Talk:History of Japan/Archive 9

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I haven't read the article in a while, but I got my hands on a copy of Tsutsui's Companion to Japanese History and thought I'd scan a couple of things (though I have no intention of doing an actual source check or getting into developing any of the content of this page).

I came across the following:

The Jōmon period (縄文 時代 Jōmon jidai?) is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 12,000 BC[7] (in some cases dates as early as 14,500 BC are given[8]) to about 800 BC.

I thought I'd purged the article of this kind of crufty, hairsplitting shit writing but wasn't going to do or say anything until I looked at the sourcing:

in some cases dates as early as 14,500 BC are given: this is not what the source says—the source says 14,500 BC. Which date is most accepted and which is "some cases" is not mentioned in the sources. Hudson's essay "Japanese Beginnings" in Tsutsui says "most archaeologists begin with the first appearance of pottery around 16,500 years ago". I'm not in a position to judge the acceptance levels of whatever date, but the judgement dispayed here is not backed up by the sources. That, folks, is what they call WP:OR, which of course is a much more important issue than the shitty quality of the writing. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:41, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

This section was copied from the Jomon period article. The Habu source is at least accurately cited as giving the date of 14,500 BC as the start of the period, whereas Henshall's book uses c. 13,000 BC. Therefore, if we want to continue to include more than one opinion, we could change it to "The Jōmon period (縄文 時代 Jōmon jidai?) is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 14,500 BC or 13,000 BC..."CurtisNaito (talk) 11:01, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

No, we don't want to include more than one opinion—that stuff belongs in the subarticles. What we want is something that accurately reflects the sources without committing any sort of analysis not in the sources. If the sources conflict, we don't get to pick & choose the numbers we like best, nor only the numbers we happen to have access to, and we don't get to present them in the light of our own POV. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:04, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I see a wide range of dates given. This one says 12,000 BP (or roughly 10,000 BC), and this one as late at 10,000 BP (so about 8,000 BC). This one's old, but at least acknowledges that scholars don't agree. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:19, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, if you think only one opinion would be best for this article, I suppose it might be better to use a source giving a wide range. Habu gives about 14,500 to about 300 BC, which is one of the broadest ranges I have seen in a book, so I recommend we use this in order to cover all our possible bases.CurtisNaito (talk) 12:26, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, if you think only one opinion would be best for this article: How could you possibly get this from what I wrote? That is pretty much exactly the opposite of what I said. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:29, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

The more I search around, the less confident I am that there is a generally agreed-upon start date—skimming through EBSCO I see also the dates 14,000 BP and 15,000 BP in recent articles. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:31, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I thought you said, "No, we don't want to include more than one opinion". How many specific opinion should we include then? So far you have listed three in your last post, and I have listed two.CurtisNaito (talk) 12:33, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

So we have piles of dates, and no indication that any of them are the "most accepted". The first step would be to hunt around for sources that talk about this, and if none can be found, then we start a discussion about how best to resolve it. We don't simply include all the dates we can find, or we end up with a situation like at Nanjing Massacre, where the low number would end up being an unacceptable "zero". Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:37, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I advocate that we use the broad range of dates provided by Habu's book (about 14,500 to about 300 BC). Most of the general secondary sources consulted did not give dates quite so early for the start or quite so late for the end, but these are approximate dates anyway, and I think a wider range is more likely to be less controversial.CurtisNaito (talk) 08:30, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

*facepalm* No, if the sources don't agree, we don't just choose one that we happen to find convenient. Can we get off this treadmill? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:58, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Well okay, that was just my view on what we should do. Could you give me what wording you propose to use?CurtisNaito (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

No—I've told you what needs to be done, which is research, not "proposed wordings" pulled out of hats. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:51, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, okay, but ultimately I suspect we will have to chose one date over another ourselves, unless you think we should include a variety of dates from various sources. New discoveries in this field occur too rapidly, and I doubt we will find a source which says "The up-to-date scholarly consensus is that the Jomon period began on x date." I'll look into it, though for the record the dozen or so sources I have consulted so far have all given slightly different dates, without an obvious consensus between them.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:56, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

