Talk:Senkaku Islands

2010 Chinese fishing boat incident in the East China Sea

The diplomatic situation that started as an incident between a Chinese fishing boat and several Japanese patrol boats on 9 September 2010, near three way disputed islands in the East China Sea named Diaoyu Islands (Chinese) or Senkaku Islands (Japanese). There are sufficient mainstream article references, three in the NY Times alone, as well as in others. High level ministerial communications between the two countries were broken off at one point, and may still be. This situation at least deserves a separate section in this article, and maybe a separate article should the situation become more prominent. — Becksguy (talk) 09:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, a separate article should be created. STSC (talk) 10:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I concur, Spratly Islands and Spratly Islands Dispute is a good example of how a situation like this can (hopefully) be managed to everyone's satisfaction. Philg88 (talk) 11:53, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I asking myself, this just very normal event if compare to Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands, where every day countries around capture or even shoot fishing boats of each other like dinner and make same action like this event every time, this event well know just because media made it so hot that all, if make separate article then you can make hundreds or thousands more article with same situation.Tnt1984 (talk) 12:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

This does not appear just a normal event. If the dispute is getting worse, the PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy) may just send in the warships. A separate article would monitor the whole event closely. STSC (talk) 18:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the situation is no longer just a fishing boat incident, as it has escalated into a diplomatic, political, and economic dispute between the countries. I'm working off-line to write the new article, and doing my best to keep it as neutral as I can. Does "2010 China-Japan fishing boat dispute" sound good as a title for the new article. I avoided the use of the islands in the title, as that would either result in an impossibly long title, or inherently favor on side or the other (Diaoyu vs. Senkaku). Or maybe the "2010 East China Sea fishing boat dispute". Or "2010 China-Japan East China Sea dispute"? Any thoughts on a title? — Becksguy (talk) 19:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Becksguy - How about "Chinese fishing boat incident in East China Sea, September 2010". STSC (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That works also, except stylistically I would prefer the year first: 2010 Chinese fishing boat incident in East China Sea, or as an example, 2009 Singapore Romanian diplomat incident. I've seen more articles that start with the year, although sometimes the year trails, as in United Kingdom general election, 2010. I searched for name conflicts and there are none, either way. I wish there was a memorable tag that goes with the incident, like the 2010 Suzhou workers riot (not to imply any equating of seriousness for any incident). But the most important thing is to keep any POV out of the title. No one disputes that the fishing boat is Chinese, no one seriously disputes that the waters are called the East China Sea, and no one disputes that the incident took place, and in this year, and it implies nothing about the territoriality of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, or the immediate surrounding waters. So it should be considered a neutral title, either way. I will post a link here to the article when created. — Becksguy (talk) 04:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The title is fine. We look forward to the article then. STSC (talk) 05:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If you're going for a separate article based on the incident, you might find this useful. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If you are going to create the article can it be 2010 Chinese fishing boat incident in the East China Sea please, so that the grammar is correct. Philg88 (talk) 21:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the above site has been running slow in the past few days; I should have properly formatted the link.

• Tanaka Sakai, "Rekindling China-Japan Conflict: The Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands Clash," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 39-3-10, September 27, 2010. (English translation by Kyoko Selden)

The translation hosted at Japanfocus.org is based on the original article at 日中対立の再燃 (September 17, 2010, Tanaka News), with follow-ups from Sept 21 and Oct 1. There are also various additional links from within that article as well which are of relevance:

• • Sept 17, 2010, EDITORIAL : The KMT, CCP’s Third United Front, Taipei Times
  • Shih Hsiu-chuan, Sept 14, 2010, Activists scale down Diaoyutais plan, Taipei Times
  • AFP, Sept 17, 2010, Cross-strait maritime exercise held, Taipei Times
  • William Lowther, Sept 15, 2010, US, Japan to hold exercise to recapture disputed isles, Taipei Times
  • (plus a few more non-English media reports, mostly in Japanese)

Also related to the fishing boat incident and dispute:

• Fan Cheng-hsiang, Oct 04, 2010, Japan worried over ROC interpretation, Taipei Times

Regards, -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

another reference for this event can be found at east asian forum article San9663 (talk) 17:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Who is Sourabh Gupta? John Smith's (talk) 17:22, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Not so hard to find with google these days? http://samuelsinternationalassociates.com/about_us. Are you just curious or trying to challenge the credibility? :) San9663 (talk) 08:27, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Revert on the lead

An editor today edited out the background information in the lead.

The first record of those islands dated back to the Ming Dynasty of China.Japan controlled them from 1895 until her surrender in WWII. The United States administered them as part of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands from 1945 until 1972....

The lead has been edited a lot of times in this month. I think editors are expected to explain why they feel right that the lead should talk about when it was administrated while removing the fact about when it were recorded. Both of them significantly contributes to the sovereignty dispute. --Winstonlighter (talk) 18:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I am starting to wonder if any of the other editors here would correct this if this change is left alone. It would be nice if they apply the same standards for pro-Chinese and pro-Japanese contents, not that I am accusing them of the contrary. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, John Smith is the one who made the change. What a surprise! Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any article on Wikipedia about disputed islands (maybe there are and I don't know them) that include the first description of the islands in the lead section. In any event, I don't think that it's relevant enough to put in the lead section. So what if there was a record of them from the Ming Dynasty? John Smith's (talk) 20:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

According to a translation of the Chinese page, there were actually numerous administrative documents from the Ming Dynasty. I don't know the details of them, but I believe it does indirectly contradict a minor belief that the Japanese discovered the islands. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Where does the article claim Japanese people discovered the islands? John Smith's (talk) 20:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I saw articles that made a reference to that in a number of prominent newspapers. I haven't checked the entire contents of this wiki page, but I believe it should occur around texts involved in the first Sino-Japanese wars or Japanese arguments. A version that's common in media is that the Japanese "discovered" the islands near the end of the war and occupied it. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:38, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Proved by the comment above, I think John Smith's change by effect mislead other editors to think that Japanese discovered the islands. Even though the word in the lead is "Japan has administrated the islands from..." , it still makes the chronology vague and unclear but this is a staple ingredient in this territorial dispute between China and Japan. I propose to remove John Smith's revert because it has worsened the article rather than improving it.

But the article doesn't repeat those assertions, so there's no need to have a counter-claim. John Smith's (talk) 20:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The comment in this sectione has clearly shown that an involved editor felt misled by the current lead and I have the same feeling. Like many of your reverts, you were the only one to dispute this. (Check WP:OWN)--Winstonlighter (talk) 15:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Then treat it as a claim? Although, someone fluent in Chinese has to provide the references to those documents. Bobthefish2 (talk) 21:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to look for a source now. :> --Winstonlighter (talk) 15:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

For other articles on disputed islands, see Liancourt Rocks (aka Dokdo aka Takeshima), which is pretty stable now (they basically had the same knock-down, drag-out fight about how to handle the contentious issue several years ago. 22:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Non-governmental arguments

This section is very messy and very badly organized.

It would be clearer if divided and labelled as the following sub-sections

1. pro-Japan non-government views 2. pro-PRC/ROC non government views

then under each sub-section label and arrange clearly each person/organization's view, and also arrange these view either alphabetically or chronologically.

I tried to put a label for "Lee Tenghui's view" but then his view pops up in the beginning and then somewhere near the end, while some other views (e.g. some newspaper) interspersed in between.

Also, these are better called views/opinions rather than arguments. As they mostly overlaps with the government arguments above. -- unless we remove the repeated portions of the argument and only list the truly new arguments. San9663 (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi San9663. Welcome to the discussion. There is another section that's related to what you are talking about. Maybe you can direct the discussion to there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobthefish2 (talk • contribs) 20:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

San, with all due respect, those edits you've made are really untidy and not very clear. If someone doesn't action this before me, I will see if I can pull the wheat from the chaff and sort it out. There's also original research in there, amongst other problems. Overall it needs urgent attention. John Smith's (talk) 20:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

John Smith. You are welcome to help tidy things up. But please refrain from applying POV there and explain your reason here. I had made suggestions and received various feedbacks in talk pages before going ahead to edit. I wish you will be respectful and do the same.

