Talk:Opium Wars

Merge proposal

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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There was already a very strong consensus for a content merge from this Opium Wars article to the First and Second Opium War articles but given that it hasn't happened yet and another three years of editing have gone into the page, I feel we should restart the discussion and see how people feel in 2014. I concur with other editors that a very strong content fork is occurring. My proposal:

1. The content from Opium Wars is merged from here to the First and Second Opium War articles.
2. Opium Wars is turned into a redirect to Opium War (disambiguation), which already serves as a needed link to the two conflicts

Current votes are (here)

• Spellcast
• FunkyDuffy
• Philg88
• CWH, and
• 75.18.196.20 ("Jay")

and (here)

• Tibetsnow and
• Kiyoweap

and (here) LlywelynII all in favor of the first proposal (raised by Spellcast in 2011, reraised by Kiyoweap in 2013, and now again by me here) and no one in opposition. The second proposal is new here, but it seems needless and unhelpful to maintain two separate dabs. — LlywelynII 13:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

• [Comment.] are the opium wars treated as a linked subject by historians? Perhaps an overarching article on the two wars with the bulk of the content of the actual wars in those two articles. There is a Boer Wars article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:19, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

  To answer your question, the collective descriptor has been in play since the 1910s and '20s when the Arrow Incident began to be referred to as the "Second Opium War". The voters above are presumably aware of the term's existence and use and still prefer to simply treat the two conflicts separately without a third article forking the same content. Did you want to vote against that course? — LlywelynII 13:34, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

• Very enthusiastic support for this proposal. Many thanks are once again due to Llywelyn for taking it on! This can be part of a general effort to coordinate Qing dynasty articles. These changes should be reflected in revisions to the overview article, Qing Dynasty. There is discussion at Talk:Qing Dynasty#Sources for Military? Move?, of creating sub-articles. Military of the Qing dynasty has already shown the way. Llywelyn's example should inspire us.

  More thoughts.

  • The new Opium Wars articles can also be coordinated with such articles as Canton System and Old China Trade.
  • We could also consider new articles or new sections in other articles. Perhaps some of the material in the present Opium Wars article could be redistributed: the section "Opium in China" to a new main article Opium in China.
  • The section "Qing Attitudes toward trade" and parts of "British trade and the Canton system" to Foreign relations of imperial China; and "growth of the opium trade" to the First Opium War.
  • These efforts should help raise these and other Qing articles to Good Article status.

  Comments on Second Opium War. The sources are now especially weak or antiquated (Michel Vie; Thomson; Encyclopedia Larousse 1898; Le Figaro) or simply a passing reference in an otherwise irrelevant book (Religion Under Socialism; Taiwan in Modern Times). There are good sources listed under Further Reading. Hsu and Spence's texts are Reliable Sources even though tertiary because Spence and Hsu are Qing specialists. ch (talk) 00:29, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

  Regarding your additional thoughts:
  A) What precisely does "coördinating articles" involve? It should probably be dealt with on the respective wars' talk pages or at some other appropriate forum such as the China WikiProject.
  B) Opium in China and History of opium should certainly exist, either as a redirects to sections of Illegal drug trade in China or Opium or, if there's enough material, separate pages. [Edit: Created redirects. Certainly overlong section at Opium#History that could be spun out, but not my bailiwick.]
  C) Following renewed consensus for a merge, I'll simply be porting sections to the main articles mentioned above. If you feel other articles' current treatment of these topics are deficient, you should remedy that now and directly. Similarly, if those topics are better addressed at those other pages and the current treatment here is excessive and shouldn't be ported over to the main articles mentioned above, go ahead and edit the existing article on your own prior to the full merge.
  D) Good luck with that.
  E) Wrong forum. Should mention that at Talk:Second Opium War although in my experience things get appended to "Further Reading" when it's a pain to find full view copies online. You'll have a hard time getting others to incorporate such sources unless you're glossing them or using the History WikiProject's programs to hook people up with academic access. Good luck, though. — LlywelynII 13:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

