Module talk:Lang-zh/Archive 4: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:57, 26 August 2016

Latest revision as of 12:59, 31 January 2025

(11 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown)

Line 5:

I've been working on merging {{tl|zh-full}} into this one. The motivation is that where possible it makes sense to replace instances of {{tl|zh-full}} with {{tl|zh}}, as the recent work on this template has improved its output significantly. Where not possible, so where {{zh-full}} was used because of the features it provides over this one, then it should be possible to add the features to this. In particular the ability to list things in an arbitrary order is something that was pretty much impossible before but can be easily done in Lua.

As a first step I've been going through articles using {{{tl|zh-full}} and replacing them with {{tl|zh}} where possible. I've only been doing this as there are good editorial reasons: this template provides better output (proper language tagging, consistent italicisation), handles special cases better such as t and s being the same, handles empty fields properly, avoids redirects in its links, and is much shorter and easier to type. I've did other cleanup as I went, in particular of Chinese language.

===Cantonese first issues===

Line 34:

: I had thought of that before: doing it based on region rather than a single switch, first=t. The problem is it's quite disruptive – all existing instances of first=t would have to be found and updated, changed to region=tw or region=hk based on the article, and I don't know how you'd find them. Or you leave both first=t and region=xx in the template which introduces redundancy as with Cantonese=first, and seems overkill for something that there's no obvious need for - the only instances of {{tl|zh-full}} with ordering unsupported by {{tl|zh}} were with Jyutping first.

: The editor specifying the order is another way of doing it. The way it would work is with an extra option, ordered=no. If the module detects this it doesn't use a fixed order but the order is the same as the parameters passed to the template. Essentially the same as how {{tlzhtl|zh-full}} works but done in code not templates within templates as for that. It also introduces redundancy but can be thought of as two levels: a switch for simple cases, an option to use any order for more specialised cases.

: I don't think replacing labels is a good idea. It would make the template much more complex and be little used (it wasn't used at all within {{tl|zh-full}}). If editors need that degree of control over labels, links, formatting they need not use the template, or can use it for some languages but use {{tl|lang}} with their own labels and formatting for those they want customised.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 16:22, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Line 77:

--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 19:44, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

:There is a complication with how zh-IPA works in that it accepts a second field to switch between different types of IPA such as Mandarin and Cantonese IPA or others. I notice that {{tl|Chinese}} has two fields mi and ci but no others. Are there any other IPA types that could be used? In {{tl|Nihongo}} there is a blank extra field which if added to this module could work something like <code>{{zh|c=北京|extra={{zh-IPA|zh|/pɐk˥kɪŋ˥/||ipatype=yue}}{{zh-IPA|zh|/beɪˈdʒɪŋ/||ipatype=cmn}}}}</code> however I don't see any advantage of this when you could have just done <code>{{zh|c=北京}}; {{zh-IPA|zh|/pɐk˥kɪŋ˥/||ipatype=yue}}; {{zh-IPA|zh|/beɪˈdʒɪŋ/||ipatype=cmn}}</code>. It would probably be easier just to add mi and ci fields the same as {{tl|Chinese}} has done. [[User:Rincewind42|Rincewind42]] ([[User talk:Rincewind42|talk]]) 15:29, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

:: Having looked at it a bit more the IPA situation's a bit of a mess. There's a template for general IPA, {{tl|IPA-all}}; {{tl|IPA-wuu}} for Shanghainese/Wu is a redirect to it; there's a separate template for Cantonese/Yue, {{tl|IPA-yue}}; there is none for Mandarin that I can see. There is though {{tl|IPAc-cmn}} which converts pinyin to IPA ('cmn' is the IANA code for Chinese Mandarin; we use 'zh' for legacy reasons).

Line 91:

And there are good reasons for doing so. There's not quite the same need as there is for {{tl|zh-full}}, but apart from the reasons {{tl|zh}} was converted to Lua looking at how its used in some cases it's used where {{tl|zh}} would do, e.g. in [[Chery A15]], while most uses are very similar. As with {{tl|zh-full}} it makes no sense to have two templates being used for mostly the same thing if there's no technical reason to keep them separate.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 15:40, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

:Although there is no technical reason, there is a cultural reason why we have {{tl|zh}} and {{tl|nihongo}} as separate templates. Korean doesn't seem to have it's own template. {{tl|CJKV}} joins these together but it doesn't distinguish between Kanji and Kana or Hangul and Hanja. Also it doesn't include Japanese/Korea romanisations. If you combined identical Hanja/Hanzi characters, how would you label it? Also which language comes first? There needs to be a better way to order these. The the parameter bloat might become significant. Look at {{tl|Chinese}} for example. All those options by how often are they used? In the end, though CJKV could be merged with zh, there will need to be two or three separate instances of near identical code. Partly to keep the parameters simple so that people can understand the template, and partly so the various interested groups don't conflict. [[User:Rincewind42|Rincewind42]] ([[User talk:Rincewind42|talk]]) 05:20, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

