Talk:Zheng Zhegu

Did you know nomination

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 AirshipJungleman29 talk 10:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

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Zheng Zhegu in Labourer's Love (1922)

• ... that Zheng Zhegu (pictured) was trained as a soldier, but gained recognition as a comedian?

• Source: Jia, Binwu (2022). "Zheng Zhegu and Performances in Early Chinese Film". Journal of Chinese Film Studies. 2 (2): 261–276. doi:10.1515/jcfs-2022-0002.

• ALT1: ... that Zheng Zhegu (pictured) urged his film students to bring their girlfriends when no women enrolled?

• Source: Ding, Yaping (2021). General History of Chinese Film I: 1896–1949. Translated by Jin, Haina. London and New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003204695. ISBN 978-1-000-43485-9.

• ALT2: ... that Zheng Zhegu's character in Labourer's Love (pictured) has been compared to silent film comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd?

• Source: Keaton: Huang, Xuelei (2022). "Beyond Labourer's Love: Rethinking Early Chinese Film Comedy". Journal of Chinese Film Studies. 2 (2): 277–297. doi:10.1515/jcfs-2022-0024.
• Lloyd: Rea, Christopher (2021). Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-18813-5.

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Santa Maria Maggiore, Venice

Created by Crisco 1492 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 711 past nominations.

 — Chris Woodrich (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2024 (UTC).

• The article looks really good and an appropriate size. The nomination was made in time and the QPQ has been completed. All hooks are interesting but I imagine ALT1 grabbing the most pageviews so I have a preference for that. The promotor may want ALT0 to be included in the article with a reference directly at the end of the sentence, though, as that sequence of words does not currently seem to appear in the article.--NØ 06:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

• Hi Maranofan. The specific wording in the article is "he attended the Jiangnan Military Academy and became a junior officer in the Seventh Town of the New Army." and "Critics noted Zheng's proclivity for comedy during his stage days, with one writing in Xibao in 1918 that he was "witty but not frivolous and gimmicky, but not exploitative [with a] refined difference from those who just want to mess around." Thanks for the review! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

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.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Zheng Zhegu/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs) 16:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 11:12, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

• Will look at lead later.
• Early life: "Town of the New Army" sounds odd to me and has little Google presence. 镇 also means "garrison", which makes a lot more sense, and regiment even more. It should be the Ninth whatever, not the Seventh (the source has Ninth Town for 九镇). But of course you can go with the source instead of listening to amateur me translate Chinese :)

• I did want to stick with the source on this one, but you're right that Garrison and Regiment are both more readable in English. And to confuse the issue, New Army gives the translation as "division"; I think that makes more sense, as a "town" in this context seems like higher level size. I've changed to "division" to keep things internally consistent. (Ninth was done previously). — Chris Woodrich (talk) 04:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• Zheng Moqin would be nice with characters 郑墨琴 (from Jia 2022) for disambiguation; similar for other Chinese names without wikilinks. (But this is totally optional).
  • Done. I had been limiting it to the names Zheng had used in his life (he was of an old enough generation that he had several). — Chris Woodrich (talk) 04:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    • OK, that makes sense, too; perhaps it is better not to overwhelm the article with even more characters. —Kusma (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

A very nice and interesting article; it is pretty amazing that zhwiki seems not have one about him. I will comment in more detail later. —Kusma (talk) 22:04, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

• Drama and publishing: theatre from his youth, including Peking opera, becoming somehow I'm not perfectly happy with this, but I can't quite say why. Perhaps sorting it differently (From a young age he was interested in theatre including Peking opera and became ...) would help.

• How's this? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• What are the "River East Society" and the "New Play Comrade Society"?

• Both were theatrical troupes. Added for River East, with the juxtaposition implying it for New Play as well. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• gaining recognition for his "solemn attitude, upright speech, sense of concision, moderation, and possessing the air of a knowledgeable person" can we attribute this recognition or who noticed it?
  • Yep. It's cited to a 1924 article by Zhou Jianyun. Given attribution in text.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:58, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
• Mingxing Film Company and death: you write 6,000 yuan but also nine thousand yuan. Better to choose one format, probably the first.

