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I think there may be more to Saipan than the Abramoff scandal. It's an insult to all the indigenous on the island to spend more time talking about a scandal (that may be very important to leftist wiki editors who want to prove that all republicans are helldemons) but is still a very small part of the history of Saipan. If anyone is interested in creating an accessible online encycolopedia and not cheaply pedaling their not so well thought out political views they should adjust that section to an appropriate length. ..Maybe that way it will unbiasedly report what happened without making such an attempt to "prove the truth about those evil right wing moralists".
Is this website for knowledge or pretending Huffington post like immature leftist rants are news? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.174.204 ( talk) 15:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Agree that it's too long. Can somebody do the cutting? HkCaGu ( talk) 12:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Left wing blogger think wikipedia is the place to rewrite history to suit their own agenda. The section needs to be removed all together as it violates the neutral point of view rules of wikipedia and doesn't cite any reliable sources (as of 8 Aug 2009). —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
69.225.29.140 (
talk)
23:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Good, accurate article. Do not censor Wikipedia because it may put one political party or another in a poor light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.35.240 ( talk) 23:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Issues, queries... make them here. - Roy Boy 800 04:24, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Good, accurate, article. Do not censor Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.35.240 ( talk) 23:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
The following was removed from the article:
Why? And any objections to it being put back? - Roy Boy 800
I notice that there is no mention of the military cemeteries that were on the island. Were they all moved to Hawaii? I know that the 2nd Division Marine cemetery was moved to the Honolulu Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu. Doc ♬ talk 21:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
There are still a number of military (WW2) memorials on Saipan, though I can't vouch for any cemeteries. Most notable among the WW2 memorials are Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff (where Japanese and locals committed suicide during the US's final invasion of the island), the Last Command Post (of the Japanese), a (popular divesite) underwater aluminum WW2 airplane, and an underwater memorial placed by Koreans next to a Japanese troopship wreck (which had been carrying conscripted Korean soldiers). Banzai Cliff has many Japanese wooden gravestones and memorial sculptures honoring specific fallen soldiers and ww2 soldiers in general, and could therefore be regarded as a cemetery of sorts. Sethnessatwikipedia 08:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
The sentence on Garapan seems out of place in the middle of the history section. How about adding a section on geography and putting it in there? 84.74.79.109 00:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
The "Controversy" section needs moving to another or its own page. See my comment in "Controversy Claims" below. The "Saipan" page is almost a stub once the Controversy section gets moved to a more appropriate page. Those of you currently living on Saipan need to get to work. You need to add more about geography, climate, geology, demographics, life styles, and marine life, to name a few aspects worth elaborating on. Photos would help show some of Saipan's uniqueness. See any of the pages on South Korean cities and provinces as examples. There are plenty of books on Saipan you could draw from and reference, including the USGS Professional Paper on the Geology of Saipan, which has quite a bit about natural history, not just geology, as I recall. Rich Johnson. SilasCreek ( talk) 03:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The whole "controversy" section is old news and more appropriate anyway on the CNMI page. Some mention, with links, in the "history" or "economy" sections might be ok. The "Saipan" page should be more about Saipan itself, including photos. A model page is the one on Jeju Island, South Korea. Jeju suffered through the infamous Jeju Uprising, but the much uglier politics involved don't dominate the page or the beauty and interest of Jeju itself. Saipan likewise is a beautiful and interesting place. SilasCreek ( talk) 02:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
"Garment workers in Saipan often live and work in fenced-in compounds (some residents also have fenced-in compounds),"
This statement is true but the wording seems convoluted. The first part of the statement is I think trying to imply that the workers are semi-prisoners and the part in parenthesis is defensive?
"and they are often not permitted to leave the fenced-in areas without permission from the manager and without an escort, although against the law and previously prosecuted, to limited effect."
It seems to me that anyone who lives on Saipan (I do) and can see the multitudes of garment workers wandering around wherever and whenever they please knows this statement is not generally true.
