Talk:Shanghai/Archive 2

Shanghai selected as China collaboration on July 25 2011
Support
 * 1) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) Good first article to get this going again. Should be plenty of sources available.--Danaman5 (talk) 00:41, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) a good re-starting point. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 05:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 4) Works for me. The one I'm looking to get back to GA dosen't have broad appeal or easy access to sources, so I wouldn't even suggest it. I can do a file review for this, as I already do FAC image reviews and know what's needed.   S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:41, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 5) A shame that this article is so poorly referenced. &mdash; Xiaoyu:  聊天 (T)  和  贡献 (C)  14:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 6) I think referencing has improved quite a bit since the last GA review. Zanhe (talk) 04:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Comments
 * Large article with broad appeal. Was unsuccessful nomination for GA status a year ago, which gives some idea of the improvements needed. Main tasks will be double check comprehensiveness, complete inline referencing and copyediting. A good example of an article needing more fine-tuning and polish rather than massive expansion but GA is reasonable target in time frame. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Plan of action

 * Comprehensiveness - I am not hugely familiar with the city and its history etc. Anything significant that is left out? Conversely, is there anything that is overdetailed? The last is important as we have daughter articles - History of Shanghai, Geography of Shanghai, Politics of Shanghai, List of administrative divisions of Shanghai, Public transport in Shanghai and Expressways of Shanghai. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * GA review - make sure we address all points raised there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Media Review

 * Note: I have used Noommos' Media Lister as a work-aid in this task.
 * Note: There are no non-free images in the article.


 * Issues with individual images
 * File:CRH380A test, 28 Sep 2010.JPG - seems mildly suspicious due to odd metadata and the fact that the file is the uploader's only contribution, but there is nothing overtly wrong with the file. The quality is also rather low.
 * File:Colonial buildings in old Shanghai.jpg - I have serious questions about this. The photo was released under a Wikipedia compatible license, but I seriously doubt that the model being photographed is free use. Freedom of panorama does not apply because the model is indoors. (If it's the one I'm thinking about, it's inside the Pearl, but even if it's not, it's clearly indoors and clearly not old enough to have an expired copyright.
 * File:Shanghai10.JPG - really should have an OTRS ticket.
 * File:Shanghai montage.png - could use a do-over in larger sizes and perhaps a bit more variation in color. I'll handle this one personally.


 * Suggestions for images overall

There might actually be too many images. At the very least, some reorganization is needed. Some images will get dropped, some added, some moved. We'll probably lose, net, four or five images, because some sections are just too cluttered.

All of that, however, depends on how the prose changes. If sections are expanded, there is more room for images. If sections are cut and put into other pages, room for images decreases. I'll monitor how the prose goes and adjust images accordingly.


 * Captions

I'll check those later. I haven't done them yet.

 S ven M anguard  Wha?  07:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Good idea to delay too much deciding on images just yet, I think given we have proper historical images of Shanghai, that lessens our need for a model old-Shanghai with possible copyright issues. But agree that focussing on the text is prudent first, and then we can figure out the images. Ditto captions. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Re: CRH380A File:CRH380A test, 28 Sep 2010.JPG is copyright Xinhua, see http://www.gov.cn/english/images/images/001e3741a4260e0c333207.jpg - I doubt that Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, will complain, but technically, the copyright is violated. I had pictures challenged which were supplied to me "free of charge for editorial use." I took them down before going through the required rigmarole of asking the company to sign a written release. I strongly doubt that it is "the own work" of the poster. Just because it's on his blog doesn't give him an exclusive and transferable license. I found the picture on a Chinese Government website. BsBsBs (talk) 14:45, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Lede
I have removed the part on population, city proper and urban agglomeration to where it belongs, to the Demographics section. The amount of demographic verbiage clearly buries the lede.

According to the Wikipedia Manual of Style, "the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article ... In general, specialized terminology and symbols should be avoided in an introduction."

Moving the part should not be construed as me agreeing with the moved content. A paper from 2007 that interprets statistical data from 2005, which is based on a 2000 census is not a proper source for the statement "Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China," especially when more recent data from a new census are available. The editors of this article are aware of these data, they are mentioned in the article. The USC source is simply a summary of Chan and is redundant.

For the remaining claims, I refer to the pertinent discussion in "List of cities proper by population". I cannot help the impression that a lot of porcelain is broken due to the zeal of establishing Shanghai as the greatest city of China. Shanghai doubtless is a great city, it can stand on its own without unnecessary spin.

Nevertheless, in the name of peace and maintaining a harmonious society, I moved the part untouched. Thank you. BsBsBs (talk) 10:02, 7 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I did not complain about a lack of references. One does not confront the unwitting reader with three arcane statistical concepts in the first sentence. That's what Demographics are for - if you absolutely insist. If past discussions are an indicator, this will be way over the heads of most readers even in the Demographics section. Again, Wikipedia Manual of Style, says that "In general, specialized terminology and symbols should be avoided in an introduction." You want people to read that article, don't you?


 * Or would you rather prefer that the intro reads "Shanghai was listed as having had the largest population of all cities in China in 2005, when counting the population of urban areas only (as defined by the National Bureau of Statistics on the basis of density and related criteria), or when comparing city districts. The same study did put Shanghai second when counting the complete population" ? (You know, page 392, columns L and M, then K ...) Then we continue, because we are honest: "In the 2010 census, the National Bureau of Statistics ranks Chongqing first and Shanghai second." Shall we rather do that? BsBsBs (talk) 21:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Stop vandalizing this page. Opening with the sentence "Shanghai is a city" is beyond ridiculous. People don't come to Wikipedia to learn that Shanghai is a city. It's standard to open the lede of large cities with "xxx is the largest in the country". Why don't you go to New York City, London, Paris, Moscow, Mumbai, and so on, change all of them to start with "xxx is a city"? Zanhe (talk) 01:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Please stop being disingenuous.

1.) Quite a while ago, I had offered you the compromise "one of China's largest cities." This would have been beyond reproach and would not have been contradicted by any sources. You elected to refuse this compromise.

2.) Instead, you embarked on a campaign to recalculate the population numbers of major Chinese cities to cover your tracks. Original research  violates Wikipedia rules.

3.) The statement "Shanghai is China's largest City" flies in the face of the results of a brand new census. See above. You have used the data of this census yourself. You have referenced it. You cannot claim ignorance.

4.) My proposed edit for the lede was: "Shanghai (Shanghainese: Zånhae ; Mandarin pinyin: Shànghǎi ) is a city located in eastern China, at the middle portion of the Chinese coast, and sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River." While not optimal, it is a serviceable first sentence of a city article. The proposed edit was not "Shanghai is a city." You are making preposterous and may I say desperate statements.

5.) Moving "Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China. It is also the largest city proper and the seventh largest urban agglomeration in the world" to the Demographics section is far from an act of vandalism. It is an act of mercy. You cannot possibly confront the reader in the first sentence of a city article with three demographic concepts, for which scholars need whole books to explain. The Wikipedia Manual of Style, says that "In general, specialized terminology and symbols should be avoided in an introduction." Please follow these strong suggestions.

6.) If this is vandalism, then you would be a serial vandal. It is not, and you are not.

7.) Because you insist on reverting a merciful edit, we are forced to revisit your claims, as painful as that may be. Your statement "Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China" is not supported by the source given. Far from it. In the cited paper, Chan starts out to explain that "Confusion and contradictions surrounding the size of the population or number of inhabitants of Chinese cities abound in both the popular media and in more serious academic and official publications. In fact, frustrated observers over the last quarter of the 20th century proclaimed the Chinese urban population to be an insoluble “enigma” (Orleans and Burnham, 1982), or at the very least an “immense puzzle” (Forstall, 1989)."

8.) Chan goes on to say: "To briefly illustrate the point by citing examples from generally respected sources, the case of Chongqing deserves to be noted. Citing a population of 13.89 million, a Time magazine reporter in 2005 pronounced Chongqing, “The World’s Largest City” in the title of his article, and by default, the largest in China (Davidson, 2005). The same claim for Chongqing also has been advanced by others, such as the current U.S. Government’s trade website (U.S. Commercial Service, 2007), which confusingly refers to a far greater population of 32 million. Moreover, this assertion runs directly counter to the generally accepted understanding that Shanghai is the country’s largest city. Shanghai’s primacy is taken for granted by such widely used sources as the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia (MSN Encarta, 2007) and the databooks issued by the United Nations Population Division (UNPD, 2004, 2006). To further confound, Agence France-Presse (2007) has just issued a dispatch entitled “Beijing’s population to hit 20 million by 2020,” based on a current population of 17 million—a figure that is obviously far greater than Chongqing’s 13.89 million cited above. Is Beijing therefore also a contender for the apex of China’s city population hierarchy?" The only thing this proves is that there already is a monstrous confusion, to which you add.

9.) If you ask Chan what China's largest City is, you will not get a straight answer: "What is the actual (correct) city population of Chongqing: 13.89 million or 32 million? And is Shanghai, Beijing, or Chongqing China’s largest city? Inquiries intended to shed light onto these questions reveal a highly complex system of urban definitions used in Mainland China—a system that appears to be the world’s most complicated and confusing. The sources are multiple and multi-layered due to the presence of several meanings of “city” and, consequently, several official population statistics derived and used legitimately for different purposes—all presented under the same label of 'city.'"

10.) Following that, Chan writes a more than 400 page discourse on the topic. He presents a multitude of tables (p.p. 390, 392, 393, 397) with some 17 columns (I probably missed a few) from which the esteemed reader can pick and choose. You can use the data to "prove" that Shanghai is the largest, second largest, or whatever largest city in China - your choice.

11.) Finally, on page 394, Chan asks the all-important question again: "Which Is the Most Populous City in China?"

12,) Chan gives an evasive answer: "To revisit the question posed at the beginning of this paper, we need to choose, among all the existing and available statistics examined above, the most relevant one to represent city size. This is quite different from an ideal situation, in which one might have all the necessary tools and information to derive a set of city population counts or estimates tailored exactly to the researcher’s needs, for all the country’s 267 or more large cities. Such a task is too massive in scope to be feasible at present. In other words, we must continue for the time being to rely on published statistics that are available to us, constrained as they are by the country’s administrative geography."

13.) He does what many people do who cannot give an answer. He says it is a silly question: "Consequently, more important and useful than simply answering the question about the “largest city” (and especially from a social science perspective) is to develop a statistical indicator that can be reasonably derived from the existing and available information. Such an indicator should represent, and also facilitate comparison among, the population sizes of all of China’s large cities."

14.) Still having found no answer after nearly 400 pages, Chan decides to do it himself and to create his own data.

15.) After embarking on this new mission impossible, Chan finds himself even more confounded: "This leaves only two indicators, M and N, both based on the city districts (B in Fig. 1). At a general level, the boundary of B corresponds loosely to the “city proper” concept. In the case of China, because many city districts also include NBS-defined rural areas (and increasingly so), it is desirable to exclude those rural areas when representing the city. As a result, N (covering only NBS-defined urban areas) is a more reasonable choice than M (covering both NBS-defined urban and rural areas), although N does not necessarily represent a continuous built-up area. N, and not M, is also a component of the national urban population figure—458.44 million (or 36.22 percent of the national total) in 2000—which is widely accepted as reasonable (Chan and Hu, 2003; Zhou and Ma, 2003), although at the individual city level, especially for large cities, N is still on the high side, an issue to which I return later. At this moment, the N statistic can only be derived for the year 2000, through the data set in SC and NBS (2003). For any temporal analysis, one may have to resort to the M statistic, which is available for 1990 and 1982 as well."

