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List of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: swords)

Featured list candidates/List of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: swords)/archive1

Nominator(s): bamse (talk) 21:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is another list of National Treasures of Japan. It has been modelled after the featured lists of national treasure paintings, sculptures, temples, shrines, residences, castles and archaeological materials. Unfortunately there are not many (a total of two) pictures of usable pictures of national treasure swords available and more are likely not going to be available in the near future. This is probably due to the fact that many of the swords are owned privately or located in museums where photography is restricted. Furthermore relatively high quality pictures would be necessary to show the differences between the listed blades, which makes the task of finding images even more difficult. For these reasons there is no "Image" column in the tables, unlike in other national treasure of Japan lists. bamse (talk) 21:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Following on the comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 116#Excessive footnote links, I really think the article name should be changed to something along the lines of "List of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: swords)". The use of the hyphen here is rather ambiguous and does not comply with WP:HYPHEN. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, can I just move it to the new name, or would I have to restart the FLC? bamse (talk) 06:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With an FLC involved, this will be easier if done by an admin. Tell me where you think it ought to go, and either I or Dabomb can move it. Courcelles 09:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The name suggested by Dabomb seems fine: List of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: swords). bamse (talk) 10:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move complete. Courcelles 10:26, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. bamse (talk) 15:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support – This is an interesting and well written article. The introduction to each list within the article provides excellent background to the list. Although there are a number of red links, in my opinion these are to subjects that are notable and should be written. I used check links to add access dates. I also converted an external link that redirects to a non-redirecting link. Overall, this is excellent list that fully meets all the criteria for a feature list. Great job! --Dan Dassow (talk) 16:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

~~"The term 'National Treasure' has been used in Japan to denote cultural properties since 1897,^[1]" - [1] does not appear to back that statement.~~

Added another reference which is more clear in this respect.

~~"spanning the late Kofun to the Muromachi period" - Missing a from after spanning?~~

Fixed by Truthkeeper88.

~~"museums or held in privately." - Strike the in?~~

Fixed by Truthkeeper88.

Goodraise 03:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. I think all have been addressed. bamse (talk) 09:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"During the Yayoi period from about 300 BC to 300 AD, metal casting, and with it the ability to manufacture iron tools and weapons such as knives, axes, swords or spears, was introduced to Japan from Korea and China. Shortly thereafter, Chinese, Korean, and eventually Japanese swordsmiths produced ironwork locally." - This passage confuses me a bit. They acquired the ability to cast iron during the Yayoi period, but they started using it only "shortly thereafter"?

I checked the sources again and the correct order of events is: first introduction of iron tools and weapons, then local production of these. I corrected the sentence accordingly. bamse (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"During the Yayoi period from about 300 BC to 300 AD, iron tools and weapons such as knives, axes, swords or spears, were introduced to Japan from Korea and China. Shortly thereafter, Chinese, Korean, and eventually Japanese swordsmiths produced ironwork locally." - Does "thereafter" refer to the Yayoi period or to the introduction of the tools and weapons? Goodraise 05:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reworded: "thereafter"->"after the introduction". bamse (talk) 10:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reworded again to read: "Shortly after this event...", which is non-ambiguous and sounds better to me. bamse (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Excavated swords are typically 60–70 cm (24–28 in) long." - Could you be more specific on what swords this is referring to?

