Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles

Proposal to formally allow removals of unnecessary RR and MR values in various Korean-related templates

• Korean-related templates: Template:Infobox Korean name, Template:Korean, Template:Infobox Chinese, etc.
• Note:
  • This is not about one particular template.
  • This is not about article titles, nor about any cases where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English.

Example
Hangul	예시
Hanja	例示
Revised Romanization	this discussion is about
McCune–Reischauer	these two parameters

To find information in Korean, you use the hangul spelling (or hanja in rare cases). To find information in English, you use a common form in English (which is the article title in most cases; this may or may not be in accordance with RR or MR, but that does not matter).

Except in fields that consistently use a systematic romanization rule (such as Korean history), RR and MR forms are not really needed.

So here is a question: Why is Wikipedia including RR and MR spellings in Korean-related templates in almost every article that has a Korean term?

Also, the quality of RR and MR spellings in Wikipedia is not ensured either. I have seen a lot of errors in RR and MR spellings throughout Wikipedia. Here are some issues I noticed:

• For both RR and MR: (1) common spellings in English (such as Lee and Park for surnames 이 and 박) are found; (2) shi is found (시 is si in both systems); (3) two systems mixed up (RR spelling is in MR parameter and MR spelling is in RR parameter); (4) random typos
• For RR: gg, dd, and bb are used for ㄲ, ㄸ, and ㅃ
• For MR: (1) k, t, p, and ch are used for ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ even when g, d, b, and j are supposed to be used; (2) apostrophes in random places; (3) carons (ǒ ǔ) instead of breves (ŏ ŭ)
• etc.

Korean-related templates (especially Template:Infobox Korean name) are found in thousands of pages. It is just not really possible to manually check and fix them all – there are just too many of them, and that can only be done by a very small number of people who have some knowledge of Korean and know how those romanization systems work.

Can a module that automatically generates RR and MR spellings be introduced? That is another possibility (assuming that someone can code and maintain it, of course), but here are some issues that still need to be handled manually:

• A hangul spelling does not always predict pronunciation. For example, 물고기 and 깻잎 are pronounced [물꼬기] and [깬닙] respectively, but this is not predictable from the spelling. The first case is not reflected in RR (still mulgogi), but is reflected in MR (mulkogi instead of mulgogi; on the other hand, 불고기 (pronounced [불고기]) is pulgogi, not pulkogi).
• Hyphens and spaces not in the hangul spelling but required in romanizations. This includes separating an administrative division with a hyphen (e.g. 평창군 Pyeongchang-gun) and separting a surname and a given name with a space (e.g. 홍길동 Hong Gildong).
  • In addition, some users want to add hyphens or spaces in other places (e.g. 국립중앙도서관 Gungnip Jungang Doseogwan (instead of Gungnipjungangdoseogwan)), but this is not a requirement.
• RR is context-sensitive. For example, (1) ㅂㅎ is p by default (e.g. 잡혀 japyeo), but ph in a noun (e.g. 집현전 Jiphyeonjeon); (2) ㄱㄴ is ngn by default (e.g. 마곡나루 Magongnaru), but kn in a given name (e.g. 한복남 Han Boknam).
• Capitalization for proper nouns.

Also, introducing this kind of module requires manual changes to thousands of existing strings in hangul parameters. For example, if ^ is used for capitalization, _ is used for inserting a space, and ; is used for converting each syllabic block separately, then the personal name 한복남 should be manually changed to ^한_^복;남 (the symbols ^, _, and ; are not displayed in the output of a hangul parameter; it only affects romanizations). Who will make manual changes like this to thousands of pages?

More importantly, after those symbols are introduced, can we expect that ordinary people would actually learn about them and properly apply them? Probably not.

So, in order to use such a module, a user needs to study a lot about how the module works, and also still needs to have some knowledge of Korean and those two romanization systems. We cannot really expect this from ordinary people.

Therefore, I would like to propose the following:

• Unless the topic is in a field that consistently uses a systematic romanization rule (such as Korean history), do not add RR and MR spellings in Korean-related templates. (The default is no RR and MR spellings. When there is any dispute about adding/retaining RR and MR spellings, the burden lies with the editor who wants to add/retain them.)

How does this sound? 172.56.232.186 (talk) 02:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Leaning oppose but am open to discussion. The reason I lean oppose is because more than a few times the MR/RR in the infobox is what enabled me to find an article that I otherwise would have missed. There are so many possible titles for Korea-related articles because of things like WP:USEENGLISH, the lack of a universal romanization standard for places and people, and sometimes just sloppy titles. While alt titles should ideally be handled by redirs, it seems a tall order given the poor state of many Korea-related articles.

On the other hand, I relate to your motivation for the proposal. I've also noticed the incorrect MR/RR issue, and have been considering for months writing a automatic Hangul->MR/RR conversion module. I even regularly use this online automatic conversion tool for convenience's sake, so an in-house conversion tool would be nice. I am a programmer but haven't programmed anything for Wikipedia. I'll look into what making such a module would involve soon. toobigtokale (talk) 05:18, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Additional note, Infobox Korean name is also a nice place to store alternate names of people or things. E.g. art names, pen names, and stage names. toobigtokale (talk) 05:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

About finding an article by searching an RR/MR form: I'm not sure why this matters. RR and MR parameters are always within a Korean-related template, which also contains the hangul spelling. If you cannot find an article when searching using an RR or MR spelling, you can simply search using the hangul spelling.

About introducing a module: I am not against this, but the problem is that some manual handling is still needed. We should not expect too much from people. This may sound funny, but people indeed sometimes don't know what they are doing. The single-syllable linktext disaster was an example of this.

About Infobox Korean name: That template is useful. I am only questioning about RR and MR parameters in various (not just that one) Korean-related templates. 172.56.232.65 (talk) 17:08, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I should clarify; I can search the hangul, but others may not be able to because they're not familiar with hangul but may be loosely familiar with one of the systems (likely RR, which may help if the subject of the article uses a non-RR romanization. Still not 100% reliable; South Koreans don't even really fully understand the system and romanize 영 as "Young" instead of the correct "Yeong" all the time).

On the usefulness of infobox kor name, my misunderstanding there.

I'm still leaning oppose. Even if we put something in the MOS about not using MR/RR, it wouldn't solve the issue about incorrect romanizations being common; the majority of people making those mistakes wouldn't read the MOS anyway.

Additional point, I'd argue there's a small value to having some kind of romanization displayed by default, even if slightly incorrect, for non-Korean speakers so they have an idea of how something is supposed to be pronounced. toobigtokale (talk) 19:38, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I wonder how people not familiar with hangul would be able to apply RR (or MR) to hangul text and search using the romanized form.

I made it more clear that this is not about one particular template.

Having a certain statement in the MOS can be useful, especially when a dispute occurs. In this case, if the MOS says what I proposed above, then the direction is always clear: the person who wants to add/retain RR and MR forms should provide a reason.

That romanization does not necessarily have to be an RR or MR form though. When an article title is in accordance with neither RR nor MR but is still based on a Korean term (e.g. mukbang), that can also give some idea about the pronunciation.

My main concerns about introducing a module are these:

1. Would people be able to use it correctly?
2. How can we prevent misuses or mistakes?

172.56.232.165 (talk) 07:04, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

First point you're right; sorry, brain has been fried lately. I shouldn't have made you point out gaps in my logic twice. However, I still think MR/RR often provides two more opportunities for finding articles, and that having it by default offers some pronunciation help for readers who can't read Hangul.

For the module, I'll try to get around to doing some brainstorming for how it could work. I agree that it's not straightforward to make; needs to be done well.

I lean neutral now; think others should process the proposal. toobigtokale (talk) 07:41, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I wonder how important it is to convey pronunciation (using a romanized form).

1. Wikipedia is written, not pronounced. When reading a written language with eyes, you don't really have to know how the text is pronounced.
2. Even when pronouncing a spelling strictly in accordance with a systematic romanization rule, prior knowledge is needed. For example, you have to know that eo is pronounced [ʌ] in RR.
   • One can even argue that instead of learning that eo is pronounced [ʌ], you can just learn that ㅓ is pronounced [ʌ]. There isn't much difference between those two (both are "a certain written shape is pronounced this way").
3. For visually impaired people, a text-to-speech (TTS) system is used. But a TTS system is trained for pronouncing text written in the native script (hangul for Korean), not in a romanized form. For example, a TTS system for Korean would handle 한국어 much better than hangugeo or han'gugŏ.

So, I would still say that RR and MR forms in Korean-related templates are not really needed (unless the topic is in a field that consistently uses a systematic romanization rule (such as Korean history)).

Note: I am not saying this because I know Korean and hangul. I know almost nothing about Arabic, but even if Wikipedia articles containing Arabic terms do not provide any romanization or pronunciation information for each Arabic term in Arabic-related templates at all, I would not complain. I don't even need to know how they are pronounced anyway. 172.56.232.151 (talk) 07:37, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Hence I say "some" pronunciation help; while people can put things through TTS, having something directly in the article can be easier access for a quick glance (I recall statistics about something like >98% of people leaving articles within several seconds). And while RR/MR require prior knowledge for complete accuracy, an uninformed English speaker has a better shot of pronouncing something using RR/MR than if they had nothing else at all.

Actually for Arabic specifically, many times I've looked for the romanization or pronunciation of terms in articles. Having pronunciation on hand sometimes helps while traveling. I've often had to pull up something else to put it into TTS because I couldn't find it. Granted, having romanization on a page is not a large quality of life improvement; if someone's persistent they can get what they're looking for (but I'd argue most aren't persistent). The combination of these small factors is why I'm still leaning neutral. toobigtokale (talk) 08:31, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

My point is this: Pronunciation is not really important when reading written text with eyes. So one does not really need to provide RR and MR forms in a Korean-related template if the reason is pronunciation.

The reason I mentioned TTS is because someone might ask "what about visually impaired people?". I did not mean that people with normal eyesight should use TTS (they can if they want to, of course).

Well, in some cases it could be useful to show pronunciation (whether that is accurate or just a rough approximation), but still, (1) written text does not necessarily have to provide this; (2) learning/speaking a foreign language (this includes communicating while traveling) is not the main/primary purpose of Wikipedia.

So, even after a module is successfully introduced, I would still lean towards "no RR and MR spellings in Korean-related templates by default". 172.56.232.215 (talk) 18:13, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Another problem is that some people mix up a common form in English and the result strictly applying a systematic romanization rule. It looks like they think that the former should apply to the latter.

I guess this explains why

1. common spellings in English like "Lee" and "Park" appear
2. some people think that a hyphen must be used in a given name (RR: no hyphen by default / MR: hyphen not used)

in RR and MR parameters in Korean-related templates.

This is another reason that I am proposing removals of unnecessary RR and MR values in various Korean-related templates. 172.56.232.105 (talk) 21:41, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

• oppose – the appropriate response to incorrect information is to correct it, not delete it. The romanizations are useful for cross-referencing an article against English-language sources. Since this wiki is targeted at English language users, such cross-referencing should be facilitated even for readers who don't know Hangul. Kanguole 14:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Disagree.

  1. Only a very small number of people have the knowledge to fix incorrect RR and MR spellings.
  2. As I said, it is just not really possible to manually check and fix them all – there are just too many of them.
     1. Also, new articles are sometimes created. Should the very small number of people always monitor newly created articles?
  3. English-language sources that consistently use a systematic romanization rule are usually limited to fields like Korean history. I already stated that such fields are exceptions.

  172.56.232.24 (talk) 22:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  The usefulness of cross-referencing is not limited to sources making consistent or systematic use of romanization. Kanguole 23:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  In what way are they useful? Also, are you seriously saying that the very small number of people should manually check thousands of pages and fix them? 172.56.232.215 (talk) 20:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  Please try to be more respectful; I lean agree with Kanguole. MR/RR being incorrect, to my understanding, is not a seriously impactful issue. While you do have a valid point on the small manpower of who's able to copyedit them, I'd argue there's a slightly larger harm to unilateral deletion. In other words, I don't think this is a case where a few bad apples are spoiling the bunch.

  The real solution to this, again, would be a robust automatic romanization module. But realistically with my schedule I'm unlikely to take this up in the next few months. toobigtokale (talk) 20:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  I did not mean to be disrespectful. I was merely asking questions.

  I hope people use the module correctly after it is introduced though. 172.56.232.105 (talk) 22:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  If one is trying to match names in an English-language text against Wikipedia articles, romanizations can help.

  Wikipedia has many errors. Each of us fixes what we can. Kanguole 22:09, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  RR and MR forms can help only when the English-language text consistently uses either one of the systems. And such a text is usually limited to fields like Korean history.

  There are just too many cases to manually check and fix.

  I think I am just repeating myself. 172.56.232.105 (talk) 22:53, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  As I said above, the romanizations are useful even when the text does not use them consistently. Just because something is of no use to you does not mean that it does not help someone else. I believe I've already responded to the other point. Kanguole 23:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I asked "in what way" they are useful (even when an English-language text follows neither of those systems), but you are just repeating that they are useful. 172.56.232.205 (talk) 05:08, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  Suppose someone is reading this or this (neither of which is about history) and wondering if the places named are what they think they are, or where these names came from. Fortunately our articles have romanizations in the infoboxes that answer their questions. Kanguole 14:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  Agree. These are the kinds of scenarios I had in mind as well. toobigtokale (talk) 17:13, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  Then place names can be exceptions too. I did not say that Korean history should be the only exception. 172.56.232.24 (talk) 18:58, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  So there would be exceptions for historical topics, places, North Korean topics, and on and on as more examples are produced. At some point the exceptions become the norm and it's just not worth it. Kanguole 19:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  This applies to more than just placenames. See "Bak Jeonghui's Birthplace" in here: [1]. I've noticed this issue a number of times on this website (Encyclopedia of Korean Local Culture).

