Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sumo

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"Sumo" in traditional calligraphy
 This article is part of WikiProject Sumo, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to sumo on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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[edit] Sumo

Description 
This wikiproject would be dedicated to sourcing, standardizing, and improving articles related to Sumo. Sumo is becoming more and more international, so it is not necessarily only connected to Japan. As it grows stronger in more countries, it is still seen as the traditional national sport of Japan, and there is a long history and culture related to sumo. Many people on Wikipedia are interested in sumo, and interested in improving sumo on Wikipedia.

Many articles related to sumo wrestlers are not sourced or poorly sourced, such as Takanohana and Asashoryu. Historical sumo wrestlers such as Taiho or Akashi Shiganosuke are both poorly sourced and need to be expanded.

In addition to sumo wrestlers, there are also what is known as sumo heya, or stables, which are an integral part of the sumo system, and anyone with a passing interest in sumo will quickly want to know more about these stables. These articles in the english wikipedia must be improved.

There are also many general articles such as yokozuna, gyoji and the Japan Sumo Association directly related to sumo which could be improved and expanded with a unified look by a WikiProject related to Sumo. Sumo content in indirectly related articles such as Shinto and promotion and regulation could also be improved with a focused WikiProject.

Therefore, I feel it is neccessary for Sumo to have its own WikiProject. Please feel free to add any comments or suggestions.

Interested Wikipedians [please add your name]
  1. XinJeisan 16:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. TCC (talk) (contribs)
  3. -Jmh123 20:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC) There are currently 45 Wikipedia pages as well as 23 pages in 3 subcategories in Wiki:Category:Sumo_wrestling.
  4. I would also like to see more sumo-related content on the Sports Current Events pages. --Do Not Talk About Feitclub (contributions) 21:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Long overdue! --Auximines 21:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. Pawnkingthree 08:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. I'm in. Kaiketsu 10:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. Malnova 15:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  9. Kotogoushu 10:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC) Going to start working on some missing pages in the coming weeks when I get some free time.
Comments
Why? Is Wikipedia:WikiProject American football a task force of Wikipedia:WikiProject United States? Sumo is now an international sport, and although its roots in Japanese culture are deep, the interest it attracts is far broader than Japanophiles. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I thought about this as well, but looking at the Sports Wikiprojects, in addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject American football there is also American Football, there is Wikipedia:WikiProject Gaelic Games. Also, I think if you look at the 8 people who have joined this project, most of them have been working hard to improve sumo here. However, I don't have any experience with either a project or task force, so I don't think it is a bad idea to discuss it more. For the moment, I can set up a temporary project page on my talk pages. After some more discussion here, and a creation of some stuff on the temporary page, we can make a final decision.XinJeisan 18:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Various naming issues.

On naming heya: I really think we ought to call heya by their proper names; e.g. Naruto beya instead of Naruto stable; Kokonoe beya instead of Kokonoe stable, etc. For one thing, I have no idea why "heya" is translated "stable" in the first place; that's not what it means. It's also a usage I only seem to encounter in sources that don't know what they're talking about. Everywhere else, including goo Sumo, uses "heya". (Or "beya" in the case of my example, but I suppose in English it's a judgment call when to consider it part of a compound and when not.) The category should be renamed accordingly. Considering that anyone who doesn't know that word isn't going to have enough of a clue about any particular heya to search for it by name, I don't think this would impose any obstacles.

Second, I think Category:Sumo wrestling should be renamed to Category:Sumo. "Sumo wrestling" is a redundant expression, isn't it? It's like calling the martial art "Karate fighting" instead of just plain "Karate". TCC (talk) (contribs)

It seems most of the heya articles are started by User:Auximines so we should probably ask their reasoning. Whatever we decide, we just need to be consistant. I usually side on the translation side, myselt: there is no reason to use a Japanese word in English when an English one will do. But, I would side on goo Sumo, since that info comes directly from the Sumo Kyokai, in this case as well. Finding out what the actual heya/stable's call themselves.Either it is heya or it is stable.
We also need to make sure articles are encyclopedic and not just dictionary definitions. Like toshiyori is just a translation of the word into english. if that is all the information that can be attributed to it, it should be deleted, I think.XinJeisan 08:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Or taken up into a general article on the organization of the Nihon Sumo Kyokai. But I essentially agree with that last.
The trouble with "heya" is that it's a goofy translation. The word means "room", not "stable"; you'll only find it listed as "sumo stable" in references because it's so common, not because you'll ever find a horse kept in anything called a "heya". (That sense of "stable" is "umaya", if I read the hiragana correctly.) Perhaps I'm just being cynical, but I suspect that translation came about due to Eurpoeans' ideas about the character of sumotori as nothing but big animals. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Kanji: 部屋 -- Heya. 厩, or 廐, or 馬屋 -- stable or barn. TCC (talk) (contribs) 09:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Let's analyze the English usage instead of the Japanese. One definition of stable from dictionary.com is:"A: a number of people, usually in the same profession, who are employed, trained, or represented by the same company, agency, manager, etc. B. the establishment that trains or manages such a group of people: as in two boxers from the same stable." In this context, the use of stable is perfect. I am sure we have all heard the phrase "stable of talent" referring to the people at a certain agency etc. and I am sure this phrase comes from the above meaning. Now, the use of "stable" in these contexts may sound somewhat archaic (though I found quite a few hits for "boxing stable" on Google), the term "heya" itself for an establishment that trains people for a sport or profession is also archaic as far as I have ever heard or read the word used in Japanese. But that is what sumo is all about, protecting the archaic from the modern, all the way down to the top-knot that wrestlers still wear. And besides, the term stable is well-known and used among English speaking fans of sumo (in addition to using the word heya) in Japan. And I really do not think Japanese terms should be over used.
And while we are on this subject, sumo is indeed called "sumo wrestling" by people not very familiar with it. When I try to talk about my love of sumo when I am home in the states, my friends always check me with, "are we talking about sumo wrestling?" But I think in the context of articles just sumo is fine, and that "sumo wrestling" could be redirected to just "sumo". Malnova 10:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I really don't think "heya" is over-use of Japanese. Over-use would be insisting on "sumotori" or "rikishi" instead of "sumo wrestler". And the English you're talking about isn't archaic in the least; it's slang. Old slang, but slang nonetheless. (It says "informal" right here: [1] in the first dictionary listing given, not further down where you found the definition you gave earlier.) You can look in the phone book all day and never find a "stable" full of boxers. It's called a "gym". "Stable" is just fine for "heya" as slang, but an encyclopedia shouldn't present slang as if it was correct use any more than you'd say "boxing stable" when you meant "gym". (And if you go just a tad further down to the entry from the Online Etymology Dictionary, you find it also applies to prostitutes. I don't think we want to promote that kind of association.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I know very well it's "sumo wrestling" to people who know nothing about it. Again, we ought to be promoting correct use in our titles. TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the point you have made about "sumo" vs. "sumo wrestling" was the point I was stumblingly trying to make.

