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Proposed Deletion of following segment

Single-character Districts

There is absolutely no reason to not exclude 区/區 (qū) in the title of ANY district, mainland or Taiwan. Why? Because 区/區 is the word for District. Examples would include Cheng District and Jiao District. This would be similar to taking Huai River and naming it Huaihe River. Also, consider the single-character counties, e.g. Fei County, Shandong. Should it be "Feixian County"? Ran oddly chose to create 2 separate standards. This is beyond ridiculous. And once this is over, Pengyanan, I insist that I alone change all "_qu District" examples. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 13:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I am neutral on this issue. But, please be patient and please wait for the result of discussion before you change the convention. This is not yet over. Thanks for your cooperation. --Pengyanan (talk) 14:58, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Could you explain how you are neutral? On another note, could you not simply copy the text of your response into the edit summary? I always believe there is more content (in the summary than the response itself), so the result is I waste time reading the diffs --HXL's Roundtable and Record
Neutrality means that I had no position on this issue. But after considering it, I have a position now (see below) and oppose naming 郊区/城区 as Jiao District/Cheng District. As for my edit summaries, I don't see any wrong with them. I reverted your mass moves and provided my reason and relevant links in the edit summaries. What do you expect me to say in them? --Pengyanan (talk) 08:24, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Poor reading is poor reading; it is obvious that that I was criticising your edit summaries on talk pages, not in general. And in many cases, all you did in your moves was 废话啰嗦, without clearly addressing the real reason (primary topic) behind the moves. Oh do I wish that I had started editing in earnest summer, not late, 2009. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 16:46, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Dear boy, rude words do not make argument more convincing. Maybe you are too young to learn how to be civil. Thanks for your comment. --Pengyanan (talk) 17:20, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Dear sir, "rude words" that are not directly related to this discussion don't affect the strength of my argument(s). Dear sir, the comment about my age was overboard. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 17:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, dear HXL49, I apologize if my comment on your age offended you. I hope both of us can discuss more civilly --Pengyanan (talk) 18:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I am more comfortable with "Jiao District" then "Jiaoqu District", since the former is both non-tautological and actually is closer to teh Chinese original (since "district" is our standard translation for 区). Even with counties, I think I'd rather have "Fang County" than "Fangxian" or "Fangxian County".

I'd note as an aside that, at least with respect to counties, Chinese map-makers do have a commonly used convention of treating 1- and 2-character county names differently. I am looking at my wall map and see that counties with 2-character names are always labeled with just the 2 characters of the county's names, e.g. 通山 for the county seat of Tongshan County, Hubei or 临夏 for that of Linxia County, Gansu (even though, pragmatically, writing 临夏县 would have avoided possible confusion with the nearby Linxia City. Meanwhile every county seat of county with a single-character name is also labeled with 2 chars, e.g. 费县 for Fei County or 房县 for Fang County. I guess they feel that labeling a map object with just 1 character is just "weird"! However, I believe there is no reason whatsoever for us to emulate this approach in naming encyclopedia articles - after all, it's just a map convention, and a Chinese reference book or encyclopedia would write all names uniformly: 房县, 临夏县, etc. -- Vmenkov (talk) 03:25, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

