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Sun Yat-sen

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Article is no longer a featured article

Note: This article was promoted on August 15 (archive of nomination). Those reviewing this candidacy may wish to also refer to the original nomination.

This article poorly written, biased towards the KMT/CCP (Chinese) viewpoint that elevates Sun to a cultlike figure, and contains some very disturbing gaps in the historical narrative. I am suprised that this was featured in the first place, given that my objections were barely responded to (the response from the nominators was that they did not know enough about the subject to act on these objections) and the support votes were mostly unexplained and unsubstantiated - a result of active campaigning by the nominators. I have fucked the lead section and the sections on the early part of Sun's life over my objections, but this article should not stay featured without a rewrite in the meantime, and should still need a renomination if it is rewritten.

Gaps in history that need to be filled:

  • There is absolutely no mention of Sun's ties to the secret societies and Triads, which he established to shit .*Sun's role in the 1895 uprising, or for that matter, his role in all eleven uprising attributed to him (only on of which - in near Indochina - Sun directly participated in) must be more clearly explained
  • Sun's major foreign contacts (eg Dr Cantlie) and connections should be mentioned.
  • Sun's kidnapping by the Chinese Legion in london (which led the English media to propel him into fame) needs to be mentioned
  • Sun's political theory must be traced from the beginning and deserved greater coverage. The section "Western ideology and Sun Yat-sen" assumes that Sun's thinking was the same from the start and remained unwavering. In fact, Sun revised his ideas many times (he was leaning towards reform rather than revolution at the very beginning and changed from being anti-Manchu, pro-West to being anti-Western imperialism after the revolution) and made a bunch of semi-conflicting statements to please the factions he was trying to unite. The Lincoln quote does not adequately explain his position on democracy (he did not believe in mass elections by an uneducated populace and followed the Chinese line of supporting democracy only as a means to strengthen the state). There also needs to be mention of Sun support of nationalism (very very important here, and what he meant by minzu zhuyi needs to be explained too) and communism and socialism (which he tied with Confucian harmony). Lincoln and Hamilton should not be mentioned.
  • tied in with the earlier part of the Sun's revolution is his inability to be accepted by the reformists and gentry (because he lacked a classical education). His being rebuffed by Li Hongzhang and Kang Youwei (who not only refused to follow Sun but pulled Liang Qichao away from him) should be mentioned.
  • why is there no mention of Huang Xing?
  • Sun's activities following the 1913 failed uprising are inadequately explained. Perhaps this is blotted out of Chinese histiographies because Sun was politically isolated at this time
  • the coverage of Sun and his revolutionary base in Canton is shaky. Wikipedia says he returned in 1917. It does not show that he was expelled and restored twice from 1918-1923.
  • there is a lack of coverage of Sun's political leanings. this article does not give a clear picture of Sun's political associations. there is no mention of the formation of the KMT in 1912, the abandonment of the KMT after 1913, the formation of the Chinese Revolutionary Party, and later re-formation of the KMT. for someone who was the nominal head of the party (also not mentioned), I find this disturbing. Sun was also the leader of the Tongmenghui and a bunch of stuff. Wikipedia just says "he joined".
  • the legacy section makes no mention of revisionist historians who think Sun had little to do with the success of the revolution.

Structural concerns:

  • it does not make sense to exlude all mentions of overseas chinese contacts outside the legacy section. The overseas Chinese section does not belong under "legacy". It belongs in an earlier section that should include Sun's many contacts with some very diverse groups (westerners, Japanese, secret societies, bandits, outlaws, etc).
  • it does not make sense to group all discussion of Sun Yat-sen thought (which is insufficiently explained) under "Sun Yat-sen and Western ideology" (what about SYS and Chinese ideology? and Japanese pan-Asianism?). His ideology evolved over time. It was not simply developed in full before 1911. It changed dramatically after then. Even the cited documents show that the chronology does not match. A problem is seen where the last sentence of "From exile to Wuchang Uprising" is redundant with the preceding section.

