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I request for where it says "After the war, Matsui and several other commanders at Nanking were found guilty of war crimes and executed" to be changed to "After the war, Matsui and several other commanders at Nanjing were found guilty of war crimes and executed", since most people know the city by the name of "Nanjing" and the name "Nanking” is a Western name. 2A0A:EF40:1266:8501:E983:5DA5:37C7:2D85 (talk) 21:25, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@KönigGorillaReiter this massive POV push to soften Japanese atrocities is rather alarming. Furthermore the line about atrocities you said wasn't supported by the source is discussed at length by the source. I don't know how you could come to the conclusion it was unsupported. Simonm223 (talk) 15:54, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, trying to soften Japanese atrocities was not my intention. Editing the article and sifting through that content was upsetting due to the atrocious actions taken against the POWs and civilian populace. The pictures in particular made my stomach churn.
To be clear, I was trying to clean up the article. Most of my edits did not change the content of the article itself or were grammar fixes. I am not trying to push any narrative. I did clarify some facts that could be taken that way. For example, how officially the Japanese army's main target was Chinese soldiers in hiding and males of military age, and that the killing of civilians was secondary in purpose to that. It in no way diminishes the fact that civilians were killed, but it emphasizes the fact that the targeted group was those males and they suffered the most. I hope it didn't appear that I was trying to minimize the civilian killings, as that was not my intention.
As for the sentence that you mentioned which I had deleted, I was in the middle of replacing it with a more specific, fact supported one. The page on the book that the sentence cited only mentions one village that was burned down, while the sentence described a general policy of burning down any village in the army's path. I was in the process of writing a new sentence which listed every village that was burned with the proper citations, rather than a generalized statement based on one example.
As for the number of edits, I can see how that might raise some red flags in most people's minds. However, if you look at my edit history, you will see that I typically focus on one article at a time and do dozens of edits over a 24 hour span. I last did this to the article called "Mughal Artillery" two days ago, which is not a controversial topic and has no possible false narratives.
I am open to feedback and to redoing any edits you think may be problematic. Just let me know which ones. Given my history on Wikipedia over the past six years showing that I have never in that time pushed any specific narrative, I hope this comes across as sincere. I am an American living in Indiana and do not really have any interest in downplaying Japanese war crimes. I do have a strong interest in Asian history though. I take your feedback seriously and will use this chance to improve my editing. I apologize if any edits had the appearance of trying to push a particular POV. That was certainly not the intention, and any advice on how to avoid that would be much appreciated. KönigGorillaReiter (talk) 16:36, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly start by not deleting reliably sourced material. It's clear you either misread or failed to read some of the cited sources you deleted as you repeatedly said they didn't support the Japanese atrocities statement despite quite clearly doing so. However, just in general, if you are going to make an edit with a net change of +4000 bytes that significantly affects the POV such as by refocusing attention on military deaths, removing the word "murder" and other such problems, go to the article talk page first and get consensus for the changes before making them. Simonm223 (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, when major edits are reverted, you should stop editing and come to article talk as a first course of action rather than blithely reverting the reversion. You may have a six-year history on Wikipedia but this is literally the first time you've ever posted to an article talk page and that is kind of necessary for major edits. Simonm223 (talk) 16:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, thanks for the advice. I had always just gone in and edited during my entire time on Wikipedia. I have never really looked at the talk pages. I only really found out they were a thing today. Over the past six years you're the first person to bring up an issue, which is probably why I've never looked at it before. I thank you for that, it helps me grow and learn more about Wikipedia. I apologize if I made you upset, truly, I don't want to ruin anybody's day. I would appreciate it however if we dropped any accusations of me trying to soften Japanese atrocities, as that is not the case here. Let's have an even headed discussion on the edits.
On the example edits you brought up, I will explain the reasoning behind it. I'm not bound to a specific POV so any real problematic ones can be edited out, no problems from me.
On the first example, I did not specifically refocus attention on military deaths. I added it as a detail alongside the civilian deaths. Both happened. For example, when I changed the sentence in the top description describing the event as "massacre of civilians" to "massacre of soldiers and civilians", it is more correct than the original sentence. Tens of thousands of Chinese POWs were killed alongside the civilian casualties. The original sentence could be interpreted as the event being solely a civilian massacre, which was not the case. As for a later edit on the same topic specifying that the primary target of the Japanese army was soldiers in hiding and military age males, that was also true, from the official standpoint. The civilian killings also took place, but the immediate target was the portion of the population which posed a threat. I do not believe this is controversial, but please let me know if you still think so and why.
