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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 79.70.190.198 (talk) at 13:11, 9 September 2021 (→‎Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.



Origins of COVID-19: Current consensus

  1. There is no consensus on whether the lab leak theory is a "conspiracy theory" or a "minority scientific viewpoint". (RfC, February 2021)
  2. There is consensus against defining "disease and pandemic origins" (broadly speaking) as a form of biomedical information for the purpose of WP:MEDRS. However, information that already fits into biomedical information remains classified as such, even if it relates to disease and pandemic origins (e.g. genome sequences, symptom descriptions, phylogenetic trees). (RfC, May 2021)
  3. In multiple prior non-RFC discussions about manuscripts authored by Rossana Segreto and/or Yuri Deigin, editors have found the sources to be unreliable. Specifically, editors were not convinced by the credentials of the authors, and concerns were raised with the editorial oversight of the BioEssays "Problems & Paradigms" series. (Jan 2021, Jan 2021, Jan 2021, Feb 2021, June 2021, ...)
  4. The consensus of scientists is that SARS-CoV-2 is likely of zoonotic origin. (January 2021, May 2021, May 2021, May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, WP:NOLABLEAK (frequently cited in discussions))
  5. The March 2021 WHO report on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should be referred to as the "WHO-convened report" or "WHO-convened study" on first usage in article prose, and may be abbreviated as "WHO report" or "WHO study" thereafter. (RfC, June 2021)
  6. The "manufactured bioweapon" idea should be described as a "conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice. (January 2021, February 2021, May 2021, May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, June 2021, June 2021, July 2021, July 2021, July 2021, August 2021)
  7. The scientific consensus (and the Frutos et al. sources ([1][2]) which support it), which dismisses the lab leak, should not be described as "based in part on Shi [Zhengli]'s emailed answers." (RfC, December 2021)
  8. The American FBI and Department of Energy finding that a lab leak was likely should not be mentioned in the lead of COVID-19 lab leak theory, because it is WP:UNDUE. (RFC, October 2023)
  9. The article COVID-19 lab leak theory may not go through the requested moves process between 4 March 2024 and 3 March 2025. (RM, March 2024)

Last updated (diff) on 15 March 2024 by Novem Linguae (t · c)

POV fork

This is an obvious POV fork. You can publish it on a personal blog, but it's completely unsuitable as a Wikipedia article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically a POV fork of what article in your opinion? Adoring nanny (talk) 13:17, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is not about the outbreak generally, merely about the cover-up of it. A POV fork is an article about the same topic, which this is not. That should become more clear as the portion about suppression of research is expanded. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:50, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thucydides, let's call it a Fork and comment on how it adheres to the WP:NPOV policy. Remember this: Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" can itself be based on a POV judgement, it may be best not to refer to the fork as "POV" except in extreme cases of persistent disruptive editing. Forich (talk) 17:00, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Forich: This draft was created explicitly in order to argue a particular POV, and it is written in an extremely non-neutral manner. The whole draft just comes across as a highly selective (and sometimes downright false) collection of information, presented in a highly argumentative style. Just take this paragraph as an example:

By 27 December 2019, the local Government knew there was an outbreak of pneumonia. At least one healthcare worker had already been infected, which, under international healthcare regulations, requires a country to report an outbreak to the World Health Organization, as it is considered proof of person-to-person spread. However, China did not report the outbreak at that time. Instead, the WHO noticed a media report of the outbreak on 31 December. On 3 January, when China acknowledged the outbreak to the WHO, it called it "viral pneumonia of unknown cause", even though it had the complete genetic sequence at that time. It also said that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, even though 20 cases had already been confirmed among medical workers.

