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Idea: Writing Wikipedia articles on academic Sinology books

I notice that if a book has at least two "book reviews" in an academic database, it's eligible for a Wikipedia article. Having articles on books really helps Wikipedians use it better since the reviews say a lot about the books themselves. I've started some articles like Sunflower Splendor, Born Red, Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China, and De l'un au multiple.

• Step 1: Search for "book reviews" on a university database (University of Houston Library is still open for searching) - Type in the name of the book and then filter results by "book review".
• Step 2: Go to Wikipedia:RX and request the articles
• Step 3: Have fun writing the article!

You can add additional notes in the talk pages about issues raised in the book reviews.

If someone wants to try some, I found (these have at least one book review in an academic journal):

• Ray Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth Century Ming China, Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1974. Pp. XVI, 385.
• Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society. Edited by ARTHUR P. WOLF. Pp. xii + 377. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1974.
• Stephen Owen. The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü. New Haven, Ct. Yale University Press. 1975. x + 294 pages. $15.

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:38, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of creating articles on Sinology books. However most articles on sinologists are barely more than a stub. See Herbert Giles for example, he authored the first Chinese-English dictionary and also won a award for his Biographical Dictionary; there are no individual article on his works. There should be a Bibliography of China article as well. (already we have Bibliography of Christianity in China) Solomon7968 11:32, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Google Books may be a great way to expand Giles: Take notes of what the books say about him and bulk up his article. I did that with Vincenz Hundhausen. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:18, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Another idea:

• Hui Xiao. "The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture by Song Geng" (book review), Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 2007), pp. 503-506, Published by: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Available at JStor.

So if there are more book reviews something can be written about the book about Caizi jiaren. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Another: Sarvey of Recent Developments in China (Mainland and Taiwan), 1985-1986. Edited by HUNGDAH CHIU, with the assistance of JAW-LING JOANNE CHANG. [Baltimore, Md.: Occasional Papers/ Reprints Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, 1987. 207 pp. US$8.00.] WhisperToMe (talk) 07:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Giles is a great topic! I added a few online resources at his article. But people should be careful in using his Biographical Dictionary, which is charming but unreliable. ch (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

@CWH Another editor raised concern over the unreliability of Giles here. I am wondering do you have any source for the claim? If yes then it should be added to the article. Solomon7968 16:42, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. The quote from Wilkinson is from the "New Manual" of 2013, which is not (yet?) on Google. I have the 2013 version before me as I write, and the quote is on p. 157. However, I agree with you that the function of Wikisource is simply to make resources available. It's up to editors to make careful use of them.

That raises the whole problem of online vs. print, and the unfortunate temptation to prefer online sources even if they are out of date or unreliable (I certainly prefer a good online source to a good print source, but not an unreliable online one). But that's a matter for another day! ch (talk) 21:34, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

ethnic composition for all census of Guizhou and Yunnan

Where can I get ethnic composition for all census of Guizhou and Yunnan?--Kaiyr (talk) 10:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

ethnic composition for all townships of PRC

Where can I get ethnic composition for all townships of PRC?--Kaiyr (talk) 08:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Yang Tiao

Hello all,

I came across the above article, and it seems there's something "off" about it, so I wanted to run it past those more knowledgeable.

It was created all in the same edit, by an editor with no other contributions, but is a very well laid-out article. The disambig links etc. at the top may have been copied from another article (Cao Cao?) with the names changed. I thought it might be a copyvio, but the text I've searched for doesn't come up anywhere else online, nor do the English, Traditional or Simplified versions of the name.

The image in the infobox is actually that of Guo Jia, and all of the other images are either unlabelled or labelled incorrectly as the subject. He doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere else in Wikipedia.

It's such a long article that its difficult to pinpoint whether the facts are accurate (there are no references), but for example, in the section Yang_Tiao#Alliance_against_Dong_Zhuo it says that Yang Tiao gave his horse to Cao Cao, but in Campaign against Dong Zhuo it says that it was Cao Hong who gave up his "steed".

I'm a bit baffled. To be frank, if it is a hoax, it's an unusually elaborate one. If it is a real person, then surely there would be a mention elsewhere, and at least some of the facts need either sourced or corrected. Can anyone help? I will leave a message for the article creator pointing them here.

