Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/November 2016

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.

I know one shouldn't never feed the trolls, but should this, yet un-exposed hoax get mention? The one who revealed it as hoax is Polish photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski, but social media is already on Loong's side, partly because main media erroneously reported it as genuine story.

What's worse, this erroneous reporting(lack of facts) has given too much publicity to Loong and I'll fear all efforts will be "too little, too late." http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/attention-seeking-kid-keow-wee-loong/ Podniesinski is offended (and it shows in his writing) but he has collected maps and other information(like reaction of those living in Japan) to prove everything.

I've, personally taken more non-biased approach to this and copied(now slightly changed) text I've written here: (Can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/heta.rikala/ Only recent posts I've made public are these. I may have stooped down with one, but it plainly disgusted me.)

"Please help to condemn acts of "photographer" Keow Wee Loong.

Pictures taken and footage filmed(with flawed and biased narration) by him give false impression that they're from 12 km red zone - one that even residents aren't allowed into. (Known as "ghost zone" in film clip.)

In truth, they're from zones under major rebuilding and are open for everyone, yet still deemed "unhabitable", as residents aren't yet allowed to return*.

(These other zones are known as green and orange. This isn't made clear at all, as no map or explanation of any kind is supplied to show difference between them.)

However, Loong demonstrates - among other things - dangerous lack of understanding how radiation works.

What he did may, in worst-case scenario, promote "guerrilla tourism" to the area that's highly dangerous.

Unlike Chernobyl's sarcophagus and buildings of Pripyat that are treated with risk-awareness and respect, Loong may inadvertly portray the "actual" Fukushima's 12 km red zone as harmless and give impression(himself acting as example) that one can move on it without proper decontamination suit and handle objects exposed to fallout without needing gloves.

(While damage may not be immediate and traumatic(as compared to victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or in lesser extent, Chernobyl's liquidator crew) it still presents something known as "stochastic risk".)

In link below is opinion piece by photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski. It exposes Loong's hoax: http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/attention-seeking-kid-keow-wee-loong/

Loong's social media followers are believing every word he writes(in fact, some heckling Podniesinski) because one picture tells more than 1000 words(number for purpose) and if piece of text proving him wrong is too long and one reading it has to click "Read more.." or "Continue reading"(like in this one), it doesn't get any attention and is skipped.

(This internet behaviour is known as TL:DR, shortened from "too long:didn't read".)

Also, lack of extra effort for fact-checking (known as "too convincing:didn't Google") by journalists that have reported Loong's exploits is alarming and outright breach of ethics they should adhere.

This could be described as "journalistic apathy".

Pulling stunts like this trivialize radiation tragedy and may propagate, at worst, imagery of "area that government of Japan forgot". This may have further negative consequences to area thats still trying to rebuild itself.

Loong's pictures: www.facebook.com/uglykiwi www.facebook.com/KeowPhotography

Footage filmed: (Barcroft TV) Inside Fukushima’s Radioactive Ghost Towns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXTZxMMflM

(If this opinion piece is deemed newsworthy, please direct all inquiries to Arkadiusz Podniesinski.

I want this hoax exposed with treatment it deserves since Finland was also affected by Chernobyl and I've followed webcamera from Fukushima's Tomioka city both before and after the 2011 disaster.)

• Last edit made at 4.11.2016"

If you can pass this someone who cares(even your _own_ social media contacts), I would be grateful. I've posted this to BBC and others several times..... Then I decided to try here. Direct link to message above: https://www.facebook.com/heta.rikala/posts/10154174242339624 ※〶 19:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Fruitmince: TL;DR. Is this a question about an article on Wikipedia? Please be concise. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All this was my efforts show there exists hoax that has been erroneously reported as genuine by journalists that aren't doing their job properly.

Now I'm trying to imitate Don Quixote.

