Talk:Seto Inland Sea

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Page moved to Seto Inland Sea. While there was some discussion on the target, the fact that this name had a good number of incoming links and was the actual name used in the major seas template establishes the fact that the name is widely used here already. Also this name is used in the actual article. I'll leave it to others to decide on redirecting Inland Sea to Inland sea or making a dab page. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Inland Sea → Inland Sea (Japan) — There are many bodies called "inland seas", the generic concept itself is more common in English than this Japanese marginal sea, which is not very inland. A disambiguation page would replace the current item at this title. 65.95.14.96 (talk) 05:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support: I prefer Seto Inland Sea over any name including Japan. Seto is never omitted in Japanese.--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 07:03, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I have no strong opinions either way over "Inland Sea" or "Inland Sea (Japan)" - the latter is probably less confusing though. Regarding "Seto Inland Sea", remember that this is English-language Wikipedia not Japanese Wikipedia, and Seto is almost never used in English. Therefore this is an inappropriate name. See the thread above. Bazonka (talk) 08:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support I'm happy with Inland Sea (Japan) or Seto Inland Sea. What is the most common English usage? Ozdaren (talk) 08:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• @Ozdaren, it's almost never "Seto Inland Sea" in English. Bazonka (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support moving to Inland Sea (Japan). Inland Sea should redirect to the disambiguation page at Inland sea. Thryduulf (talk) 10:11, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also support Seto Inland Sea, although as a second preference to Inland Sea (Japan). Thryduulf (talk) 11:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support move to Seto Inland Sea as, despite what Bazonka is claiming, that terminology is used in English much more often than "almost never". I have multiple history, geography, and travel guide books which refer to it that way, and a quick Google search shows a fair number of uses, too. It is also the most concise unambiguous title for the article (even shorter than "Inland Sea (Japan)", so it is the most appropriate title to use. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 17:20, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Seto Inland Sea—it's unambiguous and precise. Also, support redirecting Inland Sea to Inland sea. — AjaxSmack 18:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support move to Seto Inland Sea, per Nihonjoe. --Bxj (talk) 23:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support move to Seto Inland Sea per Shinkansen Fan and Nihonjoe. Oda Mari (talk) 06:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support "Seto Inland Sea". It googles up over 64,000 hits. It's not like it's going to confuse people who know it as "Inland Sea." Kauffner (talk) 11:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose move to Seto Inland Sea per WP:COMMONNAME. Merriam-Webster English dictinary has an entry for the sea titled Inland Sea (and no entry for generic "inland sea"). Britannica's article for the sea is also titled Inland Sea. And as to the Google search results, a search for Japan "Inland Sea" -Seto returns 734,000 hits, indicating Seto is not a common moniker in English. While Inland Sea (Japan) (or Inland Sea of Japan) is a possibility, considering these dictionary/encyclopedia entries, I also argue this article is the primary topic for capitalized "Inland Sea". We can have articles only diffrent in capitalization per WP:TITLE so the current setup using a hatnote is engough. --Kusunose 02:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as unnecessary disambiguation. "Inland sea" is a different title, and a hatnote suffices for navigation. There are two features known by the name "Inland Sea", and the Japanese one is vastly more well-known than the Maltese one, and is certainly the primary topic, as well as being common in English. Kanguole 11:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, after a detailed look at all the google search results the Japanese sea is nowhere near prominent enough in search results to be the primary topic - that accolade would go to either the 2010–2011 Queensland floods or an Australian band (whose name refers to the presumed sea in the centre of Australia rather than the recent flooding). The Japanese and Maltese water bodies are about equally prominent in searches that specify neither country nor any other disambiguator. Thryduulf (talk) 11:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can't find the phrase "Inland Sea" (capital "S") in the flood coverage or our article on it. The band have just recorded their first album, and do not yet have an article. I can't agree that the Japanese and Maltese seas are equally prominent, e.g. in Google books the Japanese one has 200 times more hits than the one on Gozo (searching for "Malta" gives lots of references to the Mediterranean as an "inland sea"). Apparently there's Khor al Adaid in Qatar too. Kanguole 15:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment On Google books, Inland Sea of Japan gets 9,460 hits compared to 20,100 for Seto Inland Sea. No one else is using "Inland Sea (Japan)." There are also 145,000 hits for "Inland Sea" -Japan, so there are plenty of non-Japan related uses of the phrase. Kauffner (talk) 06:05, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That search was for the precise phrase "Inland Sea of Japan". Searching for "Inland Sea" Japan produces 93,700 hits. Also, "Inland Sea" -Japan doesn't tell us much because Google, unlike WP, does not distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Station1 (tlk) 07:05, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Google's estimated search results are not a reliable indication of the actual number of articles indexed. That number is an estimate based on... well, precisely what is a trade secret. But in practice the estimated number may be off by orders of magnitude, especially if the estimate is more than a few hundred. For more reliable numbers you can page though until you get to the last page of actual results on Google, or you can use a smaller database. Compare the Proquest results below. Cnilep (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't help to "deghost" and go to the last page. No matter how many hits there are, Google will never list more than 550 to 750. (400 on Google books) Kauffner (talk) 14:35, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you call the United States Congress "the Congress" or Central Park "the park", this is understood as a shortened version for informal use and there is no implication that the longer form has been rejected as a formal name. So whatever the hit count for "Inland Sea" Japan, this does not preclude the use of "Seto Inland Sea" as a formal name and article title. "Inland Sea" can redirect to "Seto Inland Sea", at least until there are traffic stats to show what readers who type in "inland sea" are actually looking for. stats.grok.se can't distinguish between "Inland Sea" and "Inland sea", so such stats don't exist currently. But judging from the Google results, I would be very surprised if it turns out that these readers are looking for something Japan-related. The Inland sea article is not a pretty sight at the moment, but that can always be fixed. Kauffner (talk) 09:44, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with all that, and think that a redirect would be a good solution. The proposal, however, is that a dab page would replace this article, and I'm not sure a 3-entry dab page is worthwhile. Station1 (talk) 22:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at the first 40 Google books results for "Inland Sea". 32 results include the words "Inland Sea" in their title, 8 do not. Of the 40 results

