Talk:Great Wall of China/Archive 1

message: I am not sure, but the Wall is kind of old, is it not? How come they had color photos and flashlights back then? I mean the photo of the emperor who build this. Someones trying to fool us, or? (Chris)
:I think you are very confused--Emperor Tony X. Liu 11:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emperor Tony X. Liu 

message: A recent series on the history channel stated that the Chinese had more than 3,000 bronze cannons mounted on -intranetusa 09:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cannons, firelances, grenades, mines, and rockets

message: Someone wrote this:
"
jessssssssssssss is a defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times in Chinese history."
Corrected. 
-intranetusa 09:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: I heard in my class on China that the archers on the great wall were pointed inwards, as if they were controlling the Chinese people more than keeping barbarians out. I find this hard to believe...is it true?
:Probably not. -- Миборовский 01:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archers?

message: This article very is misleading about the length of the Wall (and I've been mislead by it). It claims that it is 6,352 km long. This exact number suggests that the Wall is an exactly measurable connected structure. Someone inserted "this is NOT a mistake" in the article source, but no sources are cited. Where does this number come from? How much of the wall is standing today? How long has it been when most of it has been standing?
Encarta says:
: "The Great Wall is not a single, continuous structure. Rather, it consists of a network of walls and towers that leaves the frontier open in places. Estimates of the total length of the monument vary, depending on which sections are included and how they are measured. The Great Wall is about 2,400 km (about 1,500 mi) long, according to conservative estimates. Other estimates cite a length of 6,400 km (4,000 mi), or even longer." 
Britannica says:
: " ... running (with all its branches) about 4,500 miles (7,300 km) east to west from Shanhai Pass near the Bo Hai (Gulf of Chihli) to Jiayu Pass (in modern Gansu province). Without its branches and other secondary sections, the wall extends for some 4,160 miles (6,700 km) ..." 
So this number of 6,352 km is certainly a mistake, because the article does not say what is exactly 6,352 km long.
BarroColorado 13:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article is misleading about wall length

message: A search for "Great Wall of China" on Google Earth produces a location ok, but nothing is discernable.  There are still quite a few errors in the GE gazeteer, so that doesn't mean anything.  The resolution is also poor, but that might be a fair record of what can be seen from low earth orbit.  So this article could do with some latitude and longitude references, please - of the ends, of the thickest part, whatever.  Does anybody have these?
Hi. I Google Earthed the coordinates mentioned in the article (33 55 N, 108 31 E), and by going to an oblique angle, it appears the purported wall is at the bottom of a valley and is therefore more likely a river. The European Space Agency made a similar mistake:(http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_040512.html) (Anonymous user, 4/15/2006)
:Of course you can see Great wall in google satellite map, as long as you konw where to look. For example, this is the great wall near Badaling. You can see the wall and the watchtowers very clearly. The square complex in the lower left corner of this image is the Juyongguan Pass. Sinolonghai 17:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Great Wall is just as visible as a narrow road is. All depends on the altitude and the resolution of the image. Try the western end, south-west of Jiayuguan at 39 44' 35"N 98 12'E where you will see a protective coffer dam at the base of a 300' high cliff, atop which is a watchtower. NickyMcLean 02:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Visible from Google Earth?

message: Great Wall should redirect here, with a disambig link at the top of this page.  Seriously, who's ever heard of the "Great Wall of Galaxies"?  --Simetrical 19:56, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect 

message: Can anyone add a map that show where the wall exactly is?  Kowloonese 23:44, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
Or even better: a Google Earth Path along the wall.
:I'm going to add my vote for a map showing the position of the great Wall.--Tiberius47 00:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Try the Google Earth Community. There is a project to locate every watchtower along the wall, including along its various branches. NickyMcLean 03:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map? 

message: The wall started being built around 200BC, while the Ming Dynasty version in this article is from the 14th century to the 16th.
Conquest1980 01:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time of Building 

message: I'm unsure of the rules of categories, but I figured that I could link from Hadrian's Wall to this via Category:Fortification but instead found that the on one in common is Category:Walls, not that I know the difference between the two.  Mulp 17:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  what categories? 

