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Is there anything specific in MOS:JAPAN regarding the use of {{link-interwiki}} or similar templates for links to Japanese Wikipedia articles. "Linking to Japanese Wikipedia articles" says that the "[[ja:article name]]" format must be used, but that section could have been written before the "link-interwiki" templates were created. Anyway, just curious whether the use of "link-interwiki" templates is something that is discouraged. I tried searching the archives, but was unable to find anything regarding the use of this particular template. If, by chance, it has already been discussed, then I'd be most appreciative if somebody could post the relevant link. Thanks in advance. - Marchjuly (talk)

Thanks for the reply Curly Turkey. I think I may have misinterpreted the meaning of MOS:JP#Linking to Japanese Wikipedia. It uses "Junichiro Koizumi" as an example as says

When interwiki linking to the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia, omit spaces from the Japanese page name. For example a page beginning Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎 Koizumi Jun'ichirō?, born January 8, 1942) …must be linked as [[ja:小泉純一郎]] (no space between 小泉 and 純一郎).

My mistake was completely overlooking the word corresponding and focusing too much on must. It seems to be saying that if there exists an article in both English Wikipedia and Japanese Wikipedia, links to the Japanese Wikipedia article should use the [[ja:"(Japanese Wikipedia) article name"]] format which makes complete sense since using a "link-interwiki" template in such a case would be meaningless. My bad. Sorry for any confusion I caused. - Marchjuly (talk) 04:46, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
PS: Personally, I think it would be good for MOS:JAPAN to make reference to "link-interwiki" templates since they can be quite useful. - Marchjuly (talk) 04:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Hyphenation of compound terms

Japanese terms composed of several words are sometimes presented in our articles as hyphenated combinations (Jika-tabi, Jo-ha-kyū, Wabi-sabi), but also sometimes encountered separated just by blanks (Enjo kōsai, Mono no aware, Musha shugyō). Should we bring some uniformity of style to this?  --Lambiam 13:27, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I feel like this is the kind of thing that sorts itself out, by whichever is the most common English language usage. So if a particular version (wabi-sabi, wabi sabi, wabisabi) is overwhelmingly more popular than the others in modern book/scholarly/internet sources, we should request that those pages be moved. It's a little bit of a tricky situation, because the article names are technically English names (i.e. "jo-ha-kyū" how it appears and is used in the English language, not in Japanese), which is why we get Iwo Jima instead of Iō-tō. --Prosperosity (talk) 06:34, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Comment on "Iwo Jima"... this may be the commonest form in English, but it is really very odd to write it as two words, it seems to me. I'm also disturbed by the use (in Iwo Jima) of the word "officially" to mean "in Japanese", which is I believe an error. However, I dimly recall that in Japanese it is also called Iwojima (which would make sense!), and that perhaps *in Japanese* it is only "officially" Io-to [macrons]. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:05, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
The Japanese Wikipedia gives the hiragana reading いおうとう, which would normally be transliterated in macronned form as Iōtō (without hyphen). As mentioned in the article, the Geographical Survey Institute of Japan (now Geospatial Information Authority of Japan) announced on June 18, 2007, that the name was changed from「いおうじま」to「いおうとう」. That is official enough for me, but it has no clear bearing on the issue here.  --Lambiam 00:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
I think what "officially" is meant in that context is the 'used by Japanese government officials' sense, so public sector bodies use the 'Iō-tō' reading and encourage it among businesses and the population, not in the sense that someone at the government decided on a correct form and that that was the rule now. --Prosperosity (talk) 02:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
If one particular form is overwhelmingly more popular in reliable sources, then of course there is no issue. The issue arises precisely when there is no clear winner of the popularity contest, in which case it is unlikely to "sort itself out" spontaneously.  --Lambiam 00:29, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
There is a precedent at Wikipedia when people were debating which type of English to use in an article when the subject didn't have strong ties to the UK or the US (color vs. colour) (WP:RETAIN) and no logical argument for either form being better. It was compromised that "the variety used in the first non-stub revision is considered the default" when nothing could be established, which is a line of thinking I think can apply to using macrons/spaces in Japanese-related titles. If there's no logical reason for one way over another, going with the article's status quo is probably best. --Prosperosity (talk) 02:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Mandatory disambiguation for Japanese places?

NAC:The discussion of so-called mandatory disambiguation, which is really the requirement to add the prefecture name after the city name, has attracted more heat than light. However, among those editors who stated their positions, there is consensus to drop the requirement. This does not mean that existing references with city name and prefecture name should be edited to remove the prefecture name, only that its use is not required. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:50, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should MOS:JAPAN continue to require disambiguation for unique place names? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

MOS:JAPAN currently reads:

For cities, use the form [[{city-name}, {prefecture-name}]]; for example, Otaru, Hokkaido. Exception: For designated cities, use [[{city-name}]] without appending the prefecture unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary.

This means that places that do not need to be disambiguated (for example, Yuza) are being preemptively disambiguated (Yuza, Yamagata). The rationale appears to be based on the contentious neverending debate that is WP:USPLACE, but the rationale behind USPLACES does not hold for Japanese places. For example:

  1. Nearly 50% of US places need to be disambiguated
  2. Style guides recommend [place], [state] for US places
  3. It is common in speech and writing to refer to US places as [place], [state]

I'm not aware of any style guide that recommends MOS:JAPAN's titling convention, and I know from personal experience that people don't go around saying things like "Yuza, Yamagata" (compare to how frequently people will say "Omaha, Nebraska" without thinking).

It seems to me that MOS:JAPAN's mandating disambiguation for place names is unnatural, unsupported by style guides, serves to solve no identified problem, and is instruction creep. I think it's time to do away with it and fall back on standard naming conventions. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Naming conventions in Japan for the most part match what we're doing here in English. For anything other than the major cities that everyone knows, they will append the prefecture name. There may only be one article known by the name "Yuza" on the English Wikpedia, but I'm pretty sure that in reliable sources it is mentioned as being in Yamagata rather than just being acknowledged as a Japanese city.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Which is why the article itself says it's a town in Yamagata. Your comment has nothing to do with titling. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
it shows that in common parlance, minor cities and towns throughout Japan are disambiguated as much as the lesser cities of the United States.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
It shows nothing of the sort, you've cited no source to demonstrate it, and you've not demonstrated any pressing need for it to be done in the titles. Itnever would have occurred to me to look up Yaizu under Yaizu, Shizuoka. People simply don't refer to it that way as a habit, the way that Americans habitually refer to Phoenix even in casual speech as "Phoenix, Arizona". In sixteen years living in Shizuoka I have yet have heard a single person refer to Yaizu as "Yaizu, Shizuoka". Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 03:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Further, USPLACES, as has already been pointed out, is hotly disputed---hardly a precedent for MOS:JAPAN to follow. Even Canadian articles don't follow it---check out Medicine Hat and Seven Persons (population 231). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 03:17, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't know. Every time I see the news on nhk they always add the prefecture name. Even if it's the uchinaguchi inspired names of the places here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:27, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  • First, let's be clear that this isn't a disambiguation issue... the issue is the desire for recognizability and naturalness. To me the underlying question is simple... are Japanese towns and cities generally (ie not specifically) referred to using a "town name, province name" format, or a "town name" format (without the province appended)? I don't know the answer to that question, but we would look to sources (not our own personal observations) to determine that answer. In other words... first we see which format the sources use, then Wikipedia should consistently use that same format ... because that format (whichever it is) will be more natural and recognizable. Blueboar (talk) 12:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I very much agree with ending this (really rather odd) idea. Really rather odd if you are not an American, since this sort of naming convention is almost entirely a US thing -- have you ever heard a non-American say "London, England" or "Paris, France". (Or "Tokyo, Japan" for that matter.) Imaginatorium (talk) 12:09, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

No... but then those are large cities that almost anyone would be familiar with. It is more common for non-Americans to append the province when they refer to smaller cities and towns. A lot depends on who the person is talking to... For example, an English friend of mine will say he comes from "Odstock" when talking to someone from Wiltshire, but he will say he comes from "Odstock, Wiltshire" when speaking to people who are not from the area. Blueboar (talk) 12:47, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Blueboar is correct. Here is what I suggest we all do;

  1. Edit this section and copy/paste these numbered bullets into a new comment from you below, and fill in the following
  2. think of a Japanese city:
  3. go to that city's article
  4. find a category to which it belongs that is a category that includes other cities in Japan. Category: (remember to insert colon before word Category)
  5. Click on that category
  6. randomly pick a city with a unique name in that category. City:
  7. Do some searches on the web, in Google books, and Google scholar (if the city name is not unique; go back to previous step).
  8. report back on your findings regarding the usage of that. Report:

--В²C ☎ 18:08, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

  1. think of a Japanese city: Yokohama
  2. go to that city's article
  3. find a category to which it belongs that is a category that includes other cities in Japan. Category: Category:Populated coastal places in Japan
  4. Click on that category
  5. randomly pick a city with a unique name in that category. City: Kisosaki, Mie
  6. Do some searches on the web, in Google books, and Google scholar (if the city name is not unique; go back to previous step).
  7. report back on your findings regarding the usage of that. Report: not much out there, but could not find any references to "Kisosaki, Mie" when searching for "Kisosaki".

--В²C ☎ 18:08, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

  • As Born2Cycle ahs pointed out, [place], [prefecture] is not the way places are referred to in Japan. The closest you'll see is, for the "Kisosaki" example, "Kisosaki-chō, Mie" (the "-chō" means "town"; for Yaizu, you'd append "-shi" for "city", and for Tokyo you'd append "-to" for "metropolis"). Just as I said, there is no support for this naming scheme either in style guides or common usage. It's a Wiki-invention. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 20:55, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

While I can agree that Japanese people typically don't refer to cities with prefecture name included, I don't think that's really a strong reason for an article naming policy on English wikipedia. Rather, it would be better if our policy is consistent with how articles are titled for other cities in non-English speaking countries. As an English-speaking visitor to Wikipedia, I would be surprised if all Japanese city articles were titled "[City], [Prefecture]" while for cities in other countries I am equally unfamiliar with like China, they were not. Can we not expect that the average English-speaking visitor is not going to be familiar with the names of administrative divisions of these sorts of countries? Mikethegreen (talk) 21:31, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Of course most readers will not be familiar with the administrative divisions, and there is virtually no chance they will perform a search for Yaizu, Shizuoka if "Yaizu, Shizuoka" is not the form they will run across in the majority of sources (and it's not). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:57, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Well, there are two questions.
  1. What format shall be followed when the name of the city is unique?
  2. What format shall be followed when the name of the city is ambiguous with other uses, is not the primary topic, and so requires disambiguation?
In theory the answer could be the same to both of these questions. City, Prefecture-name would work for both. However, we could also answer just the city name for #1, and City, Prefecture-name when disambiguation is required. The latter approach is most consistent with how we name cities for most other countries.

Is there any other format we should use, at least for #2? --В²C ☎ 00:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there a dispute over the formatting? I disagree with it, but that was not the topic of this RfC—the topic is whether disambiguation should continue to be mandated for unique titles. If someone wants to have the disambiguation format changed, that should be brought up in a separate RfC. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
So as far as this RfC is concerned, if disambiguation is required (ambiguous city name), the Cityname, Prefecture-name format will be used... correct? Given no other proposed alternative, I'm fine with that, as that's what we use for other countries. So the only question on the table here is whether to use this format (include the prefecture name in the title), even when disambiguation is not necessary. Given the lack of argument for unnecessary disambiguation, I support disambiguation only when necessary. --В²C ☎ 07:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree with B2C; conciseness generally favors having only the city name, where that name is unambiguous. There appears to be a stronger case for this limitation with respect to Japanese city names than with American city names, which tend towards ambiguity. bd2412 T 14:56, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of a disambiguation, but of consistency/style of describing municipalities of Japan. The current MoS, i.e. the city/town/village, prefecture name format, is simple and systematic and very understandable. I don't understand why should it be more complicated. Curly Turkey, people in Shizuoka are familiar with communities in Shizuoka and it is a matter of common knowledge that they do not say pref. name. Just saying "Yaizu" is not necessary understandable in Hokkaido or Okinawa. When someone says "I was born in Yuza", I'd ask back "In what prefecture?". I didn't know the town till I saw this talk. Additionally, please revert this edit of yours as there's no consensus so far. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 08:34, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

