Talk:Adrian Zenz

Dispute over material from his book

@DemisJohnson, Loksmythe, and Horse Eye Jack: Can you please resolve your content dispute here, in lieu of edit warring? Thanks. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:58, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@DemisJohnson: In particular, do you have a quote that supports the claim being added to the article? I see a passage against laws against criticizing homosexuality on pages 36-37 and a passage about the dominant world philosophy being the spirit of the Antichrist, but I don’t see anything directly linking the two (or capitalism either). — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:06, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Originally it was sourced just to the introduction of the book which is free to access. I read the whole introduction and while it was typical of born again Christian hermeneutics I found none of the things which had been claimed. I see that the citation has since been updated to cite two specific pages which I don’t have access too. The weird thing for me given the limited access is how three different accounts (two SPAs and an IP) all apparently have access to the hard copy of an extremely obscure text which I cant find in any of my local libraries. TLDR: I don’t entirely doubt that whats claimed is in there in some form (its born again twaddle after all) but its not in the intro, and to summarize the book as such seems off. At least based on the intro those specific contentious claims are not what this book is really about, if they’re made I imagine its rather throwaway (especially if they’re only to be found on the two cited pages of a rather long book). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:43, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I can see the pages fine in the free Google Books preview, but I don’t see a direct connection in the cited pages. Of course, the SPA/IP activity is strange, but doesn’t preclude this possibly being in the book. The surrounding pages sort of hint at what’s actually being claimed. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:46, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Good catch, hadn’t checked google books. I’m not going to read hundreds of pages of text which I have no interest in to see what exactly is in there, lets assume its in there... Is just pulling out those bits due? Its not being done by a reliable source, its being done as OR while citing the text itself. If its supposed to be a summary of the book what we have here is not that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

If its just supposed to be about self it seems like a bit of a hit job... Why no mention at all that the guy is really into hermeneutics? That seems like the biggest takeaway from this book. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2020 (UTC) Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

[edit conflict]Here are screenshots of the relevant passages from pages 31 and 47 on Amazon (click "look inside" then search for keywords). On my reading, they support the claim that laws against the physical punishment of children are promoted by Satan, but not that homosexuality is (that section is describing antidiscrimination laws, not explicitly condemning them). In any case, this whole discussion is a little silly. Zenz is primarily notable for his work on Xinjiang and the page feels like it's cherry-picking out there bits (of an already rather out there book) to discredit him. (Look at the contribution histories of the accounts adding the material to get a sense of their political motivations...) I'd suggest leaving things at a mention of his religion and a topline summary of the book's prediction of the end of days and the Antichrist. 2601:18A:C781:4100:B4D7:FA86:E54B:2B8 (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you on most things but we already have a WP:RS which says he’s born again and that he believes he’s led by God or whatever already, we don't need about self for that. Books generally aren’t reliable for crafting a summary of themselves, generally books are only included on the author’s wikipedia page when they’ve been reviewed in a reliable source. Existence does not establish notability. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I eventually took a closer look at the relevant pages. The quotes from page 47 do include direct connections like

Rising numbers of countries are banning all forms of physical punishments of children [...] But true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence, and neglecting the wisdom of the church makes the church increasingly vulnerable to the schemes of the enemy. Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures [...] Through notions of gender equality and the unfortunate fact that men have abused positions of power over women, the enemy is undermining God's unique but different role assignments for men and women.
— book pg 47

The link to criticisms of homosexuality is not supported by the text, so I’ve removed that part shortened the mention for now.

This should obviously be balanced by other aspects of his hermeneutics works, but I'm not sure if I want to read more of this right now... The addition of this to the article by IPs/SPA, may have been in bad-faith, but basically the entire book is dedicated to how modern society is supposedly falling to the Antichrist. Looking through the contents, what was added isn’t actually extraordinary cherry-picking. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:10, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for doing the research but we still have the WP:DUE question and the multiple authors question, we don’t yet have consensus that this is a source we can use. Please don’t restore anything sourced to the book until we have consensus per BLP. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I didn’t restore anything, I just shortened it. The multiple author thing seems fine, since it now clearly states that it was a coauthored book. The current form seems much more due weight than the earlier version, but I can see the concerns from both sides. If there’s still disagreement we can open an RfC because it doesn’t look like discussion will get editors much further. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The “please don’t” was a reaction to “oh my god everyone is edit warring I hope MarkH21 doesn’t join in,” sorry if it came off harsher. I think given the off-wiki canvassing ([1] etc) a RfC on the BLP noticeboard is probably appropriate, this venue has been effectively poisoned as we can see from the zombie like hordes of IPs and SPAs. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:14, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Oppose inclusion of details on book per lack of third-party, independent sources, WP:SYNTH, WP:UNDUE, and WP:BLP / WP:POV concerns. Loksmythe (talk) 20:15, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Strongly support inclusion as relevant passages are publicly accessible, for free on google books, his religious views are fundamentally relevant as an academic known for his work at a theological college and given his main topic of research is related to a religious conflict PompeyTheGreat (talk) 23:28, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

How did you access the sections you summarized? Do you own the book? At issue here is where are the major sources (Associated Press etc) calling attention to details of his religious views? Absent that you're arguably engaged in WP:ORIGINAL research. He's *not*, in fact, known for his work at a theological college but for what he's done in the Xinjiang field, which incidentally also isn't entirely reducible to a "religious conflict".--Brian Dell (talk) 23:37, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

adrian zenz literally described homosexuality as " one of the four empires of the beast" and argue that normalizing view of homosexuality and anti-discrimination laws is becoming intolerant to "biblical Christianity". you don't have to read the whole to know this, just read pages 30, 31, and 33(which the source linked to). DemisJohnson (talk) 00:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd ask where's the link proving that but that's not the issue anyway. Maybe he also dresses up as a Geisha every Easter. The point is that it is not what he is famous for. If you want to contend it's relevant, show us reliable sources (i.e. not just personal attack pieces) that deem it relevant.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:15, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Support inclusion of the book. They're his own words and describe his work in detail. It's pertinent to his scholarship. It's quite clear that there is an external campaign to "rehabilitate" Zenz's image, but his views are his views and Zenz himself leaves them open to academic debate. Huaxia (talk) 19:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Oppose inclusion of the book. No one has yet provided a reliable source that discusses its contents. Without that, it's original research and not notable for inclusion. The WSJ article mentions his status as born again, so let's leave it at that. (There also seems to be an external campaign going on to discredit Zenz; I'm doubtful some of the editors present are operating in good faith.) Harland1 (^t/_c) 00:35, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

his book is a reliable source. in fact it's the most objective and best source out there. you don't need to read the whole book. just read pages 30,31 and 32 to know how he views homosexuality and racism. it seems to me that you guys are willing suppressed facts and truth to hide his views on homosexuality, racism. and his overall Christian fundamentalism view.DemisJohnson (talk) 00:45, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harland1: A a self-published source is a reliable source about the person, so this wouldn’t be OR. The question is whether the claim is actually supported by what’s written in his book. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@MarkH21: Good point about the source being OK as a source for itself. I still think the best approach is to list the book as a publication but not mention particular claims in the book. If we do that, we're going down a tricky road. Why, for example, mention the view on non-violent parenting and not the book's analysis of the Epistles? Or homosexuality but not the discussion of modern communications tech? (I've now spent more time than I ever intended looking at this silly book.) The book has lots of stuff in it and there's no good reason for including some of it but not the rest. Harland1 (^t/_c) 01:15, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: If the claim is directly written in his own book, then it’s a reliable source as a self-published source and not original research as some editors claim. The claim would need a clear quote to support it though. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:50, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Good catch on the WP:ABOUTSELF vs WP:SPS. The original research comes because they’re not I statements (e.g. “I view homosexuality as X, Y, and Z") and must be inferred from the text which has *two authors* and no demarcation as to who wrote what. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

there's nothing more original than using his own book as a source to confirm his view on homosexuality and Christian feudalism thinking. this is his book, not my book .DemisJohnson (talk) 01:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Its technically two people’s book, that complicates things a bit as far as WP:ABOUTSELF is concerned. Just a note though as you’re new here, even when it falls under about self we still prefer a WP:RS. Self sourcing is always inferior. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:03, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:ABOUTSELF says that a self-published source is an RS for statements about the author. There are different levels of reliability, but it’s still an RS about the author.

There are two authors, but it is still a publication of Zenz’s. One could note that it was co-authored in the sentence in the article, but that doesn’t change the self-published RS aspect. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:21, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

You’re right I meant independent reliable source, and we do prefer them in all cases over self source. I do think that the two authors thing is a much bigger issue for about self than you’re making it out to be, we can only attribute the views to both authors we cant make any definitive declarations about Zenz based on it (at least not without very specific wording in the source itself). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:27, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree on both. On the second point, that’s what I meant by including that it was coauthored in the article, e.g. "With ___, Zenz coauthored the book ___ which argues ..." — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

self-published sources as sources about themselves are only inferior if it's self-serving. this is his book expressing his Christian Christian fundamentalists view. you can't get a better and more objective source than that. DemisJohnson (talk) 01:16, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@MarkH21, Loksmythe, and Horse Eye Jack:

here's a direct screenshot from page 31 where argue that anti-discrimination law and normalizing LGBT views in is intolerant to "biblical Christianity" "anti-discrimination law and normalizing LGBT views in is intolerant to "biblical Christianity"". DemisJohnson (talk) 15:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• I added a longer quote. If that’s still disputed, I'll start an RfC so this can be settled since discussion probably won’t lead us further. At least the SPA/IPs likely from off-wiki activity has died down. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

  Well the latest back-and-forth reverts between Bdell555 and Talleyrand20 shows that we still do need an RfC. I’ll start one shortly. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:15, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

"known for his... critical views of homosexuality"

This currently appears in the very first sentence in the same breath as being known for what he's written about Xinjiang. If it's true, there ought to be media mentions that approach media mentions of him in the Xinjiang context, and I don't believe those mentions are there. Setting aside the fact Global Times is a dubious source when the topic is western writers and Xinjiang (and here relies on Max Blumenthal's Grayzone when even Grayzone admits that Wikipedians believe Grayzone unreliable), the views on homosexuality are mentioned pretty much just mentioned incidentally. How does this merit top line featuring?--Brian Dell (talk) 23:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I hadn’t noticed we were using Global Times, thats 100% unacceptable on the BLP of a non-CCP member and even in that fringe use case would be questionable. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

What I have also noticed is a lot of off-Wiki mobilized WP:BRIGADE activity concerning this page. See here and here. I think it's quite obvious there's a campaign to discredit the subject of this WP:BLP because of what the subject has said on the Xinjiang issue.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:12, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Tweets like that generally mean its time to shut the party down. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:13, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:BIASEDSOURCES, use of  Global Times or CGTN is not currently a banned source on Wikipedia, Horse Eye Jack is free to have the opinion that they should be banned as sources on Wikipedia, but they are not currently PompeyTheGreat (talk) 01:22, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

It needs to be a WP:RS to be used on a BLP, the only exception is WP:ABOUTSELF. As there is no consensus that Global Times is a reliable source it cant be used here, period. Thats not my opinion its policy: "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source.” per Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no consensus that the Global Times is not a reliable source in this instance, merely your opinion, policy clearly states: "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." PompeyTheGreat (talk) 01:29, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

You misunderstand... This is a BLP, I don’t need to show its unreliable you need to show that that it is reliable. Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources there is no consensus of reliability. The issue isn't one of neutrality is one of reliability. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

just use his book as a source. don't use controversial state media like global times or cgtn. DemisJohnson (talk) 01:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Huaxia (talk) 18:47, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, it clearly states that the Global Times is considered a biased source, as per WP:BIASEDSOURCES biased sources can be used as outlined in the policy. "Editors may not have been able to agree on whether the source is appropriate, or may have agreed that it is only reliable in certain circumstances. It may be necessary to evaluate each use of the source on a case-by-case basis while accounting for specific factors unique to the source in question. Carefully review the Summary column of the table for details on the status of the source and the factors that should be considered." PompeyTheGreat (talk) 01:41, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

On that list what color is the Global Times? If its anything other than green it cant be used on a BLP... Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: Yellow sources can be used on a BLP. It just depends on the context of the particular source. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I think its more universal than that but thats not an argument for this page, I expect you agree that in this particular circumstance it is not appropriate to use CGTN or Global Times? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:23, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with the removal in this particular instance. Just pointing out that BLPs don’t have a "generally reliable-only" requirement. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

They have a very strong reliability requirement which isn't automatically met by anything other than a generally reliable source. Any source that isn't generally reliable would require consensus to be reached on the talk page about its reliability in the given context if it was challenged. Unless that consensus is reached adding back anything to a BLP that isn't from a generally reliable source is against policy. There certainly isn't any excuse for PompeyTheGreat edit warring it back onto the page sans consensus. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@PompeyTheGreat: like you said. Global Times is a biased source. using his book is the only objective and valid source here. DemisJohnson (talk) 01:51, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The book is an objective and balanced source for the factual content of the claims being made, the Global Times and CGTN being linked do not make any new claims, and therefore can be used in a BLP, as they merely demonstrate that the book has received coverage in notable outlets, and as such including it in the article does not constitute a breach of WP:UNDUE. Horse Eye Jack's claims about yellow sources are not factual. They cannot be used alone to introduce new facts into a BLP, but they can be used to demonstrate responses to reliable sources (ie the Book) PompeyTheGreat (talk) 01:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The Global Times article was added by me in response to claims by another editor that including content of the book was a breach of WP:UNDUE as the book did not receive any media coverage. You cannot use biased sources to claim new facts in a BLP, but you can use them to demonstrate notability of a reliably sourced (as per WP policies, as the editors have already agreed a consensus on that) source, in this case the book. PompeyTheGreat (talk) 02:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

then why not just use his book instead? using global times and cgtn as sources will only cause skepticism and controversy.DemisJohnson (talk) 02:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Because using the book alone would lead to Horse Eye Jack being able to remove it entirely, as without demonstrating the book receiving outside coverage, it could be perceived as WP:UNDUE to emphasise it PompeyTheGreat (talk) 02:11, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Basically, what I am saying is that to include the book, we have to demonstrate that it is relevant to this article and the work he is most notable for on China. Clearly, the fact that the book has been mentioned in the Global Times (a CCP controlled paper) and CGTN (controlled by the Chinese state), this demonstrates that the book is relevant to his China work. PompeyTheGreat (talk) 02:13, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Since PompeyTheGreat said the CGTN and Global Times articles "demonstrate that the book has received coverage in notable outlets", it should be noted that the source for both articles is The Grayzone, a deprecated source. CowHouse (talk) 08:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Global Times and CGTN aren’t good enough sources to say anything about this outright in WP voice. An alternative is to use in-text attribution in the article body with something like "The Global Times and CGTN have described Zenz as ...". — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Indeed should Wikipedia say Jimmy Lai is "a traitor, a criminal and a force of evil who has sowed violence and chaos" because GT says so? When it comes to individuals opposed to the Chinese government GT is at its most tabloidish. I'll add that the reason why you don't see those statements on Lai's page is because, in my opinion, there's enough editors there to ensure that these attacks be seen for what they are as opposed to "must have" inclusions.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with DemisJohnson. Why even bring in ccp media as the main sources? It only serves to muddy the water for people unfamiliar with Adrian. In theology sevtion, we should just stick to only use Adrian's own book as his source where he makes plenty of explicit statements against homosexuality, gender equality, non violent parenting and atheism. He published and promoted thaf homophobic book so he is known publicly for his anti-gay views among his loyal christian readers MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:45, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

References

AP article on sterilizations

@Bdell555: Literally none of the 7 mentions of Zenz in the Associated Press article attribute anything about the sterilizations being forced to Zenz. It only refers to him when discussing data on birth rates and the Chinese birth control / sterilization campaign. All mentions about them being forced were either stated in AP’s own voice or attributed to women who spoke out against it. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The claim Wikipedia is making here concerns what Zenz has published, not what AP says. The AP article links to what he published and the title of what he published is "Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang". What you call "stated in AP's own voice" I call drawn from the source they linked to. Zumret Dawut appears first in Zenz' work such that distinguishing "attributed to women who spoke out" from what Zenz published is artificial. At issue here is the substance of the matter and that's what did Zenz publish. Wikipedia's job here is simply to link through AP to Zenz instead of linking directly because going through AP legitimatizes the decision to link. If you compare what Zenz published to what AP published they are quite similar when it comes to key takeaways and the version you reverted is the more accurate reflection. The financing and cash incentives, which is all we've got under your version, is but one small piece.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The claim is cited to a source (AP in this case) which doesn’t directly support it. The cited source only directly supports what Zenz's research showed about birth rate data and the government's funding for their birth control/sterilization program. The cited source does not directly support the claim that Zenz's research shows that it was forced.

