Talk:Chinese Canadians in British Columbia/Archive 2

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On sourcing

I notice recent edits drastically changing text, with edit summaries indicating they are based off of the Wikipedian's beliefs about the sources and professed knowledge of the subject. I feel that is damaging the integrity of the text, which is supposed to be based on what the sources say! Wikipedia is a secondary source, so the text must reflect what the sources say. It seems like the editing is going off on a personal/gut feeling that Yee is wrong and Morton is right rather than actually cross-checking what the content says.

Re: Morton

By all means Morton would be a great source for this article. Even though I found criticisms of Morton's methodology/analysis in the book reviews talking about it, there were only some minor questions about a few historical facts indicated in Worden's book review.

• Wikipedia articles are supposed to rely on many sources and not only one, so the idea to use various sources. Another thing: I don't think the concept "selection of biased/ethno-focussed publications. They're wrong but ascribe to the "tell a lie often enough and people will come to believe it" method of history-writing." has any validity. How do you know they are biased? How do you know they are wrong? Since these sources are WP:RS and I haven't seen any evidence saying the whole field is faulty, I'm going to continue to use these sources and expect they will be used.

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

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I am going to analyze each of the recent edits. One by one, I will point out what the source text says and I will say whether the edit was justified or not justified.

Editing analysis here

Edit #1: "fixing bad English, and correcting improper use of "Mainland" meaning "Mainland China". In British Columbia, "the Mainland" refers to the British Columbia mainland, and a "Mainlander" is someone from there; not from China" If "Mainlander" is a local BC term them this would be justified to avoid confusion. In Chinese contexts "Mainlander" is a common term, so don't be surprised if you see it turn up again to mean someone from Mainland China. However from my understanding "teach both the Mandarin and Cantonese languages." should be correct English since "teach the English language" is correct (at least according to American usage). The change does not matter though. Edit #2: " fixing wording as "Mainlander immigrants" in Canadian/BC English means immigrants in mainland British Columbia. Repeating usages in sources that make this mistake like using "Vancouver" to mean Surrey and Richmond is a regular fault" Justified to avoid confusion, although you would think the context is understood with "Mainland immigrants". It is a normal practice to refer to the whole metro area as "Vancouver" and that is something people do. It can be reworded to "Greater Vancouver" to reduce confusion. Edit #3: "rm false history, cited or not - and a case in point of "bad history" in all the cits being used here uncritically; that war did not start until 1894-95, so how could an org formed in 1884 have been founded to support it????" Mentioned above in the section about the Sino-Japanese War. Removal justified for now' since the cross-check with other sources said that the war didn't begin until 1894, although military hostilities may have started. The solution is to consult other sources and see what they say. Edit #4: " fixing bad syntax/amateurish writing..... of which this page has too much; presumably "after" rather than "prior" was meant; more bad English syntax fixed" The intention was good, but this was an unjustified edit. Here is why: 1. A direct quote from a source was misinterpreted and garbled. The reference note said "A few months later, the Dr. Sun Yat- Sen Classical Garden Society was formed with the specific aim of overseeing the completion of the garden." but the Wikipedian misinterpreted it as a part of the article body, so the text reads 'which was formed with the specific aim of overseeing the completion of the garden."' (with no beginning quote) - Do not alter quotes from sources 2. The Wikipedian changed "Prior to 1994 ethnic Chinese "music societies" in Vancouver, first founded in the 1920s, had an increase in popularity." to "After 1994 ethnic Chinese "music societies" in Vancouver, first founded in the 1920s, increased in popularity." This is not what the source says! Johnson, p. 129: ""Music societies" have been in existence since the 1920s but, with the active support of Hong Kong immigrants, their activities are expanding and their numbers are growing." The book containing Johnson was published on January 1, 1994, so the changes happened prior (before) 1994. It's impossible for a source published on January 1, 1994 to say what happened after 1994! Edit #5: "remove dross ; and duh, that organization DEFINES Vancouver's Chinese business community, the remaining CBC site is long overdue and has been a fact of SUCCESS since its founding;" There may be differences in style, but in my opinion this was not a good edit. You want to identify who said/made the quote. You want to say "the CBC did it" (no author is seen in the article). Without the identification you don't know who to attribute it to. Attribution is key. Now, I don't know if it's actually necessary to say "the CBC did it" in the article body but I prefer to identify the person in the article body. As for the year, it's necessary since relevance may fade ten or twenty years later (it may be true in 2010, but will this be true in 2020 or 2030?). Also: The tone of the edit summary is not justified. It may not be obvious to people not from the area, who are reading this article. Edit #6: "adding obvious about Chinese-themed malls; if this isn't in THAT source it's another example of the shallowness of such sourcse" Crowe PT112 states: "proportion of Richmond residents speak Cantonese or Mandarin and a large number of "Chinese malls" make it possible to dine, access medical and dental care, do one's banking, purchase car insurance, organize holidays, and obtain virtually any other service without using English." Your edit changing it to concentration is indeed justified. Thank you. Now, " though common throughout Vancouver and in many of its suburbs, particularly near Coquitlam Town Centre and in the Metrotown Town Centre area of Burnaby." requires a reference from a published source characterizing them as "common" or else it's original research. Please don't say it's obvious. Your readers are NOT from the area and they won't think it's obvious. This content can be left in with a fact tag. Edit #7 "fix again" - Minor formatting, justified Edit #8 "linking Roy Mah, who should have an article if hedoesn't already" - Justified Edit #9 "unliking New Republic which is a dab page and nothing about this NN newspaper is on it" - Justified (it may be unlikely sources about it may be found) Edit #10: "replacing racist "Whites" used in the source with proper expansion about who they were; dismissing/generalizing about "whites" is a bad habit in ethno-history, but "only white people can be racist" is the dictum" I paraphrased Yee, p. 20 in that manner based on my initial reading of the text, based upon the account printed in the book. I will quote from Yee, p. 20. "William Gallagher, one of many real estate dealers[...]watched the day's proceedings and later told this story to J.S. Matthews, the city archivist, in 1931:" "The Chinamen-and their pigtails came up on