Talk:Emperor Jimmu: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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::::::::::Taking a source that barely mentions Jimmu, written by an author who probably has no training in the [[Japanese classical literature|relevant]] [[Japanese mythology|fields]], and overrunning this article with a summary of what it says about a subject only peripherally related to this article is [[WP:SYNTH]]. [[Talk:Battle of Shigisan|You have already been called out for this.]] Also, Martin was [[WP:SECONDARY|one author]], arguably on the fringe of this field, whose personal choices regarding how he wrighs his book are ''utterly irrelevant'' to how we should write this encyclopedia article. '''''PERIOD.''''' [[Special:Contributions/182.249.240.16|182.249.240.16]] ([[User talk:182.249.240.16|talk]]) 03:59, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

:::::::::::It's still not clear where the alleged synthesis is because all the sources are correctly cited and they all mention Jimmu prominently. Neither was there any clear evidence of synthesis in the other discussion you linked to. If this matter weren't significant then Jimmu's name wouldn't be mentioned so frequently in this regard in so many reliable secondary sources.[[User:CurtisNaito|CurtisNaito]] ([[User talk:CurtisNaito|talk]]) 04:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

===Break for convenience===

Okay, so it seems in the disputed section we have 14 citations to 10 different sources by 9 authors. Below I examine these sources and how they are being (mis)used in this article.

{{collapse top|title=detailed analysis of the 10 sources cited in this section, and how m ost of them are being misused}}

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=A1nJbdwgQVUC&q=Emperor+Jimmu#v=snippet&q=Emperor%20Jimmu&f=false Martin 1997] is a book primarily discussing 19th- and 20th-century Japanese political history, with brief entries on most pre-1868 Emperors. In its 45-line (1.5-page) article on Jimmu, it begins with a 16-line paragraph about how in 1873 the Japanese government determined that Jimmu founded Japan on 11 February 660 BCE, and the dates were determined for political reasons related to international relations. It then goes into a fairly-detailed description of Jimmu's reign as described in the ''Nihon Shoki''. It closes on a 3-line statement that from 1873 to 1945 an imperial envoy was sent to visit Jimmu's tomb in Kashihara. World War II is barely mentioned: "Accordingly, 11 February was designated National Foundation Day, a national holiday, and it was ritually celebrated as such until the end of the Second World War, when it was renamed National Foundation Memorial Day". The chronology here is overly simplified, as might be expected from a book that is not about this subject, and is contradicted by several of our other sources.

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=aE4tpq4D2RAC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=The+People%27s+Emperor:+Democracy+and+the+Japanese+Monarchy&source=bl&ots=wRP5ld-QGR&sig=z3ggvyPgDoS4lOPUsi3iQWx7f1U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4vaLU76aB9bj8AWj3oKACA&ved=0CGMQ6AEwBw#v=snippet&q=Emperor%20Jimmu&f=false Ruoff 2001] is a book that is ''explicitly'' written to discuss Japanese politics between 1945 and 1995. It contains some brief mentions of Emperor Jimmu when discussing [[National Foundation Day]] and [[Kashihara Shrine]], but otherwise does not appear to give him any significant coverage. It is therefore inappropriate to be basing large chunks of our BIO article on Jimmu on a book primarily about his great, great, great ... great grandson.

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=SLAeAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q= Emperor+Jimmu Ponsonby-Fane 1959] is a very old source that seems to at least be relevant, though it is only being used as a source for a non-controversial statement that I have never advocated removing. Since the statement is essentially "Kashihara Shrine was built in 1890", I would prefer a [http://www.city.kashihara.nara.jp/kankou/own_kankou/kankou/spot/kashihara_jinguu.html government]- or shrine-linked source to the two peripheral sources (one very old, the other about Showa-Heisei politics) currently cited.

**These three sources are cited exclusively for non-controversial statements to which I am not opposed, with the only things that need verification being dates, and using two or three sources for dates is tricky because even if they ''do'' say the same thing, it ''looks'' like they are being SYNTHesized, especially when they do so in different contexts. For instance, when briefly analyzing Ruoff I got the impression that he didn't say "1890" for the foundation of Kashihara Shrine, until I noticed "two years later" followed several lines down from "1888". We could just use [http://www.city.kashihara.nara.jp/kankou/own_kankou/kankou/spot/kashihara_jinguu.html the official Kashihara website] for this date, though.

