Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Archive 5

message: Thirdly, I've been coming across a huge amount of hepburn titles with ō characters etc. in them and I'm about to start getting more serious about changing those to MoS form. Has everyone else given up or what?  freshgavin TALK   23:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hold your horses, sonny!  There has been a lot of discussion about this, and I thought the consensus was to use macrons for any terms that have not been adopted wholesale by English? Jpatokal 01:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah it's OK, I haven't actually done anything yet, I just stopped a few guys from doing massive reverts to full hepburn and stuff because I figured it was an unsettled issue. Just quickly checking that discussion it's clear that there is no consensus yet, but due to the nature of the people voting I'm pretty sure it will eventually be decided to use macrons, unfortunately. I don't really like these kind of long winded puffed up discussions and even though I'd like it to be settled (my way if possible, naturally) it's too big a fish to swallow with all the other editors putting in their 2 cents so it's probably best to bow out :  ). Good luck User:Fg2  freshgavin TALK   03:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Two issues here: one is Hepburn (including macrons) within articles, and the other is Hepburn (including macrons) in article titles. The former is, I believe, clear in MoS: Within articles, use Hepburn with macrons for anything that is not part of English; do not use macrons for terms that are part of the English language. MoS has several examples; when in doubt, consult reputable reference works and look for consensus. The latter --- use of macrons in article titles --- is under debate without consensus, as best I recall. Fg2 07:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There was much discussion on the issue without any apparent consensus, but after the MediaWiki software was changed to allow macrons in article titles several editors went through and changed most of the article titles to a version with the macron in the title. Since I have seen no major objections to those page moves, that suggests a new status quo for the Wikipedia, and the MOS should probably be modified to reflect that. BlankVerse 12:21, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My objections came beforehand and don't need repeating. We did not have a consensus before, and we don't have one now. Fg2 12:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The rules in the current manual of style are that things which are accepted as English words should not be changed. For example sika deer should not be moved to "shika deer". Similarly, a dozuki saw should not be written "dōzuki" since the non-macroned form is the English name. The exception to this is when the words are used in a specifically Japanese context. I have created several articles with macrons in the title, for example, chōon, yōon. In most cases I made redirects from unmacroned names. I probably came to Wikipedia when macrons were already working for article titles. I don't know what the previous problems were. In the case of stations, the reality is that the names in romaji are probably written without macrons or "shin'ichi" style apostrophes (I couldn't think of a station name with an example of that), so it would be better to use the romanized name that JR uses. In every case, it requires some common sense to judge. I don't think any blanket rule should be given. The current manual of style, which suggests checking in a dictionary or by Google, is very good advice in my opinion. --DannyWilde 22:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think google is good for that. Many sites are still in latin-1 and thus it is a pain to use macrons for them and many people don't know how to type them (this argument doesn't hold on WP as we have this nifty characters toolbar). Checking en encyclopaedias is better. I don't know for english ones but for french ones, most use macrons (even for Tōkyō whereas most people tend to use Tokyo as they don't know anything about translitterations). Med 09:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the decision not to use macrons in article names was influenced by the fact that the English wiki was Latin-1 back then? UTF-8 support came later on (even though the other wiki's already had it back then). Shinobu 10:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In a lot of Western countries where accents, macrons, and such are rarely used, the tendency to use them is lower, especially since people are not used to typing them. People using French, Dutch, German, Swedish, etcetera as their primary language are quite used to it, but for people using some form of English it isn't as natural. I don't think these people should be forced to type macrons when requesting an article on Wikipedia, but as long as the proper redirects are in place there should be no reason not to use macrons in titles, as long as they belong there. JeroenHoek 12:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Check out the discussion here!  freshgavin TALK   02:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I've read that page. Thanks for the link. :-) --nihon 17:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macrons in titles 

message: # freshgavin TALK   06:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Support proposal with commas

message: # CES 13:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: By that you mean you don't want the lit. tag?   freshgavin TALK    04:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like this "lit." business either.  If the meaning of the characters has significance or importance, I think it should be included in the article itself, not attached to the kanji-romaji explanation. CES 04:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Support proposal without commas

