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V·T·E

Good article reassessment of Flag of Japan (may lose GA status)

Hello... please read my lengthy comments at Good article reassessment. I'm truly sorry — I just can't in good conscience allow the GA of Flag of Japan to stand uncontested, with so much crucial information omitted. I will be happy to retract the GAR if all info (properly sourced!) is added. Ling.Nut 13:16, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll take charge, since it was my mess to begin with. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Passed GAR, but any and all help will be appreciated. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 05:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Censorship in Japan

I've been bothered for some time now about the lack of an article on Wikipedia concerning censorship in Japan, such as Article 175 of the Japanese penal code, self-censorship on Japanese television stations, or even an article on Censorship in Japan itself. I have such made a short stub on the latter, with hope it will expand into a well-written article. As the Japanese government seems to be chancing its stance on things again, I feel this is a rather important topic that should be covered in more detail. Unfortunately, much of this information appears to be hard to get in the English language. As such, I encurage the help of other editors on this topic. -Aknorals 07:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I have re-written the article as it is. I think we need more specifics and citations. Please remember to format citations, rather than just put URL links in. John Smith's 16:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Right romanization of ウィキペディア

What is it? I want to add this to the article Japanese Wikipedia. (By "right" I mean what the style guide says, whose romanization section is rather cryptical to me.) -- Taku 10:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The "right" Hepburn romanization is, boringly enough, wikipedia. Jpatokal 17:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Unless you are using the {{nihongo}} template, in which case the third part of the template would contain "Uikipedia". Very minor, but important, difference. (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Err, no, ウィキペディア is wikipedia. ウイキペディア would be uikipedia, but that's not how it's spelled. Jpatokal (talk) 03:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
They are both pronounced exactly the same way, and romanized the same way. There is no "wi" in the Revised Hepburn romanization used on Wikipedia. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

This version of "A Litre of Tears"

Continental Airlines aired a film called "A Litre of Tears" on a flight from Houston to Narita: http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/films/mca_grid_200705.pdf

Is this a different film from the TV drama "One Litre of Tears" ? Or is this pasted-together episodes? What is this? WhisperToMe 20:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a film version(2004) too. Who played the heroine? If by Sawajiri Erika, it's the TV drama (2005). If by Asae Onishi, it's the movie. Judging from the picture on the Continental page, it looks like the movie version. Oda Mari (talk) 05:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Definitely the movie version. Look at the small picture of mother and the daughter. This is the TV drama DVD Oda Mari (talk) 05:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

See A Litre of Tears (film) - I created the new article. WhisperToMe 00:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful! I'm going to expand it soon. Oda Mari (talk) 04:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about image used in Template:Japanese ethnicity

Please come participate in the discussion here. Thanks. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Chinese swords

Chinese swords has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese swords 132.205.99.122 (talk) 22:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Japanese swords has been co-nominated in this deletion, as well. Anyone up to fixing up the Japanese swords article? I think it would work best as a disambiguation page if moved to Japanese sword instead. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Both articles were kept. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Government of Tokyo

User:Cgingold removed some articles from Category:Government of Tokyo, among them Tokyo Metro, Ueno Zoo, Ueno Zoo Monorail and Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit. Tokyo Metro is operated by the government of Tokyo, as are the others, but it does not govern Tokyo. Maybe we can establish a separate category for such operations. Then we can use Tokyo government for bodies that govern Tokyo (legislature, governor etc.) and a new category for administrative functions of Tokyo's government (subway, zoo, public schools and universities etc.). Any suggestions? Fg2 (talk) 23:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Tokyo Metro is operated by Tokyo Metro Co.,Ltd., which is a "special company" (Tokushu Gaisha, [[[:ja:特殊会社]]] Error: {{nihongo}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 7) (help)), a kind of government-owned corporation, jointly owned by the Japanese government and the Tokyo metropolitan government. --Saintjust (talk) 01:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nishiki Market

An author posted an article, Nishiki Market, that is about a shopping quarter in Kyoto. I think it's probably an arcade, equivalent to a mall. Does anyone have any information on whether this meets the criteria in Wikipedia:Notability (shopping centers)? Fg2 (talk) 04:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

See ja:錦市場. --Saintjust (talk) 04:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Here are a few links which may help:
Seems to be a covered street pedestrian shopping mall (in the plaza sense of the word). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to Saintjust and 日本穣 for the links. It looks like it has received a lot of publicity and probably would pass. (The notability guideline for shopping centers, by the way, was rejected but provides a starting point for discussion.) Fg2 (talk) 04:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Environment

A number of editors have begun work recently on adding a section on the environment to the main Japan article. ... I regret that I don't have any real sources to work from other than my own memory and such, but I would like to call for others' help in making this section, along with the article on Environmental protection in Japan and other related articles as full a treatment as possible.