This refers to the swords discovered in tumuli (mentioned in the preceding sentence). Since none of the national treasure swords in this list have been excavated from tumuli, this sentence is not very important. If you think that it is confusing, I'll remove it. It is mainly here for comparison. (Note that four of the five ancient swords in this list fall into that length interval. Though these four have not been excavated, they have a religious purpose just like the tumuli swords.) bamse (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"This refers to the swords discovered in tumuli (mentioned in the preceding sentence)." - That's not obvious. If the information is kept, this needs to be made more clear. Goodraise 05:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"this sentence is not very important" - If it isn't important, then it should not be in the lead. Perhaps you could put it somewhere else? Goodraise 05:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I found the value for comparison too low and got rid of the sentence. bamse (talk) 10:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Goodraise 19:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment–no dead external links. Dablinks says there is still a link to the old title, which is now a redirect pointing back here, but I can't find it, even after running the entire article through Special:ExpandTemplates; it might be a server lag issue. Ucucha 09:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Gone now; I guess I was right. Ucucha 09:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments 10:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I know I've asked this before, but why do we have to have a bunch of squares in the tables (presumeably they are japanese characters, but that doesn't show in IE). I think it's highly confusing and they ought to be moved out of table. If access is truly that important, squares could be in footnote and I believe a warning should be in the top of the article stating something along the line that this article uses japanese characters which might just display as squares etc. Sandman888 (talk) 10:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You want a warning at the top of the article? Aren't the few dozen links to Help:Installing Japanese character sets enough? Goodraise 10:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which links? Sandman888 (talk) 17:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think Goodraise is referring to the small superscript "?" created by the nihongo templates. bamse (talk) 18:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To someone who hasn't spent ages on wikipedia, a small hyperlinked question mark is not the most intuitive solution. I doubt my grandfather would even recognize them. Sandman888 (talk) 20:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your question for the reason of having Japanese in the table. Basically there are two types of reasons:

"Signature" column: The signature on the sword is written in Japanese, so in my opinion it is a must to have the original (in Japanese) signature here.
"Swordsmith" and "Present location" columns: Japanese text in these columns only appears if there is no wikipedia article for a swordsmith or a museum or other institution. I will happily remove it as wikipedia articles are created for the respective smiths and museums. At present the Japanese text allows to better identify a certain smith or museum/institution. Due to ambiguity in reading of Japanese characters, there are various ways of spelling a certain name in Japanese and in fact there are smiths with the same (English) name that are spelled differently in Japanese. Providing the original name alongside the (English) name helps to avoid ambiguity. Similarly not all museums/institutions have a definite English name and the Japanese names help to clearly identify the locations. bamse (talk) 14:31, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An old similar discussion has been archived here. bamse (talk) 14:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How about template:Contains Japanese text? Seems made for this list Sandman888 (talk) 17:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added it. I am neutral towards this particular template. Basically I think it is a good idea to put such warning, but don't really like its layout, especially the look together with right-aligned intro pictures (which are kind of required for FLC). It seems to have been under discussion with a rather negative result, though there are some positive opinions as well. If I remember correctly, this template was removed once by a bot from one of the articles I put it in... bamse (talk) 18:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the spirit of it is good, I can see your layout concerns but that's an argument for improving the template rather than removing it. I fixed the hyperlink in the template per the discussion you linked to (which seemed to be the crux of the debate). Perhaps it should just render the text in italics in the start of the article? Sandman888 (talk) 20:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note. In light of the above development, I have asked for input from WT:MOS-JP. Goodraise 21:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if its always redundant. It is redundant for articles primarly about Japan, its history, culture, religion, etc. An article about word origins that mentions a Japanese word as contributing to modern usage isn't and where the Japanese text is appropriate isn't necessarily redundant there. This article not only is primarily about something Japanese, it says so it the title. common sense should prevail that an article about something in Japan that has squares where one presumes there should be text should lead to the conclusion that if it occurs that person is missing the Japanese text and the ? symobol next to it is there for help in this regard.陣内 _Jinnai 21:37, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think per WP:ACCESS and per elements of the lead, the lead, perhaps, is not the appropriate place for the Japanese text box because the lead has very little Japanese text. I've never had a formatting problem with any of these articles, but if one does exist, and consensus is the add the box, it might be better to add it elsewhere. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's fine in topics which are not primarily about a Japan-related topic but which happen to have some Japanese in them. However, including it in every article with Japanese in it is excessive and pointless. People viewing topics which are primarily Japanese are going to expect Japanese to be in them, and the box becomes as pointless as the thankfully long-gone spoiler tag. The box simply clutters up the article, especially when the article contains multiple languages and multiple "contains x text" boxes start being added to the article. If someone could make one which far less intrusive and perhaps allowed use of one box with multiple languages specified (perhaps a {{Contains non-latin text}} template?), I might begin to warm up to using it. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 22:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Based on these comments, I have removed the "Contains Japanese text" template. bamse (talk) 16:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nihonjoe's comment seconded (though probably too late to make any difference). -- Hoary (talk) 10:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support (but with the disclosure that I've made copyedits to the article). Although all the lists in this series are impressive, I find this one to be particularly comprehensive, and meets the criteria for feature list. I made some suggestions for improvement to Bamse before the list was submitted for review; the fixes have been incorporated, and I'm happy to support. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Question Why all those {{nihongo|...}} templates? (Why not instead have just one {{nihongo|...}} for the first Japanese script in any major section, and a less obtrusive {{nihongo2|...}} template for the rest?) -- Hoary (talk) 10:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I understand your suggestion. As far as I can see, the nihongo2 template is for the kanji part only. I'd still have romaji and English to put somehow. Also, in which way do you consider the nihongo2 template "less obtrusive"? Are you referring to the nihongo templates in a particular table column or to all nihongo templates? bamse (talk) 18:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Compare (a) "{{nihongo|Tegai Kanenaga|手掻包永|}}" = "Tegai Kanenaga (手掻包永)" and (b) "Tegai Kanenaga ({{nihongo2|手掻包永}})" = "Tegai Kanenaga (手掻包永)". The former adds <sup><a href="/wiki/Help:Installing_Japanese_character_sets" title="Help:Installing Japanese character sets"><span class="t_nihongo_icon" style="color: #00e; font: bold 80% sans-serif; text-decoration: none; padding: 0 .1em;">?</span></a></sup>. -- Hoary (talk) 23:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean. Does the additional stuff slow down page loading considerably? From an editor perspective, using the nihongo template is easier, since I don't need to think how to format the kanji/romaji/English. I also like it because it keeps things together: with the nihongo template, it is structurally clear that the three parts (kanji/romaji/English) belong together. If I use the nihongo2 template this is lost. (just like in LaTeX versus MS Word...) I noticed that the nihongo2 template has an option "help=yes". Can we have a "help=no" option for the nihongo template? bamse (talk) 23:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely we can't have such an option any time very soon. I don't suppose all this bloat adds up to many bytes by today's standards of graphics-laden (not to mention Flash-dehanced) websites. I see what you mean about structural clarity, but this is only in the Mediawiki preformatting and is lost in the XHTML, where the only useful part (in my view) of the nihongo template is the announcement to the browser that one part is in Japanese script. And you get that with the nihongo2 template. To me, it just looks like clutter: having lots of underlined question marks is rather like linking every single instance of "Japan" or "sword" or "museum". No, the huge drawback of agreeing with me that nihongo2 is preferable is that once you have a great number of nihongo tags then conversion to nihongo2 either requires programming or is a lot of work. I've done the work before but I'm not offering to do it here and I'm certainly not demanding it of you. I was just wondering if there was a reason I'd overlooked (and if there isn't, then nudging you toward nihongo2 in the future). -- Hoary (talk) 03:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for not being demanding (;-). As you wrote, conversion is a lot of work and I'd rather not do that. I will keep nihongo2 in mind for future articles though. If somebody comes up with a script/bot/whatever way to automatically convert the nihongo to nihongo2 templates, I am happy to change it. bamse (talk) 09:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK then! -- Hoary (talk) 11:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (based purely on my WP:ACCESS queries, other things are neither here nor there)

It's permissible (and encouraged here) to make the lead image bigger.

Done. Big enough or too big? bamse (talk) 21:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In Safari, the tables in the Statistics section, left one has "National Treasures" left justified, while right-hand one has "National Treasures" right justified. Looks odd.

