Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/June 2006

Prefectural Flags
Hey, I've been sporadically inactive lately, but I just wanted to bring up the issue of prefectural flags. There are a ton of images out there and even some official prefectural sites have them, but is there any reason that Wikipedia isn't using them? If it's alright I will be more than happy to create .png images and, if I can figure out how, .svg images of the flags. Any comments?

-Nameneko 19:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Have at it. (^_^) ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  19:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi. I do not know whether the flags can be used on en.wp, where fairuse images under US law are permitted. All I know is that at least on Japanese wikipedia, they concluded not to use the flags of Japanese local goverments (not only prefectural flags, but also city flags) after discussion in 2003. Followings are related links I found (all in Japanese except for an e-mail post):
 * first discussion in 2003 - decided not to use, mainly because most of the flags are not GFDL compatible
 * in response to the above discussion, Tomos, who is an sysop on ja.wp posted an mail on Intl-L: (in English) - though not received warmly...
 * talk page of image use policy, 2005
 * @VP, 2006
 * in a guideline statement
 * Unfortunately I don't know much about this issue, so if you have any question, you may ask at ja:Wikipedia‐ノート:ウィキプロジェクト 日本の市町村 or directly ask ja:User:Koba-chan, who was involved in the 2003 discussion and is still an active sysop on ja (Tomos, who also was involved in the discussion and knows well about Japanese copyright law, does not seem to be very active). - marsian 05:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm... Well, I don't want to do work only to have it deleted for copyvio's. I've asked the question in the past on the ja.wikipedia, but I couldn't really pull much useful information out of it.  However, since the city and prefecture symbols are still here and since the flags can go under the flag copyright (I am assuming such), I'll try to make them in my spare time.  Do you think it'd be a bad idea to license the prefectural flags under the flag copyright?
 * -Nameneko 04:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the slow response, but your message got buried before. I think the flag fair use would work fine on them. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  07:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Vote: Tsushima Basin or Ulleung Basin
Hi all. On Talk:Tsushima Basin there is currently a vote about the name of the Tsushima Basin/Ulleung Basin. The vote runs till 08:57, 19 June 2006, voters need 100 edits and 1 month at Wikipedia in order to vote. -- Chris 73 | Talk 07:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Vote closed, Tsushima basin is the primary name to be used on Wikipedia when referring to the ocean feature, with alternative names in brackets. -- Chris 73 | Talk 09:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * the result of the poll was inconclusive, with neither name getting the 60% consensus (WP:RM) at this time. previous to this dispute, the basin was labeled "ulleung basin (tsushima basin)" since november 2005. Appleby 06:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What are you talking about? There was no Oppose for Tsushima basin. --Isorhiza 08:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Japanophile image
In the Japanophile article, an image, Image:Japanophile.jpg, is being constantly added by a group of users who seem to be friends of the person who is the subject of this image - IMHO, this image is non-notable and vanity. Also see relevant discussion in talk page. What should be done with this image, and should this be added in the article in question? - Ganryuu 07:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Episode template for list of episodes
WikiProject List of Television Episodes is putting together some templates to help make entering data easier for lists of episodes. This was originally based off of the template Template:Digimon episode. We took that and made Template:Episode list, and then later on made Template:Japanese episode list for anime and other Japanese shows.

These templates include labeled variables, so editors (new and old) don't always have to guess which || mark is the air-date cell, and so on. Especially helpful with the creation of large episode lists. Entry this way also makes it easy to make a shoot-off template with more custom appearances without having to rewrite the whole wikitable and re-order all the data.

Detailed instructions can be found on Template talk:Japanese episode list, and you can see the template in action on Kamisama Kazoku. Feel free to use the Japanese episode list template and such. Any changes at this point shouldn't break articles using it. And tell us what you think of it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject List of Television Episodes or here. -- Ned Scott 12:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

W. Edwards Deming request for assistance
I am knowledgeable about the subject matter of this article but not about Wikipedia (newbie). I could use help with mark up, format, NPOV, and OR issues. I think the article is not that far from the good article criteria and would welcome assistance from an editor with more experience. Thank you. Leaders100 14:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Should these be considered "to-do?"
I've discovered this project because I looked at Culture of Japan and then the link to Japanese values and was shocked and distressed by content which seems to be in contrast with most of the assumptions in my Asian studies program about, say, essentialism no longer being a good way to characterize cultures (in fact much of it struck me as racist, but I have a fairly strict filter for my definition of that and would not want to assume everyone agrees). An uncritically presented statement like "generalized conceptions of morality and desirable behavior are less developed in Japan" (from the intro to Culture) just makes me really uncomfortable because of the apparent implications, the connotations of development and the apparent value judgment, but I have very little experience with wiki editing and wouldn't know how to go about fixing these things. I mean, the values page uncomplicatedly asserts that Japanese values stand in "irreconcilable conflict" with "Western rationalism"... basically these pages seem to reflect some traditional cultural studies models that are currently not taught as standard at least in the sociology-type textbooks I've seen (and my former Professor would almost certainly consider them antiquated and Eurocentric, not that he's God), but do I need to go into all of that if I want to improve the pages? It's a bit overwhelming; I'm not an expert on Japanese culture but I don't like the idea that a user could stumble onto "culture of Japan" and there's an implication from the lack of markings that it neither needs fixing, is controversial nor violates NPOV.