16.) Now even more confused than the intrepid reader who has followed this stream of verbiage up to here, Chan in desperation does what is human and understandable, he picks what feels right and reasonable:: "Table 3 ranks the largest 20 cities in China by N, and also provides additional statistical data (some of the population categories used in Tables 1 and 2). A quick glance at the ranking suggests that it is reasonable, and consistent with the common perception. Shanghai is China’s largest city in population, not Chongqing." After 395 pages of learned analysis, Chan falls back to citing common perception.

17.) And you really, honestly, without falling off your chair laughing, or turning crimson red in your face, want to sell this as proof that "Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China"?  If that is still the case, then please send me your resume. I need a salesman who cannot take a no for an answer, and who continues to sell damaged goods as first quality, even in the face of facts and adversity. I honestly admire your guts, and I will pay a commensurate salary plus a generous bonus.

18.) However, this is an encyclopedia and no sales call. If a noted scholar and researcher cannot unambiguously answer your question, then please do not answer for him.

19.) Chan himself warns: "It is nearly impossible to elaborate fully on the implications of misusing city population statistics in scholarly writings and presentations, given the intrinsic importance of these statistics to social and economic research and the voluminous literature involved." Please follow the advice of your hero, and do not abuse statistics.

20.) Your claim is without reference. Please do the honorable and honest thing and remove it. I reiterate the compromise offered long ago.

Thank you for your attention. BsBsBs (talk) 08:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Just one more thing. I honestly don’t care which city has the most people in China, or in the world. I have been in Shanghai many times and it is a beautiful city. I have never been to Chongqing, I hear it is “interesting.” I live in Beijing, and if the city ends up as the fifth largest, great, maybe that will lessen the traffic congestion.


 * I also have no personal grudge against Zanhe. I don’t know the guy.


 * What I insist on is that the correct information goes into Wikipedia, and not some propaganda. Sometimes, this information will be surprising and it will clash with what we think we know. This is why there is an Encyclopedia. If we would only read what we already know, then we would not need one.


 * Demographics is not an exciting field. It usually is a "my eyes glaze over" topic. I happen to have some training and experience in the field. I am used to the fact that people confuse concepts that are clear to demographers. By the same token, we should only write encyclopedic entries about something which we at least marginally understand.


 * Quite possibly, the solution to this dilemma is to step away from superlatives, and to write up what is really going on: There is a lot of confusion about the true population sizes, a lot of opinions, and a lot of theories. Properly documented, this could be an interesting chapter. Either for Shanghai. Or possibly for all of China.BsBsBs (talk) 16:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Currency symbols
Seeing as this is "collaboration of the month" I would like to get editors' views on this - the article currently uses a mix of "¥", "RMB" and, mostly in infoboxes, "CNY" to indicate currency units. Should this be made uniform, and if so, which is appropriate for the main body of the article? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * My vote goes to ¥. Zanhe (talk) 17:29, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Street photo


It may not be of much use, but this is a picture I took in Shanghai during a brief visit a few years ago, and it's unlike any of the photos currently in the article, so I thought I'd upload it. (I took it mainly for the contrast in architectures.) The problem is, I can't remember the name of the place. It's on the edge of a new-looking outdoors shopping district done in "traditional" style. (Our guide presented it as "traditional", so of course it looked new and touristy.) Would anyone have any idea what this street is? Aridd (talk) 15:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm 80% sure it's Shanghai Old Street, near Yuyuan Garden. Zanhe (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, it does appear to be. The images I see of that street are familiar, in any case. Thanks! I'll just leave the picture here for the time being, in case anyone thinks it can be of any use. Aridd (talk) 20:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes looks like the Shanghai Old Street. The government knocked down the real old houses in this area and replaced them with these, which according to them are more authentic than the actual authentic old houses. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Demographics
The long discourse (see above, Lede) has remained unopposed for a while. Therefore, I did what other editors recommended, namely cite what sources say about which city is the largest. The chapter has become a bit long and unnecessarily convoluted for my taste, but whatever it takes to have peace on earth, in Shanghai and Chongqing. Everything is properly sourced and referenced, both camps get equal time, and the claims in this article no longer clash with official statistics and other claims in the article itself. BsBsBs (talk) 22:04, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Now Mr Shanghai, I mean Zanhe is getting mighty unreasonable. He reverts a carefully written article with a terse "this article is about Shanghai, not demographics of China's municipalities)." At the same time, he re-introduces several demographic principles and buzzwords into the lede, for which demographers need complicated books to explain. He cites those books. He does not see it necessary to participate in the discussion. He writes "this article is about Shanghai, not demographics of China's municipalities" after going into long discourses about the demographics of China's municipalities.


 * Zanhe, why don't you simply admit that you want Shanghai to be the largest and greatest city? I would understand.


 * If you would not have insisted on contrived and misunderstood amateur demographics, this would not have been necessary.


 * This is Wikipedia, not a tourist prospect. If there is something wrong with my edits, then I respectfully ask for a discussion. BsBsBs (talk) 23:53, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Unopposed? That's because people are sick and tired of reading your long-winded, nonsensical "arguments". You seem to enjoy wasting other people's time with your endless "debates" more than anything else (judging by your contribs you probably spend 90% of your time arguing with others or engaging in edit wars). In addition to repeatedly flooding this page with your verbose rambling, you engaged other editors in endless debates about the same topic again, again, again, and again. During the discourses the administrator John K complained: If you don't stop your persistently abusive behavior and wasting other people's time, I'll have no choice but to file a formal complaint on WP:ANI. Zanhe (talk) 00:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * "Note that BsBsBs seems to actually have no idea what he's talking about with regard to Chinese administrative divisions. [...] This article has been held hostage by BsBsBs's ignorant verbal diarrhea for way too long. Beyond the obvious content fork he's now in the process of creating (note: referring to World's largest municipalities by population created by BsBsBs as a fork of the existing article List of cities proper by population and was nominated for deletion), we ought to take a look at city proper, which he has created and filled with confirmation of his POV."
 * and "The fact that he constantly fills this talk page with screen after screen of rambling doesn't help much either - it's virtually impossible to carry on a reasonable discussion because of the absurd quantity of posting he engages in."
 * The user Jeppiz filed a complaint on the Administrators' Noticeboard titled Continued disruptive behavior and personal attacks by BsBsBs.
 * The user Criticalthinker wrote: "You, my friend, are quite literally insane and shouldn't be editing much of anything. You're sitting up here making all kinds of dubious claims and conspiracies for no reason.  I will request that this page be locked so that you can't keep abusing it."


 * I have heard all of this before. Please stay on topic instead of repeating other peoples' uncivilized insults. If you want to file an ANI complaint,please do so. As you have noticed, it would not be the first one. I fail to see how a balanced edit is abusive behavior. "Ignorant verbal diarrhea", "insane", "dubious claim and conspiracies" is abusive. What you are doing is not just POV pushing. It is misrepresentation, plain and simple. You can't say Shanghai is the largest city if official data contradict you. Apparently, you can't live with the offered compromise "one of China's and the world's largest cities." BsBsBs (talk) 00:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This is the sixth thread you've started on this topic in a little more than a month. There has been an RfC and two more debates (here and here) which you started and lost.  But your modus operandi is as soon as you lose one debate, you start a new one (like the current one), abusing the talk pages and wasting other people's time.  And enough is enough.  I'll be traveling for a couple of weeks, and will file the ANI complaint when I come back if you don't stop your abusive behavior. Zanhe (talk) 02:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I wish you a safe and relaxing trip. Sometimes, spending a little time away from the computer makes one see things in a different light. You may want to print out some of these pages and read them on the plane, or when waiting:


 *  No-edit orders: "Some no-edit orders are acceptable. For example, those that instruct others to properly follow Wikipedia guidelines are allowed. But others, which are intended to take control of pages or to threaten or intimidate other users are not."
 * Ownership of articles: "Some contributors feel possessive about material they have contributed to Wikipedia. A few editors will even defend such material against all others. ... But if this watchfulness starts to become possessiveness, then you may be overdoing it.  Believing that an article has an owner of this sort is a common mistake people make on Wikipedia."
 * WikiBullying: "WikiBullying is the act of using the Wikipedia system and the power of editing to threaten or intimidate other editors. Doing so violates the civility principles of Wikipedia and is not tolerated." Asserting ownership and issuing no-edit orders are expressly named as acts of WikiBullying.
 * Civility: "Incivility consists of personal attacks, rudeness, disrespectful comments, and aggressive behaviors that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict ... A studied pattern of incivility is disruptive and unacceptable, and may result in blocks if it rises to the level of harassment or egregious personal attacks. A single act of incivility can also cross the line if it is severe enough: for instance, extreme verbal abuse or profanity directed at another contributor, or a threat against another person can all result in blocks without consideration of a pattern."
 * Harassment: "Harassment is defined as a pattern of repeated offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person or persons. Usually (but not always) the purpose is to make the target feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely."
 * Wikihounding: "Wikihounding is the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. ... Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia. Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause..."
 * Neutral point of view: "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. This policy is non-negotiable and all editors and articles must follow it."

Finally, Wikipedia is not about winning or losing an argument. It is about detailed, factual, well-informed, and well-referenced information, presented from a Neutral point of view.BsBsBs (talk) 11:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * BsBsBs, my entirely good faith advice to you is to leave this issue for a little while, take a break from Wikipedia, and come back in a month or two and see how you feel then. The consensus is against you on this article, and although Zanhe is the one who is keeping the closest watch on this article, you will have seen that no editor actually supported you when you put your issues to a discussion above - other editors were either apathetic or against you. So for your own mental and physical health, I suggest that you drop this for a little while and take a break. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Please cite carefully.

 * "Migrants" can be understood as a slur in some cultures. I added correct quotes. If Global Times says so, their problem. This demographic is the "temporary" (non-hukou) population. They can be anything from a foreign CEO to a migrant worker.
 * The growth of this group was not 37.53 percent. The population grew 37.53 percent. It was confusingly written. This group amounts to39 percent of the total 23 million. Their growth was 159.08 percenton top of some 3.5 million = 8.97 million total. We need to be able to rely on these data, especially when quoted from a Chinese source, which is not understood by everybody. It also illustrates the dangers of original research.
 * "New migrants accounted for the entire increase as the natural population growth rate in Shanghai has been negative since 1993 due to low fertility rate" is a non-allowed synthesis. It may be the case, but it is not in the quoted UNESCAP source. The source uses data from the 2,000 census. It can hardly tell what migrants did 10 years later. I included what the source says.

Please be careful when citing sources, and do not jump to conclusions that are not in the source. I did not check the rest. "The actual number of foreign citizens living in Shanghai is likely much higher" is speculation, and does not belong into WP. I left it for the time being.

