Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China/Chinese cities workgroup

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Is there an English-language database online - from where I can get information to take part in this project? --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 16:31, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Laogai articles

User:Sarcelles has started or expanded a very large number of articles about Chinese cities, so that most of their content deals with prison and laogai facilities in those cities.

While I don't want to remove legitimate information or act as an apologist for any government or organization, I believe that this level of specificness is misplaced. City articles generally do not contain complete lists of parks, shopping malls, factories, courthouses, police stations, hospitals, schools, or prisons. Specific information about each of the parks, malls etc. in the city article itself is even rarer. In general a city article should be about general information (geography, history, etc.), and there has to be a cap on the level of specificity involved.

When the cap of specificity is exceeded, then it's pretty clear that the info is being put in with a political bent. Many of the cities that are being described have long, illustrious histories; interesting and unique local customs; and are hometowns of famous personnages; so a native of such a city being described as nothing but a "place with laogai" is probably not going to be very flattered or amused.

I therefore propose that:

All of the information be relocated to a single laogai or list of laogai facilities article.
The city articles themselves be expanded as per this WikiProject. There is lots of info that can be brought in from the Chinese Wikipedia.

Of course, all discussion is welcome.

Here's a list of such articles:

-- ran (talk) 15:09, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree, that prisons in China are comparable in their importance to ,say, US prisons. Furthermore, the Laogai system is one of the main features of Mainland China of our days.

Sarcelles 12:31, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Prisons in China may be a lot less pleasant than prisons in the U.S., but how are they more important? Because they serve a regime that your POV considers evil, in ways that your POV considers unjustified?

It's not like there aren't any malls, schools, hospitals, courthouses, etc. in China. I mean, you could also say that "schools in China are vehicles of propaganda for the dictatorship", and say that they're more important than American schools. Or that "courthouses in China are representative of a corrupt judicial system", and say that they're more important than American courthouses. But I don't see you writing paragraphs about specific schools. Do you think it's appropriate to describe, for 50%+ of a given article about a city, about a particular school or a particular courthouse?

You have to keep in mind that you're not here to push a POV, you're here to describe things. A city is a city is a city. You are welcome to add as many lists of schools, courthouses, and prisons as you like into miscellaneous sections of each city article. But if everyone pushed POV the way you did... then what next? Falun Gong activists would be inserting the number of people who were arrested (plus their specific names and ages) in each city for Falun Gong related activities. Maoists would be inserting the number of workers who have rioted and died (plus their specific names and ages) in each city. Nationalists would be inserting the number of anti-Japanese petitions (plus the signatures and their dates) in each city. This is simply not sustainable. -- ran (talk) 12:43, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I agree to Ran, and we had the same discussion with the same user around Xmas last year in de:, and a month later in fr:.

City articles should be created in order to describe a city, not to push (doubtful) information into an encyclopedia. In de:, we eventually decided to delete hundreds of Sarcelles' articles. If I just pick out of few of Sarcelles' works, it seems to me that the same will be necessary in en:

If Sarcelles wishes to contribute seriously, he will have to provide information about the history of the city, economic situation, traffic, tourist spots. That's not as difficult as it sounds. -- Herr Klugbeisser 03:06, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Right, infos about a prison shouldn't make up half an article. However, what you described as my masterpiece [[1]]

actually is a religion, at least it has an English article (Chinese folk religion).

Sarcelles 09:34, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

An English article with completely different content, sir. The article in de: was deleted because it contained sheer nonsense.

Anything more you have to say about Ran's discussion points, instead of focusing on my person?

If not, I suggest that you first extend the articles you have started by information regarding population, economics, tourist spots, transportation etc., and only then start new articles. If Wikipedia wants to be a serious encyclopaedia, we need to have NPOV articles and what you have contributed to the articles up till now is *not* NPOV. Please let us know whether this is acceptable for you. -- Herr Klugbeisser 13:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Christian population

Also: some of these city articles contain info on the number of Christians. But where did the info come from though? I don't think statistics bureaus in China give out information pertaining to religions ... -- ran (talk) 15:32, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

The source if the World Christian Encyclopedia

Sarcelles 10:35, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

What's their source? How do they get something that Chinese statistics bureaus don't have? -- ran (talk) 12:18, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

This probably is via Churches/ missionaries in China.

