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People's Republic of China

[edit]
Article is still a featured article.

This article was featured a long time ago and over time it has lost out on the quality that contemporary FAs have. I had put up a notice on the talk page of the article last month but nobody seems interested in fixing my comments.

Not only are your comments vague and generalized, they are also biased (see the India, Australia argument in the PRC talk page). You have chosen to ignore other users' comments and acted unilaterally here. You have also made zero contribution to the PRC article yourself and only care to see the article be removed from feature status. Naus 18:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If my comments are not fixed, I would certainly be gratified to have a mediocre article delisted. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I beg your pardon? You are NOT the sole arbitrator of this discussion. Is that clear? It is YOUR OPINION that the article is "mediocre." Many of your comments are invalid and purely subjective (such as "overwhelming ToC" or "prose not 'brilliant'"). Nishishei 20:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You don't have to shout to threaten me. I am not or have never claimed to be the sole arbitrator. Please note the person who decides to close this discussion is more likely to take into account constructive oppose votes by editors who are familiar with featured standards over plain jingoistic "keeps". I'm certainly not the one losing sleep here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your comments are not all valid nor objective, and highly subject to discussion. We are not obligated to fulfill every single point of your comments as you seem to imply. If my comments sound threatening, I apologize, but the atmosphere of threats and condescension was initiated by you (as can be verified by other users like Sumple) and you have clearly demonstrated an absolute disregard for the opposing opinions of others. The Keep votes' comments have been very constructive and many of the Keep voters have been contributing and editing the article as we speak here. If anyone is "jingoistic," uncontributive and adamant, it is you. Nishishei 15:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have matched my comments as per WP:WIAFA, so are very much valid. You fail to provide a reason otherwise. I don't ned to repeat it once again. WRT: threats and condescension was initiated by you.. I'm sorry to shatter the above statement, but the first instance of hostility on this page was: Nichalp is biased as evidenced in his or her continued argument and if I recall correctly, you attacked my background You are from India and obviously biased on the PRC talk page. Those who voted to keep the article obviously do care to maintain its status, so no surprises here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me, what is hostile about "Nichalp is biased as evidenced in his or her continued argument"? You *did* persistently present the argument concerned, and that persistence *is* evidence of your bias. As to the first instance of hostility, that was you attacking other users in a condescending tone, e.g. Since you are unfamiliar to the standards [sic], That's sheer ignorance , etc. --Sumple (Talk) 02:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reasons
(From WP:WIAFA)
  • Does not meet criteria 1.: (best work): Compare with Australia, India etc.
  • 2a -- Prose is not "brilliant" -- though brilliant might be a subjective: eg: The PRC is home to over 1.3 billion people, which makes it the most populous country in the world.; jumpstarting China's development and purifying its culture;
  • 2c -- Few inline references present to verify claims, just 2 references listed in the ==References= section. Text sprinkled with weasel terms and POV statements: (More nuanced arguments claim that...; Many in China appear to appreciate the role )
  • Does not meet 3): ie conform to the Wikipedia:WikiProject countries
  • 3c) -- It has an overwhelming ToC
  • 4) -- It has an excess images -- see =geography=
  • 5 -- The article has simply too much detail and calls for a summary and heavy copyedit and NPOV check.