Finally, if we deal with demographic arcana such as fertility levels, percentages of the non-hukou population, or the real and estimated size of the Korean expat population, then a small chapter on the opposing views of the total population size of the city of Shanghai should be pertinent. It definitely was pertinent during the discussion above. BsBsBs (talk) 22:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * "Migrants" can be understood as a slur in some cultures. - it is also an entierly legitimate and official term to refer to, well, migrants. I understand from your previous posts that you are from a US cultural background. Please do not play the racial politics of your own country and superimpose it on articles about entirely unrelated topics which do not fit your cultural paradigm. Shanghai is not wherever you come from and it does not have the same racial politics issues that you do. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You misunderstand, you are misinformed, and you are jumping to conclusions. I am not from a US cultural background. I have lived around the world in many cultures and learned to respect their sensitivities. My comment was carefully worded as ""Migrants" can be understood as a slur in some cultures." We need to be aware that en.wikipedia.org is read around the world. I had to dig up a reference (Global Times) that actually supported the "migrant" statement. As a quote, it is o.k. The official data, originally given as a reference, speak of "residents from other provinces or cities." As carefully explained above, the 8,977,000 people are not all migrant workers, as we understand the term. Many are, many are not. If a Beijing-born CEO of a Chinese bank gets a new job in Shanghai, then he is counted as a "temporary resident," even if he goes on and lives there for the rest of his life. His family book, or hukou, is that of Beijing. In Wikipedia, he now turned into a migrant. These are arcana from the past. China is slowly moving away from the concept. The current census sensibly gives the true count of the population, regardless of what slot they are fitted in. The reference that supported the "migrant" statement was subsequently removed. And now I am supposed to listen to "Please do not play the racial politics of your own country?" Wrong country. Furthermore, "migrants" and "race" are unrelated terms. BsBsBs (talk) 10:26, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

More cleanup
Did some additional cleanup of the demographic data.


 * Source for Shanghai statistics is now Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau. The data appear identical, but one can't be careful enough.
 * Provided more detail to general population count.
 * Replaced age groups with current 2010 data. All data now as per 2010, if available. Note that the previous dataset was that of the registered (a.k.a. "permanent" or "hukou") population, which can be a source of confusion and distortion. Current data reflects total "resident" population. According to the new data, the aging problem is isolated to the registered population, and is more than offset by younger people moving into the city - which is beyond the scope of the article.
 * The life expectancy etc dataset still reflects the registered subset only, this should be changed when better data are available.
 * Removed the part that "the actual number of foreign citizens living in Shanghai is likely much higher." We are not here to guess. We should keep this part based on official statistics. The part with 70,000 Koreans in Shanghai fails the plausibility test. The 2010 China Population Census has 120,750 Koreans living in all of China. Let's not speculate. BsBsBs (talk) 05:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have reverted the article to the last version by Zanhe. BsBsBs, your behaviour is now at the point where I think editors will agree that you will need to seek consensus here for every change that you make. I hope you realise by now that your views on the demographics sections of this article are not shared by most editors here. Please open a discussion and seek a consensus before making any demographics-related edits.
 * Furthermore, when making future edits, please do not edit from your own last version. You did this the last time around and so removed a number of edits which had been made to completely unrelated parts of the article, such as picture captions. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:09, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Response


 * PalaceGuard008 is in no position to issue any ultimata. As outlined above  no-edit orders usually are frowned upon at WP. "Some no-edit orders are acceptable. For example, those that instruct others to properly follow Wikipedia guidelines are allowed. But others, which are intended to take control of pages or to threaten or intimidate other users are not."
 * The concept that I should seek consensus before I make an edit is simply preposterous. Please give the Wikipedia consensus standard a careful read: If an "editor might claim, whether openly or implicitly, the right to review any changes before they can be added to the article" then this is seen as asserting ownership of the article. "No one, no matter how skilled, and regardless of their standing in the community, has the right to act as if they are the owner of a particular article."
 *  Consensus states that "when reverting an edit you disagree with, it helps to state the actual disagreement rather than citing "no consensus" or "not discussed". This provides greater transparency for all concerned, and likewise acts as a guide so that consensus can be determined through continued editing." In that vein, please address the issues instead of hitting the revert button.
 * Giving "please obtain consensus on talk page before making changes again" as the reason for a revert flies in the face of the principles stated above.
 * I do not quite follow the second paragraph. It don't know what "the last time around" refers to. Assuming it refers to the edits made on August 16, I carefully went over the diffs and failed to find any removals of picture captions etc. If you refer to the CRH380A test picture, this was no edit. It apparently was the result of the removal of the picture from Commons due to copyright issues.

While on the topic of removals, the revert destroyed some carefully researched citations which had been added to citation-less passages. Other necessary improvements were likewise removed. '''The heart of the matter seems to be that some editors absolutely insist on giving Shanghai the title "China's largest city," while some (albeit a minority) think otherwise. As official census numbers and long discussions perfectly illustrate, the statement "Shanghai is China's largest city" is ludicrous as far as the official census is concerned. At the very least, it must be conceded that the assertion is debatable. It has been debated for decades.'''

My position is that it does not matter which city is largest. What matters is that Wikipedia reflects true and verifiable data.

The debate on this very talk page is getting short on facts and arguments, and long on personal beliefs and simple rude behavior. I will try to be short.

One claim that has been repeatedly made is that "Shanghai is China's largest city" reflects general practice. It has been said that this was "general practice since the Shanghai article was first created 10 years ago," and that "it has been undisputed until one editor (BsBsBs) recently decided to challenge it."

This is patently false, as it will become immediately evident:

Up until 12 August 2010, the intro had read:


 * Shanghai (Shanghainese: Zånhae ; ) is a metropolis in eastern China, and a direct-controlled municipality of the People's Republic of China. Located at the middle part of the coast of mainland China, it sits at the mouth of the Yangtze.

The intro was ranking-free. The discussion about population and which city may be larger was where it belongs, in the Demographics section.

The Demographics section did state, in pertinent part:


 * "The population of Shanghai is 19,213,200. Based on total administrative area population, Shanghai is the third largest of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the People's Republic of China, after Chongqing and Beijing. In the PRC, a direct-controlled municipality (直辖市 in pinyin: zhíxiáshì) is a city with equal status to a province."

The numbers, and the attached ranking, reflected semi-official municipality-level data available at the time. The solution had been reached via a true consensus, achieved through an intelligent, albeit occasionally spirited debate.

The matter did rest in peace until ,on 12 August 2010, the status quo was changed to:


 * Shanghai (Shanghainese: Zånhae ; ) is the most populous city in the People's Republic of China, which is the 10th most populous metropolitan areas in the world. An emerging global city, Shanghai exerts influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education and entertainment.

The change was made by a knowledgeable IP, which may have not been familiar with Wikipedia rules, for instance that claims have to be referenced. The article was off my watchlist at the time, and I did not notice the error.

On 3 May 2011, the Demographics section was updated, reflecting new census data. The section stated that "based on population of total administrative area, Shanghai is the second largest of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the People's Republic of China, behind Chongqing which governs a much bigger area."

On 25 June 2011, I pointed out that the intro and the Demographics section were not in congruence, and that it might be better to state "one of the most populous cities in China." This was rudely reverted without references. Later, after repeated request for citations, papers that had been written to show the confusion about Chinese population data were used to buttress the claim that Shanghai is China's most populous city.

The remaining back and forth can be derived from the discussion transcripts above. All I can say is that several attempts to come to a compromise that does not clash with official data (some cited in the very same article) had been denied in dogged edit warfare. In lieu of arguments, the discussion degenerated to name-calling, questioning of mental sanity, suggestions to simply go away, and other assorted uncivil outbursts.

Population numbers are not derived by consensus. They are derived by counting. However, there had been some very sensible comments that did let everybody "win":


 * Rjanag said on 6 July 2011: "Why argue over whether it's the largest or not, when you could simply state things more clearly in the article. Something along the lines of "The Shanghai metropolitan area is the most populous in the PRC, although Chongqing is the largest city when the entire administrative area is counted"... There's no need to waste time boasting in the lede when you can just make things clearer and avoid the whole discussion."


 * Ohms law said on 8 July 2011: "There's absolutely no need to force a binary solution here (saying that only one article can claim some title). Follow the sources and explain the situation in the articles content. Editors making a choice in matters such as this, justified or not, constitutes Original research."


 * I said on August 8: "Quite possibly, the solution to this dilemma is to step away from superlatives, and to write up what is really going on: There is a lot of confusion about the true population sizes, a lot of opinions, and a lot of theories. Properly documented, this could be an interesting chapter."

This proposal remained unopposed. Ever since ancient Rome, the rule has been qui tacet consentire videtur, usually translated as "silence implies consent." Sometimes it is accompanied by ubi loqui debuit ac potuit, even more loosely translated, "if you don't like it, speak up." I waited for a week for any opposing voices. None forthcoming, the proposed edit was implemented on August 16. After a little edit warring, even the most outspoken proponent of "Shanghai is China's most populous city" no longer opposed the edit. A WP supplement to consensus says that "silence is the weakest form of consensus." But better weak consensus than none at all.

In closing, the assertion that "Shanghai is the largest city by population in the People's Republic of China" cannot stand while unqualified, and especially when supported by a source that itself states that "Confusion and contradictions surrounding the size of the population or number of inhabitants of Chinese cities abound in both the popular media and in more serious academic and official publications." This source uses old data and offers a virtual supermarket of tables from which one can choose what looks best.

The matter requires a more detailed approach that looks at both sides of the story. This detailed approach was given in the edits. According to my belief, it faithfully shows both sides of the coin.

These edits were reverted without specifics, along with strong edit orders and musings about my mental health.

I have done my research and laid out my points to the best of my abilities. '''I have restored the original carefully researched edits, while preserving subsequent unrelated edits. Please respond within the boundaries of common courtesy and refrain from rude reverts without addressing the issues raised above, or, at the very least pointing out specific''' errors in the edits.

Thank you. BsBsBs (talk) 00:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Skating Park
Does anyone want to put a bit on the Shanghai page about the new Skating Park that China is building?I heard about it on NPR, they are adding a massive skating park with ramps and stuff.. Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.1.172 (talk) 20:49, 25 January 2006‎ (UTC)

Sister City
In the Guayaquil page it says that Shanghai is one of its sister cities, but I coudln't find anything about it in this page. Maybe it should be added? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.69.164.169 (talk) 03:57, 24 November 2006‎ (UTC)

For The Wordless Reverters
The sensible compromise suggested above and implemented later still finds itself under occasional revert attack. I have nothing at all against improvements. But I am dead set against senseless revert-warring. I can't help the impression that there are people who absolutely want "Shanghai is China's largest city" in the first sentence - even if it contradicts all facts, and even if the statement has been debated for decades. I hope I am guessing wrong, but it feels like a search engine optimization exercise. As for the other points, I have made them above, and I will not repeat them. Please read before reverting.

I have checked three on-line encyclopedias, available free of charge, and here is the take:


 * Encyclopædia Britannica: "Shanghai, also spelled Shang-hai, city and province-level shi (municipality), east-central China. It is one of the world’s largest seaports and a major industrial and commercial centre of China. The city is located on the coast of the East China Sea between the mouth of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) to the north and the bay of Hangzhou to the south. The municipality’s area includes the city itself, surrounding suburbs, and an agricultural hinterland; it is China’s most populous urban area."


 * Columbia Encyclopedia (via Yahoo):) "Shanghai (shang´hi´, shäng´hi´), city (1994 est. pop. 12,980,000), in, but independent of, Jiangsu prov., E China, on the Huangpu (Whangpoo) River where it flows into the Chang (Yangtze) estuary. It is an independent unit (2,400 sq mi/6,218 sq km) administered directly by the central government. One of the world's great seaports, Shanghai is China's largest city."


 * Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names (via encyclopedia.com): "Shanghai, China Shanghaizhen A municipality established in 1267, situated at the mouth of the Huangpu River in the Yangtze delta, the name means ‘By the Sea’ from shàng ‘by’ or ‘on’ and hai. The zhèn in the former name meant ‘garrison post’, although now it is usually ‘town’. Opened up to foreign trade following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, it soon attracted adventurers and criminals."

