User talk:CHHistory

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I saw your shout-out to Sarah. I think she is out of the country, but don't know any more details. I'm sure she will check in when she can, but it might not be right away.-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  01:31, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

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Consider addressing the basics first, then polishing
Greetings CHH, it appears at the moment you're doing some minor tweaking. I would suggest based on my experience that it would be much better to make the big changes first, as once you've made the big changes, many of the small things will have completely changed, cutting out the work you made on the small things first.

There are a couple big overarching issues:


 * Proper WP:Footnoting. A few of us have answered you on this issue, and provided some examples of how to format footnotes. I realise you've had some troubles with this, but it's not hard once you learn the basics, and you simply have to learn it to footnote. The "sup" footnotes are not accepted on Wikipedia, and make it very hard to evolve an article over time because they do not automatically renumber themselves like "ref" footnotes do.
 * Your WP:Sourcing is an issue of concern: you have extensive cites to Baike Baidu, which is as I understand it the Chinese parallel to Wikipedia. To the best of my knowledge, Baike Baidu is not considered a WP:Reliable source according to Wikipedia, so everything currently cited to Baike Baidu needs to be changed to a Reliable Source, or else marked "unreferenced". Baike Baidu is a site which simply takes user contributions, and is administered by the Chinese government with no apparently quality control (just control for rules violations), so an item cited to Baidu has no more credibility than just an uncited statement on Wikipedia. It is not absolutely necessary that your footnotes be in English or available online (though both are preferred), but many of your current footnotes are litterally no better than no footnotes at all.

Please consider addressing these issues first, and from there folks at the Teahouse can help you develop the article further. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Matthew. I do understand you all have been most patient and helpful.
 * In the beginning, because you have added comments around the ref. codes, and, with the other codes all strang together, they became confusing, and difficult for me to know the start and end of each.


 * Once you explained that / meant the end of a ref code, how the coding system works becomes clear. All the citations will be changed to the correct format within the next few days.  Please consider "mission  accomplished" on this matter :-)


 * Next, I agree and understand the concerns of all the editors and don't know if this article can offer the solid citations that you are looking for. I am trying to get a professor/historian at a U who specializes in that time period for a review and see if he has any published scholarly text books for ref.  This may take some time.


 * From the over 100 sources I have reviewed, I am certain there should be no problem in finding references for 6.16 Incident or for the 66th army etc.; however, I am uncertain if Law Hin-Cheung's name will appear in some or all of them. Is that needed to tie the article together?


 * Worst case, if down the road, the editors choose not to release Law's article, I am fine with it. After all, I have gained knowledge, not a waste of time for me by any stretch.  Will see ...  Thx. CHHistory (talk) 18:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)


 * CHH, no worries; in retrospect I should have put in some more general overall tags rather than marking too many Baidu links as "unreliable", so it's a good reminder for me to make tags fewer and clearer.


 * So far as refs, glad the "ref" tags make sense to you now; I had a similar problem trying to figure those out three years ago, but now it's second nature.


 * So far as your sources and whatnot: if you want a source to be in "James Smith"'s, article, it does have to mention "James Smith" by name somehow. That said, instead of looking at this as "how can I possibly reference all this material?", look on it instead as "I'll find some good sources, and build up the most ironclad source-based article I can." I've had similar issues where there are "things everybody knows" about "James Smith" but I just can't find a ref for it, so maybe I just make a list of important points I can't reference yet, and post them on the article's Talk page once it publishes, so that folks looking to expand the article get some ideas of what to look for.


