Template talk:Monarchs of Japan

Hirohito/Shōwa

The designation in this template of the Japanese emperor who reigned from 1926 to 1989 as "Hirohito/Shōwa" is a reflection of the consensus of the latest round of a long series of discussions on the appropriate name for this person in English Wikipedia usage (see "Requested move - Jan 2009" on the Hirohito talk page and the talk page archives). Please do not change the designation in this template until and unless there has been a documented change in the above consensus. -- Meyer (talk) 04:35, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"Empire of Japan" historical period

I reversed revision 345411456 by 61.115.125.93 at 12:38, 21 February 2010. The revision regrouped the monarchs previously listed under "Modern Japan" into "Empire of Japan" and "Current". I cannot find any source using the Empire of Japan as a basis for historical periodization. Sources either group Meiji through Heisei eras together as "Modern Japan", or consider each era since Meiji as its own historical period.

At the moment, "Modern Japan" redirects to Heisei period, which isn't accurate. I think "Modern Japan" needs it's own article, even if just links to the four modern eras. I won't have the time to put anything together for at least a few days, so anyone should feel free to jump in with something first. --Meyer (talk) 04:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I have changed it to "Empire of Japan", since that is the term generally used for this period of Japanese history. "Imperialist Japan" does not even have a redirect on Wikipedia (unlike Imperial Japan, which might be acceptable). It is also historically questionable/POV, since the word "imperialist" is generally used with another meaning, and to describe Japan in the early-Meiji period this way is slightly offensive (unequal treaties, black ships and all). And the early-Meiji period was the only time when the Emperor was actually the supreme ruler -- the Meiji Constitution promulgated two decades into his reign bound him to the terms of the constitution (Article 4) and his decisions needed to be signed off by a minister (Article 55). elvenscout742 (talk) 08:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Although if you or anyone else has a significant problem with my edit I am prepared to compromise with Imperial Japan? Another issue, though, is that the Showa Emperor now appears on the list twice. Anyone have a problem with removing the Empire of Japan reference to him? The majority of his reign, and the part of the Showa period most widely associated with the name, took place after the War. elvenscout742 (talk) 08:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Discrepancies

Based on the {{History of Japan}} infobox and List of Emperors of Japan:

• Should the "Legendary" period be broken down into Jōmon (600–300 BC) and Yayoi (300 BC – 269 AD) periods, with Emperor Kōan ending the Jōmon list and beginning the Yayoi list?
• Should Kofun show dates of 270–539 and Asuka, 539–710? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:29, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I think the cause for these discrepancies is that different sources may have different dates for these periods. I do think we need to be consistent; I'll come back to this later, but pinging Hijiri88 in the meanwhile who might be interested also. Alex Shih (talk) 22:40, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks. I think I arrived at reasonable coherence with our articles. Not real happy about the way the note about Empress Jingū is rendered, nor what I had to do to get the flag to not suck up all that extra space above and below it, though. Someone who's good with navboxes can probably figure out a better way. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 06:49, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I'd say no to 1, yes to 2. The legendary emperors are recorded in ancient chronicles but if some of them existed it was probably later than recorded (the lifespans were almost certainly lengthened artificially to put the founding of Japan back a millennium or so), so attempting to group them into a periodization system used by modern archaeologists is extremely awkward. As for the Kofun/Asuka dates, I don't think it really matters as long as they can be sourced at all. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • BTW: Someone who has been soft-blocked for the last five years added the claim that Jingu was "traditionally listed, but left out since Meiji" to a bunch of places around the encyclopedia based on a questionable reading of single Edo-period source; I don't really see a problem with the current note here, except that it looks like a reaction to a controversy that doesn't exist outside Wikipedia. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:09, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
    • My change was solely to reflect the presence of Jōmon and Yayoi periods in our own article timelines, making the navbox consistent with them. The "legendary" description, which remains, should make it clear that the dates are fuzzy. I tweaked the appearance a little again today, hopefully for the better. It could probably be done more simply using the {{Navbox with columns}} for the whole thing, but this might not produce an accessibility-friendly result (i.e. it would read in column order?) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Appearance change

@Celia Homeford: Your edit, with a summary of "That does not look good.", removed the bottom two lines (common in other navboxes) and the imperial standard, leading me to revert it with "What exatly[sic] doesn't look good? Please discuss removal of content present for 8 years ...". I was referring to the fact that the link Imperial House was added in March 2011, here, according to Wikiblame[1]. So, here we are.