  • @Oda Mari: In what way is this different from, say, Canada or any of the other countries that follow the general standards and do not preemptively disambiguate? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 09:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
  • In response to your Yaizu comments, I have yet to hear anyone in real life refer to Toyohashi as Toyohashi, Aichi; Fujiyoshida as Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi; or Hachinohe as Hachinohe, Aomori. Neither have I seen any evidence that these are likely search terms, nor evidence that style guides recommend this usage. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:11, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
    • People from Shizuoka may know where Yaizu is, but when a native of Yaizu is describing his hometown to someone from far away, he would most likely say that he is from "Shizuoka-ken no Yaizu", and not that he is from "Yaizu", even if there is only one Yaizu in all of Japan. Official news broadcasts (such as NHK) and newspapers invariably give the prefecture name as well as the municipality name, even for relatively large cities. The "city name, prefecture name" format is quite often the practice for English-language newspapers, such as this one small example [1]. MChew (talk) 14:51, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
      • @MChew: I feel like a broken record: (a) why would what you say apply to Japan but not Canada or any of the other countries that follow the general guidelines? (b) what evidence is there that readers ever use "Hachinohe, Aomori" as a search term? (c) your example uses the form "Matsumoto, Nagano Pref.", not "Matsumoto, Nagano". In fact, the latter is almost entirely absent from a news search, found only in an article from the Russian Legal Information Agency. Actually, I'm striking the latter two, as everyone who wants to mandate disambiguation seems to want to dodge answering (a), and I don't want to give you that opportunity. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 19:59, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, continue existing MOS:JAPAN practice e.g. Add prefecture except for top 50 20 cities, per User:MChew harms no one, helps everyone. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:27, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
    • @In ictu oculi: "harms no one,[citation needed] helps everyone[citation needed]": Who does it help? No one, as there is no evidence at all that anyone ever uses the form as a search term. It hurts editors like myself, as when I simply wanted to list a number of Yamagata municipalities in Departures. "Top 50 cities" is entirely arbitrary, and unsupported by the guidelines. "Hurts some, helps no one, contravenes sitewide guidelines and generally accepted practice" is more like it. Do you have any evidence---any at all---that a person wanting to find Yuza" will not find it without ", Yamagata" being appended to it? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 20:06, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
      Redirects are cheap though. And the list of Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan isn't arbitrary. Obviously, the major metropolitan centers shouldn't be disambiguated unless there's a need, but it doesn't really matter if these minor cities are disambiguated or not so why bother changing everything?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
      @Ryulong: That's right, redirects are cheap, so follow the sitewide guidelines and redirect Yuza, Yamagata to Yuza and everyone should be happy. Right? You still haven't answered the question of why this exception should apply to Japan but not other countries such as Canada. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 20:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Hello User:Curly Turkey, 1. it helps everyone for the reasons newspapers and books use prefectures with minor cities. 2. you can still list/link without writing the prefecture in Departures (film), what's the problem? 3. Okay use the 20 cities if that's the preferred list. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:28, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
@In ictu oculi: The community has rejected that reasoning for most non-US countries (and WP:USPLACE is itself is hotly disputed). The reasons it's retained for US places are stated above—none of these points apply to Japanese places. Again, I'm feeling like a broken record: what makes Japanese places an exception to the standard that Canada and other countries follow—the sitewide standard? You, MChew, and Ryulong have yet to volunteer an answer to this simple question. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:24, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
That the names are less familiar than Canada, not being "anglo", and that the prefectures are more included in book and newspaper sources than Canada - which is the same argument why USPLACE is accepted and not hotly disputed. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:39, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  1. "USPLACE is accepted and not hotly disputed":USPLACE is so hotly disputed that a long list of archives of the dispute is displayed prominently at the top of the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)
  2. "names are less familiar than Canada, not being 'anglo'"[citation needed]—and how on earth does appending another unfamiliar name to the title help in any way?
  3. Did you just skip the "and other countries" bit? What about Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Vietnam, Germany ... and, in fact, virtually every other country?
  4. "prefectures are more included in book and newspaper sources than Canada"[citation needed]
In ictu oculi, you can't just make these claims without backing them up. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:01, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes I can. I'm expressing my view based on my experience. USPLACE is not hotly disputed it is in place and working fine. Yes there are a couple of editors who hotly dispute it, that isn't the same thing. USPLACE works. The answers to the other questions others can mull on. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:03, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely astounding response. Note to closer: please take into account that the user has openly declared they will not make the effort to substantiate their claims. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Note to closer, yes by all means please take into account that I have openly declared I "will not make the effort to substantiate their claims" - or alternatively, closer, please take my view as being what I said, and also note that second tier Japanese city names, like US place names, generally are mentioned with their prefecture as US place names with state. I do not know if this is because the prefectures have more identity than say French or UK or Australia country subdivisions or what the reason is, but the use of prefectures improves WP:CRITERIA recognizability while, as US:PLACE, harming no one. Therefore again: Yes, please continue existing MOS:JAPAN practice. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
"generally are mentioned with their prefecture": Easily refuted: "yaizu" (909,000 hits) vs. 'yaizu -"yaizu shizuoka"' (600,000 hits). Yaizu alone appears 100% more often in articles in which the string "yaizu shizuoka" appears nowhere at all at any point in the article. Note that the hits that include "yaizu shizuoka" returns hits for "yaizu.shizuoka" (in URLs), "... Yaizu. Shizuoka ...", and all other permutations, not just "Yaizu, Shizuoka" in the <City>, <Prefecture> form. Why don't you back up your claims? Because your claims cannot be backed up. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 04:39, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Region-specific guidance, a site-wide guideline, defers the format of the article title to country-specific Wikiprojects. I do not see in the guideline where it is mandatory that all countries follow the same format. Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation, a site-wide policy, states <quote> Bothell is precise enough to be unambiguous, but we instead use Bothell, Washington (see Geographic names), seeking a more natural and recognizable title. (It is also consistent with most other articles on American cities.” Yes, WP:USPLACE may be highly contentious, but it is still the current MOS which is in place per consensus.
Articles currently exist for all current and many former municipalities in Japan. With the exception of the “designated cities”, all these articles are currently titled as per the existing WP:MOS-JA of “city, prefecture”, with a redirect from “city”. The main argument for change appears to be Wikipedia:Unnecessary disambiguation, but (as the hat note states), this only an essay and is not actually a site-wide policy, and defers to Wikipedia:Disambiguation and Wikipedia:Article Titles, and I am yet to be convinced that this is a compelling and overriding argument, and that changing the existing will bring some concrete benefit.MChew (talk) 07:08, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
The USPLACE consensus is based on arguments that do not apply to Japanese places (style guide recommendations, widespread use). <Place>, <Prefecture> is neither recommended by style guides, nor in widespread use—per Born2cycle above: could not find any references to "Kisosaki, Mie" when searching for "Kisosaki". The format is a fantasy, and does not exist in widespread actual usage. What "concrete benefit" is there to mandating a format that does not exist outside of Wikipedia (and therefore is an unlikely search term)? What "concrete benefit" is there in being vigilant in enforcing it by moving articles back to that format, when the redirects continue to exist?
"I do not see in the guideline where it is mandatory that all countries follow the same format.": Nobody claimed it did. My argument is that there is no benefit to mandated disambiguation when the format follows no off-Wiki standard and there is no evidence that such a format would ever be used as search terms—why would it, when it is not encountered in Real Life? Again, the empirical example of "Kisosaki, Mie" is very relevant. There is a benefit in (a) easier linking—the backbone of a Wiki; (b) reducing instruction creep; (c) the predictability of following a format that is standard elsewhere—and the community standard virtually for everywhere but US places is for no unnecessary disambiguation. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 07:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@MChew: When I moved Yuza, it was because I was aware of the general sitewide standard to prefer disambiguated unique titles. When I discovered Yuza was unique, I assumed it was a mistake, and moved it. I'm sure I'm not the first to have made this "mistake", and I'm sure I won't be the last. Do you volunteer to watchlist every Japanese municipality and stand vigilant to revert every other such "mistake" until the end of time? If not, then there's another "concrete benefit" to abolishing unnecesary disambiguation. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 08:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm. [2] in an English language page; [3] on a Japanese dictionary page. [4] on another English language page. So, I cannot agree that the format "Yuza, Yamagata" (for example) is completely "unnatural" and is never encountered in "real life". MChew (talk) 08:09, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Nobody said it was never encountered, and edge cases remain edge cases. Zero hits for Kisosaki is pretty remarkable, no? The fact remains that it is by no stretch of the imagination any kind of "standard". Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 08:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
The Weblio hit is entirely spurious: it is simply echoing back the search term. Try replacing Yuza by Nara, and Yamagata by Nara: "No entry for Nara, Nara" Imaginatorium (talk) 14:34, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Ha! I didn't even notice that: "ウィキペディア英語版 出典： Wikipedia Yuza, Yamagata 出典:『Wikipedia』". Though it was already clear that search results have been contaminated with pages that reuse Wikipedia content. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 20:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Because I think our MoS-Ja is more systematic and more encyclopedic than theirs. Why should we follow other countries MoS? We can have our own MoS, can't we? Remember Ignore all rules. Two different formats, "city, prefecture" for ambiguous name and "city" for unique name, could make general readers puzzled. If a non-ja speaking general reader wants to know about Yamagata prefecture and its municipalities and see the city articles, s/he would find some have the prefecture name and some don't. The reader could be puzzled. I think the double standard should be avoided. Prefecture name helped me too. If there was no prefecture name, I wouldn't have noticed the wrong link because 八幡 is read as both Yahata and Yawata and I didn't remember the correct reading of the former city in Fukuoka. Even a native ja-speaker does not remember city names correctly. It seems to me that you do not see the forest for the trees. Oda Mari (talk) 09:54, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

We have our own MoS to deal with those Japan-specific cases that cannot practically be dealt with in the more general guidelines, not so that we can take ownership of these articles (which belong properly to the whole community) and load them up with capricious, invented-from-whole-cloth rules (while puzzlingly justifying the proliferation of instruction creep with the "Ignore All Rules" mantra, à la "War is Peace", "Freedom is "Slavery"...) The more rules we have in different corners of Wikipedia, the less likely editors will be able or willing to comply---and conflicting rules, as in MoS vs Mos-JA onlt make it worse, as editors who believe they know the rules find out the rule has been overridden by some WikiProject in-group. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 10:38, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
The Japanese articles are all inherently disambiguated, as they incorporate the kanji for city/town/village in their names. Following this line of reasoning, 遊佐町 should be “Yuza-machi”, or “Yuza Town” (which is what appears on the town’s official home page) or perhaps even “Yuza (town)”. This is not the same as simply titling the article “Yuza” (遊佐). The current MOS-JA does not violate Wikipedia sitewide guidelines or policy. Yes, it is not the same format followed for the municipality articles for many other countries, but simply because most other countries use a different format does not make that format the "sitewide guidelines". MChew (talk) 15:37, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Ambiguity still can occur, even with kanji. See ja:府中市_(広島県) and ja:府中市_(東京都). Mikethegreen (talk) 16:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
A stretch and a half, given that (a) the municipality markers (-shi, -chō, -mura, etc) are considered so tied with the municipality that the are transliterated with hyphens---and it might be pointed out that this convention is disallowed on the English Wikipedia (we are not allowed to call Shizuoka, Shizuoka "Shizuoka City", despite that and "Shizuoka-shi" being common conventions).
But far more important than that: the argument is that we need the prefecture name, otherwise we won't know where in Japan the municipality is. Neither the Japanese Wikipedia, nor the vast majority of countries on the English Wikipedia buy that argument---and the one major exception backs up its exception with empirical facts (style guide recommendations, and demonstrating that it's a widespread, natural convention).
Also, don't think I've missed that you ignored this direct question---there is a clear, concrete benefit to not having guidelines that contradict or override each other. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:42, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
That is true, but as has already been pointed out "Morioka" is "actually used" a whole lot more than "Morioka, Iwate", and judging by the use of the word "no" it seems Clodhopper Deluxe agrees with me (and you). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
I submit it is not actually true. To the limits of empirical investigation, I imagine Nara is called "Nara, Nara" almost exactly as many times as it is given an honorific and called "O-nara". Imaginatorium (talk) 11:29, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Har har, very punny (while remarkably making a valid point). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 12:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I was taking Curly Turkey's claim that the comma-prefecture format is a "Wiki-invention" at face value. Even if some people do use it in the real world, it is certainly the less common format. Clodhopper Deluxe (talk) 02:07, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
    • It's a "Wiki-invention" to the extent that it's based neither on the recommendations of style authorities, nor on common usage, but on the personal preferences of a handful of Wikipedians. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:28, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support removing arbitrary preemptive disambiguation for Japanese municipalities. I made this proposal about a year and half ago, and was shouted down with "your proposal would create too much work, when we should be actually working to improve the articles". This was a moot point then and it's a moot point now. Changing the MOS to reflect actual usage (no one outside of English Wikipedia and sources derivative of English Wikipedia follows this style) is not work, and RMing a bunch of pages isn't that much work either. Hell, Japanese-style "Toponym Levelofmunicipality" ("Tanohata Village", etc.) is more common in English-language reliable sources than the nonsense the current MOS forces on us. I'd almost even go for the incredibly ugly and over-translated "the town of Taiji" found in a lot of western news outlets that repackaged material they found in literally translated Japanese documents without knowing any better. And this isn't even mentioning the indisputable fact that fixing the article titles so they actually make sense is improving the articles. Period. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:21, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support removal of unnecessary disambiguation. The current system (and I'll grant that it is a system) seems odd. Itami is a redirect to Itami, Hyōgo. No other place called Itami has an article. The corresponding article in ja:WP is plain ja:伊丹市, which lacks any disambiguating hatnote. (Interestingly, ja:WP does have ja:伊丹町, but this is about the same place at a different time.) And of course other homophones are imaginable (板見, etc) but I'm not aware of significant places that are currently so named. Asked for "itami" (roman letters), Google Maps serves up just one place outside this pleasant dormitory town for Osaka: an area within Tsukuba-mirai-shi that (without wishing to denigrate its inhabitants) I'd say is insignificant. Gentilly, Val-de-Marne is so titled because there are other Gentillies; Rungis, Santeny, Villejuif and others are also in Val-de-Marne but the title of each skips mention of this because there's no pressing need for it. ¶ Some distance above, somebody writes: First, let's be clear that this isn't a disambiguation issue... the issue is the desire for recognizability and naturalness. Ah. As it happens, I do know of Villejuif, and Santeny sounds vaguely familiar. But until minutes ago I'd never heard of Rungis. Should its article therefore be retitled "Rungis, Val-de-Marne"? But if so, what percentage of en:WP's readership can say roughly where (or even what) "Val-de-Marne" or "Hyōgo" is? For recognizability, perhaps "Gentilly, Paris suburb" and "Itami, Osaka suburb". However, such titles would be very contentious. And they'd clash with naturalness: with this in mind, plain "Rungis" and "Itami". -- Hoary (talk) 03:22, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment. I think Curly Turkey and Imaginatorium are onto something in suggesting that the urge to append the prefecture may follow a practice that's commoner in the US than elsewhere. Does any Brit in Britain (outside Kent) normally talk of "Leeds, Yorkshire" or "Leeds, York"? But about one and a half minutes into "Dancing in the streets", Martha Reeves sings/lipsyncs "Philadelphia PA", without any hint that this satirizes pedantry or is otherwise strange. -- Hoary (talk) 00:36, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
    • The thing with claiming it's commoner in one place and less common elsewhere is that anyone can simply say "Everyone I know says it such-and-such a way." USPLACE (correctly) goes the empirical route—it cites style guides that require <city>, <state>. We can still argue it's not an appropriate style for Wikipedia for other reasons, but at least they have some empirical evidence for the usage. <city>, <prefecture> is neither a commonly-accepted standard nor one thta is recommended (let alone required) by style guides. The arguments for <city>, <prefecture> boil down to ILIKEIT and "I managed to dig up an example from some backwater corner of the internet [that happens to quote Wikipedia]". Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:11, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
      • I think the decision is made easier by concentrating on Nara, Nara, Tochigi, Tochigi, Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi, and so on, and so on. (Hope I puncuated that right!) Surely to a non-American ear at least they sound like absurd nonsense... whereas it really is a normal thing to say "New York, New York." (Didn't it even make a song somewhere? But ironically, the WP article is "New York City".) I also think that while someone quoted "Odstock, Wiltshire", in fact it is much more usual to say "Painswick in Gloucestershire" (in my case), and I guess that an American ear might often simply miss the unstressed "in". If disambiguation is required, personally I would prefer the parenthesised form "Painswick (Gloucestershire)", but it is not a big deal. If disambiguation is not required, then frankly all the discussions about whether Japanese people routinely say "Sano, Tochigi" seem to have missed the elephant in the room, which is that Japanese people routinely speak to each other in Japanese, and are likely to say 栃木県の佐野 (Tochigi-ken no Sano) for example if explaining where they are from while in some remote corner of Kyushu. But they are never (I think) going to say 栃木県栃木市 (Tochigiken Tochigishi), even though this is a fragment of the standard address format. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:26, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support removing unnecessary disambiguation. While it's true that a country's MOS or place naming guidelines do not have to follow other countries, the fact that almost all other countries do not have pre-emptive disambiguation in titling articles about their places should be highly considered. Remember, the reasons put forward by several people here for adding unnecessary disambiguation can also be provided for all other countries. Yet, most other countries do not put up with unnecessary disambiguation. —seav (talk) 16:04, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ryūlóng's argument above. Holdek (talk) 18:18, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
"Naming conventions in Japan for the most part match what we're doing here in English. For anything other than the major cities that everyone knows, they will append the prefecture name. There may only be one article known by the name 'Yuza' on the English Wikpedia, but I'm pretty sure that in reliable sources it is mentioned as being in Yamagata rather than just being acknowledged as a Japanese city." And, "Every time I see the news on nhk they always add the prefecture name." Holdek (talk) 21:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes, plenty of reliable sources will mention that Yuza is in Yamagata; they won't identify it as a city because even according to the bizarre notion that "city" is a good translation of -shi, it's not a city. They may mention that it's at the far north of Yamagata, or that it's between X and Y. Contrary to US custom, there's no compulsion to say Yamagata-ken no Yuza-machi (which is entirely idiomatic), let alone Yuza, Yamagata (which isn't). -- Hoary (talk) 23:19, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for explicating. I thought it was strange that you would single out Ryulong, given that MChew and Oda Mari made far more forceful arguments, and given how thoroughly Ryulong's arguments have been refuted. Have you read through the discussion? Remember, polling is not a substitute for discussion, and if you have shown no evidence of having participated in, or at least read through, the discussion, and have simply shown up to plunk down your support, the closer can simply ignore your !vote. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:24, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Remember: assume good faith. Also remember that you asked me to elaborate, and even though I didn't have to, I did so anyway out of courtesy. --Holdek (talk) 02:45, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps you should AGF yourself. I was reminding you that your voice will be discarded if you have nothing to contribute to the discussion, as per the policy WP:CONSENSUS: "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." There is a long history of RfCs that were closed in favour of the minority of !votes. If the issue matters to you, present an argument. If you don't care enough to present an argument, and consider the counter-arguments, then your !vote is nothing but noise, and deserves to be ignored. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:53, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
You need to be civil. Your arguments will be ignored if they are viewed as angry threats and attacks. Holdek (talk) 15:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Wow. Just, wow. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:31, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support because I've yet to see a compelling reason this was done in the first place. Mikethegreen (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support doing away with pointless instruction creep; I honestly thought stronger, more thoughtful arguments in its favour would show up during the discussion, but it has become clear the rationale for mandatory disambiguation amounts to no more than WP:ILIKEIT. To sum up:
    • Pre-emptive disambiguation solves no concrete problem, while increasing instruction creep, which makes following the rules a less easy task.
    • <Place>, <Prefecture> has little currency in real life, and none in style guides or other authorities.
    • There is no evidence that <Place>, <Prefecture> is a likely search term, and thus is unlikely to be helpful to readers.
  • Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:24, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Most Asian places are unique enough not to have to adopt this practice of unnecessary disambiguation. The names are hard enough to remember, what more by adding an extra "confusion" in the form of an equally hard-to-remember prefecture name.--RioHondo (talk) 09:01, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment. Above, I mentioned the avoidance of disambiguating subtitles (or whatever the ", Yamagata" part is best called) in French names. I then wondered about nations closer to Japan. One of the closest is South Korea. I looked up Masan (as a town whose location people might not immediately know) and was surprised (and momentarily shocked) to discover that it no longer existed. (It's been swallowed up -- as is common in Japan.) Its successor is within Category:Cities in South Gyeongsang Province. Admittedly this category is sparsely populated by articles, but not one of its articles is titled comma anything, or parentheses around anything. The largest subcategory is Category:Miryang; this in turn does include such articles as Cheontaesan (South Gyeongsang), but this is because there's also Cheontaesan (Chungcheong). ¶ I'm no expert in toponyms and wouldn't be surprised if other nations too shared the US fondness for "toponym, holonym"; but it does seem to be more than averagely associated with the US and it doesn't seem a general trend in en:Wikipedia. -- Hoary (talk) 01:29, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Canadian places used to be preemptively disambiguated the way US places are, but that was done away with in 2008. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
      • Comment IMO, this should have been done even earlier as this is the English wikipedia and not too many Japanese can speak or even read the language. (They even only recently installed English signs in Tokyo in line with Japan's hosting of the 2020 olympics). What that sole objector is saying probably holds true in the Japanese language media and web but as less than 1% or 3% tops actually go online surfing the english web there, i doubt theyd even care or notice the english wikipedia. As far as we in the English speaking side of Asia is concerned, Japanese places are just as unique as most other places here (they have complete monopoly of the language for one), and it would be more convenient for all of us if we don't have to second guess an article on a place there with prefecture names that not everyone is familiar with.--RioHondo (talk) 02:28, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
        • Are you sure about those signs? I've lived in Shizuoka since 1998, and we've had bilingual signs at least since then (trilingual in some areas: Japanese, English, and Portuguese).
        • 1, 2, 3. --RioHondo (talk) 04:07, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
          • You've misread—they're increasing the amount of English on signs (and changing some of the styling of them to make them more foreigner-friendly), which is very, very different from "only recently installed English signs in Tokyo". I can assure you there's no lack of English on signs in Tokyo, and such signs have been there for a long, long time. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 04:34, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
            • Im saying English words not words that are in Roman/English letters. But anyways you get my main point. :)--RioHondo (talk) 04:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
              • No, I'm saying there's plenty of actual English, and the articles above refer to increasing that, not introducing it for the first time. Have you never been in a train station in Tokyo? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:29, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
                • OT: I have been to Tokyo once, 2007. There are signs but asking around for directions was tough, as it was rare to encounter a local who knows english. Of course, you really have to study the place to get to where you want to go, unlike Singapore, Manila or KL where you can go practically anywhere just from the advice of locals without having to bring a guidebook. Even HK has plently of English signs, but the number of locals who speak the language is not that much compared to those SE Asian cities. But anyway, as far WP is concerned, japanese article titles on places need not be disambiguated as the great majority of them have no namesakes. --RioHondo (talk) 05:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
                  • Conversational English levels certainly are exceptionally low for East Asia—English is taught for test-passing rather than for communication. You won't see that change in any meaningful way by 2020. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 07:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Suppport removal of unnecessary style rule of pre-emptive disambiguation. Many years ago, the Japanese place articles were not titles in this strange way and the original practice of disambiguating only when necessary should be restored. Follow the style of Japanese Wikipedia. The article title for place names does not have to be an address. We just need to use the most succinct name for the place and only add a qualifier as appropriate for disambiguation. --Polaron | Talk 04:24, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

