Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/December 2008

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Medieval Japanese history

I noticed that the section on Nanbokucho is very rudimentary, and that the Muromachi section was much better but still very small compared to their importance in medieval Japanese history. Ashikaga shoguns is not up to snuff. I have mainly done work on one article called Emishi which is rather specialized (but is very important for ancient Japanese history) and have been working in relative isolation, so am unfamiliar with how to collaborate on mainstream historical topics, but may just jump in soon to rectify this. Any advice?--K.H. (talk) 17:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

My only advice is to go for it, contribute whatever you can. Collaboration on Wikipedia, in my experience, consists for the most part of individual editors working independently to do whatever they can on a given article at a given time, and in the end, in aggregate, coming out with something really good. Do what you can with the subject, and then move on; maybe come back to it later. Other editors will hopefully do the same, adding to what you've done, just as you add to what they've done, and in the end we're all better for it.

You are absolutely right to note that the articles on those periods are not in very good shape. Articles on larger topics in general seem to deter editors, as they are intimidating and imposing to tackle (they certainly deter me to a large extent). So, if you're up for it, I think all of us at the Project who have not, or cannot, contribute to these subjects, will be most appreciative. LordAmeth (talk) 23:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

What he said. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Neoconservatism in Japan

I ran across this article while running the prod-finder bot. The article has apparently been around for a while, had survived a 2005 VfD and is now prodded, despite the numerous sources. The article... feels a bit weird (I'd like to say slanted, but that'd probably be too harsh). I've never heard of such a thing as a coherent neoconservative faction in the Japanese Diet, but then, I don't follow Japanese politics closely; and some of the sources seems questionable. If this is a valid concept/denomination of a coherent group of Japanese politicians, could somebody with more knowledge in Japanese politics look into it? It seems it would be a shame to loose it, if it is indeed legit. If it isn't just disregard this message. TomorrowTime (talk) 08:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit, I also notice that the article name is a misspelling - the correct spelling gave me a redlink... TomorrowTime (talk) 08:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how "neoconservatism" is a term used in Asian media, particularly China, Japan, and Korea (North and South), as claimed. "Neoconservatism" looks to me to be written in English, while those countries respectively use the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages. While I'm being somewhat facetious here, there is an important point. Using a political term originating in one part of the world and then applying it in another is just stupid. People from different parts of the world have a different idea of what "conservative", "liberal", etc. mean. It seems to me that someone did some OR here and applied what he/she thinks of as "neoconservatism" to something he/she saw in Japan. I suspect that at least part of what the article refers to as examples of "neoconservatism" is just a mainstream Japanese attitude about certain things. The Daily Yomiuri is the largest newspaper in Japan, but according to the article would appear to be a "neocon" publication. For example the article states "China is viewed as a country that harbors historical grievances for political gain, rather than accepting Japan's apologies. [Neocons] express strong patriotic pride and stress Japan's international role." Doesn't this just sound like what a typical Japanese who reads the Daily Yomiuri would think? --C S (talk) 08:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Those sound a lot like my concerns, I just didn't quite find the words to express them as accurately as you did. TomorrowTime (talk) 09:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what is to be done here. Other people have complained on the talk page, but I suspect it'll take some arguing to have it deleted in an AFD. There may be some merit to the article, although I'm skeptical. In any case, the prod has been removed as the article has already gone through a VFD (back in the old VFD days). --C S (talk) 22:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Building with expressway going through it

Gate Tower Building is a pretty interesting article. Namely, it's about this odd building which has the Hanshin expressway on the 5-7th floors. Anyway, whoever wrote most of the article doesn't write fluent English, so it needs quite a bit of cleanup. I thought people that enjoy this kind of chore may enjoy cleaning up this article. It also seems worth making a note in Hanshin Expressway (there is already a picture there)...but perhaps this is not so unusual? --C S (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I added a project box and some better categories [1], but it still needs more work. Cla68 (talk) 00:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I only now noticed the article was created using Babelfish. No wonder. Here is the Japanese Wikipedia article for those who think they can do better than the Babelfish :-) --C S (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

New train article draft

A contest at DYK lead to the beginning of User talk:Suntag/Train melody by several editors. At the moment, the article is more about Japan train melodies. If you know of reliable source material for this topic, please add to User talk:Suntag/Train melody. The article would greatly benefit from any scientific studies on Japan train melodies. On the article being moved to article namespace, contributors may receive a DYK article creation credit once the article appears on the Main Page. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 19:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the article could be moved to mainspace as it is. I'm sure I could come up with a DYK which would catch people's eyes. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:30, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

need help with a japanese source

About this translation I made using google.translate.com, please look at the original japanese source and check if the translation is correct. It sounds very strange that it has Sister City agreements with 53 municipalities inside Hokkaido, they ought to be all over the world, did Google mangle the order of the words? --Enric Naval (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done I have reworded this now to indicate that it is 73 municipalities in Hokkaido that have sister city agreements with 111 cities in 19 countries worldwide. Note that this is separate from the friendship agreements involving Hokkaido prefecture which were already listed. --DAJF (talk) 02:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much :) --Enric Naval (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

