Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Serfdom in Tibet

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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 no consensus to delete, default to keep. This does not rule out a merger or redirection to a parent article, if consensus later determines that, as suggested by some editors, this content or topic is currently better suited for inclusion in another article.  Sandstein  21:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Serfdom in Tibet

Serfdom in Tibet (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

This article was originally created as Slavery in Tibet by a single user, Foxhunt99 and his sockpupppets to advance the fringe view of the enslavement of the Tibetan people prior to the invasion of that country by the People's Republic of China. The article originally appeared as that user's essay on the evils of the Tibetan government and reverted any and all changes that did not reflect their highly charged, nationalist POV. Article's sources are dubious, unverified and highly biased. Anna Louise Strong is heavily quoted as an authority on the subject, though she is a known sympathesizer (and alleged agent) of communist China. All other sources in this article are cited to books which have either not been verified, or do not support the statements to which they are sourced. It is doubtful that any reliable, unbiased sources exist for this topic and there are certainly not enough to warrant an entire article on the subject. As a fringe topic, this information also shouldn't be merged into Tibet, as it is highly POV. If the vote for deletion is successful, Slavery in Tibet should also be removed because it is a highly biased POV title and neither one of these articles should be redirected to any article relating to Tibet. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 08:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Speedy delete as an attack page. Tibetans were severely disparaged on this one. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 12:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - We do not have separate articles on unfree forms of labor on every single country and region in the world and I see no reason why we should have one in the case of Tibet, especially since the topic not very well understood and there are very few reliable academic sources.--Amban (talk) 14:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy deletion has been declined. Since the author of the article has made attempts at sourcing the page, and the statement "Tibetans have engaged in slavery" is no more disparaging to Tibetans than "Americans have engaged in slavery" is disparaging against Americans. I don't think anyone will be particularly hurt or demeaned by the content, and issues of NPOV and OR are for this AFD to decide. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Several scholarly sources have already been added to the article; it is worth mentioning that sources are not required to be neutral, the information presented just has to be properly attributed so that the reader can evaluate for themselves. The topic is critical to understanding Tibetan history and historiography and Wikipedia should at least make an effort to cover the research on it. Phasing out the Strong sources wouldn't have a deleterious effect on the article; if they are so offensive, they can be removed. The title has already been changed to a "less POV" title: Serfdom in Tibet. The topic is in no way fringe and appears in every reliable history of the region. The fact that other articles do not exist simply points out the holes it Wikipedia and is not an argument for deletion. Since its initial posting, the article has been edited for biased language and it would be helpful if deletion proponents could point out specific instances of remaining bias so that I could fix them. I believe I've addressed the points given above, if not, please let me know. Gimme danger (talk) 16:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Alright, well to start with, virtually every sentence in this article is biased. They were all written by the same person with the same POV who was pushing the same agenda, so none of it is anywhere close to NPOV. The article would therefore need to be completely rewritten. There are no verified sources for this article, which is about as good as having no sources at all, so there would probably need to be more sources too I guess. I have not read any contemporary history of Tibet which talks about the enslavement of the Tibetan people or widespread feudalism in the country before the invasion of the People's Republic of China, so somebody would need to demonstrate to me that there are actual sources for this. Then, there would need to be countercitations from reputable, academic sources which talk about those things objectively, otherwise this article would continue to fail NPOV. I don't think you or anyone can do any of those things so I think that this article should be deleted. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 17:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Cumulus Clouds, this page is to comment on an AfD. If there is a single point in all your comments on this page that is grounds for deletion I have failed to see it. Everything you have mentioned, such as "Anna Louise Strong is heavily quoted as an authority on the subject, though she is a known sympathesizer..." or "virtually every sentence in this article is biased", or "The article would therefore need to be completely rewritten", or "There are no verified sources for this article", etc, are editing problems and not grounds for deletion of an article. AfDs should not be used as a means to resolve editing disputes. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Whether or not you're willing to accept my points is a matter of your own personal philosophy on inclusionism. There is clearly an issue here with how this article has been edited since it was created, it is obviously being used to push a point of view and it obviously fails the criterion at WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NPOV. Whether or not you choose to ignore those issues is entirely up to you. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 00:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, the issue here is that this article does not obviously fail any of the above criteria. If you could point out specifics it would help me out, because clearly I'm not getting what's so obvious to you. --Gimme danger (talk) 00:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I have done that several times and you've been unwilling to accept it because it does not agree with your point of view. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 01:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
So far, you've brought up:
  1. The original editor is biased: this doesn't matter since virtually none of their text remains. The article has been completely rewritten, as you requested, by several editors, as you can see from the diff between the article before my first edit and it's current revision. I fail to see how an article's state three days ago has any relevance to discussion of deleting the present article.
