Talk:1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre/Archive 5

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Error in quotation of Kristof's figures

Nicholas Kristof (Reference [5]) is quoted twice in the text of the article. The first quotation is incorrect, giving figures of 2000 soldiers & policemen and 1000 to 3000 civilians killed. The second quotation is correct. The figures he gives in [5] are "about a dozen soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.41.251 (talk)

Requested move 15 October 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move to proposed title. Only oppose is STRONG but is entirely based on arguing that the current title should be acceptable but does not indicate why it's preferable beyond being status quo. Others all favor move. (non-admin closure) В²C ☎ 19:27, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

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Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 → 1989 Tiananmen Square protests – WPMOS is generally YEAR event, not event of YEAR, vide 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 17:59, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events), and the proposed destination would conform to that guideline. --Bsherr (talk) 18:59, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
• Sure, why not. Not the most controversial of moves. CapnZapp (talk) 05:07, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support Surprised it has stayed at this title for so long, as WP:NCE is pretty clear about this. AusLondonder (talk) 17:45, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
• STRONG OPPOSE – NCE is actually clearer about this than Mr Londoner thinks. Prior to a unilateral change to the guideline in 2015, it specifically mentioned this article's format, using this article as an example, as an acceptable style. Are you fellows really going to allow one editor, who changed the guidelines without consensus or discussion, to dictate how we title articles? This article was SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED as an example of an acceptable style. What an absolute absurdity, honestly... RGloucester — ☎ 19:46, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support regardless of how the guideline came to fruition, the general style of events is YEAR event, and it makes no sense for this to be any different. There is nothing otherwise problematic with the "YEAR event" format. feminist (talk) 17:09, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

There is quite a lot problematic with that style, and it is in no way a 'general' style. The relevant topic here is 'Tiananmen Square protests'. The year is only added for disambiguation from other such protests. It is natural for the most important piece of information, the subject, to come first, and the disambiguation second, per the usual way of writing in English: 'event of year'. The present title is also more common in reliable sources, and hence per WP:TITLECHANGES, there is no reason to move the article from the present title. RGloucester — ☎ 22:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

But is there anything to suggest that sources using "of 1989" are doing so deliberately as opposed to just indiscriminately choosing that syntax? It's quite fair to say the style specified in the guideline is the general style. While there is merit to disambiguating at the end of the title, there is also merit to a shorter title by avoiding the prepositional phrase, and, as said above, in uncomplicated situations, which to use should be decided for all articles, not for each article individually. A good reason to change a title, consistent with WP:TITLECHANGES, is conformance to naming conventions. --Bsherr (talk) 13:50, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

But the naming conventions are basically an essay written by one editor. Prior to that tampering, this article was specifically listed as an example of a good style. You are subverting the policy and guidelines by supporting this move. RGloucester — ☎ 15:38, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

The guideline is still labeled a guideline. I don't know how it is technically possible to tamper with Wikipedia, since all changes made are transparently documented in the page history. Guidelines frequently change as consensus changes. You've started a discussion on the talk page of the guideline, which is the right way to address this. If and when the guideline changes again, this article can be renamed again to be consistent with any change to the guideline. --Bsherr (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

'Transparency' relies on people actually knowing about the existence of the page and watching it, which is a big ask...not to mention the unrelated edit summary. The guidelines before did not favour either form, so 'being consistent with the guideline' is not the issue. The issue is making a nonsense change on no basis other than whim. RGloucester — ☎ 21:05, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support: pretty minor move to a slightly shorter title which retains all the meaning. Jonathunder (talk) 14:37, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

What about people who don't know the year of the event, which, to be fair, will be most of our audience? They know they're searching for Tiananmen Square protests, and will put that into the search box...instead of coming right here, they'll be sent on a wild goose chase because some people think a title that is two characters shorter is somehow better. It simply isn't natural to put disambiguation first. That'd be like writing (country) Georgia for Georgia (country). I appeal to you fellows, use your god-given heads. RGloucester — ☎ 15:42, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Tiananmen Square protests is a redirect to this article and will still be if it moves. Jonathunder (talk) 17:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, but there is no reason to move the article away from the title that most people are likely to type and search for, to a strange title cast in Wikipedianese. See the WP:NATURALNESS criteria of WP:AT. RGloucester — ☎ 17:40, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Amnesty International UK uses "1989 Tiananmen Square protests" as do about 36k other websites, per Google. It's hardly a strange title. Jonathunder (talk) 18:53, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

That usage is rooted in headlinese, where space is at a premium, but it's not a natural way to write in English. We've got unlimited space...so we should use the natural title that people are most likely to search for. The original purpose of the 'year-first' style on Wikipedia was for recent events with no clear common name...retroactively applying it to historical events makes no sense. RGloucester — ☎ 21:02, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Delete and/or split to separate dissidents article

Some parts of this article are a huge mess. Poor referencing throughout, for example... The article is much too long and dwells excessively on peripheral details. Many details could be trimmed or removed entirely. As a first step, for example, remove the entire "List of 21 most wanted student leaders" section and all discussion of what happened to dissidents in their later lives. This can be split off to a separate article if desired, although in fact much of the text is simply deletable. See forex the entire huge table in the "List of 21 most wanted student leaders". Clearly there is exactly zero utility in the knowledge that "Wang Zhengyun... [Lived at that time in] Nanke District, Jinping County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province...[and was/had] 167 cm tall, thin and long-faced, dark-yellow eyes, small dots, Yunnan accent". Delete, do not move, that table... in fact, I'll start on that soon. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:43, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

A poll can help a lot Dheerajmpai23 (talk)

Thank you for stopping by. All of that text was spun off to another article. The text deals with events decades after the incident and is therefore beyond the scope of this article. Poll unnecessary. Removal non-controversial housekeeping. Now reverting your deletion. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:42, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposed standardization of citations/references

The citation styles used are a mishmash. In order to pick one style and stick with it". I propose standardizing the system in the same manner as Aristotle. I will happily do so within a few days, unless other have persuasive arguments against it.. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:43, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• Still working on this. It's a big task. May take a couple weeks longer. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:17, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Moved into mainspace... About 95% done ... there were about 370 inconsistent refs etc and I've pared it down to just over 20... but I'm moving it into mainspace now because in the final stages of the task I found myself changing content and adding a couple sentences in order to make the last few of the more inaccurate or outdated cites consistent with sources.... there are also I suspect several duplicate sources in the Sources section, largely an artifact of different editors repeatedly adding different editions of the same book or other similar mistakes. I will continue fixing the article's references bit by bit here over the next couple of days or so. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:41, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

delete the "Cultural references" section, perhaps moving Tank Man text

The article is too long. The "Cultural references" section sheds no light on the event, mentions events that are peripheral, trivial and/or outdated. Suggest deleting, with possibility that there may be a sentence or two about Tank Man that can be moved up to June 5 section, where he is already mentioned. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• Done ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lingzhi2, you changed "Elders" (as in Eight Elders) back to "elders" throughout the page. I would expect a capital letter since it refers to eight specific named individuals, not any older party members as implied by "elders". If the latter is used in most sources, however, I have no problem with it. Is that the case? You did not explain your edit. zzz (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

@Signedzzz Oh! That change wasn't deliberate (but see thoughts below). I accidentally undid some recent edits when I moved the ref edits from userspace. I actually told myself to check for that possibility, then forgot having reminded myself... Having said that, I feel this article uses the term "elders" in a loose and slapdash manner. For example, in the most important meeting of all relevant to this topic, the 17 May meeting in Deng's home, there were only 5 + Deng. And until yesterday, the article just said "the party elders approved Deng's plan of martial law" without saying which elders, how many elders, whether it was unanimous, etc. In fact, this whole article has a "cobbled together by dozens of editors" feel to it. It makes the whole article kinda loose-knit and relatively weak. So... although I didn't alter "eight elders" on purpose, now that you brought it up, I think everything should be cited carefully, PREFERABLY to a reliable English-language source. I hope to replace some of those Chinese-language sources as time goes on. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Curious omissions

It's a little curious that there isn't a single picture of the protests (especially in terms of their scale) or the aftermath of the massacre in an otherwise long article, including some of the most historically famous and important pictures of the twentieth century, when these are widely available on the web and attached to practically every major article on the matter elsewhere.

Are Chinese Commies doing a little whitewashing here? On a website that is itself blocked in Mainland China but tells the truth elsewhere? Is anyone keeping a watch on this? I find it rather curious at least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isaiahchd (talk • contribs) 04:18, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, all the usual iconic images are copyrighted in a way that is not compatible with the license Wikipedia uses (CC BY-SA). See WP:COPYVIO for more general info on this. There are policies about using "non-free" images, but I don't think they apply here. See WP:FAIRUSE. Unfortunately these sorts of legal issues sometimes limit what can be on Wikipedia. If you know of any photos that are not copyrighted, then please add them or link them here. You can also try writing the owners of the images and ask them to release the images under a CC BY-SA or equivalent license. I don't think this is a case of whitewashing or censorship, as the responsible parties are the photographers and photo agencies like Getty Images. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 19:49, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

There are also claims that most of those images are in fact montaged fakes. Tank Man is considered the only 100% true photo of those events. If you want to go through all the pain of finding out if photos in question are legitimate and are ready to defend the article 24/7, be my guest. Not to mention what a disaster it would be if your choice would be one of actually proven fakes. And that's on top of problems mentioned by BananaCarrot152. Feel free to invest yourself into this task, Isaiahchd. 93.84.8.49 (talk) 00:52, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

There's no way that china controls the entire internet. If you look at Google images today and try to look for photos of the massacres, there's an alarmingly lack of it. In fact, I honestly cannot find any western visual sources of actual massacres aka bloody scenario where thousands of people were killed and dead bodies lined the streets in the thousands or video link of massacres. I did find a photo of a burnt-out man hanged from a bridge but he was a police officer and a photo of a "dead" protester lifting his fist up in the air whilst lying down.

The reality is that most of the tiananmen sqaure legitimacy is strongly dependent on the verbal interviews with some of the former students who later got asylum visas from the US and journalists who insisted that the soldiers charged at the students in the square with deadly force, that even the statue was just "riddled with bullets".

I found a forum discussing this.

