Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan

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Akita

Akita (dog), an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article.

Strange edit war going on

I tried to add sources to the article Wokou, but I am being reverted by three editors, one of whom called me a "loser" in Korean in his edit summary, another who does not give a coherent explanation for his reverts, and the last of whom is blasting me as a "nationalist", without providing evidence, and seems to have admitted on the talk page that he didn't actually read my edit before reverting it. I'm not really sure what's going on here but I welcome other eyes on this article. Shii (tock) 12:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

That's been going on for quite awhile, with an abundance of finger-pointing, arguing, and pouting over who the wokou were, their nationalities, who they attacked, etc. Check out the archives and you will see a stunning cascade of protracted debates. I decided to steer clear because I don't know enough about the subject and the editors involved are bitterly relentless. Boneyard90 (talk) 23:16, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I requested semi-protection for the article on WP:RPP. Sources are being removed, and unsourced lists of Japanese samurai "culprits" added, over and over. Shii (tock) 15:49, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Kyahan

Kiahan (kyahan) has been requested to be renamed, see Talk:Kiahan (kyahan)#Requested move. Just thought I'd bring this other VERY similar (exactly the same) RM to the request of WPJ as well. -- Konjakupoet (talk) 07:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Iga-ryu ninja

FYI, there's a notice at WT:WikiProject Martial arts about a proposal to merge all the Iga Ninja articles into the province article. -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 00:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kameni Nakamura

Please discuss therein. Bearian (talk) 22:25, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

How to determine Japanese title

I've been having several issues with User:Ryulong with one particular issue: Japanese naming conventions. For example, Ghost in the Shell japanese cover shows as "攻殻機動隊" with "The Ghost in the Shell" under it. And because of this Ryulong includes "The Ghost in the Shell" alongisde the kanji within the nihongo template. So it looks like Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊 The Ghost in the Shell, Kokaku Kidotai Gosuto In Za Sheru) when using nihongo template. I've attempted to explain to the editor that there are no japanese reliable sources (or any source) includes "The Ghost in the Shell" with the kanji unlike previous adaptations Ghost in the Shell (film) that has its japanese title as "Ghost in the Shell/攻殻機動隊" (despite the cover NOT having a "/" on the logo) and Ghost in the Shell (video game) in which its title is "攻殻機動隊 Ghost in the Shell". I know this sounds difficult to follow. But basically there's no proof that "The Ghost in the Shell" is part of the Japanese title for the original manga.Lucia Black (talk) 23:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

When did you make this? The book has "攻殻機動隊 THE GHOST IN THE SHELL" on its cover in Japan. I think that's pretty clear.—Ryulong (琉竜) 16:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Shusaku Endo notes

The notes for Shūsaku Endō are quite distracting. Can anyone see a good reason for the notes being the way they are? --Rsm77 (talk) 10:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As the current article uses Grouping footnotes, It is distracting. The problem can be solved by using Harvard citation.

(Example)

Aaaaaaaa. Bbbbbbbb.

Bibliography

• Morton, Leith (November 1994). The Image of Christ in the Fiction of Endō Shūsaku. Working Papers in Japanese Studies. Vol. 8. Japanese Studies Center, Monash University, Australia. ISBN 0-7326-0591-1.

References

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 12:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

They are ghastly, aren't they! But someone did them that way, I think User:Fleetham. You very rarely see that style used. Personally I remain convinced that nothing has significant benefits over a simple <ref..>Morton, 1 <../ref> style, with the book in plain text at the bottom. If you want to change them raise it on the talk page. Johnbod (talk) 22:24, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, I've raised it on the talk page. If there's no reply in about a week or when I get round to it, I'll change them.Rsm77 (talk) 00:00, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I changed the notes to Harvard citation. I think I did it correctly, but if anyone has a moment to check, it would be appreciated.Rsm77 (talk) 00:56, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Category National Treasures of Japan

