Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Japanese military history task force/Archive 2

Unnotables

What are thoughts on three sentence "biographies" on laughably non-notable people? (For example: Tomizawa Iyo,Honda Yasushige) I'm finding a lot of these relatively worthless garbled token entries. It is somewhere between highly unlikely and never-going-to-happen that these articles would ever be added to - and my guess is they were at best some footnote in a battle record or something, probably then noted in a video game as a token character where they were "noticed" (i.e. 4 sentences may be all you get in any language - that seems somewhat lacking in noteworthyness). Is a spring-cleaning toss out of non-notable bios in order, or we just leave them to gather dust? Most are horribly written, but at the same time I don't see much value in "cleaning up" the grammar of a 4 sentence biography... Biographies of some of these guys make me envision "wikipedia, 2500AD" where I get an entry because someone finds my highschool yearbook: "He had a quotation under his photograph, he must be noteworthy!" Whatever floats the boat though, just thought I'd ask. --Kuuzo 05:50, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, personally, I'm an inclusionist. What's to be gained from deleting these articles? (WP:NOT#PAPER). Of course, I see your point, and these articles really should be cleaned up to look like we're genuinely making an effort to say all there is to be said... Well, I dunno. They're certainly more notable than the guy who stayed home that day and didn't fight in battle at all. If there's anywhere we need to be keeping an eye out for non-notable military figures it's in WWII and later. Everyone and his dad who ever fought in Vietnam is getting an article.... I have to figure, if Tomizawa Iyo is significant enough to have gotten even one line in a proper history text that covers all of Japanese history, or all of the history of samurai battles, or whatever, there must have been a reason for it. i.e. If their editors can be inclusionist about it, why can't we? LordAmeth 08:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Up to you, but even someone's dad gets into an after action report in vietnam, it is essentially the same thing. --Kuuzo 01:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want to delete them, I would support it. They're completely unsourced and rather pointless. Better to delete and wait until someone that cares actually writes them up half-decently. There's not much to be lost by deletion. John Smith's 19:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. If we delete them, there's "not much to be lost," and absolutely nothing gained. Whereas if we keep them, there's nothing lost at all. Not much, versus nothing at all. Hmm. j/k. I don't really care what we do with these articles. LordAmeth 20:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Can I do a write up of my grandfather's WWII experience? He's in published sources, including his unit's history (j/k) - although I could do far more than three sentences on him :P --Kuuzo 21:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

As an example, in the Shinchokoki, there are numerous samurai who literally have one sentence to thier entire lives in Japanese records, that basically say that "(his) head was taken in the battle". Does that qualify as a viable article? This is out of curiosity, not some sort of challenge/argument - It reminds me of world history class in highschool, when we were required to collect data on various historical figures on notecards to present to the class, one person came up with "nebuchadnezzar - he died." Bit of a tangent, but I always got a kick out of it. --Kuuzo 09:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's obviously a bit of preferential treatment as you go further back, on the assumption that if your name has been recorded through X centuries, you presumably did something worth knowing. ;-)

Having said that: might combining batches of these perma-stubs into list form be a potential solution? We could create, say, List of Takeda retainers or whatnot, and combine all of these; we'd then have a place to link their names (both for mentions in other articles, and in case someone does dig up more information) without the overhead of having separate articles for each. Kirill Lokshin 20:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. I don't know if I'd be getting on it any time overly soon. But a neat idea in general. Particularly as some of them, like the Seven Spears of Shizugatake or the Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen or the Forty-Seven Ronin are already semi-official groupings. LordAmeth 21:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

That sounds far more worthwile than a 1 sentence "biography". In the numerous cases where the extent of someone's recorded life is that they were killed in a battle, I would say rather than create an article about them, create a subsection in the battle article, something like "Noted Samurai killed in the battle" or something more eloquent, since the record of thier death isn't because they were well known so much as because it was standard to record anyone above the rank and file ashigaru who was killed. In fact, I think this could clean up a lot of these mini-biographies. Most of them are only noted for one thing, be it a castle they held, where they were killed, or who they killed, so if they were combined into the castle/battle/campaign article it would clean up the "mess". I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of quality articles - how many people are going to do a search for a random samurai who is only noted for being killed in a battle? Far less than who would search for the battle itself. Same goes for an unnotable small time castle lord who held a castle for 3 months - people will look for the castle entry. It really would help to both tighten it all up by removing wasted space without eliminating anything but a token 2 sentence biography, which would just be integrated into the larger article that it applies to. If I come across any obvious ones, I'll post here and we can "debate" moving the entire entry to the related article and just deleting the token biography. I think that would cover all the bases. --Kuuzo 08:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible moves?