I found the chronology sequence was messed up (e.g. 1895-1945 events were inserted in between events in 1700-1800) and there are things that were close to vandalism (e.g. paragraphs that were totally irrelevant such as those that should belong to Taiwan entry, and definitely not part of the PRC/ROC argument) which I have edited. Since such POV vandalism have been tolerated all these times I would like to see them addressed before you propose anything else. Thank you. San9663 (talk) 01:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• I restored the sections to the original section. It was divided by Winstonlighter without any reasonable explanation. I don't think there is any rationale to split the Japanese section to Governmental/non-Govermental sections. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 02:37, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It was divided by an editor (not me) who pushed his unconsensus "Japanese-should-go-first" rule. I agree the recent divisions actually worsen the article, however the involved editors claims that it's a result of consensus. He divded the section, removed all sub-headings, and in the middle of it, he changed the ordering structure and claimed that everyone is happy with it. His previous attempt on changing the name ordering in doing nothing but changing existing table in Geography section were disputed and no consensus has been reached. Thanks Phoenix777 for coming back to deal with those stubborn and disruptive edits. --Winstonlighter (talk) 04:15, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is much better than before. But the section still look like a spaghetti of event strings, without proper ordering or organization. IMO all the views (whether pro-Japan or pro-China, governmental/official or non-governmental, need to be better organized, and qualified). The "best practice" is the Japan government view, where it was listed at points 1,2,3,4. simple, direct, and easy to read. San9663 (talk) 07:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

San, I have a concern about your recent edits. You tried to put back all sub-headings to the China and Taiwan perspectives section and they were removed by John recently. You probably need to explain to him because on my record, he's reverted many edits without discussing it first.

As a new editor in Wikipedia, you seem to only focus exclusively on this article. I was worried that you're not familiar with the recent edits and would be unfortunately banned.

Also, I'm not an English expert but I can see your recent addition contains many avoidable mistakes in the parts of speech, tenses, and spellings.

PRC/ROC both claim that as a result of Japan's surrender in WWII and its acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. The Treaty of Shimonoseki is nullified. On this basis, they argue that since the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were ceded along with Taiwan in 1895, therefore when Japan returned to China all territories it had obtained from China since the First Sino-Japanese War at the end of World War II, the Senkaku Islands were returned along with Taiwan and all other territories (such as Manchuria) to China.

The main rationales are 1. Claiming based on history and discovery (See below). 2. Claiming that Senkaku/Diaoyu were ceded as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War, and therefore should have been reverted as the war ended in 1945. 3. Claiming that Potsdam Declaration stated that "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the island

Those additions only leave the article with many un-wikified sentences and more grammatical errors. --Winstonlighter (talk) 08:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the above Winstonlighter's indications, The most serious problem is that San9663 added the descriptions without any sources. I will review the edits and remove all the un-sourced descriptions recently added. This article is a contentious article. So un-sourced additions are strictly prohibited. The un-sourced additions and the removal of sourced contents will be punished by blocking the editor from editing. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 08:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree on this one. Any claims that are unsubstantiated by a reliable source should be deleted. While I believe that the sources that correspond to a lot of those "citation needed" texts are out there somewhere, it is simply sloppy and unprofessional to have whole paragraphs devoid of citations/references. Bobthefish2 (talk) 09:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I tried to organize and rearrange what were already there, since no one was doing anything. I added many sources in subsequent edits. 90% of those material can be found in many of the references listed in this same wiki page, and in particular the one from Japanfocus that was linked. I would be happy if you can all help to improve it, isn't this what wiki is for? San9663 (talk) 09:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Countless efforts have been played at improving the section you're editing today - doing grammar fix, removing irrelvant content, making the chronography easier to read. In your edits, you tried to put those arguments more systematically and it was also done by other editors before.

However, they were relentlessly reverted to a messy version you tried to edit today. Anyway, I think you're bringing the article to a right direction now. --Winstonlighter (talk) 16:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Historical events section

Eventually, this article will want to switch from use a bullet pointed chronology and instead get all of that information to prose (per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (embedded lists)). Yes, I know that the detailed list is better than just a list of links, but prose is still preferable whenever possible. I'm not sure if you all would prefer to do this now, since you're in the middle of hashing out the details anyway, or if you would rather wait until the details themselves are more stable and convert to prose then. Technically speaking, the whole first half of the list should go anyway since it's unverified by reliable sources. So maybe you want to get a better sense of what can be salvaged and what can't be, then make the move to prose. Anyway, I just thought I'd bring that up now so that way we don't get to some future point where people say "But we can't change to prose because it took so long to agree on the list as written, so we just need to leave in this way." Qwyrxian (talk) 12:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

chronological list looks fine and is easy to read. almost all the events are sourced well or discussed in previous sections. Not sure what you meant by "unverifiable source" San9663 (talk) 03:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Personal homepages as a source

The articles contain several sources from personal homepages of geocities.jp and infoseek. A tag for unreliable sources were added, but they were removed without any improvement on the article. Wondering who made this? Can you explain? --Winstonlighter (talk) 15:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

You should probably trace who added those from the history page. If they were all made by the same user, then you should report it to Magog the Ogre. Bobthefish2 (talk) 19:10, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Need clarification

This newly added paragraphy is quite confusing. It seems to mix up the status of Taiwan and Diaoyu Islands. Can anyone help clarify and improve it? However, the United States, as principal victor over Japan, has consistently maintained that there was no "return" of island territories to China after the close of hostilities in World War II, either due to the Japanese surrender ceremonies, or according to the specifications of the post-war treaties. The Starr Memorandum of the US State Dept., issued in Oct. 1971, is often quoted as an authoritative reference on this subject. In September 2010 Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs Jeffrey Bader said that, "we do not take a position on the respective territorial claims of China and Japan towards the Senkaku Islands. But... the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty covers all areas administered by Japan, and since the reversion of Okinawa from the U.S. to Japan in 1972, the Senkaku Islands have been administered by Japan."

In a 1959 court case in the United States, the State Department of the United States was specifically quoted as maintaining that: " . . . the sovereignty of Formosa has not been transferred to China . . . " and that "Formosa is not a part of China as a country, at least not as yet, and not until and unless appropriate treaties are hereafter entered into. Formosa may be said to be a territory or an area occupied and administered by the Government of the Republic of China, but is not officially recognized as being a part of the Republic of China." --Winstonlighter (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Msvt, 7 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} You need to see the point of view from English native people. Basically if you want to have a chinese name here then you must create another page in Chinese. We have got too many Chinese name here instead of Japanese name making us confused. We do not care about "Diaoyutai Islands" here at all, all we want to know is about Senkaku Islands in this page. Msvt (talk) 20:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

This request appears to mirror the thinking of those who suggest moving the territorial dispute to a corollary article, e.g.,

Main article: Senkaku Islands dispute

Msvt's diff implies that this may be perceived as a constructive step.

It does not yet appear that a consensus has solidified either for or against this editing strategy. Compare Spratly Islands dispute, Liancourt Rocks dispute, etc. --Tenmei (talk) 21:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Decline. I don't see it a problem at all. The island itself is disputed in sovereignty and along with it, its naming. For an average English reader who has read the first two sentences of the page, he should instantly realize the few aliases this island can take. At the same time, one must realize that the Japanese language is derived from the Chinese language. As a result, at least some of the "Chinese names" written on the page are actually what the Japanese would write in their Japanese articles -> example. However, I do appreciate that you raise the question first without blindly removing contents from the page (unlike certain editors here). Bobthefish2 (talk) 21:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. This request seems to be related to a current dispute. --Stickee (talk) 22:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Not that it particularly matter, but it is 100% false to say that the Japanese language is derived from the Chinese language. It is correct to say that the Japanese writing system is derived as a complex synthesis of Chinese characters imported in a series of waves in complex and contradictory waves (some characters imported for phonetic reasons, others for semantic, etc.). On the bigger issue, I definitely believe that the dispute should be split off from the main article, just like in the other examples given above. This article would still mention, even in the lead, the dispute, and probably a one paragraph summary, but this article would focus on the islands themselves. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

You are right in that the Japanese language itself is not derived from the Chinese language, which is a hasty mistake on my part. I am against omitting the Chinese name of the islands on the grounds the islands are a special case in terms of international politics. While the Japanese military had predominant presence in those islands, much of the major powers in the worlds including the U.S. have not openly expressed an opinion about its sovereignty. At the same time, Chinese civilians and, more recently, military personnel have regularly visited the islands without Japanese permission (if that's legally necessary at all). As a result, I believe it is fair to assume a more neutral stance on the naming of the islands, even if the dispute is to be made into a separate page.

As for splitting the dispute off to a different page, I'd agree to that idea if and only if there is a section in the original page that says "Dispute of Sovereignty between PRC/ROC, and Japan" followed by a link to the dispute page and followed by a brief paragraph detailing that the sovereignty status of the islands is still highly disputed (the same would be reiterated in the header of the page).