message: I would like to kill all the external links to collections of Great Wall photos. They are proliferating like the rabbits that the wall kept out of China - no, wait, that was a vandalism - and are incredibly easy to find via Google, anyway; they add nothing to this article. - DavidWBrooks 16:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are definitely too many photos. Wikipedia is not a place for site-seeing. Wang ty87916 16:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many links to photos 

message: i just read on BBC that they found more peices to the wall, making it around 7,200km long/ THE LINK IS http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1184306.stm CAN SOMEONE VERIFY THIS? i am no good with things like this(verification)
by the way, can someone tell me exactly how many people visit the great wall yearly? the info would be much appreciated
Oldmansnake99 18:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  verification 

message: There should be some little trivia bit on when this was opened to the public for tourisim.
WiiWillieWiki 14:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Opened to Tourism... when?

message: I thought "Great Wall" translates to 长城, and 万里长城 is simply an idiom/tourism slogan? I have never seen it referred to as "万里长城" in any pre-modern text, and I'm pretty sure it's referred to as 长城 in official documents (e.g. by UNESCO or by the PRC government). --Sumple (Talk) 05:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese translation 

message: Yeah, I went to look up the article on the "Great Wall Of China" However, all I found when I clicked  was the word "hi" repeated over and over again. I belive this counts as vandalism since, last time I checked, saying "hi" over again was a form of SPAM (No, not the meat, the e-mail/internet kind of SPAM) and not information about an important historical wall.24.111.137.236 18:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's with the repeated "hi" 

message: It's scarcely worth editing here unless this gets semi-protection. Text has eroded just in the last month, and scribbles are embedded in it. Would any administrator care to take this on? It's off my Watchlist as of now.--Wetman 23:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Adult supervision

message: "After one of the many runs for charity along the Great Wall, H.J.P Arnold questioned several runners about the status of the wall. A typical response was "The wall was clearly discernible and only moderately eroded along 22% of the run. The Wall was usually discernible but frequently broken/eroded 41% of the run, and scarcely discernible and almost totally eroded 37% of the run."
I intend to remove this paragraph as it strikes me as very suspect for the following reasons:
1. Charity runs /  walks concentrate on areas where the wall is still visible, so their observations are of little relevance
2. Such events only cover a few miles - out of many thousands of mile of wall and invariably concentrate on the area north of Beijing
3. Who determines what a typical comment is?
4. The percentages in the alleged quote are absurdly precise and the language very formal. I conclude it cannot have come from one speaker as the entry suggests. It has probably been invented.
5. Who is HJP Arnold and why he is the definitive source on the Great Wall?
Overall then, I do not think the paragraph is helpful.
--John Price 17:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Condition

message: Is it me or is this kind of too much information?
::The Great Wall is a maximum 30 feet wide and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power (distance versus the width of the iris: a few millimetres for the human eye, metres for large telescopes) an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings some four thousand miles in diameter (such as the Australian land mass) would be visible to the unaided eye from the moon. But the Great Wall is of course not a disc but more like a thread, and a thread a foot long would not be visible from a hundred yards away, even though a human head is. Not surprisingly, no lunar astronaut has ever claimed he could see the Great Wall from the moon.
::A different question is whether it is visible from near-Earth orbit i.e at an altitude of less than 500 km - 0.1% of the distance of the moon. The consensus here is that it is barely visible, and only under nearly perfect conditions; it is no more conspicuous than many other man-made objects.
I mean... do we really need that first paragraph at all? It seems more relevant to an optics article really, if at all anything.
:It is a bit detailed, but I think it is worth making the point that the visibility from the moon idea is demonstrably absurd.
--217.43.17.58 21:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Outer Space Rambling?

message: hello,i have a question about the opening statement in the artical:
"The Great Wall of China (Traditional Chinese: 長城; Simplified Chinese: 长城; pinyin: Chángchéng; literally "long city wall")"
Doesn't chang cheng mean long city, where is wall coming from?
Sir LoseALot 19:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Chinese city wall for an explanation of cheng and other terms for walls in Chinese. --Sumple (Talk) 08:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Cool, thanks.  Just to make sure -- changing "long city wall" (what is was before) to "long wall" is acceptable? Theotherkg 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yep, change looks good to me! --Sumple (Talk) 08:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  long city wall? 

