Talk:L'Arc-en-Ciel/Archive 1

Lowercase
Note to editors of this page: Laruku band members use all-lowercase letters for their names. Don't ask me why, they just do. (For verification see ja: entry or official web site.) Please don't alter the case of their names anymore; it is correct the way it is.

Thank you! R ADICAL B ENDER &#9733;  15:19, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

But are the ~ between the words instead of the normal hyphens also part of what makes this group so very special? --Wetman 01:54, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * What about making them italics so that we know they are proper names?


 * Japanese dosn't have capitals

Structure
I am going to change the way the information is diposed a bit so that it is more in comform to the Wikipedia standard. If anyone has any objection with the changes, feel free to discuss. --Sn0wflake 17:33, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Also going to add a picture and an article for Smile. --Sn0wflake 17:38, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Recent messing about
typography as used on album covers, etc., is very often fancy; we don't have to (and usually shouldn't) follow that. Relatedly, many bands use all capitals for their names, or for album titles (just as do books, newspapers, magazines, etc.). In a Wikipedia article, however, we should stick to normal typography unless there's very good reason not to. --Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 21:22, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

To Mel Etitis: Sorry if I'm messing up "all your work," but just as you were complaining about my waltzing in (I've been trying to keep this article up to date for some time before you "waltzed in"), look at the Singles section and tell me if they're up to date. They end at 1998 and the bullets are screwed! Hardly an improvement. And then the Video section, gone, that I put at least 25 minutes of work sitting and transferring all the info to the page. Just because you want to change a few things doesn't mean you need to totally kick out someone else's work, it's very rude and frustrating, especially when you then say how I was "waltzing in" when actually that was you. I find that very offensive. I'm going to revert it back and try to look for some of the things you're concerned about and try to make it work, but stop ruining the article, please. PS: About the not fixing double redirects, etc. I have moved articles before (like this article from its previous very incorrect spelling [something like L'arc En Ciel or something bad]) and I fixed all the double redirects. Just this time I happened to be at a bad moment to perform those checks and I just wanted to get the article back into readable shape. --XGSRPG 23:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I apologise for referring to youas waltzing in; that was irritation, and I should have stamped on it. I'm still feeling irritated, though.  Having said that you accepted the removal of tildes in palce of hyphens, you've actually replaced all the tildes; you've also undone all my attempts to wikify things like the misuse of italics for individual song titles (they should be in inverted commas).  I've reverted to my version, but kept in the new material (but tidied and wikified) that you added to the discography. --Mel Etitis  ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 08:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * My goal wasn't to get rid of your fixes but to return all the information to a decent state (the revision you kept reverting to didn't list any singles past 1998! and not to mention the video section was gone). Sorry for the misunderstanding. --XGSRPG 15:39, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I've just made (again) corrections to typography; it wasn't always easy, as the peculiar misuse of hyphens and capitalisation sometimes obscures which part is title, which translation, and which description. To show willing, I did it by hand (all over again) so as not to disturb other parts of your edit &mdash; but I'm not prepared to do that again. From now on, if other edits are mixed in with a change back to silly random and obscurantist typography, I'll just revert the whole thing. Flesh and blood can only take so much. --Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 16:47, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not going to keep reverting it back and forth because that will get us nowhere, but the capitalizations need to be kept, along with the ~s. Look at almost every single other Wikipedia entry for the other languages: they all use ~. And for the ~s in the song titles, I don't think someone accidentally typed ~ instead of - on the keyboard. How important it is, that's up for dispute, but you can't argue that it's not the title of the song. It doesn't matter what language Wiki this is either, the titles to the songs weren't written to conform to English standards, so it would hardly be a "misuse." Also, it's not like the capitalization they use is erratic, it usually follows several patterns: all caps, no caps, standard (first letter of most words), or just the first letter in the title. It's not like there are songs like LoVE flIeZ or anything. I don't know how much this analogy works, but look at the Black Eyed Peas song "Don't Phunk With My Heart." Funk is spelled wrong. Do you see people trying to fix it? I agree that it may be confusing but that doesn't mean the truth needs to be altered. Rather, a note could be given about this (since it's not usual for American artists). Also, I was wondering if you had any good ideas about the Singles section. It doesn't give extraneous info, but the way it's presented is very messy (the song titles, B-sides, romaji, AND sales are on one line!). So if you have any ideas (anyone) please say them! --XGSRPG 19:11, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I definitely agree with XGSRPG. To begin with, the name of the band IS L'Arc~en~Ciel, with the ~. It's inconceivable to change it! Also, the capitalizations are very important in Japanese music, so we should keep them as they are. The members are hyde, tetsu, ken and yukihiro. The albums are called DUNE (not Dune) and heavenly (not Heavenly). It's officialy that way and it is a part of the identity of the band. I don't see a reason why we should change that! If we want to be accurate and truthful we need to put things as they really are. Maybe a note could be made to explain to people that aren't familiar with this, as XGSRPG explained. Mel Etitis, I don't see why you have to impose your formatting... You didn't correct anything, as things weren't wrong. What's wrong is altering the official spelling and capitalization of the band's name, members, discography and songs, when they are even registered and trademarked that way. --Tetsu69


