Talk:Gegenmiao massacre

Sources as per WP:NONENG
As per the above policy on non-English sources, they are less preferred compared to English sources. Due to the unverifiability for most readers it would be beneficial if somebody could translate pertinent quotes from those sources and quote them appropriately within the article, and optimally find a few more reliable English sources. Rarkenin (talk) 22:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I added one English source that confirms some aspects of the massacre. However, the tone of the article does not seem neutral. Also, some of the sources cited, like the Nobukatsu Fujioka book, are themselves not likely to be neutral sources. This requires the attention of a neutral expert. Michitaro (talk) 02:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Having stumbled onto this article, I concur about the neutrality problems. I am going to fix some of the grammatical errors (where I can; it is unclear what is meant by "Chinese attacked" - plural Chinese people - but civilian or military is not clear). But this really does need to be reviewed. It seems to be heavy on the emotion, but I am guessing that the author is not a native English speaker and it could simply be errors in translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.175.36 (talk) 12:23, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Point of view (WP:NPOVD) and accuracy (WP:AD) concerns
'''Disclaimer: I claim that the tone of the text is not neutral, and that the sources cited to back up claims are dubious due to their revisionist/non-existent reputations. This does not mean that the historical claims made are necessarily false, only that the current sources and writing are not indicative of a well-researched Wikipedia article.'''

Based on the initial edit that populated the non-English sources and content of this page, it does not seem that this article was written with intent to present historical facts from a neutral viewpoint. The source cited with ISBN 4594020402 by Nobukatsu Fujioka was published by Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper agency with demonstrated reactionary/revisionist views (see its political stance and controversies), and the source cited with ISBN 4167483114 by Kazutoshi Hando was published by Japanese publishing firm Bungeishunjū, which ran a Holocaust denial piece in one of its magazines (see its wiki page here). The other cited Japanese sources are of no particular repute (e.g. the Ron-syobo Publishing Japanese Wikipedia page for source #2 merely states that it is a publisher, and Google searches for the others turn up only this Wikipedia page) and so fall under reasonable doubt. It is clear that at least some of the information presented on this page is backed by sources with a history of historical revisionism, thus the accuracy (WP:AD) concern.

In addition, the tone of the page seems off; a sentiment which more than a few editors of this page appear to share, both on this talk page and in the edit comments. The tone of the original page author also seemed excessively emotional and slightly strange, almost as if promulgating propaganda, with sentences such as "The mob also batted down mothers or protecting adults to rob children" and "A female was stripped and cut off her udder by Chinese after her child was killed by Soviet Army" being among the strangest. This slightly unsettling PoV can still be seen in the current revision of the page, although toned down somewhat, so I am concerned that the historical content may not be presented from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOVD).

Some steps that could be taken to fix this page: primarily cite English sources so the English reader can confirm their repute (as mentioned in the other talk section) or moderate/reputable Japanese sources for the main/possibly controversial claims made in the second paragraph of the first section (beginning from "It happened in Gegenmiao..."), rather than reactionary/revisionist Japanese sources; resolving the issues with the sources would fix the accuracy problem and help with neutralizing the POV, as the new sources would presumably be less reactionary/revisionist, so the content and therefore tone of the page would be moderated by result. The issue is with finding reputable English sources detailing what happened during the Gegenmiao incident, as right now the English sources merely confirm that it occurred, which a more experienced Wikipedia user would have to help with. Transienttruth7754 (talk) 04:02, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Chinese military involvement?
The mention of "Chinese soldier" on this page is a rather ambiguous term that can refer to multiple factions. So what is the affiliation of these Chinese soldiers? Are they even Chinese? This page (Soviet invasion of Manchuria) gives a more plausible description of the events:

The mention of "local Chinese population" is also seen in the Japanese Wikipedia version of the Gegenmiao massacre referred as a "Chinese mob" (中国人暴民). In both cases, civilians are involved, but there are no mention of Chinese soldiers like on the English Wikipedia version. Chronologically, the Kuomintang or the Liberation Army's involvement seems highly improbable.

Sources that I was able to access (Mayumi Itoh, Mark Ealy) do not mention any Chinese soldiers at all. I'm a Japanese speaker, so if there is someone who has access to the other sources on this page, I would be glad to take a look at the passages.

If there's no objection, I will modify the page to reflect that there were no Chinese soldiers implicated, but rather Soviet soldiers and locals. -Akemi/暁海 (talk) 22:52, 3 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I just looked at the revision history and found that initially, the person who created this article accurately referred (using their sources) the event as being perpetrated by Soviet soldiers and a Chinese mob (中国人暴民) without any mention of Chinese soldiers (here is the first version of the article). There was then a telephone game effect and "Chinese mob" went to "Chinese" and then someone "improved wording" and changed it to "Chinese soldier". This does not reflect the sources and I believe no one actually checked them afterwards. I think improved sources in English should be added at some point, but for now it is clear that the Japanese sources referred to a Chinese mob and no Chinese soldiers. I will change the article according to the first use of the sources.
 * P.S. Someone should talk about this on the pages in Russian and Ukrainian too, as they seem to mention Chinese troops (китайскими войсками, китайськими військами) based on the same sources. -Akemi/暁海 (talk) 23:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Recent additions
The recent additions that have greatly expanded the article are in large part unverifiable or consist of unreliable sources such as the Bunshun tabloid (which is owned by the Bungeishunjū publishing house, already pointed out as being problematic) articles of Takashi Hayasaka who is not a historian and seems to have a rather peculiar view of history as he claims “The Japanese army had never lost in the battle on Shumshu Island” I also found this utterly nonsensical and ridiculous claim in an article published by Bunshun: “the all-out war between Japan and China was a plot by the Chinese Communist Party”

I am not opposed to expanding this article, but it should be done with actually reliable sources and in a neutral tone and manner. The sources used should also be verifiable so readers can check if the content of the article matches the source and to check WP:SYNTH. The present state of these new additions does not satisfy WP:VERIFY standards and should be rewritten with better sources or removed. Moreover the guiding principle in writing should be verifiability, not truth. A lot of what was written here seems like POV-pushing, overly emotional, as if trying to shock the reader. It also reinstates text that was previously deemed unsuitable and removed such as the line about “selling Japanese boys for 300 yen and girls for 500”. Andro611 (talk) 16:13, 20 January 2024 (UTC)