Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/July 2007

Talk & archives for WP Japan
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Image source help

Does anyone know the source of Image:IwaneRidesIn.jpg? It would be good to add it back to the article once we have the source. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The source of the image was given by the uploader as Source: The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. http://www.nj1937.org/english/show_massacre.asp?id=18 and it was unloaded under free use rationale. From the age of the image, it should not be covered under copyright, and perhaps an argument could be made that it could be uploaded into Commons.--MChew 08:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Please assess Kobe again

Nihonjoe was nice enough to give the Kobe article a good once over a few months back, recommending that redlink articles be created and major stations added to the Transportation section. This has been done, and moreover most of the tedious lists have been dealt with. The list that used to occupy the "Education" section has since been moved to its own article, leaving the section a bit languid, but I feel that once that section is fleshed out the article's quality should be re-evaluated. Given its "Top" importance, any help would be much appreciated along with any helpful ideas. -- Exitmoose 07:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I've set up a section in the Talk page for comments and added a comment about lists. Fg2 01:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I've addressed most of your concerns and fleshed out the weaker sections. Any other suggestions? How can we get the article up to GA status? -- Exitmoose 08:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This is the closest I can get to bumping the section. I've added demographics and greatly expanded the economy section. What else can be done? -- Exitmoose 04:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Attention needed

How can an article be marked as needing attention? Japanese nationalist thinking in the Meiji era is an important and, I think, very interesting subject; the article contains a lot of good information, but it's quite poorly organized and would benefit from a real expert writing a full article with a consistent logic. Thank you. LordAmeth 21:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Posting here is a good start. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Architectural element in a Japanese garden

Does anyone know a correct name for this architectural element in a Japanese garden? If you do, could you please edit the caption (on Commons) accordingly? And I suspect that someone who knows a lot about Japanese gardens might also be able to improve captions on other images in the same category. Thanks in advance for any help. - Jmabel | Talk 02:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The Japanese Wikipedia article ja:般若寺 has a photo of a similar structure. The caption calls it a thirteen-story stone tower or thirteen-story pagoda. Note that in Japanese a conventional three- or five-story wooden pagoda uses the same naming convention without specifying the material, i.e. three-story tower or five-story tower. (A story in a wooden pagoda is big enough for people to stand in; a story in a stone pagoda might be only a couple of feet high.) So I'd call it a thirteen-story stone pagoda. It's possible that towers with other numbers of stories were built. Fg2 11:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The Japanese is 十三重石塔 (十三 is thirteen; 重 is layer or story; 石塔 is stone tower.) Some stones in the Seattle photo are obscured by foliage so I can't count them reliably. Fg2 11:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia article says that the temple "... hat mit 13 Etagen die höchste Steinpagode (sotoba) Japans." So they're calling it Steinpagode (stone pagoda) in German, and using the Japanese word sotoba. (A sotoba or stupa is any Buddhist tower such as a pagoda or a tahōtō; the word has other derived meanings as well.) Fg2 11:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Iwo Jima: dead links

Wikipedia strongly encourages editors to add references to articles, but as with so many timely topics, the Web references become unavailable quickly. What is the best thing to do -- leave the references in the article, or remove them? Fg2 08:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If you use the {{cite}} templates, one of the items you include is the access date. This is important for sites such as newspaper sites that charge you for access to their archives or that remove articles completely after a while (though this is becoming more rare as storage space for articles is relatively cheap). If they are properly cited, I would leave them in as they can be verified with some work. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 08:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. Will do. Thanks Fg2 11:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

National Theater

The disambig page National theatre has a red link to National Theater (Tokyo). Does anyone know if the topic is covered under a different article title? This seems a tad too important a topic to be overlooked. Thanks. LordAmeth 10:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Which one did you want? See New National Theatre for a live article. National Noh Theater is (as you can see) a red link. ja:国立能楽堂 has no link to an English article. Nor does ja:国立劇場, ja:国立文楽劇場 or ja:国立劇場おきなわ. Fg2 11:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of the 国立劇場 in particular, as it seems to me the most major and commonly referred to. But as you note, the Noh, Bunraku, and Okinawa theaters also lack articles. I suppose it matters not where we start; just good to note that these topics do need to be covered. LordAmeth 17:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Created article on National Theatre of Japan (国立劇場). Translation of main section of Japanese Wikipedia article. Fg2 10:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Question on Japan Defense Agency secretary/Minister of Defense link

Should we provide a sort of link that provides readers who were those who became JDA secretary/MOD secretary?

