Template talk:Nihongo/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

change ?

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to^(help)) That's what i want to do with the template, because the ? is just too small. The discussion at top is too old for me to revive, so I'm proposing this. ~Crazytales~patent nonsense! 20:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Or "info." The current tiny thingy that appears is just silly looking. Exploding Boy 15:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if User:Nihonjoe's recent tweak sits a bit uncomfortably on the page ... maybe

• (cur) (last) 15:59, 22 January 2008 User:Nihonjoe (Talk | contribs) m (899 bytes) (change ? to Help)

No question that his change does resolve any lingering questions about the utility of the template's subtle superscript question mark ^? .... It's an improvement, yes -- but, in my view, the alternative feels a little bit intrusive, distracting:

To better appreciate my point, please scan Naidaijin to see the cacophony effect of massed ^help -- or even more dramatic, glance over the serial effect in Daijō-kan.

I wonder if it's possible to have two variations of the nihongo template in the same article

• one template which uses the ^help for the first use of the template on a page ...?
• another template which presents that older ^? ...?

Maybe its best to leave Nihonjoe's edit untouched for a few weeks while he and we garner further feedback from others? If necessary, I would have no problem removing the nihongo template from the Daijō-kan lists. Sure -- yeah, that's what I can do later today or tomorrow. And I'll volunteer to make similar edits in other articles where the multiple instances of ^help might appear awkward. Off-hand, can you think of any articles which might be improved by this kind of brisk editing? --Ooperhoofd (talk) 17:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the main problem with the question mark is not its size but the semantic meaning. For articles that are Title + kanji, the question mark coming after the kanji gives the impression the author wasn't 100% sure of the correct kanji (thereby making Wikipedia seem less credible). For articles that are Title + kanji + romaji reading, the question mark coming after the reading gives the impression the author wasn't sure if that was the correct romaji transliteration or not. If you're going use a single symbol in this template, it really should be something else, a word would work as well...though the arguments of "help" being too intrusive are valid. That's my two yen on this matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manmaru (talk • contribs) 01:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Plenk

This templete is broken. Example:

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (, Gojira tai Mekagojira?)

Note the part after the first parenthesis.

Created from {{nihongo|'''''Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla'''''||Gojira tai Mekagojira}}

Thats because the first two parameters are required. Handling Kanji was the specific reason the template was created. Perhaps it should be better documented. --TheFarix (Talk) 02:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Bug with equals signs

When you include an equal sign in the English part, it screws around, dropping the english, and seemingly shifting the other parts around.

"{{nihongo|2x2 = Shinobuden|ニニンがシノブ伝| Ninin ga Shinobuden}}" -> "ニニンがシノブ伝 ( Ninin ga Shinobuden, ニニンがシノブ伝^?)"

- Omnisentry 14:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The case here isn't a bug with the template but with how MediaWiki works. It thinks that 2x2 is a parameter with a value of "Shinobuden". But since there is no such parameter in the template, it gets ignored. To work around this, surround the argument with <nowiki></nowiki>, such as:

{{nihongo|<nowiki>2x2 = Shinobuden</nowiki>|ニニンがシノブ伝| Ninin ga Shinobuden}}

That will give you the intended results --Farix (Talk) 15:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

A-ha, thank you very much for the workaround info. - Omnisentry 01:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Another workaround would be to type &#61; instead of =. Wikipeditor 05:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Display of this template.

Why this template does not display like {{CJKV}}? OK, how about this:

{{nihongo|'''abcde'''|あいうえお|aiueo}} → abcde (Japanese: あいうえお; rōmaji: aiueo^?)

--JSH-alive ^{talk to me}_{see my works}^{mail to me} 07:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Because that is too long. It's silly, actually. Ashibaka (tock) 00:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

That way is much better than how it currently is. Some people would not know that it is Japanese. All other articles specify languages, so I don't see why Japanese should be the exception. – Zntrip 02:26, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that’s what the superscript question mark is for. You have a good point, though. But some uses of it are long enough even without “… Japanese: … Romaji: … English translation: …” (the last of which is often different from the English version). —Frungi 02:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a template like that proposed here for pages where it may be unclear that the text is Japanese, and a simpler template (like this template is now... maybe without the ?) in pages whose subject is Japan-related or their predominant non-English language is Japanese? (Personally, I'm a proponent of dropping the ? in Nihongo and putting Help:Japanese in pages with lots of Japanese text) mitcho/芳貴 19:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Two more interwiki links

{{editprotected}} Two interwiki links to be added: eo:Ŝablono:Nihongo and es:Plantilla:Nihongo. —TangentCube, Dialogues 16:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. I also switched the documentation to use the /doc subpage pattern, so future interwikis can be added by anyone. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