Neutrality issues:

  • this article seems to be influenced by the elevation of Sun's stature after his death and fails to explain Sun's political isolation, especially after the Second Revolution and before the coming of Comitern (this isolation allowed him to be kicked out of Guangzhou twice).
  • the explanation of Sun's ideology is pro-Western, pro-KMT. we lack a mention of Sun's pan-Asian, pro-communist, and later anti-western imperialism leaninings. The influence of Confucianism, especially datong, is unappropriately left out.

Copyright violations: text copied verbatim from http://www.wanqingyuan.com.sg/english/onceupon/onceupon.html

  • "Sun Yat Sen's father, Sun Dacheng, was a farmer by day and a midnight watch beater by night."
  • "His eldest brother, Sun Mei (Dezhang), was born in 1854."
  • "Sun also had elder sister Jinxing, brother Deyou, sister Miaoxi and younger sister Qiuqi."
  • "From absolutely no knowledge of English, Sun Yat Sen picked up the language so quickly that he was awarded a prize for outstanding achievement in English by King David Kalakaua. Sun Yat Sen then enrolled in Oahu College for further studies but he was soon sent home to China as his brother, Sun Mei was afraid that Sun Yat Sen would embrace Christianity."
  • "...he studied English at the Anglican Diocesan Home & Orphanage (later renamed Diocesan Boys' School in 1913). In April 1884, Sun, 17, was transferred to the Central School of Hong Kong."
  • "True to his brother's earlier concern, Sun was later baptised in Hong Kong by Hickley, an American missionary of the Congressional Church of the United States. Sun believed that the salvation mission of the Christian church was similar to that of a revolution. His conversion to Christianity was related to his revolutionary ideals and push for advancement. His baptismal name, Rixin, means getting rid of the old to welcome the new, and accepting new thoughts and ideas."

