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Draft text

The following draft text is an arguably constructive first step in our process of addressing the array of causal factors affecting (a) the subject of Senkaku Islands; and (b) our article about this subject.

As we know, a tag at the top of Talk:Senkaku Islands dispute explains: "This talk page is only for discussion of the dispute over ownership of the islands; any discussion of the islands—outside of material directly relating to the dispute—should be discussed at Talk:Senkaku Islands." In this narrowed context, "ownership" is revealed as a red herring issue. --Tenmei (talk) 15:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Disputes about the causes

There are disputes about the causes of controversy involving the Senkaku Islands. For example, some use the term "territorial dispute"; however, the Japanese government has consistently rejected this framing since the early 1970s. An analysis of incidents and issues require distinguishing between disputes which are primarily over territory and those which merely have a territorial component.

The real importance of the islands lies in the ... implications for the wider context of the two countries’ approaches to maritime and island disputes, as well as in the way in which those issues can be used by domestic political groups to further their own objectives. — Zhongqi Pan

Other nations are closely monitoring developments , e.g.,

• Senkakus described as a proxy. According to China Daily, the Senkaku Islands are a disruptive mine planted by the United States into Sino-Japanese relations.
• Senkakus characterized as a pretext. According to the New York Times, some analysts frame all discussion about the islands' status within a broader pattern of Chinese territorial assertions.
• Senkakus identified as a tactic. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the Senkakus may represent a tactical distraction from China's internal power struggle over who will replace the current leadership of the Communist Party in 2012.

The historical record is a backdrop for each new incident in the unfolding chronology of these islands.

Notes

1. Yamada, Takao. "Keeping the big picture in sight in Senkaku Islands dispute," Mainichi Shimbun (Tokyo). October 4, 2010, citing 1972 book by Kiyoshi Inoue, 釣魚列島的歷史和主權問題 (Diaoyu dao: li shi yu zhu quan, Historical Facts of Senkaku Islands/Diaoyu Islands, 1972)
2. "Renho refers to Senkakus as territorial issue, but later retracts remark," Japan Today. September 15, 2010; Fackler, Martin and Ian Johnson. "Arrest in Disputed Seas Riles China and Japan," The New York Times. 19 September 2010; retrieved 2011-05-29
3. Koo, Min-gyo. (2010). Island Disputes and Maritime Regime Building in East Asia, p. 2., p. 2, at Google Books; "Japan's Senkaku Islands--what's all the fuss about?" Yomiuri Shimbun. September 10, 2010; retrieved 2011-05-29
4. Chellaney, Brahma. "India-China: Let facts speak for themselves," The Economic Times (Mumbai). 17 September 2010; "Mismatched intentions end up intensifying Japan-China row over islands," Asahi Shimbun (Japan). September 22, 2009; retrieved 2011-05-29
5. Feng Zhaoku. "Diaoyu dispute sowed by US," China Daily (Beijing). September 15, 2010; Tow, William T. (2001). Asia-Pacific strategic relations: seeking convergent security, p. 68., p. 68, at Google Books; retrieved 2011-05-29
6. Fackler, Martin and Ian Johnson. "Arrest in Disputed Seas Riles China and Japan," The New York Times. 19 September 2010; retrieved 2011-05-29
7. "Fisherman's arrest in Asia: China and Japan must not trawl for trouble," Christian Science Monitor (US). September 21, 2010; retrieved 2011-05-29
8. Lohmeyer, Martin. "The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute: Questions of Sovereignty and Suggestions for Resolving the Dispute," University of Canterbury (NZ), 2008, Contents, pp. 1-8; Koo, pp. 103-134., p. 103, at Google Books

Tag discussion thread

The tag should be removed from the top of the article. Compare edit at Senkaku Islands dispute:

• diff 02:17, 18 July 2011 Tenmei (talk|contribs) (58,318 bytes) ("simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag" -- this is NOT an opinion-driven project)

The last sentence of the second paragraph at Misplaced Pages:NPOV dispute is the source of the quoted phrase in the edit summary. --Tenmei (talk) 02:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