There's a lot to talk about - certainly, Japan's auto industry does produce some very fuel efficient cars, hybrid vehicles, and such and makes environmental efforts in other respects. There's also the Kyoto Protocol, and Cool biz. But while the Environmental protection in Japan article says a fair bit about population pressure and urbanization in general, very little is given by way of details. How may of Japan's rivers have concrete bottoms for no good reason? .. If anyone happens to have a good journal article or book or other solid source on Japan's environmental policy, it would be great. Thanks. LordAmeth (talk) 21:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Japanese

can somebody help me learn japanese --email:Jay Turner (talk) 20:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, since this is Wikipedia, how about http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese -- Taku (talk) 22:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I have looked at it, I keep on getting lost. :/ --ジェイターナー (talk) 17:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Awards, honors, and recognitions of Japan

Do we have a category for things like National Treasure, Important Cultural Asset, Living National Treasure, and natural monuments? Also, a stub type? I just created Category:Natural monuments of Japan and put it in Category:Japan for lack of something more specific. Fg2 (talk) 05:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

There are Category:National Treasures of Japan and Category:Living National Treasures of Japan, but they are not included in Category: Japan. Somebody fix it, please. I don't know how to do it. And please create category:Important Cultural Asset. Thank you for creating Category:Natural monuments of Japan, Fg2. Oda Mari (talk) 06:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
And please create Category:Special Natural monuments of Japan/特別天然記念物 too. Oda Mari (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
They don't need to belong in the category "Japan" if they already belong in a subcategory under it. --Saintjust (talk) 07:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Saintjust, I agree. I wonder if we can choose a good name for a category and put all of these in it. Then we can put the new category in Category:Japan or an appropriate subcategory. Is there a good one? Fg2 (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I created Category:Special Natural monuments of Japan and tried to put all the articles (but not sections) in the Japanese category that have links to articles in the English Wikipedia in it. Fg2 (talk) 07:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
My suggestion for a category is Category:Japanese society. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I see, Saintjust. Thank you, Fg2. I'm going to do categorizing. Oda Mari (talk) 14:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Figured yall might be interested in this. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 05:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks -- I've added it to the list of Recognized Content in the Featured Articles column (I guess that's the best place?). Fg2 (talk) 22:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
You're welcome. I tried to find a good recording of Kimi ga Yo to use for Featured Sound, this was the best one I could find and confirm copyright status for. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 22:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

東北大學 redux

東北大學 has returned to AfD. (didn't it just close?) 132.205.99.122 (talk) 20:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Note that I'm not trying to get the page deleted. I'm trying to make it into a redirect page, as it is a dab page with only two entries, one of them being the main topic. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
It just closed again as AfD is not the place to discuss anything other than deletion of a page. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Hobiyashi AfD

Hobiyashi article has been nominated for deletion, if anyone can offer insight into the discussion please help. Benjiboi 05:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I closed (and deleted) it as blatant nonsense. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Renaming 1703 Genroku earthquake?

Please note that this has been posted simultaneously at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disaster management#Renaming 1703 Genroku earthquake?. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Subsequently, WP:DM participant rxnd moved the exchange of comments on naming conventions to a new page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disaster management/Naming#Renaming 1703 Genroku earthquake?. In the opinion of rxnd , the discussions thus far seem to have pointed towards a developing consensus that naming conventions are primarily a a guideline to be followed when there is no existing name for the event. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 19:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


The naming of this newly-creqated article provides an opportunity to raise a few questions which seem worthy of further discussion. Up until today, the staid style of an article about Mt. Fuji exemplified the model I most preferred:

Gregorian calendar date?
A first blush, I wondered how useful is it to begin an article name with a Gregorian calendar date -- especially when the event is better known by in relation to a specific nengō or Japanese era name? But I have noticed that there are a number of Wikipedia articles about earthquake disasters which incorporate the date as an essential part of the title. Would each one be improved significantly by deleting that date?

Would it be better to remove Gregorian calendar dates from these titles? In my view, these dates are likely to become a kind of stumbling block for the ordinary/non-specialist Wikipedia user; but maybe I've got it precisely backwards? Maybe it's best to accept that this format has become a Wikipedia convention; but if so, how shall I be guided in creating new articles in the future? For example, the following list of significant pre-Meiji period fires in Kyoto comes from Ponsonby-Fane's Kyoto: the Old Capital, 794-1869. Would these as-yet-unwritten articles be significantly improved if the titles were formatted with a Gregorian calendar date?

Great?
Many events are conventionally known as "great" -- as in the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995, which includes the following explanation:

In early reports, the disaster was often referred to as the "Great Kansai Earthquake" (関西大地震 Kansai-daijishin). Its official name designated by the Japan Meteorological Agency is "The South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake of 1995" (平成年兵庫県南部地震 Heisei-shichinen-Hyōgoken-nambu-jishin). Official Japanese publications generally use the phrase "Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster" (阪神・淡路大震災; Hanshin-Awaji-daishinsai), which was selected by the cabinet around February. Some news reports also use the name "South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake" (兵庫県南部地震 Hyōgoken-nambu-jishin), which is the shortened form of the official JMA title.