  Concur with Kanguole. I don't think more exceptions will solve the complications we bring up. toobigtokale (talk) 19:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I was able to create an automatic RR and MR romanization program. It works pretty well. But this is not in Lua, and requires manual changes to existing hangul parameters. @User:Toobigtokale, if you want to see what I made, please let me know. 172.56.232.105 (talk) 02:04, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I'd love to see what you have, please share! toobigtokale (talk) 22:14, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I have been adding some features and modifying my code to be more efficient, but it looks like they decided to vanish. Sadly, I guess what I made will not be implemented. 172.56.232.165 (talk) 10:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm still around btw; I'm also not the only person (nor am I the best person; I have no experience in implementing modules like these) you can show this work to. Post around or go to Wikipedia's Discord and ask for help.

We need your work. It'd be a shame to have such a module coded but not implemented. 187.190.191.57 (talk) 10:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Then, this needs at least three people:

1. A person familiar with implementing Lua modules
2. A programmer who speaks Korean (you)
3. A person who knows Korean pronunciation rules and how the RR and MR systems work (me; I am not really a programmer)

Also, I have some additional features in mind (will explain after I can be sure that the module is actually going to be introduced), but I don't have enough knowledge to code them myself.

Unless you formally return, I am not planning to share what I made.

Note: This does not mean that you should return quickly. Take as much time as you need. Please don't feel pressured by this (even if you decide not to return, that is completely up to you). 172.56.232.24 (talk) 02:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think you are 2 and 3, but I feel I'm unlikely to convince you. I feel you're too modest; even if you don't think of yourself as a programmer, you have programmed something of value. I don't know Lua at all, nor have I programmed anything on Wikipedia besides basic AWB find+replaces. Given the lack of manpower for Korea-related articles on Wikipedia we take what we can get, and you have a lot to offer. 187.190.191.57 (talk) 04:57, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I don't mean offense by "we take what we can get"; my sentiment was actually somewhat self-depricating. I have no actual background in Korean history. In fact, until I started editing last year, I knew virtually nothing about (and was arguably actively disinterested in) modern history beyond the big things. I wrote because I knew that if I didn't, few other people would. I've now skimmed/read around 20-40% of all Korea-related articles on Wikipedia personally, and I feel that I am right. Over 10+ years we've had a shortage of serious editors. You're a serious editor, we need everything you can offer. Even if it isn't perfect at first, you have time to refine it and me and a few other people to give feedback. Please take the leap; Korea and Wikipedia need you. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I have a question (I have some additional features in mind, but I don't know if it is possible to implement them), and am thinking about opening another discussion. These will affect what I am making.

For these, I need someone like you. But I don't think it is a good idea to post something that needs your reply when you are still formally gone.

(Again, please don't feel pressured by this. When to formally return (or even not to return) is completely up to you.) 172.56.232.65 (talk) 10:10, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll be formally gone for years at least, although contributing small things pseudoanonymously. Not having an account simply helps me not be on the site quite as much.

We would significantly benefit from having your module sooner rather than years later. Please just ask me any questions now; the distinction between me having an account vs not is fairly arbitrary. My IP is fairly fixed so you can post on my talk page too. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 16:35, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Then, I will ask you a question.

My program is using some symbols to generate the correct romanizations. Here are some of them:

• _: adds a space in romanizations only
• ^: capitalizes the following letter
• x: used for converting each syllabic block separately (needed for a given name in RR; will actually be a symbol, but have not decided what to use)
• @: used for most irregularities (including tensification reflected in MR (e.g. 손@등 sontŭng (not sondŭng))

For people to use easily, I am thinking about introducing the "personal name" mode (by using \):

• If \한복남 is input, it will be automatically converted to ^한_^복x남 (→ Han Boknam (RR)).
  • By default, this mode assumes that the first syllable is the surname and the remaining syllables are the given name.
• To specify a different segmentation, _ or space is inserted between the components (e.g. surname 선우 + given name 진: \선우_진 or \선우 진 (and then automatically converted to ^선우_^진 or ^선우 ^진 respectively)).
  • For a mononym (personal name that does not have a surname, or any case where only the given name is needed), start the string with \_ (e.g. \_복남 → ^복x남).
• No x in a surname, but add x between each syllable of a given name (e.g. \남궁_가나다 → ^남궁_^가x나x다).
• But before inserting x to a given name, if syllable-final ㄹ + syllable-initial ㄷ/ㅅ/ㅈ is found, @ should be inserted first (to both a surname and a given name; this is because surnames and most given names are Sino-Korean. I can provide a list of such syllables later). For example, \을지_길동 → ^을@지_^길@동 → ^을@지_^길x@동.
• In addition, any manually input @ should be handled correctly. This may be needed when a given name is from a common noun pronounced irregularly (e.g. \김은@빛 → ^김_^은x@빛).
• If a personal name is a part of a longer proper noun, put the personal name between two \ (e.g. 국립 \홍길동\ 기념관 → 국립 ^홍_^길x@동 기념관).

Is this possible to implement? 172.56.232.24 (talk) 19:33, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the symbols are too complicated for the average user, whom this module is supposed to be meant for. People who put enough effort into learning this syntax would probably romanize things correctly anyway, which defeats the purpose of it.

If it's possible to use yes/no options (e.g. "Person name", "Title case", etc) that'd be better I think. Naturally this would miss nuances, so a manual override option or some alternative to this module where manual override is expected would be nice. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 16:16, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

1. I think the symbols are too complicated for the average user ... People who put enough effort into learning this syntax would probably romanize things correctly anyway
   1. Then how should irregular cases be handled? It is not possible to get kkaennip directly from 깻잎. Special symbols are needed to handle cases like this.
      • Also, only two different symbols are needed for irregular pronunciations (@ takes care of most irregularities, and another symbol for a single irregularity).
        • There are several different types of irregularities in pronunciation, but most conditions of irregularities do not overlap; so I made @ to take care of most of them, and another symbol for the single overlapping condition. So in fact, I made my program as simple as possible to use.
   2. Not really. I have seen someone saying that ㄸ is dd in RR (see Talk:Tteokbokki#Revised Romanization). Introducing a module will get rid of mistakes like this; a user does not really have to know the rules of a romanization system. (Edit: I should have made this clearer, or should not have said this.)
   3. That is why I have the "personal name" mode in mind. If that is introduced, people don't have to input most symbols needed to get the correct result for a personal name; in most cases, a user just needs to prefix the full name by \.
2. Manual override should not be allowed. If that is allowed, people can input any random text for an RR or MR spelling, which will not be very different from the current situation.
   1. "Title case" is not needed because you can simply use ^.

172.56.232.205 (talk) 18:56, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm on the fence and need to think about this some more.

• I think in order to use this system users will need to understand the romanization systems. Consider some of your own symbols:
  • _ requires you to have some knowledge of spacing rules for RR/MR (people make frequently mistakes on this; it's not straightforward)
  • ^ requires you to have knowledge of capitalization practices for RR/MR (what even are they? Tbh idk them lol are publications titled in sentence case or title case?)
  • @ requires you understand what is "irregular" for RR/MR in the first place.
• If we accept the above as true, significantly fewer people would want to use the infobox.
  • We'd be giving them a functionally stiff requirement: they must learn the romanization systems AND the syntax in order to properly use the module. Before, they could get away with just barely knowing the romanization, and even then with leeway for mistakes.
  • I doubt many laypeople would want to deal with this, and will just avoid using the infobox. I'll admit: even I'm not confident in how familiar I am with the edge cases in MR/RR, and would need to learn them before I'd be able to use the module without making mistakes.
• Speaking of which, mistakes are still possible with this module. However, given that we'd be functionally limiting its use to people who will learn the two systems, we'd see a decrease in both the use of the module and the number of mistakes.

I feel we differ philosophically on how much tolerance there is for mistakes. I'm pretty inclusionist and tolerant of these kinds of typos. Will need to think; want to make sure we get this right as it will affect many thousands of pages. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 08:46, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I meant that you don't need to know things like whether ㄸ is dd or tt (because the module will never generate dd). I should have made this clearer, or should not have said that. Yeah, actually, you need to have some knowledge of the romanization system.

To add _ and @ to the correct places, yes, you need to have some knowledge of the Korean language (and the romanization systems). I actually wrote that from the beginning.

You don't seem to like this, but the thing is that nothing can be done without any prior knowledge. And I think what I made requires the minimum knowledge.

Well, people do not have to use the infobox.

If you don't like my approach, then what would be a better way to reflect elements that are required for the correct romanizations but cannot be directly figured out from the hangul text?

By the way, if it is okay with you, would you please let me know your email address, or any way that I can contact you directly? If you don't want to reveal what you usually use, you can simply create a new account just for discussing this matter. I can also privately send you what I made.

It looks like we two are the only people seriously thinking about this. 172.56.232.165 (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, it's not that I don't like your approach. It's:

1. This is my fault. I'm not familiar enough with MR/RR's edge cases to make a judgement call about if this is the best way to handle this. I need to do some reading and then come back.
2. I think we should strive to develop something that is so robust and easy to use that even the laziest user with a basic knowledge of Korean and little knowledge of MR/RR will be able to use it.

I want to emphasize this: it's not straightforward for the average person to learn two romanization systems and your symbol system. You are focused and motivated, but the vast majority of people have short attention spans and don't want to spend effort on this stuff.

For product design, we're supposed to design to account for that vast majority as much as possible: after all, they're the majority. While we will need to accept some complication at some point (the reason I'm on the fence is that I think it's possible your system is the simplest possible form of this), your proposal is complicated enough that I want us to be sure it is the simplest possible before we move forward.

Email User:J3iodp231i‬. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 16:50, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok I'm doing the reading, and I'm more convinced of the viability of your system, but still some questions I want to resolve. Email me at your convenience, and please send over any materials you think would help. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 22:14, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks like a logged-in user can send an email to another registered user, but that feature is not available for an IP user.

Probably I wasn't very clear; by "a new account", I meant a new email/messenger account (if you don't want to reveal the email address or username you usually use). 172.56.232.186 (talk) 03:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Thinking about removing Wiktionary links in some cases

I am thinking about removing Wiktionary links in the following cases. Any comments?

1. When the article is about the term itself (e.g. {{linktext|호두과자}} in the Hodu-gwaja article). This is like having the wikt:computer link in the computer article; not very informative.
2. When the article title is already descriptive enough (e.g. {{linktext|대한민국| 원}} in South Korean won; XX{{linktext|여자|고등학교}} in the "XX Girls' High School" article)
3. Place names (e.g. 서울 (Seoul), 부산 (Busan), etc.; this includes names of geographical features (mountains, islands, valleys, rivers, seas, etc.)). Some place names are dictionary entries, but the dictionary definition for a place name is usually nothing more than "a place name (in a certain region)".
4. Generic terms constantly found in multiple articles (e.g 한국/대한민국/조선/조선민주주의인민공화국 (Korea), 고속도로 (expressway), 대학교 (university), etc.)
5. Topics that can be better covered in an encyclopedia than in a dictionary (e.g. Sungkyunkwan is more informative than wikt:성균관). In a case like this, if you want to add a link to the hangul text, it would be better to add a link to the Wikipedia article (e.g. [[Sungkyunkwan|성균관]]).
6. Titles of creative works (books, movies, TV shows, songs, etc.). For these, providing a translation of the entire title is better. And some titles are long (see also the next item).
7. Long phrases/sentences (e.g. 한반도의 평화와 번영, 통일을 위한 판문점 선언 in Panmunjom Declaration). For a long phrase/sentence, providing a translation of the entire phrase/sentence would be much more helpful than several links in a row (and Wikipedia does not have to break down each lexical item in a phrase/sentence).
8. When the article is already explaining the meaning (e.g. {{linktext|X}} means Y; Literal meaning: Y; lit. Y; etc.)
9. Korean terms written in two or more hanja characters (e.g. 博物館). Wiktionary just gives "Hanja form of hangul" (i.e. a soft redirect to the corresponding hangul entry; see wikt:博物館#Korean for an example). This policy in Wiktionary will highly unlikely be changed in the future, since Korean is almost always written in hangul today.
10. Any other cases where a reader will not find anything beyond what they can figure out on Wikipedia

The following are my main criteria for the above:

• After clicking a link to Wiktionary, will a reader find anything beyond what they can figure out on Wikipedia?
• Avoid several links in a row. They can be rather inconvenient.

By the way, in general, I think Wiktionary links should only be added (1) when it can be difficult to understand running text without a Wiktionary link; or (2) in linguistic contexts (e.g. when the topic is about lexical items). It seems that MOS:OVERLINK does not directly say something about Wiktionary links, but I started to think that a lot of (if not most) existing Wiktionary links are actually overlinking (especially when a reader does not find anything beyond from those links). Wikipedia is not a website for language learning; it does not have to provide a link for every single non-English lexical item. 172.56.232.35 (talk) 05:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Support; think all of this makes sense. This is toobigtokale btw. 187.147.66.231 (talk) 15:18, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

It has been more than a month since I posted this, and no one opposed. I will carry this out someday. 172.56.232.35 (talk) 02:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

More restrictive change regarding Wiktionary links

As I wrote above a few months ago, I started to think that a lot of (if not most) existing Wiktionary links are actually overlinking.

Since a rewrite of MOS:KO has begun (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)), I decided to propose a change to the section regarding Wiktionary links.

