Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China/Archive/June 2007

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[edit] Condor Heroes-related articles

A number of articles exist for The Legend of the Condor Heroes and The Return of the Condor Heroes, including articles for specific characters, but they are all either poorly sourced or completely unsourced. Some might need wikifying also. Most of them are not tagged for any WikiProjects - I did a few for WPChina. This is probably true also of articles that are about Jinyong's other books. I am not familiar with how to source for articles that are about fictional works or fictional characters, so if you have any insight, please try to improve these articles so they do not risk deletion when some editors come in and feel that they do not assert notability or something. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help settle a dispute at List of tributaries of Imperial China

Calling all editors who are versed in imperial age Chinese history - I need some help settling a dispute at List of tributaries of Imperial China. I am neutral in the dispute, but I'm trying to help the editors involved come to a compromise. But I'm not as well versed in imperial age Chinese history as some of you may be, especially in terms of finding sources. So please help. Also, the article itself needs better sourcing that's not related to the dispute. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] China Green Party: China-related article up for deletion

Please comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/China Green Party. --PalaceGuard008 07:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] chinese text

I think the {{ChineseText}} marker should be at the beginning of articles, not the end. Why: so readers can immediately see what is wrong if Chinese characters are not shown. What do you think? Hmains 17:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and even moved a couple of them, but often there are other things at the top as well, including infoboxes, navigation templates, and sometimes a picture. All these things tend to collide and the formatting gets messed up. I don't have a good solution. --Ideogram 21:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
The table that is the fix for stacked infoboxes is probably the fix. See Battle of Red Cliffs for an example. See Wikipedia:How to fix bunched-up edit links for more examples/discussion. Ling.Nut 01:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you fix Taiwan and Republic of China? --Ideogram 02:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) I assumed you were talking about bunched-up edit links... I looked at Taiwan and it looks OK to me.. the dismabig text is to the left of the "Chinese chars" template; the latter is above a couple templates/images... what part needs to be fixed? (That's an honest question, not a rhetorical one). Ling.Nut 13:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

There's three things vying for the top right and they all have different widths making the right margin weave in and out. There's got to be a better way. --Ideogram 21:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Taiwan and Republic of China have the Chinese Text marker at the top. I think this is a good place for it, not at the bottom where I see it placed in various articles. Hmains 02:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I changed the size to be the same as a thumb image .... let me know if that helps... Ling.Nut 02:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't work, since the size of a thumb image depends on the user's preferences, and on the screen resolution for anonymous users. For example, my thumb image size is set to 300 pixels, so it still looks bad. And on Republic of China the infobox has a different width. It looks like you would have to do something fancy with a table to get everything lined up. --Ideogram 03:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

(undent) OK. I self-reverted my edits. I'll think about this problem... the table fix I suggested earlier won't work tho :-( Ling.Nut 03:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don't even like having two images at the top of the article. I feel one image per subsection is enough, probably the location map. It would still be a problem making the ChineseText box and the map image look good together though. --Ideogram 03:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
As for the infobox in Republic of China, apparently the width is specified in something called "ex" (I don't know what this unit is, the width of an 'x'?) so different units from the ChineseText box. Ideally we could specify their widths in the same units, so they could be the same. --Ideogram 03:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poll for article move at Wokou

There's currently a poll on a proposed article move at Wokou. Poll options include:

  • Move to Japanese pirates
  • Move to Wakō
  • Move to Wōkòu
  • Keep at Wokou

Please vote if you have an opinion. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Proposing a sectional move

The section Simplified Chinese characters#Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters should be moved into a separate article. Would anyone object if this whole section moves to a page by itself? Benjwong 01:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Many parts of that section are unreferenced. It might be suitable for its own article, but I hope that you have references lined up.--Danaman5 22:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propose to remove en:Image:Deadchinesesoldier.jpg

How about your idea?--Ksyrie 20:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

As pointed out at the deletion discussion, your rational that the image may be offensive to Chinese readers is not in line with Wikipedia precedent, as Wikipedia is not censored.--Danaman5 22:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Pedophilia materials are also banned by wikimedia.--Ksyrie 23:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I am sure there is some wiki policies to prohibit some sex and violent explicit materials and images appearing on wiki,but for the moment,I cann't find any,hoping someone can can help.--Ksyrie 00:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's a start - WP:NOT#CENSORED. LordAmeth 00:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a note: the deletion discussion here has been closed, because the image in question is a commons image. You will need to register an account and list it at commons if you would like to pursue this matter.--Danaman5 01:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone in the Talk:Korean War had found another similar pic Image:Deadparagermany.jpg, which I found it as bloody explicit as this one.So why not wiki set up a rule to prevent the high resolution violent and sex pics?--Ksyrie 04:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone living on Taiwan?