Hastings Road, lined on both sides with bushes, came on up in twos and threes, some on the road, some on the two-plank sidewalk. Then someone shouted, 'Here's the Chinamen,' and that started it." There were a lot of navvies around Granville for election day: rough customers from the railroad gangs and bush fellers from the CPR clearing, and they shouted at the approaching Chinamen, and began to move towards them. Then one or two Chinamen decided, I suppose, that they did not like the look of things[...]The white men shouted at the Chinamen and the Chinamen turned and ran." (I added the bolding for emphasis) Therefore edit #10 was not justified. Based on context ("Here's the Chinamen") the attackers were Whites (Indo-Canadians were nonexistent and First Nations were disenfranchised). The text does NOT say "supporters of David Oppenheimer". Perhaps if I do a book search it may say that this specifically, but that is NOT located in Yee. p. 20 and it should not be added without including a source that explicitly says that. Also pointing out instances when White people discriminated against Chinese is not the same thing as saying Whites are the only people who can be racist. I'm aware that anyone can be racist against anyone else. Edit #11: "replacing another racist use of "White" with "European Canadian"" Lim, p. 18: "(the only nonwhite team that played during those decades)" Edit not justified - "White Canadian" is the commonly accepted term, and the source, and the vast majority of Canadians see no problem with being called "White Canadian." European Canadian is best used if the source identifies them as such and/or if European Canadians are compared to other non-European White Canadians such as Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Berbers, etc. Now I might reword it because it stated that it was the only nonwhite team period and not the only nonwhite team to play against other whites... I don't want to imply that other teams existed if they didn't. Edit #12: "White" is not just racist here, it's inccurate; there were First Nations, Kanaka, black and others in the golfdiflelds not just Chinese and "Whites" so-called" (in a paragraph "white" was changed to "other") Yee, p. 10: "The Chinese had a unique strategy: they reworked sites that whites had abandoned." (bold added by me) The source doesn't say that! Without a source explicitly saying "Chinese Canadians also took over First Nations mining sites, black mining sites, etc." it's Wikipedia:Original research. There may have been black, First Nations, etc. miners but none of the sources presented on the page said that they had control of any mining sites or that the Chinese took control of those sites. Please stick to the sources. Edit #13: " "white" =- "non-Chinese"" I do not have the source so I cannot verify the change from "[...] and many whites lived in the "official" Chinatown; nearby Richfield was near-entirely Chinese, as were many of the towns in the Cariboo goldfields. As the more impatient white miners[...]" to "[...]many non-Chineselived in the "official" Chinatown; nearby Richfield was near-entirely Chinese, as were many of the towns in the Cariboo goldfields. As the more impatient non-Chinese miners[...]" - I don't know what the source says so I can't judge whether the edit is correct or not. Edit #14: "If yee says Chinese worked in coal mines in the gold rush period, it's another example of shitty history writing by the ethno-focussed; Chiense labour was NOT used in early BC coal mines" "During the era, coal mines on Victoria Island hired Chinese workers." was changed to "Coal mines on Victoria Island were to ;ater hire Chinese workers as scabs. notably at Cumberland, where the Chinese workers' settlement was protected by barbed wire fences and watchtowers because of potential violence from union workers the Chinese had been brought into replace." Yee p. 11: "The Chinese eagerly filled other gaps in the frontier economy[...]On Vancouver Island, the Chinese worked as coal miners. Victoria contained[...]" (there is one sentence total about the mining. It doesn't say explicitly when that took place, and because of that I said "during the era" as I wasn't certain exactly of when Yee was referring to it) Perhaps its true that the coal mining should be moved to a different section. Nonetheless, The changes do not reflect what the source says, so this edit was unjustified. Now if you are adding material from a new source you could change: AAA<ref name=A/> to <nowiki>AA<ref name=A/>BBBBB{{fact}}A<ref name=A/> so people know that the new material you have added does not come from that source and that it needs a new citation. Without doing this, you will give the impression that your new edit is supported by Yee when it's not. I strongly emphasize that it's unjustified because of how the edit gives a misleading impression of what Yee says. Edit #15: "unless it's a quoted passage, repeating the racist use of "Whites" is neither factual nor NPOV as not only whites had this attittude about unfair competiton for ordinary work; if you knew more BC history, you'd know that" "Whites were upset because the Chinese were willing to work for wages lower than wages than Whites." was changed to "Non-Chinese were vocally upset because the Chinese were willing to work for wages lower than wages than others." Pierre Berton, The Last Spike'. Doubleday Canada, December 22, 2010. Unabridged edition. ISBN 038567354X, 9780385673549, pp 194-195 "At the time there were some three thousand Chinese in British Columbia, all of them prepared to work for lower wages than any white labourer; this was the chief cause of the discontent." The source only says Chinese prepared to work for lower wages than whites. Other sources discuss anti-Chinese sentiment against Whites. No sources presented so far say that first Nations or blacks had these sentiments, and the only content in Berton p 195 discusses anti-black and anti-Jewish sentiments in the BC media, controlled by whites. Because the source does not say that blacks and first Nations had any discontent, this was an unjustified edit. If another editor thinks it is wrong, it is up to him or her to prove it's wrong, not on the person adding sourced content to "[know] more BC history" and to second-guess it with no other source present. If Blacks and First Nations had discontent, there must be sources presented that say this explicitly. Edit #16: "fixing racist terms again, I don't care if POV sources use them or not, they're neither accurate nor NPOV; same with the down grading of "fact" to "belief" as if they were srong/deludesd" Change #1: This edit changed instances of whites to "non-Chinese" so "Whites believed that the willingness to work for less money had prevented Whites from taking labour jobs and depressed overall labour wages. Therefore white organized labour groups criticized Chinese." becomes "Non-Chinese held that the willingness to work for less money had prevented them from taking labour jobs and depressed overall labour wages. Therefore organized labour groups criticized Chinese." Change #2: " In addition the Whites believed that the Chinese were taking in more money than they needed since the Chinese had simple lifestyles and did not have their families with them." and "Therefore non-Chinese stated the belief that that ethnic Chinese were not contributing anything to the area while they were taking resources from it," becomes "In addition non-Chinese maintained that the Chinese were taking in more money than they needed since the Chinese had simple lifestyles and did not have their families