  • The =external links= section is grossly abused and turned into a link farm.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 15:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked at commons: and none of the editors there have heard or read that Chinese government images are in PD. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I removed all of the images that didn't have proper image copyright tags. AndyZ t 23:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. The lack of inline references worries me greatly, as do all the weasel words in the article. Since the problems with the article were raised on the talk page and no one took the initiative to fix the article, then remove the FA status.--Alabamaboy 16:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Now that the citation issue has been fixed.--Alabamaboy 13:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This Nichalp user has ignored the comments and discussion in the PRC talk page and requested to remove featured article status of this article unilaterally. Naus 18:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There was no discussion. The only reply was a personal attack and a defensive comment. I had given sufficient time for those who watched the page to elaborate as to what was wrong, or start making some changes to the page. Alas! =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have added inline citations, and am going through them and citing them. AndyZ t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Nichalp is biased as evidenced in his or her continued argument that the PRC page is somehow worse than the India page. The India page is not obviously better, and in many respects worse than the China page. Specifically, reasons number 3(c), 4, and 5 are blatantly untrue, or heavily subjective. The external links section is comprehensive, and is actually a good feature of this article. --Sumple (Talk) 06:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Since you are unfamiliar to the standards that merit a Featured Article tag, I request you to please go through Wikipedia:What is a featured article. Please also do check out China vis-à-vis other featured countries such as Belgium, Pakistan, Bhutan and Nepal. Please note, I have NOT compared China to just the India article above. I've stated what all points the article lacks I also request you not make personal attacks and blatently accuse people of having biases without evidence. Instead of being confrontational and defensive, I request you to take care of the article and ensure that it does not lose its featured status. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A featured article exemplifies the best of Wikipedia. There may be shortcomings still with this article, but most of your reasons are not valid reasons. Overwhelming ToC? Whose judgement is it except yours that it is overwhelming? What do you suggest should happen to the ToC, then? Excess images? What's wrong with the geography section? It is not a fault of the article that China has a wide range of landscapes. Too much detail? Please be specific and tell us which section would you propose needs to be shortened, and how it should be shortened. Airy-fairy value judgments does not an argument make. And stop being so patronising towards others. --Sumple (Talk) 07:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I request you to see the ToCs other countries that are featured, since you refuse to check them out despite me pointing you to those links. Remove excess images as it causes the all of them to bunch up squeezing the text. The article as a whole needs to to summarised. I've given you the link above. Remove specific names, instances, dates unless it is absolutely crucial to the article. See the =History= section in the India article. Please remember, it's the community that decides to defeature the article, not me. I reiterate, the faster you start cooperating and stop making personal attacks, the easier it will be for you to save the article. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You don't seem to understand the point(s) I am making. And stop making empty threats. I don't know why you feel justified in making these threatening and patronising statements, but: 1. What makes you think there the India article is the golden standard of feature articles, and that the India ToC is necessarily so much better than the PRC one? 2. Unlike you, I am actually making useful edits on that page. 3. Don't presume too much, it's not good for you. --Sumple (Talk) 02:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You aren't making fruitful points, and by accusing me of making patronising comments is amusing. A few of the "remove" votes have come from experienced editors who know what a featured article is about. Unfortunately the constant harping of China vs India just displays a very myopic thinking. Don't presume... -- Is that a threat? I'm deeply honoured that you have my sincere concerns at heart. :-D =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why are we dragging India into this? It is also on FARC, and shouldn't be the subject of debate here. AndyZ t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep User Nichalp has his own personal agenda in requesting for removal of the PRC article. All of his criticism of the PRC page has been thus far vague, general and biased. See his critique of prose being not "brilliant." User Nichalp has made zero contribution on the PRC article and has no interest to make the prose in the article more "brilliant" himself. China has incredibly diverse landscapes and the 3 small images capture the Chinese perspective of its terrain very well. The India article on the other hand has images that entirely cover the right side of the entire India article at 250px wide each. While the PRC article might have more images than the India article, they are smaller, more balanced and better targetted to the content of the article, and also the Chinese article itself is longer than the Indian article. Naus 18:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    What personal agenda do I have? Please list it. Why is it vague and biased? Please elaborate. I don't necessarily need to contribute to the article since I'm not the expert. The images in the geography section can be transferred to the Geography of China article. If the article is long, it needs to written in summary style to prune the size down. I had put up a warning on the article talk page, but nobody bothered to respond in a fruitive manner. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I actually found it depressing to read this farago which varies wildly between the pedestrian recital of facts, and highly judgmental and patronising commentaries on China and its culture. For so long as it remains so Western-centric, it should not be held out as the "best" that Wiki can do. David91 16:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a valid argument. What is perceived as Western-centric to a Chinese nationalist, might be moderate and balanced to the average Chinese citizen. Many of the other Asian featured articles are equally "Western-centric." The encyclopedia is foremost a Western concept, and Wikipedia holds to encyclopedic standards. Naus 18:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You misread the comment. David was saying that the article is written from a Western-perspective and needs to be written in the neutral point of view. The goal of Wikipedia is NOT to have western centric articles, and an encyclopedia can hardly be called a "western invention". You seem to be vey new to wikipedia. Please spend more time learning about the processes before making such sweeping statements. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article is actually quite NPOV (see Wikipedian 172's comments below). It is already incredibly nuanced (hence the longer article length) because it strives to be NPOV. If you have specific areas that you believe is POV, please cite them right here, so we may further discuss them specifically. Otherwise you are simply making empty and non-actionable remarks, like several of your other comments. Please STOP being so condescending toward other Wikipedians, it reflects poorly of you and your argument. Naus has been around for quite awhile and has made significant contributions to many Chinese-related articles, the same cannot be said of you. Nishishei 03:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A country article should touch on the main points of the country, and not go into detail. The details should go into subarticles such as Geography of China, Economy of China, History of China etc. The best way is write a summary of the text. I've pointed you out to Wikipedia:Summary style. Please read through it. POV is not the only issue I have, I'm waiting for the article length to be cut, references added and image copyrights resolved first. My comments are perfectly actionable, I don't see how you find it so unactionable. Before you accuse me of being condescending, please review your past history which includes a personal attack and a steady refusal to initially accept that the article is in dire need of attention. Lastly, yes, you are right. I have not made any significant contributions to Chinese-related articles. Like most other wikipedians I don't necessarily need to as the goal of wikipedia is to focus our attention to topics closest to our fields of expertise. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak RemoveKeep 60 kb, 2 references (which do not have citation information, perhaps consider {{Cite web}}), and only 1 inline citation. There certainly are not enough references to cover the entire article. There are a few occurrences of weasel words: and is still considered a communist state by many,, and is not generally considered to be a true superpower, - by whom? Please supply citations for quotes. There are many instances of WP:POV in this article- giving citations for these also would be helpful. More minor issues, please see WP:MOS for information on captalization in headings. WP:CONTEXT suggests that years and decades without full dates should not be wikilinked.
Finally, the point of FARC is to determine articles on Wikipedia:Featured articles [that] should no longer be featured. It does not matter if the nominator has not made a single edit to this article - as long as the objections are based from WP:FARC and are actionable, there is full reason to nominate the article for FA removal. Usually, there is only one editor who nominates an article for FARC, since the first sentence in the instructions on this page is If you feel an article... Though reason 3 and 4 Nichalp gives are debatable, they are actionable, as well as is reason 5. In addition, I note that many of the above arguments for keep are simply arguments against India, which is certainly not the subject of debate here. Thanks, AndyZ t 20:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I converted the external links in the article to inline citations, and will help to cite them later. AndyZ t 01:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've done some fixing to the article, and my main objection has been taken care of. AndyZ t 20:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep The PRC article and related articles are some of the most updated articles on Wikipedia. WIth extensive information on the subject, arguable more so than many other country articles including India, this article deserves its featured status. Many issues brought up are trivial and can be easily fixed. The people who vote for its featured removal never seem to help out in its corrections or keep a tag on the article itself. The speedy induction of this great article on removal list without any effort by its lister greatly troubles me.--Ryz05 03:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
update: I recently made a few edits to address some of the issues brought up in this thread. Please review the article and change your votes accordingly.--Ryz05 05:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article's size needs to be cut first. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not obliged to make the necessary changes to the article. I had put up a warning on the talk page which lasted for more than a week; enough time to fix the issues, which was never done. I have listed all what is wrong with the article, if you can fix it, the article can maintain its featured status. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the size issue. Each article related to each section of the PRC article has a lot to talk about, so it is no surprise that the summary of it is respectively long.--Ryz05 19:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If size was directly related to comprehensiveness, then the article on World War II would touch in excess of 3 MB. Newspapers and magazines summarise all the time, I don't see why moving excess content to dedicated articles is such a problem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Ryz05, the size is absolutely appropriate. Compare with the Hong Kong article, which is also a featured article. Nichalp has no argument here. His entire premise is that the PRC article is not in the same style as the India article (to which he contributed greatly in, and thus the PRC article is not akin to his personal tastes). Nishishei 20:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If size was directly related to comprehensiveness, then the article on World War II would touch in excess of 3 MB. Newspapers and magazines summarise all the time, I don't see why moving excess content to dedicated articles is such a problem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can see your concern about the PRC article, but I don't understand your argument by comparing it to the WW II article, which is considerably longer. A better comparison in terms of size is Hong Kong, as stated by Nishishei. I don't want to accuse you of trolling, but please consider in editing the article yourself and refrain from ceaseless arguments.