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Where can one get a list of these and where they are located? The Jade Knight 03:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
shouldn't this work (in progress) including the plan be moved to the main page? -- Ghormax 21:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
See Why China wants you to learn Chinese By Carol Huang | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor. Blank Verse 22:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
When adding to the list, I'd like to ask editors to please provide a link to confirm the existence or at least future existence of an institute. And it should be more than some news about how a certain school wants to start a Confucius Institute. Hong Qi Gong ( Talk - Contribs) 00:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
There are apparently three in Africa (South Africa, Kenya, and Rwanda), with plans to open 20 more in the next couple of years. Badagnani 18:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's the link. Badagnani 05:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
That's just another example of the great and irreplaceable things that we do. Badagnani 05:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added all 3 African ones, and they're properly sourced. Badagnani 05:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I am about to make some changes to the links in the article in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Lists. In general with lists like this the links should go to a Wikipedia article page (even if it is a red link). In keeping with WP:V it is appropriate for the reference to be listed. If you have questions about my changes drop me a line on my talk page. Jeepday ( talk) 14:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Deleted link to Chinese software from the external links section that was not relevant to the article. Caskinner 10:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the massive list thing. Is it necessary? What about making that a drop down box?
Secondly, here's an article on the topic: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=179b4e77-f0cf-4608-a8b7-a9943116f489 -- Asdfg 12345 06:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Seems pretty harmless. Most Chinese are apathetic to politics and I don't think teachers outside of being patriotic or nationalistic towards "their" China are on some mission to spread CCP propoganda! My God the CCP is not even communist by def., let alone this organization. People chill out, until China itself desides to embrace a truly open soceity we are stuck with this system. Again I think the article to biased against the political aspects which really have nothing to do with teaching Chinese language and culture. We should be embracing them not returning to this isolationist non sense! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.82.16.129 ( talk) 11:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
I've found more references for this section and suggest we reorganize along better lines than the current three paragraphs for politicians, educators, and journalists. Rearranging geographically by countries seems more workable than chronologically by 2004-2010, so I'll try that unless someone has a better idea. Keahapana ( talk) 20:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinion, Quigley. My intent is to maintain NPOV for this section; I'm expanding hoping to balance out the repeated deletions of relevant quotes. I agree that, for example, adding controversies into this article's History section would be coatracking but not adding controversies into Controversies. In researching this CI topic, I've found surprisingly many citations and am only adding the most informative – hardly "every negative reaction to the CIs everywhere". Discussion about CI controversies is intrinsically critical, but whenever possible, like the Washington Times and USA Today quotes, I've included both sides of the argument. Within the next few days, I'll try to finish adding refs and then cutting down Controversies. I look forward to constructively cooperating with you and other editors to improve the quality of this article. Keahapana ( talk) 01:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I looked over the Controversies section, and found some glaring errors. Here's several examples. In the paragraph about Israel, it ends with the statement "The decision noted administrators feared losing funding for the Confucius Institute." However in the cited reference [12], the Confucius Institute was never mentioned in the article, not once. Where did the part "the decision noted administrators" and "Confucius Institute" come from? Personal conclusion based on that statement "succumbed to pressure from the Chinese Embassy, which funds various activities at the university, and took down the exhibit, violating freedom of expression"? That could be original research.
