Talk:Korean influence on Japanese culture/Archive 3

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TH1980 . Again, read the source and construe it correctly in historical context. You are wasting my time by your carelessness

User:TH1980. If as you always do, you go about looking in indexes to googled books for ‘Korea’+Japan and cherrypick something while you have absolutely zero knowledge of the period, its complexities, and context, then you almost certainly will produ ce edits that are reverted for their POV-pushing incompetence.

You write:

According to Mikiso Hane, immigrants from the Three Kingdoms of Korea also played a role in implementing the Taika Reform of 645.(Source: Mikiso Hane, Louis Perez, Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey, Westview Press, 2015 p.15)

That phrasing to any normal reader, would suggest Koreans were behind the Taika Reform at that specific date, 645 and thereabouts, whereas they took several decades to ‘implement’, and what Mikiso Hane is referring to is not 645 but a long period from 670-720s. More importantly, you contaminate the sense of the original, to push your ‘Korea’- is-behind –everything--Japan POV. Mikiso Hane wrote:

‘In the middle of the seventh century, Silla allied itself with Tang China and put an end to the kingdoms of Paekche and Koguryo (in 660 and 668, respectively). Many people from these kingdoms fled to Japan. Some became influential figures in the Japanese court and played significant roles in implementing reforms, known as the Taika Reforms, in the late seventh and early eighth centuries.’

What you wrote is a falsification of the source, that might look trivial, but since you do it so consistently, and your misrepresentations arise from the POV that spins a thesis, this habit is getting to be noxious.

• The wording, and hence the meaning, of the original source is ambiguous

You want the text to refer to the ‘Three Kingdoms of Korea’, meaning this is a united Korean influence. these kingdoms of course just possibly might also refer to Silla, Paekche and Koguryo. However, the commonsensical reading of MH’s passage would take the ‘Many people from these kingdoms (who) fled to Japan,’ to refer only to the latter two, the grammatical antecedents, for the simple reason that the people of Silla were victorious, and having them flee from their own victory together with the defeated enemies of that kingdom sounds, to put it kindly, weird.

As always, scholars who go outside their field (Mikiso Hane’s was Tokugawa Japan and peasant revolts) to give a broadbrush synthesis often write clumsily when synthesizing what their reading of secondary sources of other periods say, and this is a good example.No edits about this period can be done unless you have a precise understanding of the details of that age, details which are interpreted differently by different scholars and often in the respective national scholarly traditions. If you take Beckwith’s approach for example, the context of what Mikiso wrote would be as follows:

The Goguryeo (Koguryo) state, dominated by the Puyo people spoke as its official language Koguryo, related to old Japanese (so far about 140 lexemes have what look like close OJ cognates). Speakers of old Korean, a different language,had a growing minority presence within that state, and they spoke a language whose dialect spread over Korea only when the Silla-Tang alliance MH alludes to, destroyed that country's several regional power centers.

In fleeing to Japan, in this theory, the people of Goguryeo were fleeing a Chinese-led invasion, backed by Silla, to join a people they were at least linguistically affiliated to. This would not therefore be a ‘Korean’ efflux to Japan, with the impact it carried: Korea as we understand it as a unified political entity emerged after Silla unified the kingdoms. Earlier to 668, Korea was constituted by a congeries of ethnic-linguistically distinct tribal groups (like Japan) that did not share a unified ‘Korean’ identity. Scholars used the word ‘Korean’ in that period geographically, in the sense of ‘peninsular Korean’, where the word ‘Korea’ is geographical, and not cultural. Beckwith for one argues that the traditional Korean scholarly treatment of Koguryo language as part of the ‘Korean’ language group (taken to be allied to Tungusic/Altaic) is deeply flawed (See Beckwith Koguryo, 2007 pp.3-5) In his view, it would follow, at least the Koguryo component in the ‘(peninsular) Korean refugees’ to Japan who with their descendents helped implement the Taika reform program over the next two generations can been see as ethnic Puyo. The distinct Koguryo population of the Korean peninsula was extinct within a few hundred years, as unification under Silla was implemented. (Christopher I. Beckwith Koguryo, BRILL, 2007 pp.48-49 (‘by the end of the millenium the Koguryo people and language had ceased to exist.’)

So too the Paekche ruling class, some of whose remnant fled also to Japan after it was defeated in 662 (later than the beginning of the Taika reform) was also Puyo. If you prefer, of course, James Unger, Alexander Vovin et al.,'s interpretation of these same materials, you will get a more unified Korean perspective, but that too is just an hypothesis, not a fact, and the implications I sketched above remain valid, because a specific pan-'Korean' identity was formed later than this period (so too in Japan: and literacy in Japan at that period was held by uji like the Aya and Hata clans, all descended from sino-peninsula immigrants over the preceding centuries, and maintaining their links with the continent, while intermarrying with locals). Don’t look at the wiki links to all of these subjects: those pages are as useless as tits on a bull as to the respective states of scholarship on these topics. All one can say in a neutral manner of that source would be:

When a military alliance between Silla and the Tang dynasty destroyed the peninsular kingdoms of Goguryeo and its southern ally Paekche - an ally of Japan which had sent a fleet with military contingents in its defense - many from these kingdoms fled to Japan and, according to Mikiso Hane, later contributed significantly to the implementation of the Taika Reforms and the Taihō Code, which imitated the Tang dynasty model of administrative centralization.

I'll put that in, with reserve, because I don't think this has anything to do with the topic of this article, namely with a specifically 'Korean' impact on Japanese culture. To be a culture-bearer, often of Chinese civilization, doesn't mean the messenger is making an impact in terms of his anachronistically imposed 'nationality'. All MH is saying is that Sinicized peninsular Korean of varying ethnicity, escaping from their peninsular Korean enemy, help the Yamato court impose Chinese reforms, so what?

What you are doing, to use an analogy that is simpler that the details given above, is similar to arguing that that the Welsh, Scots and Huguenots played an important part in writing and implementing the American constitution because James Wilson, John Adams, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison all hailed from those backgrounds. The various continental/peninsular tribal groups shifting to Japan over 3 centuries did not have a ‘national identity’, neither did Japan. Japan itself, reflecting these partial origins, did a blowback, as these ancestral clan linkages turned policy into sending armies back to peninsular Korea to support one or more of the several dominant warrior groups there. All of this is lost on nationalists wanting to make ethnic capital out of history, like yourself. Stop wasting other people's time, by taking a few months actually to study these subjects in depth, rather than just jumping in with your ethnic hammer when you spot a tidbit or two that fits your naïve preconceptions.

I'll be fucked if I know why one has to waste an hour every other edit cleaning up the mess you make in here simply because you are a lazy and inattentive POV pusher who refuses to pull up her socks.-Nishidani (talk) 13:05, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

And I'll be damned if I knew why you are so hostile and intolerant towards attempts by me and other users to introduce multiple perspectives into this article. You are behaving way out of bounds here in your behavior, but the fact you can abuse other Wikipedians while hiding behind your keyboard keeps encouraging you to act like a spoiled brat.TH1980 (talk) 20:12, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Look at the history of your edits here. Almost all of them have had to be fixed, tweaked, or erased, as far as I can remember. I good editor is one who takes sufficient care to craft his edits so that she will find them accepted generally. Most experienced editors don't have that high ratio of contested edits, and it's not because I'm a shithead. You cause others needless extra work because you don't appear to be interested in developing a knowledge of the topic in all of its historic intricacies, and thing poorly sourced clichés a substitute for scholarly quality.Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I replied out of frustration over your poor use of sources. I never said Korea was behind everything, but Mikiso Hane did say that Koreans played important roles in implementing the Taika reforms. That what's the reliable sources say, so there's no reason that it shouldn't be in the article. You initially reverted me by saying that Korea's role did not constitute "influence", but Hane explicitly described it as "cultural influence of Korea"! If you just read the sources I cited, you'll see that I know what I'm talking about. I'm the one who has actually been taking the time to do the necessary research to find sources that are about the subject at hand, Korean influence on Japanese culture. Too often you revert my edits and replace them with arbitrary facts from a scattering of sources that barely have anything to do with the topic at hand. For instance, with Tamching, you deleted my source which explicitly dealt with the subject of Korean influence on Japanese culture, and replaced it with the primary source Nihon Shoki and two sources by Joseph Needham which are not at all about the subject of Korean or Japanese culture. What's more, now the article says that Mikiso Hane believes that Koreans played a role in implementing the Taika Reform and the Taiho Code, but Hane only discusses the Taika reform. How can you criticize me like this when you don't even read the sources yourself? I agree that this article needs to be carefully researched, so I hope in the future you'll take the time needed to find good sources and read them, rather than filling the article with sources and information that are irrelevant and incorrectly cited.TH1980 (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Rubbish. Give one example of my incorrect citation of sources. (ps. I gave the Nihon Shoki original to allow any curious reader to validate what the several new secondary sources I added were saying. You're grasping at straws.Nishidani (talk) 08:13, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Do we need to add a mistaken opinion by a non-specialist on an issue like the impact of Korean movable type?

In my view, Etsuko Kang, though RS, is making a patently misleading indeed demonstrably incorrect assertion when she is quoted as saying what we have below. I glossed it with a more accurate account for a while, but obviously the piece is there because it backs a nationalist misperception, not because it is relevant to the historical facts. If anyone disagrees please discuss here.

Etsuko Kang claims that, "Japan's present exuberant publishing industry can be traced back to the Edo period when Korean influence was instrumental to its flourishing."In fact, the qualitative upsurge in Japanese reading, dated to around 1630 onwards, was related to the spread of woodblock printing, which, as opposed to metal-type printing of books in both Korea and Vietnamese, allowed for stable texts accessible to many because reading marks were added, that enabled Chinese style texts to be read as though they were Japanese.Nishidani (talk) 07:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The text quoted above amounts to WP:SYNTHESIS. A better solution would be to drop the disputed text. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Only the part cited to Machi Senjuro was synthesis. The part about Korean influence on Japanese printing has been the subject of whole essays. Ha Woobong has contributed a number of peer reviewed studies on this very subject, and he's no nationalist either. The particular essay that I am citing came from a previous version of the article, but it's just one example of the same information.TH1980 (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I've removed this nonsense (scholastic!!!! oh really!) as well, the author clearly knows nothing of the history of printing in Japan.

According to the historian Ha Woobong, "the metal and wooden printing types taken from Korea laid the basis for the printing technology of the Edo Period in Japan and the development of scholastic learning."(Ha Woobong, "The Japanese Invasion of Korea in the 1592-1598 Period and the Exchange of Culture and Civilization Between the Two Countries," in The Foreseen and the Unforeseen in Historical Relations Between Korea and Japan, eds. Northeast Asian History Foundation (Seoul: Northeast Asian History Foundation, 2009), 228-229.)Nishidani (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Well drop a note to Ha Woobong and tell him movable metal printing was dropped as too expensive after a few decades in Japan, and the book industry thereafter used woodblocks, as had Buddhist monasteries since the 9th century in Japan, a technology developed under the Sui in China.Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Ha Woobong wrote the following in his book "The East Asian War 1592-1598" (edited by James B. Lewis): "Metal and wood moveable types looted from Choson became catalysts for the development of printing technology and scholarship in the Edo period." This book was produced from a conference of academics at Oxford, so it's unlikely that such a great number of leading scholars would be wrong.TH1980 (talk) 22:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Fa fuck's sake, I could give you several specialist sources -indeed I've already supplied some - showing the uselessness of Ha Woobong's remark. You are unfamiliar with academic conferences. A paper written by someone for a scholarly conference, which is then edited into a book on the papers delivered at a conference, does not ipso facto mean that it has been endorsed by all or even any of the academics present at that conference. That is really hilarious. Just ask around. Any scholar will tell you your inference is right off the rails. Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

I should add that James B. Lewis says that Ha Woo Bong "has led modern research on Choson-era relations with Japan through his own work." Ha Woo Bong is pretty much the leading expert on this subject. I'll add also that you made yet another mistake in your edits, stating that Hyeja was from Baekje when he was actually from the Korean kingdom of Goguryo.TH1980 (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Re Hyeja, it was about time, after correcting dozens of your mistakes, that I too slipped up. Indignaris quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. As to Lewis's opinion. Who cares? Ha Woo Bong is not a specialist in print technology, fucks up obviously in dealing with that specific issue, since what he says is contradicted by historians, with no nationalist drum to beat, specializing in that area. So he's as useless here as tits on a bull.Nishidani (talk) 14:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

I think the comment telling TH1980 to "drop a note to Ha Woobong" is not sensible here. It shouldn't be up to TH1980 to change the consensus of the leading scholars. Wikipedia editors just report the consensus of scholars, rather than calling academics to get them to change their minds. I think the best source to use for this is the essay written by Ha Woo Bong from the book edited by James Lewis, rather than Robert Tarbell Oliver's older work.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:43, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

I think that the real problem is that Nishidani has been using generic works about the history of technology, whereas specialist works specifically dealing with Korea-Japan relations, like Etsuko Kang and Ha Woo Bong, all refer to the great influence of Korean printing on Japan. Nishidani could rebut these scholars without resorting to original research if he could find a source specifically stating that Ha Woo Bong and Etsuko Kang are wrong about this.TH1980 (talk) 01:19, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

There's no problem with using non-specialist sources in some cases, but I guess here the specialist sources you have been citing are ideal. Ha Woobong's viewpoint does appear to represent the mainstream views of historians, so it certainly should be included, but personally I have no problem with adding in a rebuttal as well. It might be okay to use non-specialist sources for the rebuttal. If necessary, we could always try a request for comment in order to seek more opinions on how to include the information and/or rebuttal.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:52, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

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Removing sentence sourced to Hyung Il Pai

"For Hyung Il Pai, there was no clear Korean and Japanese national distinction as for the period around the 4th century CE., and that archaeological and material similarities between the two cannot be explained in terms of domination or conquest."

