Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Japanese military history task force/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Not being very well versed in Japanese military history, I've used as the banner image, as it struck me as something quite commonly associated with Japan (particularly in the West). If there's something that would be more iconic (but is recognizable at a small size!), please feel free to change the image. Kirill Lokshin 12:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for coming up with a banner image. I think that'll be perfectly fine for now. Though I may wish to change it to something more up my alley, i.e. pre-modern. Maybe a picture of the kanji for samurai or the like. The Chinese task force is already using the character for "martial", which is pronounced bu in Japanese, and used in bushi and bushido; I'll see if I feel like coming up with something. LordAmeth 14:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I have discovered/created a nice calligraphic version of the character for samurai. See it here: . I see that there's only three of us at this particular moment, but I'd like to start a vote and/or discussion as to which one we should use for the tags. LordAmeth 15:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I feel about using the Rising Sun Naval ensign (which is what I think that is) as characteristic of the scope of Japanese military history. It works for now, but I'm partial to the samurai kanji as the symbol since it's more historically linked to Japanese military traditions. The Rising Sun really is more of a modern Imperialist logo than a symbol of Japanese martial prowess. --Woogums 18:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the image to the samurai kanji. If anyone wishes it changed back, or has other suggestions, please simply say so. Discussion breeds community, and improvement. LordAmeth 22:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me, but what do I know? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Heya Kirill. Are all the articles previously tagged going to automatically change to the new image, or do we have to somehow manually force them to change? LordAmeth 22:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it's all automatic. You might need to wait for the job queue to flush through before they all get updated, though. Kirill Lokshin 22:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You can also combine them like this. Fg2 01:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's awfully nice, Fg. Definitely more colorful and bolder than mine (the kanji alone). But I still think that the Naval Ensign could be taken as offensive, and representative more of imperialism than martial ability. What do others think? LordAmeth 12:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course that's an important point. I have no emotional involvement in the graphic, and would not mind at all if it's not selected. Fg2 00:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to welcome everyone to our new and exciting Japanese military history task force! Thanks to Kirill, Nobunaga24, and others for supporting the initiation of this... I suppose it's not really the kind of thing that requires a hell of a lot of leadership or maintenance, but if there is call for there to an official task force leader, I'd love to take up that role. And if not, that's great too.

My personal focus is the Heian period, the Genpei Wars, and the various other Minamoto-Taira conflicts leading up to that. However, I have worked on (and will continue to work on) just about everything pre-Meiji that looks like it needs doing.

I've also put a fair bit of work into creating and organizing the Japanese warrior categories. I would love some help in maintaining the distinctions between these, and expanding them as needed.

Finally, if anyone - newcomers, members, visitors - have any questions about the task force or about the history itself, please feel free to ask me (or to just ask here, so we can all answer). I'm happy to help.

Thanks all, and welcome! LordAmeth 14:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Congrats! one note to make - under Category:World War II aircraft carriers of Japan the following two subcategories are showing up - Category:Japanese AM class submarines and Category:Japanese I-400 class submarines. They also show up in what I assume is the main category for submarines. Just wanted to let you all know.--Oldwildbill 14:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It would appear that both of those classes of submarines were in fact submarine aircraft carriers. LordAmeth 17:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Heh, something else I had no idea existed! Airplanes on submarines; what will they think of next. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey all. I'm going to probably be working mostly on post-Edo military-related articles, but I'm curious if military organizational articles (such as the modernization of Japanese military 1868-1931)) fall under the scope of articles to tag for the task force to watch. --Woogums 18:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, anything military-history-related (for quite broad meanings of either "military" or "history") can be tagged. Kirill Lokshin 18:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