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2317,00.html

Should we include in the article that most of the evidence proving tiananmen sqaure massacres is not based on actual visual evidence but primarily on verbal witness reports? 120.17.10.143 (talk) 07:50, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

89 Democracy Movement- a misnomer?

I am not sure whether my memory is obscured a little as the event happened almost 30 years ago, but I remembered the protesters at the time wanted China to return to the good old days of hard communism where jobs are for life, in what they call an "iron-ricebowl" job. The idea that the protest was for democracy was an invention of the western media. The protesters were protesting against capitalism rather than communism. Are there anyone else who can remember what the protesters were prostesting about and want to share their memories here? 2A00:23C5:C10B:A300:78BE:A870:F6F8:3293 (talk) 03:06, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, your memory is obscured (read the article to help clear things up) and please read WP:NOTFORUM. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:10, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Reading the article as suggested by NeilN, I have to agree with the poster. As stated in the article, the protests were against the rapid economic and social changes. It was therefore an anti-capitalism protest. Also the English translation of "89 Democracy Movement" could very well be a misnomer in English because from the Chinese, the English translation of "89 People's Campaign" is also valid. I suggest NeilN abide by his own advice to others and begin to read the article for himself and stop taking political sides. 109.158.44.68 (talk) 23:13, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Democracy is loosely termed here. In a nutshell, Hu Yaobang was the second most powerful man in China after Deng Xiaoping in the 80s. In his last decade, HU wanted increasing public consultation before determining Party policy. It's not actually democracy perse but it had democratic values. The students wanted more transparency and hence less corruption. Hu was powerful and influential. His death sparked the 89 protest. The west maybe oversimplified what the students were protesting for. They were not against communism because like Vietnam, they were convinced of educated political meritocracy in determining economic policies. However they wanted more transparency and to be at least consulted. Not the same thing as actual representative democracy or voting in the west.

However the term "89 democracy movement" is indeed a western title. But it is ingrained for so long that it is better to just keep it. However, I agree it should be better clarified in the article that the protests were more about corruption than blunt democracy. And to give more credence to the context story of Deng Xiaoping vs Hu and their disagreement over economic policies and reforms. Which created the protests. 120.17.10.143 (talk) 08:17, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Not it's not a "western" title -- as you can plainly see here Goddess of Democracy. This was being broadcast by China from China, live, with some senior officials backing up what these students were doing. It's a Chinese title. This was part of a larger movement that was sweeping over all of the Communist world, including such countries as the one I lived in. They all went down together like dominoes, and China was (predictably) the next one in line, after the protests started moving beyond Eastern Europe into the USSR. This article needs to be linked to all these other events, because it is a part of that entire movement.

More trimming: Suggest deleting "Documentaries" section

Suggest deleting the "Documentaries" section. It doesn't tell useful info such as whether documentaries had an impact on Chinese perceptions etc., it just lists documentaries. It is, in short, quite spammish, and should be deleted. Some links can perhaps be moved to "External links". Will wait a few days before deleting. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:18, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Eh, it's so very spamlike that I'll just go ahead and do that now. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:55, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Name on the Most Wanted List redirects to a king from 500 BC

In the Arrests and punishment section, Xiong Wei redirects to King Ling of Chu. :/ – XYZt (talk  |  contribs) – 05:10, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

{{sofixit}} ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:35, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Lingzhi2: I actually don't know much about the topic. Does he actually have an article? Otherwise it would be better just to delink it. – XYZt (talk  |  contribs) – 06:21, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I have removed the link. --Bsherr (talk) 23:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

British ambassador Donald citation

Does anyone have strong feelings about keeping or removing the "declassified documents" section of the "death toll" part of the article? The article, picked up by tabloid-style Hong Kong newspapers, contradict not only what is documented by more reliable sources such as BBC and the New York Times' contemporaneous account, but also some details are readily falsifiable - such as the 27th Army being "60% illiterate and from Shanxi", described as a fact in the declassified files. In fact the 27th Army is from Shijiazhuang. Just does not seem like a very reliable account. Colipon+(Talk) 18:24, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Going twice on this. Any objections or strong opinions on this one way or another? Colipon+(Talk) 22:07, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Going three times on this. If there are no objections, I intend to remove that section from the article as it stands. Colipon+(Talk) 16:16, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Not only "tabloid-style Hong Kong newspapers"

SCMP

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2156285/sir-alan-donald-british-ambassador-beijing-during

AFP

https://www.france24.com/en/20171223-10000-killed-chinas-1989-tiananmen-crackdown-british-archive

Deutsche Welle

https://www.dw.com/en/secret-cable-10000-killed-in-chinas-1989-tiananmen-crackdown/a-41918713 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.186.92.27 (talk) 01:07, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Since the page is protecting now, can someone help me to readd the declassified documents section with those new sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.186.92.27 (talk) 01:29, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2019

The title, "1989 Tiananmen Square protests" should be changed to "1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre", and it should be the default, the "protests" version can redirect to the "Massacre" version. It started with protests, but it is most known by the ending MASSACRE! 98.110.246.227 (talk) 02:10, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

 Not done. Please propose a proper title change. El_C 02:13, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Lead Picture

The lead picture of the article should be changed to one of closer context to the incident and higher importance. I feel like the current image does not represent the whole article well, it does not even show the incident and is taken before. Maybe a picture which shows scenes of mass protests or the moments of military actions would fit better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fahambnd (talk • contribs) 16:57, 30 May 2019 (UTC) The lead photo most likely appropriate would be the image commonly know as 'tank man' that is associated with this incident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.60.151.170 (talk) 19:03, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Support, but not the tank man photo for its fair use conditions. -- Vakrieger♀️🏳️‍🌈 << (TALK💢❤️🗯️) 10:43, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Why did you remove all the Chinese books?

In the past, there were three types of books: Chinese, Chinese, and Chinese. Today, the rest of the references are all books of pro-US or pro-student parties. The rest of the external links are all links between pro-Americans or pro-student parties. Is this Wikipedia a neutral encyclopedia?

After a year, those editors really still do not repent, the entry did not respond to January 2011 was Wen Zi Yan wood on the type of damage neutral than the previous version, so early again talk page is archived, but also to documents and link entry Get so obvious on one side! Do you have any basic conscience? You do not mind if there is a ghost , if you have reason , then, afraid of what all the information tied up in full? Or are you simply unreasonable? I am afraid that lies will gradually be revealed.

You are now successful in getting everyone to follow your brainwashing , very happy, right? But I remind you that there is always a day when the truth comes to the fore . The information is still in the library and the film is still in the Department of Public Information . 2001:48F8:3022:D9E:995A:A93F:9078:E0C (talk) 14:27, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

See Hanlon's razor. Most of the editors here are English literate, and tend to look for English-language references so they can be cross-checked by other English literate editors. Praemonitus (talk) 17:36, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Was this posted by someone within the Chinese government? While there may be articles towards one side, this may be due to primarily English articles, but also because the truth happens to lean this way in the first place! 2605:6000:3D87:8500:5831:DE69:D4EE:51A5 (talk) 16:07, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

So you're saying the English sources aren't neutral enough... instead of being "pro-US or pro-student", I'd love to hear you explain any good reason to support the communist government who killed thousands of unarmed civilians. -- Vakrieger♀️🏳️‍🌈 << (TALK💢❤️🗯️) 07:34, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

I understand that not all editors may support the Chinese Communist Party, but I'd refrain using such a charged tone in the interests of a cohesive argument. This goes for the original editor who brought all of this up too. Thanks. LittleCuteSuit (talk) 01:11, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Mularoma edits

@Mularoma: Can you cool it with your edits? You are so obviously biased to excuse the massacre is not even funny. Had I not examined your edits and found obviously biased sources (communist/socialist online newspaper), total lack of sources or lies about sourced content and all my edits were now disappeared, the article would say that protester rebels, whos leaders planned to topple the whole government, with weapons provided by the CIA, instigated attacks against peaceful PLA troops with orders not to hurt anyone (despite that several leaders words, the fact that the shootings took place and that the officers were congratulated for their efforts afterwards). With some mentions that live ammo was used on the crowd just straight up removed and extra emphasis on the classic misdirection tactic of "nothing happened in the Square ;)" added.

These "sources" and that you constantly change small words, for example: "protesters were PROVIDED with weapons" when it said agents involved in the evacuation-operations had weapons among their equipment, "protesters attacked first in the afternoon" and additions of extreme emphasis on the protesters attacks on the PLA, even making it its own big chapter instead of a subsection of the events in the timeline, like the other related events of that day, show your obvious agenda.

I am not an "overly-sympathetic" guy towards the protesters, I welcome your additions with neutral FACTS like how protesters quite brutally burned and killed PLA soldiers (after they were shot at) and how western intelligence agencies like MI6/CIA was involved in the escape of student leaders in the days after the massacre. But these are neutral, sourced facts, unlike your other biased additions. Please reconsider your future edits and obvious push to white-wash the massacre and vilify civilians who got killed on the street, and let this post be a notifier to others who see conspicuous edits by this user. --Havsjö (talk) 18:44, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Death toll 10,000

[1], [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.253.244.62 (talk) 15:45, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

The only "source" for the outrageous 10,000 number has always been just that one guy saying it. All other reports and estimates "peak" at about 2,700 --Havsjö (talk) 22:26, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

2,700 civilians is already a high number, but I wouldn't be surprised if the actual death toll is much higher because of: the number of people that were present at the square at the moment that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) clamping down on them, the cover-up from high-ranking Chinese officials, and the fact some PLA soldiers were actually killed by unarmed civilians during the intervention.Baidelan (talk) 22:49, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

It could be possible, but what various different sources from humanitarian and government studies and reports (and the later retracted/denied Chinese red cross) say are usually at 2,600-2,700 deaths (not including thousands of wounded!) at the peak. The 10,000 dead is literally only Alan Donald who says "from what he saw" --Havsjö (talk) 22:54, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I think it's notable and at least somewhat plausible. We should add this to the death toll section as another estimate. -- Vakrieger♀️🏳️‍🌈 << (TALK💢❤️🗯️) 08:30, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Although this estimate has been notably circulated in popular media recently, as per the reporting on the Cable itself, the 10000 number was revised by the author of the cable 3 weeks later, , the revised estimate was consistent with the 2700-3400 estimate by red cross. The cable itself was from 24hrs after the event and contained mostly misinformation, such as that the event happened in the square itself, the origin of the troops as being from Shaanxi, etc. Why include an estimate that is revised by the author itself which also contains many other instances of provably wrong information?TyVrMu (talk) 13:15, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Just stick to WP:NPOV. One can list the different estimates with reliable sources, then let the reader decide. If nothing else, it will illustrate that we don't really know. Praemonitus (talk)

The estimate of 10,000 by Alan Donald was revised by himself to 2700-3600, as reported by Feng Congde, one of the leaders of the protest. I suppose there's no issue with including something to the effect of "Alan Donald sent a cable 24hrs after the attack which estimates 10,000 deaths, some time later he revised his estimate to be 2700-3400" as per WP:NPOV, but it would be particularly irresponsible to not report the author of the cable's own revision. TyVrMu (talk) 22:56, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Yep, a comment down below would be appropriate in that case. Praemonitus (talk) 15:53, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

So a misinformed report that was then retracted and revised to a number that is already in the article through several other sources? Is that really so necessary? --Havsjö (talk) 18:51, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to agree with Havsjö given that the entire cable seems to be factually inaccurate and was sourced from third party hearsay relayed to Alan Donald. If people really feel that it should be included this should be acknowledged in the text presenting the inaccurate estimate/information as per WP:RSUW. TyVrMu (talk) 21:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I am really concerned about this article and the biases on both sides of the contributors this is why I think it is more than necessary that we stick strictly to the WP:NPOV. It would be the fairest to put the death toll of the Intro and Infobox in an estimate between the lowest estimates of Chinese official and the highest estimates of Alan Donald's cable. There are secondary reliable sources talking about 10 000, it is not our responsability to assess if we know better.