After considering this issue, I am not neutral now. I think 郊区/城区 should be translated as Jiaoqu/Chengqu because qu (区) in these two words does not refer to the specific administrative division level "district in China". It is instead part of the generic Chinese words jiaoqu/chengqu, which mean suburb/urban area. This is different from "single-character + xian" or single-character + he", in which xian/he refers to the generic term county/river and the single-character is the proper name of the county/river. In comparison, Jiao/Cheng is not the proper name of the administrative division district. On the contrary, Jiaoqu/Chengqu is the proper name of the districts. --Pengyanan (talk) 08:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
If 区 does not refer to the administrative division level, then why would they be organised into or like formal districts then? I agree with you, in most cases (for now), that the names also refer to suburbs or urban centres, but And also, for at least 山西长治, the pinpoints on Google Earth for 城区 (36°12′13″N 113°07′23″E / 36.203519°N 113.123085°E / 36.203519; 113.123085) and 郊区 (36°11′57″N 113°07′36″E / 36.199186°N 113.126530°E / 36.199186; 113.126530) are so close and are in areas with similar population density that it seems unlikely that they could truly represent the urban centre and suburbs. Since I have one example to disprove your claim, your claim obviously cannot be true for all cases, and so we should not be using the current standard. Also, to me, it seems like you are applying different standards on translation: what you are proposing is a psuedo-translation.
And could you give your input on 东区 (and other 依方位而分的行政区划/direction districts) below? --HXL's Roundtable and Record 15:52, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
So close? Similar population density? Please check article Changzhi. The density of its Chengqu is 6,964 people per km2, while density of its Jiaoqu is only 969. The one example you have does not disprove my claim, but obviously disprove yours. Thanks for your understanding. --Pengyanan (talk) 17:13, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps you are the one who has turned outright WP:Incivil with "thanks for your understanding". Perhaps you are the one who needs to read more carefully (a simple request, that's all). I was only talking about the Google Earth pinpoints, and so my conclusion was based on those pinpoints. This is the second time you have mis-read my comments. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 17:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
I apologize if "thanks for your understanding" offended you. I hope both of us can discuss more civilly. I know you were talking about the Google Earth pinpoints. What I pointed out in my above comment was that your method is questionable. Districts cover large areas and cannot be seen as just points especially when we talk about the population density. The example you have, I mean the Changzhi case, clearly shows that Jiaoqu means suburb and Chengqu means urban areas. By the way, I updated the population density information of Changzhi Chengqu and Jiaoqu. Now they are 7,482 v. 1,017.5. They are still apparently not similar. Thanks. --Pengyanan (talk) 18:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Now, Pengyanan, can you address one of my key questions? "If 区 does not refer to the administrative division level, then why would they be organised into or like formal districts then?" --HXL's Roundtable and Record 18:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Jiaoqu is suburb, but can also administrated as an administrative division qu. Why not? --Pengyanan (talk) 03:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Then why the "qu (区) in these two words does not refer to the specific administrative division level"? --HXL's Roundtable and Record 05:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Because we don't need to say Jiaoququ. The second qu is omitted. --Pengyanan (talk) 05:36, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
That is a given. Still does not answer my question: Why did you say that originally? --HXL's Roundtable and Record 13:38, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I have answered and don't want to repeat. Please check a Chinese dictionary. Thanks. --Pengyanan (talk) 13:43, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Offensive again. I know far more Chinese than what I have told you up to this point. Retract that comment. It's time you rid yourself of your condescending "母语是汉语，你当然比我差远了" attitude. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 14:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
If you really think that asking someone to check Chinese dictionary offensive, why did you link words, like overboard and given, to Wiktionary, an English dictionary? Do you think that it's time you rid yourself of your condescending "I live in U.S., and my English is much better than you" attitude??? --Pengyanan (talk) 15:27, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
How many times have I seen you link "NOT" in your edit summaries? By providing links to Wiktionary, I was precisely mocking you for that. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 15:30, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Linking not in edit summary is like boldfacing or italicizing it in text since we cannot boldface or italicize words in edit summary. How many times have I seen you boldface or italicize "no", "clearly", "not", "again", etc. in your comments? --Pengyanan (talk) 15:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

well I interpreted it as providing a definition. You could have typed it in CAPS. Anyway, I do not want to discuss anything with you for at least 1 week. Either nothing productive results, or you respond with a flared temper. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 15:45, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Very well. Bye-bye. Have a nice week in good temper. --Pengyanan (talk) 15:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

"China" redirect

Why China doesn't redirect to People's Republic of China? Isn't that biased? In other wikipedia languages the term China redirects to PRC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.69.110.164 (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Unhappy in SAO PAULO. Just get the PRC to announce that Taiwan is not part of China and we'll fix that right up for you. Hcobb (talk) 21:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
That wouldn't actually help seeing as the ROC nominally claims China. --Cybercobra (talk) 03:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
That wouldn't make sense since Republic of China (Taiwan) claims all of mainland China (PRC + Outer Mongolia) as ROC national territory.Phead128 (talk) 20:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The current situation is that we have two governments who each claim to the legitimate government of all China and that they'll merge at some point in the unknown future. The opposition in Taiwan has called for a split, but they don't set policy. Hcobb (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, China is the PRC, and China is not ROC, for all intents and purposes. However, the main 'China' article talks about China as a continuous civilization, a nation-state, or a cultural unit or identity... so I like the way it is now. It is fine.Phead128 (talk) 20:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


Political reasons within wikipedia. The redirect should send readers where most readers are expecting to go when typing china. This answer is for the original poster. 190.51.168.236 (talk) 13:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
For the last time, this is a NON-ISSUE, and will remain one so long as Taiwan is ruled by a government different from mainland China. Read Chinese naming conventions. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 13:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
wikipedians are not a crystal ball and will remain like that as long as wikipedians are not a crystal ball policy is not overthrown by a new consensus. Read wikipedians ain't a crystal ball 190.51.168.236 (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I DON'T need IPs to tell me about policy and to talk down to me like that. So long as the benefits of greater cross-strait interaction are apparent, reunification is inevitable. Besides, China has existed in some form for far longer than the PRC. Similarly, the Republic of China had significant history on mainland China before it hopped over to Taiwan. This is another reason why we don't even consider these merges and that this is a NON-ISSUE FOR THE LAST TIME --HXL's Roundtable and Record 14:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


-- extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:People%27s_Republic_of_China&diff=424862903&oldid=424862781 .