--Ryz05 05:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hong Kong is a city-state, China is a nation-state, both quite differently authored. I had opposed the HK FAC nom on its length. However an article written in summary style need not necessarily be below 30kb. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Any suggestions for continued improvements of the PRC article can be made in the PRC talk page, not here. This is not the forum to make these suggestions. The PRC article is frequently updated and as consequence may sometimes require work here and there to balance things out. But it does not need to be considered for removal of featured article status any more so than the India or Australia article. Like other posters have said, Nichalp has made no contributions to the PRC article himself, his motivation and intentions here are dubious at best. If he finds problems with the "brilliancy" (sic) of the prose, he should fix them himself. Nishishei 20:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have never used the world "Brilliancy" (sic) =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the sentence that Nichalp pointed out as "prose not brilliant": The PRC is home to over 1.3 billion people, which makes it the most populous country in the world. is grammatically correct and just fine, his criticism is purely subjective. But it has now been changed to: With a population of over 1.3 billion people, the PRC is currently the most populous country in the world. Again, this is not the forum to make improvement suggestions. Valid, clear and concrete suggestions should be made in the PRC Talk page. Nishishei 21:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree this is not the correct forum. Once the comments are fixed, please post it here and keep us informed. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
However, this is certainly an appropriate forum in which to exemplify bad prose. If anyone would like examples from the article, I'll happily provide them here. In addition, there should be no expectation that reviewers here are obliged to pitch in and help to repair an article themselves. Tony 15:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would like the specifics. The article is too long to simply use subjective blanket phrases like "prose is not 'brilliant'" Nishishei 03:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep My impression, after just having finished reading the article for the first time since it was on FAC, is that it has improved considerably since then, especially the intro. I'm seeing comments by a couple of users suggesting that portions of the article are too subjective, feature "weasel words," or "highly judgmental and patronizing commentaries on China." I noticed those problems when the article was originally featured, and I was thus reluctant to vote in favor of featuring. I'm not seeing those problems prominently appear in the article now. I'm particularly pleased that the article is sensitive to the difficulties of categorizing China's governing and economic structures, given their sheer complexity, in a neutral and straightforward manner. 172 | Talk 12:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove as per Nichalp, who has set out specific objections that, IMV, are reasonable. I'm sorry to see that if the main contributors have taken action to improve the article since its nomination here, that action has been inadequate. In its current state, the article certainly does not show WP at its best.
The prose throughout is a significant problem. It would be best to find someone else to go through it in detail to meet Criterion 2a. I can offer some help, but my time is limited at the moment. Tony 12:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Remove (confirming original view) I have made more detailed comments on the Talk page to indicate the nature of the problems. David91 01:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have already voted above. Please don't try to manipulate the count by voting twice. Either remove the first "Remove" vote in your above comments, or remove your second "Remove" vote here. 69.213.138.57 03:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have votes on Wikipedia. Johnleemk | Talk 07:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you ought to read the main part of this article (Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates, under Voting) before making nonsensical comments. 69.213.138.57 16:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you ought to read WP:NOT before making nonsensical comments. The guy who designed FARC probably should do that too. Johnleemk | Talk 17:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments --- A few users claim that my statements are too subjective. From WP:WIAFA, "A featured article exemplifies our best work". Now, if I can find so many chinks in the article, it certainly is not our best work! The word "best" is a superlative and thus the article should strive to achieve the goals of WIAFA. Secondly, as far as the ToC goes, see the comments posted here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/India by mav and Jiang. Jiang is a long-time contributer to Chinese-related articles, so I guess I'm not the only one who thinks on the same lines. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remove Virtually no references --Bob 01:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Now that the reference problem has been mostly solved. It could do with more though... --Bob 15:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Article is okay from my perspective, but really fails the referencing criteria. The references section reads like a list of external links. What is being cited? The main page of the BBC's Chinese section? Cite specific webpages, don't cite a whole website. It defeats the purpose of fact-checking and obfuscates the precise source of information. Johnleemk | Talk 07:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Specific webpages are cited. There are quite a lot of inline references in the article. Naus 16:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Those are not inline references; they are inline external links. They are inadmissible as references because important citation-related information is not included with them; see WP:CITE