User talk:LordAmeth/Archive3

This is an archive of my talk page for all discussions in 2007. Please do not edit or add to any of these discussions here; please add any new material to my main talk page. Thank you. LordAmeth 11:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Japan poll

Will you respect the outcome of the poll, even if you disagree with it? I would accept it if Option 1 gets more support. However it would help if you could actually say that on the poll page. If you don't then I can't see an end to the edit war. John Smith's 23:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I would absolutely respect either result. I really want to see this article become stable enough that it can pass GA or FA status.... I apologize if I instigated the creation of a new discussion and such; that was not my goal. LordAmeth 23:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

No, Hong did that. I would really welcome it if you could add your support for sticking by the result on the talk page, to put pressure on Hong and anyone else who feels tempted to push their own view regardless. Thanks, John Smith's 23:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

LordAmeth, I believe HongQiGong, Jefu, and myself agree on the following wording....

• The Yayoi period, starting around the 3rd century BC, marked the influx of new practices such as wet-rice farming, iron and bronze-making, and a new style of pottery, brought by migrants from the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula. With the development of Yayoi culture, a predominantly agricultural society emerged on the Japanese archipelago.

Will you be willing to support it also? Please see Talk:Japan#Discuss for the relevant discussion. I'm also asking John Smith's what to do next.--Endroit 09:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Sounds find to me. I'm just tired of arguing over such semantics deals... when I go and write my own "History of Japan", I'll phrase it how I want to. In the meantime, this is good enough. Thank you for keeping me abreast of things; I was basically sitting out on the discussion, waiting for it to settle down. LordAmeth 10:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

MFA Nagoya

I'm glad someone else is interested in this place. Anyway, the source for the conflict you're looking for is here: [1]

I'm also planning to make some major additions to the MFA main article, mostly by translating portions of the oddly much more detailed German version.

Hope you make it to Japan, Cjs2111 22:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I am hoping at some point to expand on the history of the MFA's Asian section, as it involves a number of very interesting characters, and ties in to the culture of Westerners in Japan in the late 19th century, which is a rather interesting period. Unfortunately, many of these "characters" were not curators per se, and thus do not really fit anywhere in the article as it stands right now - plus, I wouldn't want to unbalance the article by writing more about the origins of the Asian section than there is about the rest of the museum. Anyway, good luck with what I presume is your last term at Columbia. LordAmeth 23:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

An article which you started, or significantly expanded, Ichikawa Danjūrō I, was selected for DYK!

On January 4, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ichikawa Danjūrō I, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! This shouldn't have gone up on the Main Page this soon, but I guess the people who added it to Next Update didn't know about our general policy with DYK. Nishkid64 23:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yah, I was a bit confused by the new system as well, which is why I haven't been helping out with the updating. Thanks much though for placing Danjuro on the Main Page! I hope people find it interesting. LordAmeth 00:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Heavy cavalry

Hi, I just stuck a globalize tag on this overview article, which was all classical, Byzantine & knights. I've started some other bits, but know nothing about East Asian heavies. Could you stick a bit in, and/or pass to someone who could. Thanks & happy new year —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnbod (talk • contribs) 14:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll make a note in the various task forces at WPMILHIST if you havent done so already. I'm afraid my own knowledge sadly does not extend beyond Japan where I think any cavalry would have to be defined as light or medium as a result of the lack of metal armor, and the relatively small size of the horses compared to mainland horses. Depends on one's definition of light/medium/heavy I suppose. Thanks for pointing this out and for getting the ball rolling on a more global view of the thing, though I doubt that many (if any) cultures outside Eurasia would have had heavy cavalry like that of the European knight. LordAmeth 14:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks - I left a note on the Chinese MH talk page only Johnbod 15:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The Japanese Justice System and its 99.97% Conviction rate

re your message: The content in The Japanese Justice System and its 99.97% Conviction rate was from Nick Baker (Chef). I didn't think the essay belonged in the Nick Baker article and I agree it should be merged to an appropriate article, as suggested: Criminal justice system of Japan. So far several people have responded.[2]. I added merge tags to make it more clear. --ElectricEye (talk) 07:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Do not use macrons for the Japanese names

Please do not use macrons for the Japanese names, especially for people's names. Macrons are no longer standard in Japan. We do not use macrons for names such as Sato(佐藤), Ito(伊藤or伊東) Saito(斎藤), Kato(加藤) or Kondo(近藤). We can't use macrons for the Japanese passports. --198.175.230.96 02:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Poor Lord Ameth - hours and hours of work for nothing! Just kidding - I am an advocate of macrons, regardless of if it is used in Japan - it is very useful for people who's first language isn't Japanese to quickly eyeball a word or name to know the correct spelling and pronunciation. --Kuuzo 09:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this policy? Or is it just some guy dropping by to give his opinion? I, personally, just for the record, have never been a fan of macrons, and would gladly use "ou" and "uu". LordAmeth 09:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No new policy. Just someone with an opinion. I doubt he / she would be thrilled with "Satou", "Katou", or "Kondou" either. Bendono 12:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure. LordAmeth 13:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Ishimoto Shinroku

I noticed that Ishimoto Shinroku was on your "to do" list for expansion for quite some time. Although available information is limited, I have posted an expanded version of the article which may be of interest. --MChew 03:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Baekgang Edits

Here is notification that I have made major edits to the Battle of Baekgang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baekgang). Please review and give me any comments. Thanks. WangKon936 10:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Help to find some sources

In the unsourced Ninjatō article and its either unsourced sister article (both are up to be merged into an unsourced ...) the question has been raised what sources on Ninjas do exist. If I remember correctly there are some old scripts form various Ninja clans exhibited in museums. Could you give the editors a clue how to get hold of such material. Currently this topic is dominate by the very active Ninja-Dojos of Masaaki Hatsumi. Do I assume correctly that you hang out in Japan right now?Wandalstouring 19:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Alas, I have not been in Japan for several years. I'm afraid I don't know anything about these documents; sorry. My only source on ninja was a book by Stephen Turnbull, which I have left back in the States. That book, however, does draw largely upon the resources of a ninja museum in... I'm tempted to say... Iga Ueno. LordAmeth 19:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

fubu plan

sorry, somewhat unhelpfully i meant the whole thing. i only put that there as happened to read the article after wondering what on earth anti-semites where doing in japan. if the tag disappears i for one won't be putting it back :) ps the macrons guideline is >/< as you were doing Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles)#Article_titles  ⇒ bsnowball  10:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Shinto vs. Buddhism

Basically, the category was subdivided for the benefit of the WikiProject Shinto and WikiProject Buddhism. I basically used the existing content of each article (or, where that was vague, a link to the founder, etc.), as the basis for the move, not the name of the article itself. I was in the process of adding all the Shinto-related articles to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Shinto/Articles page, and wanted to try to ensure the differentiation between exclusively Buddhist or Shinto articles. However, I am clearly less than an expert in the field myself. If there were to be a Category:Japanese Buddhism added as a subcat of Category:Shinto and Category:Buddhism, and all the articles regarding Japanese Buddhism exclusively (including Kyoto temples) inserted in that subcategory, I would certainly amend the list accordingly. I knew in advance that some of my moves would be at least questionable, and am more than willing to adjust things accordingly. Would you favor the creation of such a Japanese Buddhist subcat? I acknowledge up front that it will be a while before the category is properly populated, as I'll have to go through all the Buddhism articles to do so and that's not real high on my list right now, but I would be more than willing to adjust the categories accordingly. Badbilltucker 21:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's probably better to leave it as it is - even though there are connections, and many sites serve both purposes, neither faith should be sub-categorized beneath the other. I'm no expert either when it comes to religion, I just wanted to, in the spirit of conversation and community, see what your thoughts on the thing were. I think that, particularly as it pertains to the WikiProjects and the categorization scheme, splitting it up was a very good idea. What do you think though of collapsing "temples and shrines" to just temples for the Buddhist category and just shrines for the Shinto category? (Feel free to leave it up to the WikiProjects, or to leave it alone entirely - I'm speaking purely in terms of simplicity; leaving it as is would not be inaccurate.) Thank you. LordAmeth 21:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Can certainly change the articles' categorization as per the above. Also, just for the purposes of clarity, it would certainly be possible to arrange a mutual subcategorization of both Shinto and Japanese Buddhism. By so doing, we could clearly ensure that people realize that they are both connected, at least peripherally. Also, if, as I think likely, it very much helps to have people know that they are related, it could ensure that editors also know that the other articles are relevant. Lastly, as a member of both projects, I could propose to the Shinto project that it maybe expand its scope to include articles relating to Japanese Buddhism, as it is a basically separate entity, and will do so now. Again, the proposed expansion would be limited to only those articles relating directly to Japanese Buddhism, not Buddhism in general. I can't be sure when I'll get a response, but we might know by the end of the week. Badbilltucker 21:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I leave things in your capable hands :) Thank you for considering my thoughts. LordAmeth 22:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

It takes a while to find the right balance. Haiduc 21:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Erik Laxman?

I having a naming dispute with another administrator over an article that you created. I wonder if you could weigh in? See Talk:Erich Laxmann.--Bothnia 16:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I cannot be more help. I wish you luck. LordAmeth 13:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't expect any help, but your response leaves me dumbfounded. I can understand that you are fed up with incessant discussion over names, but this wasn't one of them. This is a case where an administrator moved a page without prior warning twice and then refuses to participate in any serious discussion about it. I would call that abuse of privilege and I thought I could resolve this by referring to the editor/administrator who created the article, instead of making a fuss. I was wrong and I won't expect anything from administrators any more.--Bothnia 14:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I do apologize. I have just returned from a short break, and responded in a rude knee-jerk reaction kind of way. I will go back and read exactly who was saying what and will see what I can do to rectify the situation. LordAmeth 14:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No worry and thanks for the help with the page move! It would never cross my mind to ask for support in a simple edit war over a naming convention, but this was a bit particular and the way he treated me completely pissed me off. That particular administrator seem to have some communication issues, I checked his user page and it is full of puzzled comments. I hope to see you around in the future! よろしくお願いします。--Bothnia 01:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi again, I wonder if I can bother you again with one thing, apparently Talk:Erich Laxmann has not yet been moved to Talk:Erik Laxman. Thanks a ton!--Bothnia 02:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that didn't get moved along with the article. Oh, well. All taken care of now. Thanks for pointing that out. LordAmeth 08:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XI - January 2007

The January 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 20:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Pontic Greek Genocide

Could you keep an eye on the article and take look at the talk page. Check also editors, there seems to be lots of Greek speaking ones involved and this possibly prevents the article from getting near NPOV as a few Turkish speaking ones see things differently and the argumentation style, well.... Wandalstouring 00:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look. LordAmeth 10:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi LordAmeth. Are there any procedural methods available in sorting out this articles title? One admin suggest i take it to arbitration some time ago, but then i read somewhere arbitration does not settle content or title disputes. We have already conducted straw pollls, mediation and most recently a request for comment. None were succesful, mainly because the Greek editors have said they will not accept any title without genocide in it. What is required is some sort of formal method to resolve this which will take it out of the Greek and Turkish hands and settle it by a group of neural arbiters. Is this possible? Thanks, --A.Garnet 15:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with how Arbitration Committee or other groups work, or what other options are. I do apologize that I am unable to be particularly helpful. As far as I understand, straw poll or discussion & consensus among editors is truly the primary way that these kinds of things are meant to get resolved. I should like to think that I could play the voice of reason, on account of that I have no personal stake in the issue on either side, and I perhaps might offer to unilaterally make a decision and just declare it so; but I don't think I really have the right or the authority to do so, nor are any of us truly unbiased entirely. I'm going to poke a few other editors and ask them what they think. LordAmeth 22:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's see:

• No, the ArbCom won't be particularly helpful here, as we don't rule on content issues. The only outcome of an arbitration case would be in terms of having some individual editors warned, banned, or put on some sort of parole; it won't actually resolve this dispute.
• As for why it won't resolve anything: this dispute is not, fundamentally, a Wikipedia one about the title of the article. Rather, it's a broader historical, political, and ethnic debate over these events, which has understandably carried itself over into our coverage of them. There's really nothing we can do here until the issue is resolved in the real world; the only option on our part is to try and keep the debate from becoming too unpleasant.
• So what that boils down to: there isn't a title that both sides will agree on because they fundamentally disagree on the nature of the topic (and there are questions of national pride at stake!), and there really isn't anything we can do about it, other than sticking with any tenuous status quo in the interest of minimal disruption. Kirill Lokshin 22:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I should have realized to think of it that way myself. Well, as long as I know that no one's really expecting it to get resolved (and that people over on that page aren't on the verge of flame war - or real war - over this, like people in some other debates), I can rest easy. LordAmeth 23:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

So far each side has fielded its evidence for the title or could do so. That was my approach. Problem was that they understood it first as argumenting about what happened exactly and not citations of the word Pontic Greek Genocide. So when they realized that they had failed to prove their point their was a sudden flash and sources were produced mentioning this name. Furthermore when I changed the title to another name that is also used by Greek sources(as it is rather stupid to state a genocide and say in the same sentence that it is disputed whether this is one at all), there was a prompt scorched earth reaction disabling all possibilities but the current one. So far my impression was that the subject is under tight surveillance by a Greek or Philhellene majority, likely based on our systemic bias problem. Any vote of the involved editors can only lead to a solution that the minority group, the Turkish and Turkophile finds unacceptable.

As for the reasons why putting an end to the title debate, although this doesn't mean solving the conflict, is a good idea, I want to point out the resources dedicated to the task of the right title, while actually the article is pretty much a mess of a few citations. At least the political accusations have cooled down again, but I disagree with Kirill that the issue is not worth solving. The problem is not to find the correct title but to convince both sides that the title is acceptable. Simply using a wikipedia rule: What is the prefered name in English sources?

A possible approach could be that both sides agree to accept the vote of a jury that is not considered biased. There must be a deadline. Until that date each side presents its arguments to the jury. Afterwards the jury discusses and decides. The decision has to be accepted by all editors, no matter what it is. Now the problem is how do you create a jury that doesn't seem biased? You could ask some editors you hold in great esteem and give the involved parties time to object or support the jury candidates. It is possibly best if one can only be member of the jury with no objections. Wandalstouring 23:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I would not disagree to such a proposition, like I said, it is my preference that the dispute be taken out of Greek and Turkish hands and be sorted by a group of neutral arbiters. --A.Garnet 00:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, i'd like to add that while the dispute may seem quiet, that is because we have come to a deadlock in this article. Greek editors are happy they have their article with its title, Turkish editors are at least content to see a disputed title tag. Any change to this status quo usualy results in a bitter and heated dispute, often spilling over into other articles via WP:POINT. For example an editor tried to remove the disputed title tag, but was reverted. He subsequently went to the TRNC article an applied the disputed title tag there, where it has remained since. The same editors are involved in many Greco-Turkish disputes. Just yesterday Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) was another source of dispute, as was Occupation of Izmir, Cypriot refugees and Turkification at some time or another. The point is the mutual distrust built in the Pontian Greek Genocide article has resulted in the same editors (Greek and Turkish) conflicting elsewhere, creating a lot of needless hassle and edit warring. That is why I am keen to resolve this article once and for all. Thanks, --A.Garnet 00:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, with Wikipedia there can be no "once and for all." Even when you satisfy the people who are involved in the current debate, inevitably a new user will show up a few weeks or a few months later, unaware or uncaring about how or why it was resolved before, and beginning a whole new conversation about it. This can be seen quite clearly in the neverending debates at Talk:Japan, and in a number of other places. LordAmeth 08:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I understand what you mean, but perhaps all the major contributors to that article can agree that a neutral group of arbiters decision will be final and represent a consensus. Any editors who try to revert or rename in the future can be directed to this ruling. I do not think there would be a problem with editors agreeing to this kind of process, in the past everyone agreed they were willing to accept arbitration (before i knew it was not possible). So maybe Wandals idea is a good way to sort it. --A.Garnet 12:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, if Wandals or someone else would like to get the ball rolling on nominating/inviting editors to serve as the "neutral group of arbiters", I'd be happy to serve as a member. LordAmeth 12:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, will nominate LordAmeth (talk · contribs) (leading), ALR (talk · contribs), FayssalF (talk · contribs), Ksyrie (talk · contribs) and Beit Or (talk · contribs). PocklingtonDan (talk · contribs) and oldwindybear (talk · contribs) are suggested reserve candidates if there are any objections. My suggestion is that you lead the whole bunch and the discussion, pose the deadline etc.. I will write the invitations. Wandalstouring 12:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Will concur with A.Garnet about the horrible effects this article is having on a wide range of articles. In fact, you can read this (the original title was for Kurdish Genocide, just to clarify that the AfD was for that title) - that was four days before the current RfC of PGG and right after the debate in the PGG article was heating up after a two month sleeping period. The ill-feeling generated by the PGG article is so bad that it also had effects on the efficiecny of the TR-GR cooperation board. This dispute needs to end somehow, even though obviously any new user will be oblivious to the previous discussions et al as LordAmeth pointed out. Baristarim 16:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ameth, just wanted to let you know that I also generally spend a lot of time in that article, however I am quite busy this weekend so I won't be able to post comments about this particular dispute. Just know that I support any sort of measure to break the impasse. We went over more than one RfC over the course of the last four months (the other one is in the archives somewhere, mid-October I think). I have always wondered what further measures could be done but A.Garnet beat me to it :) I will focus on this for a while when I have time instead of some other articles that I had been working on. But just know that there are huge systemic bias issues involved with this dispute from the get-go. And first of all simply because such events bleep rarely on the radar of the wider world: even though Japanese-Chinese-Korean issues have gotten huge coverage both in the real and academic world over the decades, there are still no third-party books on many big events that happened in the Eastern Mediterranean 100 years ago (except Israel-Palestine), which leaves us in a very nasty situation indeed. I can elaborate further about this later.

