Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/August 2011

Translation/reading questions
For User:Bamse/Fujiwara no Hirotsugu Rebellion (again), what is the reading of 田河道, 鞍手道 (I believe those are Nara period roads)? Also, how to translate "鎮" in "登美鎮, 板櫃鎮, 京都鎮" (Tomi, Itabitsu, Miyako)? As town, city, camp? bamse (talk) 10:43, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey Bamse--
 * The reading for those two roads is a little tricky, because the actual name of the roads appears to be the name of a person. 田河道 is たがわどう (tagawadō or "Tagawa Road") and 鞍手道 is くらてどう　(kuratedō or "Kurate Road").
 * Not sure about how to translate 鎮, which is either pronounced しず　or ちん. Here's the definition I have:
 * a weigh (in buddhism)
 * (ちん only) temple supervisor; (3)
 * (ちん only) town (of China)
 * So, I would say town, but since the term seems to exclusively refer to towns in China, I'm not entirely sure. Also, if you want to look up definitions or readings, check out the | WWWJDIC, it's an excellent reference. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 16:25, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Since the Japanese administration and political system in the Nara period was copied from China, it might well be town. This has it as "camp". Basically what I am asking is how big those "towns" were in 740 AD. (I realize that it is a tricky question.) bamse (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

One more question: what is 遠賀郡家? The first part is Onga District, Fukuoka, but what is it all together? bamse (talk) 22:26, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 郡家 (gūke or gunke) is a district office under the ritsuryō system (Encyclopedia Nipponica article (Japanese)/Japanese Wikipedia article). --Kusunose 00:51, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 鎮 is not town. It's camp., , and say 鎮 is 兵営/barracks or station. Oda Mari (talk) 06:36, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! bamse (talk) 08:47, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Autobiography
I'm too sleepy to decide whether warning flags are enough for Seiichi Hishikawa -- or for that matter 菱川勢一. Anyone who turned an administratudinal flame-thrower on either article would get no opposition from me. -- Hoary (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I wake to the slight disappointment of finding "Seiichi Hishikawa" present rather than deleted. I've done some work on it. Meanwhile, self-promotion and sourceless assertions are of course pandemic in ja:WP; IFF a hundred or more other people volunteer to help transform ja:WP into something worth taking seriously, I'll join the effort; but otherwise I'd just be pissing in the wind. -- Hoary (talk) 00:24, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Extract text from Japanese pdf
Any computer-literate who could help with this? bamse (talk) 22:52, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, didn't see this. It looks like you got the help you needed, though. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 07:04, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, not really yet. If you know of a solution, please let me know. bamse (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Redirect broken
The redirect page Feudal Japan seems broken, i.e., it does not link to the subsection History of Japan, and I don't know how to fix it. The problem are likely the parentheses in the section's name. bamse (talk) 10:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I replaced the - with a –, seems to work now. cab (call) 14:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Sources for articles
If anyone wants to use some sources to improve articles on Japan, I found some interesting stuff: WhisperToMe (talk) 06:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * "Ōkubo Diary." (an account of a small town in Japan)
 * "Language and Popular Culture in Japan."
 * "Linguistic Creativity in Japanese Discourse."

Doozy Bots
I read the AFD for Doozy Bots. I am aware that it's a proposal that ultimately got canned. But I would think that a single news article or journal article or book would mention it. I haven't found anything so far!

What about in the Japanese language? What is "Doozy Bots" in katakana? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Naming of Mountain articles
Motivated by this move request I was wondering how to name articles on Japanese mountains on en-wikipedia. WP:MOS-JA has naming recommendations for all kinds of things (temples, shrines, places,...) but not for mountains. There are some ancient discussions in the archives and I remember a discussion on Mount Ō which apparently did not succeed, but what (if any) is the present recommendation? Or should it be decided for each case separately? bamse (talk) 11:23, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I would support "Mount X" for individual mountains, and "X Range" for mountain ranges. This seems to fit with most other mountain articles out there. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 16:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Hunting for the tsunami photo
Perhaps others can help me here. I was somewhat surprised that we have yet to locate a possible featured picture candidate related to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. I'm currently hunting for the photo (or several) that could have a shot at becoming a featured picture. Wikimedia Commons photos of the earthquake and tsunami are in the parent Category:2011 Sendai earthquake, and I'm also scouring Flickr. If you find a good one, do let me know. Here are the featured picture criteria if you're curious. Examples of featured pictures from recent disasters:

— Arsonal (talk + contribs) — 08:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * There appear to be tons of Navy photos in the public domain with a CC by 2.0 license on Flickr. I'm sorting through them now. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 00:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Here are a few in no particular order:
 * File:Ishinomaki Port after Tsunami.jpg - Shows the devastation in a port and to residential areas.
 * File:2011 Earthquake and Tsunami near Sendai, Japan.jpg - Satellite image which shows widespread damage. You can even tell how far inland the tsunami went in many areas. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 00:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * File:US Navy 110318-N-SB672-773 An aerial view of Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force personnel and disaster relief crews searching Sukuiso, Japan.jpg - This one is really striking with the rescue vehicles in the center.
 * File:2011TsunamiFireVehicles.jpg - This one is also striking for the same reason.
 * File:Distant view of Rikuzentakata.jpg - This is a good one to show the devastation.
 * File:US Navy 110318-N-SB672-598 An aerial view of damage to Sukuiso, Japan, a week after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated th.jpg - Another one showing some devastation along with an area no completely destroyed.
 * I'm sure there are others, too, but those are a few that I like. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 00:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * File:MinatoAfterTohokuEarthquake.jpg‎ (An aerial view of Minato, Japan, a week after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the area.) - This is another good one for to show coastal flooding and colossal building damage. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 00:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

What object is this?
Is it a byōbu or something else? Looks a bit too straight and too soft (textile/fabric) for it, no? bamse (talk) 11:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's 几帳/kichō. It looks like noren and is used in a house as partition/curtain. See ja:几帳,, , and . Oda Mari (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Should write an article on it one day. bamse (talk) 15:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 18:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Great, excellent! Thanks a lot. I should get one (...to hide unsightly messes in my home.). Also just learned "sudare" as a new word. Is there a place to collect such terms? Maybe Glossary of Japanese architecture!? bamse (talk) 19:27, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, or maybe create a navbox template to go along the bottom of the pages. Maybe Japanese architectural elements or something? I think that might work better (and I'll go ahead and create the template). ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 20:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. bamse (talk) 20:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've made the template, below. Now we just need to transclude it on all the pages it links to. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 22:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow! I'll transclude. bamse (talk) 22:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Feel free to update the template if you find any other elements, and let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the template. I was basically winging it as I created it. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 23:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Will need some time to think about improvements or additions. Probably we should limit ourselves to "traditional" architecture, otherwise one could start adding architects' names or all kind of modern furniture and the template would get very long. (I pinged the expert on Japanese architecture) bamse (talk) 00:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)\
 * Hi, I am the "expert" Bamse pinged. I only know something about Japanese religious architecture, nothing about the rest. The template seems very complete (and useful) already, but I will see if, in time, I can add something of value to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Urashimataro (talk • contribs) 00:15, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Language minority students in Japanese classrooms
Seems like this one should be merged somewhere, thoughts?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 14:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to be a coherent topic on its own. It has several references. It could definitely be improved, but I don't think it could be easily merged anywhere. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 04:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know.. it strikes me as an essay, or someone's research paper for school or something. It's largely the work of a user named DDD DDD, and it hasn't really seen much change since it was written five years ago. Whether or not it's worthy of deletion is its own question, I suppose, but either way I don't find it particularly encyclopedic. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 23:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)