Nearly every claim in this paragraph is wrong, and the paragraph is written as an argument, not as a neutral presentation of facts. First, the government did not know what was going on by 27 December 2019. That's the date that the very first patient test result came back. To expect the hospital, much less the central government to understand the magnitude or nature of an outbreak of a novel virus because of a single patient's test result is just unreasonable. Secondly, the "media report of the outbreak on 31 December" refers to official Chinese government announcements of the outbreak, both issued by local health authorities and announced to an audience of hundreds of millions of viewers on CCTV (one of China's English-language state media outlets, CTGN, also announced the outbreak on 31 December 2019). To claim that China did not report the outbreak at that time and then to reference this media coverage, without mentioning that the coverage was in official government outlets is deeply deceptive. Finally, the claims of concealing the cause of the pneumonia on 3 January rest on genetic sequencing that would have been, at the time, barely a day or two old. The argument seems to be that unless every breaking, possibly uncertain diagnostic test was publicly announced within 24 hours, there was a cover-up.
All of this information is already covered in a far more neutral manner in COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China. This draft is just POV fork of that article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:56, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit summary states that the draft uses a deprecated source. Which source is that? Obviously if something is from a deprecated source, I don't want to use it. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:38, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't put that in the edit summary. That's an automated tag that gets added whenever you link to CGTN, which is pretty silly, given that I'm explicitly discussing what Chinese state media reported.
The problems with this draft are not minor issues, such as which exact source is used. The problems are much more fundamental: it is a POV fork meant to push a particular point of view. The entire presentation is highly selective and misleading, and much of the information is actually false (such as the claim that the Chinese government did not report the outbreak on 31 December 2019). -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:38, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that I could have written the "failure to report" better. The failure was a failure to report it to the WHO, which they are supposed to do. I've fixed that, so thanks. However, December 31 is not December 27. So the failure to report "at that time" is correct. As for the claim that the presentation is selective, you are more than welcome to add parts you believe I've missed. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:04, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Thucydides411:, all right I'll look deeper into the issues you raise, I'll try to find a free hour tomorrow. Forich (talk) 20:00, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Forich: You seem to be pretty neutral among the editors here, so I'm certainly happy to have you take a look. One reason I don't think it's a POV fork is that multiple portions would be off topic at the Covid in China article. Furthermore, much of the Covid in China article would be off-topic here. A POV fork is by definition a second article about the same topic. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:37, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The material that is not a POV fork of COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China is a POV fork of Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. Creating forks in order to pack in POV material that has been rejected from other articles is poor form. Even the title of this draft gives away the intent, not to mention the outrageously POV style the body is written in. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

additional references

[3] NYT Taiwan News. WSJ Adoring nanny (talk) 00:57, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

the cabal will never let this be moved to mainspace. and if it gets enough coverage, it will completely be removed by select admins. have fun! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:9200:1310:1467:8d30:fcf1:26f7 (talk • contribs)

lol

Chinese top official defected to US, gave Biden administration info about Wuhan lab, report suggests

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/international/us/chinese-top-official-defected-to-us-gave-biden-administration-info-about-wuhan-lab-report-suggests/articleshow/83626518.cms

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:9200:1310:f05c:e555:cebd:40a9 (talk • contribs)

I'm aware of the report. I don't think it's sufficiently well sourced to add at this time. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:49, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on key issues with the draft and its conversion to article

The title

This issue was raised by @Bakkster Man: above. Per WP:NPOVNAME and being a descriptive title, we should check whether "China COVID-19 cover-up" is judgmental, which we should avoid. The best treatment of a cover-up in Wikipedia is when one can write about it a posteriori, as historians would do, for instance: Dreyfus affair, Iran–Contra affair, or Watergate scandal. The most recent of these is the Iran-Contra affair, which ended in 1987 and had its Wikipedia entry created in 2001, already with the "affair" adjective. In fact, searching through the archives of news agencies I found an AP report from 1987 that already calls it "affair". I performed google searches with the keywords China COVID-19 pandemic affair scandal, and there seems to be almost no results.

An explanation of this void in results, could be that the expected timeline of a cover-up in any country depends on it having a functioning free press. In the US or Norway, for example, we can expect such a story to develop from ongoing cover-up -> a newspaper brokes the scandal -> a formal report from an independent comission is published -> encyclopedias call it "scandal" or "affair". I am hesitant to expect that a similar timeline applies to a scandal from China given that it is in position 177 at the World Press Freedom Index, only above Turkmenistan and North Korea.

In fact, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests are to this day not named massacres, or not even scandal in Wikipedia. Nonetheless, the Tiananmen Square Protest page has a section called Media coverage that is divided into official narrative and foreign media, which I guess was done as a device to more properly account in a NPOV way the event.

In summary, the most non-judgmental title I can come up is "Censorship of health matters in China during the COVID-19 pandemic". Or, if we are to follow what Wikipedia did to cover doping in Russia, we could try to pick the worst offense and name it by its main characteristic with no adjectives. For example, if the worst offense in the discussed draft was the circumstances that led to the death of Li Wenliang, the article may be named "Squashing of dissenting reporters and whistleblowers in China", and inside the article we report whether that is a systematic practice.