Analysis:


 * Out of three free on-line encyclopedias, only one says "Shanghai is China's largest city." It is also the one that has a population count that is hopelessly outdated and that states that Shanghai is "administered directly by the central government" - a questionable statement.
 * The most credible source, Britannica, carefully avoids the statement "Shanghai is China's largest city." It explains correctly what is going on and says that Shanghai is "China’s most populous urban area" - a statement that undoubtedly is true, and that had been worked into the article.
 * Looking at the three encyclopedias, it becomes imminently clear that not everybody is convinced that "Shanghai is China's largest city," and that the statement needs closer analysis and reflection. This has been done in the current article - which some wish it would go away.

If random references, quoted out of context, are allowed, then someone might get the ill-advised idea that it is o.k. to say that Shanghai "attracted adventurers and criminals." After all, this had been stated in a reliable source.BsBsBs (talk) 22:25, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * BsBsBs, this is not the place to post your essay about the largest city in China. Please obtain consensus before you make any further edits. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * As noted above and documented, no-edit orders are frowned-upon at WP and are in violation of WP policies. I am sorry that the facts and sources presented here clash with pre-conceived notions. However, I decide what to write here. BsBsBs (talk) 07:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I second PalaceGuard008's demand. No-edit orders are frowned-upon at WP only when they're issued to good-faith editors, but BsBsBs's behavior on this page matches perfectly those described in Disruptive editing. Zanhe (talk) 22:46, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Different population numbers
BsBsBs, based on your past history, I can only interpret your latest edit here as a deliberate attempt to confuse readers and degrade the quality of this article. You know well that the numbers are different because they're based on different data and inclusion criteria (KW Chan paper is based on 2000 and 2005 data, Geohive uses 2010 census data but only counts core districts, as explained in the footnote in the source). If you want to explain the difference, put them in a footnote, not in the lede. Zanhe (talk) 17:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If the true numbers in the sentence confuse the reader, then this leads to the suggestion that the sentence without the true numbers is written with the intent to deliberately mislead the reader. If facts degrade the quality of the article, then the quality can't be high in the first place. Please edit responsibly and use current data. BsBsBs (talk) 17:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Now back to the first paragraph. As we are discussing confusion of readers, won't you agree that packing three different and conflicting data from different times with three different inclusion criteria side-by-side could be mightily confusing, if not a bit dishonest? At the very least, it is horrible writing. BsBsBs (talk) 19:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedia or tourist brochure?
Gentlemen, we are supposed to edit an encyclopedia here, not write ad copy for the Shanghai tourist development board. Even as ad copy, “Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world” would be cited as false advertising. You can’t possibly (without turning crimson and growing a long nose) use a source that says that Shanghai has a population of 13.46 million as proof that “Shanghai is the largest city by population in China,” and you can't, with a straight face, say in the same sentence that Shanghai is the largest city proper in the world while pointing to a source that says it has 17.8 million. And you can’t, without bursting out laughing, follow that by the statement that Shanghai has a population of “over 23 million.” Editors are expected to be truthful and honest. At the very least, they should not insult the intelligence of the reader. If someone lies to me, then I expect a certain degree of finesse. As an interim measure, I have added the numbers behind the bold claims.

FYI, Geohive is, by its own admission, not a reliable source. The sole editor, Johan van der Heyden, states that  “This site is my hobby.” He is doing a good job as a hobbyist, but hobby remains hobby. Hobby sites do not qualify as reliable sources. WP:SPS states that "Self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs, Internet forum postings, and tweets, are largely not acceptable as sources." As for Chan, in the preface to the document that is (ab)used to prove the point that Shanghai is the largest city by population in China, Chan writes: “Confusion and contradictions surrounding the size of the population or number of inhabitants of Chinese cities abound in both the popular media and in more serious academic and official publications.” This has never been more evident than in the intro to this article.BsBsBs (talk) 17:26, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I advise you to stop your disinformation campaign. Geohive is a reliable site used by more than 500 Wikipedia pages.  It may have started as someone's hobby, but so has Wikipedia.  We can change the source to infoplease, the publisher of Time Almanac, definitely not a hobby site, but if you read the footnote, they get their data from Geohive!
 * As for your out-of-context quote from Chan, the confusion and contradictions are the exact reason why he wrote the research paper that unequivocally concludes that Shanghai is China's largest city. Anyone who's read it will reach that same conclusion.  You claim to know the paper very well, so the only explanation is that you're deliberately distorting the truth to advance your personal POV.  Zanhe (talk) 18:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If a site calls itself a hobbyist site, then it is a hobbyist site. If WP does not allow hobbyist sites as sources, then Geohive is not an allowed source. Plain and simple. A typical hobbyist mistake is to confuse the meaning of City proper, as is the case here. City proper is defined by numerous encyclopedias and the United Nations as "locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government." Hence, the population of the city proper of Shanghai is 23 million. It looks like Mr. van der Heyden simply cribbed his wrong city proper data from List of cities proper by population which sometimes does not use the data for the proper city proper, and sometimes resorts to questionable original research. It's called circular sourcing in the trade.


 * WP:NOTRELIABLE expressly disallows sources "which lack meaningful editorial oversight." If Mr. van der Heyden himself states that "these pages are maintained solely by me, Johan van der Heyden", then there is no editorial oversight. If you think this is "a disinformation campaign," then I can't help you.


 * As for Chan, I am glad that you oppose out of context quoting. I suggest that we both stop quoting Mr. Chan out of context. Most of his gripes have been addressed in the 2010 census anyway. The non-agricultural or agricultural residents are gone,the contiguous built-up areas and resident's committees are no longer mentioned, hukou or non hukou don't count anymore, the true de-facto population is listed. Progress! Using current numbers really helps. If we would all agree to use the current census number, Shanghai would be pacified. BsBsBs (talk) 18:41, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Again you're quoting out of context in order to advance your POV. WP:NOTRELIABLE makes an explicit exception from the self-publishing rule: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." As noted above, the same Geohive page quoted here is also published by Time Almanac, a publication by Time Magazine with 50+ years of history.  Geohive is also quoted by 539 Wikipedia articles.  If you believe it's unreliable, why don't you try and remove it from all 539 pages?


 * This article is quoting the conclusion from the Chan paper, while you're quoting things that Chan listed in order to refute. Equating the two is nothing short of deceitful.
 * The census numbers do not address the key point raised in the Chan paper, that they count the total population in the administrative region which include huge numbers of rural population that should be excluded when ranking city population. Don't pretend you're not aware of that.  Zanhe (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * 539 wrongs (I trust you on that) don't make it right. WP is full of mistakes. That's one of the reasons why WP is not allowed as a source. If WP does not accept hobbyist sites that lack editorial oversight, then that should give you reason to stop and think. Tip: Use Geohive as a handy pointer towards data, but always go to the source. You are using Geohive and you suppress official statistical data, because Geohive fits the point you are so desperately trying to make. The fact that Geohive is cited by Time should give you reason to edit even more responsibly. Please address the problem that the amateur Geohive calls something "city proper" data which clearly is not. Also, please address the atrociousness of your lede. In the first two sentences, you are assaulting the reader with three demographic concepts, some of them highly arcane, and with data taken decades apart. Once the data behind the claims are revealed, the ridiculousness of these sentences becomes so evident that you quickly remove the data. Stick to the facts and the official 23 million. BsBsBs (talk) 02:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * 539 wrongs, just because you say so? According to you, Professor Chan at University of Washington is wrong, Geohive is wrong, Time Almanac is wrong, and editors of 539 Wikipedia pages are all wrong, just because they disagree with your POV?  You know, there's a section in WP:Tendentious editing called One who disputes the reliability of apparently good sources that perfectly describes people like you.  Give it a good read!  Zanhe (talk) 22:36, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * First, kindly avoid using bullets when you're not making a list.


 * Second, User:BsBsBs may not have been very kindly w/r/t assuming your good faith, but you haven't addressed his substantive point. Wikipedia editors can certainly be lazy; that doesn't invalidate his point about the author's statement or WP policy. Further, if the information is good and not simply pulled out of thin air as you state, surely someone else has mentioned it. So go get it.


 * In the meantime, unless he has his own reliable cites backing a different set of numbers, it would be against policy for BsBsBs to blank presumably valid information. — LlywelynII  13:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

American English
Per WP:RETAIN, the American English usage established by edit 324597 on 29 September 2002 governs. The UK template at the top of this page was both incorrect and inappropriate. Will correct article shortly. — LlywelynII  12:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * As an aside, both Britons and Americans had historic ties to the city (the verb "to Shanghai" coming from the American west coast) and Americans currently outnumber Britons in China at least 7:1. — LlywelynII  12:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Theories and facts
As for our friend Chan, lets not make the serious mistake amateurs are prone to make: Confuse theories for facts. There are many learned papers that say how things should be. But things are what they are. Chan, like so many others, argue that Chinese cities should have narrower boundaries. A valid point. The trouble is, those Chinese cities refuse to listen and won’t change their boundaries. As editors, we are reporters, and we are supposed to report things the way they are, not the way they should be. The population of Shanghai is 23 million, not 13.46 and not 17.8

When Chan came to the conclusion that Shanghai is the largest city of China, and not Chongqin, he did so by laboriously calculating his own numbers. For details, see above. As a scientist, he can calculate as much as he wants, however, he will not change census numbers and administrative boundaries. This is the problem with theories and facts.

If Chan would write his paper today, it would be much shorter, because all the agricultural, urban, hukou and non hukou stats are gone. What remains is the fact that many still object that the boundaries of Chinese cities are drawn too wide. This discussion will go on forever, and as honest reporters, it is not our job to massage or falsify data so that they fit a theory.

Saying that "Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a population of over 23 million as of 2010" is absolutely beyond the pale. The average reader is led to believe that these three records are all related to the 23 million - which they are not. These statements must be put in the proper time and context, and the lede definitely is not the place for this.

An honest, responsible and professional reporter and editor may write that ”Chongqing has a population of 28.8 million. However, you will be disappointed when you get there expecting a bustling metropolis like Toyko and Yokohama. The boundaries of Chongqing are drawn quite wide, and much of that city will look quite bucolic to you.” An honest, responsible and professional reporter and editor however may not write “Chongqing has a population of 4.5 million.” Honest, responsible and professional reporters being a dying breed, more and more will fall for the 4.5 million nonsense and repeat it.

As Wikipedia editors, we need to be extra careful and professional, because Wikipedia is more and more taken as gospel and not as the works of rank amateurs.

And now we come to the true heart of the matter: This edit war already has, as collateral damage, afflicted List of cities proper by population, and from there Geohive, Infoplease and who knows what else. It was started by some editors, notably Zanhe, who insist that Shanghai is the most populous city in China, gee, maybe in the world – the census be damned.


 * It was Zanhe who recalculated the alleged official "city proper" number of Shanghai, claiming that it is Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Statistics, 2010 National Census Data - wile using a number that is nowhere to be found in the reference.
 * It was an emboldened Zanhe who then embarked on his own recalculation campaign until he was stopped for gross Original Research.
 * After Geohive had picked up the identical false numbers, it was Zanhe who then changed the references to Geohive, with the boldfaced claim that this is to "avoid WP:OR."
 * It was Zanhe who lied and said that “Wikipedia has always followed this general practice since the Shanghai article was first created 10 years ago. It has been undisputed until one editor (BsBsBs) recently decided to challenge it.” See above for the true facts.

