Template:Did you know nominations/Baigongguan and Zhazidong

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by —♦♦ AMBER^(ЯʘCK) 13:55, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Baigongguan and Zhazidong

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... that during the Second Sino-Japanese War, in 1943, two concentration camps, Baigongguan and Zhazidong, were run cooperatively by the American government and the Chinese Kuomintang? Source: Chongqing & The Three Gorges page 96

Comment: I am fully aware of the flaws here. If you think this cannot be salvaged, that's fine. I cannot tell if Dante2326 is going to be willing or capable to work on it now the semester is over. I can help too, but I think I've done enough for this article, so no hard feelings if it's an instant fail--it's a shame, because it's a good topic. For that reason I'm not doing a QPQ yet. Thanks!

Created by Dante2326 (talk). Nominated by Dr Aaij (talk) at 01:53, 3 May 2017 (UTC).

Yes, I'm afraid this has to be an outright fail. The English is so substandard that parts of it are very hard to understand, including the lead, which has a repetitive yet very confused narrative (the Republic of China was still fighting the Japanese in 1949? etc). The article seems to use "concentration camp" and "prison" interchangeably, but to Western readers at least the two terms mean different things in size and scope and purpose. The sourcing is substandard – the Hunter Gordon and Watson work seems to be a travel book and the Button work seems to be literary criticism. While both may be trying to be historically accurate, any treatment of a subject like this, which is inevitably tied up in national and historical passions and inadequate contemporary documentation, needs to make use of the best available scholarship (unfortunately I don't know what the best studies are regarding this topic). Another problem is the proposed hook, which implies direct U.S. involvement in concentration camp activities, which the Hunter Gordon and Watson source given does not support. The Kush work, which the article mentions but does not cite inline, gives a much more nuanced view of the U.S. role during the war and how the Chinese Communists used that role for propaganda purposes when the massacres took place several years after the U.S. had left. I agree that this is an important topic, but this article is not the basis for something that can go up on the main page. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Wasted Time R, I appreciate your time. Dante2326, I hope you will read this review and take it to heart. Dr Aaij (talk) 17:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)