Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China- and Chinese-related articles

Comparing the Templates

Anything highlighted in Green should no longer be an issue.

Template:Chinesename:

1. Does not support some less common languages compared with Template:Chinese. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment It is missing quite a number of flags. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Would this be difficult to fix? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment There is the short way of inserting it in. I can do it, except on estimate the template will triple in length. There is the long way of using autohide, which only Alan can do. I am almost certain he does not want to bother with this template. Benjwong 15:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment This issue is resolvable with grunt work (inserting it in). Flagging green. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

2. Less support for alternative names. --PalaceGuard008(Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment I actually tried implementing the code in my test sandbox at one time but never got it to work. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

3. Less display options, such as hide transliterations. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Alternative names might be the hardest to re-code. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment So is the absence of hide transliteration option actually a problem? If not, I'll flag this green. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

4. Less standard code names for languages. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment As mentioned earlier, this turns out to not match ISO standards. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment If necessary, we could do a mass-switchover to ISO names. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment ISO name switch is possible if done sooner. Once the article numbers surpass 1000 or higher it will be insanely time consuming to do without other people's help. Benjwong 15:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment It isn't causing too much problems in implementation, and can be fixed with grunt work. I'm flagging it green. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

5. The names in multiple language are arranged in a very unorganized manner.

Comment All the names in different languages are just randomly stacked together, without proper organization. This format is inconsistent with the info box in Spratly Islands, Thousand Character Classic and Tofu infobox . These info boxes can be replaced by the better template (Template:Chinese) without changing any layout. The better template (Template:Chinese) is consistent with this standard layout, which has been adopted in Wikipedia for a long time. - Alan 00:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment It shouldn't be too hard to get a stacked format, as in Template:Koreanname Chinesename. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:Chinese

1. Poor maintainability - code apparently maintainable only by Alanmak.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment If you look at Template:Koreanname history, it is practically managed by 2 people. So please don't use that as an example. As long as Alanmak was willing to volunteer again, it might be ok. Templates should not require daily maintainance anyway. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Question The question is not whether it is maintained by one or two people, but whether it is maintainable by other people. I had a look and I can't, and I know Badagnani said he couldn't - can you? The risk of standardising to a non-maintainable template is that should Alanmak leave the project (God forbid) we'd have to start from scratch and probably resurrect a deleted alternative. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Complex features will always require complex code. What is even more unattainable is to get Template:Chinesename to the current state of Template:Chinese. As this is the #1 reason why I am in favor of Template:Chinese at the moment. Benjwong 15:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment I am putting myself on the list to maintain this. I have been staring at the code for days. I will run down this list and try to fix up every request until there is none. Benjwong 14:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Another argument that has been repeated over and over...boring. - Alan 00:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

2. Poor ordering of transliterations/languages, resulting in unsuitability for dialectical terms. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment It is in alphabetical order. People really took this the wrong way. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment It doesn't really matter why it is so - I can see that it is alphabetical. Nevertheless, alphabetical ordering is misleading and inappropriate for some articles, as I pointed out earlier. The more important question for us now is how (and with how much difficulty) this can be fixed to allow different (?arbitrary?) ordering. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment I propose a fixed order of display. Such as pinyin first, jyutping second. Benjwong 15:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment See List of Chinese dialects, which lists all main dialect groups using a single romanisation system - in this case pinyin. I would personally prefer this ordering.--Huaiwei 17:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - In the "Chinesename" template we just put Simplified and Traditional (or vice versa, depending on the subject matter), then pinyin, then Wade-Giles if relevant, then do the dialects in order of importance. This means usually Cantonese first, then Min Nan, then Shanghainese (leaving one or more out if they're irrelevant). Badagnani 17:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - After Pinyin (and WG if relevant), dialects should be listed in order of relevance, and thus would vary from article to article. E.g. for Xiaolongbao you would natually have Wu first. But in Kowloon, you would have Cantonese first. The dialect ordering has to be customisable. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Both templates can switch order between simplified and traditional text. If you want totally customisable dialect, you are looking at a new flag. For example, a "region flag". This can be done somewhat in Template:Chinese since all the variables are already there. But I thought everyone wants the template to be simple? I recommend showing pinyin and jyutping permanently that's it. Benjwong 18:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - IMO we haven't had a problem with ordering of the dialects, as usually we don't need to have all of the following: Cantonese, Min Nan, Shanghainese. Badagnani 18:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I strongly suggest having pinyin and jyutping show up permanently. Everything else should hide. Look at the code, this can be fixed. Benjwong 20:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Having pinyin + jyutping displayed would only be useful (and appropriate) for Cantonese articles. Also, there are articles where it might be appropriate to have multiple dialects in different orders. Romanisation order needs to be able to be called in any order to suit the myriad different situations we encounter. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - There's nothing that says we can't have different (very similar) templates with different orders of languages, with all the templates following the same style. Yes, pinyin + jyutping would only be useful (and appropriate) for Cantonese-themed articles but there are a vast number of these. For ones with multiple romanizations, I think the ordering we've been using has been working fine. Badagnani 05:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I am sorry, but I fail to see why Cantonese in particular should be assumed to take greater precedence over other Chinese dialects, particularly on topics which are relevant to most Chinese. I can understand pinyin being a permanent fixture, but not jyutping. This website is already heavily slanted in coverage as it is, and to do this simply worsens systemic bias.--Huaiwei 14:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Maybe you're right, but it seems to me that the number of articles we've got that require Cantonese is several times the number that require Min Nan (or other Min languages). The other dialects (like Shanghainese) are used about the same ratio less. Maybe if we get more editors skilled in Min Nan who make articles about Min Nan-related subjects that would change. In any case, most articles wouldn't require both Cantonese and Min Nan so I don't think there's a very big problem of which order to put them in, in many articles. Badagnani 16:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - We need to standardize on 1 template. We're not going to keep a second template because it displays better order. Also this is English wikipedia not zh.wikipedia, so pinyin is just as good as jyutping. Currently there is no precedence, is just alphabetical order. But I have agreed to make whatever changes. Benjwong 17:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Formulating wikipedia templates based on the number of wikipedia articles would be a grave mistake. Notability is clearly not established by its coverage in wikipedia, and again accentuates the problem of systemic bias I pointed out earlier. I personally see two possible solutions: List them by alphabetical order, or list them by the number of speakers. While these two methods of display have their own issues to be ironed out (which I will detail later), attempting to establish "relevance" can be a major headache in grey-areas, especially non-geographically specific articles. And I dont see why we must stick to just a few dialects. By all means, list transliterations for all seven major Chinese dialect groups as per List of Chinese dialects.--Huaiwei 18:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Displaying all relevant dialects in order of number of speakers could work, I guess, but I still think a fully customisable order is the best. And pinyin is not "as good as" jyutping. Pinyin is the international standard for standard Chinese. Jyutping is not even the most commonly used method of transliteration for Cantonese, and neither is Cantonese the largest or even the second largest dialect by population. Maybe the best solution would be to have two templates: 1) Pinyin + Jyutping by default for Cantonese-related articles, and 2) Pinyin with all other dialects hidden. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - If you only wanted pinyin + jyutping for a particular article, you could just just a template with all the other dialects, and just not use any of the other dialects. Badagnani 02:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Looking at the list of dialects there are Gan, Guan, Hakka, Min, Wu, Xiang, Yue. It maybe best if you guys add whatever else field is needed in the sample list below. Let's get all the right languages in first before we discuss the order any further. Benjwong 04:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Notes - removed "Latin phonetic method" from Shanghainese: a 6-year-old scheme with limited online presence and by no means widespread. In the absence of an accepted standard, no single method of romanisation should be specified. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Sorry the comments after the semicolon were copied as comments from below. Let me delete them to avoid confusion. I readded back Gwoyeu Romatzyh. Currently 19 lines will show when you click unhide. I am interested in what User:Huaiwei suggest we add to the list. I am fine with the order actually. Benjwong 05:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Ok this last problem is now addressed. I have asked User:Huaiwei and he does not have any input. It currently displays mandarin languages exactly as shown above. I think it is time to standardize on 1 template and delete Template:Chinesename. Benjwong 21:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I have un-greened this: it still doesn't have the other major dialects. Dialect categorisation is still unsystematic. You still cannot call the dialects at any order.