'Names of modern figures' addendum

Even though the MOS doesn't state this, in some instances modern Japanese figures are customarily referred to by [family][given] order on the English wikipedia: modern kabuki actors such as Nakamura Kanzaburō XVIII, sumo wrestlers such as Udagawa Katsutarō and Yamaha's Vocaloid synthesiser personas, such as Hatsune Miku and Megurine Luka. Should the MOS be edited to reflect these things (it currently says 'always'), or should it be debated a bit to see if people think these pages should be in the reverse name order? --Prosperosity (talk) 12:32, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Pseudonyms are listed as exceptions are they not?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:09, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough, but I'm not sure if you can call Hatsune Miku a pseudonym, since the character doesn't have any other name. --Prosperosity (talk) 08:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Well this is where WP:COMMONNAME covers things as the character is always called "Hatsune Miku" and never "Miku Hatsune".—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Revision of last section

Currently the MOS has this for Using_Japanese_characters_on_the_English_Wikipedia:

Since the conversion of the English Wikipedia to to the use of the UTF-8 character encoding, most characters used around the world can be directly used in Wikipedia articles. Since these characters are supported by the UTF-8 standard they are no longer converted to character references, with the exception of a few characters reserved for usage in HTML, such as the ampersand.

Fonts for Japanese are standard for most modern operating systems. Nonetheless, some users may not have the fonts needed to display kanji and kana; therefore Japanese fonts should normally be accompanied by Latin transliterations (rōmaji).

IMO the underlined part about character references is getting to be ancient history, so I don't see much need to explain that anymore. Also, in the second paragraph, the problem now is less that that readers can't see Japanese characters and more that they don't know what they mean or how to pronounce them. So I'd like to propose a rewrite as follows.

Since the conversion of the English Wikipedia to UTF-8 character encoding, most characters used around the world can be used directly in Wikipedia articles. That includes Japanese.

Fonts for Japanese are standard for most modern operating systems. Nonetheless, some users may not have the fonts needed to display kanji and kana, and many users will not know how to pronounce them. Therefore Japanese characters should normally be accompanied by Latin transliterations (rōmaji).

I considered adding that there should be an English translation in the vicinity, for the meaning. But I left that out as being too obvious. Appreciate any comments. --Margin1522 (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

In the absence of objections, I went ahead and made this change. --Margin1522 (talk) 06:41, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Linking to Japanese Wikipedia section is outdated

The Linking to Japanese Wikipedia section is outdated. It explains the old system of linking between Wikipedias with a list of links at the bottom of the source page. Now that is all handled by the new WikiData interlanguage system. I think this section needs to be updated to explain how to use the new system. We should also be linking to a different help page, the one at Help:Interlanguage links. Which itself is outdated. Is anyone familiar with using the new system? I have used it a couple of times after creating a page by translating an article from the Japanese Wikipedia. Perhaps we could explain it from that viewpoint. --Margin1522 (talk) 07:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the only important part of the entire section is the inline part. None of the interlinking stuff is even that relevant to the project any more, as it's all handled by Wikidata. How about this?
Linking to Japanese Wikipedia
Articles should be linked to their corresponding Japanese Wikipedia articles through Wikidata, which is displayed in the 'languages' bar to the left of the article. There is generally no need to use inline links to the equivalent Japanese Wikipedia article for any words in an article. If a word is important enough to warrant a link, it will have an article here, in which case a standard link is sufficient. --Prosperosity (talk) 08:04, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
That looks fine to me. It would be nice to be able to link to a clear, simple explanation of how to use the Wikidata system to add languages to the languages bar. But I guess it doesn't exist yet. The article I mentioned is way too complicated for this page. I would support replacing the current section with what you have there. --Margin1522 (talk) 08:37, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
I updated this paragraph with Prosperosity's suggestion. – Margin1522 (talk) 06:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

We should probably say something about linking to kanji meanings on Wiktionary because I see that a lot too.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen that too, both in article text and as an infobox. Do you have any suggestions about how it should read? – Margin1522 (talk) 19:40, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
How about

It is not necessary to link to the Wiktionary pages of individual kanji in running text or in infoboxes. If the translation has some significance, it should be mentioned in the article.

—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
That's a good point. It could be added to the "Linking to Japanese Wikipedia" section, since the general intent is the same. By infoboxes I meant the {{Wiktionary}} infobox itself. I think there are cases when that might be appropriate. E.g. at Shizuoka (disambiguation), where I added it myself. Do you think that's appropriate? I was copying the way it had been used on a similar page, although now I can't remember which one. – Margin1522 (talk) 03:11, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh. I did not realize that was what you were referring to. I think that usage should be fine. I just see a lot of linking to individual pages on kanji at Wiktionary.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I took a look at the transclusions for {{Wiktionary}}, and there were not that many for Japanese terms. (But I didn't look at all 40,000!) Some that I did find were Karaoke, Otaku, Pokémon, Samurai, Umami, Karōshi, and Shizuoka. Of these, Otaku was a Word of the day at Wiktionary, so that might be a good one to use. How about this:

If the topic of the article has an entry at Wiktionary, you may want to consider adding a "Look up in Wiktionary" box to the "External links" section. (For examples, see Umami and Otaku.) But generally it is not necessary to link to the Wiktionary pages of individual kanji in the article text. If the translation has some significance, it should be mentioned in the article.

Then we could add Wiktionary to the section title, to make it Linking to Japanese Wikipedia and Wiktionary – Margin1522 (talk) 09:42, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion

There is a move request underway at Talk:Shizuoka, Shizuoka that includes discussion about how to interpret WP:MOS-JP. Dekimasuよ! 05:47, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

This apparently also concerns Ōita, Ōita, Tokushima, Tokushima, Tottori, Tottori, Wakayama, Wakayama, Fukui, Fukui, Gifu, Gifu, Nagano, Nagano, Chiba, Chiba, Toyama, Toyama, and Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi as well, since all were moved to replace the dab pages at the plain names last month. Still directing discussion to Talk:Shizuoka, Shizuoka on this. Dekimasuよ! 07:33, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
The Manual of Style says that in case of disambiguation you can be more specific about places. However if there is only one Gifu city for example, then it should follow the format like "Osaka", as opposed to "Gifu, Gifu". Gryffindor (talk) 09:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
It says no such thing. As has already been pointed out to you, it says:
For designated cities, use [[{city-name}]] without appending the prefecture unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary.
Why do you persistently ignore everything that's said to you? And why do you persistently make these kinds of claims? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:03, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

The talk page Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Translation note puzzles me.

Firstly, it appears to be a project page, not a talk page, but is in the project talk page namespace.

Secondly, it is flagged as under sanctions per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation but it's not clear to me how that case applies to this page.

