Talk:Bruce Cumings/Archives/2015

An Expalanation

First, pardon my 'French'. I am not a native English speaker. It seems to me that there is some sort of consensus among respected writers who have made several comments below. Thus, there must be some sort of explanation on how someone considered an idiot or totally wrong can be a professor, and author of a number of books published by respected publishing houses and a recipient of various awards. Two major points can be made.

1. What professor Cumings writes contradicts from time to time (though not really that often) with 'official' history and propaganda related to the Korean War and other subjects of recent history. Since some people have a tendency to accept official points of view and propaganda stuff at their face value and as 100% truth, they get extremely irritated reading Cumings' works. Consequently, they, being in an very irritated state of mind, cannot really appreciate significance of Cumings' works, judge what is valuable in them and what may be not, even if they have qualification to judge due to their expertise in the same topic (Korean history).

2. Some critics simply have no expertise in Korean history. Thus, the way they attack Cumings is similar to the way some attack, say, Darwin. Most of those who attack Darwin actually have no clue what the guy wrote about. Their criticism is also based on some outside ideas that have nothing to do with subjects Darwin wrote about (like ideas from the Bible). For example, someone would tell that Cumings is left wing scholar and provide a couple of quotations. That can be enough for people who consider themselves right wing to dismiss Cumings as an idiot without actually reading his books.

You cannot really appreciate Cumings' works without certain amount of knowledge and critical studies of Korean history. Simply reading his books without that prior knowledge (i.e. with knowledge of war propaganda stuff only) will not help. What the man does is science. Calling him an idiot is as funny as calling Einstein an idiot. You can't be serious doing that unless you really can disproof Einstein's theories with all those formulas and math. Same with Cumings. Ri hwa won 11:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Significance

What, exactly, makes this guy so special that he deserves an article? I'm not saying he doesn't, I'm just saying that it doesn't say much in the article that makes him very important. I guess we could all just write articles about our college professors, but somehow I doubt that's what Wikipedians really want...Hmmmmm382 09:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Article needs work

If the article stays (and I'm not suggesting it goes to RfD), this article needs a lot of work. Right not it seems af it it was written by his PR firm. It needs more citations (though I think it's absurdly funny that a quote from his book is flagged as needing a citation), and needs more balance on both the positive and negative reviews he's recieved, with perhaps some kind of background on who those reviewers are. Many glowing reviews of Stalin could probably be found, but after the background of the reviewer was made readily available, many of those would probably be quickly discounted. wbfergus ^Talk 13:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course the article needs work, and so do literally thousands of other biographies of academic scholars on wikipedia. By current wikipedia standards this one is somewhere in the middle of the pack. By the same token many negative reviews of someone as important as Marx can be found; anyone who challenges establishment views invariably receives a torrent of villification, much of it spurious in nature. Nor should we pretend that a google search yielding some critical articles, several by non-specialists in Korean history, is more significant than it actually is.BernardL 15:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

FWIW the citation flag in the article is not in fact next to a quote, the flag is next to a description of a future book. I am not certain whether such a seemingly innocuous sentence is so important so as to merit such a flag. The quotation in the next paragraph should be furnished with a proper citation.BernardL 15:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you would care to elaborate on the "background" of those in South Korea who decided his scholarship and conduct was worthy of the inaugural granting of an award in honour of a Korean peace prize winner, in fact Korea's first Nobel Laureate. What is it about the "background" of those who made this decision that causes you concern? BernardL 15:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Where to start, where to start. Hmmm, Kim Dae Jung buys his Nobel Peace Prize by bribing the North Korean dictator with $500 million dolars to hold a summit. The award was decided by and presented by Kim Dae Jung. I also can't seem to find any refrences anywhere on the 'net about what the criteria were for selection, or who any other candidates were. And unlike the description as posted by the University of Chicago states, the Korean Times describes the award as "The award was designated in honor of Kim’s contribution to enhancing democracy, human rights and peace on the Korean Peninsula", not Cumings work in that regard. I could go on, but my opinion of Cumings or questionable awards do not pertain to the article itself. wbfergus ^Talk 16:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hugo S. Cunningham's credentials

Who is Hugo Cunningham and why is he deemed an authority to make judgements about the quality of Korean scholarship? I have a web page on radical economics but do not yet have a degree. Am I nevertheless qualified as a source for wikipedia articles on economics simply because I have opinions that have been disseminated on the web?BernardL 16:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you have 'problems' with a certain book, and offer a critique based upon your own research and specify which pages have false or misleading information, why can't that be used as a refernce? Others can then look at your assessment and judge if there is in fact any validity to what you say. wbfergus ^Talk 17:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but practices such as that, when it involves referencing oneself are in direct infraction with WP:OR- at least that is what WP editors overwhelmingly say in my experience. Others (possibly friends) referencing your work is a territory no less dicey. Moreover, in both cases source must meet reliability/verifiability requirements too. I am taking this to Request for Comment. BernardL 17:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Fine, that is your perogative to do so. However, my position would be that the inclusion does not constitute OR. I am merely providing somebody elses opinion or theory, not interpreting there data or opinions and injecting my own unpublished theory (research). Regarding your above statement, as I originally stated it, I would have to agree with you. I should have stated that if you posted it, published it, whatever, and then later somebody else came across and decided to use it as a reference, that should be allowed, in certain circumstances. As long as it is not novel, unique, held by a small minority, etc., it may be perfectly valid to use as a reference, if used solely to cooroborate other published claims from reputable sources, as I have done with Cunnigham. wbfergus ^Talk 17:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The inclusion of the Cunningham material falls uncontroversially in the category of a "questionable source" as per WP:V. It is solely Cunningham's layman opinion. It has never been published or subjected to editorial oversight of a publisher, and does not even reference relevant scholarship. Accordingly I quote:

"Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.[5]

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable_sources."BernardL 18:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Conversely though, the thoughts and opinions expressed by Mr. Cunningham are not "unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories" (WP:NOR). They are also "representing fairly and without bias all significant views" (WP:NPOV). Wikipedia's verifiablibity policy starts off by stating "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth", but I am attempting to present things in an even light. These are included in context to show that there is simply widespread criticism of his works through a gamut of various "sources" (term is used very loosely), consisting of fellow academics, professional historians, politicians, well respected journalism publications, and the average layman. If you will notice the entire edit history of the article, you will also notice that I am not specializing in just the criticisms of Cumings. I am also adding additional material that is not critical of Cumings, but for now the criticism part was a mess and I'm merely trying to get that section better organized. I am trying very hard to maintain NPOV, not inserting my own opinion or original research, and to add balance to the article. I also just added another reference to an interview one of his former students did with him, and you can freely follow the link to add in other "pro-Cumings" material that I haven't gotten around to yet.

One thing I think this article needs (and you are more than welcome to start it), is another section to counter the "Criticisms", maybe something like "Praise of Cumings work". Just because you caught this article in the middle of editing doesn't mean that I have broken "good faith", it merely means that I'm in the middle, like most Wikipedia articles are (see Wikipedia:About#Using_Wikipedia_as_a_research_tool. Admittedly though, it's getting close to the end of my 'computer time' for the day, and whether or not I continue tomorrow will depend a lot on what appears on my 'Watchlist' tomorrow. wbfergus ^Talk 18:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I should also end with it is not against Wikipedia policy to include something from a newsgroup or blog type posting. If it was, there wouldn't be a specific citation template created solely for that purpose (cite newsgroup). It also has the caveat "Do not use to verify", which I have not. Cunnigham is merely one example of a layman, there are other examples provided from other fields that can be used to verify the previous claims. wbfergus ^Talk 18:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be eager to find loopholes in the policies. If Cunningham's opinions do not constitute "unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements or theories" then how would you describe them? He makes very serious claims, for example that Cumings "intentionally distorts" which are in fact statements without substantive arguments. WP:NOR says that an edit constitutes original research when "It introduces an argument, without citing a reputable source for that argument, that purports to refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position." WP:NOR. Newsgroups and blog are self-published sources which are to be used if they are not making contentious claims - the claims Cumings "intentionally omits facts" are highly contentious. Once again, I ask you if you have ever read a book by Cumings from cover to cover? BernardL 11:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

<outdent>Cunningham's statements are not being made out of context, nor are they contentious, as the other provided criticisms show. Cunningham provides the additional context of specific examples and pages in the book he critiques, but the overall claims he makes have also been made by others, though not with the page by page examples Cunningham does. Cunningham also does state though, that "Bruce Cumings covers an interesting subject (Korea, especially since 1900), that has generally been neglected. His book is well-organized and well-presented". He also states "In summary, go ahead and enjoy the non-political aspects of his book. But before accepting at face value his contentions about Communism and U.S.-Korean relations, cross-check his claims against other sources, and weigh his values against your own". His general comments have been echoed by others, even by other historians and scholars, as is shown in the "Criticism" section, so they are hardly unique, nor do they "refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position". The only way to claim such an absurd statement would be by removing all of the other supporting references and only leaving the Cunningham reference. Your whole argument is based solely on Cunninham's credentials, not on whether or not his claims are substantiated by others who do have those credentials. wbfergus ^Talk 12:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

To charge that a scholar intentionally omits facts and misrepresents, etc. is a very serious and indeed, contentious charge. If other scholars have made similar explicit charges with regards to the intentionality alleged by Cunningham please review the evidence from those scholars here. Have you read the book that Cunningham is lambasting? If you did and refer yourself to the pages which Cunningham references you might realize that Cunningham's representations of Cumings are highly dubious. For example, Cunnigham writes that Cumings "even boasts of being used as a source of propaganda by Korea's anti-American Left." Well, if you would care to take the honest step of checking the relevant passages in "Korea's Place in the Sun" you will find that there is no evidence of "boasting" on the part of Cumings. He says that he got "sucked into the middle of all this, through no fault of my own" and desribes the tendency of some to associate his work as an animus of anti-American student demonstrations as "pure nonsense." Don't you think it is appropriate to be skeptical of the representations of this laymen newsgroup troll named Cunningman?BernardL 14:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here's a partial listing (I'll try to use different quotes from the ones already in the article):