 * Not so. Look at iTunes for example. The name of the album is listed as Dune. The name of the band is listed as L'Arc-en-Ciel. All this fanboy/girl stuff about capitalization is basically irrelevant except for trademarked names. So what if the capitalization is important in Japanese music. The issue within an encyclopedia is readability, and respecting the standards of written English. Mobil the oil company has a trademark like this M o bil, but that has no relevance to how the name should be written in the text. Equally for ABBA with the reversed B. Song names are not trademarked, and I doubt the names of members of the band are either. The text is about certain individuals with certain names. These individuals do not determine how their name is represented when we are writing about them as people - the conventions of the English language do that. For example, in the name Harry S. Truman, the S. actually means just 'S'. But English convention still requires us to write the period and it would be a mistake to write Harry S Truman. In fact, we can go further and note that nobody insists on writing Harry S. Truman throughout the text, but simple refer to him as Truman. i.e. Truman is the standard way to refer to the person in question when talking about the man born as Harry S Truman. Of course, we exercise common sense when dealing with registered trademarks made up of essentially letters. So we should refer to the iPod as iPod - bearing in mind too that the iPod has never had an alternative spelling. ABBA, too, it makes sense to capitalize. GLAY no doubt as well (although the irony of people being so fussy about capitalisation when there are spelling and grammatical errors all over seems to be lost on many of the editors of these pages). I doubt any of the songs are trademarked anyway, and I'd like to see proof that the L'Arc-en-Ciel trademark has tildes (although it is possible of course). But it still doesn't matter. The correct way to write in an encyclopedia is to respect the standard way of writing the English language. Making an article difficult to read at the insistence of fans is unhelpful and meaningless. Writing about someone is not meant to reflect the way that person chooses to represent their name. The Gary Glitter article correctly can refer to the man as Gadd. Put the official capitalization of songs, names etc in the reference areas of the article (i.e. the side and end), but respect the rules of English within the text itself. Macgruder 09:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Although I agree with you about using the official capitalization in the references and proper English within the text itself, I must argue about your excessive wank about trademarks and what iTunes has to say about anything.

First of all, iTunes is the LAST source you should be using to cite as a reference to Japanese musicians. They are often inaccurate and out-of-date. Second of all, a lot of Japanese companies have no reason to bother with American trademarks for something as minor as song titles because there is little legal threat to worry about for them. Plus we're talking about a band backed by Sony here. I'm sure Sony could easily crush a contender with a small army of lawyers should someone object to or argue about anything related to L'Arc.

