User talk:Remotepluto/Archive 2

Evidence of User:Kamakatsu vandalizing my comments and fabricating information about sources on Talk:Nanking Massacre

I only chose stuff he made up when replying to me. There were other fabrications that I'm aware of, but that's another story. The diffs are provided in chronological order.

• Diff 1 where "I see that Frank Dorn got into historical writing later; however the statement that he made was when he was a soldier." in order to disqualify Dorn's writings as a reliable (although primary) source. Frank Dorn (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/frank-dorn.htm) was a American soldier in 1937, retired in 1953, and made that statement in a book (ISBN 9780025322004) he wrote in 1974. A single search on Google should reveal what year this book was published. I assumed good faith in him, so I just pointed out the facts and did not make accusations.

• Diff 2 This one was egregious, in two ways.

(1) I used an asterisk (*) before my comment to highlight him misrepresenting my opinion. He edited out that asterisk into a colon (:) to make my comment less conspicuous. I didn't even notice this very subtle vandalism for a few days.

(2) With "Putting aside that Matsusaka Yoshihisa is not a historian", he was trying to sneak in false information in order to dispute the reliability of the source Y. Matsusaka. A simple google search will reveal that Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka is a tenured history professor at a reputable institute in the US. He apologized when I called out, but it's too hard for me to think of a reason that such a mistake can be made inadvertently.

• Diff 3 He said "at that part he references that the prisoners of war amount to no less than 200,000." when talking about the book Nankin Dai Gyakusatsu Ketteiban by Prof. Tomio Hora of Waseda University.

"That part" was chapter 6, "On the estimation of death toll", from pages 184-216 in the Chinese version. Hora actually wrote a Chapter 3 "Killing of POWs, 'plainclothes soldiers' and refugees" regarding the number of POWs. I read through Chapter 6. There were "200,000", there were "POWs", but I could not find a statement about 200,000 POWs, because Hora estimated POWs to be about 30,000 - 100,000. Mr. Kamakatsu could be outright lying that he actually had read this book, given that in a previous comment he said that he saw Hora's number from someone else's book. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

• Diff 4 and Diff 5 He fabricated quotes from the Frank Dorn book, in a conversation that we had, pasted here:

It was not a mere testimony as a soldier. He wrote it in a book in 1974 published by Macmillan. Plus, we should stick to Wikipedia standards regarding sources. Remotepluto (talk) 00:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

He indeed references it, but in the next paragraph he qualifies it by saying that this figure was said to provide a "rough estimate" according to "people fleeing the scene," not as his own estimate. Kamakatsu (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I did not read his book, but from what you paraphrase I surmise that he summarized the accounts from "people fleeing the scene" and gave this number, which stands as his own, albeit rough, estimate. Problem is, self-admitted roughness is not a valid reason to summarily reject this study. Actually, with the lack/loss of records, people who experienced the event dying out, and hyperbole and whitewashing in testimonies from either side, probably the estimate has to stay "rough" until a time machine is invented. Frank Dorn honestly qualified his statements, whereas many of the other authors from both sides were not willing to admit the roughness in their studies. We shouldn't punish Frank for his frankness (pun intended), which is a virtue that some others might not have. Again, we should stick to Wikipedia standards for reliable sources (WP:SOURCE), per which Frank Dorn's book qualifies (and I think most of the sources in the tables here qualify), and refrain from imposing too much personal judgement. Remotepluto (talk) 01:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

He explicitly states that it should be taken with a grain of salt. He states (in the succeeding paragraph to his quote), "However, as this was a rough estimate that I gathered from people fleeing the scene, it should not be discussed within academic circles." I guess we should just agree to disagree about this, as I think it's pointless trying to belabor a single point (By your logic, we would have to include Frank Capra as well, I personally think that we should remove both of them, if you don't mind). I agree with you in that some of these estimates were indeed rough; however the estimates made that referenced burial records and actual field surveys should be taken, as Bob Wakabayashi says, superlative to other estimates, particularly those referencing "contemporary eyewitnesses." Kamakatsu (talk) 08:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to call out User:Kamakatsu for misrepresenting sources. He contends that Frank Dorn admitted that the 200,000 estimate "gathered from people fleeing the scene", and "should not be discussed within academic circles". Seeing this, I searched for "fleeing the scene" and "academic circles" in the two relevant books (The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41: From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor, Macmillan, 1974, ISBN 9780025322004, and China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937-1945, M.E. Sharpe, 1992, ISBN 9780765636324) in Google Books, and no such phrases came up. I'd also provide two screenshots (See: http://imgur.com/a/TGfvr) showing the relevant part of the book, where no such statements as he "quoted" exist. Fabricating quotes from sources is a serious transgression on Wikipedia and such disruptive behavior should not be tolerated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Remotepluto (talk • contribs) 21:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Obviously he made a fabricated quote, and later to cover up this one made up another, whose style didn't look like formal writing by a native English speaker in 1974. Had he not made the second lie that was linguistically too blatant, I would have glossed over the first one. (Hint: In formal non-fiction writing one should: a) use "which" instead of "that", or no conjunction at all, to start an adjective clause; b) avoid using the first-person pronoun "I"; c) position the causal adverbial clause behind the main clause; d) use "because", "for" or "since" instead of "as".)

O so much good faith I assumed in him, which ended up being moot. Remotepluto (talk) 21:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)