Many thanks. --Kateshortforbob _talk 17:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm 100% sure it's a hoax. The tell-tale sign is the nonsensical "Chinese name" that's clearly derived from the pinyin instead of the other way around. Everything else Chinese also seems to be Google Translated from English. We've had hoax Three Kingdoms biographies before. Some people just like to put their fanfiction on place where they don't belong. If there's a fast way to get rid of the article, please do so. _dk (talk) 18:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Feedback request: VisualEditor special character inserter

The developers are working towards offering mw:VisualEditor to all users at about 50 Wikipedias that have complex language requirements. Many editors at these Wikipedias depend on being able to insert special characters to be able to write articles.

A special character inserter tool is available in VisualEditor now. They would like to know what you think about this tool, especially if you speak languages other than English. To try the ⧼visualeditor-specialcharacterinspector-title⧽ tool, please:

• If you haven’t already opted-in, then opt-in to VisualEditor by going to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and choosing "VisualEditor". Save your preferences.
• Edit any article or your user page in VisualEditor. See the mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide for information on how to use VisualEditor.

The “insert” pulldown on the task bar of VisualEditor will lead you to the ‘⧼visualeditor-specialcharacterinspector-title⧽’ tool.

This is the ⧼visualeditor-specialcharacterinspector-title⧽ inserter. Your feedback on this tool is particularly important.

To let the developers know what you think, please leave them a message with your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on Mediawiki.org or here at the English Wikipedia at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. It is really important that the developers hear from as many editors as possible. Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:30, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Help validating sources at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Potted milk tea?

Greetings, if anyone reads Chinese, we could use some help determining if Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Potted milk tea meets Notability. It's an AFC draft, so you can just type and sign your comments at the top of the page if you have any opinions to offer. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Notable Aisin Gioro

See list here: Aisin_Gioro#Notable_Aisin-Gioros. Am not knowledgable enough about Aisin Gioro to make a judgement, and internet access is quite limited, but there are some very strange entries that do not have internal articles or sources. EG:

• Jinliang (金量), fifth generation of Dao Quang, Prince Chun (醇王) of Blood (亲王) 1st rank of prince, great-grandson of Prince Zaitao, and great-grandnephew of Guangxu Emperor, Xuantong (Puyi) emperor is his grand uncle
• R. Jin Xing F., Pretender to the Throne (Born 1977)

And others. Would value if someone knowleable in Chinese history could have a look and delete any spurious entities.--LT910001 (talk) 01:59, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Archiving

Have decreased the archive time to 30 days, so that some of the older threads here (eg from December last year) might be removed more expeditiously. --LT910001 (talk) 02:50, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

RFC

Could use some fresh eyeballs and voices at this previously stale merge proposal, splitting the content at Opium Wars into the articles First Opium War and Second Opium War and turning the page into a dab between them, to avoid the existing content fork. — LlywelynII 13:44, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Forcing Cantonese everywhere

I think we really need a consensus over this, and possibly an addition to relevant MoS pages. I really don't think it's constructive and useful to be forcing Cantonese pronunciations everywhere, as I have seen a wide range of new editors do. I can understand adding Cantonese readings to articles that are specifically related to Guangdong or Hong Kong, but general China articles shouldn't have Cantonese shoehorned into them like in this edit.

We hear a lot about Cantonese within western circles, and the reason is that Cantonese speakers are overrepresented in the west, since a large number of Cantonese speakers have historically migrated to western countries (whereas Hokkien migration largely occurred in Southeast Asia, and Dungan migration to the former Soviet Union). Cantonese speakers form a minority of overall Chinese speakers, and the extra attention being placed on Cantonese by some users is rather undue:

• Mandarin: 960 million native, 1.365 billion total
• Wuu: 80 million native
• Yue: 60 million native
• Min: 50 million native
• Xiang: 38 million native
• Hakka: 30 million native
• Gan: 22 million native

When Cantonese is being shoehorned into every single Chinese-related article, why is it a good idea that Cantonese is being singled out? Why not Wuu? Why not Hokkien? Obviously, we don't need the readings of every single Chinese variant in each article, because that would create a language-spaghetti mess. Mandarin is not only the standard prestige variant worldwide and within multiple sovereign states, but is also the absolute majority by a long stretch. It would be logical to use the standard variant in articles, however I do realise that for some people, their regional variant forms a sense of personal pride within them; this kind of thinking however, is not really helpful.