L'Arc~en~Ciel's official site should be the only reference needed for correct spelling and capitalization regarding members and titles. Wikipedia is not going to explode if someone insists on using the (correct) spelling of the name of the band with the tildes -- then again, it won't if someone lapses and does not use the tildes, but why encourage misinformation? LauraOrganaSolo 07:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

tetsu mentioned in his book that it's ok to use tildes or hyphens when spelling L'Arc~en~Ciel. In some of their projects, their name is written using hyphens so I guess that explains it. But as for the spelling and capitalizations of their work, I believe it would be better to stick with the way they're originally written.Bungeegum 08:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I just change all the hyphen back to tildes, but i can't change the article name and they won't let me move the page back to L'Arc~en~Ciel. Since I don't usually edit, so I'm really confuse now. It would be nice if someone can move the page back. Hinatako 00:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The official website currently uses hyphens in its header and the more central elements, which is official enough, looks less eye-catching and is also a bit easier to handle from an editorial perspective. (Though either variant might still be at odds with that passage in the Wikipedia Manual of Style about characters that are used "purely for decoration".) Stylistic details aside, the article really needs to see some work asap, to fix its glaring verifiability issues, lest it be reduced to a five sentence stub in the foreseeable future. - Cyrus XIII 13:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

AWAKE listing
I have removed AWAKE's track listing, as they are already listed on a seperate paged hyperlinked on the article. Royal Crown 20:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

capitalization
It's nice that the tilde (~) debate is finally resolved, but can someone who actually *owns* them go through and double-check (and fix) the capitalization for singles, once and for all? 204.218.240.83 15:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't entirely understand what you mean. Do you mean making sure that all words are capitalized, except for the 'en'? I've slowly been fixing them all and creating the proper redirects, it's just been taking some time. However, don't be afraid to do the work yourself and help me out. --^demon 18:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Like NatsukiGirl noted below, I mean double-checking titles against the official releases; "winter fall", as it says on the single itself, versus "WINTER FALL", for example. I'm keeping my edits to maintenance (fixing the constant hyde/Hyde/HYDE etc. battle), since I don't own the entire discography. 82.48.142.117 18:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Big changes and little changes
So far, I've added little bits here and there. A lot of it has just been writing style, to make the article sound more mature, and clarifying the confusing bits.

I was particularly surprised that the Awake section didn't mention the tour at all, not even a few words to indicate that it existed. In fact, the tour was only referenced in a line in the Asia Live section. So I added some info about that and my own theory about Hyde's costumes. If you disagree, add your own. That's just the one I feel most plausible. (I highly doubt that Hyde is showing support for Nazism.)

Also, the P'Unk~en~Ciel link goes nowhere. I'm planning on fixing that, unless someone else wants to step up? It's only mentioned in passing and I'm sure would be confusing to a new fan who turned to this page for help.

All I can say is that Laruku deserves a much better page from their fans. I suppose I'll be spending a lot of time on this page in the future.

--Phemeral 01:49, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking of compiling the songs that were featured in the various anime and movies into a list, instead of mentioning them whenever it fits to the timeline. Or perhaps (I suppose this is better) to write the title of the anime/movie/ad in brackets behind the song title in the singles list. I will then remove any mentions of theme songs from the existing paragraphs, unless it is written with a significant purpose. Anyone disagrees with me on this?