How about COVID-19 Transparency in China? Of course, the article would most likely report on "Lack of COVID-19 Transparency in China". If there's one thing there are almost no RSs for it's "how amazingly transparent the CCP is."
With all of the anti-conspiracy zealotry, I think any page with "Cover-up" is likely to get dive-bombed by constant speedy-deletion tags and edit-warring.
That said, there is definitely a place for a page like this one. The last thing we want is for another page to go up and then get permanently blocked through some official preceding. Just my 2 cents.KristinaLu (talk) 22:01, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Draft's notability to be a stand-alone page

The cover-up needs to have significant coverage in multiple RS that treat it with a deep level of detail. This coverage should have emerged spontaneously, that is, not as a result of promotional activity or indiscriminate publicity. Finally, the notability should not be a mere short-term interest. In my opinion, notability by these criteria is reached by China COVID-19 cover-up.

If we follow the anecdotal evidence from "Doping in Russia", at the time of its creation in 2016, it had only three sections and its edit summary justified the creation as stand alone with this note: "(major doping scandal which has been compared to East Germany and has received significant international media coverage for over a year)". We can do a similar analysis for "China COVID-19 cover-up": is there an extant page on a cover-up from a country's without freedom of press? Again, "Doping in Russia" fits well as a precedent here. Does the China COVID-19 cover-up has received significant international media coverage for over a year? I believe so.

Is there enough non trivial material to have at least a couple of sections in China COVID-19 cover-up? The draft as it is now already has a lot of information. We are allowed per WP:ROC to include "Factors that have influenced subject's form, role, history, public perception, or other noteworthy traits. The effects of these factors on the subject should be plainly apparent; if they are not, additional context is needed. Groups of disparate facts lack such context, and should be avoided."

Another sign that this draft has enough material that is relevant is that the COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China#Government_response section has this template since April 2020: This section may be too long and excessively detailed. Please consider summarizing the material while citing sources as needed. So a split of it can be considered a natural progression from this section, IMHO.

As per my title suggestion above, having the article deal more generally with "transparency" than "cover-up" means that the notability would go way up. So would the number of reliable sources.
There is definitely a need for this page. Since this page is further removed from the WP:MEDRS hegemony that goes on at other pages, editors won't have to deal with the same tedious (and at times unreasonable) constrictions as on at other COVID-related pages.KristinaLu (talk) 22:12, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

POV Fork

Now I address the concern that inserting content of fringe issues, or content that is already managed in other articles as "Controversy" or "Criticism" may constitute a violation of WP:POV Fork. This issue was raised by Thucydides above. He also went on to find many errors in the information, and an unacceptable tone of argument, instead of neutral presentation of facts. Here I will limit my comments just to the POV Fork part, but note that I think the factual errors found can and should be ammended simultaneously as this discussion advances.

Per WP:Weight we notice that we already have an article on COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China with a section called Censorship_and_police_responses. The size of this section is a proxy indicator of how much negative coverage the reactions of the Chinese governement to the pandemic has received . If we create a spin-off of this section that expands its content, multiplying its size, we would be indirectly breaking the balance of the original article by zooming in too much on a subject that perhaps was kept short in the original article exactly because it merited little coverage. The proper way to handle this issue would be to reach consensus on the talk page of the mother article, see if the section can grow, and at some point in its natural growth, editors will feel like the section may deserve its own article to handle size better. Incidentaly, for this draft, that seems to have happened, because COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China#Government_response section is already too big for its original page.

A fair question we should respond about this issue is: Does the positive coverage given in RS to the reaction of the Chinese governement to the pandemic merit that we omit creating a whole article on the negative coverage because it would give a false balance that the negative far outweighs the positive? In my opinion, the negative is much more notable and widespread, so I don't see a problem to launching the draft into article space, at least in this regard. Other editors are invited to comment on this issue, of course.

Per WP:PROFRINGE, some of the facts presented in the draft can be seen as parte of fringe ideas (in Wikipedia's sense) and should be either omited from articles or included with minor or tiny weight in relation to mainstream accepted ideas. By this filter, much of the proposed content on the origin of the pandemic would have to go (at least until further notice in the ongoing discussions in "Investigations on the origin of COVID-19" and related pages, which you may be aware of), much of the praises that the WHO has given to China has to stay, and much of the cherry-picked speculations have to be treated with little weight, attributed to individual opinions, and not in Wikivoice, unless they are explicitely grouped as a systematic pattern in top RS.

