http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_armour

the article is very poorly unorganized. Other than having flat out wrong facts. there are alot of ambiguous statements made

-claims Liang dang armor was common during the Han dynasty. if i'm not mistaken, this sort of armor only became common Wei-Jin/NanbeiChao era
-claims brigandine style armor only came into existence in China relatively recently (IE Ming or Qing). I'm unclear on this since the Ming Guang Jia seems to be a transition from lammellar to brigadine.
-reference to crossbows used on horseback. no evidence of this sort of wide spread usage

-the ambiguous statement that iron was the most common metal for weapons in Han dynasty. While for the first 100 years or so of the dynasty, iron weapons were found along the typical bronze weapons. by at least the second half of the dynasty, steel was used. (numerous evidence including large furnaces for the process of siphoning carbon from cast iron to make steel as well as archeaological finds of steel swords dating to the second half of the Han dynasty)

Wiki's articles being misguilded ?
*SHOCKED*

We're still hoping to do something about it someday. See http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...dpost&p=4728045

Depends how you define brigandine. Mingguang kai is usually regarded as lamellar with added plates, while brigandine is plates covered with cloth. The two are quite different.



Also depends on how one defines liangdang. The true liangdang armour was lamellar breastplates and backplates joined by leather shoulder straps. But this pattern was already seen in some Western Han tomb figurines, with the two plates joined over the shoulders only with cords.

Quite pointless to edit Wikipedia actually. I spent a whole morning one day to add new information and edit errors in the original information on catapults and stuff only to find them editted out and the same errors reintroduced back into the articles over the next few days by others.

Since then I've gone back in and changed stuff again. So far some of the changes have stuck but others have been changed right back again, this time they don't even bother rewriting, just reverting whole pages back to previous editions prior to my changes.

So Wikipedia follows the general ignorance? =)

I would advise that the next time you edit, you should cite sources and stuff on the talk page.

Not entirely true actually, the Han dynasty version is connected at the sides. So it can't really be called "liangdang"

Well here an article that state wikipedia is approximately as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+acc..._3-5997332.html

what are you talking about? i haven't edited anything.

He was talking about me.

But he's missing the point. Quite a bit of what I edited was to add information on chinese catapults and dates only to get every reference to non-european stuff cut out again.

My last re-re-edit was to change the date for the first entry of catapults in China from the 7th century A.D. back to the Mohist 5th century B.C. and to fill out the information on the HuiHui Pao which they incorrectly labelled as a middle eastern muslim catapult just because HuiHui means muslim.

I don't have my hopes high that it'll stay again. Probably will be gone by the end of the week.

The only thing that they don't seem to be removing is the external link to my chinese siege warfare site so maybe that'll just have to do and we can hope people will read the rubbish on wikipedia and then click on my site to get more balanced info.

When you edit, copy/paste and save it as a word file, and whenever it's changed just cut/paste it over the crap info that gets replaced

It'll take like a minute maybe, and maybe the doofus will just give up

Sigh. Have you tried complaining about this in the talk page? Or you could be a stubborn B****** like me and edit it until everybody else gives up(Edit: following TMPickachu's advice) .

According to Wikipedia, that's bad manners. Edit wars are prohibited, the rule is: edit thrice, then f*ck off.

Hello, CHF folks

More updates on Wikipedia

Mr. Wales (founder of Wikipedia in 2001) was interviewed in BusinessWeek on 15 Dec 2005.
Take note of this particular answer:

Q. Do you think students and researchers should cite Wikipedia?

A. No, I don't think people should cite it, and I don't think people should cite Britannica, either -- the error rate there isn't very good. People shouldn't be citing encyclopedias in the first place. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias should be solid enough to give good, solid background information to inform your studies for a deeper level. And really, it's more reliable to read Wikipedia for background than to read random Web pages on the Internet.

If you're interested in an audio interview with Jimmy Wales (on NPR last week). He said to use Wikipedia and other data found on the web should be taken with a "grain of salt." He does imply that critical info skills are important, choice of resource is important, etc. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051206-164241

The Tennessean ran an article on Dec 12, 2005 in which Nashville resident Brian Chase admitted that he was responsible for posting incorrect information in a Wikipedia biography of John Seigenthaler and that he did it to play a joke on a co-worker. That joke, he says, "went horribly, horribly wrong."
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...EWS01/512110366

Many people often take what they find in the Internet and thought that they have the (right) answers. In view of all these and also what Jieming had experienced (in terms of repetitive wrong editing done to his articles), CHF members must take info literacy seriously, this is to do with knowing and using tools both electronic and print wisely. It also points to why info retrieval and critical info skills are more important than ever before.

Btw, a recent article about the quality of Wikipedia entries was published in The Guardian. Entries on specific topics were reviewed by subject experts. In most cases, the entries were rated from fair to poor.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/stor...1604185,00.html

Isn't there a way of contacting the writers and show them the evidence? It's likely they are not well versed in Asian siege engines. This may take some dicussions but if you manage to convince them they will learn something from it and not change it any more. I think there is also a possibility to discuss articles on line, right?

