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Articles on important China books

WhisperToMe's calls at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China#Idea: Writing Wikipedia articles on academic Sinology books are inspiring. This is great idea, but the problem is how to set priorities and select the books so that the articles build on each other. We also should think who our audience is and how they will use Wikipedia. Do we aim at graduate students? High school term paper writers? General readers?

There are just too many books out there! Any one of the major journals publishes hundreds of reviews a year, most of which are reviewed in several other places. It may be technically true that they count as "Notable" as defined at WP:BK (and I think that the guideline is too loose to say that two reviews make a book notable) by any other measure most of these hundreds of book are not notable -- and that's just one year. There have been useful books published for decades, and we should evaluate the older ones as well.

Possibilities:

  • look in the bibliographies of reliable surveys, such as Spence The Search for Modern China (this could be an article) or one of Ebrey's surveys.
  • search Wikipedia articles to see what books are cited most often.

My suggestion would be to write articles about books that won prizes, such as:

  • John Whitney Hall Book Prize for Japanese history. The titles are listed in the article. Most of the authors have Wikipedia pages, none of their books do or at least none are linked.
  • James B. Palais Book Prize for Korean history, which is tagged non-notable.
  • I will create a list article for the John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association. It goes for history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan since the year 1800, described, with a list of winners here.

The articles about the prizes should probably be turned into lists, a type of article which does not require the same sort of sources. See WP:LISTS

A number of the book won more than one prize.

There is a Category:Awards articles

What do people think?

Cheers in any case ch (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like good ideas! Also, when writing a Wikipedia article and using an academic book as a source, I might be tempted to check if the book has reviews on it. That way books can be approached on both ends: those best known in the academic community and those Wikipedia is relying on for sourcing. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:47, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
One other thing is that by investigating the books you may find additional sources for other topics and/or additional encyclopedic topics. When I wrote The Nine-tailed Turtle I discovered there were book reviews for The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century. The reviews of The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century revealed not only other possible encyclopedic topics (Chinese Qing Dynasty novels) but also were used as sourcing in articles about those novels. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Forcing Cantonese everywhere

I think we really need a consensus over this, and possibly an addition to relevant MoS pages. I really don't think it's constructive and useful to be forcing Cantonese pronunciations everywhere, as I have seen a wide range of new editors do. I can understand adding Cantonese readings to articles that are specifically related to Guangdong or Hong Kong, but general China articles shouldn't have Cantonese shoehorned into them like in this edit.

We hear a lot about Cantonese within western circles, and the reason is that Cantonese speakers are overrepresented in the west, since a large number of Cantonese speakers have historically migrated to western countries (whereas Hokkien migration largely occurred in Southeast Asia, and Dungan migration to the former Soviet Union). Cantonese speakers form a minority of overall Chinese speakers, and the extra attention being placed on Cantonese by some users is rather undue:

  • Mandarin: 960 million native, 1.365 billion total
  • Wuu: 80 million native
  • Yue: 60 million native
  • Min: 50 million native
  • Xiang: 38 million native
  • Hakka: 30 million native
  • Gan: 22 million native

When Cantonese is being shoehorned into every single Chinese-related article, why is it a good idea that Cantonese is being singled out? Why not Wuu? Why not Hokkien? Obviously, we don't need the readings of every single Chinese variant in each article, because that would create a language-spaghetti mess. Mandarin is not only the standard prestige variant worldwide and within multiple sovereign states, but is also the absolute majority by a long stretch. It would be logical to use the standard variant in articles, however I do realise that for some people, their regional variant forms a sense of personal pride within them; this kind of thinking however, is not really helpful.

Should we do something about this? Currently all of our guidelines are vague, and do not explicitly state what can and can't be done, or what should and shouldn't be done, in regards to Chinese variants. As long as we haven't standardised a specific article writing style to adhere to, we will see more of this in the future. We should not be giving extra undue attention to Cantonese at the expense of other variants which are just as notable, if not more; this kind of undue representation leads to all sorts of misconceptions amongst readers (such as those who think that there are only two Chinese variants, and speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese are spread 50:50; I've actually come across people who genuinely believe this). --benlisquareT•C•E 06:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I support your view, benlisquare. I think we should open a RfC to discuss this issue formally and make it into MoS. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 07:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
The amount of foreign language usage in the English Wikipedia should be minimised; MOS:FOREIGN says, "Foreign words should be used sparingly.". The number of people that can read Chinese among English speakers is very small. There has to be good reason to use a foreign word and there needs to be a doubly good reason to use multiple pronunciations of that foreign word.
In the linked example that User:benlisquare gave, the addition of Cantonese makes some sections into an nonsense. For example, the section about "Indo-European loan-words in Chinese" clearly meant Mandarin Chinese. Maybe pig is also a load word in Cantonese but I doubt, just from looking at it, that dog and goose are too.
I think the current WP:MOS-ZH already covers this issue, albeit in a disjointed way. It says:

When describing loanwords, terms, place names, or personal names, it can be appropriate to include the original characters or their transliteration. Including the Shanghainese term would be appropriate for a place name in Shanghai or a Shanghainese dish; including the Taiwanese names for the same would not. On the other hand, including the MSC term is almost always appropriate, because of its status as a lingua franca and as a standard for all governments whose official language is "Chinese".

