Talk:Iwane Matsui/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs) 18:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I'll get to this shortly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest.CurtisNaito (talk) 19:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion concerning inconsistent style and sourcing problems (extended version)

The spelling of Japanese authors' and publishers' names, including macrons, should conform to WP:MOS-JA, unless there is some specific reason why they do not already. 182.249.216.8 (talk) 02:19, 23 May 2015 (UTC) Could you be more specific? Which names in particular need to changed?CurtisNaito (talk) 02:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC) (Sorry, the above was me.) A large number (most?) of the inline citations are of Japanese-language books from publishers whose names contain long os or us. MOSJ says these should be written with macrons, unless there is a specific reason why they are not. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC) Although if you're going to go through and fix the formatting of all the cited texts, I would advise (and this is just personal preference, not backed up by any style guideline) adding a "Bibliography" section, including all the bibliographical details there, and cutting all the inline citations down to "<author's surname> <year>, <page number>." Again, just personal preference, but with such a large number of inline citations the current refs sections looks a bit cramped the way it's formatted at the moment. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:04, 24 May 2015 (UTC) That was a start, but "Chuo Koron" -- each instance of which should have three macrons -- is the worse offender, and "Kojinsha" is another. An Kazutoshi "Hando" et al. Also, who are the "al"? I'm not sure if it's standard practice to use "et al." if you don't have separate bibliography where all the authors names are listed -- if it is, then it seems counterintuitive. I won't make the changes myself since your selecting to only correct the one implies the others have some other reasoning. A much bigger problem than these formatting snafus, though, is the article's apparent reliance on popular sources written by non-specialists, especially when the majority of English Wikipedia editors don't read Japanese and so don't know that these sources were written by non-specialists. Hayasaka, a popular non-fiction writer whose blog tells us to check Japanese Wikipedia for biographical details and whose Japanese Wikipedia entry says nothing of any postgraduate education and says his BA was in journalism, is cited 45 times. I couldn't find any biographical information on Hayase, but his highly eclectic bibliography, which includes at least as many books on pro-golfing as on World War II, implies he is also a non-specialist writer of popular non-fiction works; the article currently cites him 46 times. That alone is 3/8 of a total of (roughly?) 240 inline citations to apparently popular, non-specialist authors of non-fiction. Matsuura, by comparison, is a professor of modern history whose book was published by a university press, and he is cited only 15 times; the last names him inline, but neither Hayasaka nor Hayase is named inline -- the reverse. Of course, non-historians are free to write history, and they can sometimes do it well enough that their views are widely accepted by professional historians, but is that what happened here? Why are popular (mostly, it seems, right-leaning) Japanese literary magazines liked Bungei Shunjuu and Chuuou Kouron cited so much in this article? Are there no other sources available? Or do the better sources cite Chuuou Kouron and Bungei Shunjuu anyway? I'm not a specialist in this area so I can't say for sure. But I worry that a non-Japanese speaking GA reviewer will come along (@Sturmvogel 66: your user page doesn't say -- do you read Japanese?), check how many of the English-language sources went through scholarly publishers and university presses, and assume the same is true of the Japanese ones. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:47, 25 May 2015 (UTC) I'm using the same citation style recommended by Mary Lynn Rampolla's Pocket Guide to Writing in History. It recommends using "et al" when there are more than two authors. I haven't read any bad reviews of either Hayasaka's or Hayase's biographies of Iwane Matsui, so there is no particular reason to believe that they are unreliable, but in any case those two books are basically all that is available. Only two full-length biographies of Iwane Matsui have ever been written, and those are the two. Matsuura's book was a good source of information as well, but it wasn't a full-length biography. Firstly, Matsuura's book only covers the period from 1878 to 1937, and secondly, it only deals with Matsui's advocacy of pan-Asianism without touching on any other aspect of his life. I had initially decided to not use macrons on Kojinsha or Chuokoron-Shinsha because the macrons are omitted, not only on both their corporate websites, but in the case of Chuokoron-Shinsha also on its Wikipedia article. Still, it's not a big deal whether the macron is there or not, so I'll add the extra macrons at your request.CurtisNaito (talk) 05:30, 25 May 2015 (UTC) I don't have access to that book, but was the author talking about inline citations/footnotes, with the unwritten (written elsewhere in the book?) assumption being that there would be a separate bibliography or reference list where all the authors' names would be given? This was the recommendation in my alma mater's in-house citation guidelines, which I tend to use and generally work pretty well. As for the reliability of the books, your having not read any negative reviews is irrelevant; if a book is written by a non-historian and published by a non-specialist, general interest literary magazine publisher it should be treated as unreliable for the purposes this historical biography article is using it by default; positive reviews by professional historians can change that impression, but the burden is never to be placed on the skeptic, as the above implied need for negative reviews would do. And we never need another reason to doubt a book's reliability when it proclaims in its title that what it is propounding is Shinjitsu ("the Truth") -- unless you can explain this book's title in some other way, I think we can only take it as a fringe work written by an author with an axe to grind. This is the case with both Hayasaka ("The Truth About the Nanjing Incident") and Hayase ("The Truth About the General"). Also, with Hayase why does the book's cover say "将軍の真実 南京事件―松井石根人物伝" but our article leaves out the "南京事件"? It's hard to fix problems like this myself when I'm sure they are formatted as they are for a reason; and, again, it would be somewhat easier to fix them if the names of the books and publishers were only cited once in a separate bibliography below the list of inline references. Macrons: it's a moot point, I guess, but the reliability of decorative Roman lettering, URLs and copyright notices on otherwise exclusively Japanese-language websites for establishing English-language common usage has already been dragged over the coals in numerous RMs back in late 2012 and early 2013. Two users continued to claim we should model our style guideline on the decorative Roman text or the URLs (which are not technically able to use macrons anyway) despite this being pointed out, but both were pathological anti-diacritic editors and were eventually site-banned. To the best of my knowledge there's no one left who seriously thinks we should spell words according to such obscure factors when English-language reliable sources don't, so the Chuo Koron Wikipedia article should probably be moved as well, but you didn't use either it or the English copyright notice on the company's website as the basis for the romanization style, since your formatting lacked the hyphen. But it's a moot point, and thank you for fixing it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC) For Hayase's book I copied down the title straight from the book itself. I think that there might be more than one edition with a slightly different title, and yes Rampolla does not require that every single author be listed if the book has more than two authors. Hayasaka might be somewhat fringe in regards to the Nanking Massacre, as he gives from very low death toll estimates, but I never cited him for anything related to the massacre, only for other aspects of Matsui's life. Hayase's book was favorable to Matsui and was a bit rambling in parts, but otherwise it seemed fairly solid. As I said, there are the only two biographies in existence, written by these two prolific Japanese authors and published by reputable presses, so if you only believe that they are unreliable based on vague suspicions, then you don't have much of a case against them. Ideally, I don't want to spend the time changing the reference style when Wikipedia's criteria for good article reviews explicitly says that reviewers should not ask the nominator to change his citation style from one sort to another based on preference.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:21, 25 May 2015 (UTC) Prolific authors of what, though? Pro-golf? Neither of them are professional historians, and neither a Wikipedia editor's assessment of them as being solid nor a Wikipedia editor's unsourced negative claim that no other biography has been written can overrule this fact. Also, how do you know they are reputable presses? I was under the impression that they were right-leaning literary magazine publishers. This is not to say I don't like some of the stuff they put out -- I just don't blindly trust the stuff they put out because of some vague notion that they are reputable presses. It's not about citation style -- I'm saying that close to 50%, if noy more, of this article's citations are to right-wing, apparently-fringe sources written by non-historians. The GA criteria are pretty clear that GA candidates should be better than that. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:03, 25 May 2015 (UTC) When you write a biography for Wikipedia, you have to use the sources that exist, not the sources which you might like to exist. For instance, there is a featured level article on Edmund Sharpe in which almost all the citations refer to a self-published book by a private author which has never existed in any other format than a privately-held CD-rom. That's all that existed, so that's what the article used. Of course, Hayasaka and Hayase are quite a bit superior to that because they are both established writers and researchers working with major publication firms. So far you have presented no evidence that they are unreliable, except for repeating the fact that they are not professional historians. However, it's common on Wikipedia to cite books written by journalists and non-fiction writers who are not necessarily trained historians. As long as a source is reliable, there is no rule which says that only degree-bearing historians may be cited in a Wikipedia history article.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments to all the above