As we all know, there are many earthquakes and many fires in Japanese history. In the context of Japanese history and Wikipedia, which ones need to be called "great"? For example: The Significant Earthquake Database lists an earthquake at Kyoto on the 25th day of the 7th month of the 13th year of Bunsei (文政十三年六月二十五日) or Friday, August 19, 1830 (equicenter: 35.000 latitude/136.000 longitude); but no Richter scale approximation was suggested.<ref.>Online "Significant Earthquake Database" -- U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)....Click link for NOAA/Japan: Significant Earthquake Database<./ref> Nevertheless, the earthquake was perceived by Emperor s Ninkō as sufficiently "great" for the era name to be changed:

  • Tenpō gannen (天保元年); December 10, 1830: The new era name of Tenpō (meaning "Heavenly Imperial Protection") was created to mark the disasters of a great fire in Edo and an earthquake at Kyoto. The new era name was created from an hortatory aphorism: "Respect and worship the Ways of heaven. Eternally keep the Mandate of Heaven" (欽崇天道、永保天命).

If a potential source does happen to provide more information about this specific fire, how should I reasonably expect to entitle a Wikipedia stub article?

For now, I guess I can't do better than to follow the excellent example set by Masterpiece2000 who created 1703 Genroku earthquake. I guess I would entitle any new articles with the Gregorian date included; and I'd simultaneously create re-directs from alternate plausible names as Masterpiece2000 has done. Am I correct in taking this to be the exemplar I should imitate?

If so, should I also need to initiate the process of renaming Hōei eruption of Mount Fuji so that it will read 1707 Hōei eruption of Mount Fuji?--Ooperhoofd (talk) 21:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
________________________________
Further context for these questions
The following may prove helpful -- illustrating the way Wikipedia conventionally evolves:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Disaster management#Naming convention covers names for earthquakes, tsunamis, eruptions, fires and other disasters. It says, in part, "It has been decided that all articles concerning individual disasters should be <<year>> <<place>> <<event>>. To illustrate the point with an example, the article October 11, 2006 New York City plane crash was recently renamed to 2006 New York City plane crash" with more detail and reference to the GLIDE numbering system. Fg2 (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I think having the year in the title of the article is very useful, and will help those who are less familiar with a particular topic to understand a little context for the article. To use the New York City plane crash example, there really isn't a need for a specific date unless there are multiple notable crashes in New York City within the same year, so just having the year is fine in the title. Only if there were several within the same year would you need the further disambiguation of a month (and possibly a day for a really bad plane crash year). This guideline, while poorly worded ("it has been decided..."), is a good idea. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Responding to Wikipedia:WikiProject Disaster management#Naming convention
On its face, this is a reasonable guideline, of course -- but it's only an informed suggestion. We each reocgnize that Wikipedia's Manual of Style is naught but "a generally accepted standard that all editors should follow. However, it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." If this otherwise reasonable naming convention were adopted for events in Japanese history which already have non-Wikified names, then "Genroku" would be marginalized out of the commonly used name for a significant pre-Meiji period event. Following this immutable logic, there would be no place in Wikipedia for "the Great Fire of Meireki" or for "the Hōei eruption of Mount Fuji." No -- that won't do.

There must be a better alternative which isn't obvious yet.

No. What first appears entirely self-evident becomes unworkable too quickly. Now perhaps it begins to become clear why this seemingly "simple" question was presented in a complex context with so many illustrative examples? --Ooperhoofd (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Words like "Genroku Oojishin" are historical proper nouns and don't need a new English name made in accordance with that peculiar wiki convention, in my opinion. --Saintjust (talk) 23:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The Great Kanto Earthquake is certainly better known under that name in English than as "Kanto {Dai,Ōjishin".
I think the "year nengo Disaster" convention is a fairly workable compromise, as it fits the standard, is entirely unambiguous and is more informative to 99.999% of the world's population than obscure nengo like Hoei or Genroku or whatever. Exceptions can and should be made for really famous events like Great Kanto and Great Hanshin, but I'd suggest that anything that's not 大 in Japan or happened before Meiji should use the "year nengo Disaster" format. Jpatokal (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

An important observation I probably should have made a priori: In my view, the over-arching assumption needs to be that there is general acceptance of the guidelines as proposed by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Disaster management. I'd guess that all questions about plausible exceptions to the wiki-consensus general rule become secondary in this broad context of agreement. Moreover, in this Japan-specific instance, the range of desired "exceptions" would be limited to events in the Japanese archipelago from 645 through 1945; and those who do concern themselves with this relatively small matter are most likely to focus on an even narrower time-frame -- from 701 through 1868. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 21:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestions for renaming sound fine to me, with one addition. I would like to see articles like 1703 Genroku earthquake explain in their text the meaning of the word "Genroku" (in this case), as it might not be know to the casual reader that this is the name of an era. Other than that, excellent suggestion. --Reinoutr (talk) 08:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Important naming conventions should not be lost in blind adherence to a policy that was almost certainly determined without consideration of issues like these. Anyone who talks about the fire in Tokyo in 1657, but isn't aware that most of the Japanese history world knows it as the Meireki fire is being done a terrible disservice.-Jefu (talk) 14:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I have moved the parallell discussion being made at the WikiProject Disaster management to a separate page. Please have a look at that discussion as well. My conclusion is that the existing naming conventions simply are guidelines to be applied when a more descriptive and unique name does not already exist. --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 12:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

PROPOSED MODIFICATION
It seems to me that Miraceti (see cs:Wikipedista:Miraceti) got it just about right when Historic tsunami was initially crafted in August 2007. In that context, I would propose adopting something like this:

  • 1. MOS:JA should be modified to incorporate the guidelines suggested by Wikipedia:WikiProject Disaster management, but with a modest exception-to-the-general-rule variation -- that disasters in Japan during the years 645 through 1945/19121867 are more fully described in this format: <<year>><<nengō>><<place>><<event>>.
  • 2. MOS:JA suggests that an explanation and internal link to Japanese era name should be incorporated into any article with a nengō in its title.