From Hollander (same reference as article), "The author is eager to dispel any impression of North Korean aggression against the South (which in fact culminated in its 1950 invasion); he even uses the disingenuous argument that the conflict was a civil war and that the 38th parallel is "not an international boundary." ". He follows later with "As one reads on, it becomes an increasingly compelling question how it is possible for a professor of history at a great institution of learning--Chicago--to have any sympathy for such a regime." The paragraph goes on to say "Among the revealing and novel information he provides is that "every citizen 'who travels, checks into a hotel, or dines at a public restaurant is required to carry a sanitation pass,' verifying that he or she has been to a public bathhouse within the past week."". There is also the quote that's already in the article which starts with "In a triumph of selective perception...". This doesn't even address the title of Hollander's article, which pretty much sums up his feelings towards Cumings, "Pariah Lies".

Other applicable quotes from Anders Lewis are "He writes that he "watched the hoopla at each polling place" and "was struck by the quaint simplicity of this ritual: a dubious yet effective brass band, old people bent over canes in the polling lines and accorded the greatest respect, young couples in their finest dress dancing in the chaste way I remember from ‘square dances' in the Midwest of the 1950s, and little kids fooling around while their parents waited to vote." While getting sappy about his boyhood, Cumings fails to consider what type of "election" he had witnessed, or how much real choice North Koreans had during this "quaint" affair". Lewis goes on to say "Cumings's arguments cannot be sustained. On numerous levels his book fails. Embarrassingly, North Korea: Another Country is plagued with grammatical errors and typos. For example, in chapter 2 Cumings references a statement by Condoleeza Rice that, he reports, was written in 1902. In chapter 3, Cumings writes this about his first visit to North Korea: "They took me a large pre-twentieth-century history museum…." In Chapter 6 he writes that UN "estimates of agricultural production [in North Korea] stood at 4 million tons in 1995, dropping to 2.8 million tons for the each of the next two years…." There are many other annoying errors. Such mistakes could, perhaps, be forgiven if it were not for the fact that Cumings himself attacks more conservative scholars and analysts on the very same grounds. Hence, he blasts CIA analyst Helen-Louise Hunter for her ungrammatical usage of certain Korean words. Hunter, he quips, has a "painfully obvious lack of language facility." Judge not, oh Professor, that ye be not judged!" Then again, this is followed by "There are other problems. Remarkably, Cumings believes it is perfectly acceptable, even advisable, to use the controlled North Korean press and North Korean government reports as dependable sources of information. Thus, in writing about alleged U.S. and South Korean atrocities committed during the Korean War he refers to a "secret account by North Korean authorities" that claimed that South Korean soldiers shot almost 30,000 non-combatants, and that the U.S. government used a "slave labor" system to punish uncooperative North Koreans. The report, Cumings writes, "detailed gruesome tortures, and alleged that 300 female communists and collaborators were placed in brothels where they were raped continuously…." Reflecting a stunning lapse of historical judgement, not to mention knowledge of the true nature of communism, Cumings defends his use of the report by asking "why would DPRK officials lie to their superiors in secret internal materials?"".

So those are two examples from other respected historical scholars. I tried to condense their qoutes, but doing that lost a lot of context, as it is, some of the context is still lost. The article from The Atlantic is by far the most critical of all, which starts out (actually around the third sentence), with "It's every revisionist's nightmare, but Bruce Cumings, a history professor at the University of Chicago, has come closest to living it. In a book concluded in 1990 he argued that the Korean War started as "a local affair," and that the conventional notion of a Soviet-sponsored invasion of the South was just so much Cold War paranoia. In 1991 Russian authorities started declassifying the Soviet archives, which soon revealed that Kim Il Sung had sent dozens of telegrams begging Stalin for a green light to invade, and that the two met in Moscow repeatedly to plan the event. Initially hailed as "magisterial," The Origins of the Korean War soon gathered up its robes and retired to chambers. The book was such a valuable source of information on Korea in the 1940s, however, that many hoped the author would find a way to fix things and put it back into print.

Instead Cumings went on to write an account of postwar Korea that instances the North's "miracle rice," "autarkic" economy, and prescient energy policy (an "unqualified success") to refute what he calls the "basket-case" view of the country. With even worse timing than its predecessor, Korea's Place in the Sun (1997) went on sale just as the world was learning of a devastating famine wrought by Pyongyang's misrule".

