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I think this section is full of neutrality and source to fit with the rest of the article. Whoever put that section in there put in the necessary citations. If citations can be given, I suggest having that section improved all together given it is an two-sided story with a plethora of support. Thanks you for your wonderful contribution.
Please give sources for "High Shock Value" statements in deleted sections before reinstating. A more clinical and less emotional approach to unverified information is more helpful in dissemination of information. The "ORKIN Man" can be considered 1: A Monster who Ruthlessly Murders Millions with Poison, 2: A Savior of Human Lives and Property through pest extermination, 3: A person who kills unwanted bugs and other pests at the behest of paying consumers. Semantics do in fact count. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.193.1.16 ( talk) 11:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a very simple question. This event has been called a lot of things. However it isn't appropriate to have both category tags, especially as genocide rather implies massacres went on. So please decide amongst yourselves which you would prefer. It would be a lot simpler that way. John Smith's 18:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, let's have "murder", "rape", "death", "Japan", "China" and any other category you can think of in there too. There is no need for having both categories - it got on fine without both, didn't it? Besides, as I said, I don't think that genocide is appropriate, like Sumple. John Smith's 21:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Should have both categories. It is certainly a Massacre. It is also a Genocide because large proportion of the population in Nanking were killed, and therefore it falls under the definition given above. -- Vsion 00:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Here's the UN definition (from the Genocide article):
"[Genocide means] any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:" (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
- Note the requirement that the actions must be with the 'intent to destroy, in whole or in part' the group being targeted. Personally I believe this excludes the Nanking massacre (for much the same reasons as Ming Hua & Sumple above. Lisiate 22:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
You know, John Smith's, I had given you the benefit of the doubt that your edit was not based on any bias on your part concerning the Nanjing Massacre. But this last comment of yours is really starting to make me change my mind. And it's not what you're trying to say, but the way you're saying it. It really seems like you're trying to lighten the severity of the Nanjing Massacre. --- Hong Qi Gong 00:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Sigh, I could write a brand new article with the time you guys spend on pointless arguments.
But hmm, let me take a moment and sort out your logic as it seems from what I'm reading, Mr. John Smith.
1. The Japanese did not intend to kill all residents in Nanking.
2. The percentage of Chinese population slain during the war is less than the percentage of Jews slain by Nazis, therefore the Japanese people did not intend to kill all Chinese people.
3. The percentage of Chinese population slain during the war is tiny, therefore it's not big deal.
4. If you do not previously plan out a massacre, it's technically not a genocide even if you killed nearly all destined targets.
5. Japanese are not racist to Chinese. It's just average war deaths.
If that's what your thinking, I will reply later in detail. Read carefully the opinions of people disagreed with you and respect their opinion. Most of them are more experienced in Asian topics than you and from what your saying, it's as if your trying to justify all Japanese actions during the war with the "neutrality" flag. AQu01rius 03:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
A salient point worth noting: The IJA did not kill a single foreigner. In fact, they were afraid to harm the foreigners. Ergo, they were not targeting Nanking residents, they were targeting the Chinese residents of Nanking. -- Миборо в ский 07:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
HongQiGong, how can you lighten the severity of hundreds of thousands of dead civilians? I think you're being rather snide to suggest that I am.
AQu01rius, I haven't used any of those points as a reason why the event wasn't genocide, though point 1 is somewhat related. 2 & 3 were in relation to an article written by someone who is obviously out to discredit the Holocaust, claiming that because more Chinese died than Jews it meant it was a worse case of genocide (or whatever) - so I pointed out that when compared to the overall populations it was obvious the guy was being selective in what he was discussing.
Anyway, I think I'd better file a mediation request, as this discussion is going nowhere. If anyone has a problem with that, please say so here. John Smith's 14:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Hong, I do not think the genocide category is appropriate. However I thought that having just one was a comprimise we could use. However because that was repeatedly thrown back in my face, I might as well press for just the massacre category to be used. John Smith's 10:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Sumple, can you qualify what you would consider "academic"? Two of the sources (which refer to the Nanjing Massacre as a genocide) I've already linked up recently in this Talk page are:
Would you consider these two sources I've already linked up to be "academic"? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
John Smith's, here is your original comment about your concern with the categories:
For even better context, scroll back to the top of this section in the Talk page. It really seemed like you didn't care which category is there. Would you say you've changed your mind? You said you agree with Sumple's opinion about whether or not the Nanjing Massacre can be considered a genocide, and thus that the Genocides category is not appropriate. Now you are saying it is OK to leave in the Genocides category if the Massacres category is removed? I apologise in advance, but I'm a little confused about what exactly you would like to see. Do you want to see the Genocides category gone? Or do you just want to see either one of the two categories gone? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
comment for mediator -- You can check my posting history, I've not been involved in this article or this dicussion before tonight, and my ethnicity is not Asian. But, reading the above, it strikes me as very strange that John Smith opened this section of discussion asking "which category do you want, 'massacre' or genocide'" -- seeming to be neutral in the matter -- but was very soon passionately arguing his point that Nanjing was not genocide.
While it may be debatable whether Japanese motives involved the extermination of the Han ethnicity and culture specific to Nanjing and its surrounding area, no workable definition of "genocide" can be dependent on knowledge of motives. The widely-accepted number of deaths that occurred in a period of less than 2 months, the high number of rapes, mutilations and other atrocities inflicted a wound on the population of Jiangsu province that would last far beyond the wartime period. I think it's an important struggle for the survivors of Nanjing, and for all Chinese affected by the Japanese actions there, to see these actions viewed in an appropriate light. There are massacres that are genocidal, and there are massacres that are not. I think the distinction is an important one. The few electrons used to maintain the "genocide" category on this article are not, in my opinion, wasted. Bustter 14:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I have never came across User:Bustter until now. I've never seen his edits or comments, so I have no idea if he has a habit of being ambiguous or not. But may I suggest - maybe he really just thought it was strange that you ( User:John Smith's) changed your stance about the issue halfway through the discussion. I certainly thought so myself. --- Hong Qi Gong 01:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Hey guys, just thought I'd declare my position on this issue, because I haven't been here for a while and the discussion's taken some interesting turns... Anyway, regarding the original issue, I still personally think it's not genocide. But seeing as 1) there are some reputable sources labelling it as such, and 2) genocides and massacres are not inclusive of each other (? is that the right term? think of inclusive sets here..), I would not oppose dual-categorisation under both. -- Sumple ( Talk) 11:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
And, um, Bustter, no offence but "Genocide" being defined with respect to intention is the concensus. There is already a word for killing people on a big scale - "massacre". There are big problems with the Bauer argument, but this is not the place to discuss it - that belongs on the Genocide talk page, if anywhere.