David on Saipan 13:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
David on Saipan -- I wrote the "Garment workers... compounds" portion, based on personal experiences including a tour of a garmentn facility and personally knowing many factory workers while living on Saipan for a few years in the mid-90s. Looks like the parenthetical defensive item was indeed defensive -- and added by someone else. It's a bit schizophrenic to have that parenthetical bit in the sentence. While some rich folks may live in fenced-in compounds (as they do on Guam), this has nothing to do with the reasons why garment workers is/were kept behind fences.
I agree, sometimes garment workers are allowed out, since they can sometimes be found working nights in the local hostess-bars. However, this represents a minority (or at least, it did in the mid-90s). While I lived there, the overwhelming majority of garment workers were only allowed outside the compounds if they were accompanied by a manager/handler, and only allowed a "no work" day once a month-- pointedly on a weekend, so they could not go to an open government facility to complain about conditions and learn what was legal.
I think the big problem on this page is to prevent apologists and cover-ups for what is (or was), in reality, a pretty ugly situation. Sethnessatwikipedia 10:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I know that abuses occur on Saipan just as they do in other places. Wherever there are vulnerable people, there are always those that try to exploit them. I know of several recent cases of human trafficing and underage girls forced into prostitution, because the cases were brought to trial and the perpetrators went to jail. This also happened in California when I was living there. But it just seems to me that the treatment and prominence on the page has been out of line with the general practices in this or other encyclopedias. If you look up California, you don't see a large proportion of the page devoted to exploitation of illegal aliens, although it certainly continues to happen. The page has had a general lack of factual information.
David on Saipan 15:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
David, I would agree that abuses of illegal aliens IN CALIFORNIA are overemphasized in the Media. However, in Saipan and in this Wikipedia article, the problem cannot be overstated. The textile industry, built on exploited Chinese contract-worker labor in sweatshop conditions, is the NUMBER ONE industry in Saipan. Tourism is the number two industry. The exploited contract workers from China (textile workers), Burma, the Philippines (bar girls), and Thailand represent roughly a third of the island's population. The current state of the Wikipedia article is misleading because it has deemphasized a TRULY large problem. I would strongly advocate returning the page to its earlier state, in which many citations and examples were listed. Sethnessatwikipedia 08:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a list of villages by population. -- Beland 00:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
This is difficult, Beland. Except for Garapan which has well-defined borders and lots of roads in a crisscross matrix, the "villages" on Saipan are little more than loosely defined suburban zones with just one or two roads running through them. Possible exception might be "Navy Hill", "San Roque", or possibly "Dan dan". Populations might also be very dependent on hazy or missing statistics, like overseas contract workers living in barracks and illegal aliens.
Sethnessatwikipedia
10:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
First of all, what does that mean? Second of all, what about Texas? Papercrab 17:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I just made edits of various kinds to every part of this article, which are stated in a nutshell in my summary, but here is a bit more detail for reference:
Adrigon 12:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Is it true that the football pitches in Saipan are so bad that they are more like car parks than grass fields? Can anyone verify this claim & do you think it's worthy of mention? InSPURation 15:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
See http://www.doi.gov/oia/reports/OmbudsmansReport.pdf 216.114.81.230 23:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Some dude from Scotland living in Korea keeps acting like he knows what he is talking about regarding life on this island, and seems to have some serious difficulty diferentiating between what is a blog and transcripts of a radio program. He keeps removing Food for Thought - Transcripts of the Harry Blalock radio program on CNMI society as an external link. First, let us explain the difference between a blog and a radio commentary for those having difficulty with this. Any self-appointed monkey can post a blog to the net and have his or her amatuer hour that no one really reads. A radio commentary is, er, radio, a type of broadcast media, and it is very rare for someone to have their own radio broadcast. Second, as one who actually lives on Saipan, the Blalock radio program is highly respected and more popular than newspapers. People gather around the radio just to listen--Saipan is still largely an oral society--like Ma and Pop used to do in olden days with a radio show. Blalock interviews senators, community leadrs, the governor, etc., regularly. He is not just any monkey. In fact, he is THE ONLY person on the island with a radio commentary, and is considered more influential than the politicians. Nuff said. C.m.jones 18:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I am the one who added the Blalock link a good long while ago. Having lived on Saipan for several years in the past, I can attest that Blalock's "Food for Thought", and Blalock, is just as the user above is describing.