  My quick additional thoughts above, as Llewlyn correctly points out, were mostly in the wrong forum, but do have some bearing here. By "coordinating articles" I meant precisely what Philg88 and Llywelyn are doing or propose to do, that is, adding redirects and links, developing "support" articles, and making sure that what one article says is not contradicted or massively duplicated in another. Llywelyn proposes to start things off by making sure that this article "Opium Wars" is not a Content Fork in the sense of duplicating topics without well... coordinating them.
  If I understand correctly, Lineagegeek also has a legitimate concern, namely that moving material might deprive one or another article of needed background material. However, Related Articles remarks that "Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork." I take this to mean that each article stands on its own as self-contained for a reader, but that some articles have full coverage and some have Summaries. See also WP:SYNC We'll see, but Llywelyn seems aware of the issue and further edits can always be made once the material is moved.
  As to the question of the weak sources, I will indeed take the suggestion to raise it at Talk:Second Opium War. Here I'll simply add that Spence, Hsu, and Lovell are affordable paperbacks which do not need an academic affiliation to use. I prefer online sources, of course, but only when and if they are otherwise good ones. Cheers, ch (talk) 05:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• Strong Support For those interested in where we got to in the last discussion please see here. Thanks to LlywelynII for bringing this to the top of the pile again. ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 07:00, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

  If it wasn't obvious from the above, both prior discussions are linked within the "(here)" parentheticals. — LlywelynII 13:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support – I agree that this needs to be merged. United States Man (talk) 20:03, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

• Comment This goes beyond a simple merger request. Because this article contains background on the opium trade in China that led up to, but is not included in, either the First or Second Opium War articles, a contingent Support based on the proposals by LLewellanll being simultaneously implemented. Otherwise Oppose. --Lineagegeek (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

  I'm not sure why the second proposal (to redirect this namespace to Opium War (disambiguation)) has any bearing on the early opium trade. Could you clarify that? [Fwiw, I would simply move information on the run-up to the first war on the First Opium War page.] — LlywelynII 15:03, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

  If your comment means you are withdrawing your suggestion to move some material to other existing articles that have bearing on the opium trade in China that are not tied to the proximate causes of the first war, because this article contains material not appropriate to the First Opium War (as suggested below), I 'Oppose. --Lineagegeek (talk) 23:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

  Huh? I'm not withdrawing any of my proposals. The material from this page will first and foremost be forked between the two pages it's a CFORK of. Any material that is appropriate here is also appropriate there. Any material here that needs to be repeated or linked on additional pages needs to have that material added regardless of the merge here. — LlywelynII 02:41, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment That leads to a whole new discussion on how much background the merged article should contain. My view is that the "support" articles like the Canton System (which I'm currently working on) and possibly a new Opium in China article as suggested by CWH above, should cover most of the history up to the point where the gloves came off - i.e. when Lin Zexu arrived in Canton. Thoughts? ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 22:24, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

  I would simply merge the material here to the First Opium War article. If there is enough material to justify spinning off most of a section's material into a new article, peachy; otherwise not. It really has no bearing on this discussion. — LlywelynII 15:03, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support Although one factor in the British going to war a second time was because of unresolved issues from the first war, these are actually quite separate conflicts. Later down the line, I wouldn't oppose turning this into a more clear and concise article that explains how these wars are connected (like the Boer Wars as User:GraemeLeggett pointed out above). Spellcast (talk) 16:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, although the name didn't start until the 1910s, "Second Opium War" is the COMMON ENGLISH name of that conflict these days and the page is being merged as an unnecessary CFORK and so (in most of our eyes) should not ever be recreated in any form. But, the support here seems broad and refreshed enough, I'll go ahead and do this and then you guys can complain or make adjustments to what I've done. ; ) — LlywelynII 02:41, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

No one's been along to close this yet, but that makes seven days. The only objection seems to be an off-topic hesitation by Lineagegeek. (For what it's worth, I'll implement all of my proposals as I've stated, so s/he's technically a "support".) Today (and maybe for some of this week), I'll draw up new versions of the 1st and 2nd War pages incorporating the passages being removed here. I'm not sure how the editing credits are supposed to work but, once we know exactly what phrases and sources we're keeping, could one of y'all send someone informed on this process (/with special software) my way so we can credit everything to the appropriate people? — LlywelynII 02:41, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