EXAMPLES OF PROPOSED CHANGE
Sanriku region

Nankai region

Kantō region

If this proposed modification gains general consensus, I will volunteer in mid-January to begin addressing the task of moving current articles to conform with this reasonable guideline. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 15:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest 1923 Great Kantō earthquake instead. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. "1923 Taishō-Kantō earthquake" is a terrible name — "Taisho-Kanto" is not a word and nobody calls it that. Jpatokal (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
The following was posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disaster management#Renaming 1703 Genroku earthquake?:
My view is that all forms of the names should have redirects. Which title is actually used as the title of the article is not, in my opinion, that important, but if a widely-used name exists, then go for that in preference to the "<date> <location> <event>" convention. People often worry that the categories can only contain the main article name, but in fact the redirect can be categorised as well. See Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects. So all the Japanese-era names can be gathered together in one category, and all the "<date> <location> <event>" equivalents can be gathered together in another category. Or in a list, if you prefer working that way. Hope this helps. Thanks for researching this so thoroughly. If you need more specific advice (I haven't time at the moment to respond to all the points raised above), please ask. Carcharoth (talk) 10:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if this observation by Carcharoth means that we can simply leave well enough alone with familiar, well-accepted names like the Great Fire of Meireki and the Great Kantō earthquake. Maybe we can resolve any potential wiki-problems with redirects like these:
Such things will take take time to thresh-out, I suppose; but it probably takes less time and effort to resolve questions like this in advance rather than later. To keep this issue in perspective, the edit history for 1923 Great Kantō earthquake reveals that Jdorje moved Great Kanto earthquake to 1923 Great Kanto earthquake in January 2006 because "unnamed" events should include the year in the name." --Ooperhoofd (talk) 20:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Lots of sensible stuff written above. I can only think of one change I'd make. It's to the first proposal: [...] with a modest exception-to-the-general-rule variation -- that disasters in Japan during the years 645 through 19121867 are more fully described in this format: <<year>><<nengo>><<place<<event>>. Why the change? Well, I'll grant that "Meiji" was and remains a very widely used term. However, it's a "traditional" term only in that the tradition of reign-names was freshly minted for the occasion; and more importantly, the period was so longlasting as to reduce the likelihood that it identifies anything. If the name "Meiji" seemed rather inseparable from the event, I might be inclined to leave it in. Ditto for "Shōwa", etc., for that matter. But even so a division at 1912 makes no sense to me. - Hoary (talk) 08:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I've tentatively modified the text above in accordance with Hoary's suggestion about the proposed MOS:JA variation to the WP:DM naming guidelines. His comments do make sense to me; and indeed, my personal focus has always been directed towards affirming the continuing value of the pre-Meiji period nengō. However, two factors argue that both Hoary and I are simply wrong ... or that, at least, our informed point-of-view is perhaps too narrow.
  • 1. The official name for what Wikipedia calls the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995, as designated by the Japan Meteorological Agency, is "The South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake of 1995" (平成年兵庫県南部地震 Heisei-shichinen-Hyōgoken-nambu-jishin).
  • 2. The stalwart work done by Miraceti (see cs:Wikipedista:Miraceti) in developing the first draft of Historic tsunami represents a quite unfamiliar, but plausibly relevant Czech-informed point-of-view which may have significance -- or at least, I'm persuaded that it should not be dismissed nor overlooked too casually. Without more, I can't speculate further; but I do note the following from that otherwise impeccable list of historic tsunami:
I would continue looking forward to welcoming other points-of-view at any point in the future; but this thread seems to have reached the point where Hoary becomes the one who has the last word ...? --Ooperhoofd (talk) 18:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Kimi ga Yo again