(And willing to help me contact/phone/email the big, scary army of yours?) Anyway, I need to get permission to use a bunch of pics they have on their MND website, and their site is just monstrous. No link to contact the webmaster, and the response/suggestions form needs an ROC ID number... which I don't have. My ex-KMT general granduncle just happens to be retiring/vacationing in Shanghai now, and I doubt he still knows who to talk to for this sort of stuff... So if anyone can help me get in touch with someone in charge (of the website, at least,) I'd really appreciate it. -- 我♥中國 03:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

try this link zh:Wikipedia:台灣主題公告欄.--Ksyrie 03:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Not terribly active, though, is it? Last edit some time in May... -- 我♥中國 04:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
This one zh:Wikipedia:互助客栈/其他,one of the most active 'bulletinboard' in chinese wiki.Lots of wikimaniac,and often too political.Pay attention your way of wording to avoid unnecessary trouble.--Ksyrie 04:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Guess that'll have to do, thanks for the help. -- 我♥中國 04:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I live IN Taiwan (not on). I don't think the MND would give permission to use most of the pictures. ludahai 魯大海 23:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] best english version

What would be a good translation of 金台三打少林寺 ? Jin Tai is the main character, so would it be "Jin Tai's three battles with the Shaolin monastery"? The book mentions a person from one of my articles. I would like to note it.(Ghostexorcist 04:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Duplicate articles

Would anybody be interested in helping to merge Lin Feng into Limahong? They are two articles about the same person. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:00, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't we be merging Limahong into Lin Feng? It seems like the latter is his real name.--Danaman5 05:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I think he is more commonly known as Limahong. That's why I suggested we merge into the Limahong article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The Limahong has a lot of proper nouns in dialect transliterations. (e.g. the province of "Cuy Tan" -- I know Teochow is in Guangdong, but Cuy Tang sounds nothing like it! Regardless of which way it merges, someone with knwoledge of whatever dialect it is will need to go through and work out what they are and wikify them. --PalaceGuard008 00:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Mandarin names for historical periods before Mandarin

It occurs to me that it's rather curious to use Mandarin names for people whose names would have been in Old or Middle Chinese (or some other dialect). Though Mandarin is the lingua franca -- and the academic community also refers to historical figures by their Mandarin names, I think we should make it clear that the Mandarin names are modern representations of the characters in their names, not what they would have actually been called.

For example, I note when the article talks about "Beiping" being changed to "Beijing", the change in pronunciation at the time would have been closer to changing "pukbaing" to "pukkaing" (which anticipates the eventual "Peking"). (I'm not at all an expert on old pronunciations, just using a reconstruction resource here, so feel free to correct me). I just think that we lose a lot of historical "feel" if we represent only the modern Mandarin pronunciation of characters. After all, when people talk about Anglo-Saxon history they often leave the names in Old English intact. I'm not at all suggesting we go into all the articles and start changing names, but perhaps make it clear that the pinyin forms for pre-Mandarin people and places are just the modern representations, not what they were actually called. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 01:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's a problem without an easy solution. Translating from one language to another, or from old forms of language to new, will always have problems. I mean, actually, Beijing's name was never Beijing at all. It is 北京。By romanizing it into English, we are already distancing it from the original to a certain degree. As for putting disclaimers about this on articles, well, that would be quite a few disclaimers to add...--Danaman5 01:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that, unlike those Saxon names, there is no standard practice for transliterating old or middle Chinese. Pronunciations and spelling will vary between sources. Plus, you don't know the precise pronunciation of any one person or place at any period or time.
For example, if you abandon modern Mandarin as the standard, then shouldn't you, say, transliterate the Wuyue article using 10th century Wu dialect? It may be difficult to find such sources. --PalaceGuard008 02:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Templates for Chinese emperors by dynasty

I have started making footer templates listing the emperors for each dynasty to ease navigation among them. I have finished Template:Liao emperors and Template:Song emperors. I will do the remainder of these dynasties in the coming weeks and affix the templates to the bottom of the relevant emperor pages. ludahai 魯大海 04:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I just finished Template:Western Xia emperors ludahai 魯大海 01:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about notability of an unlicensed Chinese video game for the NES

I wrote an article about Super Donkey Kong - Xiang Jiao Chuan, an unlicensed video game from China. People on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games questioned its notability. I am asking someone well-versed with Chinese to search Google with the game's Chinese name and see if you can find websites that discuss this game. WhisperToMe 13:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP China userbox