::Just for the record, I've come across ''numerous'' cases in the past where people have been upset or offended ''simply because of the template name''. Like the former Yugoslavia and the rest of Eastern Europe, nationalism is kind of a thing in East Asia, and I've seen people getting upset over templates such as {{tl|Japanese particle}} and {{tl|Chinese}}, simply because the template has the word "Chinese" or "Japanese" in it, instead of "Chinese", "Korean", "Japanese", or whatever seems to be the topic of the article. Upset editors often blank or delete templates, or revert template additions, simply because they don't like the name of a template, and that's it; I remember having to make the {{tl|Language particle}} redirect because one Korean editor got ''oh so offended'' by the word "Japanese". It's not as simple as things should be.<p>If we ever decide to use {{tl|zh}} or anything else to replace CJKV templates after merging parameters, I think it would probably be a good idea to create template redirects as well; it's difficult to satisfy the needs of every single editor otherwise. Words such as "Chinese" and "Japanese" are a sensitive political issue in some areas, and edit wars often start over trivial matters such as these. I think the mindset is that if you put the {{tl|Chinese}} template on a Korean topic article, it's claiming that it "belongs to China" or something (though logically speaking, it really shouldn't, it's just a template used to contain multilingual names). --[[User:benlisquare|<span style="font-family:Monospace;padding:1px;color:orange">'''benlisquare'''</span>]]_{[[User talk:benlisquare|T]]•[[Special:Contributions/Benlisquare|C]]•[[Special:EmailUser/User:Benlisquare|E]]} 05:45, 26 May 2014 (UTC)</p>

:::As well as template redirects using Lua offers another possibility: two templates with the same Lua implementation. That's how most of the citation templates work; they call [[:Module:Citation/CS1]]. You can then supply extra parameters that tell it to do slightly different things (or very different things) depending on which template it invoking it, though in this case they work so similarly already that it should be possible to treat them the same way.

Line 160:

{{edit template-protected|ans=y}}

Please update the module from its sandbox with the above change, as detailed above.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 20:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

:{{done}} &ndash;&nbsp;'''''<small>[[User:Paine Ellsworth|<span style="color:darkblue; font-family:Segoe Script">Paine Ellsworth</span>]]</small>'''''&nbsp;^{<font size="1" color="blue">[[User talk:Paine Ellsworth|<span style="font-size=:x-small; color: blue;">'''''C<small>LIMAX</small>!''''']]</fontspan>]]} 13:55, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

== "See also" addition request ==

Line 172:

*{{tlx|Infobox Chinese}} - infobox template supports traditional and simplified Chinese as well as other common romanizations.

Thanks. — [[User talk:AjaxSmack|<span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"><fontspan facestyle="font-family: Georgia;">&nbsp;'''AjaxSmack'''&nbsp;</fontspan></span>]] 02:57, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

: Done, with some small edits to it and the other entries. You could have added it yourself as it’s part of [[Template:Zh/doc|the documentation page]] which isn't protected.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 09:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

::Thanks. I didn't notice that the doc page wasn't locked. <small> — [[User talk:AjaxSmack|<span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"><fontspan facestyle="font-family: Georgia;">&nbsp;'''AjaxSmack'''&nbsp;</fontspan></span>]] 22:57, 3 March 2015 (UTC)</small>

== Language tagging for pinyin yet again ==

I know this has come up before ([[Module talk{{TALKSPACE}}:Zh{{ROOTPAGENAME}}/Archive 3#Font?|here]], for example) but I want to readdress the issue of the language tagging and that the chosen fonts render very poorly when using Firefox. Here's an example from the [[Xinpi]] article:

[[File:Xinpi page image.jpg|none]]

As you can see, the tones are barely legible even after increasing the font size and ''cf'' the Pe̍h-ōe-jī text which renders just fine.

From previous discussions, I understand that this is a Firefox bug but the problem has been festering for quite a while. Any chance anything can be done on the Wikipedia end? Firefox is a major browser and asking users to edit style sheets or change browsers is a bit excessive. — [[User talk:AjaxSmack|<span style="border:1px solid #000073;background:#4D4DA6;padding:2px;color:#F9FFFF;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em"><fontspan facestyle="font-family: Georgia;">&nbsp;'''AjaxSmack'''&nbsp;</fontspan></span>]] 23:27, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

: Had a look myself with Firefox and it looks OK. It's not just a problem with the browser but with the browser and a certain intersection of user settings. I think you need to specify fonts other than the defaults for Chinese, or that's what I recall when it last came up. See [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}/Archive 3#Latn problem|Module talk:Zh/Archive 3#Latn problem]]. It's disappointing it's still not fixed. I submitted a patch for it to Firefox, and I know it's been looked at by other people since but it seems not a priority for Firefox's devs.