I'll post concrete examples here, but for example if you look at most of the bios on the seven spears of Shizugatake, I think we could make a nice big article out of that by transfering the small bios to that page, rewriting it, and just remove the individual biographies. I think larger, detailed articles with multiple "little" bios would serve a better purpose than having them as seperate mini-bios. A "project" like this would probably be a good thing. Thoughts? --Kuuzo 09:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure. That should work out nicely, and look better than the scattered stubs. LordAmeth 13:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I've created a Category:Lists of Samurai, and populated it with the Seven Spears of Shizugatake, Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen, and Shitennō (samurai). I think it may be a good idea to keep this trimmed to what we're trying to do here, despite the fact that Shogun, Roju, Tairo, and a great many of the clan pages could constitute "lists of samurai". The next steps, I think, would be:

1. To create a few more of these kinds of articles, to cover List of the 47 ronin (which isn't in fact covered by Forty-seven Ronin) and Twenty-eight Generals of Uesugi Kenshin.
2. To go through these lists and decide which individuals are non-notable enough, short enough articles, to be subsumed into the lists and deleted as individual articles.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any other suggestions for traditional groupings we can start off with. LordAmeth 09:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Battle of Shanghai

There's a new peer review request for Battle of Shanghai that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 20:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

photo identification

I figured that this would be the best place to ask a question about possible mistaken identity of a Japanese officer in some images. The following two images are both identified by external sites as being of Takeichi Nishi, a tank officer killed at the Battle of Iwo Jima, who also won an equestrian gold medal at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. I'm pretty sure about he one at right. Is it just me or is the uniform at left very Navy-ish? - BanyanTree 17:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• 
• 

They look pretty similar, actually; it may very well be that the different lighting is causing the fabric to appear darker. (Or, alternately, did the IJA have several different colors of uniforms, as other armies did?) Kirill Lokshin 18:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite certain you're not looking at navy uniforms there - caps are wrong for a start. John Smith's 20:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll trust that the external site knows what it's talking about. Thanks to all. - BanyanTree 03:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Japanese castle

There's a new peer review request for Japanese castle that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm on it. Interesting article but does need more work. If anyone else wants to add to my comments, please do. John Smith's 16:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Jeez, of course I should have placed a mention here. Thanks, Kirill. (I really need to try to be more on top of these kinds of things). LordAmeth 11:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Military history of Japan - Medieval and Sengoku

I cannot believe I did not notice it earlier, but the article on the Military history of Japan needs some really serious work. All of the pre-modern sections are really quite stubby, omit major events (Nanboku-cho, Onin War, and much of the tactical and strategic developments of the Sengoku period), and do not tell a cohesive narrative of development, progress, or advancement. (Not that every historical narrative has to move in the direction of progress, but still there should be some narrative flow to the thing.)

The Samurai article, for the most part, is quite well-written, thorough, and features much of the narrative, and details of important events and developments which are absent from the overview Military history article. While we certainly should not copy-and-paste the entirety (or large sections) of the samurai article into the overview one, I think some inspiration can be taken from this... with some collaboration and teamwork, I think this can really be dramatically improved. LordAmeth 15:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've done quite a bit on this now... should be alright now I think... but as always of course, this is more or less our foremost page, so if anyone has anything to add or improve, please feel free. LordAmeth 18:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Japanese castle

There's a new request for A-Class status for Japanese castle that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes!

Greetings all. We went without a task force userbox for quite some time, but now we have one. I've used the same samurai kanji image as is on the project banner task force element, for consistency, though I was admittedly tempted to make use of the unusually prolific Admiral Wikipe-tan. If you'd like to clutter up your userpage with more junk advertise your membership in the task force on your userpage, you can use {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Outreach/User WPMILHIST Japanese military history task force}}, and that ought to do it. LordAmeth 23:03, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hideyoshi's Invasions - terminology and campaign classifications.