There are some discussion on Talk:Waeseong what to name the artile. It is about Japanese castles built in Korea during Hideyoshi's invasion in the sixteenth century. As the article is related to the Japanese military history (they were built by samurai), I'd like to ask what you think. Thank you. --Kusunose 09:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've split out the simpler tasks (requests for expansion, in this case) into a new template which is transcluded in the main project open task list. This will hopefully bring more attention to these. Please feel free to add additional tasks (currently in one of three types); ideas for other types of work to include are also welcome! Kirill Lokshin 18:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed Genpei War from our list of open tasks. I would like to request that no one do anything major to it for a short time. Within the next week or so, I intend that between Elvenscout742 and myself, major expansions and polishing will occur; I simply want to give both of us a chance to work on this somewhat ambitious project in one go, without anyone else stepping on our toes. I know it's somewhat anti-social and anti-democratic of me, and I apologize. I just want to see this done - translation from the French article, and expansion based on the French example - in a more or less single-minded way. Once we've finished what we're going to do, everyone is of course as always welcome to once again contribute to the article in whatever small (or big) ways they choose. Thank you. LordAmeth 00:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Given how long that article has sat without any significant changes, I doubt anyone will be terribly agitated over the issue :-) Kirill Lokshin 00:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The {{inuse}} template can help you work unfettered. Fg2 07:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I was planning to sit down and have a good think about it. Hope you don't mind me contributing here and there. John Smith's 10:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Not at all, go right ahead. I'll probably be getting to it pretty soon anyway. LordAmeth 10:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've done all I'm going to be doing for a while. Sorry for making such a big deal of this, and thank you for not stepping on my toes. LordAmeth 16:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

No, thanks a lot for your work. I was glad I could help regarding style, grammar, etc. John Smith's 12:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not know much (read: anything) about this topic, but I am hoping that some of you do. I have noticed, as a result of someone mentioning the article on LJ, that the Japanese Planned invasion of Australia during World War II article makes quite a number of uncited and undefended assertions. There is certainly a significant possibility that this is all true; it just needs to be cited, defended, verified.

Among the statements in question:

"He (Kenosuke Sato) indicated that Australians would not have been treated very harshly if they had surrendered. He seemed to know a great many leading Australians and he indicated that he was quite certain a good number of Australians would have agreed to co-operate with the Japanese."

Thanks for the help, guys. LordAmeth 06:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

"You can pose butterfly effect style counterfactuals until the end of time if you would like, but looking purely at the facts, and considering events within their contexts is what history is really about."

...couldn't resist. Cheers.

Xodmoe 09:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Please join in the discussion over at Talk:Battle of Nagashino. There appears to be a debate over the extent to which cavalry charges did or did not occur in feudal Japan. LordAmeth 18:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I've looked up and quoted some sources that may help (or complicate) the matter on the Nagashino talk page. --Kuuzo 21:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello again all. I hope your work is going along well. I realize I'm one of the only ones to post here, and I hope you don't mind. But I do believe that people do read things here, which is ultimately all that really matters.

A number of articles make reference to (and link to) Hideyoshi's Kyushu Campaign. Now, normally, I would not think we ought to have separate articles for every campaign that a given general embarked upon. These things are generally well enough explained in the individual person's article, or in those of the battles and wars involved. For example, Hideyoshi's "Korea campaign" has an article as Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598) aka Imjin Waeran, and his "Odawara campaign" is sufficiently handled I think by linking to the decisive final battle, the Siege of Odawara (1590).

I guess this is getting kind of long here, so I'll get to the point. His move to Kyushu is not described extensively in his own article, nor is there any one battle that defines this campaign. Should we create one? Is there even anything much to be said there, other than summarizing the battles, and the causes/effects and events surrounding them? How should we resolve the links in the articles of these various samurai?

Thank you, as always. LordAmeth 12:59, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Creating an article would seem to be a sensible approach, if there's enough material for it. If we try to put everything into Hideyoshi's own article, we'll eventually wind up with a very bloated piece that's trying to be a biography and a combat narrative simultaneously. Kirill Lokshin 17:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've created an article over at Kyūshū Campaign. I'm not sure what kind of precedent this sets for me, but as I continue to be (I think) more or less the only editor working on Sengoku battles, I think I'll figure something out with myself. LordAmeth 08:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a new request for A-Class status for Japanese battleship Kongō that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 12:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It appears that a lot of the biographies that have been added verbatim from the Samurai Archives ( http://samurai-archives.com ) (see end of comment for a few example links), do not cite their source. These entries should either be properly rewritten and cited or deleted until such time that someone can do actual research on them to maintain the high standards of wikipedia. There is no attribution that they are taken from the Samurai Archives, where they had been translated and researched. The following are only a miniscule few of many, many examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiraoka_Michiyori from: http://samurai-archives.com/dictionary/h1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goto_Ujifusa from: http://samurai-archives.com/dictionary/eg.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachisuka_Yoshishige from: http://samurai-archives.com/dictionary/h1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furuta_Shigekatsu from: http://samurai-archives.com/dictionary/eg.html

What would be the best way to proceed? Please forgive the double post (once on LordAmeth's talk page, as well); I am just making sure this is seen by those that it should be seen by, as Category:Samurai seems to fall under your jurisdiction. I realize that this is not a fault on your end, as the plethora of articles being added and edited on Wikipedia makes for a difficult surveillance job. Nagaeyari 03:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, not good at all. Aside, even, from the lack of attribution, those are close enough in wording to be copyvios.