I will just summarize what i said with: The redirect should send readers where most readers are expecting to go when typing china. But i guess wikipedians as well as people in real life tend to stick with the same opinion over and over, mentioning only what favours their opinion, forgetting that the decision shoud be based in a balance of the pro and cons, a balance that is subjective. 190.51.168.236 (talk) 18:54, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I concur with HXL49 rationale behind China and PRC. En Wiki is the most developed Wiki (1.6 million articles) and such all the other wikis need to catch up. China is a generic term which can be geographic, political or historical. Other wikis might not have the editors to actively contribute in the Sinosphere areas of their wikis. Should not be assuming the term China is exclusively reserved for the political entity; PRC at all. The political entities are the PRC and ROC which is commonly refer in mass media as Taiwan for easier consumption. The PRC is the correct entity state for mainland China. I suggest you read about the History of China to get your head around the issue. --Visik (Chinwag Podium) 02:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Also have a look at the Korea article. See the difference between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. --Visik (Chinwag Podium) 02:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

For article names of Chinese railways, replace transliterated shorthand names with hyphenated full names

Under the current naming convention, Misplaced Pages English article names of Chinese railways (and expressways) follow the shorthand Chinese character names for these railways (and expressways) transliterated into English. For example, the Beijing-Shanghai Railway is named Jinghu Railway, after the shorthand of the Chinese name for this railway, 京沪铁路. Jing is the pinyin tranliteration for 京, the character used in Chinese as a shorthand for the city of Beijing. Hu is the pinyin transliteration for 沪, the character used in Chinese as a shorthand for the city of Shanghai. Beijing and Shanghai are the two terminal cities on the railway.

For ease of reference, let’s call Jinghu Railway the “transliterated shorthand name” and the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, the “hyphenated full name”. The transliterated shorthand name, while seemingly faithful to the Chinese naming method, is not helpful or effective for most English Misplaced Pages readers and fails to satisfy most of the objectives under Misplaced Pages’s article naming convention, which are recognizability, naturalness, precision, conciseness and consistency. This naming convention should be replaced by hyphenated full names of Chinese railways, which has the two terminal location references (usually cities but also could be provinces) of each railway fully spelled out and connected by a hyphen. This hyphenated name should be followed by “Railway”, capitalized because the name of each Chinese railway is a proper noun. The transliterated shorthand name could be mentioned in the article and could have a redirect link, but should not be the primary article name – for the following reasons:

Recognizability – an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic. The names of most railways in China, regardless of naming method, are not familiar or recognizable to most English Misplaced Pages readers. When this is the case, the more descriptive name will make the railway more identifiable. For example, most English readers are unfamiliar with, say, the railway between Chengdu and Chongqing, but between Chengyu Railway and the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway, they’re much more likely to identify the latter as the railway between the two cities.

As of April 22, 2011, articles for only a handful of railways in China have been created and named with the transliterated shorthand name method. Most of these articles are for railways that many bilingual (Chinese and English) readers can recognize, such as the Jinghu, Jingguang, Jingjiu, Jingbao Railway, so the naming convention appears to be fine. Yet, once we expand the article coverage to railways that are less well-known, recognizability of names will diminish. Railways like the Funen, Kuybei, Qibei, Nenlin, are likely to be as obscure to the English reader as they are to the bilingual reader. As the number of articles proliferates, the article names will become progressively more difficult to recognize and tell apart. Try telling apart the following railways: Fuhuai, Fuxia and Funen.

Part of the difficulty is that the transliteration method obscures differences in Chinese characters and Chinese tones that help to pick apart some of those names, such as 阜淮, 福厦, 富嫩 in the riddle above. Compared to the shorthand names, Fuxin-Huainan, Fuzhou-Xiamen, and Fuyu-Nenjiang, are more recognizable. With pinyin transliteration from Chinese to English, considerable detail and discerning information is lost. Consider more examples:

  • Xiangyu, Xianggui, Xiangpu Railways all have different “Xiang” characters;
  • Baolan and Baocheng Railways have different “Bao” characters;
  • Jiaoji and Jitong Railways have different “Ji” characters;
  • Jiaoji and Jiaoliu Railways have different “Jiao” characters
  • Jitong and Tongpu Lines have different “Tong” characters;
  • Lanxin and Lanyan Lines have different “Lan” characters;
  • Qibei and Ningqi Lines have different “Qi” characters;
  • Tongjiu, Tongpu, Jitong Railways have different “Tong” characters
  • Xianggui and Guikun Lines have different “Gui” characters;
  • Yiwan and Wangan Railways have different “Wan” characters;
  • Yiwan, Yijia, and Xinyi Lines have different “Yi” characters;
  • Yuli and Licha Railways have different “Li” characters;

Many English readers may be unfamiliar with one-character abbreviations of Chinese cities and provinces that are commonly used in Chinese shorthand names for railways, Hu for Shanghai, Yu for Chongqing, Rong for Chengdu, Ning for Nanjing, Yong for Ningbo and Jiu for Kowloon. Compare Beijing-Kowloon Railway with Jingjiu Railway. Just when you thought Jing stood for Beijing, there is Jingsha Railway, between Jingmen and Shashi in Hubei Province.