If you have another source or quote that directly supports the claim that Zenz's research also showed that it was forced, then you need to cite it. Otherwise it’s a failure of WP:BURDEN. — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Concur with the assessment that Zenz does not support that any sterilization was forced. Another problem emblematic of the AP source is the claim that the Kazakh woman Omirzakh was threatened with detention, but the document addressed to her reads at the end: "对未在规定的期限内足额缴纳应当缴纳的社会抚养费的，乡计生办将报送扎库齐牛录乡党委、政府，由乡党委、乡人民政府报请上级部门进行处理" (If the subject does not pay the societal child-raising fee within the statutory time limit, the township's birth planning office will send a report to the Zhakuqiniulu Township CCP Committee and Government, who will report to superior administrative divisions to deal with). Hardly a corroboration of official "threats of detention". CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 06:11, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Well Zenz's report does discuss the sterilizations being forced, if that’s what you mean by him "support"-ing the claim. However, he does so in reference to previous claims first reported elsewhere and does not show it himself. The cited AP article also does not claim that Zenz showed that they were forced. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

"Zenz's report does discuss the sterilizations being forced" and Wikipedia should accordingly reflect that. Note that sourcing policy calls for sourcing "for any material challenged or likely to be challenged" which means the point of it is to answer challenge. But here you don't challenge the substance of the matter (what Zenz has published), just the formalism of what/how to cite. If we change the cite to Zenz directly, that just invites the more substantive challenge that the source isn't reliable. Why gum with this up by changing the language to that we seem to agree isn't as representative of Zenz' work?--Brian Dell (talk) 22:28, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The wording that I changed had said that Zenz published research showing that China has used forced birth control, which is false. His research didn’t show that China used forced birth control. His research showed the decline in birth rate data and the funding of the birth control program on birth rates. He mentions that other people said that the birth control was forced. This is a basic issue of to whom one attributes demonstration of fact. It’s not just formalism.

It would be like saying that Einstein published research showing that an object either remains at rest or moves at a constant velocity because he mentioned Newton’s work in his paper on special relativity. A person who has discussed previous work has not shown the previous results, they just mention it. Neither Zenz's publication nor independent RSes claim that his research shows that the birth control is forced. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

False? What's unearthing docs that show births deemed excessive will be “dealt with through coercive measures” if not forced birth control? Do you believe that orders that "all [women] that meet IUD placement conditions and are without contraindications must have them placed immediately" suggest the women can simply decline? As I noted above, Zumrat Dawut's story of being threatened with internment if she were not sterilized was told by Zenz before AP told it.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:07, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Zenz literally cites Dawut's story to "Washington Post, November 17, 2019", he didn't uncover the story himself. Again, neither Zenz nor the cited AP / SBS articles attribute the showing of fact of sterilizations to be forced to Zenz. The closest to this that Zenz claims in his own report is "Government documents bluntly mandate that birth control violations are punishable by extrajudicial internment in “training” camps" in the "Summary of Major Findings". We can add that, but this isn't the same as his research showing that sterilizations were forced. Is adding okay with you? It's more specific on how Zenz's research relates to the sterilizations being forced. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:51, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I provided specific quotes of Zenz' work that I believe show that a statement that Zenz has "published research showing that China has used forced birth control" is true (and more representative of what he was looking to expose than just financial matters) but you didn't address those quotes. Fair enough point about Dawut but can you say the same about, for example, the document stating ""all [women] that meet IUD placement conditions and are without contraindications must have them placed immediately"? If Zenz' research didn't reveal that then whose research did?--Brian Dell (talk) 19:48, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

That’s your own interpretation of what he showed and not something written in his own summary of findings nor something written by secondary RSes. We have to use and what secondary sources say he showed and at most what what Zenz says he showed (which is what the introduction and "Summary of findings" sections do), otherwise it’s WP:OR. The part of the article that currently says makes birth control violations punishable by internment in the Xinjiang re-education camps is exactly what Zenz says he does in "Summary of findings", is not just about financial matters, and also makes it explicitly clear how the mandatory birth control for people who exceed the two child policy is forced. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:01, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It's a true or false matter not an interpretation: either Zenz should be considered the researcher on those points I called attention to or someone else should be. What's an interpretation is what secondary RSs see as significant in Zenz' work. On that point, I think the AP piece indicates the totality of Zenz' work significant as there is, unusually, a link in the body to Zenz' paper. Consider, again, the title of Zenz' paper which is more relevant here than all the details in the summary of findings. There's a much higher danger of WP:OR when trying to build a big picture out of source snippets than the other way around (drawing on sources in a way that supports an accurate, comprehensive big picture), indeed, that's why I object to the Antichrist thing: sure, "Antichrist" can be cited, but what's the context? Here, I think you are reading the AP piece too closely. Our job as editors is, in my view, to try and get what Wikipedia should say right first based on what we know on the broader theme and purpose level instead of incidentally having Wikipedia's voice potentially distorted by demands for more literal or direct citing. Again, my main issue is trying to reduce Zenz to just having something to say about the financing in Xinjiang.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bdell555: please don’t edit war, would MarkH21’s edit plus an extra sentence, something like "Which the AP connected to a forced sterilization campaign,” work for you? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Why not also include Zenz's publication for the Jamestown Foundation which discusses forced sterilization at length? See here. Harland1 (^t/_c) 01:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

If I’m not mistaken, doesn’t Zenz mention other media reports about the sterilizations being forced? His research itself didn’t show that they were forced; it discussed what other people have reported previously. His research revealed the birth rate data and sterilization program data. There’s a distinction there regarding the wording "show".

You also can’t just cite things through another source. WP:BURDEN is pretty clear where it requires inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:59, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

It's based not on hard evidence but really literally hearsay and speculations put on public doc. Even if it was true, there is no hard proof of it and in contrary, I remember reading somewhere that unlike hans ethnics. The minority groups in china can legally have as many children as they want unlike the majority ethnic group. Tho not entirely sure as i only read it from one source so far. Will look into it. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/04/14/hypocrisy-and-danger-anti-china-demonstrations but it doesn't make a lot of sense to have these laws if they really wanted to reduce the minority population. Being a dictatorship, they can too easily choose different laws. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)— MangoTareeface9 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

It is in no way based on hearsay. The report cites both government documents and publicly available data.Harland1 (^t/_c) 02:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I was referring to the "forced part". I doubt that china gov docs and public internet would say that. Many governments spend money for contraception/abortion clinics. It doesn't necessarily make it forced. In addition, many christian evangalists tend to consider abortion as blashemy and Adrian is obviously one of those pro-life guys who thinks abortion should be banned.MangoTareeface9 (talk) 07:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree, it is in the public interest that Zenz's beliefs on these matters are made known, as they represent an obvious conflict of interest which ought to reflect on the theological and ideological motivations behind his research. The mainstream media are weaponizing Zenz as a "world leading expert" on Xinjiang and deliberately omitting any scope on his career background. This also illustrates how the Uyghur issue is being massively politicized against China. These are his own published works, he does not regret, dispute, challenge or deny them. It is in the public interest to know. 86.6.171.132 (talk) 10:46, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@MangoTareeface9: read this [2] if you doubt the forced nature... It was published yesterday by The Diplomat (a WP:RS). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@horse eye jack..dude, I already said that china allows all women to have 2 kids just like they do with chinese hans for decades. That doesn't seem like discrimination and unless you have hard evidence that china is sterilising women purely for being minorities. Then kindly don't constantly ping me or bring me into this anymore.

One issue with this "talk page" is partisan politics and am tired of spending literally many weeks arguing over whether to include Adrian's indisputable public views on laws that protect homosexuslity. And why I stopped coming here. Adrisn zenz is a right wing evangalist whose claims he himself admits are speculative and has no hard evidence beyond verbal interviews. To prove a point, I have seen right wing hawks attack china on debt trap diplomacy and taken at face value and be promoted globally in mamy mainstram US media despite neutral studies later contradict them as outright false. https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/china-s-debt-trap-diplomacy-is-little-more-than-a-fantasy-32418

Adrian zenz is honestly the same issue where we all know his work is based on speculations, lack of real proof and a biased source yet promoted alot by media. However lets not pretend that there are a handful of editors who are fixated on china and constantly fighting anyone who tries to add in sources https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/china-rejects-accusation-it-sterilising-uighur-women that highlights his bigoted background amd questionable methodology. 

It's just going to be argued non-stop and you simply gave me another verbal witness account. Remember tianammen square case study. There were plenty of student leaders like chai ling and Wu’er Kaixi who literally lied yet were promoted at face value by mainstewm media as if they were facts. Source to back that - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2008/07/21/commentary/birth-of-a-massacre-myth/

How mamy articles from maimstream media that stated they lied despite wikileaks proved that? Zero - that proves REAL WESTERN MEDIA BIAS.

And the so called 10,000 death count..the actual methodology was based on classic hearsay yet western media has a bias to not at all mention the methodology.. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/06/06/commentary/world-commentary/tiananmen-narrative-true/#.XPoIZR6uaDY

My point is that unless you got hard evidence. You cannot outright say that Qelbinur Sedik verbal account is to be taken at face value. Also she doesn't clarify on why those women are being sterilised. Is it because of being muslim or bevause they had more than 2 kids? Regardless her verbal account cannot equate to hard proof and it would be irresponsible for wikilpedia to present pure verbal accounts as if they are indisputed fact. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@MangoTareeface9: You said it wasnt forced and it was all a figment of Zenz's evangelical imagination. You were wrong. We don't need things to be undisputed facts, if we did we couldn't cover the holocaust at all becasue holocaust deniers exist. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Also FYI you just used two opinion pieces and an unreliable source to back up your argument, did you not notice the "opinion" and "commentary" tags on the Japan Times articles? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:53, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't put words in my mouth..show me where I ever said that? I even started an entire chapter on this saying that china for many decades has been doing one child policy on chinese hans (now lifted to 2) and there is no real proof of discrimination on minorities. And

I see many hawkish articles recently on china like bloomberg spy chip story or pompeo's accusations of debt trap diplomacy theory, which have no real evidence and false. Yet promoted by media despite being false storied.

My point is purely verbal accounts cannot be accepted as being the facts. They may be true but they can also be lies. Recently I read Wang Liqiang's verbal accounts being promoted despite lack of hard proof. He claims to be a spy and wants asylym in australia. It was all VERBAL ACCOUNTS But western media promoted it on tv and newspapers non stop and when the aus inteligence agency concluded that wang was not likely to be who he claims to be. The media dropped his story withput trying to correct it. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/05/wang-d05.html

That shows why verbal accounts shouldn't be taken at face value just because western mainstream media promotes it. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 17:17, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

And fyi - I was pointing out that western media is not neutral and has a history of promoting verbal accounts that were later shown to be false. And my "opinion pieces" to back my statement, came from reputed scholars who have sufficently given their sources to back their articles. Such as declassified us embassy cables, etc https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2004/09/15/commentary/the-tiananmen-square-massacre-myth/

Alternatively visit chai ling's or Wang Liqiang's wikipedia article and you should find the sources that show that their verbal accounts, despite being promoted on western media excessively, were later proved outright false. Don't say my sources are weak as they are not.MangoTareeface9 (talk) 17:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

"there is no real proof of discrimination on minorities." Lol! Thats no more true for America than for China, if you're denying that there is discrimination against ethnic, religious, cultural, and sexual minorities in China I dont know how to help you. That is an opinion article from the Japan Times, it is a very weak source as are your other ones. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

There is not a single country free of racism but I was referring to actual gov backed sterilisation that targets minorities. Don't twist my words just to create a childish argument. It's no secret that america is politicising the accusations despite there is still no hard proof. Only verbal accounts in your diplomat article..

And I'm not interested in a petty debate however you are now just deliberately lying to say my sources are weak. Do not gaslight me again. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2011/07/01/commentary/black-info-and-media-gullibility-creation-of-the-tiananmen-myth/ all my sources are clearly reporting well researched and verifable facts, and not purely subjective opinions but literally even using declassified us embassy cables, wikileaks, published western papers, the colombia journalism review , spanish tv crew footage and verified witnesses to back their points. They are 2 aussie scholars - with one of them - Gregory Clark, vice president of Akita International University and former China desk officer for Australia’s Foreign Service. And the other being Ramesh Thakur, a professor emeritus at the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University. The latter also mentioned "Nayirah testimonial", which only futher backs my relevant point of the danger of promoting verbal witness accounts in a loose biased manner and present them as if they are the indisputable hard facts. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/06/opinion/remember-nayirah-witness-for-kuwait.html

MangoTareeface9 (talk) 18:01, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Egregious BLP violations occurring

There are egregious violations of WP:BLP policy occurring here. We need to strive to uphold BLP here, which is not currently happening. As the BLP policy page reads: "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Loksmythe (talk) 14:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

the source is literally his book, we even linked the specific pages to back up our claims. but you decided to ignore it continue to vandalize it anyway.

DemisJohnson (talk) 15:10, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

It’s not an issue of whether the source is reliable per the cited portion of BLP. His own book is reliable as an attributed statement about his own research per WP:ABOUTSELF. An issue would be about WP:DUE for that part, but not for being unsourced or poorly sourced. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

If the book isn't being quoted there's the issue of whether Wikipedia's voice is an accurate paraphrase. I think we need to see the exact underlying text as opposed to just trusting a relatively new editor's paraphrase in this case. Also relevant is the context and especially, as noted, whether weighted proportionately. I don't think calling the subject "far right" becomes non-controversial by attributing the allegation any more than "I'm not saying he's a child molester, I'm just saying it's been said" solves all concerns about whether the allegation is a slander or not.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:45, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Who is exactly calling him "far-right" here? That is a false equivalency. In the wiki article, it just shows the chinese gov calling him that. The ccp also called him homophobic. But ZERO wiki editors is actually labelling him as far-right but just stating the chinese gov critical response to him. And in terms of him being against gays. It cannot be seriously disputed. Anyone who can read english, can easily see the publicly accessed google book source below that he tries to go justify others to oppose laws that protects gay people from discrimination. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lRtSQB3HHJcC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=Worthy+to+Escape:+Why+All+Believers+Will+Not+Be+Raptured+Before+the+Tribulation+homosexual&source=bl&ots=svggzXNAy1&sig=ACfU3U2WRU34VvXkhgM9GT47foYdUJmiCQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj10eiCt6zqAhV8wTgGHf1nCvwQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=Worthy%20to%20Escape%3A%20Why%20All%20Believers%20Will%20Not%20Be%20Raptured%20Before%20the%20Tribulation%20homosexual&f=false MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:01, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

On another note, but still very much on the topic of BLP violations, is suggesting he's some sort of nutbar who sees the Antichrist behind everything. Whether this would be accurate depends on whether his theology is, in fact, bizarre or in fact fairly orthodox and by that I mean, there are a billion+ Christians in the world and, for example, any of them might make a reference to Satan or even the spirit of the Antichrist when speaking of evil in the world but it's not necessarily that remarkable when the fall of Lucifer is seen as behind the origin of sin in run of the mill Christianity. Sure, one can mock the speaker as "Lucifer! You mean Cinderella's cat? <smirk>?" but there's a difference between someone who repeatedly attributes specific daily incidents to a particular theological or mythological entity in an obsessive way and someone who is doing an theological overview of the contemporary secular world and its ethics. Given the challenges with getting into the weeds of what makes one an orthodox Christian and what makes one some sort of freakshow, why go there unless that's central to the subject's significance? Just state that he's pro-social policy #1 and anti-social policy #2, ideally in the subject's own words so that it's not an overstatement without nuance. That should be good enough for most readers. In the spirit of compromise I have haven't objected to select quotes that are quite possibly being given undue weight when they are just in footnotes. Contrast grabbing a select quote out of hundreds of pages and implying that this is what this guy's about this with, say, highlighting his apparent view that not all believers will be raptured. That's really quite an unorthodox position and, critically, there's evidence the subject may see it that way too since that take is featured in title of the subject's book.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:32, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Article needs Context + Clarification on what constitutes the birth control violations

I am on the fence with China's birth control methods. But it seems like Adrian is just spinning the info. Adrian's report is heavily based on 'public" chinese government documents.