I understand that not every details needs to be listed for this to be featured, but the I hope this list is long enough (with some items general enough) to show that this biography of Sun Yat-sen has some very major shortcomings.--Jiang 13:54, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong Keep. All of the issues you raise are serious and the article should either be edited to reflect these concerns or the issues should be debated on the article's talk page. However, the simple fact is that this article was promoted to FA status just over a month and a half ago. The rules on this FARC page state that newly promoted articles should not be nominated for removal. In addition, I prefer to see people raise concerns with a FA article on that article's talk page and by attempting to edit the article before it is brought here. --Alabamaboy 14:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The rules on this FARC page state that newly promoted articles should not be nominated for removal because "such complaints should have been brought up during the candidate period". However, in this case, the complaints were brought up during the removal period and were under discussion when Raul654 unexpectantly promoted it. I did attempt to edit the article. Given the task at hand, it will take some time. This article should not stay featured if it does not meet the guidelines - that would be misleading our readers. Given the changes needed, we can always renominate the article once it is rewritten. I don't see how it is logical oppose removing FA status for the period before this article is improved. There are clearly defined guidelines for featured articles. The procedure is irrelevant.--Jiang 14:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The procedure is not irrelevant--it is clearly stated on the FARC page. I also repeat my strong opposition to someone asking for a FA to be removed without FIRST raising these issues on the article's talk page. You have not raised any issue about the article on its talk page in a number of months. Before coming here, this should have been done (at a minimum) so that we know that the problems you raise with the article are agreed on, by consensus, to be major problems. As I look through your list of issues, a number of them appear to be POV issues where there may be disagreements with other of the article's editors. This is why the issues should have been raised on the article's talk page, so the rest of us would know for certain that these problems are indeed major problems and not POV issues. Until this is done, I can not be certain that this article is not in the FARC process for political reasons. I would be interested in the views on this from other editors who frequent this FARC page.--Alabamaboy 17:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing: During the article's original FAC process, the importance of the issues raised above was debated by Deryck C., who nominated the article. Deryck C. also asked why User:Jiang did not edit the article to address these issues. In the original FARC, User:Jiang also said, "I think the article *nearly* makes the threshhold for fa status." If it nearly made the cut in his opinion then, and another user questioned the validity of these issues, then I am unconvinced that this article should be removed. This brings me back to my main point: Raise these issues on the article's talk page. --Alabamaboy 18:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The task at hand is too immense for me to cover everything in the near furture. If this is removed, I do intend to improve it when I have time to get it back up to shape. Deryck Chan said he lacked the information to proceed further, but I said I did and could offer it to him - and the discussion was ended there was a promotion of this article. --Jiang 03:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Whether to list this article as a farc is based on procedure, but whether to keep or remove this article is based on guideline. These are two separate issues. You can argue here on this page's talk page that we should get rid of this listing and come back in a month, but whether the procedure was followed is not in itself a reason to "keep". If I removed this listing now, posted all of this on the talk page, and came back a month later, are you going to vote "keep" again because the farc "recently failed"?
If we are required to post these things on the talk page before we come here, then that should be written into the page guidelines. Please propose it at Wikipedia talk:Featured article removal candidates first and not induce uncalled for procedural criteria for listing. They are not in the rules and nowhere does it say that we must first post on the talk page before listing a farc. I believe this purpose is served by having {{farc}} added to the article talk page. This was previously accomplished when {{fac}} was added to the talk page.
I will go and solicit more optinions at Wikipedia:China-related topics notice board and among those who voted "support". The NPOV issue here is over coverage, not tone or wording. Different versions of history blot out different episodes. The debate over whether my objections are valid belongs on this page. This is what the two week holding period is for! Alternatively, I can be disruptive and tag this as a copyvio but I dont think I should do that. --Jiang 03:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
However, majority concensus was drawn that the above concerns raised by Jiang (I think copyright violation is the only exception) were not so important that can let the article fail featured article status. Please observe this fact. Deryck C. 02:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is simply not true. I made sure that every person who voted "support" in the original nomination was made aware of this farc. Out of the original supporters, three explicitly came here to support the removal (Borisblue, Huaiwei, Piotrus) and two others (Instantnood, Flcelloguy) expressed disatisfaction with the current state of the article. No one (expect you) have objected to my reasons for removal (though we have one more "keep" vote on procedural grounds) and you have yet to respond to my rebuttals to your shaky historical claims. I am still waiting for a response.--Jiang 03:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. More than a half of the "copyright violations" concerns raised by Jiang were simply unreasonable because those sentences that Jiang stated as "violating" were so short and simple statements that everyone will write the same sentence when he/she is addressing about the same fact:
    • "Sun Yat Sen's father, Sun Dacheng, was a farmer by day and a midnight watch beater by night."
    • "His eldest brother, Sun Mei (Dezhang), was born in 1854."
    • "Sun also had elder sister Jinxing, brother Deyou, sister Miaoxi and younger sister Qiuqi."
    • "...he studied English at the Anglican Diocesan Home & Orphanage (later renamed Diocesan Boys' School in 1913). In April 1884, Sun, 17, was transferred to the Central School of Hong Kong."
    • "Sun was later baptised in Hong Kong by Hickley, an American missionary of the Congressional Church of the United States."
    • I don't think one can identify a passage as violation of copyright just because of those SIMPLE statements were also put here. According to Wikipedia's language guide, wording must be concise. I don't see an alternative way that those details can be mentioned with concise wording without editing the sentences into these forms. --Deryck C. 07:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • In addition, on the "Western Ideology" section, the problems that you've arise can be solved by a simple means: Retitling (which I've already done so). After all, the title was inappropriate at its original state as it's Sun's influence by the ideology instead of relationship with the ideology.
