Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles

72.145.133.228 02:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a way for you to have your cake and eat it too, within the bounds of the current style agreement -- move all the opening information to the {japanese} template, E.g.

This article is about a topic whose name is originally rendered in the Japanese script; however the article does not have that version of its name in the article's lead paragraph. Anyone who is knowledgeable enough with the original language is invited to assist in adding the Japanese script. For more information, see: MOS:FOREIGN · Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) · MOS:JAPAN.

This way we keep the universality/encyclopedic aspect of Hepburn transliteration, but include the kana to clarify the spelling for those who need it. The opening of the article would then look like:

Junichiro Koizumi (born January 8, 1942), is the current Prime Minister of Japan.

This de-clutters the article text, which is positive: one drawback is that the template can collide with other infoboxes and images. Seann 07:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I prefer the {{nihongo}} template over the {{japanese}} template because the text is kept all together and, to me, it looks neater that way than having it all in a separate box that (as you say) will get in the way of other pics or infoboxes that may be on a page. --日��穣 Nihonjoe 17:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of curiosity, I'm curious who the people are who feel macrons are the norm in scholarly research--as a postdoc researcher, I encounter macrons in the minority of cases, generally when Japanese is being compared to other languages, and then in papers authored overseas more than those written in Japan or America. Even in these papers, it is generally the case that people use either the MOE styel (ou) or the IPA itself. When you type in an IME, of course, you use the same system the government of Japan (Ministry of Education and others) have officially adopted--the non-macron system. Few papers from Japan itself violate this norm, and certainly it's in very few texts (as opposed to research papers, where it's clearly the minority but not uncommon). Delegating it as "anime talk" is being overly dismissive--the vast majority of American universities use textbooks without the macron system. When you become a grad student, you don't magically switch to macron usage.

It seems it was decided to abandon the official/accepted system long ago, though--although some people seem to think that the "official" wayH of doing it is "non-standard"--and although I feel it's harder for learners, I am posting this more as a query for why some people here seem to be so convinced it's the norm. (By harder for learners, people who are interested in Japan often take Japanese classes. When they look up articles here, it's just a bit tough to get used to the different style.)

One more pet peeve--as the original poster noted, macron usage is occasionally confusing even to intermediate level learners. Hiroomi (広臣) and Hiroumi (広海) are two different names, and neither are using the dipthong (only the first o belongs to the first character). It's irritating to see those changed to the macroned o by people; I'm fairly certain the intention was to only use the macron text where it's a long "o", not in these cases, but it doesn't stop the know-it-all beginners with their red (or should I say invisible) pen from "correcting" it. LactoseTI 05:09, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding kana in form of ruby characters would be nice. Hepburn is allegedly the standard in English-language texts (though the previous poster disagrees), but kana is the standard in Japanese text (especially in ruby form for those unable to read all kanjis) as well as some Japanese-English dictionaries. It would pretty much avoid all the confusion except for the problem of people not copying macrons when using the words elsewhere, but that can't be avoided without discarding Hepburn, which seems unlikely given its popularity here. The argument that kanji and kana convey pretty much the same information is ridiculous, as there are much more English-speaking people who can read kana than there are those who can read kanji. There is much more overlap with roomaji (no I'm not going to hunt-and-peck that macron-o from the list below, thanks). However, given proper browsers ruby does not take much space, it gives exact information and there is never any doubt which way of writing it is correct. Current Wikipedia romanization tries to represent pronounciation or common usage and thus fails on both counts, so having kana also does add more information. 130.233.22.111 02:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't disagree that Hepburn is the standard; I disagree with the statements to the effect that Hepburn _with macrons_ is standard. While many books use macrons, they are generally not books about the Japanese language (scholarly or for the undergrad) and either written overseas or have some other "quirk" to them. Very, very few students of Japanese language in the US learn macrons at all. While they use Hepburn, they learn "ou" instead of any macron. I know offhand of no major US universities that _don't_, in fact, use the non-macroned version in their language programs (language learning or academic language study). This is reflected in the textbooks and papers produced by both the Ministry of Education in Japan as well as those produced by US universities (Stanford, Harvard, etc.) In addition, no major newspaper, magazine, or other publication transliterates Japanese names or words with macrons on a regular basis. I'm curious from where this rather quirky idea came. LactoseTI 18:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering if the MoS should be updated to more clearly discourage the literal romanization of English words from katakana. For instance, in this edit, what is the purpose of the ゴールデン　イーグルズ romanization to Gōruden Īgurusu? (Not to pick on that particular edit, but it is the most recent one that I've seen). The current wording of MoS is Give the romanization for any name or term written in kanji or kana when the Japanese pronunciation is different from the English pronunciation.

My proposal is Give the romanization for any name or term written in kanji or kana when the Japanese pronunciation is different from the English pronunciation. For English words written in katakana as part of a longer title or word, the English word should be used instead of the literal romanization. I'm sure that there is an unless . . . case, where the Japanese romanization is useful; but I can't think of one, and the fastest way to discover something like that is usually to post a note here saying that no exceptions exist. (^.^)

Comments? Neier 13:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One usefull aspect of providing the Hepburn romanization with such a term is to indicate the pronounciation in Japanese. Often English in katakana sounds quite unlike the word in English proper. Of course, as with kanji compounds, the preferred usage would be:

Golden Eagles (ゴールデン・イーグルズ, Gōruden Īguruzu)

Doesn't look to bad, does it? JeroenHoek 19:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced that the English Wikipedia is the place to be teaching Japanese pronunciation of English words to English speakers. It seems to me that the demographic of people who 1) care about the Japanese pronunciation of English words; AND 2) understand the Japanese romanization vowel rules enough to make sense of the romazniation; AND 3) cannot read katakana; is fairly small.

We're also (in this case) forgetting that a macroned Ī is not allowed, per the current MoS (just Ō and Ū); but that's beside the point.

At any rate, if it is for pronunciation purposes, why isn't the International Phonetic Alphabet used, instead of romanization? For people unfamiliar with Japanese (which would include most anyone who couldn't read the katakana in the first place), a globally standardized alphabet would seem to be better. As an example, with romaji (and no understanding of Japanese vowel rules, which covers a vast majority of WP readers), it is possible that the romanized Karaoke would be mispronounced as /kɛɪraoki/, which is better than the common /kɛɪrioki/, but still not correct (/kaɽaoke/).