Now, I do understand pro-Japanese editors may desperately want to somehow convince people that those islands should belong to Japan, but misrepresenting information on wikipedia is generally not the right or ethical way of achieving this end. Bobthefish2 (talk) 01:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I never think all of the Chinese name should be removed. However, the alternative name "Diaoyu Islands" or "Diaoyutai Islands" should not be used in the body of this article except for "Names" section unless it is an absolute necessity in the context (i.e. direct quote, referring to the Chinese name) because it was described in the lead per WP:UEIA. I have never seen the article which mixed up the title name and its alternative name in the body of the article. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment Leave the names as they are. First of all, I disagree with Phoenix7777. 90% of the article already uses "the islands" or "the disputed islands" so that it doesn't have to use the full name in any language. The only times "Diaoyu" is used already ARE when naming is discussed or when quotes are used from Chinese sources. Second, "senkaku" and "sento" literally means "pinnacle." It's a shame that all the media in English used a translation without even finding out about the English name. No one even knew or cared about so-called "Senkaku Islands" until the news started coming in. On the other hand, "Diaoyu" means angling and is actually an original name.DXDanl (talk) 00:11, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I think that's a very fair way of doing it, but that apparently didn't sit well with editors like John Smith. Bobthefish2 (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: "The disputed islands", "those islands", "the islands" have been used throughout the article and it hardly causes any confusion. However, it's until recently that some editors try to put the confusing naming everywhere. One mistake I can see is to use "Senkaku islands" when he quoted the official stance of Chinese governments. I was almost misled into thinking "senkaku" was the orginial word in Chinese documents. I have to agree with DXDanl's suggestion Leave the names as they are and it helps stablize the article too. --Winstonlighter (talk) 03:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Radical (but policy based) suggestion

I just removed about 6-7 References, some just added, some that were in the article before. Wikis (even wikipedia) are not ever reliable sources, nor , in most circumstances, are self-published websites by groups not clearly authorities. To be honest, there's a lot of "information" in this article that is not cited, or is not cited well. My suggestion is that one or more editors go through and remove all references that don't meet the standards of WP:RS, then go through and literally remove everything that isn't clearly referenced. We could keep all of the unreferenced statements on a user page for future work. Then, once we see what we have that is actually legitimately verified, we can consider what other sources we can add that bring back in the other information. This would give us a much clearer picture of what infromation can certainly stay, and what needs to be cited first before it is allowed to stay. Now, this would be a radical move, so I'm not (quite) ready to do it myself at the moment. But WP:V and WP:OR aren't just suggestions--they're 2 of the key pillars of editing policy. Before I even contemplate making such a bold move, I'd like to get a feeling for what other editors would do. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:23, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I've replaced your removal of citations with {{verify credibility}} tags. It has also been added to the personal homepages of geocities, infoseek and hope this time no one would revert it before improving them. I can observe that there is an ongoing effort from some Chinese and Japanese speakers trying to improve the citations of this article. It would be useful to let them know which source has a problem, and look for those information in proper websites. That is what {{verify credibility}} is supposed to do. --Winstonlighter (talk) 04:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree. This page is already grossly overloaded with unverified information I'd much rather to have these materials be stored in a separate place and be added one at a time as reliable sources become available. It's be nice to have a special talk-page where we can have each section being a separate piece of information accompanied with discussions of whether or not it should be added. While this one may serve such a purpose, it's also incredibly overloaded with other stuff. Bobthefish2 (talk) 04:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I am going to re-remove them, Winstonlighter. That tag is only when the link are questionable sources. Here, there is absolutely no question. Open-wikis are never, under any situation, reliable sources--this is stated explicitly in the SPS section of WP:RS (by definition, an open wiki cannot meet the "qualified expert in the field" exception). Thus, those sites must go. The picture must indisputably go, because it can't verify (even if it existed) the statement in question (when the shrine was built); it can't even verify that the picture is actually from the shrine in question. A picture would only be valid if it was part of a reliable source, and then we'd be citing the source, not the picture itself. The taiwanbasic site is the exact definition of a self-published source--there isn't even any author information, so we have no idea who wrote it. All of those sources must go. Re-adding them is a direct violation of WP:RS, and, indirectly, WP:V (because you're claiming that a fact is verified, when, in fact, it is not). The other ones you re-added are not ones I removed, so I have no comment on them either way until I've looked at them

I'd still like feedback on my idea of removing all unverified information from the article--in essence, starting fresh from what we know to be verified, and building from there.Qwyrxian (talk) 05:11, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Support. Yes, as I've said, this is a good idea. Again, the unverified information can be copied over to some talk-page, as you suggested. Hopefully, this will make the content management of this page more organized. Bobthefish2 (talk) 05:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Some wiki sources is quite easy to improve rather than simply removing it[1]. Anyway, if you insist to remove them and don't have time to look for a better source, let others do it. --Winstonlighter (talk) 05:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Others are more than welcome to improve them. That, in fact, is what the {{cn}} tag is for. I didn't worry about the Potsdam one, since we already had one source, I didn't think it was necessary to get 2 (especially given how many cn tags are running around this article).Qwyrxian (talk) 05:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

"population in 1909"

In the chronology section it was said the population of the islands (most likely the main island as the others were never really inhabited) reached 248 in 1909, and the source linked to a personal website. As I understand, Japanese census data were well maintained and well kept. So the source should be something from the government and should be both traceable and verifiable. Otherwise, I would suggest removing this, or at least add a qualifier such as "was claimed to". San9663 (talk) 08:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I replaced the source with a reliable source.

Sakurai, Yoshiko (October 7, 2010). Weekly Shincho (in Japanese) (430). Shinchosha. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); External link in |date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) (translated copy of the article) ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 09:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

No, this is definitely not a reliable source. It's almost as bad as Ann Coulter's personal blog. Would you deem something like that as reliable? Bobthefish2 (talk) 19:18, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems all the links point to the same article and the best it does is to prove the article is published in a magazine? Or did I miss something? All that it said is Ms Sakurai claimed "that as many as 248 Japanese fishermen were living on one of the islands in 1909", without saying whether this is from a census or some older report in Japan, or whereever she obtained it. From the tone of Ms Sakurai, it seems this should be a well known fact and should have other sources to support her claim. He article is more like an opinion editorial rather than an academic research, and highly dubious as a source. I am not disputing the truth of this though I thought 248 people in that small island seems to be very crowded 100 years ago. But I do think you guys should be able to find some literature before Sakurai's essay, something pre-1970s. San9663 (talk) 11:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I took the liberty of removing both the 1909 entry about some alleged # of Japanese residents and the 1970 entry that claimed it was the first time China proclaimed sovereignty of the islands. Reason if they share the same original source which is apparently a personal blog of yet another Japanese nationalist.

The deletion I did is found here and is done as per an earlier decision made with other editors in which materials with unreliable or unverified sources are removed.

Off-topic. Notice some of the hilarious things that journalist said in her blog -> It was indeed pathetic of Kan to have attempted to evade his responsibility as premier by trying to claim that the decision was made by a small local public office called the Naha District Prosecutors’ Office. This is nothing but sheer cowardice on his part. Needless to say, a prime minister should neither be incompetent nor disengaged. Moreover, for him to be a coward is unpardonable under all circumstances.. Ann Coulter anyone? Bobthefish2 (talk) 19:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a reliable source. It is published by Shinchosha and sold all over Japan.[2] The link provided is certainly a blog, however it is simply a translated copy of the article provided as a courtesy. If you don't like it, please ignore the link. However I will provide another reliable academic journal. You can understand how the islands were utilized by Japanese.

Hiraoka, Akitoshi (2005). "The Advancement of Japanese to the Senkaku Islands and Tatsushiro Koga in the Meiji Era". Japanese Journal of Human Geography (in Japanese). 57 (5). The Human Geographical Society of Japan: p.515. In 1908, the reclaimed area reached to 60 chōbu (595,000m2). The number of residents is two hundred forty some. The number of houses is as many as ninety nine. {{cite journal}}: |page= has extra text (help) ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 01:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what is Wikipedia's stance on editorials, but that article is still certainly not a reliable information source for this kind of purpose. It's way too opinionated and will only be useful for sections like "Japanese reaction" (if any should exist). My inclination is for it to be removed as a citation for the 1909 entry since you already have a supporting reference there.

I haven't gotten a chance to take a comprehensible look at the new sources, but the two journal articles that are newly posted seem legitimate at first glance. I also appreciate how the December 1970 entry loses its original POV pushing tone. Bobthefish2 (talk) 04:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The Japanese Journal of Human Geography article is quite good. (The full text is available in PDF format.) The info on the population is given on page 13 (original 515): 1908年には尖閣諸島で「開墾面積が六十町歩に達し, 移住民の数二百四拾余名,戸数は九十九戸の多きあり…」と報じられている。 There is a cite for information: 琉球新報1908年6月19日付 (Ryūkyū Shimpō, June 19, 1908). There is nothing wrong with this as a reliable source. 124.214.131.55 (talk) 06:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

We were referring to another reference written by some crappy journalist. Bobthefish2 (talk) 10:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Copy and paste from another site

The phrase "East China Sea width is only 360 nautical miles" seemed rather odd to me, so I tracked down the source for it:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/senkaku.htm

Thanks. Hcobb (talk) 23:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

To: San

While some of your recent addition is well sourced , you seemed to copy and paste a big paragraphy of other articles into this one and ignored what have been mentioned in other paragraphies. This by effect brought the redundancy of the article a new level. I've tried to keep everything you added but merged them into different paragraphy to avoid redundancy. --Winstonlighter (talk) 12:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

needs citations for this paragraphy

From 1624 until 1662, Taiwan and some of the surrounding islands, though not the Senkaku Islands, were controlled by the Dutch as a base for commerce. In 1662, the Dutch were driven out by ex-Ming Dynasty general Zheng Chenggong. Zheng Chenggong and his successors established the Kingdom of Tungning and controlled the area until 1683. In the same year, Zheng's grandson Zheng Keshuang was defeated by Qing Dynasty forces led by Admiral Shi Lang. From then on, Qing Dynasty China gained effective control over Taiwan and its surrounding islands, including the islands in dispute today.