A relevant context is here at User talk:Feezo#Senkaku Islands. --Tenmei (talk) 02:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• Negative!! Please do not remove the POV-tag and initiate an editing-war because the dispute has not been resolved. We have had a drastic dispute during the mediation and the ground of your side has been proved wrong. It is far more than just "simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag", and you need correctly interpret this sentence and current situation. Also see point 1 and 4 in Misplaced Pages:POV Cleanup#Guidelines for cleanup. --Lvhis (talk) 21:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

At the moment I decline to comment on the tag (I'm thinking about it, and I'm still hoping AGK or Feezo will be posting something to explain what should happen with the Mediation). However, Lvhis, I humbly request that you stop saying (as you have here and on other pages) that "the ground of has been proved wrong." I don't believe anything nearly so clear was proved anywhere. Some small points of progress were made, but then the mediation got derailed just like our past discussions have been derailed. Since we're obviously going to have to keep working on this somehow (whether it's on our own here, through Arbitration, or something else, we're clearly not done), it doesn't help us move forward if you act like everything was somehow resolved in your (those opposing the current name) favor. Thanks. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:17, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Lvhis, you know that the tag was added for the duration of mediation only by Feezo. So I have to agree with Tenmei. And if the page stays protected, there will be no edit-warring. Moreover, there will be no edit warring if you don't seek to put the tag back later. John Smith's (talk) 07:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

It is my opinion that the dispute that caused the full protection is still in place; if not, the title definitely causes concern. I have restored the tag. In addition, I strongly recommend further dispute resolution regarding this situation. - Penwhale | 18:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Lvhis, 20 July 2011

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please let the POV-title tag stay until the dispute over it has been resolved.

The mediation on the dispute has been closed but the drastic dispute was not resolved. Please see here, here, and here. The current title/name is a Japanese one, but not an English one; and this one is not the most used one in English. It is a POV title/name per the discussion during the mediation, though the side who support the current title refused to compromise even they failed to clearly prove this one is a NPOV one. As for the two important and very reasonable reasons: 1) the dispute is still ongoing, 2)it is now more clear that the current title is a POV one than the time before mediation, I request to resume the POV-title tag. Adding POV-tag does not need a consensus, instead it only depend on whether there is ongoing dispute or not according to WP policy and guidelines. Thank you. Lvhis (talk) 17:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Request granted. I normally do not deal with things related to Taiwan/Republic of China as sysop because of possible COI, but this should be clear cut that the dispution is still in place (and acknowledged by the mediator). - Penwhale | 18:41, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for granting this request by 100% in line with wp policies and guidelines! --Lvhis (talk) 20:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Grossly inappropriate intervention. John Smith's (talk) 20:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Not at all inappropriate. The usage of the tag has been correctly applied. STSC (talk) 20:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I have defended my position on ANI. - Penwhale | 02:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

If this title does get moved to the Pinnacle Islands, there is another chain of islands by this name in Alaska, so there must be a way to figure out how this will be disambiged (if at all). User:Zscout370 05:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll just point out that currently, Pinnacle Islands is only a redirect to this article... - Penwhale | 05:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but the main question I have now is how many people use this term for the islands? I always seen both JP and CN names used in articles. User:Zscout370 06:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the point being argued (and I could see why this point can be argued) is that: "Diaoyu(tai)" would indicate a PRC/ROC view, "Senkaku" would indicate taking Japanese side. Thus, either title can be considered POV - thus, people have brought up the Liancourt Rock example from time to time. I've voiced that I don't like the fact that the English name is not well used (compared to BOTH Chinese and Japanese name)... - Penwhale | 06:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I remember having to deal with the Takeshima issue on here and on OTRS years ago because the Koreans wanted it moved to Dokdo (but was originally at the Laincourt name). I personally have no horse in this race, even you know I pretty much am a Japanophile and do a lot of stuff for the Japanese on here. I support a move to Pinnacle Islands and will do it myself, if there are no objections. User:Zscout370 06:42, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there are objections. A number of editors, myself included, are still not convinced that Senkaku Islands does not meet the policies and guidelines surrounding the naming of articles. You're welcome to join us in the discussion, but please don't move the article until a clear consensus emerges. Even if we decide that neither Senkaku nor Diaoyu has a clear preference in English, then we still need to chose between a dual name (Senkaku/Diaoyu), a really mixed name (Senkaku/Diaoyu/Diaoyutai) and Pinnacle Islands. All offer clear problems, so we'll need a consensus as to which is the least objectionable (again, only after it's determined that neither S or D individually is the most commonly accepted English name). Qwyrxian (talk) 07:07, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

