Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/November 2014

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Could somebody please have a look at above mentioned article? I myself have given up on it and the semi-protection does not seem to do its job anymore. A certain group of editors seem to be on the beat way to white-wash the article and delete sources and reference with, at best, dubious reasons. Cheers. Yet again it is more like an advertisement – again. --Catflap08 (talk) 18:42, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

As part of a Quality improvement project, I've recently put the article Hitachi Magic Wand up for Peer Review.

Participation would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Hitachi Magic Wand/archive1. — Cirt (talk) 06:20, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

There are two templates which display Japanese Yen: {{JPY}} and {{currency}}. Currently they both display like "¥99". Both also offer an optional link to Japanese yen. I have two questions.

1. Should they be listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan#Templates ?
2. To avoid conflict with the Chinese Yuan template {{CNY}}, which displays like "CN¥99", should the Japanese yen templates display like "JP¥99" ? Or possibly in some other form?  Stepho  talk  12:08, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually {{CNY}} displays like "CN¥ 99", with a space. I wonder if that's correct. According to MOS:CURRENCY there should never be a space between a currency symbol and the value.

Also I wonder if "CN¥99" actually occurs. Have you ever seen it in real life? In Japanese I have seen "¥" and "JPY", along with "yen" and "円", but I can't remember seeing "JP¥".

I don't read Chinese, but shouldn't {{CNY}} simply display "¥"? In articles about China that would be yuan, and articles about Japan it would be yen. If it's necessary to distinguish, the editor can always add the country code manually, like US$10 and A$10. The reason to have a currency symbol is that it's one character. – Margin1522 (talk) 17:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I changed your use of CN¥99 to be the actual displayed text because I'm about to fix CN¥ and it will change what you are pointing out. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.

If we are talking about explicitly Chinese or explicitly Japanese articles then yes, your suggestion has merit. I'm thinking more about articles that have both currencies - eg the price of electric cars around the world. Perhaps I should make it display the short form (eg "¥") by default and an option to display an unambiguous form (eg "JP¥" and "CN¥") for multi-country articles. This would also solve a similar ambiguity problem like "kr" for multiple kroner currencies in northern European.  Stepho  talk  22:56, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Store price tags in China only display ¥123.45, however the purpose of adding CN in front is similar to how people write US$, CA$ or AU$, to disambiguate and avoid confusion with the Japanese yen. From a quick glance, {{CNY}} is used in a lot of articles that make global comparisons (e.g. product pricing and macroeconomics), so this seems necessary. Also, should WP:WikiProject China be consulted as well, if any changes are made to the CNY template? --benlisquare_T•C•E 05:29, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

In Hong Kong, Macao and surrounding regions it is usually displayed as "123.45元" (I lived in HK for 6 years). The Renminbi article says "The currency is often abbreviated RMB, or indicated by the yuan sign ¥. The latter may be written CN¥ to distinguish it from other currencies with same symbol (such as the Japanese yen). In Chinese texts the currency may also be indicated with the Chinese character for the yuan, 圆 (or 元 informally)" (my underlining).

Be aware that the Canada project decided on "C$" (not "CA$") and the Australian project decided on "A$" (not "AU$") but your basic point is still valid.

As per your suggestion, I have placed some pointers to this conversation on the talk pages for the Chinese project and the {{currency}} and {{CNY}} templates.  Stepho  talk  10:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

123.45元 is also a valid and common alternative; since 元 is pronounced "yuan" in northern Mandarin, it's kind of similar to saying "14 dollars" when referring to $14, or "12 euros" when referring to €12. Either method is used, and it generally depends on the preference of the store displaying the price (e.g. McDonald's in Beijing uses ¥5.50). The same applies in Japan as well - it's also common to see price tags with 15,000円, in addition to ¥.

That said, since these templates specifically deal with currency signs, it makes sense for both the yen and RMB/yuan to be displayed as ¥, which is the recognised currency sign for both, rather than 元 or 円 (which are essentially both variant characters of 圓, the word for the large/undivided monetary unit). I'd say that our focus would probably be deciding on whether ¥ should be preceded by CN/JP. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:39, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Note that the article on ¥ is pretty bare in my opinion, you'd probably learn a bit more by reading the ruwiki equivalent at ru:Символ иены#Примеры использования иероглифов и символов. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:42, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea having {{CNY}} display simply "¥" as the default. Most of the time that's what you want. However, there are times when you want "CNY", like Toyota Prius, where the price of a car from a Japanese automaker was given in both US$ and Chinese "¥". The editor specified {{CNY}}, so he clearly wanted yuan. So there could be an option for those cases to add "CN". Or we could suggest using {{Currency}} instead of {{CNY}}, which would give "CNY". Despite what the Renminbi article says, I'm still not convinced that "CN¥" is a real thing. – Margin1522 (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Isn't RMB more common than CN¥?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:04, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

If you're doing foreign currency exchange or investing in bonds, yes. You're not going to see "RMB" very often in a clothing store for the same reason you won't see "Pounds sterling" at a KFC. RMB is used commonly within certain specific areas, and ¥ is used everywhere else, which makes both usages in widespread circulation, only within different audiences. Adding "CN" in front of "CN¥" isn't really common though, however as mentioned above, there are some cases on Wikipedia where only using the yuan/yen sign would be problematic. I'm opposed to using "RMB" when representing the currency on Wikipedia though, since RMB is a colloquial acronym, and the proper ISO 4217 currency code is still "CNY". --benlisquare_T•C•E 04:51, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a hard call. Officially both China and Japan use "¥" in day-to-day matters, reserving CNY (China) and JPY (Japan) for international trade. But CNY and JPY read badly except for when used by money-market businesses (currency trading, business section of the newspaper, etc). There is no official, reader friendly currency symbol for either country that fits in an international context. Many countries simply take the 2 character ISO-3166 code and append the friendly symbol (eg "US$") but this is unofficial. China also uses "元" and "円" in Chinese text (and in most shops) but Japan also uses "円" in Japanese text. For articles solely about one country we can just use "¥" with no problem. But for multi-country articles we only have a few choices - none perfect:

1. Use "¥" for both countries and hope context will tell the user which one we mean.
2. Use "¥" for both countries and always link to Chinese Yuan Renminbi or Japanese Yen.
3. Use "CN¥" for China and "¥" for Japan and hope nobody notices the ambiguity.
4. Use "CN¥" and "JP¥" and hope nobody complains about the ugliness.
5. Use "CNY" and "JPY" and brace ourselves for the inevitable backlash.
6. Use "元" for China and "¥" for Japan, even though "元" is unofficial.

Some of these choices would require agreement from the Chinese and Japanese projects. Thoughts?  Stepho  talk  05:57, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't see what's so bad about the "CN¥" and "JP¥" option. People who are reading these articles are used to dollars, which have a variety of weird prefix letters that you never see in real life outside of international currency trade. I'm sure they'd be forgiving for the extra clarity. --Prosperosity (talk) 06:27, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

For the record, this is my preferred choice. But I've had people complain about similar constructs (eg "GB£" at {{GBP}}). The common complaint is that these constructs are not seen much out in the real world.  Stepho  talk  05:45, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The simplest way to avoid any confusion is "CN¥" and "JP¥" or "CNY" and "JPY" in articles which cover both. In articles which are only about Japan or China, using just ¥ is sufficient, just like we use US$ and CN$/CAN$ or USD and CAN/CND instead of just $ in articles about both. To address a concern below, ¥ is commonly used worldwide for Japanese yen. I can't speak about the yuan as I haven't really watched for it. Whether people complain about them is irrelevant as they are clear and understandable. Being clear is more important than being aesthetic. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:49, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Regarding option 6, I'd oppose it on the basis that this is the English Wikipedia, and it seems out of place to put the Chinese word for "yuan" in the middle of an English sentence. It would be like writing "In 2007, the Russian government spent 36,000 рублей on repairing the Trans-Baikal Railway". 元 isn't a currency symbol, it's an actual word, like dog (狗) or cat (猫). As for option 2, the link should be to Renminbi, since the article located at Chinese yuan is about a measure unit, not a currency. --benlisquare_T•C•E 07:30, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I can attest that signs in Hong Kong often display prices as "5.50元", using the word as a currency symbol - just like they have done for many centuries. Europeans use symbols instead mostly because their words are so lengthy to write down. But the point is taken that using non-Latin characters can cause trouble if you don't have that font on your computer and that many readers will not understand it anyway.

Good pickup on the correct link to Renminbi. An oversight by me when typing the list. I have corrected it above, leaving the original mistake struck-out.  Stepho  talk  05:45, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that we should stick to RMB for the Chinese currency, unless it is absolutely necessary in an article on economics to go CNY and JPY.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

We should be also be taking common usage into account, should we not? Most English-language sources do not use RMB, they use CNY. In most of the cases I've seen on places such as International Business Times, CNN Money or Financial Review, if "Renminbi" is mentioned, it is written in full and not abbreviated, and in other cases CNY is used. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

We should also consider common usage everywhere. If it is an informal discussion about something and the currency is mentioned, RMB should suffice, but if it is an extensive discussion on economics and trading, clearly CNY should be used instead. Likewise, going ¥ just for the yen is good for informal discussions of the currency, but JPY should be used in articles on economics. And as a sidebar, in my recent layover in Hong Kong, prices were provided in HK$ and not a yuan or renminbi currency.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 12:37, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

It's gone quiet. Should I assume that no change is wanted?  Stepho  talk  04:32, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

A change is probably warranted, it's just that nobody can come to a common agreement on what to do. --benlisquare_T•C•E 05:40, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I think a change is needed, and also that there should be a fundamental discussion of why this template is needed. Based on typical reasons for having templates, I can see at least three reasons.

1. A standard way to enter currency symbols, if they exist. Especially for less familiar ones like the Thai baht
2. A way to enforce proper formatting, e.g. "US$100", not "US$ 100" or "$US 100". "USD 100", not USD100", etc.
3. Adding pages to a catagory, say "Pages that use currency symbols"

This all needs to match common English usage, not usage in foreign languages. For example, I myself often use the dollar sign but rarely use the yen sign: "$100" but "10,000 yen". Sometimes JPY, as in "Unit: JPY 100m". So we shouldn't assume that people will use the template for every purpose, or that the styles will be the same across different languages. To me, that argues for a simple template with a limited function.

All of this should probably be discussed on the template's talk page. But that's a pretty low traffic page, so there is a problem getting input. – Margin1522 (talk) 10:07, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Three Beauties of the Present Day. — Cirt (talk) 00:45, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

After a request I added support for tagging Japanese with the appropriate language tag to the sandbox version of Template:Nihongo, but have not received any feedback on it. I'd appreciate some other eyes on it before I put in an edit request to implement it in the main template. The relevant thread is here: Template talk:Nihongo#ja-Latn-alalc97.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:53, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

We need some help with Honshu! It is a level 4 VITAL article! It is also start class in all of the Wikiprojects it has! If you can't edit, come support my tafi nomination here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_articles_for_improvement/Nominations#Geography 2601:8:3800:55E:1E0:1E6A:9B3F:9B59 (talk) 11:14, 27 November 2014 (UTC)