 * Again, published sources in Chinese are fine, as are published sources existing only on paper, so hopefully there are some good sources out there that aren't Baidu and blogs. It's always good to remember "There is no deadline"; even if you can't find good sources next week, you can take your time and put out a great article after a few weeks or months of slowly gathering info. In the meantime, have you considered getting some research/editing practise by working on some similar articles? Maybe there are some other biographies of WWII Chinese officers that you could help build up, and thereby gain some practise while also working up more and more references for this one? WikiProject Military history is extremely well-organised and active; if you go to the Talk page of the project, briefly introduce yourself, and say you'd like to help improve some Chinese WWII articles to gain experience, you may well find helpful editors there. On Talk pages, just always remember to use very clear section titles (like "Newbie wants to help on China WWII articles" instead of "Want to help here"), indent your replies to posts (using ":" before lines, notice how I'm doing it in my code), etc. Hopefully you can find some folks who share your interest who would welcome some support, especially from a Chinese speaker, in improving the topic area. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Matthew: Have come up with a couple of book references where subject's name was identified with rank and events. So will exchange out the others with this, where relevent..Will finish with exchanging out sup with ref first, and do plan to exchange out current ref with books etc..when possible. Also, will check in with the Military History editors to see if any assistance is needed. THXCHHistory (talk) 20:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Consider http://reftag.appspot.com to format gBooks references
Greetings CHH, there's an auto-formatting tool for gBooks called Reftag at the above link. I don't know how well it works for Chinese, but if you try using it and find it works pretty well, it might make your life easier. Note that on "Snippet view" on GoogleBooks it doesn't automatically generate the page number, so if you're citing from a Snippet, be sure you note the page number and plug it into the Reftag template and hit the button to produce an updated footnote. Give it a shot, let me know what you think. MatthewVanitas (talk) 02:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

OK. Will let you know once I have tried it. Still researching and cleaning up ...CHHistory (talk) Have tested this and ofter some tries, am able to get the ibsn stats etc., plus steer the citation directly to the page. Now, need to continue clean up the ref. area and more research .... more hopeful by the minute that this will be a viable/release worthy piece. ThanksCHHistory (talk) 20:32, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Separated out your "Additional references"; article looking great!
Hello CHH, your article is looking stronger and stronger, but all the "Additional references" you still had were not advantageous to your AFC submission, since the were largely to non-WP:RS sources, and the formatting was disorganised and confusing. Accordingly, I chopped them out and temporarily moved them here: User:MatthewVanitas/Luo Xian Xiang (materials). They technically shouldn't be in the article itself, but I also understand you might want to keep them on-hand for anyone doing any further research.

My best recommendation is that once your article publishes, you go to its Talk page and paste these materials in a section there, maybe something like "Additional non-RS Materials" and leave some note saying something like "These sources aren't RS for the article, but may be of interest to other editors looking for ideas of content that should be expanded in the article." Again, Talk pages aren't generalised forums, but given that these non-RSs may still be a legitimate way to get some ideas on what the article could use for improvement, I'd expect that'd be acceptable. Hope I'm not being presumptuous, but this makes your article look a lot cleaner now. I would overall expect your article will pass AFC just fine. There are some minor cleanup issues I'd recommend, but I'm holding off until WikiProject Military history takes a look after publishing. They have some Asia experts there who would have better advice than mine, so I do strongly suggest you go post on their Talk page introducing yourself and your article (and any plans for future articles!) so you can get some advice from very knowledgeable editors. Article is looking 10 times better than the first draft; you've done some great work and learned a lot about Wikipedia methods very quickly. Well done! MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Matthew, thanks for the encouragement and support, without which I would be at a lost. This turns out to be more interesting that I first thought as it grew from a list of dates and postings into a life! Will check in with the History Project team soon to determine next steps, though I was editing the article, unable to save because we were both woring on it. No worries, I remember what I did, so will go back to redo.

One question, when searching Luo's name in google, a website came up with something like ..."51 ....au" in the http address, and some of your advice in two columns showed up, wonder why? Again, thanks for taking an interest to this articleCHHistory (talk) 16:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Went to the History Project page, did not find a question page, so how do I get in touch with them, as I don't want to get into a project yet. Any pointers thanks CHHistory (talk) 16:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * No worries, glad to help. CHH, quick thing: why did you just make some changes removing Wikilinks? It's perfectly fine to have redlinks for a name we don't yet have an article for, and you also removed some links for terms like Northern Expedition. Did I miss some technical reason? As long as you only link a term once per article, and as long as it's something we could conceivably have an article about in the future, links are good, even if redlinks.


