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] (]) 12:27, 2 June 2014 (UTC) ] (]) 12:27, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

:The fact is that all the sources in question mention aspects of Jimmu's legend in a prominent manner, and Jimmu wouldn't keep cropping up in reliable secondary sources like this if it weren't relevant. You say that Jimmu is mentioned too briefly in these sources, but that's true of the entire article. Look at the sources which this article cites relating to Jimmu's actual reign, which you say is relevant, such as Wakabayashi, Kelly, Kitagawa, Brinkley, Ooms, etc... Most of these sources actually mention Jimmu in LESS space than the sources cited in the "Commemorating Jimmu's reign" section. This is not really due to synthesis, but basically because no full-length scholarly discussion of Jimmu's entire life and legacy has been written in English and so with English sources we basically rely on those books which have written chapters or paragraphs on Jimmu rather than detailed treatises on his entire legacy. That's true of Jimmu's modern-day legend and even more true of his ancient reign. The first complaint you made against the article was insufficient sources but it was only after I fixed the sourcing issues that you mentioned the synthesis problem. The fact is that the section on the modern-day veneration of Jimmu has been a longstanding and uncontroversial part of the article which is well sourced, and given these facts it should not be subject to deletions without consensus. The parts you deleted seemed fairly arbitrary to me because it still isn't clear why Hakko Ichiu and treatment of Jimmu in post-World War II textbooks isn't relevant to Jimmu's legend. The 1940 Kigensetsu, for instance, which you had earlier implied was only peripherally relevant to Jimmu, was highly infused with Jimmu's life. The Hakko Tower was constructed on the site of Jimmu's former palace and was named after a direct quote of his. One of the sources noted that millions of pilgrims paid homage to Jimmu at Kashihara Shrine in the year 1940. The sources cited for this which mention Jimmu are actually more detailed than the ones dealing with his alleged actual reign. Originally you wanted to delete the entire section, but I don't think one other person has supported that. None of your other edits have achieved consensus yet, so for the time being we should leave the sourced information as it is until a consensus to change is reached.] (]) 15:59, 2 June 2014 (UTC)


== The problem is == == The problem is ==

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Talk:Emperor Jimmu/Archive 1

A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on February 11, 2009, February 11, 2010, February 11, 2011, and February 11, 2014.
This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.

Discussions:

Requested move (2)

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

The result of the move request was: no consensus, hence not moved. Evidence of name usage in sources was inconclusive, with Jinmu certainly on the rise, yet not definitively more common. All commenters are reminded that any consensus-forming discussion is more likely to be resolved successfully in the absence of acrimony. It serves no good purpose to impugn the motives of those with whom one disagrees. All commenters are worthy of respect, and none is to be accorded special privilege for any reason. Discussions which devolve off topic -- away from policy-centric, content-centric debate -- rarely reach constructive conclusions. As this particular subject is likely to be again discussed in the future, such advice is especially relevant. Xoloz (talk) 16:40, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


Emperor Jimmu → Emperor Jinmu – The last multimove suffered from poor formatting and User:Oda Mari accidentally !voting the opposite way than was clearly their intent not long before the close. The Imperial Household Agency spells his name "Jinmu". Sightseeing guide maps of Kashihara City (where his mausoleum and principal shrine are located) also use "Jinmu". All the other articles on Japanese emperors follow the "nm" spelling convention. Modern books written by scholars also usually follow this convention, while its mostly older, unreliable, or irrelevant books (e.g., a 300-page book about WW2 that contains a single sentence about how the emperors of Japan claimed descent from "Emperor Jimmu") often follow the other convention. --Relisted. Xoloz (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:48, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The Japanese government, and Japanese universities, prefer "Emperor Jinmu" in documents they produce in English. UK universities also prefer "Jinmu", but the minuscule number of hits clearly disproves Necrothesp's argument last time that this subject is well known in the west.
.ac.jp results:
92 for "Jimmu" vs. 278 for "Jinmu"
.ac.uk results:
4 for "Jimmu" vs. 7 for "Jinmu"
.go.jp results:
53 for "Jimmu" vs. 102 for "Jinmu"
Hijiri88 (talk) 13:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
The Nara Prefectural Government feels the same way. Hijiri88 (talk) 14:09, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Examination of GBooks hits for "Jimmu" spelling.