Sarcelles 09:22, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Sarcelles, maybe you don't know - the official churches are managed by the Chinese state. They will not publish information that is different from the officially recognized figures. The underground church, on the other side, is very small and we have good reasons to assume that it's too small to give accurate figures about the Christian population. -- Herr Klugbeisser 13:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sarcelles

Just for your information: Sarcelles is a user that was banned in the German wikipedia (the reason being that he created hundreds of careless articles about Chinese cities where the information was wrong or badly misleading) and in the French wikipedia (the reason being that he started the same activities in there, but in such a bad French that it was considered vandalism by the French users). Thereafter, he continued in the Italian wikipedia (he was temporarily blocked due to articles in bad Italian) and in the Low Saxon wikipedia where he is likely to be blocked if he continues in the way he has been doing. Now, the quality of his articles he contributed in en: has improved, however, they are still one-sided and the information provided may be very doubtful (it depends on how reliable the Laogai handbook he refers to is). As information about labour camps is not something readily available, we may assume that also the Laogai handbook contains much information that may be speculation, or outdated. Someone else from the Low Saxon wikipedia already posted some information about him at his talk page, but he deleted it here. I am not sure how cases like his are handled in en:, but he is certainly a very problematic user and he need some way of control. -- Herr Klugbeisser 01:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Above user complains about frequent incorrect data in German articles on Chinese cities. This is true. But: information on China quite generally is not without factual errors.

He says was banned in the German Wikipedia' . The German Wikipedia does not exist, as there are severel German Wikipedias.

A block of an author of Chinese topics in the French Wikipedia can be considered POV, given the bad reputation of China in France.

Labor camps should obviously be mentioned in articles about the cities cities concerned, even if User:Herr Klugbeisser has the cynism to make PR for the People's Republic of China including censorship.

There is no Low Saxon Wikipedia. It is written in Low Saxon and East Low German, which are different varieties, but integrated in one Wikipedia. Hoped to have clarified things. Sarcelles 10:34, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I think that de: can be called German Wikipedia in here.

With low saxon I meant nds:

I pointed out in the discussion about your ban that I knew some of the cities you described and that I found that the content of a few of those articles was extremely wrong, including cities you placed in wrong provinces or (maybe) mixed up with cities that have similar names. I think I have good reasons to assume that the quality of the content of what you write will not improve here in en:, as your sources are still the same.

Apart from this, is there anything you have to say about Ran's comments?

Or is there anything you can say about the sources of the Laogai handbook? To which extent are they reliable and up-do-date?

And, blaming me that I make PR for the PRC and their censorship is quite an interesting allegation - where is the evidence? -- Herr Klugbeisser 11:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

This is not Public Relations, I apologize for this claim, but has many positive points of the PRC.

I have to criticize your habit of voting for deletion of German articles critical of Mainland China's system. These are written by various authors.

This habit is what I meant by Censorship. I did'nt say you were writing positive of the censorship of the PRC. Hope to have clarified things. Sarcelles 12:44, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Personal allegations should be discussed privately.

Please give us your opinion about Ran's comments and answer our questions regarding the reliability of your sources regarding the laogai prisons. -- Herr Klugbeisser 00:57, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

"User:Sarcelles has started or expanded a very large number of articles about Chinese cities, so that most of their content deals with prison and laogai facilities in those cities." - Oh yeah... The de:Benutzer:Sarcelles and the fr:Utilisateur:Sarcelles did do it too... It seems: There is only one way to stop these SubSubSubStubs... AN 10:16, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

It's not that I want to pick on you, Sarcelles, but some of the contributions you've made (e.g. Tewu, which is simply a Chinese word for "spy") suggests that you're willing to put up completely misguided or biased information. -- ran (talk) 17:22, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Right, this article was made due to my mistaken understanding of the word Tewu.

Sarcelles 18:26, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have replaced tewu with a stubbish article, either move it to wiktionary or expand as everyone see fit. -Hmib 18:41, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi all, I've been looking at User:Sarcelles' contribs, and it is apparent that he is adding these city articles purely for the sake of adding the location of laogai camps, since most of these cities aren't really notable (well, 300,000 people in a Chinese city isn't a lot), and little else other than the location, administrative region. One such example:

Changji has a university. Changji Reeducation through labor is here. Changji Prison, where inmates have to work on Xiabahu Farm also is near Changji.

