Talk:Manga/Archive 5

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External links

Does anyone mind if I remove the external link that's currently in the article? The link is to "Manga" at the Open Directory Project. It's not bad to have external links, but this one is pretty feeble. Among other things, the link lists only eight manga publishers:

Broccoli Books, International Manga Association, KodanClub.com, Shogakukan, TokyoPop, Viz Communications, Wirepop, Xuan Xuan.

Unlisted are Dark Horse, Ballantine/DelRey, DrMaster, Seven Seas, Studio Ironcat (now defunct), CMX/DC, Pika Edition (French), etc., etc...

If the link gets removed, then the article itself can list publishers as part of KyuuA4's plan, and we can keep the list up to date ourselves. And someone can come up with better links.

Reactions?

Timothy Perper 01:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's two days later and there have been no reactions, so nobody objected and I took out the link. Wiki Be Bold. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm half tempted to restore most of the original external links that were replaced by the DMOZ link back in April. I can somewhat understand why Leuko with linkspam when he removed old links in favor of a single DMOZ link. But, the DMOZ link wasn't helpful to begin with and didn't contribute anything to the article. Several of the old links, on the other hand, did add further information to the understanding of manga. Anyways, I'm going to follow up with the original list external links. I'll strike out those that are no longer working, outdated, or probably doesn't need to be there. --Farix (Talk) 14:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. I'll add a couple more myself -- one to Fred Schodt and one to Paul Gravett, plus to the Prisms website. After we get agreement, we can alphabetize the entries. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Note added next about "linkspam." No one wants garbage in these articles. The links below aren't garbage and they aren't spam. I want to avoid people deciding that they can just delete these without even asking or discussing the issue here on the talk page (as we are). Schodt and Gravett are the most frequently cited authors used in the article itself (see the reference list), and the Prisms site contains a great deal of valuable information. So do the other sites listed below. If someone wants to call them "spam," I want to hear why you think so before you start removing links. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
PRISMS throws a popups, which is disallowed by WP:EL, but it should be watch to see how extensive the popups are. I'm not sure about those two author links, though. Both of those websites entirely a self-promotion in order to sell their books, which falls foul of WP:EL. I also didn't see any content on the websites that would contribute to the information already on the article. Even if both authors are extensively used as sources, that is not a legitimate reason to link to websites promoting their books. --Farix (Talk) 19:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


Are you familiar with Ghost in the Shell? It was a mid-1990's anime, based on an earlier manga, drawn by Shirow Masamune, that attracted a large college-based anime fandom, and introduced to US fans a character named Motoko Kusanagi. The mid-1990s comic was published by Dark Horse, and was translated by Toren Smith and Frederik L. Schodt.

We are dealing with two of the most senior translators of manga in the English speaking world. And Frederik L. Schodt has his own article on Wiki.

I don't really care if these websites are -- as you suggest (I think inaccurately) -- merely devices to sell their books. When and if you have anything equal to the credentials of either of these men, then I will listen. But until then, no. Wikipedia exists to inform people about the major processes in our fields. If you want to argue that we must not cite either Schodt, Paul Gravett, or Toren Smith, then my answer is that you are wrong. Schodt, Smith, and Gravett are among the major figures in the field. We can -- and should -- cite them.

Timothy Perper (talk) 01:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Their credentials are irrelevant and is never a legitimate reason by themselves to provide an external links to their websites. The two websites do not add anything of significant to the article's subject and are mostly there to sell the authors' works. This, in no way, delegitimizes them as a source that can be sited, but external links are not citations either. Please review WP:EL for further details. And while I may be just an simple otaku, I am not about to have someone flaunt "credentials" around, or lack thereof, as an excuse to dismiss my opinions. --Farix (Talk) 01:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I’ve changed my mind about external links. At first I thought we’d be able to use links that are unique and offer uniquely valuable information and viewpoints not available otherwise. That would include Anime News Network (ANN) and Fred Schodt’s websites but as I thought about it, I realized that won’t work.
First, as the difference between The Farix and me about Fred Schodt proves, we’re not going to get consensus about what “uniquely valuable” means. Second, we have to avoid any website that has commercial purposes of any kind, since Wiki isn’t a classified ad service. Third, we have to make sure that every Joe Shmoe doesn’t put up his own website in the name of being unique.
So I changed my mind, and now think that we should not use any links at all. The reason is to avoid advertising, both explicit and implicit. (By “implicit” advertising, I mean a website that says, e.g., that a certain manga is really good and all fans should own it – or offer a wide variety of other buying advice.) The Farix thinks that Schodt’s website is commercial, and Schodt does in fact discuss his own books. By the same token, the ANN website advertises not only Protoculture magazine but has a good many banner ads for manga and anime. If one is commercial, so is the other; if we therefore can’t use one, we therefore can’t use the other. And that just about eliminates all the websites out there because they are all implicitly or explicitly commercial. They all carry ads or offer buying advice in their reviews or are openly commercial, like the ANN website.
So, I’ve come around to saying No External Links at all. And all of us now have a criterion for deleting an external link: if it is selling something -- anything, explicitly or implicitly -- delete it.
Timothy Perper (talk) 12:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
You are mistake. It is not that we can't link to websites that contain advertisements, it is that we can't link to sites whose primary purpose is to sell or promote a good or service. Both Schodt's and Gravett's websites primary purposes is to promote their works, particularly the books they have written. The websites also don't contain any additional information about manga outside of the books those authors have written. With two strikes against them, there really aren't any grounds to include them.
This opposed to a site like ANN, who has advertisements and does have a small promo for one of their publications. However, ANN website's primary purpose is to provide news and reviews on anime and manga. It also contains an extensive manga database and an aggregator of press releases from the industry and convention circuit. So as an external link, it has a great deal of value. --Farix (Talk) 19:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

We disagree completely. It's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, that the primary purpose of Schodt and Gravett's sites is advertising; my opinion is very different. ANN is a commercial website, that carries a variety of ads. The point -- and I want to stress this! -- is that we will not be able to reach consensus and therefore any agreement about what sites we should link to. I therefore conclude that we won't agree on what to link to -- and that's a total waste of time and effort. So I have come to agree with Leuko about this -- don't link to any of them.

As I said, I changed my mind about this. The meager advantage of linking to ANN and to Schodt is not worth the risk of every Tom, Dick, and Harry linking his website to the manga article because his site is (he claims) "just as good" as anyone else's. We actually had an example of this a few months ago (I don't want to bother to dig through the history) where someone did link a bunch of sites to the article. Linkspam then creates more linkspam, and we get a real mess (in my opinion). So, no linking at all is the only solution, not flame warring and arguing between us.

