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Revision as of 05:58, 8 September 2008

"Taiwanese passport"

Please read my reasoning before reverting. Your assertion of the ROC passport being *informally* known as Taiwanese passport is wrong because:-

1. The notes you cited are biased. These relevant organisations will never said "ROC passport" so there is no point citing them. Notes can also be cited from authorities where "Taiwan" will never appear. Both of these notes have very little weight, if any, to the argument;

2. 'informal' means that act is not sanctioned by the government, but it can be legally correct. In the ROC, no acts of Parliament have ever described the country as "Taiwan". If you can find one, please cite that; and

3. 'commonly' means the name is used often but 'commonly' does not assert if that act is correct or incorrect. That is the neutral word to use.

Further, you made the "Taiwanese Passport" bald. That appears to me you are trying to draw readers' attention to a common but legally incorrect name as much as the formal and legally correct name. That, to me, is POV pushing.

Also, the ROC was not commonly known as "Taiwan" before the 1970's. It was known as "China". Your way of description has no qualification to take probably account of that fact. Therefore, your description is incorrect.

Your act of removing a tag (which I explained was to enable discussion) immediately while I was writing up discussion was in my view terribly rude. You appear to have also violated the three-revert rules of the Misplaced Pages. If you are so interested in arguing issues relating to the ROC, I would suggest that you get an account. I understand the temporary nature of using an IP address so if you do not respond to my comments in the next hour, I will propose to revert your edits.--pyl (talk) 06:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

If you think that my act was in violation of any Misplaced Pages policy, please report me as you have threatened.

I note despite the harsh sounding sentences, I do not see any replies for the point 1 that I raised. I know where the footnotes are from as I have visited them. Please let me repeat my point 1, as follows:-

"These relevant organisations will never said "ROC passport" so there is no point citing them. Notes can also be cited from authorities where "Taiwan" will never appear. Both of these notes have very little weight, if any, to the argument"

You seem to react the fact that I removed your notes very badly (in my view, you seem hurt and angry). Please again read my reasons in point 1, then you will see that act was not personal.

The qualification of 1970s is an important one. A caterpillar is not a butterfly until it becomes one. The ROC was not known as 'Taiwan' before the 1970s. Having a statement without such qualification is an incorrect statement.

You appeared to have sidestepped what I said about you making "Taiwanese passport" bald (they are written in bald fonts). Please allow me to repeat my argument, as follows:-

"Further, you made the "Taiwanese Passport" bald. That appears to me you are trying to draw readers' attention to a common but legally incorrect name as much as the formal and legally correct name. That, to me, is POV pushing."

You said:-

"Your behaviour is questionable and partial" "engage in an edit war with tags"; and "Your blatant removal of references is also rude, and arguably vandalism"

Any reasonable person reading my reasons would not form the above view according to Misplaced Pages's definition, and in particular, its definition of 'vandalism'. Adding a tag that had a clear comment saying "to enable discussion" is not considered as starting an editing war according to, again, Misplaced Pages's definition. Your allegations are unfounded and unnecessary. As I mentioned earlier, if you think that my act was in violation of any Misplaced Pages policy, please report me.

You also said:-

"if you expect to be treated with civility, demonstrate it and don't be a hypocrite"

I don't believe that after 2 reverts then putting a tag to enable discussion was anything other than being civil. The above allegation was baseless.

Your possible violation of the three-revert rule is further noted.

I note you conceded to accept "my propose rewording (as you have done)". However, given your apparent questionable footnotes, I would not make edits to the article, until an explanation on why the footnotes aren't questionable is given. If this is not done by tomorrow, then I propose to revert the edits without the footnotes.--pyl (talk) 07:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I note that the relevant article was modified without any replies made to my comments above. I consider the editing without prior communication rude and disrespectful. Every courtesy was afforded to you so that you are aware of the issues involved in why your edits were incorrect. If you wish to come up with another version, it is expected by way of common decency that you communicate before edits are made. I am disappointed, however, that it was not done.

• Courtesy was certainly not demonstrated by you when you reverted the initial edit, and then removed the links when reconstructing your 'NPOV' version.

By citing a footnote from Taipei times, you have further made mistakes in the edit, as follows:-

1. Taipei times is run by pro-Taiwan independence group. They consider Taiwan and China different countries and it is another footnote where "ROC would not appear"; but even so

• Of course, you seem to have difficulty with this, the China Daily, the BBC, and any other number of sources provided -- which you have removed -- further demonstrating your bias. As well, according to Google, there are 3.6K instances of "Taiwanese passport", roughly the same as that for "Republic of China passport" but both less than the 6K for "ROC passport" -- the moniker added upfront and, appropriately in bold, is hardly uncommon.

2. The article never says "Taiwanese Passport". It talked about the ROC passport being remarked with "Taiwan". This act was already explained next to the passport picture in the ROC passport article: it was to facilitate travel, not to change the name of the country. As you are aware, the name of the country is the Republic of China, not Republic of China (Taiwan) or Taiwan.