a. Unsystematic dialect categorisation

Comment - From his comments above, it seems that Alanmak's key objection to Template:Chinesenames is its "unorganised" [sic] display of languages. As far as varieties of Chiense are concerned, Template:Chinese has similar problems. Some specific examples, just from the list above:

Teochow should be a subset of Min Nan.

Min Nan should be a subset of Min. --02:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that we generally only need to use one or two dialects (if any) for a particular article, in any case, as the article is relevant to a particular region of China using that dialect. Badagnani 02:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

That's true, but some articles can overflow with dialects. It's better to be systematic, as Alanmak will no doubt agree. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I am not sure what iso flags or romanizations should be listed for the others. I will say that there is only room for 1 level hierachy so poj and teochew will be under the same Min branch. Benjwong 03:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - So far 5 out of 7 of the linguistics are in. Unless there is real romanization with isos for Gan and Xiang, this might be as far as the template can go. Benjwong 05:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Gan

1. -Romanization (iso flag: gan???)

Xiang

1. -Romanization (???)

We can now use "showflag" to display a specific dialect or language outside the hide box for any article. This is no longer an issue. Every article can be customized differently. Benjwong 05:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

3. Presentation is inconsistent with other templates, e.g. Template:Koreanname. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Is this a matter of table grids? Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - That, and the use of yellow and green clashing with blue, and the fact that the template takes up too much needless horizontal space with each language taking up double the number of lines. Badagnani 05:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I can change this in 5 minutes. Benjwong 05:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I added grids to the temporary template below. It does take up less space. Benjwong 15:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - It's beautiful coding but the number of romanizations seems excessive, and I believe the romanizations (such as pinyin or Cantonese) should not be hidden, but immediately available to our users. Badagnani 17:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I copied a temporary view of what Chinese template would look like if it had grids. SEE BELOW. I removed the green lines, blue lines and renamed the fields to fit 1 line. Given the temporary view I cannot say this is actually better. In fact trying this on a number of pages, it does not look smooth at all. The reason why Template:Chinesename looked smooth with the grids is because it goes single row all the way down. Benjwong 01:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Something to consider is that only on a small minority of pages will there be the necessity to include non-Chinese names in the box (one example being Southeast Asian names for Chinese noodle dishes that are eaten there); on most pages we'll need only simplified, traditional, pinyin, and maybe Cantonese and/or Min Nan and/or Shanghainese. Despite Alanmak's implication that I'm prejudiced against the blue bars, I do see the logic behind having them, as they set off the languages from one another, but if there is an alternate name included in the box they wouldn't make as much sense. I still believe that romanizations shouldn't be hidden, and in fact all those romanizations (and languages/dialects) aren't needed in every page; following the practice we've specified since time immemorial, languages and dialects should only be included if culturally or historically specific to that particular article. Badagnani 01:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Ok we are keeping the blue bars. About the grids, I don't think that works either after trying it out. SEE BELOW. I am about to flag this issue green since nobody else has showed any real demand/interest/reason why grids must absolutely be deployed. Benjwong 18:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I think this should be greened. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

4. Seems like images default at size of 260px and cannot be changed. Benjwong 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I assume this is easily fixable? (as it's normal, as in taxoboxes or other types of infoboxes, to be able to change a photo's size). Badagnani 06:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I just added an optional picsize flag. This is no longer a problem. I also fixed another bug where my2 would show up on multiple columns if used. Benjwong 14:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

5. Takes up too much horizontal space (i.e. too many blue bars/each language takes up two lines rather than one). Badagnani 05:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Where? "Japanese Romaji Japanese Romaji" for example is 1 line on both templates. Benjwong 05:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - There is an extra blue bar just above that says "Japanese name." I'm not sure a blue bar is necessary for every language included in the box (as it takes up a lot of space), although there does seem to be a logic to doing that. Badagnani 05:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment' - The blue bars are consistent with the standard, which has been adopted in many non-template old info boxes in Wikipedia long ago. Examples are the info box in Spratly Islands, Thousand Character Classic and Tofu infobox . These old info boxes can be replaced by the better template (Template:Chinese) without changing any layout or organization. Do you think that "Template:Chinesename" is better because it saves a little bit more space by removing the blue bars and making the multiple languages stacked together randomly? :-) - Alan 00:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - We should rename the line to "Japanese Hirigana", "Japanese kanji" in full and get rid of all the blue bars then. Benjwong 06:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I'd like to hear what others think about it. My gut feeling is it's going to create a long template but in a way they do make sense as they distinguish each of the additional non-Chinese names. Badagnani 06:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I have tried taking out the blue bars and the only language that end up looking standardized is Chinese. This defeat the purpose of a multi language box. It does not work. I am flagging this one as non-issue. Benjwong 18:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

6. Romanizations do not appear without clicking to see them, whereas this is important information that should not be hidden. Badagnani 05:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - One possibility is to remove the green bars to reduce more size. For example, is it really necessary to say Mandarin pinyin vs pinyin. Benjwong 06:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Also, with languages like Japanese, there is really only one standard for romanisation, so hiding the Transliterations hides information without reducing the length of the template. Without hide, it would have been one line: Romaji. With the hide, it is still one line ("Transliterations") but with the actual information hidden. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment See the temporary template below with grids, no blue or green lines. I have to begin every romanization line with Japanese kana, Japanese kanji, Japanese romaji. I thought it would be better, but I am not so sure anymore after trying out the interface. Benjwong 01:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment There is only one kind of romanisation for Japanese: romaji. You don't need to lose the blue bars for this. Just get rid of the "transliteration [hide]" line and display romaji by default. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment I am ok with this line as long as there are other romanizations to add. Benjwong 17:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment But there are no other romanisations for Japanese which could conceivably be added. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Just fixed this to make Romaji show whenever it is used. It no longer hides behind the hide-box utilizing that 1 line. Also there was a bug with vietname hantu, also fixed. Flagging green. Benjwong 05:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - The template still hides the Chinese pinyin, Cantonese, and other romanizaed names; this is primary information and should not be hidden. Badagnani 02:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - According to Huaiwei and wikipedia policy this is language biased. Believe me I thought this one over. Benjwong 03:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - The optional showflag now takes care of this. The most common romanizations can be shown without having the click on anything. Benjwong 05:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I just looked at Chop suey and all the romanizations are automatically hidden. This has not been fixed. This is basic information that one should not have to click for. Badagnani 06:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I just added showflag=pj into Chop suey. Now it shows up. You don't have to click for it. Benjwong 15:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I notice at Tofu that the Korean names do not show up in romanizations without clicking to see them. I believe these romanizations should show up just as the other languages' romanizations show up. All of these problems need to be fixed before the template is implemented. Badagnani 02:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Did you try replacing the tofu article with Template:Chinesename. It will bomb out on Tamil, Thai, Burmese, Khmer and Indonesian. That template can't even handle the languages. Template:Chinese is the only choice. Benjwong 14:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Time to standardize Template

