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Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Misplaced Pages's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Misplaced Pages policies of Misplaced Pages's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

WP:VG/GL#Non-English games

This guideline set basically says that if the translated title resembles the original Japanese title in anyway, the romaji version of the title should be omitted. This was brought to my attention after Jinnai reverted my edits to the lead of Bishōjo game after I added "Bishōjo gēmu" and "gyarugē" to the lead. Basically, I don't think anyone does this on the project at all and I think it conflicts with the manual of style here. I'll be raising the issue at WT:VG in a bit, as well.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

For reference last time this was discussed陣内_Jinnai 17:28, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Nothing on that page concerns this discussion. That was concerning a specific romaji spelling. Not when romaji does not need to be included.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The last time it was brought up, WP:VG basically stated, "Bugger off." They don't give a damn about what WP:MOS-JA says. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 02:57, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I think its because it feels unnecessary when the item is item is an English word or it uses romaji, but without the special characters. Possibly also the tone taken that MOS-J superceded the VG guideline didn't help.陣内_Jinnai 04:19, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

The romaji should be included unless it is exactly identical to the "English" name of the subject. That is why you don't see romaji used on Tokugawa Ieyasu or Bishōjo. It should never be taken into account whether or not the names are similar, because the Japanese language doesn't merely take loanwords from English, and while geemu (game) is most certainly English in origin, teema (theme), buranko (swing), etc. aren't. The romaji is meant for pronunciation purposes, and when you have something like "galge" and don't give the romaji, no one is able to tell that it's read as gyarugee.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:44, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

In general, style guidelines with a broader scope are applied first and generally supersede those with a more narrow scope. WP:MOS-JA generally has a much broader scope that project-specific guidelines such as that used by WP:VG. This is the same for any time where guidelines may contradict. For WP:VG to override MOS-JA only on video game articles is not good, and Ryulong gives above some good reasons why. Including the romaji is not going to ruin the video game article, and it will enhance the usefulness of the article. It doesn't detract in any way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 05:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

This does appear to be turning into another "bugger off" situation. Especially because Jinnai has cited a discussion that has nothing to do with this issue at hand, and is merely trying to use it to his advantage due to its length and complexity.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 13:08, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Ninonioe - VG guideline's scope is probably larger than MOS-J as it includes not just video games, but those items releated to them. I would also say that it was never stated clearly why romaji was needed for names for English words during that whole discussion I cited even though it was brought up. The Japanese characters, yes its clear. The romaji, not so much.陣内_Jinnai 16:47, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Please learn to spell my name. You didn't even come close, and I know you know how to spell it. (^_^) MOS-JA applies to any Japan-related article, and since any video game that was originally published in Japan is automatically Japan-related, it's covered. There are around 30,000 articles that are tagged as part of the project, and I know there are others which haven't yet been tagged. The romaji is needed because it shows how it's said in Japanese, something not always obvious, even for experts. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 17:45, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Basically, no one from the WT:VG thread is coming here because they're being insular and stubborn.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 12:04, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Also it seems that this is a big racist argument seeing as they refer to it as "English spoken with a bad Japanese accent", considering the fact that Fainaru Fantajī was absent from every single Final Fantasy main series video game page (FFX-2 still had the text from the last time I put it there). This has been rectified. .—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 12:14, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong, please be civil. The VG project is not trying to be racist.

As I stated on the VG page, the romaji seems like overkill. Katakana is intended for Japanese to accommodate foreign words via its regular phonemes. It seems like a technicality to include the Japanese pronunciation for words that are intended to be pronounced in English or any other native language. I'm sure there are exceptions, like those you listed above, but for the most part I think it is unnecessary. (Guyinblack25 18:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC))

It's not only a pronunciation thing but it's a "how are these non English characters read" thing.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't quite follow what you mean. Can you please elaborate?

Also, I must admit that I'm playing catch up with the discussion, which seems lengthy and fragmented. Is there a collection of links to previous threads? (Guyinblack25 04:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC))

If you have the Kana version, why do you need the Romaji version? If it's almost the same to the international version or English version, then the Kana version is all that's needed, no? 76.66.195.196 (talk) 22:01, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

There are a fair number of people in the world (I dare say "most") who can't read kana, so the romaji assist in those people reading them. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 23:58, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

But "ファイナルファンタジー" is intended to be read as "Final Fantasy". I would think that adding in "Fainaru Fantajii" would cause more confusion. As you said, most people can't read kana. That being the case, why would they know the Japanese syllables associated with the kana to read and pronounce the romaji correctly? (Guyinblack25 14:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

"Final Fantasy" what "ファイナルファンタジー" is intended to be read as, as you say. It is not what it is read as. That's where this manual of style comes in.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd consider that splitting hairs as the words are loan words from English. Mind you, I'd consider that a valid argument for exceptions, but not for common words an average reader on an English language site would know.

Regardless, if the reader has no context for Japanese kana, how would they be able to properly read or pronounce the romaji? (Guyinblack25 15:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

That's what this manual of style is for.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 16:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

You've said that twice, but I don't think I follow. Does {{nihongo}} provide a link to the manual of style as a reference for readers? (Guyinblack25 16:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

(editconflict)I agree with Guy. That's trying to split hairs without larger consesus (beyond this page) which ultimately just confuses the reader as they aren't clear which one is corrent to pronouce it as. It doesn't serve much purpose because ファイナルファンタジー is not suppose to be pronounced "Fainaru Fantajii"; it is meant to be pronounced "Final Fantasy" because those are English words. That Japanese vocabulary isn't adapted perfectly to English does not need to be emphasized as anyone pronouncing it "Fainaru Fantajii" when they could pronounce it "Final Fantasy" would just look stupid.

As exceptions to the rule, its a valid argument. One of those might be modern naming schemes for indivisuals. As some broad-all-encompassing statement, no and I don't think it would have much support outside here and the few daughter wikiprojects. The most comprable MOS to this, WP:MOS-ZH is not so rigid. By stating "there are no exceptions" you are trying to elevate (atleast that section) above a guideline to policy because guidelines are suppose to guide, not dictat, with allowances for exceptions. Coming here it seems those here are opposed to any form of exception even when it is a narrow one like English-loan words using katakana.陣内_Jinnai 17:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

@Guy: Well, it provides a link to Help:Installing Japanese character sets, but the purpose of the template is to A) Show the English name of the subject, B) Show the Japanese name of the subject, and C) show the method by which the Japanese name of the subject is read. You and Jinnai keep saying "but ファイナルファンタジー isn't meant to be pronounced as Fainaru Fantajii" but that's what the Japanese call it in their language, and it is their game.

@Jinnai: Why do you and Guy keep referencing the fact that "the Japanese can't pronounce the English name"? It does not matter if the title is a series of loan words or simply something in English that they decided to write in katakana instead of English. The fact of the matter is that it does not make the article worse to include Fainaru Fantajī Tuerubu in the lead paragraph. Articles on anime whose titles don't differ that much in English and Japanese don't seem to have any sort of problem using the redundant romaji as those at WP:VG feel such content would be. Why should Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy be treated any differently from Dragon Ball or Eureka Seven or One Piece? They shouldn't. It's Japanese text and as a courtesy to our readers we should include the romaji equivalent at all times unless the romaji equivalent is completely identical to the English title. There should not be any leeway to say that "it's not our fault that the Japanese language lacks the phonemes required to say 'Final Fantasy'". Hell, I've even just found that we don't even give the romaji for "Famicom" because of WP:VG's guidelines.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Or for that matter, none of Nintendo's hardware have romaji.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't consider "no harm" a strong argument for including something. Regardless, I believe that including it would do some harm by confusing those not familiar with romaji. Since the reader has no context for interpreting the romaji, it's superfluous to them.

Also, can you think of an instance where the Japanese romaji and English alphabet match up exactly? The two languages have different sets of syllables that follow different pronunciation rules. (Guyinblack25 17:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

I think this is the problem when it comes to people like Guy and Jinnai who could read the kana: they couldn't understand why the Romaji should be there, citing is as redundant. It's like saying '"ˈpliːsiəsɔər" is unneeded because we know how to pronounce "plesiosaur"'. That's the closest analogy I could come up with, and that's unfortunate. — Blue。 17:53, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I concede that could cloud my judgement, but I am trying to view this from a perspective of someone that cannot read the romaji properly. I believe that "Fainaru Fantajii" can easily be read as "Fein-ar-u Fant-agee" and "Doragon Kuesuto" as "Dora-gon Ku-S-utoh".

Perhaps if I offer a solution to my concern, that will help move this along. The average English reader does not know that Japanese follows a consistent pronunciation system for vowels and what those are, that the Japanese "R" is pronounced as a slurred "R" and "L" (call it what you will, but those familiar with Japanese know what I'm talking about), that there are a few foreign syllables that Japanese doesn't handle well, or that combinations of letters doesn't alter the pronunciation of syllables like they do in English.

If this information was easily provided to them when they read the romaji, then my concern is of no issue to me anymore. As Bluerfn alludes to, a link similar to Misplaced Pages:IPA for English would be good. However, I'd rather not have readers leave the article they are reading to understand how to reader "Fainaru Fantajii" when "Final Fantasy" is perfectly acceptable. I believe this makes reading the article more difficult than it should be. (Guyinblack25 18:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

Now you're just going insane with this Guy (how someone would go from "Fainaru Fantajii" to "Fein-ar-u Fant-agee" when "Final Fantasy" is a centimeter away). Believing that adding romaji would only confuse the reader is beyond ridiculous. Romaji exists because all non-Latin alphabet text on Misplaced Pages should have a romanization with it if the direct Romanization is different from the Anglicization. That's why there's such text as Moscow, Beijing, Seoul, etc. Japanese-made video games should not be treated any differently just because a WikiProject exists that finds text like Fainaru Fantajī, Gēmu Bōi, and Doragon Kuesuto redundant when the lay reader probably won't.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I still disagree. I pose a similar question to you then, why would someone need to see "Fainaru Fantajii" at all when "Final Fantasy" already there? I still maintain that the layman does not have the proper context to read the romaji. Knowing how to pronounce an English word using Japanese syllables does not aid the reader in understanding the topic. It simply provides them with a string of characters that they will likely interpret using English language rules.

Also, the city names you mentioned are technically loan words from other languages to English, not English words loaned to Japanese. You have no argument from me about including romaji for words of Japanese or non-English origin. But unless you provide some context for understanding the romaji similar to IPA does, I believe confusion is the likely outcome. (Guyinblack25 19:55, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

"Final Fantasy" is not the text in question here. "ファイナルファンタジー" is. Why should we provide a disservice to the reader to omit the romaji name of the title simply because it was always the Japanese approximation of the English title? Surely this would mean sweeping changes across the project to articles like Dragon Ball, Bleach (manga), Becky (television personality), Kamen Rider Double, Ultraman, Shuchishin, etc. Again, there is nothing about video games that makes them special. And two guidelines, one broadly focused and one made by a sizable WikiProject, should not conflict like this.

And anyway, even if there were to be some sort of change to {{nihongo}} to incorporate a link to any Help: or project based pages, it would have to entail teaching how to read Hepburn romaji which is fairly straight forward, even if it relies on the macron.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:43, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Why? Because the intent of "ファイナルファンタジー" is to be read by the English reader as "Final Fantasy" not "Fainaru Fantajii". As for sweeping changes, you exagerate. The proposal is narrow here-English loan words that use kana. As to sylable usage, the link with {{nihongo}} actually could be updated to link to a more appropriate help topic on Japanese pronunciation.

Finally to an earlier argument, "do no harm" is not a good reason. That reason is touted by people who want to create tons of plot-only or nearly plot-only (with only non-notable coverage) of works and elements. That argument doesn't fly there and it shouldn't fly here. There should be a notable benifit to reader and for having the romaji for English loan words generally doesn't meet that threshold imo.陣内_Jinnai 05:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

But that is not what "ファイナルファンタジー" says in Japanese. The benefit to adding "Fainaru Fantajī" provides the reader with how the name is read in Japanese, not in English or "English spoken in a thick Japanese accent". I'm not saying "Final Fantasy" should be pronounced as "Fainaru Fantajī". I'm saying "ファイナルファンタジー" is pronounced as "Fainaru Fantajī" (fa-i-na-ru-fa-n-ta-jī) in Japanese, even though it is an approximation of the English words "Final" and "Fantasy". Because not everyone knows how to read Japanese, the romaji should be included because otherwise we are saying that "ファイナルファンタジー" is pronounced as "Final Fantasy", and that is providing a disservice to the reader. We are showing the reader what the name is in Japanese which is done on every article that features Japanese text other than ones on video games that have been subject to this bad guideline at WP:VG/GL.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Section break 1

(undent) We've had this discussion before, and my opinion is that we provide a disservice to the reader if we ram obscure, useless crap into the first sentence of every article. Tell me, what should the "Final Fantasy" article start with: by defining what it is, or by telling a hypothetical set of users fluent in Hepburn but unable to read katakana how to pronounce if they're pretending to be Japanese? Quite frankly, I think even the katakana are not particularly important and should be shunted out of the way into the infobox. Jpatokal (talk) 11:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the freaking title of the game, that's why it's important. That's why we have {{nihongo title}} to save time on typing ''''''''''.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 12:38, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

See, that's the problem: you refuse to see the romaji as useful, instead coming to the discussion calling it "useless crap". It isn't useless, and it serves a very useful purpose by providing the pronunciation of the title for those unfamiliar with kana. Using {{nihongo}} also provides a link for those who can't view the Japanese title so they can install/activate the correct fonts. Including the romaji 1) does no harm, 2) does good by providing the transliteration of the kana, and 3) makes the entry much more complete. Inclusion of the romaji doesn't need to be "notable"; it never has and it never will. Just because it doesn't benefit you doesn't mean it doesn't provide a benefit to others. Without the romaji, the entry is not complete. Excluding it just because you feel like it, or just because you see to have an aversion to romaji of kana, is not a good thing. There has not been a good reason presented to completely ignore MOS-JA here. If an entire project wishes to ignore these guidelines, there needs to be a very, very good reason for doing so. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 13:57, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

While I'm using "Fainaru Fantajii" as an example, I think this issue extends to all romaji. It is presumptuous to think that the average reader will be able to read the romaji as it should be read. A link to provide them that knowledge will alleviate that, and I believe other editor's concerns about it's inclusion.

Is adding such a link an unreasonable request? (Guyinblack25 14:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

I don't even know how I landed here. I was just making my first ever post in a discussion page on "Jujutsu", and then I arrived here. This is an interesting discussion. I think, after all, it is how much Misplaced Pages is willing to offer help to people who comes here to explore knowledge. Including romaji spelling of a Japanese game that uses English words is of course no use to someone who doesn't care. But for someone who wanted to know a bit more about a tiny, far east country just because he/she learned a game title was produced in that country, it really does matter. If the existing romaji spelling wasn't the best way helping out these people, what other way could be more helpful. I always learned that westerners were more apt to find solutions whereas our admins (shame, what a shame) will want to look for reasons not to. You could always shut your doors easily. That's up to you. Honjamaka (talk) 14:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Romaji is useful in many, but not all, cases and I would not want to see it removed entirely. In general i'm for more info to help with translation and, FE, if the code would allow it I think we should have a way for {{nihongo}} to display furigana.

It is with respect to English loanwords that its usefulness often becomes dubious.陣内_Jinnai 21:25, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

If the original name is comprised of "English loanwords", why shouldn't romaji of these loanwords be used? Sometimes the pronunciation is drastically different once it becomes a Japanese word.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:51, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe that is a valid argument for exceptions like remote control (リモコン, remocon) or apartment (アパート, apaato). But not for words that are close approximations like final (ファイナル, fainaru). The Romanized spelling differs from the English spelling, but the pronunciations are close enough that the need to know the proper Japanese pronunciation is negligible.

Regardless, without a link to explain Japanese pronunciation rules or some IPA equivalent, the romaji carries the possibility of confusing the layman. As you said, it's not incredibly difficult to learn, but without the tools to learn it I believe readers would be inclined to use English pronunciation rules. Where are we on exploring this addition to {{nihongo}}? I think this would be a valid compromise. (Guyinblack25 14:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC))

It does not matter if the pronunciation is similar or are close approximations. It is still romaji that should be written out. In the handful of cases where the titles are similar (the Final Fantasy games, the Mario games, the Dragon Quest games) it does nothing to benefit the article to omit the text from the lead.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 15:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

If you can clone the romaji by just envisioning a japanese person trying to say the English word, then I regard it as totally fake and edit will it out. Simply adding regional dialect doesn't make it something new. Then there is absolutely no reason to leave it in. The article shouldn't be a Hooked On Phonics lesson in the middle of random topics such as a video game. An example (possibly a bad one) that comes to mind to (maybe) illustrate the point: in an anime some people were saying individual characters, very loosely "seh, eeh, gahk", then would say it as a word and pronounce (loosely) "sayigaku". So, which is it? Take out the extra Us, L to R flips, and whatever other common nuance, then you get the original English word. Ok... so why would anyone put this romaji stuff in? Yes, it is just confusing.

Also, I REALLY like the idea of having alternate languages in the infobox. Ridding the starter paragraph of clutter that people can't even read or care about would be awesome. Odokee (talk) 04:23, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

It is not a regional dialect or a Japanese person trying to say the English word, and it is most certainly not fake. It is a standardized method by which to romanize Japanese text which should be required on all articles unless the romaji name is being used as the article title because it is effectively the English name, which is only ever the case with historic Japanese figures or the past two emperors. Nothing you say Odokee is even remotely correct. You may not care about the Japanese text, but other people do, which is why it's included everywhere. There is nothing that makes video games so special that they get to ignore this manual of style by implimenting their own for Japanese text.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 15:15, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

And referring to it as "fake Jap talk" is most certainly inappropriate, Odokee.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 15:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Calling it fake was going a bit to far, but yes, it appears to hallmarks of dialect. At the very least, one does not need to know how a Japanese person pronounces an English loanword in most cases (again exceptions can exist). Its the same as a Japanese person not needing to know the way we go about pronouncing their words in most cases.陣内_Jinnai 17:42, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Section break 2

After a brief discussion on this topic with User:Ryulong, I have reviewed this thread in its entirety. I think this is a very close issue and there are strong arguments on either side. Coming to this discussion as an unaligned editor (i.e. neither a member of WP:VG or WP:JA), I hope my views will be helpful. I have condensed them into a collapsed frame below since they were a bit lengthy. To give an in-a-word summary: I think the best compromise is to alter the nihongo template to provide an additional note for Hepburn pronunciation (per Guyinblack25's earlier suggestion). I have given an example of such a notation in my solution #2 below. -Thibbs (talk) 18:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

• For years I have been forgoing the addition of the romaji transliteration to nihongo templates when the transliteration is nearly identical to the English pronunciation. Like User:Guyinblack25, I too believe that this practice leads to confusion in the average reader. Because this field is listed as "optional" in the documentation accompanying the template I have always opted to use simply the English term followed by the Japanese approximation. The "disservice" to readers of failing to provide them with the proper Japanese pronunciation is, in my opinion, more than outweighed by the disservice to readers of giving the incorrect impression that 「ドラゴンクエスト」 is properly pronounced in Japanese as "Dora-gon Ku-S-utoh" (to use an earlier example). My use/nonuse of quotation marks on the term "disservice" is intentional here as in the first case the disservice is defined by a failure to provide extra information whereas in the second case it is the creation of false information. Clearly this issue only affects those who do not know the rules of translation, transliteration, and pronunciation, however this group of readers makes up a substantial portion of the Misplaced Pages readership. I don't think I'm far from the mark in assuming that the large majority of readers of English Misplaced Pages do not know these rules. Without looking to any other solutions, then, I think the question boils down to whether or not there are more readers who know katakana or who know Hepburn romanization. Luckily there are other solutions. So far in this thread we have seen suggestions of:
  (1) the creation of an official exception in MOS-JA to allow the omission of romaji transliterations of katakana transliterations of English if the English term already supplied was the loan-word adopted by the Japanese. Thus, for example, 「New スーパーマリオブラザーズ Wii」 could be written as New Super Mario Bros. Wii (New スーパーマリオブラザーズ Wii) rather than New Super Mario Bros. Wii (New スーパーマリオブラザーズ Wii, Nyū Sūpā Mario Burazāzu Wī). This solution presumably would consider terms like 「リモコン」 not to represent a transliteration of "remote control" but rather an altered transliteration requiring the use of a romaji field in the nihongo template.
  (2) the alteration of the nihongo template to include notations that would clarify matters for the layperson. For example instead of the current "elevator (エレベーター, erebētā)" we would have something more like "elevator (エレベーター, erebētā)"
  (3) the alteration of WP:VG/GL#Non-English games to bring it into conformity with MOS-JA without any other actions. This solution would almost certainly necessitate the alteration of the nihongo template's documentation as well to reflect the idea that the Romaji transliteration field is mandatory unless identical with the English field. Given the arguments advanced by User:Ryulong and User:Nihonjoe concerning the nature of the romaji transliteration and its usefulness to a certain segment of the readership as well as their arguments concerning the breadth of WP:JA, I find myself drawn most strongly to solution #2. I think that consistency is above all the most important factor and as long as we are consistent with our approach it isn't that big of a deal. I recognize that editors who are used to one set of style guidelines will be reluctant to adopt a new set so if this issue cannot be resolved then I suggest 3rd party arbitration. Most people coming to this discussion will have already made up their minds about the issue and its placement on the MOS-JA talk page already gives it a certain inescapable bias just as its placement on the WP:VG talk page would produce the opposite bias. Finally I would like to ask all editors who are currently engaged in this discussion to refrain from making large numbers of edits on the topic of this discussion before a consensus is reached. For those that think romaji is superfluous please refrain from removing it until this discussion is finished. For those who are adding romaji to articles, please refrain from this while discussions are under way. I think it's best to attempt to preserve the spirit of WP:BRD in all discussions that aim for consensus. -Thibbs (talk) 18:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh and one more thing, I was curious what those that wish to omit the romaji transliterations would favor doing in mixed situations like "Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (ファイアーエムブレム　暁の女神, Faiā Emuburemu: Akatsuki no Megami)" I assume everyone agrees on the idea that 「暁の女神」 should have a romaji transliteration to "Akatsuki no Megami", but I imagine there might be disagreement on what to do with the katakana portion of the name. What does WP:VG prefer? Perhaps "Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (ファイアーエムブレム　暁の女神, Fire Emblem: Akatsuki no Megami)" is best? I've never known how to deal with these mixed words/phrases properly. Any thoughts? -Thibbs (talk) 18:32, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Third party comment: I agree with Thibbs. Unless consensus has been reached, removal and additions should probably cease. Ryulong in particular has been on a binge of additions despite lack of consensus. It seems counter-intuitive to debate these changes while at the same time making them. DKqwerty (talk) 00:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I would support option 2 as proposed by Thibbs, though I think that WP:VG/GL#Non-English games ought to be brought in line with WP:MOS-JA as well so we don't keep running into this issue. They (the two style guides) shouldn't be disagreeing in the first place. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 01:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I support the second proposal as well. Though I recommend a creating a page in the Project namespace. Article space is not meant to be used as a how-to and project pages can include links for IPA pronunciation.

@Thibb's one more things- I would include the romaji if any non-katakana script is used. But I haven't given it any thought about Romanization like "Fire Emblem: Akatsuki no Megami". I'm inclined to agree with that format, but I'm unsure at the moment.

