Talk:China Foreign Affairs University

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Re the following edit (from the revision history):

00:01, 12 October 2005 131.111.195.8 (removed link to (basically) a rant, posted by its writer)

That "writer" is me, and the "rant" is my highly detailed and scrupulously true account of my observations and experiences during the 10 weeks I personally taught at the China Foreign Affairs University in 2002: Inside China's Diplomacy School.

I had added a link to that story under "External Links". The above edit removed it.

I'm requesting a Wikipedia:Third opinion on this this issue.

— Urielw 03:46, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Further....

Wondering why an editor would remove the link to my wholly relevant inside story about CFAU, the university that is the article's subject, I took a look at his contributions page.

And his personal bias became clear.

I have lately been posting to my website a series of letters that paint a quite unflattering picture of Cambridge University, based on my observations of its English literature program in summer 2005.

As documented in the letters, I have aroused some considerable ire within the Cambridge community (though a minority are sympathetic to my views).

The contributions page of the editor in question here, particularly his edits of Oct 21 and June 2, 2005, indicate that he is almost certainly a member of the Cambridge University community, probably as a member of Downing College. This is hardly likely to be a coincidence.

To connect the dots:

• He's been among those fuming over my Cambridge story;

• He researched me (I'm identified, he's anonymous) and found the CFAU article;

• On Oct. 11, 2005, the same day my 16'th letter appeared, in which I describe unethical practices by the Cambridge administration, he labelled as a "rant" and excised the link to my CFAU story — an act of spite that obviously violates the Neutral Point of View policy.

— Urielw 14:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

"Third opinion": It's a rant indeed, by someone who seems to have little intercultural abilities and failed. I'd still include the link if the article was not just a stub - if there was more information about faculty, alumni etc., it would be appropriate, but in this case, this rant is given inappropriate prominence, so I'm in favour of removing the link. — Babelfisch 06:38, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

In my defence, I've only been at Cambridge for a few weeks, the other edits from this IP are presumably from previous users. Or perhaps the IPs are allocated dynamically. Not sure. Anyhow, never met the guy.

Babelfisch offers a strange view: The article is meager, so let's make it more meager.

The anonymous 131.111.195.8 has quickly acted, again removing the link to my Inside China's Diplomacy School "as agreed on talk page."

In fact, I do not agree at all.

These two editors have evidently reacted negatively to my frank and impolitic account of my experiences at CFAU. But it's undeniable that the story is filled with many, many detailed, factual observations of the school, its administrators and its students. It's highly relevant to any wikipedia reader desiring further information about CFAU. Prospective faculty apparently already track the story down via google. According to a vociferous opponent of the story, it is discussed every year "at the first orientation meeting for new foreign professors since all of them read his diatribe in their Google research before accepting a position on the faculty." (See The Peril and Agony of Free Speech.)

Though Babelfisch and 131.111.195.8 label the story a "rant" (not an especially well-defined term), the story has been commended by many readers (see readers' comments).

The removal of the link is a disservice to wikipedia.

— Urielw 17:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response to RfC

While the link you provided does make for some interesting reading, I'm not sure that its something I would expect to find in an encyclopedia Maybe on the bestseller rack at Borders. I'm sorry for the ordeal you experienced and its great to see you finding a forum for discussion by publishing your website. Some articles that involve controversy have added a section discussing those issues and in that sort of format, perhaps your link could be used. It would need to be balanced with factual information about the school in order to keep the article from slanting heavily in one direction. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 15:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I confess I'm rather confused by the ".:.Jareth.:. babelfish" signature. Perhaps a wiki convention I don't know about? Does Jareth=babelfish=Babelfisch, the third opiner who found "It's a rant indeed"?

And does Jareth realize we're talking merely about an external link? A link to an "inside story" wouldn't mean endorsement by wikipedia.

I would think the criterion for inclusion is whether the linked-to story has relevant info which could benefit wiki users; not whether it's "balanced" by the article contents.

That criterion would support inclusion of the link, since there is almost certainly no other written account in existence that provides as much info about CFAU.

— Urielw 02:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The reason this link is inappropriate is not because it fails to contain "relevant info which could benefit wiki users." It is inappropriate because it is a violation of wikipedia's no-original research policy: "The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication". The problem is not that the link is necessarily false, but that the information contained therein is not from a reputable publication. If you could find a link, say, to the New York Times (or similar) that buttressed your claims, I would by all means include it. PS If you click on "Babelfish" next to Jareth's name, you get Jareth's talk page. IronDuke 22:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Inside China's Diplomacy School is "original research," and presenting its claims in a wikipedia article would violate the Wikipedia:No original research policy.

But its claims are not being proposed for inclusion in any wikipedia article. We are talking about an External Link. There's nothing unencyclopedic about citing unencyclopedic works.

