Talk:Economic history of China before 1912/GA1

GA Review

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Starting review sub-page.--Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 17:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

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First off, kudos to the hard work that's been done on this article - it's much better than when I first saw it! That being said, the length of the article might be problematic. Not in the sense that it's too long, but that there's a lot of information to verify and could prove difficult for something so huge to fit all the criteria.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Prose throughout is generally good, but the tone can be a tad unencyclopedic at times. Not a huge issue for GA though.

   B. MoS compliance:

   MoS is fine, and not an issue here. Many key concepts and figures need to be linked, however.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Update1 - Footnotes are now shortened and concise with publication dates, references in alphabetical order.

   No serious problems here, but some of the citations in the footnotes don't really need the entire bibliographical information in there every time, just author and publishing date.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary: Update -

   Update1 - Article has been edited to reflect a more diverse range of sources, citations are now used more frequently. Reliance on single source has been adequately reduced. One questionable source removed. This article now passes this criteria.

   This is where most of my problems lie.

   - This article has a good number of citations, but one must keep its length in mind. With so much information, there needs to be more citations in the article is to keep some of its statements. It is not always clear whether the citation at the end of a paragraph accounts for the entire paragraph, or just the final sentence. Consider citing the same page(s) more than once if something is sensitive/debatable.

   - Another major issue here is that the article is overly dependent on a single book (Li Bo; Zheng Yin (2001)). It would seem that many subsections are directly sourced from it and that the entire article seemed to be centered around it, with additional cites from other sources as mere supplement. The verification issues for something that is not in English might prove too difficult, especially when it is used for so much of the article. Please consider some additional secondary sources. To save time, ask other editors involved in the same field for sources and citations.

   - Finally, I am not sure if <Jia Qing. "On the reasons why China fell behind the west". http://gz-hanfu.cn/doc/The-Truth-of-History.pdf> is really a good source. It seems to be a rather unbalanced and self-researched article stemming from a somewhat ethnocentric site, and has no publishing info. However, I see that it has not been used as citation to some of the more sensitive claims, and therefore could probably be easily replaced by a better secondary source. This will prevent arguments in the future over that particular source.

   C. No original research: Update -

   Update1 - Primary source removed. This article passes this criteria.

   Only a few small adjustments is needed here to pass. Please do not interpret directly from primary sources, as was done with Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian. There are only two cites from it though, and could likely also be easily replaced with secondary sources.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Main aspects:

   As broad as they come, fantastically done.

   B. Focus on topic:

   Well, there are certainly a lot of subtopics here, but generally focus is not a problem. I see there are already sub-articles dealing with larger topics within the article.

4. Is it neutral?

   By and large not a problem. May need to introduce some scholarly, contrasting opinions for possible FA nomination.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, few controversial edits.

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   A wide array of excellent images here, and I see the alt text was not forgotten :)

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: Update - (Pass)

   Overall, this is a pretty good article. The bad news is the issues with sources I've outlined above. The good news is, those issues could be easily resolved. In essence, it is only a hair's breadth away from passing, in my opinion. If a few members of the Chinese-portal community were to look it over, add a diverse amount of facts from different sources, this article could well be on its way to FA. I hope this review will help the editors involved. Keep up the great work!

   Update1 - Issues have been addressed, and the article is now more than qualified for GA. I pass this article on the grounds that it ably meets all necessary criteria. Excellent work by User:Teeninvestor and other involved editors! ~ AMorozov (talk) 05:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I willl keep AMorozov's suggestions in mind. I will be removing some of the unreliable/primary sources mentioned by AMorozov very soon and adding more citations. I hope these changes will be able to promote the article to GA(and then hopefully FA, after a second copyedit).Teeninvestor (talk) 12:06, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The overly reliance on Li Bo and Zheng Yin (2001) is mostly for some eras(e.g., the 220-589 era of division) that are ill covered by acadmeic publications, which tend to focus on the unified dynasties (e.g. Song, Ming, and Tang, which have many citations from other sources). I have removed the source of Jia Qing and Zizhi Tongjian from the article in concurance of AMorozov's comments above. In addition, I have added citaitons from new sources and I have reduced the number of citations from Li and Zheng's source from 60% of the total (123 out of 220) to about 49 percent of the total (106 out of 216) I have removed 17 citations from Li and Zheng's source and replaced them with 13 citations from scholarly sources. I hope this resolves the problem of over-dependence on one source.Teeninvestor (talk) 12:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

In addition, I calculated the amount of citations per kilobyte for this article is about 1.96(about 216 citations per 110 kb), while the featured article Economy of the Han Dynasty has about 1.95(about 137 citations for 70kb), So I believe the number of citations is sufficient(for now) though I am working to get more scholarly citations and reducing the number of citations from Li and Zheng's source.Teeninvestor (talk) 17:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

In addition, I've also revamped the entire system of citations to include inline citations, as well as adding the appropriate dates for every citation.Teeninvestor (talk) 23:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion by User:AMorozov: PASS

Improvements needed for FA

• 2nd copyedit(Hopefully will bring prose up to standard of FA)
• Replace Yuan Dynasty Li/Zheng citations with Cambridge history of China(This will bring Li and Zheng's total to below 40 percent).