I'm going to visit the Schodt and Gravett websites and get some examples of what's on them. Then I'll be back.

Timothy Perper (talk) 22:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Back again.
The Gravett site contains excerpts from his work, interviews, commentaries, illustrated essays on the history of comics, discussions of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, and links to other people in the field.
The Schodt website contains excerpts, interviews, material on Tezuka (one of Shodt's specialties), an interview with Masamune Shirow, material about Astro Boy and the history of manga, and reviews. I found one one-line link to amazon.com, but nothing else selling his books.
It is not the case that the "primary purpose" of these two websites is advertising or selling the author's books. Both sites deal primarily with the authors' own viewpoints, as we'd expect. Given that the two of them are major scholars in the field, those viewpoints are worth respectful attention.
The ANN website has lots of information plus big banner ads, a list of commercial sponsors, and a webpage at http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/advertising inviting advertisers to use the ANN website.
I think, TheFarix, that you're using two different standards -- one to support your own choices (to paraphrase: "No, they're not commercial, and even if they were, that'd be OK!") and another to attack someone else's choices (to paraphrase: "Those websites are pure commercial self-promotion and that is NOT OK!").
I do not expect that we will obtain agreement about this. That is the problem, and why I now want to avoid this kind of endless, pointless argument. For me, both Gravett and Schodt's websites are valuable resources and give real insights into the work of two major figures who have written about manga. For someone else, they're sales and promotion of no interest. There is no way to reconcile those differences.
The only solution I can see is not to link to anything.
Timothy Perper (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Added still later. I visited the Prisms website -- http://users.skynet.be/mangaguide/index.html -- but did not get any popups with either of the two browsers I use. Someone else should check as well. Timothy Perper (talk) 01:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Websites with descriptions and information

Websites of news and reviews

Websites with tutorials

  • Mangaka.co.za A South African manga community site with artist profiles, video manga tutorials & forum discussions.
  • How to draw manga – A popular series of art instruction books.
  • Manga Revolution – A site dedicated to comprehensive tutorials.

Other websites

  • Prisms - General information plus mangaka bios.

Random Anonymous Editing and a Suggestion

Someone named user:ChuChu removed the material about Galaxy Angel and, when I reverted the change, took it out again. I had said the expurgation was unexplained, and the second time ChuChu wrote

"Was explained enough. This is not a female oriented manga, anime or games. Galaxy Angel as an example in a section titled: "Shōjo manga and Ladies' Comics from 1975 to today", yeah right."

The point in the original article was that Galaxy Angel uses the superheroine narrative form, which emerged from a long history of shōjo manga. So what's the problem? I'm going to leave this for a while, and let it gather other comments. I'd like it ChuChu replied to these comments, rather than simply makiing unexplained changes.

Timothy Perper (talk) 13:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

How about the following — First the original, then a modification that includes ChuChu's point.
Original: By today, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used (e.g., Nao Yazawa's Wedding Peach)[79] and parodied (Hyper Rune by Tamayo Akiyama).[80]
Revision: By today, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used and parodied within the shōjo manga tradition (e.g., Nao Yazawa's Wedding Peach[79] and Hyper Rune by Tamayo Akiyama[80]) and outside that tradition, e.g., in the bishōjo comedy Galaxy Angel by Kanan.
That makes the correction ChuChu wants and keeps the sense that the superheroine template has grown beyond the limits of purely shōjo manga.
Reactions?
Timothy Perper (talk) 13:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Added later: if no one objects in a day or so, I'll make the revision suggested above and add back the reference to Galaxy Angel. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
This goes back to our previous discussion. Galaxy Angel does not fall into the shōjo demographic, but rather is bishōjo, which is either shōnen or seinen, depending on the magazine in which the manga was serialized. The anime series is not aimed at shōjo, either, and neither is the dating sim video game. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

You are complete correct. That was, in fact, my original point, that the superheroine narrative template is no longer purely associated with shōjo manga nor a shōjo readership/audience. The revision I'm suggesting makes that clearer than I had first thought it was, but the clarification is fine. I have no objections to ChuChu's identification of Galaxy Angel as bishōjo manga (I'm talking only about the manga). In fact, I had thought it was clear, although it wasn't, that Galaxy Angel is a bishōjo comedy.

Here's the proposed revision again, copied from above, without the references.

"By today, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used and parodied within the shōjo manga tradition (e.g., Nao Yazawa's Wedding Peach and Hyper Rune by Tamayo Akiyama) and outside that tradition, e.g., in the bishōjo comedy Galaxy Angel by Kanan."

The whole section has a good many references to sources that discuss aspects of this entire process.

Timothy Perper (talk) 01:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Great. I'll make the change some time today -- and thanks. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, done. Thanks again, Nihonjoe. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Quick failed GA

I've had to quick fail this as a good article per the guidelines. The major concern is the Influence section which has tons of clean-up issues with citations needed and an original research template. This is probably an easy lock for a good article if that section is cleaned up. Please address these concerns and feel free to re-nominate at a later time. Metros (talk) 17:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't say I disagree with that. I'm less optimistic that the Influence section is the only or the major problem, but it surely is a problem. BTW, there are two sections about influence; I think Metros is talking about only one of them. But I think they both have problems.
We've been over this a number of times. These are the sections on "international" manga -- OEL manga, whatever you'd like to call it -- and I **still** think they should be moved wholesale to the Manga outside Japan article, with a brief and referenced section inserted here.
So, how about this. Give me a couple of days to write a few paragraphs on "International Manga" or something like that title, and I'll post it here. Then we discuss it, and if people like it, we substitute it for the problematic sections 4, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3. Then we move them to Manga outside Japan.
Comments?
Timothy Perper (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I was referring to the entire "International influence" section which encapsulates a multitude of problems spread throughout its subsections. Sorry for not being more specific. Metros (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Metros. I had figured you were talking about the whole set of subsections under "International Influence." Glad to hear it specifically. I don't know if you've read any of the discussions we've had about this page, but this section has come up repeatedly as problematic. Timothy Perper (talk) 21:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Still thinking alongside of temporarily "removing" that section al-together, and put more focus into the process of manga development and distribution. Way too much emphasis on manga being a "Japanese" product and its ability to "influence" other regions. This is to maintain a more "neutral" standpoint. KyuuA4 (talk) 01:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
AND/OR, see how the manga market placed its influence on Western markets. How did the Western market changed because of manga's "influence"? I kept this option open as part of a basic framework over in anime, with short mention on how anime changed Western animation and audiences. KyuuA4 (talk) 01:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes and Yes. Strongly so, in fact.

Concerning the second: we're on the same wavelength. I've just written a first draft of a sketch that deals with some of these questions, and it would be very helpful if you'd look at it, KyuuA4. The material is on one of my Sandbox pages -- user:Timothy Perper/SandboxInternational -- and it needs references, ideas and comments.