After some efforts on looking for proper sources, I couldn't find out any proper sources for this paragraphy. Could anyone help? --Winstonlighter (talk) 18:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

how relevant is this whole paragraph really to the topic? 222.166.181.195 (talk) 17:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Latest deletion by John Smith as of Oct 9, 2010 4:22 pm EST

Hi John Smith,

I notice that you deleted two citations in a recent edit. While I agree that the second reference deserves to be deleted, I'd like to ask why you deleted the first, which appears to be a reference to a published text dated back to the Ming Dynasty. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It's because it was referring to a Wiki source, which as pointed about above is not valid. I was also concerned because there was no indication as to where the text is held (i.e. what institution), what page number it might have been, etc. In this case, given that we're dealing with an old historical source, it might be better to have a secondary source from an academic publication that refers to it. Then it will be easier to go back and check it. Otherwise we're asking interested people to accept either a source that some unknown person reproduced, or hunt for a primary source amongst China's various museums and universities. John Smith's (talk) 09:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Or a scanned version of the text might help. John Smith's (talk) 10:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Your explanation does not seem acceptable

This is the reference in question:

Title: Liang zhong hai dao zhen jing / [Xiang Da jiao zhu].Imprint: Beijing : Zhonghua shu ju : Xin hua shu dian Beijing fa xing suo fa xing, 2000 reprint edition. Contents: Shun feng xiang song--Zhi nan zheng fa. (順風相送--指南正法). ISBN: ISBN 7-101-02025-9. pp96 and pp253. The full text is available on wikisource.

The page numbers are clearly listed as 96 and 253. An ISBN number is also provided. A search on Google returned dozens of places that have this book. The wikisource in question is simply a free instance of the book (which could be removed if there is reason to believe it is not the original text).

I am inclined to believe you are intentionally trying to commit an act of sabotage, since these details are hard to miss. In addition, you deleted this along with another obviously dubious reference which appears to be an attempt to mask the other deletion. And as with many of your other controversial deletes and reverts, you don't consult with other editors or provide adequate reasoning. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

A few days have passed and I have yet to see a convincing reply coming from you. Considering that you have been active on Wikipedia and had been making edits related to this topic, I'd take this a refusal of reply as a result of lack of valid counter-arguments. It's a pity that reputable editors can make the simple act of adding legitimate content so bothersome. Time to revert your deletion. Bobthefish2 (talk) 05:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggest to add the picture of the location of Diaoyu Island

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Diaoyu_island_Argument.png

I suggest to add the picture that describes the exact location of Diaoyu Island, and its relative position to China mainland, China continental shelf, Taiwan island, and Japan Ryukyu Island. It will help readers to understand the argument, particularly the China's claiming about the "Diaoyu Island locate at China's continental shelf".

I have no privilege to edit the page. So hereby I request that the editor add the picture on the page, as a part of "Geography" or "Arguments from PRC and ROC" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xijunw (talk • contribs) 00:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that image is marked with the correct copyright, but I found another image that also shows the islands relative to the East Asian region as a whole, and I have added it as part of the infobox. For a picture that illustrates China's continental shelf argument, you need to add some shaded line that shows the boundaries of the countries' respective continental shelves [with and without the disputed islands]. Quigley (talk) 01:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Bump! Request for comment regarding an alleged WP:SYN violation

I have requested a comment regarding my disagreement with John Smith, Oda Mari, and Qwyrxian about whether or not an old deletion event was legitimate. They argued that the deleted section violated WP:SYN and WP:NOR standards and I posted a number of counter arguments. However, even after posting an RFC on numerous boards, I still got no additional input from anyone else. And of course, none of the 3 editor I mentioned replied to my comments any further. As a result, I'd very much like the rest of you to offer your view on the matter. Bobthefish2 (talk) 03:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I had WP:NORN on my watchlist. I added a full explanation of my argument there, as well as a response to the one other person explaining why I believe their analysis is wrong. Qwyrxian (talk) 10:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

It appears that a more thorough reading of the Japanese indicates this may not be SYN. If that is the case (I still need clarification from one of the readers of Japanese about what exactly the article says), then I recommend we remove the picture. Having a picture of the newspaper does not add to the understand of the vast majority of our readers (that is, English speakers), and we need a much fuller explanation than we can easily provide in a caption. Instead, I recommend we just turn this into a full explanation in text, and just cite the article as we would any print newspaper. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:59, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Images nominated for deletion

Winstonlighter has nominated all of the images in the Japan claims section for deletion. Note that he did not notify anyone of this, he has not tagged the articles and he has not tagged them as used in this article either.

You can leave your comments here and here. John Smith's (talk) 17:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Where is the deletion discussion for the Commons image ([3])? The closed discussion after the above 2 indicate that he made a deletion discussion on Commons, but I have no idea how to find it.

Also, Winstonlighter, as I mentioned there, it is extremely difficult to assume good faith when you explicitly nominated only the Japanese pictures, and did so under extremely specious reasons. The second one especially was entirely hypothetical--you assumed that the Washington Times somehow modified the image from the original to establish a new copyright. I guess I can just assume that you are unaware that the Foundation itself (I don't recall where this is, but it came up in connection to museums claiming copyright over photographs of public domain artwork) has stated that they do not accept that simple reproductions of public domain works can ever be copyrighted. There is nothing in those pictures to indicate that they were in any way altered from the original. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

What are the criteria for which paper can be sourced and which cannot (e.g. Washington Post, NYT, vs Washington Time,Global Time, New Epoch)? what are the copyright rules here (e.g. can wiki simply port a picture owned by an external media company? is this map dated over a hundred year so that the copyright expired?)? you guys probably know more about these rule. anyway, if in doubt, we can also use a link pointing there instead of uploading them to wiki's domain? tot he readers this makes no substantial difference anyway. San9663 (talk) 03:58, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The maps themselves are indisuptably old enough to be in the public domain. The claim that Winstonlighter was making is that when the Washington Times (and other examples) copied those maps and republished them, that they must have made modifications (despite the fact that we can't see any modifications), and that the new work must be copyrighted. I guess I should assume Winstonlighter just doesn't understand the issue of copies of public domain works--only changes that themselves involve creative work become copyrighted. For instance, if the map were displayed under particularly special lighting conditions, or put into a new frame, or had additions (say, an English translation), reproductions of those changes may (although aren't certainly) copyrightable. None of that applies to these pictures, as far as I can see. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand the whole copyright argument either. Why should that even be a point to argue. Bobthefish2 (talk) 04:24, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I am just raising the point that whether wiki should copy a figure directly on to wiki's domain, given that there may be copyright issue. As far as I know, copyright rule goes back to 75 years or more, depending on the country and also type of materials. (although that does not exclude you from seeking explicit non-commerical permission to use in wiki). The map qouted by washington time, according to that paper, was published in 1950s. I am not sure if that is "old enough". To this, I would like Qwyrxian to link us to the source which confirms his "old enough" statement (assuming, as he said, no significant modification has been made on the original map). San9663 (talk) 08:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

My second question, which remains unanswered, is how do we differentiate small publisher such as Washington Time, Epoch Time from well known and more credible publishers such as NYT or WSJ? A couple days ago I suggested a link from a think tank and someone challenged me who the writer is instead of who the publisher is, for just suggesting a reference to be considered. I thought wiki should have guidelines regarding this issue and would appreciate if you guys could show where such guidelines are.San9663 (talk) 08:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Sangoku map

A 1785 Japanese map, the Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三国通覧図説) by Hayashi Shihei adopted the Chinese kanji (釣魚臺 Diaoyutai) to annotate the Senkaku Islands, which were painted in the same color as China.