Should we do something about this? Currently all of our guidelines are vague, and do not explicitly state what can and can't be done, or what should and shouldn't be done, in regards to Chinese variants. As long as we haven't standardised a specific article writing style to adhere to, we will see more of this in the future. We should not be giving extra undue attention to Cantonese at the expense of other variants which are just as notable, if not more; this kind of undue representation leads to all sorts of misconceptions amongst readers (such as those who think that there are only two Chinese variants, and speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese are spread 50:50; I've actually come across people who genuinely believe this). --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I support your view, benlisquare. I think we should open a RfC to discuss this issue formally and make it into MoS. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 07:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

The amount of foreign language usage in the English Wikipedia should be minimised; MOS:FOREIGN says, "Foreign words should be used sparingly.". The number of people that can read Chinese among English speakers is very small. There has to be good reason to use a foreign word and there needs to be a doubly good reason to use multiple pronunciations of that foreign word.

In the linked example that User:benlisquare gave, the addition of Cantonese makes some sections into an nonsense. For example, the section about "Indo-European loan-words in Chinese" clearly meant Mandarin Chinese. Maybe pig is also a load word in Cantonese but I doubt, just from looking at it, that dog and goose are too.

I think the current WP:MOS-ZH already covers this issue, albeit in a disjointed way. It says:

When describing loanwords, terms, place names, or personal names, it can be appropriate to include the original characters or their transliteration. Including the Shanghainese term would be appropriate for a place name in Shanghai or a Shanghainese dish; including the Taiwanese names for the same would not. On the other hand, including the MSC term is almost always appropriate, because of its status as a lingua franca and as a standard for all governments whose official language is "Chinese".

The MOS:FOREIGN also says "For foreign names, phrases, and words generally, adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article." so if the referenced source of the article used Cantonese, then you can add Cantonese, but if the sources only use mandarin, then that is that spelling that you should use.

This foreign language translation and transliteration bloat is not limited to Cantonese. Despite the number of people living who are able to read Manchu script is minuscule even in China, let alone with the English speaking world. However, it and its transliteration are still shoe horned into the introduction of many articles such as Shenyang and Heilongjiang. I recently did a clean up of Mount Everest which had Chinese script, plus tibetan script, a Nepali script and transliterations of each, all cluttering up the introductory sentence. Now moved to an infobox in a section of the article discussing names.

-- Rincewind42 (talk) 15:34, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

What's generally been agreed upon is that if the lede paragraph becomes too much of a spaghetti, the language content can be moved to a proper infobox template instead. If there's only one or two within the lede, then that's tolerable, but any more than that is definitely excess. Template:Chinese can be used to fix such problems. --benlisquare_T•C•E 15:57, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

No, the guidelines aren't vague. I participated in the discussions that led to the MOS-ZH language that Rincewind quotes, and the intention was absolutely to exclude Cantonese from articles like Yalu River (where it remains, against the guideline, as of this writing).

I too have encountered this pervasive Mandarin:Cantonese 50:50 myth from otherwise educated people, so we really have to militate against this. If Wikipedia is providing this impression, then we are doing the opposite of educating: we are misleading.

Anyway, the problem edits are not coming from overseas Chinese with mainland Cantonese ancestry (most of whom have sane ideas about Chinese dialectology and are learning Mandarin in school), or from ignorant whites. It's a couple of Hongkonger fans of British colonialism, and fanatical ideological opponents of the PRC, that accumulate hundreds of edits a day (sometimes with sockpuppets) to distort the articles. The usernames are known to longtime WP:CHINA regulars.

P.S.: Let's recognize that Cantonese is not the official language of anywhere, and is only the dominant dialect in some places affected by Hongkong economic imperialism. I don't think we should include the Cantonese names of places in Guangdong where the people predominantly speak Chaozhou Min, some other Yue variant, or Standard Chinese. Shrigley (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Not just HK imperialism, since it is the predominant diaspora dialect-group of North America, therefore is also the most common dialect found for "Chinese"-speak in Hollywood films, names of Chinese food in cookbooks originating from North America, etc. HK imperialism would account for uses in Britain. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I know that the majority of Vancouver speaks Cantonese, but isn't it that a significant amount of 19th century Chinese migration to the United States come from regions that are Teochew and Taishanese speaking? --benlisquare_T•C•E 08:50, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Our article Chinese American says Cantonese, from what I've seen in other sources, it'd be majority Hoisan (Taishan), but the descendants of which who've had formal Chinese education (as opposed to home educated) would be in Cantonese proper (instead of Cantonese dialect Hoisanese); the major communities seem to be Toisanese/Cantonese lingua franca -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

