Talk:Qin Er Shi

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Huh?[edit]

The chronology in the Qin dynasty collapse section say that the eunuch died and they conspired to force Qin ErShi to commit suicide. Neat trick.

When applying DEFAULTSORT and listas parameter values I try very hard to ignore grammatical errors in the articles. This time things were so bad that I had to take a stab at fixing things. The article needs a lot more work. JimCubb (talk) 01:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Horse and deer test[edit]

I questioned the authenticity of the statement that the officials who called the deer a deer were executed on Talk:Zhao Gao, where I believe the discussion is more appropriate. Simply put, the cited book only states that they were "brought before the law" and certainly does not mention execution. If a decision is made in Zhao Gao, it should be ported to this page. -- Psyced (talk) 03:32, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

Cleaned up the name section. Kindly restore the actual info if reverted. We should probably start moving this guy to his actual English names (Qin Ershi, Second Emperor, etc.) and away from this Chinglishy hybrid but a move here should probably be made in tandem with a move at Qin Shi Huang. We'll work through it over there, since it gets more eyes. — LlywelynII 08:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Requested move 31 March 2018[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to any particular title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 00:55, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Qin Er Shi → Huhai – Per [1]. Timmyshin (talk) 19:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 22:04, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Did you Google Qin Er Shi without quotation marks? Timmyshin (talk) 17:19, 5 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The convention is to call rulers by their imperial names. I didn't find anything about this subject in either Britannica or Dorothy Perkins` Encyclopedia of China. I conclude that it is not so notable as to merit an exception. Michael Dillon gives him as "Qin Second Emperor" in Encyclopedia of Chinese History. Nine Zulu queens (talk) 02:24, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: the nominator's ngram analysis is flawed, as Google results for "Huhai" include many unrelated books such as this (the very first book that shows up). A more appropriate search term would be "Huhai" Qin -wikipedia, which yields 1,040 results, whereas "Second Emperor" Qin -wikipedia yields 3,110 and "Qin Er Shi" -wikipedia returns 876. "Second Emperor" appears to be the most common name. -Zanhe (talk) 17:46, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 3 June 2018[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain t/c 20:16, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]


– Per User:Zanhe's comment in the previous RM discussion and WP:UE. Also see the comment by User:LlywelynII on this talk page. Timmyshin (talk) 18:46, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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

This should be revisited now In ictu oculi (talk)

In the wake of Talk:Qin Shi Huang#Requested move 11 June 2018, indeed it should, and so I have opened a move request below. —Lowellian (reply) 00:35, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 30 June 2018[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move the page to Qin Er Shi; the previous move request had minimal participation, and discussion here generally favored returning the article to its previous title. Dekimasuよ! 04:43, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Second Emperor of Qin → Qin Er Shi – "Qin Er Shi" is the original name of this page. As can be seen in the topic immediately above, a recent requested move moved "Qin Er Shi" to "Second Emperor of Qin". However, that requested move was a low-participation requested move, with only a single voter chiming in, and I believe that requested move should have been relisted instead of closed in order to garner more participation, and that it only passed due to this being a low-traffic page: note that the previous requested move also affected the much more high-traffic article and more prominent individual Qin Shi Huang, and that that portion of the requested move was then immediately overturned at Talk:Qin Shi Huang#Requested move 11 June 2018.

Now, RM history aside, the correct name for this article should be Qin Er Shi, not Second Emperor of Qin, for two reasons. First, Qin Er Shi is the WP:COMMONNAME even in English (WP:UE). For example, on Google, "qin er shi" returns 54,600 hits, whereas "second emperor of qin" returns only 8,600 hits, an over 6-to-1 ratio in favor of Qin Er Shi. Second, for consistency with precedent: it makes no sense to favor "Second Emperor of Qin" over "Qin Er Shi" when we have the corresponding article "Qin Shi Huang" over "First Emperor of Qin".