Or as Daily Mail puts it:

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897212/Fukushima-five-years-Inside-exclusion-zone-Japanese-nuclear-plant-deemed-uninhabitable.html#v-8663229143681776457
• Same video in Youtube with rather labelling title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXTZxMMflM Inside Fukushima’s Radioactive Ghost Towns
• video filmed in Namie, some places featured in video on map: http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/Keow-Wee-Loong-map-2.jpg
• goverment material of exclusion zones http://www.reconstruction.go.jp/english/topics/GEJE/20160826_fukusima-now.png

And finally:

Just because entry is "restricted" and residents haven't yet been able to return their homes permanently (thus, no people walking on the streets or living in houses 24h/7days week), it doesn't mean town is fully "ghost town".

At its best, this has been very effective propaganda piece, if not even expose highlighting several issues in modern, fast-pacing journalism that have gone unnoticed way, way too long.

In short, Daily Mail's recent publication of this story gives Keow Wee Loong something he doesn't reserve at all - more followers in social media and those not knowing any better.

My primary concern is someone may imitate him for fame and try access real _and_ harmful "red zone", without knowing Loong wasn't there at first place at all.

If above was TL;DR, I've updated article about Namie, Fukushima to reflect my concerns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fruitmince (talk • contribs) 22:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC) ※〶 21:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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.

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.

At the Junichirō Koizumi move request, we are told we should not use macrons on titles if news and other popular sources don't use the macron. As a rule, news sources don't use macrons at all. If this is now a valid reason to remove macrons, it will affect all titles, from (with versus without the macron) to genkō yōshi (with versus without). There is virtually no macronned article that would survive.

WP:JAPAN and MOS:JAPAN needs to make explicit whether this is an acceptable rationale.

-- Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:48, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

• If this is an acceptable rationale, macrons should be explicitly banned from titles in MOS:JAPAN, rather than have endless talkpage fights over moves requests. If this ratinale is rejected, then macronned versions should explicitly be made the default. Exceptions should be truly exceptional, such as with Yoko Ono, where the macronned version of her name is virtually unknown. A simple majority of Google hits should be rejected outright; exceptions should be made only when the default is unambiguously unreasonable. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:48, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the macron in "Junichirō" doesn't do any practical good that I can see -- it signifies a long O, but the O has to be long anyway (by the rules of English orthography); if it was a short O the name would presumably be spelled "Junichira" or something. If the macrons are entirely or mainly just unhelpful pedantry like that, then yes get rid of them. All things being equal, we should stick to the Latin alphabet for English when we can. But of course common usage trumps all of that. (FWIW this Google Ngram implies that "Junichiro" is more common anyway, at least in books, in the case of that particular name. More Ngrams could be run against other names to gather data.) Herostratus (talk) 01:29, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Herostratus: if it was a short O the name would presumably be spelled "Junichira" or something—please see Vowel length. Your English phonics education has confused you.

Re: NGRAM—Google NGRAM returns zero hits for "Jun'ichirō", as NGRAM does not recognize macrons. A GBooks search returns 22,100 hits for "Jun'ichirō" -"Junichiro". NGRAM cannot be used to determine macron usage. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:01, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, OK, did not realize that about Ngrams and macrons, so nevermind about that.

As to my English phonics education having confused me, that may well be, but consider that most of our readers are products of English phonics education. If my education is "wrong", well, it's our job to cater to that, I'm afraid (assuming that I'm typical of our readers, which I think I probably am for this).

My understanding is that:

1. there are three sounds for the letter "o" in English: long (as in "rote"), short (as in "rot"; let's represent this with "ah" which is very close), and (don't know what you call it) the "oo" sound (as in "root").
2. Given a random meaningless collection of letters like "Junichiro", the "o" must be long (as in "rote"). You can't and wouldn't pronounce it "Junichirah" or "Junichiroo"; if that was what was wanted, the word would be spelled like that. (It may be that the "o" is actually some sound that we can't really represent in the Latin alphabet; but I'm assuming that long o (as in "rote") is the closest sound -- right?)
3. Therefore the macron is unnecessary in this case. Since it is unnecessary, it is just useless clutter which can only serve to cause confusion and alienate the reader from the text.