Am I missing something? Should the page be moved to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Translation note (minus the banners that should stay on its talk page of course)? Andrewa (talk) 14:58, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I am puzzled and curious about this too. Perhaps start by looking at Japanese translation note and follow the history. Might take some digging to sort out what's going on here. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:55, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Japan-related topics notice board from November 2005. Nothing seems very controversial here. Perhaps we will never know why that editor chose "Wikipedia talk" rather than the actual project space. Doesn't seem to me that moving it to project space would be controversial, unless some of the translations themselves are controversial. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:13, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
This was originally in the article space and was never an integrated part of the MOS with any consensus; the translations there aren't necessary to follow, and the first sentence (which was carried over from the version of the "article" that first appeared in 2003) should be deleted at the least. I don't think it should be in the project space. If anything, it should be userfied. Dekimasuよ! 16:26, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
It appears that it actually started out at Wikipedia:Japanese translation note, and was moved from there to article space on 16 March 2004, and then promptly put up for deletion . There was no consensus to delete it. So there seems no basis for making it part of the Manual of Style, but it seems like perhaps a useful page for WikiProject Japan. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:51, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
I see... I guess I was fooled by the way the first revision was marked "stub." Dekimasuよ! 17:34, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
The page was (innocently, I'm sure) "put under sanctions" by this 29 December 2013 edit – well after the actual March 2012 imposition of the sanctions – by Paine Ellsworth. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:15, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
There. I just removed the template that was erroneously imposing sanctions on this page which is erroneously part of the Manual of Style. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:21, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
I went ahead and revised the intro sentence. Dekimasuよ! 17:39, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
It seems that all MOS talk pages that carry {{WPMOS}}, the project banner you removed, also carry the sanctions. That is a MOS talk page and should carry the MOS banner. Perhaps Callanecc can help with why all MOS talk pages that carry the banner are under sanctions? That user added the notice in May of 2014 with this edit, months after I added the banner. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 17:54, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing that up, Paine. Apparently this "custom DS template" version of the notice (the message box with the yellow traffic light) was deemed inadequate (though it seems to offer a better explanation to me: "This page (along with all other MOS pages and WP:TITLE) is subject to Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions. See this remedy."), and thus was replaced with the message in the template. I suppose that, on the assumption that template:WikiProject Manual of Style is added to "all pages related to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style", that is a convenient way to place the notice of sanctions on all pages related to the MOS. The documentation of that template provides a link to further documentation on a template talk page: Template talk:Ds/talk notice/doc. The MOS is covered under topic=at. Seems to me like a good way to obscure things. Anyhow, since the "Translation note" should never have been part of the MOS, all is good now. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:10, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
It's not actually a MOS talk page, as per the research here; no talk ever went on or will ever go on there. Dekimasuよ! 18:31, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, it's at a MOS talk page name, and there seems to be consensus that it should not be there. Andrewa (talk) 19:47, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
I suggest we move it to either:
Not sure why ya'll want to move the page; remember that maybe it's not supposed to be an actual talk page, but just a container page for a higher-level talk page. I would seriously consider leaving the page alone, or at the very least find out why the page is there in the first place (and why you may be subject to sanctions for moving it). – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 00:22, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
The page should be moved simply because it is not, and was never intended to be, a WP:talk page. It does not comply with Wikipedia:Talk page layout, Help:Using talk pages, or Wikipedia:Signatures. I suppose the alternative is deletion, but I think it's a useful page and should be kept and moved instead.
The practical consequences of its non-compliance are that it's confusing, it's hard to locate (just because it's in the wrong place), and it's even harder to locate discussion regarding it (just because as a talk page it doesn't have its own talk page). This all seems completely unnecessary. There are several perfectly good (right) places it could go (two mentioned above), so why have it in the wrong place? Andrewa (talk) 12:00, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
One reason for having it under the MOS talk page is that it could contain translations that the MOS might want to recommend. As a glossary, I think it's mainly of historical interest. In this day and age we aren't going to do better than the many dictionaries and specialized glossaries that are available online. A list of those online resources would probably be more useful, perhaps located somewhere under the Japan project.– Margin1522 (talk) 12:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
That's an excellent reason for not having it under a MOS talk page. Note the might. Its status is unclear and difficult to determine (see above). It avoids nearly all of our quality controls: no verifiability, no references, no discussion, no signatures. As is, it's arguably of negative value to the project overall.
Very interested that you seem to think that it's not all that useful. Perhaps then deletion is an option after all? MWOT. Andrewa (talk) 13:28, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
No, frankly I don't see why it's needed. What is 委員会制度, and would anyone have any problem translating that? If it was ja:委員会設置会社 then maybe. So sure, go ahead and propose it for AfD. It's been through that before, and there are always a few people who want to keep it. Perhaps this time. – Margin1522 (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Another problem with this being a (pseudo) talk page! It having no talk page of its own, there are no links to these previous AfDs. Can you provide any? Otherwise we risk reinventing the wheel of course.
Perhaps it would be wisest to go again to AfD, but another option is speedy deletion under G8. I don't think any challenge to that speedy would succeed (I could be wrong), and I'd then be able and happy to provide a copy for anyone who wanted to userfy it, as would many other admins I'm sure.
But if we can find those previous AfDs, then we can identify those few people who want to keep it and suggest they move it to their user space, or to some other suitable place such as a subpage of MOS:JAPAN or WikiProject Japan. That seems a far more civilised process to me. Andrewa (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
AfD seems like a lot of trouble. I think the reason to keep it around is mainly sentimental. It shows that people were here contributing in 2004, before UTF-8, in escaped characters. Tomgally was here. The reason it's off the Talk page is that subpages of the MOS have real content, even if it's historical. So someone put it off the Talk page, like the trunk in the attic. I'm fine with moving it to MOS:JAPAN or WikiProject Japan. Perhaps put the {{historical}} tag on it, create a "Historical" subpage off MOS:JAPAN, and put it there. – Margin1522 (talk) 01:26, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
(later) Now I see that WP:MOS-JA is recommending this page in the second sentence of the lead, for "standardized translations of some common Japanese terms", wording that has been there since 2007. I think we need to discuss that too, along with how to handle the page itself. – Margin1522 (talk) 03:11, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
No, I think you and others may be confusing the authorisation of a discretionary sanction with the imposing of one. Arbcom can authorise these, but such a sanction is not in force unless and until some admin invokes it, which doesn't appear to have happened. See #Sanctions below. Andrewa (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Andrewa, when you first raised this issue over at Talk:Shizuoka, Shizuoka § Further comments possibly to self, your remarks seemed to come from so far out in left field that I had trouble putting them in context. I was left wondering where you found this "Translation note" page because I hadn't seen it mentioned at all in the discussion over Shizuoka, Shizuoka. So I went to "what links here" to find the answer. After cutting through the archive-page-transclusion-fog, I found the answer and then the went on. I suppose this page actually is incorporated into the MOS, as it is linked in three significant places:

  1. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles, in the lead section, no less. So, am I correct in assuming that before you close a requested move, among your first steps is to read the applicable Style guideline from start to finish, and this is where you found a link to the "Translation note" page? Good for you. I confess I just skipped straight to the Place names section.
  2. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Archives – this is the page that was transcluding through all the archives. Click "show" and find that Japanese translation note is the first item in the "By topic..." list. Note that most of the other items in that list are archived talk pages. So perhaps the fact that this was lumped in with them gives some insight into why it was moved to talk space. Or not. The user who moved it to talk space isn't around anymore to tell us why they did that. I suppose all of these archives would be under sanctions, too—"broadly construed".
  3. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Anime- and manga-related articles § Scope, another MOS, which suggests a solution:

For more general guidance on editing conventions, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style. For standardized translations and romanizations of some Japanese terms, see:

One of these 3 items stands out, like a sore thumb, for not being a subpage of WikiProject Japan.

I believe this only came up for deletion when it was in article space (Japanese translation note), or as a cross namespace redirect. See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 October 31 § List of Japanese translation terms → Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)/Translation note. I don't think anyone ever suggested deleting it from project space. – Wbm1058 (talk) 04:22, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Sanctions

Paine Ellsworth or anyone else who can help, I'm afraid I still have no idea why you may be subject to sanctions for moving it, [5] and it's obviously important. Can you (or anyone else) enlighten me?

There doesn't seem to be any mention of a relevant sanction at Wikipedia:General sanctions#Active sanctions. Have I missed it?

There is a line at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Current areas of conflict that reads Pages relating to the Manual of Style and article titles policy (Article titles and capitalisation), but this just authorises sanctions, it doesn't impose any. Any admin can impose sanctions under this authorisation, but they must log them at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#Enforcement log, and again there seems to be nothing current that might affect moving the talk page in question. Again, have I missed it?

I have paced a heads-up at Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Archive 1#Is there a current sanction affecting Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles. Andrewa (talk) 18:50, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how much help I can be; Callanecc placed the sanctions notice on the banner page, and it should be noted that it applies to all the "attached" pages of discussion pages that carry the MOS project banner. I don't know, maybe Callanecc, who apparently is the enforcing admin and who is presently on a break, meant to noinclude the notice? (I don't like to 2nd guess in these cases.) At present, though, it seems to apply to more than just the Japan-related pages; it seems to apply to all pages that carry {{WPMOS}} on their talk pages. Also, please keep in mind that even though sanctions have not been imposed, this does not mean that they will not be imposed if a warning of sanctions is not heeded. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 20:20, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
The notice was correctly placed, but you seem to have misinterpreted it. It in no way inhibits anything that has been proposed here, see below. Andrewa (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

As I mentioned above in the previous section, this message box was placed on the talk page for the general Manual of Style:

Clicking on the "this remedy" link shows:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style and article titles policy, broadly construed.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:47, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

"Broadly construed" means template any talk page that calls itself an MOS. You're more knowledgeable than I am with regards to interpreting Arbcom jargon. Frankly it strikes me as a bit ridiculous that anyone could be sanctioned for moving this page under consensus. – Wbm1058 (talk) 03:05, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I guess, as you say, we're not really under "sanctions" until the traffic light turns red. But just throwing that word around in templates is intimidating enough. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:18, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
It's intimidating all right, and appears to me to be completely baseless as well. Andrewa (talk) 08:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that no one who theoretically could impose sanctions would impose sanctions. The point of altering the page is clear: in its current location it confused someone who went looking for more information on the Japan MOS. Anyway, new proposal: mark as historical and/or mark as a talk archive. Dekimasuよ! 04:43, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
    • I have boldly added {{historical}} to the page, as it basically describes the current circumstances: "This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input." Please revert if necessary. Dekimasuよ! 04:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
      • And I have boldly deleted the reference to "Translation note" from the lead, and replaced it with a general request to follow the conventions on the MOS-JP page. Please revert if necessary, or improve the wording. – Margin1522 (talk) 08:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Sanctions - a step back

OK, to summarise what I've concluded so far:

  • Talk of sanctions affecting Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Translation note all stems from this edit implementing an ARBCOM decision.
    • This notice was correctly placed, and links to the relevant ARBCOM remedy.
    • But it has been wildly misinterpretted. The ARBCOM decision authorises any admin (including the one who placed the notice) to impose sanctions, but:
      • No such sanctions are currently in place.
      • No such sanctions have ever been in place.
      • No sanction concerning moving, editing or deleting the talk page under discussion has yet been suggested, let alone imposed.
      • It's not even clear whether the talk page under discussion is covered by the ARBCOM decision (see next point).
  • There is doubt as to whether the talk page under discussion is part of the MOS. There are arguments both ways, including but not only:

Comments? Suggest make them below rather than cluttering the bulleted list. TIA Andrewa (talk) 15:20, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that's about right. I'm not sure whether any Anime- and manga-related editors are paying any attention to this. Suggest we just move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Translation note or Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Japanese translation note, and leave it for the Anime- and manga-MOS if they want to keep it. There would just be two mainstream links remaining to the page: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Anime- and manga-related articles and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Archives. Then we can just drop this, unless there's another point you want to make. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:50, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
That would resolve a lot, and I'd support moving to either of those titles, prefer the shorter one. Even as an interim measure it would be progress, as procedures such as RM and AfD could then be used for any further discussion. At present they are problematic. Andrewa (talk) 00:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
OK, I moved it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Translation note. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:43, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Nobody seems to have commented on this, but despite the title, this is not a "translation note" at all -- it's a (rather ragbag) glossary. Perhaps if it were moved to ".../Glossary" this would help, but then probably it could be usefully pruned and/or expanded. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
It's a good point, and can now be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Translation note.
Just to return to the topic of this section, it's now a WikiProject subpage (rather than a MOS subpage, which it has not been for some time although the MOS does still link to it).
It would IMO still be unsafe to impose any discretionary sanction based on applying the ARBCOM remedy concerning the MOS to this WikiProject subpage. Andrewa (talk) 06:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Help?

I create football players' article and am now creating a Japanese player, but do not know how to format his name. I know it goes something like this: Hiroto Nakagawa ((name in Japanese script), Nakagawa Hiroto, born 3 November 1994) How do I translate his name into Japanese script? For example, I know this is correct: Maya Yoshida (吉田 麻也, Yoshida Maya, born 24 August 1988). But I don't know how to translate "Hiroto Nakagawa." Charlie the Pig (talk) 05:38, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

By "football player" I am assuming you mean "soccer player", right? (Not meant to be disrespectful , it's just that I'm American and "football player" has a different meaning to me). I believe this is the Hiroto Nakagawa you are referring to, right? His Japanese Wikipedia page is ja:中川寛斗. I hope that helps. - Marchjuly (talk) 05:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
You'll want to use the Nihongo template. There are directions there. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Labeling Japanese text as such

Hardly any Japanese biographies follow the Wikipedia convention of labeling a non-Latin script upon its first use in the article. Here are live examples across various languages (with non-language details omitted for brevity):

vs.

I did find this old discussion in the archives where the pros and cons of labeling the language are discussed. And I'm aware that many Japanese articles use the {{Nihongo}} template which does not label the Japanese script unless the "lead=yes" parameter is added, but that's a technical detail. I was wondering if there is any updated consensus on this. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

We are not giving the name of a Japanese person in Arabic, are we? Actually, I have seen clueless openings that give Korean names in Japanese and Japanese names in Chinese. I think these kind of labels just clutter up the opening. If the Japanese name is given in a template, non-Latin characters don't need to be in the running text at all. If you look at published encyclopedias, they don't fill up the opening with non-Latin script.NotUnusual (talk) 21:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Paper encyclopaedias tend to lack the hyperlinks and length of Wikipedia articles as well. These days, even people who have Britannica on their shelves still tend to visit Wikipedia more often. I think you're well aware that "If the Japanese name is given in a template, non-Latin characters don't need to be in the running text at all." is a statement far from consensus. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:35, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
If you know the problem just add the lead=yes parameter.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:44, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I think the editor's trying to encourage WP:JAPAN users to make this a habit rather than volunteering to fix potentially thousands of pages themself. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:07, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Then why haven't we just said {{sofixit}}.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Because we're not assholes. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks everyone—
@NotUnusual: whether or not we should include the non-Latin script at all is a valid yet separate question that I know has been discussed elsewhere (I think on the talk page for WP:BLPLEAD). For my question, I'm making the assumption that there is a consensus to include non-Latin script because practically every relevant biography does so.
@Curly Turkey: that's right, and I'm mostly just asking whether or not there's an established reason why we shouldn't be adding lead=yes. The question occurred to me when I recently did exactly that but I didn't want someone to go all WikiProject on me for it.
Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 23:35, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I have Britannica on my hard drive, so I can tell you that it definitely has advantages. Wikipedia articles are filled with numerous details, which is wonderful. But they often fail to prioritize the important information, as we see in this case. I notice that Ban Ki-moon's article leads with his hanja. Few Koreans can read this script nowadays, never mind English speakers. NotUnusual (talk) 01:18, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Awright, you go ta problem with the scripts? Take it up in the appropriate forum. Here you're just derailing the discussion: in the case that a lead does have the scripts (supported by consensus), should it not be led by the language name? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 02:52, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
      • About labeling a non-Latin script on first use, I'm not aware of any Wikipedia policy that says we should. The OP's examples do because they use the {{lang}} templates, which always indicate the language name. So the question is whether {{Nihongo}} should behave like {{lang}}. I don't think it should, necessarily. It's used much more often and it already has a lot information within the parentheses without adding more by indicating the language name. – Margin1522 (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
        • If a reader sees non-Latin script next to a Japanese name, he doesn't have to know Japanese to figure out what language it is. NotUnusual (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
          • That assumes the reader knows beforehand that the name is Japanese and hasn't simply clicked through from another article without knowing the ethnicity of the subject. This is an issue with a hyperlinked encyclopaedia that a paper encyclopaedia doesn't have to worry about. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
          • Right, and even more: if a reader is not a speaker of the language in question, it cannot help to have foreign script names, like hanja, kanji etc. So for Japanese names it will be obvious that "this is how it's written in Japanese", though perhaps less obvious quite what all this back-to-front stuff is. (I found my head spinning trying to work out why Fujio Fujiko (not the name of a person) is backwards, but the separate names (which do refer to real people) 'Fujiko F. Fujio' and 'Fujiko Fujio A' aren't. Perhaps this is just an error though...) Imaginatorium (talk) 06:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Historical vs contemporary format for names

For a historical figure—a person born before the beginning of the Meiji period (January 1, 1868 onward for our purposes)—always use the traditional Japanese order of family name + given name in Latin script and family name + <space> + given name in Japanese script.