with them." and "Therefore non-Chinese maintained that that ethnic Chinese were not contributing anything to the area while they were taking resources from it," Yee, p. 14. "For years there had been strident calls from white British Columbians to restrict the entry and activities of the Chinese. They were accused of driving out white labour and pushing down wages because they worked at lower rates." and "The Chinese were seen to be disease-ridden and morally and physically inferior to whites." (instances of White/Whites are being bolded by me) "ARCHIVED - The Early Chinese Canadians 1858-1947." Federal Government of Canada. "Blaming Chinese immigrants when the economy turned bad became a way of organizing migrants from Great Britain and Europe around the idea of "white supremacy," captured best in the phrase "White Canada Forever." " and "White British Columbians also firmly believed that their way of life was better than all others. They saw China as a weak nation of backward people who could never learn to live like white Canadians." and "Racism against Chinese and other immigrant groups such as Japanese and South Asians, as well as against First Nations peoples, were expressions of a powerful belief in white superiority." -- This source is clearly talking about attitudes held by Whites. From the same Canadian government source: "Anti-Chinese agitators saw that Chinese immigrants came here without families and lived simply. Therefore, they said, Chinese men did not need as much money as whites did to live on and to raise a family. They argued that the Chinese could work for lower wages and would take jobs away from white workers." - The idea that the Chinese "didn't need" the money is an opinion stated by "Anti-Chinese agitators" and not a fact. Lim, p. 17: "For this reason, Chinese were viewed as contributing little to the local economy while taking from the land." - According to Lim, this was a belief and not ironclad fact. The ideas in the edit summary are incredibly irresponsible. Wikipedia is a third party source. It documents what other sources say. The text must be supported by the sources. Please DON'T distort the meaning of what other sources say. In regards to changing "argued that" to "maintained" that is still an expression of opinion, so I think we can still use the maintained language, but mix it up with "argued that" and "believed" to make it sound better. Edit #17: " which gold rush? Yee's sloppy history shoudl not be put here uncritically, he's wrong; see inine comments; and removing more POV-source-driven use of capital-W "Whites"" Change #1: "White persons had committed violent acts against ethnic Chinese, and therefore Chinese had avoided areas where Whites had newly discovered gold. The White Canadian public had an anti-Chinese attitude and made anti-Chinese statements." to "While non-Chinese persons had committed violent acts ethnic Chinese, and therefore Chinese had avoided areas where there was newly discovered gold. The Canadian public had an anti-Chinese attitude and made anti-Chinese statements." Internal comment about Change #1: "this is a false claim by Yee, but speaks to the POV mythograpy which is typically counter-factual and white-hating--?" Change #2: "The Gold Rush caused the British Columbia Chinese population to be around 6,000-7,000 in the early 1860s." to "The gold rush era saw the population of Chinese in British Columbia in the 1860s to be around 6,000-7,000. Once the Gold Rush in Canada ended," Internal comment about Change #2: "once you actually READ Morton instead of trying to dismiss him, you'll find detailed numbers of each shipload coming and going; not found in Chinese-biased sources which make sweeping generalizations and historical glosses that are counter-factual and not in line with histories writtn by non-Chinese, including Morton-" Yee, p. 10. "At Hope, a mob of white miners tried to stop Chinese steamer passengers and threatened them with violence.[...]At Forks City, whites threatened to drive out the Chinese. Not surprisingly, the Chinese kept a safe distance from the frenzied first-strike areas of the gold rush." Guo, p. 42 (p. 50/336 in the PDF document). "By the early 1860s the number of Chinese immigrants had reached 6,000 to 7,000,[...]" Comment from me #1: Other Wikipedians have echoed the statement that these internal comments are not appropriate. From this edit summary: "Sheesh, use the talk page if you actually have something to say" Comment from me #2: Change of white to non-Chinese unjustified for reasons stated above Comment from me #3: Change of words about Gold Rush are justified. I said that the Gold Rush had brought because it had caused the initial Chinese immigration but the new wording is just fine. As for "Gold Rush" I think it's understood to be the "Fraser Gold Rush" (unless there's some other Gold Rush I'm missing) Comment from me #4: Re: Morton. The book cannot be considered until somebody has it in their possession. It's not fair to "remember" what the book says. You need to have it in your possession at the time you make the edits! Edit #18: "removing more racist language carried over from POV source (Yee); and more fixes of bad English style/writing\)" Changes #1: "Whites perceived themselves to have superior physical conditions and morals compared to the Chinese, and Whites believes that the Chinese had many diseases." to "British and other European Canadians perceived themselves to have superior physical conditions and morals compared to the Chinese, and held that the Chinese had many diseases." and "White persons had a belief that China was an inferior country and the White culture was superior over others. White persons were also afraid that the Chinese would someday have more people than the Whites." to "Those of British extracton were also afraid that the Chinese would someda be more numerous in what was supposed to be a British colony." Changes #2: "White Canadian-dominated newspapers along with politicians made anti-Chinese statements. The Library and Archives Canada stated that blaming the Chinese for economic downturns was a way to promote White supremacy and give a sense of unity to White migrants. British Columbia Whites had made public efforts to demand for laws that limited the amount of Chinese immigration and enacting restrictions on Chinese activity." to " Canadian qnqewspapers along with politicians made anti-Chinese statements. The Library and Archives Canada/s website states that blaming the Chinese for economic downturns was a way to promote Anglo-British supremacy and give a sense of unity to immigrants. British Columbia politicians made public efforts to demand for laws that limited the amount of Chinese immigration and enacting restrictions on Chinese activity." "ARCHIVED - The Early Chinese Canadians 1858-1947." Federal Government of Canada. "White British Columbians also firmly believed that their way of life was better than all others. They saw China as a weak nation of backward people who could never learn to live like white Canadians. Moreover, they said that Chinese people carried diseases and other bad habits (such as smoking opium) that threatened Canada's well-being." Worden, Robert L. "In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia. by James Morton" (book review). The Journal of Asian Studies. Association for Asian Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Feb., 1977), pp. 347-349. CITED: p. 347. ",Morton tells of the early fears of British Columbians that the Chinese would some-day outnumber whites" Edit not justified for reasons explained above.

