Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/November 2006

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Feudal domains

To the small extent that the histories of feudal domains has been covered on Wikipedia, it's been done in a number of different ways.

1. The ruling clan is described in the article for the province, castle, or capital city of their han.
2. A separate article entirely has been created for the domain, as is the case with Tsushima Fuchu domain, which is a separate article entirely from Tsushima Subprefecture, Tsushima Island, Tsushima Province, and Sō clan.
3. The territory or domain is described in the clan's article.

Right now, Choshu domain, and nearly every alternate spelling of "Choshu" are simply redirects to Nagato province, which contains very little information on the pre-Meiji history of the domain. Satsuma han is a stub article which stands separate from articles on the Shimazu family and any number of other things linked to from the Satsuma disambig page. Matsumae clan does a fair job of describing the history of the domain as well, since the history of that family was especially closely related to its holding, and not to the actions of its individual members. But Matsumae, Hokkaidō and Matsumae Castle are both stubs with next to no information.

I'm more than ready to start doing some serious work on reconciling all of these different things, and starting articles on just about every domain and clan I can find sufficient information for. But we need a standardized system first. I am also posting this at WikiProject:Military History in the hopes of getting some good suggestions over there. If we do end up reaching completely different consensuses (consensi?) on both Projects, I'm not sure what I'll do. But for now, comments and suggestions, please. LordAmeth 16:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I looked at a few links, and it seems that "uji/shi" (氏) has been translated as "clan", "han" (藩) has been translated as "domain" (or left as "han"), and "kuni" (国) has been translated as "province". From what I've seen, it looks like there are distinct articles on these in the Japanese Wikipedia, with different information on each.

I believe that "shi" refers to a family line, "han" to an area of territory or to its inhabitants, and "kuni" to a larger area, meaning that these are different things, although there is obviously some overlap among them.

Accordingly, I'd support keeping these all as separate articles, to keep consistency with the Japanese version and allow space for expansion. Articles which cover more than one topic can always be left as they are, with redirects, and split up if they grow enough to warrant it.

I've rearranged the links for Chōshū, which is now a disambiguation page. What do you think? -- Grgcox 22:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The Japanese Wikipedia has a tremendous amount of information on the domains. ja:藩の一覧 has hundreds of blue links to articles. In my opinion, han deserve articles separate from kuni and separate from the ruling family. In many cases, that will require disambiguation, which might be a page or it might be a link at the top of each article, depending on complexity. As for uji/shi, I've written it as either "family" or "clan" and it probably should be used more precisely. There are a few cases where the ruling family has the same name as the han but usually they're different. Again, I support having separate articles for: the province (kuni), the prefecture (ken), the domain (han), the ruling family (shi or uji). The terms refer to different entities and they are significant to warrant different articles. For example, Satsuma province was only part of Satsuma han; the Shimazu were not the same as the province or the han. The disambiguation page Satsuma has eleven entries. This is likely to be much more than the average case. It would be fruitful to agree on a naming convention to address questions like X han or X domain? uppercase or lower for han/domain? disambiguation of similar names, e.g. Date family (Sendai), Date family (Uwajima)? when to use shi or uji? Agreement in advance can save enormous amounts of work later. Fg2 00:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you, for your detailed and quick answers. I'm glad we can get the ball rolling on this. I'm really quite indifferent on the issue of han vs domain, in article naming; but for the sake of proposing a standard, I think domain is better. A few articles already use "domain", and as far as I'm aware, there are very few or no blue-linked (existing) articles that use "han." And I do think it should be lowercase. I don't know about shi vs uji in terms of romanizing within the article, but for the sake of article titles, I don't think it should be used at all. We should use clan or family, though which I'm really not sure. Some of the big ones, like Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara, Tokugawa should definitely take "clan" I think, but is there a proper differentiation between clans and families, or...? How should we standardize this? LordAmeth 01:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "domain" vs. han, I'm quite happy with "domain"; han is also fine with me. Lowercase is likewise fine, although we capitalize "X Prefecture" and "Y Province" so "Z Domain" would fit the pattern nicely. (Especially when you think of the ones that have the same name, e.g. Satsuma Province and Satsuma Domain make a nice parallel.) But I'd be happy with lowercase. Fg2 11:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, seeing as how province and prefecture are capitalized (though I'm not sure why), it would make for nice consistency to have domain capitalized as well. Will do. LordAmeth 14:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

An article that may be of interest

Hi, Not really relevant to the project as a whole, but, since people on this project are (obviously!) interested in Japan, I thought you mignt like to know that on Tuesday there was the worst tornado ever to strike Japan, which killed 9 people, injured 25, and left several more unacounted for. The article on this unusual event is the 2006 Saroma tornado. - Blood red sandman 17:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I listed it on Template:Newest Japan-related articles. That's the place where the general community goes to post info about new articles and to find out about them. Everybody's welcome to post their latest articles! And it was enlightening to read the article on the tornado. Fg2 11:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Japan singles/album chart?