Deiz, which part of WP:EL do you think you are trying to enforce here? Under What should be linked, I see "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews. That pretty well describes Blalock: he reviews weekly happenings, current events, on the island and interviews leaders. Under Links normally to be avoided, I see nothing there that would apply.
By the way, the link to Chamorro.com from saipantribune.com is an advertisement, which you can see in the emboldened part of the URL: http://www.saipantribune.com/adredir.aspx?adID=68&url= http://www.chamorro.com.
I am going to re-add the link, because there is no basis in policy to remove it, and in addition, there is basis in policy for its inclusion. That is why I added it initially.
CyberAnth 02:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Diaz, I must have missed the part in WP:EL about how each site linked to must meet WP:BIO. I must have also missed the policy where an admin can violate WP:CIVIL against a user, as you just did above, a get away with it. I must have further missed the policy that first requires a user to write a bio article about the content creator of the material featured in the link. Are you making policy up as you go along to just support what you want?
I showed over a month ago the very clear basis in the policy for the inclusion of the link based on WP:EL, and you have done nothing but say "I've answered on your talk pages about the sections of WP:EL that the radio link violates", which you have not done anywhere. What you have done is snowball on the issue, introducing irrelevant arguments, and threatened those who disagree with you with locking the page.
Per the above reasons from WP:EL I gave, and per the complete lack of reasoning based in WP:EL from Diaz, and also because there is consensus here (although that can never trump other policies, WP:EL in this case), I am restoring the link.
Until you start arguing from WP:EL for why the link should be excluded, and against my reasons based in WP:EL for why it should be included, all you are doing is engaging in your own self-styled WP:EW of your own initiation. Your view goes against consensus on this page, and you actions and threats smack of abuse and WP:OWN.
CyberAnth 06:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Yea, let's evaluate this:
In short, your actions are the perfect explanation for why I keep reading at great Wikipedians' userpages about why they have left for Citizendium.
CyberAnth 07:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Chamorro? Thanks! Chris 08:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I removed the statement about garments entering the US exempt from US immigration laws and other protections. Garments are not subject to immigration or labor laws, although they may be produced by people who are. David on Saipan ( talk) 13:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
In the last paragraph of the Foreign contract labor abuse and exemptions from U.S. federal regulations section:
The external link given as a reference (#22) does not work, so I wonder where the reference is for the recruitment fees and the year of salary. These figures don't make sense: First of all, one year of salary at CNMI minimum wage would be (2080 hours X $3.55/hr) which comes to $7384 per year. The reference to recruiters charging $6000 (#23) works but is nearly 10 years old. Even this amount would be less than one year of salary at minimum wage, even less at higher wages.
I have heard that many workers pay recruiters, however, I none of the workers I have talked to (perhaps 50 - 75) paid a recruiter. Most of the workers I know are Filipino, so maybe more of the Chinese pay recruiters.
Many contacts are for two years rather than one.
I have made no changes to the section but it obviously needs some changes. I am looking for sources so that I can replace it with something accurate and informative rather than just deleting it. Anyone have sources/info for this?
The current section reads as follows: "Contract laborers arriving from China are usually required to pay their (Chinese National) recruitment agents fees equal to a year's total salary[22] (roughly $3,500) and occasionally as high as two years' salary,[23] though the contracts are only one-year contracts, renewable at the employer's discretion." David on Saipan ( talk) 08:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the contents make sense. Remember it was $3.05 ($6300) until recently, minus room and board (whatever caps CNMI govt allows) and possibly transportation. Changing to "net pay" may read better. Recent newspaper reports have quoted 40k CNY (5k USD), but those are the cases where the jobs aren't necessarily legit. You are right that Chinese labor and Filipino labor are very different. HkCaGu ( talk) 18:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Is there any defensible reason that the numbers in the section describing the population of the island at the bottom of the page have the thousands separated like 1'000 rather than 1,000?