And there is this part citing this " U. of Chicago's Plans for Milton Friedman Institute Stir Outrage on the Faculty" source:
At the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2006 and the University of Chicago in 2010, the Faculty Senates formally complained that CIs had been established without proper approval, violating shared governance in higher education. Over 170 faculty members signed a letter to University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer that called CIs "an academically and politically ambiguous initiative sponsored by the government of the People's Republic of China." It said the university had proceeded "without due care to ensure the institute's academic integrity" and had risked having its own reputation used to "legitimate the spread of such Confucius Institutes in this country and beyond." [1]
First of all, quotes like "an academically and politically ambiguous initiative sponsored by the government of the People's Republic of China" and "without due care to ensure the institute's academic integrity" weren't even in the source! The source actually starts out stating "The University of Chicago's plan to move ahead with developing a controversial institute named for Milton Friedman has prompted more than 170 of the university's faculty members to sign a petition complaining that it is becoming increasingly "corporatized" and that its president, Robert J. Zimmer, is trampling upon their shared-governance rights." The parts about the Confucius Institute was briefly in "The establishment of a Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics without a vote of the full faculty is hardly the only action by the administration that the letter cites as objectionable. It also objects to the university's decision to allow the creation of a Confucius Institute on the campus without the Faculty Senate's approval." How did the contributor jump to these conclusions? And phrased as if the letter was mainly about the Confucius Institute when it was not the main point? And the University of Hawaii-Manoa was also never mentioned in the source. And those quotes?-- Teamjenn ( talk) 14:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
The article's sources and their attributed statements should be checked and verified, as I just found several that are erroneously attributed and there's content that are not found in the references at all.-- Teamjenn ( talk) 14:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
This article definitely needs more users' contributions instead of almost entirely consist of just one contributor, Keahapana's. This is suppose to be an "encyclopedia article" about an organization. However, more than 4/5 of the article's texts are about "controversies", along with a single paragraph of history.-- Teamjenn ( talk) 14:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
First, I've corrected my referencing mistake. I confused two 2010 Chronicle articles by Peter Schmidt: "U. of Chicago" 6/1/2010 and "At U.S. Colleges" 10/17/2010. Second, the edit history is being misinterpreted. In October 2009, I first contributed to the original "Criticism" section (with 3 refs), In August 2010, I reverted some questionable deletions, cleaned up, and retitled as "Controversies" following Quigley's suggestion (10 refs, viz., the venerated 3-paragraph version). In December 2010, I researched CIs, added more information, fixed links, and reorganized geographically (31 refs). Third, Evolution, really? The relative brevity of Evolution#Social and cultural responses results from wikilinks to main articles on Social effect of evolutionary theory, Objections to evolution, and Creation-evolution controversy. Fourth, I agree with Biophys and JeremyMiller that the current article still lacks basic material. Yes, what does CI do? What about Confucius Classrooms and other programs? Financing? Government control? After we've fledged out the missing basic sections, we can decide whether the UNDUE question is moot. In sum, I suggest we cooperate writing new sections to complete the article instead of this WP:JDLI quibbling. I'll start a new topic below. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 21:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Li Changchun:"Confucius Institute is...an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up" http://www.economist.com/node/14678507
Why is this statement POV?
Li Changchun is a very important and powerful man in China, why is it that his statement being ignored by wiki editors? Is www.economist.com not to be trusted, or
Li Changchun not to be trusted?
Arilang
talk
12:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
“ | manual of style specifically says, "The lead should establish significance, include mention of notable criticism or controversies, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more." | ” |
CJ Carnacchio is editor for The Oxford Leader.
“ | I was reading an Oct. 22, 2009 article in The Economist entitled, "A message from Confucius: New ways of projecting soft power" and something caught my eye. Li Changchun, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boss, was quoted as describing Confucius Institutes as "an important part of China's overseas propaganda set-up." | ” |
“ | The accuracy of quoted material is paramount and the accuracy of quotations from living persons is especially sensitive. To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted... Partisan secondary sources should be viewed with suspicion as they may misquote or quote out of context. In such cases, look for neutral corroboration from another source. | ” |
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IE24Ad02.html
“ | During an inspection of the Hanban late last month, Li Changchun, one of the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo in charge of ideology and propaganda, stressed that the construction of Confucius Institutes "is an important channel to glorify Chinese culture, to help Chinese culture spread to the world", which is "part of China's foreign propaganda strategy". | ” |
User JeremyMiller, are you happy now?
Arilang
talk
13:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
The fact is, CI is owned by HanBan, which is owned by PRC, so, that means CI is an official Chinese government institution. Naturally Li Changchun as one of the top leader of PRC, his statement on CI should be included in the lede, the full quote being:"is an important channel to glorify Chinese culture, to help Chinese culture spread to the world...(which is) part of China's foreign propaganda strategy". Editors jobs is to have a clear and tidy writing of the article. Plus, the statement was made by Li Changchun, not "Chinese government". Arilang talk 23:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
User JeremyMiller, HanBan is back up by 12 Chinese ministries, how "Non governmental" can it be?
The Chinese Language Council International is composed of members from 12 state ministries and commissions, namely,
the General Office of the State Council,
the Ministry of Education,
the Ministry of Finance,
the Overseas Chinese Affaires Office of the State Council,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the State Development and Reform Commission,
the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture,
the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (China Radio International),
the State Press and Publications Administration,
the State Council Information Office
the State Language Work Committee.
President of the Council is State Councilor Chen Zhili.
Arilang talk 22:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
As discussed above, the CI article needs additional info in one or more new sections. We could start with something like sections 1 办学背景 and 2 办学形式 in the parallel zh interwiki. What does the current article lack? Keahapana ( talk) 22:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Hi JeremyMiller, thanks for your question on my Talk page: "Are you going fix the CI article, or do you want me to? The consensus in the discussion has been to reduce the size of the article and the repetition."