The MOS:FOREIGN also says "For foreign names, phrases, and words generally, adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article." so if the referenced source of the article used Cantonese, then you can add Cantonese, but if the sources only use mandarin, then that is that spelling that you should use.
This foreign language translation and transliteration bloat is not limited to Cantonese. Despite the number of people living who are able to read Manchu script is minuscule even in China, let alone with the English speaking world. However, it and its transliteration are still shoe horned into the introduction of many articles such as Shenyang and Heilongjiang. I recently did a clean up of Mount Everest which had Chinese script, plus tibetan script, a Nepali script and transliterations of each, all cluttering up the introductory sentence. Now moved to an infobox in a section of the article discussing names.
-- Rincewind42 (talk) 15:34, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
What's generally been agreed upon is that if the lede paragraph becomes too much of a spaghetti, the language content can be moved to a proper infobox template instead. If there's only one or two within the lede, then that's tolerable, but any more than that is definitely excess. Template:Chinese can be used to fix such problems. --benlisquareT•C•E 15:57, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
No, the guidelines aren't vague. I participated in the discussions that led to the MOS-ZH language that Rincewind quotes, and the intention was absolutely to exclude Cantonese from articles like Yalu River (where it remains, against the guideline, as of this writing).
I too have encountered this pervasive Mandarin:Cantonese 50:50 myth from otherwise educated people, so we really have to militate against this. If Wikipedia is providing this impression, then we are doing the opposite of educating: we are misleading.
Anyway, the problem edits are not coming from overseas Chinese with mainland Cantonese ancestry (most of whom have sane ideas about Chinese dialectology and are learning Mandarin in school), or from ignorant whites. It's a couple of Hongkonger fans of British colonialism, and fanatical ideological opponents of the PRC, that accumulate hundreds of edits a day (sometimes with sockpuppets) to distort the articles. The usernames are known to longtime WP:CHINA regulars.
P.S.: Let's recognize that Cantonese is not the official language of anywhere, and is only the dominant dialect in some places affected by Hongkong economic imperialism. I don't think we should include the Cantonese names of places in Guangdong where the people predominantly speak Chaozhou Min, some other Yue variant, or Standard Chinese. Shrigley (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Not just HK imperialism, since it is the predominant diaspora dialect-group of North America, therefore is also the most common dialect found for "Chinese"-speak in Hollywood films, names of Chinese food in cookbooks originating from North America, etc. HK imperialism would account for uses in Britain. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I know that the majority of Vancouver speaks Cantonese, but isn't it that a significant amount of 19th century Chinese migration to the United States come from regions that are Teochew and Taishanese speaking? --benlisquareT•C•E 08:50, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Our article Chinese American says Cantonese, from what I've seen in other sources, it'd be majority Hoisan (Taishan), but the descendants of which who've had formal Chinese education (as opposed to home educated) would be in Cantonese proper (instead of Cantonese dialect Hoisanese); the major communities seem to be Toisanese/Cantonese lingua franca -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
What I think is that the local dialect should appear in all articles where the Mandarin pinyin version is used in places where the local dialect isn't a form of Mandarin. And if this is for people, then if they worked in Hong Kong entertainment, they should also have Cantonese and HK romanization, if they worked in Taiwan, then that variant of Wade-Giles that is popularly used for names there. And if the people are diaspora Chinese who do not have a Mandarin background, they they should not have pinyin attached to their Chinese names. (this excludes the Chinese infobox, which can have all that) -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:25, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
The pinyin is there because the majority of enwiki readers don't read ideographs, and a phonetic representation would help them more. In order to maintain uniformity throughout the whole of Wikipedia, we use the main standardized form of Chinese romanization used by three de facto sovereign states/countries/whatever, which just happens to be the phonetic representation of northern Mandarin. It would be disorderly and potentially confusing for readers if we told people that 九龙 was "jiulong" on one page, and "kowloon" on another (keep in mind that many might have zero knowledge of anything to do with China); hence, pinyin is used on all pages, regardless of localities. For articles that specifically deal with local topics, a local romanization is also included, as is the case with pages such as Kowloon. --benlisquareT•C•E 08:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
The reference to Kowloon is puzzling, so now I have no idea what you are proposing. I have never seen Kowloon referred to as "Jiulong" in English publication (or for that matter, Hong Kong as Xianggang), so why would anyone say that 九龙 is "jiulong" (unless it refers to something other than that specific place)? In this case it is the use of "Jiulong" that is in error (except in the Kowloon page to indicate its pinyin pronunciation, its use anywhere else is wrong if it refers to the place). If you are proposing forcing the use of pinyin against common English usage, then I would oppose it. Hzh (talk) 17:34, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
There are multiple places called "Jiulong" (九龙) in Mainland China as well. "If you are proposing forcing the use of pinyin against common English usage, then I would oppose it." - no, I am not. Kowloon was an example where it is acceptable to have both local (which also is the common name in English) and the standardized names. "Kowloon" is used in the article title, lead paragraph, and everywhere else throughout article prose, whilst "Jiulong" is briefly mentioned inside a template to provide pinyin gloss to the Chinese characters. Kowloon is a HK-specific topic, and not a general Chinese topic, unlike Cangjie, Taoism or Type 59. My proposal aims at stopping people from shoehorning in "ng-gau-sik" in Type 59, and not the other way around. --benlisquareT•C•E 03:39, 31 January 2014 (UTC) --benlisquareT•C•E 03:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
You wordings were ambiguous, hence the reply. In any case you appeared to be arguing for something more global that maintains uniformity across all pages using pinyin, and only using dialect for local topics, which I think ignore the various complications, for example name of person (a pinyin is not strictly necessary for someone whose name is not spelt that way in English, why give pinyin when that person is not called that?), name of items that acquired its spelling in English based on a dialect because of its particular history, etc. Also the reason Kowloon is used is not because it is HK-specific, it is because that is the name it is known in English (but given the way some people are forcing the change of common English names on Wikipedia like Canton, I wouldn't be surprised that it would be known as Jiulong soon). Hzh (talk) 19:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Canton is by no means the common name in English over Guangzhou, it isn't 1975 anymore, and the English language is dynamic. (The results from the link I've posted isn't comprehensive anyway, because all hits for "Canton" also include things like Canton (country subdivision), Canton Beach, New South Wales, and Canton, California.) Rest assured that there is no evidence of a conspiracy to move everything to Mandarin titles. --benlisquareT•C•E 04:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
You get a vastly different result if you use Google Books Ngram (search between 1990 and 2008). Canton is the popular usage in a variety of ways. Guangzhou is largely government, Chinese, and tourism sites, more obligated to use government-specified terms. It is not the popular usage. Hzh (talk) 12:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
You cannot affirm that something is definitely more common or less common by only looking at one aspect of the cake, and none of the others. Books are merely one of many forms of written media, and in this day and age, you cannot negate the influence of the internet. To gain an accurate gauge of what is used more, you will need to assess a multitude of things, including books, magazines, newspapers, academic journals, and the internet. It would make more sense to take into account each media, and not just one specific form; otherwise, that would make as much logical sense as formulating unemployment figures which limit statistics from men only, like what Germany did in the 1930s, or national population figures for white people only, like what Australia did up until the 1960s.

I would like to disagree with the statement that "Guangzhou is largely government, Chinese, and tourism sites"; the overwhelming majority, if not the entirety, of international geographical organizations use "Guangzhou" for the name of the city, in this modern day of 2014, and as a result maps and atlases also use that name. When children of today (and not 1915) learn geography and the names of cities in school, they learn it as Guangzhou. The popularity of "Guangzhou" on the internet is by no means as a result of the meddling hands of the government.