I don't recall ever seeing that before, and it disagrees with the format of the rest of the numbers in the article. I'm not an expert on such things but I don't think that's correct.
I was just going to change it outright but it's sufficiently strange enough that I thought I'd ask first.
Jdkkp ( talk) 18:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Maybe somebody using a keyboard in a different language. You can go ahead and change ' to , ! HkCaGu ( talk) 02:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
That's kind of what I was thinking... but it being an English-language page, it should be in the "standard" English format. Anyway, I fixed it. I scanned over the article again just to check and it's only in that section. Then I noticed the heading -- "People on Saipan". That's usually labeled "Demographics" on other pages, so I changed that, too. (Someone's got to nitpick.)
Jdkkp ( talk) 18:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Can anyone create the complete story of German Palm Oil Railways in 1901-1914 and the Japanese Sugar Railways in Saipan 1921-1944. These were of great importance for the island´s commercial development. Some notes are available, but the list of steam locomotives which worked in the Saipanese Railways are still missing as late as in 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.118.82 ( talk) 16:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps that material would be better placed on the CNMI main page, rather than on the page about Saipan.
Ordinary Person ( talk) 00:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Can't agree more. And it needs to be rid of recentism as the garment worker population dwindles--it's now less than half of that back in 2000. HkCaGu ( talk) 02:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
If someone can retrieve this, perhaps some of it can be used to support the text that the island was first inhabited 2000 B.C.?
"Saipan may be Pacific's oldest archaeological site Sediment cores taken from Saipan's Lake Susupe in 2002 have yielded a continual record of plant pollen and other materials for the past 8,000 years that could make the island one of the oldest archaeological site in the Pacific, according to the Historic Preservation Office. HPO director Epiphanio E. Cabrera said that scientists who have been working with the CNMI recently announced new evidence that could push the date for the earliest human settlement in Micronesia back to nearly 5,000 years ago. Cabrera said researchers J. Stephen Athens and Jerome Ward from the International Archaeological Research Institute Inc. noted a series of abrupt shifts in Saipan's ancient environment, some of which appeared to have been caused by humans. Charcoal particles and an abundance of grass pollen and pollens from betel nut palm and coconut trees that appeared around 6,860 BCE were analyzed. Cabrera said the discovery predates the earliest archaeological sites on Saipan by more than a thousand years. "This is some of the earliest evidence for human settlement ever found in Micronesia," he said. Dr. Richard Knecht, acting staff archaeologist, said the recent findings suggest that sites 5,000 years or older existed on Saipan. "The challenge now is to use what we know about ancient shorelines, which will likely reveal more early sites and possibly the first movement of early humans into the Pacific from Asia," Knecht said. Cabrera said that future studies and coring of lakes and sinkholes in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are required to refine the "very promising, though still preliminary" findings. Other studies of ancient sites also revealed early occupation of the CNMI. The HPO director said a core from Lake Hagoi on Tinian revealed coconut pollen and charcoal particles dating back to 5,444 BCE There were also similar finds at Tipalao Marsh in Guam and a sinkhole in the Kagman Peninsula on Saipan's east side also shows major changes in vegetation by about 6,520 BCE. "It probably took years for humans to alter the environment to the point where it leaves a signature in the sediment cores. Therefore, the actual dates of initial human settlement could be decades or centuries before those taken from the cores," he said. The earliest sites in the CNMI are Saipan's Unai Achugao site from 1,800 B.C. and Tinian's Unai Chulu site dating to 1,500 B.C. Cabrera said HPO's search to find the earliest site in the CNMI will continue as long as funding is available. "It seems safe to assume that our ancestors were here on these islands 5,000 years ago," Cabrera said. Source: Saipan Tribune (10 November 2005)"
![]() | 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. |
I think there may be more to Saipan than the Abramoff scandal. It's an insult to all the indigenous on the island to spend more time talking about a scandal (that may be very important to leftist wiki editors who want to prove that all republicans are helldemons) but is still a very small part of the history of Saipan. If anyone is interested in creating an accessible online encycolopedia and not cheaply pedaling their not so well thought out political views they should adjust that section to an appropriate length. ..Maybe that way it will unbiasedly report what happened without making such an attempt to "prove the truth about those evil right wing moralists".
