---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kandance <s927906(a)mail.yzu.edu.tw>
Date: 2006-12-23 下午9:38
Subject: Wikipedia電子郵件
To: Shizhao <shizhao(a)gmail.com>
敬啟者 您好：
不好意思打擾您，我是中文維基百科的 Kandance ，現在正在進行一項關於維基百科社群的研究，您是我們經過抽樣後選取的使用者，希望您可以幫助我們完成這份問卷。
為了感謝您的協助，每份完整的問卷將捐贈 0.5 元美金給維基媒體基金會 (Wikimedia Foundation Inc.)
，支出證明將會公佈在各個中文維基人社群公佈欄。最後，有任何問題歡迎來信，我會盡我的能力給您答覆。若您想要看看完成的論文，請在卷末留下您的
Email ，論文完成時會寄一份到您的信箱。請連結至 http://140.138.153.250/netsurvey/927906/
選擇您所習慣的簡體或者繁體問卷。
We are asking you for a favor to fill out a question questionnaire
regarding a currently conducted research on zh-Wikipedian community.
If you cannot view the content of this email properly, please feel
free to access our website at
http://140.138.153.250/netsurvey/927906/. Your help will be greatly
appreciated!
再次感謝您的協助，因為您的參與讓這份研究更臻完美。 祝福您新年快樂，萬事如意。
元智大學資訊社會學研究所
指導教授 曾淑芬 副教授
研究生 施佩君 敬上
聯絡方式 : s927906(a)mail.yzu.edu.tw
電話： (03)4638800#2650
--
Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/
[[zh:User:Shizhao]]
???????????
kath9194
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Lawrence Lo" <lorenzarius(a)gmail.com>
>> To: "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>
>> Cc: <wikizh-l(a)wikimedia.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:21 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Wikizh-l] Chinese-language Wikipedia presents different
>> viewof history
>>
>>
>> I call this report biased BS. A wiki as we all know is continuously
>> evolving, singling one edition of one article does not prove anything.
>> For instance the last sentences in the opening paragraph of the
>> current edition
>> (http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E6%AF%9B%E6%B3%BD%E4%B8%9C&oldid…)
>> of the article in question now reads:
>>
>> He [Mao] was also the initiator of a series of political movements
>> such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, resulting
>> in the abnormal deaths of many Mainland people and great destructions
>> to many Chinese cultural and historical monuments. He had a great
>> influence on the 20th century's China and the world.
>>
>> And obviously omission does not equal self-censorship. Self-censorship
>> is when a person knows something but intentionally avoids to mention
>> it. But IMO the more realistic situation with most Mainland
>> contributors is that they don't know that "something" to begin with.
>> When a man is taught since birth that "A is right", how can you
>> criticize him for not knowing that somebody in the other part of the
>> world thinks that "B is right"? In fact, the Chinese Wikipedia is a
>> great place for people from different parts of the Chinese-speaking
>> world to get to know things that we didn't know, to understands things
>> from the other perspectives.
>>
>> On 11/29/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>> FYI, some of our own famous ZH Wikipedians mentioned...
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/29/news/wiki.php
>>>
>>> Chinese-language Wikipedia presents different view of history
>>> By Howard W. French
>>> The New York Times
>>>
>>> Just who was Mao Zedong?
>>>
>>> According to the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular
>>> online encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader
>>> who founded China's modern Communist state. He was also a man many saw
>>> as "a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths
>>> of tens of millions of innocent Chinese."
>>>
>>> Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, and one discovers a very different
>>> man. There, Mao Zedong's reputation is unsullied by any mention of a
>>> death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, or for what
>>> many historians call the greatest famine in human history.
>>>
>>> In recent weeks, the Chinese government has demonstrated its hostility
>>> toward the emergence of a credible source of reference material that
>>> escapes its control by frequently blocking access to Wikipedia, whose
>>> Chinese version, though still far smaller than its English-language
>>> counterpart, is growing by leaps and bounds.