My problem with this template

Every other name-in-other-language template I've seen tells you what language it is. I think this template would be a lot more useful and less confusing if it was like the Chinese name one, pointing out that this is the name in English, this is the name in Kanji letters, etc. As it is, if you don't know the first thing about Japanese names, it makes no sense. Awartha 06:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Another field

I think there should be another optional field for Katakana, in the end it should look like:
Hueco Mundo (Japanese:虚圏; katakana: ウェコムンド Weko Mundo^?)
-- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 12:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there should be an optional field for kana, but I think it would look better like:
Hueco Mundo (虚圏（ウェコムンド） Weko Mundo^?)
That would take up less room, be more readable, and be like it would be written in Japan (see ja:BLEACH#虚圏（ウェコムンド）). --Eruhildo (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I usually put Hueco Mundo (虚圏 or ウェコムンド, Weko Mundo) as I think it flows better and shows both ways the name may be written in japanese. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

However, notice that it messes up the font used for "or" as it is expecting a Japanese font. The effect is much more noticeable with longer words. Bendono (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The font for "or" looks fine to me. Doesn't look any different than anything else I've seen. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It's immediately noticeable to me. It may depend a little on your installed fonts, but I've noticed it numerous times on multiple systems. Try something a little longer:

• Japan (日本 or a few other historical names for Japan such as 大和, nihon etc.)

This is a very forced example, but hopefully a little more clear. Notice a different font and style for "or a few other historical names for Japan such as". Also, I purposely duplicated the word Japan for easy comparison.

The reason for this behavior is because the second field is a text span with an xml:lang setting of ja, which is appropriate for Japanese text, but forces Latin script to be rendered in a Japanese font as well. That is why I will usually break cases like this into multiple instances of {{Nihongo}} or {{Nihongo2}} when appropriate. Bendono (talk) 02:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's just a PC issue. I can't see any difference at all on my Mac (OS X 10.5). OS X handles Japanese (and fonts in general) much better than any other *nix OS or any variety of Windows. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

One computer I used displayed the latin characters fine, but the computer I'm using now doesn't. Also, I don't think kana should be listed as an alternative writing as, for some words, the kana is always written over kanji and not by itself. I think Hueco Mundo is like that. Also words like chimera (死美獣（キメラ）, kimera, lit. "deadly beautiful beast") would be useful to provide kana for as they loose meaning without it. Then there's names like Hazuki (葉月（はづき）, Hazuki) which could use kana to clarify pronunciation. --Eruhildo (talk) 22:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Code

What's the code for Template:Nihongo and how can I access a copy of the source? I'm trying to replicate the template on another media wiki but I can't seem to find the source code. Terek (talk) 10:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Hit the "view source" tab when viewing the template page. --Eruhildo (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

"?" to "Help"

In my opinion, changing "?" to "Help" in this template makes it look bulky. I would like to request it be changed back. -- RattleMan 18:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I liked the "?" much better. Plus it was small and out of the way - "Help" just stands out too much. Please change it back to how it was. --Eruhildo (talk) 22:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

As do I. If the template only occurs once on a page, it is bearable. However, for pages where it occurs numerous times, it is extremely "bulky". So much so that I may consider not using it anymore on certain pages. Bendono (talk) 23:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, on some pages that are lists of anime characters it's just atrocious. --Eruhildo (talk) 00:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, this was just a test to see what it would look like and see what people thought. I like the "Help" better, especially if we get rid of {{Contains Japanese text}} (see discussion here) as it's more obvious what it is. If we can put all comments there instead of here, it will get a wider audience and be discussed in the proper place. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, including myself, that's 4 against 1, Joe. I'm going to go ahead and revert it until there's more discussion on the matter.--SeizureDog (talk) 09:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Or not. Forgot it was completely protected :/ Change it back please, Joe.--SeizureDog (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It's horrible, even when there's just one name. You get the name, then you get the "Help" squawk. Ugh. I'm about to revert. If there's really some widespread desire for "Help", let's see it expressed here persuasively. -- Hoary (talk) 10:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey wait, I'm the one (not Joe) who suggested writing "help." I'm grateful to Joe for following through on it. And for background on why I suggested it, and what I've suggested since, take a look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Nihongo template. I agree it's overbearing in articles where it appears repeatedly. My proposal is to look for a way to remove even the question mark from the second and subsequent uses of the template. And if nobody likes it, oh well, it won't be the first of my suggestions to get nixed. Fg2 (talk) 11:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Please post all comments over here. We need to keep the discussion in one place. Thanks. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

New Symbol

I like how the new symbol looks, but there's a problem somewhere with the coding, I think. In addition to creating a help link on the symbol, it also creates a link on the character directly beneath it. Anyway to fix that? (I'm using Internet Explorer.) Douggers (talk) 01:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right. It's visually more apparent in IE7, but the same thing happens in Firefox 2 (and 3 Beta). Bendono (talk) 01:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I can see it, too. It may be an issue with the template used to link the image. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say it, but I don't really care for the new symbol, it's bulky, it stands out too much, and it doesn't fit inside the parenthesis created by the template. Many wikipedia pages are now dotted with little blue squares with 'i's inside of them, and it really forces the eye to them.