This sentence should be removed. Firstly, because it says that "there was no clear Korean and Japanese national distinction as for the period around the 4th century CE", which is a strange thing to say at the beginning of a section on the Jomon-Yayoi transition. This transition took place possibly around 300 BC, many hundreds of years before the 4th century. Granted, the Jomon-Yayoi transition did ultimately narrow the ethnic distinction people Japanese and Korean peoples, but that was a gradual process. I don't think that we should mention events so far after the transition at the very beginning of the section. Secondly, it says "archaeological and material similarities between the two cannot be explained in terms of domination or conquest." However, what Pai actually says is, "similarities in the later Korean Kobun and the Japanese Kofun can no longer be explained solely by theories focusing on domination or conquest." This refers to events of the Kofun Period, which was also after the Jomon-Yayoi transition. The fact that neither Korea nor Japan conquered one another during the Kofun period is not relevant to the Jomon-Yayoi transition. Some other information on the Kofun period has also been added to this section, which fits better in subsequent sections.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

The point is one source is not the reliable source. Everything I've checked makes the raw assertions of the Korean authors highly slanted nationalistically. They systematically exclude every counter thesis. So unless the editor or editors start trying to respect WP:NPOV, by studying the elements of ancient Japanese and Korean history in all of their complexity, we are going to get nonsense, nationalistic cant, and it is rather pointless asking that people like myself and a few others stand by and rush it to fix the POV biasing day in day out till the great ambition of getting a GA credit emerges.Nishidani (talk) 21:55, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

That is simply fixed by pushing it down the page, which I have done, and you reverted.Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You also deleted other parts without explanation in the same edit. Also, I'm not so sure about the part reading, "archaeological and material similarities between the two cannot be explained in terms of domination or conquest". Pai is only referring to the kofun in that sentence, and I don't know if we should assume that he's referring to all archaeological and material similarities.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Because the other editor is, is for me, notoriously incompetent and is deploying a source that simplifies very complex issues by saying every innovation in Japan is 'Korean', I'd expect other editors to exercise judgement and care and work out things on the talk page because nationalist spinning on these subjects is a minefield. Take the armory section. Well, there are good arguments that some types of arms uncovered in the Korean peninsular were of Yamato design. How you take this depends on the way you read the presence of Yamato forces in Korean battles for 2 centuries. Read just to cite one example this tidbit on one such controversy in Gina Barnes's recent book, State Formation in Korea: Emerging Elites, Routledge, 2013 pp-77ff., for example, and compare it to the spin of our article.Unless there is some sophisticated understanding that every item is controversial, and surrounded by contending claims, you will yet sheer POV pushing.Nishidani (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, I understand, but we can resolve this simply by adding in new sources explaining other perspectives. Takehiko Matsugi, a professor of archeology at Okayama University, said in an article in the Yomiuri Shimbun that the Japanese armor uncovered in the Korean peninsula was the armor of Japanese soldiers sent by their government to fight on the side of a state in Korea. Maybe it's not mentioned in this Wikipedia article because it's a issue of general Korea-Japan relations and not specifically Korean influence on Japan. However, you can try adding this information into the article if you think it belongs. Basically, we're all in this together and we have to edit together.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

In scholarship, you don't start with bad sources, and then add good sources. You review the dozen or two relevant sources, weigh what they are saying of the topic, see how the various arguments shape up in peer-reviews, if there is a consensus remark or two, and write up the synthesis of the state of the art. You do not proceed as this fellow is, plunking in 'stuff' and waiting for it to be fine-tuned. Well, fuck it. This place has always been a circus, and I'll be buggered if I'm going to clown round wasting my time. I let it run to seed for some months, in the meantime hoping the POV push is noticed and sanctioned, and fix it with anyone else willing to roll up their sleeves and actually apply the state of the art histories of these three entities (Gina Barnes is a good point to start from) to the article. Nishidani (talk) 22:15, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, Rhee et al. do claim to be synthesizing the scholarly consensus in some areas. They note near the start of the article, "We have found considerable scholarly consensus among Korean and Japanese archaeologists and historians on many significant points..." However, in areas of disagreement over reliability of sources, I see two options. Firstly, take the sources to the reliable sources noticeboard. Secondly, find a disputed line of text and send it to request for comment. Do you want to try one of those, and if so, which one? Concerning sentences cited to the Asian Perspectives article of Rhee et al., I think we could send some of them to request for comment to gain consensus. What about that?CurtisNaito (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro

This source should probably be removed. I've added some 'alert readers' intro section giving several sources which describe the intense cultural nationalism infusing these Korean debates, a mirror image of one used to get in Japan, and this source shows a totally uncritical approach to the results of Japanese scholarship. Suffice it to compare how Farris reports the same data: he is used, talks of 'assuming', and does not cite uncritically reports in primary sources as though we owed them credence. The error made throughout is, for example, to note similarities between a peninsula hoe, or pottery in some region of ancient Korea and those in Japan, and then introduce it as 'immigrant peoples' exported. Well, not all cultural diffusion comes by one way 'immigration', and until the status of late Yayoi/Kofun relations with peninsular tribal aggregations is clarified, we just don't know who did what, whether things were imported, or immigrants introduced them, or whether old ethno-tribal links were maintained between constituent groups in Yamato and the Korean peninsular and lie behind these transfers.Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

This article was published in a peer reviewed academic journal and was written by a team of qualified scholars. If you are going to reject it entirely, you are going to need a very reliable source clearly stating that this article is "nationalist". There are two ways to solve this. Either we can just put "according to Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro" in front of anything you dispute, or better yet we can just go to the reliable sources noticeboard and get a definitive ruling. However, you need to be careful to not engage in original research. If a peer reviewed academic journal says something, it needs to be refuted by a reliable source, not just your own hunch.

I get the impression you just really don't like the word "Korean". You seem to think that Farris is a better source, but you strangely deleted the part about "Korean ovens" even though Farris says, "The discovery that Japan's first ovens in northern Kyushu and the Kinai are associated with early stoneware also lends support to the idea of Korean origin. In the eighth and ninth centuries, these appliances were so closely associated with southern Korea that the Japanese called them Korean ovens." Using the word "Korean" is in accordance with all the reliable sources cited, including Farris. You added in Totman here, but he says "in cooler regions of the northeast" open-hearth arrangements prevailed, not "the Japanese continued to prefer employing open-hearth ovens". How did you get "The Japanese" from "cooler regions of the northeast"?TH1980 (talk) 17:52, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't like nationalists, period, esp. when that infantile form of thinking drifts into scholarship. It's not limited to these articles either. Farris on this is nuanced, whereas your source isn't: it translates everything in Japanese sources discussing peninsular similarities into the form 'Korean immigrants', which proves that the authors are pushing a nationalist POV. The impression one gets from their spin is that a poor underdeveloped Japan suddenly started to spurt into growth and civilization when 'Korean' immigrants arrived. The modern consensus is that from 200 CE onwards, local Kinai-Kyushu chieftains had extensive links with southern peninsular peoples, they were perhaps linked tribally, that they were allied for some centuries in their interests with peninsular groups in Gaya and Baekje against Goguryeo and Silla, that they were sufficiently strong to dispatch several military expeditions to reinforce their peninsular tribal allies in the south, and successive defeats eventually drove refugees from those kingdoms to sanctuary in Japan/Yamato.

I took out "Korean ovens" because that is a misleading translation of karakamado (韓竈). It's easily to be mislead by 韓, which became one of the terms for 'Korea' as a whole. Karakamado at a glance appear to be a rare term, attested in the Engishiki centuries later, where 'kara' (韓) in Old Japanese almost certainly referred to the southern peninsular area controlled by the Gaya confederacy (Kaya/Kara:伽耶/加羅), and where a different language from those used in the north of the Korean peninsula, and one related to Japonic, (Gaya language) may have been spoken. That is what Farris is alluding to Kara (southern peninsula). To speak of 'Korean' at this time as a unified cultural, ethnic, national reality is, as Hyung Il Pai's very good recent book argues, an anachronism, and that is why 'peninsular (Korean)' must be the default term, since it means we are talking of a geographic locus, not a unified nation-state (and I would add that a more objective approach would be to replace 'Japanese' with Kinai/Kyushu/Yamato likewise, as the context suggests, since a unified Japanese state wasn't achieved that early either). The anachronism, with all of its nationalist flavor, survives in Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro. How that got past peer-review is a mystery. You are correct that it was thus published, but, I stick by my point, that everything we use it for should be cross-confirmed by more scholarly sources.Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

No doubt some Chinese nationalist or two will start playing with Korean articles and showing that 99% of the 'Korean' culture which makes up, for Korean nationalists, Japanese culture, actually came to Korea from China,a and we will then have to erase this and retitle it Chinese influence on the Korean and Japanese Cultures. I.e. what you are doing here, can be done with equal force on Korean culture, since ultimately, China invented virtually all of the material, artistic, literary, architectural basis for civilization in the Far East, and for a millennium, the periphery tinkered.Nishidani (talk) 21:21, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The point is that we stick to the information and topics of reliable sources. An article on "Chinese influence on the Korean and Japanese Cultures" maybe could be written, but it would require sources about that subject. This article exists because there are reliable sources like "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection" by Farris, or "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan", as well as sections of books by Mikiso Hane and Chai-Shin Yu expressly titled "Korean influence on Japanese culture". These sources deal with Korean influence on Japanese culture specifically, not "Chinese influence on the Korean and Japanese Cultures", which is a different subject.

We are supposed to be avoiding original research. Farris says that "Korean oven" is the most suitable translation of kamado. Perhaps you personally prefer a different translation, but on Wikipedia we should stick with Farris' translation. If you prefer, we can put "according to Farris" in front of the translation. You may not personally agree that, "a poor underdeveloped Japan suddenly started to spurt into growth and civilization when Korean immigrants arrived." (And that's not really what the source says anyway...) But it doesn't matter, because when a team of scholars produces a peer-reviewed study saying something, we should just report on that, not find out if your own research produces a different conclusion.

Also, the background section is really poorly cited. The first three sentences have no citations at all and since none of the information from the first three sentences are contained in the section's first citation, it looks like all the information in the whole section is cited to the batch of sources stuck onto the section's final sentence. Moreover, the books cited have little or nothing to do with Korean influence on Japanese culture. Henry Em, for instance, doesn't seem to mention even one single historical influence Korea had on Japan anywhere in his book about modern Korean historiography. I don't see why we should fill the article with so many sources that have nothing to do with the actual subject of the article.TH1980 (talk) 12:26, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You're the last person on Wikipedia to be claiming work done by others is 'really poorly cited'. Citation of mediocre sources is the hallmark of your editing here, and if you look at the article's development, what has happened is that you have constantly dumped in material that other editors have had to review and source correctly. In fact my working hypothesis is that your lazy tossing in of 'stuff' you google up without understanding what its status is in Japanese studies, is meant by now as a prod to get serious editors who actually know the subject professionally, to fix it, and thereby, since you can't write a GA article, get them to do so by fixing your errors with technical precision.