I've asked the original editor to comment here; perhaps can comment further. My initial inclination would be to simply delete the lot as copyvios, as I doubt the Samurai Archives would be willing to license the text under the GFDL. Kirill Lokshin 04:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of exams, but the posts here last night caught my attention, so I figured while i was here at the library this moring doing research, i'd give my opinion. I spent a few hours last night in my dormroom really looking around our "samurai" and japanese military history articles, and tracing down links, and there are many valid points here brought up against the contributor who has been taking articles from the samurai archive site.

Most of the old ones are almost taken ver batim, almost none of those are cited. The more recent ones that person has "contributed" are still taken almost verbatim, with a "reference" heading, under that Samurai Archives. In my opinion, that is not a reference at all - he is taking a word-for-word paragraph or two, and creating an article with it. I look at it like this.

What if:

Say Turnbull has an entry for "Joe Samurai" in the Samurai Sourcebook. And this is the entry:

Joe Samurai was a nominal vessal of the Kaga clan. He was known for his kabuto adorned with deer antlers. He fought bravely at Anegawa and was given a 200 koku fief in Kaga province. It is thought that he died in 1577.

Now, what if someone created an actual wikipedia article like this:

Joe Samurai

Joe Samurai was a minor vassal of the Kaga clan of kaga province, who was known for wearing a kabuto adorned with deer antlers. He was said to have fought bravely at the battle of Anegawa, and was given a 200 koku fief in Kaga province. It is believed that he died in 1577.

==Reference==

Samurai Sourcebook by Stephen Turnbull

The above is basically what was done to the samurai archive site. That would be deleted out of hand as a blatant copyright violation if it has come from Turnbull. Also, I saw that the "sengok dictionary" that a lot of teh articles were taken from had a copyright right on the page, and like someone else mentioned, that samurai wiki also has a copyright note of sorts on the home page.

I am currently working on a BA in Asian Studies here, and if I turned in a paper like that, I would be immediately failed for plagiarism. Not only is it almost word for word, but it is also the only source listed. That is also an indication of poor academic scholarship.

As someone who has not only contributed to Wikipedia, but also contributed 2 original articles to Japanese history on wikipedia (shorter versions of two college term papers), first off, I feel like my work has been cheapened since I put a lot of work into gathering many sources for my articles, and two, that it cheapens wikipedia altogether. In many circles, wikipedia is not taken seriously, dismissed as a combination of internet bias, pop culture, and bad scholarship. This sort of thing only backs this argument. Furthermore, since I have contributed my own work to this site, it would bother me if some other site copied my work. Like a lot of people, I am invested in my work in wikipedia, and i want us to be able to hold everyone to the high standards we hold ourselves to.

I think it is really cool that we have this new japanese military history task force, but the issues brought up now really highlight that either this taskforce needs to delegate some people to monitor and examine the articles, or maybe to create a sub-task force for this task. My thought is a wiki page where people can put suspect wiki articles, and match them with the "source" that they appear to be copyright infringements of, much like the user nagayari did up at the start of all this. Then moderators could compare the wikipedia article to the source, and decide if it needs to be deleted.

I think anyway that the articles that have already been found should be deleted now as copyright vios. this is because after doing a lot of looking around last night, I really, really dont think that it will be possible to leave them up and "add to them" from other sources. As far as I can tell, a lot of the entries on the samruai archive site are original and probably come from japanese sources, so it will be very very hard to build on them. i think we should delete them until such time that two or more sources can be used to create original articles.

I am in the middle of examns and a thesis paper now, so i won't be available for a while, but i really encourage this. The only people who can monitor wikipedia are us users, and we need to really buckle down if it is ever going to be taken seriously.