An objective question we should pose, is after stripping the draft of the possibly pro-fringe ideas, does it still merits to be a stand alone article? That would be an interesting exercise, perhaps Adoring Nanny can put up a sandbox of how it would look after cutting the controversial parts, and ask us to take a new look. Forich (talk) 12:34, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Forich Every time in the past Wikipedia has had controversial articles, 911, for example, after a period of argument, reflection and discussion, consensus has prevailed and the eventual articles forged from consensus have morphed into excellent examples of the community's best work. We are best when we discuss, and work only from policy.
I make no comment on the contents of your commentary, but I thank you for placing it here FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 20:28, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The draft indeed appears conspiratorial and to be created to push conclusions that are not necessarily those of reliable sources. Something more neutral would be China's local handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, although that is obviously a subtopic of the already existing COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China article... Thus the POV-fork alarm. —PaleoNeonate – 11:09, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
PaleoNeonate makes a good point. I still think "transparency" covers it. There may be a few sources by Tedros and Fauci et al praising China for their "valiant cooperation with humanity", but not much needs to change. In other words, while keeping a ton of content the current concept could be easily worked into "The state of transparency that exists regarding the Chinese government (both in China and worldwide) around COVID-19". All of the sources with their click-thrus will be up and the readers can then draw there own conclusions.KristinaLu (talk) 22:22, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Move to mainspace. Outstanding issues

I've moved this to mainspace, see Special:Diff/1033645030/1034196661 for the rationale. It clearly needs an NPOV title, but a suitable one is not apparent to me. "Chinese government involvement in COVID-19 investigations" is the best I could come up with after a few minutes of mulling. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This should not have been moved to mainspace. The MfD discussion has not been closed, and the severe problems noted in the discussion have not been addressed at all. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 12:59, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV issues are not addressed by deletion. WP:ATD, WP:PRESERVE, etc. Anyone can edit the article and improve it. It is not so lengthy or problematic that it's a WP:TNT case. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:12, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Template text: "You are welcome to edit this page, but please do not blank, merge, or move it, or remove this notice, while the discussion is in progress." —PaleoNeonate – 18:59, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

China's government hindering the WHO's research in Wuhan

You removed the section about China's government hindering the WHO's research in Wuhan, but that's very much relevant. --Leo Navis (talk) 09:02, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
will try to start addressing these issues, help would be appreciated - then do address these issues you're seeing and lets discuss em, but don't just remove, please. --Leo Navis (talk) 09:04, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why is the WHO investigation relevant to this article? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:06, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You are seriously asking why a long-term delay of an investigation is relevant to claims of cover-up? --Leo Navis (talk) 09:09, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are there reliable sources saying that it's connected to a cover-up? If so, I can see an argument for including it. Otherwise, I don't see why we would.
I see that you've also reverted my other edits trying to fix some of the neutrality and verifiability problems in this article. Can you please explain why? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:12, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've reverted all of it, yes. You removed for example the word "delayed" from the release of the genetic sequences; they were delayed, one could even argue that the government tried to surpress them. That's not "neutral", that's taking a side; that of the Chinese government. --Leo Navis (talk) 09:20, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delayed relative to what? To my knowledge there wasn't some kind of deadline the labs missed, and in any case Zhang's lab submitted the virus's genome to a US database on January 5, the same day they sequenced it (and not long after Shi's lab sequenced it). For some reason this information is omitted from the current version of the article. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:47, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Very good, now we're getting somewhere. I put that in with a source and took the delayed out. You might want to review the changes and change it to your convinience. I am wondering if we shouldn't take it out altogether, since apparantly it has no significance to the topic. --Leo Navis (talk) 10:49, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That seems reasonable to me. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Removed accordingly. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:12, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To the question if there are "reliable sources saying that it's connected to a cover-up" - open your eyes, please. If you deliberately hinder investigations into a pandemic, that sure looks suspicious - that's why it's relevant. --Leo Navis (talk) 09:28, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The article should be based on what reliable sources say, not based on what you or I consider suspicious. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:47, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We're still in disagreement here though. ;-) I do think it's just common sense that hindering an investigation of a worldwide pandemic is strange behavior when you have nothing to hide and should be mentioned. --Leo Navis (talk) 10:49, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome to your opinion, but Wikipedia articles must be based on what reliable sources say, not based on what we personally consider suspicious or objectionable. Can you provide any sources that say the WHO investigation is related to a cover-up? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing no response and no indication of a connection, I'll remove this material again. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:42, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't seem to be any consensus yet. as a WP:3O, The point about the WHO investigation being impeded by cover-up isn't actually disputed, and the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom, stated that the team had experienced difficulty accessing raw data on early COVID-19 cases.[4] Additionally the paragraphs removed are both relevant and notable to the article. Accordingly, I'm going to restore the content until a more coherent reason is detailed. Aeonx (talk) 01:44, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The investigation was delayed (like many other things have been in the past 18 months or so) and clearly there was some disagreement about who should have direct access to what data. But are there any sources that say this was related to a cover-up? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:15, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's been widely reported as the reason for doing so, for example "The delay by Chinese authorities fuels concern that Beijing is obstructing international efforts to trace the origins of a pandemic that has now killed over 1.8 million people worldwide."[5], other sources: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. It's standard Delaying tactic. The fact the Chinese authorities came out to specifically deny delay [12][13] is evidence of how much attention the delay got.Aeonx (talk) 02:30, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A reminder that per Dictionary.com, a cover-up is "any action, stratagem, or other means of concealing or preventing investigation or exposure."[14] That's what we need, not the words "cover-up".Adoring nanny (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes re: Australian reaction

