Talk:National Diet/Archive 1

Kokkai
Reasoning for move (from Diet of Japan), we should call things by their Official name if possible and let redirects handle the other names. That's all. Emperorbma


 * I did the move because it's better than a cut and paste, but I disagree with the move; most English speakers do not know the term Kokkai. See also Naming conventions (use English). - Hephaestos 05:07, 23 July 2003 (UTC)


 * Hum, I have already moved it. I feel that it should be at Kokkai since the system supports redirecting, and people will know that they are where they want to be.  We should be as official as possible.  Besides Duma and Knesset are in their own articles and most English speakers just call those the Russian and Israeli Parliaments respectively. Emperorbma 05:12, 23 July 2003 (UTC)

Google disagrees with that assessment; I know Google's full of misinformation, but it's good at telling "what people call things" (even if what they call things is erroneous) because after all that's exactly what it indexes. So I tried some searches with the "English only" option turned on.


 * "israeli parliament" (in quotes): 11,600; knesset: 83,800
 * "russian parliament" (in quotes): 58,600; duma: 213,000
 * on the other hand,

Hephaestos 05:25, 23 July 2003 (UTC)
 * "japanese diet" (in quotes): 9,410; kokkai: 2,110


 * *Sigh* Oh well... you can't win 'em all...  OK, I'll put it back.  Sorry about all this.  I don't suppose it'd hurt to leave it here? Emperorbma


 * Actually I'd like to wait for an opinion from someone besides just the two of us; let's leave it here for the time being - Hephaestos 05:35, 23 July 2003 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with that. I am really sorry about all this anyway.  I don't see how it'd hurt either way, I just feel it looks better in it's native tongue. ^_^;;  Emperorbma


 * I can think of another major arguement for Kokkai over Diet of Japan. Diet also means food, and some people could confuse "diet of Japan" with the "Diet of Japan".  (Yes, it is a silly thing, but some people could) Emperorbma
 * Oh it's no bother really. And I got to thinking "Japanese Diet" comes up with hits on the more mundane English version of "diet" so that count might be way off. - Hephaestos 05:46, 23 July 2003 (UTC)


 * 4220 out of 5590 results pertain to food (I used "food" as an additional search word). Interesting, this doth a quandary pose. Emperorbma


 * I'm tempted to go with whatever the Kokkai/Diet itself uses in its official English-language publications. I have no idea how to find out what that is though. - Hephaestos 06:01, 23 July 2003 (UTC)


 * The National Diet Library (English) says "National Diet" in it's title, but I am not sure that's what they use as an official name.


 * Google turns up 14,300 results for "National Diet" -food (I looked through 5 pages, all were pertinent) I don't know but maybe "Japanese National Diet" or somesuch could work?  Or we could keep it here.  Maybe we should have a WikiVote from passersby to test the waters first. Emperorbma

OK, I've searched and "Diet of Japan" still works (as a WikiGo to redirect) here, so for the time being we're safe while we poll the guests.

P.S. "Diet of japan" didn't work, but that's to be expected since the 'pedia is case sensitive. Emperorbma 06:50, 23 July 2003 (UTC)

I don't know what's the matter here. Diet of Japan is an official name just like Self-Defense Force is. Don't bother with Japanese official name since this is an English edition. -- Taku


 * OK, I concede that it is probably better to put the article here, but what happened to the Kanji in the article? -- Emperorbma 02:05, 20 November 2003 (UTC)


 * P.S. I like the changes... I readded the &#22269;&#20250;, though. -- Emperorbma 02:13, 20 November 2003 (UTC)

No idea what happend to kanji. I also changed the first sence a bit. We really don't have to say the title is an English and a translation from Japanese language because there is no alternative term for Diet of Japan in English language. -- Taku 03:16, 20 November 2003 (UTC)

German version
I decided to add a German version of this article, but I'm afraid my German has deteriorated more than I'd thought. The article's there, but it may not be up to par, so I'd appreciate any help that a more proficient German speaker could offer.