So, just those three sources themselves pretty much cover the same gamut as the criticisms leveled by Cunningham. That Cumings lies (the title of Hollander's article), which can also be taken (politely) as "misrepresenting facts", like the example provide by Lewis about the "election" shows. The article from the Atlantic specifically states that after the Soviet archives were opened, and documents there showed the falseness of many of Cumings' statements about the cause of the Korean War, that many people hoped he would update his work accordingly. Instead it asserts that Cumings decided to ignore the evidence from the Soviet archives and write another pro-North Korea account which was also filled with 'obvious inaccuracies'. The article (almost) ends it's assessment of Cumings with "It seems to have slipped the professor's notice that many countries manage to stay independent without dragging children off to gulags, and that North Korea is a place where a lot of characteristically Korean behavior—speaking bluntly, for example—is punishable by execution". wbfergus ^Talk 16:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

In terms of Hugo Cunningham's opinions, I feel the issue is whether he is a recognized authority in the area he's writing about. Has he been published in peer-reviewed journals on the topic in question? Is he well-known in the area in question? (Newspaper articles about him regarding him in the area in question would suffice.) If he's not notable in the area in question, then his opinions should stay out per verifiability, OR, and reliable sourcing guidelines. Ngchen 16:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Performing a Google search for Hugo Cunningham, it appears his interest in Cumings is circuitous, probably due to the combination of Stalin (which he appears to have much interest in, besides Soviet Cummunism), to Kim Il Sung, via Cumings work on the Korean War and his absurd contentions that Stalin was basically unaware and that North Korea basically defended itself from a South Korean attack. I've run across several anti-"Soviet" sites that commend Hugo Cunningham for his assistance or other help in putting together various parts of Russian history or other material. You are free to do the same search, but be forwarned that there are also numerous false 'hits', for some move with a character named Hugo Cunningham also.

Regarding his opinions or other statements, WP:NOR states that it is used "to refer to unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories. The term also applies to any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position — or, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation". It goes on to specifically state: "Our original major content policy, neutral point of view (NPOV) encourages editors to add undisputed facts, including unbiased accounts of various people's views. It has traditionally forbidden editors from inserting their own views into articles, and demands that Wikipedia balance the relative prominence of differing viewpoints based on their prominence in the relevant field". The next bullet states "Our verifiability policy (V) demands that information and notable views presented in articles be drawn from appropriate, reliable sources". So, in light of these points, straight from the NOR policy, I would contend that 1.) His same arguments have been repeated by other notable scholars in the field, hence they are definately not unpublished or otherwise new or novel. Next, 2.) Mr. Cunningham's statements are not undisputed, as again they are backed up by other sholars in the field. And 3.) The views are hardly notable, as once again they are reflected in the opinions of other scholars in the field.

Finally, the WP:NOR policy does not forbid others from conducting original research, it prohibits Wikipedia editors from conducting their own original research and then placing that 'research' into a Wikipedia article, which I have not done. I have merely placed the research of another in Wikipedia, and then verified that it is not new, novel, unpublished, etc. by showing that the same sets of statements are made by others both in and out of the particular field. They are hardly a "novel narrative", and the WP:NOR policy specifically states that Wikipedia are in fact encouraged "to add undisputed facts, including unbiased accounts of various people's views", which I have done according to established Wikipedia policy. Cunningham's statements are presented in the principle of the policy of "Various peoples views". It does not state that only emminent authorities in any particular area can have their views expressed. Maybe the postioning of Cunninghams points could be re-arranged within the section, so the 'prominence' issue is addressed, but I see no real reason for that, as policy clearly states that his statements can remain, as they are not new or novel. wbfergus ^Talk 17:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, in order to make the same points without using Cunnigham, then I would/should need to include the much more detailed quotes from the other sources. This would make for a much longer article, decreasing readability, and may also infringe on copyrights. Including Cunnigham, the section remains smaller/shorter, readability is better, and the "Criticism" section isn't 5 times the size of the "Praise" section, which on first glance would seem that there is much more criticism of his work than there is praise. This makes it appear more balanced, just on the sheer size of information presented. wbfergus ^Talk 17:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This is becoming tiresome. Hugo Cunningham does not meet any of the valid criteria specified by user:NGChen above. You have made no convincing arguments for the credibility of Cunningham, nor that his statements, never published or subjected to editorial oversight of a publishing institution, are not contentious. You quote Hollander and Anders Lewis and then conclude that they are "two examples from other respected historical scholars." It is notable that neither of these respectable "historical scholars" are considered experts in modern Korean history, both are from the same general rabidly anti-communist partisan camp, regularly publishing in David Horowitz's Frontpage magazine. Sorry if I am not impressed.BernardL 19:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought on this RfC - random book reviews may have a different viewpoint than those done by experts in the books field, but that doesn't make those random reviews noteworthy, reliable or notable viewpoints. What other scholars have to say is relevant, what Joe Schmoe blogger has to say isn't. Shell ^babelfish 15:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Need work on "Praise" section

The "Praise" section needs work. I am having a difficult time finding other references that actually praise his work, other than the generic book reviews. Can anybody find some references from some scholars that praise his work so this section can be expanded? Evidently BernardL isn't interested in improving it (he didn't even create it after I invited him to). wbfergus ^Talk 12:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

