Wikipedia talk:China-related topics notice board/2005

Archives: 2005 - 2006 - 2007

Old discussion

 * article on the Duke of Zhou is a meager stub.
 * The entire set of new locator maps is complete. A gallery is now up at WikiProject Chinese provinces/Locator maps.
 * proposal that Wikipedia adopt IPA as the standard for Cantonese Romanization at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (China-related articles)
 * how to pad each cell 1em top/bottom and 0 left/right at List of administrative divisions of Jilin? alt design at List of administrative divisions of Jilin/Temp
 * dispute at Wikipedia talk: Naming conventions (Chinese) on how to handle the terms "mainland China" and "People's Republic of China".

Say this in your native dialect
Talk:Chinese language needs your help! If you speak any dialect of Chinese, and if you have a microphone, please consider making a recording of the following sentence translated into your native dialect and upload it to Wikipedia: "&#25105;&#23478;&#26377;&#20004;&#20010;&#25104;&#20154;&#21644;&#19968;&#20010;&#23567;&#23401;". Thanks in advance! :) -- ran (talk) 09:27, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Shall we put up this section onto the Taiwan notice board too? We need recordings in Taiwanese of Min Nan division, and Taiwanese Hakka of Hakka division as well. &mdash; Instantnood 10:21, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Chinese surnames on Wikipedia
If you're interested in working on how Chinese surnames should be presented on Wikipedia, please comment at Talk:Chinese surname. Thanks. &mdash; Instantnood 13:52, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * User:Jiang has started a WikiProject for Chinese surnames. &mdash; Instantnood 13:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Yue (peoples)
We're having some trouble with a number of edits made by User:194.206.179.4 at Yue (peoples). You can see the edits here:

While it is a very interesting read, the edits contain egregious factual errors. For example, the user claims that Canton was the capital of the Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty; the article implies further that it was the capital all the way up to the Song Dynasty. Also, the Qin Dynasty built the Great Wall to defend against "Mongols and Manchus".

The edits also veer markedly away from the given topic, ending up essentially as a Cantonese-chauvinist, anti-Mandarin diatribe. The user makes some dubious claims, e.g. the Cantonese are the purest Chinese; the Cantonese language is the purest Chinese language; the Cantonese language is also the most prestigious Chinese language; also everything that's gone wrong with China since the Mongol invasion appears to be blamed upon "Beijingers"; Mandarin language and culture is essentially the result of Manchu military occupation; Mandarin actresses are all "Beijing bitches" and Beijingers are hated across China; etc.

I recommend reverting all of the above edits immediately. But I'm open to other opinions. There was some interesting information offered in the edits. So what does everyone think should be done? -- ran (talk) 17:12, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Yunzi
I have started the yunzi translation. All are welcome to help. Mgmei 19:06, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Chinese Imperialism
Not really a complete or NPOV account. Rewrites and expansion are certainly welcome. -- ran (talk) 21:40, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Nanking Massacre denial
The Nanking Massacre denial point-of-view has arrived on Talk:Nanking Massacre! Please go there and help us make the article more NPOV. -- ran (talk) 05:43, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Hi all, I'd like to solicit some help. Flowerofchivalry has been leading a merry goose chase in Talk:Nanking Massacre, and has intentionally insulted my person. To be frank I'm tired of this tirade, so could someone please mop up since I have finals coming up and won't have much time for wikipedia. Thanks. -Hmib 06:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Do come and tell us your opinion on the current dispute at the Nanking Massacre talk page. Please be civil though. Thank you. Mandel 11:57, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * Hello all, I have requested for comments on Flowerofchivalry here, it has to do with his edits on Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang, etc. Please weigh in. -Hmib 12:09, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cities with Laogai
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese cities. -- ran (talk) 15:21, May 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Calling all Wikipedians who are Chinese or interested in China: We desperately need a third (or fourth or fifth) opinion on this dispute, as it continues to exist unresolved. Please come and join the discussion! -- ran (talk) 17:18, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Four Chinese articles needed
Did you know there are only four articles beginning with the letter Z that are in the Encyclopedia Britannica but are not in Wikipedia? We want to get that number down to 0. All four articles are about Chinese people:


 * 1) Zhang Jun-Xiang - Chinese director, screenwriter, playwrite early C20 Copyrighted biography in Chinese
 * 2) Zhao Shuli - Chinese fiction author middle c20 Translate from Chinese wikipedia
 * 3) Zhou Fang - Tang period painter Translate from Chinese wikipedia
 * 4) Zhou Yang - Literary critic and Marxist thinker who rose with the CCP Copyrighted biography in Chinese

As you can see, two just need to be translated from zh:. The other two... it is hard to find information in English. It would be great if a chinese-speaker could help finish this up.

Pcb21| Pete 1 July 2005 08:54 (UTC) (writing on behalf of the team at 2004 Encyclopedia topics)

VfD - Chinese Rape Chair
There is a vote for deletion for the page Chinese raping chair. Could I please ask people if they would mind having a look at it? There are two other pages I think are a-historic and unsuitable for Wikipedia - Chinese box (torture) and Chinese tickle torture. I would deeply appreciate any feedback anyone might have on the subject. I personally think there is zero evidence for all three, but if anyone knows of any I would appreciate knowing. Lao Wai 5 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)


 * From Chinese water torture: Because no external marks are left on victims of water torture, it is a favoured method of torture, and has notably been used against political prisoners in China and Tibet. . source? -- ran (talk) July 5, 2005 16:53 (UTC)

Dalai Lama
I don't know if anyone here is interested but the current BioCOTW is Tenzin Gyatso the fourteenth Dalai Lama which probably would be considered a China-related topic. Falphin 7 July 2005 00:59 (UTC)