As to your argument that "perpetrators of genocide are seldom open with their intentions", please understand that the fundamental principle of Western criminal law is based on the duality of mens rea and actus reus, the "criminal mind" and the "criminal act". Inherent in any consideration of such a full liability offence is a determination as to mens rea. Even consideration as to a strict liability offences must entail some determination as to the defendant's state of mind - as to volition and, possibly, absence of mistake. Do you think all convicted murderers openly declare, "yes, I shot him with the intent to kill him or to inflict grievous bodily harm?" No. The court makes the determination from the available evidence on his actions and accompanying mental state, if any. In the same way, we know the Third Reich committed genocide, not because it declared "We are proud to announce our new genocide policy", but because of the intentions inferred from their policies of selective elimination of people of certain ethnic groups (primarily the Jews) and large scale killing of these people in the absence of the proper process of law.
In case what I've said there was confusing... in summary, most crimes are defined with respect to intention. Courts can and mostly do determine whether that intention exists based on available evidence. -- Sumple ( Talk) 11:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Just because you are not familiar with the literature doesn't mean its original research. I recommend you kick around the [ Institute for the Study of Genocide] a bit. Bustter 12:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
"Genocide is the mass killing of a population of people as defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as 'any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.'" - "Genocide," Wikipedia
I apologize if I was opening up an old wound, but I was wondering about this question myself. One of the issues I've been thinking about is whether or not the Nanking Massacre was an insolated event. Were there other mass killings? I believe one of the reasons the Nanking Massacre is so well known is because Nanking is city with many foreign, or Western, bankers, investors, missionaries, etc. But what of lesser villages, towns, or cities with few or no Western bankers, missionaries, etc.?If that were the case, the Nanking Massacre can be considered a mass killing within a genocide. I'll admit that I have a minor bias in that I am ethnically Chinese myself and I have heard stories of massacre and brutality from my grandparents regarding their hometown as I'm sure many other ethnically Chinese have often heard. I'm going to be pretentious for a second and assume that you ask me for my evidence and why such an event would be concealed from the public. For the first, many of us heard it from word of mouth that is quickly aging and dying, who were also mostly illerate even in their own native language nevertheless English. For the second, I'm going to tell you that ever since the Cold War Communism has become synonymous with Evil. I think any such story would be proclaimed as Communist propaganda or lies by Western media.
But I believe I have a piece of evidence nonetheless. Following the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April of 1942, many of the American pilots involved in the raid were forced to land in rural China. They were hidden from the Japanese army by Chinese peasants. The Japanese in retaliation began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign in which they sometimes slaughtered entire villages suspected of harboring the Americans. The estimated civilian death toll of this campaign is believed to be around 250,000( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang-Jiangxi_Campaign). First, I'd like to note the Western involvement in this event, and second, I'd like note how little information there is on this event. There could be countless other similar events that we are not aware of. If the Nanking Massacre itself is not a genocide, then it is at least part of one. AkrobaticMonkey 06:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with John Smith: it was a massacre, but not a genocide. There were a few genocides in the twentieth century: Holocaust, Armenian, Bosnia-Herzoviginia, and Rwanda. But Nanking doesn't fall in that category. Nanking is in the same group as the Allied bombing of Dresden: the deliberate massacre of innocent civilians during wartime. Reprehensible, but not genocide. Brian Cunnie 05:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
It matters little what we personally think. What matters is that there are credible sources that label it as a genocide. We as WP editors should only be reflecting our sources. Hong Qi Gong ( Talk - Contribs) 14:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the opinion that it was not a genocide. During WWII many towns were entirely wiped out and many massacres happened. That doesn't mean it was genocide. To me the Nanking massacre was a massive rampage by the IJA to instill widespread terror among the populace. In my opinion, the intent was to demoralize China and it get to surrender through terrorization. The Mongols and Manchus did the the same thing before coming to power but few would say what they did was genocide. It was more or less terrorization meant to quicken surrender. Which is just as horrible by the way. Thing is, reasons given earlier to classify the Nanking Massacre as genocide could be apply to almost any event in warfare where large amounts of civilians were killed. For instance, the massive bombings of Germany and Japan and especially the Atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be classify as "genocide". Which wouldn't be prudent in my opinion. The allies did not intend to exterminate their enemies, but many places were indeed completely annihilated. I don't think the Japanese wanted to exterminate the Chinese, like past dynasties, they wanted to dominate and rule China. The Nanking Massacre was not a genocide, it was however a tremedous war crime. Akaloc ( talk) 10:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I feel that this was a genocide for the reason of the Japanese felt that if you weren't Japanese then you weren't human. Therefore you had no right to live and that is why they killed so many Chinese. --dietchy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.47.62.90 ( talk) 20:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, the definition of genocide from the Oxford dictionary of English (which should be fairly authoritative) is: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or group, which seems to indicate that people can call the Nanjing Massacre an act of genocide, if they so wish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.253.84 ( talk) 12:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
After reading the arguments from you guys; I am more convinced that this Incident alone would be more correctly if it is called "massacre" than "genocide". For starters, the looting, rape and killing in Nanking was motivated by the need to weed out Chinese Soldiers hiding amongst the populace and the amount of hatred accumulated from the Battle of Shanghai. When the Japanese soldiers manage to round up the "soldiers", the easier way to handle them was to kill them all instead of taking care of them; hence the word "massacre". Also, Japanese soldiers believes in not surrendering to the enemy in any situation and thus even angered them even more when they captured these "soldiers". The word "genocide" however would have been less appropriate (but not invalid) because the nature of the killings was what I mentioned above and this is evidenced by the Japanese desire to only manipulate China through its puppet Nanking Government. So if there was a "Genocide", there was no need of such government and it shows that Japanese were keen in recruiting Chinese for their conquest.