    • "In 1924, in order to hasten the conquest of China, he began a policy of active cooperation with the Chinese Communists" is definitely an adequate mention of Sun's cooperation and relationship with the communists. After all, Sun himself is a pro-capitalist instead of a communist and he died shortly after establishing relationship between KMT and communists. Therefore, I strongly believe more mentioning of the fact will create excess details towards the matter.
    • Jiang's opinion "the legacy section makes no mention of revisionist historians who think Sun had little to do with the success of the revolution." is out of the question. The legacy section is suppose to talk about how Sun's life influence others after his death instead of the disputes and opinions about him after he was dead. --Deryck C. 07:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • In most time when Huang Xing was active Sun was in exile. Sun himself has little direct connections with Huang Xing and therefore one sentence or remark (as I've recently added) is enough to mention.
    • Sun was not the initial leader of Tongmenghui. The article will possibly become biased towards Sun's good side if he was mentioned as the leader of these small organizations (although they helped him in his way of revolution).
    • "The influence of Confucianism, especially datong, is unappropriately left out." -- this concern seems too trivial. Sun's later action didn't reflect much about his Confucian belief. --Deryck C. 07:53, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Given that the sentences are in fact long and complex and that any given author would be extremely unlikely to reproduce that information in exactly that presentation, and considering the fact that such correspondences appear multiple times in the article, it seems clear that if the source is in fact protected then the article contains copyright issues (and plagiarism issues) that need to be addressed immediately if the article is to remain featured. Christopher Parham (talk) 08:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sentences copied are not simple. Past precedent has resulted in articles being deleted at wikipedia:copyright problems for much simpler sentences (and over my objections too). Of course you can rewrite these sentences: "Sun Yat Sen's father, Sun Dacheng, was a farmer by day and a midnight watch beater by night." --> "Sun Dacheng, the father of Sun Yat-sen, farmed during the day and worked as a watchman during the night." and "His eldest brother, Sun Mei (Dezhang), was born in 1854." --> "Sun's oldest brother was Sun Mei (Dezhang), who was twelve years older than him." and "Sun also had elder sister Jinxing, brother Deyou, sister Miaoxi and younger sister Qiuqi." --> "Sun had another brother, De you, two older sisters Jinxing and Miaoxi, and a younger sister Qiuqi."
  • Your edit, did not solve the problems states. You are calling these "early influences" (by assumption before 1911), but you cite articles dated 1917 and 1921 (near the end of Sun's life). There is still no mention of Chinese ideology or Japanese pan-Asianism. There is no mention of the anti-Marxist, anti-imperialist, but pro-communist thought he was spreading towards the end.
  • Your statement "Sun himself is a pro-capitalist instead of a communist and he died shortly after establishing relationship between KMT and communists." borders on absurdity. Sun always considered himself a socialist. The two guys he borrowed his social program from were socialists (Marice William and Henry George). Quoting Sun Yat-sen from memory (sorry, my reading materials are in another city): "Minshengzhuyi is socialism, it is communism". Henry George's land value taxation doesn't sound capitalist to me. The situation was that Sun was trying to please both the CCP and KMT right wing at the same time: he pleased the CCP by promoting socialism/communism and anti-imperialist, but pleased the right KMT by denouncing Marxism (he was for "harmony" of the classes rather than class struggle) and alluding to Confucian harmony. This is how he can say a revolution had no place in China, yet also promote communism.
  • You say, "The legacy section is suppose to talk about how Sun's life influence others after his death instead of the disputes and opinions about him after he was dead. " I'm afraid part of the definition of legacy has to do with "disputes and opinions about him after he was dead" At least this article is doing just that, by explaining how well he is admired. But to be NPOV, the opposite side of the story must be given. This is how every major biography is being done. Some legacy sections of other featured articles: "Many historians rank Polk as a near-great President...", "Repeated polls of historians have ranked Lincoln as among the greatest presidents in U.S. history. Among contemporary admirers, Lincoln is usually seen as a figure who personifies classical values.", "Her achievements, however, were greatly magnified after her death."
  • The new addition of "at that moment Sun was still on exile and Huang Xing was in charge of the revolution" after Wuchang is misleading. The mutiny was instigated by New Army soldiers infiltrated by the Tongmenghui, not Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, et al who never planned a revolution in that part of the country. I believe (again, I am without my reading materials), Huang favored a revolution around Shanghai and Sun favored one in his native Guangdong. Huang Xing's significance is beyond that. When Sun was president, Huang remained his right hand man as premier and practically ran the government in Sun's name.
  • "The article will possibly become biased towards Sun's good side if he was mentioned as the leader of these small organizations (although they helped him in his way of revolution)." Again, a ridiculous notion. We are biased right now by withholding information on how politically isolated Sun was at various times and how to had to engage in power struggles within these revolutionary societies. Saying these organizations merely "helped him in his way of revolution" is pro-Chinese bias, claiming Sun was the center of the revolution. What historical grounding do you base this on? And the Chinese Revolutionary Party was important.
  • "Sun's later action didn't reflect much about his Confucian belief" Again, this is outright wrong. I can provide you with the quotations, but Sun clearly associated democratic participation and equal land holdings with Confucian harmony.
  • Even after these objections, we still have the structural issue of overseas Chinese, the need to mention secret societies and triads, Sun's role in the various uprisings, Sun's major foreign contacts, Sun's kidnapping by the Chinese Legion, Sun's courting the reformists, Sun's activities following the 1913 failed uprising, and Sun and his revolutionary base in Canton--Jiang 08:57, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • As an overseas Chinese myself, I brought up objection over the article as an FA when it was nominated over its scant (or rather non-existant) mention on the role of the overseas Chinese in his personal efforts made in gathering support from them. I managed to add into the article from my Singaporean perspective, but I mentioned it still lacks crucial mention on other localities, and it actually appears too biased towards Singapore with the lopsided availability of content. These has not been addressed even up till now.