No, if there's no scholarly consensus we cannot "chose one date over another ourselves". That is not an option. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:05, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I know you had initially said that "we don't want to include more than one opinion", but without a scholarly consensus, doing that might be for the best. We could go with something like "The start of the Jomon period can be dated to around 14,500 BC according to Junko Habu, around 14,000 BC according to Milton Meyer, or around 13,000 BC according to Kenneth Henshall.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:18, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

An approach that is silly and would destroy the article. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey The Encyclopedia Britannica article deals with the Jomon dating issue effectively. The problem being that different scholars appear to disagree substantially about the definition of "early Jomon". Just a small note here, about the prehistoric section, although the Schirokauer encyclopedia does have something speculative about hundreds of thousands of years, (something about up to 700,000 I believe), I agree with the recent edits. zzz (talk) 02:28, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

We could use the Britannica article, though a non-encyclopaedia source would be better. Do you know of one? I linked to one above, but it's from 1987. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I've got the book here, and I can't see anything on hominids or humanoids in Japan. All I see is some stuff about Peking Man (500,000 years ago) and "archeologists have surmised that humanoids lived as long as one million years ago in Southwest China". Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:02, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

"However, although we have evidence that humans lived on the continent from at least 700,000 years ago..." p.138, "Palaeolithic Culture". Must be a different edition (mine is missing the cover etc, so I don't know which edition it is off-hand.) It's not worth using anyway, like I said. Maybe in the Prehistory article. zzz (talk) 05:08, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Shit, "the continent". "200,000 years ago" and a lot of other inaccuracies were there before which needed correcting urgently. No excuse, I apologise. zzz (talk) 05:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I can't believe I fucked up like that. It's in the middle of a paragraph, sandwiched between stuff about Japan, but still. zzz (talk) 05:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

My edition's the fourth; it's talking about "The Tomb Period" and has a picture of a couple of dancing haniwa on p. 138. "Palaeolithic Culture" is on 130–131, and has just the stuff I quoted above. Perhaps the info in your edition has been called into question and so was dropped? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:55, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Good point. I thought it seemed substandard to just say "humans" when referring to hominids but not referring to homo sapiens. zzz (talk) 07:09, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Curtis, could you quote the relevant text from this source? While an encyclopedia article with a named author, who appears to at least have studied this area extensively (unlike most of the article's sources) is certainly better than the previous source, it is still an encyclopedia article and so doesn't fully resolve my concerns with the previous source. The previous source was certainly at least adequate as it directly verified the material and is generally reliable, so if the current source does not directly verify the material then the previous source, with the tag, should be returned.

Note that I'm not giving an opinion on whether or not it does directly verify the material -- I have no way of knowing how in-depth your source's articles are. I just want a quotation.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:02, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Henshall says, "The Hojo shogunal regents became particularly dominant after 1221, when they survived a challenge to their power from the retired emperor Go-Toba". "Japan at War" says "As a result [of the Jokyu War], the shōgunate gained power at Kyoto’s expense".CurtisNaito (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay, that doesn't verify the article's text. The power of the Hojo regents over the shogun is an entirely separate issue from the relative powers of the shogunate (shogun and regent) and the court.