I'm currently working on another article and will get back to help with CI afterwards. However, there is clearly no consensus. I appears that three editors (Quigley, Teamjenn, and you) support diminishing the Controversies and three (Arilang, Biophys, and me) oppose it. If you have time to fix this article, you could start the new sections and move some material from Controversies. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 21:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Of course, I agree that repeated/redundant materials should be cleaned up. What I disagree with is this type of damaging diff. Biophys's preceding sentence was, "And if you can not include something else, it means it is indeed known for the controversies." Keahapana ( talk) 23:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
On my talk page, JeremyMiller wrote:
Thanks JeremyMiller for making a good start on this thorny article. You've made many useful edits, like moving that quote into the Purpose section. I apologize for not having had the time to edit here, but have found several new CI refs. Yes, you were correct to delete that Epoch Times citation. Thanks especially for reducing the repetition. I strongly agree with you that we should seek NPOV about the CIs.
We can easily fix the few minor problems. For instance, where does note 38 mention a "hands-off approach to management"? Do you have any English-language references that "propaganda does not have the same negative connotation in Chinese as it does in English"?
We may disagree over whether this current revision keeps "all the points and arguments made in the original article." Here are some examples of what appears like eviscerating pertinent information from sources.
In addition, there are two other problems. It appears that many keywords cited in the refs are now missing – Dalai Lama, freedom of speech, Communist Party of China, Falun Gong, governance in higher education, etc. Several relevant quotes that criticized CIs have disappeared – Joyce Chey, Mao Zedong, Göran Lindblad, G. Cameron Hurst III, and Robert Zimmer.
Clearly, the Controversies section still needs better organization. The original three divisions (government officials, educators, and journalists) overlapped. The previous organization by countries was too wordy. The current organization into six paragraphs (soft power, universities, EJE division, PRC topics, Tel Aviv & Maryland, and California & newspapers) seems unsystematic. I think we can create subsections that readers will find thematically consistent and understandable.
Two possibilities might be geographical organization by continents or chronological by years. Your draft version has semi-geographic divisions between PRC and California, which could be expanded into Asia and North America subsections. Historically reorganizing the citations should be straightforward, and (since CI controversies are ongoing) would facilitate future editorial additions. What do you think?
I appreciate your labors improving this CI article, and hope that we can collaborate in balancing the controversies. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 02:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
What if instead of adding more content the extremely long controversies section we instead edited it into something a little more manageable. Such a list of complains is not interesting nor relevant this article, not only that but it clearly violates NPOV and WP:UNDUE which was discussed at length above. What if instead we have a description of the controversies as summaries with several examples, no more than is necessary to illustrate the idea. Maybe even add a few quotes if necessary, then add a simple statement about there being controversies into the lead. What do you think? Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 08:03, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I've been looking though alot of this section and there is are a couple things that pop out. First, it seems clear that most of the sources cited are expressing "concern" about possible influence and not any evidence of actual influence. This is a common idea and it should be included in the article but I don't see why it would need to be any more that one sentence: "University professors, administrators and other concerned parties have repeatedly express a fear that the Confucius Institute's presence would unduly influence academic freedom, because of its unclear connections with the Chinese Communist Party." Then, maybe a mention that some universities have chosen not to partner with a CI for this reason.