>>>
>>> But on sensitive questions of China's modern history or on hot-button
>>> issues, the Chinese version diverges so dramatically from its English
>>> counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by the
>>> censors themselves.
>>>
>>> This gulf in information and perspective comes across powerfully in
>>> the entry on Mao, which is consistently one of the most frequently
>>> searched and edited topics in the Chinese version, and in the entry on
>>> historical watersheds, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Great
>>> Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
>>>
>>> Chinese Wikipedia users and critics say that the differences highlight
>>> the resilience here of a system of information control whose reach
>>> goes well beyond simple censorship.
>>>
>>> In each of its language versions, Wikipedia is collaboratively written
>>> and edited by online enthusiasts, and contributors to the
>>> Chinese-language site explain the differences in content by citing the
>>> powerful influence of Chinese education, which often provides a neatly
>>> sanitized national perspective on sensitive aspects of the country's
>>> past.
>>>
>>> This parochialism is reinforced by the blocking of foreign Web sites,
>>> and by the conformism of the carefully censored mass media.
>>> Alternative viewpoints are sometimes available, but usually only to a
>>> restricted circle of people who have the means and determination to
>>> seek them out.
>>>
>>> For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a
>>> resource, but its tame approach to sensitive topics has sparked a
>>> fierce debate in the world of online mavens over its objectivity and
>>> thoroughness.
>>>
>>> In a recent discussion on the encyclopedia's Web site about the Mao
>>> legacy, a user with the online name Manchurian Tiger wrote, "If anyone
>>> can prove that Mao's political movements didn't kill so many people,
>>> I'm willing to delete the wording that 'millions of people were
>>> killed.'" Rather than contribute to encyclopedias, those who wish to
>>> pay tribute to Mao, he added, should "go to his mausoleum."
>>>
>>> Another user replied angrily: "If you want to release your emotions,
>>> use a bulletin board. Wikipedia is not your toilet." In the end, the
>>> entry on Mao included no death toll from either famine or political
>>> purges.
>>>
>>> Indeed, in its present form, the Chinese Wikipedia introduction to Mao
>>> Zedong could hardly be more anodyne: "One of the main founders and
>>> leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People's Liberation Army
>>> and the People's Republic of China," it reads. "He introduced a series
>>> of political movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
>>> Revolution. He had a great influence over 20th-century China and the
>>> world."
>>>
>>> On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over
>>> editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by
>>> enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.
>>>
>>> "Most of the people who contribute to Wikipedia rarely touch upon
>>> political topics," said Yuan Mingli, a frequent contributor from
>>> Shanghai. "They prefer to write about things like technology. There
>>> are other things in life."
>>>
>>> Others denounce compromises on content as a deviation from the
>>> original mission of Wikipedia, which they say is to spread reliable
>>> information and to seek truth. In any case, they add, self- censorship
>>> has already proved naïve because the government still frequently
>>> blocks access for most Chinese Internet users.
>>>
>>> "There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the
>>> neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,"
>>> said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the
>>> encyclopedia. "To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to
>>> make it well-known among Chinese, to get people to understand the
>>> principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked
>>> by the government. The government doesn't buy into their attitude."
>>>
>>> After Mao Zedong, few questions are treated as more sacrosanct in
>>> China than the status of Taiwan, which every pupil is taught is
>>> irrevocably part of China. To publicly suggest that Taiwanese have any
>>> historical basis for asserting their independence from China would be
>>> a career-ending offense for anyone in academia or in the media.
>>>
>>> The English-language version of the encyclopedia speaks of a Japanese
>>> shipwreck off Taiwan in 1871, in which 54 crew members were beheaded
>>> by Taiwanese aborigines. Japan demanded compensation from China, only
>>> to be told that Taiwan was not within China's jurisdiction. The
>>> Chinese-language entry on Taiwan, meanwhile, is silent on the
>>> jurisdiction question.
