Wikipedia Historiography
On Entry “Taiping Rebellion”
According to the Wikipedia page, the Taiping Rebellion was a massive civil
war against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty that broke out in southern China from
1850 to 1864. Western scholars defined the Taiping Rebellion as a millennial movement
because the leader Hong Xiuquan claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus who
destined to save China from the corrupted Qing Dynasty. The exact death toll of this
rebellion was unclear, but historians estimated that the number exceeded 20 million.1
Throughout my examination of the Wikipedia page's history, I found that this page was
suffering from issues including factual error, extraneous information, and vandalism. Due
to years of revision by countless users, the pages now included proper citation and
corresponding pictures to the texts, which is capable of delivering a rather reliable source
of information.
The Wikipedia page “Taiping Rebellion” was created on September 5th, 2002 by
Ktsquare, who wrote a brief article about the causes and effects of the Taiping Rebellion.
However, no pictures or citations were included in the entry. Based on the activities and
awards he listed on his homepage, the author is a very active member of the Wikipedia
community. Involved in the editing of more than 100 Wikipedia entries2, he is mainly
interested in Chinese history. For example, he also contributed to several other topics like
Lao Zi, San Yat-Sen, and Battle of Yamen. In the entry “Taiping Rebellion”, Ktsquare
1
Wikipedia, Taiping Rebellion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
Wikipedia Database, User: Ktsquare/ Articles,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ktsquare/Articles
2
provided the readers with a basic idea of the civil war and set a direction for later editors
to follow.
The first big revision of the page was made by Menchi on May 25th, 2003. This
revision of the page was mostly about enriching and organizing the content. From 5th
September, 2002 to 25th May, 2003, there were several minor changes in an effort to
correct grammatical issues and fix awkward expressions. Compared to the first version of
the page, this version provided the framework for all the later versions, which are clearly
divided into different portions entitled “Beginning,” “Army” and so on. One month later,
Menchi further edited his own contribution by adding descriptions of the ending to the
rebellion.
On June 2nd, 2003, the first changes to the factual information was also made by
Menchi. “In August 1951, Hong the declared…” was changed to “In August 1851, Hong
the declared…”. Although the date was corrected from 1951 to 1851, the typo “the”
(supposedly “then”) remained, but it was promptly corrected within two minutes by user
203.212.4.78. After this, users found more minor grammatical mistakes. Most of the
changes contributed positively to the evolution of the page. However, some editors
changed the correct ones to faulty ones. For example, on October 29th, 2003, a user
changed the name “Ceng Guofan” to “Zheng Guofan” by 192.169.41.47. This particular
case illuminates one of the flaws in Wikipedia: mistakes were made due to carelessness
and unreliable resources. Nevertheless, it is inspiring to see that users were actively
contributing to this page.
The first debate arose on August 21st, 2005. The topic was about the number of
people joined the rebellion and the opposing Qing Army. An anonymous editor changed
the initial number of rebels from “1 million” to “2.5 million,” and the same editor later
increased the number to “3 million.” The debated number finally settled down to “half a
million” because of a proper citation from “Heath”. One editor with the IP address
211.27.144.81 even added a clear and detailed list of the composition of the Taiping
army. Even if he did not include any citation, this change was preserved. The estimation
of imperial army size ranged from 1 million to “possibly 5 million”. Through several
back and forth changes, the commonly agreed number came to 1 million.
There were no major changes until January 26th, 2009. Two extensively written
paragraphs about the Taiping Rebellion’s capital and its downfall were added to the
entry. Months later, Colfer2 made a big move of separating the entry “Taiping
Rebellion” from “Taiping Heavenly Kingdom”. This separation signifies that the old
page had reached its saturated state, and it was imperative to separate the two ideas to
enrich their contents. After this, both entries received minor but accumulative changes.
From 2009-2010, nothing substantial happened. Most of the changes made were
unrelated remarks, personal assaults, and insulting/racist comments. At October 12th,
2010, one paragraph specifying other related rebellions was added, which provided the
reader with a more holistic view of that era.
Below shows the graph showing the evolution of the article over time. We can see
the page’s increasing size during 2005 to 2009. As I discussed in the previous paragraph,
the big drop corresponded to the separation of the two entries. After 2011, the content of
the materials as well as the number of edits plateaus.
In retrospect of the entry, it is worth noticing that some claims lack citations,
which leaves us hesitant to trust some of the materials. However, thanks to the effortless
edits by all the users, the contents are now protected from vandalism. Overall, the page
provides the reader with a holistic and somewhat reliable knowledge about Taiping
Rebellion, and I strongly believe that over time, Wikipedia will eventually evolve into an
ideal place for academic research.