 * I will start with my second suggestion, do let me know which is better, or if I should just leave it as of current (which IMO looks pretty messy to me). minkyparfait 05:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Important Titles Note for ALL artists (please copy this on other asian artist talk pages)
I must note something very important for future editors of this page (also try to observe this for any non English speaking band or author... etc): If you see a single, album, dvd, concert, or book title that contains poor grammar, please consider that even though the English spelling or grammar may be incorrect, that it still may actually be the official title. If someone is searching for the single, and cannot find it the official way... then what good is wiki? Please do not tamper with titles unless you have found hard evidence that the title has been written incorrectly from the official spelling. also note, some OFFICIAL japanese titles are titled in all CAPS (or with stars and hearts or other "non-letter/number characters) this is NOT a mistake, please leave them like this. All one must do is observe the picture or written info of the single/album/book on the official page which is linked in the article at the bottom. Please help keep wikipedia encyclopedic and correct! Thank you. -- NatsukiGirl \talk 04:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, can you provide arguments on why should we break the convention? why not putting redirects in the all uppercase titles? The article text could use uppercase, but I don't see compelling arguments for changing the convention of the title. Also, for the "people wil lsearch for the upper case title", well, that's what the redirects solve. So far I haven't seen a discussion (perhaps you can point it to me) and since there's no consensus yet, I suggest not to change albums titles to uppercase (as in AROUND THE WORLD from the existing titles). -- ( drini's page   &#x260E;  ) 04:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization Soapbox
Unless an official rep of L'Arc~en~Ciel decides to poke his head in here (and I'm not sure why he'd want to) this uppercase/lowercase junk is just fan chatter. Personally, I doubt any of the band members give a flying monkey tail whether you capitalize the first letters of their names or not. I understand that some artists have legitimate reasons (i.e. hide of X Japan), but as Laruku has never come forward with a specific request that their names be lowercase, I don't see why we should have a petty edit war over it.

Hyde went from hyde to HYDE to Hyde, but if you're really a fan, I'd say you should know him well enough anyway to realize that he's not going to throw a hissy fit over a letter or two. If you'd really like to spend your time changing letters back and forth, be my guest. But if you'd rather have something more productive to do with your time, there are plenty of dead links in this article. I suggest making a P'Unk~en~Ciel page, as that's a serious gap. Or if you're obsessed with AWAKE, add to that pathetically short page. Those pages often turn out to be personal projects and for those control freaks and perfectionists among us, are seldom touched by other editors. Anything, ANYTHING, has to be more worthy of your time than a capital letter or two.

Technically, while they're part of L'arc, the members' names are lowercase. HYDE is the guy's solo project, and STAY AWAY is supposed to be cap-locked. But for the newbies to Laruku, which is the audience that this page will potentially benefit the most, STAY AWAY is the same as Stay Away, in all its choreographed schoolboy glory. But what'll confuse them is the sudden reference to P'Unk, tossed in and left as a brief allusion, or D'Arc, or whatever other little things that merit a little more concern and dedication.

You know, there are only six of William Shakespeare's signatures in existence, and in each of them, his name is spelled differently. Here we are debating over capitalization of tetsu or Tetsu or Ken or ken, and who knows if we're even spelling Shakespeare's name right?

So concluding my rant of the day, it'd be great if we'd all take a step back. For a second there, we couldn't see the forest for the trees. Remember the whole "a rose by any other name," speech by whatshisname, that one writer, Shakespeare? sHacKesPear?

Phemeral 03:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

official matters etc...
As we all know, hyde's name was never officially announced to be Hideto Takarai. As much as it could be 90% correct, it still remains as a fan guess. Changing that part a tad bit.

minkyparfait 06:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

D'arc~en~ciel
I'm not a big fan of L'Arc~en~Ciel, but I've heard some things about D'Arc~en~Ciel... maybe something could be added to the article regarding that? I'm still not very clear on what exactly it is/was. - Gemtiger 02:40, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Added to article - I'm new to Wiki, so apologies for any mistakes. While sakura was still drummer, D'Arc~en~Ciel was the equivalent of P'Unk~en~Ciel.