Once again an IP user who doesn't generally edit in this area has !voted based on what are (essentially) GBooks hit counts. Therefore, I've taken to analyze the various sources that show up for a search of "Emperor Jimmu" since January 2004. First page: the first is based on a few ridiculous conspiracy theories (the Japanese are descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel, Japan has been a Christian nation for 2,000 years, etc.) and is clearly not written by specialists; the second is a general reference work that appears to be aimed at undergrad students who study world history but not Japanese history, and in the same section contains obvious errors such as confusing the Heiji era for something that was in the thirteenth century, which would not occur in a source written by a specialist in this area; the third is a reprint of the second and contains similar errors; the fourth is, as predicted, a book about World War II that barely mentions this emperor; the fifth doesn't have a preview, but given the title and the fact that its author doesn't appear to be an expert in Japanese history I would doubt it meets our standards of a reliable source; the sixth appears to be yet another (earlier) edition of the second; the seventh is a copy of this Misplaced Pages article; the eighth doesn't appear to have any serious problems, although its various contributors seem to have their own romanization preferences, and no editorial will to standardize the text, and despite the books 2013 date, the three sources cited are all very old; the ninth is a good source, but GBooks' 2013 date is nonsense -- it was published in 1966 and reprinted in 1990; the tenth is another reprint of this Misplaced Pages article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Next ten: the eleventh is another Misplaced Pages clone; the twelfth as well; and the thirteenth; the fourteenth doesn't appear to have any obvious problems (it has no preview); the fifteenth is a discussion of a fictional work (a manga by Osamu Tezuka, who died in 1989); the sixteenth is another general reference book written by non-specialists and contains even more ridiculous errors in the same section; the seventeenth is a superb work written by probably my favourite scholar of all time who unfortunately prefers the old romanization system (the one he grew up with?) -- his preference for "Jimmu", as with "kambun" and so on is actually the most compelling single argument, in my opinion, against moving this page, but his personal preference is ultimately his own, and his former colleague at Columbia University is probably the current leader among Japanese literary scholars outside Japan and he has different preferences; the eighteenth is another reprint of a 2001 work and, more importantly, is on a completely unrelated subject and barely mentions this emperor's name; the nineteenth appears to be another fine work that just so happens to have its own style preferences that differ from ours in numerous ways; the twentieth is another general reference work that, because it is not written (edited?) by specialists, contains ridiculous errors like that Nobunaga moved against "foreign religions" to restore the status of the emperor (Nobunaga was a friend to the Christians). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Forget about my last vote. I don't mind if it's Jimmu or Jinmu. I'd vote for the major usage in en textbooks and history books.Oda Mari (talk) 09:39, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I've been rethinking this for a while and the conclusion is oppose. Because "mm" is more phonetically correct. See N (kana), and . As for the romanization found in Japan, most cases are sloppy except Hepburn romanization used by JR. As I cited before, this official pdf file uses Jimmu. Even the Imperial Household Agency uses both ways. Oda Mari (talk) 08:23, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
    • @Oda Mari: "Because "mm" is more phonetically correct": that's arguable, to say the least—as you can see from the article you've linked to, 「ん」 tends to take on many different flavours depending on the sounds around it, but the only one of these Hepburn chose to depict graphically was —a pointless inconsistency, and one corrected by preferring the phonemic representation to the phonetic one. Phonetic writing is simply impractical and best left to the scientists who require it.
      Taking this position is tantamount to a proposal to change MoS-JA. If that's not your intention, then how do you justify maintaining it for this particular article?—or are you prepared to propose changing "Tenmu" et al?
      The Imperial Household Agency does use both styles—24 instances of "nm" and a single one of "mm". Curly Turkey (gobble) 08:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
    • I already pointed out on Oda Mari's talk page back in August that that single instance is not "the Imperial Household Agency" but more likely a single (outsourced? freelance?) translator with a rather idiosyncratic romanization style -- see how he/she writes Emperor Go-Daigo and so on. If it was someone in-house it almost certainly would have been edited to conform with the others. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose. This is, of course, not an embarrassment. Google Ngram results for "Jimmu" vs. "Jinmu" show that the former was nearly universal in the past, and it appears to predominate slightly now. However, results for "Emperor Jimmu" vs. "Emperor Jinmu" show the latter as becoming slightly more common in recent books. The current trends might be a reason to move the page in the future, if "Jinmu" actually becomes the clear preferred spelling, but it's not a reason to move the page now, when usage is mixed and the current page name reflects the historically preferred spelling. 172.9.22.150 (talk) 12:54, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
    • This type of response is exactly what I consider the embarrassment to be. If you have to hairsplit of the precise amount of lead that one spelling has over another in a Google Ngram, then that spelling clearly doesn't have anything like the overwhelming lead it would need to make room for an exeption. So if "Jinmu" gains a one-result lead for a week, then loses it again, and gains it again ... do we keep moving the page back week after week? Exceptions must be exceptional, and there is nothing exceptional about this case. This is a classic case of preferring the letter to the spirit of the guideline. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:29, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
And how many of the "Jimmu" results are, even if they don't say so directly, the result of Misplaced Pages spelling it this way in violation of Misplaced Pages's own style guidelines? I'd be willing to bet that close to 100% of books, magazines and the like from the last 10 years that name-drop this emperor without giving him any significant coverage are only choosing their spelling based on the current Misplaced Pages spelling (such books obviously fail WP:RS for this matter). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:55, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
If this emperor's name has an "official" spelling it is "Jinmu". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:55, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks AjaxSmack. "While generally deprecated" where sources are mixed effectively means Support if the case is demonstrated, which it hasn't been. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
File:Kashihara Shrine Sightseeing Map.jpg
This is how visitors to Emperor Jinmu's mausoleum and shrine learn to spell his name.
Not exactly. The one user who clearly opposed the last multi-move specified that he only actually opposed the move of this one page, but the RM was closed as "no move" on all pages anyway. My response was to place a bunch of separate RMs on the other pages, and they all passed as unopposed. And like I said "Tamba province"'s day in the sun is also coming. Honestly I wish I could make your job easier by just grouping them all together, but then someone with some attachment to one of the page's current spellings derails the entire RM based on a ... "unique" interpretation of WP:COMMONNAME. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:04, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
Can you provide me with some evidence that the "mm" spelling is the common name? You failed at this last time, relying on a slight majority on an ngram (an ngram that I can't see). I have now provided hard evidence that the most reliable, relevant sources on this subject spell the name with an "nm". Do you have any evidence that a large number of reliable sources provide in-depth discussion of this topic and use the current spelling? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
(Mostly) off-topic dispute over user behavior
Note also that Necrothesp posted on seven other RMs in the 30 minutes preceding the above !vote, and his last post was but six minutes earlier. It therefore seems highly unlikely that he had read my gull analysis of the sources, clicked on all the links, or put any significant thought behind how real people (visitors to the subject's burial mound or shrine, for instance) might see this issue. He pulled a COMMONNAME argument out of his nose, and has not provided any evidence whatsoever to demonstrate otherwise. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
First of all, let's not resort to personal comments on my editing to try to pooh-pooh my comments. This suggests you really don't like other editors disagreeing with you. What on earth does it matter how many RMs I've contributed to? I've already given my opinion on the previous RM (the result of which you clearly didn't like). Nothing has changed since then. Apparently, this includes your negative and patronising attitude towards those who disagree with you - last time you accused me of "abusing" guidelines because I dared to oppose you. I warned you about your use of language towards other editors then. Secondly, what on earth do the opinions of "visitors to the subject's burial mound or shrine" have to do with Misplaced Pages? This is about Jimmu's common name in the English-speaking world. Japan is not part of the English-speaking world. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:01, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Okay, I apologize for the nose comment. I meant that your COMMONNAME argument was not based on objective evidence. While I regret the nose metaphor I still stand by this assessment of your argument. User:Cckerberos and User:Curly Turkey appear to share my view. Neither here nor in the last RM have you presented any actual evidence that this subject's "common name" is "Emperor Jimmu". I didn't like the last result because the RM was supported by several users and opposed only by you. User:Oda Mari retracted her !vote a matter of minutes after the RM was closed, and Enkyo2 was only !voting as part of a hounding campaign against me (he has since been indefinitely blocked, at least partly for this reason). I have presented an extensive amount of evidence that the GBooks hits for "Jimmu" are predominantly reprints of very old books, or non-specialist works that don't provide significant coverage to this subject (read: books about WWII that include one mention of this subject's name). The Japanese government and Japanese academia are almost unanimous in favouring the "Jinmu" spelling in documents they publish in English. Local governments in areas associated with this subject are the same. This is what I mean when I talk about signposts and sightseeing maps, and "visitors to the subject's burial mound or shrine". There is no reason to believe that every Tom, Dick and Harry in New York, London, Sydney, Ottawa, Dublin or anywhere else has heard of this subject, and if they have it's still likely they heard of him from a source that originates in a country that is "not part of the English-speaking world". Let's use a hypothetical for comparison's sake: There are two common spellings of Shakespeare's name -- Shakespeare and Shakspere. Both are quite common in books written for the general public. Misplaced Pages's internal style guidelines say to use "Shakespeare" unless "Shakspere" is the "official spelling". The museum devoted to the subject at the subject's birthplace uses "Shakespeare" across the board. Books written by and for scholars in the field overwhelmingly use "Shakespeare". The government of the United Kingdom occasionally uses "Shakspere" but still clearly prefers "Shakespeare". Under these circumstances, "Shakspere" can perhaps be taken as the "common name" in that it's a name that's used by non-specialists as opposed to specialists, but is it really the common name? Which spelling should Misplaced Pages be using as the title of the article? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 17:27, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Anyway, I have now apologized for bringing your nose into the discussion. Where's my apology for personally insulting me and my credentials (the arrogance of the self-proclaimed "expert")? I have not insinuated anything about your real-world credentials either here or in the last RM, merely checking your edit history to see if you had in fact ever edited an article in this area, and finding that you had just randomly come across this RM along with a bunch of other RMs I pointed out that you probably have no more of an interest in this subject than the average person brought up in the English-speaking world. Said average person has never heard of Emperor Jinmu/Jimmu, so your argument was in violation of the spirit of WP:COMMONNAME. This was a misuse (or "abuse") of COMMONNAME, and an increasing number of users agree with me on this. Why are you not hurling personal insults at any of them? And why do you continue to insist that I and only I have a "negative and patronising attitude towards those who disagree" with me? You are the one who called someone who disagreed with you and presented a prince's ransom of evidence to back up said disagreement an arrogant self-proclaimed "expert". What have I (or Curly Turkey or Cckerberos) said to you that was anywhere near as patronizing as "arrogant self-proclaimed expert"? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is such a mess of irrelevant comments, including but not only a support vote with no rationale whatsoever, and name-calling, that it's hardly even worth sorting through. But I have and it seems clear that both names are well attested, and there seems no policy-based rationale for the proposed move. Andrewa (talk) 07:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