The fact that the Jokyu disturbance was roughly coincident with the extinction of the line of Yoritomo also makes what Henshall was saying somewhat complicated and likely outside the scope of this article.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, Curtis, I know it's nitpicky, but could you format your edit summaries the way everyone else, with the name of and a link to the section you edited or commented in? It's been going on as far back as I can remember, and is really bizarre. I've never encountered any other user who systematically removed this formatting from all their edit summaries, and it frankly looks like you're trying to make it difficult for others to see what you're doing. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:14, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

The text which I quoted does verify the article content, but if you're concerned about the use of an encyclopedia article, it looks the like same sort of information is also included in Totman and Mason/Craiger. I'll add in Totman.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:10, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

What do they say? Do you understand the difference between the Hojo regents solidifying their control over the shogunate and the shogunate solidifying their control over the court? They are not the same thing, even if they both happened at around the same time for similar reasons, and if I wanted a source for the former I would have just used Keene, but Keene, like apparently Henshall, Totman and Mason/Craiger, doesn't explicitly connect the power of the shogunate over the court with the Jokyu disturbance. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:26, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

None of the sources mention the Hojo regents becoming more dominant over the shogunate during this period. So far every source I have cited deals exclusively with the Hojo-controlled shogunate's relations with the imperial court. Henshall says that the Hojo-controlled shogunate increased its power by defeating a challenge from the imperial court. I thought the initial quote I provided was sufficiently clear, but here is a little more, "The Hojo shogunal regents became particularly dominant after 1221, when they survived a challenge to their power from the retired emperor Go-Toba... Following his unsuccessful challenge the shogunate based a shogunal deputy in the capital to help keep a check on the court." I am also citing Totman who says, "after shogunal leaders had crushed the imperial insurgents and exiled Go­-Toba to Sado Island, they deepened their control of both the city and western Japan. During the next several years the Hōjō further strengthened their position..."CurtisNaito (talk) 07:38, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Curtis, please stop edit-warring. There is no rush to improve this citation, and the Britannica article satisfied all the necessary criteria. It's my OCD telling me that the source could be better. The first part of the Totman quote you provided directly above here should be adequate, though. Thank you. Please remove the Henshall citation, though, as none of the quotes you have provided from Henshall bear even the slightest resemblance to our article's text. But if you want to cite Henshall as you quote him above for including a reference to the Rokuhara constabulary being established to monitor the court and police the capital, I would support that -- is that what you are suggesting? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:52, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

But please tell me you were joking when you said "None of the sources mention the Hojo regents becoming more dominant over the shogunate during this period." It's pretty clear that all of the sources, including both the quotes you provided above, say this. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

If you don't want two sources, we could cite either Henshall or Totman exclusively. They both say the same thing. As you can see from the quotes, I'm not aware that any of these sources mention the Hojo increasing their power over the shogunate. Each of these books deals only with the relationship between the Hojo-controlled shogunate and the imperial court.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:57, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean by "the Hojo-controlled shogunate"? How and when did the Hojo come to control the shogunate? I know the post-1221 shogunate authority is often referred to interchangeably with the Hojo regents, but assuming the two are synonymous in texts discussing the period before the Jokyu disturbance, the death of Sanetomo or even the death of Yoritomo is clearly problematic. Especially when, as in all the sources quoted, the Hojo regency as opposed to Yoritomo's descendants is clearly what is being referred to. Could you please quote the sentences immediately before and after the above Totman clipping, so I can be sure I'm getting the context correct? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:47, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

All the sources I've been using regard the Hojo and the shogunate as synonymous after Yoritomo's death. Totman says, "In following years Yoritomo’s own lineage failed to survive the savage personal rivalries of the day, his second and last son being murdered in 1219. Instead, the Hōjō, the natal lineage of his storied wife Masako, provided effective leadership by selecting titular shogun from Kyoto while controlling affairs themselves through a sort of regency (shikken) for the shogun... Court leaders had accepted Yoritomo’s arrangements as the least awful of unwelcome choices, but they did not intend to let the bakufu become a permanent ruling center. In particular Go­Toba, a grandson of Go­Shirakawa, resented these bushi inroads on imperial authority, and he maneuvered to revive insei control of the realm... after shogunal leaders had crushed the imperial insurgents and exiled Go­Toba to Sado Island, they deepened their control of both the city and western Japan. During the next several years the Hōjō further strengthened their position".CurtisNaito (talk) 18:56, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

