Sole concern - SunTzu's : Art of War[edit]

Foreward[edit]

Firstly, thanks to PatarKnight and OliverTwisted for their messages. I have not conntacted you mainly due to the fact that I am still trying to get used to the knobs and tweakers within the wikipedia environment. I keep thinking that I have to contact people by an email facility but I suspect that I need to just add text to a talk page. Secondly, I would like to add that I will try to continue within the footsteps of previous contributors to respect their graft, where possible. Help and suggestions throughout this project will be gratefully received by anyone - especially those capable of spelling my username. Fithsun (talk) 22:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Current Wording[edit]

The word 'competitive' is a modern application to the Art of War and it makes light of the text of War. The opening to the Art of War asks us to consider the gravity of War; it is about life and death. Competitive insinuates that, if either opponent loses, we can shake hands and both walk away from the matter. I'm sure that for modern application this has its use and that the linked use of the term should stay, but not within the summary of the 13 chapters. Furthermore, I would like to limit the use of the word 'economic'. The economy of war is certainly within the scope of the Art of War but not so explicity so as to be directly applied to business and economics. The Art of War, in my view, is to readily butchered and reformed to imply that it is of use to business. The ubiquitous use of the text in this manner is misleading, although I'll accept that it has its place, an intrinsic unbiased view is called for. I would also like to add that there is a profound and mystical feel to the Art of War that allows re-interpretation to a strategic calling of some description, hence these derivatives.Fithsun (talk) 22:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

New headings proposal[edit]

I believe that I have identified 4 new headings to be included within the article:

• Translational notes

• History

• Ideology

• Some sort of elaboration of the 13 chapters

Translational notes - Several problems exist within the current articles discussion page and there are several other problems that occur as well. This can easily be rectified with a dedicted and balanced discussion about these polemics while at the same time allowing the investigator to make a well informed judgement. I will try to deliver an outline and test section as some point below.

History - Clearly historical fact is missing here. We need to include the Zhou dynasty and Qin dynasty. The latter because competing philosophies to Legalism were destroyed and because, if I remember correctly, the ancient brush script was altered to the more modern chinese script that we know of today. The Zhou dynasty should include: its inception, and in particular the decline via the 7 main states and several smaller states, the 'warring states' period, possibly the 'mandate of Heaven', the beginning of the Chinese iron age.

Ideology - I've already mention Legalism we also require Conficianism and Daoism; our rosetta stone for understanding the text, its ambiguous and mystical nature.

Chapter Elaboration - the current entries do not consist of enough information to adequately inform the reader. The difficulty here is that the AOW is somewhat terse in its description and it does not have a structure thats easily summarised due to many topics and considerations within a single chapter. Copyright infringement needs to be a primary concern here, but I believe that a balance can be struck between the nature of the text while circumventing copyright, and only leaving a few holes and cracks in the dissemination; an accurate partial representation would sell more books = more chinese literary greats. Even though i'll be using 4 translations, the wording is close enough in many areas to be treading on someones toes, and at the same time deviation from the text, via Thesaurus say, would fail in its accuracy. My feeling is that although the text will, in many areas, lend itself to lists of bullet points or syllogisms this won't distance itself enough from the reference material. Also, rambling descriptions that arbitrarily deviate from the script will fail in accuracy. My initial conclusion is therefore that the text should be diagramatically represented - boxes and flow diags - with elimination of peripheral text. I will build a trial for chapter 1 as a test bed at some stage.Fithsun (talk) 23:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Testing[edit]

Just a small section to build test headings and trial them until happy

Translation notes[edit]

The Art of War was written by Sun Tzu and is estimated to have been written some time around 500 BCE. The dating for this comes from Ssu-ma Ch`ien(Sima Qian) who describes an account whereby Sun Tzu writes 13 chapters for King Ho Lu of Wu[1]. Sun Tzu's descendent, Sun Bin, is also described by Sima Qian as having lived some 100 years thereafter. Sima Qian then continues to recount a story concerning a Sun Wu as a man advises the King of Wu, Ho Lu, to make crucial battle decisions[2].Fithsun (talk) 04:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
In 1972, some bamboo writing tablets were discovered in a tomb in the province of Shangdong, referred to as the Yinqueshan Han Slips. Amongst these bamboo slips was a previously lost 'Sun Bin's - Art of War' as well as a new version of Sun Tzu's Art of War now known as the 'Silver Sparrow' version.

Adoption Offer[edit]

{{adoptoffer}} Hi there! Please either accept or decline my adoption offer by clicking here. I can't wait to get to know you better! :) --♥Soccer5525♥Talk To Me! 22:57, 13 April 2009 (UTC) P.S: The section where you put testing,instead next time you just could've used a sandbox. Each user on Wikipedia has the ability to have their own sandbox, where they can make tests of different things. If I adopt you, you will be able to learn everything about sandboxes, and even get your own! Have left acceptance to your offer on your talk page. Here is a rough idea for possible continuation what do you think?

The 5 fundamentals should be accurate and changed to: Tao, Heaven, Earth, Leadership and discipline. Although discipline could remain as management as it covers the elaborated details laid out in the AOW. Although I have some doubt as to whether the chapter 1 summary should even include this as a description. A better appraisal would be:
Chapter 1 includes the initial decisions for war (The gravity of war, the 5 fundamentals, deception, 7 assessments, fighting concepts, methods of destabilisation).
Although all of these elements exist within the text they are not clear headings within the AOW and are drawn from my notes on the chapter. These categories do not exist but are implied. Even if we allowed these headings (the above new description or the Heaven, Tao, Earth example) to be edited into the article we would require further explanation of these terms elsewhere. How would you feel about an SVG diagram for chapter elaboration, I now have inkscape and could put together a rudimentary trial, but will others' be able to edit it(this would be a good idea), and how suitable is this approach for wikipedia?

There are a couple of other points that need to be considered:

I've been trying to word apropriately some translation notes as, somewhere, somehow, there should be mention of seal script, or other relevant scripts(follow the links). But I don't know which script AOW was written in.
I have also written to Washington University asking them to verify their date for the spring/autumn period during the Zhou dynasty, which differs from the internet dates, so that we could link a brief background history to this - i'm still waiting.