(Mostly) off-topic dispute over user behavior
    • Andrewa: I gave a rationale following a rebuttal to my support—so obviously not "no rationale whatsoever". Further, it's clear that "Jimmu" is not COMMON as COMMONNAME defines it (peruse the examples if you doubt that statement), thus there is no credible rationale for making an exception to MOS-JA for this article (whose standard would have it at "Jinmu" unless "Jimmu" were simply overwhelmingly preferred in the literature, which it's obviously not). In other words, "there seems no policy-based rationale for" this page to remain a bizarre, anachronistic exception to the guidelines. Curly Turkey (gobble) 09:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
      • If you can be specific, and preferably cut out the rhetoric, I'll attempt an answer. Andrewa (talk) 10:39, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
        • Andrewa: There's nothing in either WP:COMMONNAME or MOS:JAPAN that's supports this spelling in any way. What exactly is supposed to be the rationale for keeping this page at a spelling that is recommended against in MOS:JAPAN except in the case of official names (e.g. Asahi Shimbun—the COMMONNAME for that paper because it's rigidly established as the official name of the paper—no other spelling is ever seriously considered: check out the NGram for "Asahi Shimbun" vs "Asahi Shinbun": we get "Ngrams not found: "Asahi Shinbun""). Meanwhile, as Hijiri88 as pointed out repeatedly, the standard MOS-JA-sanctioned spelling is one that is also used officially—and yet we're using a Google Ngram (which includes trivial, out-of-date, and in-passing references) to override the simpler, quite common, officially-used, and MoS-compliant version? This is what I mean by "embarrassing"—only petty, hairsplitting Wikilawyering has kept this article at this spelling. To repeat myself, exceptions need to be exceptional, and there has been nothing presented here to demonstrate the exceptionality of "Jimmu". Curly Turkey (gobble) 10:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
          • No, there's no evidence of Wikilawyering. What we have here appears to be another attempt to browbeat good-faith contributors (such as myself) with emotive language, which unfortunately is mixed in with some valid points. I'm not assuming this abandoning of reason is confined to one side, I'm not even interested in it either way. What I'm interested in is rational, helpful discussion that assumes good faith. Andrewa (talk) 20:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
            • Andrewa: Definition of Wikilawyering, points 2—4:
              • Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit or underlying principles
              • Asserting that the technical interpretation of the policies and guidelines should override the underlying principles they express
              • Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions
            • Asserting the primacy of the unanalayzed results of an Ngram over official documents fits the bill to a "T", does it not? I've seen no argument opposed to the move that doesn't rely entirely on the unanalyzed results of that Google Ngram and its misapplication to WP:COMMONNAME. The spirit of COMMONNAME is obvious—it's to avoid the obviously undesirable naming of the Bono article as "Paul Hewson", or Caffeine "1,3,7-Trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione". "Jimmu" vs "Jinmu" is not even of that type—is a difference of spelling standards, one of which is deprecated and has become increasingly rare in official and scholarly documents.
              As an aside, if you're "interested in ... rational, helpful discussion that assumes good faith", maybe you could consider the offensiveness of singling out other users as having "no rationale whatsoever" when that rationale is no more than a scroll up. Talk about assuming bad faith. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
              • Again there are some valid points here, but I think they are all raised elsewhere in this discussion, and the behavioural issues you raise are beyond the scope of this talk page I think. Andrewa (talk) 04:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Look, can we just agree that Andrewa was wrong in asserting that CT had "no rationale whatsoever", I was wrong to summarize MOS-JA's stance on the issue and put said summary in quotation marks, and the only users who should not have their !votes counted are SPIs and no-history IPs? Every user here apparently has good faith, so there's no reason to worry about behavioral issues. IMO, the only "no rationale whatsoever" !vote that has been cast is Necrothesp's, where he just states "Jimmu is the COMMONNAME" without providing any evidence. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
I (deliberately) did not nominate CT as the vote that had no rationale whatsoever, but let me quote the entirety of their vote: I can't believe this wasn't moved ages ago. What an embarrassment. Exactly where is the rationale in that? I'm curious!
This is being blown up out of all proportion. My criticism is harsh in places, but it is considered. The personal attacks which have been mounted in reply do not help the discussion. Andrewa (talk) 10:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Did you mean to post on a different RM? MOS-JA says "use Jinmu". 182.249.240.9 (talk) 08:31, 22 February 2014 (UTC) (Hijiri88)
Thank you for being more specific... a wikilink to MOS:JA would be even better, but I guess that's the one you mean. Except that guideline doesn't appear to contain the text you quote. It doesn't even seem to have Jinmu anywhere. Have you got it exactly right? Otherwise, a search won't find it. Andrewa (talk) 10:39, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to be read as a direct quote. The exact wording is: The original version of Hepburn used m when syllabic n んpreceded b, m, or p. While generally deprecated, this is still allowed in titles for cases where the official anglicized name continues to use m (examples: Asahi Shimbun, Namba Station). You must admit its quite a stretch to think of "Jimmu" as the subject's "official anglicized name", and if it's not an "official anglicized name" we are not "allowed" to use it in the title. In fact the Japanese government body assigned to regulate Imperial Household issues actually prefers the "Jinmu" spelling. 182.249.240.6 (talk) 11:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Some good points here. Please desist from using the double-quote for indirect speech. It is just plain wrong, and you can't expect people to understand your arguments if they are so badly expressed. And I hope you will not now accuse me of petty, hairsplitting Wikilawyering. I am honestly trying to assess your case, and you made it very difficult with this non-standard punctuation. Apology noted.
I think that this sort of mistake (I will not mince words here) is at least part of the problem, and so I would like this RM relisted so I can assess the valid arguments that are now appearing and may also be mixed in with earlier discussion. I doubt I will quickly reverse my "vote" nor do I think the two other highly experienced admins who have also decided to oppose will do so either, but I for one would like the chance. Other comments? Andrewa (talk) 20:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Andrewa: I hope you're not suggesting an admin's !vote carries any more weight than anyone else's—even an IP's. Admin status is not a rank, it's a role, as any "highly experienced admin" should be very well aware. I'd also like to request that you cease singling myself out for contempt, as with the unwarrantedly ABF and grotesquely out-of-context "petty, hairsplitting Wikilawyering" comment. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
You are of course quite right that admin status is a role not a rank, and our votes do not count any more than any others. They are all assessed on the same basis. On the other hand, our time is finite (all of us, admin or not), so it's wise to take the experience of contributors into account. If an IP with no other contributions makes a statement that looks ridiculous, I won't waste a lot of time on it, while the same statement from an experienced hand (admin or not) is worth investigating. That is just reality, and what life teaches.
I am not singling (you) out for contempt. Andrewa (talk) 04:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Life also teaches that repeated sniping, intimidation, accusations of "browbeating", and giving condescending "life lessons" rarely motivates people to AGF with you. There's plenty of empirical evidence to examine here, including from the two IPs. Perhaps if you have enough to spare of your "finite time" to lecture other editors on their comportment, you could more productively apply it to the examination and interpretation of the facts. Curly Turkey (gobble) 06:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
I believe my criticisms were valid and accurate, and intended them to be respectful and constructive. I will admit they were harsh, but I think this was warranted. And they were not perfect, certainly. Andrewa (talk) 10:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't think they were warranted, valid, or accurate. I certainly haven't "browbeaten" anyone—before you showed up, I had made a grand total of one rebuttal to another editor, stating my rationale—strongly stated, but I'd argue far less strongly than your "respectful and constructive" comments. So, besides dishonestly claiming I'd given no rationale (which I had eight days before your arrival), you've also mischaracterized the tone and content of my comments in a particularly damning way. Curly Turkey (gobble) 11:37, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
The claim now of dishonesty is just an unhelpful escalation. All I claimed was that one vote, which I did not name but yes it was yours, had given no rationale, as part of a criticism of the RM up until that point. This was and is accurate. If you'd said refer previous discussion or something like it that would have been a rationale, and I'd have phrased my criticism differently. But you didn't. It wasn't the most severe criticism or the most severe failure, and the reaction was and is completely out of proportion to the perceived offence, and just distracts from the issues. Andrewa (talk) 12:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I didn't participate in the previous discussion. My rationale is almost directly below the comment you singled out, dated eight days before yours—scroll up, and there I am telling you exactly that in my first response to you. And I'd call accusations of "another attempt to browbeat good-faith contributors" utterly offensive, given there wasn't one case of it, let alone "another". Certainly not "warranted, valid, or accurate" by any stretch of the imagination. Curly Turkey (gobble) 12:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
I hate to break off an already-resolved dispute, but can we just collapse this whole side-discussion and leave it be? User:Curly Turkey, I agree with you on the substance of this RM, but this dispute over admin-privilege, who dismissed whose vote, etc. is beside the point and counter-productive. We've got the stronger case and the numerical advantage, but this side-dispute is going to lead to a no-consensus result if it isn't closed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:42, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Agree. Andrewa (talk) 12:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Note the timestamps of the outdented comment above from CT. Disagree with some of it, but I don't see the point in continuing the discussion. Andrewa (talk) 13:25, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