I'm thinking that (though I don't know if it can be implemented with templates) it might be alright if the icon only appears in the first instance of the template being used in a page, the same way that an article may be cross-linked the first time a certain word or name is used, but not in each subsequent use. WtW-Suzaku (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I was always under the impression that you only had to use the coding once. First, you start talking about Japan (日本, Nihon), but then you can just talk about Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō) later in the article without actually using the template. It's probably easiest way to avoid the infobox/question mark/whatever from appearing numerous time. Douggers (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The {{Nihongo}} template should be used in every instance (with only a few exceptions). I think Fg2's idea of putting it inside a switch would be a good idea. If you wanted the image to appear, you would add something like "info=yes" at the end of the template. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:26, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Why?

Why does every use of kanji need a link to the same one Help:Japanese page?

If the purpose is to trigger <span class="t_nihongo_kanji" lang="ja" xml:lang="ja"> then simply use this "nihongo" thing the first time and subsequently use "nihongo3".

For more, see this. -- Hoary (talk) 01:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

To answer WtW-Suzaku's question: I came up with some code for a possible solution and posted it on the MOS-JAPAN talk page. --Eruhildo (talk) 23:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

What on earth is with the new symbol? On one hand, it's rather bulky, and on the other it can be hard to tell what the symbol is at high resolutions, and people who use larger font size don't see it any larger. -Aknorals (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

"See also" section linking to equivalent for other languages

Are there any templates like {{Nihongo}} for Korean, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, and/or other languages with non-Latin alphabets/character sets? If so, could someone add links to the "See also" section? Thanks in advance! —Dinoguy1000 18:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Italicize

{{Editprotected}} Field 2 needs to be italicized, like any other non-English material, per WP:MOS. I've already made this change to the two related templates (see "See also" section), but this one is protected. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh... field 2 is kanji, dude. You never italicize kanji on Wikipedia per WP:ITALIC#Foreign terms. --Eruhildo (talk) 02:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I was just about to say the same thing. Not done. --- RockMFR 02:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

ja-Latn

However, it would be useful is the the Romanised version were marked up with {{lang|ja-Latn|...}}, or

<span lang="ja-Latn">...</span>

since this uses direct HTML anyway! —Sladen (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hiding question mark

Use

@media print {
 .t_nihongo_help
 {
  display: none;
 }
}

in your user CSS to hide the help question mark for printing. (I think this should be added to the Template or its governing CSS files itself, but I'm not sure how that'd be done.) --an odd name 23:43, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

(A similar thing was already proposed; I hope for something to that effect.) --an odd name 23:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that sounds like a good idea - there's no reason to include it for printing. --Eruhildo (talk) 04:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

You can suggest an addition to MediaWiki:Print.css at MediaWiki talk:Common.css (since MediaWiki talk:Print.css just redirects there). —Dinoguy1000 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Please change class="t_nihongo_help" into class="t_nihongo_help noprint" within the template itself to achieve the same functionality. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Please check it's working correctly. Martin^msgj 22:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Problems with putting Latin into Kanji box

Couldn't you just use the {{lang|en|...}} template? I've seen it done on the Japanese Wikipedia to make Latin characters appear not as this. Macs don't appear to encounter this problem (according to User:Nihonjoe), but Windows do. {{Nihongo|Alphabet|{{lang|en|ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV}}|}} appears as Alphabet (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ). moocowsrule^{talk to moo} 07:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It would otherwise appear as Alphabet (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ). moocowsrule^{talk to moo} 07:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I've seen this problem when two different Kanji are used and "or" has to be put in between them resulting in Ai (愛 or 逢, Love or Date), rather than Ai (愛 or 逢, Love or Date). moocowsrule^{talk to moo} 07:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a very useful idea. I'll have to remember it. --Eruhildo (talk) 04:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Redesign

{{editprotected}}

I've attempted to redo the template in the sandbox and made a few test cases. The object is to make it a bit more robust with missing fields, especially regarding the first two. If there are no objections, I'll make an {{editprotected}} request. --Farix (Talk) 05:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

You can just request it here and I'll make the change. It looks good to me. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, it may be useful to show some comparisons with the current template, just so the differences can be seen. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Comparisons have been added. --Farix (Talk) 20:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Make sure you restore the formatting first (or have you already? It's 6:30 in the morning here, I need to go to bed already... =P ) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 12:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks excellent! I vote to go for it. This will make {{Nihongo3}} obsolete, right? We can just change it to: {{Nihongo||{{{1|}}}|{{{2|}}}|{{{3|}}}|{{{4|}}}}} which would do the same thing. Why have we never made the default values of the fields blank in the past? --Eruhildo (talk) 23:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

{{Nihongo3}} always puts the third/romaji parameter first unless it is blank. This requires a different set of checks. As for defaulting to blanks, it's because no one really thought about it. Anyways, with no opposition to the changes, I'll put in the editprotected request. --Farix (Talk) 18:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Done--Aervanath (talk) 08:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Remove the question mark?