How much text was in that ellipsis? Because reading the passage as you present it very clearly looks like the Hojo grew stronger after the death of Yoritomo, stronger still after the death of Sanetomo, and finally cemented their position following the Jokyu disturbance. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

No, the sources don't mention that. As I said, the particular sources I have only dealt with the shogunate's relations with the Imperial court, though it is mentioned that the shogunate was controlled by the Hojo after Yoritomo's death. I cited all the portions which contained relevant information, so I think the text in the article is adequately sourced at this point.CurtisNaito (talk) 00:56, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Curtis, unless your sources explicitly say "Following the death of Yoritomo the Hojo regents seized complete control of the shogunate. Hereafter we shall refer to the shogunate as "the Hojo regents".", your above claim is OR, and you should drop it immediately. Your persistent violations of Dennis Brown are putting you on the fast track to getting blocked, as constantly trying to convince you of obvious facts is certainly not making editing a pleasant experience for the rest of us. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:59, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I have been very careful throughout to stick to the wording favored by the sources cited and I advised you to do the same. The sources do believe that the Hojo fully controlled the shogunate after Yoritomo's death. As Totman says, the Hojo were "selecting titular shogun from Kyoto while controlling affairs themselves", or as Henshall notes, Hojo Masako "reduced the position of shogun to a nominal one, [with] real control being exercised by the Hojo." If you had access to these sources yourself, I think you would understand that the facts which I have been summarizing in the article are actually more accurate and faithful to the sources than the interpretations you have been favoring. At any rate, the best way to move forward is to focus on article content. I said in my last post that I think that "the article is adequately sourced at this point", which is what matters. In your response, you never addressed this point, but that is the only point that matters. As long as the article is sufficiently sourced already, there is no need to talk about anything else.CurtisNaito (talk) 05:56, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I have been very careful throughout to stick to the wording favored by the sources cited Except where you changed "the Hojo regents" to "the Kamakura shogunate" and changed "the Taira family" to "the Taira clan". It seems you only follow the sources' wording (in the form of direct quotes that look like scare-quotes, mind you) when the sources give either inaccurate or unfortunately vague wording and quoting them makes the article worse ("tragic hero", "setsuwa"...). Those are just the edits I specifically requested you make after the GAR finished; we still haven't even begun spot-checking the parts of the article you screwed up back in August. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:55, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, all I can say is that when personal opinions of users conflict with sources, we should just try to stick closely to the wording of the sources, which is what I did do as you can see from the quotes I provided. Even if you have personal objections to expressions like the ones above, for the purposes of this article it's still better to follow the sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 13:00, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, all I can say is that when personal opinions of users conflict with sources, we should just try to stick closely to the wording of the sources Yes, except that's the exact opposite of what you did -- when the wording used by your sources conflicted with your personal opinion that, for instance, the entire Taira clan was wiped out (an outrageous assumption supported by no primary or secondary sources), you used different wording; when your sources used unfortunate wording that agreed with your personal opinion but would not improve the article in any way (which is why I had asked you to include that specific information in the first place!) you stuck to quoting the sources directly. That's the opposite of what we should be doing -- when the sources are right and what they say can be used to improve the article, we shouldn't change what they say; when they don't provide the information we need but instead include only random tidbits, we should not include the tidbits, and should go and try to find better sources that do support the information we need to improve the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:18, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I already explained these issues to you, and as I showed you from the quotes, my preferred wording was more faithful to the original, reliable sources than your preferred wording. Just repeating personal opinions on the talk page isn't very useful at this point. If you have any new, specific suggestions for improving the article we should focus on that instead.CurtisNaito (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? Are we still talking about the Hojo regents/Kamakura shogunate? And how dare you claim what I wrote is "your wording"? I wrote the sentence in question and provided a source for it, but my source was not ideal; I tagged it in the hopes of improving it with a better source that said the same thing; you came back with a better source that didn't say the same thing. But you never changed the wording -- the wording is mine, and I have had quite enough of you taking credit for this and other work that was done by others in spite of your interference. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:41, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I was referring to the issue which you brought up in your previous post. However, regarding the sourcing for the information on the Hojo regents/Kamakura shogunate, I quoted the source above and it did verify the text. After that, I added another source which I also quoted above. At this point, it seems like the section is adequately sourced, which was the issue to begin with, and we should be able to close this topic and discuss other areas for improvement now.CurtisNaito (talk) 13:50, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