Does anyone here know if Japan has a top singles/albums chart? Britain has the UK Singles chart and the US has the Billboard 100 - does Japan have something similar? Thanks! Wickethewok 08:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

They have Oricon. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 09:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you very much.  :) Wickethewok 14:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup needed

Could somebody please go clean up after User:Mkill, who doesn't seem to have been active for a couple of months, but who made a bunch of moves with edit summaries such as "long live the macron" and "daddy loves his macron" and the like?

The problem is that this editor never bothered to fix any of the sort keys for any of these articles so that they will be indexed properly in the categories, in accordance with Wikipedia:Categorization (which explains how those sort keys work; it looks like, but isn't the same as piping in wikilinks) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). As the latter puts it:

Lists of romanized words in the English Wikipedia should be ordered in alphabetical order, A-Z, instead of the common Japanese ordering system which is based on the kana characters. In the case of names, alphabetize by family name, not by given name. Words with macrons should be alphabetized as if the macron was one of the normal 26 letters. In cases where two words are exactly the same except for a macron vowel in one word, the non-macron version should be listed first.

He wasn't the only one, of course. Somebody ought to review all the Japan-related categories for this problem.

There should also always be, for any article using macrons or other diacritics, either a redirect or a disambiguation page link from the title with the diacritics stripped to the English alphabet characters. Gene Nygaard 06:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

For anyone who would like to generously help out with this, can I ask that you please not simply undo Mkill's macronization, and instead go do the category pipe sorting and redirect creation that needs doing? Undoing macronizations is counterproductive, and renders Mkill's work (and my own) pointless. Please help us move things forward. No one likes to be on a mouse wheel. Thank you. LordAmeth 09:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, what really renders your work pointless is when you make moves such as you routinely make, which result in the article being hidden away because it does not appear properly sorted in its categories. Or when you hide it from searches and links, because you do not create redirects from the English alphabet spellings. Why go to the truouble to make these edits, just to hide the information away?

Thanks for reminding me that yours is another of those names which routinely crops up in connection with badly created or badly moved (one example out of hundreds ought to suffice[1]) or badly categorized articles, which result in this mis-sorting. Are you planning to go back and clean up after yourself? Do you need help from others in this project? Gene Nygaard 15:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Please, let's be civil, Gene. Comments like those you made above are hardly productive and do nothing but create animosity among those working on the project. Thank you for your cooperation. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

So, just what, exactly, are you objecting to? It is most certainly not "incivility" to pointing out that the edits of a particular editor (especially one participating in the discussion) are a large part of the problem under discussion.

Are you volunteering your sweet-talking ways to help mollycoddle his Lordship into mending his ways, Nihonjoe? Are you volunteering to help him out with the cleanup work? Have any of the problems LordAmeth created been fixed by you or by him or by anybody else since this discussion began?

I do notice that nobody has even taken the hint and fixed even the one specific example pointed out above of LordAmeth's unfinished moves, though so far at least that particular one isn't out of place in the one category it is found in. Gene Nygaard 08:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm objecting to the manner in which you are bringing this up. The attitude conveyed by your comments here appears to be along the lines of, "I can't believe no on noticed this before, and look at these people who are messing up all over the place. They sure have a lot of nerve making mistakes like that and never cleaning them up."

Now, if that's not how you meant it, I apologize for reading an arrogant attitude into your comments. However, I hope you can see how your comments could be seen that way, and that you will consider this when making comments in the future. Everyone here makes mistakes, and I'm sure that if we went through every contribution you've made here that we'd find something to pick at. I'm sure the same could be done for any editor here, including me. However, this is not productive (as I indicated above), and will do nothing to improve the project.