Kinda like this shown at the Yuriko Koike page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ominae (talk • contribs).

Zen merger

It was proposed in September 2006 that Zen Teacher/Zen Master be merged into Zen, but no discussion was made of it. If you are interested, please discuss here. JohnnyMrNinja 17:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

The article Toyotomi Hideyoshi has been rated Start class by various WikiProjects. WikiProject Japan has not assigned a rating or a priority. I suggest top or high priority for this extremely important historical figure, and would like suggestions for bringing this article up to A class. Fg2 02:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, your proposal makes a sense. The most significant figure in the last quarter of 16th Century. --Aphaia 12:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Chibi

Chibi has gone to AfD. The discussion is here. JohnnyMrNinja 08:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have rewritten the first 3 paragraphs of Chibi. Please check for accuracy, and comment in the AfD discussions. Thank you.--Endroit 16:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear power in Japan

There has been a lot of growth in this article recently. I would appreciate someone giving it an importance and quality evaluation. In the next week or so I would like to see it make it's way to a "B" rating. It ties in with a number of other important articles on Japan (see talk page) which could also use our attention. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. It's great to see some people working on bread and butter articles like this, rather than endless anime, as you say. I would suggest you start finding citations for the main factual points in the article. Also, the map of reactors looks good, but it obviously incomplete at the moment. And does it need to be that large? Finally, the latter sections are a bit too "listy" at the moment. Can you find a way of turning them into nice prose? Bobo12345 00:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, I really want to address all of these points. Firstly, could you specify how the map is incomplete? I didn't include planned power plants or non-power plants, those excluded, I'm 95% sure it's complete and accurate. Regarding the map format, yes it's big, it would be very difficult to resize it, but it's completely doable. I described all the steps I went through to make that template (basically copied one used for the prefecture names) on the page for it, you could go through, resize, and change the place of the names, as well as the page formatting if you wanted to, but it currently serves the purpose of having a map with names and links, which was my sole objective creating it. Different kinds of maps could be useful, by all means, the Japanese Wikipedia, for instance, has a very good one. If you could figure out how to get that (or a similar one) over here or over to the commons, it could certainly improve some articles, but alas, it is beyond my ability.

Don't get me wrong about the anime articles. Some of them are the most beautiful and well made articles on Wikipedia. But for that exact reason, there are so many awesome editors working on them, it's not something I could make a big difference for. We all write about what we're interested in, right? Indeed, it probably would have been more helpful to contribute on a higher level article like Energy in Japan. But even so, Nuclear power in Japan corresponds and interacts with other topics that could use the information. For instance, as you were saying about the lists, I had to put in some lists that are needed but maybe not needed there, the Japanese utilities section in particular has a relevant prose-style paragraph, which is all we need for the article, but Wikipedia needs coverage for every one individually (epically since there are articles for the plants). It simply needs to go somewhere else and be well linked from the nuclear power article.

References are still a problem though. It's difficult to well reference works that are translated, and I just don't have a good solution right now. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Hooray! We got something on the front page! -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

A-class review for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision

I've just nominated this article for A-class review and since it also concerns this project I thought I'd post it here also if anyone would like to participate. The review is here. Cla68 03:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Bonsai

The bonsai article is not listed as part of this project. Funnily enough, it is listed as part of WP China, which seems a bit of a stretch, especially since there is a separate Penjing article, and the Bonsai article really only covers Japan's miniature trees. How do I go about listing the article in the project? Is simply putting the tag { {WikiProject Japan} } on the talk page enough? TomorrowTime 13:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's sufficient. Thank you for noticing that. If you'd like you may also wish to remove the WPChina banner, as you quite accurately point out it is not pertinent. LordAmeth 16:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that, didn't wanna mess anything up. TomorrowTime 16:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Translations from Japanese to English

Hello! I'd like to request that anyone capable of doing so come look at some of the articles that requests for translation have been created for at Japanese to English translations as we're starting to have a good-size backlog there. Thank you to any and everyone who comes to help. -Yupik 21:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Orphaned article linking

The following articles need to be linked to. If anyone can find some appropriate articles (3-4 is best) and place links to these articles in them, that would be a great help.