The other thing is the good ol' Wiki systemic bias: there are much much less Turkish editors considering the size of Turkey-related topics and the number of Turks in the world. Before I joined in the PGG debate, practically the only Turkish contributor to the article was A.Garnet, and he is a Turkish Cypriot who neither lives in Turkey or Cyprus!! This is more of a comment on Turkey-related articles in general - out of the two Featured Articles of WikiProject Turkey (Turkish literature and Turkey), the first one was written by an expat living in Turkey. The latest Good Article of WP Turkey, Alanya, was practically written by an expat as well.. I am sure that Greece/Greek-related issues also suffer from the usual systemic bias concerning the coverage of foreign related topics in Wikipedia, so I am not saying there is a particular "bullying" or anything but across a wide range of Turkish articles, even for trivial ones, there are huge problems because of this. I am having trouble finding enough contributors to help out articles like Istanbul and Ankara!! Me and some other users have been trying to restructurize WPTR and give it more coverage at all levels, so things are a small bit better.

Anyways, I will post more article-related comments later on. Cheers! Baristarim 16:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration Discussions

Alright. For lack of anywhere better to do this, I shall begin the discussion here. It is not necessarily the most transparent way of handling things, but I fear that by hosting discussion on the article's talk page, a subpage of WPMILHIST or elsewhere, it will attract too much public contribution and defeat the purpose of a select band of hypothetically unbiased arbiters. Plus, I kind of like the idea of being a member of the supposed "cabal" which doesn't actually exist.

The main points I attempt to summarize as thus:

1. Use of term "genocide" is viewed by many as a push towards an anti-Turkish, pro-Greek agenda, an exaggeration of the severity/importance/immorality of the event.
2. Intentional removal of term "genocide" is viewed by many as a push towards an anti-Greek, pro-Turkish agenda, and a suppression of the severity/importance/immorality of the event.

• How can we best represent a neutral point of view?
• What is the most common term used in English scholarship & other sources, as well as in the wider non-English (but also non-Turkish, non-Greek) world of scholarship and media?

These are just starting points; if I have omitted something, mistated something, or misunderstood an element, please feel free to say so. I hope we can get this solved smoothly. LordAmeth 13:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to see this happening, but i would warn that we first seek the approval of the major disputors before going ahead any further. It is only if everyone agrees to this process that the final decision can have some legitimacy. To my mind these woule be User:NikoSilver, User:Baristarim, User:Politis, User:Hectorian, User:Rizos01 and basically any other significant contributor. Perhaps it is best if we leave a message on the discussion page. Thanks, --A.Garnet 13:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Right. Duh. Sorry. LordAmeth 14:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Wandalstouring 14:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Seems like there is an agreement to accept the offer, however, people want to interview you beforehand. See ongoing discussion at Talk:Pontic Greek Genocide#Arbitration commitee. Wandalstouring 14:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The "Yayoi" passage in Japan; see Talk:Japan#Suggesting "China and Korea"

Can you please comment again, this time in Talk:Japan#Suggesting "China and Korea"?

We are having yet another discussion, this time between the following 2 choices:

Option 1 — Most recent consensus (as of 3 January 2007)...

• The Yayoi period, starting around the third century BC, introduced new practices, such as wet-rice farming, iron and bronze-making and a new style of pottery, brought by migrants from the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula. With the development of Yayoi culture, a predominantly agricultural society emerged on the Japanese archipelago.

• The points that differ are: "from the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula" in the 1st sentence, and "on the Japanese archipelago" in the 2nd sentence.
• Pros: Some of us claim this is the more stable and accurate wording, using "Korean peninsula" instead of "Korea", and will prevent any potential revert-wars.
• Cons: Detractors claim it is "original research" to replace "China", "Korea", and "Japan" with "the Chinese mainland", "the Korean peninsula", and "the Japanese archipelago", based on wording used by the majority of sources.
• This wording was agreed upon (on 3 Jan.) by the 5 of us: Endroit, Jefu, HongQiGong, LordAmeth, and John Smith's.

Option 2 &;mdash; Currently suggested wording...

• The Yayoi period, starting around the third century BC, introduced new practices, such as wet-rice farming, iron and bronze-making and a new style of pottery, brought by migrants from China and Korea. With the development of Yayoi culture, a predominantly agricultural society emerged in Japan.

• The points that differ are: "from China and Korea" in the 1st sentence, and "in Japan" in the 2nd sentence.
• Pros: Some of us claim this is the more accurate wording based on sources, the majority of which uses "China", "Korea", and "Japan" (instead of "Chinese mainland", "Korean peninsula", and "Japanese archipelago").
• Cons: Detractors claim this wording is cause for content dispute, and the word "Korea" is particularly problematic because a "state of Korea" did not exist during the "Yayoi" times as claimed by Endroit in the discussions.
• This wording is currently being suggested by: Jefu, HongQiGong, and Sir Edgar.

FYI - Current Citations used for this passage...

1. "The Yayoi period (c. 250 BC–c. AD 250)". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
   • Note: This source uses "from the Korean peninsula or China", uses "China" but never "Chinese mainland", uses both "Korea" and "Korean peninsula", uses "Japan" but never "Japanese archipelago".
2. Diamond, Jared. ""Japanese Roots", Discover Magazine Vol. 19 No. 6 (June 1998)". Retrieved 2006-12-28.
   • Note: This source uses "from the Asian mainland", uses "China" but never "Chinese mainland", uses "Korea" but never "Korean peninsula", uses both "Japan" and "Japanese archipelago", also mentions "Russia", "Russian mainland", "mainland Russia", and "Okinawa".
3. "Pottery". MSN Encarta. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
   • Note: This source says that Yayoi pottery were "made by a Mongol people who came from Korea to Kyūshū". This source uses only "China", "Korea", and "Japan".
4. De Bary, William Theodore (2005). Sources of Japanese Tradition. Columbia University Press. pp. p. 1304. ISBN 023112984X. Retrieved 2007-01-29. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
   • Note: This source uses "Chinese mainland", "Korean peninsula", and "Japanese archipelago".

Comment

We are trying to build a new consensus again, and your comments will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!--Endroit 14:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Coordinator Elections

The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are looking to elect seven coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 11!

Delivered by grafikbot 11:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Compacted summary articles

Hello, LordAmeth. I saw your contributions and knowledge of Wikipedia and decided to ask you this question. I was wondering if I would be all allowed to create largely compacted articles of specific animes or books that are meant to provide a full summary of each individual chapter or episode. I primarily wish to create a compacted section based of a specific anime that will elaborate key events that had taken place during each episode in a subtitle format. Since I have not seen any of these types of articles very often, I now ask you if such an action is recommended -- because I believe such an action would make our foundation more professionally encyclopediacally based. Here is an example of my idea: Investiture of the Gods (chapter 5). Of course I will be sure that no none free use info is listed, such as featured poems. I wish you well my fellow Wikipedia, and thank you for your time.

- Tathagata Buddha -

It's always nice to think that one is noticed and one's work appreciated. Thank you for that. I do not generally work with anime, or other topics that would concern a series of episodes; it might serve you well to ask over at Wikipedia: WikiProject Anime and Manga. What you've written looks good, interesting and useful, and I would not discourage you to contribute it. However, from having seen how other anime, and other subjects are handled, you might be better to squish all the episode summaries (assuming there are not too many) into a single article; some Western shows which have named episodes, such as Friends and Seinfeld do have separate articles for each episode, but most shows (and anime in particular), as far as I am aware do not. In any case, regardless of what format you come up with in that respect, one thing I would advise against is the phrasing you use at the very top - "Within this article, I shall elaborate chapter 5 of the famed ancient Chinese novel, Investure of the Gods - also known as Fengshen Yanyi. This article is designed to reflect complete events and major plot lines present within this chapter." This sort of self-referential thing, describing the intentions of the article, or referring to the author of the article, particularly in the first-person, should be avoided, in order to achieve a more encyclopedic style. Thank you for your contributions, and please feel free to ask me anything - I'll do my best to help. Helping other editors in this sort of way is truly one of the things I enjoy most about working on the 'pedia. Good luck with your future contributions! LordAmeth 16:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Random Smiley Award

For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Award
originated by Pedia-I
(Explanation and Disclaimer)

--TomasBat (Talk) 23:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe leaving?

My best friend on Wikipedia just left & I'm kinda depressed. Don't know if I'm gonna stay here. All my "friends" never message me cause they're all too busy. I've just realised nobody likes me on here anyway, so what's the point of staying. Just letting you all know. Don't know what I'm doing right now, so yeah, I don't know... Spawn Man 07:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm real sorry to hear that you feel that way. I suppose, if the community isn't serving your purposes, there's no point in staying - this is meant to be a hobby, not an obligation. 'Course, I've also had plenty of times that I was upset with other users, or with debates and the 'pedia community in general, and all I really needed was a bit of a break. On the other hand, it all depends on what you choose to get out of it - at times, I love the community here, but my primary purpose has always been the enjoyment I get out of contributing to something larger, and the things I learn through doing research for my contributions. Take a break, see how you feel, and then come back. (Or even just take a break from debates and community-type stuff, and just focus on contributions for a bit...) Good luck! LordAmeth 10:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

re: Comments

Hey LordAmeth! Thank you for the wonderful and kind words you had about me in the military history corrdinator's vote page! WangKon936 18:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Japanese castle

Might I suggest you submit the Japanese castle article for peer review at the Architecture peer review page as well? Regards --Mcginnly | Natter 11:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry about that. LordAmeth 11:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Compy

My computer has gone completely kaput. I do not know how active I will be in the coming days and weeks, but I'm afraid I cannot promise that I'll be able to keep up with any disputes or other issues during this period. Please feel free to leave me messages here and I shall get to them sooner or later. LordAmeth 09:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved this into talk page, just for posterity, archiving, whatever dumb non-reason there may be to keep it. LordAmeth 14:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military History elections

The Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will be selecting seven coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of sixteen candidates. Please vote here by February 25!

Delivered by grafikbot 14:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Japan and the UNCHR report

Will you please take a look at Talk:Japan#BBC interview with Doudou Diène, before he submitted the UNCHR report? The BBC quote is old and inaccurate, and does NOT represent Diène's official position. But HongQiGong is blindly trying to reinsert the passage, and resorting to revert-war again. Can you please take a look? Thank you.--Endroit 17:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing it out. I've made a comment, and am working on restructuring the text. I am so tired of this kind of bullshit. I'm tempted to go over to other articles, like Korea and China and add massive sections about their state crimes against their own people, their discrimination against other peoples... but I'm not going to do that, because I'm above such petty nationalistic biases. Why can't we all just get along!? :'(LordAmeth 10:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Six party talks

I acknowledge my reversion was to the vandalized version instead of the right version, although I was striving to revert it to the non-vandalized one. After all, look at my other edits on the page - I contribute most of the updates and facts that are properly sourced and referenced. Jsw663 11:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I do apologize for the strong wording. You certainly seem like a serious, well-meaning editor, and thus I was confused that you would have committed such vandalism. Even though I make such mistakes myself, reverting to the wrong version, it just somehow didn't occur to me that that's what might have happened here - I truly do apologize for misjudging you. Keep up the good work, and don't mind me :) LordAmeth 11:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well done!

You're 3rd on the tally for the co-ordinators of the MilHist Project! I can see I'm not the only one who thinks you're an all round nice guy who stays out of throuble. Not to mention all the hard work you've put into the project. Your soon to be announced position is well deserved my friend. :) Spawn Man 01:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, man! It's good to feel like a part of the community. I see you've decided to stay - I'm glad. LordAmeth 10:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Noh plays

Thank you for reminding me about them! I am preparing a comprehensive list of Noh plays and will tell you when it's ready. Xanthoxyl 14:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Emperor Godaigo

At this time, Takauji was a partial commander. Ashikaga Takauji attacked Rokuhara Tanndai by the Emperor Godaigo's instruction. (Nitta Yoshisada attacked Kamakura.) 1333年、鎌倉幕府は後醍醐天皇によって滅ぼされました。このとき、足利尊氏は後醍醐天皇の指揮官の中の1人でした。 （厳密に言えば、足利尊氏は京都の六波羅探題を攻撃しましたが、鎌倉幕府の本拠地を攻撃したのは新田義貞でした。）

After Takauji had moved to the Kanto region, Godaigo did the declaration of war to Takauji. As a result, Godaigo was defeated at Takauji. And, Takauji started the shogunate. 足利尊氏が北条氏の残党を討伐するため関東に向かうと、後醍醐天皇は新田義貞に足利尊氏を討つように命令しました。その結果、尊氏は後醍醐天皇に反逆し、後醍醐天皇を捕虜にしました。その後、尊氏は足利幕府を開きました。

Please point out the part where this information is wrong. 私のこの情報の間違っている部分を指摘してください。--ShinjukuXYZ 17:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for illuminating this. The part that is wrong is where you wrote that Go-Daigo overthrew the Kamakura shogunate in order to suppress Takauji. As you explain here, Takauji served the Emperor, not the Kamakura shogunate, and thus his "suppression", which never succeeded, was not connected directly to the fall of the Kamakura shogunate. LordAmeth 17:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Southeast Asia Project Participation

Hello, I noticed you are a participant in the Southeast Asia Project and would like your input on a current disagreement at the Cambodia page. Cambodia is a Featured Article and an editor wishes to remove a sentence regarding Sex Tourism from the "Economy" section. Please see the discussion on the talk page and provide us with your thoughts on the matter. Thanks.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 18:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Responded on the article's talk page. Thanks for asking for my input - I'm no expert on current-day Cambodian issues, but hopefully an extra voice can add a semblance of mediation. LordAmeth 10:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Edo Meisho Zukai

Hi, Do you know if I am right about this ? If not, don't worry. Thanks Johnbod 03:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Replied on the article's talk page. Thanks much for asking. LordAmeth 10:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator elections

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you have been re-elected as one of the Military history WikiProject's Assistant Coordinators. Thanks again for offering to take up this responsibility, and congratulations on your success! Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Congrats!

Assistant Cooridinator of the Military History Wikiproject

Congrats on your re-election as an assistant coordinator. In honor of your achievement, I present you with these stars. I wish you luck in the coming term. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sweet. Thanks. These stars'll look nice hanging over my mantelpiece. LordAmeth 09:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Coordintors please drop by

The old coordinators (Kirill, Dryzen and me) decided to established a kind of regular meeting of the coordinators. The intention is to exchange information, opinions and coordinate our work. The current meeting is here. Wandalstouring 00:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Edo Meisho Zue

Thanks for moving the page—I didn't want to do it unilaterally. I think I'll check out the background of this and fill out the article a bit. I would certainly appreciate any input—recommendations for improvement, etc.—that you might have. I've noticed your name associated with quite a few Japan-related articles. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 13:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Suruga bay

Hello, Lord:

MightyAtom and you had replaced the figure in suruga bay article. The updated figure is object of art, but it does not support statements of the article, as the previous version did. In particular:

Previous figure supported the statement that the bay is protected against oceanic waves. Your update shows the Bay from the far South-West, which is open to the waves.

Previous figure suported the statement of use of the bay for various activities. Your update does not.

The previous figure shows the view of Suruga bay from Izu penninsula. The statement, that the LEFT hand side is open to the sea, corresponds to the previous figure. The new figure does not correspond to this description.

I suggest that you recover the article Suruga bay in a self-consistent form.

Sincerely, dima 07:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

When I removed the unnecessarily pornographic picture, I removed all references in the text to the image - that is, all of the "as seen in Fig 1" comments. The text as it stands now is perfectly accurate and internally consistent. LordAmeth 09:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Although I disagree with the pornographic characterization of the photo, I too find it inappropriate because of the irrelevant nudity (if you need something for scale, use something less distracting from the actual substance). My comments are on the Suruga Bay talk page, for what they're worth. Jim_Lockhart 10:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Campaignbox al-Qaeda attacks

Template:Campaignbox al-Qaeda attacks has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --— Indon (reply) — 15:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I just logged-in today and read the discussion there. Believe me, I am not deletionist. If you can assure me that the template cannot be POV, then I'll be glad to put it in the article, but the editor insists his POV. Worst now (s)he added another country, the Phillipines, in the Links section. Thus, wouldn't you think how POV (s)he is? And POV issue is one of the TfD criteria. As long as the template contents are neutral, balanced and has reliable sources (no original elements), I concur with you to keep the template. — Indon (reply) — 08:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

SEA project

Do we really need another project tag on indonesian articles? I am currently trying to sort through categories within the indonesian project - and the question needs to be asked - what purpose is this going to do? I do hope you detect a note of despair - its bad enough for the small group of very active editors in the indonesian project to cope with the indonesian project - could you please give me a very well reasoned argument reason as to why we need to have this as well?????? cheers in good faith and humour SatuSuro 10:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Adding extra project banners shouldn't hamper or interfere with your activities at all. All it is meant to do is to attract more attention from SEA users who can help you, and from users interested in Indonesia who can help the Project in other ways. I admit it is a little bit like overcategorization, but I really don't see the problem. If the lists of articles on the SEA project, whether they're stubs or requests, or whatever, and there are Indonesia-related topics on there, it will only help to get more people to work on and improve Indonesia-related articles. Yes? LordAmeth 10:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Nah - not from my experience at all - sorry to sound so cyncial - dont be suprised other member of the indonesian project try to hound you out as well - but i wont do that - our experience with ethnically prejudiced neighbours wasted a huge amount of wiki time to little positive effect. If you really want to deal with over-lapping categories and project boundaries you only have about another 4,000 articles to go... dont ever tell me i didnt warn you. I'd stick to singaproe or hong kong myself - sanity, good sense and good will to me do not relate to what you are doing. Maybe I owe you a round of bintang if you prove right, but I think duplicate project issues are a serious folly. Once a gain in good will and humour -cheers SatuSuro 10:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to butt-in, but although it's a bit over-project-categorization, I think I'll help there for the Indonesian part. — Indon (reply) — 11:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