message: one of the existing megastructure -> megastructures —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.67.217.254 (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please fix 

message: Several years back, while visiting the wall, I read some local literature that spoke of the mortar used between blocks during construction (not sure exactly what period of construction).  It mentioned a glutinous rice and at times egg white combination.  When I walked the wall, and got off the re-constructed visitor section (I went beyond the barrier), I picked up a piece of white morter that was clearly (to me) "petrified rice mush".  I found this very interesting.  A few years ago I added a note on this Wiki in the Characteristics section, noting the use of glutinous rice and eggwhite as mortar for parts of the construction.  It is no longer in the article.  I would propose adding this info back in, but I'm not an expert on either the Wall or on Wikis, so I write this note in hopes that others find this piece of information interesting, accurate, and worth re-including in the Great Wall article -- especially if someone could verify this info as factual.  144.15.18.210 15:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characteristics -- materials 

message: I saw that the english translastion for Mao's quote used the word "climb". The chinese has nothing mentioning or hinting at climbing, or even walking along. It is simply translated as "going to". So the quote should be translated literally as: "not been to the great wall, (means that one is) not a good chinese." or transliterated as "If one hasn't been to the great wall one is not a good Chinese." I don't like the use of "one" in this sentence (or "you" for that matter), but english demands a subject. 
Jon the d 16:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mao Ze Dong quote translation 

message: Article contains "Under the military command of Yuan Chonghuan, the Ming army held off the Manchus at the heavily fortified Shanhai Pass, thus preventing the Manchus from entering the Liaodong Peninsula and the Chinese heartland"- in fact Shanhai Pass is located to the southwest of the Liaodong peninsula- the Manchus controlled the Liaodong penisula before passing through Shanhai Pass. Put another way, the Great Wall ends at the Hebei coast at Shanhai Pass and did not cut off the Liaodong Peninsula from the Manchu homeland. Please delete the words the Liaodong Peninsula and. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.168.214.216 (talk) 08:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location confused 

message: I've been adding links for the candidates of the New Seven Wonders of the World contest. The Great Wall of China is one of them. Would it be possible to add such a link?
* Vote for the Great Wall of China as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World
(like this... :-) )
Cryptonym 17:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Even the informational pdf linked to that page does not have as much info as the Wikipedia article. In that sense, it doesn't contribute anything in terms of information to the article - making it a bad link under WP:EL. The contest seems non-notable and adding the links to all of the relevant articles in Wikipedia seems more like a promotion of the contest than supplementing encyclopedic content. I'd recommend against not linking and removing the links placed in other articles. Nposs 18:56, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Seven Wonders of the World 

message: "...the most famous being the one built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. That wall was much further north than the current wall, built during the Ming Dynasty, and little of it remains."  Surely, the current standing wall is the "most famous"...?  Afabbro 02:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please clarify "the most famous"  

message: In the section on "Visibility", at the end of the paragraph beginning with "Leroy Chiao, a Chinese-American astronaut,", there is some incorrectly formatted code. I don't know enough to fix it.
Overall this is not a bad article and I can see some of the care that's gone into it.
Marzolian 12:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Please fix typo

message: DO NOT add the lame information about rabbits being kept out just because Telstra used it in an advertisement. Any of such information will be deleted. Also, please DO NOT start a "Pop culture" section and add info about the rabbits either. It's trivia-like and does not belong in the article. Oidia (talk) 11:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Note to all editors from Australia

message: The article mentions at several places that the Great Wall was built to protect aginst invasions from the North, but does not specifically mention who these invaders were, and why they were attacking China. Were these Mongolians, Russians... some other tribes existing those days?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.95.226.224 (talk) 17:29, August 29, 2007 (UTC) 
:I would assume the Mongol hordes. Jmlk17 11:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that's right. The Ming Dynasty came directly after the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol Empire). Majority of the wall that remains today are built by the Ming Dynasty. And the Ming knew the Mongols have the ability to "re-invade" China and hence this leads to the "completion" of the Great Wall. Remember that the "oldest" sections of the Wall were built in the Spring and Autumn Period, even before the Qin Dynasty. Oidia (talk) 11:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who was this wall protecting from? 