And while I'm at it, can someone please get rid of those two pictures of Marmalade Boy and of Fruits Basket? They have nothing to do the article as it is now written, and even though they're pretty and all that, we're gonna need the space.

KyuuA4, I've left you a note on your user page.

Timothy Perper (talk) 14:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. I see the basic structure on the sandbox. Describing markets foreign to Japan. Then following up with the artistic influence spread by cultural export.
Yes, that was the idea. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Earlier, I had some inkling to merge "International influences" into "Manga publications"; but perhaps, this would work. Yet, much of the material involving the "history" can go up into the history section. Instead, current market trends could be more relevant. KyuuA4 (talk) 22:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
We're going to need another contemporary example sometime though. It'd be criminal to not have a modern moe example. Manga isn't all Tezukas and Sazae-sans. Shin Takarajima really isn't even a good example for anything anyways, since it's just an example of Tezuka's early, extreme experimentation with making comics movie-like; his later works don't use the technique nearly to that degree. Not to mention it's really long and takes up lots of space. Speaking of taking up space, that 漫画 image is way bigger than it should be, lots of wasted space there.--SeizureDog (talk) 23:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I'm somewhat salivating for a Negima or a Sailor Moon example. Hehe. Anyways, yea. A more contemporary example depicting a similar frame layout as the basic image will do quite nicely. Another good example could be a page with a frame layout -- and -- a full body sized character layed on top. Something that demonstrates basic page layout. KyuuA4 (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we need some modern images. The Tezuka and Sazae-san are included to illustrate the early history, and were designed for that. But they need to be balanced with material from more recent manga. The problem is that there is so much material to choose from.
If you guys can come up with some images you want, I may have them in my own collection (which is reasonably large). I don't guarantee it, but I might. (See additional comment below.)
The reason I wrote the International material in a historical fashion is that it's easier to tell a story that way. I don't think it belongs earlier because the earlier sections are about manga in Japan, and the current section is about manga outside of Japan. I think that's a good way to balance the POV question KyuuA4 has been raising, that the article has been too focused solely on Japan. With the revision so far, there's the opening Japan section, and the material we're working on now, the International section. That seemed reasonable to me.
As far as I can tell, the major reason for the length isn't text or illustrations; it's the references -- and we absolutely need them to reach GA status. All along, I've been saying that we can worry about length in the future. Let's get the article into shape first, and then decide what to cut or move. IMO, it's too early to say what we're going to need or not. It's always easier to cut and remove material than it is to add it. It takes hours and days to find the references and write new material, and only minutes to remove it. (Which reminds me -- I'm off today, Wednesday, so I'll be back with more new material tomorrow and Friday.)
An additional comment about images. There's an article on Manga iconography that is really poor and needs LOTS of illustrations. But for copyright reasons, we can't download everything we want -- I seem to remember the max is about 5-6 images per article? For the manga article itself, we need -- this is only my personal opinion, nothing more -- an example of gekiga, and one shōjo and one shōnen. The individual entries have images, and we can't duplicate them wholesale.
Timothy Perper (talk) 14:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

A solution to the Manga iconography page may have appeared. Immediately below this, I have a comment about a drawing done by an artist named Sympho of expressions he feels are typical of manga. Perhaps Sympho might be willing to contribute other drawings of his as well to the Manga iconography page? If he is willing, then there is no copyright problem. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sales figures sources

Basically Googled: manga sales figures. Just pulling out a few that may seem interesting -- and/or -- may/may not be relevant:

"Pervading the nation's $4.2 billion-a-year industry is a sense that its best days have passed." http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-11/ff_manga Wired

Comment: Current figure on the size of the whole manga industry. Plenty more material in that link.

"In Japan, the situation is reversed with a manga market of $4.4 billion dwarfing the $1.35 billion earned by anime." http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/2953.html

Comment: Comparison figures vs anime.

"The Japanese External Trade Organization (JETRO) has published their 2005 Japanese Publishing Industry Report" http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2005-09-24/state-of-publishing-in-japan

Comment: Link to the JETRO report is dead. However, there might be a 2006 or 2007 edition somewhere.

One series described as "X-Men meets Fruits Basket" http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-12-09/del-rey-and-marvel-comics-announce-collaboration-on-x-men-and-wolverine-manga

Comment: Combination of characters from the American market into manga.

---

I'll keep digging more up. KyuuA4 (talk) 18:16, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

New Image Added

Some kindly and helpful people just added a new image to the Manga article. It is a drawing that shows what the artist -- his name is given as Sympho on the image datafile -- feels are facial expressions typical of different emotions in manga.

I'd like to thank these folks for their efforts but ask that the drawing be moved to the entry Manga iconography. The reason is very similar to the objection raised by SeizureDog about Wikipe-tan: Sympho's drawing is not manga but is simply sketches of faces. They convey an artist's ideas about manga iconography, but do not illustrate actual or real manga.

That makes them of greatest value to an article like Manga iconography rather than to the present page. I hope the artist does not take offense, for I intend nothing offensive. I'll leave them up for a day or so, invite comments and consensus, and then move them.

Thanks.

Timothy Perper (talk) 17:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it's really good illustrating the manga. I think the manga has more important stylistic elements than the origin is. Don't that makes the artical theme notability because these comics made in Japan! The important thigs thats are different from the other contries comic. So if any artist makes a good illustrating of japan comic art, I think it's legitim for the article. --Beyond silence (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I certainly agree that good art is very important to this article. Some of us are now revising this article with the purpose of making it a Good Article nominee (see discussions above), and are talking about what kinds of illustrations to use.
My own feeling is that the Manga article is best served by having examples from actual Japanese manga that illustrate various points in the article. Unfortunately, we simply do not have space for too many illustrations. My personal guess is that we have room for 5-6 images, and there's a discussion among various people (above) what those images should be.
To me, Sympho's drawings -- which are certainly very well done -- do not deal with any of the themes of the article as it now stands. That means that the article at present simply does not discuss how faces are used to convey emotions in manga. That topic is discussed in the Manga iconography article.
So, to me, Sympho's drawings don't have anything to do with the Manga article as it now stands. Moreover, his drawings are not manga but are simply individual, manga-style sketches of faces, and are neither complete manga characters nor manga stories.
I hope other people give their opinions. Please note that this Sympho illustration has now been added to the Manga iconography page by User: Beyond silence.
Timothy Perper (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