You're not butting in. No worries on that. As for SatuSuro's comments on prejudice and counterproductivity thus generated, it is a good point. As a scholar of Japan who is truly quite a novice in all matters Southeast Asian, I didn't even imagine that there would be such issues among Indonesia and its neighbors. It is a terrible shame that these sorts of biases continue to exist and to serve as obstacles to our efforts here. LordAmeth 13:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid I dont agree with the very good hard working editor Indon whom I hold in very high esteem and wqhose talk page I invade too often - but I suppose my problem is - how many articles were you planning to tag? The issues with neighbours involve things extensively through time - the issues are almost worthy of a series of articles in themselves... SatuSuro 13:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how many I was planning on tagging today or tomorrow... I was honestly just tagging anything I happened to come across. Ideally, whether it's me doing it, or someone else, or a bot, eventually hypothetically every article that falls under the topic of "Southeast Asia" should be tagged. LordAmeth 16:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I really think that the Indonesian Project needs to be addressed re this issue. the south east asia region is just too big - to tag that many is unmanageable in my honest opinion. SatuSuro 10:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it should be an issue of whether or not it's manageable. A bot could do it. And if not, if people do it, so it'll take some time. That's all. Just as every article in WikiProject Shinto and WikiProject Anime & Manga falls under WikiProject Japan, so the same here. People who are interested in Japan can help out with articles on Shinto and Anime & Manga; people who are interested in Southeast Asia can help out with Indonesia-related articles. That's all there is to it. No need to politicize it, to make a big deal or anything. LordAmeth 10:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh well - maybe there are precedent elsewhere - I'll leave it alone, but for a range of reasons (some given above) I disagree with it. Thanks for your speedy response - what do you think of the post below this one? SatuSuro 10:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The survey? I thought some of the questions were kind of odd, but I didn't think much of it. Why? LordAmeth 10:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Nah dont worry - I'll probably get back to you much later about the project duplication issue - we have recently had a milhist template enthusiast broach Indonesian project sensitivities - I think I need to look at project/project things in other areas before I try to articulate or try to explain at any length my concerns about the issues - hey thanks for the speedy responses - will probably get back much later about it... I have no intenetion from my point of view to make anything political or big deal - its already happened - hence my serious reservations. I have been trying to appraise the whole indonesian project from the point of view of categories, articles, and areas of shortcomings - and having to cope with outside perceptions to me is a big issue - either military history (my talk on Kiril's talk page about the length of time it took to wait for the 'Indonesian Civil War' article to have such an ill informed title changed....), or a whole range of other things. Not to bother you about it though - if I ever get a handle on the issue I'll give you a tinkle to read whatever it is first - I'd appreciate your opinion. I got to get offline mnow - speak some other time. cheers SatuSuro 10:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I've got to say I think your plan to add a regional project tag to country specific articles is crazy. What's the precedent for this? Do people tag articles relating to Germany, France, Sweden, etc with a European project tag, or Canada, US, Brazil, etc with an Amercia project tag? Why don't you go one step further an tag every article related to any country with an wiki project earth tag? Wikiprojects need to be a manageable size. Being too granular with project tags is pointless. Once an article has a country project tag (or multiple country tags), it is bleeding obvious which articles belong to specific regions. The point of these tags is to provide a rating to article quality and importance, so double rating across country projects and regional projects is redundant and contributes to an increased maintenance load for editors. We don't do something like this for stub tags, so why should it be done for project tags? (Caniago 06:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC))

I agree with Michael - it's too big (too difficult for you) and too diverse (too difficult for those you might impinge on). My suggestion is rather than try and grab everything, why not grab only those article that do have a South East Asian (as a whole) focus. ie, South East Asia, ASEAN, etc. THis is much smaller, but a better idea. Merbabu 07:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Um. Wow. I am amazed at how anti-WikiProjects you guys are, and how much we seem to disagree on the purpose of them.

1. Whether or not it is too much work for me is completely irrelevant. I have no intention of tagging hundreds or thousands of articles on my own - as I said above, a bot could do it, or members of the community could work together to each do a little bit. That's what Wikipedia's about, after all - people working together to create something much larger and better and broader than any of us could do on our own.
2. The point of adding project banners is not just to make it obvious what the article falls under, nor is it just about assessment. It is about creating easier, more concise ways to find things that fall under the categories of a given project. It's about creating pools of articles that can be considered together, under "Southeast Asian articles that need attention" or something like that. And it is about promoting the creation of a tighter community of people who work on similar things and can thus help each other out. People who didn't know the project existed, or what it does, or how it works, can find the link, find that there is a community which works on this type of article...
3. If you restrict the Southeast Asian WikiProject only to those things that cover all of Southeast Asia, like ASEAN, you've completely defeated the purpose of the project, and deflated its effectiveness. That's like restricting WikiProject Theatre only to topics about theatre in general and stating that they don't deal with actors, plays, or playwrights. The same goes here. As an editor who is interested in the history and culture of Southeast Asia, I am just as interested in the Kings of Ayutthaya as the music of Indonesia, the art of Laos, the politics of Vietnam, the architecture of Cambodia, and the economy of Malaysia. What do we accomplish by not taking all of these things under the umbrella of a community that's interested in, and devoted to, these topics?
4. Finally, let me say that if you want so badly to not advertise Indonesian-related articles to a wider number of editors, then it sounds to me like you're trying to protect a given POV. I do not know anything about the instance to which you refer in saying that someone "broached Indonesian project sensitivities", but "sensitivities" sounds to me like something that needs to be breached in the interests of objectivity. Imagine if only pro-CCP editors worked on China-related articles. LordAmeth 10:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Please let me say that I am not anti-project, I am trying to handle over three - you are missing the point. IThere are editors in the Indonesia project who have no problem with 'guarding anything' -or objectivity - I suggest that this all gets moved to either the SEA project and or Indonesian noticeboards SatuSuro 10:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I was thinking the same. Let me move it over to the SEA project discussion page. Any Indonesia project editors are of course welcome to comment there as well. LordAmeth 10:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Please let us continue the conversation here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Southeast_Asia#Project_Banners. LordAmeth 10:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Survey Invitation

Hi there, I am a research student from the National University of Singapore and I wish to invite you to do an online survey about Wikipedia. To compensate you for your time, I am offering a reward of USD$10, either to you or as a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. For more information, please go to the research home page. Thank you. --WikiInquirer 00:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)^{talk to me}

Kofun revert

Hi, can you explain why you reverted at Kofun period? Is there a reason you prefer "Korean peninsula" over "Korea," while at the same time using "Japan" instead of "Japanese islands"? Or was there a different issue? Thanks. Etimesoy 23:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, yes, sorry about that. No, I don't care about "Korea" vs "Korean peninsula" - you guys are going to fight over that one until the end of time, and if you want to waste your energies on such petty things, I won't stop you. I reverted to re-add the statements about there being Japanese-style kofun in Mimana (Gaya) in Korea, which I can only assume were removed (once again) as the result of some nationalistic attitude on someone's part. I do apologize for such harsh action - I shall endeavor in future to explain my edits, even my reverts, better, in the Edit summaries. LordAmeth 23:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Noryang

I've made significant edits to this article. I believe it's good enough to be upgraded from "start." Your thoughts? WangKon936 15:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I've bumped up the article to B-class and made a few comments on the article's talk page. Thanks for your continuing work on this topic. I have also begun a discussion here - I'd be curious as to your thoughts on that. Thanks. LordAmeth 11:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Good friend100's changes to the Battle of Noryang article are unsubstanciated by sources and are almost akin to vandalism. I ask that you help me monitor the article. It's rather frustrating that after all my work, a zealous teenager can go in there and undo them. I will provide inline cites as soon as I have time. But please believe me that my edits are well established in reputable sources. Good friend's changes are, for the most part, unsupported in any reputable source. WangKon936 02:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Please do add inline citations when you get a chance. I'll keep an eye on the article, and see if I can't figure out for myself a few other sources as to the numbers involved (just for the sake of a third opinion, to confirm one version or the other). LordAmeth 10:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Chinese art

Neat elephant. Interesting. Just wanted to drop by and thank you for your help with the Southern School stuff. Meanwhile, if you're interested, I've created Category:Lacquerware and Ryukyuan lacquerware with a number of red links just waiting to be filled. If that's not your thing, that's fine. No pressure, of course. Thanks again. Cheers. LordAmeth 21:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You're most welcome! I don't know much about Eastern art, so I'm learning as I go. :) I made a stub for lacquerware and will add to it as I find info, time and interest permitting. Did all the redirects, too, like laquerware. (That elephant just tickles my fancy.) --sparkit^TALK 21:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Request cleanup

For your diligence and dedication in cleaning up the lists of requested articles, I hereby award you the WikiChevrons. Kirill Lokshin 17:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It's done, done at last! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, cheers. There's still a few more which I had originally sidelined for not having any incoming links, but I'm gonna Google them, see if I can figure out where they go. And if/when other task forces come about, we have some lists already set for those subjects. LordAmeth 21:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I second the nomination

You got there first! I added to your nomination at Korea vs the Korean peninsula. I didn't know it was also happening at other articles. At least here they seem pretty nice, if persistent. Shenme 05:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XIII - March 2007

The March 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 19:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"AmethLord"?

Yo, Milord. Heads-up that there's more nitwittery here about the inversion of Japanese personal names. -- Hoary 01:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Nitwittery is a good way of putting it. Thanks for pointing this out for me. I really must say, I'd love it if we could do Japanese name order for everyone, as you state is done in academia and increasingly in more general market publications. But, revisiting these sorts of basic decisions, like the ones with the macrons, is just going to give everyone a headache I figure. LordAmeth 01:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Picture requests/Requests

Hi, I just wanted to make sure you see this. --Flominator 10:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Do you suppose we should move or copy these image requests to the MilHist task forces too? LordAmeth 14:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Executions in Japan

I saw you did some recategorization, and I thought you might be interested that there was this discussion (although nothing came of it). Thanks for noticing the issue, because I thought maybe I was the only one. Dekimasuよ! 04:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that discussion. I likewise thought no one else had noticed the issue ^_^. As Vegaswikian mentioned, there are those warring factions in Japan's Sengoku period - people executed by Oda Nobunaga, in particular, counts for a fair number, as do those killed on the orders of Hideyoshi, if we wish to not conflate the Taiko (Hideyoshi) with "Japan". I'm sure this goes for many other countries as well - people executed by non-government factions, such as organized crime, organized religion, or various sorts of warring factions. For now, it appears that we only have four or five Japanese executed on Nobunaga's orders - only four or five not executed by the state - so it's not a big deal. Still, it's something to consider. LordAmeth 13:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I mentioned it before Vegaswikian, but those were how I noticed the problem originally. The category change on Goemon's article caught my eye. I can't decide what to do about the Christian martyrs in Nagasaki... those occurred before Sekigahara, too. Dekimasuよ! 13:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. LordAmeth 14:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

SEA milhist

Best of luck with this - I would prefer that if we can encourage anyone to do Indonesian area material to at least have the courtesy to go to the Indonesian project noticeboard as a matter of courtesy. Hope the other country projects feel the same. SatuSuro 06:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, and I have no intention of driving anyone away from your boards, or competing with you for users, anything like that. This task force is solely for Military History, and for collaborating across geographic specialties (unlike the separate national boards). LordAmeth 14:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey thanks for that - we really hope you guys manage to get some good stuff going - if you check my contribs - you will find that I only got around to tagging some of the Indon military cats this afternoon - they might be of interest -but they are rather thinly populated - one of the small problems with a large archipelago - cheers SatuSuro 14:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Viz:-

• 17:02, 8 April 2007 (hist) (diff) m Category talk:Indonesian admirals (add WP Indonesia class NA) (top)
• 17:01, 8 April 2007 (hist) (diff) m Category talk:Suharto (add WP Indonesia class NA) (top)
• 17:00, 8 April 2007 (hist) (diff) m Category talk:Indonesian generals (add WP Indonesia class NA) (top)
• 17:00, 8 April 2007 (hist) (diff) m Category talk:Indonesian military personnel (add WP Indonesia class NA) (top)
• 16:59, 8 April 2007 (hist) (diff) m Category talk:Special forces of Indonesia (add WP Indonesia class NA) (top)
• 16:58, 8 April 2007 (hist) (diff) m Category talk:Military of Indonesia (add WP Indonesia class NA) (top)

Then there are the internal issues which involve aceh. papua, and so on as well border issues with malaysia - and the actual fighting with the dutch in the 40's, and so on... For some - suharto is both a military topic... and other things too. There already is an articcle on the timor resistance war anyay- just slipped - sure its around Also - for a while the civil strife in 65/65 had been called a civil war by an ed for a while but we got it to overthrow of sukarno instead - I'm off for a week - catch you later! SatuSuro 14:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks for your help. LordAmeth 14:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Fictitious Characters put in history categories

What is the "standard procedure" if you find video game characters who have biographies listed in "history" categories? Do you nominate it for deletion? Not sure how this works. --Kuuzo 08:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd just go to the characters' articles, and edit them to remove those categories. It's not the articles that need to deleted, just their association with those categories. And maybe, if you think it's a particular user putting them in those categories, or particular types of entries being miscategorized, leave a talk page note somewhere. Thanks. LordAmeth 05:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Holocaust & Genocide

I was hoping that wikipedia may be able to make a section for Holocaust & Genocide as either a project or portal. I thought that it might be part of the Military project of the History section. Looking for assistance with this. Thanks. I would appreciate comments & assistance to be left on my talk page [[3]]. I hope to hear from you soon. Eric Rodrigues.

Template:Infobox religious building

Hey, do you have a moment to look at User:Sapphire/Template:Infobox religious building (Sunni) and User:Sapphire/Template:Infobox religious building (Catholic)? I'm creating more templates based on your suggestions on Template talk:Infobox religious building. I'd appreciate any feed back and please by all means feel free to edit, but I'd appreciate notations about changes so that I can incorporate similar changes later when I create more templates. -- Sapphire 00:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll also create a User:Sapphire/Template:Infobox religious building (Buddhist). -- Sapphire 00:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work. I think the main thing that remains is simply to provide some sort of usage guide, to just briefly explain what each field is for, and the types of data that should go into each field. Something as simple and brief as what's used on Template:Infobox Military Structure could be of great help, along with empty-field syntax which editors can then copy and paste into articles. I'm still unsure as to how to implement the description of a full temple/church grounds rather than a single structure... so I guess that can wait. But these sorts of basic usability elements would be wonderful. The infoboxes themselves look fine - thanks again. LordAmeth 07:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I notice you haven't incorporated the ability to denote which saint or religious figure the temple/church is dedicated to. I still think that would be a useful addition. I apologize to not make edits myself, spare you some work, but I seriously don't know anything much about coding, and don't want to mess anything up. Cheers. LordAmeth 07:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Petition

I've put up a petition on Spawny's Talk Page to cheer him up/make him come back. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 09:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Honest question regarding "Bakumatsu"

I noticed on Yamamoto Kansuke you said bakumatsu, not being a place or person, is not a proper noun. besides ,there are no capitals in Japanese at all)...now technically I agree with you, but if that's the case then why do many people (even some scholars) capitalize "Bakumatsu," "Edo era," "Sengoku," or even "Yamamoto Kansuke" for that matter? Isn't it "technically" incorrect to even put a space between "Yamamoto" and "Kansuke," since there's no such thing as a space in Japanese sentences? --Tadakuni 15:43, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Truly, I must admit that I can't offer you a solid logic on whether or not 'bakumatsu' ought to be capitalised; I just thought it looked wrong. My personal logic is simply that it being simply the end (matsu) of the shogunate (bakufu), and not an official period of history with officially set dates, it doesn't quite fit into that category. Edo, Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, all being placenames, get capitalised. Sengoku, being an official period that precedes the Edo period, gets capitalised. Of course, you make a good point about Japanese not having capitals or spaces, and thus calling into question even Yamamoto Kansuke, which, as a person's name, should be capitalized, and should have spaces, according to English conventions.

You've got a good point too, though...the other era names are all named after places. "Bakumatsu" is more of a popular term for part of the Edo period, after all. And besides, when you see the "baku" of "Bakumatsu" elsewhere it isn't capitalized, like in bakuhan-taisei (幕藩体制)-- I think this one can be found in the works of Ooms or Totman. -Tadakuni 16:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I do apologize if I seemed obnoxious in my edits - it is not ultimately my place to dictate the correct format for romanization - Wikipedia is run on consensus, not on truth nor on individual whims (mine or anyone else's). Perhaps we should bring this to WP:MOS-JA or to the Japanese Wikiproject in order to try to come up with a consensus. In the meantime, I am surprised to discover that none of the history books immediately available to me on my desk include "bakumatsu" in their indexes, so I cannot supply for you examples from academic sources of it being one way or the other... LordAmeth 16:04, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, good point-- perhaps it's an issue that should be brought up to WP:MOS-JA or the Japanese Wikiproject. I really hope that it might move more serious, well-trained people to improve the Bakumatsu articles. Not that there's anything wrong with anime, but I keep seeing all these Bakumatsu articles written with a heavy rooting in comments from "Rurouni Kenshin" or "Peacemaker Kurogane" (as seen in Kawakami Gensai before I improved it a couple days ago). Heh, too bad Wikipedia doesn't have a "course" in historiography! At any rate, thanks for your willingness to discuss the matter-- I admire your talent and your dedication to trying to improve and provide "overwatch" for such an unpredictable medium as this, especially with regards to the Japan stuff. -Tadakuni 16:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you completely. Having pursued an MA this year, and taken a year-long course on historiography of modern Japan, I think I've truly gained a new appreciation for the importance of understanding the subject and addressing it in the "right" proper academic way. I haven't seen Kenshin yet, though I definitely intend to - if it gets people interested in the period, then all the better, but I agree with you completely that there's just a little too much bias on Wikipedia towards information learned from anime. ^_^ I apologize again for my stubbornness in these matters - particularly such tiny stylistic quibbles - I sometimes tend to see myself as an overseer or guardian of the proper, professional, and NPOV representation of Japanese topics here, a post or title to which of course none of us truly have a right. Thanks for your kind words, and your serious, dedicated, and professional approach - I need to get my hands on any of Ooms' and Totman's works. Cheers. LordAmeth 17:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm probably jumping in late, but for what it's worth, Conrad Totman's article in Monumenta Nipponica, From Sakoku to Kaikoku. The Transformation of Foreign-Policy Attitudes, 1853-1868 (Vol. 35, No. 1. (Spring, 1980), pp. 1-19.) uses the term numerous times, but doesn't capitalize it. I'd say grab Sansom's third volume for a consenus. (and FWIW, all of the anime references are driving me up the wall) --Kuuzo 08:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Sansom doesn't have "bakumatsu" in the index (and I didn't find it on a quick skim either), but he capitalises Bakufu, Sonno Joi, and a number of other Japanese terms, so I'd guess he would capitalise Bakumatsu as well. LordAmeth 11:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XIV (April 2007)

The April 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 14:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Jōmon and related topics

Thank you for the recent advice regarding Jōmon. However, there has not been any further discussion. I thought about proposing a move, but besides university texts and advice from professors, there is little that I can offer in way of discussion.