 * Are they called 'D'Ark~en~Ciel' or D'Arc~en~Ciel? The wiki has D'Ark~en~Ciel but on here they discussed as D'Arc~en~Ciel. D'Arc~en~Ciel has more listeners over at last.fm than D'Ark~en~Ciel but I can't find any credible sources that answer this question. --bmxgamer 23:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * They're D'Ark~en~Ciel, you can check the official site. It's written in discography section. ~ M racle

Can someone who knows about D'Ark~en~ciel add some info about it to the P'unk~en~ciel page? Thanks. theWHEEgirl 08:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There's not much more to be said about D'Ark~en~Ciel, the paralel project (or group) used to be formed by DARK TETSU (vocal), HYDE DARK (guitar), Suck・D'ark・la (bass; this member is Sakura, not Yukihiro) and Kën D'Ark (drums). In some concerts between 1996 y 1997 they played some songs like the Love You Only cover from japanese group TOKIO. Dark~en~Ciel's only recorded material is the song under that name on the 4th Avenue Cafe single and well, that's pretty much about it, feel free to add that info to the record, i took it from the Spanish Wikipedia page. Aoi v1 09:58, 6 August 2008 (GMT -6) i'm sorry, i don't know how to convert my time to UTC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.142.205.108 (talk)

Respect the Wikipedia style guidelines
All proper names should be capitalized in the body of the text. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28trademarks%29#General_rules (Special exceptions are trademarks with initial uncapitalized letters such as iPod and CamelCase)

Reduce track titles on albums where all tracks are in all capitals to title case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28capital_letters%29#All_caps

Most of the arguments that I see about retaining letters 'because that's the artist's official name for the album/song/person' misunderstand the role of the encyclopedia: to inform about the topic, not to display typographically these 'official' names. Sidebars and album notes at the end of an article can inform of these typographic vagaries - the body text should not. English readers simply are interested in legibility.

Whatever people's feeling about this, it is still important to respect style guidelines which have been developed over hundreds of years for a good reason. Nobody can arbitrarily over-ride these 'official' guidelines. Of course, common sense should be observed and the occasional judgement call (ABBA, for example) can be made but having the names in this article in small letters goes against Wikipedia rules. Macgruder 09:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Drug Charges Against Sakura
I notice that alterations have been made (again) regarding the charges against sakura. Why was everything reverted and simplified back to heroin? Did someone suddenly find a legitimate Japanese source that said it was heroin and not methamphetamine? Because until they do, we need a "sources needed" button or something a little more explanatory.

I recall this article also listing a bit about the debate over which drug it was and some other details explaining that a lot of Western fans don't know a lot of the details since it happened before a majority of Western fans knew who L'Arc~en~Ciel was and that said majority can't read Japanese anyway (note I said "majority" and not "all"). LauraOrganaSolo 07:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Speaking of references/sources, could someone find some for how many records they sold? As it is, someone could just be making up numbers or whatnot.   Oncamera 22:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Note to whoever changed it back to heroin: someone's personal homepage doesn't strike me as a terribly convincing source. Unless someone finds a legit article stating exactly what drug it was, there is NO REASON we should specify heroin. Leave it at "drug possession."LauraOrganaSolo 14:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. In fact I'm pretty sure it was metamphetamines. As a fluent Japanese speaker I googled Sakura's arrest articles. Although it doesn't specify which drugs, all the articles report that he was arrested under Japan's 覚せい剤取締法 which larely only applies to two classes of stimulants amphetamines, metaamphetamines and their derivatives. If he had been arrested for heroin possession he would have violated a different Japanese law, not the one he was prosecuted for. VenusinfursNY 20:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Also— I removed the line:"Many believe that the whole incident was blown tremendously out of proportion." It just sounds like weasel words. If someone has a reliable source, please talk about it here. --Nate3000 00:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

2nd Hiatus?
I was wondering if we should change the recent break into a 2nd hiatus. I've grown tired of seeing bitching regarding that there must be official notice for it to be considered a hiatus, however I'm pretty damn sure a hiatus needs no legal notice to actually happen as a hiatus is nothing more than ceasing current activities.