That image has been around forever and has certainly cropped up in this article more than once. However, it's a really poor example as it was done by a German (thus not even true manga) and really doesn't reflect actual manga iconography well at all. Half of them completely off from what they should be: "Bored" looks normal, "Crestfallen" is tired, "Confused" is shocked, and I'm not exactly sure what "Sulking" is, but I've seen the expression used for something way different. In any case, the article should focus on actual Japanese art and not Japanese drawings.--SeizureDog (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone wants to see the image, it's still in the Manga iconography article. Here's a reference to a book by a Japanese artist that gives facial expressions and labels in manga style drawings.
Takarai, Saori 2006 Manga Moods: 40 Faces + 80 Phrases. Tokyo: Manga University/Japanime. ISBN 4-921205-13-2. (It's available on amazon.com.)
Frankly, all such labels for facial expressions seem arbitrary to me, but that's another story.
Timothy Perper (talk) 22:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

New Material is Progressing

For anyone interested, the new section on manga in international contexts is developing I think nicely on User:Timothy Perper/SandboxInternational‎. Once again, I'd like to invite anyone interested to visit, comment, and add thoughts. This material is designed to replace the existing "International Influence" section (part 4 and its subsections). It's heavily referenced, since we need references to reach GA status. It's not yet finished, but it's coming along. Thanks to everyone for their help! Timothy Perper (talk) 16:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

More condensed and cleaner than the stuff in the article now. So, feel free to import that in there. KyuuA4 (talk) 17:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. We'll put it in tonight, maybe tmw. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Farewell to Language Notes

Blessings upon you, KyuuA4! Thank you, thank you! We were going to remove that section when we put in the new material (which is much closer to being finished than it was yesterday) and you beat us to it.

Do we need the section with the diagram on how to read a page of manga? Isn't that drawing in every manga book for sale nowadays?

Timothy Perper (talk) 20:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Redoing the Gekiga section

I'm reworking the Gekiga section, which is now at User:Timothy Perper/SandboxGekiga. It will be relatively short but substantive. The material currently in the article is, shall I say, feeble, and needs beefing up with references and examples. Everyone is invited over to look at it and make suggestions and comments. Timothy Perper (talk) 19:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The draft revision of the Gekiga section is done. It's two paragraphs long, referenced, and formatted. If you like, please look at it and comment. Thanks. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I've replaced the old Gekiga section with the new, referenced material described above. The old section had material about lending libraries and gekiga that I wasn't able to confirm in the references I have or could find, so I took it out as unsourced. Thanks for your help, everyone! Timothy Perper (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Old International section has been replaced by new material

As per discussions above, I just took out the old International material and replaced it with new material. The new material is thoroughly referenced—we removed just about any and all unreferenced opinions and comments. It's not that these pieces of fan wisdom are wrong; it's that they aren't Wiki-verifiable, and their presence in the article helped knock it out of the Good Article nominee category. There may be small errors -- typos and errors in formatting -- but the section was proofread several times (though new eyes will help find errors -- and thanks!). Timothy Perper (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. I'd like a better section name than "Manga in international context" but I'm not sure what would be better. Maybe just "International manga." Usually you leave the name of the article out of section headers because it's clear what your discussing so maybe "Internation context"? Not totally satisfied with that either. Any ideas?
If anyone could help us get all the refs properly formatted, that would be a great help. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Some Issues Concerning Formatting the References

Up above, Peregrine Fisher wryly observed that there are problems formatting the references. To be blunt, the formatting is the bane of my existence whenever I work on this article. Let me explain.

When one opens the Editing Window -- where we type new material for the article, as I'm doing right now -- Wiki uses what amounts to a word processing program to enter and format what we type. The problem is that this Edit Window Word Processor is hopelessly outmoded and prohibitively difficult to use for making certain kinds of corrections.

Thus, there is no "search for" or "find" command in the Edit Window. This exists for the main article, but not the Edit Window. If one wishes to find a given misspelling -- say, "Pattan" for "Patten" -- one must find the error in the article, note the section and opening of the paragraph, then go to the Edit Window, scroll down to that section and paragraph and then read every word of the text until one finds "Pattan" and replace it manually with "Patten". Nor is there a global "replace" command in the Edit Window. You have to find each and every "Pattan" by hand and correct each one by hand.

Microsoft Word 2001 -- itself hopelessly outmoded -- of course does have global "find" and "replace" commands. But not the Wiki Edit Window Word Processor.

Next, the <ref> and </ref> commands. There is a complex and tedious-to-use template for it, but it's easier and faster to insert the reference between <ref> and </ref> commands. However, the Edit Window Word Processor now inserts the reference into the text, making it tedious indeed to locate a given reference that one wants to correct. Once again, one must locate the paragraph, scroll through it reading every line until one finds the inserted reference and then make the correction by hand.

By contrast, in Microsoft Word 2001 (yes, 2001), there is a single "endnote" command that (a) inserts a superscripted endnote number into the main text; (b) opens a secondary window that shows the new endnote, in which one now types the endnote and reference; and (c) displays the final document with the main text up above and all the endnotes in proper sequence down below in their own window. One can then search for and replace all errors in the endnotes with a few keystrokes using the Microsft Word 2001 global "replace" command. With the Wiki Edit Word Processor, all such changes must be made one-by-one, finding each one as one goes through a text that mixes up main text and endnotes.

There are a good many more such problems with Wiki's Edit Window Word Processor, all of them making it prohibitively difficult to make corrections. By "prohibitively," I estimate that I spend 3-4 hours entering and correcting references for every hour I spend writing text and looking up stuff. To make corrections after the fact is even more time-consuming, simply because the Edit Window Word Processor lacks so many features that even Word 2001 had -- back in the same year Wiki was founded.

If one is correcting 3 errors, say, it's not too bad. If one is correcting 30 errors, each of them different, it's much more difficult. If one is going through 150-200 references, the task is "prohibitively" difficult -- meaning it will take too long for me, at least, to entertain doing it. I simply cannot spend my time using a word processor system that was outmoded in 2001.

The Farix just asked that this article be "peer reviewed." Well, OK -- I'm sure someone along the line will tell us that the reference formatting must be fixed. And I will tell that person, very politely but firmly, that if he wants to do it, he is surely welcome to try it. But at the moment, I do not have the time. The references are as factually accurate as I could make them, and that will have to suffice, for me, for the time being. I have too many other things to do than use a word processor that was out-of-date back in 2001.