Is this website for knowledge or pretending Huffington post like immature leftist rants are news? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.174.204 ( talk) 15:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Agree that it's too long. Can somebody do the cutting? HkCaGu ( talk) 12:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Left wing blogger think wikipedia is the place to rewrite history to suit their own agenda. The section needs to be removed all together as it violates the neutral point of view rules of wikipedia and doesn't cite any reliable sources (as of 8 Aug 2009). —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
69.225.29.140 (
talk)
23:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Good, accurate article. Do not censor Wikipedia because it may put one political party or another in a poor light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.35.240 ( talk) 23:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Issues, queries... make them here. - Roy Boy 800 04:24, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Good, accurate, article. Do not censor Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.35.240 ( talk) 23:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
The following was removed from the article:
Why? And any objections to it being put back? - Roy Boy 800
I notice that there is no mention of the military cemeteries that were on the island. Were they all moved to Hawaii? I know that the 2nd Division Marine cemetery was moved to the Honolulu Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu. Doc ♬ talk 21:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
There are still a number of military (WW2) memorials on Saipan, though I can't vouch for any cemeteries. Most notable among the WW2 memorials are Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff (where Japanese and locals committed suicide during the US's final invasion of the island), the Last Command Post (of the Japanese), a (popular divesite) underwater aluminum WW2 airplane, and an underwater memorial placed by Koreans next to a Japanese troopship wreck (which had been carrying conscripted Korean soldiers). Banzai Cliff has many Japanese wooden gravestones and memorial sculptures honoring specific fallen soldiers and ww2 soldiers in general, and could therefore be regarded as a cemetery of sorts. Sethnessatwikipedia 08:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
The sentence on Garapan seems out of place in the middle of the history section. How about adding a section on geography and putting it in there? 84.74.79.109 00:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
The "Controversy" section needs moving to another or its own page. See my comment in "Controversy Claims" below. The "Saipan" page is almost a stub once the Controversy section gets moved to a more appropriate page. Those of you currently living on Saipan need to get to work. You need to add more about geography, climate, geology, demographics, life styles, and marine life, to name a few aspects worth elaborating on. Photos would help show some of Saipan's uniqueness. See any of the pages on South Korean cities and provinces as examples. There are plenty of books on Saipan you could draw from and reference, including the USGS Professional Paper on the Geology of Saipan, which has quite a bit about natural history, not just geology, as I recall. Rich Johnson. SilasCreek ( talk) 03:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The whole "controversy" section is old news and more appropriate anyway on the CNMI page. Some mention, with links, in the "history" or "economy" sections might be ok. The "Saipan" page should be more about Saipan itself, including photos. A model page is the one on Jeju Island, South Korea. Jeju suffered through the infamous Jeju Uprising, but the much uglier politics involved don't dominate the page or the beauty and interest of Jeju itself. Saipan likewise is a beautiful and interesting place. SilasCreek ( talk) 02:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
"Garment workers in Saipan often live and work in fenced-in compounds (some residents also have fenced-in compounds),"
This statement is true but the wording seems convoluted. The first part of the statement is I think trying to imply that the workers are semi-prisoners and the part in parenthesis is defensive?
"and they are often not permitted to leave the fenced-in areas without permission from the manager and without an escort, although against the law and previously prosecuted, to limited effect."
It seems to me that anyone who lives on Saipan (I do) and can see the multitudes of garment workers wandering around wherever and whenever they please knows this statement is not generally true.
