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Shin's book

This gentleman wrote a book called Escape to the Outside World: From Total Control Prison Camp No. 14 in North Korea, but I can't find it listed at Amazon, WorldCat, or anywhere. It apparently came out in 2007. There's a Google TechTalk video containing an interview with him where he reads from the book, albeit from a Korean version. Why this book is so difficult to find in the English speaking world is mind boggling. If it was never translated, that would be a true disservice to humanity... Enderandpeter (talk) 17:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Fully agree, this book will be a very important document and I also do not understand why we don’t see it being published worldwide. I suspect it is not yet completely translated and published in English. I only saw some English excerpts in a Radio Free Asia report and in a HRNK report so far.

The publisher of the Korean version is the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights and the Korean book cover is shown on the NKDB homepage. Maybe you could ask them on the status of the English publication? In case you found out more, please enhance this article. Gamnamu (talk) 10:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Escape from camp 14

The book 'Escape from Camp 14' by Blaine Harden says that Shin went on an extended journey to reach north korea, but did not "crawl there" as this article maintains. He spent a long time under the guise of a homeless NK and caught several trains, before bribing border guards to reach china. Being a wikipedia novice, im not really in any position to edit the article myself, however the article as it stands is incorrect. Please see the book for further details. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.237.198 (talk) 10:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Copyedit

I've copy-edited the article and rewrote some phrases into a more clear and NPOV tone. The biography section still reads like an editorial or a life story, which is not how an encyclopedia presents information. Please rewrite and remove any unnecessary editorializing as well as removing any undue weight or overly detailed descriptions that may not be notable for the topic as a whole. The tone of the article is like a personal account story or a narrative. - M0rphzone (talk) 20:20, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Shin Dong-hyuk's dramatic life story in NK is the primary thing he is notable for. It's not undo weight to retell it in some detail here (and 3 paragraphs isn't exactly that long). As for the rest of his life, he's hardly done anything since escaping that is notable. His life in NK may read like thriller fiction, but that is just how it was, it's all true and the article reflects the sources. You'll need to list specific words you have trouble with and explain why it's unencyclopedic or editorializing instead of generalizing with a tag. I've studied this person and read his biography and so am quite familiar with the sources and the facts. Green Cardamom (talk) 00:19, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that I also copyedited between the version M0rphzone was looking at and the version you probably saw, resolving some of the issues raised. - Jarry1250  01:55, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the copy edits. My only comments would be on these two deleted sentences:

• "to him this was the meaning of freedom" -- he says this very thing in his biography. It helps establish that he escaped not for noble notions of "freedom", but simply because he wanted to eat a hamburger. The point being, he had no idea what freedom meant, never having experienced it. To him, freedom from the camp = being able to eat what he wanted. It's an important point and not editorializing, it's in the source.
• "Shin stepped outside the camp for the first time in his life." Why is this editorializing? It's true, and it helps emphasize that he lived his entire life inside the camp, also in the source.

Thanks. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 03:16, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

We don't write articles the same way a biography or memoir is written. We don't emphasize anything. An article presents factual information on the topic, nothing else. No emotion or POV involved. If you want to include those sentences (without violating copyright as well), they should be written like "Shin considered this as the meaning of freedom" and "Shin....escaped the camp, leaving the camp for the first time." The phrase "in his life" is redundant. - M0rphzone (talk) 04:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid you mis-interpreted what I said about emphasis. Any writing will by its nature emphasize some things and not others, it's the nature of writing, it's impossible to be otherwise. The trick is to emphasize the right things, in the case of Misplaced Pages what makes the person notable. That is why this article is primarily a retelling of his experiences in North Korea. Every article is unique in that regard, in what the article emphasizes. As for the article's "tone", you still have not specified actionable problems rather just generalizations that are impossible to deal with, so again I've removed the tag, since it's impossible to know what the problem is. FYI the two sentences noted above are not in the article. Green Cardamom (talk) 07:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Here are some more problematic phrases (italicized): He was essentially bred by the guards; "Instead of being rewarded for turning them in as he was promised"; "Shin still has a number of large scars from the flesh being burned and from many other abuses" - (this sentence is also trivial detail and not necessary); "For Shin, nearly every meal of his life"; "Shin would provide local information about the camp" - (not good tense to use).

There might be more, but these were some of the problems I saw. I tried to fix some of them. What do you think? Any suggestions how to reword them? - M0rphzone (talk) 00:19, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit comment

M0rphzone, you left this recent edit comment:

so this is where you get those phrases from. It's from the interview - try not to use the same phrases

Who is "you", what phrases specifically, in what interview specifically? Specifically in this sense meaning which words exactly. Also, please don't delete talk page discussions, it's not good etiquette - I also posted in that thread and see no reason to delete it. Anyway, it's just not how things are normally done (outside ones own personal page). Green Cardamom (talk) 05:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

"You" is the contributor who added those phrases; I don't know who did, and I'm not going to take the time to find out. I meant Blaine Harden's interview. The phrases are pretty much everything that's cited with the interview (Park's body, leg slipping, food and cigarettes, etc. I'm deleting the Talk comments because they are useless, are attacks and take up space. Past my comment on the specific words, there's no need to include all the comments below, as they contribute nothing to the intended discussion. - M0rphzone (talk) 05:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Everything I contributed in this article from scratch from my own head, including the "leg slipping", "Park's body", "food and cigarettes". It is not cut and paste, I didn't even reference the book, just went by memory of the events in the book. Be careful about accusations of Copyright violation, it's a serious accusation and not good faith. You'd have to show exact word for word phrases (two words like "Park's body" is not copyvio). As for deleting huge sections of talk page discussions written by multiple people, it's just not done, no admin would approve of that. I'm a pretty nice guy so will let it pass but rest assured if you do that you'll run into problems with other editors who may not be so disposed to seeing their comments unilaterally removed! Green Cardamom (talk) 04:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Well I didn't accuse anyone of adding copyvio content or cut-pasting. I'm just saying be careful (any contributor) because the tone/content style sounds similar, but of course it's from the sources so it will be/seem similar. The "discussion" was actually only by 2 people, and it did nothing - in fact it just made things worse. Thanks for letting me know what you think about this (...and I thought you weren't a guy because of your username and the way you reply... (not implying anything), sorry for assumptions). - M0rphzone (talk) 05:50, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem being mistaken for the fairer sex seeing as how ours can be such dicks (not implying anything). Green Cardamom (talk) 16:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Anyways you need to stop taking things so seriously and telling your opinions everywhere. Go focus on other topics/events/issues instead of starting discussions about what others are doing. Mind your own business. If you're smart enough, then don't continue replying to this, and I wouldn't care about what others are doing if I were you - unless your ego is so big that you have to take everyone's replies seriously and continue to tell them what you think. Just stop; end of talk. - M0rphzone (talk) 23:18, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Just found this talk page, and don't know why the discussion has been so heated. Whatever was the reason M0rphzone, it doesn't look good if you remove other user's comment at article's talk page. You could remove obvious personal attacks at your personal talk page, but with all due respect you don't own this page. If you want to archive the discussion, please do it properly. Thanks, --PBJT (talk) 00:03, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

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