Timothy Perper (talk) 18:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think one of the reasons that WP doesn't have enough refs is the difficulty of adding them correctly. Someday the software will be easier to use, but it's a slow process since it's updated by volunteers. Don't worry about doing the refs yourself, some people like to do them and they will get done eventually. I'll try and do a couple each day. What browser are you using? You can probably press control + f to find stuff in the edit window. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I use three browsers -- Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. ctrl-f doesn't work with IE nor with Safari, and works only sometimes with Firefox, meaning that ctrl-f brings up a command menu, but only the Find All command does anything. Maybe there's a workaround, but I don't know what it is. Thanks for the offer to help fix references! I thought of downloading the entire Edit Window into Microsoft Word (the new version, not Word 2001!) and using Word's considerable capacities to edit stuff en masse, but it's still too much work to take on lightly. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah, a Mac guy. Don't know much about those. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:18, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Forgot to mention. References were inserted by different people at different times in different formats. Some references are therefore more complete than others, though they all have the basic information that a visitor needs to find the material. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I've merged all of the op. cit. citations. Many of new citations still need to be formated using the {{citation}} or {{cite web}}. But I like to see us start phasing out the latter in favor of the former. But that would require changing some parameters.
I do have one question can we reduce the number of times the citations interrupt the flow of the article by placing them at the end of the paragraphs or section. This is particularly useful if you are contently switching between multiple sources from sentence to sentence. --Farix (Talk) 02:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, seems like a good start. But, some cautions.
The op. cit. citations should not be merged -- they each refer to and mention a different page. They are NOT the same. To leave the page out destroys the value of the reference, because Patten's book (e.g.) is several hundred pages long. But let me check the article itself to see what you did in detail.
OK, I just looked, and the references to specific pages have all been lost. I did this also at first, when I was first referencing the text, but was told in no uncertain (if polite) terms that the page references are essential for GA and FA status. So I started adding page refs, first in the text itself in parentheses and then later as op. cit. refs. Now there is no way to find the page on which Schodt or Patten or Gravett says something about a specific topic. Now the reader is faced with a 180 page book and no clue which page says what we claim the author says. Since readers won't read the whole book, losing the page ref is equivalent to not referencing the statement at all. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Can we lump the references at the end of the paragraphs? I don't think so. Each reference is to the statement it follows, and documents that and only that statement. Yes, I know the superscripts look like ants crawling over the page, but it's the only way to reference a specific statement.
Another issue is that the citation templates eat up bandwidth like crazy because they add so many extra words to the raw text. It's why I used the simpler and shorter reference form of ignoring the template and entering the citation itself directly between <ref> REFERENCE STUFF HERE </ref>.
Thanks for your help! Timothy Perper (talk) 05:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Thankfully, some of the web references have delimiters, which allows easy use of notepad and the "Replace" function. Decided to try it out in "Europe and the UK" section. However, "Replace" doesn't differentiate between a book reference vs a web reference. KyuuA4 (talk) 19:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Restored Merged and Lost References

I just restored the references that disappeared when various op. cit. references were merged. Two references are still missing, and I do not know where or what they are. This I did by hand this morning -- about 3 hours work on the weekend of Christmas -- and although I don't think I made any mistakes, I can't guarantee it. I was copying the missing references from my own backup copy of the article, made only 2-3 days ago.

Guys, please don't merge or delete references without first explaining on the talk page what you're driving at and why you think the ref should be deleted or merged. That especially holds for op. cit. references. I'm quite amenable to removing references, but not without discussion and consensus. I appreciate that everyone is working with good intentions and really trying to help, but too much haste and no discussion can lead to real problems of trying to identify stuff that got taken out. I'll try to find the two missing references but I don't even know where to look.

Anyway, the problems are (nearly) resolved, and all's well that ends well. But let's agree to discuss things before removing material. So, Happy Holidays to everyone!!

Timothy Perper (talk) 13:47, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Another 1.5 hours of work, and I found the two missing references and restored them. I also checked the final reference list against my backup copy, and the restored references seem to be correct. Please do not alter any of these changes. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Explanation. In case someone doesn't know what an "op. cit." reference is.
First, op. cit. is Latin for opus citandum = "in the work cited." Thus,
Schodt, 1986, op. cit., pp. 71-74
means you find Schodt 1986 in the bibliography and look on pp. 71-74 for whatever it is. It's a standard way in bibliographies to avoid repeating the entire Schodt 1986 reference every time you cite it.
Now, second, I had used a bunch of op. cit.'s in the references in the article as a way to insert the all-important page references. Previously, I had been inserting them into the text itself (which is not good bibliographic practice) but I hadn't realized how I could write op. cit. refs. Note that each and every op. cit. ref is different -- each one has a different set of page numbers associated with it.
Next, third, when all the op. cit. refs were merged into a single Schodt 1986 reference, all the page references were thereby also lost. This is verboten in doing a bibliography because the Schodt ref all by itself does not have the individual pages being cited. It just gives the book name, not the pages being cited here or there. So, by merging the op. cit.'s, one loses all the page refs to Schodt 1986.
Then, fourth, I put all the op. cit.'s back into the reference list, thus restoring all the missing pages. That's the current situation.
Hope that's clearer.
Timothy Perper (talk) 04:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we'll be doing this soon, but there's a way to have the op cit refs link to the books. Check out Scat singing, where the refs in the "references" section link to books in the "works cited" section. Pretty cool, but probably not what we want to spend our time on yet. I had to change my monitor resolution to notice that it goes directly to the specific book instead of just to the "works cited" section, but it does. After GA and FA, might be a nice addition when we go for main page FA. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 21:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Photo added of Kyoto Manga Museum

User FG2 just added a photograph of the Kyoto International Manga Museum buildings to the beginning of the article, possibly to illustrate the last sentences and references already in the introduction (which mention the museum). I'm not sure the photograph tells us much -- they're simply buildings, like buildings anywhere in the world -- but I'd like to get some consensus about what to do with the image. Obviously, it was a well-intended addition, but one can question if it adds anything substantial to the article. I'll leave it in a few days, and if no one justifies its presence in the article, I'll remove it. Timothy Perper (talk) 03:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

First, I'm not emotionally attached to the photo. I didn't take it, and I uploaded it to Commons (from the Japanese Wikipedia) for a different article. If someone feels it's inappropriate here, I don't mind if it's removed.
That aside, I think it is appropriate. An article on manga can have illustrations that are more than manga. Just as an article on a governmental institution can benefit from a photo of a building where the institution operates (Parliament, United States Congress) and one on a religion is more complete with a photo of a place of worship or administrative building (Hinduism, Islam), so can an article on manga benefit from a picture of a museum dedicated to the subject.
I certainly agree that the buildings themselves have no particular visual significance. The relevance to the article comes from within. Still, the institution is significant enough that the article mentions it in the lead section, so a photo of it strikes me as an appropriate illustration. Fg2 (talk) 04:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea, but I'm also concerned with how large the article is. But I'll leave the image in for now, pending comments from other folks. That OK with you? Timothy Perper (talk) 04:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Sure. I'm a believer in community consensus. Fg2 (talk) 04:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I might add that the picture is also in the Kyoto Manga Museum wiki article. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's the article I uploaded it for. Fg2 (talk) 22:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Considering that we've been having discussions on image clutter anyways, I don't see how the image of some buildings really adds much to the article.--SeizureDog (talk) 21:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixing Some Problems Raised in the Peer Review

I've fixed some of them, not all. I took out all the in-text references and made them op. cit. refs instead, and changed some wording per Peer Review. Thanks, guys. More fixes coming soon. Some of the suggestions need discussion before we do anything about them.