While we do need to select some arbitrary point to switch from historical to contemporary naming format, I wonder where this extremely precise date comes from. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends Merriam Webster for deceased persons, International Who's Who for living people. (That's in general and not just for Japanese names.) Merriam Webster uses historical format with the family name first and macrons where appropriate. IWW puts the family name last does not give macrons. IMO, the takeaway is not that we should reformat a name the day someone dies, but rather that we should follow a reference work of this kind. NotUnusual (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Because the Meiji Restoration is considered as bringing Japan into the modern era. Pre-Meiji historical figures are traditionally written in the Japanese style ("Tokugawa Ieyasu", not "Ieyasu Tokugawa") while everyone since then is in the Western style except in some fan communities like for Koda Kumi and the like.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:51, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Show me as a source that systematically uses one style for pre-1868 names and another style for post-1868 names. This is an "invented here" distinction. Take a look at the ngram for Tojo. Authors can give this name in either style. Britannica gives everyone in "historical style," as you can see here. NotUnusual (talk) 03:55, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
It's because it was in the Meiji period that Japanese people themselves began to write their names in the Western order. See Japanese name#Japanese names in English and Western languages. For the original vote, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Name order. – Margin1522 (talk) 05:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
I checked the link you gave. It is a vote in favor of putting contemporary names in family-name-last form, which of course everyone does. There isn't much of an attempt to justify the 1868 cut-off date. The Department of Education supposedly adopted the family-name-last policy at that time. Even if that is true, that has nothing to do with standard usage in English. At this point, WWII personalities can reasonably be treated as historical. NotUnusual (talk) 08:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
The fact is you're more likely to find "Hideki Tojo" and "Yukio Mishima" than you are "Ieyasu Tokugawa". The Meiji Restoration was a major event in Japanese history and it's easy to see that everyone since that time period when they actually weren't an isolationist society began westernizing which includes referring to themselves in Western contexts with the English style name order.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
"Everyone" in Japan, eh? I guess I'm outnumbered. But when does this issue arise for a typical Japanese? On a passport, the name of the passport holder is given surname first with no macrons. So it is not in either the Merriam-Webster or the IWW format. The MOS should be representative of how published style guides are written. It should not include invented here elements. NotUnusual (talk) 12:27, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
We look to outside style guides for guidance on establishing our own norms, but if outside standards are not in agreement, we have to decide here what to do. And if the outside style guides would require us to reorder the names on the death of the person, then we have to think long and hard over what benefit that would be to Wikipedia. The 1868 cut-off follows closely real-life usage, even if not perfectly, and is an easy rule to follow. It's establushed, and less broken than Chicago 's guideline, so why fix it? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 13:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
The gist of what CMOS is saying is that editors should get spelling and formatting from an authoritative reference work, not that they should switch formats at some arbitrary point. According to our guideline, we should follow personal preference, especially as given in the subject's "social media profile." Did Tojo prefer his name with macrons or without? Is this not a very silly question to ask? NotUnusual (talk) 02:08, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
It would be helpful if you told us what was broken that needed to be fixed and what concretely would be improved by doing so? If your propostion results in an improvement you'll get plenty of us to support it. If it's just a lot of work moving pages with no other tangible benefit, you're going to find resistance. As it is, both readings of a name will be available when searching—one as a redirect. Check out Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ieyasu Tokugawa. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
WP:WIAN is my idea of a well-written guideline. It's modeled after CMOS and recommends various reference works editors can consult for different purposes. There is nothing about personal preference, no decrees from on high, and nothing about "common name." NotUnusual (talk) 05:31, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
That's about geographic names. How could there be a "personal preference" for a geographic name? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
You are stretching this to the extremes of making sense. We at Wikipedia have chosen the Meiji period as the beginning of the Japanese modern era. This is reflected in pretty much all historical discussion of Japan. Simply because figures from the Meiji and Showa periods are now considered historical figures because it's been close to 200 years of history does not change the fact that we at Wikipedia developed our own internal style guide to decide which name order to use. The fact that this style guide also covers a completely different issue over spelling of the names of living persons is entirely different. Our article is at Hideki Tojo because common English usage does not use the macron or the circumflex or whatever other method has been developed in the past 70 years to deal with the long O vowel in Japanese. The beginning of the Meiji period is not an "arbitrary point", FFS.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

@NotUnusual: The issue does come up when business people print their meishi, which almost always have the Western order on the reverse side with latin characters. Of course the Japanese order is quite common in academic writing, and a lot of journals leave it up the author. It depends on the audience. But here for consistency (ha! -:) it helps to have a rule and this is the one we adopted. In general I think it's reasonable. – Margin1522 (talk) 18:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we really don't have any compelling reason to change the cut off date for switching orders. it is an internal style guide we have developed and if it ain't broke don't fix it.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:10, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Margin1522 and Ryulong here in theory (astute observers will notice that every single position I've ever taken on this page has been in favour of having consistent internal style guidelines), but I do think having a bit more leeway in the cut-off date would be helpful, especially when it means more internal consistency within individual articles. To make a slightly apt comparison, very few Japanese topics require us to use either British or American English specifically, but we are required to be internally consistent regardless. At present we are required to refer to people born before or after an arbitrary date with different naming styles within the same article. Now, I personally enjoyed reading "The Austerity Delusion" and noticing where the author (not a Japanologist) had copied English Wikipedia's style formatting on this point when discussing various 1930s Japanese politicians, all but one of whom were born after 1868, but I assume we can agree that this situation is not ideal. For a lot of pre-1945 literary figures who are never discussed in English outside of academic circles, Wikipedia appears to be the only source that gives their names in western order. Rubin's Rashomon and 17 Other Stories note on names had an interesting point as well: printing the author's name in western order on the cover exclusively for the benefit of librarians and book store clerks, and otherwise sticking to Japanese order like all the other English-language works in the genre (semi-popular translations of pre-war Japanese literature). (I've actually seen translations of Soseki mispelled as though Soseki was his surname, so for cataloguing purposes it is definitely an issue.) How about something like this: Regarding Japanese order or western order for names, priority should be given to internal consistency within articles. Each article should maintain a style consistent with its content. For articles whose subject is a person, survey how that person is referred to in English-language reliable sources, give the article that name, and all people named in the article (regardless of how their own articles refer to them) should maintain this style. In general, with figures for whom the reliable coverage comes primarily from the field of Japanese studies (pre-1868 figures, most writers, etc.) this is likely to give the form "family-name given-name", and for others (World War II political and military figures, film directors, etc.) it is likely to be "given-name family-name", but this is not a necessarily always the case. Obviously my wording isn't ideal (the last sentence is iffy) and its a bit verbose, but it would solve the internal consistency problem, limit Wikipedia's having a negative effect on the way people in the real world who don't know any better write about Japan, and allow us to stop arbitrarily going against 99% of our sources in calling them "Kenji Miyazawa" and "Ryunosuke Akutagawa". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:01, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Nara, Nara

There is currently a RM going on at Talk:Nara, Nara, where the posters expressed dissatisfaction about the awkward name, and thus with the guideline which led to it. Therefore, I propose an amendment which would prevent similar names (other examples include Aomori, Aomori, Chiba, Chiba and Saitama, Saitama):

For cities, use the form [[{city-name}, {prefecture-name}]]; for example, Mishima, Shizuoka. Exceptions:
  • For designated cities, use [[{city-name}]] without appending the prefecture unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary.
  • When the city name matches the prefecture name, use [[{city-name} (city)]] or just [[{city-name}]], depending on whether the city is considered primary topic or not.

I bolded the proposed addition. Thoughts? No such user (talk) 10:47, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Whoa!—there's a big problem with that. If a city and prefecture share the same name and neither is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then what does Aomori, Japan point to? The prefecture or the city? Right now, it points at the prefecture. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 00:59, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it a big problem: it's not a too likely search string. If Aomori City is the primary topic (as decided by a discussion and consensus), Aomori, Japan should redirect there. Otherwise, it should redirect to the dab page. It currently (since 2004) redirects to the prefecture, so there's not much reason to change that. No such user (talk) 12:15, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
If the prefecture is the primary subject, then both Aomori, Aomori Prefecture, and Aomori, Japan will point to the prefecture. So what points to the city? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 12:59, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
And why should anything point to the city? Having a redirect is not mandatory. No such user (talk) 15:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
*sigh* Meaning: what would the title of the city be? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:22, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Aomori (city) or Aomori City, as it's also called (for example, on its official page [7]). At least according to my proposal, NotUnusual seems to have a different view.No such user (talk) 16:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
Excuse me. I think Nara, Narashould be moved to Nara City and Nara Prefecture should be remained. In Nara City's official site, Japanese: 奈良市 is City of Nara and in Nara Prefecture's official site, Japanese: 奈良県 is Nara Prefecture.Furthermore, the Japanese word "市" literally means "City". So in my humble opinion, Nara, Nara or Aomori, Aomori etc. should be renamed to Nara City or Aomori City.--Psjk2106 (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
It probably shouldn't need to be said, but we don't title articles on the English Wikipedia based on what is done in other languages. Case in point is "<city name> City". You'll find for both Nara and Shizuoka that untranslated "Nara-shi" and "Shizuoka shi" get more hits than "Nara city" or "Shizuoka City", and that "City of <city name>" is what is used in an official capacity (so "<city name> City" is actually minority usage). I'm not opposed to "<city name> City" per se, but I'm not throwing my support behind the arguments presented. We then have the WP:INSTRUCTIONCREEP that results from such convoluted rules as "name the cities in such-and-such a way except in exception, exception, or exception, in which case name it such-and-such a way, such-and-such a way, such-and-such a way—oh, and if the city happens to share its name with the prefecture and the prefecture happens to be the PRIMARYTOPIC, ignore all these other standards and do this instead." We could search for five random Japanese cities and find them each under a different titling scheme. Ain't that helpful! Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:01, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
I think the problem is that in real life we do have quite a complicated set of unconscious rules based on things like Is it a big city? Do I live there? Do you live there? And we get these disputes when our simple WP rules bump up against the real-life rules, one of which is that it shouldn't sound silly. If it does, we are going to keep getting these objections. So we should try to accommodate them, to a certain extent. I think the thing to do is just decide, for example, that a double name sounds silly so in that case we will always append "(city)" to the city name. Regardless of what this particular city has on its website. And when the city and prefecture share a name, we will always have a disamb page for the name, or the primary topic will always be the prefecture (or the city), by MOS-JA fiat. Otherwise we will keep having these arguments like we had over Shizuoka, with moves and countermoves and endless churn depending on who comes along and doesn't like the current title. How many of these cities are there? Nara, Shizuoka, Saitama, Chiba, Aomori... Instead of a complicated rule, we can just make a list and say that all of these cities will have titles in this format, and the primary topic will be this. And then protect the article names so they can't be changed. – Margin1522 (talk) 07:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
I interpret the "Foo Prefecture" format as a form of predisambiguation that frees up the base name for the designated city (or whatever else we may deem primary topic). By this logic, the existing guideline implies that Shizuoka, Saitama, and Chiba should already be at the base name. In short, it will always be the RMs that decide, not the guidelines. NotUnusual (talk) 18:32, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
I can't get behind that logic. For one thing, in cases like Shizuoka, where the prefecture gets more pageviews than the city, we'd be sending people to the city first, then they'd have to click through to the prefecture. Readers don't know our internal disambiguation schemes—this is reader-unfriendly. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
Why is a DAB more reader-friendly than a hatnote? This is certainly not a rationale based on any existing guideline. NotUnusual (talk) 00:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I think I'll throw my support behind (city) as a last resort disambiguator as the least of several evils. I'm opposed to giving the base name to cities that are not WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and I'm opposed to "City", as it implies it is an official name when the cities themselves don't use that form officially. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
    I understand your concerns. How about weakening the proposed wording to avoid commitment to any particular disambiguation scheme, along the lines of:
    However, avoid duplicated names (when the city name matches the prefecture name) such as Nara, Nara, and disambiguate as necessary per WP:NCDAB (for example, [[{city-name} (city)]] or just [[{city-name}]].
    ? No such user (talk) 09:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose guideline change – The present system works well, and there is no need for a change. Natural disambiguation is always preferable to parenthetical disambiguation. RGloucester — ☎ 18:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I thought your comment on the article talk page was a joke, but now I'm starting to fear you're actually serious... Take it from me and other people who live in the real world, this is NOT natural, it just looks stupid. Honestly. Must be changed, only question is to what. W. P. Uzer (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Nothing stupid about it. It is perfectly sensible. If you have some queer aversion to repetition, that's not anyone here's problem. RGloucester — ☎ 19:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
It's nothing about my aversion to anything, it's that real people when they see "Nara, Nara" will think it's a song, or a phrase, or something - they will certainly NOT think "Oh, this is about a city called Nara in the Japanese prefecture of Nara" (unless they're really really familiar with names of Wikipedia articles on Japanese places). Even if you know what the article is about, it's far from obvious to an ordinary reader why it should be titled that way. If this method were sensible and natural, you wouldn't continually be getting comments from large numbers of editors telling you the very opposite. W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
It is natural to me, and other editors have supported and drafted the original guideline. I don't know why you'd think it is a "song or phrase", but that's something you'll have to work out for yourself. Nara, Nara is no different from Yoshino, Nara. RGloucester — ☎ 20:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
OK, it's natural to you and maybe to some others (probably through great familiarity with the resulting naming system, that makes everything that conforms to it look OK). But if large numbers of people from outside that group are telling you it's unnatural to them... well, that must mean there's something highly unnatural about it. I assume you realize this too, you don't appear stupid, possibly you just like an argument, so I won't indulge you further - however, I hope you won't continue to edit war to impose your own opinion against the majority. W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
What majority? If you hadn't noticed, the Shizuoka, Shizuoka proposal demonstrated significant opposition to a change, as does the Nara, Nara proposal. I don't edit Japanese-related articles usually. I just caught these on going through the list of open RMs, so I'm not part of any Japanese cabal. Open a broadly-advertised RfC if you want to change the guideline. I suggest pinging everyone who participated in the Shizuoka and Nara RMs. RGloucester — ☎ 20:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
If you hadn't noticed, the Shizuoka proposal only demonstrated significant opposition to proposition that the city is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the title "Shizuoka", not that the current ill-thought convention has a real support. Since I don't edit Japanese-related articles usually as well, I'll leave this thing die to the all-too-common death by filibustering. If the Japanese editors like the rhythm of Nara, Nara, why should I care? No such user (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Was this wording discussed?

