- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
– General close. See comments for reasoning.
Have you discussed this on a talk page?
Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.
Location of dispute
Users involved
Dispute overview
This is a continuation of a former DRN request on the same subject [11], which was closed last June due to an Arbcom request. After the Arbcom case concluded, the case was left unresolved for the following months due to personal issues, and I hope for the outstanding issues on the article to be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.
Have you tried to resolve this previously?
Per prior case
How do you think we can help?
Per prior case
Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
Thanks to PCPP for finally restarting this Dispute Resolution. Thanks also to Guy Macon for volunteering to help us. I apologize for being Easter-sloth slow in replying, and don't have any objections to the somewhat longwinded opening comments because we've been talking in circles for too long. For instance, my "recent addition" of the CSM quote (#5) was added to the Confucius Institute article on 15 December 2010, was carried over into the initial Concerns and controversies article on 10 July 2011, and first deleted by PCPP on 14 May 2012. I hope we can reach an amicable resolution on appropriate contents for the C&CoCI article, and then cooperate on updating it. How should we proceed? Keahapana (talk) 01:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
My prior concerns in regards to article
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Hi, I've read the discussion, and per the terms, I will not edit the main page of the article while the discussion is going on, and will not touch or mention the paragraphs regarding FLG. Overall, I feel that this article is overlong with quotes, and some can be better served with summarized statements. I also feel a need to distinguish between criticisms of CI and criticisms of individuals working at CI. My main disputes are with several of Keahapana's recent additions, which I view as failing to satisfy NPOV and due weight.
Here are some of the specific changes I disagree with:
Statements by Pierrebourg et al alleging that some CI employees have relations with United Front Work Dept and Huawei. The authors also allege that United Front and Huawei employees were engaging in possible propaganda and spying efforts. In my opinion, this is given undue weight, since it engage a "guilt-by-association" fallacy, sounds like a conspiracy theory, and itself is not really a criticism of CI itself.
A quote from the German publication "Der Spiegel", which claims that CI possibly promotes "China's cultural superiority". I feel that this statement falls on undue weight, as it comes from an article about China's foreign relations, and only mentioned CI in one sentence.
Comparisons with Mussolini's Italian Institutes. I feel that this violates NPOV and engages in further association fallacy.
A statement from Branner speculating on the long term consequences of CI finances. I feel that this statement adds little to the article, which is in danger of being too long with its quotations.
A tabloid headline referring to China as "a cruel, tyrannical, and repressive foreign government". I feel that this violates NPOV, tells nothing to the reader, and feel that it's better to use the author's concluding statements about how Chinese should be taught "in terms of freedom and democracy"
A paragraph detailing that the Dickinson State University not wanting a CI, noting that it's not where they want to focus right now. I feels that this is not really a criticism at all, since such institutions can be rejected for administration reasons at anytime. Also, the university mentioned is a comparatively minor educational institution which has been accused of being a diploma mill.
A paragraph detailing a Senate hearing regarding Chinese diplomatic efforts in the US, which includes quotes of political rhetorics from Representative Dana Rohrabacher as well as statement from Steven W. Mosher. I feel that quoting Rohrabacher adds little to the article, and it's better to simply summarize his statements. As for Steven Mosher, it was claimed that he was expelled by Stanford due to Chinese pressure, while failing to mention the event happened in 1981 and has nothing to do with CI at all.
A paragraph regarding a local dispute over an elementary school's Confucius Classroom, sourced largely from blogs. I feel that this does not meet notability and due weight requirements.
The paragraph states that CI is administered by Hanban, and its chair used to work with United Front. This already says "association fallacy", and the Mosher quote regarding United Front is inappropriately added to synthesis further spying allegations.
Here is a paragraph about London School of Economics accepting donations from China, and associates it with the controversial Gaddafi donations. Again, I feel that this has little to do with CI, and more to do with LSE.
Long paragraph regarding Visa requirements of CI employees. I feel that this is given undue weight.