[quote name='lingzhixiangu灵芝' date='Dec 17 2005, 04:55 AM' post='4777050']
Hello, CHF folks


Q. Do you think students and researchers should cite Wikipedia?

A. No, I don't think people should cite it.

To my everlasting embarrassment, I cited a couple wiki articles in a MA level essay. Did not know much about Wiki--seemed okay--but the Prof. disabused me of that notion. I quoted, and the prof wrote "you just failed history 101!" I felt grand reading that. I recovered, and went on to get an A-, but holy!

Wikipedia is no different to going to the library. You need to consider where the information is coming from or if the topic is one that is contentious.
The standard of some Wikipedia articles are very good and errors will be found in hardcopy textbooks as well so there is no reason to be dismissive of it for basic study.
Note that Wiki uses citiations and source notes just like any reputable writting should. You can examine the primary sources by following them.
Where a topic is contentious there is 'nuetrality disputed' added to political topics or 'citation needed' when an editor thinks that a statement needs some evidence. This is admirable and a lot better than some books which go to press and include half witted research or baseless fantasy without the chance of correction.
Wikipedia does not present a different challenge to somebody who want to learn history. Cross-check some facts, be aware of possible errors or bias...........but Wiki is an excellent starting point to find a concise account of almost anything.
For example the pages on something like FLG/Afrocentrism/Scientology/Bosnian pryamids/Gavin Menzies '1421' are actually very balanced since they include comments stating when there isn't agreement on facts or that criticisms/justification have been made about this or that side.
I think Wiki is good and is getting better with time. It does not reflect only one side of any contreversies or current events and so is fine if you are a responsible adult, criticisms and defenses of an idea tend to be in the same article and so quite unique in that way. It is a good forum for public debate by presenting evidence.
If you quote ''www.Wiki'' like it was a source in itself though then that is a mistake, but if you use it as a starting point and check the sources & citations you may get names of authors or other linked articles the page was based on.
If these are used as sources instead, and the actual original authors acknowledged, then Wiki could be a great aid to quickly learning basic points about almost anything under the sun.

....unless of course you are in the Peoples Republic of China and find it blocked by the CPC.

I edit articles on Wikipedia all the time. So I can speak from first hand experience of how crappy most of the info is. I, however, try my hardest to edit and write my articles with solid information that has been cited.

It's VERY easy to re-revert an edit done to your edit. Just go to the “history” tab of the article in question, find your edit, and “compare” it to the edit done after yours. The page that pops up will be split at the top. On one side will be your edit and the other side will be theirs. Click “edit” off to the right side of your name. A page with a pink banner will appear that states “You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this version will be removed.”. If you just want to add your info into the current article, just “cut” it from the old version and “paste” it into the new one.” Then just click “save” at the bottom. It automatically brings your info back onto the main article. That's it. If someone keeps on editing off your info, hold what's known as a "Straw Poll". This is the first step towards arbitration. When a majority votes your info to stay on the page and the same dumb*** keeps on editing it off, just report it to an administrator. They can be banned for at least a day or banned from editing the article in question entirely. If lots of vandalism is done to a page by "anonymous users", then a protected tag can be put on the page were only established users can edit it. I personally believe that only established users should be able to edit. If an anonymous user really wants to edit an article, then they should just get an account. IT'S FREE.

I can't tell you how many times I've stated on article "Discussion pages" why I would never use Wikipedia for a reference. My one main reason would be "Edit Wars", where both persons believe their info is correct, so they keep on reverting, re-reverting, and re-re-reverting pages. Chances are one of them is incorrect. I've ran into this myself. I was editing a page about the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) and one Korean nationalist kept on posting information pertaining to the possible Korean origins of the Jurchen Tribe. The info was not cited and was incorrectly translated from a Chinese text. But he kept on posting it on the page over and over again. I finally started a straw poll and had it voted off the page. But as soon as I ended the poll, the ****er put it right back up. The article has since then been protected from outside users.

The user who posted the false info was known as BREATHJUSTICE. Because he had received so many warnings on his user page, he logged off from his account and began to edit pages under various "Sock puppet" i.p. addresses. The only mistake he made was editing THE SAME ARTICLES, WITH THE SAME INFO, and WITH THE SAME HORRIBLE ENGLISH GRAMMAR!!! (Please excuse any mistakes that I just made). Since the Jin Dynasty, Jurchen tribe, and other Korean and Manchurian pages have been protected from outside users, any edits he makes will have to be with his active account. This way, if he f**ks up again, we will know who did it and have him banned for good!!!

The problem is that some articles are so hotly disputed it's impossible to move them forward. Also you get trolls deliberately sabotaging things, with the changes not always being noticed. Some articles get little attention, so they're highly biased.

For historical issues, I never, ever cite wikipedia - I only have a quick look at the general facts in case I don't know much about the thing is question. Sometimes you can get references to useful texts.

What it tends to be useful for is things like science and technology that aren't disputed - unless it's military-related, in which case you get fan-boys that push statements like "this is comparable to/better than F-15", when in reality such a comparison is either ludicrous or unverifiable.

i've seen entire pages wiped out on wikipedia...

unless you want your stuff to stick, you need to quote sources, otherwise you're in for frustration