Template talk:Nihongo

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to) is the capital of Japan.

An example of a capital is Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to).

Manga (漫画) are Japanese strips.

Examples of strip types include: Manga (漫画), BD, Comic, etc.

Follow the help links in the demonstrations above for information on the usage of this template.

? or image

Would it be possible to change the question mark to a small image so that it doesn't look like a question? Exploding Boy 15:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it can be done, some way or another. Since effectively it leads to a help-file, it should be some help icon like thingy. Users are accustomed to things like leaflets with little question marks and such. Shinobu 08:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Or, if possible, do you think it might be better to make the Help link be on the kanji, that way there's no extra questionmark or icon to confuse people. Looks cleaner, too. LordAmeth 15:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I have a feeling linking the kanji would confuse new users more than the question mark.

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to)

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to)

Hm, I find the question mark more intuitive. However, rather than an image I would like to suggest using some CSS styling, it could probably be made to look much like whatever image is suggested, and I assume CSS and image support go hand-in-hand a long way. —Philip N.✉ 19:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think you're right. Especially with that extra space before the question mark, it doesn't look like you're questioning the romanji... LordAmeth 23:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

How does this look?

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to?)

Shinobu 23:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Better, but the question mark is now hard to see. Perhaps if it wasn't blue? Exploding Boy 03:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's because it's too light. Personally I don't like a black ? but we can make it darker, like this:

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to?)

I think this ? is dark enough to be clearly visible to all, colourblind or not. Note also that the colour blue is often associated with information, which is, to me at least, a good reason to keep a hint of blue in there. If you still can't see it, perhaps it's too small. Perhaps this is better:

Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to?)

Shinobu 23:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The last one is good. Exploding Boy 17:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks good, except for the underline in Firefox when using a Wikipedia theme that doesn't remove underlines from links. The second one has the underline higher so it doesn't disappear when you select text below it, which is a good thing :). —Philip N.✉ 20:33, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I take it it has been decided then? The second one it is. Only the problem of finding Japanese words in articles and tagging them with this template remains. Shinobu 13:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

More help icon discussion

Lifted from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles):

I have already begun adding it (retroactively) to my own articles. You are welcome to take a look at the articles and see how you think it looks. A list of my articles is available on my user page; I have thus far 'converted' the first 100 or so articles. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the question mark, as I think it makes the whole thing look cluttered. But thanks for the template. Now there'll be a slightly more standard form for introducing article names & their original Japanese spellings. LordAmeth 20:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The template is great, a very good idea, but I agree with the above opinion. I don't like the question mark either. A small Japanese flag might be good, but some Japanese people dislike this symbol, so how about a tiny icon with the word "Nihongo" in kanji or something? It should be possible to make a favicon-sized "nihongo" since the kanjis are very simple. --DannyWilde 01:26, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

@Personally, I'm not a big fan of the question mark, as I think it makes the whole thing look cluttered.: Perhaps. But we need a link to the help page; and an icon that can be easily identified as a help icon seems to be the best thing. If you want (perhaps because you don't need the help page), you can hide it (see the help page for details).

@how about a tiny icon with the word "Nihongo" in kanji or something?: That would be a very bad idea. Not only because even the last kanji becomes quite unreadable below 9x9 pixels, which is too large considering that it has to be part of a small icon that musn't be too wide, but still readable at all font-sizes, but mainly because that kind of icons don't look like help icons. Have you ever heard of mystery meat navigation?