This uses the Unryu Suganuma book as a reference, but across eight pages (89–97). Can someone point me to the correct page where it makes/supports the above statement? Thanks. The citation is much too vague at the moment, and as far as I can see it doesn't support that statement. John Smith's (talk) 17:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I glanced through the HTML version of the maps from the referenced site. I can't read Japanese. You can check the page number yourself: http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/ru03/ru03_01547/ru03_01547_0004/ru03_01547_0004_p0005.jpg. Please let other editors comment before deleting the reference. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Please re-read my comments. I'm talking about the book reference. John Smith's (talk) 21:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I see. I was hasty in my assumption that you were referring to the Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三国通覧図説). In this case, I agree that a better reference will be preferable. In fact, do we even need this reference at all to illustrate the point? Bobthefish2 (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

1. you can see from the map the coloring of each island, very clearly. a magnified picture is found here http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WzN3JMZpmGA/TJoPQofRCgI/AAAAAAAAAyI/o6YfxRSG6Do/s1600/1786%E5%B9%B4%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%BE%80%E7%90%89%E7%90%83%E6%B5%B7%E8%B7%AF%E5%9B%BE2.jpg or here http://www.mahoroba.ne.jp/~tatsumi/dinoue16.html

2. source from, e.g. Kiyoshi Inoue, http://www.mahoroba.ne.jp/~tatsumi/dinoue0.html , 彼はこの傳信録中の琉球三十六島の図と航海図を合作して、三国通覧図説を作成いたしました。このさい三十六島の図に琉球領として記載されていない釣魚台、黄尾嶼などを、機械的に中国領として色分けしています。

would this satisfy you? John Smith? I think what we should try to do here is to provide a balanced view and list of facts, not trying to push POV one way or another. San9663 (talk) 03:37, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Content Copied/Awaiting Removal

I finally got to copying two sections from here to the Senkaku Islands dispute page. That means most of the dispute-related contents here will be removed. There are a few things we might want to think about:

Do we need a separate summary of the dispute? If so, how detailed? The intro has already summarized the gist of it, and to be honest, I'm sick of seeing the actual points of arguments being listed out here.

The Oil drilling dispute section will have to go somewhere else. It's not about the islands at all. It's not an actual event or anything, but an ongoing state of relationship. If you want to, perhaps make a stub article out of it.

Some people thought we should still have a section for historical events. I don't really care as long as it's not about the dispute again. It will probably be quite short and factual. We can add it later.

Scroll up to see my original proposal along with the responses. You might have to search the page archive if it gets archived soon.

DXDanl (talk) 21:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

A summary of the dispute is certainly needed here. John Smith's (talk) 21:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• I reverted your edits. The copy should be syncronized with deletion. Actually my edit was lost. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:04, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Except there is no reason for your to revert the edit. You could have simply added yours now or later.DXDanl (talk) 22:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

You didn't respond to my indication. If the copy is not synchronized with deletion, someone will edit this article. If you wish to move the content, please synchronize the copy and deletion. And please copy the newest version.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Copying the content will lose all the edit histories. So please move the article and remove unnecessary content. Please undo them again ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:28, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

How do we keep the edit history for this article then?DXDanl (talk) 22:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Please follow the instruction of WP:MOVE. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:37, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, Senkaku Islands dispute has edit history, we can not move Senkaku Islands to it. We need to follow these procedures.

1. Move Senkaku Islands dispute to Senkaku Islands\temp
2. Ask admin to delete Senkaku Islands dispute.
3. move Senkaku Islands to Senkaku Islands dispute
4. delete necessary content of Senkaku Islands
5. copy/paste necessary content of Senkaku Islands dispute.

So it will take time. Please restore all of your move attempt until move is available. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:58, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. See procedures here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DXDanl (talk • contribs) 23:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• I failed to restore the edit history by swapping the article. Senkaku Islands dispute is now Senkaku Islands dispute temp. Please be patient untill admin restore the article. Sorry for the inconvenience. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 01:07, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• The history section, maybe should stay here? "Supposedly" this should only be a list of facts -- regardless of the disputes associated with it?San9663 (talk) 03:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
• I also feel the "oil dispute" section should belong to the East China Sea entry. Perhaps a link from here not a whole section San9663 (talk) 03:46, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I've moved Senkaku Islands dispute temp back to [[Senkaku Islands dispute. If you tell me which revisions of Senkaku Islands belong over there I can move them over. But I wouldn't worry too much about doing this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:33, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree I'm not sure what Phoenix7777 was trying to do with the "... dispute/temp" page and the "... dispute temp" page. There's no way I know of to automatically keep edit history in both articles. Moving, even by an admin, would replace the current article on the islands themselves with a redirect. There was something written about manually fixing history, but I didn't look into it too much since there are already separate instructions for splitting an article.DXDanl (talk) 21:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment on a recent revert of Phoenix7777

On October 10, 2010, you made this revert claiming that the original caption contained information (namely Okinawa was administered by the U.S.) that was not mentioned in the source. But then in your next revert, you added a source said Remin Ribao "criticized the occupation of the Ryukyu Island (or Okinawa Prefecture) by the United States)". If I don't see a reasonable argument from your end, I'd assume this is a sabotage and undo your revert. Bobthefish2 (talk) 23:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I like it when some editors here make their POV-pushing edits and then refuse to justify themselves. But since this matter is again brought up in a later thread, it's not going to make a differenceBobthefish2 (talk) 05:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Move oil dispute section away

1. The description there has nothing to do with the islands

2. Even if there is, this should probably just be a pointer to this entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_China_Sea#EEZ_disputes San9663 (talk) 17:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Comments Someone willing to perform another split? :D I actually don't agree with leaving even a redirect. The oil drilling dispute is centered around the East Sea in general and the Chunxiao field. They have nothing to do with this article yet in terms of secondary sources. Including them would be synthesis/original research. However, there could be a link under "See also".DXDanl (talk) 06:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

"See also" seems good enough. It seems people are more interested in the 'dispute' and not many return to this page now. :) San9663 (talk) 08:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

San9663 -- Yes, it is demonstrable that "not many return to this page now;" however, this puts emphasis on the wrong point. Please let me re-introduce another point-of-view. Recall that DXDanl suggested that an article split can "... help readers better understand what information is being disputed and what is not."

In that slightly re-focused context, I wonder about the possible usefulness of delay? In the phrase "nothing to do with this article yet in terms of secondary sources," I wonder what DXDanl meant by the word "yet"? Should there be a section which identifies the islands as a "proxy"?

• Google news search, Senkaku and proxy?

• Tisdall, Simon. "China's global quarrels; The forces driving China's disputes with Japan, south-east Asia and the US remain poorly understood in the west," The Guardian (London). 11 October 2010?
• Horn, Heather. "Why a Fisherman Is Causing So Much Trouble Between China and Japan," The Atlantic (New York). ‎September 22, 2010?
• Chellaney, Brahma. "India-China: Let facts speak for themselves," The Economic Times (Mumbai). 17 September 2010?

• Google books search, Senkaku and proxy?

• Tow, William T. (2001) Asia-Pacific strategic relations: seeking convergent security, p. 68., p. 68, at Google Books; excerpt, "[China] argues that Japan is acting as a US proxy in seeking to 'contain' a fictitious 'China threat'...."

I suppose this short section could remain as an illustrative example. I understand how this can be construed as a valid aspect of our subject, but maintaining non-controversial neutrality is probably beyond my personal writing skills. --Tenmei (talk) 16:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

My comments was meant to explain the fact that Dxdanl's comment received little feedback now. Anyway, Chunxiao is more than 200 nautical miles away from the islands, and it just does not belong to here. The only thing that may be related is perhaps to mention the island is related to the resources in the surrounding seabed, which we have in previous sections already. San9663 (talk) 00:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I have brought up the removal of the oil dispute section before, but we can start anew, since the recent edits to that section have changed things a bit. The main body of the oil dispute itself should not be a part of either this article or the Senkaku dispute article. Are they related in real life? Yes, but 99% of all Wikipedia articles are related to some other article. We make separate articles exactly because we don't want to include multiple topics in one article. Right now, it seems we have a nice intro/summary paragraph in that section, so a link could be created from there. The main body, however, is still the same info as before and should go to a separate article--options include the one on the East Sea dispute or a stub-article. The procedure should be similar to a split, since we don't want to disturb the histories of the established articles. Btw, when I wrote "yet", I simply anticipated that eventually there will be someone who would find some secondary source that ties in Senkaku with other issues; that was all.DXDanl (talk) 07:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Endorse the neutral analysis and editing strategy of DXDanl in this diff --Tenmei (talk) 20:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Could DXDanl do the clean up removal work? Though the suspension of talk in East Sea may be linked to the recent skipper arrest incidence, there is no direct indication (China neither admitted nor denied the link, and it may just be a general result of suspending all communication as a gesture of protest by China), so even with the recent edit the link is rather weak. But I do not have a strong opinion either way. San9663 (talk) 11:19, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I should be able to do that on Sunday/Monday.DXDanl (talk) 20:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I won't have time until maybe Thursday. Anyone else, feel free to give it a shot.DXDanl (talk) 07:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no harm leaving it here for a few more days :) San9663 (talk) 08:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Controversy and Request for change of name

There has always been controversy as to whether this entry (and the related dispute entry) should be named senkaku or diaoyu or pinnacles, or senkaku/diaoyu or diaoyutai/senkaku, etc. One way to resolve is to rely on some external and neutral verdict. Unfortunately there is no ICJ ruling yet, while many editors here pointed to google.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_590598.html Recently, there is a dispute filed on google earth, and the verdict is not out yet (link above). Can we agree to use whatever name google has finally decided? i.e. if it will drop the "diaoyu" name and call it "senkaku" alone that is what this entry will be named, and if it decides to call it senkaku/diaoyu then this entry should be named so.