If you notice a particular pattern, feel free to politely suggest another method that may avoid that mistake in the future to the editor in question, but please also try to do it without coming across in the manner demonstrated here. We're all doing this as volunteers in our spare time, and we all make mistakes—even those of us who have been here for a while. If we all just fix mistakes as we come across them, and only politely point them out if there's a significant pattern of the same mistake over and over, we will accomplish much more. That's what we're all here to do. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 07:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Nihonjoe on this, I can see your point Gene and I know you're just trying to confront a problem that could potentially be a big hassle, but you come across very confrontational rather than helpful and friendly. I think you'll find that if you word your comments in a less accusatory way, people will be much more willing to work with you to fix problems, rather than to dismiss you as a troll. (Also, I wish we were using true transliteration rather than macrons, eg. toukyou, touhoku, tooka - fewer potential problems and more accurate representation of the language - but life goes on :D) Erk|Talk _{-- I like traffic lights --} 07:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I went through his contributions back to November 2005 and fixed the improperly sorted categories. To be honest, there weren't that many corrections to make. Bobo12345 10:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I didn't look at all of them, only two or three of them. And those were still mis-sorted. But if you did that in Nov 2005, from then to Aug 2006 could include quite a few more. Gene Nygaard 13:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

And, one that I did look at was Shōwa crisis from 23 October 2005, which hadn't been fixed until I just did it a minute ago. Gene Nygaard 13:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

What I meant was I checked his contributions on Japanese articles from the present back to Nov 2005. Can't say I didn't miss a few though. Bobo12345 14:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I just misread you! Thanks for checking them. Gene Nygaard 14:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Bobo12345, you didn't find many corrections to make in the Mkill edits. But how about the editor who made this edit—yourself? Is that one from last month an aberration, or have you also routinely made moves or created articles or added categories without fixing the sort keys? I found that one by looking in the category for those actually out of place, and was surprised when it turned out that the editor responsible was you. Gene Nygaard 08:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I see that I missed that one. At that time I didn't know about the sort key issue so I know I must have created some category sort errors. Now I know about the issue, I'm doing my best to change the sort keys as I go along. I don't claim to be perfect (neither does Wikipedia) and I will make mistakes. To be honest, I really think this is a minor issue, but obviously one you feel passionately about Gene. By all means take task upon yourself and when you find a mistake, please fix it. If you find more editors who are creating these category sort errors, I suggest you notify them on their Talk page, and show them the error of their ways. Bobo12345 12:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review for kitsune

I'm working on bringing Kitsune up to at least GA status. There's a lot to be done, but I don't think it's too far out of reach. I'd appreciate any feedback at its peer review. Shimeru 01:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Novels Assessment

As someone interested in Japanese literature I thought I'd bring up an ongoing project that I only recently discovered. Apparently, Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels has taken it upon themselves to rate the importance of every novel known to man ... and done a spectacular job of messing it up, IMHO. A Tale of Two Cities has the same importance as God Emperor of Dune apparently, and don't even ask about Japanese literature (most are not rated, and of those that are ... well, let's just say that Kokoro rates the same as the eternal classic Boogiepop Returns: VS Imaginator Part 1). I have voiced my concerns here ... I'd rather this system be eliminated altogether, but if it is to continue, it seems like multiple and diverse perspectives are needed, particularly from the more specialist areas like ours. CES 01:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Such internationalized "ratings" will only serve to further enforce the western bias on WP, nevermind the fact that it makes a joke out of the poor quality of articles on topics from other parts of the world.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:18, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

GEOD shouldn't even be in the same Project as A Tale of Two Cities. They've messed up indeed. --Gwern (contribs) 05:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Help on understanding a japanese page

Hi! Can anyone help me understand this result page from the Shinjuku ward assembly election in 2004. What does the percentage that says 29.80%, 92.20% and 100% represent? And what does the number under that mean? Are the ones in green thoose that were elected to the ward assembly? --Jonte-- 22:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Nothing on the page indicates it, but I suspect that they have a regular time when they say "how many votes for XYZ". The ballots must be stacked in lots of 100 or 200 as they are counted, so, the preliminary figures are all nice and round. I do not understand the three decimal places of precision, or why some people could get fractions of votes, though... so, this advice may only be worth what you paid for it. (zero). Since Ishihara is highlighted here, I think it is safe to say that the color, and "当選" indicates the winners. Neier 01:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I think Neier's right: this page shows the vote count at various times during the counting. The rightmost column either has 当選 or is blank. 当選 means "elected." And that coincides with the candidates in green.

The separate page Neier linked to with Ishihara seems to be a different election. He was not running for city (ward) council in Shinjuku, but for governor of Tokyo-to. The line above the table on both of those pages states the date of the election and the office.