I am also puzzled by the neutrality of RC given the fact that even the second estimate mentioned by TyVrMu "2700-3600"' is not what recent contributions have said (quote of infobox this morning) " estimates vary from hundreds to ~2,600", Alan Donald's number is not even mentioned in the death toll section while it was relayed everywhere, if it is demonstrably inaccurate, it is even more important to mention (source) and discuss it.

In the meantime, let's stick to the sources and stay neutral comrads, --ManuRoquette (talk) 09:06, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

EDIT: I would suggest something like " estimates vary from hundreds to more than 10.000, current appraisals are close to ~2,600" — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManuRoquette (talk • contribs) 09:11, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

But thats not right, since there is no estimate of 10,000 since that has been retracted and revised (3 weeks after the original claim) -.- Why dont we add from the same (outdated, retracted and revised) claims from him that tanks ran over dead people over and over again afterwards, turning them into "pie" so they could hose them of the streets into the drain too? What? He said it once :( ? --Havsjö (talk) 09:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

PS. I updated higher death-toll in infobox etc to 2,700 based on Brook (1998) from the article --Havsjö (talk) 09:49, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I am deeply sorry but it is not for you to decide what the truth should be, we have 2 reliable secondary governmental sources stating a number close to 10 000 (UK officials and Americans), the number was considered reliable by several well ranked news agencies such as the BBC and the AFP, regardless of your POV, it is worth mentioning --ManuRoquette (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Allright, I added his claims, both old and revised. Any thoughts on adding his other claims were begging mothers trying to protect their small daughter were bayoneted, that the PLA used tanks to turn people into "pie" to hose them down drains or that the 27th Army was from Shanxi, when it was from Hebei? --Havsjö (talk) 10:24, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I mean, I am not sure why that would be relevant but why not ? I am sorry to admit that you really sound like a revisionist, I may be wrong on that but on what ground do you ridicule the testimony of a diplomat, on the field who is directly exposed (through his position and sources) to the events and modify the article to match your personnal views even when the previous version was properly sourced ?

If your goal is to make the event look "less bad" than it actually was, it's going to take you more than sarcasm--ManuRoquette (talk) 11:04, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

If you think I am a revisionist, you can look at the talk-section right below this one. I just think taking his crazy words so seriously when you compare to all other sources (and when he even has lowered it after), and when his original statements includes basic facts wrong (such as hebei/shanxi), is not accurate. All those things I mentioned in my previous post is all from the same original report too. --Havsjö (talk) 12:32, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello ManuRoquette, Id like to point out you've come in with quite a hostile tone. I think if everyone conducts themselves respectably we should be able to work this out to everyone's satisfaction. I'd also like to point out the absurdity of the position we now find ourselves in. Somehow we are doubting the author of the cable itself (Sir Alan Donald), and one of the organizers of the protest itself (Feng Congde) who lives in the USA, in their accounts? Are you truly adopting the position that the diplomat Alan Donald and dissident Feng Congde both organized a conspiracy to paint China in a better light immediately after sending out the only truthful cable the day after the event? The idea that a student dissident is somehow a "revisionist" I find truly unpalatable. Nevertheless why not include the estimate since it has been widely reported. I would suggest we change the current wording to something to the effect of "In a recently declassified cable sent on June 5th 1989 in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, the British ambassador to China Sir Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a "good friend" in the China State Council, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died. After this recent declassification student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out Sir Donald later revised his estimate to 2700-3400 deaths".

As for the other "US declassified documents" saying 10,454 deaths. This is the originating sole English digital source [3] for the assertion that in 2014 US government declassified files claimed 10,454 people died and 40,000 were injured. The actual printed source for these US declassified files is [4] Next Magazine, a hongkong/taiwanese tabloid. From our very own article on the Next publication "At times, their "reports" are embroidered in such a manner that readers merely regard them as semi-fabricated stories containing the names of well-known personalities rather than serious pieces of jounalistic writing. Though the magazine has a large circulation, its credibility rating is low." Apart from the HK free press reporting on next magazine's reporting of alleged declassified files, no reliable primary sources have seen or mentioned these files. I believe therefore that in the case of both the cable (which was later clarified with better information) and in the case of alleged US declassified documents (published by a tabloid and unverifiable) including the 10,000 estimate in sections other than "other estimates" would be Undue Weight. Further solidifying my impression of this is the sole mention of the Next article which I could find (preexisting the English HKFP account by a year) being [5] NTDTV in 2016, a Falun Gong publication. I would find it utterly bizarre if not a single western publication could access the actual declassified cables themselves but somehow a tabloid in Hong Kong did. Not that they couldn't, but how is it that the English language document appears nowhere? I can find the British cable quite easily. If it is truly a tabloid filtered through Falun Gong filtered through HKFP, I hardly see how it complies with NPOV or reliability in the slightest. I also find it quite offensive to the actual reliable sources such as historians and the people who were actually there like student leaders & diplomats. That might just be me though. TyVrMu (talk) 13:10, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for using the term "revisionist" Havsjö and if my posture sounded aggressive. I felt like the wording " estimates vary from hundreds to ~2,600" was intentionnally misleading taking into account the smallest estimates of the chinese governement ("hundreds") but not the highest to give a false idea of the actual number, I am satisfied with the current one (copied here for future readers):

"No precise figures exist, estimates vary from hundreds to several thousands (see death toll section)" (infobox and intro) and

"In a declassified cable sent in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, British ambassador Sir Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a "good friend" in the China State Council, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died.[177] After this declassification former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out Sir Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700-3,400 deaths.[178]" (in the death toll part),

Very good source investigation comrads :), looking forward to working with you in the future.--ManuRoquette (talk) 15:10, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure how many primary and secondary sources editors here actually read, but as someone who has a deep interest in the historical research of Tiananmen, precisely because of its censorship in the mainland, I can only say that the prominence we currently lend Alan Donald is an insult to historical scholarship, not because the 10,000 figure ought to not be mentioned, but because it has been mentioned in numerous independent, and indeed anti-government sources, as not credible. To quote Brook (1998), p 169: "I remain as unconvinced by the official three hundred as I am by the extravagant 10,000. As always, the truth lies somewhere in between.... the Red Cross figure of 2,600 early Sunday morning comes closer than any other estimate..." Brook additionally mentioned three other sources that gave figures higher than 2,600, including a protester who witnessed the killings, who said the figure is "at least 10,000", and a Dutch journalist who estimated 6,000. He goes on to conclude that these are unrealistic estimates after perusing through extremely detailed hospital records in addition to a lengthy analysis on concealed burials by family members of the dead or hasty cremation by the army itself. If we are insisting on including 10,000 as a "high estimate" for the sake of balance, I suggest giving perspective that numerous sources close to the events reported the figure as such - based on their own opinions and speculation after merely visually witnessing the events on the morning of June 4, and not as a result of any sort of systematic, methodical verification (the sort that Brook himself had done). As 'minimizing' the figures, killing 2,600 is no less reprehensible than killing 10,000. Our job here is to report things as they were reported by reputable secondary sources. Colipon+(Talk) 02:06, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

This is what ive been trying to say basically (but in a dumber way). I agree with Colipon and I do not think that the 10,000 should not be included at all (again, it has even been revised in addition to this) --Havsjö (talk) 06:43, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

The death toll being (presumably) overestimated is a notable fact in itself - if this attitude was published by notable sources, which seems to be the case here. The protests are scientifically not only interesting for chinese history but also for attitudes and (media) reactions towards China by the west. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 10:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Colipon and Havsjö although the prolific misreporting on the cable is also notable. I would be fine with revising the Alan Donald cable part to something along the lines of "A widely reported cable sent by Alan Donald, declassified in 2017 contains much higher estimates than other sources. After this declassification former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out Sir Donald later revised his estimate to numbers consistent with more reliable sources." I see no reason to include the 10,000 number specifically especially considering what we know about the context and reliability of the information. TyVrMu (talk) 22:59, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

References

Requested move 1 June 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: title not moved. The preferences opposing the move, for the most part, advanced the argument that the massacre was merely (the final) part of the overall protests and that the article title should reflect that — whereas those supporting the move, argued that the massacre itself was the most important part of the protests and the title should be moved on that basis. There were also a not insignificant number of users who argued for the move on the basis of COMMONNAME — definitely a valid argument, but demonstrating prevalence of "massacre," say, in the historiography, was not seriously attempted (beyond google hit count, where there is greater mention of "protests," in fact, for whatever that's worth). But maintaining that "massacre" is the common name per se. is simply not good enough. One needs to substantiate in order to pose a compelling argument. Part of the difficulty is that both "protests" (example: Amnesty) and "massacre" (example: The Independent) are featured prominently in the mainstream. Ultimately, consensus for changing the title was simply not reached, with few users having been persuaded to change their preference. Largely discounted were a lot of less relevant polemical pronouncements, from both sides, much of these coming from users with few edits outside of this move request, who mostly failed to appeal to Wikipedia policy in their arguments. El_C 01:26, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Addendum: A quick afterthought. This close makes no comment on and leaves the possibility open for a separate article on the "massacre" to be split from this article and from People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. I simply am not familiar enough with either of these to make that evaluation at this time, one way or the other. El_C 01:36, 16 June 2019 (UTC) ~~~~

---

1989 Tiananmen Square protests → 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre – The notability of this event is a consequence of the massacre, not of the protest. Naming it otherwise feels a bit euphamistic to me. Several other pages, most with smaller death tolls and/or less political consequence, use the "massacre" language. SirCmpwn (talk) 14:01, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

• A little piece of support: The titles of the sources at the end of the page mentions "massacre" 13 times, but "protests" only 5 times. --Omar Elrefaei (talk) 15:26, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