Ok the last of the major problem is now fixed on Template:Chinese. I think it is time to delete Template:Chinesename and standardize on 1 graphical template. I am all for a new vote. Benjwong 21:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: No, the issues have not been addressed. Romanizations remain hidden, and should not be, and the color scheme remains terrible. These problems with template "Chinese" are serious, and the "threat" to "vote" and "delete" template Chinesename are taken as a very bad precedent. If the issues had actually been addressed, I would be fine with all. Badagnani 01:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I think asthetics such as colour schemes can be tweaked fairly easily. I am however particularly concerned over the romanisation area, and as yet, a viable solution still seems elusive. As mentioned before, I am all for inclusion of all seven major dialect groups, but since not all have an established romanisation system, this makes it difficult to present the information in a coherent, logical way.--Huaiwei 02:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Does it help to know that usually only one or two dialects will be needed for a particular page? I don't believe we've had a problem with this in the past. Badagnani 02:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment:I need some cooperation please. Badagnani can you for once tell us what color you would like to replace the green with? If there is no preferred color, this is it. Huaiwei has pointed out that all 7 dialects be included with no bias toward singling any one of them out. We technically are missing:

Min (need to reorder)

Gan

Wu

Xiang

The problem is that I need to know the romanizations for those. Looking at List of Chinese dialects, Huawei can you please find the iso code and the dialects to be added under each branch? While I did agree with Badagnani on pinyin and jyutping showing permanently before, I think this cannot be done if you want to be un-biased. Btw this also renders 95% of the other templates biased. Benjwong 03:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Green doesn't fit with yellow and blue. The former version, with only blue, worked fine. Badagnani 18:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - There are many colors here, and some of the so-called "white colors" would probably look better with the top blue bar than the yellow and green we currently have. Please take a look at these before completing implementation of the template, thanks. Badagnani 06:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Er...I arent sure about the ISO codes, but what I was thinking would be to have all seven being shown permanantly, while multiple romanisations for a specific dialect(s) may be included as and when appriopriate (for eg, a Cantonese-related dish can show more romanisations for Cantonese etc). This may mean showing one dominant romanisation per dialect group (Shanghainess representing Wu, Minnan representing Min, for example). If all of these sounds silly, is defaulting to only displaying Mandarin permanantly unacceptable? We may have to show pinyin, W-G, and TY permanantly as well then, since Pinyin is official in PRC and Singapore, TY is preferred in Taiwan (outside Taipei :D), and W-G is the historical romanisation system more familiar to Western users. This should effectively cover almost all Mandarin users.--Huaiwei 03:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

For Mandarin, I don't support having TY or W-G romanizations in the templates, unless the subject matter of the articles specifically require those or if the W-G romanization is historically important. Badagnani 04:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Before jumping ahead, I think I will need help with these two. The other ones are ok since there is at least 1 romanization. In fact, I am fixing the other ones right now. Benjwong 04:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

If we default to just one romansation, pinyin is enough. It is the international standard for romanisation Chinese (used by, for example, the Library of Congress, the UN, and the ISO, and is the default on Wikipedia as well. That alone, IMO, means we should default to pinyin only - Occam's razor, and all that.

Tongyong pinyin is frankly a political creation. It is basically not used outside Taiwan at all, and is not the standard even in Taiwan. It should be shown only for relevant subjects: e.g. ROC government, DPP personalities.

I am aware of the issues with Tongyong pinyin. Unfortunately, some may consider it a political issue to have Pinyin appear alone for every single article, including Taiwan-related ones. I sense that this conversation here hasent really involved the Taiwanese, who may have their own views on this. For myself, I am speaking from the overseas Chinese POV, and cant really speak for them.--Huaiwei 07:41, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

W-G is pretty much outdated now. It should be shown only for relevant subejcts, also: e.g. pre-1950s people.

What we need, as I've said quite a few times, is for the romanisations to be called and displayed (by default) as required by the article: e.g. to display Tongyong Pinyin first, then Hanyu Pinyin, and hide W-G; or to display Hanyu Pinyin and Jyutping, and hide anything else. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

But if this is not technically possible (which I suspect so), alternatives will have to be sought.--Huaiwei 07:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

As I requested earlier. Can someone find "any" template that can do custom order? We don't even have a model code for this feature. What we have now is a "fixed" custom order, where simplified or traditional can come first but it is going to be difficult to re-order at will the entire template. Benjwong 04:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd assumed it was easy to do because inline templates like the "zh" templates allow customising order of display. Must be harder than I'd thought. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I just fixed the Wu and Min, so you can LOOK BELOW with the new order. I can't put Gan and Xiang in unless there is actually some kind of romanization to put in. The order of display is simple for single-line/inline templates. For any template in a table or row structure, unless I can model after some proven code, I will assume it is not possible. Benjwong 05:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

So are we going to show pinyin permanently unhide? Is that the format we all agree on? Benjwong 05:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't specify that pinyin should be the only romanization "unhid." If it's an article on a Cantonese subject, the Cantonese pronunciation should also be "unhid," etc., because it's key and crucial to the article, such as Taro cake. The format that is there now shows all the relevant pronunciations/transliterations and works fine. The business with the hiding really did introduce a level of needless confusion. Badagnani 07:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It is actually partly due to this potential problem of non-sortable templates that I proposed having permanent 7 dialects, all listed alphabetically or by number of articles consistently irrespective of article subject. It also addresses another related problem of establishing "relevance" for every single article, some of which are far less obvious and can become heavily contested if various dialect groups beging to claim relevance one after another. Meanwhile, can I propose that the dialect groups be named consistently, such that all have their Pinyin names appear first, and the common English name in brackets as per format in List of Chinese dialects?--Huaiwei 07:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Really--you suggest 7 permanent dialects? I've never heard anyone else recommend this. So for a subject that, for example, is specific to Fujian or Guangdong culture but with little relevance to other regions you'd also include Shanghainese and other dialects from other regions of China? I think this also introduces too much complexity. Badagnani 07:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes I am serious about it. I dont think in the contemporary world today can we still believe that the majority of things can be compartmentalised to be provincially-specific. If Dim sum can be found in many parts of the world and often referred to via translations/transliterations to local languages, why are we assuming that it cannot be found in the rest of China and referred to in the local dialect? Shanghai may be referred to as such in Mandarin, but why should we not list how its referred to in the other Chinese dialects? Relevance is subjective, and can become a subject of constant contention. Is China itself more relevant to any of the seven dialect groups concerned? Having a consistent list of seven primary dialects is far more simple than trying to develop a customised template for each specific possibility of relevancy, especially when we consider the fact that some articles may be relevant to more than one dialect group.--Huaiwei 13:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The default should be alphabetical with no pinyin or any other romanizations showing. What I have looked into is the possibility of a "region" flag. For example if region=canto, then Traditional chinese first, jyutping should show permanently. The problem is that if we actually added 7 region flags, the code will multiply in crazy complexity. This practically go against the earlier proposal of keeping the code simple. Benjwong 14:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Also there is no perfect region order. There are places that speak cantonese, and use simplified chinese like southern China. So even a region="canto" is not exactly regional enough. Benjwong 14:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I was going to suggest narrowing it down to 3 regions. Yes this will seem rather bias. Looking at the code, I am not sure how doable this is. Benjwong 14:13, 20 July 2007 (UTC) default = alphabetical order
hk = show traditional chinese, jyutping, everything else hide
prc= show simplified chinese, pinyin, everything else hide
china= show traditional chinese, simplified chinese, pinyin, everything else hide