What about the Imperial Household Agency and the Japan Tourism Agency? Haruo Shirane Traditional Japanese Literature is the most recent well-known scholarly text covering this topic, and he spells it "Jinmu". 182.249.240.36 (talk) 13:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC) (Hijiri88)
  • Support - MOS:JA says to go with n unless there's an "official" reason not to, and no such reason exists here. I don't think there's an argument to be made that WP:COMMONNAME supports "Jimmu", either. At worst there's no currently dominant popular English spelling. Meanwhile, "Jinmu" is by far more common in recent scholarly work. --Cckerberos (talk) 13:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - I've noticed that a lot of either argument is based on search engine results. While how Japanese institutions spell it is a convincing argument, can anyone provide the European spelling of his name for the last 400 years before the internet? I'm pretty sure that the commonname was more-or-less "Jimmu" during that time period. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 17:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Sturmgewehr88: European spellings over the last 400 years would be inappropriate because:
While Curly Turkey is right in saying old spellings used over the last 400 years are inappropriate, I took a look at some older documents. The most prominent one immediately before Hepburn was probably Titsingh's spelling, and he spelled it "Zin Mou Ten O". The Portuguese Jesuits before him used "Iimmu Tenvŏ". Neither of these is remotely "common", and even if they were they would mean that there is no "common name" and we should default to our standard romanization system. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - It's important what the Japanese officials or its society call their own emperor and the Google Books hits are not relevant indeed. If the emperor is called like that in Japan by the Japanese people that it has my support that we move it to its original name. Jaqeli (talk) 09:35, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
  • So, to sum up survey results so far, 5 supports -- myself, User:Curly Turkey, User:Cckerberos, User:Sturmgewehr88 and User:Nihonjoe -- and 4 opposes -- a no-history IP, User:Necrothesp, User:Andrewa and User:In ictu oculi -- where all 5 of the supports are regular WPJAPAN contributors and 3 (Curly Turkey, Nihonjoe and myself) have edited this article before, while none of the opposes are either regular editors of Japan-related articles, and none have ever touched this article before. Of the four opposes, the IP voted based on a flawed reading of GBooks hit counts, Necrothesp made a flawed COMMONNAME argument without providing any evidence, while Andrewa and In ictu oculi provided no reasoning other than the messiness of the formatting used by myself and Curly Turkey. Further, User:Oda Mari has stated that she would support whichever spelling is more common in English-language textbooks and scholarly sources -- as Curly Turkey and I have demonstrated, this is almost certainly Jinmu. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Ah, the famous, oft-trotted out, and completely against all policy, non-argument that the opinions of Wikiproject members (it's long been my belief that one of the main functions of such projects is to stoke the pomposity and self-importance of a certain type of member - not being a member certainly doesn't imply that one doesn't know what one is talking about) and editors who edit the page should be taken more seriously than the opinions of those who don't. Thanks for this perfect example of WP:OWNERSHIP. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
      • You've proven again and again that you don't understand the content of this article and are not interested in listening to those who do. You have not presented a coherent argument based on either policy or reliable sources. You have relied completely on Google hits, and have not given any valid reason not to move this page. Neither has User:Andrewa, who basically said that because this page is messy then the article shouldn't be moved until he manages to figure out what's going on. The IP too. User:In ictu oculi basically admitted on his talk page that he actually doesn't care which way this RM goes but wouldn't mind seeing another RM after MOS gets tweaked. The only one with a remotely coherent argument against the move is User:Oda Mari, who interestingly is the only oppose who has actually contributed anything to this article in the past. The WikiProject Japan members (User:Curly Turkey, User:Cckerberos, User:Nihonjoe and User:Sturmgewehr88) who have !voted in favour of this move not only have a better understanding of the issue but have by-and-large actually contributed something to this article. Your being the only one constantly arguing against this move, and also being the one with the weakest arguments, is evidence enough that if I had unilaterally moved this page back in August instead of posting the previous RM, the move would not have been challenged. It has instead been supported by virtually everyone. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:30, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
        • No, I've never mentioned Google hits. Nor would I, given their notorious unreliability. You also falsely alleged above that I relied on an ngram in the last discussion. Do try to get your facts right when you're attempting to dismiss the opinions of others. Because at the moment it very much looks as though you're fond of making false allegations, or at the very least not checking your facts before you make claims based on what others have written. I'm fine with you not agreeing with me. I am not fine with you misrepresenting what I have said. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:24, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
          • So, you're saying that not only have you not presented any evidence yourself, but you even reject the flimsy evidence other users have provided in your stead? I was assuming good faith and guessing you were following the quasi-evidence provided by other users, but you are now claiming that you don't even trust their evidence and have been !voting based purely on your gut. You have in these two RMs simply stated "Jimmu is the COMMONNAME" with not a shred of evidence, and otherwise done nothing but make personal attacks against me and the other users opposing you (I still want an apology for "self-proclaimed expert", BTW). Please give me something, ANYTHING that implies "Jimmu" is this subject's COMMONNAME in English-language reliable source. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

