Talk:Douglas MacArthur
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Frequently asked questions Controversies, praise, and criticism Q1: Why isn't there a criticisms/controversies section?
A1: Because a section dedicated to criticisms and controversies is no more appropriate than a section dedicated solely to praises and is an indication of a poorly written article. Criticisms/controversies/praises should be worked into the existing prose of the article, per WP:CRIT. Q2: Why isn't a certain controversy/criticism/praise included in this article?
A2: Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy says that "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." Criticism or praise that cannot be reliably sourced cannot be placed in a biography. Also, including everything about MacArthur in a single article would exceed Wikipedia's article size restrictions. A number of sub-articles have been created and some controversies/criticisms/praises have been summarized here or been left out of this article altogether, but are covered in some detail in the sub-articles. Q3: This article needs much more (or much less) criticism/controversy.
A3: Please try to assume good faith. Like all articles on Wikipedia, this article is a work in progress so it is possible for biases to exist at any point in time. If you see a bias that you wish to address, you are more than welcome to start a new discussion, or join in an existing discussion, but please be ready to provide sources to support your viewpoint and try to keep your comments civil. Starting off your discussion by accusing the editors of this article of having a bias is the quickest way to get your comment ignored. Other issues Q4: This article is over 100kb long, WP:SIZE says that it should be broken up into sub-articles. Why hasn't this happened?
A4: The restriction mentioned in WP:SIZE is 100kB of readable prose (which corresponds to about 10,000 words), not the byte count you see when you open the page for editing. As of December 2023, this article had about 19,300 words of readable prose (114 kB according to prosesize tool), which is over the limit. The rest is mainly citations and invisible comments, which do not count towards the limit. Q5: I added something to the article but it got removed. Why?
A5: In all probability what you added was trivia, unsourced information or information cited to an unreliable source; such information is usually removed quickly. Articles on Wikipedia require reliable sources for an independent verification of the facts presented, consequently any information added to an article without a reliable source is subject to removal from the article at any Wikipedian's discretion. Q6: I tried to edit this article but couldn't. Why?
A6: This article has been indefinitely semi-protected due to persistent vandalism or violations of content policy. Semi-protection prevents edits from anonymous users (IP addresses), as well as edits from any account that is not autoconfirmed (is at least four days old and has ten or more edits to Wikipedia) or confirmed. Such users can request edits to this article by proposing them on this talk page, using the {{editsemiprotected}} template if necessary to gain attention. They may also request the confirmed userright by visiting Requests for permissions. |
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Not Really Similar to Operation Paperclip
"MacArthur gave immunity to Shiro Ishii and other members of Unit 731 in exchange for germ warfare data based on human experimentation. This was similar to Operation Paperclip,"
This is not the same, because it can reasonably be argued that production of armaments is a normal part of war, whereas inhuman experimentation on civilians and others is a war-crime, and the shameful failure to prosecute war criminals could even be considered a crime. This needs to be rewritten to make clear the nature of the choice that MacArthur made which is against all morality. The lengths that they went to to cover it up demonstrates their guilt. Muchado (talk) 15:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I have removed the references to Operation Paperclip because they are not supported by the cited source, and re-worded what is left to match what the source does say. Failure to prosecute may be shameful but it is not considered a crime. It is quite common for district attorneys to decline to prosecute simply because they are short of time, personnel or money. MacArthur's role is not so clear-cut; he submitted reports and recommendations, but decisions were taken in Washington. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:47, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Understood. Thank you. Muchado (talk) 14:20, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
- As an added note to this topic, many of those Operation Paperclip scientists were Nazi Party members or SS officers like SS-Sturmbannführer Wernher von Braun. Paperclip scientists and members also employed slave labor and assisted with the Holocaust, which is absolutely not merely "producing armaments as a normal part of war". Unit 731 in a similar situation used their "experiments" to create bioweapons that they used as weapons of war on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Why is there an attempt to defend what happened in Paperclip and claim that it was "not as bad" as Unit 731? Also, President Truman and Fort Detrick (the bioweapons research facility for the U.S. military) were the ones who truly made the decision to grant immunity to Unit 731, not MacArthur, yet MacArthur gets solely blamed for some reason.--Nimuda (talk) 04:44, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
- Understood. Thank you. Muchado (talk) 14:20, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 8 May 2023
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Add General of the Army hyperlink above Douglas MacArthur's name on the right profile side, similarly to George C. Marshall and Omar Bradley's pages. Historygeek64 (talk) 07:13, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Already done — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 15:36, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Length
At over 18k words of readable prose, this article is too long to read comfortably. It would be beneficial to condense and/or migrate content to subarticles to make this one more readable. See WP:TOOBIG. @Dr. Grampinator: At the time of the last discussion that I could identify, the length was "only" 12k words of readable prose, which is still quite long but at a lower tier according to TOOBIG. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:38, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
- I already created two subarticles, Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines and Relief of Douglas MacArthur, and the service summary and awards were moved into their own articles. The question therefore is: what is not covered adequately by the article that could benefit from its own more detailed subarticle? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:08, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is that the article at present is too detailed, rather than that detail is missing. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:41, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a written compendium of knowledge. Those details are what constitutes the encyclopedia. Details can only be removed if they are unsourced, undue, inaccurate, irrelevant, inappropriate or duplicates information contained in another article. My feeling is that some material could be moved or trimmed but WP:TOOBIG is never a valid reason to do so. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia, but one which serves a general readership rather than a specialist audience. Details can be moved or removed for a variety of reasons, when appropriate to serve the needs of the encyclopedia's readers. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:39, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia serves both a general and a specialist audience. It is not considered likely that a general audience with find much of use in K2-18b, Steinitz's theorem or Monothelitism. In the case of Douglas MacArthur, we may have a general reader seeking broad information about the subject (for whom the lead is provided), a reader seeking a broad knowledge of the subject (who will likely read the whole article) or a specialist reader seeking particular knowledge (who will read through the relevant section). Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:29, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia, but one which serves a general readership rather than a specialist audience. Details can be moved or removed for a variety of reasons, when appropriate to serve the needs of the encyclopedia's readers. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:39, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a written compendium of knowledge. Those details are what constitutes the encyclopedia. Details can only be removed if they are unsourced, undue, inaccurate, irrelevant, inappropriate or duplicates information contained in another article. My feeling is that some material could be moved or trimmed but WP:TOOBIG is never a valid reason to do so. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is that the article at present is too detailed, rather than that detail is missing. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:41, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Exactly - except, as explained at WP:DETAIL, the specialist reader is served by subarticles, and the broad-knowledge reader by an appropriately summary-style main article. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:41, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see an issue with the length because the article is well-organized. It is too long to read in a sitting, but it is easy to navigate. I think the tag can come down. Srnec (talk) 05:29, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- It would make more sense to move some of that excess length to subarticles. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:05, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Sure, but in the meanwhile the tag at the top is more annoying than the length. Most readers do not want to read the whole thing "comfortably". They want to find what they are interseted in and read just that. This article makes it easy. Most sections are of a reasonable length. Srnec (talk) 15:49, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Most sections are longer by themselves than the average non-stub article. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Do you have figures on that? I know that the average article is 638 words (nearly twice what it was ten years ago), but that includes stubs, which account for more than half. The average word count of the 6,303 featured articles is 4,384 words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:21, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Subtract 3,802,265 stubs, and 4.4 billion words gets an average of 1526 for the official article count of almost 6.7 million. Even if you go with the average FA number, World War II still exceeds that. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:36, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- The WWII section has two levels of subdivision. Srnec (talk) 03:08, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
- Subtract 3,802,265 stubs, and 4.4 billion words gets an average of 1526 for the official article count of almost 6.7 million. Even if you go with the average FA number, World War II still exceeds that. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:36, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Do you have figures on that? I know that the average article is 638 words (nearly twice what it was ten years ago), but that includes stubs, which account for more than half. The average word count of the 6,303 featured articles is 4,384 words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:21, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Most sections are longer by themselves than the average non-stub article. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- Sure, but in the meanwhile the tag at the top is more annoying than the length. Most readers do not want to read the whole thing "comfortably". They want to find what they are interseted in and read just that. This article makes it easy. Most sections are of a reasonable length. Srnec (talk) 15:49, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- It would make more sense to move some of that excess length to subarticles. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:05, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 28 June 2023
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Requesting someone add {{anchor|Dugout Doug}} at The troops on Bataan knew that they had been written off
, and point Dugout Doug and Dugout doug to it. I don't think there's an NPOV problem as it's a nickname troops under his command applied. Redirecting to the anchor gives the context. 47.155.41.201 (talk) 22:14, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Not done for now: It's not clear why this anchor needs to be added, pointing to a nickname which is only mentioned twice in the whole article. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 05:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- MacArthur in WWI was nicknamed "Bravest of the Brave" by his 42nd (Rainbow) Division soldiers and nicknamed the "Fighting General" by many American and French generals including General Pershing, and his men even gave him a special cigarette case with "Bravest of the Brave" engraved on it. I don't understand why the people who want to talk so much about 62-year-old semi-retired "Dugout Doug" (this nickname was originally coined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his political machine and not by any soldier in the field) don't want to also mention "Bravest of the Brave"/"Fighting General" and his 7 Silver Stars, 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, 2 Croix de Guerre and French Légion d'honneur for his WWI service. He earned all of these medals as a colonel and brigadier general. He already proved in WWI when he was 38 years old that he could fight in the field.--Nimuda (talk) 05:29, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of Douglas MacArthur in popular culture?
Not that I'm too knowledgeable on it but I noticed his appearance in the videogame Hearts of Iron IV is not mentioned. For those who dont know he is a general for the United States who can also come to power for any political party except the Communist States of America. ImSpook'd (talk) 00:46, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 25 August 2023
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change “joint session” to “joint meeting” 73.200.216.62 (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Not done: Joint session is the correct wording for meeting of both sides of congress. RudolfRed (talk) 16:31, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- no. they are different. 73.200.216.62 (talk) 17:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- You are correct that there is a difference between a "joint session" and a "joint meeting",[1] however, for this edit request to be successful, you need to establish that the event in question was in fact a "joint meeting" and not a "joint session". Also, which of the three instances of "joint session" in this article would you like changed to begin with? In summary:
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. – Recoil16 (talk) 20:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- the sources already cited on this page correctly refer to the address as a joint meeting. (years of macarthur.) no need to cite anything else. every mention of the joint session should be changed. 73.200.216.62 (talk) 22:25, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- You are correct that there is a difference between a "joint session" and a "joint meeting",[1] however, for this edit request to be successful, you need to establish that the event in question was in fact a "joint meeting" and not a "joint session". Also, which of the three instances of "joint session" in this article would you like changed to begin with? In summary:
- no. they are different. 73.200.216.62 (talk) 17:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
References
- ^ "U.S. Senate: Joint Sessions & Meetings of Congress". www.senate.gov.
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