Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Delete. The article is a POV fork. The majority of information in it duplicates the main article on this subject&mdash;Nanking Massacre controversy. Some text was actually copied verbatim from the latter. So, I see no justification for its continued existence. (If someone thinks that some parts of this article could be merged into Nanking Massacre controversy, I am ready to provide a copy of the text for the personal use.) Ruslik (talk) 16:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Reason the page should be deleted PCPP (talk) 09:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Article that violates WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. Most of the article's content is well covered in Nanking Massacre controversy, and only a fringe minority of historians deny the the occurance of the Nanjing Massacre. WP is not a promoter of fringe theories. Furthermore this article is written in a manner than gives weight to the denialist claims with little refutation from mainstream historians, making it seem as the Nanjing Masscre denials are undisputed, especially the photographs section, which violates NPOV. Last of all the tone of article heading higly suggests that the massacre is fabricated, instead of being a concept held by a minority.--PCPP (talk) 09:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - I was not even aware that there were two so similar pages. Even though both of them are long, would it not be an idea to merge the content of both articles into one? Mlewan (talk) 09:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Clear case for a Merge. It should certainly not be deleted, if for no other reason, because of its excellent image content.  Sp in ni  ng  Spark  12:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Changing to delete after examining in more detail. Comparing the ledes of the two articles, it is now clear to me that this is a deliberate fork of the Nanking Massacre controversy article and not an accidental duplication.  The almost identical sentences could only have come from the original article (borne out by the edit history).  Sp in ni  ng  Spark  17:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete Propoganda comparable to Holocaust denial. Gives undue weight fringe theory this is not notable. All the references are Japanese suggesting this article is for POV pushing and reducing the reliability of sources Arma virumque cano (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This user's primarily contributions to Wikipedia have been to !vote (primarily delete) on dozens of AfDs approximately 1 minute apart form each other. See Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive193 --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment One look at the author's contributions State that this is clearly a POV pusher SPA account. With a Japanese sounding name, no wonder Arma virumque cano (talk) 16:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename to Denial of Nanking Massacre along the line of Holodomor denial. Notable as a propaganda event.Biophys (talk) 18:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is a deliberate fork of Nanking Massacre controversy so neither renaming nor keeping is necessary. Arma virumque cano (talk) 19:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename as per biophys.Smallman12q (talk) 21:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as redundant POV fork. Drawn Some (talk) 21:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - Based on mainstream Japanese sources. Hovewer, we do not want this material in Nanking Massacre. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge some parts to Nanking Massacre controversy. This article is the result of user:Richardshusr's good faith initiative following user:Arimasa's attemp to introduce excerpts from his article here into Nanking massacre. I've tried my best to give a balanced view to the negationist POV by adding many sourced citations from reputed scholars or excerpts from contemporary testimonies but I must admit the overall result is a failure and is more propaganda than anything else... --Flying tiger (talk) 22:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename I'm not a deletionist. I believe that nearly all articles can have a home on wikipedia, but that name has to go.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.  —Nick-D (talk) 08:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete This is a POV fork and does not attempt to give a neutral account of the events it covers. If the article is kept it requires a total re-write to provide a balanced account and move on from its current status as a thinly veiled collection of denialist propaganda. Nick-D (talk) 08:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge (probably non-existent) relevant material to Nanking Massacre controversy. Right now the article is nothing more than a collection of denialist propaganda and much of the current content reflects the main contributor (Arimasa)'s website advocating the fabrication of said events.  It's one thing to argue that the topic is notable (it is, and is already quite well-covered in the controversy article mentioned).  The page was primarily created by Richardshusr to divert people like Arimasa from being a distraction from those working on Nanking Massacre and Nanking Massacre controversy.  Now, I'm sure we've all read the POV fork guidelines.  Sure, it's ok if a topic grows so large that it deserves its own article.  That's not a POV fork.  Indeed, that is why there is a separate article on the controversy.   But what do we call an article that is a haphazard collection of information that has been deemed unsuitable for inclusion elsewhere and makes no pretense at being a neutral account of a (fringe) theory?  Indeed, the selection of topics right now in the article are the result of the following process: 1) Arimasa includes topic X  2) someone clarifies point made about X which makes the denialist argument look less convincing 3) Arimasa removes X and replaces it with Y.  