
China and Taiwan Clash over Wikipedia Edits - ktln2
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49921173
======
yorwba
This is complicated by the fact that many different languages are spoken in
both mainland China and Taiwan. So you get an article in Hokkien that
prominently displays the flag of the Republic of China [1] and another in
Southern Min that looks very different [2].

Also, three different articles on "Taiwan Province, People's Republic of
China" [3], "Taiwan Province" (in the Republic of China) [4] and "Taiwan"
(common name of the Republic of China) [5].

[1]
[https://hak.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%B2i-v%C3%A2n](https://hak.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%B2i-v%C3%A2n)

[2] [https://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A2i-o%C3%A2n](https://zh-min-
nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A2i-o%C3%A2n)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Province,_People%27s_Re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Province,_People%27s_Republic_of_China)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Province](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Province)

[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan)

~~~
segfaultbuserr
They do not belong to the "Chinese" Wikipedia, they are "Yue", "Min Nan"
Wikipedia. "Classical" Chinese also has its own version. They are communities
of their own, with separate governance and participants. The "Chinese"
Wikipedia do not intervene the internal politics of other languages as well.
They exist because Wikipedia allows the existence of different version for
each language, and the proponents believe it's good to promote the local
culture by writing in their own languages. I don't see any problems, and I
fully support it.

But beware that the number of viewers, articles, and editors is significantly
smaller than the "Chinese" Wikipedia. As a natural result, many of these have
reached far from the level of sophistication of Chinese Wikipedia, in terms of
content, policies, or governance. The central of mass is always the "Chinese"
edition.

In particular, because the Chinese Wikipedia was launched in 2004, it has the
most robust policies regarding to these conflicts. There exists a consensus of
how the official policies of Wikipedia, such as Neutral Point of View, No
Original Research, Citing Sources, should be enforced regarding to the
articles about China, the guidelines are clear. Other languages of Wikipedia
related to China may not have them.

For example, this is a full translation of the official policies of the
Chinese Wikipedia that all editors should follow regarding to the issues of
Taiwan,

> Avoid "mainland China" centric view, for example: "Taiwan is part of the
> People's Republic of China" is not acceptable, but it can be written as:
> "The People's Republic of China _claims_ Taiwan is part of it."

> Every record on Wikipedia should try to avoid biasing the status quo about
> Taiwan. Even though the United Nations and most of the world's independent
> countries have recognized the government of the People's Republic of China
> as the sole legitimate government representing China, Wikipedia should
> reflect the reality of neutrality, so that the term "China" should not be
> considered as a single independent political entity or government. In
> particular, "China" should not be used to describe areas under the
> jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China, or as a synonym with
> "Mainland China" which does not include Hong Kong and Macau.

> Use the more neutral "Beijing Government" or "Beijing" to represent the
> "Government of the People's Republic of China". Avoid using the "Chinese
> Government", "Chinese Communist Party Government", "Mainland Government" and
> "Mainland Administration" which are usually derogatory. For neutral
> abbreviations, please consider using the [[People's Government of the
> People's Republic of China | Beijing Government]] format for internal links.

> Similarly, if the term “Republic of China” is used to describe the content
> to be written, the term “Taiwan” should not be used when accuracy is
> desired, especially when naming items related to the government, law or
> politics of the Republic of China. In order to maintain the neutrality of
> Wikipedia, we only refer to the government that ruled Taiwan, Wuhu, Kinmen
> and Matsu in the name of the government name that exists in Taiwan. The
> "Republic of China Government" moved to Taiwan can use the "Taipei
> Government" or "Taipei" as the abbreviation. It is also more neutral than
> "Taiwan Government" and "Taiwan Authority". However, please consider using
> the [[[[ Republic of China Government | Taipei Government]] format for
> internal links.

> Another sensitive point: Wikipedia sees the Republic of China as having the
> same status as the People’s Republic of China, meaning that the two sides
> are equal and not affiliated political entities; but to remain neutral,
> whether the two are a country or two countries, Wikipedia's position is to
> remain silent and not to support or oppose any party. Editors should pay
> attention when writing the articles.

> When describing the government, or projects related to the State, the full
> name of the official country, such as the "People's Republic of China",
