Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/June 2018

Draft:Junzo Sasamori
Is anyone interested in adopting this abandoned draft on a cabinet minister? There's a long article on the Japanese wiki. Thanks, Espresso Addict (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Otōto (TV drama)


The article Otōto (TV drama) has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "Article appears to have been unsourced since it was created in 2007, and has been tagged as such since 2012. There's no corresponding Japanese Wikipedia article which might be used to find sources relevant to the article and a search for such sources came up empty, so this does not appear to meet WP:GNG. Takuya Kimura is a very well-known Japanese actor, but this seems to be something he was in very early in his career when he was not as famous as he is these days, so the show might not have generated the press coverage that some of his later shows received."

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:39, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Perhaps merge and redirect into our really bare article on Aya Kōda, who is certainly notable. This is listed as a redlink at おとうと, at least indicating that someone thinks an article should exist there. Dekimasu よ! 08:42, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with a redirect per WP:CHEAP. Not sure about a merge though unless some reliable sources can be found for the content which is kept. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:03, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism at List of Japanese deities
First a couple of IPs, then a group of editors have been persistently adding an entry to the list of minor kami reading something like:


 * Torento-no-kami, enshrined at Sakurayama Shrine, in Morioka, Iwate.

There is no evidence that this implausible kami name exists; responses to my comments have been generally incoherent (whether in English or Japanese). The latest version refers to "Temmangu", copied from Ashton's book of 1914, but basically a misspelling of Tenman-gū, the shrine for Tenjin, who is already in the list. The most recent edit, with the inscrutable edit summary "Dispute resolution Protocol, 支援の拒否" seems to be just minor vandalism - random insertion of spaces. Could someone else please look at this, and possibly an admin might investigate for sock-puppetry. Thanks Imaginatorium (talk) 19:04, 14 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I have semi-protected the page for a week. Since all of the accounts performing these edits were created yesterday, there does seem to be an issue here that could be addressed through WP:SPI (and catch sleepers), but I'd suggest that you take it over there. There doesn't seem to be much overlap outside of this article from what I could tell. Dekimasu よ! 19:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I undid my reversion of the addition since I was the one putting on the page protection, but anyone else is free to perform it as necessary. Dekimasu よ! 19:58, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't fully understand why you put the entry back, but I have just reverted to the version before this "Torento-no-kami" entry, and also the minor vandalism (spaces). The real problem is that none of the three editors involved have ever managed to make a coherent comment, so I do not feel I can use reason with them. Imaginatorium (talk) 17:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Imaginatorium, I wanted to make it clear that I am not involved in a content dispute so that I can mediate or take administrative action as necessary. Dekimasu よ! 03:38, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't speak Japanese why may I tagged in these for reverting possible vandalism? (Truthspeakerknows talk) 22:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * (Mended signature to show user name) Unfortunately, your English is not understandable either. What language do you speak? Imaginatorium (talk) 07:17, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

There is now a new "article" for Torento-no-kami, which I have just AfDed. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:37, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Ta-no-Kami and other deities
These deities now added should not be removed as they are properly sourced. YodogawaKamlyn (talk) 17:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ta-no-Kami has an article, and is (presumably) genuine. But the "Torento" one has only the article at AfD which you created without any non-circular source at all, so I am removing it again. Please do not put it back unless you have any evidence at all for a kami called "Torento". Imaginatorium (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I have upgraded the page to full protection due to ongoing edit warring. Please discuss all changes on the talk page, or here. Because YodogawaKamlyn blanked Torento-no-kami it might be a candidate for WP:CSD, but there's been an assertion that the blanking was in bad faith, so perhaps the AfD should continue for now. Dekimasu よ! 03:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I have blocked YodogawaKamlyn indefinitely for abuse of multiple accounts and tendentious editing, based partly upon the evidence presented by User:Imaginatorium at Wiktionary (the sandbox of the account that added "トレント" to Wiktionary was the source of the Torento-no-kami article that was sent to AfD). The editor began to reintroduce the information using unreliable sources as soon as page protection expired at List of Japanese deities, which led to this discovery. Hopefully the block will resolve the issue, but we'll see if any new sockpuppets emerge. Dekimasu よ! 19:16, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