Actually, reflecting on this for a bit, I'm starting to wonder why we include romanization for any words, as opposed to the IPA. That is probably a very contentious topic, and one that I'll likely regret broaching... Neier 00:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Macronned versions of letters other than o and u are allowed (and commonly used, especially when dealing with katakana versions of words). There's nothing in the WP:MOS-JA that forbids it; it's just not specifically addressed. There's no need to put in a list of things that you can do as the list would get completely unmaintainable. I agree with JeroenHoek that "{{nihongo|Golden Eagles|ゴールデン・イーグルズ|Gōruden Īguruzu}}" is perfectly acceptable.--日本穣 03:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hepburn is used for the same reason other transliteration systems are used, for Russian words for example. Most languages that use characters beyond basic latin with all posible diacretics have some form of widely accepted transliteration system. You are right that IPA is exactly what you need when pronounciation is the only concern, but when you are writing an article on, for example, Buddhism you want to be able to refer to various concepts (Indian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) using characters that can be at least somewhat read by anyone (even if they don't know how to interpret the diacretics). JeroenHoek 10:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The pronunciation of English katakana words is the whole point of my question. If the only reason to have romanization of English katakana words is to aid pronunciation (as Japanese speakers would pronunciate), and if IPA is useful (and, possibly the accepted standard) for prounciation, then why clutter things with another pronunciation scheme which is highly targeted to people with familiarity with Japanese? I have no trouble with using the Japanese romaji as transliterations of Japanese words. What I meant above was related to the template and its use as a pronunciation guide, not as for all Japanese words in the articles. Neier 14:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How widespread is IPA? Fg2 11:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that. A lot of the 和英/英和 dictionaries for native Japanese speakers seem to use it, which is how I first came across it, actually. My friends were somewhat puzzled that I didn't know what the symbols meant. I can ask some of my teacher friends if they use it in their classes, or I'm guessing there are some people here with experience which could also be useful as data points. Neier 14:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the one hand, IPA is pretty standard as these things go. On the other hand, having to input /ɰɑtɑʃi/ (or is it /ɰɑtɑɕi/?) instead of watashi is kind of silly. And putting something _into_ IPA is often tricky unless you're a trained linguist (and many people have to add things they can't even pronounce). And on top of that, in the specific case of English words in katakana, I suspect that the vast majority of readers either will already know, more or less, how a Japanese speaker will pronounce the words, or will simply not care. I vote for the English word in this case, if at all possible. IPA should (and does) take pride of place in the Japanese phonology article, but that's almost certainly the only place we really need it.

Also, I maintain that anyone who can look at karaoke and say carry-okie is beyond the help of a brief gloss. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 11:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"We're also (in this case) forgetting that a macroned Ī is not allowed, per the current MoS (just Ō and Ū)" - for hiragana, yes, but the MOS actually clearly states that for the romanization of katakana all long vowels should be macroned. Shiroi Hane 01:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably pretty self-evident, however in order to avoid conflict in future, I would like to codify rules regarding the naming of members of the imperial family and the nobility kizoku. My proposal is that members are not referred to by their personal names, but by the title they carry as given by the kunaicho. It should therefore be "(Title)+(Titular name or house)". It is therefore "Prince Chichibu" and not "Prince Yasuhito" or "Prince Yasuhito of Japan" or even "Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu" etc. If someone is from an imperial house, it should be "(Title)+(Titular name) of (House)". Therefore it is "Princess Tomohito of Mikasa". After death, the member stays with the titular name, they do not revert to maiden form. If there are multiple members of the same house, it should be "Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi" and "Prince Kuni Taka", however that can be debated if wanted. Is the format "Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni" allowed? not sure, but we can talk about that.

Problem with Empress-consorts (kogo). It is Empress Go-Sakuramachi (Go-Sakuramachi Tenno), but in order to avoid confusion with other empresses, it should be "Empress Michiko of Japan". Same thing applies to other empress-consort, who should be "Empress Temei of Japan", etc.... Japanese Empress-consorts do not revert to their maiden name after their passing but are listed under their titular name.

ok, that's it, I wonder what you all think about this. Gryffindor 14:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone have any comments to make? I would like to hear some comments first, domou. Gryffindor 08:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I could've sworn there was some style guideline stating that if an article existed, then links to it shouldn't include the kanji since it would be found on that article's page. For example, we should use "All Nippon Airways" instead of "All Nippon Airways (全日本空輸株式会社, Zen-nippon Kūyu Kabushiki-gaisha)" or "All Nippon Airways (全日本空輸株式会社)" since the kanji are found (and should be found) on that article's page. Does anyone know where this is? ˑˑˑ日本穣 ^{Talk to Nihonjoε} 17:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of a guideline, but I would support it. I've removed lots of kanji for that reason, writing "only a link away" in the edit summary. We don't need kanji in a link to an article having the kanji in the opening line. Fg2 21:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I remember reading it somewhere, and it seems like it was somewhere on a MOS page (or similar page). I don't remember the wording, though, so I can't really search for it without reading a million pages. (^_^;; ˑˑˑ日本穣 ^{Talk to Nihonjoε} 23:03, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it has ever been codified. Here is the last place I can remember commenting about it. Neier 23:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that's what I remember. Thanks for the link. (^_^) ˑˑˑ日本穣 ^{Talk to Nihonjoε} 00:10, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I propose that we include the following statement in the Japanese terms section of the WP:MOS-JA. This is based on text originally proposed by Fg2 at the link provided by Neier, above:

In a narrative article, provide the Japanese script for the article subject when first introducing it. Do not provide the Japanese for subsequent instances of the article subject. Also, do not provide the Japanese for any Japanese term that is linked to an article containing the Japanese for that term. If the linked article does not contain the Japanese, please add it to the linked article.

Thoughts? Should we provide an example? ˑˑˑ日本穣 ^{Talk to Nihonjoε} 00:10, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be clearer if we said "In a narrative article, provide the Japanese script for the subject of that article when first introducing it (ideally in the first line of the article). ... ." Also, what would you think about adding "When Japanese terms do not link to articles, before adding the Japanese, consider carefully whether or not the Japanese script adds to the English article. If the term does not have an article in either the English or the Japanese Wikipedia, it might not be worthwhile adding the Japanese script." We might also clarify that lists, glossaries etc. are not narrative articles. Fg2 00:27, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so something like this:

In a narrative article, provide the Japanese script for the subject of that article when first introducing it (ideally in the first line of the article). Do not provide the Japanese for subsequent instances of the article subject. Also, do not provide the Japanese for any Japanese term that is linked to an article containing the Japanese for that term. If the linked article does not contain the Japanese, please add it to the linked article. When Japanese terms do not link to articles, before adding the Japanese, consider carefully whether or not the Japanese script adds to the English article. If the term does not have an article in either the English or the Japanese Wikipedia, it might not be worthwhile adding the Japanese script.