Hello. I've begun a discussion here in an attempt to generate consensus & standards on the terminologies used for military divisions and campaigns of the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598); currently there seems to be an unconsciously created discrepancy between which articles (e.g. Japanese Left Army) get referred to and linked to, and which campaignboxes (e.g. Template:Campaignbox Japanese Left Army (1597)) are or are not fully agreed to be deprecated.

Please comment at the above talk page link. Thank you. LordAmeth 11:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942)

There's a new peer review request for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 00:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942)

There's a new request for A-Class status for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 00:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Batu Lintang camp

There's a new peer review request for Batu Lintang camp that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 18:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Missing topics

Another one of my missing topics pages is about missing topics about samurai-era Japan. Could anybody have a look at it? Thank you -. Skysmith 12:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for compiling such a list. Many of these items do have articles, just with slight spelling differences - I'll try to find time later today to go through them and create redirect pages to the proper article titles. As for the rest, I'll certainly keep them in mind as things which need to be created. Thanks again. LordAmeth 13:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Adding articles for Japan Self-Defense Forces section

Have recently added the following:

Central Readiness Force
Hayao Kinugasa

These are modern Japanese Self-Defense Forces pages so far. I plan to add at least one-two more pages. Ominae 01:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Have made few edits for the CRF. Need it to be assessed by someone of the WikiProject Japan group. Thanks. Ominae 00:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

9th century invasion of Japan

I am translating an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, and have come across reference to the Korean piracy of the Jōgan era (貞観の韓寇), i.e. the 869 Korean invasion of Kyushu. Does anyone know if there is an article on the en.wikipedia for this invasion? If not, what might it be called (i.e. how might I look it up)? Thank you. LordAmeth 20:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's no article about 韓寇. As it is a pirate raid, I don't think it should be called "invasion", unless you call Wokou (倭寇, Wakō) Japanese invasion. --Kusunose 00:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. Then again, there was 元寇 (Genkō), which were actual invasions. Anyway, you're more than likely right - if it's just a pirate raid, then it's likely not worth an article. Thanks. LordAmeth 00:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the following would have been useful in a stub article on the Jōgan Japanese era name or as a trivial detail which gives life to a stub about Emperor Uda? In a military context, it wouldn't much matter that an earthquake in the north of Honshu and a prirate raid in Kyushu are happening at the same time, but I'd imagine that there might be a place for such modest material in the Wikipedia environment?

• Jōgan 11, in the 5th month (869): There was an earthquake in Mutsu; and more than a 1000 people were reported as fatalities.<ref.>Titsingh, Annales des empereurs du Japon, p. 119.<./ref>
• Jōgan 11, in the 6th month (869): Many Korean pirate ships anchored off "Fakaia" ("Fou to") to plunder barges that were being made ready to carry tribute to the court from Buzen province. Troupes were sent to stop them, but they fled hastily.<ref.>Titsingh, p. 119.</ref>

As it happens, I don't immediately recognize 'Fakaia" ("Fouto"), but I have highlighted it in red; and I could have posted a question on the talk page to see if someone else can readily fill in the gap. Alternately, I could have just left it off. Either way -- this is a good thing. I deserve encouragement, not something else. This tidbit of information is relevant in this specific case. Tokugawa historians knew about this incident in Kyushu in the late spring of 869. They considered the matter settled; and they called it an act of piracy. Can you see how this would have been a helpful contribution, albeit in a stale context? Ooperhoofd 21:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Satsuma Rebellion needs expansion

I don't know why I never noticed before, but I am truly amazed at how short the article on the Satsuma Rebellion is. This is a truly major event in Japanese history, and while I'm happy to see some pictures and a full infobox, the actual text is awfully short. Is anyone interested in volunteering to take on this project? Cheers. LordAmeth 12:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Attack on Pearl Harbor FARC

Note: The following was posted on the WP:JA talk page, and I'm reposting it here as it falls under the purview of this task force. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)'

Just wanted to let you know that there is a FAR on Attack on Pearl Harbor. The main problem with the article is that it has a very US-centric point of view, so some contributors from here (to hte article or the debate) would be very welcome. The Land 18:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