 * Well, as a German native speaker I might be able to help. My problem is, that the German Wikipedia contains maybe 20% of the material on Japan to be found in English Wikipedia. I don't know where to start translating. And I'm still busy with the Library of Congress material... it all depends how busy I'll be at university in the next months. -- Mkill 22:42, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Diet/diet/parliament
Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:41, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) why not call the article Parliament of Japan like others in Category:Parliaments by country.
 * 2) shouldn't the term diet be lower case if it is standing alone?


 * I would suggest just leaving the article where it is. Lots and lots of articles link to here, and unless you have a bot at hand, it's going to be a real hassle to update all the links. -- Mkill 22:42, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

"This article is about the Japanese legislature. For information on Japanese food, see Japanese cuisine." Fantastic! :D:D --Heathencourt 19:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Name of article
Most people think the Diet of Japan is sushi. They will look for this article at Parliament of Japan or Japanese Parliament, and that is where this article should be moved to.


 * It's called the Diet of Japan. I can't help that - it just is. What most people think is hardly any measure of correctness in any case. If people enter any of the non-official names, well, the redirects are in place, so they'll end up at the correct article anyway. That's what redirects are for. I suggest you take your arguments to Diet of Worms and see how they react there. Shinobu 16:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on mediaeval Germany but so far as I know the Diet of Worms is what that assembly was actually called. The Japanese Parliament is not called the Diet, it is called Kokkai, which I believe translates as "Parliament". To distinguish it from other parliaments it should be called the Parliament of Japan or Japanese Parliament. Adam 06:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe it was called the "Reichstag zu Worms" in German. But the generally accepted English name is "Diet of Worms". Same with the National Diet of Japan. There's no reason at all to change the name, just because you are affraid that people will think this is an article about sushi. Shinobu 11:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Strange sentence
I am having a hard time understanding (and finding a source) for the following statement; "In 1994, a representative bloc was also introduced for the House of Representatives, at first at an even split of 250:250. When the LDP regained power in 1996, this was changed into the current numbers." Any help is appreciated. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 01:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

GA Passed
This article is well written, well cited with reliable sources, and the pictures work in nicely. The coverage is broad and I don't see anything lacking with regards to the GA criteria. Suggestions for improvement: make sure all the likely misspells, wrong names, etc. for the Diet are redirected here. Try to find something else to say about the Diet, for example try to briefly mention and wikilink to notable cases where the Diet exercised its powers (not strictly needed for GA, I think). That's about it --Meowist 02:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Why Diet?
In a related question to above, does any expert know why, originally, the name "Diet" was chosen for the translation of the Japanese parliament? As opposed to, say, Congress or Parliament?

Congress or Parliament would seem to be used more often in English than Diet to describe a national legislature. --Sumple (Talk) 05:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * From the article: The word diet derives from Latin and was a common name for an assembly in Medieval Germany. The Meiji constitution was largely based on the form of constitutional monarchy found in nineteenth century Prussia and the new Diet was modelled partly on the German Reichstag and partly on the British Westminster system. Shinobu 22:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Reichstag ? Wasn't it the Prussian Landtag ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.241.36 (talk) 10:59, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Correct English?
"Any citizen of Japan at least twenty years of age (the age of majority in Japan) may vote in these elections. [1] This means that the seats to be filled in any given election are divided into two groups, each elected by a different method"  is confusing... where's the entity represented by "This"? What exactly is that referring to? Bobxii 21:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The preceding sentence? To me it reads "That any citizen who is old enough may vote means ..." Of course, the prose can be improved, though. -- Taku (talk) 05:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps
This article has been reviewed as part of WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. The amount of referencing does not comply with the standards as they have developed today, but following strictly the letter of the rules it is still barely sufficient. A greater variety of sources would also improve the article; now there are a lot of self-published sources, more academic references would be good. Lampman (talk) 16:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Diet of Japan
Should we merge this article with Japanese cuisine? 203.184.4.56 (talk) 12:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Have a good think yourself. --  李博杰   | —Talk contribs email 00:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We should merge them together as soon as possible as it is of great importance. Transaction Go (talk) 03:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Members of Diet
Okay so in Westminster systems the politicians are MPs. In the US they are Congressmen. What are they in Japan?