As stated in the analysis, Wikipedia content must be directly supported by the source, and material/changes should not be made if the sources don't support it.

The Wikipedian has stated the idea that calling Canadians of European origin "white" is racist, or POV/incorrect. Currently this is a "minority viewpoint" among the Canadian people (the common term is "White" in Canadian society) and the sources themselves also use "White." This is not the same thing as, say, an old American source referring to "negros" while modern encyclopedia articles citing the old sources call the same people "African-Americans." - The effect of this is that multiple sources (especially in Edit #16) are grossly distorted. The sources only say that "Whites" had a problem with ethnic Chinese and they only point to "White supremacy" and White calls to action and these sources explicitly say that "whites" had these attitudes and anxieties (Wilmot p. 136: "it is evident from the nature of his source material that Dr. Morton did not set out to write a book about the Chinese in British Columbia, but only about white reactions to them." and this is about In the Sea of Sterile Mountains, the book the Wikipedian is championing). They do not mention First Nations or Blacks.

User:Jimbo Wales said "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article." (from WP:NPOV) - The belief that the usage of "Whites" in this manner is racist is held by a very small minority of people, and so it should not be considered when editing Wikipedia.

Even though the Wikipedian has expressed his opinion that Yee and other "ethno-history" books are of low quality, no evidence has been presented to prove that the particular facts expressed in the books are wrong, so therefore Yee is an RS and the content needs to reflect what the book says. If there is material that contradicts Yee and is in other sources, this material needs to be presented before editing the parts of the article attributed to Yee. If there is a source conflict, (that happens) you should get the sources out together and compare them.

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:07, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe thinking that I missed something, I attempted to search for "black Anti-Chinese British Columbia" to see if there were any sources talking about anti-Chinese sentiment among blacks. Instead I found:

• Hogg, Robert. Men and Manliness on the Frontier: Queensland and British Columbia in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Genders and Sexualities in History). Palgrave Macmillan, December 24, 2012. ISBN 0230250173, 9780230250178. p. 147.
• "In the white imagination, Chinese men were barely human, let alone manly." and "Gilbert Sproat, whose interests were not confined to the Aht, penned views that were representative of white anti-Chinese sentiment in British Columbia, and typical of the contradictions in white views which saw the Chinese as simultaneously inferior and superior."

Please consider that the scholarship today "is" focused on anti-Chinese sentiment in White people and it uses the word "White people" and the majority considers "White people" to be acceptable in this manner in this discussion. You see that in all of the sources I found. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. I am actually not in the United States but I will be soon. I do not know how easily I can arrange for a loan for that book, but in the meantime please bear with me and just accept that this article should reflect the scholarship.

WhisperToMe (talk) 17:03, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

That would be fine it you were looking at more sources than the ethno-history ones you are dweeling on and confining yourself to, and if those secondary sources weren't misrepresenting other secondary sources or ignoring huge amounts of information that's out there in primary and secondary sources alike. I have a life-crisis right now so won't be around for a few days, but had other replies about rthe POV nature of your cites and the WRONG things theyu often say (apparently they dont' read primary sources, other than looking for nasty bits to point out how evil whites are and how sufferingt the chinese were etc. How do I know they're biased? I'm from BC and know the scope of its history and have watched this trend in academia unfold in recent decades. Narrow-minded and ethno-elitist and hostile to "white" British Columbia and full of untruths and rank generalizations about "whites" that are every bit as bad as anything said about chiense or natives; every bit as bad, but a mirror isn't in their toolkit.

About primary sources, found tings like this to show you, which it seems doesn't "fit" with the agenda of your group of cites; Kwong Lee & Co. is still around, I think. The description of the Lillooet District (by which meant the Lillooet Land District) contains lines which don't mesh with the image of life in BC that your "historians" (social scientists not genuine historiograpers IMO despite their fascination with footnotes as if something was fiction if it doesn't have any. instruction creep within academic ideologies; This the only separate Chiense Directory I've seen so far; generally they're in the main merchant/residents lists as you'll find on the Lillooet pages and others here. I have to get on about saving my life so will leave you to educate yourself and start looking at items on the BC pages here for both local and general histories that you have never read, nor, it seems, have any of your sources, except perhaps when looking for something to bitch about or accuse with. I read all kinds of those ethnohistories in the early '00s, for a 4th level HIST course at SFU; half the course curriculum about the Chinese; of the 40 students in the class, not one was Chinese; and of the Indo-Canadians and other non-"Europeans" in the class, the invective tone of those works and how what they said didn't match what we knew, was a common observation. Also it was a demonstration of the lack of interest from Chinese on campus, citizen or foreign student, which given about 60% of SFU is Chinese of one kind or another, is a statement all on its own.Skookum1 (talk) 03:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Primary sources may be used in limited circumstances, but articles are supposed to largely rely on secondary sources. Wikipedia:Verifiability#Original research says this explicitly. Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources has the following to say: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." - For instance, if I see a single news article about a First Nations attack on ethnic Chinese, I can say that this attack occurred, but I can't say that anti-Chinese sentiment was widespread among First Nations unless the article explicitly says this. The NOR page says primary sources should be used "with care, because it is easy to misuse them."

In regards to the pages you posted: It says in Lilloet "The town or village consists chiefly of one broad street, having stores belonging to whites and Chinese intermingled." (p. 313) - This wouldn't disprove a secondary source saying that, in BC, as a whole most Chinese lived separately from Whites during this era. As for this document it says there were several Chinese who were traders, farmers, packers, and/or boatmen in Cariboo but that's the only information I have from this document.

I have made attempts to find a secondary source on Google Books which says "First Nations instituted anti-Chinese policies" or "anti-Chinese sentiment was widespread in the First Nations" but I was unable to so. It is true that Wikipedia articles must be based on a variety of sources. So far the only sources (books and the Canadian government website) about anti-Chinese sentiment in the 1800s in BC I have found discuss specifically sentiments found in White people. In regards to Nos Racines, I will register an account and look around. If I find a secondary source that has this information I will let you know.

The important part is finding a source that "proves what you know." If you know something but it's not in a published secondary source, it can't be "proven" it can't be admitted. I admit it's very frustrating, but I have to abide by this: WP:V: "[Wikipedia's] content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it."

One important thing: If you do get a copy of In the Sea of Sterile Mountains (or if I get a copy of In the Sea of Sterile Mountains once I return to the United States) it would be a good thing to have a few pages (the ones being cited) scanned and sent to the other party. Don't scan too many, and don't publish them on a public website. I suggest scanning the specific pages you cite. However if the pages themselves contain public domain content, that should be uploaded to the Commons (the book publisher may protect the book writing, but it may not enact a copyright over already published public domain material).

WhisperToMe (talk) 08:47, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Stop lecturing me.