—Lowellian (reply) 00:32, 30 June 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 18:20, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Cuchullain, User:Timmyshin, User:Zanhe, User:Andrewa, User:power~enwiki, User:Nine Zulu queens, User:Underbar dk, User:Lecen, User:In ictu oculi, User:White whirlwind: In order to avoid the problem of low-participation that affected the previous move above, I am pinging everyone involved in that move above and in the related move at Talk:Qin Shi Huang#Requested move 11 June 2018 to alert you to this requested move so you may add your thoughts here if you wish. Thank you. —Lowellian (reply) 00:47, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Google Ngram already shows that "Qin Er Shi" is not the common name in reliable English sources. WP:GOOGLEHITS should be avoided for these reasons: 1) Latin alphabet =/= English, as you will encounter results in for example Turkish, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinglish, and machine-generated gibberish; 2) Google results will show Wikipedia, Wikimedia and their clones (e.g. Revolvy) first, i.e. WP:CIRCULAR; 3) The numbers are completely unreliable per WP:GNUM; 4) Google results include Twitter, Blogs, and other unreliable sources.
But even if "Qin Er Shi" were more common in reliable English sources... It's important to think about, for the sake of consistency as you mention, why we use titles like Emperor Taizong of Tang or Emperor Wu of Han when they are far less common than Tang Taizong or Han Wudi [2][3]? I'm pretty sure not a single Sinologist before Wikipedia (c. 2006) ever used Emperor Xiaozhao of Northern Qi or Emperor Mozhu of Western Xia. So why do we use these titles? Timmyshin (talk) 04:37, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That Google NGRAM link is wildly misleading. The graph appears to show a large advantage of "Second Emperor of Qin" until we actually look at the value on the y-axis and see that these are numbers in the hundred-millionths of a percent range. "Second Emperor of Qin" gives a value of 0.0000000376% for the most recent year (with statistics available) of 2008. That's 7 hits (translating the percentage number to an absolute number per the process described at http://stanford.edu/~risi/tutorials/absolute_ngram_counts.html). "Qin Er Shi" gives a value of 0.0000000000%, which is 0 hits. So, yes, "Second Emperor of Qin" does have an advantage over "Qin Er Shi" in this set... of 7 hits to 0. These numbers are too small to be meaningful.
Google NGRAM statistics are derived from a small subset of the corpus of Google Books. The problem is that the terms in question here are sufficiently rare in the subset used for NGRAM statistics that we have such a severe insufficient sample size problem when using NGRAM that the NGRAM statistics are essentially meaningless.
If we search the same phrase on Google Books, the much larger set from whose corpus Google NGRAM statistics are derived, we get 10,700 hits for "qin er shi" compared to just 854 hits for "second emperor of qin", an overwhelming advantage for Qin Er Shi.
Those other emperors mentioned are of different dynasties, in vastly different historical eras, from Qin Er Shi, with naming issues specific to their era/culture, so we shouldn't necessarily expect them to adhere to the same naming style as Qin Er Shi. Qin Shi Huang, on the other hand, is of the same dynasty and historical period as Qin Er Shi, so it makes no sense to follow a different naming style between those two emperors.
—Lowellian (reply) 05:58, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • ...We get 10,700 hits for "qin er shi" compared to just 854 hits for "second emperor of qin", an overwhelming advantage for Qin Er Shi. I clicked on your links and got 850 hits vs. 764 hits. I'm not sure how you got 10700 hits. And the first 2 "qin er shi" hits are Wikipedia Books. And what is "vastly different" about the other Chinese eras? As far as I'm concerned, it's the same "Emperor X of Y" format vs. Pinyin transcription that we are discussing. Timmyshin (talk) 08:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Here are screenshots I took showing the Google Books hits: "qin er shi" with 10,700 hits and "second emperor of qin" with just 855 hits. Please try again and make sure you clicked the right links? If so, and you're still not seeing the results, is it possible that you are located in a country (such as China with its Great Firewall) or otherwise behind some sort of content filter that is blocking out hits?