I would like to replace Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles#Adding links to hangul text with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)#Wiktionary links. This is a more restrictive change. 172.56.232.246 (talk) 03:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

If you have any comments on this, please post it on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal). 172.56.232.72 (talk) 16:07, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for tagging me on my user talk page. I have been beyond busy in my real life and am only reading about this now. I would like to discuss this, but it looks like the location is not necessarily on the link you sent, but the related talk page, yes? Cheers~ ₪RicknAsia₪ 04:33, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

As this is part of the new MOS, if you have any comments please post it on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal). 172.56.232.61 (talk) 09:02, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Converting full-width punctuation and currency symbols in horizontal text

Greetings! Over the past few years, there have been no objections to converting Latin letters and Arabic numerals to ASCII from their full-width forms when they appear in horizontal Chinese, Korean, or Japanese text. I've raised it on MOS and Wikiproject talk pages and made many cleanup edits to articles. I'm making a push to finish that cleanup, and I've been noticing that punctuation, currency symbols, and spaces have the same problem. It looks weird to have the full-width versions mixed in, and they sometimes leak into English-language text. My plan was to start converting punctuation and currency symbols in horizontal text (except where the characters themselves are being discussed) when the July 1 database dump becomes available in a week or two. If you have any questions, objections, concerns, or suggestions, please let me know! Open-circle full stop is not included; the affected characters are: ＂ ＃ ＄ ％ ＆ ＇ ＊ ＋ － ／ ＠ ＼ ＾ ＿ ｀ ￠ ￥ ￦ ＜ ＝ ＞ ｜ ￤ and the space character. -- Beland (talk) 17:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Handling Hangul names in references

Our MOS currently doesn't handle how to format names in references, particularly names only known in Hangul. I like how MOS:CHINESE#Citation style does it, and propose we could do similar.

My proposal for handling Hangul names is:

• Always convert them to Latin script (functionally English).
  • This should ideally be done by finding the common spelling for the author's name. Secondary option is using the author's preferred spelling.
  • If no known common or preferred spelling exists, romanize per WP:NCKO guidelines (i.e. MR for pre-1945/NK and RR for post-1945 SK)
  • Optionally display the author's Hangul name by using the |author1-mask parameter, like |last=Hong |first=Gil-dong |author1-mask=Hong Gil-dong (홍길동)
    • Useful if the common/preferred romanization is particularly unusual. Optional unlike in MOS:ZH, because romanized Korean is more easily reversible to Hangul than romanized Chinese is to Chinese characters.

Reasoning for preferring Latin text:

• Few people have Hangul keyboards enabled or know how to type in Korean
• People unfamiliar with Korean will struggle to refer to/differentiate Korean authors' names in discussions, nor can they type them.
• If names are rendered only in Korean (as I've been doing lately), there's some unhappy compromises that need to be made.
  • Editors on Korea-related articles will often squeeze entire Hangul names into the |last= parameter, like |last=홍길동. However, in a precise sense this is an incorrect usage of the parameter. "홍길동" is the full name, not just the last name.
  • If you split the Hangul name into |last=홍 |first=길동 it renders it as "홍, 길동", which is annoying because Korean names in Hangul aren't normally formatted like this.
  • Using |last=홍 |first=길동 |author1-mask=홍길동 could work, but still runs into the issues with non-Korean speakers I gave.

211.43.120.242 (talk) 01:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Leaning oppose

• When the author's name is written in hangul, the reference is written in Korean. Anyone citing or checking a Korean-language source has to know hangul and Korean.
• Even if someone does not know how to type hangul, they can just copy and paste the hangul text.

By the way, when using a citation template, I think |author=홍길동 is better than |last=홍 |first=길동 (and for templates like Template:Sfnp, use "홍길동 (2024)" instead of "홍 (2024)"). 172.56.232.178 (talk) 02:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Anyone citing or checking a Korean-language source has to know hangul and Korean. But discussing a source isn't limited to people checking it themselves. They can be asking "what does the source by x say?" While copy+pasting is possible, it's mildly annoying.

I thought about the author param, but it's currently not visible in some major citation templates as an argument by default (i.e. you can type it in manually in code, but not select it in visual editor). Maybe could look into having it appear.

Even if the romanization proposal is opposed, at the very least I think we could prohibit |last=홍길동. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 03:32, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

External style guides all say that author names on a non-Latin script should be romanized, so |last=Hong |first=Gil-dong. As 211 says, author names have multiple uses. The parameter names |last= and |first= are confusing in this context, so I prefer the synonyms |surname= and |given= respectively. Either way, the short reference {{sfnp|Hong|2024}} generates "Hong (2024)".

That leaves the problem of recovering the original spelling in cases where the romanization is ambiguous. If the author has a wiki article, which presumably has the hangul (and possibly hanja), we can link to that with |author-link=. Otherwise, |author-mask= is a possible solution, and perhaps cleaner than |last=Hong |first=Gil-dong (홍길동). Note that using |last= and |author= together will generate an error, as they are synonyms. Kanguole 08:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Quick comment: for all non-Latin refs, beest practice is to request all content in non-Lating script (here, Hangul) to be displayed both in Latin and said script. Of course, various versions of non-Latin scripts are moonrunes to most readers here, so translated titles/names/publisher info is needed, but at the same time, we need the original titles and such to locate the works - I've too often seen useless references where only a translated title, inexisten outside Wikipedia, was given, and trying to figure out what was the original work (with no ISBN/URL/etc.) was next to impossible :( _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kanguole To clarify, is your comment in support of the change? 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:00, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes it is, with the caveat that if the author has an enwiki article, |author-link= should be used instead of |author-mask=. Kanguole 11:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@TheLonelyPather Some of the above tips about how to use author-mask, etc. might be useful for your User:TheLonelyPather/Essays/Guide for a translator. I will be adding it to mine, at User:Hanyangprofessor2/Instructions/2 _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:11, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, will do that soon. Feel free to include my essay anywhere you like too. Cheers, --The Lonely Pather (talk) 16:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

As this is a significant change, I'll open this to a WP:RFC. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 12:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Comment I use the |quote= parameter sometimes when a specific reference is used for a specific line so reviewers wont have to put the entire source into translate. Would this be a helpful practice to encourage(although we probably shouldn't make it obligatory) in MOS:KO? 00101984hjw (talk) 15:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I think so, and agree not obligatory. Think we should make a section in the MOS for referencing practices. We should also point people towards MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE in it; lesser known part of the MOS. These changes are uncontroversial, so I think it'd be safe to WP:BOLDly make them once my orig proposal is decided on. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 16:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

RFC on romanizing author names in refs

See above post. Tl;dr Korea-related articles currently don't have guidance on how to handle Hangul names in reference templates. This has led to a wide variety of practices, with arguable positives/negatives to each of them. I'm proposing we establish a guideline in MOS:KO, in which Hangul names are to be romanized (with nuances). 211.43.120.242 (talk) 12:08, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

• Per my comment above, best practices for Hangul words (names, titles, publishers) in citations should recommend displaying both Hangul and English translations (or transliterations for given names). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:37, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  I can easily support names (per the masking/linking params) and titles (per the |trans-title param). Publisher I'm not aware of a good way to display orig Hangul and Latin text. If there is such a way then I'd support, but if we tried to squeeze everything into the publisher param, e.g. |publisher=안녕 (Annyeong), I think it's strictly speaking not a correct usage of the parameter. The publisher is not "안녕 (Annyeong)", it's 안녕.

  An alternative is to do what MOS:ZH#Citation style recommends (last para/example); romanize names without orig Hangul. What are your thoughts? 211.43.120.242 (talk) 13:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  @Piotrus courtesy tag in case didn't see 211.43.120.242 (talk) 14:43, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  If there is no equivalent of author-mask in the template that would display "안녕 (Annyeong)" then we should probably ask for the template to be expanded with such a parameter - that would be a win-win. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 20:54, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

• Support - romanize name and provide original Hangul using |author1-mask Just spotted this thread and it happens to be related to my recent Help Desk post here. In short, my view is that we should always romanize the author and provide the original script via the |author1-mask parameter, as similarly suggested via MOS:CHINESE#Citation style. For example:

Markup	Renders as
{{Cite book | last = Hong | first = Yi-Seop | author-mask1 = Hong Yi-Seop 홍이섭 | script-title = ko:세종대왕 | trans-title = Sejong the Great | publisher = 세종대왕기념사업회 [Sejong the Great Memorial Society] | location = 서울 [Seoul] | orig-date = 1971 | year = 2011 | edition = 9th | isbn = 978-89-8275-660-3 | language = ko }}	Hong Yi-Seop 홍이섭 (2011) [1971]. 세종대왕 [Sejong the Great] (in Korean) (9th ed.). 서울 [Seoul]: 세종대왕기념사업회 [Sejong the Great Memorial Society]. ISBN 978-89-8275-660-3.

While there are some cons to this approach, this would be until such time the as the {{citation}} template is updated to include additional parameters such as |script-author1= |script-last1= |script-first1= Nonabelian (talk) 10:25, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Also...just a note to say that much of this looks to have been discussed in a similar context in the following locations on MOS:CHINESE:
  • Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China- and Chinese-related articles/Archive 8 § CS1 with native names
  • Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China- and Chinese-related articles/Archive 6 § Citations of Chinese-language sources

Nonabelian (talk) 18:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

This is the OP; thanks for your insights. For showing translations of publisher and loc, I'll lean oppose for now. For publisher, reasoning per my note about ko name + English name not strictly being all part of the publisher's name. Location name I'm opposed because common name is possible to easily establish for locations, so I think no need to show Korean text.

In short, for now I only propose guidelines around Latin author name and giving translated title. 106.102.129.92 (talk) 03:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Also a minor style thing: do we use square brackets or parentheses? E.g. |author-mask=Hong Yi-Seop [홍이섭] or |author-mask=Hong Yi-Seop (홍이섭)?

The square brackets match those produced automatically by |trans-title, e.g. |title=안녕 |trans-title=Hello displays as 안녕 [Hello].

However, MOS:ZH recommends parentheses for some reason. I'm tempted to say use square brackets for consistency with |trans-title, but I don't have a strong preference. 59.5.79.44 (talk) 06:57, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

But they wouldn't be consistent: |trans-title= takes the English translation of the title and puts square brackets around it, whereas here you're talking about the original name in Hangul. By the way, the Hangul title shouldn't go in |title=: it should be in |script-title= preceded by ko:. Kanguole 07:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I stand corrected. TIL |script-title is preferred for non-Latin titles.

Thoughts on parentheses vs square? 59.5.79.44 (talk) 07:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Parentheses would be clearer. Square brackets would be confusing since this is the opposite of titles. Kanguole 08:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Going through the archives of the CS1 Help Page, it looks like square brackets are used for descriptive or editorial notes that are not part of the original reference but provide additional context or clarification. Thus the trans-title or orig-date parameters are rendered in square brackets for this editorial purpose. This concept seems to align with use of square brackets per WP:MOS and APA recommendations. Therefore it can be argued that, in order for consistency, the preferred formatting of the author-mask parameter (or indeed other parameters) should in fact be:

• [Hong Yi-Seop] 홍이섭 (2011) [1971]. 세종대왕 [Sejong the Great] (in Korean) (9th ed.). 서울 [Seoul]: 세종대왕기념사업회 [Sejong the Great Memorial Society]. ISBN 978-89-8275-660-3.

I have amended the above markup to take this into account. Nonabelian (talk) 10:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Edit: I need to think about this, but I'm leaning towards parentheses instead of square brackets. I'm a little worried that casuals will find this usage of square brackets unintuitive/uncommon. This usage of brackets comes in the opposite order to |trans-title. On the other hand, people will already be used to "Hong Gil-dong (홍길동)" because this is already practiced in article bodies. We also wanna align with what other style guidelines are doing on Wikipedia; I've yet to see refs in any language use that format. Although admittedly MOS:ZH is the only MOS I know of that uses parentheses; has anyone seen other practices?

Also, what's your thoughts on place name romanization practice? I'm a bit skeptical of the need for "서울 [Seoul]"; "Seoul" is more concise, and the Hangul doesn't add significant understanding. 59.5.79.44 (talk) 10:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC) 59.5.79.44 (talk) 11:20, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I was incorrect about using square brackets around the author's name. The APA convention, when also citing the Hangul, is to give the original terms and present them directly behind the romanized terms without parentheses, brackets, or quotation marks at all. Thus above should be rendered as:

• Hong Yi-Seop 홍이섭 (2011) [1971]. 세종대왕 [Sejong the Great] (in Korean) (9th ed.). Seoul: Sejong the Great Memorial Society. ISBN 978-89-8275-660-3.

Have once again amended markup. With regards to place name and publisher: I currently haven't formed any strong views. I think either hangul, latin text or both is fine. If both, square brackets for translation per reason above. Nonabelian (talk) 14:24, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Now I flip my vote to no parentheses/square brackets. Just looked at various manuals of style for Korean studies journals (Wikipedia category).

The Chicago Manual of Style (henceforth "CMOS") seems to be popularly used in Korean studies and is annoyingly paywalled.

• Yale Library gives this guide for Korean in the CMOS: [2]
  • Seems to validate no parentheses/square brackets

Journals:

• The Journal of Korean Studies (CMOS with modifications): [3]
  • Pages 15–17 relevant, page 17 validates your formatting (no parens or square brackets, non-Latin name after Latin)
  • Place of publication does not provide orig. Hangul, just uses English common name (17)
• Korea Journal (CMOS more or less): [4]
• Acta Koreana (CMOS)
  • Can't find any relevant guidance for us here
• North Korean Review (none?): [5]
  • Seemingly little guidance at all
• Review of Korean Studies (CMOS): [6]
• European Journal of Korean Studies (CMOS): [7]
  • Explicitly supports no parentheses/square brackets
• International Journal of Korean History (CMOS): [8]
• Seoul Journal of Korean Studies (CMOS): [9]

Of these, the Journal of Korean Studies seems to have the most fleshed-out manual; it's also among the most prestigious in the field. I think we could refer to it in future; there's some more things I'd like to hash out after this topic. 59.5.79.44 (talk) 18:39, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for having a look into this too. In addition, I have found a suitable academic reference which directly addresses formatting of Korean here. It cites the Yale Library ref you found and previously provided APA guidelines. Nonabelian (talk) 04:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

This is the OP. Summary thus far. I'm proposing we follow the example reference format provided by Nonabelian above, except for the |publisher and |location parameters. Those are still uncertain; I oppose providing Hangul for location when WP:COMMONNAME is known, and not sure how to format publisher. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 11:00, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kanguole @Piotrus thoughts on conversation just above, where we decided no parentheses/square brackets in author-mask, e.g. |author-mask1 = Hong Yi-Seop 홍이섭? 104.232.119.107 (talk) 11:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I guess I have no preference here. Except that I'd think standarizing things with translated title parameter would be good, and it does enforce square brackets on the title, doesn't it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:09, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes translated title will be part of the MOS and square brackets is automatic. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 06:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Comment I managed to find some time to head to the library and obtain a copy of guides from the MLA, APA, Oxford, and CMOS. The CMOS is by far the most comprehensive in terms of how to handle foreign language sources. It is not a surprise that most Korean journals seem to use a modified version of it. 