> "Republic of China", etc., should be used. For example, "Xi Jinping is the
> president of the People's Republic of China" is more appropriate than "Xi
> Jinping is the Chinese president." Similarly, "only the citizens of the
> Republic of China can participate in the presidential election of the
> Republic of China" is more appropriate than "only Taiwanese nationals can
> participate in the presidential election in Taiwan."

> Taiwan (as a province) should not be described as an independent country or
> part of the People’s Republic of China, but rather as part of the Republic
> of China. When it is necessary to mention the political situation in Taiwan,
> it is reasonable to add notes to explain the complex situation concerning
> Taiwan. Therefore, the term "Taiwan" is used only to refer to the island or
> the Taiwan Province of the Republic of China. Furthermore, since "Taiwan
> Province" is very controversial in some aspects and applications, it should
> only be used when the province itself is specifically mentioned. For
> example, "Song Chuyu is the only elected governor of Taiwan". But In the
> content of items not related to government, law, politics, etc., we can use
> Taiwan as the abbreviation of the Republic of China after moving to Taiwan.

> By convention, Wikipedia will not approve or oppose the following two
> issues:

* The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China declares that Taiwan is the territory of the People’s Republic

* The Constitution of the Republic of China declares that the inherent territory includes mainland China.

> As we said before, Wikipedia's position on whether the two sides of the
> strait is a country or two countries is to remain silent.

> For non-official institutions and international events, such as the Olympic
> Games, the official name of the conference should be used. At the Olympic
> Games, the "Chinese Taipei Team" should be used instead of the "Taiwan
> Team", the "Chinese Team" or the "Republic of China". When it is necessary
> to compare with Taiwan for non-political purposes, the word "China Mainland"
> should be used instead of "Taiwan" and "China" (meaning "Taiwan" does not
> belong to "China"), and "Taiwan" / "Continental China" (meaning "Taiwan"
> belongs to "China"). In addition, although Hong Kong and Macau are under the
> jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China, they are generally not
> considered part of mainland China.

> It is worth noting that the above matters are not fully applicable to
> historical items, especially the historical part of the government of the
> Republic of China that has not yet included Taiwan.

Geography

> When writing geographic items, you should also avoid geographical centers.
> For example, the names of mainland China and Taiwan should at least indicate
> the name of the unit in which the first-level administrative region (the
> Chinese mainland is a province, a municipality, an autonomous region, or
> Taiwan is a province or a municipality).

Examples of mainland China and Taiwan:

> Incorrect description with geographical center: “The administrative division
> of Fengshan is divided into Fengshan Town, Fengqing County, Linyi City.”
> (Chinese users mostly do not know where Linyi City is, and the
> administrative divisions of counties and cities in China and Taiwan. The
> names are generally considered to be unfamiliar to most Chinese users,
> except in the central municipalities and the more prominent provincial
> capitals and other cities.)

> Correct description without geographical center: “Fengshan Town is located
> in Fengqing County, Linyi City, Yunnan Province, and the government
> administrative center is Fengqing City.”

> In Chinese Wikipedia, the highest level administrative unit of the location
> description is preferably based on the first level administrative unit, or
> can be indicated to cities with high visibility in the Chinese language
> circle, such as Xi'an, Luoyang, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou. , Shenzhen,
> Xiamen, Taipei, etc.

> Hong Kong example:

* Incorrect: "The highest temperature recorded by the our local Hong Kong Observatory in June of the past 50 years is..."

* Correct: "The highest temperature in June recorded by the Hong Kong Observatory between 1955 and 2005 is..."

> Do not use "foreign" or "foreign" as a place outside the Greater China
> region, or use "foreigners" to refer to non-Chinese people.

> The word "Mainland" and "Continent" can only be used when it involves Hong
> Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and the word "China Mainland" and "Continental
> China" has been mentioned repetitively, to ensure no misunderstanding will
> occur.

~~~
yorwba
Thank you for this very informative comment. I did not mean to imply that
these articles were part of the "Chinese" (i.e. zh) Wikipedia, however due to
the regional overlap I'd expect contributors in these languages to also
contribute to zh and follow similar community norms. Note that those
Wikipedias are small relative to zh, but large in absolute terms. zh-min-nan
(Southern Min) has 100 000+ articles, cdo (Eastern Min), wuu (Wu) and zh-yue
(Cantonese) each have 10 000+. Admittedly, hak (Hakka) only has 1000+, so I
probably shouldn't have linked to that one. (Also, I accidentally referred to
it as Hokkien instead.)