I hope you consider my thoughts, because, as a contributor, I really want wikipedia to continue to flourish. I really think this should be addressed, and i may be biased, but I think the idea of a page to post suspected articles would be a good idea. And when I finish with my exams and thesis, I'll be right into it too.

Thanks. --128.171.106.233 23:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you completely on the idea of it cheapening what we do, and giving Wikipedia a bad image. And I think that it would be great if all the members of this task force, and other Wikipedia editors in general, would keep an eye out for this sort of thing. But I don't think we need to, or ought to, delegate authority or responsibility for this sort of thing. I will leave a message for Nagaeyari (unless you have already), asking him if he has a more complete list of which articles are in violation. If not, I will search them out myself (shouldn't be too difficult) and will take the steps necessary to see them deleted. LordAmeth 23:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey, LordAmeth. I just finished up with midterms and a weekend at my comp sounds nice :) I will get you a list of all articles I can find that are offending, so they can be taken care of. Maybe the sudden decrease in samurai articles will prompt users to do some cool research, and use the Samurai Archives as a proper stepping stone. I look forward to where it'll go. How would you like those sent to you? EDIT: I just saw your message on my talk page, thanks for the notification. Nagaeyari 23:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Formal delegation presumably isn't necessary. Having said that, it may be a good idea to create some sort of project-wide area where people can list suspected issues such as this one; circumstances are such that the average WPMILHIST member is rather more likely to have access to an offline source than the random admin patrolling the central suspected copyvio pages. Kirill Lokshin 01:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It may or may not be noticed that this conversation has continued on LordAmeth's talk page. You will see over 100 articles that have been copied almost ver batim from the Samurai Archives as the exclusive and only source (I have been assisting Nagaeyari in finding them, and we still have dozens, if not hundreds, to go). I believe that these articles need to be removed from wikipedia until such time that we can get other sources to pull together as cohesive articles, to corroborate and fill out the articles. I do not agree with LordAmeth that simply moving around some sentences is enough. If the Samurai Archives is the only source, then the "historical facts" are unverifiable, and that smacks of poor scholarship, and seriously throws into question the validity and usefulness of wikipedia in general. Furthermore, it sets a precident that it is now "OK" to take information researched at the samurai archives, change around a few words, and post it as an article. Am I the only one that does not feel that this is right in a moral sense or academic sense? Writing an entire article based on ONE source is NOT scholarship, and is cheapening wikipedia. I officially put forward that we delete these articles - no research was put into them by the contributor at all (all he did was copy and slightly rewrite) and as such, we are not removing researched, created articles, but mere copies, which is not counterproductive at all. LordAmeth has been doing a great job in moderating these proceedings, and with the Japanese military history section in general, but I feel he needs to decisively remove these articles, to set the precident that scholarship is expected, and that copying and pasting from a single source, particularly one that can't be verified, is not acceptable. It is up to us to maintain the academic standards of wikipedia, and sometimes in order to accomplish this, steps must be taken to set the precident of what is acceptable, and what is unacceptable behavior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.213.98 (talk • contribs)

Well, there are three somewhat distinct issues here:

1. Copyright: anything that's copied verbatim—or near verbatim—from another site is a copyright violation (I'm fairly certain that courts have found that merely substituting a few words is insufficient to be considered a proper paraphrase if the resulting text is substantially the same as the original). Anything to which this applies needs to be deleted; due to the issue of derivative works, we must ensure that no trace of it remains in our article.
2. Plagiarism: even where the text is sufficiently changed that it is not a copyright violation, borrowing ideas from other sources without attributing them is unacceptable. However, this is not a legal issue, and does not require that the article be completely rewritten; it should be sufficient to add the proper attribuion.
3. Good scholarship: relying on a single source (at least in the case where, as with the Samurai Archives, the source is not widely regarded as a canonical one by actual historians) is a bad idea. Unlike the two cases above, however, this does not necessarily require immediate corrective action on our part; in most cases, we can leave such articles (perhaps with a tag indicating the possibly inadequate sourcing) until someone can find more sources to improve them with. With long-dead samurai (as opposed to something like still-living people), there isn't really much of a practical concern if our articles aren't completely up to par at the moment.