What Qwyrxian said summarizes the situation correctly. The issue is that the sides are going around in circles, and RfM have failed to provide anything. RfAr would not help, as it's more or less a content dispute (on the article name). I think a RfC would make sense, but... - Penwhale | 07:22, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Here is what I am looking at. I only believe that a non-Japanese or non-Chinese name will have to work for this article. What I am looking at is if we do a combined name, people will be fighting over which name goes first (no matter if we go with Japan/China or ABC order, it will be a POV issue that brings us back to square one). Nationalism is a very big program on Misplaced Pages, just ask the Balkans. If we do use Pinnacle Islands, we have to make a note saying this is not commonly used. User:Zscout370 07:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The fact is that some people are going to be unhappy, no matter what the article title is. So, unless some groundbreaking evidence is brought in to say that the article name has to be changed because "Senkaku Islands" is massively under-recognised, it should stay as it is. If some people can't live with that... well, maybe they need to stop editing Misplaced Pages. After all, despite the screaming of Turkish nationalists the Armenian Genocide article has not been renamed. John Smith's (talk) 09:32, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

@Penwhale: The last RfC we did was in November (See Talk:Senkaku Islands/Archive 6#What should the title of this article be?. A few uninvolved editors chimed in, each supporting SI. However we have acquired new info since then (some of the search results have changed to more even or even at times favoring D, though at the same time we found strong reason to distrust any search results; we found that all available almanacs use SI; and we discovered a concern about how to handle Diaoyu/Diaoyutai; and probably other things I'm forgetting). I don't mind another RfC, but I strongly suspect that whatever the result is, the "losing" side will insist that the results are invalid, don't reflect policy, or are in some other way flawed. In any event, the last time I drafted and opened the RfC, I was criticized because I didn't give "the other side" enough input in the RfC draft itself (I chose an RfC with little actual details, instead with a number of different pointers to previous discussions, while Bobthefish2 preferred that both sides actually list out all of their arguments/data), so I don't think I should be the one to start the RfC. It's almost like we need a "neutral" party first to draft the RfC prior to seeking out neutral parties to comment in it... Qwyrxian (talk) 07:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

More importantly, Qwyrxian, the very same search results were used to legitimize the adoption of "Senkaku Islands" as article name. With them being quite thoroughly overturned by myself during the mediation, there is no longer any reason to favour the current name over the previous or other forms of the name. Unfortunately, you don't seem to register the concept.

As for the RfC, it's actually not very hard. Each side make their own part of the RfC and then post the entire thing when everyone's ready. The problem with your approach is that you are assuming third parties would go through all the trouble to dig up every relevant comment/thread and then try to stitch together a big picture. Given the convoluted nature of the discussions, it's an unrealistic expectation don't you think?

A good thing about the failed mediation, though, is that its contents basically encompassed and summarized everything related to the naming dispute (which I involved myself in, against my better judgment). For anyone who's interested in dealing with this mess, it'd be best to read over the threads in the mediation before deciding on some grand idea (which would most likely be raised at least 5 times in the past by others). --Bobthefish2 (talk) 08:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Huh, I thought that the mediation proved that the only measurement that Diaoyu "wins" on is the one measurement that we found to be unreliable (and I'm not even convinced of that fact). While we still have the fact that major encyclopedias and almanacs all use Senkaku Islands. Plus, no one ever looked at anything other than raw search numbers. If 10 articles, for instance, all use both names, but 9 of those use "Diaoyu" throughout, mentioning Senkaku only in one paranthetical aside, that would be strong evidence in favor of Diaoyu (and, of course, the opposite is true). Express your opinion, fine, but you and Lvhis need to stop this notion that mediation somehow proved you right and us wrong, because we never got anywhere near that far.

Also, regarding your idea for how an RfC should be initiated, please see the following from WP:RFC:

Include a brief, neutral statement of the issue below the template, and sign it with ~~~~ If possible, keep your statement or question simple and succinct, so that the RfC attracts a clear and actionable response. For example: "Should this article say in the lead that John Smith was a contender for the Pulitzer Prize?" The longer and more complicated your question or statement, the more diverse the responses will be, and the harder it becomes for the closing admin to interpret the consensus.

