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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was - all kept, but need cleanup and renaming - SimonP 13:49, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

A series of articles on Imperial Japan in broken English

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The following bunch of articles, covered by separate votes for deletion, IMO must be handled together.

It looks like someone took an old book on Imperial Japan and split it into a large number of article. All of them of the same quality and use: it sems that all of them cover data for past time. While pieces of them may be salvageable into corresponding articles with proper titles, in this form they are inadmissible in main article space. mikka (t) 01:25, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One may also want to keep an eye on other cotributions of the anon. mikka (t) 01:33, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete all. If someone wants to work ith them, put into personal subpage. mikka (t) 01:29, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete the whole bunch. I did vote to delete on all of the individual VfDs, already, but in the interests of clarity and expediency, I figure I may as well voice the vote here, too. Seriously: the language is mangled enough that it might as well be nonsense. I honestly cannot make heads or tails of any of it, and I seriously doubt anyone could salvage anything from this mess. -- Captain Disdain 01:41, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete all. These all read like a bad Babelfish translation. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 03:13, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Exteremly Strong Keep!: I understand the tendency, because I ran into one of these. However, please check out User:Charles_Matthews/Imperial_Japan. These contributions are made by a spanish speaker providing information out of sources no longer in print. There are several people working on them (for instance, you can check the results at Nakamura_Diary.) Personally I've been working on Reformed Government of the Republic of China. You can see my discussion with User:Charles Matthews about this subect in the talk page. Wikibofh 03:34, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
then they should write them in spanish and have some who can speak english translate them before adding them as articles. i'm going to move the lot into my user page and see what i can do, though. Nateji77 13:03, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment:My problem with Userfying them is that then they end up in the widely ignored userspace. There is enough work here that it needs to be someplace where people can stumble upon them and work at cleaning them up (which is what I did). We need the strength in numbers, because it's hard work. It would take me a long time (if ever) if they were just in my user space (or anyone elses). I'd rather see the wiki at work. Wikibofh 14:17, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment Isn't it policy acceptable to put them into articlespace as something like "Imperial Japan Finances/temp". Then post any of the cleaned content to date, a note about their origin and state of development in "Imperial Japan Finances" page with a link to the temp pages? --Unfocused 15:35, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • If these are reliable data are from valuable, out-of-print sources, perhaps the editor should at least *cite* the source so they have some appearance of verifiability. I don't know how you can tell what source these are from though... perhaps private correspondence? --Tabor 17:22, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • As I stated below on a similar comment, this makes little sense to me because (a) Charles Matthews is not contributing the foundation articles and (b) this is a general bibliography on the topic which makes no particular connection with any of the articles. I'm asking about the sources that User:Wlad k or IP number 200.46.X.Y or whatever he chooses to call himself is using. By this logic, I could write anything at all in these articles, and because Charles Matthews has a bibliography in his userspace, it would be considered sourced information. --Tabor 02:00, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