Does anybody else think that the current WP China userbox is kind of plain or ugly? Would anybody mind if I replaced the typed-in "華" with either this picture or a picture of the Great Wall from Commons? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Here are a couple of options:

 This user is a member of WikiProject China
This user is a member of WikiProject China

Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Since the picture in the left option is already on every single WP:CHINA tag, I'd prefer the great wall option.--Danaman5 17:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, we can change the background colour of the box, too. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I'll change the picture to the Great Wall now. Feel free to revert or discuss if you disagree with it. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vote on name

[[1]]

please offer your opinion on whether the current title for Goguryeo-China Wars is good or not. Good friend100 22:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lingwu, Lingzhou

I have recently put a merge tag on these two articles. From what I can gather from the information provided by OnlyButAlso's comments on the Lingwu talk page and my talk page, Lingzhou is the historical name of the city now called Lingwu. If this is the case I feel that the two articles should be merged with most of the information in the Lingzhou article being moved to a "History" section. However, OnlyButAlso does not seem to be very proficient with English, and I would like to be certain that he and I are understanding each other. Unless there is some opposition I will assume that my understanding is correct and will merge the pages early next week. If someone with better knowledge of China than I can correct me, if my understanding is incorrect, then I would be grateful. (If someone were to carry out the merge, if merging is appropriate, before I get to it, that would be good too.) Dsmdgold 03:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

hi,Dsmdgold,Lingzhou is old name of Lingwu,Lingzhou is know only by historian today in China,Most people know only Lingwu. So you can link Lingzhou to Lingwu,you can not link Lingwu to Lingzhou,because Lingzhou is a died word in China,I believe you can understand me. Dsmdgold,you can Merge Lingzhou and Lingwu in One,with name Lingwu,simple link Lingzhou to Lingwu,don't ling Lingwu to Lingzhou as before.You can image some people come from Lingwu see That Lingwu linked by Lingzhou,they will very sad and unhappy:so we do not called Iraq as babylon,we do not called America as Maya,we do not France as Gaul. IF you still want to link Lingwu to Lingzhou,please try to Link Iraq to Babylon first. Thank you for reading this.

OnlyButAlso 10:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Dsmdgold:I am very sorry I forget tell you some thing: Lingzhou have another means is China or 'God land' (灵GOD洲land)。And Lingwu is a name of a famous emperor (Han dynasty). OnlyButAlso 11:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tally Trade

Does anyone know if we have an article on 勘合 (kanhe?) trading visas issued by the Ming and Qing to representatives of their tributary states? It seems quite common to call this the "tally trade" in English-language sources, though I have no idea why, and it doesn't appear on the disambig page for Tally. Thanks. LordAmeth 12:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well "勘" means check, proofread, verify, measure, etc. So I guess it is tenuously connected with "tally". --PalaceGuard008 11:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help with image of mengchong doujian (蒙冲斗舰)

... any thoughts on how to track down/verify the original source (and relevant copyright info) of the mengchong doujian (蒙冲斗舰) ... maybe this [2]? Also look in Chinese wikipedia under "naval warfare" or some such? Ling.Nut 12:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese child considered one year old at birth

I am reading a biography about Yue Fei and one source therein claims an important person in his life died in 1121 when Yue was 19. But if Yue was born in 1103 (like this and so many other bios state), it should read 1122. Does anyone know of any scholarly sources that mention some Chinese believe a baby is one year old at birth? I think this has relevance to the miscalculation. If the author of the cited source believed Yue was 1 at birth, then 1121 would fit.

I don't think they messed up on what age Yue was because other sources state this person died shortly before Yue entered the military in 1122, when he was 19. (Ghostexorcist 23:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC))

Actually, your "age" in traditional Chinese reckoning is counted from conception, so that when you are born you are counted as (notionally) one years old. The "age" then increases by one year after each lunar new year. So a baby born on lunar new year's eve can be "two year's old" just a day after being born. This traditional "age" is called 虚岁 in Chinese.
In fact, there's a Wikipedia article on it: East Asian age reckoning. --PalaceGuard008 00:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that the easiest way to understand Chinese ages is to remember that it is basically counted by the number of lunar years that you have lived in. So, yes, a newborn baby is technically one year old, because he or she has been alive during one lunar year. And, if the lunar new year came two days later, that three day old baby would suddenly be two years old. I should note that, in my experience, younger Chinese people seem to be following the Western system these days.--Danaman5 20:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help

I find some mistake at article Yinchuan,eg: 1,an area of 4467 km .(the real number is 9489 sq.km. and,you know km is length,not a area unit.)