The first three sentences all come directly from the main works cited at the end of the article. All of the works deal with the competing nationalisms of Japan and Korea over how to interpret the connections between the Korean peninsula cultures and ancient Japan. Once you actually start reading those sources, you will grasp their pertinence, i.e., that the whole argument of cultural 'debt' emerges out of clashing nationalisms. As I said, by the same token, anyone could write an article showing that 95% of the culture of Korea came from China, and all of that in turn went to Japan. To erase the Chinese source, and then push the idea that 'Korean' culture made the germinal, pervasive impact on 'Japanese' culture is to promote the middle man and not the producer as artificer of genius for what then the end 'consumer' is said to have appropriated illegitimately as the product of his autochthonous genius. Even the language is borrowed, so when Korean scholars talk of danil minjok (a unitary race (of pure blood lines)) they are just using a native calque on the Japanese coinage 単一民族, tan'itsu minzoku. Chinese Han sources speak constantly of the 'immigration' of large fluxes of 'Chinese' into Korea in much of the latter's formative early period: one of the functions of the commandaries at Lelang, Xuantu and elsewhere (cf.Four Commanderies of Han) was to Sinicize the area with immigrants from Yan and Qi. To show that no one is immune to this nonsense, the same game the Korean POV pushing uses with Japan in your source is deployed by Chinese cultural nationalists against Korea, and Japan. Examine Cho-yun Hsu's recent China: A New Cultural History, Columbia University Press, 2012 p.248. That is WP:RS, it is reliably published, passed peer-review, and yet is tainted with silly stuff, just like your source, highlighting China's key ethnic contribution to the rise of Japan by selective use of material without a command of the relevant scholarly literature on that material.

During Japan's Yayoi period (ca.500 BCE-300CE), many Chinese immigrated to Japan, primarily settling in the Kyushu area. According to a Japanese legend, a descendant of Qin Shihuangdi (秦始皇), Gong Yujun, led a group of Chinese across Korea to settle in Japan. They were known as "people of Qin" (Qinren). Another son of the Han emperor Lingdi, Azhi Shizhy, is also said to have led some Han Chinese to settle in Japan. They were known as the "new Han people" (xin Hanren). To this day, some Japanese still have the surnames Qin and Wu and call themselves Qinren and Wuren. Significantly, Kyushu was the starting point for many Japanese missions to China, and the emissaries were for the most part from Kyushu. Thus it is likely that Chinese immigration to Kyushu was a spur to Japanese visits to China. Politically, China's relations with all of these East Asian nations came under the investiture system, while culturally, it was a case of them imitating Chinese ways. The same was true of the industrial arts, though each country developed its own special characteristics. For example, the Koreans excelled in weaving cotton and the Japanese in metallurgy.'

There you have it, that is how an American emeritus Chinese scholar, when writing for a Chinese audience, writes up the immigration story. He appears to be referring to the Hata (秦氏):Old Jap. Pata clan's ostensible ancestor 弓月君 Old Jap:Yutukï nö kimi, which, the translators, all experts, fucked up in their transliteration, since that should be Gong Yuejun, not Gong Yujun (shades of Farris!). So how do our Korean nationalists in the paper you want to use spin the mentions of the Hata/Pata immigrant group which the Chinese scholar argues came from China (a 815 CE source in Japanese the Shinsen Shō(sei)jiroku:新撰姓氏録) records the legend that the Hata claimed descent from the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuangdi, and there are several theories about this Hata clan. For Cho-yun Hsu the Hata are one of numerous Chinese tribes which immigrated and spurred the growth of Japan. For Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro they were all Korean and spurred the growth of early Japan.

In the meantime, the Hata clan, a powerful elite class from the Uljin area of ancient Shilla (sic), settled in the Kyoto area around A.D. 450 after Shilla came under Koguryo control. Soon, as part of the Yamato ruling elite, the Hata family organized Korean immigrant communities, particularly those of Kaya, for industrial production needed by the Yamato court

Pure nationalism, and the selective use of one Japanese source. They have completely screwed up, if they ever actually looked at it, the Japanese original source, which says that in the year 283

是歳。弓月君自百濟來歸。因以奏之曰。臣領己國之人夫百廿縣而歸化。然因新羅人之拒。皆留加羅國爰遣葛城襲津彦。而召弓月之人夫於加羅。然經三年而襲津彦不來焉 (Iwanami ed.vol.1 p.361)

I.e. your guys hazard the guess that the 283 date is 'around 450', that Yutukï nö kimi came from Silla when the source says he was from Baekje, and even give the modern Korean district name, how they pinned that down we don't know. Paekje was Silla's enemy, and the text states that Yutukï nö kimi's potential immigrants were stranded in the Gaya confederacy (Kara:加羅) (Note again 'kara' as in karakamado), and blocked by Silla. The Japanese text has them offering their allegiance to the Emperor, and asking the Japanese to get their stranded countrymen over to Japan, with 3 years passing and the emissary failing to get them over until a Japanese military force confronted Silla and secured Yutukï nö kimi's people passage, making out the Japanese organized the immigration of Paekje peoples from Kara to Yamato. Korean scholars have them organizing this immigration on their own. The 'industrial production needed by the Yamato court turns out in the source to be a gift of silkwares the Hata chieftain offered to the court of Emperor Yuryaku (471 CE in the old chronology) after they fell out of favour. (NS vol.1 p.493)..etc.etc.etc.

The Hata like other immigrant clans are extensively analysed with numerous theories about their origins, in Japanese scholarship. They ignore these different views, and focus only on the way they might spin one specific interpretation (by Suzuki) to Korea's credit. What the Korean nationalists you cite are doing is ignoring the whole intricate differentiations of tribal groups in the Korean peninsula, including extensive numbers of settled Han-Chinese groups, who were allied to, or enemies of, the Yamato kingdom, some of whom had deep family links with Yamato clans going back centuries, and calling them all 'Koreans' in a period in which they were engaged in destroying one another, and often as not, calling on help from Yamato, or, if defeated, fleeing there as refugees.

This ideological table-turning (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, whatever) is methodologically jejune, infantile, and the irony is that imperial Japan's ideological manias about themselves being the creative 'elder brothers' for Korea's development is just reversed in Korea's post-colonial world. The prejudice remains intact, only it the seminal locus of civilization is switched to Korea, imagined falsely to be a united cultural 'race'. Much of the article Korean ethnic nationalism could be translated, with suitable historical adjustments, into Japanese to describe prewar Japanese ethnic nationalism, and its long aftermath down to recent times. And it is all utterly tedious, whatever nation spouts this master race crap to vindicate its superiority over its neighbours.Nishidani (talk) 16:22, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

If anyone needs evidence your knowledge of Japanese is next to zero, take this edit of yours, writing:

Farris states that the word kamado can be translated into English as "Korean oven".'

He doesn't say that (p.87) and couldn't say that, since the word kamado cannot be translated as "Korean oven". kamado etymologically means 'cooking place'. Nishidani (talk) 18:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

A lot of the above seems more like soapboxing than commenting on article content. If you want, you can say in the article that the Hata clan might have been of Chinese descent, but I don't think that Cho-yun Hsu should be used as a source here. Cho just says, "According to a Japanese legend", and he doesn't mention the pertinent details about the Hata clan being known for their skill at silk weaving or the date that the migration occurred. The addition you made to the article on sewing only cites the Nihon Shoki, which is a primary source and should not be used here. As for the date that the Hata clan came to Japan, there are lots of sources that agree with the article by Rhee and others which state that the clan came around 450 (and were Korean). For instance, "Kyoto: A Cultural and Literary History" says the clan arrived in Japan "in the fifth century". That is what the secondary sources say. On Wikipedia, you can't try to refute secondary sources using your own interpretation of a primary source like the Nihon Shoki. And yes, I should have written "kara kamado", rather than abbreviating it. The kamado used in Japan were known as "Korean ovens".TH1980 (talk) 19:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Reread what I wrote. You haven't understood anything. You don't know the subject, and therefore you can't evaluate what you are reading. You like your source, and the fact I have provided details which show it spins just one story of many, makes no impression on you. The Japanese chronicle of ancestries of 815 CE says the Hata were of Chinese origin? Crap! You have a Korean source that says they were 'Korean', and indeed were from Silla, and you want that in even in the face of the primary Japanese source, the Nihobnshoki, which says they came from Baekje! In other words, you are a one-eyed POV pushing editor who ignores everything in primary or secondary sources that contradicts what your Korean nationalist source declares. You shouldn't be on Wikipedia.

You've just given another proof you can't evaluate if what you read is tenable, obviously because you don't know anything about Asian, Korean or Japanese history. Before the date the Hata founder Yutukï nö kimi came to Japan, - you're dead certain it was 450 CE asd your Korean source affirms. They were skilled in silk weaving, fine. But the 三國志's section on Japan (倭人傳) predates the supposed date for the Hata by 2 centuries, and describes the Japanese as capable of weaving and spinning 'fine linen and silk fabrics'. The Chinese source in 250CE says the Japanese were skilled weavers of silk. The later source say the Hata also were skilled weavers of silk, and came 2 centuries later. And some idiot then wrote on the page:'Silk weaving took off in Japan from the fifth century onward as a result of new technology brought from Korea.' without asking themselves how 'silk weaving' took off in Japan in the fifth century with the Hata, when the Chinese voyagers report Japanese were making fine silk 2 and a half centuries earlier.Nishidani (talk) 21:27, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I advise that we just cite it as being Farris' opinion. I think we agree that Farris is a reliable source, and he says unequivocally that the Hata were "peninsular". Farris then mentions, "Japan's foremost expert on ancient cloth believes that the production of fine-figured silk twill increased markedly after the fifth century. He links this growth with the other technological improvements that came from Korea at the same time."CurtisNaito (talk) 21:43, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

As it is, I don't think very much evidence had been presented of the unreliability of the Asian Perspectives article. Just because it uses the phrase "Korean immigrants" to describe some of the toraijin, just like almost all reliable sources do, does not mean that a peer reviewed article like this one is somehow biased. If it is necessary though, I would support bringing the article to the reliable sources noticeboard to get confirmation.

Incidentally, I recent read the New History Textbook, which is generally regarded as being a Japanese nationalist work. However, it did pass inspection by the Ministry of Education, so it couldn't have any major errors. At any rate, this textbook says on page 51 that the Hata clan were of Korean origin and came to Japan in the fifth century. It just goes to show that in Japan even those of nationalist leaning, plus Japan's own government, acknowledge that the Hata clan were likely of Korean descent.

Th1980 is right that the books in the background section don't really deal with Korean influence on Japanese culture, but I guess the books do at least deal with Korea and Japan. The citations do need work because you can't cite so many sentences at the beginning of a paragraph to a citation only mentioned at the end of the paragraph placed after several other unrelated citations. However, there is one line in the background section ("the role of Korean peninsular peoples in the transmission of Sinic culture was underplayed") which is repeated at the end of the article. Maybe the whole "background" section should be moved into a section dealing with historiography in general.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:16, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Whaddya mean? The New History textbook passed inspection by the Ministry of Eudcation and therefore couldn't have any major errors. It's rife with errors, and the Ministry of Education in Japan virtually waged war on Ienaga Saburō and wrecked his scholarly career - a fucking magnificent editor of the Nihon Shoki, because they disliked his historical textbooks. The New History textbook 'was approved by the Ministry of Education in 2001, and caused a huge controversy in Japan, China and Korea. A large number of Japanese historians and educators protested against the content of New History Textbook and its treatment of Japanese wartime activities.' That sort of shit can never be cited in any responsible article for facts, because what is factual is always spun for a political effect. If you can't see that, you're way out of your depth here.Nishidani (talk) 22:05, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Textbook examinations in Japan screen out factual errors, but are not as good with correcting omissions. The edition of the New History Textbook I was using was passed by the Ministry of Education just last year, but not before many corrections were made. We can just cite Farris' opinion as evidence that the Hata were of Korean origin. My only point was that, in Japan at least, even staunch nationalists admit that the Hata were Korean.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:08, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, so you don't understand that the Japanese textbook industry is governed politically, and the 'facts' are embedded in narratives that, in the choice of language, and selective presentation of interpretative perspectives while repressing others, push a nationalist line. You can't use em. They're just examples of nationalist pathology.

