Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/August 2006

message: In a moment of spontaneity, I have stolen the French art history template and converted it to be used for Japanese art. I have already added it to the page Japanese art, but nowhere else yet, as I am eagerly awaiting input and opinions.
Please see the discussion I have begun at Template talk:Japanese art history, and add your comments there, not here, for the sake of continuity and simplicity.
Thank you very much. LordAmeth 23:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me. I like it. (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:Japanese art history 

message: Question: which articles need to have the template added? I've been reading Japan-related articles the last few weeks, and sticking on a template when it was missing (excluding those who had any child project templates). But do the templates need to be on all pages? For instance, all wards of Yokohama have a page, should all these pages have the template? Or just the parent page? Either is fine by me, I just wanted to know. Ninja neko 18:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any article related to Japan, except for those you already mentioned, should be marked and assessed (see above). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for answering my question :) I'll keep sticking on the template whenever I come across a Japan-related article. Ninja neko 18:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Just to expand on my reasoning, the WPJ template should go on all of the Japan-related articles so that we can attract even more people to help us out. There are likely several thousand Japan-related articles that aren't part of a child project, and most of those will be either Stubs or Start class articles. This will allow us to more easily find them and then bring them up to regular articles. I'd like to get to the point where Stubs are less than 20% of the total Japan-related articles, and all but the newest and recently found articles are assessed. It will take a lot of work, but I think we've got an excellent group of people working with the project. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Japan template use 

message: Will someone who's better than me at these parameter settings in templates please go look at the code for  and see if you can fix it? I've placed the importance parameter on one article (Talk:10 yen coin), and it's throwing out sime bizarre code into the body of the article. Once you correct it, please copy the code over to  as well. All the code-poring has made my head hurt. Thanks! (^_^)
:The code is taken from the  template, in case you want to compare code. Our templates are much simpler, though. (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Importance parameter in WPJ template

message: Hi folks,
Sorry if this isn't in the right place. A while back, I placed a sentence stating that the Japanese word "jiriki" means "one's own self worth", as that is what I have been told (twice) this is what it means; someone recently changed the sentence to read "by oneself". I don't speak Japanese, so I figured I'd just ask here. Does anyone know?--Firsfron of Ronchester 05:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It can mean both, depending on the kanji.  自力 is "by oneself", or "self-made"; but 地力 is "one's own potential" or "one's own strength".  Can you link to the article where the change was made?  BTW, you can type in romanized Japanese into this web site, and it will translate.  (but, reading the results sometimes requires some basic Japanese skills still).  Neier 06:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the answer, Neier; I guess my mistake comes from just basic lack of understanding of Japanese, and the idea there can be several different translations. The article in question is Sithi. Thanks for your assistance. :)--Firsfron of Ronchester 06:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Japanese translation

message: I just found this article, which should be about the martial art of shooting firearms, but actually, 90% of it is crap. Maybe somebody here can rewrite this, otherwise it will be a CfD. --Mkill 17:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I've tagged it with several cleanup tags. I know nothing about the subject, though. Feel free to go through it and remove the crap. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't know enough about this martial art to write a useful article, and I won't miss the existing one either. Thanks for adding the tags (although I'd say five of them is a little overdone.) --Mkill 18:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I only added the bottom four (the small ones). (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Hojutsu]] 

message: If anyone wants to help out, I'm trying to compile a list of common symbols seen in Japan for which the name of the symbol isn't always known. You can see the article here. It's only got one symbol so far. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Japanese typographic symbols and Japanese map symbols. Hope that saves you some work! Fg2 22:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Symbols in Japan 

message: I'm proposing a merge over here, so please come voice your opinion on the matter. (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion has been moved here per merge templates. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Non-Japan-related requests page has been created as part of this. Please feel free to discuss here. There are a couple important things to be discussed. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As there were no objections, I've completed this merger. I've added links to the new pages on main WPJ project page. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger of translation requests and regular requests 

message: I nominate Shinzo Abe for top priority. He is the leading candidate to replace Prime Minister Koizumi within a month, and his article is sure to get lots of attention.
Fg2 05:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shinzo Abe 

message: Geisha seems like exactly the kind of Japan-related article that should be Top Importance, and up to Featured Article quality.  Lots of interest and curiosity in the topic outside of Japanophiles.  What do you all think? MightyAtom 03:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kimono, Sushi, Karaoke, Samurai, Ninja, Tale of Genji are all rather obvious additions to the top criteria as well.  I went ahead and tagged them all as High importance, because it seems that if we should discuss promotion to the Top importance, then the candidates should be High ranked already. Neier 05:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, I agree on all of those as well.  Especially Karaoke and Sushi, which are now pretty much world-wide and people may not even know they originated in Japan.  Tale of Genji is the most obscure on that list, but still important.  Maybe not Top Importance however...MightyAtom 05:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Top importance - Geisha?