2,an annual frost time of 158 days.(Infact,Non-frost(frost-free) time is 158 days,and frost time is 365-158)

I have edited it yesterday afternoon,but today i find all words and number i edited turn back again,why?OnlyButAlso 04:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Revert it back to the correct version. Miranda 05:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Feedback needed

I recently split the Zhou Tong (archer) article into two parts: History and Fiction. I then added more historical info about Zhou that I just learned about. I would like some general feedback from other users to see what they think of the changes. (Ghostexorcist 08:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Goguryeo-China Wars

Currently there is a move request for Goguryeo-China Wars to be moved to Military history of Goguryeo. Please vote and offer your opinion on the subject here Talk:Goguryeo-China wars, thanks. Good friend100 00:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy policy of China

As this article is currently mentioned on the Main Page, perhaps someone is able to add more content? Gralo 08:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image hunting and image use

I, along with several other editors at the WikiProject Three Kingdoms, have been trying to get Battle of Red Cliffs to featured status for a while now. One of the concerns we have with the article before we send it to WP:FAC is that it has too few images. For something as famous/influential as this battle (like THE most famous Chinese battle in history, really), I'm shocked that I cannot find any free use images depicting the battle on the internet. So here is my first request: Are there any free use image of the battle (ie. Did any ancient Chinese artist try to draw it?) that can be used on the article?

During my search, however, I've found this watermarked and off-scale picture which looks impressive enough for the article. The portrait is drawn by a Zheng Hongliu (郑洪流) on an unspecified year, and unfortunately for our purposes, he's not dead yet (God I'm horrible). Seeing that I cannot find a free alternative, if I were to use this image for the article, how can I convince the fair use crew that a free use alternative cannot be found for this 1800 year old battle? (And yeah, something needs to be done about that watermark)

Thank you. _dk 09:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I am sure that there must be plenty of images out there of this battle; I've heard of it through my Japanese art history class, and vaguely recall being told it was a popular subject. The issue is, however, that regardless of their age, many otherwise free images are copyrighted and closely guarded by museums. That said, if a good fair use image of one of these older paintings can be found, I would vote for using one of those over this admittedly beautifully but very much Western-style (i.e. non-traditional-Chinese) painting. LordAmeth 14:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
And a google image search in Japanese gives me screenshots from video games and the anime, orz. Also, for those interested, this is the page from where I found that western-style portrait of the Battle of Chibi, that page has tons of portraits for battles in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War (with some Communist bias, I suspect), which I think can be put to use :) _dk 23:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Deadkid dk - I tried searching for an image of the battle, but found the same painting you did. Not sure if it qualifies under fair use. You can ask about that here - Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. If editors and admins that frequent that page think it's OK, then it probably can qualify under fair use. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The answer is negative. Well then, what kind of images do you guys think can be/should be added to the article? _dk 11:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Are there old calligraphy written works about the battle? Or how about more modern-day pictures of the site of the battle? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible FA - need help

I have been working on the Zhou Tong (archer) page for roughly 2 years. I have put it up for FA status. One editor gave me a small list of stuff to fix before it can pass. I need someone to help with minor stuff, mainly grammar and readibility. Please see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Zhou Tong (archer). Apart from that, I just need general support. I will do the majority of the reference changes (but I don't like his suggestion). I like the way the references currently are. Thanks. (Ghostexorcist 02:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC))

You don't necessarily always have to do exactly what FA reviewers suggest, IF you can make a strong case for your own method (using Wikipedia guidelines, policies, etc.) Some reviewers are more experienced than others.
Wow that is a long article! I don't have time to go through it word by word. I fixed a few spelling errors. I saw a sentence that starts with "And." Also, just breezing through, it looks like some info can be cut.. I saw something that looked like a detailed comment about one of Zhou Tong's students emulating heroes.. if info is about people other than Zhou Tong, such detail may not be necessary... Ling.Nut 12:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I will take care of the longer bits about his students. I have a question though, throughout the page, I have formated all references of Chinese to look like (Chinese: example). Another editor suggested that I erase all of these because it is supposedly used too many times. This formatting was originally done by a very active member of the project. As I expanded the page, I continued to use the formatting. Should I delete the Chinese formatting or keep it?(Ghostexorcist 01:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC))

(undent) There may be something about this question in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles)... Ling.Nut 03:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The article passed FA, but I feel it needs some copy-editing. (Ghostexorcist 20:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC))

[edit] CfD to delete Category:Chinese_scholars

People may well wish to comment at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_June_27#Category:Chinese_scholars which proposes to delete the Chinese scholars category, redistributing the contents among other categories. If there is a China-related discussions list, could someone please add it there. Thanks, Johnbod 01:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)