One thing I've done in order to help people if I know an English article doesn't exist, but a Japanese on does is to put the kanji/kana for the Japanese WP article title in comments (< !--Kanji here -- >) next to the term so it can be easily found in the future. ˑˑˑ日本穣 ^{Talk to Nihonjoε} 00:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that internal comment sounds very helpful. Fg2 10:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles has a section, Use other languages sparingly, which states "English title terms with foreign origin can encode the native spelling and put it in parentheses. See, for example, I Ching (易經 pinyin yì jīng) or Sophocles (Σοφοκλης). The native text is useful for researchers to precisely identify ambiguous spelling, especially for tonal languages that do not transliterate well into the Roman alphabet. Foreign terms within the article body do not need native text if they can be specified as title terms in separate articles." (Emphasis added.) Fg2 10:27, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In whatever note we adopt, I like the idea to explicitly point to WP:1SP that Fg2 mentioned. I think we still need to go beyond that note (to eliminate the kanji for multiple occurences of the same word, and also to strengthen the wording about linked words from do not need native text in the guide to should not have native text in our MoS, since that seems to be the prevailing opinion here). As for the wording of the note, I'd like to add:

In the context of a list of words, Japanese characters can be added even if the list contains links to other articles. For example, kanji for each train station of a particular railway line, a list of Japanese eras, or Akira Kurosawa movies. In these cases, pronunciation guides via the {{nihongo}} template are not necessary – especially if the pronunciation is available in the linked article.

And, yes, I know that Kurosawa's movies don't have show kanji in his article; but I'm of the opinion that they should. Neier 11:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I'm using the word "narrative" to distinguish an article written using complete sentences organized into paragraphs from one written using bullet items organized into lists. Likewise, to distinguish a section in sentence/paragraph form from a section in list form within the same article. Glossaries, like lists, would naturally include Japanese text. Fg2 11:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tables, too, are seldom what I would call "narrative" (although I can think of an exception or two). Fg2 11:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't directly related and maybe has been talked about before--but that initial instance of Japanese text seems to be a great place to make an interlanguage link like, Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎). Is it going too far to recommend linking to the Japanese language article on that link? Just a thought. Komdori 00:26, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, I meant in the article where the Japanese text appears (ie in the article on Koizumi, not in all links linking to it). Komdori 00:42, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we should do that necessarily. I think if the person has a page, the interwiki link should be used normally rather than as a link within the body of the article. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:46, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The way I've been applying the nihongo template is that I use it for the occurance of a kanji or kana word in an article and for any other words I do it manually using brakets and italics etc, my main reasoning being that the help link is only needed the once and that the more templates on a page surely the more load on the server. I've seen articles recently where ever single japanese word has had the template applied. Which is best/correct? Shiroi Hane 01:19, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have to say I prefer your method: not because of server load (which may or may not be significant, depending on the caching scheme), but because more than one help link on a page probably isn't really necessary. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 09:23, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is closely related to the discussion above, where some people (including me) are saying not to put kanji in articles. Exceptions are, of course, the article title and important terms that do not have articles on English Wikipedia but should. I really think that if we say "xxx is in [[Tokyo]]]" we should not give the kanji for Tokyo, and likewise "Murakami Naninani (村上何々) is the head of the [[Ministry of Foobar]]" we should not give the kanji for Ministry of Foobar, whether with or without the nihongo template. As I've written in several edits, when removing such kanji, the Japanese is only a click away. There's no need to put it into an article that links to one where the Japanese is (and should be). Fg2 10:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am somewhat leery of stating outright that kanji should be used as rarely as possible: this will lead to people blindly removing kanji from articles even where their presence is helpful or outright necessary, in the mistaken belief that this is an improvement, "because the style page says so." However, I fully agree that there is neither need nor reason to provide kanji for any linkable term. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 11:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you think of a better wording for the advice? Or can we avoid the problem you mention simply by advising people not to add kanji unnecessarily, while savvy editors do the removing? Or is there another way to prevent this? I agree that willy-nilly removal of kanji (and kana) is something to avoid. Fg2 11:40, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess my view is a little polarised since my field of editing in Japane-related articles is resticted to Anime articles which are generally self contained and most kanji text is unique to that article (e.g. lists of character names). For a list of cast or crew however, as long as a page exists for that person, there is no need to state their name in Kanji since it will already be stated on the linked article. Even if an article doesn't exist for that person, rather than stating the kanji on the referring page it's probably best to create an entry on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Japan and state the Kanji there. Shiroi Hane 12:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hapax legomena do tend to turn up occasionally, yes. In other contexts, however, when you want to include the kanji, this is usually because you want to talk about the kanji (e.g., to explain a pun), and so I expect use of {{nihongo}} wouldn't make for the most natural phrasing. I'd rarely use it outside the opening sentence, on the theory that if a brief gloss suffices, the kanji probably aren't that interesting in this context. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 02:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would word it something like: "Think carefully about whether inclusion of kanji actually improves the article." --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 02:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would you agree to add that "Often, for terms other than the title of the article, it does not."? Fg2 02:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'd strike "of the article". --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 04:34, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For a fictional character (i.e., a character from a movie, a novel, manga or anime), adhere to the following, in order of preference:

1. Use the romanization found in official English-language versions of the product.
2. Use the romanization found in official Japanese-language versions of the product;
3. If none of the above is available, use a direct Japanese-to-English transliteration of the name

This has several problems

• If the English-language romanization of the product is outright erroneous, this requires perpetuating the error (i.e. "Tetsusaiga" in Tessaiga).
• There may be more than one English-language version of the product, with different spellings.

By nature, conventionally there is only one official version. That's why it's called official.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  03:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no; official doesn't actually imply anything like that. For example, as has been pointed out, Usagi Tsukino is "Serena" in the dubbed anime but "Bunny" in the translated manga — and both of those are "official", licensed translations. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 04:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is not uncommon for there to be bleeding differences between the original manga and anime versions, never mind the official translations. I don't see why you're argueing this point.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The anime and manga may be separate things, but we still have one article that covers them both, so we at least have to worry about the name used in the article title. And it would be silly to use "Bunny" in every paragraph that discusses the manga version and "Serena" in every paragraph that discusses the anime version.