  2. Anna Louise Strong is biased: well, she's not in the article anymore, so what is your objection here?
  3. Israel Epstein is biased: he's also not cited anymore
  4. There are no reliable sources: there's one reference to a scholarly journal and the many others are to published material by historians of varying merit. There's at least one reliable source now, and more that have yet to be incorporated can be found in Owlmonkey's commentary on the article talk page. Also see the sources provided below by GeoSwan.
  5. Fails verifiability: if there are reliable sources, as I've pointed out above, the article can't fail
Did I miss any of your arguments? They've all been addressed, as far as I can tell. And if you're going to claim that the text itself is biased, it would help if you would provide a specific passage.
As far as Owlmonkey's concerns go, I think the article should have a wider scope than simply the living conditions of your average Nyima Dawa in Tibet in 1850. I would keep the title as Serfdom, simple because that is what English speakers will refer to the system as.--Gimme danger (talk) 01:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • You've already tried to reinsert Israel Epstein's quote at least twice, so I'm not sure you actually understand the concern there. Nobody has independently verified that the material being cited from books is actually contained in those books. Since they were written by a puppeteer pushing a nationalist agenda, I view them with great suspicion. One mediocre reference to an academic journal has never warranted an entire article on the subject and, besides, there is a much better treatment at Tibet. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 02:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
There is more than one source supporting the existence of Tibetan serfdom, as I noted. So even if we throw out all the original sources, we have those that were added by other editors since the article's creation. There are even several newspaper articles hosted online provided by GeoSwan that you can verify for yourself. I've tried to retain the Epstein material because NPOV does not, as popularly believed, mean a totally positive viewpoint; it means that Wikipedia does not take any position. Lots and lots of published, verifiable sources make claims about Tibetan feudalism and it is our job as editors to report those viewpoints. The official opinion of the government of a sixth of the world's population, even if factually incorrect, is notable enough to have reporting. And if you can find sources that say that there was no serfdom in Tibet, then I guess we'll have quite an article going. I am looking at this article with a view of expanding it and given the sources that I've listed above I think it'll be quite an interesting one once it's gotten going. But I suppose if you insist on excluding the PRC viewpoint, I can live with that. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 03:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Mea culpa. I was acting in good faith, not realizing that there were rules about this sort of thing.--Gimme danger (talk) 23:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Excuse the tangent. I'm still pretty new to wiki-ness. But if Gimme danger posted to Talk:Tibet, that doesn't look like vote stacking to me. The WP:CANVASS page is talking about messages to specific people, right? (I may have missed something if you actually did message individuals on this, Gimme danger. (I'm more interested in the procedural point than this AfD.) Thanks. Cretog8 (talk) 01:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
You are correct. I did not message any individuals. I posted messages to the WikiProjects directly involved, as is often done when a related article is going up for AfD. I also posted to Talk:Tibet because the WikiProject Tibet page is essentially inactive and, following the topic coordination guidelines, that talk page serves as a defacto project space. The tone of my message, regrettably, left something to be desired and I apologize for losing my cool. --Gimme danger (talk) 01:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • You specifically canvassed for votes supporting your position on each of those pages. This contradicts the guidelines at WP:CANVASS. It has nothing to do with the tone of your message, but the content therein. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 02:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
This is where I read WP:CANVASS differently than you, CC. Those rules look to be pretty explicitly about messages to individuals (or many individuals). An entry on a talk page wouldn't count. Cretog8 (talk) 18:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • If you read that guideline carefully it pretty explicitly states that canvassing includes any attempt to recruit voters to support your point of view in a discussion on Wikipedia. Gimme danger obviously violated this rule when she left messages on the talk pages of several articles requesting that users come here and support her vote. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 22:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • "the statement "Tibetans have engaged in slavery" is no more disparaging to Tibetans than "Americans have engaged in slavery" is disparaging against Americans." Couldn't have said any better. Centrallib (talk) 19:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I am the original author of this article, it has changed many times tho. We are a group of students at University of Vanderbilt, who started this project. What you want is denial of slavery, take a look at your editing in this article. Bell had 2 comments for slavery in his book, one is about children being sold as slaves, the other is about mild slavery, you selectively delete the first one. Those are sourced, from the same book, and same page written by Bell. And you give this as another reason for editing "israel epsteinwas a member of the communist party of china