Talk:John W. Dower

Niteowlneils disputes neutrality of this article
(reproduced from the author's talk page):

To expand on my comment on the cleanup page, it is not very NPOV, often stating opinion as fact. "Finest" is also too ambiguous to be used in an encyclopedic article--something specific like "award-winning" or "best-selling" (if true) would be fact based; something like "most respected" could work if backed up with quotes/sources, etc. Niteowlneils 19:50, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * The problem with "finest" has nothing to do with the world it's just too vague--it's the same as saying the "best", which begs the question 'in what way?' Most concise? Most comprehensive? Most authoratative? Most suitable for a lay audience? (let alone the questions of 'measured how?', and 'according to whom?'). "...abuse of history..." is one of the debatable opinions stated as fact. Niteowlneils 20:38, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Author's response 1:08 Shanghai time 22 Dec 2004
"Finest" is not the same as saying "best", it has the following relevant definitions:

1. Of superior quality, skill, or appearance 2. Very sharp; keen 3. Characterized by refinement or elegance

In this case the most relevant is also the top definition. The sentence in question, meanwhile, has important qualifications that furthermore make it more precise than Niteowlneils contends--it does not simply state that the subject IS the finest, but that he is CONSIDERED by MANY to be the finest CURRENT AMERICAN scholar in his relevant field. If the page comes across someone who disputes this assertion with the relevant facts, so be it, but I made the assertion based on my own knowledge having been far more immersed in the field than a layman such as Niteowlneils.

As for the sentence regarding G.W. Bush, it is plainly refering not to facts regarding Bush's action but rather to facts regarding the SUBJECT'S assertions regarding Bush's actions, complete with relevant external link.

"Best", finally, is given more than twenty definitions on dictionary.com, a much more problematic word selection, if it had been used. So what we have here from Niteowlneils is a simple strawman masquerading as expert critique.

Controversy about visualizing cultures
I proceed to delete the last sentence on the third paragraph regarding nazi propaganda, as well as to rewrite some parts of this paragraph to keep the neutrality of the point of view. Remember this is an enciclopedia, so articles are not places to express your personal opinions. If you disagree with these changes, please explain your reasons in the discussion page. Wamdebach May 2, 2006,23:07 UTC.

I have included an introductory text about "Visualizing cultures" itself and move this section to a subsection inside John Dower's biography. Wamdebach May 4, 2006,23:40 UTC.

As for Wei's statement, I don't see any reason why it should not be in the article. It is presented as his personal opinion, it is relevant (because it refers to the issue discussed here and he is a prominent historian), and it is appropriately referenced. Even if some people disagree or dislike his opinion, it should not be censored. If you disagree with this citation being in the article, give your reasons here. Wamdebach May 6, 2006,16:30 UTC.

=Non Sense= It is clear that you are censoring opinions, removing arguments you dislike and adding insulting words to a group as whole based an irrlevent person's opinion. Please support facts not your personal feeling.


 * Are you referring to me? If so, I won't respond to personal insults. I'm open to discussion about the article's content, though. If you are interested in having a constructive discussion, please discuss the specific parts of the article that should or should not be included, or the parts that should be re-written in a different way, and give your arguments. As for Wei's quotation, as I said before, I don't see how you consider him irrelevant. He is a history professor of Chinese origin (he taught in the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences) and is currently the president of the Chinese historians in the US. He has given an opinion about this controversy based on his interaction with Chinese students and I wrote about his opinion, not about mine. I think that, given that we are writing here about a controversy, we should offer the views from all actors, referencing where we got the information from. On the other hand, we should avoid writing about our own personal opinions. Now, if you read the text I have written, you can check it only contains facts and opinions/reactions of the involved persons or groups. As you can check, all my text is properly referenced, and I have never written about my personal opinions. Wamdebach May 7, 2006,00:25 UTC.

=Rephrasing and NPOV= Some parts of the "response from the Chinese community" are rephrased for clarity.


