Talk:Zhou dynasty/Archive 1

Archive 1

Duo dynasty?

In the notes at the head of the table there is a reference to the "Duo dynasty". This seems to be a typo but I can't be sure of what was intended. Could somebody please clarify the reference. Eclecticology 19:52 Nov 2, 2002 (UTC)

Removal of years in title and page redirection

Why are they years necessary in the article title? -- Zoe

Dunno. When people talk about Zhou dynasty they are usually talking this one. I suppose it is better to redirect the Zhou dynasty here and simply add an extra link to the short Zhou dynasty of Empress Wu. -- Wshun

shall we remove the years now or wait until a "consensus" is reached? kt2 23:22, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

IMO follow Wshun's recommendation: redirect Zhou dynasty; add the link the short Zhou dynasty of Empress Wu at the bottom of the page. kt2 00:29, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That was already done some time ago. I merged the other Zhou dynasty article with Empress Wu's. --Jiang 00:36, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Wshun's disambiguation method. Wu Zetian's Zhou is much...much..much less famous. --Menchi 00:32, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The only outdanding issue is whether to include the dates, like Song Dynasty. --Jiang

IMO the dates shall not be included for this Zhou dynasty as the starting year has not been confirmed yet. kt2 00:43, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Shall we now proceed to remove the year and redirect the page as Wshun sugguested ? kt2 00:45, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes. And the same thing for Song Dynasty. --Menchi 01:09, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with the removal for the Zhou Dynasty but not for Song dynasty where the accuracy of the dates has never been disputed. kt2 02:01, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It's not about knowing the dates. The dates are there for diambiguation purposes. If there is not ambiguation, then get rid of it! --Jiang 05:37, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I say disambiguation works much better than putting dates. Redirects should go to the main or more well known dynasty. Empress Wu Zetian's dynasty need not an article of its own, or at least that's my opinion. Personally I don't like dates in titles too much. Colipon 04:39, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If we want to get rid of the dates then we may rename Song Dynasty (420-479) to be Liu-Song Dynasty, as it is sometimes called by Chinese historians. -wshun 04:53, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That's sounds pretty unrecognizable from what it really is. Colipon 05:05, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wu's Zhou doesn't need not an article on its own, so it is now redirected to Empress Wu Zetian. But Song Dynasty (420-479), the first Song Dynasty, seems to deserve its own article. If Liu-Song Dynasty is not good, then it means we have to let the dates in its title! :P -- wshun 06:08, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, it seems that we have good reason to get rid of the dates in Zhou Dynasty (they may not be correct). But the reason to get rid of the dates in Song Dynasty is simply that "It is too cumbersome" and it seems not a really convincing reason--indeed, the article with this title is not going away, it just becomes a redirect! Again, I have no strong opinion on that. -wshun 06:08, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I vote for the simpliest title possible. Simple title makes wiki-links elsewhere in other articles much easier to do. I'd rather type [[Zhou Dynasty]] everywhere than [[Zhou Dynasty (.... .....)]] or [[Zhou Dynasty (.... ....)|Zhou Dynasty]] to establish the link. Again redirection actually makes all syntax of title equivalent, i.e it does not matter one way of the other. Anyway is fine with me as long as they all converge to the same article. Kowloonese 06:12, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I Agree that the "first" Zhou Dynasty should be titled as is whereas the Song dynasties shall include the years. Reasons are:

1) The years clearly disambiguate the two dynasties, as one in the fifth century and another in the tenth century.

2) Using the family names for disambiguation i.e. Liu-Song dynasty and Zhao-Song dynasty is just asking for trouble since these titles are mostly seen in historical journals and texts but way less commonly in mainstream media. An exception is their use in Bai Yang's Zizhi Tongjian, an edition intended for general audience.

Most audience with substantial western background would prefer Song Dynasty for both dynasties since they usually refer to the Song dynasty in the tenth century.

Above was my summary of different opionions on the issue as of yet. Hope it help. kt2 06:37, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Founding Date

I personally strongly oppose the date shown in "Zhou dynasty kings" since the the controversy regarding this project never died down, and the project never published its final report in the complete version as they promised. Now, many people in China believe that this project is dead in water. In any event, many new alternative results by both the official scholars and private scholars (myself being one of them) has proposed alternative dates. My research shows that the founding date of Zhou Dynasty was Marhc 10, 1044 BC, different from any other previously published result (posted on Chronology Research (http://www.niandaixue.com/bbs/index.php?showtopic=1872) on Sept. 5, 2006. Teh modified version is available on http://bbs.guoxue.com/viewtopic.php?p=472539#472539 and on http://www.history-forum.com/node/26. Now there is a certain "prof. Jiang xiaoyuan" who, presumably, has reached a similar/identical conclusion with a computer software and is trying to claim the "First" with merely a "record of private conversation".