In August 2018, I did some re-arranging for the purpose of reconciling the template with our articles on the subject and improving the use of space, including this edit with the summary "Move flag to bottom right, allowing more horizontal room for lists, causing less wrapping and better use of space". Note I also discussed my changes at #Discrepancies (above) to invite comment. (See fourth bullet, my second post.) I don't think calling anyone's edits "ridiculous" is productive. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:00, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

The re-arrangement does NOT improve the use of space. It looks ridiculous. Yes, ridiculous. The traditional arrangement is a better use of space and is more consistent with similar templates. The removal of links was accidental. Celia Homeford (talk) 11:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

@Celia Homeford: How am I supposed to work with that? How would you respond if someone said that to you? But I'll try anyway. Objectively, putting the (mostly decorative) flag in that position wastes a lot of space above and below it, which was the point of moving it to the bottom – so it allowed that space to be used by the lists instead of being just empty. This allowed some lists to take up one less line vertically, depending on your screen dimensions. The flag is about 100x65px and it's using 100x470px (or more) of space, blocking that 100px column from being used by the list rows. I'll also note that the white background for the bottom link row instead of the two rows with the lavender background is inconsistent with the way some other navboxes are presented. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:29, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't know what browser or operating system you're using but I can only suppose that you're using an entirely different system and browser. The other version looks completely ridiculous with a MASSIVE white space on both the left and right which is about 6 rows deep and takes up a good 9/10ths of the lower row on a standard-sized PC screen. There are two silly-looking little purple buttons stuck in the middle of this huge white space on which the text is so cramped that the category icon and book icon are disconnected from (on a different line to) the words/links to the category and book. Then to the right of them is an offset flag which looks ugly because it is not symmetrically placed or central or right-aligned or left-aligned or lined up with the other boxes of colour: it's just stuck off slightly to one side on its own looking rather daft. Celia Homeford (talk) 13:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

(ec) In a 1024x768px Firefox browser window, I took a screencap of the Celia's latest version of the template, which renders about 740x1340px, shown on the left. In the same window, I took a screencap of my last version, which renders 740x1140px (15% shorter) without the big white space on the right, shown on the right:

Celia's latest version

Alan's last version

You're apparently seeing something very different. I'm using a 13-month-old x64 laptop with Win10Pro and a 1920x1080 17" display. I use Firefox 65 and the vector skin, which I think is relatively common. Note that my changes were over 8 months ago, I discussed them above, and either nobody else has seen the problem you are seeing, or they haven't bothered to say anything, which would be surprising, given your description of how extreme the problem is. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

That's not the latest version, but whatever. I don't know how to take a screen capture in Google Chrome, but if you look at the template in that browser, I hope you'll see what I mean. Celia Homeford (talk) 14:34, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It was when I captured it – it took a while to assemble, upload, and write. I've just checked with the latest Chrome (74), Edge (44), and IE (11), all while not logged in (i.e., I see what any IP user sees, without any of my own custom settings or styles). All looked virtually the same as FFox (logged in). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 15:14, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Alan's version in Google Chrome on a PC running Windows 10 Enterprise at the same screen width as the other two images.

This is the only way I can see to capture a screenshot of what it looks like to me. Celia Homeford (talk) 08:07, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'll try to have a look at it to see why it might be doing that in the next day or so. (Unrelated to the problem, but in case someone else looks at it, I'll note that WP has added a red herring: the preview image that it generated at commons:File:Template_Monarchs_of_Japan_-_Wikipedia.pdf looks horizontally "stretched", however the PDF displays with the correct aspect ratio.) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:19, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

@Celia Homeford: Just to confirm, what version of Google Chrome are you using (in settings, Help → About Google Chrome)? It should be 74.0. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:31, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Version 74.0.3729.131. Celia Homeford (talk) 14:54, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

What skin are you using (see Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering)? How about your appearance (chrome://settings/appearance) and font settings in Chrome (chrome://settings/fonts)? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:04, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm just using the default settings. The only thing unusual about Chrome is that it is managed: https://support.google.com/chrome/?p=is_chrome_managed. Celia Homeford (talk) 12:10, 20 May 2019 (UTC)