David on Saipan 13:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
David on Saipan -- I wrote the "Garment workers... compounds" portion, based on personal experiences including a tour of a garmentn facility and personally knowing many factory workers while living on Saipan for a few years in the mid-90s. Looks like the parenthetical defensive item was indeed defensive -- and added by someone else. It's a bit schizophrenic to have that parenthetical bit in the sentence. While some rich folks may live in fenced-in compounds (as they do on Guam), this has nothing to do with the reasons why garment workers is/were kept behind fences.
I agree, sometimes garment workers are allowed out, since they can sometimes be found working nights in the local hostess-bars. However, this represents a minority (or at least, it did in the mid-90s). While I lived there, the overwhelming majority of garment workers were only allowed outside the compounds if they were accompanied by a manager/handler, and only allowed a "no work" day once a month-- pointedly on a weekend, so they could not go to an open government facility to complain about conditions and learn what was legal.
I think the big problem on this page is to prevent apologists and cover-ups for what is (or was), in reality, a pretty ugly situation. Sethnessatwikipedia 10:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I know that abuses occur on Saipan just as they do in other places. Wherever there are vulnerable people, there are always those that try to exploit them. I know of several recent cases of human trafficing and underage girls forced into prostitution, because the cases were brought to trial and the perpetrators went to jail. This also happened in California when I was living there. But it just seems to me that the treatment and prominence on the page has been out of line with the general practices in this or other encyclopedias. If you look up California, you don't see a large proportion of the page devoted to exploitation of illegal aliens, although it certainly continues to happen. The page has had a general lack of factual information.
David on Saipan 15:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
David, I would agree that abuses of illegal aliens IN CALIFORNIA are overemphasized in the Media. However, in Saipan and in this Wikipedia article, the problem cannot be overstated. The textile industry, built on exploited Chinese contract-worker labor in sweatshop conditions, is the NUMBER ONE industry in Saipan. Tourism is the number two industry. The exploited contract workers from China (textile workers), Burma, the Philippines (bar girls), and Thailand represent roughly a third of the island's population. The current state of the Wikipedia article is misleading because it has deemphasized a TRULY large problem. I would strongly advocate returning the page to its earlier state, in which many citations and examples were listed. Sethnessatwikipedia 08:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a list of villages by population. -- Beland 00:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
This is difficult, Beland. Except for Garapan which has well-defined borders and lots of roads in a crisscross matrix, the "villages" on Saipan are little more than loosely defined suburban zones with just one or two roads running through them. Possible exception might be "Navy Hill", "San Roque", or possibly "Dan dan". Populations might also be very dependent on hazy or missing statistics, like overseas contract workers living in barracks and illegal aliens.
Sethnessatwikipedia
10:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
First of all, what does that mean? Second of all, what about Texas? Papercrab 17:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I just made edits of various kinds to every part of this article, which are stated in a nutshell in my summary, but here is a bit more detail for reference:
Adrigon 12:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Is it true that the football pitches in Saipan are so bad that they are more like car parks than grass fields? Can anyone verify this claim & do you think it's worthy of mention? InSPURation 15:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
See http://www.doi.gov/oia/reports/OmbudsmansReport.pdf 216.114.81.230 23:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Some dude from Scotland living in Korea keeps acting like he knows what he is talking about regarding life on this island, and seems to have some serious difficulty diferentiating between what is a blog and transcripts of a radio program. He keeps removing Food for Thought - Transcripts of the Harry Blalock radio program on CNMI society as an external link. First, let us explain the difference between a blog and a radio commentary for those having difficulty with this. Any self-appointed monkey can post a blog to the net and have his or her amatuer hour that no one really reads. A radio commentary is, er, radio, a type of broadcast media, and it is very rare for someone to have their own radio broadcast. Second, as one who actually lives on Saipan, the Blalock radio program is highly respected and more popular than newspapers. People gather around the radio just to listen--Saipan is still largely an oral society--like Ma and Pop used to do in olden days with a radio show. Blalock interviews senators, community leadrs, the governor, etc., regularly. He is not just any monkey. In fact, he is THE ONLY person on the island with a radio commentary, and is considered more influential than the politicians. Nuff said. C.m.jones 18:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I am the one who added the Blalock link a good long while ago. Having lived on Saipan for several years in the past, I can attest that Blalock's "Food for Thought", and Blalock, is just as the user above is describing.