On the issue on why they would rape women as well, rape seems to be norm in days where war is common at that time frame. These soldiers were motivated into raping women because:
1. Exhausted after hours of combat 2. Sex seems to be a form of relief by soldiers who have no ways to relief themselves from weariness 3. Lack of dicipline/control over the lower level soldiers.
And they would kill the victim to prevent her from reporting them to relevant authorities which shows that there was not a general order to allow rape.Because this was widely practiced amongst the soldiers, most of the soldiers will usually follow suit; least they being cast away as an outsider. Bear in mind that not only Japanese Soldiers also commited raped during the war but also countries like China, USA, Nazi germany and Soviet Russia. All have a share of this bitter pie.
Of course, this does not mean that I deny any of these horrible acts did not happen. I am a in fact a Chinese but in this occasion, I felt that it would be more apporiate to coin this incident as "Massacre". Regards 60.48.247.176 ( talk) 07:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, is there a reason why the article's name is "Nanking Massacre," whilst the article repeatedly refers to "Nanjing?" I realize that they're the same city and all that, but would it be more consistent to strike "Nanjing" throughout and replace with "Nanking?" Folic_Acid | talk 18:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
All: My wife is from Nanjing (the present day name), and she says that in 1937 it was called Nanking (then the capital of China), among other names during it's storied history which spans about 2500 years. - Justin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.140.79 ( talk) 14:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I have heard Cantonese say "Pa-King" when referring to Beijing in Cantonese; Beijingers say "Bei-Zjeng". Likely the Peking/Nanking spelling is taken from early Romanization based on contact with southern China. Qwertyzoop ( talk) 00:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
This section is necessary but needs expanding on. In particular there is no citation for "In 1864 a million Nanjing people were killed, Li Hongzhang estimated Nanjing would take 100 years to recover. This is 73 years before the Nanking massacre." And in any case it isn't good English. I'll remove it in a few days if nobody can provide a citation and/or tidy it up. Noisms ( talk) 14:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
''personally i think john smith needs to rethink his
veiw on this perticular event in history before telling anyone
else to because if you can look at this event and tell me calling this genocide is "improper" or "incorrect" with a
clear conscience your as heartless and pompous as the men who went out and slaughtered those men women and children. ( 71.202.237.204 \( talk)Britt tell ya like it is.)
—Preceding
undated comment added 21:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
Taking into consideration that Wikipedia insists on a neutral standpoint the fastidious description of atrocities committed by the Japanese army is not helpful to make this article readable. Sometimes the text sounds like it was written as if the author savours them. I have removed some of the worst parts, not because I don't believe them, but because they are examples of how cruel man as a species can be. That is not a specific Japanese trait, so for instance showing a picture of a nude female body with something like a bayonet sticking out of its vagina and the caption "killed by the Japanese army" does not differentiate. That's why I like the film "City of Life and Death", a Chinese film which shows that this generalisation is simply inadequate. -- Ruggero1 ( talk) 12:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I recommend you see the film "city of Life and Death". If a Chinese film can describe the situation like that trying to describe both sides why does this article enjoy just atrocities? Look a the picture of the mutilated woman, for instance - what stupid caption:"Woman killed by the Japanese army" - was it the whole army? This is sheer propaganda. I will rerevert your reverts. Or you will please give me better arguments.-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 00:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
This is the text regarding the foto: "Photo showing the body of a woman profaned in a similar way to the teenager described in case 5 of John Magee's movie. Higashinakano however claims that the photo has no reliable information about the killer and its authentication.[20]" Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre_controversy#Iris_Chang.27s_book. There you will find more critical remarks!-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 01:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh - and please don't get me wrong: I am absolutely convinced the massacre took place; but the more gruesome the description, the easier for the denialists to refute it because it appears as biassed and partial!-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 02:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree only in one aspect with you: The wording of some parts of the text has to be more neutral. But how do you want to improve this lemma when any time someone comes along and changes something you threaten do get him blocked? And if this picture is disputed, you have to state that in the caption with a reference to the concerning page. By the way: Who is "we"? As far as I know everybody can improve any text, and no "we" can decide what is included into a page and what isn't. Please take note I have never proposed to delete the article, but I don't accept the lengthy descriptions of atrocities, as they are not neutral and appeal mainly to those that indulge in something like that.- And now I am going to change the caption of the picture in the way I think it is adequate.-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 21:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I absolutely agree that "thousands of women were raped" is quite ok, if you call it a description. How do you prove the numbers though? Ok - the reference to the War Court may suffice. But that's it. I do not intend to "water down" the massacre, I want to find phrasing that is adequate and not so bloodthirsty or whatever you may call it (no insult intended). And please give an answer: How do you want to point out that the veracity of the picture is disputed? You may not like the man who disputed it, but does that permit you to put the picture into the text as if it was true beyond doubt?-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 21:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and I see you reverted the picture already - with a very strange justification: What international consensus? Who are they? Harvard? You don't even know who shot the picture! Encyclopedic content must be verifiable, but this one isn't. I think it is no use keeping on a discussion with you, and as I don't want to start an edit war I will refer the matter to the Wikipedia comittee concerned.-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 22:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I removed the photo File:Nanjing Massacre rape killed.jpg which happened in Xuzhou not Nanking, and added a photo showing a decapitation in Nanking Massacre. More verified photos on Nanking Massacre should be included, no matter how bloody they may appear. Wikipedia expresses different viewpoints in a balanced way, but bloody historical facts must not be neutralized to peaceful ones. - MtBell 19:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I think it's time that the issue banner be removed from the top of the article and replaced by more specific tag request tags. The article is fairly well referenced at this point and the banner from last year may be outdated. Melonbarmonster2 ( talk) 18:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
The lead could be improved a great deal. It goes far too much into the current controversy and fails adequately to summarise the article. The discussion on the minority revisionist position should be deal with briefly, perhaps in the final paragraph. At the moment the controversy overshadows the events. Tim Vickers ( talk) 01:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I just restored a earlier version of the article to revert a large section added by Telena hulotova--the material seemed to be pushing POV and was largely unsourced (I think there were 1-2 references in the whole lot). Just a head's up in case anyone objects. -- Nuujinn ( talk) 11:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I removed some descriptions on the Mukden Incident and the united front between KMT and CCP as they are a bit off-topic. -- MtBell 02:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I removed the following passage. In my view, this wikipedia entry gives far too much weight to revisionists. There exist at least one historian in this world who believes that Japan does not even exist and that the earth is a figment of our imagination. Is that historian going to get a paragraph here too? Please, report only the majority opinion and relegate the minority opinion to footnotes or, when it's absurd, ignore it altogether. Please exercise judgement!