and WP:CITE/ES. Johnleemk | Talk 17:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Doing right now. AndyZ t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Good job. However, large portions of the article remain without footnotes. For instance, the history section has almost none, and its main articles either don't have footnotes or don't have any references at all. At the very least, the quotes from Mao and Deng should have a citation. Some weasel statements without citations remain, e.g. "The PRC is regarded as a communist state by many political scientists, but attempts to characterize the nature of China's political structure into a single, simple category are typically seen as lacking sufficient depth to be satisfactory." More than half the politics section (inclusive of its subsections) have no footnotes, and the main article does not have any references; if it did, the need for footnotes might be obviated, but otherwise... There are also no citations concerning the Chinese space programme, and the rankings for universities need a citation. Much of the rest of the article has no citations either, but these are the most worrying problems at the moment. Johnleemk | Talk 15:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC) P.S. Just noticed that the demographics section with very detailed statistics has no citations either.[reply]
    • Weak keep -- still some way to go, but a lot better than before. The Dkospedia cite is questionable, by the way -- could we have a better source for such an important assertion? Surely we have something better to cite than a wiki. :p Johnleemk | Talk 12:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yeah, I had some difficulty in citing that sentence. I think this (there is a quote in there by political scientist Jean Oi) would be a much better citation now (my original Google Search didn't turn up any links that discussed whether or not the PRC is communist). AndyZ t 19:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove those references are not really references and are just links to websites - you'll need specific pages that you used - generally general references are only allowed on books and such. Shame on those for ranking on Nichalp for not fixing the article for them - we don't have infinite time to work on these thing, y'know :). Anyway, this could easily be fixed before the FARC is over - and I mean at Asperger's syndrome at that FARC there were far worse problems at the time - but time is running out. Just another star in the night T | @ | C 17:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It'll be sad to see the PRC article removed from featured status, as it is so comprehensive and so many people spent so much time on it. Anyways, the referencing might be an issue, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to remove it as the good qualities outweigh the bad ones, such as the subject being so extensively covered.--Ryz05 20:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
like to add If this article does get removed, I am sure it'll get reenlisted as a featured article some short time in the future as it is a popular subject with a lot of editors. Any problems with it are presently minor.--Ryz05 20:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please look again, there are now plenty of inline cites which are no longer just general references. Thanks, AndyZ t 13:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It looks better and I'll withdraw my opposition, but the references section still needs to be either purged or cleaned up.... Just another star in the night T | @ | C 23:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I don't see anything that demands a serious change. Image use is ok IMO. The list of largest cities should probably go. More citations should also be added, but this article is an overview containing many summaries: citations are not as neccesary. FA removal would probably be quickly followed by another FA nomination after these few things were dealt with. Why bother with such a process?--Bkwillwm 08:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Images with dubious copyright statements could land wikipedia in a legal mess as it runs contrary to the ideals of a "free" encyclopedia. Hence their removal. Free images can be searched at commons: and www.flickr.com. It's definately a major criteria to consider as repeated uploads of dubious images can get a user blocked. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Conditional Keep: Their are some glaring lack of references that needs to be addressed. Examples: i) Lot of Mao related comments that begin or has something akin to "According to many experts." They all need a reference ii) Aksai Chin related lines state that India has effectively given up claim on it - This is false as far as I know and clearly requires a citation or rephrasing. iii) Claims made towards increasing personal freedom needs a reference. On a more personal note, it is very sad that so many of you chose to attack Nichalp because he is an Indian user. He raised the issue in the talk page and gave it a lot of time before doing FARC. Instead of having a civil discussion about the issues raised by him many of you attacked him and dismissed his concerns as biased. I see the same notion in here. I hope in the future people can look beyond nationalities. --Blacksun 02:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Refuting comment-- There was no personal attack against Nichalp. The criticism of him was his haste in adding the PRC article to FARC without adequate time and consultation on the PRC Talk page. Nichalp gave "a lot of time"? What are you talking about? He wrote one sentence and then ignored the subsequent comments and a week later, added the PRC article on FARC, even though updates to the article were made to improve it in between this period. No attempt of civility was made by him. The India issue came to play because he himself used it as a superior example of Wikipedia's finest, which naturally produced responses criticizing him for being subjective and biased, as many of the very critical examples he gave of the PRC article were also found in the India article. The India article is now on FARC also, isn't it? Naus 08:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not going to bother to argue with you. All the evidence is in the talk page including date of his first post and the very first response to his post being an attack based on his citizenship. Goodbye. --Blacksun 14:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The evidence is here also, and I don't see the "so many of you" making "personal attacks" as you accuse of so matter of factly. I just checked, the date of his post was indeed as Naus said one week before he listed the article on FARC, in that time countless edits were made to improve the article. Your lack of coherent argument against Naus is damning enough. And "Goodbye"? How utterly immature. JakeLM 23:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where I come from, Goodbye is considered polite. But ANYWAYS. I really dont care what you see or dont see. I have made my point and you are entitled to your opinion. We will have to just agree to disagree. And once again, goodbye. -Blacksun 14:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]
