Talk:Soda Kaichi/GA1

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Nominator: Seefooddiet (talk · contribs) 01:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Prince of Erebor (talk · contribs) 08:36, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Taking on this review. Please give me an hour or two. —Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul） 08:36, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   See below

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   2a: See below. 2b-d: All except sources 3 and 8 are from reputable media outlets, while source 3 is a primary source and source 8 is from UNESCO. A clear pass on the sources. The entire article is sourced, no OR found. Earwig shows no copyvio; the 21.3% similarity comes from the direct quotes from SisaIN. —Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul） 10:20, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   It is completely fine if there is really nothing available out there, but I wonder if there are any Japanese sources that cover the subject. Currently, all the sources are Korean, while the article repeatedly mentions how some Japanese people view the subject negatively. Given that Japan and Korea are not on the best terms regarding their war history, I think it would be beneficial to include some Japanese sources for balance. —Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul） 10:20, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   See below

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   —Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul） 10:20, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

---

Prose

Lead

1. I understand this is optional per WP:MOS-JA, but it would be helpful if the romaji could also be included in the {{Nihongo}} template.
   • To my underestanding the romaji is the same as the name, including ordering, so I think not needed. seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
2. During this time, he cared for around a thousand Korean orphans: Throughout this period
   • I think both are grammatically ok, but I may be wrong. seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Early Life

1. An "Early Life" subheading could be added to the first two paragraphs of the Biography section.
   • Restructured article. seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
2. After Japan's victory in the First Sino-Japanese War and Japan's acquisition of Taiwan: can be rephrased to "its acquisition of Taiwan" with a pipelink to avoid the repetitive mention of Japan twice in the sentence.
   • Done seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Soda professed to being a heavy drinker around this time: professed to be
   • Isn't "being" correct? I can't explain it but "professed to be a" seems wrong to me. seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
4. A Korean took pity on him and took him into an inn: brought him to an inn
   • Done seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Move to Korea

1. Chronological order: The mention of the March First Movement in 1919 is in the second paragraph, which comes before Soda founding the orphanage in 1913.
   • Done, although this was originally because I was trying to group info by topic. Decided chronological is fine too. seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Later life

1. Upon his return to Japan, Soda began touring Japan, while evangelizing: Soda began touring Japan while evangelizing
   • Done seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
2. A Japanese reporter for The Asahi Shimbun reportedly learned about Soda being unable to visit Korea: reportedly learned that Soda was unable to visit Korea
   • Done seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
3. A Japanese reporter for The Asahi Shimbun reportedly learned about Soda being unable to visit Korea, and published a column on January 1, 1960, in which they advocated for Soda to be allowed to: I am a bit confused about who "they" refers to, as the previous sentence only mentioned a Japanese reporter from The Asahi Shimbun. I assume it also refers to Kyung-Chik Han, who is first mentioned in the next sentence. Some rearrangement of the sentence is needed for clarity.
   • The "they" is an instance of singular they, as I don't know the gender of the Asahi Shimbun reporter. I think it's grammatically correct. It wouldn't include Han, as Han is mentioned separately as joining in the advocacy in the next sentence. seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Death and legacy

1. He was described in the press as someone who had contributed positively to Japan–Korea relations: as a positive contributor to
   • Done seefooddiet (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

References

Early life

1. Source 4 mentioned that Soda initially moved to Nagasaki to work in a mine before becoming an elementary school teacher.
   • I added this bit. seefooddiet (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Both sources 1 and 2 mentioned that Soda worked in Hong Kong, but this was not mentioned anywhere in the article.
   • I added a mention of it; the mention of Hong Kong is otherwise fairly brief and I didn't include some of the other known early details of Soda's life as the chronology of it is a bit vague to me. I think much of his life is poorly attested to as it probably just comes from what his acquaintences knew. seefooddiet (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Move to Korea

1. During the 1919 March First Movement protests, he provided medical aid to and advocated for the release of Korean protestors: I did not find either source specifically mentioning that Soda provided medical aid to the protesters, source 1 only mentioned that he strived to rescue imprisoned youths.
   • Huh I swore I read this in some source, but none in the article seem to mention. I may have read it in another source/documentary that I didn't end up using. Good catch, removed. seefooddiet (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
2. Soda was there during the 1945 liberation of Korea: I do not see any mention of Soda being present during the liberation of Korea in 1945 in sources 1 and 2. (Found it in source 2)
3. No citation was provided for the the second direct quote (Korea and Japan will one day be friends. There are 700 to 800 Japanese women married to Koreans in Keijō alone. I hope Japanese people will treat the 600,000 Koreans in Japan better) to indicate that it was quoted from SisaIN
   • Thanks, added. seefooddiet (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Later life