and is an unreliable source", even if Epstein was a communist, it doesnt mean it is unrealiable source. I work at central library here in Vanderbilt University, we have over 100 Tibet related books, Epstein's book is here for anyone to reference. In fact, I briefly looked through all the books, no author ever denied the existence of serfdom or slavery, plenty authors give reference or support on serfdom or slavery. You edited out all parts regarding to Anna Louise Strong too, her book is here at the library too. Your view is clearly biased, your goal is to deny the existence of slavery.Centrallib (talk) 21:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • You are an admitted puppetmaster, so unfortunately this means that most of your edits will be reviewed and deleted since they were made by somebody who freely admits to abusing the processes and procedures of this encyclopedia to push their own POV. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 22:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - if I look at how this could be an extension of or expansion of a topic in the main Tibet article, I'm not sure where it would live. I can easily see expansion generally about the historical periods of Tibet and the socio-economics of the periods. That might be less contentious than this article. I find this one problematic and unsalvageable. If another article is started I suggest socio-economics generally discussed first: like a Socio-economics of Tibet article. Then wealth distribution and power dynamics could be presented within the proper context, not starting with wealth and power inequities — not unique to Tibet in any way — and then trying to find context from the inequity. For example, how do nomadic tribes relate to farming regions? Did feudal territory grow out of tribalism, and did subjugation and wealth distribution relate to tribal conflict? What has scholarship said about the relative wealth distribution generally over each period? I also think the Slavery in Tibet redirect should be removed per nom.- Owlmonkey (talk) 21:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I just added a long discussion of my concerns to the article's talk page. Additional points: (a) the ontological use of feudal and serf implies a comparison that is probably not appropriate nor correct (see Barendse (2003) The Feudal Mutation: Military and Economic Transformations of the Ethnosphere in the Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries) and to avoid that misleading comparison we would need to carefully qualify and discuss any such usage and therefore certainly not use the term "Serfdom" in the title of the article; (b) the power and wealth inequity that the article takes as a focus is more likely specific to nomadic and tribal situations in that region including mongolia, etc. and are not specifically Tibetan (see Barendse again). To call them out as Tibetan implies that they're unique to Tibet in that time period and not just a feature of agrarian and nomadic culture; is the article really talking about something uniquely Tibetan? again the title is problematic if we add the necessary context (c) records were so poor there how do we know all of the different systems used by all the plurality of tribes there? the article's core tact, discussing how serfdom as it relates to tibet, is problematic because it generalizes the dynamic and also diverse situation there and it's unlikely that research has enough to make a statement about all of Tibet across all time aside to say it was tribal. If it were about a specific period that we have details about, that would be better. But these points to me imply that "Serfdom of Tibet" is both a problematic title and focus. It would need to be more generally Socio-economics of pre-industrial Central Asia and then the comparison of that to European Feudalism is certainly fine as an article but what does it have to do with Tibet? Therefore, and after more research, I still think it's better to delete or start over completely. - Owlmonkey (talk) 01:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • keep - This article is less than 2 weeks old, give it more time for more editors to edit. Also Cumulus Clouds is obviously a biased editor pushing his POV, he used to delete well-referenced paragraphs on the tibet page. - chenyangw
  • This user has a history of pushing nationalist Chinese propaganda on Tibet. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 00:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Cumulus Clouds, this comment is one of several on this page that is incivil (WP:CIVIL). Please stop making uncivil comments about other editors participating in this AfD, such as the one above that implies bad faith of a user. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Needs further expansion, and a careful watch, but the feudal history of Tibet is perfectly real. DGG (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • When you say perfectly real, which sources do you have to back that up? And how would you respond to Owlmonkey's concerns of historical context for this article? Cumulus Clouds (talk) 00:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Nearly 1000 Google Scholar hits of articles referring to serfdom in Tibet and approximately 750 Google Books hits. Sources are easy to find unless you are trying not to find them. Gimme danger (talk) 00:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
The first book hit I saw from that link included this quote interestingly, "The Chinese created most of the available statistical data about serfdom in Tibet most often cited by western academics". Does that imply that there are inherent POV issues in this? But I added notes to the article talk page and above about the use of the term serf in the title or feudalism and the focus on Tibet specifically. I find it a troubling focus and comparison because the scope is off. If we enlarge the scope or context i see less inherent problems, but that means changing the title yet again. - Owlmonkey (talk) 01:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