@Nihonjoe- We're allowed to have our own opinions. Some of our best consensuses have come from disagreements. They aren't fun to deal with, but we're better off because of them. (Guyinblack25 02:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC))

I never said you weren't entitled to your own opinions. I've never said that anywhere on Misplaced Pages about anything. I'm not sure how you read that into anything I've written. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:20, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it's my misinterpretation then. However, I can't help but feel that the opinions expressed by VG project members have not been welcome. I apologize if that assumption is incorrect. (Guyinblack25 04:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC))

I've clarified my comment. I was referring to the two style guides, not to members of the VG project. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:13, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The second option is good, but rather than creating millions of links to Hepburn romanization, a link to a new Help: page or some project page would be better. Also, Putting "Fire Emblem: Akatsuki no Megami" in the third {{nihongo}} parameter should not be done, as it's pretty clear from all of the discussion here that it should be "Faiā Emuburemu" there. The third parameter should be entirely romaji. Not some mix of English (or whatever other originating languages) and Romaji. And Guyinblack, this would never have been an issue if a video game only guideline conflicted with the guideline for the entirety of the Japanese language and its use on the English Misplaced Pages. No article on anime, television, music, etc. does what WP:VG does. This should be an issue of conformity as well as benefiting the reader.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong- Editors and guidelines are allowed to disagree. So long as we try to reconcile those differences. I will leave it at that as I have no desire to rekindle a polarized discussion. (Guyinblack25 04:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC))

Yes, I know editors and guidelines are allowed to disagree (I have voiced my issues with this MOS and some others in the past), but two guidelines should not contradict each other.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, back on topic to the proposal, I believe that adding ]: and ]: to the {{nihongo}} family templates might be useful. This is how {{zh}} works, even though Chinese has more systems.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:18, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I would oppose this as that would be even more intrusive. There needs to be a balance here, and that goes too far the other way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:16, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

If the second solution is adopted, I am also in favour of something like "elevator (Japanese: エレベーター; Hepburn: erebētā)" instead of "elevator (エレベーター, erebētā)". Fully spelled notations are a bit longer but they are much less confusing than those tiny question marks that you have to highlight to see where they link to. The first time I browsed Misplaced Pages I didn't even realize those were question marks. They are so small that the dot of the character usually blends with the stroke (when the nihongo template is actually used, not in this example). We here are all used to seeing Japanese characters, but how does a layman knows it's Japanese if they see "?" instead of "Japanese". ALL other languages on Misplaced Pages follow the "Language:" format (example: 4x4 Hummer, Chiang Kai-shek, Ragnarok Online, Gandhi, etc.). There is nothing special about Japanese that warrants a different treatment IMO. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 07:27, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Although I understand that Thibbs's second proposal is a good compromise choice, I'm not sure if it's really the best option. I readily admit the fact that I am not well versed in Japanese pronunciations and culture, and so when a title like Fainaru Fantajii comes in front of me, I usually want to see why that title's different from the English one only to find that it's just a borrowed term from English and that it's pronounced in the same way. I understand that I might be opening a firestorm of criticism against me for this statement but I feel that I'm probably representative of most English readers who don't understand what the romaji title might represent. I feel that titles with Romaji that are redundant to the English title really don't need to be included in the article as they will just serve to confuse readers. So before we decide on a choice, I'd like to make sure that we're all taking the same steps forward and not moving into a decision without being fully sure of the result: I want to be sure that this help page will be clear in explaining romaji, and I want to be sure that adding redundant Japanese titles that borrow from English is really necessary. Right now, I'm not fully convinced that they are. Nomader 05:49, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

By your argument, we should not bother to include "ファイナルファンタジー" either, because it is merely a redundant Japanese title of the English title we have already. Again, there is nothing that makes anything about video games unique such that they should ignore this particular manual of style. The only time any romaji would be redundant would be if it was identical to the English parameter, which is why we don't have Naruto (NARUTO—ナルト—, Naruto) at Naruto or Kiseki (奇跡, Kiseki) at Kiseki (Kumi Koda song).—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:10, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I feel that "ファイナルファンタジー" should be included when the video game was originally released in Japanese. I think it signifies to the reader that it was originally a Japanese release. However, I don't think the romaji needs to be included if the Japanese title is literally supposed to be copying the English title's pronunciation. I understand your point, that you feel people may not understand what the katakana is saying; but if you list the romaji translation which is just trying to copy the English title, I'm afraid people will just get confused. Nomader 16:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

But then why do you think Fainaru Fantajī should be excluded, when it is what the game is called in Japan when they talk to each other about it and write about it in the media? It's not copying the English title's pronunciation. It's the Japanese title's pronunciation. The only way we can clarify it is if we modify the nihongo templates and provide links to "Japanese language" and "Hepburn romanization". This way, much like the Chinese and Korean languages are treated, we will clearly show what the text is and there should not be any confusion and we give the reader all of the information necessary on understanding the language. There should be no reason to omit anything just because one project believes that romaji of waseieigo is redundant.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 16:19, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

What people write and talk about in Japan in their own language is not the concern of the English language Misplaced Pages. Japanese might have commonplace, established loan words such as those for coffee or apartment but an off-the-cuff mangling such as "ファイナルファンタジー" is no more Japanese than "Nihongo" is English. It's a katakana transliteration of an essentially English title. Including the katakana is useless, transliterating a transliteration back into Roman script even more so. bridies (talk) 16:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

It is still Japanese text and there is really no reason to not include the Romanized name just because it is similar (and not identical) to the Anglicized name. It is only redundant if it is identical.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:04, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think one argument that could be made in favour of the "Fainaru Fantajī" exclusion is that while "FINAL FANTASY" does appear in the Japanese logos, "Fainaru Fantajī" doesn't. Only "FINAL FANTASY" (in big) and "ファイナルファンタジー" do. This suggests that even the Japanese are supposed to be pronouncing the name as "Final Fantasy". Megata Sanshiro (talk) 17:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

That's somewhat of an example of Furigana. The smaller katakana is explaining to the Japanese citizen who cannot read English how "FINAL FANTASY" should be read in their language. Of course, the Japanese solely use the katakana in their media for the whole, and the ENGLISH names for the individual titles.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:17, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

It's an example of an English title with a katakana transliteration underneath and further evidence that the "Japanese" text is redundant and that the verifiability concerns put forth cannot be dismissed. bridies (talk) 17:23, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

And consider this: if this hypothetical Japanese person cannot understand "Final Fantasy" they cannot understand (the meaning of) "ファイナルファンタジー". All he's gained is a transliteration and approximate pronunciation in a phonology he understands. What does that say about the argument that it is a Japanese language title? bridies (talk) 17:31, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The page title still uses the katakana as do the Japanese media. The Japanese Misplaced Pages exclusively uses the katakana title for their page titles when they could use the English alphabet titles and merely do as you have been talking about. They don't for a reason. And we should use the katakana for that same reason.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The reason is that they are a Japanese encyclopedia, and as such, their article titles should be in Japanese unless no katakana title exists. We are an English encyclopedia-- as such, I have to agree with Bridies in that the romaji really isn't necessary in titles which are just approximations of English pronunciations. Nomader 17:37, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, how Japanese language media or Wikis handle such issues as English and/or transliterations has no bearing on our practice. At the risk or repeating myself: all you're saying is that they transliterate the English into katakana, which is absolutely no reason for us to include those transliterations, let alone transliterate them back into Roman script. bridies (talk) 17:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

It should at least be how this Wiki treats Japanese text. They don't transliterate the English into katakana. They use the katakana title that the developers use. Why shouldn't we provide the romaji for that name? Just because it resembles the English title? That really makes no sense.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:21, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

They do not need romaji because the katakana is a transliteration in and of itself.陣内_Jinnai 19:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Since Guyinblack asked for further opinions on the WP:VG talk page, I'll state for the record that I support option 1 and oppose option 2, largely for reasons already given. It is redundant information and contrary to what Ryulong said on the WP:VG talk page, filling up the very first line of an article with redundant information is harmful. I also think the lack of verifiability is a concern to at least some extent, as mentioned below and by Dave Fuchs on the WP:VG talk page. I watch over ABA Games and I remember people edit warring over transliterations without it ever being established whether the developer was even referred to by anything other than the purely Roman "ABA Games". bridies (talk) 08:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

We discussed this matter to death before. Though I warned people, consensus was heading in the direction of decisions on a case-by-case basis. Prime Blue (talk) 22:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Answering to this deleted question, if you look up general Japanese dictionaries, you can find "ファイナル", "ファンタジー", and "イレブン". See , , and . And one of my paper dictionaries, the 5th ed. of Kojien has them all. They are well-used loan words in ja. And Japanese people pronounce fantasy as fanta-G, not fanta-C. Oda Mari (talk) 06:05, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I checked myself, hence the revert. イレブン, srsly. bridies (talk) 10:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

So where are we on this? How does everyone feel about the "elevator (Japanese: エレベーター; Hepburn: erebētā)" format? My only concern with it is that the wikilinks go to articles rather than how-to-guides. What about Help:Installing Japanese character sets and something similar to Misplaced Pages:IPA for Japanese? (Guyinblack25 16:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC))

That's how other language templates are treated.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean the links to articles? (Guyinblack25 19:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC))

Well, perhaps a link to the installation thing should be retained, but teh other language templates just link to the language's article. Template:Zh links to Pinyin, Chinese language, etc.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with making it consistent with the other language templates. As I said above, we write "Russian:" before Russian titles or names, "Korean:" before Korean titles or names, etc. So there is no reason not to put "Japanese:" before Japanese stuff. I have no preference for where the links should go but I think we should keep them consistent throughout all language templates. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 09:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the article links provide the best way for readers to interpret what they are reading in any foreign language. Providing them with romaji was a large chunk of this lengthy discussion. But what good is it if the layman doesn't properly interpret it? (Guyinblack25 14:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC))

That is still the general practice for other languages. The Chinese template shows links to the various Chinese romanization schemes. The Japanese one should show the main scheme used on the English Misplaced Pages in the article space, rather than to some help page or project page. The installation fix should still be in there somewhere, but a link to Hepburn romanization should be used in some format.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

That part makes sense for Japanese words. However those templates and guidelines do not bother with English words because no one needs to know how to pronounce an English word in a non-English language in most cases. There are exceptions, but that's it.陣内_Jinnai 02:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

That is because the Japanese are the primary culture that does not use an offshoot of the Roman alphabet and has a shitload of loanwoards since the Meiji period and they are pretty much the only video game developer in the Eastern world. Don't blame history for an excuse not to include Fainaru Fantajī, Doragon Kuesuto, Zeruda no Densetsu, or Gēmu Bōi.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:00, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't know where that "blame history" part came from, but it doesn't get around the fact that you seem to be making the case that pronuciation is the key concern with having romaji which means loanwords do not need that; we don't worry about loanwords for any other language in which they are used with rare exceptions. Japan isn't more special than any other language. No one needs to know, in most cases, how to pronounce an English loan word in Japanese because the bottom line is that its a Japanese appropriation because on their language and vocal structure to mimic as closely as possible the English pronunciation.陣内_Jinnai 05:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Like Jinnai said I doubt this is even relevant but how do you justify a statement such as "the Japanese are the primary culture that does not use an offshoot of the Roman alphabet"? Or do you just mean the main language that has both a non-Roman writing system and a lot of loan words? And though most may not be well known in the West, video games are developed all over Asia. bridies (talk) 10:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The Japanese use their own writing system and have incorporated a lot of foreign words in their vocabulary since they began international interactions. Just because a word is a cognate does not mean we should not treat it as a word within that language being described. And also, the only other major nation that contributes to the video game industry in Asia that would even be vaguely important is South Korea. Japan isn't any more special than any other language no more than the topic of video games is to any other topic on Misplaced Pages. Why should the video games project have a special qualifier that states that certain romanizations should be ignored because words are loan words or cognates when no other project that works extensively with Japanese does?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 12:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

How does that make the Japanese "the primary culture" with a non-Roman writing system? Loads of languages have "their own" writing systems and loads of them have incorporated foreign words. On the contrary, countries out with Korea and Japan have significant domestic video game industries and Korea's output of MMOs is certainly beyond "vague" importance. Unless by "video game industry" you mean "the video game industry as it impacts on your average Westerner". But what you said was that Japan is the only video game producer in "the Eastern world" (whatever that is). bridies (talk) 13:32, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Ignoring the "primary culture" side-track, a point was made here I agree with. Video games aren't special. There is nothing intrinsic about video games that requires them to have a different titling format from other works (unless there is something I'm not aware of?). Some of the arguments being made against and for loanword Romaji really apply to all works published in Japan with loanwords, irrespective of genre. The argument shouldn't really be about whether video games should get their own exception, but whether or not the Japan MoS itself needs to be changed in how it deals with loanwords. Whatever the outcome, the rules for video games need to be the same as the rules for how we treat other titles using loanwords. A decision on loan words should be made across all Japanese titles, not only those for video games. Change it, keep it, whatever - but at least make it consistent across the project.

-- Joren (talk) 14:07, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The more I try to explain myself, the more questions arise. So here are my points:

• Japan and its language are the crux of this issue
• There is no reason to not treat cognates/loan words as Japanese words
• No topic deserves special treatment
• No language deserves special treatment
• It provides a disservice to the reader of any article to omit neutral and verifiable information, merely because one group believes it is redundant.

There.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 13:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

If you thought it was pertinent to make those nonsensical arguments about "primary culture", "history" and whatever else you should be able to defend them. You seemed to ignore my question, hence I repeated it. With regards to your latter points, this has been covered. It is a disservice to the reader of an article to fill the very first line of that article with redundant "information". Your arguments about "special treatment" are equally feeble: we don't uniformly enforce useless "rules" on the basis of a dubiously claimed fait accompli, when that rule is mere style guideline with a clear lack of consensus. bridies (talk) 14:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Japan is the primary producer of video games in nations where the language is not written as I am writing right now. And the history part is because Japan has taken on new words since it began international relations. Saying "ファイナルファンタジー" is English is not correct. It may have been English, but it is not English in the context it is beign used in. It is not a disservice to provide as much information possible anywhere. The only group that believes such content is redundant is WP:VG. And "special treatment" is exactly what WP:VG/GL does for video games with Japanese titles. As Joren touches upon, if a consensus is formed here, it should not only affect Japanese video games. It should affect Japanese music, Japanese film, Japanese television, Japanese literature, etc. Right now, WP:VG has their own special ruleset for Japanese text that is in conflict with how the rest of the project treats it.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't dispute that first point, but again it's nothing like what you originally said. It is a disservice if that information is not information but redundant clutter, but I've repeated that enough already. I had to stand corrected on that particular instance of Final Fantasy (though it is still redundant for the separate reason that the primary source has "FINAL FANTASY" in plain English splashed across it) but still katakana does not automatically equate to Japanese. You may see the above comment for your redundant "special treatment" arguments though I would guess that WP:VG is probably disproportionately more prolific than any other relevant part of the project you care to point at. bridies (talk) 14:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to explain what I intended. And katakana is Japanese. And there is nothing to say that video games should be treated differently just because "WP:VG is probably disproportionately more prolific".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 15:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

If you are to claim that what project X or Y does has any bearing on anything, then the relative profiles of those projects must be a concern. But in any case, as I said, the reason your "special treatment" comments are no kind of argument is that we don't uniformly enforce useless "rules" on the basis of a dubiously claimed fait accompli, when that rule is mere style guideline with a clear lack of consensus. bridies (talk) 15:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

No reason has been given as to why video games can ignore the general practice of treating Japanese text like the rest of the project does. Having an entire WikiProject ignore this guideline is jarring when it is the only one. It's better to have uniformity than be different for the sake of thinking your method is better.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 15:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Policy?. Again, you're making a false claim of consensus and fait accompli and I'm content to let all the above arguments speak for themselves. bridies (talk) 15:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

In the interests of improving Misplaced Pages, it would be better to have a common format so that the reader can have a consistent experience reading titles of Japanese works, and can know what to expect and what reading is what. It's jarring to the reader when different articles use different standards and the reader is left wondering what came from where and what its significance is. At least with the nihongo templates, it is clear what is translated, what is Romaji, and what is source language. It provides a uniformity that aids reader comprehension and, therefore, improves Misplaced Pages. Having loan words for some projects but not others breaks that familiar format that readers of Japan-related topics have come to expect and understand. If you wish to argue for a change in the guideline for Misplaced Pages as a whole, great, but IAR is meant to improve Misplaced Pages, not clobber it into little pieces. Ignoring all rules is a double-edged sword that can just as easily be invoked against VG's rules as against Japan:MOS's, and should be done with great care for the common interest of all Wikipedians, not just those belonging to a particular media project. If we're gonna talk about loan words, let's talk about it across Japan-related articles as a whole.-- Joren (talk) 16:19, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You haven't understood why I invoked IAR. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a uniform general practice, but that if there were such a general practice, exceptions may always be made if there is a good argument for doing so (such as Final Fantasy having a plain English title on the box, or whatever). And secondly that pointing to existing style guidelines which do not have consensus (yes, be they at WP:VG, MOS:JAPAN or wherever) is not a valid fait accompli or there-is-a-consensus argument. Also different stylistic standards are not "jarring" at all. We have them for things such as referencing and structure and I really doubt the average reader notices, let alone cares. bridies (talk) 03:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

A few things-

1. While Final Fantasy (ファイナルファンタジー Fainaru Fantaji) has been mentioned many times, I think you'll find that many of video game project members would extend their rationale to similar loan words in other topics.
   • Final Fantasy is an example to help others understand the point we're trying to make.
   • I don't know why video games keep getting singled out, when the rationale is not intrinsically linked to video games.
   • Let's please stick to the idea presented.
2. The idea that the romaji provides information is only sound if the reader knows how to interpret that information. Otherwise, it does serve as clutter and creates the opportunity for confusion.
   • Without a pronunciation guide for the Hepburn romanization (and any foreign language really), readers are likely to read the English letters used in romaji with English pronunciation, which I think we can all agree is less than consistent.
     • Think of how often you've heard "Kuh-rod-dy" instead of "Kah-rah-teh", "Kerry-oh-key" instead of "Kah-rah-oh-kay", and "Ana-may" (I've even heard "Ana-me" with a long "E") instead of "Ah-nee-meh".
   • I concede that the affected population that would be confused is minimal, but at the same time I believe the affected population that would find the romaji useful is also minimal.
3. A consistent argument has been consistency. However, we need to keep in mind that this is a style guideline, which is suppose to allow for flexible application via common sense.
   • While our common sense may differ on occassion, Misplaced Pages still allows us the freedom to apply it.
   • I think you'll find that there is little argument from video game project members that including romaji is a good idea for a lot of cases. The argument from us is against an across the board approach, because exceptions do exist.
   • I believe a guideline can be worded to allow for minimal exceptions, while still conveying that exceptions are not the normal practice.

Having said the above, I hope we can focus on working together towards two things:

1. Update {{nihongo}} to provide links to pages that explain to the un-informed what they are seeing.
2. Create a sample wording for the guideline that will satisfy the different sides of the argument here.

(Guyinblack25 16:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC))

Section break 3

And as an aside to an earlier aspect of this discussion: it seems that for when the English name is different from the literal translation of the Japanese name, why is the English name included in the nihongo template as the first parameter and not separate them as is done in some anime articles? For example, I'd rewrite the first sentence of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn as follows:

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, originally released in Japan as Fire Emblem: The Goddess of Dawn (ファイアーエムブレム　暁の女神, Faiā Emuburemu Akatsuki no Megami)...

Thoughts?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess it's because precedent has always been set like that for video game articles. But I really prefer your re-written version, it seems to me that it makes the most sense and makes the alternative Japanese title more obvious to the reader. Nomader 17:46, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, these kinds of titles ARE supposed to be separated (see The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for instance). Many editors just lump together all the titles in the templates even when they are totally different >_< I spend a lot of time separating these titles when I find groups of related articles that make this mistake. It's a very widespread mistake. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The formatting at ALttP is terrible though.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that in these cases, the Japanese title in a nihongo template should be separate, but some of your recent edits deviate from the intended usage, Ryulong. Note that games like Link's Awakening were never released under an English title in Japan, so it should actually read:

• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, released in Japan as Zelda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, Zeruda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island")

...unless the English title is official and commonly used in Japan, like It's a Wonderful World. If the translation of the Japanese title is not official, it is to be enclosed in quotation marks. However, I feel we have not discussed sufficiently enough yet how to treat official translations. Personally, I think it should read:

• Lufia, known as Estpolis Denki (エストポリス伝記, Esutoporisu Denki, officially translated as Biography Estpolis) in Japan Prime Blue (talk) 22:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

...with a reference always included for the official translation. Also, there were no strong objections to putting not commonly used foreign-language titles in footnotes if the length of its nihongo template would hurt the readability of the lead paragraph (as is the case with the Oracle games). However, I did not add it to VG/GL back then. Prime Blue (talk) 22:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Putting in the half-assed translation with romaji is not necessary when there's a literal translation. It should be clear that the title is the one in Japanese text rather than the one in English.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Note that it is not a translation but the phonetic title with the proper names written out in their intended form. However, I think it is misleading for readers when they read...

"The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, released in Japan as The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, Zeruda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima) "

...because the game was not released in Japan as "The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island". It was released as Zelda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima, and "The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island" is an unofficial translation of that title. I am currently proposing a new Non-English games section on VG/GL, so feel free to join there and to discuss how these issues are handled. Prime Blue (talk) 05:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

While the phrasing may be flawed, as someone that doesn't speak Japanese, I find the translation of the title to be more relevant informative than how to handle an unfamiliar language. —Ost (talk) 16:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Prime Blue does have a legitimate point here because the way that is worded it will be seen that the title is not ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, but instead The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening in Japan because the former comes first.陣内_Jinnai 02:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Another problem with that is that English is longer (in general) than Japanese, especially for litteral translations. No matter what you do there is nothing that can be done with School Rumble: 2nd Semester – Summer Training Camp (of fear?)!! Ghost's Appearing in the Western-styled Building!? Fighting Over the Treasure!!! (スクールランブル二学期 恐怖の(?)夏合宿! 洋館に幽霊現る!? お宝を巡って真っ向勝負!!!の巻, School Rumble Ni-Gakki Kyōfu no (?) Natsugasshuku! Yōkan ni Yūrei Arawaru!? Otakara wo Megutte Makkō Shōbu!!! No Maki). What do you put into a notation because all 3 are long enough to impare reading flow.陣内_Jinnai 18:13, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that for discussing Japanese releases, the Japanese name should come first (or at least a Romanization thereof), because that is the official title. To put the translation first risks creating the false impression that the English translation itself is its official release title. However, I am confused about the proposed Romanization - why it is necessary to have two Romanizations in the Zelda example? Wouldn't it be enough just to say something like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, released in Japan as Zeruda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island")

-- Joren (talk) 13:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

This is another issue here. Because ゼルダ is "Zelda", there is a push towards using "Zelda" in the romanized title and then "Zeruda" in the romaji title. By perhaps using

The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island (literal translation) (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, Zeruda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima)

or some sort of footnote using {{r|group=Note|literal}} and using this as the footnote:

The title here is a literal translation of the Japanese release title. No official translation has been provided by .

This would eliminate the need for having two romanizations as well as providing the reader with the English before throwing Japanese at them.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, it's counterproductive to have an entirely separate discussion to suggest that all of this information should be shunted to the footnotes where it doesn't exactly belong.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

In this case, we already gave the reader English by listing the English-language release first. I don't see anything wrong with having the Romaji first with the English/kana in the parens, and it would cut down on the amount of text needed.

-- Joren (talk) 14:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The (literal translation), while it helps, still kind of throws me off. As a layman reading the article, I'd expect "released in Japan as..." to be immediately followed by THE official title, whatever it is. Given that expectation, my actual preference would be for Japanese followed by parens with Romaji and English, but that would probably be inconsistent with the rest of the MOS and English Misplaced Pages as a whole. So I would perhaps advocate for Romaji followed by parens with Japanese and English as the least confusing alternative.

-- Joren (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Even that is inconsistant as in many instances the litteral translation will be wanted first for Feature articles because this is an English Misplaced Pages.陣内_Jinnai 15:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

In this case, we already have the English translation first. Remember, we are talking about "(English Title), released in Japan as (Japanese Romaji) (Kana) (English Translation)." -- Joren (talk) 15:56, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually the ones i've brought up to FAC/FLC want it with the English literall first.陣内_Jinnai 15:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you give some examples? My main sticking point is the wording "released in Japan as" specifically identifies it as an official title when it's not. If you have a better wording or phrasing to use that could address this concern, it would be good to know. Also, I take it you're talking about feedback from the FAC process? Perhaps those giving the feedback could be invited to participate in this discussion.-- Joren (talk) 16:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong, please word your contributions to discussions more careful in the future. I explained before that the new proposed guidelines for video game articles suggest to use footnotes only when long Japanese titles hurt the readability of the article – so please don't misrepresent these proposals elsewhere.

Also, I strongly urge everyone involved here to continue this discussion about the translation of game titles over here. The rōmaji issue, however, should be kept and discussed here at MOS-JP, as it will affect all projects once there is consensus on it. Prime Blue (talk) 19:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Secondary issue: lack of citation

If this is the wrong place for this discussion, please forgive the transgression.

I also think a lack of citation with many (and all that I've seen) nihongo templates is a problem. For example, this series of edits represents the addition of ten pieces of unreferenced information (never mind the already unreferenced Japanese characters). While all of this may represent simple fact to those familiar with Japanese, this is still the English encyclopedia; a foreign language translation like this should probably be sourced, no? I mean, where are these translations coming from? If the sources aren't up to WP:RS, why exactly are we including the info? If the sources do meet WP:RS, why not cite them? Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but it seems a simple and obvious oversight to just include this information unreferenced. However, given the current state of many articles employing the template, it's understandable why unreferenced information is assumed to be okay. DKqwerty (talk) 03:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Literal translations don't need to be referenced, and neither do romanizations. To require that would be insane. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:37, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Well then how the hell do I know when some anon. is adding translations that they're not just adding nonsense? How do I (not only as an editor, but as an information seeker) know that these "literal translations" aren't just made-up bullshit? DKqwerty (talk) 03:42, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

That's where WP:AGF comes in. It's not as if people are running rampant through the wiki and placing bad translations and romanizations into it. If you ever question the translation or romanization of something, ask at WT:JP and someone there will be happy to check it for you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

See, now that seems insane to me, that I have to go begging people to tell me if a translation is accurate of not. It seems far more sane and logical to simply reference every translation (though I have no idea how that would be possible). Granted, it would have been easier to just reference them from the start and now it would just be a gigantic and unmanageable task, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that there's no way to verify this without asking someone. And how exactly is a non-editing reader supposed to know to ask WT:JP whether something is correct or not? I had to make a thread on an MOS talk page just to find out there's even a location to get translations confirmed; the average non-editing reader isn't going searching for help by way of MOS talk pages and project pages. Misplaced Pages isn't about asking someone for verification, it's about providing it upfront in an easily accessible and reliable manner. I know the reality of these video game articles is that so much information goes unreferenced, but that doesn't mean we can't at least start forming better habits. Or am I asking too much here? DKqwerty (talk) 04:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: Also, assuming good faith and assuming accuracy are two different things. I can assume someone is trying to be helpful and thinks they know what they're doing, but that doesn't make it so. Instead, I prefer WP:V: should I really have to request a translation check every time Ryulong goes on a translation binge (without any edit summaries by the way) when I have no indication he can actually speak Japanese besides the "ja-1" userbox on heis user page? I don't get it. DKqwerty (talk) 04:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Given the number of editors with knowledge of Japanese, I'd say this would be of little concern as it can be easily verified. We also allow untranslated foreign language citations for article sourcing in Good and Featured articles. The topic title is not a big stretch from that.

I understand your concern though. But it is part of a bigger trend of un-experienced editors just doing what they do. All topics have articles that don't properly reference content. But the experienced editors provide the necessary sources what the reader to verify the article. (Guyinblack25 04:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC))

Actually, two of our featured lists, Harvest Moon titles and Kirby media both cite the romanji and the katakana throughout the list. It's not too difficult if you can find the official Japanese site of a game, usually you can cite the page in order to cite the katakana in the article. I don't think it would be a bad idea to make sure people weren't throwing random words in Japanese out into obscure Japanese video games. Nomader 05:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason for my edits to List of Mario series characters would need to be referenced because all I did was add romaji names to where they were not before. This is because we have a standardized method by which to transliterate kanji, hiragana, and katakana and that should not need to be referenced at all. I doubt that references should be needed for romaji for even the articles you cited. Likewise, titles of articles should not need to be referenced either. Why should you be required to verify what something is called?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think there are many reasons-- it would make sure that people putting up random translations weren't just putting up nonsense, and it would make sure that the most accurate translation available was posted. It wouldn't hurt to verify the proper Japanese name for a character through reliable sources, would it? Nomader 16:00, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The source media would be the reliable source in all cases, and that should be enough to verify that something within it is called whatever it is.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 16:13, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Translations have not been subject to verification even in cases of feature article candidate promotions. I see no reason why we should start now for Japanese translations.陣内_Jinnai 17:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with both you and Ryulong on this point, in that the source material should be more than enough. As someone who doesn't write Japanese particularly well, I've just always used referencing to be able to write the correct katakana in articles; however, per both of your comments, I feel that people who speak the language sufficiently should be just fine translating the source title. Nomader 17:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Referencing literal translations is just not practical, seeing how translation is not an exact science and many titles will have several unofficial translations across reliable sources. Prime Blue (talk) 05:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Can someone weigh in on the HTML comments at List of Pokémon? They request sources for Romanization—which above I read as unnecessary— and seem to be challenged occasionally. Is this a special case? —Ost (talk) 16:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

A short explanation: The HTML comments request sources for the "official romanizations of Japanese names" (e.g. "Lizardo"), not the Hepburn romanizations ("Rizādo") – it basically means "provide references for official romanizations of new Pokémon, otherwise provide just the Hepburn romanization" (like "Rankurusu", for example). However, as far as I know, Nintendo never provided a full list with all of these official romanizations. Hence, I think even the old ones should be removed where no reference is present.

182 (no, it was updated...200!) official romanizations for the Japanese Pokémon names were provided in Bandai's Kimewaza Pokémon Kids series, in that the cards included the names in Roman letters. See here. I will open a new section on the talk page there to ask where the other old official romanizations came from.