Stable appears to be an established term for a group of wrestlers who train together, according to many references I have found, not the least of which is wikipedia. Regardless, I completely missed your point the first time around that "heya" is the term that the Sumo Assocation uses. If this is the form they use, I think we should use it as well (which was my argument against the informal English and Japanese use of "aki, hatsu" etc. for the tournaments.) As long as we make redirects from "Naruto stable" etc. to the Heya articles, I don't see a problem with it. We might even mention that stable is an informal use in the articles.Malnova 12:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the pleasure of being in Japan for the moment, so I can't check, but what do the english announcers on NHK use. Rather than deciding for ourselves what the proper use is, we should use what is commonly used by the "official" sources. The official sources would be the kyokai and the NHK English announcers. Whatever we decide on, we need a redirect from the other one, that is for sure.(sorry forgot to sign)XinJeisan 23:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Musashigawa uses both beya and stable on its English website but Sadogatake uses only stable. XinJeisan 23:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional Sumo-sans

One thing we need to do is clean up the categories. They seem to be applied in a haphazard way. If Category:Fictional Sumo wrestlers is not proper, then it needs to be taken out of the sumo category all together. Are fictional baseball players under the baseball project or fictional martial artists covered in the martial arts project. Those are probably the best places to look. XinJeisan 08:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The project and the categories don't need to be organized along the same lines. It perhaps makes some sense for Category:Fictional sumo wrestlers to be a subcategory of Category:Sumo wrestlers, but writing about the latter is most likely not related so much to sumo as it would be to the fictional setting in which those characters are found; and in that case neither they nor their category should come under the scope of the project.
However, where the categories are badly arranged, we can certainly take it upon ourselves to fix that. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me XinJeisan 08:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of active sumo wrestlers

I've been going through this list trying to eliminate the red links. Kaiho, Toyozakura, Jumonji etc don't appear here because it only covers makuuchi rikishi. Is it worth expanding it to juryo wrestlers as well? Or just former makuuchi? Pawnkingthree 09:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we ought to cover anyone who's made makuuchi, and anyone in juryo (or even lower; I'm thinking of people like Ichinoya) who's been around long enough to achieve some kind of notability. It's not worth the trouble to write articles on rikishi who are only sekitori for a short time and then disappear, IMO. TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree with all of that. Who's going to be the first to write about "the world's oldest active rikishi" then? :) Pawnkingthree 11:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I've added all the former makuuchi rikishi I can think of. We definitely need an article for Takanowaka-- he's a former sekiwake! Pawnkingthree 12:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We should start with all the current Makuuchi wrestlers, because that is what newer fans will be interested in (and I guess Pawnking3 has already done this) and then move on to long time active rikishi who are former makuuchi (especially sanyaku). Getting some pictures that can be safely used for profiles as well is probably too much to ask. I do attend 2 or 3 days a year, but these days I can't be bothered to take pictures. Malnova 20:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia notability states for sports people that being in a professional league is enough. That would mean everyone in juryo should be considered notable. But, instead of a list of active sumo wresters, shouldn't we just put up a banzuke for every basho. Then people could see when rikishi are active or not depending on the time. A list of active wrestlers needs to be updated every tourney anyways. I found this off a user page. He doesn't seem active anymore, but we should set up a template so wikipedia can have every banzuke up. that is the only true way of showing if a wrestler is active or not.XinJeisan 23:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
As I mentioned on Malnova's talk page, about my having left the year links in the tourney box template: I was thinking that we might eventually want to provide year-by-year sets of basho results. (Other sports projects do this, for example 2006 NFL season, which has numerous subpages giving complete results by team.) It's natural to organize basho results in banzuke order if we're just giving final bout scores. (Unless we're being very ambitious, I don't know if we'll ever get to showing bout-by-bout results.) It would then be natural to link the years in the tourney box to the yearly results page as a cross-reference, instead of to the almanac pages like they do now. The yearly results would of course also link back to the individual rikishi's pages.
If we are ambitious enough to give individual results for each bout (winner, loser, kimarite), then we'd probably want to show them on one or more pages for each basho, depending on how many divisions we're covering. The cells in the tourney box could then be linked to the basho pages so a reader could "drill down" for more detail.
I am such a geek about all this shit.
I'll make the basho template up next then, after I finish the userbox and project page template. Both of these are fairly simple; it's the graphic that's giving me a bit of a headache. I'll probably incorporate the same subtemplate I used for the tourney box with appropriate tweaks, so the results can be given right along with the banzuke itself. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Term conventions