I thought we should "outsource" the discussion, since it gets a little far in with all the points and what-not. We could go point by point. --Leo Navis (talk) 10:51, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So to the next point: Why do you want to take out the aggressive reaction to Australia's call for an independent investigation? --Leo Navis (talk) 10:57, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see any indication that it's related to a cover-up. Are there sources that say it is? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:07, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Per Dictionary.com, a cover-up is "any action, stratagem, or other means of concealing or preventing investigation or exposure."[15] Adoring nanny (talk) 12:06, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How is that related to the diplomatic tiff between China and Australia? Please provide sources. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 05:03, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's right there in the first couple of paragraphs of the two sources for the text. [16] and [17], i.e. "Locked in a diplomatic brawl over Canberra’s call for an independent global inquiry into the origins of Covid-19 . . ." Adoring nanny (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, the Economist article does speculate that the conflict could be related to a cover-up. I'll add that to the article so that the connection is clear. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:02, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should this article be merged into one of these other COVID-19 China articles?

The previous draft AfD had a lot of discussion about merging this article into COVID-19 misinformation by China, COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, or another article, mainly due to the scope of this article being so similar and easily explained within the context of one another. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 18:47, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please answer the survey about which of the following proposals you most support:

  1. Oppose merge–keep as is.
  2. Merge to COVID-19 misinformation by China
  3. Merge to COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
  4. Merge to another article(s) (please specify)

Note: This discussion has been advertised at the Fringe theories noticeboard. 22:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Note: This discussion has been advertised at WikiProject COVID-19. 22:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Note: This discussion has been advertised at WikiProject China. 22:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Survey