Finally, in regards to the figures of usage within print books shown within the Google Ngram, how can you be so certainly sure that all cases of "Canton" refer to the Canton that we are talking about? There is more than one definition of Canton, and the city is one such definition. Such results obviously will be skewed as a result of this. As an example, I bet there would be thousands of books relating to flags which demonstrate usage of the word "canton", because the Canton (flag) of a flag is a common motif used in vexillology. In fact, have a look for yourself at the disambiguation page located at Canton, and see how many different concepts there are which use that name. There are American liquors and architectural elements used in Ancient Greek and Roman buildings called Cantons. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Finally, I don't see why we're actually discussing this conspiracy that certain editors are forcing Mandarin titles as with the case of Canton, because when the "Guangzhou" article was created at 01:58, 7 September 2001, it was called "Guangzhou". I don't see any evidence of a pro-Mandarin clique forcing a rename of Canton anywhere. Are you able to provide any diffs, or links to previous RM discussions, that demonstrate forced moves from common English names or local Cantonese names to Mandarin spellings? I've yet to see such a case. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:43, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
The reference to Canton was in fact removed from the lede of that article until I put it back here. Given that Canton is still a popular term of usage, I don't see how you can interpret that unless there are editors who are deliberately trying to force the use of pinyin on Wikipedia and downplay local (and in fact, English) usage. Hzh (talk) 14:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
Well now that it's back, all's good and fair, right? Come on, it could have been a one-off drive-by random IP editor as far as we know. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
No, not an IP editor - [1]. I should say that I am not Cantonese, nor do I have any connection with Hong Kong or Canton, just noting there is in fact a problem with bias towards the official mainland Chinese position in many Wikipedia pages, whether it be the use of pinyin or other issues. I come across them only randomly, and try to make changes where necessary, for example in Cultural Revolution (edit here, and explanation why it is problematic here), where a single biased source (Gao 2008) was used to make extensive edits to make things seem better than it was. Although others have tried to correct the bias, that page is still problematic because of the use of that source (read for example the Arts section, you won't know how terrible it was for artists or how devastating it was for the arts in that period reading that passage). Hzh (talk) 15:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
Wait, did you see right there just how easily you conflated "Cantonese" with "Hong Kong" and "pinyin" with "mainland China"?
Also: pfft, "biased source".
Of course, since this is Wikipedia, "biased" is solely an antonym to "Chinese propaganda", which while paradoxically supposedly being everywhere and having infected Great Minds all the way up to the State Department (if you read the Wikipedia articles on the subject), is never, ever written by reputable scholars worthy enough to be cited by our Free Encyclopedia.
P.S., as long as we're making silly, identity-based disclaimers, I'll add that despite what my opinions might seem to suggest, I actually am Cantonese. Shrigley (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • The instructions, as I read them, are clear as to the limited uses of dialectic pronunciations within articles. But it seems as if some editors are zealously inserting them against the advice for reasons that are best known to themselves. Cantonese rendering is indeed appropriate for most articles about Hong Kong, or about Cantonese language and culture. Anywhere else is unnecessary and unwelcome clutter. Do we need it spelt out further in the guideline? I'm not sure. Please make a suggestion to modify the existing and let's then discuss. Regards, -- Ohc ¡digame! 09:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Any article for most places (or generalize it as anywhere to make it simpler to delineate) in the province of Guangdong (not just HK/Macau) would be appropriate to have Cantonese representations. (I also say the same thing for various Iberian dialects and the parts of Spain that speak those languages) Yes, the Cantonese representations should be restricted to "Canton province", and for diaspora communities that are/were Cantonese for which Hanzi is being used. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I'd just like to remind everyone that the "Canton" of "Cantonese" refers to the city of Guangzhou, and not to the province of Guangdong, where Cantonese is not official and where many people, including natives, do not speak Cantonese.
Something really offensive to history I noticed today was the privileging of standardized Hongkong Cantonese and Tainan Hokkien orthographies in Chinese American and Chinese Filipino. Petty nationalist players in a power struggle in Greater China are seriously misrepresenting the family legacies and educational choices of the diaspora.
Taishanese is NOT Cantonese. Chaozhounese is NOT Cantonese. Hakka is NOT Cantonese. Everything that isn't Mandarin is NOT automatically Cantonese, or "closer to Cantonese", or "almost Cantonese". God damn. Shrigley (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this is drifting more than a little away form the original post's topic. The neutrality of certain articles and sources is not the issue in this discussion and should be elsewhere.

Also there is a bit of tunnel vision going on with regards only considering topics that have a geographical basis. Of course an article about Guangzhou should contain the local language(s) just the same as the article about Honhot should contain some Mongolian or any other location, the local language of that area. The question is not "if" but rather "where" and "how". Not everything should be or can be stuffed in the opening sentence.

The MOS-ZH is quite clear about the lede. That is minimal Chinese and if not none at all, rather instead use the infobox Chinese template. However the issue in the OP was the inclusion of multiple languages and transliterations in articles that had no geographical tie and where the Chinese script was in the body of the article. For example, look at Chinese New Year#Greetings and suggest how to make it understandable without the reader having to learn four different languages and two competing scripts simultaneously. -- Rincewind42 (talk) 14:10, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

History and Dates in the Chinese articles.

I'm getting frustrated with the Chinese articles, it often lists dates, but no CE or BCE as if the person on the other end is supposed to automatically know what the dates for things such as: Emperor Xiaowu of Liu Song are from just being that versed in Chinese history. I would post it to just that page, but it's a global issue on all of the Chinese History articles. I keep running into it--I'm not a Chinese History major--that's why I'm looking it up. Please, please update the articles appropriately with CE or BCE--the regular reader doesn't know and there isn't usually enough context for the average reader to know which is when, even when the dynasty is mentioned. (Most people won't know when the Han Dynasty is off the top of their heads, for example.) Other country's history articles make sure to clarify... please do the same with China. When X or who was invented shouldn't take 5 clicks and then Google and then a heap more frustration. I also have seen people try to remove my BCE and CE. Sorry, but it's not common knowledge for everyone. Please keep it clear. China has a long, rich history. 300 doesn't mean much without CE or BCE. Help the average user understand the chronology of it without having to search for other articles.--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 22:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

If an article uses just bare dates, surely that implies they are CE/AD. Kanguole 10:13, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
If the dates are only provided as reign dates (heaven knows why) I will create an inline template that can be used to mark these articles. LT910001 (talk) 03:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Edit, additionally these articles may be marked with [when?] if a date is not provided. LT910001 (talk) 03:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Clarification & assesment of Huizhou

The Tourism-section remains difficult for foreign people to understand, as there are no coordinates, images, articles or clear data of where the listed locations are.

The article is also not a stub any longer, and could be reassessed. ~ Nelg (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not a travel guide (see WP:NOTGUIDE). The Wikipedia article is supposed to describe tourism in Huizhou not provide exact locations for the places mentioned. If you want a travel guide you should look at Wikipedia's sister project Wikivoyage article on Huizhou. Though I must say that guide needs allot of work too as there currently isn't any things to do or see in Huizhou listed there. Anyway, if you have such detailed information on tourist attractions, the Wikivoyage site is where to put it rather than here. Rincewind42 (talk) 15:10, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Merge WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment into WikiProject China

Hello, WikiProject China. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment#Merge inactive WPP Chinese-language entertainment into WPP China.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I suggest that the inactive WP:WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment be merged as a taskforce into WP:WikiProject China. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment § Merge inactive WPP Chinese-language entertainment into WPP China

John K. Fairbank Prize: Invite / Request Help

As per the discussion above, I have created a list article, John K. Fairbank Prize, which I have marked "Under Construction." I invite "constructive" (pun intended!) input, especially on formatting, and invite you all to create article for the books listed. Some of them already have articles, but I have not had time to check. ch (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Historical Chinese Urbanization Data By Province(s)

Does anyone here know where one can find historical urbanization data for China by province for free? I have tried searching for it in order to add this data to this article -- Urbanization in China, but unfortunately, I myself was largely unsuccessful at doing this. Thank you very much. (And for the record, No, I don't speak, read, and/or write Chinese.) Futurist110 (talk) 07:59, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

full CHINA 2000 CENSUS material by nationalities

You can download full CHINA 2000 CENSUS material by nationalities (Chinese and English): http://files.mail.ru/D194FFE00957430B91D70A32EADB0DED (choose - Обычное скачивание)--Kaiyr (talk) 07:57, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

List of people with surname Li

List of people with surname Li (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) currently ostensibly only covers 李, and not any of the other forms listed at Li (surname).

  • should the list be expanded to explicitly cover the other surnames

OR

-- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 15:59, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

All China Women's Federation Edit

I am currently planning on revising the article on the All China Women's Federation. The existing article is currently rated as a mid-importance article, but is only a stub class article, which means there are several aspects that can be improved.The article does not fully address the history of the federation, discuss the complex relationship between the federation and the Chinese government, examine the ideology and structure of the group, or address the complex challenges facing the federation currently, such as its NGO status. These changes will address the content issues within the article, and I also plan on tackling some of the editorial issues within the article. The article suffers from a lack of academic sources. More sources would address the content issues, and relying on academic sources will make sure the changes are accurate. Some journals I plan on consulting include the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Communist and Post Communist Studies, and World Development. I plan on expanding the introduction, adding sections covering the aspects of the federation I discussed above, and increasing the number of relevant links in the See Also section. This contribution is part of a class for Rice University, so please feel free to give advice or suggestions concerning this article. Shelby McPherson (talk) 03:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like a fascinating subject. The change in women's status China has achieved in the last hundred years is quite remarkable, and I'd like to learn more about this myself. My Chinese is decent, so please let me know if you would like any linguistic assistance. I will also see if I can contribute to the content as well. TI. Gracchus (talk) 08:56, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

TAFI needs global view

Today's article for improvement is Reconnaissance satellite, which is currently tagged with {{globalize}}. According to {{Rest of the World Reconnaissance Satellites}}, China has 8 recon satellites, but as yet the page has no material regarding China's program. Perhaps the editors on this page would be interested in adding some material related to the Chinese perspective on the subject? 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 14:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

User Requests list not updating?