• Art Yard
• Baby Mammoth (magazine)

(more to come)

Please strikeout the articles once you've linked to them.

Thanks for any help. I'm not sure which articles could link to it. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Batsu Game

I've just come across the article Penalty game, which describes, very briefly, the phenomenon of suffering some sort of punishment for losing a Yu-gi-oh game. Unless there is more widespread applicability of this term to sports or other games (playing an extra penalty game after losing in cards, mahjong, or the like), I would suggest that it be redirected to Batsu game.

Next problem is that there is no full-fleshed article for "batsu game", only a listing in the Glossary of owarai terms. I'd be happy to move this to its own article (as it is just as relevant to TV variety/game shows as it is to the narrower field of owarai), and to expand on it in whatever tiny ways that I can. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to inspire a listing of different punishments and batsu games which would almost inevitably result from this becoming an article.

Thoughts? Thanks. LordAmeth 09:50, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I support this move ... I don't think the phrase "penalty game" really has any meaning in English anyway, and the fixation with batsu game is fairly unique to Japan to the best of my knowledge. There is a [slightly-stubby article] on the Japanese Wikipedia that might be a good starting point. CES 11:49, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Ōendan

Anyone have any pics of Ōendan? If so, and you don't mind uploading them under GFDL, could you upload them to Commons and then ad one or more to this article? It would be especially useful to have pics of different kinds of them (bands, cheerleaders, drummers, flag/banner wavers, etc.) Thanks! ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Kanagawa question

Are any of the entries on Kanagawa enough reason not to redirect the word to Kanagawa Prefecture and move the dab to Kanagawa (disambiguation)? In particular, is the topic of our one-line stub on Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama (probably the only other entry that belongs outside a "See also" section) important enough to stop that redirect? Dekimasuよ! 01:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I think your proposed actions are sound. Cla68 01:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with your proposed actions. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Need kanji help

Sorry to bother you guys - my normal gig is requesting free images from article subjects. I got an e-mail request from Midori (author) to add the kanji version of her name to the article, and would appreciate any help in this regard. If necessary I can put you in touch with the article subject. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 02:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Did she indicate what the kanji were? There are multiple ways to write "Midori" in kanji. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Drop me a line here and I'll put you in touch with her, thanks! Videmus Omnia ^Talk 04:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

If you can post a link to a page (or have her post a link here) with the kanji, that will be the easiest. A news article or somethign similar would be best. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll ask her. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 06:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

This is the reply I got - thanks for any help in getting this into the article:

"My name consists of 3 kanji characters.

[Mi]

Definition – Beauty; other pronunciations – utsukushi; Stroke number -9

[Do]

Definition – to rise; other pronunciations – noboru; Stroke number – 12

[Ri]

Definition – country side; other pronunciations – Sato; Stroke number – 7"

Thanks again! Videmus Omnia ^Talk 04:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Are there any articles which show this? 美登里 is what I believe are the correct ones based on the description above. If she can point to any Japanese articles which show this, that would be great. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

If you wouldn't mind, could you put them in the article? I'll ask her to take a look and make sure it's correct. She couldn't refer me to an article and she's not particularly computer-literate. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 05:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

A couple of things make me a little nervous about this article ... first that the subject's real/full name is not given, second that it's a little unclear whether Midori/美登里 is a real name or a stage name. If Midori is her real name and she was given those kanji at birth I see no problem with adding that info to the page. I see she was born in Japan and is apparently part Japanese so that's quite plausible ... but a little more information would be nice to make the context of the name a little more clear. CES 14:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I just heard back from the person - those were the correct characters exactly. Thanks for the help! Videmus Omnia ^Talk 01:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Those are definitely unusual kanji for a name (used all together). Glad I could help. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Move

There is an ongoing poll for moving Senkaku Islands at Talk:Senkaku Islands. Mr. Killigan 04:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Where's Tarako Tarako Tarako?