This is related to "naming conventions" but anyway... I think maybe Csernica brought this up, but there needs to be a consensus on how to use sumo-specific terms in sumo related articles. I have a tendency (that I really just noticed) to capitalize "titles" such as Makuuchi and Sekiwake. But many people don't and this does not seem the norm in sources outside wikipedia. I am thinking the easiest and most consistent method would be to italicise every sumo specific Japanese term, which seems to obtain in many other sources. This would include terms like rikishi, sekitori, basho etc., (which I think are overused anyway in sumo articles, but that is another issue.) Any thoughts? Malnova 20:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe the MOS wants foreign words not in common use to be italicized anyway. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:30, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I figured that might be a convention, and it is certainly underused on sumo articles.Malnova 20:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

We didn't actually talk about capitalization. I note that both the glossary at SumoForum and the NSK site don't capitalize division or rank names, so we should probably follow suit. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:52, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new tourney table ref

So, I have been on a quest to give every May banzuke Makuuchi wrestler a tourney table. It's quite easy with most of the guys left as they have only been there a few basho. Anway, how are we referencing with the new tables? In my version of the table I put a line below with the reference, what is a good format for the new, Csernica tables, do we think? I noticed that Kaio's references, for example, whatever they were, have disappeared. Malnova 06:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of that. What I can do is add a parameter for the data source to {{Sumo record box start}}, and if present insert a <ref>...</ref> containing it in the caption next to the wrestler's name. You'd have to add a Notes or References section then with <references /> or {{reflist}}, but the articles as a whole should be referenced and have one of these anyway. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. Malnova 10:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] can't edit

I am not all that savy on wiki stuff...anyway, when I try to edit the General Conventions section that I edited earlier, it merely read something like Template:Conventions/ and all the other text I wrote is not there, though it appears on the finished page. How do I edit what I wrote? Thanks. Malnova 00:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to a subpage. On projects pages this is often a convenient way of maintaining sections, since they don't need to clutter up the main page so much and project members who aren't interested in it don't need to watch it but can still watch the project page. Follow Wikipedia:WikiProject Sumo/Conventions and you'll get there. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cat:sumo stubs

I've created a category for the recently-created {{sumo-stub}} template, and populated with such articles as I could find that were already tagged with some other stub template. If we could find a few more that would make it look a bit more respectable (if the worst comes to the worst, we can always smoosh these together with the sumo-bios). Alai 23:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I should have gotten around to creating this earlier, since the proposal for it passed the 5-day mark at WP:WSS/P a couple of days ago. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] book ref

Hey, I should know this, but I don't. What is the markup/template for a book reference (as opposed to a web reference)? I looked around, but I couldn't find what was looking for. Thanks in advance! Malnova 00:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

{{cite book}}. You can find all the generic citation templates at WP:CITET. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again, Csernica. Malnova 01:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recording additional sanyaku

Hi all. There is a debate about how to handle recording extra sanyaku (a 3rd Ozeki in addition to the usual two etc.) when recording them in the tournament tables. Please chime in how you think it should be handled. I am pasting below the debate so far that Csernica and I have had about it so far on Kaio's talk page. You can see what Kaio's current tourney table looks like at Kaio Hiroyuki with Csernica's "haridashi" idea, and you can look in the history for how it was done previously to this. Malnova 07:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Csernica. While I do agree that the best way to get feedback on an idea or a change is to edit it in and see what happens, I don't agree with this change. This use of "haridashi" is even less preferable than the number designation for sanyaku I think. It is just one more obscure, confusing term to avoid. Your addition to the glossary says it is indeed informal, and that is one more reason to avoid it. It has gone out of use even in Japanese, and Kaio's own tourney record on ja.wikipedia does not use the haridashi designation, for any of his listed ranks, old or new. It uses a system more like how you were originally doing the Kaio tourney table. If this were the Japanese wikipedia there might be a thin argument for keeping it, but for English wikipedia, I don't see it. I still think the extra numbers (or haridashi if consensus leans that way) should be explained somewhere under the table etc.Malnova 07:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we're in danger of the explanatory material under the table overwhelming the table itself in some cases. At some point, we have to expect the reader to know something about the sport. Look at any of the articles on, say, American football seasons. Take last year's. Practically none of the terms are explained, and some of the discussion is fairly technical. One might argue that many English speakers (i.e. users of this Wikipedia) are familiar with the sport, but I think many more are not. If something might be confusing to the reader -- and ozeki with numbers sometimes present and sometimes not strikes me as a very minor confusion -- he can be referred to an article that explains it. But one way or another, we have to indicate their situation somehow. - Csernica
I do agree that we have to expect the reader to know something about the sport. Having said this: I, who am somewhat familiar with sumo, had never heard of the term "haridashi", so it was a new term for me. If we must record "extra" sanyaku, I think the original sytem, using a designation such as East Ozeki #3, is best. Malnova 07:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the haridashi idea I'm afraid. The designations "East" and "West" have little practical significance, "Haridashi" even less so. I agree with Malnova that it is a very obscure term. A numbering system would be better (though personally I don't think even that is necessary-- the Sumo Association don't use it on their website). Pawnkingthree 08:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name changes

