Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/November 2010

Okinawa taskforce?
I've toyed with this idea for a while, but given the recent scuffle with China and editwarring on related pages, I think a focus group is needed. Anyone?--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 17:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know that there are enough articles to support a task force. Will you make a list of articles here which would be covered by the task force? ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 19:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For starters, everything in Category:Okinawa Prefecture and Category:Ryukyu Islands --Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 03:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a WP:WikiProject Ryukyu would be useful, which would also cover Okinwawa (present day), considering the language issues, romanization issues, historically, the separate Kingdom, etc.
 * There's also an attempt to create WP:WikiProject East Asia, see WikiProject Council/Proposals/East Asia -- to help with scuffles between East Asian countries on various topics...
 * 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:25, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:WikiProject East Asia has now been started. If you'd like you can suggest a task force there for Ryu Kyu. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * How many people are wanting to work on this task force? I think at least 4-5 people working on it would be good in order to keep momentum going. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 05:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, let's make a list!


 * 1) --Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 11:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Jpatokal (talk) 12:04, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd ask people interested in things Okinawan to pop over to MOS:JP and give your opinion on how the language should be romanized on Wikipedia, there's a lively discussion on the Talk page. Jpatokal (talk) 12:04, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

categorization of gaijin
This question of mine may be of interest to one or two people here. -- Hoary (talk) 13:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905
There is an archived discussion thread about changing the name of Eulsa Treaty to another name. Summarizing the so-called discussion which began at Talk:Eulsa Treaty in early August here:
 * A. In an attempt to help us start discussion, options were proposed here and refined here.
 * Leave it at its current name?
 * To Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty?
 * To Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905?
 * To 1905 Protectorate Treaty?
 * Or what?; see the second paragraph of page Eulsa Treaty.
 * B. Valentim presented the results of a Lexis/Nexis search here. This supplements several Google searches.

In the many weeks of so-called discussion thread development, those opposing the move have either been unwilling or unable to present refutation or counterargument; and therefore, I propose we delay no longer. In other words, I suggest that there is a consensus to act now on the basis of the Lexis-Nexis search outcome. The time has come for this article to be renamed Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905. If not, why not? --Tenmei (talk) 19:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Is there an academic consensus on the name? The Japanese name includes the word 協約 (convention), less formal than 条約 (treaty). I think both Japan and Korea should be in the title. Also, do we have an English article of the first convention ja:第一次日韓協約? --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 04:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We don't have the 第一次日韓協約 article. We only have Japan–Korea Treaty of 1904 (日韓議定書), Eulsa Treaty (第二次日韓協約), and Japan–Korea Treaty of 1907 (第三次日韓協約). Oda Mari (talk) 06:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Responding to Shinkansen Fan and to Oda Mari:
 * A. For clarity, the first two sentences of our Treaty article explain:
 * "A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as:
 * international agreement ... [as in International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears .],
 * Protocol (treaty) ... [not the same as Protocol (diplomacy) ],
 * covenant ... [as in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1976],
 * convention ... [as in European Convention on Human Rights ],
 * exchange of letters ... which is a redirect to Treaty ], etc.
 * Regardless of the terminology, all of these international agreements under international law are equally treaties and the rules are the same."
 * B. That said, another crucial point needs to be considered: The Emperor Gojong of the Korean Empire explicitly uses the word "treaty" in the English translation of his letter to the King of England. Even though the print is very small, you can read this much of it for yourself. See here. C. The fundamental invalidity of the document was asserted by Koreans in 1905, in 1907, in 1910, in 2010 and in all the intervening years as well.  In other words, there is an historical chronology which identifies this so-called "treaty" as a "non-treaty".  Although one or more specific sources can be cited which identifies this as a "convention" or as a "protocol," it does not help resolve our wiki-naming dilemma.  Rather, fiddling with the word "treaty" only adds a further layer of conflated issues which are better addressed in the article itself.
 * Does this help by enhancing focus? --Tenmei (talk) 20:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for explanation. I noticed that 第一次日韓協約 was signed in 1904 too. In order to avoid confusion, I suggest the following names:


 * 日韓議定書 Japan-Korea Treaty of 1904 -> Japan-Korea Convention of 1904
 * 第一次日韓協約 (no English article) -> Japan-Korea First Treaty of 1904
 * 第二次日韓協約 Eulsa Treaty -> Japan-Korea Second Treaty of 1905
 * 第三次日韓協約 Japan-Korea Treaty of 1907 -> Japan-Korea Third Treaty of 1907 --Shinkansen Fan 11:40, 1 November 2010

Shinkansen Fan is correct.

