Talk:Mizuchi

Recent changes

Thanks to Kiyoweap for adding the image and tanka quote, but some other additions are questionable. Are there any reliable sources that the mythological mizuchi "seems to have been the name of for a noxious snake-like water-dwelling creature"? Is this cryptid interpretation Original Research? These Nihon Shoki calabash (a Daoist metaphor) and dragon myths are not historical; the Manyōshū poem uses literary allusion (Sakaibe no more likely saw a mizuchi than he rode a tiger). Also, changing the article's existing inline citation format from parenthetical references to footnotes has resulted in some awkward formatting like "(tr. Aston, 1896[2])[3][4]. († In the …" I suggest we follow WP:CITE ("If an article already has citations, adopt the method in use or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it") and restore the original citation method. Keahapana (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice this response until now, and I only dropped in accidentally. I personally see only a fine distinction between calling this an encounter with a "cryptic" serpentlike creature or an encounter with a dragon which may have had forms a, b, c, nobody is sure which.

• I am guessing that one thing you're objecting to, is my presenting this "mizuchi" as not necessarily mathcing the Chinese Qiulong. Well just to say this is not Original Research, I will refer you to the quote from Minakata in the section I added to the Japanese wiki article. I guess I will quickly translate and transfer it to the English version.
• In the leading paragraph, I just wanted to get across the fact that the creature's appearance is not clearly described in the chronicle, so only a vague statement can be given. You misquote me because I didn't say "snake-like" but rather "serpent-like" (e.g. words like Latin draco are translated "dragon, serpent" depending on the case).
• I suppose the other point I am guessing you are objecting to is that I don't sufficiently qualify this account as possibly just baseless rumor, and Agatamori possibly non-existent. Well, you can write that in in some sort of way if you want. I think people realize this is somewhat far-fetched, and belongs in the realm of legend/myth.
• I should apologize at this point for commenting out the quotes that you had picked up an placed in the article. I restored the commentary from three sources. I'll leave it to others to incorporate them. I rewrote your comment regarding kappa since I felt it was misleading.
• About clearing it with a consensu at the talk page before changing the citation format, well, I'm not really warm to the idea, since I have my reasons when I develop an article into a more complex version, but just to try, I restored the parenthesis citation format (there is still a mixture of ref=harv and ref=# usage, but on outward appearnce they look the same). I still needed the footnote apparatus, so I used the group=small-roman switch to accomplish it.--Kiyoweap (talk) 08:08, 2 June 2012 (UTC)