- 12) Lastly, I feel that the article would serve better if it was renamed "Reception of Confucius Institutes" or something similar instead, since the current title emphasizes an undue weight on negatives, suffer from a repetition of similar statements, while not giving due weight to CI's side of the story. I also feel that this article is in danger of becoming a collection of random negative stories on CI pulled from Google news, and as such, does not satisfy WP:CRIT. Perhaps the article could be restyled after similar criticism articles on Microsoft and Apple, where the criticism is organized by a clear heading and opening statement, present all sides using very little direct quotes and more concise paraphrasing. --PCPP (talk) 08:29, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
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Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
Basically, the problem with this article is that it has turned into a dumping ground and clearinghouse for any old web page that could vaguely be construed as damaging to CIs. There's no editorial control for NPOV and weight; there's no summarizing; there's no merging. For example, Keahapana says in discussion, "we could add more references to CIs and cultural superiority such as China Is Culturally Superior to America". However, there is no in-depth discussion of any issue of "cultural superiority". There's just an obscure blogpost mocking state-run media around the world, and which made some sarcastic, uninformed, and extrapolative remarks about a Chinese newspaper op-ed. And this push to continually add irrelevant commentaries is a fair microcosm of the kind of shenanigans that I would like to see stop. Give me highly-corroborated, widely-referenced criticisms from the finest quality sources. Those criticisms will be exactly the ones that merit a response from the criticized party, or a well-documented refusal to respond. Restricting the article to those types of criticisms solves the balance issue. Shrigley (talk) 14:00, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.
I'm not sure that I have anything helpful to say at this point. The disputes about what is on the page arise because of the different views that the disputants hold about the topic. This happens all the time on Wikipedia (obviously). A process by which each and every sentence and paragraph of the article was examined and subject to the scrutiny of third parties - where sources, reliability, etc. were discussed, that would certainly be one way to go. Is that the plan? Is that's what's happening below? My view is that I'd just let PCPP do his thing on the margins, watering things down and deleting things - as long as the main, important points about CIs and the concerns about them are given proper account. That's my overall view, but that's not helpful for the specifics of what is going on here, perhaps. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 15:15, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes discussion
Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.
Hello. I am a dispute resolution volunteer here at the Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. This does not imply that I have any special authority or that my opinions should carry any extra weight; it just means that I have not been previously involved in this dispute and that I have some experience helping other people to resolve their disputes. Right now I am waiting for everyone to make their statements before opening this up for discussion. in the meantime, I encourage everyone involved to read the Guide for participants at the top of this page. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 18:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
Because the comment was placed in this section (right under the instructions that says not to do that -- see above) I have moved it to "Opening comments by by PCPP" above. Normally we limit opening comments to 2000 characters and the comment is over 5000 characters long, but this is an unusual case, having been through DRN and arbcom previously, and it is collapsed, so I would like to ask Keahapana, do you have any objection to this? I don't want anyone to think we are being unfair or biased toward one side or the other. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:33, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
- It has been over 24 hours, and still I only see one person choosing to participate. I have also not received any feedback from my post at Talk:Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes#Notice of Dispute resolution discussion. I am going to give it another 24 hours, and then if there is still no participation, we can start discussing the best way to proceed. Thanks for your patience. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
- I advise allowing more time. Keahapana does not appear to edit daily, but has waited nine months for this dispute resolution to begin in order to accommodate the other party.Homunculus (duihua) 01:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
- OK, I am opening this up for discussion. You can all take as much time as you need -- I just didn't want anyone to feel that we are ignoring the case.
There are a lot of issues here, so I want to focus on one thing, see if we can resolve it, and then move on the the next. Let's start with PCPP's point #8: "A paragraph regarding a local dispute over an elementary school's Confucius Classroom, sourced largely from blogs. I feel that this does not meet notability and due weight requirements."