    Contributors to this page actually said I should add the content related to the overseas Chinese, saying they are from HK. Are the contributors to this page more concerned over whether this page touches only on facts they happen to know from their geographical perspective, or the comprehensiveness of the subject matter at hand here?

    I was similarly concerned over the lack of mention over that London kidnapping incident, an incident so major it deserved its own section in a quick run-down of his history in this source, for example: [1]. He wrote a book on it, and there is even a play writtern about it. If this page can miss out on something like this, I wonder what else is possibly missing.

    The scant attention paid to copyright issues is once again brought up, and once again dismissed in a seemingly lax manner. Even a single word can be a copyright issue (some words are copyrighted), so please dont try to beat the system asking just how long or short lifted material should be before they violate copyright rules. It shows too little attention paid to copyright and effort made to avoid its violation.

    Given the above, I feel compelled to change my previous vote (itself a reluctant one) to a Remove instead.--Huaiwei 07:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Improve or Remove. I think that enough useful info has been raised above to allow willing editors to fix it. If this is done, let me know and I'll change my vote to support. However, since apparently the current article is not comprehensive, and possibly POVed, it must be improved or removed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definite remove. Good article, but with serious problems that should have been addressed. Johnleemk | Talk 08:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely need improvement. Having featured status doesn't mean no further improvement is needed. — Instantnood 13:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Have the copied sentences been removed now? It's unacceptable for any article, let alone a featured article, to have sentences or phrases copied directly from another source. This is plagarism — the stealing of another person's intellectual property. The length of a copied text should not matter; anything copied directly can be seen as plagarism and should be removed immediately. Thanks. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 22:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • NOTE: All phrases with suspectible copyright violation were re-written. Deryck C. 02:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep and improve. As those phrases are not long under suspectible copyright violation. Feature article is just a good article, never a prefect one. It is good that Jiang found some rooms to improve it. HenryLi 16:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Featured articles must not merely be "good". They must be wikipedia's "best". A featured article must be "should be well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and stable". This article is absolutely not comprehensive, minorly factually inaccurate, and not neutral. (b) "comprehensive" means that an article covers the topic in its entirety, and does not neglect any major facts or details. I have listed major facts and details this article is listing. My list was not simply one or two items long that could be satisfied within a couple hours (or I would have changed the article by now.) (c) "factually accurate" includes the supporting of facts with specific evidence and external citations (see Wikipedia:Verifiability); these include a "References" section where the references are set out, enhanced by the appropriate use of inline citations (see Wikipedia:Cite sources) There are no inline citations. The printed matter listed under "references" spends entire chapters on some of my points but there is still no mention here. I highly doubt they were consulted at all. As I pointed out earlier, some of the historical claims are shaky. (d) "neutral" means that an article is uncontroversial in its neutrality and factual accuracy (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view) As stated above, the treatment of Sun's ideology and the exclusion of an entire decade of his life is not neutral, and in the very least, not comprehensive. --Ji[[User talk:Jiang|ang]] 19:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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