message: What is the wall distance from Shanhaiguan to Jiayuguan (pass)? I think that length should be used because that represent the length of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall, not a combination of walls from different dynasty. --Voidvector 03:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distance 

message: The other night I heard on a documentry about the great wall that it was conquered on the 27th of May 1644 and no blood was spilt. I reackon the date should be added.
--X Gui 21:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conquest 

message: I am horrified to find the recent attempt to extend the Great Wall into non-Chinese territories as a part of China's infamous Northeast Project, the fraudulent rewrite of ancient Chinese history to support current Chinese communist regime and its territorial claims. The Great Wall was the longest during Ming Dynasty, when China was the strongest, yet its eastern end was Shanhai Pass, barely above Beijing. Qin and Han dynasties were far weaker and were in no position to built the Great Wall into the land of foreign barbarians who routinely raided into Chinese land and demanded huge tributes, the very reason the Great Wall was built in the first place.
The maps of Qin and Han dynasty era is clearly incorrect and must be removed. After all, Wikipedia is not run by Chinese communist party and must not aid a state-organized academic fraud by Chinese communist party. Wikipedia's integrity depends on it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.90.45.112 (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lengthening of Great Wall and China's Northeast Project(东北工程) 

message: The article says this "an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings some 70 miles in diameter (1 arc-minute) would be visible to the unaided eye from the moon, whose average distance from Earth is 384,393 km (238,857 miles)."
Wanting to know in the metric system how much that was I took different approaches and got, from research into the arc-minute article (I was hoping it said something about their length on the globe, and so did it, I got 1,86 km as the length along the equator), I also got a formula I applied to generate an isosceles that, effectively, would be a couple of right angle triangles with a height of 384393 km and the sides opposite to said angle would, together, add up to the length of the diameter an object would need to be to be visible from the moon, with trigonometry I had something that was like 56.87 times larger than what I had when I followed my third approach, of finding how many kilometers there are in 70 miles, which itself was 60 times larger than the earthen arcminute as defined by the arcminute article... With this said I must insist something must be done to correct this or, if the data is not wrong, to clarify it without ambigous info. Personally I can't do so however because I'm myself confused. Undead Herle King (talk) 00:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size for visibility from the moon 

message: Shouldn't the efforts of Qi Jiguang to improve the wall to its powerful state (instead of rammed earth) be mentioned?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xevorim (talk • contribs) 14:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Qi Jiguang 

message: The Qin Dynasty wall image has an explaination of what the colours represet (and there's only one wall color) - the Han one has 3 wall colors (and some dotted lines) and doesn't have a legend. Anyone wanna  does not give any indication of where in the image the wall is... I for one don't know where it is in the picture. Can anyone add some sort of clarification to the image TheHYPO (talk) 08:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Han legend? 

message: In this article the word "wall" when used by itself is sometimes spelt with a capital W, sometimes lowercase. Which is correct? And can we keep it consistent? Fantom (talk) 16:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the capital W is the correct one. If the sentence uses the term "great fall", then it should be capitalised. But if the sentence uses the term "the wall", then I think it would be in lower case. Oidia (talk) 04:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital W? 

message: The List of Largest buildings page makes absolutely no mention of the great wall. And it definitely isnt the longest man made structure, the distance it covers in nothing when compared to the Pan-American Highway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.230.183 (talk) 09:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A highway is not a structure, a highway is an infrastructure. Oidia (talk) 17:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A highway is a structure as well as forming part of an infrastructure; the two are not mutually exclusive.  The Great Wall of China is, therefore, neither the longest nor the most extensive man made structure.  I also have grave doubts as to whether it is the most massive considering the amount of tarmac, earth and concrete that go into building a road.  If anyone can offer any more information on this, it would be appreciated.  If not, I will be editing in order to remove these erroneous/dubious claims.  --Caifeng Blah554 (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

text: The wall is the longest  the most extensive man-made structure because it is literally man-made. Highways and such are made with the involvement of machinery.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.249.189.26 (talk) 02:36, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The great wall was built with assistance of machinery as well. And it is not continuous. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 22:06, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Longest/largest structure?