Now, The education system in Changji is covered in 4 words. The "correction" system? 20 words. Not to be a nitpick here, but such information simply cannot justifiably be placed in such a stubby article without revealing the writer's political POV. Besides, laojiao is different from laogai. I think it is safe to assume that Sarcelles got his info from a booklet by the Chinese Democracy Movement (or even, Free Tibet), which, in itself, is a political organisation and naturally POV. -Hmib 18:41, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I too have been looking at User:Sarcelles' contributions and I have noticed his "city articles are nothing but a couple of vague descriptions, (ie. "city with over 100,000 inhabitants" is a common one, or this city has a police station") with the sole purpose of talking about prisons. One of his so-called articles about a city had nothing more than a list of prisons! This is outrageously annoying if he is going to keep on creating articles about cities and only focus on the prisons. He adds no information on the various aspects of a city, ie. population, culture, administration, history but instead focuses on prisons which he keeps on calling "reeducation through labor" 's, now this is becoming a nuisance as there is going to be around 100 stubs focusing on "reeducation through labor"'s. If he wants to talk about prisons he should do so in an article focusing on prisons as opposed to making stubs about cities only for the sole purpose of listing prisons.

-Abstrakt 23 Jun 2005

What is wrong with the word reeducation through labor ? Maybe it is not an accurate translation, which I am not able to judge.

Sarcelles 14:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sarcelles and Abstrakt, I took the liberty of rearranging 2 of your convos to make it easier to read.

Now Sarcelles, laogai, 劳改 means "work correction", or more grammatically, "correction by labour". laojiao, 劳教, on the otherhand, means "work education", or "reeducation through labour". Thus correction =/= reeducation. I'm no fan of CPC rhetoric, but there is a difference here, it's incorrect to translate laogai as "reeducation through labour". In fact, it says so on the reeducation through labor page itself.

@All, we still have to consider what to do with all these 100s of laogai stubs. I think we have a few options.

Delete them all, every single one. I wouldn't recommend this.
Delete all the reference to laogai, put them into another article, Laogai facilities in China. I think this would be best.
Leave them in place, but expand all the articles considerably so that other info would balance out the laogai stuff. Note, considerably. This would mean either a travelogue or government websites. Lots of work. I don't recommend this either.
Leave everything as is, fill in additional info as they come to us. For procrastinators, not recommended.

-Hmib 23:06, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmib, if I look at the articles where Sarcelles has been the only contributor, I think option 1 & 2 are basically the same. After you remove the laogai stuff from the city articles, not much more than some no-brainer information is left over. This is why almost all of Sarcelles' stubs eventually got deleted in de:. -- Herr Klugbeisser 03:00, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I beg to differ: If we overlook all those laogai entries, there are still considerable space for improvement in those articles, such as their adminstration, demographics etc. This would be similar to but easier than Option 3 that I listed, since we don't need so much stuff to 'balance the equation', so to speak. -Hmib 05:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While I'm just a bystander in this debate, I offer the following comment in all seriousness. It is not intended as an insult in any way:

Sarcelles is mentally disturbed. He needs a psychiatrist to deal with the issues. --Sumple 00:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I second the opinion. Colinoncayuga 02:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Locator maps

Would it be possible to produce locator maps for the prefecture-level divisions? (and hopefully county-level divisions within prefectures at a later stage) We can start with provinces with fewer prefecture-level divisions, such as Qinghai. Would be nice if locator maps are available for districts and county-level cities of famous and populous prefecture-level cities, say Guangzhou or Wuhan too. — Insta ntnood 20:12, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Just hold on, I have some locator maps under construction, see Foshan for example, however, I don't have the time to create more at moment. -- Herr Klugbeisser 23:43, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wow that's really great. :-D — Insta ntnood 09:06, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] our good friend sarcelles

Hi guys, as you know our friend sarcelles is still putting up poorly worded stubs on Chinese cities about prisons and labor camps. I was a little bored and decided to google some of the cities he has written stubs on. Well what a surprise, every single one of the cities I searched on google turned up on www.clearwisdom.net, which is a site promoting Falun Gong. He is clearly here to promote a non neutral point of view and a point favoring his own views. Just thought you should know. --Abstrakt Jun 29 2005

