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Problem of notation in all (very interesting) Wikipedia shogi articles

In the standard international notation, used for instance in "Shogi Yearbook" (Google easily provides you an example in PDF of this book), the board is spotted by numbers on columns and letters, not numbers, in lines. For instance, P7H in the first move opens the diagonal for bishop.

This standard is followed by Wikipedians only in the first diagram of the "Shogi" page, and widely misused elsewhere... I know it's the fault of translations from Japanese, but it may be worth correct it - it would help shogi beginners to understand better the game.

(If I could, I change it, but I don't know how to do. And sorry for my bad english, I'm a french frog...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.242.20.57 (talk) 17:08, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's more than one notational system. We are using the shogi notation found in Tony Hosking's book. The Shogi Yearbook is using George Hodges's notation. Hosking's notation is more similar to the Japanese system and for that and other reasons, we felt it was superior to Hodges's system. Shogi Yearbook should switch to the Hosking notation as it's easier to read and convert to from Japanese. – ishwar  (speak) 19:02, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We discussed it a little while ago. However, the discussion was only with me and another person. You can read it here: Talk:Shogi/Archive_3#shogi_notation_on_wikipedia. And, we can discuss it again. My bias is that I dont like Hodges's notation: letters are terrible. – ishwar  (speak) 19:05, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. I personnally prefer Hodge's notation, which seems more used than the other (including by Japaneses themselves, in their books in English)/— Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.242.20.58 (talk) 19:13, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Really? I almost always see Japanese folks using 2 numbers in English. And, i've never seen them use letters in a book. (If you are talking about Aono's two books, then that was due to Fairbairn's translation work which was associated with Hodges.) The blogger yamajunn did prominently use the letters in all of his webpages. And, the Shogi Shack person, too. But, those are the only example i know of. Apart from that, i see letters used on some of the flash kifu readers used on websites.
To make matters worse, Hidetchi has created a 3rd notation that doesnt use letters for the piece abbreviations, which makes it completely unusable for the normal non-Japanese person.
So, given that there's not going to be anymore stuff coming from Hodges, we may not see much more of the Hodges notation in book/magazine form. Basically, Hodges made his notation, and some people followed it. Hosking made his own different notation. And, new Japanese publishings ignore the English authors and do something different as well. And, the Leggett book earlier did something different, too (with the even worse Roman numerals!). So did, the Japanese Ohara before him.
I dont see anything being a standard from this. But, it might be useful to have a standard. I mean, a poll can created or something – not necessarily on Wikipedia – and we follow what the generally preferred notation is. The problem is that the shogi community is very sparsely distributed and not very much in communication with each other with no central organizing body. I myself dont really want to be responsible for choosing a standard for Wikipedia with little input from the rest of the non-Japanese world since hopefully the Wikipedia information can be useful for everyone. It's just that not many shogi players are also Wikipedia editors.... – ishwar  (speak) 17:48, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@ 145.242.20.58: If there is a particular style of notation which is used by clear majority of published books, magazines, etc. written in English about shogi, then I think it would be OK to use that for Wikipedia articles. As Ish ishwar points out, however, this does not seem to be the case. Therefore, I think it's probably better to stick what is being used for the time being. Just for reference, by "published", I mean WP:PUBLISHED, and not just someone's blog or personal website, and considered to be reputable when it comes to things shogi. Ideally, any kind of advocated by the Japan Shogi Association would be a good thing to consider since most of the non-Japanese shogi world seems to follow its lead; however, I am not sure if they have established anything official yet. I'm not aware of any books, websites, etc. about shogi where the JSA is the sole author and which are not direct translations of Japanese sources.
When I was learning how to play chess, most of the books, magazines, newspapers at the time used descriptive notation. However, as I got older, algebraic notation replaced descriptive notation as the standard used. In actual tournament games, my opponents tended to use a variety of notations (including some non-English ones) because that was with they were most comfortable with. I think the same extends to the notation used for shogi in English materials. Early on, most everything was written by Hodges or Fairbairn, so others followed their lead. In the 90s, Hosking's wrote some books that became popular among non-Japanese shogi players, so the style he used became popular. Shogi professional Akira Nishio started writing a blog about openings and he used the all numeral format that Wikipedia currently uses; Nishio appears to have stopped working on his blog, but if enough other professionals started writing blogs or books, etc. which used a different format from what we are currently using, then that might be something worth considering. It also might be useful to know what kind of software is being used in any English shogi software, not websites for playing games, but in actual software or game databases.
Finally, just some unrelated general comments. Please try to sign your talk page posts even if you're editing from just an IP address. It's good talk page practice, and is easily done as explained in WP:TILDE. Also, please try to not add any comments to pages which have already been archived like you did here. It's better to start a new discussion on the current article talk page instead because that is the one that most editors will be watching. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:46, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also 145.242.20.58, P-7f would be the move black (sente) would make to open their bishop's diagonal to start a game using your preferred notation style. P-7h may open a bishop's diagonal in some other position though, but I don't think that's what you meant. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:06, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's clearly what they meant. – ishwar  (speak) 00:50, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

