Talk:Siku Quanshu

message: I would like to expand Siku Quanshu by translating corresponding articles(in Chinese) from http://baike.baidu.com, which is an online Chinese encyclopedia. I am ready to discuss with other editors so that we can reach consensus.Arilang1234 (talk) 00:37, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: @Arilang1234: No copies of Siku quanshu were destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion. The copy from the Old Summer Palace was destroyed by British troops forming part of the Anglo-French expedition force. This happened in 1860 at the end of the Second Opium War, not during the Boxer Rebellion. The copy from the Forbidden City remained complete, is now in Taipei and was used for the photomechanical print of 1987.  Guss2 (talk) 10:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks user Guess2. Are you positive? I thought Hanlin Yuan should have been housing the Siku?Arilang1234 (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Hi Arilang1234. Thanks for your answer and the link to the interesting article. The mastercopy of siku quanshu was placed in a special library building in the Forbidden City, called 'Wenyuange', 文淵閣, built in 1776. That copy has been taken to Taiwan in 1949 and placed in the Palace Museum. It was photolithographically printed between 1983 and 1986 as 'Yingyin wenyuange siku quanshu', 影印文淵閣四庫全書. So the copy of siku quanshu in the Forbidden City couldn't have been destroyed during the boxer rebellion. Davis writes in his article "But the bulk of the Fifteenth-Century collection and thee [sic!] original texts of Siku Quan Shu were irretrievably lost". Maybe he meant with original texts the manuscripts actually handwritten by the editing scholars, or maybe he meant with original texts the original works used (and purged as you yourself have made clear on several occasions!) for siku quanshu. This I don't know, but since Davis himself writes "The exact contents of the Hanlin Library is not known with certainty" this remains speculation. Guss2 (talk) 14:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks Guess2. Are you from Taiwan? Lucky Taiwan did not have cultural revolution, so many books being burn in that time.Arilang1234 (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Requesting consensus discussion

message: Hello. I think if additions to an article are wrong they should be removed as quickly as possible. However if additions are right, but someone still wants to remove them, it is polite to seek removal by way of discussion and not simply by reverting them. If I am right TheLeopard summarily gives three reasons not to accept my additions about the whereabouts of the remaining four copies:
*First he writes, it would be "confusing by adding extraneous marked bracket behind these statements". I don't know what is confusing about using brackets. It is not a matter of content, but a matter of style, so in the end based on personal opinion only.
*Second TheLeopard writes "it is superflous". I disagree, I think it adds value to the article if you know where the original copies are at the moment, so you can see the original copy is on Taiwan and not in the PRC anymore. 
*Third TheLeopard writes "without references". I expect someone who adds this kind of commentary knows enough about the subject to judge there is doubt on the added statement. However the present whereabouts of the four copies is found not only in specialized literature like R. Kent Guy, but even in Wilkinson p.274, one of the the most basic guides on Chinese historical writings. Since when do basic facts need to be referenced?
So I conclude by stating the removal done by TheLeopard should be reverted. Thank you, Guss2 (talk) 09:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  About revision by TheLeopard as of 04:58, 27 October 2008  

message: User:Arilang1234, there is absolutely no ground for adding a bunch of small, separate and dis-connected sections to this article (the paragraph Siku Jinshu and the contents you added has little to do with this article Siku Quanshu topically).  We're writing an encyclopedia article here, thus format and content are all very important.  The article's information has to flow and thematically should all in some ways connect; that's basic encyclopedic works.  The present format presented by you with the template (censorship???) at top and commentary like NB. Original Chinese text on talk page is unacceptable.--TheLeopard (talk) 10:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Siku jinshu and "literary holocaust"

message: (1) Manchu burned more than 3000 titles(or works), now the number of books burned was equivalent to number of books included in the Siku Quanshu. Just to make a comparison, how many did the Nazi burn?
(2) Modification of texts, that means what we are reading now is different from the original Ming versions, and no one will ever know what the original texts were like.
Just these two actions alone, Manchu should be condemned by the whole of humanity. Arilang   talk 13:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest we not get into this again. These points may be interesting to discuss in blogs or in cafes, but they are irrelevant to Wikipedia, where we should stick to what reliable secondary sources (in this case, Carrington Goodrich, Guy, Woodside) say about things. Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 13:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Burning of books and modification of text