As you said, it's not actually a split, but do the policies at WP:PROSPLIT help with giving credit? ch (talk) 06:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia covers how to credit when text is moved from one article to another. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

and here at Wikipedia:Merging#How_to_merge GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:47, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support merge and disambiguate There is supporting evidence for this and I see no persuasive arguments against doing this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:53, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I disagree that a content fork is developing. Each article covers different aspects, so far as I noticed on my drive-by. I saw in the 2011 merge discussion a comment by someone that the first and second war had separate causes and were very much separate conflicts. I've not studied Chinese history in detail so I don't know if that's true. If anything, perhaps this article should look more like World war, discussing how the label was applied. Disambiguation is a foolhardy step, here. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not clear what you oppose. Could you clarify? The proposal is not to merge into one article, but to merge the appropriate parts of the article Opium Wars into the two articles OW1 and OW2. Thanks! ch (talk) 07:51, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support Seems like a logical way of avoiding a content fork. Cogito-Ergo-Sum (14) (talk) 02:26, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support the split to two articles with this one remaining as a disambiguation page. Testem (talk) 10:29, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support in part and oppose in part. I agree that some material can be merged and moved into the other articles, but people looking for "Opium Wars" in the plural are probably looking for an overview of the two wars and the connections between them. For example, look at Wars of Scottish Independence describing such a succession of related wars. Also, look at Civil war and World war for articles about a type of war, which this could also be. I think, therefore, that this title should continue to be an article, even if it is only a summary description of the forces shaping and continuing these conflicts. Either that, or it should be merged and redirected to a broader article on the overall relationship between China and the British Empire during this period. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 03:31, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support per above —Cliftonian (talk) 11:19, 7 February 2014 (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.

Article split to History of opium in China

In a bold move to avoid cluttering up First Opium War and Second Opium War with irrelevent material during the agreed merge, I have split two sections from this article into History of opium in China, which will expand further from material drawn from Opium and a couple of other smaller articles. ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 15:39, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Merge

Why this page wasn't merged with the other if the consensus was totally into it? Ruddah (talk) 04:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ruddah: Hi there. I am in the process of doing the merge. Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 06:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok then. Thx. Ruddah (talk) 18:14, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

 Done. (Phew!)  Philg88 ^♦talk 10:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Opium Wars article vs. dab

I came to this page in mode of helping disambiguation project, because multiple regular articles link to this title. It is reasonable for other articles to mention the "Opium Wars" with the reference being to the collective of the two wars. It is unreasonable to insist that every usage elsewhere must use something awkward like "First Opium War" and "Second Opium War" instead. Examples of other articles linking are:

1. Peter Stursberg
2. Salt in Chinese history
3. Tao Zhu (Qing dynasty)
4. Trade dollar

Articles cannot link to disambiguation pages. It is imperative that there be something, not a disambiguation page, at "Opium Wars". Alternate uses like as a film title can be/should be/are covered at Opium Wars (disambiguation). So I changed this "Opium Wars" page to be a set index article, which should _briefly_ cover the two wars as a collective, linking to main articles on each of the two. I was reverted, so come here to discuss. The (reverted) current article is: The '''Opium Wars''' were: *[[First Opium War]] (1839{{ndash}}1842) *[[Second Opium War]] (1856{{ndash}}1860), also known as the "Arrow War" *[[1967 Opium War]] (1967) {{disambiguation}} I personally believe that "the Opium Wars" refers to only the first two as a collective, not the third. All three belong on the proper disambiguation page.

To the reverter, if you object to my somewhat longish draft, that is okay, it is okay to edit down my wording, to something as brief as: The '''Opium Wars''' refers to the Anglo-Chinese wars in the mid-19th century. These were: *[[First Opium War]] (1839{{ndash}}1842) *[[Second Opium War]] (1856{{ndash}}1860), also known as the "Arrow War" {{SIA}}

Please explain your reversion and comment. Let's sort out some understanding before making a big deal about this with an RFC and other editors, if possible. --doncram 02:27, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

P.S. An alternative of redirecting from "Opium Wars" to History of opium in China is not appropriate either. The Opium Wars were not at all just about opium. --doncram 02:30, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