We should, of course also provide some clarity on what those connections may be, instead of randomly picking a newspaper article to cite as proof that the confucius institutes are directly controlled by the leadership of the CCP without any details, as has been done on this page in the past. Also, while alot of this article seems to claim that the CIs have censored academics, when I look at the sources cited, I see again concern, also accusations, but no evidence. If this kind of influence has occured we should find some actual evidence. Just repeating what some activist said is not useful. Those actual events, are probably worthy of direct inclusion in the article, so long as we aren't just repeating ourselves. I'll see what I can do. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 18:48, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
to be more specific, the first paragraph is generally good, but could be improved with copy-editing, while almost all of the remainder is repetitive, POV, list of unimportant quotes, many of which are misrepresentations. Items which add something to the article are the following:
The rest will go. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 19:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I wrote a new controversies section integrating existing content as much as possible and adding a few citations and extra content where I thought there was not sufficient clarity. I also rewrote the name section. The controversies section is still disproportionately large but I am satisfied with the idea that this can be dealt with by filling in the rest of the article more. That's not to say the controversies section can't be improved further, just that I would support removing the clean-up and neutrality templates from that section. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 23:16, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I hope that I am not taking too much initiative by removing the neutrality and clean-up tag. The section has been entirely rewritten as described above. If there is still an NPOV dispute then by all means someone should replace the tags. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 19:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Sadly Wikipedia cannot be the home of all things. In particular the very long list of Confucius institutes is not appropriate for this article. WP:NOTDIR has more information about this policy. Wikipedia certainly has plenty of lists, but those lists are informative or link internally (see WP:LIST, this kind of incomplete web directory does not belong in an encyclopedia and it is rather cumbersome. If you wish to save this directory for some reason I recommend an alternative site like wikiindex.org or Everything2.I would keep the list if there were some hope of changing it but it is simply a web-directory, it would never have links to an article about each one, or even a sentence of relevant info about each one. I feel confident in making this major change because of the wikipedia guidelines and the previous discussions on this talk page. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 05:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I saved two links to wikipedia articles related to a confucius institute, the rest fit the problems described above. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 06:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
The website for the Confucius Instutitute maintains what looks to be a pretty comprehensive list with more information than you desire [14]. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 06:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
This one has links and looks alot the one that used to be on this article [15] Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 07:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
The controversies section contains a dubious claim that: "Hanban, which is supposedly a non-profit organization but operates CI-related companies for profit. "For instance, in November 2009, Hanban launched a new company, which won the bid for over five million U.S. dollars from the Ministry of Finance to operate the CI’s website; the person in charge of this company is also the deputy director of Hanban." If you look at the source you'll see that while the guy does have a phd and the document is hosted on the George Washington University website, the university has nothing to do with it, its just his own opinion, and he provides no evidence, sources, or references for his claim. I was not able to find this claim repeated independently. If someone can find some info on this claim, I'd really like that but we can't just state any accusation to be found on the internet as though it is fact. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 22:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Since the sections not dealing with controversy are kind of unwritten I thought it could use some planning and collaboration. One big question we need to answer is how are they run? we don't need to do this in great detail but one would logically wonder especially in light of so much suspicion whether they are staffed by communist party officials or totally and completely operationally independent. What I've read leads me to believe that neither is true but its wikipedia so stuff has to be verifiable, not just some impression, or a quote of someone's impression published in a newspaper.
This source might be of use: regulations for the adminstration of CIs HQ funds. Its a little dry, see what we can glean. If you find great sources post them below. any other ideas what topics are vital to the article. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 06:19, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
The ongoing evisceration of this CI article is shockingly destructive. Without any debate, it has gone from 56 to 15 Kb and from 70 to 26 references. Before wholesale reversion of all these relevant content deletions, I'd like to suggest a WP:SPLITTING compromise.
We could leave the current article as a WP:SUMMARY and WP:SPINOFF two new CI sub-articles. From the last stable version (arguably WP:TOOLONG), let's try moving the contents of the Controversies and List of institutes sections into spinoffs. This will not be a WP:POVFORK and we can continue the unresolved NPOV debates.
The former spinoff would move the disputed section into a new article titled perhaps Confucius Institute controversies (like BBC controversies) or Controversies about Confucius Institutes ( Controversies about Opus Dei). Alternatively, for those who might confuse "concerns" and "controversies", we could call it Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes ( Concerns and controversies over the 2010 Winter Olympics or Concerns and controversies in Shanghai Expo 2010). The latter spinoff would keep all the links, which many new WP contributors have added, and might simply be called List of Confucius Institute locations (like List of Goethe-Institut locations). I won't be online for the next few days, and I look forward to seeing your discussions. Keahapana ( talk) 21:35, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Support - I might characterize it as something other than a hatchet job, I'd prefer to say the article shed some extra weight. There is certainly precedence for splitting. I would not be opposed to that, obviously that would take care of the common complaint that the controversy take up a disproportionate part of the page. I think the controversies have notability enough, considering that they seem to show up in every media mention of the institutes. The controversies page would still have to be NPOV, of course which, but you acknowledge that so, I think this is a good idea. I'm not crazy about the list of Confucius Institute Locations being a new page but I won't oppose it. I like Concerns and Controversies over Confucius Institutes most because I think that is the most accurate. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 00:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
I've removed the UNDUE tag at the top of the article. Since splitting, the controversies section now contains a single summary paragraph in pretty neutral language. Considering the prominence of the controversies topic in media about CIs, it seems unreasonable to complain that such a paragraph is undue weight. The rest of the article just needs expanding. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 18:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Where can one get a list of these and where they are located? The Jade Knight 03:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
shouldn't this work (in progress) including the plan be moved to the main page? -- Ghormax 21:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
See Why China wants you to learn Chinese By Carol Huang | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor. Blank Verse 22:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
When adding to the list, I'd like to ask editors to please provide a link to confirm the existence or at least future existence of an institute. And it should be more than some news about how a certain school wants to start a Confucius Institute. Hong Qi Gong ( Talk - Contribs) 00:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
There are apparently three in Africa (South Africa, Kenya, and Rwanda), with plans to open 20 more in the next couple of years. Badagnani 18:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's the link. Badagnani 05:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
That's just another example of the great and irreplaceable things that we do. Badagnani 05:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added all 3 African ones, and they're properly sourced. Badagnani 05:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I am about to make some changes to the links in the article in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Lists. In general with lists like this the links should go to a Wikipedia article page (even if it is a red link). In keeping with WP:V it is appropriate for the reference to be listed. If you have questions about my changes drop me a line on my talk page. Jeepday ( talk) 14:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Deleted link to Chinese software from the external links section that was not relevant to the article. Caskinner 10:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the massive list thing. Is it necessary? What about making that a drop down box?
