Wikipedia Wars

The battle over Dokdo — which is mainly a one-sided affair — has spilled over onto the virtual pages of Wikipedia. The name of the article describing it has bounced back and forth between ‘Dokdo’, the Korean name, and ‘Liancourt Rocks’, the somewhat-standard international designation. A vote is in progress to potentially change it back to Liancourt Rocks, which has triggered the predictable round of tired debating points being trotted out.

This time, however, we have an amusing new wrinkle. A writer for the Chosun Ilbo wrote a piece describing the debate and went on to actually register a Wikipedia account and vote in favor of the name Dokdo, followed by a wave of brand-new users doing the same, disrupting a debate which had been proceeding relatively smoothly. The attentive reader may note that he blames a band of Japanese users, who did not exist, for creating a large number of Liancourt Rocks votes, which also did not exist.

On the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, the current designation for Dokdo is ‘Dokdo’ but it is in danger of being changed to ‘Liancourt Rocks’. ‘Liancourt Rocks’ is the western name derived from the name of the French whaling ship ‘Liancourt’ which discovered Dokdo in January 1849. The trouble over Dokdo is from the US government, CIA, State Department, and others using ‘Liancourt Rocks’ as the standard name for Dokdo.

On Wikipedia, voting has been underway since the 21st (world time) on whether to continue using the name ‘Dokdo’ or change it to ‘Liancourt Rocks’ or something else. Currently on Wikipedia if you input ‘Takeshima’ or ‘Liancourt Rocks’ you are automatically redirected to ‘Dokdo’.

For the name change and redirect, on the 24th there were currently 19 votes in favor of ‘Dokdo’ and 22 in favor of ‘Liancourt Rocks’.

There was a mere one vote in favor of the Japanese style name ‘Takeshima’ or ‘Takeshima/Dokdo’, and four writings in favor of ‘Dokdo/Takeshima’.

Typically voting lasts 5 days but this vote is continuing without definite end.

However, it appears that the conclusion of the balloting will be to change Wikipedia’s formal designation of Dokdo to ‘Liancourt Rocks’. A large number of Japanese are writing insisting that the name ‘Liancourt Rocks’ be used instead of the name used by the internationally nearly powerless Korea.

In the beginning Wikipedia used ‘Dokdo’ as the English name for Dokdo. But in May of 2005 it was changed in netizen voting to ‘Liancourt Rocks’ and last June another vote changed it back to ‘Dokdo’. All 14 netizens in that voting period cast their votes in favor of ‘Dokdo’.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia made by its numerous global users and which anybody can edit as they please.

If somebody makes an edit or a new section, the many participants around the world verify and improve it.

But for controversial issues like the name of Dokdo it’s not possible to make edits, and a voting is held to reach consensus. You can participate in voting after going to Wikipedia’s homepage and logging in.