Sorry, but can you kindly explain the rationale of these three regions, and if it is feasible for the global Chinese community to restrict themselves to this classification?--Huaiwei 14:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes as I mentioned earlier this was totally biased. I am doing more code experimentation. I am trying to shorten the code by calling templates within templates. Similar to how Template:lang has been used. This is probably the only way we can fit all 7 linguistics in whatever order. There is no guarantee on this at the moment. Benjwong 15:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Not only is it biased, but I am questioning if it is feasible to use geography as a form of classification. Please be mindful and at least respect the fact that the global Chinese speaking community is not restricted to those three places alone, and to force the entire world's communities to stick to any of those three classifications would smack as offensive to some, myself included.--Huaiwei 15:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes that is why I gave a warning, so hopefully everyone could see it coming. Please don't get too tied up on these proposals. Benjwong 15:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

What if we could have any romanization shown first. It still wouldn't please everyone. If you look at the earlier archived discussions, people were suggesting that the templates not be used as a pronounciation guide. Also if you can flag pinyin to show it as a standard, what keeps someone from saying wade giles should be the standard for a particular article? There is an infinite number of possibility. The more I think about it, alphabetical order is the only neutral choice. Who can argue about that? Benjwong 16:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I hope my concerns are unfounded then. ;) Anyway the points raised here are exactly what I preempted and touched on earlier. People arent gonna be happy over which dialect gets to appear, which appears to take priority, and so on. I suggested alphabetical order or via number of speakers, both of which are relatively objective, although they arent foolproof as I previously hinted. When we consider alphabetical, are we going to order them by their pinyin names, or a mixture of pinyin and common English names? Ordering by pinyin has the advantage of a relatively minor dialect group appear at the top of the list (Gan), helping to allay accusations of bias. I wonder how many Yue speakers will like seeing their dialect appearing at the bottom thou. Ordering by number of speakers helps to align it somewhat to the "common usage" clause, but these numbers may vary from source to source. As for the preference for pinyin as the sole permanant fixture as opposed to all other systems, the answer is pretty obvious, except perhaps to non-Mandarin speakers (who happen to be a minority).--Huaiwei 16:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the 7 major dialects grouping should stay. Otherwise, how would someone know jyutping was cantonese and wade-giles was mandarin. If we do the 7 linguistics alphabetically according to List of Chinese dialects, the default will give the following.

1. Gan
2. Guan (Mandarin)
3. Kejia (Hakka)
4. Min
5. Wu
6. Xiang
7. Yue (Cantonese)

After this, all we have to do is implement a single flag, "dialect=flip". If this is called, everything will come in reverse order. This order work favorably for any southern China/HK/overseas chinese related article. For Badagnani's request, users will still need to have a "hide=no" to display all the romanizations without hiding. This is neutral and doable if everyone agrees. Benjwong 17:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I don't understand what "For Badagnani's request, users will still need to have a "hide=no" to display all the romanizations without hiding." means. Badagnani 06:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

1. Yue (Cantonese)
2. Xiang
3. Wu
4. Min
5. Kejia (Hakka)
6. Guan (Mandarin)
7. Gan

• Comment - As this is the English Wikipedia, I do think it doesn't make sense to include all 7 dialects for every box of every China-related article. By this logic, we should include the languages of the other 55 ethnic groups as well (something I don't support for articles unrelated to these ethnic groups). It would be like having a box for Spain-related articles and always listing Catalan, Galician, Basque, and the other regional languages for an article related to only one or none of these regions. The 7-dialect plan for all articles doesn't seem to be a good one. Pinyin is the English-language standard for the national language spoken in the People's Republic of China and Singapore and isn't "just a region." Badagnani 18:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Nah. The 55 ethnic groups and the 7 Chinese dialects are distinct issues. As far as China is concerned, there is only one Chinese language, and those 55 ethnic groups either speak a particular Chinese dialect, or a different language altogether (the later of which is far more likely). I would say 7 is a manageable number. Also, it can be easily set such that only those dialects with an entry will appear, so unless we have specialised speakers here who are familiar with the 7 dialects, I doubt we will immediately see seven appearing in all articles overnight.--Huaiwei 23:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
• The Solution - Since we hide all 7 major dialects including all romanizations, it does not matter whether we have 1000 romanizations inside. What is debatable is what shows first. How about this, I think this would really work....

We should add one optional "showflag"

showflag=j - this will show jyutping first outside of the hide area. Then pinyin second.

showflag=h - this will show hakka first outside of the hide area. Then pinyin second.

showflag=poj - this will show poj first outside of the hide area. Then pinyin second.

default - this will show pinyin outside of the hide area.

(we can add as many showflag combo as needed. There is a way to keep this simple code.)...

Altogether this covers 7 major dialects in alphabetical order and hidden, while displaying the most commonly used romanization depending on whatever showflag parameter you pick. This has to be it. Benjwong 22:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...I would feel that we show one dominant transliteration method for each of the seven permanantly, and hide the rest. Otherwise, we shant show any at all, and only show the characters and transliteral meanings if need be.--Huaiwei 00:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of showing all 7 permanently. The situation can arise where there are 4, 5 regional pronunciations in an article, but the subject matter really only relates to one, and so we only need to unhide one of them. I like Benjwong's solution. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

If the template can accomodate so many permanent names in numerous languages, I fail to see why Chinese dialects are not given priority. And that's just seven, in fact. I have mentioned before that a topic relevancy to specific dialect groups simply do not always work. Meanwhile, does Benjwong's solution include any ordering guidelines for multiple dialects which are unhidden? I would certainly like to know how this will work in the China article, for example!--Huaiwei 16:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

This does not seem like a discussion about the template at all. Even the inline reference template being used in the China article now could technically use all 7 linguistics and 55+ romanizations. Doesn't mean we should show all of it. Benjwong 17:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes unhiding no more than 1 or 2 worked easily into the code. It is all from the same switch statement so you can add any custom variation. Benjwong 01:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

All 7 dialects are in with alphabetical order. No longer an issue. Benjwong 05:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Why was this ungreened? Benjwong 15:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No Romanizations