Stop lecturing me about guidelines. About how to deal with copyrighted material. About how to deal with the Commons (I'm boycotting donating to it because of the copyright b.s. with the monkey selfie). I am not your classmate. Nor your inferior. I've been on Wikipedia since 2005 and have "mapped" BC history and geography probably more than any other editor, I have been reading the history of my province for most of my now-very long life. And unlike you and your sources, without an ethnically-narrow mind or intent of inquiry; I sought to understand the native legacy, found out what I could on Chinese, Japanese and the legacy of other groups such as the Doukhobours. Unlike your particular school of academic thought, I do not confine my studies to my own group or seek to portray in a negative light and refuse to believe that other sources other than blood godalmighty academia might have useful information; not laid out in POV form, with a thesis laid out and then a selective hunt to bolster it; thirty years ago historiography used to work the other way, doncha know (and that's from an SFU professor about it, about how it's changed). The full history should be here, not just that of one soapboxing side; they don't even know their own history - or rather the moderns who have no gold rush or railway roots like to write about it critically of everything the white man did, but rarely delve into the history of the actual communities or the individuals lives; only talking in groups, and suppositions and allegations that are presented as fact; when quite often they are at extreme variance with. Or which omit "the other side" (just as you are doing).

It's a bore, especially that last bit, and incredibly rude given your tone to all I say or do. I've been told not to refer to our age difference, but point-blank you're being highly uncivil to an experienced editor whoh's work on a wide range of BC history and town and society articles, and more, and in fact was the one who mnade sure Chinatown content was included on BC's small towns. The garbage that was on the page originally was aped from US history, CCNC did the same, and doesn't apply in BC; Governor Douglas not a few times lectured American mines and others that the Chinese had equal rights; only in some cases were they driven away from a claim, and in some cases they jumped them. In Victoria in one of the BC Chronicles in that link's index tree you'll find out that a crowd of Chinese hanged and burned one of their own in Victoria in a certain year; at Camp 23 near Lytton a Chinese crew massacred a white foreman; in other places they were an integrated part of the social landscape, whehtehr or not there was an area called Chinatown; you'll also find out about the Kwoks of Hat Creek, who were successful ranchers and "good cowboys" and storeowners in Cache Creek and Lillooet; all those families f the Interior, there, the Cariboo, wherever else, and moved either back to China or to Vancouver after the war; I have always wanted to trace their records, the Chinese records institution in Vancouver never replies, even though they're government funded and publicly searchable. There are stories of wealth and great engineering works and more; your sources must not know about this when one of them says that they were wary of going to new digs because of fear of white miners; but they knew that the whites had no good skills and that would be a rich claim and so waited for them to do their initial failed diggings; there are records (geographic locations) of every placer site on the Fraser (that's on a linkable site, I don't have time right now to look for it; and it's a known quantity who owned which claim, and thee distinct Chinese style of mining is highly visible. And they were among the first to stake out some areas, as re t he Cayoosh Gold Rush; a lot of those guys were ex-railway workers; the attrition rate to the goldfields was so high is one reason more shiploads or workers came in...it wasn't fatalities as popular myth has it so loudly and repetitively. And there all claims were filed before anyone knew what was up, even though it was right by the town (Lillooet), and nobody else could dig; there the Indians really didn't like it, and it's in local histories how Indians chased Chinese away from the streambeds as yes indeedy that's damaging to the fish.

Violence was out there, and Hunter Jack is a special case, a known individual, and a high profile one too, who considered himself Hyas Tyee of the Bridge River Valley, as conferred on him by Admiral Seymour from the top of a mountain during a big game hunt; I'll repeat again, BC history is bout individuals; it's about people like the Kwoks Wo Hing and Ah Kee as much as it is about their neighbours Dan Hurley and Artie Phair and Grand Chief Jimmy Scotchman and Frank Gott; it's not about groups there, or in a lot of places in BC, despite the false paint daubed over BC history by the prejudices of the "ethnic, class and gender" school of "new history". So that's why they don't even look or try to learn about these cases; theuy don't fit the myth they are so ardetnly building, and don't even know major projects and successes of the Chinese in the Interior.

In the canneries, natives, Chinese, Japanese, "whites" with Chinook Jargon as the working language; usually with a Japanese boss, partly because they were a bit part of ownership/entrepreneurship in the fishing industry before WWII; in those cases there was nil violence, it wasn't a community run according to people's groups, it was a workforce community of people who happened to have different backgrounds the paradigms of the present are academic myth, a confabulation of citations; let's put it this way; there's forty years of readings I've had you haven't, you should respect waht I hve to say more instead of throwing page-cites on it as if I had been dishonest. Talk about WP:AGF sheesh. I'm pointing you in areas you could resarch (That "First Nations insituted policies against Chinese" bogus nonsense-rehash of what I had said; that's not what's in there but I'll leave t hat to you to discover yourself. I've given you enough valuable time on ly to be insulted and had guideline-mangling thrown at me in response.

I know what I'm talking about, and putting words in my mouth "First Nations instituted anti-Chinese policies is your version of what I said, and illustrates a common them among po-mo ethno-scholars, discussing history in terms of groups instead of as individuals. I was talking about Hunter Jack, not First Nations (by saying 'instituted" and "policies" it's clear you clearly don't know much about indigenous history in BC; but that's true of the Chinese politicos who like to pose with them to jointly condemn governments/white people. There's lots out there good and bad in the sources, older secondary ones and sadly only some newer ones; the selectivism of the doctrinal morals-driven "groups" analysis along racial lines is revanchist on the one hand, and incapable of understanding that the paradigms imposed by distant academia did not apply n the frontier; that bit about them leaving the Interior for fear of mounting Anti-Asian tension I'v never heard, unless that had to do with the mounting Civil War in China at the same time; just as some o the tension in Vancouver at the time of the anti-Oriental

riots in 1907 wasn't unconnected to he presence of a lot of Boxers who were part the Nationalist movement-in-exile; and tensions over the Boxer Rebellions were still in recent memory; it's not like there's only the Chinese side to this story, but t hat's all you're looking for so that's all you're finding.

I have to get busy and spent too much time on this. Stop lecturing me as you did above; if you demand page cites for things I just said I'm gonna freak, as us old fogeys like to say; it's beyond belief.

Bo Yang said this re you-know-who "if you disagree with them, they will go write a hundred-page essay, complete with footnotes, explaining why are you wrong, and demand that you read it". Sound familiar? I'll let you find the title of that book for yourself, you should read it sometime.