Which leads me to a more general topic. I am a university undergraduate. While I have not yet declared a major, I have been taking many Japanese history courses. At the beginning of each quarter, the professors (and sometimes TAs as well) always give a similar lecture about spelling Japanese terms properly. The gist of the lecture is that some terms (places, people, technical vocabulary) need bars (called macrons I think) to be spelled properly. We are warned that some publications seem to relax this requirement and omit them, but that this is incorrect and unacceptable at a university level. During the freshmen courses, some leniency is given at first, but by the sophomore level, papers with misspelled words are returned with no credit. This seems fair since all of our textbooks explicitly use the bars as well. Some professors distribute supplemental lists of relevant terms with proper spellings for reference.

I have always loved Wikipedia. It is a great treasure trove of information. Many of the historical topics that I have been learning about are well covered here on Wikipedia. For a large part, Wikipedia uses the bars as my textbooks and university teaches. However, there are major glaring exceptions. For example, Jomon and Kyoto should be "Jōmon" and "Kyōto", respectively. There are many other minor topics as well.

Occasionally there is class discussion about how sites such as Wikipedia sometimes omit the bars in contrast to our textbooks and university requirements. It would be so much simpler if spelling could be consistent throughout. Granted, it is a little more work to type, but it seems to be more correct and expected at a professional level. I suspect it is just laziness that people omit them.

As an encyclopedia, I would expect the information to be correct both in details and in spelling. While I think that Wikpedia is on the right track, there are too many exceptions. Besides requesting a move at each page, is there a more general forum to address these issues? Is there some place that I can voice my opinion on these topics? I fear that discussion will not solve all of the problems because some texts (usually fairly general) relax the requirement while others (usually detailed, university level stuff) do not, and editors will just argue over these. Wikipedia seems to be stuck somewhere between there. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions that you may have. Thanks. TwilightEclipse 17:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you completely as to the idea that things ought to be romanized correctly. As a postgraduate (MA) student in Japanese history, I've grown more acquainted with professional/academic standards, and believe that Wikipedia should follow them, both for the sake of earning respect, and also for being a more useful educational tool. Currently, the policy makes a limited number of exceptions for those words which are deemed to be in common enough use in English so as to consider them English words (e.g. sumo, Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka with no macrons). While many other terms (e.g. Jomon) do not formally fall under the exceptions denoted by the policy, there are a great many links and article titles which simply haven't been changed yet - editors scoping for these errors have not happened upon them yet.

Policy is determined purely by consensus, and is never set in stone, as consensus can change. Please do take a look at it if you're interested: WP:MOS-JA. And if you'd like to propose changing the policy to eliminate the exceptions, I will back you up - I'm kind of on the fence with super-common terms like Tokyo and sumo which we see in our everyday lives in English with no macrons, but it annoys me to no end when people argue that anything in the OED or Webster's counts as an English word, no matter how devotedly Japanese it is in concept (e.g. daimyō, tennō, the ~ryū of karate schools) - just don't say I didn't warn you ^_^. This kind of thing gets discussed *a lot* and more often than not, I'm sorry to say, people tend to gang up on whoever's decided to rock the boat.

That said, I wish you luck in your continued academic and Wiki pursuits; I'd be happy to help you out with either if you ever have any questions. Thanks. LordAmeth 17:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Mark Ravina

Hello. I've noticed that you've placed a warning template on my new article on historian Mark Ravina stating that the article reads like a resume. Thank you for your attentive efforts to enforce standards and quality upon new articles, and for your efforts overall.

Given that the article is already written in prose paragraph form, not bulletpoints like a real resume would be, and given that I am not aware of any other biographical sources on Prof Ravina, I am wondering what you suggest should be done. Thank you. LordAmeth 15:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It looked a lot more like a CV to me last night than it does today, but I still don't think it asserts the importance of its subject as forcefully as it should. The article notes Ravina's role in film consulting and in studying Japanese history, but it doesn't come out and say why he is/was important in those roles.

Mention of the titles of academic books even the above-average reader will likely not have read (I think I remember Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan being one of the optional reads in the last East Asian history course I took, but I went plowing through Eiko Ikegami's social-networks-based stuff instead) will mean nothing to said reader. It must be asserted what place this academic's work has in his field -- his context -- and it should probably be asserted before some nefarious deletionist comes around and puts a prod tag on the article. --Dynaflow 07:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Will do. Cheers. LordAmeth 07:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've done what I can to add some explanation of the significance of the work. I'm afraid of pushing the limits of what is not original research, my own personal analysis of the significance of Ravina's work, but I'm hoping that what we've got now will stand. Thanks for your help, and if you have further suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. LordAmeth 07:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

AWB jomon/Jomon/Jōmon edits

I noticed that you're AWBing a lot of corrections per the RM closure. I do agree with the result of the dicussion there, but please be careful when running through these; I noticed that one of the edits was to an external link (at Japanese people) and broke that link. I know you usually are careful, but since the volume of edits is pretty high, I thought I'd point it out. Thanks... Dekimasuよ! 04:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I noticed that the external links ones could be difficult, and I was trying to be careful with those. Cheers. LordAmeth 09:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Closing move requests

I notice that you closed your own request to move Jomon period to Jōmon period. While I don't disagree with the conclusion, and I can imagine situations in which a move request has a clear consensus before five days have passed, I think it is a poor precedent to set. Some reasonable arguments had been made in opposition to the move, and others could easily have arisen in the next few days. (I don't think that would have happened, but such things are possible.) There would have been little harm in waiting another four days, rather than moving it only 28 hours after the debate was opened, especially since it has been at a macron-free title for so long beforehand. Can I ask that in future, you allow someone else to close discussions in which you have participated (but by all means close those in which you have not)? The appearance of impartiality is fundamental to the process, and following process aids transparency. --Stemonitis 09:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. I thought about that as soon as I'd done it. I don't engage in these kinds of "official" actions very often for this very reason - no need to rock the boat, make people think I'm being a rogue admin or misusing my powers or whatever. I understand how that looks - closing a discussion before sufficient oppty has been given to express opposition, and I'll endeavor to not do it again.

Cheers. LordAmeth 09:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Japan

Hi pls discuss before you deleate 'cause I attached proof —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.239.229.7 (talk • contribs)

I apologize for reverting your edits without more careful consideration. That page is vandalized extremely frequently, and after glimpsing through it, I judged it to be vandalism and so reverted it. I do not believe that anyone attacked Japan or seized any of its outlying islands during the American Occupation; I have simply never heard of that being the case. I do not see the proof you claim to have attached - please provide citations. Thank you. LordAmeth 23:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry I coulsd not find Enlish Article so pls read follows

Takeshima/Dokto Issue Wikipedia JPN

• SK Occupyed Takeshima Final year of GHQ domination 1952(Sorry I will ammend to 1945-1952) Mr Dean Rusk submitted letter to SK's I-sunman,but he negrected the letter.
• Please see Draft Treaty of Peace with Japan（ChapterII Territorial Clauses, Article 3）You can see Takeshima in the Doc.

Draft Treaty of Peace with Japan

• And as you know Soviet Union negrected Japan-Soviet non-agression treaty and intrude & ocupyied Hoppou Ryodo/South Kuril
• According to US history resercher at that time Russians Raped Half Million of Japanese Ladies and Abuducted 1.3Million Japanese frpm Northern Islands& China to Syberia, 300,000Killed at working camp.

• Regarding Senkaku
• Senkaku issue

--202.239.229.7 00:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I see. Thank you for those. I'm not sure if such details belong in the overall general Japan article, rather than the articles on the individual islands, but they are very interesting. Thank you for your efforts. LordAmeth 08:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Barnsensu

Thanks! I'm glad you liked the work, and I hope I can do more in the future. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 02:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for assessment, and a question

Two things.

I:Thanks for the assessment of Operation Spring, which I've done a whole lot of work on.

II: I've searched and searched and searched (you get the idea) for an article about Luitenant Commander Takahashi, who was a dive-bomber commander during both the Battle of Coral Sea and the Attack on Pearl Harbor. I'm not sure what happened to him after that. If you happen to come across information on him, could you let me know? Also, if there is an article on him, please let me know.

Thanks

User:Climie.ca 20:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I've searched through the Japanese WP articles on those battles and found a Lt Cmdr Takahashi Kakuichi (高橋赫一), who I can only assume is your man. Unfortunately, the mentions of him on Japanese WikiPedia are red links, and I don't see anything overly useful upon a quick glance through the first page or so of Google results - just mentions in larger articles about battles or the war in general. Good luck though! LordAmeth 20:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Many Thanks:

Thanks for signing the petition for me to return from my Wikibreak/Retirement. It was unexpected & I appreciate your kind words. I'm planning to stay away from conflict for a bit, so don't expect to see me around any talk pages etc. It's funny because that saying was one of my Japanese teacher's favourite along with "Even monkeys fall from trees..." Anyway, thanks again for being there. :) Spawn Man 23:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

No prob. I'm thinking of avoiding controversial topics a bit more too. LordAmeth 23:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

List of missing topics of Japanese history

• I rechecked your notes in the samurai-era history. I'm beginning to get dubious about Turnbull's spelling since many of those mispellings are based of names from his books. And I just noticed that he had spelt Miyamoto Musashi as "Minamoto"... - Skysmith 07:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

when it comes to Turnbull, it's wise to be dubious about pretty much all of it, since the vast majority of his info came directly from E. Papinot's book on Japanese history - often word for word - it is "public domain" (first published in 1910) - so Turnbull used it liberally in his two major "Samurai" books (the "samurai sourcebook" is the only one I remember off the top of my head), reproducing the errors along with the rest. For general history, it's ok, for facts, not so much. Papinot also misread some of the Kanji when writing his book, so that legacy lives on as well. --Kuuzo 07:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Play

Heya, I see that you had some issues with {{Infobox Play}} a while back. I think I've sorted them so you should be able to use the template without problems now, should you wish to! GDallimore (Talk) 12:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed a lot of work going into it the last few days. Thank you for your extensive efforts. The next time I come across a play article, I'll give the infobox another go. Cheers. LordAmeth 12:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Succeeding entity to Ryūkyū Kingdom

Please see my coments at Talk:Ryūkyū Kingdom#Succeeding entity and explain your rationale for change of succession from Empire of Japan to Okinawa Prefecture. --Scott Alter 20:59, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Replied there. Thanks. LordAmeth 23:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Japan and Java ?

I am not that hot on good sources re this for the 17th century - but some of my older refs that I dont use that much might have something - cannot promise much - but if I find anything - will let you know - over a few weeks that is - cheers SatuSuro 14:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Awesome. I am trying to avoid discussing trade with the Dutch East India Company, as that's in a way trade with Holland and not with SE Asia, but if there were independent native states on Java or elsewhere in Indonesia in this period which traded with Japan, I'd be very interested in anything you might be able to offer. Thank you very much. LordAmeth 14:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey man- this is wikipedia right? My very limited understanding of the history of the north coast of java in the 1600's is that the british had a limited time presence in Jepara (it might have been 1500's) - i think the portuguese had been squeezed out by the dutch by this time - a friend did his masters on gresik - and my fieldwork site creator (ie he who made imogiri) - sultan agung was busy trying to hassle batavia - and the dutch there (JP Coen and others) - and subjugate the surabaya (just next to gresik or vice versa) - I think that if youre looking for a very indirect secondary source - I am certain anthony reid's books might have something Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, 1450-1680 New Haven : Yale University Press, c1988-1993. - the thing is there was not a unitary state despite some twisted historians (I am sure you get that for japan too) who didnt understand the patron client relationships between agung and his outlying locations of power - so they do some very strange numbers on his power. The thing that gives them the illusion that they have a handle on his power was agungs treatment of enemies and his military who failed to conquer the dutch in seiges of batavia - long after agung and before as well - court intrigues and dynamics were what held parts of the supposed realm, together as well as quite amazing inter-marriage politics - so I would say that java had the dutch, the cirebonese, the mataram of agung, and the gresik surabayans with whom there were possible dealings with countries to the north.... sorry to litter your tlk page with late night ramblings. will try to scertain some other items - so as long as my aging brain assumes 1600s is what you are after - the historiography is 10 times worse than the history as some bright spark in the 50's claimed that agung invented his ancestors - and more or less made a very muddy place even muddier. SatuSuro 14:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow. No worries about the late night ramblings. As you say, this is Wikipedia, after all. How many times have I edited late into the night? Anyway, thank you for reminding me about Anthony Reid. I definitely have to go take a look at his books. Cheers. LordAmeth 15:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

If reid is a bad miss - give me a heads up on that - there are much more obscure sources. Then there is always the java and east asia long term relationship that Anne Kumar at anu has worked on - but thats like millenia before though :( SatuSuro 15:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I was in her office about 10 years ago while in canberra - and was very taken by the fact that she had arthur mees childrens encyclopedia near her office door (my children were young then - theyre b--- teenagers now...) but her thing about the connections:-

1. Kingship and Religion: Looking from Java to Japan in Semaian 5, Looking in odd Mirrors: the Java Sea VJH Houben, HMJ Maier and W van der Molen (eds), Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden, pp.258-288 (1992)
2. Does Japanese Have an Austronesian Stratum in Pan-Asiatic Linguistics: Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Languages and Linguistics January 8-10 1996 Institute of Language and Culture, Mahidol University, vol.l1 pp.522-543 (1996)
3. An Indonesian Element in the Yayoi: The evidence of Biological Anthropology in Anthropological Science 106/3, pp.265-276 (1998)
4. Lexical Evidence for Early Contact Between Indonesian Languages and Japanese in Oceanic Linguistics 39/2, pp.219-255 (December 2000)

- which my gresik person was quite intrigued by as it gives a very long contact time ... SatuSuro 15:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Defense/Military

I would appreciate if you could leave my reversion as it is. I only made it after complaints about lack of commonality of spelling and grammar. Now I've got it one way, could we just leave it please? I would have made it "defence", but then there would have been style complaints given the use of the word "defense" in JSDF in the article, etc. John Smith's 19:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I hate fighting over such little things. But as Japan doesn't have a military, and therefore cannot have "military spending", and since even countries that do have militaries talk about "defense spending" or the "defense budget", I thought it a good idea. LordAmeth 20:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Asian vegetables now lacking categories

Hello, you participated in the discussion of categories "Chinese vegetables," "Japanese vegetables," and "Japanese sea vegetables," which were deleted today. Rather than substitute the proper remaining categories for the deleted ones--such as "Category: Japanese cuisine" for Shiitake and "Category: Sea vegetables" for Hijiki, to give just two examples--User:Cydebot just went ahead and deleted the deleted categories and went on to other things. When I pointed out that he should have taken the time and care to ensure that, for example, Kai-lan should be in the remaining category (one category up) "Chinese cuisine," he just told me "the bot did what it was programmed to do" and basically told me to bugger off.

I believe this is highly improper in that it is asking the editors who maintain Asian cuisine articles to go in and replace the proper categories by hand, taking dozens of hours of needless labor that could/should have been done by Cyde. I believe that this sort of automated editing can lead to such wreckage and the necessity for an enormous amount of hard work that must now be done by hand, but the worst thing is that User:Cyde refuses to see that he has caused damage to these articles.

Could you perhaps provide some feedback on this matter? The discussion is here. Many thanks, Badagnani 06:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for bringing this issue to my attention. If work needs to be done to re-categorize these articles, I'd be happy to help out. Cyde is simply following procedure - he's not being particularly human about it, that is, not particularly sympathetic. But the fact that he's not going above and beyond what is required or expected by CfD procedure is, well, perfectly within the boundaries of said procedure, so he's not really doing anything wrong. Sorry :( LordAmeth 11:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Pearl Harbor FA review process

I've left a comment at Featured Article Review noting some serious problems with the process. One at least is fundamental ot the nature of WP. Perhaps you'd care to respond?