A summary of evidence provided for preferring "Jinmu" to "Jimmu"

  • The WP:MOS-JA#Syllabic "n" makes it clear that "n" is the default for "ん" in all positions, and that "m" is used "for cases where the official anglicized name continues to use m (examples: Asahi Shimbun, Namba Station)".
  • The Imperial Household Agency strongly prefers "Jinmu" (24 results) to "Jimmu" (1 result)
  • A Google Ngram of "Emperor Jimmu" vs. "Emperor Jinmu" shows something of a lead for "Jimmu" in publications inGoogle's database
    • Analysis of the sources used, however, indicates that a significant number of the "Jimmu"-using documents are older, unreliable, irrelevant, or only mention "Jimmu" in passing—and more than one are simply reproductions of the Misplaced Pages article
    • "Jimmu"'s lead is not of the degree that would suggest it is a COMMONNAME as defined by WP:COMMONNAME, and the lead appears to be on the decline, especially in scholarly works and official documents

———Curly Turkey (gobble) 06:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

You left out the English signposts at his tomb and principal shrine spelling it "Jinmu". Also, Shirane's book quotes an extract of Philippi's translation of the Kojiki, which I don't have access to because it's not in the public domain like Chamberlain's, but it's reasonable enough to assume Philippi uses "Jinmu" as well, and Chamberlain's "English translation" contains extensive sections in Latin, a consequence of being written at a time when his audience (anglophone scholars of the Asiatic Society) would have all been proficient in Latin. 182.249.54.65 (talk) 09:02, 23 February 2014 (UTC) (Hijiri88)
  • Add what you feel is important enough to. I'm not sure the signs should be presented as evidence, though, because in my own experience, anyways, little thought is given to romanization of signs in Japan (so you see "offical" spellings with "thu" instead of "tsu", say—or the surprisingly frequent "cyu"). Curly Turkey (gobble) 11:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
As a resident of Morioka I would normally be inclined to agree with you, and that might apply to the signpost I photographed but after getting home saw the file was corrupted and so can't show you, but not to the map I uploaded, which has perfect English and consistent romanization across the board. Unfortunately I don't know who produced it, but my money would be on the Kanko-cho, a national government agency like Imperial Household Agency. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I can't see any consensus arising for this move as what had happened with the last proposal. The default is that the status quo remains, and the page isn't moved. Ji(m/n)mu has been mentioned in quite a bit of the academia and studies of historical literature however. MOS:JA and Misplaced Pages:Romanization both recommend "nm" based on the current Hepburn system, but given that this article has some history behind it already, and for COMMONNAME considerations the collocations of both forms are about equal, I'm inclined to believe this proposal still won't pass. I suggest waiting a few more years, say six or seven, and in that time the "nm" collocation would have surpassed the old one so that the move request will have become less controversial than it is now. Patience on Misplaced Pages is a virtue, I guess. TeleComNasSprVen (talk • contribs) 10:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
@User:TeleComNasSprVen: This article has been around for a while, but it was unilaterally moved to its current title by User:Jefu, a formerly-prolific editor in this area who has been inactive so long I'd say the only WPJAPAN editors who remember him/her are myself, User:Shii and User:Nihonjoe. Jefu came up with this title for "consistency in romanization", the same reason I opened the current RM. The "mm" spelling was challenged some time later, but not RMed. It was also questioned (if memory serves) by User:Enkyo2 (whose past username was Tenmei as opposed to "Temmei") and half-heartedly defended by Jefu and one other user who proclaimed that at that time MOS-JA did not favour either spelling. Six months ago I decided to finally do what no one else had gotten around to in the previous six years, and RM the page. The RM was supported by some other users, and "opposed" by three users: Necrothesp cited COMMONNAME but didn't give any evidence (NGrams were given in a neutral comment by another user who neither supported nor opposed the move); Enkyo2 went against his own obvious preference and opposed, but he also opposed me in a bunch of other places at the same time and was blocked not long after; Oda Mari accidentally opposed and the RM was closed before she could retract said opposition. I'm telling you all this to clarify that this title has never been established or held-up by consensus, and so past history should not be considered evidence for a "no move" or a "no consensus" result. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
I still don't understand how you "accidentally" type "oppose". Just throwing that out there. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 15:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
"Oppose. The Imperial Household Agency uses Jinmu." RM closes. "Nuts. I just found out that the Imperial Household Agency uses Jinmu in the other 96% of their English publications." Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Hijiri88. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 17:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I think a cooling-off period is a good idea, but I'm not sure that we should wait for years. The previous move discussion at Talk:Emperor Jimmu/Archive 1#Requested move (1), in which I was not involved but most of the other participants were, quickly became equally acrimonious, and such no consensus decisions aren't ideal to say the least. CT's analysis above, and the reply to it, are both on the right track IMO. But the discussion elsewhere has descended to a level where I fear that even that (intended to be positive) comment may arouse a negative reaction. We will see I suppose. Andrewa (talk) 10:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

(The stringing above is a little obscure) Given that most of the discussion has occurred since yesterday, I'd call shutting this down a little premature. (emphasis removed) As the RM was already overdue for closing when I first came here, I did suggest above relisting and asked for comments. No direct replies to that suggestion so far, or have I missed them? Andrewa (talk) 12:45, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

  • I'll accept a reboot, then. I'll just copy & paste the above list into the new RC. Curly Turkey (gobble) 12:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
    • That's a different option to relisting, and a new suggestion as far as I can see. We would want to notify all those who have already contributed IMO, and they might react negatively, that's the risk. Relisting is simpler and far more common. Andrewa (talk) 13:18, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
      • So a "relisting" is just an extension of the current RC? Curly Turkey (gobble) 13:27, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
        • The section of the Requested moves page to which I linked above reads in part If a discussion is ongoing and has not reached a reasonable conclusion, anyone may elect to re-list the discussion. This moves the request out of the backlog (or wherever it is in the queue) up to the current day, giving the discussion another seven days before it's likely to be reviewed for closure. Andrewa (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
          • Hey User:Andrewa, the RM has been relisted, and it's been over a week. You previously implied that you might review the evidence supplied by CT and consider whether there is in fact policy-based reason for moving the page - have you done so? I'm waiting for this RM to get closed one way or the other, so that I can (as User:In ictu oculi suggested) tighten up MOS-JA to be clearer about what already says in slightly obscure wording ("Use -nm-, -nb- and -np- except in exceptional circumstances."). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
  • My articles on Kabuki don't count then? Anyway: Jinmu Jimmu In ictu oculi (talk) 08:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
    • I thought we'd already torn up the use of unanalyzed Google results? we're not seriously going to keep playing this game, are we? Curly Turkey (gobble) 08:56, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
    • @User:In ictu oculi: I can't of course analyze all of your thousands of edits. I know you have done great work on several articles I RMmed earlier (rekishi monogatari, Takasue's daughter, etc., etc.), and you know more about this stuff than most Wikipedians who exclusively edit in this area. But you aren't a member of WP:JAPAN, and you even once told me "I washed my hands of Japan in the 1980s Your project, not mine". (I did say on this page that I had a good memory.) I agree that you have made a great many quality edits in this area, but if they are recent and they make up a large portion of your edit history I have no reliable way of knowing except asking you. Additionally, your essentially advising me to wait for this RM to close as "no consensus" or "no move" and get WPJAPAN members to agree to make the wording of MOS more specific seems like flawed logic: if we change MOS so this page is even more explicitly in violation, we would effectively force ourselves to come back here and post a third RM -- and you implied that if MOS was tightened up in this way you would support this move then? That seems somewhat unnecessary. I'm going to go over to MOS after this RM closes regardless of which way this goes, so we might as well get this page moved now rather than post another RM in a month. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:11, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Forgive me for coming at this backwards, since I was watching the discussion at WT:MOS-JP and posting in response to you there before I looked at this page. But again in regards to your response to User:In ictu oculi here, I think you are overestimating the importance that being a member of a WikiProject lends to an editor's opinion on any given topic. In general, WP:PROJ: "WikiProjects are not rule-making organizations. WikiProjects have no special rights or privileges compared to other editors and may not impose their preferences on articles." The manual of style is and should be independent from the WikiProject, and editors not on WikiProject Japan are just as worthy of having their voices heard here. Dekimasuよ! 19:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Commemorating Jimmu's reign"

About half the text of this article is irrelevant material that has nothing to do with Jimmu, gleaned from sources about World War II that either don't mention Jimmu at all, or briefly name-check him as the legendary founder of the Imperial dynasty. Most of this text is barely even relevant to discussion of the imperial cult in the early Showa period. This is entirely inappropriate, and is akin to filling the entire Joan of Arc article (2/4 images, most of the text) with material about Nazi Germany, because some sources briefly mention her being used as a symbol by the Free French.

User:CurtisNaito has reverted me twice in my attempts to remove this WP:OR that would ot have been allowed in other, better-patrolled articles. Per WP:BURDEN and WP:BRD I am going to remove it again, and it is not to be re-added in any form before discussion has taken place.