message: *鲁迅:对我最初的提醒了满汉的界限的不是书，是辫子，是砍了我们古人的许多的头，这才种定了的，到我们有知识的时候大家早忘了血史
*魯迅維基語錄:現在不說别的，但看雍正，乾隆兩朝對于中國人著作的手段，就足夠令人震驚。全毀，抽毀，删去之類也且不說，最陰險的是篡改了古書的内容。乾隆朝的篡修《四 庫全書》是許多人頌爲一代盛事的，但他們不但搞亂了古書的格式，還篡改了古人的文章，不但藏之于内廷，還頒之于文風頗盛之處，使天下士子閱讀，永不會覺得 我們中國的作者裏面，也曾經有過很多很有些骨氣的人。魯迅維基語錄 
*吴晗说过“清人纂修《四库全书》而古书亡矣！”
*Gu Jiegang:我覺得影印《四庫全書》，是一件極蠢笨的舉動，突然使得世界上平添了許多錯誤的書，實非今日學術界所允許。
*文懷沙:《四庫全書》是對中華文化的銷毀與篡改，而編纂者之一的紀曉嵐是乾隆的幫凶，是乾隆的奴才，是對中華文化的背叛
*仅乾隆三十九年到四十七年间，据兵部奏报毁书共24次，538种，13862部之多（《政治学研究》1988年第二期）。据海宁陈乃乾《禁书总录》中的统 计，其毁书总数是：全毁书目2453种，抽毁书目402种，销毁书版目50种，销毁石刻24种。郭伯荣依据《禁书总录》、《文献丛编》、《办理四库全书档 案》等书来核对，认为“四库”开馆10多年中，被销毁的图书总数至少在10万部左右，册数之众，那就更无法估计了，这个数字如果可信的话，则是《四库全 书》总数的10倍。
 Arilang   talk 10:33, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Many books kept by previous dynasties were not open to public, some were only left to rot or be burnt by such emperors like Emperor Yuan of Liang. The Yongle Encyclopedia were only copied once and viewed by some emperors.Useentropy84 (talk) 10:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Text to br translated into English

message: http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=025_beard.inc&issue=025
Rajmaan (talk) 21:48, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kangxi and Tomás Pereira's Beard An Account from Sublime Familiar Instructions, in Chinese and Manchu With Three European Versions  Eugenio Menegon Boston University   

message: I am adding details to the history section of the article, namely what I have found regarding the compilation and editing process behind the final copy of the Siku Quanshu based on findings from this cited article. I personally feel that it is important to list the compilation process here, despite the existing page on the Siku Quanshu Zongmu Tiyao, as it was an important part of the process of the publication of the completed Siku Quanshu.
Mnapaucsc2128 (talk) 12:03, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the compilation and editing process for the Siku Quanshu 

message: The library is commonly known in English as the "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" in various English sources, such as , , and . It is certainly more descriptive than any transliterated name(s) for English Wikipedia. --Wengier (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The name "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" is used by a large number of English books and literatures (just name a few: "Looking at it from Asia: the Processes that Shaped the Sources of History of Science" [page 151], "History Of Mathematical Sciences: Portugal And East Asia Iii - The Jesuits, The Padroado And East Asian Science (1552-1773)" [page 124], and "The Reception of Du Fu (712-770) and His Poetry in Imperial China" [page 40], among so many others), and according to WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CRITERIA, the title should be recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and consistent (the five criteria). There should be no doubt that the English name "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" is considerably more recognizable and natural for many English readers than transliterations (like Siku Quanshu, Si Ku Quan Shu, or Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu), and indeed the English name already appeared in the text of a number of articles long before this. Also per WP:Naming conventions (use English), if there is a common English form of the name, this is preferred over a systematically transliterated name (from another language), and no matter what name is used by other language sources. The Dream of the Red Chamber (another famous Qing-period work) is a good example for using English name, rather than transliterations like Honglou Meng. But of course all alternative names can be mentioned in the article as well (such as in the lead or a dedicated "Name" section). --Wengier (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know; I've never seen the name of this compilation translated before. Compare google ngram. I feel like Siku Quanshu is still the common name, and way easier to type and remember. Folly Mox (talk) 00:09, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: From the chart it looks like the usage for Siku Quanshu became common only since 2010 and more recently (since 2017) its usage trend is dropping fast (although it provides no data for the current year). At the same time, I would think that the name Siku Quanshu is probably easier to remember only/mostly for those with Chinese & pinyin background, which might not be the case for general English readers (without Chinese/pinyin background). --Wengier (talk) 05:12, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Just as general background information, google ngram is never fully current. 2019 is the most recent date selectable. Folly Mox (talk) 20:44, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