Second Sino-Japanese War
I've just created a campaignbox for the Second Sino-Japanese War, appropriated named Template:Campaignbox Second Sino-Japanese War. If any one is well-versed in this part of the world, or this portion of history, can you please double-check my work, make sure the battles are correctly named (spelled), are in the right order, and that battles that belong are there (and battles that don't belong are not)? I shall continue to do my own research, and if possible, I might like to split this massive list up into separate campaigns. Maybe campaigns before the 1938 Fall of Hankou, and campaigns after, so as to distinguish what does and does not belong to WWII's Chinese Theater. Any help would be most appreciated. LordAmeth 12:30, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * one issue is whether we should use the Wade-Giles/Postal Pinyin romanizations used during that time period or the Hanyu Pinyin romanization that is currently used for Chinese placenames. i think the news media uses pinyin, but a great deal of the historical literature still uses W-G. --Jiang 14:46, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * With the exception of certain places whose names are more well-known, like Nanking vs Nanjing, I vote for pinyin, as Wade-Giles tends not to make any sense. No matter what language you're using, or what romanization system, in my book 'jen' should be pronounced like the beginning of 'Jennifer' not like the English word 'run'. Why bother having a romanization system if the letters aren't pronounced the way they are in the Latin (Roman) based languages? LordAmeth 23:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * So is it okay if I change all of the WG / Postal in the box into pinyin? -- ran (talk) 00:48, July 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds fine to me. Again, I'm not sure which they'd be, but if there are any where the Wade-Giles romanization would be more common to English-speakers, it might be better to leave those alone. Thanks for taking the time! LordAmeth 04:18, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I cannot agree. To Chinese-speaking people it's true that it's just a matter of translitertaion system, but to English speakers Peking and Beijing is a name change, perhaps similar to the case of Kolkata and Calcutta. Further, Beijing, then called 北平, is never known in English as Beiping, but Peiping. I'd prefer using names commonly used in English at that time. &mdash; Instantnood 11:51, July 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * The thing is the W-G transliteration system is so obscure and non-sensical that even native speaker of Chinese and English cannot make any sense of out it. Take for example, "Kwangsi-Kewichow". What? What on earth is Kewichow? (贵州, Guizhou, I presume.) NOBODY will know what Kewichow, Shangkao are, because they are no longer used by that name. It's not Peking, where anyone with a bit of reading on their part knows that it's the old name for Beijing. To facilitate easier reference (Kuangsi - 34,000 google hits, Guangxi - 3,000,000 google hits) we should change them to their Pinyin name unless they are called exclusively by their W-G or Postal names. --Miborovsky 20:58, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Interestingly Maotai is still marketed as Kweichow Moutai. &mdash; Instantnood 20:40, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I've refurbished the whole campaign box, as of right now there are simply too many battles and too little articles... We first need to make the campaignbox a little less red, then we add articles. Anyway I've reworked it, now the 22 major campaigns (as defined on the 2SJW page) are bolded and the rest not. If additional battles are to be added, they should preferably be blue and in chronological order. --Miborovsky 23:07, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Astronaut names
I've written two articles — Nie Haisheng and Zhai Zhigang — on two Chinese astronauts. I was hoping that someone could add the Chinese for their names to the articles. Thanks. Evil Monkey&#8756;Hello 09:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Done. Feel free to add more info. -- Felix Wan 17:56, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I may be back with some more as I write them. These two were the ones with the most info available after Yang Liwei so I wrote them first. Evil Monkey&#8756;Hello 22:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Here are the rest — Chen Quan, Deng Qingming, Fei Junlong, Jing Haipen, Liu Buoming, Liu Wang, Pan Zhanchun, Zhang Xiaoguan, Zhao Chuandong, Li Qinglong, Wu Jie. Thanks. Evil Monkey&#8756;Hello 00:44, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Hsu Yung-Ch'ang
General Hsu Yung-Ch'ang was the representative of the Republic of China on September 2, 1945, at signing of Instrument of Surrender of Japan that ended World War II. Is there any more know about him? I have been unable to find anything more in English. Anyone able to help expand the entry? --Tony Hecht 20:17, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Chinese box (torture)
One of the many pages dealing with Chinese torture is up for a VfD. Chinese box (torture) has been nominated. I don't know if anyone is following it but the last one Chinese Raping Chair went down unopposed. If anyone would like to have a look please follow the links Chinese box (torture) Lao Wai 19:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen is now nominated as a featured article candidate. However, Ive raised some objections that the nominators cannot answer to. Additional input is needed there.--Jiang 08:27, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Sun Yat-sen is now a featured article. Hurray! -- Миборовский U 19:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Han Wudi ready for FAC?
I think Emperor Wu of Han has what it takes to be a featured articles and can be nominated soon, but the text needs some cleaning up. The English seems a bit stilted (such as having too many sentences starting with "he") and needs some stylistic edits. If someone can get this done, then we can nominate this to be a FAC.--Jiang 05:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Not yet, I think. Still has lots of elementary grammar mistakes, as of right now rather unpresentable. I did some copyediting and changed all instances of "created" to "made" or "crowned". There might be many more, but I don't have the time to copyedit the whole thing... :( --Miborovsky [[Image:Namechop.jpg|20px]] 03:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It's quite good now, although minor points can be ironed out. A worthy FAC. Mandel 11:38, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Wuxia and Jinyong articles
As you all know, proliferation of Jinyong (Louis Cha) articles on Wikipedia is causing some headaches. Some non-Chinese-reading Wikipedians are complaining about the quality and materials of which these articles are based on. Basically they are just longish recanting of plot and characters from the books; there is no attempt at "encyclopedic" writing which are helpful to research. Any output on how these articles can be improved will be greatly appreciated. Maybe we should start something like a manual of edit of sorts for wuxia articles? Mandel 11:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd be willing to help with this task, though I haven't read all of Jinyong's books and am not completely familiar with all the recurring characters. I think one of the most difficult issues would be the translation from Chinese names to English. Given that editors on these articles (presumably) read the Chinese version, their translations might be different from the "authorised" translations. Even among "authorised" and widespread translations, they could be very different. This of course is caused by the nuances of language, and inevitably widens the gap between literal and liberal translations. A manual of style would be good, but I think we need to clear a number of kinks before it can be implemented. --Miborovsky [[Image:Namechop.jpg|20px]] 20:09, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the problem lies in Chinese Wikipedians' unfamiliarity in writing "literature articles". Mere regurgitation of plot and characters is not good enough. If so, the articles on the four classical novels won't be so bare.  We have to set some guidelines for these "specialist" wuxia writers (I know of quite a few) to conform to Wikipedia's tone and writing style - as well as what ought or ought not be included.  I've received quite a few exasperated complaints from non-Chinese Wikipedians and I've been trying desperately to mend "holes" in them; however, one person's resources, intelligence, time are limited.  This is made worse by the fact that wuxia articles are one-in-a-thousand in English-language encyclopedias.  It's a difficult topic, and we need discussion here. Mandel 17:43, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I have absolutely no experience in writing literature articles, much less wuxia. So I'm just waiting for the Bible of How to Write Wuxia Articles to fall from the sky. :p --Miborovsky [[Image:Namechop.jpg|20px]] 08:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Sarcelles
For months now, User:Sarcelles has been starting poor-quality stubs or non-notables for the purpose of propagandizing on the plight of the Falun Gong. His grammar and spelling is generally poor, and he inserts dubious data from dubious sources into his articles. He's apparently been doing the same thing on some other language editions (de:, fr:, it:, and nds:). While the few users who've had to deal with him so far (User:Herr Klugbeisser, User:Abstrakt, User:Miborovsky, and me) have nothing against the Falun Gong, we all agree that his editing is a nuisance and that something should be done.