It's the same Zanhe - offense is the best defense - who is quick to claim "POV pushing" and "disinformation."
 * Response to false accusations by BsBsBs: Just as I thought you couldn't sink any lower, you come up with these bold-faced lies, maliciously scrambling up the sequence of events to support your false accusations. I've learned by now that reasoning with  you is futile, but I need to set the record straight:
 * On 18 July 2001, the very first version of this article was created, with a single sentence that says "Shanghai is China's largest city".
 * On 30 April 2010, just before you started your first edits here, the article started with the sentence "Shanghai is the largest city in China and the largest city proper in the world".
 * On 1 May 2010, you made a series of edits including this one, changing the intro to read "Shanghai is the third largest of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the PRC", and started an edit war with another editor.
 * On 10 June 2011, Geohive already ranked Shanghai as the largest city in the world with a population of 17,836,133. This is the page saved by archive.org on 10 June 2011.
 * On 22 June 2011, I made my first ever edit on List of cities proper by population, updating Shanghai's city proper population to 17,836,133. Your allegation that Geohive somehow picked up that number from my edit is obviously false.
 * On 25 June 2011, you made this edit that changed the intro from "Shanghai is the most populous city of the PRC" to "Shanghai is one of the most populous cities of the PRC", starting another edit war which led to the RfC.
 * On 7 July 2011, during the RfC I made the comment that said "Wikipedia has always followed this general practice since the Shanghai article was first created 10 years ago. It has been undisputed until one editor (BsBsBs) recently decided to challenge it", which you now call a lie. Readers can decide for themselves who's the liar.
 * As for your allegation of my "recalculation campaign", it appears that you need to be reminded that I've already refuted it in this discussion and this one. But I'm not surprised that you're bringing it up here again, repeating the same argument over and over again is a key characteristic of tendentious editors.
 * Zanhe (talk) 00:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The patent nonsense that Shanghai has a population of 17,836,133 is already racing through the webs. I am sure that Zanhe's namesake city is not enthused about the unintended consequences of elevating the city to the top of the world by getting rid of 5 million people. It is actions like these that give Wikipedia a bad name, and that cause irreparable harm far beyond the boundaries of Wikipedia.Once these numbers are on the loose, they are unstoppable.


 * (Speaking of Infoplease: Why go to the trouble with Chan if we can simply cite Infoplease? It says: "Shanghai is China's largest city." However, if we do that we also have to live with "1994 est. pop. 12,980,000." So much for reliable sources that edit the Time Almanac.)


 * I have no stock in Chongqing and, as stated before, I don’t care whether it is the largest city. I care about facts. I had repeatedly offered the compromise that “Shanghai is one of the largest cities” of China, even the world. True statement. Verifiable. Or as an alternative, we can drop the largest altogether. But as long as pages and books are filled with arguments about what is right and what is wrong, what is and what should be, a responsible editor cannot make the unqualified statement that Shanghai is the largest city in China. Qualifying this statement would fill the aforementioned pages and books, so we best leave it alone.BsBsBs (talk) 06:57, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I am glad that Zanhe admits that he was wrong and that I did not recently challenge this article, as he originally claimed. He could have saved himself the research, must of it had already been | documented above. If I was wrong with Geohive, then I apologize. It definitely looked like Geohive had picked up the data from Wikipedia, the districts chosen and alleged "city proper" totals cannot be found in an official source. Zanhe studiously avoids the main point, namely that "Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a population of over 23 million as of 2010" is nonsense, dishonest, unprofessional and either inadvertently or deliberately confuses the reader. I challenge Zanhe to come up with a current, official (i.e. 2010 census based, and not from a hobbyist site, or from a site that mirrors erroneous data) source that supports the claim that Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. I'd even be happy if an official source by a Chinese statistical agency could be foud that says that as of 2010, the population of the City of Shanghai (proper or not) was 17.8 million. For the umpteenth time, I must express my wonderment that one editor cannot live with a compromise and insists on edit warring  that now stretches to multiple articles. BsBsBs (talk) 15:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I would have accepted your apology had it not been accompanied with more lies. Frankly I've never seen an apology as insincere as yours.  So you say I was wrong about your "recently" challenging this article because you started attacking it in May 2010 instead of June 2011?  Geez, can you get any more shameless?  Zanhe (talk) 18:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Where is the official source? BsBsBs (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've already addressed your repeated questions about reliable sources in this discussion and this one. Again you're exhibiting tendentious behavior.  Zanhe (talk) 20:25, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess that means that you can't find it in an official source. Reliable sources says that "deciding which sources are appropriate depends on context." It stands to reason that the results of the most recent full census are most appropriate in the context of population. It is not plausible that Geohive is used when official census data are readily available. Geohive is a self-admitted amateur site. What's more, you cite from a list in Geohive, which is - if we accept it - a summarizing source. Reliable sources says: "Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, obituaries, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion." The most appropriate secondary source in this case is the published official results of the 2010 census.  Reliable sources says that "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." The official census is the work of millions of people, has been carefully scrutinized, and is highly reliable. It definitely trumps a list compiled by a self-admitted amateur, who made a mistake. Calling it "tendentious behavior" when someone insists on correct official data in place of dubious material takes a lot of gall. BsBsBs (talk) 22:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Just to interrupt for a minute here: a, am I wrong in thinking neither of you want a bad article? Then kindly glance over at WP:NICE and think about whether it really gets us any farther to bicker this way.

b, Zanhe: first, great name. Second, as above, if your number is valid, surely someone else must have mentioned it. User:BsBsBs is completely correct that Geohive at least is not an appropriate source. So find one. Third, if the 30m number is a valid concept for Chongqing's city proper – the area directly under the urban municipal government – then the claim leading this article is factually incorrect and should be removed. The fact that Chongqing doesn't deserve to call itself "urban" any more than Jiuquan deserves to call itself a "city" is really irrelevant until you can find a reliable source to make your argument for you. It's just a casualty of Commieland statistics.


 * Thanks. There is an in-depth analysis of the population numbers of Chinese cities, the oft-mentioned Chan paper (the relevant conclusion is on pp 393-395, which unequivocally says Shanghai is China's largest city) and it's provided as a reference in the lede. It was published in a peer-reviewed journal, the gold standard of WP:reliable sources.


 * Secondly, I respectfully disagree with your view that Geohive isn't an appropriate source. Geohive compiles data from reliable sources and provides methodology in its rankings.  Its city proper ranking is published by the Time Almanac (see here).  It's used and recommended as a resource by multiple government and educational institutions (such as here, here, and here), and quoted by over 500 Wikipedia pages.  WP:Reliable explicitly says that "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."  Besides, it's the only widely-used source that I know of that has updated its numbers with the 2010 census results (which were only published in May).  Zanhe (talk) 18:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

c, User:BsBsBs, it makes no difference if one source gives one set of numbers based on one criteria, another a different one based on a second, a third a separate one based on a decade-old number, and you know that. If the number is consistent within its own comparison in a reliable source, that's fine. Your ad homs distract from your point. If you can establish Chongqing as an appropriate city proper (lord knows it shouldn't, but see Jiuquan above) with a valid reference of your own, fix the city proper list and then fix this one. Geohive isn't an appropriate source, but you shouldn't blank presumably reliable data until you have a good source showing it's materially incorrect. — LlywelynII  13:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Fwiw, the UN backs up Zanhe as of these 2007-based statistics: Sh 16m, Bj 12m, Gz 9m, Cq 7ish. Now to wait until Beijing relabels Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhongshan as "Pearl River City" and makes the whole argument moot. — LlywelynII  13:38, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not just the UN. Check out the multiple rankings from a variety of sources on World's largest cities, none of them accepts Chongqing's 29 million as its city proper population, or even as its metropolitan area population. Zanhe (talk) 18:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Be that as it may, User:BsBsBs still has a point that you still need to find out some reliable source to explain why they and you are doing that. =) — LlywelynII  00:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The reason is well explained in the aforementioned Chan paper: Chongqing's population is over 70% rural, spread out in an area the size of Austria. Zanhe (talk) 00:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Taiping Tianguo and Shanghai
A new addition to the history section states "Shanghai fell to the Taiping Rebellion in 1851 but was recovered by the Qing in February 1853. [24]" The citation is to S. W. Wells The Middle Kingdom p. 107. This is odd, since the Taipings were still in Guangxi in 1851. In fact, it was not the Taipings, but the Small Swords Society, a distinct group which apparently came from Fujian. After an earlier uprising in Fujian, the society seized the Shanghai xiancheng in September 1853 and called themselves Damingguo "the great Ming Kingdom". They quickly changed the name to Taiping Tianguo, but never joined up with the actual Taipings, maintaining control of the xiancheng (but not the western settlements) until February 1855. Not sure how or why Wells got this wrong, but there is a colorful Western account in John Scarne's Twelve years in China (Edinburgh: Constable, 1860: 187-209). If there is no further discussion over the next day or two I'll go ahead and change this.Rgr09 (talk) 15:54, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. It appears that Wells confused the Small Swords Society with Taiping.  I asked the editor who added the statement (see here), and he/she agreed that the source might be wrong. Zanhe (talk) 17:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Ditto. Worth mentioning that they were affiliated with the Taiping, all the same. — LlywelynII  16:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Article expansion
For interested editors helping out with the Shanghai improvements, I've been working on some of the railroad pages (a start on the Songhu Railway and a future article in the Woosung Road namespace) and stumbled across this site. It's a former version of the bizarre but lovely labor of love at Astor House Hotel (Shanghai) (apparently China's first western hotel?) and its affiliate pages. There's a mass of images and information over there (>250k) about the Shanghailanders and their times. — LlywelynII  16:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Dajing Ge Pavilion also has some good old pictures of Shanghai. — LlywelynII  19:41, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

History of Shanghai
Speaking of which, while we're working on this article, the History of Shanghai one is in much graver need of reformatting and cleanup. — LlywelynII  19:41, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * what about the history of shanghai needs improvement.Meatsgains (talk) 19:49, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Assuming it's not obvious, see here. — LlywelynII  16:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Unfortunately the vast majority of China-related articles on Wikipedia are in an even worse state (many counties and cities with millions of residents only have one-sentence stubs). There are simply not enough Chinese who write English well enough or English speakers who know China well enough to contribute here. Zanhe (talk) 20:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say that. Stubs are better than misinformation (although the obviousness of the original POV over there probably has unintended, counterproductive effects...) — LlywelynII  16:53, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Problem with section Etymology and Names
There is a weird statement at the beginning of the section "Etymology and Names": the sections begins with "Template:Chinese I LOVE HOMESTUCK!!!" that I cannot erase even in the Edit section (it does not appear). It leads to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Chinese_I_LOVE_HOMESTUCK!!! Gaupy (talk) 16:52, 19 May 2012 (UTC) Gaupy
 * It appears to have been reverted. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—►  17:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Stop mistreating Shanghai - Shanghai IS a leading world financial centre!
There have been some undoing recently on the Shanghai article, regarding topics that have been undone before aswell... When it comes to the description of Shanghai as a major financial centre, there seems to be some kind of mass hysteria among other members proclaiming that Shanghai is yet too young to be compared to the likes of New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong. All of those mentioned cities have various descriptions in their articles calling themselves "leading world financial centres". Even though Shanghai ranks just behind these cities, everytime someone tries to edit the Shanghai article with something similar it will be deleted because it doesnt follow Wikipedias "neutral-point-of-view policy". Then, let me ask you why cities such as Chicago which rank below Shanghai are allowed to call themselves "leading world financial centres. How long do we have to wait until its acceptable to write about Shanghai as a leading world city? Why is Shanghai mistreated? I find this simply silly and I am speechless. /Jonipoon (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is another example of outdated stuff that needs to be updated to match Shanghai's new image of a world city. This sentece; "In the 1990s, the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city" should be rewritten and continue into something between the lines of "and now Shanghai has again become a leading world city". Shanghai is no longer trying to become one of the best like it used to do in the early 00's. Now it is one of the best, but it seems most members do not agree with this no matter how many sources they read. Also, this sentence; "It has been described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of mainland China" is also a very outdated sentence and should actually be deleted. Shanghai is no longer just a showpiece, it IS a leading world financial centre! /Jonipoon (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Factual error at the beginning of article
When I was in Chongqing, I was told that it was the largest city by population in China. The article states that Shanghai is. Safelton (talk) 22:36, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See this discussion a Request for Comment at the end of Archive 1. Shanghai is the largest by metro area pop, and that is what we used as the criterion. GotR Talk 23:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Separate city from municipalities?
Shouldn't the province-level municipality named Shanghai have its own Wikipedia article? Casey (talk) 09:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Recommend (semi)-protection?
Just had a look through the article history for Shanghai and noticed that this is the 2nd or 3rd person to vandalize and/or blank the page. Could we/Should we slap a protection lock on the page to help protect against vandalism or blanking? Solardrum (talk) 03:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm keeping an eye on the page. Elockid  ( Talk ) 03:57, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Huangpu River Pig Carcass Incident
This 'incident' is currently covered on the page under the Environment section, which is fine by me. However since a separate article about this incident is currently pending delete, I am recommending that we discuss here how much detail we really need on this! AnthonyW90 (talk) 13:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The incident is notable enough to deserve its own article, but not consequential enough to deserve a mention on this page. For a huge city like Shanghai, hundreds of major events have occurred in its history, many far more consequential than this one (such as the 2010 Shanghai fire). If we were to include all those events on this page, they would probably take 90% of the space. See AfD discussion. -Zanhe (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Images must be removed
Most images found under "Economy", "Architecture" and "Environment" must either be replaced or purged of.