What I think is that the local dialect should appear in all articles where the Mandarin pinyin version is used in places where the local dialect isn't a form of Mandarin. And if this is for people, then if they worked in Hong Kong entertainment, they should also have Cantonese and HK romanization, if they worked in Taiwan, then that variant of Wade-Giles that is popularly used for names there. And if the people are diaspora Chinese who do not have a Mandarin background, they they should not have pinyin attached to their Chinese names. (this excludes the Chinese infobox, which can have all that) -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:25, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

The pinyin is there because the majority of enwiki readers don't read ideographs, and a phonetic representation would help them more. In order to maintain uniformity throughout the whole of Wikipedia, we use the main standardized form of Chinese romanization used by three de facto sovereign states/countries/whatever, which just happens to be the phonetic representation of northern Mandarin. It would be disorderly and potentially confusing for readers if we told people that 九龙 was "jiulong" on one page, and "kowloon" on another (keep in mind that many might have zero knowledge of anything to do with China); hence, pinyin is used on all pages, regardless of localities. For articles that specifically deal with local topics, a local romanization is also included, as is the case with pages such as Kowloon. --benlisquare_T•C•E 08:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

The reference to Kowloon is puzzling, so now I have no idea what you are proposing. I have never seen Kowloon referred to as "Jiulong" in English publication (or for that matter, Hong Kong as Xianggang), so why would anyone say that 九龙 is "jiulong" (unless it refers to something other than that specific place)? In this case it is the use of "Jiulong" that is in error (except in the Kowloon page to indicate its pinyin pronunciation, its use anywhere else is wrong if it refers to the place). If you are proposing forcing the use of pinyin against common English usage, then I would oppose it. Hzh (talk) 17:34, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

There are multiple places called "Jiulong" (九龙) in Mainland China as well. "If you are proposing forcing the use of pinyin against common English usage, then I would oppose it." - no, I am not. Kowloon was an example where it is acceptable to have both local (which also is the common name in English) and the standardized names. "Kowloon" is used in the article title, lead paragraph, and everywhere else throughout article prose, whilst "Jiulong" is briefly mentioned inside a template to provide pinyin gloss to the Chinese characters. Kowloon is a HK-specific topic, and not a general Chinese topic, unlike Cangjie, Taoism or Type 59. My proposal aims at stopping people from shoehorning in "ng-gau-sik" in Type 59, and not the other way around. --benlisquare_T•C•E 03:39, 31 January 2014 (UTC) --benlisquare_T•C•E 03:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

You wordings were ambiguous, hence the reply. In any case you appeared to be arguing for something more global that maintains uniformity across all pages using pinyin, and only using dialect for local topics, which I think ignore the various complications, for example name of person (a pinyin is not strictly necessary for someone whose name is not spelt that way in English, why give pinyin when that person is not called that?), name of items that acquired its spelling in English based on a dialect because of its particular history, etc. Also the reason Kowloon is used is not because it is HK-specific, it is because that is the name it is known in English (but given the way some people are forcing the change of common English names on Wikipedia like Canton, I wouldn't be surprised that it would be known as Jiulong soon). Hzh (talk) 19:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Canton is by no means the common name in English over Guangzhou, it isn't 1975 anymore, and the English language is dynamic. (The results from the link I've posted isn't comprehensive anyway, because all hits for "Canton" also include things like Canton (country subdivision), Canton Beach, New South Wales, and Canton, California.) Rest assured that there is no evidence of a conspiracy to move everything to Mandarin titles. --benlisquare_T•C•E 04:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

You get a vastly different result if you use Google Books Ngram (search between 1990 and 2008). Canton is the popular usage in a variety of ways. Guangzhou is largely government, Chinese, and tourism sites, more obligated to use government-specified terms. It is not the popular usage. Hzh (talk) 12:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

You cannot affirm that something is definitely more common or less common by only looking at one aspect of the cake, and none of the others. Books are merely one of many forms of written media, and in this day and age, you cannot negate the influence of the internet. To gain an accurate gauge of what is used more, you will need to assess a multitude of things, including books, magazines, newspapers, academic journals, and the internet. It would make more sense to take into account each media, and not just one specific form; otherwise, that would make as much logical sense as formulating unemployment figures which limit statistics from men only, like what Germany did in the 1930s, or national population figures for white people only, like what Australia did up until the 1960s.

I would like to disagree with the statement that "Guangzhou is largely government, Chinese, and tourism sites"; the overwhelming majority, if not the entirety, of international geographical organizations use "Guangzhou" for the name of the city, in this modern day of 2014, and as a result maps and atlases also use that name. When children of today (and not 1915) learn geography and the names of cities in school, they learn it as Guangzhou. The popularity of "Guangzhou" on the internet is by no means as a result of the meddling hands of the government.