There are also some cases that have two official translations even by your strict definition, such as Detective Conan, which calls him Conan in the subtitles and Jimmy Kudo in the dub. Ken Arromdee 18:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit confused by your explanation; I was under the impression his real name was Jimmy Kudo in both versions, and his alias was Conan Edogawa across the board. If there is a discrepancy like that, it's rather exceptional, and I think it makes sense just to put a small explanation about the discrepancy in the article. Two out of the three (the Japanese and one of the official English) versions are likely to have similar character names so it would make sense to ignore the odd one out unless one of the official versions wasn't widely distributed. It's useful to point out exceptions but you should make the basic rule based on the most common situation, which doesn't deal with multiple versions in the same language. That's just my opinion though.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  04:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that's my mistake. I meant to refer to Shinichi Kudo. I believe (don't have the disks myself) that the subtitles keep him as Shinichi and the dub has him as Jimmy Kudo. At any rate, there are other examples where names are changed in the dub but not the subtitles; consider Ronin Warriors. Both the dub and subtitles are "official versions". Ken Arromdee 14:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• This guideline conflates the separate issues of romanization of a name, translation of a name with a meaning (Usagi is called Bunny in the English Sailor Moon manga), and intentionally changing the name to something different (Hikaru Ichigo->Rick Hunter).
• The English version of the product may be little-known and/or unpopular. Angel's Egg has only been released in English as a bastardized version called In the Aftermath. Google shows 114000 occurrences of Angel's Egg; nobody's seen or heard of In the Aftermath. Unfortunately, "In the Aftermath" is impossible to Google, but Googling the phrase along with Colpaert, the name of the director, gives 109 hits.
• The English version may be known, yet not used. Usagi Tsukino is used more than Serena. This is only less of an issue than it used to be because name changes are much less common.

Ken Arromdee 03:24, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to have been added without discussion after the Request for Moderation; it was suggested during the arbitration, but discussion was cut short because it was dragging on past the original topic. Personally, I agree with all points listed: in most cases, certainly, even a highly variant English-language adaptation will be the most recognized — I feel no need to move Speed Racer to Mach Go Go Go, for instance — but there will be times when the English-language adaptation is marginal even among Anglophones. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 10:24, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My take is that, if an official English name exists, use it, no matter how stupid or incorrect, but also state the original or 'correct' version. If two 'official' english translations exist (e.g. a 'bastardized' TV dub vs. an '100% authentic' manga translation or even a later translation from the same source - e.g. 'Kerpymon' in the Digimon movie credits and promo cards being corrected to Cherubimon for the Frontier dub) use the most accurate version by preference but also state the alternatives. Shiroi Hane 12:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The rules mention romanization and say nothing about translation or adaption. i.e. Usagi to Bunny or Serena. I do think Ken has a point though. Those guidelines are lacking. --Kunzite 01:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just follow the Wikipedia standard of common usage? Redirect "official" names and/or "original" names as necessary. This problem is not unique to anime/manga, nor to Japan-related issues ... I don't really see the need for separate guidelines as it is covered in the MoS: Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. CES 03:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with CES. ˑˑˑ日本穣 ^{Talk to Nihonjoε} 17:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly support. The day "Knight of Skeleton" is listed on Characters of Berserk (instead of "Skull Knight" which is what damn-near every fan uses) will be a very cold day for this world... -Aknorals 11:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the entry now, but I need some better wording to deal with this case: The anime alters the name, and the manga keeps the original name. In this case, the original name can refer to either version, while the altered name can't. It would make more sense to use the original name here. But I'm not sure how to phrase it. Ken Arromdee 14:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One more question... Are character names supposed to always be in western name order? or should the most popular form be used (which may be Japanese name order)? --Kunzite 15:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's impossible to write guidelines that address every conceivable possibility. It's best to keep the guidelines as general as possible so they will cover as wide a range of situations as possible. I think the version Ned Scott had before you reverted his edit was acceptable. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To respond to Ken's edit summary of reverting my edit "(rv again. If you really want to revert this, why not participate in the discussion on the talk page first)": I did read the discussion, and you said "but I need some better wording". Considering no major consensus was made to back up the initial edit, I didn't think my edit was inappropriate. If Ken's major objection to my edit is that I supposedly haven't read the discussion, then I suggest that the edit be put back, or something similar.

When I said I needed better wording, I meant I needed better wording about the situation where the original name applies to multiple media and the new name doesn't.

Personally, I thought noting both ideas was more than acceptable. Not only that, but I have been under the same impression as Shiroi Hane, use the official English name even if it's stupid. These are guidelines, they're supposed to help the editors do things that make sense and are helpful.

I understand and mostly agree with what Ken is saying, but I don't see why the "merged" info version I made was a bad idea. It seems to give the editor two choices, both based on some type of logic. That's why these are guidelines, and not rules. What a character is most known by is extremely hard to cite a source for. I can imagine the edit wars of fans, citing this entry for their cause. -- Ned Scott 06:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If your intent is to give the editor two, mutually inconsistent, choices, then the section should be removed entirely. If there's no general agreement on how to do names, then we shouldn't tell people how to do names at all.

And guidelines themselves can cause edit wars. They may not be rules, but there are always people who will be so unwilling to recognize exceptions to the guideline that they may as well be rules. Ken Arromdee 14:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have to disagree with your views on the two choices being a bad idea. In any case, "most used name" is going to cause problems with people being able to cite the most used name or not, or what constitutes "more" usage. Also, this is the guideline for all Japanese fictional characters, not just anime and manga. I'm reverting back to the "dual" version until a consensus can be reached, unless you rather it rv to the original way until consensus. -- Ned Scott 20:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How is "most used name" any more or less citable for Japanese fictional characters than for any other topic? Why do they deserve any special treatment? Virtually all other topics from all other languages use the name most common in English; this is the guideline given by WP:UE, WP:NC, and (implicitly, given "Río de la Plata") WP:MOS. Given this, and the lack of established consensus for the original addition of this text, and the fact that (being self-contradictory) the current text is actually significantly worse than nothing at all, I am striking the whole section changing the section to something fairly minimal, at least until such time as consensus clearly emerges^†. (If not for my memories of one user arbitrarily deciding at one point that all pages should use the English manga version, back when this page said nothing on the subject, I would just cut it entirely and have done with it. But, alas, we do need something.)  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 07:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

† Or until someone else changes it, which is quite frankly far more likely.