 * Dieticians, naturally. =) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Makes perfect sense. Transaction Go (talk) 03:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

2012 Gen. Election changes
Recently, the LDP won a landslide victory. I think the Diet's seat composition and statistics ought to be updated ASAP. 24.38.207.36 (talk) 11:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
So, is it pronounced like "I'm going on a diet" or is it pronounced differently? I can't find anything on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.30.93.159 (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I just call it the Japanese Parliament, or by its Japanese name Kokkai, mainly because they sound better than "Diet". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.38.207.36 (talk) 11:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

What does "electoral bloc" mean ?
"Of 480 members, 300 are elected from single seat constituencies under the Single Member Plurality ("First-past-the-post") system, and 180 are elected from eleven separate electoral blocs under the party list system of proportional representation (PR)."

What does "electoral blocs" mean here ? Parties ? Or regional subdivisions with separate PR representation ?Tallewang (talk) 06:17, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The latter. They are eleven regional constituencies which each elect between six and 29 members by proportional representation. (A few of them already have individual articles in Category:Districts of the House of Representatives of Japan.)
 * I would love to know why they were named burokku (ブロック ) in the first place, i.e. "bloc" (probably better English in this context) or "block" ("official" English translation, e.g. on the HR website). burokku is widely used in election coverage; and senkyo-ku (選挙区, electoral district/constituency) then often refers exclusively to the 300 single-member districts. However, the electoral law (e-gov: full text) never refers to the PR districts as "bloc[k]s". --Asakura Akira (talk) 08:57, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Democratic Party
The Democratic Party no longer exists. The infobox needs to be updated accordingly. Charles Essie (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed, I will update them if no one else does, once general election 2017 settles down. Alex ShihTalk 19:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * See this Jiji press article for a graphical "virtual" composition of both houses of the Diet as of 10/23 [including President, Vice President with their parties, and the retroactive nominations for the HR election, as noted in the footnote]. Don't forget that the Democratic Party [at least for the time being] has members of the Diet in the HC where it still the largest opposition party, active prefectural federations, prefectural and municipal assembly members, and some money. But hopefully, the nationwide parties will have found some more reasonable (with regard to the election system and to keep Wikipedia articles simpler) realignment soon, preferably by the first session... --Asakura Akira (talk) 18:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Getting consistency with composition in the infobox
The composition of the two chambers in this article and the respective chamber articles has been kind of an inconsistent mess for a while now and I think it would be a good idea to move towards laying some consistent ground rules for it.

There are two questions we need to answer:

1. Should the members be displayed by caucus (political group) or party? Currently, the HoR members are displayed by political party (from the latest election results) while the HoC is displayed by caucus. Some examples to illustrate the differences: if we show by party then the SDP has a seat in the HoR but if we show by caucus then they aren't displayed because their one member caucuses with the CDP, also some independents in the HoR caucus with some of the other parties and in fact there is even one caucus made up of 5 independents. For what it's worth, the official sites of both chambers list the members by caucus.

My personal opinion is that listing by party is much more clear and easy to understand for the reader. This would also make it line up with the election results and party member strength gauges in party article infoboxes, whereas otherwise there is an incongruence which can easily cause the reader confusion.

2. How should the seat charts be aligned? I had both of the charts going from left->right with the largest party on the left and just going down the line by size of party with independents at the end. I see that for the HoR this has been changed to try to reflect left-right political alignment. If this is tradition on Wikipedia then fine, but to my eye it looks very confusing and unnecessarily messy (i.e. why is Ishin to the right of LDP, why are independents in the middle etc.), not to mention subjective since Japanese parties don't easily fit onto a left-right spectrum.

Interested to hear thoughts. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 05:17, 10 November 2021 (UTC)