Liancourt Rocks? South Korean Newspapers Attack Wikipedia Vote
One of Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars just got lamer. From the Marmot’s Hole:
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.”
A few other high-traffic South Korean web portals linked to the wikipedia talk page for Dokdo, which predictibly resulted in a huge flood of pro-Dokdo votes. However, the wikipedia editors quickly invalidated all votes from users who have not edited English wikipedia for more than 20 times, those who entered English wilipedia within a month, and IP address users. The result: 46 pro-Dokdo votes invalided and only a couple pro-Takeshima votes. At the time of this posting, the official vote count stood. at 21 in favor of “Dokdo” and 29 in favor of “Liancourt Rocks.” Not that it really matters though, since the wikipedia editors have flatly stated that they are not basing their decision “on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.” But hey, it’s fun spamming polls with lots of votes that say DOKDO IS KOREA, isn’t it?