message: what is the differince between the eastern and western building material of the great wall of china?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.84.172 (talk) 01:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The material on the west is positioned slightly differently, it seems to be placed more to the western regions of the wall  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.229.70 (talk) 01:41, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  building material 

message: The Great Wall was featured as part of Discovery Channel China Week, with the documentary "Behind the Great Wall". It's an interesting show if only because it also takes a look at the personalities who conceived of the Great Wall, rather than just the Wall itself. Have a look here: http://www.channelcanada.com/Article1532.html. I don't know if it's appropriate to add a link in the article so I'm just going to leave it at that. But I think some of the content, if accurate, is worth adding to the encyclopedia. Ham Pastrami (talk) 02:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discovery Channel special 

message: This article lacks detailed information about many relevant aspects. For example, nowhere in the article does it mention the fact that The Great Wall was a site where conquered peoples (such as the ancestors of today's Cantonese peoples) were enslaved en masse.
:You need to find reliable sources that will confirm those statements. Oidia (talk • contribs) 12:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think anybody is deliberately censoring information; if you want to add information on enslavement find some reliable sources and add the information.  I haven't got the knowledge or know of the sources to do so myself. --Caifeng 82.16.98.54 (talk) 17:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

text: If that was added, I believe that the neutrality of the article would be questioned. After all, not a single ancient structure have avoided the involvement of the use of slaves.Shawn1cai (talk) 03:36, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article lacks detail 

message: There is a reference to Great Wall of China website. But that website says It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Great Wall of China". I guess we should not use it as source then. --Tigga en (talk) 21:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Circular reference

message: But a foot is not 15cm as claimed in the article, it is 30.48cm someone else fix it for me............  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.79.148 (talk) 11:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Have edited as the figures didn't make sense.  Using the analogue of being 100m away the thread would have to be 1.5m long not 15cm or 1ft.  More importantly, it is the width (at 2.3μm) which makes it invisible. --Caifeng Blah554 (talk) 17:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can't edit semi protected or whatever 

message: In the intro 200 BC - 220 BC should be 220 BC - 200 BC I guess. Isn't it? -ArazZeynilitalkcontrib07:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  200 BC - 220 BC 

message: "Surprisingly, no lunar astronaut has ever claimed he could see the Great Wall from the moon."
Removed "he or she." No female has walked on the moon.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heterodyne (talk • contribs) 21:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  He/She 

message: 城 does not mean wall, it means fortress. so in chinese, it should mean "Great fortress", not long wall. I'd fix that minor mistake, but i'm not logged in. 71.134.59.77 (talk) 09:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think that should be changed. Furthermore, the translation of "万里长城" is not at all accurate; it is in fact very literal and shows little understanding of the actual Chinese meaning. However, the citation given to that translation has a very good translation of the term "万里长城," and I believe that translation should be used instead.Shawn1cai (talk) 00:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

text: I think you misunderstand. The literal translation is correct, but it does not reflect the actual meaning. The literal translation is 10,000 Li Long Wall, but it really means more on the line of "Infinitely Long Great Fort."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.249.190.155 (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  城 

message: It doesnt even tell me how long the great wall is.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.168.25 (talk) 06:25, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you read the article? There is no single 'Great Wall'.  There are a lot of walls built over various time periods. Doug Weller (talk) 13:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How long is it? 

message: does this page get really that much vandalism?
--∑ssarege∑ (talk) 01:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Well... aren't there coordinates for at least one point of the wall??--Fluence (talk) 23:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Where is it?

message: The See also: link to The Great Firewall of China has no relevance at all to the topic of this article and should be removed. 90.136.30.103 (talk) 14:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It makes sense to link here because it is a term in popular use inspired by the Great Wall of China. JoshuaZ (talk) 14:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Orders of magnitude (length) is also unrelated. As for the firewall, people wanting to learn more about the Great Wall of China will have no use for the Great Firewall article. The is no relationship whatsoever. 90.136.203.150 (talk) 12:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Great Firewall of China? 

message: The location given at the beginning of the 2nd paragraph is incorrect.  The wall does start at Shanhaiguan in the east, but its western end is at Jiayuguan, not Lop Nur.  The wall never even makes it to Xinjiang; it ends in Gansu. Pgmark (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location 

message: Who built the Great Wall of China?
Thanks  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.1.114 (talk) 03:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read the article. There is no single wall and no single builder. This is a talk page for discussing improvements to the article, not the Great Walls themselves.Dídn't chinese slaves build the great wall of china!!! dougweller (talk) 08:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I am wondering now if these questions are just vandalism. Obviously a long wall would not have a latitude and longitude, and there is no single 'Great Wall' as the article makes clear. dougweller (talk) 07:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090420/sc_afp/chinaheritagegreatwall
Length is much longer than initially thought.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.88.13.106 (talk) 13:42, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length Needs Updates 