• I see no immediate response, okay. Reviewing the previous #Merge proposal above, I gather that the main thrust in 2014 was a wish to merge/divide a largish amount of material at Opium Wars out to the two separate First Opium War and Second Opium War, implementing 2011 consensus. I gather that was then done, and maybe there was a lot of duplication or parallel-but-different material that was removed/consolidated. Super. I gather LlywelynII did a great job in proposing and implementing that. HOWEVER, that does not preclude having a summary-style short article at Opium Wars. And having such an article is needed for reasons including one not considered then: namely that many readers will search for, and many article editors will want to link to, the general term Opium Wars, but one is not allowed to link from articles to disambiguation pages. A short article about the general subject, with very quick overview and links to the two long detailed articles (plus also a prominent link to the new History of opium in China), is needed. Note that GraemeLeggett commented with suggestion that the opium wars may be "treated as a linked subject by historians", and "Perhaps an overarching article on the two wars with the bulk of the content of the actual wars in those two articles. There is a Boer Wars article." Exactly! I'll pause for input but expect to implement this soon. I don't think a big general discussion is needed. But if others think a convo is needed, then I would be happy to open an RFC and invite all previous participants plus experts on disambiguation. :) --doncram 21:29, 26 July 2015 (UTC) (revise, and fix my ping to GraemeLeggett --doncram 21:33, 26 July 2015 (UTC))

Hello. Although I have no objection to a small summary here, how much time until another editor adds a image, the next one starts adding content and we have another article with basically the same content duplicated? If this was in my hand I would just redirect here into First Opium War, but I doubt anyone would agree with me. I noted that Boers Wars suffered from the same problem and they settled on a section ~in Military history of South Africa. Maybe that's something to be looked upon. Bertdrunk (talk) 21:52, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

After a long discussion it was decided that this should be a disambiguation page. A lot of work was involved in splitting the article (I know because I did it). From a historically perspective, the two events were completely separate and linked only by the word "opium". They started for different reasons and were not contiguous. In short, the article is fine as it is and should not duplicate or become a fork of the other two articles.  Philg88 ^♦talk 05:36, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks! To respond: the previous long discussion was not about disambiguation. It focused on handling the content of three articles, and the concern was that "content forking" had happened. This was addressed by moving material to 1st and 2nd war articles and then editing there. There was NOT adequate discussion of what should remain/replace at "Opium Wars"; there was NOT adequate consensus understanding of disambiguation vs. summary-style overview article, IMHO.

Comments specifically about disambiguation were:

• The merger proposal included: "Opium Wars is turned into a redirect to Opium War (disambiguation), which already serves as a needed link to the two conflicts". (That acknowledge need for links to the two conflicts, but gives no reasoning why such links should not be provided by a summary/overview.)
• Chris troutman: "Disambiguation is a foolhardy step, here." (A response then commented only about merger of content, not about what should remain/replace.)
• WPGA2345: "I agree that some material can be merged and moved into the other articles, but people looking for "Opium Wars" in the plural are probably looking for an overview of the two wars and the connections between them. For example, look at Wars of Scottish Independence describing such a succession of related wars. Also, look at Civil war and World war for articles about a type of war, which this could also be. I think, therefore, that this title should continue to be an article, even if it is only a summary description of the forces shaping and continuing these conflicts. Either that, or it should be merged and redirected to a broader article on the overall relationship between China and the British Empire during this period." (bold emphasis added)
• There were other comments "!voting" for a disambiguation page along with other changes, without reasoning; these comments should be disregarded when evaluating the disambiguation "decision".
• To Bertdrunk's point, yes it is possible that a summary article would gain a picture and otherwise grow a bit, but some such editing would be good. Limiting the extent of that and ensuring coordination with the 1st and 2nd war articles would be supported by all this Talk page discussion. I agree that the early January 2014 version of "Opium Wars" was ridiculously huge. It was uncoordinated, in that there was parallel but different treatment of same subtopics, rather than the overview just giving summary of the detailed treatments. There's no danger of that happening again, especially with you and others watching this like hawks! :)