 * I find most of this rephrasing acceptable. However, I have made two changes:


 * - The sentence "The conflict was discussed after a week of meetings between the authors of "Visualizing Cultures" and members of the Chinese community at MIT." is gramatically incorrect and its meaning is obscure. I have rewritten it in a clearer way (I think).


 * - The second part of "However, some members of the Chinese commnunity are strongly against the opinion of Mr. Wei, who lacks interaction with and understanding of the ideology of overseas Chinese students." is a non-factual subjective judgement. If you present it as an opinion from someone relevant to the issue, then it may be acceptable. But here it seems to be just your personal opinion. Therefore, I have deleted the second part of the sentence. I have placed the remaining first half of the sentence in the middle of the paragraph, because it makes more sense this way (The structure of the paragraph is: Critical reaction from the Chinese community first and support from the Chinese community second). Wamdebach May 11, 2006,19:56 UTC


 * I consider this removal as censorship of materials. I intend to recover it since neither you or Mr. Wei understand "what's going on" and the ideology of Chinese community, then why bother give an opinion with nothing but insult? Or, if you intend to keep it, I believe the corresponding opinion, which is definetly not personal, should stay. Leave the readers to make their own judgement.


 * It seems to to me that you have misunderstood the goals of Wikipedia. I feel you are using this website to voice out your personal opinions or the opinions of a group you belong to, rather than to explain the facts. I may or may not understand that subliminal "what's going on" (I am pretty sure I do, but that's irrelevant), but in any case it's not for me to include my personal opinion in the article. However, you should not do it either. One thing is to include the opinions of relevant actors in the controversy, like Prof. Wei (who, again, is the president of the Chinese historians in the US). Another thing is that you include your personal opinions, without referencing them, and presenting them as facts. This is totally unacceptable and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. Please read the policy page "What Wikipedia is not" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not). Wamdebach May 11, 2006,19:56 UTC.


 * I also disagree with including the sentence "... whereas they describe the Chinese POWs captured during the war as "brutal". It seems to me that you are just picking certain words from Dower's text and putting them in the article outside their context. Please, include a longer fragment of the original text, so that it is clear in which meaning Dower used the words "heroic", "exhilarating beauty", and "brutal". Otherwise, I will proceed to delete this sentence, because I think it's a distortion of Dower's original meaning and therefore it violates the neutrality of the point of view. -- Wamdebach May 11, 2006,1:36 UTC.


 * I guess you have never really read the ORIGINAL caption on the website, which now has been removed and replaced. I believe it is inappropriate for you to edit this part. Or if you intend to make changes, please find a way to read the original captions accompanyiong the controversial pictures first.


 * Well, do you have the "original caption"? If so, please include a reference to it in the article, and then we can discuss. If you have no access to the original caption anymore, then your statements are not verifiable, and they violate Wikipedia's policies. I won't make any further changes in the article at the moment, since this is becoming a war between you and me. I think it's better to let other users decide and edit the content if they think so. However, I find pretty obvious that some of your contributions flagrantly violate basic policies of Wikipedia, namely the neutrality of the point of view (refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view) and the requirement of the material to be verifiable (refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability). Therefore, I will include a flag warning of the dispute on the neutrality of this section. Wamdebach May 12, 2006,19:56 UTC.

=NPOV issues in "Visualizing Cultures" section=

The following statements in the article are not referenced and seem to be personal opinions of the user who wrote them:

- Peter C. Perdue's open letter got strong refutes from the Chinese community. They pointed out it is false to claim that "the uproar" was generated by "distribution of some selected pictures out of context," because the course page of "Visualizing Cultures" was openly available to everyone in the world, and the link to the course was prominently shown on MIT's main page. --> There is no reference of who made this strong refutes. I think that the person who wrote this was expressing his personal feelings. In any case, proper reference is needed.