: I'd be very reluctant to remove this from the template. Firefox users are only a minority of users ([[Usage share of web browsers#ummarySummary table|17% of Wikimedia]]), and I assume only a minority of them are experiencing problems. And it would not just be this template, as the same HTML/CSS is output by other templates, such as {{tl|lang}}. The logical fix would be in the site CSS to catch all these instances, but then do we also do it for all the other languages that are rendered incorrectly by Firefox's horribly broken code? Better I think to recommend to users they fix it themselves, by editing their CSS, changing settings, switching browsers or even patching Firefox. Some users might even find it the incorrect version acceptable, depending which fonts it uses (yours seems to be using a bitmap font which is particularly illegible but is not a feature of most modern OSes).--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 00:31, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

== Pe̍h-ōe-jī ==

Line 195:

: You are right. It is not mentioned but it should be I think under zh-min-nan in [http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry this doc]. which means 'nan' should be used. I have updated the sandbox and it seems to work in the [[Template:Zh/testcases|testcases]]. Can the main module be updated with this change?--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 06:03, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

:[[File:Yes check.svg|20px|link=]] '''Done'''<!-- Template:ETp --> [[User:Bazj|Bazj]] ([[User talk:Bazj|talk]]) 07:38, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

== Different traditional and simplified glyphs despite unified Unicode characters ==

I tried to use this template in the article [[Tsai Ing-wen]] to give the different traditional and simplified forms of this person’s Chinese name, as was done in [[:de:Tsai Ing-wen|the corresponding article on de.WP]]. However the result of writing <code><nowiki>{{zh|t=蔡英文|s=蔡英文|p=Cài Yīngwén}}</nowiki></code> is “{{zh|t=蔡英文|s=蔡英文|p=Cài Yīngwén}}” and the HTML includes <code><nowiki><span xml:lang="zh" lang="zh">蔡英文</span></nowiki></code> where the characters are given only once and lack any markup for script (<code><nowiki>zh-Hant</nowiki></code> vs. <code><nowiki>zh-Hans</nowiki></code> instead of just <code><nowiki>zh</nowiki></code>). Would it be possible to alter this template so that it is possible to give different traditional and simplified glyphs even when the Unicode characters for the two are unified? (In case you are not familiar with this aspect of [[Unicode]] read the article [[Han unification]]). [[User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]] ([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]]) 12:54, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

: The module recognises when the traditional and simplified characters are identical, and if they are it combines them as has happened here. This is normal practice in WP articles; it is only useful to give both when they are different, and the template helps with this by eliminating such redundancy. It only does if they are identical (the bit of the script that does it is args["s"] == args["t"] on line 131). The German version of the template has much simpler (non-module) code which does not do this.

: What you may be seeing is some difference due to the different fonts your system is using for simplified and traditional. That is I think uncommon though. I do not see it here or on de.wp, and I suspect the same will be true for the vast majority of en.wp users. It will only users with particular settings for e.g. traditional and simplified Characters that will notice any difference, and then the difference will only be in the rendering not the underlying characters. You can change your settings, or use a style sheet to control the rendering of particular page elements here. See [[User:JohnBlackburne/common.css]] for some examples.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 14:01, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

::Well, the difference I see is certainly not just due to different fonts; I actually use the [[Source Han Sans]] font family for ''all'' CJK locales, so I see exactly the same glyphs when there should be no difference, and different glyphs when there should be one. Nowadays all major browsers seem to define different locales for at least simplified and traditional Chinese characters (and usually also distinguish between traditional TW and HK, as occasionally even these very similar locales use different glyphs; see [http://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg44/IRGN2074C.pdf here]). A lot of East Asian readers are extremely fussy about glyphic differences, and at times (though rarely) they even fail to recognize a Han character rendered in a shape that is uncommon to them. In my case, the traditional and simplified glyphs for the character {{lang|zh-Hant|蔡}}/{{lang|zh-Hans|蔡}} differ in each and all of its four components {{lang|zh|艹⺼又示}}, esp. {{lang|zh|艹⺼示}}. Why not give the readers the information that they ''are'' different? — Besides, you can’t really rely on Unicode’s (or rather, the [[Ideographic Rapporteur Group|IRG]]’s) unificaton scheme, which often seems quite random. For example {{lang|zh-Hans|禅}} and {{lang|ja|禅}} are unified (=one Unicode character) while {{lang|zh-Hans|单}} and {{lang|ja|単}}, which show exactly the same glyphic difference, are not. Unicode’s Han unification is known to be a disputed matter, and even according to the Unicode Standard locale markup is indispensable in cases like these. — P.S.: I already use stylesheets to see whatever ''I'' want to see. What I would like to achieve though is that ''any user'' gets what they deserve: 100% reliable information. [[User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]] ([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]]) 15:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