This raises two questions:
First, why are we calling an editorial from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and a news story sourced to the Associated Press (AP) "blogs?" (See WP:BLOGS)
Second, why are we giving so much weight to the opinions of a history teacher at Cedarlane middle school in Hacienda Heights, CA? (See WP:WEIGHT. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
- In regards to the Confucius Classroom section, I felt that it was overwhelmed with sources and needs to be summarized more, since this is not just a criticism of CI but also a local ethnic dispute between Asian and Hispanic parents, as noted by the Washington Times piece. The Tribune editorial, which I wrongly referred to as a blog, has its position already been covered by both of these higher quality sources [25] [26]. As for the history teacher source, I favored its removal, so in conclusion, I feel that the paragraph only need a short reference to the both the views Tribune editorial and school board member Jay Chen, concluding with Prof. Cull's views on people's suspicion of outside ideas.--PCPP (talk) 13:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
- I am going to wait until I see the argument on the other side before addressing the weight issue. As for the blog issue, of course anything that is only referenced in a blog needs to be sources or removed, which is why I asked. Could you do me a favor and go through your statement and correct any other errors you see? This is not a criticism; everyone makes errors. The only reason I am asking is that I intend to go through every area of dispute in detail and I don't want to waste your time. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry that it's taken me so much time to get up to speed again, but I haven't looked at these diffs since last May. Here are some initial replies to PCPP's 12 prior concerns.
- 3) Comparisons with Mussolini's Italian Institutes. To my knowledge, the early Italian Cultural Institutes are the best historical analogy for CIs, and various authors make this comparison. Zimmerman is quoted is sources like this and this.
- 4) Branner's criticism. I agree that this quote could be paraphrased but disagree that it "adds little to the article." It represents a legitimate academic concern over CI financing.
- 5) CSM quote. This argument is based on two factual errors: The Christian Science Monitor is widely regarded as one of the most neutral US newspapers – not a tabloid. The quote is from the lede not the headline. Compare the original conclusion with the misrepresentative summary.
- "So yes, absolutely, more Americans should take Chinese. Our economy, our cultural life, and our national security all demand it. But we should study the subject on our own terms, making sure that it also reflects our best civic language of freedom, open discussion, and democracy."
- "article argued that teaching of Chinese language in the United States should be done on the terms of freedom, open discussion and democracy."
- 6) Dickinson State University. PCPP, you are correct. I agree to this deletion.
- 7) Rohrabacher's "political rhetorics" and Mosher's testimony. Directly quoting Dana Rohrabacher is more accurate than this distorted "summary." Steven W. Mosher appeared as an expert witness rather than a CI alumnus. Why make an ad hominem attack?
- 8) Cedarlane controversy. The "blog" mischaracterization has already been discussed. This Hacienda Heights story is perhaps the most widely reported criticism of a Confucius Classroom rather than a Confucius Institute. I think we originally had references from the National Review and Washington Times too.
- 9) Mosher UFWD quote. Respectfully disagree. See 1) and 7) above.
- 11) State Department CI employee visa flap. This controversy was widely reported in both Western (The Chronicle of Higher Education) and Chinese (Global Times and Xinhua News) sources. I also think the paragraph needs rewriting.
- 12) General comments. We can probably all agree that the current C&CoCI name is awkward. Based on the un-critical piping of Criticism of Microsoft and Criticism of Apple, I think that Criticism of Confucius Institutes might be the clearest and most succinct title. As already discussed during the 2012 merger discussion, CIs specifically meet two of the WP:CRIT's exceptions for which criticism articles are allowed: subject matter and independent criticism sources. The CI and C&CoCI diffs and Talk pages fully document that an ongoing pattern of creative paraphrasing resulted in the relatively high number of direct quotes. I've already searched for and contributed many refs expressing "CI's side" for NPOV, but most come from CI employees. Perhaps other editors can find additional reliable sources.
This should be enough to get our discussion productively started. Keahapana (talk) 20:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Unless I am mistaken, we have an agreement on #6. If so, could someone please edit the article to reflect the agreement?
Trying to knock down the easy ones first, let's look at #2 next.
PCPP wrote:
[27] quote from the German publication "Der Spiegel", which claims that CI possibly promotes "China's cultural superiority". I feel that this statement falls on undue weight, as it comes from an article about China's foreign relations, and only mentioned CI in one sentence.