message: It states in the condition section of the article that no detailed survey has been carried out of the wall.  This does not appear to be true any longer, following the publication of this BBC News Article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8008108.stm  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.197.187.227 (talk) 17:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been quite a few estimations over the years, although I'm not sure which one is the most accurate. This estimate is quite comphrensive, but 4,000 miles seems to be in the middle range, as oppose to 3,107 miles or 5,000 miles, so perhaps we should use this one.--Balthazarduju (talk) 19:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Updated the information using the BBC source.--Balthazarduju (talk) 20:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Condition Section 

message: The length needs changing, the wall is much longer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8008108.stm  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.172.15 (talk) 20:50, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The "older" 6,400 km (4,000 miles) length should be kept, because it is still a commonly cited length.  Recent archaeological survey of length should also be noted.  Detailed breakdown of the wall perhaps isn't necessary for the lead section.--Balthazarduju (talk) 07:03, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I took the two older length estimates out because they were unreliable. The first was from a student project, which in the next sentence said that the wall could be seen by the naked eye from the moon. The second was from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, which at first glance would seem reliable, but it gives three lengths, two of which are clearly inconsistent: it gives a length of 7,300 km including all branches, but then says that the Ming sections are 8,850 km, i.e. those parts are longer than all the various parts combined! Note, this reported length of the Ming section appears to be derived from the 8851.8 km of the recent survey reported by AFP, which was said to be of the whole wall. Further investigation reveals that the meticulousness of Britannica's fact checking may be questionable: anyone can submit edits, but Britannica claims that "an abbreviated editorial process allows these changes to be published almost immediately while still being subject to rigorous in-house and external review." I accept that a variety of estimates exist, so perhaps it would be best to give a range of these estimates, with a special mention of the most recent survey, which was reported to be comprehensive. This is what I have just done. Cimbalom (talk) 13:20, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

text: The Britannica length is not just online version, because the information is found on their printed encyclopedia and existed on their online articles long before they allowed edit submission and fact checking.  Various encyclopedia sources varies, so I don't think it is necessary to include all of them, or appropriate to include a lesser known encyclopedia's information.  Juding from this note, it is perhaps better to not include it, since many other estimations also exist, and including them all is perhaps too much.--Balthazarduju (talk) 15:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Should the article use the plural form 'walls' more? We aren't talking about one continous long wall, we are talking about various walls in various places at different times, right? Dougweller (talk) 17:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

text: The correct length of Great Wall is 6,400 km. The Great Wall is no El-Dorado, its location is well known and well researched. It is the Chinese communist party's fraud that's extending the Great Wall due to political considerations.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.90.45.112 (talk) 16:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of wall 

message: I remembered being surprised at how different the Ming Great Wall was in its western sections, which you don't often see.  I felt this worth adding.
I also think the 'Notable Areas' section needs editing.  It says "The following three sections are in Beijing municipality" - it includes Jiayuguan, way over to the west in Gansu.--GwydionM (talk) 17:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different sections 

message: I've removed some unreliable sources, including one from a very short essay by a high school student. I've left the Britannica one by I think encyclopedias are rarely good sources for articles such as this one. Why isn't Waldron used as a source I wonder? I'm also a bit concerned by a tendency for the article (and some of the newspaper sources) to treat what was a series of walls as one long wall. Dougweller (talk) 08:03, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: Can't believe nearly half of the entire article concerns visibility from space. Angry bee (talk) 16:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps more interestingly, Marco Polo doesn't mention it in his book, though he would have seen it many times - some modern researchers have picked up on this to suggest he actually didn't visit China but only constructed his book from second-hand reports (other travellers). /Strausszek (talk) 23:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't believe nearly half of the entire article concerns visibility from space. I can. Ask anybody outside China what they know about the Great Wall and they will tell you that it is "the only man-made object visible from space" (or the Moon). Which is absolute bull****, but a myth that continues to be circulated. The section on visibility provides an comprehensive (and not particularly long) demolition of this nonsense. Famousdog (talk) 11:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content 