Qwyrxian (talk) 09:10, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Responses like this do a spectacular job at trying my patience. Since you implied that search results are unreliable, then I'd like you to explain why your data are reliable. I've written some pretty long paragraphs explaining why your library results are bad and, to my knowledge, you have not yet provided a convincing argument as to why these are more reliable than search engine results.

At the same time, Lvhis and I are well-justified in our claim that we've pretty much won the debate. Since the argument is not about "whether or not Diaoyu should prevail over Senkaku Islands" but rather whether or not "Senkaku Islands deserves to be the article name over others", it is really the responsibility of you, Tenmei, and his cohorts to present convincing arguments and evidence support Senkaku Islands is, in fact, clearly favoured in common English usage. So far, I've already over-turned Phoenix's search engine results (which were the basis of keeping the status quo in the past). And again, you still have not justified your claim that the data generated from your methodologies are appropriate for our problem.

On RfC, your quotation advocates for concision and clarity when possible. For the simple examples the guideline page showed, sure you can probably make a 1 paragraph statement without sacrificing important details. But for more complicated issues such as this, you'd be leaving out a lot of crucial information if you try to follow the same model. In addition, the RfC guideline page did not actually say anything about the length of an RfC statement. Since you have a Master's in writing, I assume you already know that a piece of writing can be clear, simply, but yet packed with lots of information. I hope this explanation will put your misgivings of my misgivings of your December 2010 RfC at rest. --Bobthefish2 (talk) 10:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Apologies, I don't recall you ever explaining why the encyclopedias and almanacs don't matter. Actually, I vaguely recall you simply rejecting them as relevant, despite the fact that Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (geographic names) explicitly tells us to check encyclopedias. Did you have further objections than that? Feel free to either repeat them or to link to them, I'm sorry that I don't recall them (I promise I really don't). As for the search engine results...really, I think the only thing we can do is a hand count. Unfortunately, we can't do that with either GBooks or GScholar, since the details usually aren't available...also, note that I'm not saying that we should absolutely disregard the search results, only that we need to be skeptical of them (which, I think, was your point all along).

But where I think you're right, though, is that each side needs to present its data clearly and succinctly in support of one name or another. Would you (and everyone else) agree that this might be a better first step than going back to another (likely indecisive) RfC? That was a step I wanted to get to in mediation, but, sadly, it broke down before that. We could even set a time limit to gather the evidence (a month? I'm just throwing out a number off the top of my head). I'm just brainstorming here, but we could set it up where everyone tries to format the evidence very strictly, like with a section specifically for "data" and a section specifically for policy & guideline based arguments. Then after that, we can specifically critique the "other side's" points/data, and then take those data and arguments to an RfC. But maybe I'm just thinking about this too much... Qwyrxian (talk) 13:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

If you said "you don't recall ever explanining why the encyclopedias and almanacs don't matter", then we have a problem. In fact, there were conversations and threads where I explicitly addressed why encyclopedia searches are bad. It's too bad that you forgot about them . I don't think any amount of RfC will get us somewhere if key ideas are consistently ignored/forgotten.

Just to remind you of another point you appear to have forgotten, it is really up to you and others sharing your view to provide good evidence that supports the exclusive usage of Senkaku Islands, over all others, as article name. In the realm of search engine results, I've already showed that the supporting data of your side are bad, so that's goners. Then for encyclopedia and library searches, I've also explained why they are also bad for other reasons. Unless you can provide new convincing arguments to support the use of the current name, the status quo we have here is not legitimized by anything but is in fact maintained simply by the force of Misplaced Pages politics alone. --Bobthefish2 (talk) 17:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I apprize and admire User:Zscout370's stand and proposal very much. He is honest that he is a Japanophile and do a lot of stuff for the Japanese on wp, which I absolutely believe. And he still proposes to move the page under "Pinnacle Islands". Although the name "PI" is not my most favorite one, and the Chinese name has been proven with a slight advantage over the Japanese name in English using per the debate during the mediation, I can compromise to accept the "PI" as Zscout370 proposed. The main force who opposes to compromise to use this NPOV name is not from those who oppose the Japanese name, but is from those who pro the Japanese name. Qwyrxian, it will be useless for your stand of pro "SI" even if you can find out a way to overturn the debate data during the mediation. For you to refuse the "PI", you need to overturn the precedent of Liancourt Rock and the corresponding justification in the guideline WP:NCGN#Multiple local names. Again, please do not go "penny (any reasons blah, blah, blah ...) wise and pound (NPOV) foolish" again and again. --Lvhis (talk) 19:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Liancourt Rocks isn't a judgment that has to be followed, it was just one way some users chose to deal with the article title. The sooner you stop pretending we have to do the same thing here, the quicker we might talk about real issues. John Smith's (talk) 20:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Laincourt is also isn't the only pieces of rock that have countries fighting over it. There are a lot of territorial disputes just in Asia alone because of consequences from World War II. If would be helpful if there is a list of these lands so we can figure out what was done. User:Zscout370 20:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I've had a thought. "South China Sea" is incredibly biased because it suggests China owns the sea. But it's a disputed area. So should it be called something else? John Smith's (talk) 20:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