None of us knows how google will decide at this moment, so if we could agree on this before the verdict is out, this should be NPOV decision. San9663 (talk) 05:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Possession is nine tenths of the Devil's work. If the Chinese want to name it, they gotta own it first. Hcobb (talk) 05:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

No we, cannot rely on Google Earth--their "decision" would be but one part of the puzzle. Nor can we rely on "possession" as Hcobb mentions, since that's not the criteria we use (note that we use Florence as our title for the city, even though Florence's "possessor", Italy, uses Firenze). Wikipedia actually has a very complex policy involved, which you can read at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Note that even if the UN "ruled" on a name (which it doesn't do, but just imagine it did), that wouldn't be enough to satisfy the guideline. We must use the most common name used in English (which can be equal to one of the local names).

Because of the split, I ended up starting a discussion over at Talk:Senkaku Islands dispute about this issue. But it makes more sense to discuss that issue here. Here's the discussion so far:

Discussion copied from Talk:Senkaku Islands dispute

Personally, I think both articles should continue to use the name "Senkaku Island". Just as a quick search, Google News pulls up over 1000 hits on "Senkaku Islands," including Japanese, U.S., and international sites. On a number of the non-Japanese sites, the name Senkaku is even used without any mention of the other 2 names "Pinnacle Islands" finds only 32 hits, only 3 of which appear to be about these islands and all of which list Pinnacle Islands after the Japanese and Chinese names. Now, searches like that are only a starting point, but the fact that the results are so lopsided is a good indication of a starting point. The next question would be which name is commonly used in international reference books, like other encyclopedias, academic journals (if their are any), and atlases/maps. The only reason I can see to change the name would be if a large proportion of the international, English sources regularly used both names, and especially if they used them with a slash between them. In that case, we could say that since the English name is widely held to be disputed, but for Wikipedia we have to choose one name, we'll use the less common but neutral "Pinnacle Islands" name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwyrxian (talk • contribs) 23:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC) Google search does not take into the fact that multiple spelling would refer to the same name in its original language, eg, you need to add up the search results for diaoyu/diaoyutai/tiaoyu/tiaoyutai. Nonetheless, I do not understand why one can use Liancourt for one case and not use Pinnacle for the other. I am sure Liancourt turns up in google much less frequently than either Takeshima or Dokdo. If use are going to use Senkaku here, there is no reason not to use Dokdo for the other. San9663 (talk) 04:04, 12 October 2010 (UTC) Well, the governing guideline is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). The primary question is, is there a widely used English name (note that this doesn't mean it needs to be an English word, and it may be identical to the local word--for example, we use the words Paris and Berlin, even though those aren't "English"). So, we would have to ask whether or not Pinnacle Islands is widely used. We can see that, at least in a Google News search, it is not. Even looking at an archive search, with "Pinnacle Islands" in quotation marks, I only get 15 hits, and all mentions of that follow mention of either Senkaku Islands or Senkaku Islands and some version of the Chinese spelling. So we definitely shouldn't choose Pinnacle Islands as the standard English term, because that term simply isn't used regularly in English (at least in newspapers searched by Google News; I'd like to see some other results from other places as well). However, as I mentioned above, there is another reason why we might use Pinnacle Islands. If anyone really wants to get into the issue, I recommend reading the entire archive history of Liancourt Rocks. Well, no, I take that back, I don't recommend anyone put themselves through so much pain. But, once upon a time, I did read the whole debate (I wasn't an active editor at the time of the main debate), and the dispute there boiled down to this (in very very brief summary): 1) the islands themselves, were hardly ever mentioned in English, because the truth is that the English speaking world really didn't care very much about the Rocks except to report recent clashes over ownership. 2) In almost all cases that the islands were mentioned, both Dokdo/Tokto (the Korean name) and Takeshima were named, with no particular preference for either. 3) As such, it was shown that there really was no "standard" English name. 4) Edit warring over the name was very aggressive, involved external canvassing, and non-stop (except when protection was applied). As such, it was decided (and consensus still holds) that since there was no standard English name, and choosing either of the local names was bound to continue the edit warring, the English name was chosen as the suboptimal-but-at-least-neutral 3rd option. So, in this case, here's my summary of the issue for this article: We need to determine if any of the three names is regularly used in English more than any other, by a substantial enough margin. When doing such an analysis, we need to be careful to "ignore" counts where the article says something like "Senkaku islands, or, as known in Chinese, Diayou", since those give no information either way. We also have to account for alternate spellings in Chinese, but again, if one article says "Diayou/Taiyou/etc.", that's still only 1 mention. If Pinnacle islands is regularly used more than any other, we should almost certainly choose that name. This matches the precedent for something like Florence, even though the local name is "Firenze". If either Senkaku Islands or Diaoyu is regularly used more than any other name, by a large, substantial margin, we should probably choose that name. Note that this matches the precedent for Sea of Japan. If Senkaku Islands or Diaoyu is used more often, but not by a large margin, or if the names are used approximately equally, we should discuss the issue, but probably go with Pinnacle Islands, in keeping with the Liancourt Rocks precedent. Of course, no matter what we choose, we leave redirects at all of the other names. Furthermore, we make both articles conform internally to the name chosen for the article title (this is mentioned in the above referenced guideline). Does this seem like a good framing of the discussion? Does anyone want to object to the process before we actually start make observations? I would really rather establish a consensus if we can, because the problem is that if we can't, we'll eventually end up at ArbCom (like, say, with the issues surrounding Ireland). Qwyrxian (talk) 04:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC) This isn't a big deal to me. But it just looks totally strange compared with the Liancout/dokdo/dokto/takeshima entry. It seems you are suggesting the fact that the final compromise of liancourt is just because there were too much edit warring, while the pro-neutral (or non-pro-japan) editors here are too civilized to do that. This seems a weird reason (though a plausible explanation) and sort of look like an unfair wiki phenomenon. San9663 (talk) 16:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC) Sorry, I was a little unclear; the edit-warring was actually a result, not the cause, of the underlying problem--no one could establish, definitively, whether Dokdo or Takeshima was more common in English (despite lots of painful arguing about statistical analysis, search terms, etc.). So, either they were actually used about equally in English, or editors were just unable to get a solid "proof" of which one was more common. As a result, it was almost logical for the partisans to continue to push for their own name, because each side had "evidence" that their name was more common. However, the reason why I think we don't need to do that here is that I believe that, in English articles/books/etc., the term actually used is Senkaku Islands, not a mix of the two. However, if someone could show me that that isn't the case, then we could look to alternative approaches. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC) Actually, I believe Diaoyu and Diaoyutai are both quite commonly used in English sites and documents. Try doing a search in major search engines. Bobthefish2 (talk) 00:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC) Is this discussion posted taken into account the recently closed Requested move? ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 00:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC) The title should not be decided just by a simple "google it". Wikipedia has very detailed guidelines on using the search engines as to what hits are acceptable and what hits are not. I would also point out that across Asia except Japan, the term "Senkaku Islands" is almost unknown but Diaoyutai is instantly recognisable. STSC (talk) 08:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC) I did not mean a simple search; this is why I started with Google News (current and archive) search, and meant it only as a start. We want to know what reliable sources use, not what joe random blogger (who's undoubtedly partisan one way or the other) uses. I'm particularly interested in what English maps and encyclopedias use. As to your (STSC's) comment about "across Asia", I have to issues: 1) How did you determine that one is almost unknown while the other is "instantly recognizable"? Do you have any evidence for that? I don't doubt that you believe it to be true, but, of course, we need actual evidence. 2) When you said "across Asia," did you mean "across Asia in English-language media?" Because, as far as en.wiki is concerned, only the English name matters when choosing the title. This is exactly like how our article on the city in Italy is called Florence, despite the fact that the local (Italian) name is Firenze (which redirects to Florence). Qwyrxian (talk) 23:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

And when I look at that, I see that you were already aware of this discussion, San9663. In any event, let's continue it here. As far as I'm concerned, the actual evidence I've seen so far implies that Senkaku Islands is the standard English name, and so should be used in the title. I'd like to see evidence from other sides (support either Daioyu or Pinnacle Islands). Also, I'm wondering if anyone has access to some print English language maps, atlases, or encyclopedia sources and could tell us what they use? Qwyrxian (talk) 06:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's look at the examples.