• I think the OP is probably correct, but I did find that "1989 Tiananmen Square protests" has more Ghits than "1989 Tiananmen Square massacre". In any event, searching for either term will lead to this page. Praemonitus (talk) 17:32, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
  • You're right. Oppose the page move as unnecessary, since both terms are used to describe this topic, though the "protests" title is more common. 100.12.186.112 (talk) 18:50, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I get the opposite result, and a brief survey of a few friends from around the world showed wildy inconsistent results for the number of hits for each phrase. Google hits are not an appropriate metric for measuring anything, they're basically made up. SirCmpwn (talk) 21:23, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
    • What would be helpful is some data on the types of related topic searches we get on Wikipedia. Otherwise, Ghits are about as close as we can get. Praemonitus (talk) 18:11, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Support this change, as the start of the article says it is commonly known in Mainland China as 六四事件 or June Fourth Incident, which is a reference to the massacre that took place 4 June 1989, not the protest itself. In any case, the notability of this event comes from the forceful shutdown, which should be reflected in the title. NagekiGirl (talk) 00:11, 2 June 2019 (UTC) — NagekiGirl (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Oppose The protests lasted for more than a month, while the massacre occurred in a single day, which is likely why "protests" has more google hits. -Zanhe (talk) 08:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The protests lasted weeks, culminating in the massacre. As this article covers the full chronological scope of the protests it should not be named after the one terrible incident that finished off the protests. Actually, I think it would be a good idea to separate the massacre off into its own article. BabelStone (talk) 09:50, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose --Havsjö (talk) 12:21, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Support the change. A massacre is more notable than a protest. The term "protest" hides the severity of what happened. The event is mainly remembered for the killing. Joreberg (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Support the change as well. Changing the title to massacre can highlight the importance of the event better than protest. Phantom-LF (talk) 18:00, 2 June 2019 (UTC) — Phantom-LF (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Support proposed name. After having searched w/ title keyword "massacre" and then finding it REDIRECTed to article name w/ title word "protests", the title smacked of being watered-down and caused me to wonder why WP is in the business of obscuring or even sanitizing the true nature. (I searched to read today as an interested reg reader, so for sure other casual readers will feel ditto.) --IHTS (talk) 18:20, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Thought experiment: 50 yrs from now (assuming WP still exists in some form), a 25-yr-old Western person comes across the article w/ title word "protests". Knowing nothing about the topic, they start reading. (Shock! They learn thru reading, there was an associated massacre.) Same experiment w/ title word "massacre". (No shock. They learn thru reading, there was an associated student protest. There had to be some reason or another for the grouping of persons massacred.) --IHTS (talk) 23:04, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Support this change, I fully agree with Joreberg and IHTS. Blue Wiki (talk) 19:21, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: there have been numerous attempts to move this page from "protests" to "massacre" in the past without achieving consensus, largely owing to concerns about neutrality and also the scope of coverage. Is there some reason to believe that in the 15 years that this article existed under this title that somehow Consensus Has Changed? What is the reason for the change now? While it's true the Chinese term refers to June 4th specifically -- if the "proper" Chinese title were used - it would be "June Fourth incident", something that would not strike a cord with English readers. Secondly, the article covers the entire '89 democracy movement, including extensive discussions of the causes, and a chronicle of key events leading up to the military actions - they comprise the majority of the page, and hence the article adequately captures the month-long movement as a whole. Colipon+(Talk) 21:18, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Can you clarfify with links to previous discussions? I searched through the archives before making this proposal and came up empty. SirCmpwn (talk) 22:06, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Agreed. It's pretty easy to use, "This has been discussed before," as a reason to not consider this move, but if we can't see the reason that consensus was achieved, then it has no bearing on what decision people would come to now. Steviemjh (talk) 22:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
    • You can obtain the past discussions by simply searching for "massacre" or "title" in the talk page archive section above. There isn't necessarily any contention in whether or not the massacre took place, or the heavy moral content behind the events, the larger question is whether or not it is the best title for the contents of this article as a whole. You will notice that there is a specific article dedicated to the PLA's role, and details related to the military actions on June 4, over at People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. I believe that article is perhaps more closely aligned with the subject matter related to the massacre itself, while this article deals more broadly with the 'movement'. Also note that, - and I stress this is not moral equivocation but merely in the interests of accuracy - that the massacre of civilians took place outside of Tiananmen - making the "Tiananmen Massacre" a very imprecise, albeit popular misnomer. Colipon+(Talk) 02:57, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
      • And "Chinese Checkers" is not Chinese, nor checkers. (So I think the "not in Tiananmen" misnomer-argument is a distraction since it is per WP policy the name by which the topic is popularly known. The misnomer issue can be addressed/clarified in one lead sentence.) --IHTS (talk) 03:10, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Support the change as well. This article has a lot of information regarding the protests before the massacre, but the fact that there isn't a standalone page for the massacre itself detracts from the importance of the event. For example: Would the protests have continued if the massacre (or some other violent crackdown) had not happened? Probably. So I would argue that the massacre, by ending the protests violently, is one of the most important aspects of the entire event. Steviemjh (talk) 22:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Support. To those concerned with neutrality, I would counter that there is much more nuance than it may seem. I'm sure everyone can agree that history is not and cannot be objective, and the words we use to describe past events carry resonance into the future. What is most resonant about this event in history is less the protests themselves than it is the government's use of military force to quell these otherwise peaceful protestors, and the countless individuals who were massacred in consequence. For this reason, I believe the descriptor "protests" is not as neutral as it may seem, as it detracts from the gravity of this event, one that the Chinese Communist Party to this day is intent on diminishing. For those stating that this matter has already been discussed and need not be discussed again, I believe the increased coverage of the event by virtue of Jiang Lin's recent decision to share her experience has impelled many to reconsider how we talk about this event. Lastly, to those who argue that the massacre does not cover the chronological span of the protests leading up to June 4, 1989, the point is well taken. If that is the case, I would strongly support the creation of the Tiananmen Square Massacre as its own page. Thanks Paige marks (talk) 05:19, 3 June 2019 (UTC) — Paige marks (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Oppose Someone's welcome create a page on its own, that does not describe what this article is about. Viztor (talk) 07:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
  • As I did further digging, there is already an article on the details of the martial law being applied on June 4th here. Viztor (talk) 07:33, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The article is talking about the protest as a whole. The protest itself is notable. --94rain ^Talk 09:13, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Hi, I have the feeling that this article is more about the movements and protests that ultimately led to the massacre, and not the massacre exclusively, so naming it "Tiananmen Square massacre" would leave the rest of the article out of the title. As previously mentioned by Viztor there's already this article talking about the killing specifically. However, the issue I see is that people searching for information about the subject are often more preoccupied with the massacre itself than the protests leading up to it, and yet it's more likely they find this article (the one we're posting on) more easily than the other one. --Koopanique (talk) 09:28, 3 June 2019 (UTC) — Koopanique (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Oppose Changing the title to massacre downplays the students' efforts and shifts the focus onto the government. The rare display of disobedience in China threatened the existence of the CCP had a much greater impact on the policies, mindset and leadership of the Chinese government. The fact that thousands died means nothing to them. --Meeepmep (talk) 13:16, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
  • The massacre and subsequent crackdowns deserve an article by itself. Maybe by merging parts of this article with People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests? --Meeepmep (talk) 13:52, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support Especially since recently declassified material suggests that over ten-thousand were killed.--2601:444:380:3A90:F5D5:447C:3EBF:A833 (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment A couple of months ago, repeated efforts were made by one or more users to change the name protests to massacre, often only in the disamb notice. These attempts were made by IP addresses and also by red-linked accounts that were only used for these edits, or for very fewer others. We now have that same pattern appearing in this RM. Several of the accounts stating "I Support" (an unusual construction) have only edited this page, or a few others, or have not been used for years before this discussion. This includes the nominating editor SirCmpwn [6], Paige marks [7], NagekiGirl [8], Phantom-LF [9] and perhaps others. A sockpuppet inquiry may be appropriate before any finding of consensus for Support is made here. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 20:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Add Lbs21 [10] (below) to this list. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 07:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. The article is about the full duration of the protests, which went for weeks before being violently suppressed by the Chinese government. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:18, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Somewhat Support I can see both sides of this argument, but I think that due to the importance of the killings, and the sheer number, the article should be changed to massacre, paired with the fact that it is commonly known as such in an international context, even if the killings weren't for a majority of the time of the event. AvRand (talk) 21:26, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support As mentioned by a previously unnamed editor: "It started with protests, but it is most known by the ending MASSACRE!" I've been living in China for 7 years. The impact of this event (directly and indirectly) in the psyche of "mainland" Chinese people and the Chinese CCP government is profound. Most Chinese people are unaware that it even happened because of the cover-up, those that are familiar with it avoid the subject, and many Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials deny it ever happened altogether (including Deng Xiaoping himself). These are the signs of a critical event for which the word "protest" is misleading (at the very least). Equally important, it is internationally known as "Massacre". The only reason why the word "incident" is used sometimes is because of the efforts from the CCP.Baidelan (talk) 21:45, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support, but why not "1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre"? Both are covered by this article; why only put one in the title? Davey2116 (talk) 03:56, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Good idea. I oppose the current proposal, but would abstain on that one.
• I Support the change, given that the massacre, not the protests, is the reason why the event is well known among the international community. lbs21 (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• I Oppose. In addition to the fact that the article covers the protests leading up to the massacre, it is nice that a non-emotive term can be used. I acknowledge talk's point that "protest" isn't as neutral as it sounds, but it is certainly less emotive, which I think is appropriate for an encyclopaedia. The PRC government tries to hush it up, but conversely many in the west want to amplify it. <rant>I saw a remark "If you do a search for Tiananmen square and the first search result isn't Tank Man then the results have been censored", which is clearly absurd; just because the commenter hadn't heard of Tiananmen square in any other context doesn't mean that it isn't important in other ways. It is like saying "If you search for Washington and the first result isn't a picture of America's involvement in Vietnam then the results have been censored".</rant> LachlanA (talk) 05:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
  • There are *many* WP articles w/ word massacre in the title (e.g. Columbine High School massacre), so I don't see how the argument the word is "emotive" & therefore non-encyclopedic can be valid. --IHTS (talk) 05:55, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Although I do not personally question the fact that it was a massacre, I fully agree that the term "massacre" harms neutrality because it implies something negative, and although I'm sure most of the people here agree that the killings were a bad thing, it should not be implied so strongly in the article title. And indeed, a lot of other articles have "massacre" in their title, but that doesn't mean the word becomes any more valid; it's not because other articles do something that this particular one should be necessarily ok doing the same. --Koopanique (talk) 08:03, 4 June 2019 (UTC) — Koopanique (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Oppose; having watched the events unload in real time on television as a teenager, much like a pre-internet Arab Spring, I can attest that the protests were well-known and documented internationally before the massacre itself. The entirety of the uprising is notable, not only the massacre itself.--Chimino (talk) 05:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose It's a little misleading, there was no "massacre" in Tiananmen Square itself, though possibly elsewhere. [11] [12][13] Aafixuson (talk) 06:21, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests: there's a seperate article already on the killings that ended the protests. LUMINR (talk) 07:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The term protest describes the whole series of events, but massacre concerns only what happened on June 3-4. I think we should change the massacre redirection to the military action or death toll section. -- Vakrieger♀️🏳️‍🌈 << (TALK💢❤️🗯️) 07:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Further more, the incident is already known internationally as a massacre, so there's no real need to use the technically less accurate title. -- Vakrieger♀️🏳️‍🌈 << (TALK💢❤️🗯️) 09:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose This article mainly describe the protest. --風雲北洋 WP※English is very difficult 08:18, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support the event is known because of the massacre not the protests, most of the sources talk about the massacre as well, should be more appropriate --ManuRoquette (talk) 09:20, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. There was more to this than just the massacre, the protests were notable in and of themselves.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:22, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support As others have stated above, it's the massacre that elevated this event to the world stage. That is the main component of what happened, and what should be the first thing people remember about it. - 24.230.37.42 (talk)