  • Merge - Agree with either, but prefer merge with COVID-19 pandemic in China. These basically cover the exact same content, and I don't believe this topic is notable outside of how it is covered with regards to the misinformation campaign. Maybe one article covers it without mentioning the other instances of misinformation, but most include all the misinformation. In fact, this very wikipedia article includes lots of misinformation that is not strictly a "cover up." And if one reads the misinformation and Cover-up articles one after the other, it is one of the most obvious cases of WP:POVFORK I have ever seen. I would prefer merge into the more general "pandemic in China" articles, to avoid the issues of removed undue content as described by ProcrastinatingReader below.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 18:56, 24 July 2021 (UTC) (edited 15:14, 25 July 2021 (UTC))[reply]
  • I would also support a new article titled "Chinese government response to COVID-19" which would include elements of this article and the misinformation article, as per Jr8825. That, to me, seems like the most appropriate "consensus via compromise" conclusion to this. As it is compatible with the arguments of merge-friendly editors and avoids the issues described by merge-skeptical editors who are concerned about content removal via WP:DUE. Clearly, any content that is DUE here would be DUE in such an article, as it is precisely describing the response to the pandemic, in this case a covering-up response.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 09:18, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose because on that article, several times content has been removed as out-of-scope. Example. If, as that removal claims, "misinformation" is not the same as being secretive/misleading/"covering up" (for lack of a better word) then it's not tenable to merge, because then this would just be a pretext to remove reliably sourced content. Additionally, this article goes beyond just misinformation by the Chinese government. Clearly this article has POV issues, about which something must be done. An adjustment of the scope of this article may be one solution. An appropriate merge might be appropriate too, but I'm just not convinced on the target unless people can agree this merge is actually going to be a merge, and not a backdoor for deletion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:45, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merging this into the disinformation article. The issue that led me to start this article is that the scope of the disinformation article leaves out hiding information. If you know fact X, and you don't say anything, that's not disinformation. Adoring nanny (talk) 20:07, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (#1). This is a non-trivial question. There are other historical examples of cover-ups or information blockades by a state, for example, by the USSR during Holodomor here. If there are enough of them, it would worth creating a category. But the cover-ups are definitely a part of intentional disinformation. Still, merely withholding information (as customary for every piece of classified information) or blocking access to information (as with Great Firewall or state censorship) and intentional disinformation are not the same. For example, imposing the embargo on Australia by China in retaliation to suggestion to investigate the origin of COVI-19 by Australian authorities is clearly not just misinformation. If there are enough material for the both (as in this case), I think they should be kept separately, meaning that the page "cover-up by X" should be a sub-page of "misinformation by X". My very best wishes (talk) 21:08, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I remember a previous comment of yours about this and it made sense to me. All governments have propaganda campaigns and secrets, but some are very notable for blockades, like in this case, and it's nothing new, but it keeps happening. This means that yet another plausible merge target may exist, or that a better term than "cover-up" could be used, that is chosen to imply that there's really something important to cover (and of course, an argument for much speculation)... —PaleoNeonate – 16:19, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's one the reasons I think a merge and retitle using "Disinformation" would be ideal because disinformation is intentional deception, while misinformation is moreso deception in general. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 17:09, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This topic is obviously notable enough to have its own article. X-Editor (talk) 17:56, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge or create a new series of articles on Censorship (Option 4) The current title is ripe for WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:POVFORK issues, and the current state of the article is poorly sourced for the extraordinary claims it makes (ex. the lede and first section uses a Foreign Policy article which seems slanted and possibly opinion and shouldn't be solely used to support these claims). While cleanup can solve some of these issues, there are still significant issues with the title that will make this article hard to edit neutrally. I feel there are two possible ways to resolve this issue:
1. Merging Quite a few of these sections can be covered in other articles (there are probably better or missing targets, feel free to suggest):
-Release of the genetic sequence -> Merge into Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and/or Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020
-Silencing of medical workers -> Already covered extensively in COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#Censorship and police responses
-Arrest or disappearance of citizen journalists -> Merge to COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#Censorship and police responses
-Control of domestic research -> Merge to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Chinese government
-Actions against foreign research -> Merge to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19
-Disputes with other countries over proposed inquiries -> Possibly merge to Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international relations
2. Create new series of articles on Censorship While it is unclear if this amounts to a cover-up (we don't know what China is covering up for one), it's fairly clear that information is being censored. We currently do not have an article series about Censorship (at least, I couldn't find one), and it can be debatable if Censorship = Misinformation (as per ProcrastinatingReader's comment). In addition, censorship/"covering up" of COVID information is not an exclusively China thing, so an article about COVID censorship exclusively can provide a good balance of worldwide content, with the usual article splits if needed (similar to the misinformation article series). There is also likely lots of content about censorship in various other articles which can be merged into this new Censorship article series.
Jumpytoo Talk 20:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need to have this page (or possibly this page merged with COVID-19 misinformation by China). Then, we need to link to this page from the corresponding subsections of pages like "COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#Censorship and police responses" using "main" template. That is how we usually do it. There is nothing so special about this subject. My very best wishes (talk) 22:41, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to the two articles specified. Not sure why there should be three separate articles for this. That title seems too POV as well. Ekuftle (talk) 13:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Merge (options 2 & 4) I think the article should be merged into both COVID-19 misinformation by China and Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Chinese government. These articles best match the scope of this article. Option 3 is not suitable as COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China is already too long. I really favor a merge because this article's title is likely not NPOV as others have mentioned, because the article isn't just about a cover-up by China, it's about an active disinformation campaign. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 14:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge with the suggested topics. I do like the second idea as well, that would be a bigger project which could be adressed seperately. --Leo Navis (talk) 14:17, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge Even if historians and scientists will eventually support any of the various ideas about a "cover-up", a "lab-leak", or even a "bio-weapon", or any other hyphenated and somewhat inflammatory descriptions, in the present climate this seems more likely to arouse (play into?) anti-Chinese racial bigotry in western countries. (Actually anti-Asian bigotry. I have Japanese friends who had stones thrown at them by people shouting "Free Tibet" -- I don't doubt that the same would have happened if my friends were themselves Tibetan! -- and while I've been hunkered up in Japan since the start of the pandemic, I don't doubt that similar shit is going down now.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:29, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My preferred merge target is 3. 2 is a remote second choice, followed by 4 (Xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic?). 1 is the only option I outright oppose. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:32, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and comment – I mostly agree with Hijiri88 about the problematic scope, which is centred on a vaguely conspiratorial characterisation and consequently runs afoul of NPOV (and to lesser degree CRYSTAL). However, I think the title is a large part of the problem: I expect sources sufficiently support using the term "cover-up" within the article body (the weight of sourcing needs to be examined to determine whether it requires attribution or can be stated in wikivoice), but it's a WP:POVTITLE that is not the common name, so it's inappropriate. I think this title sets the tone and scope of the article in an improper manner, as recognised by others above.
I also agree with the point My very best wishes makes, that censorship (1), the withholding of information (2) and disinformation (3) are not the same things. All three categories MVBW identifies fall under the scope of COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, which is already too long. Narrowing the subject further, the next obvious topic to me is Chinese government response to COVID-19 (a WP:SPINOFF article of COVID-19 pandemic in China#Government response, something suggested by several editors in the discussion below). I strongly support this proposal, as it would act as a central hub for information on its slow response, downplaying of risk, censorship and misinformation, possibly with further spinoffs as necessary depending on the length and notability of each section (we already have COVID-19 misinformation by China; an article on censorship is another contender, integrating content from Censorship and police responses). Some suggestions below included renaming/rescoping the misinformation article so it becomes the government response article; if the length is manageable, I'm also not opposed to this.
So, I think the best course of action is to rename/rescope this article, rather than merge, as there's no appropriate target (some of the content is appropriate for the misinformation article, but much of it isn't) and the content is notable enough for inclusion somewhere. At the moment my preferred solution would be a page move of this article to focus on censorship, which a large part of this article addresses, possibly with some sections moved elsewhere, as it's the least work. Another alternative might be reshaping this article so that it forms the nexus of the broader one on the Chinese government's response, why I think is eventually needed. Input/discussion from other editors might change my mind about the way to best deal with a renaming/restructure of this article, but overall I oppose a straight up merge. Jr8825 • Talk 14:39, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Discussion