In 2000, a historian concurred with certain Japanese scholars who had argued that the contest was a concocted story, with the collusion of the soldiers themselves for the purpose of raising the national fighting spirit. [1] In 2005, a Tokyo district judge dismissed a suit by the families of the lieutenants, stating that "the lieutenants admitted the fact that they raced to kill 100 people" and that the story cannot be proven to be clearly false. [2] The judge also ruled against the civil claim of the plaintiffs because the original article was more than 60 years old. [3] The historicity of the event remains disputed in Japan. [4]
I'm wondering why reference to a videogame "Healer" depicting Nanking Massacre among other massacres was removed. Especially because game is not an opinion piece but fairly neutral "serious game" developed in an academic context.
I reverted this revision because some elements of it (changing "Japanese Army" to "Chinese Army", for example) appeared to be vandalism. Other elements of the revision could plausibly be in good faith, but were poorly worded or made substantive changes without presenting a cite (such as changing the lower limit of the death toll from 40,000 to 100,000). Discuss it here if you think my revert was unjustified. Yaush ( talk) 16:43, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Trying to undo revision 424912725 by 74.36.103.230 ( talk)
Where did these numbers come from? I can't find a source.
What's creeping me out is that, while I can edit other pages fine right now, I've just tried ten times to revert this revision, and every time my connection times out. ONLY on this page. Acidtoyman ( talk) 22:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
This is the university's page on the Nanjing Massacre WhisperToMe ( talk) 00:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
This article needs some serious weeding for dead links, additions of citations (many of the citations needed tags date back several years), and a check of existing references...many seem to be Japanese nationalist propaganda (I deleted some that were dead/unable to check, but some, like reference 12 seem to be denial literature...).
I am recommending removal or re-sourcing all material referenced to ref 12, and a rewrite of any uncited claims that have existed for years. I know this is apparently a hot topic, but this is not a forum for propaganda. AS it is, with no ill intent toward the editors here, this is a a pretty sloppy article in section. I would like to help, but cannot do it alone. Given the notability of this event in WWII and in history in general, I think it needs a much higher degree of editing work done on it. 204.65.34.39 ( talk) 19:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Denial of the massacre (and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings) has become a staple ofJapanese nationalism.[10] In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and few deny the occurrence of the massacre outright.
If few Japanese deny the occurrence of the massacre, but denial of the massacre is a staple of Japanese Nationalism, there must be few Japanese nationalists. Is this the case? Otherwise there is a contradiction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.queso ( talk • contribs) 07:24, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
The deniers in this article are good, I will give them that. In the lead paragraphs alone, three different ways of saying, "some think it did not happen", all linked to other facts which are important. It is a tangle I will not attempt to unravel, but someone needs to do so. Anarchangel ( talk) 02:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Agree that this needs to be untangled. It is quite surprising that the link regarding this is to Historical revisionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism where the first paragraph states that "constant revision of history is part of the normal scholarly process of writing history." instead of to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism) where "Japanese war crimes" are described by pointing out that "The post-war minimisation of the war crimes of Japanese imperialism is an example of illegitimate historical revisionism[24]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.82.57.194 ( talk) 17:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I added the sentence "But the original articles described the contest as hand-to-hand combat. There is no depiction that Mukai and Noda killed non-combatants". Although I just added the truth of the "historical sources" aside from the truth of the "contest", it was deleted without any reasonable excuse. Those who deleted my sentence, however, haven't deleted unsourced parts in the article "Naking massacre". What could that mean? Isebito ( talk) 12:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Hello guys, just want to say, I know that this has been debated to death (I've read the acrhives... yes, all of them, every single one) and I think I have a solution to the explicit image of the woman reportedly raped and killed. I can't remember where I saw this but there was a similar discussion on another page about the use of explicit and graphic pictures being used and the outcome was that the picture was hidden in a collapsable window with a disclaimer warning readers that the hidden image was extremly graphic and to open and view at your own risk. Could a similar solution be used here? It's very difficult to read that section with that picture next to it. 212.250.138.33 ( talk) 22:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
A few of the images on the article seem too graphic, disturbing and disrespectful to be accepted as appropriate explicit material for this controversial article. For example, there is a picture with a woman's body that has clearly been raped and stabbed with a sword as well as a beheaded man's face. Although Wikipedia usually allows uncensored images and the topic of the article is controversial enough to allow some explicit material for appropriate, necessary educational purposes, I don't see how these examples really teach much more about the massacre's casualties. Although the casualties were indeed gruesome and numerous, to competely show the most explicit cases is not necessary to a person's education in addition to the article's related facts and statistics. It seems that the images are meant to cause emotion and reaction rather than further helpful education. Can someone who knows how to delete them delete them and maybe replace them with other ones?
Bambimissme421 ( talk) 03:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Agreed the images are very very graphic, but please don't delete them or the world would forget what happened to those poor souls. Just one word comes to the mind for the rapist Japanese army in Nanking 'SHAME', they should have been castrated. Even shameful is the fact that this genocide has been denied by the Japanese nation and their hypocrite ally US who weeps crocodile tears for the Jewish genocide in Europe...<Fahaam [10]/>
['Guidelines for distressing images' –new posting refactored into the existing discussion on graphic images]
Could I please beg the co-ordinators of this article to replace the most distressing image of the female victim of the Nanking massacre with one less confronting ? I assure you my objection does not have the object of trying to tone down the horrific nature of the event itself, but only of trying to protect the rights of victims and their families. In the same way that pornographic images are not shown even whem they can be said to be relevant, for instance in reporting of murders or rapes, depictions of extreme violence are avoided also. I believe there are laws or guidelines that everyone follows with regard to this. Mummywolf09 ( talk) 10:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This 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. |
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I think this section is full of neutrality and source to fit with the rest of the article. Whoever put that section in there put in the necessary citations. If citations can be given, I suggest having that section improved all together given it is an two-sided story with a plethora of support. Thanks you for your wonderful contribution.