"I disagree. You are from India and obviously biased." (comment from Nishishei 05:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)) Johnleemk | Talk 12:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where I come from, one person is not "so many of you." From what I see, one person made a single remark based on nationality, and a bunch of people including Nichalp and Blacksun became overly sensitive, labelling everyone else of the same "nationalism." You guys are just as bad in making assumptions and generating hyperbole IMO. JakeLM 16:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The point was to refute the claim that there was no personal attack against Nichalp; to me, it is a personal attack to assert a non-Chinese citizen cannot have a neutral opinion on the article People's Republic of China. Naus supported Nishishei's stand that Nichalp is biased because of this. ("No one has made personal attacks toward you, please review what constitutes a personal attack. It is your opinion that the India article is better than the PRC article. You have provided no concrete points, but arguable generalizations, and hence you were told by Nishishei that your comments are biased and without basis.") I don't know what Blacksun might mean by claiming "so many of you", but it's clear that this wasn't an isolated incident. Johnleemk | Talk 17:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How specifically are the images "out of control"? Too much? Not at all, see Australia, also FA. Which images are problematic? Please be specific. It looks nothing like Myspace, IMO. JakeLM 23:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Too many, poorly chosen, poorly laid-out. Too many cooks each wanting their own pretty picture in, regardless of the overall shape of the article. HenryFlower 11:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give me some detail on which pictures look poorly chosen? Also, how are there too many as each picture ties with the respective section it's in and plays an important role on shedding light on the perspective subjects? Finally, we don't want pictures to be in it just because it's our own pretty pictures; each picture is carefully chosen to be as discriptive as possible, like the famous ancient Chinese saying "A picture is worth more than a thousand words."--Ryz05 20:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak remove This article is an important topic, but there are too many sections that read as if they have been editted by a committe. Let me address a few:
  • The very first paragraph is confusing. Wouldn't a definition closer to the aims of NPOV be to state that the PRC is the current government of most of China ("most" depending on how you want to define the situation with the rump Nationalist government on Taiwan & related territories).
  • Saying that the PRC in control of the mainland means it's in control of "most" of China. There's no need to say that "it controls most of China". The current saying sounds more professional.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the introduction, there is immediate mention of the Communist Party of China, but without an explanation of their relationship to the PRC government; it is assumed that the reader knows this is the ruling class of China.
  • The introduction says that the CPC leads China "under a one-party system," so it is the ruling class of China. Read the paragraph more carefully.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article claims that more recent governments (from the context, apparently since Chairman Mao died) have lifted millions of Chinese "out of poverty" twice. IMHO, one mention of this claim is enough; if you state a claim like this even twice, some readers will suspect there is no truth to the claim.
  • That is once said in the intro, which provides a good background for what happened in the country. The second time it's said is in the economics section, which is very important to include it. There's no reason why such a thing is hard to believe even though it is repeated twice in the article, albeit different sections.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section about the geography of the PRC does not address the question how the current borders of this nation fit with the borders of previous governments of China.
  • I feel that the sections "Demographics" & "Language" could be removed without harm to the article, & the links to the appropriate "X of China" put under "See also". -- llywrch 01:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's no reason why they should be removed. Language in China with its many dialects is an important piece of the article. And every country article has a section on Demographics.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So frankly, I think your objections are baseless, without a full understanding of the subject itself.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, I think what you have written could be also called baseless, & lacked an assumption of good faith . I can't help but read contempt for my objections in your response -- especially when I qualified my objection as a weak one. If your intent was truly to cast scorn upon my comments -- which I had offered in good faith -- I would happy to be more resolute in my objections to this article as it stands; there was nothing in what I proposed above that could not be fixed by some minor rewriting.
However, I offered this feedback in hope of improving this article; despite what you may think, I have no intent of submitting it to WP:AfD. So I will respond to a few of your points:
  1. It took me a couple of minutes to puzzle through that first paragraph in the article; introductory paragraphs should be simple to read, & provide the most important information. By your calling this paragraph "professionally" written, I must confess I suspect your judgement in other regards, & I hope I misunderstand you about this. My comment about "Taiwan" was minor, although you appear disturbed by my mention of it. Fine; let's focus on the rest of my suggestion: instead of the belabored identification of the PRC with China, why not say it is the current government of China, pure & simple? If the reader is unclear where China is, then the link China will help him find it.
