This section describes guidelines for CC-CEDICT.

1. Proper nouns not related to China

We are no longer accepting most proper noun entries, unless they are the kind of proper noun likely to be found in any Chinese dictionary, or significant in some way to Chinese culture, history, language etc. We will most likely reject proper nouns that have no relation to China, and especially if they are already on Wikipedia. A comprehensive C-E dictionary of topics (including proper names) can be derived automatically from Wikipedia, and is likely to appear sooner or later. Pleco has indicated that they will offer this sort of name list after Pleco version 4 is released. So it doesn't make sense for us to continue adding names manually, covering what is inevitably only a tiny subset of the names in Wikipedia.

Examples of proper nouns we will probably accept:

• Continents and countries
• Provinces, prefectures, counties, districts (and similar administrative divisions) of China
• Major geographical features in China (黄河, 昆仑山 etc)
• Famous or culturally significant locations of China (长城, 故宮 etc)
• Famous historical figures of China (诸葛亮, 孔子, 秦始皇, 李白, 毛泽东 etc)
• Well-known Chinese literature (易经, 山海经, 西游记 etc)

Examples of proper nouns we will probably reject:

• Not extremely famous Chinese celebrity, politician, athlete etc
• Not extremely famous Chinese novel
• Small Chinese town or village
• Something with no relation to China that most Chinese people would not know of

The current thinking of CC-CEDICT editors is that we will preserve existing proper nouns, even if they are not the kind of entry we would accept today, as long as the entry is correct and not extremely insignificant. If there is a mistake in the entry, it can just be deleted.