User talk:Policycheck

December 2021
Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to Trial of Anming Hu, it appears that you have added original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources.   Yee no   (talk) 🍁 03:21, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback
Thank you for your feedback. Responses are listed below.

1. According to the Talk guidelines, "The basic rule, with exceptions outlined below, is to not edit or delete others' posts without their permission." However, the post was deleted without permission.

Wikipedia explains:

Please do not bite the newcomers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers#Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers

To avoid being accused of biting, try to: Improve, Don't Remove.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers#How_to_avoid_being_a_%22biter%22

2. Which of the 14 reasons for deleting a section served as the basis for deleting the section on "NASA's China Restriction"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reasons_for_deletion

3. The post cited 14 reliable sources, of which 13 were government documents and 1 was an article published by The Guardian newspaper:

"Indictment. USA v HU" (PDF). February 5, 2020.

"Public Law 112-10". U.S. Government Printing Office. April 15, 2011. McNally, William P. (September 26, 2012).

"GIC 12-01A CLASS DEVIATION IMPLEMENTING NASA RESTRICTIONS ON FUNDING ACTIVITIES WITH THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC)". NASA. Archived from the original on October 23, 2015.

McNally, William P. (February 9, 2012). "GIC 12-01 CLASS DEVIATION IMPLEMENTING NASA RESTRICTIONS ON FUNDING ACTIVITIES WITH THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC)". NASA. Archived from the original on March 9, 2013.

"Assistant Administrator, Office of Procurement Bill McNally". NASA. May 3, 2010. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021.

"NASA FAR Supplement" (PDF). NASA. September 28, 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 23, 2021.

"Federal Register Document Search". Archived from the original on December 7, 2021.

"41 USC §1707. Publication of proposed regulations".

"ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE - 5 U.S.C. § 553 (2012)". Archived from the original on May 10, 2021.

"Chinese Companies Listed on Major U.S. Stock Exchanges" (PDF). U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION. May 5, 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 22, 2021.

"NASA GCAM". NASA. Archived from the original on November 19, 2016.

"Active Grant Information Circulars (GICs)". NASA. Archived from the original on November 29, 2016.

"NASA Science for Researchers". NASA. Archived from the original on April 12, 2016. Sample, Ian (11 October 2013).

"Nasa admits mistake over Chinese scientists' conference ban". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 16, 2013.

4. What material was considered to be "original"?

Policycheck (talk) 04:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi @Policycheck: Firstly, the guidelines you are referencing are for talk pages, like this page. Content on talk pages shouldn't be edited without permission, since doing so can lead to someone's words being manipulated.
 * Article content can be changed and removed by anyone, and the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is often employed there. I object to the content being on the page, and thus have removed it. As for the content itself, your sources talk a lot about NASA and its policies, but none of them mention Anming Hu or the trial. You instead reach a conclusion from your interpretation of the sources, which is original synthesis and not allowed on Wikipedia. According to the verifiability policy, Wikipedia's content "is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors". This means that if you want to make a point, it has to be a point that was previously published somewhere else, such as a news article or book. In this case, if you find a source that directly links Hu's trial to NASA's policies, you can include it in the article. Yee no   (talk) 🍁 05:25, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification.
You write:

"I object to the content being on the page, and thus have removed it. As for the content itself, your sources talk a lot about NASA and its policies, but none of them mention Anming Hu or the trial."

Please note that personal objection to content is not among Wikipedia's reasons for deleting a section.

You inaccurately state that none of the sources mention Anming Hu or the trial. To the contrary, the Indictment mentions Anming Hu and was the basis for the entire trial.

The Indictment was linked as the very first citation.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tned.93460/gov.uscourts.tned.93460.3.0.pdf

This is the Government's own source document, USA v Anming Hu. The first two pages of the Indictment specifically connect Anming Hu to Public Law, NASA, and NASA's policies:

'''Public Law 112-10 and the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012, Public Law 112-55. Under these Acts, NASA was prohibited from using appropriated funding to enter into or fund any grant or cooperative agreement of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company ("NASA's China Funding Restriction").

'''NASA defined "China or any Chinese-owned company" to include Chinese universities because Chinese universities are considered to be incorporated under the laws of the People's Republic of China ("PRC"). ...'''

'''Beginning at least as early as 2013 and continuing through the date of this Indictment, HU was also a faculty member at the Beijing University of Technology ("BJUT"), Institute of Laser Engineering in Beijing, China. ...'''

'''Beginning in 2016, HU engaged in a scheme to defraud NASA by falsely representing and concealing his affiliation with BJUT to UTK. Through his fraudulent representations and omissions to UTK about his affiliation with BJUT, HU knowingly and willfully caused UTK to falsely certify to NASA and to NASA contractors that UTK was in compliance with NASA's China Funding Restriction'''

The new contributed Wikipedia section on NASA's China Restriction provided links to NASA's source documents underlying the Indictment, links to Public Law that was the basis for NASA's documents, and links to US Code that applies to NASA when formulating new policy.

Whether one objects to these documents or not, they do indeed exist.

If there is a specific sentence you object to, please explain your objection to that sentence so that it can be edited.

The blanket statement that the entire section was "original research" and lacked citations to reliable sources is plainly wrong.

