Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deportation of Chinese in the Soviet Union

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Strong consensus that any hoax elements of the article have been resolved thanks to the work of User:HNlander during the course of the AfD. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 11:16, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Deportation of Chinese in the Soviet Union[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

Deportation of Chinese in the Soviet Union (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The artcle is translated from Chinese Wikipedia article zh:远东华人强制流配, but our community has found this Chinese article is a hoax, it contains many fictitious information which is not mentioned by the sources it cites. Since the English article is a translation, it also have this problem.

See also:

(I am not good at English, I feel sorry if my words are difficult to understand) BlackShadowG (talk) 04:49, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  1. On the user page you indicate that you are retired, does this mean that there is a deadline for your work? That is, once the time has passed you will leave it alone and the entries will not be further improved.
  2. The second question is more important: Can you read Chinese and Russian materials?
Folded hair misused the real sources to give a lot of misinformation of Pseudohistory. How do you know which part is true and which part is false? --Beta Lohman※Office box 19:34, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I am working on the issues you've mentioned right now.
For your first question, although I decide to be much less active, there is no deadline for me and I still regularly check my talk page in case of any issue, which is why I join the discussion here.
For your second question, I can read Chinese as I am a native speaker, but I can only read Russian via machine translation. Thus, as I said, I am not able to verify Russian sources and I tend to delete the relevant parts if a good alternative source is unavailable.
I think you've mentioned a third question about how I validate the sources. I can gain access to most of the references from several universities and the Internet and compare them with the original text. I will check the references this way one by one. Whereas needed (e.g. when I think I find the exactly Russian quote that can validate the content or the original content is hard to access for other people due to subscription or whatnot), I will quote the original text. Additionally, 折毛 also confessed that there were deleted Chinese Wikipedia articles that are not fake, but we will see as I further check the sources.
--HNlander (talk) 20:04, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply: Before I dive into other topics, I still have one question.
Why did you translate this article in the first place, instead of writing it with English references from the beginning? --Beta Lohman※Office box 20:50, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's very common to translate articles from other language Wikipedias. This is generally a good way to make use of the work that our colleagues in other languages have already done in gathering and summarizing sources. I've done the same thing in a number of articles. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:00, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another Reply to user:HNlander: The archives of Academia Sinica is registration only. The site have no direct links, which means fact-checking unavailable. --Beta Lohman※Office box 00:27, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    First, your claim that non-Taiwanese cannot gain access to this resource is untruthful. If you follow the instructions regarding the registration, and provide the required personal information, you will be granted access. I have done this successfully a few days ago. Second, these sources are also included in the Chinese-language sources in the article, of which you can gain access to through many methods or ask for a copy from me. ---HNlander (talk) 16:47, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment zh:Wikipedia:頁面存廢討論/記錄/2022/06/16#远东华人强制流配 is apparently the original, zh-wiki AFD, and was to delete zh:维基百科:维基百科恶作剧列表/远东华人强制流配 (archived at what I interpret to be a zh-wiki version of Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia) which is what I believe the article in this AFD is translated from. The original zh-wiki AFD has (purely based on votes) a 4/2 (nom and another user wanting a rewrite included) keep/delete ratio, with the side arguing for deletion mostly claiming that the article was created by an editor who was involved in creating numerous hoaxes. The side arguing to keep the article mainly claimed that the article is (at its core) factual but needed to be re-written or re-checked in order to ensure accuracy. The AFD was closed as delete but the article was then recreated by Nrya, an experienced editor on zh-wiki as a stub. I'm unsure of the accuracy of most of the en-wiki article but I'll say it's probably best to draftify or make turn the article into a stub but keep the historical version in case someone wants to go over its sources and clean the article up in general. Pinging nominator (BlackShadowG) for comments about my interpretation of the zh-wiki links and suggestion. Justiyaya 11:38, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes that's right, your interpretation of the zh-wiki is right. I can provide more information about the hoaxes incident on Chinese Wikipedia: The article is created by User:折毛, who was an active user on zhwiki, mainly contribute to Russian history related articles. On June 16, our community found that an article created by this user, called 卡申银矿, is a hoax. After checking many other articles, we found that nearly all 200+ articles created by 折毛 are hoaxes, nearly all the hoaxes are about Russian history. Many hoaxes created by this user cites many sources, but nearly all the cited sources are unrelated to the article, some of the sources are even fictitious. The user also chosed to use paywalled sources, or offline source to avoid the souce check. (see zh:Wikipedia:2022年古羅斯相關條目偽造事件#造假手段 for more counterfeiting methods of this user). Our community finally dicided to delete nearly all hoaxes created by this user. 折毛 lately admited her fault and apologized.