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=zjmVltzm1kYC&q=Emperor+Jimmu#v=snippet&q=Emperor%20Jimmu&f=false Bix 2001] is a massive (800-page) biography of a particular 20th-century emperor that appears to barely mention Jimmu at all. It is the only source given to a largely no-context half-paragraph about the "Hakko Ichiu" monument. The book was available from Google Play and at a discount, and Bix appears to be a respected scholar, so I bought the book (I'll read it on the bus to work in the coming months). The preview's claim that Jimmu's name is mentioned three times in the whole 800 pages is accurate. In particular, page 201, the page being cited, makes no reference to Emperor Jimmu.

**Citing a source on a completely-unrelated topic in order to include an extensive commentary on said topic in this article is ''definitely'' [[WP :SYNTH]]. What Curtis (and whoever added the material initially) has done is created an article that claims "The phrase ''Hakko Ichiu'' comes from the ''Nihon Shoki''.<source=[[WP:PRIMARY|Nihon Shoki]]> The phrase ''Hakko Ichiu'' was also associated with early-Showa Japanese nationalism.<source=[[WP:SECONDARY|Bix 2001]]>" This is the very definition of [[WP:SYNTH]], as the article now leads the reader to an entirely original conclusion that neither of the sources give by themselves.

**Worse still, though, is the fact that "Hakko Ichiu" itself does not appear to be mentioned on page 201! The article claims ''specifically'' that Emperor Jimmu and "Hakko Ichiu" had ''since 1928, ''[...]'' been espoused by the Imperial government as an expression of Japanese expansionism''. But while page 201 does cover events in 1928 ('''''NOT''''' 1940, though), it is focused on military expansion in Shandong and suppression of communism and Sect Shinto. Curtis, ''where the devil'' is the discussion of "Hakko Ichiu" and Emperor Jimmu in Bix 2001!?

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=wOS7cv3cI2AC&q=Emperor+Jimmu#v=onepage&q=Emperor%20Jimmu&f=false Earhart 2007] appears to be an even more blatant example of a book about World War II that doesn't even mention Jimmu once, being SYNTHesized with other sources that may or may not mention the phrase "Hakko Ichiu" in relation to Emperor Jimmu. [http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=wOS7cv3cI2AC&q=Hakko+Ichiu#v=onepage&q=Hakko%20Ichiu&f=false Unfortunately] the book doesn't appear to mention "Hakko Ichiu" ''either''. Curtis: World War II is not my primary area of interest, and I'm not that interested in going out of my way to acquire this book. This should not disqualify me from editing this article, of course, since Emperor Jimmu has hardly anything to do with World War II. Can you provide me with a relevant quotation from page 63? I'd prefer you don't give me your own paraphrase, since I know how prone you are to reading things into sources that aren't there. If you give me the quote, then we can talk about how relevant this book on World War II is to our article on Japan's first emperor. Of course, the statement that ''Hakko ichiu ''[read=Emperor Jimmu]'' envisioned the un ification of the world ''[...]'' under the Emperor's "sacred rule"'' definitely [[WP:EXCEPTIONAL|requires]] a top-class source that not only mentions Emperor Jimmu, but specifically makes this claim. Otherwise, we can't include the claim in the article.

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=rlBaxUX7QhYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=dower+war+without+mercy&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vxOMU-PIGMTg8AWg34C4Bg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Emperor%20Jimmu&f=false Dower 1993] is another book on World War II that (barely?) mentions Emperor Jimmu's name five times in 400+ pages. The statement to which it is attached is not really controversial, assuming that the ''Nihon Shoki'' actually does say Jimmu found five races in Japan and made them all "as brothers of one family". However, why would we need a book about World War II for a statement like this? No, the real problem is that this statement begins "... just as ...", creating an [[WP:SYNTH|original, artificial connection]] between what Earhart 2007 and Dower 1993 say. (Asa less critical aside, quotations should generally be directly attributed to their source, even if not in the form of an inline citation. If the phrase "brothers of one family" originates with the ''Nihon Shoki'' or [[William George Aston|its translator]], you have to mention that somewhere, not just falsely attribute the quotation to Dower.)

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=nXsamX0voJQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Imperial+Japan+at+its+Zenith&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RRWMU7_jAs7d8AXpooHQCQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Emperor%20Jimmu&f=false Ruoff 2010] is ('''''SURPRISINGLY!''''') actually a book about the 1940 celebration of Emperor Jimmu's supposed founding of the country 2,600 years earlier. Unfortunately, page 186 isn't actually about the "Emperor Jimmu Sacred Historical Sites" that "still exist today"; it mentions these as one (the lesser?) of two ''examples'' of monuments that the author apparently believes should probably be taken down or altered to reflect the historical/archaeological consensus that they are inauthentic.

