Talk:Cao Xiong

Untitled
I'll do my part when I get the time, of course. --Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 10:35, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi. i'm sorry but... what's the problem with the article? --Plastictv 12:14, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The grammar is rather shaky; I'll copy edit it now. A problem not covered by the template is that the article is in fact really a stub, but looks bigger because it has a number of unnecessary sections, some virtually empty.
 * With regard to the dates, could you explain your opposition rather than simply removing them? Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 12:32, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
 * No dates were given in the historical records. Such dates were most probably gotten from one of the many ROTK-related games around. --Plastictv 02:02, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, it's done. I've removed some duplicate links, including two sections which contained nothing else, tidied the English, and reorganised the text a little. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 12:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The sections are there to achieve a uniform look for all the Three Kingdoms-related articles that i'm working on. (See Cao Cao, Cao Ang, Cao Zhi, Cao Zhang etc.) Besides, i believe that if the names box is provided, a Chinese name wouldn't be needed within the main article. Furthermore, the part about Cao Xiong in Romance of the Three Kingdoms was placed at the back because it is fictional (i.e. cannot be regarded as supporting info to history). This article is not a stub because very little was documented about Cao Xiong in the first place. i'll have to undo your changes if you don't mind. --Plastictv 02:02, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Well I do, rather, I'm afraid. Including empty, near-empty, or dupicative sections just to make this article fit with others isn't a good idea; each article should look right on its own merits, read in isolation.  The standard approach to names in biographical articles (see lesewhere in Wikipedia) is to include original versions immediately after the first occurrence; the reader shouldn't have to go looking in separate boxes.  There's no harm in including it in both places. As for the Romance section &mdash; it clearly states that it's a fictional account, so its positioning doesn't matter in  that regard, and it's relevant to the the material in the first paragraph, so it should surely go there.  The article is so short, that making it desultory is particularly noticeable. Mel Etitis  ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 09:15, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Haha, this must be the longest discussion over the most trivial article around.
 * Anyway, most important thing first, i believe it better to place the Romance section at the back as confusions over historical truth and romanticized half-truth are already common as it is. i'm trying to separate the two.
 * Secondly, the convention for many biographies for Chinese people in Wikipedia is to use the names template (sorry i'm too lazy to locate it), which includes simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and pinyin names (and Wade-Giles if applicable). There had been a debate about whether the box is better or putting the info in parentheses in the leading para is better. No clear consensus was arrived at, so the status quo is EITHER box OR parentheses, i believe. --Plastictv 15:06, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

But the comment is in brackets, and starts by saying that the claim is fictional. Isn't that enough to show the reader that it's fictional? If it isn't, then sticking it at the end won't have any effect either. On the other hand, the article reads better if the material on his death (real and fictional) is brought together.

As for the name, I prefer to see it immediately after the Romanised version, but I'll give way on that. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 15:22, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. How about the original "Cao clan" section? Still think it's desultory? i guess provided in full, it gives a more complete view of the Cao family at that time. What do you think? --Plastictv 05:51, 10 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Please don't jump but i've restored the section "The Cao clan" as i strongly feel that it offers a more complete view of the Three Kingdoms issue. i'm also trying to find more information on Cao Xiong so i could expand the main article a little. --Plastictv 04:39, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

The problems are: first, that it simply repeats information in what is a very short article; secondly, it doesn't tell the reader anything about what you call "the Three Kingdoms issue". To be honest, I've always found the list of immediate family rather incongruous; I've not seen it in other articles, and I can't see that it adds much to this one. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 11:13, 13 May 2005 (UTC)


 * i feel that it is less desultory, if that's what you're worried about, to group all the scraps of information below, instead of mixing it in with the main article.
 * And i sort of like consistency in all the articles that i've done and am going to do. But that's just a personal leaning, and i do not insist upon it. Do change it the way you like if you find the current format really irksome. :) --Plastictv 18:04, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Dates
Given what Plastictv says above, reinserting the dates without a response here isn't acceptable. Sticking 'circa' on the front doesn't help. If you found that your date of birth was given as "circa 1947", would you think "Oh well, it says 'circa', so I suppose that that makes it OK"? You need to give the source of the dates. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 13:32, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
 * i'm sorry if this looks like ganging up on a particular Wikipedia user, because it is definitely not. --Plastictv 15:29, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

It is from the Japanese wikipedia, and they have stated with the question marks as they are not confirmed. Circa means approximately, and it is better to give a rough estimate of his dates rather than not putting it up at all.