Gan - iso identifier gan

1. -No common/standard romanization

Wu - iso identifier wuu

1. -No common/standard romanization

Xiang - iso identifier hsn

1. -No common/standard romanization

Notes: See Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: zho for identifier codes and links to details on varieties of Chinese. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments: In cases where there isn't a set romanisation scheme for a dialect, can't we just call the dialect without displaying/linking to a romanisation scheme? Also, I've added Wu to the list. As I've said earlier, the only surviving Wu-Romanisation page on Wikipedia is about a scheme that is about 5 years old, with only a limited online presence. Wikipedia should not be prescribing it as the standard. My suggested treatment for Wu, Gan, and Xiang is just to say plain vanilla "Romanisation" without identifying the scheme.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments: Further to the above: After reading the zh.wiki version, I think I will be nominating The latin phonetic method of Shanghainese for deletion soon, as I think it fails in the notability stakes and is pretty much a rehash of the deleted Romazi article. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments: Now I am confused. So two questions. (1) Are we positive Gan (linguistics) is the same as Gan romanization? How is it possible a dialect have no romanization at all? (2) So Shanghainese doesn't exist as a real romanization under Min? Benjwong 01:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments: Is there a Gan romanization? I haven't come across one. When I say no romanization, what I mean is that there isn't a recognised, commonly accepted romanisation scheme, like pinyin for Standard Mandarin or the romanisation schemes for Cantonese. Shanghainese is a dialect of Wu, not Min -- and it doesn't really have a romanization scheme. Out of the major Chinese dialects, the only ones that have recognised, widely used romanisation schemes are (Standard) Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and Min-nan. This is explicable, because I think romanisation schemes follow the needs of education. Mandarin is the national standard, so efforts towards creating romansiation schemes are directed in that direction. Cantonese is a standard language in Hong Kong, and Hakka and Min-nan are subject of strong advocacy by localisation movements in Taiwan (and also used in other overseas communities) - hence there are major efforts to develop romanisation schemes for them. By contrast, Gan, Wu, and Xiang are more "internal" dialects, spoken in mainland China, where the only dialect systematically taught is Mandarin. Which is why there are no standard romanisation schemes for them.

It doesn't mean we can't romanise these dialects - but there isn't a standard method for doing so. For example, you might use IPA symbols, or you could use ad-hoc English approximations. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments: Can I doublecheck with everyone then that "Gan, Wu, Xiang" linguistics is going in as "gan, wuu, hsn". Actually I checked the iso codes for the previous languages. Depending on sources even the most simple pinyin "p" is not necessarily the universal iso code. So I guess the rule has already been broken before. Benjwong 14:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments: Well, the easiest way to settle it is if someone can cough up 132 swiss franks and buy a copy of theISO document. =D --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Added gan, wuu, hsn for Gan Romanization, Wu Romanization, Xiang Romanization. These are the iso flags, and has been added. Benjwong 05:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This is it right?

All 7 major dialect branches have been added. All the instructions have been updated at Template:Chinese discussion page. To my knowledge every major concern has been addressed. I think we can begin standardizing unless someone have any more technical concerns. Benjwong 05:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

• It is now compatible with List of Chinese dialects.
• Hide romanization and dialects in a non-controversial alphabetical order.
• Able to optionally display specific romanizations outside of the hide area with "showflag".

Comment - I like it! And we can add more showflag options as the need arises, right? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Yeah you can have as many showflag possibilities as you want. It's just one big switch statement. Benjwong 05:53, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I just looked at Chop suey and I see, right at the top, the Gan language. This doesn't make sense, for this strictly Cantonese dish. If anything, we should see Teochew and Hakka rather than Gan. I think there are still bugs in this template and, as per the policy we've followed from time immemorial, don't support showing Han dialect romanizations for articles that are specific to another dialect region (such as, for example, northern dialect romanizations [other than Standard Mandarin] for Cantonese cuisine articles). Badagnani 06:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Correct self. I see that it says "Guan," not "Gan." What the heck is "Guan"? Can't we just call it "Standard Mandarin" (the English name for "putonghua")? Even better, put "Cantonese" under "C" and "Mandarin" under "M." This helps the normal user, who would loook under "M" for mandarin (not G) and look under "C" for Cantonese (not "Y"). Badagnani 06:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If you do not know what is Guan, then I suppose you dont know Mandarin. I would suggest Guan (Mandarin) and Yue (Cantonese) as per List of Chinese dialects. Reasons for these has been explained above, and you could have at least commented on this earlier.--Huaiwei 08:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I second that. The new-fangled official name for Mandarin is "Guanhua", not just "Guan" - "Guanhua" means "Mandarin (bureaucrat) speech", so just having "Guan" isn't exactly right. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

For your information, any Chinese dialect may be refered to as "Hua"/"fangyan"/"yu", etc depending on context, not just Mandarin. What is this about "Guan" alone being "wrong", as thou "Min" is correct? This is common Chinese abbreviation for the purpose of linguistic classification, and is obvious in this context.--Huaiwei 08:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - This is the English Wikipedia, and thus I STRONGLY recommend placing Cantonese under "C" (not Y), Mandarin under "M" (not "G") Hakka under "H" (not K), Shanghainese under "S" (not W), and so on. Maximum usability for everyone in the world is very, very important. Badagnani 04:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - The term "Guan" is not generally known and our own Guan article doesn't mention anything about this meaning. Best to use "Mandarin" (under "M"). Badagnani 04:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I have made the change. This is what we wanted originally because of the friendly names. I think Huaiwei suggested we use the major linguistics name. It is now going by Cantonese, Mandarin etc. This is understandable. Also I have added showflag to Chop suey and Char siu. Remember we haven't actually gone out to standardize the 1000+ articles. Benjwong 15:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Oh, this has to be done for every article? That doesn't seem very efficient. For Chop suey, it's very strange that the yellow "click me" bar is still there, and then one gets the same romanizations (pinyin and Cantonese) that are already above. That doesn't seem logical. Badagnani 19:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Yep I already warned you guys earlier. The sooner the articles are standardized, the easier it is to deal with this. I wasn't kidding when I pointed this out. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits all language sequence. Look at hakka cuisine, cantonese cuisine, Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China everything should be customized. This is why I felt it was a huge waste of time worrying about display issues. All that can be fixed later.

Comment - Right now I am running down the list of articles setting the proper showflag depending on the article subject. It would help if you guys jump in. Benjwong 19:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I just looked at Sichuan Pepper. It's got pinyin on top, then a yellow bar, which one clicks and it has pinyin again. That doesn't seem good at all. I don't support putting in a template like this if it's going to do something strange like that. Badagnani 20:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - There are 2 discussions on this.

(1) I believe someone (maybe User:Kelw?) was suggesting earlier that whenever there are few transliterations or romanizations, you should avoid graphical templates altogether. There is no real reason to use Template:Chinese, Chinesename etc. Just use the inline reference templates.

(2) The other discussion is that this serves as a placeholder. Unless you are 100% positive there will never be any more romanizations added. In this case, I doubt it.

(3) I am also pretty sure this can be changed in the code later. There is no real justification for fixing it now. Most articles have more than 1 romanization. Benjwong 21:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:Chinesename contents to be moved

Ok, I am moving everything from template Chinesename over to template Chinese. There is officially no reason to keep Template:Chinesename. I am also considering moving the contents of template Chinesekoreanname over afterwards. Benjwong 01:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly object to this. The problems under discussion for the past several weeks have not been fixed. I've seen the problems ignored, then the text turned green, several times. Actually solving the problem BEFORE "moving everything" is not the proper way to go about this. Badagnani 02:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment If you want to show all romanizations, use "hide=no" flag. End of story. Benjwong 02:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Hold on Let's hear/discuss and see if we can solve User:Badagnani's problems first. The Sichuan Pepper issues makes it appear that Template:Chinesename might be more useful in a case like that. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - My criticism in this case is solely that one sees (unhidden) pinyin and jyutping, then one sees the yellow bar, and clicks it, and sees the same transliterations again, in duplicate. It doesn't make sense. In other regards, of course I would be amenable to standardizing templates, but if, and only if the issues are resolved and we arrive at a consensus. There are three or four issues that still have not been addressed, and this concerns me. (As a side note, specifically as regards Sichuan Pepper, we can add other languages as well, since it's used in the cuisines of several other Asian nations.) Badagnani 23:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment You guys do realize there is nobody managing Template:Chinesename anymore right? Benjwong 02:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Excuse my unfamiliarity with the Templates arena, but what do you mean by "nobody managing"? I'm confused because most articles aren't "managed" by anyone either, and anyway the history of Template:Chinesename seems to indicate that User:Badagnani, for one, made a whole lot of edits. My position on this is that templates should not be systematically replaced while there are problems to be ironed out. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment If you wanted to add some language to Template:Chinesename, there is nobody to do it. Why would you want to keep a template with this many short comings, short on features and a lack of attention? I made the last 7 edits to that template, because it was missing quite a bit of languages. Benjwong 04:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Interestingly enough. I went converting articles that I previously put up using Template:Chinesename. Afterwards there was only a small handful of articles, and 90% had no more than pinyin and jyutping. With the showflag feature used, I went converting those too. Afterwards almost all Template:Chinesename articles were replaced with Template:Chinese, and end up looking identical. There are only a few articles left that I haven't converted over. Those are music artists etc that perhaps should be using Template:Infobox musician. Benjwong 07:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I was away for the past few days as I was hospitalised, so I couldnt comment till now. Kindly do not rush into this, Benjwong. There are still far too few comments from contributors here to force through a "concensus" with such speed.--Huaiwei 08:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - It still doesn't make sense that, for example at Dim sum, one sees pinyin and jyutping, then there's a yellow bar (which still clashes horribly with the blue) which says "Click for transliterations," then one sees pinyin and jyutping again--the same romanizations as just above! This is no good. It's illogical and needs to be fixed BEFORE the template is implemented! If pinyin and jyutping are the only romanizations, and they're not shown, then the yellow "transliterations" bar does not need to appear at all. Badagnani 23:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Couple of content problems

• Issue 1 - Mandarin has now been converted to "Guan" in the hidden transliterations. This isn't right. The new-fangled Chinese name for Mandarin is "Guanhua", not "Guan" - "Guan" means Mandarin (bureaucrat); "Guanhua" means the language. It's a bit like writing "Canton" instead of "Cantonese".
• Issue 2 - "Guanhua" is not a suitable title for the group of romanisations included under it. All of those romanisations are for Standard Mandarin, or putonghua (mainland) /guoyu (eslewhere) in Chinese. Labelling them "Mandarin" is okay, but labelling them "Guanhua" is not right: in Chinese linguistics, Standard Mandarin or putonghua is related to but distinct from guanhua. It adopts much of its pronunciation from the Beijing dialect of guanhua, but it is not the same.
• Issue 3 - "Mandarin Pinyin" is displayed unhidden. That's a neologism, and plus is not precise. "Hanyu Pinyin" or just "pinyin" should suffice. As we have discussed before, pinyin is not just used to romanise Mandarin - it is also the (international) default for other dialects. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I am ok with the current conventions. Benjwong 04:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Please don't link to dab pages

Just as a comment from an uninvolved person who's part of the Disambiguation Repair team.... In Template:Chinese, Cantonese links to a dab page; please have it link to an actual page, I guess either Cantonese (linguistics) or Standard Cantonese. -- Hongooi 14:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. Benjwong 15:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The new Showflag feature

• Comment: - Ok, I have inserted the code temporarily in my own sandbox. I haven't uploaded it to Template:Chinese yet, but this is how the option flag will work. These optional flags should cover 90% of the current articles if not better. I think this should cover the rest of the problems. Benjwong 01:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

default - this will show nothing outside the hide area.

showflag=j - this will show jyutping outside of the hide area.

showflag=h - this will show hakka outside of the hide area.

showflag=p - this will show pinyin outside of the hide area.

showflag=poj - this will show poj outside of the hide area.

showflag=pj - this will show pinyin then jyutping outside of the hide area.

showflag=jp - this will show jyutping then pinyin outside of the hide area.

Standardisation of Traditional/Simplified, Mandarin/Cantonese Articles

I originally posted my thoughts on the matter | here (before finding out this is where I should be posting it) but below is a (more neutral) summary of what I think would make Chinese articles in Wiki neater and more consistent.

1. No Simplified Chinese in Taiwan, HK, and Macao-related articles (places, companies, etc) and no Traditional Chinese in (mainland) China-related articles. TW/HK/Macao do not use simplified in an official capacity, and China does not use traditional in an official capacity. Why not make the articles neater and reflect each territory's differences by not including all variants? Adding Cantonese (Baak Ging) to Beijing's article is just as unnecessary as adding Mandarin (Jiu Long Tang) to Kowloon Tong's article.

2. No Mandarin pinyin in HK/Macao-related articles, using only Cantonese romanisation (Yale or others, but just one with consensus) in these articles. Cantonese (again, see my previous post on HK talk page) is the de facto official language, and Mandarin is not used in government or formal situations in these areas. It respects Macao/HK's history and status as SAR, and reflects place name and language differences between Mandarin and Cantonese. Plus, it's neater and unnecessary to include 2 sets of characters and 2 Chinese languages in each HK/Macao page.

3. Not sure about local langauges, e.g. Shanghainese. Cantonese is officially used in govt in HK, which in addition to HK and Macao's history makes this case unique, but in China and Taiwan, govt official usage is Mandarin.

4. Articles such as Pronunciation of Hong Kong are only a temporary solution. If readers are really curious about how to say Shanghai in Cantonese or how to say Kowloon Tong in Mandarin, I'm sure there are many Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese/Taiwanese/etc) dictionaries online or in print. The main focus should be on the content of the article, and by minimising linguistic info. that is not applicable (e.g. Mandarin variants in HK articles, Cantonese variants in China articles), articles would be cleaner.

137.189.4.1 07:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

See my response to your suggestion in Talk:Hong_Kong#Traditional_and_Simplified_Characters.2C_Romanisation.2C_Etc.. Wikipedia isnt simply about replicating what the politicians want. If we consider language as strictly cultural, I do not see why we should banter to their desires to manipulate language for their political goals and aspirations.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Huaiwei (talk • contribs) 07:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC).

