Talk:Manga

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Contents

[edit] Peer review over?

There haven't been any comments on the peer review for a bit, and I believe all the comments have been addressed (including the applicable automated ones). Anyone have any additional comments or suggestions before we move this to WP:FAC? I think this article is a prime candidate. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

One thing that will likely be brought up: the abundance of redlinks in the article. Anyone up for creating articles for all or most of them? I made one for Nao Yazawa. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Nihonjoe. Did you mean FAC or GAC? I'm not sure what would be needed for FAC. But I think the Peer Review can be closed. Redlinks -- we can remove the redlinking by unmarking them and/or add stubs. As I remember a couple of people have expressed some interest in adding articles/stubs. User:Quasirandom was one, I think. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I meant FAC as I don't see the need to become a GA first if FA status can be achieved. I can help create some of the redlinks. I removed a couple that I don't know would be able to be easily created. There are 20 or more redlinks, though. Speaking as one who went through and created articles for every redlink that existed when I created the High School! Kimengumi article (over 100 articles, IIRC), I know it's a lot of work, even if it's only translating what's in the JAWP article. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, sounds good. I'm going to unredlink a few titles to various manga -- not remove them, just unredlink them! -- that I think are by themselves and alone probably not notable enough to get their own article. They're mentioned in the author's entry and in this article, which is fine, but they may not be worth their own personal article. I'll list them here when I'm done. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I just unredlinked -- not deleted, just unredlinked -- the titles Luminous Girls, Kinpeibai, Were-Slut, Seraphic Feather, Drakuun, Blue Catalyst, Satsuma Gishiden, F-111 Bandit, and Manga Shi 2000. I also unredlinked the character names Karula Olzen and Alita Forland. That gives 11 fewer redlinks. These titles and names are still in the article, but in regular black typeface. Now it's mostly authors who are redlinked. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I also fixed the broken wikilink for Tomorrow's Joe so that isn't redlinked either. So we have 12 fewer redlinks now. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed four more. So we're down 16 redlinks. Two of these were Japanese names given in the Japanese order in the article, where their Wiki article gives them in Americanized order. The rest are artists. Here's a list, to save time when searching.

Ramiya Ryo, Shungicu Uchida, Hakase Mizuki (be careful, there's another person with same name in Baku (spirit)), Sakurano Minene, Morishige (no other name is used), Johji Manabe (a major artist), Toshiki Yui, Jiro Chiba, Hiroyuki Utatane, Sekihiko Inui, Kei Taniguchi, and Sena Aritou. (N=12) If you search for them in the article, their work will appear.

Timothy Perper (talk) 19:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Ryō Ramiya created. Her name will need to be flipped in the text of the article, though. I'll let someone else do that while I concentrate on creating articles. Shungicu Uchida (what an odd name) is next. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll fix Ryō Ramiya . Yes, Shungicu Uchida is an odd name. There's a good deal of material on her in Schodt's 1996 book that I'll add to the stub when it's ready. Timothy Perper (talk) 20:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Shungicu Uchida is created. Feel free to add more info. There's one reference in the article to Encyclopedia Britannica (they have an article on her), but I don't want to subscribe to their site. If you have access, feel free to add additional references for other content found there. Hakase Mizuki is next. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll get some more about her. I'm still correcting minor typos and removed a few more redlinks that snuck in somehow. There is one name I missed in the list above -- Toren Smith of Studio Proteus. He certainly needs an article, but it'd be a living person biography. Timothy Perper (talk) 20:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Hakase Mizuki is created, but needs at least one more source (preferably two or three). Oddly enough, she wrote a manga called Baku (referring to your "be careful", above). Minene Sakurano is next. She will need her name flipped, too. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Minene Sakurano has been created now. On to Morishige if I can find the refs to find the actual person's info. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Morishige has been created. Johji Manabe is next. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Johji Manabe has been created. I think I'll take a bit of a break. If someone else wants to help create them, I'm happy for the assitance. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Great. Not too much more... and thanks for catching the name inversions. I'm going to update a couple of references -- for example, Katsu Aki's Futari Ecchi was just released by TokyoPop as Futari Etchi: Manga Sutra.

The unfinished ones are Toshiki Yui, Jiro Chiba, Hiroyuki Utatane, Sekihiko Inui, Kei Taniguchi, Sena Aritou, and Toren Smith.

Timothy Perper (talk) 04:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Popping in -- I can help out with this. I'll tackle some tomorrow (need sleep before dealing with kanji). —Quasirandom (talk) 04:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Toshiki Yui is done. I'll do Jiro Chiba next. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I take that back. I can't find enough to make a respectable stub for Chiba. There's not even an article about him on the JAWP. I recommend unlinking him. I'll try Hiroyuki Utatane next (I think he's the husband of Ryō Ramiya, if I remember what I wrote in that article). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Utatane is her husband. I'll unlink Jiro Chiba. You'll probably also have trouble finding much of anything on Sena Aritou.Timothy Perper (talk) 06:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Hiroyuki Utatane is done. I took a quick look and couldn't find much on Aritou. JAWP doesn't have an article, either. I probably won't do any more until tomorrow. That leaves three left. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 08:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Utatane is going to need a disambiguation note. Searching for Utatane alone leads somewhere else. Other than that, we're going great guns here! Timothy Perper (talk) 15:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Sekihiko Inui is stubbed, though it's a rather stubby stub. —Quasirandom (talk) 16:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Going good. One more artist to create is Ebine Yamaji, who is in the article but not redlinked. She's a redisu mangaka. Once she's in, I'll link her in the text. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be very little about Kei Taniguchi. I'll work on Toren Smith next. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Toren Smith is done. That's it for today. Looks like only Ebine Yamaji is left now. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmm...looks like Yamaji has exists since February 2006 (almost two years now!) Needs a bit of work, though. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Missed that! Sorry about that. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FA criteria