::: The problem is that you are not giving readers that information, that they are different. If it displays both simplified and traditional and they look the same, as they are the same characters, then probably most users will not notice the duplication (most do not read Chinese) but those who do will be confused over why the same characters appear twice although they are the same, unlike on other pages. I’ve looked at it with three browsers on two different OSes and the simplified and traditional characters look the same. [[wikt:蔡]] says simplified and traditional are the same. That your browser displays them differently must be down to your browser and OS settings. I suspect very few readers of the English WP have similar settings, though it would be very hard to find out. It is not something that can really be addressed in the template/module as it would break how it appears on many other pages, though how many I do not know.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 16:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

::::{{lang|zh-Hant|蔡}}/{{lang|zh-Hans|蔡}} has ''clearly'' different glyphs for CN and TW/HK in Unicode’s [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf#354 CJK Unified Ideographs chart] (look for U+8521). More examples: {{lang|zh-Hant|望}}/{{lang|zh-Hans|望}} (U+671B, p. 162) and {{lang|zh-Hant|龜}}/{{lang|zh-Hans|龜}} (U+9F9C, p. 545), which confuses even Chinese scholars. [[User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]] ([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]]) 18:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::FWIW the glyphs displayed on my PC for the trad and simp are almost identical other than in font weight. As a Chinese speaker/reader, the nuance involved is not a big issue and I'm sure that equally applies to my 1.2 Billion compadres, since we care about where the strokes are, not their weight. [[User:Philg88|<span style="color:#3a23e2; font-weight:bold; text-shadow:grey 0.1em 0.1em 0.1em;">&nbsp;Philg88&nbsp;</span>]]^{♦[[User_talk:Philg88|talk]]} 07:41, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::Font weight? There should be no differernce in weight between the fonts used for traditional and simplified Chinese. No, what I’m talking about here are structural differences: selection, number and relative position of the strokes. As in {{lang|zh-Hant|埩}} vs. {{lang|zh-Hans|埩}}. Do you really expect en.WP users to be able to tell that these are “identical,” just variants of the same Unicode character while {{lang|zh-Hant|爭}} and {{lang|zh-Hans|争}} are not? What you write makes me believe you are unfamiliar with the basic issues and the idiosycrasies of IRG/Unicode [[Han unification]]. — Besides I think that Wikipedia is there for those who want to present or acquire (scientifically) accurate knowledge, not for those who think they don’t need accuracy and can ignore existing differences because as “practical” language users they know better than the experts. [[User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]] ([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]]) 08:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::::This is an issue that we've never really addressed because the difference is generally insignificant except in serious ''hanzi''-related studies, but we probably should. On my (Windows) desktop I see no difference, but now on my MacBook Pro it is correctly displaying the variant forms. The font weight is not an issue here, Phil's machine is just rendering them as different fonts, but they are indeed variant forms. <small><b><span style="border:1px solid;background:#030303"><span style="color:white">&nbsp;White&nbsp;Whirlwind&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:White_whirlwind|<span style="color:#030303;background-color:white;">&nbsp;咨&nbsp;</span>]]</span></b></small> 09:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

{{od}}That is interesting. I too am on a MacBook but a fairly old model with an older version of OS X, and am seeing no difference in rendering. It would not surprise me though if Apple supported this with their frequent OS updates which generally keep current with Unicode changes. The latest iOS might be similar.

I still think there is no need to change the template for this, but it is something that is straightforward to do without actually modifying the template. Just change the content of one of the strings without changing the rendering, with e.g. a [[zero-width joiner]]:

* {{zh|t=蔡英文|s=&zwj;蔡英文|p=Cài Yīngwén}}

But I would not recommend this as it will be confusing for other editors not familiar with this obscure piece of markup. It is better to avoid the template altogether, and supply the links and templates for markup yourself:

* [[Simplified Chinese characters|simplified Chinese]]: {{lang|zh-Hans|蔡英文}}; [[Traditional Chinese characters|traditional Chinese]]: {{lang|zh-Hant|蔡英文}}; [[pinyin]]: ''{{lang|zh-Latn-pinyin|Cài Yīngwén}}''

But because the difference between simplified and traditional characters will still not be apparent to most readers it is probably worth including a footnote in addition to the links.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 15:35, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

::This is quite spontaneous and not well thought of:

::Another solution would be to create a new template (probably based on this module) for these infrequent cases. The documentation might warn users not to use it unless the glyphs representing the two identical character strings bear a minimum amout of dissimilarity. (I don’t know if it is possible to check for dissimilarity using a whitelist or a blacklist.) And, as you say, the template also warns readers that what they see may not be what they are supposed to see, and possibly also provides a link to a help page. [[User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]] ([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]]) 16:54, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Definitely not a separate/new template. This template+module combines the functionality of a number of previous templates, as having the code all in one place makes it easier to maintain and ensures a consistent style and format for all uses. Since the template switched to using a Lua module there is no longer a technical need to have separate templates (previously the limitations of parser functions made it necessary). It is easy to add here if there is consensus to do so.

