Talk:American concession of Tianjin

A fact from American concession of Tianjin appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 January 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that with no documents verifying its establishment, an American concession existed de facto in the Chinese city of Tianjin for more than 40 years?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/American concession of Tianjin.

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Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by BorgQueen (talk) 09:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that with no material documents verifying its establishment, an American concession de jure existed in the Chinese city of Tianjin for over 40 years? Source: https://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_1631-0438_2014_num_101_382_5084
- ALT1: ... that an American concession in the Chinese city of Tianjin existed for 40 years, despite having no existing legal documents attesting to its establishment or purchase? https://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_1631-0438_2014_num_101_382_5084
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/American concession of Tianjin

Created by MarsandCadmium (talk). Self-nominated at 02:39, 28 December 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing: - Some problems here. The "Boxer Rebellion" subsection is completely unsourced, as is the last paragraph about the two companies. The last section of the article refers to "the 1885 dispute with Germany" – is this a typo for "1895"?
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing: - I see some close paraphrasing. The article says "establishing a local police force, tidying up the roads, and introducing light taxation on the houses and shops" where the source says "establishing a local police force, beginning to tidy up the roads and introducing a light taxation system on houses and shops, Pethick says". I think this is too close.

Hook eligibility:

Cited: - I can't find support for any of these hooks in the cited source. It doesn't specifically indicate how long the concession existed, as far as I can tell, and it doesn't mention the US Senate. Please correct me if I've missed something.
Interesting:
Other problems: - Third hook is slightly over the 200-character limit; the others are fine.

QPQ: None required.

Overall: Interesting article, though a few problems need to be resolved before it's ready for the main page. Please make the sourcing more robust and clarify the sources for the hooks. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:44, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a question – should the article be moved to American concession in Tianjin? In my experience this phrasing is more common. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:51, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Adequate sourcing- I've included a third secondary source (in French) and added citations whenever necessary.

Paraphrasing- reworded. I've also added relevant new info and cleared up some more long-winded sections.

Cited- the secondary source by Vaicbourdt cites the establishment of the settlement by Conger as 1860 and the liquidation in October 23, 1902. I've removed the DYK nomination mentioning the US Senate.

As for the article name, the couple or so other articles on foreign concessions follow the current naming convention. While either is fine (and both are used in primary documents), at this point I might as well do what I've been doing for a while. I hope these edits go through. MarsandCadmium (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, with those changes to the article and the hooks, this looks good to me. I've copyedited one of the hooks slightly. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 05:40, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed "enclave" to "concession". These were not sovereign territory, they were extraterritorial areas. The word enclave also does not appear in the article. CMD (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chipmunkdavis, it's best to write a new ALT so people can follow any changes more easily. If you're changing just a word or two, you can make it ALT0a or whatever. You can strike through an ALT if you're rejecting it. Valereee (talk) 16:10, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In this case I was following previous edits to this template in which the original hooks were minorly copyedited. CMD (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Can we de-legalese this a bit? I'm finding both alts very dense.

ALT2 ... that an American territory in the Chinese city of Tianjin was recognized for 40 years, despite there being no legal proof it existed? Valereee (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How about a completely different approach instead?

ALT3: ... that the American concession of Tianjin was described as "full of dirt" by the British envoy to China?

@MarsandCadmium, Mx. Granger, Chipmunkdavis, and Valereee: Thoughts? (Even if the reader isn't quite sure what it means, they really ought to click to find out.) Cielquiparle (talk) 09:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the lack of documents (ALT2), but both hooks work for me. CMD (talk) 09:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I like ALT3. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 00:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I like ALT2 marginally better, but ALT3 is fine, too. Valereee (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going with "legal status", ALT1 and ALT0 seem a lot "safer" than ALT2 (sticking to what the sources and what the article currently say) – unless there is a source that specifically uses "legal proof" as a term, I would feel better if we could have a legal historian who understands the nuances of "de facto" vs. "de jure" to verify whether or not ALT2 is strictly speaking, accurate. Cielquiparle (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]