Finally, in regards to the figures of usage within print books shown within the Google Ngram, how can you be so certainly sure that all cases of "Canton" refer to the Canton that we are talking about? There is more than one definition of Canton, and the city is one such definition. Such results obviously will be skewed as a result of this. As an example, I bet there would be thousands of books relating to flags which demonstrate usage of the word "canton", because the Canton (flag) of a flag is a common motif used in vexillology. In fact, have a look for yourself at the disambiguation page located at Canton, and see how many different concepts there are which use that name. There are American liquors and architectural elements used in Ancient Greek and Roman buildings called Cantons. --benlisquare_T•C•E 13:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Finally, I don't see why we're actually discussing this conspiracy that certain editors are forcing Mandarin titles as with the case of Canton, because when the "Guangzhou" article was created at 01:58, 7 September 2001, it was called "Guangzhou". I don't see any evidence of a pro-Mandarin clique forcing a rename of Canton anywhere. Are you able to provide any diffs, or links to previous RM discussions, that demonstrate forced moves from common English names or local Cantonese names to Mandarin spellings? I've yet to see such a case. --benlisquare_T•C•E 13:43, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The reference to Canton was in fact removed from the lede of that article until I put it back here. Given that Canton is still a popular term of usage, I don't see how you can interpret that unless there are editors who are deliberately trying to force the use of pinyin on Wikipedia and downplay local (and in fact, English) usage. Hzh (talk) 14:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Well now that it's back, all's good and fair, right? Come on, it could have been a one-off drive-by random IP editor as far as we know. --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

No, not an IP editor - [1]. I should say that I am not Cantonese, nor do I have any connection with Hong Kong or Canton, just noting there is in fact a problem with bias towards the official mainland Chinese position in many Wikipedia pages, whether it be the use of pinyin or other issues. I come across them only randomly, and try to make changes where necessary, for example in Cultural Revolution (edit here, and explanation why it is problematic here), where a single biased source (Gao 2008) was used to make extensive edits to make things seem better than it was. Although others have tried to correct the bias, that page is still problematic because of the use of that source (read for example the Arts section, you won't know how terrible it was for artists or how devastating it was for the arts in that period reading that passage). Hzh (talk) 15:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Wait, did you see right there just how easily you conflated "Cantonese" with "Hong Kong" and "pinyin" with "mainland China"?

Also: pfft, "biased source".

“ No one has ever devised a method for detaching the scholar from the circumstances of life, from the fact of his involvement (conscious or unconscious) with a class, a set of beliefs, a social position, or from the mere activity of being a member of a society. ” — Edward Said, Orientalism

Of course, since this is Wikipedia, "biased" is solely an antonym to "Chinese propaganda", which while paradoxically supposedly being everywhere and having infected Great Minds all the way up to the State Department (if you read the Wikipedia articles on the subject), is never, ever written by reputable scholars worthy enough to be cited by our Free Encyclopedia.

P.S., as long as we're making silly, identity-based disclaimers, I'll add that despite what my opinions might seem to suggest, I actually am Cantonese. Shrigley (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

• The instructions, as I read them, are clear as to the limited uses of dialectic pronunciations within articles. But it seems as if some editors are zealously inserting them against the advice for reasons that are best known to themselves. Cantonese rendering is indeed appropriate for most articles about Hong Kong, or about Cantonese language and culture. Anywhere else is unnecessary and unwelcome clutter. Do we need it spelt out further in the guideline? I'm not sure. Please make a suggestion to modify the existing and let's then discuss. Regards, -- Ohc ^¡digame! 09:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Any article for most places (or generalize it as anywhere to make it simpler to delineate) in the province of Guangdong (not just HK/Macau) would be appropriate to have Cantonese representations. (I also say the same thing for various Iberian dialects and the parts of Spain that speak those languages) Yes, the Cantonese representations should be restricted to "Canton province", and for diaspora communities that are/were Cantonese for which Hanzi is being used. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd just like to remind everyone that the "Canton" of "Cantonese" refers to the city of Guangzhou, and not to the province of Guangdong, where Cantonese is not official and where many people, including natives, do not speak Cantonese.

Something really offensive to history I noticed today was the privileging of standardized Hongkong Cantonese and Tainan Hokkien orthographies in Chinese American and Chinese Filipino. Petty nationalist players in a power struggle in Greater China are seriously misrepresenting the family legacies and educational choices of the diaspora.