Keahapana wrote:
Der Spiegel article. Admittedly, I could be wrong here, but is does WP:UNDUE require reliable sources to have more than one sentence on a topic? Either way, we could add more references to CIs and cultural superiority such as China Is Culturally Superior to America or Soft Power.
My comments:
WP:UNDUE doesn't specify how many sentences a source has to have. It isn't about how much weight the source gives the topic, but rather whether the topic itself is a minority viewpoint and whether we are giving to much emphasis to the minority viewpoint. So, let's discuss any other reasons why we think this should be included or excluded.
(Change of subject) User:Shrigley has asked to be added to this case, and I have made a place for her/his opening comments above. I am also going to ask everyone who participated in previous cases whether they want to join the discussion.
To all the new voices; the most important things where this DRN case differs from article talk pages are: [A] I am trying to get everyone focused on one point of disagreement at a time rather than being all over the map. [B] At DRN, we focus on article content, not on user conduct, so please talk about the article, not about other editors, and if someone else talks about other editors, don' reply -- I will ask them to delete the comment. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 07:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you. The (apparently misinterpreted) reason that I mentioned two other examples of CIs and "cultural superiority" was to demonstrate that it should not necessarily be excluded as a minority viewpoint. Keahapana (talk) 19:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
- So, do we agree on #6? Is there any progress on resolving #2? Does anyone have a preference as to what point we should work on next? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
- I agree and will gladly delete it. Any order of discussion is fine with me. Since there is overlap between #1, #7, and #9, perhaps we could deal with them together. Keahapana (talk) 19:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
- Sorry, I forgot it's already been deleted (guess <grin> I need more caffeine). Thanks again to PCPP. Keahapana (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
- I wanted to get the ball rolling on a couple of easy ones while I got a feel for the participants (am I dealing with reasonable folks who want what is best for the encyclopedia but disagree about what is best, or am I jumping into a raging battle full of accusations and counteraccusations?) Now that I see that I won't be needing body armor, I would like to follow your lead. Here is a new section so you don't have to scroll so far after hitting the edit button:
C and C over CI discussion 1
PCPP #1: [28][29] Statements by Pierrebourg et al alleging that some CI employees have relations with United Front Work Dept and Huawei. The authors also allege that United Front and Huawei employees were engaging in possible propaganda and spying efforts. In my opinion, this is given undue weight, since it engage a "guilt-by-association" fallacy, sounds like a conspiracy theory, and itself is not really a criticism of CI itself.
Keahapana #1: Associations with UFWD and Huawei. Neither logical association fallacy nor legal collective guilt apply to political controversies, some of which are entirely based on associations (e.g., Bill Ayers presidential election controversy or Jeremiah Wright controversy). Calling espionage concerns a conspiracy theory seems inappropriate.
PCPP #7: [30] A paragraph detailing a Senate hearing regarding Chinese diplomatic efforts in the US, which includes quotes of political rhetorics from Representative Dana Rohrabacher as well as statement from Steven W. Mosher. I feel that quoting Rohrabacher adds little to the article, and it's better to simply summarize his statements. As for Steven Mosher, it was claimed that he was expelled by Stanford due to Chinese pressure, while failing to mention the event happened in 1981 and has nothing to do with CI at all.
Keahapana #7: Rohrabacher's "political rhetorics" and Mosher's testimony. Directly quoting Dana Rohrabacher is more accurate than this distorted "summary." Steven W. Mosher appeared as an expert witness rather than a CI alumnus. Why make an ad hominem attack?
PCPP #9: [31] The paragraph states that CI is administered by Hanban, and its chair used to work with United Front. This already says "association fallacy", and the Mosher quote regarding United Front is inappropriately added to synthesis further spying allegations.
Keahapana #9: Mosher UFWD quote. Respectfully disagree. See 1) and 7) above.