  2. You wrote: "There's no reason why such a thing is hard to believe even though it is repeated twice in the article, albeit different sections." -- Obviously, you missed my point here, & are unaware of the saying "the lady protesteth too much". If you are not familiar with that saying, it means that whenever someone repeats a claim too many times, the act creates the suspicion that the speaker is lying. Now I am not saying that the statement is a lie -- personally, despite the lack of any cites or other comfirmation for this point, I believe it is true -- but that this assertion comes across as a possible untruth. I don't think that is your intent -- so if you care how this material comes across & care to prevent edit wars with parties far less friendly than I am, you should rework this part of the article.
  3. You wrote: "There's no need to address how it fit under previous governments, as the article is solely on the PRC" -- I assume that there must be a difference between its territories & that of the previous governments of China. If there is no difference, then all of this material properly belongs in China. The same is true about your response concerning "Demographics" & "Language". The PRC is only one historical period of the nation known as "China"; general information should be kept in general articles.
I am sorry if my words are coming across as being combative; to repeat myself, I felt insulted by what you wrote. You need to accept constructive criticism over this article; if you don't, then the next review of this article will likely be performed in an undeniably hostile environment. -- llywrch 05:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I sincerely apologize for sounding scornful. However, I am still unsure what things you want to change concerning the article, but I will readdress some of my responses and make light on a few things that you brought to my attention.
  1. I never said anything is "professionally" written. What I did say is that the PRC in control of the mainland (which is most of China) sounds better (more concise) than saying that "it controls most of China", which is true. And I'm not offended by you mentioning Taiwan, though I was a little perplexed over why you said the phrase "in control of most of China" better than simply "in control of the mainland", since mainland consists of most of china. Finally, the PRC is not a government but the name of the country. After the Chinese Civil War, China was divided into two, with the Nationalist Party in Republic of china (Taiwan) and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) on the mainland. Later, Mao declared the founding of the "PRC" to establish a country. However, this area is confusing as many people frequently refer to the controlling party (CPC) as PRC (a country), since the two are entertwined and the CPC governs all aspects of the country (commonly refered to as China, since it covers most of the mainland). So for your suggestion of mergin PRC article with China is not exactly necessary as the Republic of China (Taiwan) is also a "part" of China. The article on China is actually about the Chinese civilization. If the country is not divided today, then there would be only one article China, which is not the case as there are two- People's Republic of China and Republic of China.
  2. Since the Chinese civilization is presently divided into two (PRC and ROC), the demographics of the mainland(PRC) is different from that of Taiwan(ROC). The same hold true for language, as there are ethnic groups (with their own languages) and dialects on the mainland that are not found on Taiwan.
I never meant to offend you when I made those responses. At the time, I thought you are against the PRC article just because of some previous bias towards the country (which does not hold for a sincere "remove" vote). However, I now hope my points are clearer than before. If you have any more questions or suggestions, please feel free to ask. Thank you.--Ryz05 06:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let me say that I am glad that I misunderstood you (which has to be the first time that phrase has appeared on Wikipedia), & that you weren't being hostile. Thanks for considering my objections.
And it does appear that there is a difference of view here between you & me, whether PRC is identical to "China", or is simply one episode in the history of that nation. Although I still believe I am right on this issue, this is a point that shouldn't be used to keep this article from being considered for FA status, so I'm withdrawing it. (Consider those sections struck out.) -- llywrch 21:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So does that mean you are withdrawing your weak removal vote?--Ryz05 01:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
update: I just removed the repeated mentioning of bring the people "out of poverty." Thanks for pointing that out. Feel free to edit and fix any other minor issues that you come across.--Ryz05 06:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest removing the mention in the lead instead and keep the sentence in the economics section; WP:LEAD states that the lead of an article should be a summary of the article. Generally, facts mentioned in the lead should be mentioned somewhere later in the article, so if the fact is important, it should actually be kept twice. Thanks, AndyZ t 20:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your suggestion. Please change it as necessary. Thank you.--Ryz05 20:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
update:I've alreayd edited it accordingly. Thanks again.--Ryz05 21:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
update 2: I fixed the intro a bit by saying "The Communist Party of China (CPC) has led the PRC under a one-party system since the country's establishment in 1949." It's good to keep in mind that the names PRC and China are sometimes used interchangeably, and that China can be considered just another name for the PRC, even to the exclusion of the Republic of China or Taiwan. Hope that's more clear. Thanks for point that out.--Ryz05 06:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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