I made a page for the Dai River and looked into the page for Xu Shiying, and left comments on both of the requests. However, the link to the Dai River page remains red, and my comments aren't showing up. When I click "edit" on the requests, you can see the comments, but not until then. Did I comment incorrectly? Is this just my computer? If someone could shed some light on this I'd really appreciate it! TI. Gracchus (talk) 22:23, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Seems to have fixed itself, never mind this. TI. Gracchus (talk) 02:16, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Plan to revise "Marriage in modern China"

I am planning on revising the article on Marriage in modern China to be more inclusive of different aspects of marriage, as it currently describes only a few types of contemporary weddings or marriages. I'll be adding sections to include the legal aspects of marriage, historical context, and changing traditions. This contribution is a part of a class assignment for a History of Chinese Women Through Time course at Rice University, so I would greatly appreciate any advice, constructive criticism, and tips as I work on this article!

Jrios20 (talk) 17:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Goodness, all these Rice students. Glad your professor is having you do this - I think it's really going to boost the quality of a lot of important China pages. In any event, welcome to WIkipedia and to Wikiproject China.
I'd recommend you work with Santatijay (talk), since your topics have an overlap. Currently, Chinese divorce law firmly favors men in property rights disputes, which is something both of you might have an interest in. TI. Gracchus (talk) 22:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 04:59, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Plan to revise "Migration in China"

I plan to revise the entry migration in China as part of my class assignment in Rice University. I plan to add more information on history and origin so as to provide more detailed information on the hukou system, which is closely associated with many social issues regarding internal migration. Moreover, I plan to add information on migrant children's education, left-behind children and labor standard violation, which are the central government's three main concerns at the moment in terms of migration. It's easy to find references analyzing these social issues by using google scholar and jstor. But it's difficult to find scholar/reliable references on a possible hukou reform and updated policies on these three significant issues (I can only find some news reports and oral talks from some officials in terms of new policies). If anyone can recommend some references regarding related policies, it would be nice for you to leave a message here. Any suggestion is also welcome. Feihuamengxue (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The Chinese central government is notoriously opaque. Trying to get an idea of how major policies may change is often extremely difficult. If you succeed you will be able to add some extremely valuable information to that article. However, it may be difficult to avoid running afoul of Wikipedia's policies on original research, which can be found here: WP:NOR. I look forward to seeing what you and your fellow Rice students are able to do, and will help as I can. TI. Gracchus (talk) 03:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your remind, which is also my main concern. I don't include revision of policies in my proposal because I found it difficult to find enough information. But I will try. I will also be careful with a neutral tone and NOR policies. Feihuamengxue (talk) 00:33, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Property section in "Women in China"

I'm a student at Rice University, and as part of a class I would like to add a section to the article Women in China on women's property rights. I'll be describing the change in women's property rights since reforms at the beginning of 1900s through now. If anyone has any input or sources could use, please let me know! Santatijay (talk) 00:41, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Nice to see another Rice student here! Property rights for women in China, both in rural and urban settings seems to be a very productive line of inquiry; a quick general Google search pulled up a number of potential sources. Of course, property rights have changed a lot over the years, too - depending on the depth you want to go to, it may be possible to give a high-level overview in the Women in China page and provide a link to a primary article devoted entirely to the idea. TI. Gracchus (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, Santatijay! For women's property rights in the Republican period (1911-1949), you should probably start with Kathryn Bernhardt's Women and Property in China, 960-1949 (1999). It's not the newest book, but nothing has really replaced it, and it will give you a nice long-term perspective on your topic. For more recent times, there are interesting bits in Women, Gender and Rural Development in China (2011), a collection of articles. There are long excerpts available on Google Books here. You can conveniently look up "property rights" or anything you want in the search box on the left-hand side. All right, this should get you started! Madalibi (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Looking up RS info on Mainland Chinese companies

What are the best sources for reliable sources about Mainland Chinese companies?

  • One I want to research is the Dongguan White Swan Paper Products Co., Ltd. (S: 东莞市白天鹅纸业有限公司, P: Dōng​guǎn​shì Bái Tiān​'é Zhǐyè Yǒu​xiàn​gōng​sī) or "White Swan Paper Products" in short, which makes the toilet paper brand "Babroy" (S: 贝柔, T: 貝柔, P: Bèiróu). (I think they also have "Babroy" brand diapers). The English website is here.

This seems to be a Chinese government website talking about "Beirou" http://www.crmcn.cn/en/beirou.php

I think articles on Mainland Chinese brands would be very useful, just as we have articles on American brands. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Plan to Revise "Income inequality in China"

I plan to edit the article entitled Income inequality in China as part of a course assignment in Education Program:Rice University/Human Development in Global and Local Communities, Section 2 (Spring 2014). Income inequality in China is a pressing issue which currently directly affects a massive proportion of China’s population and economy, yet which receives relatively little coverage on Wikipedia. The article in its current state is not well-cited or formatted, and it does not address many of the important aspects of the issue.

I've just discovered the article on Rural urban income inequality in China which is in a similar state to this one. I'm considering combining the articles in order to consolidate the information into one more easily accessible and comprehensive article. Do any wikipedians have an opinion on this change? I hope to provide an overview, go over the history and origins, cover major factors, and discuss the different impacts of income inequality in China, including rural-urban income inequality. If you have any comments, suggestions, or revisions, please let me know!

Here is an outline of my proposed revisions:

1. History

a. Great Leap Forward
b. Cultural Revolution
c. Opening

2. Current State

a. Factors

3. Impact

a. Migration
b. Gender
c. Class

4. Policy Recommendations

Here are some of the sources I plan on using:

Benjamin, Dwayne, Loren Brandt, and John Giles. “The Evolution of Income Inequality in Rural China.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 53, no. 4 (July 2005): 769–824. doi:10.1086/428713.