Add more as you see fit.Teeninvestor (talk) 13:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Li and Zheng citations have dropped from 106(last time) to 83, reduced by 23, while the total number of citations has gone up by 13 to 233. I have thus added 36 new citations from various sources while reducing Li and Zheng's citations, which now make up only about 35 percent of the total content of the article.Teeninvestor (talk) 19:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This article has improved a lot since the last time I looked at it. Good job, everybody! I've been too busy to participate and I will remain so in the near future, but I wanted to give a few leads about how to improve the article further. Let me concentrate on what I think is the weakest section - the one on the Chinese economy from the origins to 475 BCE.

• Speaking of the "Xia dynasty" is controversial. Some historians (mostly Chinese) accept its existence, but many don't, and say instead that it's a myth. A good Wikipedia article should mention this controversy instead of presenting one side of it as self-evident. Instead of saying that a Xia site has been found at Erlitou (not "Erli"), the wiki should discuss the economy of the "Erlitou culture" and then say that some historians have identified this site with the possibly mythical Xia dynasty.
• The chariot appeared in archeological records in 1200 BC in the tombs of the Shang kings at Anyang. There is no archeological evidence for the existence of any kind of wheeled vehicle in Shang territory prior to that. Saying that "The first chariots were invented during the Xia dynasty" is complete fantasy. (Incidentally, at least five scholars I've read agree that the Shang adopted the chariot from outside peoples who lived either to the north or northwest of the Shang, so even saying that the chariot was "invented" in such-and-such a dynasty is inaccurate.)
• Agriculture in "Xia," Shang, and Zhou times was based on millet, not rice. Rice dominated the Yangzi River valley, not the Yellow River valley, where "Xia," Shang and Zhou were mostly based.
• Domesticated animals included the dog.
• Even the historians who believe that the "well-field system" (jingtian 井田) existed (another controversy that should be explained) never say that it existed under the "Xia dynasty." They say it existed a thousand years later, under the Western Zhou (ca. 1045-771) and into the Eastern Zhou (771-256 BCE).
• Nobody knows anything specific about the social and economic organization of the "Xia dynasty." Saying that "Xia agriculture relied on a feudal system where the landowner gave 50 mu of land to his serfs in exchange for cultivation of 5 mu of his own land" is far too specific to be based on archeological evidence, the only kind of evidence we have for pre-Shang times.
• It's not completely clear when bronze swords became obsolete, but they were still widely used in the Spring and Autumn period. They were thoroughly replaced by steel weapons at the very end of the Warring States period.

All these errors are fairly basic, and they show (once again) how unreliable "Li and Zheng" are. The Cambridge History of Ancient China provides much better explanations of all the processes described in this page.

In general, I also think this wiki contains far too many sub-titles, especially when the text under each title is so short, as in the Xia-Shang-Zhou section. A few good explanatory paragraphs grounded in reliable sources would be better than the bunch of three-line sections we have now.

Finally, I'm pretty sure the general structure of the article will not survive an FA review. The "Feudal-Absolutist-Mercantilist" structure smuggles a strong POV interpretation of economic development into the article without grounding it in reliable sources. Until we can think of a more justifiable structure, we may have to revert to a boring chronological outline that goes dynasty by dynasty.

I hope this helps a little, even if I don't have time to help with the real editing work.

Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 06:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Title

I was going to suggest moving this to Economic history of China (pre-1911), as "pre" is not a proper noun and should not be capitalized. But I really think this would be best at Economic history of China to 1911 or Economic history of China before 1911. Any thoughts? Tuf-Kat (talk) 22:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

North China after Former Qin sub-section

Hi, I was working on the following paragraph, and found an anomaly:

"From 406 CE to 416 CE, Liu Yu of the Jin launched a series of expeditions that destroyed the barbarian states of Southern Yan and Later Qin, giving Jin control over nearly all of China and the capitals of Luoyang and Chang'an. Despite an unexpected defeat and the loss of Chang'an, Jin still held Luoyang along with most of the Chinese heartland. These victories led to the recovery of the Reign of Yuanjia under Liu Yu's son."

It seems from this text that Chang'an was captured from Jin by an enemy, but that isn't explained in the text. Could you please clarify this paragraph, because I don't have access to the sources and aren't an expert on the subject? Many thanks. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 07:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Done copy-editing

Hi, I've now done the copy-editing, having gone through the entire article and I've enjoyed working on it. I left a couple of tags, one in the 'Taipang Rebellion' sub-section and one in the 'Recovery of the "Kang-Qian Age"' sub-section. The text is not obviously referenced; although the ref may be nearby, it isn't obvious to me.

I think that some sub-sections could be merged to make the article more readable, especially those with only one or two sentences. Also, you could try consolidating references using ref name="xxx" - and most of the footnotes could merge with the references under one section; it seems a little random at the moment.

I'm off for a glass of wine. Cheers, and happy editing. :-) Baffle gab1978 (talk) 04:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Feudalism

Are we using this for an economic system (in which case the word is largely meaningless), or of a political system (in which case the analogy is so weak as to be almost useless). Feudalism also seems to be used both of the central government, about things, like a strong official class, which are true of societies not feudal at all.

Manorialism has a definite meaning, at least; whether our evidence on pre-Han China will support it is another question entirely. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)