The sources said either "the Taira family was wiped out" or "the Ise branch of the Taira clan was wiped out"; these are not conflicting claims -- "Taira family" was clearly shorthand for "the main (Ise) branch of the Taira clan that formed a single extended family which we are referring to as the Taira family". While I wanted to say "the Ise branch of the Taira clan was wiped out", you wanted to say "the Taira clan was wiped out". Even though none of our sources say that. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:00, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I was indicating before that I don't think it's a good idea to make such sweeping assumptions about what sources are allegedly actually referring even when the sources don't say any such thing. I quoted the text to you directly in the talk page and the article, and there was no reason to believe that the information was inaccurate. But I've already expressed my concerns to you about your occasional inaccurate summarization of cited sources in the article text, and all I can do is continue to encourage you to do better in this area next time. If there is any need to eliminate ambiguity, we can cite Farris and say that the Ise Taira were exterminated, but I still don't think we need to provide the rest of the obscure details about other clans which happened to have Taira ancestors.CurtisNaito (talk) 08:20, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I was indicating before that I don't think it's a good idea to make such sweeping assumptions about what sources are allegedly actually referring even when the sources don't say any such thing. Curtis, do you really not see the irony of that statement? YOU are the one who reading his source's "the Hojo regents" as "the shogunate, not just the regency". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, you just posted four times in four sections, so you must have been clicking the "edit section" buttons. This means you actively chose to remove your edit summaries. Why did you do this? And why did you ignore my previous request that you stop? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:10, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I didn't delete any edits summaries, I just didn't add one. This is just the talk page, so I don't really think it's a big deal whether or not I insert an edit summary. If you still have any ideas for expanding the article then from now on let's stick to discussing article content.CurtisNaito (talk) 09:14, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

No matter what device I edit from, when I click the section edit button the edit summary "/* Jokyu sourcing */ " is generated automatically. Assuming good faith, I went into preferences to check whether this was the result of some setting that is set to the on position by default and 99% of Wikipedians haven't switched off yet. I found no such setting. What do you mean by I just didn't add one? I have half a mind to take this to the Help Desk to see if I'm missing something here? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:42, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I just used the edit source button and then posted in the correct section. Let's focus on article content here.CurtisNaito (talk) 09:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Why did you do that four separate times for four separate sections? Anyway, I would love to focus on improving the article. Let's start doing that, shall we? You can start by not ignoring all content-related discussion and honing in on the conduct stuff. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:28, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

By the way, I already asked you (quite some time ago) to start providing quotes verifying all the material cited to sources Sturmgewehr88, Curly Turkey, Signedzzz and I don't own. They look like decent sources so I'm not out to replace them, but we need to be sure they verify the claims of the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:35, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

What did Henshall write immediately before The Hojo shogunal regents became particularly dominant after 1221? In this context in particular it seems almost impossible to read "the Hojo shogunal regents" as being a synonym for the shogunate itself. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:38, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