AFD of Takeji Nara

It has been requested in the Articles for deletion discussion for Takeji Nara that an expert in Japanese military history be brought in to provide an educated opinion. -- saberwyn 05:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

"Burden of Proof" and sources question

How serious is this section taken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V#Burden_of_evidence I have tagged approximately 250-300 articles that fall under "Japanese military history" with the {{sources}} or {{references}} tag over the past 8-9 months. There are still some articles that have been tagged for that long and are still unsourced. Do we just leave articles that have been unsourced for months or years? I believe (reasonably, I think) that history articles that don't list sources are inherently worthless. What is the policy? I know people are averse to deleting articles, but an unsourced article which is unverifiable could be considered worse than no article at all. For all anyone knows, they could be created with information from a video game ("Samurai Warriors" seems to be a popular video game to get "history information" from for many stub articles on Samurai on wikipedia) and I can't shake the thought that if they have been unsourced since inception, and still unsourced 8 months after I have tagged them, that where ever they came from in the first place must be questionable - and also brings up questions of notability if they are valid. I'm not necessarily saying "Let's delete 'em all!", but something needs to be done - the quote by Jimmy Wales in the above link seems to indicate that I'm not asking an "unreasonable" question on what needs to be done. In particular, the "biographies" sections (Samurai, Shoguns, etc.etc.) of Japanese military history is frankly a mess. The large articles with no sources are an obvious oversight, I'm thinking mainly of the one or two paragraph articles. --Kuuzo 09:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll bet that any articles on Samurai using Samurai Warriors or something similar as the source were added by Darin Fidika (who has had issues with sourcing and plagiarism in the past). If that's the only source, and you can't find any other sources to back it up, I'd suggest nominating them for deletion. I would keep it to a few a week, though, so the system doesn't get overwhelmed. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That is probably is the best way to get sources into viable articles, since tagging them as unsourced doesn't seem to do anything. It's unfortunate. --Kuuzo 05:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Though Darin was atrocious at citing properly, he did use Stephen Turnbull's books extensively, along with the Samurai Archives website. Whether you want to trust those sources or not is a separate debate, but failure to cite properly is not the same as failure to represent information correctly. I can definitely vouch that everything I have written is accurate as far as I am aware, and came out of proper published works. Many of my sources are not currently available to me, as I am studying overseas for the year and did not bring all my books with me; I'm sure there were plenty of times that I failed to cite extensively enough (leaving out page numbers) or to cite at all. But that does not mean that the information is invalid. Rather than deleting unsourced material, tagging it and leaving it, or being accusatory towards those who posted the material in the first place, I think it would be far more productive if editors made a cooperative effort to verify and source articles. It is only through these kinds of cooperative efforts that Wikipedia exists, and continues to grow and improve, after all. LordAmeth 15:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

My main focus is 1-2 paragraph articles that have both lacked sources since inception and never been added to by more than just the creator, and also lack any apparent notability. That combination of factors should make any "history" article immediately suspect, and frankly if they don't show up in the 8,000 entry biographical dictionary of the Sengoku period (sengoku jinmei jiten, Japan, 1990), odds are they either came from a video game (which would indicate either fiction, or fictionalization to make them seem more herioc i.e.notable), or truly lack any actual notability to speak of - possibly a slight bias on my part, but a reasonable benchmark I think. Obviously pertinent and notable (yet unsourced) biographies are not at issue - and I doubt that a RfD would pass on those anyway. A lot of poorly written and unsourced articles still seem to indicate actual notability, so I'm not going to touch those, although the fact that they are unsourced and poorly written is still an issue. It should be mentioned (thankfully) that a few users have gone in and added references and added to quite a few articles I have tagged, so at least there is some forward progress. I guess when it comes to history, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. --Kuuzo 00:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

"Further reading" Um.. what?

