User talk:Madalibi

Taiping Huanyu Ji Move

User:Madalibi - In the future, please do not move articles that have other contributors on them without first posting a Request for move section on the article's Talk Page. It is not the prerogative of individual users to move articles without giving other users the opportunity to contest the move or suggest alternatives. Whether or not you agree or disagree with them is irrelevant - Wikipedia operates on consensus. In this particular case, you've lucked out, as the move is reasonable. I personally would have liked to have had a heads-up and opportunity to comment prior to the move.

Feel free to research this policy more or share your concerns. Thanks.  White Whirlwind  咨  11:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi White whirlwind. Thank you for your message, and I'm sorry for not leaving a message either here or on the article talk page before proceeding. I went ahead because it is a straightforward rule of pinyin to put compound words together, so I thought the move would be uncontroversial. As you will see at Talk:Pure blood theory in Korea (particularly this edit), I usually go out of my way to justify a move when I think it might be controversial. So I don't think I'm a rash editor who just "lucked out" in this case. Anyway I'm glad you agreed with my conclusion despite my haste. Sorry again, and keep up the good work! Madalibi (talk) 11:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow - those are some of the longest "edits" I've ever seen. That's impressive.

Glad you got the message. Thanks for spotting the "error" in the title - please add to the article if you've got some good sources on it! Hope to work with you in the future.  White Whirlwind  咨  12:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, those edits took a while to write! And the problem is not even solved, so there's still work to do. I just added a bit of info to the Taiping Huanyu Ji from a book I own. I also see that Taiping huanyu ji is mentioned many times in this Google Books search. I have too much on my hands right now to go through everything, but maybe you can use some of these sources to develop the article. Finally, would you agree to changing "Tai Ping Huan Yu Ji" to "Taiping Huanyu Ji" throughout the article? Thank you! Madalibi (talk) 12:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Good work. And, yes, if an article gets moved (i.e. its name gets changed) then certainly we would want to change all references in the article itself to match.  White Whirlwind  咨  13:42, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

CAV Bowra

Hi Madalibi: We worked on the Boxer... er, thing. Thanks for the tip on the Bowra book, which is listed on my draft of the Bowra article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Edward Charles Bowra, and is actually about this Bowra's sons. It was was fascinating family. Actually, my main interest is Dream of the Red Chamber. CA Bowra did an early translation, but I didn't want to clutter that page with his bio information. So I started a stub article, which the administrator disallowed, not unreasonably. BTW, are you a member of AAS? I'm thinking that there might be some sort of Wikipedia session in Toronto to recruit and Wikify new editors. I floated the idea on the general Wikipedia talk page and one of the administrators said she thought it was a great idea. What do you think? ch (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Ask for your help on some Korean articles

Hi Madalibi, I am EJcarter, a student who is interested in the history of Asia. I observed several wiki pages (listed below) on ancient Korean history, content of which are very different from the western textbooks and what I have learned in the class. I have started to discuss and edit the pages and really hope you could participate the discussion and improve the articles' neutrality and reliability if you are interested. Below are three wiki pages I mentioned:

History of Korea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Korea

Old Choson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gojoseon

Timeline of Korean history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Korean_history EJcarter (talk) 00:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for cleaning up the situation with Huaqing Pool. Usually, I plan out articles, and avoid being jumped on by faster-than-the-speed-of-light bots. It just seemed that with a en.Wictionary and a WikiCommons category, I might as well do a quick Wikipedia article.... Anyway, thank you, Dcattell (talk) 02:57, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all. I don't think bots were the problem, here. It's just that some people at New pages patrol zap new pages a little too quickly! Despite their good intentions, they tend to shoot down salvageable pages along with all the rubbish that lands on Wikipedia everyday. Anyway, the fix was quick and painless, so keep up the good work! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 03:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