I was looking at the July banzuke and I saw Shimotori had two o's in his name, as in Shimootori. I looked it up in Japanese, and it appears his name has now changed to Shimo'otori (maybe to differentiate from his real name?). Anyway, I couldn't find out when or why it was changed, but it has definitely changed, as his former shikona, Shimotori, is also listed. I have redirected article to a new article entitled "Shimo'otori", I hope this romanization style is okay. By the way, this got me wondering if our info box should have former shikona listed in it? It is a somewhat interesting and informative tidbit that could be added no? Or is it overkill? What do we think?

Apparantly it's not uncommon for rikishi to do this sort of thing: they change just one character in their name for luck. A lot of them do seem to be very superstituous. Didn't Kotooshu do the same thing? Perhaps a complete change of shikona would be worth recording in the articles but I'm not sure that a one character change is. I think you were right to change the article name though. BTW I can't help but find it amusing that (in the Roman alphabet, anyway) this guy now has "moo" in the middle of his name... Pawnkingthree 10:07, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] table template changes

Hey. When I use the template Csenica started, I get kind of bogged down when it just reads Basho six times in a row. Is it possible to change this part of the template to read the Hatsu Basho (or 1 Basho or Jan Basho), Haru Basho etc. in order instead of Basho 6 times? This would help me (and maybe others) to keep from losing our place when we are making tables. Would this screw up the template or is it an easy fix? If it screws things up too much don't worry about it. Thanks for listening, Malnova 20:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I see what you mean, but anything like that would be purely decorative, as a memory aid only, since each cell is otherwise identical: it would all be the same code. One way to accomplish this without a lot of duplication would be to add redirects in template space with the individual names you want, and point them all to Template:Basho. (In other words, the names of the redirect pages should all be Template:Something.) That's easy enough where you don't need someone who knows template coding to do it. -Csernica

[edit] tourney table template fix

Hey, in Explorer (at least on XP) the templated tourney table half hides the name of the wrestler above it. I went in and put three breaks just after the reference for the wrestler and just before the closing bracket. This seems to fix the problem in IE. I tried one and two breaks, but it was not enough. It takes three breaks. Please use this fix if/when you make tournament tables until a better one comes along. I have already fixed the current templated tables that are up now. Malnova 22:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Professional Sumo Ranks article

I have made a sandbox and tried out merging all the sanyaku rank articles, the sanyaku article itself, and the maegashira article into one. It looks better than I thought. Please check it out here and we'll see if I should make a full article out of it. I had to make a few compromises, like the size of the sanyaku section title. I haven't bothered to dewiki any of the links that would redirect here, etc., I'll save all that and the redirects until after I have heard some opinions. Thanks for your time. Malnova 17:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The only suggestions I would have, other than some edits I'll offer for your consideration, is about the title. We already have an article on Professional sumo divisions, so I wonder if Professional sumo ranks wouldn't be too confusing. It's also a question of whether or not to include jūryō, since they're among the salaried rikishi as well. (Not to mention being labelled as maegashira on the banzuke.) Perhaps it makes more sense to split off an article on makuuchi from Professional sumo divisions and include the information on its ranks there.
The other thing is that we should never use level 1 headers in the bodies of articles per Help:Section and WP:MOSHEAD. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I like your idea about breaking off Makuuchi and making it a separate article again with all the ranks explicated. It seems an optimum compromise. I thought that the makuuchi section in Professional Sumo Divisions was too short anyway (compared to makushita for example). The simplified ranking system in the lower divisions could just as easily and more clearly be explained in their respective sections in the Pro Sumo Divisions article.

I think a short blurb about Makuuchi in Pro Sumo Divisions with a prominent link to a revamped Makuuchi article seems like a good way to go. I do think that sanyaku should be explained more prominently in the Makuuchi article, but I have no disagreement with any of your other edits that I saw. Malnova 03:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I see you already created makuuchi -- like I said, they were only suggestions and I don't have any One True Version of the article in mind. It just seemed natural to talk about makuuchi ranks in an article focused on the division. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I liked your style edits, and once you mentioned it, I realized that handling the ranks under the makuuchi article, which had a pretty skimpy entry in the "divisions" article anyway, was the way to go. I was going to wait around for more input, but the 3 other people making significant contributions recently all expressed support and/or helpful edits, so I figured I might as well invite constructive criticism and edits by moving forward with the article. Malnova 03:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

Should this page be archived? Does anyone know how to do it? XinJeisan 15:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Akebono

I nominated Akebono's article for GA status, and it failed. If you want to help try to bring it up to standard, as well as see what the reviewer said to know more about a good article for other sumo articles, please check here. It would be nice if we could get at least one sumo article to GA status.