  • ProcrastinatingReader, I would agree with you that anyone who deleted content from the destination article based on the argument: ""misinformation" is not the same as being secretive/misleading/"covering up"" was wrong. If I did that, then I apologize. But such content would be appropriate for any article about misinformation imo. Such events certainly have corollaries in our COVID-19 misinformation article. Is there content in this article that was removed under such pretexts from the destination?--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 20:12, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the title supports such removal. That fact is not going to go away. And that's why this article is not a POV fork. The topics are different. Adoring nanny (talk) 20:14, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the diff I linked in my original comment. That content is currently in this article, but was removed from COVID-19 misinformation by China. (the removal edit summary was also not true, the raw sequences were not republished AFAIK.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:19, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and Retitle?

FormalDude, just throwing this out for consideration: "COVID-19 origin investigation(s) in China"? – robertsky (talk) 00:39, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Robertsky: No offense, but I think that would be a really bad title. These articles aren't about investigations into the origin of COVID, they are about China's ongoing COVID-19 disinformation campaign. That title would be FAR too close to the scopes of Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Chinese government as well as COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 00:48, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal expanded
Also pinging ProcrastinatingReader for that reason.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more opposed to COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China than I am to COVID-19 misinformation by China, because I think this falls outside the scope of the former, and it's just not where a reader would look for information on this topic. I think the closest option I find acceptable while removing this article is just splitting this article up and moving content as appropriate, e.g. to Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#Chinese_government, COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis and COVID-19 misinformation by China. It would be split up but at least it'd be on the expected articles. Alternatively, we can change the scope of COVID-19 misinformation by China and retitle it.
But mostly I'm waiting for someone to come up with either a convincing rationale for one of the suggested merges, or brainstorming a different option that will work. I'm absolutely not in favour of doing a merge to somewhere where the information just doesn't make sense, where readers looking for it don't expect it, and readers looking for something else run into it, and IMO that's the case with COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China. Note that article is also at almost 100k chars, which is at the upper limit of WP:TOOBIG. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ProcrastinatingReader: I think most all of this article would be salvageable for a merge into both COVID-19 misinformation by China and Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Chinese government. We can talk about China's general COVID-19 misinformation campaigns at the former, and their specific covering-up of the origin of COVID-19 at the latter. Thoughts? ––FormalDude talk 00:45, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My comments above apply to this proposal; this article’s scope is broader than the Chinese government. I still have largely the same opinion as originally on the targets I discussed, for the reasons stated. However I haven’t really checked up on the couple of ‘mass split’ proposals since, so formally neutral on those, but at a skim I don’t see an alternative strategy that inspires confidence. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:49, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ProcrastinatingReader: how do you feel about moving this article to Chinese government response to COVID-19, and merging the content currently at National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic#China and COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#Government response into new sections, with the future option to split much of the content off again into a new article on censorship if length requirements make it necessary? The text is already sitting in those sections (they overlap considerably, both sections could be reduced to a short summary pointing to the new article), so I don't think too much heavy rewriting would be necessary. This way the content here is kept together, but added into the wider context of Chinese government's actions, which will hopefully make it easier to resolve the NPOV issues. Plus it'll be easy to link COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China from the background section using {{broader}}, and the disinformation article from the relevant section using {{main article}}. Jr8825 • Talk 06:36, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ProcrastinatingReader: I agree the article's scope is broader than the Chinese government, but so too is the scope of COVID-19 misinformation by China, which is why I think it is a good candidate for merging. ––FormalDude talk 00:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Evaluating consensus

I've read through everyone's comments at this discussion again, and I believe we have some pretty similar thinking. Given it has somewhat stalled, I was wondering if we might be able to come to more of an agreement in order to strengthen the consensus to merge. At this point, some of the main considerations are article scope and standalone notability.