I don't think this proliferation of linguistic communities is a bad thing. I
just think it's interesting how different the articles they produce are.

~~~
segfaultbuserr
Thanks for the responsive.

> _I don 't think this proliferation of linguistic communities is a bad thing.
> I just think it's interesting how different the articles they produce are._

Fully agree.

------
sandrobfc
I'm surprised this doesn't happen way more often with many other pages. But we
were all warned not to take Wikipedia as a single source of credible
information. If bold statements or dubious information is not properly linked
to credible sources (and even then...), don't take it as 100% true.

~~~
ameixaseca
This happens way more often with many other pages as well. It just doesn't get
the spotlight of media attention all the time.

~~~
uranusjr
Also worth noting is the GFW bans Wikipedia, limiting its popularity in China
(most prefer Baidu’s equivalent, and those stay are comparably more liberal).
So things don’t get that bad unless there’s an outside trigger to make average
Chinese users take extra efforts accessing Wikipedia.

------
tomkat0789
Has this intensified recently? I thought this was already going on to a
degree. I remember reading a story on HN awhile ago about a lawyer for hire
who could get any change he wanted through Wikipedia's system. It'd be a
disaster for Wikipedia if China et al had similar power... though I suppose I
already pass Wikipedia over when looking up controversial things like US
politicians.

~~~
loceng
Issues related to China and Blizzard, Apple and China-Hong Kong, etc.
intensifying - which is bringing all of this bad, authoritarian behaviour to
light - compounding. People seem to have had enough and are speaking up.

~~~
yorwba
This story was first submitted 4 days ago, but not many were paying attention
at that time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164775)

------
segfaultbuserr
How can this even be news?

The editing war has been around since the very beginning, back in 2004 or so,
and since then, in the endless wars, a very sophisticated tradition of "Code
of Conflict" has already been established as a robust basis of solving
conflicts. It's not actually a Code, but a consensus of how the official
policies of Wikipedia, such as _Neutral Point of View_ , _No Original
Research_ , _Citing Sources_ , should be enforced regarding to the articles
about China, the guidelines are clear, and there is no question.

For example, on whether Taiwan should be seen as an independent country - The
resolution is simple: _Neutral Point of View_. If a government claims it's a
legitimate government, its official title should be used by default, whether
the claim is justified or not is another matter of fact to be described within
the articles. Thus, all references to the government of Taiwan is by default,
Republic of China, and all references to the government of PRC is by default,
People's Republic of China. If there are political questions involved, all the
major opinions and important minority opinions should be presented, backed by
citations. The same rule applies to all other governments, Wikipedia has no
problem of calling the terrorist group the "Islamic State", and then described
it as a illegitimate terrorist group within the article.

This system has been kicking around for more than a decade, and any
cooperative Wikipedia editors have no problems accepting it, nobody will be
offended by "Republic of China", even if the editor is a member of the CPC.

It's not to say that conflicts don't exist. Of course, strong conflicts occur
daily, but the conflicts are about the matter of facts and their
interpretation (whether the inclusion of this opinion fits the policies of
Wikipedia, whether or not the overtone of the article is biased towards the
United States, etc). For example, you should expect to see heavy conflicts on
articles related to the protests in Hong Kong, on what opinions should be
included in the article and how to interpret the sources. But what the
policies should be is clear to all editors, the argument is mainly about their
treatment and interpretation.

On the other hand, there are people that doesn't know what the community is
about, refuse to read the policies, or don't want to follow the rules, these
people will start editing wars, indeed, but their edits will be reverted, with
their accounts banned when enough people have been annoyed. The constant
influx of these people are a daily phenomenon, and warning and banned them is
the most underappreciated job. We have seen these people coming from all
geographical area and political camps, including PRC, Hong Kong, ROC,
Singapore, or the U.S. However, these are mostly trolls, not Wikipedia
editors, and these conflicts should not be confused with the actual conflicts
within Wikipedia.

Some of the most infamous trolls are from Taiwan, it's not related to the
geopolitics, they always exist regardless of political camps. On the other
hand, I've even seen literal followers of fascism from PRC that has no problem
of following the Wikipedia policies and writing unobjectionable articles...
The trolls from PRC contribute the greatest number of unhelpful edits, though.

It's not to say that articles actually follows the official policies as well.
Of course many articles are biased. They exist, because there aren't enough
people willing to improve them. It's similar to contributing a controversial
feature to a FOSS project, the argument can go for months, with a lot of
revisions, so it's not a job that many people want to hold. Nevertheless, it's
doable, at least for the most notable topic that there are a lot of potential
contributors.

Power struggles are common, because everyone has (1) a personal opinion over
the subjects, (2) an opinion over how the subject should be described in
Wikipedia, (3) an opinion over the existing articles, (4) an opinion over the
personal opinion of another Wikipedia editor's opinion, etc, so it's
unavoidable. Yet, life still goes on.

Personally, I see the greatest success story is _1989 Tiananmen Square
Protests_ [0]. It's always the most controversial article of all on the entire
Chinese Wikipedia, the conflicts have been ongoing forever. The "this article
is biased" template was here for 13 years or so. Yet, a few years ago, all
conflicts have been settled, all perceived issues have been fixed in the
article, and now the content of the article has been accepted by most to be an
objective and comprehensive description of the events.

Finally, I must point out that the Chinese Wikipedia don't have the culture of
deletion, unlike the English version. Some experienced Chinese editors went to
edit the English version, only to find many edits have been reverted and
canceled.

[0]
[https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B%E4%BA%8B%E4...](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6)