182.249.240.38 (talk) 10:05, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, I checked both Britannica Kokusai and MyPedia. Both of them have substantial, independent articles on Emperor Jimmu. Neither article makes even one word of reference to World War II, Showa- (or Meiji-) era Japanese nationalism, or modern-day "commemoration" of "Jimmu's reign". I sincerely doubt that there exists a mainstream, general-reference, print encyclopedia that differs significantly on this point. User:CurtisNaito, can you locate such an encyclopedia article? And no, I will not accept and article on 神武天皇 that mentions 神武天皇祭, which mentions 大祭, which in turn mentions 皇室, which finally mentions 第二次世界大戦. It has to be an article on this subject that gives significant coverage to the material you want to add to this article. Let alone significant coverage, you won't be able to find one that even mentions that stuff. 182.249.240.10 (talk) 11:24, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
The name of Jimmu did not disappear from history in ancient Japan. I think the current sourcing is sufficient because all these sources mention Jimmu in reference to events that are clearly based off his life and the alleged date he ascended to the throne. Not discussing this briefly would be like talking about Buddha's life without mentioning that his teachings formed the basis for modern-day Buddhism.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:32, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
Why don't the other encyclopedias say so, then? The fact that sources discussing Showa-era Japanese nationalism and World War II briefly mention Emperor Jimmu doesn't mean anything for this article. If you want to go and create an article on those subjects and briefly mention Jimmu like your sources do, be my guest. But until you can locate an encyclopedia article on Emperor Jimmu that mentions World War II Japanese nationalism, you can't mention them in this article, and until you find an encyclopedia article on Emperor Jimmu that devotes half its text to World War II Japanese nationalism, you can't devote half of this article's text to the subject. When determining WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV we use WP:TERTIARY sources. End of story. 182.249.240.27 (talk) 06:39, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
A couple of things: first, Misplaced Pages's articles tend to be much longer and more comprehensive than other encyclopaedias, so there's no point comparing to other paper encyclopaedias. Having said that, the material ChrisNaito wants to keep does need a serious trim—the releant bits really could be stated much more concisely, and would serve the reader much better if they were. And can we cut out this "you don't have consensus for/against your edit" stuff? Nobody needs "consensus" to edit an article until after it's been established that there's a controversy. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 07:16, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Curly Turkey. Misplaced Pages isn't limited by what other encyclopedias contain or don't contain. The section should be shortened, but there's nothing wrong with its inclusion. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 07:25, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
My suggestion is that we delete the bit on music (the sentence starting with "The 1940 celebrations also included a concert..."), but the rest should be kept though possibly rearranged a little. I feel that the information dealing with Kigensetsu, the modern-day National Foundation Day, and Hakko Ichiu are all highly relevant to this article. In the event that Jimmu himself never existed one could even say that his legend, which was highly venerated during prewar Japan and is still remembered today through National Foundation Day, is more significant than the man himself.CurtisNaito (talk) 07:34, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Those subjects all have their own articles, though. An extensive discussion of the National Foundation Day in this article is equivalent to including an extensive discussion of modern-day (or 1940s!) 4 July customs in our George Washington article. A one-sentence explanation of each, linking to said articles, should be sufficient. The photos need to stay out, though, per WP:WEIGHT and WP:RELEVANT. 182.249.240.30 (talk) 12:44, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
A few paragraphs of discussion is not particularly extensive. For the record, I favor keeping the photos and more or less maintaining the number of paragraphs. In terms of relevance, Jimmu may himself be a legend and thus the impact that his legend has had in modern times is just as relevant, actually maybe more relevant, than the rest of the article. It's important that we give it sizable weight in this article, though I naturally expect articles like the one on National Foundation Day itself to include a whole lot more than the one or two paragraphs that we use in this article to discuss it.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:24, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
We should at the very least keep the photograph of the Hakko Ichiu monument, though I suppose actually that all the photographs in this article are relevant to the modern era since that is when they were created. The IP user suggests that the pictures from the modern era represent undue weight but actually, ALL the pictures in this article were produced during the modern era which further indicates the importance of this period.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:33, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Artistic representations of the events in Jimmu's life as depicted in the very limited primary-sources are inherently relevant to the subject of this article. Photographs of tombs associated with and shrines dedicated to him are as well. In fact when I think of "modern commemoration" of "Jimmu's reign" I think of the Kashihara Shrine. Photos of obscure 1940s rituals that hardly anyone at the time (much less now) associated with Emperor Jimmu, are not. You have yet to provide any real justification for this material's inclusion in the article, instead merely expressing your (frankly quite irrelevant) opinion that the material is relevant. You have not provided a single source. And you have now admitted that you are unwilling to compromise with me or with either me or User:Curly Turkey with your insistence that we not even trim the "mere two paragraphs" in question. 182.249.240.37 (talk) 02:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

So why did you remove all that information when it was cited and was obviously about Jinmu, and the statement that National Foundation Day is still celebrated? I don't really care that the photo stays, but the article still mentions Hakko Ichiu and should be explained. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 04:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I find that the material in question is certainly relevant to Jimmu and the haphazard deletion of these portions of it doesn't make much sense. Incidentally, Peter Martin who wrote profiles of each of the emperors of Japan in his book "The Chrysanthemum Throne" devotes more than half of his biography of Jimmu to the veneration of him that occurred in the modern era. This period is prominently mentioned by so many historians in so many different sources that I can't imagine why we delete this material.CurtisNaito (talk) 05:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
You asked to come to the talk page, but you continue to remove cited information. At the very least, can you explicitly explain why each sentence you removed doesn't belong in the article? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
It's not about whether it's "cited". It's about whether it belongs in this article and not in National Foundation Day. No one has demonstrated that it does, other than appealing to the fact that it's in "reliable" (but not relevant) sources. 182.249.240.13 (talk) 05:45, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Peter Martin who wrote profiles of each of the emperors of Japan in his book "The Chrysanthemum Throne" devotes more than half of his biography of Jimmu to the veneration of him that occurred in the modern era So what you're saying is, a book written by a Western historian, primarily focussing on the role the Imperial Family played in the politics of the Meiji-Showa periods, also focuses on modern politics when discussing the mythical first emperor? Shocker! You really got me there. I guess now that you have pointed this out, I should drop my request that you find a general encyclopedia with an independent article on Emperor Jimmu, that devotes half its content to this material. </sarcasm> 182.249.240.13 (talk) 06:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
WP:BURDEN deals with information lacking sources, so that doesn't really apply. How is it not relevant when it's about him, and why can't the information be in both articles? That's like erasing half of Okinawa Prefecture#History because it basically repeats what's on History of Ryukyu Islands. Besides, National Foundation Day doesn't even mention Hakko Ichiu.
I'm pretty sure that most general encyclopedias with independent articles on Emperor Jinmu don't even have as much information as what's here without the debated information. If they're limited by space and editibility, then it's not a fair comparison. How about we just call for a WP:RFC? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 07:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
If the Okinawa and Ryukyu history articles were on completely different, only peripherally related subjects, your analogy would hold weight. It's not about the length of the articles, but what's in them. If all of the other encyclopedia articles are 33% the size of our one with the disputed points, but our coverage of the same basic information takes up only 50% of our article, with the other 50% being made up entirely of peripheral material that the editorial teams of every single print encyclopedia decided didn't belong in their Emperor Jimmu articles, then we have a WP:WEIGHT problem. If this was Hijiripedia I would say excise the 50% peripheral undue material entirely. But since Misplaced Pages is collaborative I'm settling for the 60% (mostly blatant WP:SYNTH) I removed yesterday. We could keep arguing over the 60%, but I guarantee you you will lose that argument as soon as we take this to WP:ORN, WP:FTN or wherever else we can get unbiased community input. 182.249.240.13 (talk) 08:54, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
None of what you deleted was synthesis. Are you certain you've read the sources in question because it appears to me that they report precisely what the article says. Peter Martin's book was a full history of the imperial family which included profiles of other ancient emperors, but only in Jimmu's case is the modern era especially relevant.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Taking a source that barely mentions Jimmu, written by an author who probably has no training in the relevant fields, and overrunning this article with a summary of what it says about a subject only peripherally related to this article is WP:SYNTH. You have already been called out for this. Also, Martin was one author, arguably on the fringe of this field, whose personal choices regarding how he wrighs his book are utterly irrelevant to how we should write this encyclopedia article. PERIOD. 182.249.240.16 (talk) 03:59, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
It's still not clear where the alleged synthesis is because all the sources are correctly cited and they all mention Jimmu prominently. Neither was there any clear evidence of synthesis in the other discussion you linked to. If this matter weren't significant then Jimmu's name wouldn't be mentioned so frequently in this regard in so many reliable secondary sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Break for convenience

Okay, so it seems in the disputed section we have 14 citations to 10 different sources by 9 authors. Below I examine these sources and how they are being (mis)used in this article.