According to CBS news. Minorities were always allowed two children. Three if they are from the countryside. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-uighur-muslims-forced-birth-control-demographic-genocide-experts-tell-ap/ If they had more than two children, they will then be made to pay a fine or be punished. That's the same deal with chinese hans. Without getting into the moral debate on China's one child policy. This isn't even anything new. And I doubt the chinese government would ever publish any of their public documents on the internet that they want to hide.

From my understanding, China still retains a maximum of 2 kids for their chinese hans citizens. Because they are afraid of a huge population. They still however allow minorities from countryside areas - 3 kids max. However poorer uneducated women tend to have a lot of kids (lack of sex education and lesser use of condoms) which makes it harder to raise financially. In Australia, according to a pro-life website, billions of dollars, of tax-payer dollars are federally funnelled into the abortion industry arguably for that purpose. https://righttolife.com.au/resources/article-archive/46-your-taxes-at-work-making-and-destroying-babies

People who are not well read, would see the report that has half truths as the proof that china is forcing absolute abortion on ughyur women..Except that is not the full picture but spun. The full picture is that monorities are allowed two kids. (3 if from the countryside). If they violate it, they would be fined or pubished. And china according to the wiki article, gives out cash incentives to ughur women to control births. And punishes them, not if they actually have one kid but "too many kids".

The wiki article needs to add in the CONTEXT and explain what is deemed as a birth violation. And how many kids the minorities can have. This really has been openly going on for decades but Adrian zenz gives the impression that it's a hidden activity/laws. Given his evalangical roots, he is obviously biased against abortion (pro-life) and is presenting information that was already well known. But giving the spun impression that minority women aren't even allowed to have any kids despite they can have 2 or 3 kids just like the many decades prior. Hence context of what constitutes a birth control violation, need to be added. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 06:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)— MangoTareeface9 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Additional info on what constitutes a violation here may be warranted. This is more than just the two child policy though, since violations of that are not normally punishable by "training" camps. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:18, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources have checked Zenz’s numbers and published, they haven't done that with Right to Life. Unfortunately we on wikipedia cant second guess that decision unless we have something more recent from a WP:RS which contradicts it. I see no spin here but yours MangoTareeface9, tread carefully. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

What spin? His own claims are literally based on few individual verbal accounts and chinese public made documents. So name your reliable sources. The chinese gov? since they were the very ones who released those documents. How exactly did Adrian even get his exact numbers without visiting the prisons and relying on what specific evidence? Do tell please. The article writes that minorities are sent to an internment camp for violating birth rules. What reliable source can confirm that and in fair detail. They are just allegations. Not proven. Regardless I merely pointed that since the article talks about birth violations. It should at least clarify what is defined as birth violation and give the necessary context. Is it one kid or 2 or 3? Is it the same number as 2 decades ago. Regardless "birth violation" needs to be minimally better defined as most readers will have little clue on what constitues as one. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 00:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Secondly the article says he "exposed" that China had spent hundred of millions on contraceptive/abortion clinics. I don't see how they can "expose" that when China is the one who first released those figures openly.

Are they the reliable sources you were referring to? I fail to see how that is by itself scandulous when other countries also spend alot of tax dollars on "family planning". According to Guttmacher Institute, public expenditure for family planning services totaled $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2015. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/publicly-supported-FP-services-US# It's not debatable that conservative christians are hostile towards family planning. Adrian would write about it as if the whole abortion industry is an unforgivable sin. Yet he is cited often as a reliable unbiased source here. Hence context is extremely vital to avoid evangalist bias.

The article not only needs to minimally explain here on what is actually defined as birth violation. It also needs to properly explain if hundreds of millions towards "abortion clinics" is even relatively alot compared to other countries. In America, unintended pregnancies cost Federal and State Governments $21 Billion In 2010 according to research. https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2015/unintended-pregnancies-cost-federal-and-state-governments-21-billion-2010 Just because a nation spends money on contraceptive/std/abortion clinics. That shouldn't be spun here as unprecedented and being called "exposed". Especially when america spends huge nationally and china even released those figures publicly.

MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:38, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC on mentioning Zenz's book

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

(non-admin closure) Consensus to only mention the book's existence 9 (and Zenz's co-authorship) without describing its contents. No consensus to describe its contents. - MrX 🖋 17:03, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

---

To what extent should the article mention Zenz's book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation? 20:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

1. No mention
2. Only mention its existence without describing its contents: With Marlon S. Sias, Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation.
3. Mention its existence and briefly describe its contents regarding the rapture, the Antichrist, and modern trends, e.g. what’s currently there: With Marlon S. Sias, Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation which links modern trends, including gender equality and bans on corporal punishment, to the power of the Antichrist.
4. Mention its existence and briefly describe its contents regarding the rapture, the Antichrist, and modern trends, as well as the China Global Television Network (link) and Global Times (link) criticism of it.
5. Mention its existence and describe its contents in more detail regarding the return of Christ, the Antichrist, modern trends, and history, as well as its hermeneutics arguments, as well as the criticism of it.

Survey

• Option 3 (otherwise 2, 4, 5): The book should be mentioned as of Zenz's publications. A very brief description of its contents is more appropriate than extended coverage since it’s not a prominent book (it’s not widely reviewed nor cited by secondary sources) to satisfy the Wikipedia policies of WP:PROPORTION and WP:BLP.
  The book largely covers what the authors regard as the rapture and the presence Antichrist in society, which is what the few secondary mentions of the book focus on. The secondary mentions aren’t good sources on their own, but represents a viewpoint about Zenz (state-owned media's criticism of a researcher unveiling state internment camps). The criticisms don’t have to be mentioned here, but citing the book itself is fine as an SPS-type RS. — MarkH₂₁^{talk; add 2 20:20, 7 July 2020 (UTC)} 20:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 no mention unless its been covered by an independent reliable source. In general we don’t list or summarize books which haven’t been reviewed or covered by reliable sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:09, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
• I am a random, uninvolved editor, invited here by software-bot to review and evaluate this issue.[3] I will offer my review and summary of the situation for the possible benefit of other editors arriving here, both for experienced editors and for new editors. This article has been the target of multiple off wiki WP:Canvassing attempts.[4][5] Those canvassing efforts have been making bad-faith assumptions/accusations about the motivation of editors here, an editor has been targeted individually, and the article history[6] shows a surge in edits by IPs and relatively inexperienced users who may not be familiar with Wikipedia polices. In short, the experienced editors here appear to be trying to appropriately manage this article in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Newly arrived editors have good intentions, but need to be aware that Wikipedia has extensive content-rules. Most of those rules are common sense, but some rules are non-obvious. Those rules are absolutely necessary to prevent an anyone-can-edit Encyclopedia from descending into chaos and utter garbage.
  The subject of this article, Adrian Zenz, is co-author of a book. The book advocates some potentially WP:Fringe views. Some people may consider some of his views to be offensive. In particular Zenz appears to oppose certain child-welfare-and-safety laws, he appears to claim those laws are the work of Satan. As a general rule I'm more than happy for an article to accurately report on someone's fringe or offensive views, when they go out and make a public spectacle of those views. The issue here is that we do not appear to have any reliable source commenting on the book or on the views Zenz's advocates in that book. Wikipedia has several policies including WP:Neutral Point of View and WP:Due weight. In plain English, the relevant point here is that editors are not allowed to use their personal opinions on an issue to just shove anything they want into an article. Writing neutral, accurate, reliable articles is hard enough without making it a unconstrained food-fight.
  1. Under Wikipedia WP:Biography of Living Persons policy, once content about a living person has been appropriately challenged and removed, that content shall not be re-added until the dispute has been resolved and there is reasonable WP:Consensus for inclusion. Sometimes people to shove nasty and harmful things into the biographies of innocent people, so it should be obvious to everyone that it is absolutely necessary that we have a strong policy on this. Editors who violate this policy may be warned, they may have their editing privileges blocked, in sever cases it may result in a permanent ban. So everyone should discuss here instead of trying to edit war the content into the article. Everyone should allow the process to proceed. Everyone should respect the outcome of that process.
  2. We can and should report the fact that he co-authored this book. No problem there.
  3. Describing the contents book:
     • If we can find no WP:Reliable Sources reviewing/describing/discussing the book, our description of the book - if any - should be breif, it should be condensed/summarized from advertising blurbs for the book or from the book-jacket text or at worst maybe summarized from the introduction. This is not a treasure hunt for random idiots on the internet (a.k.a. me and other Wikipedia editors) to go digging through the book making a spectacle of any bits and pieces we personally find objectionable. This general idea is backed up by our WP:Due weight policy. If reliable sources aren't raising some particular point, editors can't use Wikipedia to push that point themselves.
     • If we do find reliable sources discussing the book, great! Then we can briefly and accurately and impartially summarize what those sources say about the book. If it turns out that reviews of the book happen to be strongly critical, it would of course be fair and appropriate and neutral for Wikipedia to accurately summarize that strong criticism. Alsee (talk) 00:20, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 (or 3, if reliable sources report on the book). Alsee has this right. We should list the book and, if no reliable sources (i.e. not the Global Times quoting the Grayzone) have reported on its contents, leave it at that. At most, we should draw a summary from the publisher's blurb or dust jacket. If reliable sources do report on it, we should include their reporting. Having Wikipedia editors pick out individual parts of the book to include would probably put undue weight on arbitrarily selected parts of the book and might be original research. It would also draw us into endless discussions over why some parts of the book were mentioned and not others. Those are precisely the kind of judgements we want external reliable sources, not Wikipedia editors, to make. After all, Zenz has another book, on Tibetan education, which the article describes with a paraphrase of the publisher's blurb. No one is suggesting that WP editors should go through that book and mention any of its arguments, although it is actually more relevant to the reason Zenz is notable. We should treat his other books the same way. Harland1 (^t/_c) 00:46, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with Alsee and Harland above. I'll add that as someone with an evangelical background, the biggest takeaway from the book is in fact right there in the title: he challenges Pretribulationism. The brief description of contents that I've seen suggested so far are not accurate in my opinion (and that's further reflected in book reviews which don't emphasize what this survey suggests we emphasize) and rather are motivated by a desire to present the subject in a certain light. For these summaries to not be original research, they need to draw on another reliable source or be supported by an argument like it's right in the title of the book or appears in a publisher's summary blurb or something like that.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:28, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 3 (with a very brief description). So far, there is no RS coverage (The reports ultimately sourced to the Grayzone are not RS), so ideally Option 1, because a mention would be undue weight at this stage of the article's development. I do not believe Option 2 is tenable, because it will constantly invite further edits. Zekelayla (talk) 16:14, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 2. No WP:RS discuss so editors should not be doing their own WP:OR cherry-picking. Loksmythe (talk) 14:29, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, the book's existence is verifiable. Reporting on the contents of the book should wait until reliable sources cover the content. 11Fox11 (talk) 06:36, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 , adrian zenz view on homoseuxality is well backed by his books. he argue against decriminalization of homosexuality and other controversial views on his books DemisJohnson (talk) 03:47, 8 July 2020 (UTC)— DemisJohnson (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Option 3 seems best, mentioning the book and what it's about, but not going into detail because it's not what he's notable for. Option 2 or Option 4 would also be acceptable, though 2 may be insufficiently informative for a reader who sees the title and is curious what the book covers, and 4 risks going into more detail than necessary. Option 1 is a significant omission and therefore unacceptable. Option 5 is probably too much weight, though if anyone has good secondary sources that go into this level of detail, it might be worth considering. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:21, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 - this is a man who literally talks about abortions. The public needs to know of his evalangical background and for him to be more transparent with his views on pro-life or Pro-choice. Hiding his deeply religious background in wiki, would only stunt the public's awareness of who ADrian truly is. Wikipedia needs to be transparent and not hide his background which is particularly relevant to his work. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 08:43, 9 July 2020 (UTC) — MangoTareeface9 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Option 3 or 4 - I'm not sure why 3 does not include a mention of the book's contents about homosexuality. I'm also not aware of Wikipedia policy that prescribes that a description of a primary source (in this case, an author's book) must only be derived from secondary sources. The (apparently unreliable) coverage of the book is certainly worth a mention, especially as it is somewhat connected to his other work. A one-line description of the contents is certainly *not* undue weight. Acalycine (talk) 03:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 5 There should be no controversy here. The book reflects his own views, and his views on homosexuality should be included. The handful in the majority trying to brickwall this change are doing so on a clear agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.12.153 (talk) 14:56, 10 July 2020 (UTC) — 173.73.12.153 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Option 2; Since this man has authored several books, this title should be listed among the others in a new section with a "Bibliography" heading, no other description is necessary without a reliable source. Any description should, of course, not be in a bibliography section, but be elsewhere in the page. Keep up the good work! בס״ד 172.250.237.36 (talk) 12:30, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 5 - There seem to be reliable sources discussing the book and Zenz' views, as well as criticism of them - no reason not to include it. As always, the information included should be encyclopedic, well-sourced, and stated from a NPOV. Ganesha811 (talk) 23:39, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 - It seems disingenuous to not include Adrian's claimed primary mission on his Wikipedia page. In fact it seems like it drives a lot of what Adrian does, so not giving at least a short explanation these makes it almost impossible to get a even a decent view/understanding of Adrian and his work. Hkajs (talk) 08:22, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 (or 3, if reliable sources report on the book) as per Alsee and Harland above who summarise relevant policy well.BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 - Wikipedia cannot pretend to be a neutral encyclopedia if we decide to actively censor some of his views just because we agree with what he has to say about China but we don't like what he has to say about LGBT people. cave (talk) 15:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• As I have expressed before given the offsite canvassing I am leery of using this venue for the RfC. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

  Ah sorry I missed the suggestion of opening it in the noticeboard. Hopefully any closer would be able to see clearly who SPAs are though, should this RfC be controversial. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Its ok, I still think it might be worth asking a question regarding how about self with two authors works on the noticeboard. This can’t be the first time its come up. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:21, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Horse Eye Jack: It doesn’t have to be covered in independent sources for it to be mentioned, regardless of whether it’s a short description or a bullet in a list of publications; lists of publications can include unreviewed books so long as the list isn’t overly long or CV-like. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Really? I’ve seen a large number of short descriptions and bullet lists of publications deleted for lacking independent sources, do you have anything that supports your view? I think theres an argument to be made for its use as about self if the multiple authors dilemma is worked out (we must have an existing consensus on that) but I strongly object to the notion that just because something exists its worthy of mention on wikipedia, that runs counter to longstanding policy. It would be nice to be shown evidence to the contrary, I’ve made a few of the lists deleted on those grounds... Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:18, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I think it can, and indeed should, be mentioned but Wikipedia editors should not be doing what amounts to their own book review if the review just consists of a couple select quotes which may be totally unrepresentative or out of context.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:31, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

To my knowledge there is no policy or guideline for or against inclusion of material covered only by primary sources. However, biographies generally do have significant content coming from primary sources (e.g. subject CVs for info on their early career, statements about their personal life, lists of publications, etc.). — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:19, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Horse Eye Jack, MarkH21, and Loksmythe: I don't understand why there's a discussion about this. and i don't think should get drag on anymore. Adrian Zenz's views on homosexuality, gender equality, and his other controversial views are well backed by his book. the only logical argument against this inclusion is that it's taken out of context. but in this case, it's not. he argues against discrimination of homosexuality in pages 30,31 and 32.