This is outside the scope of this thread, but I was simply wrong. Shinkansen Fan identifies a noteworthy problem in related articles. --Tenmei (talk) 20:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't know of the protocols (treaties?) signed in April and August 1905, and neither is covered on Japanese or Korean Wikipedia. I still think it's better to use the word "Convetion" rather than "Treaty" for the first 議定書, Protocol or Treaty? I'm confused.

Kana to Hepburn automatic translator?
I found Romaji.org, which translates kana to romaji, but not the kind we use in Wikipedia. Is there a free online translation device that will romanise kana appropriately? --Malkinann (talk) 22:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What do you mean exactly, not the kind we use? TomorrowTime (talk) 20:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * For example, it converts ルール to "ru^ru". Presumably it means rûru, but our Romanization would say to write it as rūru. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 20:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

齋藤 vs. 斉藤 (Saitō vs. Saitō)
I wonder if some other editors can have a look at the Hiro Mizushima article. The subject of this article has recently been in the news following a literary award win which also made his real name (Tomohiro Saitō) public. All the official Japanese news sources I have seen write this as "齋藤", but another editor insists that the article should also include the alternative "斉藤" because this (mis?)spelling has been used on a number of other sites in the past. The problem with this is that none of these sources appears to be reliable, and they were published before his birth name was made officially public. --DAJF (talk) 02:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If they aren't reliable sources, then they shouldn't be included, especially since his actually name has been widely published in reliable sources. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 05:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Shōko Hamada
The article on actress Shōko Hamada has been tagged as an unreferenced BLP since December 2008, which is the current focus month for the BLP Rescue Project. I have tried, and failed, to find any reliable sources for this article. Even looking at the Japanese Wikipedia article with the aid of Google translate only seems to bring up promotional sites (as far as I can tell). I am posting here in the hope that a Japanese speaker could find at least one reliable source and make a decision about the subject's notability.--Plad2 (talk) 21:50, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Source of Japanese academic papers
Apparently, this website provides access to papers written, in both Japanese and English, by Japanese academics. FYI as possible sources for articles. Cla68 (talk) 00:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks for finding that. :) ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 04:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Heian-kyō is an embarrassment!
Hi there. I was just going through the historical capitals of East Asia and flagging them with the WPEASTASIA template (the WikiProject East Asia assessment template) when I stumbled upon the article Heian-kyō. For a capital city, the fact that this only has one source, is at stub/start length, and half of the content is the technical specification of the city walls, is... well... an embarassment. Either this should be merged with Kyoto, or expanded dramatically. Since I only count three contributors in the past year that have edited it more that once, and since there isn't a Japan WikiProject tag on the page, there is the possibility that none of you knew about this, so I'm posting this here and hoping that the experts can clear this up.

I'm sorry to be so blunt about this, I was just really, really surprised at what I saw.