Fixed (both left-aligned now). bamse (talk) 23:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"(except for Remarks and Design and material) " ok, I see Remarks, but not "Design and material"

It appears in the sword mounting table. Do you think this requires a footnote or inline explanation? bamse (talk) 21:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't see that, I'm okay with the note as it is. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some Usage notes end in a full stop. Others don't. Any reason?

No reason and therefore fixed. bamse (talk) 22:19, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Be aware of WP:ACCESS when you say that some swords are noted in yellow or green.

Not sure what your objection is. Is it (i) the use of color at all, or (ii) the use of words to refer to colors (better to use a legend)? I ran the page through vischeck and the table colors were not a problem, i.e. they could be distinguished in any of the three color vision simulations. bamse (talk) 23:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also asked about it here. bamse (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a problem, because anyone who cannot see those colours (screen reader/text-only browser/colour-blind) does not receive the information intended. The simplest solution that occurs to me is to add: "(meibutsu)" to the yellow cells; "(juttetsu)" to the green cells; "(goban kaji)" to the blue cells. A legend won't help the visually-impaired if the colour is the only way that the relevant cell is identified. You could try a group note (<ref group="...) in each cell and link it to an explanation, but I still think a little extra text in each cell is a cleaner solution. --RexxS (talk) 21:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I added a non-color key (†, *, ‡) to the tables which makes it understandable for anybody who cannot see colors. I went with the short key solution instead of the full-text solution suggested by RexxS, because I think that this list already is quite massive and I don't want to add much more text to it. This seems to be a common practice in other featured and not-featured lists as well. bamse (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK. We should just check the characters (†, ‡) are red correctly by a modern screen reader. I suggest to show those signs to user:Graham87 and ask him if his fairly recent version of JAWS (screen reader) get it right or read it as a question mark. We never know with those unicode characters. Regards, Dodoïste (talk) 23:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Based on his feedback, I changed the daggers to ^, #. bamse (talk) 09:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you just check that saying "marked in red" in a map also meets WP:ACCESS?

Added alt-text to the image to make it more accessible. Also the information encoded in the red color (i.e. which provinces are associated with the five traditions) is present in the prose just next to the image. Is this sufficient? I don't mind changing the color or otherwise modifying the map, but don't know how to find out if it is difficult to read for some people. bamse (talk) 22:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The alt-text taken together with the caption is what will be reported by a screen reader (alternative text). In this case, "Centers of sword production were located in central and western Japan. The provinces associated with the five traditions: Yamato, Bizen, Yamashiro, Mino and Sagami are located in central Japan. Centers of sword production during the old sword (kotō) period. Provinces related to the Five Traditions are marked in red." would at least be understandable. It is unlikely that all of the information available in a map can be communicated textually, but the rest of the article goes into detail, so even without images, a reader will have lost relatively little information. --RexxS (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Curvature: 2.7 cm (1.1 in)" vs "Curvature: 2.9 cm (1.1 in)" one of these must be incorrect. Check all.
- Actually, rounding to one significant digit, this is right. 2.7 cm is 1.0629 in, 2.9 cm is 1.1417 in. Both round to 1.1; so it would be worth adding another significant digit to the conversion if the template will do so. Courcelles 20:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Maybe that's why when you get to such small measurements it should be to more than 1 d.p... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I know. (The nominator needs to use to sigfig parameter of the convert template to solve this, because it which does look odd.) Courcelles 20:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Honestly I don't know how to deal with this. To me it is natural to have one significant digit for both cm and in and I don't have a problem with this issue. I am happy to add "sigfig", but to which of the many lengths should I add it? bamse (talk) 21:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        My issue comes from the idea that you have at least three different metric measures than translate to one imperial measure. How that's resolved is up to you. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        This is due to the fact that an inch is larger than a cm (and that there is some weird/non-power-of-ten conversion factor between the two). My problem with providing additional digits is the following. The sources provide lengths in "cm" with one digit which means that these lengths have a precision of ±0.05cm. If I provided an inch-length with two digits, such as "1.14 in.", a precision of ±0.005 in (±0.01cm) would be implied, i.e., the precision would have increased miraculously just by using mathematics (and not a better ruler). Let me know if this answer satisfies you. If not I'll add "sigfig". bamse (talk) 22:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some notes start with capital letters, some don't. Any reason?

