Talk:History of Japan/Archive 5

Ä

On/In

 * Sri Lanka Tamils, who have lived in the archipelago for centuries
 * People have lived in this archipelago for at least 10,500 radiocarbon years
 * Those foreigners who lived in the archipelago were subject to the prevailing political and social powers

Please don't copyedit if you cannot grasp the elementary distinction between 'living on' and 'living in'.Nishidani (talk) 07:59, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * All in the context of Japan, to boot:
 * "a population of Paleolithic humans, known as Akashi man, had lived on the archipelago"
 * "Clarifying the as yet poorly understood process by which the lives of all who have lived on the archipelago have"
 * "and localities on the archipelago, has continued on into the present. Clarifying the as yet poorly understood process by which the lives of all who have lived on the archipelago have molded ..."
 * Not that you care, because you're obviously out for a fight. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (a)First, learn to format your links correctly. (b) exclude evidence of usage that derives from non-native speakers, which you fail to do. (c) your original revert edit summary reads:'you live on, not in, an archipelago'. This assumes as standard English usage what is no such thing. (d)I provided 3 precise readable links to academic works showing that, whatever the status of 'on the archipelago', it is easily verifiable that 'in the archipelago' is perfectly normal English usage, so your dismissal of it as 'crappy' and confident assertion are based on unfamiliarity with English usage. (e) The distinction in locative nuance between 'on' and 'in' escapes you: on has a vertical nuance, the other implies greater horizontal extension. As is normal in idiom, these shade over and are often ignored. No one says 'live on Japan' which would be the logical extension of 'live on (the archipelago of) Japan', whereas if the topological area is very large, you  can use either ('live on the continent', 'live in Europe': to 'live on Europe' as 'live on Japan' is solecistic, also because it produces an ambiguity (as if one lived on European welfare, as in 'live on a subsidy'). All of this escapes you. Bullheadedly, you went back, notwithstanding the evidence I provided, on the basis of the 3 snippets you googled, without reflecting on the issue I analysed in the sequence of edits (here) and the emendation here. Since your second revert provides no justification for preferring one idiom over the other, it is vindictive or merely one motivated by pride, or getting one's way. Remember, this is a global encyclopedia, idiom varies in Anglophone countries, and presuming that one's own instincts are enough to guarantee precision is inept. Your original edit merely shows you were not familiar with the varieties of English usage, and your second showed you don't stop to analyse the problem. Got that?
 * I will revert back because I have an example of the usage referring precisely to the period referenced.Nishidani (talk) 10:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You can stop lecturing now---your last incompetent piece of WP:POINTy "referencing" has demonstrated that improving the encyclopaedia is not what you're here for. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I.e. you have no answer (cf. this edit summary is empty of meaning, and full of sentiment). Thanks for telling me on my page I lacked communicative skills.Nishidani (talk) 11:53, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Answer to what? That you can't comprehend the difference between geographical and political entities? Or do we live "in" islands and "in" continents now? Listen, Nishidani, I'm not your English teacher, and I'm not here to play these mindfucking games on the talk page. I'm here to improve the article; go play on 4chan if you're not. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Talk about "empty of meaning"–stop disrupting articles to make shallow, empty WP:POINTs. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sure it's "in". You don't say "I live on the Ryukyu Islands".  ミーラー強斗武   (StG88ぬ会話) 04:17, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No, we've already demonstrated and agreed both are used and moved on (though you would never say "There's a mountain in the island." would you?) That particular issue has been resolved—what hasn't been resolved is Nishidani's disruptive editing: This is never acceptable under any circumstances. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Problems with the lead.
In my opinion there are two problems with the lead: 86.56.81.143 (talk) 12:16, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) No mention of Shinto, and
 * 2) The old age, continuity and political/cultural importance of the imperial dynasty should feature more prominently.

✅
 * Really, this was really haphazard. How about we slow down and work out what the lead needs first, like I already suggested below?  Just slappin' in more info is only going to create a mess. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:04, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * When it comes to leads, my first instinct is to keep it short. I am constantly told during good and featured article reviews to shorten the lead, but as of yet I have never been told to lengthen the lead. Still, this is a big article, so the lead could still be expanded. I did mention the imperial dynasty and Shinto. What do you think that the lead needs?CurtisNaito (talk) 03:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This isn't about lenghthening the lead, this is about stepping back and working out how best to summarize the article in a balanced way. You guys can figure that out, though—I'm done with this article.  Have fun duking it out with the warriors who haunt this talk page. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:28, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree. Perhaps we should make a list of things that should be in the lead and then build a new lead here from that list instead of just trying to tweak what's there already. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

(3) 'The earliest known pottery found in Japan dates to the Jōmon period of roughly 13,000 to 400 BC.' Pottery in Japan predates that by more than 1,500 years (Junko Habu p.42) Nishidani (talk) 13:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I think we should stop adding stuff to the lead, its already pretty long. Maybe it would be a good idea to write a completely new lead like curlyturkey suggested. First we make a list with the most important things/facts we want in it, then we put them in chronological order, and then write the new lead. 89.16.133.80 (talk) 06:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing issues
Regardless of who was right or wrong regarding the "(in|on) the archipelago" kerfuffle, this edit is inappropriate in all situations and contexts on Wikipedia.