Also, there is in fact a minor edit war going on at Akebono over the nickname makebono. If you want to add your input/advice/suggestions please look at this section of the talk page:Talk:Akebono Taro#Handlers on the page

Things are looking good for sumo. Keep up the good workXinJeisan 15:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too many one line yokozuna pages

I don't think there will ever be enough information in english to write decent stand alone articles for most yokozuna, so I think it is a good idea to merge them as per policy on text, just like Malnova has been merging the ranks. I am not sure how to divide them, but I have two ideas. One is to divide them up by time, like pre meiji, meiji, taisho, prewar showa, post war showa, heisei. additionally, put all the information on the list of yokozuna and then case by case decide which wrestlers should get their own page. the problem with the list is that it might encourage the re-creation of many one line articles again. A smaller number of good articles will be much better than a bunch of one line articles, I think.XinJeisan 16:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

There are too many, you're right. Most of the yokozuna stubs have been that way since they were created in January. But I think it should be done on a case by case basis. All the yokozuna from the 34th onwards have profiles on the Japan sumo Association website, and sumofanmag.com in their "Rikishi of Old" series have covered Umegatani Tōtarō II, Shiranui Kōemon, Minanogawa Tōzō amongst others, so there is info out there. I certainly think there's a case for all postwar yokozuna to have their own article, but I agree some of the more obscure early ones could be merged. Maybe a good cut off point would be the 1st to the 15th, as it was not until the 16th that yokozuna became an official ranking. Pawnkingthree 19:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I wrote this on the List of Yokozuna talk page as well: Even if someone translated the Japanese articles eventually, or got English info from another source, it is going to take time. If we redirect all the yokozuna stubs to one or two articles for now, we could make an article worth looking at. Any yokozuna that had enough info deemed worthy of it's own article could retain it. We could still give that yokozuna a summarized entry in the merged article with a link to his full article. If anyone finds enough information that they want to make a full article for one of the redirected yokozuna, all they have to do is take out the redirect (takes five seconds) and add in their info. for a full article. Nothing is lost. I also think any individual articles should have a link to the merged article, so that people can read more easily about the other yokozuna (which is much faster than following the slow succession box route). Malnova 22:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good. I'm convinced! Pawnkingthree 23:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It's still really weird to be demoting the most notable members of a class... Kappa 03:16, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

What should we title the new article then. The First Fifteen Yokozuna. Yokozuna of the Tokugawa era, or Early Modern Yokozuna. Any thoughts? XinJeisan 05:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is that we should hold back from this for a while at least. There are quite a few very active contributors to sumo articles at the moment, and there's a good chance the yokozuna articles will get filled out over the next few months. People are more likely to add information to stub articles than to a list which looks complete. --Auximines 20:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I wonder. I think the majority of those yokozuna articles have sat there largely untouched and will continue to do so. Anybody motivated enough to do anything about those sumo articles is most likely going to have found the WP:SUMO anyway and might join our project and possibly get involved in expanding said articles that way. But at this point, was anybody who is working on sumo articles thinking about expanding those articles? It's not high on my priority list. More directly addressing Auximines' point: All stubs have that "you can help" tag on the bottom, no? Maybe we could put homemade tag at the top of a merged article(s) saying, "this article is a merging of stubs, YOU can help" type of message, maybe even with a link to the project page or the discussion page with a how to of how to simply take out the redirect and possible places to get info etc. How's that sound? BTW, addressing Kappa's post above about "demoting" yokozuna - I don't see it that way at all. In a merged article these great yokozuna of antiquity will get a lot more exposure than they did as individual articles. Exposure in a merged article looks better to me than a sad little stub.Malnova 22:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I'd summarise where we are with the yokozuna articles:

  • 25 yokozuna (nos. 35,41, and 47-69) have "complete" articles (biographies, infoboxes and tourney tables);
  • 8 yokozuna (nos. 4,12,28,36,37,39,44 and 45) generally have infoboxes or pictures and a few lines of biography, so not far off a reasonable article;
  • 14 yokozuna (nos. 1, 5-10, 14, 17, 19-22 and 27) have pictures, and a line or two of text;
  • which leaves 22 yokozuna (nos. 2,3,12,13,15,16,18,23-26,29-34,38,40,42-43, and 46) as pure stubs. I hope to bring at least some of these up to a decent level, starting with the postwar ones. Pawnkingthree 11:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to the efforts of User:ACSE there's been a lot of progress on the historical yokozuna recently. Very few "one liners" remain now. Pawnkingthree 13:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updating active rikishi

2 more days to go before the 07 July basho ends. As an experiment, I wondered if we could have a roll call for who has the time and would like to help update all the active rikishi articles after the basho ends? With the current enthusiasm for sumo here, I am sure the job would get done eventually, regardless (especially for recent movers like Kotomitsuki). But with an eye to future basho, and an eye to keeping every rikishi updated, I was interested in how well we could organize an "updating team" and get the job done efficiently. Care to sign on here after my name? (not that you are signing your name in blood or anything, no worries). We'll see how many people sign here and maybe divide up the wrestlers evenly between us.

Um, to the updates. I took the liberty of breaking up the active wrestlers into three groups of exactly 20 each (too bad as 60 also divides up evenly by 4 as well, but anyway):

  • Pawnkingthree: Ama to Hochiyama AND Asohifuji to Kasugao
  • Csernica: Hokutoriki to Miyabiyama AND Katayama to Tamakasuga
  • Malnova: Roho to Wakanosato AND Tamarikido to Yoshikaze

I assigned these randomly. I gave us all an even number of "completed" rikishi and some "unfinished" rikishi because if you choose to do style edits, the "unfinished" rikishi will take considerably less time as there bios are quite short. If you have a problem with how I have done this, let me know, things can easily be changed.

