Requested move 22 December 2016 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Procedural close. The move request is malformed to a point where it is unclear. So thus, closing to prevent further confusion from participants and discussion closers alike. (non-admin closure) Steel1943 (talk) 21:06, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply


Hoppo (product of undiscussed move)delete – I want to move my userspace draft article "Hoppo" to mainspace as "Hoppo," but am not allowed to do so because of this page, the redirect from Hoppo to Hepu the county in Guanxi (the article doesn't explain why it's called Hoppo)

The primary use for Hoppo is the Qing official:

  • The Google search Hoppo + China finds mainly hits for the Qing official, very, very few for the city.
  • Even a Google search Hoppo + Guangxi, the county being in Guangxi province, there are more hits referring to the city on the first few pages, but in further pages, many on the Qing official.
  • Those searches include hits for online dictionaries. All of them that I can see define the Qing official, not the town.
  • The search of Wikipedia for "Hoppo" doesn't find any hits for the city, more for people nicknamed Hoppo, and a fair number for Hoppo the official.
  • Comment we do already have an article on the Hoppo (户部) as a bureau which is under Hu Bu but wasn't listed on the dab at Hoppo until I added it just now. I see no reason to wait to move User:CWH/Hoppo (Qing dynasty official) to main article space if @CWH: you are happy to do so. Hoppo (official) currently redirects to Thirteen Factories, but presumably will become site of your new article? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 25 December 2016 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved  — Amakuru (talk) 12:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)Reply



Hoppo (Qing dynasty official)Hoppo – The primary use for Hoppo is the Qing official:

  • The article that prevents the move is a disambiguation page.
  • That page lists other links, but there is no other article named "Hoppo."
  • Readers will naturally search for "Hoppo" rather that "Hoppo (Qing dynasty official)."
  • The Google search Hoppo + China finds mainly hits for the Qing official, very, very few for the city.
  • Even a Google search Hoppo + Guangxi, the county being in Guangxi province, there are more hits referring to the city on the first few pages, but in further pages, many on the Qing official.
  • Those searches include hits for online dictionaries that define the Qing official, not the town or the band.
  • The search of Wikipedia for "Hoppo" doesn't find any hits for the city, more for people nicknamed Hoppo, and a fair number for Hoppo the official.
  • I will be adding material on the Hoppo to articles in the area of the Canton Trade, the Opium Wars, Qing dynasty bureaucracy, etc., where the short form "Hoppo" will make things much easier. ch (talk) 05:54, 25 December 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. Bradv 20:00, 1 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Support - Definitely the primary topic, per nominator's reasoning above. The Hoppo was the key official overseeing the court-sanctioned Sino-European trade, the famous Canton System. I'm surprised that the article didn't exist until now. @In ictu oculi: despite the similar name, the Hoppo is not related to Hu Bu. -Zanhe (talk) 12:50, 25 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • Question @Zanhe: are we 100% certain about that? Yes "Hoppo" largely refers to the man, not the office, but the two in Chinese are the same, (both are just approximations to Cantonese of Hu Bu: "Hoppo 这一名称来自户部,是户部的音译") and there are English sources calling the office the Hoppo as well. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:33, 25 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
@In ictu oculi: yes. The Hu Bu was the Beijing-based ministry in charge of the tax revenue from the entire empire, while the Hoppo was a Canton-based official in charge of the (far smaller) revenue from tariffs. The Hoppo ranked much lower in the bureaucratic hierarchy (although highly important from the perspective of the European traders), and the revenue he collected went directly to the emperor's private purse, not the government treasury. Also, the Hu Bu was a traditional institution created in the Sui-Tang period, whereas the Hoppo was a Qing dynasty creation. -Zanhe (talk) 00:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Comment: Friends, again apologies for causing such confusion, but the request was really pretty simple. The term "Hoppo" is pidgen English, not Chinese or translated from the Chinese, but based on the foreign misunderstanding that the 粵海關監督 (Canton Commissioner of Maritime Affairs) was under the Hubu (Ministry of Finance). Since this is by far the most common use both in the general literature and in Wikipedia, it should be moved to "Hoppo". The disambiguation page which is now the first hit should be moved to "Hoppo (disambiguation page). I entirely messed up this process and am now asking that an administrator do it.

In ictu oculi was kind and persistent enough to offer a search on my TalkPage with sources in Chinese, but when I looked at them they confirmed that the man and the ministry were different, even though the Chinese characters used for the Ministry and for the Chinese translation of the pidgen English are the same. For instance, the very first of these references says 戶部」本是中國政府管理財政的一個郡,但在當地,大家就誤稱粵海關監督為「戶部」, which I translate as "Hubu is a Chinese government agency.... but everybody mistakenly calls the Canton Maritime Customs Official 'Hubu'..."

The confusion between the two in Chinese should be addressed in ZH Wiki, and any confusion in English is clearly addressed by the disambiguation page.

The Ministry of Finance is never referred to in English as "Hoppo."

And apologies to Anthony Appleyard, but I did not move Hoppo (Qing dynasty official)" to "Hoppo", though I would certainly have liked to!