It won't be possible to provide quotes to you verifying that much material. This article has hundreds of unique citations which I added, and to verify them all with quotes on the talk page would be a copyright violation, even assuming I quote only the basic facts. Usually I quote the essential facts and then you ask me to provide even lengthier quotations for some reason. I can provide you with some specific quotations here and there on specific request, but remember, it's up to the person who has the sources to verify them. TH1980 and myself have access to the sources and have verified them. Providing quotations for every single citation here is against Wikipedia copyright rules and, at any rate, seems unnecessary since you haven't yet found any examples of information in the article which was inaccurately cited. If I want to check your citations to Keene, I'll get the book myself. As I noted, so far you have been considerably less than careful than I have been in ensuring that the text of the Wikipedia article is faithful to the cited sources. Furthermore, Prhartcom has already repeatedly told you in no uncertain terms that the issue of source verification is finished and resolved. I advise you to listen to him. Regarding Henshall though, before "The Hojo shogunal regents became particularly dominant after 1221" he says, "One of the devices used by Masako was the institution of a shogunal regent. This reduced the position of shogun to a nominal one, with manipulable court nobles generally being appointed as shogun and real control being exercised by the Hojo." In other words, the shogun was already a nominal position long before 1221.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:24, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

The reason I asked for different quotes is because the quotes you provided didn't verify the content, but you claimed that in context they did. And given your penchant for radically altering the claims made in your sources (on this article it's close to 100% so far) I think we need either quotes to verify the individual claims of the article (you don't need to quote the entire book, even if the page numbers you provided imply that -- just the relevant bits) or find different sources the rest of us either already have access to or are willing to pay for and remove all the dubious citations of Henshall, Totman and the rest. And don't you dare claim once again that I am arguing that these sources are generally unreliable; I am saying they have demonstrably been misquoted in this article, and we have no reason to assume they aren't still being misquoted. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

No, they were not misquoted. I provided the quotations in full to prove that point. I can provide you with specific quotations on request, but it's up to you whether or not you read them. However, if the issues relating to article content are now resolved, then we can move on to other issues.CurtisNaito (talk) 23:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Curtis, as far as I am concerned both statements are WP:TRUE, so it's essentially a moot point. However, it's blatantly obvious that position of shogun became more nominal over time. Sanetomo at least was a teenager and then young adult, and was even in his own lifetime a revered figure. He was not as impotent as the toddlers who were installed later on. So it seems to me that we should be looking for sources that explicitly state that the Kamakura shogunate became more powerful in relation to the court after the incident; assuming that the one is a synonym of the other under all circumstances is obviously OR; Keene distinguishes them by pointing out how the court underestimated the influence of the Hojo regents, thinking the shogunate was in the midst of a succession crisis, so obviously when the Hojo proved the court wrong it would have meant an increase in their power over the shogunate, as well as an increase in their power over the court.

Anyway, I have no reason to purchase copies of introductory textbooks to a field I have already studied extensively, and I cannot take your word for it that 100% of the citations I can't check are accurate, when I know 100% of the citations I have checked were inaccurate. Either you provide the quotes or I go out and verify/falsify the material with what I have available to me. (And don't ask for yet more evidence that near 100% of the citations I checked were inaccurate. I have already presented it numerous times in several venues.)

On the other hand, I highly recommend you purchase and read Keene 1998/1999. It only cost me about 10,000\ on Amazon for about 4,000 pages of top notch scholarship. At least one volume of the book has accompanied me on every long bus journey since 2012, and every time I open it I learn something new. It is indisputably the best work of its kind in English, and looks set to remain so. My asking you to read Keene is by no means equivalent to you asking me to buy copies of Henshall or Totman.

Also, thank you for withdrawing your nomination. Now we can finally move on with building the article.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Relevance of this dispute to Prhartcom's proposal on ANI