In any event, there is no resason to list the precise date as they are so strongly contested by so many, and the date in the list (1046 BC) is not consistent with the one in the article (1122 BC). If we need any date, perhaps we should just give an approximate date (e.g., in the middle of the 11th century BC), or we could list all the alternatives (do we want to do that?). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Line (talk • contribs) 04:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

Iron Age

Archeologists record the first extensive use of iron in China as starting during the Zhou dynasty, yet there seems to be no mention of iron in this article at all. Arkuat 22:09, 2004 Jul 31 (UTC)

be bold and please add it! --Jiang 23:10, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Removed Lester DK Chow info

Lester, the section was probably removed for several reasons. It would have been nice if the person removing it left some type of message with you.

1. Writing style in Wikipedia (and most encyclopedias) is third person, so the use of "we" and the first person voice is not the norm.
2. Byline information is not included in an encyclopedia, so remove the biographical information and the "by" portion.
3. Copyright status may not be compliant, since you state you hold the copyright to the text. You have to make sure you release what you write under the GNU Free Documentation License.
4. The section is not integrated into the article, so you might want to start a new section called "Heritage" or "Family names" in that article.

Fuzheado | Talk 15:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's one other problem. The inserted material said, We have done our own research. In other words, this is original research. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:55, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

NOR does not mean no research. It means no introduction of new ideas. Hence, no original research. We should be careful to look at the spirit behind the texts. —Theo (Talk) 16:56, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I received an e-mail from Lester and asked him to telephone me. He says he's a second cousin of the premier. I figure that means he has first-hand information. That's not the same thing as "original research". He's not a scientist coming up with a new theory. I think Wikipedia:Don't bite the newbies may be relevant here. 192.195.66.44 13:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused. Are we talking about the section entitled "Added by The Chouclansmen Association of America" that then says "We have done our own research into Chinese history and have found that there were early errors made even by the best of ancient historians"? This seems to me to be the very definition of original research, by Mr. Chow. And as far as "first-hand information" is concerned, I'm not sure where his first hand information regarding the alleged Hebrew origins of Chinese names would have come from either, nor what the relevance of his relationship to a politician would be. Some citations to sources other than his own work might be helpful. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Wu Zetian's dyn. is never referred to simply as "Zhou Dyn."!!!

I don't think that the blurb under the title of "Zhou Dynasty may also refer to Zhou Dynasty from 690 to 705 AD (see Empress Wu Zetian of China), or the Later Zhou Dynasty from 951 BC. to 690 AD." is appropriately worded. "Zhou Dyn." is never used to refer to Wu Zetian's dynasty (i.e., no one would say simply "during the Zhou Dyn." as a reference to her reign period). The dates of 951 BC. to 690 AD are also bizzarely wrong. Dragonbones 16:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reworded the dablink blurb to: "See also Empress Wu Zetian of China), who also claimed the dynastic name Zhou for her brief reign from 690 to 705 AD." This makes this use of "Zhou dynasty" for her reign seem less mainstream. Dragonbones 02:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

picture covering text

It looks like the upper left corner of the picture "Western Zhou vase with glass inlays, 4th-3rd century BCE, British Museum" is covering most of a word "by", making it appear as a tick mark ' . Can sb pls fix this? I don't know how. Dragonbones 09:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

end of Eastern Zhou is 256 not 221

The main page gave the correct end date for the dynasty as a whole, 256, but later under the Western & Eastern Zhou section, gave the date of 221. There appears to be widespread confusion over the ending date of the Zhou dynasty, with some sources giving 221 BC, and others giving 256 BC (e.g., the authoritative sources I cite below). The problem is that despite the tendency of casual writers and amateur websites to think of one dynasty being ended by the beginning of another, the truth is rarely so simple. The last Zhou king's reign clearly ended earlier than the unification by Qin. There was a gap in between which is the post-Zhou, tail end of the Warring States period. Another way to present the problem is that the Warring States period (which ended with unification) is often imprecisely mentioned “as” the second half of the Eastern Zhou, when in fact this is only approximately the case; in fact the WS period extends beyond the fall of the Zhou dynasty, by 35 years.