a bit copied from my talk page + my reply:

Western shogi notation

Back in 23 August, you seem to have changed the row designator for all shogi notation from [a-i] to [1-9]. Although this is closer to Japanese notation, it is not what I have seen elsewhere in Western shogi literature. --IanOsgood (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes.
The numbers are used by Tony Hosking of The Shogi Foundation of England. In the 1990s, he has published 3 shogi books, 1 book on shogi + 3 other games, and is a co-translator of a Yoshiharu Habu book.
I dont know if it is defined as western, but the Nekomado publishing company has translated about 6 books in English with a two-number notation (although it's quite different from the two western notations as can be seen here: Shogi_notation#Kitao–Kawasaki_notation). And, several Japanese bloggers (prominently the professional Akira Nishio) currently use some form of a two-number notation.
The letter notation was used in the 1970s–1980s material originating from George Hodges (and the associated John Fairbairn). Perhaps some other folks have also used the same notation. But, as these things are out of print, i have never seen them, and so, dont really know what notation they use. Outside of traditional publishing, there seem to be a number of older websites that do use Hodges's letter notation.
Since Hodges has passed away, i guess it's possible that new things will not use the letter notation? But, it's hard to say. At any rate, as far as I know, the most recently published material does not use the letter notation.
The reasons for the change are listed in the earlier discussion, which is here: Talk:Shogi/Archive_3#shogi_notation_on_wikipedia. (i wish this page wasnt archived so greedily, it's inconvenient and sort of hides talk information....) – ishwar  (speak) 00:50, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Copying my reply here, where the discussion is more active. --IanOsgood (talk) 04:20, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In my research, the vast majority of international shogi notation and diagrams online and in non-Japanese literature use Hodges notation (P-7f), therefore non-Japanese Wikipedia sites should follow suit. Evidence:
1. Google results. Of the top fifty international sites returned from searching "shogi", about 10% mention shogi notation or board coordinates. Of those, all but one (28. http://81dojo.com/en/) use Hodges notation:
2. English shogi books. (Admittedly, my library is small and apparently old.)
  • Shogi for Beginners, John Fairbairn
  • Better Moves for Better Shogi, Aono Teruichi, trans. Fairbairn
  • Introduction to Handicap Play, Larry Kaufman
  • Shogi Yearbooks from http://www.shogi24.com/yearbooks.htm
  • but as mentioned above the Hosking books from the 90s use Hosking notation
3. Shogi software. (Actually, most shogi software is Japanese and uses Japanese notation. Could use more data here.)
  • Kifu Free - Android app
  • GNU shogi
4. Portable Shogi Notation (PSN) standard (https://genedavissoftware.com/shogi/portable-shogi-notation/)
  • But other data formats are different: KIF and KF2 use Japanese notation
  • CSA uses Hosking with different piece codes
Based on this evidence, I think it behooves us to switch back to Hodges notation. (Thank you for providing your counter-evidence; seems to be a generation gap! And perhaps showing that international shogi info on the web needs a refresh.) --IanOsgood (talk) 04:20, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(One idea to make this transition and future policy decisions less painful is to use templates for shogi moves and move lists, with an optional parameter for the preferred display notation, similar to how we have date templates for i18n support. I'm not enough of a template expert to know if this is feasible. --IanOsgood (talk) 04:20, 13 December 2017 (UTC))[reply]
(I also would like to mention that I actually prefer the two-numeral notation, since it is closer to Japanese notation and has less dissonance with algebraic chess notation. But I have not personally witnessed a transition from Hodges to Hosking notation in the wider internet. --IanOsgood (talk) 04:45, 13 December 2017 (UTC))[reply]

