Talk:Shizuoka (city)

Please join the discussion

regarding the naming of city articles at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). --Polaron | Talk 08:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Sunpu

In point of fact, I'm not particularly opposed to the idea of having Sunpu remain a separate article, but I thought I could bring some attention to the issue by adding these merge tags.

1. If we don't merge, or, I suppose even if we do, the section on Sunpu, and the overall section on Shizuoka's history need expansion badly.
2. Heian-kyō, Heijo-kyō, Naniwa, do not have separate articles. But then, Edo does, although it's really short.
3. If we don't merge, we need to figure out what to do with old names of existing cities, in terms of categories. Does it fit under "Category:Cities of Japan"? It doesn't really fit under "Dissolved municipalities" or any of those, as it's only been renamed and changed and grown, not really dissolved.

Thank you. LordAmeth 19:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Merge Sunpu and Shizuoka, Shizuoka. Articles on cities typically have history sections. There's little reason for Shizuoka to have an article on part of its history, while earlier and later history is in the article on the city. Fg2 10:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If the history section were to become really substantial, we could of course eventually have an article on the history of the city. Fg2 10:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

MergeClaytonian 04:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Conflicting area figures

The infobox and body text give slightly different figures for the area of Shizuoka, 1388 and 1373 square kilometres respectively. Can anyone resolve this? papageno (talk) 10:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC) Does this not affect the population density figures too? papageno (talk) 10:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I've resolved it. The area changed as a result of the merger with Kanbara, Shizuoka. The area was updated in one place but not the other. I've gotten updated population figures from a Shizuoka web page and recalculated the population density, putting the numbers both in the box and in the body text. Fg2 (talk) 10:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Article Title

According to the MOS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:JAPAN#Place_names), designated cities such as Shizuoka should be written in the form [[{city-name}]] only and not [[{city-name}, {prefecture-name}]]. Should the title of this article be changed from Shizuoka, Shizuoka to just Shizuoka? 76.209.140.172 (talk) 14:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• Niigata, Chiba and Saitama haven't been changed. It says in the guidelines "...unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary." Shizuoka City needs to be disambiguated from Shizuoka Prefecture, doesn't it?--Acidtoyman (talk) 09:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Picture from Toroiseki

It's a very minor thing that probably doesn't make a difference, but the picture of the "Reconstructed building at the Toro archeological site" is old---the entire site has been knocked down, terraformed and rebuilt. If I wasn't such a terrible photographer, I'd put up a new photo myself. Acidtoyman (talk) 00:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Proposed revert to disambiguated title

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This is a procedural close, since closure has been requested at WP:AN. A WP:Requested Move discussion started after this RfC was opened generated more discussion and was closed as "not moved" (i.e. keep the title as "Shizuoka, Shizuoka"). No WP:Move review was requested, and I don't see any reason why the result of the move request should not be respected.

I propose moving Shizuoka back to a disambiguated version of the title. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as nominator. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose, per below.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 25, 2014; 23:42 (UTC)
• Support. The primary purpose of a title is to tell the reader the name of the subject. Nobody else calls this city "Shizuoka, Shizuoka." The motivation for disambiguating the title this way is insider stuff that means nothing to non-Wikipedians. Voice of reason 2 (talk) 10:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC) (sock of Kauffner)
  • @Voice of reason 2: You've misunderstood—the city and prefecture need to be dismbiguated form each other (they are both called Shizuoka). While some of us (myself included) disagree with the naming scheme "Shizuoka, Shizuoka", it is the one required by MOS:JAPAN. This discussion is not about the naming scheme, but about whether the city needs to be disambiguated from the prefecture. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 12:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
    • @Curly Turkey: Note that "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" is not the variant recommended by the Japanese styleguide. See my comment below.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 1, 2014; 12:06 (UTC)
      • @Ezhiki: It is, actually, for two reasons:
        1. You quoted yourself unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary—the prefecture (or han) was named Shizuoka before the city was, and the prefecture turns up far more search hits than the city.
        2. the part of MOS:JAPAN you quote is outdated—until recently, all Japanese cities had to be disambiguated, whether they needed it or not (this rule has been overturned); that portion of MOS:JAPAN made exceptions for designated cities, but never required undisambiguated designated cities.
      • Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:41, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
        • Nearly everywhere else on Wikipedia, the "is necessary" part would normally be interpreted after considering whether an article about another entity already occupies the same title. The article about the prefecture is located at "Shizuoka Prefecture"; thus the "Shizuoka" title is vacant and disambiguation of the city is not necessary. From what you are saying, it looks that for Japan a somewhat unorthodox interpretation of the guidelines is used. In that case, the wordage needs to be made more explicit, but it sounds that the guideline needs editing anyway. It is a pity, however, that the change you are describing puts the guideline further from commonly accepted norms. I hope it was made based upon something bigger than a local consensus and there is a reason which my lack of qualifications on the subject matter prevents me from seeing. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 2, 2014; 00:53 (UTC)
          • No, both articles are "Shizuoka", and they are disambiguated from each other by having the prefecture at "Shizuoka Prefecture" and the city at "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" (it could be at "Shizuoka City" or something, but that would require a different RfC). The change I speak of had all cities disambiguated whether they needed to be or not—that has been overturned, so now they are only disambiguated if necessary, thus the guideline is closer in tune with site-wide guidelines now. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:16, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• On 2014-09-10, Gryffindor moved Shizuoka, Shizuoka to Shizuoka. The editor mistakenly assumed that the "city is primary namegiver, the rest derived from it"; in fact, the city is named after the prefecture: Shizuoka Prefecture was named Shizuoka Han in May 1868, becoming a prefecture when prefectures were introduced in 1871; the city was renamed Shizuoka from Sunpu on July 28, 1869. Further,
  • This search gives the prefecture as its first hit, and seven of the ten hits refer to the prefecture—only two for the city (one for the university, which is located in both Shizuoka City and Hamamatsu).
  • Shizuoka City is not even the largest city in Shizuoka Prefecture—that's Hamamatsu.
  • Even as someone who lives in this city, I would not assume that "Shizuoka" referred to the city rather than the prefecture. Shizuoka simply is not a well-known city the way Hiroshima or Osaka are. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
• Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
• But it is a common Wikipedia practice to not disambiguate titles where there is no clash. The article about the prefecture is at Shizuoka Prefecture (which is normal practice, if Category:Prefectures of Japan is of any indication), which means that the Shizuoka title is vacant. And since it is vacant, that's where the article about the city should be. Furthermore, WP:NC:CITY#Japan leads to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles, which explicitly states for designated cities, use [[{city-name}]] without appending the prefecture unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary. No disambiguation is necessary here, hence the name "Shizuoka" suffices. No matter how I look at it, I see no substantiation for why "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" should be used as the article's title.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 25, 2014; 23:42 (UTC)
• I just moved it back. The name for this article was the subject of discussion over time with the target being the current one or Shizuoka City. I'm surprised that it was not move protected given the history of move warning. I suggest at this point withdrawing the RFC and opening a simple move request to see if there is support for the move. Given the past move waring this is what should have been done in the first place. With a full move request you don't need an RFC and the issue of naming should be settled going forward. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• I think there is a need for disambiguation, because when someone types "Shizuoka" we don't know whether they want the city or the prefecture. And that is what they will do, because nobody is going to type "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" (although they might type "Shizuoka Prefecture"). In that sense, I think Vegaswikian did the right thing by pointing the redirect for "Shizuoka" to "Shizuoka, Shizuoka". Users who type simply the city name (as we do in English) will land on the city. For the benefit of people who wanted the prefecture, I added a hatnote to "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" to point to "Shizuoka Prefecture". That may be overkill, since the prefecture is mentioned in the first line, but since it is a bit confusing it doesn't hurt the help the reader out. (BTW, there is a related discussion underway at the Talk:Tokyo page concerning a proposal to split that article into one about "Tokyo as city" and another about "Tokyo as prefecture". It has stalled lately, but if anyone has an opinion it would be welcome.) --Margin1522 (talk) 08:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I may be mistaken, but I think Shizuoka was a disambiguation page before the move. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 09:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

No, the current Shizuoka is a redirect that was created yesterday by the move. It has only 1 edit. Maybe you're thinking of "Shizuoka (disambiguation)". That page does exist. It was a redirect to the city article. I changed it to be a disambiguation page, like it was supposed to be. So now we have a disambiguation page to distinguish between the city and prefecture.