• 4 refer to "Inland Sea of Japan" (results 19, 30, 36 (possibly metaphorically) and 37)
• 4 refer to the hypothesised inland sea in central Australia, either directly or as a metaphor (results 8, 14, 21 and 34)
• 3 refer to the Midwestern USA metaphorically and/or related to the Western Interior Seaway (results 2, 4 and 24)
• 3 were the titles of poetry collections (by different authors) using the term metaphorically and not referring to any specific location (results 7, 9 and 17)
• 2 refer to the Japanese sea with no disambiguation other than the context being Japan (results 1 and 28)
• 2 refer to the Sacramento Valley (results 11 and 35)
• 2 refer to Long Island Sound (results 16 and 18)
• 2 refer to the Ionian Sea, 1 specifically to the Greek part (results 5 and 12)
• 2 have references to the "Inland Sea" which is most likely the Japanese sea but context was not at all clear (results 29 and 32)
• 1 Japanese publication refers to the "Seto Inland Sea" (result 39)
• 1 book referred to Lake Ontario (four different editions were found, results 13, 25, 26 and 33)
• 1 book referred to Lake Superior (result 22)
• 1 book was about sailing, probably on the Great Lakes (result 3)
• 1 book seemed to be referring to a medium-sized lake in Maine from the perspective of a young boy (result 38)
• 1 book was about the Midwest, possibly specifically the Great Salt Lake (result 27)
• 1 book was about Puget Sound (result 40)
• 1 play was about 18th Century English landscape gardening (result 6)
• 1 was referring to a location in Italy that was either Taranto harbour or the nearby "Mar Piccolo" (result 31)
• 1 apparently used the term as a metaphor for several landlocked cities in the United States and Europe in order to refer tot hem collectively (result 15)
• 1 was the title of a play about Nazism, and was most likely using the term metaphorically (result 23)
• 1 (A Fisherman of the Inland Sea) seemingly refers to a fictional location (result 20)
• 1 result gave too little information to work out what the book was about (result 10)