However, the macron might have use in some places, such as in the middle of a name. Take say Saionji Kinmochi -- is it closer to "Kin-mah-ki" or "Kin-moe-ki"? I assume "Kin-moe-ki" but it's not 100% certain. (I suppose its some sound not exactly like any of our pronounciations of "o", but I'm talking about what it's closest to). (Actually in this case a macron wouldn't help as it would just confirm the probable; what'd be needed is a breve or (better) a spelling change if the "o" is short or "oo". But there might be places where a macron is helpful. Where it's helpful, we should incline to using it.)

Anyway, common usage has a lot of influence here. Since we're talking about details of orthography, most-common-usage isn't necessarily an absolute trump IMO (it would be to some editors), but it should bear heavily on what we do. Google Ngrams is a good tool for that, but that's out. My understanding is that raw Google hit numbers mean little -- too many mirrors and so forth -- so getting data in this won't be easy.

At the end of the day, our goal is to make the material easier to read. We are not here to impress our fellow bilingualists. Remember our audience includes ESL people, young people, uneducated people, and so forth. IMO, to this end any opportunity to not use diacritics, if we can justify it, should be taken. Herostratus (talk) 15:19, 3 November 2016 (UTC:)

RE: "Kinmochi"—it's close to "Kin-mo-chee", with a short "o" (in the vowel length sense). Anyone truly interested in pronouncing the word correctly can look it up—but they can't look it up if we don't follow some convention for representing Japanese. The fact is, we won't get around people's ignorance by giving them less information. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:53, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:DIACRITICS is (essentially) the guideline to follow; any recommendation made which is not in the same vein as that one fails to preserve consistency between a domain-specific guideline and the more-general guideline; and the more-general guideline having a greater level of consensus, the lesser !rule should be tossed out. --Izno (talk) 16:42, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. It's not an acceptable rationale. We've been over this again and again and again with all diacritics matters. News and "popular" (i.e., entertainment) sources are not reliable for diacritics, because most of them drop all diacritics out of journalist/editor expediency and to dumb down the content for a lowest-common-denominator audience. WP does not. Look to high-quality academic literature. If they use the macron for this subject (even if not always), we do too. If it's a subject that has no academic coverage (e.g. some new teen pop star), and none of the news sources use the macron, then we can drop it. If some of them use it, it should be retained (except see the ABOUTSELF point below). The majority of diacritics RMs, over years, have concluded that if a diacritic can be sourced for a subject, and isn't counter to their own long-term self-representation, it should be used on WP as a more complete/accurate representation of the name, even if it's not the most common presentation, since it's highly meaningful to many readers (anyone familiar with the language in question, or just with linguistics generally). WP:COMMONNAME is not a style policy; it tells us what someone's name is ("Junichiro" vs. "Chunijiro" vs. "SnorkelWeasel"), not how to style it, i.e. not whether it is "Junichiro" vs. "Junichirō". One errant RM doesn't overturn years of consistent consensus-building on these matters.

  A living or recently living subject's own preferred name presentation in English-language material is also sufficient, per WP:ABOUTSELF. This has overturned innumerable attempts to strip sports figures and actors of diacritics here, because their own official websites and other publications show the marks (sometimes not always consistently; what we're looking for is do they use the mark at all even if they sometimes appear without it, maybe because who they hired to do their marketing dropped it, or do they totally avoid it?). Occasionally, it goes the other way, e.g. Stana Katic has no diacritic here because she doesn't use one – the fact that it's easy to prove that the proper Serbian spelling has one, and a handful of sources have stuck one on her, are both irrelevant. Similarly if I formally change my name to M'Candlish and consistently use that new spelling, no one's in a position to say it's wrong and to rename me back to McCandlish (though they might note I formerly used that spelling). See the big Talk:Utada Hikaru RM; teasing out a subject's actual formal preference can take a lot of work (though that one was about name order). ABOUTSELF doesn't last forever; Thomas Malory did not spell his name that way, and Martin Luther King Jr. used a comma before "Jr." in his lifetime.