It's probably still necessary to use Hodges' notation for the large shogi variants (mostly chu shogi), because it seems to be the only attested one for those in English (aside from Winboard's internal totally Western-style notation), and also because the numbers-only notation gets out of hand for larger than 9×9 boards (is "111" supposed to mean "1(11)" or "(11)1"?). But obviously that side issue shouldn't dictate what we use for standard shogi. Double sharp (talk) 07:32, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the print sources, there doesnt seem to be a standard. The print sources carry more weight, i think. As for the internet sources, they are old. The older the site, the more likely the author would have not bought Hosking's books yet. Additionally, there are other sites that do not use the letter notation including sites written by Japanese author, which IanOsgood is omitting. Using Google search results will favor older websites since the search result is likely largely a (positive) function of the site's age and the length of time that it has been linked to from Wikipedia itself (kind of circular in a way). All that said, i don't think we should ignore the internet. It's just a matter of what weight to assign it in our considerations.
More importantly, the newest material from the Nekomado group does not use the letter notation. If this state of affairs continues, then the letter notation is likely to become obsolete. Well, it's just speculation – we can't predict the future. (Maybe this is not a real argument point...)
On another point, it seems like most folks do not like the letter notation. If we accept that the notations are more or less equally used in print, then we should use the preferable notation. Right now, the N is small as we only have a few opinions here and i have asked only a few Americans & Europeans elsewhere and so this is purely anecdotal, but no one so far seems to like the letters.
Thirdly, the serious shogi student is ultimately going to have to go to Japanese language literature, so the greater similarity to Japanese notation should carry significant weight, in my opinion. This is the main reason i suggested switching: i was looking at Japanese books and making a 六 = f association, for instance, is slower and more error prone than making a 六 = 6 association.
Fourth, this is purely a practical matter. It's kind of annoying to change the notation back. Who is really motivated to do it if that is what we decide? I haven't added much new notation to theory pages recently as i'm working on shogi player pages. But, after a year of adding theory bit by bit, it starts to add up to somewhat sizeable edit job. I'm more motivated to add new theory info rather than spend time switching notations (as they are equivalent anyway). At any rate, i'm not making the problem worse and won't do so until we figure it out. – ishwar  (speak) 21:26, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Archives

This talk page is archiving, but there are no links to the archived pages and there is no search window for the archives anywhere to be found on the current talk page. Does anyone know how to add such things? -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:42, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed Pages have been moved (leaving redirect behind). --TheSandDoctor (talk) 16:34, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Shōgi

