Talk:Later Zhou

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. The proponent of the move cited "The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize." His argument that these are the common names for these periods did not get any explicit disagreement from the other editors. He pointed out that the dynasties for which 'Dynasty' is retained under his plan are the same as those that always have the Dynasty character in Chinese. Assuming that consensus continues to back this line of thinking it will offer a handy decision rule through similar cases in the future. Some objectors argued that we want to 'help readers who aren't necessarily familiar with Chinese history to get a broad idea of what a topic refers to,' but this is not an idea that seems to get any support in the WP:Article titles policy. The proponent offered good answers to some well-posed objections, offering 'Babylonia' in response to the suggestion that 'Zhou' is an odd word, and 'protein' as an example of an understood term that is often omitted from titles. EdJohnston (talk) 04:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

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{{requested move/dated}}

• Later Zhou Dynasty → Later Zhou
• Southern Ming Dynasty → Southern Ming
• Later Jin Dynasty → Later Jin
• Later Tang Dynasty → Later Tang
• Later Han Dynasty (Five Dynasties) → Later Han (Five Dynasties)
• Later Liang Dynasty → Later Liang (Five Dynasties)
• Later Liang → Later Liang (Sixteen Kingdoms)

– Per WP:Concise and WP:Precise for the first five. While some Chinese dynasties (e.g. Zhou Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Tang Dynasty etc.) include the word "dynasty" in the titles, it was because things would be quite ambiguous without it; plus their Chinese usages also always included the word "dynasty" (朝 or 代). This is not the case for those dynasties above. The current disambiguation system for Later Liang is arbitrary. "Later Liang Dynasty" can also be used to denote the sixteen kingdom state in 4th century, see e.g. [1] and vice versa (e.g. [2]). Later Liang and Later Liang Dynasty should both direct to the same disambiguation page. Timmyshin (talk) 19:09, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Doesn't this run afoul of WP:NOUN? --BDD (talk) 19:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Timmyshin (talk) 20:06, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Aren't the proposed titles adjective phrases? The Later Zhou Dynasty is a dynasty. What type? Later Zhou. --BDD (talk) 21:44, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

No. Zhou is the official name of the state. The only adjective is "Later", and that is added to distinguish it from another earlier state (Zhou Dynasty) with that name. See Later Shu, Later Yan, Later Qin, Later Zhao, Later Balhae, Later Baekje etc. as well as Later Liang mentioned above. Timmyshin (talk) 22:05, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I recognize that the nominator possesses expertise that I lack; however, the use of these names (Zhou, Ming, Jin, etc.) without the clarifying companion noun "dynasty" is both confusing and awkward to non-specialist, native English speaking eyes. I have no doubt that the nominator's rationale is logical from a specialist point-of-view. Speaking for the average lay WP reader, though, I think the "Dynasty" titles are needed for clarity. As BDD indicates in his remarks, the use of word "Zhou" without an accompanying clarifier just seems odd in English. Xoloz (talk) 04:17, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

What's odd about the word "Zhou"? It's a country's name. I'm assuming something like "Babylonia" is not so odd? Are you going to propose to add the word "dynasty" also to the titles of Later Shu, Later Yan, Later Qin, Later Zhao, Later Balhae, Later Baekje, Western Xia, Western Qin, Western Yan, Western Wei, Northern Qi, Northern Zhou, Northern Yan, Northern Han, Northern Liang, Northern Wei, Northern Liao, Southern Liang, Southern Tang, Southern Han, Southern Qi, Former Shu, Former Liang, Former Qin, Eastern Wu, Eastern Wei etc. just because they all appear odd/awkward in English? If not, why should the ones above be different? I appreciate your honest opinion, but let's face it, all words in an unfamiliar culture are odd/awkward. Unfamiliarity, however, is not the basis of Wikipedia:Article titles. Timmyshin (talk) 05:52, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support. I've seen these proposed names commonly used for the states in reliable English sources. I've rarely, if at all, seen the names with dynasty appended to them. I've always found the current usage odd, per the sources. --Cold Season (talk) 19:45, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support - the word "dynasty" is superfluous when there is no ambiguity. -Zanhe (talk) 07:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support Southern Ming. There was a Southern Ming dynasty in Nanjing in 1644-1645. But the term "Southern Ming" more commonly refers to the Ming loyalist movement collectively. This includes the separate pretender courts in Fuzhou, Guangzhou, and Kunming. The Clever Boy (talk) 02:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

As far as the familiarity issue goes, I note that the title Tudor dynasty appears to be consensus following a great deal of discussion. And while we're at it, let's lower case "dynasty". The Chicago Manual of Style explains that a dynasty is "considered an era rather than a political division" and gives the example "Shang dynasty" in §8.71. The Clever Boy (talk) 06:31, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd support the move to lower case Han Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, Xia Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Qin Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, Shang Dynasty, etc. if there is a proposal. However, I can't remember where but I remember reading a discussion for these dynasties and somehow "Dynasty" won. Timmyshin (talk) 18:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

A bit of a digression from the move request, but I can't say that capitalization received much support [3]. --Cold Season (talk) 19:33, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose first four, Support last three. "Dynasty" is important to help readers who aren't necessarily familiar with Chinese history to get a broad idea of what a topic refers to.► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 05:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

The proposed titles are precise and concise to the point that it is unambiguous. The current names are certainly not the common names. The proposed names are supported by reliable sources. Notwithstanding that it would be inconsistent, for example, to have one of the Five Dynasties at one format with "Dynasty" and another without. --Cold Season (talk) 17:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Please show where in WP:Article titles guidelines does it say that article titles need to "help readers who aren't familiar with the topic to get a broad idea of what a topic refers to"? I only see this: "Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize." Are you also suggesting, assuming you are not a molecular biologist, that the word "protein" be added to all of the pages at Category:Heat shock proteins just because you won't tell what they are by their titles? Timmyshin (talk) 22:25, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Comment Cambridge History of China, Volume 5, Part 1, p. 38, on the 5 dynasties: "The founders of each of these dynasties used the name of a previous dynasty as a way of linking their dynasty to lineages, regions, and successes of the past. Although these states did not, as a rule, refer to themselves using the prefixes Later, Northern, Southern, etc., it is a long-standing historiographic practice that helps to distinguish one dynasty from another." On the same page the dynasties were simply referred to as "the Later Liang, the Later T’ang, the Later Chin, the Later Han, and the Later Chou" without any suffixes. ("T'ang", "Chin", "Chou" were somewhat outdated spellings of "Tang", "Jin", and "Zhou".) Timmyshin (talk) 06:10, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.