The FA criteria are listed here. Do we now meet all of them? I'm going to link Yamaji now. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Another question: should the "see also" section be above the references? I understood the references are generally at the bottom unless there is an external links section. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

About FA status. It's hard for me to answer, because the FA criteria are judgment calls. The only section I'd be concerned with -- I've mentioned it before -- is "Publications," the "Dojinshi" subsection in particular. It needs more work -- statistics, a discussion and definition of otaku, and some comments about YAOI. Also as I've said, this is not a field I know much about, so I don't feel competent to write a new section.
Length, references, and examples have been questioned in the past. My own take on these is that in the absence of clear guidelines and in the absence of specific challenges to references and examples, there's not much we can do to fix the article if someone says "It's too long!" or "Too many references!" or "You don't need all those examples!" Perhaps so, perhaps not. And in the absence of those guidelines, it's de facto a matter of the authors' and editors' opinions and judgments about what and how much to include (note the plural: these are determined by consensus).
I suggest letting this version sit for a bit and accumulate some comments from various editors.
Beyond that, I can't really say. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Oops -- I forgot. About images. It has been difficult to obtain consensus about what images to show. The problem (I think) is that there are so many images that could be used, and different people understandably have different ideas for how best to illustrate and exemplify manga visually. Right now, I'm beginning to think that we might open the article -- I mean way up on top -- with a gallery of images, say five of them, that span the range of manga. But maybe that will only produce more disagreement about what goes into each of the five, and about what five these might be. How serious a problem that is, I don't know. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:53, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

For FA - I'm going to guess "length" will become an issue. The material under History and Characteristics can be summarized and completely transferred over to the History of manga article, by which the material that's already there can be completely replaced. History of manga then would be instantly improved. Right now, this article is nearing 100 KB.KyuuA4 (talk) 17:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was bold and replaced the History of manga article with that section, though I did keep a small amount from the original article ((a very small amount). Now for the trimming on this end...this is going to take some work. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Please do not edit the article right now as I'm trimming the History section into a summary. That section is 55K!, and I hope to trim it to half or less. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I've done some trimming. Hopefully I didn't do too horribly. I made sure all the refs were still working, too. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
The page does appear to meet the GA and FA criteria. What about the line in the article that says something to the effect: "the supernatural fantasy Sand Land by Akira Toriyama"? Perhaps that sentence should be re-stated, I'm not sure what to change it to because I don't really know what the main genres of Sand Land are. Also, have all redirects been taken care of? Has "Japan" and "Japanese" been wiki-linked correctly per section? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment Sand Land has demons in it, so that makes it a supernatural fantasy, yes? Timothy Perper (talk) 18:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the sentence is pretty clear (it's in this paragraph), and I don't think it needs to include any more about the series as it's only being used as an example of manga which virtually eliminate females as characters. As for redirects, are there any specific ones you've found? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I fixed whatever redirects I found here. Be great if others could just double check. In addition, I'd like for someone to see if the genres/categories on the Sand Land article are the right ones per WP:MOS-MANGA. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
They look fine to me. I didn't see any that seemed inappropriate. So, any other comments or suggestions for the Manga article? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Seems ok then. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Any further comments?

It's been a couple days since the last comment. Are there any others who wish to make comments before we take this to FAC? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed See Also Wikilink

I removed a wikilink to odenbo added 08:38, 24 January 2008 by Georgiacatcrimson (see History). The odenbo entry is merely a list of unsourced opinions without any citations and is therefore unreliable original research. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fixed a error in a reference

According to the check-external-links program on the FAC discussion page, there were a couple of dubious URLs. I checked them, and fixed one, which now works right. The others were OK. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Things to remove

I was reverted because of no discussion, but I don't really see why they would need to be discussed.

  1. "The Kyoto International Manga Museum maintains a very large website listing manga published in Japanese." Complete segue thrown in the lead that reads more like an external link than anything.
  2. The entire "International Manga Award": short, trivial section that doesn't even focus on the subject of the article (manga=Japanese comics), but manhua, original English-language manga, and others of the such.

Any justification for keeping them?--SeizureDog (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with #1 since the lead section is suppose to summarize the article. Maybe make an external link section for it? I also think "otaku" should be removed from the "See Also" section. Rezumop (talk) 19:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I moved the Koyoto bit to a more appropriate location (Publications), and I expanded the award section into a more general award section. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Material moved from FAC Discussion page

On the FAC discussion page, SeizureDog wrote:

The issue is not that it doesn't cover everything in equal depth; it's that there are some things that are not covered at all. This is the core article: it's supposed to have short summaries to all issues relevent to it. This does not mean that every aspect requires a subsection−in some cases, single sentences are enough—but neglecting them isn't the answer. Your excuse is a lack of room, but this just means that the level of detail we have needs split off and the amount in the manga article needs to be lowered. Remember, the basic goal of an encyclopedia is to summarize the subject, and right now, the history section is too long. As a casual reader, the length bores me and takes me too long to get the basic summary that I seek. I suggest you take a quick look at Wikipedia:Summary style#Levels of desired details (I fall in the middle). --SeizureDog (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
First, it is not my problem if you are bored. If so, read something that interests you. Being bored does not give you the right to remove material you don't like or wish wasn't there. This article interests other people (e.g., see the FAC discussion and the two people who agreed with Nihonjoe about moving it into FA status). You must learn that you are not the sole or only arbiter of what goes into this article. You do NOT own this article. No one does, not me and not you.
The same goes for your two recent and arbitrary deletions from the article. You called the description and link to the Kyoto Manga Museum "Random trivial information" and removed it without discussion or obtaining consensus. You said the "International Manga Award" section as "Overly narrow and detracts from the 'manga is Japanese comics' stance we have with the article" and removed it without discussion or obtaining consensus. I reverted the first change; another user reverted the second, observing that "As a government contest, it is notable. Also, Wikipedia shouldn't take 'stances'."
In a community like Wikipedia, where everything we do depends on consensus and good faith, your personal opinion and boredom do not allow you to make unilateral arbitrary decisions. Discussion is the sine qua non of our efforts.
Second, you have made your comments on the FAC page, and not here. The present page is where to discuss content of the article, not the FAC page. I sense that you are trying to influence the vote on the FAC page and are trying -- are you familiar with this phrase? -- "posion the well" of discussion. That is a serious business, and I do not believe it is right.
For example, you raised issues about the article on the FAC page (like screen tones) that I do not recall you ever having mentioned before. I believe that is unfair, if only because it means it has now become impossible to reach a mutual understanding between us. I assure you that throughout the months of work we have put into the article that I would have been very sympathetic indeed to having a section on manga stylistics -- but you never brought it up before your current comments on the FAC page. Now it is too late because you have centered the present discussion not on consensus but on your angry boredom and your arbitrary deletion of material from the article.
Thus, I would still like to have a section in the article on manga stylistics. Are you willing to set aside your rage and write it? That means with lots of references and a clear point and plan. If you are, then we can fruitfully discuss what to take out to make room for it. But I will not remove material merely because you are angry or bored or want to delete material arbitrarily.
Let me be as clear as I can. You will have to write a thoroughly referenced and clear discussion of this topic. That is your responsibility, not mine. If, in all honesty with yourself, you say, "No, I don't feel like it," well, then, that is your decision -- but if that's your decision, then stop complaining about what other people write -- like Nihonjoe or me. If you have not written content -- sourced, substantive content -- don't complain that other people are doing what you can't or don't want to do. By not writing your own material, referenced and planned, you are merely a noisy sidewalk superintendent, a boastful Monday-morning quarterback who isn't pulling his weight but who does tell everyone else how to play the game.
Now, how about you write some productive content for this article?
Timothy Perper (talk) 20:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Simple question

I would like to nominate the article for WP:GAC review but I have a question: why are a lot of the accessed dates and the like not wiki-linked? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 15:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

In references? They shouldn't be, according to the template examples. :) Before going for GAC, I'd highly recommend fixing up the references for consistent formatting (I prefer cite templates myself, but manual is fine as long as its consistent), and maybe asking LoCE to go over it.Collectonian (talk) 16:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I see. Should the remaining dates in the refs be delinked? There was really only one external link which was not working. Is LoCE from the League of Copy-editors? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the rest should be delinked. If the external link isn't working, it should probably be removed. :) And yes, that's League of Copy=editors. Collectonian (talk) 16:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
About that, I could not delink them because the templates used wouldn't allow me. Is there someone who can lend a hand? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, that's what I get for answering without looking far enough. They don't need to be wikified in the code because the template will automatically be linked. (and yes, I'm confusing myself...sorry!) The rest of the references need to be moved into templates as well so that its consistent. Collectonian (talk) 18:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
After looking deep into the page's history, I noted the reason why the dates weren't automatically linked: Timothy Perper changed a lot of the cite web templates, for instance, see [1], [2], [3], [4]. What to do? Follow his example or undo it? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Blech. My personal preference is go back and fix any that are not in templates to be in templates. The references come out looking nicer and its easier to keep it consistent. Would be better to redo than to undo Timothy's edits at this point (though why he did it...who knows). The ones I think we'll need the most are: {{cite web}} for web sites, {{cite book}} for books, {{cite journal}} for magazines (online or print), {{cite news}} for citing news articles (online or print). Also a good chance to check the refs, I guess. Collectonian (talk) 19:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I've asked Timothy to comment here. He probably had a good reason for doing what he did. Otherwise, there's some work to be done. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

There are/were several reasons not to use the templates.

(1) It wastes space in the work space by adding many items that will end up blank. We're talking about kilobytes here given that there are so many references. Space and length have been issues with this article from when I started working on it. I personally don't care if the template is used, provided the person using it knows what they're doing. If space isn't an issue for you, then by all means use the template. If it is an issue, set them up manually.

(2) A number of people, well-meaning and in good faith, have tried to "fix" the references. I'll skip the details; some of those people did NOT know what they were doing and ended up deleting references wholesale or inserting the fields incorrectly with the result that translators were named as authors (to give one example). Other things went wrong as well, like getting the name of a website confused with its URL. It was, please believe me, a mess. Unfortunately, none of these folks came forward and said "Oops, let me fix that" but left it to yours truly to manually fix all the mistakes. Which I did. If you try to fix the references, make sure that you use the templates properly.

(3) Not all references fit the templates, for example if a cited source has multiple authors writing something in an edited book. So I did them manually.

(4) The templates were created for users who are by and large not familiar with bibliographic techniques. They provide a "follow the dotted line" model that will get the basic information into the bibliography, but can't handle stuff beyond that. The templates work fine for simple references, but once one is beyond that, well, problems start.

(5) One class of references needs special care, those with "op. cit." in them. The templates do not provide for this and they have to be inserted manually. If you try to delete them, then a whole bunch of statements will either end up without page references (which is useless with long books, like Schodt's books) or will be unsourced (which is even worse).

(6) The Wikipedia guidelines for references do not require the use of the templates, and I found it faster and easier to insert references manually (thereby saving space). But, as I said, that's up to you.