The following properly give a 256 BC end date for the Zhou:

Loewe, Michael & Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1999). The Cambridge History of Ancient China – from the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 521 47030 7.

Loewe, Michael (ed., 1993). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, (Early China Special Monograph Series No. 2), Society for the Study of Early China, and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, ISBN 1-55729-043-1.

Roberts, J.A.G., A Concise History of China (1999). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. ISBN 0-674-00074-9. Reference is on p.7: “The Zhou dynasty is traditionally dated from 1122 to 256 BC,…divided into the Western Zhou, from 1122 to 771 BC, and the Eastern Zhou, the latter age being further subdivided into the Spring and Autumn Period, from 771 to 481 BC, and the Warring States period, from 403 to 221 BC.” Dragonbones 13:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur. In my AP social studies class we are studying the Zhou, and the textbook says that the WS period extends until after the Zhou Dynasty ends. Curious, I looked it up and came up with many of the same results as you. If I were you, I would change it. 76.107.217.221 (talk) 01:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

origins of Zhou people

周 was an ethnic group of herders inhabited in west of 商，they became sinicized and eventually became farmers. They were originally matriarchal, you could see that by analyzing the surname of the 周 leaders, which is character 姬, composes of characters meaning "woman" and "subjugator", and my surname 姜 is composed of characters meaning "sheep" and "woman". (posted by 24.199.81.64)

24.199.81.64, don't forget to sign your comments with four tilde's (~), thanks! I'm not convinced by your description, especially your character analyses. First, do you have any evidence to cite for the "herder" bit? Second, 姬, found in the oracle bones, is most likely merely a semanto-phonetic compound with 女 semantic and yi/xi/ji-series phonetic; it was a female's given name as well as the name of a ritual. Also, many such names come from placenames, rather than any indication of social structural tendencies; in fact, I'd wager that there are zero examples of the latter in all of Chinese history. And even if its right half were to mean 'subjugator', which I would want to see evidence of, its presence here is more likely merely phonetic (Zhao Cheng, pp. 166 & 248). Next, I don't believe that the structure of 姜 necessarily supports any conclusion about herding. Both it and 羌 are, in oracle bone form, female and male (or gender non-specific) forms with sheep horns attached to the head. This may have indicated headdress, or possibly livelihood, but given the pronunciation of the graphs (jiang, qiang) and the pronunciation of sheep (yang) and the predominance of semanto-phonetic compounding as a character creation method, it is far, far more likely that this was merely an integrated phonetic element. Folk etymology has a long history of falsely reading into graphs a 會意 hui4yi4 or logical aggregate interpretation and ignoring the much more common and therefore more likely phonetic role of one of the components. Note that both 姜 and 羌 represented captives and human sacrifices (with no evidence that they were herders) in the oracle bone record, the former being specifically females of the latter ethnic group (see, e.g., Zhao Cheng p. 164). In the absence of compelling structural reasons for an inference of original but unattested meanings (such as for 九 jiu3, clearly meaning 'elbow' in an original, unattested usage), we should generally rely on the earliest attested meanings of graphs (in the oracle bones) or inference based on attested early uses of a graph's derivative compounds. (Ref. is 趙誠 Zhào Chéng (Chao Ch’eng; 1988) 甲骨文簡明詞典 – 卜辭分類讀本 jiǎgǔwén jiǎnmíng cídiǎn – bǔcí fēnlèi dúbĕn. 中華書局 Zhōnghúa Shūjú, ISBN 7-101-00254-4/H•22 He's one of the top figures in philology in the PRC btw.)Dragonbones 08:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, 𦣝 was "chin". Not that Ji women were especially chinny or that 姜 women had anything to do with the 羌 (cf. Pulleyblank decimating Zhao's overly-simplistic approach here). It's just phonetic.

Btw, see the same source for a take-down of the canard that all those 女 radicals mean Chinese society was matriarchal at some point. It fits the narrative, but not actually any, y'know, historical record or remains. — LlywelynII 14:34, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Zhou among original Hebrews

I hope that you people don't mind my putting an external link to the Zhou Dynasty page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty

1. The Zhou people are among those who were the original Hebrews mentioned in the Holy Bible. We are not Hamites. We are descendants of Shem. http://www.geocities.com/zhouclan/chia_pu.html

2. The Zhou Dynasty, today, is China's Imperial dynasty and Imperial family (by history and court installation), so I thought that I would add a bit of information about the Zhou Dynasty, which is my family's dynasty. By telling people who put this information or link online, I am using myself as an authority source. I am not trying to boast, nor necessarily give myself a pat on the back, but I am allowing people to see the source of authority for this information.