Would it be appropriate for me to add these pages to the "request for peer review" list? I don't feel quite confident enough with the organization to go changing the wikiproject page, so I hoped this would be a good place to ask for advice to start with. I'm sorry I've gone on at such length, but I couldn't find particularly extensive discussion of this on the relevant talk pages and I would really feel much more comfortable with these pages receiving some scrutiny, even if no one else agrees with me. Siwangmu 22:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You raise some excellent points. I'll lazily only make simple comments. I have very little experience with wiki editing and wouldn't know how to go about fixing these things. You could try simply editing and not worrying about any imagined difficulty in editing. Or, perhaps better, you could bring up your objections on the relevant talk page, and if there is no lucid and persuasive opposition then make the change. If you're shouted down by what you regard as illogic or worse, then make an issue of it elsewhere. -- Hoary 07:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

New article assessment
I stole this from the anime and manga project because I thought it might help us become better organized. Please check out the section on the page WP:JA page and let me know if you have any questions. No guarantees I'll know the answer, but we'll figure something out. (^_^) ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  01:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Miyakejima
Please come share your thoughts on the NPOV discussion on the Miyakejima Talk page if you're interested. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  07:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ōkuninushi

 * Note: this posting was originally posted on the Participants page, and was moved here as it doesn't belong there. 

Question: is it quite correct to speak of Ōkuninushi (Ō-kuni-nushi-no-mikoto), [as] mythical progenitor of Susanoo ?

The Kojiki certainly suggests it is the other way around, with O[po]-kuni-nushi a descendant, multiple generations later, of Susa-no-[w]o. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.37.77.224 (talk • contribs).

Matsuo Bashō, Ueno Hikoma
Till recently, I've only been hazily aware of "Good Articles" -- I must be really out of it; it's only minutes ago that I first encountered "A-Class articles" -- and when I first got to the GA nominations page, Matsuo Bashō was on it. Good article though I thought it was, I had a few reservations about it, and expressed them on its talk page. I nominated Ueno Hikoma. A bit later, both articles were turned down. Both articles have the makings of GA, I think, and could benefit from a little attention from somebody who is knowledgable about Bashō's poetry or Ueno's photography, or who at least is scrupulous. -- Hoary 10:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * PS Matsuo Bashō seems to be sorted out now. -- Hoary 03:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Request for name Kanji
can somebody look up thename kanjis for Kenji Ogiwara? thanks in advance. Circeus 05:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It's 荻原健司. I put it in the article, along with a link to the Japanese Wikipedia. By the way, sometimes you can follow a link to another language, and go from there to Japanese. It doesn't always work, but it's worth a try! This time, the German article had a link to the Japanese. Fg2 07:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmmm.... I thought that there was a bot that ran through the database to manage intertwiki links; but maybe not. When I added a bunch of stations a couple of months ago, I put the Japanese link on the English page; but, a random check of some of those Japanese pages shows that they don't have all have the link back yet, and the ones that do were all added manually by one or two users.  Is there a way to get a bot to traverse a category for instances like that? Neier 08:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There's Eskimbot. It adds links from time to time. Fg2 09:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC) And YurikBot 10:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, FG. I had not noticed the interwiki links. Circeus 14:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Kohta Hirano discussion
Please come participate in the article naming discussion taking place on Talk:Kohta Hirano. Thank you. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  19:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No thanks! I briefly looked at the article, which I found unintentionally amusing in reinforcing my (of course completely uninformed) stereotype of what such a person looks like. The article doesn't say all that much (not that I'm knocking it). Then I looked at the bloated discussion page, with what really seems like a parody of WP disputes. All that I bothered to read was polite, and most parts of it were lucid, but what a huge waste of man person-hours! (The participants could have written some interesting articles in all that time.) I'd instead recommend that you let the participants wear themselves out. Look, this is merely a matter of how to name one obscure person who (like most people I write about, as it happens) is of absolutely no interest to an overwhelming percentage of humanity. Whichever way the article is titled, a redirect from the other will serve it well. -- Hoary 02:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that it's been a huge waste of time. I just thought it would be good to have a few more opinions posted there, one way or the other. As it is, it seems only about 5 people have participated. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  08:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The five are most welcome to their obsessions. (The drawings and synopses are so saccharine they make my teeth ache, but then the appeal of Japanese juvenilia of the monster-eyed, tousle-haired variety always eludes me.) -- Hoary 14:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)