Template talk:Holydaze/1001

Why is it showing up already, when the server time is still Sept 30th? Must the date be specified somewhere else apart from the template title? Röstigraben (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Because RationalWiki is accessed by users in multiple timezones & so displays these things for 48 hours - from halfway through the day prior (according to server time) until halfway through the day after.
 * On another note, do we really want to celebrate the People's Republic of China, which is not generally thought to be among the world's more compassionate and cooperative regimes? Is this some stupid politically correct thing or some even more stupid ironic thing?   22:08, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Speaking for myself, yes. Because honoring a country's national holiday does not necessarily entail a full-scale endorsement of its policies. It's neither stupidly politically correct nor ironic to acknowledge that there's a little more to a nation of a billion people than just its small cadre of leaders and their actions. Thanks for the info on how the template works, though. Röstigraben (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * But you've written "Long live the People's Republic of China" & put a propaganda portrait of Mao Zedong next to it. If your intention was not necessarily to entail a full-scale endorsement of PRC's policies, you've failed miserably.  Surely there could be something better to honour China's rich cultural heritage.   22:32, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What I did, or tried to do, was to recreate this. It's a place that is as iconic for China as the Statue of Liberty is for the US, nothing more. If you seriously think it's supposed to brainwash our editors into supporting the actions of the CPC, change away. Röstigraben (talk) 22:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's intended to brainwash editors but it's at risk or alienating them. Chinese society is changing faster than its government, & young people particularly are increasingly sceptical of the sinocentric myths fed to them.  If we have readers in China (which I think is unlikely at this point, though not impossible) they are likely to be at the more enlightened end of the spectrum, & could feel patronised or even insulted by anything ostensibly pro-Mao.  & Then there's the rest of the RW community, who may not be comfortable with dictator mugshots on the Recent Changes screen.  I can see what you're saying re Tiananmen Gate, but obviously the imagery is a lot more ideologically charged than most national monuments.   22:55, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know, I could show the site to some people and ask them what they think. The interest in coverage of the antics of Conservapedia and other strange Western cranks is probably rather limited. Young people, especially urban ones, are actually more likely to be firecely nationalist than their elders, though. But no matter whether they're "enlightened", nationalist or whatever, they're very unlikely to be offended by images of Mao, especially when they're presented in the exact same context as in the place where the eyes of the nation will be turned to today. His cult of personality died with the man himself, and while his face is still plastered all over China, it's simply become yet another national symbol. Therein lies the problem that criticism of Mao by foreigners will easily be misinterpreted as an attack on China. Which does not mean that such criticism should be muted, and if you're concerned about having his image up, I'm fine with replacing it. But you don't have to worry about offending the sensibilities of our (likely nonexistent) Chinese audience with that. Röstigraben (talk) 23:17, 30 September 2011 (UTC)