Talk:January 28 incident - Wikipedia

The background section seems garbled. japanese military instigated anti japanese protests to justify the war? there are no citations for it so if there is no feedback i'll change it to an upsurge in ani japanese feeling. remove the whole bit about blaming it on the jap military
59.178.195.47 (talk) 17:19, 11 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Page 401

Failing to break through the Chinese defence from the eenter position, the Japanese suddenly changed their tactics ... detachment of the Cadets Corps and personally directed a counter-attack on the invading Japanese. ... more than 15,000 Japanese troops participated in the fighting during this extended and sanguinary battle and with all their modern artillery and air bo mbers, failed to dislodge one Division of Chinese troops after sustaining heavy casualties estimated at over 4,000.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RwYLiA8ehwcC&q=A+sanguinary+battle+took+place+and+heavy+casualties+japanese+detachment+raid&dq=A+sanguinary+battle+took+place+and+heavy+casualties+japanese+detachment+raid&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9kOxUKriKJCB0AG6tIBg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ

Rajmaan (talk) 22:12, 24 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

Currently there are two citations used for the Japanese casualty figure. Both are English-language sources.

One citation is Stephen Robinson's “Eight Hundred Heroes: China's Lost Battalion and the Fall of Shanghai”, which cites “Grescoe, Shanghai Grand, 923/8920”. This happens to be the other citation used.

Grescoe's work states "The cost, though, was enormous. The Japanese had boasted they could take Shanghai in four hours. The battle lasted for five weeks, and cost the lives of 3,000 of their best troops. The shelling, bombardment, and street fighting destroyed 85 per cent of the buildings in Chapei, and killed 10,000 Chinese civilians.” Taras Grescoe “Shanghai Grand”, page 134.

Unfortunately Grescoe's work does not include proper citations, merely notes, and thus there is no citation in the text to verify the origin of this figure.

In regards to this, I will be updating the figure to the claim made directly by the Japanese military in their official battle history. If one wishes to add Western and/or Chinese estimates, please be my guest, but I strongly recommend using works which include proper citations and to avoid double citing works for a single claim.

-Adachi Adachi1939 (talk) 02:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Remsense could you take a look at the recent edits and give your thoughts on the neutrality of the presentation? The user who added it has made a string of edits relating to WWII and Japan that are worrying to me. I'll take a deeper look myself soon. seefooddiet (talk) 10:17, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your attention. I believe that my revised version is more accurate, neutral, and coherent than the previous one. I've provided more background information and specific details, used more neutral language, and increased credibility by citing first-hand academic literature of the time (rather than articles in the popular media more than 80 years after).

More details were provided, such as the request by the Japanese resident Association for the Japanese Navy to protect them, which explains the reasons for the Japanese Navy's involvement and helps to understand the escalation of the situation.

The timeline of my revised version is much clearer and more logically coherent, from the national anti-Japanese sentiment after the Mukden incident to the specific events in Shanghai, to the escalation of the conflict.

And Here's is some detailed analysis of the problems with the previous presentation:

"Japanese army officers, defying higher authorities, had provoked anti-Japanese demonstrations in the international settlement": This claim lacks concrete evidence and oversimplifies the complex overall situation. And It also seems to imply that the anti-Japanese demonstrations were caused by the specific behaviour of Japanese individuals and limited in the specified region in Shanghai, ignores the broader historical and political context.

"The Japanese government sent militant ultranationalist Japanese Buddhist priests":

This statement seems to lack solid basis. It may be inaccurate to attribute the behavior of religious groups directly to the government, and there is no causal relationship with the previous sentence, if not directly contradicts.

It seems to suggest that the Japanese government was deliberately trying to further stimulate the anti-Japanese sentiment that was already fanatic after the Manchurian Incident, rather than the opposite. This is logically unreasonable and contradicted the demands of the Japanese govt at the time.

And I avoid using words such as "militant ultranationalist", which carry strong value judgments and subjective overtones.

