Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Districts and municipalities task force

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Spelling of Gunma

Is someone noticed that spelling of Gunma Prefecture are not conforming to Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles. How should we do?

Keep up with "Gunma" consistently.
- KIZU
Use "Gumma" in new articles. Rename gradually.
Rename all at now.

Template:SampleWikiProject

Wards

I think the suffixed form "{ward}-ku" is commoner than "{ward}". How about putting ward pages at "{ward}-ku, {city}"? --Nanshu 01:40, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What about Chiyoda, Shinjyuku and such famous wards in Tokyo? [1] shows {ward}-ku sounds rather a part of address. -- Taku 06:55, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)

That's because the 23 special wards are now officially called "cities" in English (see the Tocho's website). So I suppose we don't need the "-ku" for them. -- Sekicho 20:04, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

O.K. Then what about other wards? --Nanshu 03:32, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I guess Chuo-ku sounds better than just Chuo. So I agree with {ward}-ku, {city} for ones except 23 special wards. -- Taku 06:22, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)

Naming of cities

I strongly object to the "city, prefecture" setup, especially for the names of large cities. It's great as a disambiguation measure, but otherwise, it's ridiculous. There has already been a negative reaction to Hiroshima, Hiroshima (see Talk:Hiroshima, Hiroshima). Even though a couple of people have agreed to this, many others have voiced opposition to it. I think there should be a vote. In fact, I'm going to put one below. (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japanese districts and municipalites/Archive for other viewpoints on the matter) -- Sekicho 22:41, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

In favor of "city, prefecture" for all cities
- Ryan_Cable
In favor of "city, prefecture" as a disambiguation measure (i.e. if multiple cities have the same name; e.g. Hiroshima, Hiroshima or Osaka, Osaka. There are more than one hiroshima and osaka in Japan. But not Sapporo, Hokkaido since Sapporo is the only name for the city in Hokkaido.)
- mav, Ruhrjung, Jpatokal
In favor of "city, prefecture" as a disambiguation measure, but put major cities in the "city" article and disambig on a separate page. e.g.
By major city criterion: Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, Sapporo, Sendai, Kyoto
By disambiguation criterion: Chikugo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Hiroshima
By non-major city criterion: Kitami
- Sekicho, Takanoha, Sewing, Nanshu,KIZU
In favor of "city" alone

Regarding *** Quick note: this means you favor Hiroshima, Hiroshima or Osaka, Osaka: Taku, are you smoking crack!? It does not! This vote is being held because Sekicho thinks Hiroshima, Hiroshima is ridiculous! Jpatokal 01:19, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Because those Hiroshima, Hiroshima are for disambiguation in short. Please also notice this is consistent with the US ones. Why do you think Chicago, Illinois is acceptable and Sapporo, Hokkaido is not? -- Taku 02:40, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

We can make redirections from [[Sapporo]] to [[Sapporo, Hokkaido]], from [[Morioka]] to [[Morioka, Iwate]], and so on. -- Takanoha 12:38, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. So nothing wrong with the current naming scheme. I have no idea what this vote is about. -- Taku 15:10, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

I have no objection to make exceptions for most famous cities, but the current scheme is to disambiguate Japanese local governments systematically that often shared names. I oppose changing the scheme if someone wants. --Nanshu 03:32, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

Since I have got an answer of this question, what exactly is the rationale of giving exceptions for some famous cities? It seems all of US city articles, regardless of being famous or not, are of a form of [[{city-name}, {state}]]. Since there are appreciate redirects, there is no problem that readers cannot find an article for the most common usage. If you think Sapporo, Hokkaido is silly then I think so is Chicago, Illinois. Besides, I hate to have a dispute drawing a line between major (presumably not meant famous) cities and the other. -- Taku 07:30, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)

Taku: Why do we have to use the American convention for Japanese place names? Nobody calls Osaka "Osaka, Osaka." In Japan, you would never see somebody say 大阪府大阪市. "New York, New York" and "Chicago, Illinois" are seen in the US: we use them on addresses, for instance.

I think that, at the very least, we should put the cities designated by government ordinance in articles titled "Osaka," "Kyoto," "Hiroshima," etc. There is no reason to include the prefecture name, except as a disambiguation. Japanese Wikipedia simply uses the city name as the title: this looks better and eliminates most redirecting. -- Sekicho 16:24, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, a disambiguation is a reason to put prefectures. There exists Hiroshima Town nearby Sapporo as a matter of fact. This is the same situation seen in the US cities, like Chicago, Illinois. Also, I disagree that it looks ugly because I prefer the consistency, regularity over making special cases. If every city in Japan has the same naming scheme, it helps the readers to see those cities are the same ones seen in other part of Japan. Besides, the consistent naming scheme helps the writers. If there are two schemes, writers need to check if they need to use [[{city}]] or [[{city, prefecture}]]. It is a wasting time and it is the reason we need to create every redirect after all because some writers, undoutedly, write a link city, prefecture without knowning it is an unique name. Naming must be done for the sake of readers and writers and I see no reason to confuse them. We used to have [[{city}]] naming scheme. That was simple and sufficed for a while. But as we are adding more old provinces or towns and villages, some disambiguation is necessary. In wikipedia, it is a norm to pre-emptively disambiguate names. Take Emperor of Japan. No one, I say no one, calls Emperor Go-Daigo of Japan because Go-Daigo is an unique and only name for one emperor in Japan in the past. Or in terms of English grammar, I think History of Japan is less correct than Japanese History. I am not saying we have to adapt American convention but I am saying there is a virtue of this sort of pre-emptive disambiguation used throughout wikipedia. So in short, there is a good reason to put a prefecture suffix and, though depending on perfonal preference, I think Sappro, Hokkaido isn't too bad. By the way, 大阪府大阪市 returns 604,000 hits at google.

For me Osaka, Osaka is rediculous. I understand though 'Osaka' is ambiguous. I prefer 'Osaka (City)' & 'Osaka (Prefecture)'. 大阪府大阪市 is a formal and literal. Probably a part of contact address and so on. I haven't met anyone who refer coloquailly to Osaka in such mannners. KIZU

Well, the title must be formal not coloquail. Stroke, for instance, is redirected to Cerebrovascular accident since it is more correct, concrete term even though we really don't use that term in a normal conversation. At least I don't know how to pronounce it :) -- Taku 08:08, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

Well we must stand for formal convention, I understood. Then at least in Japanese there is no simple name Osaka: Osaka-fu(prefecture) or Osaka-shi(city). Every city in Japan doesn't share its name with another city legally. Towns and villages have no such regulation. So the mentioned ambiguity on Hiroshima occured. 広島市(Hiroshima City) means unique Hiroshima-shi of Hiroshima prefecture, and Hiroshima in Hokkaido is a town or a ward of Sapporo City, IIRC.

Why aren't the suffixes -machi, -shi, -ken and -ku etc used as a disambiguation measure? Sapporo-shi looks fine to me, and Hokkaido-shi would too (as opposed to Hokkaido-ken ) . It's true that no two cities (shi) in Japan have the same name, so no '-shi' would need to be followed by its prefecture. There may have to be additional disambiguation for towns and villages, but that's acceptable, I would say. AndyPope

Tsuwano?

Are these two articles for the same place? Tsuwano, Shimane Tsuwano-cho gK ¿? 03:12, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

templates for cities or cities and districts in a prefecture

I've entered a comment on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japanese prefectures page about templates Taku and I have been creating for:

the cities in a prefecture (Taku)
for the cities and districts in a prefecture (me).

Please chime in on the other talk page if you're interested. Thank you. -- Rick Block 17:24, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)