To support the usage of "in the archipelago", Nishidani found sources in which such a construction is used—fine. Then he added one of those sources to the opening line of the lead as a "citation" supporting usage of "in the archipelago". Not a source calling the usage correct, nor a citation for any information in the sentence fragment it was attached to. That Nishidani would disrupt article space over something so trivial calls into question the rest of the sourcing he has added the article recently: how much of it is biased POV chosen to prove some other point, one that's perhaps politically charged?

I didn't get very far with my copyediting, and I'm going to cease. The problems with the article are "so big and so deep and so tall" that copyediting is not the solution, and this sourcing issue has convinced me to stop wasting my time. This article should be sent to WP:GAR and either demoted or have its sources examined one by one by a knowledgeable third party to ensure they've been used in an appropriate manner. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:33, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So far the only sourcing problems you have pointed out relate to sources which were added just within the last week after the good article review was already complete. Nishidani came to edit this article after the good article review. I have already verified the accuracy of all the sources which were added before the good article review, and if needed I could certainly also check the sources which were added recently. Alternatively, we could just revert some of the text back to where it was at the time of the good article review. Regarding the edit you mentioned above, maybe there was a sourcing problem, but there were also some issues simply with style. For example, it's normal for a Wikipedia article to start with the title of the article in the first sentence, so I don't think that the title of the article should have been deleted there. Even so, 90% of the text of the article has not changed since the time it passed good article review, so we are only talking about problems with maybe 10% of the text.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:12, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Any citations provided by Nishidani need to be double-checked—he has demonstrated that he doesn't understand the how or the why of sourcing on Wikipedia. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:25, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I understand. Please give me another day to personally examine this matter. I will check the sources and perhaps also make the text a little more readable if possible.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:27, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Uh ... well, you're not really a third party, are you? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:42, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I may not be a third party to the material added prior to the good article review, but that material was already checked prior to the good article review. I'm offering to check and streamline the material added since the good article review, which so far is the only material which you have objected to.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Generally the sources check out fine. There was one sentence, "Environmental changes contributed to a rise in Japan's population during the early Jōmon period from a few thousand to an estimated 260,000 in mid-Jōmon times according to Koyama", which mostly failed verification to its source, so I replaced it with a different one. It was more an issue of trying to make the prose more articulate and concise. Some additional copy editing might still be needed.CurtisNaito (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Haven't checked the source in question, but if Nishidani did add a "source" to the article to verify a grammatical point rather than a factual claim in the article ... he is still only the fourth or fifth most disruptive user based on adding V-violating material to the article in the last week. But I do agree with Curly Turkey that the article should go to GAR. I checked most of the citations of Henshall that could be accessed on the GBooks free preview, and virtually all of them contained a degree of "interpretation" of Henshall's somewhat barebones description. 10:44, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Who added Henshall? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:12, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * CurtisNaito did. I checked one place that cited him, and it failed verification (that's what started this whole mess). I then went around checking all of the cites to him that I could based on the GBooks preview: they all contained original readings of things Henshall never wrote. I therefore think it's highly likely that all of the citations of Henshall (including the ones I can't check myself without paying to import a copy of his book on Amazon) are original interpretations not backed up by Henshall's own words, and a full review should be performed. My location means that old and obscure Japanese books can be accessed for free in any library, but American and British books are relatively hard/expensive to come by. I'm currently searching around for a copy of an unrelated book by Hayase Toshiyuki, by the way; should have it by the end of the weekend, and might chime in on a certain FA review with my findings. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, GAR it already, then—this is no GA and it won't become one any time soon given all the tendentious editing by multiple editors. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:56, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Curly Turkey You keep promising to leave, but your still here, and still eagerly casting aspersions. How about you make good on your promise? Just a suggestion. zzz (talk) 13:04, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Scroll up—I said "I didn't get very far with my copyediting, and I'm going to cease."—and I did. How about you quit baiting people? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:29, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict) CT, unless you're willing to guarantee not only that you will immediately show up and support removing the article's GA status, but that CurtisNaito's attack dogs -- and the attack dogs of various other users who don't like me and recently made a massive push on ANI for me to be site-banned -- will not start harassing me again (something you obviously can't guarantee), then you should not tell me that it's my responsibility to start yet another broad community discussion and invite more harassment and hounding so soon after all the other bullshit I have had to endure over the past few weeks. If you start the discussion, I will support de-GAing as soon as I get the opportunity, and post all of my findings disproving the article's GA status. If any other editor starts the discussion, I will do the same there, too. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 13:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that CN may be intending to use the GA status as a bludgeon to keep restoring his version, so it certainly should happen. Should be a formality. I can't stand forms tho. zzz (talk) 13:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * @zzz: How dare you state the blindingly obvious like that!? Who the hell do you think you are? Don't you know that pointing out that other users are doing what they already admitted they are doing is a blatant violation of WIKIPEIDA POLISY???
 * Sarcasm aside, I also hate forms. That's just another reason I don't want to be the one to open the GAR.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 13:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hijiri 88: I didn't say it was your responsibility and I didn't mean it to come across as so. Somebody should GAR this, but I won't since I have no intention of working on the article any more as long as I keep getting trolled. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * CT: Who was trolling you? I saw a very small and frankly petty dispute between you and Nishidani over whether one lives "in" or "on" an archipelago, and one potentially POINTy addition of an irrelevant source arising out of that dispute, but not trolling. I defended you in your recent dispute with another user on ANI, because if that case you really were being trolled by a user with a creepy tendency to ... troll. But here you have a very minor content dispute with another user, which you should both just get over at this point. Looking at Nishidani's talk page it looks like he tried to get over it already, and you kept trying to get him to admit that his addition of that ref was POINTy. I think Nishidani needs to reread WP:V (something I'm sure he's read dozens of times over the years already, and just needs a reminder) and you need to read WP:HORSEMEAT. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 13:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking about Nishidani, although he's one reason I've given up on this article. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Some feedback
A lot of details don't belong in the article—rather, they belong in subarticles, not in the overview this article ought to be. Things like:
 * "It has been widely assumed that the Jōmon people led mostly sedentary lives in settlements consisting of a dozen or so pit-houses, though this has been recently questioned."—if it's questioned, then perhaps it should be ditched at this scope (just how important arre these details, anyways?)—but is the questioning widely accepted? Is even mentioning it perhaps WP:UNDUE?
 * "The date of the change was until recently thought to be around 400 BC but radio-carbon evidence suggests a date up to 500 years earlier, between 1,000–800 BC." Is the radio-carbon evidence disputed?  If not, then 400BC should go—if it is, then there's probably a better way to handle this without getting into the details of radio-carbon dating.