I've noticed over the past week or two that a user (User:Ooperhoofd) has been putting what appears to be a completely random old French source into every single Samurai article they can find - see here for an example - he seems pretty jazzed about it, but it appears to be a general history source that probably doesn't even cover 1/4th of the articles it is being put into... It's almost like spam... what to do? --Kuuzo 08:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah... maybe we should just talk to him, might be a good first step. Personally, I find a source like this almost completely useless as (a) it's in French, and I don't read French, and this is the English Wikipedia, and (b) written in 1834, or is it 1652, it incorporates none of the knowledge and understanding that historians (i.e. academia) have acquired since then, and probably reflects at the very least some very outdated spellings and terminology, if not outright misunderstandings and factual errors. It is likely a fascinating historical artifact in its own right, and a wonderful research project in order to learn more about Titsingh's views etc. but it really should not be taken as an accurate historical record. Personally, I would take anything written by Westerners in the Far East prior to the late 19th century with a massive grain of salt. LordAmeth 11:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Since your particular focus is military history, perhaps it's best to begin my explanation with something that involves fighting -- the unremitting military action in northern Honshu as Matsu and Echigo resisted campaigns to bring the entire island within the ambit of imperial domination. You say that Titsingh's translation of Odai Ichiran is still inaccessible to you personally because you don't read French, but I'm posting an English translation in Wikipedia so that you and others can incorporate "new" data within what you already know. Please consider this point in its "stub" context here.

• Wadō 2, in the 3rd month (709): There was an uprising against governmental authority in Mutsu province and in Echigo province. Troops were promptly dispatched to subdue the revolt.<ref.>Titsingh, p. 64.<./ref>

Having demonstrated plausible utility with a minor engagement within the ambit of Japanese military history, can we at least agree that this isn't spam? The fact of the matter is that there are large areas into which Wikipedia has not yet expanded -- rather like the "blank" spaces into which Yamato expansion had not fully taken hold in the 8th century, and the Titsingh translation of Odai Ichiran fills that void perfectly because the citation incorporates a direct link to a digitized version of his text. The fact that an otherwise blank page will have at least one citation on it tells anyone who consults Wikipedia that there is something to find, that there is an "answer" -- it's just not quite there yet ... a work in progress, so to speak.

From a historiography perspective, I would invite you to consider Nipon o daï itsi ran in a peculiar Japanese context created by even older texts -- Jinnō Shōtōki or ''Gukanshō. Ultimately, Wikipedia aims to be something more -- something quite different in intent and in consequence than the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica; and in that broader, long-term, evolving enterprise, I'm convinced that I'm doing exactly the right thing at the right time. Perhaps I need to revisit every citation so that I can simply enclose the title in brackets, thus creating a clickable link to Nipon o daï itsi ran ...?

As an opening salvo, I reckon this might be just enough without being too much? Ooperhoofd 13:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As I stated in a discussion on Ooperhoofd's user page, before he copied it here and blanked his user page, I concur completely with LordAmeth's assessment above. In fact, I have already found several of the entries to be in error, when compared with numerous modern Japanese sources, and the Romanization problem that LordAmeth's supposes is very real. Many of the entries are rendered very difficult to comprehend, not only because of the Romanization problem, but because they use dated terms like "Miyako", etc. If Ooperhoofd were very knowledgeable about Japanese history and could separate the wheat from the chaff, it would be one thing, but this is clearly a case of the blind leading the blind. The work he has done isn't completely meaningless of course, but it is going to take a great deal of double-checking, scrubbing and editing to turn his edits from innacurate or misleading to useful. Plus, there is already an abundance of Japanese sources on Japanese history that are all in relative agreement about most of the entries that are being posted (plus an excellent English source in The Cambridge History of Japan), so why a 200 year old French translation of a book written by a Dutchman over 400 years ago, based on a Japanese source that is even older than that (not sure if I traced the history correctly, but it is difficult to keep track) should be considered useful to a reader of the English Wikipedia is difficult to comprehend. I feel bad for Ooperhoofd, because he is obviously very excited about the book and has done a lot of work based on it, but a neutral assessment of the reliability of the source is what is important here.-Jefu 15:32, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I think it is important to note the difference between citations and suggesting something as Further Reading. Citations are a wonderful thing, no matter what language the source is in. I am not at all opposed to the use of this book as a cited source, provided that such errors are watched out for, etc. But there is a key difference between citing something as a source and suggesting it as Further Reading. Foreign language books should not be suggested for further reading, and I don't think things should be suggested unless they are directly pertinent to the topic at hand. Even from what little I know about this book I can hazard a guess that there is not a significant percentage of the book devoted exclusively to Kujo Yoritsune or to Empress Gemmei, and therefore it should not be suggested as further reading on those subjects. Please, Ooperhoofd, if you have a specific fact or point to cite, go ahead and cite it, but do not suggest this text - which is in a foreign language, and is far too old to be a reliable source - as if it were the definitive textbook on a half dozen scattered topics. LordAmeth 17:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. You make my point succinctly. Prof. Timon Screech of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has assessed this work as “a necessary reference work for officials” in the Tokugawa bakufu. The book was re-issued in 1803, which allows us to infer the requisite degree of accuracy in its dry detail. As a place from which to begin to construct a pre-Meiji stub article for the 21st century online Wikipedia, this unique reference source should be construed as a plausible and appropriate development – not something to be to dismissed out-of-hand as you seem to do here.