A draft article for the history of the Great Wall of China

Hi Madalibi, I have always admired your work on both the Ming and the Qing dynasties, so I venture to ask: would you be interested in helping me write an ambitious article covering the whole history of the Great Wall of China? (as the Wall plays a big role in the fall of Ming, both militarily and economically) I have a draft up in User:Deadkid dk/History of the Great Wall of China, and while I have made some progress, I have come to realize that I will not have the time and resources to complete this endeavour within a reasonable amount of time (years) - especially when real life commitments started to take its toll on my personal research time. I'd hate to abandon the draft, and the topic is one that the English Wikipedia sorely needs. So if you have time to spare, I'd be glad if someone as knowledgeable as you would be willing to help out :) _dk (talk) 04:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi dk. I'm very sorry for not replying any sooner. As you can see from My contributions, I haven't been on Wikipedia in 5 months, and so I missed your message. Your sandbox is very impressive! You obviously put a lot of time and thought into it. I agree it would be too bad to keep it in user space for years before the readers of Wikipedia can benefit from your research. I plan to stay very busy in real life in the next few months, so I doubt I'll be able to help much, but don't hesitate to contact me if you have specific questions and I'll try to answer as best as I can. (I plan to check my messages everyday from now on, so I won't miss any more messages.) If I may offer some advice, maybe you could write the missing sections very briefly (one paragraph each if necessary) and go prime time right away? You can even leave a few sections blank. Once the page is up in public view, you can keep building it with help from other editors. (I should think of applying my own advice to my own sandboxes...) Anyway, sorry again for taking so long to reply, and keep up that impressive work on the Great Wall! Hoping to see that page on Wikipedia soon. Cheers! Madalibi (talk) 07:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem, and thank you for you advice! There are a few sections that aren't as important to the history of the Great Wall, namely the Tang and Song dynasties, maybe I should cut them loose for now. Cheerios. _dk (talk) 11:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I would say the most important unwritten section at this point is the one on the Ming, because that's when the wall became strategically important again, first as a platform for active expansionist policies toward Mongolia, then as a more passive barrier. If you can write a draft of that section, the page should be a fine work in progress to add to main space. Best, Madalibi (talk) 11:22, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Another question, wise sir. Are there any sources, in addition to the ones that I have listed in my sandbox's reference section, that you think would be helpful or insightful to the topic I'm pursuing? Much appreciations. _dk (talk) 11:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi dk. I'm leaving for a short trip tomorrow morning and will be back on Wednesday evening. I'll think about your question while I'm on the road. There's nothing obviously missing for a general article on the Great Wall, but the Cambridge History of China volume on the Ming dynasty (Part One) has a lot of information on the Great Wall under different emperors. That would be a great supplement for the Ming section. I'll try to get back to you with more suggestions in a few days! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 14:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, have a nice trip! _dk (talk) 19:27, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi again! I think I found an article that might interest you: Nicholas Tackett, "The Great Wall and Conceptualizations of the Border Under the Northern Song," Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies, vol. 38 (2008): 101-39. It might be a good addition to your work in progress. I hope you can find it! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 13:20, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

And I suddenly realize that I never got back to you after my mid-May message... Sorry about that. I talked to a friend of mine who studies the Qing frontiers, but he couldn't think of any good reference on the Great Wall during that period. He said there might be studies on techniques of construction and recent excavations of ancient sections of the Wall, but he doesn't know the exact references. But at least there's that article on the Song, so that's at least one new thing to report about! Sorry I couldn't find more. Bye! Madalibi (talk) 13:24, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! I found the Tackett article and will get around to read it soon. Cheers! _dk (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Great, that means you have better library access than I do! Have fun! Madalibi (talk) 06:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Acupuncture history section

Hi Madalibi! The history section of the acupuncture article is a mess - could I bother you to glance over it and streamline it a little? Will probably only take you 5 minutes. Cheers! --Mallexikon (talk) 06:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

No worries, I had a second look and found it less complex than expected. Was able to do it myself. Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 09:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mallexicon. Nice to hear from you. As I said to dk above, I just took a long break from the Wiki and I'm only seeing your message now. Sorry for not responding when you needed my help. I'm glad you were able to solve the issue quickly. I will take a look at the page you mention if I have time, but I have four conferences to attend in the next month and a half, so I doubt I'll have much time! Sorry again for not seeing your message any faster! All best, Madalibi (talk) 07:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

No prob. Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 09:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Yellow Emperor

Madalibi, whilst it's nice that you added extra information to the article about the Yellow Emperor in November, your method was somewhat of a nuisance and you broke the rules. Instead of making a complete mess of the log by making hundreds of small changes, you could have introduced your changes all at once by saving it in the sandbox until you had finished. You could have even done it in larger chunks and thus made one entry in the log each day instead of 10 or so. You also broke the WP:ERA rule by writing "BCE" repeatedly instead of "BC", which is what the rest of the article had been using since its creation years ago. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 13:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC))

