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Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China#Category:Chinese_emigrants_to_Taiwan

You are invited to this discussion. Timmyshin (talk) 19:25, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Article names and romanization

Su Jia-chyuan is currently a redirect to Su Chia-chyuan. However, the three cited English-language sources, published in Taiwan, Taipei Times, Want China Times, and Focus Taiwan News Channel, all say Su Jia-chyuan. The article is also internally inconsistent, using Su Jia-chyuan in one place and Su Chia-chyuan in the others. WP:CHINESE § Romanization isn't much help, either, suggesting that pinyin is the correct romanization – in this case, Sū Jiāquán, according to the article lede. Which is the proper name for the article? Personally, I'd go with the sources, swapping the article and redirect.

In a related matter, the article refers to Chang Wen-ing, but the cited source (TT again) uses Chang Wen-ying (for which we don't even have a redirect; note pinyin is Zhāng Wēnyīng). Should Chang Wen-ing be moved to Chang Wen-ying? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:08, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Chinese names should be written in Hanyu Pinyin unless there is a more common romanization used in English (for example, Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen) or when the subject of the article is likely to prefer a non-pinyin romanization. Szqecs (talk) 15:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Official profile:Su Jia-chyuan Szqecs (talk) 15:29, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

 Done Moved both articles, commons category trees, edited wikidata. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:10, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

RfC on English variety and date format in Taiwan-related articles

Should Taiwan-related articles use one particular English variety and date format or retain existing styles according to MOS:RETAIN and MOS:DATERET? Szqecs (talk) 07:25, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Fyunck(click), User:Moxy, User:Mr. James Dimsey. Szqecs (talk) 04:52, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Closing statement (WIP)

There is consensus to prefer no particular style. Where there is dispute, the principles of MOS:RETAIN and MOS:DATERET should be followed. No consensus on the exact implementation of these guidelines.

Survey (English variety and date format)

• comment Maybe avoid a survey? As to Taiwan especially, I don't know about that, but if there is a concern with style in content within one project's purview, then editors can seek a third, international, neutral style to defuse any inherent political or social baggage. Or just reword the sentence to npov, not hard really. I haven't thought about a solution to data at infoboxes, that is often more awkward to resolve. cygnis insignis 08:49, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Follow the RETAIN principle. English is not an official language there, nor a major minority's first language in that country. Professionals tend to pick up some of it, for international trade reasons, and it's being considered as possible official language for that reason, but it's not there yet. The US has a long-standing trade-and-ally relationship, but I'm skeptical that's enough of a national tie, and we don't have any well-sourced linguistic information on the patterns of usage there and whether they lean toward British, American, or some other dialect, or have forked like Canadian. Update: It's been suggested below that a discussion at Talk:Taiwan#Spelling determined to use American English. Though wikiprojects and one-article local consensus do not WP:OWN whole categories of articles (it's not possible for WP:CONLEVEL policy reasons and because most articles are within the scope of multiple projects), the discussion is probably worth examining for any good evidence that might have been presented there. Even the person who brought this up concedes that no consensus was reached on date format. There have been many previous discussions on the lack of a connection between MOS:DATERET and MOS:RETAIN; they are separate for a reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:51, 8 December 2018 (UTC); revised 17:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Should the format used by the commonly-cited RSs be considered as evidence?
    • Taipei Times uses 2018-12-09 on their front page, but "Sun, Dec 09, 2018" in articles.
    • Focus Taiwan News Channel uses "12/08" on list pages and "2018/12/08" in articles.
    • Taiwan News uses "2018/12/08" on list pages and articles.
    • Taiwan Today uses "2018/12/09" in the common header, but "December 07, 2018" in article lists and articles.
    • Want China Times used "Sunday, December 28, 2014" in the header, but "2014-12-24" in articles.
  • None of them appear to use DMY. (cont'd below) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
    • No, for multiple reasons: 1) journalism doesn't indicate "national style", only journalism style (e.g. the British press engage in numerous practices that do not agree with mainstream British style guides, and same goes for American news publishers and American style guides [beyond the journalism-specific AP Stylebook]); and 2) news sites are usually published with a blog/CMS software package that was most often designed in the United States and which must be manually reconfigured to use a different date format than what it shipped with, which is almost always either MDY or YMD; it's quite common for non-US news sites to not get around to it and to continue using either largely American-style MDY dating, or ISO-style YMD dating – whatever their software arrived with.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
      • Based on my experience as a U.S. commercial, international software developer, I would be happy, but surprised, to see YMD as a common default in U.S.-developed software. I also disagree with the assertion that some of the (apparently) largest news sources in the country, both government and independent, are somehow too lazy or unprofessional to set their date format to one their readers expect. We're all volunteers here, and we seem to care a great deal (which gives me hope for humanity ). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 18:56, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

        See WP:IDONTKNOWIT and spend 5 minutes looking around. Plone, for example, defaults to ISO dates and getting it to stop can be challenging [1]. WordPress and many other of the top CMS and blog packages default to MDY. I really don't care what you vague feelings you have based on what you've seen before; Ockham's razor tells us to accept the plausible explanation rather than try to imagine a wild one. The simple, obvious explanation for why various British blogs and news sites are using MDY or Y-M-D dates (often just in specific coded instances like publishing dates on stories or on datestamps of readers' comments, but not in their actual journalistic prose), in a dialect that is utterly, overwhelmingly standardized on DMY dating, is that the software is doing it and they've not gotten around (or cared) to change it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:39, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

  • (cont'd) I would suggest ISO 8601 ("2018-12-08") is probably a common "on-the-ground" format (though MOS:TIES and MOS:RETAIN govern any changes to existing articles). Should we canvass Category:Wikipedians in Taiwan for input on what is commonly used? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia does not use ISO dates in running text (or for much of anything other than sortable date columns and in tables, and it's permissible to use for for access- and archive-dates in citations, though even that is subject to frequent controversy as inconsistent and "reader-hateful"). We should default to the same DMY format as the entire rest of the world, unless we have far better evidence than news sites of a strong Taiwanese preference for MDY. There is no strong connection between date formatting and the spelling of words like "theatre/theater" and "color/colour", with the sole exception that the US prefers "theater" and "color" and also leans toward MDY dates (and not in every field; MDY is the US military standard, and is also common in banking, the sciences, and various other fields even in the US, and is completely dominant worldwide). The desire to impose DMY dating on Taiwan is extreme and dubious, and thus would require very strong evidence for us to do it. A preference for American spellings, and inconsistent formatting at Taiwanese news sites is not such evidence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click): For those of you who don't believe that DMY is used in Taiwan: [2]. Szqecs (talk) 16:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Evidence of DMY usage and 24-hour time can be found in the U.S. in the military and airports; YYYY-MM-DD is popular in various areas of computing (for reasons); neither would be appropriate for U.S. articles in general, though. I'll note the video's title starts with "2018/09/05", though the author's name ( Template:Lang-ja ) is written in Japanese Hiragana script, FWIW. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 18:31, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

U.S. military/government MDY is debatable. It was certainly DMY at various places and times. I don't think it's reasonable to discount the format used by RS's. It seems like the most reasonable way to know what consumers expect. If we were to survey people on the ground, what are their opinions based on? I would say that the media they consume (i.e. our RSs) is primarily responsible for influencing their desired format, even more now than in the past.

To be clear, I don't know the answer. I have a feeling that YYYY/MM/DD is common, maybe expected, and certainly understood (though I'd prefer the correct ISO-8601 hyphens to slashes as a reasonable solution for WP). It would be nice to get some input from Wikipedians in Taiwan. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 19:17, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• Dont care what order.....but the month should be spelled out in the infobox as its the first time a date is seen in the article and will establish the order for future dates eliminating confusion later with dates like 10/10 or 01/10. As per MOS:DATEFORMAT "Only where brevity is helpful"...abbreviations are not helpful in the lead and in fact cause confusion.--Moxy (talk) 05:06, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

  And what if I don't know which month 'December' is? The lack of knowledge of the reader is no reason to write in a certain way. The yyyy-mm-dd format is an international standard. If one does not understand it, they can always read about the topic. Szqecs (talk) 05:24, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

  Why go out of your way to make it hard for our readers? Always think of whats best for our readers ...dont make them run around when we have the power to solve it here and now. The norm is to spell it out no matter what order...FA examples Canada - India - Australia - Japan.--Moxy (talk) 05:55, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Why does Taipei Times, Focus Taiwan News Channel etc make it hard for their readers? For the same reason Fyunck(click) insists on not using DMY, which I guess is that using national conventions is somehow more appropriate. Szqecs (talk) 07:02, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

What?? Sun, Dec 09, 2018 Taipei-time home page spells it out even more then we do and no date at Focus Taiwan that makes the home page look outdated off the bat (bad marketing on there part.) As I said there is no good reasons not to spell out the month in the infobox no matter what order as per the norm all over.--Moxy (talk) 07:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Actually if I recall, often I see YMD in Taiwan sources but the month is represented by a Chinese character. That is very different than using a number for the month. The Taipei Times front page uses both MDY and YMD (in number format), as does Taiwan Today. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

often I see YMD in Taiwan sources but the month is represented by a Chinese character. I've never seen that before. Szqecs (talk) 07:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Refer to the above examples by AlanM1. Numerical YMD is used all the time. Szqecs (talk) 07:38, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Only on sites published with CMSes that shipped with that as their default output. It's completely broken evidence. Good evidence would be what the preponderance of recently-published Taiwanese books are doing – nonfiction from reputable publishers for an adult market.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I don't know what you mean by 'CMSes'. You are absolutely right that YMD is only used outside sentences, as display. I propose that YMD be used in the same manner. Szqecs (talk) 07:56, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@Szqecs: CMS, in this context, means content management system.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:17, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Can you cite some evidence of your assertion regarding CMS default date formats, specifically as related to the media sources I identified above? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 15:04, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Download every major content management system and see what it does with dates. The majority of them default to either American format or YYYY-MM-DD (I know this from professional experience, but I'm not going to spend days setting up demos of them for you). This is why you'll see those date styles in various British, Indian, Australian, and other online blogs and news sites with surprising frequency, despite DMY being overwhelmingly more common in those dialects.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:20, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

• YMD dates in tables, infoboxes etc, retain English variety and date formats everywhere else. The yyyy-mm-dd format is an international standard, and used for tables and infoboxes (MOS:DATE). For everything else, retaining existing styles is neutral and hopefully avoids controversy. Szqecs (talk) 05:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

  I repeat: Wikipedia does not use ISO dates in running text (or for much of anything other than sortable date columns and in tables, and it's permissible to use for for access- and archive-dates in citations). See MOS:DATE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

That is what I mean here, outside sentences. Szqecs (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• Big problem - There's a huge problem with the word "retain" in this RfC. This topic was discussed heavily at Talk Taiwan with American English now being the consensus there. It was shown that American English is taught in schools and that it is the preferred version of English in Taiwan. Taiwan's strong ties to the USA were also a big factor in that consensus and conforms to MOS. As far as dates, Taiwan uses YMD. The trouble with that is that at wikipedia we can only use numbers in that style format, so 2018-2-24 is the only choice. We are not supposed to use 2018 February 24. Taiwan would actually use 2018-(Taiwanese Character)-24. Taiwan occasionally uses MDY but certainly prefers YMD. I personally find it harder to quickly read YMD in number format styling, but that might just be me. The problem is the word "retain." The editor who started this RfC has systematically been erasing all American English from Taiwan-related article for at least a year.... extensively in early 2018, so retain from when?

Tennis Project usually goes with the style of English used by the player's residence/citizenship, including dates. So Andy Murray would use one version while Andre Agassi would use another. I have a hard time grasping why we would use British English in Taiwan articles at all and that would go against recent consensus at the Taiwan article. Plus we have some Taiwan articles where both styles of English are mixed up in the prose. What to do with those. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

American English now being the consensus there.

The consensus you mention is non-existent, as I vividly recall many users not agreeing with you, especially with dates. See the comment by SMcCandlish above.

Consensus was reached on American English, but I agree that dates were mixed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

the fact that some people use americanisms in asia because of exposure to american media etc does not mean we shouldn't use standard English on a Wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 17:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC) Szqecs (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

What? We aren't talking Asia as a whole here... we are talking Taiwan. And it does use standard English, just not British English. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:24, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

This was someone's comment. There was no consensus to go either way, and there still isn't. Szqecs (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

And it was added to the conversation by an anon IP 3 months after consensus. There was no reason to even be watching that topic anymore. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:43, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Taiwan's strong ties to the USA were also a big factor in that consensus and conforms to MOS.

It was demonstrated to you that you misinterpret the MOS.

No it was not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes it was. "Articles on topics (e.g. Special municipality (Taiwan)) with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country (Taiwan) should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation (Taiwan)." Special municipality (Taiwan) has no ties to the US and Taiwan most commonly uses YMD, but it is not English-speaking, so it doesn't apply at all. Szqecs (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Taiwan has very strong ties to the USA and teaches American English in its schools. It absolutely uses YMD and only occasionally MDY. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:24, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

It is not mentioned what 'strong ties' mean in MOS, but based on the way it is worded ('topic'), I'm pretty sure it means New York has strong ties with the US by being a part of it and that Donald Trump has strong ties with the US by being its president. If the fact that Taiwan is close with the US constitutes 'close ties' to you, what about Taipei Metro? None of its trains are made in the US. What ties do you see? Don't twist the meaning of guidelines for your argument. Szqecs (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

retain from when? ... we have some Taiwan articles where both styles of English are mixed up in the prose. What to do with those.

According to MOS:RETAIN and MOS:DATERET, the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety and date format chosen by the first major contributor in the early stages of an article. Unless you want to continue the edit wars, I would say this is the best solution. Szqecs (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

That can certainly be done (though not preferred by me), but the mass changes you made all year long would certainly not qualify under that. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:19, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click): reading MOS:DATERET more carefully: If an article has evolved using predominantly one date format, this format should be used throughout the article. Taiwan has used dmy in the infobox since August 2009 as far as I can tell. Szqecs (talk) 10:04, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that "strong ties" are inherited, unless specifically disinherited for cause. If pageA is about a place in countryB, it should naturally use the same language variety and number formats, unless there is a specific reason not to do so, like pageA being an enclave or it being about a topic (like military history) which specifically uses a different format in practice (and therefore sources). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

• Prefer no ENGVAR or date format—English is not an official language of Taiwan, nor does MOS:TIES apply. Any consensus reached here to use a particular style would not be binding and could not override MOS:RETAIN. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:20, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Question – Is anyone contributing to this thread actually in Taiwan or have they spent any recent time there? (Not suggesting anyone in particular is/isn't, just asking for clarification/declaration – I'm not there, and have only been there on layover) Surely, there must be Taiwanese Wikipedians? What is the right way to go about soliciting their input, if we're not getting it here? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 15:04, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm a native. Szqecs (talk) 15:29, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Question – If we were to find that yyyy-mm-dd (ISO 8601) is, indeed, commonly used (whatever that means), is that sufficient to override the guidance against its use in text? I've lost track of which guidelines/essays/rules/whatever take precedence. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 15:04, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Comment – I disagree with using different formats for displayed dates within an article (though I didn't always). Because it was acceptable to use yyyy-mm-dd (of which I'm a proponent) in cite access dates, I did so, but that seems to have fallen out of favor (or been clarified), and I can see why – it's just ugly and confusing to have different formats within the same cite or even nearby. The issue of sorting in tables is easily handled with {{Dts}} and friends. Whatever format is decided upon, it should be used consistently, IMO. (Ideally, the articles should render in the date format chosen by the reader. My projects always did it, but it was a difficult technical issue for WP in the past, IIRC. Now?) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 15:04, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Republic of China or Taiwan

After reviewing the most recent talk archive, and the pages involved in the naming discussions, it seems that the current consensus is "Taiwan" in article names and infoboxes, with something like "Taiwan, officially Republic of China" or "Republic of China, colloquially Taiwan" used in prose where necessary. When I see changes like this, am I justified in reverting and can I cite policy or at least guidance somewhere?

What about pages like Taiwanese local elections, 2018, which are internally inconsistent in their use of the two names? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:08, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Election result symbol

In tables like Taiwanese local elections, 2018 § Results, the symbol seems to be used to indicate winners of elections/referendums, but without a tooltip or note explaining its meaning, or that of no symbol at all (which is apparently used for the loser). Shouldn't there be a note on the result column and/or tooltip on the symbol explaining it to the readers not familiar with this custom? Is the symbol necessarily red? It seems like there should also be a "loser" symbol for referendum results, which would normally be something like N, as opposed to Y for the winner. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:28, 7 December 2018 (UTC)