In Wikipedia, you should allow all people to publish information and not exclude people whom you do not like. I am the formost authority on the Zhou Dynasty today. I can be contacted by postal mail or telephone at P.O. Box 4604, Honolulu, Hawaii 96812, (808) 545-7843, if anyone has any questions.

Lester D.K. Chow, historian and president of the Chou Clansmen Association of America.

Start/end of Zhou

Corrected start / end dates for the Zhou. Here is the link. http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/ancient1.html#zhou

Bao Shu Ya

Bao Shu Ya , Zhou Dynasty...

I'm trying to find information on this person. He was a judge I think...

READER/POSTER OPINIONS ABOUT DELETIONS AND INACCURACIES

From what I can see studying Chinese history, the West has its own concepts of what China's history is all about. Sometimes, the West is accurate and sometimes the West is far out of line. In order to be a scholar and in order to learn, people need to be humble and listen more than they speak.

Sometimes, Western scholars are proud and heady, yet history has proven them to be wrong many times.

In the study of history, one needs to be humble. One needs to learn and come as a student, listen and accept the teachings, rather than to destroy a nation's age-long ageless four thousand year history.

Earlier this morning, I posted somethings about my family's dynasty and when I checked back later my posting was erased!

The same happened to my brother and he finally gave up posting, if the organizers and administrators of this online encyclopedia don't care to be factual and they don't care for truth, then continue to delete my postings. Your online encyclopedia isn't worth the effort and you are not the ultimate, when it comes to China's history.

I would like an apology as well as my postings restored.

I would like to add here:

1. The Chou Dynasty is currently China's Imperial family.

2. Western historians, including Chinese-Americans PhD holders, who study in American colleges, have an inaccurate and sometimes distorted idea of what China's history is all about.

3. It is good to have an online encyclopedia, so people can post (not erase) additional facts and views (sometimes conflicting with current day "authorities") of China's ageless four-thoudsand year history.

We, my brother and I, represent the Imperial family of China and we are the best self-taught China experts in the entire world in our own specialty on China history and the Chou Dynasty, my family! There are no better experts!

Yours,

Keith D.H. Chow
User: KDHChow
—Preceding unsigned comment added by KDHChow (talk • contribs) 17:24, 27 January 2007

See WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, among other things. To edit on Wikipedia is a privilege, not a right. If you're going to edit here, you have to play by Wikipedia's rules. --Nlu (talk) 17:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Second posting:
1. We are the experts on China and the Chou Dynasty, I do not delete the postings of others. I contribute to your pool of knowledge, so others might be able to do their own research to confirm or deny our materials. My brother and I are historians.

2. The front page of Wikipedia says: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." We are not just anybody, we are experts in our own very unique field on China and we represent China and her imperial family.

User: KDHChow —Preceding unsigned comment added by KDHChow (talk • contribs) 17:42, 27 January 2007

I don't think your source can be considered a reliable source. I can agree that western scholars sometimes have a very different view of Chinese history than do Chinese scholars, but unless you've got some reliable sources to point this out specifically about the Zhou Dynasty, we can't add that in the article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Split Into Eastern and Western Zhou

We should split this article. Western Zhou is so different from Eastern Zhou that it would be misleading to a lay reader to have this together. Elijahmeeks 05:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

since they are related, wikipedia:summary style is more appropriate--Jiang 05:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

First hydraulic engineering project

The "Agriculture" section states: China's first projects of hydraulic engineering were founded during the Zhou Dynasty, ultimately for means to aid agricultrual irrigation. What happened to Yu the Great and his irrigation project? Uly 12:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yu the Great falls under Chinese mythology, there is no evidence available to prove any of his hydraulic engineering work existed. However, we do have evidence of hydraulic engineering from the Zhou period. I believe it was Shen Tzu in the 4th century who wrote:

As regards the people who protect and manage the dykes and channels of the nine rivers and the four lakes, they are the same in all ages; they did not learn their business from Yu the Great, they learnt it from the waters.