For publication locations, the standard English word should be used. For publishers, the original name of the publisher should be used untranslated, even if the location is given in an English form. In the context of non-Latin scripts, such as Korean, that means transliterating the publisher name. As with names, the original Hangul script may be given immediately following the transliteration. A translation of the publisher could be enclosed in square brackets, but this should be used sparingly and only if believed absolutely necessary. A translation of a title should always be given in square brackets.

The Yale Quick Start Guide references the HJAS style sheet, which provides some interesting reference examples. Here are just three, quoting their presentation exactly:

• Han-Chung munhwa kyoryu wa nambang haero 韓中文化交流와 南方海路, ed. Cho Yŏngnok 曹永祿 (Seoul: Kukhak charyowŏn, 1997).
• Ch’oe Hyŏnbae 崔鉉培, Han’gŭl kal 한글갈 (Kyŏngsŏng: Chŏngŭmsa, 1940), p. 119.
• Cho Chiman 조지만, Chosŏn sidae ŭi hyŏngsapŏp: Tae Myŏngnyul kwa Kukchŏn 조선시대의 형사법: 대명률과 국전 (Seoul: Kyŏngin munhwasa, 2007), pp. 31–56.

How should the above sources be ideally formatted in Wikipedia per a future version of MOS:KO? Based on what we know so far, it should probably be the following:

Markup	Renders as
{{citation | title = Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero | trans-title = Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route | script-title = ko:韓中文化交流와 南方海路 | editor-last = Jo | editor-first = Yeongnok | editor-mask1 = Jo Yeongnok 조영록 曹永祿 | language = Korean | publisher = Gukhak jaryowon 국학자료원 國學資料院 [Institute for Korean National Studies] | location = Seoul | year = 1997 | isbn = 978-89-8206-169-1 }} * {{citation | title = Hangeul gal | trans-title = Hangeul Knife | script-title = ko:한글갈 | author1-first = Hyeonbae | author1-last = Choe | author-mask1 = Choe Hyeonbae 최현배 崔鉉培 | author-link1 = Choe Hyeon-bae | language = Korean | publisher = Jeongeumsa 정음사 | location = Gyeongseong | year = 1940 | oclc = 908503744 }} * {{citation | title = Joseon sidae ui hyeongsabeop: Dae Myeongnyul gwa Gukjeon | trans-title = Criminal Law of the Joseon Dynasty: The Great Ming Code and National Code | script-title = ko: 조선시대의 형사법: 대명률과 국전 | author1-first = Jiman | author1-last = Cho | author-mask1 = Cho Jiman 조지만 | language = Korean | publisher = Gyeongin Munhwasa 경인문화사 | location = Seoul | year = 2007 | isbn = 978-89-499-0499-3 }}	Jo Yeongnok 조영록 曹永祿, ed. (1997), Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero 韓中文化交流와 南方海路 [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon 국학자료원 國學資料院 [Institute for Korean National Studies], ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 Choe Hyeonbae 최현배 崔鉉培 (1940), Hangeul gal 한글갈 [Hangeul Knife] (in Korean), Gyeongseong: Jeongeumsa 정음사, OCLC 908503744 Cho Jiman 조지만 (2007), Joseon sidae ui hyeongsabeop: Dae Myeongnyul gwa Gukjeon 조선시대의 형사법: 대명률과 국전 [Criminal Law of the Joseon Dynasty: The Great Ming Code and National Code] (in Korean), Seoul: Gyeongin Munhwasa 경인문화사, ISBN 978-89-499-0499-3

Observations and suggestions for a Reference MOS:KO:

• Transliterations for the title of a work should ideally be provided for accessibility (as much as I personally do not like them!)
  • The above have been transliterated from MR into RR. Transliterations should follow that of the article in question.
  • Transliterations of titles should have sentence-style capitalization.
• As no transliteration is perfect, provide Hangul in the following areas:
  • The author's name via the author-mask parameter immediately following the romanized name.
  • The title via the script-title parameter.
  • The journal, newspaper, magazine, website name etc. via the script-work parameter.
  • The publisher name via the publisher parameter, immediately following the transliteration in the same field.
• When referencing a source that contains Hanja:
  • If the author provides their name in Hanja, keep it for referenceability and also include it in the author-mask parameter, along with the romanization and Hangul.
  • If the title of the work is in Hanja, do not translate it to Hangul, just provide the original Hanja in the script-title and translate it via trans-title.
• For both Hangul and Hanja, do not use {{lang}} or {{korean}} within parameters in a {{citation}} template, as this interferes with Wikipedia:COinS.

Nonabelian (talk) 16:32, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Hmfhhfhgh complicated...

• I'd argue we're not obligated to closely follow the CMOS. We already don't in some aspects.
• I don't like transliterated titles either and would advocate for us not using them. MOS:ZH doesn't mandate them. Imo they don't add any understanding, nor are they that useful in discussions. I frequently use them only to reconstruct what the Hangul is lol.
• I think references should use MR/RR based on when/where they were published, and not standardized within an article. I.e. for pre-1945/NK works we should use MR, and RR for post-1945 SK.
• For providing author/publisher Hangul, I'd argue (and so does the CMOS) it shouldn't be mandatory. Especially not mandatory if readers can be expected to reliably reconstruct the Hangul from the transliteration. If the transliteration is ambiguous or unorthodox, Hangul should be mandated.
  • Reason: we should minimize the amount of mandatory content in references; people are lazy and the more requirements we ask of them the less they'll want to do and more mistakes we invite. We're already asking a lot of them with atypical params like |script-title, |author-mask, etc.
• For providing author/publisher Hanja, I'd argue we should only provide if it significantly aids understanding in some way.
  • Examples: some authors/publishers prefer Hanja over Hangul and basically only provide Hanja names. Some people have common Hangul names, but possibly unique Hanja names.
  • Same reasoning as above point
• Agree that if a work's title is in Hanja only, we should keep it as Hanja and not transliterate/translate it into Hangul.
• For place names, if there isn't a clear WP:COMMONNAME for a place (especially "경성/京城") the CMOS seems to suggest (and I agree) that we transliterate to MR/RR/Modified Hepburn/etc based on time/location/the language of the work.
  • For example, for Gyeongseong, is it "Keijō", "Kyŏngsŏng", "Gyeongseong", or "Seoul"? I'd argue we should use "Kyŏngsŏng", as it's a Korean-language text published pre-1945.

104.232.119.107 (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Replying to all your points:

• Transliteration: I have very very reluctantly come to the conclusion that transliteration might be a necessary evil for references. Personally, I never use them. However, WP:Accessibility is quite clear: "Provide a transliteration for all text in a non-Latin writing system where the non-Latin character is important in the original context such as names, places, things, etc." Therefore Transliteration is mandatory according all the style guides as much as we don't like it. This mandate seems to exist for several reasons:
  • Compatibility with Old Browsers: Some older browsers may not support non-Latin characters.
  • Accessibility for the Visually Impaired: Blind individuals using text-to-speech software benefit from transliterations.
  • COinS Software: Some citation tools may not support non-Latin characters, displaying empty boxes instead.

You could argue that transliteration isn't needed if a translation is provided, but translations can vary while transliterations generally do not. The purpose of a reference is verifiability, and consistent transliterations support this.

• Transliteration Based on Publication Date: I strongly oppose the idea of varying transliteration based on publication date. If we must use transliteration, it should be consistent across the article, including references. Part of the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria is consistent referencing.
• Clarification on Current MOS:KO Transliteration Guidance: Upon careful reading current MOS:KO guidelines state the following:
  • South Korea and Pre-1945 Korea: Use the Revised Romanization (RR) system for articles about South Korea and topics related to Korea before the division in 1945.
  • North Korea and Pre-1945 Korean Names: Use McCune–Reischauer (excluding the DPRK’s official variant) for articles about North Korea and pre-1945 Korean names.

Therefore, most articles, including those on “Keijō,” should use RR if needed. The guidance might seem contradictory at first (I had to reread it several times!) but it does make sense. (See Romanization module & templates thread for strikethrough reason) We should consider tidying up the wording of the MOS for better clarity.

• Mandating Hangul: I agree that including Hangul is not mandatory if transliteration is provided. The MOS should also clarify that it is better to add a reference, even if in the wrong format, for another editor to clean up later, rather than not adding a reference at all! We want people contributing and a reference MOS ultimate usefulness is for helping people get to GA/FA status imho.
• Author Hanja: I agree that including Hanja for authors is not mandatory. It should only be included if the source provides it, and even then, it is optional. Only the romanized name should be mandatory.
• Publisher Names: Following WP:MOS’s "Do Not Invent" guidance, we should not translate publisher names. Instead, provide a transliteration and optionally the original script (Hangul/Hanja).
• Place Names: Here is the relevant guidance: “Current, commonly used English names for cities are usually preferred whenever such forms exist. If in doubt about what form to use, record the name of the city as it appears in the source. (Names for cities such as Beijing or Mumbai that were once commonly known under older forms can usually be recorded as they appear in the source.” Therefore, if the source lists the location as "京城", record it using the English equivalent, "Keijō." If the source states "경성", use "Gyeongseong." Go with whatever the source says, using the most common English equivalent.
• Final Thoughts In short, I've penned some example do's and don'ts below. I don't propose that they form the main substance of an reference section for MOS:KO, more an appendix, and might help clarify current opinions to any one reading this current talk page thread. I'm very conscious that we've veered of the man topic of this RfC. I propose we all begin working on a draft MOS:KO somewhere else and submit for approval here when folks think we have something viable in a separate RfC. I don't think anyone is arguing against the use of the romanization for authors or the use of an author-mask parameter.

Proposed reference template examples for MOS

Examples citations of Korean sources Per WP:CITESTYLE, editors can use any appropriate reference style for a particular article, so long as it is consistent. Editors are strongly encouraged to use appropriate Citation Style 1 or Citation Style 2 template when listing works. The following examples explain common do's and don'ts when using Wikipedia's Citation style but apply equally well to APA style, ASA style, MLA style, The Chicago Manual of Style etc. too. Correctly formatted examples Y Jo Yeongnok, ed. (1997), Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 Reference provides transliteration per WP:Accessibility Y Jo Yeongnok, ed. (1997), Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 Reference provides transliteration and translation in square brackets. Y Jo Yeongnok 曹永祿, ed. (1997), 韓中文化交流와 南方海路 [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon 國學資料院, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 While the reference does not provide a transliteration of the title, it does provide a translation and optional original script in Hangul/Hanja Y Jo Yeongnok 曹永祿, ed. (1997), Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero 韓中文化交流와 南方海路 [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon 國學資料院, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 Reference provides transliteration, translation and optional original script in Hangul/Hanja Common Formatting Mistakes N 曹永祿, ed. (1997), 韓中文化交流와 南方海路, 서울: 國學資料院, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 Original script in Hangul and Hanja is presented without transliteration. N Jo, Yeongnok, ed. (1997), Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero 韓中文化交流와 南方海路 [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon 國學資料院, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 The author-mask parameter has not been used leading to the name not being properly formated. N Jo Yeongnok 曹永祿, ed. (1997), Han-Jung Munhwa Gyoryu Wa Nambang Haero 韓中文化交流와 南方海路 [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon 國學資料院, ISBN 978-89-8206-169-1 The transliteration has been overly capitalized. Non-latin transliterations should be capitalised sentence style meaning only the first word and any proper nouns should be capitalized. Other examples ? Jo Yeongnok 조영록 曹永祿, ed. (1997), Han-Jung munhwa gyoryu wa nambang haero 한중문화교류와 남방해로 韓中文化交流와 南方海路 [Han-Chinese Cultural Exchange and the Southern Sea Route] (in Korean), Seoul: Gukhak jaryowon 국학자료원 國學資料院 [Institute for Korean National Studies] The editor has provided additional information not contained in the source. They have translated the title into Hangul from Hanja and also provided an english translation of the publisher in square brackets. This extra information would usually be deemed unnecessary. In unusual circumstances it might be acceptable, for instance if the source has no ISBN, DOI, OCLC or archive URL and would otherwise be very difficult to verify. Unusual Examples The following references are other examples from a HJAS style sheet. Naemubu che-2 kwa 内務部 第二課, “Okku sŏbu surijohap kwan’gye sŏryu” 沃溝西部水利組合關係書類 [ca. 1908–1914]; MS no. 90-0741, National Archives of Korea 국가기록원, Taejŏn, South Korea. Tae Myŏngnyul chikhae 大明律直解 [seventeenth-century xylographic imprint of 1395 edition], 30 kwŏn in 4 vols., v. 2, k. 6, p. 2a; No. 古 5130-11, Kyujanggak Archive 규장각, Seoul National University 서울대학교, Seoul. See the daily entry for Sejong’s 世宗 reign year 26, month 2, day 29 (kyŏngja 庚子) [1444; Sejong 26/02/29 (kyŏngja)] in Chosŏn wangjo sillok 朝鮮王朝實錄, comp. National Institute of Korean History 國史編纂委員會 (Kwach’ŏn, Kyŏnggido: Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 2006– ) [hereafter Sillok], http://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kda_12602020_001. T’aejong 1 太宗 [1401]/08/22 (muin 戊寅) in Sillok, http://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kca_10108022_001. These references are in CMOS format and some elements do not easly fit into the {{citation}} template. Per WP:CITESTYLE editors do not use these templates and can use an alternative citation style, so long as it is consistent. In the examples above, they can be formatted using the {{wikicite}} template: Text.{{sfnp|Tae Myŏngnyul chikhae (c. 17th Century)}} Some more text. And finally, some more text over here. == Notes == {{reflist}} == References == {{refbegin|indent=yes}} * {{wikicite | ref = {{harvid|Tae Myŏngnyul chikhae (c. 17th Century)}} | reference = Tae Myŏngnyul chikhae 大明律直解 [seventeenth-century xylographic imprint of 1395 edition], 30 kwŏn in 4 vols., v. 2, k. 6, p. 2a; No. 古 5130-11, Kyujanggak Archive 규장각, Seoul National University 서울대학교, Seoul.}} {{refend}}

Nonabelian (talk) 22:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for doing all this research, grateful to have all this input!