Tan 09:49, 10 May 2005 (UTC)


 * It'd be good if the estimations were actually based on something, but they were likely not. The death year (AD 220) is easy – it comes from the fictional ROTK; but how they arrived at the birth year is anybody's guess. Such inconcrete info cannot be placed here. Agree? i do appreciate your coutesy of voicing out here, though. Thanks a lot. :) --Plastictv 05:51, 10 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Mr Tan: adding "it was said that" doesn't help. Wh said it?  When did they say it?  Why did they say it? Mel Etitis  ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 10:57, 12 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Mr Tan: i do appreciate your efforts in trying to convey the dates in the most un-misleading way. However i hope to persuade you that the dates are really unimportant. They aren't qualified themselves and don't qualify anything. --Plastictv 15:01, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, since he was the 4th son, his birthday should be estimated by documented birthdays of his brothers. I don't time for this research, but I think it is reasonable.--Skyfiler 02:52, May 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, if you really want to go this far... i did some Sherlock Holmes and here's my calculation:
 * Empress Bian, mother of Cao Xiong, married Cao Cao at 19. Cao Pi, her eldest son, was born in 187. This implies that she was born latest in 167 or 168. Given that women usually give birth up to 35 years without danger (with provision to the healthcare condition at that time, i'd say 30), she probably bore Cao Xiong before 200. So it is not illogical to say Cao Xiong was born in 195.
 * But the question is: So what? If you really think it's so paramount, then by all means put it up, as long as you make clear that it is a rough estimation. --Plastictv 04:19, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, no; this is original research, and so has no place here. If there's a source that can be cited and which gives estimated dates, then fine. Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 10:03, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Copyediting
Hey even though there's a strikethrough on the copyediting banner on the talk page, this page is still listed on Pages Needing Copyedit. I did some copyediting, so now I'm going to remove the banner and clear this article from the copyedit queue. Please contact me if I can be of assistance. Cheers, EvilPhoenix 06:47, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the note on my talk page from Plastictv asking me to review the proper style for bolding of terms, I'm attempting to locate that information now. However, may I politely ask why you felt it neccessary to completely revert my edits? I would have been more than happy to adjust the bolding, if other editors had something specific they preferred, but I also adjusted the wording of some paragraphs. For instance, I changed "failed to show up for his father's funeral" to "failed to attend", because I felt that "show up for" was a bit informal for an encyclopedic article. Best regards, EvilPhoenix 16:41, May 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * I assume that your question was addressed to me. I reverted because, aside from the incorrect bolding, the largest part of your edit was "He died at young age", leaving little useful to be rescued (your other edits included changing the perfectly correct "but" to the rather strange "and", and the equally correct "an historical" to "a historical".  The "attend" "show up at" has something to be said for it, certainly, though I'm not really worried either way.  If you want to replace that, I'd have no objection &mdash; I don't know about anyone else.  Mel Etitis  ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 18:32, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Can i assume that "anyone else" refers to me then? :) i'm ok with rephrasing, but the grammatical errors surely can't be ignored. Once again, i can't assert more how amused i am seeing such a long discussion over such a trivial article. But Mel Etitis, may i give you a gentle reminder to make an explanatory note, however terse, when you make revs? --Plastictv 02:47, 22 May 2005 (UTC)


 * 1) No article is too trivial to be left with grammatical or factual errors; it should be as well-written and accurate as possible. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well; thus, if it's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing.  I find many articles genuinely trivial (the Pokemon characters, the comic-book characters, etc.), but given that they're on Wikipedia, they need to be as good as they can be.
 * 2) I make a note when I revert a change that's been explained. This one just said "copyediting", and there wasn't much to be said in reply.  In such cases I make use of the admin.'s "rollback", which inserts and automatic edit summary. Mel Etitis  ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 10:13, 22 May 2005 (UTC)