-PericlesofAthens 19:12, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

map

map is totally wrong, the kingdom of wu and yue, though they had kings descended from the zhou and xia dynasties, did NOT petition the court for a title or peerage from the zhou king, so why is there a dot in the region.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 19:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Academic Scandals

According to the latest revealation, The Chief Scientist in-Charge for the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasties chronology Project in China and some of his assistants have been engaged in systematic forgary regarding ancient artifacts discovered in recent years. This add strong doubts on the results of the highly controvertial and politically motivated project. I strongly believe that all the years and dates of the Western Zhou should be subjected to systematic re-examination before it could be admitted to this page. Many of them have been proved to be misleading. For this reason, I have taken out those years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Line (talk • contribs) 01:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Zhou Dynasty Map

The Western Zhou Dynasty is when the Fengjian system was used. The Fengjian system was simply giving some land to the people in the royal family or the king's close friends. Those people are called dukes. I was just wondering that since the king of Zhou was the one who gave the land to the dukes, shouldn't it be that the land of the dukes are still the land of the king of Zhou? If that is accurate, the map of Zhou should be enlarged. Mar vin kaiser (talk • contribs) 15:19, 13 February 2009 (UTC)<

Problems with Western Zhou section

I have to point out a few things:

1) The language used in that section is not the level we would expect from an encyclopedia. While the facts seem to follow the generic lines of events, how can we have something like:

"His son King You (周幽王) ascended and still continued King Li's strict aid. Then came the lady Bao Si, which made King You mess with her and not care about the country. Then he married Bao Si and had a child, and he wanted to cancel the Crown Prince. But Bao Si never laughed, no matter what. King You later formated a fire to trick the princes of the country. The princes were angry about this and never helped him again. King You then canceled the Crown Prince's mother, the queen, and the father of the queen, Marquise of Shen, allied with the dog tribes and sacked the capital Haoji."

This is really really bad english...

2) How come we do not have dates? or at least a semblant of genealogy? The battle of Muje was around 1045, and the end was in 771, and we seem more or less to have the order of the kings (The cambridge history of Ancient China seems to agree with what is already in the article) so what is the issue in not making this article better?

3) How come, when we have so many of the names of the kings, none of them are linked to their personal articles? These are all important kings with their own articles...

4) Even if there are some disagreements between traditional chinese history and what some researchers/historians say, why cant we have both sides? "according to... and according to..."

So this article has to be bettered, because the Zhou are a very important dynasty in China...

by comparison, the articles about the ancient Indian Dynasties are 10 times better... so it is not a East/West thing...

I am very bad with all the technical things necessary to edit an article. If someone can help out I am ready to help with information and structuring the article... Vhakyemez (talk) 10:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as your number 1), I noticed that independently and it appears to me to have been part of the vandalism that has been frequent in this article during the last several months, so I reverted that section of the article to a preceding version.

For your other points it's probably best if you just edit the text. Any fixes to technical aspects of wiki code can be done afterwards. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 23:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Reformatted Layout

The page loaded with imaged obscuring text on my browser (firefox 3.0.6) so I reformatted them either to the gallery or in the empty space next to the table of kings. I also moved the two infoboxes there for the same reason. The Layout looks a little cleaner now as I result, and I would argue the space next the kinglist is a relevant if not aesthetic location for the infoboxes. I also added some wikification by moving the gallery to the final section as per the MOS. I would further ask that someone wikify the reference and notes. I hope everyone can agree to the new layout enough at least to not revert it to its old illegible form.

As a cleanup item I think the structure of this article should match with Xia, Shang, and other chinese dynasty articles for consistency thanks--Gurdjieff (talk) 06:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Western Zhou (1046-771 BC)