To my surprise there's no article about Tarako Tarako Tarako. Depending on the article where this information is added, a hatnote might need to be placed in Tarako, Kewpie and Kigurumi. Shinobu 06:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Excuse my ignorance, but who or what is Tarako Tarako Tarako? TomorrowTime 08:41, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yup, never heard of it (him/her?). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 14:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Haha, I assume you mean [this song]. It was a bit of a hit for a while ... the Japanese Wikipedia page is relatively extensive. Anyone interested could probably find it on YouTube. CES 14:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I went on and educated myself after posting the question. I... am not sure if an article about this is really so indispensible. I mean, it's just a silly song, right? Or am I missing something? (Oh, and to the first poster - by the power of association, I now have the Sakana song stuck in my head, and it won't go away. Thanks a lot...) TomorrowTime 15:13, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Eat fish! It is good for head! ;)MightyAtom 06:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Some minor help needed

A short article, informing the reader that "konichiwaw" [sic] was Japanese for Good Afternoon, was recently prodded and deleted. (not quite certain why, I sure as hell didn't know konichiwaw meant that...) Anywho, the talk page (talk:konichiwaw) still remains. Could someone with admin powers delete that? TomorrowTime 15:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. LordAmeth 21:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

LOL, konichiwaw. (^_^;; ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops. I plead guilty to having speedied the "article" (out of process, so go ahead and have me desysopped) and not to have noticed the talk page. Incidentally, my main purpose in strangling this pathetic article [hope its author isn't reading this] at birth was to prevent "transwikiing" and the further degradation of Wikidictionary, already the repository of way too much garbage. -- Hoary 03:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I only noticed the floating talk page because the article had been delisted from the proposed deletions page, and I was concerned that somebody might have actually deprodded that... Anyway, areegatow for your efforts. TomorrowTime 07:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Matsunoyuki

Can anyone help to improve this article which is currently up for deletion here [1]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nick mallory (talk • contribs).

Location maps are a beautiful thing!!1, but we don't have one!

Check out the Template:Location map please. People have made them for an entire plethora of places in the world, but Japan is clearly missing. You can do so many things with this template, with just a list of places and their coordinates you can place them all onto a standard map of a place and give them different kinds of dots, and whatever else you need.

I've made a few of these templates myself, with mixed results, it is indeed difficult to find out EXACTLY what coordinates the edges of the map are at, furthermore, the map has to be projected in a certain way. Let me stress that this template would be VERY useful in a great number of Japan related articles. I've gotten pretty good at using them, but I really am hesitant to make them since they require a lot of technical ability, I've also yet to make one correctly, nor do I know what the best maps we have for this are.

Please consider learning about this and making one for Japan. Thanks. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Tokyo

Hiroshima

庄原

出雲

Japan Sea

Kōchi

Wakkanai

Sendai

Naha

Kobe

横浜

class=notpageimage|

Nihonjoe's favorite places

Hmm...let's see if this works. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Cool! The only thing that won't work properly is the Okinawa part. Feel free to tweak {{Location map Japan}} as needed. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Changed it to Hiroshima since I used to live there. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...looks like you can make the label a link, too. Nifty! ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! I've been working with the kind where you can put multiple items on the map, so hopefully sometime in the next day or so I'll demonstrate a more complex effective use of it at Template:Japan nuke plant map2. I'm impressed that the coordinates are working right, good work. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:40, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

May as well add some other favorites. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I should note that Sendai doesn't have any coordinates in the article, so I had to guess until I got the marker placed right. Anyone want to verify my guess (38.1 N 140.9 E) and then add the coordinates to the article? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

38.16 N 140.52 E according to http://sendaisirou.com/donnatokosendai.html I'll add it. -- Exitmoose 04:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I guessed pretty closely. (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they were there. It's just that someone messed up the code for the template. -- Exitmoose 04:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I added one for Naha, Okinawa as an example for anyone who wants to use it for Okinawa.

These are not hard to work into articles. Though it seems like it would be a little awkward for the Okinawa places. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It may be useful for Okinawa to make a separate location map using a closeup map of just Okinawa. Unfortunately, there isn't currently an equirectangular projection map of Okinawa over on Commons that I can find. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