Ah, so I was right. In any case, it's clear that User:Sarcelles's agenda is less than NPOV. By simply copy-pasting things over from a clearly POV source (Falungong, or maybe Tibet Independence, or any political organisation,) and excluding other POVs (as POV as city articles can get,) I think we need to do something. Fast!!! Sarcelles is not responding to this talkpage, but I think we have a good consensus? Shall we get started then? -Hmib 30 June 2005 00:34 (UTC)

This actually is not true, that I copy-paste pages from a source such as

Tibet Independence. If this is one out of eight sentences, that deals with a Prison, this is not really too much. Sarcelles 30 June 2005 06:42 (UTC)

Ok sarcelles I don't mean to pick on you again, but apparently you do not understand the term "Neutral Point of View". Please and I mean please try to look up that term in the dictionary and find out what it means. I mean you're missing the point here made by Hmib, you are clearly posting stubs from sources that display a certain point of view. And what's even sadder is that you admit that you are copying and pasting from a non-neutral point of view source. Abstrakt Jun 30 2005

Sarcelles, you are copying from clearwisdom.net, a Falungong-operated site. Falungong, as a party in this fiasco, is definitely not to do trusted as an accurate/NPOV source, since they have everything to gain by adding some spice here and there. We are not doubting the truthfulness of your prison stubs, (even with them coming from Falungong sources - but that's just my bias,) but rather that they are overemphasising on one aspect of these cities which can easily be intepreted as pushing POV. -Hmib 30 June 2005 19:01 (UTC)

[edit] Same problem and request for ban on it.wiki

If someone can read italian, informations here 84.253.136.132 8 July 2005 00:44 (UTC) (user MM on it.wiki)

[edit] Can we see some action, please?

OK everyone there's not much currently going on here. I think we have a pretty good concensus that Sarcelles' articles are of sub-par quality. Now do we delete them or what? -Hmib 21:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that there really isn't much we can do. Sarcelles isn't being malicious, he's just being really... well... annoying. His edits are sub-par and some of his information is questionable, but the only way to improve that is for someone to recheck all of his edits. So far User:Abstrakt has been doing that. In the meantime I try to keep the list at the top of the page updated for future reference. After all, there are a lot of sub-par stubs on Wikipedia, but we can't blame anyone for starting them. -- ran (talk) 00:51, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, good to know that someone is working on it. Maybe I'll help. -Hmib 15:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if this is a little late but yeah I've already checked and editted most if not all ofSarcelles's stubs on Chinese cities. Abstrakt 15:09, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the return of Sarcelles

Hi there guys, it seems our old friend Sarcelles is back to his old tricks once again, yes that's right he's back to posting up poorly editted stubs with the aim of promoting the plight of the Falun Gong. The articles in question are as follows: Changchun Public Security Bureau, Tangshan Public Security Bureau, Shijiazhuang Public Security Bureau, Lu'an Public Security Bureau . All of these articles follow the same old formula that Sarcelles used for his string of poorly written stubs on Chinese cities, that is: location, a couple of landmarks such "it is next to a police station", then his pleas for the Falun Gong". I have nothing against the Falun Gong but he's clearly using Wikipedia for vanity purposes, to promote the Falun Gong. Abstrakt 15:03, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

All the articles are now on afd. --Mib orovsky

22:55, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

New addition to the list: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bengbu Public Security Bureau

Abstrakt 04:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh man... the vfd got closed!!... now I'm begging User:IceKarma to reopen it... =/ -- ran (talk) 04:50, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

All the other "public bureau" articles got deleted. That might help. --Mib orovsky

05:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but the vfd is technically closed, and it might be seen as unusual for IceKarma (or anyone else) to reopen it.

In any case, does anyone feel like a RfC for Sarcelles? -- ran (talk) 06:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The afd was closed before it could 'technically' be closed, wasn't it? I say go ahead if you want to do an RfC for Sarcelles. Couldn't hurt. --Mib orovsky

21:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I second that Rfc for Sarcelles, yeah it wouldn't hurt. Oh the way I was surfing around Wikipedia and came across one of Sarcelles' POV masterpieces , 6-10 Office. It has never been put on the chopping block (afd) and I don't intend to nominate it for deletion because it serves as clear cut evidence of the agenda Sarcelles is aiming for. Also if anyone is skeptical that Sarcelles is trying to push his POV, I can show it to anyone as proof of his POV tendencies. Abstrakt 22:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Wow that was blatantly POV. I added a {{totally disputed}} tag to the page and would support an RfC on Sarcelles now. --Mib orovsky