Hi WP Editor 2011. Sorry for not replying any sooner. I make small, incremental edits because I like to explain every single change I make to a page. I do that out of respect for other editors who may wonder why I added a particular piece of text or why I modified or deleted text that they may have written. Putting up entire paragraphs makes that impossible. Maybe you think this habit is a "nuisance" because you wanted to find out who inserted so many "BCE"s into the page, and to do that you had to sift through the whole page history. That was not necessary. The next time you have valid reason to disagree with BCE or BC on a page, just change it back to the version you think is right. Editors who disagree will then come out to discuss your change. Also, I think the best way to decide on BC/BCE is to establish a consensus on proper usage for each page, but I'm too busy for that right now, so let's just go with BC! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 07:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Shunzhi Emperor

I got to Shunzhi Emperor via Wikipedia:WikiProject Chinese history, which is linked to in the talk page of Liao Dynasty, the article I've been working on lately.

I wanted to stop on by and say that your work is amazing. I've got a page up at User:Sven Manguard/Chinese Dynastic Period Article Improvement Project where I'm tracking the 'major' or 'core' articles, and the Qing Dynasty is in rather sore shape all around. I don't have nearly the supply of sources that you do (I've got access to a University library, JSTOR, and a strong undergraduate studies background in Chinese history) but I'm willing to chip in with what I've got if you're taking on another article in the near future. Let me know.

In the mean time, I'll be doing your GA review. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:15, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The initial GA review is done. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed and efficient review of Shunzhi Emperor, and for your generous assessment of my work. As you can see on my user page, I tend to work on Qing topics, but I also do Chinese medical history and, occasionally, Korean history. All my work in progress is listed, so you're welcome to browse around. And you can always see what I've been working on lately by checking my contributions. Finally, don't hesitate to let me know if you need references for particular points in the articles you're working on. Thank you again for your help! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 08:10, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Shunzhi Emperor is now a good article

Congrats! Keep the momentum going by bringing it to WP:FAC. I'm no expert, but I think it has a solid chance there. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:58, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you again, Sven, for taking so much time to review the article. The problems that you raised and that we solved will make an eventual FA review that much easier! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 02:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Drop me a talk page message when it goes to FAC. Cheers, Sven Manguard Wha? 03:21, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Great, I will! Right now I'm adding a few paragraphs that are missing for the article to be considered complete, then I'll submit it for FA. Thanks again! Madalibi (talk) 03:24, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Pinyin vs Wade-Giles

Hi Madalibi! Any 2 cents regarding this discussion? Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 03:56, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Shunzhi emperor

Hi there, I'm currently busy in my non online life, and I apologize for not responding to you faster. That's amazing that you're helping out with improving the articles on the Qing Dynasty. I noticed that "ijishūn dasan hūwangdi" is given as his title in Manchu, however "ijishūn dasan" is the Manchu transcription of the era name of the Shunzhi emperor, if I'm not mistaken he might of been referred in Manchu as "šidzu eldembure hūwangdi", please correct me if I'm wrong. As for the image of the era name, here you go,

Abstrakt (talk) 18:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Abstrakt, this is very helpful! I sometimes take entire months off, so don't worry for taking a few days to respond. And yes you're right, the Shunzhi Emperor is referred to as "šidzu eldembure hūwangdi" in Manchu documents written after his death, just like he is named Shizu 世祖 in equivalent Chinese documents. These are the emperor's temple names. But I've seen a few Shunzhi-era documents in Manchu, and the date is marked as "ijishūn dasan, Xth year, Xth month, etc." Since the Wiki conventionally use era names to refer to Ming and Qing emperors, "ijishūn dasan" should be good. I also find that form more interesting than "šidzu eldembure hūwangdi," which after all is a transcription from the Chinese ("šidzu" = Shizu 世祖) followed by a generic title that applies to all Manchu emperors. Thank you again for the help! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 03:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, if I'm not mistaken, "šidzu eldembure hūwangdi" is a combination of the temple and posthumous name in Manchu with "šidzu" = Manchu transcription of 世祖 and "eldembure" = posthumous name in Manchu. I did notice that the "temple + posthumous name" is given as the Manchu name of the emperors on the Chinese version of Wikipedia. Abstrakt (talk) 04:04, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you're absolutely right. The posthumous "šidzu eldembure hūwangdi" is the exact equivalent of "Shizu Zhang huangdi" 世祖章皇帝 in Chinese. My mistake! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 03:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Scipione Piattoli/GA1

Please find replies there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 20:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your review! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The Expert Barnstar

		The Expert Barnstar
		I hereby award you the Expert Barnstar for your outstanding contributions to China-related topics. This award is given to a few people who are regarded experts in one or several particular fields. Congrats and keep up your excellent work :)!--Tomcat (7) 15:34, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I just came back from two days off and this is a great surprise, thank you! My main goal in editing Wikipedia is to build content that will last. I'll continue doing that in the future, hoping that WP will keep improving as a reputable source of information on Chinese history. Cheers and thank you again! Madalibi (talk) 13:10, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Boxer Chronology?