To prevent anything similar to the Good Article Review on the article of the Japanese flag, what do I need to do with this article before I even attempt to send it to Good Article Candidates? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't waste your time do you? Anyway, what I see is how the article can be or ought to be expanded. For example, the more detailed interpretation of the lyrics would be nice. Also, discussing when or how Kimi ga Yo is played would be nice too. I know, for instance, NHK uses Kimi ga Yo. This is relevant since it caused some if minor controversy. I don't know if this answered your question, though. -- Taku (talk) 21:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
It answers my questions. I asked before how and when Kimi ga Yo is used and other members had no idea. I do remember about the NHK use of it, since I see their videos on YouTube (and I have the radio recordings on my computer). I know when they use it, and a source for it, it will work. I also asked about what do people do when Kimi ga Yo is played; few mentioned what to do. We're good on recordings, since I have a few at the Commons (and I created one last night of Fenton's old score and uploaded it here). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 21:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The only thing I ever saw was people standing respectfully (not at attention, but attentive). No hand over the heart, salute, or anything else (except for the JSDF members). I don't have any references for that, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I saw one for soccer events, but I believe the website is gone now. (It details some of the other salutes, like the Mexican flag salute). I done some digging around government websites and see if there is a way I can find something and no luck either. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 02:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
In October I suggested watching the finale of the sumo tournament, and when I watched it, I added the outcome to the archives at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/October 2007#Kimi ga Yo protocol. Of course I shouldn't have added new material to the archive, so to save you the mouse click: "At the sumo finale, the announcer asked the audience to stand and invited them to sing." Fg2 (talk) 03:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
That works. I wonder if we can add a section about what the Law on the National Flag and National Anthem states about Kimi ga yo, unless it is very short. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

(unindented) The law is actually extremely short (and it was intentionally so as I understand). Literally It only states:

  1. The Hinomaru is the national flag of Japan.
  2. Kimi ga Yo is the national anthem of Japan.

It's probably more important to give context behind the creation of the law. -- Taku (talk) 07:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. That reminds me, the article on the law itself is a stub over here. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I finally did it: Kimi_ga_Yo#Protocol. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 08:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I also added some more references about the hand over heart stuff, but sadly, they are from my side of the fence (US sources). However, do you think the article could be re-assessed from Start class to something else? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 09:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you try Good Article review or some kind of appropriate protocol then? -- Taku (talk) 11:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC) (I didn't mean sarcasm or anything. I just meant if you think it's ok, you don't have to ask others if it's ok. You can just go ahead on the process, in my opinion. -- Taku (talk) 23:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC))

Katana, Nihontō, Japanese swords moves

Please come participate in the discussion here. Thanks! ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Tokyo's top ranked private universities

I removed all the text from Tokyo's top ranked private universities and replaced it with rankings taken from external links. The previous article was based on a slogan; this one is based on published rankings. It's still subject to all the limitations of any ranking system but at least the subjective factors are outside Wikipedia and in the hands of those who publish rankings. I kept what was the References section, renaming it "Further reading." Fg2 (talk) 06:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Can we then merge it into Education in Tokyo? -- Taku (talk) 06:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC) Oh, the article doesn't exist, apparently. I went ahead to create one by renaming the above article. I think this editorial decision makes sense. -- Taku (talk) 07:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
It wouldn't matter to me if we did. However, as it is now, it's specifically a ranking of private universities, so it does not include UN, National, or Toritsu. In contrast, Education in Tokyo does not limit itself to private education. So if it were to be merged, it would be best to include all universities in Tokyo. Fg2 (talk) 07:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
This would seem a good idea, but I confess I'm too exhausted to want to offer to do much to help in it. -- Hoary (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Excellently recompiled. I still think it's pretty dubious as an encyclopedic subject; but so long as an article exists, then yes indeed this is the way the article should be. -- Hoary (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Fg2 is right; for example, that the University of Tokyo is the top is too obvious but something needs to be mentioned in this newly-renamed article. -- Taku (talk) 07:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Kou Shibasaki's real name

This edit appears to be strange. Does anyone know about this? -- ReyBrujo (talk) 13:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

This unofficial fan site's profile page says so. But I have no idea if it's true. Oda Mari (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Japan-related article discussion at ANI

Some discussion regarding some Japan-related content and editing ongoing here [1] at WP:ANI. Cla68 (talk) 02:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It's just a couple anon IPs claiming the Japanese is saying something it's not saying. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Large swords

I'm a little bit concerned that there are currently three English articles for the Japanese word 大刀. They are:

Now I'm quite confident that Daitō is a legitimate article, but I'm concerned with the other two. For example, when the videogame "Daikatana" was in development, the title was widely mocked for sounding like a real word, but not actually being a word that any Japanese person had ever used to describe something. Considering that in addition to some generalized knowledge of the subject, my impression was that "daikatana" was a made-up word. Similarly with Ōkatana, which until I just moved it a few minutes ago, was located at "O-katana", whose informal romanization leads me to further doubt its credibility (also, isn't it likely to be pronounced as "ōgatana"?). Basically, I'm concerned that some anime scholars have been at work here, and I was hoping for some more learned input. Thanks, Bradford44 (talk) 16:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

太刀 is read as tachi in Japanese. 大刀/daitō is another name for uchigatana. 大太刀/ōtachi, not odachi, and 野太刀/nodachi are longer tachi. Oda Mari (talk) 18:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the response, and in fact, I just realized I made an error in my post above, although essentially the same concerns remain. Here are the articles that are currently duplicitous (kanji-wise):

and:

It is the second of each of these pairs that I am suspicious about. I'm perfectly willing to accept that these articles might be legit, I'm just looking for some input from someone with more knowledge or resources than I. Bradford44 (talk) 19:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. The Daikatana (sword) article says (and has done so for some time, according to article history) that Daikatana is pseudo-Japanese and directs the reader to 'daitō'. The ōkatana article (and you're right, it's awkward with a 'k' and should probably be pronounced ōgatana if anything) on the other hand... One thing that got my attention is the assertion that "O means great or long in Japanese". 'Great'? Given the proper context (as in this word, for instance), yes. 'Long'? No. Explaning Japanese words without kanji to go with the explanation? Dubious at best. TomorrowTime (talk) 22:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, 大 can mean "long" in the same sense that "big" can mean "long". No, it's not as specific as "nagai" meaingin "long, but it all depends on context. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
And I agree, but the Ō in question here is supposedly not 大 but 太, which, as I understand it, can mean 'great', given the proper context, but not 'long'. TomorrowTime (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, but the Daikatana (sword) article is quite vague. First of all, I have no idea what it means for a term to be pseudo-Japanese. Second, the article states "In Japanese, 大刀 is actually read daitō, and is a less-used synonym for uchigatana." So is "daitō" is a less-used synonym for "uchigatana", or is daikatana a the less-used synonym? Finally, the term "daikatana" is referred to as a "reading mistake". Is this a modern mistake, or a historic one? Prior to the videogame, had anyone ever used this term, ever? Basically, if it's a purely fictional, modern term, I think the article should be much clearer about this, rather than using a meaningless descriptor like "pseudo-Japanese". Thanks for the response, Bradford44 (talk) 02:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry if you have trouble with commonly-used words (or prefixes) such as "pseudo". It doesn't really require defining, IMO (though for your benefit, I'll give you a definition link. The sentence you quote is pretty clear that it's daitō is the subject of the sentence. If you have problems with how the article is written, feel free to rewrite it fully or in part. Everyone is welcome to do that. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
As for 大刀, there's no daikatana pronunciation in Kojien and Gakken's dic.. 大刀 is daitō. As for 太刀 there's no entry of ōkatana pronunciation in the dictionaries. As I posted before, it's tachi. Correction for 大太刀, according to Kojien, the entry word is ōdachi and it says ōtachi is an older pronunciation. But the ja WP article name is ōtachi. Oda Mari (talk) 05:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
It may also be a regional thing (ōtachi vs. ōdachi). Voiced/non-voiced regional differences are very common in Japan (kurai vs. gurai, for example). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Definition of daito is, as the article says, 'The word "daitō" is often only used when explaining the related terms shōtō (short sword) and daishō (the set of both large and small sword)'. For better understanding, please see wakizashi. Oda Mari (talk) 07:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Bradford44 is right in saying that the Daikatana article is vague. I wouldn't go as far as saying that "pseudo-Japanese" is a worthless descriptor, but the rest of the article does fail to stress that the word is a non-Japanese neologism. In any case, I wonder if there is somebody over at the military history wikiproject who could shed some light on this? TomorrowTime (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again for the responses. I am well aware of the definition of the word "pseudo", but the fact that the term "pseudo-Japanese" might mean "fake Japanese", "pretend Japanese", "trying to be Japanese", or "almost Japanese" was not helpful when I was trying to figure out the origin of the word "daikatana". It makes a big difference, for example, whether it is a fake Japanese word that was invented by Japanese people in Japan in 1400 AD, or whether it was invented by Americans in Dallas in 1996. Or by Japanese in Japan in 1996. Each of these places the word's status in a different context, which the term "pseudo-Japanese" alone sheds no light upon. Neologisms are invented all the time, calling them "fake" words doesn't make a lot of sense. Especially where the term "daikatana" is at least a theoretically possible reading of 大刀, it is somewhat less of a fake Japanese word than some word that just sounds Japanese, but has no kanji that it is (artificially) derived from. Like speaking gibberish with an accent so as to mock a foreign nationality. The gibberish sounds are more what I would think of as fake words. Daikatana, to me, is more of a word that is "almost Japanese", rather than "fake Japanese", but in order to authoritatively call a word "almost Japanese", we would need to devise some sort of spectrum upon which a word could be judged to be "not at all Japanese", "a little Japanese", "half Japanese", "almost Japanese" and "Japanese". However, I felt that the amount of work required to usefully employ the term "pseudo-Japanese" was far too great, and thus declared it "worthless" as a descriptor, because I felt that it would be more efficient to use more precise language. That said, does anyone have any opinions on whether ōkatana is a "real" word, and if it's not, should the article be deleted? Bradford44 (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Template help request

User:Rafaelherrejon put {{Infobox British Royalty}} in the article Tokugawa Yoshimune. It was a good-faith edit and it will be a valuable addition to the article once one point gets straightened out. Specifically, the template has a link to Style of the British Sovereign#List of changes to the royal style. It's right below the shogun's name, and it's not appropriate to the article.

The template is far too complicated for me. Can anyone suggest a way to use the template so that the link doesn't appear, or to modify the template, or to replace it? Some changes to the information in the template might also be in order, and those are welcome too. To make it easy to edit, I have not removed the template from the article, but just commented it out. So, it's in this version of the article, which the current version of the article (as of now), and there's no need to hunt for an old version with the template in it.

