Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Japan/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 16:41, 26 March 2007.

Japan[edit]

previous FAC

Self nomination

I believe that the article has improved substantially over the last FAC application to FA standard. All citations requested have been added, even ones that Sandy threw in. The quality of the citations' structure has also been improved so they have a much more common format. Overall structure and content has also been improved. John Smith's 17:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose article cries out for a summary. The history in particular needs to be summarised into a single section. Science and technology is more of Economy than anything else, and the section on education is optional (I suggest you remove it as it does not come under the structure on Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries). Captions could do with better wording. (Shibuya crossing???). Administrative divisions lacks a map (preferably svg). Also avoid using subsections. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little surprised by your comments. First there are not that many sub-sections. The very fact there are such things rather indicates there is nothing wrong with them being used in moderation. Second, many FA pages (even ones recently gaining that status) have sizeable history sections - Germany is a good example in this case. I have dealt with the caption on the Shibuya crossing picture (it is actually called "Shibuya crossing"). FA country pages like Germany also have a section on education. If that didn't block their nomination I don't see why it should here. Oh, and Germany has six sub-sections in the history section, whereas Japan's six are spaced out over the article. I can't understand why there is one set of rules for some nominations and another set for others, even if they're the same type of page. John Smith's 18:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just because I wasn't around to oppose Germany's FAC nom, doesn't invalidate my basis to oppose here. I will bring up that article on FAR in a month's time. I didn't even know it passed FAC. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As a side-note, I have reduced the number of sub-sections to three overall. I think the remaining ones (in the history section) are useful.John Smith's 18:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's useful. The section on history needs to flow as a single compressed unit. As such, it is not a dedicated article on the history of Japan (which would merit subsections), but rather a summary of one, very much like the lead section of the History of Japan. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it's more helpful to make a comment on how to improve its problems instead of immediately opposing. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, FAC does not work that way. If it does not follow the WP:WIAFA criteria anyone can oppose giving constructive reasons. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't a dedicated article on Japanese history, but it is the best place to talk about history in a brief way. Given Japan's very, very long history, I think it does an admirable job in bringing a lot of information together in a very short space. It's easy for countries with short histories, because there is so little to say. With Japan, if the length was the same it would only be able to make the most trivial and pointless entry into what took place. That said I have made three edits to reduce the material, as well as removed the sub-sections. John Smith's 19:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The history can be further summarised by precis writing. Look at the history section of the India article which condensed 6,000 years of a much larger entity into about six/seven paragraphs. Another point is the Image:Asimohonda.jpg which violates the fair use clause in the secion. As per the terms of FU, the image can only be used for the article in question. I still don't understand the caption "A view of Shibuya crossing". How does it fit into the demographics section? =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm wondering about the same thing. Shibuya is not even mentioned in the article. I don't even think it's mentioned in the Japanese-language article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NB Since "Shibuya" has now been linked and the history section is now subsection-free, is this oppose still valid? --WoodElf 15:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is. I've commented on a lot of other things besides the history section. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the question is, how is a picture of Shibuya representative of a section about Japan's demographics? It is one section of Tokyo, and most of Tokyo doesn't even look like Shibuya. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well then you might also want to look at Canada, Australia, Turkey, Nepal, Hong Kong, Libya, Cambodia, Pakistan, who all have around 1k words or more. I find it pretty ridiculous trying to fit a civilization's history in such short summaries, since they really don't say anything about what happened. You did a good job summarizing, but I personally believe India's early history summary doesn't do it enough justice, as its mostly just names without context. Also trying to compare a countries informational compression to one another is pretty ridiculous. When countries are under constant change it becomes harder to summarize such changes -- no offense to small isolated countries like Tokelau. falsedef 01:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I still think we need more recent updates in the History section on the past 2 decades or so. There's not much mention of the domestic or international effect of Japan's incredibly economy during the 80s (surely how Japan's auto industry affected the world in the late 70s and the 80s deserve a mention), or what significant things have happened in Japan in the past 10 or so years. Also, I thought Japan's boom ended in the early 90s or even late 80s? The article says that it ended in the late 90s. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I changed the crash bit to "mid-1990s". And although I think a little more history would be good, there have been no suggestions as to what needs to be specifically discussed. Talking about it for the sake of it (some issues are mentioned elsewhere in the article) would just make the section even longer and more problematic. John Smith's 19:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment — I think it's a pretty decent article, but I can't provide whole-hearted support for FA just yet. Comparing it to (the arbitrarily chosen) Turkey FA, it's missing an etymology of the word "Japan"; the number of citations are on the low side; the Geography section doesn't give any numbers or a ranking among the world's nations, and there are a few too many one-sentence paragraphs for my liking. Overall it's looking pretty good though, and the introduction seems fine to me. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 19:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Woh, wait a minute. I just noticed that the article is rated at B Class. I know it's not a requirement, but shouldn't it reach Good article status before trying to bump it to FA class? At the very least, it should be A Class. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It was B-class when last reviewed, but I think it has hugely improved since then. It's more than no one bothered to re-grade it. John Smith's 20:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