Next question—the shōnen section. A while back, I started work on a new section on shōnen manga, and I think I'll go back to it. It will be at User:Timothy Perper/Sandbox5 and everyone is invited to come over and make comments and suggestions. I agree that we need a section on this topic.

Timothy Perper (talk) 17:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm also fixing up the references, trying to bring some sense into a welter of different styles and formats different people have used over the past. I'm also trying to shorten the references, without losing essential information (I just cut a kilobyte from the article this way). If I'm deleting essential material, let me know and I'll put it back.
One issue that we might want to discuss is including a Google Books URL for the books. I'm against it for two reasons. One is length -- adding all the symbols of the URL increases the length of the reference. The other is copyright. Google Books operates in a gray area of copyright, and it isn't clear to me if linking to them is proper. I know people in publishing who hold that no matter what arrangements Google made with the libraries they copied the books from, there are serious issues about copyright and non-payment of royalties to authors about Google Books. This is not the forum to decide the matter, but we might want to err on the side of caution and omit the Google Books URLs.
In any event, happy holidays. Timothy Perper (talk) 00:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Something else occurred to me about including the Google Books URLs with the references. Those URLs link to information about the books being referenced and do not link directly to information in the manga article nor to the manga topic they're being cited for. So they seem distinctly secondary to our main purpose, which (in my opinion) is to include references to manga, and not to books about manga. Opinions? If in a few days I don't hear reasons to keep the URLs to these books, I'll take them out. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:57, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
I created some of the links to google books. Not sure if it's the ones you are talking about. The (currently) 14th ref is just a link to the general page about a book, which I don't find useful, and they should probably be removed. The 16th ref has a link to the actual page the info comes from, which I do find useful: instant verification. We do have a rule about not linking to copyvios, so neither may be appropriate. Google Book Search has been sued, but I don't think there's been any finding against them. According to our page about it, they were sued a couple of times in 2005, and I don't think they lost. They've been sued again in October, though, so it isn't totally figured out yet. Personally, I would like to wait for a finding since they can be so useful, but if we agree to err on the side of caution, I don't mind. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 21:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

New Section on Shonen Manga

One of the peer reviewers pointed out that the article should have a section on shonen manga. I agree. I've started the page at User:Timothy Perper/Sandbox5. Everyone is welcome to come over, comment, and make suggestions. At the moment, this is probably more important than fixing the references. Timothy Perper (talk) 07:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Not surprised that the mentioning of shojo often "demands" the mentioning of a shonen counterpart. Though, is it possible to combine the "discussion" of the two genres into one? KyuuA4 (talk) 17:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Interesting idea, but we'd have to do it by year or decade, and I don't have a good history of shonen manga. I have lots of analytical and critical material, like Schodt and Gravett, but not a really good history. OTOH, I do have a fair amount of shojo history material. At the moment, I'd tentatively say it'd be easier to keep them separate. BTW, did you look at the shonen Sandbox5? I'd like your comments on it if you'd look. Thanks.
Do you have any opinions about the picture of the Kyoto manga museum that was put in? What about the dojinshi section, which one of the peer reviewers said was close to OR? I do not know enough about dojinshi to be able to do much with that section. Certainly the easiest solution is to remove the section, but maybe someone else wants to take a crack at it. What do you think?
Timothy Perper (talk) 17:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Need a Reference for the New Shonen Section

The Wikipedia template Template:Infobox animanga, which is used for assigning genres to manga and anime, describes the "magazine-of-origin" criterion for determining the genre of a manga. If it was published in a seinen magazine, the genre of the manga is seinen and so on.

I need a reference for this practice and idea. It has come up in the new shonen section, and must have a reliable source if it is to be included in the main text and not a footnote, where it is now. I found so far only one reference to a fan on a fan forum, which is barely acceptable as a source. I need something better. Can you help?

Now I can go back to the holiday merriment around me.

Timothy Perper (talk) 23:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that was a system devised by us, for us. People were probably fighting about it in the past, and that was the hard/fast rule they came up with. Looking on the net for RSs, the best I could find were these artilces. [1] [2] [3] Basically, they all say the same thing. There is no hard/fast rule for deciding genre. Might be worth mentioning. When we discuss something that isn't obviously in a certain genre (Naruto is shonen for sure, isn't it?) then say something like "xxx is classified as yyy by zzz" to show that we aren't doing the deciding. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 21:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Very useful links. The first two are classification-by-content and the third is classification-by-audience (boys, girls, men, women). None of them are classification-by-magazine-of-origin, which is the Wiki system. So far I've still found only one web reference to classification-by-magazine-of-origin [4], which is in a discussion forum and written by a fan. It's NOT the best kind of source, but I'll use it if I can't find anything else for documenting that method of classification. The other methods -- thanks, Peregrine -- now have a number of sources each, yours and the ones I found before. So far, the Wiki system (by magazine-of-origin) is in a minority, but we have to mention it because it's the one used on Wiki.
I just found a website that classifies Love Hina as shōjo manga (here [5]) although the Wiki infobox on the article says it's shōnen. I do NOT want to discuss the validity of these criteria again. The point instead is to find a source for the Wiki system. So far, we have only one—a fan's letter to a forum.
Timothy Perper (talk) 23:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
We don't have to mention magazine-of-origin just because we use it here on WP. It may not be the correct way, in which case we are the ones who should change, although I definitely don't want to open that can of worms myself. If someone feels that way is important, they can look for a ref. Else, we can add it and put a citation needed tag on it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone removed references #155 through 168

And replaced them all with a useless sentence about needing a URL.

These were references to various European publishers of manga, linking to the URLs of those publishers (the URLs were of course included). Don't know what to make of this. It's not the direction we should be going in -- deleting references to leave unsubstantiated claims is no ticket, IMO, to getting this article to GA status. So I put in an OR notice on the section.