    This article (远东华人强制流配) was a FA on Chinese Wikipedia before it was found to be created by this user. Here's 折毛's response to this article:"远东华人条目前半部分基本是直接抄的，后半部分人数方面请重新统计，去掉后半部分的所有论述，那一定是错的。"(The first half of this article is basically a direct copy [from the sources], the second half in terms of the number of people need to be recount, all the exposition in the second half need to be delete , that are completely fake.)
    (I am not good at English, I feel sorry if my words are impolite or difficult to understand) BlackShadowG (talk) 12:59, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for looking at it, think there might be some copyvio issues then if the sources are not licensed correctly. Where did 折毛 write the response? can't seem to find it anywhere myself. Justiyaya 14:10, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It's on her English Wikipedia userpage, she write an apology letter there. BlackShadowG (talk) 14:34, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah I see it now, thanks :D Justiyaya 15:04, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My pleasure :) BlackShadowG (talk) 15:22, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Here is an another example[1]. The American journalist of the USA Today also wrote 23 fake news, which are all deleted. --Beta Lohman※Office box 13:45, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Beta Lohman: in what way does that have any relation? None of the articles removed by USA Today are used as sources here. It looks like none of the sources are even from that author or USA Today in general. ––FormalDude talk 14:32, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I only made that example to tell that even the news could be fake. --Beta Lohman※Office box 14:35, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draftify or Stubify: per Justiyaya. ––FormalDude talk 14:40, 18 June 2022 (UTC) [reply]
    • I'm not opposed to deletion, so I'm removing my !vote. ––FormalDude talk 21:36, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:TNT. Based on the apology letter, it seems that the current article is too damaged by plagiarism and fabricated material to serve as the basis for a future article. Draftifying has been suggested above, but I don't think that option works, due to the potential copyvio problems with the plagiarized parts of the article. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:32, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Striking due to HNlander's work fixing the article. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:11, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Ethnic Chinese in Russia. This does not look like an outright hoax to me, but possibly WP:SYN. Undoubtedly, some Chinese people have been deported, see here. But I never heard about a deportation campaign directed specifically against Chinese people in the USSR (there was such campaign with regard to Koreans). Unfortunately, sources cited on the page are not accessible (e.g. in Russian), so I could not quickly verify sourcing here. There had to be a specific NKVD or another directive/order for the deportation of Chinese people, as it was for Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union. Without such directive/order this page looks like WP:SYN. My very best wishes (talk) 23:03, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Switching to keep after recent improvements. Undoubtedly, a significant number of Chinese people were deported in the Soviet Union, similar to Koreans and many other ethnic groups and that was done because on their ethnicity. Even if there was no specific NKVD directive, such subject has every right to exist as a page about persecution of a specific ethnic group. But apparently, the directive with regard to Koreans also covered certain Chinese people, as now clarified on the page. Moreover, there was such specific directive about Chinese people [2]. I had no idea. My very best wishes (talk) 17:12, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

* Delete as the text is hopelessly flawed due to fabrication on Chinese Wikipedia. Maybe there should be a redirect, but only after deletion of this mess. --StellarNerd (talk) 16:43, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Stubify or Redirect, per WP:ATD.--GZWDer (talk) 05:35, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draftify so the other editors can find more reliable sources on the topic. Howeer, I'm a bit skeptical as the only reliable sources might be found in the archives of the KGB — Preceding unsigned comment added by Onetimememorial (talk • contribs) 18:10, 20 June 2022 (UTC)--Onetimememorial (talk) 18:14, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stubify per WP:ATD-E. This is an event that appears to have happened and thousands of Chinese were swept up while the soviets were busy deporting Koreans. There's coverage of this event that predates the Wikipedia article, and coverage of this that post-dates it, so we're going to have to be careful to avoid citogenesis. Ordinarily, nuking longstanding articles on notable subjects is frowned upon, but this seems like a clear WP:IAR case so that we remediate hoax claims in an article that is not entirely a hoax. This is going to require nuking much of the article, but there is enough information that's good and properly cited in the article that TNT seems out of the question. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 16:46, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Mhawk10: Not to mention the fact that the entry is mainly from non-English sources, and that they have to avoid the Circular reporting after the entries are created. The above proposal is sure to cause another question. What happens if we do it exactly this way and no one rewrites the entries? --Beta Lohman※Office box 19:15, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think that a three-to-four-paragraph stub is better than no article at all. And, since the sources are preserved in the article's history, it isn't as if we have to start from literal scratch in terms of doing research on this topic. To avoid circular sourcing or creating a Brazilian aardvark situation, it would be pretty simple; we could limit ourselves to using sources published before the user became involved in the Chinese Wikipedia article. Any administrator on the Chinese Wikipedia should be able to share the first date that the user made an edit to that article. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 19:34, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not gonna say this is a hoax, but it does not deserve a standalone article. ScriptKKiddie (talk) 07:30, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
     Comment: There are many Russian [1][2] journal articles, plus various Chinese sources (as used and verified in the article), plus English-language sources [1], so there are enough sources to write a standalone article as long as we can verify them. I am checking on the original sources and adding new sources to improve the article. You can just open the edit page, which shows the original text from each source cited as hidden annotations if verified. --HNlander (talk) 04:39, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Move without redirect to a sub-page of Wikipedia:Fabricated articles and hoaxes of Russia in 2022 to document the current version’s history, with templates indicating that the page is unreliable. Once done, allow recreation of a new, RS-backed page at the current title. This is not a reflection on the article subject. Thanks. NotReallySoroka (talk) 23:33, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and oppose stubify per WP:Hoax. While the overall topic may be notable, the deliberate misinformation in this article is too problematic to allow the article and its history to remain. No prejudice against re-creation if an accurate article supported by reliable sources is made.4meter4 (talk) 04:44, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @4meter4: Would you mind specify any problem you see in the article? I have been trying to replace unverifiable sources but not sure whether I have missed anything. --HNlander (talk) 05:58, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
 ——— 
  • Hi all! I have tried my best to validate the sources in the articles and add several new sources.
1. For the notability issue, the article deserves a standalone article. I have added the English translation of the related Soviet decrees but I hope someone can help me check whether the translation is fine. Also, in the book Burnt by the Sun: The Koreans of the Russian Far East, the deportation of Chinese was often mentioned. The life of Chinese in the Russian Far East was described to back the description of Koreans in the book. Besides, there are many Chinese and Russian sources mentioning this event.
2. For reliability issues, most of the sources are verifiable, but I have marked several sources as subscription-based. If you want to access the sources, please contact me and I will provide a copy of these sources. However, I modify some of the sources and add new sources to improve the article.
2.1. I have removed the following sources, most of them in Russian, as I have no access to them or I am unable to verify the references from them, which include:
  • Бугай Н.Ф. (2018). И. Сталин - Мао Цзэдун: судьбы китайцев в СССР – России (in Russian). Москва: Филин. ISBN 978-5-9216-0566-4.
  • Чернолуцкая Е. Н. (2014). "Принудительные миграции на советском Дальнем Востоке в 1920-1950-е гг". Специальность ВАК РФ (in Russian) (7): 262.
  • Залесская О. В. (2009). "Китайские мигранты на Дальнем Востоке России : 1858-1938 гг". Археологии и этнографии народов Дальнего Востока ДВО РАН (in Russian) (1). Благовещенск.
2.2. There are Russian first-hand sources referenced in Chinese sources. To avoid original research from several first-hand sources, I replace the source with the Chinese sources that made the synthesis of the content, which include:
2.3. There are also several Taiwanese sources in similar situation, but they can still be verified from Taiwanese Academia Sinica archives, which I have recently gained access to. These sources include but are not limited to:
2.4. If there are still any mistakes or wrong citations, please kindly inform me, and I will look into that.

 ——— 

  • @Beta Lohman: Thanks for asking these good questions. I think Mx. Granger has made a good response to one of your question. As for another question, I have gained access to the archives of Academia Sinica, which is registration-based but it is not hard to get registered. But most of the sources have been included in the journal articles in the references.