--Fg2 01:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Aha, I've read Neier's comment about Ishihara again, and this time it sank in. Agreed. Fg2 07:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

のづたけし's record has no decimal digits, with a final standing of 1,942,592. Ell oh ell a few digits off tpyo?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  01:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

He did well given that there were only 91,000 voters! Fg2 01:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Of the four votes that have fractions, they add up to whole numbers when you pair them off. One of the pairs is made up of two guys with the same last name. I don't know what the story is on them, though. Dekimasu 06:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It stills seems really weird, but I'll start working on Shinjuku local election, 2004 tonight, atlest I can add how many seats each fraction got even if I can't tell the amounts of votes. --Jonte-- 18:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Requesting help from a Japanese reader

Hi. It is likely that I have found a possible sockpuppet of User:Cute 1 4 u whose name is User:Pumpkin Pie. On User:Pumpkin Pie, the user claims to have a Japanese userpage. Can someone who has previous experience with the language please translate the main userpage here and please check out her Japanese contributions. Please send a message back to my talk page. Thanks.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 01:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Dekimasu 05:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that it wasn't already done by someone else. Dekimasu 05:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Operation Downfall

Operation Downfall is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 21:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"X in popular culture" sections of articles

User:Wikimachine posted the following comment on Talk:Toyotomi Hideyoshi#Popular Culture:

---

As per WikiProject Military history Popular Culture guideline,

"In popular culture" sections should be avoided unless the subject has had a well-cited and notable impact on popular culture. If present, the section should be a prose discussion of the subject's cultural significance, cited from reliable sources. In particular, the following should be avoided:

• Compendiums of every trivial appearance of the subject in pop culture (trivia)
• Unsupported speculation about cultural significance or fictional likenesses (original research)

This tends to be a problem in articles on military hardware (i.e. weapons, vehicles, etc.); for example, the Mauser K98 and the M1 Garand may appear in any World War II film, and their many appearances don't warrant an exhaustive list. On the other hand, a discussion of the Webley representing a stereotypical British revolver, or a conceptual artist's public response to the symbolism of the East European tank monument, are certainly notable.

I suggest getting rid of the popular culture section. It sounds pretty ridiculous. Listing every movies and games like Samurai Xtreeme Superhowerkdsf stuffs and junks is stupid.

---

Since the article Toyotomi Hideyoshi is one of hundreds that are within the scope of both Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history and WikiProject:Japan, it seems good to bring up the question here: should WikiProject:Japan give guidance on "X in popular culture" sections of articles related to Japan? What steps should we take to comply with Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles, a part of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which User:Wikimachine cited? To what extent should we implement the proposed guideline, Wikipedia:Trivia?

Fg2 00:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Opinions

What steps should we take to comply with Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles [....]? Cut all the junk from an article, note this in the relevant talk page, see if anyone wants to bother to justify its existence or reintegrate it; if not, forget all about it. To what extent should we implement the proposed guideline, Wikipedia:Trivia? To the fullest extent. -- Hoary 00:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Hoary. I would support any effort to clean up the cruft from a lot of these articles. The first line in the popular culture section of Toyotomi Hideyoshi is sufficient, and would serve as a good model for many articles to follow. Although, since he is a major part of the NHK drama, that could be left as well. If the work is acclaimed, and the subject was integral to the work (book, movie, video game), then it ceases to be trivial because it DID have an impact on popular culture. Saying that Tokugawa Ieyasu was the basis for Shogun (novel) is one thing. Saying that he is a playable character who wields a cannon-like spear is something entirely different. Neier 00:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This is one of the things I feel most strongly about on Wikipedia, and I'm very glad to see it brought up here. The important criterion for inclusion is that the trivia must add to the reader's understanding of the article topic rather than the trivia topic. I have attacked these sections before (see Talk:Raijin, Talk:Melonpan, Talk:Ganguro, etc.), and I'll be more than happy to support aggressive pruning of these sections. Look at the history of the Raijin page to see what these things can do to an article. Dekimasu 01:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not part of this project, but the user who created this section notified me that there would be a discussion here. I agree with banning "popular culture" sections unless under very special cases, but I think that trivia sections are crucial in non-historical articles, such as ThinkPad. (It would be ridiculous to have a trivia section in George Washington and Kenji articles) (Wikimachine 02:36, 18 November 2006 (UTC))

Here are some example pieces of trivia that I trimmed from the Hokkaidō article. I think they embody what we are trying to avoid.