And there is always the Sea of Japan. Regardless, I would like to have a list of these disputed territories (if it has bodies of water, so be it) so we can figure out what is going on. User:Zscout370 20:47, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

What are you thinking of doing - see how most articles are treated or something? If that's the case it would probably be better to just propose a change in policy. John Smith's (talk) 21:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes; gives me an idea on what could be done. User:Zscout370 21:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedias/almanacs

New section on this point to separate it out from the bigger issue of how to proceed

Thanks for providing those links, Bobthefish2; the first I think I missed in dealing with other things you posted at the same time, the second I forgot. But I'm happy to follow up now. Ultimately, your entire argument is fundamentally flawed. You're both ignoring and misunderstanding WP:Naming conventions (geographic names). That guideline explicitly tells us to look not at wide, generic web research, but to high quality sources. The very first thing we're told to check is encyclopedias (my feeling is that an almanac is a form of encyclopedia, although others may disagree). You wrongly discounted Library of Congress findings for the same reason. As you've been told several times, you're welcome to try to change the guidelines (which you've said you don't want to do), but you can't just arbitrarily and unilaterally decide that several different useful guidelines don't apply here.

TO repeat: we are not supposed to be looking primarily at generic internet search results. This is no different, ultimately, in that if we were trying to measure whether or not to use "aren't" or "ain't", in WP, we wouldn't just measure the entire actual usage; rather we measure scholarly and tertiary sources. Now, I have no problem saying that the web search results seem ambiguous, and may in some cases slightly favor D (I'm not saying that for certain until I go back and look at the exact data again). But I do have a problem with picking only that one criteria, arguably the least accurate, for saying "We can't tell which is the most common". I can't stress enough: while the web search results are somewhere near ambiguous, the encyclopedia and almanac results were unanimous: either the source didn't mention the topic at all, or it mentioned only Senkaku Islands, or mentioned Senkaku Islands as the primary topic with a mention/redirect in the index of Diaoyu to Senkaku Islands. Now, if someone else produces other English encyclopedias or almanacs that don't follow this pattern, I'm happy to alter that, but, as of this point, no one has done so.

Oh, one other point you raised: encyclopedias and almanacs may be dated. I can't speak for the encycs, as I didn't personally search them, but I was the one who did the almanac search and every single one was from 2002 or later. Thus, while you're right that they may be dated, these ones weren't. Qwyrxian (talk)

I think one thing that you are correct upon is that search engine results can be skewed one way or another. Even if I change my Google settings to always search for Japanese websites first, when I type some characters like "旗" (ki, flag), I always tend to get Chinese based websites (or Chinese Gov websites) in the first 30 hits. SEO will always happen and sometimes it is state sponsored, but that is another issue for another time and place. The Library of Congress, for example, will list Senkaku as the main name for these islands in an 1986 record but will list PI as the main secondary name (and puts the Chinese names at the bottom). While this is the United States doing in the 1980's when Reagan had his eyes on defeating "the Evil Empire," the sources listed in this note is either from Rand McNally (major map maker) or the US State Department. Even today, the US Government believes that the islands are under Japanese control and chided China for trying to provoke Japan. Both names are used in some US Government sources, but the main term used by them is Senkaku. If we, as the MOS suggests, using the books and old encyclopedias, I found sources starting from the 1840's using PI as a term for these group of island chains. So we now know this is not a term just made up recently. Still need to sort out because these group of islands and another place called Pinnacle Islands located in Alaska. Hopefully, this helps get some kind of discussion moving forward. User:Zscout370 03:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Generic Search Results: The search results I generated were not generic, but were practically exclusively consisted of literature sources. For some, I even counted the results by hand. What's obvious to me is that you hadn't even paid attention to the data I presented (in addition to the posts I wrote, as you've now admitted). Since I am/was one of the major parties in this dispute, I find this sloppiness to be quite alarming. It also casts doubt as to what you plan to achieve with another series of RfC, given your obvious disinterest in listening to others.