Deiz, which part of WP:EL do you think you are trying to enforce here? Under What should be linked, I see "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews. That pretty well describes Blalock: he reviews weekly happenings, current events, on the island and interviews leaders. Under Links normally to be avoided, I see nothing there that would apply.
By the way, the link to Chamorro.com from saipantribune.com is an advertisement, which you can see in the emboldened part of the URL: http://www.saipantribune.com/adredir.aspx?adID=68&url= http://www.chamorro.com.
I am going to re-add the link, because there is no basis in policy to remove it, and in addition, there is basis in policy for its inclusion. That is why I added it initially.
CyberAnth 02:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Diaz, I must have missed the part in WP:EL about how each site linked to must meet WP:BIO. I must have also missed the policy where an admin can violate WP:CIVIL against a user, as you just did above, a get away with it. I must have further missed the policy that first requires a user to write a bio article about the content creator of the material featured in the link. Are you making policy up as you go along to just support what you want?
I showed over a month ago the very clear basis in the policy for the inclusion of the link based on WP:EL, and you have done nothing but say "I've answered on your talk pages about the sections of WP:EL that the radio link violates", which you have not done anywhere. What you have done is snowball on the issue, introducing irrelevant arguments, and threatened those who disagree with you with locking the page.
Per the above reasons from WP:EL I gave, and per the complete lack of reasoning based in WP:EL from Diaz, and also because there is consensus here (although that can never trump other policies, WP:EL in this case), I am restoring the link.
Until you start arguing from WP:EL for why the link should be excluded, and against my reasons based in WP:EL for why it should be included, all you are doing is engaging in your own self-styled WP:EW of your own initiation. Your view goes against consensus on this page, and you actions and threats smack of abuse and WP:OWN.
CyberAnth 06:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Yea, let's evaluate this:
In short, your actions are the perfect explanation for why I keep reading at great Wikipedians' userpages about why they have left for Citizendium.
CyberAnth 07:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Chamorro? Thanks! Chris 08:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I removed the statement about garments entering the US exempt from US immigration laws and other protections. Garments are not subject to immigration or labor laws, although they may be produced by people who are. David on Saipan ( talk) 13:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
In the last paragraph of the Foreign contract labor abuse and exemptions from U.S. federal regulations section:
The external link given as a reference (#22) does not work, so I wonder where the reference is for the recruitment fees and the year of salary. These figures don't make sense: First of all, one year of salary at CNMI minimum wage would be (2080 hours X $3.55/hr) which comes to $7384 per year. The reference to recruiters charging $6000 (#23) works but is nearly 10 years old. Even this amount would be less than one year of salary at minimum wage, even less at higher wages.
I have heard that many workers pay recruiters, however, I none of the workers I have talked to (perhaps 50 - 75) paid a recruiter. Most of the workers I know are Filipino, so maybe more of the Chinese pay recruiters.
Many contacts are for two years rather than one.
I have made no changes to the section but it obviously needs some changes. I am looking for sources so that I can replace it with something accurate and informative rather than just deleting it. Anyone have sources/info for this?
The current section reads as follows: "Contract laborers arriving from China are usually required to pay their (Chinese National) recruitment agents fees equal to a year's total salary[22] (roughly $3,500) and occasionally as high as two years' salary,[23] though the contracts are only one-year contracts, renewable at the employer's discretion." David on Saipan ( talk) 08:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the contents make sense. Remember it was $3.05 ($6300) until recently, minus room and board (whatever caps CNMI govt allows) and possibly transportation. Changing to "net pay" may read better. Recent newspaper reports have quoted 40k CNY (5k USD), but those are the cases where the jobs aren't necessarily legit. You are right that Chinese labor and Filipino labor are very different. HkCaGu ( talk) 18:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Is there any defensible reason that the numbers in the section describing the population of the island at the bottom of the page have the thousands separated like 1'000 rather than 1,000?