So I have added a “nomerge“ option to the sandbox version in the same way as other options, and added some examples to the testcases: [[Template:Zh/testcases]]. This one from there demonstrates how it works:

* <nowiki> {{Zh/sandbox |t=蔡英文|s=蔡英文|p=Cài Yīngwén|nomerge="y"}}</nowiki> gives:

**{{Zh/sandbox |t=蔡英文|s=蔡英文|p=Cài Yīngwén|nomerge="y"}}

Clearer than using obscure markup but with the same effect. In particular it does not change any existing uses. Have a look at the module sandbox [[Special:Permalink/700347236|Module:Zh/sandbox]] for the particular changes. If this seems OK to other editors we can go ahead and add it to the main template.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 23:52, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

:What is the purpose of this template? I think it is to convey the Chinese name of the person, book, etc that is the subject of article, for readers who understand characters. It's not to give lessons in typography to people who don't understand hanzi – we have specialist articles for that. In a proper setup, zh-Hant should yield traditional forms, zh-Hans simplified ones and zh the reader's preference between these. (Of course, both fonts will have to do something artificial if they cover all the non-unified variants.) So if the reader sees unified characters in their preferred form, they will know which characters are meant, and the template's job is done. In such cases (and Han unification is rather conservative) the other variant is unnecessary, and this template already produces distracting clutter. However, this doesn't apply to {{tlx|infobox Chinese}}, which has more room. [[User talk:Kanguole|Kanguole]] 01:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

:: I‘m on a more up to date Mac now which does draw the character differently for simplified and traditional, but it is impossible to see the difference unless I make the text size about as large as the browser will let me, and look at the part of the character that is different. It really is a minor thing, not important for describing the subject of the article, about on par with the various Romanisations that appear in {{tlx|infobox Chinese}}. Accordingly I've added it to that template where it takes little space.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 03:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Why is the order of {{tlx|Zh/sandbox}} input (t < s ) and output (Hans < Hant) reversed? [[User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]] ([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]]) 14:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

: It ignores the order of the parameters that are passed. you can use {{para|first}} to override the default ordering. See the template documentation.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 23:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

::Why have this double reversed logic "nomerge=y". Can we please keep it as "merge=no" (not collapsed) and "merge=yes" (collapsed and default). That way the logic is the same way round as labels=no and links=no (we don't do nolinks=y and nolabels=y).

::There seems to be some bug in the scripts implementation for args["s"] == args["t"]. <s>If s=U+8521 and t=U+671B then s=/=t and should return false. So why does the script return a true? Maybe to your eye, s=U+8521 and t=U+671B look incredibly similar and maybe the font author for my font didn't bother drawing the minor difference so on my computer (Win 10 English with no extra packages for fonts) they really look identical, but the computer doesn't know all that. The computer only sees a number code for a character. So how can apple==orange return true?</s> [[User:Rincewind42|Rincewind42]] ([[User talk:Rincewind42|talk]]) 01:56, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

:::I am assuming we won't go ahead with the merge option as no-one else seems to want it and the problem in the article has been addressed another way. As for the other problem can you provide an example; my test with the characters with those unicode values works fine:

::::{{zh|s=蔡|t=望}}

:::--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 05:43, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

::::I miss read the unicode numbers that {{u|Philg88}} had posted so I've struck out my previous comment. I'm now quite sure that this is all just about fonts. If you look at [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf#354 CJK Unified Ideographs chart] (Large PDF) for U+8521 you'll see three Chinese characters marked with 蔡 G0-324C, 蔡 HB1-BDB2, 蔡 T1-6E5B. When I look at the Unicode PDF, I can see that there is a small difference in the direction of the stroke on the HB1-BDB2 and T1-6E5B versus the G0-324C. It is a very small difference but it is there. When I copy/paste those characters into a World.doc, the differences remain until I change the font. If I set the font for all of the characters to Microsoft JhengHei then all three render in Word as the HB1 and T1 render on the PDF. If I change the font to Microsoft YaHei, NSimSun or SimSun, then all three render as per G0 on the PDF. I get the same results when testing with U+671B and U+9F9C. In particular I find SimSun's rendering U+9F9C strikingly different form the rendering by of Microsoft JhengHei. It's not just a slight change, there are several extra strokes added and removed. Now I don't have a huge number of Chinese fonts installed but the only way I can get these characters to render as the Unicode PDF file renders them, is to vary my font selection from character to character. [[User:Rincewind42|Rincewind42]] ([[User talk:Rincewind42|talk]]) 16:24, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

:::::Also compare the Unicode chart glyphs for U+57E9 {{lang|zh-Hans|埩}}/{{lang|zh-Hant|埩}} to U+4E89 {{lang|zh-Hans|争}} and U+722D {{lang|zh-Hant|爭}}. <small>[[Wikipedia:WikiLove|Love]]</small>&nbsp;—[[:commons:User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]]&nbsp;<small>([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]])</small> 17:02, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