Secondly, here's an article on the topic: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=179b4e77-f0cf-4608-a8b7-a9943116f489 -- Asdfg 12345 06:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Seems pretty harmless. Most Chinese are apathetic to politics and I don't think teachers outside of being patriotic or nationalistic towards "their" China are on some mission to spread CCP propoganda! My God the CCP is not even communist by def., let alone this organization. People chill out, until China itself desides to embrace a truly open soceity we are stuck with this system. Again I think the article to biased against the political aspects which really have nothing to do with teaching Chinese language and culture. We should be embracing them not returning to this isolationist non sense! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.82.16.129 ( talk) 11:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
I've found more references for this section and suggest we reorganize along better lines than the current three paragraphs for politicians, educators, and journalists. Rearranging geographically by countries seems more workable than chronologically by 2004-2010, so I'll try that unless someone has a better idea. Keahapana ( talk) 20:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinion, Quigley. My intent is to maintain NPOV for this section; I'm expanding hoping to balance out the repeated deletions of relevant quotes. I agree that, for example, adding controversies into this article's History section would be coatracking but not adding controversies into Controversies. In researching this CI topic, I've found surprisingly many citations and am only adding the most informative – hardly "every negative reaction to the CIs everywhere". Discussion about CI controversies is intrinsically critical, but whenever possible, like the Washington Times and USA Today quotes, I've included both sides of the argument. Within the next few days, I'll try to finish adding refs and then cutting down Controversies. I look forward to constructively cooperating with you and other editors to improve the quality of this article. Keahapana ( talk) 01:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I looked over the Controversies section, and found some glaring errors. Here's several examples. In the paragraph about Israel, it ends with the statement "The decision noted administrators feared losing funding for the Confucius Institute." However in the cited reference [12], the Confucius Institute was never mentioned in the article, not once. Where did the part "the decision noted administrators" and "Confucius Institute" come from? Personal conclusion based on that statement "succumbed to pressure from the Chinese Embassy, which funds various activities at the university, and took down the exhibit, violating freedom of expression"? That could be original research.