Please promptly answer the following:

1) What are the differences among File:Huangpu, Jing'an & Changning District (South side).jpg (1), File:Huangpu, Jing'an & Changning District (North side).jpg (2) and File:Zhabei District (Train Station on the right).jpg (3) that are found under "Architecture"?

As far as I know, there are no discernible differences among these images -- the first two only showcase two angles of the same area, and all I can make out are the numerous skyscrapers. Same goes for the third one, the caption of which reads "(Train Station on the right)" -- where the hell is train station? They DO NOT showcase the different architecture styles that are found within Shanghai.

Now look at the images that I have included under "Architecture" in my edits. File:Xintiandi gem.jpg (4), File:0352 20090626 Shanghai.jpg (5) and File:Shanghai10.JPG (6). They are all snapshots of the different architectural styles that have historically been, and currently, used in Shanghai. So far, whoever you are who keep reverting my edits, you've got no ground to stand on. NOTHING. Your images are essentially identical, and do not do justice to Shanghai's long architectural history.

2) Again, what are the distinctions among File:Inside Jing'an District, Shanghai.jpg, File:Inner Shanghai area looking from Mid-west of Shanghai.jpeg and File:Inner Shanghai area looking from Mid-west of Shanghai (closer).jpeg found under "Economy"? In case you're not aware, the latter two are the fucking same place! If all you're trying to convey is Shanghai being a financial hub, the most symbolic image to be used is File:Shanghaistockexchange.jpg, or one other snapshot of the World Trade Center or something. With a subject as large as Shanghai, you're not going to add images and images of the different areas of Shanghai, rather you should use one that sums up everything. Shanghai has the biggest port in the world, and is a financial hub, so only two images should be used.

3) And, what's the value of File:Yanzhonglvdi Park after rain, near Shanghai Peoples Square.jpg? Much of it is dark, and it shows a gate -- is Yanzhonglvdi Park Shanghai's biggest park, or does it have any historical significance? AFAIK, it's got no value. What about File:Fuxing Park 2226.JPG? Much of it appears to be a road, with only minimal greenery, resembling a street more than a park. One image that conveniently sums up the city's parks and resorts should be used, and that image is File:A birdview of Century Park in Huamu, Pudong (East of Shanghai), Shanghai.jpg, and we should only keep that.

Whoever you are, you appear to be an image enthusiast. But these images are clogging up the article, and sometimes they are of the same place, or are not varied or detailed enough. Get rid of them. If you, or anyone else, are not going to reply withing 24 hours, I will reinstate my changes, because frankly, I think my arguments above have much more weight and consideration. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * User:Goldsilverlight has repeatedly reverted multiple editors' attempts to remove the images, through multiple IP's while claiming to be different people. I've opened a sockpuppet investigation against the user. -Zanhe (talk) 11:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Why those images should not be removed
These images are not duplicate or even similar, as they resemble different places and ranges of camera lens. Especially the panorama images, they include and represent much bigger scopes of Shanghai, rather than focusing on the Stock Exhange building or Lujiazui (Lujiazui is a very small place in Pudong, Shanghai in terms of land size) alone, which are believed to better cover more places in Shanghai. If you look at some other wiki pages, many of them have more excessive (in your words) photos including panorama ones to facilitate describing that place or a city. Furthermore, it's not about how many users changing the more precise and correct work back to improper and incomplete ones, but about the "art and science" of illustrating one object or a place or a city with not just words but also proper images combined that can contain as much information as possible. This should have far more weight and consideration than what Zanhe or Sp33dyphil have proposed.


 * If you're adding images just because other articles have many of them, you might want to check out Istanbul, Hong Kong, India and Indonesia. These are the best geographic articles Wikipedia offers, and they only include enough images to get their point across, unlike what you're doing, which is to add "proper images combined that can contain as much information as possible". --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Moreover, none of the images in the current rivision are the same place, they have different angles or scopes which covers many square kilometers of different areas and as they are panoramas, they include far more information in just one photo each, people can compare with these images and find the connection yet they are different in terms of location and scope. Most importantly, these photos clearly are better than some of the older photos about Shanghai that are both outdated and not inclusive enough. As for the 2 images about the parks, if they are not ok, I personally don't know what is ok, they both represent 2 famous parks in Shanghai, just as important as Century Park, or the Gucun park which is larger than 4 square kilometers (434.5 hectares).


 * I think the issue about location and scope is overly specific. We're talking about a massive city, which has many areas among it, and here you're trying to include different locations and scopes? What? Let me remind you again, this is not Commons. And regarding the two parks, Yanzhonglvdi Park doesn't even have its own article. The panoramic photo is good enough, and the links at the bottom of the section allow the reader to find pictures about the parks. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

As to your "Much of it appears to be a road, with only minimal greenery, resembling a street more than a park", have you ever been to Shanghai? This is a walk path in Fuxin Park, which is a most famous and populous park in Shanghai. Don't you see those trees and green playground in the photo? Just because it was winter time and the leaves fell off or green color becomes green-grayish, doesn't mean they are not trees at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldsilverlight (talk • contribs) 22:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, my judgment here is off. But my point still stands. There are two many images, and only the panoramic photo should be retained. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, as to your question quote: "where the hell is train station?" unquote. It appears you haven't been to Shanghai. At least you clearly have never been to Shanghai Zhabei Train Station before. It's in the panorama image of Zhabei District, on the right side, the white color wavy-roofed architecture, that's the entire train station. If you click to enlarge the image, it can be easily identified


 * "If you click to enlarge the image, it can be easily identified". There's your problem, it should be easy for the reader to identify where the train station is. That section is about architecture, and the station is hard to find for a reader like me to find, let alone identify or acknowledge the architecture style. It's like using a photo of the someone's whole body, and trying to point out the colour of their eyes. It's really absurd. And nearly all the rest of the image has skyscrapers or high-rise apartments. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

We are looking forward to the WIKI ceo to have a look at this issue.

Also to Zanhe, please do not use 'fxxx' or 'fxxking' in your replies. This is a place for civilized communication, any misunderstanding can be solved by knowledge and understandings. This is not a place to be abused. Please be a calm wiki user.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldsilverlight (talk • contribs) 12:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * You must be hallucinating. When did I ever use 'fxxx', 'fxxking', or any other curse word in my replies? -Zanhe (talk) 13:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Goldsilverlight: I don't want to argue, please find them yourself in the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldsilverlight (talk • contribs) 14:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Please don't evade the question. If you accuse someone of wrongdoing, you need to produce the evidence or retract your accusation and apologize.  Otherwise you're simply a liar. -Zanhe (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Goldsilverlight: Sorry my mistake, it was Sp33dyphil who used the improper word. Correct me if I am wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldsilverlight (talk • contribs) 14:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My apologies. I wasn't meaning to offend anyone, and it really shouldn't have been taken with offense. My disbelief in the usage of two photos to point out the same area took the better of me. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we should update information on private car licensing?
Recently, around 9000 license plates are auctioned each month(except for April 2013, when 11000 plates are auctioned due to an expected growth in the sale of cars during the International Workers' Day holiday), and the price is 80,803 RMB on average during the May 2013 auction. Also, a limit on price on how much one can bid during the first round of auction, which is known as the warning price and is equivlant to the weighted arithmetic mean of average price of the last four auctions, has been in effect since April along with a whole bunch of other regulations regarding the transfer of license plates (transfering is prohibited during the first 3 years after it is bought and 1 year after a privious transfer) to control the soaring price (an average of 91,898 RMB during the March 2013 auction).

A second-hand license plate cost somewhere between 85,000 and 90,000 RMB now, few people are interested in buying or selling it now though.

Here's the average price for the last 17 auctions from January 2012 to May 2013: 53195, 55632, 58625, 61626, 64367, 58227, 58271, 62559, 66425, 66708, 66946, 69346, 75332, 83571, 91898, 84100， 80803--180.171.94.158 (talk) 10:31, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Shanghai buildings
There reads: Since 2008, Shanghai has boasted more free-standing buildings above 400m (3) than any other city.

However, List of cities with most skyscrapers has 4 cities with 4 buildings over 400m: Doha, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai. Strangely, the previous section has New York, Shanghai and Shenzhen. It seems that Shanghai does not have these "more than any other city", but it is unclear which cities tie with Shanghai. 82.141.94.24 (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I've removed the outdated claim. Many super-tall skyscrapers have been built in the Middle East in recent years. -Zanhe (talk) 22:03, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone
This page does not contain any information on the China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone, a very important feature of Shanghai's history of economic development and current economy. This should be amended immediately, seeing as the FTZ has its own page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_(Shanghai)_Pilot_Free-Trade_Zone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by China Briefing (talk • contribs) 10:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 May 2014
There are two errors in the second paragraph of the Culture section.

In the latest (past) 5 years Shanghai has been widely recognized as a new influence and inspiration for cyberpunk culture.[100] Futuristic buildings such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and the neon-illuminated Yan'an Elevated Road are a few examples that have helped to boast (boost) Shanghai's cyberpunk image.

Please change

In the latest 5 years Shanghai has been widely recognized as a new influence and inspiration for cyberpunk culture.[100] Futuristic buildings such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and the neon-illuminated Yan'an Elevated Road are a few examples that have helped to boast Shanghai's cyberpunk image.

to

In the past 5 years Shanghai has been widely recognized as a new influence and inspiration for cyberpunk culture.[100] Futuristic buildings such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and the neon-illuminated Yan'an Elevated Road are a few examples that have helped to boost Shanghai's cyberpunk image.

Thanks!