I would like to indicate my support (and my plea) to include one thing that you mentioned in your edit in any adopted rule: consistency. I was trying to go through some articles in the "wikify" section of the Animanga todo list this weekend and I came across a Yu-Gi-Oh articles on Keith Howard and Maximillion Pegasus. Apparently Yu-Gi-Oh editors cannot decide on which version of the name to use, so they use both. This is mostly a problem on the more popular anime series with major name changes. Pick one for the entire series and stick with it. (Then make copious notes about the name variations on the page.) ---Kunzite 00:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, when there are multiple English naming sets of a said show, we should pick and cchoose versions. WhisperToMe 15:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using ... what criteria, pray tell?  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 07:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still haven't heard a convincing argument against using common usage. In response to Ned, I'm not a huge fan of Google searches but they are a quick and dirty way to find out the most common usage. For a "modern" topic like anime and manga, it might actually be a very relevant technique. As Aponar hints at in his above reply to WTM, deciding on the "best official" name is probably much more problematic than finding the most common usage. Sometimes there are multiple "official" names. Sometimes the "official" names are not commonly used. Sometimes the "official" name is flat-out wrong. The "convention" currently on the J-MoS is arbitrary, unnecessarily confining, and contrary to the MoS, and although I'd have to check the edit history, I don't remember it ever being discussed or put to a vote. Personally, I still see nothing about this topic that indicates a need for an exception from the common usage rule. CES 20:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can see cases where doing something like a Google search or something could easily show a more common name, but I think the real issue is that it depends on the situation. I'm probably thinking of examples that differ from some examples that the others are thinking. I must apologies if I've been rude. I still think that "most used name" is something that can be to easily abused by fan-boys who simply want a way out of using the official name. Maybe we can make the guidelines a bit clearer per situation. For example, in a situation where there is only one official version, we can be pretty straight forward in it, and exclude all those articles from further complication. -- Ned Scott 06:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The longer I've been involved in discussing policy issues on Wikipedia, the more I've come to appreciate the simplest, most elegant solution. I fear that making a more detailed, "situation by situation" guideline would cause more potential for "abuse" because people will argue about what "situation" a particular case falls under, or will argue that there is no applicable situation so they will invent new rules. Speaking practically, the more complicated the rule, the harder it is to enforce and the more it is ignored. I think the best resolution is to keep the MoS common use convention and should there be a debate about common use, even after Google searches, ask for help in arbitration here or on another forum on a case-by-case basis. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in the MoS that indicates that use of some kind of "official" version should trump common usage, as you and others seem to prefer. Your bias (towards using an "official" name) is clear when you say, I still think that "most used name" is something that can be to easily abused by fan-boys who simply want a way out of using the official name. What Wikipedia convention indicates that the official name is to be preferred? I still have yet to hear what makes anime/manga unique to the point that they deserve a separate set of rules. CES 12:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not support the "dual version" for the following reasons

• I goes against general WP:MOS way of doing things.
• It is confusing, and there really is no reason for it (why only for fictional characters in japan related articles???)
• It seems to support the alleged rambo-edit that says to use "offical" versions by listing that rule "in order of preference, do this" first. Most users will probably ignore the second part (as it seems somewhat like a subnote to the "do this, first" 'rule'), destroying the "comprimise"
• Provides more excuses for edit wars, because users will have to argue over which rule to use, insead of just using one or the other
• The newer rule ("When possible, try to use the version of the name that is most commonly recognized by English speakers. This is often the official English-language version, but in some cases other versions may be more widely known. If several versions are equally well known, consider using the version that is more widely applicable.") already includes the sensible part of the rambo edit
• The old "rule" conflicts with the new rule, by not including "the most commonly recognised version by english users" as the first choice.

Now, can we get this "dispute" resolved? -Aknorals 18:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An issue that has come up recently is the use of furigana in Wikipedia articles. Having read this Manual of Style and its discussion, there was no serious discussion of furigana usage to be seen.

While romanisation shows how a word or phrase is pronounced as a whole, furigana have the advantage of showing how each character is pronounced — which is valuable since Japanese, unlike Greek or Russian, does not regularly use an alphabet. While not extremely valuable, it is somewhat educational and, by that token, encylopaedic.

Due to the fact that furigana can only be incorporated as tables, they are impossible to display in body text, since they will result in huge spacing gaps that detract from the article's appearance. But they can be used, to no detriment, in template infoboxes, since those are already tables. This just means putting furigana over the kanji of the person's name.

I advocate this; but of course I wish to hear the opinions of people who know much more about Japanese than I do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.105.121.208 (talk • contribs)

Do you know <ruby> markup? There has been several attempts to utilise it. All I know is that:

1. on japanese wikipedia, this issue popped up at least four times, but every time they concluded not to use it, mainly because the tag is defined in XHTML 1.1 not 1.0, which wikipedia using - VP 2004 - VP 2005 - talk:MoS - VP 2006
2. a similar post can be seen on ja.wikiquote - VP 2005
3. on the other hand, Japanese book on English wikibooks, they already use the function with a note to mizilla users on the top page, since mozilla browsers (including firefox) cannot render ruby as IE unless installing a plug-in (without the plug-in, Furiganas are not set above the Kanjis, rather they are shown in parentheses right after the Kanjis, like "漢字(かんじ)"). See b:Japanese for details. Note they make use of templates (such as b:Template:ruby) to elude its complicated markup syntax. The book is focusing on the language learners. I guess this is why the use of this markup (nonstandard, require a plug-in) was justified in this case.