{{Infobox Chinese

|t = 蔡英文

|s = 蔡英文

|p = Cài Yīngwén

|w = Tsai⁴ Ying¹-wen²

|mi = {{IPAc-cmn|c|ai|4|-|ying|1|wen|2}}

|poj = Chhoà Eng-bûn

|tl = Tshuà Ing-bûn

|h = Tshai Yîn-vun

|showflag = tl, h}}

This is the infobox copied from [[Tsai Ing-wen|the article]]. How does that look? It shows different characters for me, though the change is a very small one which I can only see if I increase the font size by several steps. The font(s) it uses are PingFang SC and PingFang TC, a new font in Mac OS X 10.11. We don’t have a policy on character variants that I am aware of but my own view is outside of articles on Chinese characters we should not bother with them. The vast majority of readers will not notice them. Even people who can read Chinese can surely read the character if it is the 'wrong' variant. Often variations in rendering due to different fonts can be more significant. Unless there is a particular reason for mentioning it, such a logo which uses a particular non-standard variant, it does not need to be mentioned. {{tl|Infobox Chinese}} is exceptional though as it often contains obscure, little used transcriptions which are of little interest, but hidden away in a collapsible box so they don't clutter or distract from the article content. Seems the best place for obscure character variants like this.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 17:18, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

:Even though the differences may seem ridiculously small to people who grew up in the West, it is probably true what ''hsknotes'' wrote in [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1364#comment-30433 this comment] on Language Log: ''"... And in Chinese, the font change and simplifications make an arguably far bigger difference than u's becoming w's or th's from þ or even colour being turned into color. Sometimes the medium is the message, or at least is part of it."'' And this usually applies even to English speakers from the Sinosphere, where a simple font change is often considered a means of conveying identity and political attitude. <small>[[Wikipedia:WikiLove|Love]]</small>&nbsp;—[[:commons:User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]]&nbsp;<small>([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]])</small> 17:50, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

::That comment though is about the significant differences introduced by simplification. But that’s not what’s happening here. It’s not been simplified as it is no simpler. There is according to e.g. [[wikt:蔡]] just one character for simplified and traditional. There is only one unicode address, 8521. They are treated as the same, the differences are so small to be invisible at normal font sizes, smaller than e.g. differences due to the font(s) or other factors.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 18:53, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

:::The comment explicitly mentions font change though. I know it's hard for Westerners to understand that glyphic differences even '''of the same character''' are seen as political statements ("communist/Mao forms"). I also know that most browsers display CJK characters at too small sizes. (My eyesight has become bad, and on my system CJK characters are bigger if language markup is used, that's why I often make edits adding it, in order to be able to read it myself.) <small>[[Wikipedia:WikiLove|Love]]</small>&nbsp;—[[:commons:User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]]&nbsp;<small>([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]])</small> 19:13, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

== Sidney Lau ==

{{edit template-protected|Module:Zh|answered=yes}}

Firstly, there is a perfectly fine [[Sidney Lau romanisation]] page detailing his system. Secondly, the two existing templates for Cantonese Romanisation include one, Jyutping, used nowhere but academic circles, and another, Yale, very popular outside of Hong Kong but of little relevance there. By way of contrast, the Sidney Lau system, for all its faults (which is not to say the other two don't have theirs) is infinitely closer to the reality on the ground, i.e. proper names that one sees everywhere, is certainly extremely popular as the tool for teaching Cantonese to foreigners (it being so much more natural to English speakers and fewer initial barriers to learning) and, unlike the other two, very close to the official government "Standard Romanisation". Third, it is still time-tested: semicentennial this year. Thus I propose the parameter sl be introduced to the template for [[Sidney Lau romanisation]] so as to facilitate its inclusion in appropriate places in WP. If there is a consensus and this edit made, I undertake to update the /docs page accordingly (as I attempted yesterday). [[user:sirlanz|sirlanz]] Sirlanz 13:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

: I've added it to the sandbox and tested it on the testcases page, using 'sl' as you did when you edited the documentation and other obvious parameters. It seems to work fine:

* <nowiki>{{Zh/sandbox|s=中国|t=中國|p=zhōngguó|j=Gwong²zau¹|sl=Gwong²jau¹|first=t}}</nowiki>

* {{Zh/sandbox|s=中国|t=中國|p=zhōngguó|j=Gwong²zau¹|sl=Gwong²jau¹|first=t}}

: If that looks OK then it’s a straightforward addition to the module that changes nothing else, and is OK to go.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 15:00, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

:: Wouldn't it be more useful to add this to {{tlx|infobox Chinese}}? I think it would be better to pick a small number of romanizations for the inline template. [[User talk:Kanguole|Kanguole]] 15:32, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