C'mon guys. This is no good. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. I fixed them. DO NOT REVERT those changes. And I took out the OR notice. (It's still in history, if you want to see what went wrong.)
And, about using the templates for citing books, journals, and websites. First, they waste bandwidth and second produce error messages like the ones above, to the severe detriment of the article. Severe detriment. In my experience -- by now considerable -- they can be a waste of time.
And howling and yowling starts up. One person says, "NO! NO!!! These templates are LAW -- you cannot change them!!!!! They are sacred texts, rules that all must obey lest we fall afoul of demons!" Someone else joins in: "The templates were created by the Gods. Mortals like ourselves may not change or ignore them. Perper," (this person continues) "you are a blasphemer against the Sacred Gods of Wikipedia!"
Phooey, say I. Templates, like the citation templates, are tools. They are our servants, not our masters. They do what we want them to do. They achieve our purposes, not the other way around. And when better ways to do something comes to hand, then we use the better method.
Now I have to go back into the history of this article and dig out another reference that got deleted (to Tanoshimi, the UK manga division of Random House). Then I'll remove the [citation needed] notice.
Timothy Perper (talk) 00:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, I replaced the lost Tanoshimi reference and fixed a couple of other references that had gotten lost.
I hope you don't mind if I make a few comments about references and citation formats. If you're not experienced with references, they can be overwhelming, partly because there are a good many quite different systems for referencing. The big ones -- University of Chicago Style Manual, American Psychological Association Style Manual -- publish big fat books on their systems, and it takes an expert to know them in any detail. In print publishing, reference styles are set by the publisher in whatever ways they want, often using one of the better known systems like UChi and APA.
The Wiki reference style is designed, I think, for people who have never written a bibliography before. The templates list some -- not all-- of the things that go into a reference, and you can use it if you have a few, not very complicated entries. More than a few, and the templates become very cumbersome. An example is a "embedded" reference to a multi-author article in a book edited by multiple editors (extremely common in scientific publication, like medicine).
But what are references for? The answer is that references provide traceability -- a statement can be traced from your use of it to the place itr came from. This assures the reader that you didn't make it up, remember it vaguely from some bar conversation, believe it as a matter of religious or political faith, and so on. References connect the work you do to a much larger world of work other people have done.
Wiki says references provide verifiability, but strictly speaking that's not true. If I cross reference a statement ("The moon is made of green cheese"), the cross reference does not verify that the moon really is green cheese. Not at all. Instead, the citation traces the idea to where I got it. The result is a web or network of connected citations that togther create a body of shared knowledge. If you do not reference a statement, or delete the reference, you remove your work from this collectivity, and it becomes only an isolated opinion. Which is fine -- for bar conversations. But not here.
So, by all means, format the references. But make absolutely certain that the changes don't lose essential materiall. And who am I to say that? I've been working in print scholarship and editing since the mid-1980s.
Timothy Perper (talk) 01:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

New Shonen section is ready to put in

Peregrine Fisher and I have finished up the new Shonen section, and it's ready to put in. As of right now, it's still at User:Timothy Perper/Sandbox5.

Some comments on the new material.

1. To make room for it—we're creeping up in size—I will be Wiki-Bold and remove the section called "2.1 Overview of ideas" from the history section. It's the least fan-like and most likely to bore readers looking for pop culch style information. It's written at a college level, which is not the level likely to interest such readers.

I'm also going to be Wiki-Bold and remove the illustration of the Kyoto Manga Museum buildings from section 2.1 to make more room. Two comments (above somewhere) on the library buildings were not enthuasiastic enough to argue by consensus that the library picture makes a big contribution.

2. We'll be adding an illustration that shows two different kinds of bishojo heroine, both types mentioned in the text. It's not common that one image illustrates two different points in the text, but this one does.

3. Please do not try to "fix" the references. This article has had a good deal of trouble with the references when various people try various fixes, sometimes making it better, and sometimes worse. When references get deleted, it wreaks havoc with the entire referencing system. We can deal with uniform formatting later.

4. I'll also move the Gekiga section to immediately follow the new shonen material.

5. We've proofread the new section a number of times, but errors get in. I'll fix them as I find them, or other people can fix them.

I'll probably get to it today.

Timothy Perper (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, *that* didn't work. The manga page has reached its upper length limit. I did a test, removing section 2.1 and adding the new shonen material, and a little robot said we've reached the limit where we should start dividing up the page among other articles. Now, I don't argue with robots, so I aborted the test. That means I made no changes in the manga article. Section 2.1 is still in and so is the picture of the Kyoto Museum, and I did NOT add the new shonen material.
Instead, I'm going to insert the new shonen material into the shonen manga page, after I've scoped out that article (which I haven't looked at in a while). Then we'll see what else we can do on the shonen manga article. BTW, I posted a note about this on the shonen manga talk page.
Timothy Perper (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I've just heard from Peregrine Fisher, who explained that the limit the robot calculates includes text and references, and we need to concern ourselves only with the text. In that case, we do not need to start moving or deleting material en masse, and I will proceed with the prior plan of putting in the new shonen section (and will not be putting it into the shonen manga article).
That means that section 2.1 will also stay in place and so will the picture.
Timothy Perper (talk) 22:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

New shonen section is in

I just put the new shonen section in, and later Peregrine Fisher will add the picture of Tania and Saisni to illustrate bishojo and sento bishojo. It looks like the added length didn't bother the robot, which is a relief. Nothing was removed, and section 2.1 and the Kyoto museum are still there.

Now, where are we.

Point 1. The major problems brought up in the peer review were the shonen section, now fixed, and the dojinshi section, which Peregrine Fisher has started on. The introduction to the Publications section still has some problems, only some of which I fixed.

Point 2. Some minor problems have been/are being fixed -- typos, misspellings, minor omissions, random whatnot.

Point 3. Some issues were brought up that I don't think we can deal with, for example, the suggestion that we add a lot of pictures. I'd love to, but copyright problems make it difficult to add too many non-free images.

So we're moving along. Thanks everyone.

Timothy Perper (talk) 23:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Why are the shoujo manga (The Demon Ororon and From Eroica with Love) being mentioned as examples in the shounen section ? --ChuChu (talk) 14:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Because they illustrate the principles we're discussing regardless of genre. There is no need to limit ourselves rigidly to one and only genre in this discussion. Indeed, we should not do so (IMO): both Ororon and Eroica illustrate the point that many, but not all, shojo and shonen manga deal with very similiar issues and themes -- which is another way of saying that shojo manga is not restricted to sparkly eyes, flowers, and hearts. But, to make things clearer, I've added an explanatory comment in the text.
Added later by TP: an example from the history of music might help. If we're discussing 19th century music, we might use major subheadings dealing with the sonata, symphony, and opera. But we would also have to point out that compositional techniques occurring in one form also occur in the others, so that there are both differences and similarities -- in a word, overlaps, rather than rigid, mutually exclusive categories.
I hope that's clearer.
Timothy Perper (talk) 14:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect reference?