I think we should reach a consensus to include these facts on his wiki page. because I don't see any other reason to exclude this other than trying to cover up Adrian Zenz. And if you looks at the history of edits. you would realize that majority of people supports this inclusion. theo only who's really oppose to it is are horse jack and loksmythe.

and that's also not mentioning the fact that I've yet to see any evidence for exclusion of his theological views. the only argument i see here that's still standing is the "out of context" argument. but this is easily debunked if you just read the book or even read just read those few pages that i reference.

DemisJohnson (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Talleyrand20, MangoTareeface9, and Antonian Sapphire:since you guys seem to support the inclusion, it would good to hear what you guys think of this. and reach a consensus on whether we should include in his wiki page or not.

DemisJohnson (talk) 17:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC) — DemisJohnson (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• @DemisJohnson: I think everyone agrees that this doesn’t need to drag on anymore, so that’s why this Request for Comment (RfC) was opened.

  The RfC is a method for determining consensus here on the English Wikipedia by asking for input from other editors, and this one has been split into a survey subsection above for recording which options are favored by individual editors and a discussion subsection. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:24, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• Well first of all, people were familiar with Zenz way before he ever became "famous" for his articles on china. He was popular among conservative christians to cite. Trying to hide his actual public history is nothing more than some editors just trying to clean up his history.

Secondly, the guy is clearly an evangalist christian. Yet he is often cited as a reliable source when talking literally about abortions. Isn't that a conflict of interests? You're talking about the same person who endorsed for shocking new laws that allows and justifies society to discriminate against gays.

And lastly, if a neo-nazi pushed a book that explicitly said that white people are only being human to hate black people. Then it's not biased nor debatable to use his book as the source to quote him for such claims. But also the public deserves to know such information if that Nazi one day later becomes a celebrity. Similarly this is the very infomation that the public have a right to minimally know about. About Adrian's evalangical background and the book he helped create.MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:30, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

"He was popular among conservative christians to cite" feel free to expand the theology section if you have RS for it. Zekelayla (talk) 02:43, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

By that argument we cant use any Chinese source which covers homosexuality or abortion. Let me remind you that the Chinese state currently "allows and justifies society to discriminate against gays” and uses both the provision of and withholding of abortions as a form of state terror. Thats not a theoretical discussion. We already mention his evangelical/born again background and have it sourced to a reliable source. Also are you really comparing evangelicals to Nazis? Thats either massively ignorant or extremely bigoted, which is it in your case? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:31, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

It's quite clearly an analogy, not a comparison. I'm not sure what the policies of the Chinese state have to do with this specific discussion, either - I'm also not sure I follow the first sentence of your reply. Describing primary sources, using primary sources, is not original research. Do you agree? Acalycine (talk) 08:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Unless you’re MangoTareeface9’s alt you can't speak for them, it doesnt work as an analogy either. Describing a primary source using other primary sources is not original research, however using a source to describe itself is original research regardless of whether its a primary or secondary source. It can be used for about self about Zenz under the normal restrictions but it can't be used for about self about its own contents. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm failing to see how describing the primary source using itself is original research. WP:OR tells us The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. A description of the book's contents, supported by direct quotes from the book, is clearly not original research. A glance at WP:SYN does not appear to match what is being proposed here, unless you can tell me what conclusion C is being implied/reached through the synthesis of statements from the book. We're not interpreting the text here, and according to WP:PRIMARY, I fail to see a violation of policy: A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Acalycine (talk) 01:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: I would appreciate a reply/furthering of discussion here. Acalycine (talk) 04:55, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

How do you intend to create a "A description of the book's contents, supported by direct quotes from the book” without "analysis or synthesis of published material?” The quote part is especially hard as unless the process is somehow randomized choosing which quotes to pull requires interpretation. Even if we take all your arguments to be true we aren’t allowed to pick and choose quotes from a source which doesn't have secondary coverage, we could however (again assuming we take *all* your arguments as true) offer a complete and accurate summary of the book but such a summary is unlikely to feature minor details such as the two author’s opinions on homosexuality. Cherrypicking quotes is always OR. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:14, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm actually sure you're right here, but I'm still puzzled as to what you're basing this on. My understanding of synthesis is that it is prohibited when it is reaching a conclusion C. What exactly is the conclusion C that would be reached by the options above? If I'm not mistaken, cherrypicking quotes is always OR would imply that any inclusion of an author's work with description would be OR, since the editor cannot realistically include all quotes/topics contained within that work. That is, unless, the options above are reaching a conclusion C. Would be grateful to learn what conclusion that is and thus how we can rectify it by expanding the breadth of an exemplar description of the book. Acalycine (talk) 06:45, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

The way to go about "expanding the breadth of an exemplar description of the book” is to find a WP:RS which reviews or talks about the book. Thats how we’ve always done it on wikipedia. Any argument that says X wrote Y with Z so they must personally believe Y is OR unless the book makes an explicit statement e.g. “We (X and Z) believe Y” and if we aren’t talking about personal views then its not WP:ABOUT SELF and we’re back to square one of not being able to use it at all. In every situation where this has come up that I’ve seen its been solved by finding WP:RS which review or discuss the work, if those can’t be found then its just not notable or due. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced we need secondary sources to describe the contents of the book, if we do it correctly. How about making it explicit, as such:

With Marlon S. Sias, Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation, an exploration of the Bible that argues against the "popular pretribulation rapture view", asserting that biblical prophecies "point toward not just one but two raptures." The book asserts that "Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit...gender authority structures", that "true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence", and that "the rapture is a conditional promise."

These are quotes from the book, explicit statements as you say. Acalycine (talk) 02:02, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: thoughts? Acalycine (talk) 01:40, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack...you misused my logic and it was an analogy.

Fyi - if a nazi promoted himself in his own book. It would be wrong to use his own self promotional claims and present them as facts. I agree on that.

However if that nazi later became famous and made certain claims in his book. Then stating that "he" had made those certain claims in his own book. There is nothing wrong with that. As that actually is facts and noteworthy if he is a celebrity making prejudiced comments. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 16:40, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@MangoTareeface9: agree with what you said, and if you support the inclusion of his theological views on the wiki then chose option 3 in the Survey section. we are trying to get a vote whether to include it in his wiki or not. DemisJohnson (talk) 03:52, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

This is not a vote per se, but a poll to help determine consensus. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:24, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Mx. Granger:Its not a significant omission, we currently have zero coverage of the book in reliable sources. If its not covered in reliable sources it isn't significant, simple as. You can call it an omission but the “significant” part puzzles me as it indicated you have information no one else here does. If we had that then this would be a different discussion, please share. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

  It's a book written by the subject of the article, so it's worth mentioning. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:11, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

  Do you have any particular policy or guideline which backs up your opinion? In general author’s wikipedia pages only mention their notable publications, if theres a solid policy based reason to do otherwise that would be good news to me. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

  To my knowledge there is no policy or guideline for or against inclusion of material covered only by primary sources. However, biographies generally do have significant content coming from primary sources (e.g. subject CVs for info on their early career, statements about their personal life, lists of publications, etc.). Publications on academic biographies, for instance, are often just taken from their lists of publications. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:22, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

  If we were sourcing the existence of the book to a self published list of publications and only sourcing the about self for Zenz from the book then to me that would be a different story. As soon as we cleared up the multiple author question I would have no objection to its inclusion. We still couldn't summarize it though, a mini book review by a wikipedia editor or even a team of them will always be OR which is why its simply not done. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

the "multiple author" question or concerns can be fixed by simply mention it that he co-authored it, as we did before. and we're not summarizing the book, no one is doing that.DemisJohnson (talk) 18:16, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Well I vote yes, we should include his book. It's not a matter on whether his book is hard to understand. The message in the book couldn't be any more clearer. The only true reason why some editors want it to not be shown because they do not want the public to know his history. Most of such editors have a long history of being china hawks.They are not neutral. You cannot hide legit history in a place like Wikipedia. I don't see why it needs to rely on a vote when it's clearly a partisan debate on whether to tell the truth about adrian or hide the real facts, simply because they make him look like he dissaproves of homosexuality. In which he does and went the extra mile of publishing a book calling laws that protect gays as power of an anti-christ. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 08:36, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

so what are going to do here? majority of people want the inclusion of the book and there more people that want to report the content inside the book(option 3) than those who don't. DemisJohnson (talk) 23:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

As MarkH said above, this is not a vote. The survey is meant to help determine consensus. Wikipedia doesn't work by majority rule. Harland1 (^t/_c) 00:30, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

well it seems like we will never reach a consensus. especiallywith horse eye and lok. i think we should put this on a DRN.DemisJohnson (talk) 06:55, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@DemisJohnson: Consensus does not mean everyone has to agree. See Wikipedia:Consensus#Achieving consensus for more on what achieving consensus means. — MarkH₂₁^talk 11:14, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

the main way to achieve consensus is through discussion and addressing editors concern. but you and others(including me) already addressed his concern on this page. and he didn't reply to you or us after addressing his concerns. so what do we do here? are we going to skip his "concerns" since we already addressed it? [this is off topic. but based on horse eye logic, should wiki deleted all the philosopher pages? since he argues that we can't use their books as a source].DemisJohnson (talk) 13:40, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Who is this he you speak of? Horse Eye Jack is a they. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:36, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

how about respond to my argument and points instead of cherry-picking my grammar? if you don't want to have a objective good-faith debate then it's safe and fair to say we should skip your "concerns” that we already addressed.DemisJohnson (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Go review Wikipedia:Consensus#Achieving consensus as you were asked to do, clearly you don’t understand how consensus works. Part of having a an objective good-faith debate is respecting other views, there is no reason to comprehensively crush all opposing views and such an approach is actually strongly discouraged per WP:BLUDGEON. Just FYI I wasn’t cherry picking your grammar, I was letting you know that they is my preferred pronoun for this account. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:22, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

like Markh21 said, consensus does not mean everyone has to agree. and I addressed all your points and arguments with facts and sources to back me up. but you didn't do the same to us. you didn't address any of our arguments/points. so it's logical if we ignore your concerns since we already addressed and "debunked" it with facts.DemisJohnson (talk) 20:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

If you look hard at the people who oppose, like Horse Eye Jack, etc. Their edit history indicates they are obsessed with china and adrian is a china critic. This isn't a matter of whether the info is significant or whether it is factual. We know it is. Just really a matter of wanting to hide away a negative info of adrian. If we were to put this into a consensus and then add in a few china hawks.Then we will never be able to agree on anything if we wanted to publish "real but negative info" about Adrian. The book is not insignificant nor is it really deniable as an actual fact or public source. And his very promoted views on homosexuality are a need to know info for the public's interest. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 00:15, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

yep. i don't know how are we going to reach a consensus with someone who's clearly biased and not objective-based. I mean Adrian Zenz literally argues against decriminalization homosexuality in his own books. there's no reason not to include that in his wiki. DemisJohnson (talk) 07:10, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@MangoTareeface9 and DemisJohnson: Please refrain from commenting on other editors as you have both done here. Disparaging other editors as non-objective and publicly attempting to discount their opinions based on ad hominems are personal attacks and will not be tolerated here. — MarkH₂₁^talk 11:14, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Horse eye jack started the ad hominen attack at me by rudely putting a line under my name, saying that I'm a newbie aka an inexperienced editor. To discount my opinion despite not even knowing me. How is that ok? So equally I looked up his own edits and was jusf overwhelmed at the sheer amount of hawkish articles on china in just the past month. Maybe I should also put a notice under his edits and state that he makes heaps of time, effort + contributions to only really hawkish china articles. That notice is NOT at all an insult but just an objective fact there.

And Consensus makes sense if the info is too hard to verify as facts. But when it's already clearly verified as facts to anyone with a pair of eyes and is very significant. A request for a consensus is suspicious to me, as it serves ONLY to protect Adrian's public image and really hiding his homophobic history. There is no way to say it without "being hurtful" but a consensus to publish adrian's view on homosexuality, is just flawed as long as there are china hawks wanting to hide it and not care about gay rights. We ALREADY have the book and can read what it mentions. We don't need the obvious china hawks deleting real info on wiki and then later stonewalling plus claimimg there needs to be a consensus here to publish real info that they so obviously want to hide. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I vote yes too, we should include his book, and yes clearly when i see the edit history of Horse Eye Jack, I understand that he is clearly biased and that it is impossible to reach a consensus with him, I think that we must go ahead and include his book. Talleyrand20 (talk) 9:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Talleyrand20: please retract your WP:PA. Either comply with WP:ASPERSIONS or self revert. What about my edit history is so illuminating to you? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: based on the survey and the discussion we have on this talk page. the main reason why you don't want to include his theological/controversial views on the wiki is that "no mention unless it been covered by an independent reliable source".

the problem with that reason/argument is that it's not a requirement to include a third-party source. it's not against the rule to include his books as a source. it only becomes a problem if it's "unduly self-serving". and if the majority of people wants to include his book and theological view on his wiki, and it's against the rule, then why not do it？ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources

and here's another thing. if we can't use his book as a source then what about philosophers wiki pages like Zizek and Chomsky? DemisJohnson (talk) 13:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Based on the survey and the discussion we have on this talk page... Yes... Go on. You appear to have left your most critical sentence unfinished. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

i don't know if you realize this but you didn't address my argument and points at all.DemisJohnson (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Its not responsible to respond to an incomplete argument, if you make your full argument I will gladly respond to it. Commenting on incongruent and incomplete sentences isn't going to move the discussion forward. Its unclear from how you’ve written it here but you don’t appear to be adequately summarizing my position, you seem to have missed that my key concern from the beginning has been the applicability of about self in cases where there are multiple authors and no declaratory statements exist in the text. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:28, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: you still haven't explained why the argument is incomplete.

you seem to have missed that my key concern from the beginning has been the applicability of about self in cases where there are multiple authors and no declaratory statements exist in the text.

first of all majority of the people already agreed that Adrian didn't write the book alone. he co-authored it. and it's already mentioned that in the wiki before you deleted it.

second, all your "concerns" have already addressed by me and others.

your first concern and argument are that we shouldn't self-published source. but the problem with that point/argument is that it's not against the rule to use author book as a source. it only become a problem when it's "unduly self-serving".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources

your second argument is that " in general we don't list or summarize books that haven't been reviewed or covered". but the problem with the argument is it's not a requirement to use his books as a source even when it hasn't been covered by a third-party source. Another flaw with that argument is that it's simply false. pretty much all philosopher pages use their own books as sources.

in fact if you look at someone like Jordan Peterson wiki, you could see that 99% of sources about his political views are from his books. not articles from sites like Washington post or NYT.

so if we go by your way then should wiki delete all philosopher pages? DemisJohnson (talk) 20:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

No need to get so hyperbolic. I respect that you disagree with me, but I don’t exactly think you’ve disproven anything I’ve said and I’m not sure how you think you even could given your near complete lack of knowledge about wikipedia. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:57, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

you still haven't addressed my argument and points. still haven't explained why my argument is incomplete, or how I didn't disprove you. even though i did with facts and sources backing me up.DemisJohnson (talk) 18:08, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