This is near impossible to reinforce. Benjwong 04:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would be happy to do it. I would feel more comfortable to do it if it were our consensus or policy, but this discussion has been rather inactive (on both pages). I think my guidelines above are fair enough, and barring any protest I'd like to see if it works on wiki. 137.189.4.1 05:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

BCE/CE date format

Following a discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China where a very large consensus favoured the introduction of BCE/CE instead of the Christianity-related BC/AD system for China-related articles and templates, I would like to propose BCE/CE as the official date-style policy for these articles. PHG 03:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - First there is no such thing as a "large consensus". There is consensus, or there is not. Second, you are lying. There was no consensus - we are still in the middle of discussing what to do. Although many users have a preference for BCE/CE, consensus was not to have a wide-ranging policy and/or to change all the articles that currently use BC/AD. Please stop misrepresenting what other people have said. John Smith's 10:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment Please refer to the discussion on the WPCHINA talk page. John Smith's (talk · contribs) is the only one opposing this policy. --Ideogram 10:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support - No one is lying here. There is an overwhelming majority of people that wish to convert all dating to the new format. My reasons for wanting to change the date are given in the original discussion, but in a nutshell, BC/AD is based upon Christianity. The new format is more scholarly and has no religious affiliation. By the way, there is no need to be so negative John. --Ghostexorcist 10:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Except, of course, that is exactly the same thing. 1 CE is 1 AD. You're just in denial if you think this gets rid of the religious aspect. John Smith is fighting a losing battle, though. Most people seem incapable of understanding the idiocy of BCE/CE. America's Wang 11:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Though it is not sourced (and it would be nice if someone tracked it down), the Common Era article states "[Common Era] comes from the concept of the Era vulgaris that was developed in ancient Roman philosophy. 'Vulgar' comes from the Latin word vulgāris (from vulgus, the common people), meant 'of or belonging to the common people, everyday'." If this is true, then it has no religious conotations, unlike A.D. - "In the year of our Lord". --Ghostexorcist 17:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to say any more on this, partly because it's a lost cause (sorry, John Smith), and partly because I'm not that interested. (I don't really need anyone to school me on Latin, though.) I wonder if the Astronomical system might be an alternative (no, not really), even though it's still based on AD/CE. My main objection to BCE/CE is that it smacks of political correctness more than anything. I would love it if someone could come up with a method which truly avoided religion and would not favour one cultural tradition over another. No one is likely to convince me that BCE/CE has done this. America's Wang 22:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's get rid of all this Western cultural-imperialist clap trap, and just use sexagenary cycle + regnal year. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Is is a lie to claim there is consensus. Consensus is not a super-majority. So PHG lied.

Also, WP:MOS states quite clearly that either BCE/CE or BC/AD is fine to use. The former is not "more scholarly" at all and is still based on Christianity because it uses the supposed date of Christ's birth as a basis. It would only be non-religious if it was not related at all to a religious figure's birth or death. John Smith's 11:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

As previously mentioned, John spilled this discussion from the Jesus talk page to here. You can read the discussion that takes up a huge chunk of the page. The article uses both AD and CE dating and I guess John continually deleted the CE (see here for one instance).

Once he is talked out of it on this project, he'll just move onto another. The following comes from his discussion on the Jesus talk page:

"Well I'm certainly not agreeing with the current position, and I won't even say that I agree to the point of having consensus. But I'm not going to press the issue on the talk page (because that's not going anywhere), and I'm not going to start reverting because that's also not going to get us anywhere either. Maybe I'll look into another way to resolve this or continue the discussion elsewhere. But if people want to edit the article they should start without delay, whether talking about it here or just getting on with it." (source)

--Ghostexorcist 17:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ghost, this has nothing to do with the Jesus article and you know it. This issue was raised by PHG here, not me. The only thing I was interested in doing in relation to this project was getting agreement to make the template used on Chinese history articles adaptable, so that it could say "BC/AD" when an article used it. I think your deliberate and malicious attempts to smear me are pretty obvious - you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. John Smith's 17:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for saying you posted the discussion here. The discussion was actually began on the China wikiproject talk page by Hong Gi Gong and then brought here by PHG. However, I think it's been proven that after your failed campaign on the Jesus article, you went "elsewhere" to revert the dates of several articles, some of which were under the scope of the China Wikiproject. So it was your reversions (which you got at least one 3-revert warning for) that led to the discussion in the first place. Now the problem has even spread to the Japanese pages. --Ghostexorcist 19:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It has not been proven at all - it is an allegation. There was no problem on the Japanese pages until PHG came along trying to change things, after I had made the History of Japan article consistent. Also it got worse when you and Hong got involved - you are to blame for that. John Smith's 19:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Your quoted comments and edit history speak for themselves. Just keep on telling yourself that it's my fault. --Ghostexorcist 21:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You're dodging the issue. You said the problem had spread onto Japanese pages. The problem got worse when you and Hong got involved. That is a simple fact. John Smith's 21:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong battle John, and undue personal attacks as well. There is such a thing as a "large consensus", you will find 354,000 references to that expression in Google. PHG 12:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is governed by wikipedia, not google. On Wikipedia there is consensus or no consensus. Consensus is not a majority and there is no such thing as "large consensus" on wikipedia. John Smith's 17:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

"Large consensus" is a very common expression, which means what it means, and allows for a few contrarians: "Consensus= General agreement, majority view" (OXFORD Concise). You claim this expression is not acceptable on Wikipedia, and that people who use it are "liars"? Just ridiculous. PHG 22:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

But in the context of wikipedia a "large consensus" does not exist. You keep avoiding this issue. Wikipedia has its own sets of definitions and rules - it is not governed by the Oxford Concise dictionary, or any other external publication in this matter, as wikipedia has an official position on "consensus". John Smith's 05:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support preference, not rule - I would like to see all articles use BCE/CE instead of BC/AD, but what troubles me is that it is inconsistent with WP:MOS to mandate the use of one system over another. My preference is for the BCE/CE format, and I believe that the MoS should prefer it. But it should not be mandated. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose I think this has all come about as I created a template using BC and AD notation based on a pre-existing one using BCE and CE notation for the history of China articles. This was purely to make the history of China articles that use BC and AD notation consistent within themselves. IE It is a presentational point. It is also supported by the MOS, which says articles should be consistent. --Foula 12:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support As with any MoS, this is a guideline. So I support adapting BCE/CE as a preferred guideline for all China-related articles. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  Actually I'll rephrase. If there was consensus to have a "recommended" style one would need to choose the wording carefully, to ensure editors didn't believe they had to use one style or another. John Smith's 15:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  It's implicit of every MoS that they are guidelines as opposed to official policy. Check the top of this MoS, and check the top of Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments

Unfortunately it seems that some people took exception to the template, and now others are going about trying to argue for a wholesale change of all China-related articles to BCE and CE notation. This seems somewhat extreme - and is certainly unnecessary.

Normally a publication adopts a house style so that its content is consistent - ie so that it looks good. This attracts people who like, or are comfortable with, that house style. This is a great advantage. On the other hand, people who don't like that house style are going to be put off: no-one subscribes to a magazine or watches a TV series that is presented in a way they don't like!

It seems that Wikipedia has taken a compromise approach. Some articles adopt one style, others another. This gives editors, and readers, who have a strong preference at least some articles in their preferred style - the alternative would be to lose some of them as editors and readers.

With this in mind, forcing through a mandatory change to BCE and CE notation should be strongly resisted. BC and AD notation is, by a long way, the more common notation - and the one that the overwhelming majority of readers (who can't be expected to be history experts) will be familiar with. Risking alienating the bulk of your audience hardly seems the right way to go.

Another option is to force through a mandatory change to BC and AD notation. This wouldn't be as bad as the previous option as considerably fewer people prefer BCE and CE notation to BC and AD notation. It still, however, would come with the downside that those who do will choose to contribute on and read about Chinese history elsewhere.

I imagine it is in the spirit of trying to keep everyone (or at least as many people as possible) tolerant of the style chosen that both notation styles are permitted. Why not let this practice continue?

