Octapus6

Hi Octapus6,

I noticed that you recently took out a substantial section that I had added to the “Van C. Mow” entry earlier this year. You did not provide much of an explanation, except stating “nnecessary contents are removed". I believe that this is inappropriate editing and would like to see if we can resolve this issue through the “talk feature” as suggested by Wikipedia guidelines <Wikipedia:Dispute resolution>.

(1) You removed the entire section concerning the embezzlement scandal in which Mow’s father Pang Tzu Mow was involved in the early fifties. I do not understand why you would describe this as “unnecessary content”. This was one of the most widely covered scandals in the Taiwan-US relationship after the war. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of reliable secondary sources for this, including many articles in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Sydney Herald, etc… I beleive that to not report on this would be a glaring historical oversight, neglecting one of the most important influences on Mow’s early life. I would argue that these incidences are much more influential on Mow’s life than the facts on where Mow’s father was born, from what school Mow's father graduated, whose nephew his mother was, that he flew the Burma Road/Hump and received a medal from President Truman. It is actually quite hard to find secondary sources for many of these early historical “facts”. Indeed most of these facts appear in articles that were written about the embezzlement scandal. In these articles, the past life of General Mow is described and the details you left in the wikipedia biography appear in the articles about the scandal. (see for example, New York Times, Aug. 22, 1951, page 1, "Chiang Aide In U.S. Recalled To Account For $19,440,000" or Coronet Magazine, 1957, pages 111-116, "The Tarnished Treasure of General Mow", and Climax Magazine, June 1957, pages 2 to 9 "Generl Mow and the $19,000,000")

Taking out the comments about the embezzlement scandal leaves a huge whole in Mow’s biography. Without it there does not seem to be any activity between 1949 and 1962, when Mow received his BS from RPI. Yet these years seem o be the most formative. A Los Angeles times article from September 28, 1997 about Van Mow’s brother William (“Back to His Future”, by Evelyn Iritani) states, “But the Mow family suffered another blow in 1951 when the general …. was forced to flee the United States for Mexico to avoid facing legal charges back home, according to his son, who would go nearly two decades without seeing his father." In an RPI piece on his oldest brother Harry you can find the statement, “Harry became the father figure for his four younger brothers at the age of 21.” (see https://www.rpi.edu/magazine/summer2005/classnotes08.html.) And even in Van Mow's Wikipedia entry it states, “Growing up under difficult circumstances, …”. Therefore the embezzlement scandal and its consequences (General Mow fleeing to Mexico, leaving his family behind with no resources, not returning to the US for almost 20 years, etc…) is probably the single most defining element in Mow’s early life. Yet you state this is “unnecessary content.” How so? How can you come to this conclusion in light of the facts?

(2) You also took out, as “unnecessary content”, the sentence “Following a highly public dispute with the Dean of the Engineering School, during which he called Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora a "control freak", Mow stepped down from his position in 2011.[25][26]”. Again, why do you deem this unnecessary? Over Mow’s lifetime, there are two(2) references to him in the New York Times. The first one is from 1989, when he came to Columbia and a NYTimes described his work (see <http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/17/science/experimental-technology-maps-joints-for-surgical-precision.html>). The second one is from 2011, when Mow challenged the new Dean and explained why he stepped down. (see (see <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/nyregion/feniosky-pena-mora-columbia-engineering-school-dean-is-criticized.html?pagewanted=1&ref=nyregion>. The article quotes Van Mow, “ 'He’s a control freak, in my opinion,’ said Van C. Mow, who said he stepped down as chairman of biomedical engineering because ‘I got tired of banging my head against the wall.’” In addition to this New York Times article one can find numerous stories in the local Columbia newspaper "The Spectator" (see for example, April 27, 2012 edition, "SEAS faculty and dean remain at odds"). As academic disputes go, this was a very big event and, in my mind, should be covered in Mow's Wikipedia biography. In many ways the second NYtimes article from 2011 is much more relevant to Mow’s biography than the first NYtimes article from 1989 – don’t you think?

(3) In addition you added in another section the statement “The following year, to broaden his prospective, Mow received the coveted NATO Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship to visit eight European countries each with universities with noted research in bioengineering.” While this may be true, there is no secondary source that confirms this, and if I understand the Wikipedia policies correctly, content that cannot be verified from independent sources should be used extremely sparingly. How do you know about this fellowship? Also compared to Mow's other accomplishment, the election to the National Academy of Engineering, Medicine and various other high level accomplishments listed at the end, a postdoctoral fellowship is not all that important or is it? I suggest removing this really minor accomplishment.

