Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)/Archive 5

Ok, I understand why Japanese emperors can be an exception, but please please remember I don't say your convention is good or bad, my convention is good or bad. Emperor Taisho of Japan is not common. And I follow the convetion using common name. While maybe some titles can be more logical, some can be more precise, I like the principle of least surprise for English speakers. -- Taku 04:45 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

I understand your problem but the problem is the world calls the emperors the Emperors of Japan. It may not be as common in the far east, but it is throughout the US, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australasia. In strict numerical terms worldwide, far more say 'emperor of Japan' than don't. It is the most common name for hundreds of millions of people. Without the words 'emperor of Japan' millions simply would not know who you were talking about. What about Japanese emperor? Is that any better with you? STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:37 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Again, I always refer to English resources. And please remember emperor is an English word and Japanese don't use it at all. I am talking in the context of English academic conventions. "Emperor of Japan" is already legitimate article, no one is going to rename it. But it doesn't imply Meisho Empress should be named Meisho Empress of Japan or Empress Meisho of Japan. -- Taku 22:40 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is being argued about here. I think everyone agrees that Hirohito was the Emperor of Japan. (It's right there in his article, anyway, and no-one's taken it out!) As I understand it, this is about whether the information needs to be added to the title of the article. And, as I understand it, information other than a person's name is usually added only when disambiguation is required. And, as I understand it, there's no-one else in the Wikipedia called "Hirohito", so we don't need any disambiguation. Hurray! Good, good, that's that sorted out, then. -- Oliver P. 05:52 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Why is Japan being singled out? I keep asking. People keep saying I'm wrong and stupid. Let me ask this then, Why are Chinese monarchs not singled out? If Chinese monarchs are listed in a respectful unambiguous way, why are Japanese monarchs not? And whoever wrote

"I took the chance to talk to experts on Japanese history and 18 experts unanimously said in a case like wikipedia, it would be illogical, ridiculous and nonsensical to do what he is doing"

please give the names and addresses of the "18 experts" who say Taku is wrong. We wish to hear from them, too. Arthur 06:08 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Jtdrl - I admire your passion for Wikipedia but please calm down. The above statement doesn't appear to be in-line with the principle of WikiLove. Also, in order to get anything changed around here you have to convince other people that it is a good idea. Being combative rarely changes anyone's minds - it usually just wears people out and then they just leave the debate. That isn't victory because you haven't convinced the person you are right. In this case it seems that you are the only person who wants to extend a purely western title-designation naming convention onto non-western monarchs. Several people have told you that this isn't a good idea - myself included. At this point I would venture to say that you are not going to convince us so no change is going to be made in regards to non-western monarchs. But your area of expertise, European monarchs (in which you have made magnificent contributions to here), will still be named following the naming conventions on this page. Can we simply agree to disagree on the naming of eastern monarchs (thus leaving their naming to people more familiar with those topics)? --mav

I apologise for my earlier outburst. Taku and I were having a very useful discussion and I think we were coming to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. Arthur's main contribution to the debate has been to contribute nothing, then at key moments jump in with ill-informed comments, usually the same batch of ill-informed comments, then tune out of the debate, listen to no-one, pay attention to nothing, then jump in again with the same half-baked nonsense, mispresent the situation, misunderstand the facts, then disappear again. It was getting more a little annoying to find a couple of people teasing out a problem, grappling for a solution, and then find some ludicrous garbage from Arthur dumped in the middle of all the work again. I should remember, when it comes to Arthur's contributions to remember the phrase 'don't feed the trolls.' If he can't bother to check his facts and know things before he jumps in with his same nonsensical rubbish, I'll simply ignore him. STÓD/ÉÍRE 20:25 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your hatred of me, but I can live with it, I guess. Here's my (trollish) problem. You keep arguing for consistency, but somehow exclude china from the rule. Why? Why not include China but exclude Japan? What's the rule that allows the exclusion? C comes before J? F*** china. Let's apply the same rule to everyone--or the same exclusion. How can you argue for consistency and against it at the same time?

I'm reminded of Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." Arthur 21:16 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

If you don't know, there is no point in me wasting time and space telling you. Don't feed the trolls. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:32 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

JT, Authur is not a troll. He is asking what looks to me to be legit questions that you are largely ignoring. I also don't see where other people are significantly agreeing with you. --mav

I Have repeated point out to Arthur the reasons and where to look for the explanations. Arthur had not listened to one word I have said, hasn't bothered to read what I have said, hadn't looked where I have told him to look for the information, just jumps in like an answering machine to repeat the same points over and over again.

The problem is that while you have stated many reasons why China is different from Japan, I find a lot of those reasons unconvincing. The problem is not so much that I don't understand the Wikipedia conventions, but rather I'm not sure that you understand the implications of following those conventions for non European monarchs. When I asked you for information on what passage said that Chinese monarchs were named differently, you pointed me at a passage that had nothing to Chinese monarchs, and had to do with surname ordering.

As another example, one of your justifications of the convention is that monarches don't have commonly used surnames. This is true in Europe, but it is not true in China or Vietnam.