detailed analysis of the 10 sources cited in this section, and how m ost of them are being misused
  • Martin 1997 is a book primarily discussing 19th- and 20th-century Japanese political history, with brief entries on most pre-1868 Emperors. In its 45-line (1.5-page) article on Jimmu, it begins with a 16-line paragraph about how in 1873 the Japanese government determined that Jimmu founded Japan on 11 February 660 BCE, and the dates were determined for political reasons related to international relations. It then goes into a fairly-detailed description of Jimmu's reign as described in the Nihon Shoki. It closes on a 3-line statement that from 1873 to 1945 an imperial envoy was sent to visit Jimmu's tomb in Kashihara. World War II is barely mentioned: "Accordingly, 11 February was designated National Foundation Day, a national holiday, and it was ritually celebrated as such until the end of the Second World War, when it was renamed National Foundation Memorial Day". The chronology here is overly simplified, as might be expected from a book that is not about this subject, and is contradicted by several of our other sources.
  • Ruoff 2001 is a book that is explicitly written to discuss Japanese politics between 1945 and 1995. It contains some brief mentions of Emperor Jimmu when discussing National Foundation Day and Kashihara Shrine, but otherwise does not appear to give him any significant coverage. It is therefore inappropriate to be basing large chunks of our BIO article on Jimmu on a book primarily about his great, great, great ... great grandson.
  • Ponsonby-Fane 1959 is a very old source that seems to at least be relevant, though it is only being used as a source for a non-controversial statement that I have never advocated removing. Since the statement is essentially "Kashihara Shrine was built in 1890", I would prefer a government- or shrine-linked source to the two peripheral sources (one very old, the other about Showa-Heisei politics) currently cited.
    • These three sources are cited exclusively for non-controversial statements to which I am not opposed, with the only things that need verification being dates, and using two or three sources for dates is tricky because even if they do say the same thing, it looks like they are being SYNTHesized, especially when they do so in different contexts. For instance, when briefly analyzing Ruoff I got the impression that he didn't say "1890" for the foundation of Kashihara Shrine, until I noticed "two years later" followed several lines down from "1888". We could just use the official Kashihara website for this date, though.
  • Bix 2001 is a massive (800-page) biography of a particular 20th-century emperor that appears to barely mention Jimmu at all. It is the only source given to a largely no-context half-paragraph about the "Hakko Ichiu" monument. The book was available from Google Play and at a discount, and Bix appears to be a respected scholar, so I bought the book (I'll read it on the bus to work in the coming months). The preview's claim that Jimmu's name is mentioned three times in the whole 800 pages is accurate. In particular, page 201, the page being cited, makes no reference to Emperor Jimmu.
    • Citing a source on a completely-unrelated topic in order to include an extensive commentary on said topic in this article is definitely WP :SYNTH. What Curtis (and whoever added the material initially) has done is created an article that claims "The phrase Hakko Ichiu comes from the Nihon Shoki.<source=Nihon Shoki> The phrase Hakko Ichiu was also associated with early-Showa Japanese nationalism.<source=Bix 2001>" This is the very definition of WP:SYNTH, as the article now leads the reader to an entirely original conclusion that neither of the sources give by themselves.
    • Worse still, though, is the fact that "Hakko Ichiu" itself does not appear to be mentioned on page 201! The article claims specifically that Emperor Jimmu and "Hakko Ichiu" had since 1928, been espoused by the Imperial government as an expression of Japanese expansionism. But while page 201 does cover events in 1928 (NOT 1940, though), it is focused on military expansion in Shandong and suppression of communism and Sect Shinto. Curtis, where the devil is the discussion of "Hakko Ichiu" and Emperor Jimmu in Bix 2001!?
  • Earhart 2007 appears to be an even more blatant example of a book about World War II that doesn't even mention Jimmu once, being SYNTHesized with other sources that may or may not mention the phrase "Hakko Ichiu" in relation to Emperor Jimmu. Unfortunately the book doesn't appear to mention "Hakko Ichiu" either. Curtis: World War II is not my primary area of interest, and I'm not that interested in going out of my way to acquire this book. This should not disqualify me from editing this article, of course, since Emperor Jimmu has hardly anything to do with World War II. Can you provide me with a relevant quotation from page 63? I'd prefer you don't give me your own paraphrase, since I know how prone you are to reading things into sources that aren't there. If you give me the quote, then we can talk about how relevant this book on World War II is to our article on Japan's first emperor. Of course, the statement that Hakko ichiu envisioned the un ification of the world under the Emperor's "sacred rule" definitely requires a top-class source that not only mentions Emperor Jimmu, but specifically makes this claim. Otherwise, we can't include the claim in the article.
  • Dower 1993 is another book on World War II that (barely?) mentions Emperor Jimmu's name five times in 400+ pages. The statement to which it is attached is not really controversial, assuming that the Nihon Shoki actually does say Jimmu found five races in Japan and made them all "as brothers of one family". However, why would we need a book about World War II for a statement like this? No, the real problem is that this statement begins "... just as ...", creating an original, artificial connection between what Earhart 2007 and Dower 1993 say. (Asa less critical aside, quotations should generally be directly attributed to their source, even if not in the form of an inline citation. If the phrase "brothers of one family" originates with the Nihon Shoki or its translator, you have to mention that somewhere, not just falsely attribute the quotation to Dower.)
  • Ruoff 2010 is (SURPRISINGLY!) actually a book about the 1940 celebration of Emperor Jimmu's supposed founding of the country 2,600 years earlier. Unfortunately, page 186 isn't actually about the "Emperor Jimmu Sacred Historical Sites" that "still exist today"; it mentions these as one (the lesser?) of two examples of monuments that the author apparently believes should probably be taken down or altered to reflect the historical/archaeological consensus that they are inauthentic.
  • Brownlee 1999 appears to actually be about a topic relevant to this article (TWO IN A ROW!!), but why do we need two citations from this book, on top of Ruoff 2010, for this factual statement? Page 136 actually doesn't support the statement at all, as it discusses political pressure on professional historians (not archaeologists) to support the Founding Day celebrations in 1940, with no reference to sacred sites. Curtis, what exactly is on Brownlee 1999 pages 180-185 that backs up this statement? And why is it relevant to cite another page from Brownlee 1999 that doesn't? And why is Brownlee 1999 necessary at all when Ruoff 2010 is (almost) sufficient?
  • JT 1998 is attached to a factual statement that is not wrong, but belongs in the article on National Foundation Day, not here, since it is discussing National Foundation Day, not Emperor Jimmu. Additionally, I would worry that while it might be adequate in describing modern-day (or 1990s? Japan has changed a lot since then...) political controversies surrounding the holiday, the (anonymous?) writer of the article is probably a staff writer at the Japan Times, not a professional historian, and so is likely just re-stating the claims of more reliable sources. This is another reason the statement (and the source) belong in an article on the modern holiday, not the mythical emperor.
  • Tokutake 1995 is an apparently-reliable source being attached to a statement that may or may not belong in the version of this article I am aiming for. The problem is that I don't know a whole lot about school history textbooks in Japan and the problems they have, and I'd be willing to bet that while this statement may have been relevant in the 1970s or the 1990s, we are now at a stage where no Japanese under 50 would even remember this, and so the statement as worded (many Japanese history textbooks continued well into the 1970s to promote the story) is lending undue weight to something that isn't even a concern anymore. And while I don't know very well what Japanese politicians force Japanese schoolchildren to learn, I do know what Irish politicians forced me to learn, and blurring the lines between legends and facts seems to be something first- and second-level history syllabi do throughout the world, not just in Japan. If this is the case then we are essentially lending undue weight to one particular scholar's view of the Japanese education system. Perhaps, if someone would clarify what Tokutake actually says on pages 172 to 178, we could say something like "Pedagogical historian Toshio Tokutake has criticized Japanese history textbooks for continuing to claim the myth of Emperor Jimmu as fact several decades after World War II"?