• In The Place Promised in Our Early Days the protagonist wishes to visit Hokkaidō Tower.
• In The Simpsons episode In Marge We Trust, Homer makes a phone call to a factory in Hokkaidō.
• In James Dickey's novel To the White Sea the main character tries to reach Hokkaidō.
• In the series Shaman King, Trey Racer is an Ainu from Hokkaidō.
• In SNK's Samurai Shodown, the characters Nakoruru and Rimururu are both Ainu.
• In Sengoku Basara, the fictional Itsuki (Puff in Devil Kings) is said to represent Ainu and Hokkaidō.
• The second machine in the movie Contact is located in Hokkaidō.
• The anime Diamond Daydreams tells the story of 6 girls living in Hokkaidō.
• Part of book 12 of Love Hina takes place in Hokkaidō.
• The Japanese Urban duo SOULHEAD was born and raised in Hokkaidō
• In the anime Ah! My Goddess!, Keiichi Morisato is from Hokkaidō
• Maki Nomiya, lead singer of Pizzicato Five, was born in Hokkaidō.
• In ToHeart2 Takaaki Kono goes on a field trip to Hokkaidō.

Dekimasu 06:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

This is another perfect example of ridiculous use of trivia sections! (Wikimachine 16:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC))

For the record, here are some that I cleaned out of Shibuya around the same time as User:Dekimasu.

• Shibuya is featured prominently in the 2006 film Babel as the location where the character Chieko resides and goes out with her friends.
• Gals!: a manga and anime series set in Shibuya
• Last Bronx: the Cross Street stage is set on foot of the Shibuya 109.
• Jet Set Radio: takes place in Shibuya-cho
• Prayers: anime set in a Shibuya in the year 2014 where it has become an independent nation
• Sh15uya: manga and live-action series set in a "virtual world Shibuya"
• Digimon: Fourth season set here.
• Serial Experiments Lain: Many scenes, including the opening, are in Shibuya
• Love Hina: Shibuya is largely featured in the Christmas movie
• Kamen Rider Kabuto: Shibuya gets smashed in the very beginning of the series by the meteor that brings the Worms to Earth and is the setting for the series afterwards.
• Namco x Capcom: Early parts of the game take place in Shibuya.
• Gantz: in the manga, Izumi takes his SMGs and pistols and makes a rampage in Shibuya in order to get back to Gantz room.

Neier 07:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Statements

A couple of people have expressed opinions above, and of course more people will continue to do so. Meanwhile, if you want to propose a statement that would become part of WikiProject:Japan, here's an opportunity. User:Wikimachine's post, which I quoted above, contains the WikiProject:Military History statement on the subject. Fg2 22:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's my first try. Neier 12:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Many articles which are under the scope of WikiProject Japan naturally lend themselves to in popular culture sections, due to the growing popularity of manga, anime, and video games around the world. In most cases simply mentioning this fact in the article is sufficient, as a list of every trivial appearance of a location or personality contributes very little overall to the article, and can often dwarf the remaining content.

The Guardian identified three major problems with Wikipedia. The second one, as far as I remember, was the wrong concentration of focus. You're correct in saying "can often dwarf the remaining content". (Wikimachine 16:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC))

Re: Wrong concentration of focus; that may be so, although I do not think our more "properly encyclopedic" sections are as bad off as such criticisms seem to imply, but it does not follow at all that the proper way to improve the classically encyclopedic sections is to go on the warpath against non-classically encyclopedia sections - don't tear down everything to its level, but rather build it back up. --Gwern (contribs) 03:47 24 November 2006 (GMT)

I removed the dwarfing statement, as it is not really a good justification. I agree with all of User:Dekimasu's Hokkaidō edits above and do not think that it was inappropriate or detrimental to Wikipedia as a whole. Neier 07:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

So... is there a policy for this set up yet? I feel obligated to delete inappropriate popular culture sections/triva etc. from articles under WikiProject Military History.

A similar debate is going on for the Korean article Hwacha. (Wikimachine 19:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC))

Article on Natori

Hello! I officially signed onto WPJapan a little while ago, and have been working on the article for the town I live in as a bit of practice. I would really appreciate a more experienced wikipedian taking a look at Natori, Miyagi and giving some feedback in the talk page. Thanks to Jaredmellis for roughly translating the japanese article faster than I could have. Erk|Talk _{-- I like traffic lights --} 03:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Task forces