Timothy Perper (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

There are templates that allow for op cit refs to link to books in a Works cited section. They don't have the words "op. cit." in them, but I think they are basically the same thing. It wouldn't be hard to create another template that adds the words "op. cit." either. See them in use at Scat singing. I think the template is Template:Harvard citation no brackets. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Peregrine.
First. Scat singing uses a different system than the manga article. It has "References" like this
References
1. ^ a b Jones, 1999, p. 206.
followed by a separate list
Works Cited
Jones, William. 1999. Book title. City:Publisher. ISBN.
Note that BOTH a b must refer to page 206. If a is page 206 but b is page 242, that will need two separate references.
The op cit reference looks like this:
References
1. ^ Jones, William. 1999. Book title. City:Publisher. ISBN. p. 206.
...
6. ^ Jones, 1999, op. cit., p. 242.
and there is no list of Works Cited.
BTW, "op. cit." is an abbreviation for the Latin "opus citandum," meaning "in the work cited," in this case, Jones 1999. As the Latin indicates, this kind of reference goes back to the Middle Ages! It is (believe me) a tried and true method for saving space and getting all the information into the bibliography without having to cite the whole damn reference each time.
Second Someone mentioned above the possibility of undoing my changes to the references. I wouldn't do that if I were you. In all likelihood, the change I made was a correction of an inaccurate reference (for any of the reasons I mentioned above) and if you undo it, yes, you will reinstate the templated formatting, but you will also be reinstating the inaccurate reference.
Please believe me that I did not go through the references changing things out of sheer egotism. It was done to get the bibliography and the citations right. Working on a bibliography this long takes many hours of work, because each one has to be checked. So don't be too quick to revert my changes to the bibliography!
About the time of the FAC process started, I went through the entire bibliography checking it and correcting errors that had crept it. At that time, the bibliography had very few errors (and all the links worked). But since then -- well, who knows? I don't know how many people have "fixed" the formatting or decided that the author was listed wrong or Lord only knows what.
Good luck with the bibliography. Let me reiterate that you have to be very careful with the templates and equally careful copying material from the prior reference lest errors occur when you redo it. It will take many hours of work.
Timothy Perper (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's a bit different. The books are put into an alphabetical list of their own, and the refs with the page numbers are what's linked to in the body of the text. Just one of our options. As you say, it will take hours to change. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm...if an item is blank, it shouldn't be added. That's a simple fix. People using it wrong...I guess with this many refs, it may have been a problem, but once they are all done, it isn't that hard to maintain. I use them on almost all articles I work on, and just fix it when someone makes a mistake. We have enough experienced editors now watching this that I don't think it would all fall to one person to deal with. No one meant undo your work as in actually hitting the undo link, but in putting stuff in templates. :) I do think that at minimum, we should consistently use the cite web template for the web sources. They look much cleaner than the hodge podge of links, especially with a two-column ref list. The rest, we can look at on an individual basis, if there are some complexities, though I've had no problems using cite book for multiple authors in an edited work. Collectonian (talk) 04:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Let's utilize the appropiate {{cite web}} templates for now. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA

Okay...it looks like someone just sent this up for GA before we were ready :( Collectonian (talk) 03:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

It was a user named Kaypoh (talk • contribs • logs). Well Collectonian, can you comment on the above discussion? I wanna hear some of your ideas because I'm not sure what we should do. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I just put a comment (not a vote) on the GA Nominations Page saying I don't think this article has reached GA status. No one else has commented or voted. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another question about references

Sesshomaru left me a note on my talk page:

I kind of have a concern: you say you fixed the references, why didn't you finish up with the others? Not trying to get offensive or anything, I just don't want to see the article fail WP:GAC again and we have limited time. You may respond on your talk page or Talk:Manga if you prefer. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the question is offensive. Let me try to answer.

You said I "fixed the references" -- what I did was checked them for accuracy, especially the URLs, but that didn't mean I put them into this or that format. They were at the time all OK, meaning they were accurate. I said then that I couldn't assert the references were 100% accurate but it was pretty good.

Why didn't I format or reformat them? I did some, and several people responded with considerable anger here on the talk page. There's no sense in rehashing that argument, but it certainly convinced me that my efforts were producing hostile responses and not any kind of consensus, let alone cooperation. So I quit doing that, and, in fact, completely stopped editing the article. Nor do I have any plans to return to it in any major way, though I check my watchlist and will respond to questions like this one.

The second reason is time and effort. It takes a lot of work to format/reformat 200+ references (which is what it then was, before Nihonjoe removed a great deal of material from the history and characterization section). It's also a thankless task, literally in this case, and I admit that I am getting tired of being attacked by other "editors" who do not like what I am doing. Well, in a sense, those editors have won the battle -- they got me off this project.

They also stopped me midstream in various efforts to format the references consistently and clearly, but that is no longer my problem. Nor is the issue of this article being FA or GA. Neither nomination was my idea, and I feel that the article as it stands has a variety of quite serious problems. Some sections lack citations completely and are close to OR (e.g., dojinshi, awards). Entire topics are left out, for example an up-to-date discussion of the visual artistry of manga and its characteristic aesthetics. The issue was made worse for me personally because the people criticizing my work were not themselves writing their own contributions to the article. It's like trying to build a house while people on the sidewalk throw stones at you.

I am answering in this much detail because there's a deeper issue involved here. It's how people work together -- or do not! -- on Wikipedia. There is a group of people who feel that being registered on Wikipedia means that they can tell everyone else what's wrong with what the other guy is doing. After a while, working on Wikipedia is a mug's game, as the saying goes -- we can get some things done, but only until someone else removes it all. There is no stability or progress in a Wikipedia entry because all articles are always vulnerable to arbitrary editing and removal of material. For example, in my original discussion of shojo manga, I had included a sentence about Riyoko Ikeda's Rose of Versailles, one of the first genuine masterpieces of shojo, indeed, all manga. Another editor posted a furious criticism of that sentence, and still another editor removed the sentence. So, if you ask "What kind of history of manga leaves out the Rose of Versailles, the answer is, why, the Wikipedia history, of course!"