I suggest that this section and the one following it should really be be split out into seperate sections covering Western Zhou then Eastern Zhou. At the moment there is a lot of repeated information and the flow is somewhat arbitary. Philg88 (talk) 23:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This is the sort of thing that happens when several people work on the same article. The Eastern Zhou section should probably be a summary of Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period which have the main information. I'll let someone else fix it or maybe do it myself in a month or so if no one else does. (If someone can expand the Western Zhou section beyond my glorified king-list, I wish they would.) Benjamin Trovato (talk) 01:51, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I concur that the "Western Zhou (1046-771 BC)" section is quite extraneous, repetitive, and breaks the flow of the article. As this is a "summary article", the History section already have an "Early history" (introduction), "Western and Eastern Zhou" (middle portion), and "Decline" (end). To tag on another "Western Zhou" section is redundant and doesn't make a whole lot of sense (thematically for the article). Since it is suggested the section needs further copyedit and rewrite, hide the section as of now. Please do not randomly create new sections for the article, and think of ways to condense these information.--Balthazarduju (talk) 05:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated. As per the overall article structure here are some further issues that we could perhaps address at the same time. Based on the current TOC:
1 History
1.1 Early history - possibly change title to Origin and rise to power
1.2 Western and Eastern Zhou - split into two sections - Western Zhou (1046 - 771 BCE) and Eastern Zhou (770 - 256 BCE)
1.3 Decline Possibly Decline and Extinction
2 Mandate of Heaven - I'm not sure that this is relevant here, it could either be merged with the Mandate of Heaven article or moved to section 1.1
3 Zhou military no issues right now
4 Fengjian Feudalism It is arguable whether China ever was feudalistic - "well-field system" may be better.
5 Agriculture no issues right now
6 Art no issues right now
7 Zhou dynasty kings no issues right now
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links

I think that with our combined efforts this article can achieve WP:FA status. Philg88 (talk) 11:13, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

In deference to Balthazarduju I moved the glorified king list to Western Zhou which was previously a redirect. Maybe 2-6 can be made subsections of a culture section. Feudalism section needs to deal with the evolution from 'feudalism' to 'bureaucracy' (using the terms loosely), but this is hard to express clearly. Benjamin Trovato (talk) 02:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Problems with sourcing v OR

I have not posted or contributed anything here in Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, and after reading articles and many comments and deletions I am wondering just what can we, the people, publish here? Either we publish known material from already published sources which is a violation of copyright laws or create our own material from our own research work. By now most everything known is already published and copyrighted. Original articles from authority sources should in my opinion be acceptable. I would like to have a qualified opinion on my comments. People commenting should not be anonymous. Leon Poon and others like him are known and acceptable historians and authors. Such people usually hold credentials and are in the teaching field at some well-known university. Just asking and looking for valid opinions. Himyaosui (talk) 02:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia! Apparently someone else already answered your question on your talk page. By the way, new entries should be placed at the bottom of the talk page. You could click the 'New section' tab at the top of the page. Cheers, Alfons Åberg (talk) 16:10, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Pinyin ≠ English

The English common name for the dynasty is not Zhōu any more than it's 周: It's Zhou.

I'm not interested in an edit war over something that's going to take so long to fix, so can we get an admin/some consensus that this needs to go? Those curious about precise tonal values of Chinese names lose no information, since it can be quickly retrieved via link. — LlywelynII 14:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there seems to be a dispute at WP:MOS-ZH over its implementation

Remember, tone diacritics are not used to transcribe names or terms that appear in the normal flow of an article... They should only be used in templates (e.g. traditional Chinese: 顧炎武; pinyin: Gù Yánwǔ) or infoboxes.

of WP:NC-ZH's implementation

In general, the titles of Chinese entries should be in Hanyu Pinyin (but without tone marks)

of WP:USEENGLISH.

The original editor responsible for most of the tone marks here seems to be unaware of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and advocates establishing a new format particular to Wiki. He also seems to think a distinction can be made between common Chinese names in English (rendered without tones) and uncommon ones (he'd rather were rendered with tones). He feels Zhou falls on the uncommmon side (??) and doesn't seem to realize that establishing tonal pinyin as a standard for all Chinese names will mean all Chinese names. Still, he fixed the page once before misinterpreting the policy, so seems a nice enough guy. Hopefully, we can get this fixed.

Conversation is here. — LlywelynII 14:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I wrote the diacritic-use guideline you quoted ("Remember, ...") and was a significant contributor to the subsequent discussion. It appears my position was generally supported, and I'd also like to see a major reduction in the use of diacritics in this article. Perhaps using diacritics for the first instance of a term only, as User:Kanguole suggested, is something everyone could accept.  White Whirlwind  咨  23:41, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Per previous discussion, unless someone voices new concerns here on this talk page, after roughly 3 days I will be removing any diacritics that appear on the 2nd and subsequent instances of Chinese terms in this article.  White Whirlwind  咨  00:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

castration

The focus on castration is still very much in violation of Wikipedia:Undue_weight#Undue_weight. plus, are we going to put a castration section on every single empire that practiced castration? the byzantines, romans, ottoman, and other empires all practiced castation, and we are not putting a special section for castration on each of their respective pages.