Go and learn and write, and stop obsessing on anal interpretations of guidelines; if a book is in the references and was added without page cites in the way-back-when, you hectoring for them when you've never read the books, and are only doing so to challenge the things I have to say; that's abuse of guidelines, more than one.

and respect your elders...you might learn something if you shut up and listen and go look for the sources yourself instead of challenging my honesty and knowledge of the field as if I was some kind of bad guy; and as if you were a wiki-cop out on a campaign to purge wikipedia of anything that's not in your canon of sources for your "ethnic politics theme" (that's exactly what this page is, or you have sought to make it so, IMO); the books are cited, others have been pointed to, demanding page-cites for talkpage statements - your distortions of what I said - is rubbish. Start reading about ethnic history in BC where you[ll find more history of individuals and also some group issues from former times unknown or looked-away-frmo by your precious cite-fussy authors; modern historiographical method sucks, you're just not well-read enough to understand by how much.

Every thing above I just wrote about it in Wikipedia on various articles; sometimes even with page cites. you just don't even know what is out there, in Wikipedia, or on bookshelves beyond your particular section of the Library of Congress numbers; open you mind, open your readings, and realize that not all old white people are bad or stupid or dishonest; but that's how you've been treating me, over and over and over. I have to go; as noted I'm in life-crisis but still found myself here trying to educate somebody committed to not understanding me. What a waste of time, lecturing me about this or that that you have not lived long enough, or read enough, to begin to know what you are talking about re Chinese history in BC; which necessarily also is the history of other groups all intermingled, Skookum1 (talk) 12:37, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Demands for verifiability are not an unimportant, trivial detail. The demand for verifiability is a basic cornerstone of Wikipedia practice. Even though the policy asks for citing of details "likely to be challenged" in reality it extends to a lot of content (no, you don't need to cite "Paris is the capital of France"). Right now there is a content dispute. I am asking for cites because I want verifiability and proof of what you are saying. As stated elsewhere, I have no responsibility to look up proof for your statements: the responsibility lies with the person making the claims. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:39, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

"I want verifiability and proof what you're saying" is AGF and NPA at the same time, as you're implying I'm lying (which is what your ethno-drivel sources do all the time, when not saying things out of pure ignorance of the reality); you have a responsibility to believe a senior editor who's been around here half your short life and who has read more on his province's history, and written more Wikipedia content on "Chinese in BC" than you apparently like to be blissfully ignorant of - or are too caught up in their own incestuous ivory tower to actually explore the province and read the local histories (not all of them written by "white" people and dismissable as such, as they are wont to do,even though those local histories are generally very flattering towards Chinese in their respective areas). Did you even look at other articles before starting your ethnicity-by-city article? Pretty sure you didn't. How many other articles should I list that aren't ethno-theme articles that have Chinese Canadian content? Too many to do a full list, but off the top of my head look at George Matheson Murray, Cayoosh Gold Rush, Omineca Gold Rush, where nobody has been as obsessively/anally demanding, imperiously, page cites. As I pointed out about the historical items above, they're either in sites mentioned (the City Directories one for example) or already cited on other articles and nobody has behaved anything like you about all this.

Go read Bo Yang and take a humility pill and stop being so AGF towards me. You know nothing, as a certain TV heroine is known for saying; you are parroting biases in modern academia that very often are completely a-factual or so distorted and POV in nature as to be op-ed, not genuine historical enquiry; they are ethnic politics tracts. You want verifiability? READ THE BOOKS I'VE MENTIONED and stop being such a pretentious jack**s. Treating me like I am dishonest because you don't like the things I'm saying, or because your narrow field of sources is so out of it they don't cover things like what I'm bringing up, is your problem. Stop making it mine.

Instead of lecturing me and being so pompous and suspicious of me, you should be grateful to learn from me, and should follow the lead I gave you about various research topics towards actual books; or translations of books, as noted, much in need of doing, as most Chiense Canadians (and Chinese) are ignorant of history other than their own. Same applies to Chinse Texans, too, it seems....Skookum1 (talk) 10:01, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Skookum1 (talk) 10:01, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

That "proof of what you're saying" hogwash is so AGF and NPA in its tone of accusation towards me of dishonesty it's noxious.Skookum1 (talk) 10:03, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

"Never argue with someone committed to understanding you" is a saying going around lately, and man is it ever true; but here I am trying to educate the woefully uninformed anyway.Skookum1 (talk) 10:15, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

It is not violating AGF to ask for citations as it is a non-negotiable requirement as per WP:V. After my long term here I have come to understand things this way. The only exception is obvious "common knowledge" like "Paris is the capital of France." That's it. I started Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Chinese_Canadians_in_British_Columbia as I believe this needs to be clarified with the community as soon as possible. WhisperToMe (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Man you're a case and a half. Those strictures do not apply to talkpage discussions, not one bit; especially when all the things mentioned are already in Wikipedia on other articles. And on articles a book cite is enough, demanding page-cites for "verifiability" is not called for except by instruction creepery. If you're so concerned about page numbers so as to presume to delete anything, then you're gonna be faced with a sea of AFDs of your own causing; articles stand for years with book-only cites until someone like you comes along with a passion for citation/formality but no knowledge and a very vicious pretension that the material is not to be believed. Really it's just things you don't want to hear, and very clearly would rather invoke guidelines and your own selection of heavily-biased cites, rather than admit you don't know anything, that your sources don't cover all that there is. Stop being such a cite-happy wiki-cop and start listening to someone who knows the material and is trying to open your mind as to what else is out there; instead you insult me, again, with your AGF attitude that directly implies I'm making things up or lying. Shut up and learn; and read more about BC, including other wiki-articles, before launching your sino-trivia sandbox as a soapbox for ethnically-biased history; you know full well I don't have books like Short Portage to Lillooet, Pemberton: History of a Settlement, Mission: Carved from Wood, McGowan's War (Hauka), The Cariboo Road (Wade), or in the Sea of Sterile Mountains handy to spend HOURS coming up for line-cites for you and your increasingly puerile demands for specifics about things that you've not even aware of yet; those and other books are out there, available on Amazon; but you're not interested in believing that they say what I read in them, and admitting that you have something to learn from me. You're stubborn, arrogant, and woefully uneducated about BC, and about Chinese history in BC....and so are many of your ethno-history race-baiting citations.Skookum1 (talk) 07:02, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

POV b.s. reinserted, I see

Re this edit, and WTM's edit comment "Non-Chinese pointed out that ethnic Chinese were not contributing anything to the area while they were taking resources from it." is making it sound like it was truth. Check the source's sentences", and the removal of the Morton book citation at the same time, it was the fact. Using "felt" and "believed" about "whites" indicates that their "perceptions" were not real; but Chinese worked for 1/3 what others worked for and that is a fact. Read Morton, and don't presume to get me to wallow in the same ethno-biased tub thumping that you are induldign with this article, and in your selection of biased/ethno-focussed publications. They're wrong but ascribe to the "tell a lie often enough and people will come to believe it" method of history-writing. READ MORTON - you have student status and can get it on interlibrary loan easier than I can. The source you are citing is using POV language and false claims. Like so many (such as the common myth that a Chinese died for every foot of teh Fraser Canyon, or that they were "forced" to open laundries and restaurants).Skookum1 (talk) 06:08, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

If the sources present something as a "perception" or a "feeling" then the article should describe it as such. Using your own logic to say it is a fact is adding a Wikipedia:POV (Point of view). And so the sources all call them that...