*Userfy. You should take these to a user subpage as a workspace for cleanup. Because these are so difficult to read, they're too raw to be articles. Otherwise, I think you'll spend all your time fighting off VfDs. Userfying them will let you develop them, and post them back as new articles when they've had a basic cleanup. That doesn't mean you have to wait until they're fully done, but they should at least be a short overview of a topic. You could then post the remaining raw data onto the article's talk page to allow for collaboration without exposing the severely broken english in main article pages. --Unfocused 03:59, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Again I say, delete and resubmit in the English language. EDM 04:25, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete unless Wikibofh rewrites them into English before the 5 day period is up. RickK 05:39, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: *laugh* I couldn't even clean up Reformed Government of the Republic of China in the 5 day window (now at 4 days  :) Wikibofh 14:17, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Could I ask for clarification ? As a realtively new user, is it policy that articles which do not meet certain qquality standards, but on which work is being done, be deleted completely until they reach such standards, rather than marking them with requests for assistance, and allowing organic development of the entries ? --Simon Cursitor 07:05, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Precedent says no that isn't a policy. Wikipedia is a work in progress and thus contains thousands of articles of a visibly sub-par nature. However as Wikipedia slowly matures, and its editor base changes, the average amount of patience that the user base has with such articles has diminished. "Modify in user-space" is becoming a more common and acceptable suggestion" but I think everyone continues to agree that we don't won't to lose material. Pcb21| Pete 13:41, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Thank you for the clarification --Simon Cursitor 15:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. The correct course of action, marking them for cleanup, has already been done. Almafeta 06:36, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Userfy all of them and work on them until there is a correct English version of this that makes sense. None of these currently belong in the main namespace, and either way a lot of the titles have spelling mistakes. --Idont Havaname 06:59, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Userfy artilce in this condition don't belong in the main namespace. --nixie 07:10, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Cleanup or use as a source. Information may be relevant but unfortunately the articles are really in very shoddy condition. People willing to work on them could move them to temp or user pages or use them, for example, as a source for articles like Empire of Japan. I do not think complete deletion would be in order - Skysmith 08:56, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete all, articles aren't up to encyclopedic quality. JamesBurns 09:14, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete the lot. — JIP | Talk 10:09, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep the information. Please do not throw out the baby with the dirty bathwater. Pcb21| Pete 10:12, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete the lot. I'm sure the author had the best of intentions and put a lot of work into this, but it's just too indecipherable to make out anything useful or flag it for cleanup. Jamyskis 10:33, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep or userfy if people are working on them but they are in need of clean-up and after that movement to better titles. -- Lochaber 13:01, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, clean up of course. Anything that is not worth keeping in its cleaned-up state is naturally subject to being deleted. I can't understand why people say 'delete' before those who would be interested in cleaning up, rationalising and editing the material have their change. By the way, the author is a prolific contributor, with a track record of digging up much useful research from contemporary sources. Empire of Japan (additional economic and financial data) has already been substantially cleaned up. I protest at its inclusion at the end of the list of others. Charles Matthews 13:04, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • The reason I would vote 'delete' before cleanup is that it seems to me that cleanup would require some mindreading as to what the contributor meant by much of the existing phrasing. The contributions are neither in English nor in a language that can be translated into English. EDM 17:08, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment i cleaned up one of the articles here; so far it doesnt seem to be worth the effort, but i'll take a look at the others, see what turns up. Nateji77 14:21, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment Maybe it's because of my degree in Finance, but I find your cleanup efforts laudable and worthwhile. --Unfocused 15:27, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • yeah, but things like "the heavy industrial amplified by ones 400%"--is that revenue or assest value? the cochinglish doesnt turn me off, is the vagueness the articles would have even if they were written in native english. Nateji77 09:42, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Temporary keep: keep for now, but relist the lot here in a month's time, at which time any articles not cleaned up should be deleted. Since the current contents of many of these articles are baffling, this current vote's decision should not bind any future vote: the articles may be deletable on other grounds, once they've been tidied. -- Karada 15:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete or Userfy unless more information about the source of this information can be obtained. I have two general problems with these articles. One is that much of the material is so garbled, I don't see how it can be reliably cleaned up. Sure, you can take some wild guesses at what the editor meant, but basically the original has been run through a distortion filter. How can this information be dependable? The second concerns the original sources. Especially in a case such as this, the source should be cited for verifiability. Somehow "This is what I think someone who doesn't speak English was trying to relate from uncited sources that cannot be checked" does not seem to be a dependable standard. For example:
in Chosen Province,the most great and important of your exterior areas residing ones 25,000,000,000(1944 census)between theirs stay one 3% of Japanese residents,why served in government,commerce,industry and Military services.exist one Chinese and Manchu little minority another Koreans living in proper japan,Manchuria and Russian Siberia.
Is there a serious suggestion that that the population of this province was 25 billion, or if the number does not refer to population, to what does it refer? Keep in mind, all this data is coming from (an) uncited source(s). --Tabor 17:22, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Here is the bibliography that Charles Matthews has. I would agree that the population of 25 billion is probably on the high side.  :) Wikibofh 20:09, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't quite understand this comment, because Charles Matthews is not the person submitting the garbled articles. This is a general all-purpose bibliography on Imperial Japan. It does not tell us where the contributor's many specific facts and figures came from. I think making something verifiable and identifying the source of data requires a bit more precision than a general purpose bibliography in userspace that is not specifically connected to any of the articles. --Tabor 01:46, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Clearly these are substandard, but this is grounds for cleanup, not deletion. ··gracefool |☺ 00:59, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. I've thought about this, and to me, the progress already evident on these articles are a prime example of how a Wiki works. However, each and every one of these should be moved to an article title appropriate for what the core editors believe will be the end result. If you later find your guess was wrong, move them again.  ;) Unfocused 01:25, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, and resubmit if they're in English. My day job is checking English translations done by Japanese engineers, and nothing I've seen on the job has been as bad as these. These are too garbled to be even minimally acceptable, and any acceptable "clean-up" would have to be a complete replacement of the text. --Calton | Talk 07:07, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, Imperial Japan is extremely noteworthy, but repair the translations. ~~~~ 17:09, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Userfy / Move to temporary space I have worked on a few of these articles and have two strong concerns.
  1. With the original text in Japanese and the contributor being a spanish speaker we are looking at three translation steps here: Japanese → Spanish → broken English → English. When working on the broken English I've been worried that I have been at risk of changing the original information. Quite honestly, I concluded that the integrity of the information was getting compromised as a result of the multiple translation steps.
  2. The contributor is highly prolific. A look at User:Charles_Matthews/Imperial_Japan reveals several dozen articles and content seems to be added daily. The sheer volume of fixing them combined with the risks of information loss/distortion suggest that the issue of problematic articles from this source will persist and likely grow unless the Wikipedia community comes up with a way to actively manage it. I don't think we should delete this information, but we should quarantine it for further work. If we do nothing, I fear we'll be back here in a month having the same conversation but with an even longer list of articles. Even worse, I fear we'll end up with a bunch of articles that have been cleaned up from broken English but are full of inaccuracies because none of the translation can be confirmed.