message: It has been called the wall of death and the longest graveyard in the world.It is the only thing made by humans that can be seen from the space.It stretches for 5500 kilometers,from the sea to the icy mountains in the west,and was built in less than 15 years.This is the great wall of China.
When Qin Shihuang united China and become the emperor in 221 BC,he planned a mighty wall which,once and for all, would stop the naomads from attacking his kingdom.
The wall was begun in 219 BC and work finished in 204 BC.
How the work was organised?
It is estimated that brtween 300 000 to 50 000 people worked on the wall. Building the Great Wall required enormous organisation.first the workers had to be found.The Emperor forced many people to work on the wall:farmers were taken from their fields,prisoners were taken from the jails,those who disagreed with the Emperor were taken to the  wall,soldiers were stationed there.From all parts of china,they walked to the wall,probably roped together.
--[[Navida Rahmani
26/09/2009
:It cannot been seen from space. Read the article. Famousdog (talk) 11:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great Wall of China 

message: I don't think there's enough in the article about who actually built and
maintained the wall--that is, who did the actual labor.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.145.109.133 (talk) 01:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin 

message: under Notable areas, there are some grammatical errors.  It says, "25 km west of the Liao Tian Ling stands of part of Great wall" Wall should be capitalized and the first "of" should be "a" 
72.64.250.238 (talk) 14:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from 72.64.250.238, 10 April 2010 

message: I can understand national pride, but readers coming here to find out whether the Wall is "visible from space" ought to be told right off that you need the help of a good lens to make it out. Either a camera or a pair of binoculars. 
If we have an article on objects visible from space, this could be enlarged upon.
The only thing easily visible from space is the light pollution from cities. Wealthy cities waste a heck of a lot of light. North Korea's poverty can easily be seen at night, as the entire northern half of the Korean peninsula is dark. 
Anyway, let's not allow national pride to get in the way of accurate article writing. --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely agree. This "fact" is absolute nonsense, easily debunked with an ounce of intelligence and a moment's reflection. Famousdog (talk) 09:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As of the moment (this is wikipedia, things can change!) the article goes into this topic in almost too much detail, not just pooh-poohing the idea but explaining the history and optics of several scenarios. It is debunking of the highest order.  - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Proud of something so big

message: I heard a rumor that in Turish school text book it claims that"The Great Wall was built to prevent the Turkic invasion"
This is true, some sort of true or just a rumor.
Regards  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.52.65.20 (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need some Turkish friends to verify this 

message: 76.93.234.93 (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: See Serial comma. -Atmoz (talk) 15:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Although the use of serial commas is inconsistent. Dougweller (talk) 16:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It is inconsistent, self-contradictory, and confusing - on the other hand, the problem is minor, transitory and never confuses readers. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from 76.93.234.93, 1 February 2011 

message: Hi,
Could a registered user add links in the Further Reading to the Peter Hessler and Julia Lovell pages? I'm too new. 
Thanks
shuijiashaojun  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shuijiashaojun (talk • contribs) 21:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request

message: Sylvia.p (talk) 06:40, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Zidanie5 (talk) 14:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from , 27 November 2011 

message: The length of the wall is greatly misleading and is not backed up by reliable, 3rd party source. Here are some info on that:
http://www.prkorea.com/english/e_video/evideo34.htm
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t302154.html
http://www.igoo.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-64569.html
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/09/116_52682.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Project_of_the_Chinese_Academy_of_Social_Sciences
At the very least, the length of the wall should be written as "disputed" and not confirmed as it is now. Millions of students/scholars worldwide are taking what's on Wikipedia as the truth. 
Jykang (talk) 19:52, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Two forum topics, a wiki entry (no mention there), and two unreliable sites with such biased wording. That doesn't cut it. --Cold Season (talk) 18:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request on 24 December 2011 

message: Compare it to another wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheolli_Jangseong
Jykang (talk) 19:58, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you want us to compare it? You'd need sources comparing them. I note that that article is badly sourced, by the way. Dougweller (talk) 20:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request on 24 December 2011 

message: i have a bunch of info from a school project  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaitlyn72783 (talk • contribs) 21:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't do much with that request, you have to supply the specific info that you want added and credible citations. Cheers, Cold Season (talk) 00:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request on 23 January 2012 