text: Returning to the first post in this thread, the first and third links are the same source hosted on different servers (both derive from text at the National Palace Museum Taiwan), and the middle source is an Amazon page. I'm not sure these are the kinds of sources we're supposed to be looking at when trying to establish WP:COMMONNAME, but I've not really participated much in article titling discussions before. I do think that the google results demonstrate that Siku Quanshu is currently the more common name. Folly Mox (talk) 00:52, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is easy to post reliable sources results (in addition to those hosted on web servers). For examples, the book "The Emperor's Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Chʻien-lung Era" by R. Kent Guy states that "The compilation of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu) was one of the most ambitious intellectual projects of the Ch'ing dynasty." It is so easy to post more (if needed). --Wengier (talk) 01:06, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: I have tried to use Google hits previously too, but then found that it did not actually work this way. According to Wikipedia:Google searches and numbers, the section "Why Google results can be misleading?" clearly states that "There are various reasons why using just the numbers of a Google search may be misleading ("there were 204,000 search results") concerning the establishment of notability. Raw search result numbers are often inflated to include many variables that can create large hit results." In fact, even though on the top Google says there are around 100,000 hits for "Siku Quanshu", when you keep clicking "more results" on the bottom of the page, it will eventually say "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 133 already displayed" and there are simply no further results for it. Thus, they are only 133 results for "Siku Quanshu" in total, which is only a very small fraction of the 100,000 hits. The page Wikipedia:Google searches and numbers also states that "Google searches are not references". Nor Google search itself shows any usage trend over the years. --Wengier (talk) 00:53, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, so google search results do not return an accurate sum. Do you think they are so inaccurate that it is actually the English translation of the title that is significantly more frequent than the transliteration? It's not like they're almost even: the estimated total ghits differ by around a factor of seven. Folly Mox (talk) 01:04, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I just tried the same test at Gale Academic and got 13 results for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" and 233 for "Siku Quanshu". Folly Mox (talk) 01:08, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: 44:301 at Springer, 16:283 at Taylor Francis, 6:65 at Wiley, 109:1470 at Brill. Folly Mox (talk) 01:15, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: When you keep clicking "more results", Google Search will eventually show 133 results for "Siku Quanshu" and 114 results for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries". Very close indeed, so the previous sums were so far away from being accurate. Neither results suggest any usage trend though. --Wengier (talk) 01:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: According to Bing Search, there are 143,000 results for "Siku Quanshu" and 9,370,000 results for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries". So much more hits for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" than "Siku Quanshu" according to Bing. --Wengier (talk) 01:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like Bing is not respecting the "full string" boolean search function. It's probably not possible for 9.3 million webpages to be talking about this work. Folly Mox (talk) 01:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really I think. The results with or without quotes are clearly different. And from the results (at least in the first a few pages I have checked) they are indeed about the work. --Wengier (talk) 01:21, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: Also according to Yahoo Search, there are 144,000 results for "Siku Quanshu" and 8,890,000 results for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries". Also more hits for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" than "Siku Quanshu" according to Yahoo Search. --Wengier (talk) 01:24, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yahoo search, as the bottom of the page indicates, is powered by Bing. It's not a separate search engine underneath. And of course the top results are going to match the full string. That doesn't mean they all or mostly will. Folly Mox (talk) 01:33, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if Yahoo Search is powered by Bing, the search results are not quite the same. So Yahoo Search does do its own search operations (not just relying on results from Bing). In any case they are searched with quotes. The total hits will change considerably when the quotes are removed, but does not change that there are more hits for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" than "Siku Quanshu" according to the search. Also from the results (at least in the first a few pages I have checked) they are indeed about the work. --Wengier (talk) 01:36, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The library 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)  Jerium (talk) 19:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Complete Library of the Four Treasuries →  – Article was moved from the proposed title to the present title without discussion. Siku Quanshu is considerably more common in published sources. See above discussion. Compare google ngram. For individual publishers and databases, I got the following (case insensitive) search hits:
* Publisher/Database: current title; proposed/old title
* Gale Academic: 13; 233
* Springer: 44; 301
* Taylor Francis: 16; 283
* Wiley: 6; 65
* Brill: 109; 1470
* Oxford Academic: 45; 361
* Jstor: 43; 1251
Since Siku Quanshu has a non-trivial history, I believe this move requires the pagemover userright. The editor who performed the undiscussed move is not convinced by the arguments put forth by the other two editors in the above discussion, so opening my first one of these to establish consensus. Folly Mox (talk) 02:08, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: I have to clarify that the move was not made without discussion. I posted a section about the move previously suggesting using English names (like the Dream of the Red Chamber [instead of Honglou Meng] which is another famous Qing-period work), and at least at the time of the move there were no actual oppositions at all. As mentioned in the previous section the sums from Google Search may be misleading, but Bing and Yahoo Search both suggest that there are considerably more results for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" than "Siku Quanshu". For example, according to Bing Search, there are 143,000 results for "Siku Quanshu" and 9,370,000 results for "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" (both searched with quotes). "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME according to these results. From the google ngram mentioned above it turns out the usage for "Siku Quanshu" became common only after 2010 and more recently (since 2017) its usage trend is clearly dropping fast, although it provides no data for years since 2020. While I will not be completely opposed to using the transliteration "Siku Quanshu", but according to WP:CRITERIA for deciding article titles, the title should be recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and consistent (the five criteria). There should be no doubt that the English name "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries" is considerably more recognizable and natural for general English readers (without Chinese/pinyin background) than transliterations (like Siku Quanshu, Si Ku Quan Shu, or Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu). --Wengier (talk) 02:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry Wegnier, I misread the timestamps, which are not synched up on my device between the revision history and talk page signatures. I struck the part about there being no discussion. Folly Mox (talk) 02:38, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Notified WikiProject Books, WikiProject China. Folly Mox (talk) 02:38, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: I think I confused everyone by forgetting about case sensitivity in the initial ngram, which has a different contour if ngram isn't looking only for lowercase "siku quanshu". Oops.Also, I think there might be a disjoint in perception around what it means for a name to be "recognizable": Siku Quanshu is undoubtedly more recognisable, although it is not understandable to readers with no background knowledge. I said in my first post here somewhere way above that I had never seen this title in translation before, which means I didn't recognise it even though I already knew what it was. Siku Quanshu is used in the English literature to such a degree that I thought there was some other compilation translated as "Complete Library of the Four Treasuries".I did try to search google ngram for a number of variations on the Wade–Giles Ssu-k’u Ch’üan-shu without success, and wasn't able to search Cambridge University Press for full text results. Google scholar, De Gruyter, and Project Muse don't enumerate their search hits, so were unhelpful. Folly Mox (talk) 02:56, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

text: Looks like you just changed the google ngram link on your message from here (the same one you posted earlier) to here which now shows a very different result. What happened? --Wengier (talk) 02:54, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Earlier I made a mistake, and searched only for lowercase "siku quanshu". Sorry for the confusion. I'm not good at reading disclaimers. Folly Mox (talk) 02:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. If this was the result you gave earlier, I will probably be convinced by such an argument much earlier. Meanwhile, I just tried to but could not move the page back because it said "The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid".--Wengier (talk) 03:06, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that was definitely my mistake, and I do apologise. And I'm sorry I was under the impression initially that the move wasn't discussed: on my device it seemed that the thread you opened took place right after the page move, like an explanation. At least this RM will generate a consensus of some sort. Folly Mox (talk) 19:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I also apologized for primarily relying on Bing/Yahoo Search results for determining the WP:COMMONNAME, and may have also misunderstood the meaning of being "recognizable". The initial move was done more than one month ago, and it is possible that I forgot some details as well (and I thought I posted discussions, but it may be seen as an explanation after all). In any case, I believe there is already consensus following discussions. --Wengier (talk) 19:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 16 October 2023