Taishanese is NOT Cantonese. Chaozhounese is NOT Cantonese. Hakka is NOT Cantonese. Everything that isn't Mandarin is NOT automatically Cantonese, or "closer to Cantonese", or "almost Cantonese". God damn. Shrigley (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this is drifting more than a little away form the original post's topic. The neutrality of certain articles and sources is not the issue in this discussion and should be elsewhere.

Also there is a bit of tunnel vision going on with regards only considering topics that have a geographical basis. Of course an article about Guangzhou should contain the local language(s) just the same as the article about Honhot should contain some Mongolian or any other location, the local language of that area. The question is not "if" but rather "where" and "how". Not everything should be or can be stuffed in the opening sentence.

The MOS-ZH is quite clear about the lede. That is minimal Chinese and if not none at all, rather instead use the infobox Chinese template. However the issue in the OP was the inclusion of multiple languages and transliterations in articles that had no geographical tie and where the Chinese script was in the body of the article. For example, look at Chinese New Year#Greetings and suggest how to make it understandable without the reader having to learn four different languages and two competing scripts simultaneously. -- Rincewind42 (talk) 14:10, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Citations of working paper

I noticed a user changed citations in Xinjiangcun, Korean people in Beijing, and Uyghur people in Beijing from published books to a working paper from 2014. From my understanding it's better to cite final publications instead of working papers. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Messed up Chinese script

I recently read through the article red envelope which is rated as top importance by this Wikiproject but is in need of allot of work. However, some sentences containing Chinese script are confusing me. For example "The act of requesting for red packets is normally called (Mandarin): 討紅包, 要利是, (Cantonese): 逗利是." Isn't Cantonese a different pronunciation of the same characters rather than completely difference characters and is the name given as Cantonese really only used by Cantonese speakers or is it a wider South of China phenomenon. Rincewind42 (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

It's natural that there are regional differences in terminologies. You can't really use a general statement like "different pronunciations of the same characters" and apply to everything. In particular, the text as presented in the article is correct: Mandarin speakers call the red envelopes 紅包 (hongbao) and Cantonese speakers call them 利是 (lai see). _dk (talk) 18:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Shanghai Rego International School

Hello WikiProject China! I recently came across this page while patrolling. There is a huge controversy section here which is continuously being expanded with unsourced content by over-enthusiastic anonymous IPs (probably the students); I then tagged bombed it. Request any willing user to take a look, clean it up and watchlist it if needed. Sincerely, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Complex characters in GA review

Hi everybody! I'm doing a good article (GA) review for the article Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei and I'm hesitant about an issue. On the one hand, the official page on GA criteria states that only five pages of the "Manual of Style" should be respected for GA, and "What the Good article criteria are not" (an essay) states that "all other parts of the MoS are optional". The MoS for China-related articles, however, says that we should use complex characters for historical topics and simplified ones for those related to the PRC. My question: do you think WP policy allows me to request the nominator to change all his citations from simplified to complex characters? For those who want to take a look, the review is here. Madalibi (talk) 06:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't seem to find that exact phrasing in the Manual of Style, but I see a couple of problems with requesting the nominator to change his citations:

• The actual referenced work, with the page number, edition, and company cited by the editor, might be only published in simplified characters.
• Simplified characters are just not ambiguous because of the context; traditional characters at the point-of-WP-delivery provide extremely marginal benefit.
• Reduced accessibility to most non-native learners of Chinese (en.WP's primary concern, but also the vast majority of native speakers), who are more comfortable with simplified.

Shrigley (talk) 06:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

While I prefer Traditional characters instead for pre-1949 Chinese subject matter, I don't think this issue should be pressed too strictly for reasons Shrigley listed above. Most paramount should be the sourcing issue: if the source gives Simplified Chinese characters only, the citations should be in Simplified Chinese unless a Traditional Chinese version of the same quote is found. A corollary of the above is the reverse: if a source was originally in Traditional Chinese, like the vast majority of pre-1949 material, then the citations should be in Traditional Chinese as well. I personally don't think the simp vs trad debate is one we should be having on the English Wikipedia. _dk (talk) 08:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Shrigley and _dk: thank you both for your answers! You have convinced me that the issue is not important enough to request the editor to change the citations to the traditional form. Just for the record, the citations were from the Book of Wei, the History of the Northern Dynasties, and Zizhi Tongjian. Madalibi (talk) 14:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Xiaolongnü, the impossibility of underestimation of some trait of