Hi Madalibi --

Snooping around, I came across your Boxer Chronology. Do you have plans to develop it? Isn't there a Wiki category for Chronologies and Timelines? There is a lot of controversy over at the Boxer Upbellion article, and it would be useful to have a straightforward chronology someplace. Any ideas? Would you mind if I messed around with your chronology? Not in the immediate future, but something to put on the 2Do list. BTW, Congrats on the "Expert" designation! ch (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi CH. You're right about the chronology. I should have finished it long ago, but I took a long Wikibreak and then moved on to other projects. It's not far from ready, actually. Adjusting the footnotes and rephrasing direct citations shouldn't take too much time. Finding all the dates relevant to the Boxer Moverising would take longer. We would also need some kind of lede, preferably short in order to avoid a content fork with the main article. I could convert the references into usable footnotes sometime next week (after Dec. 10), but I'm far too busy in real life to do more than that. That means it would be great if you could put the more time-consuming tasks––lede and new entries––on your 2do list, or let me know of any good idea you may have about how to develop this page. And thank you about the "Expert" thing. It's always good to have one's work recognized! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 12:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Good to see the progress on the Boxer Chronology! You provide a useful model, one that we should replicate for other topics. There are some China chronologies scattered around, e.g. Chronology of Events Preceding World War II in Asia, but there seems to be a distinction between Chronologies and Timelines, though a quick search does not turn up what it might be.

The article List of timelines led me to Timeline of Chinese history, which is somewhat inconsistent in what it lists. WP:TIMEL gives technical tips, but not guidance as to substance. There is a category "Chronologies of Chinese history," but it only lists four of them (I added the WWII in Asia chronology).

This doesn't solve the question of how to proceed, though this is the normal Wikipedia situation, I guess, and not to be worried about. Should there be a chronology for the Qing Dynasty linked to the Qing section of Timeline of Chinese History? How detailed? But I don't know how or where to raise the question. I guess the China Project page would make sense, but realistically probably more as a notification than to recruit.

None of this takes away from the Boxer Chronology; it just goes to show that a single chronology can start a prairie fire. ch (talk) 04:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi CH. Good points, all of these! I had never reflected on timelines before. Some quick research tells me that timelines are classified as lists. Timeline of Jane Austen, for example, is a featured list. So are the wonderful Timeline of the far future and Timeline of peptic ulcer disease and Helicobacter pylori, which I'm delighted to know exists. Each adopts a different format, from sophisticated tables to simple bullet points, so we probably don't need to worry about strict guidelines. It seems that only timelines about decades (1640s, 1790s) and years (1111, 1234, 1999) have to abide by Wikipedia:Timeline standards.

Some "chronologies" look exactly like lists (Chronology of world oil market events (1970–2005)), but others (Chronology of the ancient Near East; Chronology of Jesus) do not. The fact that there is no featured list with "chronology" in its title probably means I should retitle my sandbox "Timeline of the Boxer uprising."

For Chinese history, I think there's room for several kinds of timelines, with varying degrees of detail. Apart from chronologies of complex events like the Boxer movement or the Sino-Japanese War, the most detailed timelines should be for individual reigns. My most developed work in progress in this vein is User:Madalibi/Chronology of the Shunzhi reign and, to a lesser extent, User:Madalibi/Chronology of Nurhaci's reign. Only the most significant events from these reign-by-reign timelines should be kept for a Timeline of Qing history, in which each section should link to these more detailed timelines as "main articles" (as in User:Madalibi/Chronology of the Qing Dynasty, which is only an outline). Each dynasty should eventually have its own timeline, which would be referred to in an even more general Timeline of Chinese history.