Guidelines: As I've said, guidelines are suggestions and not rules. "Narrow interpretation of guidelines" is also a critique others have of you in your RfA. If you felt I was arbitrarily dismissing part of the guideline, then please support this allegation with supporting arguments. So far, I've seen none although I've quite extensively backed my arguments up. Unfortunately, as you've admitted, you didn't read my posts and there's nothing that can force you to.

Library of Congress: I decided to verify the results just for the hell of it.

• Diaoyu: 5 results
• Senkaku: 4 results
• Search parameters: 2005 or later, English; I didn't even bother with Diaoyutai.
• URL: http://catalog.loc.gov/

Encyclopedia and Almanacs: I raised a point about cherry-picking. Can you convince others that your small sampling of 5 Alamancs is reflective of the general opinion of Almanacs? I don't think you can and I don't believe there is any reason to consider the Alamancs to be of any higher authority or credibility than say Google Map, CNN, BBC, or any other literature source yielded by the literature searches.

Let me know if there are any <sarcasm>fundamental flaws</sarcasm> with my arguments. Thanks. --Bobthefish2 (talk) 03:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh well... It's time to pretend my arguments don't exist again. Have fun going in circles guys. --Bobthefish2 (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Bob, I got your message and went to the page linked. I have not been able yet to figure out how to do the search there in a correct way, but I trust you. Even the result from E/A supports that DI is more used than SI, I am not sure whether the dispute can be resolved. Of course, that will strength that the current Japanese SI cannot stand. --Lvhis (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• Qwyrxian, the Multiple Local Names section of WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) clearly states that In some cases, a compromise is reached between editors to avoid giving the impression of support for a particular national point of view. I'd prefer to that to happen here, as clearly neither SI nor Diaoyu(tai) would be agreed upon. - Penwhale | 06:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • And that is what I was getting at. We know now that the Japanese name will not be acceptable; in turn, if we choose the Chinese name, people will not be happy about that. If we put both names in the title, people will fight over which name goes first. Using PI is, in my view, the only option that is even foreseeable to solve this debate. It will not be the end of the debate, since there was times that years after the Laincourt issue was solved, I still fielding emails on OTRS saying Dokdo is the only acceptable name they will accept for the islands on English Misplaced Pages. But I think we will have less angry people if we choose PI over S or D (or a combined name). User:Zscout370 07:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware that a compromise is appropriate when we can't meet the other requirements. But we may not do that until such time as we verify that SI is not the most common name. If the compromise were the primary issue, we wouldn't have all of those other parts to the guideline, and every single disputed place name would automatically get some "neutral name"; I would argue that we have to change Sea of Japan to "That Sea in between Korea and Japan and China and Russia", "South Kuril Islands" to, I don't know, "South Man Islands" (taking the rough translation), and, heck, I can't even guess what we'd call Ireland or the United States. And with regards to Zscout370's argument, merely the fact that the issue causes headaches in the real world is not enough to overcome the requirement that we must use the most common name in English. We do not make choices to make people less angry; under that argument, we'd take out all of the pictures of Muhammad, probably 90% of our pictures on sex acts, and every criticism section from every company and bio page. We make choices based on our guidelines and policies, and those guidelines in this case tell us to choose the most common name if one exists. Again, please understand, I'm not rejecting a compromise, but I'm saying that we don't choose the compromise option until we first establish that there is no common English name. And part of that work is going to have to be some justification as to why we would be the only tertiary source that doesn't use Senkaku Islands. Misplaced Pages does not lead, we follow. Now, we do have the ability to follow trends more quickly, but it hasn't even been proven that there is this massive trend away from SI towards DI. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with PI. It's not only a common name but also it's against "Use modern names". Besides, unlike Liancourt Rocks, PI is not approved by United States Board on Geographic Names. They approve Senkaku. Check it for yourself. As far as I know, Australia, UK, and USA use Senkaku Shoto on their nautical charts. If the title is biased, the US government would be biased too. See the map. I think the Google search of almost all news stories and studies are meaningless as long as they deal with the dispute. As a matter of course, they use both names as a part of basic information on the islands. @Penwhale, it seems you didn't notice this. Please answer me. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 09:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Implicitly, neither PRC nor ROC would approve. However, I mentioned that CNN and Google are using both within article text/on the map, and this cannnot be done in a page title. And technically, using United States Board on Geographic Names as a point isn't correct since it doesn't represent a worldwide view. - Penwhale | 15:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is absolutely true. --Lvhis (talk) 17:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Because when one US Government agency went from Dokdo to Laincourt, President Bush struck back and forced the name back to Dokdo and make it Korean owned source. User:Zscout370 18:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