Of Xiaolongnü, we read:

Jin Yong describes her physical appearances as "skin as white as snow, beautiful and elegant beyond convention and cannot be underestimated, but appears cold and indifferent" (全身雪白，面容秀美絕俗，清麗秀雅，莫可逼視，神色間卻是冰冷淡漠)

My knowledge of Japanese gives me a pretty good understanding of the (very easy) first four characters, but then, Chinese ignoramus that I am, I get stuck. What is it that cannot be underestimated? (And really, it can't be underestimated? The context suggests that whatever it is that's being described is being praised to the skies; thence it can't be overestimated.) -- Hoary (talk) 12:14, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The English word is "haughty;" the haunting beauty of the the fairy queen is combined with her obvious indifference to any human consideration. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:25, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Chinese name

Got a less familiar Chinese name here and I'm not sure which way round it should be (I've seen both quoted on chess websites). Is Ma Qun the right way round in this article (i.e. Ma = surname) or should it be "Qun Ma" (Qun = surname)? Regards. MaxBrowne (talk) 10:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi MaxBrowne! I checked Chinese-language websites and Ma is indeed the surname. This page in English gives you a game by Ma against Ding Liren, another Chinese player. You can also go to this page in Chinese and try an electronic search for 马群, which are the Chinese characters for Ma Qun. Incidentally, it might be nice to add these characters to the article! Regards, Madalibi (talk) 14:47, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Discuss renaming of Luxury goods of China

Discuss renaming of Luxury goods of China at Talk:Luxury goods of China. Main issue is a title that reflects content of the article, which is about shopping, not about production. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:16, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 17:30, 4 February 2014 (UTC).

Some assessment on a move request of Li Na

Not sure how famous in a historical prospective Li Na the tennis player is (me being mostly a big tennis fan)...so I thought maybe some more perspective might help in this move request at Talk:Li Na (tennis). I'm guessing the tennis player probably should be moved to simply "Li Na" as the requester wants, but better to get more input since the other Li Na's are out of my comfort zone in accessing properly. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:28, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Articles on important China books

WhisperToMe's calls at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China#Idea: Writing Wikipedia articles on academic Sinology books are inspiring. This is great idea, but the problem is how to set priorities and select the books so that the articles build on each other. We also should think who our audience is and how they will use Wikipedia. Do we aim at graduate students? High school term paper writers? General readers?

There are just too many books out there! Any one of the major journals publishes hundreds of reviews a year, most of which are reviewed in several other places. It may be technically true that they count as "Notable" as defined at WP:BK (and I think that the guideline is too loose to say that two reviews make a book notable) by any other measure most of these hundreds of book are not notable -- and that's just one year. There have been useful books published for decades, and we should evaluate the older ones as well.

Possibilities:

• look in the bibliographies of reliable surveys, such as Spence The Search for Modern China (this could be an article) or one of Ebrey's surveys.

• books which Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries designates each year as Outstanding Academic Titles. I can get the list for the last few years.

• search Wikipedia articles to see what books are cited most often.

My suggestion would be to write articles about books that won prizes, such as:

• John Whitney Hall Book Prize for Japanese history. The titles are listed in the article. Most of the authors have Wikipedia pages, none of their books do or at least none are linked.
• James B. Palais Book Prize for Korean history, which is tagged non-notable.
• I will create a list article for the John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association. It goes for history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan since the year 1800, described, with a list of winners here.

The articles about the prizes should probably be turned into lists, a type of article which does not require the same sort of sources. See WP:LISTS

A number of the book won more than one prize.

There is a Category:Awards articles

What do people think?

Cheers in any case ch (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like good ideas! Also, when writing a Wikipedia article and using an academic book as a source, I might be tempted to check if the book has reviews on it. That way books can be approached on both ends: those best known in the academic community and those Wikipedia is relying on for sourcing. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:47, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

One other thing is that by investigating the books you may find additional sources for other topics and/or additional encyclopedic topics. When I wrote The Nine-tailed Turtle I discovered there were book reviews for The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century. The reviews of The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century revealed not only other possible encyclopedic topics (Chinese Qing Dynasty novels) but also were used as sourcing in articles about those novels. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

History and Dates in the Chinese articles.