These kinds of details just drag down the reading experience, and the article seems to be filled with them.

The lead really needs a good rewrite—I found even a thorough copyedit didn't deal with how unbalanced it is. The pre-Tokugawa shogunates are more or less skipped over, while Pacific War-related stuff gets 934B out of 3122B (nearly 30%). Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm currently making a bid to rewrite the lead. Give me another fifteen minutes or so. I'm hesitant to change the other two sentences you mention because they were recent additions to the article and I wasn't the one who added them. Hopefully someone else will fix them.CurtisNaito (talk) 08:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Guilty. I added . We don't need to mess up the article with so-called "evidence" - just leave it with the wrong date, like in the Good Article review, so as that way it's less confusing on Wikipedia and we can focus on improving the article. zzz (talk) 09:16, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Way to completely miss the point. Read what I actually wrote again, very, very slowly, and make an especial effort at comprehension. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Uh-huh: You said we can't mention the date believed until recently and the new evidence, because: ""These kinds of details just drag down the reading experience.""
 * I comprehended that. zzz (talk) 09:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I said no such thing---it's all right there in black and white . You comprehended precious little, and don't appear to be trying. At this point I have to wonder why you're even participating in the discussion, if not to derail it. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You may not have noticed but this is the only discussion left around here such as it is. You said "Is the radio-carbon evidence disputed? If not, then 400BC should go" (it isn't) followed by the quote above. I don't see why it should go, except for the supposed "reading experience" reason you gave. Whereas adding specialist sources to correct nonsense you (apparently) dismissed as "political horseshit" for some reason. zzz (talk) 10:14, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The "political bullshit" was the head games you guys are playing that wasn't related to resolving the issues I brought up. If the radio-carbon dating isn't disputed then the 400BC date is invalid, is it not? Regardless, that sort of hairsplitting belongs in a subarticle, not in an already overlong article that is only supposed to give an overview of Japan's long history and point readers to more specific articles for details. Do you understand what "summarize" means? Do you know what "scope" means? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The strange thing is, if you'd bothered to look at the edit history, you'd see that all I've done is correct factual errors and add sources while cutting down on verbiage. Go ahead and check. So none of what your saying is relevant. Cheers zzz (talk) 11:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What a bizarre non sequitur. The edit history is irrelevant. I'm talking about what's there now and needs to be fixed and why. If you're not interested, then quit wasting everyone's time. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * POTKETTLEBLACK zzz (talk) 04:04, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The passages you question were defective and inaccurate, and specialist sources were adduced to corroborate a rewrite which corrected the nonsense. Your objections are pointless.Nishidani (talk) 07:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Uh ... come again? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll try re-writing the lead a little now. However, because some of this discussion here is focused on whether or not the good article review was detailed enough, I feel I should add that neither of the two sentences you are criticizing above were in the article at the time of the good article review. When it comes to clarifying those sentences, I'll probably leave that to be sorted out by the editors who added them not long after the review was completed.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:12, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, Total and utter bullshit. "Unlike earlier Paleolithic peoples, the Jōmon people led mostly sedentary lives in settlements consisting of a dozen or so pit-houses." was in the review version.
