Talk:Himeji Castle

information wrong

most of the imformation here is rong...my friend has been to the himeji castle and he has spoken to the people who expertise in it. Though your probably just as right as him but i dont think he would lie about something like this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.80.123 (talk • contribs) 00:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

WPCAS template removed

I have removed the WPCAS template, as it is redirected to WPMILHIST. I presume that it was meant to be devoted to castles, so it should be taken care of by the Fortifications task force. If I am wrong, my apologies. PKKloeppel (talk) 14:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Himeji Castle/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 22:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I will do a full review of this soon. On a surface read, I see that the cultural impact section is mainly bullet points. I would rather this section be made into prose. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 22:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to split the review into sections, not because it's long, but because I'm not sure how my schedule will be the next week or so.

Lead

• "...that is regarded as the finest surviving example of 17th century Japanese castle architecture." This part can be split into its own sentence.
• "In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu awarded the castle to Ikeda Terumasa for his help in the Battle of Sekigahara[2]" looks like a period's missing.
• I removed a couple refs for things that were referenced later on, as it doesn't need to be reffed in the lead. There are others I'm not sure of but I'll let you think them over.
  • Fixed the first two errors you listed. ROG5728 (talk) 04:32, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

History

• I fixed some typos, but no other issues here. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Design

• Two paragraphs in a row start with "The Himeji Castle complex". Perhaps move the east-west note to the start of the 3rd paragraph to mix it up a bit.
  • Fixed. ROG5728 (talk) 05:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
• "The Himeji Castle complex, from east to west, has a length of 950 to 1,600 m (3,117 to 5,249 ft).[4] From north to south, it has a length of 900 to 1,700 m (2,953 to 5,577 ft)." imo the sentences could be combined.
  • Fixed. ROG5728 (talk) 05:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
• If a whole paragraph uses the same ref, it can be limited to a ref at the end of the paragrapg, except for quotes.
  • I prefer to cite the same reference anyway, to make sure someone doesn't mistakenly assume the text is unsourced. This has been an issue at other articles where the source is only cited once in the paragraph. ROG5728 (talk) 05:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
• "1956 to 1964" we can just use an ndash here.
  • Fixed. ROG5728 (talk) 05:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
• "Himeji Castle contains advanced defensive systems from the period." Which period? Advanced for the original period of creation sure, but maybe that's not what you meant.
  • Fixed. ROG5728 (talk) 05:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Cultural impact

• Good, though I'd like to see the film section converted to prose if possible.
  • I converted the Folklore subsection into prose, but at this point the Film section would be too choppy without bullet points. ROG5728 (talk) 05:11, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Misc

• References check out okay, however for book sources, individual page numbers need to be used for each ref. That or, if only a small section of the book is used, those pages are noted. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear}
  • I don't have immediate access to some of the book sources at the moment, but a lack of page numbers should not be an issue per Wikipedia:Good article criteria. ROG5728 (talk) 05:21, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I would prefer that page numbers are added unless you're just using the book as a whole. If the latter, than an overall page count for the book should be in at least. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
      • I've added in the pages of the books themselves. That being said, the two 400 pages one at least do need to be modified to what I said earlier; having the individual page numbers as a source. If you really don't think it's necessary you can ask at WT:GAN, but I'm going to have to hold my ground; I can of course wait until you reacquire the sources, I won't fail it. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 19:54, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
        • I added specific page numbers for the two large book sources. ROG5728 (talk) 20:49, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The review is done; I'll put the article on hold for 5 days and pass it when the issues are fixed. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Everything looks good now, so I'll pass the article as a GA. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Number of workers

The article currently claims that at least 30 million people were involved in the construction. The source is page 23 of this PDF. What it says is

Ikeda Terumasa began to build the castle in its present form in 1601. It took 8 years. We don’t know the exact number of workers, but the standard number of soldiers mobilized for a war was 200 per 10,000 Koku. Counting on this scale, the number of construction workers would reach over 50 million. It can be estimated that there were at least 30 million workers over the years.

I don't know what the population of Japan was at the start of the 17th century, but apparently it was around 35 million in 1870 (File:Population of Japan since 1872.svg). It seems unlikely that the population two and a half centuries earlier would have exceeded this figure so the statement that at least 30,000,000 workers were involved with the construction of Himeji is implausible. While user:109.153.178.71's suggested figure is more reasonable, without a reliable source supporting it I think it's best to leave out the number of workers and just go with man-days. Nev1 (talk) 00:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the (incorrect) estimation on the number of workers. ROG5728 (talk) 03:56, 14 March 2011 (UTC)