Relevant comments about #1, #7, and #9 by Shrigley: Basically, the problem with this article is that it has turned into a dumping ground and clearinghouse for any old web page that could vaguely be construed as damaging to CIs. There's no editorial control for NPOV and weight; there's no summarizing; there's no merging. [...] Give me highly-corroborated, widely-referenced criticisms from the finest quality sources. Those criticisms will be exactly the ones that merit a response from the criticized party, or a well-documented refusal to respond. Restricting the article to those types of criticisms solves the balance issue.
Are we to discuss here the two issues above - i.e. whether Rohrabacher and Mosher's remarks should be included, and if so whether they should be in a short or long quote, or short or long paraphrase? And then, whether we should mention the UFWD link to Hanban? I'm a little confused about the format of the discussion. It seems that whoever wrote the above agreed with their inclusion. I'm just not sure about the format this discussion is supposed to take. One note: for criticisms of something, does Wikipedia necessarily require something to be "highly-corroborated" (what does that mean, when we're talking about expressions of opinion?) and "widely-referenced"? The standard of a reliable source is much lower than that. The guideline on reliable sources is very clear and we can all know what they are. I'm not sure what the standard is for something to be highly-corroborated or widely-referenced. For that reason and others, it may be simpler to keep the threshold at what our content policies say, but then exercise reasonable judgement for the length to which something is quoted and the weight it is given, on factors such as how corroborated or referenced a statement is. Very often these differences are differences of taste between editors. To the extent that the matters can be extracted from personal preferences and made to submit to objective criteria, that's great. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 01:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
- Hello and welcome. For TheSoundAndTheFury any anyone else just joining the conversation, I am a dispute resolution volunteer here at the Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. This does not imply that I have any special authority or that my opinions should carry any extra weight; it just means that I have not been previously involved in this dispute and that I have some experience helping other people to resolve their disputes. I have added your name to the list of participants and have made a place for you to write an initial statement.
- We can discuss any issue that you folks agree to discuss. My only guidance on that is that we all read and understand the Guide for participants at the top of this page -- especially the part about talking only about the article content and not talking about other users -- and that we try to resolve one issue before jumping to the next. Otherwise I am just here to help you in any way that I can. So far we have been working on numbered items from PCPP's opening comments and Keahapanas reply, and right now we are looking at #1, #7, and #9. Once we either resolve that issue or decide that we can not reach agreement, we can discuss anything that we agree to discuss -- not necessarily something from that list.
- As for your specific questions, we have an essay at Wikipedia:Criticism that is well worth reading. Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines, but this one does a pretty good job of summarizing our policies or guidelines. One question we might want to ask after we finish with the point we are discussing now is whether this article should exist at all or whether one of the other approaches would be better. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
- Hi, sorry about the lack of replies, I'm still keeping an eye on this discussion, I should have a reply within the next day or so.--PCPP (talk) 07:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, PCPP. I look forward to reading your reply. As embarrassingly evident from reading the CI and C&CoCI talk pages, we need impartial help to resolve these long-standing content disputes before they get closed. Thanks also, Guy Macon. Is there any way to increase outside participation? Perhaps notices to suitable WikiProjects? Since our inside-baseball-ish arguments have only involved a few Sinophile contributors, more outsiders might provide consensus on which CI criticisms are appropriate. Keahapana (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
- Sounds like a plan. if anyone has a WikiProject they want notified, let me know and I will post the notice (best that I do it so nobody suspects bias). The other alternative is to post an WP:RFC, but RfCs are best for one well-defined question, whereas DRN is better for resolving a list of point where editors disagree.
- There is no deadline, and you can take as much time as you need. The comment above by PCPP is the kind of thing that helps a lot -- it lets me know that we haven't all given up. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
- No, we haven't given up. The C&CoCI Talk page already has China and Linguistics WikiProjects. Alternatively, any other projects concerned with Chinese language teaching would be apt, perhaps Languages or Education. Thanks, Keahapana (talk) 22:28, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
C and C over CI discussion 2
It has been over two days since anyone has commented. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
- Pong to your ping, thanks. I've been waiting for PCPP to reply before making further comments. If we knew the reasons for the delay, then perhaps you and he/she could set a deadline. I'm ready to resolve this and want to move on. Keahapana (talk) 01:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
- There are a lot of issues on the table, and I was hoping that we could quickly go through the list.