Part of the difficulty is that the Chinese method itself is vulnerable to confusion due to the repetition of the same characters used to describe different location. Consider Changda (长大), Xinchang (新长), and Daqin (大秦) railways. These three lines have two pairs of Chang and Da characters in common but those two characters refer to four different cities: Changchun, Changxing, Dalian and Datong. When these homographs characters are transliterated into the English, the confusion they cause is compounded by their homophone characters. Joining the Da (大) railways, e.g. Daqin (大秦) and Dazheng (大郑), are the Da (达) railways – Dacheng (达成) Dawan (达万) Railway. Joining Chang (长) railways are other Changs such as (昌), as in the Changjiu (昌九) Railway.

Naturalness – refers to the names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article (and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles). How are the names of Chinese railways referred to in English publications? A search in the English news articles for Beijing-Shanghai Railway yields hundreds of results. A search for Jinghu Railway yields few to no results. In everyday use, when an English writer wants to identify a Chinese railway in English prose to an English reading audience, he/she is much more likely to use the hyphenated full name approach than the transliterated shorthand name approach.

Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. Not surprisingly, the hyphenated full name is more precise and less prone to confusion than the transliterated shorthand name. For example, does Xinyi Railway refer to the railway between Fuxin and Yi County (新义铁路) or the railway of Xinyi (新沂铁路), which goes to Changxing? What about the Ningwu Railway, is it one of the railways that originates from Ningwu or the Nanjing-Wuhu Railway, whose transliterated shorthand is also Ningwu?

Conciseness – shorter titles are generally preferred to longer ones. This is the only consideration where the transliterated shorthand name appears to have the edge. But this objective is far outweighed by others consideration. The hyphenated full name is hardly long by Misplaced Pages article name standards. Furthermore, as a rule, in Misplaced Pages, we do not use abbreviations as article names. Why adopt Chinese abbreviations as the official English names?

Consistency - titles which follow the same pattern as those of similar articles are generally preferred. As noted, news articles about railways overwhelmingly follow the hyphenated full name approach. Among China’s high-speed railways, the majority also following the hyphenated full-name approach, because this approach delivers more identifying information and is less prone to confusion.

It’s time to make the English article names of Chinese railways consistent, clear and descriptive. The need for hyphenated full names for Chinese railways is more pressing than it is for Chinese highways. Whereas railway names are stable, highways in China frequently have their names changed as expressways are lengthened and numbering systems are adopted. As an encyclopedia, we want to present seemingly complex information to readers in a way that is clear and consistent and easy to understand and follow. Under the hyphenated full name approach, readers can tell right away, what the two terminal cities of any railway are, and if they can recognize one of the two cities, be able to orient the railway. They will be able to tell that the Nanjing-Xian (Ningxi), Nanjing-Wuhu (Ningwu) and Nanjing-Qidong (Ningqi) Railways do not originate from the same city as the Ningwu-Kelan (Ningke) and Ningwu-Jingle (Ningjing) Railways.