I might have discussed this before, can't remember, but here it goes... Category:National Treasures of Japan states: Articles in this category are about individual objects that are national treasures, or about institutions that hold these treasures, or the people who created them or about "Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties", popularly referred to as "Living National Treasures". I have several issues with this:

1. Living National Treasures of Japan are not a sub-category of National Treasures of Japan, see the Cultural Properties of Japan article. I would not include them here.
2. I haven't seen the creators of National Treasures of Japan (e.g. Yosa Buson) being referred to as "National Treasures" anywhere besides here, so I would not include them in the category.
3. Some people/sources seem to refer to "institutions that hold these treasures" as "National Treasures" themselves. In particular I've seen this with temples, where the temple itself is referred to as National Treasure even though only one building (e.g. a pagoda) is a National Treasure. So, including the institutions is technically incorrect, even though one could argue about it. bamse (talk) 08:26, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• Feel free to be bold and fix it yourself (but also feel free to give me a yell if you need help). There are quite a few silly categorizations—the Japanese multilingual templates were formerly categorized under Altaic multilingual templates (until I added the category Japanese multilingual templates), and the Chinese multilingual templates were under Sino-Tibetan something. The parent category that they both (Altaic and Sino-Tibetan something) were formerly hidden under is Category:Multilingual support templates. But there is also a Category:Language templates containing Category:Japanese language templates. It takes quite a bit of specialized knowledge to clean up categories, and I seem to recall that the last person who tried to clean up and simplify the mess and the duplication got a long Wikibreak for being "overly zealous". LittleBen (talk) 11:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I fixed 1. and 2. I don't feel strongly about 3, but if you wish, you can fix it. bamse (talk) 21:31, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

A quick favor, please

Hello all. I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me what is written on the bottom of this photo? Many thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 23:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The characters are from right to left, but to put them left to right for easier reading, 帝國巡洋艦 鞍馬. 帝國 is imperial, 巡洋艦 is cruiser, and 鞍馬 is the name, Kurama. So you get "Imperial cruiser, Kurama", essentially the same as the English. I'm not 100% certain about the character (艦) but if it's not that, it must be a variation with the same meaning.--Rsm77 (talk) 00:48, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I guessed it was something along those lines. Parsecboy (talk) 01:25, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

艦 is read kan and means a ship of war (or warship). As in 戦艦 senkan, meaning battleship. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Mengu

Those interested, please join the ongoing discussion at Talk:Mengu (Japanese facial armour)#Requested move. Thank you! Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 02:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Iga province ninja

I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Martial arts#Iga-ryu ninja to discuss combining some of the existing articles on these ninga. I'm hoping for contributions from those with more knowledge of Japanese history. Thanks in advance.Mdtemp (talk) 20:50, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Help with DYK for Team Syachihoko (urgent)

Could someone please come here: User talk:Amberrock#DYK for Team Syachihoko?

There's a very minor problem, but someone who speaks Japanese is needed to assure the administrator that my version of what the source says is correct.

It won't be good if a wrong fact appears on the main page of Wikipedia. By my calculations, my hook is due to appear on the main page in less than 11 hours. It is here already: Template:Did you know/Queue/2. --Moscow Connection (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Notability of DH Publishing?

I am considering writing an article on DH Publishing (DH Publishing, Inc., ディ・エイチ・パブリシング株式会社), a Japanese company that publishes English language books in the US. One of the sources for Tsugumi Ohba is a book published by this company.

However, I am having trouble finding secondary sources in English about this company. Is anyone good at looking for info in Japanese from secondary sources? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 00:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid they don't have any more of a web presence in Japanese than they do in English. Cckerberos (talk) 08:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Hentai a task force? RfC discussion

Seeing that this does fall under this project's scope I am linking the discussion here. The question is should Wikipedia:WikiProject Hentai be a taskforce under WP:ANIME? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

NHK controversy?

