My contributions have come under attack from several users who don’t realize the extent of my contributions, who’ve only heard about me in the context of debating more contentious issues, such as those on the Chinese history or Stalin articles. I have come under attack because of a series of misrepresentations and misunderstandings from various sources.
Most of the below contributions contain large sections of original writing that boundlessly improved each article.
If you go through them, you’d see that the contributions are commendable and fall within the Wikipedia guidelines. You’d see that each subject is now treated more even-handedly than before, and that each article conveys a far better understanding of the subject-matter.
In short, I’d like to dissuade the reports that my contributions have solely been focused on two extremes, ploemical essays or anecdotal commentaries.
Also, I only post original work or work already posted on Wikipedia.
In just the matter of a week or two, I’ve already revamped, overhauled, or written large segments of these following articles. I haven't really been keeping track though, not having an account until now (see below for old user names). Those are just the contributions that I can remember off the top of my head IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER:
Leonid Brezhnev, British Empire, capitalism, Fidel Castro, Chinese historiography, Colonization of Africa, Communism, Deng Xiaoping, East Asian Tigers, Economy of Taiwan, Fascism, Finance Capitalism, Four Modernizations, genocide, Great Depression, History of Belgium, History of Brazil, History of China, History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, History of the People's Republic of China, History of Germany, History of Taiwan, History of the United Kingdom, History of the United States, J.A. Hobson, Hu Jintao, Hu Yaobang, Imperialism in Asia, Jiang Zemin, Saddam Hussein, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, kimjongilia, Leopold II of Belgium, Mao, Karl Marx, Mussolini, New Imperialism, Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Soviet Union, Stalin, Getulio Dorneles Vargas, World War I, World War II
So far I’ve been preoccupied with the topics of modern China and nineteenth century imperialism, but I’ve also contributed to pages on Brazil, Russia and Ming China. I’d appreciate some suggestions for other topics.
External Links:
Wallerstein:
- Modern History Sourcebook: Summary of Wallerstein on World System Theory
- Pax Americana is over (Wallerstein)
Economics:
- WHAT I LEARNED AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS. The Insider by Joseph Stiglitz
- Commanding Heights with Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad
- Interview with John Kenneth Galbraith
China:
- Jiang Zemin's Speech at the Meeting Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China
- Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping
- Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001 (Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China)
- Chinese Communist Party 16th Party Congress (Leadership profiles from the BBC)
- Life Story of Jiang Zemin (from the People's Daily)
- Hollywood's Tibet
- 100 Questions and Answers about Tibet
Africa:
- Germany Refuses to Apologize for Herero Holocaust
- Belgium exhumes its colonial demons
- Why Mugabe is right
- Mugabe is Right, Whites Must Give Up the Land! by Koigi Wamwere
Misc.:
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz on the Transition (recommended):
- Joseph Stiglitz Lessons and Challenges in Transition (Transition in Russia, Eastern Europe)
Hello and welcome to userland 172! --mav
Hello. 194.117.133.118 11:05 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)
Minguy is pretty unfriendly, no?Vera Cruz
What are they saying you removed anyways? I don't see why they are making such a big deal out of it, it's not like we can't revert anything anyways. Most of these talk pages are a mess and need cleaning. Vera Cruz
I think quotes from the Washington Times and other POV sources do belong in NPOV articles. It's very informative to know what the POVs on different topics are. Vera Cruz
172, let's not get into a misunderstanding here. I would be the last person to call you a communist. Prior to your arrival, a good many of the history pages were rather shallow things, and showed little understanding of the interrelationship between history (in the traditional "kings and queens of England" sense) and the broad flow of economic change that underpins and (in general) controls the actions of statesmen, generals and inventors. You certainly do not fall into that trap! Your contributions have made significant inroads into the task of describing history as an interacting whole. Several others here have objected to what they see as a "communist bias" in your writing. In large part, these objections stem from two things:
- Many people here have spent a lifetime steeped in a rather one-sided view of history - I'm talking about the sort of history that describes the Battle of the Bulge or Second Alamain in loving detail, but relegates Stalingrad to a footnote and doesn't even bother to mention Kursk; the sort of history that thinks Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and therefore we had an Industrial Revolution - and on reading the sort of thing that you write, they (very naturally) tend to say oh, this isn't what I'm used to seeing, therefore it must be wrong.
- You tend to write large slabs of text which is perfectly comprehensible if one concentrates but far from easy reading, particularly as it is liberally laced with the jargon of political economy. Many people see key words or phrases like "bourgeoise", "hegemony", or "accumulation of surplus" and (a) don't really understand them, and (b) assume that because the two or three Marxist or Leninist tracts they happen to have glanced at are filled with these same words, that the present work is more of the same.
As I see it, the challenge is not to write long entries that are technically correct but so complex, wordy, and jargon-filled that no-one reads them (any fool with half an education can do that), but to translate the specialised jargon of Marxian political economy and materialistic history into terms that that are readily accessable to the ordinary, non-specialist reader, and in doing so to bear in mind that any given article should not aim at detailed perfection at some far off future time to the exclusion of readability and usefulness at the present time - changes should, in other words, be sufficiently incremental that the article as a whole remains useful in the meantime.
There. It's said. Now is there anyone I haven't' offended yet? Tannin
- Bah. If you can't see that it's POV to write things like, "Mao sure pulled China together and gave the people more freedom than they've ever known before!", then you and 172 deserve each other. --Len
(I loathe Mao, and did not write such a sentence. But one could make a very strong case for that statement.)
- One can pull individual POV statements out of anyone's contributions - you and me included. I am talking about the bulk of 172's work, not every single sentence as if it were Holy Writ. I assume that the quotation above has already (and quite properly) been edited into shape - but with the massive slabs of text 172 submits, this is no easy task! Tannin
Quite so, 172. The 172.X user I reverted was obviously nothing to do with you, just one of those rather sad little people with a self-image problem that go about making up imaginary countries with three citizens and a modem for their Yahoo Groups account, and casting themselves in the role of King Mucho Stupido the 2nd. After I reverted his nonsense a few times, he deleted my user page. Shrug. Tannin
---arguing is pointless, try finding people who agree with you, rather than people that don't. Vera Cruz
u got aim or msn or something?