IOGFK

Maybe someone can look into IOGFK. It's a new article and I'm not sure about its notability. The author tried to add some reference in Spanish I think. Thank you. --R0pe-196 (talk) 12:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Sapporo Municipal Keimei Junior High school

Sorry again, but this article also needs some work. It's not understandable and I also wasn't sure about it's notability with only 750 students in some residential area. But maybe someone can rewrite it with help of the Japanese source. It also says it has a long history, but was founded 1947, not really long ago. --R0pe-196 (talk) 12:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Futaba Channel (http://www.2chan.net)

Futaba Channel has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.195.159 (talk) 06:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I've listed it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Japan. Fg2 (talk) 06:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Futaba Channel was deleted, but there were more keeps than deletes, and the closing admin said he'd be willing to userfy it somewhere, and would not challenge a DRV request. 76.66.195.159 (talk) 09:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance of there being more "keep"s. The close was done properly, so a deletion review would just be a waste of time. If a new, substantially source-bolstered article were to be deleted, that would be a different matter. But usually it's not hard to get undeleted once you point out it has differing content from before. --C S (talk) 01:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Red bean paste vs an

There's a bizarre little edit war at Red bean paste about whether it is or is not equivalent to ja:餡 (an[ko]). Please grab a spoon and dig in. Jpatokal (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Folk musicians

Some time ago, I created the categories Category:Japanese folk musicians and Category:Okinawan folk musicians (a subcat of the former). There is currently one musician in the latter category, and none in the former. If you are aware of any folk musicians (min'yō 民謡 or the like) that already have Wikipedia articles, please help populate these categories. Thank you. LordAmeth (talk) 15:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

having maps in Sea of Japan naming dispute article

Isn't it odd that Sea of Japan naming dispute doesn't have any historical maps showing "Sea of Korea" or "Mer de Oriental," but just 1 historical map showing "Sea of Japan"? We'd be glad to have opinions from people here. Come to the talk page, thanks. (Ferromagneticmonopole (talk) 17:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

Fake food in Japan

I have started an article on fake food in Japan. Although there is already an article on fake food, I believe the Japanese fake food industry is unique and sufficiently large to warrant its own article.

Right now, I have not made inline citations although I hope to in the near future (writing about fake food has made me hungry, so I am going to eat right now and unlikely to work on this again in the next couple days). I have added links to some of the good sources I found. The ANA magazine is probably the best one, but some of the claims can be sourced to the others.

What is the Japanese term for the fake food? Some would say "sampuru" but I believe this is used for all kinds of samples, not just fake food. Is there a Japanese Wikipedia article?

And of course, we could use some pictures....but perhaps they look too realistic to be informative. Maybe a picture of a typical display case would be good. --C S (talk) 08:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The Japanese term is 食品サンプル or maybe 食品見本. Oda Mari (talk) 09:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The Japanese Wikipedia has it under ja:食品サンプル. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 09:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Commons has media at commons:Category:Food samples. Fg2 (talk) 11:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Help needed on Kimitoshi Yamane

Hey there, some of you might remember me from a while ago. I returned after a long break to create the Kimitoshi Yamane article, based on the ja-wikipedia page, after some editing on the Vision of Escaflowne article. Yamane is amongst Japan's most well-known and renowned mecha designers, who's worked on such shows as Cowboy Bebop, Vision of Escaflowne, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, MS IGLOO, Xam'd: Lost Memories and several other Gundam shows, as well as plaethora of other series, and has also authored several Japanese books on mechanical design, and being the co-founders of ARTMIC, and so I created the article as there were several such articles on the ja-wikipedia that hasn't been translated here yet, as many of you will be aware. However, an hour or so after creating the article, I later found out to my amazement that it was speedily tagged for deletion, and even as I added further references to the article, they were reverted. Thankfully, however an admin declined the claim, and the nominator Collectorian took it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kimitoshi Yamane. If someone has old issues of Newtype and Animage (or even new ones, I believe his involvement in Bounen no Xam'd, Seed, Seed Destiny & MS IGLOO has been detailed recently) or any books or resources/websites, these references would be of great help and value to this article. Your help, as always, would be greatly appreciated. ···巌流^{? · talk to ganryuu} 00:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Tokogawa Mitsumuri

I've put a speedy-deletion request on Tokogawa Mitsumuri. The article is a partial copy of Shunroku Hata with an unrelated name in place of Hata's. The links to German & French Wikipedias are dead; the links to the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Wikipedias go to the articles on Hata (and those articles link back to English article on Hata). The photo shows Hata. Fg2 (talk) 04:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

As you can see, it's been deleted. If the red link should turn blue, it's worth a look. Fg2 (talk) 06:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)