 * The WP:MILHIST page for Talk is here: []. Just do a basic post (with clear title like "Greetings from new editor doing Chinese military history", say a little hello, post a link to your draft and invite any comment. That's my informal suggestion.


 * So far as finding strange pop-ups of your draft on other websites: since WP is free content, some websites pull Wiki material just to try to have anything that can get Google hits and bring them advertising revenue. It's a minor annoyance but not a big issue. If you really want to keep your drafts hidden, see NOINDEX for how to add templates that make it invisible to Google until it's published. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Now I understand. I remember early on, someone said that colors are not allowed in the article, so .... Thanks for correcting that -- will rebracket those needed.  CHHistory (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh! Gracious, good thing we double-checked on that. I'm sure what they meant is that you can't just turn a heading Purple for style reasons. Links being blue or red is not aesthetic, it's a vital part of pieces linking together between articles, so definitely link things as appropriate. That is, don't link simple words like "governor", but do link "governor of Foo Province" if we happen to have such an article. For names, generally link each name (but again, only the first time that term appears in the article), except in cases where you don't expect there to ever be an article for that name. Say, for example, that your subject once slapped a superior when he was a lieutenant, was punished, but recovered and later became a general. The captain he slapped may be only known in history for having been slapped by Subject, so no need to link that name. The article WP:Wikilinks gives some good explanation. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation
 Luo Xian Xiang, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created. You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you are more than welcome to continue submitting work to Articles for Creation. Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia! Mephistophelian (contact)  18:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
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Speedy deletion nomination of Guangzhou Seikwan Incident


A tag has been placed on Guangzhou Seikwan Incident requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that the page was nominated in error, contest the nomination by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" in the speedy deletion tag. Doing so will take you to the talk page where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but do not hesitate to add information that is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. -- Patchy1 23:47, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Patchy1, no worries. I was using that at a development slot IN Error, obviously. Please remove prompto! Many thanksCHHistory (talk) 12:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Guangzhou Seikwan Incident
Hello! I have requested speedy deletion of the article you created (Guangzhou Seikwan Incident) for lack of content. I would suggest creating the article in your own userspace while you are researching it, then adding it to mainspace when you have more content. For example you could start the page here: User:CHHistory/Guangzhou Seikwan Incident. -- Patchy1 23:50, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Moved to User:CHHistory/Guangzhou Seikwan Incident. Mephistophelian  (contact)  00:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC).

Patchy1 and Mephistophelian, thanks for pointing out the errors of my ways. Why this happened was when I clicked on the red lettered seikwan incident, it took me to that page, leading me to believe I have to put something there to indicate that work is in progress.... Please delete prompto! Will go thro the talk / approval process as prior upon completion of this article. Many thanks for watching..... CheersCHHistory (talk) 12:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

 * Hello CHH, just wanted to drop by and again emphasise that you're a very careful and conscientious editor, and your contributions so far have been great. Remember, any "mistakes" can be easily undone, so please WP:Be Bold and do fixes as you see fit. If someone objects, simply stay calm and communicate on Talk to sort issues out; at the very worst we can Revert if things go the wrong direction.


 * Just wanted to encourage you to be confident and not worry too much about editing, but just make sure you're applying proper footnoting, staying neutral, copyediting your work for neatness, and communicating with others. If you've got all that, it's hard to go wrong. Thanks again for your editing. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Matthew, many thanks for your sound advice, as always. For the 1943 Gibraltar .... article, have added material for clarification for the background section....

" after the 1940 Katyn massacre of over 20,000 Polish Armed Forces by the Russians came to light. However, being pragmatic, general Władysław Sikorski was still open ..." To do this is ok? Be well 173.70.163.150 (talk) 17:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit summaries
Hello!

I've noticed that you put ~ into your edit summaries – this is not necessary, as the edit summaries are shown next to your name, and just add clutter.

Thank you, Inkbug (talk) 15:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Your recent edits
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Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 19:25, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Luo Xian Xiang
Hello CHHistory,

I have responded on my talk page and the article's talk page. I hope my remarks are helpful.  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  20:57, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

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