>>>
>>> Similarly, the English-language Wikipedia mentions the settlement of
>>> Taiwan by aborigines who are genetically related to Malaysians, about
>>> 4,000 years ago. It also places the first meaningful settlement of the
>>> island by Chinese in the 16th century.
>>>
>>> The Chinese version of Wikipedia, though, merely speaks of cultural
>>> affinities with Malaysians and speculates about the possible
>>> exploration of the island by Chinese as far back as the third century.
>>>
>>> A parallel, and purely homegrown, effort at creating an online
>>> encyclopedia in China, Baidu Baike, skirts controversies like these
>>> altogether. Baidu Baike, which is owned by the biggest Internet search
>>> engine company in China, asserts that Taiwan's original inhabitants
>>> "came from mainland China directly or indirectly," and not from
>>> Malaysia.
>>>
>>> Similarly, a user who searches for the Tiananmen Square massacre will
>>> find no entry.
>>>
>>> As online reference sites grow in popularity here, Baidu Baike
>>> benefits from government efforts to block Wikipedia, just as the same
>>> company's search engine once benefited from similar blockage of
>>> Google.
>>>
>>> Baidu Baike, much of whose content appears to be copied directly from
>>> Wikipedia, would not release detailed user statistics, saying only
>>> that it has "several million" users each day. A spokeswoman for the
>>> company, Zhang Yan, said it is guided by the editorial policy of not
>>> "judging the existing national system with malice."
>>>
>>> Asked to explain what this meant, Zhang said, "Anyone who is Chinese
>>> knows."
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikizh-l mailing list
>>> Wikizh-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikizh-l
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lorenzarius
>> Tel: +852 95825791
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikizh-l mailing list
>> Wikizh-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikizh-l
>
FYI, some of our own famous ZH Wikipedians mentioned...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/29/news/wiki.php
Chinese-language Wikipedia presents different view of history
By Howard W. French
The New York Times
Just who was Mao Zedong?
According to the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular
online encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader
who founded China's modern Communist state. He was also a man many saw
as "a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths
of tens of millions of innocent Chinese."
Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, and one discovers a very different
man. There, Mao Zedong's reputation is unsullied by any mention of a
death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, or for what
many historians call the greatest famine in human history.
In recent weeks, the Chinese government has demonstrated its hostility
toward the emergence of a credible source of reference material that
escapes its control by frequently blocking access to Wikipedia, whose
Chinese version, though still far smaller than its English-language
counterpart, is growing by leaps and bounds.
But on sensitive questions of China's modern history or on hot-button
issues, the Chinese version diverges so dramatically from its English
counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by the
censors themselves.
This gulf in information and perspective comes across powerfully in
the entry on Mao, which is consistently one of the most frequently
searched and edited topics in the Chinese version, and in the entry on
historical watersheds, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Great
Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Chinese Wikipedia users and critics say that the differences highlight
the resilience here of a system of information control whose reach
goes well beyond simple censorship.
In each of its language versions, Wikipedia is collaboratively written
and edited by online enthusiasts, and contributors to the
Chinese-language site explain the differences in content by citing the
powerful influence of Chinese education, which often provides a neatly
sanitized national perspective on sensitive aspects of the country's
past.
This parochialism is reinforced by the blocking of foreign Web sites,
and by the conformism of the carefully censored mass media.
Alternative viewpoints are sometimes available, but usually only to a
restricted circle of people who have the means and determination to
seek them out.
For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a
resource, but its tame approach to sensitive topics has sparked a
fierce debate in the world of online mavens over its objectivity and
thoroughness.
In a recent discussion on the encyclopedia's Web site about the Mao
legacy, a user with the online name Manchurian Tiger wrote, "If anyone
can prove that Mao's political movements didn't kill so many people,
I'm willing to delete the wording that 'millions of people were
killed.'" Rather than contribute to encyclopedias, those who wish to
pay tribute to Mao, he added, should "go to his mausoleum."