Chinese law contained hundreds of offenses for every possible offence imaginable, from disprespecting ones parents to using the emperor's name Naming taboo, which ranged from getting a slip on the wrist to death by Slow slicing. Are we going to list every single offense and punishment under chinese law? seriously?

in addition, the procedure for castration is already documented at the castration article itself. all that is needed is a link to castration, rendering irrelevant the extra sentences "castration included removal of the penis" or etc.Bunser (talk) 21:18, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Spanglej and Kansas Bear didn't give any specific objections to your edit in their edit summaries; hopefully they will explain the problem here.

I must admit that when I first saw this article that section struck me as out of place. The other topics in the "Culture and society" section are important topics you'd expect to see in any account of the period. But castration? Such a standard work as the Cambridge History of Ancient China doesn't mention the topic at all, and the only eunuch mentioned is Zhao Gao of the Qin dynasty. A close examination of the references cited yields no special connection to the Zhou dynasty. Many of them don't mention the dynasty at all. The whole section is undue weight. Kanguole 00:02, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Can't say that I disagree with those edits of User:Bunser, but I guess the revisions was due to lack of explanation at first with such an edit (?). Anyway, references about things other than the topic itself shouldn't belong here anyway. Cold Season (talk) 00:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

It is nice to see two more sets of eyes to this edit. My concern was that a referenced section of the article was removed with the edit summaries of, "changing section title to eunuch system- deleting information sourced by 100 year old journals" and "first of all, I did not delete all of it, I renamed it "eunuch system" which is far more relevant, I explained the rationale for revamping this specific article on my talk page to spanglej". Now that two other editors have given their opinions to the edit, I have no problem with the edit. Perhaps next time a more in depth explanation as to why the edit is being done would be helpful. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Firstly Bunser stated his mass removal due to "deleting information sourced by 100 year old journals". Then he says there is already an article on castration so there is no reason to mention it here (?) Then he claims undue weight. Part of the reason I reverted the deletion here was because Bunser opened a new account and went through around eight articles removing sections that mention penises, in each case claiming that the sources were too old. It seems that he is on a mission, searching for a reason to remove the material. I don't think there is any problem with mentioning castration in the Zhou Dynasty in a wider context of cultural practices. It would serve the article to add more contexting material than delete outright. There is a strong element of organic growth in Wikipedia articles, as we know. You may well find a content structure that you will not find elsewhere. That doesn't make it undue. In answer to Kansas Bear's question of why the mass deletions are being made, it seems to have more to do with "I don't like it" than anything else. I'm interested in the articles being the best that they can be. Wikipedia is a collaborative process, not best approached when spitting feathers. Span (talk) 00:09, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The coverage of a subject in reliable sources does provide a guide for the appropriate balance in our articles. Per WP:UNDUE, we should not assign a topic an importance lacking in standard treatments. In this case there is no evidence in the sources, including those cited, that castration was a particularly significant aspect of Zhou culture, or that the Zhou period was significant in the history of castration in China. Most of the sources dealt with the Chinese law in this area in general without even mentioning the Zhou period. The material could be given with more context in a more general article, but not this one. Kanguole 01:18, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, picking up any history of the zhou dynasty by scholars from universities, and one will find virutally no material on castration. Likewise, the Byzantine empire practiced castration. If Spanglej wants to put this material on zhou dynasty, then he has to write massive paragraphs about castration on the Byzantine, Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid, Qajar, Korean, and Vietnamese empires. In all the history books by major scholars on China like Joseph Needham, there is not even a sentence about castration in the zhou dynasty.Bunser (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The sources "China of the Chinese" and "Women of China" give no indication that they are reliable. They were not published by historical associations or universities. I don't see "XXX University Press", in their publisher parameter We don't even have a publisher name for women of china. The fact that the materials dating to over 100 years old like "Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. China Branch", have been superseeded by modern historians. If a modern source talks about the same topic, the old source should be deleted. Would Spanglej used books written by Julius Caesar to reference the Julius Caesar article? and bear in mind that if Spanglej accuses me of being part of the "anti penis material" party, then he is equally for it, and "I don't like it" equally applies to his desire to keep the material Wikipedia:IDONTLIKEIT#It_contains_valuable_information.Bunser (talk) 04:48, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

If you guys really wanted to know, I added the content to circumvent Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_mirror_or_a_repository_of_links.2C_images.2C_or_media_files, it the was reference links I was interested in adding.