Chen, Jian, and Belton M. Fleisher. “Regional Income Inequality and Economic Growth in China.” Journal of Comparative Economics 22, no. 2 (April 1996): 141–164. doi:10.1006/jcec.1996.0015.
Fan, C. Cindy. “Rural-Urban Migration and Gender Division of Labor in Transitional China.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27, no. 1 (2003): 24–47. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.00429.
Hertel, Thomas, and Fan Zhai. “Labor Market Distortions, Rural–urban Inequality and the Opening of China’s Economy.” Economic Modelling 23, no. 1 (January 2006): 76–109. doi:10.1016/j.econmod.2005.08.004.
Huang, Youqin. “Gender, Hukou, and the Occupational Attainment of Female Migrants in China (1985 - 1990).” Environment and Planning A 33, no. 2 (2001): 257 – 279. doi:10.1068/a33194.
Kuijs, Louis, and Tao Wang. China’s Pattern of Growth: Moving to Sustainability and Reducing Inequality. SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, November 1, 2005. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=849385.
Riskin, Carl, Renwei Zhao, and Shi Li. China’s Retreat from Equality: Income Distribution and Economic Transition. M.E. Sharpe, 2001.
Walder, Andrew G. “Markets and Income Inequality in Rural China: Political Advantage in an Expanding Economy.” American Sociological Review 67, no. 2 (April 2002): 231. doi:10.2307/3088894.
Wong, Edward. “Survey in China Shows a Wide Gap in Income.” The New York Times, July 19, 2013, sec. World / Asia Pacific. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/world/asia/survey-in-china-shows-wide-income-gap.html.
Yao, Shujie. “Economic Growth, Income Inequality and Poverty in China under Economic Reforms.” Journal of Development Studies 35, no. 6 (1999): 104–130. doi:10.1080/00220389908422604.
Zhong, Hai. “The Impact of Population Aging on Income Inequality in Developing Countries: Evidence from Rural China.” China Economic Review 22, no. 1 (March 2011): 98–107. doi:10.1016/j.chieco.2010.09.003.
GavinCross (talk) 00:18, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi there, sounds like a worthwhile project. If you want to marge the two pages I suggest that you place the code {{Merge from |OtherPage |discuss=Talk:OtherPage#Merge discussion |date=March 2014}} on the page that will remain after the merger (which I assume will be Income inequality in China). I would then copy the text above to the new talk page section. This will allow interested parties to support, oppose or modify your proposal. Once you have concensus, you can go ahead with the merge. If no one comments after a month, be bold and go ahead with the merge anyway. Please read this for more info if you haven't done so already. If you need any further help please feel free to leave a message at my talk page. Good luck ► Philg88 ◄ talk 04:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Interwiki problem for Taiwanese Mandarin

Currently on Wikidata, the English Wikipedia article Taiwanese Mandarin links to zh:中華民國國語 on the Chinese Wikipedia. However, on the Chinese Wikipedia there are multiple articles spread around various similar but distinct topics, namely zh:臺灣國語 (lit. "Taiwan national language") and zh:台灣華語 (lit. "Taiwan Mandarin"). Is the current interwiki link to zh:中華民國國語 (lit. "Republic of China national language") desirable, or should it be changed? --benlisquareT•C•E 04:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I really think it should be changed to zh:臺灣國語. (1) zh:中華民國國語 is explicitly about "Mandarin" in the Republic of China from 1912 onward, so it obviously has a larger scope than Taiwanese Mandarin. (2) Guoyu 國語 is the most commonly recognized name for Mandarin in Taiwan, so, simply by virtue of its name, zh:臺灣國語 would seem like the best candidate. (3) There seems to be a content fork between zh:台灣華語 and zh:臺灣國語. All zh:台灣華語 does is present distinctions proposed by a Taiwanese linguist without going into details about the characteristics of "台灣華語". These definitions are interesting, but they could easily be integrated into the more fleshed out zh:臺灣國語, which would then become the only candidate for an interwiki link to Taiwanese Mandarin. Madalibi (talk) 04:31, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Another argument in support of zh:臺灣國語 is that Taiwanese Mandarin is already linked to zh-yue:臺灣國語 on Cantonese Wikipedia. Note that zh:臺灣國語 is wrongly linked to pt:dialeto min-nan (should be Minnan dialect or Min Nan) on Portuguese Wikipedia. Madalibi (talk) 04:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
On closer reading, to me it seems that 中華民國國語 covers a whole load of historical details and information, whilst 臺灣國語 is more focused on linguistics, such as vocabulary and phonetics. In fact, the 中華民國國語 article seems much broader than Mandarin used in Taiwan, and talks about historical Mandarin usage during the ROC era in general. I too think that 臺灣國語 is a better fit. --benlisquareT•C•E 05:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

New template to make inputting pinyin that much easier

I made a new template {{pinyin}} that takes inputs like Chao2zhou1 Nu4 Han4 and converts them to properly toned pinyin like Cháozhōu Nù Hàn. This makes inputting pinyin much easier, no more looking for special characters! You can use it like {{pinyin|input}}, or you can even use it with {{subst:pinyin}} so that you don't look lazy in diffs and wikitext! (jk) The template also takes care of "v"s and turns them into ü (u with umlauts) like most pinyin IMEs, and the common lue/nue mistake (they should have umlauts). Please try it out and give some feedback, as there might be things that I've missed. _dk (talk) 03:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Looks useful, but perhaps you should recommend that it always be substituted. Kanguole 10:00, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
That's a good point! I'll update the documentation. _dk (talk) 16:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move of Kaohsiung

This move request of a major metropolis needs more attention. "My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome!" 16:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

This move request has been closed as "Oppose". Madalibi (talk) 00:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 06/03

User:Tangshiq/sandbox/. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi FoCuSandLeArN. Maybe I'm missing something, but the content of this page looks a lot like the identically titled Sanlitun, which was created in 2004! The latest edit on that page is by the AfC nominator, so he or she knows about that page. Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 00:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Oh, thanks for the heads-up! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 10:52, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
You're welcome! Come again if you need any help! Madalibi (talk) 13:48, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

To WPChina editors, please help with any Chinese sources for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is missing and has likely crashed. Most of the passengers were Chinese and the flight was bound for Beijing. If anyone wishes, help with Chinese sources in the future will be appreciated. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:01, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Latest Xinhua News Agency report @ 12:09 08/03/14 China time here► Philg88 ◄ talk 08:47, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I would like some help with this question: What is China Southern Airlines doing in response to the crash? (China Southern codeshared on MH370) Are they sending employees/crews to deal with grieving loved ones? Do they have separate response hotlines? (I know some passengers booked tickets via CZ, but I want to know more about what the airline is doing). I tried searching "MH370 中国南方航空" and there seem to be Chinese articles mentioning "南航" in relation to MH370

Also I would like to know if there is any special information on the role of the Crowne Plaza Beijing Lido hotel (北京丽都皇冠假日酒店), the hotel used to house families of crash victims, and one where MAS officials held press conferences. Why was it chosen? (a BBC reporter stated it is close to Capital Airport Terminal 3, but did any airport officials say it was chosen for that reason?) - Was the hotel known for being something else before the crash? Is it designated as a place to hold families of air accident victims? WhisperToMe (talk) 18:28, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Is anyone able to check if any of these three Chinese artists on MH370 can get articles?

English articles:
Chinese article: "馬航失聯客機MH370有24名中國畫家." Epoch Times. March 8, 2013.
Artists identified by The Star as being notable:
  • Meng Gaosheng (蒙高生), vice president of the China Calligrapher Association, calligrapher
  • Liu Rusheng (劉如生)
  • Wang Linshi (王林诗/王林詩) - mistakenly written as "Wang Linsi"?

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is a recent Sina article on Meng Gaosheng. Are there are any articles about him before the flight disappearance? He could easily be Wikipedia notable if we find an article on him.

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Also:

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Note:

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:47, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

  • There are plenty of other possible Chinese sources to use, we should try avoiding citing the Epoch Times. It's not considered a reliable for many topics/subjects, although this isn't necessarily one of them. -- Ohc ¡digame! 03:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

This Xinhua source says: "Meng Gaosheng, a member of the Chinese calligraphy artist association, led a 24-member delegation for an art exchange scheduled on March 5 in Malaysia. His calligraphy work were highly sought after by connoisseurs at domestic auctions in October, according to media reports."