1) Possession/control. Explain to me why the wiki entry for Liancourt is not Dokto. This example demonstrates that current possession is not the prevailing factor. IF each of you here is willing to post an objection to the Liancourt Discussion page of this same reasoning, I will stop here and believe you are genuine.

2) English sources. Let's look at the news story of MAJOR English media in the past year. Most, if not all, that I have seen listed Diaoyu together with Senkaku side by side. (Chinese or Japanese papers do not count)

WSJ: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Senkaku_Islands&action=edit&section=37 "a cluster of islands known as Diaoyutai in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese"

BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139 "a group of islands, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China" "The Senkaku/Diaoyu issue complicates efforts by Japan and China to resolve a dispute over oil and gas fields in the East China Sea that both claim."

The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/17101152?story_id=17101152&fsrc=rss "The Senkaku/Diaoyu issue complicates efforts by Japan and China to resolve a dispute over oil and gas fields in the East China Sea that both claim."

Arguing for "senkaku" alone is clearly POV. If you can show me that more than 1/3 (I am not even asking for 50%+ or 80%+ for overwhelming majority) of the major English media in the past year have used Senkaku alone without mentioning Diaoyu, I will stop here. I am not arguing to use Diaoyu, becausse that would be POV, too. I am merely saying it should be Senkaky/Diaoyu or Diaoyu/Senkaku (and i do not mind the ordering) San9663 (talk) 10:15, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The title of the article cannot include a slash--Wikipedia articles have to have a single, unambiguous title per WP:MOS. Furthermore, we couldn't use a slash anyway for technical reasons, because that distinguishes pages from sub-pages. We have to choose the one, single, most used name. If we can't establish either Senkaku or Diaoyu as more common, we should use Pinnacle Islands. As a side note, I whole-heartedly agree that we cannot argue based on "possession" (I'm not even certain its accurate to say Japan possesses the islands in any real sense right now anyway, but that's a discussion for another place). I do see that the 3 you listed above use the joint naming approach. I'll take a look later and see what other sources are doing. I don't believe that we can limit the search to the last year, as that's too short to establish standards; I'd say last 3-5 years would be a better measurement. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

There was a discussion on this only a matter of weeks ago. It's ridiculous to keep proposing name changes until people come up with the "right" answer. Keep the current name and leave it at that. John Smith's (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, John Smith--though only a few weeks ago, that's before I started watching the page. Looking at the results, especially the search results Phoenix provided with over 3 times using Senkaku Islands implies a pretty clear standard in the English language press. Even if a number of the ones using Senkaku Islands also use the Chinese name, that would still leave a large majority using only Senkaku Islands. Alright, I'm done with this debate, unless another user can show a fundamental defect in the previous analysis of both search results and policy. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

So the repsonse is by ignoring the two challenges I wrote earlier? Because you are afraid of facing these reasonable challenges? The previous discussion have not even reached a consensus and it was still extremely controversial. Unless this is settled in a NPOV way, this will only come back from time to time in the future. I am not sure which google site you to search, the convention should be the main English site "google.com", not .jp, not .cn. This is what i found from the main English site.

Diaoyu: About 3,460,000 results (0.12 seconds)

Senkaku: About 842,000 results (0.19 seconds) San9663 (talk) 03:37, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

No, the point is that Phoenix didn't search Google at all--xe searched Google News and Google Scholar. Plain Google searches actually provide very little use to us, because we want to know what reliable sources are saying, not what blogs and other SPS are saying (since the vast majority of those will be partisans writing for one side or the other from within one or the other of the relevant countries).

In any event, even if you want to use a straight Google search, your results are misleading anyway. First, you must restrict all search results to English only (you can do that at the "Advanced Search" setting), as those are the only results that matter for determining the name on en.wiki (presumably other country's wikis use their own language as well). Next, let's make sure we're searching only for posts about the islands, and not some other meaning for that word. If you search for "Diaoyu" and "islands", you only get 72,200 hits, while "Senkaku" and "Islands" gets 83,000 hits. Alternatively, "Diaoyu" and "Island" gets 66,200 hits, while "Senkaku" and "Island" gets 74,200 hits. Also, just for completeness, if you search for them as a single phrase, "Diaoyu Islands" gets 64,000, while "Senkaku Islands" gets 72,800; "Diaoyu Island" gets 27,600, while "Senkaku Island" gets 2,470. My guess on the last result is that this occurs, if I understand correctly, because China calls the main island "Diaoyu Island", while Japan does not call any one island "Senkaku Island" (i.e., the Japanese results only occur as grammatical errors, while the Chinese results refer to the main island, surrounded by islets). Oh, wait, just one more completeness: "Pinnacle Islands" gets 3590; "Pinnacle Island" 5450, but event small number is actually over-inflated because there appear to be small islands named "Pinnacle Island" in New Zealand, Canada, and the UK.

So, Google hits show a slightly larger number of Senkaku mentions, while Google News shows an overwhelmingly larger number of Senkaku mentions. I still see no compelling reason to change the title to the exceedingly rare "Pinnacle Islands". Qwyrxian (talk) 04:17, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I did I search on a few major search enginers and here are some results:

"Diaoyu" on Google News - 1570 hits

"Senkaku" on Google News - 1710 hits

"Diaoyu" on Yahoo News - 2224 hits

"Senkaku" on Yahoo News - 2367 hits

"Diaoyu" on Bing News - 2230 hits

"Senkaku" on Bing News - 2220 hits

The differences don't appear as overwhelming as you indicated. To be fair, I'd say the article itself should be "Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands", but I doubt this is going to come to pass since since some editors will guard the current pro-Japanese tilt with their teeth. Bobthefish2 (talk) 04:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Bob, if you want to start accusing unnamed editors (though we know who you're talking about) of being "pro-Japanese", don't be surprised if you get accused of being "pro-Chinese". You have two choices, either work with other people here and stop accusing them of this and that, or leave the page and find some people you can work with. John Smith's (talk) 07:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a distinction between opposing a trend of fanatic pro-Japanese POV-pushing and being pro-Chinese. Up to now, all of my edits fall into the former category. Even so, my edits still suffer from relentless sabotage by certain editors. In many cases, I'd open up a thread to discuss the rationales behind the changes. But of course, that doesn't always work because some editors like to selectively ignore arguments that don't favour their actions and positions. So you see, it can be quite a chore to work with such uncooperative editors.

Despite you being a reputable editor based on how you presented yourself to Magog the Ogre, I have to respectfully decline considering the options you've presented. My conduct here has been reasonable and there isn't a necessity to assist efforts intended for POV-pushing. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

If we take Qwyrxian's results, the difference is not significant. 10-20% more for Senkaku+island vs Diaoyu+island. I agree with Bobthefish2 that the entry should be called senkaku_diaoyu, with senkaku appearing before diaoyu for its small (but statistically insignificant) edge. This should be NPOV for such a disputed item. As you also know, there are variations in how to spell the Chinese names, such as Diaoyutai, and Tiaoyutai, if you are adding these, the results will be even closer. BTW, it seems no one responded to the Liancourt analogy I posted earlier, I would assume we are closed on that topic, and we come to agree that different standard has been applied and the defenders for Actual Control Precedence are not willing to apply the same standard to Liancourt. San9663 (talk) 10:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a discussion on name-ordering earlier. I believe someone suggested that names should be ordered alphabetically if in doubt. However, I am not certain that's necessarily the case (someone can go check). At the same time, I'd caution that the small differences in results may fall well into the margin of error. After all, search engines are not necessarily even close to representing the real distribution of term frequencies in authoritative sources. The way the comparisons have been done also ignore the relative importance of the documents retrieved. Obviously, government documents should take precedence over say... People's magazine articles. Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

One more note: Calling this Senkaku_Diaoyu helps to reduce the POV accusation on this entry, and makes the whole wiki entry appear more trustworthy to many who also read the 45% of other literature. The name Diaoyu itself, as some of you here noted, are also used by the Japanese for the main island, sort of, as Yudiao/Uotsuri/鱼钓, and the Japanese people over the last century did not feel the need to change the name of that main island/rock. It really makes little impact to the dispute from the Japanese perspective. The Senkaku name only appeared in 1900, which was a few years after Japan incorporated it in 1895. i.e. Even under Japan's control, the name has been used by Japan for a few years for the whole group of islands. San9663 (talk) 10:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I tried the "google scholar" search. links attached for you to verify.

For all items since 1991

• (Diaoyu OR Diaoyutai OR Tiaoyutai OR Tiaoyu) AND islands: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,700. (0.11 sec)
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=(Diaoyu+OR+Diaoyutai+OR+Tiaoyutai+OR+Tiaoyu)+AND+islands&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=1991&as_vis=0
• Senkaku AND islands: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,820. (0.09 sec)
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Senkaku+AND+islands&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=1991&as_vis=0

I used "OR" instead of simply adding the results to avoid double counting. Search individually the results = 609+1140+41+140=1930 which would be double-counting. The articles where more than 2 names are cited are 1930-1700=230.