There are a number of other redirects to the city article, with funny spellings and nothing linking to them. But I guess the policy is to just leave these if they are doing no harm. --Margin1522 (talk) 17:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Margin1522:: The original Shizuoka page existed for many years, and was not created yesterday. Gryffindor (an admin) would have deleted it to make way for the move, thus obliterating the page's edit history. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 12:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey: Oh, is that what happened? Immediately before the move, the city article was Shizuoka. At the time that it became Shizuoka, the old Shizoka (a disamb page) was deleted. Yes, that would have been necessary. So now we are back where we started, except having lost the Shizoka disamb page? We could get it back by moving "Shizuoka (disambigation)" over the current "Shizuoka". That might make sense if the current disamb page had more content. Has any content been lost, or just the history of the old disamb page? --Margin1522 (talk) 18:32, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

That, I can't say. I believe admins, though, have the power to restore deleted pages and their edit histories. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The ed17‎ has kindly restored it and its edit history, and it's now a disambiguation page again. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey: OK, I have reverted Shizuoka (disambiguation) to be a redirect to the new disamb page (Shizuoka) itself. So now we really are back where we started. Thank you both. – Margin1522 (talk) 07:41, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move

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.

Not moved. There is a clear consensus in opposition to moving this page to an undisambiguated title, and this opposition is well-grounded in the absence of a primary topic between the city and the prefecture. bd2412 T 14:37, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Shizuoka, Shizuoka → Shizuoka – Move to most common name per Wikipedia:Article_titles#Use_commonly_recognizable_names. See also Osaka not "Osaka, Osaka", or Hiroshima and not "Hiroshima, Hiroshima" as example. Gryffindor (talk) 08:46, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose for all the reasons given immediately above. Gryffindor, I've already shown empirically that Shizuoka most commonly refers to the prefecture, not the city, that the name was applied to the prefecture (or han) first, and the city derived its name from that. Why are you doing this? Why do you simply completely ignore any and all evidence presented to you? You're flat-out wrong on all accounts here, and this move request is borderline disruptive. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Please read and try to understand the policy on common names. All searches point to the city first and then things named after it. The format "Xxx, Xxx" is also wrong, see examples above. Gryffindor (talk) 11:44, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
  • @Gryffindor: you are exasperating to have a "discussion" with. What part of the city is named after the prefecture is not getting through to you? You have provided no evidence---none at all---that "all searches point to the city first", and I've provided ample evidence that the opposite is true. Your entirely unsupported claims are bordering on trolling at this point. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 13:08, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support. I'm not convinced by the explanations in the preceding section either. If "Shizuoka" indeed most commonly refers to the prefecture and not the city, then move Shizuoka Prefecture to "Shizuoka". Until that happens, the "Shizuoka" title remains vacant, and the city article is the best destination for it (as its title does not require disambiguation, neither for technical reasons, nor for reasons of common use). A confusion with the prefecture can also be easily alleviated by placing a hatnote.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 15, 2014; 12:02 (UTC)
  • The Shizuoka title is not vacant, it's a disambiguation page, as it correctly has been for nine years. Disputes in the past have been over whether the city should be titled Shizuoka, Shizuoka (per MOS:JA) or at Shizuoka City (as per more common usage). Not until Gryffindor made his undiscussed move had there been a dispute about which page should usurp Shizuoka (it was obvious to everyone who knows what they're talking about that it should be a disambiguation page). This "discussion" is nothing more than pointless time-wasting disruption. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 13:21, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
    • I did overlook that the Shizuoka title was a dab page and not a redirect to the city; thank you for pointing that out. That solution works out well enough for me to change my !vote above to neutral, although I may still revisit it if additional arguments come to light. That said, the "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" title is an abomination. If the "Shizuoka City" variant is indeed common usage, it should not be overridden based solely on the country-specific guideline like MOS:JA.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 15, 2014; 13:36 (UTC)
• Oppose - Perhaps a discussion could be held on whether the prefecture is the primary topic, but looking into the use of the term Shizuoka alone has confirmed what gobble has said, that t is definitely not overwhelmingly primarily used to refer to the city alone.--Yaksar (let's chat) 13:32, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Procedural comment. I have removed the RfC tag in the previous section so that there aren't competing processes discussing the same topic. The stable title was Shizuoka, Shizuoka, and that is also the title the page is at now, so at this point the RfC resulted in reversion of the page move. Please note that this could also have been accomplished immediately at Wikipedia:Requested moves, which has a section on requests to revert undiscussed moves. Dekimasuよ! 18:09, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Nobody else calls this city "Shizuoka, Shizuoka." Merriam-Webster gives the name as simply "Shizuoka." WP:NCGN tells us to follow Merriam-Webster. This particular recommendation is copied from The Chicago Manual of Style, so its a publishing industry standard. If you want to disambiguate, it's "Shizuoka, Japan." Clued (talk) 23:43, 15 October 2014 (UTC) (sock of Kauffner)
  • @Clued: You're confusing the issues—this is not a discussion about what would be the best disambiguation (Shizuoka City, Shizuoka, Japan, Shizuoka-shi). This is a discussion about whether this page should be moved to plain Shizuoka (now a disambiguation page), despite the need to disambiguate from Shizuoka Prefecture. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:59, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• I support the proposed move. Calling the city "Foo" and prefecture "Foo Prefecture" (or "Foo Province", "Foo County", etc., depending on the country) is a pretty standard solution to this problem. Clued (talk) 01:16, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • @Clued: Even when the city was named after the prefecture, and the prefecture gets far more search hits? Could you please provide evidence of your assertion? As counter-evidence, Quebec is reserved for the province, despite the fact it was named after Quebec City, which was so named a couple of centuries before the province was so named. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:57, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• The city isn't "Quebec, Quebec," is it? A city was moved from Durham to Durham, England just recently. The guidelines for disambiguating British cities are similar to those for Japan, but there was never any issue of moving the article to Durham, Durham. Clued (talk) 03:31, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • @Clued: Please pay attention: the discussion is not about which disambiguation (Shizuoka, Shizuoka; Shizuoka, Japan; Shizuoka-shi; Shizuoka City) is preferable—that is a different discussion. This is a discussion about whether the article for the city should usurp the article that is now used as a disambiguation page for the different uses of "Shizuoka". I'm not the one who decided the standard of <City>, <Prefecture> (in fact, I hate it—but it's the consensus of MOS:JA), and nobody in this discussion has suggested Shizuoka, Shizuoka was better than any of the alternatives. If you disagree with <City>, <Prefecture> (as many of us do), then bring it up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles. Do you understand yet how off-topic your comments are? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 03:52, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Do you think that a significant percentage of readers are looking for the disambiguation page? If not, why send them there? If you think the prefecture is the primary topic, then the Shizuoka lemma should lead the prefecture. Otherwise, it's available for the city article to use. There are only two relevant topics here, so a hatnote on the primary topic page sufficient. We should not have a disambiguation page with only two options, per WP:TWODABS. Clued (talk) 01:17, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Clued:: (a) there aren't only two relevant topics there—click through and see (b) per WP:TWODABS: "If there are only two topics to which a given title might refer, but per the criteria at Is there a primary topic? there is no primary topic, then the base name should lead the reader to the disambiguation page for the term." Neither term is the primary topic, as years of dispute has determined. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