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=eatISvupicUC&q=Emperor+Jinmu#v=onepage&q=Emperor%20Jinmu&f=false Brownlee 1999] appears to actually be about a topic relevant to this article ('''''TWO IN A ROW!!'''''), but why do we need two citations from this book, on top of Ruoff 2010, for this factual statement? Page 136 actually doesn't support the statement at all, as it discusses political pressure on professional historians (not archaeologists) to support the Founding Day celebrations in 1940, with no reference to sacred sites. Curtis, what exactly is on Brownlee 1999 pages 180-185 that backs up this statement? And why is it relevant to cite another page from Brownlee 1999 that ''doesn't''? And why is Brownlee 1999 necessary at all when Ruoff 2010 is (almost) sufficient?

*[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/1998/02/11/national/founding-day-rekindles-annual-debate/#.U4wZIXZ3xDG JT 1998] is attached to a factual statement that is not wrong, but belongs in the article on [[National Foundation Day]], not here, since it is discussing National Foundation Day, not Emperor Jimmu. Additionally, I would worry that while it might be adequate in describing modern-day (or 1990s? Japan has changed a lot since then...) political controversies surrounding the holiday, the (anonymous?) writer of the article is probably a staff writer at the ''[[Japan Times]]'', not a professional historian, and so is likely just [[WP:TERTIARY|re-stating the claims of more reliable sources]]. This is another reason the statement (and the source) belong in an article on the modern holiday, not the mythical emperor.

*[http://books.google.co.jp/books?ei=ghqMU7emHpW68gXZoYLwDg&id=E7XcAAAAIAAJ&dq=%E6%95%99%E7%A7%91%E6%9B%B8%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E5%BE%8C%E5%8F%B2+1995&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%E7%A5%9E%E6%AD%A6%E5%A4%A9%E7%9A%87 Tokutake 1995] is an apparently-reliable source being attached to a statement that may or may not belong in the version of this article I am aiming for. The problem is that I don't know a whole lot about school history textbooks in Japan and the problems they have, and I'd be willing to bet that while this statement may have been relevant in the 1970s or the 1990s, we are now at a stage where no Japanese under 50 would even remember this, and so the statement as worded (''many Japanese history textbooks continued well into the 1970s to promote the story'') is lending undue weight to something that isn't even a concern anymore. And while I don't know very well what Japanese politicians force Japanese schoolchildren to learn, I do know what Irish politicians forced me to learn, and blurring the lines between legends and facts seems to be something first- and second-level history syllabi do throughout the world, not just in Japan. If this is the case then we are essentially lending [[WP:POV|undue weight]] to one particular scholar's view of the Japanese education system. Perhaps, if someone would clarify what Tokutake actually says on pages 172 to 178, we could say something like "Pedagogical historian [[Toshio Tokutake]] has criticized Japanese history textbooks for continuing to claim the myth of Emperor Jimmu as fact several decades after World War II"?

So we can clearly see that of the 10 sources:

*2 (Ruoff 2001 and Bix 2001) are specifically discussing [[Hirohito|a different emperor]] and give only passing reference to his legendary ancestor;

*2 (Earhart 2007 and Dower 1993) are specifically discussing World War II and not Emperor Jimmu, and these are being [[WP:SYNTH]]esized together to make them seem relevant;

*2 (Ruoff 2010 and Brownlee 1999) are clumsily attached to the same statement that one [[WP:SYNTH|doesn't appear to support]], and the other [[WP:WEIGHT|doesn't indicate is relevant]];

*1 (JT 1998) is specifically about [[National Foundation Day|a modern holiday that has its own article already]], and not about Emperor Jimmu;

*1 (Martin 1997) blatantly doesn't say what Curtis claims it does (World War II gets all of ''half a sentence'');

*1 (Ponsonby-Fane 1959) is extremely old and barely necessary, since it is attached to an uncontroversial statement;

*1 (Tokutake 1995) appears to be taken out of context, as it only appears to be talking about how Japanese (primary school?) history textbooks (at one time?) blurred the line between legend and history -- without further international context that [[WP:SYNTH|I don't think we can provide here]], this statement as worded is [[WP:UNDUE|problematic]].