So we see here that due to this cherry-picking of contents (rather than neutrally trying to describe the denialist theories) makes the article itself a propaganda piece for denialism, rather than an encyclopedic account.  Looking at Nanking Massacre controversy, I don't know why that article doesn't do an adequate job and why we need this 3rd article.  Indeed, Richard has mentioned in discussion that he is uncertain what the article should be about.  So I don't think this article was very well-conceived from the start and should thus be deleted.  --C S (talk) 09:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions.  —Fg2 (talk) 11:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per CS et al above as an irrecoverable POV fork and redirect the title to Nanking Massacre controversy. A merge might seem appropriate at first glance as there is sourced content unique to the article, but I fear such an outcome will result in this propaganda piece lingering indefinitely as editors try to sort out the wheat from the chaff, and may spill over into content disputes on other articles. It looks to me like there's nothing in this article that we can't afford to lose. EyeSerene talk 11:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - largely a duplicate of Nanking Massacre controversy. This is an obvious violation of WP:POVFORK and needs to go. Parsecboy (talk) 12:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete because of the existence of Nanking Massacre controversy. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 13:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete As others have said very clearly, this is a pov fork and we already have an article which has in its title 'controversy'. Turn it into a protected redirect. Dougweller (talk) 13:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as an obvious POV fork. The only reason to have an article of this name is to present a certain non-neutral POV. I don't see any need to keep a redirect at this title, since it doesn't seem to be a likely search term. There might be some material worth moving into Nanking Massacre controversy. If the Article Rescue Squadron want to make themselves useful, perhaps they could look into that.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 15:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename to Denial of Nanking Massacre as per biophys. However, I won't have much heartburn if the article is deleted as it is currently written in a POV style which is in desperate need of a complete rewrite to make it an NPOV description of a particular POV.  I created both this article and Nanking massacre controversy at about the same time.  In fact, this article was named  Nanking massacre controversy for a short while before I realized that there was a need to describe the controversy from a historiographic perspective (which the current article on Nanking massacre controversy does).  This article "drills down" and focuses on the denialist POV.  It could be an encyclopedic article except that Arimasa keeps trying to make the denialist case rather than allowing others to describe the denialist case in a more dispassionate and hopefully objective perspective.  The duplication of text noted by Spinningspark is deliberate.  That text was copied over here to provide context for the thesis of the article.  --Richard (talk) 16:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment That is hopelessly redundant; only one article is necessary to describe these Japanese fringe theories. If this article is to be about the denialist POV, what on earth is Nanking Massacre controversy supposed to be about? It is instructive to note that there is only Holocaust denial to describe the denial of that particular atrocity&mdash;this one doesn't need two. Parsecboy (talk) 17:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete per Parsecboy -- T orsodo g Talk 20:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge anything useful into Nanking massacre controversy (if anything in Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre is useable), then Redirect. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment No merging or renaming is needed as this is a 100% redundant POV fork propoganda created by a user adding propaganda copied from his own website Please see AN/COI Arma virumque cano (talk) 21:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete POV fork. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 21:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete TomStar81 (Talk) 23:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Clear POV fork. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 02:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment This seems to have echoes of the Holocaust denial method (unequal treatment of sources. etc as described in Richard Evans' book Telling Lies About Hitler). I won't cry if the article is deleted but I'd be happier if the denialist points were themselves assessed in context. This stuff won't disappear from the planet and objective assessments, criticisms and debunking (as appropriate) would be good. The article has citations, but I don't know how reliable these are - Evans went to the trouble of assessing David Irving's citations with the result that Irving is damned out of sight and Holocaust deniers have lost a major support. Folks at 137 (talk) 07:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the denialist points should themselves be assessed in context, although it’s not absolutely necessary that this should be an independent article. Many of the denialist arguments are simply repeated again and again and again in the current article as rebuttals to claims made.  That’s unnecessary.  The cure would be to restructure the article to identify the main denialist arguments and offer mainstream rebuttals (which are almost entirely absent), but since this would require a total restructuring and rewrite of this article, I don’t see that it cannot be achieved in the Nanking Massacre controversy article. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge/Redirect to Nanking massacre controversy. POV forking is not an approved method of resolving content disputes. See also Allegations of allegations of apartheid apartheid. Stifle (talk) 10:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect use source material as appropriate, otherwise delete POV fork. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. The only problem I see with deletion of this totally unnecessary POV fork is that COI-entrenched user Arimasa will no longer be occupied. After deletion, Arimasa will become a real problem at Nanking massacre controversy. Nevertheless, I say Delete. Binksternet (talk) 15:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If Arimasa is an uncooperative editor it is best dealt with in other ways than giving him a toy article to play with. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 18:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Giving him a chew toy was an easy way to buy time so that the controversy article could be written in peace, primarily by Richardshusr. Now that it is largely settled into place, Arimasa's POV thrusts can be better parried. Binksternet (talk) 18:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Propose early close of this AFD with result being Merge any salvageable text and then redirect ***
 * Delete. Let me get this straight.  This entire article was written to give one POV-happy editor something to occupy his time rather than vandalize the more accurate and NPOV version of the same topic?  What the fudge?  Since when is it up to Wikipedia to babysit uncooperative editors by giving them their own articles to corrupt so the rest of WP can run smoothly?  It sounds to me as if something needs to be done about this Arimasa rather than turn WP upsidedown to accomodate him/her.  This article is a pointless exercise in redirecting a bad editor's efforts away from the original article.  Big, fat delete.  --ScreaminEagle (talk) 16:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge. Yesterday, I had looked at what it would take to make this an NPOV article focused on its topic on its own merits, but could come up with nothing short of a total restructuring and rewrite.  I fully agree with C S.  Merge any useful information into Nanking Massacre controversy.  Askari Mark (Talk) 18:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, POV fork. -- Avenue (talk) 18:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge (if possible) and delete - piling on; POV forks are not good things. — Ed   (Talk  •  Contribs)  19:54, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete for the reasons given above. Of course nobody deserves a soapbox at WP, but as Arimasa Kubo already has his own elsewhere this one somehow seems particularly unnecessary. (Oh, a note on the nomination: only a fringe minority of historians deny the the occurance of the Nanjing Massacre; of historians, yes, but politicians sympathetic to this view are routinely elected to power by the Japanese citizenry.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The current consensus is 20 for Delete, 5 for Merge and 5 for Keep. Given the close parallels to Nanking Massacre controversy, Merge is effectively the same as Delete.  It seems to me that 30 opinions is a lot for an AFD and I doubt that additional time will change the outcome of this AFD.  We can just delete the article and then re-create it as a Redirect.  If anyone wants to try and salvage some of the text, I'm an admin so I can restore the text of the deleted article to their userspace for them to pick through at their leisure.
 * --Richard (talk) 01:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

- Withdrawn. --Richard (talk) 05:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's not necessarily a bad idea but it's rather an odd one. First, by your own reckoning the most popular vote ("!vote") accounts for under 70%, low as a "consensus" even as the word has been bizarrely extended by WP. Secondly, "merge" might very well not mean the same as "delete" (if it meant delete, I'd wonder why people saying it didn't instead say "delete and redirect"). Thirdly, this AfD is neither particularly long nor (rather surprisingly) at all rancorous. And lastly, somebody might later complain if the AfD had been cut short. -- Hoary (talk) 05:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * smerge POV fork. Hipocrite (talk) 04:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Too much information to merge. And the denial is wide spread in Japan, they censoring their history books and claiming they were not the aggressors in the war.  Anyone who tries to speak about the truth of what happened during that time, is harassed, and even has their life threatened according to a bit I saw on the History Channel about this years ago.  Plenty of references for everything.   D r e a m Focus  10:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nanking_Massacre_controversy A lot of information was split, the article too long otherwise.  D r e a m Focus  11:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete, a glaringly obvious POV fork. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as POV fork. Artw (talk) 05:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as POV Fork; this is appalling. Such articles need to be more carefully watched and watched for. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:01, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * nb: there appears to be widespread POV violations related to this:, for example. Jack Merridew 14:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete this is a POV junk page with the worse conspiracy theories being tossed in without any balance. Fake history is not encyclopedic and the only article should be to show and refute the rediculous claims. Jmcnamera (talk) 19:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete POV fringey junk. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 03:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.