Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)

Proposed replacement for WP:NC-TW

Moved discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China-related articles to reflect new location of existing guidelines. --Jiang (talk) 21:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

The English Names of State Organs

I am not familiar with English translation of Chinese State Organs. I have spent some time googling for English names for these State Organs. I find some names on some private websites or blogs, but those url don't look very prestigious, and those names and lists look like they are copied from somewhere else. I list some lists that seem reliable here, and I hope people who are familiar with the matter can correct me and provide better source.

• sank0916 (2006-11-10 17:19). "国家机关翻译表". Baidu Zhidao. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); External link in |author= (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• "国务院机构英文译名" (MS DOC). Center of International Cooperation and Exchanges (Hong Kong, Macao & Taiwan Affairs), North China University of Technology Office. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• "单位及部门名称英译概述". junpengyuan (in Chinese). 2008-10-7 12:39. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) This looks like an excerpt of a manual.

Proposed revision of township rules

Except in the case where multiple towns or townships exist within a single province, why are they currently disambiguated by county? In the case of "Guocun" – one of which is in Shanxi and one of which is in Hebei – it seems less helpful to differentiate based on county or municipality names few users (or even native Chinese) have ever heard of, rather than by the simple province names.

Vanceburg is distinguished by Kentucky, not Lewis County, regardless of how small it is. French villages don't even bother with disambigging in general but, when they do, they use departments. — LlywelynII 04:49, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

From the first sentence, I have it that you have no problem with subdistricts remaining where they are? Since they are urban, densely populated, and associated more with their governing cities, I see no reason to DAB subdistricts by province. GotR ^Talk 05:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

The reason would be for better recognizability to a larger audience (who would know Hebei but not Zhangjiakou), although I suppose that aim could be accomplished with a redirect, good hatnotes, and good disambiguation notes. Shrigley (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

That is why I don't oppose changing the guidelines for towns and townships. However, districts do not follow the rules in place for counties; they are automatically disambiguated by the city. Unless you are suggesting that districts change as well, (in terms of spirit) I don't see why subdistricts should be different from districts. GotR ^Talk 04:09, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

While it may be better recognizability to disambiguate the townships by province, I think if we go up to that level, it would be very difficult to find only a single township in a province with it's specific name. Each province has an average of 832 towns and 636 townships, and many characters have the same pronunciation (as in Guocun). While it would be nicer to disambiguate by province alone, I believe it's nearly impossible.  –Nav  ^{talk to me or sign my guestbook} 15:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not too fuss which way it goes. GoTR has done heaps of work and disambiguating by counties is practical. I can understand disambiguating by provinces looks a bit neater, follow the same conventions as those used in the US county articles but for as far as practicality goes, too many towns with similar sounding names. China is a hierarchy unitary state, so it make senses to disambiguate at one level up which for townships is the county. If two counties have the same name, then you disambiguate by the prefecture or the province.--Visik (Chinwag Podium) 01:37, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

If we were to start from scratch, I think it would be better to disambiguate by province first, and county second. Chinese administrative boundaries change frequently, and counties are often renamed or upgraded to cities or districts of larger cities, requiring renaming of all townships articles that use the county name for disambiguation. Province-level boundaries are far more stable and less likely to change. However, since so many articles have already been created under the current guideline, I think it's better to stick with it. What I don't like, however, is situations like Longmen, Fuyang, Zhejiang, when a simpler Longmen, Zhejiang would suffice. The guideline should be tweaked so that townships are disambiguated by county first, province second, and county+province as a last resort. --Zanhe (talk) 12:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

You are suggesting that if the county/county-level city is ambiguous (such as Fuyang), disambiguate by the province (if unique within the province)? Except for subdistricts, all should keep in mind that I am open to any options and will not mind enacting moves en masse to adjust to the new guideline. However, this means a delay in the addition of entries, so please work a new guideline out by next Wednesday. GotR ^Talk 18:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

If you don't mind moving existing articles, I agree with LlywelynII that it's better to disambiguate by province (if unique within province), then county (if not unique within province), for the sake of consistency with other countries and long-term stability of article names. I further propose that if the county name itself is not unique (such as Fuyang), maybe the prefecture name (Hangzhou, in this case) can be used as the third choice.

BTW, thanks for all the work you've done creating the articles and dab pages. --Zanhe (talk) 19:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I take it that you prefer the subdistricts remain the way they are? And you and the project are certainly welcome. GotR ^Talk 01:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, your reasoning wrt the subdistricts makes sense. --Zanhe (talk) 03:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Since the objections raised were over practicality, when I don't mind carefully redoing the work I have done, I will within a couple of days reformulate the guideline. Examples will come later, though. GotR ^Talk 16:24, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

re-purposing of article

It appears that on 17 February 2012 one author rewrote the stated purpose of this set of naming conventions and moved a significant amount of content to a separate article (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/China-related articles). Yet I'm unable to find any discussion of the move or a proposal for the move. Was this discussed? One the reasons for this article's title and usage was to avoid NPOV issues over what is "China". I'm concerned that the narrowing of purpose for this article and the movement of content appears to have been done unilaterally without discussion. Readin (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any discussion that authorized the splitting off of the content, other than the comments here that the existing setup was unsatisfactory and something needed to be done.--Jiang (talk) 02:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

A Proposal

I think that due to the long history of the names Peking, Canton, Nanking, and other Postal Map Romanizations in English, Postal Map Romanizations should appear as the other name in the info box. OttomanJackson (talk) 14:19, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Amendment to township rules

Unless someone raises total objection within 48 hours, the disambiguation guidelines for Towns/Townships will be amended to include the following exceptions: Harbin (*), Changchun, Shenyang (*), Dalian (*), Qingdao (*), Jinan, Nanjing (*), Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou (*), Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou (福州) (*), Xiamen (*), Shenzhen (*), Guangzhou (*), Nanchang, Wuhan (*), Kunming, Chengdu (*), Xi'an (*), Lanzhou, Lhasa, and Ürümqi. These are nationally, and in many cases, internationally, known cities, so they won't take away from recognisability. Feel free to add or remove (except for the starred) from this list. For example, a location in Wuhan's Wuchang District will be at [[XX, Wuhan]] instead of [[XX, Hubei]]. GotR ^Talk 18:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I support these changes, since in many cases these cities are more recognizable to an international audience than their parent provinces. The exception list is pretty solid; the only entries which I would challenge are Jinan, Nanchang, and Ürümqi (however, these are based only on my personal impressions of recognizability). Shrigley (talk) 01:45, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Those won't be included, then. Also a no-brainer is Jilin City. Going ahead with the changes as stated now. GotR ^Talk 21:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Regarding WP:NC-TW

I have opened a Request for Comment regarding WP:NC-TW, which was part of the policy regarding naming conventions related to Taiwan, and Republic of China, but since been removed and marked inactive. There is no current policy placed in place of WP:NC-TW, so the request for comment seeks a replacement for it. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 06:52, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Names of people

Most people are now identified by their names in Pinyin, except for few people like Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek. But there are many people who had lived for extended period in countries where English (or any other language in Roman letters) was official. Other may had received honours before Pinyin became the de facto standard internationally. These people include Zhang Fakui, Zhang Xueliang, Liang Qichao, Liang Sicheng, Wu Tingfang, Wang Zhengting, to name a few. They probably never knew their names in Pinyin all through their lifetimes. Should the names that they were actually known by be mentioned and be used as titles of the articles? 116.48.86.50 (talk) 23:35, 29 December 2012 (UTC)