And there is this part citing this " U. of Chicago's Plans for Milton Friedman Institute Stir Outrage on the Faculty" source:
At the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2006 and the University of Chicago in 2010, the Faculty Senates formally complained that CIs had been established without proper approval, violating shared governance in higher education. Over 170 faculty members signed a letter to University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer that called CIs "an academically and politically ambiguous initiative sponsored by the government of the People's Republic of China." It said the university had proceeded "without due care to ensure the institute's academic integrity" and had risked having its own reputation used to "legitimate the spread of such Confucius Institutes in this country and beyond." [1]
First of all, quotes like "an academically and politically ambiguous initiative sponsored by the government of the People's Republic of China" and "without due care to ensure the institute's academic integrity" weren't even in the source! The source actually starts out stating "The University of Chicago's plan to move ahead with developing a controversial institute named for Milton Friedman has prompted more than 170 of the university's faculty members to sign a petition complaining that it is becoming increasingly "corporatized" and that its president, Robert J. Zimmer, is trampling upon their shared-governance rights." The parts about the Confucius Institute was briefly in "The establishment of a Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics without a vote of the full faculty is hardly the only action by the administration that the letter cites as objectionable. It also objects to the university's decision to allow the creation of a Confucius Institute on the campus without the Faculty Senate's approval." How did the contributor jump to these conclusions? And phrased as if the letter was mainly about the Confucius Institute when it was not the main point? And the University of Hawaii-Manoa was also never mentioned in the source. And those quotes?-- Teamjenn ( talk) 14:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
The article's sources and their attributed statements should be checked and verified, as I just found several that are erroneously attributed and there's content that are not found in the references at all.-- Teamjenn ( talk) 14:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
This article definitely needs more users' contributions instead of almost entirely consist of just one contributor, Keahapana's. This is suppose to be an "encyclopedia article" about an organization. However, more than 4/5 of the article's texts are about "controversies", along with a single paragraph of history.-- Teamjenn ( talk) 14:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
First, I've corrected my referencing mistake. I confused two 2010 Chronicle articles by Peter Schmidt: "U. of Chicago" 6/1/2010 and "At U.S. Colleges" 10/17/2010. Second, the edit history is being misinterpreted. In October 2009, I first contributed to the original "Criticism" section (with 3 refs), In August 2010, I reverted some questionable deletions, cleaned up, and retitled as "Controversies" following Quigley's suggestion (10 refs, viz., the venerated 3-paragraph version). In December 2010, I researched CIs, added more information, fixed links, and reorganized geographically (31 refs). Third, Evolution, really? The relative brevity of Evolution#Social and cultural responses results from wikilinks to main articles on Social effect of evolutionary theory, Objections to evolution, and Creation-evolution controversy. Fourth, I agree with Biophys and JeremyMiller that the current article still lacks basic material. Yes, what does CI do? What about Confucius Classrooms and other programs? Financing? Government control? After we've fledged out the missing basic sections, we can decide whether the UNDUE question is moot. In sum, I suggest we cooperate writing new sections to complete the article instead of this WP:JDLI quibbling. I'll start a new topic below. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 21:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Li Changchun:"Confucius Institute is...an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up" http://www.economist.com/node/14678507
Why is this statement POV?
Li Changchun is a very important and powerful man in China, why is it that his statement being ignored by wiki editors? Is www.economist.com not to be trusted, or
Li Changchun not to be trusted?
Arilang
talk
12:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
“ | manual of style specifically says, "The lead should establish significance, include mention of notable criticism or controversies, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more." | ” |
CJ Carnacchio is editor for The Oxford Leader.
“ | I was reading an Oct. 22, 2009 article in The Economist entitled, "A message from Confucius: New ways of projecting soft power" and something caught my eye. Li Changchun, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boss, was quoted as describing Confucius Institutes as "an important part of China's overseas propaganda set-up." | ” |
“ | The accuracy of quoted material is paramount and the accuracy of quotations from living persons is especially sensitive. To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted... Partisan secondary sources should be viewed with suspicion as they may misquote or quote out of context. In such cases, look for neutral corroboration from another source. | ” |
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IE24Ad02.html
“ | During an inspection of the Hanban late last month, Li Changchun, one of the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo in charge of ideology and propaganda, stressed that the construction of Confucius Institutes "is an important channel to glorify Chinese culture, to help Chinese culture spread to the world", which is "part of China's foreign propaganda strategy". | ” |
User JeremyMiller, are you happy now?
Arilang
talk
13:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
The fact is, CI is owned by HanBan, which is owned by PRC, so, that means CI is an official Chinese government institution. Naturally Li Changchun as one of the top leader of PRC, his statement on CI should be included in the lede, the full quote being:"is an important channel to glorify Chinese culture, to help Chinese culture spread to the world...(which is) part of China's foreign propaganda strategy". Editors jobs is to have a clear and tidy writing of the article. Plus, the statement was made by Li Changchun, not "Chinese government". Arilang talk 23:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
User JeremyMiller, HanBan is back up by 12 Chinese ministries, how "Non governmental" can it be?
The Chinese Language Council International is composed of members from 12 state ministries and commissions, namely,
the General Office of the State Council,
the Ministry of Education,
the Ministry of Finance,
the Overseas Chinese Affaires Office of the State Council,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the State Development and Reform Commission,
the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture,
the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (China Radio International),
the State Press and Publications Administration,
the State Council Information Office
the State Language Work Committee.
President of the Council is State Councilor Chen Zhili.
Arilang talk 22:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
As discussed above, the CI article needs additional info in one or more new sections. We could start with something like sections 1 办学背景 and 2 办学形式 in the parallel zh interwiki. What does the current article lack? Keahapana ( talk) 22:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Hi JeremyMiller, thanks for your question on my Talk page: "Are you going fix the CI article, or do you want me to? The consensus in the discussion has been to reduce the size of the article and the repetition."
