Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China/Archive/August 2006

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Wenyan wiki approved

A wenyan wiki has been approved but depending on how fast developers react to the list (not very fast, judging from the number of entries there) it might take some time for it to go online. Please keep an eye or two on it, thanks. -- Миборовский 21:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

文言維基百科創于丙戌年七夕迄今既十七文矣 -- Миборовский 05:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Remove Wade-Giles

Wade-Giles is a useless thing. Nobody uses it. To improve the quality of Wikipedia, Wade-Giles should be removed from China related articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edipedia (talk • contribs)

Descendants of Confucius

I'm looking to write articles about the descendants of Confucius (e.g. Duke Yansheng, Kung Te-cheng, List of direct lineal descendants of Confucius, etc.). How do you translate "大成至聖先師奉祀官"?--Jiang 11:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The Great Accomplished Most Sacred Teacher's Sacrificial Officer? --Sumple (Talk) 12:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Who's Who in Taiwan translates it as "Sacrificial Official to Confucius". Updated the article on Kung Te-cheng to reflect official and literal translations--Jiang 14:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Poetry question

I have a bit of a Romanization problem. I'm reading through Donald Keen's Travelers of a Hundred Ages, and I see the following quote in his Introduction to the Henry Holt edition (pg 4):

"Basho, modestly referring to his "shallow knowledge and inadequate talent", is sure that he will not equal the acheivements of the past, but he is determined not to confine himself to such typical diary notations as "On that day it rained...it cleared in the afternoon." Anyone can write such a diary, but unless one's style has the distinctiveness of the Chinese master Wu Shan-ku or the freshness of Su Tung-p'o, it is best not to write at all."

Now, Su Tung-p'o already has a redirect for that particular Romanization, but I can't find this "Wu Shan-ku" in Wikipedia or Google, even though if Keene's description is right, we obviously should have an article. Does anyone know who this guy is or where his article is? --Rhwawn (talk to Rhwawn) 03:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, can't help you there. -- Миборовский 23:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles for individual Chinese characters

I think it would be interesting to start making articles for individual Chinese characters. Obviously there's enough information for each to warrent it; the etymology alone can provide enough substance for most characters. Other information that could be included is use of the character in the various languages and how it differs, example words/phrases using the character, step by step stroke order pictures, and basically any information presented in the Wikionary articles. While the Wikionary entries are all well and fine, I think there is plenty of information to be able to make proper Wikipedia articles out of them. Anyone want to give it a shot? I can be a little help on the Japanese side of things. --SeizureDog 17:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

and so we end up with 10,000 new articles...? --Sumple (Talk) 13:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
just what info can be presented here that would not belong in Wiktionary?--Jiang 13:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, I don't think we should have Chinese articles in the titles of English Wikipedia articles. What, then, would the names of the articles be?—Nat Krause(Talk!) 18:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
You'd have to dab it by meaning - e.g. "Zhōng (middle)".
You know, after thinking about it, I think some characters could make okay articles. These are ones with unique cultural or linguistic significance. An example that springs to mind is Fú 福, and how it is used as a charm etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is that some characters have a story to tell beyond their meaning. --Sumple (Talk) 05:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm just something that we could test out. Try one article at first, see how much information can be put together and how good it looks. If it works out, then the project can be expanded, if not, easily scrapped. I don't think there's anyway of getting around having Chinese characters in the namespace though. Unless we want to call them something stupid like "Chinese character 4950" or something. --SeizureDog 06:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Fu Lu Shou could probably have a full article. -- Миборовский 23:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I've stubbed it. --Sumple (Talk) 23:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I've always thought that Fu represented an overall sense of wellbeing and blessedness rather than specifically prosperity (which is Lu)... -- Миборовский 00:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Its like "lucky", except not the same, because its like, predetermined. It's like "a good destiny", except you can increase your Fu-ness by doing good deeds. But it's not quite the same as Karma either. --Sumple (Talk) 00:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Article merger/deletion needed

Nü Kua is superfluous as Nu Wa already exists. --Sumple (Talk) 23:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirecti-fied as Nu Wa contains everything Nü Kua does (except funky spelling). -- Миборовский 00:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey hey hey, banners revisited

We still need a decent banner... the current one is really too plain and doesn't say much. Any brave soul willing to volunteer to make one? My artistic affinities are non-existant. -- Миборовский 00:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Noone? C'mon... We need a colorful banner or something. -- Миборовский 22:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... Nanking Massacre photos, again