~~~
kerkeslager
> Finally, I must point out that the Chinese Wikipedia don't have the culture
> of deletion, unlike the English version. Some experienced Chinese editors
> went to edit the English version, only to find many edits have been reverted
> and canceled.

This is a really interesting bit. I've largely stopped contributing content to
Wikipedia because almost every contribution I've made in recent years has been
reverted with little/no explanation. And I'm not talking about controversial
topics, either: it's just mostly adding clearly objective information to
computer science articles. My impression is that it's territorialism, where a
few academic subject matter experts have gained enough reputation to control a
page, and now won't let anyone edit it.

Do you have any thoughts on:

1\. Why the difference in cultures of deletion?

2\. What are the implications?

~~~
rjf72
I expect it's the same reason that the quality of discourse on the internet as
a whole, including the English Wiki, has really quite deteriorated. On the
Chinese Wiki there's a tremendous intellectual barrier to entry - being able
to read/write Chinese. This is not to say that China (as the largest source of
people able to read/write Chinese) is not full of 'less academically inclined'
individuals, exactly as any other nation, but the percent of those individuals
that are in any way involved with Wiki is going to be extremely close to 0.

The entire internet itself used to have a similar barrier to entry in that it
wasn't something that 'normal' people 'did.' And so you had a relatively small
group of generally 'more academically inclined' individuals mostly just
engaging with one another. But as you opened the flood gates the 'newcomers'
gradually became the majority and the internet was completely reshaped in
their image. So compare, for instance, old newsgroup archives to e.g. Twitter
or Facebook. Makes it quite easy to lose faith in society. In my case it
simply led to me tossing aside any notion of _tabula rasa_.

But the point of this is that I don't think individuals who are 'more
academically inclined' are the sort to sit around wasting hours, days, years
edit warring and effectively trolling one another. They can accept different
views, values, and also correct themselves when they discover they had a
poorly formulated view. Wikipedia entered the game early enough that the
internet hadn't gone completely to the 'less academically inclined', and so it
had some time to grow. In today's environment Wiki, from scratch, would be
simply impossible. By contrast, the Chinese Wiki gets to party like its 1992.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

~~~
segfaultbuserr
Your opinions are interesting. it deserves a thread of its own posted on a
real forum, and I love to continue to discussion.

> By contrast, the Chinese Wiki gets to party like its 1992.

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

On one hand, I'd say it's a gross mischaracterization of the Chinese Wikipedia
and the Web in general. Many millions of people now has unprecedented accessed
to the Web, and due to the current political atmosphere, various forms of
populism has reached its full heights online, not unlike the English-speaking
world. Wikipedia is not free from it.

Meanwhile, I'd your description is somewhat true. Due to the cultural barrier
created by the Great Firewall, if you are a daily viewer of Wikipedia, it's
likely that you are already a more academically-inclined individual. It's even
more so if you have an account and make edits.