GA is not really necessary. I once brought a stub class article to FA status over a month. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not necessary at all. My point only was that it would certainly help gauge the quality of the article by community standards instead of nominating it for FA only to risk it fail again for the second time, and have it still be B class. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I feel it would get a more step-by-step review through the GA certification process. Dekimasuよ! 00:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the nominator can take care of valid objections, believe me it should pass. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the following page that supposedly ranks the country pages - Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Article Classification. One of the complaints is that there was no culture section, which has obviously been addressed. The History section has also been significantly reduced. If this FA nomination fails it can be requested to be regraded. John Smith's 20:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mild supportI was quite impressed by the improvement in the Japan article. The history section's been compressed a bit...great job! much better than before. i like the current layout of heads. Plus, lots of citations, references and ext links. Although the writing style may need a bit of work. Plus the fact that it's still 63 Kb. But still, a thoroughly well-written and informative country article.--WoodElf 07:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support the article has improved much in the last 7 days. grammatical errors haxe been expunged; overall improvement. --WoodElf 06:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Looking at the Further Reading section, the list includes the following two books: "Barry, Dave Barry Does Japan, Ballantine, 1993" and "Klar, My Mother is a Tractor, Trafford Publishing, 2005". Could you please comment on why these books are worthy of inclusion in the list? Likewise, "Lonely Planet Japan, Lonely Planet Publications, 2003", which is simply a tourist guide to the country. Bluap 15:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Some of the image placements might be problematic. Per WP:MOS#Images, we should avoid sandwiching text between a picture on the right and a picture on the left. The current version does this both in the History section (picture of Hasekura Tsunenaga), and again in the Demographics section (the picture from the section above it drags down into the Demographics section and sandwiches text with another picture). Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I've removed one picture that just had to go (in the history section) and others have been moved to the right to reduce the placement problem. Also I've come up with a new caption for the Shibuya crossing picture to try to explain it's to do with the fact Japan is densely populated - if anyone has a better suggestion, please update it or talk about it on the Japan talk page. John Smith's 22:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why not. Plus, it's a picture of their product - it's good publicity for them. John Smith's 18:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm not going to oppose on such a small issue but this article has been a target for vandalism much more than a FA should have. If the attacks calm down, I won't see any problem with it. -ScotchMB 02:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that there's a lot of vandalism. It makes sense to withhold featured-article status from an article that is vandalized because it's biased. However, having followed this article for nearly three years and seen the edits vandals have made, I would advocate carefully investigating the nature of vandalism before taking it into account in deciding whether to support or oppose promotion. I feel it's the fault of the vandals, not the fault of the article. Fg2 04:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Fg. In the past the reverts were sometimes due to disputes over the text. In the recent cases it is vandalism plain & simple. John Smith's 11:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This article needs to be more balanced. The article skips the entire centuries from 3rd to 8th AD. There is no mention of anything of this time period. The fact that this time period is important in terms of introduction of Buddhism which is currently the most popular national religion and during this same time period writing was introduced and started to become wide spread. These are foundations for any civilization, writing and religion/goverments etc. It appears as if this article glances over important historical events that might not be appealing to Japanese. WWII section is very minimal and Nanking massacre is not even referenced, their should at least be a link to those events. --Tyler 09:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is ridiculous. One guy complained there was too much history, now there isn't enough. Tyler how am I supposed to please both you and Nichalp? I think you should reconsider, or at least propose something else. John Smith's 09:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I was talking about wanting a more balanced article. May be we can edit out different parts. Who ever wrote the article seems to have skipped the entire 3rd thru 8th centuries. The introduction of buddhism is important cause it is still the most popular national religion, the concept of writing being spread on a massive scale is important for any civilization. The sections on WWII need to be more balanced also, otherwise this article will just appear to be some sort of propaganda article, where parts of history that are not appealing to the Japanese are glanced over or completely just deleted. --Tyler 09:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we can combine the Nara and Heian period and shorten it. This way we can bring in the introduction of buddhism to the article.