 * "Japan's Jōmon culture endured over 10,000 years until a societal revolution began around the year 400 BC which inaugurated the Yayoi period" was in the review version, failing to mention the latest expert opinion pushes the date back by half a millenium. zzz (talk) 07:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The part of the first sentence that Curly Turkey mainly criticizes is the part reading "though this has been recently questioned". That part was not in the reviewed version. However, Signedzzz, why did you mention the sentence starting with "Japan's Jōmon culture endured..." Curly Turkey did not mention it, and it wasn't in the article when he started to copyedit it.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:23, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:CIR zzz (talk) 07:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * But you mentioned the sentence starting with "Japan's Jōmon culture endured..." My point is that this sentence was deleted after the good article review and was already gone by the time Curly Turkey started his copyedit.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This is pitiful. I can't be bothered any more. zzz (talk) 07:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I removed the collapse box again. Assuming good faith on the part of Curly Turkey, a user whose edits are usually good but who might have a minor temper problem every now and then, he was reverted by Signedzzz, about the only user (and that includes me) who will likely come out of this without a black mark on their ledger. The box was only readded by CurtisNaito, in yet another attempt to undermine users who disagree with him and express his unilaterally declared ownership of this article, and with a somewhat snide edit summary that was clearly aimed at me, CurtisNaito, Signedzzz and everyone else who disagrees with him. If Curly Turkey still wants the box in place, we can talk, but I won't tolerate any more attempts by CurtisNaito to OWN this article and/or its talk page. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 13:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I do object to the box's removal—nothing in it was aimed at contributing to a disucussion about improving the article. It was made up of an aggressive attempt to discourage discussion on Nishidani's part and squabbling that belonged elsewhere between Curtis Naito and Signedzzz.  Not that there's any chance a good-faith discussion will now ensue. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 14:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Emperors' names
"Emperor Shōwa died in 1989 and his son Emperor Akihito"—okay, anyone competent enough to edit this article will see the problem right away. Which names should we go with? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Never mind—I cut the sentence entirely as being out of scope for the lead. The beginning of the Heisei period is hardly the momentous event that Meiji was. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Based on common name policy, I personally have opted to use the name Hirohito only.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:16, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As much as I hate to say it I think the article should use the Showa Emperor's personal name. It's almost certainly less offensive to Japanese sensibilities than trying to match one emperor known by his era name to another emperor who should never be known by his era name while still alive (despite what the writers of The Last Samurai may think). This only applies to emperors who have reigned since 1945, right? 182.249.205.78 (talk) 03:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, that would apply to an awful lot of articles and thus shouldn't be decided here (RfC?). The issue to be cleared up was having Shōwa in the same sentence as Akihito—a clear brain fart. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Wait, are you talking about referring to the Showa emperor by his personal name, or referring to the current emperor by his era name? If there are any articles that do the latter, then they need to be changed -- no one calls him that. 182.249.205.78 (talk) 03:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about referring to one emperor by his era name and the other by his personal name, obviously. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Wait, is unifying the way the two emperors in the above-quoted discussion are referred to not what you are talking about? If not, then I'm afraid I'm not competent enough to edit this article, because I not only did not see the problem right away but still am failing to see it. Emperors Meiji and Taisho are almost never referred to by anything other than their era names -- calling them by anything else would be questionable; the Taisho emperor's son, though, is rarely referred to by anything other than his given name in English, and his son should not be referred to by anything other than his given name, out of respect if not for verifiability. It is highly offensive to refer to a reigning emperor as though he had already passed away, and I have not seen any source in English do this except for the above-cited poorly-researched action movie. Call every emperor up to but not including Meiji by their standard name, call Meiji and Taisho by their era names, and call Showa on by their given names -- problem solved, no? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 11:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, whatever. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 14:08, 4 September 2015 (UTC)