There seems to be a lot of stuff on Twitter about NHK somehow spying for the North Koreans, I can't make out what the issue is, has anyone else seen this?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 07:28, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Apparently the name Tsukamoto Sōichi, NHK's Seoul bureau chief, was found on the membership list of a NK propaganda website. NHK said this was for informational purposes since there were parts of the site that could only be viewed by registered users. Everything I found on this was from about a month ago and it doesn't seem to have made it to the mainstream media. Cckerberos (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor is coming

The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look (nearly) the same in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. The devs currently expect to deploy the VisualEditor as the new site-wide default editing system in early July 2013.

About 2,000 editors have tried out this early test version so far, and feedback overall has been positive. Right now, the VisualEditor is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages. When it's deployed in July, the old editor will still be available and, in fact, the old edit window will be the only option for talk pages (I believe that WP:Notifications (aka Echo) is ultimately supposed to deal with talk pages).

The developers are asking editors like you to join the alpha testing for the VisualEditor. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "Edit" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old editing window (which will still be present and still work for you, but which will be renamed "Edit source"). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). See what works and what doesn't. We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences, especially if something mission-critical isn't working and doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.

Also, if any of you are involved in template maintenance or documentation about how to edit pages, the VisualEditor will require some extra attention. The devs want to incorporate things like citation templates directly into the editor, which means that they need to know what information goes in which fields. Obviously, the screenshots and instructions for basic editing will need to be completely updated. The old edit window is not going away, so help pages will likely need to cover both the old and the new.

If you have questions and can't find a better place to ask them, then please feel free to leave a message on my user talk page, and perhaps together we'll be able to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Correction: Talk pages are being replaced by mw:Flow, not by Notifications/Echo. This may happen even sooner than the VisualEditor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Japan Re-entry Permit Cover.png

image:Japan Re-entry Permit Cover.png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 00:01, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Stature of kamikaze pilot.jpg and File:Statue of kamikaze pilot.jpg

File:Stature of kamikaze pilot.jpg and File:Statue of kamikaze pilot.jpg have been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 04:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

A discussion on broadcast dates

Konnichiwa WikiProject Japan. I have started a discussion at the Village pump on the use of official broadcast dates used by Japanese television stations and other sources versus the actual broadcast dates in articles regarding Japanese TV shows. For reference, the original discussion at WT:ANIME is here. Any input is appreciated. Thank you and happy editing. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:19, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Ryūkyū province and domain

In March 2013, Ryūkyū Province and Ryūkyū Domain were discussed and archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Ryūkyū province and domain.

In May 2013, Shinkai Shaw here converted the province article into a redirect. The edit summary which explained this was brief -- "Japanese Wikipedia deleted."

In order to better understand, this may be helpful:

• Ryūkyū Kingdom (琉球王国, Ryūkyū Ōkoku); compare 国 = ja:琉球王国
• Ryūkyū Province (琉球国, Ryūkyū-no kuni); compare 国 = ja:琉球国 (令制)
• Ryūkyū Domain (琉球藩, Ryūkyū han); compare 藩 = ja:琉球藩

Japanese history distinguishes these closely related articles:

• Ryūkyū Province (1609-1947) has a centuries long history which starts in 1609
• Ryūkyū Domain (1872-1879) has a very short history with very specific start and specific end dates

It matters that Ryūkyū Province -- like other provinces of Japan -- is defined by location. In contrast, Ryūkyū Domain -- like other domains of Japan -- is defined in terms of terms of (kokudaka), not land area.

What appears to be Shinkai Shaw's point-of-view is inconsistent with what research makes plain. For example, Ryūkyū Province is explicitly recognized in the English language text of treaties in 1894 (a) between Japan and the United States and (b) between Japan and the United Kingdom -- see US Department of State. (1906). A digest of international law as embodied in diplomatic discussions, treaties and other international agreements (John Bassett Moore, ed.), Vol. 5, p. 759. This factor was not considered in the decision-making process at ja:wikipedia -- see :ja:Wikipedia:削除依頼/琉球国 (令制).