message: The photographs in the Gallery do not, I feel, give an adequate representation of the Wall.  Furthermore, they are not captioned.  Hence, I have added one that shows the wall in an unrestored state.  I propose there needs to be more photos added, not less, so that a better view of the wall can be given, especially since most of it is unrestored.  To date, the gallery contains only a few snapshots of the tourist areas where the wall has been restored.  Bryan MacKinnon (talk) 05:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Photos that are radically different and provide new information - sure. More of the same sort of photos (this one shows a sunset! this one is framed better) - no. The photo you added does seem to be new, and worth keeping; I have removed a couple of repetitive ones. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's true. But then we should replace the poorer-quality photo, not just add another picture, which is what tends to happen, especially on articles about tourist-visited places where lots of editors have personal photos. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: The Photo Gallery

message: The portrayal in this article of the Great Wall as China's pre-Qing northern border is problematic. According to the Mongolist Zhou Qingshu, "In the past imperialists nonsensically argued that China from ancient times saw the Great Wall as a boundary, that north of the Great Wall was not part of China's territory, and that Han people only settled beyond the Great Wall very recently ... these arguments are not convincing". A major argument of Christopher Beckwith in Empires of the Silk Road was that the Great Wall was not primarily defensive; that it was used by expanding Chinese empires in order to consolidate territorial gains and to project power beyond the wall. We should investigate and thoroughly explain in this article to what extent that this received wisdom, that the Great Wall represented a limit to Chinese culture, is true. (Although in some cases, the unfortunate diplomatic tendency of the Chinese government to censor maps that portray China's historical boundaries as exceeding the PRC's contemporary ones, may disqualify PRC sources) Shrigley (talk) 03:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Limit of China? 

message: http://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/clapper.pdf
Rajmaan (talk) 05:23, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  1920 article in the geographical review 

message: Please change the wall length from 8,850km to 21,196.18km based on the latest state survey results.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18337039
Smkilani (talk) 11:42, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done       Mdann52 (talk) 15:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change wall length 

message: In which city it is located  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.96.220.216 (talk) 05:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  in which city is it 

message: I request this because according to some of the facts I have researched, some of the vital measurements of the Wall are incorrect, and need to be restored to factual information.
Overseer693 (talk) 03:54, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. And include reliable sources which support the change you would like made. Thanks Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not going to happen. I just blocked him indefinitely as all his article space edits were obvious vandalism. As is this I think, just trolling here. Dougweller (talk) 07:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit Request 

message: With the creation of History of the Great Wall of China the history section here fails to follow our guideline at WP:SUMMARY. Dougweller (talk) 18:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section needs rewriting now there is a new article 

message: Jameskim235 (talk) 18:27, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Then you need sources that meet our criteria at WP:RS stating this and we can show both. I've removed your bit about "the world should know", that's inappropriate here. We can show differing opinions if the opinions are significant and well sourced. Dougweller (talk) 04:54, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

text: Korean nationalist propaganda is not an acceptable rebuttal to alleged Chinese nationalist propaganda. To add to that, the only propaganda actually here is coming from the Korean side, because the modern Great Wall built by the Ming and the Han dynasty era Wall are two different structures. The modern Great Wall does not extend into Korea, but the Han dynasty wall most certainly does. The Han dynasty ruled northern Korea as the Lelang Commandery, Before Goguryeo ever existed. Whether Goguryeo is Chinese or Korean has nothing to do with it, because the Han dynasty China ruled northern Koea before Goguryeo! I understand some Korean ultra- nationalists claim Lelang was somehwere in Siberia or Manchuria, but we'll leave that nonsense out here.
05:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy over the exaggerated length of Great Wall 

message: The great wall of China was destroyed On March 2, 2014 from a nuclear bomb that was sent from North Korea
76.99.129.89 (talk) 14:16, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Cannolis (talk) 14:23, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 15 March 2014 

message: This is one problem with infoboxes - they oversimplify things. The Ming Great Wall may have been completed in the 17th century but it certainly wasn't started in the 7th c. BC - our article dates it to about 1442. So how much of it follows the line of earlier walls? It would be nice to have this in both articles. Dougweller (talk) 16:10, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  How much of the Ming Great Wall follows the old wall lines? 

message: Add External links:
*An Adventurer's Guide to Hiking on the Great Wall of China 
Travelledpaths (talk) 07:12, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 17 October 2014 

message: Prabhakar Saw
110.172.53.117 (talk) 13:47, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 15:19, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 17 October 2014 

message: Substituted at 20:28, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment