Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China

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:

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 , 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)

FAR listing of Go (board game)

The article Go (board game) is currently on featured article review, meaning it may lose its featured status if not significantly improved. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Questions on Shang Yang's books

I'm working on The Book of Lord Shang, by Shang Yang on Legalism. I noticed that Project Gutenberg has a work called Shangzi at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7383, but the translation of the Book of Lord Shang I'm working from gives the Romanized form "Shang chün shu". Are these two works the same thing, or am I wrong in thinking that only one of Shang's works has survived? (I can't read Chinese to save my life, so I'm hoping someone here will know). -- Gwern (contribs) 00:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

"Zi" is the honorary title given to thinkers, ie. Kong(fu)zi, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Mengzi. The collective works of these thinkers could be referred to by their names, so "Mozi" is the collective works of Mozi. In this case, I would assume "Shangzi" to be the complete (or as complete as possible) set of works by Shang Yang, though I have never heard of Shang Yang being referred to as "Shangzi". -- Миборовский 01:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Neither have I, thus the difficulty... Would a comparison of Gutenberg's text and a Chinese copy I found online do anything? -- Gwern (contribs) 02:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

"Shangzi" is the "colloquial" name of "Shang jun shu". So I would say that these (your book and the Gutenberg book) are one and the same. Note that the book was not exclusively written by Shang Yang - it was compiled and partly written by his disciples and disciples of disciples, as is the situation with most of the "classics". --Sumple (Talk) 02:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, everyone. -- Gwern (contribs) 02:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Bonafide.hustla and pov issues

Just wanted to drop a line that patrollers here might want to look out for edits by User:Bonafide.hustla on China-related pages. The user appears to have a limited and somewhat slanted understanding of China and especially Taiwan, believing, for example, that "Singapore's culture is more Chinese than Taiwan's". --Sumple (Talk) 02:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Going through his contributions, I found the edit somewhat interesting: [3]. How was that edit vandalism? Isn't England part of Britain?--TBCTaLk?!? 20:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Bonafide.hustla (talk · contribs) has been renamed to Certified.Gangsta (talk · contribs) and continues to make POV edits to China/Taiwan-related pages. Please see his contributions for more details. RaGnaRoK SepHír0tH

Has anybody wondered

why Chinese subjects are often known by their translated "English" names but the opposite is true with Japanese subjects? Compare Forbidden City and Kokyo or Sushi and Chinese noodles or Chinese dragon and Obake? --Sumple (Talk) 12:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Because it's so hard to transliterate Chinese, and it's relatively easier to do so for Japanese? -- Gwern (contribs) 14:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't think much of it. After all, the there are terms like baozi, mahjong that are from Chinese, while we say.........er.......Japanese bondage instead of shibari, Japanese traditional dolls instead of ningyo, and shinto shrine instead of jinja. I think it's because some things are harder to translate, so they just left it in their original languages...like, you can't really translate sushi into a single English word or two. _dk 05:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Imperial consorts: mass reverts are needed

Highshines (talk • contribs) just moved a whole host of Qing imperial consort articles to obscure (Anglicized?) renderings. I just moved "Yehenala, the Empress Xiao Qin Xian" back to "Empress Dowager Cixi". In the very least, this should not be done without discussion.

All such moved by this user need to be removed--Jiang 02:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Seems like the Manchu names. And now there's a bunch of double redirects and such due to the moving about.And Cixi's talkpage is now a redirect to the Manchu/posthumous name talkpage, I think you missed something while moving. -- Миборовский 05:22, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I was promptly reverted. I've posted notes to the users responsible, Highshines and Geisha1021 (talk • contribs), to discuss at Wikipedia talk:History standards for China-related articles. As far as I can tell, there has been no prior discussion on this.--Jiang 05:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've issued a final warning to 108059 (talk ·  contribs). Please block this user if he continues to unilaterally move page be unresponsive to requests to explain his actions.--Jiang 00:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It might a good idea to put a tag on the user pages of User:108059 and User talk:Geisha1021, stating that they are suspected sock puppets of User:Highshines. At the same time, we can put a notice on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding these page moves. That might send him/her a message. What do you think?--Niohe 01:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Miborovsky

I would like to thank Miborovsky/Миборовский/領導同志 for creating this excellent WikiProject which has quickly attracted a large number of participants. --Ideogram 13:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, things are a bit slow right now... -- Миборовский 23:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Energy policy of China

Due to the importance of the suject, my own interest in energy related topics, but my lack of knowledge of China, is there anyoone in this WikiProject who would be able to make any progress on the topic of Energy policy of China? I've added a couple of items to Category:Energy in China, but that's about all I know. Energy policy of the United Kingdom may provide some ideas. See also the new Energy Portal. Your help would be appreciated... Gralo 02:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Request section?

Maybe we should make one in our wikiproject? I know there are the request pages but hardly anyone goes there (heck, there are no requested articles under "China"). So, maybe a request section might be useful, since they are of direct interest to our project (and not floating somewhere no one knows about)....

Now, I'm saying this because I want to see a Qiandao Lake Incident (千島湖事件) article happen but I don't know enough to translate the existing Chinese/Japanese articles and I don't know where to request it so it would get noticed, so :D _dk 23:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Eh. There used to be a request section, located under the expanded project banner, but that has been removed because it was "clogging up" Special:Wantedpages. (The banner transcludes each red link on each talkpage with the tag, meaning each red article gets (actual hits + number of WPCHINA tags) hits on that page.) You can still find it at Template:WikiProject China/to do, although that is pretty much an orphan page at this time. -- Миборовский 23:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Qiandao Lake Incident is now expanded. AQu01rius (User | Talk | Websites)  19:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent events

There seems to be a flurry of political activity at present, see this series of New York Times articles In Graft Inquiry, Chinese See a Shake-Up Coming China Makes Commitment to Social Harmony China Drafts Law to Empower Unions and End Labor Abuse. How should this development be handled? Fred Bauder 12:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC).

More: "China’s New Leftist" New York Times Magazine, Wang Hui (intellectual), co-editor of the influential magzine, Dushu The Times article refers to Wang as one of a Chinese "New Left". Fred Bauder 14:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's another: "China’s Corruption Inquiry Targets Beijing Leaders". Fred Bauder 13:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed policy on Chinese name boxes

Please comment here: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(China-related_articles)#Template:Chinese regarding the use of Template:Chinese in articles. --Jiang 09:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 15:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hu Che Er

Does anyone know how to properly write the name 胡車兒 in pinyin? Is it Hu Che'er, Hu Cher, or whatever...? _dk 07:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

戰國四公子

Hello guys, I am planning to write the "戰國四公子" entry and additionally one article for each of them. But I'm not sure what English name should I use for it.. Any help? AQu01rius (User | Talk | Websites)  16:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)