Talk:Thought reform in China

Untitled
It actually said "grandiose" in the text. But probably sounds a bit sarcastic. --Asdfg12345 05:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, hi :P You created this. Didn't even see that... was on New Pages Patrol... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 05:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

PCPP, you made the same character of changes to this page that I've often complained about. I'll document some of the changes you made. I hope you could explain why this approach is helpful. By the way, when you write an edit note like "adding something," please don't also remove something at the same time. It would actually be useful if you could segregate your edits into adding/removing. That way it will be more clear. And please use edit summaries responsibly. If you have deleted 10kb or text, or whatever, please state it upfront and explain why on the talk page. It's time consuming to constantly clean up after you and keep asking you to share your thoughts. I am just interested in an explanation and dialogue. I think we could work well together, but you have to come to the table and discuss a bit. --Asdfg12345 07:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Here are some of the changes:

deleting: Beginning in the Mao era, it was an attempt to turn all Chinese persons into "new socialist men" as part of a perceived "responsibility to remold the world."

changing "attempt to "remold" the thinking of Chinese citizens through indoctrination, "struggle sessions," " to "reform the thinking of Chinese citizens into adapting a Marxist-Leninist thought "

changing "The CCP's program of thought reform emerged as one of the most powerful efforts at human manipulation ever undertaken, and included imposed dogmas, inquisitions, and mass conversation movements carried out in an organized, comprehensive, and deliberate way." to "The CCP's program of thought reform emerged as one of the most powerful efforts at propaganda ever undertaken, and included imposed doctrines, ideological purges, and mass conversation movements carried out in an organized and comprehensive way."

Then the rest were deletions. In some places you just deleted some words like "dogmas, inquisitions" and in other places words like "struggle sessions," and "indoctrination." I would like to know why you did that. --Asdfg12345 07:54, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I removed these words because the way they are currently used no way confirms to NPOV, and clarified them. The New Socialist Man claim stems from an old source dating back to 1969, and a google search failed to return any findings on the claim--PCPP (talk) 08:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I can see we are in for the long haul. I will quote directly from the sources, then. You can't delete something because it's "POV." And deleting a whole source because it's from 1969? That's ridiculous. At some stage in the article it should be clarified that these are old sources. I'm not going to spend more time on this now. If your attempt is to wear me down by doing a lot of deletions then leaving terse explanation, it's actually working. I don't see how watering down the sources available counts as "clarifying" them. We need another set of eyes on this. --Asdfg12345 08:30, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that I will start some mediation or other proceeding before getting much more into this. I can see it's just an invitation to chewing up my time. You are just deleting and watering down stuff with no proper explanation. For now, I'll put the disputed parts in quotes, and restore the deleted text, but after that I do no more until we get another set of eyes on this. --Asdfg12345 08:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I just restored the new socialist man part. For the others, I don't have the texts handy right now. I'll get to that later and quote from them directly. What you are doing is sad. --Asdfg12345 08:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm speechless at your continued attempts to restore the "new socialist man" section. The only reference I can find on google scholar that remotely relate to the claim was your 1969 source, and a search on the Marxist internet archive failed to find any result. If it was such an important concept as you claim, surely Maoists and critics would have taken notice of it.--PCPP (talk) 09:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

What is in there is straight from the source. Are you saying it's not related to thought reform? The source says it directly is. I will add in more later, when I get some time. Your efforts have made me not want to contribute. It's just too much trouble when my additions constantly get wiped out and destroyed for no good reason. Congratulations on that. --Asdfg12345 05:40, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

also, I've changed my mind about stopping editing. I'm going to restore the text you have repeatedly removed. --Asdfg12345 02:42, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

PCPP, I just want to re-emphasise something, too. My previous notes sound a bit jaded and harsh towards you. I don't meant to write that way. I have become a bit frustrated with your editing over the years. I will repeat again that I think we can work together well. I think some ground-rules may help: please focus on adding information to the article rather than removing or watering down information I put in. That's one really basic thing that will go a long way. Another is to please articulate your concerns clearly. If you think there are POVs not being properly represented, then we should seek to fix that. But wikipedia is about representing what is in the sources, not about trying to change that until it sounds nice to the CCP (or any other political group). Words like "struggle", "indoctrination," "propaganda" etc. are common words for describing the CCP's techniques of rule. It is not biased to use them as long as scholars and other reliable sources use them (and it is evident that they do). We should be careful about how claims are attributed, making sure that there is no original research and editorial, but that is different from changing these words to make them sound more palatable and distorting precisely what the source said. If such descriptions were used in passing, then it may not be appropriate. But the central critique is how the CCP uses these manipulative techniques to control people. That is what this article is about, and it has a lot of sources to back it up. I think what you could do is find some sources which dispute the idea of thought control, or some CCP sources which say they don't do it (if these things exist, it's well documented, so I'm not sure they do, but people say all kinds of things, so you might be in luck). Okay, those are my only points. I hope for some constructive editing. --Asdfg<b style="color:black;">12345</b> 03:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

What about now?
Just wondering, is there anything about this now or is it over already? Everything I see is 1950-1960s.--Edward130603 (talk) 00:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Indeed this still happens, but it is not much reported. Read this, for example. -- Asdfg<b style="color:black;">12345</b> 02:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Good question. I believe it goes by different names these days, serves different purposes, and is carried out on an entirely different (much smaller and more focused) scale. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Page move consensus issue
I am duplicating a comment made on the Internet censorship in the PRC page. As far as I am aware, there was a consensus reached to rename the page on China to be about the PRC, rather than China as a historical or cultural entity or whatever. I am not aware of a "consensus" that says that every instance were "People's Republic of China" appears in a title it should be changed to China. Consensus is reached, as far as I know, on the pages in which things are discussed. I have not heard of a process by which consensus by a group of editors discussing one matter on one page is then automatically extended to a number of other related pages in terms of what they are to be titled. I strongly suspect this would call for individual consensus on the various pages which moves were desired for. If I am mistaken, please correct me. In any case, I suggest first beginning with a proposal, explanation, and an attempt to form consensus about the move. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)