The same formula happened now as it did prior to Shibuya Seven - activity stops, members go into some solo works, big collection of old material is released (The Best of L'Arc~en~Ciel/The 15th Anniversary Goods), they regroup for one big concert venue event and a new single is announced. The only difference is the first one is longer by 8th months but that's justified with tours and the fact that they probably intended on re-uniting for the 15th anniversary for this one since it was just too big of a thing to pass up. Regardless, both breaks lasted over a year and followed the same pattern. Up to you guys really. Swordwise 18:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Small Change
I changed the Late 2005 and 2006 portion of the article. I added SEVENTH HEAVEN to the article and added it to the single list as well as changed SHINE from new single in the article to new song since while SEVENTH HEAVEN has been officially announced as a new single SHINE has not. And despite SHINE being known beforehand they've yet to make an official mention that it's a single meanwhile they announced SEVENTH HEAVEN. Swordwise 01:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't that discography table at the bottom be an actual template like Template:Michael Jackson? on camera (t)  01:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC) Nevermind, I went ahead and moved it to Template:L'Arc~en~Ciel.  on  camera (t)  01:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Punk' En Ciel
What ever happend to the Punk En Ciel information? It is still part of the bands history. I know that maybe it wasn't needed, but there could at least be a page made for Punk En Ciel... How else will new listeners with low Internet surfing knowledge know what Punk En Ciel is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.205.210.241 (talk) 12:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Re-added the information, although it isn't exactly the same as the previous entry. If you feel that I've missed out on any relevant points, please do help me add it in. theWHEEgirl 12:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Unforgiven, the rumoured single
Well, for all you know, HMV might have confused it with Drink it down. Removing that part, but I'll add it back if Laruku officially announces that they're releasing another new single. theWHEEgirl (talk) 09:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The name of the band
I insist that the name of the band is L'Arc~en~Ciel, not L'Arc-en-Ciel. If you disagree, let's discuss it here. Undoing edits you disagree with without discussing it first is not a way to improve the article. I guess we have a lot of work renaming L'Arc-en-Ciel references throughout Wikipedia. Netrat_msk (talk) 11:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Their website lists their name as L'Arc-en-Ciel. If you have a source for using tildes, please provide it.Kww (talk) 12:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 1. It is not possible to use tildas in domain name for technical reasons, so there's no wonder their web site does not use tildas.
 * 2. Their posters use tildas, here are some of them: a) http://e-duo.podomatic.com/2006-01-28T21_28_35-08_00.jpg ; b) http://www.otakon.com/images/guests/larc_announce3.gif
 * 3. They are also listed as L'Arc~en~Ciel at LAST.FM: www.last.fm/music/L'Arc~en~Ciel
 * 4. Their CD and DVD covers use tildas: a) http://www.bigtakeover.com/images/139.jpg ; b) http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HRJAGPK3L.jpg ; c) http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FY7PAQM7L.jpg ; d) http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/15245.jpg
 * Netrat_msk (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The site also uses hyphens in page titles and artwork unrelated to the URL, which is a conscious, stylistic decision, rather than just a technical one. Given that, the form "L'Arc-en-Ciel" is obviously not without precedent and as such we use it, as it more closely follows standard English text formatting than the variant with tildes (see WP:MUSTARD and WP:MOSTM). - Cyrus XIII (talk) 23:16, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Their CD covers, DVD covers and posters use tildas. In my opinion CD covers, DVD covers and posters are more reliable sources. Netrat_msk (talk) 11:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * A more prevalent use of the tilde-form is beside the point. The website is a reliable source that uses hyphens (and not the only one, as a quick look at Amazon.com and the All Music Guide shows). Per our style guide for trademarks we "choose the style that most closely resembles standard English" and per the standards of WikiProject Music, we apply said guide to band names. - – Cyrus XIII (talk) 11:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * (1) Amazon.com and All Music Guide are excellent sources for Western music, but they are pretty lame on Japanese music. AMG does not even have their biography. Thus Amazon.com and All Music Guide are not reliable sources on this band. (2) I insist that CD covers, DVD covers and posters are more reliable sources that a web-site. (3) Some CD covers might look like they are using - instead of ~. I believe this is just a feature of the font used. As you might know ~ in some font does look more like -. However, other CD and DVD covers clearly use ~. (4) Even on the web-site, its possbile to encounter L'Arc~en~Ciel, just browse discography section. Netrat_msk (talk) 17:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You may insist all you want, dismissing sources that do not support your position as lame or less reliable will do little to get your point across. Neither will dodging arguments rooted in this project's own style guidelines. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 08:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I would like to ask ask you not to ignore sources that does not support your point of view as well. I did answer the arguments for using hyphen: this may be rooted in technical limitations (even official site uses hyphen outside URL only once, all other uses look like are Welcome to LArc-en-Ciel.com) and actually is less prevalent.