I notice Csernica gets Kotomitsuki, which is a slight present; though someone out there will probably beat him to the punch. No big hurry on the updates; we all have our schedules. I will probably do them immediately after the basho because it'll be Sunday afternoon for me, perfect timing. Hope you guys don't think I'm jumping the gun with this post. Malnova 00:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No that all sounds fine to me. Pawnkingthree 08:37, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] volunteers

[edit] Updates for September

Any volunteers for a similar exercise this time round? If not, I'm sure it will get done eventually but just thought I'd ask:) Pawnkingthree 19:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] while we're updating....

Decided I better make this a new section - I was wondering if we coudn't get a few more things accomplished while we are updating each rikishi's tournament information (again just a thought if you had time, no sweat if you don't). A lot of the wrestler's articles could be edited for style following the style conventions, also any linked mention of yokozuna now only leads to a disambiguation page and it would be helpful for prospective readers if the markup for a yokozuna led straight to it's section by using the markup "makuuchi#Yokozuna|yokozuna" Malnova 13:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be up for that. Another thing we could do is change the wrestler's date of birth in the infoboxes to read: birth date and age|yyyy|mm|dd -- that way their age comes up, which I think is a nice touch. I've already done this for the sanyaku guys and a few others. Pawnkingthree 13:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC) Sounds good. Malnova 19:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea, but it's a template call that does that and so it'll require a change to the infobox template. I'll see what I can do with it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, I see that it's usually called out directly in the template call. But since this includes metadata, we probably want to enable it for other relevant information too. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've made a few changes to the infobox. Let me know if it screws anything up.

  • Replaced realname with birthname, in response to a concern raised by the late, great XinJeisan. The realname parameter still works for backward compatibility, but it's deprecated.
  • Added microformat vcard classes, as I said above. See WP:UF for details.
  • Added parameters blogurl, weburl, and email for a wrestler's blog, website, or email addresses. It's not too uncommon for sumo wrestlers to have at least one of these.
  • Eliminated a few blank lines that got inserted along with some optional parameters at some point in the past. It should look a bit tighter in some cases now.
  • Made rank an optional parameter. It occurred to me that for articles on retired rikishi it makes much more sense to use highestrank than to force the rank parameter to be added.
Unfortunately most rikishi now have a current rank of "N/A" (this seems to have affected the komusubi and maegashira ranked rikishi and lower, but not yokozuna to sekiwake). Pawnkingthree 09:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I'll have to come up with some way to make that work better. They haven't implemented all the useful string functions that would make it simple. It should look OK now; it's just that for most cases it won't link to exactly the right place. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I missed XinJeisan's points about birthname and real name distinction. Where can I find this? I want to confirm some things. The reason I ask is becuause I tried to update my very first rikishi, Tamarikido, and it turns out he is ethnic Korean (he is a Japanese born descendant of Korean immigrants from generations back who still has Korean citizenship and no Japanese citizenship). He has a Korean name and a Japanese name on top of his shikona. Malnova 07:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
At Template talk:Sumo wrestler infobox#Content.
Ooh! Asashoryu just beat Hakuho. Since Kisenosato beat Kotomitsuki earlier, that gives him the yusho. Whatever slump he's been in over the last couple of basho... He's ba-a-a-a-a-ack! (Kotomitsuki has ozeki promotion in the bag anyway, no doubt.)
Anyway, a case like you have here is unusual enough that it's probably not worth the trouble to accommodate it. You can just put his two original names under "birth name", separated by a <br /> and that should work just fine.
I'm considering a set of parameters to include a rikishi's shikona history, for those cases where they change a few times. What do you think?
I forgot to mention earlier -- over the course of doing this I found it inconvenient to create links to the rank names, as seemed appropriate. So we now have a template {{sumo rank link}} to take care of that. For example, {{sumo rank link|ozeki}} gives ozeki. It might simplify fixing those redirects for you. It also means that no matter how we rearrange those articles in the future we can always point all the links to where they should go. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Browser issues

Recently I have been going through some of the articles and changing the simple internal links markup, such as "ozeki" into more specific internal links that read "makuuchi#Ōzeki|ozeki" etc. I saw this as necessary because even though the "ozeki" article (for example) has a redirect to the specific section in makuuchi, it didn't seem to work completely, and markup that only read "ozeki" would lead to the makuuchi article, but not the section itself. However, I recently switched over to using Mac Firefox (easier to edit with) and discovered Firefox has no problem going to the specific section even if the original internal link only reads "ozeki". My problem appears to be (so far) Mac Safari specific. Right now, I have no access to Windows Explorer or Windows Firefox, etc. (because I'm currently on vacation from (cough) work) and was wondering what happens when a User clicks on a the simple markup for ozeki, sekiwake, makushita, jonokuchi et al. Could someone test whether various Windows browsers can go directly to a section? Here are two or three examples written out in simple markup, where do they go? - makushita sekiwake ozeki? Thanks for your time. Malnova 04:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Works fine in Firefox and IE on the PC. It may that Safari doesn't work well with how MediaWiki implements redirects to sections. I notice it appears to be two "clicks" -- you have to go "back" twice to get to where you were after such a redirect as if it first loads the page and then automatically clicks the link to take you to the section. Whatever is done to make this happen just might not play well in Safari. You might want to check redirects to sections in other contexts. For example WP:REDFLAG should take you to Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Csernica. I did try your two links and Safari took me to the page, but not the section for the first link markup and the second was fine; so it is a problem with Safari. This is good to know. I am not going to bother with using specific markup (a lot more trouble to do, and time consuming) if only Safari (discounting Opera and others) is the problem, as most Users are on IE or Firefox. I did, at least, already change all of the internal links in sumo to be more specific, so that even a Safari user would get to the specified section. Malnova 05:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] away from home