On another subject altogether, congratulations on your academic interests. One I might (should?) have followed up when I was in college. If you're willing I'd like to pose a question I have had in the back of my mind for some time. Perhaps some disperasl of the fog might be possible. ww 11:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've responded to your FAR comments on that page. Thanks for bringing this up. As for your question, I'd be happy to answer it - sharing knowledge is one of my favorite aspects of being a more visible editor on WP. LordAmeth 12:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Woodblock printing in Japan

Hi. I saw your name on the article talk page. The definition of baren is wrong. Baren is not an ink pad. pressing pad? Please take a look at the en.wiki Baren page and http://media.excite.co.jp/ism/086/index.html I don't trust my English writing. So it would be grateful if you could correct the article. Thank you.--Oda Mari 15:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

それは僕の間違いじゃなくて、直します。それを知らせてありがとう。LordAmeth 15:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I know that's not your mistake. But I was not sure the IP address editor would read my message. Thank you again.--Oda Mari 16:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem. LordAmeth 16:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You don't get it? It's お黙り！/Shut up!. When I signed in, Wiki refused the user names I tried to use again and again. So I typed ‘Shut up!' in Japanese. And as a Japanese female name this is a perfect one. It could be 小田真理. Do you like it? 悪くないでしょ？

As for your Japanese, it would be better それは僕の間違いじゃないけど、直します。知らせてくれて or 教えてくれてありがとう。--Oda Mari 18:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC) 　

Thanks for the help. I didn't know the phrase お黙り, so now I do. Useful. As for passive causative constructions like させてくれた, well they just get on my nerves. One of the things I have the most trouble with. But, I'm working on it. Thanks again. LordAmeth 18:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've just made a minor edit on the article Iwo jima and left a message on the talk page. I saw your name there again. If you still have the interest on the article please take a look. And if you need some help on the article and 日本語, please let me know. I find English writing and speaking are difficult. いくらやっても上達しない。By the way お黙り is どちらかといえば　a female using phrase. Men say just 黙れ！ What does your name mean? I don't get it.--Oda Mari 19:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Mine is meant to be short for "Lord of Amethyst." The reasoning behind it is really irrelevant. 本当に理由がない。But I've been using this as my screen name for so many years, I'm not sure if I want to change it. I'm tempted to come up with something more Japanese-related, but I'm afraid of being considered 趣味悪い。LordAmeth 19:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the guidance and help in Japanese. I understand your difficulties with English - I often feel exactly the same way about Japanese. いくら勉強しても、上手にならないという感じがある。It can be very frustrating, but I encourage you to stick to it. がんばれ！ As for the Iwo Jima article, I understand your reasoning, but I think that in English, most people would assume "Tokyo" to mean the city, the metropolitan area, and not the whole prefecture, including such incredibly distant islands as Iwo Jima. It's like saying something is in New York - you might mean New York State, but the reader might think you mean New York City. That's why "Prefecture" was included originally. Is that alright? Shall I put it back? LordAmeth 19:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Please look at the article Tokyo talk page; correction please section and my message on Fg2 talk page. As for the change, could it possible to use the word Metropolis instead of prefecture? if not, it is OK to put it back.--Oda Mari 19:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

This is only my personal opinion, but I really do think that Prefecture is best. 都 may translate as "metropolis", but "metropolis" also implies a concentrated urban area, and is not used in any other contexts (any other cities or states or countries) to refer to something equivalent to a state or a province. I appreciate the difficulty one may have in thinking that 県 means "prefecture" and that therefore 都,府, and 道 must translate to something else, but it is really quite normal in English to refer to all 47 as "prefectures". Even if it is not 100% accurate to the Japanese thoughts on the matter, I think that the use of the word "prefecture" in this case rather than "metropolis" would make the most sense to the average English-language reader who does not know the intricacies of the Japanese system. LordAmeth 19:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. Put it back, please. Yes,I know that my point of view is too Japanese. Well, I've got to go to bed. It's early in the morning here. Nice to talking to you. Later. またね。Oda Mari 19:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello again, 紫水晶卿. Thank you for the baren correction. Did you visit the media.excite. page I wrote in my first message? What do you think? I thought it is interesting to watch the process of work for those who want to know more about the 版画 in Japan. Could it be an external link? Or is it too commercial? Oda Mari 05:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kanji. I've tried before to find the kanji for it, but only ever came up with アメシスト. I can't complain to have a name with "murasaki" in it. As for the link, I have not explored it thoroughly, but it looks cool, and not too commercial. Do you want to go add it? LordAmeth 08:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Please click the reproduct/リプロダクト on the page and watch the process. Yes, I want to try and go add it. But later. Now is the time for dinner. Oda Mari 10:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Re connections between Java and Japan

In my old Uni library today ( many moons since Ive been there - checking a few things - the obvious stuff jumping out at me (from a number oft used sources when i was doing my hons degree) has chinese contacts and trade - I might have improperly built up expectations re japanese items - hope you caught up with reids work. cheers SatuSuro 10:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I did, in fact. Thanks so much for reminding me about Reid. His work has come in extremely useful as a base for understanding the trade of the time, and the political and economic situations in SE Asia at the time. I had never realized that so much of Indonesia was independent at the time, under a number of separate sultanates or states, and not all under the VOC. Now that I've more fully fleshed out my understanding of the ways in which the VOC and the Chinese handled trade in the period, I just need to find more sources on the ways in which political and economic relations were maintained outside of those avenues. The kings of Siam (Ayutthaya), in particular King Narai, had actual direct diplomatic relations with the shogunate, or at least tried to, though I cannot seem to find equivalent events or conditions among the other states of the region. The Trinh and Nguyen lords of the two kingdoms of Vietnam at the time worked with the independent Japanese traders in their kingdoms, but that's not the same as having formal contacts with the real Japanese authorities in Nagasaki or Edo. Anyway, I'm meeting with my advisor tonight, so we'll see what he has to say. Thanks again for your help. LordAmeth 10:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Best of luck with your supe/advisor - if direct japanese java issues come up drop a note and ill pursue my illadvised highly tangential thousand threads (sounds like a tibetan text for working towards abott - hood at sera or the like) - hey I just realise that I have a favour to ask - my fieldwork site in java was imogiri (sometimes due to transcription - imagiri) I would be very very interested to know what that means in japanese - as there are a number of etymologies at the indonesian and javanese language level - i would be intrigued what it must be in japanese... no rush SatuSuro 10:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article on the site, Imogiri "is derived from Sanskrit Himagiri, which means 'mountain of snow'. The latter is another name for Himalaya." It doesn't appear in my Japanese dictionary, so I'm guessing it's not from that origin... LordAmeth 10:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I started that article - and i think mearsault did his version - the thing is when i type the word into search engines with wide anough scope it pulls in japanese language material... Im not so much worried about the tortuous ambiguities of the javanese and indonesian etymologies - i was intrgued to see it was in some way a word or compound in japanese ... SatuSuro 10:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, of course. Well. The chief thing I come up with for "imogiri" is 芋桐, which means "potato paulownia". "Imagiri" can mean either "now duty/obligation" (今義理), or "now occasion" (今切り), which I guess could refer to something similar to carpe diem, but I could be wrong. In any case, I doubt that it has any relevance to the etymology of the Javanese placename, but it's still interesting I suppose. Cheers. LordAmeth 11:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much what you have just told me is very significant and I appreciate your answer more than you can possibly imagine. Thank you - I owe you for that!

For many javanese of traditional attitudes - the visit to the place in java requires an attitude of reverence and going to the place at special times - as well as being in prayerful mode and with very sincere and deeply inner calm and reverent duty to the ancestor (with incense, money and so on) - and the revelation of the imagiri translation in japanese is just nothing short of brilliant for me - some other time a much longer explanation.. thanks again SatuSuro 15:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

HELP ME!!!

I've just added the link on woodblock printing page. It looks OK, yet I cannot jump to the page. I can go to the page by clicking the address I wrote on your page though. What was Wrong? --Oda Mari 15:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

That's odd. It really ought to work. I removed the last "/" after ".../index.html" and it seems to be alright now. But it's not like you did anything wrong to begin with. Weird. LordAmeth 16:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much. At first I omitted the part you removed, but as it didn't work, I added it later. It didn't work again. So I asked for your help. Now I'm thinking it needs some time to work. ああ、よかった。As for the article Iwo Jima, is the Ogasawara Island homepage OK as a info. source to expand the article? I left the address in the history section on the article talk page. --Oda Mari 17:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The official site is absolutely a fine source to work from. Thanks for your efforts. LordAmeth 18:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Pepsi and Michael Jordan

I'm a little disappointed in myself, that it has taken this long to come up with the analogy as well. Adding New York City to that list, I think we have a good framework and justification for cleaning out the "Tokugawa Ieyasu is portrayed as enjoying sushi in Shibuya in the ○×○× video game" cruft. Neier 12:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XV (May 2007)

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For your research

Saw your note at the Southeast Asian WikiProject. You might be aware of this resource already, but in case you are not - http://nomfoundation.org/. That's a useful website for information on Chu Nom. It even has a tool to look up Chu Nom characters. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that's great. Thank you. LordAmeth 16:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Your name

I saw your user page with your name in kanji! 読み方 is むらさきずいしょう. As for Lord, you like 殿 better than 卿/きょう? What's the reason? --Oda Mari 19:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason is simply because I've never seen/heard of 卿 before. That's all. I'm guessing, based on my dictionary, though I could be wrong, that 卿 has a much newer meaning, more in the sense of state ministers, Western-style aristocracy (kazoku), while 殿 references more kuge and daimyo - an older, more traditional, more Japanese style "lord". (I had a feeling you'd notice the change. I'm kinda sad, aren't I? 趣味悪い馬鹿な人ね。) LordAmeth 19:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

趣味悪くない。It's just a matter of preference. But Japanese translators almost automatically translate Lord in English novel/non fiction into 卿. Like バイロン卿. That's why I choose the word.--Oda Mari 19:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. So it is more of a Western connotation, then? Every jidaigeki I've seen, people refer to their masters as "tono". .. LordAmeth 20:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion request

Hi. This image [4] now available here [5]. Gridge 21:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC).

Um, thanks. But I think you might have the wrong person. I haven't touched any deletion requests or images, or for that matter, articles, involving Israel in quite some time, and I haven't seen that image before. Sorry. Good luck. LordAmeth 21:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Aren't you a sysop? How can I mark images for quick deletion? Gridge 21:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC).

Oh. You wanted to request a deletion. Sorry. Yes, I am an admin, but not particularly active in those kinds of technical matters. I can delete it for you, no problem. Sorry I misunderstood what you were asking. Just so you know for the future, it might be easier or better to go through the procedure at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Shalom. LordAmeth 21:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Gridge 22:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC).

Sinmiyangyo

Hello, Milord. If I might distract your attention from goukon for a moment, or rather more like ten minutes, you might take a look at Talk:Sinmiyangyo. I think it may be the kind of issue that could interest you. Note the discussion in the archive page, especially in its nether regions. -- Hoary 08:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, boy. What fun. Well, I personally have never heard of this event before, so I can't vouch for which name I'd be more familiar with it under or what might be more common in scholarship. But, if I could be considered an outside party, an objective voice of reason, then I'll contribute my two cents. :) LordAmeth 08:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Siege of Osaka

Hello, this is a meassage from Chinese Wikipedia user, do you want to make more translation from Chinese or Japanese Wikipedia this article. It may become Translation of the week in a short period. Wating for your respone.--Burning Flame 14:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

That's an awfully large project; I'm not sure if I'm really up for it. I'm not sure how translation of the week works, but I suppose if I were to be given just a few sections, I would definitely be up for that. (Translating from Japanese. I don't know any Chinese at all. Yet.) Thanks. LordAmeth 16:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I have two books about this (both in Japanese). In Chinese Wikipedia, it is good article. But my English is poor. Anyway, I will try to improve this article. I have useful site here. This site with many references. ごめんね。--Burning Flame 13:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I do not think I will really have time to work on this, but I will take a look at it. LordAmeth 14:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• ありがとう。--Burning Flame 14:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Here are list of battle of Siege of Osaka.

Winter

• 木津川の戦い Kizugawa (Hachisuka Yoshishige* vs Akashi Takenori)
• 鴫野の戦い Shigeno (Uesugi Kagekatsu vs Ono Harunaga)
• 今福の戦い Imafuku
• 野田·福島の戦い Noda Fukushima
• 真田丸攻防戰 Sanadamaru (Sanada Yukimura vs Matsudaira Tadanao and Ii Naotaka)

Summer

• 樫井の戦い Kashii (Asano Nagaakira vs Ban Naoyuki)
• 道明寺の戦い Dōmyōji (MatSudaira Tadaaki, Mizuno Katsushige,Date Masamune vs Gotō Mototsugu, Sanada Yukimuri)
• 八尾の戦い Yao (Chosokabe Morichika vs Todo Takatora)
• 若江の戦い Wakae (Ii Naotaka vs Kimura Shigenari)
• 天王寺･岡山合戦 Tennoji Okayama (with two battlefields :Tokugawa Ieyasu vs Sanada Yukimura and Tokugawa Hidetada vs Ono Harunaga)

Also, I suggest all battles merge to this article. In JAWP, all battles are include article).--Burning Flame 14:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Though it is not up to me, my vote would be to keep the battles as separate articles. That will help encourage them to be expanded, and it will avoid the messiness of having it all included in one place. It may be a strange case since this is a "siege" not a "war", but nevertheless, most wars on the English Wikipedia are represented by separate articles for each battle. See Genpei War for an example of the way this can be handled - there's still plenty to be said about the conflict overall, and yet the details of each battle are kept separated out to allow for infoboxes, and for separate, detailed treatments of each. LordAmeth 14:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I see the article missed battle infomation about Battle of Dōmyōji (when Goto death, Sanada and Tokugawa battle in 誉田. In the same day two forces battle in Yao and Wakae, but I cannot see any information.--Burning Flame 14:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

That is because many of the individual articles, namely Battle of Yao and Battle of Wakae have not yet been written. If you would like to create those articles, please do go ahead and do so. LordAmeth 17:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

wpbio

I've replied to and addressed your concern about "listas" at Template talk:WPBiography. –Outriggr § 04:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you...?

Hi! How have you been? I was surprised to see the article Ogata kōrin that there's no mention about his maybe most famous '燕子花図/かきつばたず', the Iris屏風. According to your user page, I guess you know someone in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and you can get some information there. Could you expand the page? At least a mention of Kakitubatazu even in a line. --Oda Mari 16:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem. The Irises appear to be at the Nezu Museum, though he does have many famous works at the Boston Museum, where I used to intern. LordAmeth 17:36, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The Irises the M of FA owns is the one of the bests, isn't it? I don't know the English title, so I appreciate your help. I'll try the Nezu M and learn something.--Oda Mari 18:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your writing on the Irisese. I checked it at the Nezu M's homepage and it IS a national treasure. So I deleted the word 'considered' from the sentense. OK? --Oda Mari 19:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Taiwanese military history

Hi, I have noticed that you are a coordinator for the WikiProject Military history. There are many Taiwanese war-related articles, can you please create a task force for these articles?--Jerry 21:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not know whether or not the Chinese military history task force considers Taiwan to be within their scope or not, but I would ask about it on that discussion page, and/or on the main discussion page of the MilHist project. Task forces are generally not created unless there's significant interest in collaborations on a given topic... Good luck! LordAmeth 00:51, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the scopes might overlap a bit, but the majority of the articles shouldn't be part of the Chinese task force.--Jerry 04:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Really? I'm curious what sort of articles you think would fall specifically under a "Taiwanese" scope and not a Chinese one. Battles between the Nationalists and Communists were certainly a Chinese matter, as were any Taiwanese battles fought in connection with the first or second Sino-Japanese Wars. Coxinga was Chinese, and was fighting for the restoration of the Ming, against the Qing. Unless you were planning on creating articles about native aboriginal Taiwanese military history? LordAmeth 07:37, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The only Taiwanese wars that can be part of the Chinese scope are those faught during the Koxinga period and Qing Dynasty. Other than that, the battles/wars faught between the aborigines and the Japanese during the Japanese rule period should be part of the Taiwanese task force only. So I guess you're right, but I think the scope should not be limited to the aboriginal wars.--Jerry 09:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, we can certainly sort out those kinds of issues once the task force has formed. Have you sought or found support through WPMILHIST yet? LordAmeth 12:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the scope should be limited to wars/conflicts that took place on the island of Taiwan and participated by the people that lived on the island (Han Chinese and aboriginals), such as the locals uprising against the Dutch, Taiwan Expedition(which is maintained by WikiProject Japan), the war between Republic of Formosa and Japan, 228 incident(yes, there were battles fought between the "rebels" and the "government force"), and the series of conflicts between ROC and PRC after the defeat on mainland. Koxinga's invasion on Taiwan should be excluded because his soldiers were recruited in mainland China, but the later conflicts that involved Taiwan-recruited soldiers could and should be included, if we can find any information on them. Kc0616

Macrons

Hi there. I noticed from your edit many moons ago to Assabu that you're a bit of a dab hand at fixing macrons. Just noticed that there are quite a few Hokkaido towns with damaged wikilinks because they're named using the un-macroned version of Hokkaido. Could I please ask your help to fix them? Noticed so far:

• Ono, Hokkaido (NB, this requires a macron for Ōno as well)
• Kameda District, Hokkaido
• Nanae, Hokkaido
• Kamiiso, Hokkaido
• Kamiiso District, Hokkaido

Many thanks Saganaki- 12:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Done, along with a few others. Thanks a lot for pointing these out to me. LordAmeth 13:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

ad

This WP:MILHIST ad created by User:Miranda. :⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 16:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

LordAmeth, I need your help, regarding the article SURREALIST GROUPS

LordAmeth, there is a user called TEXTURE SAVANT, who is really the surrealist, ERIC W.BRAGG from SURREALCOCONUT.COM website, and he is using the article SURREALIST GROUP to promote his non-notable friends that were voted off Wikipedia a while back, (upon doing my study of this issue). I ask that in order to avoid any edit war, can you assist in a Poll or Consensus with the Wikipedia Community to investigate these surrealist groups, its the LINKS that TEXTURE SAVANT keeps putting into the article, inferring that they are notable, they are not. TEXTURE SAVANT, who is ERIC W.BRAGG keeps putting the links back in, using the article solely for the purpose of promotion. Please look at the edits.Madsurrealist 23:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is the article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_groups Madsurrealist 23:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The Surrealist groups article looks like a poor stub right now, so it's not as if his edits are ruining an otherwise good article... I would suggest you start a discussion on that page, and if it comes to it, a poll. I'd be happy to vote and contribute my two cents once things get rolling, but for now it doesn't look like there's enough people talking about it to effect a decent discussion. Perhaps mentioning it on the Visual Arts Wikiproject will attract some attention. While I agree with you that unknowns who post blogs are not inherently notable, and that self-promotion is discouraged on the 'pedia, I know next to nothing about surrealism, particularly 21st century surrealism, so I am afraid I really have no idea who would be notable and who not. Good luck! LordAmeth 07:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

contact userbox

This user is a contact for the Military history WikiProject.

