Talk:1421: The Year China Discovered the World

Proposal to merge article

For such a proposal, please see here: Forthcoming book on Atlantis#Merger?. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Merger of a notable book into the author's article

This has been controversially merged and redirected to the author's article Gavin Menzies.

I believe a discussion should have occurred after the merge was constested, per WP:BRD.

The book itself is notable, so per WP:NOTABILITY, it should exist as a standalone article, as it is notable outside of the author, since the book is far better known than the author. In fact, if it were to be merged, both the two books and the author should redirect to the their presented in them, instead of redirecting to the author, since the author is less well known than his theory. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 03:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has also been controversially merged to the author's article. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 03:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Merge: If anyone is interested, the discussion resulting in the merger, and the subsequent "controversy" can be found here: Talk:Gavin_Menzies#Forthcoming_book_on_Atlantis. I remain in favor of the merger at the moment, but I am quite willing to change my position if convincing arguments are made, and of course I'll go along with the consensus, whatever it may be. Cheers, ClovisPt (talk) 03:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The discussion of notability of the book should occur on this page. As it is, it is a New York Times bestseller [1] and it is ranked higher than 10,000 at Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/1421-Year-China-Discovered-America/dp/0061564893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273723677&sr=8-1] ; that's higher than The Pelican Brief[http://www.amazon.com/Pelican-Brief-Novel-John-Grisham/dp/0440245931/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273723841&sr=8-2] , and we have an article on that, based on the fact it is a bestselling book! This book definitely satisfies Wikipedia:Notability (books) . 70.29.208.247 (talk) 04:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Merge: I was vaguely aware of Mr Menzies somewhat fantastical "theories", but hadn't realised he wrote two books on the same subject. To me, he's pretty much in the same boat as Erich von Däniken, rather than authors like JK Rowling etc, in that his books expound crackpot fringe theories that aren't going to have any lasting notability, even if they do have transitory notoriety. I think it is worth noting that of Mr von Däniken's books, only Chariots of the Gods? gets its own article, and I think that is fitting as it has become something of an archetypal example of the genre and has gained far more infamy that Mr Menzies' books ever will. Should books get Wikipedia articles based on how many copies they sell? It's an important criterion, but I don't think it is sufficient on its own - I am myself actually the author of a book that peaked higher than 10,000 on Amazon, but that (quite properly) doesn't get a Wikipedia article (and neither do I). Look at the modern (and, dare I say, proper) historians at List of historians - most of them only get a bibliography and don't get any details of their books added at all, let alone dedicated articles. The discussion at Talk:Gavin_Menzies#Forthcoming book on Atlantis looks to me to have resulted in a consensus to merge, and on balance, I think the current merged coverage of Menzies' two books in his own article is about the right level to match their actual notability. (But of course, like ClovisPt, I'll be happy to go with the consensus, whichever way it goes) -- Boing! said Zebedee 06:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
  • The discussion at Menzies seems to be centered on the theory presented in the books, and not the books themselves. We have alot of book articles, about books much more obscure and having less impact than this book. This book in particular has many mentions in the news, and is thus notable (more so than 1434, and most other book articles on Wikipedia) Considering the number of solid reliable sources hits for this book [2] ,it's more than enough to be notable in its own right. It should not matter what the content of the book is, on the notability of the book itself. Just because it is a load of bull does not change the notability of the book. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 20:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose merge. I was drawn here by the RFC and was never involved in any previous discussion on the topic of merger of this page. Arguing that the books should be merged into the article on the basis that the theories are fringe is wrong and against policy (see WP:IDONTLIKEIT). Whether the theories are fringe or not is completely irrelevant to the issue. The books should not be merged into the author page because the books are notable in themselves. Furthermore, looking through this talk page shows that the issue has already been previously brought up repeatedly, and no consensus exists for a merge. Making such a merge against earlier opposition without any established consensus should not have been done. —Lowellian (reply) 07:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  Please note that I didn't say I don't like it (I actually enjoy fringe theories - I find them entertaining reading), I opined that its fringe status lowers its notability - and notability is certainly not against policy. -- Boing! said Zebedee 08:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Merge. @Lowellian, actually, consensus on this issue was reached at Talk:Gavin Menzies, not here. Regardless, I believe the article Gavin Menzies now does a fine job in summarizing his two works to date, 1421 and 1434. I could be wrong, but I was of the belief that the 1421 hypothesis, not so much the book itself, was more widely known and hence more notable. Being the source of all this, I would say he is the most notable and the attention should be drawn to his Wiki article. Plus, 1421 and 1434 are so similar in their focus, the latter could be viewed simply as a sequel, like in a Dan Brown series (who apparently shares the same field of study as Menzies: historical fiction).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support merge of both books to author article, as I previously stated in the official merge discussion at Talk:Gavin Menzies. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Either restore content or un-merge. It seems problematic if consensus to merge was reached on only one page without any notification being made on the other pages that merger was being considered. If that was the case (and I simply don't know, because I wasn't watching the other two pages), then it seems fair to listen to the opinions of editors who were unaware of the original merger discussion. Beyond that issue is the amount of material that was cut from the other two articles in the process of the merger. In particular, I thought that the links to the maps discussed in 1421 were particularly useful, and there was no consensus to cut those out of the article. A consensus to merge was NOT a consensus to mutilate the content of the articles discussing the books. Other Choices (talk) 11:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  If you don't know if there was proper notification, then why are you making recommendations based on your assumption that there was none? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Please, my first recommendation was conditional (I used the word "if"). My second recommendation has nothing to do with the question of notice on the other articles' discussion pages. Other Choices (talk) 22:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• If you check the articles histories, you will see that proposed merger tags were added to all of them. John Smith's (talk) 13:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  These people deleted the links to Gavin Menzies maps as well as the articles to his two books and deliberately distored his biography page with biased POV in an uncivilised effort to discredit him. These vandalsing critics know very well that the maps present strong evidence in support of Gavin Menzies revisionist theories and they are trying to suppress and delete the information so the general would not know where to find this information about Gavin Menzie's irrefutable historical evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.68.249.69 (talk) 18:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  Actually, if you look back at the original versions of the two book articles, a large proportion of the material that was omitted in the merge is academic opinion that roundly debunks Menzies' claims, opines that his "evidence" is worthless and his arguments largely circular and begging the question, and harshly criticises his methods - there was nothing even close to "irrefutable historical evidence" in either article. -- Boing! said Zebedee 19:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Maintain merger for both per previous discussions. There was consensus to merge the pages, and I don't believe that anyone who supported it feels that too little information is in the main article now. If anyone who supported the merger originally would like more text added, perhaps they could say that here now. Otherwise that we didn't expressly discuss what to keep and cut isn't necessarily relevant. John Smith's (talk) 12:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Merge: The merger had been floating for more than four weeks and more than one week with tags on all articles, so I don't see any procedural flaws. For all who are unfamiliar with the topic, 1434 (Chinese fleet of Zheng He arrives in Europe) is the direct continuation of 1421 (Chinese fleet of Zheng He arrives in the Americas), so a merger is clearly self-evident. And since Menzies' notability solely rests on his Chinese-fleet-arrives-everyhwere-hypothesis, a merger of 1421/1434 with Gavin Menzies is only the logical next step. User will profit from an arrangement of everything 'under a single roof', while this policy of one article for each menzies book smells too much of cheap book promotion. Could you imagine a pseudo-historian as Menzies having three articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica?! Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  WRONG, Gavin Menzies wrote two SEPARATE books, they are NOT the same. The book 1421 presents historical evidence and maps that support Gavin Menzies thesis that Ming Chinese fleets had sailed the world.