I am answering more than simply your question about why I didn't format all the references. I'm also explaining why I'm not going to do that nor make any more contributions to this article. It is simply not worth my time or effort battling editors whose main contribution is to attack and remove material. I didn't finish the formatting job because these editors have been attacking me for months.

If the article came up for a GA vote right now, and I could vote, I'd oppose the nomination. The article has a fair amount of OR, it omits crucially important topics, and the reference formatting is a mess. And that is from someone who wrote and referenced most of the what the article now says, all the time inviting people to comment on my Sandbox pages where Peregrine Fisher and I were constructing the new material (see User: Timothy Perper/SDBXIndex for a full list). But, with the phrase "Anyone can edit Wikipedia" comes a responsibility. If you want the article to meet GA or FA standards, you have to contribute systematically and carefully. This article is not my property and I do not own it. So it's now up to you.

I hope that explains a bit more about my experiences and decisions. If not, please ask, and I'll try to explain further.

Timothy Perper (talk) 16:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Just dropping a note that {{cite book}} and {{cite web}} are appropriate for the references. Agree with the assessment above by Timothy Perper that the article is not ready for GA status. Cheers, Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 07:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Just got a note from Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC) on my talk page asking for editing on references numbers: 10, 13, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25, 57, and 62. These are interesting examples of how references can get fouled up.
#10. I have no idea at all how to fix this.
#11. Fixed this one too -- it was set up by someone as a web citation, where it's actually a citation to a journal article. This person had helpfully included the URL of the journal (its general webpage), which has nothing to do with the article being cited. An example of what not to do.
#13. Fixed, URL works.
# 17. Fixed.
#18. This is a dead link and didn't seem to have anything to do with anything. I have no idea why it was here. I deleted it.
That leaves 21, 22, 25, 57, and 62. I'll get to these next.
Timothy Perper (talk) 09:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, I got into the next bunch. The numbering is now off by one because I deleted a reference (above).
Current #20, was #21: Fixed this. Another example of what not to do -- the person who set this up managed to leave off the author's name. I restored it. The URL works.
Current #21, was #22. I removed a wikilink from the reference. Otherwise was OK. The URL works.
Current #24, was #25. Seemed OK so I left it.
Current #56, was #57. Fixed this, nothing major.
Current #61, was #62. I have no idea what to do with this.
Sesshomaru, let me suggest that you see if I did the right ones and fixed what you wanted.
Timothy Perper (talk) 10:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

One last comment. I just checked the article and the fixed-up references seem OK now. I'm talking only about the ones in the list above, not the general bibliography -- I didn't go over the whole thing. Let me know if there are other ones you want me to look at. Timothy Perper (talk) 10:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Why did fixing them = removing them from the templates? The templates are not the problem and all of those fixes could have been done while leaving the references in template form. Collectonian (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I asked a request of Timothy Perper and that was basically to finish what he started. I felt no one wanted to perform the paintaking task of templating every reference so I thought this way would be faster. That answer your question? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Yep. Though not sure I agree that removing the rest is the best way to go, it probably was the fastest. Collectonian (talk) 16:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
We can always wiki-link the dates afterwards. I think that would be the only modification needed. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Sesshomaru asked me to do these "Timothy Perper-style." So I did.

On Sesshomaru's talk page, he asked about the dates on refs 10, 21, 24, and 61. I have no idea how to handle refs #10 and 61, and didn't change anything. The only dates on 21 and 24 are the access dates, which I left alone. Is that what you need to know?

Timothy Perper (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, it may be best to link the dates as I mentioned earlier. Most pages link theirs so I don't see why this should be an exception. Though things like these should be fixed. Someone can take care of these edits, but I'd like to know if there are any suggestions beforehand? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean by the "these" reference. You can template it if you like or not -- the Gravett paper is undated either way, unlike other papers cited from various websites. It makes no difference to me. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
It's just that I noted a comma was inserted instead of a period. That's what I meant by "these"; the edits should be double-checked (probably by someone else), that's all. Guess it's up to me to get the job done, if no one else decides to, but I'm quite busy (both here and reality-wise) so it may take a while. I won't template anything, just wiki-link the dates. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Manga tools

I don't see anywhere but how do manga artist draw do they do it fully by hand or do they use a computer. stupid question but just curious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roxas255 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More Mistakes Being Put In

I see that the kobolds or something are at it again, putting mistakes into the manga article. Well, as I've said before, I'm not doing any more work on this article. For the newbies and kobolds, if you look at the history of this article, you'll find that I wrote and referenced much of it. But no more. If you want it to reach GA status, then you'll have to find the mistakes yourselves. Hint: pull up the complete article and search for "newd." It's going downhill fast, guys. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You're aware of the revert function, aren't you? But yeah, it's a popular article with a fanatic, yet largely ignorant fanbase; it's going to need constant keeping up with.--SeizureDog (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
HI SeizureDog. Yes, I know about the "undo" button -- but I left it to you or someone else to fix. There are other new problems too. But I'm not going to fix them. Over to everyone else -- I'll keep an eye on it, but nothing else. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Mk. It's just Wikipedia, don't worry too much about it.--SeizureDog (talk) 15:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Review

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Pre-review comment: Before I begin reviewing, I've read through the talk page and am a little concerned with recent discussions, particularly the one immediately preceding this section - comments such as "It's just Wikipedia, don't worry too much about it." don't bode too well for an article about to be reviewed. I will remain as neutral as possible, however I will also be taking those discussions into consideration.

Post-review overview: The fears I had noted above are confirmed. This article needs a lot of help.