  Junichirō isn't any less "easy to read"; it's easier to not mis-read; see above comments about "Junichirah" vs. "Junichiroo" sound interpretation. Since the orthography matters for anyone who understands a bit about that orthography, and we cannot presume any given reader does not (especially given how popular a language Japanese is as a second language), and for anyone who does not it just doesn't matter either way, we should use the macron. As for Jun'ichirō vs. Junichirō, that might be a different question, about systemic orthography changes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  SMcCandlish: the dispute is not about "Junichirō" vs "Jun'ichirō", as nobody has proposed keeping it at the former. What was intended as a technical move to MOS:JAPAN-compliant version of the name has turned into a dispute about having diacritics at all. Several have called for doing away with diacritics; one even called the Koizumi dispute a "test case".

• Oppose. I completely agree with SMcCandlish above. Suggesting the results of one RM discussion would overturn our style guide is quite the slippery slope. And we should always strive to determine the article title on a case-by-case basis. We use macrons by default unless the subject uses another style (per WP:ABOUTSELF). _dk (talk) 17:46, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  There's a commenter above who says we should default to not using diacritics, as do several at the Koizumi dispute (one calling it a "test case" for doing away with diacritics). Others have characterized MOS:JAPAN's instructions about macrons as a last resort, rather than a default. Feelings against macrons are pretty strong (I hate them myself, but I know that other representations of long vowels will get no traction here). Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:01, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  MOS:JAPAN's instructions on macron use is based on the consensus to use Modified Hepburn romanization. Personally I use ou instead of ō elsewhere, but I understand that we decided to adopt Modified Hepburn to the letter, and we should default to that. My feeling is that we shouldn't try to define a romanization scheme that only Wikipedia uses (such as Modified Hepburn without macrons). _dk (talk) 02:16, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  _dk: You've misread my comment. I'm not calling for the removal of macrons. I'm pointing out that several voices have raised opposition to macrons and are calling them a last resort rather than a default (or calling for a new consensus for their removal entirely). Meaning, if someone can open a Move Request, show that Google returns "a majority" of hits without the macron (despite the widespread use of the macron), then the macron should be eliminated. So then we end up with articles that point to "Junichiro Koizumi" in one sentence and then "Shinzō Abe" in the next, depending on how successful the anti-macron crowd were at the individual Move Requests. Who does that benefit? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:34, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  I understand your position on the issue. I'm saying if macrons are to be considered a last resort, that means using we would be using un-macroned Hepburn as standard / default. The MOS, a representation of the community's consensus at a point in time, says that we use Modified Hepburn, and that includes macrons. To strip macrons from them would be making our own modified version of modified Hepburn. That said, I understand consensus can change, and I myself am not particularly concerned that Junichiro Koizumi appears on one sentence while Shinzō Abe appears on the next. As the case of Chelsea Manning on Wikipedia shows, we go by whatever name the subject chooses to go by, and in my opinion that includes preference for macrons or none. _dk (talk) 06:44, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. (edit conflict) MOS:JAPAN indicates that WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence over everything. The remaining part of the MOS is there for cases where it is impossible to determine a most common usage (i.e., the same number (and quality) of sources use macrons as don't use them). One of these days, when I have some time, I plan to go through the MOS:JAPAN and try to simplify everything as much as possible, then present the new version for discussion. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:46, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The examples at WP:COMMONNAME were carefully chosen to demonstrate cases where one usage dominates to the degree where others are not reasonable. When one can say "both are common", COMMONNAME does not apply. This misuse of COMMONNAME will only result in more of these pointlessly time-consuming move requests scattered throughout the project, resulting in a hodge-podge of romanizations to keep straight, to no-one's benefit. Just look at how a simple technical move request was ambushed. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:06, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nihonjoe—take any ten WP:JAPAN articles with macrons in them and do a GBooks searcch comparing the macronned forms to the macronless—even especially "specialist" articles such as Emperor Kōrei (40 with, 129 without). Virtually none will survive this gaming of COMMONNAME. If that's the case, then why even have macrons? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. After reading through the comments to this point, it looks to me like the main use of macrons is as a signifier, specifically to signify "I am educated and erudite; I am familiar with Japanese-to-English orthography as practiced in academia". This is not helpful to the reader.

