sources of news". That Chinese user kept on saying "you should not write such article just after reading those bias reports" and "those are not reliable sources of News". That guy keep on blaming and another user from China also joined.

They also talk of removing wiki links about june four protest. They consider those adding or talking about june 4 as bad guys "damaging" the Chinese wikipedia.

Sorry for the inconvenient I caused, as all links I post are all Chinese only. I just hope to raised the attentions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.118.51.245 (talk) 10:26, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:SOAP - please do not use the Talk Pages as a forum to 'right great wrongs' - your post is against the guidelines. We should only discuss the use of Reliable Sources to improve the article. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:42, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Image shown in China

News reports state the image was included as part of Cirque de Soleil's tribute to Michael Jackson. Apparently got past the censors but has since been removed from the show.--121.214.61.133 (talk) 22:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Photographic versions, 5th part.

The fifth part of the Photograpic Versions section (the part that begins with "Arthur Tsang Hin Wah of Reuters took several shots ..."), specifically from "Recently (March 20, 2013) ..." onwards is very unclear, and doesn't seem to be written by someone used to writing English. (I realise this post may look the same way, but then again, I'm not a native English speaker or writer.) I think it ought to be re-written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.97.213.155 (talk) 11:23, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Persondata

The persondata template is used for automated collection of biographical data, particularly birth and death details. After the recent tweak, the template contained no useful information. Being applied to this article is dubious anyway because it should only be applied to biographical articles. On these grounds, I have removed it. Periglio (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I reclassified 'Tank Man' as an actual name to an alternative name for obvious reasons, though when doing so the issues you mention did occur to me. Thanks. JamesDouch (talk) 09:38, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Interview with Widener

Widener gave an interview recently about his return to the area for the 25th anniversary of the crackdown and spoke about his experiences there at the time. [6] Isaidnoway (talk) 15:15, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

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