Anarchistamy (talk) 21:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks for pointing this out. -- Neil N  talk to me  21:22, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Shanghai is the World's largest city proper
describing Shanghai as China's largest city doesn't properly describe Shanghai as a dominant World city. Moreover as China becomes the most powerful country economically in the world, Shanghai will be the most powerful city in the world economically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.111.88.66 (talk) 03:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)


 * The term city proper is rather complicated when it comes to Chinese cities. The article on the subject has a section titled, 'Controversy' which deals largely with Chinese cities. Shanghai is not the worlds largest city by most metrics and not even the largest by city proper according to [|lists] on Wikipedia. If you have better sources, do update those lists. Rincewind42 (talk) 15:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Which Demonym Is More Appropriate for Describing People of Shanghai
Just try to raise awareness of the correct form of the demonym. I doubt the word "Shanghainese" is acceptable to most Shanghai people. Various reasons as we may know. Also, using the word "Shanghaier" (kidnapper) in the wiki page of Shanghainese_people to describe Shanghai people nowadays is even more ridiculous. I suggest using "Shanghaian" which is not only grammatically correct, but also acceptable to the locals and more understandable to the foreigners. Also, there has been some talk about the name of the Shanghai language in the past years (see my recent comment in that talk section too). I think the demonym for Shanghai people deserves a good discussion here as well. --MakeItFair Hopefully (talk) 18:40, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's policy is to use the most common terms of the English language, not to promote terms that are deemed more "correct". See WP:COMMONNAME. Whether we like it or not, Shanghainese is by far the most common demonym for Shanghai, and I've never seen any respectable media use the term "Shanghaian". -Zanhe (talk) 22:32, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Aside from 's correct observation that Wikipedia follows WP:COMMONNAME, "Shanghaian" with its three consecutive vowels does not scan well for the average English reader. The convention of using the "-ese" suffix in Chinese demonyms is also well-established : Taiwanese, Hainanese and Fujianese to name but three. ► Philg88 ◄ star.png 04:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Hey guys, thanks for the pointers. As all these recent demonyms for Shanghai people are arbitrarily "created" based on different understanding, it seems that only time will tell which one should prevail and become established. As mentioned in the wiki commonname policy, since there is no single obvious term based on which the editors can reach a consensus, we've got to live with a mixed use of all these, I'm afraid. However, I doubt that the evidence above can actually hold. For example, "Ghanaian" is a word with three consecutive vowels, let alone the well established "Hawaiian" with four vowels. Furthermore, as Taiwan, Hainan, Fujian are words ended with letter "n", it actually makes sense to append -ese to them, while it's not easy to justify this letter "n" showing up in "Shanghainese". So hopefully our discussion could raise awareness among concerned users. I will try to edit pages with more obvious errors like "Shanghaiers" in Shanghainese_people and Shanghainese_dialect when I have a chance. --MakeItFair Hopefully (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for 's observation on the terms which I fully respect, while it is necessary to restate one point above that there is "Shanghaier" as the demonym for Shanghai after the word "Shanghai" FIRST, and then the British immigrants started to use the non-capitalized word "shanghai" as verb and "shanghaier" as noun for the meaning of "former custom of kidnapping sailors to man ships going to China" in later 1840s. It is same for Pekingese with a meaning of "a dog of a small breed developed in China, having a flat nose, a long straight coat, and a tail that curls over the back". It is quite common in English language to use a demonym to describe the local features, but no one city changes its demonym due to the above reasons, like putting the cart before the horse. English-language media did not start to use the word "Shanghainese" until late 1990s, mostly copied from then local media in Shanghai, with poor knowledge of English and created "-nese" suffix. Anyway, like "Hong Kongnese" is the most common demonym for Hong Kong, Hong Kong people still prefer to use "Hongkonger" as the demonym. Thus, both demonyms can exist to describe Hong Kong people as on the Wiki page of Hong Kong. -- Jeremyshih
 * WP:COMMONNAME stipulates that we use the most common term in English, regardless of its origin or "correctness". And Shanghainese is by far the most common term for describing the people and language of Shanghai. Google books returns 21,600 results for "Shanghainese", vs. only 87 for "Shanghaian", whereas almost all results for "Shanghaier" are in German. -Zanhe (talk) 20:16, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Wow.

I know the main issue was already addressed but, for future editors, it may be important to note — Llywelyn II   07:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * MIF: No, the term 'Shanghainese' is not pejorative and, in years of living here, the Shanghainese have absolutely problem with it, any more than they have a problem with 'Chinese'. Its use is a standard part of students' English education, which is mandatory at most schools. The only issues locals have with the term&mdash;apart from all the baggage over cultural chauvinism w/r/t 'outsiders' and the 'New Shanghainese'&mdash;is that they want to use it as a countable noun in a similar fashion to Shanghairen/Zaanhening: "He's a Shanghainese" instead of just "He's Shanghainese".  No, I don't really know why you think the term would be offensive. I'm sure eventually some fenqing will start a campaign to use "Zhongguonese", but Shanghai isn't even an exonym. The Chinese have no problem with it, except grammatically. (There are some Western scholars who object to -ese as 'orientalizing', but it's a little foreign precisely because the first reports on East Asia came in from Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese. No one really thinks of 'Milanese' as insulting, except when they have opposing tastes in soccer teams.)  No, Shanghaian is neither more correct nor more acceptable nor more understandable. It is, in fact, much less so on all counts.  While Shanghai itself has only been important to English-speakers since the Opium Wars, the use of the -ese suffix to describe the peoples of East Asia goes back to the very first English translations of the Spanish and Portuguese voyages of discovery. They are nearly as old as actual descriptions of these places (beginning with Polo), other than via Latin, where the -ensis suffix was similarly used. This is not a "new" or "alternate" thing.  The addition of an -n- is a phonetic kludge (possibly via one of the Romance languages, possibly via analogy with Chinese) and has no bearing at all upon the ubiquity of "Shanghai n ese" versus the cacophonous "Shanghaiese". Its very existence and popularity belies the idea that such a suffix "doesn't exist", at least in this case. You also have Hangzhounese, Suzhounese...  In fine, "Shanghaian" violates, , and any mention of it on the page would violate . If you can start to get people elsewhere to use it enough to start registering on ngram or something comparable on Scholar, we'll have something we can work with. Until then, not so much.   As an aside, "Shanghaier" isn't "wrong": it's just much less common and (given the kidnapping associations) infelicitous. "Shanghailander" is wrong (someone mentioned it over at Talk:Shanghainese), since it properly referred to the expatriates living in the Shanghai concessions and not to the locals themselves. Do kindly correct times when you see people (mis)using those.
 * Mr Shih: As far as I am (or the OED is) aware, the verb 'to shanghai' is very much an Americanism&mdash;from Portland and San Francisco's China trade&mdash;that has nothing to do with the British. (Their services were so used to kidnapping workers they simply kept on with the old 'impress' and 'dragoon'.) I don't have Lexus/Nexus to speak to periodical usage but the ngram results above show "Shanghainese" in English much earlier than "the 1990s". Granted, it was more common not to distinguish the Shanghainese, just to lump them together as "Chinese", "Chinamen", or "natives"; all the same, when distinction was needed, Google Books has Shanghaiese in 1860 and Shanghainese by 1913. (It also 'Shanghaian' as early as 1850, but every example I could find was just their machine reader misunderstanding "Shanghais", "Shanghai an", or "ought to have".)  Where did you get the idea that "Hong Kongnese" was common? It isn't. You're thinking of Hongkongese, I think. Both are used on Hong Kong because they're both used elsewhere, commonly enough that mentioning them doesn't mean we're giving  to the term.

Yangtze River Delta
The image is a beautiful one but, as mentioned in my edit and in the discussion on its article's talk page, it's not the "Yangtze River delta", which Hangzhou is very much not a part of. I'm not sure what the map is supposed to show or why Nanjing is a separate color. (One of the regional economic groups?) It should probably be redone with Shanghai singled out and (maybe) the actual Yangtze delta watershed shown. — Llywelyn II   08:06, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

History section
Some separate issues: — Llywelyn II   09:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The early sections state "Shanghai belonged..." and discuss it as if it were already existent by the Spring and Autumn Period. We probably shouldn't do that, as:
 * Personally, I'd like to see a source that the land that Shanghai is on was existent by then: the Yangtze deposits enormous amounts of silt: the entire peninsula Haimen and Qidong sit on was formed within the last few centuries.
 * It would also be good if there were a map or animated map of the formation of Shanghai's peninsula. The present downtown is landlocked but much of Pudong is relatively new.
 * It would also be good to list and cite the earliest documentary evidence that Shanghai or something like Shanghai existed. I need to dig the book out from under something but I seem to remember seeing that the earliest evidence of settlement in the area of the Old City was c. 3rd century and the evidence for Shanghai itself was after that.
 * Since the city wall didn't exist since the 16th century, we shouldn't be using a picture of it to illustrate the ancient city.
 * "From... 1292 until Shanghai officially became a city in 1927" is probably not the best way to phrase this. In English, county seats can be towns or cities; in Chinese, "city" can be county- or prefecture-level but neither are municipalities, which is what Shanghai became in 1927. Besides, didn't getting the City God(s) Temple upgrade the status of Shanghai? What is the editor trying to say that Shanghai wasn't measuring up to? (Provincial-level municipalities didn't exist at all in Old China.)
 * No need to sugarcoat the racism present but the development of the city by the international settlement should be addressed: Shanghai had China's first railroad, first (iirc) telegraph line, HSBC, &c.
 * The present phrasing makes it sound like Japan's war crimes in Shanghai occurred mainly during its withdrawal, which seems doubtful. I'm sure it was horrible, but better to give some context and detail rather than just hurl epithets as well, even if that means linking to the description in the History of Shanghai article rather than to the main Japanese war crimes one. Similarly "a railway station" seems needlessly inexact, given that Shanghai had two. Is the photo from the south one?
 * Shanghai did not "become" a center for radical leftism in the '50s and '60s. It had been one for the entirety of leftism's existence in China. It's not propaganda to mention the city's importance to the CCP or the slaughter of CCP members carried out in the '20s that filled up Longhua. Both the forced and the volunteer zhiqing should probably be addressed.
 * 'Productivity' is probably being misused, unless it's only relative to that in other areas of China.