Also, eventhough the wests influence on Japan is important, their is way more paragraphs on those sections compared to the influence of Japans close neighbors thru out the millennias. We need to balance the times better, the 20th cent section is way too long when compared to the other centuries. It seems off balance as if Japan is OK with being influenced by the west in their history, but if Japan is influenced by a close neighbor it seems to get glanced over or not mentioned. This makes it too ethnocentric, I'm not saying it is ethnocentric on purpose, but it is odd that the 20th cent takes up so much space compared to the sections that laid the foundations for Japans becoming a high civilization.

I will change my vote to mild oppose and recheck the article frequently.--Tyler 10:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will change my vote to comment for now and recheck the article in 24 hours. I still oppose it but an editor wanted more time to modify the article so I agreed. --Tyler 11:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tyler, first of all I have added a more specific mention of Japanese war crimes to the article. I also checked and Buddhism is in there. We could merge sections, but at the moment you're not being specific enough for me to help you. I have a lot of other work to do, and all the other editors seem to have disappeared. I can't make all these revisions by myself in 24 hours without even knowing what it is that has to change.
This nomination isn't going anywhere right now, so I need you to be more patient and more specific as to what you want added. John Smith's 11:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Support As far as I know I corrected every error I can see. Of course, by no means, the article can be better, but in my opinion the article looks good. As a matter of fact, I am still suggesting some changes, but they are just ideas for improvement. -- Taku 12:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The problems I was referring to were not corrected, I think this article needs more work, lets just kill the FA quest for now and after a few months to a year, lets try again. We need more information on the introduction of Buddhism, not just a mention centuries later, and we need to balance the information to correctly reflect that the 20th cent. is not most of Japan's history. The section about influence from the west in the 20th cent. takes up 1/3 of the history section while influence from close Asian neighbors is either glanced over or completely left out. --Tyler 09:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, 1/3rd of the history section in the India article deals with post-British-colonisation history. --WoodElf 16:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think we are forgetting what this vote is about:identifying outstanding articles within Wikipedia. Its a waste of time time trying to make a perfect article. There is no such thing; but I am sure you shall all agree when I say that this article is one of the finest articles in this website. So please, vote reasonably. --WoodElf 16:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Tyler, I think it's somewhat improper of you to vote against this because you don't think Buddhism has a high enough profile in the article. You added your section in as we discussed, so what's the problem? You didn't say you were going to add that and then vote against it - I think you've gone back on what you said earlier. John Smith's 19:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I got rid of blank spaces that were appearing in the middle of two sections by changing some image placements. I think maybe we've been concentrating too much on the history section and have ignored some of the other sections. For example, the "Sports and recreation" might need some work to conform to WP:MOS. There are thin stand-alone sentences that could probably be combined with each other or expanded upon by themselves. The "Science and technology" seems a bit small considering how much of a giant Japan is in global market for consumer electronics. There seems to be an over-use of parenthesis in the "Economy" section, with a couple of (see also list of Japanese companies), which I'm almost certain does not conform to WP:MOS. There's a littering of Japanese terms in a few sections that can be easily replaced with English - for example, shunto, the guarantee of lifetime employment (shushin koyo), and closely-knit groups called keiretsu (examples include Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Mitsui), etc. I'm doubtful this article is ready for FA status. The article needs some editorial work. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A large, comprehensive, and detailed article that deserves to be recognized. Just remember a perfect article is impossible, we're not voting for perfection but for an article that will be featured. YaanchSpeak! 21:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --M&NCenarius 21:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - After more consideration, I'm going to have to vote to oppose. Please refer to my previous comment. I think this article has a lot of editing work that needs to be done first before it is really an FA class article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support