Farris? Did you read the above? The primary Japanese sources conflict: some say they were Baekje people, snd some say they were of Chinese descent (Qi). It's very fucking simple. Why single out Farris, or anyone? Hundreds of scholars have written on this, and several theories exist. Look at the Japanese article on the Hata for a very brief snippet of the controversies. They certainly weren't 'Korean' in the sense of having a Korean national identity, as our POV pushers wish to make out. The whole Baekje-Yamato connection was mediated through the Gaya confederacy, so you have a very complex linguistic, tribal set of realities there that only quite sophisticated historians write about. It doesn't get into textbooks, or in the tripe dished out by nationalists.Nishidani (talk) 22:26, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, up to now I thought we were in agreement that Farris was a reliable source. Do you also dispute Farris' reliability, because we could take his book to the reliability sources noticeboard if need be. If you do think he is a decent scholar though, why would you object to including the Korean origin of the Hata clan as Farris' view? Even if it isn't the only opinion, Farris' opinion should be worth including in some form. Of course, we can't cite the primary sources in this article. I think that we should include different opinions from secondary sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay fine then, I'll rephrase it as Farris' opinion. If I understand Nishidani correctly, he wants more historians represented and not just Farris alone. Still, I'll start with Farris and we'll move on from there.TH1980 (talk) 01:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Sewing

For the section on sewing, is there another source for this than the Nihon Shoki? I don't know if I agree that the Nihon Shoki is necessarily a primary source, but given its age I would ideally use a newer source if possible.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:30, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You can get it in Aston's translation, but if you need a secondary source, then Pageant of Japanese Art: Textiles and lacquer, Tokyo Kokutitsu Hakubutsukan, Tōto Bunka Co. Tokyo 1952 p.3 Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I'll just go ahead and put this source in.TH1980 (talk) 01:34, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Population

Compare:

During this new period of Japanese history, the Yayoi period, the forms of intensive agriculture and animal husbandry practiced in Korea were adopted in Japan, first in Kyushu which is closest to the Korean peninsula and soon all across Japan. The result was a major explosion in the Japanese population from 75,000 people in 400 BC to over five million by 250 AD.

with

We cited population estimates for 800 BCE of about 76,000 people and for O CE of some 595,000, nearly an eightfold increase in 800 years with the bulk of that growth occurring from the Kinai vicinity westward. During the next 700 years, as agriculture spread, the human population would grow even faster, expanding some ninefold to an estimated 5,400,000 people in 700 CE. Increase at such a rapid rate surely reflected the increased fecundity that a more reliable food supply permitted, but it also reflected the long-sustained in-migration of mainlanders.' Totman p.61

Totman says from 800BCE to O CE there was an eightfold growth 800 years. In the next 700 years there is a ninefold increase. Where Totman has Japan with 5,400,000 in 700 CE, the Korean source is trumpeting virtually that same figure in 250 CE (over 5,000,000), 4 and a half centuries earlier, meaning that Japanese population must have stagnated for that long period of massive agricultural growth. This is plainly crazy. The figures simply jar with one another. And when you have such a massive discrepancy in sources, you can't pick one you like, and push it as a fact on Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

This can be re-added. I see where the problem is. The article actually says that the population increased to 5,400,000 "during the Kofun period". Since the Kofun period started around 250 AD, I guess at some point the article came to say that instead, but the figure of five million+ was referring to events that took place at some point in time before the end of the period.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I get this population problem with POV pushers on articles ranging from the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the population of Judea,etc. to the Ashkenazi population of Europe in 1500, to articles like this. The ranges in competent literature are significantly vast to disallow anyone from using one source and claiming it is true. In history, you only have theories, you rarely have facts. As to the point you made, I can cite other estimates which make those c onflicting figures even more rubbery. We don't fucking know. All we can do is respect the variety of interpretations in sources, which [User:TH1980|TH1980]] systematically refuses to do, in pushing everything in a borderline and distinctly nationist source as though it were the real McCoitus for his orgasmic Korean origins of everything in Japan POV.Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

We can deal with potential bias by sticking to the views of reliable sources. In general we can discuss which sources to include and which to exclude, but I think peer reviewed academic articles like the one cited here should get an automatic pass unless you know of a reliable source explicitly refuting the article itself.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:37, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

No. The Chinese book got a peer-reviewed pass, and it fucked up. I showed with just one of dozens of examples, above, where the four authors fucked up comprehensively, and even in peer-reviewed papers, if you fuck up, that means the process broke down, as often happens, and one can't knowingly quote material than is skewed as that bit about the Hata is. Nishidani (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, do you think we should take the article to the reliable sources noticeboard then? How do you really know when a peer reviewed source by a group of distinguished scholars messes up? The same information was in other sources too, so a lot of scholars must have messed up. In cases of disputes between scholars, Wikipedians shouldn't really take sides. Rather than guessing which peer reviewed sources messed up, and which got it right, I think personally that we're better off including both perspectives in the article.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:03, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, if we need different sources for Korean culture being adopted "first in Kyushu". We might be able to use Satoru Nakazono's essay in "Coexistence and Cultural Transformation in East Asia" or possibly "Ancient Jomon of Japan" by Junko Habu, which seem to report on similar facts. I still think that the Asian Perspectives article is the best source for this, but Nakazono does note, "It can be considered that the Yayoi period was established as a result of the Jomon people in West Kyushu striking up a relationship with the remote Korean peninsula through their strategy to selectively acquire its cultural elements... There is also an enticing hypothesis that in the final stage of the process of this Jomon-Yayoi transition, the West Kyushu people changed their ethnic identity from that of Jomon people into Korean peninsula people..." According to Habu, "By the Final Jomon period, continuing influences from the Mumun culture of the Korean peninsula began to alter various aspects of the Jomon culture in western Japan. Material culture, including stylistic characteristics of pottery, shows strong influences from the Mumun culture... Rice paddy fields and dolmens, both of which are hallmarks of the Mumun culture, appeared in northern Kyushu."CurtisNaito (talk) 04:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Those aren't specialist sources on Korean influence on Japan, but I could add them in if no one else has a problem with it.TH1980 (talk) 00:44, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Rhee et al.

Rhee, Song-Nai, Aikens, C. Melvin, Choi, Sung-Rak, and Ro, Hyuk-Jin, "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan". Asian Perspectives, Fall 2007. Is used to source over one third of this article. That is WP:Undue for a substantial article.

• I have noted that it has a nationalist line
• that it makes some pretty simple mistakes in its presentation of ancient materials
• while being useful.

• While I accept that it qualifies as RS, this overreliance on a text that has its problems poses WP:NPOV issues. The solution I propose is that (a) a wiki article should not source 30% of its controversial claims to one such source and therefore (b) the use of that source should be controlled by finding scholarly sources that corroborate each claim. Until that is done, this will prove to be a serious objection to any promotion of the article.Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Since you have a copy of the article, you probably realize that it already cites all its claims to good scholarship, albeit scholarship written in foreign languages. You disagree with it personally, but your refutation above used primary sources to call into question a peer reviewed article. Original research in other words. The article did say near the beginning that most of its arguments represented areas of scholarly agreement, so I'm sure that none of it is overly "controversial". I'll bring it down to 15% before nominating.TH1980 (talk) 20:17, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

We still haven't actually found a reliable source stating that the article is "nationalist". Since you "accept that it qualifies as RS", I think we should only replace it if another reliable, secondary source contradicts it. One can't accept it as a reliable source, but still insist that it can't be cited unless all the information in the Wikipedia article is redundantly cited to two works saying the same thing. However it would in theory be easy to find scholarly sources corroborating it because, as noted, it includes good citations. Maybe we could compromise and aim for 20%.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:36, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Go away. You are boring and incapable of reading either policy or scholarship. It is quite pointless addressing me, since you cannot understand my replies.

TH1980 (I admire your tenacity and attempt to at least respond to somed serious issues) I don't disagree with it personally. I actually found it stimulating. It is just so selective and spun that it cannot be used alone. I'll give you another example, regarding Yoshinogari:

It contains an internal precinct, also moated and palisaded, that shelters a rich elite cemetery and arge public buildings, and elsewhere the site gives evidence of Songguk-ni-type residences, protected storehouses, bronze artifacts, bronze-working technology, dolmen burials, and pottery of specifically Mumun type, among much other evidence of Korean antecedents. Yoshinogari is unquestionably a community of the Songguk-ni type, which was widely established throughout southern Korea in later Mumun/Bronze Age times. From its abundance of archaeological data, Nishitani (1989: 127-132) has become convinced that "ancient Korea and its technology were greatly involved in the birth of Yoshinogari as well as in the process of tate formation in the Saga Plains."pp.431-2

Well what that Nishitani thinks is fine as a POV. What they don't say is that the tamped-earth structure of the burial mounds at that site is quite similar to the Chinese commandary methods at Lelang in northern Korea. What they have done is fished for a Japanese source that corroborates their 'Korean' theory, and ignored all the scholarship that points to a more complex reality, in this case Chinese structures in Korea. That is one of dozens of examples of selective skewing of Japanese scholarship there. Nishidani (talk) 21:06, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll put it down as Nishitani's opinion, but it's still not proof of bias in the article. The article agreed with a major Japanese scholar, who's no Korean nationalist, and both cited and quoted him properly. The article basically said at the beginning that it was attempting to distill the scholarly consensus, not comprehensively list every point of view in existence.TH1980 (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Since I saw a request to comment on the source at WT:KOREA, here is my view. It is likely that the article cited has a Korean POV, due to being written by Koreans, but no scholarship is truly objective, and nobody seems to be disputing it is generally reliable (it has been published in English in a peer-reviewed outlet). I don't think WP:UNDUE applies here (at best, we could talk about Template:Onesource, but since the article is used only for a third of the content, I do not think even this applies here). If anyone wants to see this reference removed, they need to show that it has been criticized by other scholars (ie. shown to be controversial). If some claims it is making are dubious/disputed, then equally reliable sources need to presented, so we can note differing POVs in the text. At present, I do not see any arguments that would justify tagging this article or reference with POV/RS tags. As for promoting this article, this is a bigger topic that seems to be off topic to this very discussion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:47, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

No one is arguing for its removal. I'm arguing that, given that Melvin Aikens has no knowledge of Japanese sources, the lead Korean writer had a post before retiring in a minor private Christian university in Oregan, and the other two Korean scholars have 'affiliations' (undefined) with minor, one private, Korean universities, using it requires care, if only because in the few points I had the time to check in detail (see above), they got things wrong, or selectively cited a Japanese scholars while ignoring the fact that other Japanese, prob. Korean and Western scholars (like Gina Barnes) would dispute that conclusion. That, as you can see, is decided nationalistic POV pushing. Given its publication venue, it scrapes by. Given its blinkered nationalistic use of Japanese sources, and the fact that it references a third of the article, it is a fair request, one recognized by the main editor here, that what it is cited from those sources finds confirmation in less ideologically fixated archaeological scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 12:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

You said, "This source should probably be removed." You were arguing for removal less than a month ago. Piotrus' statement "If anyone wants to see this reference removed, they need to show that it has been criticized by other scholars" is true. Avoid original research. Three users agree that the Rhee et al. article can be cited without corroboration unless clearly refuted by another reliable source. If Barnes disagrees that the Yoshinogari site shows Korean influence, then tell me in what book Barnes says this and we'll cite it as well. Having said all this, did you notice that I already reduced Rhee et al. from 30% to 7% of the article's citations? Piotrus said that WP:UNDUE doesn't even apply to 30%, so no one can complain about the current 7%.TH1980 (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Piotrus's remarks were addressed to anyone who wants the article removed. I wrote above:'While I accept that it qualifies as RS, this overreliance on a text that has its problems poses WP:NPOV issues.' He noted that as well. 'If some claims it is making are dubious/disputed, then equally reliable sources need to presented, so we can note differing POVs in the text.' Much is dubious, as put. When I have tagged it thus, the tags are removed on various pretexts. The most devastating thing you have done is to remove all of the links to the books I added. They survive on the single pages cited, at times (I can remember providing page links to several sources here that have disappeared), but when I did an FA article, I retained all links in the bibliography, so any reader, by pressing on the book link can explore those sources widely. By removing them from the bibliography you have denied the editors what they had earlier. Most of the books without book links have to be taken on trust, which the talk pages would suggest is something not warranted.Nishidani (talk) 19:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Piotrus said, "I do not see any arguments that would justify tagging this article or reference with POV/RS tags". He said, "'If some claims it is making are dubious/disputed, then equally reliable sources need to presented". If Rhee et al's claims are disputed by reliable sources, okay. However, make sure that you tell me the reliable sources that dispute Rhee et al. Otherwise, it might just be your opinion. You say that Barnes does not believe that Yoshinogari shows Korean influence. Okay, what's the book and what's the page number? I sometimes use Google Books links, but other times I don't, because sometimes link rot kicks in over time and sometimes other users don't have full access to the same page numbers anyway. Anyone who does have access to the right pages can go on Google Books and check them themselves. However, I didn't ultimately delete any of your Google Books links. I wanted to create a standardized list of citations using the same bibliographic format, and so I put all the Google Books links in the citation list. Anyone who clicks a citation number can immediately check Google Books for easy verification (if they have access). If for some reason you want the links repeated way down in the bibliography as well, I will do that, but I don't think it's a big deal.TH1980 (talk) 19:52, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm sick and tired of doing other people's homework here, usually because it is then ignored. It should take you a few seconds to google that information, since Gina Barnes is one of the foremost scholars in this field. As to Rhee and Co. what is their citation index in scholarship over the last 9 years?Nishidani (talk) 20:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Look who is citing Rhee et al. as a reliable source![1] Gina Barnes! Barnes also cites other works by Song-nai Rhee in that book. If Wikipedia has to exercise such great caution in citing Rhee, then obviously Wikipedia has far higher standards than even Gina Barnes, said to be "one of the foremost scholars in this field"… What's more, Tadashi Nishitani advocates this theory, and he is cited in many books. Okay, I did find a book by Gina Barnes mentioning the Chinese influence on Yoshinogari, but I didn't see where it refuted the Korean influence. Just because China influenced the site doesn't mean Korea did not. But okay, to end this now, I'll insert the Barnes reference.TH1980 (talk) 23:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