"The monks shouted anti-Chinese, pro-Japanese nationalist slogans in Shanghai, promoting Japanese rule over East Asia. In response, ...":

This description lack concrete evidence. It may oversimplify the reality and exaggerate the monks' behavior. So the phrase "according to some accounts" is used to introduce the controversial information, indicating that it may not be established fact.

"In response, the Japanese in Shanghai rioted and burned down a factory":

This description generalizes the behavior of the entire Japanese community and may not be accurate. Artificialrights (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

1. First-hand sources from the time are even less reliable than recent sources, especially given the incentive at the time to push propaganda as people were fighting wars. On Wikipedia, recent sources are preferred over contemporary sources.
2. You seem to worry about Japanese people being generalized, but express no worry about generalizing Chinese people: 5 Japanese Buddhists belonging to the Nichiren sect were attacked by a Chinese mob as they passed a factory in Zhabei.. vs your modification: In response, some Japanese in Shanghai rioted and burned down the factory, killing two Chinese.. Your edits are consistently alarming. This isn't really ambiguous; you're clearly here to push POV.
3. I don't love the original wording; I think it's also biased pro-Chinese. But now I think we've swung in the other direction, bieng biased pro-Japanese. You've also introduced grammar and syntax errors.

Noting that you've also been engaging in WP:TENDENTIOUS editing elsewhere. Extremely skeptical of what is being done here. seefooddiet (talk) 20:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

1.First-hand information is better than information in modern mass media. As we all know, the narratives in modern mass media will be processed by the established subjective ideology of later generations. Moreover, certain statements from the original text do not have any credible source. And the content I added does not conflict with modern information. If you think I am spreading false information, please point it out, otherwise better to keep my edit rather than regurgitating opinions that are clearly not supported by evidence.

2. Sigh. “A Chinese mob", which clearly doesn't mean every Chinese here, despite fanatic anti-japanese demonstration at the time. "the Japanese" , which implys the whole Japanese community in Shanghai. The difference is clear.

3. I don't understand how can that being pro-Japanese? You can even throw two paragraphs of text to AI and ask them to judge the neutrality. Taking a step back, if you still have problem with my edition, surely you can change "some Japanese" to "a Japanese mob", don't you? Instead, you decided to completely revert to the original version and make very rude accusations against me based on your own subjective opinions. This is clearly a personal and not a factual approach. I think you edit style is very alarming. you're clearly here to push POV against me personally.

"Extremely skeptical of what is being done here"

Let's be honest: if I change 1+1=3 to 2, you will also undo my edit and claim 1+1=3, right? Artificialrights (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

1. This is not just my opinion. WP:AGE MATTERS You do not understand how Wikipedia works, you engage with others aggressively, and you keep making poor edits on controversial topics and asking people to fix your grammar, syntax, and POV mistakes for you. This is why I am being firm. If you started by making uncontroversial edits while learning how the website worked, I would be much more friendly to you. Instead you go right for the most controversial topics and demand to be accepted, and get angry at anyone who disagrees with you.
2. You don't understand why this is non-neutral. "Mob" is heated language that generalizes, and "some Japanese" is gentler language that attempts to avoid generalization. Really, both were "mobs" and "some". Can you see why this reads POV? It feels like you're selectively applying gentler language to pro-Japanese causes. Do not do the "sigh" thing. I have not once acted like that with you. Yet more WP:TENDENTIOUS discussion. I reverted you because the issues with your work are more numerous than worth dealing with. It is not worth the time to go through dealing with each individual detail, when the obligation is on you to get it right in the first place. Otherwise you can spray and pray 50 bad edits and 2 good ones, and demand that people fix all of your bad edits but the 2 good ones.
3. Explained above. The fact that you think AI is a reliable source or perspective here really screams that you don't understand how this website works. I am not obligated to fix your problematic edits for you. Do it right yourself the first time. If we're talking rude, look at the "sigh", the extremely condescending 1+1=3 example, and the demanding that others fix your mistakes for you.