Noted in passing while looking something up: reference cited in note [94] doesn't mention the subject, and I'm not easily finding what reference was intended. (It'd be kinda useful to have, as I'm creating the stub for Masako Watanabe right now.) —Quasirandom (talk) 17:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try to hunt this down. Let me know if I can help with the Watanabe stub. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, fixed it. It's a reference to a book with an auxiliary website. It took me a while to order the book and if you'd like I can put the material on Watanabe on your talk page or on the talk page of the new page you're making about her.
This was one of the references that was "fixed" by a well-intended person who nonetheless made quite a number of mistakes. It looks like I'm going to have to go through all the references again checking them all and repairing them. I apologize for the mess.
Timothy Perper (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
No hurry on the Watanabe info, though it'd be nice; I'm on a kick of creating stubs for redlinks in Kodansha Manga Award and Shogakukan Manga Award lists. —Quasirandom (talk) 18:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I understand the feeling. Keep up the good work. There's a bunch of redlinks in the manga article too. Not sure how many are notable, and we can remove the links if they're not, but I put them in to indicate where the mangaka entries may have shortchanged some good and quite notable people, for example Johji Manabe and Hiroyuki Utatane. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I've checked the first 25 refs and fixed errors. I'll keep going in the next days. DO NOT REVERT OR CHANGE these without first bringing up the changes here on the talk page. It's very easy to make mistakes and foul up the entire reference list. Timothy Perper (talk) 20:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Tim, you really should stop removing the citation templates, most especially the {{cite web}} template were you actually did quite a bit of damage. Those templates help editor properly format citations consistently. Also, your "DO NOT REVERT OR CHANGE" line in your edit summaries is echoing very much as if you think that you own this article because you helped improve it a great deal. But you don't own it and you can dictate to others how things are formated. I advice you avoid this behavior before it gets taken to WP:ANI. --Farix (Talk) 21:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Farix, this is a longish answer, but I really and truly think you should read it carefully and thoughtfully.

Farix, I do not own this article. I am, however, committed to making it as accurate as I can in as short a space as possible. The places where templates were used have systematically intoduced errors into the references. I am repairing those errors wherever I find them, and shortening the extra words and terms introduced by the templates.

Point 1. I have also said, repeatedly, to you and to others, that if you wish to format references or anything please go ahead, but discuss what you are doing beforehand on the discussion page. And when you make changes, make sure that you do not omit crucial information. Here's an example.

Current, correct citation, which I created without a citation template

<ref name="Toku 2005">Toku, Masami, editor. 2005. "Shojo Manga: Girl Power!" Chico, CA: Flume Press/California State University Press. ISBN 1-886226-10-5. See also http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_06/feature_03.html. Accessed 2007-09-22</ref>

Previous, incorrect citation that someone put into format using a citation template:

<ref name="Toku 2005b">{{citation | last = Toku | first = Masami | year = 2005 | month = | title = Shojo Manga: Girl Power! | journal = Chico Statements | issue = Spring 2006 | url = http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_06/feature_03.html | accessdate = 2007-09-22 | quote = }}</ref>

Here they are in reference list form

[1]

[2]

  1. ^ Toku, Masami, editor. 2005. "Shojo Manga: Girl Power!" Chico, CA: Flume Press/California State University Press. ISBN 1-886226-10-5. See also http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_06/feature_03.html. Accessed 2007-09-22
  2. ^ Toku, Masami (2005), "Shojo Manga: Girl Power!", Chico Statements (Spring 2006), retrieved 2007-09-22 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)

Let me explain. The second one was created by someone who did not know what they were doing, although they used a citation template. And whoever this person was, they introduced major errors into the citation. "Shojo Manga: Girl Power!" is NOT a website nor a paper in a journal called "Chico Statements" -- it is a book with an ISBN. However, one can find information about the book on an associated website specifically about this book. All of that is in my first reference, none of it is in the second.

These kinds of errors have been introduced at a number of points when people who put in templates simply got it wrong. I don't mean misspelling a word, I mean making a book into a website or a journal article. In scholarship, that is simply inaccurate. I can give a lot more examples too, but I'm not going to waste my time, and yours, by listing them.

Point 2. Since I started earlier today in fixing and repairing these references I shortened the entry without losing any essential information from 96,262kb (at 06:32, 31 December 2007) to 95,318kb (at 20:33, 31 December 2007). That's about a kilobyte shorter. That was for only about 25 references, and the article currently has over 200 references. So perhaps we can remove 3-4 kb this way -- without losing any essential information.

Now, it may be that neither you nor anyone else cares about reducing the length by a few kilobytes. OK, if it's not important, then we can use the templates. That's up to you. (BTW, I have mentioned this shortening on the talk page before.)

What I am not going to allow is for you or anyone else to change the references into wrong information, as happened above. I have been posting material on the talk page about this problem for some time, and nothing I'm saying should be unfamiliar to you.

May I remind you of another example, when you removed the "op. cit." references and thereby removed all the page references? I asked you not to do that, and you never responded, for example, with a "sorry about that" when yours truly, me, had to reinsert all the pages into new references.

Point 3. And now you are threatening me by saying it will (meaning you will) bring this to WP:ANI -- and yes, it is a threat you are making. If you want to, by all means. Then you can explain how come the changes you have made (like removing the op. cit. refs) did eliminate information essential in a reference. You accuse me of removing essential information -- no, Farix, the shoe is on the other foot, namely your own.

I want to repeat this: if you or anyone else wants to fix or format references, please do. Use the template if you want to add the extra length. But do not get the references wrong and do not eliminate essential information. I also suggest that these changes be discussed on the talk page, to obtain consensus (and I have been scrupulous about that) before people start making mistakes.

A last point. Do you sincerely and really believe, Farix, that I want to spend my time fixing errors on a reference list on Wikipedia? I need and have asked for help with this for quite some time. I still do not want to wade through over 200 references (many of which I put in myself and I know they were accurate), searching back and forth for errors? Do you really think so? At the moment, where I am on the East Coast, it's 6:13 PM or thereabouts and my wife is looking at me, tapping her foot and telling me to get dressed for the dinner party we're going to -- it is New Year's Eve, after all.

Farix, a question. Do you know what the word "cooperation" means? It means working with people at a common goal. It means assuming good faith. It means taking on your share of a job when you feel you can help. And it means a commitment to a standard of excellence that I insist we meet in this article, not because I "own" it -- I do not -- but because I want to see the article be as good as it can be. Do you think you can work with me doing that rather than making threats?

Sorry -- I erased my original signature by mistake. The original date is 23:28, 31 December 2007 from Timothy Perper (Talk | contribs). Timothy Perper (talk) 23:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
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