Hey, thought I should mention that from very early August until very early September I will be away from home, without any real internet access（besides the occasional internet cafe). I should be back in business before the next basho though. Malnova 00:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries. I for one will still be around to keep things ticking over!:) Pawnkingthree 09:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Did you know

Not to blow my own trumpet or anything but the Asahikuni article was featured on the main page today as part of the the Did You Know? section. You never know, it might make a few more people aware of WikiProject Sumo. Pawnkingthree 09:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

As I often make comments on your page, you are on my edit list, so I happened to see that. Good for you. You certainly deserve the exposure for you tireless efforts here. Malnova 12:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear! TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speaking of recognition

The sumo infobox template that Cserica started (based on a table style from earlier) has been emulated (and credited) on the Japanese Wikipedia Sumo Project. If you go to the their project page and their newly added template [2] you can see it. So we are making a few waves even in Japanese. Kind of reminds me the fact that you can now find California rolls (an innovation of sushi chefs in the US) in sushi bars in Japan.Malnova 03:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't take any credit for it. It was created by YukataNinja, who is completely responsible for its present look. His last edit on it was actually less than a month ago. All I did was to monkey with it a little, and not entirely successfully. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Although at this point I can't help but notice that it really ought to be named {{Infobox sumo wrestler}} to conform to the usual standard for infoboxes. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I should pay more attention; or at least check first. Malnova 04:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Record Box

Other than the occasional minor change I'm just a lurker here due to time constraints so I don't know how much standing I have to criticize but, while trying to include the data is commendable, I find the use of the six-basho record box format for older rikishi such as Umegatani to be somewhat misleading, as both the months and locations usually don't match the post-1958 format that is reflected in the table headings, and there's also the visual implication that there "should" be six basho even during those days... Zeyes 04:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


Hey, I started the tournament boxes as what I thought was an easy to digest way to follow a rikishi's career. It was not designed with anything but the current system in mind. I have not made any of these earlier tourney boxes, but I agree something should probably be done, as it can be misleading. We originally just used wiki markup to make the boxes, but now there is a template that runs things and I know little about what makes them tick. We might have to ask someone who knows more than us what they think can be done about this issue. Malnova 05:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's have some discussion about what we'd like to see and how it would be easiest to use. Uniformity of style comes naturally with templates, but ease of use needs to be a prime design consideration. There are a number of special cases to consider depending on how far back we're adding records: various periods when, for example, honbasho weren't held on anything like a regular basis or always during the same months even when they occurred the same number of times a year; the existence of haridashi as an official status, the pre-1927 situation, various times when the regular schedule could not be met, etc.
Perhaps a table like this one isn't the best format. The Sumo Reference gives a rikishi's record differently: (record for Kaio). I'm not suggesting we record the win-loss record for every bout like that does -- although we might want to allow for it -- but the 1 row per basho approach might work better. This would mean re-doing all the tables we have so far -- right now the {{basho}} template doesn't care which basho it's reporting; it just creates a new cell in the row. It'll be annoying to convert them all without some kind of script, and that's something I haven't had to do with Wikipedia yet. (Might be fun to learn though.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I do see Zeyes's point, but I don't believe it's a major problem. I for one like uniformity in articles, and while I agree that the template can be a little confusing, to me the tables look a lot better than the wiki markup ones (which are also much more time consuming to produce). Would it be sufficient just to add a line at the beginning saying "the Nayoga and Kyushu tournaments did not begin until..." or words to thst effect? Plus I don't think any locations are incorrect. They all took place in Tokyo in those days didn't they? Pawnkingthree 17:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
At base, they're all Wiki markup. You only use HTML in templates because of limitations in template syntax. But what do you think of changing the format of all the tables? TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:31, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need to change the format of post 1958 basho records. I think the current system makes it easier to digest how the basho systems works and the individual wrestler's record. And having heard PK3's input, I also agree a simple disclaimer at the beginning of pre-1958 record could be enough, if indeed the basho locations listed are not incorrect. Showing them in this way, could also be an education for the casual reader that the system used to be different and more haphazard. A simple column system would not elucidate this difference any more efficiently. It seems to me that we could spend more time adding content than trying to reinvent the wheel again. ADDENDUM: Wouldn't it be easier to tweak the template (or make an alternate for pre-1958) so that it doesn't automatically list the location and and/or month? Malnova 03:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

What I could do is to generalize the existing template. The default scheme would be for the modern arrangement, but someone who's entering older records would be able to customize it for the era in which they're working. The changes to do this would need to be made for {{sumo record box start}} only. Then it would be up to the editor to insert the right number of basho each year. Or there could in effect be a set of these templates where you'd need to pick the right one for the years you're recording. (Or both, which is easy enough.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
It might also be worthwhile to come up with a way to show when a regularly scheduled basho had been skipped, as I think occasionally happened in the war years. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
The only thing then is that some rikishi will end up with two tables -- those whose careers span a point where the number of honbasho in a year changes. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:08, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, having first made all the changes, I see this is not going to work at all.