I stand by everything I said. Stop engaging in this kind of behavior. I have no problem with making this article more neutral; it currently reads pro-Chinese. If you continue acting rudely, we'll go to WP:ANI. I'm pretty confident in how I approached this. seefooddiet (talk) 22:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

You keep claiming that you have no obligation to fix my mistakes, I'm doing terrible editing on controversial topics (which aren't true in the first place), however you are unable to point out any definite problems with my editing, except harping on some highly subjective issues of so-called neutrality and tendency.

And based on these personal, completely subjective accusations of yours, you basically claim that my edits are basically trash, not worth taking seriously, and therefore should be rescinded without a second thought. Am I right?

The problem of your mentality is your basic assumptions are flawed, involving stereotypes and naked discrimination. That's why your following analogy is also completely wrong and inaccurate.

"you can spray and pray 50 bad edits and 2 good ones and demand that people fix all of your bad edits but the 2 good ones."

By the same logic, I could also accuse some wording of your edits of being unneutral or minor grammar issues (according my personal opinion), and then self-righteously roll back all your other edits. Right?

Besides, although this account is relatively new, it doesn't mean that I started editing Wikipedia on the first day. Artificialrights (talk) 23:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

I already pointed out one problem in this comment. Other issues include changing wordings without adding sources to them ("aggression in Asia" -> "aggression in China", "officers -> "officer"), grammar, and removal of sourced information that reads unflattering to Japan ("rioted and burned down a factory, killing two Chinese").

And based on these personal, completely subjective accusations of yours, you basically claim that my edits are basically trash, not worth taking seriously, and therefore should be rescinded without a second thought. Am I right? No, and this has crossed over the line into rudeness and being overly aggressive. Disagreements over content are normal on Wikipedia and shouldn't get aggressive so quickly.

By the same logic, I could also accuse some wording of your edits of being unneutral or minor grammar issues (according my personal opinion), and then self-righteously roll back all your other edits. Right? If you saw me making large edits against Wikipedia policy and with numerous grammar errors (not just minor, and grammar is not really affected by opinion all that much), then yes you should revert me. "self-righteously" is rude and unnecessarily combative. seefooddiet (talk) 23:18, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Other issues include changing wordings without adding sources to them ("aggression in Asia" -> "aggression in China"

1.The original statement is a dubious view, with no source to support it. Given that Japan was at most at an informal war with China (Manchuria) at the time, it makes sense to replace Asia with China. Otherwise, just delete this unsourced statement.

removal of sourced information that reads unflattering to Japan ("rioted and burned down a factory, killing two Chinese")

2.If you actually read it, you will find that this sentence wasn't deleted at all, except that "a factory" was changed to "the factory", since this particular factory has been mentioned in the previous sentence. Artificialrights (talk) 23:43, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ok, both of those make sense. Second one is my mistake. I stand by the rest of my other comments; still grammar and spelling errors and you should fix that perceived POV issue I addressed earlier.

And finally, a reply that didn't involve berating me, sarcastic remarks, or aggressiveness. When you act like this, why is it surprising at all to you that people don't trust your edits? Wikipedia is in part based on reputation and trust. We don't all have the time or desire to go through and carefully revise your edits; that is a favor, not an obligation. seefooddiet (talk) 23:52, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for asking—I want to make clear that I'm currently reading a lot about the wars in China during first half of the 20th century, so I'm acutely self-aware of everything I could understand better. In short, I agree that we shouldn't be citing sources from the 1930s here if at all possible. Remsense ‥ 论 01:45, 4 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Except for the NPOV issue, many statements and opinions in the original text are dubious and unsourced at all. There are some sources elsewhere, but from articles in modern mass media rather than academic ones. Modern academic sources may have more comprehensive information that earlier scholars do not have, but 1930s-1940s sources are also valuable as they reflect first-hand observations, as well as the social atmosphere and public opinion at the time. They may contain details that modern people have missed and can balance possible modern biases. In any case, whether citing modern academic literature or sources at the time, i think it is better than retaining a lot of unsourced "factual statements". Artificialrights (talk) 06:52, 4 October 2024 (UTC)Reply