Another user replied angrily: "If you want to release your emotions,
use a bulletin board. Wikipedia is not your toilet." In the end, the
entry on Mao included no death toll from either famine or political
purges.
Indeed, in its present form, the Chinese Wikipedia introduction to Mao
Zedong could hardly be more anodyne: "One of the main founders and
leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People's Liberation Army
and the People's Republic of China," it reads. "He introduced a series
of political movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution. He had a great influence over 20th-century China and the
world."
On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over
editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by
enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.
"Most of the people who contribute to Wikipedia rarely touch upon
political topics," said Yuan Mingli, a frequent contributor from
Shanghai. "They prefer to write about things like technology. There
are other things in life."
Others denounce compromises on content as a deviation from the
original mission of Wikipedia, which they say is to spread reliable
information and to seek truth. In any case, they add, self- censorship
has already proved naïve because the government still frequently
blocks access for most Chinese Internet users.
"There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the
neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,"
said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the
encyclopedia. "To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to
make it well-known among Chinese, to get people to understand the
principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked
by the government. The government doesn't buy into their attitude."
After Mao Zedong, few questions are treated as more sacrosanct in
China than the status of Taiwan, which every pupil is taught is
irrevocably part of China. To publicly suggest that Taiwanese have any
historical basis for asserting their independence from China would be
a career-ending offense for anyone in academia or in the media.
The English-language version of the encyclopedia speaks of a Japanese
shipwreck off Taiwan in 1871, in which 54 crew members were beheaded
by Taiwanese aborigines. Japan demanded compensation from China, only
to be told that Taiwan was not within China's jurisdiction. The
Chinese-language entry on Taiwan, meanwhile, is silent on the
jurisdiction question.
Similarly, the English-language Wikipedia mentions the settlement of
Taiwan by aborigines who are genetically related to Malaysians, about
4,000 years ago. It also places the first meaningful settlement of the
island by Chinese in the 16th century.
The Chinese version of Wikipedia, though, merely speaks of cultural
affinities with Malaysians and speculates about the possible
exploration of the island by Chinese as far back as the third century.
A parallel, and purely homegrown, effort at creating an online
encyclopedia in China, Baidu Baike, skirts controversies like these
altogether. Baidu Baike, which is owned by the biggest Internet search
engine company in China, asserts that Taiwan's original inhabitants
"came from mainland China directly or indirectly," and not from
Malaysia.
Similarly, a user who searches for the Tiananmen Square massacre will
find no entry.
As online reference sites grow in popularity here, Baidu Baike
benefits from government efforts to block Wikipedia, just as the same
company's search engine once benefited from similar blockage of
Google.
Baidu Baike, much of whose content appears to be copied directly from
Wikipedia, would not release detailed user statistics, saying only
that it has "several million" users each day. A spokeswoman for the
company, Zhang Yan, said it is guided by the editorial policy of not
"judging the existing national system with malice."
Asked to explain what this meant, Zhang said, "Anyone who is Chinese knows."
???????????,
kath9194
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lawrence Lo" <lorenzarius(a)gmail.com>
> To: "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>
> Cc: <wikizh-l(a)wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:21 AM
> Subject: Re: [Wikizh-l] Chinese-language Wikipedia presents different
> viewof history
>
>
> I call this report biased BS. A wiki as we all know is continuously
> evolving, singling one edition of one article does not prove anything.
> For instance the last sentences in the opening paragraph of the
> current edition
> (http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E6%AF%9B%E6%B3%BD%E4%B8%9C&oldid…)
> of the article in question now reads:
>
> He [Mao] was also the initiator of a series of political movements
> such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, resulting
> in the abnormal deaths of many Mainland people and great destructions
> to many Chinese cultural and historical monuments. He had a great
> influence on the 20th century's China and the world.