I hope that reply was understandable, as it is a bit confusing... :/ Prime Blue (talk) 18:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

There have apparently been official Anglicized names for Pokémon as of late, so they can say that チラーミィ is "Chillarmy".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for those explanations. They helped me understand the difference between Hepburn and official. I appreciate the note Prime left on the talk page, too. —Ost (talk) 21:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Anytime. :-) Prime Blue (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

RfC on the need for romaji with English loanwords

There has been an ongoing divide between the community as to dealing with English loanwords, specifically titles (but it has wider implications), where the words are loan words from English transformed into katakana equivalents. One side believes that unless there is significant difference between the pronunciation, no romaji (Roman alphabet) translation is needed as it is similar to a dialectical pronunciation (actual term eludes me) of an English word. The other side beleives there should be no exceptions made because most English speakers do not understand the Japanese language enough to comprehend pronunciation with just the katakana.陣内_Jinnai 05:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

• There is no such thing as a "dialectical pronunciation" when it comes to the various loanwords in Japanese. They are words incorporated into the Japanese language from other languages, and should be treated as Japanese words, even if some are English cognates.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 12:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
• Not commenting, but you should reword that RfC as to what Ryulong mentioned, Jinnai. It is not loanwords that are discussed, but English words rendered in katakana. But as the "final" (ファイナル) example above has shown, it might be hard to make a distinction between the two in many cases. Prime Blue (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Also, romaji is a transliteration, not a translation. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 18:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Alright, there has been no new post for a few days now, so I am proposing the following ideas:

• Put a note on the WP:MOS-JP page, with a link to this talk page, stating that there is no consensus on how to deal with English loanwords. People can keep discussing the matter; however, I don't think this will be resolved anytime soon.
• Change the wording of the {{nihongo}} template from "aaaa (bbbb cccc)" to "aaaa (Japanese: bbbb, romanization: cccc)" as this is clearer and is how most other language templates are worded. Add optional fields for romanizations other than Hepburn (if they are used, "romanization:" should become "Hepburn romanization:" like how "pinyin:" becomes "Hanyu pinyin:" in the {{zh}} templates). Change {{nihongo2}}, {{nihongo3}}, {{nihongo4}}, {{nihongo core}}, {{nihongo foot}} and {{nihongo title}} accordingly.
• Consider changing the links of all language templates from Mainspace articles to Help: pages, and/or consider creating a main guideline page for all the templates in Category:Multilingual support templates as there doesn't seem to be one currently. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 08:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Megata Sanshiro's first point: Bluerfn removed the dispute tag after the last discussion had died down. I re-added it with a link to these sections, and unless a clear consensus is reached (which seems unlikely indeed as everyone disappeared yet again), it should not be removed this time. Prime Blue (talk) 17:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that this guideline isn't the one that's disputed. It is WP:VG's guideline that is, even though all of the discussion is taking place here (and just because the WP:VG people are more vocal in opposing this).—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The mere fact that one user requested a disputed guideline tag and another one added it should make it apparent that this is a disputed guideline here, not to mention the whole discussion above, and the RfC. WikiProject Japan never had any consensus on MOS:JP saying romanizations for English words rendered in katakana should be included. And if you think it did, then gladly point out the discussion, because I think this is the main reason why you think VG/GL "contradicts" MOS:JP.

And if you have a problem with VG/GL having reached a clear-cut consensus on this issue in the past (and thus not being in line with MOS:JP having no consensus), then engage in the discussion at the respective talk page, which I have told you to do several times now. Prime Blue (talk) 19:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

When this issue was first raised I was told to do so here and on WT:VG because WT:VG/GL is so incredibly low traffic that it would have been pointless. The consensus made here will very likely affect both WP:MOS-JA and WP:VG/GL so it is actually redundant to have two ongoing discussions on the same issue.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

So how about we create a subpage, move this discussion there, then transclude the subpage into its own section on both discussion pages, a la Misplaced Pages:Transclusion#Subpages? This should make this single discussion visible on both pages.

-- Joren (talk) 21:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong: Sorry, I was not aware of the recent discussion you began on the talk page of WP:VG. Had I known that the editors involved there reinforced the old consensus of omitting these romanizations, I would not have pointed you over to the talk page of VG/GL. Again, sorry.

Now, as to the issue at hand: MOS:JP will very likely affect several projects' guidelines (VG/GL included) once consensus is reached here. I spent a lot of energy on MOS:JP trying to bring the last discussion about romanizations to a satisfying consensus for everyone, but people simply disappeared when it came to forming clear-cut rules. So everyone will have to excuse me for not being too involved this time around. As stated above, this discussion will likely go on for a very long time. Until then, Ryulong, you should try everything you can to reach a consensus here if you feel these romanizations should be included (among other things, I even tried to enter mediation in the last discussion, but only a single user signed up), while at the same time respecting and following the guidelines of other projects.

And to avoid further misunderstandings, I have stated before that I am kind of indifferent to the issue at this moment, though I am even slightly leaning towards the inclusion of rōmaji in every case. My prime concern with nihongo templates, however, will always be the readability of articles. One always has to keep in mind that the majority of readers will come to Misplaced Pages to read articles, not to look for snippets of an article between kanji, kana, and romanizations (I think you could even take this last paragraph as a reply to the RfC...). Prime Blue (talk) 00:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

@Joren: A subpage would not really be necessary, because all any other project or guideline that would defer to this one, all that would be necessary would be a link to this guideline, as many other guidelines do.

@Prime Blue: The only times when I have ignored the guidelines are when I feel they get in the way of making the project as a whole better. That is what WP:VG/GL is at the moment.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The extensive arguments against the relevant MOS guideline, the fact this RFC exists and the fact the two guidelines disagree indicates that there is a dispute. It is plainly ridiculous to point to two conflicting guidelines (the VG one has plenty of discussion and agreement behind it) and state that one is disputed and one is not. You're statement that WP:VG associated editors are "more vocal" is also pretty rich when you have engaged in pointed editing, profanity and derisory accusations of racism. bridies (talk) 08:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong, it is really hard to assume good faith if you are justifying your actions with "ignore all rules" at this point in time, after all the comments and warnings you have got for not following VG/GL – even though you were aware of the recent consensus.

Also, two questions:

1. Why did you re-add the dispute tag? You brought the issue up and the resulting consensus of WP:VG was clear.

2. Concerning the same edit: Why did you remove the under discussion tag pointing to the new guidelines proposal instead of just adding the dispute tag? Prime Blue (talk) 11:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

To answer both questions, the item is disputed, but it is being discussed here, rather than in the talk pages of the video game WikiProject. Also, there was no "recent consensus" in the WP:VG talk pages. Basically, I was told to discuss what was happening here. The consensus concerning romaji is being formed here. Not at WP:VG. All I have done is edit those pages in accordance with this manual of style. And the only warnings I have received are from you who felt that there was a consensus, when there clearly was not. What is decided here will affect all WikiProjects that deal with Japanese text, which means it is more important than WP:VG/GL. Really Prime Blue, if you actually read this conversation you keep referring to, there was not a consensus because they are talking about this ongoing discussion and the discussion merely stopped at WT:VG.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

• You just answered the first question, not the second one.
• People of WP:VG almost universally told you that these romanizations were not desired on the project, among them Jinnai, Anomie, Guyinblack25, David Fuchs, and Nomader. Ost316 gave a neutral statement, and Nihonjoe did not directly address the issue, though he is generally for the inclusion of those romanizations (unless he changed his opinion since the last discussion). However, how you took those comments (in conjunction with the fact that there was a previous consensus on the issue) as a "way to go" for all your VG/GL-disregarding edits on video game articles (again, IAR certainly is not justified) or how you took Guyinblack25's link here as "there is no consensus on VG/GL", I do not understand.
• The only discussion here is if these romanizations should be included or not, not if VG/GL should be overruled before there even is consensus on MOS:JP (unless this is what you are going for, but then I demand to know what the whole point of the above discussion is). Just because MOS:JP will supersede VG/GL once there is consensus here does not automatically make the guidelines at VG/GL disputed.

Prime Blue (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the discussion here as to whether or not to include the romaji for "loanwords" (English to Japanese cognates) would affect all articles that include such words, whether or not they be about video games. Clearly, if it is decided here that romaji should always be included, then WP:VG/GL will have to change such that the text forbidding Fainaru Fantajii or Suupaa Mario or Metaru Gia would be removed. What one project wants does not predicate whether or not it will be challenged by another project. The consensus here should very clearly dictate the consensus elsewhere, as this should be held as the parent guideline for dealing with Japanese text.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that has been stated many, many times now. But VG/GL cannot be in line with MOS:JP if there is no consensus here yet. Unless VG/GL is...de-consensusated... ...I can't believe I'm writing this.

And again, I would like to have question 1 answered. Why did you remove the "under discussion" tag with the link to the new non-English games guideline proposals? I don't want to engage in an edit war over guideline tags, so I want to know a reason before I re-add it. Prime Blue (talk) 23:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Because there should be a link on WP:VG/GL to the discussion here as to not make it so there are two parallel discussions on the same topic that reach separate consensuses because of the normal readers of that page. Keep the disputed one to point here.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I bluntly explained here and in my later comment that my proposal does not touch the rōmaji issue at all. My proposal did not start a parallel discussion. Prime Blue (talk) 00:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Then put your link back and keep the link here.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. But I still can't say I understand why you think VG/GL is disputed and we're discussing it here. Prime Blue (talk) 06:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm coming into this late, but my feeling is... "Final Fantasy" is the name of the game. These are English words, with meaning in English, and the phrase has meaning in English. The name of the game in Japanese is still Final Fantasy, but transliterated to their local language. In other words, the name of the game in Japan is in English. Since it is in English, there's no reason to then re-transliterate the title back into characters English speakers can understand. The Japanese and romaji should only be included if the title is not a direct transliteration of a clearly English title. Shenmue is not an English word, and the katakani/romaji make sense there. Metal Gear Solid is clearly made up of English words, and adding "Metaru Gia Soriddo" adds nothing to an understanding of the topic.

Furthermore, there's another issue here; why Japanese? Ryulong suggested in a conversation that it was because the game was released in Japan first, but that is certainly not universal to video games, not even Japanese-developed ones. Is it the locale of the developer? Is it the location is was released in first? In that case, we run into problems with Metal Gear Solid having romaji, but Metal Gear Solid 2 lacking it. And, what about non-game title related concepts? Metal Gear (weapon) included katakana and romaji purely because, so far as I can tell, it had those in the Japanese version of the game, despite those words being English. I note that on the Japanese Misplaced Pages, in the article on Metal Gear, it says "(METAL GEAR)", acknowledging that the words are English. I don't see why we need to offer a transliteration to Japanese in two separate scripts (katakana and romaji) for English words.

The Japanese (and a transliteration thereof) should only be included if it is anything other than a straight transliteration, or if it a straight transliteration of a non-English word. Metal Gear? No. Final Fantasy? No. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? Yes. Shenmue? Yes. --Golbez (talk) 20:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

But the names are not "Final Fantasy" or "Metal Gear". They are "ファイナルファンタジー" and "メタルギア", which I stated to you in other conversations. If a game is developed in Japan and released in Japan for the Japanese market, it falls under the umbrella of both WP:JAPAN and WP:VG, and would have to be written according to the guidelines. The fact that the guidelines conflict is an issue. If MOS:JA changes, it will affect other aspects of the encyclopedia. Making WP:VG/GL#Non-English games in line with this guideline and other language guidelines would be a lot easier than changing this guideline, and having every other project that depends on it (WP:ANIME, WP:H!P, WP:TOKU, etc) have to modify their guidelines.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

But those are not Japanese words. Those are English words, transliterated into Japanese. And the games are also released in America for an American market, sometimes by Americans. And that doesn't answer the issue of Metal Gear (weapon), which is a concept, not a game. It makes no sense to me to give the English, then transliterate that English into Japanese, and then give the re-transliteration of that back into English. --Golbez (talk) 20:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

They are Japanese words. Just because they are cognates from English does not mean that they are not Japanese. The fact is that ファイナルファンタジーX and メタルギアソリッド were developed by Japanese companies. They were then released as Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid in the international market. The fact that the Japanese media uses both "FINAL FANTASY X" and "ファイナルファンタジーX" to refer to the same game does not mean we should exclude the title as it is written in the Japanese language or exclude the phonetic pronunciation (romanization) of the Japanese title in the Japanese language. There is no reason to exclude any romanization of Japanese text unless it is identical (not similar) to the English version of that text.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

They are no more Japanese words than fainaru or rodina are English words. --Golbez (talk) 23:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

"ファイナル" appears in Japanese dictionaries.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I will probably hate myself for getting involved here, but I thought I could provide an opinion from a different perspective. The prolific Duden - Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, for example, includes the English/French word "Franchise" though it is still a long ways off from being German, or from being in everyday usage in Germany – and it is also included in Duden - Das große Fremdwörterbuch. I'm just saying that the inclusion in a dictionary might not be the ne plus ultra when it comes to determining if a word has "crossed the border". Prime Blue (talk) 07:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The word "final" is not in the Japanese dictionaries. The word "ファイナル" (fainaru) is.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong, all you do is repeat statements, give evasive answers or no answers at all. It is really hard to have an orderly discussion under these circumstances. Prime Blue (talk) 15:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well that certainly makes sense, since it would make as little sense to include "final" in a Japanese dictionary as it would to include 小銃 in an English dictionary. That doesn't mean that 'ファイナル' is a Japanese word, anymore than shoujou is an English word. They are transliterations of words from other languages, not translations. Dictionaries have to speak to their own language, after all. However, looking at the j-e dict, it appears "fainaru", in classic Japanese fashion (I'm looking at you, sutaato botan), has come into common use, so perhaps that's not the best example. Should we move on to "Gia" or "Fantajii" instead? --Golbez (talk) 16:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The name of the game is Final Fantasy. Plain English. This is what is on the primary source, as shown above. bridies (talk) 08:41, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The name of the game is ファイナルファンタジー in the Japanese setting. That is what they have used for the past 20 years, in addition to "FINAL FANTASY". Stop saying that the Japanese don't know the name of their own game in their own language. And Prime Blue, VG/GL is disputed because my discovery of that guideline is why this whole discussion was started. This guideline should be the end all be all on treating Japanese text and no WikiProject should be making up their own guidelines that conflict with this one.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong- if this should be the end all be all on treating Japanese text on Misplaced Pages, then you have to work with the editors of the relevant projects to craft a guideline that makes sense to everyone and takes into account the ideas of those editors. The way things are going now, it looks like this will be a never-ending disagreement.

It doesn't matter which way would be easier, it matters which way reflects the collaborative efforts of the affected editors. I.e. a consensus. (Guyinblack25 19:52, 28 July 2010 (UTC))

Right now, I don't even have to formulate arguments anymore. It is all there already, but I can't force you to respond to it. Prime Blue (talk) 20:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The only people discussing anything here are the video games editors and they're going to be wanting to make this guideline in line with theirs. I have yet to see anyone from any of the other projects that deal with Japanese text even show up here. None of these other projects even have guidelines to specifically treat this text, as they refer to this one. It's hard to come to a consensus on this page which would affect every other page when there is less and less input.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:38, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

And yet again, you touch on another subject instead of giving a response. So I'll bring it up not for the first, not for the second or the third, fourth or fifth, but for the sixth time:

• Why do you think this guideline on VG/GL is disputed albeit the original consensus and all the recent reactions you got?
• Where is this contradiction between VG/GL and MOS:JP you continuously stress? How can VG/GL contradict MOS:JP if there is no consensus here yet?

Prime Blue (talk) 21:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Fine.

• The non-English games guideline found at WP:VG/GL is in dispute because it is being argued about on this very page. While you may think that what is decided here should only affect this page, you are wrong. This page is the guideline to deal with all Japanese text on the English Misplaced Pages. Right now, it is only myself arguing against you and several other members of WP:VG who for the most part support their guideline as it is written. When this discussion started weeks ago, I was told that I should use the higher traffic pages to discuss this, and that's why the threads were started at WT:VG and here. I had thought that the thread at WT:VG was intended to point people to this page to discuss it, but instead you have taken it as being the consensus agreement for everything regarding that project.
• And I apologize, and I realize that there is nothing specific on MOS:JP that specifically says "use romaji in all cases", but it does say "Revised Hepburn romanization should be used in all cases..." here. It is merely the general practice of every single other project other than those video game related to use the three first parameters of {{nihongo}} (of which the Japanese text is the only "required" parameter for technical reasons) when doing anything with Japanese text. This is the contradiction. As it stands, even though there is no consensus here over this or anything written in stone, it is the standard practice of everyone not in WP:VG to use {{nihongo|English|Japanese|Romaji}} in full, even if the Japanese name is merely an example of gairaigo from English. This has been the case for a while.

—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:46, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

"In the Japanese setting" is meaningless drivel. What Japanese media do with an English title is no concern of the English language Misplaced Pages, even if the work came out of Japan. If a work has an English title, certainly if it is the primary title, it is redundant to include a transliteration in a script few English speakers understand, let alone provide a redundant transliteration of that transliteration. Especially in the first line of an article; at most it could be a footnote. This is the position uninvolved editors to the page are continually taking. On that note, Long's continued disparaging of VG editors is no valid argument. What userboxes an editor has or what talk space pages they frequent has no bearing on anything. Arguments are what count and it seems to me that this discussion shows that the WP:VG guideline has a stronger backing. If more input from other relevant projects is needed, I would suggest posting on relevant talk pages. bridies (talk) 05:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

First of all, don't call me "Long". No one does and it does not make any sense. I'm sorry if you find the text "ファイナルファンタジー" redundant. That's the name in Japan, and we are depriving the readers of this knowledge of excluding it, just as we would if we exclude "Fainaru Fantajī". And I am not "disparaging" VG editors. I am mentioning WP:VG editors because I have yet to see anyone, other than Golbez, Honjamaka, and Thibbs, that is not involved with this page or WP:VG, and only Golbez has been continually commenting here. We only have two opinions being presented here: those who support WP:VG/GL#Non-English games and those who support WP:MOS-JA. The only reason that VG/GL has a stronger backing is because the majority of arguments on this page are being made by those who primarily edit articles on video games, rather than articles on other Japanese subjects. I've posted on the relevant talk pages, but no one is coming for whatever reason.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:18, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Long means dragon to me, but fair enough. The name in Japan is Final Fantasy, per the primary source. You've disproved your own argument: if you've posted on talk pages and nobody has replied, it simply indicates how little profile those projects have in relation to WP:VG and why pointing to their practices means nothing, WP:VG on the other hand being a project with a large participation, on articles pertinent to this issue in particular. That editors backing the WP:VG guideline edit video game articles or are associated with WP:VG does not at all diminish the fact that the guideline has strong consensus and going on this discussion a stronger backing than the flawed MOS guideline. bridies (talk) 09:07, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I posted messages on WT:ANIME and WT:JAPAN. Those are not little profile or anything. And the WP:VG guideline still conflicts with the guidelines and general practices of at least 4 other WikiProjects that work on articles that utilize Japanese. I have yet to see anything that shows that WP:VG is bigger in scope than WP:JAPAN, WP:ANIME, WP:MUSIC and why it can have its own guideline for dealing with Japanese text that is entirely different from the other two. As far as you are concerned, Japanese at all does not need to be on any page if it is katakana and can be directly translated into English, such as on any game in the Mario series, Wario series, Donkey Kong series, Star Fox series, Final Fantasy, Earthbound, Dragon Quest, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, or any of the consoles or handhelds.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how many projects you can point to that nominally agree (probably because they've not given it much thought) with the MOS guideline if they have no editors willing to contribute to a discussion. Scope means nothing either if there's no participation. What I mean by "profile" or "prolific" is how many active editors a project has, how active they are in the talk space, how much quality content (peer reviewed content: FA, GA, maybe DKY) it has produced, that sort of thing. WP:JAPAN doesn't count its articles for quick reference, but WP:VG seems to have at least twice as many FAs and several times as many GAs. Furthermore, a large percentage of WP:JAPAN's peer reviewed content falls under the scope of either WP:VG or WP Military history (a behemoth among wikiprojects with several times as many FAs as WP:VG). So I really don't see how you can make these arguments on the part of WP:JAPAN and this part of the MOS. bridies (talk) 10:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

So your argument is that because WP:VG has more FAs, GAs, and DKYs and that its members are the only ones contributing here, they should have the only valid opinion?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 10:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Ryulong's comment:

• If you are reading my comments here, you know that I am kind of indifferent though leaning towards the inclusion of such romanizations now and I have told you several times that MOS:JP will override VG/GL once there is consensus here. Stop spinning my words to make a point, there is no need to. About Guyinblack25's link from VG/GL to MOS:JP, read here.
• "Revised Hepburn romanization (described below) should be used in all cases" should refer to the method of romanization (like "don't use the other romanization systems"), I think. The current wording comes from Neier, apparently it was just newly worded without any specific objective – or at least without addressing the issue at hand.

Prime Blue (talk) 13:19, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No. I'm not sure I can put it any plainer but I'm saying that a larger number of FAs, GAs etc indicate a larger number of activate, competent editors, which explains why there is a larger number of them here. That this larger number of editors all come from WP:VG isn't a valid reason for you to dismiss it as the video game guys ganging up on everyone else. Anyone from any project may have a valid opinion but if you have asked them to provide those opinions and they haven't, that suggests those opinionated editors are just not there. So you can't say "Project X, Y and Z agree with this MOS guideline and this shows it has consensus" when those projects do not have a significant number of editors who have debated or are willing to debate the issue. bridies (talk) 13:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I just want to address two little things - loan words are not all from English (e.g. arubaito and randoseru). I don't believe that all katakana transliterations are "loan words" either since they are not integrated into the language. When I first saw a review of the new "Super Famicom" it didn't immediately occur to me that it just mean "Family Computer" and even thought I am pretty familiar with Japanese these days, when Gainax announced their "Pansuto" project I still had to look it up. On the other hand, ストライクウィッチーズ is no more a loan word than ドクター・フー - they are transliterated names, and while it may have come into common usage due to the age and popularity of the games, the same applies to ファイナルファンタジー (ファイナル as a word only exist as a disambiguation page on Misplaced Pages Japan so I wouldn't consider it a loanword on its own either). While I don't think it hurts to have the romaji there for these titles to indicate the Japanese pronunciation if nothing else, and I don't like removing information could potentially be useful to someone, I can see there is a valid point to be made for omitting them. Shiroi Hane (talk) 01:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

No matter what people argue here, the fact always remains that putting a translation of a translation is redundant as far as the article is concerned. Ok, so I need help reading the Japanese stuff, but now I need to learn how to read these characters that vaguely resemble English? Dude, get the point that this is an English Misplaced Pages. Adding more layers that aren't English isn't doing good, especially if it is just the English turned on it's head by the addition of regional dialect from foreign countries. While I'm still against it all, I completely agree with the suggestions below as an appeasement. Then if I really care enough, I will do just as I would with any other topic on Misplaced Pages and move my mouse over the content and/or click on it to learn more. - Odokee (talk) 05:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not a translation of a translation. It is effectively a transliteration of a transliteration. There is no regional dialect here. You clearly do not know what is going on here, and you would rather remove any Japanese text seeing as you find it redundant.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:42, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It is effectively redundant and also 99.9% useless to the populace. You're also just wrong. On multiple points, at that. There is a dialect coming into play, which is why words are so twisted in the end when really it is just how some dudes on the other side of the planet tend to pronounce things and then write it down that way in their language. Then you're taking it one step further and forcing us to look at horrid crap that you repeatedly edit into articles when no one else wants it there. For someone telling another person he doesn't know what is going on, you sure don't seem to pay attention to what people have been telling you. - Odokee (talk) 08:08, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

A "dialect" is a variation of one language within itself. Katakana transliterations of English words is not a dialect of English or Japanese. And you are the only one with the opinion that anything is useless or horrid. Aside from my introduction of the word "series" into the lead section of The Legend of Zelda no one other than you has had any sort of negative reaction to my additions of romaji to any page, as you have been repeatedly edit warring to exclude it, including using misleading edit summaries to do so.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:17, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

You're not making any sense. They are still taking the English word and pronouncing it their own way. Them writing stuff down doesn't affect how they pronounce words. As for your other absurd claims, you again show me that you don't pay attention to what people around you say (and say directly to you), and you seem to be the only side of this "warring" going on by attempting to make the issue personal, with threats and bullying nonetheless. Despite what you may think, and as evidenced by the consensus most of the people on this topic appear to have, your edits are not as valuable as you seem to think. - Odokee (talk) 08:29, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Not true at all, the debate about Final Fantasy should tell you that others have an issue with it. It was however agreed not to go around pointedly changing articles one way or another until the dispute was resolved. The arguments over transliterations and dialects are extraneous, the point is they are redundant. I don't know how many more editors you need to hear this from. bridies (talk) 08:36, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no consensus because the only people who have been discussing anything are those from the Japanese WikiProject and the video games WikiProject, and the only reason the video game WikiProjct editors have a majority is because there are more of them (numerically) discussing this. As it stands right now, I am the only person involved with WP:JAPAN and this guideline who is discussing anything at this point. We have not received any sort of input from editors of other Japanese subject areas for some reason, and it's impossible to form a consensus if barely any other point of views are being provided. The fact still stands that WP:VG has for whatever reason decided to make their own guideline to deal with Japanese text that goes against the general practices of every other project that deals with Japanese text.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:44, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Again?. I already explained why this argument is invalid. WP:VG has a guideline regarding Japanese text which has a real consensus. The "general practices" you refer to are nominal only and through fait accompli at that. That an editor is involved with WP:VG has no bearing on their point of view. bridies (talk) 09:03, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify further: WP:VG is not a political party. It's not like it has a chairman who decides its stance then forces members to propogate it. The guideline exists because it has consensus, discussion, arguments behind it, not the other way round. You are trying to paint WP:VG as some vocal, opinionated clique when in fact as I have shown WP:JAPAN is the relatively insignificant project which has a fait accompli guideline no one is prepared to defend. bridies (talk) 09:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong, that is not exactly true. While measures should be taken to inform all affected projects, receiving no answer from them does not mean that there is agreement/disagreement and that no consensus can be formed. If no other projects participate in the discussion (Shiroi Hane from WP:ANIME has participated even, but some more opinions would also be welcome), then it is just all of you who have to form consensus – until someone of the others raises their voice in the future. Prime Blue (talk) 12:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGLISH says "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English." It also says "The native spelling of a name should generally be included in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical." Do we consider English loan words in Japanese as words originally in a Latin alphabet? If we do, we don't need to include the name in the native script (katakana) and its transliteration (romaji). If we don't, we should include names in katakana and romaji. Transliterations should not be omitted if there are words in non-Latin scripts. WP:VG/GL is not in line with this guideline because it says the transliterations are optional. It should be changed so that it follows the site-wide guideline. --Kusunose 14:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

If it comes from English surely it's already "Anglicized"... Nevertheless the prevailing argument is that combinations of English loan words with almost identical "Anglicisations" constitute "common sense exceptions" which you will see are allowed for by a style guideline. As an aside I'm obviously inclined to agree that the katakana isn't necessary in these cases either, but I don't think there's any support for that. bridies (talk) 15:01, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

While the titles may simply be Japonifications of English words, I still think that does not mean they are under the umbrella of identical Anglicizations, because we still have "Final Fantasy", "ファイナルファンタジー", and "Fainaru Fantajī", which are the English and Anglicized name, the Japanese and Japonified name, and the transliteration of the Japanese/Japonified name into modified Hepburn. Unless we're dealing with Mario or Wario, there is probably not going to be a case, at least in the realm of video games, where the English/Anglicized name is identical to the transliteration from the original language.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:14, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