01:01, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Three things. First, what should we do about the VfD for Bengbu Public Security Bureau? Are we just going to leave it? It sets a bad precedent. Second, 6-10 Office looks normal to someone with a caricaturized and demonized view of the PRC government (Gestapo, etc.), and there are a lot of people like that around. So is it possible to write something in the talk page detailing exactly why the article is not NPOV? Third, how should the RfC be carried out? What are our complaints? A lot of people are sympathetic to the Falun Gong and thus may have a skewed view of Sarcelles' actions. How do we get around that? -- ran (talk) 03:13, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Highlight the fact that he got banned on various wikis before this. Get Herr Klugbeisser to "testify". --Mib orovsky

04:16, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Anyway I was bored and decided to check on the past contributions of Sarcelles, lately he's been keeping himself busy with the addtion of stubs on various Russian politicians, obscure European politicians (parliament members of Luxembourg) and stubs on various European newspapers, these so far have been free of POV. However he has been making stubs on various Protestant churches in India and Bhutan that are somewhat suspect ie. International Fellowship, Association of Vineyard Churches, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eternal Light Ministries.

Also he has been accused of manipulating the demographics of Nepal article in order to talk more about a few Christian groups in Nepal Talk:Nepal/archive1#Further_comments. These are: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Protestants in Nepal, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nepalese House churches, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christ Groups.

He has also made some suspect edits to a few articles on Vietnamese provinces and a Vietnamese city as well: Lao Cai Province, Ha Giang Province, Tuyen Quang Province, Nha Trang.

His stubs on a couple of Vietnamese churches fall into this category as well: Assemblies of God in Vietnam, Evangelical Church of North Vietnam.

He has also made numberous articles on political prisoners I've never heard before likely to extend his POV: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Than Van Truong, Tadeo Nguyen Van Ly, Le Thi Hong Lien

This one here is likely suspect as well: Human rights abuses by Anhui police.

Well this stub reeks of Falun Gong POV. Chinese intelligence activity in other countries.

Now this stub by Sarcelles is plain pathetic since it does not talk about anything relating to the title of the article: Filipino diaspora.

He's also made some assinine lists as well, one of which I had to nominate for deletion due to plain stupidity. This list has nothing to do with the title of the article, instead it is a list of Chinese cities in pinyin Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Dano-Norwegian exonyms.

Also this past summer I was involved, along with someone else in a discussion with Sarcelles over his idea to rename all the Chinese prefecture-level cities as cities. He wanted to rename them since he did not understand the administrative units of China. User_talk:Sarcelles#Re:_Names_of_Chinese_prefectures.

This summer he also had a large number of church stubs nominated for deletion, most of which were made into redirects. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rawang churches.

Now honestly I don't understand this guy Sarcelles, I have no idea as to what he is trying to accomplish on Wikipedia as he continues with his erratic behavior, I mean when you accuse him of pushing his POV he'll deny all wrongdoing and pretend as if he doesn't know what you're talking about. Well after looking at his past behavior, it's of no wonder he has been banned on other Wikipedias. Do what you will with him. Abstrakt 06:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Before RfC, at least two of us should contact Sarcelles and inform him of this. I'll be the first. If he realizes the seriousness of the situation, then perhaps we can resolve this issue without needing to go to RfC at all. -- ran (talk) 22:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Sarcelles has shown in the past to disregard what others have to say about his behavior on Wikipedia but hey I guess it's worth a shot. Abstrakt 23:28, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I've posted a note at User talk:Sarcelles. In the meantime, I've started another vfd on one of Sarcelles's creations: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human rights abuses by Anhui police. -- ran (talk) 03:41, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Just sent a message to Herr Klugbeisser, and I'll keep an eye for Sarcelle's edits. In the meantime, what of Bengbu Public Security Bureau? From the blue link it's obvious it isn't deleted yet... --Mib orovsky

04:58, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

That's the thing. We were too late for that one. And once an article passes VfD, it may be troublesome to get it deleted, because people will assume that the repeated vfd is frivolous. -- ran (talk) 05:19, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Should we talk to IceKarma again? Get HIM to nominate this for deletion again? Possible? --Mib orovsky