Although I notice the IDHT comment "they were not misquoted" came after the nomination was withdrawn. Is Prhartcom's proposal only being accepted in part? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:03, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I accept Prhartcom's proposition, but I think henceforth you should provide evidence when you claim I misquoted or misrepresented something, which so far you haven't. Saying that it's "blatantly obvious that position of shogun became more nominal over time" is just your opinion, and furthermore it's not what the sources in question said. Toddler shoguns were already serving even before the Jokyu War. All that mattered in this case was whether or not the sources matched the text cited, and they did.CurtisNaito (talk) 12:17, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Toddler shoguns were already serving even before the Jokyu War. Please name two. You cannot, as Yoriie was 20 when he became shogun and Sanetomo was 11, but by the time the latter was assassinated (while still in office) he was in his late twenties. 11 still isn't a "toddler", though. After Sanetomo there was an interregnum until sometime after the Jokyu incident. The next three shoguns were 8, 5 and 10 respectively. How dare you accuse me of basing my arguments on "my own opinion", when you are doing exactly the same thing only worse?

I think henceforth you should provide evidence when you claim I misquoted or misrepresented something, which so far you haven't. That is an outrageous accusation, and should never be made without solid evidence. You know perfectly well that every time I have found you misquoting a source I have not only shown what you said and shown what the source actually said, but also explained in excruciating detail how the two are different. Whether this was deliberate or accidental in each case, I cannot tell. But the fact remains that it has happened. A lot. As in close to 100% of the cases where I was able to directly check what your source says, or where you provided me with the relevant quotation. Before you continue making accusations like this, the burden is on you to show some example of me making a claim about you misquoting or misrepresenting a source without also providing evidence. @User:Sturmgewehr88 @User:Curly Turkey Have either of you noticed me making such claims without providing evidence? Does CurtisNaito ignoring all the evidence that has been provided indicated a rejection of Prhartcom's proposal that "there will never again be any WP:IDHT"?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I disagree that you found any misquotes. You have a unique interpretation of the sources, and while I refrained from saying the overused word "misrepresentation", I have said that I think your interpretation of the sources is considerably looser than mine. Mark Weston's book notes that Sanetomo was a pure puppet ruler to the Hojo, and that was equally the case of the even younger shoguns who were selected to replace him. However, I keep asking you if the sourcing issue relating to this area is already resolved and you haven't been responding. We need to keep conversation focused on article content, so if the sourcing is fine now, then we shouldn't be talking about this any more.CurtisNaito (talk) 13:53, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

You are wrong, plain and simple. I don't think you are deliberately distorting the facts -- I think you honestly believe your interpretation of the sources is the correct one and I am the one with a unique interpretation. The problem is that everyone can see that you are the one with a unique interpretation of the sources. And it doesn't matter if Sanetomo was a pure puppet. You were wrong to call him a "toddler". You showed your own ignorance of the basic facts of the history of this period by doing so. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:16, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Curtis, I notice despite your continued arguing with me over this issue on your user talk page (where I was trying to discuss an unrelated issue but you and TH1980 brought it back to this as though your user talk page was the correct venue for it) you still have not explained why you referred to Yoriie and Sanetomo as "toddler shoguns". Did your finger slip? Or did you actually think that "puppet" meant the same thing as "toddler"? Or were you speaking philosophically about how both men were at some point in their lives shogun and at some other point toddler? I'm grabbing at straws here, trying to assume you are not just trying to bludgeon this discussion enough that I will give up and go away. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:39, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

It depends on how you define toddler, though Sanetomo was only eleven years old when he became shogun and was never in a position to lead. The point I have been making on the talk page is that I have been very careful to cite information accurately whereas many other users like TH1980 and Prhartcom have disagreed with your concerns about sourcing. Secondly, we are supposed to be discussing article content, and the more essential point is that the citations I added were correct and the Hojo did control the shogunate prior to the Jokyu War. I didn't respond immediately to your last post because you had all but abandoned discussing article content in spite of my repeated requests that we keep discussion focused on that.CurtisNaito (talk) 14:51, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I have been very careful to cite information accurately ... except where you changed "over 100,000 dead" to "roughly 100,000 dead", and changed "in theory, workers were promised employment security" to "workers were given employment security". And all the other places I found and provided ample evidence of days, weeks, months and years ago. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:55, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