Please note that scholarly reliable sources (e.g., encyclopedias, academic journals, documentaries, and textbooks) and mainstream media (e.g., newspapers, magazines, and television reports) reliable sources are equally acceptable, and neither should be considered more valid than the other.

This seems like an original interpretation of Wikipedia's guidelines on the issue of common usage. Classifying "documentaries" as "scholarly" as opposed to "mainstream media" is extremely questionable, since it places History Channel treacle in the same group as Monumenta Nipponica. When "newspapers, magazines, and television reports" discuss my main area of interest its generally in the kind of depth that makes them unreliable sources even when they might otherwise meet WP:RS. Is NHK World "mainstream" because it's a TV station, or not because it's based in Japan and has only a niche audience in English-speaking countries?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure it was discussed at some point, since everything in the MOSJA has been discussed to some degree. I couldn't point you to the specific place it was discussed, though, without digging through the archives. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:25, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Long vowels

The manual of style says:

Modified Hepburn romanization (as described below) should be used in all cases

Which is contradicted a few paragraphs below:

For transliterations from kanji and kana, long o and u are written with macrons as ō and ū respectively. [...] All other long vowels should be written without macrons: ああ → aa, いい → ii, and ええ → ee.

, since the Hepburn romanization article states that, for modified Hepburn, a+a and e+e are written with macrons while only i+i is not. Which is correct, and which should be followed? _dk (talk) 00:09, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Modified Hepburn romanization (as described below) should be used in all cases, excepting those cases where another romanization is determined to be in common usage in reliable sources (see next section).

  • Are there two different kinds of Modified Hepburn in use? This answers nothing, except that the style guide now describes a sort of "modified" Modified Hepburn of unclear origins that only Wikipedia follows. I don't mean to be confrontational, but the style guide as it appears now is very confusing. _dk (talk) 05:09, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
  • If there's a reason for such a surprising and unusual style, the reason should be linked to FAQ-style. I know I don't follow this aspect of the MoS and won't as long as it appears to be a simple error. "Look it up yourself" is an unacceptable answer for such extraordinary instructions. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 09:04, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Per Nihonjoe's suggestion, I had a look around the archives. Instead of finding rational reasons, what I found were more troubling. It seems that while there were endless passionate discussions of marcons on o and u, the case of a, e, and i were relatively undiscussed (and when they are discussed, the focus was on romanizing katakana, which is not the issue here):

These are what I have found. So I have put in my legwork and unfortunately did not find a satisfying answer. What happens now? _dk (talk) 06:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

If no one objects, I will be changing the style guide to conform with the standard Modified Hepburn romanization in two days. _dk (talk) 03:36, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
The process doesn't work that way. In order to make sure there is enough time for people to find out about the discussion and offer opinions so consensus can be achieved, please follow the directions at WP:RFC to set up a discussion. Make sure to notify all parties which might be interested in the discussion. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:03, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
You've been nothing but bureaucratic, Nihonjoe. Thanks for your guidance. _dk (talk) 05:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
The process is in place so, in the future, someone doesn't come along and just change things because the change was made without a decent amount of discussion. Everything as far as guideline changes needs to be done according to the procedures that are in place in order to protect those changes from being constantly questioned. Yes, it's bureaucratic, but it's there for a reason and isn't too much trouble to deal with. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

RfC: How strict should MoS-JA be about name order?

Should MoS-JA be amended to allow more flexibility in the ordering of Japanese names? Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#RfC: How strict should MoS-JA be about name order? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:30, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

RfC per procedure

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The consensus is to support the change. AlbinoFerret 12:50, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Per the above discussion, it has been discovered that the current style guide does not follow the Modified Hepburn romanization scheme exactly for the long vowel "a" あ　and "e" え, despite the style guide explicitly expressing that the Modified Hepburn romanization is to be used for most cases. Should the style guide be amended? _dk (talk) 05:40, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit: To clarify, this is the proposed change:

Old: For transliterations from kanji and kana, long o and u are written with macrons as ō and ū respectively. [...] All other long vowels should be written without macrons: ああ → aa, いい → ii, and ええ → ee.
New: For transliterations from kanji and kana, long vowels are written with macrons (ā ū ē ō) with the exception of long i (いい → ii) and ei (えい → ei). Note that if a kanji boundary exists between a vowel+vowel combination, macrons are not used. (eg. karaage in 唐揚げ).
  • Support either following standard practice of throwing a macron on everything but "I", or ditching macrons entirely. Strong oppose the bizarre, non-standard, irrational advice the current MoS gives us, and which most articles don't conform to anyways. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
  • support seems sensible and non-contentious.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 17:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support amending the guideline to follow the Modified Hepburn Romanization for the long "a" and "e". However, as the guideline notes, if a name or term has a standard Romanization in reliable sources, that should still take precedence. Calathan (talk) 18:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support I changed my vote from "qualified support" to "support" because of the clarification by Curly Turkey. I see no reason why it shouldn't follow Hepburn completely if double vowels are indeed handled by Hepburn as Curly Turkey explained. Gobble gobble. FourTildes (talk) 02:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
This proposed amendment only covers long vowels, words like 邪悪（じゃあく） where a word boundary exists in between (ie. not long vowels) would still be romanized as jyaaku, etc. "Oneesan" is the most common "ee" case where it's a long vowel. _dk (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
As the proposal is to follow modified Hepburn, and Hepburn calls for no macrons across word boundaries, this is a non-issue. Are you aware of anyone ever having tried this? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:00, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Will you create a list of exactly what is suggested (show what it is now, and what you suggest it be changed to)? This will make this RFC more clear, and we can work on good wording as part of the process. You could put the change comparison chart up at the top under your initial comment but before everyone else's comments. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:37, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
There are lists at Hepburn romanization which specify that, for example, 邪悪 is to be spelt jaaku but お婆さん obāsan, 濡れ縁 nureen but お姉さん onēsan. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:09, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
I'm talking about the suggested wording changes in the manual of style, not lists of affected words. Please indicate exactly what is proposed to be changed in the wording here so we know exactly what is being affected by this discussion. Thanks. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 02:51, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
I have added the suggested wording at the top for your benefit. _dk (talk) 03:15, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. The only suggestion I have is to make sure kanji splits are mentioned (such as "karaage") as those are not long vowels. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
I've updated the statement, though the wording might need some work. _dk (talk) 12:46, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps "New: For transliterations from kanji and kana, long vowels are written with macrons (ā ū ē ō) with the exception of long i (いい → ii). Note that if a kanji boundary exists between a vowel+vowel combination, macrons are not used. (eg. karaage in 唐揚げ)." would work? It's the kanji boundary (which isn't necessarily a word boundary) that makes the difference. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:48, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
I suppose that's better, though that doesn't cover the case where the kanji doesn't exist or isn't known, but the vowels are still pronounced separately (does this case even exist?). I've used your wording for now, while also covering the ei case, which is technically a long vowel. _dk (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
"ei" is very frequently un-macronned: check out the examples at the Matabei dab page. There are exceptions left and right, and kanji boundaries aren't the only places where we can't use macrons: think of 酔う or 吸う. Then think of words like 金平糖, which as far as I can tell is never pronounced with an "ē"; I believe the same is true for 姪っ子 (at least, I'm unfamiliar with the pronunciation mēkko). Really, we should just give general instructions (e.g "long vowels are generally written with macrons") and then note that there are many exceptions and edge cases covered in the Hepburn romanization article. Under no circumstances should the MoS appear to contradict actual Hepburn usage. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:14, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
This is rather moot, the Hepburn romanization article says ei is always spelled out un-macroned in the modified scheme. The above wording is just there to make sure nobody gets smart about ei being a long vowel and start converting every ei to ē wiki-wide. _dk (talk) 11:17, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
Searching with "insource:ā insource:nihongo" gets a lot of non-standard hits from manga and anime titles, plus katakana for English words, like this from One Piece discography: {{nihongo|"We Are!"|ウィーアー!|Wī Ā!}}– Margin1522 (talk) 01:58, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
It is a standard to throw macrons on "i" when transliterated from "イー". I have no idea why that would be, but it's quite widespread even outside of otaku culture. It's even covered in the Hepburn romanization article, where it gives the examples ヒーター hītā and タクシー takushī. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 02:31, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
To add to Curly Turkey, long vowels from European loanwords are macroned regardless of a i u e o, per the article. _dk (talk) 06:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support: It is surely clear that the intention was to recommend using Hepburn, but a glitch left the definition disagreeing with Hepburn. All of the argument about funny cases (for example 'ii' is used for Yamato words (hoshii - hoshikunai), and i-macron for loanwords (pīsu)) should be on the Hepburn definition/talk page, wherever that is. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal regarding the format of Japanese personal names

According to WP:JTITLE, Japanese born prior to 1868 should be given family name first while those born later should be given family name last. In general, academic usage is to put family name first, while journalists tend to put family name last. As near as I can tell, the idea of using a specific year as a cutoff is unique to Wikipedia. I have created the following options to allow editors to express preference. For example, "BACD" indicates that "B" is the editor's first preference, "A" second, and so forth. Fernando Danger (talk) 02:50, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Options

A. Default to surname first, with exceptions as required by WP:COMMONNAME.
B. Default to given name first, with exceptions as required by COMMONNAME.
C. Follow general common name principles with no default.
D. Retain current language in guideline.

Here is what some authorities on style have to say:

  • "In Japanese usage, the family name precedes the given name. Japanese names are sometimes westernized, however, by authors writing in English or persons of Japanese origin living in the West. [Examples:] Tajima Yumiko; Tajima; Yoshida Shigeru; Yoshida; but Noriaki Kurosawa; Kurosawa." Chicago Manual of Style, "Japanese names" (§8.16). N.B. "Tajima Yumiko" is a "Jane Doe" name, not a real person. This example suggests that when in doubt Japanese name order should be used.
  • "Use them in the customary Western fashion, with the surname after the given name." New York Times Style Guide, "Japanese names."
  • "Although the Japanese put the family name first in their own language (Koizumi Junichiro), they generally reverse the order in western contexts. So Junichiro Koizumi, Heizo Takenaka, Shintaro Ishihara and so on." The Economist, "Japanese names"

CMOS was produced by the University of Chicago Press. It is recommended in WP:MOS in two separate places. The Economist and the New York Times are both news organizations.

I have produced ngrams for three hopefully representative post-war figures: Kishi Nobusuke (ngram and Britannica), Nakasone Yasuhiro[8][9], and Nakagami Kenji[10][11]. When these people were in the news, the westernized form of their names dominated. Later, the non-westernized form became prevalent.

The original rationale for the current guideline, which was adopted in 2006, was that Japanese schools taught students to put their given names first in English. However, this is no longer the case. Mass ping time: @Curly Turkey, Imaginatorium, Cckerberos, Margin1522, Msmarmalade, Giraffedata, and Nihonjoe: @Sturmgewehr88, Elinruby, and WhisperToMe: @Closeapple, BDD, and SMcCandlish:.