Policycheck (talk) 06:32, 7 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi @Policycheck: I apologise if my statement made it seem that I objected to this content on personal grounds. To clarify, I do not have any personal stance, nor in depth knowledge about this trial, I only object to your content based on Wikipedia's policy on original research and synthesis. Please note that this is a content dispute, and that Wikipedia's deletion policy only applies to deleting entire articles, not individual edits.
 * Thank you for bringing this source to my attention, I see that this is the court document that serves as the basis of Hu's trial. Nonetheless, we still must be careful here, since that document is a primary source.
 * The policy on primary sources states:
 * "3. A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a musician may cite discographies and track listings published by the record label, and an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source.
 * 4. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so."
 * While parts of your edit simply references and quotes parts of primary sources, which is generally okay, it also makes several interpretations (see WP:SYNTHESIS), such as aspects of the "China restriction" not being official policy. However true this may be, the connection is not straightforward enough that any person can figure it out without some knowledge of NASA policy; thus, it shouldn't be included, unless this stance as been noted somewhere else before (e.g. Hu's defence lawyer, a columnist, academic, or other reliable source).  Since there are two sides to this issue, this interpretation of the "China restriction" is also likely a biased statement, and would require attribution. Again, this would be the author of the statement, such as a lawyer or writer. Same goes with NASA misinterpreting the "China restriction".
 * Since I am not really familiar with all the details of this case (I'm only looking this through a policy and style viewpoint), I suggest this discussion be continued at Talk:Trial of Anming Hu. There it could be seen by regular editors of the page, who are sure to know more about the case than I do. You can also propose any new additions to the page there and see what others think.
 * If you have more general questions about Wikipedia and its policies, feel free to ask me, or visit the Wikipedia Teahouse, where you can find experienced volunteers who will be able to answer any questions you have. Thanks! Yee no   (talk) 🍁 07:24, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If you have more general questions about Wikipedia and its policies, feel free to ask me, or visit the Wikipedia Teahouse, where you can find experienced volunteers who will be able to answer any questions you have. Thanks! Yee no   (talk) 🍁 07:24, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

You write: "it also makes several interpretations, such as aspects of the "China restriction" not being official policy."

This statement is inaccurate. The NASA "GCAM" codifies NASA policy related to grants and contracts. It is a statement of fact -- not interpretation -- that the revised 2016 GCAM incorporated the relevant language from Public Law, but excluded the new language about Chinese universities as proposed in GIC 12-01A.

Regarding NASA's misinterpretation of the China Restriction, please see the Guardian article that was cited: "Nasa admits mistake over Chinese scientists' conference ban". The article plainly states:

congressman Frank Wolf, chair of the House appropriations subcommittee that has jurisdiction over Nasa, contacted the Nasa chief administrator to correct the agency's interpretation of the law ... "... Nasa Ames mischaracterises the law and is inaccurate," Wolf wrote.

This quote from the Guardian was contained in the section before you deleted it. The background information about NASA's China Restriction is found in reliable sources.

Wikipedia provides 14 reasons for deleting a section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reasons_for_deletion

Please identify the particular reasons from this list, and indicate the sentence you think the reason applies to.

In the meantime, please restore the section that you deleted, then raise concerns here or in the other Talk site so that consensus can be reached regarding the precise wording.

Policycheck (talk) 14:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

About the Third Opinion request: The request made at Third Opinion has been removed (i.e. declined). Like all other moderated content dispute resolution venues at Wikipedia, Third Opinion requires thorough back-and-forth talk page discussion before seeking assistance. If an editor will not discuss, consider the recommendations which are made here, but I see no sign of that being the case here. Something, however, that caught my eye in passing: The list of reasons given in the "14 reasons" mentioned just above are reasons to delete an article, not a section. An entirely different set of criteria apply to article content as opposed to articles as a whole. — TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC) (Not watching this page)

New revision
Please see new revision of the section in question.

It contains extensive citations and links to reliable sources, most of which are governmental documents.

It is requested that any concerns be raised in the Talk page rather than performing a wholesale deletion of the section.

Also please see page 7 of the indictment of TAMU professor Zheng;


 * According to guidance published by NASA and circulated to grant applicants, “Chinese universities and other similar institutions are considered to be incorporated under the laws of the PRC and, therefore, the funding restrictions apply to grants and cooperative agreements that include bilateral participation, collaboration, or coordination with Chinese universities.”
 * https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txsd.1793632/gov.uscourts.txsd.1793632.1.0_3.pdf

The uncited Grant Information Circular 12-01A is the basis for prosecution under the China Initiative, which makes it notable and which makes the status and content of the hard-to-find archived Circulars worthy of public awareness via this Wikipedia article.

Policycheck (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Undue weight
Please shorten your content additions to Trial of Anming Hu to a readable level and, or, create a separate page for it. Suggestion: China Initiative or something similar. While I'm sure you put quite a lot of work into your edits, it is WP:UNDUE to have half the entire article focused on specific factoids or in depth interpretations of the basis of a trial, when the actual content on the trial's proceedings takes up less than a quarter of the page. Qiushufang (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the suggestion. The content has been shortened and inserted into the section on fraud charges. Policycheck (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Wolf Amendment
I made a suggestion on Talk:Trial of Anming Hu that you consider the Wolf Amendment article. It seems to me that you have some material that could benefit the Wolf Amendment article.

A brief description of the flaw in the prosecution, with appropriate links into the Wolf Amendment page, might be appropriate for the Anming Hu article if there is a reliable source describing that flaw.

Thank you for linking to the Wolf Amendment article. It was odd that the Anming Hu article missed it. I just linked it. I noticed this lacuna because of a link within your own addition.

I also concur with other editors: it would be good if you could find a source which says why the theory of the prosecution was flawed. Your explanation is pretty clear, but that's not how Wikipedia works. -- M.boli (talk) 12:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your suggestions. The material has been considerably shortened and inserted in the section on the fraud charges, in order to quote the actual charges from the indictment, and to show the source for the charges. Policycheck (talk) 15:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)