18:22, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Certainly worth a shot. -- ran (talk) 02:31, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to renominate it. It is risky, but I'll explain the situation as best as I can. Hopefully people won't vote it down immediately. -- ran (talk) 02:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Just asking what are we doing about Bengbu Public Security Bureau? Do we nominate it again? Oh yeah Ran if you're in the mood for nominating, these two are "winners": Chinese intelligence activity in other countries and Filipino diaspora. Abstrakt 05:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)]

Here it is, reopened by me (a bit risky): Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bengbu Public Security Bureau -- ran (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, it got closed again, this time as a "No Consensus". Oh well...... =/ I suppose one article cannot hurt, since we can always decide what to do about it later. The important thing right now is to see what Sarcelles does next. -- ran (talk) 00:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Another thing: I don't think we should be pushing articles through vfd as often as we're doing now. It's hard enough to convince people who don't understand the situation. Filipino diaspora, for example, is a legitimate topic that can be expanded upon. Chinese intelligence activity in other countries can be merged into Ministry of State Security. -- ran (talk) 00:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

The only reason I had Filipino diaspora as a suspect edit was due to the content that Sarcelles had written for the article, for example the whole article was a series of sentences relating to human trafficking and sexual slavery of people of Filipino descent. I thought usually a dispora article talked about overseas communities settled by a particular people.

Now with the other article, Chinese intelligence activity in other countries

"The People's Republic of China possibly has a network of more than 1000 agents/informers in Australia. It is likely that in every mission of the People's Republic of China in other countries a person is charged with Falun Gong." According to Sarcelles, there is possibly a network of agents in Australia and it is likely that the main purpose of Chinese intelligence networks is to charge Falun Gong members. That is why I saw that article as suspect. And yes I agree, people who don't understand the situation are likely not to see things the way we've been seeing them. Abstrakt 16:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Another victory for mob rule. Not trying to offend anyone, but seriously there should be an IQ check for editing wikipedia. --Mib orovsky

00:49, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I second that IQ check Abstrakt 16:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I have received Miborovsky's message on my German discussion page. First, sorry for answering late, I was off-line for a few days.

I have followed Sarcelles for some time and, honestly, I am surprised that he can "survive" in en: for such a long time. He was banned in de: for the same reason you are considering an RfC on him, which is, POV edits, poorly written stubs, and a complete refusal to discuss his style/mission. It is not due to some language barrier that he does not answer your questions. As said, in de:, he has been banned completely, in nds:, he has been close to being banned a few times, and the fr: guys considered his poor French as vandalism and blocked him without much discussion.

Also in de:, he has shown more than once that he does not have the slightest idea about the things he is trying to describe. Therefore, numerous articles created by him have simply been deleted because they had no value to the reader and the information was too difficult to verify. Attempts to find verification for his facts repeatedly showed that his information was blatantly wrong.

So, in my opinion the only way of handling this guy is banning him and reverting all his POV. Don't try to discuss with him, he will not answer. Anything else is a waste of your time. I hope it helps. -- Herr Klugbeisser 02:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Herr Klugbeisser.
-- Миборовский ^U|T|C|E 04:38, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems that Sarcelles might of abandoned his activity on Wikipedia for the time being since he has not made an edit since last week. I'm not sure has he truly abandoned Wikipedia or is he playing the waiting game with us, waiting for us to get off his back so he can go back to his POV editting. And yes he has been quite reluctant to discuss what about his purpose on Wikipedia. I've noticed in dealing with him, he acts completely dumbfounded and pretends he doesn't the situation when he is accused of pushing a POV. I mean in the past he has gone to the point of manipulating and putting in blantantly false information to satisfy his own POV ie. Talk:Nepal/archive1#Further_comments. I'm pretty sure banning him might be the only option we have for him. Abstrakt 01:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

This behaviour is known from other Wikipedias. Maybe he has also looked for a new language edition to work for, even though I did not find any hints. -- Herr Klugbeisser 10:19, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I consider it unjustified to regard articles as POV because they are articles on the persecution of religious minorities or containing the topic of persecuted religious minorities. -- Sarcelles

Oh great, you're back, read your edits over Sarcelles and tell me if they're POV or not, if you can't pick up your blantant POV's in your articles, then you are beyond help. I'm not sure is it your understanding of POV that is in question, but you clearly do not a definition of the term "POV" or "point of view". Frankly like many other people here, we are sick and tired of tracking down each and every one of your edits. And NO and I mean DO NOT give us this tired line of "articles on the persecution of religious minorities or containing the topic of persecuted religious minorities", we are not after you for writing articles on that subject matter, moreever we are after your articles because they are filled with BLATANT errors and assumptions, also most of the time you have merely copied information from suspect websites. Also have you forgotten your string of "Public Security Bureau" articles? They had nothing to do with religious persecution, it was just another way for you to spew out more of your POV.

to quote Ran: "This is not about religious persecution. We would be unhappy if anyone pushed a POV like this, no matter what POV it is.