Instead of combining to quash my enthusiasm, why not ponder the more interesting question about how or why I came to have been inspired by something which had not formerly risen to your attention?

I wonder: Shouldn’t you rather want to pause a little bit for further thought before determining that the unexplored possibilities for the growth of Wikipedia should be placed so casually at odds with the burgeoning, concurrent development of digitized, online books?

I’m not missing the gravamen of a number of issues here; but I hope you’re beginning to see that I’m not approaching two knee-jerk complaints in a superficial manner – rather, I’m trying to turn the “conversation” towards a constructive outcome.

Perhaps it would have been better to reject the Whig foundations of what seem to be generalized objections to anything outside the corpus of what you three Wikipedia "old hands" have already studied. That sounds a little stuffy. I’d prefer to convert a pointless confrontation into something useful. Can you work with me a bit more on this?

The current romanization of this book’s title is Nihon odai ichiran ("Table of the rulers of Japan"); but the Google Books search engine uses the title on the book itself – and so did I. I presume that the Google Books Library Project uses a similar catalog protocol. Mine may not have been the best choice, but it was at least an informed choice to harmonize with a changing Internet milieu. With your help, I can make better choices in the future (or at least I can learn to defend those choices more tactfully). Ooperhoofd 20:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not trying to quash your enthusiasm. I am simply trying to encourage you to recognize that just because the original Japanese version was accurate enough to be useful for Tokugawa-period bureaucrats does not mean that the French translation of the Dutch translation of the Japanese is accurate enough, absent the input of any historical research or revelations of the last 150 years or so, for our use today as historians. I went out drinking with Tim last night, as a matter of fact, and I very much think he would agree with me. And, since you seem to be missing this point, that citing a source and suggesting it as further reading are completely separate issues. LordAmeth 20:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

According to the wikipedia entry on that book, it is going to be translated into english this year. It would be far more logical, productive, and useful to wait for that. Otherwise, someone is going to have to go in and replace all that text in each of the dozens of articles Ooperhoofd is putting it into. And I still don't see any logical connection between that book and the articles it is being put into. It goes without saying that the age of the book (and thus veracity) is questionable at best. I'd be hesitant to even use it as a source, aside from using it as a reference in footnotes to information otherwise verified with primary and academic sources. A quick and easy illustration of the problems of using edo-era materials is the Shincho-ki - the Shinchoki was a popular fictionalization of the primary document Shinchokoki - because of the popularity of the fictionalized shinchoki, it was used as a source document for histories and commentaries during the Edo period, and the repercussions of this are still felt today with the "generally accepted" description of the battle of nagashino, which has come into question in the past few decades as the sources for the scholarship have been examined and found to be wanting. So it isn't unlikely that this book could have the same issues from different "romanticized" sources. Not the easiest explanation to follow, but it was the one that came immediately to mind.