Finally, when I compile these lists I use the present tense, describe a datable event, and explain that event's historical significance (as characterized by reliable sources, of course). That creates a different kind of reading experience, one that I think justifies having timelines side-by-side with regular articles. I'm eager to know what you think of the above. Thanks for pushing me to think further! All the best, Madalibi (talk) 09:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Again, I comment on this matter here to you because I think the Boxer Chronology is an excellent model for what you call a "chronology of a complex event." I agree with your thoughts on the levels of -- should we call them Timelines? -- and how they should stack. This would be much like the existing structure of articles, which you rightly warned should avoid Forking.

I wish I could find the Wikipedia guideline I vaguely remember, for it seems to me that there is an existing Timeline/ Chronology distinction and thoughts on format (beyond those for the Timelines), though they may or may not be "policy." For instance, I remember that it mentioned your point that the verbs should be in the present tense, which I think is the general (though counter-intuitive) practice in the outside world. I'm also not sure what the policy on notes and references is or should be. There are none on the Events Leading to WWII in Asia. Or whether the organization must follow the organization of the article it describes.

The thing to do, then, is to forge ahead with individual chronologies. I have a chronology of WWII in Asia which I prepared for students as a handout. I will notify the Wiki Project China that I am doing so, and you can comment or not, as you please. ch (talk) 21:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick message before getting back to real work. I just spent about 20 minutes looking for the guidelines you mention, but I couldn't find anything. I did find, however, that "Category:Chronology" treats "chronology" as a broader concept than "timeline." Also, judging from the featured lists titled "Timeline of..." that I mentioned above, I think timelines should be as well-referenced as any other page, even if special pages concerning days (e.g., January 17, October 25) always lack references. Of course it's better to have a good-but-unreferenced timeline than nothing at all, but it would sound strange to abandon WP:V and WP:RS just because of the timeline format. Anyway I agree that we should simply forge ahead. I have WP China on my watchlist, so I should be able to comment soon after you post there. Cheers! Madalibi (talk) 03:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Quick addendum: The Timelines I see in Category:Chronology and Category:Timelines mostly do not have footnotes, which I think is a good policy. I think that a good policy would be to indicate in one or two notes the general sources, which anyone can then check. (In theory, the Chronology is documented in the article.) Otherwise the page gets terribly cluttered without giving the reader any value added. I can understand having notes for every line in your draft of the Boxer Chronology, but I would urge you to take them out or consolidate them in the final version. OK, maybe I'm bringing this up because I got reverted when I cut one of two identical notes which decorated successive clauses in the same sentence. But the purpose of the footnote is to let a reader verify the source, which can be cleanly accomplished with a minimum of notes. Cheers in any case. ch (talk) 17:23, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. All I've done to my draft so far is turn textual references into real footnotes. But the text of many entries is still too long, and the notes too cumbersome. I agree that the notes should be consolidated. I will do that after I work the text into a more usable form. I plan to put all references into a single footnote at the end of each entry. What do you think?

On the general issue of references: when you try to edit a page about a decade (1730s) or a year, a "PLEASE READ" note comes out saying that the consensual page format shouldn't be modified without discussion. Such pages contain no references whatsoever, so the absence of footnotes must be part of the consensus. But I don't think "no references" is an option in our case. We can't assume that all dates will be documented in the main article, and every deletion of erroneous material could possibly lead to an edit war, since all material would be unsourced anyway.

I think we should follow best practice, here, as represented by "timelines" that the Wikipedia community has recognized as "featured lists." All the featured timelines are fully referenced, but their entries are short and they only have one footnote per entry. Timeline of the Adriatic campaign, 1807–1814, which is about another complex event, is a relevant example. On visual format, perhaps we could do the Boxer timeline as a table that splits events according to where they took place, maybe three columns on Shandong, Beijing, and the rest of China? Let me know what you think! Best, Madalibi (talk) 03:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Korean historiography

Hi Madalibi! Inspired by your sandbox, I recently created Korean nationalist historiography. I would love if you looked at it and offered some suggestions for strengthening and improvement, since I anticipate at least some of the same blanking and disruption issues that plagued Korean ethnic nationalism. Shrigley (talk) 04:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Shrigley! Thanks for creating this! This is very impressive work about a difficult topic. This page explains Korean conceptions of history to both readers and editors, which is great. (We also need equivalents for China and Japan, but that's a different story.) Here are a few suggestions and comments that might help to develop it. As usual I try to aim for the highest standards right away, so I'll try to emphasize the points that need work instead of the strengths, which are many.