If this needs further discussion, then this may be a good venue for it. --Ansei (talk) 23:40, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

What we need to do is compare the utility of having two highly related articles, in this case the Province and Domain, as their histories are concurrent, or separated by only a few years difference.—Ryulong (琉竜) 07:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

There are a few issues here:

1. Although I see you've made a number of edits to the two articles, their content is still almost identical.

2. I touched on this briefly during the earlier discussion, but it's worth mentioning again as it was the focus of Japanese Wikipedia's decision to delete: there really doesn't seem to be much evidence for the formal existence of a "Ryūkyū Province". Yes, the term appears in the English language treaties, but I can't find the corresponding Japanese texts to confirm what the Japanese usage was. I would not be surprised to learn that 藩 was translated as province.

3. Even if the province was established following the Meiji incorporation of Okinawa into Japan, it seems doubtful that it was a formal province of Japan before that. Some 17th century Japanese colloquially referring to Ryukyu as one the Shimazu provinces isn't much in the way of evidence. In contrast, I've never seen Ryūkyū included in any of the Edo period atlases, surveys, etc., that I've seen.

4. It's really hard to search for this, as "Ryūkyū Province" would be written the same way as the "country of Ryūkyū" is. But I can't help feeling that if such a province had existed, it wouldn't be so hard to find evidence of it. Cckerberos (talk) 08:15, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

@ Cckerberos -- yes, you acknowledge very clear, objective point-of-facts. This is English Wikipedia and anyone can read the linked text in the published version of treaties in English. Also, you acknowledge the other published source support which can be readily verified. In light of what I've already written, it's hard for me to know what else is required. What is to be done when the dispute boils down to research which produces verified facts vs. __________? I'm puzzled by quibbles which marginalize WP:V.--Ansei (talk) 13:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel these are quibbles, as they seem quite important to me. A statement that "some Japanese" used an expression which indirectly shows that those Japanese regarded the Ryūkyū Kingdom as a Shimazu province does not show that Ryūkyū Province existed as a formal government entity from 1609 (if you want to argue that the Ryūkyūs were regarded a de facto province of Japan, that'd be different). Cckerberos (talk) 15:14, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Ansei, these are effectively content forks.—Ryulong (琉竜) 09:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

@ Ryulong -- no, this is not about best guesses. Perhaps it will help you to review the two non-congruent categories -- (a) Category:Provinces of Japan and (b) Category:Domains of Japan. The distinction is not meaningless. In specific, the two sets of pigeonholes are explicitly explained with cite support. What part of it did you not understand? The two articles mirror what research finds in unambiguous English language sources. In other words, why is it necessary to point out that the Japan-US treaty and the Japan-UK treaty were not about rice, not about kokudaka?

@ Ryulong -- no, your revert here is unreasonable. In the context created in this venue, your reasoning is heedless. The so-called "consensus" you mention here can only be made up of something other than verifiability. Your edit forces anyone to ask where is this so-called "consensus"? What is is based on? Without more, your revert appears to be based on nothing more than an unexplained intensity of preference. --Ansei (talk) 13:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

You've repeatedly edit warred over your preferred two-article system despite people disagreeing with you many times over the course of 2 months. Maybe you should give it a rest.—Ryulong (琉竜) 14:32, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

And perhaps you should take a look at ja:Wikipedia:削除依頼/琉球国 (令制) which examines the fact that they have no proof that "琉球国" was ever used in Japanese court documents. So stop restoring your content fork based on an ancient misunderstanding.—Ryulong (琉竜) 14:35, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

No, the term "edit war" is an inappropriate label here. Please recall that I started this thread. This tends to undercut the rationale for using the derisive term "edit war." More importantly, our movement towards WP:Consensus is not helped by this label.

The "consensus" of published and cited sources is acknowledged, is it not? This tends to undercut the rationale for using the derisive term "content fork".

Let's try to agree that this discussion thread is not about my opinion or your opinion. Can we start by agreeing that WP:V is fundamental in the on-going work of our project? --Ansei (talk) 15:01, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Is this the wrong venue? Perhaps we will be better able to establish common ground in the context of a wider discussion at WP:AfD? --Ansei (talk) 15:18, 13 May 2013 (UTC)