I agree we should just redo MOS:KO in a draft altogether, then ask for approval. It's much easier to do a complete rewrite than it is to ask for approval on each individual decision. One thing I want to get your thoughts on: I'd like to have MOS:KO and WP:NCKO merged completely, just like MOS:JA. It's confusing having to point to two separate but strongly related guidelines.

• For transliterations for titles, you've convinced me too; let's make them required.
  • However, I'm skeptical about what MOS:KO/WP:NCKO say about romanization; the guidance being split on those two pages makes it even more confusing. We should unify them into a single and more explicit standard, and potentially revise them. I feel like McCune–Reischauer is underrepresented in our guidance compared to how ubiquitous it is in academic-level work on Korea.
  • Until a significant revision happens, for the references section, we should keep the guidance vague on what transliteration system to use. In other words, in MOS:KO#References, we should just say "romanize per MOS:KO#Romanization". This way we can focus on just updating the romanization guidance without worrying about updating MOS:KO#References too.
• For publisher names, I'll again argue that if the English common name for a publisher is well established, there's no need to provide the Korean name at all. This is especially so if the publisher has a Wikipedia article. In the unusual examples, you provided "National Archives of Korea 국가기록원"; I'd argue it could just be "National Archives of Korea". Same with "Seoul National University 서울대학교" -> "Seoul National University".

104.232.119.107 (talk) 02:30, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

• I do think that we should probably merge MOS:KO and WP:NCKO yes, but only in time.
• Agree on unifying guidance into a single place and the step-by-step approach. I'm actually of the opinion the 1945 rule isn't the best, I think each article is best served by having its own consensus: if there are a bunch of driven editors with lots of sources in MR about a topic in 1965 and they want to edit the article to be in MR for good reason, sounds fine to me? same thing for RR. Whatever gets more quality content covered in English.
• If a publisher publishes their name in English, give the English. If a publisher publishes the name in English and Hangul, give the English. If the publisher gives the name in Hangul, give the transliteration + Hangul optionally. Key focus on references is verifiability. Especially if the source is missing an ISBN, archive URL, DOI etc giving the publisher "as is" is going to make it a lot easier to find
• Feel free to create a draft or userpage sandbox or something and post in a sperate thread here. I'm getting round to it but you might beat me to it!--Nonabelian (talk) 21:07, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

  Now we should decide what action to take. I can tentative support any proposal you make for a reference section in the MOS; you already have a relatively complete section, I'm unlikely to rewrite one myself, and I think we will agree on almost all of it.

  Other replies:

  • Interesting thought on the per-article basis for MR/RR, hadn't considered that... Will think about it. Maybe best to discuss elsewhere.
  • For publishers I'm still a little skeptical that using an unambiguous English official name could constitute invention.
    • But now that I think about it, I've seen some publishers change their English names over time while keeping their Korean names. Maybe transliteration is fine as a default. Maybe a piped wikilink for the transliteration to the current Wiki article can be recommended, e.g. [[Current English title|transliteration]] or something.
  • I may take a go at merging MOS:KO and WP:NCKO; will post link if I start on it.

  104.232.119.107 (talk) 12:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I've begun a draft. I have posted a notification about it in a separate post here.--Nonabelian (talk) 21:59, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

One comment—

For providing author/publisher Hangul, I'd argue (and so does the CMOS) it shouldn't be mandatory. Especially not mandatory if readers can be expected to reliably reconstruct the Hangul from the transliteration. If the transliteration is ambiguous or unorthodox, Hangul should be mandated.

I agree that including Hangul is not mandatory if transliteration is provided.

I disagree with this. Romanized Korean names are actually quite ambiguous. See the following cases:

• Kim Dae-jung and Youn Yuh-jung
• Chun Doo-hwan and Chun Woo-hee
• Even in a single name: Jun Sung Ahn

At least for personal names, including the original hangul name should be always mandatory (if it is provided in the source). 172.56.232.246 (talk) 05:25, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

One more case: Even Korean-language media do not always correctly determine the original hangul name from a romanized Korean name. Seung-Hui Cho was originally reported as 조승휘 (example), but later reports use 조승희. 172.56.232.109 (talk) 18:18, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

When using strict RR or MR, this problem doesn't happen but your point is very well taken when using modified RR and MR for Korean names (as of course happens almost exclusively):

Korean: 김대중 (Gim Dae-jung) (Kim Dae-jung)

Korean: 윤여정 (Yun Yeo-jeong) (Youn Yuh-jung)

Korean: 전두환 (Jeon Du-hwan) (Chun Doo-hwan)

Korean: 천우희 (Cheon U-hui) (Chun Woo-hee)

I was thinking about resolving via changes to the naming convention, something in line with the below which has been added to the latest draft for Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal):

Proposed romanization process for people's names as part of a revised MOS

See also: § Author's name For Korean names of people, follow the below guidance step by step 1. Use established English common name In the first instance, use the established English common name from reliable sources. This ensures that names are recognized and consistent with widely accepted usage. 2. Personal preference romanization In the second instance, use the Romanization of the personal preference of the person in question. This respects individual choices and ensures that names are represented as preferred by the individuals themselves. 3. Modified transliteration based on historical context If the above cannot be established, transliterate the name into RR if active after 1945, or MR if active before 1945, then perform the following modifications to the transliterated name: Modifications to common Korean family names Hangul RR MR Common Modified Romanization Korean: 김 Gim Kim Kim Korean: 이 I Yi Lee Korean: 박 Bak Pak Park Korean: 최 Choe Ch'oe Choi Korean: 정 Jeong Chŏng Jung Korean: 강 Gang Kang Kang Korean: 조 Jo Cho Cho Korean: 윤 Yun Yun Yoon Korean: 장 Jang Chang Jang Korean: 임 Im Im Lim Modifications to common Korean given name syllables Hangul RR MR Common Modified Romanization Korean: 현 Hyeon Hyŏn Hyun Korean: 우 U U Woo Korean: 훈 Hun Hun Hoon Korean: 영 Yeong Yŏng Young Korean: 윤 Yun Yun Yoon Korean: 성 Seong Sŏng Sung Korean: 희 Heui Hŭi Hee Korean: 준 Jun Chun Joon Korean: 민 Min Min Min Korean: 정 Jeong Chŏng Jung Then hyphenate each syllable of the given name. Example: Y천우희 -> Cheon U hui -> Chun Woo-hee 4. Ambiguity and many-to-one mapping If a name based on modified RR or MR creates a many-to-one mapping, such as Chun (전 and 천) and Woo (우 and 유), and the person in question does not have thier own Wikipedia article, the Hangul should be provided in the article text in a parenthetical gloss using the {{korean}} template. This additional detail helps resolve any ambiguity and ensures clarity. For example: Y Chun Doo-hwan (Korean: 전두환)

For referencing specifically:

• Hangul in references
  • If the name is provided in latin text as part of the reference section or bibliography, Hangul is not mandatory as long as there is an ISBN, DOI, OCLC, Archive URL, etc., which clearly identifies the source. These identifiers provide sufficient verifiability without the need for Hangul.
• Ambiguity in references without identifiers
  • Even if the reference has no identifier, the ambiguity is unlikely to cause significant issues, similar to how an English source referenced as "Sam Smith" could be either "Samantha" or "Samuel." The odds of multiple authors with the same title of works in the same year causing confusion are very low. In such rare cases, if ambiguity does interfere with source verifiability, the source likely fails WP:V anyway. In any case, Hangul can optionally be provided.

In short, I think Hangul should be encouraged in places but I'm not sure I would go as far as "mandating" it for references. Nonabelian (talk) 09:59, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: Even with strict RR/MR, ambiguity still exists.

• RR: Given names 빛나 and 샛별 are romanized "Bitna" and "Saetbyeol" respectively – syllable-final consonants ㅊ and ㅅ both become "t".
• MR: Consonant assimilation between syllables is reflected in personal names as well. For example, 김석령 is "Kim Sŏngnyŏng". It is not possible to unambiguously determine what "ngn" originally is.

"Hangul in references": Agree.

"Ambiguity in references without identifiers": I am not quite sure about this, but I have no comments on that at this moment.

"Modifications to common Korean given name syllables": Isn't this original research? There are statistics for romanizations of surnames, but I don't know if statistics for romanizations of given names exist. 172.56.232.72 (talk) 15:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, another valid point about batchims being romanized identically even under strict Revised Romanization (RR). I somehow forgot about that! That said, I still don't think this leads to significant ambiguity for names in practice. For instance, if you encountered the name Bitna, you wouldn't likely confuse it with 빗나 or 빋나, as these aren't recognized names — 빛나 is the only common one. Similarly, Saetbyeol would be clearly understood to refer to 샛별 without any confusion; I doubt you would mistake it for 샏별, 샚별, 샒별, or 샞별!

Therefore, confusion only arises if an individual has a preference that modifies the romanization of the name further, as per the examples you've already given.

The challenge is we don't know if the person has used a modification or not, if we are presented with a name from an English-language source.

But for just referencing purposes, per this RfC, if we are dealing with Korean-language sources that don't provide a romanization, and we state that the names should always be transliterated strictly (apart from obvious mods to the family name - Kim, Lee, etc.), I can't think of a situation that would cause ambiguity or mandate Hangul. If an author is known to have a WP:COMMONNAME or a personal preference for Romanization, we could include this in square brackets [ ] in the reference. I've updated a section of the draft MOS that speaks to an issue just like this, as listed on the style sheet from JKS.

I've also removed the modifications for given names from the draft for now too... I agree that they would need to be well-sourced if we were to include explicit recommendations, if any. Need to give this area more thought. Nonabelian (talk) 20:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I can't think of a situation that would cause ambiguity or mandate Hangul. What about the given name "Yedam" in strict RR/MR? Is it originally 예담? The answer is yes and no (예닮).

If including the original hangul name is not going to be mandated, then at least there should be a note saying that strict application of RR or MR does not ensure perfect reversibility. 172.56.232.61 (talk) 05:07, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

References

References

Romanization module & templates

Per WP:Accessibility, we must "provide a transliteration for all text in a non-Latin writing system where the non-Latin character is important in the original context such as names, places, things, etc." However, many of us have realized that Korean transliteration on Wikipedia (and in general) can be quite inconsistent.

I have put together a simple Wikipedia module, Module:Korean transliteration notice, to help us guide editors on which transliteration system to use on each article. In many ways, this was inspired by the Module:English variant notice.

Here are some example outputs:

Tagging a article talk page with {{Revised Romanization}} will generate:

The template is located at Template:Revised Romanization of Korean

Similar templates exist for:

• {{McCune-Reischauer}} - Template:McCune-Reischauer romanization of Korean
• {{Yale Romanization}} - Template:Yale romanization of Korean

This module is designed to be flexible and can accommodate more obscure transliteration systems for Korean if needed in the future too.

The primary goal of these templates is ulimately to help facilitate categorization, automation, enforcement, and general awareness. This may also help inform any future changes to the MOS:KO guidelines too.

If you are technically inclined, feel free to add your thoughts and feedback on the code review here. The module is currently in alpha, so there might be a few bugs.

What are everyone's thoughts on using templates like this? Do you think they would be useful? Any feedback is welcome!--Nonabelian (talk) 21:38, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Will be useful if we end up modifying the MOS to allow for/recommend intra-article consistency of romanization. Nice work! 104.232.119.107 (talk) 12:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

It already specifies romanization should be done on an article basis, no? "In general, use the Revised Romanization system for articles with topics about South Korea and topics about Korea pre-1945. Use McCune–Reischauer (not the DPRK's official variant) for topics about North Korea and pre-1945 Korean names."--Nonabelian (talk) 22:06, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh huh... I'm not sure it's that straightforward though; it says to use MR for pre-1945 Korean names in the following sentence; what does that bit mean? I genuinely have no idea; it seems contradictory. Like e.g. for Sejong the Great, do we use RR for everything but names? What qualifies as a name? People? Places? Objects? 104.232.119.107 (talk) 02:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

You’re correct; there seems to be an inherent contradiction within the current guidelines.

It appears that the guidelines intended the term "pre-1945 names" to refer specifically to people, organizations, and entities, with place names being resolved separately through geographic guidelines (e.g., using MR for cities in North Korea and RR for those in South Korea, regardless of their historical context).

However, there is also a clear discrepancy, as articles about pre-1945 Korea are also instructed to use RR. Therefore, articles about people from pre-1945 require the use of both MR and RR .

The intent behind using MR for pre-1945 figures might have been to align with the historical tendency in Western sources to use MR for globally notable Korean figures from that period (e.g. it is more likely that a old name aligned to MR if WP:COMMONNAME existed). However, many pre-1945 Korean figures have not received significant attention in Western literature. This lack of coverage does not make them non-notable. A good example mentioned on the talk pages is the article for Princess Gyeongchang, mentioned here. According to the guidelines, her name should technically be in MR, rendering it as Kyŏngch'ang Kungju or Princess Kyŏngch'ang. Yet, a quick Google search shows almost no results for this term (and not much for transliteration Gyeongchang either, outside Wikipedia!) This illustrates the guidelines' impracticality, as they also dictate using RR for article content on pre-1945 topics, leading to inconsistency.