I am going to mark this one as "Failed" in roughly 12 hours. See User talk:Guy Macon#Re: Dispute resolution The next logical step would be for whoever is in the minority as far as consensus goes to give up and edit elsewhere, or to post an RfC to see if they can swing the consensus their way. Usually the RfC just confirms the consensus among the regular editors, but it does happen that the consensus among the larger community does not match the consensus among the regular editors of a page, which is why we have an RfC process. Another alternative would be formal mediation. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
- Sorry guys, I've created a work in progress replyin addressing Keahapana's concerns.--PCPP (talk) 16:16, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
C and C over CI discussion 3
Hi sorry for the long delay, here's some of my replies:
- 1) I will compromise on the Huawei allegations, but I think there's a recent US senate enquiry on the issue, perhaps it can be updated. Here [32] Reuters reported that the White House found no evidence of Huawei. Here is also a defence of Huawei from China Daily, don't know if it would prove useful [33]. Still, I think the paragraph should be summarized to a minimal so it doesn't get sidetracked to Huawei instead of Confucius Institute
- 2) To be added
- 11) I have no problems with rewriting, but I think the section is overlong, particular according to the State Department the visa issue has been solved [34].
- 12) I agree that the current naming is awkward. I'm wondering if anything can be extracted from its official websites eg [35] and include cases in which CIs were established with without much controversy?
I will add the rest of my replies tomorrow, if that's ok with everyone.--PCPP (talk) 16:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, thank you very much. Would be clearer to reformat this discussion below into "C and C over CI discussion 2" (or to create a third subsection)? Keahapana (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
- Done. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again to Guy.
#1 Agreed. The article currently reads:
- Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya also raised concerns over ties between Confucius Institute administrators and large state-run Chinese companies. For instance, they point to the Confucius Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, where one of the top officials is also vice-president of Huawei, a Chinese telecom company the U.S. government regards as a national security threat, and which has been accused of industrial espionage.{ref name=Nest}
The Reuters ref is informative; perhaps we could add it in an explanatory sentence like this:
- Pierrebourg and Juneau-Katsuya also raised concerns over ties between Confucius Institute administrators and major state-run Chinese companies. For instance, they point to the CI at the University of Texas at Dallas, where one of the top officials is also vice-president of Huawei.{ref name=Nest} The U.S. government has accused this Chinese telecom company of industrial espionage, but an extensive security review found no clear evidence of spying.[36]
Keahapana (talk) 22:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
Just so everyone is clear, while PCPP asked for a delay until the end of this week, unless there is major progress by the end of Monday I am going to close this. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
- Understood. Let's be patient a few more days. I'm not very familiar with the DRN process. If you close, what does that mean about the changes under discussion? Do we just take it back to the Talk page? I appreciate your volunteering time and attention to this stalled case. Thanks, Keahapana (talk) 20:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
- We have a lot of latitude here at DRN, and in particular we really like to do what the folks involved in the dispute recommend rather than imposing anything on them. If we close this you can open a new DRN case tomorrow, go back and try to work it out on the talk page again, or someone can post a WP:RFC to get input from more editors. Or, if there really is a reason for this taking far longer than normal, we can keep it open. The real question is "how do we resolve this dispute?" --Guy Macon (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
- The rest:
- 2) On futher examination, I have no problem with retaining Spigel, and the Mingjiang Li is good too. I'm not sure if the Atlantic Wire opinion article fits though, as it simply an editorial on another editorial from Chinese state media.
- 3) Should the Zimmerman source be merged with 5)? Also the Swedish source returns a broken link.
- 4) I have no problem with paraphrasing of Brenner's quote. Perhaps it can be paraphrased to the line of "Brenner questions the Chinese government's large financial incentives to CI, and whether it fits within America's national interests.