We should try at least make an attempt to be civil should we not? I only recently began editing this page-I think a little patience is due before making insults (surprise, surprise I have other preoccupations). I have already made positive contributions to the biographical and criticisms (contextualizing your selective quote) sections. In my experience, articles with structures featuring "praise" and "criticism" sections are abnormal here at wikipedia. To my mind, it seems tacky, and I prefer an article which would explicate his main ideas, including interspersing serious criticisms from reliable sources that illuminate and demarcate his positions. Nevertheless, since you have erected a "praise" section I will go along with it for now. I do not actually think that stating that Cumings is a contributor to the New Left Review, despite my high estimation of that particular journal, is actually an intelligent way of evidencing praise for his work. With regards to explicating Cumings main positions, I ask you again, have you ever read one of his full-length works from cover to cover? Please do not ignore the question.BernardL 14:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

One article that I remember (since I just ran across it this morning) with a "criticism" section was that of Kim Dae Jung, though it seemed unbalanced not also having a "praise" section. I vaguely remember seeing others as well, though they were in the past and I have no idea who they were about now. That was why I did something similar here, it's not balanced having only one section without the counterbalance of the other. Yes, I did read (or at least try to read) North Korea: Another Country, but was unable to, for many of the same reasons listed under the criticism section. It's hard (at least for me), to read a book that has so many problems. I had (and have), no intention of actually trying to go through a book page by page to compile a list of things that are either blatantly wrong or that I disagree with. I leave that to those who wish to make a living by writing books, I know there are some preofessions that actually require their 'people' to do so to reatin their current pay status or to advance. Let them do it, as they have a vested interest. Regarding being civil, I beleive I started out that way, but instead of trying to be constructive, your 2 edits and the numerous comments on this page and the Korean War were not. However, in the practice of "good faith", I will withdraw my above comment directed towards you. wbfergus ^Talk 14:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing some criticisms

I'm sorry wbfergus, but some of the stuff you have put into the criticisms section simply cannot stay and I am going to remove it. If you want to put it back you're going to have to come up with a much better rationale than you have above. Quoting Shin in the criticisms section makes no sense. He is not criticizing Cumings and you are taking one sentence out of about three pages and using it against Cumings, while ignoring the larger context of the article, which explained how important Cumings was (you do have a short sentence about this, but really you should put quotes from Shin in the praise section--otherwise you are misrepresenting his point of view, which was basically laudatory of Cumings).

Hugo Cunningham is not a valid source--not even close. There is simply no question about this whatsoever. He is not a historian, and his opinion is a layman's one written up on a blog. I don't care any more about his opinion of Cumings for the purposes of this than I do about mine or yours. Please do not put him back in.

I don't know what gave you the idea that Anders Lewis is a respected historian, but he is not. He has never published a book. I don't think he has a tenured position. He is a far-right POV warrior (I've seen his posts on an academic list serv) who seems to be primarily published on FrontPage Magazine, which is where the article you cited was originally published (HNN will publish or re-publish just about anything--they are not necessarily a reliable source). Frontpage is a far-right mag, not an academic journal about history. It is not a reliable source to criticize Cumings because it has a huge agenda against left academics as everyone knows. I don't believe Lewis even studies Korean history and the fact that he is not a published scholar (he just has a Ph.D., but that does not make him respected) means he is not a good source.

Although Hollander's credentials on Korean history seem fairly unimpressive I think that can stay. However I will cut down that paragraph as it is far too long. Indeed another reason for removing the sources is above is that they violate our rules on undue weight. As it stands now half of the article is criticism of Cumings, and half of that is material from people whose opinions are completely irrelevant. That is, the article is simply not good as it stands and I think any objective reader would look at it as a hit piece on Cumings, not an encyclopedia article. I don't like the idea of praise and criticisms section in the first place, but until we make something better they should at the least be very minimal.

If you want to re-add this material please discuss it here first--the burden is on you to defend the inclusion of highly questionable sources, not on those who remove them, but I have tried to explain myself nonetheless.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the WP:V policy clearly states "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question". The Lewis source is reliable, he is a PhD in History, though a new one (looks like he graduated a few years ago, sometime between 2001 and now). His 'bio' is as follows: "Anders Lewis, Ph.D., AMSA’s History Teacher, earned a B.A. in history with a minor in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He earned MA and Ph.D. degrees in American history, with minors in European history and American politics, from the University of Florida. His dissertation focused on Cold War anticommunism. He has six years of teaching experience and has published numerous articles on both politics and history. From 2001 to 2005, Anders worked at the Massachusetts Department of Education. He served as the main author of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework and, most recently, as the History and Social Science Assessment Lead Developer for the MCAS." He has participated in numerous University talks. It appears that you don't like him for having some writing in Frontpage, so what's the difference then in others not liking Cumings for having writings in the New Left Review? None. That doesn't make anybody a good or bad source, where they write, it's what they write and whether it is backed up with verifiable facts. Then, the WP:NOR policy (as I stated above, but you have chosen to ignore it), clearly has three pertinent bullets that pertain to this. WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV also clearly state in each and every policy, that no one policy stands alone, they are to be used in conjunction with each other. Then, there is also the WP:BLP#Criticism, which clearly states "The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics".