In what context is Rhee et al. cited in Barnes (no preview in GBooks)? And if you have access to other sources, why rely so heavily on one? Is that not evidence alone that the article fails on comprehensiveness? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:29, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

It looks to me like Gina Barnes cites Rhee et al. in two places concerning archeological finds in Korea. Barnes' book covers archeology in East Asia, including Korea, and it isn't specifically about Korean influence on Japan. I have recently gained access to a lot of books online and at the local university. It's hard to learn the ins and outs of Wikipedia, but I've kept tabs on this Wikipedia article and listened to other editors long enough to know that other users in the past expressed concern about original research. All the information from Rhee et al. is contained in other sources. I recently replaced most of the citations to Rhee et al. with other books containing the same information, so I know this is true. However, if this Wikipedia article had used hundreds of general works on Korean history or Asian archeology, and just cited the brief mentions contained in each of them about Korean influence in Japan, would that be original research? Possibly. What I found after Rhee et al. was first added in the Wikipedia article was that Rhee et al. is not an academic article about Japanese or Korean history that happens to contain some references to Korean influence on Japan. It is an academic article specifically about Korean influence of Japanese culture. Rhee et al. cites hundreds of books and articles that happen to mention Korean influence on Japan incidentally, though most of them are not on that topic specifically. In other words, Rhee et al. seems to have already done all the research for us. Rhee et al. (and Farris' book as well) is very comprehensive for the time range it covers (prehistory to the eighth century). Therefore, the Wikipedia article will be comprehensive as long as we do one of two things - (1.) Cite Rhee et al. (my preference if possible) or (2.) Cite other sources that contain the same information as Rhee et al.TH1980 (talk) 02:53, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Gina Barnes used that paper twice for some images. The whole thrust of her 2 books is to undercut the ethnic nationalism of Chinse, Korean and Japanese nationalist scholarship. I asked you to give the scholarly citational status for the last decade of Rhee's paper. I can find it mentioned in footnotes in 2 area-specialist texts. So, do some work, and tell us what its citational status is. This is the measure of whether its thesis (as opposed to its drawings of pottery types in Japan and Korea) is taken seriously or not.Nishidani (talk) 09:59, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify what OR refers to. 1. Research that you have done, and not the work of a recognized publication. 2. Significant research made using sources directly related to the event, an example would be doing an article on Christianity based solely on the bible. 3. Research done by somebody that has not been published in a recognized publication, for example a blog post. Everything that uses a recognized publication is considered to be scholarly research, the question then becomes, is the source reliable (this is rather vague so let me elaborate slightly; is there obvious bias, obviously poor or incorrect information which is checked by looking at the sources that the article uses, etc), do other sources agree or disagree with it (if one source says A and three other sources say B, then state both and note that B is more heavily favoured to A), etc. These things can take a while, the larger the scope of an article the harder it is to fact check everything in it but its what we strive for. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:25, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• TH1980, we have issues regarding WP:WEIGHT and contradictory sources. For example, Moveable type. We know that moveable type was introduced around the year 1600. The sources the ukiyo-e article uses, though, emphasize that woodlblock printing remained the primary means of printing throughout the Edo period, and that moveable type remained fringe. I can't access page 329 of Ha's book on GBooks to compare what it says. The text as presented gives the impression that moveable type became the primary printing technology of the Edo period. How do you plan on resolving this? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:45, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Ha Woobong and Etsuko Kang both wrote about the influence of moveable type from Korea. Soho Tokutomi also mentioned its importance. This may not be contradictory with other sources. Woodblock printing was important, and so was moveable type. We don't need to change the section. If you do want to modify the section, Nishidani suggested above that we add a sort of rebuttal to the standard view by citing Machi Senjuro's essay. I'm willing to go along with that, and both Nishidani and CurtisNaito accepted it, so three editors have accepted it. If we follow Mr rnddude's guidelines, it wouldn't be original research either.

If you want to modify the text in other ways using Ha's essay, here's an excerpt:

"Moveable metal type was one of the first objects to be plundered during the Imjin Waeran. It is said that the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army during the 1597 invasion, Ukita Hideie (1573–1655), raided the Office of Government Publication type foundry in Kyongbok Palace, took away 200,000 metal characters, printing devices, and Korean and Chinese books and presented all these to Hideyoshi. Aside from metal type, the Japanese commanders also stole Choson wooden types that were mainly used in Buddhist temples. Wooden type was later used to print Kobun kokyo in 1593 and Mogyu (the eighth-century Mengqiu , a collection of anecdotes in poetry form that acted as a primer for children) in 1596. Moreover, the famous Nanki Library, a library in the domain of Kii, one of the Gosanke of the Tokugawa clan, was founded owing to Choson moveable copper type and type made as copies of the same. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, success was finally achieved with the first, moveable metal-type publication of Daizo ichiranshu in eleven volumes in 1615 and the Gunsho chiyo in fifty volumes in 1616. These were accomplished with moveable copper type taken from Choson and Japanese moveable copper type cast after 1605. By the mid seventeenth century, publications using moveable copper type became more prevalent. In these ways, metal and wood moveable types looted from Choson became catalysts for the development of printing technology and scholarship in the Edo period."TH1980 (talk) 04:13, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

You mean Nishidani has brought this up before? Sounds pretty serious to me. My understanding is that woodblock printing was the dominant form of printing in Japan until the Meiji period. The text in this article implies the opposite. For instance—and this is literally the first source I came across when I searched for "Japan movable type" in GBooks—this source states "the movable type technology of the early seventeenth century fell into disuse", then revived under Chinese influence, but the revival was with wooden type. The book is called The Book in Japan—I'm sure some careful research using sources like this can sort these problems out. The text as written must be dealt with. Let's see some care put into it this time. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:38, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

In Volume 4 of the Cambridge History of Japan pp. 726–727: "As publishing became increasingly a commercial enterprise, the more economical method of printing from woodblocks, used in Japan for at least six hundred years, soon replaced movable type. Of the five hundred works known to have been printed between 1593 and 1625, 80 percent were printed by movable type, but movable type accounted for less than 20 percent of the printing occurring during the next quarter-century, and for virtually none after 1650." Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:43, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Just a note on that for your personal interest, now that I've reread this whole thread in sequence. This was spun as 'Japan's entire book production', which is WP:OR from the excellent Donald Shively. Shively didn't note that 20% of the known metal type books in that specific period (400) a quarter came from the Jesuit printing press. We can't note it either. Since the two pieces of data are not connected in the literature as far as I am aware.Nishidani (talk) 17:02, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Here's Totman in Early Modern Japan: "From the 1630s on, the use of movable type declined. Printers increasingly employed blocks for the complete production of literary works, whether classics or newly written prose or poetry, and by the 1650s blocks had completely displaced movable type." Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It's utterly pointless. Spend volumes of virtual ink, succeed in making a valid point and by POV creep over multiple edits, they will just sneak back the crap. One example.

We once had what follows below, which I had to write because both editors were insisting on introducing counterfactual information sourced to Ha Woo Bong, and when I objected, also to Etsuko Hae-Jin Kang. Respectable scholars make serious mistakes, and when they evidently do, touching areas beyond their competence I argued, they should not be cited. So I wrote:

The first moveable type printing, for the production of Christian, Chinese and Japanese books, was introduced from Europe, when the Jesuits itroduced a Western movable type printing-press in Nagasaki, Japan in 1590, worked by two Japanese friars who had learnt type-casting in Portugal. Moveable type printing, invented in China in the 11th. century, developed from clay to ceramic, and then bronze copper-tin alloy based movable type presses. Further refinements of the technology were achieved in Korea. Toyotomi Hideyoshi brought over to Japan Korean print technicians and their fonts in 1593 as part of his booty during his failed invasion of that peninsular (1592-1595). That same year, a Korean printing press with movable type was sent as a present for the Japanese Emperor Go-Yōzei. The emperor commanded that it be used to print an edition of the Confucian Classic of Filial Piety:孝経. Four years later in 1597, apparently due to difficulties encountered in casting metal, a Japanese version of the Korean printing press was built with wooden instead of metal type, and in 1599 this press was used to print the first part of the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan). Etsuko Kang claims that, "Japan's present exuberant publishing industry can be traced back to the Edo period when Korean influence was instrumental to its flourishing."In fact, the qualitative upsurge in Japanese reading, dated to around 1630 onwards, was related to the spread of woodblock printing, which, as opposed to metal-type printing of books in both Korean and Vietnamese, allowed for stable texts accessible to many because reading marks were added, that enabled Chinese style texts to be read as though they were Japanese.

I wrote this because insistent attempts were being made to edit in a demonstrably false claim, which had two RS that just happened to show a total ignorance of the scholarship on Edo book production in Japan, about which the 2 scholars have no familiarity.

I noted this on the talk page.I.e.Etsuko Hae-Jin Kang and Ha Woo Bong, "War and Cultural Exchange", in The East Asian War, 1592–1598, eds. James B. Lewis. New York: Routledge, 2015, fucked up completely by making the absurd suggestion Korean metal work had a germinal value for Japanese Edo printing. Several specialist histories of Edo printing show the old claim is nonsense.

I even went so far as to undo my own work, on the understanding that this theory was false however sourced and its presence on the page demanded a contextual correction. So I even even took out the evidence I added to show the assertions were in defiance of the Japanese scholarship on the history of printing. I’ll take out the real facts, if the bullshit counter facts are left out. That was a compromise. It was ignored.

What did our editors do? They restored Ha Woo Bong (河宇鳳 of Chonbuk National University)'s silly remark by edit creep: it was smuggled in again by our 2 POV pushers, without the corrective material that shows it is a wrong claim. So now we have this boiled down version

At the start of the invasion in 1592 Korean books and book printing technology were one of Japan's top priorities for looting, especially metal moveable type. One commander alone, Ukita Hideie, is said to have had 200,000 printing types and books removed from Korea's Gyeongbokgung Palace. The printing types remained in use in Japan for many decades and the books were numerous enough to fill many libraries.According to the historian Ha Woo Bong, "metal and wood moveable types looted from Choson became catalysts for the development of printing technology and scholarship in the Edo period."

Ha Woo Bong’s assertion is crap, but reinserted because it claims Japan’s printing industry was catalyzed by Korean technology. Japan’s printing technology discarded Korean metal type as too expensive and awkward and reverted to its traditional wood block technology, and it was this decision which profoundly altered the production of books in Japan.

All of the hard work put into clarifying his unreliability on this has been removed. I made a compromise edit: don't put in that crap by Ha Woo Bong and I'll take out the extra material I added on the real history of Edo printing. No deal. They leaped at my removal of the total context I had added, and just restored the Ha Woo Bong claim, which is contradicted in all specialist sources.

It's an attritional war by these two. No amount of correction has altered the fundamental POV thrust they are designing, and no amount of technical remonstration here will change their approach.Nishidani (talk) 10:06, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Jesus Christ, so this isn't mere laziness or incompetence. This alone should get them TBANned. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

That's only one example. There are numerous other instances of the same malpractice. One brings scholarship to bear on a poorly sourced assertion, and somehow it disappears as they continually readjust the text over weeks. Nishidani (talk) 13:10, 30 June 2016

Most of that text, like the original sentence about moveable type printing being brought by the Jesuits, was already in the article before Nishidani or I had edited it and was never discussed on the talk page. Because topics like the Jesuits were not about Korea, I didn’t realize, at the time that I was adding in citations, that its removal would be controversial. However, Nishidani was the one who removed citations to Machi Senjuro.[2] Just deleting everything wasn't really a compromise, especially since most users who commented eventually favored inclusion. Actually, nothing in the shortened version of the text, and nothing in Ha Woo Bong's essay, necessarily contradicts the woodblock printing theory. The shortened version of the text merely speaks of moveable type printing as a "catalyst" that " remained in use in Japan for many decades". Indeed, the time period from 1593 to 1625 (from Curly Turkey's Cambridge History citation) was a period of decades when almost all printing was done by moveable type prior to the rise of woodblock printing. The above statements were true. The problem is that the talk page, which allows us to explain ourselves, was not utilized sufficiently. I obviously was not trying to engage in any "attrition", and I don't think anyone else was either, so I shouldn't be accused of that. I just did not realize the reason behind including the material that was not directly related to Korean influence. Nishidani was not the one who added the large majority of that material, and I did not see any specific reasons on the talk page from whoever did. I will now revise this section as suggested to me on this talk page, so please take a look at my new edit for yourself.TH1980 (talk) 16:10, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It took me 3 months to convince you to remove the claim made by Ha Woobong which you entered back in April and refused to budge on, was false. I calculate that with this stalling, my trawling back to remind you of everything you retained against consensus and or elided by whimsy, would mean several further years of negotiation. You don't understand anything I said above. 'nothing . .necessarily contradicts the woodblock printing theory'. It's not a fucking 'theory'. What was added disproved the old claim still in braindead passages of books you cite, that Korean metal type changed the landscape of Japanese printing. It didn't. I'm not going to comment any further. Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The quote by Ha Woo Bong was not false. I told you above, there's no contradiction in saying that moveable type printing was the catalyst of Japanese printing for decades, and saying that later woodblock printing became more popular. I did understand what you said. The more important question is what do you think about the new section on printing? Can you suggest any further ideas for this particular section or a new idea pertaining to a different topic? Discussions do not need to take years, though I do recall IJethrobot once reminding me that building a Wikipedia article is a long and time-consuming process. I guess that's natural for Wikipedia. I want to keep making steady progress, so what do you think the next step should be concerning article content?TH1980 (talk) 18:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, just a closing note then. I will place before anyone who reviews this for any kind of approval the following remark, a just criticism of Japanese ethnonationalist scholarship of several decades ago:

'Thus, in (Japanese) colonial scholarship, all artistic, cultural and technological changes were attributed to new arrivals and conquests by successive superior races who imposed their lifestyles and government on the Korean peninsula.'Hyung Il Pai, Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-formation Theories, Harvard Univ Asia Center, 2000 p.52

And suggest they observe that the whole structure of this cherry-picked decontextualized article merely inverts the vices of Japanese colonial scholarship on Korea to Korea's advantage by creating an article which gives the naïve reader the impression that:

'all artistic, cultural and technological changes were attributed to new arrivals and conquests successively by a superior Korean race who imposed their lifestyles and government on the Japanese archipelago.'