>
> And obviously omission does not equal self-censorship. Self-censorship
> is when a person knows something but intentionally avoids to mention
> it. But IMO the more realistic situation with most Mainland
> contributors is that they don't know that "something" to begin with.
> When a man is taught since birth that "A is right", how can you
> criticize him for not knowing that somebody in the other part of the
> world thinks that "B is right"? In fact, the Chinese Wikipedia is a
> great place for people from different parts of the Chinese-speaking
> world to get to know things that we didn't know, to understands things
> from the other perspectives.
>
> On 11/29/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> FYI, some of our own famous ZH Wikipedians mentioned...
>>
>>
>> http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/29/news/wiki.php
>>
>> Chinese-language Wikipedia presents different view of history
>> By Howard W. French
>> The New York Times
>>
>> Just who was Mao Zedong?
>>
>> According to the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular
>> online encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader
>> who founded China's modern Communist state. He was also a man many saw
>> as "a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths
>> of tens of millions of innocent Chinese."
>>
>> Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, and one discovers a very different
>> man. There, Mao Zedong's reputation is unsullied by any mention of a
>> death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, or for what
>> many historians call the greatest famine in human history.
>>
>> In recent weeks, the Chinese government has demonstrated its hostility
>> toward the emergence of a credible source of reference material that
>> escapes its control by frequently blocking access to Wikipedia, whose
>> Chinese version, though still far smaller than its English-language
>> counterpart, is growing by leaps and bounds.
>>
>> But on sensitive questions of China's modern history or on hot-button
>> issues, the Chinese version diverges so dramatically from its English
>> counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by the
>> censors themselves.
>>
>> This gulf in information and perspective comes across powerfully in
>> the entry on Mao, which is consistently one of the most frequently
>> searched and edited topics in the Chinese version, and in the entry on
>> historical watersheds, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Great
>> Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
>>
>> Chinese Wikipedia users and critics say that the differences highlight
>> the resilience here of a system of information control whose reach
>> goes well beyond simple censorship.
>>
>> In each of its language versions, Wikipedia is collaboratively written
>> and edited by online enthusiasts, and contributors to the
>> Chinese-language site explain the differences in content by citing the
>> powerful influence of Chinese education, which often provides a neatly
>> sanitized national perspective on sensitive aspects of the country's
>> past.
>>
>> This parochialism is reinforced by the blocking of foreign Web sites,
>> and by the conformism of the carefully censored mass media.
>> Alternative viewpoints are sometimes available, but usually only to a
>> restricted circle of people who have the means and determination to
>> seek them out.
>>
>> For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a
>> resource, but its tame approach to sensitive topics has sparked a
>> fierce debate in the world of online mavens over its objectivity and
>> thoroughness.
>>
>> In a recent discussion on the encyclopedia's Web site about the Mao
>> legacy, a user with the online name Manchurian Tiger wrote, "If anyone
>> can prove that Mao's political movements didn't kill so many people,
>> I'm willing to delete the wording that 'millions of people were
>> killed.'" Rather than contribute to encyclopedias, those who wish to
>> pay tribute to Mao, he added, should "go to his mausoleum."
>>
>> Another user replied angrily: "If you want to release your emotions,
>> use a bulletin board. Wikipedia is not your toilet." In the end, the
>> entry on Mao included no death toll from either famine or political
>> purges.
>>
>> Indeed, in its present form, the Chinese Wikipedia introduction to Mao
>> Zedong could hardly be more anodyne: "One of the main founders and
>> leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People's Liberation Army
>> and the People's Republic of China," it reads. "He introduced a series
>> of political movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
>> Revolution. He had a great influence over 20th-century China and the
>> world."
>>
>> On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over
>> editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by
>> enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.
>>
>> "Most of the people who contribute to Wikipedia rarely touch upon
>> political topics," said Yuan Mingli, a frequent contributor from
>> Shanghai. "They prefer to write about things like technology. There
>> are other things in life."