China might have made up or exaggerate a lot data, but none of the resource cited in this article are from Chinese data. Most western authors wrote based on their own travel experience to Tibet. Cumulus Coulds has delete almost all the resources he think is unreliable. Every author mentioned "slavery" is labeled as communist or communist sympathizer. Are all communists liars? I think maybe the article can be merged into Tibet History article, but the double standard on pick and choose resources has to stop. There is no Tibetan historian who denies the existence of serfdom or slavery. Most part of the world was once a feudal society with serfdom at some point in the history, Tibet was no exception. Centrallib (talk) 02:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Well we don't declare Hamas a real authority on issues of Israeli history, nor would we consider Israeli politicians a reliable source for Palestinian history. There are fundamental agendas these groups are trying to advance and they have an investment in seeing things from a very narrow point of view. The People's Republic of China is not an authority on a subject which would directly benefit its claims on Tibet because there is a conflict of interest in that source. The authors you inserted into the article were either agents of the Chinese government or they were full fledged members of the Chinese Communist Party. Most of the sources in this article are cited back to either Anna Louise Strong or Israel Epstein and this speaks volumes about the POV within the article. No scholarly sources have yet been sourced in this article to independently verify the existence of serfs in Tibet. I don't believe any will be found and this is why I have sent this article to AFD. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 03:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Said by (talk) : No scholarly sources have yet been sourced in this article to independently verify the existence of serfs in Tibet. Charles Bell was no communist, he travelled to Tibet, and documented slavery himself, you selectively deleted one of his quotes. Tomas Laird is a pro-Tibetan author, even in his book he mentioned serfs many times.

Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder were travellers to Tibet too. The double standard of resource choosing is amazing. The first sentence, of the article "Prior to Communist takeover, Tibet was a feudal society[citation needed]. ", someone put citation needed by Tibet was a feudal society, I don't see people put citation needed in other article about feudualism. Also, many of the resources on Tibet human rights articles are from Tibetan websites, why is that ok then, by same standard only third parties are allowed. We may well delete this if the double standard keeps up. I will try to merge this into the history of Tibet part.Centrallib (talk) 15:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete, or Stubify. This is pretty obviously a failed attempt at propaganda, not a serious attempt at an encyclopedia article. One possibility would be to stubify it and allow it to be re-expanded using only cited reliable sources. Failing that, it should be deleted. --FOo (talk) 04:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - Tibet has two short paragraphs on this topic. Those two paragraphs already suggest a balanced treatment of the topic. The topic merits elaboration, but it can be done right there in the Tibet article, where the work has already begun. If the topic builds out enough with legitimate material, then it can be forked off into an article on its own. Bertport (talk) 04:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: What I see here is a page that has been put up for deletion primarily because "Free Tibet" people don't like what it says. Not saying it should be kept, not saying it should be nuked, and not ignoring the fact that this page was probably created primarily to piss above-mentioned people off, but just making an observation. Миборовский (talk) 21:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I think if you actually read this page you'd find there was a lot of reasoned discourse on why this page is unfit as an encyclopedia entry. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 04:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete -- I think if there are legitimate sources on this topic then this should be a subsection on a wider article about Tibetan history. If it's a fringe theory then it should not be accorded a lot of space. In this case it's clearly a propaganda attempt, but that doesn't mean the subject itself shouldn't be treated properly in another article.--Asdfg12345 02:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Shouldn't this be redirected to History of Tibet? Although the extent of serfdom in pre-PRC takeover Tibet is still a controversial subject amongst PRC scholars and Tibetan exiles, serfs did exist in the Tibetan society. This article should be rewritten so that it provides both the views of academics, the PRC government, and Tibetan exiles.--PCPP (talk) 11:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep -- Nominator's arguments, while interesting, aren't really relevant. Whether this article belongs should depend not on the current state of the current authors, at the time of nomination -- but rather on whether the topic itself merits coverage. If Tibetan citizens social relations were some kind of serfdom then the topic merits an article. It topics current coverage is biased it should be fixed, not deleted. Geo Swan (talk) 19:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Tibet's Economy Depends on Beijing. "Tibet's Economy Depends on Beijing", National Public Radio, September 20, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-05-29. "Quzhen was still young when the Chinese government took control of Tibet in 1951 and ended its feudal system. Quzhen's parents were "chabas," landless serfs who worked on a feudal lord's manor." 