Compounding things further, the Princess Gyeongchang article includes names like Pang-gyŏng and Hŏ Kong in MR. The most generous interpretation might be to write a historical article in RR while using MR for personal names, but this approach conflicts with MOS:CONSISTENT and WP:CONSISTENT. Given this situation, it's clear that these confusing guidelines are impractical for any normal editor to make sense of and need revision.

Thinking through the best way to address this: I propose we rethink the MOS for transliteration standards, akin to Wikipedia's "varieties of English" approach MOS:ENGVAR. This would allow each article to have its consensus on Romanization based on the most appropriate form for the subject matter.

How best to suggest a change? As this is tightly linked to WP:NCKO, I suggest we finish the drafting process on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal) as a whole and work through all relevant inconsistencies rather than proposing changes piecemeal. We could then bring the proposed changes to the broader community in one go via a widely publicized Request for Comments (RfC), ensuring transparency and consensus.

--Nonabelian (talk) 09:24, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes we're mostly on the same page, although I have an alternate romanization proposal. Most of the draft I agree with; parts of it I've been meaning to discuss. We will need to discuss how to handle this specific issue though before the draft moves forward, as it's arguably among the most important in the MOS.

I'll post later on the draft talk page and link this discussion 104.232.119.107 (talk) 22:28, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

MOS:KO Draft Rewrite

I have begun drafting a rewrite of MOS:KO, which can be found here:

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

As per WP:PROPOSAL, this is currently in the {{brainstorming}} phase and is not yet ready for an {{rfc}}. Once it is more developed, it will be advertised here, at WP:MOS, and on the Wikipedia:Village pump. At this stage, I estimate that the draft is about 25% complete.

Goals of the Redraft

• Clarification and Expansion: The redraft aims to reword, clarify, and expand the current MOS:KO guidelines without substantial changes to existing consensus. This will help avoid ambiguity and ensure the guidelines are tightly integrated into the broader WP:MOS.
• Unification: Combine MOS:KO and WP:NCKO to eliminate overlap and confusion, similar to how other regional guidelines have been consolidated on English Wikipedia.
• Template Best Practices: Expand on the best practices for using templates in articles related to Korea.
• Referencing Korean Sources: Provide comprehensive guidelines for referencing Korean sources.

Main Sections of the Draft

• Korean Language: This section covers Hangul, Hanja, and romanization methods.
• Naming Conventions: Guidelines for the correct use of names, places, titles, dates, numbers, and units of measurement in a Korean context.
• Article Layout and Templates: Information on available templates and resources for structuring articles.
• Referencing Korean Sources: Instructions on how to cite Korean sources accurately and consistently.

All editors are welcome to contribute to the creation of this new draft of MOS:KO. You can edit the draft directly, provide feedback here, or discuss it on the talk page. Please note that some parts of the draft are currently copied from MOS:KO and WP:NCKO and serve as placeholder text.

--Nonabelian (talk) 21:53, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, I'll assume anyone interested can discuss the draft on the draft's talk page. Thanks for working on this 🙂 104.232.119.107 (talk) 02:36, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Establishing MOS:DATETIES

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Something that's bugged me over time is that we previously didn't have a recommended MOS:DATEFORMAT per MOS:DATETIES. I just realized I think I can prove that SK/NK have one; to my understanding it's Month, Day, Year.

Below is a quick survey of various Korea-related English-language sources below, mostly from WP:KO/RS#R. Surprisingly all of the ones I looked at use MDY formatting.

• Korea.net ([10])
• Seoul Metropolitan Government ([11])
• The Chosun Ilbo ([12])
• The Dong-A Ilbo ([13])
• The Hankyoreh ([14])
• KBS World ([15])
• The Korea Herald ([16])
• Korea JoongAng Daily ([17])
• The Korea Times ([18])
• The Korea Economic Daily ([19])
• Yonhap News Agency ([20])

I checked 2-3 articles from each source, and they all used MDY.

This seems to hold even for these North Korean sources:

• The Pyongyang Times ([21])
• KCNA ([22])
• Rodong Sinmun ([23])

I think there's a reasonably compelling case that we should recommend MDY. I'll add it to the MOS for now, if you dispute it please post here. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 11:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say that I think the MDY proposal as currently formulated seems to be WP:OR. As you already highlighted, Korean dates typically written in the format YYYY-MM-DD. To recommend MDY as a standard for English-language sources related to Korea, we would need reliable secondary sources that explicitly instruct Koreans to use the MDY format when writing in English. Are there any? The list of websites using MDY could be considered primary sources or data points: to claim that Korean sources prefer MDY format when writing in English, one would ideally need secondary sources that analyze and discuss this preference explicitly, rather than inferring it from a collection of examples.

MDY is very much a US-only thing. When doing a very quick search on Naver I could see recommendations on writing MDY for English when the audience was American, and DMY for European audiences. Though I didn't spend long looking, I don't think we're in a position to make the recommendation for MDY. By contrast, YYYY-MM-DD is an acceptable format in the wider MOS for references, so could recommend that I think.

Great that we've included a section on lunar calendar too. I've been struggling to find a site that will convert old (pre-1900) dates to Gregorian calendar or explains how to do it. Is anyone aware of one?Nonabelian (talk) 22:23, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Lunar calendar converter I linked on WP:KOREA's resources section seefooddiet (talk) 07:20, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

MDY works because it is the observed status quo in the majority of South Korean-related articles. DMY usage is minimal and mostly observed in BLP articles, often due to the subject originating from UK-related countries or because the article was already written in British English, both of which fall under strong ties. Another observation for DMY usage is when the article was already using that format, so it was retained. While YYYY-MM-DD is an acceptable format for citations only, when an article is using either MDY or DMY, it is also tagged with {{Use mdy dates}} or {{Use dmy dates}}. These templates automatically render dates [in citations] in the specified format, regardless of the format they are entered in the wikitext. For consistency and maintainability, we should stick to a single style, which, as mentioned at the beginning, should be MDY, as per the nomination. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 06:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

For these kinds of policies there will always be degrees of OR in proposals in creating and evaluating them. But I think the argument that the evidence is not strong enough is reasonable. However, I suspect there's a reason MDY is being used so consistently in English-language sources from both Koreas. After 30 mins of searching I can't find any guidance on it (not even sure which govt ministry would produce this guidance, if any). seefooddiet (talk) 07:20, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

As a heads up, I'm going to retract the strong recommendation to use MDY dates by default, and replace it with a softer recommendation based on common practice. seefooddiet (talk) 00:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I would argue that the MOS should direct editors to use American English and date formats, unless the subject has strong ties to a country that uses other variants of English, like Son Heung-min. There's The dominance of American English by The Korea Herald that supports this position. Additional support: Experiences of non-North American teachers of English in American English-dominant Korean ELT and Complex perceptions of Korean English-speakers. Anecdotally, having lived in South Korea for over eight years myself, American English is the standard. I work with and know nationals from countries that use other variants of English, and they all have the same experience: they must use American English. I don't see a particularly strong reason to encourage editors to use a neutral stance on the topic when South Korea clearly has a preference. ✗plicit 14:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I feel the same way. The only entities I know of in South Korea that may use non-American English are international schools that follow British curricula. Everything else I've interacted with in South Korea has used American English. @98Tigerius @00101984hjw do you have any thoughts on this? Otherwise the only opposing voice so far is Nonabelian, and they've largely stopped contributing to Wikipedia in the last month. May be able to get this passed. seefooddiet (talk) 19:55, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it’s safe to say MDY is the better option here. It appears to me as well that Korean sources prefer the format in English articles, and Korea definitely has had a stronger American influence throughout its history. — 00101984hjw (talk) 21:16, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh hm wait. Forgot about North Korea. I don't know how prevalent non-American English is there, but at the very least we may be able to get a MDY recommendation passed for both Koreas given evidence in my original post. We'd have to demonstrate prevalence of non-American English in NK before we'd be able to recommend English variety guidance for NK-related articles. seefooddiet (talk) 19:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

It appears that both KCNA Watch and The Pyongyang Times prefer the MDY format.([24]https://kcnawatch.org/) — 00101984hjw (talk) 21:27, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, mentioned in original post seefooddiet (talk) 21:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I did a quick Google search and found Ask a North Korean: What is English-language education like in the DPRK?, which reads, "If North Korea hates the U.S. so much, why would its citizens study English? It’s true that North Korea describes the U.S. as a mortal enemy, as invaders and wild dogs with whom it cannot live under one sky. Perhaps that’s why people in North Korea are taught British English, not American English." Unseen part of North Korea [VIDEO] also states, "Except the English we learn is British English, not American English." ✗plicit 00:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah makes sense. The use of MDY on their sites is odd. Does anyone have a VPN or live outside the US? Can you tell us if the date format changes to DMY? seefooddiet (talk) 00:25, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I got hold of a VPN and gave it a try. It seems like they genuinely seem to prefer MDY. Also [25] This link uses "humor" instead of the British "humour".

I think we should ask for MDY for both Koreas. I think we can recommend American English for South Korea-related articles, but abstain from commenting on North Korea–related ones for now (until more evidence is gathered). Does this sound good? @00101984hjw @Explicit seefooddiet (talk) 09:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good to me — 00101984hjw (talk) 12:13, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess so. For now, articles about South Korean subjects should use MDY format, while articles about North Korean subjects should remain status quo. ✗plicit 08:14, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Length of the MOS

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I just made some section deletions (sorry 😥) due to concerns over the MOS's length. Even after the deletions, it's longer than the Chinese and Japanese manuals. Granted, our romanization is more complicated than theirs, but still think we should continuously push for concision. Please feel free to undo or edit anything I write as well; I don't take it personally. Just want to make this draft as robust as possible; such total rewrites are a rare opportunity. seefooddiet (talk) 06:10, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I just trimmed much of the family name hatnote/footnote section; sorry again... It strongly overlaps with the Template:Family name explanation, so I just decided to just link to the template in lieu of repeating the explanation. The examples also add length to the article; people can click on the template doc pages to see examples. seefooddiet (talk) 06:40, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Needs to explicitly state that people should not get hanja from Chinese-language sources

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, these are sometimes found in hanja names of people:

• Chinese-language transcription (whose Korean reading does not match the hangul name)
• Simplified Chinese characters

Chinese-language sources are unreliable for Korean hanja names because they "make up" one when the actual hanja is not known.

Another issue is that some people think the hanja parameter of a Korean-related template must consist of hanja only, even though some names do not have hanja. Such people get hanja from Chinese-language sources and blindly replace the hangul in the hanja parameter.

This page should state at least the following:

Do not get hanja from Chinese-language sources.

1. Chinese-language sources are unreliable for Korean hanja names because they "make up" one when the actual hanja is not known.
2. Some names do not have hanja (hanja is not a requirement in names). In such cases, only the surname is written in hanja (e.g. hangul: 김빛나, hanja: 金빛나). Do not blindly replace the hangul in the hanja parameter of a Korean-related template.

172.56.232.61 (talk) 08:53, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The rule sounds good to me. Side note, but I'm a little worried about the word "blindly"; it typically reads a little harsh in English. If you'd like, you can just write comfortably without worrying about tone, and I can go and edit the addition later.

I've been meaning to rewrite much of the MOS anyway, due to #Article naming conventions vs romanization in body. seefooddiet (talk) 17:35, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

About "blindly": I tried to say "don't do that without thinking".

You can simply revise what I wrote above and add it to the page. 172.56.232.109 (talk) 18:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this issue to light. I went ahead and added it to a new subsection called "Sourcing Hanja"; this should probably be resectioned at some point. I slightly reworded your second provision, and I think that the first provision could also be edited (particularly the "make up"), but I don't know how to approach it. Dantus21 (talk) 19:34, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I may rewrite the guidance for Hanja altogether today; the main ideas will be preserved but I will change the ordering and placement of the information seefooddiet (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I just saw your Hanja MOS rewrite and I gotta say it looks great! Dantus21 (talk) 00:19, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, your rewrite looks great! Thank you. 172.56.232.253 (talk) 20:05, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Recent changes, Aug 7 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I've recently made some significant changes so want to slow down and give a high-level summary of them.

• Rewrote lead
• Shortened prose for explanations/policies that exist on other pages. I tried to display prominent links to those pages instead.
• Completely rewrote the Hanja section.
  • Mostly kept existing logic, made some additions
• Mostly rewrote Article layout section.
  • Added significant amount of guidelines; I don't suspect they are/hope they aren't controversial. They're already common practice for our articles.
• Created a Naming guidelines section
  • Rules that apply to all Naming conventions, unless overridden in the Naming conventions section.
  • Check out the Avoid redundant English names section. I'm not sure we should keep this; it's more just a pet peeve.
• Overhauled Naming conventions other than the people name section
  • People name section is pending discussion.
  • Logic should mostly be the same, except for province names. I'll make a separate post about that.
  • Moved formatting titles of works into this section from Romanization section.
• Rewrote Wiktionary links section with help of the original author (172 IP user)

I recommend you reread the sections I described above to understand what has changed. I tried to make everything uncontroversial. If you see anything you disagree with, please let me know ASAP so we can address it or potentially revert to an earlier version. I'm trying hard to balance not stepping on any toes while still writing quickly.