Your edits regarding Hollander removed an awful lot of context, instead almost making it seem like a minor criticism, instead of the scathing rebuttal that it was. Your editing gave undue weight to the anti-criticicism campaign of Dr. Cumings' followers. It is not my fault that finding material that praises his work is so difficult to find, but there is a section devoted to holding it, when it is found.

The amount of criticism in the article, from various source, says simply that is not your typical "Publishing House" biography. I will concede though that the Shin comments were in the wrong place. They should have been in the "Praise" section but attributed to one of his former students as well. If you know of a better wording than "Praise", go ahead and correct it. It was merely the best I could think of.

So, I guess we have 'discussed' this. Your 'edits' seem more disruptive than constructive. Help find some reliable sources that are positive about Cumings' work. wbfergus ^Talk 22:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry you view my edits as disruptive, I do not feel the same way about yours. I simply think we are in a content dispute and we should keep it civil. I could find a number of positive references to Cumings' work in reviews in academic journals (these are not usually freely available online) but I do not think that would be useful because, as I said, I don't really care for huge praise and criticisms sections. They should be brief if they exist at all, though the "praise" that is there now is not so interesting so maybe I'll try to find an old review of one of his books or something.

FYI New Left Review is vastly different than FrontPage as the former is far more scholarly. But that's irrelevant, obviously Cumings has been published in far more places than Anders Lewis. The Lewis source is not reliable because it was not published in a reliable source. FrontPage can probably be reliable for some things, but not for criticism of historians written by non-published historians on topics on which they are not experts. Thousands and thousands of people have Ph.D's--that does not inherently make someone a reliable source. If you find academic articles that Lewis published on Korea than he could be considered for inclusion, but I simply do not think it is necessary (look at the criticisms of his you included. Basically they said that Cumings is pro-North Korea--we already have two sources that say that--and that one of his books had a bunch of errors in grammar, which is of course an incredibly frivolous criticism and is probably more justifiably applied to the editor and publishing house).

The Hollander paragraph was enormous, quite frankly it was possibly a copyright violation. Feel free to quote different sentences then the ones I chose (I though they were a pretty strong indictment myself) but please don't put back in the entire thing. The point of this article is not to re-publish every criticism ever made of Cumings and give more or even equal space to his critics than to his own work, rather when we discuss criticism we just try to provide a flavor of that criticism in order to remain in line with our policies on undue weight. (Incidentally I don't know why you are citing the original research policy to me. That's not what we're talking about and I therefore have not ignored it--I'm not questioning the sources as being original research).

Here's my biggest point though and then I hope we can come to some agreement. Look at that criticism section as it now stands. Isn't it better than before? Instead of including a supportive former student, a random blogger, a guy with a Ph.D. who studies other stuff and who is not published and writes for a highly POV political mag, and a hugely long paragraph that was possibly a copyvio, we now have three academics who staunchly criticize Cumings--two of whom are experts on Korea. Ask yourself, is that not sufficient for a criticisms section? Does it not clearly illustrate that Cumings is controversial among his peers? Your goal seemed to be to list every critic you could find, but we can't write articles that way. Since you added in some non-expert sources I think it actually weakened the point because it made the whole section sound like an attack. The critics of Cumings that are notable are published scholars in his field which is what we have now. I would ask you to step back and ask yourself if it is really important to you to include Anders Lewis or other similar sources, or if we should simply include a few criticisms from academics in his field.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, since I am outnumbered 2 vs 1, I obviously can't be drawn into an edit war, as I would probably wind up breaking the WP:3RR, so it I really have no option at this time but to live with it. Maybe later other may finally chip in with their 2 cents, but for now it appears over. However I will go back over the Hollander section. The quote you left isn't flattering, but it also seems to have no bearing on the title of his article itself, 'Pariah Lies', at least not stnadalone by itself. Unfortunately, the online published criticisms are established throughout the breadth of the article, not in just one sentence, so trying to find only quote to establish a point is difficult at best, since that not how the various authors built their case. They wrote their articles as a series of events, which when taken together, establish the intentionally misleading statements or intentionally 'overlooked' facts to the contrary. (sorry for any typos in this reply, it's early, I haven't had enough coffee yet, and to top it off, I don't have my glasses on, so most things are just a semi-legible blur) wbfergus ^Talk 10:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, after much thought (and thanks to a co-worker for finding this particular example for me), since you don't like having a "Priase" or "Criticism" section in an article, let's just go ahead and delete both sections. Instead, a new article can be created devoted soley to the "Criticisms of Bruce Cumings works" (or something like that anyway). The precedence for such an article is already clearly demonstrated at Criticism of Noam Chomsky (thanks OracleDude!). Another possible (though probably much longer) article could be something like "Criticisms of historical authors" or something along those lines as well. Either approach would not not be included in the WP:BLP policy, as they wouldn't be biographies or even about the person. The article would instead be about the persons works, as the Chomsky article has demonstrated. This allow longer quotes (especially if given permission from the critical authors), and make this articles edits meaningless, just a link from this article to the other one would suffice, per the Chomsky article. Ideas, opinions, criticisms? wbfergus ^Talk 23:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Whole articles devoted to criticism of a person can be okay, as in the Chomsky case or in Michael Moore controversies, but ideally we would not have these, and instead criticisms would be incorporated into the main article. I don't think Cumings is such a controversial figure (he's still rather obscure, certainly relative to someone like Chomsky) and thus I don't think a whole Cumings criticism article is warranted.