They're like skittles! -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that if the dots are too dense, it just places them as close as possible, For instance, the Kobe coordinates are correct, but the location the map is incorrect. -- Exitmoose 04:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The Kobe coordinates weren't correct as the second part is minutes, which means you divide the minutes by 60 to get the decimal version. I've updated them. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Naruhodo. -- Exitmoose 00:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You can place dots on top of each other (see the ones for Izumo and Shōbara, which overlap slightly). As for the Kōbe marker being slightly off, that may be due to the edge coordinates in the original template being off slightly. I was mostly guessing when I entered them. On a slightly-related note, I've made a comment here for anyone interested in discussing it. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I added one for Yokohama to show the overlapping (with Tokyo). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Another thing I've noticed is that since the actual output isn't strictly an image but rather and image surrounded by wikicode, you can't use them in infoboxes for cities. I wonder if that could be fixed, because it would be a lot more clean than having an image for every city's location. -- Exitmoose 05:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It would require a modified infobox to be created which didn't add the image tag info to anything in that field. Shouldn't be too difficult to modify. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just wondering if that would work. I think the wikicode there should just make itself at home wherever you use the variable, but I'm not 100% on this. You could always make variables that contained the coordinates and stuff and implement them in the template if you really wanted to (this would be the solution that does take a lot of work). -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I tried it out on the Kobe article, and it showed the image, but it also showed the wikicode as plain text in front of the image. Perhaps someone with coding skill could edit the template so that it could accept either? -- Exitmoose 00:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems that you can't omit the label attribute, but you can fudge it to give you just a dot without a label. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

See Nuclear power in Japan for where I used this with a whole bunch of junk. It should be calibrated a little better now. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Move this discussion?

Hey, since we had a good number of people eager to try stuff, I was wondering if you would like to move this section to another page as a subdirectory of WP:Japan to be a common sandbox for this. Some time I might try out doing one of these for a specific prefecture to identify the towns in it or something. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Opposition at home to the Japanese government (WWII)

This poor orphaned article is in need of some attention - it really hasn't been touched since 2005. 24.4.253.249 23:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I want to request an article but I don't even know the English name!

I want to add 日本発送電 to the to-do list on the project page, but I don't even know what it's called in English. It is very important to have a complete set on the industrial development of Japan and the electric infrastructure development, but it was dissolved in the 40s by good old MacArthur and I don't even know if it ever had an English name. Anyway, that's really important for the history of Japan, but I'm pretty lost myself, hope someone else can contribute. Thanks! -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what it was called in English. The Japanese Wikipedia article at ja:日本発送電 does not give an English name. However, a Google search for Nihon Hassoden yields a couple dozen matches, including stat.go.jp Excel spreadsheets. I'd guess that this is common enough to use as an article title (with a macron), and it can be changed if necessary. Fg2 21:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe that there ever was an official English language name. The Nihon Hassoden K.K. was the wartime State-owned electrical utility, and as such, was created at a time when English usage was very much out of favor (the government was doing its best to purge words of European origin out of the Japanese language) and most likely had no need for an official translation of its name. As per User:Fg2, no reason not to use that name for an article, until someone finds out otherwise. --MChew 16:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Image may be used for any purpose but may not be uploaded to commons?!

Does ANYONE have a clue what this junk is about: ja:画像:Aomori_Shimokita-gun.png

They have a copyright on it, but say it can be used for any purpose and give no information whatsoever as to where it came from (well, they give one broken link). Whatever, I'm going to try to upload it here, it that isn't possible, it shouldn't ever have been used on the Japanese page to begin with. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Based on ja:画像:Japan_map.png, the copyright holder of the data is 国土交通省国土地理院, and the implementation is "Copyright © 1998-2003 kobayashi architects & design office. All rights reserved." Now the Kobayashi guys have specifically built the image for Wikipedia, but its license status is, indeed, obscure to say the least. Jpatokal 16:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh WOW. I tried to decipher that Japan map template that wasn't working, but I just couldn't. So that data belongs to a government agency (maybe) and then it was mapped by someone making it just for Wikipedia? How this ever happened is beyond me :-/ But I guess it's possible that the company created the maps for just the Japanese Wikipedia, in which case it's no good for us. I still just don't know. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is this: on English Wikipedia, when you make content yourself and upload it, you have to use a free license according to Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags#For_image_creators. Judging from the link at the side, there is a Japanese version of the page. I am a Commons administrator, so I will be able to help sort this out. I will also try and speak to the ja.wikipedia admins (that are on here) and see what happens. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. But an fyi, I'm actually discovering that the image in question here is out of date, we actually have updated images on the commons. My entire issue was that I wanted to color in the map, but going by the (right) one on the commons, I didn't know what to color in :P -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