- 5) No problem with readding Zimmerman. But do you think it should say something along the lines of 'In writing for the Christian Science Monitor, Zimmerman argued for greater American scrutiny in the teaching of Chinese languages, and the importance of open discussions. "...more Americans should take Chinese. Our economy, our cultural life, and our national security all demand it. But we should study the subject on our own terms, making sure that it also reflects our best civic language of freedom, open discussion, and democracy."'
- 7) How about a combination of both, like: 'Representative Dana Rohrabacher accused China of spreading its propaganda by exploiting the American media and education system, as well as criticizing US universities of valuing money over intergrity. In referencing expert witness Steven W. Mosher, Rohrabacher argued, "Communist China, which does not believe in or allows the practice of either type of freedom, is exploiting the opportunities offered by America to penetrate both private media and public education to spread its state propaganda."'
- 8) I really think that the section on Confucius Classrooms be trimmed down to quality sources from AP [37] and Washington Times [38]. As I mentioned earlier, I felt that the paragraph only need a short reference to the both the views Tribune editorial and school board member Jay Chen, concluding with Prof. Cull's views on people's suspicion of outside ideas.
- 9) Sorry, the link to the Mosher PDF is down, is there an alternate link? Furthermore, I think Mosher should be cited with caution, since he is an anti-One Child Policy and anti-abortion activist who works for the partisan Population Research Institute, which argues that overpopulation is a myth.
- 10) I really have to get back on the London School issue. As for your links on the talk page, most of them from major newspapers looked fine if you can extract materials from them, but I'm not sure the hard conservative Human Events and the Robertson source qualify under WP:RS.--PCPP (talk) 15:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you very much, PCPP. It sounds like we now generally agree and should be able to resolve our differences quickly. As Douglas Adams said <grin>, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Later today, I'll start roughing out draft versions for consensus. If it's OK with you, I'd prefer to work out all the details here before making our changes to the C&CoCI page. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 22:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
The following are some suggestions and questions for discussion by PCPP and any other interested editors.
#1 Is the above revision with Reuters acceptable? Since the China Daily article doesn't mention CIs, it might be better for the Huawei page.
#2 Here's the deleted quote.
- A Der Spiegel article about threats from China's soft power criticized Beijing for using Confucius Institutes "in hopes of promoting what it views as China's cultural superiority".[1]
As mentioned above, I did a quick "Confucius Institute, cultural superiority" search and found Li's book and Hudson's article to illustrate that this quote wasn't necessarily WP:UNDUE. Page 197 of Li mentions CIs in one context and cultural superiority in another, it seems like adding this ref would be synthesis. However, thanks for pointing out that the Atlantic Wire was responding to the Global Times editorial cited under #11. Since "an editorial on another editorial from Chinese state media" is a rough paraphrase of NPOV, perhaps we should move it there.
#3 Yes, I still think it would be better to consolidate the Italian Instititute refs, which I already tried (21 February 2012) but you removed (14 May 2012). Is this OK now?
- Some critics have compared Confucius Institutes to Benito Mussolini’s Italian Institutes in American schools[2]{CSM20060906zimmer}
I think there was a third ref and will look later. Should we pipe Italian Cultural Institute, London as "Italian Institute"? Sorry I don't read Swedish, but we could tag the deadlink or delete it.
#4 Here's the original version
- David Prager Branner, a Chinese professor at Columbia University, said it is a fallacy to believe that taking money from the Chinese government will have no long-term consequences. "In order to try to anticipate those consequences we need to ask: why would China be willing to spend so much money to set these organizations up? Specifically, why does China consider this to be in its national interest and why would it be in America’s national interest?"[3]
Instead of paraphrasing
- "Brenner questions the Chinese government's large financial incentives to CI, and whether it fits within America's national interests.
It might be clearer to say something like
- David Prager Branner, a Chinese professor at Columbia University, warns that taking money from China to set up Confucius Institutes could have long-term consequences, and questions whether it would be in America’s national interest.
#5 Yes, prefacing with "In writing for the Christian Science Monitor…" sounds fine, but I still think quoting the pithy lede question is more informative than paraphrasing the rambling conclusion.