>>
>> Others denounce compromises on content as a deviation from the
>> original mission of Wikipedia, which they say is to spread reliable
>> information and to seek truth. In any case, they add, self- censorship
>> has already proved naïve because the government still frequently
>> blocks access for most Chinese Internet users.
>>
>> "There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the
>> neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,"
>> said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the
>> encyclopedia. "To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to
>> make it well-known among Chinese, to get people to understand the
>> principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked
>> by the government. The government doesn't buy into their attitude."
>>
>> After Mao Zedong, few questions are treated as more sacrosanct in
>> China than the status of Taiwan, which every pupil is taught is
>> irrevocably part of China. To publicly suggest that Taiwanese have any
>> historical basis for asserting their independence from China would be
>> a career-ending offense for anyone in academia or in the media.
>>
>> The English-language version of the encyclopedia speaks of a Japanese
>> shipwreck off Taiwan in 1871, in which 54 crew members were beheaded
>> by Taiwanese aborigines. Japan demanded compensation from China, only
>> to be told that Taiwan was not within China's jurisdiction. The
>> Chinese-language entry on Taiwan, meanwhile, is silent on the
>> jurisdiction question.
>>
>> Similarly, the English-language Wikipedia mentions the settlement of
>> Taiwan by aborigines who are genetically related to Malaysians, about
>> 4,000 years ago. It also places the first meaningful settlement of the
>> island by Chinese in the 16th century.
>>
>> The Chinese version of Wikipedia, though, merely speaks of cultural
>> affinities with Malaysians and speculates about the possible
>> exploration of the island by Chinese as far back as the third century.
>>
>> A parallel, and purely homegrown, effort at creating an online
>> encyclopedia in China, Baidu Baike, skirts controversies like these
>> altogether. Baidu Baike, which is owned by the biggest Internet search
>> engine company in China, asserts that Taiwan's original inhabitants
>> "came from mainland China directly or indirectly," and not from
>> Malaysia.
>>
>> Similarly, a user who searches for the Tiananmen Square massacre will
>> find no entry.
>>
>> As online reference sites grow in popularity here, Baidu Baike
>> benefits from government efforts to block Wikipedia, just as the same
>> company's search engine once benefited from similar blockage of
>> Google.
>>
>> Baidu Baike, much of whose content appears to be copied directly from
>> Wikipedia, would not release detailed user statistics, saying only
>> that it has "several million" users each day. A spokeswoman for the
>> company, Zhang Yan, said it is guided by the editorial policy of not
>> "judging the existing national system with malice."
>>
>> Asked to explain what this meant, Zhang said, "Anyone who is Chinese
>> knows."
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikizh-l mailing list
>> Wikizh-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikizh-l
>>
>
>
> --
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lorenzarius
> Tel: +852 95825791
> _______________________________________________
> Wikizh-l mailing list
> Wikizh-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikizh-l
The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By
December 1, 2006
Who Did What in China's Past? Look It Up, or Maybe Not
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
SHANGHAI, Nov. 30 — Just who was Mao Zedong?
In the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular online
encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader who
founded China's modern Communist state. But he was also a man whom
many saw as "a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for
the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese."
Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, though, and you read about a very
different man. There, Mao's reputation is unsullied by mention of any
death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, like the Great
Leap Forward, a mass collectivization and industrialization campaign
begun in 1958 that produced what many historians call the greatest
famine in human history.
Wikipedia, an open encyclopedia founded in 2001 that allows ordinary
users to create and edit the vast bulk of its entries, has always
posed a challenge to China's hypersensitive censors. Earlier this
month, the government opened access to both the English and Chinese
sites, though it has since resumed its blackout on the Chinese site.
But on questions of this country's modern history or on hot-button
topical issues, the Chinese version diverges so significantly from its
English counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by
the censors themselves.