This is a Japanese game and a Japanese word, therefore please keep the correct spelling shōgi, written in Italics. Gryffindor (talk) 14:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't agree that it is exclusively a Japanese game anymore since there are quite a number of players worldwide who play the game and there is even a non-Japanese female professional now part of the Japan Shogi Association. In addition, while the word is Japanese in orgin, its use has become much more widespread internationally over the years and common usage in non-Japanese books and non-Japanese websites, etc. as well as the English language press do not use the macron. There are national shogi associations in the United States and many European countries, etc. which have established relationships with the JSA. The JSA even holds International Shogi Forum every few years. So, I think a good case can be made per MOS:JAPAN#Determining common usage that the non-macron version is the one used in the English-speaking world, and that any page moves to the macron version should be properly discussed per WP:RM#CM. This will effect a large number of articles so it should be properly discussed and not just a WP:BOLD type of thing. The argument that the move to the macron version is justified because the word is of Japanese origin since there are many Japanese words which have been adopted by other languages. There are even examples such as Sumo, Judo, Tokyo, Osaka, etc. which are also Japanese words, but do not use the macron. I think it has to be determined whether the macron version you're proposing is the commonly used form in the English-speaking world and the English-speaking shogi world. -- Marchjuly (talk) 14:22, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
would not recommend move-warring over it Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:26, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a case of Judo. Ask anyone outside Japan or the chess game world what shōgi is and you will draw a blank, as opposed to the martial arts. Gryffindor (talk) 16:51, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's an english word now as you can find it in english dictionaries – such as the Oxford English Dictionary, American Heritage, and Webster's – all without the macron, of course.
All of the english language books since the 1970s on shogi do not use a macron.
Chess articles on the web do not use the macron. I dont have any chess books, so someone else will have to consult those.
Low frequency words borrowed from foreign languages can be nativized within the small speech communities that know the word. Nativization and and low frequency are not mutually exclusive. You have to ask within the speech community, not outside of it. If you ask an outsider what the Accelerated Dragon is, you will also draw a blank despite this being an english term. So, it doesnt make much sense to ask that part of the english-speaking world. (And, even if you did ask, we are supposed to not do original research anyway and follow the practice of – for instance – dictionaries, books on the topic and related topics, etc.) – ishwar  (speak) 18:53, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryffindor: You were bold going around moving pages which were subsequently moved back. That makes the move(s) contentious at least per WP:RM#CM, so you should start a discussion to see if there's a consensus to do so. Shogi is a Japanese words, but from a quick glance all of the sources cited in the article do not seem to use the macron. Moreover, this page is under the scope of multiple WikiProjects, so feedback should be solicted from them as well. Finally, a broad general statement such as "ask anyone about ..." is just your personal opinion and not a reason to move a page. Shogi may not be as well known to some as the martial arts, but I think the words usage is perhaps a little more widespread then you assume. It has appeared as a plot point in movies, manga and anime, etc. and these have many fans outside of the chess-playing world. Moreover, it seems the criteria for determining whether something is a common name is based upon what reliable sources are saying, and it seems that in that case the macron is not being used. Now, if you want to show that this is not the case then feel free to do so. It would be helpful to have links or specific data, however, which support that claim. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:48, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Another issue related to this has to do with the changing of Japan Shogi Association to Japan Shōgi Association. The organization goes by Nihōn Shogi Renmei (error: ((nihongo)): Japanese or romaji text required (help)) in Japanese, but almost exclusively is referred to without the macron in blocks, newspapers, etc. The organization even drops the macron when it refers to itself. The organization's website underwent a major revision a few years back and now uses tranlation software for English, but as far back as 1997 it did have a dedicated website in English where it refers to itself and the game in general without the macron. There is also the Ladies Professional Shogi-players' Assocation of Japan (LPSA) which doesn't use a macron. The past year shogi and the JSA has been frequently in the news for both negative (scandals) and positive (personal achievements) reasons, with stories not only being carried by local media organizations like The Japan Times and NHK World Premium, but also covered by non-Japanese media outlets as well. None of these outlets use macrons or italics when discussing the game or the JSA, which seems a bit strange if that was the common style. Even this 1999 International Herald Tribune article and this 2009 New York Times article are macron less. So, again I don't think that just the word being of Japanese origin is a sufficient justification for so many page moves. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:52, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:36, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that Phoenix7777. There are probably some redundancies in the search results, but such a wide disparity might indicate that "shogi" is more commonly used than "shōgi". Of course, everything probably should not be based upon Google search results, but it is something concrete to discuss. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:26, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The Latin alphabet can be used when writing Japanese in romaji. There are different variations of romaji and in some "shogi" may actual be written as "shōgi" or even "shougi"; however, that would be still writing in Japanese per se, not in English. I don't understand Chinese or Korean, but I believe there is something similar to romaji for those languages as well. Same also is the case for any language which is not primarily written using the Latin alphabet. I still think what needs to be established here is the common usage is with the macron. Eveything posted so far seems to suggest that it isn't. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your point abnout COMMONNAME is well made. It's easy to get common usage and common name confused. I think the relevant guidelines here are MOS:JAPAN#Determining common usage and MOS:ROMANIZATION since they seem to deal with macron use. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:12, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I fully agree with that interpretation, but I do see the point and MOS is the determiner of style in Wikipedia. It's ironic that I've been around just long enough that the first example that this brought to my mind was the somewhat notorious yoghurt which remained at that title for many years even though the "yogurt" spelling is significantly more common even in the UK. (And "yoghurt" is not a spelling most Americans would have seen anywhere but Wikipedia at all.) Imagine my surprise that after witnessing (but not participating in) about 5 years of attempts to get that page moved I see that it was in fact moved to yogurt over 6 years ago, and I never noticed. It had stood for many years as an example of the primacy of MOS:RETAIN over MOS:COMMONNAME. Pertaining to this article, as Marchjuly says, MOS:JAPAN#Determining common usage is particularly worthy of note and it actually uses "shogi" as an example. Quale (talk) 02:43, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The important thing to determine is whether the word has become an everyday English word, such as kamikaze, geisha, or go. If it has, then the English spelling is used (as with Noh), otherwise it defaults to MOS:JAPAN styling. What matters is whether the word shogi has achieved the status of "everyday English" the way these other words have.
Be careful with the examples MOS:JAPAN gives—do we know why shogi was chosen? Because I came across a couple of erroneous examples: manga and anime were given as examples of words of Japanese origin that are not used in the plural because of "Japanese usage". This is flat-out false—anime and manga have no plural forms in English because they are used as non-count nouns, like water or information. As such, they follow standard English grammar by having no plural form, not Japanese grammar. I've removed those examples. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to be careful how everyday English is defined. If it means asking people standing on some random street corner what is "shogi", then you'll probably won't get the same response as you'd get is you asked someone what is "karate", "sushi", "carry-o-key". I think this is the problem with the Ask anyone outside Japan or the chess game world what shōgi is and you will draw a blank made by Gryffindor above (who btw seems to have be involved in a similar move war Dojo for the same reason). I think there needs to be some way of assessing whether the macrons are being commonly used by what Wikipedia considers to be reliable sources, etc. and more emphasis should be placed upon that as explained in MOS:JAPAN#Deteriming common usage. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:13, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Marchjuly—the problem with that is that any term will be found somewhere in an English-language publication (probably multiple), no matter how obscure. Google Book search gives us over 7,000 hits for "sankin kotai". Does this then make it an English term? How about "daimyo"? Every book, paper, or newspaper article on Japanese history ever will have copious usage of the word, but can it seriously be considered part of the English lexicon, the way "manga" and "ninja" clearly are?
The evidence we have with shogi is that there are a number of books on the subject in English, several many decades old, and even journal articles use the unmacronned version almost exclusively. This suggests the word has entered the English lexicon, even if it is a specialized word—"specialized", but outside of the realm of Japanese studies (in contrast to sankin-kōtai or daimyō, which are used exclusively in Japanese studies). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:19, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What my brain was thinking at the time I posted the above was exactly what you posted, so sorry for any confusion caused. Anyway, it appears we are in agreement that the macron in not necessary, especially not just because the word is of Japanese origin, in this case. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:11, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think this should be "shogi", because is really is a term in use in non-specialised literature. I'm looking at my copy of The Book of Games, a coffee-table book first published in the US, 1985 (not sure why, since the authors, at least the ones I know, are all British). The chapter is titled "Shogi", with a mention of the city of "Tendo" (actually Tendō of course!) in the first paragraph. And in answer to a point above, I am quite sure I knew of the game of shogi a long time before I ever heard of manga for example. Trying to analyse my own (quite strong) feeling on this, I think there are two points. (1) "Shogi" will be pronounced as close as reasonably possible to the original. The stress is on sho, making the i a reduced vowel, which is at least "the right way round". I have heard Victoria Coren-Mitchell refer to the sūdoku puzzle as (roughly) /sʌdoʊku/; if the name had been written with the macron, I am quite sure classically educated people like her would instinctively lengthened the u, which is exactly what is needed. In cases like this I would argue strongly for a macron. (2) Many of the other cases where I would argue strongly in favour of as precise as possible a transcription (i.e. macrons) are specialised cases: names of temples, gods, organizations, with essentially no currency in English. But that does not apply here. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:47, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This can be put up to a vote, however anyone who is familiar with this game should not be able to vote since that would be skewed. And it will show that the vast majority of people do not know this game. The onus for those saying it is familiar like spaghetti need to prove that it is the same case. Which it is clearly not. Gryffindor (talk) 18:04, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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