Talk:Religion in China/Archive 3: Difference between revisions
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:I said that I would have "reduced my contribution to the minimal", not that I would have stopped completely. I have returned just for a very short break, however. "And I fear that the emotional language is a clue to a non-encyclopedic viewpoint". You are free to interpret it that way (the phrase, actually, was meant to be somewhat ironic, see the quotation marks of "mainstream"), I do not see, anyway, how it could be related to "un-encyclopedic" things. The important is that article content remains unbiased. I have read citations of Zhou's paper in [[Victor H. Mair]]'s work: Mair is an acknowledged sinologist (i.e. mainstream) = Zhou can be considered "encyclopedic", at least as a "marginal" position. I do not see a two-line paragraph as giving undue weight. The undue bias, here, is that expressed by the IP.--[[User:Aethelwolf Emsworth|Aethelwolf Emsworth]] ([[User talk:Aethelwolf Emsworth|talk]]) 22:10, 21 December 2016 (UTC) |
:I said that I would have "reduced my contribution to the minimal", not that I would have stopped completely. I have returned just for a very short break, however. "And I fear that the emotional language is a clue to a non-encyclopedic viewpoint". You are free to interpret it that way (the phrase, actually, was meant to be somewhat ironic, see the quotation marks of "mainstream"), I do not see, anyway, how it could be related to "un-encyclopedic" things. The important is that article content remains unbiased. I have read citations of Zhou's paper in [[Victor H. Mair]]'s work: Mair is an acknowledged sinologist (i.e. mainstream) = Zhou can be considered "encyclopedic", at least as a "marginal" position. I do not see a two-line paragraph as giving undue weight. The undue bias, here, is that expressed by the IP.--[[User:Aethelwolf Emsworth|Aethelwolf Emsworth]] ([[User talk:Aethelwolf Emsworth|talk]]) 22:10, 21 December 2016 (UTC) |
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:Anyway, I will not add back the paragraph about ''Di'' = ''Tees'' = ''Dyeus'', for now. I am sure that within a few years "Sino-Indo-Europeanism" will be an established field of study. Bye.--[[User:Aethelwolf Emsworth|Aethelwolf Emsworth]] ([[User talk:Aethelwolf Emsworth|talk]]) 23:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC) |
:Anyway, I will not add back the paragraph about ''Di'' = ''Tees'' = ''Dyeus'', for now. I am sure that within a few years "Sino-Indo-Europeanism" will be an established field of study. Bye.--[[User:Aethelwolf Emsworth|Aethelwolf Emsworth]] ([[User talk:Aethelwolf Emsworth|talk]]) 23:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC) |
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== Sinitic religion == |
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I just started the new article "[[Sinitic religion]]" which is the broader definition of Chinese religion, overcoming the dichotomy between popular or folk and élite religion, vernacular practice and high ritual and philosophy, which persisted throughout this and other articles of Wikipedia.--[[User:Aethelwolf Emsworth|Aethelwolf Emsworth]] ([[User talk:Aethelwolf Emsworth|talk]]) 00:04, 23 December 2016 (UTC) |
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::Thank you for this useful information. However, the new article constitutes a [[WP:CONTENTFORK]], that is, "the creation of multiple separate articles (or passages within articles) all treating the same subject." |
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::It also may possibly be a "point of view (POV) fork," that is, a "content fork deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." |
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::In addition, there are other specific objections to sourcing and structure of the article, which call its creation into question, which we should discuss on the TalkPage there.[[User:CWH|ch]] ([[User talk:CWH|talk]]) 03:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC) |
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:::The article is not in any way conceived to be a POV fork (I haven't moved there any of the controversial contents). As for the rest, discussion continues [[Talk:Sinitic religion|there]].--[[User:Aethelwolf Emsworth|Aethelwolf Emsworth]] ([[User talk:Aethelwolf Emsworth|talk]]) 08:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC) |
Revision as of 00:51, 3 October 2017
This is an archive of past discussions about Religion in China. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Didier should not be relied on for so much
I don’t have an opinion as to whether the material from Didier was paraphrased or constitutes copyright infringement, as alleged in recent removals, but I do think that there is too much material from Didier that is counter to Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, probably WP:FRINGE, and possibly wrong.
Didier and his theories have been negatively reviewed and not widely cited in any case.
