Talk:Öser

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[edit] Credibility, sources, NPOV

It doesn't make much sense to add links to websites or blogs that don't exist any more—or is there any hope that they will become available again in the future?

The article also claims that her blog "was visited primarily by Han Chinese". How can anybody know that?

The article states that Oisêr's book《西藏笔记》was banned. If it actually ever has been banned, the ban must have been reverted, because I bought it last week in a big state-run bookstore in Beijing (published by Huāchéng chūbǎnshè 花城出版社 in 2003, ISBN 7536038313). It is also available on-line from Chinese websites (for example from Dangdang).

The fact that Oisêr's book is not banned in China makes the whole article very untrustworthy.

Please check the facts and revise the article. —Babelfisch 06:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Do a google search for ["notes on tibet" banned] and you'll get 233 hits. Among the first few are statements such as, "Notes on Tibet, written in Chinese by the Tibetan author Oser, was banned late last year after she tried to get it published in Guangdong", "Her collection of travel stories, 'Notes on Tibet,' was banned in 2003, reportedly because it deviated from the official government take on Tibetan history", "her three volumes, Forbidden Memory: Tibet During the Cultural Revolution, Remembering Tibet and Notes on Tibet. The first two are brand new, while the third was banned in China in 2003 and is now in print in Taiwan under the title A Poem Named Tibet", "In 2003 China banned Notes on Tibet", "TIN has received news that 'Notes on Tibet' (Ch: Xizang Biji), a book written by Tibetan author Oser (Ch: Weise) was banned around September 2003", "Woeser happened to be in Beijing attending an advanced seminar on journal editing at Luxun Literature Institute when the ban was imposed on Notes on Tibet", "A poem written by the author Oser (Chin: Weise) whose book Notes on Tibet was banned by the authorities in September 2003", etc., etc. Perhaps it has become unbanned since then; do you have a source for this?
As for the blog links ... who knows, maybe they will become active again tomorrow. It happened to Wikipedia. As for the readership of her blog, does it really seem unusual that someone would have information, or at least an opinion, about the audience she is writing for? Presumably, she formed her opinion based on feedback she had received from readers.
Since I don't really see what is so very untrustworthy about the article as a whole, I'm going to provide a link for the banning of her book, and remove the "unverified" template at the top.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 06:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that all the sources on the ban of her book can be traced back to the same anonymous reports quoted by Tibetan exile groups, such as the source you quote: "TIN has received news that 'Notes on Tibet' [...] was banned around September 2003 by the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government". The Tibet Information Network seems not totally convinced themselves or were unable to verify those "news", thus the rather non-commital wording.
Oisêr's book is available in government bookstores in Beijing and from webshops based in Beijing. Excerpts from her book are posted on government websites such as the China Tibet Information Center. To claim that it was banned is either wrong because it never was banned, or it is misleading because the ban has since been lifted.
Is there any independent source for the claim that the book had ever been banned?
It is technically impossible to determine the ethnicity of blog readers. A source should be given for that claim. —Babelfisch 07:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
What kind of independent source are you looking for? Woeser's own husband says that the book was banned. Reporters Without Borders agrees. Overall, I see lots of sources stating that it was banned, and none stating that it was ever unbanned. I agree that we have circumstantial evidence implying that it was unbanned and, moreover, I take your word for it—but do we have any source that we can use in an encyclopaedia? How good is your Chinese? Maybe you could dig up something on the web in Chinese that would clarify the situation.
As for the ethnicity of her readership, a source is given: it's the opinion of the author, and, like the rest of the paragraph that follows it, it comes from this interview.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 03:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
An independent source would be independent from Tibetan exile groups. It seems that all reports can be traced back to the Tibet Information Network and Oisêrs husband, which is problematic.
I know Chinese. Did you have a look at the websites I've quoted above? A quick search on the Internet in Chinese shows that her books are widely available in bookstores and webshops such as Dangdang (see link above), excerpts are published on Chinese government websites on Tibet (see link above).