(4) You left untouched the statement, “Following the historic flight over the Himalayas in 1942 to establish the final link of the Burma Road,.. This assertion has been in this biography without a reference to a secondary source for while now. Hence I did a little research to see if I can find a source for this. I searched major books and articles on the “hump” (see for example references below). I could not find any reference to a “historic flight” by General Mow, neither in 1942 or any other time. Instead I found two references (see [1], and [2]) to a flight by Xia Pu, a pilot of American citizenship from the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) in November 1941, which is described as “The first recorded flight over what later became the Hump route”. In reference [3] one finds that the first mission over the hump took place on 8 April 1942. Lt. Col. William D. Old ferried 8,000 gallons of aviation fuel, flying from the Royal Air Force airfield at Dinjan. The Wikipedia page of “The Hump” does not mention General Mow at all. General Mow’s name appears only in one or two of these books/articles, pointing to him as one of the pilots involved in the early exploration of the Hump. In light of this new information, I have changed this to "In the late 30^th and early 40^th, General Mow was largely responsible for bringing Captain Chennault, the father of the Flying Tigers to China, and was instrumental in establishing the Burma-China airlift (also call "The Hump"). This also adds a well-documented connection between Mow and Chennault. If you have any specific source that points to a “historical” General Mow flight earlier than Xia Pu’s, you should provide that reference and even make changes to the Wikipedia “Hump” article.

UPDATE OCTOBER 16: I found two more usefull references. There is a book is called "Flying the Hump" and was written by Otha Spencer (published in 1992, by Texas A&M University Press, College Station, TX, 1992) There it states on page 26, "Bond, with a CNAC pilot Hugh Woods, took a DC-3 to look for a route from the air. ... Although he did not know it at the time, Woods had flown the first trip over what was to become known as the Hump. The flight was on 2 November 1940." Therefore this flight took place 12 months before Xia Pu's flight and about 16 months before Mow's alleged flight in 1942. On page 27 of the same book Mow is mentioned. It reads, "Much of the early exploratory work of finding routes through the Himalaya Mountains was done by Gen. P.T. Mow and Capr. Moon Chin, CNAC pilots. It seems that the book is refering to an article that was published first on Jan. 27, '45, in the The World's News, in Sydney, Australia ("This is the Tradesmen's Entrance to China", page 5). There it reads, "Much of the exploratory work in seeking new air routes through the Himalayas was done by Chinas two famed pilots, "General P. T. Mow and Captain Moon Chin." So Mow definately deserves some credit for finding routes over the Hump. But his 1942 flight was definetly not the first, nor was it "historic." I am adding these reference to give Gen. Mow his due.

(5) Hopefully you now have a better understanding of my reasoning in adding the various sections. {lease let me know what you think. My goal here is to be as accurate and informative as possible about the details of the biography of this undoubtedly very accomplished individual. I actually think by adding references to General Mow's embezzlement scandal, Van Mow’s accomplishments can be considered even more unusual. It must have been very hard to grow up under these circumstances. Being abandoned by his father, having to move from a privileged diplomat housing in Washington to a small place in New York, starting a Chinese restaurant just to survive financially, having the FBI search their apartment for his father’s documents and having all this played out in public (see for example,New York Times, AUGUST 21, 1952, P. 1, Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug 21, 1952, P. A4, Los Angeles Times, Aug 21, 1952, P. 15, The Washington Post, "Mow's Home Yields Up Data", Aug 21, 1952, pg. 5). All this while his father apparently buys a villa in Mexico with “5 servants”; and even in prison (called “Black Palace”) enjoys a privileged life, including a cook, TV, Russian bath and “frequent visits by his ‘secretary’,” (see The Tarnished Treasure of General Mow," by Richard O'Connor, Coronet Magazine, Vol. 41, p. 114, 1957). In light of these circumstances, is truly remarkable what Van Mow made out of his life. Three brothers of his, William, Harry, and David, seem to have accomplished even more, and perhaps we should start a Wikipedia page about the "Mow Brothers". They really have amazing stories.

UPDATE OCTOBER 23: (6) I noticed that the photo you uploaded was delete by on 13 October 2015‎ by Filedelinkerbot, because of licensing issues. Do you have another photo that you are authorized to upload? If not, I will look for a suitable photo that can be uploaded without violating any licensing clauses. Either way - let me know.

UPADTE OCTOBER 26: Since I did not hear from you, I looked for an appropriate portrait in wikimedia and found a photo that can be posted without licensing issues. I inserted it into the wikipedia page. Le me know if you have any other photos that you would like to post. If you don't know how to do it, I'd be happy to help.

In any case, I am looking forward to hearing from you.

TsuMao (talk) 04:25, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

License Issue with Photo

Hi Octapus6,

You posted a nice photo of VAn C. Mow. However, like the first time you did so in September, the photo you posted does not have any licensing information. Therefore, wikipedia will automatically delete it 7 days after you posted it. On wikicommons under the photo that you posted it reads:

VCMOW 2015 Miami

"This media file is missing evidence of permission. It may have an author and a source, but there is no proof that the author agreed to license the file under the given license. Please provide evidence of permission by either providing a link to a site with an explicit release under a free license or by sending a declaration of consent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org. Unless this issue is resolved, the file will be deleted seven days after this tag was added (28 October 2015)."

Therefore, unless you can find a photo that you are authorized to post under a license agreement, they will remove it again and again. There is another authorized photo of Mow on wikicommons (see photo to the right).

Should we post that instead? Let me know, how you would like to proceed. We should work together to make this a better page.

TsuMao (talk) 18:54, 29 October 2015 (UTC)