Please also consider that the reader may not be familiar with Japanese or kanji at all. This means the text 日本語 might not mean anything to the reader. A flag might make the reader thing "Oh, it's Japanese", but also "Why is there a Japanese flag there?". The help icon however answers the following question: "Where can I find out what this is/means?" And it does so in a minimal amount of space. Shinobu 12:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

It's just my subjective opinion, but I added the template to some editing I did on the article Japanese toilet today, and I have to say the question mark looks absolutely horrible. I'm worried someone's going to revert all the edits just to get rid of the question marks. Would it be possible to just not have a link at all? I'm not really sure how necessary it is. --DannyWilde 00:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Recap and vote on question mark

Short recap of the process causing the ?:

1. I suggested using a template. I used the ? because I saw something similar on a media link and I liked it.
2. Exploding Boy suggested to use an image for clarity.
3. I suggested using a help icon.
4. Lord Ameth suggested putting the link on the kanji.
5. Philip N. was afraid a link on the kanji would confuse new users.
6. Lord Ameth agreed with Philip N.
7. I did a mockup using a small leaflet with a blue question mark.
8. Exploding Boy thought it was hard to see and suggested using another colour.
9. I thought it was perhaps too light or too small.
10. Exploding Boy thought the large version looked good.
11. Philip N. noted underline problems.
12. I added the large leaflet to the template on the basis that everyone seemded to be happy with it.
13. Lord Ameth thinks the ? clutters the template.
14. DannyWilde suggested using a flag or 日本語.
15. I opposed that idea.
16. DannyWilde suggested dropping the link altogether.

Opinions until now (feel free to add your vote or change your mind):

• Exploding Boy: large leaflet
• Lord Ameth: no link on kanji; ? → no ?
• Philip N.: no link on kanji; ? (_ problems with large leaflet)
• DannyWilde: flag, 日本語 or nothing
• me: leaflet

  However, if someone thinks up a way to link to a help page without having the leaflet/? in the body of the text, fine.

Shinobu 15:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I just came over to this page to suggest getting rid of the ? in some way. I'd be OK with dropping it, or changing the kanji to a link. The link leads to a page explaining Japanese orthography - if someone doesn't know how that works, and the "strange symbols" are a link, that seems like where they would click. If there must be a ? of some sort, I'd vote for the white ? in blue circle (standardized information icon) suggested below.

DenisMoskowitz 14:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to say I did sort of agree with DannyWilde when I looked at the edits to Japanese Toilet--it did seem somewhat intrusive. On the other hand, I think that may be just because we're not used to seeing the image in Japan-related articles. I think we'll get used to it (also, looking at Japanese Wikipedia articles, they have all sorts of images they use on various links). I do think the question mark is more intuitive than a flag or kanji (after all, the international symbol for information is a question mark). Perhaps for additional clarity it might be possible to use an actual "information" symbol (a white question mark inside a blue circle)? Exploding Boy 17:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Mockup ? in cirlce: lorem ipsum dolor sit est non iam consectetur nisi enim voluptat Tokyo (東京都, Tōkyō-to ●?) lorem ipsum dolor sit est non iam consectetur nisi enim voluptat. Hm… not that bad but we would probably need an image because stuff like this always screws up at small font sizes. Shinobu 16:00, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

No room for dates etc. in parens

Lifted from User_talk:LordAmeth:

I've looked through some of the converted articles, and it seems to work okay. However, in cases like Minamoto no Noriyori this happens:

Minamoto no Noriyori (源範頼)(1156-1193)

Is ")(" intentional? Should we make a template that allows for inclusion of extra info, should we simply add a space, like so: Minamoto no Noriyori (源範頼) (1156-1193), or is it okay as it is now?

Yours sincerely, Shinobu 15:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

It's up to you guys what you'd like to do. Adding a space is no problem, as I just need to leave a space after the template. Personally, I like it this way rather than including multiple types of information within one set of parentheses. Keeps things distinct. LordAmeth 02:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Floating box

I've just come across this on another page:

Something like this could solve some of our problems re: text appearing incorrectly / naming order.