• I quote from the TT article (emphasis -- bold type -- added):
  • "The misunderstanding arose when Tsai handed customs officials his Taiwanese passport, issued in 2001, to enter St. Lucia during the Taiwan Bird Observation Team's visit to the country."
• I'm not wading into discussion about the political status of Taiwan/ROC, only about the legitimacy of the ROC passport being commonly called a Taiwanese passport. In addition, many common reputable publications list the country as 'Taiwan', with the ROC as its official/long-form name. Consult the New Oxford Dictionary of English, e.g. (p. 1889).

This act shows there is a general lack of understanding of issues involving the ROC and Taiwan. As you might be aware, this is a highly political and sensitive issue with varying viewpoints: what I did was trying to accommodate different views and putting up a NPOV version. A biased pro-reunification supporter would never allow for "Taiwan" to be mentioned as being the common name for the ROC.

• Many common publications indicate otherwise (see above). Ad hominem attacks are non-starters. And, you could have retained the online links in your 'NPOV' version, but chose not to ... which suggests an ulterior motive. Your acts and commentary since demonstrate something far more insidious.

Your current version still:-

a. has bald fonts. You mentioned Misplaced Pages style manual. Please cite the relevant section that says what you did was approproate;

• It's BOLD -- get it right. Your prior use of 'bald' conveys a meaning that may have been misinterpreted (e.g., bald-faced lies).

b. doesn't properly address that the passport was not commonly known as the Taiwanese passport before the 1970's; and

• The proper use of tense covers this off.

c. cites footnotes that carry little, if any, weight.

• Au contraire: they prove the point you are trying to suppress. Provide something to the contrary.

Since no discussion was taken place before you unilateral editing of the article, I repeat my arguments made previously as none as them were addressed.

Please stop using patronising and insulting language such as "Your behaviour is questionable and partial", "blatant removal", "hypocritical and escalatory", "your protestations of bias", "R BS" etc. I consider them personal attacks and I ask you to stop failing which, I will refer you to the relevant authorities.

• A spade is a spade.

Your possible violation of the three-revert rule is further noted.

If a reply which properly addresses my issues above as well as my previous arguments is made available within 12 hours, I propose to revert the edits that you made.--pyl (talk) 14:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I have your reply. Thank you. However, I would appreciate it if you could kindly put your reply separately from the original comments. This enables proper reading by the readers and it also helps the persuasiveness of your arguments. I apologise that I persistently used bald instead of bold. That was my typing mistake.

Putting "A spade is a spade" to a request that you stop what I think as personal attacks adds further insult. I will refer any further acts of such kind to the relevant authorities.

It also appears to me that you only selectively responded to my comments. In that, I will take it as you accept all arguments that I made when the comments were not responded to.

The google search results, the Oxford Dictionary of English, etc etc arguments were already used to eliminate ROC's status before. If you haven't, I suggest that you read Misplaced Pages's Chinese naming convention and you will note that these arguments were already proved to be invalid. For example, when did Google get into the business of telling people that its number of search results is about what's right and what's wrong? If Google is now the truth-giver, all religious and scientific institutions should close as we can all rely on Google results. Google is in the profit making business and it gives results which it thinks as popular so it makes money. Oxford Dictionary is exactly that, Oxford. It is an English Dictionary that directly or indirectly reflects the view of the English speaking government authorities: the ROC does not exist, it is merely a "formal name" of a place called Taiwan. If we follow those examples, then we shouldn't have articles such as the "ROC".

You have not provided the relevant section of the Misplaced Pages style manual. Even so, the bolding of the common but illegal description is against the neutral point of view principle, which as I argued, making it as important as the formal and legal description. The NPOV principle is paramount, and it takes priority over the style manual (if you can show correct evidence from it). Accordingly, "Taiwanese passport" will not be described in bold.

The correct tense does not take care of the fact that the ROC was not commonly known as Taiwan before the 1970s. "It is a butterfly" doesn't mean a butterfly was a caterpillar. Therefore, the over-generalising sentence will be reverted.

The footnotes you quote have serious problems in the context of the complicated Taiwanese political status. You said that you do not wish to get into such arguments. However, careful considerations against the background which the arguments gave rise to cannot be overlooked. To do so, it will be against the NPOV policy. I do not need to provide a footnote that the ROC cannot be known as Taiwan since the 1970s as I already have accepted that. That, however, does not mean using footnotes from a biased source is acceptable. Footnotes from KMT and other pro-reunification sources are biased as well. You will find that they will never talk about Taiwan being a synonym to the ROC. The fact that I don't use footnotes from either source and I accept the reality that ROC is commonly known as Taiwan since the 1970s means I try to be neutral in this issue.

As I said previously, given the complex political status that Taiwan is in, I would suggest that you do not edit articles relating to such issues if you do not have a full historical, political and legal understanding. It will also help if you read the existing Misplaced Pages articles and discussions on these issues and use a more precise wording to describe the issues.

Your possible violation of the three-revert rule is noted. Please do not start an editing war then accuse others of doing so. False allegation does not erase the possible violation of the rules. In fact, it may become personal attacks.

I will edit the article by the reasons I gave above. If you have issues with that, please discuss here before making further edits. I would also suggest that you get an account if you wish to continue editing Misplaced Pages. While I am not saying that you are, but I would raise the issue that using sock puppets is prohibited in Misplaced Pages.--pyl (talk) 05:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

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Prince of Canada 18:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)