I am NOT re-opening discussion about the forked content that was then merged. This is just about providing/improving treatment of the overall topic of Opium Wars, making it a suitable entry point for readers. Note Google search on "Opium Wars" -wikipedia yields 274,000 hits, leading with: "A Short History of the Opium Wars", an excerpt from a textbook(?), and Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on "Opium Wars" (which also seems to include all of its treatment of First and Second wars). Again I don't dispute previous decisions to provide detailed, separate articles on the First and Second wars. The point is these examples are showing overview treatment at "Opium Wars". Note the overviews do NOT focus on opium trade; the overall importance of the wars is about general trade and about weakening of Chinese sovereignty. (Also, by the way, they show that 1967 Opium War is not considered part of the topic...I think it should be mentioned only in a hatnote plus in See also section.)

--doncram 17:22, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I suggest doncram took his valid content into China–United Kingdom relations. Vinukin (talk) 17:07, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec) I agree that the summary treatment could be located within a general history article (as others have said too, e.g. following Boer Wars example). But I am not sure about that one, because the "Opium Wars" topic is not just about U.K. relations with China. The wars and following treaties opened up China to many if not all other countries. Locating it into a general history article about China would be better, IMO. Hmm, where exactly. --doncram 17:22, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

To me History of China seems too general to accomodate a section title on "Opium Wars". And even the more detailed Qing Dynasty article seems unsuited to receive such a section title. Its section Qing Dynasty#Rebellion, unrest and external pressure covers the wars, but with two paragraphs of other material inbetween. A summary about the Opium Wars probably should situate them relative to the Taiping Rebellion and other events, yes, and should link to the Qing Dynasty article too. But merely redirecting "Opium Wars" to that section would not work well. A reader following a link needs to get an overview about the wars as a collective, as provided by Encyclopedia Britannica and the "A Short History" examples. --doncram 17:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I thought about that, but IMO Opium wars in a China topic will dominate excessively a period that this was just another one of many disasters in a period that China was still closed on itself. So I though on something about British influence upon China or East Asia. Vinukin (talk) 18:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Tell me if I understand correctly. Is this a fair restatement: [Vinukin suggests that an article or section written on "Opium Wars" as a topic will tend to inflate the importance of the two wars, relative to other events/disasters (including Taiping Rebellion) which also affected China when the nation was mostly closed off. This includes events before, during, and after the two wars.]

If that's then concern, then I think it can be addressed in the writing: just be sure to cover the other events/disasters, and explain how the two wars relate to them. Just as the general situation beforehand, and the treaties following the wars need to be explained, at least briefly.

Relatedly, some wish to emphasize that the two wars were different or very different, i.e. they had different causes and results, and they were separated in time. That's fine, that should be said in the summary article. From a broad perspective, they ARE similar in that they were both wars forcing China to open up trade (first to the British in a few locations, then to the United States and France, and then to expand to more locations). Then the writing needs to explain the relationship between other events and these wars, and to explain the relationship between the two wars. It can say something like: "Although the two wars are referred to collectively as the Opium wars, they have just superficial similarities (according to historian A and others), and their causes and results were quite different (according to historian B and others)."

IMO, these concerns are just about what the summary article will say. Those are matters for future editing. Possibilities that an article MIGHT over-emphasize one thing, that it MIGHT get the facts wrong, or that it MIGHT diverge from what is said in the detailed articles, are NOT reasons to ban an article on the topic. The topic is notable: again check the Google results and again note the links to the topic from other Wikipedia articles. --doncram 21:49, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

You definitely put it better than me. Imagine an article about the European interventions in China, with the content balanced between them and linked up into a coherent whole, what an amazing and herculean job! I don't know if a article with a lead, then a section about the Opium Wars and a conclusion about 1950 is better then what we have now. But I'm not inherently against the idea, just have doubts if it's feasible. Vinukin (talk) 23:33, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Well that does sound like a big job. To refine: the big topic would be maybe "Western" or "Foreign" interventions in China, to include the U.S., too, right? By the way, searching within Timeline of United States military operations, I see about 30 instances of U.S. interventions in China from 1843 to 2001 perhaps. Anyhow, we are seeing eye-to-eye, good. But we don't need to do the near-impossible. I am focused on the limited immediate need: a short summary article at Opium Wars, which is needed for readers seeking an overview, and is needed so that other articles can link to there without showing up as errors to be fixed, because they link to a disambiguation page. Again Google shows it is a very notable topic for which there is a standard textbook-type treatment. In contrast, searches on "Foreign interventions in China" (or "Western interventions in China") does not immediately show any standard treatment of that topic as a collective whole. There are numerous hits in those searches, of course, for example to academic articles on specific foreign interventions, but I don't see that collective topic being so obviously valid as "the Opium Wars". --doncram 01:24, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