14:19, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• • That's not true. I was in college at the time this was happening. The protests in and of themselves were broadcast worldwide, long before the massacre took place. —howcheng {chat} 16:02, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Updating my vote to Strong Support because the brutal, dishonest government's slaughtering of up to 10,000 of its own people is by far the most important element of this event. 24.230.37.42 (talk) 03:17, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose because I believe that the page should be named by the protests because that was the event that lead up to the massacre. I also think the the massacre should have its own page because of the significance of the event. I propose that maybe we could Seperate the pages.

Thatphatguy (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support as the massacre is the most significant part of the event and the protests only served as a cause, much like the riots leading to the Boston Massacre, which is referred to as such in its article. Also, support just punishment of Laszlo Panaflex for accusing the majority of those supporting of being sockpuppet accounts. Trace my IP, I dare you. It’s right there in the signature. Just because someone is not an established user who received a gold star for editing the China article to remove mentions of totalitarianism or what-have-you doesn’t mean they can’t voice their opinion. —47.20.254.94 (talk) 14:49, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

These may be good faith comments by different users. But it is noteworthy that so many of the Support comments in this RM bear the hallmarks of a sock farm, as do the accounts that were changing the name of the article in the same manner a couple of months ago. Using socks to influence discussions is destructive to our process, and these clear signs should be investigated if a Support consensus is found. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

It sounds more like this could easily be used by someone who opposes the move to invalidate the results and blame sockpuppets despite the entirely equal possibility and opportunity for sockpuppets to have voted to oppose, making it unfair to those who genuinely voted on either side. What motive would these socks have? Regardless of the outcome of this move request, the facts do not change nor do the contents of the article. Would a sock farm not be more likely to instead manipulate facts on the page itself? Invalidating results is equally as destructive, as requiring a thorough screening of false votes every time someone believes a sock was used would mean nothing would get done at all. —47.20.254.94 (talk) 00:03, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support. From the Wikipedia guidelines on article titles:

Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.

Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.

I personally searched for this page using "Tiananmen Square massacre". I am not an expert on the subject, and I was surprised to see the title did not reflect the name I knew the event(s) as. By the two points above, I think most people (at least, most people I have spoken with about this) would know the event as such, and would search for it under that name. Then, one would read about the protests preceding the event, rather than the other way round. However, I do see very much where the other point of view is coming from, and I think my main vote would go for separating the pages: my main opposition is to the lack of a standalone page called "Tiananmen Square massacre", not necessarily that this page be called that. Perhaps the article that has been mentioned, People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, ought to be renamed instead? - Timleach635 (talk) 15:19, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is what I've been thinking and I think you're right, it would be a good idea to rename the article about the PLA at the Tiananmen Square. The only issue is that this article indeed cover the event while strongly focusing on the PLA and its organization... --Koopanique (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2019 (UTC) — Koopanique (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Strong Oppose "Protests" refers to the events at the square and beyond as a whole, "massacre" refers solely to the dispersal / cleanup of protestors on June 4th and beyond. --Hermit ^20xx 15:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Reliable sources like CNN and The Guardian support the new title. –Wefk423 (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: this article is about the protests, not just the massacre, which could be spun off to its own article. Jonathunder (talk) 20:14, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support Yes, the article admittedly also covers the lead up the event and not just the actual killings, but the whole story is under the umbrella of the massacre. That's not surprising. For example, the article about the Boston Massacre is not just limited to the actual shooting by the British, but rather includes some historical set up and a long discussion of the ensuing trials.ProfReader (talk) 23:21, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support The article is a description of a massacre in substance. In the English speaking world, the massacre seems to be the most important defining characteristic of the event, and I would expect to read about the broader event from the perspective of the massacre. Aaron Muir Hamilton <aaron@correspondwith.me> (talk) 23:59, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. Unfortunately I feel the fact that the massacre was one part of the protests far outweighs the other points about it being the clear definining part of the event. I see merit in looking at these points, but while the article mainly covers the protests as a whole I cannot support a move of this type. Hiàn (talk) 00:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support It was a massacre, not a simple student protest, but a flat out deliberate killing of Chinese citizens. Fdr2001 (talk)
  • That's not accurate, the protests last for months before the government took action, and in places like shanghai and hangzhou, the government didn't do any thing like what they did in beijing.
• Srong Oppose There is NO massacre. Please check out this video about tankman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRb4VY2dU4c&feature=youtu.be and if you speak Chinese please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_dL9aW5cdU Liwen iub (talk) 07:04, 5 June 2019 (UTC) — Liwen iub (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • If I may, how does the video of Tank Man being arrested disproves the massacres ? --ManuRoquette (talk) 10:45, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
  • It doesn’t. He posts it as proof that civilians supported the army’s harsh clamp down on unarmed protestors. However, the guys who removed tankman could be secret police/military or simply concerned civilians. The second video is a post-event recording of some protest participants saying that they were manipulated by hard-line pro-democracy/western people. Put yourself in their perilous situation; you would likely say anything that keeps you and your family safe and clears your future; so I wouldn’t attach much credence to that video. Instead, I recommend you watch this clip from a BBC reporter inside the protests at the time the army clamped down on them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMKvxJ-Js3A&feature=youtu.be Baidelan (talk) 11:25, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Neutral on this topic, but I would like to point out that WP:SPLIT may apply. The article is getting quite long at this point, so having separate articles on the protests and the massacre seems feasible. Praemonitus (talk) 15:57, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Per User:Vakrieger comment. Also, I refer to WP:RECENT, WP:NPOV , and Wp:Forum.Manabimasu (talk) 16:34, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as per WP:NPOV. Let's stick to the current, less sensational title. --Elnon (talk) 17:59, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• FIRMLY Oppose Use neutral expressions. There's no accurate evidence of a massacre, but verbal information that is difficult to verify. Compositex04 (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2019 (UTC) — Compositex04 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • There are much video and photgraphic documentation of people getting killed and countless (in fact, thousands) of witnesses to back it up --Havsjö (talk) 15:59, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Firstly, those witnesses are mostly supporters of the protest and it's doubtful whether their descriptions are accurate or not. Also, almost all the video and photographic documentation showed scenes during the day, while the incident, or so-called "massacre", took place during the night.Compositex04 (talk) 01:01, 7 June 2019 (UTC) — Compositex04 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
      • Gunshot and stab wounds do not magically disappear in the morning, nor do the bodies of the dead. A large number of people were killed on that day, and died of wounds inflicted with weapons. The authorities had the weapons, they killed those people. The CCP clearly agree with this assessment, because if they had not shot and stabbed civilians on that day, they would have no reason to suppress the documentary evidence of their deaths to this day (which they do). Aaron Muir Hamilton <aaron@correspondwith.me> (talk) 23:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Needs to be neutral. Some have given evidence that the protests are widely known as a massacre, but about 50% of sources say massacre, 50% say protests, based off of a quick google search. See: https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square as an example. Sam-2727 (talk)
• Support no one cares that this was a protest. It is only notable because of the massacre. It is the opposite of neutral to describe this as a protest and politically very favorable to the CCP. User:skapur (talk)

• • Seems like we have a lot of first time editors contributing here. That or socks. Fdr2001 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
• Comment For people referring to WP:NPOV as an argument for "Oppose". You are missing the significance of the massacre as an inflection point on the political development of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Simply put, before the massacre, CCP openly contemplated a gradual move towards democracy. However, the protests fueled many of CCP's deep fears (i.e. loss of power/prestige, violent retaliation from civilians, etc.) and consumed by these fears they decided to put an end to the protests by all means necessary. The ugliness of the whole massacre further aggravated CCP's unethical record and the party's top mantra solidified in fueling rapid economic development as a way to buy the loyalty of the people, to stay in power at all costs. Any hope of PRC democratizing in the following 30 years (and probably for the next 50 years too) was lost during the massacre. This is the real tragedy and significance of the massacre. The abysmal economic and human results of the first 30 years of "communism" in the PRC culminated in the catastrophic Cultural Revolution, which was only solved by good CCP leadership. Swift economic success followed soon after by opening its economy. This gave everybody a scapegoat, an excuse, to move together towards democracy (the people and the CCP), but all was lost after the massacre.