- A Christian Science Monitor article critically framed the CI question of academic freedom, "Let's suppose that a cruel, tyrannical, and repressive foreign government offered to pay for American teens to study its national language in our schools. Would you take the deal?"{CSM20060906zimmer}
- Zimmerman argued for greater American scrutiny in the teaching of Chinese languages, and the importance of open discussions. "...more Americans should take Chinese. Our economy, our cultural life, and our national security all demand it. But we should study the subject on our own terms, making sure that it also reflects our best civic language of freedom, open discussion, and democracy."'
Perhaps we could compromise and use both the question and summary. Any other opinions?
#6 We already have consensus for deleting Dickinson State.
#7 Yes, combining could be advantageous, but this "either type of freedom" phrase loses the "freedom of the press and academic freedom" referents. That's the advantage of WP giving direct quotes for controversial subjects. Compare
- Representative Dana Rohrabacher said, "Two of the pillars of America’s status as an open society are freedom of the press and academic freedom. Communist China, which does not believe in or allows the practice of either type of freedom, is exploiting the opportunities offered by America to penetrate both private media and public education to spread its state propaganda." Steven W. Mosher testified that Stanford University denied his PhD degree about China's controversial one-child policy after the Chinese Communist Party "threatened to retaliate against other Stanford scholars and programs." Rohrabacher responded, "It appears as though Beijing is able to expand its campaign against academic freedom from China to America when U.S. universities value Chinese favors and money more than truth and integrity."[4]
- Representative Dana Rohrabacher accused China of spreading its propaganda by exploiting the American media and education system, as well as criticizing US universities of valuing money over integrity. In referencing expert witness Steven W. Mosher, Rohrabacher argued, "Communist China, which does not believe in or allows the practice of either type of freedom, is exploiting the opportunities offered by America to penetrate both private media and public education to spread its state propaganda.
Please clarify how Rohrabacher was "referencing" Mosher.
#8 This paragraph has changed so many times that I'm confused about what you want to trim. From the current version [footnotes 71-75], do you want to keep the SGV Tribune [72], AP [73 twice], Asian American Policy Review [74], and Washington Times [75]; but exclude the National Review [71] as not a "quality source"? This [74] link now requires ID login. There's a copy on Jay Chen's blog, but is that a RS? We should wikilink Norman N. Hsu too.
#9 Fixing this dead link is easier than disqualifying Mosher, here's an archive link. Are you saying we should dismiss Mosher's concerns about CIs because he has criticized abortion, the One Child Policy, or both? The original was:
- Steven W. Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, testified that the United Front Work Department's purpose "is subversion, cooption and control," and claimed that one of the CI's chief purposes is "to subvert, coopt, and ultimately control Western academic discourse on matters pertaining to China.
I just found a China Daily story that describes Mosher as "a China specialist in the US."
#10 I was just parking all these references on the Talk page pending our postponed resolution, and we will only use whatever ones are suitable. Are you saying we should delete Human Events merely because it's conservative? I agree that the religiously-biased Epoch Times likely fails WP:RS, but added it for the deleted video link. Any link will do. Is this current version acceptable?
- The Confucius Institute at the London School of Economics came under criticism following the LSE Gaddafi links controversy over accepting a £1.5 million donation from Libya. Christopher Hughes, professor of international relations, said the school’s acceptance of about £400,000 from China showed it had failed to learn from the scandal. Hughes accused the CI of being a "divisive" and "illegitimate" propaganda organization, and said its existence would damage the school’s reputation.[5]
#11 Yes, we agree this paragraph needs to be cut. Would you, or someone else, be willing to rewrite it? The current version already has the State Department link as footnote [65]. Should we add the above Atlantic response here after the Global Times [66]?
#12 The C&CoCI mouthful was a compromise title from discussion about spliting off the article. I still think Criticisms of Confucius Institutes is simplest and clearest, but some editors want to avoid the c-word (so to speak). It seems unnecessary to cite the official website that CIs often don't have "much controversy". In comparison, Criticism of Apple Inc. doesn't say that many Apple users are uncritical. But if you think it's important, adding this sort of qualification would be OK. Keahapana (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
- The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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