Imagine that there is someone who doesn't like the Roman Catholic church. Rather than just sticking to Catholicism-related topics and contributing in a sane, neutral manner, however, he goes around and spreads inaccurate information about Catholicism and a lot of other topics, simply because he doesn't make sure he knows what he's writing about before he writes it. To make sure people understand his POV, he starts hundreds of tiny little articles on North American and European cities and towns just to show off his anti-Catholicism POV. He would start one tiny article about a town somewhere in Europe or Africa, and 80% of it would be about some atrocity committed by Catholics that he heard from an anti-Catholic source. And then he repeats this for 100 other articles. Wouldn't you be pretty annoyed? I would. But that's what you're doing. Look in the mirror"

Anyway you've been banned on various Wikipedia's, do you know why? It is because of this behavior.

I'm sorry to say but if this continues to be a problem, we might have to go through the trouble of request for comment (RFC). Abstrakt 05:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of other wikis' actions on Sarcelles

German: de:Wikipedia:Vermittlungsausschuss/Problem mit Benutzer:Sarcelles - mediation
German: de:Wikipedia:Benutzersperrung/Sarcelles - vote to ban, passed 30/1/2 (couldn't have been more lopsided...)
French: fr:Wikipédia:Éditeurs problématiques/Sarcelles - "Problematic editor, Sarcelles". I like their straightforwardedness. :D
Italian: it:Wikipédia:Éditeurs problématiques/Sarcelles - same thing here. This one's 22/12/2.

Some guy on fr also mentioned that he is active in Polish wiki too, but I haven't checked it out yet.

--Mib orovsky 05:15, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Sarcelles has yet to respond to the comments left on his userpage, I'm not sure is he trying to ignore us and lay low for a while or has he abandoned his username and created a new one by now. Abstrakt

Just keep watching Special:Newpages. I haven't seen anything suspicious yet. -- ran (talk) 18:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

- Shouldn't be too difficult, considering his articles are mostly related to China's human rights. --Mib orovsky 22:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sarcelles back to his old ways, request for comment

This guy simply does not learn. Yes that's right you guessed it, he's back to his old ways of posting up poorly editted prision stubs once again.

13:28, 5 January 2006 Heiliushui Reeducation through labor
13:22, 5 January 2006 Yangquan No. 1 Prison
16:07, 4 January 2006 Taiyuan No. 3 Prison
16:00, 4 January 2006 Jinzhong Prison
16:32, 3 January 2006 Xi'ning Prison
16:29, 3 January 2006 Qincheng Prison
15:11, 6 January 2006 Pingshi Prison
15:00, 6 January 2006 Taiyuan City Reeducation through labor

15:45, 7 January 2006 Jiaoling Prison
15:13, 7 January 2006 Jiangmen Prison

He has already ignored a request to cease from this behavior of putting poorly editted prison stubs where he draws his information from pro-Falun Gong website http://www.clearwisdom.net

I mean he has done exactly what I predicted he would do after we almost moved in on a RFC last time, he layed low for a couple of monthes and once we were off his back, he went back to his previous behavior as if we never did anything in the first place. With this kind of behavior, he should be banned like he has been on the German, French and Italian wikipedias.

Abstrakt 03:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm inactive as of right now but I'll be watching this page. If you need help, shoot either my talkpage or email. Or here. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 06:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

16:27, 9 January 2006 Lianping Prison
16:23, 9 January 2006 Gaoming Prison
16:20, 9 January 2006 Panyu Prison
16:15, 9 January 2006 Shaoguan Prison
15:23, 8 January 2006 Foshan Prison

more added. Abstrakt 19:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I've grouped them all into a consolidated discussion located at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese prisons by Sarcelles. Next time, if these articles prop up, just tell me and I'll exercise some IAR. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 00:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay... Now what?