If the consensus reached here is that the title stays as "protests' (which I think is wrong), then the other Wikipedia article about "People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests" should be renamed to Massacre. The fact that searching on Wikipedia for Tiananmen Massacre redirects to this article titled "Protests" acts as an ugly to whitewash. Most of the comments here (for Support and Oppose) seem to agree that there was a massacre.Baidelan (|#talk) 16:39, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

How about you - precisely which events described in the article do you consider a massacre? --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment @SirCmpwn and Baidelan this is a descriptive name if not then "protest" and/or "massacre" would have a capital first letter, as such WP:POVNAMING applies. See also WP:NDESC. Its different with names that meet the requirements of "use commonly recognised names". See also "Criteria for including events in this list" in the headers of Talk:List of events named massacres and the very long discussions about the name of this page and that banner in the talk archives of that page. Wikipdia is not the place to right great wrongs, just report the facts and "let the facts speak for themselves" -- PBS (talk) 17:01, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Would you rename Thirty Years' War to Peace of Westphalia, because that is how it ended? Should we drop sections 1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Background, 1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Protest_development, and 1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Protests_escalate as... merely uninteresting and overly long prologue? Look at section 1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Impact_and_legacy. At least the first 2-3 paragraphs discuss about the problems resulting from the protests, not the lamentable termination of them. The event was the protests and their end and the ensuing results, all a consequence of the protests. Shenme (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
• Nuetral* The massacre should be a link right on the protest page but, it could go either way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Denna7 (talk • contribs) 06:32, 10 June 2019 (UTC) — Denna7 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Oppose - The article explains in detail the civil war character of the conflict, with violence on both sides and other incidents that do not fit the massacre notion. There may be more 'massacre' headlines in the media, but not in the abstracts of scientific works on the matter.
  At WP we commit ourselves to WP:NPOV and thus should practice more adherence to the scientific perspective here. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 10:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support --- While others may prefer renaming this page "The Peaceful Liberation of Tiananmen Square" similar to the 1951 Communist Chinese phrase "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" (*NOTE reductio ad absurdum) However, the fact remains that the final consequence of these sequence of actions or events were accomplished with the essential deadly force used by the People's Liberation Army in service of the Communist Party of China on behalf of its Paramount Leaders, not of the people, by the people, for the people. Tibet Nation (talk) 05:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

A proposal for renaming the article to something like 'Peaceful Liberation of Tiananmen Square' was never brought forward, and would have little chance of approval. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• I Support the changes. Massacre seems to be the most important defining characteristic of the event, and I would expect to read about the broader event from the perspective of the massacre Wikazu (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The article Massacre mentions 'defenseless victims' as one typical property of such an event. Do you consider this to have been the case in Bejing 1989? IMHO, the term downplays the character and strength of the uprise. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 13:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment--- Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (second in the presidential line of succession) in today's weekly news conference on C-SPAN said, "(...) The issue of China has been an important one for me since Tiananmen Square, even before, but in terms of public policy here in the Congress since Tiananmen Square, on June 4th we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square (...)"

[[14]] (See runtime from 7:08 to 7:25)Tibet Nation (talk) 22:46, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

• (Mild) support per WP:TITLECHANGES, it does not matter if the name is "morally right" if the event is widely called as so.--MaoGo (talk) 11:43, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support. It's the common name. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:53, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

'academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history ..' WP:sources --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 10:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Our article naming policy is WP:COMMONNAME not WP:SOURCES. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:28, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support The event is widely referred to as a 'Tiananmen Square massacre' by English language media, commentators and public. Wikipedia should follow suit. Melmann (talk) 23:20, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@Rreagan007:@Melmann: But this is not only about the massacre, the article is about the long period of protests as well, that ended in the massacre in Beijing. Only a section is about the massacre that ended it. The protests were worldwide news for a long time before it ended like that and is a large part of the article. It was not just a protests that day that then ended in shootings, which could label the whole event as only "the massacre" --Havsjö (talk) 07:41, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Havsjö: I understand your point, and it agree with you in semantic sense, but I cannot recall a single instance of written or spoken reference to these events in English where it was not called a massacre, unless the writer or the speaker is specifically referring to the preceeding protests to the exclusion of the violence. The protests and the massacre are inextricably linked, with the massacre being the defining and apex point of the event in minds of English speaking audience. Just like Srebrenica massacre and Katyn massacre contain relatively extensive sections covering the events leading up to the massacre, all three, Srebrenica, Katyn and Tiananmen Square are defined in the mind of the anglophone cultire by their massacres. Those events would not have such a prominenet place in the psyche of the Anglophone culture without the massacres, which is why they're commonly called massacres, and Wikipedia should reflect that. Melmann (talk) 10:32, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Support because the "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre" is still referred to as a Massacre on Wikipedia, despite the exponentially lower death count. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.33.201 (talk) 00:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Confusing narrative

In the sections explaining the backgrounds of the protests, it seems like the majority of the newfound problems and hardships were created by the reform, and yet the protest against these problems were somehow in favour of the reform? Is there something they left out here? Because that seems contradictory.

Because the students were not a homogeneous group. They had opposing views. --82.207.237.182 (talk) 16:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Issue with this report

I don't know why people are saying that this took place please? MY UNCLE works for the chinese government and he told me that this never happened! Stupid idiot capitalist pig haters — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arcanine878 (talk • contribs) 13:33, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

While protests did happen, the motives and the event outcome have been obscured by Western media. They usually don't mention protest leaders having contradicting narratives, Chai Ling even advocating for blood and giving up fighting for her own people. The Chinese government has stayed relatively quiet on this matter although they could clear things up. The problem is Western media will twist everything said to fit their narrative. The visual evidence of the infamous tank scene is actually supporting the stance that the army was reluctant to use force. However, the mere glimpse of a tank in a video made many believe people were mown down.--82.207.237.182 (talk) 17:24, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING18828_a.html

CLML427 (talk) 03:29, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Deaths_in_Tiananmen_Square_itself --Havsjö (talk) 12:06, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Page rename

It has been long since I edited the wikipedia. Please forgive me if I am not taking proper form. I just do not remember it clearly.

I propose to change the name of the article to Tiananmen Square Massacre, as it has veen known for decades.

The importance of this clarity of facts is that there is a real threat of a similar thing happenning in Hong Kong. Super massive demonstrations are destabilising Hong Kong and the Chinese military is gathering only a few kilometers away in Shenzhen. While everyone knows that tbe violence is caused by agent provocateurs paid by Bejing, the threat is very real that another massacre is about to take place. Let us not hide the facts for the benefit of a totalitarian regime that is willing to shoot down thousands of it's own unarmed students with tanks!

85.150.152.71 (talk) 07:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Requested moves#CM - FlightTime (open channel) 08:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank You. 85.150.152.71 (talk) 09:00, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome. Cheers, - FlightTime (open channel) 09:06, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 14 August 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: duplicate request. Please check the recent archives before launching new move requests. El_C 02:08, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

---

1989 Tiananmen Square protests → Tiananmen_Square_Massacre – The importance of this clarity of facts is that there is a real threat of a similar thing happenning in Hong Kong. Super massive demonstrations are destabilising Hong Kong and the Chinese military is gathering only a few kilometers away in Shenzhen. While everyone knows that tbe violence is caused by agent provocateurs paid by Bejing, the threat is very real that another massacre is about to take place. Let us not hide the facts for the benefit of a totalitarian regime that is willing to shoot down thousands of it's own unarmed students with tanks! 85.150.152.71 (talk) 09:02, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

 Comment: I have little knowledge of this subject matter, but I don't see how moving this page has anything to do with what might happen in Hong Kong. - FlightTime (open channel) 09:14, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose for all the same reasons when this issue was discussed less than two months ago (see 1989 Tiananmen Square protests → 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre). This requested move is too soon after the previous one, and should be speedily closed. BabelStone (talk) 09:46, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose per BabelStone's comment. And this request itself is malformed: Wikipedia is not a forum. --MarioGom (talk) 11:43, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose per the above comments. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 10:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose - Per my comment above. - FlightTime Phone (open channel) 10:51, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose and speedy close per BabelStone. -Zanhe (talk) 18:10, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose. but "Tiananmen Sq protests" does not describe the article, which includes good material on the Democracy Movement in the spring and the June 4 massacre. A seaarch of the archives did not find a better suggestion, though. ch (talk) 22:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Unnecessary pull quote in article?

This is something I noticed, but as I'm new to the wiki I apologize if I'm missing something.

The article has a pull quote by Zhao Ziyang. This appears to violate the policy of avoiding writing in news style and also seems to be redundant.

The page for block quotes says they are to be used sparingly, and to be placed at the beginning or end of a section for summarizing purposes, which this article does not do. The block quote in this article appears to serve no useful purpose except for highlighting a quotation in news style, despite the quotation's contents already being summed up in the second-to-last paragraph (appearing immediately after the block quote) of the "Gathering momentum" section. What's the point of the pull quote then? It looks like something you'd find in a newspaper, not on Wikipedia.

DisneyGillCambon (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Novelization of Tank Man

There is a novel written about the Tank Man during the Tiananmen Square protests.

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-War-John-Tompkins-ebook/dp/B00T44QMT6 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:3820:1870:F8F6:46A8:20A5:72A7 (talk) 01:29, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Typos

The article is locked, but there are a couple of typos. In the intro, it says that the death toll ranges from "several hundreds to several thousands," which should of course be "several hundred to several thousand" (singular). 03:53, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Original photographic

This article should have more photography about the actual event. Nobody has access to images that can be used? Gagarine (talk) 18:30, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Untitled

Hi there! It's actually the first time I edit a wikipedia article ad post things on talk page so I hope I'm not messing up :) Please correct me if I'm wrong! Auspicious bwszd (talk) 11:03, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to state the rationale of the section I previously added (which has already been deleted). @HaeB I really appreciate your point that it will be great to include poll results that are specifically about the 1989 Tiananmen events! Unfortunately there isn't such a poll as this topic is censored in China. The reason I initially wrote about the development China made, the consequence of 1989 revolutions around the world and the survey results of how satisfied people are towards the government was that I wanted to provide some contextual information for the shift of the public opinion towards the Tiananmen protests, I was not trying to argue which path is superior, but only to describe what the public opinion on Chinese government was and used it as a context , so it may not be directly related to the Tiananmen events. However I still think it's important to include the facts of the general acceptance of the negative view on Tiananmen protests in contemporary China(i.e. quotes from former democrats, Chinese netizens advocating the government to use tanks on protestors in HongKong on social media, etc) because they are the facts that show that apart from regret and criticism, there is a different voice in China about the Tiananmen events, and this voice as well as why this voice is formed should be included in this online encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Auspicious bwszd (talk • contribs) 15:10, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Beijing june 1989 Zhongguancun street.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:52, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I encourage any editors interested in the Tiananmen Square events to participate in this deletion discussion, which is requesting the deletion of valuable historic photos of Beijing in June 1989 uploaded by the photographer under CC-BY-SA-4.0 licenses. If this deletion request is accepted we will senselessly lose another new contributor to the project. BabelStone (talk) 10:12, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2020

The sentence in the third paragraph of the introduction: "The State Council declared martial law on May 20 and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing.[13]"

Should be changed to: "The State Council declared martial law on May 20 and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing.[13]{{More citations needed}}"

Logic: Citing a 14 year old documentary as the sole piece of evidence for such a precise statistic (300,000 troops were sent to Beijing) is insufficient as a singular source.