message: I came across List of gairaigo and wasei-eigo terms, which lists the words (mostly) in the Japanese あいうえおかきくけこ, etc order.  For someone completely unfamiliar with Japanese (or, even first-year students), this order is awkward, to say the least.  Of course, the flip-side is that most people reading that article (and others like it) are probably more likely to fall into the minority of people who understand why it is listed that way.
On the other hand, Japanese words of Portuguese origin (which I presume would have pretty much the same target audience as the first article) lists the words in abc order (according to the romanization).
I think that at the very least, the lists of these two articles should be in the same order; and even more broadly, it seems like a good time to make a convention about lists of Japanese words in general.
My opinion is based on the fact that it is the English wikipedia.  Anyone looking for words in a list like that may be inclined to search あいうえお-style, but it wouldn't take too long to recognize that the lists are in abcd order.  On the other hand, someone looking for Dorama might be puzzled when it turns up after all the T- words.
So, I'd like to propose a convention that lists of Japanese words be ordered by their romanization and not by their kana ordering.  Thoughts?  Criticisms?  Neier 13:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support this proposal. This is an English site, so it makes sense to assume that a person looking up information on it will have little knowledge of the ordering of words according to  あいうえお. --nihon 17:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I support it too. Just a bit of background: the list of gairaigo resulted from a merger of a couple of predecessor articles, and possibly the merger didn't put things in alphabetical order. One or both might have started with kana order. Also, the table makes things hard to edit (e.g. split into sections by letter or kana) so people might tend to look for a place that seems about right and stick new entries in places that might not agree with any particular order. Alphabetizing and converting from table to text might go well together. Tables are convenient, but don't seem necessary; dictionaries do very well without them. But enough digression about the particular article; generally speaking, I favor alphabetical order for lists, at least allowing the rare exception where there's an important reason for kana ordering. Fg2 20:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ordering of Lists 

message: If you are interested, please come and vote on Japanese name order on Wikipedia. It's an important style question that needs to be finally answered, and your opinion matters! 
The voting is open through Sunday night (February 12th, Mountain Time), after which the MoS:JP will be updated accordingly. Thanks! (^_^) --nihon 07:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Japanese name order voting

message: I added a note about redirects in the "titles" section. A lot of the current Emperor So-and-So articles do not have appropariate redirects from the name without "Emperor" in front of it. At the time of this writing, for example, Yōmei does not redirect to Emperor Yōmei. I apologize if I've overstepped my bounds, but I felt it was an important point to make.
Also, a lot of the sub-emperor people have their names included in the article title. For example, Prince Shotoku. Something should probably be added to the section about emperors that these titles should (or should not) be part of the article title. — BrianSmithson 12:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the emperor is dead, then the article should be under the "Emperor So-and-so" title and a redirect or disambiguation link should be in place for the title without "Emperor." Feel free to go through and set those up. --nihon 19:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short addition on titles 

message: Some required processes for RmF, of course regarding the macrons issue. All vocal users are encouraged to participate. Follow the links!  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Japanese Macrons --日本穣 06:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for Mediation

message: Under this section on the main page, the first point says:
#Long o and u are written with macrons as ō and ū respectively. If you have difficulty typing these characters with your IME, you can now click on the special characters below the Wikipedia edit box. You can also enter the HTML entity ō for ō, and ū for ū.
I propose an addition to this rule to deprecate the use of ô and û, instead favoring consistency and always using ō and ū, respectively. The changed rule would read something like this:
#Long o and u are always written with macrons as ō and ū respectively. The use of ô and û is deprecated, and ō and ū should always be used instead. If you have difficulty typing these characters with your IME, you can now click on the special characters below the Wikipedia edit box. You can also enter the HTML entity ō for ō, and ū for ū.
Comments? --nihon 19:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the use of HTML entities is also deprecated now that Wikipedia uses UTF-8, in fact, robots are gardening Wikipedia by automatically replacing entities by the characters themselves. There seems to be no need to keep that last line in the MoS:JP. JeroenHoek 19:26, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Even if clicking on the characters in the edit box doesn't work, a person can copy and paste them. --nihon 19:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Concur.  Leaving that last part in will only add to any confusion already present.--み使い Mitsukai 19:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Of course, the addition is quite alright. :) JeroenHoek 20:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed it does.  ^_^--み使い Mitsukai 23:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. —Nightstallion (?) 11:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Agree.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  13:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Romanisation

message: Now I am planning to make some articles related to the Korea-originated Japanese clan, Kudara no Konikishi (百済王) and I am wondering how do I decide the title of the article for the members, for example, 百済王敬福 (Kudara no Konikishi Kyofuku).  In the other articles, Kabanes such as Omi or Muraji are not included their names.  In Kyofuku's case, Konikishi is Kabane so the title of the article should be Kudara no Kyofuku.  It sounds adequit but my concern is that the title of the article in the Japanese version is ja:百済王敬福...  Some comments? --Corruptresearcher 22:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest doing a Google search and seeing which is used more often in English. --日本 22:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are quite rarely known in the English world... "Kudara Konikishi Shun'tetsu" had one hit  while "Kudara Shun'tetsu" got two . "Kudara Kyofuku" is not known [].  --Corruptresearcher 23:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, I would go with the title used by the Japanese article: Kudara no Konikishi Kyōfuku. --日本穣 23:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, and I would also put in a couple redirects using other "common" titles. --日本穣 23:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kudara no Konikishi (百済王)

message: I reorganized and clarified things a bit on the main page. --日本穣 00:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Organizing