For consistency and clarity, Misplaced Pages article names of Chinese railways should always feature the full names. In-article references can use transliterated shorthand names. The only exception may be the Longhai Line, which has become a two-character word in itself. The reason for this lengthy argument is because prior attempts to convert transliterated shorthand article names into hyphenated full names have been reversed with reference to the naming convention. ContinentalAve (talk) 15:14, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I will refuse to agree to anything regarding railways unless something is done to expressways as well. Since expressways follow about the same convention, with the only conceivable difference being the addition of the "G__" numbering system, it makes little sense to have 2 separate conventions. Also, I am pretty sure that you fell for the pitfall of not using " " (i.e. exact phrasing) when doing Google searches. HSR, since they have been built only recently, are mentioned using the Terminus 1-Terminus 2 format in most media sources.
And with regards to "most English Misplaced Pages readers"... that's not the most important issue to be considered here, and probably should not be one. Precision far eclipses recognisability; you pointed this out. Full transliteration often creates disambiguation. --HXL's Roundtable and Record 00:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
HXL:Appreciate your prompt response.
Regarding the highway naming convention: Sure, we can certainly adopt the same full-name approach for highways. i.e. G12 Hunchun-Ulanhot Expressway instead of G12 Hunwu Expressway.
Regarding the Google searches: the point here is that more English writers use the full-name approach than the transliterated shorthand approach because the former is more natural. This is true whether we are talking newly built HSRs or longstanding regular speed railways. A search for "Beijing-Shanghai Railway" (in quotes) yields 269,000 results on Google, whereas "Jinghu Railway" (in quotes) yields only 77,000. The "Baotou-Lanzhou Railway" has 16,100 results and "Baolan Railway" has only 1,010 results.
Regarding most "English Misplaced Pages readers": I would not dismiss them so readily from our consideration of naming conventions. Misplaced Pages exists for their and our use. Two criteria in Misplaced Pages's naming convention -- recognizability and naturalness -- are based on the reader's experience. While it is true that many of the railway and expressways in China are currently unfamiliar to English readers (and therefore not recognizable to them), Misplaced Pages can help to change that through the creation of articles about them. This is why it is important for the names of these articles to be helpful, descriptive and memorable. Over time, many of the railways and expressways in China will become more recognizable. How we name them can have quite a lot to do with how quickly they gain acceptance.
Precision versus Recognizability: If I read your last point sentence correctly -- Full transliteration often creates disambiguation. -- then you're in agreement with me that using the full-names of these railways and highways creates less ambiguity than the shorthand names, not just often, but almost always.
Thank you for your attention. ContinentalAve (talk) 14:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
To be clear, it is not that I am necessarily opposed to the proposal, but I am concerned about some of the wording of the rationale. Indeed, I will come out and say that full spelling is required in all cases where ambiguation with even one terminus is possible (i.e. Nanjing). --HXL's Roundtable and Record 14:52, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I am fairly neutral on the proposal; but, as one data point, there were 455 results when searching on "beijing-hankou railway" on Google Books; 26 and 35 results when searching on "jing-han railway" and "jinghan railway", respectively. (Among them, there must have been a few "pseudobooks", created by a parasitic publisher from Misplaced Pages pages; but the number was small enough as not to affect the overall results significantly. There were also a few hits with "chinghan", "beiping-hankow", etc., but again to few too affect the overall ratios). -- Vmenkov (talk) 15:50, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I broadly support this. I am far from proficient in Chinese but recognise many place names, including most cities. But the short names really make no sense to me, i.e. on encountering them I would need to look for the longer full name to understand what is being referred to. I suspect only those proficient in Chinese would recognise the short names, and such people are unlikely to be using the English Misplaced Pages as a reference for the Chinese railway system. It seems that broader usage agrees with this, based on the searches done. There will still be redirects for those that are searching by the short names, but the full names are more appropriate for the article titles.--JohnBlackburnedeeds 16:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the helpful input from everyone. HXL, I understand your reluctance to change a long-standing policy but your proposed solution of spelling out the full name only when there is ambiguity with the abbreviated name will prove to be difficult to implement. For one, many writers will not be aware of ambiguities because they haven’t considered the whole galaxy of railway and expressway names. This is why I have gone through the effort of creating a very long post with many examples to illustrate the problem. Only when you consider the Ningwu-based railways will the Nanjing-based railway names seem ambiguous. Second, as we all know, China is undergoing extensive infrastructural expansion and the number of highways and railways will proliferate and create new ambiguities. For example, Hubei and Hunan are building a railway between Jingmen and Yueyang called the Jingyue Railway. The Jingyue along with the Jingsha Railway will start to erode the distinctiveness of Jing for Beijing in English. It will be more and more difficult to tell whether the Jingyuan and Jingzhang Railways are really obscure railways linked to Beijing or somehow related to the Jingyihuo Railway in Xinjiang. If Jing can be made ambiguous, no one is safe. Third, Misplaced Pages is the place where old knowledge finds new life. Many historical railways in China, like the Jinghan, will have articles created for them. Their inclusion will compound the potential for ambiguity. The earlier we adopt a clear and consistent policy, the less uncertainty and difficulty there will be for article creators going forward. After all, you were the one who opposed bifurcating railways from highways! :P

Set forth below, is my proposal of the revised naming convention for the transportation section:

Transportation

When naming articles of expressways, highways, railways, railway stations, or airports in China, use the common English name if it can be determined, e.g. Karakorum Highway. Otherwise, follow these naming rules for the article name:

For roadways, highways, expressways and railways whose names in Chinese consist of two- or three-character abbreviations of the terminal cities (or other location names), do not adopt the pinyin version of the Chinese abbreviated name as the English article name. Instead, spell out the full English name of each abbreviated Chinese place name and connect them with hyphens in the article name:

For the 宁芜铁路, use Nanjing-Wuhu Railway as the article name not, Ningwu Railway.

The { } article naming format is intended to identify expressways/railways with precision and avoid ambiguity. E.g. In addition to the Ningwu Railway, there are Ningwu-Kelan and Ningwu-Jingle Railways.