"Second Emperor of Qin" doesn't even fit that format of "Emperor X of Y". If we were to force that format, we'd end up with something like "Emperor Second of Qin" or "Emperor Huhai of Qin", and even that still gives inconsistencies with your examples, since Huhai is a personal name but Emperor Taizong of Tang uses a temple name and Emperor Wu of Han uses a posthumous name. This just all goes to show that name styles have changed over time and that it doesn't make sense to force an incompatible format onto a name style of a different time.
Historical era matters because cultures change, and people, including emperors, have different name styles depending on their era. An emperor of the same dynasty and era, in this case Qin Shi Huang, is more relevant a comparison than an emperor of a different dynasty centuries apart.
—Lowellian (reply) 11:11, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: In specialist literature, the Cambridge History of China chapter on the Qin dynasty on vol 1 uses "Second Emperor", and so does Yuri Pines's Birth of an Empire: The State of Qin Revisited. Michael Loewe's A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods, 221 BC - AD 24 lists "Qin Er shi" in the table of emperors but refers to him as "Second Emperor" in the running text, and the entry for the person is titled "[Ying] Huhai". _dk (talk) 06:23, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cambridge History of China also uses "First Emperor" as it should. Timmyshin (talk) 08:14, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Noted, but that RM is closed and his son doesn't enjoy the same level of fame to have an obvious common name. _dk (talk) 09:54, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Michael Loewe also uses "Qin Er shi" in The Government of the Qin and Han Empires: 221 BCE-220 CE in his table of emperors. Culture, Institution, and Development in China by C. Simon Fan uses only "Qin Er Shi". Xiaobing Li's China at War: An Encyclopedia uses "Qin Er Shi" in its dynasty listing and in running text has "Qinershi, the second emperor of Qin", using unspaced "Qinershi" as the name and "second emperor of Qin" as just a lowercase descriptor. —Lowellian (reply) 20:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I oppose the excessive zeal for consistency in these cases, either between father and son or the son and other Chinese emperors. Qin Shi Huang is possibly the best known emperor in Chinese history, while #2 lasted about 3 years and is mostly remembered for not calling a deer a horse. Likewise, #2 did not have the normal temple/regnal/posthumous names of other emperors. Why not just treat this like the sui generis case that it is and leave the title as is? —  AjaxSmack  15:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but even putting consistency aside, "Qin Er Shi" is the WP:COMMONNAME. Regarding leaving the title as it is, this article was at "Qin Er Shi" from creation at 2003 to 2018, a period of 15 years, until the page move 3 weeks ago to "Second Emperor of Qin". So maybe we should have left the title as it was, at Qin Er Shi. —Lowellian (reply) 19:44, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Try Google Books for "Qin Er Shi" -llc (and "Ch'in Erh Shih" -llc) versus "Second Emperor of Qin" -llc (and "Second Emperor of Ch'in" -llc). I get 881 (+40) vs. 929 (+17). Not a decisive enough difference for WP:COMMONNAME either way. NB that although my previous question was rhetorical, I do not oppose a move if others are in favor. —  AjaxSmack  21:57, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I very weakly support the current title, largely per the arguments already stated by AjaxSmack. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Modern practice is to give Chinese names in pinyin. Yeah, there is Yellow Emperor, Confucius, Mencius, Sun Yat-sen, and Chiang Kai-shek. Unlike these exceptions, the subject of the article is not so famous that his name should override convention. Wouldn't the current title look odd on a list of Chinese rulers? Nine Zulu queens (talk) 10:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Support - I supported the move to "Second Emperor of Qin" in the previous RM because it's more common, but since Qin Shi Huang has been determined to be the clear consensus choice, I believe consistency trumps common name in this case. -Zanhe (talk) 00:29, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per above comments - Qin Er Shi is a fine title, and agree with Zanhe about consistency/naming conventions. Seraphim System (talk) 15:21, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Qin Er Shi for consistency and arguments in favour presented above. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 23:47, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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