Is it time to remove the little question make now? It looks strange and most computers have Japanese fonts these days. --Apoc2400 (talk) 11:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Given that the Asian font set is still not loaded by default, not even in Vista, then it's wiser to keep the help question mark in place. --Farix (Talk) 13:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup

{{editprotected}}

Just did some major cleanup on this template in the sandbox. The end result will be the same as far as the user is concerned, as can be seen at Template:Nihongo/testcases. This will fix List of manga licensed in English, List of Case Closed chapters, and 3 others so they no longer trip Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls. --Pascal666 (talk) 23:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I changed Template:Lang so that #ifexist is now last resort. This fixed the above 5 pages, so the only change now pending in the sandbox is removing all the extra includeonlys. --Pascal⁶⁶⁶ 16:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik (talk) 17:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Plz, fix unnecessary line break. Alex Spade (talk) 17:53, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Now, the spaces between (1) English title and "(", (2) between Kanji and Rōmaji are missing. Alex Spade (talk) 18:05, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I feel that the template spacing removal really was unnecessary (and potentially even harmful, considering how complex this template's code is). Is there any good reason not to restore the spacing? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 18:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

My apologies for the spacing problems. My original goal was only to fix Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls and remove the extra includeonlys. Unfortunately once I made this change (see the history of the sandbox) the spacing was tripping the auto-preformatting, so I had to do the whitespace cleanup. --Pascal⁶⁶⁶ 18:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I have added a test case to check for extra line breaks. --Pascal⁶⁶⁶ 19:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Is the new extra spacing between the second parameter and the help link when the third is undefined the desired output? —tan³ tx 10:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hiding question mark in PDF

{{editprotected}} Please enclose <span class="t_nihongo_help"><sup>[[Help:Japanese|<span class="t_nihongo_icon" style="color: #00e; font: bold 80% sans-serif; text-decoration: none; padding: 0 .1em;">?</span>]]</sup></span> with {{Hide in print|1= and }} so that question mark that lead to Help:Japanese does not appear in PDF version. Here is modified version of the template and discussion about the matter is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Japan#Books from Wikipedia articles. Thank you. --Kusunose 09:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC) -- fixed unmatching <nowiki>, sorry. --Kusunose 13:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of this change is to suppress the printing of the question mark in books made from pages in which this template is used. The question mark's only function is to be a place for readers to click when they need help with Japanese text. That functionality is lost in books, so the question mark should not appear. Fg2 (talk) 11:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

There is another option here. Which is better is arguable. However, I would think it better to simply have the class changed than having another template evaluated on every single page. Bendono (talk) 11:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Both are different things. The above one is for printing the article, this one is for PDF generation to print a book. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Please disregard my comment, then. Bendono (talk) 12:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

So what specifically needs to be done? I ask because of the secondary option given above. Please let me know and I'll be happy to make the change. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Both need to be done. The first to avoid the ? being shown in normal printing, and this one to avoid the ? being shown in PDF/book printing. (I know, stupid that we require two markings to hide something from print.. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

To hide the question mark in PDF/book printing, replace the question mark with {{Hide in print|?}}. I tried it on a copy in my user space and it worked. Thanks Fg2 (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Change from class="t_nihongo_help" to class="t_nihongo_help noprint"[1] fixed PDF version as well as printable version. Thank you! --Kusunose 03:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Weird. I though that the PDF converter didn't understand class="noprint".... Well perhaps they added it this week. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the change, weird or not -- it made the question mark not appear in the PDF. Fg2 (talk) 22:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Commas and spaces

Commas and spaces are inverted: it should be <text>,<space><text>, while now it is <text><space>,<text>. Also, the reference mark shouldn’t be preceded by a space.

I did manage a partial improvement in the sandbox, but haven’t been able to implement it. Can someone more knowledgeable do that?

--

Leandro GFC Dutra (talk) 15:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I second this. Right now it's " ," and should be ", " --Tauwasser (talk) 20:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

This is likely mostly caused by bugzilla:18851. I'll see if I can clean it up a bit to avoid the most common problems, but with the current software it is almost impossible I think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)