I recently read about the controversy over using the 1911 encyclopedia brittanica (or whichever), due to it's age, and this predates that significantly. As an aside, this user also created that wikipedia page, so coupled with putting it in all of those articles makes one wonder if this may fit the description of WP:Spam. I'm not saying explicitly that it does, of course. The main issue I started this topic with seems to be the one this user hasn't addressed: This book is unlikely to have anything directly to do with the articles he is pasting it into. Or, as LordAmeth so succinctly put it, Foreign language books should not be suggested for further reading, and I don't think things should be suggested unless they are directly pertinent to the topic at hand. --Kuuzo 08:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Peer review of Attack on Sydney Harbour

I've just started a peer review for the Attack on Sydney Harbour article, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Attack on Sydney Harbour. As this falls under the grounds of Japanese Military History Taskforce, I'm requesting that members of this group come forward and find the flaws in the article before it makes a run for A-class review, and hopefully Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. -- saberwyn 06:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Reqesting assistance on Attack of Sydney Harbour

Would anybody be able to provide some assistance at Attack on Sydney Harbour. The article is currently going through A-class review, and concerns have been raised regarding the lack of Japanese POV, and the lack of Japanese sources. If someone could provide some material to enhance this article I'd be much appreciative. -- saberwyn 23:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Battle for Henderson Field

There's a new peer review request for Battle for Henderson Field that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 15:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle for Henderson Field now open

The A-Class review for Battle for Henderson Field is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 15:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Requested move for "Occupied Japan"

I have just begun discussion towards possibly moving the article Occupied Japan to another of several options of titles which include the word "Occupation." Everyone has different ideas and impressions based on what they've read and heard, but it is my experience that terms such as "the Occupation", "the Occupation of Japan", "the American Occupation" and "the Japanese Occupation" are far more common than "Occupied Japan" to describe this period. Your comments would be appreciated at Talk:Occupied_Japan#Requested_move. Thanks. LordAmeth 22:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Category:Japanese Fascists

As "the use of the term fascism in relation to Japan is contentious and disputed" (quoted from Japanese fascism), I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to label any and every Japanese involved in the government or military at the time - even the most high-up officials - a "fascist".

I think this is an important thing for us to get a handle on, and to establish standards or guidelines about. Please offer your thoughts on the matter at Category talk:Japanese fascists. LordAmeth 03:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. There are certain specific members of the pre-war Japanese government and military who promoted European-style fascism, or attempted to create a similar system modified for use in Japan. However, it appears that the Category:Japanese fascists is being misused recently by certain editors as a POV forum to label warime or prewar biographies of Japanese indiscriminately. Use of the category should be supported by evidence in the article in questions, and misuse should be construed as vandalism and reverted. --MChew 03:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Admiralty Islands campaign

There's a new peer review request for Admiralty Islands campaign that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill 00:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Anglo-Japanese Alliance now open

The peer review for Anglo-Japanese Alliance is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 22:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Hirohito#RFC:_Appropriate_Emperor_Name

An RFC in an article supported by this task force has been opened, comments are welcome. MBisanz ^talk 01:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Matanikau Offensive now open

The A-Class review for Matanikau Offensive is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 02:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Koli Point action now open

The A-Class review for Koli Point action is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 13:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Expert help needed

Hi, I am a participant of the project Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles and I am trying to find some sources for three articles that appear to fall under the remit of the Japanese Military history task force, they have been tagged as {{unreferenced}} since June 2006 and as such do not meet at least the barest minimum of verifiability. I believe I may have found some sources but I need some help to clarify, as the names in the references do not match the titles of the articles (This could be why they have gone unreferenced for so long). The articles are as follows:

• Imperial Volunteer Corps - appears to refer to the People's volunteer fighting Corps, possible sources here and here
• Imperial Youth Corps - appears to refer to the IRAA Young men's Corps, possible sources here and here
• Imperial Youth Federation - appears to refer to the Great Japan Youth Party later renamed the Great Japan Sincerity Association, possible sources here ,here and here

Any help to confirm that I'm not mistaken would be much appreciated, regards, ascidian | talk-to-me 21:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding to this previously. I have this page on my watchlist but didn't notice your post for some reason. I'm not familiar with the three organizations mentioned above, but looking at the sources you cite I believe that you're correct in identifying what the three organizations are actually called in English and the sources you use are correct sources. There aren't very many books in English about Japan's home front during World War II. Another two sources that might have information on these topics are:

• Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank
• Japan at War by Haruko Taya Cook

I hope that helps. Cla68 (talk) 12:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi now open

The peer review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^(prof) 12:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi now open

The A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^(prof) 01:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 14:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Approach to Pearl Harbor