So we can clearly see that of the 10 sources:

  • 2 (Ruoff 2001 and Bix 2001) are specifically discussing a different emperor and give only passing reference to his legendary ancestor;
  • 2 (Earhart 2007 and Dower 1993) are specifically discussing World War II and not Emperor Jimmu, and these are being WP:SYNTHesized together to make them seem relevant;
  • 2 (Ruoff 2010 and Brownlee 1999) are clumsily attached to the same statement that one doesn't appear to support, and the other doesn't indicate is relevant;
  • 1 (JT 1998) is specifically about a modern holiday that has its own article already, and not about Emperor Jimmu;
  • 1 (Martin 1997) blatantly doesn't say what Curtis claims it does (World War II gets all of half a sentence);
  • 1 (Ponsonby-Fane 1959) is extremely old and barely necessary, since it is attached to an uncontroversial statement;
  • 1 (Tokutake 1995) appears to be taken out of context, as it only appears to be talking about how Japanese (primary school?) history textbooks (at one time?) blurred the line between legend and history -- without further international context that I don't think we can provide here, this statement as worded is problematic.

@User:CurtisNaito: Your refusal to even discuss this issue with me is beginning to get frustrating. I left your version of the page intact for six days while I waited for you to respond to me on the talk page. After you didn't, I assumed you had given up, and so reverted to a reasonable compromise version that cut out most of the problem material but left the section basically intact. You immediately reverted me claiming there is "no consensus to delete". It is increasingly unclear whether you know what the word "consensus" means. It doesn't mean that I need your consent. It seems right now that there's a 3-1 consensus, against maintaining the section as is.

It's worth noting that of the two users other than Curtis and myself who have weighed in one stated unequivocally that Curtis's preferred version needed to be trimmed but that we shouldn't delete the whole section; the other (initially?) agreed. Therefore, my most recent edits to the article, that trim the problematic POV, UNDUE and SYNTH material but leave the section intact, is tentatively supported by all parties but Curtis, whereas the latter's insistence on not cutting a thing has not been supported by anyone.

@User:CurtisNaito & User:Sturmgewehr88: Even if WP:BURDEN focuses on material that lacks sources entirely, WP:LETTER says that that doesn't matter; the letter of BURDEN may say that, but the spirit of BURDEN is that the BURDEN is on the party wishing to include material to obtain consensus to do so, not on a party wishing to keep said material out. If consensus is not explicitly in favour of inclusion, then it stays out. I don't need "consensus" to remove contentious material if Curtis is the only one who wants to keep it; if Curtis wants to keep it in the article HE is the one who needs consensus to include it. At the moment we have one user (me) with a solid proposal to trim the section, one user (Curly Turkey) saying we should trim the section but not indicating how, and one user (Sturmgewehr88) who apparently supports a weaker form of trimming; no one here actually agrees with Curtis that all the material needs to stay as is. Therefore, the default position should be that the material is all cut and discussion should take place as to what is put back in. I have tried to compromise by only cutting the blatantly SYNTH, POV or WEIGHT material, but Curtis has continued to revert me nonetheless. I will continue to discuss here (and elsewhere if need be) before reverting again, however. If, like last week, Curtis drops out of the discussion only to come back after I edit the article, we may have a problem.

@User:Sturmgewehr88: When you stated that you agreed with Curly Turkey's proposal to trim but not remove the section, what did you mean, exactly? I cut several POV/UNDUE/SYNTH sentences, but you now seem to be saying that you are in favour of including these SYNTH/UNDUE/POV sentences.

Unlike Curly Turkey, I never said trim; I meant rewrite the section (i.e. Summarize) so it doesn't take up half the article, but keep the meaning of what the original section said. I was also neutral on removing the monument photo and in favor of removing the second image which was removed. With SYNTH, you could always rewrite it to fix it. I understand the WEIGHT issue is because of the length of the section compared to the rest of the article, but this can be fixed by summarizing the section or expanding the article. And lastly can you give an example of which sentences you consider POV? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 13:39, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

@User:Curly Turkey: You stated that you were in favour of trimming the section, but not removing it entirely. What do you think of the edit I made earlier that trimmed the material I believe to be problematic? Also, you and I seem to be in basic agreement on the "consensus" issue: have you noticed how many times Curtis has been claiming I need "consensus" to make this edit?

@User:Nishidani You haven't been involved in this dispute, but CurtisNaito has been repeating a SYNTHy pattern you pointed out on Talk:Battle of Shigisan, so I'm interested in getting your opinion here. Curtis today claimed that there was no SYNTH on the "Battle of Shigisan" article, which seems like a refutation of your point from last year.

Lastly, I must apologize to all involved for an incredibly wordy post (it's even more if you check the WP:COMMENTs I left in the code). But after more than a week of tippytoeing around the issues that I thought were so numerous and obvious I thought I would receive no resistance, it seems several users still needed the SYNTH and WEIGHT problems laid out as plainly as possible.

182.249.240.4 (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The fact is that all the sources in question mention aspects of Jimmu's legend in a prominent manner, and Jimmu wouldn't keep cropping up in reliable secondary sources like this if it weren't relevant. You say that Jimmu is mentioned too briefly in these sources, but that's true of the entire article. Look at the sources which this article cites relating to Jimmu's actual reign, which you say is relevant, such as Wakabayashi, Kelly, Kitagawa, Brinkley, Ooms, etc... Most of these sources actually mention Jimmu in LESS space than the sources cited in the "Commemorating Jimmu's reign" section. This is not really due to synthesis, but basically because no full-length scholarly discussion of Jimmu's entire life and legacy has been written in English and so with English sources we basically rely on those books which have written chapters or paragraphs on Jimmu rather than detailed treatises on his entire legacy. That's true of Jimmu's modern-day legend and even more true of his ancient reign. The first complaint you made against the article was insufficient sources but it was only after I fixed the sourcing issues that you mentioned the synthesis problem. The fact is that the section on the modern-day veneration of Jimmu has been a longstanding and uncontroversial part of the article which is well sourced, and given these facts it should not be subject to deletions without consensus. The parts you deleted seemed fairly arbitrary to me because it still isn't clear why Hakko Ichiu and treatment of Jimmu in post-World War II textbooks isn't relevant to Jimmu's legend. The 1940 Kigensetsu, for instance, which you had earlier implied was only peripherally relevant to Jimmu, was highly infused with Jimmu's life. The Hakko Tower was constructed on the site of Jimmu's former palace and was named after a direct quote of his. One of the sources noted that millions of pilgrims paid homage to Jimmu at Kashihara Shrine in the year 1940. The sources cited for this which mention Jimmu are actually more detailed than the ones dealing with his alleged actual reign. Originally you wanted to delete the entire section, but I don't think one other person has supported that. None of your other edits have achieved consensus yet, so for the time being we should leave the sourced information as it is until a consensus to change is reached.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:59, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The problem is

that those editing this article have read and looked past the trashy sourcing, repetitive comments, material irrelevant strictly to Jimmu, earlier on. The article needs drastic redrafting, and must be anchored in recent academic works on early Japan, and then its historiography. There is no room here for hangover sources preceding 1960 to be conservative. All such articles should restrict themselves to the abundant scholarship on these figures and early Japan readily available in libraries or at google books. The name section below the lead should deal, in an orderly manner with his several names, and the various hypotheses concerning them. Then you deal with the legendary story of his descent from Ninigi et al, showing its possible refraction of legends and customs, within the context of what the original compilers of the early chronicles wanted to do, in shaping the legends in the way they did. In regard to the commemoration of Jimmu, this goes back to (a) medieval times, (b)has a Tokugawa history as well, and then (c) was reelaborated in Meiji through to early Showa times. There is no reason this might not be covered. But since the extremely basic part of the article dealing with Jimmu in the early legendary annals is so lamentably poverty-stricken, it is rather odd that no attention has been given to the essence of the article, while edit-warring wastes much time over modern trivia.Nishidani (talk) 12:33, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

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