For all items since 2000:

• (Diaoyu OR Diaoyutai OR Tiaoyutai OR Tiaoyu) AND islands: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,270. (0.05 sec)
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=(Diaoyu+OR+Diaoyutai+OR+Tiaoyutai+OR+Tiaoyu)+AND+islands&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=2000&as_vis=0
• Diaoyu OR Diaoyutai: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,220. (0.05 sec)
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=(diaoyu+OR+diaoyutai)+AND+islands&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=2000&as_vis=0
• (this demonstrated that Tiaoyutai was used between 1991-1999 but more or less only appeared together with Diaoyutai since 2000)
• Senkaku AND islands: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,270. (0.06 sec)

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Senkaku+AND+islands&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=2000&as_vis=0

So, for google scholar results published since 2000, the numbers are exactly the same, 1270. for publication since 1991, Senkaku has a small edge, (1820-1700)/1820=6.6%

If I use "anytime" period, the difference is 2400 vs 2060, i.e. (2400-2060)/2400==14%, close to qwyrxian's results above, but still not a really significant difference. and you see the time trend of the scholars.

You are welcome to do your own search and post your links here.San9663 (talk) 12:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but a dual name is not an option. Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Multiple local names--it makes the key point that agreeing to use a dual name ultimately just switches the argument to "which one goes first", solving nothing. The guideline explicitly states that we need to make a choice, even if it is by arbitrary criteria (like search results). As much as I hate to say it, if we cannot agree on either Senkaku or Diaoyu, I think we must choose Pinnacle Islands. I don't have the brain power at the moment to look more carefully at the search results, but I'd like to determine why the google scholar/news counts that were done 2 weeks ago should a 3 to 1 dominance for Senkaku, but now they're showing roughly equal numbers--presumably the criteria were set up differently, but I don't know which one is more reliable.

One thing that I just noticed--WP:PLACE recommends using the United States Board on Geographic Names GeoNames search as one indicator, at least for the U.S. name; that database uses Senkaku, with Pinnacle as an alternate, with no mention of Diaoyu. Now, again, please don't think that I'm saying this is definitive--I'd like to know what similar boards in the UK and India (the next two most influential/largest English speaking countries) use, at a minimum. Again, still wondering--anyone have access to paper atlases or encyclopedia? Qwyrxian (talk) 13:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, this is quite close to your simple google search restricted to English sites. The difference may be, in the previous search, they use "name islands" as a strict criteria, hence ignoring the mention of just the names. For example, an article mentioning "islands of diaoyu" or "diaoyu tai islands" would not show up on the previous search. Even in Phoenix777's search, it was 1420 vs 711+259=970, not 3 times more often as he claimed. :)San9663 (talk) 14:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Ad hominem tu quoque --Tenmei (talk) 14:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Right from the start I proposed us to agree to accept a result that none of us could predict (google official verdict), but it was rejected -- if that is what you are referring to. San9663 (talk) 14:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, I followed phoenix' link, his first (top) three results. (1) Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai (Senkaku) Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition by T Cheng (2) Sovereign rights and territorial space in Sino-Japanese relations: irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands by U Suganuma. (3) The US role in the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands, 1945–1971 by JMF Blanchard. They won't show up in "Diaoyu islands" search, because Cheng spelled Tiao-yu with hyphens and with a "T", and Suganuma and Blanchard had placed Diaoyu ahead of Senkaku (so that you won't find "Diaoyu Islands" together. This is why the results were different. BTW, there are 131 results with the "tiao-yu-tai" spelling, which could make the result of Chinese name more than that of Japanese name. San9663 (talk) 14:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Logical fallacy

Post hoc ergo propter hoc — not "a fundamental defect in the previous analysis of both search results and policy."Review threads which developed from here through here.QED. --Tenmei (talk) 14:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Apologies--I have no idea what that meant. Was that saying I committed a logical fallacy by assuming that X followed Y, therefore X caused Y? If so, what are X and Y? I may well have made a logical fallacy, but I don't understand what it is, and would happily like to have the defect pointed out. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Qwyrxian -- In a discussion thread, active and passive participation is encouraged. The hallmark of your effectiveness is revealed in the way you take in the opinions expressed by others. You only began to stray into a logical fallacy when you began to take in San9663's over-reaching. In this instance, your demonstrated commitment to the principle of collaborative editing led you astray.

San9663's parsed argument here and here and here devolved into a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. It does not present "a fundamental defect in the previous analysis of both search results and policy."

You identified the pivot but you did not recognize it here. On one hand, I guess you should have stopped when you said you were done. On the other hand, thank you. I learned from the process of struggling to understand the mistakes which unfolded next. This became an extended teachable moment.

At one point here, I envisaged Pinnacle Islands as an arguably appropriate name, but no longer. I would be remiss if I were to fail to thank San9663 for the time invested in constructive refutation and counterargument which helped me to learn a difficult lesson. --Tenmei (talk) 17:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what your not-fundamental defect means. (1) the previous searches had technically flaw. (2) the conlusion (3x more) did mot even match the original data. (3) the liancourt analogy was never addressed. There are ample reasons for review and revisit. BTW, are you accusing others of losing a POV? I am happy to change my mind if you can convince me so. I believe the spirit of wiki is to submit to objective reasoning with an open mind, instead of insisting on a POV, any POV.San9663 (talk) 02:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

comment It's obvious that either Japanese or Chinese names for the disputed islands aren't overwhelmingly more common than their counterparts, according to the previous search research on google scholars and google books. However, Wikipedia also states that when there is no consensus reached, it will hardly change anything. This means that even if 55% people agree to change the name with 45% strongly objecting to it, it won't change anything.

As long as the current title is kept, the discussions on the naming convention will never end and we'll end up in a dead loop. Following the example of Lioncourt islands, I think it's time to request Wikipedia:Arbitration. --Winstonlighter (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration resolves problems concerning editor behaviour. It does not make decisions about things like article titles and/or content. John Smith's (talk) 22:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This entry is badly in need of some really neutral person to be involved, since reasoning seems to be ignored. Let the arbitrator or admin to decide what decision they would make and what they would not. If one has no POV, for me, there is nothing to be afraid of, and I would be happy if I am proved wrong. I also do not mind applying the same set of criteria to other entries (and post there) if asked to. San9663 (talk) 02:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

In reference to Winstonlighter above, I think what you mean is Mediation. To be honest, I think it's too soon for Mediation--I actually don't see massive disagreement. In fact, I would argue we've only just begun to gather the relevant data. Now, Mediation may be necessary in the future, but are we really at some sort of intractable impasse? I did come to this discussion late, but has it been so bad? Personally, my opinion is that we should keep gathering information (internet searches, government sites, international atlases and encyclopedias, etc.). Also, I think it's nice that there hasn't been an edit or move warring over the issue, which to me at least shows that we're still in a talking stage.

In reference to Tenmei above, I think San9663 is hitting on a key point--even though the previous discussion seemed definitive, it looks like there may have been mistakes in the way the search terms were set up. Whenever I have time, I'm going to try to do a bunch of searches to follow up on what's above. At the moment, my feeling is that the two terms are close to equal, which, of course, is the least helpful of results. However, I don't believe, like WinstonLighter said, that it's "obvious that either Japanese or Chinese names for the disputed islands aren't overwhelmingly more common than their counterparts." It's starting to look that way, but it's definitely not obvious to me yet--I think there's more work to be done. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:38, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The name convention you suggested sounds reasonable enough. One way you can try to verify my finding/"claim" that the searches done a couple month to a month ago was problematic, is to see how many results you get with ("senkaku" OR "diaoyu"), i.e. entries that contain both words in the same article. I believe more than half of the results from "Senkaku Islands" search also contain the word "diaoyu" or a variation such as "daioyutai" or "Tiaoyutai".San9663 (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Green shows
  prior search target?
Blue shows
• new search term?
Black shows
  ideal search term?

The graphic at the right was created to illustrate factors affecting trajectory. Does it adequately illustrate the analysis Qwyrxian proposes?

"... San9663 is hitting on a key point--even though the previous discussion seemed definitive, it looks like there may have been mistakes in the way the search terms were set up."

Can this graphic assist us going-foward? --Tenmei (talk) 17:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There are full guidelines on search engine test: WP:SET. I also recall Wikipedia stating that if consensus cannot be reached on the article's title, the original title of the full article should be used (when it was first created). STSC (talk) 16:39, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The Liancourt Rocks are named after the only notable event that ever almost happened there. The Senkaku Islands have no such distinction. But we are an English language project and so the primary name used by English speakers needs to apply. The Chinese and Japanese wikistans can have different titles for their pages. Hcobb (talk) 16:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Names in lead section

Five different titles in the lead section is far too much. It should be reduced to three (Japanese, most common Chinese and English). Alternative names can be added in the naming section. John Smith's (talk) 23:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)