--- Neato. Thanks. LordAmeth 09:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Vietnam

Please, join us at Wikipedia:WikiProject Vietnam! Chris 04:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ooh. Keen! LordAmeth 09:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Lord Ameth, I was wondering if you knew of any good online sources of information about the pre-French colonial era of Vietnam. Unfortunately my university library is not very strong on that....I best I can find is Joseph Buttinger's "Smaller Dragon" and the "History of SE Asia" by DGE Hall, which I used for Gia Long and Minh Mang. Those articles don't seem as though they are going to get any bigger than 20k despite reigning for 18 (+20 years fighitng Quang Trung) and 27 years respectively :(. Unfortunately the classic Jean Chesneaux and Le Thanh Khoi works are not kept by my university's library :((. And unfortunately the whole era from Le Loi to Gia Long is only covered in as much detail as for Gia Long and Minh Mang combined .:(. Anyway, looking forward to working with you.Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say I'm not really familiar with any online sources. I've only really gotten interested in Vietnamese history within the last few weeks, and so all I have are the few books I've gotten from the school library. I'm really going to miss having access to that library - I'm leaving in less than a month. Anyway, really sorry I couldn't help. Good luck! And I too look forward to working with you, and with others on this new project. LordAmeth 10:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On 6 July, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Takemoto Gidayū, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Carabinieri 00:17, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Your opinion

If you are not too busy, I want to hear your opinion. Please take a look at the Misinformation section on the talk page of Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thank you. Oda Mari 10:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XVI (June 2007)

The June 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

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Settlements by year of establishment

Thanks for your comments on Category talk:Settlements by year of establishment. I've commented there. Greenshed 23:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision

There's a new peer review request for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision that may be of interest to you; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Wandalstouring 12:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks. I'll take a look. LordAmeth 12:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Help

Somebody deleted the whole plot summary here [6]. Is it Vandalism? Please check it. What could I do when I found something like this? Is it OK to undo? Oda Mari 16:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that was just vandalism; I've reverted it for you. There's some information about vandalism at WP:VANDAL - what is and is not vandalism, and what to do about it. Generally, I would say that if there's any change you don't like, you can feel free to put it back; if you think it's a controversial or questionable change, mention your questions on the talk page, with a WikiProject, or somewhere else you think it'll be seen.

I hope all is well with you. I'm happy to help out. Ganbare! LordAmeth 17:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the quick response. No matter how Wiki says Be Bold,I'm still shy to change. To tell the truth I was really really scared when I deleted a section on Hiroshima page. Basically I'm 小心者. BTW, did you change the hiragana すof すいしょう on your user page? It must be ず by rendaku. Oda Mari 18:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note about rendaku. How do I know when to change it and when not to? jisho.org gives me both むらさきすいしょう and むらさきずいしょう as valid spellings. LordAmeth 19:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

He/she did it again on the page! This time I undid it.Oda Mari 18:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I checked the page history. It seems to me that the same person did it repeatedly. Is there any measure to stop him/her? Oda Mari 19:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I would leave them a message on their talk page asking why they keep doing it - if they have a reason, then it's not really vandalism. And then, if it continues, I'd say the best thing is to tell an admin (like myself), and we'll give them an official warning. Enough official warnings and they'll be banned for a short time. (Just keep in mind WP:3RR; if you revert back the same change three times within 24 hrs, you're breaking the rules, too. Sorry.) LordAmeth 19:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I keep in mind 3RR. I went the jisho page. Did you look up for more? す is understandable but ず is the standard. And I found another Japanese word for Ameth. 紫石英/shisekiei.Oda Mari 02:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

He/she did undo again and I reverted. This time he/she did on not only [7] but also [8]. I tried to leave a message but didn't know which one was appropriate in this case. I read 3RR page and found one of the exceptions for reverts to remove simple and obvious vandalism, such as graffiti or page blanking. How about this case? As I wrote before, user:122.169.32.125 [9] and user:122.169.29.195 [10] and user:Janvi.sharma [11] look like a same person. Oda Mari 06:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know about that exception. Well, in that case, please do feel free to go ahead and revert the changes as much as you have to. I'm going to go warn those users. LordAmeth 08:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories for commoners

Hi LordAmeth, I like the suggestions you made on my Talk page. Please feel free to establish those categories. I probably avoided Chonin because Commoner is English, and probably can be interpreted to include urban and rural commoners. Chonin would be a good subcategory for the urban commoners, and Urban culture of Edo period Japan likewise for the culture. Sorry to take so long to reply! Fg2 10:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries about taking a while to respond. Not a big deal. Maybe I'll do that category stuff tonight. Thanks! LordAmeth 15:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Kobayashi Kiyochika

On 20 July, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Kobayashi Kiyochika, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 19:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

User name in article

Hello LordAmeth, it's wonderful to see you create so many Japanese art-related articles, which are so lacking here. I've noticed your username appears in many of them, which seems rather unusual in the context of Wikiepdia. Forgive my poking my nose into other's business, but I wonder whether it is the usual way to do that, being not familiar with the copyright law. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, KC. Are you referring to my note about "LordAmeth has written this article for both Wikipedia and Samurai-Archives and gives permission that it be used in this way"? The purpose of that note is really for the benefit of the Samurai-Archives, to show that what is posted there is not stolen from Wikipedia but is written originally by myself from outside sources. No worries about poking your nose in; I'm happy to have my work noticed :) If you think it inappropriate, I am sure it can be moved to the talk pages, or removed entirely, as needed. No big deal. Cheers. LordAmeth 10:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I see. It seems more appropriate to have the notice on the talk page. Anyway, good works. Cheers--K.C. Tang 15:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On 21 July, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Saionji family, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 07:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

Yeah, it seems to be a side effect of Outriggr's script - I think I've fixed it now. Thanks for the heads up. Carom 23:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Appreciation

		The Barnstar of High Culture
		I would like to show my appreciation to you for creating so many Japanese art-related articles, which are so lacking here, by giving you this High Culture Barnstar. K.C. Tang 04:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks! LordAmeth 11:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

edits for JapInvaoKorea

Hey LordAmeth,

I was the one who added the stuffs about Jingu justification, etc. I think that the Jingu stuff is perfectly fine and dandy assertion & I didn't make it up - these scholars did. So, could you tolerate it? Thanks. (Wikimachine 20:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC))

Alright. It would be great if it was better worded than it was when I deleted it. Please indicate that "Some scholars have said..." instead of just purporting it as fact, and explain out a bit better exactly how it was used. How does a legendary invasion from nearly 1000 years earlier, which may never have even happened, serve as justification for a new invasion in the 1590s? How does a failed invasion in the 1590s justify a new invasion, under a completely different government operating in a completely different international affairs context, three hundred years after that?

I believe you that these are scholarly comments; I have read some of Swopes' stuff myself, and though his assertions seem to run counter to what many other scholars say, he is nevertheless a professional academic source. However, such bold statements should be explained out. Thank you. LordAmeth 20:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, they were Turnbull's (actually half). The Japanese generals in the war constantly called on the previous invasion of Jingu to claim that the goddess (I'm sure it's Jingu) who had invaded the "Three Kingdoms" (this also gives background to the reason why the Japanese soldiers constantly referred to Korea as the "Three Kingdoms" b/c that Jingu's legend was very much alive back in the 17th century) was giving them some sort of a blessing.

Also, the Japanese generals during the 20th century were inspired by the two 16th century invasions to do the same & fulfill Hideyoshi's prophesy. I don't think that these are scholarly assertions, but ones made by the very people who lived in those times. What I meant by "scholars" is that I'm not doing original research. Thanks. (Wikimachine 05:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC))

Awesome. If you'd like to add a tad more to the article explaining this, it would be fantastic. These were justifications made at the time, and not soley today in light of more recent nationalistic movements etc. Thanks. LordAmeth 05:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

All right. Actually, the articles I read treated nationalism on this subject as something that has been around for hundreds of years - that is, the Koreans had Admiral Yi as the national hero since the end of the war, the Japanese had Kato Kiyosama deified, etc. I can see how you thought something like that could be irrelevant to present-day nationalism. (Wikimachine 17:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC))

Nerima Station

Hi Milord, I've just fixed the templates on Nerima Station, since you were talking about it on the WikiProject page. ではまた、--Hirohisat ^Talk 06:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Hopefully my next attempt at a station article will be less messy after looking at what you've done here, and how you've fixed it. Cheers. LordAmeth 10:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Could do with a hand

This guy on the Japan page keeps wanting to assert the EU is a single economy, even to the point of making the wording rather unnatural. Would appreciate if you could restore the previous version if he doesn't change it to something that makes sense and/or join in on the talk page. John Smith's 14:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I inserted the word "national". That should be an end to it. John Smith's 15:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Jacob Schiff

Hi,

excuse me for my errors of language, but my english is very poor. However I can read it.

I contribute on the french wikipedia, and we have some conflicts about our article on Jacob Schiff.

I have seen your participation in this subject.

Have you heard about a donation from Jacob Schiff to Leon Trotsky ?

Thank you !

Your English is infinitely better than my French, so no need to apologise. I am afraid I do not have any books on the subject at the moment, so I cannot be sure whether or not he did make such donations. A Google search reveals a great many anti-Semitic and "Jewish conspiracy" websites which suggested that he did. These are far from reliable sources, of course, but I would trust them to twist the facts rather than invent them whole cloth; in other words, they may grossly misrepresent the intent or significance of any relationship between Trotsky and Schiff, but might not invent such a relationship entirely out of nothing.

In any case, it does seem likely that Schiff would have made such a donation - Schiff was strongly opposed to the Tsarist government under whom Russian Jews suffered and were persecuted; as a result, Schiff supported the likes of Alexander Kerensky, and the Bolshevik/anti-Tsarist movement as a whole.

I am sorry that I cannot give you a more definitive answer, but I wish you luck in expanding your article on this interesting historical figure. LordAmeth 21:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I thank you for the risponse and the compliment !

In fact the anti-Semitic and conspirationnist aspects of a large majority of the websites is one of our problems. Moreover a contributor is suspect about that, but the situation is not so clear and the accusation of anti-Semitism is heavy.

If you can read the biographies about Schiff which are notified in the article, would you tell me what they say (or not) on the relation between Trotsky and the American banker ? The access of the two books is very difficult in France.

You can't speak french but japanese's, an Agglutinative language. It is very impressive for me, poor European ;-)

Good bye !

Redirect of Jokamachi

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Jokamachi, by Schutz (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Jokamachi is a redirect to a non-existent page (CSD R1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Jokamachi, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 22:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On 5 August, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article buke shohatto, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Wizardman 02:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator selection

The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are looking to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by August 14! Kirill 03:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Japan taskforces

In order to encourage more participation, and to help people find a specific area in which they are more able to help out, we have organized taskforces at WikiProject Japan. Please visit the Participants page and update the list with the taskforces in which you wish to participate. Links to all the taskforces are found at the top of the list of participants.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for helping out! ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 09:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

question about how to handle disruptive editors

Hi. I figured I'd ask over here instead of on Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/August 2007 as it really doesn't belong there. It's probably buried on a wiki page here somewhere, but trying to figure out the process is painstaking at best. Anyway, what is the proper procedure for handling what one considers to be "disruptive editing"? As you've noticed now, we have the situation over on the Talk:Korean War page (actually in the acrchives now thanks to Kfc1864, and I anticipate the same kind of problem on People's Volunteer Army, per the question I posed on the talk page. My previous removal of the "problem" section was reverted, losing several pertinent and well-referenced additions from reputable sources, which I had to re-add. If there was a wiki-page with something like a checklist of the various steps to take in which order, that would be a great benefit. Thanks. wbfergus 15:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you've looked at it already, but the policy guidelines are described at Wikipedia:Disruptive editing and on Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, along with the steps that can be taken against it. I apologize that I don't generally get myself directly involved in such formal processes (banning people, etc), but I'd be happy to at least offer my comments, my support, on the relevant discussion pages, as best as I can given my knowledge of the subjects. Thanks, and good luck! LordAmeth 15:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for. I don't how I missed it, I must not have searched for the term, but searched for other things like arbitration or mediation. Thanks again. wbfergus 17:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

User Ooperhoofd and citations

User:Ooperhoofd has been adding his favorite retranslation of a retranslation of a retranslation to a bunch of articles, which in and of itself seems to be fine (since there seems to have never been any consensus on the issue), however he is then removing the "needs references/sources" tag, claiming that his favorite book equals a source/citation. My understanding of a source/citation is that it is the book(s) that were actually used in the writing of the article, or at the very least back up what is written. I seriously doubt his favorite book fits this, considering he is retroactively putting his favorite book in all these articles. I think he should be required to re-add the tags he has removed, since I went through all of the trouble in the first place. I would have posted this to the military history japan page, but I can't seem to find it. Has it ever been decided if he is simply spamming the articles or not? I have to wonder what, if anything his favorite book has to do with most of the articles it is being added to. I suspect he is planning on translating this book, and so he wants to get as much preparatory marketing as possible. Regardless, even if it is fine for him to put this book as a "further reading" (even if there is nothing further on the subject in his favorite book), it does not constitute a source, so I think he should re-add the "needs sources" tags in all of the articles he has removed them from. If you want to post this to the military history japan page, feel free. Like I said, for some reason I'm having trouble finding it. Cheers! --Kuuzo 00:59, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this. It's really a shame because he does seem to be a knowledgeable, dedicated, and helpful editor. He's been doing some fine work on the Japanese era name chronology the last week or so. But he does seem awfully dense about this particular issue. I see you've already mentioned this issue on his talk page. What do you think the next step ought to be? Do you think it would be helpful to post it to WP:JPMIL or Wikipedia:Japan-related topics notice board? LordAmeth 04:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know - my main gripe is that he's removing the "needs citation" tags when he puts his favorite book up, when we all know that his favorite book is not where the articles came from, and in most cases probably doesn't have much to do with the articles they are added to. I think it should go to the notice board that he puts his favorite book into every article to promote it for one reason or another, and that he is falsely citing it as a source, or in most cases THE source, when it wasn't even used at all to write the articles he cites it in. --Kuuzo 01:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite understand his response, and I'm not sure he understands what we're saying, but it seems that he intends to keep removing the "needs sources" tags when he puts in his favorite books. I do find it obnoxious that he puts the non-english book citation in every article he can find, even when it seems that it may not be directly applicable, but until someone officially rules one way or the other on that, it doesn't matter. I just don't think "further reading" should be considered a source, particularly when it is being retroactively added to articles that he otherwise doesn't add any more info into to make the book a true source. I have posted my questions here: Wikipedia_talk:Japan-related_topics_notice_board#Minor_issue, so feel free to drop an opinion there. Thanks! --Kuuzo 09:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I apologize that I have not been particularly active (nor responsive) the last few days. I'm keeping it in mind, and when I get a chance to sit down and really deal with this in earnest, I shall. Thanks again. LordAmeth 16:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Tobias Harris

Hi! I had a look at your profile, and realized you went to the same university as a Tobias Harris, (http://observingjapan.blogspot.com), as well as spending one semester at the same Japanese university, as well as both studying in Britain! Not that it's of any relevance to Wikipedia, but I'm just wondering if you know him? Cheers, Kansai Marauder

I do know him - took Japanese together at Brandeis. I didn't know about his blog, though. Looks interesting. How do you know him? Solely from the blog, or..? LordAmeth 13:51, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Revert of Ikki

Hi. You reverted my attempt to clean up Ikki. The comment, Ikki has a meaning in Japanese which is useful and important to relate in addition to simply listing links, doesn't really apply to a disambiguation page, in my view. The meaning ikki should be in Ikkō-ikki. Further information like Ikki (一揆, いっき, "a riot", "an insurrection") belongs in wiktionary, but could be used as an introduction.

I'm not about to start an edit war, but I strongly disagree with your revert. —Leo Laursen ( T | C ) 17:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. When I come up with enough information to create a full Wikipedia article on peasant rebellions (i.e. those not associated with Ikkō, and thus called simply ikki), I'll do so. In the meantime, there's no need to edit war over this. Thank you for initiating discussion, and for assuming good faith. LordAmeth 17:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator election

The Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will be selecting nine coordinators from a pool of fourteen candidates to serve for the next six months. Please vote here by August 28! Kirill 17:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Answer to your questions

here. Cheers, --TheFEARgod (Ч) 14:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Macrons and Hepburn Spelling

(moved from User:LordAmeth/Page2)

Dear Lord 紫水晶, I cannot say I am a proper scholar. I have never worked for any academic institution. Besides I cannot say what I am writing is acurate or comprehenshive. Accuracy or comprehensiveness is something about mixed matter. What I am thinking is a single matter. I believe it is true, but it is difficult to show evidence. Having said this, I quite agree to what you say. I was an employee of a publishing house of dictionaries, and when forced to choose between "esoteric but exact" and "easy to understand but sloppy", I always took the former. Now what I believe is that the Japanese language has no long vowels. It is a five-vowel language and said to be isochronic. Now my speculation. In most European languages, syllable boundary is a consonant. And the sequences of vowels which abound in the Japanese language are cumbersome. Hence introduction of the macron. But at the time when the Hepburn system was conceived, the macron was difficult to print on the typewriter, so the accent circonflex was used instead. And in case of `i', geminated letter or "ii" was used because an accent mark presupposed a dotless 'i'. So I think WhisperToMe's use of the apostrophe is quite natural. Kmns tsw 02:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Tagging

When you are tagging an article, or assesing it, if you are putting it at B-class, than please put the needed tags into the html place. I had to do it this time. Thought you ought to know. Dreamy ^\*/_!$! 22:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't tagged/assessed anything in quite some time. Which article are you referring to? LordAmeth 05:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Coordinator election

This is to inform you that you have been re-elected to serve another term as a coordinator of the Military history WikiProject. Congratulations! Kirill 00:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Congrats!