Do we want to create a few specific taskforces to help focus various efforts in the project? We seem to have a decent number of editors who wish to help out, but I wonder if some might be wondering where to jump in and help. We could model it after the task forces used by other projects such as Military History. Thoughts? Ideas? Opinions? Please share them! (^_^) ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 08:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Task forces are a great idea, but I have found them hard to keep together. The Japanese Mythology project pretty much disintigrated, and I think I am the only remaining active editor. However, if anyone else wants to ressurect it, I am happy to be on board again! MightyAtom 23:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking smaller projects like Japanese Mythology might work better if they were more integrated here, especially if we could find some way to better highlight them for interested parties. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 06:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd be really intressting in helping out with a task force on politics, but I agree with the poster before me that project need to be more integrated. --Jonte-- 22:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Featured Article Vote on Indian Standard Time

Hi in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Indian Standard Time, I've accidentally noted similarity in names of different users participating in the vote & so I guessed that they might be from the same nationality -India. And 6/7 at the time were Indians.

I think that this is an "internal" systemic bias, since Indian articles are written mostly and only by Indian users & they're mostly likely to be the only voters on featured article nominations on India-related articles & in result, making Indian articles attaining featured article status inevitable.

(I want to note that Indians are a special exception from other nationalities in Wikipedia because most of them can speak and write fluent English & thus can participate more in English Wikipedia while other foreigners can't & thus limit their participation in fields related to their nationality/culture & making participation of other third parties more likely.)

I think that there is need for third party, especially across different nationalities. And I would like members of this project to come participate in the vote & read what I've written & what they've replied with & see the article & voice your opinions. Thanks a lot! (Wikimachine 17:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC))

I'm not sure I agree with your feelings here, but I have left some comments on the page as if it were a FAC review for this project. Dekimasu 01:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Characters of Shuffle! and plants

I've been going through all of the characters from the erogame Shuffle! (and sequels), and have noticed that all of their nanes have something to do with plants. Some are obvious references (e.g. Thyme), but most are rather obscure (I had to actually make an article for Fuyou's reference). The sole exception to this naming system is Asa Shigure (時雨亜沙). Shigure I've translated and confirmed means a certain type of rain, so I'm just left with this Asa to try to connect to plants in some way. But those characters don't seem to mean anything at all. Her mother's name is Ama (亜麻) (which means flax), and asa (麻) also means flax, but obviously that's with different kanji. Should I assume 亜沙 is just a pun to refer to 麻? or perhaps an alternate spelling?

Rin Tsuchimi (土見 稟) and Mayumi (麻弓) also don't seem to refer to plants much. Rin (稟) at least means "payment in rice", so I have a vague reference there. Any insight on those names would be helpful as well. Other than that, I think I pretty much can catch them all. --SeizureDog 23:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look like all the names fall into a consistent pattern, although some of them are obviously taken from flowers. I agree that probably the kanji combination 亜沙 has no special meaning here. Perhaps the kanji 亜 was used because it also appears in her mother's name, and the name is a reference to 麻. As most Japanese given names can be written in several different ways, this kind of pun wouldn't be too surprising.

"土見" could be taken to mean "looking at the soil", which is arguably related to gardening. I don't think 麻弓 relates to plants at all, other than that it contains the kanji 麻.

In all, I think that as a whole, the names probably don't have any deep significance, and that the names of flowers and plants were used simply because they were a useful source of unusual names. A lot of Japanese names can be related to plants or nature in some way or other anyway. -- Grgcox 22:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Momijigari

Could someone look into creating a stub/article for Momijigari? Related content is located at Hanami, Color change in leaves, leaf peeping and Maple#Symbolism, but the only mention I just added in Color change in leaves. Circeus 17:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've created a stub. -- Grgcox 19:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Circeus 19:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Question marks on Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution

Are the question marks in the lead japanese characters that I cannot read? If so, what is the policy for such things. Should they be removed? Jpeob 04:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmmm....you must not have your computer set to read Japanese fonts. I can read them just fine. Probably shouldn't remove them. Maybe you should just download Japanese fonts for your computer! :P MightyAtom 06:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they're Japanese characters, and they should be readable if you have a reasonably modern operating system and the correct fonts installed. See Wikipedia:Enabling East Asian characters to enable East Asian character support in your operating system. Cheers, Tangotango 16:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use for Japanese celebrity photos

A fair use updated policy proposal is being created here before it is actually proposed. Anyone interested in being able to use fair use photos of Japanese celebrities and high-profile individuals here on Wikipedia without having to fight tooth and nail with the self-appointed fair use police who currently (IMHO) have too narrow a view of the interpretation of the current guidelines (that was a long sentence!) is encouraged to come assist in the discussion. Ability to read Japanese (due to having to research Japanese law to find supporting information for the policy change) would be very useful, but is not required. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)