See? You've recycled the imperial Japanese model of cultural conquest developed down to the end of WW2, and made it into the cultural imperial Korean model of the conquest of Japanese history, which emerged as an understandable, if equally stupid, form of ideological retaliation among Korean scholars after WW2. Goodbye till then. Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It can't be that bad. Piotrus said, "I do not see any arguments that would justify tagging this article... with POV/RS tags". Besides, it's cited to good scholarship, so I can't be blamed for what the scholars say. If you have time, tell me what you think about the new printing section, and I'm open to suggestions on how to reduce the alleged bias in the article. You or I can institute any necessary fixes now, or we can do it "before anyone who reviews this".TH1980 (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

That was before any of the above showed up. Piotrus, do you still believe that? After all, we've now demonstrated the extent to which these guys have distorted the "Printing" section—not just screwing up, but surreptitiously restoring a version that was already demonstrated to be false. Repeat for each paragraph of the article. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:02, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The only thing that I reinserted was the Ha Woo Bong quote. Other users thought that adding it was fine, and I personally don't see how it was factually incorrect. At worst maybe it gave a misleading impression to some readers, but it wasn't actually untrue. If you know of any factually incorrect information in the article, you could start by telling me about it. For instance, what do you think about the section on printing as it is currently written?TH1980 (talk) 02:07, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

It seems to confrm better to the story as I understand it, but it also raises the question of why it's even in an article titled "Korean influence on Japanese culture". Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:11, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The same applies, to cite at least one other example, for the philosophy/neo-Confucian section. The structure of this repeated problem is

A source is found for a wild claim (Japanese Neo-Confucianism is taken from Korean Confucian scholars/Edo printing boomed because of Korean metal-type)

One laboriously sets forth the technical literature of recent scholarship which has dismissed the claim.

A tinkering compromise is pushed in, which retains the outdated claim via attribution etc.

I.e. Japan has this or that debt to Koreas starts as a fact, is pulled to pieces, and ends up as an attribution in old or surpassed scholarship, where it is no longer, literally, an influence, but a byway in the history of impressions of an influence.

The fact is, where scholarship has disowned the exaggerated claims there is no longer any justification for retaining them.Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

There are several other examples of this. Korean peninsula cultures played a very notable role in early Japanese history, and it is a pity to see the page utterly fails to make a neutral, infinitely more detailed, and scholarly synthesis of the scholarship on that. It's irredeemable.Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad that we were able to fix the printing section. Obviously, there is a large body of research, including dozens of reliable sources, alleging at least some degree of Korean influence on Japanese printing and Confucianism. When reliable sources contradict, we can't use "I like it/don't like it" as our criteria for inclusion. The most recent sources cited in those section do affirm Korean influence on Japanese Confucianism and other areas, so there's no dividing line between scholarly opinion before and after some individuals ended up calling the original theories into question. Maybe later a consensus will emerge, but we don't have one now. For now, let's acknowledge the debate and mention both sides.TH1980 (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

First, let me say I am impressed by the quality and level of the discussion; I see editors disagreeing - but doing so in the quality fashion, citing sources and debating them, with no personal attacks or such (at least that I can easily see). As I just commented in another discussion where in essence some editors ganged up on another, well, it is a pleasant change. Anyway, I have skimmed over the arguments here, and here are my two cents: it is sadly not our job to say, in text, whether a scholarship piece is bad or good. We can refrain from using some, if there is a consensus here on its quality. Otherwise, the best we can do is to note the contradiction, ex. "Smith (2000) says A, but Kim (2001) says B". If possible to do so in neutral fashion, and backed up by reliable sources on Korean and Japanese historiography, a note on their opposing POVs may be appropriate (some form of saying that Japanese and Korean scholars sadly refuse to acknowledge that either culture was influenced by another, and are pretty nationalistic about their own culture's superiority when compared to the other - but again, this has to be neutrally worded, and be relevant to the discussion). In general, what I would suggest is to be wary of academic works by Fooian scholars publishned in Fooian journals with predominantly Fooian reviewers, as they are likely to be biased. But again, we cannot discard them - we can just try to assign them less due weight when compared to more international scholarship, and provide cautious attributions and warnings (label Korean and Japanese scholar's work, for example, etc.). PS. I hope nobody reads my work as trying to discrediting Korean or Japanese scholar works - I am just saying they have an axe to grind, something that is not unique to them - in fact is very similar to my more familiar areas of Polish-German-Lithuanian-Russian POV. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:04, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Article moved.

Well, unless you want to name the article Korean influence (based on Chinese culture) on Japanese culture. It seems the best choice. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 10:56, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Following that move, I've realized that a lot of the article's wording will require changing to reflect the new title. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave that until tomorrow. Well...unless someone else wants to take on that little task. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 12:38, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the scope of the article refers in particular to culture and technology going through Korea. I have mentioned an alternative suggestion above, so let's talk about that first, or else possibly open a formal move discussion.TH1980 (talk) 15:06, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Right now we are actively discussing three possible titles: "Korean peninsular influence on Japan", "Cultural flows between the Korean peninsular and the Japanese Archepelago", and "Cultural flows from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago".TH1980 (talk) 20:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Why is it only focused on Korean influence, when a large amount of the Korean culture originated in China? Surely, focusing on the entire Asian mainland would make a much better article? (well, unless the desire is to have yet another POV filled article, made purely for the purpose of pushing a "Korea is awesome, Japan sucks" style article) Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:04, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The influence of the entire Asian mainland is a legitimate subject, but an article on Korean influence would eventually have to be spun off from it, because there's enough information on Korean influence alone to fill an entire article. If you check some of the main sources that are used in this Wikipedia article, they include some lengthy treatments of this subject. To give just two examples, the book by historian William Wayne Farris includes a chapter almost seventy pages long entitled "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection" dealing exclusively and in great detail with Korean influence on Japan, not Chinese or Indian. Similarly, the essay in Asian Perspectives, entitled "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan", spends fifty pages explaining the unique contributions of Koreans to Japan. Both these sources note that the cultural influence of Korea on Japan in particular is now recognized as an important field of study. Another Wikipedia article could be created to deal with Korea, China, and India all in one, but there's definitely far more than enough scholarly material available to write an article like this one on Korean influence alone.

The problem is that some of the cited sources just call Koreans of the premodern period "Koreans" whereas other sources call them "Korean peninsular people". That's the reason why there is some controversy now over the title. As TH1980 mentions, three different users have proposed the following three alternative titles: Korean peninsular influence on Japan, Cultural flows between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago, and Cultural flows from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago. Do you like any of those? Some users seem willing to go with any of them, so we might be getting close to a consensus on one of them. I prefer Korean peninsular influence on Japan partly because it's the shortest.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:27, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, a large amount of the content is based on pretty awful, biased sources, that seem to be set on preserving some nationalistic agenda. (pro-Korean? anti-Chinese? anti-Japanese?) - without those unreliable sources, the content would be far more about Asia in general than just Korea. It's not surprising, nearly every Korean/Chinese/Japanese article has the same problem. One or two nationalistic editors, cherry picking their biased sources to push their POV. Oh. and I prefer none of the above, my preference was the article name, that I moved this article to. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:49, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I'd say start an RFC on the topic. Get it out of the same editors here debating it and maybe get some fresh eyes on the matter. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

TH1980

I queried this wording (and who invented it?)

Tamamushi shrine, described by Beatrix von Ragué as "the oldest example of the true art of lacquerwork to have survived in Japan", is decorated with a uniquely Korean inlay composed of the wings of tamamushi beetles

Don't edit until you answer my request. The text on the Tamamushi shrine completely twisted the source. I asked you to provide the page with a transcript of the English text's relevant paragraphs, not to just frig about making a personal rewrite, which you subsequently did, to yield,

Von Ragué states that this form of inlay "is evidently native to Korea."

This personal tinkering, as if you were honestly responding to talk page criticisms, rather than 'saving the nationalist theme', could be said of the section below it referring to Momoyama lacquerware and Korea cited again from Ragué). In short, repeated attempts to get you to provide editors with the source, only lead you, once the error is noted, to tinker away without showing fellow editors what is actually written in the originals. You're not proving to be a reliable reporter of what the sources you say actually state, as shown several times over these long threads. Give the source, and let other editors decide how it might be phrased.Nishidani (talk) 08:50, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I could understand if "a uniquely Korean inlay" was merely rephrasing "is evidently native to Korea" - but it isn't. The meanings are clearly different. Perhaps, the sources used by TH1980, and the way they have been used, would benefit from more scrutiny. This leaves a lot of doubt in my mind about the credibility of a large number of edits on this article, and the article in general. If an editor is deliberately misrepresenting sources, then the credibility of the entire article is open to question. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The German text above is highly nuanced: the first phrasing was a deliberate falsification. The second, only introduced under remonstration, was a selective quote which ignored several qualifications. So the editor is playing games to retain the Korea-produced-everything thesis POV. If he disagrees, then he is cordially invited to give us the complete text of Ragué's 3 paragraphs. I took the trouble to transcribe the German original, so it is no unnecessary imposition on his time, particularly since it is just one more instance of an editor violating, deliberately, WP:NPOV by sequential source distortion, otherwise. There is substantial prima facie evidence throughout the editing history and on the talk page that this abuse, a reportable offense, is characteristic of the said editor, so an explanation is necessary. I'm tired of having to fix things when the continual fuck-ups are apparently deliberate, rather than mere oversights. Nishidani (talk) 09:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I was not aware of the above, but my comment down below still stands as advice. Cherry-picking a source isn't going to yield acceptable results, if you're going to draw from a source ensure that you draw the full necessary picture. E.g. take this sentence for example "The car is the fastest in the world provided that you attach it to the space shuttle", it would be incorrect then in an article about the vehicle to simply write "The car is the fastest in the world." While you have quoted the source, you failed to acknowledge the qualifying feature of needing a space shuttle. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Thought I'd tag in with my thoughts, given my involvement with the editors both here and elsewhere. First, a bit of best practice, when making a citation give the name of the book or journal article so that its easier to access and also the full name of the author. Second, if you're unsure of paraphrasing then either ask or cite directly (beware of copyright). Last, when paraphrasing, be sure to phrase as closely as possible to the writing. If I were for example to paraphrase "...this form of inlay is evidently native to Korea", it might look something like this "Tamamushi shrine, described by Beatrix "quote", has a Korean inlay form composed of the wings of tamamushi beetles which are native to the Korean peninsula." That's a very close phrasing but not exact quote. A more liberal bit of writing might look like "Tamamushi shrine, the oldest surviving example of lacquer artwork in Japan, is decorated with an inlay composed of tamamushi beetle wings that are native to the Korean peninsula. This design points to/suggests a Korean influence." or something similar. The phrasing can be liberal so long as it doesn't introduce information that cannot be clearly derived from the original source. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Good advice, but the whole quote, once TH1980 responds by providing the full paragraphs of the translation, is far more nuanced, even allowing for the possibility that Japanese craftsmen made it drawing on a Korean model. Now that I've said this, the bet is he'll go and adjust it to get to GA. But the point is, this kind of misrepresentation is only gradually corrected under protest, and I'll be buggered if everyone else has to keep checking all of the dozens of references and keep nagging until he adjusts each one, as advised years ago.Nishidani (talk) 10:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Meaning like the line-by-line months-long battle over at History of Japan. We're dealing with serious behaviour problems contaminating the articles these two write from head to foot. These articles should be trashed and rewritten from scratch—no other way to ensure the articles have been sterilized of this contagion.Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