• Lim, Imogene L. "Pacific Entry, Pacific Century: Chinatowns and Chinese Canadian History" (Chapter 2). In: Lee, Josephine D., Imogene L. Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa (editors). Re/collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History. Temple University Press. ISBN 1439901201, 9781439901205. Start: 15. CITED: p. 17. "Yet the image of thousands of Chinese seeking fortunes in the gold rush continues to dominate people's imaginations to this day. For this reason, Chinese were viewed as contributing little to the local economy while taking from the land." (I added the bolding)
• "ARCHIVED - The Early Chinese Canadians 1858-1947." Government of Canada. - "Anti-Chinese agitators saw that Chinese immigrants came here without families and lived simply. Therefore, they said, Chinese men did not need as much money as whites did to live on and to raise a family. They argued that the Chinese could work for lower wages and would take jobs away from white workers."

The modern scholarship characterizes them as an opinion and not fact.

• WP:POV in fact says... "Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil.""

I don't yell "POV edit!" because loading replies with policy/guideline acronyms without explaining them is very unhelpful and disruptive (because then you have go and disprove all the "POV/NOR/POV forks" nonsense) - I actually refer to the policy itself and what it says and explain why.

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If you don't know what WP:POV, WP:NOR and WP:POV fork mean, that's a poor comment on your knowledge of wikipedia guidelines (even more than your plastering notifications for your issues on multiple boards and jamming them with walls of cites and your OR interpretations of them. You have added opinionated material "in Wikipedia voice" unquestioningly, as if their tone and language were fact, and not biased generalizations against "Whites", which they all too often are. And have a look at the quote from Digital Collections you just provided, which was not how their mention was worded in t he article... nothing about "felt" or "believed", which are subtextual statements from POV authors seeking to discredit their positions, which were factual. If you'd take the time to order In the Sea of Sterile Mountains on interlibrary loan or buy a copy from Amazon, you'd have a fairer view of things than the ethno-history articles you have been citing provide and come to understand that these matters were real, not something deluded non-Chinese concocted to mask their legal points; again, if you read Morton instead of only negative reviews about him bny those who don't like what he says, you might understand a bit more than you do.Skookum1 (talk) 02:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

"The modern scholarship characterizes them as an opinion and not fact." Aside from your needless use of "the" at the start of that sentence (improper use of the definite article is rife in your writing, by the way), a lot of modern scholarship is more opinion than fact, and opinionated language is regularly used. When it is opinionated, it should be presented through a wiki-lens and not added as if it were complete fact as you have been constantly doing.Skookum1 (talk) 02:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I submitted this to Wikipedia:Third_opinion#Active_disagreements and I think the best thing will be to sit back and wait for the feedback. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I came here to offer a third opinion, but want to make sure I'm clear on what your respective positions are. As I understand it, User:Skookum1 believes that the article should state, as a fact, that Chinese immigrants were not contributing to the economy but were extracting resources. User:WhisperToMe contends that this was a perception or opinion held by a portion of white settlers, and should therefore be framed as an opinion and not an unqualified fact. Is that correct? If so, I have to agree with WTM.

I am not as well read on the subject as either of you, but am not a complete neophyte. I did get to spend some time in university researching the primary source material (hundreds of pages of transcripts and testimony) that led to the creation of the head tax. At the time a great range of views were presented, and everyone invariably believed their opinions (often conflicting) were authoritative and factual. Some argued that the Chinese were morally depraved, as evidenced by the opium dens. Others who had studied Confucian thought believed they were deeply moral. Some feared their industriousness would undercut white workers, and some do doubt believed they were just extracting wealth to send home. Anyway, it might be valuable for the article to enumerate some of the arguments (and counter-arguments) that led to the creation of the Chinese Immigration Act, but recognize that these were opinions. They neither represented all of white British Columbia, nor are they applicable to all Chinese immigrants. I hope that's useful. Keihatsu ^talk 14:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@Keihatsu: Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 14:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Reply to Katsu Man, your reading comprehension isn't all that good; I never said anything like " As I understand it, User:Skookum1 believes that the article should state, as a fact, that Chinese immigrants were not contributing to the economy but were extracting resources." Give your head a shake, you've just done what he does, put words in my mouth. Morton spells out the detailed reasons why those positions were held by British Columbians of the time; NOTHING ABOUT WHICH occurs in the ethno-history soapboxing/distortions so fashionable nowadays; the one semi-positive review has a line from "Wilmott" about "William Willmott of the University of Canterbury wrote that "it is evident from the nature of his source material that Dr. Morton did not set out to write a book about the Chinese in British Columbia, but only about white reactions to them." - that "only" has a POV impact, as if white reactions to them were not worth recounting, which is exactly what the ethno-history soapbox regularly does; both sides of any story should be present, not only pat put-downs of one side, and hostile resistance to inclusion of their views.

• also POV and a non sequitur historiographically is "adequate expression of the Chinese view of their outcast position" by saying that it relied too much on Canadian newspaper articles" Well, when you're recounting the positions of British Columbians about the Chinese then that's a necessary reality, and in 1974 what else was out there? How forthcoming was the Chinese community about talking to a non-Chinese? But in his preface or foreword, he lays out his parameters as to the focus of the book....which is a detailed account of their presence and lays out the details of why they were regarded as not contributing to the tax base of the economy; they were paid in rice-mats, which he explains in detail, and did not have cash; and generally only patronized Chinese stores; not being heavy drinkers they accounted for little in excise taxes; and so on. Denouncing me for relaying the message of what's in the book is "shooting the messenger"

This is about the fourth RfC he's fielded to try and denounce/argue/discredit me and what I have to say; in the meantime I've been finding online teh resources that will provide facts, and also more general history about them as individuals and as companies etc than is in any of the materials he's throwing up on teh page without cogency or any comprehension of the narrative; that his sources are flawed, and those reviews have intrinsic biases an dtheir own faults, is quite lost on him. While he's been writing treatises attacking and misrepresenting me, I've been doing the research he doesn't even lift a finger towards (see section with many resource-links below).