:::I would add it there also, if it’s not already added. I see no problem adding it here too: there is already a lot of redundancy for most use cases, with e.g. Romanisations other than Hanyu Pinyin barely used. {{U|Sirlanz}} makes the case for it better than I could, except I would add it’s the Romanisation I’m most familiar myself from my time in Hong Kong.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 15:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

::::Code/cases looked good. Synced to sandbox. — [[User:Andy M. Wang|'''''Andy W.''''']] <span style="font-size:88%">('''[[User talk:Andy M. Wang|<span style="color:#164">talk</span>]] ·''' [[Special:Contribs/Andy M. Wang|ctb]])</span> 17:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

== Template-protected edit request on 24 August 2016 ==

{{edit template-protected|Template:Zh|answered=yes}}

Could someone please add {{tlsx|tfm|lang-zh}} to the top of this template as it has been nominated for merging.

[[User:Pppery|<span style="position:relative;top:10px">P</span>p<span style="position:relative;bottom:10px">p</span>e<big style="position:relative;top:10px">r</big>y]] <big style="position:relative;top:5px">([[User talk:Pppery|talk]])</big> 12:55, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

:[[File:Yes check.svg|20px|link=|alt=]] '''Done'''<!-- Template:ETp --> —&thinsp;[[User:JJMC89|JJMC89]]&thinsp;<small>([[User talk:JJMC89|T]]'''·'''[[Special:Contributions/JJMC89|C]])</small> 15:50, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

== Template edit request ==

{{edit template-protected|Template:Zh|answered=yes}}

Please wrap the tfd notice in no-include. This template is included in thousands of articles, often appearing in the first sentence of articles, so the notice is now polluting those articles in a highly visible way. E.g. [[Hong Kong]] now beings

* Hong Kong (‹The template Zh is being considered for merging.› Chinese:...

--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 05:23, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

:[[File:Yes check.svg|20px|link=|alt=]] '''Done'''<!-- Template:ETp --> —&thinsp;[[User:JJMC89|JJMC89]]&thinsp;<small>([[User talk:JJMC89|T]]'''·'''[[Special:Contributions/JJMC89|C]])</small> 05:49, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

:: Come on, another incorrect noincluding request. Tfd/Tfm notices are supposed to show up in artcicles, and noincluding is only mentioned in the instructions as a technical hack for substituted templates. [[User:Pppery|<span style="position:relative;top:10px">P</span>p<span style="position:relative;bottom:10px">p</span>e<big style="position:relative;top:10px">r</big>y]] <big style="position:relative;top:5px">([[User talk:Pppery|talk]])</big> 14:50, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

::: The point of the notice is to notify editors of the discussion and that clearly worked, it is one of the the most active TfD discussions I have ever been involved in. Given that, and the disruption it was causing to thousands of articles, I think noincluding it was the obvious thing to do.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 15:11, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

:::: {{ping|JohnBlackburne}} I agree that the tfd was quite active, however that does not justify noincluding. It is clearly stated in the [[WP:TFD#Listing a template|listing instructions]] that noinclude tags should only be added for templates designed to be substituted (which this one isn't) [[User:Pppery|<span style="position:relative;top:10px">P</span>p<span style="position:relative;bottom:10px">p</span>e<big style="position:relative;top:10px">r</big>y]] <big style="position:relative;top:5px">([[User talk:Pppery|talk]])</big> 16:00, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

See also [[Template:Template for discussion#Which type should be used?]]:

::"In rare cases, where the insertion of any template is deemed too detrimental to a large number of articles, or if it breaks markup, it might be advisable to disable the notifications completely."

I would say this is one of those cases. The many thousands of articles this is used in is a large number, and it was very detrimental to many them; see the Hong Kong example above.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 16:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

: {{ping|JohnBlackburne}} I wasn't originally aware of that section of the template doc, but I disagree that the transclusion of the notice isn't {{tq|too detrimental to a large number of articles}}. Many articles transclude the template, yes, but in the article you specified, [[Hong Kong]] only transcludes the template '''four times''', which is not enough to justify hiding a notice over. If you think that the notice takes up too much space, just make it smaller by using {{para|type|tiny}} rather than hiding it. [[User:Pppery|<span style="position:relative;top:10px">P</span>p<span style="position:relative;bottom:10px">p</span>e<big style="position:relative;top:10px">r</big>y]] <big style="position:relative;top:5px">([[User talk:Pppery|talk]])</big> 16:37, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

== Italic romanisation ==

Why is the romanisation suddenly in italics? It looks really ugly. '''[[User:Citobun|Citobun]]''' ([[User_talk:Citobun|talk]]) 15:36, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module:Zh&diff=609840778&oldid=608636921 Suddenly?] <small>(There's no accounting for taste, but I think it looks fine. And it also conforms to English [[Italic_type#Usage|typographic tradition for foreign words]].)</small> <small>[[Wikipedia:WikiLove|Love]]</small>&nbsp;—[[:commons:User:LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie]]&nbsp;<small>([[User talk:LiliCharlie|talk]])</small> 16:13, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