Comments

Please put comments and votes below

  • I support A; I'll put up with B, with exceptions allowed for standardizing names within an individual article; and I oppose C and D.
    There are enough battles over the ordering of Japanese names that removing a default (C) would simply feed these battlegrounds. (D)'s lack of flexibility is problematic. With (A), we would still have redirects, and piping would remain an option in articles where Western name order were deemed more appropriate. Japanese name ordering is a problem that will not go away, and none of the solutions really solve the issue; (A) is the simplest.
    It should be emphasized that COMMONNAME exceptions should be truly exceptional—COMMONNAME should be narrowly defined as the name that is overwhelmingly used in English-language sources (Yoko Ono), and not merely the one that gets more Google hits (so not Shinzo Abe). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 04:30, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
    Also, I'd ditch the Japan Probe link—it's not an RS, and half of it is a quote from the Big Daikon cesspool message board. I can confirm that FAMILY–GIVEN is indeed what is taught in junior high and high school textbooks these days (I just checked through five), but that source is just embarrassing. Also, the attempted ping didn't ping me, so I suspect it didn't reach the others, either. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 04:32, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
    Following up on the textbook thing: I asked a couple of (Japanese) English teachers. The first was surprised to find out that all the textbooks use FAMILY–GIVEN, and said he always teaches GIVEN–FAMILY. The second said he knew about it, and that it was related to another initiative to give historical figures their actual names, rather than the names they've traditionally been known as in Japanese: for example, textbooks now give Ferdinand Magellan's name as マガリャンイス, rather than the traditional マゼラン. He says he just ignores all this and continues to teach GIVEN–FAMILY, and says all the teachers in that school's English department do the same. I'm sticking with my !vote above, though, and remain strongly opposed to a default of COMMONNAME, which is just trouble waiting to happen. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 07:47, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
    An ngram might suggest putting the surname first, while a news archive search would suggest given name first. Since COMMONNAME doesn't provide any guidance on how to resolve such a contradiction, the Japan MOS needs to. Fernando Danger (talk) 08:11, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong support for B. We should follow English practice, not Japanese, and it is overwhelmingly "given name first". The same principle applies to Hungarian names, and follows the principle of least astonishment. No such user (talk) 07:17, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support ACB. Anything is better than using an arbitrary and overly precise year as a cutoff. I favor strict Chicago Manual style to put Wiki in line with Britannica and other published encyclopedias. We should show the reader how to do it right, not follow others' mistakes, however "common" they might be. If it's a question of academic vs. media style, WP:MOS suggests that we should follow academic style. It recommends CMOS as well as several other academic style books. Neither the AP or NYT style books, the two main media-oriented guides, are even mentioned. Fernando Danger (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
  • BCAD. And the year wasn't arbitrary, so stop with the attacks on that already. We already know your opinion about it. It was chosen because that's when Japan Westernized, and that cutoff was also very common in academic works. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 15:48, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
  • D for the reasons given in the recent discussion, which would be tedious to repeat. – Margin1522 (talk) 04:35, 29 May 2015 (UTC)|
  • Strong support for A, and agree that any that COMMONNAME exceptions should be truly exceptional; strongly oppose B. Do we really want "Yoritomo Minamoto" or "Shoin Yoshida", "Shikibu Murasaki", etc? --MChew (talk) 14:56, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong support for A – This is the only proper way to list a Japanese person's name, barring a more commonly used western-style form. RGloucester — ☎ 17:45, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support A – This is not an easy decision to make. It is true that current journalistic discourse mostly gives family name last, while academic discourse now mostly gives family name first. But even then, film journalists are more frequently using surname first: [12], [13], [14], etc. Personal usage in Japan is also in transition (in the film world, I see artists, festivals, and distributors increasingly using Japanese name order (e.g., [15], [16], etc.)). But that's part of the problem: people in some worlds (academia, the arts) are doing it one way, while those in other worlds (some journalism, politics) are doing it another way. I thus am skeptical of any argument that claims one practice is a majority because it can be like comparing apples and oranges. This can be a problem with COMMONNAME because it offers little on how to adjudicate these differences. That's why I cannot support C, since it will only lead to endless and pointless arguments. If COMMONNAME can help us make a decision, it is in its stipulation that we look at what is common in RS, and given that the most reliable of sources are academic ones, it makes sense to go with A. I cannot support D because I never thought the 1868 birth year cutoff to be logical. Coming out of academia, I was never taught that and the textbooks I used, like John Whitney Hall's history, don't change name order when you get into the modern era. (If you have to insist on a change due to "modern" usage, then do it based on years the person was active, not on birth year.) If people think it's too soon to go to A, I can grudgingly accept B as a possibility, but only if, as with A, we settle on rules for how to adjudicate COMMONNAME exceptions. Michitaro (talk) 00:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
  • ACBD – Like Michitaro, I'm inclined to support what I've observed to be academic usage over what is more common in journalistic sources (and academic sources only dealing tangentially with Japan). I think the near-universal use of macrons for long vowels is another reason to support the use of native Japanese order. --Cckerberos (talk) 11:14, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong A, then CB. I will focus on countering No such user's interesting mention of the principle of least astonishment, as Fernando Danger covered all other points I wished to make. I agree it should be kept in mind, but I don't think it applies here.
Confusion on Japanese name order exists in En.Wikipedia articles already. That's why Template:Japanese name and Template:Okinawan name are available. Readers run into both orders of Japanese names here and elsewhere, so it's important to raise awareness of this situation, precisely to prevent the reader's confusion here and elsewhere, now and in the future—which the templates do quickly and with a link to more info.
But more than that, the benefit of learning in this case outweighs the small chance of astonishment impeding the reader. Surnames can look like given names and vice versa in any language with both. For example, I was classmates in 5th grade with Walker Riley and Railey Walker. However, the astonishment doesn't get in the way of adjusting. Most importantly, en.wiki can educate readers on the correct Japanese order of the name as an aside, which only helps when the reader runs into multiple versions of Japanese names elsewhere. They'll be aware of the possibilities and less likely to assume a certain way is correct.
(If we had an inline version to explain either order, similar to the ? of Template:Nihongo, it would help in articles that merely mention a Japanese person who is not the center of the article. Maybe name it Template:Name order so it can be used with many languages, with text such as, "This family name is first/last." Just a brainstorm, because I've not seen one like that. I can't create this due to real-life limitations, but I might be able to give feedback if someone else does.) Got here via Signpost, --Geekdiva (talk) 10:39, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
I love the ? suggestion. I hope it gets created with a human-readable template name. Perhaps two templates: {{Surname first}} and {{Surname last}}? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 11:33, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, that would be helpful.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:52, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Corrected approach to C, which amounts to a strong A, then D as a last no-consensus resort, but forget B. Prefer what modern high-quality not news style sources do, unless common usage dwarfs that, which is often the case for pop-culture figures, many of whom intentionally and preferentially have their given names first in Western media. This is not normal as the default for notable Japanese people who are not movie/tv/music stars. For businesspeople and academics, family name first is generally preferred. But even the fairly general given-name-first-in-the-West order favored by many Japanese pop culture figures is hardly universal. Utada Hikaru uses her native Japanese family-first order (see [official English-language website, and covers of all albums that use her full name), despite having grown up half in Japan and half in California; our present article title for her, Hikaru Utada is flat-out wrong; it needs to be WP:RMed, and please ping me if you list it. For option C, particular care must be (and to date has not been) taken to exclude all Western sources with an editorial policy of always using given-name-first out of jingoistic habit, against the practices/wishes of the subjects. That means most US magazines and newspapers. Utada Hikaru is actually a good litmus test - if they get her name backwards, they are not a reliable Western source for COMMONNAME purposes with regard to any Japanese people. As for options D and B, the semi-arbitrary date [yes, we know why it was chosen, but not everyone finds that compelling] in the current wording is kind of pointless, but it's preferable to always putting given name first just because lowest-common-denominator publishers like American newspapers do it that way. It is definitely the case that both orders are already being used across en.wp, so we need to always clarify which order is being used.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:52, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
    PS: C cannot really be avoided, since it's a policy. The trick is to correct our approach to it to stop engaging in utterly shameless WP:BIAS. We'll default back to D if this discussion can't come to a consensus, but that translates into a continuation of the incorrect approach to C, with a result that amounts to B.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:58, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
    PPS: Old sources are not reliable for this and amount to primary sources, especially if they date to the mid-20th century, a period of extreme bigotry toward the Japanese, including intentional disrespect toward cultural differences. It's pretty shameful that we're using Western name order for all the key figures in World War II Japan, a clear case of "history is written by the victors".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:02, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
  • While I don't want to entirely contradict your last point, I do think it would raise eyebrows with Japanese people. I think you'll find vanishingly few Japanese people would consider GIVEN-FAMILY to be a result of wartime bigotry (especially since it was established generations before the war). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 11:12, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
    • That's not the argument I'm making. Western writers were already doing that, over native Japanese objections, yes. But ever since WWII (when Western defiance against Japanese cultural norms peaked), they've continued to do so despite our treatment of other cultures becoming notably more respectful. We even got Mao Tse Tung/Mao Zedong's, and Ho Chi Minh's name order right, despite Western distrust of and hatred toward Asian Communism. But oh no, never the Japanese. Not even when, as with Utada Hikaru, every single indication we have from east of our own newspapers is family-first order, including in Latin script. It's patent prejudice, even if it's sublimated.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:28, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Western writers were already doing that, over native Japanese objections, yes.: I'd like to see a citation on that. I've lived in Japan for seventeen years and have a hard time believing it. As I've noted above, Japanese English teachers continue to teach GIVEN-FAMILY even nearly a decade after all the textbooks were changed to FAMILY-GIVEN. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 11:45, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Assessing consensus

The 30 day discussion period has past. Here is how I count it:

Family name first

  1. (A) is the simplest. It should be emphasized that COMMONNAME exceptions should be truly exceptional Curly Turkey
  2. I favor strict Chicago Manual style to put Wiki in line with Britannica and other published encyclopedias. We should show the reader how to do it right.Fernando Danger
  3. Strong support for A, and agree that any that COMMONNAME exceptions should be truly exceptional. MChew
  4. Strong support for A – This is the only proper way to list a Japanese person's name, barring a more commonly used western-style form. RGloucester
  5. If COMMONNAME can help us make a decision, it is in its stipulation that we look at what is common in RS, and given that the most reliable of sources are academic ones, it makes sense to go with A. I cannot support D because I never thought the 1868 birth year cutoff to be logical. Michitaro
  6. I'm inclined to support what I've observed to be academic usage over what is more common in journalistic sources. Cckerberos
  7. The benefit of learning in this case outweighs the small chance of astonishment impeding the reader. Geekdiva
  8. Prefer what modern high-quality not news style sources do, unless common usage dwarfs that, which is often the case for pop-culture figures. SMcCandlish ☺
    I must clarify (and I said this above) that we should prefer what the subject prefers when this can be determined from published material, even in the case of pop-culture figures (e.g. Utada Hikaru prefers that family-first order, even in Latin script, when not using the stagename "Utada"[17]). This point is more central to my view on the matter than my quoted point above about pop-culture figures, though I think my "[when] common usage dwarfs" caveat equals Curly Turkey's and MChew's "truly exceptional" caveat.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:56, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Given name first

  1. Strong support for B. We should follow English practice, not Japanese, and it is overwhelmingly "given name first". The same principle applies to Hungarian names, and follows the principle of least astonishment. No such user
  • D for the reasons given in the recent discussion, which would be tedious to repeat. – Margin1522
  • BCAD. [The year] was chosen because that's when Japan Westernized, and that cutoff was also very common in academic works. 日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe Fernando Safety (talk) 13:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

    • Some policy analysis on Japanese names

    I don't want in any way to hold up closure of the above discussion on Japanese individuals' names (two major threads up). I think some things are worth additional (policy-esoteric) discussion on the side, without affecting the outcome of the above, but reflecting instead on where it's clearly going and how we deal with policy questions about it when it gets there.

    Four (or 4.5) important things to me are detailed below. The nutshell version: 1) Where usage varies widely between two options in RS, either is "consistent" with RS. 2a) "Prevalence" is not a count of G-hits – reliability and relevance of the sources is important; 2b) relatedly, "naturalness" doesn't logically apply to forced Westernization of Asian names. 3) Policy tells us (but it's not been happening) that COMMONNAME has to be balanced against other criteria (like recognizability, which is also increasingly questionable for forced Westernization), and all of AT balanced against other WP concerns, like MOS clearly telling us to pay attention to subject preference (both individually and collectively), and common sense questioning the application of an arbitrary rule the basis of which is unsourced OR. 4) ABOUTSELF policy has largely been ignored in this debate, while the OFFICIALNAME essay has been mistakenly treated as if it trumps all other concerns. I conclude with an observation that COMMONNAME is not junk, but excessive devotion to it without balance has led to an NPOV and BIAS problem. I also suggest a post-RfC test case.

    The detailed version, numbered for later reference:

    1. WP:AT is often being read with "selective blindness". A key AT policy phrase is "consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources". Where usage is widely mixed (as it almost always is with Japanese names in English today), then either is in fact "consistent". WP:COMMONNAME has a particular rationale in it where it addresses "official" names: "the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." This has two obvious breaking points when it comes to a case like this.
      1. "Prevalence" is not synonymous with "frequency", but strongly implies a evaluative judgement tied to influence/authority and continued longevity; this is reinforced by the reference to "reliable ... sources". That is the issue at the heart of the above arguments about high-quality vs. low-quality sources. By way of analogy, a strict headcount of American citizens will show that a majority of them believe in the Biblical creation story, not human evolution, but this view is not actually prevalent; it is not prevailing – not intellectually, where it is considered quaint, nor over time numerically, where it is steadily losing ground. The jingoistic practice of reversing Asian name order is suffering exactly the same two kinds of lack of prevalance.

        While not always put in such stark terms, this issue is to be found in plenty of other WP:AT and WP:RM discussions. As one ongoing example, it's at the heart of the application of WP:MEDRS expectations with regard to the name of the Electronic cigarette aerosol RM debate, which is divided sharply along along "do what popular culture does" and "do what quality sources on biochemistry do", and guess which side is losing ground? The subject-matter relevance of the source has a lot to do with how reliable it is in case like this, where we are deal with a desire to rename pre-existing names to fit a pattern preferred by others, against the original usage. (This is not true of all style matters; see the WP:Specialized-style fallacy, in which expert sources on technical topics are treated as if they are authorities on English-language usage, in attempts by some editors to force all of Wikipedia to use specialized jargonistic practices from their narrow field's internal publications, in ways that violate basic English-language practice.)

      2. No "naturalness" argument can plausibly be made for inverting people's name orders, in a world in which even American, English, etc., school children today know that Japanese (among many other Asian) name orders are naturally family-name first, especially given the enormous surge in popularity of Japanese media in particular, which of course often gets the Japanese name order correct. Wikipedia is actually on the "slow" end of the curve here. Before much longer, its forcible rewriting of Asian names to seem more Western is going to look as ignorant as people still referring to Asians as "Orientals".
    3. The COMMONNAME criterion explicitly says to balance it against all the others: "Editors should also consider the criteria outlined above." But many just don't "see" that part. When we don't do what most quality sources do (or even what mid-quality but more specialist ones do, e.g. magazines devoted to Asian popular culture), but only what everyday journalistic ones (also mid-quality) do, this actually calls into question the recognizability criterion as well as the naturalness one already addressed. "Recognizable" to whom? Are most people looking for information on Japanese public figures 45-year-olds reading newspapers? Recognizability has to account for the expectations of the majority demographic of the WP article in question, and of WP as a whole, which is not just Americans and Brits reading The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.

      Even aside from COMMONNAME's relation to the rest of AT, the entire AT policy exists in balance with all the rest of our principles and best practices. One of these is obviously MOS:IDENTITY, which directly addresses this: "When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources; if it isn't clear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses." On what rational basis would this apply to group names, but not individual ones? And on what basis would Japanese group preference for family-first order be ignored? It defies common sense that this could only ever apply to demonyms, but that's how it's been treated in relation to this issue. The idea that it's so limited is a fantasy, as is the idea that "MOS is only about content". MOS:IDENTITY is regularly used not just to change in-article wording, but to move articles, including on individuals, e.g. transgendered persons who have undergone a personal name change. AT policy and its NC guidelines directly defer to MOS on all style matters in at least a dozen places, and identity has been determined to be a style matter, just as has the use of diacritics, and various other such name-affecting matters. Not much could be more central to identity that a personal name.

      Another principle AT must be balanced against is WP:COMMONSENSE, which is defied by a "rewrite all Japanese names of people born after a particular date, even though that date has nothing to do with name order" doctrine. Yes, we know it wasn't actually "arbitrarily" chosen, but its relevance has never been demonstrated. There's a principle that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources", and we have none for this. 1868 was a big year for Japan, and brought a lot of change, but flipping name order doesn't seem to have been among them (nothing at Meiji Restoration and related articles suggests any such change). It's blatant original research. The evidence before our very eyes is that Japanese people never stopped using family-first order, even if sometimes using it with Westerners, and they continue to use their natural order to this very day, no matter how much of a Westernizing influence they've been subjected to since the Victorian era and again post-WWII (even if some of them also continue to use Western order with Westerners, sometimes).