My current proposal is to merge the article to COVID-19 misinformation by China and Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Chinese government.

The point made by My very best wishes about blocking access to information not being the same as intentional disinformation is something I also agree with. I do want to note that "misinformation" likely entails both the purposeful blocking of information as well as intentional deceptions. I believe Jr8825's suggestion, Chinese government response to COVID-19, is an equally good solution compared to what I proposed. Some, such as ProcrastinatingReader, still have objections to the article scope, and do not necessarily agree that it would be better off merged.

I'm notifying several editors to see if anyone is willing to go into more detail in support or opposition of either Jr8825's or my own suggestion. My hope is that further discussion will result in more agreement that possibly prevents this from being closed as no consensus. ––FormalDude talk 02:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ping PaleoNeonate, Mx. Granger, RandomCanadian, Shibbolethink, Leo Navis, Adoring nanny, Forich.

I’m still opposed to your proposal, but Jr8825‘s proposal directly above sounds workable, but I don’t have the time & bandwidth to give it a close thought atm. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@FormalDude, I would say I support your original proposal, but I see @Jr8825's as a very reasonable compromise I can get behind. I think it maintains neutrality, improves the scope to something very useful and clearly more NPOV, but still remaining within the DUE weight of our sources. All aboard the consensus via compromise train, 🚂 choo choo 🚂! — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 10:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support Jr8825's suggestion, with the caveat that work will still be needed to ensure NPOV and verifiability. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Mx. Granger, FormalDude, Shibbolethink, and ProcrastinatingReader: Seeing as the response is generally favourable and it's going to take a fair bit of copy-editing, I've started bringing together the three bodies of text (this article, and the sections at 'COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China' and 'National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic'). The result is currently at User:Jr8825/sandbox 2, and any help whipping it into shape would be greatly appreciated. A few things to note: I've merged and re-ordered the three different texts into something resembling a consistent, logical structure (only roughly – this can probably be done better) but I've only made a few minor adjustments to the text so far. Consequently there's a lot of repetition that needs to be cut. The current prose size is 61kB, whereas the ideal target is ~40kB. I think it'll be pretty near this number once all of the repetition has been removed, but there's definitely scope for a separate article on censorship, if anyone's keen to split it off. The worst repetition is in the two police response sections, and in coverage of whistleblowers such as Li Wenliang (in both 'police response' and 'Cover-up of the initial Wuhan outbreak'). I'm also unsure about the state of the 'Political leadership' section, and whether there's enough coverage about the initial slowness of the response in late 2019/early 2020. Jr8825 • Talk 16:47, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for getting started with that, Jr8825. It looks like there's a lot of content from COVID-19 misinformation by China that is duplicated in the new article as well, such as origin disinformation, censorship, and misinformation. Possible solution for that is merging COVID-19 misinformation by China to the new article, but I think the better option is likely to merge all content from the new article that is within the scope of COVID-19 misinformation by China to COVID-19 misinformation by China. Most of it can probably just be removed from the new article and replaced with excerpts from COVID-19 misinformation by China. ––FormalDude talk 17:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm strongly against merging 'COVID-19 misinformation by China' to the new article, both for size constraints and because I think misinformation is a notable enough topic to deserve a stand-alone article. The current article is decent and contains information which would be too detailed for an overall article on the government response. What needs to happen is that the section on misinformation currently in my sandbox needs to be shrunk down so it acts as a briefer summary of the issues dealt more substantively in the misinformation article. It's possible some content in my sandbox would be better off being moved directly into the misinformation article, if it isn't already covered there. Jr8825 • Talk 17:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases

Rather than having a slow revert war about this material, I suggest we talk about it! The question here is whether or not this material is about a covid cover-up. Here is the definition from Dictionary.Com[19]: "any action, stratagem, or other means of concealing or preventing investigation or exposure." It does appear that Chinese authorities are preventing an investigation here, so I'm not sure what the objection is. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:18, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced the source with a Foreign Affairs article authored by two well-reputed health security experts. I would also like to add Zhang Lifan's comments to DW but I am not sure in which section where they would belong. What do you think of adding a new "Motivations" section? 79.70.190.198 (talk) 13:11, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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