 * You did not explain why a more prevalent use of the tilde-form is beside the point and why web-site is a reliable source and official CD/DVD covers and official posters are not. Please answer my arguments. Netrat_msk (talk) 11:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I already did. Kindly scroll up to my February 16 post for the style guideline I linked and quoted for you. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 12:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, so you agree that actual name of the band is L'Arc~en~Ciel, but insist that it should be rendered as L'Arc-en-Ciel not correspond to the policy. Good.
 * I have read the manual and it looks like it deals mainly with trademarks that cannot be represented using standard Latin symbols. A_Time_to_Love by Stevie_Wonder is a good example. However, there's no problem writing L'Arc~en~Ciel with standard Latin symbols. There's no need to choice a variant that most closely resembles standard English, as L'Arc~en~Ciel can be written in standard English directly.


 * By the way, I see this manual as questionable. Does it suggest renaming all articles on bands to most closely resemble standard English? This suggest moving R%C3%B6yksopp to Royksopp and Sa%C3%AFan Supa Crew to Saian Supa Crew and not vice versa. Do you agree this would be wrong?


 * If you move L'Arc~en~Ciel to L'Arc-en-Ciel, then why not move Sa%C3%AFan Supa Crew to Saian Supa Crew (which would be wrong)? If a rule prevents us from improving Wikipedia, we should ignore it. Netrat_msk (talk) 12:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree we'd better discuss manual on style at its own talk page, but could you please answer my first argument (There's no need to choice a variant that most closely resembles standard English, as L'Arc~en~Ciel can be written in standard English directly)? Thank you in advance. Netrat_msk (talk) 11:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand both sides of this discussion. I don't plan on taking either sides. Mostly because both sides are equally strong (and equally unbending). Instead, I propose something along this line:

By making use (or introducing) a "template" similar to Template:Bracketed (e.g LOL_(^^,)) at the top of the page, telling the readers that the original name of the band is "L'Arc~en~Ciel", but for the purpose of Wikipedia (or give a better reason, if you wish) it will be referred to as "L'Arc-en-Ciel". This way, both sides can be happy. The readers won't think that the band name is "L'Arc-en-Ciel", and the band name would conform to Wiki standards.

Please, share with me what you think of my idea (with least flaming as possible, please). I haven't made any changes to the page, so there is nothing for you to revert back to (at least not because of me). Talk2chun (talk) 01:14, 29 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Although that would be perfectly fine for not stepping on toes, I feel that Netrat's argument definitely wins. Everyone agrees that the name of the band is L'Arc~en~Ciel and his examples of band names shouldn't go ignored; they clearly illustrate that the scope of the guideline cited by Cyrus XIII does not encompass this issue.  Dfsghjkgfhdg (talk) 00:41, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Article name
Shouldn't the article name be L'Arc-en-Ciel (Music Band) because there are multiple relevent results for this term, including Rainbow and the Alan Parson's Project song by this name, which does not have its own article, but this is clearly not the only L'Arc en Ciel.


 * Instead of that, we could just add a Disambiguation links at the top of the page, since the consensus is that the page with this title is most likely about the band L'Arc~en~Ciel (or L'Arc-en-Ciel). Talk2chun (talk) 01:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed>Bread Ninja (talk) 17:22, 5 October 2009 (UTC)