Please give sources for "High Shock Value" statements in deleted sections before reinstating. A more clinical and less emotional approach to unverified information is more helpful in dissemination of information. The "ORKIN Man" can be considered 1: A Monster who Ruthlessly Murders Millions with Poison, 2: A Savior of Human Lives and Property through pest extermination, 3: A person who kills unwanted bugs and other pests at the behest of paying consumers. Semantics do in fact count. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.193.1.16 ( talk) 11:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a very simple question. This event has been called a lot of things. However it isn't appropriate to have both category tags, especially as genocide rather implies massacres went on. So please decide amongst yourselves which you would prefer. It would be a lot simpler that way. John Smith's 18:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, let's have "murder", "rape", "death", "Japan", "China" and any other category you can think of in there too. There is no need for having both categories - it got on fine without both, didn't it? Besides, as I said, I don't think that genocide is appropriate, like Sumple. John Smith's 21:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Should have both categories. It is certainly a Massacre. It is also a Genocide because large proportion of the population in Nanking were killed, and therefore it falls under the definition given above. -- Vsion 00:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Here's the UN definition (from the Genocide article):
"[Genocide means] any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:" (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
- Note the requirement that the actions must be with the 'intent to destroy, in whole or in part' the group being targeted. Personally I believe this excludes the Nanking massacre (for much the same reasons as Ming Hua & Sumple above. Lisiate 22:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
You know, John Smith's, I had given you the benefit of the doubt that your edit was not based on any bias on your part concerning the Nanjing Massacre. But this last comment of yours is really starting to make me change my mind. And it's not what you're trying to say, but the way you're saying it. It really seems like you're trying to lighten the severity of the Nanjing Massacre. --- Hong Qi Gong 00:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Sigh, I could write a brand new article with the time you guys spend on pointless arguments.
But hmm, let me take a moment and sort out your logic as it seems from what I'm reading, Mr. John Smith.
1. The Japanese did not intend to kill all residents in Nanking.
2. The percentage of Chinese population slain during the war is less than the percentage of Jews slain by Nazis, therefore the Japanese people did not intend to kill all Chinese people.
3. The percentage of Chinese population slain during the war is tiny, therefore it's not big deal.
4. If you do not previously plan out a massacre, it's technically not a genocide even if you killed nearly all destined targets.
5. Japanese are not racist to Chinese. It's just average war deaths.
If that's what your thinking, I will reply later in detail. Read carefully the opinions of people disagreed with you and respect their opinion. Most of them are more experienced in Asian topics than you and from what your saying, it's as if your trying to justify all Japanese actions during the war with the "neutrality" flag. AQu01rius 03:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
A salient point worth noting: The IJA did not kill a single foreigner. In fact, they were afraid to harm the foreigners. Ergo, they were not targeting Nanking residents, they were targeting the Chinese residents of Nanking. -- Миборо в ский 07:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
HongQiGong, how can you lighten the severity of hundreds of thousands of dead civilians? I think you're being rather snide to suggest that I am.
AQu01rius, I haven't used any of those points as a reason why the event wasn't genocide, though point 1 is somewhat related. 2 & 3 were in relation to an article written by someone who is obviously out to discredit the Holocaust, claiming that because more Chinese died than Jews it meant it was a worse case of genocide (or whatever) - so I pointed out that when compared to the overall populations it was obvious the guy was being selective in what he was discussing.
Anyway, I think I'd better file a mediation request, as this discussion is going nowhere. If anyone has a problem with that, please say so here. John Smith's 14:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Hong, I do not think the genocide category is appropriate. However I thought that having just one was a comprimise we could use. However because that was repeatedly thrown back in my face, I might as well press for just the massacre category to be used. John Smith's 10:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Sumple, can you qualify what you would consider "academic"? Two of the sources (which refer to the Nanjing Massacre as a genocide) I've already linked up recently in this Talk page are:
Would you consider these two sources I've already linked up to be "academic"? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
John Smith's, here is your original comment about your concern with the categories:
For even better context, scroll back to the top of this section in the Talk page. It really seemed like you didn't care which category is there. Would you say you've changed your mind? You said you agree with Sumple's opinion about whether or not the Nanjing Massacre can be considered a genocide, and thus that the Genocides category is not appropriate. Now you are saying it is OK to leave in the Genocides category if the Massacres category is removed? I apologise in advance, but I'm a little confused about what exactly you would like to see. Do you want to see the Genocides category gone? Or do you just want to see either one of the two categories gone? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
comment for mediator -- You can check my posting history, I've not been involved in this article or this dicussion before tonight, and my ethnicity is not Asian. But, reading the above, it strikes me as very strange that John Smith opened this section of discussion asking "which category do you want, 'massacre' or genocide'" -- seeming to be neutral in the matter -- but was very soon passionately arguing his point that Nanjing was not genocide.
While it may be debatable whether Japanese motives involved the extermination of the Han ethnicity and culture specific to Nanjing and its surrounding area, no workable definition of "genocide" can be dependent on knowledge of motives. The widely-accepted number of deaths that occurred in a period of less than 2 months, the high number of rapes, mutilations and other atrocities inflicted a wound on the population of Jiangsu province that would last far beyond the wartime period. I think it's an important struggle for the survivors of Nanjing, and for all Chinese affected by the Japanese actions there, to see these actions viewed in an appropriate light. There are massacres that are genocidal, and there are massacres that are not. I think the distinction is an important one. The few electrons used to maintain the "genocide" category on this article are not, in my opinion, wasted. Bustter 14:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I have never came across User:Bustter until now. I've never seen his edits or comments, so I have no idea if he has a habit of being ambiguous or not. But may I suggest - maybe he really just thought it was strange that you ( User:John Smith's) changed your stance about the issue halfway through the discussion. I certainly thought so myself. --- Hong Qi Gong 01:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Hey guys, just thought I'd declare my position on this issue, because I haven't been here for a while and the discussion's taken some interesting turns... Anyway, regarding the original issue, I still personally think it's not genocide. But seeing as 1) there are some reputable sources labelling it as such, and 2) genocides and massacres are not inclusive of each other (? is that the right term? think of inclusive sets here..), I would not oppose dual-categorisation under both. -- Sumple ( Talk) 11:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
And, um, Bustter, no offence but "Genocide" being defined with respect to intention is the concensus. There is already a word for killing people on a big scale - "massacre". There are big problems with the Bauer argument, but this is not the place to discuss it - that belongs on the Genocide talk page, if anywhere.