  • @BlackShadowG: I update the statistics and removed the data if unable to verify them. But I am not sure what other problems you might see in the article. I will be thankful if you can notify me any further issue.
  • @FormalDude:/@Mx. Granger: You are right with your observations, since the article was not a simple translation of its original Chinese version. Furthermore, in its original Chinese version, most parts of the articles are based on the Chinese-language journal articles in the references. I doubt whether 折毛 who created the original Chinese version have read or gained access to the Russian sources and the Taiwanese sources independently since they have been referred to in these Chinese-language journal articles. I deleted some Russian sources of which I have no access to or I cannot verify but the statements in the article are still well-backed by the Chinese sources.
  • @Onetimememorial: Most of the sources are reliable and peer-reviewed articles or degree theses from some good universities. While deleting the sources that I cannot verify (see above), I have also added some sources to back the article. Since not all sources are in English, I have added English translation of the titles for your convenience. I will be thankful if you can notify me any specific issue.
  • @My very best wishes: Hi, I have added the Soviet decrees as you requested, but I am not sure what else need to be improved from your perspective.
  • @Mhawk10: Thanks for pointing out the issues regarding circular reporting, yet the Wilson Center article was added by me when I translated this article from Chinese. Thus, this source actually pre-dates the article. I will be thankful if you can notify me any further issue.
 ——— 
 ——— 
HNlander (talk) 07:28, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I am not very satisfied with the solution. In short, you should do one more thing. For those Russian and Chinese references that are not directly readable, you should upload the references to Scribd and place them on the discussion page for editorial review, especially the diplomatic literature from Academia Sinica (consider that non-Taiwanese cannot register). Or, as I did in the Chinese version of List of spy operations involving the Military Intelligence Bureau, post academic documents under the fair use doctrine.
All materials should have direct access to the website to eliminate any suspicion of falsification. --Beta Lohman※Office box 07:45, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
First, I am not Taiwanese, and I can assure you that the registration for the Academia Sinica archive is not for Taiwanese only. You can gain access by just following the instructions on the website. Second, these Taiwanese sources were actually copied from the Chinese journal articles, especially Yin, Guangming (2016). "苏联处置远东华人问题的历史考察(1937—1938)" [A Historical Investigation of the Soviet Union's Handling of the Chinese Issue in the Far East (1937-1938)]. Modern Chinese History Studies (in Simplified Chinese) (2): 41, by 折毛. Since Yin, Guangming (2016)'s article has no restriction on access, you can read and check out the sources when reading it. I doubt whether 折毛 had read these sources herself. Third, I agree that all materials should be accessible and thank you for your advice on uploading files to Scribd. I will upload other files later, as per your request.--HNlander (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Beta Lohman: I am sorry but I cannot upload any file of which I have no copyright as per General Uploader Agreement on Scribd. There is no mention of fair use under the Agreement, while I am not sure whether uploading them is fair use as there is no precedent to follow. If you want to gain access to CNKI, you can try the method mentioned on Zhihu. I deleted the Russian sources to which I have no access and the rest are either registration-based or open access. The registration is just nothing but a simple email registration. The best I can do is to upload the Chinese sources with restricted access for now at https://www.scribd.com/user/586545932/hnllllandera and once discussion here is done, I will remove them from Scribd. HNlander (talk) 08:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think you didn't fully understand my meaning. As I saw the other articles also cited a link via Scribd, there's no excuse that to say like you don't do that. --Beta Lohman※Office box 08:39, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For further issue. Go on his talk page. --Beta Lohman※Office box 08:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But it doesn't seem to be a good practice unless these articles are uploaded by their copyright owners, according to the General Uploader Agreement. There is either precedent ruling or local convention to ensure that it is legal for me to upload the files, yet I still did this for you during the discussion. Other articles doing this doesn't mean they are right to do so. For example, I also saw some articles cite Baidu Baike but that doesn't mean Baidu Baike is a reliable source on Wikipedia.--HNlander (talk) 08:49, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • @HNlander: Thank you for your hard work to resolve the issues with this article. From my perspective, you've fully resolved the hoax concern. My one remaining concern is plagiarism. I gather that 折毛 copied parts of the original zh.wikipedia article directly from the sources – are there still parts of the article that are direct translations of the sources, or have you rewritten enough that that's not a problem? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:11, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mx. Granger: The situation is a bit complicated. The parts in Chinese sources she copied from involve many quotes from newspapers and government reports that have no copyright or of which copyright expires. Thus, it might be reasonable to directly translate the quotes. And there are many examples in the articles, e.g. those statements involving Shen Bao. Meanwhile, these quotes were mostly written in Classical Chinese, of which word-by-word translation is difficult. And it is almost impossible to translate directly into English without any modification. Compared with the original Chinese text, the English translation has to be some forms of re-writing, as least from my perspective of view. As I have also supplemented new sources and restructured paragraphs, the issue might be minimal here in the English version, yet plagiarism might still be an issue in the original Chinese version, where there are no re-writing and translation. --HNlander (talk) 12:01, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@HNlander: if you send me those Classical Chinese sources/quotes on my talk, I might be able to help. Iseult Δx parlez moi 14:15, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, @Iseult! I will be happy if you can join and check the Classical Chinese sources with me. I will later add a section regarding relevant paragraphs on your talk page.
However, please note that I don't intend to do word-by-word translation, and there is no need to do so, as long as the translation does not violate the original meaning. As Mx. Granger says, one remaining concern is about plagiarism, or to be more specific, whether the article has been re-written thoroughly enough to avoid plagiarism. Thus, word-by-word translation without proper paraphrasing and citation could constitute plagiarism, which should be avoided.
My point is actually not the difficulty in word-by-word translation, but rather, I stress that I have to paraphrase uncopyrighted Classical Chinese quotes during translation which reduces the possibility of plagiarism, yet I am not sure whether this sort of paraphrasing still constitute cross-language plagiarism and need to be improved, as it is done not thorough enough.
--HNlander (talk) 18:34, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I note that the article has been almost completely rewritten after the nomination, and now uses different sources. Editors may want to discuss whether this makes the initial concerns moot.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 16:47, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Switching to keep – it seems that the major problems have been resolved by User:HNlander's hard work, and any remaining problems can be fixed by normal editing. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as now the current re-written version should have fixed the issue. Please see the previous discussion and the edit history for more details. I will be most thankful for any further comments or opinions. --HNlander (talk) 17:02, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: and much Wikilove to HNlander, for what is essentially rewriting and expanding the whole thing after the AFD started. I've randomly sampled two sources and they seem to be fine at a glance so probably not a hoax (although would like someone else to look over it too), appears to be distinct enough from the AFDed version so it's probably not a copyright violation (maybe revdel needed but have no idea). Did notice some MOS and tone issues at times which can probably be fixed after the AFD. (tag for copy editing after I guess) Again, thank you HNlander for coming out of retirement and expanding this draft. was notified of this via a message on my talk Justiyaya 18:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the current version. NotReallySoroka (talk) 03:19, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I speak Russian, English and Chinese, so can provide some help if it's needed. --Алый Король (talk) 09:24, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep My initial instinct was to WP:TNT, but since HNLander has returned to save the article I think this should be kept and reviewed. Toadspike (talk) 09:40, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep after HNLander TNTed it and verified everything in it. --StellarNerd (talk) 20:02, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Special thanks to HNLander and others for their work in re-verifying the sourcing for this article, and mitigating the damage done by the hoax. --benlisquareT•C•E 04:04, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Historical event with major notability in Population transfers in the Soviet Union. See also this source as well as mentioned above numerous references as background information in the book Burnt by the Sun: The Koreans of the Russian Far East which also includes details about this. Special thanks to HNLander for verifications and improvements in the article. -- Rauisuchian (talk) 03:14, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep since there is now evidence that this is supported by reliable sources, and with a trustworthy bilingual editor HNLander on point. Chumpih t 18:08, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep HNLander's version of the article is well-written and well-sourced. CJ-Moki (talk) 02:15, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Deportation_of_Chinese_in_the_Soviet_Union&oldid=1097829253"