The pinyin version of the Chinese abbreviated name should be mentioned in the first sentence of the article as a secondary name of the expressway/railway, and should be made a redirect link to the article. Furthermore, the pinyin version of the Chinese abbreviated name can be freely used in the article itself and in other articles. The rule above applies only to article names. Where there is ambiguity in the pinyin version of the Chinese abbreviated name, create a disambiguation page for the ambiguous name.

Nanfu Railway may refer to:

Please capitalize Expressway/Railway in the article name.

Railways

Where the pinyin spelling of a place name differs from the official English spelling of the place name (especially in the case of non-Chinese place names) use the official English spelling.

Use the same naming format for China's high-speed railways

Exceptions to hyphenated full-spelling naming format:

Where the Chinese name is descriptive, use a brief translation of the descriptive name:

Where the abbreviations in the Chinese name are no longer considered abbreviations. This usually occurs when the abbreviated name has survived changes in the underlying names.

  • 陇海铁路 - Longhai Railway not Longxi-Haizhou Railway because Longxi is no longer used to describe eastern Gansu Province and Haizhou is now part of Lianyungang

Roadways

For ], add the expressway number as a prefix to the hyphenated expressway name in the article. The prefix and the hyphenated expressway should be separated by a space.

The pinyin version of the Chinese abbreviated name should be mentioned in the first sentence of the article as a secondary name of the expressway and should be made a redirect link to the article.

For National Highways that are numbered simply follow the format {China National Highway }:

National Highways can be abbreviated with "G{no. of highway}", e.g. G105 as a redirect link for China National Highway 105.

Railway Station

Articles for railway stations in China should be named using the city's name (or in some cases the station's unique name— for example, 丰台火车站) followed by the English translation of the cardinal direction in the railway station name, if applicable (North, South etc.), and then :

Abbreviated forms of the railway station name should be mentioned in the article's first sentence as secondary names and should have redirect links to the article name.

Airports

Airport articles should have the city's name followed by the if applicable, followed by or as applicable:

ContinentalAve (talk) 19:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC) Revised ContinentalAve (talk) 08:05, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not opposed to this proposal. Sounds sensible and reasonable for the large readership who doesn't understand the abbreviation used in Chinese. The short names are usually used in mass media. As such, I assume these will be redirects to the full hypenated names. --Visik (Chinwag Podium) 02:31, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
This proposal sounds eminently sensible and generally excellent. Hear hear! Jpatokal (talk) 10:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal as well. It may be appropriate, however, to explicitly say in the policy that the "two-syllable" names of railways and highway (Jinghu Railway etc) should also be mentioned in the lede of relevant article. -- Vmenkov (talk) 15:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for everyone's suggestions. I have incorporated your input about the need to mention the Chinese abbreviated name in the first sentence of the article and to have redirect links created for the Chinese abbreviated name. ContinentalAve (talk) 08:05, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
By the way, you probably will need to clarify the new policy a bit once certain ambiguities are found. For one, I am not entirely supportive of reducing "Terminus A–B County" to "Terminus A–B". Secondly, cases where the article title of a terminus (i.e. X City or Y County) is not at X or Y County, respectively, due to the existence of other settlements of the same name, need to be dealt with. With romanisation, the reader cannot always know which "X" or "Y County" is being referred to. To begin with, a solution is to use "X City" in the title if there are no other officially-designated cities of the same name. I don't know about the other 2 cases for now. –HXL's Roundtable and Record 04:51, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Endorse, though of course, some wording needs to be changed. My experience with disambiguating town, township, and subdistrict divisions is frustrating enough; no two counties or county-level cities in mainland China share the same name in Chinese but then when romanising, many counties and county-level cities are "repeated" across provinces when fully romanised. Applying this sentiment here, the precision point alone is enough grounds for me to support the policy change. And sorry for the delayed response; have been busy with what I alluded to above...check my contribs if you wish to know. –HXL's Roundtable and Record 04:44, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
HXL49, thank you for the endorsement, thoughtful reply and questions.
In general, the Terminal A-Terminal B naming method should follow the unabbreviated Chinese place names used to identify the terminals in the name of the railway itself, even if those place names are different from the actual place names currently used to name the places in which the terminal is located. What do I mean?
Generally, there is no difference between the place name used to identify a terminal in the name of the railway and the place name in which the terminal is located. E.g. The Yingtan-Xiamen Railway refers to the railway between Yingtan and Xiamen. However, consider the 临策铁路 Linhe-Ceke Railway. The railway was planned when the eastern terminal city was called Linhe. Linhe has since been renamed Bayan Nur, but the underlying railway name still uses the abbreviation for Linhe 临河. Since we are naming articles of the railways, not the place names, we should adhere to the Chinese place name used in the railway name and maintain Linhe-Ceke Railway, not Bayan Nur-Ceke Railway.
There are instances where the terminals of a railway are not actually located in the place identified in the terminal place name. For example, the Qiqihar-Bei'an Railway begins in the station of Angangxi, near Qiqihar but not in the city itself. Since the railway name uses Qiqihar as the terminal place name, the article name follows with Qiqihar-Bei'an Railway, not Angangxi-Bei'an Railway. In the first paragraph of the article, there should be a clarification of any differences between the location of the actual terminal and the place suggested by the terminal name referenced in the name of the railway.
Consider an opposite example, 南福铁路 Nanping-Fuzhou Railway, was built in 1956 as a branch of the Yingtan-Xiamen Railway. This railway begins in the west at the 外洋 Waiyang Station on the Yingxia Line. Waiyang is located in 来舟 Laizhou, a township of Nanping. Initially, this was the only railway near Nanping and was called the Nanping-Fuzhou Railway. Later as other railways were built into Nanping itself, the line took on 外福铁路 Waiyang-Fuzhou Railway and 来福铁路 Laizhou-Fuzhou Railway as alternate names. In English Misplaced Pages, an article name has been created for each of the three names. Currently, Waiyang-Fuzhou and Laizhou-Fuzhou redirect to Nanping-Fuzhou because all three names are now considered to be historical names since most of the line has become part of the Hengfeng-Nanping Railway. Nanping-Fuzhou was the first name for the line and remains the most intelligible. The point here is that the article name should follow whichever Chinese place names are used in the Chinese railway name.
Quite a few railway terminals are named after and located in counties. See Ningwu-Jingle Railway. If I understand you correctly, I don't think you are calling for this line to be named Ningwu County-Jingle County Railway, since there is no ambiguity with Ningwu or Jingle. I think the more tricky scenario you alluded to is when one of the terminal names when romanized into English is itself ambiguous. Consider the 新义铁路, which when translated under the general rule, becomes the Fuxin-Yi County Railway. But there are several "Yi Counties" in China, and this could lead to some confusion. I do not see a definite solution, but see several options:
(a) Fuxin-Yi County Railway. Leave it as is. There may be several Yi Counties in China, but only one Fuxin-Yi County Railway. When the reader clicks through, the first sentence of the article should explain which Yi County the railway connects to.
(b) Fuxin-Yi County (Liaoning) Railway. This approach completely disambiguates Yi County.
(c) Fuxin-Yi County Railway (Liaoning). This approach explains that the entire railway is located in Liaoning, which should dispel any ambiguity about which Yi County is being referred to, but might give the misleading impression that there is another Fuxin-Yi County Railway in another province.
I'm indifferent. What do you and others think? ContinentalAve (talk) 08:33, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Political NPOV

Currently articles relating to China are required to have "People's Republic of" added before them in article titles, and also for example on the main page lots of space has to be wasted with the addition of the words "People's Republic of" before the word China.