A radical proposal
Japanese is good for puns, so I'm glad I was able to make one in English... The template Infobox Kangxi radical is transcluded across all 214 of our articles on kanji radicals, but, as was pointed out in an OTRS email that I dealt with today, the way the kana pronunciation is expressed is very inconsistent: some pages use hiragana, some katakana, some both; the formatting is across single or multiple lines at random; and the choice of on-yomi or kun-yomi reading appears to be entirely arbitrary (and is sometimes expressed in both hiragana and katakana, and sometimes only in one or the other). At first I though the issue could be mostly fix by renaming the "hiragana" field to "kana" (which I've done), but now I don't think this really addresses the root of the problem. Unfortunately, I don't know enough Japanese to accurately surmise which reading is which, so I'm wary of going through and trying to "fix" things any further... Would someone with more than my passing knowledge of Japanese mind taking a look at the articles Radical 1 through to Radical 214 to see if they can think of a good way to make the template consistent? I was considering switching the "hi" field for two new fields, "on-yomi" and "kun-yomi", both expressed in hiragana only, but again, I don't know enough Japanese to do so safely. Thanks in advance for any input or assistance. Yunshui 雲 水 10:25, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yunshui, I took a random look at about fifteen of these and didn't see any particular errors. The convention (off Wikipedia) is to write the on-yomi in katakana and the kun-yomi in hiragana, and it seems like that is being followed here. It's difficult to be comprehensive in a list of readings, since there tend to be a large number of special cases. Separate lines for each would be best, perhaps, but can you point me to one that either you or the e-mailer found to be a problem? Dekimasu よ! 01:50, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, thanks for taking a look - and thank you for explaining the use of katakana; I was unaware of that convention. That actually makes it primarily a formatting issue, which is easier to deal with. There are still a few that are a bit confusing to me, such as Radical 10 or Radical 20 - these offer two pronunciations in hiragana, and it's unclear whether there are two kun-yomi readings or (if there aren't) which is which. There are also quite a few which only have one reading (such as Radical 84), and I'm not sure whether this is because there is only one reading or because the other reading hasn't been provided.
 * The katakana=on-yomi/hiragana=kun-yomi evidently isn't apparent to the lay reader (ahem... that would be me...), so what do you think about re-jigging the template to provide separate fields for the two readings? Yunshui 雲 水 05:47, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It's been quite some time since I did any serious kanji study, but what Dekimasu says about the on and kun yomis is what I remember at least with the books I used as study guides. These were, however, almost exclusively books written in Japanese and often were text books/study guides actually used in Japanese JHS and SHS. This seems to be the practice currently online as well just from looking at sites like, , and . As for the multiple readings, there are radicals which do have them, but if I remember correctly radicals are typically only expressed in hiragana (at least in Japanese) and katakana is not used regardless of on/kun. I also don't ever remember seeing the same distinction made when it comes to on/kun readings of radicals as you find with kanji per se, at least not in anything I was using to study. One last thing, I also don't think kanji are typically used for radicals at least not in Japanese; you can find them written in kanji in entries of some kanji dictionaries, but typically they are written in hiragana most everywhere else, such as Kanken exams, study guides, etc. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:27, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm, maybe this is more complicated after all. For Radical 20 mentioned above, the Japanese Wiki article is at ja:勹部 (=hōbu, not the common name tsutsumigamae as in our kanji field) and it lists both on- and kun- readings (hō and tsutsumu respectively). Hō should perhaps be revised to katakana on the Radical 20 page for consistency. Another option: we could conceivably just list the standard Japanese radical name for each radical rather than including the on-/kun- readings at all, which are more suited to etymological histories. But again, the "normal" radical names are the 通称 names, which don't match the article titles on the Japanese Wikipedia. To use a more common radical as an example, Radical 120 is "correctly" named as itohen in the kanji field on the English Wikipedia (in form, it is simply ito); the JA article is at ja:糸部 (=hekibu) while noting further down the page that the commonly used name is itohen. Perhaps we don't need the beki and myaku in kana in our articles. As far as the name of the radical, I don't think it's very important whether we use 糸偏 or いとへん as long as the common name is included. Dekimasu よ! 07:51, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Also note that it wouldn't make sense for Kanken exams to have you write 糸偏 when identifying the radical 糸; they want to know that you're correctly identifying the radical, but just picking out the form and adding 偏 would be too easy. In other contexts I am under the impression that the radicals are often written in kanji. But again, the Japanese Wikipedia is using hiragana for the 通称 names. Dekimasu よ! 07:55, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Most of the radical questions on Kanken's tend to be on the lower level tests (levels 6 or 7 to 10), but no such questions on the higher level tests. At least that's how I remember, but I took those tests maybe 20 years ago. You actually did have to write out いとへん (or at least choose that as the answer if it was given as one of the choices) if that was the correct answer, and it almost never wasn't written in kanji (probably because many of the kanji used for radicals are higher level kanji). -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:18, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Please help evaluate the sources in a draft at AFC
If you are able to read Japanese please help to evaluate Notability for Draft:Kyoko Nakajima. Thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:59, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Dodger67, definitely notable. This looks good to me. Dekimasu よ! 01:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Clearly notable. The Naoki Prize is one of the most well-known prizes in Japanese literature and she is already the subject of academic articles. Michitaro (talk) 02:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Removal of a fake flag
At Talk:Tomoe, I proposed a set of policies that affect multiple Japan-related articles. --Nanshu (talk) 12:53, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Ugetsu community GAR notification
Ugetsu, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:53, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Religion in infoboxes in Japanese biographical articles
"religion = Shinto" seems really questionable in, for example, every single article on a living member of the imperial family. The only one I checked that included significant inline coverage of religion at all was Empress Michiko, which is in turn contradicted by Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, and none of them include any sources discussing "religious affiliation", insofar as such a thing makes sense in a traditional Japanese context. And, of course, no source will ever be found for any Japanese imperial family member or politician (the problem seems to extend there as well, although it probably originates there, and is tied to our articles on American politicians that include this parameter) being "Shintoist, not Buddhist", even though that is probably how our articles read to the majority of our target audience at the moment.