HTH - marsian 11:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another note, while furigana is obviously useful in certain cases, I'm not convinced it would be a benifit in the English wiki. Whether it is eventually incorporated on the Japanese side is a different issue (I doubt there are many people that prefer kakko to rubi), it seems to me that using it in an English article (other than the article on rubi) would only serve to confuse the 99% of readers who can't tell the difference between a hiragana and a kanji. Since the need to spell out kanji is limited to the article titles and usually very few words within the article text (at least on the English side) the visual complexity seems to outweigh the actual usefulness.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  23:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know what I was thinking. As Hoary said it below, romaji serves the purpose of rubi, and there is no need in the English 'pedia. Unless, of course, someone is proposing English rubi.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  14:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also in the leaning against furigana camp--I think the same effect can be had simply by having spaces between the pronunciation characters--in the example above, a space between かん and じ "漢字(かん じ)" clearly show which character belongs with which pronunciation. Besides that, furigana looks messy and as noted can be confusing to the _total_ novice. LactoseTI 04:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit puzzled. Aside from articles about furigana (ruby) or Japanese script, I don't understand why roman letters aren't (or, where appropriate, IPA isn't) adequate for the job. As for articles about Japanese script, etc., I'd have guessed that an (intelligent) ad hoc approach would be adequate. (Where ruby really must be shown, e.g. in an explanation of what ruby are, then one would have to resort to a PNG/GIF image.) -- Hoary 09:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This issue comes around every now and then in discussions about how much "real" Japanese should be included in articles, and furigana/hiragana almost always gets put together with alternate romanizations in the Too Much Information category. I think we are quite fortunate that pronunciation of Japanese is fairly straight-forward given either its romanization or its furigana, thus including both in the article is a bit redundant. CES 11:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, ruby markup is not yet a standard (it's only a proposed standard under XHTML 1.1). I don't think we should go adopting anything that's only proposed. I also agree with CES' reasoning regarding including too much information. I think the {{Nihongo}} template is about as technical as we want to get as it presents the information in an orderly manner and in such a way as to not overwhelm a person with information while still providing the extra information for those who are interested in it. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, ruby markup is part of XHTML 1.1, which is already a standard. Specify the XHTML 1.1 DTD in your DOCTYPE statement, and away you go -- in principle, at least. In practice, it's complicated. First, there is no XHTML 1.1 transitional (or "loose"); the only XHTML 1.1 is strict, so the presentational markup (<font color="blahblah">, etc.) common on WP is a no-no. Moreover, while XHTML 1.0 can be dished up as HTML rather than XML and (in effect) parsed and rendered pretty much like HTML, some standard or other (I forget) says that XHTML 1.1 can't be, and must instead be dished up as XML. (Depending on the way the web server is set up, this is often simply achieved by giving it an "xml" filename extension.) Mozilla won't mind this, but MSIE at least as recent as 5.5 (and perhaps later) won't be able to render the page at all. -- Hoary 07:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Under this category the last sentence says "following the standards above" which would seem to indicate that the psuedonym should be "given name" then "family name" for modern figures. I do not think this is necessarily appropriate and it is better for the conventional used format of the psuedonym to be used. For example sumo wrestlers are always refered to with family name first and all wrestler articles follow the family name first format to my knowledge. I request and believe received clarification on this in a previous talk page discussion [[1]] but the manual no longer seems to be consistent with my understanding on this. Nashikawa 00:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree; well written journalistic articles about sumo actually generally just use the last name since that's what's displayed in the bout, but that doesn't mean last names should be printed first. If the article prints both names, they follow standard convention--which is to switch the names 'round to English style when writing and English article. As I posted in Asashoryu's talk page, I don't see how a user should know this exception in Wikipedia. The solution for cases where it doesn't make sense is to simply make a note in the article that they are often refered to with their entire name in traditional Japanese order (for the few authors/comedians where it matters) and say they are known simply by their last name in sumo. It's not the wrong way on their passports... LactoseTI 03:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In their passports they use their real, legal names I would expect, not their ring names. So this is irrelevent to this discussion. Perhaps I spent too long in Japan, but I have found the common usage, even amongst English speakers to be Akebono Taro for example, rather than Taro Akebono. This is much more easily solved through redirects, and I would argue as ring names for sumo wrestlers are in essence a pre meiji tradition that we should retain the surname first. Based on what you propose historical figuere such as Tanikaze will still follow the old system and I think that this for someone following different links on the sport would be even more confusing.Nashikawa 21:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nashikawa. I've never seen or heard a sumo wrestler referred to by GN-SN. It is always either SN-GN or just SN (just SN is quite common, too, as there are not generally two wrestlers with the same name, at least not two living wrestlers, anyway). I also think the current Pseudonyms section covers this already with the first sentence:

In the case of an actor, athlete, author, artist or other individual who is more well known under a pseudonym, use the pseudonym as the article title, and note the additional names they may use (e.g., birth name, other pseudonyms), following the standards above.

So, I don't think any change needs to be made since sumo wrestlers would be considered athletes. The only change I think that needs to be made is to indicate that if that pseudonym is a SN-GN, that's the order in which it should be used in article titles and bodies. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In their Japanese passports, if they become naturalized, the unwed sumo wrestlers always use their ring name as their name (married ones often take their wife's last name and their Sumo GN, NOT their surname)--that's why I brought it up. Akebono or Konishiki are good examples.

It's REALLY rare for a news article to use a sumo full name when writing in English, they almost always (99.9% of the time) use the surname portion when speaking about the wrestler, as you said. Try a google news search. If you do spot an ENGLISH LANGUAGE article, they usually have the names in the English, not Japanese order--at least, they treat it the same as any other Japanese name. I think it is confusing when there you've got Daisuke Shiga and Tochiasuma Daisuke being the same person. If you're talking about articles written from Japanese sources, I've never seen him called Daisuke Shiga, either, although that's his legal name--they always call him Shiga Daisuke.

I agree it sounds really odd to hear it "backwards," but after living in Japan, doesn't it strike you as equally odd to hear Yoshimoto Banana referred to as Banana Yoshimoto? Or Koizumi Junichiro referred to as Junichiro Koizumi? It does to me... but think of it from a 6th grader who's writing a report standpoint; how are they to know which articles have it right and which have it wrong--I saw a good example in the Asashoryu talk page--try to get the article right about "Koizumi meets Asashoryu" based on Wikipedia article titles...

If this change passes, it's almost essential to go through every case where this occurs and mark it as an "exception" to the rule. And why do people think of them as pseudonymns? They are "reborn" with these names to _replace_ their old names--they are not really pseudonymns at all. Even their parents and wives routinely call them by their SUMO GN when you see them being interviewed togetherLactoseTI 05:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced that a shikona is a surname. It occupies the position of a surname, but it's not hereditary, does not indicate the family to which the wrestler belongs, changes on retirement etc. So, do we treat it as a surname or as something else? Fg2 05:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When registering Akebono's children they had the option of having the last name Akebono since it's his surname on his family registry--it is his family and didn't change on retirement. You could argue that's because they are foreigners, but then what will the rule be--for non-foreign Sumo wrestlers it's one order and for foreign ones it's the way other Japanese names are? I assume this is why places like Wikipedia France list them with it being at the end, as well as when you see paintings or photos at museums in Japan they are surname last.