In a modern context it is obvious that I'm referring to the People's Republic of China if I use the word China and therefore there seems no good reason to use the longer form on Misplaced Pages in those cases. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:03, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with you. Reliable sources commonly use just "China" when referring to the PRC. Hot Stop (c) 13:50, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
And reliable sources such as the Associated Press are just as idiotic to omit the name of the province when referring to towns or even villages, e.g. "Xintang, China". Reliable sources are not always correct. —HXL's Roundtable and Record 14:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
There's a difference between getting a town name wrong occasionally, and getting the name you want to call a major country wrong every time you write about it. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:57, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
To begin with, the existence of separate articles 'Law of China' and 'Law of the PRC' is a case demonstrating why separate the two terms. In general, the reason for separation is that China as a civilisation, which is how we treat it, long preceded the PRC, and this case illustrates that point; also we are effectively treating PRC history as a subset of Chinese history, which is how it should be done. Equating the two terms (PRC and China or ROC and Taiwan) would be grossly recentist and inaccurate in both cases; in addition, equating PRC with China lends credence to the PRC's stance (over the ROC's) on the One China Policy. Please, per WP:DEADHORSE, so long as there exist two separate states with "China" in their names, leave the policy as it is. —HXL's Roundtable and Record 14:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I would presume in cases where having both terms makes sense, e.g. for the law example you bring up then using Law of the PRC is a useful disambiguator, as it is with the article People's Republic of China itself. But that doesn't apply to all articles, and often there isn't an article on the pre-PRC subject at all, e.g. History of transport in the People's Republic of China - actually by limiting the scope there you are making it more difficult to include any pre-1949 content on the subject, and clearly once there is a sufficient amount you'd then have to return to disambiguating it like you do with law.
The other point you've missed is that nobody refers to Taiwan as the Republic of China anymore - last week the Economist had a special report on China - it barely made any mention of Taiwan and certainly its focus was the PRC (along with cross strait relations).
I also don't think dead horse is legitimate - this was last discussed in 2008. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:30, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. This section has never actually held consensus since about 2003 (which was so early in the project it is ancient history). There just has never been any overwhelming consensus to change it. It's always been in limbo. I've never held that article titles have to be titled with the formal name, particularly in redirect cases. It's just silly. The rest of the project, who don't care about sinology topics, do not pay any attention to this convention. In article text it is blatantly ignored. That is a strong indication this convention does not have project wide viability.
It's also very much the case that all of our RS use the China/Taiwan convention. Asserting that the RoC has legitimacy as "China" is a WP:FRINGE view outside of Taiwan itself. This convention doesn't stick to any of Misplaced Pages's other policies. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Firstly, there's no question that the People's Republic of China is commonly referred to as "China" (including by reliable sources). Secondly, I'm confident that the Republic of China is almost always referred to as "Taiwan" in the United States. If this is typical elsewhere (as I've seen claimed), it appears that there's little likelihood of confusion stemming from references to the People's Republic of China as "China."
But that isn't the only issue. Another concern is that Misplaced Pages might be perceived as taking a political stance. I don't know how valid this is (and I'm very much an outsider), but it's something that should be addressed. —David Levy 18:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
With regards to taking a political stance our current policy risks taking one as it implies that the Republic of China has a serious claim to the name China when other reliable sources specifically don't imply that with their naming. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:46, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Another approach to this is that most Western 'reliable sources' silently equate Taiwan with the ROC, which is a major fallacy considering there are more islands other than Taiwan... Since ROC != TW, in a modern context, we cannot have China and ROC side-by-side, so PRC and ROC it is. —HXL's Roundtable and Record 21:03, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
How many people live on those other islands? Less than a million? Less than 100 thousand? Calling the ROC 'Taiwan' doesn't mean it doesn't control any territory outside the island of Taiwan. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:18, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
It's clear that the People's Republic of China is referred to as "China" far more commonly than the Republic of China is, but that doesn't automatically mean that the latter has no serious claim to the name.
Based on your comments here and at Misplaced Pages talk:In the news, you seem to believe that only one country or the other can legitimately call itself "China." So in your view, our current convention implies a belief that perhaps the Republic of China is the one true China (and the People's Republic of China isn't), which is ludicrous on its face.
I, conversely, believe that both countries legitimately refer to themselves as "China" on a formal level (irrespective of their popular names), and I don't believe that our naming convention even addresses the possibility that one country's use of the name is illegitimate. —David Levy 21:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe that only one country can call itself China, but that is how they are treated today by the rest of the world. Because our sources are so one-sided and all use China to only refer to the PRC the current policy implies there is a controversy and that both claims are equal.
In contrast with Korea both Koreas control around half the territory and therefore both have a legitimate claim to the name Korea, additionally this means that sources when referring to a Korea will refer to either North or South Korea to disambiguate the two claims.
Additionally before 1971 (or shortly after) when the Republic of China controlled the China UN seat there would have been much more controversy about what China referred to, but that doesn't really apply today.
According to that article the Taiwanese tried to become UN members as simply 'Taiwan' in 2007. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with the premise that using the name "People's Republic of China" implies that it would make as much sense for us to refer to either country as "China."
I haven't seen anyone propose that we begin referring to the Republic of China as "China." —David Levy 22:31, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
(outdent)
Those in the RoC can call themselves whatever they want. Their claim is legitimate to whatever name they choose - and even within the RoC it is rare, and usually a nationalist politician, who equates the RoC as China. Everyday citizens of the RoC may identify as Chinese, but not their country as China. China referring to the RoC is a very specific political POV even inside the RoC, yet here we are on Misplaced Pages demanding it be given equal claim.
Just because a claim is legitimate does not mean it is useful or equal for Misplaced Pages purposes. Misplaced Pages care about WP:NPOV based on WP:RS. Clearly by preponderance of reliable sources, including overtly political ones, equating the RoC as China is WP:FRINGE. Because on a global scale it is. NPOV does not mean we treat the two claims equally. This is where this naming convention fails. Misplaced Pages is descriptive, not prescriptive. We describe the world in article content and we describe the common practices of editors by guidelines and conventions. This convention prescribes specific names to be used. Generalist editors (who are writing for generalist readers) ignore it because it isn't describing how they write. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
I agree with the above, but I think that it would be more relevant if someone were proposing that we begin referring to the Republic of China as "China." —David Levy 22:31, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I completely agree with Eraserhead's proposal. The preponderance of reliable sources refer to the PRC as "China" and the ROC as "Taiwan". It's simpler and everyone knows what it means. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:52, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
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