I was going to just mass-blank the unsourced BLP ones I could find, but I really wonder if we should, as a project, discourage these as a rule, BLP or no, sourced or unsourced, and write it into MOS:JAPAN.

(And since I know someone will remark on this I should clarify: I know we go by what the sources say, but some sources are better than others, and sources written by people who know nothing about religion in Japan and that label people as "Shintoist as opposed to Buddhist" are in the latter group; also, most of the time people cite "sources" for these kinds of claims, they don't even say "Person X is a Shintoist", but simply say they prayed at a Shinto shrine at some point.)

Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:06, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The Infobox person has removed the religion parameter as a result of a RfC, so we should default to not including "religion" in the infobox, and perhaps remove that parameter from the template that those Japanese biographical articles use. _dk (talk) 05:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree: I do not think it is even clear what "Believer in Shintō" means. My atlas of religion gives Japan the highest rating among all countries for religious affiliation, at about 140%. Most people tick 神社 and お寺, but happily talk about 天国. I have yet to receive a persuasive answer to the question, "But does anyone actually take Shintō seriously?" So any such "religion" boxes are likely only to mislead. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I asked to remove the parameter from the template and was pointed to a discussion where the prospect had been proposed for the royalty template, with no consensus to do so; but the argument that "State Shinto in Japan, or the Queen of England and the Anglican Church" justifies an exception (when "State Shinto" was only a thing for a few decades and our article on the Queen of England doesn't even use the parameter) is pretty weak, so I'm seriously considering an RFC to remove the parameter from that one too. Either way, I guess we can move ahead with removing the unsourced claims of monolithic "Shintoism" from our articles on Japanese royals. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:39, 30 June 2018 (UTC)