The question, then, is which of the three categories the articles in question fall into. I suspect, from some casual browsing, that it's the first one, and most of these will need to be deleted and rewritten from scratch; but perhaps someone who's had more time to look through them all has better numbers? Kirill Lokshin 20:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Having gone through them myself with Nagaeyari, I can say that all the ones I added were only articles that only took info directly from the samurai archives (which I guess then fall under number one) - I did not list any articles that used it as one source among many. I am just stuck on the fact that it is poor scholarship to post them that way, and frankly, if the Samurai Archives articles had errors, now we do too. We'd just be propogating errors because we aren't verifying the info.

Most of these articles as they stand now are definitely what I would call poor scholarship. They are based on only one source, they are very poorly written, in terms of grammar and style, and they're stubby short to the point of being nearly useless. But they are not Copyright violations, as the phrasing has been changed completely. And they are not plaigiarism, because there are no opinions, original ideas, thoughts, or conclusions being "stolen" - only the historical facts are copied from the external websites. When the only things you've taken from an outside source are dates of birth and death, battles fought in, and other such hard facts, how can that be copyright? I, personally, am tired of fighting this fight, and whatever Kirill or others decide I will back up. But I just felt that that needed to be said. Poor scholarship though these things may be, I do not believe them to be in violation of anyone's rights, legally or morally. LordAmeth 23:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I would be extremely conscientious in citing our sources, even if what's being taken is merely straight-forward fact. Regardless of whether there's any requirement—legal, ethical, or otherwise—do do so, it's still polite to credit other works that have been of assistance in writing something. (This is quite aside, of course, from the need to cite sources in order to demonstrate that the material is verifiable from an outside reference.)

Beyond that, I don't think the poor scholarship issue really merits deletion on its own; given the obscurity of these topics, it's probably more useful for future contributors if we have something there—even if it's a possibly erroneous three-line stub—than to simply remove any mention of these people entirely, as the stubs can serve, at a minimum, as starting points to find context for further research. If you've verified that the articles are (a) not copyright violations (with, preferably, any revisions that were copyright violations having been deleted, to prevent us from distributing them to mirrors with database dumps) and (b) adequately attribute the sources used, I have no particular problem with leaving them. (I would, incidentally, suggest applying {{moresources}} to any where we don't have additional references available.) Kirill Lokshin 23:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I've ran across a neglected page which I believe would fall under the scope of this project. I've done what little I can with my little (read lack of) knowledge of the subject. I thought maybe someone here could improve on it, as I found it as an unfortunate blank page with only infoboxes... akuyume^T_C 03:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a new peer review request for Battle of Wuhan that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 04:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

To the small extent that the histories of feudal domains has been covered on Wikipedia, it's been done in a number of different ways.

1. The ruling clan is described in the article for the province, castle, or capital city of their han.
2. A separate article entirely has been created for the domain, as is the case with Tsushima Fuchu domain, which is a separate article entirely from Tsushima Subprefecture, Tsushima Island, Tsushima Province, and Sō clan.
3. The territory or domain is described in the clan's article.

Right now, Choshu domain, and nearly every alternate spelling of "Choshu" are simply redirects to Nagato province, which contains very little information on the pre-Meiji history of the domain. Satsuma han is a stub article which stands separate from articles on the Shimazu family and any number of other things linked to from the Satsuma disambig page. Matsumae clan does a fair job of describing the history of the domain as well, since the history of that family was especially closely related to its holding, and not to the actions of its individual members. But Matsumae, Hokkaidō and Matsumae Castle are both stubs with next to no information.

I'm more than ready to start doing some serious work on reconciling all of these different things, and starting articles on just about every domain and clan I can find sufficient information for. But we need a standardized system first. I am also posting this at WikiProject:Japan in the hopes of getting some good suggestions over there. If we do end up reaching completely different consensuses (consensi?) on both Projects, I'm not sure what I'll do. But for now, comments and suggestions, please. LordAmeth 16:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a new peer review request for Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a new request for A-Class status for Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been going through various Japanese military history related articles for a few weeks now, and the number of completely uncited articles is staggering. There are some very well written articles that don't cite thier sources along with the other uncited articles, and many only cite one source (which isn't a bad thing, but I'm sure we'd all agree "the more the better". I've been tagging them as I find them, but personaly I think this should at least be a second-tier priority in getting sources into these articles. --Kuuzo 05:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that many, if not most, of the military history articles on the Japanese Wikipedia don't cite sources. Thus, I suspect that what happens is that some of the Japanese editors will work on Japanese military history articles on the English Wikipedia and, out of habit, not cite any sources. Another reason may be that the sources are in Japanese so they feel like they shouldn't be listed in the English versions of the articles. I found one way to fix this today. After checking the history for the Shigeyoshi Inoue article, I went to the main contributor's talk page on the Japanese wikipedia and asked him/her (in English since I can't write in Japanese) to list his/her sources in the English version of the article which the editor did immediately. Cla68 05:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a very large proportion of the smaller ones were done by User:Darin Fidika, who seems to have a troubled history in this regard. I don't suspect asking him to cite sources will get far - but when I come across other people's articles, I will do so from this point on. Also, do "we" consider Further Reading as a list of references? --Kuuzo 05:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