[edit] Even more

18:45, 12 January 2006 Tianjin Reeducation through labor
18:39, 12 January 2006 Hexi Prison

2 new additions to the list, I've checked on them, I'm unable to find any information on the first link, as for the second link the only thing I can find on them is that it is mentioned on www.clearwisdom.net. The text from the first article is highly questionable and possibly Sarcelles own POV: "As of September 2004, most inmates were Falun Gong members"

Abstrakt 00:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Taken care of. To quote El C, "No more games." -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 01:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Flattery thy name is self-reference. ;) I'm not at all familliar with this case, but generally, if a user is seen to be fabricating key detail in —or actually inventing outright— entries, we have a problem that needs to be effectively resolved. WP:CITE->WP:RS->WP:V are non-negotiable. Regardless if those places do exist (and/or as such), they need to be verified once a request for citation is made. El_C 15:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

16:07, 10 January 2006 Beijing Municipal Prison there's no real notable information on this, other than it is a prison of Beijing. Abstrakt

The auto manufacturing plant thing did it for me. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 01:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I am well on my way to becoming a rogue admin... -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 01:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

current work by our friend sarcelles List of Laogai institutions and List of reeducation through labor institutions Abstrakt 08:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

This is a template. Please feel free to fill it in:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sarcelles

-- ran (talk) 17:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've written as much as I could possibly bear for one day... you guys have a lot of experience in working with Sarcelles' many edits, so if you want to, please add more information. Also, I can't guarantee that everything I wrote was coherent or appropriate, so feel free to tear up my writing, delete and rewrite portions, etc...

Abstrakt: Thanks very much for your work on the list of dubious edits... unfortunately I'm too tired right now to organize them and put up descriptions in the RfC page. Here's the complete list again:

I believe some of them are already up (the church ones, I believe). If anyone wants to put up the rest, please go ahead...

Thanks to everyone for the hard work of the last 7 months... it's been really frustrating for all... Let's hope that the RfC turns out well, and everyone can work out a solution together. =)

-- ran (talk) 02:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joining the project

Hello all... I'd love to join this project. I'm new but have quite a few edits under my wiki-belt. I lived in China for several years and have a decent command of Mandarin... writing's so so but my geography related vocab is decent. I've been working on getting all prefecture level cities in Gansu started and have recently done some in Jiangxi. I've also created an easy-to-edit, detailed map of China. The map's flash so I can do almost anything with it. based on Chinese government issue maps and atlases. If you ever need a map just send me a request. Hope I can be of some help.

Mike 21:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Welcome. I must say that this little project is quite inactive, though. The map you have sounds interesting, do you have an URL we can check it out on? Thanks. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 04:12, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recently added cities

I've been adding alot of cities. Finished Sichuan, Gansu, and Guangxi. Also did the city list for Guangxi but it still needs to have its pinyin finished. Hoping some of you guys can take a look at them and give 'em a critique. I think I developed a decent standard format that follows alot of what you guys have already contributed. Also might need some fixes on my translations... definately imperfect to say the least. Next I'll head to Yunnan, then maybe Hubei. Started a Sichuan cities list but that's kinda boring. Peace ya'll!!! Mike 19:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 18:31, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] template to put on talk pages of chinese cities?

This article is part of WikiProject Chinese Cities, which aims primarily to standardize prefecture-level city and county-level city entries of the People's Republic of China. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

to put on the talk pages of articles part of this project....what do you guys think?

btw i haven't made it a template yet...just experimenting around atm

zeChinaman 16:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 15:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tungkuan

Please help with Tungkuan (please also explain what spelling it is) . `'mikkanarxi 18:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "L" places without articles on en:

All of the places in China listed below have a population of > 100,000 and have articles on other Wikipedia editions, but not in the English-language Wikipedia. Would anyone be interested in starting some of these?

Lengshuitan - see no:Lengshuitan
Lichuan - see nl:Lichuan
Liuan - see it:Liu'an
Liupanshui - see fr:Liupanshui, pt:Liupanshui, nl:Liupanshui, zh:六盘水市

-- The Anome 11:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I did a bit of editing on Liupanshui. Maybe we should focus a bit on large cities that have bad articles. Colipon+(T) 07:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eight missing Chinese city articles

FYI: Wikipedia:Missing_articles_for_towns_and_cities_with_100,000_or_more_inhabitants#China. Kaldari (talk) 18:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)