WhisperToMe (talk) 04:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission 12/03

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Liu Yiming. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:27, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

The article Liu Yiming has already been created by User:Xuanying, the author of the AfC submission. -Zanhe (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi FoCuSandLeArN. Yes, it seems the user couldn't wait. The date of creation is 23:50, 11 March 2014, which, oddly enough, was before the AfC submission. In all fairness, the article is quite fleshed out and deserves to be in main space! Madalibi (talk) 00:19, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for that! It does seem like a good enough article. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

What is the headquarters of the fast food chain Dicos and what is the full corporate name

Regarding the Chinese fast food chain Dicos (Dekeshi) the "Contact Us" on the website pointed to a building in Chengdu.

However when I checked the internet domain registration, I saw: http://whois.domaintools.com/dicos.com.cn - http://www.webcitation.org/6O5Sjg1SN - 天津顶巧餐饮服务咨询有限公司 and I also found: 天津德克士食品开发有限公司 (Tianjin Dicos Foods Co., Ltd.) which is based in 天津经济技术开发区第三大街11号 300457 No.11.3rd Avenue.T.E.D.A.Tianjin http://www.b2b98.com/qiye/shengshi/tianjin/8964.htm - I have also seen the translated name Tianjin Dicos Food Development Co.,Ltd.

So what is the actual corporate name for Dicos? What is the headquarters of the entity? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:49, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear WikiProject China users,

I am adding as much Mandarin as I can to the Commons gallery Commons:Search vehicles of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 but please add more and/or revise the translations if you think they need to be improved.

Since the majority of the passengers come from Mainland China, it is very important that we include Mandarin to support Chinese users.

Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 08:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Move request to decapitalize all Chinese dynasty articles

There's a move request to decapitalize "dynasty" in the Chinese dynasty articles, as in Han Dynasty → Han dynasty. For more information and to give your input, see [2]. --Cold Season (talk) 17:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Introduction to Professor Dong Guanzhi

Dear China experts: This old abandoned Afc submission appears to be about a notable professor, but it has no references. These would likely not be in English. I am willing to edit the tone of the article, but I can't look for references myself. Should this article be kept an improved, or should it be deleted as an unsourced stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 12:52, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne Delong, and thank you for thinking of us! Dong Guanzhi's page at the "Shenzhen Tourism College of Jinan University" (here) contains a lot of the information I read in the draft. Dong also seems to be an active blogger. He has a lot of books and articles under his name, but at first sight (10 minutes searching Google and Google Books as a fluent reader of Chinese), they don't seem to be particularly influential in any field, as WP:ACADEMICS requires. Google Books, for example, shows that his work is cited in other publications, but not very often, and usually in footnotes rather than as central to a discussion.[3]. Dong is very active as a consultant, and many websites where his columns or articles get published call him "a famous scholar on tourism", but this in and of itself does not constitute notability. Someone may be able to establish notability with other sources, but this would probably demand a large amount of time and effort, or good knowledge of Dong's field, which is something I unfortunately don't have. I hope these comments can help you decide what to do with the draft. Cheers! Madalibi (talk) 14:34, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks like an identical article was created the same day ours was at Baidu[4] perhaps by the same editor. Dougweller (talk) 17:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you both for taking time to check this out. Since Madalibi didn't find extensive sources, it's not likely worthwhile to totally rewrite this to avoid copyright problems, so I have nominated it for deletion. If he's notable, perhaps someone will make an article about him in the future that is written specially for Wikipedia. —Anne Delong (talk) 20:59, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this sounds reasonable! Madalibi (talk) 02:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Ancient Chinese states renames

See Talk:Chen (state) where many ancient Chinese states are up for renaming -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jiang Dingzhi and Jiang Dingzhi

Dear China experts: This old Afc submission is shortly to be deleted as a stale draft. It has quite a bit more information than the mainspace article. Should anything be transferred from the draft before it disappears? If so, we can keep the attribution by changing the draft into a reirect (perhaps Jiang Dingzhi (politician)) —Anne Delong (talk) 17:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi again, Anne! I just added some basic info to Jiang Dingzhi, and turned the impossibly long paragraph of the Afc into a list. I also trimmed all the redundant "Jiangsu province, PRC" info, worked on capitalization, and added links to most place names. Finally, I've transferred the four "other sources" to the main article where everybody can see them. But the draft still contains more detailed info than the main article, so it would be too bad to lose it. I'm a bit short on time, though. One way of keeping the information without doing too much grunt work would be to transfer the entire list to Talk:Jiang Dingzhi and let interested editors integrate the relevant info as they see fit. Another way would be to move the list directly into the "Career" section of the article. Do let us know what you think is best! Cheers! Madalibi (talk) 00:40, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Madalibi. I have made the old draft in to a redirect, Jiang Dingzhi (Communist Party). The text is in its history, and I added a note about how to find it on the talk page of Jiang Dingzhi. Interested editors can move any text they feel is of benefit to the article. I haven't moved the list because I don't know anything about China or about what's appropriate in political articles. I'll leave that to someone more familiar with the topic. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Lan Yu

Dear China experts: Here's another old Afc submission that will soon be gone. It will need someone who can read the references to tell whether this is a notable topic. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

About half of the reference links still work and appear to be acceptable secondary sources. It seems that most of the content of the article is well-supported. Lan Yu appears to me to be at least as notable as the other fashion designers in the China category of this list whose entries haven't been challenged for notability. That said, I'm still a relatively unexperienced, and the criteria for notability are both subjective and debatable by reasonable people.
If anyone is more familiar with fashion or biography notability guidelines, I'd value a second opinion, but to me it seems like this article just needs in-line citations and maybe an extra source or two to get it up to snuff. TI. Gracchus (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Also, a quick google search reveals many English-language sources, including one that places Lan Yu on Forbes' China "Top 30 Under 30" list. TI. Gracchus (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, it seems that this could be a viable article, so I've postponed its deletion for six months in case someone wants to work on it. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
How about moving it into DRAFT space? Draft:Lan Yu -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:35, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I've translated the titles of the working references into English - one was a deadlink and I have removed the Baidu reference per WP:RS. As it stands, if the article moves to the main space it will require an {{inline}} template. ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 07:43, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you; I was able to place some citations just from the titles you provided. I also removed some promotional adjectives. Moving to draft won't make a lot of difference that I can see, but neither will it cause any problems if anyone wants to do that. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:21, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
It seems that recently she has become known outside China and I was able to find some English sources to add. I have moved the draft to mainspace now. I would appreciate it if someone could check it over for errors and to see if I have removed enough promotional language. Thanks again for taking and interest in this. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it looks OK now but it really should have an {{orphan}} tag as the disambiguation link does not count. I cannot think of anything that might link to it - if we knew exactly where she came from we could add her as a notable individual there but I've had no luck finding a reliable (Chinese) source with that info. ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 13:54, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I gave the page a quick copy edit. I also managed to find two articles to link to it from so it's not an orphan any more. Rincewind42 (talk) 05:49, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, thanks everyone; a fine example of collaboration! —Anne Delong (talk) 13:01, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move for Ming Dynasty Tombs

There is a move request at Ming Dynasty Tombs#Requested move. Ming Dynasty Tombs → Ming Tombs or Ming tombs. Rincewind42 (talk) 12:26, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Chukong Technologies - notable?