There is no criteria that would prevent us from making either article primary topic. Wiki's article on the city is what comes up first on Bing. Merriam-Webster has an entry only for the city and nothing for the prefecture. The current setup creates an extra step for the reader for no good reason that I can see. If you don't want to make a "judgement call," don't vote! Clued (talk) 07:37, 17 October 2014 (UTC) (sock)

I'm looking at that Bing search right now, and the first hit is for www.pref.shizuoka.jp/a_foreign/english/index.html. The first hit for the city is the fifth result. I haven't the slightest clue what your "If you don't want to make a "judgement call," don't vote!" gibberish was supposed to mean. Please don't bother explaining—it doesn't appear that anyone but me was bothering to pay attention, and I'm going to stop now. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 07:53, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

When all else fails, bring out the personal attacks. I was referring to the remark "I'd prefer not to have to make the judgment call," made by Margin1522 just below. I take this to be quite revealing and representative of the logic employed by opposers. Clued (talk) 08:07, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

"Personal attacks"? "When all else fails", indeed. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 09:34, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

You feel insulted? Coming from Mr. "Trolling," "Gibberish," and "pay attention," it must be something pretty serious. Clued (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Yep, you're here to troll. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:12, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britannica, on the other hand, only has an entry for the prefecture and nothing for the city. Not sure what citing either Webster's or EB proves, or if either should be what determines the final result of this discussion. The fact that Websters doesn't have an entry for the prefecture doesn't mean there's no prefecture any more than the fact that EB doesn't have an entry for the city doesn't mean there's no city. - Marchjuly (talk) 08:46, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

• Britannica has both. See here and here. Clued (talk) 08:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the additional link. When I searched "Shizuoka" at global.britannica.com only "Shizuoka (prefecture)" came up, so my bad. Anyway, I am still not sure what citing either Webster's or EB proves with respect to whether the prefecture is named after the city or vice versa, which seems to be the main reason this move is being proposed. - Marchjuly (talk) 09:10, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

The title of an article is supposed to be the name of the subject, which both Britannica and Merriam-Webster give as "Shizuoka." I have no interest in whether the city was name after after the prefecture or not. Clued (talk) 05:29, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Britannica gives plain "Shizuoka" as the title of both the prefecture and the city, so what are you proposing you've proved? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:38, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Clued: You posted aboveWP:NCGN tells us to follow Merriam-Webster., but I can't find that at all anywhere in WP:NCGN. The closet I could find was "For spelling of place names, a good reference is Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary." in WP:WIAN. I don't think anybody is disputing the spelling of "Shizuoka" and there's sort of a difference between "tells us to follow" and "a good reference is", isn't there? Moreover, I'm not sure if Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary and the merriam-webster.com you've cited above are one in the same; Same company for sure, but not the same "book". Is it possible that the MW Geographical Dictionary has an entry for "Shizuoka" (the prefecture) since it seems to be more for names of places, etc. Furthermore, WP:NCGN#Japan says for Japan to "See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) which brings us back to MOS:JAPAN#Place names which makes no mention at all of referring to any dictionaries or encyclopedias. Finally, I think which is the "primary namegiver" is relevant because that seems to be the main reason given for proposing this move, and that was also the main reason given in the edit sums of other similar page moves. The assumption made seems to be that in every case where a city and a prefecture share a name, the city is without a doubt the primary namegiver. That is something that is simply not true in my opinion. - Marchjuly (talk) 09:32, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Despite all the moving around and various solutions that have been tried over the years, it does not appear that the prefecture has ever been primary topic, nor is anyone arguing for this. So I look at the issue as disambiguation page vs. city. Oxford gives the city and only the city. (So it is not the case that "the British" call this subject "Shizuoka City.") Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the reference most widely used by American copy editors, does the same. The current setup is a striking odd solution to a common problem. After all, there are hatenotes that were created to deal with exactly this situation. The RMs create consensus and the guidelines should be written to reflect their results. Since Shizuoka is a "designated city," the Japan MOS doesn't support the current format anyway. Clued (talk) 19:12, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

it does not appear that the prefecture has ever been primary topic: It was the primary topic in 2005, and it was over five months before someone turned it into a redirect.

Since Shizuoka is a "designated city," the Japan MOS doesn't support the current format anyway: amazing you could say this, when I've already quoted the Japan MOS saying unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary.

You keep quoting dictionaries as if they somehow carry more weight than all the other sources that have been presented so far. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:27, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Clued: Did you edit part of my previous post or was it just some kind of glitch? If you did edit it, then was it accidental or was it in some way inappropriate. I'm assuming good faith here, but I am a little curious.

Also, I'm still not sure where it says in WP:NCGN that we are supposed to "follow" any dictionary at all, it only says they are "a good reference" for "spelling". WP:WIAN does say, among other things, "Disinterested, authoritative reference works are almost always reliable if they are current. Examples include: major English-language encyclopedias (examples: Encyclopædia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia)". I am assuming from its name that EB is just as British as the Oxford Dictionary, and it has entries for the city and the prefecture. Should we consider it to be not "current" in this particular case because it doesn't differentiate between the two?- Marchjuly (talk) 01:11, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

WIAN is a shortcut to a section of NCGN, not a different guideline. The headquarters of Britannica was moved to Chicago back in 1920. Both Britannica and Columbia follow The Chicago Manual of Style and therefore Merriam Webster Geographical Dictionary. I would think that would be all the more reason for Wiki to follow this style as well. Columbia's only Shizuoka entry is for the city. This RM is the about the name of the city. If you want to discuss the name of the prefecture, you can open another RM on that page. Clued (talk) 10:42, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Wrong: Columbia's Shizuoka entry is a combined one on both the prefecture and the city, giving preference to neither—notice how half the entry is "Shizuoka prefecture (1990 pop. 3,670,891), 3,000 sq mi (7,770 sq km), is the chief tea-producing area of Japan. Fishing is important, and motor vehicles, ships, and textiles are also produced. In the prefecture is the celebrated volcano Mt. Fuji and the Izu Peninsula, a popular tourist attraction." The fact that the population figures are in 1990 numbers tells us the entry isn't particularly up to date—particularly egragious with the city, which has had a number of mergers since 2003 that have nearly doubled both its population and area. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Wrong, yourself. The Columbia entry opens, "Shizuoka (shĭzōˈôkä) [key], city (1990 pop. 472,196), capital of Shizuoka prefecture." Encarta's entry is also for the city (and it uses the 2007 population figures). MWGD has a definition 1 for the prefecture and definition 2 for the city. Despite being listed second, the entry for the city is significantly more detailed. Does anyone want to make the prefecture primary topic? If not, it shouldn't stand in way of this move. Clued (talk) 14:44, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