What exactly is your point about CNN and Google? That just shows a preference of two websites. And the fact that China and Taiwan wouldn't approve - so what? John Smith's (talk) 19:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe that Penwhale does have a point with CNN and Google, but the point is not complete. It would be helpful to know what the majority of the worlds new organizations use. Its a daunting task, but something I'll try to work on in maybe the next week or two. What needs to be done (and anyone else is certainly welcome to help) is to scan through articles at a single news source, and see if there seems to be a house style guide. For example, if CNN always used a dual name, that would be evidence that SI is not a preferred term for that one specific company. If the formatting varied from article to article, though, it would not provide any clear evidence either way. If every major news site we found worldwide similarly used a dual name, that would be good evidence (helping balance out the encyclopedia/almanac evidence) that there has been a recent shift. But this requires looking at the individual articles. As I said above, if the article uses Senkaku throughout but mentions Diaoyu once, that's strong evidence that they are supporting the Senkaku name (and vice-versa). This task will help us get beyond simple, flawed Google searches and get an inkling of what's actually going on in our sources. If possible, we'll want to use worldwide sources (i.e., including UK, India, Al Jazeera, etc.), but we probably don't really care what Japanese or Chinese or Taiwanese sources uses, even in English, since, well, I think it's obvious why. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

@Bothefish2: I didn't see your comments because I generally don't look back up at the entirety of a thread to see if anything got added in the middle once I've already added a comment afterward. I try to, but I don't always. Taking them one by one:

• Generic search results: How do you limit search results for "literature"? If you mean you did GScholar instead of GWeb, though, I understood thta. I never meant to suggest that we weren't doing GScholar, my apologies that I wasn't as clear as possible by using terms like "generic search" (what I meant was, a search where something is typed into any version of Google and the only thing that is looked at is the total result, either on the first or last pages of the search). For handcounting, I think that we all need to consider doing some very serious handcounting, as I don't believe that any of us have done a really thorough one; I think our best approach is what I suggested above, basically following Penwhale's example: look at what each separate news agency/org is doing.
• Guidelines: We have to use something to constrain our decision--otherwise, yes, "your" side automatically wins because all you have to show is that there is disagreement which automatically means we pick neither SI or DI. And if we're going to use the guidelines, we can't pick and choose which parts to use. We can say, "Oh, this result is tainted for this reason," or we can say, "We all agree this is not useful in this situation," but you (generic you, not you=Bobthefish2) can't say "This one criteria on encyclopedias, we're not using that, because, um...well, because we don't think its a good criteria." I want to especially emphasize that since Penwhale tried to use a different part of the criteria itself to argue that the switch to PI was clearly correct. Yes, guidelines are guides, not soulless rules to follow lockstep. But just like you can't say, "No, WP:IAR, so I'm not following that guideline," you can't just throw out the one "just because". The burden for throwing out any given guideline is pretty much going to be on the burden of the person wanting to do that. Instead, that's why I think we should look at guidelines as a whole, look at the overall intent, and apply each part as much as possible.
• Guidelines, part 2: But, heck, I'll even meet you on your chosen level--I'll go ahead and tell you why I think this is a good guideline, preemptively, as it were. The guideline telling us to look at other tertiary sources is a very good one, especially in this instance. Misplaced Pages all too easily falls victim to recentism and news reporting. We have to balance this constant desire (well-meaning, well-intended) to try to stay right on the cutting edge with the need that an encyclopedic reflect a solemn, sober analysis about what is notable, likely to still be true twenty minutes from now, and responsible. For something as basic as the name of a place, we need to look at these tertiary sources, not to answer the question, but to give us guidance. In other words, I'm not saying it's the be-all, end-all criteria, but it's one worth retaining. You point out that they have small editorial staffs; well, the decisions about what to call these islands will similarly be made by a small group of people at each news agency. That's why, yes, it's useful to know what CNN does, but it will be more useful to know what CNN, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, NYT, AP, Reuters, et al do, collectively. If there is a clear trend, then, yes, it may be time to bow to it. You also express concern that encyclopedias are out of date; well, that's why the guidelines tell us to only look at recent ones. The almanacs I looked at were all from 2002 and later. I don't know about the encyclopedias.
• LoC: A valid, useful point. I did some preliminary searches, and got numbers similar or equal to yours. Of course, we need to be careful (one of the Diaoyu results, was from a book called Dokdo : historical appraisal and international justice, which, from the title alone, does not seem like a valid return for our concerns (given it's clear anti-JP bias); but, I do see that this result may point towards a balance. I'd like to learn a little more about what exactly I'm searching, but this is definitely a useful avenue of exploration. I'm interested to see how the numbers change over time, too.
• Encyclopedias and Almanacs: I didn't cherry pick them; I looked at every single international and Asian almanac in the reference section of a major US research university library. Those 5 were it; there were other atlases, but either 1) they were older than 2000 (which was my cut-off point for precisely the concerns you legitimately have above); 2) were not the "right kind" of almanac (i.e., they were a topographical or biological or something else, that thus didn't list the islands) or 3) weren't sufficiently detailed to list the islands at all (I mean, let's face it, despite the role they play in the geopolitics of these three entities, they're really not so (physically) big or such a big (psychologically/politicall) deal.