Is Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Chukong Technologies about a notable company? I can see some "notability" with respect to its involvement with Cocos2d but if that's all there is, I'm not sure a stand-alone article is warranted. Please feel free to add {{afc comment}} templates to this page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

@Davidwr I've added the company's Chinese name and posted a review comment. Cheers, ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 11:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Accepted and tagged for refimprove. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Missing women in China

Dear China experts: Here's a new Afc submission that may be of interest to this project. It seems likely that this topic is already covered somewhere. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong Hi Anne, I've made a comment at the submission and you are correct about topic coverage - there is definitely some worthwhile content in there but it will need significant editing to knock it into shape, wherever it ends up. Cheers, ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 16:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Chaojing

Dear China experts: This article about a Chinese village will be coming up for review shortly at Afc, but it is bound to be declined unless someone improves it, since it has no reliable sources. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:39, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I've fixed it up and added a new reference. It's good to go to main space now as a stub. ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 16:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Done. and thanks. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:14, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 01/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Deng Zhongxia. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

It's a decent article. I've replaced the unreliable source and moved it to article space. -02:33, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 02/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation. Thanks for the help! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 00:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

Old PD-CHINA images deleted from Commons to be restored

This might be difficult since many of these would have been deleted a long time ago, but does anyone here remember any images that were {{PD-China}} however were deleted from Commons because of commons:Commons:URAA?

Following discussion amongst the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the Foundation has changed its position and is now allowing images which do not meet URAA on Commons (refer to commons:Commons:Massive restoration of deleted images by the URAA), meaning that COM:URAA can no longer be used as the sole reason for file deletion. URAA-affected files are being restored, but only upon individual discussions at commons:COM:UDR, and there is no intention to mass undelete images via automated processes due to legal complexities.

Many old photographic images published more than 50 years ago are in the public domain within China and Taiwan per {{PD-China}}, and many of these images were deleted. These images include World War II/Second Sino-Japanese War, Korean War, Chinese Civil War, and Cultural Revolution photographs which were created and published within China. Now that these images can be restored, we should begin the process of recovering these files; the main problem is, even I can't remember the names of files I've uploaded back in 2009/2010/2011. That said, if any of you do remember such images previously existing on Commons, they should be undeleted. --benlisquareT•C•E 11:02, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

See also meta:Legal and Community Advocacy/Wikimedia Server Location and Free Knowledge. --benlisquareT•C•E 11:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Tally of deleted URAA images

Taku

The usage of Taku (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see talk: Taku people -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 09:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Source verification needed in Yelü Chucai

In this edit, the biographical data were changed to suspiciously precise (for a medieval person) dates, giving a Chinese-language offline citation. Can somebody have a look at this one? Does the source appear scholarly and reliable, or might it be a popular or even suspect source? (I'm frankly generally a bit wary of Chinese sources considering how in China, mythical emperors are still presented as historical personalities in schoolbooks and other mainstream sources as part of Sinocentric propaganda, etc.) So I'm bothered by having a citation whose reliability and content is impossible to verify even for an advanced editor. (Which is why a thoughtful editor should ideally provide both a translation of the title and a quotation from the source, including a translation, especially for a language few readers can be expected to be familiar with.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: This is a reference to a book called "中书令耶律公神道碑". It's really hard to translate the title because the meanings of the Chinese characters have changed over the last 900 odd years, but a close approximation would be "Imperial Library Honourable Memorials".
This was written by someone called Song Zizhen (宋子貞), who has no Chinese Wikipedia entry but has an article at Baidu. He also appears in the list of Yuan Dynasty Historical figures in Chinese Wikipedia (zh:元史人物列表). So we can conclude he was a real person.
In turn, this is an extract from Scroll 57 of the "Yuan Dynasty Cultural Reference" (元文类), a compilation penned by Su Tianjue (zh:苏天爵), who was a Yuan Dynasty government minister. Again, he is a figure of historical record.
Is it possible that the date could be that accurate? Yes, the Chinese have always been big on recording dates and they had a very precise calendar while people in the West still ran around wearing fur in its natural state.
Hope this helps, ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 08:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it helps very much! Thanks a lot! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

International Material Gifts From Outside Mainland China During the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests

Input from Wikiproject members at International Material Gifts From Outside Mainland China During the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests would be appreciated;, see topic "Better article name needed". TJRC (talk) 18:29, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

New Template

For anyone who might find it useful, I've created a new template called {{Chinese script needed-inline}}, which is the inline version of {{Needhanzi}} and does this[Chinese script needed] with a link to the Chinese style guide It's more precise and will let editors know exactly where the Hanzi are needed rather than giving a vague indication at the top of an article. Primarily the template is designed for use with names, and phrases that cannot be disambiguated by their pinyin alone and should help in creating currently redlinked potential articles. There is also a shortcut version called {{csn-inline}}. The new templates populate Category:Articles needing Chinese script or text while the inline version creates a subcategory by month. All feedback is most welcome. ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 07:57, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

How to find news articles on these companies?

I found that these companies are major manufacturers of stationary but I'm not sure how to find news articles to prove notability:

  • Guangdong Baoke Stationery Co., Ltd. (广东宝克文具有限公司), dba Baoke (宝克): http://www.baokepen.com/en - Founded in 1997, headquartered in Shantou, Guangdong
  • M&G Chenguang Stationery co.,Ltd. (or Shanghai M&G Stationery Inc.) (上海晨光文具股份有限公司), dba M&G (晨光) or M&G Stationery Inc.: http://www.mg-pen.net/ (English), http://www.mg-pen.com/ (Chinese) - Headquartered in Fengxian District, Shanghai.

Neither company yet has an article on the Chinese Wikipedia. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:42, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: It's going to prove a bit tricky if you don't understand Chinese. A quick search for the first company on Baidu throws up quite a few hits, none of which appear to be from a reliable source. There are thousands of such companies in China and you are going to have a tough job getting any of them past the corporate notability barrier. Good luck,  Philg88 ♦talk 04:27, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you! I think as long as I get two reliable sources each I can start stubs on the English and Chinese Wikipedia. I've found articles on some Chinese companies which did not yet have articles on either EN or ZH. If you want I can list more possible companies and see what to do. Fujian Dali Group (snack company) and CNHLS/Hualaishi (fast food chain) are some examples of companies I discovered which are Wikipedia-notable but did not yet have articles in English or Chinese. Nongfu Spring and China Resources Beverage had Chinese articles but no English articles. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Started M&G Stationery and zh:晨光文具 after finding a Tencent QQ article that mentioned the company and gave significant coverage, and also after finding that M&G had a branch company in Singapore. I also have a habit of posting photo requests of the headquarters and I've collected several requests here: Commons:Commons:Picture_requests/Requests/Asia#People.27s_Republic_of_China - Does anyone know if the Chinese Wikipedia has a place for photo requests? WhisperToMe (talk) 16:24, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

On the Chinese Wikipedia User:Wing (Ting Chen) attached a notability query to zh:晨光文具 (but not the English article) so I asked him on his talk page about the matter: User_talk:Wing#Notability - Before me another user had added a citation to a news article from 163.com
WhisperToMe (talk) 17:55, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
I posted the links to 163.com articles on both the Chinese and English articles, and I suspect 163.com may hold the key to articles about Baoke and Aihua Stationery WhisperToMe (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Another user added more sources and the notability query is gone. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

There's also a company called Hangzhou Aihua Stationery Co., Ltd (杭州爱华文具有限公司). I'm suspecting it's a possible topic too but I need to find RSes for it. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: Please bear in mind that both QQ and 163.com are open to challenge as unreliable sources—any article that is based purely on coverage by them, however fulsome, is unlikely to survive a deletion review  Philg88 ♦talk 04:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I understand that if you cite a personal blog or a personal webpage hosted by QQ/163. that is one thing but the articles seem to specifically come from their news departments: For instance, the Tencent QQ article is at finance.qq.com (equivalent to Yahoo! Finance). The 163.com articles come from the money.163.com. For Mainland China topics these sites should be "reliable". It's no different from citing news portals of Yahoo! or AOL. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Chinese cartoon series "Star Fox"