@horse eye jack you are now deliberately twisting it. If a man created a book that talked about himself. Then yes, that book would be not a good source to use as the man can be lying and bragging about himself. That's obvious. However if he had made claims about how he think society should work. And he is also a famous person. Then stating that "he had written a book and made certain claims in that book". That is just facts that are not conflicting with any bias. It doesn't make sense to say the source is not reliable as that person had written it. We know he written it. We are basically sayong he wrote it and made those claims. And the source is the pure proof that any editor with brains can read page 30 to 33 on google page view and know what he said. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

You’re brand new here so its not surprising you don’t know this but “I” statements are actually what we mean by “about self” aka “I am Jewish,” or “I am a Democrat,” or “I believe in traditional marriage." Concerns about promotions are separate from that, you are mistaken that I statements are inherently promotional. We know he wrote it with someone else, we actually explicitly know that "We know he written it” is a false statement. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Acalycine:From my perspective, the concern about undue weight is not putting undue weight on the book itself (although we might if we discussed it at length), but in putting undue weight on particular parts of the book. Unless a Wikipedia editor is proposing to read the entire thing and decide which are the most important sections to mention (and then justify their choice to everyone else), how are we to decide which parts of the book to include? That kind of decision feels like one we should let RSs make. If and when they report on Zenz's views (as the WSJ has done), we can draw from their reporting. Harland1 (^t/_c) 15:46, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Acalycine: I'd appreciate a response/further discussion. Harland1 (^t/_c) 04:54, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I partially understand this objection, you make your reasoning clearer than others. Sorry I didn't see this earlier. In saying this, are you implying that you support option 5, at least if it were done according to your liking? I think your proposal is the most realistic compromise here, but I still reject the idea that quoting aspects of the book, where views in the book are given in explicit terms, is giving undue weight to them. Regardless, your suggestion seems workable, and the most likely avenue for consensus to be reached at this point. I'll make a new section here for the working copy, I suppose. Acalycine (talk) 05:06, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Harland1: i mean if you wants to include some parts of the book in his wiki then you can. DemisJohnson (talk) 18:11, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

This doesn't respond to my point. Harland1 (^t/_c) 01:21, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be a summary of the book. Just make mention to some of the controversial but noteworthy stuff it writes. In which the public do deserves to know. It matters not if they are the center of the entire book's teachings. They matter a lot to society in general to know if Adrian had ever pushed homophobic or prejudiced advice to the public.

It was his books own words that make it pretty easy to know what it exactly said. It explicitly mentions that the laws that protect gays, are a bad thing and the work of anti-christ. It's shown in one of the pages and cannot really be disputed by anyone.

I quote an excerpt from someone who read the book below;

"Zenz’s work on China is clearly inspired by his biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this," he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry."

Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity. Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist. Zenz predicted that the future fall of capitalism will bring to power the Antichrist within a “few decades.” He identified the force that “will usher the Antichrist into power” as “the economic and financial fall of ‘Babylon’, with ‘Babylon’ symbolically representing the world’s global economic system (capitalism).”

“Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures”, Zenz continued. “through notions of gender equality […] the enemy is undermining God’s unique but different role assignments for men and women.""

https://sizeof.cat/post/adrian-zenz-jamestown-foundation-manipulate-free-press/ MangoTareeface9 (talk) 16:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Size of Cat appears to be a non-notable blog written by a non-expert, what exactly is the point you’re making? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:56, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

It appears that the inclusion is a WP:DUE weight question. Obviously CGTN, Global Times and The Grayzone are bringing this up in an attempt to discredit him over his work on the re-education camps, but that doesn't necessairly make their accounts inaccurate by default. I have brought this up at the biographies of living persons noticeboard in order to get more contributors. It might be worth bringing up CGTN and Global Times again on the reliable sources noticeboard in order to reach concensus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Sources

The reliability/relevancy of these sources should be discussed:

• https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/china-rejects-accusation-it-sterilising-uighur-women
• https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/
• https://www.investigaction.net/fr/xinjiang-petit-exercice-de-verification/
• https://www.grandrapidsmn.com/grand_people/local-theologian-and-author-to-host-signing-for-new-rapture-book/article_a9a588fe-4e4b-11e3-9912-001a4bcf887a.html
• https://chollima.org/who-is-adrian-zenz-the-christian-fundamentalist-leading-the-global-xinjiang-narrative/
• https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-01-04/Ajit-Singh-on-Xinjiang-misinformation-Who-is-Adrian-Zenz--MYIQXMdmms/index.html
• https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1174970.shtml
• https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-29/Sources-on-Xinjiang-s-training-centers-found-highly-dubious--MOGveEOP28/index.html

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Acalycine (talk • contribs)

Well Ajit Singh is a lawyer and journalist. And Grayzone is an independant media that actually talks negatively about Us military adventurism in the middle east, and of US backed coups in latin america. I'm assuming they won't be very popular with right wing military hawk editors on wiki. But unless there is some explicit evidence that they are lying about the book other than biased hearsay or unsubstantiated comments of their character. They are people with real faces and are from an independant media. Just because one holds "unpopular" opinions. It doesn't make them wrong to talk about it.

You can just mention them pointing out the book and its contents. And also minimally referring to Ajit Singh as vocal critics of Adrian. They were not wrong about the book and its contents. Just not afraid to mention it. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 04:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

This is a BLP and The Grayzone is a deprecated source (1 2 3). The articles from China Global Television Network, Global Times (no consensus on reliability) and Morning Star (no consensus on reliability) are all referencing The Grayzone. Investig'Action's about page had a few red flags. It is generally unusual for an about page to be defensive and say Investig'Action is not "a friend of dictators", Investig'Action is not "conspiratorial", Investig'Action is not "anti-Semitic", etc. Chollima should be avoided since it appears to be a self-published source. The grandrapidsmn.com source does not mention the contents of the book discussed in the above RfC. CowHouse (talk) 06:35, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

None of those are reliable or relevant except INVESTIG’ACTION which I am unfamiliar with, someone else will have to handle that one. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:50, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Assuming there is no consensus on CGTN, is there Wikipedia policy that would prohibit the usage of this CGTN source? As in, what is the relevance of the fact that CGTN is paraphrasing The Grayzone, to us using it as a source here? If CNN, for example, stated that The Grayzone conducted this report and then CNN went on to state facts contained within the Grayzone report, would we also exclude this CNN source? Acalycine (talk) 08:06, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

This does not really make sense as a hypothetical question since if there were WP:USEBYOTHERS for The Grayzone then it probably would not be a deprecated source. CowHouse (talk) 08:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

No consensus means that unless an explicit argument can be made that the source satisfies WP:VERIFY then it cant be used on a BLP, end of story. You are welcome to make an argument for CGTN satisfying VERIFY, its an impossible argument but you are welcome to make it. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:46, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

In that case, that should settle things. We should be allowed to use Ajit Singh's article as it is literally verified by NCHRD and Adrian's book..

According to a NCHRD report, (keep in mind that NCHRD is a Washington DC-based NGO that is backed by the US government) the source they use for the 1 million Uyghurs estimate is the 8 interviewees. Yes, 8. Is that verifiable? Yes, in NCHRD article - it openly states it used a sample size of 8 people.

https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghurs-other-ethnic-minorities-forced-into-re-education-programs/

Such info should be added in. Also Ajit mentioned Adrian's view on homosexuality. Such views are verified as facts by adrian's own book. Pg 30 to 32 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lRtSQB3HHJcC&pg=PA30&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

So far, I haven't seen anything that he had written that can't be verified. Adrian's book and NCHRD can be used to easily verify virtially all of his facts to be true. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Off-topic

Why is grayzone even deprecated in the first place? Max Blumenthal is an award winning investigative journalist and Editor of The Grayzone. The only thing that makes him politically unliked is that he is a socialist and anti-imperialist. The consensus in wiki, that judged him as unreliable had mostly arguments that weren't about him giving evidence of bad faith or unreliable news. Just suspicion of his poltical background. If anything, grayzone had often accused the US media like NYT of hiding the funding and bias and the flawed OAS reports accusing of bolivian election rigging. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/14/oas-us-coup-bolivia-evo-morales/#more-16684 And NYT later admits to their false news many months after grayzone called them out. By this logic, Nyt should be a poor source and Grayzone a quality source for calling NYT's misinfo out from the very start. https://fair.org/home/nyt-acknowledges-coup-in-bolivia-while-shirking-blame-for-its-supporting-role/ MangoTareeface9 (talk) 09:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC) @MangoTareeface9: This isn’t the place for such a discussion. The community consensus is that the Grayzone is generally unreliable (recent RfC) due to several issues regarding its factual accuracy, editorial oversight, lack of external use, etc. If you believe that this consensus can be changed, use the reliable source noticeboard instead of this unrelated discussion. — MarkH21talk 11:04, 10 July 2020 (UTC) umm what consensus? I looked at the noticeboard you linked and saw that quite a lot of editors chose Option 1. Stated that it was reliable. In fact, one of the last comments said ".... This does not change my view that the site is generally reliable for factual reporting, but that editors should acknowledge it has a political perspective when using it here. -Darouet (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2020 (UTC)" Yet someone had unilaterally ignored all that. I don't see any community concensus but just some lone editor marking it unreliable despite so many did not support that claim. Aka a "rough consensus".. Not a solid one. And in regards to Adrian's book. We ALL KNOW Ajit Singh wasn't lying when he mentions the contents in the book as we can all read and see it for ourselves. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 14:36, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

The Chollima Report website is just a blog. However, its point is not unreliable as it merely quotes his own book and accompanies it with supporting screenshots. It is effectively reporting Zenz in his own words with no synthesis- Antonian Sapphire (talk) 10:59, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Its not just a blog, its a non-notable WP:FRINGE blog. Its not reliable under any circumstances. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:26, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:BLPSPS: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." CowHouse (talk) 12:47, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

It isn't cited in the article, so this is a straw man. However, do you dispute Zenz's own very clear words and positions? Observe you how you say unless written by the subject of the article but the quotes about Zenz about his positions, are written by Zenz not by the source Antonian Sapphire (talk) 12:49, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Nobody said it was cited in the article. This section of the talk page is not about the book being used as a primary source. It's about the reliability of the presented sources. Since Zenz did not write the article and you've said the website "is just a blog", I've included the specific policy which says it should therefore be avoided in a BLP. CowHouse (talk) 13:07, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no question as to what the book is about and its quotes are not being taken out of context. There is really no question or ambiguity about what the views Zenz expressed are- Antonian Sapphire (talk) 17:14, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Ahem, "views Zenz *and his co-author* expressed are.” The views also need to be synthesized from the text (they aren’t “I” or “we” statements) so yes there is inherent ambiguity, don’t deny reality (especially when it wouldn't hurt your argument to acknowledge it). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:19, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

No, there is no inherent ambiguity in a book expressing extreme Christian viewpoints and talking about the rapture, which even makes its point clear in its title and subtitle. The point of the text is very clear and your attempts to try and airbrush Zenz's history is only indictive of your aggressive bias in these topic field and mundane bullying of everyone who challenges your narrative-Antonian Sapphire (talk) 17:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

It expresses a rather moderate Christian viewpoint actually, the well of crazy is deep when it comes to religion. You’re right that the point of the book is to talk about the rapture, but thats not what the quotes being cherry picked are about. How do you explain that difference? On a side note the WP:PA is unwanted and inappropriate, please remove that section from your post. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:52, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

That is whitewashing and he's def not even moderate. I am christian yet I don't go publishing a book, scaremongering other christians that modern western laws that prevent discrimination against gays and gender equality. Is evil and the work of an antichrist. And then predicts that in a decade or two, an "anti-christian tolerance campaign" (in those exact words) will make it "illegal" to even profess a few lines in the bible if they go let this trend continue. Adrian is undeniably a very extremist kind of propagandist in christianity. Do read pg 30 to 33. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lRtSQB3HHJcC&pg=PA30&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false MangoTareeface9 (talk) 06:59, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Just FYI the WP:BLP policy applies to all pages and talk pages. Unless you have sources which back up that second to last sentence you appear to be over the line, I see no description in the sources of extremism or propagandism. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:54, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@horse eye jack if anything, I had left out alot of things about his scaremongering propaganda as there is alot, but I did give my source and even the exact pages that proves it. Gaslight me one more time, like stating that I did not give sources and I will take this straight to arbitration committee as I honestly believe you are not arguing in good faith to me.

Anyone reading (pg 30 to 33) can see it's not moderate but scaremongering other christians that an "anti-christian tolerance campaign" will undermine their chances from being raptured (eternal salvation) as it warns they are giving in to the power of the antichrist and letting it rule. The book talks alot about how this "tolerance campaign" will get worse and may lead to a world where even professing a few tennets of the bible, will be persecuted.

The book says the power of the antichrist is very deceptive as it "appears" to "want" to achieve global peace and unity. Hence making it look innocent. But the book says it's all a trick. (pg 30) It's real purpose there is to promote doubts and skepticism towards the 'righteous" christian teachings and hence deliberately promote immorality that pressures and tricks other christians to submit to these new societal pressures (global persecution of christians and brainwashing them on what is morally right and wrong) and so effectively turning them to be unworthy to be raptured as they are passively bowing to the power of the antichrist by accepting or turning a blind eye to homosexuality, gender equality, etc in their modern society.

It's all there and I did not lie so don't say I appear to be making hearsay when I literally gave my sources the first time. Read the source - pg 30 to 33. His book INDEED SCAREMONGERS and uses PROPAGANDA to tell his readers that laws that protect homosexuality, are basically antichrist's deceptive ways to make them reject christianity and will get worse. Such extreme published views should be added to the wiki article to show who he is and what he promotes. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:56, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Dude... WP:BLP applies here, you cant just say these things about a living person without a WP:RS having said them or at least something close to them. The pages you provided don’t say anything about scaremongering propaganda etc... You have yet to provide a WP:RS which does. If that means you’re gonna take me somewhere so be it, threats will get you nowhere. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 03:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

i am 100 percent certain the arbitration committee will review and see you are spinning my words with an arbitrary angle. My first reply was only in direct reply to yours when you claimed that adrian was a moderate. You disliked that I have given info and its source that contradicts it. So you now try to make me look a liar by saying my source doesn't actually uses the words "scaremongering" and "propaganda". Why would it?

We both know that adrian will never call his own book as scaremongering or propaganda. But I gave the pages that shows prceusely that, to the people objective enough to recognise it. Do you deny that pg 30 to 33 is full of scaremongering propaganda? Adrian is definitely not a moderate christian but one that brainwashes people that the "peaceful looking" laws that protects gay people, are the deceptive power of the anti-christMangoTareeface9 (talk) 04:13, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Also the REAL ARGUMENT was whether Adrian is a moderate. I have given a source that shows that he indeed used scaremongering propaganda. Making an argument that the source (his book) doesn't self admit it is scaremongering or propaganda. Doesn't mean that it's not. You were wrong to call him a moderate and his views need to be public on wiki. AND just FYI, I didn't say we call him an extremist on the actual wiki article. I was mereky describing him objectively unless you think I'm a liar for calling pg 30 to 33 as filled with scaremongering and brainwashing. And what about yourself? You had called him a moderate. "You cant just say these things about a living person without a WP:RS having said them or at least something close to them." And we both know that morning star is telling the truth as we all are able to verify it as facts. Pg 30 to 33 shows morning star to be undeniably truthful about him.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/china-rejects-accusation-it-sterilising-uighur-women

"He has also attracted controversy for his hard-right Christian views — as co-author of Worthy to Escape, a 2012 end-times tract which denounced gay liberation, equality between the sexes and bans on smacking children as part of the “suppression of biblical Christianity” MangoTareeface9 (talk) 04:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The BLP policy applies to all spaces if you wouldn’t put it on the talk page don’t put it here. Morningstar is not a WP:RS, per perennial sources "There is no consensus on whether the Morning Star engages in factual reporting, and broad consensus that it is a biased and partisan source. All uses of the Morning Star should be attributed. Take care to ensure that content from the Morning Star constitutes due weight in the article and conforms to the biographies of living persons policy.” Nor does this poor source make any mention of extremism or propaganda so it wouldn’t support your words even if it was a WP:RS. I never said he was a moderate, I said the book expressed a "rather moderate Christian viewpoint” and there is no room for misinterpretation because I said “It” not he. If you want to take me to Arbcon (do itttttt! do it nowwwwwww!) you should know that purposefully misrepresenting the arguments of others is frowned upon. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

You are still spinning my words. I never said Adrian's book self described itself as brainwashing propaganda. I said it contained it and it did in an extreme shocking way. And we both know when I say 'moderate'. I was referring to his christian nature in which he is def not. No moderate christian of modern society tries to brainwash people into thinking that antichrist pretends to want global peace and propserity and that is how he claims it fools people into accepting "immoral" behaviour like homosexuality.