I think you noticed how the section almost disrupts the flow of the article, as if it wasn't put there by the guy who wrote the other sections. the reason I inserted the section had atually nothing to do with the content. You see at Maori language#Further_Reading and Egypt Eyalet#Further_Reading I inserted some links to books online? I did those was if it were a storage or document dump, since I could look up the topic, for example "maori language" on wikipedia, and conviniently find the books on the article at a later time.

But there were articles where I could not shove them into the further reading section as an external link, since they wouldn't fit on any articles exising on wikipedia. I added this Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Volume 17" references, as a citation to material already exising in the article, since I couldn't find an article to shove it into further reading in. I only just now realized there is a Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland article existing. However, for some of the other books, there are no articles to shove into further reading. so I choose a topic present in those books, like "adultery", and dumped the content across various articles to make sure they stayed there, as if they were a storage dump or my documents file, so I could retrieve the journal and other references later if it needed to read them. I wasn't adding the content for the sake of the content, I only needed a quick link to the books like "Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. China Branch", should I want to read it later, I would just access one of the articles. Adding content and using the link as the reference circumvented Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_mirror_or_a_repository_of_links.2C_images.2C_or_media_files, so it wouldn't apply. Otherwise I have virtually no interest in the content I added. As Bunser noted, only a few pages of each book are actually dedicated to the topic of castration. the majority of the book is about other topics in chinese law, which I would want to access later. But i couldn't place it somehwere without violating WP:NOT concerning links.

I do realize that they disrupt the article's flow since I edited almost nothing else in those articles and just abruptly inserted them. Seeing as I have no need for them in retrospect, I will agree to stop using those articles as a storage dump and remove them. in the future I will use my userspace to dump such links into if I want to access them. you may remove them from the articles. Sorry about this disruption.Labnoor (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

In light of this, the sections should be removed.Bunser (talk) 22:01, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I also had a discussion with User:CWH over the use of these kind of ancient references on modern articles, when dealing with history. He is a long time editor on china related articles, and says these references are not qualified and they are superseeded by modern histories. I also agree tha the specific references used in this section are not exactly qualified, and they are not authoritative on their subjects, some of them not at all, and others barely. I have said I included the content from the royal asiatic society to circumvent the thing against link repositories. as for the other references like "Women of China", they were just extra window dressing to make it not seem as though the only references were the century old, ancient ones like the royal asiatic society, which are no longer qualifie, their main usefulness is that they are in public domain and we can just copy from them, not their reliability. I believe I added these before my discussion with CWH on using old references though. And you've missed the one on Sexuality in the People's Republic of China.Labnoor (talk) 04:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The Zhou, a Turkic-speaking nomadic people?

"The Decline of the Shang and the Era of Zhou Dominance. The Zhou, a Turkic-speaking nomadic people from central Asia, became vassals of the Shang. By the end of the 12th century B.C.E. they seized power and established a dynasty enduring until the 3rd millennium B.C.E. The first ruler, Wu, greatly expanded the state's borders to the east and south. The new rulers had a more centralized government than the Shang. Their most powerful vassals were relatives or loyal allies who controlled other relatives under them in the hierarchy. A distinct class of scholar-administrators, the shi - men of service - took form. Vassal states were annexed and the Zhou rulers claimed ownership of all land. Vassals received land for their support; suspect people had to migrate to areas dominated by loyal subordinates."

[...]

"Zhou: originally a vassal family of the Shang; possibly Turkic in origin; overthrew Shang and established 2nd Chinese dynasty."

(Source)--Tirgil34 (talk) 23:46, 5 Mart 2012 (CET)

It seems they're unsure whether the Zhou were "a Turkic-speaking nomadic people from central Asia" or "possibly Turkic in origin". The Turkic view seems to come from Wolfram Eberhard's History of China, but it is only one of many found in different sources. Fairbank and Gernet, for example, speak of a western tribe in contact with non-Chinese peoples. In truth little is known of the pre-conquest Zhou.

But since this source nevertheless calls the Zhou a "Chinese dynasty", there seems no reason to tag that phrase in the article. Kanguole 09:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

You are completely right. I think the best solution at this moment would be to stay on the option >"clarification needed"<. What would you say?--Tirgil34 (talk) 20:53, 6 Mart 2012 (CET)

I think no tag is required, because even this source calls the Zhou a "Chinese dynasty". The start of the History section would be a good place for coverage of theories of the origins of the Zhou, but it would need more focussed sources than this one. Kanguole 20:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)