Let's take the rikishi that Zeyes was first telling us about as an example. He made his makuuchi debut in December, 1874 -- the Fuyu (winter) basho. In 1875 only one basho was held at all, in April, designated Natsu -- close to the start of summer on the traditional calendar that year? Then in 1876 there were basho in January (Haru) and April (Natsu). 1877 had three basho, January (Haru), June (Natsu), and December (Haru -- was this the next year on the trad. calendar?). In 1878 there was one basho in June (Natsu). For the rest of his career (1879-1885) there were reliably 2 basho each year, Haru and Natsu, but while Haru basho always fell in January, Natsu basho was only usually in May. It was in June in 1879 and 1882.

Now how the hell can a record like that fit into any kind of table where the basho are in columns without misleading the reader just as Zeyes is saying? I am wide open to specific ideas. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Progress

Zeyes raised pointed, valid concerns. If no further discussion is forthcoming, I just may do something unilateral. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that because of the problems of representing the historical yokozuna we will have to remove tables with columns from every rikishi, including the post-1958 ones? I think that would be a shame as I think the current template is superb-- much easier to read than the Kaio example from Sumo Reference that you gave. Pawnkingthree 12:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
We could use the style of table (not sure of the correct name for it) that I used for Tanikaze and Raiden for any rikishi where the template is inappropriate. Would take some time but I am willing to put the work in. Pawnkingthree 12:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
No, that's exactly what I'm not saying. But we need to come up with a solution, and the one previously proposed isn't going to work.
Your table looks good -- it's more or less the same as format I suggested earlier -- but a consistent look would be better if we can come up with one. It may not be possible, but I would at least like to see it talked about. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are implying either, Csernica. If "something unilateral" is not removing current tables, than my second guess would be that you want to mess with the current basho recording system radically. I am clear on one thing, for the record: I don't think the post-1958 recording system we have developed should be messed with just because it doesn't fit with the hodgepodge of bashos they had before that. A column system like the one for Tanikaze for historical wrestlers seems to me to be a good compromise. If we had a template for that as well, that would be great. Malnova 19:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I have three 5 page papers to write by Tuesday (US time) on Japanese domestic politics and foreign affairs so I don't want to become too involved, but I just wanted to come out of lurk status quickly to say I think the post 1958 tables look great, and that they should not be tampered with. In addition to looking great, many people spent a lot of time on those and that work should be respected as well.
I personally didn't even realize that there was a difference between the system between before and after 1958. To have a different set of tables for a radical change in the system doesn't seem to be too big of a problem, in my opnion. In fact, it reinforces the fact that there is a difference between the tables of the two time periods. That seems to be acceptable to me.
To keep some continuity, it might be a good idea to combine PK3's table but add the colors of the post-1958 system table -- like a green highlighted box for a yusho. i have no idea how to nor time to figure out how to write that kind of code, but that might be a good compromise between the two. XinJeisan 07:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Good to have you around again, XinJeisan, if only fleetingly :) I'm afraid I don't have the knowledge either to create such a template: I guess that would be down to you Csernica, if you're willing? Pawnkingthree 15:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

For the record, a re-designed table has now been put into Umegatani and other yokozuna articles, thanks to the efforts of User:FourTildes. Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stables

Having spent quite some time on rikishi bios, I was thinking of moving on to stables. Do we want a page for every stable? We have about half now. I was thinking of going ahead and making stubs for all the rest of them, but are they all notable enough? Pawnkingthree 21:37, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, all significant wrestlers have articles, so really, all stables should as well. I think we should start with stables that have juryo or above wrestlers in them, so that links to the stable can be made in their articles. I don't know where we could go for good stable source info though. Malnova (talk) 21:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I've made a start. I agree we should stick to sekitori stables for now. I do have some books as sources, although they are a little out of date. I see Isenoumi stable has already had a notability tag put on it, so I'd better flesh that one out a bit. Pawnkingthree (talk) 09:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Go Koto Go, Updates

I had to go see it myself. Got up at 5 and went to Ryogoku to get a non-reserved seat, bummed around the Akihabara/Ryogoku area for a while then came back to watch the 14th day. I was so afraid Oshu would choke and disappoint us all. I should have had more faith. He came thru. I would have booed his butt if he'd had another easy loss. I think he has the confidence to go all the way to Yokozuna now. We, the crowd were screaming so loud when he won that we could barely manage more than golf claps for the two yokozuna's bouts. Anyway, I am happy to help update all the wrestlers for tomorrow's ending of the tournament. It is a big task. Who is with me? Sign your name if you have time.

  • FourTildes (talk) 10:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Pawnkingthree (talk) 11:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC) As I wasn't around for the last basho I'll definitely pitch in. And I'm very envious of you!:)


Well, PK3, let's hash em out. How bout half of all of them right down the middle? I'll do the first half alphabetically of Makuuchi, Juryo and lower divisions, and you can do the last half alphabetically. Let me know if this is all right. FourTildes (talk) 09:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure no problem; I'll take care of N-Z then. Pawnkingthree (talk) 09:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

There needs to be a List of most sumo tournaments wins or smething like this. use [3] for reference. Nergaal (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a good idea actually; perhaps Sumo records to also include most bouts, most wins etc. Pawnkingthree (talk) 17:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
It's now up and running at List of sumo records (I'll make the alternative titles redirects). Pawnkingthree (talk) 09:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)