 * Much of the land of Shanghai is actually quite ancient, although the eastern and northern parts were only formed in the last 1500 years or so. The southwestern portion (Qingpu, Songjiang, Minhang, etc.) was home to several important neolithic cultures dating to as early as 4000 BC, see Majiabang culture, Songze culture, Liangzhu culture, Maqiao culture (Songze and Maqiao are both named after their type sites in Shanghai). I'll try to add a summary of them to the section when I have time.
 * Re "becoming" a center of leftism, it's quite accurate IMO. Although Shanghai was the center of leftism in the 1920s, it wasn't as radical as later, and was quite effectively extinguished by Chiang Kai-shek's White Terror, allied with Du Yuesheng's Green Gang.
 * Japanese war crimes were mainly committed at the beginning of the war, during the fierce Battle of Shanghai, rather than the end of the war. The railway station depicted in the iconic crying baby photo is the old South Station (not the current one in Xuhui) which was completely destroyed by Japanese bombing in 1937. I've edited the caption to clarify that.
 * I've edited the article to address some of your more minor points.
 * -Zanhe (talk) 21:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation mess
The Shanghainese IPA was already in the infobox (and dealt with better, since it should have tone numbers). Pinyin is phonetic, so IPA isn't needful and (if included) should just go in the infobox and not a (badly-formatted) version of the zh template. The English pronunciation is straightforward and therefore unnecessary. There will be some native speakers who pronounce it shaahng, some as shaing, and (for English) neither is "more correct". — Llywelyn II   07:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Now, that said, tone marks could helpfully be included, since it is needful. It's already in the Chinese infobox but could also replace the title of the provincial infobox so it's readily visible. — Llywelyn II   07:11, 18 December 2014 (UTC)


 * In standard Mandarin, 上 is pronounced shaahng. So if Mandarin is the standard language of China, then shaahng would be the correct pronunciation. -JesseW900 (talk) 14:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that you're missing the point. As I have explained to you previously, Wikipedia uses pinyin as detailed in the Chinese style guide. IPA pronunciations only clutter things up and don't help much - pinyin with tone marks is much easier to read than IPA. Philg88 ♦talk 15:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I understand what you mean. But from a practical point of view, not many people can read either pinyin or Mandarin IPA. Therefore showing the English IPA is the best way to convey the pronunciation. -JesseW900 (talk) 15:17, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want China-related articles to use IPA rather than pinyin, then this is not the correct place to argue the case. You need to start a request for comments at an appropriate venue in order to change existing guideline. IMHO, such a proposal is unlikely to gain much support based on the long standing consensus to use pinyin. Philg88 ♦talk 15:28, 4 May 2015 (UTC).
 * I see. I agree pinyin should be the standard notation for China-related articles and I didn't mean to change that. However, can I just add English IPAs as "footnotes" (e.g. using ), to help clarify the pronunciation where necessary? -JesseW900 (talk) 17:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The issue then arises of when it is "necessary". In the case of "Shanghai", it certainly isn't. You might like to raise the issue at Wikiproject China Talk to gauge how other editors feel about your suggestion. Philg88 ♦talk 18:15, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that in the case of "Shanghai", an English IPA as a footnote would be both useful and "necessary." Though the official and common Chinese pronunciation is shaahng, English speakers in the U.S. (and perhaps other places) always pronounce it as shaing. Thus, a clarification for the pronunciation of the word should be really helpful. <b style="color:#28589C">Tony Tan</b> · talk  19:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Timeline of Shanghai
What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content. Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 17:07, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Shanghai. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090401164357/http://www.cbc.ca:80/documentaries/sincities/shanghai.html to http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/sincities/shanghai.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —<sup style="color:green;font-family:Courier">cyberbot II <sub style="margin-left:-14.9ex;color:green;font-family:Comic Sans MS"> Talk to my owner :Online 15:15, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Quality images of Shanghai?
I was surprised to see how few Quality, Valued, and/or Featured images there are of Shanghai. Does anyone know of any good images worth nominating, either here at English Wikipedia or at Commons? --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 04:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Most populous in Asia?
The very first sentence of the article: Shanghai is the most populous city in both China and Asia as well as the most populous city proper in the world. Wasn't Tokyo the largest city in Asia (and the world) in terms of total (not just the city proper) population?  Wishva de Silva  &#124; Talk 11:42, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Names
and not #Etymology and Names per, , and. There's nothing added by the longer name and needless eyesore and makework created for links. That said, the anchor links for #Etymology and #Name should be left for editors here and abroad linking to those. Also, at some point, the major alt and former names should be bolded, unless there's some strong consensus or reason against it. — Llywelyn II   14:07, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Internal links removal
Recently, several IP users from Taiwan constantly reverted my edits that added some essential internal wiki links(e.g. Yu Garden, Nanjing Road) without a valid reason. These IPs are very likely to belong to the same person. --117.136.44.234 (talk) 13:14, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you say something about City University, Cambodia?The broken from china.--101.15.83.134 (talk) 13:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The talk page is where we discuss things relevant to this article. What you say is nonsense to me.--117.136.44.234 (talk) 13:34, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I only know that you use wikis as a lecture to promote big Chineseism, and from similar IP and account tracking you can find that you are happy to do these things, such as promoting nationalism or promoting nationalism. The specific approach is like an over-link or Avoid labels.--180.204.135.68 (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * What you "only know" doesn't and cannot serve as a valid reason for your irrational and unexplained removal. Btw, I'm,not promoting nationalism and there is no term called "Chineseism". 117.136.44.234 (talk) 13:49, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You can see Liu Xiaobo. Your IP on there clam that he is a cheat.Don't you? And this page had over link.It is not necessary.--101.12.195.116 (talk) 13:54, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Liu Xiaobo, man, he's kicked the bucket. How could I see him as a living being. Besides, these links are definitely not "overlinked" as similar city articles (NYC, Tokyo, Paris all have links in their infobox pic caption part. 117.136.44.234 (talk) 14:00, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * If you can let me believe that is necessary.We can end this.Now I don't believe.--101.14.128.158 (talk) 14:05, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Lol, just lol. You are hilarious.117.136.44.234 (talk) 14:11, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I found that chinese like personal attacks.Is this a Chinese custom?Do not understand the idea of different races or foreigners.--101.10.37.166 (talk) 14:17, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You are oversensitive. Laughing at you isn't personal attacks. Btw, asserting all the Chinese to "like personal attacks" is "attacks" on the Chinese people as well, or simply racism.117.136.44.234 (talk) 14:24, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * So return to say that why you think those links are necessary.--49.216.145.104 (talk) 14:28, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * First, this is English wikipedia whose readers may know little about China's cities. That is to see, locales like Yu Garden or Nanjing Road may be unfamiliar to readers which is also why internal wiki links exists to assist readers to better understand the context. In addition, these links I added don't occcur in the following couple sentences.117.136.44.234 (talk) 14:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Give me 10 minutes to read those links again.--115.82.3.182 (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The Bind also needs to be linked according to your words.This time I think your words are right. Ended the event.--117.19.225.127 (talk) 14:51, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with those links. Don't know why they were originally unwanted by the other editor. Mr. Magoo (talk) 05:37, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Robert Jacquinot de Besange image
A hefty mention of Robert Jacquinot de Besange is warranted, but someone added a huge image of him to the history section. Is that really warranted now, taking so much space? We already talk about him and have his article linked, but his image and the large textbox accompanying it that pretty much replicates what's already written next to it just take up so much room. Mr. Magoo (talk) 06:17, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I changed it to a shot of the Zhabei District burning in 1937. It's better to have glimpses of the situation of the actual city. Mr. Magoo (talk) 02:26, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I also noticed that the Bloody Saturday (photograph) file in our article is of noticiably lower resolution than the one at the primary article for it. Although the one there doesn't have its borders cropped. Worthy of switching? Mr. Magoo (talk) 07:07, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Future article expansion
Some stuff from the official website for the 2001 APEC summit with historical and historical economic details on the city, particularly Pudong. Also really weird bits of "culture", such as the claim that comic books were invented in Shanghai, were "spiritual food for thousands of teens", and "seem to have left us without a trace". There's probably something genuine lost in translation but this is an official government source overseen by the then-ministers of foreign affairs and trade and Shanghai's mayor so... yeah. — Llywelyn II   05:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * here

Rise and golden age
There is no mention of golden age in the text in this section. When it started or possibly ended (if it ended).

So im not sure why Golden Age was added to the title. Seems like Chinese empire might have had a few, but when was Shanghais? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cornersss (talk • contribs) 03:43, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 April 2018
Please say something that it is the most populous city not counting the whole metropolitan area. Arose77 (talk) 15:36, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. <b style="color:#060">L293D</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b> • <b style="color:#000">✎</b>) 19:13, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 May 2018
Please change


 * subdivision_name   = People's Republic of China

to


 * subdivision_name   =  PRC

because MOS:INFOBOXFLAG states: Human geographic articles – for example settlements and administrative subdivisions – may have flags of the country and first-level administrative subdivision in infoboxes. This sentence has apparently justified the use of the Chinese flag. 123.161.169.67 (talk) 10:33, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done <b style="color:#060">L293D</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b> • <b style="color:#000">✎</b>) 14:47, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * MOS:INFOBOXFLAG states Human geographic articles – for example settlements and administrative subdivisions – may have flags of the country and first-level administrative subdivision in infoboxes. I am going to re-add the flag. <b style="color:#060">L293D</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b> • <b style="color:#000">✎</b>) 17:09, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The key word is may. The vast majority of mainland Chinese place articles do not have the PRC flag, and it is better to maintain within-country consistency than satisfy the whims of a few. In fact, the flag had been absent before one single-purpose account appeared to haphazardly add it to this as well as several Zhejiang city articles. Besides, edits by socks of the banned Whaterss are to be reverted on sight. Caradhras Aiguo (talk) 18:49, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2018
I want to add Israel's Messenger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_Messenger) to the media section under "newspapers formerly published in Shanghai". Thank you! Kelberry (talk) 23:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Thank you. - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 23:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The economy section needs an update
I found an excellent resource that provides facts and figures from 2017

http://china-trade-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Facts-and-Figures/Shanghai-Market-Profile/ff/en/1/1X000000/1X06BVOR.htm

I updated one section of Economy but other sections are overdue for an update. Peter K Burian (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Change of main image
Who changed the main image of this article? The previous one https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shanghai_montage.png has been the main image for a long time, since it's very well-done and showcases the most distinct landmarks of the city. It also has a very nice blend of colors. The new one (whoever made it) is cluttered, contains way too many images and has a too much emphasis on skyscrapers (it even contains 4 images from the same location in Lujiazui!). We should change back to the previous one. /Jonipoon (talk) 12:45, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Being the main image for a long time can't be a reason it can't be removed. Whether this image is cluttered or not is very subjective. I think he did a great job in some sense, the image just needs to become more diverse by showing more locations. Dr. Hud (talk) 00:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Someone has reverted back to the previous one, which is perfect and doesn't need to be changed. It showcases 5 different locations, 5 locations that are very distinct and among the most popular locations in the city. Also those locations look exactly the same today. Also the quality of the photography is superb. /Jonipoon (talk) 11:40, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

the mysterious Queen of Garbage
There was a woman who "ruled" on Shangai, next to Mr. Du, in the 1930s, and she was called "The Queen of detritus" because she manages those who picked up garbage in the 1930 Shanghai. I could not find traces of her unless mentioned briefly in a biography of Henry Verne ( and no, it’s not a fictional caracter )

The quote is there: "China in 1930 was not what it should be now. Shanghai was rather a set of concessions. As in the colonies, there were natives, Chinese, and there were international and French concessions. There were playhouses, dancings. There too, you would have to write a whole book to describe that country at that time. It was led by the Shanghai police chief, Mr. Du, who was almighty, and by a woman whom I never met, and who was the "queen of detritus" since it was she who looked after everyone who picked up trash in Shanghai. She was virtually the queen of Shanghai and ran everything. "

Extract of Bob Morane and me ... Vernes, Henri

If someone seems this, could you find me a links that would lead to information of this woman, please?

Thank you in advance. Vicvicludo (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Above the sea
I am an American who lived in China and I speak the Mandarin language, and I always understood the name Shanghai to mean "above the sea" precisely because centuries ago it was located near the Huangpu river and Suzhou creek - which are freshwater and not saltwater - and the original city was situated far away from the ocean. Obviously, the city grew and it is now adjacent to the East China Sea. Indeed, the city was written about with this exact derivation "above the sea" by late 18th century residents (sorry I lost the reference but I read them years ago). "Upon the sea" is an odd interpretation, in my opinion. It is not the most natural way to define "shang" in this context and it is not aligned with the history of Shanghai and its development. It is called "above the sea" because the city was originally far away from the sea. Someone should definitively research this topic and make sure this wikipedia entry is correct.

I have a question: Could you write : « Queen of garbage » in Mandarin, because i need to search something in mandarin in wikipedia and other websites ( if you want to know why and understand, look at the most recent discussion, the « mysterious queen of garbage )? Vicvicludo (talk) 18:49, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Shanghai for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Shanghai is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Shanghai until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 05:50, 6 June 2019 (UTC)