If the Great Firewall doesn't exist, and the Chinese Wikipedia has high
popularity, I guess the community's attitudes towards newcomers will be very
difference.

------
beerandt
Why is Wikipedia even allowing edits from China at this point?

~~~
sidibe
The edits might not even be from China. Somehow CCP has managed to even get
many Chinese abroad to attach part of their identity to the Chinese government
so negative things about the government are personally insulting.

~~~
beerandt
This makes sense. Especially in light of Chinese student unions on college
campuses.

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
Just throwing this link out there for anyone that's interested as I'm a mod
over at the /r/taiwanindependence subreddit.[1]

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwanindependence](https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwanindependence)

------
zaphod420
Fuck Chinese government.

Support freedom for Hong Kong, and Taiwain.

~~~
joelx
I agree, China is now a nightmare dictatorship. We should do everything we
possibly can to support the free peoples remaining in Hong Kong and Taiwan and
perhaps start pushing freedom into China.

~~~
Diederich
> China is now a nightmare dictatorship

Tibet, the great leap forward, among others.

And I'd clarify 'China' to 'the Chinese government'.

~~~
mcny
> And I'd clarify 'China' to 'the Chinese government'.

A friend of Chinese origin explained to me: when there are two people of
Chinese origin in a room who don't intimately know each other, both of them
will openly support the People's Republic because neither one can be
completely sure that the other is not a mole. So given a group of people of
Chinese origin, they all support the People's Republic (CCP). Now imagine if
you grew up where all adults behaved like this. Would you need any specific
brainwashing to support the People's Republic?

~~~
bgee
I'm a Chinese national working in the U.S. and I have never heard or seen any
behavior like this.

~~~
gruez
Which part? The way I interpreted it is that if two _random_ people were put
into a room and were asked about their position on the CCP, they'd both
support it. That seems plausible for any totalitarian country.

~~~
nostrademons
I think it only applies _when inside the boundaries of China_ , not to people
of _Chinese origin_.

I'm half ethnically Chinese, look mostly Chinese, and don't give a shit what
the CCP thinks, because I was born in the U.S, have U.S. citizenship, visited
China once with a tour group full of white people from places like Peoria, and
have no plans to go back. However, if I _were_ physically in China, I'd be a
little more circumspect with my political opinions. This is prudent for white
Americans within the boundaries of China as well - while you have some
protection because of the CCP not wanting to cause an international incident,
you are still in a foreign country thousands of miles from home and subject to
its laws or lack thereof.

------
taf2
Taiwan should just start including pictures of Winnie the Pooh pics on
Wikipedia articles to get the whole domain blocked in China.

~~~
tomkat0789
Isn't the whole Wikipedia domain already blocked in China? I thought Baidu
already had a Wikipedia equivalent.

~~~
fiblye
It is. Twitter is as well.

Yet it’s still flooded with people posting in simplified Chinese about how
freedom of speech is stupid and foreigners need to shut up and leave matters
alone, completely unaware of any irony.

~~~
goatinaboat
_Twitter is as well._

We can imagine the following dialogue:

Chinese patriot: I’m really angry about what the NBA said on Twitter about
China!

Chinese secret police: We admire your patriotism Comrade... but how are you
using Twitter?

~~~
ohduran
Tien An Men Square: In this site, in 1989, nothing happened.

Taken from the Simpsons:
[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Q_Kixfvq1lY/SiU_RKPsCdI/AAAAAAAAA...](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Q_Kixfvq1lY/SiU_RKPsCdI/AAAAAAAAArM/Nh2-9FGQ3Gk/s400/Tiananmen+simpsonschina.jpg)

------
throwaway5752
\--

~~~
avocado4
Opium wars happened over a century ago. It was a crime against humanity, but
it gives no moral right to anybody to repeat the same thing in the modern
time. It's like saying Israeli should have a right to demand that Germans be
gassed today because of Hitler.

Chinese public puts up with their government because the standard of living
rose in the past years thanks to WTO and liberalization during Deng Xiaoping
and Hu Jintao presidency. Now that Xi Jinping decided to undo the progress and
double down on building authoritarian ethnostate it's a matter of time before
public opinion shifts again due to economic hit.