"Wrong yourself"?!? I said it was a joint entry (it is), half of it is the prefecture (it is), and the information is woefully out of date (it is). What was supposed to be wrong again? You've also completely ignored every other piece of evidence I've brought to this discussion—the prefecture article gets double the page hits, Google gives us several times more articles on the prefecture than the city, the city was named after the prefecture, the city isn't even the largest in the prefecture, other sources use the headword for both the prefecture and the city, etc etc etc. Any evidence you manage to dig up will have to overwhelm all of that evidence already presented. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:17, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

If you have ever taken a writing class, you know that the first sentence of a paragraph is supposed to be the “topic sentence.” It follows that the topic of the entry in Columbia is the city and not the prefecture. I hope I have cited enough references by now to establish that the name of this city is plain old “Shizuoka,” as opposed to “Shizuoka, Shizuoka,” “Shizuoka City,” or some other such variant. So why can’t the city be move to its actual name? Onlv because there is a disambiguation page in the way. But this DAB is unnecessary under our guidelines. It exists to create a pretext to prevent the city from being moved to the base name, and thus avoid the horror of having to make a “judgment call” between the city and the prefecture. Clued (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

*(Note: I've moved the above post by Clued per WP:TPG#Fixing layout errors and per WP:INDENT#Indentation examples#3 because I think it is intended to be a direct reply to the post by Curly Turkey located directly above it. Moving the post here seems to make the discussion easier to follow, but if this is incorrect, please revert. - Marchjuly (talk) 22:21, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Passing over the implied ad hominem that we disagree on titling because none of us know how to write ... and the idea that we should simply discard all other evidence (you have yet even to acknowledge anyof it) because of what a woefully out-of-date source has fudged ... the most astounding implication is that the half of the article dedicated to the Prefecture is simply part of the body of the article on the city (and not a formatting error). C'mon, Clued—let's see you say that out loud! Your argument, in fact, depends on it. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:22, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Clued, I understand that WIAN is part of NCGN; However, I still don't see where either of the two "tells us to follow Merriam-Webster" as you posted above. Sorry for repeating myself, but all it says is that the Merriam Webster's Geographic Dictionary is a good guide for verifying spelling. MWGD as you point out has a listing for both under "Shizuoka". Furthermore, MW's website says that it is an "Encyclopaedia Britannica Company", which as you also pointed out above has a listing for both under "Shizuoka". To be honest, I am still having a hard time understanding why these dictionary or encyclopedia entries should be the sole determining factor in this. - Marchjuly (talk) 15:09, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• Some stats: Shizuoka Prefecture gets nearly triple the page hits that Shizuoka, Shizuoka gets. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 06:07, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - As somebody who has lived in Japan for over 20 years, "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" sounds strange to me. However, I agree with Curly Turkey in that the prefecture, not the city, is the primary name giver in this case. So, if "city is the primary namegiver" is the only reason that this move is being proposed, then I think it should be opposed. I would also like to point out that the same reasoning was used for a similar name change made to Saitama with this edit , even though the city was not founded until 2001 (it was the result of the merger of three other cities), the origin of the name is explained in some detail in Saitama#Name and "Saitama Prefecture" seems to have been viewed almost five times more than "Saitama" over the past 90 days. This leads me to think that this reasoning is possibly being indiscriminately applied to all Japanese cities who have the same name as their prefecture without much consideration being given to each specific case; In other words, simply changing the name for the sake of a name change. This seems to be contrary to the spirit of Robert McClenon's close at RfC: Mandatory disambiguation for Japanese places? Personally, I think "Shizuoka City" is preferable to both "Shizuoka, Shizuoka" and "Shizuoka", but as Curly Turkey rightly points out, that is a discussion best left for another time and place. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:29, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Procedural comment, again. This is clearly an issue that does not just relate to Shizuoka, as many other prefectural capitals were also moved to base names without discussion, with disambiguation pages sometimes outright removed along the way. I have reverted such changes to Ōita, Ōita, Tokushima, Tokushima, Tottori, Tottori, Wakayama, Wakayama, Fukui, Fukui, Gifu, Gifu, Nagano, Nagano, Chiba, Chiba, Toyama, Toyama, and Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi as far as I could (I'm sure many redirect distinctions have passed away already) because these changes are clearly not uncontroversial. I have also notified WP:MOS-JP of the ongoing discussion here, and will mention to them that other prefectures are also involved. I don't intend to get involved here personally, but whether or not these moves are also deprecated by the MOS, I have to say that I'm surprised someone would make the argument that the cities (some of which are not even the biggest in their prefectures) are of more importance than the prefectures, particularly based on the putative processes by which the prefectures got their names. Dekimasuよ! 07:31, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose – I guess I'm opposed, though not strongly. Simply "Shizuoka" would require a hatnote and a judgment call. I'm fine with the hatnote, but the judgment call is a bit more tricky. Some people are going to argue with good reason that in this or that particular case the city or the prefecture is more important. I'd prefer not to have to make the judgment call. If people don't like "Gifu, Gifu" and so on, perhaps we could insert a specific exception of some kind in the MOS for when double names would occur. ("Shizuoka, Japan" wouldn't work because there are still two Shizuokas in Japan.) – Margin1522 (talk) 12:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose – Per the reasons stated above. There is nothing wrong with this type of disambiguation, and it is plenty helpful. RGloucester — ☎ 16:21, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose – What we are deciding here is whether the city is the primary topic for the title, not whether the form [[{city-name}, {prefecture-name}]] is the best form in this case. Please examine the table in the discussion section below. This shows the 20 "designated cities" (the largest cities in Japan, excepting Tokyo), of which half share the same name as their prefecture. Sort on the percentage of the prefecture's population housed in its namesake city; observe that ranges from 8 to 56. I believe that we have a de facto criteria for determining primary topic for these ten cities: the seven whose percentage of their prefecture's population is 29% or more are all primary topic for their name; Fukuoka sets the minimum standard for meeting this criteria. This is confirmed by the case of Niigata, Niigata, the one city moved by the nominator September 10 which was not reverted, and which is semi-confirmed by the requested move at Talk:Niigata which moved it to a form not supported by the manual of style. This cities' percentage is higher than that of Osaka. Three cities fail to reach the bar, and by a substantial margin: Shizuoka, Shizuoka (19%), Saitama, Saitama (17%), and Chiba, Chiba (15%). In effect, this RM was to determine whether to lower the bar below 20%, and I believe there is no consensus to do that. However, given these three cities' government-designated status, I feel that they are due some special respect in the form of an exception to the naming conventions, and there are several options for that. But that would be the subject of a new discussion. – Wbm1058 (talk) 23:19, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

  I note that, after I mentioned it above, Niigata has been moved back to Niigata, Niigata. This in a way pokes a little hole in my reasoning above, in that it calls into doubt my proposition that population ratio is the de facto determining factor for primary topic. However it does confirm in another way my conclusion that this page should not be moved, as this indicates that this city may not be the city which is at the margins for determining where to draw the lines for primary topic. It suggests that the best place to test the margins should be either opening a new RM at Talk:Niigata, Niigata to confirm that the city is still not the primary topic; or an RM to move Fukuoka to Fukuoka, Fukuoka, as Fukuoka is not a particularly well-known city to me, and with a population of less than 30% of Fukuoka Prefecture, I'm now not seeing what the basis is for making that city a primary topic. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:43, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