Lastly morning star doesn't say he is an extremist. Okay. No need to make strawman arguments. I didn't say we write him as an extremist into the article. Don't misquote me. The thing I want added to the article are FACTS verfied by his own book (pg30 to 33), that his book mentions "anti-christian tolerance campaign" eroding away christianity. And the book contents denounced gay liberation, equality between the sexes and bans on smacking children as part of the “suppression of biblical Christianity.

Like you wrote - "All uses of the Morning Star should be attributed. Take care to ensure that content from the Morning Star constitutes due weight in the article and conforms to the biographies of living persons policy."

Pg 30 to 33 have verfied morning star to be truthful and if you need to attribute morning star. Then so be it. I see no more reasons to not add his controversial views that the public deserves to know. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 02:57, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh and in addition to pg 30 to 34. The book's pages specifically pg 47 of his book talks about why bans of physically disciplining children need be lifted. And gender equality is morally wrong. He mentions the anti-christ many times in his justifications. Ie. "Communism is anti-christ". Anti-discrimination laws is the work of anti-christ etc

We can easily verify morning star to be factually accurate when stating that his book denounced gay liberation, equality between the sexes and bans on smacking children as part of the “suppression of biblical Christianity. So we can agree the info is solid and verfied.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lRtSQB3HHJcC&pg=PA30&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Gender%20equality&f=false MangoTareeface9 (talk) 03:26, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

While I am for inclusion, I can see some of the arguments that opponents are making here. To remedy this, I proposed a sample paragraph above, which I will include here. Explicitly quoting from the book, and potentially expanding the scope of our description of the book (which I have partially done here), surely resolves issues of NPOV and undue weight. It is imperative that we do not solely describe anything in the book as Zenz' view alone - we must stress co-authorship, as this is a BLP. For example:

With Marlon S. Sias, Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation, an exploration of the Bible that argues against the "popular pretribulation rapture view", asserting that biblical prophecies "point toward not just one but two raptures." The book asserts that "Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit...gender authority structures", that "true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence", and that "the rapture is a conditional promise."

More is needed, but would appreciate a critique of this proposal from both sides. Pinging User:MangoTareeface9, User:Horse Eye Jack. Acalycine (talk) 10:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

@Acalycine :Thanks for pinging me. If you want my blunt opinion. ——> If no editor can actually argue against the prior info that is on pg 30 to 33 and 47 and say it's not factually correct. That the book undeniably denounces against promoting gender equality, anti-discrimination laws against gays, and modern legal "bans" on parents hitting children. Then there is no reason to not attribute The Morning Star who wasn't at all factually even wrong to point it out. Everyone can objectively admit that much.

Tho I can at least roughly agree with your sample paragraph. Except my issue is that readers will go read all that and not be able to realistically catch on the book's negative stance towards gender equality, aggression towards laws that protect gay rights, and legal banning of over the line physical hitting of children. I generally feel that critics were right to criticize the book but people turn a blind eye only because they want to protect Adrian's image. But wiki includes all info - both good and bad - The info was never even that deniable. I am very against not including the book's controversial views via lies of omission. That's my stance.

My take on sample paragraph - (needs to include mentions to its controversial and honestly messed up views that is not proper in modern society and feel the public deserve to be CLEARLY warned on what the book (that has Adrian's name endorsing it) promotes and why it's RIGHTFULLY criticised) The man is literally a political commentator. People deserve to know these kinds of things about him.MangoTareeface9 (talk) 14:05, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

The first sentence is probably good but there is no way that second sentence is due, 2/3 of those “assertions" aren’t core assertions of the book. Why cherry pick the controversial points? I would also say “hermeneutical exploration" instead of just exploration. I think MangoTareeface9’s response is illuminating, especially that last paragraph. They’re clearly not here to build an encyclopedia. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:48, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Instead of arguing on whether the info is indeed factual and has solid due weight. You instead try to discount my comments with your ad hominens attacks that don't even make logical sense btw. And fyi, it's not cherrypicking as the book frequently talks about how christians will not be saved unless they rid of the anti-christ. And it's noteworthy to point out its controversial views of what it claims to be the anti-christ.

It's called not hiding the negative information of your favorite china hawk and his way of using the bible as an authority to justify what is deemed evil in modern society.

I think the people trying to hide negative information about Adrian are the ones, clearly not here to build an encyclopedia.

I ask you again. Do you even deny that the Morning Star sentence on the book is 100 percent factual? That the book denounces gender equality, bans on smacking kids and against laws that protects gay people. If so, please explain except you know it's true. Don't avoid the question and resort to ad hominen attacks.

Such info is true and wikipedia has a valid right to add it in for the world's academic interests.MangoTareeface9 (talk) 17:59, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: I'm really not sure what else we can do here. I wrote the paragraph in response to your response above: Any argument that says X wrote Y with Z so they must personally believe Y is OR unless the book makes an explicit statement e.g. “We (X and Z) believe Y” and if we aren’t talking about personal views then its not WP:ABOUT SELF and we’re back to square one of not being able to use it at all. - I quoted directly from the book, with caution not to explicitly label the claims of the book as Zenz' views. If 2/3 of the paragraph is rejected because it highlights 'controversial' views, how many non-controversial v. controversial views do we need? Who says the whole book isn't controversial? Who says the whole book is controversial? It's a subjective view, and no reliable sources have labelled it controversial as far as I know. If we expand the scope of the paragraph beyond what I wrote above, and go fairly in-depth, would this satisfy your claims of cherrypicking? Note that my proposal is not based on MangoTareeface9's views - they are simply another editor. Acalycine (talk) 02:57, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Whats wrong with just the first sentence plus hermeneutical? On a side note are we really sure this book has gotten no coverage in WP:RS? I’m still kind of surprised by that, I thought this whole discussion would last five minutes until somebody found a book review and then we could move on. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the first sentence, I'm merely suggesting that we expand upon it, considering that more detail is generally a good thing on WP. I would appreciate some answers to the questions I raise, and I haven't really seen any objection based on WP policies here - I integrated your suggestion of explicit quoting, for example. Reliable sources don't exist for this, as far as I know, unless some of the sources I listed above are deemed reliable.

Working version: With Marlon S. Sias, Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation, a hermeneutical exploration of the Bible that argues against the "popular pretribulation rapture view", asserting that Biblical prophecies "point toward not just one but two raptures." The book asserts that "Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit...gender authority structures", that "true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence", and that "the rapture is a conditional promise." Acalycine (talk) 07:24, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I still don’t understand how you’ve pulled the quotes for that last sentence or why you think its due. “The book asserts...” doesn't provide an accurate summary of the assertions made in the book, its three random quote pulls. The only one that makes any sense is the last one, the other two are minor points among hundreds of other minor points in the book. As is the statement is clearly OR, if the book told us that these were its core assertions were this would be different but they haven't... This is your personal analysis. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

We are going around in circles. I don't understand how this is original research when these are literal quotes from the book. What you said above: Any argument that says X wrote Y with Z so they must personally believe Y is OR unless the book makes an explicit statement e.g. “We (X and Z) believe Y” does not apply here. If the book told us that these were its core assertions were this would be different but they haven't - the paragraph does not claim these are core assertions. Unless you can tell me what conclusion C (as per WP:OR) is being reached here, I simply don't see how this is OR. WP:SYNTHNOT tells us that SYNTH is not summary, nor explanation. How could you expect a summary of the book without minor points being included? Look at basically any author's Wikipedia page. Not all details of their books are covered. We can add more, but it is silly to discount the paragraph for not having enough information. Acalycine (talk) 03:31, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I said explicit statements not quotes. We aren’t going in circles, we have an RfC open. I think I’ve said pretty much everything I have to say on the issue, if you have another mammoth paragraph in you by all means continue. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 03:49, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

They are explicit statements from the book, and quoting an explicit statement would be the route to avoiding OR. Here, from page 47: Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures, But true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence, and neglecting the wisdom of God makes the church increasing vulnerable to the schemes of the enemy. These aren't statements that Zenz himself is stating (assuming co-authorship), hence why the paragraph says The book asserts.

If you read that 'mammoth paragraph' again, you'll see that I've asked you questions. You haven't answered them. How is this SYNTH? What conclusion C is being implied? You can choose not to respond to my arguments, but it simply means you've given up on providing reasoned objections. Thanks. Acalycine (talk) 04:38, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Working copy

In a compromise similar to option 5, I think a proposed plan here is to go into a moderate amount of depth on the book and thus alleviate editors' concerns about giving undue weight to sections of the book. This process will surely be of advantage to the article generally, in the end. Here is my proposed working copy:

With Marlon S. Sias, Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation, a hermeneutical exploration of the Bible that argues against the "popular pretribulation rapture view", asserting that Biblical prophecies "point toward not just one but two raptures." The book asserts that "Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit...gender authority structures", that "true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence", and that "the rapture is a conditional promise."

Here are the chapters of the book:

• Introduction
• The End Times World Order and How We Got There
• We Are The Bride: What It Means to Be Engaged to Jesus
• Recovering End Times Truth Throughout History
• But the Wise Shall Understand: Scriptural Evidence for the First Fruits Rapture
• Pretribulation Versus Prewrath Part I: Why There Will Be Two Raptures
• Pretribulation Versus Prewrath Part II: Rapture, Battle, and the Appearances of Christ
• Become an Overcomer: Focus on the Spirit
• Stay an Overcomer: Focusing on the Narrow Path
• The Origin and Rise of the Antichrist
• The Tribulations Begin
• God's Wrath and the Fall of Babylon
• The Final Battle and Entrance Into the Millennial Kingdom
• Reigning With Christ: What That Means and How We Can Prepare for it
• Conclusion

Other editors that have read the book in full or in part should participate here. Acalycine (talk) 05:13, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by this and your response above. I'm not sure if the survey reveals consensus for an option (I leave that for an uninvolved editor to judge), but if it shows anything, it shows there is little support for option 5, let alone a consensus for it. I also don't see how option 5, which appears to involve Wikipedia editors writing their own short book review, could possibly be a "compromise" choice. A lengthy exposition of the book's arguments would give undue weight to the book as a whole and, because we would still have to choose which arguments to quote, would inevitably also give undue weight to parts of the book. You rejected the argument about putting undue weight on sections of the book above, but I don't know why, as you didn't give any reasons, merely conclusory statements.

Listing the book—and characterizing its contents and Zenz's views to the extent that reliable sources do so—remains the cleanest, most convincing option. In fact, quoting only the Global Times/Grayzone attack on Zenz over the book would be preferable to summarizing the book's contents ourselves—at least the fact of the criticism from state media is notable. Harland1 (^t/_c) 21:37, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Now I'm very confused. What else was this meant to imply: Unless a Wikipedia editor is proposing to read the entire thing and decide which are the most important sections to mention (and then justify their choice to everyone else), how are we to decide which parts of the book to include? In making this section, I certainly wasn't deciding that option 5 had been reached. Assuming we got a workable paragraph, I don't possibly see how it could put undue weight on the book itself. Regarding the other options, I'm not opposed to including Global Times/Grayzone instead, but I'm not sure how you could be supporting such an option when these are not reliable sources. Acalycine (talk) 02:14, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article is unbalanced, needs criticism along with the praise

Zenz's research has been criticized by the Chinese government and various state media outlets, including China Daily, CGTN and Global Times.

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1793427.shtml

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2020/07/china-pushback-beijing-questions-western-reporting-xinjiang-200725065150345.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/25/asia/xinjiang-karakax-list-china-response-intl-hnk/index.html

If a Chinese researcher was criticized by the US government and media, it would be included in his Wikipedia page. The right thing is to mention both criticism and praise of his work, and let the reader decide.

Chinese newspaper Global Times has criticized Zenz's claim that 80% of newly placed IUDs in China in 2018 were fitted in Xinjiang. It cited publicly available government statistics indicating that the actual number was 8.7%, concluding that the 80% figure "cannot be arrived at by any calculation, except by misplacing the decimal point."
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1193454.shtml

An editorial in China Daily criticized the "Karakax list" - a list verified by Zenz of 311 Uyghur residents from Karakax county in Xinjiang who have been sent to Xinjiang's re-education camps - stating that only 19 people in the list have overseas relations, instead of all of them as alleged. It also criticized the list's assertion that Uyghurs are imprisoned just because they pray at home or keep in touch with relatives overseas, calling it "too absurd to believe", adding " if praying at home was a crime, then all Uyghurs would be imprisoned."

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/23/WS5e526719a310128217279993.html

Further sources:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-01-04/Ajit-Singh-on-Xinjiang-misinformation-Who-is-Adrian-Zenz--MYIQXMdmms/index.html

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-11/Xinjiang-Separating-fact-from-fiction-in-recent-media-reports-S26kn9ZBok/index.html

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1180434.shtml

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1197187.shtml

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1197187.shtml

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1194066.shtml

After all, if the US government criticized a Chinese researcher by name, it would all over his BLP page. Why not for western researches? It's a government we're talking about. Which IS A high-quality source as specified by BLP policy. It's a government thats saying it. So the Chinese government is a no brainer.

And as for state media, we have to reach a consensus on whether they are high quality sources or not. China Daily and CGTN are not listed on the RS page. AS for GT, it is listed, and the page states that there is "no consensus on the reliability of the Global Times", and that it is considered biased. We need to reach a consensus if we can include it if it is properly attributed.
Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 17:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Global Times, CGTN, and China Daily are unreliable sources. Their unreliability is independent of their state media status. You appear to be confused about how wikipedia works and are attempting to insert a WP:False balance into the piece. We don’t give equal time to both sides or anything like that. I would advise you to check out Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard as all three sources are currently under discussion and nascent consensus in all three cases is that they are unreliable. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Also just FYI you cant use “no consensus” sources on a WP:BLP, you can only use reliable sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

In that case, you should have no problem in including the criticisms of the Chinese GOVERNMENT, since they have been attested by good-quality reliable sources such as CNN and Al Jazeera? Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 19:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes we can say that there has been critiscism etc from the Chinese government and source it to the WP:RS which say that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:42, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Far from being "confused", I merely repeated Wikipedia policies. If a government X criticizes a researcher Y, and there is an RS for it, why not include it? We both know that if X was US and Y was a Chinese or Russian, Wikipedia editors would have done it in minutes. But since X is China and Y is an anti-China researcher, it's still not included on Y's Wikipedia page. Which I'm going to do now. Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 10:42, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Neutral observer here, the Adrian Zenz article definitely needs some balancing, especially considering the contoversial topic surrounding Xinjiang in addition to his personal views. I don't see why it should be left out as per WP:NEUTRAL, as much as how some Wikipedians might not like it. Telsho (talk) 12:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)— Telsho (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

We leave them out per WP:BLP, WP:NEUTRAL has nothing to do with this. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:13, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Actually that discussion is already going on in this talk page on other sections. This section is only about criticisms of Zenz from the Chinese government and media - and consensus has been reached on the former. There is no RS currently that states Zenz's views on homosexuality etc. as far as I know - hence the problem. All sources that state this are all unreliable as per BLP standards, which seem to be a bit higher than those of other pages it seems.

