The Chosun Ilbo (Korean) reports that for its entry on everyone’s two favorite rocks in the East Sea, Wikipedia is on the verge of switching their name from “Dokdo” to the “Liancourt Rocks.”
The Liancourt Rocks come from the name of a French whaling ship that “discovered” the islets in 1849, and has since been used as the Western name for the rocks. The CIA uses the term on its homepage.
Since May 21, Wikipedia has been running a poll on whether or not to continue referring to the islets as Dokdo, or whether to change it to the Liancourt Rocks. Currently, if you enter “Takeshima” or “Liancourt Rocks” into Wikipedia, it automatically connects to the “Dokdo” page.
As of Thursday, some 19 people agreed with “Dokdo,” while 22 supported a switch to “Liancourt Rocks.”
One one each, meanwhile, supported a switch to “Takeshima” or “Takeshima/Dokdo,” while four supported a switch to “Dokdo/Takeshima.”
The poll has been running for five days, and it’s unsure when it will end.
But if the poll were to end now, Wikipedia’s official name of “Dokdo” would switch to “Liancourt Rocks.” According to the Chosun, many Japanese—seeing how the name “Takeshima” is hardly being used internationally—are instead calling for the islets to be officially referred to as the “Liancourt Rocks” with the aim of weakening Korea’s soveriegnty over the rocks.
There has been something of a protracted struggle over Wikipedia’s official name for the Dokdo islets. The online encyclopedia originally referred to the rocks as Dokdo, but in May 2005, a netizen poll forced a switch to the Liancourt Rocks. In June 2006, another poll unanimously switched it back to Dokdo.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia, of course, but with certain controversial entries such as Dokdo, changes can be made only through netizen polls.
The Chosun notes that you can vote after logging in. It was even kind enough to provide the link to the page with the poll. And no doubt partially thanks to the Chosun’s efforts, the vote count currently stands at 43 for Dokdo and 24 for Liancourt Rocks. Daehanminguk, mansei!
29 Comments
Childish! Realy childish.
Isn’t there any other things to report for the Chosun Ilbao?
I disagree. THis is clearly the most pressing issue mankind faces today.
Save Dokdo, save the world.
Brian
Is it too much to ask them to leave the English wikipedia alone?
You know, stuff like this makes me want to organize a “Vote Takeshima” campaign. And I happened to support calling them Dokdo…
Whatever
If people really want to call attention to Dokdo, they should do this;
http://www.lostnomad.org/2007/.....epartment/
as a form of protest. That will teach the Japanese.
Well, that’s an appeal to freep Wikipedia if I’ve ever seen one. Liancourt, Dokdo, or Takeshima?… Either way, it won’t change the fact that Dokdo never was Usando, which contradicts Korea’s main claim to the islet. In fact, Korea’s only concrete historical claim to the islet is that it’s had it in its possession since the 1950’s, but it’s a strong one, one that should suffice to end the dispute (and, in my opinion, that is why it should be recognized as ‘Dokdo’)…but don’t expect the Korean government to drop it as this is not really about territorial waters and historical accuracy. It’s about manipulating public opinion to divert attention away from the real problems. What better way to do that than to give people the hope that they’ll ‘win’ against Japan in something? So what if you have to manipulate the facts along the way and forget certain details such as the fact that possession is 9/10th of the law? The end meets the need, apparently.
Care to elaborate on that?
shakuhachi, what I meant was, another Dokdo story, nothing new, let’s leave the Great Dokdo Wars to the netizens.
OK, but I don’t think Robert was encouraging people here to join the wikipedia edit war, just to let people that cant understand Korean know what is going on in the Korean news.
Actually, I just happened to find it amusing.
And to update, the vote’s currently 53 for Dokdo, 24 for the Liancourt Rocks. Assuming the online edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun doesn’t run a story on this soon, I think Dokdo is safe. For now.
I did it, I voted, I had to. I voted for the “Liancourt Rocks” because it uses the term ‘rock’ not island which both 独島 and 竹島 do. The rocks are uninhabitable in the self-sustained living sense (you can’t grow food or raise animals — you need constant politically motivated aid from S. Korea to survive there), therefor not an island, and not something anyone can own/control.
That and this is the English language article, not the Korean or Japanese language article, so it’s important to use the international name. The Koreans can title the Korean article as they please, the Japanese can title the Japanese article as they please, but the English article is the international communities article.
No doubt the victory will be used by kool-aid drunk Wikipedians as evidence from here on that the issue was settled properly and democratically, but they may be biting off more than they can chew. The superior numbers of the netizens may have won this round, but what happens when the page on Balhae or Goguryeo comes to a vote on whether or not they should be called Chinese? Ho ho ho ho ho
Considering the campaigns waged to make and maintain Bi as Time’s ‘Most Influential Person’, I’d guess that fans of the name ‘Dokto’ have little to worry about.
Except for how folks are going to pronounce it, that is.
Dock doo?
Duck doo?
Seems Wikipedia is aware of the Chosun Ilbo and portal site links.
This underscores the increasing irrelevance of Wikipedia. Even its creator says it’s now out of control. I refuse to link to it.
At the very least, Japanese Wikipedia provides the readings for train station name kanji I sometimes need in translation work. That’s about it.
wiki is only weak for disputed subjects. Otherwise, it’s free and good info.
Korean version of wiki has very little info on anything. Koreans don’t use the Korean wiki that much, I think. They prefer to use the Korean websites.
Who cares what wiki calls it?
The truth will prevail.
Examine Japan as a whole, and they have a territory dispute, north and south, east and west, many over uninhabited places, places that were called something else hundreds of years ago.
Maybe they just like to piss neighbors off.
From the page:
“If you came here because somebody asked you to, or you read a message on a forum, please note that this is not a majority vote, but rather a discussion to establish a consensus amongst Wikipedia editors on whether the name of this page is suitable for this encyclopedia. We have policies and guidelines to help us decide this, and decisions to move articles are made on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.”
Looking at the “liancourt rocks” votes, most of them seem to have arguments about neutrality, which would appeal to wikipedia’s editors. On the other hand, most of the “dokdo” votes are unsigned or have worthless arguments that have nothing to do with wikipedia’s neutrality policy.
korea has the rocks. they call the rocks dokdo. that’s what wikipedia should call the rocks.
man, now i understand why so many high school teachers across america won’t let their students use wiki for a source.
whoops, forgot to close my bockquote. sorry
And I’m sure you’ll be maintaining this status-quo frame of mind when it comes to “Sea of Japan” …
How many votes has Rain gotten so far in this poll?
globalvillageidiot: 1!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....le_to_Rain
“And I’m sure you’ll be maintaining this status-quo frame of mind when it comes to “Sea of Japan” …”
Apples and oranges…but funny nonetheless.
If Dokdo is changed to Liancourt Rocks, then Senkaku Islands (which is disputed between Japan and China) should be also changed to its “English” name (This being Pinnacle Islands).
Japanese bias is open and ripe on English Wikipedia.
Support Dokdo.
This thing,
should not even exist.
What I mean is that Japan should stop lying and try to steal an island that another country possesses.
And Tomojiro,
I think you shouldn’t say things like that.
I think korea should give up changing “Sea of Japan” to “East Sea”, there is more evidence that shows its been “Sea of Japan” on majority of the maps for a long time, the japanese isle covers up the sea more than the korean peninsula and for that, japan should give up on dokdo since there is more evidence that shows dokdo as korean teritory.
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