While the book 1434 presents evidence and historical documents to support to an alternate route of transfer of the technological and intellectual knowledge of the more advanced Empire of Ming in China to the underdeveloped regions of post-Dark Age and pre-Renaissance Europe. This transfer of technology and knowledge along with the intellectual impetus of the Arab muslim scholars was what ignited the renaissance. Both books are separate and pertain to different subject matter, as such, they must each have their own individual article pages!

• STRONGLY OPPOSE MERGER, RESTORE ALL PREVIOUS ARTICLES AND CONTENTS TO ORIGINAL FORM

This is highly unjustified violation of Freedom of Speech. Many vandals are attempting to suppress this information about Zheng He's naval explorations from the general public. And this proposed so-called "merger" is just a clever and sneaky way for those vandals to delete and suppress Gavin Menzies theories. This is not about whether or not Menzies theories are true or false, but rather it is about the inalienable for his articles to placed here on this free encyclopedic forum of Wikipedia. All those critics who oppose Menzies ideas are welcome to contribute to the edits as long as they conform with Wikipedias policy of neutrality civil conduct. Those vandals can threaten to block, lock, whatever lame attacks the low IQ vandals can muster but it's not going have any lasting affect nothing as we will keep coming back until justice and neutrality is implemented in accordance with the official policy of Wikipedia and NOT on some so-called "consensus" of a small group of anti-Gavin Menzie vandals. We officially OPPOSE any proposed merger or deletion of the said articles. Additionally, the pages for the two books 1421 and 1434 must be restored to their original glory while the Gavin Menzie page should be rendered as an official biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.1.5 (talk) 17:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What was that you said about civil conduct? ClovisPt (talk) 18:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

And who's this "We" of which you speak, and in what "official" capacity do you act? -- Boing! said Zebedee 18:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, how can an IP officially do anything? And we have no 'official' biographies on Wikipedia, official biographies are authorized by the subject, and we don't do that here. Maybe this is just trolling? I mean, 'their original glory'? Are we supposed to take that seriously? Whoever this (kid?) is, they don't seem to know, or they are pretending they don't know, that there is never an 'original' after the first edit that crates an article. I'll also point out that Wikipedia is not a forum and that freedom of speech doesn't apply here. Dougweller (talk) 18:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose merger