After a lapse in discussion here, I went ahead and re-stored and further developed a treatment of the topic "Opium Wars" at Opium Wars. I made effort to address concerns expressed here. The wording could be improved; that is a matter of editing. It is meant NOT to duplicate, but rather to provide summary, overview type information. I really believe the validity of the topic of "Opium Wars" (meaning the mid-1800s wars in China) is thoroughly established. Since then I see that the Opium Wars article was redirected once again to the dab page, leaving NO treatment of the general topic. The edit had a summary expressing an interest again in having the treatment be located as a section in some other article, without identifying that other article. As stated above, I do not see any appropriate candidate article in which the general treatment could be located as a section, and that has not been answered.

I don't want to overstate a claim that there is a consensus here, but IMO the only decent alternative put forward here is to have a general treatment at the Opium Wars article. So in a way the one alternative is the consensus. There is no other suggestion standing. So at this point merely removing the general treatment verges on vandalism, IMO. I have restored the general treatment. I am HAPPY to discuss and work out something, including if it could be placed as a section within some other article (but which other article, you have to say!). The general treatment has been developed with some care and attention. If you have comments on the wording, please discuss here. If you have suggestion where else it should be located, please discuss here. Please discuss here. --doncram 14:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Each time the Opium Wars valid article is redirected to a dab page, that causes churning at a number of other articles including Peter Stursberg, Salt in Chinese history, Tao Zhu (Qing dynasty) and Trade dollar, because the wp:DPL project gets notified of new/bad links to disambiguation pages. Each time the redirect to a dab is corrected (by making it a valid article again, or potentially by redirecting it to a valid section somewhere), those articles need to be re-fixed. The back-and-forth editing here, and the general non-understanding of disambiguation here, is causing work elsewhere, and causing some frustration here. :) So, Please discuss here. --doncram 14:38, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I still think this is a relic from the past, the time when article were being written and simple there isn't material for more than one of them. Nowadays I just can't see its usefulness. Vinukin (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. While another encyclopedia just covers this topic area with 1 article, here there are 3 articles. There seems to be previous consensus that the 1st war and 2nd war each get an article. That causes a need for the overall article (which can be brief, can be summary only), to serve as a starting point for readers, and as a valid target of links from other articles (where it is appropriate to refer to the "Opium Wars" as a collective). You could question the usefulness of the 1st war and 2nd war articles being separated, but there's no way that an overall article can be eliminated, IMO. Maybe we are talking past each other, i am sorry if I am just not getting something that I should understand but do not. --doncram 01:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Really I don't think there is a big disagreement about anything important here. No one wants excessive duplication. All acknowledge (i think) there needs to be an indexing to the separate articles, whether at a disambiguation page or in a short summary article. And there is a very small technical point, that the indexing needs to be at an article; it can't be at a disambiguation page because it can't be linked to, and there is wp:DABCONCEPT .... --doncram 01:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

The lead seems a little bit long, IMO the lines until the citations would be more than enough. And what's the relation of the Boxer Rebbelion with the opium wars? AdjectivesAreBad (talk) 12:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

• I think what we have now is OK, as long as we don't get the equivalent of feature creep so that the whole issue with multiple topics starts all over again. The hat note can probably go, I spent ages fixing the incoming links so that only talk pages remained. As for the Boxer Rebellion, you could always look it up on Wikipedia .  Philg88 ^♦talk 15:26, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Yep Muppetmoo (talk) 17:59, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Quantities Imported Without Time Period Are Meaningless

The article mentions quantities of opium imported, such as "By 1787, the British were sending 4,000 chests". Without a time period this fact is ambiguous. Is it per shipment, per year, etc.