Saso, Michael (2009), ""In and Outside the Square: The Sky and the Power of Belief in Ancient China and the World, c. 4500 b.c. –a.d. 200." (review)."", China Review International, 16 (4): 491–493, doi:10.1353/cri.2009.0085 cites scholars who give strong arguments against the theory that astronomical knowledge came or had to come across Asia. The Big Dipper, for instance, “is recognizable across the entire northern hemisphere, sometimes with seven or more stars, and it is not necessary to ascribe this recognition to any given culture.” He notes that “Didier suggests, the square, not the circle, is the symbol for the heavens” in early Chinese culture, but ignores or does not know of texts that prove otherwise: “The fact that the work of Didier does not make use of these important texts, contained in the Gu weishu ??? ancient weft texts (also called Weishu ??), challenges the assertion that the heavens are square, a notion basic to the Didier hypothesis.” Saso makes several more points to undermine Didier.
It also seems strange to mention that “John C. Didier and David Pankenier have studied ...” without citing Pankenier directly. Didier feels Pankenier has not done him justice, though for whatever reason he does not want to say so in so many words: Volume I p. iv he says he sent Pankenier his manuscript, which had been circulated to university press referees, “What is most striking is that in our work of 2003 and 2004 Professor Pankenier and I made several of the same mistakes, which errors, with the additional years since 2004, I have been fortunate enough to locate and correct...” [p. v] and “Although apparently my earlier manuscript remains uncited, Professor Pankenier’s work now continues with his recent delivery of a paper on what in both my earlier and present manuscripts I have identified to be the highest, and celestial polar, power of Shang religion....” [vi], though Didier adds that he has come to differ from the position that he and Pankenier had taken earlier.
There is more, but it seems better not to use Didier as a major source or mention him as an authority four times and in a dozen notes.ch (talk) 04:35, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- You should add the arguments made by Saso and other authors rather than delete Didier's and Zhou's theses.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 18:07, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- The Big Dipper “is recognizable across the entire northern hemisphere, sometimes with seven or more stars, and it is not necessary to ascribe this recognition to any given culture.” → This is exactly what Didier says in his paper and what I reported in the article.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 18:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- There are several reasons to cut Didier material.
- 1) Didier is not a reliable source for this material. The Saso review is weighty. WP:SCHOLARSHIP says:
- Isolated studies are usually considered tentative and may change in the light of further academic research. If the isolated study is a primary source, it should generally not be used if there are secondary sources that cover the same content. The reliability of a single study depends on the field. Avoid undue weight when using single studies in such fields. Studies relating to complex and abstruse fields, such as medicine, are less definitive and should be avoided. Secondary sources such as meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available....
- There are many good secondary studies of early Chinese religion.
- 2) It is not Wiklipedia policy that I "should add the arguments made by Saso and other authors rather than delete Didier's and Zhou's theses." On the contrary, WP:ONUS:
- While information must be verifiable in order to be included in an article, this does not mean that all verifiable information must be included in an article. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.
- I have further objections, which I will make in a more general way in a new section, but these are enough.ch (talk) 21:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- What do you mean by "Saso's review is weighty"? I can't access the entire article, but from the introduction he doesn't seem to dismiss entirely Didier's hypothesis. The fact that Saso's paper gives voice to "scholars who give strong arguments against the theory that astronomical knowledge came or had to come across Asia", or that the Big Dipper "is recognizable across the entire northern hemisphere, sometimes with seven or more stars, and it is not necessary to ascribe this recognition to any given culture", or that Didier doesn't take into consideration important weft texts is not enough to dismiss Didier's hypothesis. As he notes, there was a knowledge "inside the square" (warp?) and "outside the square" (weft?) and only at a certain point in history the square symbolism passed from Heaven to Earth.
- Saso's review even cites Victor H. Mair in the introduction:
- "In and Outside the Square is one of the most remarkable achievements of Sinological research that I have ever encountered. The ample subtitle, "The Sky and the Power of Belief in Ancient China and the World, c. 4500 b.c.–a.d. 200," gives an indication of the broad and inclusive aims of this three-volume work. Yet neither the title nor the subtitle can adequately encompass the rich assemblage of themes that are woven together in this outstanding scholarly treatise. To be sure, what we have in John Didier's magnificent magnum opus is the first and only investigation into all significant aspects of the rise of civilization in the East Asian Heartland (EAH), from its beginnings to the establishment of a bureaucratic system that persisted (albeit with numerous changes of dynasty and modifications in details of structure and operation) until 1912.… This grand synthesis of diverse disciplines will stimulate lively, fruitful debate among Sinologists and Eurasianists alike; … the present bountiful offering gives us plenty to feast upon." (I hope they won't delete this direct quotation for copyright infringement!)--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 22:23, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- 2) It is not Wiklipedia policy that I "should add the arguments made by Saso and other authors rather than delete Didier's and Zhou's theses." On the contrary, WP:ONUS:
Here I have to agree with ch... It's not that we should not mention John Didier's work at all. It's just that we're using it out of proportion to its importance in the field. See WP:UNDUE, a sub-section within WP:NPOV:
- "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects."
It seems that Didier's ideas are idiosyncratic; they have not been widely accepted. I really like Victor Mair. He is a free spirit who works against the received ideas of traditional sinology. For that purpose, he established and is still editing the Sino-Platonic Papers (SPP), whose explicit goal is to publish and encourage "unconventional or controversial" research by "younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors". The SPP's programmatic statement, which appears at the beginning of each paper, starts like this:
- "SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series dedicated to making available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished." (my emphasis).
This is where Didier's work was published. SPP challenges received ideas: it is not the place to find new authorities or core ideas for Wikipedia articles! Unless of course they become influential in their field, as should be noticeable in the reliable sources that represent that field. Madalibi (talk) 03:15, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
- When an administrator will send me the text of the article as it was before the deletions I will rewrite the parts of the history section trying to give less weight to Didier's emphasis on the square. Is Ruth Chang's Understanding Di and Tian: Deity and Heaven from Shang to Tang Dynasties less controversial? She doesn't treat the square at all. It gives important insights about the development of Di and Tian in the Song and Tang dynasties.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 11:04, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
- Later It is indeed a big problem that editors (and scholars in general) cannot get free access to journals. I may be wrong, but I think that JSTOR offers free access to a certain number of articles per month. Follow this link for possible "Free Access" on Saso's article linked above.ch (talk) 21:20, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
- Eno (2008) in Lagerwey & Kalinowski Early Chinese Religion I pp. 73-74 discusses the association of the supreme God to the celestial pole based on Pankenier's research. Eno discusses both the association of the high God (Di) to the pole and the identification of the High God / Shangdi with the Shang's progenitor Shangjia.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 11:22, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
- Pankenier's hypotheses are published by Cambridge University. See Astrology and Cosmology in Early China. At p. 106-107 he criticises Didier's theory for claiming that Di was associated to a "square" constallation; Pankenier's view differs by claiming that the Dipper itself (and the pole star around which it rotates) was instead the representation of Di. In my latest revision of the article I included both Didier's and Pankenier's views, although without pointing out the difference between the two visions, as I did not notice it. My text said that Didier and Pankenier have both studied the association of the supreme God to either "Ding", "Big Dipper" and "Ursa Major".--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 11:52, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
- More at p. 133, note 43: Ding is instead the great square of Pegasus at the south of the north pole / Dippers (p. 132), that was used as the "celestial temple" to divine i.e. rectify (zheng *tjen *ten, Gr. "orthos" as in "orthodox") syn. "cauldron" (ding *ten *teen), i.e. to align with the supreme Lord / bring the Order of Heaven to the earth (pp. 137-145). The mistake of Didier is to have identified the square as the supreme Lord itself, while it is the means by which to align with the supreme Lord.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
- In any case, this material is too esoteric for a general level article, see WP:DETAIL. It would be better in a subarticle, see Wikipedia:Summary style. ch (talk) 21:15, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
- Of course this knowledge is "esoteric" for contemporary general Westerners, but it is not in China. Indeed, this knowledge constitutes the very core of Chinese religion, and politics, especially since the government has resumed the state cults of the Yellow Emperor. So, a cursory mention is needed. Without this anchorage in the idea of Di and universal order all Chinese religion becomes incomprehensible. Of course, an in-depth description of this knowledge should be developed in separate articles, such as "Chinese theology" or "Tees".--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 12:10, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
- In any case, this material is too esoteric for a general level article, see WP:DETAIL. It would be better in a subarticle, see Wikipedia:Summary style. ch (talk) 21:15, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
- When an administrator will send me the text of the article as it was before the deletions I will rewrite the parts of the history section trying to give less weight to Didier's emphasis on the square. Is Ruth Chang's Understanding Di and Tian: Deity and Heaven from Shang to Tang Dynasties less controversial? She doesn't treat the square at all. It gives important insights about the development of Di and Tian in the Song and Tang dynasties.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 11:04, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
- @Aethelwolf Emsworth: One test of a topic's notability is whether it is mentioned in general surveys and/or encyclopedia articles. I would be flabbergasted if any of them include such details as "[Ding] was used as the "celestial temple" to divine i.e. rectify (zheng *tjen *ten, Gr. "orthos" as in "orthodox") syn. "cauldron" (ding *ten *teen), i.e. to align with the supreme Lord / bring the Order of Heaven to the earth...."ch (talk) 18:19, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Please stop hasty expansion
@Aethelwolf Emsworth: : Please -- please! -- heed the wise advice of Madalibi and take things slow! The hasty expansion of the History section raises questions of both form and content. I am preparing a general review of this article which will raise these questions in detail, but in the meantime, here are points on the recent edits:
- I am amazed to see that you added empty sections! This not acceptable.
- I am disappointed that there are still incomplete references and that the date of Needham's volume is wrong.
- WP:CHINESECHARACTERS "To help establish a simple and clean appearance, if a term is Wikified and has an article, do not provide characters or romanization again…. If, however, there is no article, then it is essential to insert traditional or simplified Chinese characters as a minimum…. However, non-English insertions should minimize interruption to the flow of reading. They should always be put within parentheses, as if they were call-outs not part of the sentence."
- WP:CITEKILL There are places with two or more notes, some notes repeated for each sentence in a paragraph.
- WP:UNDUE counsels not to give undue weight. These sections now read like a history of the concept Tian. Some text is clearly Undue. Here is one of many:
- Under the influence of foreign cultures and thought systems, new concepts to refer to the supreme God were formulated, such as 天中天 Tianzhongtian ("God of the Gods"), seemingly introduced by Yuezhi Buddhist missionaries to render the Sanskrit Devatideva (of the same meaning) or Bhagavan from their Iranian sources.(Note: Chang p. 38)
- By the way, this one of many examples of careless editing: do not put Hanzi first -- see above.
- Reliable sources. There are many excellent histories of these topics, so we should not rely on esoteric sources, perhaps because they are available online. As I said in reply to your request that someone send you a copy of Saso’s review of Didier, I agree that it is a major problem that many editors do not have access to research libraries, but – sadly – this does not mean we can use unreliable sources.
- Major portions of the recent edits simply follow Chang (2000), not the sources that encyclopedic coverage should use. Madalibi has explained that Mair's series explicitly seeks controversial material. She herself says:
- Because of the complexity of the problems involved in discovering the meanings behind di and Tian, proposals concerning them put forward in this paper will undoubtedly be disputed by some. (Chang vii)
- There are some places where the phrasing is awkward, but I am happy to touch it up.
ch (talk) 18:02, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
- As for point #1: I added empty sections to create the structure, as a work in progress; #2 I will fix that; #3 I will fix that; #4 I have been trying to apply WP:CITEKILL in the past months, it is possible that old edits still have repetitive notes; #5 undoubtedly there is a history of the concept of Tian; to give it less weight we should expand the sections with other sources. I added to the sources Lagerwey's Early- and Modern Chinese Religion as I planned to use predominantly it for the history sections. I agree that there's no need to dedicate this article entirely to Di-Tian, but a nod to the question is needed, as I explained above today. Sino-Platonic Papers is controversial but it's not totally unreliable, as it is published and written by academics. By the way, in my most recent edits I have not deepened the discussion about the astral connections of Di-Tian and especially I have made no further mention of the square identification, which is Didier's fundamental error according to his critics. However, in our article the controversial nature of Didier's work can be balanced with Pankenier's work published by Cambridge University, which points out where Didier has made his mistakes.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 18:38, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
- This is NOT responsive! You should not use mainspace to develop drafts. I do appreciate your correcting some of your hasty and persistent errors, but I pointed them out more than a year ago in Talk:Chinese folk religion#Peer Review and General Editing and you now correct only when I point to specific examples.
- There is NO reason to use esoteric sources when reasonable surveys are available. I will start a new section that will make these points, but in the meantime, you should look at other online encyclopedias to see models of clear, well-sourced, and helpful scholarly writing. One example is Pregadio, Fabrizio, "Religious Daoism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), here. You should also look at comparable Wikipedia articles such as the dynasty histories.
- As for point #1: I added empty sections to create the structure, as a work in progress; #2 I will fix that; #3 I will fix that; #4 I have been trying to apply WP:CITEKILL in the past months, it is possible that old edits still have repetitive notes; #5 undoubtedly there is a history of the concept of Tian; to give it less weight we should expand the sections with other sources. I added to the sources Lagerwey's Early- and Modern Chinese Religion as I planned to use predominantly it for the history sections. I agree that there's no need to dedicate this article entirely to Di-Tian, but a nod to the question is needed, as I explained above today. Sino-Platonic Papers is controversial but it's not totally unreliable, as it is published and written by academics. By the way, in my most recent edits I have not deepened the discussion about the astral connections of Di-Tian and especially I have made no further mention of the square identification, which is Didier's fundamental error according to his critics. However, in our article the controversial nature of Didier's work can be balanced with Pankenier's work published by Cambridge University, which points out where Didier has made his mistakes.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 18:38, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
- More important, the article is seriously POV, as I will explain in the new section.
- So I renew my request to hold off on new edits until we can come to an understanding.ch (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
- CWH, It is true that I am hasty and sometimes I make format errors, but these are things that can be rapidly fixed, and other users could help to fix them. I think that content is the priority, and that all the format errors such as the addition of unnecessary hanzi, bad prose, etc., can be fixed at a later time.
- I have already pointed out how sources that you define "esoteric" can be integrated with unquestionably uncontroversial (what you define "reasonable") material such as Pankenier's work published by Cambridge University. Also, I remember well that in past months you complained that I kept "esoteric" material in footnotes and did not integrate it into the main text. Again two weights and two measures in two different occasions. At this point it appears to me that your primary concern is to prevent that a certain knowledge (basically the identification of Di-Tian as the god of the universe) is expressed in the article. As I said, a cursory mention is necessary.
- CWH, I won't go on with the expansion of the article (which doesn't mean that I won't improve and correct the current version), but in the meanwhile I ask you to restore this material which you removed, integrating the first paragraph and the image caption with the critiques put forward by Saso and Pankenier, and reformulating the reference to the square in the second paragraph (this is giving due weight to all the viewpoints, wholesale removal is not). I will reintroduce the sentence sourced with Espesset pp. 22-28, about Huangdi, that I still don't understand why was removed since it expresses what Espesset says and the publication is not controversial.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 08:07, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for giving a little breathing room! As I said, I am pulling together thoughts and observations on the present state and future shape of the article, which is now at or near maximum length -- see WP:SIZE. It is now hard to navigate and not easy to understand the choice of topics and where they are placed. At this point, suffice it to say that the main article on a rich topic does not need or have room to discuss differences of view on minor points.
- On the other hand, there could very well be a section on the scholarly approaches to Chinese religions, perhaps called something like "Approaches to religion in China."ch (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
- A good project to "improve and correct the current version" would be to complete the references for the Lagerwey notes (which now have either no author or title for the chapter or only the author/ title, not the specific page on which a quote or idea appears); Lu & Gong (2014); Davis Encyclopedia; Ruokonen & Huang; Carpenter, den Dulk.ch (talk) 04:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
- Many thanks, Aethelwolf Emsworth, for completing these references. It's very helpful to have the authors and chapters. Even more helpful would be to use the reference forms, such as the ones I posted to your Talk Page here June 2015. These look neater, don't repeat long notes, and allow readers to jump to the full reference (which can have links to online originals). Thanks also for your patience as I pull together the more systematic review that I hope will be useful in deciding the next stage in the improvement of this article.ch (talk) 16:52, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
- Adding distinct references for each chapter of a book would be useful but will expand the already long list of sources. Maybe there's a technical method to have references to different chapters pointing to the same book-source.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 18:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, you are right: the form is "Author" "Title," in "Source in Reference Section," as you have done (though in a less useful order). The better way is to use the Cite Encyclopedia {{cite encyclopedia}} or {{Citation}}, which has a "Chapter" field. See WP:CT. If this makes the reference section too long, then we should replace narrowly focused sources with ones of broader scope that could be used for more topics.ch (talk) 00:43, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
- Adding distinct references for each chapter of a book would be useful but will expand the already long list of sources. Maybe there's a technical method to have references to different chapters pointing to the same book-source.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 18:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
- Many thanks, Aethelwolf Emsworth, for completing these references. It's very helpful to have the authors and chapters. Even more helpful would be to use the reference forms, such as the ones I posted to your Talk Page here June 2015. These look neater, don't repeat long notes, and allow readers to jump to the full reference (which can have links to online originals). Thanks also for your patience as I pull together the more systematic review that I hope will be useful in deciding the next stage in the improvement of this article.ch (talk) 16:52, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
- A good project to "improve and correct the current version" would be to complete the references for the Lagerwey notes (which now have either no author or title for the chapter or only the author/ title, not the specific page on which a quote or idea appears); Lu & Gong (2014); Davis Encyclopedia; Ruokonen & Huang; Carpenter, den Dulk.ch (talk) 04:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
- On the other hand, there could very well be a section on the scholarly approaches to Chinese religions, perhaps called something like "Approaches to religion in China."ch (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Please use edit summaries
In the very impressive expansion of this article, most editors, including the energetic and productive Aethelwolf Emsworth have not been following Wikipedia consensus, Always Provide an Edit Summary.
Thanks! ch (talk) 18:58, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
- Actually, I always provide an edit summary when I make big changes or additions. I do not write an edit summary when I make the "minor edits" which I tag as such and most of the time consist in little rewording, grammatical and spelling corrections, punctuation, other typos, etc.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 19:04, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
- Actually, Aethelwolf Emsworth.... still keep this in mind.ch (talk) 05:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Limits to size, omission of religious practice, need to trim
Before we add more to this article, we should assess what it lacks and work out the difference in coverage between Religion in China and Chinese Folk Religion. Another important concern is that the article now is unfocused and hard to follow.
Many of my concerns about this article are closely related to the concerns about Chinese folk religion that I presented more than a year ago in Talk:Chinese folk religion#Peer Review and General Editing. In each case, these concerns include technical style and format; approach and style; questions on Reliable Sources; and particular points.
We need to address these concerns now because the guidlines WP:SIZE suggest that this article has reached or will soon reach the length that should be split. As a rough estimate, the DYK check reported that prose size was 15,661 words of readable prose on September 1 and nearly 20,000 words in early October.
The distinction between "Chinese religion" and "Chinese folk religion" is not clear in either article.
A quick glance reveals that these two articles emphasize philosophy and thought to the neglect of practice. These topics are among those missing or under-emphasized:
- birth
- death (mentioned only in passing)
- divination mentioned in passing (including once for Tibet), I Ching
- funerals (mentioned once)
- festivals (New Year is mentioned only for the Qiang people)
- Filial piety, though somewhat covered as Ancestral veneration
- geomancy = Feng shui
- Guan Yu – mentioned only in passing as Guandi
- institutionalized vs. diffused religion
- rites and rituals are discussed in “General definition...” but could be made easier to find and accessible elsewhere
- state or imperial religion
- underworld, hell, Yellow Springs
- weddings
- White Lotus.
- Yin and yang mentioned only in passing, not related to Chinese religion
- the history of the study of Chinese religion in the West & points of view.
In light of these questions, we need to trim excess detail, perhaps to be moved to sub-articles.ch (talk) 05:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
- It may be due to my philosophical training, but I think that this article should focus more on general theory and philosophy of religion in China, while in-depth analysis of practices (rites of birth and death, wedding, divination, underworld) should be kept in separate articles. I know that religion in China is more living and lived (so, practice) than abstract theory, but this is already pointed out in the "description of what in China is religious", and may be explored further there. Many of the points of your list might be discussed in future expansions of the Chinese folk religion (or Chinese religion) article. There is indeed a need of a deeper analysis of the yin-yang concept in this article, but this would be better understood starting from a description of the universal principle (Tian - Di) which/who articulates and moves in this duality (so, in the section about "general conception of God").--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 08:48, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Copyvio's
- Was reading this today and took a look at one of the refs for more info and noticed our text was copy from the source. 74 percent sounds high....but I think all we need is some simple paraphrasing or quotes here. Nothing outrageous...but i am not the guy to do this as i have 0 knowledge of the topic...thus not sure whats best to quote or re-word.--Moxy (talk) 19:44, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
- Those are footnotes. Citation of source texts is possible when limited, clearly attributed to the author, and contained in quotemarks ("..."). The issue was already discussed here here. Also see WP:CLOP.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
- Not sure that much copyrighted text is good - note copy and pasting is not a runaround on copyright....huge amount here. Limited quotation from non-free copyrighted sources is allowed...not full (2008) excerpts. Perhaps best to read the guideline over an essay MOS:QUOTE. That said great article and if others have looked.....I guess ok..--Moxy (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
- Moxy I appreciate your drawing this to our attention!
- 1) I have strong objections to such a great number of informational footnotes, especially those with extensive quotes, but did not focus on the copyright issues.
- 2) You say it's "OK if others have looked," but they have not. The linked discussion of the issue at the Administrator's board was
- a) just that, a "discussion," not approval
- b) concerning a different issue.
- The admins did not discuss, much less sanction the use of this material.ch (talk) 03:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
- Moxy Most of the direct quotes are very short and are not cut-and-paste from the original sources. I can't find the full excerpts (2008 source) you write about.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 21:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
- The admins did not discuss, much less sanction the use of this material.ch (talk) 03:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Remove Zhou Jixu hypothesis again
Since Aethelwolf Emsworth let us know on Novemmber 2 (above) that he would be busy in he activities of the "real world," I have hesitated to make major changes in this article. Welcome back!
Although AE and I have major differences, I still want to work for consensus. But there the discussion on Dider (and Pankenier) has been extensive, to say the least, and with the help of madalibi we had reached consensus. I wanted to remove the paragraph completely, but left compromise language. I confess that I was happy to see the IP editor 99.242.89.243 remove some of the Zhou sentence, and am quite surprised at the explanation that AE gives in his edit summary: "The fact that certain publications challenge the "mainstream" (i.e. vulgar mass culture and the Western academia haunted by certain ideologies) only corroborates their authority." here To say that a source challenges the mainstream is to say that it does not meet the requirements of WP:RS. And I fear that the emotional language is a clue to a non-encyclopedic viewpoint.
In addition to being controversial, the sentence (like the compromise paragraph) will be confusing to the sorts of readers who come to the basic and introductoring article on Religion in China.
I would be happy to see mention of the Sino-Bablonian hypothesis, which, to be sure, now has more evidence than a generation ago. But the removed material is not the way to go. ch (talk) 20:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
- I said that I would have "reduced my contribution to the minimal", not that I would have stopped completely. I have returned just for a very short break, however. "And I fear that the emotional language is a clue to a non-encyclopedic viewpoint". You are free to interpret it that way (the phrase, actually, was meant to be somewhat ironic, see the quotation marks of "mainstream"), I do not see, anyway, how it could be related to "un-encyclopedic" things. The important is that article content remains unbiased. I have read citations of Zhou's paper in Victor H. Mair's work: Mair is an acknowledged sinologist (i.e. mainstream) = Zhou can be considered "encyclopedic", at least as a "marginal" position. I do not see a two-line paragraph as giving undue weight. The undue bias, here, is that expressed by the IP.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
- Anyway, I will not add back the paragraph about Di = Tees = Dyeus, for now. I am sure that within a few years "Sino-Indo-Europeanism" will be an established field of study. Bye.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 23:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Sinitic religion
I just started the new article "Sinitic religion" which is the broader definition of Chinese religion, overcoming the dichotomy between popular or folk and élite religion, vernacular practice and high ritual and philosophy, which persisted throughout this and other articles of Wikipedia.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 00:04, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for this useful information. However, the new article constitutes a WP:CONTENTFORK, that is, "the creation of multiple separate articles (or passages within articles) all treating the same subject."
- It also may possibly be a "point of view (POV) fork," that is, a "content fork deliberately created to avoid a neutral point of view (including undue weight), often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies."
- In addition, there are other specific objections to sourcing and structure of the article, which call its creation into question, which we should discuss on the TalkPage there.ch (talk) 03:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- The article is not in any way conceived to be a POV fork (I haven't moved there any of the controversial contents). As for the rest, discussion continues there.--Aethelwolf Emsworth (talk) 08:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)