• I do not read Japanese and so cannot evaluate any sources in that language.

Incidentally, I can provide you with English language versions of the sources in question if you are interested in checking them.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• I disagree with your argument, Hijiri, that books and articles written by non-professional historians are inherently unreliable when used for a GA or better quality article. If they're unacceptably biased, prove it; the burden is indeed on you.
• I am very much not fond of the citation style used in this article as I also strongly prefer a short cite of author, page #, backed up by a bibliography with full citations. That said we must all respect WP:CITEVAR and CurtisNaito has been consistent in using his preferred method and need not make any changes to pass muster in this review.
• Matsuura, by comparison, is a professor of modern history whose book was published by a university press, and he is cited only 15 times; the last names him inline, but neither Hayasaka nor Hayase is named inline -- the reverse. I'm not following your argument here. What's wrong with how Matsuura is mentioned in the article?

Review

• No DABs, external links OK.

What do you mean by this?CurtisNaito (talk) 01:45, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• File:Matsui on trial.jpg and File:Iwane Matsui.jpg need a US license as well as a Japanese one. I think that {{PD-1996}} will be acceptable. Done
• Link on first use, Kannon, bodhisattva, Second Sino-Japanese War, Nagoya, Russo-Japanese War, Greater Asia Association, major general, Jinan Done
• Put the abbreviation for the tribunal in parentheses after its first mention. Done
• After winning the battle Matsui succeeded in convincing Japan's high command to advance on the Chinese capital city of Nanking, though after capturing the city on December 13 troops under his command committed the notorious Nanking Massacre. Matsui retired from the army definitively in 1938, but after Japan's defeat in World War II he was charged with war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and was ultimately executed by hanging. These are rather long and convoluted. I suggest breaking them in half. Done
• Briefly tell the reader why his classmates were important; if they all became future general, say so. Done
• You do not need to have a citation for every sentence. If every fact in a paragraph is derived from the same source, then only a single cite at the end of the paragraph is necessary. Forex, cites 5 and 6 in the 3rd sentence of the first para of the main body can be deleted because they're both used in the last sentence of that paragraph. You've got cites splattered all over the article that can be profitably consolidated, so go through the article thoroughly and get rid of them. Done
• Is Sei Arao notable enough for an article? If so then redlink his name. Read through everything up to the Chinese war section. More later. DoneYes Sei Arao was a very influential army officer and should definitely have his own article.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:55, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:38, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with your argument, Hijiri, that books and articles written by non-professional historians are inherently unreliable when used for a GA or better quality article. If they're unacceptably biased, prove it; the burden is indeed on you. I didn't say that, though: I said books and articles written by non-professional historians for right-leaning literary magazines whose titles contain "the TRUTH!!1!" should be taken with a grain of salt, and when 60-70% of the article is based on such sources is concerning. CurtisNaito has shown on numerous other articles that he doesn't know how to properly/critically read even good English-language sources, so I find it incredibly difficult to just take his word for it when he says "I didn't see any problem with it".

I'm not following your argument here. What's wrong with how Matsuura is mentioned in the article? No problem at all with how Matsuura is mentioned in the article. I wish the whole article was written the way that one sentence was written.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

No actual evidence was ever provided in that discussion that I did not read the sources correctly. You were making accusations but not providing any proof for them.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for linking to the ANI thread which, if nothing else, shows that you two have a lot of bad blood between you, which greatly complicates my ability to assess the validity of each of y'all comments about points raised by the other. Hijirii, what sources do you think should be used for this article, preferably ones in English that I can read for myself to assess any POV issues? And thanks for clarifying your point above. In general I'd agree with you about biased sources, but I'm not sure that those used here are actually biased, regardless of their origins. If you have anything substantial saying that they are, please provide them now. Thus far the article seems pretty neutral in tone, but I haven't gotten to Nanking yet. That seems the most likely place for any whitewashing, so is there anything tying Matsui more directly to the massacres?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:12, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

When it comes to the massacre, I think I provided all the available details. For most aspects of Matsui's life I struggled to keep it concise and only include the most pertinent information, but for the Nanking Massacre I decided to provide complete coverage on Matsui's role. As noted by historian Yutaka Yoshida in this article, Matsui certainly could have done more to prevent the massacre, but there is no evidence of direct involvement. Matsui fully admitted being aware of individual criminal acts, but no evidence has yet come to light that he was aware of the full extent of the massacre.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• Your changes are generally good, although I had to move a number of cites to the end of their paragraphs. I'm a little surprised that you haven't referenced Iris Chang's book on Nanking as that really revived interest in the incident in the Anglosphere. What does she have to say about Matsui's part in the massacre?
• While not a requirement, it's generally a good idea to have an ISBN or OCLC number for books and an ISSN for journals for each entry in the bibliography that will facilitate readers hunting down copies of the sources for themselves. Also page ranges in cites need to use an endash, not a hyphen. But, again, not a requirement for GAN, just something to keep in mind.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:20, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I have added ISBN numbers and dashes as per your recommendations. Incidentally, Sturmvogel 66, your policies on citations are the exact opposite of most good article reviewers. Most of them are very insistent on the issues of "Citations should be provided at the end of every sentence" and "Please place citations at the end of every sentence throughout the article".