That is no different from any other language. Russian's don't pronounce English words (without a lot of practice) or write them the same. For example, they have trouble with words containing the letter "v" in English. That doesn't mean because of that problem we have to show when there is an English word used for something, be it a title, genre or whatever, the Russian pronunciation. That same basic rule is the same with English loan words for any language, including Japanese.陣内_Jinnai 22:59, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is it that we keep going back to pronunciation? This is not a dialectical issue. For example, Ragnarok Online could include the text "Rageunarokeu Onrain" but it doesn't (because there's no simple inline template to deal with Korean text), but why shouldn't it? Bleach (manga) has "Burīchi" on it, but that doesn't cause any problems, despite the fact that it has been clearly stated on that page that they call it "BLEACH" in Japan. Same goes for One Piece and KAT-TUN and K-On!, etc. Why is such a problem if the article is about a video game?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:28, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Do not take the following statements as an offense, it is not meant that way. But right now, I'll have to ask all of you what your desired end result of this circular debate is, as it seems to me that everyone is making the same points – reformulated – over and over. As I said below, we are now at a point where it should be apparent that the issue won't be solved with a simple "include" or "do not include". So, unless there is a good reason to, you should all stop wasting your time and energy over stressing arguments the other side will not accept anyway, and instead help to create a satisfying compromise (if you don't agree with the one presented, that is) and to bring other projects in to decide on one of the compromises. Otherwise, the discussion will eventually fizzle out, the edit warring will continue, and we'll all be here again some six months down the road. Prime Blue (talk) 00:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I completely understand, but the only reason the argument is circular is because there has barely been any other input other than Kusunose pointing out the stance at WP:ENGLISH. We need other projects' input.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

There could be many more comments here that said "do not include", yet the other party would say "include". Just as much as there could be many more comments here that said "include", yet the other party would say "do not include". An RfC was certainly a reasonable step to take while the discussion was still semi-fresh, and Golbez', Shiroi Hane's, and Kusonose's participation is appreciated (not to mention the editors who contributed outside of the RfC section), but all the comments of the world won't make the concerns of the opposite party go away – because, as has been noted before, both sides have valid points. Prime Blue (talk) 01:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Prime Blue. It doesn't matter whether an editor is "from" one wikiproject or another. If an editor has the exact same arguments as another who is for (or against) the inclusion of perceived "redundant" romaji, the arguments won't suddenly gain more value just because of that. It would still be the same arguments. This issue isn't about video games, manga or anime. It's about "the romanization of English loanwords in the Japanese language", regardless of what the loanwords are the names of. Many wikiprojects have been invited to this discussion, and if some didn't participate, maybe it's because they just don't care one way or another. Ryulong said Korean words should be romanized too, yet they aren't for some reason. Why? I don't think it's because they have a clearcut consensus about it; I think it's just because they don't care much about it. In my opinion, this discussion on English loanwords in Japanese should go on (and hopefully will end) with the people who do care. If someday an editor arrives and challenges the result with new arguments, we will have no more consensus, but we aren't there yet. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 08:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to see more users joining in the discussion and I'd just like to briefly interject that WP:ENGLISH discusses naming conventions, which I believe means the name of an article; I don't read it as commenting on the inclusion of transliteration in text. —Ost (talk) 14:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Naming conventions also covers not only covers the name of an article, but also deals with how to mention alternative names in the lead section, or how to mention the topic in (other) article texts. I referenced WP:ENGLISH because it is a relevant guideline for the inclusion of transliteration in the lead paragraph. --Kusunose 13:38, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, the items in question are identical. Just because you can put a line into Babelfish and translate it into one language and back again to get something different doesn't mean you are getting something new. Therefore this Hooked on Phonics lesson isn't needed. - Odokee (talk) 04:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

"Official romanizations"

Actually, I do have a new wrench to throw into the discussion, and I would appreciate Ryulong's (or Nihonjoe's if he's still following) input. I've mostly been in agreement with keeping the Romanizations, because I find them to be useful and I also value consistency across the entire project. I generally favor the inclusion of the transliterated Romaji in the nihongo templates. However, my current reading of the MOS makes me wonder -- we have a section dealing with names that instructs us to use the "official Romanization" - what does this mean?

Names of companies, products, and organizations

Honor the current romanization used officially by that party (i.e., Kodansha rather than Kōdansha, Doshisha University rather than Dōshisha University). If the entity no longer exists, use the most commonly used format. If this cannot be determined, use the Hepburn romanization as defined here.

1. Does this also govern the use of Romaji in the nihongo templates? Seems like it would to me, since "Japanese text should be marked with the {{Nihongo}} template".
2. Given the first point, in cases where there is an official English title that matches the katakana word for word, would that not be considered the official Romanization? (e.g. the company probably uses "Final Fantasy" more than "Fainaru Fantajī")

Because it seems to me that, if both of these assumptions are correct, the current guideline would already obligate us to include Romaji that matches the official English title exactly (e.g., we'd have to write Template:Nihongo title, which would make its use redundant. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding the guideline entirely, which I am prone to do. By the way, sorry I haven't had much time to keep up/write responses; I have however been following the course of discussion and hope to continue participating. -- Joren (talk) 01:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

1. No, the "official romanizations" are only to be used in the first section of the nihongo template (e.g. Doshisha University (同志社大学, Dōshisha daigaku) instead of Dōshisha University (同志社大学, Dōshisha daigaku)), or elsewhere in the article where no nihongo template is included for the name (e.g. Doshisha University instead of Dōshisha University). The third section of the nihongo template is always the Hepburn romanization.

2. No more need to answer. :-) Prime Blue (talk) 01:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply - your #1 is succinct and easy to understand. I wonder if we could have something like that in the MOS? Perhaps the Using Japanese in the article body section which mentions the nihongo template?

-- Joren (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that should be mentioned in the section 'Names of companies, products, and organizations' and read something like...

'For usage in the "English" segment of a nihongo template and plain mentions of those terms without a nihongo template, honor the current anglicization used officially by that party (i.e., Doshisha University (同志社大学, Dōshisha daigaku) instead of Dōshisha University (同志社大学, Dōshisha daigaku), and Doshisha University rather than Dōshisha University).'

Also, the 'Syllabic "n"' section should be incorporated somewhere under 'Names', too, as it is not treated as an exception to Hepburn romanization. Prime Blue (talk) 10:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

What Prime Blue said. That section of the MOS is only for article titles, for the exact examples Prime Blue gives. This is why we have pages at Kodansha or Tokyo Tower rather than "Kōdansha" or "Tōkyō Tawā".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

If that's the case, why is there a separate header for "Article names"? I did wonder whether it was just talking about article names, but the product names which I quoted above is under a separate header "Names", which says "This section defines the proper way to write Japanese names on the English Misplaced Pages" which could easily be understood to mean names anywhere in the article.

Indeed. "Names" governs mentions in an article with and without nihongo templates, whereas WP:English and "Article names" (however, 1. could be reworded here slightly to be more understandable) are for names of articles. Prime Blue (talk) 10:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

-- Joren (talk) 03:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, a romanization (a.k.a. rōmaji) is not English. It is a transliteration, not a translation. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:26, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm aware of that distinction, that it's not a translation... What I was attempting to ask was whether under any circumstances an official English title that happens to match the katakana word for word could also be considered an official romanization. -- Joren (talk) 03:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Now you are bringing the translation/transliteration issue up again. "Final Fantasy" is not the official romanization for "ファイナルファンタジー". "Final Fantasy" is the official English translation of "ファイナルファンタジー". Perhaps the MOS should be clarified.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that modification to MOS:JP, but I wikified the terms for users that may not know what is meant. Prime Blue (talk) 10:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was kind of wondering how in the same MOS we could be mandating revised Hepburn and then talking about "official romanizations" elsewhere as though it were a synonym for trade name. Agree with the edit.

-- Joren (talk) 16:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Consulting other projects

I do not think it is a good idea to change policy in the absence of these other projects. The fact that they are not contributing to the discussion does not mean VG or anyone else gets to represent them, it just means we need to work harder at obtaining their participation before changing policy that will affect all of them. Let's say two people on the project preferred Kunrei-shiki romanization. They could talk to each other here while everyone else happens to be away, change policy here (e.g. switch from Hepburn to Kunrei-shiki), then call it "consensus" - the rest of the project would be rather miffed. Isn't that rather similar to VG's point to begin with, that consensus here wasn't reflecting their project? And won't the other projects be able to say the same? The scenario I would wish to avoid is that a project wakes up one day to find the policy has changed without their input and they can no longer edit articles in the way that they feel is appropriate; a plight which VG might be able to empathize with. Policies should not be changed without active input from major projects affected by it, so we need to get wider participation in this discussion. Any thoughts on how we could do this? Perhaps going to the user talk pages of major contributors to other projects and asking them to come here? -- Joren (talk) 14:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

True words. The problem is to find out who the "big cheeses" in all the projects are. Number of edits? Important contributors to featured articles? History of helping in discussions to form a consensus on project guidelines? Tricky subject... Prime Blue (talk) 15:09, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

That's not really what I said though. My main points are that the argument "Project X, Y and Z agree with this MOS guideline and this shows it has consensus" is not in itself valid and that "The editors arguing against this guideline are all from WP:VG" does not negate those arguments to any extent. Again, I'm not saying other Wikiprojects cannot have an opinion or that we shouldn't await further opinions from whatever quarter. Not to get into semantics but we're not talking about anything so serious as a policy here, merely a style guideline. bridies (talk) 16:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Bridies brings up a point I agree with completely. This should not be such a big deal. Flexibility among those involved (those currently as well as those that may join later) will help bring this to a resolution.

If more editors are sought, then hit up the projects again. Let them know that this will affect how they write the leads of their articles. If that doesn't work again, then there is the village pump. (Guyinblack25 16:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC))

Sorry if it seems like changing the subject then, but I do believe this to be important. I think it would be in everyone's interests if the other projects actively participated instead of having their assumed agreement with the existing guideline. Certainly those in favor of the existing guideline do not want these projects to be left out, either. Everyone agrees that their opinions are valid and needed, but I do believe we need to be more proactive about soliciting them. So, how can we better do this?

-- Joren (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong left notes at the talk pages of WikiProject Japan, WikiProject Anime and manga, WikiProject Hello! Project, WikiProject Pokémon, WikiProject Trains in Japan, and WikiProject Tokusatsu (are there any other projects affected by this?). But that was two days ago and nothing (I think) has happened since. As Guyinblack25 said, a more attention-grabbing notice could help. Some bold text here and there, and a better explanation on how a clear-cut consensus would prevent edit wars and affect many, many articles on a large scale. If that doesn't work, there's also your suggestion of notifying individual users, though as I said, I have no idea how to determine the projects' key people.

...or we simply redirect all project pages to this section here. ;-) Prime Blue (talk) 19:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Those projects (other than the defunct Final Fantasy project and the Square Enix project) are the only projects I could think of that are fairly independent that would be affected by this.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding this comment from Ryulong:

"I have yet to see anyone, other than Golbez, Honjamaka, and Thibbs that is not involved with this page or WP:VG."

It should be noted that we have yet to see anyone from WP:JA either, apart from Ryulong and Nihonjoe. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 19:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Why was Squenix omitted? If nothing else, Final Fantasy has been used as an example. —Ost (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was a daughter project of VG.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:11, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

No more than Pokemon or Anime and Manga is a daughter project of WP:Japan.陣内_Jinnai 23:04, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I have an idea on how to inform individual users of the projects: grab the names of important articles (like this or this) and guideline articles (like this) and run it through the Misplaced Pages page history statistics tool. "User statistics" will show the contributors with the most edits, of which we can inform those who are still active on Misplaced Pages. It might not be the best way to determine who is an "important" editor or who does the most work, but it may show the users that care. And, as mentioned before, we cannot simply bring them over here and demand a simple "yes" or "no", but we will have to encourage them instead to think about solutions that will satisfy everyone. Prime Blue (talk) 12:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a good idea, and that is an extremely useful tool. Thanks for the link.

-- Joren (talk) 19:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well we definitely need more input than just the few opinions being expressed here, so far.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

As has been said, mere "include/do not include" opinions (with or without arguments to back them up) will not convince either side to change their point of view by 180° (or else the mediative comments would have succeeded by now). The previous discussion on the issue failed because not enough users involved collaborated on establishing consensus and instead insisted on their opinion. This time, we will have to find a satisfying compromise or this will go on forever.

I am currently compiling a list of users from the individual affected projects using the statistics tool and will uniformly invite them over in a few days to provide feedback on the first suggested compromise and, in case of disagreement, to provide additional suggestions for compromises.

To Ryūlóng: you already commented and did not agree with the first suggestion. Please give your reasons and an alternative compromise, so people have more options.

Lastly, this will probably be the final attempt at establishing consensus (if anyone has another idea, again leave a comment). If the new comments from the invited users cannot help decide a compromise, the matter might be best forwarded to the Arbitration Committee, as I feel we have taken every reasonable step before. Prime Blue (talk) 17:09, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not like the use of the tooltip. To me it feels a bit invasive, and all it does is put an underline. I've been reading that WP:VG thinks that adding the romaji for titles parsed in Katakana but can be directly translated into English (Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Metal Gear, etc.) is redundant and they feel that they could use the space "taken up" by what they feel is redundant romaji for whatever other information they feel can be put in the lead paragraph/first line. Regardless, this is still in opposition to the practices of other projects that deal with Japanese text, and projects that deal with other non-Latin texts. The WikiProjects that cover Zeus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) don't seem to have this issue, and on my computer the first line is entirely taken up by language-specific text. And before we move onto arbitration (which would probably be wholly unnecessary and just drag this out for another few months), the community at large could probably provide some input, as the WP:ENGLISH guideline is tied in with this as well.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• I have to admit that I had hoped for more constructive criticism on my proposal. If your dislike of it is solely based on the missing explanation, I feel that this is sufficiently addressed in my reply to Joren below. If you still feel something has to be improved, leave a comment, and if you strongly object to it, give an alternate suggestion.
• It will probably be easier to explain why a compromise is needed by posing a question: Would you be ready to drop your point of view and exclude such romanizations in all cases? You will see that you are unable to answer this question with a simple yes. Just as much, the other party will be unable to answer the opposite question (replace "exclude" with "include") with a simple yes. And both parties have to respect each other's views on the issue, thus making both the extremes "include/exclude in all cases" not a viable solution.
• If someone of the exclude-party has a problem with the Zeus article, they can bring the issue to the attention of the project. We will continue with trying to achieve consensus on our issue here.
• If that last resort of inviting other users fails to be conclusive, I will have to admit that I'd much rather have the ArbCom take months and finally rule out a decision on what to do, than to see me back here in six months after being witness to plenty of edit warring, again wasting precious life time over mediating a discussion that, to be quite frank, (although the outcome will affect thousands of articles) is rather trivial to the overall goal of writing a good article.

Prime Blue (talk) 05:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not and should not be an Arbcom issue. They deal with editor misconduct, not disagreements on manual of style issues. The MOS must be the result of consensus, not something decided by a few people who mostly have no clue about the topic in question. At this point, I see no problem with some sort of compromise using the tooltip. If it can get rid of all this stupid posturing by some (not all) on both sides, it would be worth it. People digging in and refusing any sort of compromise is not acceptable. And compromise doesn't mean one or the other side "lost", either; rather it shows a willingness to work together to come to a solution which (while not necessarily optimal for either side) is workable and acceptable. While I prefer the {{nihongo}} template, I can see merit in using the tooltip version for extremely long titles. I think the {{nihongo}} tag is more effective for shorter titles, though. Perhaps we could come up with something incorporating both? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 05:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

From what I am reading, they do not want to use the tooltip just for long titles, but rather for any titles they want to that they feel takes up space for what is being perceived as being redundant. Perhaps there could be some sort of hide/expand feature for long titles, but using it just so "Fainaru Fantajii" or "Suupaa Mario Gyarakushii" doesn't take up space in the first line seems unnecessary.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Ryūlóng: It was Jinnai only who suggested to widen the use of the template to all Japanese text, but that was turned down pretty quickly by Megata Sanshiro and me, as that suggestion has nothing to do with the issue at hand and is also highly controversial to say the least (no one so far has suggested they have a problem with kanji pronunciations). And how to handle especially long foreign titles that could hinder the readability of an article is still the problem of individual projects – at least I think it should be kept separate unless we want to introduce even more trees. This also seems to be the first time where the exclusion is mentioned to be based on space issues and readability. The overall discussion is more about if the inclusion is redundant, or if the exclusion is a disservice, or if these are Japanese or English words, etc. etc.

Nihonjoe: It was just an idea if that last thing fails. I don't know if the ArbCom would even consider the case (given that this seems to be unprecedented), but their members sure suggest some...charming ways to ensure that consensus is built. For the rest, see my reply to Ryūlóng above.

I will notify the users in the list below in three days. That way, Ryūlóng has time to think of an alternate compromise if he still disagrees. Otherwise, I will invite them over to give feedback and improvements on the first suggested compromise, and to provide alternate ideas in case of disagreement. Prime Blue (talk) 11:50, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Was there any reason given that demonstrates why it is important to put the romaji in for English users? I am under the impression that having the original Japanese is already going too far (by having it in the lead), but the only reason I would hesitate about not having it there is just because of the scenario where other variants of a title are mentioned in various parts of the article and there is no good place to put the translations/originals. I don't see why the tooltip can't simply contain every title that isn't English (or the original English) unless it goes against policy, nor do I see why the romaji is there and being forced into our faces when we're not trying to learn how to read Japanese by phonetics. Frankly all I have been seeing is some guidelines being quoted and thrown back at everyone (along with forceful editing practices). - Odokee (talk) 23:24, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Giving pronunciations of kanji/hiragana that describe Japanese words or expressions is under no circumstances redundant. If you do not agree with the inclusion of foreign names on the English Misplaced Pages, you should bring it up on the appropriate talk page. Prime Blue (talk) 23:50, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those things were relevant to the issues brought up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Odokee (talk • contribs) 04:20, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I think they addressed them directly, unless you meant something different and I didn't understand it. Prime Blue (talk) 12:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I invited them over, so at least the problem of too few user input is now solved. Prime Blue (talk) 11:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work trying to achieve consensus here and bring more users into the process. I'm sure this must be a time-consuming process.

-- Joren (talk) 19:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

List of users to notify

Okay, I am done with the list.

I picked users (whose last edits were pretty recent) with the most edits on project pages and randomly selected "important" articles. I don't want either side to accuse me of compiling this list in a biased way, so if you feel a project or "important" article was underrepresented, just add some users the tool gives you – as long as they are not added in a biased way.

I will inform those 80 users above with a uniform message in a few days. Prime Blue (talk) 21:28, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Added 2 more for anime and manga. The one major character article and One Piece (to round out something from the current 3 cash-cow titles). Except for one person, I think that is all the major members in that project.陣内_Jinnai 18:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. Prime Blue (talk) 20:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, you notified the non-existent User:Dinoguy. Perhaps you meant User:Dinoguy1000? Goodraise 11:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Good raise. ;-) That was one of the users added by Jinnai. Guess he meant Dinoguy1000, so I notified him. Prime Blue (talk) 12:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

A compromise?

Okay, I've got an...idea for a compromise that could satisfy both parties. Following up on Ost316's suggestion and my earlier mockups, we could actually have a new nihongo template created that employs tooltips for that specific issue. Bottom line, the idea is:

• Enforce employment of the following suggested template everywhere on the English Misplaced Pages, no exceptions for projects.
• It should be used in a few specific cases (for examples, see further down):

1. When the Japanese part of a nihongo template is all katakana and/or numbers and special characters pronounced as words of English origin, such as 2 ). Applies to titles, character names, etc.

2. When the Japanese (NOT the English) title in Roman letters was already given and the only difference in the Hepburn romanization is the pronunciation of katakana words and/or numbers and special characters pronounced as words of English origin.

• For these cases, this new template is created. Some name proposals are Template:Nihongo tip (I like that one best), Template:Engnihongo, Template:Romanihongo. Possibly also a second "Template:...title" version to complement Template:Nihongo title.
• The actual code for the template is exactly the same (save for the template call, of course) {{nihongotip|Name/title of something|kanji/kana|rōmaji|translation (if needed)}}.
• But the result is different. Here's the actual examples for the two usage cases described above (this is what the new template code would produce). The numbers describe which of the two cases applies:

1a) Final Fantasy VI (ファイナルファンタジーVI)

1b) Jill Valentine (ジル・バレンタイン)

2a) Zelda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island")

2b) Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon (美少女戦士セーラームーン, officially translated Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon)

• That way, we don't provide a disservice for the reader by deleting the actual pronunciation, while those opposing the inclusion of the pronunciation should not be disturbed by it anymore.

This is not the actual guideline, of course, but just a general explanation of the method. What do you think, ladies and gentlemen? I'm open to answering questions, so feel free to ask if something is unclear. Prime Blue (talk) 17:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Modifying the templates does not really help anything. Hiding romaji in a tooltip doesn't solve the issue when romaji should or should not be included.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting to modify the templates, I'm suggesting to create a new one. And by now, after all these statements from both parties, it should be apparent that the problem can't be solved with a simple "include" or "do not include". You won't simply accept "do not include", just as the other party will not simply accept "include". If that is what you all are still arguing for, then this is a lost cause. Prime Blue (talk) 21:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Making a new template so the one project that does not like including something is not a compromise. It's still treating them as different when it comes to text that several other projects include.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you suggest a compromise that will satisfy the editors from WP:VG? Prime Blue (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably not, because they want to remove anything that they feel is redundant from the first line, which would of course be any Japanese language text or romaji that resembles the English language name.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Come on, they haven't even answered yet. This seems like a tad biased. Prime Blue (talk) 22:20, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

What's been done with the romaji then? If it's there but hidden I guess I'm fine with it, whether it's a footnote or whatever, anywhere but the first line. bridies (talk) 03:41, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

See the examples: The rōmaji appear when you hover the mouse over the Japanese text. Prime Blue (talk) 04:28, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I see now. For me it's an acceptable compromise. bridies (talk) 06:37, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

This is exactly what I would want to have happen, if such a thing is possible. Then people can still read the article like a normal person would, instead of something comparable to what it'd be like if all the references weren't hidden into numbered superscript footnote links. Although, I still think it is silly to put all that stuff in when it's not English or even the original foreign name. - Odokee (talk) 05:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as long as they decide to step back a bit from it to meet a middle ground that satisfies both parties – which you proved to collaborate on. Prime Blue (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Two members of WP:VG have now shown to be open to compromises, so if you have another idea for a compromise, Ryulong, this is the best time for alternate suggestions. Prime Blue (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

it gets around problems of read problems (especially with long titles), footnotes just for the sake of title pronunciation, and is acceptable form of redundancy as its made much more clear with the romaji is for as it is linked to the rollover of the katakana.

I actually like the rollover better overall and would like to see it used even outside WP:VG as an option for any Japanese text instead of the traditional titles. The only problem I have is if this will work with extremely long titles in a readable fashion.

Test: School Rumble: 2nd Semester – Summer Training Camp (of fear?)!! Ghost's Appearing in the Western-styled Building!? Fighting Over the Treasure!!! 陣内_Jinnai 03:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, again, as I and Guyinblack said above, this discussion is about "the romanization of English loanwords in the Japanese language", not just "the romanization of English loanwords in the Japanese language in video game titles" or "the romanization of English loanwords in the Japanese language in anime and manga titles" or anything else. There is no need to say "even outside WP:VG" as this was never about the WP:VG in particular. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 06:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

How articles handle especially long titles is up to the individual projects – right here, we only decide a site-wide standard on how to handle the issue discussed above. Prime Blue (talk) 11:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It was more about whether it could handle extremely long titles and ifso, how well.陣内_Jinnai 12:44, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, there's one way to find out...

-- Joren (talk) 19:33, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, a heads-up once more: It is the liability of everyone who does not agree to the present proposal to give alternate suggestions on an acceptable compromise for both parties – if they desire to be heard and take part, that is. If this finds support, members cannot just filibuster the discussion without participating in the consensus-building. Everyone is encouraged to have their own opinion and disagree, but state your reasons if you do, and most of all, help everyone to find an alternate satisfying solution. Prime Blue (talk) 11:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so I'm still trying to make up my mind about this proposal. On the one hand, the tooltip isn't such a bad idea. Of course, I might be worried how it would work for mobile browsing/browsers with slim feature sets, but the concept isn't bad. However, I still have trouble with the fact that this solution, while it would indeed be applied across all projects, still breaks apart how we handle Japanese text by creating an exception for titles consisting entirely of katakana loan words. Well, maybe that's ok. But is lack of space in the lede really the only reason for not including Romaji? Seems like there were other important reasons why this got brought up...

One of the arguments raised against the inclusion of Romaji early in the discussion is that the average reader has no context in which to interpret Romaji. This is a valid criticism and also one we can address without breaking apart how we treat Japanese text - modify the question mark to point to a page that actually clues the reader in on what Romaji is. I suggested modifying Help:Japanese and using that, Ryulong pointed out that the page has a lot of things wrong with it. Ok, but can you help make it right? Nihonjoe made some proposed changes to Help:Installing Japanese character sets#Note; I also started a worksheet for modifying Help:Japanese. Could we perhaps put our heads together and come up with the best way possible to explain Romaji to the average reader? That would at least address what to me is the only real drawback of having Romaji.

Jinnai also raised a concern that to get articles up to Feature Article status, they might want the literal translation to go first. Anyone have some clarification on this issue? Is this something that could be remedied with a {{nihongoN+1}}?

If we were to address these issues, how would that be? At a bare minimum, we do need an informative, friendly help page for that question mark.

-- Joren (talk) 02:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• That is something that might be better off answered by those who oppose the inclusion of such romanizations. Personally, I just felt this new template was a good solution if both parties sticked to their point of view. One of the problems this discussion is plagued by is that the sub-arguments (even the good ones) brought up by one party to support their view are just not accepted by the other party ("people will only be convinced if they want to be"), thus creating a situation in which no one can see the wood for the trees.
• Partly answered to in the first point. Corollary: As mentioned below, I'm all for making the question mark link to a general explanation page on all-things nihongo. I think this is also the place where the underlined text in this potential new template should be explained: To me, it seems, people who will not know what text they are confronted with will naturally hover the mouse over the text and/or click on the question mark.
• The problem with using literal translations first is to find a factually accurate ("released as in Japan...") and/or verifiable ("known as in Japan...") wording to include them that way. I explained that in this edit over here (we're talking about official translations given independently from the work itself there, but the issue is identical to that with literal translations).

Prime Blue (talk) 05:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me: It keeps the romanji available for those who think it is necessary, while not uselessly showing it when it is redundant to the English text. It may be beneficial to do this for all romanji transliterations rather than just redundant instances, but I have no strong feelings either way on that issue and hope that wouldn't stand in the way of the compromise on redundant instances. Anomie⚔ 20:51, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Joren does raise a couple issues of importance. This would go against WP:Acess for having a tooltip usage, but it does seem to be the only item that has support on both sides.