:See the guideline [[MOS:FOREIGNITALIC]] for the reason. I think it looks better like that, certainly not ugly. You might try a different browser as some (e.g. Firefox) have problems displaying Non-English text.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 21:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

:: Take [[Raymond Chan]] as an example. On my browser the pinyin looks OK. But the Jyutping is stretched and weird and ugly. Is it the same for others? Maybe it was always italics and I didn't notice, but I don't think the Jyutping looked this weird until recently. '''[[User:Citobun|Citobun]]''' ([[User_talk:Citobun|talk]]) 13:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

::: Not on my browser, but is it perhaps an issue with the <code>lang</code> tags? The pinyin is tagged as "zh-Latn-pinyin", but the Jyutping is tagged as "yue-jyutping" – perhaps it's being rendered with a character font, and a tag of "yue-Latn-jyutping" might avoid that. [[User talk:Kanguole|Kanguole]] 14:27, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

::: Though according to the [http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry registry], the prefix for <code>jyutping</code> is just <code>yue</code>. [[User talk:Kanguole|Kanguole]] 14:33, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

::::Yes, according to the registry <code>yue-jyutping</code> is the correct way to tag it. It does seem odd but I think that registry contains a lot of legacy standards, created at different times, which are not consistent between e.g. pinyin and jyutping. As it’s the standard, as has been part of it since 2010, all browsers should support it.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 09:40, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

== Bbánlám pìngyīm ==

{{ping|Citobun|Kanguole|JohnBlackburne}} {{u|Sunshine567}} has asked me to add [[Bbánlám pìngyīm]] to the module. Is there consensus for doing this? [[User:Jc86035|Jc86035]] ([[User talk:Jc86035|talk]]) <small><span style="display:inline-block;margin-bottom:-0.3em;vertical-align:-0.4em;line-height:1.2em;font-size:80%;text-align:left">Use &#123;&#123;[[Template:Reply to|re]]&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;<br />to reply to me</span></small> 11:31, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

: I’ve added it to the sandbox in a similar way to other pinyin, e.g.

:: {{Zh/sandbox|t=閩拼方案|bp= Bbínpīn Hōngàn}}

: I don’t know if it’s a commonly used Romanisation, or at all used, but we don’t actually have a criteria for inclusion, and some of the ones in there are already pretty obscure. If no-one has any objections I’d say put it in.--<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 12:02, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

::If the first principle for inclusion be that the system of Romanisation has a degree of prevalence of use, it may be that [[Bbánlám pìngyīm]] fails the test. Only one source is cited for support of its WP entry and we already have the well-established [[Pe̍h-ōe-jī]] system for Amoy/Xiamen Hokkien in the template. So I would suggest caution about adding what may be an obscure method. [[user:sirlanz|sirlanz]] 12:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

::As to the obscurity point, none of those systems in the template now can be described as "pretty obscure" or certainly not in the same league of the obscurity of the proposed new inclusion. Without more input, I would say it's a bad move to add it. [[user:sirlanz|sirlanz]] 13:25, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

:::It's included in {{tl|Infobox Chinese/Chinese}}, but there are many other romanizations included there but not here, so if this is added then so should the rest of them, I guess. [[User:Jc86035|Jc86035]] ([[User talk:Jc86035|talk]]) <small><span style="display:inline-block;margin-bottom:-0.3em;vertical-align:-0.4em;line-height:1.2em;font-size:80%;text-align:left">Use &#123;&#123;[[Template:Reply to|re]]&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125;<br />to reply to me</span></small> 13:48, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

::::Infobox facilitates appearance of a Romanisation in a very limited way; the template here opens up use throughout article text, so there are good reasons to be very restrictive. Indeed, the real issue here is whether there ought to be a WP:en policy about Romanisation of Chinese or just open slather. Each dialect should be limited to one or, at most, two Romanisation schemes and the scheme(s) ought to be chosen based upon (1) prevalence of use by knowledgeable English readers and (2) ease of comprehension by uninformed readers. We should attempt not to admit Romanisation scattershot across the pages; adding this particular minnow of Romanisation will not assist here. [[user:sirlanz|sirlanz]] 14:31, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

: {{u|Sunshine567}}, can you say where you think this will be used, as in in what articles other than [[Bbánlám pìngyīm]]? --<small>[[User:JohnBlackburne|JohnBlackburne]]</small>^{[[User_talk:JohnBlackburne|words]]}<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/JohnBlackburne|deeds]]</sub> 13:55, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

== Hakka ==

Is there no [[Guangdong_Romanization#Hakka|Hakka]] for this template? [[User:Szqecs|Szqecs]] ([[User talk:Szqecs|talk]]) 15:29, 14 February 2018 (UTC)