I mean look at

"News and 'popular' (i.e., entertainment) sources are not reliable for diacritics, because most of them drop all diacritics out of journalist/editor expediency and to dumb down the content for a lowest-common-denominator audience. WP does not. Look to high-quality academic literature"

.

Comments like this, which drip with disdain for our readership, are not convincing to me. They are the opposite of convincing.

Members of Wikiproject Japan are (probably mostly) intelligent and educated, but we are not here to show that off. There are many ways to be educated, including in in semiotics which would lead one to be more wary of alienating the reader from the text with unnecessary and perhaps puzzling signifiers like this, which insert the editor into the conversation between the reader and the text.

So anyway, here's the fault zone: Here, at Wikiproject Japan, we have a bunch of people who are familiar with Japanese subjects (of course) and are used to reading academic material that uses academic orthography. Some of you may even be bi-lingual. That's OK if you are able to get over yourself and escape the bubble and see things from the point of view of the target audience. Editors who write

"[Diacritics] should be used on WP as a more complete/accurate representation of the name, even if it's not the most common presentation, since it's highly meaningful to many readers (anyone familiar with the language in question, or just with linguistics generally)...

are not.... how to put this... anyone who thinks many of our readers are familiar with Japanese or the field of linguistics... this is not useful thinking... are we even on the same project? This is a large general-purpose general-audience encyclopedia. I invite anyone to read

Your English phonics education has confused you

and not realize that that shows an approach to the readership of a general-purpose general-audience encyclopedia that has gone a bit off the rails. It's your job to communicate to me, not my job to educate myself in your arcane symbols.

The other side of the fault line is editors out in the field, who are not members of Wikiproject Japan, who get drawn into a discussion in a particular article on whether we should use a diacritic in a particular case, and their answer tend to be "No, if we can avoid it (which we can if sources differ), unless it actually gives material assistance to the reader in pronouncing the word, which it usually doesn't".

(If someone were to demonstrate how the macron in "Junichirō" helps me pronounce the word, that'd be different. But no one will. They can't, because it doesn't. It's just an academic convention. And if most macrons are like that -- which I suspect they are, but I haven't studied the matter -- then, while not banning them, the default should be not to use them, all other things being equal.)

So there's your disjunct, IMO. The original poster is asking for support from Wikiproject Japan for sprinkling diacritics about and of course he will get it. But so? Editors will continue to deprecate diacritics when they are not useful and sources are unclear. And there's nothing you can do to stop them. You are not going to get editors to say "Well, such-and-such is silly, but Wikiproject Japan says to do it, so let's". Sorry. I merely report. Herostratus (talk) 13:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your comment, "If someone were to demonstrate how the macron in "Junichirō" helps me pronounce the word", it does actually indicate that, but only if you know how vowels are pronounced in Japanese (which takes about 5 minutes to learn, if that). The "ō" indicates the vowel sound should be pronounced twice as long as "o". ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:58, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

only if you know how vowels are pronounced in Japanese (which takes about 5 minutes to learn, if that

Stop thinking like that. Stuff like this just demonstrates my point, which is that WikiProject Japan is not qualified to rule on these matters, by virtue of being too close to the issue. We get a better result my asking a random sampling of editors. Herostratus (talk) 17:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it's even better: the macron has a standard use as a "long(er) vowel" mark, in for example Latin or Old English. I have been watching "Only Connect", and there have been several references to sudoku, which Victoria Coren-Mitchell pronounces as (roughly) /sʌdo:ku/ (i.e. 'su' rhymes with 'thorough', 'do' rhymes with 'though', 'ku' rhymes with 'through'). If the word had a macron on the first 'u', as in Hepburn romanisation, then anyone as educated as Victoria would instinctively lengthen and stress the first syllable, rendering it probably understandable to a Japanese speaker. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:29, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's right. To many people, a macron means nothing, and just confuses. To some (like me, "confused" by my grade-school English phonics education), it denotes a long vowel. So that's how we're going to use it.