The other, with literal translations, I think needs to be addressed by coming up with phrasing that doesn't make it sound like a literal translation was the version released.陣内_Jinnai 21:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I think WP:ACCESS prohibits use of tooltips for prose text. If it meant that tooltips should not be used at all, the template would not exist or be in use, I guess. And because I already see someone bringing it up: "Provide a transliteration for all text in a non-Latin writing system. Screen readers without Unicode support will read a character outside Latin-1 as a question mark, and even in the latest version of JAWS, the most popular screen reader, Unicode characters are very difficult to read." It again comes down to the redundancy/disservice issue both parties argue so much about. The one party thinks we already gave the text to be spoken by screen readers (first segment of the nihongo template), the other thinks a second (Hepburn romanization) pronunciation should be given. ...just to prevent all involved from wasting time and energy. Prime Blue (talk) 23:07, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think this is going to work. There have already been two discoveries of two guidelines that supercede both this one and WP:VG/GL that prohibit omission of romanizations (WP:ENGLISH) and prohibit the use of tooltips (WP:ACCESS). There is very likely not going to be an actual compromise that works with the higher guidelines.

The literal translation thing is another issue. In my opinion, it definitely would save room to write it as {{nihongo|literal/official translation/romanization (labeled as such through prose)|Japanese text|romaji}} rather than the current practice of {{nihongo|partially translated and romaji name|Japanese text|just romaji (if used at all)|literal translation}}. I doubt that the GA reviewer/FA reviewers will have an issue with the "Fainaru Fantajī Sebun" part of

Final Fantasy VII (ファイナルファンタジーVII, Fainaru Fantajī Sebun)

that would prevent it from being promoted to FA or cause it to be demoted from GA.

The only option I can think of would be rather than hiding it in a tooltip would be having an option to hide it similarly to navboxes, but I think that may still cause an issue when it comes to the screen readers.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:30, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Guidelines don't prohibit anything. bridies (talk) 01:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Those are very good points. Ryulong appears to be correct; it seems we have already been superseded by these two guidelines. But as far as what we can do, would it be possible to agree on a standardized format for titles in the lede similar to what Ryulong is proposing? E.g. in accordance with the needs of the article, choose ONE OF the following for the first parameter: an official translation, a literal translation, or a romanization. (This gives editors the freedom to have the literal translation appear first) As normal, the second parameter is Japanese, the third parameter is Romaji. Finally, although left to editor's discretion, strongly discourage use of the nihongo template's extra tags in the lede paragraph, and move whatever info would go in the extra tags to a footnote instead. That could save a bundle of space, and I don't believe this will run afoul of either of those guidelines.

-- Joren (talk) 06:15, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not just put "official translation" or "English translation is literal" in the extra= parameter?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Again, WP:ACCESS comes down to the exact issue both parties have already discussed until the cows come home: "Why do we have to give a pronunciation a second time? Screen readers already read the first part of the nihongo template." "Because this is not a repeat of the earlier spelling." "But why would readers want to hear it a second time?" "It does not matter because WP:ACCESS prohibits the use of tooltips." "No you are wrong." "No you are wrong." "No, see this guideline here." "Irrelevant, see this guideline here.", and so on. You can all hang yourselves up on discussing WP:ACCESS, or you can work towards a common goal. To put it bluntly: If tooltips were prohibited in all cases, they would not be there. And if they are prohibited in this special case is another endless discussion. Prime Blue (talk) 12:03, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I hoped that this "long titles" and "official/non official titles" discussion would be held somewhere else as this has nothing to do with the original WP:MOSJA issue brought up here :( I'll just reply to the comment about WP:ACCESS and WP:ENGLISH:

• WP:ACCESS says: "Provide a transliteration for all text in a non-Latin writing system."
• WP:ENGLISH says: "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. Established systematic transliterations (e.g. Hanyu Pinyin and IAST) are preferred. Nonetheless, do not substitute a systematically transliterated name for the common English form of the name, if there is one"

I put the important parts in bold. The last sentence, in particular, states that the common English forms should be used when existent; in the case of ファイナルファンタジー, the common English form is Final Fantasy. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 12:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Guys...please...don't. :-( Prime Blue (talk) 15:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

@Megata Sanshiro: "Final Fantasy" is not the transliteration for "ファイナルファンタジー". That's a translation. So WP:ACCESS basically is telling us to use romaji. And like Prime Blue, I am getting tired of this. So this guideline does not need to be modified in any way. Rather WP:VG/GL should be brought in line with WP:ACCESS, WP:ENGLISH, and MOS:JA (which was my initial intention).—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:30, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

It is a transliteration (not to mention ファイナルファンタジー is itself a transliteration of Final Fantasy). WP:ACCESS is telling us to use one transliteration and WP:ENGLISH is telling us that "Nonetheless, do not substitute a systematically transliterated name for the common English form of the name, if there is one". The systematically transliterated name is Fainaru Fantajī and the commong English form of this transliterated name is Final Fantasy. That is, WP:ACCESS and WP:ENGLISH do not tell us more than both sides had already been assuming or not assuming when this discussion started. We are at the same point as before WP:ACCESS and WP:ENGLISH were brought up. As for WP:MOSJA, it is precisely what is being discussed. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 18:38, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The part of WP:ENGLISH you are quoting is telling you not to use "Fainaru Fantajī" as the article title and not to omit "Fainaru Fantajī" from the text of any page. And stop mixing up what is a translation ("Final Fantasy") from what is a transliteration ("Fainaru Fantajī"). "ファイナルファンタジー" is not a transliteration of "Final Fantasy". It is a translation.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:19, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

"The native spelling of a name should generally be included in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical." You cannot deny that the Anglicization of "ファイナルファンタジー" is Final Fantasy. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 23:24, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, and the transliteration of "ファイナルファンタジー" is "Fainaru Fantajī", which is not identical to the translation/anglicization "Final Fantasy".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

So just because they don't use the same sounds within characters and thus create an approximation when spoken, this to you is a totally new word to address in the article, as if it magically turned important to the reader. That argument appears to be based on insanity. Your logic completely negates the reason for stating it to begin with, as a word would NEVER be identical. - Odokee (talk) 02:11, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you find it redundant. The issue is that this is a written encyclopedia, and in the written language, "Final Fantasy", "ファイナルファンタジー", and "Fainaru Fantajī" are all unique. The first is the English name (official and literally translated), the second is the Japanese name, and the third is the transliteration of that Japanese name into a standarized method of romanizing Japanese text. To be blunt, deal with it.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:15, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

And so we hit the crux of the issue. Is "Fainaru Fantajī" identical to "Final Fantasy", or not? I tend to say not, based both on the fact that the writing is different and so is the pronounciation. I understand there are reasons why others would say yes, because they are both based on the same word. For what it's worth, I'd also point out that I believe I recall seeing cases on Misplaced Pages where the Anglicization actually does match the Romaji letter for letter; in that case, of course it would be identical and therefore redundant to include it twice.

But... if we could set this neverending merry-go-round aside for a second, are there other ways we can bridge this gap? For example, are there ways we can make it take less space? Can we make the template more helpful? Can we have guidance encouraging users to use footnotes for certain info in the lede (e.g. specify translation source in a footnote instead of parens)? I've been trying to suggest ideas that would appeal to both sides but apparently my ideas aren't very helpful :) so if you have better ideas about how we can improve this situation, please advise.

-- Joren (talk) 02:31, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

About that first paragraph..... the thing is, people like Ryulong are behaving fanatical to the point where it still won't be identical, no matter what anyone says. There will always be something insignificant, like an O with a line on top of it, that will preclude it from being considered the same in their minds. - Odokee (talk) 22:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGLISH, aside from being (like other guidelines) "best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply" is littered with "should" this and "generally" that, which implies there will be exceptions. This guideline was not written up with something like "Sūpā Mario Āru Pī Jī" in mind. I also agree with what I think Prime Blue said in that we are not at all precluded from using a tooltip to hide otherwise redundant parenthesis if we can get consensus to make an exception. Nevertheless I am just about fine with the use of a footnote, as long as we do not keep these useless transliterations in the lead. As I see it we already have consensus not to include these romanisations, and this is more than generous a concession as ought to be made. bridies (talk) 04:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

A majority is not a consensus. And while you may find "Sūpā Mario Āru Pī Jī" redundant, not every editor does. Omitting it is pointless. And it is important to use the Japanese pronunciations of the English letters because in some instances they are not read the same.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

A large majority does not automatically equate to consensus, no, but it is still very much significant. bridies (talk) 06:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

There's still no consensus to omit romaji, especially when it now is against at least two other guidelines in addition to this one.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

You're wrong, and repeating the same impotent arguments about following guidelines for the sake of it isn't going to get you anywhere. You also seem to be labouring under the delusion that your agreement is actually needed for there to be a consensus. It is plain that the romaji will not be included "as is" in the lead as you wish. If you want to refuse the compromise, fine, but the only point you have which is too subjective to be proved wrong outright is "this is useful information and should not be removed" and if it comes down to it I'd wager a sizeable majority thinking otherwise will be enough to render that invalid too. bridies (talk) 07:32, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm also baffled as to why you can argue that numbers don't count for anything while simultaneously insisting that we get more editors to the page, especially when they're probably not going to say anything that hasn't already been said. Suppose a load of editors turn up and agree with you, will you then cite not-a-democracy against your own position? bridies (talk) 07:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As said above, WP:ENGLISH is littered with "should generally", especially in the sentence quoted above, so it is incorrect to say that it is in contradiction with the proposed solutions; it simply is not conclusive. As for WP:ACCESS, it prevents using tooltips to provide information, and the whole point of the current discussion is/was to determine whether transliteration of English loanwords IS "information" (or a redundant text, or an alternative text for screen readers with no Unicode support, etc.). Besides, and again, an English loanword in Japanese is already a transliteration of an English word; ファイナルファンタジー is a transliteration of Final Fantasy. Also you keep branding the "not every editor does" card but apart from Nihonjoe I don't see anyone on your side of the arguments. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 07:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

@Bridies: I keep requesting input from other people because everyone here but Nihonjoe and I are editors of WP:VG who already have a preference for their own guideline. Getting editors from other aspects of the project who deal with Japanese text will get other opinions other than the ones constantly being stated on this page. I'm tired of seeing the same people (myself included) say the same shit over and over again to try and prove a point.

@Megata Sanshiro: Fine. "ファイナルファンタジー" is a transliteration of "Final Fantasy". But how is "Fainaru Fantajī", the phonetic transcription/transliteration/whatever of the Japanese text, not valid information that would preclude it from being used on the page and instead being shunted into a tooltip, a function barely used on the project as it stands?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 10:46, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I and others have already proved why this argument about Wikiprojects is garbage, time and time again. If you're sick of "seeing the same people say the same shit", maybe you shouldn't categorically ignore arguments you can't answer. Even if other editors did turn up, and those editors agreed with you, what then? It won't be enough for you to include the romaji by your own argument, and you don't seem willing to accept a compromise whereby the romaji is hidden. bridies (talk) 11:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I just want to see more opinions rather than being beaten over the head with the "romaji is useless" arguments from the VG people. I'm not ignoring anything. I just have not seen any sort of amazing new idea or opinion being expressed here, other than exasperation towards me.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 11:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"everyone here but Nihonjoe and I are editors of WP:VG who already have a preference for their own guideline"

Assuming bad faith now? Editors of WP:VG could also claim that you "already have a preference for own guideline". Notice how they didn't. Why? Because they assume good faith, unlike you. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 11:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not assuming any sort of bad faith here. I am merely stating my opinion that the WP:VG editors have had their say on their guideline, and Nihonjoe and I have had our say on this one.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello. First of all thank you for the message on my talk page, I have a strong opinion on the matter. I understand the reasons for the opinions expressed against including romaji for loan words as I have spent an hour having a thorough read of this entire talk page. I would like to describe why I would like to continue to see romaji being included for loan words as the WP:JAPAN guideline in its current version supports. It's a matter of context. I don't think I have seen anyone give a reason why a reader would need such information but such a reason exists - for I use this information several times every week.

A few people have stated words to the effect that the romaji is redundant or even trivial. Why would such information be needed in such an important position in the article? Well the first reason is external to the article. References. If a game (or anime in my case) was created in Japan then one would expect to find the official Japanese site in the external links and one could expect one or several references to be to a Japanese website. I frequent such sites and you will come across the romanji on these sites, sometimes even mixed in with English though sadly I don't have an example. Also, sometimes the romanji will be in a url or an image name. Let's assume that there exists a person who does not have any idea that romaji is. Would the romaji confuse such a person to believe that it is unrelated to the article if it was not explicitly stated on that wikipedia page? For example, a person searches google images, comes across Fainaru_Fantajī.jpg and does not make the connection that it is Final Fantasy.

I personally copy and paste the romaji from wikipedia articles for such image searches (and also copy romaji from other sites to search on wikipedia, so the reverse applies). It is easily identifiable where it currently resides, next to the kanji which I also use to search in the same way. There should be others that do the same. I'm sure someone will argue that the romaji could be displayed elsewhere such as in an infobox as the romaji is impossible to copy-paste in a mouseover tooltip.

I hope that this different point of view affects the thinking in how this information should be displayed. The romanji isn't soley there for pronounciation or completeness. It may clarify references in the article or confirm the link between information external to wikipedia to that material. Finally, it can and is used as a tool to gather further information such as when I perform my image search engine requests. For it to be hidden or moved would be an oversight in my view.--Squilibob (talk) 14:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Facilitating google image searches really isn't Misplaced Pages's job, and it is a massive, massive stretch to propose that someone isn't going to be able to tell Final Fantasy from Fainaru Fantaji. bridies (talk) 14:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, in a way, facilitating searches is one of the missions here. Misplaced Pages is meant to be a springboard from which someone can do research on a topic (we constantly tell people doing research to do that rather than use Misplaced Pages as their source), and including the romaji in addition to the original Japanese and the English helps in that regard. Additionally, it' really is a stretch to assume that someone is going to be able to tell that Fainaru Fantaji is the same thing as "Final Fantasy" as they don't even look the same. Yes, it's simple and obvious to people like you and me who are familiar with Japanese pronunciation and know how an English word would be changed to Japanese pronunciation, but to the vast majority of people out there, the connection will not be made. Those people are the main main audience of Misplaced Pages. We should be making the article useful to them, not to us. Therefore, including someplace in the article the full romanization as well as the full original Japanese title, in addition the English title, is important, and it should be included in such a way as to make it require very little work on their part to determine that all three are just different ways of writing the same title. This is why tooltips are less than ideal, and why including them as a footnote is even less ideal than tooltips. Yes, longer titles are an issue, but most titles are not that long. I think exceptions can be made for exceptionally long titles, but for the majority of titles, including the Japanese and romaji is not going to be a huge burden and is not going to take up an inordinate amount of space. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:21, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, the addition actually does more harm than good. Most people won't know what the heck it is, and if nothing else it will cause the reader to stop understanding what he is looking at and then he has to force himself to forget what he just saw to move on. Because of this, your argument is reversed in that only to people like "us" will these additions make any sense. The original Japanese is fairly obvious, and it has that question mark thing to provide further clues, but the romaji is just sitting there, like some ignorant editor didn't know what to do and just wrote it down in the wrong spot. The template doesn't make any differentiation as to what you are looking at and the text just starts right from where the Japanese words left off. If anything, a tooltip or maybe even a footnote would be much more obvious as to what is going on. - Odokee (talk) 17:15, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Odokee, how does the addition of romaji cause harm? And how is the original Japanese "fairly obvious"? Not everyone knows how to read Japanese, so omitting a(n alternate) method by which to read Japanese does more harm than good. And the template makes plenty of differentiation you have

English (日本語, rōmaji, Miscellany) Miscellany

. The only way the template does not differentiate is that it does not label the Japanese texts as "Japanese" and the romanized texts as "Rōmaji" or "Hepburn".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I pretty much just explained this and you are asking a question in reference to the part where I just explained it. I'm going to assume that this is one of your cheap tactics to feign ignorance and continue an argument over a matter that has been previously discussed. - Odokee (talk) 19:43, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I think most of us would prefer that you assume something better instead. This is a big discussion and it's easy to lose track and/or misunderstand what others may have said. From what I understand, the "harm" comes in the form of using more space in the lede and possible confusion of what the Romaji means. Are there other areas of potential harm which I'm not aware of? Thanks,

-- Joren (talk) 19:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Also the problem secondly named issue bleeds into, which Ryulong even seems to note, of how the romaji can further confuse people by not being differentiated at all in the space provided for it. I don't see any reason at all why everything is CSV but the romaji right next to the original Japanese. That is partly why I suggest tooltips/footnotes would be better, because then there would be indication of something happening there that isn't being indicated currently. - Odokee (talk) 22:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Clarification - CSV as in comma-separated? Or something else?

-- Joren (talk) 01:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

To Squilibob: I totally agree with you and Nihonjoe on copying and pasting kanji/kana from Misplaced Pages articles to Google, as I do that very frequently. But I'll have to admit I did not understand when you use the Hepburn romanization for searches. Using Google with "Final Fantasy" and "ファイナルファンタジー" sounds totally reasonable as that's where the results are at, but using "Fainaru Fantajī"? And for the reverse example, the point with Fainaru_Fantajī.jpg: Articles with Hepburn romanizations in tooltips still turn up if you use the search, for example see a "Chirāmii" search. The references case with the Hepburn romanization on Japanese sites you will have to elaborate on, as I did not grasp that one at all. :/ Prime Blue (talk) 19:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Bit late here, but in reply to Nihonjoe also, Misplaced Pages's purpose is not to facilitate google searches. If there is further useful external information which cannot fit in the article, it goes in the references, external links or further reading section. I also don't understand why someone would use the romaji, as Prime Blue said. If one is savvy enough to search through Japanese media, one would use the kana. bridies (talk) 05:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

To Odokee: Tooltips or not, everyone who does not know what they are confronted with will click the small question mark () in the template, and once we did this here, there will be no more understandability issues. Prime Blue (talk) 19:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

If there are proposed changes, then fine, fight for it and hopefully improve something. But... if the discussions at hand are about the current system, then they don't make any sense. Some people still don't seem to think anything is wrong. And if you mean a little, extra explanation in a linked article, then no I don't think that does much of anything. - Odokee (talk) 19:43, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

A compromise? #2

I propose the following compromise:

• Format: English (日本語, rōmaji, Miscellany)
• Example: Jill Valentine (ジル・バレンタイン, Jiru Barentain)

This way the Japanese text is both accessible and not intrusive thanks to <small> </small> tags around the romaji. Additionally, there should be a comma between the kana and the romaji. (Apparently people chose to omit the comma because "it's ugly", which is a very weak argument IMO. WP:MOSJA shouldn't be in contradiction with basic grammar rules.) Thoughts? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 22:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if making the romaji smaller is really going to help anything. The IPA pronunciations all over the project are full size text. And all in all, "Jiru Barentain" takes up almost as much space as "Jiru Barentain". Maybe it's 75% the original.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I recommend removing the question mark also as WP:ACCESS prohibits using mouse hover. This is also echoed by WP:LINK#Link clarity. So here is the previous proposal with no question mark:

• Format: English (日本語, rōmaji, Miscellany)
• Example: Jill Valentine (ジル・バレンタイン, Jiru Barentain)

The question mark should be replaced with a note at the bottom of infoboxes, as in {{Infobox language}}. If the article has no infobox, which is rare, use {{Contains Japanese text}}. Thoughts? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 23:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Woops, edit conflict. Ryulong: I don't know why you're bringing up IPA pronunciations all of a sudden; transliterations have nothing to do with IPA pronunciations (which are much more useful). Moreover, this is a compromise, you have to be more willing to accept it than that. 25% shorter is better than 0%. (And if it took, like, 1% of space you'd obviously be disagreeing anyway, right?) Besides, Jill Valentine is a short name. The gain in space is more evident on longer names or titles. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 00:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Moreover, one of the arguments for the editors against romanization (of loanwords) was that the romaji affects the readability of the lead. Using a smaller font, even though it doesn't outright remove the romaji, makes reading easier because people who don't want to read it can avoid it at a glance and even for people who "need" it the different font size is still useful on very long titles. The smaller font makes the romaji both less visible and more visible for both sides of the discussion. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 00:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

It does not seem worth it to use the small tags if it's not changing that much in space taken up, which is not really a technical matter. And I'm bringing up IPA because the romaji entry is effectively taking the place of the IPA trans-whatever, which is used on many articles for which the subject is from a non-English language. Romaji is the phonetic alphabet we are using instead. Avoiding that tangent, there's really no need for the visibility of romaji to be changed in either way. For one thing, why would all romaji required to be shrunken down? It's, again, just something that the WP:VG people want because including it clutters up the first line. Making the text take up 25% less space is not going to make the lead paragraph any less cluttered. Also, that question mark (or a similar link) should remain there to provide information on what the romaji is there for or how it should be read or how to install Japanese character sets.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:49, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems like you're grasping at straws.

• Up until now you've been very technical about romaji, and now all of a sudden you claim romaji and IPA are similar. They are not. Romaji have nothing to do with IPA. It isn't taking the place of anything IPA related. An entry can have both transliteration and IPA pronunciation if there is a need for both; see for instance Mikhail Gorbachev. And I see you're still assuming bad faith by claiming that my compromise proposal doesn't count because I supposedly am from the "WP:VG people". What a shallow argument.
• I already explained why it makes the lead less cluttered. That you had to estimate and put a percentage on this when it is not even the point says a lot about the strength of your argument; clutter isn't just about size. Different formats can also improve readability; this is why we have things like bold text, italics, (parentheses), small font, and probably other things too. Using a small font for romaji makes it easier to see at a glance where it starts and where it ends, just like the bold font makes the main title more obvious. One could also claim the bold font is not worth it, since it is technically not absolutely necessary, but it does improve readability, which is why it is used and why everybody see it is convenient to use. The difference in formatting for romaji, with small font, should be a win-win situation since this means people who don't care about the romaji can easily ignore it, while people who do care about it can easily see it.
• The question mark is probably the most obvious thing that should absolutely be removed in all of this. There have been two discoveries of two guidelines that supercede both this one and WP:VG/GL that prohibit mouse hover (WP:ACCESS) and prohibit links that don't describe their destination explicitly (WP:LINK). The link to install Japanese character sets can easily go at the bottom of infoboxes or in Template:Contains Japanese text as I said above, as that's where there is room to properly describe the link, as opposed to a question mark which is the antithesis of clarity.

But anyway, I would like to hear other opinions since the sentence "there's really no need for the visibility of romaji to be changed in either way." shows that you clearly are not willing to consider any compromise unlike me and the other people here. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 09:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Um... sorry if I don't follow but what does the question mark have to do with mouse hover? There's no tooltip here (that I'm aware of anyway, perhaps my prefs are too customized to show it?)

-- Joren (talk) 17:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The question mark is meaningless until you mouse-hover it to see that it is actually a link to Help:Installing Japanese character sets. This is in violation of WP:ACCESS which prohibits mouse-hover and WP:LINK which requires that wikilinks describe their destination explicitly. Having a link to Help:Installing Japanese character sets is fine but that link should be more obvious than a small, mysterious question mark. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 17:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

So you're saying that "?" does not readily associate itself with a Help: link? Perhaps we could rename it "Help"?

-- Joren (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

@Megata Sanshiro: Shrinking the text does not give enough room in the title for it to be of any use. Doing any sort of action that prevents the immediate readability of this text is against WP:ACCESS. I'm sorry if I'm in the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" camp, but in my opinion, this guideline and {{nihongo}} are perfectly fine. It is the conflicting guideline at WP:VG/GL that has always been the issue. Want to solve this? Remove the sentence over there that essentially says "Don't put romaji for video game titles that can be directly translated from katakana into English".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? I can see how everyone could disagree with that suggestion, but going against all possible compromises with WP:ACCESS now, even in this particular case where it is clearly irrelevant? And bringing that old non-existent conflict up again, Ryūlóng, basically giving the WP:VG members the finger by saying "your guidelines are the problem, change them and everything is fine"? I've been around here long enough now to get the impression that you are simply unable to accept anything that goes against your personal opinion. Prime Blue (talk) 20:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The WP:VG/GL guideline has been shown to be incompatible with this guideline as well as WP:ENGLISH throughout the discussions on this page. That is the conflict. How can you not see that? I've been trying to come up with something that would work for both parties, but nothing really works here. People like Odokee would be fine with there being no Japanese text at all. People like Jinnai don't want romaji. People like me want the text to be visible. I just do not think that modifying the coding of templates is going to solve anything. You have to have the text accessible. The only reason this is happening is because I was informed by a member of WP:VG (Jinnai) that romaji should not be used if it resembles the "English" name. That is now how things work at all. I tried bringing up IPA/romaji because the romaji is effectively a pronunciation tool, and on multiple other articles on this project for which the subject is based in a language that doesn't use English, we still provide the pronunciation. Be it IPA for Russian and Greek or the various romanization schema for Korean and Chinese, it is a service that we should provide to the reader to be as thorough in providing information. Removing things because one group of editors find it redundant or taking up space does not solve anything.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be confused. Very confused. Not only do you try to belittle the people you disagree with, you get the facts wrong. Trying to pin such a tale on me is a naive attempt to mount your high horse. Not only did you previously try to be an internet bully by citing some policy against me that didn't even really apply to your petty zealotry, you can't get your ducks in a line about whether you are trying to follow policy or just furthering some wacky agenda that you don't seem to ever have a decent chance of getting consensus about. From the last couple paragraphs here, it is obvious that you are sticking to whatever suits your side while consciously ignoring relevant facts, which is extremely hypocritical and thoroughly dishonest. Basically, nothing about your characterization of myself has been appropriate, but I expect you will continue to label me as a xenophobic VG person.

Also: shove it all into footnotes. Problem solved. - Odokee (talk) 03:19, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Can all of us please avoid making this about each other?