No reason and therefore fixed. bamse (talk) 21:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Its overall length is 109 (cm?)." not sure you need that ? link, and there appear to be several others.

Fixed two occurences (hopefully all). bamse (talk) 21:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jargon 10 vs 11, why the difference in italics/bold for same words?

Typo. Fixed. bamse (talk) 21:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Same for 35 and 37.

Fixed. bamse (talk) 21:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Several Japanese sources which don't have language=Japanese such as 49 and 50. Check all.

Checked and fixed all (quite a lot). bamse (talk) 23:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC) Thanks for your feedback. I fixed the obvious stuff but am still unsure on what to do about "ACCESS" and cm->in. I'd be happy if you could steer me in the right direction. bamse (talk) 23:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added a key (see above) to address the color/access problem. bamse (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 82: / Line 82: @@
 :*Not sure what your objection is. Is it (i) the use of color at all, or (ii) the use of words to refer to colors (better to use a legend)? I ran the page through [http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php vischeck] and the table colors were not a problem, i.e. they could be distinguished in any of the three color vision simulations. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 23:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 ::*Also asked about it [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(accessibility)#How_to_make_this_list_accessible.3F|here]]. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 21:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
+:::* This is a problem, because anyone who cannot see those colours (screen reader/text-only browser/colour-blind) does not receive the information intended. The simplest solution that occurs to me is to add: "(meibutsu)" to the yellow cells; "(juttetsu)" to the green cells; "(goban kaji)" to the blue cells. A legend won't help the visually-impaired if the colour is the only way that the relevant cell is identified. You could try a group note (<nowiki><ref group="...</nowiki>) in each cell and link it to an explanation, but I still think a little extra text in each cell is a cleaner solution. --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 21:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
+::::*I added a non-color key (†, *, ‡) to the tables which makes it understandable for anybody who cannot see colors. I went with the short key solution instead of the full-text solution suggested by RexxS, because I think that this list already is quite massive and I don't want to add much more text to it. This seems to be a common practice in other featured and not-featured lists as well. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 22:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
+:::::*OK. We should just check the characters (†, ‡) are red correctly by a modern screen reader. I suggest to show those signs to [[user:Graham87]] and ask him if his fairly recent version of [[JAWS (screen reader)]] get it right or read it as a question mark. We never know with those unicode characters. Regards, [[User:Dodoïste|Dodoïste]] ([[User talk:Dodoïste|talk]]) 23:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
+::::::*Based on [[User_talk:Bamse#Re:_Dagger_and_double_dagger_with_JAWS|his feedback]], I changed the daggers to ^, #. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 09:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 *Can you just check that saying "marked in red" in a map also meets [[WP:ACCESS]]?
 :*Added alt-text to the image to make it more accessible. Also the information encoded in the red color (i.e. which provinces are associated with the five traditions) is present in the prose just next to the image. Is this sufficient? I don't mind changing the color or otherwise modifying the map, but don't know how to find out if it is difficult to read for some people. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 22:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
@@ Line 104: / Line 108: @@
 [[User:The Rambling Man|The Rambling Man]] ([[User talk:The Rambling Man|talk]]) 20:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 Thanks for your feedback. I fixed the obvious stuff but am still unsure on what to do about "ACCESS" and cm->in. I'd be happy if you could steer me in the right direction. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 23:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
+:Added a key (see above) to address the color/access problem. [[User:Bamse|bamse]] ([[User talk:Bamse|talk]]) 22:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)