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Revision as of 04:57, 15 April 2005

Controversy section

TAS has also been criticized for an abnormally high rate of serious juvenile crimes, including murder, theft, vandalism, gang violence and rape.

Criticized by who? Cite a source that clearly supports this point of view (POV); otherwise this is clearly a perception rather than reality.

- It has been the subject of Taiwanese media for a long time. I will not cite names but remember the amphetamines and the graveyard drinking, beating to death of fellow student, stealing laptops from the science department and throwing objects to destroy bleachers, stealing motorcycles, skaters getting into fights with prefectory chiefs and the park after spraypainting the park. These incidents have not been archived online as are a lot of other local Taiwanese news reports.

Many Taiwanese citizens believe that TAS has a deleterious effect on Taiwanese society and that TAS should be shut down.

Taipei American School serves only the Taipei community so how it could have a deleterious effect of the entire Taiwanese society is beyond comprehension.

- Obviously, if it is in Taiwan, it will generate a ripple effect that will quickly affect all of Taiwan. Removing TAS from Taiwanese territory will slow such bad influences.

This is unlikely, however, because the TAS administration is believed to have numerous connections with local gangs, who help lobby for TAS's continued presence.

You are speculating. Does "local gangs" include the Taipei City government? Ma Ying-jeou has made several visits to TAS. You are also one step short of advocating a POV by suggesting that TAS should really be shut down.

- No, it is clear that Mark Ulfers attended the well publicized funeral of a Four Seas Gang leader a couple of years back. I am not speculating.

Allentchang 02:49, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have found no source to these allegations. I replaced the POV paragraph with facts from news reports. SchmuckyTheCat 02:12, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I found the section rediculous even after the improvement made by SchmuckyTheCat. Schools are not outside of the society and therefore social cases occurs in side of schools. The robbery has nothing to do with the school according to the story. Do readers need to know these information? Do we treat other schools with this tabloid style editing? I do not think so. I think the whole controversy section should be removed.--Mababa 02:44, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• yeah, I wasn't real happy with it either. that's why my additions basically said nothing about it actually being involved with the school. chalk it up as a lame attempt to assuage a POV editor. the rape though, is pretty serious and is well reported. SchmuckyTheCat 03:24, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• The information being reverted needs to be sourced. "Well reported in the media" should mean well documented, and let me include the source. No one is reverting the rape section, because there is an actual source behind it. You may very well be right, but think of it like a research paper, anything not sourced is hearsay. Wikibofh 00:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Junk in this article

What is the "sewage accumalation pond" ?? And why are the alumni described as socialites, germs, and playboys? I have no idea aobut this school at all and come to revert a vandal, someone who cares, and knows, shuold give it a good look over. SchmuckyTheCat 03:29, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I am an alumnus of the school. There is no sewage accumalation pond. There is a pond there for ecological studies which I helped work on when I was a high school student there. I won't deny that there are those socialites there in the high school, but many of the alumni are also scientists, engineers, and doctors (partially because of parental pressure). Many of them go to the UC system or to the Ivy League Schools. There are usually ten students each year who end up at UC Berkeley. To focus mainly on a fraction of the alumni who are socialites, germs, and playboys can be extermeley misleading in terms of the entire alumni population. I cannot remove the list of alumni unless I can find clear evidence that they are not from the school, but to mislead people that the school only produces socialites, germs, and playboys is dangerously close to treading on POV. All schools have good apples and bad apples, but I feel it is totally inappropriate if I spent time researching alleged crimes that occur in every school and university listed on the Misplaced Pages and have them reported on the Misplaced Pages. Having a controversy section on possible crimes committed by students here creates the precedent that there can be a controversy section on all other schools and universities listed on the Misplaced Pages. Allentchang 20:43, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That is a propagandistic view of presenting information about a school. If, for example, you look up the Misplaced Pages entry on Columbine High School, they mention the "Columbine High School massacre." Nothing mandates a controversy section. However, being an encycopedia it is nothing but being dutiful to include all sorts of information, regardless of the editors' feelings towards them.

If you have any idea of what Blank's Pond is, you know what I mean by sewage accumulation pond. All it is is a muddy puddle about 5 feet wide and 10 feet long. Maybe it was once used for ecological studies, but not in 10 years. Many parts of the original article drastically misrepresent what TAS is. There is no olympic sized swimming pool, the library is not close to rivaling that of a small liberal arts college. I just come to spread the truth.

Allentchang, the point is that there are a rather large number of crimes at TAS versus the rest of the Taiwanese schools and it has often been the subject of Taiwanese media. I don't see how you can deny that. Yes, a lot of students go to the UC system, but that doesn't really say a lot, considering how poor the American education system is compared to the Taiwanese one.

• If you claim that there are a rather larger number of crimes at TAS versus the rest of the Taiwanese schools, give me statistics and not abstract claims. The Taiwanese media has always been notorious with polls and statistics. Which part of the American education system is poorer than the Taiwanese one? The Taiwanese educational system has its own pains. A school that offers plenty of AP and IB courses is probably an above average school to say the very least. The reason I said that the TAS library rivals that of a small liberal arts college is because recruiters from those small liberal arts colleges told me so. I was also told by the staff at TAS about the size of the indoor swimming pool. It sounds to me that you probably had a rough time at TAS . . .

stop accusing the taiwanese media without posting statistics about them being "notorious with polls and statistics"

ALL parts of american education system are poorer than Taiwanese. For example, an AP physics course is equivalent to what is taught in junior high school. Similarily a college level discrete math course in the US offers no more than what is taught in Taiwanese junior high schools. English classes in Taiwanese high schools are roughly equivalent to those at TAS high school. There is NOTHING that TAS people know more than locals.

so why do you trust a bunch of lying TAS stuff and you don't trust me? do you really think that pool is olympic size? wtf. And that shitty library, without subscriptions to research journals can rival the library of any college? you must be really phucked in the head.

True, Columbine High School deserves an entry about the shootings because that news has shocked the entire world and is an extremeley heinous and rare crime. But should we list the major crimes (theft, burgarly, rape) on every page about an educational institution? If I wanted to, I could have written about controversial stuff that happened at Ming Chuan University and Soochow University, two institutions that my parents teach, but I know that it is inappropriate to do so. Crime has significanly increased at both instuttions over the years, but they don't get saturated media coverage since they are not international schools. I could also write about major crimes that occur at UC Berkeley, which I am at. And then about the "Puja Germs" thing. I did a google and yahoo search on this terminology with quotes. There was no search result on google. There was one search result on yahoo, but it was a page done by someone related to TAS. That doesn't sound very memoriable to be mentioned on the alumni list compared to Takeshi Kaneshiro. (Type "Takeshi Kaneshiro school" and you do get references to TAS. Allentchang 02:56, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Heh, look, not EVERYTHING is on google. you are a dumbass.

To the person who created the controversy section

I have invited the unknown user who created the controversy section and who reposted the controversy section again and again to give his/her opinions on this talk page. I am extremely disappointed that this unknown user has yet to use this talk page and at possible vandalism on the page (such as "sewage accumulation pond"). Allentchang 20:49, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I did not know about the talk page. What I wanted was to portray a true picture of the Taipei American School. The original page was reading like an advertisement.