Record of edits:

  • Fixed punctuation in "History and characteristics"
  • Added {{clarifyme}} tags as noted in section 1a.
  • Added {{fact}} tag as noted in section 2b.
  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose quality:
    Noting presence of a {{clarifyme}} tag in "History and characteristics" at the end of a sentence that trails off without fully explaining itself.
    Near the end of that section, when discussing Gekiga, a sentence reads "drawn in gritty and unpretty fashions." I don't think "unpretty" is a word, and even if it is, I'm sure there's something better you could find to put in there. I know "Unpretty" is the name of a song, but lyricists frequently invent words to suit their purposes.
    In the next section, "Publications," the opening paragraph reads "On average many volumes of manga are printed annually. The manga industry expanded worldwide." I've tagged these unspecific sentences with {{clarifyme}} tags - I notice someone else has seen this same error and left a comment mid-sentence. This needs to be updated with more specific information and referenced. Cleaning up the prose to something more academic sounding would help as well. Reading further, that same criticism applies to the entire lead section of "Publications" - the sentence structure is very juvenile and often grammatically incorrect, for example:
    • "Recently, "deluxe" versions have also been printed as readers have got older and the need for something special grew."
    • "For example, male readers subscribing to a series intended for girls and so on." - This isn't even a complete sentence.
    • "At a manga kissa, people drink coffee and read manga, and sometimes stay there overnight."
    Improving this section with better sentence structure would be a superb improvement. Pull out a thesaurus and find words that wouldn't be used on the Simple English Wiki.
    Oddly enough, the majority of the rest of the article seems to be fine, so I really can't understand why those sections mentioned above are suffering so badly.
    B. MoS compliance:
    Nice work on the lead section. It's probably the best part of the article, which it probably should be.
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. References to sources:
    The GA Criteria state that "In-line citations, if provided, should follow either the Harvard references or the cite.php footnotes method, but not both in the same article." This article appears to follow both, which makes finding the reference for a given citation very difficult. When I click on a footnote and find that the reference is "Lent, 2001, op. cit., pp. 9-10.," I then have to manually search through the other 132 references to find the first instance of the name "Lent" so I know what book/journal/webpage the citation is referring to. It gets worse when there are multiple references by the same author, so now you have to look for the publication date as well. I would recommend using the citation templates only, and simply using those citations multiple times. If you use Harvard referencing, have a separate "References" section that contains the actual citation templates, and then convert all the footnotes to the "Lent, 2001" gibberish you currently have.
    B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
    Providing a citation to Google's currency conversion calculator is neither reliable nor useful. This is done in the lead section as reference #10. The sentence is referring to the value of the market in 2006 - because of this, any currency conversions should be made based on approximate rates at 2006. Since economies can fluctuate rapidly, and Google is updated to reflect these fluctuations, this is a completely useless reference.
    In "International Markets / United States", the sentence "As of 2007, manga is a major component of the U.S. comics market." requires a citation and has been marked as such.
    You have done a good job of providing a wide range of references - they just need to be used more frequently or expanded further to meet the needs I've mentioned.
    C. No original research:
    The lead section in "Publications" has very few references, and some areas appear to be derived from personal experience, or are an original interpretation of uncited sources. More references in this area, as well as cleaning up the text as stated above, should help resolve this issue.
    The entire "Publications" section has a total of three footnotes leading to two separate references. This needs to be improved.
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    B. Focused:
    It may be a good idea to separate "History and characteristics" into a few different sections; for example, separating shōjo and shōnen manga, as well as the other varieties mentioned later on.
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
    B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:
    This article starts good and ends fairly good, but the middle section is nowhere close to GA standard, and drags the whole article down. Get some sort of consensus put together on the talk page. Looking at the talk page discussions one more time, it seems you are definitely struggling with that aspect, and it does show. Work together, take things slowly, and check over the GA Criteria as a group before submitting this next time. If someone jumps the gun as they appear to have done this time, go to them on their talk page and ask them to withdraw the nomination until there is a consensus to send the article forward. I know you lot can get this article up to at least GA status - that's shown in the more well-written sections - you just need to cooperate. I apologize if I was ever too harsh during this review (I did make an effort to word things diplomatically), and wish you all the best of luck making improvements. Hersfold (t/a/c) 00:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It helps to maintain a sense of humor about stuff like this... otherwise it'd be too depressing for words. For example, quoting from Hersfold's comments above:
"When I click on a footnote and find that the reference is "Lent, 2001, op. cit., pp. 9-10.," I then have to manually search through the other 132 references to find the first instance of the name "Lent" so I know what book/journal/webpage the citation is referring to."
I now know that you didn't even try to find the Lent, 2001 reference. How am I so sure? Absolutely sure, in fact? Because the Lent, 2001 reference is the FIRST reference in the bibliography. You would not have to go through 132 or even 62 or even 2 to find it. It's reference #1. So you didn't even look.
If you want to find something else, not number 1, you do not have to search everything manually. You use the "find" feature on your browser instead. If you don't have that on your computer, maybe yoiu should upgrade your hardware?
Since I wrote and referenced most of the article -- that is, before a number of other people started making an incredible variety of changes -- I appreciate your comment that parts are well written. The parts you cite as childish (etc) I did not write or edit, and have no idea who did write them or when -- a long time ago, but when, well, who knows. As I've said before, I am not going to do any more work on this article. Lots of stuff was removed by various editors after me, leaving incomplete sentences and dangling commas and whatnot. I no longer have the time or interest to try to fix this article or keep out the kobolds and newbies. It's too much work for a completely thankless task.
The use of op. cit. is standard in bibliographic practice, even if you've never heard of it. The abbreviation means "opus citandum," = "in the work cited," and it derives from the really old days when Latin was the universal language of scholarship. It's used, as here, to avoid reprinting the entire reference each time it appears. If you try to change that in the bibliography, you will be adding a lot of extra words and numbers to no purpose. I don't recommend that, but then again it's no longer my call. Change them if you like -- and you'll discover for yourself why old-time Latin-speaking scholars invented the "op. cit." notation.