In answer to your question, having an article as the first hit is common even if there is a disambig page. For instance, "Qing" reaches "Qing dynasty," with a headnote explaining that other uses are at the disambig page, likewise "Ming," and "Moby Dick." In these cases, making readers take an extra step serves no purpose.ch (talk) 04:16, 26 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

  • Another comment Okay so it seems really the issue we have to nail down here is this. We know that in Mandarin Hu Bu is used for both. In English sources (and I mean modern sources) is Hoppo used for both, or just for the man not the office?
Secondly - irrespective of the Hoppo/Hoppo question, we do need to remember that non-China history experts may also use en.WP. For example there are two trivial pop music topics, Hoppo, and in Japanese Hoppo means "Northern". My gut feeling is that a dab page would be best, allow readers to choose what they get. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
Reply to the comment: The Ministry of Finance is never referred to in English as "Hoppo". "Hoppo" is only the man, both in sources from the time and in modern scholarly usage.
The statement on the dab page Hoppo is unsourced and incorrect, but as an involved editor, I hesitate to revert it: "Hu Bu (Chinese: 户部), or Hoppo, Qing dynasty customs office." The Hu Bu, as correctly described in the article, was the Ministry, or Board, of Finance.
The other links on the dab page are unlikely to be searched as "Hoppo":
"HopPo!" is spelling on the band's official MySpace page, though the artwork usually displays the logo of the band in uppercase: HOPPO. The band had a brief life in 2010, and released one album.
The "Suita Station (JR West)" article is even less likely: The "Hoppo Freight Line Suita Signal Box". Nobody, I think, looking for the Suita Station would search "Hoppo" because "Hoppo" does not make sense by itself, only as part of a phrase, "Hoppo ryodo."
"Hoppo" is a minor character in The Witch (play).
In ictu oculi, please consider the likelihood that anyone will be inconvenienced by searching for these quite rare and minor usages of "Hoppo"! If this is good enough for Moby Dick isn't it good enough for "Hoppo".ch (talk) 00:50, 27 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • Support Hoppo (official), sorry am not convinced by the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese as the basis for the distinction between Qing Hubu (Hubu continued into the Qing) and Qing Hoppo. Won't inconvenience anyone to have (official) indicating the difference. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
Comment Continued thanks, In ictu oculi for your continued interest! But could you explain how the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese has anything to do with this pidgen English term? I do not see where anyone has suggested that this irrelelvant distinction has any bearing one way or the other. The difference is between 1) "Hoppo", which in English only refers to the official, and 2) the Hu Bu, which in English does not refer to the man.
I would be grateful for your help if you could read the English Wikipedia article and say where this distinction can be more clearly put. Again, it is common to have the primary meaning (see the searches above) lead to the only article with that name, as with Qing, Moby Dick, etc. etc. There is no other article titled "Hoppo", and as with the Qing etc pages, there is a headnote directing to the dab page.
I also note that the dab page now includes the incorrect information Hoppo (Cantonese 戶部), which perpetuates the misunderstanding, rather than (t 粵海關部), which is the correct title.
All best wishes for a Happy New Year in any case. ch (talk)
The dab page needs to include the Mandarin Hubu in Beijing as well as the Cantonese pronunciation Hoppo sources do relate the two. Are you saying that there was absolutely zero connection between the local Canton Hubu and the Hubu in the capital? In ictu oculi (talk) 09:17, 1 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
The 19th-century Brits may have confused the Hoppo with Hu Bu, which could have been the source of the English word Hoppo (although that's not known for sure), but there's no reason for us to confuse the two very different institutions (customs vs. Ministry of Finance). The Cambridge History of China Vol. 11 clearly spells out the difference between them. The primary topic for Hoppo is certainly the customs official, all other entries are partial matches or barely notable subjects. -Zanhe (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thanks once again, In ictu oculi, for giving the link to Jonathan Porter's nicely written new book. The link did not allow me to see the particular page, so I looked it up in my own copy. In case other readers have the same problem, what Porter, whose own research is in the Qing, says is: the "officer was known erroneously to the British as the 'Hoppo', a corruption of [the word] Hubu the Board of Revenue, in a fashion that became typical of the mangling of Chinese terms by the British." (p. 292) That is, he reinforces the point that, no, there was no connection between the Hoppo and the Board of Revenue. (In fact, the mistake may well go back to the Dutch, but that's a discussion for another place).
That is, Porter does not so much "relate the two" (as you say) as say that they are not related.
It may or may not be relevant, but this is the second useful quote you have supplied that reinforces this point.
To summarize: The Canton Maritime Customs Official, known in English jargon as the Hoppo, was a special office created in 1685. This was not a regular official (was not an exam graduate), but was appointed directly by the emperor, forwarded his revenues to the palace, was not responsible to the governor for most of the life of the office. The Board of Revenue (Hubu) was a long standing Ministry.
The headnote of the article states this difference explicitly and invites the reader to the dab page, following the example of Qing etc etc.
I renew my request that you read the article to see where we can edit to help convey this point. ch (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Mmm. Well as long as the Hu bu is mentioned on the dab, I don't suppose it matters. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:26, 1 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Many thanks for your patience! This sort of discussion is useful in forcing editors to be careful.ch (talk) 20:31, 1 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.