On another point, do you think they are updated to 2003 at the latest, per the 1998-2003 copyright? I tried to sit down and color the Aomori map for the districts, but there have been a lot of city mergers and none of the maps I was looking at were consistent. I know that in particular the area around Mutsu had some mergers, which makes me think that the image I liked to there has too many towns and needs to be updated. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI, you can link to things on other language wikis with [[:(lang):(link)]], for instance ja:ウィキ. -Amake 11:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the English Wikipedia gets linked to a lot in that way, but it still can't be used for images and whatnot. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about embedding images that way; I was referring to you guys making external links to Wikipedia Japan when internal links work just fine. -Amake 05:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see now. Thanks. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:12, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Tokyo's top ranked private universities

This latest edit to Tokyo's top ranked private universities, in which an editor perhaps indignantly points out that Sophia is not in the front rank of universities (its truth-value aside, not a ridiculous claim), and therefore that Sōkeijōchi [...] refers to Waseda (Sō/早) and Keio (Kei/慶) universities (Huh?!) reminds me yet again that this article is unencyclopedic.

Whatever our personal opinions on the relative merits of Tokyo's universities -- and I have no opinion on Jōchi as a whole, whereas I do have strong opinions on the relative merits of particular departments (whereby department X in unimpressive university Y easily outclasses department A in famous university B) -- can we agree that "Tokyo's top ranked private universities" is no more encyclopedic than "Italy's sexiest sports cars" or "The USA's worst presidents"?

Ah, it may be pointed out, while the occasional rogue editor may indeed attempt to push this article one way or another, you shouldn't use that to condemn the article: The responsible majority of editors will use the published ratings of others.

I don't buy that, either. Some of the sources look dodgy or old. And in this kind of thing much (of course not all) of the "logic" is anyway circular, even if this or that author has managed to wangle publication.

I was thinking of sending this thing to AfD but thought I'd sound out you people first. -- Hoary 05:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Maybe Nihonjoe actually appreciates it. (Me, on occasion I've wanted the option of flagging with "{{WPJ|class=crap}}".) -- Hoary 05:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

(^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Are there formal rankings for Japanese universities, as there are for American ones? The WP article on College and university rankings describes in some detail the rankings formally published by a number of companies and agencies on American, European, and International universities. If a similar publication exists for Japan, then its rankings should be considered official enough to be a NPOV, accurate/factual, and encyclopedic topic. LordAmeth 18:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think there are. I had a look at that article, and wasn't impressed by what I read about the USN&WR rating system and a lot of the other stuff too. "MARCH" genuinely is a phrase that's used by some magazines, but my WP:OR tells me it's used little if at all in conversation; it's a concept that's suspiciously pronouncable (by contrast, imagine MARCG) and easily bandied around. Really, I think that the WP:OR of a lot of people hereabouts would tend to confirm my own, that standards are all over the place within particular universities, that, if you choose your courses carefully, it's perfectly possible to graduate from a prestigious university despite never using the library and not advancing beyond some other countries' secondary education, and that a number of generally unprestigious universities include certain prestigious departments. (I'd name names, but don't want to upset people.) My OR is worth no more than yours, of course; but this article strikes me as little more than aggregated "OR" (popular beliefs), swayed by tradition, beliefs about what company personnel departments believe, marketing campaigns and the like. -- Hoary 08:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Japantowns

Hello. I commented about this on Talk:Japantown some time ago and got no responses, so I'm porting the discussion over here. The Japantown article as it stands right now discusses modern-day Japantowns, primarily in North America. With some expansion, this could become a fine parallel to the article on Chinatown. Problem is, I was thinking of creating an article on the Nihonmachi (Japantowns) of 16th-17th century Southeast Asia, a phenomenon closely tied into the Age of Commerce and inherently quite different in cultural and historical context from that of today's North American Japantowns. In my experience, these communities in Pho Hien, Hoi An, Ayutthaya, Phnom Penh, Manila, and Jakarta (Batavia) are most commonly called Nihonmachi in scholarship, but right now Nihonmachi is a redirect to Japantown, and the two being essentially identical in meaning, I'm not sure what to do with these two separate topics.

Advice? Suggestions? Thanks. LordAmeth 18:45, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest creating a section in Japantown on Nihonmachi, and if enough material is there to make a viable separate article, then splitting them. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)