I suggest you revert your changes to the page before someone else does. Also - Cholima report is not a reliable source on anything. You might as well just cite that guy's tweets as a source. Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 13:14, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no real "praise" or praise section in this article so the whole premise of this discussion is pretty much invalid. Criticism and praise sections should generally avoided per WP:CRIT. As per Horse Eye Jack, this is a WP:BLP, which means that there is even a more stringent requirement to use high-quality WP:RS. Chinese state media and particularly Chinese government sources (https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/) are not RS and utilizing them in this article is a major BLP violation. Loksmythe (talk) 13:42, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

See next section on this page which I've created specifically on this topic. Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 13:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I looked at the reference# 25 Vanderklippe, Nathan (9 March 2021). "Lawsuit against Xinjiang researcher marks new effort to silence critics of China's treatment of Uyghurs". The Globe and Mail.

I did not see how the author arrive the conclusion that "it has publicly confirmed that Zenz's claims are truthful" --Ktchiu (talk) 00:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Many people pointed out that a Youtube footage posted on Mar 16, 2019, by an Uyghur high school girl describing how they harvest cotton seems to contradict Mr. Zenz's claim.

--Ktchiu (talk) 00:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Chinese government sources are not WP:RS for their own views??

@Loksmythe

If one wants to represent the views of the Chinese government, what better source than the government itself, especially if other RS like CNN and Al Jazeera back it up? Do you believe that the government would lie about its own views? Moreover, official Government websites and statements are not specifically mentioned on the WP:RS page.

Of course we have to follow Wikipedia guidelines, but we also have to follow common sense.

What you're saying amounts to this: the Chinese government is NOT an a reliable source for stating that the Chinese government accused Zenz of spreading disinformation. Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 13:47, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

In fact, I would go one step further. The way it currently stands, when a reader reads that the Chinese government has criticized him, and checks that the sources are CNN and Al Jazeera, the first question in their mind would be: "They couldn't find and cite an official statement?" Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 13:50, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I find this really weird too, so where exactly should Wikipedia or Wikipedians get their sources whenever an official statement from the Chinese government is made about a topic related to them? Telsho (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Apparently, Wikipedia readers won't believe the Chinese government when it says that it hates Zenz. They need CNN to tell them the how the Chinese government feels about Zenz!

And of course, is there any doubt in anybody's mind that if the government in question was the US, there would be any discussion at all? Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

If the source was the US government and not for instance an independent state media organization like NPR it could not be used on a BLP. There really isnt any equivilent to reliable state media like NPR in China as none of their media organizations have editorial independence. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:11, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not particularly useful to discuss comparisons between NPR and Chinese state media here. Yes, NPR has more editorial independence. Whether that leads to better and more fact-based reporting is another matter. Yet, you didn't answer the basic question: Can a government's statements be used as an Reliable Source for that government's own views? Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 15:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but not if that view is about a living person. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Not even when the government's views are attributed only to the government, such as by writing "According to government X" or "The X government has..." etc.? If yes, please provide the link to the Wikipedia policy that states explicitly that. Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 15:31, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

WP:BLP and WP:V. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the above two pages anywhere saying exactly that a government's official statement cannot be used as a reliable source on a BLP page for that government's own views on the living person, with proper attribution. So thats just your opinion.

However, government data is considered reliable, as per a citation from Princeton University on WP:V: "To be sure, there are many websites in which you can have confidence: mainstream newspapers, refereed electronic journals, and university, library, and government collections of data." Government data are the same category as government statements, especially when mentioning that government's own views on a subject.

I think that if we provide in-text attribution, we can include the Chinese government's statements about WHAT IT THINKS of the living person.

Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 18:07, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Thats from a page note, not a part of our verifiability policy. The source is also talking about government collections of data not government statements which are a different thing entirely, even the note doesnt support your position. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. Government data and government statements are at the same level. Either you believe both, or you believe neither. You can't have it both ways, especially when it all is attributed. Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 18:41, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I understand that you disagree, do you want to take this concern to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard? Are you under the impression that all sources within a government are of equal reliability? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

lol, Adrian Zenz's own published work is apparently not even a reliable source on himself according to biased editors who dominate these pages, nevermind the Chinese government talking about its own views- 86.6.171.132 (talk) 14:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there actual chinese gov documents self claiming to punish women with Internment?

I read one paragragh in the current article.

Zenz has also published research, using public Chinese government documents found on the internet, that showed that the Chinese government has spent tens of millions of dollars since 2016 on a birth control surgery program that includes cash incentives for sterilization procedures and makes birth control violations punishable by internment in the Xinjiang re-education camps.

Basically the paragragh is claiming that the chinese gov is literally publishing public gov documents on the internet, that is admitting that they makes birth control violations punishable with actual internment in the Xinjiang re-education camps.

Where is the actual source that specifically claims that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MangoTareeface9 (talk • contribs) 13:42, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

FAZ article clarification

Can someone explain what this sentence from the article means?

The article stated that Zenz had analyzed job postings for security personnel in Tibet, compared them with data on self-immolation by Tibetans, and then used that data to draw his conclusions about the Chinese government's policies of repression.

What conclusions did Zenz draw and how did he draw them? And what was unconventional about his method? Currently, this paragraph is simply confusing. I'd do it myself but I don't have access to the FAZ article--if someone wants to post an ungated copy of the article that would also be great. Thanks! 2601:18A:C680:1EB0:C5EE:2949:2F06:8F3D (talk) 16:53, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

For copyright reasons, editors cannot post the entire article (or long passages). However, the relevant quote for that particular sentence seems to be (with English translation from ProQuest):

Zum Beispiel analysierte er Stellenausschreibungen für Sicherheitspersonal in Tibet, verglich sie mit Daten zu Selbstverbrennungen von Tibetern und zog daraus Schlüsse über die Repressionspolitik der chinesischen Regierung.
[For example, he analyzed job postings for security personnel in Tibet, compared them with data on self-immolation by Tibetans, and drew conclusions about the Chinese government's policies of repression.]

The above quote was given as an example for unconventional, which the article uses in its own voice:

Er hatte kaum Veröffentlichungen vorzuweisen, unterrichtete an einer randseitigen evangelikalen Bildungsstätte, und seine unkonventionellen Forschungsmethoden weckten nur wenig Interesse in der Fachwelt. [...] Sogar er selbst spricht von „skurrilen Datenarbeiten“, die ihm zeitweise „wie eine irre Zeitverschwendung“ vorgekommen seien.
[He had hardly any publications to show, taught at a marginal evangelical educational institution, and his unconventional research methods aroused little interest in the professional world. [...] Even he himself speaks of "bizarre data work" that at times seemed "like a crazy waste of time".]

— MarkH₂₁^talk 16:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'm still not really clear what the takeaway is supposed to be. Can we say anything about what conclusions he drew? And how the FAZ piece evaluates them? The quotes you posted seem to be explaining that he was discounted by the scholarly community initially, but were his methods/conclusions later accepted? Apologies for this game of telephone... 128.36.7.84 (talk) 02:46, 29 August 2020 (UTC) (Edit: I'm the original IP—my address keeps changing for some reason. I should really create an account.)

The part about being largely ignored academically was talking about his earlier work on Tibet, which is why that is in the "Tibet" subsection of this WP article. The FAZ article later talks about Zenz's work on Xinjiang being the first non-anecdotal evidence for repression in the Xinjiang re-education camps, which is mentioned in the "Xinjiang" subsection of this WP article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:51, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Right, I realized that its location in the "Tibet" section and its reference to "Tibet" strongly suggested that it was about Tibet. I've now managed to get the FAZ article myself so my earlier questions are moot. For anyone else interested: the article doesn't say what Zenz's conclusions about Tibet in particular were, or whether they're reliable. It mentions his unconventional research methods on Tibet to show how surprising it was that he became so prominent. His research on Xinjiang has been accepted as solid by the UN and Western governments (and the FAZ appears to endorse it), perhaps suggesting that his earlier Tibet work was also good, but that last point is beyond the scope of the article. What's in the mainspace page is a fair summary of the first paragraph of the FAZ article, although it reads weirdly out of context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.34.182.25 (talk) 21:39, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Zenz didn't actually go to Tibet to collect data but researches via the internet and uses the ad posting for security guards and connects it with monks self-immolation as if they are solidly connected. That is not just unconventional but unprofessional as he doesn't know the deeper context of those ads and the article did not ever suggest that his earlier Tibet work was good. In fact, it very clearly stated that his methods were deemed as non-arousing by the other professionals. And even Zenz admitted that he felt his work was crazily messy tho he felt that God was giving him a path. There are many different reasons why private security guards can be posted to Tibet and there are multiple reasons why monks self immolate. Zenz only really knows superficially that security guards are being requested but a hiring ad for security guards doesn't necessarily mean it's associated with monk self-immolation or china's treatment of Tibetans. Yet he was making such conclusions based on not knowing the deeper context in which it was unrealistic for him to possibly know that solidly.MangoTareeface9 (talk) 22:35, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

talk:MangoTareeface9 that's your assessment but we don't know if it is FAZ's assessment or that of the scholars they are referring to. His research appears to seek out open source big data from which inferences can be drawn, which is unconventional (especially in anthropology) but not in itself unprofessional and not in itself methodologically flawed. We'd need to look at what other scholarly assessments say before drawing any conclusions in Wikipedia's voice.BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:12, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

PS looking at the citations of his work would give an indication of what other scholars in his field think of it: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ALWIr18AAAAJ&hl=en BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Going the open source route is becoming more and more popular for social sciences researchers unable to get field time because of autocratic regimes on the ground. I’m sure if Zenz had been allowed to conduct fieldwork in Tibet would have. You fault Zenz for not knowing the deeper context but no non-Chinese academics do because the region has been locked down for more than sixty years (and the Chinese ones cant be trusted given the complete lack of academic freedom in that country). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 January 2021

Adrian Zenz is NOT a sinologist Please change: Adrian Zenz (born 1974) is a German anthropologist and sinologist known for his ArthurYase (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2021 (UTC) To: Adrian Zenz (born 1974) is a German anthropologist known for his ArthurYase (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

References

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Bestagon (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Deliberate censoring of the source of 1 million count without real reasoning - undelete it

Newsweek Japan reported that the accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's initial estimate of 1 million, were sourced by Istiqlal, an Uyghur exile operated media organization based in Turkey who had said they obtained the numbers from a reliable local public security source.

That's not an undeniable fact. Even mercor acknowledged that above fact but it has been deleted a month AGO. In straight, Adrian is a anti gay right wing rapture ready evangelical that used the report from an exiled ughur media group to base his 1 million count at face value.

However it seems people have been using false reasons to protect his squeaky reputation. But Wikipedia does not act as a biased PR. It should not remove significant information. The below paragraph should be Added back in as multiple sources back that fact and it shouldn't be hidden if wikipedia is impartial. Ie. https://www.newsweekjapan.jp/stories/world/2018/03/89-3.php

https://edtimes.in/for-incompetent-expert-adrian-zenz-benefits-are-more-important-than-truth/

https://merics.org/en/analysis/where-did-one-million-figure-detentions-xinjiangs-camps-come

Newsweek Japan reported that the accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's initial estimate of 1 million, were sourced by Istiqlal, an Uyghur exile operated media organization based in Turkey who had said they obtained the numbers from a reliable local public security source. 49.179.9.213 (talk) 08:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Also not like it makes any genuine difference but I am the very same user as 49.179.9.213 but forgot to login and you can send a reply to me. MangoTareeface9 (talk) 08:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia will always favor western "reputable" sources on issues such as this even if they're literally all coming from Zenz, who this article seems to whitewash all criticism of (such as the fact that he thinks China is literally the biblical anti-christ and has also never been to Xinjiang in his life). 47.218.105.234 (talk) 00:34, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed some editors keep deleting that Info with dishonest reasons. Like recently gaslighting that the sources are unreliable. MERIC may be biased but I don't think they will lie excessively about such things like the accounting figures to base the 1 million count was sourced from an exiled ughur media group in turkey. It's factual and noteworthy considering that the source aka Istiqal is pretty biased source to believe at face value. But it's obvious that people want to hide the information from public awareness. Smh. https://merics.org/en/analysis/where-did-one-million-figure-detentions-xinjiangs-camps-come Nvtuil (talk) 09:08, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Is Zenz a reliable source

I searched the corresponding archives and it appears to never have been debated, but I think it'd be important to establish whether he is reliable, reliable only on some issues or completely unreliable. Hobbitschuster (talk) 03:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

A reliable source for what? For this article, whether he is a reliable source for information about himself, see WP:ABOUTSELF. For other things, it would dependent on how he was being used and best discussed case by case in the relevant articles. No individual can be described as always or never a reliable source: see WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:14, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

It really says a lot about who's who at Wikipedia that Adrian Zenz's book isn't a reliable source on Adrian Zenz's book, and the Chinese government isn't a reliable source on the Chinese government's views of Adrian Zenz. Hmmmmmmmmmmm... very neutral encyclopedia you're working on here (insert WandaVision winking meme here) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:4a81:b800:9965:95e7:d636:57e6 (talk • contribs) 03:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

This seems a bit like a WP:FORUM-eqsue thread. For posterity sake, however, I'll respond. Per WP:USEBYOTHERS, how accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. The more widespread and consistent this use is, the stronger the evidence. For example, widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts, whereas widespread doubts about reliability weigh against it. The Globe and Mail, which is a perennial reliable source, notes that he has been "singularly influential in discovering, translating and publicizing government reports, procurement documents and internal recommendations that have charted authorities’ shifting campaigns in Xinjiang" and that "The Globe and Mail and other Western news outlets have cited his work." The Globe and Mail also describes China's depiction of life in Xinjiang as being truth-deficient, writing that "around the world, Chinese emissaries are presenting glossy, factually questionable accounts of life in Xinjiang." The Globe and Mail also describes China's response to Zenz's publications, in particular, writing that "[t]he Chinese government has called his [Zenz's] findings 'lies' – even when it confirmed them." (The article cites examples of declining birth rates and forced labor in Xinjiang as two areas where China, in particular, has simultaneously confirmed Zenz's claims while also calling him a liar.) The Globe and Mail, of course, is not the only reliable source that describes it this way. As noted in the article itself, Reuters has corroborated Zenz's findings on forced labor in Tibet and Zenz has been widely cited by reliable media outlets for his investigations into Xinjiang (and to a lesser extent Tibet). There are good numbers of reliable sources that have been reporting positively on his work, while I haven't encountered reports from reliable sources that would suggest that his extant published work on the treatment of minorities in West China is unreliable. Taken together, I believe that this reflects positively upon the reliability of his works that have been published. (Adrian Zenz is, of course, a person, not a publisher. WP:SPS applies when he self-publishes information, though most of his relevant work on the topic has been published either in a think tank publication or by an academic journal; I am not sure the extent to which this particular criterion would apply here.) — Mikehawk10 (talk) 06:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Zenz's recent discussion that events in Tibet are analygous to those in Xinjiang, has been shown to be (let's say) exaggerated. See Robbie Barnett's article -- https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-policies-its-far-west-claim-tibet-xinjiang-equivalence Tibetologist (talk) 15:25, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I've read through the blog post you've linked. I would note that the article is a blog post that the Council on Foreign Relations marks as an opinion piece, so the writing should be attributed to the author if we choose to use it (though it appears another editor has removed it for the time being). The opinion piece seems to save its criticism for to the public media reporting on the Reuters story and the Zenz information, not for the information Zenz provided himself (though it does single out his NY Times opinion piece for being more forceful in its language than his report). The piece reserves its sharpest criticism for a podcast that we should not use as a source, though it importantly picks out that there's been a good deal of speculation in the media that claims to be sourced to Zenz. I don't think that including information on the opinion piece author's reaction podcast would be WP:DUE, much like the author that removed the content sourced to the piece from the article. We can't really use the article to overrule the vast majority of WP:RS reporting on the topic. I'm wondering if we should include the opinions expressed in the piece inasmuch as it criticizes MSM coverage of Zenz's work, though I am unsure as to what that would look like. I'm also not sure that the single opinion piece is WP:DUE, and I have a concern regarding whether the piece is a part of a non-news blog since I can't find information on editorial oversight of CFR blogs other than CFR's declaration that these blog posts reflect only the views of the publishing author. Do you have any information regarding the editorial oversight on CFR's pieces published on its blogs (or the Asia Unbound blog, in particular)? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:34, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Barnett used to direct Tibet studies at Columbia, is now a researcher at U London, and CFR published the piece, so we can be confident at least that Barnett is a recognized expert. I agree that citing his post with attribution is reasonable. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that a regional expert would be taken aback by mischaracterizations of Zenz's findings by a number of journalists, and along political lines. As you point out Mike, Barnett also has some criticism of Zenz as well, though that criticism is minor by comparison. -Darouet (talk) 20:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The reason I linked to the Barnett piece in the article is because I felt that the article substantially overstated the Reuter findings. Barnett argues carefully that Reuters did not corroborate widespread forced labour in Tibet. I would be happy to see the mention of Reuters stated more softly. Tibetologist (talk) 21:11, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Never mind, it looks like someone has already handled this very well in the meantime. Tibetologist (talk) 21:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Zenz has said "The BBC commissioned my research."