As an aside, keep in mind about 50% of wrestlers just use a sumo-style last name, and keep their real given name, which just adds to the confusion.LactoseTI 06:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about Akebono's personal circumstances, but I believe that there are incentives for foreign wrestlers to take Japanese citizenship, and when they do, they assume a Japanese name. Since the foreign wrestler does not already have a Japanese name, he might select the shikona as his new legal name. Do wrestlers who are born as Japanese citizens legally change their names? Fg2 06:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some want Japanese citizenship to manage a stable or whatnot, others scorn it (Asashoryu), others just want to stay in Japan even though they divorce themselves from the sumo world completely (Konishiki, the children's entertainer). Maybe someone else knows if non-foreigners legally change their name, but it's clear that at the very least foreign wrestlers have as their "real" name their shikona. There are many foreign wrestlers now, especially among the higher levels (makeuchi, etc.), and thus their relevance in an encylcopedia grows even more. It seems, to me, their name should be treated in a way that a married woman changes her name, not like a pseudonymn--for all intents and purposes it seems that's how it acts in society--wresters are referred to as SN-san on TV, etc. I agree it sounds odd to Japanese/people living in Japan to hear Japanese names reversed ever--but it makes sense to avoid confusion--that's why we put Japanese names in Wikipedia in GN-SN order to begin with. I doubt that you will ever find an English language Japanese newspaper article which has sumo names in reverse order from the rest of the populace. Either all people in the article will be SN-GN (both sumo and non-sumo Japanese people) or they will all be GN-SN. Sumo wrestlers will usually go by just SN, but since it seems we don't want that as the article title. Since everyone else treats them like Japanese names, why should it be different here? Komdori 16:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have never read a real English publication that mentioned a rishiki's GN (first introductions aside). Also keep in mind that English language Japanese newspapers are aimed at a generally living-in-Japan-and-not-completely-stupid-about-things-Japanese audience, and so there is much more room to Japanize everything.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  18:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Freshgavin--you're right, I think, about English publications and their lack of usage of GN's. Since the association regulates the shikona, it is not really ambiguous by using only the SN (for active members, not counting the recylcing of ring names that occurs, too). My point was that regardless of the publication, whether in Japan or out, there will be consistency among how they handle all people's names--if they use both names, they will not be in reversed order from each other. As a note to Nishikawa's observation that historical sumo wrestlers would have a different order because of the policy--that's true for any long lasting thing in Japanese figures in Wikipedia; the first prime ministers were born pre-Meiji, so their names should be SN-GN by the policy, with the majority being GN-SN. Komdori 19:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should say that my use of Akebono was perhaps unfortunate as it clouds the issue of ring vs legal name. The majority of wrestlers are Japanese and we write articles on them using their ring names, and I think we should base our arguments on that rather than any issue of it subsequently becoming a legal name in a minority of cases. Personally I think Sumo is essentially based in a pre meiji tradition in many (if not most) regards, and sumo names are part of this. Also for most wrestler's virtually no one knows the GN part (It took me a bit of digging to find the GN for the current Tochiazuma's father, who also had a Tochiazuma ring name for example in editing that article). I would argue that starting the article with the "SN" is therefore appropriate on this line also. I agree if the status quo is maintained then clearly some sort of disclaimer is needed. Nashikawa 20:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right that the foreigners are in the minority in terms of sheer number of wresters in Japanese stables (which includes a plethora of middle schoolers and beyond), but they are not such a super-minority when it comes to "interesting" wrestlers. Of the top ranked wrestlers, the only yokozuna is foreign as are two of the five ozeki (Kotooshu, Hakuho), that's 50% of the top 6 being foreign. They all use the names this way. What's more, it's a common criticism that all the people "moving up" in Sumo are foreign--that's who gets articles written about them.

The point is a "ring name" is not a pseudonymn, but in fact a "real name", much as any of the professional calligraphers or masters of the tea ceremony, etc. take Buddhist names to symbolize their "birth" at the time when they master something. Sure, you can argue that the idea of taking a new name is an old tradition, but it's also a pre-Meiji tradition to name all Japanese people SN-GN. Even though they still do that today, Wikipedia lists it in the English order.

Tochiazuma's father having a ring name ending in Tochiazuma is a perfect reason why surname should be last, not first--in that case, the surname even followed family connections as any other surname would, it clearly isn't just a moniker meant to be read as a single name. Looking at Tochiazuma's entry now, it clearly isn't completely "right": "Tochiazuma Daisuke (栃東大裕, Tochiazuma Daisuke?) is a professional sumo wrestler. He was born Shiga Daisuke..." The second instance should (clearly) be Daisuke Shiga.

One potential compromize that I think might work would be to list him as "Tochiazuma, Daisuke," which I think would capture the fact that it's both last name first as well as the fact that it's "Tochiazuma" we're talking about, and simply clarify which one we mean.

I still think adopting a GN-SN blanket policy for people born post-Meiji is the easiest way of doing it, if it's already assumed we won't pick either SN-GN or GN-SN for everyone from Japan. His father poses even worse problems--should his article be Tamanoi Tomoyori or Tomoyori Tamanoi? Neither is the name he was born with, but neither was a ring name of a sumo wrestler--his ring name was Tochiazuma. Komdori 20:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the father I think he is Tochiazuma Toyomori (assuming SN-GN style...) with a redirect, otherwise things become terminally confused. Most former wrestlers are best known by their ring name. E.g. we still edit the Konishiki Yasokichi page, not his legal name or his stage name of KONISHIKI. Similarly the few former yokozuna who have pages all use their ring name -- not their elder name or legal name (if they have left the association). This would ultimately mean using the legal name for all retired and deceased wrestlers which in my view would be undesirable. This is however a rather technical discussion/separate issue and perhaps a distraction from the current SN-GN or GN-SN debate. It needs a separate section on this talk page (or elsewhere) to resolve a view. Nashikawa 21:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the other points raised above, I fully accept that foreign wrestlers are more likely to get a page listing than Japanese ones on average, but it is still a minority. I would argue that as wikipedia expands foreign wrestlers will become more of a minority, and in any case we should do something that works for all, including the current majority, even if it is not a huge majority. I agree re that real Japanese names should be given as Daisuke Shiga and should be changed accordingly, even if I dont agree about the ringname. I am happy with Tochiazuma, Daisuke etc if that is the consensus view here. Nashikawa 21:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right on the issue of what name to list--the articles should clearly be under the ring names. I would also propose the articles are moved as they change ring names (sometimes even they can't keep track of what their current names are--that's what the helpers are for ^_^) and have their old names changed into redirects.

You might also be right that the order of elder names, etc. might belong in a different discussion (although I think it is relevant to the "pseudonymn" section). I agree we need a thing that works for every wrestler, although my point was since the foreign wrestlers are significant in number, their situation should be considered carefully. Instead of picking something which might make sense for even the majority, it should fit with everyone. In their case, all (the dozens) of them generally have legal names which match their ring names. If we don't at least have that comma, I think sentences like, "Kotooshu Katsunori, has the legal Japanese name Katsunori Kotooshu (though they write it in Kotooshu Katsunori)." are awfully odd.