  Now I note that, with a population of 1.4 million, Fukuoka ranks as the 6th or 7th largest city in Japan. Whereas Niigata, Niigata only has some 800 thousand. This points to the de facto formula being a more complex one that takes into account the city's population rank in Japan. That further confirms my oppose of this move, as the population of Shizuoka, Shizuoka (700 thousand) is smaller than that of Niigata city. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:10, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• I'm not at all familiar with Japanese political divisions, and have no idea how the people who actually live in the prefecture disambiguate that from the city. I know that New York can be ambiguous. I had to click on the link to find out whether Wikipedia's primary topic was the city or state, or neither. If you live in the city, that's more likely to be primary, and if you live upstate, then the state is primary. You disambiguate by saying New York City rather than New York, New York (although everyone understands the latter). Picking one as the primary topic isn't easy; there are about 800 links to the city and 1650 links to the prefecture, so the prefecture leads 2 to 1. My inclination is to follow the lead of the Japanese, from ja:静岡市 I see that Google Chrome translates it to "Shizuoka", but I don't know if something was lost in the translation. It helpfully suggests that the British call it Shizuoka City, so I'd suggest a compromise on that. Regarding the issue that many other prefectural capitals share their name with their prefecture, I think we should take them on a case-by-case basis. While NYC vs. state is certainly debatable, no one would argue for California, California being primary for California. Shizuoka City has a population of 723,000, while the prefecture has some 3 million more people than that. Perhaps that's why the prefecture competes for primary topic. Maybe there are some prefectures where two-thirds or more of the residents live in the capital city? – Wbm1058 (talk) 22:24, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Ahem. The title was Shizuoka City until somebody moved it on 14 January 2013 . Wbm1058 (talk) 22:31, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

So Ryulong created this problem. Why am I not surprised? Clued (talk) 08:32, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Holy Christ—are you just trolling? The Shizuoka, Shizuoka page was [created in 2004, and you're claiming Ryulong (who joined Wikipedia in 2006) "created this problem" in 2013?!? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 09:31, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Given that this is you're editing history (and you know how to perform such a search), it's amazing you could have this thing against Ryulong (or anbody). Who are (or were) you, really? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 09:55, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I sense that you have been under a lot of stress lately. Perhaps it's time to take advantage of the tea leaves and scenic view of Mount Fuji available in your area.[1] Clued (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you should answer the question. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:17, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Actually, if you go through the edit history, you'll see that the title has been moved back and forth quite a number of times. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:45, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Just to clarify: In "静岡市", "静岡" is "Shizuoka" and "市" is "-shi", meaning "city". That doesn't quite help us here, though, as "-shi" is not being used for disambiguation—every "-shi"-city in Japan is appended with "市" on the Japanese Wikipedia. "Shizuoka City" is a very common way to translate "静岡市", but the city government itself uses "City of Shizuoka". While I'd prefer "Shizuoka City", it appears that "Shizuoka-shi" gets triple the hits of "Shizuoka City". Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Throw out this request, it's off base. Look at that move log. Do we have this much disagreement over New York, New York? I want to be a part of it... it's up to you Wikipedia, Wikipedia ;0) Wbm1058 (talk) 22:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the proposer's original rationale. Osaka. Second-biggest metropolis in Japan; 19 million residents in the metro area. Osaka Prefecture, population 8,864,228. That's why we don't need to call it Osaka City or Osaka, Osaka. It's more than double the size of the prefecture that it's supposedly "inside" of. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:14, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

The good news here is that this is well-disambiguated. There is only one stray link to Shizuoka. I'm quite content to leave that dab page as-is. Oppose this request. – Wbm1058 (talk) 23:52, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Shizuoka (city) would be a viable alternative for those who think that City of Shizuoka is correct, and Shizuoka City is wrong. I have no idea which of those is "correct". Wbm1058 (talk) 01:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem with any of those suggestions is that they all contradict MOS:JAPAN, which requires <City>, <Prefecture> as disambiguation. A discussion would have to be opened there to change the MoS to allow such a thing. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:10, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/City naming. So, it seems that in English these are handled differently than in Japanese. If Japanese followed the same convention, then it would be "静岡, 静岡" (or subst: the Japanese equivalent of a comma), rather than "静岡市". These "X, X" names seem almost the rule, rather than the exception in Japan, whereas in the US, I can't readily think of any significant examples outside of New York and Kansas (which is always called Kansas City). Though you may be more likely to find counties and county seats sharing the same name (in those cases the city is generally primary topic over the county). – Wbm1058 (talk) 03:50, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

In everyday Japanese, it would be <Prefecture>県<City>市 with no space or punctuation in between (addresses go from largest to smallest in Japanese). On Japanese Wikipedia, when disambiguation is needed they do <City>市 (<Prefecture>県), with a space in between. No matter what, the "市" ("city") is automatic. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 04:55, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

No disrespect intended Wbm1058, but I don't think you'd ever see a Japanese person use simply because that's not really correct Japanese. If anything, it would be written as (with no comma) simply because that is the way addresses are commonly written. There is, however, no need to do such a thing because the characters 県 (ken) for "prefecture" and 市 (shi) for "city" are more that sufficient to differentiate the two. Characters like 都, 府, 市, 町, 村, 州 , 区, etc. pretty much make the "same name" problem a non issue in Japanese. When are two or more cities, etc. with the same name, Japanese Wikipedia uses parenthetical disambiguation like here and here to make the distinction. "Comma-separated disambiguation" is not really used because commas are not really used in Japanese in exactly the same way as they are used in English. - Marchjuly (talk) 04:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Oops. Not trying to pile on. I was editing when Curly Turkey posted, so was unaware and wasn't intentionally trying to repeat what they said. - Marchjuly (talk) 05:07, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

No problem, both of your explanations were helpful. As I look at examples from other languages, I see that English is something of an outlier. French, German and Spanish (fr:Shizuoka, de:Shizuoka, es:Shizuoka) all make the city the primary topic. Portuguese and Dutch (pt:Shizuoka (cidade) and nl:Shizuoka (stad)) disambiguate with (city). None of these use <City>, <Prefecture> that the English MOS calls for. I see the MOS makes exception for "designated cities". Maybe you can make another little exception for cases where <City> and <Prefecture> are identical. You don't have a lot of guidance to go on regarding that from English (though perhaps someone from the UK or Australia could give their perspective). "New York, New York" is fine for an address on an envelope, but clunky in regular speech – on the dab page you just see songs using that, but songs like to repeat themselves. – Wbm1058 (talk) 12:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

General Comment

The very top of WP:NCGN says This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. Discussing this in good faith is what we are doing now, so if the consensus is for this page move, then I will accept it regardless. We are, however, entering the fourth day of discussion and it has sort of devolved into both sides repeating the same arguments back and forth. (This is just a statement of fact as I see things, not intended to assign blame to any particular person or persons.) So, I'm not sure where we should go from here. Does anyone you have any suggestions? There's seems to be, in my opinion, a consensus against this move, but there are still 3 more days left to discuss. Do we simply wait until time is up and the votes are tallied up? WP:NOCONSENSUS says In article title discussions, no consensus has two defaults: If an article title has been stable for a long time, then the long-standing article title is kept. If it has never been stable, or has been unstable for a long time, then it is moved to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub. Would the article's current title be considered "stable"? It seems to be according to this move log, so that means we go back to "Shizuoka, Shizuoka", right? Where do we go back to if the title is deemed unstable? - Marchjuly (talk) 01:36, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