Assistant Coordinator of the Military History Wikiproject, August 2007 — February 2008

Congrats on your election as an assistant coordinator. In honor of your achievement, I present you with these stars. I wish you luck in the coming term. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations and look forward to working together to improve the project. Cla68 03:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion of the renaming of People's Republic of China-Japan relations

Could you give us your comments? The title of the article is reverted from Japan-People's Republic of China relations to People's Republic of China-Japan relations. To avoid the rever war, I suggested that the title should be renamed as Japan-People's Republic of China relations at talk page. I hope you leave a comment at talk page. Thanks :)--Boldlyman 20:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Ohama Kagetaka

If you don't want him as a See also link, then how would you incorporate him into the article? He was well known in the Ise area, and part of the reason is that he worked for both Takeda and Tokugawa as a naval general. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Hm. We can mention him in the articles for whichever battles he fought in, and under wokou if you think he qualifies as such. Or you can simply list him under Retainers in the Takeda Shingen article - create a new section for notable retainers other than the primary 24. I just didn't think he was relevant enough to qualify as a See Also for all of Shingen's topic. Do you see what I mean? A good See Also topic might be Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen or Uesugi Kenshin. Thanks. LordAmeth 22:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XVIII (August 2007)

The August 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Delivered by grafikbot 09:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

ASVAB Update

Your update to the page Talk:Armed_Services_Vocational_Aptitude_Battery added a line to the bottom of the page that looks like it shouldn't be there. I'm not sure what you were trying to do, but you should probably fix it. - 24.148.27.119 00:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Didn't notice that it was put in there. Just a typo, really. Thanks for pointing it out. LordAmeth 00:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

vandalism in disguise at An Jung-geun

Hey LordAmeth, could you please take a look at Talk:An Jung-geun? This racist dude wants him to be dubbed as an assassin, terrorist, murderer, & then a nationalist & tries to omit the fact that he was an independence activist (including user:Komdori, whom I long suspected not to be Korean - found this to be true). Other admins just say it's not their responsibility, etc., but I think you should really take a look at it b/c it's just a simple matter & it'll take no time for you to decide whether they're vandalisms or content disputes. (Wikimachine 02:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC))

Seems to me from what I am reading that it is more content dispute than vandalism. Some people may have particularly strong opinions about the connotation of his identity - i.e. freedom fighter and independence activist vs. murderer and assassin. Personally, I read this and take "nationalist" or even "independence activist" as pretty accurate and neutral; I can see how in other contexts this could read as quite one-sided as these are quite charged words, but somehow I feel that in this context it works best. He was not a professional assassin, nor a frequent murderer... Are other admins responding to the Request for Comment? LordAmeth 02:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Not yet, so thx for taking time to give your consideration. (Wikimachine 03:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC))

Wikimachine, I hope it is not me you are refering to as a 'racist dude' and for the benefit of everyone, I should try to set the record straight, so that your very very Pro-Korean and Anti-anyone who doesnt agree with you 100% does not taint the issue. I objected to activist, as I see it as POV, depending on your POV he was either a terrorist or an activist. To show a NPOV, neither should be used. Ameth, granted he was not a pro-assassin but surely something as serious as an assassination (even done just the once) is serious enough to make you an assassin? Lee Harvey Oswald's page, calls him an assassin, and he wasn't killing presidents on a daily basis, he did it just the once. The murderer issue is not really relevant, I realised that it is not POV to call him a murderer, and certainly dont want to push the issue, and try to call him a murderer. While opinions are divided, some Koreans see him as an activist, while some Japanese see him as a terrorist, it would seem fair to call him both or neither, neither probably looks better. I wish to find a compromise, dont mention activist or terrorist, just call him a nationalist, and instead of calling him an assassin, say he was responsible for the assassination. That is not what I honestly believe to be a true definition but I do think it is a good compromise.Sennen goroshi 16:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent compromise, Sennen. LordAmeth 21:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Look admin, you know what I think is happening? We're fighting over whether to call something "reddish orange" or "orangish red" when describing this particular sub-species of the orange fruit. I advocate for "reddish orange" and Sennen goroshi advocates "orangish red" & I see you saying "sounds like an excellent compromise". He was an independence activist, which is a perfectly NPOV & much more descriptive & accurate term than just simple "nationalist". Nationalist could mean anything - he might have been famous for just being patriotic, who knows? It also carries some negative connotations. Why try to take out "independence activist"? Of all words, and then threat that if I can only include "nationalist" or "murderer", but not the independence activist. What kind of screwed up logic is that? We don't have to think about nationalist or murderer. This racist dude began it all. You think you can go clean, Sennen? Look at your "South Korea being provocative/annoying" column at Liancourt Rocks? Do you seriously think that I could have written Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598) like that while being a nationalist? Let me repeat, "look who's talking". (Wikimachine 23:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC))

Whoa. Chill out. Calling people names and making personal attacks is no way to attract the favor of others. An was a nationalist and activist for Korean independence (a phrase which I think sounds far more natural than 'independence activist'), and he is famous for having assassinated Ito Hirobumi. If you don't like the phrase "nationalist", it can be removed. It's not worth getting worked up over. How about "An Jung-geun was an activist for Korean independence from Japan. He is famous for his assassination of Japan's first Prime Minister, Itō Hirobumi."? LordAmeth 23:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I know where to draw the line in making personal attacks. Somebody here wanted to call him a murderer. That possibly indicates something about that somebody. For example, calling someone a sock puppet master is not a personal attack. Anyhow, I'm fine with your suggestion. Thx, some admins just ignore & go (seems to dislike content dispute), but you didn't. (Wikimachine 23:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC))

wikimachine, do you understand the concept of compromise? It seems that people have been trying to reach a compromise, and offering something that might be acceptable for everyone involved, apart from you. I've been trying to find wording that might not be perfect for either of us, however it is better than reaching no compromise. I already said that I was more than willing to drop the murderer comment (in order to reach a compromise) but so far, I see nothing from you.

Ameth, thanks for the suggestions, however I still have a little bit of an issue with the term activist, to me activist seems like the other side of the coin to terrorist, and I find both of them to be POV, "one mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist" etc, if activist was balance with terrorist, it would be NPOV, but also quite an ugly thing to read, I still think that removing activist and having no mention of terrorist, would be the best balance and more suited to wikipedia. how about "nationalist who was best know for his assassination....." I think its very difficult to define someone, because activist, terrorist and assassin would all suit this person, if you went for literal dictionary definitions, but to me the first 2 have definate POV issues. activist seems to imply that his actions were justifiable, terrorist implies that they were not. In fact depending on your POV you would be able to Bin Laden, Tim McVeigh, IRA terrorists, Nelson Mandela all as activists or freedom fighters depending on whether you consider their actions to be morally right or wrong. anyway excuse the monologue and thanks for taking the time to look at such an annoying (for everyone involved, no matter what their opinion is) issue.Sennen goroshi 03:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It truly does simply have to do with our personal readings of the matter; just as I read "nationalist" to be relatively neutral in this particular case and context, others see it as strongly POV. I completely understand why you might see "activist" as a non-neutral word, a charged word, but if we cannot all agree on using one of those terms, either "activist" or "nationalist" or something else similar, then we will have truly reached an impasse. I have been thinking about this, and from my point of view at least, he seems like a Benedict Arnold - a traitor, certainly, guilty of something akin to treason, but as far as I am aware, no one in Britain nor America holds particularly strong associations with him as terrorist or hero or whatever. We look at him with the kind of apathetic uncaring eye that most historical figures receive. Perhaps the same attitude should be taken towards Mr. An. LordAmeth 10:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I will try to be as un-biased as possible, with my comments - but then again, I'm neither Japanese nor Korean, I just happen to live in Japan, so I dont have much reason to be biased in the first place. I think nationalist, is the only tag you can put on him, without it being POV. I think unless you are talking about someone, and something as clear cut as "was Luke Skywalker a terrorist, when he blew up the death star" it's impossible to call someone an activist or terrorist, without some POV coming into the equation. I think nationalist shows no feelings at all, and does not celibrate or criticise his actions. having said that, i will of course comply with whatever the general un-biased consensus is.Sennen goroshi 14:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Asian self-portraits

Hi, do you know of any (not modern) examples with WP pics? Or a good person to ask? I know they exist, but can't find any on Commons. Thanks Johnbod 14:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

WPMILHIST Elections

Thank you for your support. It was much appreciated. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 16:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Bugyō

Hi LordAmeth:

This is just in response to your recent edit to bugyō. With all due respect, I believe that you are in error. Yes, the Kyoto Shoshidai was in Kyoto, but Kyoto also had a machi-bugyō. Please see the following article on the Japanese Wikipedia as an example: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B8%E4%BA%95%E5%B0%9A%E5%BF%97 Nagai Naoyuki held the position of Kyoto Machi-bugyō in the early 1860s. Also, page 11 of Sasama Yoshihiko's Edo machi-bugyō jiten (Tokyo: Kashiwa-shobo, 1995) clearly states, in the list of Tokugawa-appointed machi bugyō, that Kyoto was one city which had machi-bugyō. Thanks for your time. -Tadakuni 16:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

If you say so, I'll certainly believe you. I was under the impression that there was no Kyoto machi-bugyo, but I guess I was wrong. Is this a position which existed throughout the period, or only towards the very end? LordAmeth 21:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

See here for more on the Kyoto machi bugyō. According to this list here, which lists the holders of the office of Edo machi bugyō over the Edo period, the office existed since at least the mid to late 17th century, as it seems a Miyazaki Wakasa no Kami Shigenari held that office around that period, and it's in his pertinent data on that list that I find the earliest mention of the Kyoto office. Thanks for understanding. -Tadakuni 23:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Templates for daimyo?

LordAmeth: Is there an infobox template for daimyo? What about for samurai who held some kind of office? I guess "officeholder" works for daimyo, but might "royalty" work better? Just wondering. -Tadakuni 05:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, there is not any particular infobox for daimyo, nor for samurai. I think Officeholder should work fine, as it has the most parameters, though if you think that Royalty works for you, that's cool too I'm sure. Good idea, btw. I think having infoboxes for such things could be quite useful. LordAmeth 09:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

An article name

紫水晶殿, I happened to notice that the article 関東軍 is Kwantung Army. As the army is a Japanese one, shouldn't the article name be Kantō Gun or Kantō Army? Other editors pointed out the same thing on the talk page a couple of years ago. What do you think? I asked two editors the question. Please take a look at their re. on my talk page. I tried G serach and the results are [12], [13], and [14]. I am also wondering where to ask request the move if I ask. WikiProject Japan? WikiProject China? Or WikiProject Military history? Please tell me your opinion. Best regards. Oda Mari 15:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your logic, and have considered making the same suggestion in the past. Despite the Google results, it is my experience that "Kwantung Army" is far more commonly used in English history textbooks and the like. If you do wish to make a move request, I would go to WP:Requested moves and follow the procedure there, then let people at WPMILHIST, WPJ, and WPCHINA know. Thanks. LordAmeth 21:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know "Kwantung Army" is the most widely used word for 関東軍. Well then.....I can't decide what to do about the matter. (Sigh) Thank you for the opinion and info. about the word. They helped me a lot to understand the matter.Oda Mari 05:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Think about the popularity of "Kwantung Army", I decided that I won't to make a move request. Thanks a lot. Oda Mari 05:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Shimazu Nariakira

Hi LordAmeth-- when you have a moment, could you look this article over? Or if not, might you recommend an editor who can fix it up? I wikified it (the editor who added the huge amount of content for some reason didn't seem too familiar with personal pronouns)- but it was hard to change it from near-hagiographic content to something balanced, since I'm not too familiar with Nariakira, myself. Any help you (or anyone) could give would be appreciated. -Tadakuni 18:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done what I could with further wikification and clean-up. I can see how the text, as written, is a bit too biased towards Nariakira, but I'm afraid it's worked in so deeply that I'm not really sure I could fix it without rewriting the whole thing from scratch. I really like the Satsuma and Ryukyu topics, and wish I could do more... if you think it needs more work, it might prove worthwhile to post to WPJ... or ask Ooperhoofd. I wonder if he has any good sources on this stuff, or interest in it. Thanks a lot, Tadakuni. LordAmeth 23:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Just saw...thanks for your contribution. I wrote up an article just now on Nariakira's nemesis Zusho Hirosato, hopefully that will balance the Nariakira article for the time being until a rewrite is possible. Yes, Ooperhoofd might be good to ask, since this has to do with his interest of rangaku; I'll see about talking to WPJ, too. 忝い! -Tadakuni 23:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

Hi LordAmeth- I'm wondering, can you see the pictures on Date Masamune and Abe Masahiro? For both of 'em, the images kind of turned into mere text links shortly after I added the infoboxes. Did I do something incorrectly? -Tadakuni 04:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not see the pictures, and I'm afraid I don't know what's wrong. The "thumb" attribute might have something to do with it, as I'm sure it's being read as an attribute of the template and not of the image, if you follow me. Still, I tried removing that and it didn't fix the problem. So I'm not sure. Sorry. LordAmeth 13:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There are some server issues regarding images on the commons. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Image_absence and other spots. Neier 13:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hayashi clan

LordAmeth-- I'm trying to turn Hayashi clan into a disambiguation page as per the comments I made on the talk page, but someone just reverted my edit because it was "vandalism"-- what is the proper thing to do in this instance? -Tadakuni 00:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I just left a note on the user's talk page; I think this was just a simple misunderstanding. I'll just make the separate pages for now, and leave Hayashi clan for the time being. -Tadakuni 00:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind-- he responded, it was indeed a simple misunderstanding. Sorry to bother you. -Tadakuni 00:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

South Wales Borderers

You did a WPMILHIST assessment on this page a while ago; one of your comments was that the "battle honours" section was difficult to read, but weren't sure what to do about it. I've changed it to make it ( I think) more accessible; what do you think? Swanny18 15:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. As it is basically just a list of battles, I don't know what can be done to make it any better... but it does look better now than it did then. Thanks for taking me up on my suggestions, and for coming back to me to ask for a re-assessment. If you have any sources you can cite (inline citations would be best, but just a list of sources at the bottom is sufficient too), I think we can bump this up to B-class at least. LordAmeth 21:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've found a source or two; I don't know if they were the ones the original author used, but they seem to have the same information in. I hope they are of value. Swanny18 16:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Keen. Thanks. I've upped the project assessment to Bclass. It's neat to see how a regiment survives and changes over so many years. LordAmeth 21:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Image:The Great Wave off Kanagawa.jpg might be a reproduction. The Commons admin I asked for the name change left me a message yesterday:Seems to be complicated renaming this picture, since it is a featured picture. There are now some discussions at commons about this image:

• commons:Commons:Featured_picture_candidates#Image:Tsunami_by_hokusai_19th_century.jpg
• commons:Commons:Featured_picture_candidates#Image:The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa.jpg
• commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Tsunami_by_hokusai_19th_century.jpg

I don't know enough about this image to judge on some of the questions people have about these, but your input may be helpful. --Aude (talk). So I posted my comment on the Deletion request page. There are two differnt print images in Commons. If you know something about the prints, please help us. Thank you always. Oda Mari 09:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I've commented here with what I have to contribute. All in all, it doesn't seem like a big deal however this gets resolved. LordAmeth 11:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment. Oda Mari 15:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Revisionism and History

I think you're being extremely naive if you think anti-Korean sentiments have nothing to do with Hideyoshi's invasions. Historical relationships and biases between China, Korea and Japan go back for thousands of years and the interplay between them as reflected in history is well documented and extremely relevant to modern dynamics between these countries.melonbarmonster 22:34, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

LOL, dude you added your own categories which pretty much makes your initial complaint totally disingenuous. I've been claiming the Hideyoshi's invasions were relevant to modern Korea Japan relations. You've wrote on my talk page that it has nothing to do with modern Korean/Japan strained relationship so what's your answer to your own question? I answered your question so please answer your own question since you added your own category. If you can't explain your new category should be deleted.melonbarmonster 22:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I never said that the invasions were not relevant to current strained relations between the two countries; I said the invasions were not relevant to current anti-Korean sentiment in the general populace of Japan. There's an important distinction.

I hope you will not argue that Hideyoshi's invasions are highly relevant to why there is currently strong anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea. (Some) Koreans tend to draw ahistorical connections between these events and later 19th-20th century Japanese attitudes and actions towards Korea. Though Hideyoshi and the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa governments had absolutely nothing to do with one another, many in Korea and elsewhere choose to create a narrative of a continuous negative Japanese attitude towards Korea.

However, I am fairly certain that the average Japanese on the street, for all his/her racism, does not draw any direct parallels between the 1590s invasions and his/her own attitudes towards the Koreans. S/he does not hold it against the Koreans for anything that their ancestors did at that time.

I have no problem with leaving the "anti-Korean sentiment in Japan" category there too, and listing it under both. I hope that this compromise is alright with you. LordAmeth 23:13, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That's been my position since the begging so both cat's are fine. But I have to say with all due respect that I find it absolutely ridiculous that you think Hideyoshi's invasions have nothing to do with modern Japanese racism. History isn't packaged in nice periodical vacuums. In fact, not only do the average Japanese not draw any historical context from 1590's to Japanese racism, they're oblivious to historical context from the first half of the 1950's. The many a blank look I've gotten from Japanese who have no idea about Japanese war atrocities is far from a benign phenomenon as you seem to think. It's a dangerous and insidious product of a very Japanese way of dealing with societal shame that's turning into virulent resurgence of old time racism and revisionism.melonbarmonster 23:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad we could reach a compromise. I think that Japanese ignorance of their country's actions during WWII is despicable, and I would never say it's anything like "benign phenomenon." The Japanese need to come to terms with what happened - confront it, understand it, accept it, admit it - and move on, as the Germans have done. I hope that when that time comes, when the Japanese do fully own up to what their grandparents and great-grandparents did, the Chinese and Koreans are ready to move on as well.