So... from what you say it sounds like Japanese transliteration has a problem. If the "su" in "sudoko" rhymes with "thorough", by which I gather you mean rhymes with "oh", it should not be spelled out "su" but rather "so" or "soh". This is Wade–Giles territory, although not near as bad.

So if we're stuck in a junior version of Wade-Giles Land, another reason not to be overly pedantic about adhering to what sounds like an academic transliteration system in need of reform. We mostly have to stick with it -- we can't decide to write "sohduko" on our own say-so -- but let's not valorize it at the margins.

The "o" in "Junichiro" is already long. It's like writing "rōte" or something. It's purely decorative. We don't need to decorate our text to serve pedantic sensibilities. And if it means something else in academia, too bad because the reader is not going to stop and learn Japanese transliteration rules.

In some cases, like for instance for Kenzaburo Ōe, the macron is probably useful. I assume that his family name is pronounced something kinda-sorta like "Oh-ee", and this is difficult to convey; "Oe" doesn't do it well. So in that case, fine, use the macron. (If it's not pronounced kinda-sorta like "Oh-ee", then the system is just broken, and none of this much matters.) Just don't make it a hard rule to use the macron when it can be avoided. Herostratus (talk) 17:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's also the former district of Oe in Tokushima. The macron's not doing what you think it does. The system's not "broken"---it was designed to fit Japanese into the Roman alphabet, not English orthography. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:41, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, but if "the macron's not doing what [the typical reader] think it does", isn't that a good argument for not using it? Herostratus (talk) 02:14, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Herostratus: I don't see how. People who can't read them typically ignore them. Removing them does them no favours, particularly if they're here to educate themselves. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:34, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose: The proposal on the face of it is absurd. There are at least three categories of headword including (Hepburn) macrons: names of well-known people or places, customarily discussed in English with the long vowel ignored -- these should indeed follow the common usage (i.e. "Junichiro"), with the original pronunciation indicated somewhere by the Hepburn romanisation. Then there are lots of entries like genkō yōshi which should be replaced by English titles (IMO); and then there are cases where the only plausible title is the original Japanese title, properly represented, such as Ōyamatsumi. In this last case "Ban macrons" is just an idiocy. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:28, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to point out, the original proposer does not want to ban macrons. Instead, he wants them used always and in all cases, the Japanese transliteration rules (Hepburn, I gather?) applied without exception. He was distressed that civilians are arguing in some numbers against this (at Talk:Junichirō Koizumi#Requested move 25 October 2016), is all, and set up a certain-to-be-rejected reductio-ad-absurdum strawman. It's understandable. I infer that he's unhappy to see high-end academic conventions disrespected in favor of newspaper styles and so on. There's a bit to be said for that -- but only a bit. Herostratus (talk) 17:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Imaginatorium and Herostratus:I'm arguing that if we're not going to enforce them, then there's no point in having them, as there's virtually no title that will survive the GBooks test—including rather "specialist" articles such as Emperor Kōrei (40 with the macron, 129 without) or Imaginarium's example of Ōyamatsumi (65 with, 211 without). I'd rather keep the macrons, but as Herostratus has said above, the "civilians" of Wikipedia will have their way. Why have these move requests that will inevitably rule in favour of the macronless forms anyways? Either enforce them or do away with them, and stop wasting people's time. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:29, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh OK. Well... there's no perfect solution. A one-size-fits-all saves discussion effort, but a case-by-case allows flexibility. All things considered, I prefer case-by-case for a couple reasons. One being, you can't quash discussions with a rule, as you're seeing.

There are so many rules now, we are embarnacled with them. Some were adopted years ago with little discussion, some were adopted by small subsets of the community, some prescribe things differently than we might do now, some are micromanagement, and so forth. Many of the editors who voted in these rules are not even active anymore. Yet it's near impossible to get rid of them -- you need a supermajority, which is quite a high bar.