1. Besides The Asahi Shimbun, source 6 also mentioned that the Associated Press reported on Soda.
   • Added. seefooddiet (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Death and legacy

1. He was described in the press as someone who had contributed positively to Japan–Korea relations: Perhaps a proper attribution to the Monthly Chosun would be better than simply referring to it as "the press".
   • The Monthly Chosun article actually describes the Japanese press as having this impression; I clarified inline. seefooddiet (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Images

1. File:Soda kaichi.jpg: source is Yonhap News Agency, fair use
2. File:이상재02.png: source is Kyunghyang Shinmun, public domain
3. File:Grave of Soda Kaichi 02.jpg: original work by the nominator, CC-BY

The third image is excellent! I appreciate your dedication not only in writing such a good article but also in trying to flesh it out with a photo in real life. Captions are fine. But I do have some reservations about the second image of Yi Sang-jae; I am not sure if his image is really relevant or provides illustrative aid to the article.

Thank you! Fortunately many of the graves in that graveyard belong to famous people, so it was a productive trip. I also deleted the Yi Sang-jae image. seefooddiet (talk) 11:32, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Translations

The Hanja quote "孤兒의 慈父 曾田嘉伊智先生之墓" is accurate. I cannot read Korean, so I ran the two Korean quotes through Google Translate and they also seem to verify. No issues were found with the quotes! —Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul） 10:20, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the review 🙂 I'll edit the above list to reply to individual points if that's ok with you. seefooddiet (talk) 11:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

On Japanese-language sources—I'm not confident enough in my Japanese to comfortably bring them in. There's definitely coverage available; the jawiki article lists some sources that could be used, and the article (while it has poor inline sources) has details that could be in this article, although I think they're generally minor details.

The reason I went for GA is because 1. I think a significant majority of Japanese people would find what's in this article uncontroversial and 2. the current article tells a pretty complete story of his life; the details that are missing are arguably fairly minor.

On why I think it's uncontroversial, the Korean sources mention both Japanese and Korean people mistreating him, and both sides attacking each other (with Koreans attacking Japanese people upon the liberation of Korea). Attestation to these kinds of tensions are widespread consensus; they are extremely well attested to in both languages. Not even the most extreme nationalists in either country would deny that things like this happened (they'd just debate the extent of them, but there's not enough fuel in this article for a real debate, as mentions of these incidents are brief).

Hope that makes sense. If you'd like I can go through the Japanese sources, although it'd take me some time. seefooddiet (talk) 11:49, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Hey seefooddiet, thanks for your swift reply and follow-up. Glad to hear that you had a fruitful trip! I bet you can use some of the images you took there in other articles! I have checked all the items marked as done, and they are indeed completed in the article. My comments below will focus only on the ambiguous ones:

1. {{Nihongo}}: Ah yes, silly me! I did not realize that this article uses the format of surname before name. The ordering matches the article title, so nothing needs to be changed.  Done
2. professed to being: I am not entirely sure about this either. I just consulted Poe, which states that "professed to be" is the more commonly used phrase compared to "professed to being". But if you are confident in your choice, we can proceed with it.  Done
3. they: Ah I see; I conveyed that sentence incorrectly.  Done
4. Hong Kong: I understand. But since two sources mentioned it, I do not think it would be a bad idea to include this in the article.  Done

Regarding the Japanese sources, I apologize if I was not clear initially. I also looked at the jawiki article and did a cursory search. Most of the sources in jawiki are offline, and I only found one article from The Asahi Shimbun on Google News, so it seems challenging to locate Japanese sources. But while reading through the article, I noticed several rather negative claims about Japan and Japanese people, which prompted me to ask if there are Japanese sources that can support these claims. I marked criterion 4 as neutral instead of a question mark, as it is merely my suggestion to further improve the article and will not affect this GA nomination at all. So no worries about the Japanese sources. —Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul） 15:17, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.