Here is what Iris Chang says about Matsui's role in the massacre, "historians have suggested that Matsui may have served as a scapegoat for the Rape of Nanking. A sickly and frail man suffering from tuberculosis, Matsui was not even in Nanking when the city fell. Because of the lack of literature on the subject, Matsui's responsibility for the crimes at Nanking remains a subject for further research and debate. The evidence suggests, however, that the tubercular general was guilt-stricken over the entire episode, no doubt because he was unable to maintain order in the Japanese army after Asaka took command." (p.174)

However, the reason why I didn't cite Chang is that I was concerned that doing so might cause controversy. Those who check the citations in Chang's book will note that the large majority of what she writes about Iwane Matsui comes directly from David Bergamini's book "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy". Informed readers would probably be aware of this book's notoriety. For instance, Charles Sheldon wrote in the journal "Modern Asian Studies" that Bergamini's book "is a polemic which, to our knowledge, contradicts all previous scholarly work, whether in English or Japanese. It also contradicts the facts upon which this previous scholarship rested. Specialists on Japan have unanimously demolished Bergamini's thesis and his pretensions to careful scholarship." Many scholars directly accused Bergamini of falsification, such as Herschel Webb who noted in the journal "Pacific Historical Review" that, "The published sources alone are only in a handful of instances even claimed by the author to support his charges... when one tracks down that handful to the sources, one finds that in every single case they say something different from what he says they say." Iris Chang's heavy reliance on Bergamini for information about the Japanese Army was itself widely criticized. Daqing Yang wrote in the journal "The American Historical Review" that Chang's "failure to consult the numerous available Japanese records or scholarly works, however, has led her to rely on the flawed and dated work of popular historian David Bergamini, even while she makes a token acknowledgement of his shortcomings."

And yet, when I looked at the information provided by Bergamini/Chang on Iwane Matsui it actually mostly matched the information provided by more reliable sources, so this may be one of the few areas that Bergamini got right. Even so, due to the controversial nature of the book, I decided from the outset of my research that I would avoid citing Bergamini/Chang where possible, and I also decided that if something that Bergamini/Chang had written about Matsui was contradicted by sources which did not rely on Bergamini, then I would use the more reliable sources.

There were some areas where I followed that latter course. For instance, Bergamini stated that Matsui suffered from tuberculosis during the Nanking campaign, and Chang also stated this citing Bergamini. However, every single Japanese and English language source which did not cite Bergamini, including Matsui's own field diary, stated that Matsui suffered from malaria, not tuberculosis. Therefore, I opted to go with malaria. Likewise Chang insists, citing Bergamini, that Prince Asaka rather than Iwane Matsui was the de-facto supreme commander during and right after the Battle of Nanking, but all the other sources said that Matsui maintained both de-jure and de-facto command during the battle and that Asaka was by and large a figurehead who had real control over very little. Whenever Chang's descriptions of Matsui clearly contradicted all other sources which did not cite Bergamini, I opted to include only the opinions of the more reliable sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 19:10, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

You can read the policy for yourself at WP:CITE; nowhere does it state that every sentence needs to be cited and I've even had objections from some other reviewers that once per paragraph isn't strictly required either. Perhaps not, but I think it serves to help the reader tracking what information is attributable to which source. Frankly, I'd have told your reviewers to show me the exact source of their onerous requirement, although I'd have probably had to request a second reviewer to ensure that the review was fair. Your justifications for not referencing Chang seem reasonable as Bergamini does seem a bit "over the top" on his judgements on the Japanese.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I regret to say that you conflated two separate ISBNs into a single one when you added them. Recent books had a 13-digit number while older ones have a 10-digit number.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:35, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I just copied them from Worldcat. How do I tell the difference? Should I just delete everything after the first 13 numbers?CurtisNaito (talk) 19:38, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66 - Okay I think that I fixed the issue. Is there anything else that needs to be done?CurtisNaito (talk) 21:40, 7 June 2015 (UTC)