Please refrain from uncivil conduct, while the ideas of Menzies are quite controversal he is still entitled the right to have his books presented here on Wikipedia in their full original manner, regardless of whether they are pseudohistory or fringe science. And to Mr. Dougweller, Regardless of whether one is an IP or registered user, we simultaneously represent the collective sentient cerebral function culminated from the populous of our infinitesimal minute planet Earth. Wikipedia was constructed by its' creator Mr. Jimmy Wales with the express purpose of allowing articles to be edited in good faith by the multitudes of intellectual scholars generous enough to constructively contribute to the continuing evolution of this platform. As such all conscious entities on our planet and hypothetically in the rest of our universe and perceived reality of the multiverse possess the inalienable right, granted by its' creator, to have a voice here on this forum and encyclopedia. You, Mr. Dougweller, are no more special than anyone else here, everyone has the right to speak. Glory to Freedom of Speech! Glory to Freedom of Press! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.68.249.69 (talk) 19:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See discussion below - you and 98.71.1.5 are clearly the same person, so the Community consensus will not count your !votes twice -- Boing! said Zebedee 19:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's pretty clear, we're being trolled. I don't think we have to take any comments from these IP's seriously. Dougweller (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

May I point out that this anon editor is the person who started the "controversy" over the merge in the first place. I take it this discussion is effectively over. Cheers all. ClovisPt (talk) 19:30, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This is starting to sound more like a propaganda pamphlet from the 1930s rather than a discussion about Menzies in 2010. Lol. If IP Address 71.68.249.69 is not an obvious, deliberate troll here only to get his kicks, then I don't know what a troll is! Given the flowery language, this is certainly no longer a serious discourse between those who oppose or support a merger.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Restore links to maps. I originally stated that I wasn't opposed to the merger, and I would like the links to the maps added back into the text of the article. As the maps form the heart of the "evidence" in 1421 for Menzies' claim of transfer of knowledge from China to Europe, links to the wikipedia articles for each individual map helped interested readers (like me, for example) to study their history and appearance, allowing people who are curious about Menzies' ideas to think for themselves about the fascinating, still-unresolved question of where did those maps originally come from. Other Choices (talk) 22:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Merge As per Boing!, ClovisPt, etc. Dougweller (talk) 05:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

• Treat similarly to Chariots of the Gods? - Erich von Däniken has one book article for his first book and a list of his other works. The parallel would be to keep the 1421 article and start listing Menzies' expected followup works without articles or special attention. Jojalozzo 11:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea and compromise; although I still support a merger, I would weak support this idea if it gains traction.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:27, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd also agree with this proposal. Though I'm not strongly against the merger, I don't think there was any consensus for 1 Menzies article as compared with 2 and too much was cut out of the 1421 article in the resultant merge. Chris55 (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• Merge. I'd prefer the author to be merged into the book but don't feel particularly strongly. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
• Merge The details need some attention, but the fact that the book and the author are both notable doesn't mean that Wikipedia is required to provide separate articles. I think that a well-done merge will provide more information and more context to the reader than balkanized and largely redundant separate articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

SPA using at least 2 IP addresses and canvassing, representing a group?

71.68.249.69 (talk · contribs) and 71.68.249.69 (talk · contribs) are clearly the same editor. Edits overlap so it isn't IP hopping. They have also been canvassing. Dougweller (talk) 09:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, they're the same IP address! -- Boing! said Zebedee 10:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed, I just noticed that I had two pages of contributions and they weren't the same, ie [3] and [4] so what is going on? Still and SPA and canvassing Dougweller (talk) 11:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

One's looking directly on the Tool server rather than the en.wikipedia special contribs page, but both seem to have the same contents -- Boing! said Zebedee 11:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

But yes, definitely canvassing -- Boing! said Zebedee 11:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The IP also seems to represent an organisation, as several times the words 'us' or 'we' have been used. I asked the IP what this meant but had no reply. Dougweller (talk) 13:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Just out of interest, I did some Whois lookups on a couple of the IPs who have been contributing to this discussion and editing the various related articles (it's all public info, so I'm not revealing anything private). I found the following ISP info...

98.71.1.5 = BellSouth.net, Lugoff SC

71.68.249.69 = Road Runner, Summerville SC

Two IP ranges belonging to two ISPs, both in South Carolina, in towns that are aren't too far apart from each other. -- Boing! said Zebedee 18:44, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and both having trouble with civility, and both talking of "We" -- Boing! said Zebedee 18:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The commentary style employed by the two IPs is identical - they're clearly the same editor. ClovisPt (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Quite so, yes -- Boing! said Zebedee 19:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)