-- Joren (talk) 04:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Trying not to. I was merely using Odokee and Jinnai as examples on the spectrum of people as to what should and should not be included in the lead paragraph (or as it seems from the lack of any romanizations at List of Metal Gear characters prior to my editing of the page) or wherever it is on the page. My discussions with Jinnai early on raised light that he holds the opinion as the majority of the users at WP:VG as to not including romaji of katakana of words of English origin. Odokee on the other hand, from as far as I can tell through the discussions here, prefers that both the words of English origin written in katakana and romaji of these same words be omitted, and as he states, pushed off into the footnotes where they do not belong.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

That link is not even applicable and certainly does not say anything about footnotes. And still you are continuing to make baseless disparaging remarks toward WP:VG. bridies (talk) 05:26, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

How is WP:UEIA not applicable when (I believe) some users have suggested to remove all Japanese text from the lead? And where the hell are you pulling these disparaging remarks from, particularly in the last comment I made which I believe you are referring to? All I have been saying is what I believe is being said on this page by other editors, that some think the romaji is redundant and some who think that the katakana itself is unnecessary and redundant.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it (and obviously not the way specific others would see it), that link helps create the groundwork to have only the English name and the original Japanese name, then any derivatives or variants would be referenced discretely. - Odokee (talk) 06:37, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The question of removal of katakana entirely is beside the point, there is no chance of that happening. But the guideline says nothing about footnotes and does not preclude removing a transliteration, this has been gone over time and time again. Yet still you tried to tenuously link that guideline to the actual issue. I am referring to the various remarks about "the VG people" which you continue to make. This argument has been discredited several times; each time you have ignored the counterpoint. When confronted about this you made an oh-I-didn't-mean-it-really remark before resuming such attacks at the first opportunity. If you really need me to link all the various diffs I will. What we are supposed to be discussing here is a compromise; all you are doing is providing further evidence of incivility and bad faith. bridies (talk) 07:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

To Ryūlóng: I counted how many times I asked you to explain this alleged conflict between WP:VG and MOS:JP. Once you explained what you meant, I explained to you that this "conflict" you stress is based on a shaky presumption about the sentence "Revised Hepburn romanization (described below) should be used in all cases", but you simply did not reply. WP:ENGLISH was also addressed many times above. If there was a single guideline that was so strong the solution to this problem was obvious, either party would be easily convinced by it. And if you think the majority of WP:VG members are unable to compromise and just want to remove anything, then I simply can't help you anymore: This issue has become too much of a nuisance for me to point things out over and over. I was trying my best to mediate between all parties, but if all help is consistently refused, you just lose your will over time. Prime Blue (talk) 13:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

:::The conflict is tenuous, fine. I do not think that the majority of WP:VG members are unable to compromise. I have merely been mistakenly assuming that some members would prefer to remove some of the content, and others would prefer to remove all of the content. I also apologize for my attempts to bring the comparisons between IPA and romaji, which have apparently confused other members of this discussion.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The main proposal of smaller Hepburn romanizations could only be used for the issue at hand, as I really wouldn't want it to affect the completely obvious needs, like Hiroshima-ken in Hiroshima Prefecture. Prime Blue (talk) 10:03, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

What's the issue with Hiroshima-ken? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 10:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

That for terms which are not "repeated" at all, we don't have to take any action. That would be just stepping on the toes of those far removed from the issue here. Prime Blue (talk) 13:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Ugh, lot's of tangents in this section... Let's keep it focused on the "compromise #2" (other compromises like the footnote can go in revelant sections):

1. Adding a comma between the kana and the romaji: Who's for? Who's against?
2. Putting the romaji between <small> </small> tags: Who's for? Who's against? And should it be done for all phrases or only for phrases that contain loanwords (this includes phrases completely made up of loanwords and phrases that are made up of a combination of loanwords and native words)?
3. Changing the question mark: Who's for? Who's against? And should it be replaced with a note at the bottom of infoboxes as in {{Infobox language}} (or if there is no infobox, replaced with {{Contains Japanese text}}) or should it be renamed "Help"?

Megata Sanshiro (talk) 08:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Responses

1. Comma is good.
2. Romaji shrinking does not really help because a) it would possibly affect all articles resulting in, b) either {{nihongo}} would have to be recoded to add a modifier to shrink the romaji in select instances, or c) there would have to be an entirely new template made for simply shrinking the text when it is only ever used by specific groups in articles where they feel that the romaji for words of English origin written with katakana. Also, all in all, it does not free up that much space (I will attempt to show a comparison in size shortly).
3. The question mark should be changed to "Help". Replacing the question mark with a link to another section would in fact mean that on every article this particular template family is used, that particular footnote section would have to be added, which would result in a lot of work.

Also, as Joren has attempted to do, the Help page that this links to should be amended to include the pronunciation schema, much like the various Help:IPA for pages do, in addition to instructing users how to install the proper fonts to read the characters on their computers.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Alright, everyone seems to agree with 1. and 3. Should we edit the template? As for 2., you're still ignoring some already stated points (as usual); this is not just about space and size. I said the different format makes it easier to read. Compare...

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, known in Japan as Chiisana Ōsama to Yakusoku no Kuni: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (小さな王様と約束の国 ファイナルファンタジー・クリスタルクロニクル, Chiisana Ōsama to Yakusoku no Kuni: Fainaru Fantajī Kurisutaru Kuronikuru, literally "The Little King and the Promised Kingdom: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles") is a video game developed for the WiiWare service of the Nintendo Wii console by Square Enix. Square Enix decided to make a game for the WiiWare service that would be high profile, and it was decided that the game would be a simulation game and, later in development, a Final Fantasy title.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, known in Japan as Chiisana Ōsama to Yakusoku no Kuni: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (小さな王様と約束の国 ファイナルファンタジー・クリスタルクロニクル, Chiisana Ōsama to Yakusoku no Kuni: Fainaru Fantajī Kurisutaru Kuronikuru, literally "The Little King and the Promised Kingdom: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles") is a video game developed for the WiiWare service of the Nintendo Wii console by Square Enix. Square Enix decided to make a game for the WiiWare service that would be high profile, and it was decided that the game would be a simulation game and, later in development, a Final Fantasy title.

...In which paragraph is it easier to immediately find the romaji at a glance? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 11:54, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

You should use a different example, as that three-line-spanning foreign title is to be put in a footnote per the new WP:VG. Prime Blue (talk) 15:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not use

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (小さな王様と約束の国 ファイナルファンタジー・クリスタルクロニクル, Chiisana Ōsama to Yakusoku no Kuni: Fainaru Fantajī Kurisutaru Kuronikuru, literally translated as "The Little King and the Promised Kingdom: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles")

instead? Saves space.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:36, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Four problems:

1. Without a descriptor link like "Japanese" (as other language templates have) or wordings like "known/released as in Japan", the foreign title is useless to readers as they are oblivious to the origin.

2. Readability issues would not be solved in extreme cases.

3. The ability to include official English release titles in the first nihongo field, like The Legend of Zelda: Takt of Wind and It's a Wonderful World, would be lost.

4. The issue was not centered around the space used up, but the alleged redundancy of such romanizations (which would not be addressed with this solution).

Prime Blue (talk) 19:46, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Revised nihongo templates

Broke this reply to Megata Sanshiro off as it does not directly address the RfC's topic. Prime Blue (talk) 17:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: point 2, the utility of non-Hepburn romanizations has been extensively discussed in the past, and the current consensus is that they are not necessary: they add no information, and (unlike the various flavors of China) there are no political dimensions that require pinyin/Tongyong/Wade-Giles/etc. For this same reason, tagging every single Japanese romanization with "romanization", much less "Hepburn romanization" is also unnecessary. Jpatokal (talk) 09:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

My main problem with the second point is, ironically, the same problem many of the VG-ers had with including Romaji for loanwords - it takes too much real estate. Having the labels Japanese: Romanization: etc. takes up space and makes it take longer to read the same content. As a general rule, I believe templates should draw as little attention to themselves and take up as little space as possible. That said, templates should also (unobtrusively) provide guidance where needed. To that end, I would suggest that the question mark in the Nihongo templates link to a page that not only teaches the user how to install character support (as the current link does), but also very clearly explains that the first reading is Japanese, the second one is Romaji, and here's what it means. It seems pretty natural for a user to assume that clicking q question mark is going to lead to an explanation of what it means. The present question mark, while helpful in its own capacity, does not do this.

-- Joren (talk) 10:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

How about what I've added at Help:Installing Japanese character sets#Note? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 15:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a good start! My first impressions are that we might need to slim it down a bit and make it user-friendly, but either way it is good to have. I wonder if we could craft a sort of landing page, which would branch off into other links? First, have a brief explanation of what English (Kanji Romaji) is. We could then say "For more information on how to use the Nihongo templates, see Template:Nihongo/doc." and then have something like "あ should look similar to . If you see a box or a question mark instead, please see Help:Installing Japanese character sets." Then we could link to something like what Help:Japanese has for a brief pronounciation guide. For that matter, I notice there aren't very many things that link to Help:Japanese. Could we make that the landing page? But anyway, what we have now is helpful, thank you for taking the time to put it together.

-- Joren (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Following this train of thought, I threw something together: User:Joren/Help:Japanese. This would be intended as an augmentation of the existing Help:Japanese with the intention of making it the landing page for users that click on the question mark in the nihongo templates. It is severely lacking polish, but feel free to use/not use anything you want.

-- Joren (talk) 17:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Clarification - anyone is free to edit this page. Also, I'm not the author of most of its content; it is essentially Help:Japanese with a couple new sections at the top. I didn't want to experiment on Help:Japanese directly, so that's why I made a subpage. Feel free to improve it and if we like it, perhaps we can use it to replace Help:Japanese.

-- Joren (talk) 03:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Another possibility might be to make it up to the editor whether or not to specify the language or romanization. This could be done with optional parameters, or the user could simply add a note to the text being passed to the template. It is true that since this very MOS specifies which romanization to use, and since there aren't competing sets of kanji like there are in Chinese (traditional/simplified, etc), there generally isn't much ambiguity what language is being used in Japan-related articles. However, there are some situations that are ambiguous; e.g. if Beijing were to include the Japanese reading of 北京(ぺきん), then it would be necessary to specify the language (but not the romanization). Or in an article comparing systems of romanization in use for street signs in Japan, etc, it would be necessary to specify the romanization (but not the language). Of course, there's nothing that would prevent the editor from clarifying the language or romanization in use outside of the template, too, but at least we could make it look pretty as an optional parameter.

-- Joren (talk) 11:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Definitely agree that the question mark in the nihongo templates should lead to a page that, first and foremost, explains the Japanese characters – with some installation instructions further down. Prime Blue (talk) 17:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Can someone explain why romanization used for pronunciation instead of IPA—and maybe include it on the help page. I can probably better guess pronunciation from romanization than IPA, but I thought the assumption was that IPA was most useful for pronunciation on Misplaced Pages. I'd also like to propose my suggestion from WP:VG/GL; I think that it would improve readability if something like tooltips were used such as ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島.—Ost (talk) 17:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Because romanization is merely easier to write and convey than the International Phonetic Alphabet when it comes to languages that don't use a Roman alphabet. Greek, Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese all have standardized systems for romanization, which are based on phonetic pronunciation anyway. Also, I'm not even sure where tooltips are used.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, they're used in the list that I identified above, but I think I came up with the idea independently. I'm unsure where else tooltips are used, but I don't think lack of use is reason not to use them unless they are not used for a reason. There may be accessibility or other issues that I am unaware of, but I find it much less obtrusive to see a name and hover to get the translation if I want it. It's just a suggestion and one of my preferred methods, but perhaps both my thoughts would be better meant for dealing with all foreign languages. I just find it frustrating that wikipedia not only wants me to learn IPA, but also romanizations for different languages. And for Hepburn, I also apparently have to know how vowels are pronounced in Spanish. Though I'm occasionally weighing in on style and accept that others have more experience in this than me, I'm still trying to understand the need for unofficial romanization to an average English reader. —Ost (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, now I understand what you meant. So, basically, that would mean that the nihongo template is modified so the rōmaji shows up on hovering the mouse over the kanji and kana. It would basically look like this (note that these are mockups and not actual test templates):

• Zelda no Densetsu (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: The Dreaming Island")

Or with translations included in the tip:

• Zelda no Densetsu (ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島,)

I kind of like that first one for work titles, but the issue still won't go away for very long (or multiple) titles like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord that span several lines. And I absolutely hate how it would cause more "work" for readers in articles like Mount Fuji (having to mouse-over to see Fuji-san). That of course would not apply if a separate template is created solely for work titles. Prime Blue (talk) 22:08, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

@Ost316: There is no such thing as an "unofficial romanization". It is the romanization, and not an unofficial Anglicization. Hepburn romanization is a standardized method for transliterating Japanese, just like Pinyin is a standardized method for Mandarin Chinese and McCune–Reischauer is a standardized method for Korean. All are based on phonetic pronunciations, and it's better to defer to these and then to IPA (katakana, hiragana, and hangul all include the IPA pronunciations). And the tooltip thing really has no use outside of saving space when it comes to tables. The Oracle of... games page has the best solution for dealing with unwieldy titles.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:27, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you misinterpreted my use of official, but I was using at was used in the above section essentially as a synonym for trademark, not as any slur against any other romanization. I also understand that you do not think there is much use for the tooltips, but I think that they are helpful if they improve readability by saving space while retaining information. But that's why I said that this was likely a broader issue than this venue since it would likely be an issue with all romanizations. Thank you and Prime for your explanations and weighing in. I don't expect an encyclopedia to explain how to pronounce a foreign word when encountered, but I can really only speak from my own perspective. I would guess that there are other readers like me that tend to skip over most unfamiliar foreign text and pronunciation to find the translation, but I understand that if they are useful and conventionally provided. —Ost (talk) 13:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Evening. I am no expert but I believe there is more than one romanji system, so as I see it even the Japanese can't always agree on these issues. My pennyworth is: include romanji if you wish, it can`t hurt.andycjp (talk) 11:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there is more than one, but not on Misplaced Pages. We use revised Hepburn, as stated in the WP:MOS-JA. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Quick questions: would the layman know that, and if not then should we distinguish which version we use? (Guyinblack25 16:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC))

We do specify that: WP:MOS-JA#Romanization. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Could be wrong, but I think Guyinblack25 is talking about the reader rather than the editor perspective. If that is the case, then it would again be mentioned in that general help page the template will link to. Prime Blue (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for reading my mind Prime. :-p

Yes, I was referring to the general reader that is unlikely to check project pages for editor guidelines. Specifically in the article itself if we add more distinguishing information to the romaji: "Hepburn romanization" instead of simply "Romanization". (Guyinblack25 17:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC))

I would say that if the layperson doesn't realize what version it is then they are unlikely to know any other form of romanization and thus the point is moot. We can still mention on the help page which version it is, but its not critical info to such a layperson. Anyone who does realize what it is will not need that info.陣内_Jinnai 19:14, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Yet another section

Well, I've been invited to this discussion. Since this discussion is an absolute cluster to the point where I've no idea where to put this, I'm starting a new section. I have several reasons why this is a bad, bad idea:

• Loanwords do not work that way. A word borrowed from Language X into Language Y is not a word in Language X. It is a word in Language Y of Language X origin.
  • Dictionaries will back this up. For example, both fainaru and fantajī are in Japanese dictionaries.
  • English itself has several loanwords. Anybody with half a brain considers them English words. Hell, the fourth word of this post, invited, is a loanword from Latin (from inuitaui, IIRC). It is not a Latin word. It is an English word of Latin origin.
  • Hell, English has several loanwords from Japanese itself. The English word "Tokyo" is not the Japanese word Tōkyō; it's just that the former was borrowed from the latter.
• Japanese loanwords contain several doublets that should be treated as separate words. For example, the word for "energy" was borrowed twice, as enājī from English and as enerugī from German Energie. The word for "sabre" was also borrowed twice, as seibā from English and as sāberu from Dutch sabel.
• Many loanwords that appear to be from English at first are actually borrowed from other Germanic languages. Aside from enerugī and sāberu above, we also have tēma for "theme" (from German Thema, not the English) among others. A scheme like the one proposed will confuse people who don't know the etymology of Japanese loanwords.
• While most loanwords attempt to approximate the original pronunciation within the rules of Japanese phonotactics, others deviate from normal expected pronunciation. For example, I've seen "decade" borrowed as dikeido rather than the expected dekeido. Anglophones who cannot read katakana cannot be expected to know when the pronunciation deviates from a simple conversion to Japanese phonotactics.
  • Loanwords in all languages drift in pronunciation all the time. For example, pick any English loanword from Latin: no way in hell is the original Latin pronounced anything like the English loanword.
• Also how do you mix native words and loanwords under this scheme? What, will you only transliterate half of titles like 美少女戦士セーラームーン? Will we see garbage like Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (美少女戦士セーラームーン, Bishōjo Senshi)? That's just absurd.

Please excuse the lack of actual kana in my post--I've yet to install SCIM on the machine I'm typing from, and I'd rather not spend ages copying and pasting from a kana table. jgpTC 20:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I already feared that people joining in would feel the need to justify include/exclude comments, so I'll try to explain the purpose of the invitation better: It is a given that such romanizations will be included, we are just trying to determine how to do it to be okay with those who feel they should not be included. One possible compromise was suggested (on which feedback is appreciated), other compromises are being looked for. Also, thank you for coming over! Prime Blue (talk) 21:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the rollover idea, it makes it too difficult to copy and paste. Nobody wants to have to hit the edit button just to copy text. I wonder if Misplaced Pages syntax supports something like the hottip functionality at TV Tropes, where you click on a * (or any other symbol of the editor's choice), and it displays the full text inline (and you can click the * again to re-collapse the text). jgpTC 21:29, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

See my answer here. Is there a specific case in which tooltips could be discouraged because the Hepburn romanization would have to be copied and pasted? The collapsible thing was also raised above, it sounds like a good alternative to me. Prime Blue (talk) 21:44, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

And about that; considering both the possible clutter involved and typical readability by English visitors, would it be shrewd to just put all translations into the tooltip/collapse location? Especially for long titles, this solves many problems and keeps things simple for English readers that just don't give a crap about what words translate into. Also imagine it as a footnote: a hypothetical section called "Not English" beneath the references, where we can see lists of variants of the original word from a foreign language, instead of forcing it all into often barely intelligible prose. - Odokee (talk) 22:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

No...see issues raised when articles would be brought to FLC/FAC where the English translation would be required to be easily accessible. Failure to do so would probably be cited if someone asked specifically as not being "well written".陣内_Jinnai 01:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Tooltips should never be used. Ever. Under any circumstances. They're an accessibility nightmare. Aside from the copy-and-paste issue, they fuck over users with text-based browsers (e.g. w3m) and screen readers. jgpTC 05:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

We are talking about titles consisting of loan words from English where the pronunciation difference is minimal. Or I suppose words from other Germanic languages where the pronunciation is much the same as English. So you probably needn't worry about mixed kanji/kana titles and whatever else. bridies (talk) 05:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not reading all this as I honestly don't have the time. I'll assume that the suggestion is Basically removing most/all katakana (foreign/English words expressed in Japanese characters) either from the top portion of articles or articles as a whole. My main opposition is that this would have little benefit. The main gain for doing it is when I google search for titles partially in Katakana I will hit the English article. Also expressing something in the original language is something done all the time. For example Istanbul is written as İstanbul in the article. Despite looking redundant, this is what you would expect in an Encyclopedia. You want to have access to all notable information about the topic INCLUDING how it is exactly written in the foreign language. -- Cat 02:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

This is about removing the romanization of the name written in katakana, if the katakana is a japonification of English words.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I received an invitation to join this discussion. If I am not mistaken, as I just skimmed over the discussion, this mostly concerns games/movies/etc that, although they were created in Japan, they have titles that use English/non-Japanese words in some way. I would generally be in favor of removing romaji of katakana of theses types of non-Japanese words in discussion, but the roll over compromise seems both fair and interesting. XinJeisan (talk) 16:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Big thing about that is if there would be enough against it because of WP:ACCESS problems, however some form of Japanese tooltip usage seems to have the largest support here.陣内_Jinnai 19:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Tooltips are the crux of the WP:ACCESS problems.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Jinnai: To be sure if tooltips and collapsible text cannot be used in general, I asked over here. Prime Blue (talk) 20:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Nobody answered there, so I left some messages for the important FAC reviewers. Prime Blue (talk) 16:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Are tooltips accessible from mobile browsers and apps? I think we should go to a solution that would be readable by everyone involved. If it is though, I'm completely on board-- an outstanding compromise, Prime Blue. Nomader 02:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Can we see an example of this "collapsible text"? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 02:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Collapsible text would certainly be a lot harder to implement, as there is no template for it currently (as far as I know). For lack of being able to program this myself, I'll do another mockup. This here follows the concept Jgp described above, but it is a pretty lackluster example (imagine the uncollapsing "rom." without the link box, imagine the page loading gone, and imagine the recollapsing "hide" to be actually working, and then you kind of have it). Prime Blue (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Though for whatever reason, the FAC guys don't answer to explain if tooltips or collapsible text for templates would be allowed even – which is unfortunate as this is one of the more pressing issues in need of their expertise. Prime Blue (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I love the spirit of this proposal but... I'm really concerned about the viability of tooltips and getting the collapsing text to work. Because what "Rom" is won't be obvious to most people, I'd almost suggest that if we're going to include it, we shouldn't hide it. But then we start a vicious cycle again, because I'd then argue that it would just confuse readers and is unnecessary when it's the same as the English title and everything would start again. I really would love this proposal to work but we desperately need to hear from the FAC guys about this. Nobody's responded? Nomader 16:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I left messages for the FAC delegates YellowMonkey, Raul654, Karanacs, Dana boomer, and SandyGeorgia. All but one have edited since then, though nobody responded. Prime Blue (talk)

I don't think they particularly care about a minor stylistic issue in video game articles, it's not a very big deal. Prime, I'm nervous about putting tooltips into all video game articles that started in Japan. That's a lot of articles with some unusual markup in them. I think the only real solution we'll be able to find hearkens back to the beginning of this debate-- we either should include the romanizations or we shouldn't. And I don't see this debate ending anytime soon. Nomader 19:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As it would directly affect featured articles if tooltips and collapsible text are absolutely forbidden in such a case, I think the FAC delegates should care. Anyone else got any idea how to get their attention/who else to ask about this? And Nomader, while a definite include/exclude on all accounts would certainly be the easiest solution, it will never be accepted by either side, not in a thousand years, not with the stubbornness going on here. Personally, at this point, I'd probably welcome just about any compromise suggested, as long as this discussion finally ends. This is the second or third time it is warmed up and I invested lots and lots of time in trying to help, yet again. The least thing I want to see is edit warring and bad blood over a largely insignificant issue like that – but that is exactly what will happen if there is no solution once more. Prime Blue (talk) 20:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, my favorite of all the proposals that's been set out so far is one that you wrote back in July here at WP:VG. I think we should maybe bite the bullet and be bold and go ahead and implement this in the next week if we don't hear from anyone at WP:FAC and WP:FLC in the near future. Nomader 20:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, I completely forgot about that. There were no more objections, so I moved that over to the actual VG/GL now, to finally standardize the articles. However, we must not use this VG/GL subsection to solve the issue with the romanizations on all other projects. The current form governs a rigorous "exclude" for such romanizations and would never find widespread acceptance (not by me, either): the deal was to find a solution here that would be used on all projects then. The first step now is to get a clarification on whether tooltips and collapsible text are impossible to use for the issue at hand – going bold on this issue would result in massive amounts of drama. Prime Blue (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The "Phonetic transcriptions are, as a rule, not considered to be significantly different and thus do not warrant the inclusion of Japanese titles." is still an issue, though.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As I said. Prime Blue (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, this is the reply I got to my inquiry – the only delegate who answered cleared up the FAC concerns for these tooltips, as long as they will be consistently used. With that solved, I think we can finally move forward now. Prime Blue (talk) 20:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I am putting together Template:Nihongo tip currently. It should not be too complicated to program as the first three fields are always required in these cases, with only the extra field for translations being optional. Prime Blue (talk) 11:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Nihongo tip

Finished the work on the template now. The revised MOS:JP#Templates:

{{Nihongo}}

The {{Nihongo}} template helps standardize the entries for Japanese terms.

Usage example:

{{Nihongo|New Meikai Japanese Dictionary|新明解国語辞典|Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten}}

appears as

New Meikai Japanese Dictionary (新明解国語辞典, Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten)

The first entry appears before the brackets, the second is the Japanese term in kanji and kana, the last is the reading in modified Hepburn romanization described above. The question mark is a link to Help:Installing Japanese character sets.

The template {{IPA-ja}} may be used to format Japanese in IPA transcription; it links the transcription to WP:IPA for Japanese.

{{Nihongo tip}}

The {{Nihongo tip}} template displays the Hepburn romanization in the third entry in a tooltip. It is used

• when the second entry of the template consists solely of katakana whose Hepburn romanization differs from the first entry, and/or numerals and special characters pronounced as words of English origin (such as tsū (2)).
• when the second entry consists of kanji and kana, but the sole difference between the first and third entry lies in the Hepburn romanization of katakana words, and/or numerals and special characters pronounced as words of English origin.

Usage example:

{{Nihongo tip|''Super Mario World''|スーパーマリオワールド|Sūpā Mario Wārudo}}

appears as

Template:Nihongo tip

Prime Blue (talk) 15:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought tooltips were a no go.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:19, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

As verified above, they are allowed. Prime Blue (talk) 18:49, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought that WP:ACCESS said no and we never really decided as to whether that was the right course of action.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

One has to keep the purpose of WP:ACCESS in mind: "Accessibility is the goal of making web pages easier to navigate and read. While this is primarily intended to assist those with disabilities, it can be helpful to all readers. Articles adhering to the following guidelines are easier to read and edit by those Wikipedians with and without disabilities." Knowing that the article will still be just as readable and editable by having the Hepburn romanization in a tooltip only in these special cases, with the first segment of the template still normally displayed, this limits the accessibility problems to people with devices that have problems with tooltips, and who at the same time come to an article to seek out the full Hepburn romanization of a particular term. And that is such an obscure niche case it does not render the solution unusable, especially considering that the help link for the nihongo segment is still there for the unknowing ones, and that the Hepburn romanization is also there to be copied in editing view (if, for whatever reason, someone would need it to copy and paste somewhere). Prime Blue (talk) 20:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I also thought that it didn't have consensus.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I support this as an alternative.陣内_Jinnai 02:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The tooltips had the largest following until the concerns were raised that are now cleared up. The other compromise that was considered as a viable alternative was the collapsed text, but as mentioned, it would be a lot harder to implement as we do not have a template functioning like that (it would probably not work with the site's current scripts either). Prime Blue (talk) 11:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Giving it a try with that now. For the present, all edit summaries for the additions of Template:Nihongo tip should contain a message linking to the respective MOS-JP section and this discussion. That way, people will know where it came from and have the possibility to raise their concerns here – if there are any new ones that could make this unusable. Prime Blue (talk) 22:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of what some FA reviewer says, this template is not necessary. There is no need to make or modify any of the templates just to satisfy one WikiProject who believes they're above all of these other guidelines and manuals of style.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The accessibility problems are still there. Tooltips are not acceptable, for several reasons:

• Mobile browsers (e.g., MicroB, Opera Mobile) do not display tooltips properly, if at all. Way to screw over mobile users, guys.
  • from personal experience, getting tooltips to appear in MicroB is exceedingly difficult, and long tooltips are truncated. In fact, I have only gotten MicroB to display tooltips at all when the tooltip comes from an image, not text.
  • from personal experience, Opera Mobile doesn't support tooltips at all
• Command-line browsers (e.g., w3m, links) do not display tooltips at all.
  • from personal experience, neither w3m nor links support tooltips at all
• Screen readers may not display tooltips.
• It is impossible to copy-and-paste tooltip content.