As to your argument that "perpetrators of genocide are seldom open with their intentions", please understand that the fundamental principle of Western criminal law is based on the duality of mens rea and actus reus, the "criminal mind" and the "criminal act". Inherent in any consideration of such a full liability offence is a determination as to mens rea. Even consideration as to a strict liability offences must entail some determination as to the defendant's state of mind - as to volition and, possibly, absence of mistake. Do you think all convicted murderers openly declare, "yes, I shot him with the intent to kill him or to inflict grievous bodily harm?" No. The court makes the determination from the available evidence on his actions and accompanying mental state, if any. In the same way, we know the Third Reich committed genocide, not because it declared "We are proud to announce our new genocide policy", but because of the intentions inferred from their policies of selective elimination of people of certain ethnic groups (primarily the Jews) and large scale killing of these people in the absence of the proper process of law.
In case what I've said there was confusing... in summary, most crimes are defined with respect to intention. Courts can and mostly do determine whether that intention exists based on available evidence. -- Sumple ( Talk) 11:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Just because you are not familiar with the literature doesn't mean its original research. I recommend you kick around the [ Institute for the Study of Genocide] a bit. Bustter 12:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
"Genocide is the mass killing of a population of people as defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as 'any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.'" - "Genocide," Wikipedia
I apologize if I was opening up an old wound, but I was wondering about this question myself. One of the issues I've been thinking about is whether or not the Nanking Massacre was an insolated event. Were there other mass killings? I believe one of the reasons the Nanking Massacre is so well known is because Nanking is city with many foreign, or Western, bankers, investors, missionaries, etc. But what of lesser villages, towns, or cities with few or no Western bankers, missionaries, etc.?If that were the case, the Nanking Massacre can be considered a mass killing within a genocide. I'll admit that I have a minor bias in that I am ethnically Chinese myself and I have heard stories of massacre and brutality from my grandparents regarding their hometown as I'm sure many other ethnically Chinese have often heard. I'm going to be pretentious for a second and assume that you ask me for my evidence and why such an event would be concealed from the public. For the first, many of us heard it from word of mouth that is quickly aging and dying, who were also mostly illerate even in their own native language nevertheless English. For the second, I'm going to tell you that ever since the Cold War Communism has become synonymous with Evil. I think any such story would be proclaimed as Communist propaganda or lies by Western media.
But I believe I have a piece of evidence nonetheless. Following the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April of 1942, many of the American pilots involved in the raid were forced to land in rural China. They were hidden from the Japanese army by Chinese peasants. The Japanese in retaliation began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign in which they sometimes slaughtered entire villages suspected of harboring the Americans. The estimated civilian death toll of this campaign is believed to be around 250,000( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang-Jiangxi_Campaign). First, I'd like to note the Western involvement in this event, and second, I'd like note how little information there is on this event. There could be countless other similar events that we are not aware of. If the Nanking Massacre itself is not a genocide, then it is at least part of one. AkrobaticMonkey 06:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with John Smith: it was a massacre, but not a genocide. There were a few genocides in the twentieth century: Holocaust, Armenian, Bosnia-Herzoviginia, and Rwanda. But Nanking doesn't fall in that category. Nanking is in the same group as the Allied bombing of Dresden: the deliberate massacre of innocent civilians during wartime. Reprehensible, but not genocide. Brian Cunnie 05:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
It matters little what we personally think. What matters is that there are credible sources that label it as a genocide. We as WP editors should only be reflecting our sources. Hong Qi Gong ( Talk - Contribs) 14:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the opinion that it was not a genocide. During WWII many towns were entirely wiped out and many massacres happened. That doesn't mean it was genocide. To me the Nanking massacre was a massive rampage by the IJA to instill widespread terror among the populace. In my opinion, the intent was to demoralize China and it get to surrender through terrorization. The Mongols and Manchus did the the same thing before coming to power but few would say what they did was genocide. It was more or less terrorization meant to quicken surrender. Which is just as horrible by the way. Thing is, reasons given earlier to classify the Nanking Massacre as genocide could be apply to almost any event in warfare where large amounts of civilians were killed. For instance, the massive bombings of Germany and Japan and especially the Atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be classify as "genocide". Which wouldn't be prudent in my opinion. The allies did not intend to exterminate their enemies, but many places were indeed completely annihilated. I don't think the Japanese wanted to exterminate the Chinese, like past dynasties, they wanted to dominate and rule China. The Nanking Massacre was not a genocide, it was however a tremedous war crime. Akaloc ( talk) 10:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I feel that this was a genocide for the reason of the Japanese felt that if you weren't Japanese then you weren't human. Therefore you had no right to live and that is why they killed so many Chinese. --dietchy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.47.62.90 ( talk) 20:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, the definition of genocide from the Oxford dictionary of English (which should be fairly authoritative) is: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or group, which seems to indicate that people can call the Nanjing Massacre an act of genocide, if they so wish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.253.84 ( talk) 12:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
After reading the arguments from you guys; I am more convinced that this Incident alone would be more correctly if it is called "massacre" than "genocide". For starters, the looting, rape and killing in Nanking was motivated by the need to weed out Chinese Soldiers hiding amongst the populace and the amount of hatred accumulated from the Battle of Shanghai. When the Japanese soldiers manage to round up the "soldiers", the easier way to handle them was to kill them all instead of taking care of them; hence the word "massacre". Also, Japanese soldiers believes in not surrendering to the enemy in any situation and thus even angered them even more when they captured these "soldiers". The word "genocide" however would have been less appropriate (but not invalid) because the nature of the killings was what I mentioned above and this is evidenced by the Japanese desire to only manipulate China through its puppet Nanking Government. So if there was a "Genocide", there was no need of such government and it shows that Japanese were keen in recruiting Chinese for their conquest.