We can propose a number of possible rules here. We could say that the monarchial title is used when there is no common surname, which means that Japan would be treated differently than China, Vietnam, or Poland.

Actually the rule that makes sense to me is that the title should be the shortest name that unambiguiously identifies the person. Henry II of England is listed that way because you have an ambuigity if you remove II or England. In that case the title of the article would be Hirohito. Looking at this perspective the purpose of adding of England is *not* to provide information about the subject of the article, but rather to disambiguiate that Henry from every other Henry, and that Henry II from other Henry II.

Deb agreed with me. Montrealais thought Taku's solution was wrong. I have suggested a way that might solve the problem to Taku. Taku and I had a very fruitful and useful discussion and we both understood each other's arguments. I agree that the system used by most of the world doesn't match the system used in places like Japan. The only trouble is that having two very long lists of emperors from nearly empires, with neither stating their state, risks making the situation difficult for people who don't know the nomenclature and titles used. As China is not a modern empire as the emperors are all historic figures, it is understandable, just as with ancient European or other monarchies, to opt not to state a state's name.

But then what is the rule for Vietnam and Korea. If we go by the surname rule, then Korea would be titled, but Vietnam would not be. If we go by the shortest unambiguious rule, then neither Vietnam nor Korea would be titled.

Japan is a current state, its emperor called 'Emperor of Japan' even on his website, on state websites and in his own New Year Message for 2003. His battle with cancer is written about, with he being described in the Washington Past, The Irish Times, Le Figaro, etc etc as the 'Emperor of Japan'. One suggestion I have made to Taku is to avoid the use of the words 'Emperor of Japan' but attach to the end of the title the word '(Japan)' to clarify to readers where the emperor is. It could perhaps be applied simply to modern emperors, in the modern state, as recognised in international law and the UN.

I don't like this rule, because most Japanese emperors didn't rule over a modern state. It seems odd that the nomenclature for 2000 years of imperial rulers would change because the last two or three ruled over something like a modern nation-state.

But I not going to spend the night constantly answering Arthur's questions, only to have him ignore the answer and say the same question another way at 1am, at 3am, and 5am etc. I have repeatedly given those answers enough of times already, as I have repeated constantly in debates on namings for two months. If he is not a troll, then he should stop acting like one and actually contribute to the debate, not just simply throw in the same elementary questions and ignore what I say, what Taku said last night, what Roadrunner said last night, what Montrealais said, what Deb has said so often she is fed up to the teeth having to repeat it.

The problem is that in some cases you *think* you've answered a question, but you really haven't to the askers satisfaction. For example, one thing about the list of Chinese emperors is that you have a number of cases in which you had three or four emperors ruling in the same period, and in some situations many of those emperors would not be what we consider today to be "ethnically Chinese" (meaning Han). If you use Chinese conventions for emperors of the Tangut Xi Xia state or the Northern Liao, I really can't see how you can avoid doing the same for Vietnamese emperors.

Also, with the case of Kublai Khan, it might be obvious to you that he is covered under the rule of ancient rulers of peoples rather than states, but I don't think he is covered under this rule at all (Genghis Khan might be). It's not that I haven't read or understood the Wikipedia conventions, but it's because I think that your answers are unsatisfying because you are making some assumptions about Chinese history that at the very least I disagree with.

The problem here is that while there seems to be a consensus on the rule to use for Japanese and Chinese monarchs, there isn't a consensus on the rule to use for Thai, Vietnamese, Malayasian, Korean monarches, and I don't understand at all what the basic principles are. Also what want middle eastern or subsahran African monarchs?

-- Roadrunner

I not going spent more of my time writing things five times a night, only of Arthur to ignore the answer and jump in again and again saying the same thing. STÓD/ÉÍRE 22:20 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

I've been reading up on Japanese imperial nomenclature, and I think that Jtdirl doesn't quite understand the basic issue, and I haven't seen anyone else explain the problem. This is what I think the issue is. Please correct if there are mistakes.

The basic problem is that the Japanese emperor has a personal name like John or Bob. Following Chinese practice the emperor also has a calendar era named after him. For all but the last two emperors, the most common way to refer to the emperor is by the era in which he ruled. Therefore refering to Emperor Meiji of Japan is *incorrect* because that wasn't his name. His name was Mutsuhito. The last two emperors (Akhito and Hirohito) are exceptions because they are far more commonly known by their personal names than by their era names.

Does that shed some light on the problem?

I understand that. The problem is that most people using wiki as a source won't. And that still does not get around the problem of identifying where an emperor was, which is where the central confusion may arise, if you have long lists of Japanese and chinese emperors, but no way for someone who doesn't understand japanese and chinese and so doesn't immediate recognise location by language. What methodology do you suggest wiki adopt to solve this problem?

yea. every else is ignorant. That's the whole problem here, isn't it? You are the only informed person on earth.

F*** China!

and please listen to us, JTdirl

The rest of us are smart, too.

Arthur 03:51 Mar 13, 2003 (UTC)

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As to naming, inverting the form I see only one problem with. It is that you are going have edit wars between people putting it in the correct 'Japanese' form and what they expect is the way they would expect to see it.