I'm also interested in writing about the Chinese cartoon series "Star Fox" (星星狐) - I wonder what Chinese sources would be most likely to write about it. I've been searching Chinese news sites but I'm having trouble finding sources about it. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:00, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Found reliable sources in English! So now there's XingXing Fox. I'm going to start the Chinese stub and hope Chinese editors can take it further. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)  Done zh:星星狐 WhisperToMe (talk) 10:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
@WhisperToMe: I'm afraid you need to move it to Xingxing Fox per the rules of pinyin.  Philg88 ♦talk 10:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm aware normally it would be Xingxing (example: Beijing, Chengdu) but the question is, if the official logo uses a different style (I literally cited the image header that shows the logo), does that "override" the Pinyin rules? Both the Caroline Berg and Calvin Reid sources use "Xingxing" in accordance with the rules. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Regardless of the logo, which is a graphic device, article titles and text should follow the rules of pinyin as laid down in the Chinese naming conventions guide.  Philg88 ♦talk 13:01, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
As an addendum: the relevant policy that says proper capitalization rules override logos and trademarks is at WP:TITLETM (excepting cases like iPad and eBay). _dk (talk) 16:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I see. The page states "unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark" - So the time it overrides the Chinese naming conventions guide would be if you see the altered spelling in sources independent of the owner of the trademark. In the case of Xingxing Fox all of the independent English sources use "Xingxing". WhisperToMe (talk) 04:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Addition of parameter to the zh template

I have made a proposal here regarding the addition of a lead = yes parameter to the {{zh}} template. Please comment if you are familiar with use of the template. Many thanks.  Philg88 ♦talk 13:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Move proposal for Provincial governor of the Ming and Qing dynasties

There is a move proposal at Talk:Provincial governor of the Ming and Qing dynasties to move it to the Chinese title Xunfu since the common translation for xunfu is different for the Ming and Qing. The results for this proposal may have implications on how we deal with Imperial Chinese government rank names in the future. _dk (talk) 03:53, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 30/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Tang Performance Arts in Dunhuang. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:58, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mo Furu

It has come to my attention that when nominating a article for deletion, Someone told me to come here to talk with you. What is your take? Happy Attack Dog (Bark! Bark!) 17:04, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm afraid you have the wrong project. As per the AfD discussion, the request came from the Chinese military history team at WikiProject Military history.  Philg88 ♦talk 17:48, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Pu Zhiqiang nominated for "In The News"

Project members might be interested to know that the article Pu Zhiqiang is nominated for "In the News" (on the Main Page).

Any assistance in improving the article would be much appreciated - the Chinese-language version has a lot more detail.

The "In the News" nomination discussion is here: Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Pu_Zhiqiang

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 17:31, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

File:Greatwall 1933 china.jpg nominated for deletion on Commons

File:Greatwall 1933 china.jpg, an image showing the 1933 Defense of the Great Wall, was nominated for deletion on Commons on the grounds that its publish date was unclear and hence the image could still be copyrighted. However, I have reason to believe that this image had been published before, judging by the image's ubiquitousness on the internet, and the fact that it appears to be cropped from this image (The same image on this blog even has a peforation line in the middle of it!). This is where the trail ends for me, unfortunately, as I am unable to find where the image comes from originally. So far I have gathered that it was taken by a possibly American "war correspondent" (战地记者) in 1933, in the Luowenyu (罗文峪) pass of the Great Wall. Can anyone help me with this? _dk (talk) 17:28, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

NB: DK, under US law it's not just that copies of it have been circulated, but that it must have been originally published with the photographer's permission (or their news agency, if they commissioned the work). Like you, I drew a blank on finding evidence of initial publication or the author. Hchc2009 (talk) 09:22, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Which transcription system?

I am a Scandinavian with a long-time interest in China but with only a beginner's knowledge of the Chinese language. Almost all that I have read uses the Hanyu Pinyin transcription of Chinese to Westerns script, the exceptions being Wade-Giles used in older literature. In both cases it is Mandarin Chinese that is transcribed.

The Wikipedia article Chinese name, however, uses a transcription from Cantonese as well as traditional instead of simplified characters. These conventions were introduced into the article by User:Abc.brown on March 16, 2014. I doubt that they are in accordance with Wikipedia policies for writing Chinese words and characters in English text. For instance, the related article List of common Chinese surnames uses Pinyin as well as simplified characters. I don't have the tools and the knowledge to undo the changes introduced by User:Abc.brown. Hopefully, a knowledgable member of this project can do that work instead. Roufu (talk) 13:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the edits of Abc.brown appeared to be vandalism. I've restored the article prior to his edits, thanks for the notice. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

East Turkestan flags on Türkvizyon Song Contest, and WP:NPOV

The article Türkvizyon Song Contest uses the flags for the East Turkestan Independence Movement and South Mongolia Independence Party to represent Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. Whilst I originally argued that such usage is original research since PRC law forbids the use of subnational division flags, a talkpage comment stated that the official Türkvizyon website uses these flags. In this case, would it be arguable that it then becomes a WP:NPOV issue involving a partisan POV source? This page cannot exist as a WP:POVFORK that differs from standard conventions elsewhere on Wikipedia. --benlisquareT•C•E 04:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Template:Zh language tags

I'm looking at adding language tags to template:Zh, so not just Chinese characters but also Romanisations like pinyin are properly tagged, and am looking for some feedback on some of the changes. The thread starts here: Module talk:Zh#Language tagging for pinyin again, the summary and details here: Module talk:Zh#Languages.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 16:39, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Tang Tuyet Minh

Can someone add the Chinese infobox for this Cantonese person to show the varieties of spelling her name? As she lived in the 1920s, I would assume she would have usually been romanized with Wade-Giles, and being Cantonese, we should have Jyutping to indicate pronounciation. And that modern sources may use simplified instead of traditional. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I added a redirect from Tseng Hsüeh-ming, in case anybody miraculously comes across the name spelled that way in an old source, but because of the circumstances of her life and how her existence was supposed to be hushed up (and has only been unearthed recently), I don't think it's useful to have it in the article.
Jyutping (which was invented in 1993 btw) is already in too many unnecessary articles. Serious scholars will always write about Chinese topics in pinyin, and Cantonese is never romanized systematically, except in education as a pronunciation guide. Wikipedia is WP:NOTGUIDE to touring Hong Kong (note the primitive ad-hoc spelling: not Hoenggong).
P.S.: Why is the name of that article not "Zeng Xueming"? She and Hu Zhiming met and married in China, where she spent her whole life, and they spoke Chinese to each other in their brief relationship... Shrigley (talk) 17:16, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
There is currently a move request to rename the page to Zeng Xueming. See Talk:Tang Tuyet Minh. -Zanhe (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Naming: Gaozong of Song

All the other articles on emperors in Category:Southern Song Dynasty emperors are titled "Emperor xxx of Song" - Is there any special reason this one doesn't follow that pattern? Colonies Chris (talk) 11:47, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Not that I know of. Be bold and go ahead and move it.  Philg88 ♦talk 15:25, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
I moved the article. It was moved to Gaozong of Song in November by a user who renamed dozens of articles about Chinese emperors and kings without discussion. Most of the moves were reverted immediately, but this one was apparently missed. -Zanhe (talk) 20:38, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
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