On the issue on why they would rape women as well, rape seems to be norm in days where war is common at that time frame. These soldiers were motivated into raping women because:
1. Exhausted after hours of combat 2. Sex seems to be a form of relief by soldiers who have no ways to relief themselves from weariness 3. Lack of dicipline/control over the lower level soldiers.
And they would kill the victim to prevent her from reporting them to relevant authorities which shows that there was not a general order to allow rape.Because this was widely practiced amongst the soldiers, most of the soldiers will usually follow suit; least they being cast away as an outsider. Bear in mind that not only Japanese Soldiers also commited raped during the war but also countries like China, USA, Nazi germany and Soviet Russia. All have a share of this bitter pie.
Of course, this does not mean that I deny any of these horrible acts did not happen. I am a in fact a Chinese but in this occasion, I felt that it would be more apporiate to coin this incident as "Massacre". Regards 60.48.247.176 ( talk) 07:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, is there a reason why the article's name is "Nanking Massacre," whilst the article repeatedly refers to "Nanjing?" I realize that they're the same city and all that, but would it be more consistent to strike "Nanjing" throughout and replace with "Nanking?" Folic_Acid | talk 18:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
All: My wife is from Nanjing (the present day name), and she says that in 1937 it was called Nanking (then the capital of China), among other names during it's storied history which spans about 2500 years. - Justin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.140.79 ( talk) 14:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I have heard Cantonese say "Pa-King" when referring to Beijing in Cantonese; Beijingers say "Bei-Zjeng". Likely the Peking/Nanking spelling is taken from early Romanization based on contact with southern China. Qwertyzoop ( talk) 00:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
This section is necessary but needs expanding on. In particular there is no citation for "In 1864 a million Nanjing people were killed, Li Hongzhang estimated Nanjing would take 100 years to recover. This is 73 years before the Nanking massacre." And in any case it isn't good English. I'll remove it in a few days if nobody can provide a citation and/or tidy it up. Noisms ( talk) 14:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
''personally i think john smith needs to rethink his
veiw on this perticular event in history before telling anyone
else to because if you can look at this event and tell me calling this genocide is "improper" or "incorrect" with a
clear conscience your as heartless and pompous as the men who went out and slaughtered those men women and children. ( 71.202.237.204 \( talk)Britt tell ya like it is.)
—Preceding
undated comment added 21:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
Taking into consideration that Wikipedia insists on a neutral standpoint the fastidious description of atrocities committed by the Japanese army is not helpful to make this article readable. Sometimes the text sounds like it was written as if the author savours them. I have removed some of the worst parts, not because I don't believe them, but because they are examples of how cruel man as a species can be. That is not a specific Japanese trait, so for instance showing a picture of a nude female body with something like a bayonet sticking out of its vagina and the caption "killed by the Japanese army" does not differentiate. That's why I like the film "City of Life and Death", a Chinese film which shows that this generalisation is simply inadequate. -- Ruggero1 ( talk) 12:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I recommend you see the film "city of Life and Death". If a Chinese film can describe the situation like that trying to describe both sides why does this article enjoy just atrocities? Look a the picture of the mutilated woman, for instance - what stupid caption:"Woman killed by the Japanese army" - was it the whole army? This is sheer propaganda. I will rerevert your reverts. Or you will please give me better arguments.-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 00:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
This is the text regarding the foto: "Photo showing the body of a woman profaned in a similar way to the teenager described in case 5 of John Magee's movie. Higashinakano however claims that the photo has no reliable information about the killer and its authentication.[20]" Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre_controversy#Iris_Chang.27s_book. There you will find more critical remarks!-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 01:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh - and please don't get me wrong: I am absolutely convinced the massacre took place; but the more gruesome the description, the easier for the denialists to refute it because it appears as biassed and partial!-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 02:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree only in one aspect with you: The wording of some parts of the text has to be more neutral. But how do you want to improve this lemma when any time someone comes along and changes something you threaten do get him blocked? And if this picture is disputed, you have to state that in the caption with a reference to the concerning page. By the way: Who is "we"? As far as I know everybody can improve any text, and no "we" can decide what is included into a page and what isn't. Please take note I have never proposed to delete the article, but I don't accept the lengthy descriptions of atrocities, as they are not neutral and appeal mainly to those that indulge in something like that.- And now I am going to change the caption of the picture in the way I think it is adequate.-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 21:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I absolutely agree that "thousands of women were raped" is quite ok, if you call it a description. How do you prove the numbers though? Ok - the reference to the War Court may suffice. But that's it. I do not intend to "water down" the massacre, I want to find phrasing that is adequate and not so bloodthirsty or whatever you may call it (no insult intended). And please give an answer: How do you want to point out that the veracity of the picture is disputed? You may not like the man who disputed it, but does that permit you to put the picture into the text as if it was true beyond doubt?-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 21:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and I see you reverted the picture already - with a very strange justification: What international consensus? Who are they? Harvard? You don't even know who shot the picture! Encyclopedic content must be verifiable, but this one isn't. I think it is no use keeping on a discussion with you, and as I don't want to start an edit war I will refer the matter to the Wikipedia comittee concerned.-- Ruggero1 ( talk) 22:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I removed the photo File:Nanjing Massacre rape killed.jpg which happened in Xuzhou not Nanking, and added a photo showing a decapitation in Nanking Massacre. More verified photos on Nanking Massacre should be included, no matter how bloody they may appear. Wikipedia expresses different viewpoints in a balanced way, but bloody historical facts must not be neutralized to peaceful ones. - MtBell 19:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I think it's time that the issue banner be removed from the top of the article and replaced by more specific tag request tags. The article is fairly well referenced at this point and the banner from last year may be outdated. Melonbarmonster2 ( talk) 18:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
The lead could be improved a great deal. It goes far too much into the current controversy and fails adequately to summarise the article. The discussion on the minority revisionist position should be deal with briefly, perhaps in the final paragraph. At the moment the controversy overshadows the events. Tim Vickers ( talk) 01:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I just restored a earlier version of the article to revert a large section added by Telena hulotova--the material seemed to be pushing POV and was largely unsourced (I think there were 1-2 references in the whole lot). Just a head's up in case anyone objects. -- Nuujinn ( talk) 11:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I removed some descriptions on the Mukden Incident and the united front between KMT and CCP as they are a bit off-topic. -- MtBell 02:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I removed the following passage. In my view, this wikipedia entry gives far too much weight to revisionists. There exist at least one historian in this world who believes that Japan does not even exist and that the earth is a figment of our imagination. Is that historian going to get a paragraph here too? Please, report only the majority opinion and relegate the minority opinion to footnotes or, when it's absurd, ignore it altogether. Please exercise judgement!