By the way, WP:WikiProject East Asia was just founded, about a week ago, and is recruiting members. The scope of the project is mid level (broader than "Japan" but narrower than "Asia"), and aims to serve as an eventual hub for coordination among various more specific Wikiprojects, and to improve articles related to issues, entities, and events that cross national boundaries and have a regional impact on East Asia. If that definition seems a tad ambiguous, it's because we're still so new that we're defining ourselves, and it's 1:30 AM where I am. Please stop by and join or weigh in if it interests you. Sven Manguard Talk  05:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Probably the best idea is to merge the contents into Kyoto, as you say. For a thousand-year-old city, Kyoto currently has a very short history section. — Gavia immer (talk) 06:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * To me it does not seem that stubbish, though it could definitely be expanded. Merging the full article including the map into Kyoto would bloat it too much in my opinion. Also Heian-kyō is very important in (art) history of Japan and does deserve its own article. bamse (talk) 09:55, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The article itself is based on a single source and deals heavily with the technical layout and specifications of the city. You could easily take the small amount of history and move it over to Kyoto, then rename Heian-kyō something else, such as "City Planning of Heian-kyō" or "City Planning of Kyoto." Whatever is decided, having one source just isn't right. I can help with access to sources, I have access to a JSTOR subscription, but I simply don't have the time to write this right now. Sven Manguard  Talk  15:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC) P.S. This page isn't watch listed, and I will only check it occasionally. If you need me, leave me a message at my talk page.
 * What about creating an article called like, History of Kyoto or something like that? There is some precedent for this sort of article (e.g. History of New York City, History of Chicago). Then just use a main in the Kyoto article and have it have a brief synopsis of the city's history, and then put all the main text in the history article. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 15:17, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Works for me, but it's not my decision. I'm just concerned about the end product, whatever that turns out to be, being of as high a quality as possible. Sven Manguard  Talk  15:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I like that idea. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 15:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Me, too. History of Kyoto is in line with History of Rome and History of London (which are much better comparisons to Heian-kyo than Chicago or New York). DaAnHo (talk) 18:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

We have ja:京都 to cover History of Kyoto before the establishment of the Meiji government and the city of Kyoto as we know it. Yes, this article is an embarrassment. Sorry, my translation is incomplete because I have recently shifted my focus to energy and economy. I'll be back to this topic when time allows. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 08:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Japan-related articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Japan-related articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (&diams;) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:33, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Collaboration
A thread in WikiProject East Asia, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject East Asia, may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject.

Also of note, WikiProject East Asia/to do is up, and one of our current objectives is within the scope of this WikiProject.

Please feel free to comment on or work on either of these issues, and feel free to join WikiProject East Asia if it interests you.

Regards, Sven Manguard  Talk  04:16, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:03, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Japanese-related request at ANI
Here. Cla68 (talk) 00:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Japanese Americans (miniseries)
Found and tagged, please help clean up!--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 19:48, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Currency template

 * 1) There is a discussion on renaming the ¥ template at Template talk:¥. Interested parties may wish to join the discussion.
 * 2) No matter what the outcome is, should the final name of the template be added to WikiProject Japan?
 * 3) Lastly, what should the output of this template be? Currently it produces ¥100 but can potentially be confused with the Chinese Yuan (both ¥ and 元 are commonly used in China). Thank you.  Stepho   (talk) 05:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * "¥" has been internationally recognized for decades as the Japanese Yen symbol, so how it's used inside China is pretty much irrelevant. It should probably be added to WikiProject Japan/Business and economy task force rather than the main WPJ page. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 06:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply. The ¥ symbol is used in both People's Republic of China and Renminbi articles. I have also personally come across it many times when I lived in China. If it causes confusion to readers (Chinese in this case) then it is very relevant. Similar to how '$' is used in the US, Canada, Australia, Taiwan and many other countries, the currency symbol requires disambiguation (eg USD, CAD, AUD, TWD or US$,CA$, AU$, TW$).  Stepho   (talk) 07:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That would be why the template links to Japanese yen. No further disambiguation is needed beyond that. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 15:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the link would disambiguate it (for a little more effort by the reader). But the USD template was criticised for over linking, so we put in a flag to make the link optional (typically enabled on the first use and disable for further usage). I've been thinking of putting this link flag on all the currency templates. This would fix over linking but would reintroduce ambiguity.  Stepho  (talk) 02:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Please help with FLC
List of National Treasures of Japan (ancient documents) is currently a featured list candidate. It has so far received 3 support (and 0 oppose) votes. It needs a last look from someone before it can be promoted. I'd be very happy if somebody could have a look at it and leave comments, questions, suggestions and/or a vote ("support" or "oppose") on the nomination page. Otherwise it is in danger of failing. Thank you. bamse (talk) 19:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Video games Industry in Japan help
I have need help with Video gaming in Japan I know there is more information out there if you can help to help to improve the article it would be appreciated. Dwanyewest (talk) 01:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