The bookstores here in Beijing sell the original edition of 《西藏笔记》 from 2003, so I doubt that the book was in fact ever banned. It wouldn't be the first time that unverified TIN "reports" are repeated in many Western media outlets without questioning or verification. —Babelfisch 07:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I didn't want to put links to webshops into the article. Many online bookstores sell 《西藏笔记》: Dangdang, SYBooks, JQCQ, Haotushu, etc., as well as government-run bookstores in Beijing. —Babelfisch 08:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not accurate to give the impression that reports of the book's banning come only from the Canada Tibet Committee and UNPO. There are numerous English-language sources that agree on this point. Maybe, they all trace back to TIN and the Free Tibet axis, but that is speculation. Meanwhile, we have no sources so far in any language that say anything to contradict this. I agree that your experiences and the availability of the book online show that it is not currently banned, at least in some places in the mainland. However, this is a matter of your original research. Any time we have sources—in this case, the webshops—that we don't want to put into the article, that's problem. Although I support including the fact that the book is available at these websites, it's in a tenuous position.
You're probably aware that truly independent sources are few and far between when it comes to Tibetan politics. If there is someone you could call an independent source, I imagine it would be someone like Wang Lixiong, a Han Chinese RPC resident who often writes about Tibet. In this instance, as Oisêr's husband, he is one source who definitely knows what really happaned. He wrote this rather lengthy "Analysis of the Woeser incident"; do you think he just made all that up? He could hardly give the excuse later that he was mislead by his sources!
This report also agrees that the book was banned. It's written by a Chinese-speaking scholar who does fieldwork in Kham and attends conferences in Chengdu. Do you think he relies on TIN for his news about Tibet?
It's similarly misleading to imply that only Radio Free Asia reported that Oisêr's blogs were closed. Reporters without Borders also reported it. Also, the RFA report was not just "somebody told us the blogs were closed", it's an interview with the author herself. Unless RFA is pretty blatantly lying, the report comes not from them but from Oisêr.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 04:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm of course aware that independent sources are difficult to find on certain events, but especially when there are no independent sources, it has to be made clear where the information comes from. A critical reading of sources is not speculation, but necessary.
The webshops are verifyable sources, but on the other hand, links to webshops shouldn't be added to articles, so I gave them above on the discussion page. It's not ideal, but is there a better solution? There are also reviews of the book on Chinese sites, but that's only indirect proof of it's availability.
Wang Lixiong is Oisêr's husband and thus not a very credible source. Dan Smyer Yü doesn't give a source for his claim. I'm not saying that the book was never banned anywhere. Maybe it was a local ban in Tibet only, or maybe the ban was revoked. Whatever happened, it's not banned now.—Babelfisch 10:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
What makes Oisêr's husband not a credible source? Is she herself not a credible source about whether or not her own book was banned?—Nat Krause(Talk!) 20:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I was wrong. I should have said Wang Lixiong is not an independent source. (You wrote: "If there is someone you could call an independent source, I imagine it would be someone like Wang Lixiong, a Han Chinese RPC resident who often writes about Tibet.")
Once you've made claims about oppression, sometimes it's difficult to backtrack, especially if your information outlets are the Tibet Information Network and Radio Free Asia. Would they report about a ban on a book being lifted? —Babelfisch 09:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
What is Wang Lixiong not independent of? I agree that he is not independent of his wife, Oisêr. She's not independent of herself, either. Does this establish that neither of them is a credible source for talking about their own lives? If it is not, in fact, true that Oisêr's book was banned, then what is their motive for lying and saying that it was?
It's certainly true that TIN might not report it if the ban on the book was lifted (that is, after the normal status of a book—not banned). It's also theoretically possible that Wang Lixiong and Oisêr might feel some pressure from outsiders not to "backtrack", as you put it (although I have no idea why you think they would something up to begin with). However, would this rather vague pressure that they might feel from outside China really outweigh the pressures that they feel from the government as they continue to live and try to make a living in the PRC?—Nat Krause(Talk!) 23:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Reports about supposedly "banned" books are frequent in the Western press, even outside propaganda of exiled groups or CIA-funded operations such as RFA. Two weeks ago, another such thing was published in The Guardian (Jonathan Watts: Censor sees through writer's guile in tale of China's blood-selling scandal, 9 October 2006). The book is not banned—it's widely available in government-run bookstores in Beijing, and from Chinese internet bookstores.[1]
In the West it seems to be a popular sport to make such claims, and of course to an uniformed audience they seem credible.
Several friends of mine have written to the Guardian about this claim, but I don't think the Guardian is going to backtrack either, because that would imply that their correspondent in Beijing is either incompetent or deliberately misleading their readers. —Babelfisch 06:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)