Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of Chinese inventions/archive2


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was removed by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC).

List of Chinese inventions

 * Notified: PericlesofAthens, WikiProject Chinese history, WikiProject Technology, WikiProject Invention, WikiProject Technology, WikiProject History of Science

Since the first FL removal discussion it has been three months time to clean up the article to meet FL standards. While undoubtedly many low quality entries have been removed, the list still suffers from the flaws that I pointed out then, namely WP:OR and WP:SYN. While the core of entries that elevated the list to FL in 2008 is mostly well-sourced, the hundreds of entries added since have deteriorated the overall list quality. Many of the claims make too much of the source they refer to, blowing up vague references to oldest evidence in a certain cultural, temporal or geographical context to an absolute claim of global priority for China. To give you an idea of the nature of the problem see this sample of ten supposedly Chinese inventions I collected after the clean-up was finished.

Source quality and interpretation are one thing, another is the seemingly boundless time frame of the list. While invention lists for other peoples and eras are careful not to overstep boundaries of time and space, the section "Pre-Shang" extends Chinese inventions to 20,000 BC (entry "Cookware and pottery vessel"). Where will attribution to the Chinese stop, with Peking Man? Instead of FL status the list urgently needs to be tagged for serious contents and definitional issues. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)


 * To spur a discussion all editors who have participated in the first candidacy have been informed of this one. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Easy delist -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  20:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist per nom. Confused about the process of opening a second delist discussion, but, not up to par and not looking like things will be fixed. « Gonzo fan2007  (talk)  @ 20:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist per nom. Khirurg (talk) 20:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Definite Keep. This entire voting process is rigged as practically the only people re-invited here (April 22nd) are those who voted for delisting the last time an attempt was made to delist this article. The two who voted for keeping it were either uninivited: Pericles of Athens Talk. Or inactive for a month by the time the newest notification for voting this article down was sent out: Khanate General ☪  talk User:Khanate General. Furthermore, there's no invitation notification put in the head of this article for others to know of this voting process taking place (there is that option), which decreases the chance of additional voters to chime in. Which I wouldn't otherwise complain about if not for the very skewed invite. Secondly, I have some concern with the list of issues brought up. For example, acupuncture and animal zodiacs are not inventions of something purely physical, ergo historic connections are necessary to establish invention, not just similarity, otherwise the Chinese would have invented soccer not Britain. Ergo if some other society had needles for medicinal practices, that in itself is a separate practice from Chinese acupuncture unless evidence can be brought that Chinese acupuncture derived from those earlier needle practices. What problems amongst the ten listed that I think are valid could easily be deleted rather than delisted as the article already separates inventions into categories in alphabetical order so not really that hard to search where the article said it and delete that part. ArchimedesTheInventor 19:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It is patently incorrect that PericlesofAthens and Khanate General weren't notified of this discussions. -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  16:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You obviously didn't read what I wrote and mis-represented it. Which part of what I said was wrong?
 * -PericlesofAthens wasn't re-invited, re-invite being the key word. The re-invite you guys received on April 22, due to and I quote:"To spur a discussion all editors who have participated in the first candidacy have been informed of this one" was not sent out to PericlesofAthens. Are you claiming that is incorrect? If so, point out the link for his invite for April 22.
 * -The re-invite occurred at a point when Khanate General was inactive for a month. Are you claiming that is incorrect, if so point out any activity he made within a month of the re-invite which occurred in April 22. ArchimedesTheInventor 12:05, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * He was invited in the initial wave on the 8th instead of the second wave on the 22nd. I don't really see a problem there. If he wanted to be involved he would be involved in this. -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  18:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Nobody was involved in 8th, only after the 2nd re-invite of the 22nd did anyone start getting involved, an invite he didn't receive even though the people who previously already voted for delist did. People are less inclined to join in on a blank discussion, and because of the lack of the re-invite there is no proof he would even know of later developments starting from the 22nd. There's an easy to way to solve this particular problem (not the rest of the problems mentioned), why don't you just invite him? ArchimedesTheInventor 01:50, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I would like to take back by vote. I apologize, being new to wiki I mixed up "Featured list removal" with "Articles for deletion". And here I wondered how so many people would take the drastic action of deleting the entire article and redoing it from scratch when it's much easier to simply get rid of the low quality edits. But now I realize there's a difference between "Featured list removal" and "Articles for deletion". In which case, now that I know, I would like to change my vote to delist as well. I apologize once again. ArchimedesTheInventor 06:34, 1 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Delist, with regret. The nominator mentions concerns of the list containing entries with dubious proof of invention in China, and I am also concerned by undue weight in relation to the mention or amount of detail of some of the less groundbreaking inventions. No doubt the many contributions by unregistered and new editors in the decade since this FL's promotion have added a great deal of valuable information to the list, but it is not detailed-oriented and of consistent quality in the way that an FL needs to be. — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Several of the items mentioned in the talk page seem to be reaching. Pre-Shang for example does not mention any specific inventions. The examples citied for evidence of pre-Chinese acupuncture are fringe and the wikipedia article on acupuncture make no note of them. Tea was first drunk in Yunnan, which is today part of China, and the first physical evidence of it according to wikipedia was found in a Han emperor's tomb. Given the geographical and archaeological evidence, disputing it as a "Chinese invention" seems pedantic as is arguments over the definition of a "bombard". Qiushufang (talk) 03:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist can't have a double-maintenance-tagged article being claimed as part of Wikipedia's finest work.  The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 10:47, 9 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment: Would an admin be so kind and review the issue and come to a verdict? This nominations has been going on for over two months, including the first discussion even for almost half a year... Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Giants2008 ( Talk ) 18:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.