No reader of Inside China's Diplomacy School is likely to consider it an authoritative source. Citing it is entirely appropriate since, again, it probably has more info about CFAU than any other written work in existence, and could therefore be highly relevant to a user consulting wikipedia's entry on CFAU.

— Urielw 05:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Point well-taken. I guess I'd use an analogy here: if I had coffee with George W. Bush and he admitted to me that he had faked the WMD evidence, I set up a website documenting this and then linked to it off the Bush page, would that be desirable? Can people take my word on the idea that I had coffee with the President? This is a tough call, because your website provides a lot of information and gives a hugely better feel for the school than the article itself. IronDuke 17:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

If you're credible enough, I'd say the fact of your claim would belong in the Bush article.

There are deep and interesting issues here about what wikipedia is and should be, and I was tempted to wring out a closely reasoned, ultra-rational, thoroughly judicious and utterly compelling exhortation to further defend my views ... til I remembered: When did that ever persuade anyone?

Anyway, the case at hand simply seems too obvious to have to be made:

• My story is probably the only substantial thing besides Chinese propaganda that's ever been written about CFAU.

• It's packed with an insider's factual observations.

• The elementary criterion — Is it helpful to a wikipedia user seeking knowledge about the article's subject? — obviously supports inclusion. Some seem to be neglecting this criterion in favor of counting angels on the head of a pin. (The applicability of general wikipedia policies to this issue could be debated for years.)

I'd add that despite a fair amount of circulation over the internet and discussion by various readers in various forums, much of it hostile, no one has ever challenged any specific item of information in the story. (A number of discussions and responses are shown at Inside China's Diplomacy School.)

I have to question the open-mindedness of my worthy opponents. The "rant" label is obviously false. I suspect they're nervous about the narrative's unorthodox style, its lack of gravitas, its political incorrectness; or they're upset by the unsentimental point of view; or they're paranoid I might, God forbid, be using wikipedia for self-promotion. The editor who actually deleted the link (twice), as pointed out above, is obviously biased -- he's an anonymous Cambridge student who pursued me into wikipedia because of what I wrote on my website about his school.

— Urielw 18:43, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

All right, you know what? You have me at least halfway convinced. I'll take issue with a few minor things, such as the issue being "too obvious to have to be made," and the fact that it is "packed with an insider's factual observations" which argues against its inclusion, rather than for it, as it comes under the heading of original research (which you should perhaps address more specifically if you wish to convince others). Still, I would support putting the link back in if there is a note indicating the essentially POV nature of the account. IronDuke 19:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm also rather confused by the Jareth/babelfish signature. I'm not Jareth. Jareth≠Babelfisch. —Babelfisch 01:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to RfC II (with refreshed indent)

But I did address the "original research" objection, above. My story is clearly OR. Its claims do not belong in WP. I'm only saying that the fact of the existence of this inside story of CFAU belongs in WP (as a reference in the CFAU article's External Links section).

Of course, in the general case, this method could be used to get WP to point to all sorts of trash that the OR policy is reasonably intended to exclude. I don't believe there is a WP policy that directly addresses when references like this are appropriate. My arguments above can be considered "original reasoning."

I think WP should formulate a general policy, because this kind of situation is likely to arise often. To abstract the issue: We have a somewhat important topic, but it's not notable or newsworthy enough to have gotten space in a "reputable publication." Yet a substantial quantity of plausible (though not authoritative) information is readily available (if you know about it).

Now consider these modern trends:

• An exploding number of information sources (yes, those usually but not always contemptible blogs).

• A steady decline in the integrity of "reputable publications" — academic publications increasingly corrupted by commercial forces (see e.g. my Abusing Kids for Money); newspapers continually retrenching as aging readers die off or go blind, unreplaced.

• Increasingly tight control by important institutions (government and corporations) over revelations of highly newsworthy information about themselves.

Is this a world where an information resource like WP should be puritanical about excluding all reference to knowledge not vetted by a "reputable publication"?

Note that money is a great advantage in getting into "reputable publications." Corporations will generally be able to get their propaganda in there.

Note also that books, generally, are clearly not "reputable publications" (though they can be, given a reputable author), so this issue involves not only blogs and personal websites.

Consider also one of the great potential advantages of WP: a compendium of knowledge that includes a previously unthinkable number of obscure topics. This advantage would be greatly curtailed by an over-scrupulous rejection of knowledge not vetted by "reputable publications."

I fully appreciate that there are oceans of garbage always striving for exposure anywhere it can be had. Some judgment is necessary. (Some principles from the Reliable sources article would be applicable.) Again, this comment is only about WP references to external works, not about WP content. (And references to opposing/challenging works should normally be welcome.)

The advantage of a rule about "reputable publications" is that it can be more or less objectively adjudicated. I realize that what I'm proposing for references is more complicated, the line less well defined. But in many cases, with some common sense, the criterion I spelled out earlier — Is it helpful to a wikipedia user seeking knowledge about the article's subject? — would point to a fairly straightforward determination.

—Urielw 15:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)