Tobycat 23:37, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Comment. Keep in mind that if this is just a translation (however bad) of a work protected by copyright, it would be copyvio. --Tabor 01:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Too many problems; complete rewrite needed, lack of sources plus inability to learn sources due to contributor anonymity and poor language skills, potentially copyvio, inability to determine copyvio status. If people want to, they could be userfied and merged but the source and copyvio questions remain very pertinent, with no likely resolution DirectorStratton 02:20, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong delete drini ☎ 17:36, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep There is nothing wrong with tagging such as stubs, clean. Suspecting a copyright problem is not proof one has occured. Futhermore, if these are translations, copyrights devolve to the translator, iirc, which makes Copyvio moot.
    • I should be able to attend to some cleansing as I continue working through Russo-Japanese War related artys, whereon, I have no less than eight references spanning six decades, about half of which treat some of these topics (Based on a quick peek at the Vfd nominees). I'm not sure why some Artys seem imcomprehensible -- apparently those voters lack contextual knowledge, and should perhaps exercise more discretion. Several of the articles are especially bad in that they are period focused (circa WW-II ands aftermath) without refering to prior or subsequent (to current days) history, but that merely confirms their status as a stub needing expansion.
    • Timeframe of five days might be suitable to a student's life, assuming one was prone to ignore classwork and Wiki full time, which I hope seldom happens. So expecting such ultra-rapid clean up by contributors that are also provinding family members would pretty much kill off a lot of slow developing wiki-improvements, as we do have lives outside Wikipedia.
    • Spelling Mistakes was mentioned above, to which I need to add two comments. 1) Correct Spelling is an abstract ideal. Language drift has altered correct usages a lot in my 50 years, and so too have meanings changed. Take the term Wicked, use of a phrase like "She's Wicked" refered more to 'being bad, only worse and evil to boot' than today's usage (not to mention the uses of the word Bad these days). One problem with my work on the Russo-Japanese war, is that there are five different languages involved: Russian, Chinese, Brittish, Japanese, and American. Then again, one author noted that there were no less than eight different English renderings of a single Russian Admirals name; bad spellings (and typos) in sum, will be corrected. Ususally inside 45 minutes if MY Experience is a reliable measure! Fabartus 00:43, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Hey, just because someone doesn't have perfect English doesn't mean you have to ignore what they wrote. But these articles have to be cleaned up. And other articles have to link to these articles, too, or no one will ever see them ,and that wouldn't be a good thing. Pufferfish101 04:16, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. These articles are impossible. Jayjg (talk) 21:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keeep. Has good info, even if badly written. I wish though that the author at least use basic typographical standards, like putting space after comma, and create an account. Oleg Alexandrov 03:56, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep and clean up. DS1953 22:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. There are articles like Japanese expansionism and Meiji period which are properly named and contain much of this information, or at least headings under which much of this information should go. I cannot believe that Wikipedia is well served by pages titled "Additiona information over foreing Commerce and Navigation" or "Comments of Japanese Finanzes". Extract the useful information, add it to the relevant articles, create new relevant articles if necessary. But delete articles with incoherent, rambling, misspelled names and contents. Ben-w 22:38, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep and cleanup, that is the Wiki way. Paul August ☎ 14:41, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.
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