The fact, though, is that we don't quite know what, and we are in need of more opinions, especially on what concrete actions, if possible, should be taken to end his continuous torrent of edits. So for anyone who's interested in the issue, please come to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese cities, which documents all of his dubious edits so far, as well as the relevant discussions.

So if you're interested, please contribute to the discussion! -- ran (talk) 05:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Qingxi
I've been assigned this small china-geo-stub by the Cleanup Taskforce and have attempted to clean it up as best I can; the Wikipedia page is the top-ranking search result on Google so my ability to find additional information that might allow me to expand this county is a fairly limited as of right now. It doesn't seem all that highly notable to me, and I've yet to find a source confirming the population figure offered there (which was contributed by its anonymous creator at the article's inception), but I'm going to roll with it for the moment. I was wondering particularly if someone on this board could give me a quick assist with the Simplified/Traditional/Pinyin readings of the place's name, as I don't speak or read any Chinese myself. Thanks, MC MasterChef 14:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Mandarin pop merged with Mandopop?
Could have left it at the respective talk pages except they aren't really read. Suggest Mandopop be merged with Mandarin pop, or better still, Mandopop be simply deleted. As a term "Mandopop" throws up a mere 852 references on Google, and many of them actually links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia shouldn't encourage terms that are obviously never used or freshly coined here. Discuss here, and if there's consensus I'll bring it up to VfD. Mandel 16:31, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Not too sure if the word Mandopop is popular on the Internet. In Hong Kong it appears on signs in music shops, like HMV. &mdash; Instantnood 07:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