Someone has suddenly decided to nominate pretty much every Nanking Massacre-related photo on en and commons for deletion. [1] [2]. I would really like to be spending time doing some research on Hu Zongnan to bring it to FAC instead of tug of warring ad infinitum, so if someone has the free time and energy, any help would be much appreciated. -- Миборовский 22:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

We (this Wikiproject) really should pay more attention to that page (Nanking massacre). --Sumple (Talk) 22:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Should we? Personally, I try not to get too involved in that black hole of controversy and devote my attention to other Second Sino-Japanese War articles. It's really unfortunate that most of the Chinese research into the war is fixated on the Nanking Massacre. -- Миборовский 22:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't mean getting into the discussion; but keeping en eye on, say, the graphics deletions. It's been going on all year and the article's now got like, 10% of the photos it had before. --Sumple (Talk) 00:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

proposing definitive category scheme for China-related articles

Simply put, the current categories we have for China-related articles is in a serious mess. Convoluted, redundant, you name it. We need to have an orderly, sightly and well-defined category system. I'm currently coming up with a tentative system that should hopefully outline what I think would be an ideal categorising scheme. Suggestions would be, naturally, very much appreciated.

By period
                China
                  |                                      
      ,-----------+-------------+------------------------.
      |                         |                        |
 Ancient China            Imperial China        Republican China
      |                         |                        |
 various dynasties       various dynasties    ,----------+---------.
                                              |                    |
                                     Republic of China   People's Republic of China    20th century
                                                                   |                    |
                                                          Cultural Revolution ----------'

An article should have a category identifying its relevant period in Chinese history, as well as the corresponding western century. For example, Cultural Revolution would be tagged with categories PRC and 20th century. For articles whose scope spans more than one category, we can tag them with the upper-level category that blankets all relevant periods (eg. Age of Fragmentation gets Category:Imperial China instead of Han, 3K, Jin, N&SD, Sui and Confucianism gets the blanket Category:China as it spans the ancient, Imperial and republican categories).

By topic                                    Revolutions
                                                |
     Revolutions in China ----------------------'         Republican China
              |                                               |
Revolutions in republican China ------------------------------'
              |
      Cultural Revolution           People's Republic of China    20th century
              |                                    |                   |
      Cultural Revolution -------------------------+-------------------'

In addition to a period category, an article should have one or more topic categories. Cultural Revolution could theoretically get Revolutions in, Communism in, etc, as well as a Cultural Revolution category, since it is notable and detailed enough to have its own category. Now, redundancy is a problem. There weren't a lot of revolutions in PRChina, so it isn't really good to have a Category:Revolutions in the People's Republic of China populated by poor Cultural Revolution alone. So we can put Cultural Revolution in an upper category, republican China. And since revolutions as a concept only arrived recently in China, there is no need to create Category:Revolutions in ancient China. Only create an in/of/from category when it can be populated with a reasonable number of articles. In fact, we can probably forego the Revolutions in Republican China category, and put everything under Revolutions in China, though that might be a tad bit too general.

This is what I have tentatively. This scheme should be able to avoid category bloat and bad cat'ing. Is it a good idea? Crappy? Your input, please. -- Миборовский 06:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ma Yu

Several articles about Three Kingdoms military figures have come up for deletion. Please comment. Gazpacho 09:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox goodness

I've made a userbox for this wikiproject out of boredom. It's not anything spectacular, but those who want one may use it.

  • {{Wikipedia:WikiProject China/Userbox}}

Wikipedia:WikiProject China/Userbox _dk 14:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Now moved into project space. --Cyde Weys 16:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Quality rating system

Not sure if you know it or not, but there is a quality rating system embedded within the {{WPCHINA}} template. It is currently not supported, but is active (meaning you can assign quality ratings to articles, but not much can be done with them). For example:

Template removed

Note that it currently interferes a bit with the todo list (just click "show") and I don't have the wikicodemonkey skillz to fix it. :S

You can visit Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment for more information on the rating system. Frankly speaking, I'm not a huge fan of it, but lots of projects seem to be using it so... Should we? Because lots of topical projects (eg. Biography, Military history) are using it, I think it might be redundant if we copycat this rating system. Your input? -- Миборовский 04:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh and BTW, project tagging

I'm currently tagging all the articles within [[Category:History of China]], by AWB and for non-existant talk pages by hand. This is tedious work, so if someone can spare the time to help with some of this stuff, any help is welcome. The advantages of tagging is two-fold. Firstly we can establish a numerical picture of the coverage of China-related articles in Wikipedia, secondly it allows for and facilitates future sorting and organisation. -- Миборовский 06:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

And many thanks to ran for finding a decent photo we can use on the project banner... :D -- Миборовский 06:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)