Once somebody figures it out, it could be useful for all shoguns, or if someone creates a Japan version of the British Royalty template, it could also be useful for emperors, sekkan, shikken and conceivably many more people. Fg2 (talk) 01:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Do we want one specifically for royalty, or a more encompassing template that covers all nobility, too? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I like the inclusive-of-both idea. Chris (talk) 03:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I do as well. Let's make a list of everything that should be included in the template, and which items would be switched on and off depending on which they were (royalty or "just" nobility). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Might as well start the discussion by wishing for a lot. But really I'm not sure it's better to have one complicated template that almost nobody knows how to use instead of a variety of templates simple enough for any editor to use. Also, I'm not sure of all the things that can be switched on and off. But some expressions like "reign" might be better as "term of office" or just "term," for people other than emperor/empress and shogun.
I hope we can cover these people, and probably more:
  1. Emperor/empress
  2. Regent (sekkan)
  3. Shogun
  4. Shogunal regent (shikken) (combine with fuku-shogun?)
  5. Imperial prince or princess
  6. Daimyo
  7. Provincial governor, vice-governor
  8. Shugo
What can we add that would include Nobunaga? Fg2 (talk) 04:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

How do you like this template? http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:Infobox_Ruler_Japan, i could change the name of the template as well of the contents, but i think is not that bad.. i ll use it for the Tokugawa Yoshimune article meanwhile. Rafaelherrejon (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

We can work with this. It's not used in many articles (one?) so we can change it without affecting loads of articles.
Shoguns weren't royal, so the "royal house" line could be made more generic (to allow more types of rulers) or a version could be made for shoguns. Emperors are pretty much from one house (although "lines" have mattered from time to time for a small minority of emperors). Regents have had lineages for a long time. Princes have houses (miyake). Not sure what article would be the best target for a link here. Maybe no link?
Assuming items can be ignored, we might want to add coming-of-age name, retirement name, and posthumous name (someone knows the terms better than I do).
This seems to be going in a good direction. Thanks for finding it. Fg2 (talk) 07:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just so you know, ja wikipedia uses ja:基礎情報 天皇. It has lists of Japanese era names and (rather long) consorts, concubines and the like. I actually prefer a different approach. We might even be able to use some generic one, (which is the case for politician articles.) I can't think of a specific one, though. -- Taku (talk) 08:34, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Book Off

I think I may have perpetrated "BITE" in Talk:Book Off, though the bitten one has taken it well. Biting, chewing and swallowing aside, the article needs sourcing, but recent Japanese business history isn't my thing. Any volunteers? -- Hoary (talk) 01:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know much about BO, but their machine cleaning is well known and true. I've seen it on TV several times. And here's a Q and A to a former BO shop manager. See the #11 2005/10/18(火) Q and A. There's a mention about it, starting with '１０年程前は...'. Oda Mari (talk) 06:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

NHK Trophy

There's an article named NHK Trophy, and lots of articles on individual years. It begins, "The NHK Trophy is an international, senior-level invitation-only figure skating competition." Should these be renamed NHK Trophy (ice skating) or something similar? See ja:NHK杯 for a fuller list of trophies that NHK awards. There are more than a dozen. Fg2 (talk) 04:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...based on that I think some disambiguation would be good. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Here from the note left on my talk page. :)
1) if there's going to be disambig, it should be, imho, NHK Trophy (figure skating).
2) Is there now/is there going to be articles on the other sports's NHK Trophies? There's no point in renaming the main article and the competition-by-year articles for, what seems to me from the tone of this, to be an academic exercise. ;) If we're going to have articles, sure, let's dab. But if this is just so we can match ja wiki, what's the point? (Forgive me, but I don't know what this WikiProject has discussed about this in the past.)
3) If a page move is being proposed, could we please move this discussion to Talk:NHK Trophy? Kolindigo (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
I would say it's not academic. An article on the various tournaments and trophies would be a good daughter article for NHK, and it could initially link to NHK Trophy (figure skating) (which I agree is a good title). It would then be a starting place in case anyone wanted to create articles on other events. Not being in touch with the editors in go, shogi, gymnastics and other topics, I can't say when anyone would want to create articles. But having the structure in place would facilitate it. As you suggested, I'll bring it up at Talk:NHK Trophy. Fg2 (talk) 11:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

To add a bit to what Fg2's said, it is, in general, important to have a very stable structure of article names. This is especially so when there is a series of articles. People in wikipedia spend a lot of time fixing links (I do too). It may first appear pedantic, but having the good structure of article titles makes lives of those in wikipedia a lot easier. -- Taku (talk) 12:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to both 日本穣 and Taku for the agreement, and to Kolindigo for the suggestion of a better title than what I came up with. I've now posted this at Talk:NHK Trophy so it's probably best to post comments there. Fg2 (talk) 12:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Japanese private colleges and Category:Private universities in Japan

There appear to be two duplicate categories. To make it in line with Category:Japanese public universities and Category:Japanese national universities, it makes sense to merge the latter to the former, but the latter strikes me as more natural English. So, we might want to rename Category:Japanese X universities to Category:X universities in Japan. Whatever decision we make, we can probably let some bot to implement necessary changes in names. Thoughts? -- Taku (talk) 06:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