Copied from Milhist talk page

Trying to resolve grammatical issues here raised the prospect of a split to address planning & doctrine issues surrounding the attack. Comment is invited here. Trekphiler (talk) 05:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bit of a tangle, isn't it? Probably best if editors comment on the article's talk page to keep the discussion centralised. I've copied this to the US, Japanese and WWII task forces. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 20:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments sought on the Hyūga class helicopter destroyer article

Several editors (including myself) are currently discussing whether Japan's new Hyūga class helicopter destroyers should be classified as aircraft carriers or not and whether the article's references are adequete. Interested editors are invited to comment on the article's talk page. Nick Dowling (talk) 10:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Biography Style

I'm not sure this is the place for my question, but I just want to make sure that my articles correctly reflect the chosen style of wikipedia biographies and battle write-ups (I basically copied the formats of other biographies). Also wanted to take the opportunity to say hello, since I will hopefully be around for a while, at least until school really kicks in (or my wife does). I have a lot of notes I've gathered and have wanted to put to use for a while, so we'll see how long I can keep it up. --BradTraylor (talk) 04:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Ke now open

The A-Class review for Operation Ke is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^(prof) 23:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Guadalcanal Campaign now open

The A-Class review for Guadalcanal Campaign is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^(prof) 12:08, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Japanese military history

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Admiralty Islands campaign now open

The A-Class review for Admiralty Islands campaign is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick Dowling (talk) 10:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Samurai articles

Hi all. As some of you may know, I went through the articles created by now-banned User:Exiled Ambition (formerly the dreaded User:Darin Fidika) some time ago and cleared them all of copyvio. However, I'm afraid that the battle has only begun. I am wondering if we could get some kind of coordinated effort on the samurai articles...really, I'm doing what I can but my interest (and resources) focus on the mid to late Edo era, and a lot of the samurai articles we've got deal with the Sengoku era. Any takers? Any thoughts? Tadakuni (talk) 03:20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. I don't have much that would be useful, but I appreciate your efforts. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I can help - I'll have to do some searches to see what went on, but I've been adding from my thesis on the Jinbo clan. I have more research than was eventually used, so I have a lot of stuff to add. I'll do what I can. --BradTraylor (talk) 21:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

This list I compiled may be of help. -Tadakuni (talk) 03:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

After using various search methods, it looks like he's been causing trouble since 2006 or 2005, and that there was an attempt at cleanup last year (?) from a very vocal admin or member. I guess that wasn't successful. Looking at the history of a lot of his articles, the grammar was laughable. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. Do you guys have to deal with this sort of thing alot? Yow. I'll do what I can, I hope what I've done so far conforms to what is the norm for wikipedia. Feel free to drop me a line at my user page anytime. --BradTraylor (talk) 04:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

He was one of a kind, I'm happy to say...the biggest contributor of samurai history in terms of sheer volume, only because he ripped off other people's sites. As far as your work goes, I think it's good. Keep it up! Tadakuni (talk) 04:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ten-go

I was surprised to discover that none of the books on my shelf (e.g. "Eagle Against the Sun", "World at War", "Why the Allies Won") list Operation Ten-Go in their index. So I have no good indications as to how typical it may be that this event is called "Ten-Go" in English sources, rather than a romanization which more correctly indicates that 天号 = てんごう = "tengō" or "ten-gou" and not てんご ("ten-go"). ... For now, I have left that term alone, and not changed the romanization of the Operation name, but I am wondering if anyone else has an opinion on the matter. Personally, I would like to make as few exceptions as possible, and to represent as many things as possible in correct romanization.

Thoughts? Opinions? Sources that directly indicate one way or the other the common English-language rendering? Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Japan#Ten-go LordAmeth (talk) 02:22, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Japanese World War II destroyers now open

The peer review for Japanese World War II destroyers is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 04:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:WikiProject Japan Military history taskforce

Note that this category comes up in a few talk pages, when using {{WPJ}} with "tf = Military history". Maybe you'd like to create the category. Cenarium (Talk) 03:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The correct category is Category:Japanese military history task force articles, but the way {{WPJ}} is set up, I'm not sure how to easily generate it; that template doesn't seem to actually do any checks on the task force parameters. I'll try to come up with something, but the more practical method might be to use the task force parameter only in {{WPMILHIST}} when articles are tagged with both templates. Kirill ^(prof) 05:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)