User talk:Relmcheatham

Welcome!
Happy editing! Peaceray (talk) 02:36, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of negative reception of Lockley’s book in Japan
Hi Relm,

I apologize for adding this as a topic on your talk page, since the Yasuke talk page is semi-protected and I cannot currently reply to it. I just wanted to provide the main source for negative reception of Lockley’s book “Nobunaga and Yasuke,” the reviews on Amazon with the number of people upvoting it: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/product-reviews/4778315561/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_sr?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=1#reviews-filter-bar

As you can see, there is a good number of people who are not happy with the way that the book presents itself. Even some of the positive reviews admit it is a novel rather than a non-fiction book.

I would also like to redirect you to the Japanese talk page on Yasuke, where almost everyone agrees that Lockley is unreliable over primary sources: https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88:%E5%BC%A5%E5%8A%A9

There is also a user called Symphony Regalia who has been trolling the Japanese talk page, being exposed as using multiple proxy accounts to try and promote the viewpoint of Yasuke = 侍 with no credible sources other than Lockley (which itself is seen as uncredible to the Japanese editors). The same user is also on the EN talk page promoting the same viewpoint, by the way. 天罰れい子 (talk) 22:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * This book was released in 2017. All of its positive reviews are from various dates and times over the last near-decade this book has been available. Every single negative review is from the past two months. I think it is pretty clear that the book is being brigaded by people who have probably not read the book and are partaking in a culture war. When I presented that Lockley had another work that was reliable I was referring to his peer reviewed paper published in 2023 in a Japanese journal.
 * For the other point, I don't disagree that Lockley's co-authored work is not reliable to source for the claim - but it is the academic consensus even without his work cited for it. Lockley is not a primary source, but those who describe him as a samurai do so off of interpretation of those primary sources. This is part of the historical process, and so far no one across the ANI, RFC, talk page, or RSN have presented a reliable source claiming otherwise.
 * I would also caution that every wiki is managed differently, and is subject to their own biases. There have been wikis that have succumbed to periods of rampant nationalism or are still known for such behaviors. The Japanese wiki is no more reliable than any wiki is - and I have seen many examples in my time studying events like Sook Ching for my studies on SE Asia and China that show JP wiki still has many pages which violate NPOV and try to deny warcrimes (e.g. Nanking), present loosely sourced hagiography (e.g. Akiyama Yoshifuru), and to justify war criminals actions (e.g. The pinning of Sook Ching on Col. Tsuji alone by saying the others involved and tried for the genocide disagreed when many documents exist to the contrary.).
 * I want to emphasize two things. The first is that Lockley has been the most scrutinized historian as apart of the drama surrounding the game's announcement, and so the current wave of bad reviews from people no one could know the origin of (esp when there are cases that have happened on wikipedia and twitter of brigading with fake, google translated Japanese accounts to spread misinformation) is not indicative of academic opposition to his work. The second is that Japanese wiki and its users do not assume primacy on the Samurai status of Yasuke. Their sources and reasonings are equally up to scrutiny along Wikipedia policies, and with the issue rooted in such specific context and terms even fluency in Japanese is insufficient to properly contextualize the primary sources. So far those wishing to lower the status of Yasuke as a Samurai on the English page have yet to provide reliable sources to the contrary - the Japanesse page as I last read through it wanted to keep it specific to what is explicitly stated in the primary source document without the interpretations.
 * As an addendum to the latter, I also want to say that though there is a noticeable issue with nationalism on JP wiki, no wiki is immune from such examples and I do not want to diminish the contributions of their editors. I am presenting these examples to explain why individual wikis do not hold primacy on any page, and there is no need to defer to the opinions of users on matters of history even if it is rooted in their native language. Being a historian specializing on a topic, period, etc gives one academic weight by showing they have the credentials to suggest authority on their ability to analyze primary sources within their contemporary context. Fluency in Japanese alone does not afford one the ability to analyze these documents to the level that matters for wikipedia standards like Lockley's credentials and published peer reviewed work would suggest. Relm (talk) 05:39, 9 July 2024 (UTC)