I hope this answers your concerns in more specific detail. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I am glad you chose to respond.

• Generic search results: I am disappointed that the detail I put into generating my search data is still not very fully appreciated. All it takes is to read my critique and reassessment of Phoenix's results in the recent mediation. While you aren't obliged to read any of my posts, it'd help to prevent occasions where you'd make inaccurate description of the most recently established set of name-usage data (and which would offer me reasons to say mean things about you).
• Guidelines 1.0: If you are unable to use encyclopedia results in a way that circumvents the legitimate concerns I raised, then that's fine. For example, there can be a hypothetical unbiased search engine of encyclopedias where you can pick up 100 Senkaku hits vs. 1 Diaoyu hit dating from 2006 on. Unfortunately, such an unrealistically strong piece of evidence that argues in favour of your favourite position is highly unlikely to exist in this reality.
• Guidelines 1.5: If a particular guideline is not suited for a scenario due to legitimate reasons, then there is a good reason not to use it. Unlike what is suggested by your favourite imagined quote about why we should not be using encyclopedia, I have in fact provided good reasons on why they should not be used (unless... see Guidelines 1.0).
• Guidelines 2.0: You have fallen into this great horrendous trap of using "news" as a reason to trust encyclopedia over other things. As I've warned you in the past, I do not very much like my posts and data to be ignored in a horrible manner that renders it to be practically the same as being non-existent. To spare you another lecture, I'd give you a friendly reminder that my a significant portion of the search data we discussed in the past were exclusively consisted of books and other non-news materials. In the event you would like to fruitlessly argue that they are, in fact, news materials, then I would also remind you that the date filters I used were, in fact, very relaxed (i.e. 2005 and beyond).
• LoC: I am very glad you submit on this point. This is a very good step forward.
• Encyclopedias and Almanacs: Does this major university located in USA have a comprehensive repository of almanacs? Five is a very small sample. Even if five encompasses the space of all respectable recent almanacs, you still have not provided a reason to convince us that the facts from such a tremendously large sample of almanacs is, in fact, more important than the results generated from literature search in various media.
• One thing you've said that's worth repeating: Yes, ''our'' side automatically wins because all we have to show is that there is disagreement which automatically means we pick neither SI or DI.

--Bobthefish2 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

1. Pan, Zhongqi. "Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands: The Pending Controversy from the Chinese Perspective," Journal of Chinese Political Science, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2007; retrieved 2011-05-29

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