Regarding inheriting of names, take a look at Takanohana Kenshi ("born Hanada Mitsuru"), his son Takanohana Kenshi ("born Hanada Mitsuru") and grandsons Wakanohana Masaru ("born January 20, 1971 as Masaru Hanada (花田 勝 Hanada Masaru)") and Takanohana Koji ("born August 12, 1972 as Koji Hanada (花田 光司 Hanada Kōji)"). The Hanada surname is inherited. And, both grandsons changed their shikona a couple of times during their wrestling careers. Fg2 21:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I propose the following for how to handle Sumo wrestler names here on English Wikipedia:

The title of an article about a sumo wrestler should be the wrestler's ringname followed by the year of birth in parentheses (e.g. Takanoha (1950), Wakanoha (1971)). Within article bodies, they should be referenced by their ringname alone, or by their ringname and year of birth in parentheses if required for disambiguation.

How does that sound? It's simple and should keep people from getting confused. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 21:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting idea, although personally I prefer the comma approach.... Nashikawa 22:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a good way to keep things unambiguous among different wrestlers with similar ring names. Nihonjoe--are you proposing this as a response to the above discussion or is this something else? If it is in response to the above, are you suggesting using only the surname portion of their ring name for an article title? It seems agreed upon that it is most common in media (print or otherwise) to only referred to them with this part of their ring name, reflecting the rather unambiguous nature of a sumo name (with the exception mentioned in this proposal). The article itself could tell the reader the extra tidbit of information of the "given name" portion. If you're talking about something else I apologize.

This idea is good, but if you are going to switch to just the surname portion, why add the year unless it has been used multiple times? Komdori 22:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is in response to the above discussion. I decided to include the year as part of it because there are somewhat regular occurances of repeatedly using a ringname (though I don't know of any that have been used simultaneously with both wrestlers competing). This way the birth year is always there, thereby eliminating any possible confusion (unless, for some bizarre reason, there are two wrestlers born in the same year that receive the same ringname; the likelihood of this happening is about as good as being struck by a moon of Jupiter while walking down the street). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about this further how about the SN with the given name in brackets eg: Akebono (Taro) probably for all -- there are occasional complications to non sumo -- see Kaio for example. Nashikawa 22:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the date idea, the comma idea a bit less. It might be nicer without the year unless there is a collision. The only problem with the brackets, which actually looks probably the nicest, is the issue of whether or not some people might think it's a last name. Hmm... would it be terrible to skip using the year and just using the ring surname until a collision occurs (and then using the year)? In that case, the article could be updated to have the year. In the majority of cases collisions don't occur, and when they do it seems they are usually among already established, regularly colliding names (so we would already have the year bit for them). If you're worried about updating referencing articles, it should be very obvious from the context, and if not the supporting articles could be fixed just by searching for them. LactoseTI 00:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And for Kaio where we hit some other sort of non sumo article, we assume collision and use brackets item anyway (even though it is not a collision between wrestlers)....? I guess if we are going down this line we should define a starting sentence for every biographical sumo article, along the lines of:

* Takanohana, full ring name Kōji Takanohana, born August 121972 as Koji Hanada (花田 光司 Hanada Kōji)) is a former sumo wrestler.

This should make sure that it is a coherent start. It looks as though we are not going to end up with the current style for all the exisiting sumo bios.... It this is the case is there a way to make a group request for a number of pages. What worries me is that we come to a conclusion here, and then start a move request for all the pages (I count 27 from the "Sumo wrestlers" category) and then we have this debate all over again -- there are only a few of us in this debate at the moment compared to the numbers who fairly regularly update some of those pages. Nashikawa 20:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, I think it's a good idea--both the plain name and the brackets where needed (about titling with a wrestlers' main name and collision resolution with years regardless of whether it is another sumo wrestler or word). We can make a group redirect request and have it directed here for talk, or if it's decided that this discussion is comprehensive enough I suppose we could just move them. I know that Asashoryu's page is being pointed here, and although many may update the pages we probably have a representative sample of people who actually care about it. Either way, I think this is a pretty well thought out compromise and I believe (and hope) everyone will be able to live with it. Komdori 05:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone else do the group page request as I am not sure how to do it. I am not sure we have sufficient here for a consensus (four for the proposal and six overall I reckon). Also this will get anyone interested here before a final decision. There are a number of options that have been proposed which are (apologies for ommission)

1. Ring surname (year of birth where necessary) Probably favoured by current majority
2. Ring surname (year of birth always)
3. Ring surname (given name where necessary)
4. Ring surname (given name always)
5. Ring surname given name -- the status quo, conforms to pre meji stnadard
6. Ring surname, given name -- the comma approach
7. Ring given name surname -- conforms to post meiji standard.

Can I suggest we go for a redirect to any of these for the group redirect, probably option 1 above and ask people either simply to vote for their favourite, or rank them in prefered order. Based on this hopefully we'll have a clear winner. Nashikawa 23:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about the elder name issue earlier my suggestion is as follows for biographical articles in this area:

• The article is moved if an active wrestler changes his name, with a redirect from his former name.
• When he retires from the ringhis ring name (in whatever format we agree above) becomes the archival name and his elder name is dealt with by a redirect. (with the various potential options someone might use catered for)
• Redirects are used for legal names.
• For well known elder names on their own, if things in this area develop this far, we use disambiguition.

The above would mean that there would not be biographical articles on using sumo elder names as all elders are former wrestlers, which usually they are better known as -- e.g. Chiyonofuji is better known than Kokonoe.Nashikawa 22:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. This would have the effect of having the article eventually settling with the last active ring name, which is probably going to be both the time he was most successful and best known as a a wrestler. I suppose there are exceptions to that (maybe someone changing their name on their way down the ranks), but nonetheless I think this would be a good overall policy.

The only issue I can think of is not for run-of-the-mill elders, but some stable masters who wind up being known better by their post-wrestling name. Sadogatake, for example, shows up in the news constantly talking about Kotooshu. Even in this case, though, a simple redirect would take you to Kotonowaka, and I don't see a problem with that, especially since it has the nice effect of keeping things simple and clean. Komdori 23:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its funny you should mention this case but when I got to Sadogatake I immediately thought of the former Sadogatake, who was Kotonowaka's shisho (trainer) rather than the current Sadogatake... I clearly have been out of Japan too long.... Nashikawa 21:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heheh, I think people will be thinking of him as Sadogatake for a long time :) I was disappointed that he just missed getting "official credit" for Kotooshu because of his retirement. I suppose it can't be such a "simple" redirect after all (in that case)... Komdori 21:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]