Here is a review of the Featured article criteria:

  1. It is well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable.
    • (a) "Well written" means that the prose is compelling, even brilliant.
    • (b) "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details.
    • (c) "Factually accurate" means that claims are attributable to reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out, complemented by inline citations for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. See the attribution policy for information on when and how extensively references are provided, and citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.
    • (d) "Neutral" means that the article presents views fairly and without bias (see neutral point of view); however, articles need not give minority views equal coverage (see undue weight).
    • (e) "Stable" means that the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and that its content does not change significantly from day to day; vandalism reverts and improvements based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply.
  2. It complies with the standards set out in the manual of style and relevant WikiProjects, including:
    • (a) a concise lead section that summarizes the entire topic and prepares the reader for the higher level of detail in the subsequent sections;
    • (b) a proper system of hierarchical headings; and
    • (c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help).
  3. It should have images if they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. If fair use images are used, they must meet the criteria for fair use images and be labeled accordingly.
  4. It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

In my opinion, the article meets these criteria. I think especially pertinent to the discussion are #1(d) "articles need not give minority views equal coverage," #4 "without going into unnecessary detail," and #1(e) "vandalism reverts and improvements based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply." Within those limitations I believe the article meets all the criteria for featured status. Fg2 05:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that the article has problems under criteria 1 and 2. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is not perfect, of course. But I agree with Yaanch that "a perfect article is impossible, we're not voting for perfection but for an article that will be featured." In my opinion, this is featured quality (even while still being imperfect). Fg2 06:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This article doesn't meet criteria 1 and 2. --Tyler 12:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that the article meets all the criteria. John Smith's 18:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with the following comments: I think that the article would flow better if there were longer paragraphs. The amount of one or two sentence paragraphs makes reading it a bit jarring for me sometimes. This is most frequent in the history section, I think. Again on the history section, I realize this has been debated and changed a lot, but I think that if possible adding sub-sections would be really helpful. Currently it's a big block of text and that's a little daunting. Germany and Turkey (previously mentioned FA countries) both have history sub-sections. But neither India nor Australia have history sub-sections. So never mind. I do, however, think that the pictures are a problem. More should be on the left side of the page to break up the text and make it more flowy and appealing, and to break up the big line of pictures on the right. BilabialBoxing 14:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support — It appears that the article is finally stable now, and ready for "prime time".--Endroit 17:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continued strong OPPOSE, issues raised in first FAC have still not been addressed. The footnotes/referencing is all over the map. Some are blue links only (http://www.mod.go.jp/e/defense_policy/example/maritime/index.htm ), others have no publisher identified, and there isn't a consistent style. Wikipedia is not a reliable source - you can't source statements to Wiki data. This article does not highlight our best work; as before, please refer to the other recently-promoted country FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The blue-link was dealt with - sometimes people sneak them in under the radar. Plus I dealt with the references that used wikipedia - that was the only such reference.
I think you're being a little unfair. Beforehand there were lots of missing references and no real formatting - now all references have dates, working links, etc. John Smith's 23:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose some bad referencing, some images do not seem to be fair use, and maybe a gallery table should be used for images from cities --Rayis 23:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, hello. This is interesting - I've never seen you take an interest in FA nominations. Maybe you could be so gracious as to explain your criticisms.
"Some bad referencing" Like what?
"Images do not seem to be fair use" Why?
"Gallery table" Huh - that's a reason to oppose FA???
I'd like to hear what you have to say, otherwise I will have to assume you are only here due to wikistalking and ask your vote be discounted. John Smith's 09:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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