Exploding Boy 19:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

If we really want this, we could use a template that uses this one and puts the box there. I would suggest to use as little text as possible in the box, preferrably at a smaller font size. Is there a way to make a template include something only the first time it's called? Shinobu 10:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a subjective impression again, but at a first glance, I don't want this so much. It's clutter. --DannyWilde 13:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. It doesn't answer any questions that the help-link doesn't answer. However, it could provide an alternative if we could include it only once and at a location where it doesn't interrupt the article flow. Has anyone got an idea on how to use the cat system for this or something? Shinobu 18:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I think I saw this on the Sanskrit article. Take a look at what it looks like there. It integrates very nicely with info boxes of the type we have on, for example, the Japanese imperial family, and could provide information for all types of issues with minimal text in the box itself (eg: redirecting to a page that covers all the potential issues) and eliminate, the more I think about it, the need for any type of in-text links (such as the question mark above) at all. Exploding Boy 19:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Hate to bring up the question marks again...

...but this introduces a real ambiguity for users who've opted to have redlinks replaced with trailing question marks (preferences → Misc → Format broken links). While the two types of question mark are visually distinguishable, having the one symbol mean two different things depending on its precise shape is still initially confusing and then distracting. — Haeleth Talk 22:56, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, but what do you suggest doing instead of question marks? My "nihongo" icon idea got shot down, and no one seems particularly keen on Exploding Boy's Sanskrit style box at the top of the page either. At the moment the question mark seems to be the "least-worst-possible-choice". --DannyWilde 02:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

There are a couple Unicode glyphs you can use. They rely on font and browser support though, and their semantic value might not be too high.

?   QUESTION MARK
⍰   APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL QUAD QUESTION
﹖   SMALL QUESTION MARK
？   FULLWIDTH QUESTION MARK
�   REPLACEMENT CHARACTER
ℹ   INFORMATION SOURCE
‸   REFERENCE MARK

For me, all of them display in FFox on Windows (probably with Unicode-rich fonts), while only 1,3,4 display in IExplore. —Philip N.✉ 00:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of the redlinks... sorry. I doubt it's a real problem, since the redlink-?'s look really different (at least to me) but still. Feel free to (change your) vote in the poll above.

I find none of the ?'s above sufficiently different from the one we have now to take the risk of it turning into a box on pc's without font support.

A possible alternative: small(!) infobox on first occurrence and no infoboxes/?'s later on. This would require two templates, this one and a possible nihongo1 for the first occurrence. Another possible application of this technique: only a ? on the first occurrence. Downside: two templates instead of one (less elegant in my opinion, but wiki hasn't got an <includeonlyonce>-tag, so it may be our only option).

By the way, does anyone know enough about wiki template syntax to know if specifying an empty default value for param 3 would make the final pipe unnecessary when not using param 3? Shinobu 07:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Listen very carefully, I shall include this only once. I wish I could. Shinobu 07:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Possible infobox scenario

Possible template scenario for an infobox on first occurrence:

• {{nihongo|english|japanese|romaji}} does what it does now, possibly whithout ?.
• {{nihongo1|english|japanese|romaji|extra}} calls nihongo and displays an infobox, appending extra (defaults to empty) at the end of the infobox.
• {{nihongon|english|japanese|romaji}} could call nihongo1 with extra containing a short notice on japanese names.

Just some suggestions, nothing more. Shinobu 07:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Reverse Senarios

There's a lot of instances where people might use this template to show translations for Japanese using the English version as main: Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎, Koizumi Junichirō) but wouldn't it be just as beneficial to have it work in reverse as well? For example, place names:
... located on Iojima (硫黄島, Iōjima, lit. Suplhur Island) ...
... located on Io Island (硫黄島, Iōjima, Sulphur Island) ...
or other possible scenarios where it's necessary to include the English name, Kanji, Rōmaji, and translation. For example:
... part of Hoori's name, ori (折り, lit. to bend) indicates a crop ...
doesn't need the difference specified between English and Rōmaji but it probably should, except that it would look extremely long and goofy as:
... ori (折り, ori, lit. to bend) ...
Of course there are better examples (though rare) where it would be more useful.

So anyways, has anyone thought of this? I come up with this problem situation much more frequently than Junichiro Koizumi (小泉純一郎, Koizumi Junichirō), because English to Japanese is a rather simple and well established format.  freshgavin TALK   05:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)