The title is not ever just deemed permanently unstable; rather, we go back to whatever the last title was that could reasonably be considered stable, and call that the "stable title." I have noted in one of my procedural comments above that I believe the stable title to be Shizuoka, Shizuoka, but I will not be the one closing this move request; I also think that it is likely that the comments will reflect a general consensus as to what to do here. Dekimasuよ! 00:19, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification Dekimasu. - Marchjuly (talk) 12:03, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Rebooting the discussion

Just an analysis here; I don't know what conclusions can be drawn. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles § Place names says to use the form [[{city-name}, {prefecture-name}]], with the exception of designated cities, which use [[{city-name}]] without appending the prefecture unless disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary. Shizuoka is one of just twenty such designated cities, so the exception applies here—however, how to determine whether "disambiguation from another city or prefecture is necessary" is left unsaid. Perhaps a closer look at the designated cities will be helpful.

Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan

#	City name	Population (2010) [x]	Date of designation	Region	Prefecture	Population (2011) [y]	Pct. in city ([x]/[y])	Same name?
1	Chiba, Chiba	962,130	1992-04-01	Kantō	Chiba Prefecture	6,214,148	15	Y
2	Fukuoka	1,463,826	1972-04-01	Kyushu	Fukuoka Prefecture	5,079,291	29	Y
3	Hamamatsu	800,912	2007-04-01	Chūbu	Shizuoka Prefecture	3,749,274	21	N
4	Hiroshima	1,174,209	1980-04-01	Chūgoku	Hiroshima Prefecture	2,855,045	41	Y
5	Kawasaki, Kanagawa	1,425,678	1972-04-01	Kantō	Kanagawa Prefecture	9,058,094	16	N
6	Kitakyushu	977,288	1963-04-01	Kyushu	Fukuoka Prefecture	5,079,291	19	N
7	Kobe	1,544,873	1956-09-01	Kansai	Hyōgo Prefecture	5,581,968	28	N
8	Kumamoto	731,286	2012-04-01	Kyushu	Kumamoto Prefecture	1,812,575	40	Y
9	Kyoto	1,474,473	1956-09-01	Kansai	Kyoto Prefecture	2,631,671	56	Y
10	Nagoya	2,263,907	1956-09-01	Chūbu	Aichi Prefecture	7,416,336	31	N
11	Niigata, Niigata	812,192	2007-04-01	Chūbu	Niigata Prefecture	2,362,158	34	Y
12	Okayama	709,622	2009-04-01	Chūgoku	Okayama Prefecture	1,940,559	37	Y
13	Osaka	2,666,371	1956-09-01	Kansai	Osaka Prefecture	8,861,012	30	Y
14	Sagamihara	717,561	2010-04-01	Kantō	Kanagawa Prefecture	9,058,094	8	N
15	Saitama, Saitama	1,222,910	2003-04-01	Kantō	Saitama Prefecture	7,207,139	17	Y
16	Sakai, Osaka	842,134	2006-04-01	Kansai	Osaka Prefecture	8,861,012	10	N
17	Sapporo	1,914,434	1972-04-01	Hokkaido	Hokkaido	5,485,952	35	N
18	Sendai	1,045,903	1989-04-01	Tōhoku	Miyagi Prefecture	2,326,735	45	N
19	Shizuoka, Shizuoka	716,328	2005-04-01	Chūbu	Shizuoka Prefecture	3,749,274	19	Y
20	Yokohama	3,689,603	1956-09-01	Kantō	Kanagawa Prefecture	9,058,094	41	N

Shizuoka is thus one of five or six of the 20 designated cities which is not the primary topic for its name (Niigata, Niigata was recently moved to Niigata, a move which has not yet been reverted. See Talk:Niigata for a similar requested move discussion, which moved that to Niigata (city) for some time.) One thing I notice is the absence of Tokyo in this list. Tokyo is one of only two of the 47 prefectures of Japan that doesn't include the word "prefecture" in its article title (the northern island prefecture Hokkaido is the other). In these two cases, I think the primary meaning is "metropolis" and "island" rather than "prefecture". Indeed there is a Tokyo Metropolis article, which is tagged for merging into the "prefecture" article, which is not to be confused with the historical Tokyo Prefecture article, which informs us that Tokyo Prefecture is a former Japanese government entity. Really? Sigh.

So, looking at the second largest prefecture, Iwate, why is there no primary topic? Iwate Prefecture, with over a million people, needs to add the naturally disambiguating term "Prefecture" to disambiguate it from the town of Iwate, Iwate, which has all of 14 thousand people? I guess it needs to do this because it is neither an island or a metropolis? This is kind of like needing the title Maine (U.S. state) or State of Maine, because Maine, Maine exists? (Good luck finding that place on a regular highway map)

I see. Going back to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles § Place names: For prefectures, use the form [[{prefecture-name} Prefecture]] without ken (県), fu (府), or to (都); for example, Tochigi Prefecture. Exception: Use Tokyo and Hokkaido without "Prefecture" as this is common usage. So, Shizuoka Prefecture is "common usage", therefore it is commonly understood that Shizuoka by itself does not refer to the prefecture, because if it did, then "prefecture" would be (commonly) appended to the name. So this request should be completed, per the MOS for Japan, because Shizuoka is a designated city and disambiguation from another city or prefecture is not necessary. Surely Shizuoka Domain does not require disambiguation. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:43, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