 * In that case maybe a redirect might be better. Mandel 05:34, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Tsinghua / Qinghua University
I have a current dispute with User:Manchurian Tiger over the transliteration of the name Qinghua University. While the name Tsinghua is used in the college logo and badge, I argued that the pinyin transliteration Qinghua should not be excluded from mention in the article proper itself. He refused, stating very flatly it is wrong, it's a misspelling, and have no place in a proper encyclopedia. (Quote from my talk page: There is no such a school named "Qinghua" University in this world. Period. Please respect a school and its alumni for the way they spell their school's name. Can you spell Oxford as Oksford University?) I retorted by stating prestigious references like Columbia Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Britannica uses both transliterations (note I'm not favoring axing Tsinghua transliteration, but the inclusion of both). As well as Xinhua press, China's state-owned paper. Sounds like a ultra-conservative approach to me. I'd like to hear what others think about this debate. Mandel 03:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Tsinghua should be regarded as the name of the university written in the English language, while Qīnghuá should be regarded as the pronunciation guide written in pinyin, a romanization system of the Chinese language. -- ran (talk) 05:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No one says Tsinghua ought not be included, but placing Qinghua just in pinyin isn't good enough. I know lots of people who don't check pinyin.  If you don't bold it, make it clear, people will wonder if they got to the right article.  Furthermore, precedents have already been set that when a name has enough people using it, it should be mentioned.  See for instance Nobel Prize in Economics.  I don't consider 76,200 Google hits a small number, neither do I consider the fact the official Chinese press Xinghua press uses Qinghua something trivial.  Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with using a different transliteration. Mandel 17:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
 * User:Manchurian Tiger keeps blanking off my discussions in his talk page (I guess he thinks he's entitled to because it's his talk page). Is this allowed?  Any policies against this? Mandel 18:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I think users can do whatever they want on their talkpages as long as it doesn't violate protocols. -- Миборовский U 19:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No they can't. See here: []. -- ran (talk) 23:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Nanking Massacre, Round n
Yep that's right. Shortly after Flowerofchivalry slinked into nowhere, another guy has appeared to contest the page. This time, with a spunkier username and more ludicrous claim. User:Fair china claims 49 people were killed in Massacre. As of right now (and I assume into eternity), it is unsupported. I've reverted all of his POV edits, but I need to go to sleep now so I would appreciate it if someone kept an eye or two out. Cheers. -- Миборовский U 09:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh and keep an eye out for List of massacres too, or even better his edit history. I refuse to call it contributions. -- Миборовский U 09:47, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

China History Forum
I've put this article on a forum on AfD here. Please chip me with your thoughts on this. -- Миборовский U 05:25, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Chiang Kai-shek FAC
I think the Chiang Kai-shek article is almost ready for a featured article nomination, but I would like some input on its neutrality and accuracy. In particular, attention must be given to the number of deaths for which he was responsible. I am afraid that the biography leaves out the killings he ordered as part of the "White Terror", while the legacy section might have exaggerated it. It might be better if we could assign deaths to specific incidents.--Jiang 09:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

OK... more Talk:Nanking Massacre debates
Fortunately, this time it's not about whether it happened (though it might go that direction) but whether a photograph that contains explicit and disturbing and gory content should be included or removed because it's too disrespectful/shocking/emotion-mongering. (Is that even a word?) Your expert opinion would be appreciated. Full-length discussion [|here]. -- Миборовский U 06:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

AFD Tian Yun Yao
This article claims that Yao Tianyun (姚天云) is a hero in Chinese mythology, but it's been AFD'd, could someone here comment? Kappa 01:39, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I've googled in Chinese. Appears to be a hoax. -- ran (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

policies on zh:
Hi, Sorry that this is probably not the right place to ask this, but I was wondering if anyone here could briefly outline any policy differences between en: and zh:? (I have just started using zh: and my Chinese is not great, plus the vocab is so specific.) I have noticed there seems to be no standard usage of simplified or traditional characters; I'll read an article in simplified and see its categories in traditional. What is the policy? They just create redirects to the simplified version? And do they have different policies re: images, ie. they allow fair use? --pfctdayelise 23:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * You are free to write in either simplified or traditional, and the automatic conversion system will convert it to your preferred system (set under "Preferences"). There are bugs in the system, and a page to ask for fixes; you can find out more about the system here. As for images, yes, zh: does allow fair use. -- ran (talk) 00:41, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Another question...I'm guessing most zh: users are native or background speakers, yeah? Is there anything like a message board or gathering place for second-language speakers? I'm guessing not, but you never know. Thanks --pfctdayelise 13:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Roll call
Since zh.wikipedia has been banned (mofos), and lots of people on this noticeboard are located in the Mainland, who here can still participate? -- Миборовский U 23:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

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Need romanization help
Can someone romanize the names provided in Chinese characters at Control Yuan into Wade-Giles (or if you can somehow find the variation most commonly used, provide that instead...)? --Jiang 10:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)