Derek.E.Steiger (talk) 22:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. That's not what that template is for. In any case, 1 sigfig is not all that precise, and the fact that it's 14 years old doesn't seem to a problem per se. Do you have any reasons for doubting this source specifically other than its age? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:05, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

There is another source cited down below, [15] by Wu Renhua, which states 250,000. But like Deacon, I don't see anything wrong with citing the documentary here. – Thjarkur (talk) 15:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2020

The first sentence in the section: "Protests Develop" subsection: "Death of Hu Yaobang" should be changed from: "When Hu Yaobang suddenly died of a heart attack on April 15, 1989, students reacted strongly, most of them believing that his death was related to his forced resignation.[61]"

To: "When Hu Yaobang suddenly died of a heart attack on April 15, 1989, students reacted strongly, most of them believing that his death was related to his forced resignation.[61] {{More citations needed}}"

Logic: The article in the citation was not refereed, i.e. not peer-reviewed, and the information in question within this unrefereed article is not cited. Derek.E.Steiger (talk) 23:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Again, not what that template is for. Perhaps you want {{bcn}} instead. In any case, I'll leave that for someone else. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: I'm not sure what you mean by "refereed" and "unrefereed." Regardless, there is no requirement for sources to be peer-reviewed, especially outside of science topics. If the information is not present in the cited source, we can add the {{Failed verification}} template. As Deacon Vorbis said, that is not what the {{More citations needed}} template is for. Can you please clarify what you think is wrong here? — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 03:42, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

There are some extremely grisley photos of tienanmen square.

They're very old. Photos include pulped veneers of blood and flesh mixed with bicycle spokes, laminating tank treads; piles of corpses, stacked like cordwood; things on fire; people running for their lives.

Many people have seen 'tank man.' Not many people have seen these photos.

Perhaps they're not suited for the wikipedia, though? I'm not sure. Shouldn't they be common knowledge, though? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleepcircle (talk • contribs) 18:30, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

They absolutely should be. The fact that this article has barely any pictures of the protest and the aftermath is worrying.

Let me link a few other articles with grisely pictures in them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthausen_concentration_camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation

These articles depict pictures of exactly what happened. So why can't this article do the same? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.115.50.82 (talk) 21:29, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2020

The line in the fourth paragraph in the introductory section "It notably failed to spark major political reforms as opposed to Eastern Bloc protests during the Revolutions of 1989.[citation needed]"

Should be changed to; "It notably failed to spark major political reforms as opposed to Eastern Bloc protests during the Revolutions of 1989.[citation: Beissinger, Mark, R. (2002). Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN-13: 9780511613593] Derek.E.Steiger (talk) 23:02, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Derek.E.Steiger: Do you have a page number to include in the citation? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:53, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: At-least the page no. or a verifiable link is required to verify correct corresponding references is cited. ~ Amkgp 💬 17:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Change "government" to "Chinese Communist Party" in the lead section.

The Chinese Communist Party has been the sole governing party of China since long before the Tiananmen Square protests. The Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party are the same thing. The phrase "Chinese Communist Party" is more specific than the word "government", thus is the preferred wording. The Chinese Communist Party also has total control over the People's Liberation Army. Therefore, the sentence should say "The protests started on April 15 and were forcibly suppressed on June 4 when the Chinese Communist Party declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy central parts of Beijing." Swmpshield2 (talk) 19:10, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

It doesnt matter that they have been in power since the establishment of the PRC, the party and the government are not the same thing (same situation even with the NSDAP and Germany). Party decisions and government decisions are different things. The party did not declare martial law, the government did. --Havsjö (talk) 19:15, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

They were the same thing at the time of the incident. The CCP declared martial law - saying that they didn't is re-writing history. Swmpshield2 (talk) 19:27, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect, the government (where the ruling party is/was the CCP) declared martial law. It was a government decision, not a party decision --Havsjö (talk) 19:32, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Nope. The State Council declared martial law, not "the government". The government of China, State Council, People's Liberation Army, and People's Armed Police are all controlled by the CCP. Swmpshield2 (talk) 21:27, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

The state council is the government. Current Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang is the current Head of Government in China (Xi Jinping being the Head of State). State Council declare Martial Law = Government declare Martial Law. --Havsjö (talk) 06:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The page for Li Kequiang even says you're wrong. "He is also the second-ranked member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, the de facto top decision-making body of the country." The CCP controls the government. Case closed. Swmpshield2 (talk) 12:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Obviously the CCP controls the government as the (de-facto only) ruling party. But martial law is declared by the government and not the party. --Havsjö (talk) 15:18, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Need for copyediting

This article has some grammatical issues, especially down the page, and doesn't read very smoothly, so I'm inserting a WP:Copyediting header. Looking for opinions. LΞVIXIUS💬 00:34, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 September 2020

I think the title of this article should be renamed Tiananmen Square Massacre as opposed to Tiananmen Square Protests to show what it truly was. 207.62.170.218 (talk) 06:36, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: Clearly outside scope of an edit request. Feel free to further discuss changing the article name here. You may also want to look through the archives of this page and see where past discussions have gone Cannolis (talk) 08:08, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

This article could be split into "1989 Tiananmen Square protests" and "1989 Tiananmen Square massacre"

Under the current article the two are merged however an individual sub article on the massacre could be the best solution to give more depth and talk individually about the consequences. Vallee01 (talk) 04:36, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there's any need to separate and create a WP:CFORK article. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 17:55, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Infobox info

BunnyyHop has made this change, which reverses the original information and is not referenced or supported by the article. Change has been reverted per BRD for discussion and consensus forming for this change.  // Timothy :: talk  02:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

TimothyBlue, this was a revert to the original information, from the false information added here by IP, which is not referenced or supported by the article. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 02:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Statement isn't supported by sources either way, since it was recently added, I have removed the statement. This article is about the events at Tiananmen Square, not masacres in other locations. Statistics should reflect this.  // Timothy :: talk  02:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Sure, I simply reverted changes that were made with no justification at all. It's discussed at 1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests#Deaths_in_Tiananmen_Square_itself. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 02:53, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Protest vs. Riot

In my opinion, the event should be called a "riot", not a "protest", since the subjects evidently engaged in violence (they were forcibly occupying the square, and later on attacked police and military personnel unprovoked). Further information on protest vs. riot:

Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 Link 5 Link 6 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.200.227 (talk) 07:03, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

From my quick glance at your sources, I see nothing that addresses the 1989 Tiananmen protests. They seem to be all about what defines protesting versus rioting with regard to recent United States history. Dhtwiki (talk) 19:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Chronological

I don’t understand why the 3rd-4th June section is not more chronological. It’s very confusing at present. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:59, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

LANGVAR

I just accepted an international English revert based on WP:LANGVAR, but is there a common variant used? Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz, I just searched this article page for 'organization' and found 13 occurrences. — Neonorange (Phil) 19:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. When I apply an International English and Oxford English filter, it would change more than a dozen words. American English would change "labelled", "armoured", "cancelled", and the aforementioned word. I will apply that for now. Additional feedback to be added here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Deaths in the square

"Wu said that it was irrelevant whether the shooting occurred inside or outside of the Square itself, as it was still a reprehensible massacre of unarmed civilians:

'Really, whether the fully equipped army of troops massacred peaceful, ordinary folks inside or outside the square make very little difference. It is not even worthwhile to have this discussion at all.'[212]"

This honestly doesn't seem to belong here at all, since this discussion (whether there was a massacre *in* the square) in the West was primarily started by journalists, reporters and other eyewitnesses in the square with the intent not to defend the regime but to raise the issue of journalistic integrity. All of the sources provided come from non-government affiliated eyewitnesses, and to attribute the discussion of this to the Party is detrimental to this section. It is also notable that the killings consist a sizable chunk of the historiography of the Tiananmen square protests and such clarification is very important. It is also fact that the common name "Tiananmen Square Massacre" stems from reports of the killings inside the square. To have a comment that does not address the issue at hand replying "it doesn't matter" especially in one of the most important sections undermines the intent to provide an accurate explanation of this event. Chokoladesu (talk) 09:03, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

As someone who just stumbled upon this fact, I am a little bit shocked. It specifically matters because the people inside the square were students and the people outside were mostly workers/unionists and other normal people. It does not free the regime of criticism or responsibility but it does spin the story a little differently. 89.241.191.15 (talk) 23:14, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I entirely agree. It's worrying that this is relegated to a separate and small section later. There's a lot of politics involved in these sections which is going unrecognised. Wikipedia ought to be an unbiased and neutral website. This section isn't remotely unbiased. Whether people died at all matters; where, why, and how they died would also matter if people did die, which this section in particular calls particular doubt upon, and then we're given one source to say 'even if they didn't die here, it's irrelevant!'. Well, okay, you're right - if they die just outside of Tiananmen Square that isn't unimportant. But then we need a larger section to try and contextualise what happened - did people die? if so, where, how, and what were the offending forces' reasoning, etc? All of that needs to be part of the central argument, not a simple and ignorable subsection later, itself very clearly biased in one direction. To relegate the question of whether anyone was actually killed in Tiananmen Square during the supposed "Tiananmen Square Massacare" (which redirects to this page, importantly) is not a small question, it is a question of what historical narrative those of us in the west receive through a casual browse. I should be clear: I am *not* questioning if people died during these series of protests. But the way in which this presented in the article is not impartial. It seems to openly defend one particular narrative even as it's trying to present certain verified and sourced facts. Not comfortable with this.

(KronosAlight (talk) 04:21, 5 June 2021 (UTC))

Massacre versus protests

I think the acts in the incident require this article to be called "massacre" not "protest". This is based on the definition on the word "massacre":

Massacre is an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of many people.

Which it was. The facts show that the government at that time put the army with guns and tanks against defenseless people, and open fire was performed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.10.151.99 (talk) 20:19, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

We go by what the common usage is sources is. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:26, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Dictionary definitions are rarely deep enough to properly describe complex political struggle. The Tiananmen Square Protests name gives the people in the square agency. The political struggle within the square had its counterpart in the whole society as well as the party and government. Consider 1919 and 1976 as well as the future of China. The monopoly of violence by state power is not limited to China. Discussing this article should proceed li-by-li: use only the most reliable reports and analyses. Progress is sometimes fast, sometimes slow. — Neonorange (Phil) 19:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Agency is very debatable. Nobody never asks to get shot and there are also evidences that most shooting occured out of the square. Then, massacre supercedes protest semantically otherwise, you could also call it the Tiananmen square walk. So, I m personally not convinced by the current argument. Moreover, the naming consensus of this event is a critical topic, and should probably be debated in a structured way. 2A02:2788:405:F634:EDF5:9DEF:955E:D71B (talk) 21:30, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Er, there was an edit conflict, so my comment just above is not responding to you, though it could be read as such. — Neonorange (Phil) 19:30, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Change the title now and block anyone from changing it.