Asking for input from another uninformed individual serves no useful purpose; I have the information and know where to look for more; but I'm being treated as an enemy and THAT is highly NPA; he doesn't deserve the adminship he so proudly touts on his userpage IMO. Skookum1 (talk) 07:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Usage of "Vancouver" to refer to the metropolitan area

There are sources that, when they say Vancouver, they are in fact meaning the metropolitan area.

Sin Yih Teo's masters degree thesis (written at the University of British Columbia) says:

• "³⁵ Unless otherwise indicated, Vancouver from here on refers to "Greater Vancouver", equivalent to the Greater Vancouver Regional District, and very similar to the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)." (page 30).

The introductory sentence of Chapter 3 says "The present chapter shifts my discussion to the empirical context of recent migration from the People's Republic of China (PRC) to Vancouver³⁵, British Columbia.

When real people refer to Chicago, Houston, Toronto, etc. in many cases they're not referring to the city proper, but the metropolitan area. It assumed from context that you know when they're talking about the metro area versus the city proper. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Who cares about geographically-vague and outright wrong sources; in Wikipedia "Vancouver" means the City of Vancouver and nothing else. This has been gone over exhaustively in various discussions at CANTALK and on the WPBritish Columbia and WPVancouver pages over time; using "Vancouver" to mean Surrey is like using "New Jersey" to mean Manhattan; that you want to challenge this speaks to your inexperience with name-conventions in Wikipedia and also with British Columbia as a whole. What "can be assumed from context" is irrelevant to Wikipedia titling/usage conventions/realities; repeating geographic vagueness is not encylopedic, rather it is entrenching and reinforcing ignorance.Skookum1 (talk) 06:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Actual human beings use Vancouver to loosely mean either Vancouver or the metropolis, and so will sources, and in many instances it won't matter if you say "immigration to Vancouver" or "immigration to Greater Vancouver" as people understand it's really the same thing. If there is a need to distinguish between the two (as in it's critical to say the city limits are involved, or criticial to say that it certainly is the metropolitan area) that can be done easily: "Greater Vancouver" or whatever in those cases, and "Vancouver city limits" or "City of Vancouver" in the other. That can be examined in a case-by-case basis.

Since Wikipedia regularly uses sources that do that, we do "care" about them. The attitude above will not change that.

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:07, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Your attitude is the problem here, not mine. If you were experienced with WP:CANADA article and titles conventions and WP:CSG you'd realize that Wikipedians (other than you) do make such distinctions and that is necessarily the case; when a source uses "Vancouver" and Surrey or Coquitlam or Anmore or the UEL are meant, you should at least put e.g. "[Greater] Vancouver" rather than be so inaccurate as to blindly parrot wording used in a source which is quite often wrong. Garbage in, garbage out. In your universe Vancouver should redirect to Greater Vancouver or vice versa (note also that "Metro Vancouver" while common in media, is only the branding name of the board of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, which is why there are three articles. If you'd learned about BC before starting your thesis and had some familiarity with Canadian titles and category systems you wouldn't be making thin-thought rationalizations as you have again done above; your attitude, frankly, is one of those ignorance=arrogance so typical of today's graduates, who know how to footnote and cite and rule-follow but who never learned to think - or to collaborate with others, most pointedly anyone actually familiar with a subject you are putting yourself up as some kind of authority about. If sources are wrong, amend that in some way per normal WPCANADA usages, it's normal practice....but nothing about your behaviour here is normal.Skookum1 (talk) 09:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

current news story

This Jan 20 2015 Vancouver Sun article about Bradian falls more in the Chinese investment in Canada subject area rather than Chinese Canadians but is partly relevant to the narrow and rather fuzzy line between the former and the latter in the BC political/economic/cultural milieu].Skookum1 (talk) 11:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

"white" re Yee; re "European Canadian"

re this edit commnet, we use "First Nations [person or people]" in Wikipedia as a standard in Canadian article space; if it's a quote from a source then that's different; and re "white" the Wiki-standard in Canada is "European Canadian"... "Euro-Canadian" is used in some sources but it's anachronous and kinda ideological; "Euro-American" is also used in academia but with less political flavour than "Euro-Canadians". Indigenous people (the wiki-preferred term vs a sea of alternatives) have the term "settler" and it applies too all non-native people, including Chinese; and it's also political. European Canadian is "neutral" and the wiki-standard. And Yee is a POV source as one quote you have somewhere here in this "sea of buts" makes very clear in its tone and...condmenation of capital-W "Whites". Learn Canadian-ese standards in Wikipedia; they were around a lot longer than you ever started editing/creating Canadian-topic/content articles....Skookum1 (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

All of the cited sources use "White." This includes Morton. The sources are from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. To my knowledge this usage hasn't changed since those decades. I would like to see the discussion where "the Wiki-standard in Canada is "European Canadian"" had been decided.

Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources says this: "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." (emphasis mine), so even if somehow every other editor determines that there is a bias. I would like explanation on what you believe a "POV source" is. One of the issues is that I feel policy and guideline tags have been used too liberally and that makes it difficult to engage in discussions.

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

"Whites" vs "British and others" re SYNTHesque comment re "Natives and Blacks" [post edit conflict no. 1]

RE This edit comment :"no sources presented saying Natives or Blacks overall perceived themselves to be better than Chinese - the OR noticeboard had a little bit of discussion on that is yet more misrepresentations/misreadings of th issue at hand. "Others" means also the many European peoples, Americans (black and white), Mexicans, natives and so on; Blacks and Natives were not mentioned, and the cites for that are on all the sources you haven't been reading while you've been "pushing Yee" et al.Skookum1 (talk) 19:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If there is going to be "second-guessing" of what reliable sources say, there needs to be evidence stated directly that blacks and Natives felt this way. Otherwise, if the source says "Whites" Whites is said, if the source says "others" unspecified others is said. It's simple. If you don't want Yee used, get specific page cites from other sources... but those will likely say the same thing, whether it's Roy, Morton, or whoever else. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)