https://twitter.com/adrianzenz/status/1146904332299907072?lang=en

Does this make him a BBC "investigative journalist" and therefore a RS? Keith McClary (talk) 18:07, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Adrian mentions in his paper that there's no official information on number of detainees. So he didn't use official chinese documents. Despite what the current article is wrongfully implying. But Instead he uses a report from an exiled ughur media group as his source that claims to have come across a leaked report that has the number of detainees. What is shocking is that he regards that source as completely factual at face value albeit admitting that the source could be lying hence his claim was a speculation. But That is how he got his 1 million count in his own words and it seems rather questionable to use literally an exiled ughur group plus anecdotal accounts to make his estimate. Page 27 https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/4j6rq/

One editor here tried to claim that it's not that important to tell how he got his 1 million count estimate. Except for the fact that his methods are clearly speculative and so at the very least, people should mention on how he actually got the 1 million count estimate and not omit it. Nvtuil (talk) 09:54, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

He is treated as an expert by large number of sources and the UN. Oranjelo100 (talk) 15:03, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

And that's an issue. It appears that western politics isn't anywhere as impartial when it comes to regime change. Yet Wikipedia overly treats it as an infallible source. And hence why the western hawks got away in lying about debt trap diplomacy and Bolivia using flawed methodology. Ie. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/how-the-oas-and-the-medias-lack-of-scrutiny-caused-a-violent-coup-in-bolivia/

Wikipedia needs to be better than that and not have bias towards govs but instead to evidence.

I have noticed how western governments instead of explaining how he got the evidence in detail. Media is mostly quoting that it's what "experts" say and according to them. That's called lies of omission and shouldn't be tolerated. My issue with the current wiki article is that people have no issues outright claiming that ISTIQAL got leaked Chinese docs of the camp accounting figures as if they're established facts. That's wrong. How do you know for a solid fact that a group of exiled ughyurs are telling the truth and not just lies for their agenda? We don't know that for a fact and yet we call people experts who claims it as a fact. That seems shady to me. https://sizeof.cat/post/adrian-zenz-jamestown-foundation-manipulate-free-press/

Nvtuil (talk) 00:24, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Nvtuil: As Horse Eye Jack (who now edits under Horse Eye's Back) has noted on this talk page before, Size of cat is a self-published blog by a non-expert. If that is your source for backing your analysis, that doesn't seem to carry much weight.

Additionally, the pre-print of Zenz's that you have included in your response contains a link to the peer-reviewed journal that published Zenz's work. Generally, when a study is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it tends to support the credibility of the study, not diminish it.

Further, Wikipedia has a verifiability policy and a reliable sourcing policy. There are also a list of perennial reliable sources that have undergone evaluation by the community. Widespread use of a source by reliable sources without comment for facts, per WP:USEBYOTHERS, is evidence that a source themselves is reliable. I don't think there's much of a ground to stand on here that would point to Zenz being unreliable, especially considering how reliable sources have reported on them. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

neutral and objective language needed.

statement like he "reveal" something about china implies it is a know fact. it is not, this is basically his "claim" and should be worded as such. his position should not be taken and worded as authoritative fact given the lack of alternate source that verified those claim. 101.127.15.2 (talk) 21:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Instead of treating his claims as if they're actually hard proven facts. It should be more objective and be a minimal mention that his 1 million count is a speculation. And in his own words, he admits that his sources he had used, can be dishonest and that he had used anecdotal accounts plus literally an exiled ughur media group who claimed to have a leaked Chinese document showing the figures in the camp. Despite those are clearly not impartial sources given their self interests. Page 27 https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/4j6rq/ Nvtuil (talk) 12:50, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Organizational issue with two sections on Tibet

Tibet is discussed in two sections, but the difference between them is mostly chronological (2017 for the first part, 2020 for the second part) and not in fact a distinction between his work and its reception. Tibetologist (talk) 20:52, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

@Tibetologist: Done. It should be clearly split now. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:22, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Recent revert appears to have reinstated MOS:CLAIM violations

I am looking to proceed without edit warring, and I would kindly ask for input on the following:

Should the sentence, "The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's estimate of 1 million had been sourced from Istiqal, an Uyghur exile media group based in Turkey, who had claimed to have gotten chinese leaked documents" be substantially changed, in light of MOS:CLAIM and the WSJ source included below?

In the Xinjiang subsection within the Anthropology section, Nvtuil has reverted my edits and inserted the sentence The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's estimate of 1 million had been sourced from Istiqal, an Uyghur exile media group based in Turkey, who had claimed to have gotten chinese leaked documents.. The editor also removed information that I had added that had been sourced to a report from The Wall Street Journal, a newspaper that is listed as WP:GREL on WP:RSP. I believe that this sentence violates MOS:CLAIM and that it does not give the full context of the sourcing.

• The source from WSJ states that To arrive at the estimate, Mr. Zenz extrapolated from a partial tally of detainees attributed in Japanese media reports to a Xinjiang security official. He cross-referenced that with testimony from former detainees and the documents he unearthed indicating the size and number of camps.
• MOS:CLAIM states that [t]o write that someone asserted or claimed something can call their statement's credibility into question, by emphasizing any potential contradiction or implying a disregard for evidence and that said, stated, described, wrote, commented, and according to are almost always neutral and accurate. Extra care is needed with more loaded terms.
• In light of these, I made an edit that changed the line to The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's estimate of 1 million had been based upon Japanese public reporting,¹ including reporting from Newsweek Japan,¹⁷¹⁸ on documents leaked by an anonymous Xinjiang security official¹ to a Turkish Uyghur exile media group.¹⁷¹⁸
• The editor reverted my edit, writing in the edit summary "Stop meddling with the edits. Now instead of deleting the info like before, you just weirdly made the previous edit both incorrect and ridiculously hard to read.. I just made the edit straightforward to read again."

I believe that the sentence re-inserted in a revert of my edits have violated MOS:CLAIM. I also believe that my edit was readable and that my insertion was backed by a reliable source, so I find the allegation that I inserted "incorrect" information to be a bit odd, as the WSJ is a world-class paper and the article has been published without any sort of update/correction to this for over two years. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 16:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Japanese source sholud be mentioned. He probably used multiple sources. Oranjelo100 (talk) 17:36, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Quit the false red herring. Anyone impartial see what you wrote and it was hard to read. (See below) The reason why I edited it was not as nefarious as you make it to be.

Previously I had added in these edits.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1016272237

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1016084038

I wrote this yesterday -

The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's estimate of 1 million had been sourced from Istiqal, an Uyghur exile media group based in Turkey, who had claimed to have gotten chinese leaked documents.

That information was what you had also previously deleted days ago. And then later approx 2 days ago, you attacked that information yet again with unnecessary and weird editing in that you have made it impossible for the public to read. Which is the same effect of deleting that info. You had earlier changed it to;

The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's estimate of 1 million had been based upon Japanese public reporting,[1] including reporting from Newsweek Japan,[17][18] on documents leaked by an anonymous Xinjiang security official[1] to a Turkish Uyghur exile media group

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1016142123

After reading that, no offense. I couldn't make heads or tails of what I have just read. It took me several tries to finally understand it. Nobody can easily understand what you just wrote. People can understand my edits easily. Clearly my edits were drastically easier to read unlike yours. That is obvious why I edited it yesterday so people can actually understand it as I made it easier to read. Unlike what you did which is just borderline Vandalism or unnecessary editing and yet you make those accusation at me on my talk page. But I am not here wanting an edit war either but that does not mean I turn a blind eye on people making it so hard to read specific sentences. If you got issues with my edits, by all means. Discuss it here but my edit to fix your bad edits was not wrong.

And fyi, the full context is that the alleged "leaked documents" is directly according to Istiqal's claims, who are a group of exiled ughyurs. That's not really hard proof that such a thing happened. Istiqal is hardly a neutral impartial source since they have their agenda yet a lot of western media are just taking them at their word. That's not decent journalism. It is no different to western media's approach on Libya where they just took the rebels' words at face value and presented it just like that. Western media is certainly not immune to jumping to wrong conclusions when the evidence is thin and misled people in the past. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/western-media-in-libya-jo_b_933901

That's why Wikipedia should be mindful of that and have fairer Level of scrutiny. Hence unlike Wall Street Journal, I gave the full fairer context that ISTIQAL indeed claimed to have received leaked chinese docs as that is a fact. And people should know that. I welcome civil discussions on that but Wikipedia can not just mindlessly quote western politics. It needs to be loyal to what is the hard facts here and the hard facts is that ISTIQAL, an exiled ughyurs group claimed to have gotten leaked documents from china and western media is treating Istiqal's claims as if it's proven. Despite how would they really know for certain? Hence my edit was at least neutral unlike WSJ. I didn't make up facts or pushed unproven narratives like them.

Nvtuil (talk) 00:34, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Nvtuil: I would like to respond to various points that you bring up in your long reply.

• Your statement, "my edit was at least neutral unlike WSJ. I didn't make up facts or pushed unproven narratives like them." is clearly WP:OR. The WSJ is listed as WP:GREL on WP:RSP, meaning that the community believes that it is generally reliable as a source for facts. On a further note, WSJ noted that "Japanese media" attributed the documents to the officials, which seems to indicate that it was more than just ISTIQAL who was making the attribution.
• You stated that "nobody can easily understand what you just wrote." It appears from their response in this discussion that at least Oranjelo100 understands what I wrote. I would assume that there are more people that do so as well.
• You stated that "The reason why I edited it was not as nefarious as you make it to be". I literally quoted your entire edit summary for the most recent edit and my only comment on it was that it was your edit summary when you reveryed my edit.
• You stated that "That is obvious why I edited it yesterday so people can actually understand it as I made it easier to read. Unlike what you did which is just borderline Vandalism or unnecessary editing and yet you make those accusation at me on my talk page." WP:VANDAL states that vandalism is defined as "editing (or other behavior) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of all human knowledge." I don't believe that adding information that is obtained from a reliable source could be reasonably construed as vandalism. I would respectfully ask you to strike the portion of your comments that accuse me of committing "borderline vandalism".
• You've cited a Huffington Post Contributor piece in your response. Per WP:RSP, these are generally unreliable for statements of fact, owing to their near-zero editorial oversight and their lack of a reputation for fact-checking these sorts of articles.

I think that this is better in line with WP:V to include the information from WSJ in the article in addition to the information from the other sources, and I am taken a bit aback by the accusation of "borderline vandalism" being pointed at my good-faith edits that have found additional information from a reliable source and incorporated it into the article.

Returning to the question at the top of this discussion section, I don't see any reason in your writing that is based in community consensus or wikipedia policy for why we should exclude the information provided in the WSJ source (which, by the way, is already widely used throughout the article). And, I don't see a compelling reason that we should continue to use "claimed", provided the coverage from RS on this.— Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10 The previous sentence before you came in and edited, was

The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's initial estimate of 1 million were sourced from Istiqlal, an Uyghur exile operated media organization based in Turkey, who had said they obtained the numbers from a reliable local public security source.[29][30

Then you later changed that into;

The accounting figures of the camps that were used to base Zenz's estimate of 1 million had been based upon Japanese public reporting,[1] including reporting from Newsweek Japan,[17][18] on documents leaked by an anonymous Xinjiang security official[1] to a Turkish Uyghur exile media group

I think we can both agree that your editing could be significantly improved in a way that makes it less of a "word salad" and be easier for the public to read.

 Nvtuil (talk) 03:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

You can't just throw around unsubtantiated generalisations and claim that western media can never lie. WSJ at times have misled. They promote debt trap diplomacy in their articles despite there was no real evidence to back any of that. Read what they actually wrote.

When Sri Lanka couldn’t repay a Chinese loan for building Hambantota port, a Chinese firm took out a 99-year lease on the strategic Indian Ocean harbor. 

That's not even close to being true. Sri Lanka debt crisis was actually more to western loans and credit policies than Chinese ones as stated by actual scholars who ignored the smearing campaigns of western politics.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-afraid-of-the-belt-and-road-11560108561 https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy

WSJ outright misled as proven by ironically western scholars. And yet you just made it seem like no matter what. People should treat major western reporting as all reliable and not to be questioned with. That makes Wikipedia just another conduit for western political views. In Iraq and Libya, we have seen just how western politics can lie excessively. And btw it's not Huffington Post saying that alone. It was directly the U.K. Parliament report that details how NATO's 2011 war in Libya was based on lies. https://www.salon.com/2016/09/16/u-k-parliament-report-details-how-natos-2011-war-in-libya-was-based-on-lies/

So it would be a mistake for Wikipedia to just treat western media every statement at face value without the minimal scrutiny given history. And the fact is that Istiqal, an exiled ughyur media group claimed to have received leaked documents from china. And we are just taking them at their word. That's an assumption and lazy journalism in which is no different to how western media acted in Libya. Nvtuil (talk) 03:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

 WSJ is listed as WP:GREL on WP:RSP, meaning that the community believes that it is generally reliable as a source for facts. 

Generally does not even mean it's always reliable. WSJ btw are the same people who have misled the public by pushing claims like debt trap diplomacy even when there weren't any solid evidence to back it. Hence they can't automatically be treated as a trusted source given their actual history of misleading the public. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/

Libya war Journalism was misleading precisely because it just quoted biased experts who were taking biased rebels words simply at face value. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-humanitarian-intervention/

And the Japanese Newsweek sources made it clear that the accounting figures had come from Istiqal, who had claimed to received them from a reliable local public security source. I think the Japanese report was very neutral as they don't outright assume that an exiled ughyur separatist media group is even a neutral source to be believed just like that. And the original edits before you came in, were decent enough. Nvtuil (talk) 03:38, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Frankly both versions of the sentence were poorly worded as they both had the same difficult to parse opening clause. I've rewritten it, kept the reference to Istiqlal, and added the important information from the WSJ piece. See what you both think. Sidenote: this isn't the place to litigate the WSJ's general reliability or whether Chinese debt traps are real. Harland1 (talk) 05:03, 7 April 2021 (UTC)