This gulf comes across powerfully in the entry on Mao, one of the most
frequently searched and edited topics in Chinese, and in items on
historical watersheds, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Great
Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Chinese Wikipedia users and critics say the differences highlight the
resilience of a system of information control whose reach goes well
beyond simple censorship.
In each of its language versions, Wikipedia is collaboratively written
and edited by online enthusiasts. As such, its articles reflect the
constantly shifting collective effort of its contributors, who may add
and delete material at will.
Contributors to the Chinese-language site attribute the contrasts with
the English-language version to the powerful influence of Chinese
education, which often provides a neatly sanitized national
perspective on turbulent events in the country's past.
The parochialism is reinforced by the blocking of foreign Web sites
and by the careful censorship of the news media. Alternative
viewpoints are sometimes available, but usually only to a restricted
circle of people who have the means and determination to seek them
out.
For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a
resource, but its tame approach has set off a fierce debate in the
world of online mavens over its objectivity and thoroughness.
In a recent discussion on the encyclopedia's Web site about Mao's
legacy, a user with the online name Manchurian Tiger wrote, "If anyone
can prove that Mao's political movements didn't kill so many people,
I'm willing to delete the wording that 'millions of people were
killed.' " Rather than contribute to encyclopedias, those who wish to
pay tribute to Mao, he added, should "go to his mausoleum." Another
user replied angrily: "If you want to release your emotions, use a
bulletin board. Wikipedia is not your toilet."
In the end, caution prevailed, and the entry on Mao included no death
toll from either famine or purges.
In most instances, it seems, the fight over editorial direction of
Wikipedia is won by enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.
"Most of the people who contribute to Wikipedia rarely touch upon
political topics," said Yuan Mingli, a frequent contributor from
Shanghai. "They prefer to write about things like technology. There
are other things in life."
Others say the object should be to spread reliable information as
widely as possible, and that, in any case, self-censorship is
pointless because the government still frequently blocks access to
Wikipedia for most Chinese Internet users.
"There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the
neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,"
said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the
encyclopedia. "To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to
make it well known among Chinese, to get people to understand the
principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked
by the government."
After Mao, few questions are treated as more sacrosanct in China than
the status of Taiwan, which every pupil is taught is irrevocably part
of China. To publicly suggest that Taiwanese have any historical basis
for asserting their independence from China would be a career-ending
offense for anyone in academia or in the news media.
The English-language version of the encyclopedia speaks of a Japanese
shipwreck incident off Taiwan in 1871, in which 54 crew members were
beheaded by Taiwanese aborigines. Japan demanded compensation from
China, only to be told that Taiwan was not in China's jurisdiction.
The Chinese-language entry on Taiwan, meanwhile, is silent on the
jurisdiction question.
Similarly, the English-language Wikipedia mentions the settlement of
Taiwan about 4,000 years ago by aborigines who are genetically related
to Malaysians. It also places the first meaningful settlement of the
island by Chinese in the 16th century. The Chinese version merely
speaks of cultural affinities with Malaysians and speculates about the
possible exploration of the island by Chinese as far back as the third
century.
A parallel, and purely homegrown effort at creating an online
encyclopedia in China, Baidu Baike, skirts controversies like these
altogether. The site, owned by China's biggest Internet search engine,
asserts that Taiwan's original inhabitants "came from mainland China
directly or indirectly," and not from Malaysia. Similarly, a user who
searches for the Tiananmen Square massacre will find no entry.
As online reference sites grow in popularity here, Baidu Baike
benefits from the government's efforts to block Wikipedia, just as its
parent company once benefited from the government's blockage of
Google.
Baidu Baike, much of whose uncontroversial content appears to be
copied directly from Wikipedia, would not release detailed user
statistics, saying only that it had "several million" users every day.
A spokeswoman for the company, Zhang Yan, said it was guided by the
editorial policy of not "judging the existing national system with
malice."
Asked to explain what this meant, Ms. Zhang said, "Anyone who is Chinese knows."
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