First of all, thanks Kuuzo for seeking these out; whenever you've tagged an article I've contributed to as unreferenced, it has spurred me to go back to my sources, add more, revise the article, and reference it. I don't think we should automatically assume Further Reading or External Links to be references, but should simply ask the editor(s) involved, and allow them to sort it out. On the other hand, when an article's primary source is the Japanese Wikipedia, OpenHistory, the 1911 Britannica, or something like this, it may be mentioned at the bottom of the article, but not under a "References" header; in that case, I'd suggest you simply add the header, or ignore it entirely, rather than tagging it as "unreferenced." LordAmeth 08:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed on some that the original editor marked as "stub from openhistory", but then numerous editors after them go through and add all sorts of info, but it isn't clear who added what, and therefore who to ask for sources... I guess in that case it just stands as "needs sources" until someone finds some. --Kuuzo 09:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This article needs some serious expansion and help. It is difficult to walk the fine line of objective neutrality when it comes to these sorts of topics sometimes... I am hoping that one of you who might be more of a serious scholar of WWII Japanese ideology might be able to help with this. The article as it stands isn't too blatantly or drastically anti-Japanese, and of course we do not wish to be too pro-Japanese in our treatment either. As it is written right now, however, it essentially identifies the concept of the Sphere as a front, as a falsity created simply to justify "evil" fascist/imperialist/militarist actions; and while this is certainly not entirely untrue, I think it would be quite enlightening (and important) to discuss the subject within the context of Japan's rise to militarism, it's views of imperialism in light of trying to be a modern country ala their perception of the Western model, etc etc. To what extent was this simply a front for militarists to extend an exploitative arm over supposedly inferior people, and to what extent did the Japanese people/soldiers/politicians genuinely believe they were acting nobly, to the benefit of all of East Asia? (I do apologize to simply leave it open to you all, but this is truly not my field of expertise... maybe once we discuss it in class in the next month or so I'll feel more prepared to write on it - in the meantime, as I am sure at least one of you must be more experienced, knowledgable, and interested in this subject than myself, please go ahead and do what you can, if you are so inclined.) LordAmeth 21:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

That's an area I'm going to work on eventually, but right now it's far down on my "to do" list. Thus, if anyone else can help out on it I'm sure it would be of benefit for the article. The background section for the Attack on Pearl Harbor article contains some applicable information and references. Cla68 04:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

After creating the article on the Battle of Yawata, I learned that there is very little information on the battles of the Muromachi period. Please take a look at it. --Ineffable3000 03:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

My sources have surprisingly little on this particular battle as well, but I shall keep it in mind in case anything pops up. I have a strange feeling that this "Yawata" is likely the same as what other texts or sources refer to as "Yahata", so take a look if you can find anything on Yahata... In the meantime, I hope you don't mind if I change a few stylistic things to make it more consistent with other Muromachi battles. Thanks. LordAmeth 14:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a new peer review request for Battle of Edson's Ridge that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a new request for A-Class status for Battle of Edson's Ridge that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Did the battle of Battle of Shijō Nawate occur in 1348 (stated so in Kusunoki Masatsura) or in 1339 (as stated in the main page)? --Ineffable3000 04:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

George Sansom gives 1347, while Turnbull gives 1348. I would think, therefore, that 1339 is less than likely; but as for which date to stick to, I'm not sure... Thank you, though, for writing this article which I've been putting off for so long. LordAmeth 10:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Many Google sources say 1348, so I suggest we stick with that for now. --Ineffable3000 05:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)