@[[User:CurtisNaito]]: Your [[WP:IDHT|refusal]] to even discuss this issue with me is beginning to get frustrating. I left your version of the page intact for six days[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=610875311&oldid=610033715][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AEmperor_Jimmu&diff=610880909&oldid=610021639] while I waited for you to respond to me on the talk page. After you didn't, I assumed you had given up, and so reverted[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=610875311&oldid=610820085][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=next&oldid=610884158] to a reasonable compromise version that cut out most of the problem material but left the section basically intact. You immediately reverted me claiming there is "no consensus to delete".[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=next&oldid=610900263] It is increasingly unclear whether you know what the word "consensus" means. It doesn't mean that I need your ''consent''. It seems right now that there's a 3-1 consensus, against maintaining the section as is.

It's worth noting that of the two users other than Curtis and myself who have weighed in [[User:Curly Turkey|one]] [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AEmperor_Jimmu&diff=609912887&oldid=609910576 stated] unequivocally that Curtis's preferred version needed to be trimmed but that we shouldn't delete the whole section; [[User:Sturmgewehr88|the other]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AEmperor_Jimmu&diff=610880909&oldid=610021639 initially?]) [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Emperor_Jimmu&diff=next&oldid=609912887 agreed]. Therefore, my most recent edits to the article, that trim the problematic POV, UNDUE and SYNTH material but leave the section intact, is tentatively supported by all parties but Curtis, whereas the latter's insistence on not cutting a thing has not been supported by anyone.

@[[User:CurtisNaito]] & [[User:Sturmgewehr88]]: Even if [[WP:BURDEN]] focuses on material that lacks sources entirely, [[WP:LETTER]] says that that doesn't matter; the ''letter'' of BURDEN may say that, but the ''spirit'' of BURDEN is that the BURDEN is on the party wishing to include material to obtain consensus to do so, not on a party wishing to keep said material out. If consensus is not ''explicitly in favour'' of inclusion, then it stays out. I don't need "consensus" to remove contentious material if Curtis is the only one who wants to keep it; if Curtis wants to keep it in the article '''''HE''''' is the one who needs consensus to include it. At the moment we have one user (me) with a solid proposal to trim the section, one user (Curly Turkey) saying we ''should'' trim the section but not indicating how, and one user (Sturmgewehr88) who apparently supports a weaker form of trimming; no one here actually agrees with Curtis that all the material needs to stay as is. Therefore, the ''default'' position should be that the material is all cut and discussion should take place as to what is put back in. I have tried to compromise by only cutting the blatantly SYNTH, POV or WEIGHT material, but Curtis has continued to [[WP:EDITW AR|revert me]] nonetheless. I will continue to discuss here ([[WP:NORN|and]] [[WP:DRN|elsewhere]] [[WP:NPOVN|if]] [[WP:RSN|need]] [[WP:FTN|be]]) before reverting again, however. If, like last week, Curtis drops out of the discussion only to come back after I edit the article, we may have a problem.

@[[User:Sturmgewehr88]]: When you stated that you agreed with Curly Turkey's proposal to trim but not remove the section, what did you mean, exactly? I cut several POV/UNDUE/SYNTH sentences, but you now seem to be saying that you are in favour of including these SYNTH/UNDUE/POV sentences.

@[[User:Curly Turkey]]: You stated that you were in favour of trimming the section, but not removing it entirely. What do you think of [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=611029389&oldid=610970771 the edit] I made earlier that trimmed the material I believe to be problematic? Also, you and I seem to be in basic agreement on the "consensus" issue: have you noticed how many times Curtis has been claiming I need "consensus" to make this edit?[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=610948120&oldid=610900263][https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emperor_Jimmu&diff=611087739&oldid=611079439]

@[[User:Nishidani]] You haven't been involved in this dispute, but CurtisNaito has been repeating a SYNTHy pattern you pointed out on [[Talk:Battle of Shigisan]], so I'm interested in getting your opinion here. Curtis today [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AEmperor_Jimmu&diff=611184311&oldid=611180405 claimed] that there was no SYNTH on the "Battle of Shigisan" article, which seems like a refutation of your point from last year.

Lastly, I must apologize to all involved for an incredibly wordy post (it's even more if you check the [[WP:COMMENT]]s I left in the code). But after more than a week of tippytoeing around the issues that I thought were so numerous and obvious I thought I would receive no resistance, it seems several users still needed the SYNTH and WEIGHT problems laid out as plainly as possible.

[[Special:Contributions/182.249.240.4|182.249.240.4]] ([[User talk:182.249.240.4|talk]]) 12:27, 2 June 2014 (UTC)