Just to clarify to wbfergus because I think I was unclear about this above, I don't object to criticisms of Cumings in this article (in fact I would object if they were not there since he clearly has been criticized). Rather having two sections labeled "praise" and "criticism" seems rather artificial to me (quite frankly the former is even worse). I would prefer to include this information in a section that describes reaction to his scholarship and describes his influence on the field. Such a section should obviously include comments describing how his work has been important, but also comments that suggest it is now somewhat dated, and even comments like the ones we have now that accuse him of outright bias and distortion. In other words I don't want the criticism and praise deleted, rather I'd like to see it incorporated into a new, larger section that tries to give readers a sense of how his work has been received and the impact it has had (I can't think of a snappy section title offhand, but we could probably find a good model in another article on a controversial if still fairly obscure scholar).

For the time being I personally would prefer to keep it as is rather than forking off a criticisms article, and hopefully we can work toward a section along the lines of what I described. Does that sound doable?--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

That approach may be doable. The only things I can think of right off-hand would be that by including within a BLP article, there would be additional restrictions based primarily on what kind of criticism is in the article, where a separate article based on the criticism of the person's work wouldn't have have those same restrictions. There sould also be other 'problems' (just thinking in general here, for a wide range of possible situations), where the section could be so large as to overshadow the rest of the article.

On a separate issue, my main 'criticism' of Cumings work is based upon how the scientists I work with every day view similar 'things' in their work. If, during their work, they run across some 'thing' (literature, etc.) that has something in it that has been proven wrong, the entire 'source' (book, article, journal, etc.) is discarded on the basis of 'what else is probably wrong with it?'. The people I work with want to base their science work (actually it's more of a research of existing data, analyzing, and then coming to their 'conclusions') based solely on undisputed material. If any one piece of the 'source material' is either questioned or has been proven wrong, then any conclusions they make in their reports are 'tainted' as well, even if they are entirely correct. This doesn't appear to be the case with people who continue to hold Cumings work in such high regard, especially given the fact that (evidently from what I've read), when presented with information that disproves his prior claims, instead of updating his work to make it better, he seems to just ignore the new evidence and continues to support his prior position (the data in the Soviet archives disproving the 'civil war', etc. arguments). It would be a fairly simple task to acknowledge disproven 'events' and correct (through an update of the work in question) the original work so that it would be correct in those areas. This in and of itself would take a lot of wind out of his critics sails, while also showing to everybody that he was a person of integrity and wanted the facts to stand on their own merit. It would also make his 'works' more authorative, by being updated with newer facts. Instead, his position appears to be that his politically biased conclusions or interpretations have to be true, regardless of what the facts are. wbfergus ^Talk 17:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how Cumings deals with newer facts that contradict his previous conclusions, or if admits mistakes he made in the past, and I don't think any of us really do unless someone has read all or most of his work. In general historians do not completely disregard past works simply because certain arguments made have proven to be incorrect, or are no longer generally accepted. "Classic" works that have major problems are still routinely assigned/discussed in graduate classes, and historians will often say "Prof. X's book was completely wrong about topic A, but still provides one of the best accounts of topic B." I don't know how this fits in with Cumings since I don't know the field of Korean history, but am just making a general point.

BLP is actually a concern in any article that deals with living people--it does not have relate solely to the main bio article about a given person. So if we forked out into a criticisms article, BLP would still be an issue. So long as the criticisms of Cumings revolve around his scholarship and are sourced to reliable sources though, I don't think this will really be a problem for us.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the contention that this does not merit a separate article dedicated to criticism, and also that "praise" is quite ludicrous, but I also firmly believe that the deletions from the criticism section are tendentious and mostly aimed at removing critical views for the fact that they exist with respect to this individual. 129.71.73.248 07:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