I'm currently working on another article and will get back to help with CI afterwards. However, there is clearly no consensus. I appears that three editors (Quigley, Teamjenn, and you) support diminishing the Controversies and three (Arilang, Biophys, and me) oppose it. If you have time to fix this article, you could start the new sections and move some material from Controversies. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 21:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Of course, I agree that repeated/redundant materials should be cleaned up. What I disagree with is this type of damaging diff. Biophys's preceding sentence was, "And if you can not include something else, it means it is indeed known for the controversies." Keahapana ( talk) 23:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
On my talk page, JeremyMiller wrote:
Thanks JeremyMiller for making a good start on this thorny article. You've made many useful edits, like moving that quote into the Purpose section. I apologize for not having had the time to edit here, but have found several new CI refs. Yes, you were correct to delete that Epoch Times citation. Thanks especially for reducing the repetition. I strongly agree with you that we should seek NPOV about the CIs.
We can easily fix the few minor problems. For instance, where does note 38 mention a "hands-off approach to management"? Do you have any English-language references that "propaganda does not have the same negative connotation in Chinese as it does in English"?
We may disagree over whether this current revision keeps "all the points and arguments made in the original article." Here are some examples of what appears like eviscerating pertinent information from sources.
In addition, there are two other problems. It appears that many keywords cited in the refs are now missing – Dalai Lama, freedom of speech, Communist Party of China, Falun Gong, governance in higher education, etc. Several relevant quotes that criticized CIs have disappeared – Joyce Chey, Mao Zedong, Göran Lindblad, G. Cameron Hurst III, and Robert Zimmer.
Clearly, the Controversies section still needs better organization. The original three divisions (government officials, educators, and journalists) overlapped. The previous organization by countries was too wordy. The current organization into six paragraphs (soft power, universities, EJE division, PRC topics, Tel Aviv & Maryland, and California & newspapers) seems unsystematic. I think we can create subsections that readers will find thematically consistent and understandable.
Two possibilities might be geographical organization by continents or chronological by years. Your draft version has semi-geographic divisions between PRC and California, which could be expanded into Asia and North America subsections. Historically reorganizing the citations should be straightforward, and (since CI controversies are ongoing) would facilitate future editorial additions. What do you think?
I appreciate your labors improving this CI article, and hope that we can collaborate in balancing the controversies. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 02:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
What if instead of adding more content the extremely long controversies section we instead edited it into something a little more manageable. Such a list of complains is not interesting nor relevant this article, not only that but it clearly violates NPOV and WP:UNDUE which was discussed at length above. What if instead we have a description of the controversies as summaries with several examples, no more than is necessary to illustrate the idea. Maybe even add a few quotes if necessary, then add a simple statement about there being controversies into the lead. What do you think? Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 08:03, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I've been looking though alot of this section and there is are a couple things that pop out. First, it seems clear that most of the sources cited are expressing "concern" about possible influence and not any evidence of actual influence. This is a common idea and it should be included in the article but I don't see why it would need to be any more that one sentence: "University professors, administrators and other concerned parties have repeatedly express a fear that the Confucius Institute's presence would unduly influence academic freedom, because of its unclear connections with the Chinese Communist Party." Then, maybe a mention that some universities have chosen not to partner with a CI for this reason.