From the above it is clear that there is no clear primary topic for the term "inland sea", although when the context is established as Japan the term is not ambiguous, nor is there a standard way of disambiguating the Japanese sea from the other uses. "Inland Sea of Japan" seems to be a way of establishing that the context is Japan as "Inland Sea" by itself is ambiguous and there is no common unambiguous term. Thryduulf (talk) 13:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this an argument for "Seto Inland Sea"? It's official, it gets 20,000 hits on Google books, and there is no ambiguity. "Inland Sea of Japan" is only 9,000 hits. Kauffner (talk) 14:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, it's certainly an argument against "Inland Sea". Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies only when there are two or more articles on WP that could reasonably have the same title. In this case, the only two articles that could reasonably have the title "Inland Sea" are this one and Inland Sea, Gozo. Between those two, I think this is the primary topic (and inland sea is the primary/only topic for "inland sea"). I have no objection to a move if "Seto Inland Sea" is a better encyclopedic name, but I see no value in sending searchers to a dab page if the majority typing in or linking to "Inland Sea" are expecting this article, and the minority expecting something else can get there as quickly through the hatnote as they would from a dab page. Station1 (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If adding all the usages Tryduulf found, it'd be more than three pages. The Western Interior Seaway, Great Salt Lake, Great Lakes, etc have articles. 65.93.15.125 (talk) 00:24, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But none of those would reasonably be expected to be found under the title "Inland Sea". Most of the bluelinks shown do not even mention the phrase anywhere in those articles. Station1 (talk) 00:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, given the number of people who type <inland sea> or <INLAND SEA> for either "Inland sea" or "Inland Sea", I think it is necessary to include both in the disambiguation system (whether that is hatnotes or a DAB). Cnilep (talk) 00:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever article titles differ only by case, each must link to the other via hatnotes (unless one is a dab page, when the other article must be mentioned in the disambiguation list and/or in a hatnote). Given this there are a minimum of three pages. A disambiguation page would also link to Rin' (a band that relased an album called Inland Sea), The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea, and Donald Richie (who wrote a book called Inland Sea that was later made into a film). The band "Inland Sea" is not one I am familiar with, but from a quick and shallow look they appear to be borderline notable and I would not be surprised if sufficient coverage of them exists to support an article (I didn't investigate the depth or reliability of the coverage I found of them). All this points to a disambiguation page being my preferred option. Whether this dab page is at Inland Sea, Inland sea, Inland Sea (disambiguation) or Inland Sea (disambiguation) I have little preference over at this time.Thryduulf (talk) 04:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion I suggest a DAB Inland sea (disambiguation) that touches on an inland sea and has a list of the following real and fictional seas including the word "island sea":

• Inland sea (geology)?
• Seto Inland Sea in Japan
• Inland Sea, Gozo in Malta
• Khor al Adaid in Qatar
• A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
• Rin's album
• The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea
• Donald Richie's book

Perhaps we can change the hatnote of this article into something like this;

Or this;

Please add the name of this coastal region, Setouchi (ja:瀬戸内), which is very commonly used in Japan.--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 06:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why isn't the geological use of "Inland sea" one of the DAB options? Would this page would be moved to "Seto Inland Sea"? I certainly hope so since the Inland Sea/Inland sea distinction strikes me as one that would not occur to most readers. Also move "Inland sea" to "Inland sea (geology)" But clearly this is a proposal on the right track. Kauffner (talk) 08:19, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd move this article to either Inland Sea (Japan) or Seto Inland Sea and redirect Inland Sea to Inland sea. I think I'd put the dab page at Inland sea (disambiguation) but start a move request to put it at the plain title with the geology article going to Inland sea (geology). I'd also add the Caspian Sea to the dab, possibly as a see also, as it is the largest present-day inland sea. Thryduulf (talk) 08:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I made three changes:

• Inland Sea (disambiguation) -> Inland sea (disambiguation)
• Added Inland sea (geology) to the options
• Another suggestion for the hatnote

My preference is Seto Inland Sea. I thought that it would be better to place inland sea in the lead section of the DAB page. Do we use this term for the Caspian Sea, a lake?--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 10:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Caspian Sea is regarded as an inland sea by many and is prominently noted early in the inland sea article. Including it on a dab page would help people find it who can't remember it's name. It wouldn't merit a hatnote, but the standard of inclusion on a dab page is much lower. Thryduulf (talk) 12:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asserting that "Inland Sea" (as capitalised) is more likely to refer to the generic concept of an inland sea than to the Japanese sea? Hesperian 05:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the distinction between "Sea" and "sea" is correct, with the former referring the specific and the latter to the generic, but they are likely to be confused. Bazonka (talk) 08:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If there is any confusion it can easily be solved by hatnotes, which exist on both articles. Station1 (talk) 23:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Just to offer a data point contra the suggestion that Seto Inland Sea is rarely used in English, a Proquest search of magazines, journals, and newspapers published in English finds 293 documents referring to "Seto Inland Sea" versus 454 referring to "Inland Sea" AND "Japan". (Note that the latter group includes all of the texts in the former group, making 161 mentions of "Inland Sea" without "Seto".) Results will, of course, vary for different corpora, but taken with the Google results alluded to above, it suggests that Seto Inland Sea is not uncommon in English. Cnilep (talk) 02:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.