As for changing the word "murder" to "killing", that is indeed just a matter of semantics and could certainly go either way. If you like the term "murdered" better than "killed", then by all means I am ok if you change it. The reason why I changed it was because the word "murder" adds an emotional touch that can cause a reader to believe that the writer of the article has a bias, causing them to take some of the facts less seriously. "Killing" is a more matter-of-fact, academic, and neutral term I often see in history papers, much more commonly used than "murder". It presents as a cold hard fact; nobody can dispute that they were killed, but saying that they were murdered opens up the facts to questioning whether it counts as murder if it's a war (personally I believe it does count when those killed are noncombatants like the civilians in Nanjing, as does when a soldier surrenders and throws down their arms, but when a soldier tries to blend into the populace, they could still possibly be considered a combatant). KönigGorillaReiter (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On a reversion you made, I have some questions.
Quote:
Japanese aircraft frequently strafed unarmed farmers and refugees "for fun."
I deleted this sentence because the writer was present at Nanjing. How could he have known that the pilots were strafing people "for fun"? We can certainly leave the part in about the strafing, as that actually happened, but the part about "for fun" is a matter of opinion by the author of that article.
I am very familiar with Harold Timperley as an author. I changed the citation for two reasons. The first is that his name was spelled wrong, leading me to question whether whoever added it had even read his work. The second reason is that his writing was often written as propaganda. He was the head of the UK Branch of the International Information Division in London, and worked closely with the Chinese Nationalist Government to write propaganda to support their cause. His work was very important in spreading awareness of Japan's atrocities to America and other audiences, definitely did the world a favor. However, his stories were often embellished and do not make for a reliable source. I am certain that if you want to keep that sentence in that you can find a better source than his work. There are multitudes of firsthand accounts. KönigGorillaReiter (talk) 18:00, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I don't know what you mean by reverting a reversion. Could you clarify on what it is and how it's bad?
Hello, after looking back at the reversions, I saw that most of the 4000 bytes that were added were not anything that could really be considered controversial. For example, I spent a lot of time writing about the prelude to the battle, the surrender negotiation process, and other events that took place, all with citations. It was condensed into a summary that gave a good overview of the military situation, much better than the two sentences in "siege of the city" that it was reverted back to.
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Furthermore, there were lots of grammatical and other fixes that did not alter the content of the article which were reverted. Could you undo the mass revert and go through the edits to selectively revert anything that could be considered controversial? Otherwise I will have to re-write all those sections and re-fix all the grammar mistakes, which will take hours. If you deem it iffy, I won't dispute it, but the majority of changes I made were ones that cannot really be considered as such. KönigGorillaReiter (talk) 19:10, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I edited the following paragraph:
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On December 11, Rabe found that Chinese soldiers were still residing in areas of the Safety Zone, meaning that it became an intended target for Japanese attacks despite the majority being innocent civilians. Rabe commented on how efforts to remove these Chinese troops failed and Japanese soldiers began to lob grenades into the refugee zone.
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Into this:
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On December 11, Rabe found that Chinese soldiers were still residing in areas of the Safety Zone, causing it to become a target for Japanese attacks despite the majority of it's inhabitants being innocent civilians. Rabe commented on how efforts to remove these Chinese troops failed and Japanese soldiers began to lob grenades into the refugee zone.
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This was reverted as a disruptive edit. Could I ask what the issue is? We can leave as is, but I believe the sentence flows much more smoothly in the second version. KönigGorillaReiter (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also see that the citation request for Rabe's safety zone saving 200,000 lives was reverted. I'd like to know where that number came from. If the estimate by consensus is 200,000 people killed, up to 750,000 people fled the city before the battle, and the original population of the city being just over a million, then the number of people that he saved seems inflated. KönigGorillaReiter (talk) 18:45, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another reversion to discuss. I had spent a great deal of time on the section "siege of the city" adding in the situation on both sides before the battle, and adding several citations. It was strictly factual and did not have much room for controversy.
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For example: Japanese army arrives at last line of defense between them and Nanjing walls. Japanese bomber drops thousands of letters onto the city with Matsui's surrender demands. The Japanese waited on the 10th but no surrender. Chinese general gives speech and an order of no retreat. The battle commences. Etc. I also changed the title of that section to "prelude to the battle", as "siege of the city didn't fit because there was no siege. The Japanese waited for only one day before a direct assault.
level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Thanks MDY seems to be the original per Diff/129316, so I think I'll take the plunge and set it formally to 
Done Remsense ‥ 论 16:38, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
Not done: Mass murder and mass rape are mentioned as primary crimes in the preceding sentences. Remsense ‥ 论 18:45, 29 March 2025 (UTC)