- Some members of the Chinese community are deeply offended because, in some parts, the authors expressed appreciation by describing the poses of invading Japanese soldiers as "heroic" or by considering certain woodprints as of "exhilarating beauty", whereas they describe the Chinese POWs captured during the war as "brutal". --> The three words "heroic", "exhilarating beauty" and "brutal" are indeed in John Dower's text for Visualizing Cultures, but they were originally written within a context in which they have a totally different meaning from the one that the author of this text tries to convey here. Please refer to the Visualizing Cultures website, http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027j/menu/.

- Many readers pointed out that, even if there were statements condemning the atrocities committed by Japanese armies, as a whole the texts were very unclear on this point. --> Citation is needed. Otherwise, this is again the personal opinion of a Wikipedia user.

- Some members of the Chinese commnunity strongly disagreed with the opinion of Prof. Wei as well, considering his remarks based on "poor understanding of the ideology of overseas Chinese students". --> Again, citation is needed. The quotation does not come from the reference at the end of the paragraph, since this reference was included by me in relation to the final sentences in the paragraph, not to this sentence. I suspect the quotation marks are fake ones, i.e., the author of this text is just "quoting" his own opinion. Wamdebach May 12, 2006,20:20 UTC.

Wamdebach: this popular BBS has a lot of refutes to Professor Perdue's open letter. Surely it's in Chinese and not easy reading to a American reader, but you can find enough 'citation' you requested. http://www.mitbbs.com/mitbbs_bbsdoc.php?board=ChinaNews

As to your opinion "I feel you are using this website to voice out your personal opinions or the opinions of a group you belong to, rather than to explain the facts.", other readers can also charge you are using Professor Perdue's open letter to express your own opinion, because in any case, Professor Perdue's open letter only expresses his own opnion, so I think it's unfair to cite Professor Perdue's open letter while censoring away those against him. I think to be objective, you should either keep both Professor Perdue and his refuters' words, or delete both of them.


 * Very good, if you have a citation, please add it to the article, and rewrite the text to explain whom the opinion comes from: "Users of the China News board in www.mitbbs.com strongly disagreed..." Then, we can discuss whether all these opinions are relevant or not in a Wikipedia article, but to keep the NPOV you have to explain whose opinions you are reporting, instead of presenting them as facts.


 * Since citations have not been included in the article yet, and my issue about the use of the words "heroic", "exhilarating beauty" and "brutal" out of context was not addressed, I'll reintroduce the NPOV flag in the article. Please do not remove it until we reach an agreement. Wamdebach May 15, 2006,23:45 UTC.


 * I suggest the following solution to keep the NPOV: Why don't we remove the third and fourth paragraph? I feel that, if we leave the other three, the facts are already there. Does anyone disagree? Wamdebach May 15, 2006,23:50 UTC.

Wamdebach: Everyone has the freedom to edit an Wikipedia article, please don't dictate anyone what to do or what not to do here. I have removed the NPOV flag because I think it's ridiculous to put it there. If you like you can simply add it back.

Wamdebach: What you have done is balatant censorship. I have added back all paragraphs deleted by you.


 * Do you have any interest of reaching a reasonable agreement? You suggested that "you should either keep both Professor Perdue and his refuters' words, or delete both of them." I think that the second option -deleting both of them- is better than having some non-NPOV paragraphs in an article. Why do you get upset when I do something that *you* suggested? Wamdebach May 16, 2006,00:14 UTC.

Let me explain why I think we should delete those two paragraphs. I can agree that the opinions of Prof. Perdue and Wei are not strictly relevant in an article about John Dower. Therefore, we can delete them. But if we delete the opinions by Perdue and Wei, we don't neet the refutes to their opinions anymore, right? So let's delete these two paragraphs and leave only the facts, so that readers can reach their own conclusions. The article looks much cleaner this way. Wamdebach May 16, 2006,00:33 UTC.

=CNN(AP) report= I don't see any reason that CNN report should be removed, which is a quite neutral one.


 * Ok with me. I'm glad we have finally reached an agreement on the text for this article. Wamdebach May 16, 2006,23:45 UTC.


 * It is not me who was arguing with you in the past week. See, it was not my "personal" opinion at all...I am too just too lazy to argue with anyone. Uvgm

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