• Not strictly required per MOS:NUMERALS, but fair enough. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• Analysis: Although most of his films are lost perhaps I overlooked this, but which ones are lost? Perhaps this could be mentioned in the filmography?
  • Everything but Labourer's Love; I've made it explicit in the discussion of the film. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
• The Sinologist Christopher Rea MOS:JOBTITLES probably prefers a lowercase sinologist.
  • Huh, I had thought that Sinology was one of those words that was always capitalized. Fixed. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
• Filmography: all of the titles are in Simplified Chinese, with the exception of Orphan Rescues Grandfather, which should be 孤儿救祖记 for consistency (if we ignore my general preference for traditional characters when talking about someone who died before simplified characters were a thing).
  • Good catch. I agree that traditional characters should be used in this instance, and have changed to apply it universally. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
• Lead section: could include a sentence about Zheng's death.
  • Recast slightly. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Source spotchecks

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1267225827

• 3: Jia 2022 has "Ninth Town".
  • Fixed. Seems to have been in there from the first edit; brain fart, I guess. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 21:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
• 4d: fine. Seems that the disillusionment was due to the KMT split after Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, but we don't need to state this here.
• 7: the source doesn't really say "as an adult", just "字介诚", "his courtesy name was Jiecheng".
  • A courtesy name wouldn't have been taken as a child, which is why that little piece of clarification is there, but nixed. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
• 8: ok
• 11: ok
• 15b: fine
• 18: can't see the first appearance or the "released simultaneously", just that the films were produced together. Can you clarify this / find a different source?
  • Added reference to page 35: "Audiences allured by a Shenbao ad for ‘Chinese comic moving pictures’ (Zhongguo zizhi huaji yingpian 中國自製滑稽影片) might have felt disappointed after sitting in the Ramos-run Olympic Theater to watch two short slapsticks produced by a film company they had never heard of—Mingxing. One piece was entitled Huaji dawang youhu ji 滑稽大王游滬記 (The King of Comedy Visits Shanghai), which describes a fictitious visit of Charlie Chaplin to Shanghai. The other one, Laogong zhi aiqing 勞工之愛情 (Laborer’s Love), was more Chinese in nature, telling a comic romance story between a fruitpeddler and an old doctor’s daughter. Showing between 5 and 8 October 1922 at the Olympic, the two films were not rerun at other major theaters in Shanghai in the following months." — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
• 27c: fine
• 38: fine, but Rea makes it clearer that Harold Lloyd was popular in China and that the similarities are not accidental, but deliberate borrowings. He also mentions Buster Keaton on p. 28.
  • Mentioned "potentially deliberate". Keaton is also mentioned by Huang (2022), which is cited here. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Only minor issue is number 18. —Kusma (talk) 17:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

General comments and GA criteria

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

• Prose is fine, minor comments see above.
• MOS issues: just a question mark over death in the lead.
• Happy with sourcing.
• Can't see any issues with scope or neutrality.
• Relevant PD images tagged accordingly. Fine captions and ALT text. Is this the best possible infobox image though? (something where he is not playing the role of an old man might be more identifiable).

Again, a very nice article overall. I was happy to learn about 1920s Chinese cinema. —Kusma (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• Thanks for the review, Kusma. While the article was on the main page, another user had added File:Portrait photo Zheng Zhegu.jpg. However, this has no proof of publication (it screams "magazine scan" in terms of its texture, but that's not really sufficient for FAC down the line). The other option would be to grab something from Labourer's Love. There's a 720p copy online... I'll see if there are any screengrabs that are useful. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:31, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Nope... the close-up shots are all blurry. I've refactored. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    • Works for me, I think we're done here. Happy with edits and responses. —Kusma (talk) 20:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

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.