I'm getting frustrated with the Chinese articles, it often lists dates, but no CE or BCE as if the person on the other end is supposed to automatically know what the dates for things such as: Emperor Xiaowu of Liu Song are from just being that versed in Chinese history. I would post it to just that page, but it's a global issue on all of the Chinese History articles. I keep running into it--I'm not a Chinese History major--that's why I'm looking it up. Please, please update the articles appropriately with CE or BCE--the regular reader doesn't know and there isn't usually enough context for the average reader to know which is when, even when the dynasty is mentioned. (Most people won't know when the Han Dynasty is off the top of their heads, for example.) Other country's history articles make sure to clarify... please do the same with China. When X or who was invented shouldn't take 5 clicks and then Google and then a heap more frustration. I also have seen people try to remove my BCE and CE. Sorry, but it's not common knowledge for everyone. Please keep it clear. China has a long, rich history. 300 doesn't mean much without CE or BCE. Help the average user understand the chronology of it without having to search for other articles.--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 22:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

If an article uses just bare dates, surely that implies they are CE/AD. Kanguole 10:13, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

If the dates are only provided as reign dates (heaven knows why) I will create an inline template that can be used to mark these articles. LT910001 (talk) 03:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Edit, additionally these articles may be marked with if a date is not provided. LT910001 (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Opium Wars

FYI, there's a notice at Wikipedia_talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board about the Opium Wars article -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 10:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Clarification & assesment of Huizhou

The Tourism-section remains difficult for foreign people to understand, as there are no coordinates, images, articles or clear data of where the listed locations are.

The article is also not a stub any longer, and could be reassessed. ~ Nelg (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not a travel guide (see WP:NOTGUIDE). The Wikipedia article is supposed to describe tourism in Huizhou not provide exact locations for the places mentioned. If you want a travel guide you should look at Wikipedia's sister project Wikivoyage article on Huizhou. Though I must say that guide needs allot of work too as there currently isn't any things to do or see in Huizhou listed there. Anyway, if you have such detailed information on tourist attractions, the Wikivoyage site is where to put it rather than here. Rincewind42 (talk) 15:10, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Merge WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment into WikiProject China

Hello, WikiProject China. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment#Merge inactive WPP Chinese-language entertainment into WPP China.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I suggest that the inactive WP:WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment be merged as a taskforce into WP:WikiProject China. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment § Merge inactive WPP Chinese-language entertainment into WPP China

John K. Fairbank Prize: Invite / Request Help

As per the discussion above, I have created a list article, John K. Fairbank Prize, which I have marked "Under Construction." I invite "constructive" (pun intended!) input, especially on formatting, and invite you all to create article for the books listed. Some of them already have articles, but I have not had time to check. ch (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Historical Chinese Urbanization Data By Province(s)

Does anyone here know where one can find historical urbanization data for China by province for free? I have tried searching for it in order to add this data to this article -- Urbanization in China, but unfortunately, I myself was largely unsuccessful at doing this. Thank you very much. (And for the record, No, I don't speak, read, and/or write Chinese.) Futurist110 (talk) 07:59, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

full CHINA 2000 CENSUS material by nationalities

You can download full CHINA 2000 CENSUS material by nationalities (Chinese and English): http://files.mail.ru/D194FFE00957430B91D70A32EADB0DED (choose - Обычное скачивание)--Kaiyr (talk) 07:57, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

List of people with surname Li

List of people with surname Li (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) currently ostensibly only covers 李, and not any of the other forms listed at Li (surname).

• should the list be expanded to explicitly cover the other surnames

OR

• should it be moved to List of people with surname Li (李) to match Li (surname 李), and split off a list page for each version of Li, with a general version at the current "List of people with surname Li" where the Chinese form is unknown.

-- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 15:59, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

All China Women's Federation Edit

I am currently planning on revising the article on the All China Women's Federation. The existing article is currently rated as a mid-importance article, but is only a stub class article, which means there are several aspects that can be improved.The article does not fully address the history of the federation, discuss the complex relationship between the federation and the Chinese government, examine the ideology and structure of the group, or address the complex challenges facing the federation currently, such as its NGO status. These changes will address the content issues within the article, and I also plan on tackling some of the editorial issues within the article. The article suffers from a lack of academic sources. More sources would address the content issues, and relying on academic sources will make sure the changes are accurate. Some journals I plan on consulting include the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Communist and Post Communist Studies, and World Development. I plan on expanding the introduction, adding sections covering the aspects of the federation I discussed above, and increasing the number of relevant links in the See Also section. This contribution is part of a class for Rice University, so please feel free to give advice or suggestions concerning this article. Shelby McPherson (talk) 03:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)