I will take this template to WP:TFD in a few days if these problems are not resolved. jgpTC 23:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

In case I am not being crystal clear, I will say this: tooltips actively bring the project into disrepute. Tooltips send the message that Misplaced Pages is not for mobile users, the blind, or command-line users. Is this the reputation you want Misplaced Pages, and by extension the Wikimedia Foundation, to have? jgpTC 23:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Ryūlóng: We invited 80 users from all affected projects over, and possibilities and concerns were discussed for several weeks. Just let it flow for a while on a trial basis, if users notice and there really is a big outcry that brings up new issues, we can still remove it. Prime Blue (talk) 23:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

We still had barely any input from any of those 80 other people.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

jgp: Note that these issues have been addressed on several occasions. See here, here, here, and here. Prime Blue (talk) 23:42, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

They are not addressed. You are misrepresenting facts, and you are actively trying to screw over mobile users, the blind, and command-line users. Accessibility is absolute and non-negotiable. In addition, given that you people in WP:VG are defying consensus and actively trying to bring the project in disrepute by screwing over everyone who doesn't use a graphical web browser on a desktop machine, I have come to the conclusion that WP:VG does more harm to the project than good. I will be putting WP:VG up for WP:MFD in addition to putting this disabled-user-screwing template on WP:TFD. jgpTC 01:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jgp. I see you feel passionately about the issue of tool tips and accessibility, but do you think you can tone it down a notch. I do not think anyone here wants to actively screw over anyone. What we have here are two groups who feel very passionately about the problem of the depiction of names in their projects, who have come close to a compromise. You correctly point out that this leads to a new problem for a subset of users. imars (talk) 06:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Ryūlóng: The people who did have an opinion on the matter showed up and gave their input. Again, if there really is an outcry over how it is handled, we will notice.

Jgp: I am not misrepresenting anything, or trying to "screw" anyone over – the fact that I have mediated here for a good month to find a middle ground should make that clear. I pointed out why accessibility concerns are not as much a problem as it seems: The articles are still readable, displayable, and editable by screen readers and on all devices and browsers (WP:ACCESS#Text also addresses it in point 3), thus relieving the issue. On Misplaced Pages, there have been utilizations of collapsible lists that could be considered much more problematic due to accessibility, yet there have been no complaints. As I said, just let it flow for a while – if people find new issues, we will notice. In any case, threatening with a project's deletion on grounds of some of their members' opinions is not the right course of action. Prime Blue (talk) 11:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree against the tooltips: they do hamper access and quite frankly they just look very ugly in their respective articles. I'd rather we have more discussion before you start dropping it into other articles at this time.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 12:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I explained several times now why accessibility cannot be the primary concern. Which part exactly do you find ugly, though? Any suggestions on improving it? Prime Blue (talk) 12:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the tooltips too due to the accessibility reasons. It is clear that the tooltips don't have consensus. However, User:jgp, if you want to put a whole wikiproject for deletion just because of this minor discussion that 99% of the wikiproject people are not involved with, feel free to. I'd love to see your arguments in such a deletion page. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 16:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't repeat myself again about accessibility, I've addressed it too often in this section already.

If people just refuse any sort of compromise based on accessibility, then the whole discussion we had above and below was in vain. It was clear from the get-go that this was about including/not including, so text size reduction is not the answer. The collapsible alternative never did get a template to show how it looks. Until we have some sort of decision on the matter, the edit warring will continue. And I see Ryulong is already back to business (, , , , ) disregarding WP:VG/GL despite all the warnings he got in the past.

If no suitable alternative is presented, I'll refer the whole thing to the ArbCom – we'll see how that works. And if it doesn't, then it's just "no guideline" on WP:JP and case-by-case basis on projects other than WP:VG again. Prime Blue (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Compromising on one guideline does not mean flying in the face of another. And you're also encouraging edit warring by already implementing your new template everywhere despite it not having consensus. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 17:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the original purpose of bringing the issue up here was overriding the guideline of WP:VG, so making a compromising guideline on MOS:JP was difficult anyway.

So far, I've implemented {{nihongotip}} only on video game articles where the romanizations would not have been desired anyway. I did this considering the support the template got from WP:VG members, and to give it a test run. Until now, there were no reverts either.

I have reverted the MOS:JP inclusion to make room for alternate suggestions before it gets picked up, but my hopes are dim that people will invest their time. Which is unfortunate as we would probably get somewhere faster if users other than you or me actually did create examples for a compromise. Prime Blue (talk) 17:43, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Prime Blue Re: the Metroid pages. I came across them and none of them had any romaji on them. Why is my adding them such a problem, especially when "Metroid" is a made up word? Also, as nihongotip has no consensus, I have reinstated the status quo on these pages. Especially for words that have been made up (characters in FF games).—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 17:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Should I really bother pointing it out to you for the sixth, tenth, twelfth time? Your whole behavior in the past two months has convinced me that you are too stubborn to recognize when you did something wrong, no matter how often people tell you. Prime Blue (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. How is ignoring a guideline that I think hampers the project rather than help it wrong?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's see, Prime Blue. You are the one ignoring accessibility, which is absolute and non-negotiable. You are the one trying to enforce ideas that have no consensus. You are the one actively harming the experience of mobile users, the blind, and command-line users. It's damn obvious who's in the wrong. If you are willing to toss accessibility to the wind, you shouldn't be editing any Wikimedia project. jgpTC 20:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Ryulong: I already linked you twice to what "ignore all rules" does not mean. With the amount of warnings you have received for disregarding WP:VG/GL, I just don't know how you still get the feeling these edits are okay.

Jgp: I did not for a single moment ignore accessibility, I explained several times why it is less of a problem than people make it out to be – but no one seems to read what I write, or answer the questions I brought up. I also reverted the guideline when more complaints were raised (even though they were almost all based on accessibility), and to ensure alternate suggestions are heard. So I don't see how that could give you the impression I'm trying to enforce rules. Prime Blue (talk) 21:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to reiterate that I support the template. bridies (talk) 19:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, this "Nihongo tip" template is hopelessly flawed by the superscript question mark, which resembles an IPA glottal stop ˀ. This unsightly mouseover link is too obscure/subtle for many users and unsuitable on mobile devices. Could someone create a new version something like the flexible and user-friendly Template:CJKV or Template:Zh? Keahapana (talk) 23:05, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Keahapana. I agree with you on the superscript question mark but it seems this particular point is being met with opposition at Template talk:Nihongo#Making the template clearer and more accessible, due to "I don't like it" arguments and despite established guidelines at WP:ACCESS and WP:LINK#Link clarity. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 13:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, we have to be consistent about WP:ACCESS - it remains my major reason for concern about the tooltips along with the whole concept of having to hover over things in order to reveal information. I've been pondering the current proposal, and while I kind of want the tooltips to work, I can't really justify it over ACCESS and over concerns about inadvertently hiding information. I'm also concerned about this question mark for the same reason. I do understand and agree that generally, "?" is associated with the concept of needing help, and we do already use superscripts like for references. However, the intended meaning of the question mark doesn't always get through in actual implementation. Is the too small to be apparent its a link? Does it seem to blend in with the rest of the sentence? Seems that an earlier proposal existed to replace the question mark with existed. If this emerges as a proposal I'd likely support it so at least we could resolve one concern from all this discussion. Or if we decide to keep it, then great, but "I don't like it" shouldn't stand in the way of consensus.

-- Joren (talk) 08:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: See also Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Video games developed in Japan. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 12:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Other languages that use the Japanese writing systems, last call

The "Other languages that use the Japanese writing systems" section of the MOS-JP states that it's under discussion here and insinuates that Ryulong's suggestion of using modified Hepburn (eg. Uchinaa) for romanizing Okinawan, instead of using revised Hepburn (Uchinā) like we do for everything else, is established policy. Neither is the case, so I'm hereby raising this issue again, and will revert the romanization scheme to the MOS-JP standard -- that is, revised Hepburn with macrons -- unless Ryulong can come up with a consensus to the contrary. Jpatokal (talk) 08:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

First, this page isn't a policy. It's a guideline. And as I stated in the previous discussion before the WP:VG bullshit started, the Ryukyuan languages are not dialects of Japanese. As such, they should not be subject to the Japanese romanization system that we use on this project. When phrases such as 初みてぃ拝なびら show up, Hepburn romaji does not have the capability of romanizing the phonemes unique to Okinawan, and would render that as "Hajimitei hainabira" when the Okinawan people pronounce that "Hajimiti wuganabira". Several language sources show that there is no standard way to deal with the extended vowel or ː. Some choose to double the vowel (as Ominglot and this very Misplaced Pages do) while others choose to use the macron as in Hepburn. As we can even see in our own description of the syllabary, "O-Ki-Na-Wa" becomes "U-Chi-Na-(W)A", so clearly ー should not mean ¯.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Japanese writing system is not capable of faithfully representing all phonemic distinctions in Okinawan -- but unfortunately it's still the writing system they use in Okinawa, and since both revised "Uchinā" and modified "Uchinaa" are pronounced precisely the same, there is no advantage whatsoever to choosing modified over revised. (For the record, though, I'd be happy to add in IPA for any Okinawan words, in addition to the revised Hepburn kana transcriptions.) Jpatokal (talk) 22:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually your wrong about Ryukyuian. It is under dispute whether it is a seperate subdivision of the Japonic languages or merely a dialect of Japanese.陣内_Jinnai 21:47, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

@Jpatokal: It just seems inappropriate to use modified Hepburn (macrons) because there are three different methods of romanizing the Ryukyuan languages when it comes to the chōonpu: doubling vowels, macron over a single vowel, or just a single vowel. ウチナー is variably romanized as Uchinaa (modified Hepburn), Uchinā (revised Hepburn), and Uchina (whatever they god damn feel like). And as I've been saying, rather than treating it as a dialect of Japanese and using revised Hepburn because that's how we treat Japanese throughout Misplaced Pages, by designating it separately by having ー double the previous vowel sound, we show that it is unique, and we can still use the same templates.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

We can show that it is unique 100% of the time simply by starting the gloss with "Okinawan: Uchinā". If anythign, I would oppose using a template called "nihongo" for a language that even you agree is manifestly not the same as Japanese. Jpatokal (talk) 05:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

It's still the only template we have that will ensure the proper encoding of Japanese text, which is what Okinawan uses. Would you prefer if we developed an {{uchinaguchi}} and an {{aynuitak}}?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

You mean {{lang-ryu}} and {{lang-ain}}, I hope. Jpatokal (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm referring to making entirely new templates along the lines of {{nihongo}} that includes both the original language and a romanization of that language.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Lang-ryu is used by one (1) article at the moment and lang-ain doesn't exist, so it would be easy enough to modify them to include include the romanization. Jpatokal (talk) 00:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, those templates are used just to put a link to the language in front of the word, and those are mostly standardized. I think making a template like nihongo would be better. Outside of sata andagi I don't think it's going to get much use, anyway.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

@Jinnai: It's phonetics and phonemics are different enough to warrant treating it as more than a dialect.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

So, going once, going twice, last chance... Jpatokal (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

What part of "No macrons for uchinaguchi" don't you understand then?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I understand perfectly well that that is your opinion, and I'm looking for anybody else who shares it. Unless you can muster up some support, I will revert to the MOS default, which is to use macrons. Jpatokal (talk) 01:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ryulong. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 05:05, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

And could you tell us why? Jpatokal (talk) 07:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jpatokal. It uses Japanese as written in Japan for representation. Also, it shouldn't use the Template:nihongo when not recognized as being different from standard Japanese (as spoken in Japan) by at least this guideline. If anything, a language template could be made similar to the nihongo one that uses the right language tags, so browsers can support the distinction. --Tauwasser (talk) 22:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Ryukyuan romanization

I've plunged forward and changed the MOS back to what it said originally, namely revised Hepburn. Jpatokal (talk) 23:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

The MOS never said to use revised Hepburn when dealing with Ryukyuan. The consensus here is against you so you don't modify the MOS to how you want it. There was no change to the manual of style in dealing with Ryukyuan and similar languages. It was merely clarified, seeing as Ryukyuan does not have Hepburn (or anything in particular) as a standardized romanization schema. And you did not change the MOS to back to what it said originally. The rule is if it's not Nihongo, it doesn't get Hebon-shiki.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrong revision there, my friend: the original states "If no other accepted transliteration method exists, the Japanese transliteration as described here should be used." There is certainly no consensus in your favor: the only person who has agreed with you in this discussion is Megata Sanshiro, and they have yet to explain why they would favor modified over revised Hepburn. Jpatokal (talk) 00:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

My revision (June 2008) comes before yours (May 2009). Also, I believe you are reading that tacked on sentence entirely wrong. Because both feature the sentence "If no accepted standard transliteration for that language, and the word is generally written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration — without macrons — should be used (e.g. ドウモイ becomes "doumoi" rather than "dōmoi")." So frankly you're still wrong. It's "Doumoi", "Saataa andaagii", "Uchinaa", etc., and not "Dōmoi", "Sātā andāgī", "Uchinā", etc.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:40, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I would like to stress this issue again, since consensus wasn't reached and Jpatokal still plunged forward to change the guidelines. Maybe we could get a proper and concise statement why it should be changed from Jpatokal and then reach a consensus without editing going on behind each others' backs this time? --Tauwasser (talk) 17:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've apparently mixed up the diffs before, but that sentence in Jpatokal's diff completely conflicts with the rest of the section, which is why it was removed in the first place (by the original editor who put it there). It should be blatantly clear that Hepburn romanization should not be used on languages spoken in the Japanese archipelago that are not nihongo Japanese, because Hepburn is only for Japanese. Not Ainu or Ryukyuan or Nivkh or any of the others if they even exist.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

So are you now saying that we shouldn't be using modified Hepburn either? <boggle> Even though you're the one who put it there? Jpatokal (talk) 21:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

No. I am not saying that (it was easier to refer to revised Hepburn as merely "Hepburn"). What I was saying is that I have realized that the original wording of the guideline from November 2006 conflicted itself, and that was eventually corrected in July 2008. I have said nothing along the lines of "we should not use modified Hepburn for Ryukyuan". My argument all along is that modified Hepburn is the closest named romanization system that was described in the original wording of the section of the guideline as follows:

If there is no accepted standard transliteration for that language, and the word is generally written in katakana in Japanese, a direct katakana to rōmaji transliteration—without macrons—should be used...

Am I being clear?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:13, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for change

My "proper and concise" statement: revised Hepburn romanization is the global (and Misplaced Pages) de facto standard for romanizing the Japanese script, which is also typically used for writing Okinawan. Unlike Ainu, Okinawan does not have a standardized alternative. Ryulong's concerns of confusion over people mistaking Okinawan for Japanese can and should be trivially addressed by adopting the {{lang-ryu}} template, which prepends "Okinawan:" to the script and its romanization. (I have, experimentally, already modified it to behave like nihongo for parameters etc otherwise.) Jpatokal (talk) 21:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Except {{lang-ryu}} should not be used as {{nihongo}}; they're completely different language templates. —Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

{{lang-ryu}} is effectively unused (it's transcluded from one article), so it's up to us what to do with it. Lang-X templates only take one argument, so we can simply extend it to support the other arguments given to nihongo without breaking compatibility. But if the consensus is that this is still too confusing, then I'd be perfectly happy with a {{okinawan}} or even {

And Okinawan is still a unique language that should not be romanized in the same method as other languages. It still stands that the Ryukyuan languages are not Japanese and should not be romanized as if they were Japanese. The original wording of this guideline (minus the contradictory sentence) clearly states that not using the revised Hepburn notation (macrons for long vowels) is how the Ryukyuan languages should be treated. And that is how they are treated for the most part online if they bother doing notation of long vowels at all. So it is better to use the modified notation (double vowels and ou over ō) rather than the revised notation (always āīūēō).—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how you fail to see the sheer illogicality of your argument. Okinawan is written with the Japanese script, both modified and revised Hepburn are methods of romanizing Japanese script, and the ambiguity of the original wording (what on earth is a "direct kana to romaji transcription"?) is what led to this silly debate in the first place. Jpatokal (talk) 22:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't understand "direct kana to romaji transcription"? Perhaps "direct kana to romaji transliteration" would be better? In this instance, the meaning is exactly the same. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 22:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The only issue you (Jpatokal) have with this aspect of the template was when I decided to simplify "direct kana to romaji trans(crip/litera)tion" into "modified Hepburn", which is a direct kana to romaji trans(crip/litera)tion system. Okinawan, Yonaguni, etc. are not Japanese, so we shouldn't use the same system as we do on Misplaced Pages to trans-whatever Japanese into the English alphabet, particularly when that system is never used for the language in the first place.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

No, you cannot transcribe or transliterate something "directly". Any conversion from one script to another has to follow a set of rules for performing the conversions, which is why we have various ways of doing it: Hepburn, Kunrei, Nihonshiki, JSL, wapuro, etc. If "directly" was trying to say that faithfulness to the original script is preferred over faithfulness to the original sounds, ie. a transliteration instead of a transcription, then wapuro or Nihonshiki would be the closest match, not Hepburn. Jpatokal (talk) 02:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Im sorry if that's not clear enough for you. At the top of MOS-JA, it very clearly states we use revised Hepburn, so it follows that any transliteration mentioned below that point uses the same unless an exception is noted (which is also the case here). "Directly" means "one-for-one" (using "Toukyou" instead of "Tōkyō" as the kana would be とうきょう). MOS-JA was written assuming that every last jot and tittle wouldn't have to be repeated over and over throughout the entire page. There's no reason to keep repeating things just because some people are focusing on one tiny area rather than taking the whole MOS-JA as one thing. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Your suggestion of "Toukyou" is wapuro style, but the modified Hepburn for とうきょう is "Tookyoo". Which one of these was "clearly" meant? Jpatokal (talk) 09:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Now you're just being difficult. It was used as an example. We use Revised Hepburn (not modified) as described on the MOS-JA page, and it's very clearly described there, too. If your only purpose here is to throw logs in front of people trying to actually do something useful, then you're not welcome to participate. We're trying to clear the log jam here, not make it worse. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 17:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, my friend, I have made an extremely simple proposal to "clear the logjam": bring romanization of Okinawan in line with the rest of the MOS by using the same revised Hepburn that we use for all other Japanese script. It is quite obvious that the current description is not clear at all, since neither you nor Ryulong appear to have understood what "modified Hepburn" actually means. And this confusion has been going on a long time, viz. the previous is-too-is-nots over whether ドウモイ is supposed to be "doumoi" or "dōmoi". Jpatokal (talk) 21:38, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

So... it looks like "direct kana to Romaji transcription" got replaced with "modified Hepburn". Nihonjoe seems to think that "direct kana to Romaji transcription" means revised Hepburn, whereas Ryulong thinks it means modified, hence the apparent miscommunication above (my guess anyway). Jpatokal, I think everyone knows what modified and revised is, but the confusion seems to be which one is more suited to a "direct" transcription and which one isn't. At least, that's as far as I can follow the conversation. I do hope the logjam gets sorted soon...

-- Joren (talk) 22:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I hope your summary is correct, since that would imply that Nihonjoe actually agrees with me and that revised Hepburn is the way to go ;) Jpatokal (talk) 00:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused as to what the argument has boiled down to lately, so I've decided to cut out the offending "confusing" statement.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Modified Hepburn and wapuro are not the same thing. When did you achieve consensus for this change, and which of the near-infinite varieties of wapuro did you have in mind? Jpatokal (talk) 21:38, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I have restored what is closest to the original wording of the guideline (without the contradictory sentence that was removed two years ago). Can we move on and stop obsessing over this, Jpatokal?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect, "using doubled vowels and ou ... for long vowels" is the most confusing attempt at a definition yet. Try romanizing this list to find out why: おう, おお, 大きい, 王, 追う. Jpatokal (talk) 00:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Ou, Oo, Ookii, Ou, and Ou. Working on a better explanation.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

(undent) So, instead of merrily WP:OR-ing our way into completely homebrewed methods of random romanization (while simultaneously proclaiming that they're the Google-certified standard, of course), we could use a real romanization for Okinawan, namely that proposed in 内間直仁-sensei's 「琉球方言文法の研究」. Regrettably the tome is not online and it costs a cool 2 man to buy from Amazon, but fortunately the Japanese wikipedia provides a handy romanization table, and in a real 灯台下暗し moment there's even an Okinawan writing system right here on en-wiki explaining how it use it (in several variants) for transcription. At least in scholarly circles this seems to be as close to a standard as it gets, given that the 1963 沖縄語辞典 apparently uses the same or at least a very similar style (cf. ). A few samples: ウチナーグチ is "ʔucinaaguci", ドウモイ is -- presumably -- "doːmoi". Jpatokal (talk) 09:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That system at Unilang won't work here because it's inserting IPA symbols (the glottal stop, mostly) into their romanization, and they've changed all "ch" (tʃ) sounds into "c" for reasons that I can't really fathom, as well as changing the English letters for other consonants that would normally be digraphs (ja, ji, ju, je, jo are za, zi, zu, ze, zo; shi and she are si and se; etc.). Using a modified version of the revised Hepburn system has worked fine for Misplaced Pages (and plenty of other organizations and people when they want to romanize Okinawan and the other Ryukyuan languages). Doubling the vowels rather than using macrons, and leaving the ou, oo, and uu digraphs as they are works perfectly fine.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"Won't work"? The only IPA symbol used by 沖縄語辞典 is the glottal stop mark, and there's an alternate 'spelling' at Okinawan writing system that uses the plain old apostrophe instead and Hepburn-style ch, y as well. (The c, j etc are the universal representations of the sounds in question in linguistics, it's in fact Hepburn that's out of line by adopting (English-style) ch, y etc instead.) You're also ignoring the real benefit of using a romanization actually designed for Okinawan; it accurately represents distinctions that get lost with Hepburn, such as the difference between ʔu ('u) and u. "the Ryukyuan languages are not Japanese and should not be romanized as if they were Japanese", no?

Also, I love the way you're using the description "modified version of revised Hepburn" to describe your own invention, which is manifestly neither revised Hepburn nor modified Hepburn ;) Jpatokal (talk) 21:19, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's the Hepburn system without macrons. Why do you keep belittling me for suggesting we use that format which is used for the most part throughout the internet when it comes to the Ryukyuan languages (and a good portion of Japanese as well)? Using the revised Hepburn system is fine for anything other than long vowels when it comes to the Ryukyuan languages, and I have stated that over and over and over but you keep throwing it out because "it's not a real system" or "stop making things up". People use it. Just because it isn't written in stone like the Hepburn styles does not make it any less valid a method for romanicizing Japanese.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

"Hepburn without macrons" is modified Hepburn. "Revised Hepburn, except with doubled letters for long vowels, unless the kana are おう, in which case you should use ou" is your invention. Jpatokal (talk) 10:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't have made it up if people use it all the time. Parts of the discussion below concerning the short ou sound should be proof enough that people use "ou" over "ō" outside of Misplaced Pages. And you can't be serious that you expect to romanize "ドウモイ" as "doomoi".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Straw poll

Please sign below. To keep this section clean, no commentary here please -- do so above instead.

In my opinion, Okinawan written in Japanese script(s) should be romanized with...

Revised Hepburn

All long vowels marked with macrons: Uchināguchi, sātā-andāgī, dōmoi, Tōkyō

1. Jpatokal (talk) 21:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Modified Hepburn

All long vowels doubled: Uchinaaguchi, saataa-andaagii, doomoi, Tookyoo

• 76.66.203.138 (talk) 13:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC) — it prevents confusion with the macronfilled version used on Misplaced Pages for nihongo, and prevents confusion from wapuro which is used all over the internet, except Misplaced Pages, for nihongo.

  Comment I think SAMPA and IPA should accompany Ryukyutian romaji and kana (and respell also) 76.66.203.138 (talk) 14:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Wapuro

As entered into a Japanese IME: Utinaaguti, saataa-andaagii, doumoi, Toukyou

Discussion

God damn it Jpatokal, just drop it. "Uchinaaguchi" and "Doumoi" should be used. And the name of Tokyo would not be something that would come up in discussions of Ryukyuan subjects, so I don't know why you're bothering with that (or why you have "Uchinaaguti").—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well spotted! Fixed to Utinaaguti, which is how Japanese people would enter it wapuro-style in most IMEs, although I have a sneaky suspicion that this isn't what you had in mind? Jpatokal (talk) 00:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I dunno. My computer's IME can identify "chi" and "tsu". The only times that those are parsed as "ti" or "tu" would be Kunrei.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I originally had a poll in mind as well, however, WP:POLL clearly states this shan't be used for these kind of problems. Having said that, here's my POV:

In my opinion the most confusion occurred above when mixing the romanization subject with the usage of a language template for Ryukyuan. My personal views are as follows:

• I am a big fan of using revised Hepburn, always have been.
• I think the language templates are a whole other issues, and we should not recommend to use nihongo for both, simply because of language tagging and confusion.
• As for the romanization, I'd mostly go with what the table in Okinawan_language#Syllabary says, mostly because it seems appropriate (in the sense that it can represent the sounds, so a roundtrip conversion would be possible, i.e. from Japanese script to romanization and back without loss) and as Jpatokal said, is widely used in Japanese research works.

I would also like to take Jpatokal up on the offer to put IPA on Okinawan words (and I'd be happy to edit the language template in case this happens to be a problem to include and keep compatibility with {{nihongo}}). --Tauwasser (talk) 18:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The content at Okinawan language#Syllabary is what we have been using. However, Jpatokal's issue is when it comes to long vowels in Okinawan. All of our articles that feature the language currently use the wide spread method of doubling vowels extended by ー and turning オウ into ou rather than using āīūēō for all of those.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:43, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Okinawan language#Syllabary says that long vowels should be represented with... drums, please... macrons. Jpatokal (talk) 10:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

It also says "Some authors may choose to double the vowel" and that's only when using Hepburn, which is not the system in the Okinawa jiten.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 18:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The reasoning that Okinawan words are often written in Japanese katakana and thus should be transliterated as Japanese is wild! The orthography may sometimes be Japanese, but the source language is not, and when recorded in an encyclopedic environment should be treated as separate. Treating the Japanese and Okinawan languages as separate is a good idea, since it would be misleading/seemingly imperialistic to treat Okinawan languages as if they are Japanese...it sounds like that, in the absence of an "official" (approved by a government body? approved by ten linguists? one hundred? one billion?) Okinawan-language transliteration system, some people think Okinawan language should "default" to a Japanese transliteration system. This "default" is false. Further, reduplicated vowels are more helpful than macrons when doing a full-text search of transliterated material. They are also (imho) less annoying to type. DaAnHo (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk pages by size

Please see the new page Misplaced Pages:Database reports/Talk pages by size (to be updated weekly).

• Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style ranks 10th, with 17753 kilobytes.
• Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) ranks 11th, with 16097 kilobytes.
• Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) ranks 269th, with 2609 kilobytes.
• Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) ranks 285th, with 2498 kilobytes.

Perhaps this will be a motivation for greater efficiency in the use of kilobytes.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:11, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if this comment is meant as a slam or not. If so, please don't make comments like this in the future. If not, I apologize for reading it that way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 02:10, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

If you mean "an insult", then it most certainly was never meant in that way, and I apologize for any such impression. I meant my message as a friendly encouragement, in the interest of Misplaced Pages's resources, but apparently I used faulty judgement in how I presented my idea.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:42, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

romanization style and conforming with policy

This was brought up earlier in another discussion, but the current format for having article titles with macrons, such as "ō", is uncommon. This is the case even among schollarly sources, both offline and online, where such marks are used inconistantly at best, such as with daimyo. This has the case historically as well.