    • Ed Douglas. "Slow death of an ancient culture: Tibet, Tibet", The Guardian, Thursday April 17 2003. Retrieved on 2008-05-29. "The real Tibet has little to do with the West's aspirations for it. The line of Dalai Lamas achieved its pre-eminence off the back of the Mongols' military brilliance. Execution, torture and repression were all features of Tibet's feudal theocracy, despite the presence of powerful religious masters who lived the Tibetan Buddhist ideal of nyingje - compassion." 
  • It does not merit its own article because there is nothing that can be said about it except that there once were serfs in Tibet. This material is covered in its entirety at Tibet. Forking that material will serve as a dumping ground for Chinese propaganda for as long as it exists. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 20:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
    • How do you feel about the article Slavery in the United States? It's odd—that article says quite a bit more than that "there were once slaves in the United States". Everyking (talk) 08:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm stunned by this response. First of all, it doesn't matter whether historical facts help justify something you consider wrong—it's still history, and information is what we do. That you think your personal, political opinion about Tibet should override the need to document the history of Tibet is preposterous and galling. Secondly, let me point out that it's just as easy to argue that Slavery in the United States is "being used by nationalists to justify the invasion and occupation of a foreign country". Would you find such an argument to be ridiculous, offensive, perhaps even a "fringe view"? Me too. Everyking (talk) 04:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • "Historical fact" in this instance is not objective. Whether this information is, and to what extent, part of the history of Tibet is disputed by a wide range of governments and NGOs. That most of the sources in this article came from the Chinese government should indicate to you the means for which it is being employed. This article could be rewritten to include an opposing view which would essentially say that there were no serfs in Tibet or that serfdom was used in such a limited extent that it was not historically part of Tibetan society. These sources would all likely come from the Tibetan government or its supporters and so you would have an article which, for its entire life, would be a political battleground between two opposing groups of people. Wikipedia is not a soapbox and it is for this reason that this article should be removed and the content relegated to Tibet. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 06:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Please have a little faith in the system. There are plenty of people, myself included, watching Tibet-related articles to keep PRC propaganda from leaking in. Sadly, according to the NPOV policy, we must report what that propaganda says, but that's life. We keep the tone of the prose as neutral as possible while reporting all relevant opinions. This is why I keep asking for examples of biased text; I genuinely want to change the instances that I've overlooked. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 03:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Cumulus Clouds, (1) you assert "there is nothing that can said about it..." -- can you explain how you came to this conclusion? (2) I've got to agree with others comments -- you are raising concerns here that are editorial concerns that should have been raised on the article's talk page; (3) WRT to your concern about dumping of propaganda -- sorry, that is just something we have to live with. The wikipedia has means of dealing with cruft. Deleting articles on perfectly valid topics, because they might be the target of abuse by propaganda pushers is not one of those means; (4) I agree with others, you could be making a greater effort to be polite. Geo Swan (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, highly notable subject. Slavery/serfdom in Tibet was very real (although the nominator tells us that this is a "fringe view"!), and despite the fairly poor quality of the article at present, this is something we must have an article about. Everyking (talk) 08:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the fringe view is that Tibet was an oppressive society liberated by the Chinese into freedom, and therein is the rub. If you go back far enough in time, you'll find power and wealth inequity to greater and lessor extents for every culture. But that was not the intent of the article to point out, it was to promote propaganda in my opinion. It needs to be restarted from larger socio-economic context or reintegrated into the Tibet article. - Owlmonkey (talk) 08:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The article certainly needs work, but its editing problems are not grounds for deletion. The subject seems to be notable, and I do not see any other grounds for deletion that would apply. I think it could be developed into an interesting article. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. It seems that this AfD is a way to get around actually improving the article. Gimme danger (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep seems to be a notable subject of which several sources have been written on. I don't see how this is an attack page, it simply documents a practice that was common in Tibet long ago. I'm an Editorofthewiki[citation needed] 21:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per DGG, Geo Swan, Everyking, Malcolm Schosha, etc. The notability of the topic itself recommends an encyclopedia entry regardless of bickering about political contexts. — Athaenara ✉ 02:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Move to Tibet's History -- I agree the article belongs in History of Tibet, this is the easiest way to put it in better context. Dates would be good too. Zulu Papa 5 (talk) 04:25, 1 June 2008 (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.