I don't recall ever seeing that before, and it disagrees with the format of the rest of the numbers in the article. I'm not an expert on such things but I don't think that's correct.
I was just going to change it outright but it's sufficiently strange enough that I thought I'd ask first.
Jdkkp ( talk) 18:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Maybe somebody using a keyboard in a different language. You can go ahead and change ' to , ! HkCaGu ( talk) 02:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
That's kind of what I was thinking... but it being an English-language page, it should be in the "standard" English format. Anyway, I fixed it. I scanned over the article again just to check and it's only in that section. Then I noticed the heading -- "People on Saipan". That's usually labeled "Demographics" on other pages, so I changed that, too. (Someone's got to nitpick.)
Jdkkp ( talk) 18:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Can anyone create the complete story of German Palm Oil Railways in 1901-1914 and the Japanese Sugar Railways in Saipan 1921-1944. These were of great importance for the island´s commercial development. Some notes are available, but the list of steam locomotives which worked in the Saipanese Railways are still missing as late as in 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.118.82 ( talk) 16:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps that material would be better placed on the CNMI main page, rather than on the page about Saipan.
Ordinary Person ( talk) 00:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Can't agree more. And it needs to be rid of recentism as the garment worker population dwindles--it's now less than half of that back in 2000. HkCaGu ( talk) 02:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
If someone can retrieve this, perhaps some of it can be used to support the text that the island was first inhabited 2000 B.C.?
"Saipan may be Pacific's oldest archaeological site Sediment cores taken from Saipan's Lake Susupe in 2002 have yielded a continual record of plant pollen and other materials for the past 8,000 years that could make the island one of the oldest archaeological site in the Pacific, according to the Historic Preservation Office. HPO director Epiphanio E. Cabrera said that scientists who have been working with the CNMI recently announced new evidence that could push the date for the earliest human settlement in Micronesia back to nearly 5,000 years ago. Cabrera said researchers J. Stephen Athens and Jerome Ward from the International Archaeological Research Institute Inc. noted a series of abrupt shifts in Saipan's ancient environment, some of which appeared to have been caused by humans. Charcoal particles and an abundance of grass pollen and pollens from betel nut palm and coconut trees that appeared around 6,860 BCE were analyzed. Cabrera said the discovery predates the earliest archaeological sites on Saipan by more than a thousand years. "This is some of the earliest evidence for human settlement ever found in Micronesia," he said. Dr. Richard Knecht, acting staff archaeologist, said the recent findings suggest that sites 5,000 years or older existed on Saipan. "The challenge now is to use what we know about ancient shorelines, which will likely reveal more early sites and possibly the first movement of early humans into the Pacific from Asia," Knecht said. Cabrera said that future studies and coring of lakes and sinkholes in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are required to refine the "very promising, though still preliminary" findings. Other studies of ancient sites also revealed early occupation of the CNMI. The HPO director said a core from Lake Hagoi on Tinian revealed coconut pollen and charcoal particles dating back to 5,444 BCE There were also similar finds at Tipalao Marsh in Guam and a sinkhole in the Kagman Peninsula on Saipan's east side also shows major changes in vegetation by about 6,520 BCE. "It probably took years for humans to alter the environment to the point where it leaves a signature in the sediment cores. Therefore, the actual dates of initial human settlement could be decades or centuries before those taken from the cores," he said. The earliest sites in the CNMI are Saipan's Unai Achugao site from 1,800 B.C. and Tinian's Unai Chulu site dating to 1,500 B.C. Cabrera said HPO's search to find the earliest site in the CNMI will continue as long as funding is available. "It seems safe to assume that our ancestors were here on these islands 5,000 years ago," Cabrera said. Source: Saipan Tribune (10 November 2005)"