• Re: Hokkaido and Tokyo—we don't say "Hokkaido Prefecture" because the "do" in "Hokkaido" carries the meaning of "prefecture"—it would be like saying "Hokkai Prefecture Prefecture". Hokkaido is a special case as the "prefecture" suffix is never dropped in either Japanese or English. The Tokyo situation is currently under discussion.
• Re: Iwate—that discussion was from 2010. I'm surprised it slipped under the radar, as the move was in violation of MOS:JAPAN when it was made.
• Re: Shizuoka Prefecture is "common usage"—this is reading too much into "Use Tokyo and Hokkaido without "Prefecture" as this is common usage." Also, keep in mind that the MoS has been going through changes—until recently all cities had to be "disambiguated" whether they needed it or not, and so did all prefectures. For instance, Ehime Prefecture is still required to be "disambiguated", even though there's no Ehime, Ehime to disambiguate from. This is a relic of the old rules that has yet to be purged from the text of the MoS.
• The table you've provided doesn't include some important numbers, such as that Metropolitan Osaka (which is what most people mean when they say "Osaka") has a larger population than Osaka Prefecture. Shizuoka, on the other hand, tends to refer to the prefecture—when someone says they're taking a trip to Shizuoka to visit Mt Fuji, they aren't talking about the city. The city makes up only about a fifth of the population of the prefecture (and only became that big after merging with Shimizu in 2003), and isn't even the largest city in the prefecture (that's Hamamatsu).
• Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:39, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, Hokkai Prefecture is a red-link. Why does the article say it means "Northern Sea Circuit" rather than "Northern Sea Circuit Prefecture"? Right, what most people mean when they say "Osaka" is Keihanshin, because the latter is a term for Osaka metropolitan area that most people haven't heard of. I think you're referring to the discussion at Talk:Niigata, not Iwate. So right, if I say I'm traveling to Iwate, then I assume that most would interpret that as the prefecture rather than the small town with the same name. So why are we forcing the title to include "Prefecture", when the general guidance at WP:CONCISE says it's not necessary? I believe that only Washington state requires disambiguation in the United States, but for Japan practically everything requires disambiguation. Why is that? That combined with the aversion to parenthetical (city) disambiguation is creating all this momentum towards moving titles to city-name primary topics! - Wbm1058 (talk) 23:00, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, what most people mean when they say "Osaka" is Keihanshin, because the latter is a term for Osaka metropolitan area that most people haven't heard of. Sorry, but I completely disagree, especially if you're referring to Japanese people. When a (Japanese) person says "They are from Osaka", they mean exactly what Curly Turkey has said above. A Japanese person living in either Kobe or Kyoto ("The "kei" and "shin" of "Keihanshin") would not say I live in Osaka. They might say they are from Kansai, but I have never heard anyone say they are from "Keihanshin". Keihashin is, in my opinion, not really used to describe the Osaka Metropolitan area at all. It's seems to be only used when describing those three particular cities as a unit such as in a proper name of a store or train line. Things are similar for Kanto. A person living in Saitama, Yokohama or Chiba would not say they are from Tokyo. They might say they are from Kanto, but they would most definitely not say they are from "Saikyo", "Keihin" or "Keiyo", respectively. Those words exist and are used as proper nouns, but only in certain situations. CurlyTurkey point about the difference between "I'm from Osaka" and "I'm from Shizuoka" is quite valid in my opinion, at least based upon my experience. This is why according to MoS Japan, Osaka doesn't require "Osaka, Osaka". Over the years, whenever I have seen/heard Tokyo, Hiroshima (obvious reason), Osaka, Nagasaki (again obvious), Nagano (maybe because of the 1998 Olympics) discussed by the non-Japanese media, it has almost always been in reference to the city itself and not the prefecture. I can't say the same for other cities like Chiba, Saitama, Akita, Yamaguchi, Okayama, Shizuoka, etc.,

I'm not sure what "Hokkai Prefecture" is, but it is not a Japanese prefecture. The name is "Hokkaido", and it's never referred to by the Japanese as "Hokkai-ken" or "Hokkaido-ken". Perhaps related in a way, are the ways that Japanese mountains are sometimes referred to in English, for example, "Mount Daisen". The name in Japanese is "Daisen" and the "sen" means "mountain" just like the "do" in Hokkaido means "prefecture". A Japanese person, however, would never say "Daisen-san" or "Daisen-yama". "Daisen" is almost always referred to as "Mt. Daisen" in English whenever I have heard it discussed by non-Japanese speakers, and simply just as "Daisen" when I've heard it discussed by Japanese speakers. For what it's worth, there is also a in Kanagawa Prefecture, but it is known as "Ōyama" and not "Ōyama-yama" or "Ōyama-san" in Japanese and simply "Mount Ōyama in English. I have even seen "Fuji-san", Mount Fuji, occasionally referred to as "Mount Fujiyama" [2] even though that's like saying "Fuijiyama-san" in Japanese. Marchjuly (talk) 01:46, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, my statement about Keihanshin was a bit tongue-in-cheek. When I said "most people", I really meant "most people not from Japan". I get it. It's like saying that someone from Bridgeport or Newark was from New York. Well, yes and no. I appreciate the information, but it's a bit off-topic towards resolving this. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

You're right. My reply was wordy for sure so I apologize for that. My opinion is that for certain Japanese cities whose names are the same as their home prefectures, it's the city, not the prefecture, which first comes to mind regardless. For other cities, however, it is not so clear and in many cases actually seems to be the other way around. I think Shizuoka is one of those other cities. I'm not sure if this is relevant, but these Japan Times articles all have "Shizuoka" in their titles [3], and although sometimes it's used to refer to the city, most of the time it appears to be used for the prefecture. Perhaps the JT stuff is biased because it a Japanese daily. Personally, I think that "Shizuoka (city) or "Shizuoka City" are better, but that's not the way things are currently done. I'm not sure if we can say that the city is the primary topic the vast majority of the time, which seems to me to be what moving the page to "Shizuoka" would, at least to me, imply and which seems to be why this move was proposed in the first place. - Marchjuly (talk) 04:14, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Sapporo says in its lead: "it is the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture". Does that need correction? Wbm1058 (talk) 23:17, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

There are a lot of links to "Hokkaido Prefecture", but that redundancy is probably harmless, like "ATM machine". Wbm1058 (talk) 23:44, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that the "dō" in "Hokkaidō" translates as "Prefecture"—it doesn't. In Japanese they use the term 都道府県 "to-dō-fu-ken" to refer to the administration level that includes ken prefectures, the to metropolis (Tokyo), the two fu urban prefectures, and the dō "circuit" or "territory" that is Hokkaidō. The en.wp article lumps these all together in the Prefectures of Japan article. "Hakkaido Prefecture" definitely shouldn't be in the Sapporo article, though it's harmless. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 08:59, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I see: Prefecture § Japanese sense of prefecture: 47 prefectures, or 1 to, 1 dō, 2 fu, and 43 ken. So the convention seems to be: Include "Prefecture" in the article titles of fu and ken, but not to or dō. As one of the two fu, Osaka is also something of a special case. The designated city is the primary topic rather than Osaka Prefecture. Whereas Tokyo Prefecture, the only "metropolitan prefecture", is the primary topic (there is no "designated city" Tokyo). So, to resolve this specific move request, perhaps we should just focus on the 43 ken, and how these relate to cities—especially designated cities—that share the same name. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:19, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