TITLE:

• I think this is the best possible title, as we find this appellation in all kinds of scholarly studies. I've added a redirect from Nationalist historiography in Korea. There should be no controversy here.

KOREAN NAME?

• I've found two possible Korean equivalents for the notion of KNH. The first one is pretty obvious: minjok sahak (民族史學), which means "minjok [racial/national] historiography." I'm not sure it should be mentioned, but I'm putting it here for consultation. The other one is more recent: juche lon (主體論; "self-reliance theory"), which is based on the notion of juche proposed by the beloved Great Leader and Eternal President of the Republic Kim Il-sung. Jager 2003 (p. 59) claims that a "new nationalist historiography" (which she calls chuch'eron) emerged after the violent suppression of the Gwangju Democratization Movement in South Korea in 1980. This suggests that there are many intellectual motivations behind KNH, and that we should probably tease them out more clearly.

LEAD:

• What exactly are "the purposes of Korean nationalism"? This concept is probably too vague to serve in a definition.
• Needs clarification: who "lamented the weakness of Korea in world affairs"? Was it just Shin Chaeho or the other two as well?
• "Effete" is a citation from Jager's book (footnote 7). Maybe we could find a better way to express the same idea without a quotation mark (in the lead, I mean).
• Is "chosen people" (cited from Pai's book) representative enough of KNH to be cited in the lead? (Just asking.)
• The Korean minjok is the central concept of Korean nationalist historiography, so it should probably be mentioned in the lead.
• Verb tenses: most of the lead is written in the past tense, until we hear that these views "have increasingly come into the mainstream." We should probably clarify what parts of KNH were prominent in the early 20th century (under Japanese rule), in the immediate post-war years, and now. Jager's claim that a new KNH emerged after 1980 deserves consideration.

PEOPLE:

• I've seen many studies saying that Shin Chaeho was the founder of Korean nationalist historiography because he was the first to center Korean history around the concept of minjok (race-nation). Are the earlier (Joseon) people cited in this section just precursors of Shin, or already full-fledged representatives of KNH? Should we start with Shin first and then explain who were his inspirations?
• This section could also be renamed "Emergence" or "Origins," because it focuses on precursors and advocates of KNH. The intellectual context of Japanese colonial occupation could be described more fully.

NEUTRALITY: there are a few subtle issues that need to be resolved before this article can be considered neutral (NPOV).

• Almost two thirds of the references (26 out the 43, counting footnotes that appear several times in the text) are to Hyung-Il Pai's book on Korean archeology. That's probably too much, since her book is written in a very critical and debunking tone that is not fully representative of the way English-speaking scholars discuss Korean nationalist historiography. Her book is clearly a reliable source (and I must admit I like it a lot!), but we should be careful not to give it undue weight. For example, the "Ethnic homogeneity and pure blood" section sounds pretty scathing. That's probably because all of the info and judgments (except for one footnote) come from Pai's book. (This is speaking as a WP editor. As a practicing historian, I also resent distorting the past in the name of modern nationalist conceptions, be they Chinese, French, or Zulu.)
• A few turns of phrase might appear too emphatic, for example "completely mythological" when "mythological" would do the job. Be careful when you use "despite": you might sound like you're setting up a point. I'm also thinking of the sentence: "The well-documented existence of the Four Commanderies of Han by which China's Han Dynasty administered the Korean peninsula has caused consternation to Korean nationalist historians." "Well-documented" may not be necessary, and I'm not sure "consternation" is the right word. Also it's inaccurate to say that the Han dynasty administered "the Korean peninsula" with these Four Commanderies. Some of these commanderies were in Liaodong, and Lelang was in the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

STRUCTURE:

• I like the current structure, but I wish "Themes" and "Methods" could be distinguished more clearly. The crucial focus on Manchuria could be explained in more detail, once again in connection with the Korean minjok.

MISSING:

• The functions of KNH in postwar Korea. KNH is not only about distinguishing the Korean people from other peoples like the Chinese and the Japanese. It can be used politically inside Korea, for example to discuss re-unification, or the form of government that best suits the needs of the Korean people.

All right, these are just a few comments. The page is a great start, but this topic is huge, so it deserves to be developed and strengthened. I will try to help with that when I have time. For now I'm putting it on my watchlist. I don't think there will be too much disruption, but if you want the most peaceful experience I suggest you iron out the few non-neutral points that I mention above! All the best, Madalibi (talk) 03:28, 24 December 2012 (UTC)