And no one in their right mind would refer to a 20-year-old and an 11-year-old collectively as "toddlers". Or even to an 11-year-old by himself as a toddler. You are mincing words to get around the fact that you previously got the facts wrong both in the article and on this talk page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:57, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

You're the one who keeps on ignoring article content in favor quibbling about details on the talk page. The sourcing I inserted on the Jokyu War was accurate. You could have just recognized that fact and we could have moved on, but instead you repeatedly failed to answer me when I asked you if the sourcing issue was resolved. Once that was resolved, there was no need to continue. Admittedly yes, I do think you have made outright factually incorrect statement many times on this talk page, but I never brought it up because it's the article text we are supposed to be discussing, not random details on the talk page like Sanetomo being a child shogun. The part about lifetime employment was corrected cited. Henshall believes that the system was exaggerated, but it still existed in some areas as described in the article. Henshall says that the system collapsed in the 1990s, but it did exist prior to collapsing.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:05, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

You keep asking me to present evidence of you misrepresenting sources, but when I do you call it "ignoring article content in favor quibbling about details". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:11, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, you haven't managed to present the evidence yet. It was me, not you, who has had to provide almost all of the quotations listed here and the quotations did back up what I said.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:15, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Because I didn't have physical access to the source. Your misrepresenting Henshall's view of "lifetime employment" and misrepresenting his casualty estimate of the Kanto earthquake have both been clearly proven on this page in the last 12 hours. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:52, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I've started a sandbox page at Talk:History of Japan/Social for a section on social issues. So far, I've only got a little bit on women, but I hope to expand it to include class, burakumin, slavery, democracy, etc. Feel free to add stuff in there, of course—I just didn't want to disrupt the article with something that will probably be long under construction. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

• Japan's system of lifetime employment largely collapsed: Henshall uses the word "collapse", but I don't think the (qualified) text really supports this statement. Regardless, why is the system only being introduced at its "collapse"?
• Anime and manga are introduced as worldwide phenomena of the last twenty years. Manga became a phenomenon in Japan decades before this, and within Japan still far outsells total world sales. Its significance within Japan is what should be the focus in this article—it makes up 30% of the publishing market there (and I thought it was more like 40% in the 1990s). The worldwide J-Pop "boom" is still something of a fringe phenomenon compared to the sustained saturation of the domestic market. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:50, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I feel that the article should include a summary of the Japanese creation myth near the beginning. Yay or nay? ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 16:56, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Since this is the history of Japan, I don't think including anything regarding the mythology would be appropriate. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:00, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

There are several Japanese creation myths, the most famous being the Kojiki, but at least one other cited in a Man'yo poem that predates the Kojiki. I'm not sure how comparative mythologists feel about this fact, but it makes summarizing "the" Japanese creation myth problematic. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:50, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

There should be a way to work a link to Japanese creation myth into the text. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:08, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a see also link near the top? ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 06:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, a see also link belongs in the See also section near the bottom, but I would imagine a creation myth would be significant enough to merit mention within the main body. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:51, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

There's got to be a better way to word this—obviously they were never "known as" "emperors" in Japanese, and "emperor" and "tennō" are not direct equivalents: we translate "tennō" as "emperor", but we translate "emperor" as "tennō" only with Japanese emperors. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:02, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I guess we could just say that they were "a hereditary line of emperors". The fact that the Japanese title of tenno evolved only gradually is perhaps not an important detail for this article.CurtisNaito (talk) 11:07, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree—whether they were always called "emperors" or whatever is hairsplitting. I've changed it. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:38, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I heard (public lecture -- I took notes, but completely unverifiable, and I don't have sources at the moment, though Britannica says something similar) that "tennō" only became a universal standard for Japanese emperors in the twentieth century, as historically terms like kōtei, tenshi and in were in varying degrees of broad use, and we also have the words sumeramikoto and mikado, which weren't addressed in that lecture. So yeah, definitely in favour of the change. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)