My own thinking is we should only give either the prefecture or the city the bare title when it's clear that it is overwhelmingly the Primary Topic. To me, "overwhelmingly" cannot mean 60%–40% or 70%–30%, but more like with Hiroshima and Hiroshima Prefecture where (a) it's obvious—without resorting to the MoS—why the city should use the bare title, and (b) viewer stats show that the city gets nearly ten times more hits than the prefecture. I think they way they're disambiguated (or not) already reflects the consensus on those cities and prefectures—if any of the are actual issues, they should be dealt with individually. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:08, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I would say that the same reasoning would also apply to Nagasaki for sure and maybe Nagano (because Olympics tend to be closely associated with the names of cities). However, I think that Shizuoka and the other Japanese cities which share a name with their home prefecture should adhere to the current WP:MOSJAPAN#Place names as closely as possible since unless it can be clearly shown that the city is the primary topic. If MoS Japan is problematic, then a change to that should be discussed there. On this talk, we should try to stick to Shizuoka as much as possible (I am guilty of going off-topic so I'm not trying to sound self-righteous). I don't think it's been clearly shown that the city is the primary topic in this case and, therefore, there's no reason to believe that Shizuoka should be treated as an "occasional exception". WP:2DAB says If there are only two topics to which a given title might refer, but per the criteria at Is there a primary topic? there is no primary topic, then the base name should lead the reader to the disambiguation page for the term. Even though "Shizuoka" lists three articles, "Shizuoka Domain" seems to me to be really a minor mention, so we have essentially only two pages to really worry about. Even though the prefecture article is titled "Shizuoka Prefecture", I think the current Shizuoka works well as is and should remain the disambiguation page. - Marchjuly (talk) 03:05, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I see that List of Japanese prefectures by population identifies them by -ken and -fu, etc., and List of Japanese cities by population puts all of the government ordinance cities at the top of the list, ahead of the core and special cities, so the criteria for determining an ordinance city seems to be based on population. Right, as an American who has never visited Japan, I know of the two major cities/metropolitan areas Tokyo and Osaka, then beyond that I know of cities because (a) a really nasty bomb was dropped on them, (b) they hosted an Olympics or (c) a well-known treaty is named after them. So these {city-name}, {prefecture-name} cities are not familiar to me beyond this discussion. I said at the start of this discussion that "we should take them on a case-by-case basis" and I still think that's how the cases at the margins will be decided, however I also believe that surveying the ordinance cities and prefectures as a whole can provide useful information to help decide selected individual cases, and indeed confirm that we are deciding cases at the margins. A look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) can be useful too, for comparison with other country conventions; I see that WP:UKPLACE says When the city and the county use variants of the same name (and disambiguation is required) disambiguate with England for clarity throughout the English-speaking world; thus Lincoln, England, not Lincoln, Lincolnshire, which leads to the solution Shizuoka, Japan—hey, that redirects to Shizuoka Prefecture, implying that the prefecture is the primary topic, which is inconsistent with Shizuoka saying that there is no primary topic! Shizuoka, Chūbu—using the region rather than the country—is a red link. I can see where having no primary topic can be desirable, e.g., looking at the bio of Momoko Tsugunaga, it is not clear whether she was born in Chiba City or not; all that is certain is that she was born somewhere in the prefecture Chiba, Japan. WP:USPLACE provides yet another means for determining primary topic cities: "Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier in newspaper articles have their articles named [[City]] unless they are not the primary or only topic for that name. In other cases, this guideline recommends following the "comma convention" as described above." I don't know whether there might be any similar newspaper stylebooks for Japan. To be continued... but feel free to reply while I continue my analysis. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:51, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I've updated the table above to add my calculations of the percentage of their prefecture's population that each designated city holds, and am now ready to !vote for real. See above. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:19, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Comments for the closing administrator

• Ongoing SPI - closer should strike through any socks before closing In ictu oculi (talk) 17:22, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

  Just noting the limited contributions of Clued, a majority of which are contributions to this discussion. – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:15, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

  Subsequently indefinitely blocked via checkuser; matched to "Voice of reason" in the prior section above. Dekimasuよ! 21:11, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

  Wow—I never would have guessed (no sarcasm). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:34, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Further comments possibly to self

I'm not ready to close this, it will take some time and if some other admin wishes to do so fine. My thoughts so far may help. All please feel free to add to them if you feel it will help.

Looking at WP:AT and MOS:JAPAN#Place names, I see no mention of our correcting the common English language names of Japan-related articles to conform to our own attempts at translation (however expert). I'm tempted to just ignore all contributions in the above poll and discussion of those who have argued along the lines that they can translate more correctly than is commonly done in reliable English language sources, unless they later clearly recognised this as a mistake. That cuts down the workload of wading through the discussion quite a lot.

This is of course ad hominem to some extent, hence the invitation to admit to the mistake. But it does reflect a deep lack of understanding of Wikipedia's fundamental principles IMO, and might be the only practical way of sorting through such a convoluted discussion. Or so it seems to me at this stage.

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Translation note seems of similarly dubious status, note particularly that it is a talk page not a project page, the corresponding project page does not exist. But well to be aware that it exists, and assume good faith on the part of the contributors there of course.

This anomaly should probably be brought to the attention of WP:WikiProject Japan, whose banner already appears on the page. Another anomaly is that the talk page is flagged as subject to sanctions per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation, but doesn't seem to get a mention there. Curiouser and curiouser. Where does one discuss a talk page, I wonder? Particularly one that is allegedly under sanctions? Here perhaps? Andrewa (talk) 15:05, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't follow where you are coming from in these comments. Searching the talk page for "translat", I see that I first brought that up, in what is now the "discussion" section of the RM, there are no arguments around this in the !voting section. Your comments here seem to miss the mark. Perhaps you can clarify what you mean. Are you disputing the validity of these translations? So far I haven't seen anyone dispute these terms. I have someone in mind that I was considering to ask if they wanted to close this, but I would like for the discussion to continue a bit more... thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 15:40, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I really understand, either. As for the project talk page, to the best of my knowledge, it is not intended to be part of the manual of style enjoying consensus, but simply as a supply of information. The main issue here continues to be the relative prevalence of uses that pertain to the prefectures vs. uses that pertain to cities in those prefectures with the same name (there are a few cases in which this is not the only issue, as for the common name Yamaguchi). Although a few essential exceptions based on English usage are noted here and in the MOS (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto, and perhaps Nagano), the main issue in the current discussion seems not to be how we do or don't translate -shi, but what to do about the plain titles like Shizuoka or Chiba that can and do refer to both the prefecture and the city in both English and Japanese (usually more to the prefectures), making the plain titles ideal for disambiguation pages as many of them have been since at least 2004 (the others, e.g. Tokushima and Wakayama, also seem to be good candidates for disambiguation pages). Dekimasuよ! 16:19, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The project talk page is peripheral to this, but still I think irregular and needs attention. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles#Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles/Translation note (at which you have already commented, but others may also like to take it up there rather than here).

Agree with the rest. Andrewa (talk) 19:43, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by the validity of those translations. I'm certainly not qualified to comment on their accuracy. Andrewa (talk) 19:43, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I was just using "validity" as a synonym for accuracy, and I think we've got it resolved over on that other talk page. I can't comment on accuracy either, other than I have no reason to doubt it. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The RM is over whether or not this page should be moved to Shizuoka, not over what the best disambiguation should be (though it's been discussed quite a bit). A close of "consensus against moving to Shizuoka" would not be a close against moving elsewhere—which should be discussed at MOS:JAPAN rather than here, as a move to any other disambiguator would be in violation of the current MOS. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 20:52, 27 October 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.

Official website

I have changed "www.city.shizuoka.jp/english/", the city's English website, in the infobox to "www.city.shizuoka.jp", the city's official Japanese page because the English link was no longer working. I've could've linked directly to "www.city.shizuoka.jp/deps/chinese/gaikokugo.html", but the link was kind of long and the address contains the word "Chinese" which might confuse some readers.The Japanese page does clearly say at the top "English･" ("English and other languages") so this should not be too hard to find. My guess is that Shizuoka probably did have specific subpages for English, Chinese and Portuguese, etc. at one time, but decided to combine them all into a single page. This is not very surprising, since websites in non-Japanese can sometimes be seen as a non-essential service at budget time and it's less of a hassle, especially for smaller cities, to simply use translation software or just combine multiple pages into one which list only the basics because they don't have to be maintained at all or not as often. So, I figure the Japanese link is the most stable and, therefore, the one that should be used. - Marchjuly (talk) 01:20, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Another "Foo, Foo" move discussion for a Japanese city

Another "Foo, Foo" move discussion is taking place at Talk:Nara, Nara#Requested move 23 December 2014. Dekimasuよ! 03:56, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Error in page

Hi. their is some cite errors in the page. בקש (talk) 15:35, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress

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