Right now the guideline is in violation of WP:COMMONNAME as it requires revised Hephbrum for all article titles unless an official title or a more common one is shown. Even if the minority is that the non-macron title is widely used, but used in different spellings, the guideline does not allow for either one because "no common name can be shown" according to this. This was the case with Bishojo game where I could show that that the macron spelling was clearly the minority and yet because there was fairly even division between bishojo game and bishoujo game the effect was to say I've not shown a common name and thus citing this guideline it should remain as such. However, bishōjo game is still not the most commonly used term.

I therefore think the guideline needs to be updated to better conform with policy by allowing flexibility in the type of Hepburn, whether revised, wapuro, modified or another. We can still say not to use specific types at the same time. The problem is the status quo contradicts policy.陣内_Jinnai 01:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME requires reliable third party sources. Not "common usage in a fan community".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 02:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

How nice that you did not note that all the sources in the one I showed were all reliable. It also does not address the problem the guideline conflicts with policy.陣内_Jinnai 02:09, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The policy is straightforward and consistent. Words that have entered the English languages and thus have English common names are rendered without macrons; words that are not English and do not have common English names are rendered with Hepburn, which means macrons. Bishojo falls squarely in the latter category. Jpatokal (talk) 03:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

But WP:COMMONNAME only requires that the terms are used in English-language reliable sources, not common usage in English-speaking countries as Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles)#Article_names states. They don't need to enter into the English language.

WP:COMMONNAME also allows to use search engine tests to help determine the most commonly used form in English sources. Using Jinnai's example shows:

• "Bishōjo game" 5,030 results
• "Bishojo game" 10,400 results
• "Bishoujo game" 141,000 results

I think there is a significant difference to consider that "Bishoujo game" is the most commonly used term, particularly because "Bishōjo game" is used in sources that recycle the text from Misplaced Pages.

This example is not unique. Several concepts, places and people from Japan have a more commonly used form without macrons in reliable English sources than the one with macrons used by Misplaced Pages. I agree with Jinnai, the current guideline is in conflict with WP:COMMONNAME, which is one of the major content policies. I believe that the current guideline must be updated to avoid this. Jfgslo (talk) 03:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Google results do not beget a "common name". The majority of the non-Japanese speaking Internet communities who focus on these subjects do not use the standard romanization scheme that is used in scholarly resources. "Bishoujo" has not entered the English vernacular in any particular spelling, so the default is to the Hepburn romanization. Just because the Internet has decided to go with a modification of the Kunrei-shiki romanization system does not mean Misplaced Pages should.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:35, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it has. If it hasn't then mainstream sources like Wired (magazine) would not be using the term to describe such games. Nor does COMMONNAME required to have " entered the English vernacular". If it were, a lot of article titles would be different. Wapuro is clearly used in many types of reliable sources, including academic and scholarly level ones. Also, even ignoring that, there is more than one type of Hepburn. The guideline does not allow for flexibility as it should to conform with policy.陣内_Jinnai 04:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Kunrei-shiki is not the romanization scheme used on Misplaced Pages. Besides, the sources you pointed out at Talk:Bishōjo game contradict each other (the same source uses "Bishojo" and "Bishoujo" in two different articles). To avoid this, we use the revised Hepburn romanization which has no ambiguity. The only problem that apparently arises is when there is a question over whether or not the ou is a long o or a short o followed by a short u. And there is no contradiction with this guideline and WP:COMMONNAME. As I have said in the past, the only guideline that contradicts this one is WP:VG/GL.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:05, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

But if we stop using macrons, how the readers who do not know ja well could tell the difference among shōjo/少女, shōjō/猩々, shojō/書状 and shojo/処女? These four are different and not a homonym in ja. I think we should avoid ambiguity and use macrons. A similar kind of discussion is going on here. Post your comment, if you are interested. Oda Mari (talk) 06:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The point is not to stop using macrons in the text, but to use the most commonly used form in English sources for article titles per WP:COMMONNAME. The content of the article may use a different form, as exemplified in Hirohito. And I disagree. This guideline goes against WP:COMMONNAME because that policy specifically addresses "common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms" which is not the case in this guideline where the technically correct form is emphasized over the commonly used one. Also, this guideline emphasizes common usage in English-speaking countries in the sense of words that have entered the English languages, which is not what WP:COMMONNAME emphasizes. And reliable sources are not exclusively scholarly sources. Even scholarly sources don't always use macrons. Jfgslo (talk) 07:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

What about the other article using "shōjo" like shōjo, shōjo manga, Shōjo Comic, etc.? What about shōnen related articles? How about wikt:shōjo? How about other articles with "shō" like Shōsōin ? Move them all? As for Hirohito, it's not a different form, but different names used in the article body. And the "Showa" spelling is officially used by the Imperial Household Agency. Daimyo is a word you can find in reliable English dictionaries, but shojo and bishojo are not. The google search results cannot be the standard of the common name. If Google searched, all article titles with macrons would be the minority like bishōjo game. WP is an encyclopedia and we have our own MoS. See the footnote of article shōjo. It says "Because of the difficulty of inputting macrons on many computers, "shôjo" and "shöjo" are also common and acceptable renderings, although "shōjo" is preferred". That is the reason words with macron hit the minority. I endorse Ryulong and Jpatokal. Oda Mari (talk) 08:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. "Shojo" and "Bishojo" (or "shoujo" and "bishoujo") have not entered common usage in the English language, no matter how many esoteric video game media outlets use them.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:20, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

If all those words are referred by reliable sources in English without the macrons, that is the form that should be used. If "Shōnen" is referred without the macron in reliable sources in English that's the form that should be used and if "Shōsōin" is referred with macrons then the article title should use macrons. That is how an article title is determined, by how reliable sources in English refer to a topic more commonly, not if a word has entered into common usage in the English language. That is not what's stated in WP:COMMONNAME. In fact, it clearly says "Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article", not "entered into common usage in the English language", and also "Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name." So, if the "Shōnen" article cited reliable sources in English that do not use the macron for the term, the article title also should not have the macron and the same would apply if the form with a macron was used in sources in English.

And yes, the appropriate way would be to move them all according to the usage in reliable English sources. And a manual of style is not above a content policy, particularly if the MoS conflicts with the policy and other guidelines. This is not the only language-related MoS, but this is one that goes against a content policy, which is the point that Jinnai made and I agree with him. This guideline is in conflict with WP:AT because it ignores altogether the common usage in reliable English sources, emphazising technically correct but rarer forms even if they are not supported by sources in English and putting the interest of specialists above those of a general audience.

The point with the Hirohito example is that the form used in the title may or may not be different to the one used in the text, not the macron. And it wouldn't matter if "Showa" was not officially endorsed if that's how it's used in reliable English sources. Jfgslo (talk) 15:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages uses a different romanization schema than all of those reliable sources you are going on about. They use a modification of Kunrei-shiki that allows use of "shi", "chi", "tsu", and "fu", while we here at Misplaced Pages use revised Hepburn. There is no reason to believe that "shojo", "shonen", etc. are written that way for any reason other than a stylistic one. There is no conflict with the WP:COMMONNAME policy, other than the one you want to create so the articles can be at your preferred titles rather than the titles dictated by the way the Japanese language is treated in an academic setting.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:29, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, I remind you that the point of WP:COMMONNAME is common usage in reliable sources in English even if it is not technically correct. Misplaced Pages only follows the sources, it does not favor any particular stylization even if it's used in academic circles. For this I point you to WP:DIACRITICS for specifics about that "The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged; when deciding between versions of a name which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in English reliable sources." In other words, the usage in English reliable sources is what determines an article title, not a formal romanization style as this guideline states. Jfgslo (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DIACRITICS does not really help when the subject comes from an East Asian language. What Misplaced Pages uses are the approximations of the pronunciations of these other languages, which as the style guide currently recommends, should use the revised Hepburn method which uses ō and ū in place of long o and long u sounds. What you are saying is that this standard method should be thrown out because English language reliable sources can't be bothered to use the most common method in academia of romanizing the Japanese language. This doesn't particularly help anyone, because for the most part, the only people who have any sort of major issue with this guideline are the video game article editors who find the Hepburn system superfluous to the content of their articles. In fact, I find it incredibly wrong that the people who normally discuss the article name policy have not been notified of this discussion until earlier this evening.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

No, what I'm saying is that this guideline, as every other guideline, should use what the reliable sources in English say, not use a different standard for Japanese-related article titles exclusively. If a majority of reliable sources in English sources use a macron-less form, even if it's technically incorrect, that is the one that belongs in the article title. The content itself may correct the form emphasizing the technically correct one, but the article title should use the common one as any other non-Japanese-related Misplaced Pages article. And non-Latin transliterations are covered in WP:EN: "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. Established systematic transliterations (e.g. Hanyu Pinyin and IAST) are preferred. Nonetheless, do not substitute a systematically transliterated name for the common English form of the name, if there is one; thus, use Tchaikovsky or Chiang Kai-shek even though those are unsystematic". Even if an article title contravenes a transliteration system, it should always use the commonly used form as found in reliable English sources, particularly when those sources are used as citations within an article.

I'm under the impression that very few people ever bother to read the guidelines and that is the reason why editors don't complain with them until they enter in conflict with one, as I assume happened with video game article editors. Even here, only five editors have participated in this discussion. But even if few people are concerned with this possible issue doesn't mean it's not an important one. I particularly believe it is important to sort this out because, when in conflict, a policy takes precedence over a guideline and therefore WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence over this Manual of Style. Jfgslo (talk) 00:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It still stands that there is no common English form for "shōnen", "shōjo", and their derived terms. Just because a bunch of google results and a bunch of websites commonly accepted as "reliable sources" use other forms, does not mean Misplaced Pages should. There is no established preference for either spelling, which means the Hepburn version is best for Misplaced Pages. A macron over an o does not make it confusing.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

If said websites are considered reliable by Misplaced Pages consensus and a majority of them use those terms without macrons, then yes, that is common usage even if they are a bunch of websites commonly accepted as "reliable sources." And a common form in English can easily be determined by checking these reliable sources. For example, a major English-language media outlet like The New York Times. That is the whole point of using reliable sources in English for determining article titles. A macron is confusing if the majority of reliable sources use names without macrons and for people who don't know about the Japanese language at all, particularly because article titles are not focused on the specialists that know these topics but on the general audience. And these anime/manga/video game related terms aren't the only problem. Take, for example, Tōru Takemitsu which has been shown to use the macron-less spelling in reliable English sources like Britannica and per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DIACRITICS it should use that form. Also places like Hokkaidō which are by far more commonly known in English sources without macrons. Jfgslo (talk) 02:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Things should be taken on a case by case basis. Not by having a blanket policy thrown at them. And for the umpteenth time, there is no standard spelling for any of these items. "Shoujo" and "Shojo" are used equally, so "Shōjo" is the only sensible option. Likewise, Mr. Takemitsu has released an album with the ō in his name. And I don't know why that island is located at "Hokkaidō" rather than "Hokkaido". Again, case by case basis. Not "this guideline is wrong and it should be changed everywhere it is used". And also again, other websites and publishers have different style guidelines when it comes to dealing with the Japanese language than the English Misplaced Pages does. Style choices of other entities should not affect our guidelines and policies. And now neither of us are bringing anything new to the table, so I am just going to ignore your next comment until someone new shows up.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Sensible according to whom? That is not a criteria for deciding an article title. It is not about a standard spelling but about the most commonly used in English sources. You said it yourself, case by case. Reliable sources in English that talk about a topic will tell us what is the common name for that topic, which is not stated in any part of this guideline. On the contrary, it favors macrons in article titles ignoring the policy in WP:AT of common English names as used in reliable sources on the subject. If there are no reliable sources in English about a subject, then the macroned form should be used. But if the subject is covered in reliable English sources, then the form most commonly used in said sources is the one that should be used over the technically correct one per WP:COMMONNAME. Jfgslo (talk) 03:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

But there is no common name. The reliable sources you keep touting are not consistent in their usage of the terms. That is why the Hepburn romanization should be used and that is why there is absolutely nothing wrong with this guideline.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 04:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The common name is simply the term more frequently used in reliable sources even if it's not used consistently by some of them. A majority of the sources uses a particular form more often than another, particularly the more reliable sources are. That is the common name. And that is also more consistent for an article title than a technically correct Hepburn romanization that is rarely used in English sources and that is almost alien to the non-knowledgeable readers. Jfgslo (talk) 05:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The fact that there is ambiguity between titles, even if one is used slightly more frequently than the other, means that the neutral Hepburn title should be used instead.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

If a name is used more frequently in sources and the point in article titles is to follow what the sources most commonly use, how is it more logic to use a rarely used romanization, even if it's the correct one? How is it ambiguous to use the term more frequently used even if some sources do not use it always in the same way? Using Hepburn for a title without it being backed up as commonly used in reliable sources is not using a common name and it's going directly against the policy. A case could be made for some of those words, but that still doesn't resolve the problem that this guideline completely ignores the common usage in reliable sources in English to determine an article title. Jfgslo (talk) 15:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

@Ryulong = Actually no. That is not supported and no place in Misplaced Pages policy is anything remotely like that supported. If there are 3 possibilities and 2/3 are about the same and a third is less used, you never use that last one per WP:COMMONNAME. Instead you pick one of the two more common ones. If there is a dispute as to which of those two, then you seek opinions and look at guidelines (if applicable, which currently there are none and why I say this MOS needs to change). Even if the 3rd is more technically correct, it doesn't have any support in TITLE under those circumstances.

That's what needs to change. Not that revised Hepburn is removed from the default one, but that if evidence is shown that revised Hepburn is not the most commonly used, but there is a dispute between which is used that we have some kind of suggestions what to do then that conform with COMMONNAME.陣内_Jinnai 21:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

But it's still incorrect. Why should the entirety of the guideline change because you do not like to use Hepburn in article titles?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether or not its technically correct it doesn't matter. It's quite clear this guideline goes directly against policy. If you think it shouldn't be that way change policy otherwise the guidelines cannot supercede it.

The reason common name exists is to assure the reader they are in the right article and thus the most widely recognized versions of a word should be used, barring a compelling reason, such as it being unclear which it is. In addition to be really technical Japanese, not Hepburn romanization, is the most technically accurate version of a name, but we don't use that.

Inside the article its different; there revised hepburn can still be used.陣内_Jinnai 03:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

It's only suddenly against policy when you want it to be against policy.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

It's actually been at the back of my mind for some time. A year or so, but I just finally decided to voice it.陣内_Jinnai 03:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Clarification

I haven't been following this too closely, but from what I can see, people are completely misinterpreting WP:MOS-JA#Article names. The important part is (and I quote), "Article titles should follow all of the points above, with the following exceptions" (emphasis added). The important point in the "above" is #9 under WP:MOS-JA#Body text: " Japanese terms should be romanized according to most common usage in English, including unconventional romanization of titles and names by licensees (e.g., Devil Hunter Yohko and Tenjho Tenge—see below), and words used frequently in English (such as sumo or judo)" (again, emphasis added). Also note that directly under the section header for WP:MOS-JA#Article names, it refers you to WP:NAME and WP:ENGLISH.

This very clearly shows that COMMONNAME is 100% applicable here, and yet people are ignoring that (or falsely claiming it doesn't agree with it). There is nothing in this MOS which goes against policy unless you are twisting it to say something it doesn't. Special care was taken to make sure of that. Now, the only issue at hand is to come to a consensus on what that COMMONNAME is, and this is the point people seem to have trouble determining. MOS-JA tells you very clearly to use COMMONNAME (as well as the rest of WP:NAME), and anyone who argues otherwise doesn't understand this MOS at all. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 05:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

But the problem lies in the wording of this guideline. Specifically, this guideline doesn't say something like "to determine article titles follow Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions and Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English)." Instead, it only says "Article titles should follow all of the points above" and it doesn't seem to me that new editors read Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions and Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English). Instead they seem to believe that the points above refer exclusively to the text that's above the section "Article names" in this guideline. That is, the policy and the use English guideline appear above, but the basic premise, commonly used form in reliable sources in English for article titles, is not referred as part of this manual of style and it's pretty much ignored when determining article titles in favor of what some part of this guideline say. So, if editors do not know WP:AT and WP:EN, they follow what says here and it causes the usage of rarely used names in article titles when an English alternative is used by reliable English sources. For example, check the discussion of Tōru Takemitsu.

The other point is that WP:COMMONNAME says "articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources", a point also established in WP:EN where it says "the title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources." It is the usage in reliable sources that I feel it's ignored because it is not emphasized in the text and instead editors only follow "Article titles should use macrons as specified for body text except in cases where the macronless spelling is in common usage in English-speaking countries". And I also think that part of the problem lies in the interpretation of the text in this guideline that says "common usage in English-speaking countries", which appears to be interpreted as "words that have entered the English language" instead of "common usage in reliable sources from the English-speaking world." For example, linked with the first problem, editors appear to assume that all location names should use macrons in article titles because the section "Body text", one of the mentioned "points above" in "Article names", says "Location names (municipalities, prefectures, islands, etc.) should include macrons in all cases with the following exceptions" and so Hokkaidō uses the macron in the article title because it isn't "a word that has entered the English language", despite the fact that it is commonly known without the macron, even in other encyclopedias. Several other locations also have this problem.

Another problem are words that are commonly used by mainstream media but not by scholarly sources, like "shōjo", anything related to anime/manga/videogames and some similar terms that are more commonly known by their bastardized forms instead of their technically correct forms. Mainstream media and non scholarly sources that are considered reliable by WikiProjects, are not considered by some as a determining factor to establish common names for article titles, because this guideline doesn't say that at all. I believe that this also happens with names of people related to those environments.

So I think this guideline should address those points with more emphasis because, otherwise, it causes confusion for editors who only follow this guideline without reading WP:AT and WP:EN. Jfgslo (talk) 07:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

So, your point again Jfgslo, is that "shoujo" (or is it "shojo"?), "Hokkaido", and "Toru Takemitsu" are more common in English and therefore the articles should not be at bishōjo game, Hokkaidō, and Tōru Takemitsu, despite the fact that usage of the terms is varied with other spellings when reliable sources' own style guidelines do not proscribe the use of the ō or the ū.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Every last jot and tittle don't need to be spelled out in every MOS. If another MOS or another policy or guideline is incorporated by reference, then—unless something is specifically excepted from following them—then they should be followed. However, since some people can't seem to figure things out without being led around by the nose, I've added a clarifying statement near the top of the WP:MOS-JA#Romanization section. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, we can't necessarily give precedence to scholarly reliable sources over mainstream media reliable sources as they are both reliable sources. In cases such as that, where one can't be seen as being any more common than the other, the MOS clearly states it should revert to the macronned form and have redirects created for all other forms. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

With the changes you made, I think that should clarify it for editors. I think this addresses the concerns I had at least. Jfgslo (talk) 15:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

That is one of the problem I have. If there is clearly evidenced that the macron usage is in the minority, but its unclear what non-macronned use is the most common, it should not revert to the macron. That is not what WP:COMMONNAME says. Instead one of those two should be used. You don't choose the minority one because there is disagreement on the majority ones.陣内_Jinnai 16:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you can't figure out which is most common, then it needs to revert to something. Otherwise it will simply be argued about forever, causing edit wars and other things we have seen already from some of the participants here. COMMONNAME only applies if there really is a COMMONNAME. If one can't be determined, then MOS-JA indicates how it should be done until that COMMONNAME can be determined. How, exactly, is that a bad thing? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 17:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that perhaps the problem that Jinnai has is when two of these forms that don't use macrons are both commonly used and there is not a clear difference in usage between themselves, but, individually, each of these macronless forms is overwhelmingly more commonly used than the technically correct form with macrons. For example (and I don't claim that the following statements are true, this is just an example), Shōnen gives 89,900 results, while Shonen gives 2,430,000 results and Shounen gives 2,130,000 results. In this example, both "Shonen" and "Shounen" are much more commonly used than "Shōnen". Yet, since the difference between them is not decisive, in this guideline the macroned form may be given preference in the article title despite that it is even less used than the difference between the other two. Is this something similar to what you are referring Jinnai? If this is the case, the problem lies mainly in how editors determine common usage between two or more commonly used form more than with this guideline, in my opinion. Jfgslo (talk) 19:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that the MOS-JP adopts archaic and minor Hepburn romanization. For example, "Hokkaidō" is spelled "Hokkaido" by Hokkaigo government and "Tōru Takemitsu" is spelled "Toru Takemitsu" in external links of the article.

Both the style without distinction of short vowel and long vowel and the wapuro style are common now. The former is adopts on English newspapers, Japanese passport standard, Japanese road sign standard and so on. And Hepburn romanization article explains "Tokyo – not indicated at all. This is common for Japanese words that have been adopted into English. This is also the convention used in the de facto Hepburn used in signs and other English-language information around Japan, mentioned in the paragraph on legal status." Many Japanese get used warpuro style (kana spelling) because Japanese word (kana and kanji) is usually typed in wapuro style and "ou" is permited in Japanese passport standard now.

The micron often is served as a circumflex such as Kunrei-siki manner because the circumflex is used in French etc, and the micron is not on the keyboards. In fact, the circumflex style is a little commoner than the micron style ("bishōjo" 37,600 results, "bishôjo" 53,400 results). By the way, the genuine Kunrei-siki manner (ISO 3602, Japanese Standard and so on) is not so common (bisyôjo 5 results).

Ref: 1. Hokkaido Official Website, 2. 通用ヘボン式の概観(2009-05-25 版), 3. ローマ字の長音のつづり方, 4. パスポートセンター ヘボン式ローマ字表:神奈川県, 5. 案内標識のローマ字(ヘボン式)の綴り方, 6. ローマ字のつづり方 --Mujaki (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

That's basically what I mean and it has been used as an argument when I have shown reliable sources not favoring macron usage and favoring non-machron usage, but not a particular style. However, while those have a clear majority even by themselves (let alone together), it was argued that since I couldn't show one clear usage that used the majority per WP:MOS-JA, that the macron use, which was clearly in the minority, should be used even though it violates WP:COMMONNAME. This has happened on multiple occasions so its not just 1 isolated incident.陣内_Jinnai 21:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

This is really an issue of "What exaxtly is the common name?" in this case, and with no clear answer, Misplaced Pages has defaulted to the uncommon but more accurate romanization of the name. Things like this should be taken on a case by case basis, rather than saying "This entire guideline violates ".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Un-deprecation of other punctuation marks demarcating aspects of titles of media

The last discussion got archived because someone thought that the page was getting too long.

Basically, I believe that we should end the practice of removing tildes, hyphens, wave dashes, etc., from article titles, as the English-language media does not have any preference as to how to format these items, and as all reliable sources (which are of course Japanese in nature), retain these items.

Why shouldn't we, as an encyclopedia, retain these punctuation marks as well? It is not a trademark quirk. It is not necessarily a relict of Japanese printing. It is a method of marking a different aspect of the song's title, and really gets in the way if there is a song which has both a tilde and a set of parentheses in the title.

This practice is particularly obtrusive when the title of the original subjectis already parsed in grammatically correct English. It does not make sense to have to change the title to eliminate these punctuation marks and have to explain the original "stylization" of the title in the lede when we could just use the title as it appears in all reliable sources anyway.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the entirety of Titles of books and other media needs an overhaul. If something is written as "B-E-S-T" or "B·E·S·T" and it is read as "Bee E Ess Tee", why should we remove the hyphens or middle dots?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I'm neutral on this aspect. I would suggest an RfC on it because from what I remember of the discussion there was some serious concerns.陣内_Jinnai 16:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

One of the main concerns was that the practice simply isn't English, but then again the subjects being discussed and in most cases the reliable sources being used for these articles aren't English anyway. My examples for the shortcomings of this aspect of the style guide is WBX (W-Boiled Extreme), which in all reliable sources is called "W-B-X ～W-Boiled Extreme～" (except on iTunes where it is "W-B-X ~W-Boiled Extreme~".

By removing this aspect of the style guide, it can make it easier for us to deal with song titles such as "On The Painted Desert - Rampant Colors", "Round ZERO～BLADE BRAVE", or songs like "～それから～".—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

On the English Misplaced Pages, standardized rules are employed for dealing with special characters and capitalization. Manual of Style (trademarks) says "Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words (e.g., ♥ used for "love"). In the article about a trademark, it is acceptable to use decorative characters the first time the trademark appears, but thereafter, an alternative that follows the standard rules of punctuation should be used" and "Using all caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't stand for anything. For instance, use SAT for the (U.S.) standardized test."

Meaning: The stylized form should be included in the article on the subject, but in normal prose text, standard English formatting and capitalization is to be used. Prime Blue (talk) 19:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The ～ is not decorative, though. It is merely the way chosen to represent subtitles or whatever other part of the song such items are relegated to rather than a colon or parentheses or any other puncutation mark, and in several instances parentheses are also used in the title of a song, so simply throwing out the ～ is unhelpful.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess that way you can dismantle pretty much every guideline. Good day. Prime Blue (talk) 19:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

PB, the point about them not being decorative is valid; it is a legitimate form of punctuation. That said, I do understand the problems this would create. Better would be to bring this up at WP:MOS as WP:PUNCT is the appropriate place for this and it is silent on this issue.陣内_Jinnai 21:29, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

But it's still an issue on this particular manual of style.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:36, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Names of modern figures

User:Pmanderson modified the MOS to state that the "trade name" of modern Japanese individuals should not be the first name when choosing an article title (and also this bit). I reverted him and then he just struck out that part, because of the discussion I started at WT:Article titles#Titles of biographies (and some other pages) where the subject's personal preference as to how their name should be written is disregarded by WP:AT.

I have now modified the manual of style so it does not refer to the "trade name" but rather the subject's spelling of the name in the Latin alphabet for their personal or professional use. Even though some other forms of the names may appear in English media. This only would really affect entertainers, because the fan media will have given them various other versions of their name, which have become common, even though it has been later identified that they personally and professionally parse their name differently.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I have commented on this at some length at WT:AT. Asian names have nothing to do with it; within English, we use Cat Stevens, not Steven Georgiou nor Yusuf Islam, although the last is certainly the name on his website. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That is not a good enough comparison. The Japanese language is a special case. That's why we have a whole separate manual of style for it. These people do not have names that are commonly written in English. So we should use the name they use for themselves in English over any other name that may be out there for them in English, because in some cases there is some disparity between common usage in what are English language reliable sources and the primary sources in Japanese.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The properties of the Japanese language are the proper concern of the Japanese Misplaced Pages; this page describes how things are done in English; including how it describes people rarely mentioned in English Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

And this page describes what to do with people from Japan. What is the problem with having special rules for a completely different language?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

PMAnderson's reasoning seems to be airtight here. In general, if reliable secondary English sources like, for example, Time Magazine, the London Times, the NY Times etc. refer to someone in a certain fashion, that's how we should do it too, even if that person refers to himself differently in English. I don't understand the reasoning to follow that person's own spelling of his or her name in English over what reliable English sources are using just because he or she is Japanese. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

B

Is there any consensus for this page?

Does this page have any support other than Ryulong's interminably repeated opinion? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes it most certainly does. And I'm the only one here right now who's a part of the Japanese WikiProject to respond to you. There is absolutely no fucking reason to tag this entire aspect of the manual of style as an essay.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

1. reference here

• Project-Class Japan-related pages
• NA-importance Japan-related pages
• WikiProject Japan articles