    4. The words "secondary source" are not mentioned anywhere in WP:AT, so subjects' own publications being primary sources is of precisely zero concern for article title sourcing purposes. No source for what someone's name reall is can be more reliable that the person to whom the name belongs, absent something weird going on, like a criminal using aliases. AT policy pulls directly from WP:V, which does not require secondary sources for everything; rather, it says "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources...", and the WP:RS guideline and WP:NOR policy elaborate on this, while notably also allowing for primary sources. To the extent there actually are "rules" about secondary sources, they're about article content, which article titles are not. (There actually is one real rule in this regard, in NOR: "Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source." And it has nothing to do with this sort of article titling matter.) For AT purposes, the salient part of V policy is WP:ABOUTSELF (which actually even applies to some content, too), and it very obviously applies to how we title articles about people, living or otherwise. This is also the policy basis for the changes to MOS:IDENTITY regarding transgendered persons, as well as the shift toward properly using diacritics in Latin-script names, so we're not even testing any new ground here.

      People also fetishize the WP:OFFICIALNAME essay and imagine that it means we avoid using names preferred by the subject, but it says nothing of the sort (to the extent that what it says matters), only that we're not required to do so; in actual practice, we almost always do so. The "official name" stuff in COMMONNAME (i.e. the only place in AT policy that addresses subject preference at all) was inserted principally to get at cases like "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", and "the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations".

      In short, any case of a Japanese person clearly preferring family-first order in their Latin-script name is a strong counter to any COMMONNAME expectations. Contrariwise, any such person clearly preferring Western given-first order in their Westernized name also arguably meets the "truly exceptional" caveat that Curly Turkey and MChew have in mind; a combination of subject preference and common usage surely trumps any wikiproject preference for family-first as a default (thus Yoshitaka Amano is at the correct title per the English-language editions of his art books). Same goes for people known in English almost exclusive by given-first order (e.g. Ken Watanabe), where we have no direct evidence of subject preference. For many cases, this will be uncertain, and usage will be mixed, with ten of thousands or more cases of both name orders showing up in search results (e.g. Toshiro Mifune vs. Mifune Toshiro), skewed toward given-first order by low-quality sources. That skewing, combined with the fact that forced Westernization isn't really "natural", is why I favor family-first as a basic default.

    I think it would be interesting to take the disambiguation page Amano as a test case, BTW, and start working down that list to see which names need their order flipped. I suspect it will be the case for more of them than COMMONNAME fans would like, but possibly fewer than CT and MChew would like. :-) In my view, COMMONNAME is hardly stupid or obsolete, and in many cases, especially public figures with a Western following, Western name order is clearly not just more common, but expected, and should probably be used here even in cases where we can't determine their own personal preferences. E.g. the credits in the English-language version of an anime film or TV show are going to reflect the decisions of the producers/translators, not necessarily those whose names are being presented in Latin script. Anime illustrators and such are generally not the subject of many academic sources, so "do what the academic sources do" does not give us an answer to what to do with such subjects.

    Given that most of these people are semi-obscure in the West, a pure COMMONNAME approach fails COMMONSENSE. The presumption that everyday news sources can get the names right of Japanese people they know almost nothing about is closely akin to the idea that the same news sources get medical and technical details right when writing about specialist fields in which the journalists have no direct experience. News sources are not magically extra-reliable all of a sudden just because the topic has changed from astrophysics or oncology to Japanese people.

    Finally the Japanese language, and names within it, are verifiable facts of the real world; choosing to side with those who campaign to reverse them to suit Western expectations is a serious WP:NPOV and WP:BIAS problem that cannot be escaped by worshipping COMMONNAME as a holy commandment instead of one factor among many to consider. We already had this very same debate with regard to diacritics, and it ended conclusively in favor of not bowdlerizing the names of foreigners to make it allegedly easier for English-speaking school children and retail clerks to remember them, and concern that is silly to begin with, given our WP:REDIRECT system.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:20, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

    • I don't want to undermine my own position (which like SMcCandlish is to go with SURNAME-GIVEN), but I really have to object once again to the suggestion that GIVEN-SURNAME for Japanese is somehow a racist imposition by the West, especially given that countries like China, which underwent brutal, violent colonization, did not have the same thing "imposed" on their names, and I've seen no documentary evidence that such an "imposition" ever took place—and it's certainly not the feeling I get from flesh-and-blood Japanese people I interact with every day. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:19, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

    COPYVIO at Kishi Nobusuke

    Great big heaping chunks of the Kishi Nobusuke article have been lifted verbatim from "Kishi and Corruption: An Anatomy of the 1955 System" by Richard J. Samuels. I don't have the time myself to deal with it—could sometime spare the time to clean this up? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 00:41, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

    I removed everything I could find. Let me know if there is any I missed. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
    Just so more people can see it, in the future I recommend posting a notice to WT:JA. More people watch that page. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:17, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

    Historical vs modern

    Only one of the eleven participants in the recent RFC expressed support for the "historical figure" vs "modern figure" distinction, so I think we have a mandate to consolidate these two sections. Fernando Safety (talk) 03:14, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

    I assume that "only one of the eleven" refers to me. Actually I don't think that's an accurate count, and it doesn't count any of the other recent discussions on this topic. I didn't comment about it in this one because it gets to be tedious following all of the forum shopping and making the same arguments every time, but I don't accept the argument that CMOS or Britannica mandate family name first (those assertions have both been questioned), and I don't accept the priviliging of academic sources over mainstream sources. I definitely don't think it's Wikipedia's place to correct the usage of journalists and the Japanese people in question and teach readers how to do it the right way.
    I am about to go offline for a while (medical reasons) but when I get back I will be happy to discuss this further. In the meantime let's please consider this question open (which means IMO that your recent edits on the name order question should probably be reverted.) – Margin1522 (talk) 02:55, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
    The rationale for “privileging” academic style over media style is to avoid a deadlock when the two styles conflict. WP:COMMONNAME endorses a similar tie breaker: "Other encyclopedias are among the sources that may be helpful in deciding what titles are in an encyclopedic register, as well as what names are most frequently used." I already noted your opposition above. I guess we will see if others share it. Fernando Safety (talk) 14:59, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
    Sorry for the delay in this reply. I think there has been quite a lot of tendentious, out-of-context quoting going on in the family-name-first arguments. The above quote from WP:COMMONNAME endorses names from encyclopedias in preference to unusual "official, scientific, birth, original, or trademarked names". There is no suggestion that names from encyclopedias should take precedence over names in major English-language media sources like the New York Times. To say something like that in WP:COMMONNAME would be nonsense.
    Look, the rule we have had for the past decade has always been a compromise. There are two competing systems, equally valid, and the Wikipedia method for dealing with situations like that has always been to allow both as far as possible and when appropriate. Differentiating between modern and historical figures is one way of allowing both. It agrees with the actual practice of the majority of sources cited in Wikipedia, and IMO is the solution that is most typical of and compatible with Wikipedia.
    I myself would prefer the family-name-first system. It would certainly make my day job easier. The problem is that none of my Japanese clients, friends, or colleagues want that. They all prefer the other way. I wish people would remember that. The given-name-first order isn't something that was imposed by a cabal of WP editors. It exists in the world and all we are doing is recognizing it.
    Also, if I could add this, there must be tens of thousands of modern Japanese names in Wikipedia. The MOS currently says that they are in the wrong order. What are we going to do about that? Fixing it is going to be an enormous task. Do we have any volunteers to get started on it? If not, then wasn't it jumping the gun to change the MOS only? – Margin1522 (talk) 06:15, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
    You have multiple positions that are outside the range of opinion of everyone else who participated in the RFC. Yet somehow in your mind your view is the “compromise”! No one else thought that including an arbitrary cutoff year in the MOS was a good idea. And no one else based their argument on New York Times style. If NYT style is the basis for the cutoff year, then the cutoff should be a lot later than 1868. COMMONNAME does suggest using Google News, but that goes back only about five years or so. Otherwise, I assume editors are expected to follow academic/encyclopedia style. In any case, I’ve always been more interested in getting rid of the cutoff date than in which order the names are in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fernando Safety (talk • contribs) 21:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
    On the compromise, see this archive from 2004, which is when the Meiji divide was adopted. Compromise is how it was described at that time, including by the late editor Fg2, who originally suggested it.
    Complaints about the arbitrariness of the cutoff date have been made since 2004. The advantage of having a single date is that it prevents tedious disputes about article titles, a chronic problem on Wikipedia since we have so many editors who would rather argue about the title of an article than contribute to it. But it that's the problem, then we could adopt one of the proposals to make the cutoff date fuzzier. For example, instead of using their birth date, we could say that historical figures belong to the period in which they were active -- when they fought their battles or published their books or whatever. That would allow the flexibility that some editors want to deal with borderline cases, at the cost of increasing the noise level. Whatever, maybe it's worth it. I wouldn't oppose such a proposal.
    About the NYT, I'm not basing my argument on one newspaper or on any appeal to authority. I'm basing it on the prevalent usage in the majority of English-language sources actually cited in Wikipedia. IMO if you read the sources, the course that we should take is pretty clear. – Margin1522 (talk) 01:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

    Uh, so you are now pro-"compromise" or anti-"compromise"? I guess it doesn't really matter. In the RFC, eight editors voted for more or less the current guideline, three for various other solutions. Nihonjoe’s recent post suggests that he has revised his thinking. The third editor just said we should “follow English usage,” which doesn’t engage these arguments at all. So whatever your "pretty clear" position is, you are on your own. That the article should follow the usage in its sources is good thinking. I note that MOS:FOREIGN already contains a provision of this kind. Fernando Safety (talk) 22:17, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

    You keep trying to make this about me. I simply pointed out that the long-standing policy was a compromise, which you would have known if you had taken the advice last time to read the archives.
    I've already said that I disagree with your vote count. Now let me say that I think the design of the RfC itself is tendentious. Option B is a strawman. Has anyone ever suggested that all Japanese names, including historical ones, should default to given name first? Of course not. So why is that an option? And why are options A, B, and C about name order, while option D is about the "current language" of the MOS instead of name order and the principle of distinguishing historical and modern names. Since your main aim is apparently to abolish that distinction, you'd think the RfC could at least mention it.
    So, we have two academics who voted for the academic order. Fine, that's their right. I myself, as someone who has spent more hours of my life than I like to remember trying to track down the roman spelling of Japanese names, would like to spare our readers the trouble. I would like the default name order to be the same as the one used by the Japanese government (Cabinet Office), corporations (Toyota), and major English-language media sources. I would like names in WP to agree with the names that show up in Google searches. Our readers will be happier. – Margin1522 (talk) 05:17, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
    Frankly, you are becoming less and less coherent. I explained the cutoff date right at the top of the proposal. Two people voted for option B. They didn't think it was a strawman. Fernando Safety (talk) 22:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
    Presumably the voters for option B wanted to endorse the existing practice of Western order for modern names, and would have if that option had been available. That didn't prevent MChew from noting that option B covers historical figures as well, and mocking it as "Yoritomo Minamoto" and "Shikibu Murasaki". Was that your intention?
    I note that you still haven't indicated your plan for fixing the problem I mentioned earlier – that most modern names in Wikipedia are now in the wrong order, according to MOS-JA. As the person who rewrote the MOS, what do you think we should do about this? Does it need to be fixed, and if not why not? I think you owe us an answer on that.
    Let me note one other problem. As it stands, the MOS says to give precedence to the form used by the person himself, or on the person's behalf, in English-language materials. Almost always this will be in Western order. For names that can't be confirmed in English-language materials, we are supposed to use the opposite order. What this means in practice is that articles will have modern names in both orders. Those confirmed in English will be given-name-first. Those confirmed in Japanese will be family-name-first. In other words, the problem of inconsistent name order that Curly was complaining about will be found in many more articles from throughout modern history, right up to today, instead of in a few articles about the Meiji period. This is an improvement?
    If we are going to say that the default name order is family-name-first, then I don't see any way around this difficulty except the academic approach -- ignore the person's own preferences in English-language materials, and always use family-name-first. I wonder what the people who voted for option A think about this. Are they willing to be consistent and always use the style favored by academics who are literate in Japanese? – Margin1522 (talk) 00:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
    As an editor, I'd say yes, it'd do away with so many headaches. Whether that best serves readers? I'm on the fence about that. Having surname first doesn't seem to raise issues with regards to Chinese and Korean names ... Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:46, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
    • My first instinct is to support family name first across the board, aside from a few exceptions of the Yoko Ono type. That works for China, Korea, and Vietnam, all of which have nomenclature traditions similar to Japan's. It does occur to me that there are some hard cases to deal with. For a singer or an author, it may make sense for the article title correspond to the name under which the albums or books are sold. The name order used in the article's references can be a consideration as well. I do not support treating the subject's website or other promotional material as an indication of his "personal preference." Typically, we talking about Japanese-language sites. The designers of such sites are unlikely to have put much thought into the name order issue. Fernando Safety (talk) 12:05, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
    I think the Yoko Ono case has little to do with "personal preference". It's what the audience knows and expects. Same with Ichiro Suzuki. Who knows what Ichiro prefers? For persons who are not well known, I think we might as well just go ahead and assume a personal preference for given-name-first, since that is almost always true, and then decide that we are going to ignore personal preferences and ignore the order used in the sources. It's just too confusing to have different orders in different articles, or even within the same article. We have to choose one or the other and enforce it. And since we – the small minority who are literate in Japanese – find surname-first the most natural then surname-first it is. That is, assuming we go this way, in defiance of normal WP conventions.
    Note that this is different from honoring personal preferences in spelling – Goto, Gotoh, Gotou, Gotō, or whatever. Readers can figure that out. What they can't figure out is which part of Keita Gotō is the surname.– Margin1522 (talk) 03:30, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
    I feel there has been a misunderstanding. No, I do not think the subject's personal preference should be a factor in titling. I certainly do not think we should assume a personal preference, which strikes me as a contradiction in terms. If a singer has put out a series of albums and his name appears the same way on the cover of each, that's probably his personal preference. But in general, there is no way to tell what a celeb's personal preference might be. There are surveys which suggest that ordinary Japanese are split down the middle on this issue. So you can't assume anything. Fernando Safety (talk) 04:36, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
    Surveys? I'm aware of one survey that has come up in this discussion – the 1999 survey cited by the Kokugo Shingikai, in which about 1/3 of respondents, after having been informed that Western media give Chinese and Korean names surname first, said that it would be good if they did the same for Japanese. And there is the Ministry of Education's recent policy for English textbooks. But I have to say that I'm not aware that these efforts have had much effect. As far as I can see, given-name-first remains overwhelmingly popular. That's why name order consistency was never rarely a problem under the old policy, and why it will be a problem (of our own making) if we switch.
    As to what I can assume, I'm just making my best effort here. I have to say that I really don't know what to make of this stuff that User:Fernando Safety is saying with such confidence. You have almost no editing history for us to go on. Have you ever been to Japan, and do you read Japanese? It's just kind of strange for a new user to suddenly appear and immediately start organizing an RfC and rewriting the Manual of Style. I can't help but wonder what's going on here. – Margin1522 (talk) 02:05, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
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