TODO:

• Templates section
• Misc copyediting
• Discuss Romanization conventions and people naming conventions
• Copyedit or revise both those sections depending on discussion

Sorry for my disorganized editing style; just kind of the way I write 😓 seefooddiet (talk) 07:16, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Nonabelian Dantus21 Paper9oll. Paper9oll, as you edit a lot on pop culture, I'd appreciate some of your insights on the article layout section. To my understanding it should be mostly what's already practiced right now. seefooddiet (talk) 07:38, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet Is there a particular aspect you feel is missing and would like to see improved? I couldn't think of any at the moment, but I can add more if there is a direction provided. Otherwise, I have no objection to the current state of the Article Layout section. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:24, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Not particularly, the goal was actually to be minimally intrusive and reflect current practice, so hearing that you think it's acceptable is a relief! seefooddiet (talk) 17:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Having did a readthrough of most of it, here's what I have to say.

• English word section looks good, but maybe make a more explicit guideline for what words should be italicized (or not) as I feel this could be a slippery slope for interpretation. For example, you could specify dictionaries to check (like Cambridge or Oxford) and specifying a ratio of dictionaries with the word (like 3:2) that could indicate to not italicize. Perhaps I'm overcomplicating stuff
  • Added guidance seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Merge use korean language terms section to english words section
  • Will think through how to regroup, article layout still needs work overall. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• What does "topics related to korea as a whole" mean for RR? Does it mean for names like Joseon? Why single out personal names for MR?
  • I was not the primary author of this section, and haven't touched it much. Pending discussion as I'm also uncertain about parts of it. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• By the romanization template, does that mean that an article will have a consistent romanization throughout (I think I might not understand the extent of it)?
  • Likewise with above; has complicated implications. Like in a MR article, should we write "Soŭl" for Seoul? Is that desirable? seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

    • I’m still unsure what to do here (I might make a post about romanizations soon), but whatever it is Seoul should be the exception, because according to this ngrams Soul was/is almost never used, even in cases before RR existed. Dantus21 (talk) 05:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      The situation is quite complicated; I'm currently researching the situation and discussing it actively with the IP user. I'm currently working on Romanization of Korean to share what I've learned with others.

      I'm considering publishing an WP:ESSAY on the situation for future readers. Still doing the background research though.

      We're joining into a debate that has lasted over a century, and how we rule on may have a significant impact on how others spell Korean terms. Complicated situation, but fun given the real impact we may have seefooddiet (talk) 05:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      By any chance where are you discussing this with the IP (if you want to share)? I’d be interested in helping out too, although my Korean is admittedly not too great. Dantus21 (talk) 06:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      Via email; we're discussing in a mix of Korean and English. Most things of substance we discuss on Wiki directly for public viewing; it's usually questions about Wiki policy that we discuss privately. This talk page and links to other discussions match our current understanding of romanization. seefooddiet (talk) 06:44, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      Interesting disclosure here. I'm concerned on the statement it's usually questions about Wiki policy that we discuss privately. For transparency and accountability, could you please elaborate on the types of policy discussions that occur privately? Are these primarily clarifications, or do they involve substantive (regardless of depthness) discussion about changes to Wikipedia's policy? Do they align with the Wikipedia's policy on consensus pertaining to off-wiki discussions? — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:14, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      Yes they do. It's usually questions about how policies work. They're usually shallow questions; when there's anything of substance we go to wiki. I would hope there's no reason to be suspicious; you know me and intentions here are clearly good seefooddiet (talk) 07:33, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      I'm a little saddened by your comment. What even would either of us have to gain by conspiring here? Neither of us benefit from these policy changes and I've welcomed disagreement, and I've disagreed with the IP user both publicly and privately. I disclose my process as much as needed out of good faith. There's no "gotcha aha" moment here to be found. I'm remarkably boring; I'm reading 90 year old papers about linguistics. seefooddiet (talk) 07:41, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      I'm just caught off-guard by such disclosure hence raising some alarms. Don't worry, this is all good-faith. Thanks for the clarification. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:49, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

• Hangul section looks good
• Already commented on Hanja section
• Article layout section looks good
• Template section looks good; maybe say something about not putting in context=old? Hunminjeongeum is barely used anyway and imo that name will cause more confusion; perhaps it might just be a pet peeve of mine
  • I need to expand guidelines around this infobox, will look into this and more. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Naming guidelines look good; We should definitely keep the avoid redundant English names; most of the names are so uncommon that we should avoid tautologies when we can.
  • I'm still a little on the fence about it; I visited Gyeongbukgung a few weeks ago and they put "Gyeongbukgung Palace" all over the place. "Namsan Mountain" is also reasonably common. However, maybe this just falls under common name and are exceptions rather than a trend. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Possible to break up naming conventions section or maybe even make a separate page?
  • I'm thinking the same thing; we originally intentionally tried to merge WP:NCKO into MOS:KO, but it's becoming so long that maybe unmerging is best. For now will keep on the same article, likely will split off later. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Do common modified romanizations apply to ancient people and North Koreans?
  • Not primary author, I'm not sure about this part too. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. FWIW I would support modified for South Koreans, but not for ancient people or North Koreans since I don’t think they generally use those modified spellings. Dantus21 (talk) 04:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
• I haven’t looked at administrative divisions yet, will look at soon.
• Geographic features, temples, and works in naming conventions section look good.
• I am ambivalent to the dates, wiktionary, and references section, but they generally look good.

I'll admit I didn't look at your specifications before rereading, so forgive me if I accidentally addressed something that you already planned to! Dantus21 (talk) 09:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback 🙂 I'll edit your comment with subbullet responses seefooddiet (talk) 20:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Romanization for North Korea articles...

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Realizing the Romanization situation for North Korea is on shaky ground. I want to avoid discussion fatigue, but this bit is important.

The Romanization of Korean (North) ("NKR") differs from McCune–Reischauer in a number of ways. See [26]. Some examples:

• 전라도 NKR: Jŏlla-do vs MR: Chŏlla-do.
• 찔레골 NKR: JJilre-gol or Jilre-gol vs MR: Tchille-gol. Notice the second capital "J" and optional removal of second "J".
• 김꽃분이 NKR: Kim KKotpuni vs MR: Kim Kkotpuni. Notice the second capital "K".

Currently, we blanket recommend MR for all NK-related topics. Yet, as discussed in #Names hyphenation, we're considering borrowing elements of the official North Korean style for people names, and applying them to MR, when really those style elements are a part of NKR. I don't think this works.

I think these are our options:

1. Use NKR for all NK-related concepts.
2. Use pure MR for all NK-related concepts (i.e. for names, no spaces or hyphens between syllables by default).
3. Use MR for all NK-related concepts, borrow elements of NKR style rules (as proposed in #Names hyphenation) and apply them to MR.
4. Use NKR for people names only, use MR for everything else.

I think we should do either 1 or 2; think 3 and 4 are too confusing and arbitrary.

I'm leaning towards 2. 2 is closest to the current status quo, and is closest to international academic writings on Korea. It also is asking less of our users; we're already asking them to learn MR and RR, adding NKR is a lot.

But also arguments for 1: news articles on KCNA Watch use NKR (example). [Edit: also, I emailed NK News and confirmed that their style guide asks for NKR.] It also may seem like a political move to not use NK's preferred system (although SK's systems have long been ignored by the academic community and seemingly nobody's been bothered by our use of MR for NK thus far). seefooddiet (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Freedom4U Yue Kanguole Dantus21 CountHacker Tagging users who may care about this issue. If you know other people who edit on North Korea, please tag them too. Sorry for so many discussions, we're getting closer to finishing this, just a few major open questions. seefooddiet (talk) 07:40, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Relevant past discussions: 2003, 2004 pt 1, 2004 pt 2, 2006.

For NK, MR has been in place since the first version of the MOS/NCKO. I couldn't really find an adequate discussion of why NKR isn't used, but I'm maybe missing something. seefooddiet (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

One key detail in the AP Stylebook I just noticed is this: The style and spelling of names in North Korea and South Korea follow each government’s standard policy for transliterations unless the subject has a personal preference. Technically, the AP is asking its staff to use NKR for people's names. I'm not sure how closely they follow that guidance. For place names, it seems like NKR isn't being consistently applied: e.g. NKR and MR ("phyongan" and "pyongan"; 13 results for "Phyongan" vs 19 for "Pyongan"). You can observe similar for NKNews: 170 results for "Pyongan", 208 for "Phyongan".

I'm still leaning MR because of status quo and possible divided usage on MR/NKR. seefooddiet (talk) 07:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for my late response! I’m no expert, but I’d say Option 2 by a long shot, as it seems to be what the majority of reliable sources seem to use. I wouldn’t worry about it being a political statement, since we’re just following what the sources do. If someone has a different take I’d be interested in hearing it though. — Dantus21 (talk) 04:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm for option 2 too. --ChoHyeri (talk) 12:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

As an update I'm increasingly conflicted and need to do more research. I'm going to try and verify what other mainstream international newspapers use. So far I've verified that NK News and Associated Press both recommend NKR (with the latter recommending it for names). seefooddiet (talk) 08:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I’m sure you already were thinking this, but also keep in mind what the newspapers actually practice too, as it seems like AP and NK didn’t strictly follow their own recommendations. Dantus21 (talk) 11:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Going to investigate that as well. My example given was a possible common name situation seefooddiet (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I've been doing some more thinking. Our rules are already incredibly complicated, and we're already asking for knowledge of at least 2 romanization systems. I suspect NKR actually does see a good amount of usage, but I'm loathe to overload our rules even more. Complication drives people away, and we need more editors. seefooddiet (talk) 05:04, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Yale romanization

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

At present, our draft MOS discourages the use of Yale romanization of Korean, but I've become skeptical of this.

See Middle Korean; the Yale system is being used for this article. @Kanguole, have you seen if any writings on Middle Korean use MR instead of Yale? My impression is it's probably mostly Yale; if so we should reflect what the linguists are doing and not force MR into the situation.

I think we should allow Yale, but mention that its use should be limited to linguistics-related articles. seefooddiet (talk) 07:02, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theo.phonchana @Malerisch @Remsense tagging some more users who may have relevant exposure to this topic. For context, we're currently working on rewriting MOS:KO. See the draft here. seefooddiet (talk) 07:07, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

It's standard practice in English-language works on Korean linguistics to use Yale for linguistic examples, e.g. Cho and Whitman Korean: A Linguistic Introduction, Lee and Ramsey A History of the Korean Language, Brown and Yeon (eds.) The Handbook of Korean Linguistics, Song The Korean Language, Sohn The Korean Language, Chang Korean. Kanguole 11:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Pending additional participation, I think it'll be relatively safe to assume Yale is going to be acceptable. I may modify the MOS to reflect this. seefooddiet (talk) 18:49, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure about "Use only when used by source being cited". If a linguistics article cites English-language sources and Korean-language sources, the former will presumably use Yale for their examples and the latter no romanization. But we would want to be consistent within the article. Yale is designed to correspond directly to the Hangul spelling, so generating it requires less expertise than MR or RR. Kanguole 20:57, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it either. Part of my worry is what do we do with non-linguistics text on linguistics articles? Like Hangul author names, for example. Do we write author names in Yale? seefooddiet (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

In the texts I listed above, the usual practice is Yale for the examples and MR for all the names. (Sohn is an exception, using Yale for everything, so Sinla, Seycong and Ceycwu.) Kanguole 21:25, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it's acceptable to use Yale romanization in linguistics articles, but I'm hesitant to make the rule a strict "use only Yale for linguistics articles". Not many people besides Korean linguists would be familiar with Yale, and we should keep in mind WP:TECHNICAL—unlike Korean linguistics tomes, the main readership of Korean linguistics articles on Wikipedia is probably not Korean linguists. Choosing the more esoteric romanization option, especially when there is not much obvious benefit, doesn't seem to follow that guideline. (I don't think converting articles like Korean pronouns and Korean postpositions to Yale is particularly helpful—do you really want to tell people that "I" in Korean is "ce"?) Wiktionary also uses RR. That said, Yale romanization can sometimes be useful for e.g. morphology or historical linguistics, so it should still be used when appropriate.

It looks like the de facto standard for some Korean linguistics articles is a "why not both?" approach: see Korean grammar or Korean verbs, where Yale is bolded and RR is in italics; maybe that option is preferable for some articles? Otherwise, deciding on a per-article basis could be the simpler option. Using Yale in Middle Korean is fine, for example. Malerisch (talk) 10:13, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

My wording of the Yale guidance was unclear; what I meant to imply was that using Yale was acceptable for linguistics articles (particularly for linguistics examples), not that it should be the only system in use for such cases. I gave rewording it a shot, but still feeling meh about my wording.

@Kanguole makes a somewhat opposing point btw; they argued in favor of intra-article consistency.

I'm not sure what we should recommend. Maybe worth noting that the articles @Malerisch linked are all fairly poorly sourced; maybe we shouldn't be attached to the de facto current standards for such articles. But I do agree that Yale is inaccessible to most and that Wikipedia should be accessible. But I also agree that consistency is also nice. Difficult decision. Maybe should leave up to editors to decide on case-by-case basis, similar to WP:ENGVAR? But that also sounds bleh; three different potential romanization systems in use for a single topic, with no standards for what to use except for whatever individual editors prefer at the time??? At least for our other romanization guidelines it's reasonably clear what system to use; more difficult to figure out here. seefooddiet (talk) 17:38, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Another thought; we don't really have the opportunity to apply a MOS:CONSISTENT-like guideline (prescribing intra-article consistency) with romanization because we romanize on a term-by-term basis.

Maybe I lean towards Malerisch's argument then, but I'm still skeptical of just letting people decide which romanization system to use (potentially all three in the same article) based on mostly personal taste. seefooddiet (talk) 10:36, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Tentative thought: Yale for historical linguistics, RR for modern linguistics? seefooddiet (talk) 03:59, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, that could work. Malerisch (talk) 02:03, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I think RR is not suitable for modern linguistics. Consider the following example:

• The word dongnip 'independence' is composed of dok 'alone' and rip 'to stand'.

Ordinary readers would have difficulty understanding this.