We should see which format is used most often for similar categories for other countries. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Though, on second thought, they aren't really redundant as the colleges category contains what would be termed "junior colleges" in the States, and the universities category contains full-fledged universities. Universities contain individual colleges, and are therefore larger units than colleges in general. I do think it would be good to give them both similar formatting (Category:Japanese private X or Category:Private X in Japan. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok. There are Category:Private universities in Korea and few similar ones at Category:Private universities. There is Category:Public universities, but it seems to be used mostly for those in US. (How us-centric.) Category:National universities is used for any schools of the type outside Japan :) On the whole, it seems some standard formatting doesn't exist. This is probably because there is not clear-cut definitions for national, public or private universities, contrary to the case in Japan. Basically, Japan seems to be ahead of any other countries in this type of categorization. So to answer Nihonjoe's question, we can probably safely pick any format we like without breaking any existing convention. -- Taku (talk) 07:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Other images by Kasuga that may be useful

Kasuga created these images for a couple articles over on the Japanese WIkipedia (School swimsuit and Bloomers), and they may be useful here, too:

We don't currently have equivalent articles here, and the one on Bloomers... I'm not sure how we would include it there without messing up the other images there. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It could be included to, while I am not sure if they exist, "Uniforms (in Japan) or Japanese schoollife or whatsoever. --Aphaia (talk) 10:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
There is Japanese school uniform. No section on swimwear, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)



Crime in Japan and User:ACSE

User:ACSE has been contributing to numerous articles about Japanese crime and criminals; unfortunately, he's not a native speaker of English. Help cleaning them up would be appreciated. Jpatokal (talk) 15:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

new article and potential problem

Not a project member, but I wanted to inform the project of a new article in its scope. Public Security Investigative Agency which is decribed as "an organization performing espionage about the menace to the security for Japan based on Subversive Activities Prevention Law.". The link to the supposed law didn't work, and I worry - what with the espionage subject matter - that this might be original research at best and a hoax at worst. Maybe this is uncontroversial, and I'm just ignorant, but it seemed fishy. VanTucky talk 17:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, they've included a picture of the building, but the picture itself is simply described as "One of the public office buildings of the The Ministry of Justice" not the specific name. VanTucky talk 17:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not a hoax. But it should be renamed. The official site I added says their name in English 'Public Security Intelligence Agency'. Oda Mari (talk) 18:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
The same user created two articles, one with "Intelligence" and one with "Investigative" in the title. I redirected "Investigative" to "Intelligence." Fg2 (talk) 20:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Belatedly though, thank you, Fg2. Oda Mari (talk) 08:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Japanese numerals

Please see this edit. Now the article has no ja link. Is the duplicated interwiki link not accepted? What is the best way to add the ja link to the article? Use ja:大字 (数字) or ja:命数法? Oda Mari (talk) 09:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

ja:漢数字 (kansuji) is neither Chinese numerals or Japanese numerals strictly speaking. It's a system of number names that use kanji (/hanzi/hanja). Its use is not limited to China as it has been used in countries beside China also, most notably in Japan and Korea (much like Roman numerals). Although the "kan" of kansuji and kanji refers to the ancient name of China (Han Dynasty), kansuji and kanji are now proper nouns in Japanese language and no longer equate with the modern nation of China. --Saintjust (talk) 10:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Needed: Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1941-1945)

Hi. The Military history of the Philippines during World War II article is very sketchy and on its page there is a red link for an article about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1941-1945) a very important subject that is still needed as there are already articles about: the Japanese occupation of Burma; Japanese occupation of Hong Kong; Japanese occupation of Indonesia; Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak and Japanese occupation of Singapore, so this gap is glaring. Anyone with and interest or expertise in this topic is welcome to start writing it. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Kakumagawa, Akita

I think something might be wrong with the article Kakumagawa, Akita in which it is claimed that Kakumagawa (I believe 角間川) is a town. I think it might not actually be a town. It is not mentioned in Akita Prefecture, and it does not seem to have a corresponding article on the Japanese wikipedia. Can anyone help with this? Arthena(talk) 17:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see it in ja:秋田県. Perhaps it once was a town, and since has merged. You might try asking the author, who has contributed fairly recently. Does anyone else have any information? Fg2 (talk) 01:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
角間川 is a town in the city of Daisen, Akita (大仙市). [2], ja:角間川バスストップ. Towns are a much smaller unit than cities and so aren't mentioned in articles on prefectures. --Saintjust (talk) 01:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Kakumagawa may no longer be a "town" (machi/cho, 町) in the sense that it has its own governing body and is recognized as an independent political unit by the prefecture of Akita. It seems to be just an address name of the area now albeit still bearing the suffix "町 " (like many street names in Japan). --Saintjust (talk) 02:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Looks like 角間川町 (Kakumagawa) merged into 大曲市 (Ōmagari, Akita) on 1955-04-01, and Ōmagari merged into Daisen on 2005-03-22. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:04, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I updated the article with this information, and I left a message with the original author as was suggested. Thank you all. Arthena(talk) 16:30, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
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