Basically, I've given up on this article, and, more generally, on Wikipedia. If you or anyone else wants to improve this article, you'll have to do it yourselves.
Timothy Perper (talk) 22:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
In reply to your first comment, no, I didn't look for that particular one, however that was intended to serve as an example of the problem. Had I realized that was actually reference #1, which I do suppose I should have done, I would have chosen something else. However, the purpose of using either Harvard citations or consistent in-line citations is to avoid the inconvenience of using the "find" feature. Which, yes, I do of course have, so I likewise will take your comments with a bit of humor.
As for the third comment (as I'm not sure the second one really needs a response), I do know what op. cit. means, and do understand its purpose. I was not criticizing the use of it, only the mix of reference styles.
I hope this clarifies some of my comments. Hersfold (t/a/c) 22:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that does clarify things, and many thanks. The references IMO are in lousy shape. A variety of people have "fixed" them so many times that they're a goulash of styles and just plain junk. The problem with consensus is that we get consensus among several people, about the op. cit. refs, say, and then a newbie comes along, doesn't pay any attention to anything that came before, and starts "fixing" them again, so we start all over again at ground zero. Each time, more errors are added. Another problem is that too few people are willing to write new material, so that the old garbage isn't replaced with well referenced new material. And thanks for the reading. I agree with your overall conclusion, but differ in a few details. Not that it really matters, because now it's up to you guys. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Don't say that, Timothy, let bygones be bygones. It's gonna take all of us working on the article to make it to GAN. Whatever problems you had before with other editors are over now. Put the past behind you and let's move on shall we? Or is there something else you're planning? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Hersfold, for your excellent critique of the article. Your comments are very helpful. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not so optimistic about it, Sesshomaru.
But, for starters, here are some references for the unwritten dojinshi section. They're at User:Timothy Perper/SandboxDojinshi and more are needed as well. You'll need a section or subsection on YAOI. No, I'm not going to write those sections; I know very little about dojinshi, certainly not enough to write 2-3 fully referenced paragraphs on it.
Next, remove or drastically reduce sections 3 and 3.1 ("Publications" and "Magazines"). Neither has any references worth anything, both repeat material that is elsewhere in the article (or was), and neither says anything above what a newbie might have read somewhere. Replace these sections with a new section (for title, see below).
Someone who knows Japanese should write new material for this new section that briefly outlines Japanese publications and trends, especially their so-called "demographics." (That's because Wiki uses those demographics for assigning labels like shōnen or shōjo to translated manga). Personally, I'd ask Nihonjoe to write this material.
I'd suggest calling the new section -- which will replace section 3 and its subsections -- something like "Fan Culture." This is where to put two sentences about scanlations and copyright violation issues raised by scanlations. You'll also need a sentence defining the word "otaku" and citing Tamaki Saitō (Google him with and without the name "Christopher Bolton").
You'll need to have a clear idea what you want to put into these new sections. At the moment, they are merely a collection of unreferenced and out-of-date tidbits of misinformation and otaku gossip.
The rule of thumb for referencing is that any substantive statement needs a reference, preferably to a print source. Otherwise, you have only more low level guesswork and fancruft. The reason for using print sources is that web sources are notoriously ephemeral and often of doubtful reliability. In professional scholarly writing, web sources always take second place to print sources (see below).
The references need to be fixed and defended against the kobolds who "fix" things and thereby add errors.
First The "op. cit." references need to be internally linked back to the work cited. Thus, to use an example already discussed, "Lent, 2001, op. cit., pp. 9-10.," needs an internal link to Lent, 2001 in the bibliography. I know this can be done on Wikipedia, but I don't know how.
Second I did not find any confounding of the name-date ("Harvard") and footnote reference systems. At least none of the references I added confounded them. An "op. cit." reference is a footnote and is NOT -- repeat: NOT -- a name-date reference. The Harvard system refers to references IN THE TEXT, like this (Smith, 1996). The footnote system used by Wikipedia seems to be a watered-down version of the so-called "University of Chicago" system (there are big fat books written about the UChi system, BTW), and "op. cit." references are used in the UChi system. Repeat: "op. cit." is not a name-date reference.
Third I sense, perhaps wrongly, that most Wikipedia editors know very little about preparing a bibliography. My own experience includes being listed on the masthead of various scholarly print journals since the mid-1980s, and over the years I have done a great deal of editing of bibliographies both for papers of my own and papers I have edited. You can either take my word for it, thereby relying on my experience, or not -- and you can reinvent the wheel slowly and painfully.
Fourth The cite web template does NOT create references suitable for a bibliogaphy. Instead, it creates hyperlinks. Footnotes created using the cite web template omits the URL from the bibliography (see numbers 10, 17, 21, and 23 for examples) whereas other references do include the URLs (as in proper for a bibliography), e.g., 3, 9, 19, and 34. So far as I am concerned, this issue is not negotiable -- a bibliography must include the URL explicitly because otherwise it is simply not a reference at all.
Fourth, continued The reason is that if one prints out the article, the hyperlinks all disappear. The footnote is then completely and utterly useless, like 10, 17, 21, and 23. It does not matter if the hyperlink clicks through to the actual website, because then the reader is forced into copying the URL from the website, and adding it manually to his or her own downloaded copy of the article. That simply defeats the purpose of a bibliography.
The article has been shortened and edited by various people with different viewpoints. It needs a single, consistent editorial vision, not a goulash of stuff added by people who don't listen to each other and don't want to listen. I am not optimistic about that, as I have said before, and I won't be editing or writing stuff for this article -- not any more. It's a thankless task, and I'm working on a number of other projects of my own that take up my time. Yes, the article can be upgraded, but it will take a consistent vision and an agreed-upon plan, plus a degree of professionalism that is, in my experience, sometimes all too obviously lacking on Wikipedia. I'll help if I can, but I can't do much more.
I hope that clarifies my views on this article.
Timothy Perper (talk) 13:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reverting Accurate Additions as Vandalism