This is clearly the "Tiananmen Square Massacre". It has been known as such since it happened. Stop letting the CCP try to wash history down the drain and change the narrative. I don't care if its in the first paragraph. The title should say "Massacre" because that's what it was, and what the incident is known as around the world. Calling it anything else is inaccurate, needlessly confusing, and helps a totalitarian regime try to wash away history.

Please, admins seriously. Change the title and lock it for good so these idiots can't keep changing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:840:8402:7eb0::b7a3 (talk) 20:22, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree, "Massacre" more accurately describes the content of the article. ShellPandey (talk) 06:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 June 2021

There is a source, from the British Government, that claims that at a minimum, 10,000 people died at Tiananmen Square.

Here it is and I got if from Wikisource that talks about the British cable::

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre ParachuteMercury (talk) 00:32, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Wikisource is not a reliable source: it's just a repository of source documents (I should know, I've edited there myself). You should cite a secondary source, such as a reputable newspaper, which reports on this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:50, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@ParachuteMercury: See 1989 Tiananmen Square protests#Other estimates. Towards the end of the section. This dubious number/report is already included --Havsjö (talk) 09:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 5 June 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus Daniel Case (talk) 04:44, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

---

1989 Tiananmen Square protests → 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre – 1. The current title does not meet WP:COMMONNAME, just use Google Trends and compare and contrast Tiananmen Square protests with Tiananmen Square Massacre to see the extent of how the current title fails to meet common name usage regarding the event. See list of events named massacres and laugh at how Tiananmen Square is surrounded by events still using massacre in its name but it isn't. 2. The incident is not famous for the protests as much as they are for the government crackdown and subsequent killings that occurred. 3. If anything, Tiananmen Square Incident would be fundamental improvement due to the undisclosed amounts of how many specifically were murdered by police, however it is undisputed the killings were in double-digits so to assume the number of deaths is low is an act of misinformation. BarneyHank (talk) 00:57, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME. I have no doubt this will be controversial, much like the relatively recent move of Tulsa race riot to Tulsa race massacre, but this is without a doubt the more common name. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Weak oppose While the original title can be suitable per WP:COMMONNAME, "Massacre" should not used caps, instead it must be "massacre" (all lowercaps). I believe moving this article to "1989 Tiananmen Square massacre" is more grammatically correct instead "1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre (with capital M)" and the original move can be redirected to current title or the second propose title. 180.254.164.147 (talk) 04:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom. 74.76.172.231 (talk)
• Support, lowercase m per nom and the above IP. O.N.R. ^(talk) 12:54, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support, lowercase m It's what most sources call it. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 14:14, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support, but with the lowercase m as other users here have already suggested. Thescrubbythug (talk) 14:40, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, leaving either out truncates the overall events and long-term historical significance. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment This was most recently discussed at Talk:1989 Tiananmen Square protests/Archive 5#Requested move 1 June 2019. Worth looking over. 162 etc. (talk) 21:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support --Scuzzy Beta 22:12, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose — While Tiananmen Square massacre might be the more common name, this article primarily deals with the protests. If we want to have an article called Tiananmen Square massacre, it would have to be branched off this one. Simply renaming it is (IMO) not a feasible solution, because then the content of the article would be a bit confusing to readers (since it actually deals with a broader topic). TucanHolmes (talk) 22:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Support split per above. Charles Essie (talk) 00:06, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Suppor Capital M The events of 1989 Tianamen square are primarly looked back in reference to government response to the protests, rather than the protests themselves, and given the definition of "an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people." It's fair to attribute the word massacre to the incidents. Also capitalization of titles within articles(which this would qualify as) should be applied when they are non transitory words(such as, as, the, or of). So m should be capitlized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.117.219.93 (talk) 00:26, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – The COMMONNAME argument is premised on the idea that the protests and massacre are synonymous, which is not the case. The scope of the article is the pro-democracy protest movement and related events, including the massacre. The protest movement was huge international news prior to the crackdown, and therefore its significance/notability is not conferred by the massacre. That said, I do not support a split because the massacre is an integral part of the protest movement's course of events and historical significance. Citobun (talk) 04:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - The two events are separate and should be titled as such 2604:3D09:1F85:8000:DC9D:60B6:D37E:76AD (talk) 06:19, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support It's what most call it and the title much better reflects the contents of the page ShellPandey (talk) 06:50, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support if there is consensus for a split (which seems likely) it won't matter but if we decide to keep one article then it should follow the common name—blindlynx (talk) 15:59, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – The article deals with more than the government crackdown and more than what happened in Beijing. The "massacre" took place in places other than Tiananmen Square in Beijing and in other cities in China. If you call it the T. S. Massacre, the last word should be uppercase, since it would then be part of a, IMO inaccurate, moniker to describe the much broader turn of events described in the article. Dhtwiki (talk) 16:07, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - According to the article itself, under the section Deaths in Tiananmen Square itself, as well as these reliable Western sources - don't be put off by the titles, they're neither denying, nor attempting to downplay the massacre - the massacre took place predominantly across Beijing, but, it is most likely, that little of the massacre took place in Tienanmen Square. However, the protests were centred in Tienanmen Square - so the current title is accurate. To rename the article would misleading, and likely lead to Pro-Beijing media having greater ammunition to denounce this article, by - to quote Miles - 'focusing on what happened in the square itself'. So, I support maintaining the current title, or renaming to the 1989 Beijing massacre, rather than use to this misleading and exploitable colloquialism. - Kirkworld (talk) 22:24, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support, lowercase m per comments & arguments above. Pete Tillman (talk) 04:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support The government's actions are the most notable, consequential aspect of the events (as the article's "Longer-term impact" and "Contemporary issues" sections lay out in detail), and the title should reflect that - or to put it differently, the current title is misleading in that regard. Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:46, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
• Further commment, as I mention above, 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre consolidates both descriptors and keeps at least some of the title focus on the historically important protests. Changing this to the proposed name, which has support here, would de-emphasis what the students and other activists did and stood for. That would be like renaming the Selma to Montgomery marches to give title-attention solely to its "Bloody Sunday" and lessening the long-term significance of the movement's stated intentions. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:35, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: I'm not convinced that's the reason Selma to Montgomery marches is at the title it currently has. For one thing, a much smaller portion of that article is dedicated to the Bloody Sunday incident than this article devotes to the massacre; for another, "Bloody Sunday" refers to a lot of other things (for example, despite the fact that I live in the United States, "Bloody Sunday" means to me, first and foremost, the incident during The Troubles). I don't really think that naming this article after the massacre in any manner reduces the significance of the protest movement, either; it's not like we'd be obfuscating the protest movements, as we cannot discuss the massacre without discussing the people who were being massacred and why. In my opinion, candidly naming what was done to them, just as most sources do, would be the most respectful way of remembering what they stood for. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:14, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support, but with lowercase M, per WP:COMMONNAME. I don't find the argument that this article is primarily about the protests convincing: nearly two-thirds of the article is devoted to the military response itself and the aftermath of the whole incident. It is only natural that an article about a massacre of student protestors would discuss the lead-up to the massacre in detail. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:52, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, and possibly split — the protests themselves were a major event, and the article describes them in detail. Renaming the article to be about the massacre would be both inaccurate and also downplay the significance of the entire protest movement. It might make sense to split off a separate article about the massacre itself, and then create a "Portal:1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre" template to keep track of the resulting series of articles. I'm not sure about how feasible that would be, though, because a separate article about the massacre would probably end up duplicating a lot of the protest article in order to provide sufficient background. (I've also noticed that people have raised doubts that there was ever a massacre at Tiananmen Square itself; I'm not sure if that's true or not, but if so then it would require retitling the split-off article "Government crackdown against the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests" or something like that instead and then maybe say "commonly known as the Tiananmen Square massacre".) 3 kids in a trenchcoat (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Randy Kryn makes a very good point about Selma. I think the current article should be split in two: 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, mainly about the events leading up to the protests and the Tiananmen protests themselves; the other about the government's reaction, under the name 1989 Chinese government massacre-reaction to Tiananmen protests. My reasoning is that to focus either on the protests or on the massacre in the same article gets into a political evaluation that really isn't part of Wikipedia's remit. And it plays into political views of the editors that are being attracted to the discussion. Articles already exist covering segments of the events: People's Liberation Army at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Student and Government Dialogue during the 1989 Student Movement, April 27 demonstrations, The Students' Hunger Strike of the 1989 Tiananmen Protests, ... (the current article length is nearly 50,000 words). — Neonorange (Phil) 22:08, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support as per WP:COMMONNAME. Yo bailaba (talk) 06:52, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose As this is not about the massacre, but the protests which the massacre was but one part of --Havsjö (talk) 09:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose It's about the generally what happened in Tiananmen Square, and not just the massacre. Texan777 (talk) 15:12, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Oppose, as this article deals with the entire course of the movement. Secondly, non-CCP affiliated sources, from US government communications to witnesses and Western journalists strongly dispute that a massacre occurred in the square. There so far have been little if any sources refuting them. The common name is a misnomer in itself, and changing it would be detrimental to providing accurate historiography, which should be everyone's goal. Chokoladesu (talk) 16:48, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Support This simply is the most commonplace name that refers to these events.YeetMachete (talk) 19:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Tiananmen protests is the most commonly used name thourough history to describe the event. The massacre is just the last stage of the events. Sgnpkd (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose 'protests' is the common name as far as I can tell from my searching. Would also support someone writing an article focused on the massacre specifically and then potentially trimming this article somewhat, but as it stands now, I definitely don't think it should be renamed. SamStrongTalks (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Participants

The flags for the Chinese government participants is the Soviet flag not Chinese Snuggles69420 (talk) 20:32, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Nevermind

Snuggles69420 (talk) 20:33, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China 1988 (1).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Hi all, we seem to be missing a few sources - what do the following point to:

• Wu 2011, p. May 19
• Tiananmen Mothers & Victims Name List.
• People's Daily 1989, p. 2.
• Fathers 1989.
• Bociurkiw 1989.
• Troubles Provoke.
• Ban of Poems.
• Tiananmen Mothers & 六四天安门惨案死难者遇难地点示意图.
• Google Censors Itself 2006
• Relatives of Dead.
• Provocateur.
• Branigan 2009.
• China makes 1989 2006.
• 镇压六四主将、党内斗争牺牲品杨白冰病逝.

Each of these citations seems to be dangling - in other words, they each point to a source that does not exist. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 07:11, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

As each of these are dangling, I will hide them in the text. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 02:10, 3 August 2021 (UTC)