IJN Yasoshima
FYI Yasoshima has been requested to be renamed, and that Chinese cruiser Ping Hai be merged with it; see Talk:Yasoshima and Talk:Chinese cruiser Ping Hai ... 76.66.203.138 (talk) 06:00, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Evacuation of Karafuto and Kuriles
This article needs a bit of help with the cleanup. I've added one source, though I'm sure there are others to be found), and I've done a quick-and-dirty combining of the two POV section which now make up the Timeline section. If there are others who would be willing to help with putting a bit more polish on this one, I'd appreciate it. This is an area of history I'm not as familiar with, so I'm just groping around in the dark. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 03:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

PRC-Japan relations
I request a rewrite of People's_Republic_of_China_–_Japan_relations. This article is far from neutral because Japanese views of the PRC, and more specifically, policy of the ruling CCP, are not explained. Also, pre-modern history is poorly written, compared to ja: 日中関係史. Readers wouldn't be able to understand the complexity of the bilateral relations. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 11:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to take a stab at it if you wish. As you said, it's a very complex subject. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 16:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * In particular, I really have a problem with the PRC's "angry" response to the Japan-US joint statement on the peaceful resolution of the status of Taiwan. This implies that a non-peaceful resolution is good and the Japan-US stance is somehow problematic, Nobody in Taiwan, Japan, or anywhere else but China wants that. It smacks of Sinocentrism. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 16:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Non-English characters in dab page, article page, redirect page names, up for RfC
See WT:Article titles, where an RfC has been opened on the use of non-English characters in page titles for disambiguation and redirect titles (and there appears to also be discussion about article titles) 76.66.203.138 (talk) 09:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Macronless names of Tokyo articles
Hi! I noticed something... In October Kōtō, Tokyo was moved to Koto, Tokyo - An admin said that "Requested at Wikipedia:Requested moves as uncontroversial" - The move request was posted here Bunkyo was moved too

Other Tokyo wards have macronned titles, like Ōta, Tokyo WhisperToMe (talk) 12:02, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

RfC on Senkaku Islands
An RfC has been opened regarding the title of the Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute pages. The discussion can be found at Talk:Senkaku Islands. As this page is of interest to this project, we invite your comments. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Translation Help
Hello, I'm currently working on the article for the Japanese video game Another Code: Two Memories. However, there is an interview with the game's developers in Japanese that would undoubtedly improve the article, but which I cannot translate. The interview can be found here. I would be grateful if anyone could translate it. Thanks in advance, 72.69.112.222 (talk) 20:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Go to translate.google.com, select the languages and type in the web address or cut and paste some Japanese text. It gives the following rough translation...
 * http://translate.google.com.au/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nintendo.co.jp%2Fnom%2F0503%2F12%2Findex.html
 *  Stepho  (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your response, but I'm not sure if I could understand that translation enough to learn something from it. Unfortunately, all the automatic translators I've tried have been extremely difficult to decipher. I think this interview will have to be translated manually to make sense, although I understand how much trouble it will be for whoever takes on this request. 72.69.112.222 (talk) 00:04, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess I've been reading Japlish and Chinglish for so long that I don't notice the oddball grammar anymore :) Translating by hand is way beyond my beginner capabilities but read through the machine translation carefully and you'd be suprised how much you can figure out. Put difficult passages through different machine translators and you'll get a few variations that can make things clearer. I like using the translator at http://www.excite.co.jp/world/ for this. Paste the Japanese text into the text box, select the second item in the drop down box (Japanese -> English) and press the big button in the middle.  Stepho   (talk) 07:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe I will give automatic translators another try. I've already discovered something new from the interview using that translator you linked. Thanks for your help on this. 72.69.112.222 (talk) 22:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Tōru Takemitsu → Toru Takemitsu?
The discussion is going on at here. Please participate the discussion. Oda Mari (talk) 09:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Table formatting in List of mountains and hills of Japan by Height
Hi!

I wanted to have a brief discussion on Talk:List of mountains and hills of Japan by height. User:Alpsdake has been making some improvements and I want a sanity check to see if I am the only one, who has problems with the changes. Plus, someone who is a table expert might be useful. Thanks!

-imars (talk) 08:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)