To get around this, you could use the RR letter-by-letter transliteration (doglib, dog, lib), but this system is functionally yet another separate romanization system. We shouldn't complicate things even more by introducing a fourth romanization system. I'd argue that for linguistics, we should only use Yale. 172.56.232.137 (talk) 07:52, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't really agree with this. Yale romanization also has the flaw of leading readers to believe that 독립 is pronounced "toklip", as readers unfamiliar with Yale would naturally expect it to represent pronunciation rather than just the underlying morphology. Assuming that this is actually a linguistics example, adding a short explanation about Korean pronunciation changes would suffice to dispel any confusion.

Would you also argue that Hepburn romanization would similarly be unsuitable for Japanese, which has sound changes like rendaku?

• The word tegami 'letter' is composed of te 'hand' and kami 'paper'.

Malerisch (talk) 09:10, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, RR letter-by-letter transliteration, if it's needed, is explicitly allowed by the RR standard; it's technically not a separate system. Malerisch (talk) 09:46, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the key word in the IP user's comment for RR letter-by-letter is functionally.

Note that in the current draft MOS we currently discourage its use at all (ctrl+f "letter-by-letter"). That is open to discussion btw; I agree with excluding it because it's so rarely used and because of the functionally argument. seefooddiet (talk) 09:52, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough on "functionally". I do agree that letter-by-letter romanization shouldn't normally be used. Malerisch (talk) 09:59, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, the pronunciation-based RR has the flaw of leading readers to believe that 물고기 (mulgogi) is pronounced [물고기] (instead of [물꼬기]), as tensification is not reflected. The MR system indicates tensification by using the voiceless letter instead of the voiced letter (mulkogi; cf. 불고기 [불고기] pulgogi). So if you think showing pronunciation is important, we should probably use MR.

I think I can criticize more on RR, but I won't do that (at least for now).

For everthing else, I think you're right. I don't think I have a good counterargument to that.

(However, I personally don't think an orthography (including a romanization system) has to show pronunciation perfectly (in other words, personally I am okay with "toklip"), but I won't go into that.) 172.56.232.61 (talk) 03:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

While RR, MR, and Yale all have flaws, I think the use of RR is probably best for discussions of the contemporary Korean language mostly because it's the most recognizable system to the users of Wikipedia. Also, I imagine most people engage with the learning of Korean through books that use RR.

In short, I think I like Yale for examples of historical Korean and RR for contemporary Korean. seefooddiet (talk) 04:20, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and WP:BOLDly added recommendations to use Yale for historical linguistics and RR for contemporary linguistics. If you oppose this, please comment. seefooddiet (talk) 04:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, personally I am still skeptical about this, but I am not going to argue about this (at least for now). 172.56.232.215 (talk) 07:41, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's unlikely there'll be significant changes to these linguistics articles quickly, so you have some time to develop an argument. seefooddiet (talk) 08:25, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Infoboxes on Law

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Should articles on South Korean laws use template:infobox Korean name like the kowiki, or template:infobox legislation like most other enwiki articles on laws and Shutdown law? 00101984hjw (talk) 03:51, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you can/should have both infoboxes. Infobox legislation would go first, then infobox Korean name. It doesn't appear that Infobox legislation has a parameter for embedding a child template, so they'll likely need to be kept separate; otherwise we generally recommend the two infoboxes are combined, as is done here Maebongsan (Yeongwol). seefooddiet (talk) 04:00, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Romanization section

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Gave this section a rewrite. Before and after.

Change log:

• Most of the logic is the same, optimized for concision.
• Added Yale romanization to what we use.
• Changed examples for romanizations; I'm still not happy with them though. The previous examples referred to province names that are governed by our naming conventions and used English words mixed in, so wasn't 100% clear. They also didn't illustrate the use of diacritics. Please feel free to swap them out again, I'll be thinking of better examples.
• Added rules about the use of MR/RR.
• Added a section to Naming guidelines on strict romanization vs naming conventions; this affects the romanization guidelines.

I will make more additions to this in near future. As a heads up, I'm currently writing a companion essay for romanizing Korean on Wikipedia. It provides more detailed explanations of our various choices. When I complete the first draft of the essay, I'll move it under the WikiProject Korea namespace, so that it belongs to the community and can continue to be updated. seefooddiet (talk) 06:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Please add in observed WP:STATUSQUO also otherwise once this draft goes live, there may be unexpected misinterpretation causing issues, including but not limited to, article's content, moving of articles, etc. I'm not particular on anything unless concerning on South Korea BLP-related topics. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 08:29, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Could you rephrase? Sorry, I don't understand what your message means. seefooddiet (talk) 08:41, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet I meant other than emphasizing on WP:COMMONNAME on RR. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm still confused, sorry. Btw I saw that you thanked me for an edit; I've since changed that text that you thanked me for. You may want to check the page again, RR no longer mentions WP:COMMONNAME.

Are you requesting we mention what used to be done? There's so many changes in this MOS that I think mentioning the previous standards may be cumbersome. Furthermore, the MOS is about reflecting current consensus, not necessarily what used to be done. seefooddiet (talk) 09:38, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet Oh ... didn't saw that changes. Saw that it's now pointing to "Strict romanization vs naming conventions" which included my intention above hence I don't think we need to mention as per observed status quo (within English Wikipedia) and/or current consensus. However, I still need thinks that mentioning WP:COMMONNAME may be beneficial ... then again, WP:RM often lumps together a bunch of policies hence mentioning COMMONNAME may be redundant. In case, I'm being confusing, my only concerns is including but not limited to, article titling, name in opening sentence, Infoboxes (including but not limited to |name=, |birth_name=, |other_names=. Excluding {{Infobox Korean name}}), name in list/list of. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The romanization section is about romanization, not about English-language spellings. The two topics are separate; WP:COMMONNAME is more about English-language spellings.

To clarify, this is what the updated guidance is for South Korean people:

• Unless a WP:COMMONNAME or personal preference name is known, use RR (with hyphen in given name) for the article title, article body (including in the opening sentence), and infobox header (both in the header for {{infobox person}} and any of its variants, and the header for {{Infobox Korean name}}). For parameters like birth_name=, you should use this spelling too.
  • This is the English-language spelling I'm talking about.
• However, any time a template asks you for RR (namely {{Korean}} or {{Infobox Korean name}}), do not include the hyphen in the personal name. Only strictly apply RR, which normally discourages such hyphens.
  • This is just romanization.

It's unfortunately confusing. Romanizing Korean sucks. seefooddiet (talk) 10:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet Yes correct, your understanding (particularly point 1, not much concern on point 2) is aligned with my concerns. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 10:34, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Romanization notice

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nonabelian I just realized that by the current MOS, the romanization method notice may be counterproductive.

We currently determine which romanization system is used on a term-by-term basis, and not by entire articles. See also the "Same terms for article titles and in the body" section. For example, if we're writing about a Joseon-era cookbook (its title should use MR) and tteokbokki comes up, we should use the modern RR spelling for tteokbokki.

I propose we don't use the templates. We could possibly reword them to align with the MOS, but the explanation would be complicated enough (especially given that the naming conventions section modifies pure romanization) that it may be better to just point to the MOS itself. seefooddiet (talk) 04:30, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

It's been two weeks and Nonabelian hasn't been active for a while. I'm going to remove the template from the MOS. If you come back Nonabelian and would like to discuss this, please lmk. seefooddiet (talk) 11:21, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Also Nonabelian, I'm sorry, I may remove the romanization help section altogether. My reasoning is this:

1. We're planning on adding an automatic romanization module in near future, which would make this obsolete.
2. The instructions are pretty lengthy, precise, and involve what is functionally coding. I have a gut feeling that few will ever follow these instructions; they're in a sea of a very long MOS. Furthermore, the people this section is meant for are possibly lazy; RR and Hangul are both fairly easy to learn (even if mistakes are made).

Again, if you disagree with this please let me know. seefooddiet (talk) 08:59, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Addresses

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

To-do item, figure out a standard formatting for South Korean addresses. seefooddiet (talk) 06:35, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually maybe not, at least for now; maybe too precise. seefooddiet (talk) 08:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Redoing references section

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Now that the people naming section is rewritten, we're almost done with the first draft of the MOS. I think the last major thing left is the references section.

I want to give the section a rewrite. It's pretty lengthy and complicated; I doubt many will want to read or follow it at present. If this isn't executed well, even fewer people would be willing to write WP:GAs and WP:FAs because they'd need to digest these rules. seefooddiet (talk) 03:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh and a reminder that I want to split off the naming conventions sections back into WP:NCKO. Otherwise the documents are way too long. seefooddiet (talk) 07:10, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@00101984hjw @Dantus21 @Freedom4U @CountHacker

Would it bother anyone if we just deleted the current references section from the MOS altogether? I should have thought of this earlier before I sent out that RFC to write it... My mistake.

I think there's no real obligation on Wikipedia to romanize titles or author names; the Chicago Manual of Style asks for it but we don't have to follow that. Also, this level of precision in reference formatting is a lot of work for little gain; it only hurts people who are trying to get GA or FA by making them do all this. seefooddiet (talk) 02:13, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I have complicated feelings about this.

While I believe articles adhering to the current ref section would be helpful for the general English speaking reader or article reviewers, it's definitely tedious to provide translated titles and names for every reference, especially considering that the use of the |mask1= parameter itself is pretty unorthodox. And to be fair, most Korean refs on the Enwiki don't even cite |newspaper= or |website= so I think it may be a little too early for such a scrupulous guideline.

Nevertheless, I think such practices should be encouraged, especially on sources for {{sfn}} references. Similarly to what we did for the Sejong the Great rewrite. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 02:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I have more or less the same feelings.

However, my main concern is how few editors we have. Really the purpose of all our rules is to make editing easy by providing structure. Currently they're precise because they're meant to solve tedious debates that were boring and often reached divergent standards, which caused confusion. However, if the rules become tedious in themselves without significantly solving tedious confusions then I think they become harmful. Also, our main priority should be to maximize the amount of information in the bodies of articles. Ref format is a secondary priority imo. seefooddiet (talk) 03:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we could just leave the tedious parts as recommendations for now? -- 00101984hjw (talk) 03:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmm.. if we kept it I'd want to significantly simplify and condense it. I'll take a shot at it and tag you when I have something if that's ok. seefooddiet (talk) 04:12, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@00101984hjw

This is my draft rewrite: User:Seefooddiet/MOS. My rationale for stripping it down so much:

• The general Wikipedia MOS is really sparse on how to handle the formatting of references. I suspect this is intentional.
  • Our present guidelines, even if all reworded to be optional, would be possibly the most restrictive and precise on the website by a wide margin.
  • If you think about it, all we need from a citation is being able to tell what is being referenced. Anything more is just bonus. That includes rendering Hangul names into Latin script; that may be helpful in discussions but doesn't necessarily strongly help people figure out what source is being referenced. They'll need the original Hangul for that.
  • I kept trans-title because there's already a clear parameter for that and clear consensus that using it is good practice. On the other hand, romanizing author names I haven't seen a consensus for.
• I don't really agree with a number of the choices in hindsight. E.g. providing both romanizations and translations. I'm not sure romanizations for titles should be put at all; they're not helpful to almost everybody, tedious to produce, and are a relic of academic practices (which we don't have to follow).
  • My perspective on the purpose of an MOS has also changed a lot over the course of writing this draft; I'm trying to simplify it.
• I'm too uncertain on what we should recommend for too many areas. Until we reach clear consensuses on things (unlike in the RfC done to produce this, which drew only a handful of people), I figure it's better to keep our guidance sparse, like the general MOS.

seefooddiet (talk) 06:50, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I fully support the decision of keeping trans-title but deleting transliteration (although standardized referencing styles may prefer otherwise). I don’t see any reason why any reviewer would wish to know the pronunciation of a title rather than its translation.

Also, should usage of the author-mask1= parameter be mandatory? I haven’t seen a single non-Korean, non-sfn source reference that uses this parameter and I think this may be the biggest annoyance to many new editors. I guess it has inevitable roles for sources with the authors’ names in Hangul or Hanja, but would it really be necessary when the name is romanized in the source itself? We already know what transliteration the author prefers and I don’t think removing a single comma would make a big difference.

I wish citation templates had parameters like native-last= or native-author=… 00101984hjw (talk) 21:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Per the wording in my draft, author-mask is regulated like this: rendering author names in English is optional -> if you do render author names in English, use author-mask. Thus, author-mask is optional.

However, I'm now second-guessing myself. I'm not sure how best to handle the format of the author masking and where to put Hangul or English. Check the draft again; I just modified it by deleting that regulation altogether. As per above, until we're certain I think it's better to just withhold guidance. seefooddiet (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I WP:BOLDly went ahead and replaced the section. If anyone opposes this, please let me know.

With that, I think the first draft of the MOS is finished. seefooddiet (talk) 04:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Wrapping up

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the new MOS is ready for use. I'll probably continue editing it for clarity, but the major decisions I think have been made.

Next steps:

• I'll post a notice to WP:KO about this new MOS and will split this draft back into MOS:KO and WP:NCKO.
• I suspect many pages will be moved because of this new MOS. If you think a move will be uncontroversial, you can feel free to WP:BOLDly move it yourself; if there is any uncertainty I think you should open a move discussion instead.
• Any time a page gets moved, mentions of that page in other articles should be updated as well. For each successful move you make, I recommend you post a request on User:Seefooddiet/AWB requests. I'll then use WP:AWB to automatically update the spellings; this should reduce tedious work and the volume of edits that we have to make to update all these spellings.

Thanks for working on this, everyone! We've had the previous MOS, flaws and all, since 2004. I think this is the first time it received a complete overhaul; hopefully it should resolve confusions that we've had for decades. seefooddiet (talk) 04:53, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I read the whole proposal once more, and I think we're set! The MoS can always be revised with consensus and the current draft seems to address all the major issues. I'm honestly surprised this thing hasn't gone through any major revamps for 20 years. It's somewhat disappointing, in a way. But anyways, excellent work! Cheers. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 04:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)