In 2000, a historian concurred with certain Japanese scholars who had argued that the contest was a concocted story, with the collusion of the soldiers themselves for the purpose of raising the national fighting spirit. [1] In 2005, a Tokyo district judge dismissed a suit by the families of the lieutenants, stating that "the lieutenants admitted the fact that they raced to kill 100 people" and that the story cannot be proven to be clearly false. [2] The judge also ruled against the civil claim of the plaintiffs because the original article was more than 60 years old. [3] The historicity of the event remains disputed in Japan. [4]
I'm wondering why reference to a videogame "Healer" depicting Nanking Massacre among other massacres was removed. Especially because game is not an opinion piece but fairly neutral "serious game" developed in an academic context.
I reverted this revision because some elements of it (changing "Japanese Army" to "Chinese Army", for example) appeared to be vandalism. Other elements of the revision could plausibly be in good faith, but were poorly worded or made substantive changes without presenting a cite (such as changing the lower limit of the death toll from 40,000 to 100,000). Discuss it here if you think my revert was unjustified. Yaush ( talk) 16:43, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Trying to undo revision 424912725 by 74.36.103.230 ( talk)
Where did these numbers come from? I can't find a source.
What's creeping me out is that, while I can edit other pages fine right now, I've just tried ten times to revert this revision, and every time my connection times out. ONLY on this page. Acidtoyman ( talk) 22:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
This is the university's page on the Nanjing Massacre WhisperToMe ( talk) 00:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
This article needs some serious weeding for dead links, additions of citations (many of the citations needed tags date back several years), and a check of existing references...many seem to be Japanese nationalist propaganda (I deleted some that were dead/unable to check, but some, like reference 12 seem to be denial literature...).
I am recommending removal or re-sourcing all material referenced to ref 12, and a rewrite of any uncited claims that have existed for years. I know this is apparently a hot topic, but this is not a forum for propaganda. AS it is, with no ill intent toward the editors here, this is a a pretty sloppy article in section. I would like to help, but cannot do it alone. Given the notability of this event in WWII and in history in general, I think it needs a much higher degree of editing work done on it. 204.65.34.39 ( talk) 19:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Denial of the massacre (and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings) has become a staple ofJapanese nationalism.[10] In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and few deny the occurrence of the massacre outright.
If few Japanese deny the occurrence of the massacre, but denial of the massacre is a staple of Japanese Nationalism, there must be few Japanese nationalists. Is this the case? Otherwise there is a contradiction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.queso ( talk • contribs) 07:24, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
The deniers in this article are good, I will give them that. In the lead paragraphs alone, three different ways of saying, "some think it did not happen", all linked to other facts which are important. It is a tangle I will not attempt to unravel, but someone needs to do so. Anarchangel ( talk) 02:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Agree that this needs to be untangled. It is quite surprising that the link regarding this is to Historical revisionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism where the first paragraph states that "constant revision of history is part of the normal scholarly process of writing history." instead of to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism) where "Japanese war crimes" are described by pointing out that "The post-war minimisation of the war crimes of Japanese imperialism is an example of illegitimate historical revisionism[24]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.82.57.194 ( talk) 17:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I added the sentence "But the original articles described the contest as hand-to-hand combat. There is no depiction that Mukai and Noda killed non-combatants". Although I just added the truth of the "historical sources" aside from the truth of the "contest", it was deleted without any reasonable excuse. Those who deleted my sentence, however, haven't deleted unsourced parts in the article "Naking massacre". What could that mean? Isebito ( talk) 12:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Hello guys, just want to say, I know that this has been debated to death (I've read the acrhives... yes, all of them, every single one) and I think I have a solution to the explicit image of the woman reportedly raped and killed. I can't remember where I saw this but there was a similar discussion on another page about the use of explicit and graphic pictures being used and the outcome was that the picture was hidden in a collapsable window with a disclaimer warning readers that the hidden image was extremly graphic and to open and view at your own risk. Could a similar solution be used here? It's very difficult to read that section with that picture next to it. 212.250.138.33 ( talk) 22:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
A few of the images on the article seem too graphic, disturbing and disrespectful to be accepted as appropriate explicit material for this controversial article. For example, there is a picture with a woman's body that has clearly been raped and stabbed with a sword as well as a beheaded man's face. Although Wikipedia usually allows uncensored images and the topic of the article is controversial enough to allow some explicit material for appropriate, necessary educational purposes, I don't see how these examples really teach much more about the massacre's casualties. Although the casualties were indeed gruesome and numerous, to competely show the most explicit cases is not necessary to a person's education in addition to the article's related facts and statistics. It seems that the images are meant to cause emotion and reaction rather than further helpful education. Can someone who knows how to delete them delete them and maybe replace them with other ones?
Bambimissme421 ( talk) 03:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Agreed the images are very very graphic, but please don't delete them or the world would forget what happened to those poor souls. Just one word comes to the mind for the rapist Japanese army in Nanking 'SHAME', they should have been castrated. Even shameful is the fact that this genocide has been denied by the Japanese nation and their hypocrite ally US who weeps crocodile tears for the Jewish genocide in Europe...<Fahaam [10]/>
['Guidelines for distressing images' –new posting refactored into the existing discussion on graphic images]
Could I please beg the co-ordinators of this article to replace the most distressing image of the female victim of the Nanking massacre with one less confronting ? I assure you my objection does not have the object of trying to tone down the horrific nature of the event itself, but only of trying to protect the rights of victims and their families. In the same way that pornographic images are not shown even whem they can be said to be relevant, for instance in reporting of murders or rapes, depictions of extreme violence are avoided also. I believe there are laws or guidelines that everyone follows with regard to this. Mummywolf09 ( talk) 10:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)