So editors will consider many issues on a case-by-case basis and you can't stop them. This helps prevent the project from becoming sclerotic IMO.

IMO "Let's use Rule X for transliteration, except and and unless it comes to someone's attention that common usage in a particular case is different" is a viable, if far from perfect, approach to the matter. It is messy, but oh well. Herostratus (talk) 16:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Herostratus: But if we know that every (or nearly every) article will fail the "GBooks majority" interpretation of COMMONNAME, then why not just toss them all? If we are not going to toss them, then we'll just waste time with RM after RM that we could've just used to create or improve content. Without a rule, it'll just be a series of battles-of-the-loudest-voices (which could result in multiple moves even for individual articles). Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:48, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well... what if there are (broadly) two classes of Japanese personal names:

• Famous people, and popular culture figures, who are mostly mentioned in newspapers and magazines and popular books and websites, which don't use diacritics.
• Obscure serious people, who are mostly mentioned in scholarly and academic works, which do use diacritics.

Why can't we use diacritics for the second class, and not use them for the first class? (And for people in the middle who are debatable, we discuss. Which seems to be what we do now.) Your proposal is to eliminate them for both classes. I can see the argument for that, but... WP:DIACRITICS says "The use of modified letters... is neither encouraged nor discouraged... follow the general usage in reliable sources" and you would have a big burden to carve out an exception for Japanese. And obviously the proposal is not going to pass, so... Herostratus (talk) 13:01, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Herostratus: Because, as I've already pointed out, even obscure figures such as Emperor Kōrei (40 with, 129 without) and Ōyamatsumi (65 with, 211 without) will fail the GBooks test of COMMONNAME. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:37, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I see no convincing argument to overthrow WP:DIACRITICS, keep in mind that "redirects are cheap". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:26, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per WP:DIACRITICS and the majority of (serious, not mainstream) sources that use macrons. Removing macrons should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Next RfC: "Shall we ban French diacritics from titles because English-speaking mainstream media don't know what a diacritic is?" Come on. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 13:12, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's a silly comparison. French actually has diacritics; Japanese doesn't. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 13:25, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing my point. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 13:52, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thibaut120094: so where do we draw the line on what a "serious" source is? Do we have to redraw this line for each and every article (and Move Request)? Or do we just rely on GBooks, where virtually every Japanese name—even rather obscure ones—shows up more often without than with macrons (this is how WP:COMMONNAME is normally interpreted)? We have several voices raised at the Koizumi article to do away with macrons entirely, everywhere. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:45, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

AthomeIn神戸's point is not constructive: we are talking about romanised Japanese, using Hepburn, in which some letters have additional marks on them. This is what people mean by "diacritics" (whether it is technically correct or not). The whole discussion, it seems to me, has been incoherent, and I suggest should be closed as "abandoned" (or whateveritis). Imaginatorium (talk) 14:29, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Imaginatorium: could you clarify—are you saying that if Ōyamatsumi were to have its macron removed Ōyamatsumi (per the GBooks test: 65 with, 211 without), your attitude is "whatever"? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:38, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not clear exactly what the "Google Books test" is, but in any event this is not voting. Apart from anything else, historically there were lots of technical reasons making it difficult/impossible to use diacritics, so one would expect books to be biassed towards less satisfactory representations. There is no question what the Hepburn romanisation is, no question that the title is a Japanese name, and therefore no good reason not to write the name properly,... unless of course there is a clear consensus showing that some anglicised form really is the normal representation in English. For Koizumi-san there is, for Ōyamatsumi there is not. Of course there are lots of cases in which odd romanisations have become standard, the ginkgo for a good example, but there needs to be a clear consensus that this is the case. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:25, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Imaginatorium: WP:COMMONNAME suggests using Google Books to test what spelling is most common. The macronned Ōyamatsumi fails that test by a wide margin, as does virtually every other Japanese name. If a Herostratus were to propose a move at Ōyamatsumi based on the criiteria at WP:COMMONNAME, what argument could you raise against it? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:25, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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.