message: I definitely think Japan should be at the top of the top importance list. We need to get it to Featured Article status. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely. Kind of stupid that no one thought of this first! MightyAtom 06:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top importance: Japan 

message: I made a sub page for Top importance candidates to be listed.  Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Importance is an obvious work in progress, so feel free to change it around.  I listed the articles mentioned above too.  Neier 13:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new sub-page 

message: Along the same lines as karaoke, something Japanese that has escaped the country and become a world product is the instant noodle.  What do you think? MightyAtom 13:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Instant noodles 

message: If you guys want to contribute to the Wikipedia version 1.0 project, it's going to be important to have your "Top" articles chosen and assessed. I know you started a sub-page to work on this, but it seems to have stalled. Just wanted to offer some encouragement as it seems like you were off to a good start. Kaldari 06:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaborating with Version 1.0 Project 

message: I stumbled upon this good historical image when reading Japan Standard Time. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a source, and relicensing it as fair use [] (which is an incorrect license given the year of publication of the statute) doesn't answer that question.
Can someone please find a source for this image, whether online or offline? I'd hate to slap on the  tag again. Kimchi.sg 01:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I updated the copyright tag as Meiji died more than 70 years ago, and he was the author of that edict. We should still find the name of the book, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source of Image:Daylight saving time004006.png 

message: It's only at the very beginning stage, but I started creating an article guidelines page for WPJ. Please take a look at the article, and feel free to add additional information. I'd like it to eventually have guidelines on the beginning, references, external links, categories, stubs, etc. It's meant to be a general guide to help people include all of the important parts of an article. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article guidelines page

message: A short time ago, there was a notice posted to the effect of "We need to all keep an eye on history articles of early Japan (Yamato period, Asuka period, Kofun period) because a series of edit wars have been occurring over the issue of Korean vs Chinese influence on Japan, and the mainland origin of the Japanese people." I cannot seem to find this discussion, but I would like to revive it.
This affects a good number of the most core "History of Japan" articles, and it seems endless. A few loyal editors have taken the effort to continue to rollback and revert and fix changes made to these articles, but more needs to be done. Somehow.
The issue seems to be divided into two major threads:
#Korean influence upon Japan as being distinct from Chinese influence. Some editors desire to place priority on Chinese influence, implying that influence from Korea was essentially Chinese culture as well, and not something distinct enough to warrant mentioning as "Korean influence."
#The Korean (or Chinese) origin of the Japanese people, ethnically and genetically. I actually have not seen too much of an editwar over this in the last month or two, but it is a far touchier subject, and one that I imagine many editors would feel quite strongly about.
Everything I have read indicates that the going theory (not necessarily fact) is that the Japanese race is descended from some number of Koreans who invaded Kyushu, and then Honshu, sometime around 400AD. After that, throughout the Yamato period and into the Heian period, the Yamato state (Japan) had close ties to Korea, and to China.
I don't think this should be about competing theories - Japan absolutely was influenced heavily by China and by Korea. And its influences from Korea were definitely something different than simply Chinese culture transmitted through Korea unchanged. We may argue about the extents to which China or Korea had more or less influence, but that is a minor detail compared to acknowledging the influence of both these cultures.
I thank you all for your help. I am actually tempted at times to lock the articles involved, but then beneficial edits couldn't be made either. LordAmeth 15:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Korean influence in the Yamato period 

message: Hi all, I have just deleted this article because it was a copyright violation taken from http://worldsaway.com.au/meiwa/saiku.php. I left a note to the editor claiming copyright release on how to do so properly; in the mean time, would anyone here be willing to at least write a stub there?  It looks like a fairly important Japan-related article.  Thanks! --Aguerriero (talk) 22:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Saiō]]