Recently, someone added the words "kanji," "hiragana" and "katakana" adjacent to the Japanese for "manga" at the very start of the article. Person #2 then reverted these three additions as "vandalism." Before that, Person #3 had added the hiragana and katakana spellings for "manga," but then yet someone else removed them also calling the added kana "vandalism."

Both additions -- the two kana plus the names hiragana and katakana -- are correct. They are minor additions, but they are not vandalism. The two people who reverted them acted, I believe, without knowing any Japanese. I added some spaces and semicolons, to make the additions typographically clearer, but these changes are not vandalism.

Please, folks, don't revert something if you don't know what you're doing.

Timothy Perper (talk) 12:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

We do not put hiragana, katakana, et all in the nihongo template, ever. If it were felt that it was necessary to actually put that in there, it would be in the template already, don't you think? Calling it vandalism was a misclick from my darn screen jumping as I tried to click undo. Your message on my talk page was completely inappropriate and made little sense. I don't even edit this article, only have it on my watch list because it is regularly vandalized and it is a core article of the project. Collectonian (talk) 15:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 :: You do not own this article. I appreciate the efforts you have made to update and protect this article, but you do not own it, and you are not "we". You do not speak for Wikipedia. It does not matter how you personally interpret the nihongo template; what goes into an article depends on collective consensus among editors, not you making an individual judgment.
Thus, it is my judgment that identifying the kana is useful and informative. You have a different judgment. It's a difference we need to discuss, but it is not something you can unilaterally decide, by clicking on a jumping screen or by adding material to your comment after posting it here for the first time.
I will not exchange insults with you, in the time-honored and unfortunate manner of Wikipedians. If you want to insult me here, go right ahead -- I won't reply to them here or on your talk page. I think it's a waste of time.
Timothy Perper (talk) 16:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not the one throwing out insults and claims of ownerships for stating a simple fact and undoing what appeared to be a well meaning, but unnecessary edit. In no anime or manga article do we put that in the nihongo template. If it was something that there was a consensus to have, it would be in the template already. You're the one losing your temper over a very silly thing. Collectonian (talk) 19:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Collectonian, I think this was legitimate. It helps clear up confusion like which kanji is which. So, I agree with Timothy that the edit is helpful, nothing personal. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm fine with it if others agree that this page should be an exception. I reverted because its never been done on any other page using the template and its never been an issue before. Timothy's blowing up about it is what bothers me. If he'd just calmly explained why he felt it was useful and why we should go against the norm, that would have been fine. Collectonian (talk) 19:41, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Collectonian. Is this information so necessary? --deerstop (talk) 19:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Why not? Collectonian, are you ok with it now? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Only if others feel it is necessary. I personally don't, but not something I feel strongly enough to argue over either. :P Collectonian (talk) 19:56, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Neither do I, but I personally don't see the reason to include the katakana and etc. ^^' What for do the readers need it? --deerstop (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't put the explanatory terms -- someone else did. I thought and think it was an accurate, if minor, addition, Here's why.

Here's the original (and present, because reverted) version:

Manga (漫画 まんが, マンガ?)

If one is familiar with Japanese, then it is obvious that the first two characters are kanji, and are nearly identical to the first illustration in the article. The next three are obviously hiragana, and the final three are katakana. That's if one can read Japanese. If one can't, then this string of 8 symbols means nothing and is useless.

Whereupon someone added the expnanatory terms kanji, hiragana, and katakana, and I added the word "in" and the semicolons, thus:

Manga in kanji 漫画; in hiragana まんが; in katakana マンガ

I didn't put the explanatory terms -- someone else did. I thought and think it was an accurate, if minor, addition. The modified version, which Sesshomaru likes and so do I, is linked to an "Help" article on Japanese orthography, which ought to explain what the terms kanji, hiragana, and katakana mean. OK, the reader who knows no Japanese can say, there are three ways to write Japanese, and here they are.

An informative, if minor addition --nothing more.

So why revert it? Sounds silly when the situation is explained like this, now, doesn't it. My own response is to leave it alone, shrug, and do something else more productive than insult other editors (like Collectonian did with me). This is an issue to be resolved -- a non-issue, I think -- by a few comments like these on the discussion page, and Collectonian no longer has ruffled feathers and no longer thinks my comments are nonsensical and meaningless.

So far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it. Do it the way Sesshomaru suggested, and go on to other things. If the template is being used somewhat differently, so what? Who cares, as long as the reader now has accurate information?

Timothy Perper (talk) 21:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Uh, no my feathers are still ruffled and I do still your comments were nonsensical and meaningless. The issue could also just be fixed by removing the hirangana and katana, since we normally don't include it anyway. Collectonian (talk) 21:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Kana should only be included if they are at least as common as the kanji. If that's the case (which it is, here), then having kana is perfectly acceptable. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
OK -- so what I'll do is let this sit for a few days (Farix just removed the kana again), and let anyone else join in. Then, if there are no cogent objections, I'll add back the changes that Sesshomaru described above, on the basis of Nihonjoe's comment immediately above. That will make a minor but accurate addition to the article on the basis of consensus.
Templates are tools. We use them to do a job. Sometimes they add too much information, sometimes it's just right, sometimes it's too little. Then we adjust the results. So templates are NOT our masters, but our tools. We do not obey them, they do what we want. And "we" means a group of editors and involved parties, not one person acting unilaterally. That comment is neither nonsense or meaningless.
So let's see if there is any further discussion. If not, I'll put the kana and explanations back in a few days.
Timothy Perper (talk) 13:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Since there have been no objections or further discussion, I added the hiragana and katakana to follow the kanji for "manga." I also labelled them so the reader knows which is which. It is, as I said, a minor addition at most. I hope it causes no further problems in peoples' minds. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)