No, that is not at all why those views were removed. Did you read the previous comments in this post? I removed views from completely non-notable people and the view of someone who actually praised Cumings but was put in the criticisms section (wbfergus, who originally put it there, agreed this was a mistake--you're rollback edit placed an article by a former student of Cumings which noted that he was an important scholar in the criticisms section, which suggests to me you did not even bother to look at the sources you were adding back in before reverting). I did not remove critical views because they were critical, and have no idea how you would come to the conclusion that that's what I did since I specifically explained my rationale above. I also don't see what was remotely "tendentious" about the removal--the sourcing is much better now. In the process of making your rollback you've also reverted some minor edits that happened during and after the removal which is why rolling back several edits is often a bad idea. The consensus on this page was to remove those sources as being from non-notable sources (including a blogger who is an admitted "layman" who knows little or nothing about Korean history). I'm reverting you, and if you want to add some of the deleted material back in please explain why (with reference to specific sources and your rationale for what makes them notable).--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Also you would have to explain why having a biographical article of which half of the content or more is "criticism" (which is the case if we go with your version) does not violate our policies on undue weight, because of course it does.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I will say that I acted in haste, since I confused several of the edit diffs and believed that what I was rolling back would not have an effect on minor edits. I also agree that while there is validity in the "layman" criticism, it is not appropriate here; however, I do not see it as a valid argument against the criticisms of another historian that you do not like his personal politics. Historians review the works of other historians all the time, and that is notable even if they are not specialists in the same field.

I also see that while the Hollander quote is getting large that the edits that were made severely impact the weight of the criticisms given that there is a large focus on prison conditions [which with respect to communist countries is something that Hollander has written about] in the country and how Cumings glosses over them and makes inappropriate comparisons to the US. If you see a way to shorten this in a different manner from the present without negating that impact I am interested and open to it. 129.71.73.248 20:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, while I am appreciative of rules regarding undue weight I am not seeing how that is very relevant here. The criticism of Cumings is all there and all noteworthy. The problem is that no one is particularly interested in fleshing out any other details about his life and work and that most not inculcated in Korean Studies programs with like views have similar criticisms (even if they don't discount him entirely). 129.71.73.248 20:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for being open to a discussion on this (and though it's obviously your choice, let me recommend that you create an account for yourself--you seem like a thoughtful editor and your contributions will usually be taken more seriously if you are logged in under a user name, though I'm happy to discuss with you here even without one).

The Anders Lewis thing really cannot stay in my opinion and I am going to remove it again. Just to be clear, my reason for removing him is not because of his POV, it's because he has not published a book or even an academic article as far as I can tell, and seems to have been published primarily in a highly POV online mag (which is the ultimate source of the review we are citing). If he was a Korea scholar I would maybe be okay with that, but this is not even his field. To me the situation is similar to that of a leftist scholar who has not published a book or an academic article and who writes a critical book review for ZNet of a conservative scholar in a field which is not the review author's own field. I definitely would not find this to be a valid source for a criticisms section, and I think the analogy is pat so hopefully it explains my thinking on Lewis.

Even though I strongly question Hollander's expertise on Korean history (and therefore the amount of play we should give him in this article) I'm fine with him being here for the time being--his paragraph is just too long. I tried to cut it down, but perhaps I neutered it too much. As I said to wbfergus above, I'm very open to including more damning passages from Hollander than the ones I chose, I just don't know how to rewrite it. The lengthy Hollander quote is probably longer than the quote from Cumings in this article, and that clearly violates undue weight. Since I've already taken one stab at cutting it down, would you mind taking one as well? Hopefully we can work something out which is not too lengthy but does not detract from the central points of Hollander's criticism.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I would grant that more credence if Lewis was solely getting polemical political articles published, but HNN is another venue for his book review and there are serious and scholarly debates raging there incessantly. My fear is that this is essentially political and that FPM is being used as a cover to quiet criticism; however, the thrust of his criticism is covered by other authors so I don't think removing it is worth dragging the matter on.

With respect to Hollander, I will have to take a look at it later when I have more time so that I don't do a botched job and make it even worse. 129.71.73.248 19:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

That's fine as far as waiting on Hollander, but it does need to be cut down. It's pretty easy to get published on HNN actually, and they do republish pieces which is what they did with the Lewis piece in question. You bring up another key point though that I already mentioned above. Lewis does not say anything criticizing Cumings which other more notable people say also and which we already mention, so it's really not necessary to have him there, regardless of his lack of reliability as a source.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

All this focus on Anders Lewis and Paul Hollander is rather beside the point, since I've seen third parties in journal abstracts repeatedly acknowledge that conservatives think he is an apologist for North Korea. When he calls the Great Leader a "classic Robin Hood figure", and, to quote this historian has "insist(ed) that South Korea initiated the Korean War" obviously he is going to receive some criticism for being leftist. That doesn't mean he isn't a good scholar.Bdell555 (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

RFC closure

Does the RFC still need comment? Or is the issue resolved? Eiler7 00:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that at least that issue has been resolved. Hugo S. Cunningham's sloppy book review is not considered a reliable source. A related issue is whether Cummings qualifies as a general reference on the Korean war page. There has been resistance against it for political reasons, despite his considerable stature in the field.BernardL 00:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Can I close the RFC? Eiler7 00:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you.BernardL 00:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Eiler7 18:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Intellectual life and scholarship

The article section "Intellectual life and scholarship" needs some work. How about chronological organization and subsection headings? 123clock (talk) 05:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)