With all due respect, however, World War II is not the same as Hideyoshi's invasions. The Korean and Chinese attitude of holding grudges for centuries and centuries is absurd. The Brits don't continue to hold a grudge over the American Revolution, and the Americans don't hold a grudge over the War of 1812. The Italians do not still hold the Germans responsible for the fall of Rome. France is not still bitter about the Hundred Years' War. And no one is still bitter about the Napoleonic Wars. To say that Hideyoshi's invasions are connected to modern-day Japanese racism is to ignore the incredible amount of economic, cultural, political and social change that has occurred over the last four hundred years. Today's Japan is far from being a place that Hideyoshi would recognize. LordAmeth 23:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes people should own up to what they and their nation have done. I wonder when Korea will apologise for the war crimes committed by Koreans in WW2, when will Britain apologise to every nation they colonised, when will China apologise to Tibet and Taiwan or for Tianamen Square?

this isn't going to happen, and on a personal note, I would never apologise or feel the need to apologise for something my ancesters did 50 plus years agoSennen goroshi 13:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

See ad hominem. China and Korea's crimes does not justify the Japanese denying their own, especially since they're found guilty in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Other countries such as Germany at least can officially acknowledge what they've done in the past, why can't the Japanese government do the same?--PCPP 05:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

In part because of cultural values which discourage disrespecting one's ancestors, a concept which the Chinese and Koreans ought to understand. Also because Japan has apologized in many ways and on many occasions, and China and Korea have repeatedly refused to formally recognize and accept these apologies. Japan has some serious problems with racism, and with historical revisionism in its public education system; that I do not by any means deny. But to lay the blame entirely on Japan for failing to apologize sufficiently is to ignore the continued stubborn refusals of China and Korea to be forgiving, and to ignore the revisionism that goes on in those countries. No one is innocent in this international antipathy; no one is wholly the victim and not the aggressor, though they may paint themselves as such. One points at Germany and speaks of how apologetic they have been; one must also recognize that the current situation of friendly German foreign relations is just as much due to the forgiving attitudes of the nations of Europe as it is to the apologetic actions of Germany. LordAmeth 06:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Fascists

I thought we should compile a list of those people who were fascists so we can be clear on the matter. See my latest comments here. John Smith's 13:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

FH source

Please comment before making such a move. There is no problem with the source. No user has argued that Freedom House, which is used on several other Wikipedia pages, is not reputable source. Please read this carefully. I have taken the rules of Wikipedia into consideration. "The need for citations is especially important when writing about opinions held on a particular issue. Avoid weasel words where possible, such as, "Some people say ..." Instead, make your writing verifiable: find a specific person or group who holds that opinion and give a citation to a reputable publication in which they express that opinion. Remember that Wikipedia is not a place for expressing your own opinions or for original research." The sentence (that was just reverted) followed all of such rules exactly. --Shamir1 00:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I *did* comment before making that change. I discussed it extensively, along with a number of other people, on the talk page of the site. Regardless of how reputable a source may be, it is not always relevant. And when a source does not express what we wish to express, why bend over backwards trying to stick to the wording of the source, when we can simply remove the source entirely? Following the rules of citation is not necessarily more important than having the article say what it needs to (or ought to) say. I should not need to describe to you again the fact that there has been *extensive* debate about the usefulness of that source - whether or not it counts Cyprus as part of the MidEast, whether or not it explicity says X, Y, or Z about Israel. We can avoid all that controversy by removing the citation. You must understand, please, that I am by no means opposed to following the rules of citation - I am removing that citation in the hopes that a better one will come along, that can more solidly, explicitly, and uncontroversially support the wording of the article. I honestly do not see why you should be so devoted to keep this citation in there, despite the protests of a number of users against its relevance and applicability. What's the big deal? Why is this one sentence, this one citation, so important to you? LordAmeth 04:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Why? Easy. Two big reasons: 1) The source is reputable and reliable. 2) I am following the rules. All the trouble just described is the result of users trying to wander around the very basic rules of Wikipedia. --Shamir1 03:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point. My point is that the rules are a means, not an end, and following them does not by itself justify the use of a source that, while reputable and reliable, is not necessarily relevant to the point, the statement, that we are trying to make. If the source does not explicitly say what we want to quote, and if the source has other kinds of issues such as the question of which countries it counts as part of the Middle East, then no matter how reputable or reliable a source it may be, it is no good for this specific use, this particular case. If I wanted to, I could go find tens or hundreds of reputable, reliable sources, and quote all sorts of irrelevant material from them. But citing correctly, following the rules of citation, does not make a source automatically relevant to the topic. *Freedom House does not explicitly state what we are looking to say*. Thus, no matter how correctly you cite it, no matter how closely you follow the rules, the citation is still irrelevant. As I said before, I would much prefer a professional academic source that explicity, directly in a single sentence, states that either "Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East" or that "Israel is considered a liberal democracy, unlike most of its neighbors." Freedom House only states these things indirectly, through the user's interpretation of the material spread across several different pages and media (i.e. text, maps, lists). LordAmeth 04:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition, what is most relevant is not whether or not Freedom House, or any other individual source or organization, considers Israel to be free/democratic/etc, but that Israel is widely and generally considered to be such. Citing Freedom House does not in any way help to prove this. You yourself have said that Wikipedia guidelines dictate that we "avoid weasel words where possible", yet your statement that "Israel is considered a liberal democracy" by this one particular source (which, incidentally, I had never heard of before) is really equivalent to saying "Israel is considered by some (but not necessarily others)..." or "Israel is considered by Freedom House (but not necessarily anyone else) to be a liberal democracy." You may not be stating it outright, but you're still employing the logic of weasel words. This is why we need a source that explicitly and directly, with citations to other reputable sources, states outright that Israel is widely and generally considered to be a liberal democracy. To cite that Freedom House considers it so makes no solid statement on whether anyone else considers it so, thus making the citation meaningless, regardless of how reliable or reputable you may believe Freedom House to be as a source. LordAmeth 04:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This does not deserve too much time. All of those allegations of weasel words are completely and utterly baseless. Do not take the "considered" thing out of hand. It doesnt even need to be there but I thought it could make more sense to some users. Not a big deal.

You mention some original research and other points that make no difference when it comes to including this source. It is no different than the several other studies that are included in the articles of all the countries of the world.

Israel is widely called such. This is one of the most prominent research institutes on democracy and freedom in the world. It is sufficient and an acceptable source for the intro. Having Freedom House say it is already a wide enough view. For months and months that sentence was there with the citation but without it saying that it is according to Freedom House. So now its come under attack, and I have added to say that it is the view of Freedom House (in addition to the citation already there). But even what I just said doesnt matter all that much. What matters is that we follow WP:REF. --Shamir1 05:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Kumagai

Hello. I found the following article: Kumagae no Jirô Naozane. Besides the spelling problems, it needs to be merged with Kumagai Naozane. As well, the dates do not coincide very well. This is probably more your area of expertises. When you have time, could you please take a look at it? I tagged the page with appropriate wikiprojects in hopes that it gets noticed. Thanks. Bendono 05:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Will do. I was wondering why so many links to Kumagae no Jirô Naozane had popped up recently; didn't think to look for a duplicate article. Thanks. LordAmeth 10:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I've done the merge and cleaned up the resulting article best as I can. It still needs a lot of work, though. LordAmeth 00:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Kanji Ishiwara

Hello Lord Ameth! You assessed Kanji Ishiwara just seconds before I uploaded a new edited version. You might want to take another look to see if anything needs to be chaged/corrected. Thanks. --MChew 16:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Sir, I believe that all articles in wikipedias of all languages should be kept NPOV and equilibrium at all times. Please correct me if I am wrong. Amphitere —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 17:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your meaning, Amphitere. This has nothing to do with national/racial/ethnic/other bias ... He improved the article right after I assessed it, and so he requested that I take a second look at it. Nothing wrong with that. LordAmeth 12:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XIX (September 2007)

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Very long time no speak

Greetings from southern shores - the Indonesian project has just been alerted to this - I have looked very quickly and it looks like a POV improperly added non wikipedia tone item - Apart from my bigotry I would value your response - -cheers -This SatuSuro 10:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It has already been reverted for violating WP:NOR, and for having completely the wrong tone. If it comes back, I am sure it will be reverted again. Thanks for the notice. Hope all is well down there. LordAmeth 11:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine thanks - as crazy as australia can be at times :| SatuSuro 14:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

New York City Meetup

New York City Meetup Next: Saturday November 3rd, Brooklyn Museum area Last: 8/12/2007

The agenda for the next meetup includes the formation of a Wikimedia New York City local chapter. Hope to see you there!--Pharos 20:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like great fun. Unfortunately, I'm not in NY at the moment... LordAmeth 00:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to WikiProject History!

Welcome to WikiProject History! We are a group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to history. Now that you're a member you might want to drop by one of our Working Groups. It is also recommended that you watchlist our talk page as well. Working Groups at WikiProject History: Assessment · Collaboration · Review · Outreach · Task forces

Daitō Islands copyright question

I just heard [15] from the original author of an academic article about Daitō Islands, and they claim that since they're the author, it's ok for them to add parts from their own work to a wikipedia article. Do you think this is good cause to revert my own edit here, where I deleted passages that were copied verbatim from the journal article? Unfortunately, I don't have the time to reword the sentences right now. Lisatwo 16:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that should be okay, as Welsch ought to own copyright to his own writings. However, in this crazy world in which we live, the author does not always truly own the rights to his own work. Does the Journal of Pacific History claim ownership to the copyright? If so, we can't have the verbatim text here on Wikipedia without their permission. I apologize I am not the most conversant in copyright law and such - it may be a good idea to mention this issue somewhere like Wikipedia:Media copyright questions as well, in order to get a more definitive answer. Thanks, and good luck. LordAmeth 22:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the journal's website: "authors themselves retain the right to reproduce their own paper in any volume of which the author acts as editor or author, subject to acknowledgement and citation". Seems like it's ok as long as the original author is the one reproducing the text. I'll go ahead and revert my deletion. Thanks for your advice, Lisatwo 01:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Help!

Hi! There's a past vandal message is still left on my talk page. I noticed it today and is there a way to revert only that one? And please look at the post by David. He didn't edit those article. The edits were made by User :76.185.202.112. What do you think? Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 10:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

As for the past vandal message, I could handle it. Sorry to bother you. Best regards. Oda Mari (talk) 17:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XX (October 2007)

The October 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

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Shimabara Rebellion

Hi there, LordAmeth, hope all's going well with you. I was wondering if you could look over Shimabara Rebellion for me-- I just did a major reworking/rewrite, and I was hoping that I could get an opinion about it, if there's anything that needs to be added, cited, and so on. There's a little more that I can add, and I'm in the process of doing so, I was just hoping I could have your expert opinion. Thanks. -Tadakuni 03:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate you asking my opinion, though I'm certainly no expert. まだまだですね。I hope you don't mind, I've made a few small changes to the phrasing. Overall, you've done a great job with this. Lengthy, detailed, well-written. And I really didn't know that much about the subject, so I'm glad to have read it and become educated in it. Just one small note - in the Leadup section, second paragraph, you mention a "new lord, Matsukura Katsuie" and then several lines later say that things were continued under "Shigemasa's heir Katsuie." Is the first reference supposed to be Shigemasa? I apologize that I have not much else to offer by way of suggestions or advice. Keep up the good work. LordAmeth 05:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

LordAmeth- Thanks for your help; your corrections were much appreciated. I checked, the "new lord" was Shigemasa, and his heir was Katsuie...minor error on my part. I heard that this article was in really bad shape and actually instigated a ban on Wikipedia by some college because all the students in this one class got a related test question wrong...that was my impetus for wanting to fix it. I didn't realize I actually owned quite a few decent reference sources, but a lot of public domain stuff is out there on Google Books, it turns out. Hopefully this rewrite will be more informative. You keep up the good work too. がんばってください！ -Tadakuni 05:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Tokugawa Yoshinobu

LordAmeth: Sorry to bother you again so soon, but I was feeling inspired after my work last night on Shimabara Rebellion, so I figured I'd give Tokugawa Yoshinobu the same treatment. Could you please go through it and let me know if anything might be missing? Thanks. -Tadakuni 02:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Admittedly, another topic on which I am not overly familiar... Again, I've made some minor phrasing changes and such. Only one thing really popped out at me as being unclear: at the beginning of the Early Life section: "he was brought up under strict, spartan supervision and tutelage[3] by mostly male educators of his father." - Are these people who educated his father or who worked for his father?

I suppose it'd be good to go into some further detail of the events (and decisions and contemplated options) leading up to his resignation. Maybe it's just my own impression, but the Tosa petition seems to be mentioned almost just in passing... We may not be able to say much for certain about Yoshinobu's private thoughts, but even so, some further detail of the day-by-day development of the events leading up to the downfall of the shogunate would probably be a good addition.

I apologize that once again, I have not much to offer by way of suggestions. You've done an excellent job with this one too. LordAmeth 14:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the review and suggestions. I've expanded a good deal on what you've suggested regarding his resignation; got some good sources on that, like Totman's Collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu and Beasley's The Modern History of Japan, which I used. As far as the education goes, I got rid of the "mostly male" thing...to be honest, a lot of what had been in the article sounded like it came from Shiba's novel on Yoshinobu. Sure, Shiba wasn't making most of his stuff up, but it's nowhere to get stuff for an encyclopedia article about the real man from. Anyway, thanks, and keep up the good work, yourself. -Tadakuni 20:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

I made a small correction to what you wrote in Prayer, but overall it sounds good. Thank you. --Blanchardb-Me^MyEars_MyMouth-timed 00:02, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Occupation of Japan

Your welcome with regards to the clarification in the article, and it's not something that should embarrass you or anyone. It's a common misconception. A lot of history books overlook the contribution of British Commonwealth forces mainly because they focus on MacArthur and the American reorganization of Japanese society. The same things happen in films. If we all went by Saving Private Ryan and other such films we would all believe that only the Americans invaded at Normandy and liberated Europe and that the Canadians, British, Poles, French and Soviets did nothing. I liked Saving Private Ryan, but it was a bit narrow in its viewpoint on the war.72.27.3.34 (talk) 05:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:QF03.jpg

Thanks for uploading or contributing to Image:QF03.jpg. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is not a suitable explanation or rationale as to why each specific use in Wikipedia constitutes fair use. Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Ρх₥α 18:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at the template listed on the page, describing it as a scan from a comic book, and the various details of its use under "fair use". Thank you. LordAmeth (talk) 22:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXI (November 2007)

The November 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
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Award

In recognition of your diligent contributions towards the various reviews of military history articles, I am delighted to award you the Content Review Medal. Kirill 16:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)]]

Gee, wow. Thanks, Kirill. And I haven't even been doing nearly as much as I'd like lately... no free time... LordAmeth (talk) 00:03, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Just Letting You Know

I just thought that you would like to know that an anonymous blogger is angry with you (as expressed in his passage in the Opium Wars talk page). No big deal, just letting you know. BlueCaper (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know. I probably shouldn't dignify his accusations with a response, as that'll only provoke him (and perhaps others) further. But still, good to know that's going on. Cheers. LordAmeth (talk) 00:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Minamoto no Yoritomo

You fixed effective vandalism which was beyond my ability to address. The malicious intent was clearly repeated across several serial edits, each removing a part of the article.

I only how to undo one edit at a time -- using "rv" ...; and I don't quite know where or when I should have already learned how to restore the seemingly pointless damage I encountered here. Other than alerting someone else -- or assuming that someone else will resolve the problem, what alternative courses of action could I have taken? --Ooperhoofd (talk) 23:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

If you have administrator privileges, a "rollback" button appears when you're looking at a "diff" page, i.e. comparing different versions of the same article, and you can revert or rollback across many individual changes (versions). Other than that, you should be able to simply, through the history page, go to the latest version prior to the vandalism, click "Edit" and then "Save". Finally, there's always the copy & paste or manual entry methods - simply write back in what was lost; quite a bit of work in this case, but obviously far easier in other cases when only a little has been changed. LordAmeth (talk) 06:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Aha -- thanks. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 06:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Franz Josef Strauß

Might I ask you to take a look at the new discussion going on at Franz Josef Strauß? Yes, it is an ancient topic (the use of ß on en-wiki), but this is one of the most prominent articles in which this issue is of significance. Given your experience, your input would be very much appreciated. Unschool (talk) 01:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for thinking of me. As opinionated as I may be on correct romanization of Japanese, however, I've never really gotten involved in discussions regarding Anglicization of European topics.. I suppose I would take the same stance - In this case in particular, since he is so well known in English, the English spelling should be the one to go with. As one user mentioned, it serves a purpose for foreign readers to learn how a topic is referred to (spelled) in English, which is an excellent point and one I'd never considered before. Certainly it could be exceedingly useful for Japanese to learn how to write their own language in a way that's consistent and that makes sense to a native English speaker. Anyway, it seems you need no help from me to earn support for your suggestion; congrats on that and thanks again. Happy Holidays. LordAmeth (talk) 13:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Darwinek wishes you a Merry Christmas!

Hello! I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best in the new year. - Darwinek (talk) 12:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Aww. Thanks. The same to you. よいよいお年をLordAmeth (talk) 13:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

観応

Seasons greetings, Lord. It's been a little while. Regarding this edit of yours, you wrote: "観応 is かんおう, not かんのう". Actually, it's both. This is a phonological process called 連声 and it affects many words contain -nV-. You can quickly confirm this particular case in just about any published 年号 list, or even dictionaries [16] [17]. Also notice that your edit was "Kanō", which is neither of the two above but it かのう. Surely you'll understand if I revert this. Regards. Bendono (talk) 12:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If that's what it says in the nengo dictionaries and such, then by all means, please do put it back. I didn't check my dictionary - I apologize. But, just to be picky, I don't believe the apostrophes are essential elements of every version of romanization systems... certainly "Kanō" leaves some ambiguity, but I don't believe it's outright "wrong". It could indicate かんおう just as much as　かのう. LordAmeth (talk) 13:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)