If there's further disruptive or problematic behaviour, these pages are on my watchlist, I can collect diffs and bring a case forward at AN/I. I won't do this for a single incident, I can tangentially participate here and try to ensure that progress is at least steady. If there becomes a new pattern of constant disruption then that is something that can be addressed. Whatever happened at History of Japan is unfortunately buried in archives. Throwing out the article, as it is, would be equally unhelpful. Whether parts, tracts or entire sections are salvageable or not, right now, it's going to be a slow grinding process and we can only work with what we have. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Throwing out an article and starting fresh can often be less work than fixing a thoroughly broken article, if someone with the knowledge and sources has the motivation to go through with it. I've done just that myself with several articles that I've since brought to GA or FA. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:51, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, I don't have the level of exposure to TH1980 or CurtisNatio that you do and am willing to AGF and chalk it up to poor utilization of sources influenced by a desire to push forth their vision of the extent of the impact that Korea has had on Japanese culture. Wikipedia isn't the place to do this, our motto of sourced neutral edits prevents any sort of agenda's or personal beliefs. This is an article that can stand on its own merits so long as the editors co-operate and actually put the effort into improving their edits to avoid POV and opinion. The drawback is that somebody has to mentor (according to Wikipedia's definition, not the colloquial one) the editors and scrutinize their edits. An article with the drawbacks you mention, might make it to GA, but A and FA, it would need expertly written information. On wiki, most of us are aware that GA mostly means sourced and well written edits, without referring to the quality of the sourcing and accuracy of the work. A and FA, that's as much scrutiny as you can get, sometimes the editors involved are experts in the field (rarely in some cases but not in others). Normal readers, however, might see the GA tag and assume that it's about as good an article as it gets, a very very wrong impression. As I recall, you're a published writer in the field of Japanese history or culture. Probably for the best that you're here scrutinizing because many other editors might not notice or even think about some of these edits. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. But that distorting sources to give an idea of a united ancient Korea teaching the Japanese has been endemic. One more example is here where TH1980 misrepresented a source which says immigrants from 2 Korean kingdoms, once defeated by the third, Silla, in alliance with China, fled to Japan and made significant contributions. I.e. 2 kingdoms made significant contributions. He respun this as 3 kingdoms, arbitrarily including Silla. There was no textual justification for this.Nishidani (talk) 12:46, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The Three Kingdoms of Korea is the general term used to refer to the various states of Korea at this time, though there were more than three. Hane said, "In the middle of the seventh century Silla allied itself with T'ang China and put an end to the kingdoms of Paekche and Koguryo. Many people from these kingdoms fled to Japan. Some became influential figures in the Japanese court and played significant roles in implementing reforms, known as the Taika Reforms." When Hane says "these kingdoms", he's likely referring to all of them. As we see in Farris' book, it is a fact that Silla played a major role in Japan's legal reforms. Nishidani, please keep in mind all the times I've had to deal with the same issues from you. In your edit you said many from these kingdoms fled to Japan and, according to Mikiso Hane, later contributed significantly to the implementation of the Taika Reforms and the Taihō Code". Hane never mentions the Taiho Code. There was no textual justification for this. Or how about your edit stating sweepingly that "the Japanese continued to prefer employing open-hearth ovens" even though the source only said "In cooler regions of the northwest, however, the kamado's limited capacity as a room heater discouraged its use". "Cooler regions of the northwest" is not the same thing as "the Japanese". I have had to correct so many of your errors like this, the least you can do in return is correct a few of my alleged problems.TH1980 (talk) 14:58, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

At this point, I would suggest moving back to a stable version of the article. ie. before all the controversial sources and misrepresentation occurred and use talk page consensus to move on from there. It's probably an easier and more reliable method to make sure the article is accurate, than do hunt through every single source, checking for the exact wording. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 11:02, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a stable version to revert to. It's been controversial from the beginning. A pity. It's a fascinating subject.Nishidani (talk) 12:50, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I would just nuke the entire article. If editors can't make something neutral, they don't deserve to have an article. It sucks so much when people see Wikipedia as a method for scoring nationalistic points against someone else. Finding a neutral source is pretty much impossible, because of the differing opinions and perspectives. However, we don't give up as editors, it would be better to have a much shorter article, if it was more accurate. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:25, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

That would assume we can work out what is more accurate, what we do is give due to weight to all present sides, in some cases due weight is no weight, but in many, it's about even. We also can't just choose to favour one source or even a set of sources with one viewpoint and ignore the other, that would not be neutral. Consider this article, trying to present all viewpoints fairly and then also trying to keep it a reasonable size. It'd be the epitome of neutrality, and also the longest written work anywhere on Wikipedia. Good luck with that. How delicate a balance this is. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:32, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

If you want, you can rewrite the section on Tamamushi Shrine, though I think that the previous text was accurate. According to Von Rague, the style of Tamamushi inlay that was used was developed uniquely in Korea, not China or anywhere else. Von Rague downplays any possible Chinese influence and definitely proves the Korean influence. As far as the English version goes, I would not say the text is "nuanced" at all, because Van Rague has little doubt that the shrine is stylistically Korean. The only real debate Van Rague is nuanced about is whether it was made in Korea by Koreans, made in Japan by Koreans, or made in Japan by Japanese based on a Korean model. I would have provided a Google Books link if I had found one. I rely on books from the local university a lot more than on Google. However, I can vouch for the accuracy of all the citations, and if you want any specific one checked on, I'll post the details. For Tamamushi Shrine, here's the full text in question...

"Beautiful and important though this shrine is, one can hardly describe it of Japanese as typically Japanese; in fact one cannot even be certain that the workmanship is Japanese at all. The landscape forms and the style in which the figures are painted are reminiscent of Chinese paintings of the Eastern Wei and Northern Ch'I periods (534-550 and 550-577 respectively); the links with Korea are even closer. Numerous metal objects underlaid with tamamushi wings have come to light in the course of excavations in Korea, particularly in the so-called Grave of the Gold Crowns in Kyongju (southeast Korea), which dates from the fifth to sixth centuries. In these finds the choice of certain specific parts of the wings and the way they are used under metal openwork exactly matches the technique employed in Tamamushi shrine. Metal plaques similarly adorned were also discovered in Korean graves of the Koguryo kingdom (37 BC-668 AD), so the technique of tamamushi inlay is evidently native to Korea. The Tamamushi shrine is the only example of this type of decoration in Japan. Some decorative motifs in the painting of the shrine also point to Korea. Despite all this evidence, the Tamamushi Shrine need not necessarily have originated in Korea – for instance, hinoki wood, the material it is made of, argues in favour of Japan. But the links between the two countries were close at that time. Already, long before the shrine was built, many Koreans had come to Japan, and certainly one can hardly underestimate the role which, from the fifth to the seventh centuries, Korean artists and craftsmen played in the early art , particularly the Buddhist art, of Japan. It is probably correct to place the Tamamushi shrine within the overall context of Korean art in Japan, whether it was made by Koreans in Japan or whether Japanese craftsmen created it, referring back to Korean models. It is the oldest example of the true art of lacquerwork to have survived in Japan and probably to have been made there as well."TH1980 (talk) 14:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Good. Let's take this step by step. Now with that text before you, where does she say, as you paraphrase it even now.

(A)According to Von Rague, the style of Tamamushi inlay that was used was developed uniquely in Korea, not China or anywhere else. Von Rague downplays any possible Chinese influence and definitely proves the Korean influence.

That is nowhere in the text above. So please explain to me how you deduced that.

The text as it long stood with Ragué as a source had:

(B)The first Japanese lacquerwork was produced by or influenced by Korean and Chinese craftsmen in Japan. Most notably is Tamamushi Shrine, a miniature shrine in Horyū-ji Temple, which was created in Korean style, possibly by a Korean immigrant to Japan. Tamamushi shrine, described by Beatrix von Ragué as "the oldest example of the true art of lacquerwork to have survived in Japan", is decorated with a uniquely Korean inlay composed of the wings of tamamushi beetles.

• (a) The first Japanese lacquerwork was produced by or influenced by Korean and Chinese craftsmen in Japan'

This blatantly contradicts Ragué who states that lacquerwork had been practiced in the early Yayoi period, and states (my translation):

Given such an early appearance of lacquered objects, it has been thought reasonable to conclude that the lacquer tree was originally native to Japan and not introduced from China and Korea as was the proper, highly developed art of lacquerwork in later times. Whatever the case may be, one must consider these early pieces of lacquerwork on Japanese territory as integral elements of Japanese culture. They have no connection whatsoever with the art of Chinese lacquer, which at that time had already attained a notable level of development.

See? This prefatory remark states quite clearly, without ambiguity, that Japanese work in lacquerware preceded Chinese and Korean influence by several centuries. What did you do? You suppressed this prehistory of lacquer and falsified her text by asserting that the Japanese only began to do lacquerwork with the advent of Korean and Chinese craftsmen.

• (b) Ragué noted the Eastern Wei and Northern Ch'i painting style, which is not Korean.

This was dropped out of the wiki summary

• (c) Ragué said it created either by Koreans in Japan or by Japanese craftsmen in Japan.

The latter half of the phrase was suppressed in the wiki summary.

• (d)You added then a uniquely Korean inlay.

Nowhere in her text is Korea's uniqueness alluded to.

So there you have it. 4 consecutive points in which a Japanese autochthonous precedent for lacquerware in the source 'was suppressed, indeed converted into its opposite: the Chinese element in the tamamuishi painting style was suppressed; the possibility that a Japanese may have done it was suppressed, in order to assert, falsely from the source, that the result is a uniquely Korean inlay, a phrasing concocted to prove your Korean uniqueness thesis for nationalistic pointscoring. When this was noted to you, you, you rushed to change it, but still insist above, that Raqué, who has no such wording, says precisely this.

Jeezus. That is pure bad faith editing, and to see it, one has to try and extract blood from a stone. You want collaboration when you frig up and spin sources like that? Nishidani (talk) 17:07, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate TH1980 quoting the source in full here. He didn't mention it, but I actually think that I was the user who originally added in most the current wording of the text. The text was a summary, but I didn't see anything factually wrong with it. In other words, you believe that the text can be changed as follows... 1="First Japanese lacquerwork" should be changed to the quote "the oldest example of the true art of lacquerwork to have survived in Japan and probably to have been made there". 2=The Chinese painting style should be noted (though as TH1980 points out, this was downplayed by Ragué). 3=Note the possibility that a Japanese craftsmen may have created it (though the current article text only says that it was made "possibly by a Korean immigrant" so the current text was true to the source). 4="a uniquely Korean inlay" should be changed to the direct quote "evidently native to Korea". I agree that these changes can be made, though I don't agree that the original article text was inaccurate. Certainly, by no stretch of the imagination, can anyone say that any of the current wording reflects bad faith editing. I think your changes are fine, and if you have any more, I feel the same as all the other users that you can certainly continue to put your ideas forward. However, let's refrain from making such unfounded accusations of bad faith editing in the future.CurtisNaito (talk) 17:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Please note that I documented empirically a section of this page which was written by a verifiable manipulation of the source. One has to show good faith, no one gets it by repeatedly editing in a way that demonstrates a contempt for sources, and an indifference to the readers' desire to have a reliable text before his eyes. Hold back, then, until TH1980 explains what the fuck he is doing when he edits as he has above, repressing and emphasizing at will, according to a known POV.Nishidani (talk) 17:42, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

One thing that TH1980 left out of the above quote was the passage "The earliest examples in Japan of lacquerwork as a highly developed art form were certainly either made by Korean or Chinese craftsmen or at least were directly influenced by them." This was the source for the sentence about Japanese lacquerwork being "produced by or influenced by Korean and Chinese craftsmen in Japan".CurtisNaito (talk) 18:18, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