We should, of course also provide some clarity on what those connections may be, instead of randomly picking a newspaper article to cite as proof that the confucius institutes are directly controlled by the leadership of the CCP without any details, as has been done on this page in the past. Also, while alot of this article seems to claim that the CIs have censored academics, when I look at the sources cited, I see again concern, also accusations, but no evidence. If this kind of influence has occured we should find some actual evidence. Just repeating what some activist said is not useful. Those actual events, are probably worthy of direct inclusion in the article, so long as we aren't just repeating ourselves. I'll see what I can do. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 18:48, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
to be more specific, the first paragraph is generally good, but could be improved with copy-editing, while almost all of the remainder is repetitive, POV, list of unimportant quotes, many of which are misrepresentations. Items which add something to the article are the following:
The rest will go. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 19:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I wrote a new controversies section integrating existing content as much as possible and adding a few citations and extra content where I thought there was not sufficient clarity. I also rewrote the name section. The controversies section is still disproportionately large but I am satisfied with the idea that this can be dealt with by filling in the rest of the article more. That's not to say the controversies section can't be improved further, just that I would support removing the clean-up and neutrality templates from that section. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 23:16, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I hope that I am not taking too much initiative by removing the neutrality and clean-up tag. The section has been entirely rewritten as described above. If there is still an NPOV dispute then by all means someone should replace the tags. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 19:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Sadly Wikipedia cannot be the home of all things. In particular the very long list of Confucius institutes is not appropriate for this article. WP:NOTDIR has more information about this policy. Wikipedia certainly has plenty of lists, but those lists are informative or link internally (see WP:LIST, this kind of incomplete web directory does not belong in an encyclopedia and it is rather cumbersome. If you wish to save this directory for some reason I recommend an alternative site like wikiindex.org or Everything2.I would keep the list if there were some hope of changing it but it is simply a web-directory, it would never have links to an article about each one, or even a sentence of relevant info about each one. I feel confident in making this major change because of the wikipedia guidelines and the previous discussions on this talk page. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 05:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I saved two links to wikipedia articles related to a confucius institute, the rest fit the problems described above. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 06:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
The website for the Confucius Instutitute maintains what looks to be a pretty comprehensive list with more information than you desire [14]. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 06:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
This one has links and looks alot the one that used to be on this article [15] Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 07:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
The controversies section contains a dubious claim that: "Hanban, which is supposedly a non-profit organization but operates CI-related companies for profit. "For instance, in November 2009, Hanban launched a new company, which won the bid for over five million U.S. dollars from the Ministry of Finance to operate the CI’s website; the person in charge of this company is also the deputy director of Hanban." If you look at the source you'll see that while the guy does have a phd and the document is hosted on the George Washington University website, the university has nothing to do with it, its just his own opinion, and he provides no evidence, sources, or references for his claim. I was not able to find this claim repeated independently. If someone can find some info on this claim, I'd really like that but we can't just state any accusation to be found on the internet as though it is fact. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 22:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Since the sections not dealing with controversy are kind of unwritten I thought it could use some planning and collaboration. One big question we need to answer is how are they run? we don't need to do this in great detail but one would logically wonder especially in light of so much suspicion whether they are staffed by communist party officials or totally and completely operationally independent. What I've read leads me to believe that neither is true but its wikipedia so stuff has to be verifiable, not just some impression, or a quote of someone's impression published in a newspaper.
This source might be of use: regulations for the adminstration of CIs HQ funds. Its a little dry, see what we can glean. If you find great sources post them below. any other ideas what topics are vital to the article. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 06:19, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
The ongoing evisceration of this CI article is shockingly destructive. Without any debate, it has gone from 56 to 15 Kb and from 70 to 26 references. Before wholesale reversion of all these relevant content deletions, I'd like to suggest a WP:SPLITTING compromise.
We could leave the current article as a WP:SUMMARY and WP:SPINOFF two new CI sub-articles. From the last stable version (arguably WP:TOOLONG), let's try moving the contents of the Controversies and List of institutes sections into spinoffs. This will not be a WP:POVFORK and we can continue the unresolved NPOV debates.
The former spinoff would move the disputed section into a new article titled perhaps Confucius Institute controversies (like BBC controversies) or Controversies about Confucius Institutes ( Controversies about Opus Dei). Alternatively, for those who might confuse "concerns" and "controversies", we could call it Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes ( Concerns and controversies over the 2010 Winter Olympics or Concerns and controversies in Shanghai Expo 2010). The latter spinoff would keep all the links, which many new WP contributors have added, and might simply be called List of Confucius Institute locations (like List of Goethe-Institut locations). I won't be online for the next few days, and I look forward to seeing your discussions. Keahapana ( talk) 21:35, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Support - I might characterize it as something other than a hatchet job, I'd prefer to say the article shed some extra weight. There is certainly precedence for splitting. I would not be opposed to that, obviously that would take care of the common complaint that the controversy take up a disproportionate part of the page. I think the controversies have notability enough, considering that they seem to show up in every media mention of the institutes. The controversies page would still have to be NPOV, of course which, but you acknowledge that so, I think this is a good idea. I'm not crazy about the list of Confucius Institute Locations being a new page but I won't oppose it. I like Concerns and Controversies over Confucius Institutes most because I think that is the most accurate. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 00:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
I've removed the UNDUE tag at the top of the article. Since splitting, the controversies section now contains a single summary paragraph in pretty neutral language. Considering the prominence of the controversies topic in media about CIs, it seems unreasonable to complain that such a paragraph is undue weight. The rest of the article just needs expanding. Metal.lunchbox ( talk) 18:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
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