This does still leave us with the problem of templates. I would still prefer to see templates with BC and AD notation for articles that use BC and AD notation, and templates with BCE and ce notation for articles that use BCE and CE notation. I'm really not persuaded by the arguments against. If this is not allowed, then surely the template should use the notation that is used by a clear majority of the articles on which it appears (if there is one)? At least then as few articles will look as mix-and-match as possible that way. Foula 12:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Foula is a very recent user (1 month) whose main activity has been to introduce "History of China -BC" templates in China-related articles which until then were using the BCE/CE template. Sock-puppet suspected. Can someone check? PHG 12:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

PHG, typical bad-faith attitude from yourself. John Smith's 12:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Just facts John. And stop the personal attacks, this is not acceptable behaviour on Wikipedia. PHG 12:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not a personal attack to accuse you of bad faith - calling for an IP check just because someone is a recent editor and shares my view is bad faith. You could demonstrate some good faith yourself and try to discuss matters on talk pages, rather than keep reverting in violation of WP:MOS. John Smith's 12:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Calling someone "bad faith" (after, what, "liar"???) is indeed a personal attack and you should apologize for that (we are all supposed to assume the good faith of other editors). It is also normal to check sockpupeting for a very new editor who is almost exclusively involved in a single subject. PHG 13:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not normal to run an IP check just because someone has only been around for a month - maybe a few days or week - but you are assuming bad faith, as you are not assuming good faith. You should be the one to apologise - to Foula.

Anyway, go run your usercheck request against me and Foula. It will come back negative and my point about bad faith will be proven. John Smith's 13:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It is normal to do such checks, and I have never said I was pointing at you as a suspect of sockpupeting. You are the only one who is insulting others here. Regards. PHG 13:15, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You weren't pointing at me? Then who were you pointing towards? You can't ask the admins to check a user against everyone on wikipedia. You need to specify who you think the puppeter is - you can't just make a general allegation of sockpuppetry, as that is not assuming good faith and is insulting the user in question. John Smith's 13:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hope you are not the unique single user out here fighting for this BC/AD format, and that there are other notable users that would have to be checked... :)) PHG 13:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You're dodging the question. Who are you alleging is Foula's "puppetmaster"? If you allege no one then my point about bad faith is pretty much proven. John Smith's 13:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not dodging anything. It could be you, or it could be somebody else who is acting on the same lines. I have no way of telling whether you are alone or several pushing for, for example, the implementation of this History of China-BC format. And I do not wish to start finger pointing until some facts are known. It is just completely unusual for a newby to start editing Templates etc...: usually it has to be someone already fairly experienced with Wikipedia. PHG 13:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets may be reported here. There is no need to engage in lengthy verbal filibustering exercises over such issues.--Huaiwei 13:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are dodging the issue. You are making a general allegation against someone to undermine their credibility, whilst refusing to actually state who the puppetmaster is because you have no evidence to link the user to anyone else. As former Prime Minister John Major said, "it's time to put up or shut up". Either properly file a checkuser report against Foula, or withdraw your allegations.

Also what Foula did is fairly simple. He/she merely copied an existing one and changed BCE/CE to BC/AD. There's also the possibility that Foula edited wikipedia as an IP first. I don't mind you filing a report, I'd just wish you'd do it and then leave this alone. John Smith's 13:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Note that a similar discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) - [1]. Also, I have filed a suspected sockpuppetry case against John Smith's, so we don't have to dilute the discussion here from the real topic.[2] Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have gone dead for the last two weeks; has there been any consensus established regarding era names for China-related topics? We have some articles (e.g. Qin Shi Huang and Han Dynasty) that use BCE/CE and some (e.g. Qin Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty) that use BC/AD. siafu 21:32, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope, no consensus was reached. John Smith's 22:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

John is in denial. He was the only person who opposed it. Everyone else is in favor of changing over to the BCE/CE system (only as the preferred method and not the end all format). I don't think anyone has visited much because they were tired of the constant bickering. --Ghostexorcist 23:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Foula also opposed it. Additionally, a majority is not consensus. So that would mean you're the one in denial. John Smith's 23:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, bickering. --Ghostexorcist 23:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah - pointing out the truth is "bickering". I think your last comment was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, Ghost. John Smith's 23:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

So, if majority is not consensus, what would constitute a consensus? siafu 03:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Han Dynasty

I recently reverted some vandalism on Han Dynasty and in so doing, switched the date system to BCE/CE, so it was consistent with the navigational template, and because I believe the article should use that system since it is not Christian-related. Both John Smith's and Foula have reversed my edit, however. If you have an opinion about the matter, please weigh in or make the edit yourself. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 00:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe you shouldn't make unilateral changes in the dating system. Let articles stand without trying to sneak changes in. John Smith's 00:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Making changes and then publicly declaring them seems rather unlike "sneaking" to me. siafu 03:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

He did not make the edits and then declare them in public. Hong only raised this when he was twice reverted - I doubt he would have done so if no one had noticed. John Smith's 09:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that commentary like this truly is bickering. None of the editors involved in that revert war, including you, have made any comments on Talk:Han Dynasty, which is where this discussion should be taking place. siafu 14:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I would also reccomend being careful not to re-introduce vandalism with blanket reverts, as you did at Han Dynasty, John Smith's. siafu 04:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Np. John Smith's 09:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Siafu/Variable - we can certainly discuss the Han Dynasty article here also, since there's already an existing discussion on the same topic as it may be applied across multiple Chinese history articles. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 14:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That's just a cop-out. There are plenty of editors who are only working on articles, like Han Dynasty, who are not paying the slightest bit of attention to project pages like this one. If you want to change or maintain the status of the Han Dynasty article you need to talk about it there. Even editors trying to address this issue in good faith at that article will have no idea where this discussion is. Moreover, the final agreement reached in the great BC/BCE war a couple years ago was that this would be decided on an article-by-article or subject-by-subject basis, and therefore the discussion needs to be specific to the article being considered. All of you stop reverting, and go discuss at Talk:Han Dynasty. Doing anything else at this point would reveal bad faith, and would be an obvious attempt to use an article whose subject matter is completely irrelevant to advance an agenda. siafu 14:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Relax. I've started a discussion at the article Talk page.[3] Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Xia Dynasty‎ and Shang Dynasty‎

John Smith's is now also trying to insert BC/AD into both Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty. Please pay attention to his contrib history to see what other Chinese history articles he'll try to insert BC/AD into. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You are the person who was making unilateral changes to push BCE/CE. You're using the flimsy argument that they were stable for two weeks before I reverted, when they were stable for much longer before you started pushing your position. It is you that need to be watched. John Smith's 17:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

By all means, I welcome other editors to watch my contrib history. That's why it is linked at my signature. I fully support Chinese history articles to use BCE/CE, and I make my edit knowing that I have majority support. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is governed by consensus, not majority. You would do well to look into wikipedia rules and guidelines, rather than push a POV across articles without gaining consensus first. John Smith's 18:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if other editors agree or disagree with my edits, they are free to edit the articles themselves. Discussion is not the only way to reach concensus. The issue has not been discussed in a couple of weeks, I know there is majority support for BCE/CE, so I made the edit. I feel perfectly justified in doing so. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

And I felt justified in reverting you due to the fact BC/AD had been in use for a long time before you came along. John Smith's 18:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The articles were stable with BCE/CE recently. But your obsessive POV pushing is just causing a war. Your righteousness in this matter just pushes people into a corner. None of us, certainly not I, are going to come running to your religion because of BC vs. BCE. So wouldn't you do better by figuring out a reasonable compromise? OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)