It is true that the text was paraphrased from the original. It was not a direct quote of the full original text, but the edit did not contain any POV I could see when I looked into it. All the information in the Wikipedia article was taken directly from the original source, including the information about the Korean invention of Tamamushi inlay and the Chinese/Korean origins of the first advanced lacquerwork in Japan (lacquerwork like Tamamushi Shrine). You had a different idea of what the most pertinent details were, and therefore you have asked for a version of the text with additional clarification and more detail. That is fine, your comments make sense to me, so I will add in the extra details you recommend. I have no POV and no problem with doing that. So what do you think about the wording now? Also, Nishidani, I think the difference between you and me is that when I correct your errors, I usually just correct them and perhaps briefly point out my changes on the talk page. When you modify the text I support, you spend paragraph after paragraph casting aspersions and haranguing me for bad faith/POV editing. Let us focus on the edits to be made, not the edits already made. I promise not to keep harping on about all your mistakes, if from now on you are able to just politely correct me and move on without making a fuss about it. What else do you recommend be done to the article?TH1980 (talk) 22:28, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I think you made, certainly one, perhaps two minor corrections, on the home country of Hyeja. I wrote from memory Baekje, instead of Goguryeo. Carelessness or the frailties of memory perhaps, nothing more. You have not once, I believe, indicated that I ever misrepresented a source, something which is the hallmark of your editing in this area. My point is not to help you with an article you are incapable of writing with a thorough and honest regard for source content.(Your edit a few minutes ago still refuses to add what your source says, that a Japanese artist may have created the work, on a Korean model, after all the effort I made above to insist that is one of 54 things you omitted.) Now that I've repeated this insistently several times, you'll probably do it, but to get you to do something normal is like squeezing blood from a stone. My point is to show that much of this has been composed with a conscious omission of relevant material, while emphasizing, from the same pages, material that can be spin to promote a nationalistic view of this history. Since you can't be trusted, I believe it is pointless collaborating, for it only means cleanly up a mess you make consistently, and I believe deliberately, only to benefit when someone fixes it, usually with far better sourcing. I don't want to be an 'accomplice to any intransigent ineptitude' that aspires to GA status.Nishidani (talk) 22:37, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

This Wikipedia article NEVER said that Tamamushi Shrine was created by a Korean immigrant. It always said that it might have been created by a Korean, which is what von Rague also says. Just because I left out one incidental detail, among many incidental details in von Rague's long book, is not proof of any bias. As for your mistakes, I would not accuse you of misrepresentation because I assume good faith. When you make mistakes, I just correct them without casting aspersions and move on to the next area of improvement. I know that you said before that "I think the article should be left alone", but I do not see that as a sensible option. Ignoring an article does not make it better. Now apart from adding most of the academic content to this article, content which is accurate and accurately cited, I have also been working very hard to respond quickly to recommendations on the talk page. If you have any more recommendations, I will discuss them honestly and implement them if I can. However, you can not say outright that you will not work with me. Other users like CurtisNaito and Piotrus have already said, everyone editing the article must focus on content and work together. If you have any more ideas for changes to the article or any more citations that you want checked, feel free to say so.TH1980 (talk) 23:28, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Just because I left out one incidental detail ... is not proof of any bias.—no, the proof is that this happens virtually every time anyone compares the sources to what you two have written. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I think my record has been fairly good. Over the course of the last few months most of the new sources added to the article have already been checked. However, if you want any source checked, tell me which one and I will provide you with the quote you need. Honestly, I suspect that little verification work still needs to be done, but if you disagree, I will take the time needed to gradually verify the rest. Is there any source that you need checked now?TH1980 (talk) 23:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I think my record has been fairly good—it's been atrocious and exhausting. We're sick of having to battle over every single paragraph with the two of you. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:52, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

It has not been a battle. We have not had any edit wars for months over content within the article itself. I am sorry things have been acrimonious, but that does not have to continue. Tell me what source you need checked and I will provide the quote if I have the original source on hand.TH1980 (talk) 01:07, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Let's see if anyone but CurtisNaito agrees with your assessment. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Piotrus asked all users to focus only on article content, so please, let us just deal with article content, like sourcing for instance.TH1980 (talk) 04:03, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The problem is behaviour, and we'll be keeping it in the spotlight. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:55, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

"Discuss the content, not other editors." It was good advice that we should take to heart, and the question that has already been asked is valid. Are there any citations in need of verification, or not?CurtisNaito (talk) 04:58, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Let's start with the citations themselves, could you update them to include the full name of the author, currently there's only the last name, next include the title of the book or the title of the journal article and last the year it was published or if no date then (n.d.) is fine. Some citations already have these, but the majority don't. This change would make the information more readily accessible for cross-checking and verification. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:05, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I could do that myself. However, before I do that, did you notice that the full names of all the books and their authors are already listed in the bibliography? Currently the article uses a sourcing format like, for instance, this article. It only has the author names in the notes, but it contains the rest of the details in the bibliography. CurtisNaito (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

No sorry, I hadn't. I made the suggestion based on how I personally do it on articles I edit, Battle of Antioch (218) a GA article, Macrinus currently B, and Caracalla waiting for someone to come round and review it for B. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:59, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't matter to me personally how the citations are organized in this article, so if you still think the citation format should be changed I could do that myself upon request.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:03, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Attempts to focus on content keep crashing and burning because of the behavioural issues. Remember? Those behavioural issues that keep getting you blocked? The behavioural issues that keep the discussions deliberately going around and around and around and around in circles? The behavioural issues where the pair of you keep interpreting every lull in the discussion as "consensus" for what you have written? These are problems that cannot be solved by focusing on content. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:18, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

These behavioural issues are being put to scrutiny in the on-going AN/I thread. The article talk page isn't the appropriate place for this discussion. Whatever decision is made, will be made at AN/I and soon. Here, on this page, only the content should be discussed. Sorry, Curly, but nobody on this page has the authority or power to do anything about it. Right now, focussing on the content, is the only thing I, Nishidani, Piotrus, TH1980 and CurtisNaito can do. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:04, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The dozen archives at History of Japan built over a mere six months attest to the fact that "focussing on the content" is not going to accomplish anything but burning out the participants—again. We're seeing ample evidence of the same patterns here—going round and round in circles as the "discussion" gets so dense and buried (including in multiple archives already) that new particupants will be driven away. Try not to forget the "Printing" section, which was discussed, fixed, removed, and then had the problematic version reinstated again, which required a ridiculous amount of repetitious "discussion" to bring to its current "correct" but pointless incarnation. That "content issue" has not been solved. Do we seriously want to drain ourselves with the same carnival show for each and every paragraph yet again? Because it's not working. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Was the printing issue not resolved? What more did you want done to the printing section?CurtisNaito (talk) 06:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Both Nishidani and I have questioned why it's even in the article per WP:WEIGHT. Of course, WP:WEIGHT is one of the serious ongoing problems with all of these articles, and "discussion" about it also keeps going in circles. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:29, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

So you want the section deleted entirely? Is that correct? I don't recall Nishidani saying that. Even so, if that's what you're proposing I suppose we can open a discussion on it and see what other users think.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:33, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

When content issues are following a certain pattern on a regular basis, on closely related articles, it seems natural and sensible to at least consider that those problems are to do with the behavior of an editor, not just a content issue. There are numerous controversial articles on wikipedia, with conflicting sources - but they get resolved because there are no editor behavior issues. Judging from the constant reverts, all the drama on this talk page and the edit history of some editors involved, the issue is not the content, it's far more to do with the editor(s) involved. This should have been resolved a long time ago, without having to go to ANI. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that discussion has been crashing and burning. It looks to me like the editors here have been completing one issue at a time: Tamamushi Shrine, printing technology, etc... One by one they were completed. We need to keep on going like that and eventually we'll be done. TH1980 asked if any users want citations to be verified and we should leave that request open for a while. Other editors can come in, state which citations they need verified if any, and gradually we can have confidence in the whole article. Spacecowboy420, do you want any citations verified? If I can't do it, TH1980 can probably handle it whenever he gets back here.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:12, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's the best idea to rely on an editor who has been responsible for making such a mess of things, to fix them. I'm still convinced that we take the article back to a stable version and proceed from there. Rather than going through content, and trying to fix the sources, we should remove all controversial content, and only allow it to be reintroduced when the sources are confirmed. You don't add poor content to an article, and then spend months trying to fix it, you add the content when you have consensus and verifiable sources, neither of which seem to have been present in this case. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:13, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think I'm to blame for making a mess, though maybe that depends on which content you consider "controversial". It might be hard to go into everything now, but is there a section or sentence you find especially controversial? Maybe we could discuss modifying, or if necessary removing, that section or sentence.CurtisNaito (talk) 09:33, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Getting back on topic, Korean_influence_on_Japanese_culture#Lacquerwork contains a number of statements:

1. The first advanced lacquerwork in Japan was produced by or influenced by Korean and Chinese craftsmen in Japan.
2. Simpler forms of lacquerwork already existed in Japan prior to that.
3. According to the historian Beatrix von Ragué, "the oldest example of the true art of lacquerwork to have survived in Japan" is Tamamushi Shrine, a miniature shrine in Horyū-ji Temple.
4. Tamamushi Shrine was created in Korean style.
5. It was probably made by either a Japanese artist or a Korean artist living in Japan.
6. It is decorated with an inlay composed of the wings of tamamushi beetles that,
7. According to von Ragué, "is evidently native to Korea."
8. Tamamushi Shrine is also painted in a manner similar to Chinese paintings of the sixth century.

For all of this, a single source is provided. The source seems to be provided for statements 3, 4, and 7 while the rest may or may not be from the source itself. It feels like synthesis that, based on the fact that the oldest surviving lacquerwork is this shrine, therefore the first advanced lacquerwork is of the type produced here. As such, I removed and CN'd the statements that seem unsourced to me. If the source statements points one, then the entire section is appropriate. If there is nothing about points one and two I guess, then the entire section is synthesis to me and should be removed. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:57, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

All the information on Tamamushi Shrine is in the same source, which says, "The earliest examples in Japan of lacquerwork as a highly developed art form were certainly either made by Korean or Chinese craftsmen or at least were directly influenced by them... Beautiful and important though this shrine is, one can hardly describe it of Japanese as typically Japanese; in fact one cannot even be certain that the workmanship is Japanese at all. The landscape forms and the style in which the figures are painted are reminiscent of Chinese paintings of the Eastern Wei and Northern Ch'I periods (534-550 and 550-577 respectively); the links with Korea are even closer. Numerous metal objects underlaid with tamamushi wings have come to light in the course of excavations in Korea... so the technique of tamamushi inlay is evidently native to Korea... It is probably correct to place the Tamamushi shrine within the overall context of Korean art in Japan, whether it was made by Koreans in Japan or whether Japanese craftsmen created it, referring back to Korean models. It is the oldest example of the true art of lacquerwork to have survived in Japan and probably to have been made there as well."TH1980 (talk) 19:12, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The citation about the inlays is discussing excavations in Korea and argues that the inlays in Korea are examples of Japanese influence taken back to Korea, not the other way around. The beetles themself are native to Japan since otherwise that disagrees with what Chrysochroa_fulgidissima#Characteristics says (althoug it's not sourced). I'm not certain that a historian on Japanese lacquerwork (who's biography and credentials I can't find) and for which this seems to be their only work is a reliable source on where they beetles are native to. The language was that "the technique of tamamushi inlay is evidently native to Korea" which to me implies that excavations in Korea show that these inlays based on Japanese beetles (given that these are native Japanese beetles and not even beetles in Korea) were influenced by the Japanese beetles not the other way around. As such, I say the whole section is a complete misrepresentation of what the source is discussing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:03, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the source also said, "It is probably correct to place the Tamamushi shrine within the overall context of Korean art in Japan, whether it was made by Koreans in Japan or whether Japanese craftsmen created it, referring back to Korean models." Ergo, Tamamushi shrine shows Korean influence, based on "a technique of tamamushi inlay... evidently native to Korea". We can just quote that directly if necessary. I do not think the meaning is ambiguous.TH1980 (talk) 01:25, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Again, skipping that "probably" and presenting it as fact. And do the other sources agree? Or are you leaning on your preferred sources again? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:03, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I do not know of any source that expressly denies Korean influence on Tamamushi shrine. Almost all of them at least briefly mention it. By the way, Ricky81682, you mention that the Tamamushi beetle is found only in Japan, but actually, here is what historian Seiichi Mizuno (who affirms Korean influence) says in the book "Asuka Buddhist Art": "It was at one time argued that the fact that the tamamushi beetle exists only in Japan is conclusive proof that the shrine is of Japanese manufacture. It is fortunate that such proof is no longer necessary, for it was later discovered that the same beetle is found in Korea."TH1980 (talk) 14:25, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Does anyone even know that this is a reliable source at all? It's literally the only work created by this person and without any idea of their background, I'm not particularly confident about their knowledge of the full history. Just because it was written in a book doesn't mean it's automatically a reliable source. Also, note that none of this is in the Tamamushi Shrine article which based on more sources cannot be definite about the date of this shrine in contrast to this source that seems to be quite definitive about who (let alone when) made this work. It may be worth taking the whole source to WP:RSN. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:29, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I think this source will survive a challenge to its reliability. Firstly, Dr. Beatrix von Rague is a museum curator and expert in Far Eastern art. Secondly, she is the author of dozens of books, not just one.[3] Finally, her lacquerwork book received good reviews from other scholars when it came out. For example, it was described as a "thoughtful, lucid, and thorough text" by Louise Allison Cort in Monumenta Nipponica.TH1980 (talk) 14:25, 10 July 2016 (UTC)